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 m^ ©.OlLiItill"^ tSEISlBISIE 
 
AN 
 
 APOLOGY 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER, 
 
 COMEDIAN AND PATENTEE OF THE THEATRE ROYAL. 
 
 WRITTEN BY HIMSELF; 
 
 AND INTERSPERSED WITH 
 
 CHARACTERS AND ANECDOTES 
 
 OF HIS 
 
 aD^eatrkal Cotemporadesf \ 
 
 THE WHOLE FORMING A 
 
 COMPLETE HISTORY OP THE STAGE 
 
 FOR 
 
 THE SPACE OF FORTY YEARS. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, 
 
 With many Critical and Explanatory Notices ; 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND BELLCHAMBERS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 VRINTED FOR W. SIMPKIN AND R. MARSHALT^, 
 STATIONERS'-HALL COURT, LUDGATE STREET. 
 
 1822. 
 
Hoc est 
 
 Vivere bis, vit^ posse priore frui. — Martial. 
 
 When years no more of active life remain, 
 lis youth renew'd to laugh them o'er again. 
 
 tOAbi STACK 
 
 William Oxberry, Printerj White-Hwt-Yar<U 
 
As ■ 
 
 hAtAJ 
 
 TO 
 
 W. C. MACREADY, Esq. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 On the grounds of gratitude alone for 
 your great public exertions to support the purity 
 of the stage, I offer you the present volume, and 
 though he who never needs indulgence may per- 
 haps be unqualified to afford it, I feel assured 
 that in accepting this slight tribute, your cand- 
 our w,i[\ protect what your judgment cannot 
 sanction. Averse as you are to homage of this 
 kind, I have consented, in part, to suppress it, 
 and shall therefore select another opportunity of 
 showing how congenial my sentiments are with 
 that rigid criticism on your efforts, which is now 
 nothing more than ardent admiration, and impar- 
 tial praise. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your devoted servant, 
 
 Edmund Bellchambers. 
 
P R E FA C E. 
 
 He entertains us in the best leisure of our life ; that is, between 
 meals, the most unfit time either for study or bodily exercise. 
 
 Sir Thomas Overbury. 
 
 A work undertaken, like this " Apology," in 
 the professed gaiety of its author's heart, is very 
 clearly explained, and perhaps as powerfully de- 
 fended. There is something agreeable, to my own 
 feelings at least, in a hardy forgetf ulness of public 
 opinion, and if the books that are generally set 
 before us, were written with a fair portion of the 
 same spirit, if instead of attempting to catch the 
 reader's assent by studiously consulting his prej- 
 udices, they were to offer a manful and ingenu- 
 ous abridgment of what the writers really thought, 
 much service might be done to the reputation, 
 and perhaps to the interests, of literature, by such 
 a method of promoting our correspondence with 
 the human mind. 
 
 It is curious that an exploit of this importance 
 should originate with a person like Cibber, who 
 seems to have led a long and not inconspicuous 
 life, without distinguishing it by one act of talent 
 or of probity, that was committed upon principle. 
 
PREFACE V 
 
 He lapsed, it is true, into several sensible things 
 that still do honour to a depraved disposition, and 
 it is one of those paradoxes vs^hich merely serve 
 to amuse us, that with a wretched deference for 
 every thing in the shape of rank, wealth, and 
 power, he had not a particle of veneration for the 
 virtue and ability, which encircled him. This 
 eccentric man submitted to a slavish dependence 
 upon the great, whom he knew most familiarly 
 in their hours of idleness or disorder ; he was the 
 Helot sometimes of their sport, and sometimes of 
 their cruelty, and yet, with nothing to compen- 
 sate for the outrage his pride was expected to en- 
 dure, he not only continued to cultivate this piti- 
 ful intercourse,but even signalised himself in pur- 
 suing it, by the number, audacity, and olFensive- 
 ness of his vices. I do not mean that Cibber had 
 nothing nominally to console him against the harsh- 
 ness of his imputed treatment. Nominally he had 
 much. He acquired a considerable share of that 
 domestic celebrity called fashion, and was intitled, 
 by diploma as it were, to be gazed at for the mag- 
 nitude of his peruke, or the strangeness of his 
 garments. Fashion, however, made him more 
 than a coxcomb, for if the full severity of report 
 may be trusted, he became, in the zenith of his 
 notoriety, a drunkard, a fornicator, and an atheist. 
 I am neither able nor willing to authenticate this 
 character, but it may be remarked, that the 
 fashionable world, like '* a strong ass couching 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 down between two burdens,"*^ still maintains 
 among us all its antient pretensions to folly and 
 crime. 
 
 From this dreadful lethargy, Cibber was arous- 
 ed by the exposure of a satirist, whose virulence 
 proceeded from unfeigned animosity, and whose 
 rebuke was corroborated, in part, by the publicity 
 of those facts upon which it was founded. Gib- 
 ber was no hypocrite in his turpitude, and for 
 this openness of temper I sincerely esteem him. 
 Not a plunge into the vortex of shame had been 
 either clandestine or obscure, and Pope was thus 
 enabled to exhibit him, in a striking point of 
 view, with a pleasant consciousness that every 
 trait of the picture would be recognised and ap- 
 plauded. Here the paradox begins, for it is really 
 singular that Cibber should acknowledge the 
 enormity of his vices, t and yet be stung by their 
 celebration. It may, indeed, be urged that ten- 
 derness for his capacity, which Pope principally 
 impeached, was more hurt, and more active, than 
 anxiety for his moral character ; but it still ap- 
 pears paradoxical, that a man, careless only where 
 his chief interest is concerned, should laugh over 
 
 * Genesis; 49, 14. 
 
 t " Cibber was in his nature incorrigible. He was endued with 
 so little nice sensibility and moral delicacy, that, so far from blush- 
 ing at* the detection of vices and follies, the perfection of his abilities 
 consisted in making them the instruments by which he attracted 
 the notice of mankind." — Ruffhead's " Life of Pope." 
 
PREFACE Vll 
 
 the denial of his honesty, and be exasperated by 
 a doubt of his understanding. 
 
 Pope, however, nailed him up, though not, as 
 Warburton vigourously insinuates, by way of ter- 
 rible example to other vermin, and Cibber was 
 soon tempted to contest the justice of his con- 
 demnation. A genteel living writer, to whose 
 minute research and impartial judgment the liter- 
 ary inquirer is much indebted, has discussed the 
 conduct of this quarrel, with equal intelligence 
 and temper*, and his award furnishes, perhaps 
 for the first time, a correct knowledge of Gib- 
 ber's triumph over Pope's asperity. The dispute, 
 however, has lost its interest, and Cibber, in 
 spite of his happy retorts, must still go down the 
 stream of time, with that inglorious reputation 
 which the " Dunciad" has given him. In this 
 case there is something to lament. The frivolity 
 of Cibber was highly contemptible, and might 
 have had an influence upon his posthumous char- 
 acter. Many anecdotes of his ignorance and 
 impiety are scattered in various places,! and the 
 work of Pope's malevolence has certainly been 
 assisted by means that would have partially ac- 
 complished it. Talent is thus taught an ill les- 
 son, and its tyrannical encroachments upon truth 
 
 * In the " Quarrels of Authors/' 
 
 t In, particularly, the novels of Fielding, and in Johnson's 
 conversations. 
 
Vlll PREFACE 
 
 are encouraged by a fresh instance of their easy 
 success, and perpetual splendour. 
 
 Cibber, it is plain, has been rather libelled 
 than satirised by his merciless antagonist, with- 
 out squaring any part of the treatment he re- 
 ceived to that most pernicious, profane, and de- 
 testable doctrine of modern law, that truth may 
 have a libellous tendency. It was a solemn 
 mockery of justice on the part of Pope, to gra- 
 tify his rancour by holding up Cibber as a dunce, 
 in the face of many acute and lively productions, 
 among which Pope himself included part of his 
 plays, and Swift, a more candid and competent 
 observer, classed the present entertaining essay. 
 The reputation of Cibber is no more to be rated 
 by his sorry birth-day odes, than the merit of 
 Pope is to be taken from his share of the vile 
 farce in which he joined with Gay, as a covert 
 contributor. Mankind, it is true, have a trick of 
 adopting decisions in this ungenerous manner, 
 but I never yet heard that the customs of man- 
 kind were to be embraced by those who shrink 
 from their concurrence, and despise their author- 
 ity. A fairer bztsis has been laid by Cibber's 
 own hands for his genuine character than the 
 invective of Pope presents to us, and upon those 
 who can extricate themselves from the " snares, 
 lines, angles, hooks, and nets," of an elegant cal- 
 umniator, the following pages will work a pow- 
 erful impression. I am not sanguine, however, 
 
PREFACE IX 
 
 that a perusal of this volume will be advantageous 
 to Cibber, because I know that the very last opin- 
 ions we surrender through life, are those of ex- 
 cessive ill-nature, and flagrant injustice. 
 
 If the drama may be resembled to a great river, 
 actors are like those little islands which the sand 
 and mud throw up in the mouth of it. The stage 
 has certainly been dignified at intervals by men 
 deserving of much higher considerati(m, and the 
 dear friend to whom this edition is dedicated, offers 
 us " a living instance" of the lofty principle, the 
 kind heart, the extensive knowledge, and the po- 
 lished manners, with which it is sometimes en- 
 dowed. But Cibber was not calculated to re- 
 deem his profession by such qualities as these, 
 and inordinate vanity alone induced him to apol- 
 ogise for a life over which neither his notions 
 nor his talents allowed him to aflfect the slightest 
 superiority. He thought, as most actors think, 
 that his occupation was one of even national con- 
 sequence, and that few pursuits in the world 
 could be compared with it, for lustre and ad- 
 vantage. " Parva leves capiunt animos." To 
 so fortunate a mistake we owe the spirit and 
 freedom of those confessions that form the sub- 
 stance of the following book, and whenever the 
 fraternity will oblige us with a similar effort, 
 half so clever or so delightful, we can surely 
 sufier them to be as vain and confident as they 
 please. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It is the very egotism of Cibber which has ren- 
 dered the historical part of his pages both valu- 
 able and amusing. Persuaded that the stores of 
 his own personal experience were infinitely more 
 precious than thos^e that any foregoing writer 
 had collected, he drew upon them with a lavish 
 hand, and thus furnished much anecdote of a 
 more original and appropriate nature than other 
 stage historians have supplied. In the arts of 
 compilation Cibber is not an adept. Whatever 
 he offers is spun out of either his own knowledge 
 or imagination, and to this auspicious departure 
 from a sordid practice, we owe those admirable 
 characters of cotemporary excellence, which, 
 though, 
 
 Turn'd to the sun, they cast a thousand dyes, 
 still constitute our safest guides to the theatrical 
 truth of that period. The brilliant manner in 
 which he has painted Betterton, his talents, and 
 his popularity, is warmly attested, and though a 
 careful gleaning of recorded facts may impart 
 much reality to a portrait of this kind, nothing 
 but the glow of personal inspection can render 
 it at once faithful, elegant, animated, and expres- 
 sive. Gibber's pencil, to use his own words, has 
 superadded those touches of light, which give 
 life and spirit to the whole, and Betterton's char- 
 acter, highly as we prize it, is only a specimen of 
 
PREFACE XI 
 
 those connecting critical likenesses, with which 
 the body of this volume is enriched. 
 
 By the task which Cibber prescribed to him- 
 self he is entitled to be tried ; and though it has 
 been found necessary to regulate some minor 
 points of his narrative, to the justice of his gener- 
 al views very little can be added. He has de- 
 lineated the stage, during his long intimacy with 
 it, in a copious and impartial manner, and what- 
 ever earnestness he betrays in support of its prim- 
 itive institution, is always coupled with a warm 
 exposure of its contemptible management. — 
 Nothing is more liable to corrupt and debase 
 the public mind than licentious amusements, nor 
 can I perceive any amusement to be more licen- 
 tious, than a theatre administered by persons 
 whose object is to make money of the power 
 with which they are invested. Cibber saw this 
 evil with a clear and honest eye, and some of the 
 best passages in his " Apology" are those that 
 were penned to correct it. Rope-dancers and 
 wild beasts are not the natural aliment of a the- 
 atrical appetite, and it is in vain to asperse the 
 multitude, by urging that such shameful expe- 
 dients are resorted to solely for the sake of grati- 
 fying it. Whatever the public are accustomed 
 to they will approve of, and if the theatres were 
 fully protected in their patent rights, and com- 
 
XII PREFACE 
 
 mitted to judicious hands, I arn convinced that 
 a course of rational entertainments would be as 
 warmly patronised, as the monstrous absurdities 
 by which they are superseded. The very kind 
 reception of Mr. Knowles's " Virginius," a play 
 remarkable for its unaffected beauty, corrobor- 
 ates this argument, and though the managers 
 may assure us, with implicit truth, that their 
 hopeful system of enormous receipts was not 
 promoted by this drama, can they prove that the 
 money really amassed by it would not be enough 
 to support the theatre upon a just and eligible 
 ground? It is to this question we must bring 
 them, for it appears that the debauchery and 
 extravagance of the stage is rendered necessary 
 by nothing but a system of engaging innumerable 
 performers, at vast salaries, who are elevated into 
 unnatural superiority and affluence by the direct 
 vitiation of the public taste. Cibber mentions 
 as a proof of signal success, that the " Provoked 
 Husband," on some particular evening, drew 
 together a receipt of cue hundred and forty pounds, 
 and if we reflect that not more than sixty years 
 ago the benefit charges were but as many guineas, 
 it should surely startle us to see the present state 
 of theatrical expenditure. The nightly cost to a 
 manager is now nearly two hundred pounds, and 
 unless something more than this immense amount 
 is realised, he becomes a sufferer, of course, by 
 
PREFACE XIU 
 
 his gigantic speculation. In the time of Shak- 
 speare, twenty pounds was a receipt of unusual 
 magnitude, and yet the actors subsisted in com- 
 fort and respectability upon a proportionate sti- 
 pend. Betterton's salary, long after, was only 
 one hundred and twenty pounds per annum, 
 and if ever an individual deserved wealth or con- 
 sideration from the exercise of theatrical talent, 
 it was this superlative performer. 
 
 I shall not continue to trace the precise steps 
 by which theatrical income has attained its pres- 
 ent inordinate amount, but it may be calmly 
 remarked, that the riches of the stage have ad- 
 vanced invariably with its corruptions. The 
 *' charm" is now " so firm and good," that an 
 eminent actor can accumulate a fortune in three 
 or four years, even while the very persons who 
 employ and enhance his abilities are impover- 
 ished and obscure. Our theatres royal have 
 done this, by their boundless dimensions, and 
 unexampled magnificence ; and, unfortunately, in 
 doing it, they have worked other mischief of a 
 more desperate sort. The public mind lies in 
 ruins at their feet, and though they have coupled 
 this ruin with their own, what is to satisfy us for 
 their fatal pollution of virtue and manners ? 
 
 Cibber expounds a remedy for all this, in the 
 eleventh chapter of the present volume, by laying 
 down the very excellent principle, that govern- 
 
XIV PREFACE 
 
 ments should protect what they tolerate. He 
 argues that a well-established stage must conduce 
 to the just spirit of the people, by dispersing 
 among them those precepts and sentiments upon 
 which their religion and their liberty are found- 
 ed ; and chimerical as his notions may be termed 
 by those who swelter in the venom that they 
 propagate, I will assert that such an organisation 
 of the stage is far from impracticable. Let the 
 ** powers that be'* abstract it from the hands of 
 needy adventurers, and it will no longer excite 
 the malediction of those who spontaneously abhor 
 what is vile and contemptible ; but "if," as Cibber 
 says, " for the support of the stage, what is gen- 
 erally shown there must be lowered to the taste 
 of common spectators, by low and senseless jolli- 
 ty, in which the understanding can have no share ; 
 whenever such is the state of the stage, it will be 
 as often liable to unanswerable censure, and 
 manifest disgraces." 
 
 The experience of Cibber will be found valua- 
 ble by those friends of the drama, who have time 
 to consult it, many pages of his book being occu- 
 pied with remarks upon the best means of rend- 
 ering plays at once dignified and useful. I can 
 add nothing to the force and clearness of his 
 reasons why our theatre should maintain a nation- 
 al interest, because I sincerely think, while regu- 
 lated by a proper tenderness for those who fre- 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 quent it, that no public amusement can pretend 
 to more particular regard. The very general 
 esteem in which the '' Apology" has been long 
 held, by those even who took many exceptions to 
 the talent and conduct of the author, is a suffi- 
 cient pledge of its rare merit, and I can freely 
 add my own settled opinion, that the English 
 language does not possess a finer specimen of 
 frank and cordial vivacity. My own pursuits, 
 at an earlier period, lay more among those things 
 of which Gibber treats, than perhaps they ought 
 to have done, and such was the enjoyment I then 
 anticipated from a perusal of this book, that for 
 many years after it came into my hands, though 
 eagerly sought for, I abstained from reading it, 
 not caring to realise a pleasure that I felt con- 
 scious could never again be afforded me. Few 
 of our lighter anxieties are so acute or so agreea- 
 ble, as those that result from intense attention to 
 the theatre, and whenever a right spirit prevails 
 of investigating what attracts us, this *' Apology" 
 will be cherished by the class it appeals to, as an 
 ' indispensible companion. It was thought neces- 
 sary by the booksellers that some notes should 
 be attached to the present edition, for the pur- 
 pose of elucidating various points that Gibber 
 had not thoroughly handled, and with what suc- 
 cess so correct a wish has been fulfilled, the read- 
 er must determine. I have done my best, for 
 
XVI PREFACE 
 
 many weeks together, with the subject, and 
 though the credit of this task will never keep 
 pace with its labour, I can say, from the pleasure 
 that clung about me while it was executed, as 
 poor Bunyan said on a more serious occasion, 
 ** They are golden hours in which such things 
 happen to me." 
 
 The Editor. 
 
TO A 
 
 CERTAIN GENTLEMAN.* 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Because I know it would give you less 
 concern, to find your name in an impertinent 
 satire, than before the daintiest dedication of a 
 modern author, I conceal it. 
 
 Let me talk never so idly to you, this way, 
 you are, at least, under no necessity of taking it 
 to yourself: nor when I boast of your favours, 
 need you blush to have bestowed them. Or I 
 may now give you all the attributes that raise a 
 wise and good-natured man to esteem and hap- 
 piness, and not be censured, as a flatterer, by my 
 own, or your enemies. I place my own first ; 
 because, as they are the greater number, I am 
 afraid of not paying the greater respect to them. 
 Yours, if such there are, I imagine are too well- 
 bred to declare themselves : but as there is no 
 hazard, or visible terror, in an attack upon my 
 defenceless station, my censurers have generally 
 been persons of an intrepid sincerity. Having 
 therefore shut the door against them, while I am 
 
 * Presumed to be the Right Honourable Mr. Pelham, whose 
 death, in March, 1754, Garrick celebrated by an ode. 
 
XVlll DEDICATION 
 
 thus privately addressing you, I have little to ap- 
 prehend from either of them. 
 
 Under this shelter, then, I may safely tell you, 
 that the greatest encouragement I have had to 
 publish this vrork, has risen from the several 
 hours of patience you have lent me, at the read- 
 ing it. It is true, I took the advantage of your 
 leisure, in the country, vrhere moderate matters 
 serve for amusement ; and there, indeed, hovr far 
 your good-nature for an old acquaintance, or 
 your reluctance to put the vanity of an author 
 out of countenance, may have carried you, I can- 
 not be sure ; and yet appearances give me stronger 
 hopes : for was not the complaisance of a whole 
 evening's attention, as much as an author of more 
 importance ought to have expected ? Why then 
 vras I desired, the next day, to give you a second 
 lecture ? Or why was I kept a third day, with 
 you, to tell you more of the same story? If these 
 circumstances have made me vain, shall I say, 
 sir, you are accountable for them? No, sir, I 
 will rather so far flatter myself, as to suppose it 
 possible, that your having been a lover of the 
 stage, (and one of those few. good judges, who 
 know the use and value of it, under a right regu- 
 lation) might incline you to think so copious an 
 account of it a less tedious amusement, than it 
 may naturally be to others of different good sense, 
 who may have less concern, or taste, for it. But 
 be all this as it may, the brat is now born, and 
 
DEDICATION XIX 
 
 rather than see it starve, upon the bare parish 
 provision, I chuse, thus clandestinely, to drop it 
 at your door, that it may exercise one of your 
 many virtues, your charity, in supporting it. 
 
 If the world vrere to know into whose hands 
 I have thrown it, their regard to its patron might 
 incline them to treat it as one of his family : but 
 in the consciousness of what I am, I chuse not, 
 sir, to say who you are. ** If your equal, in rank, 
 were to do public justice to your character, then, 
 indeed, the concealment of your name might be 
 an unnecessary diffidence : but am I, sir, of con- 
 sequence enough, in any guise, to do honour to 
 Mr. ? Were I to set him in the most laud- 
 able lights, that truth and good-sense could 
 give him, or his own likeness would require ; my 
 officious mite vrould be lost in that general esteem 
 and regard, which people of the first consequence, 
 even of different parties, have a pleasure in paying 
 him. Encomiums to superiors, from authors of 
 lower life, as they are naturally liable to suspi- 
 cion, can add very little lustre to what be- 
 fore w^as visible to the public eye : such offerings 
 (to use the style they are generally dressed in) 
 like pagan incense, evaporate on the altar, and 
 rather gratify the priest, than the deity. 
 
 But you, sir, are to be approached in terms 
 within the reach of common sense ; the honest 
 oblation of a cheerful heart is as much as you 
 
XX DEDICATION 
 
 desire, or I am able to bring you : a heart, that 
 has just sense enough to mix respect with inti- 
 macy, and is never more delighted than when 
 your rural hours of leisure admit me, with all 
 my laughing spirits, to be my idle self, and in 
 the whole day's possession of you. Then, in- 
 deed, I have reason to be vain ; I am, then, dis- 
 tinguished by a pleasure too great to be con- 
 cealed, and could almost pity the man of graver 
 merit, that dares not receive it with the same 
 unguarded transport. This nakedness of temper 
 the world may place in what rank of folly or 
 weakness they please ; but, till wisdom can give 
 me something that will make me more heartily 
 happy, I am content to be gazed at as I am, 
 without lessening my respect for those whose 
 passions may be more soberly covered. 
 
 Yet, sir, will I not deceive you. Tis not the 
 lustre of your public merit, the affluence of your 
 fortune, your high figure in life, nor those ho- 
 nourable distinctions, which you had rather 
 deserve than be told of, that have so many years 
 made my plain heart hang after you. These are 
 but incidental ornaments, that, 'tis true, may be 
 of service to you in the world's opinion ; and 
 though, as one among the crowd, I may rejoice 
 that Providence has so deservedly bestowed 
 them ; yet my particular attachment has risen 
 from a more natural, and more engaging charm. 
 
DEDICATION XXI 
 
 — the agreeable companion. Nor is my vanity 
 half so much gratified in the honour, as my sense 
 is in the delight of your society. When I see 
 you lay aside the advantages of superiority, and, 
 by your own cheerfulness of spirits, call out all 
 that nature has given me to meet them ; then 'tis 
 I taste you ; — then life runs high ; — ^I desire — I 
 possess you! 
 
 Yet, sir, in this distinguished happiness, I 
 give not up my farther share of that pleasure, or 
 of that right, I have to look upon you with the 
 public eye, and to join in the general regard so 
 unanimously payed to that uncommon virtue, 
 your integrity. This, sir, the world allows so 
 conspicuous a part of your character, that, how- 
 ever invidious the merit, neither the rude license 
 of detraction, nor the prejudice of party, has 
 ever once thrown on it the least impeachment 
 or reproach. This is that commanding power, 
 that, in public speaking, makes you heard with 
 such attention. This it is, that discourages, and 
 keeps silent the insinuations of prejudice and 
 suspicion ; and almost renders your eloquence an 
 unnecessary aid to your assertions : even your 
 opponents, conscious of your integrity, hear you 
 rather as a witness, than an orator. But this, 
 sir, is drawing you too near the light ; integrity 
 is too particular a virtue to be covered with a 
 
XXll DEDICATION 
 
 a general application. Let me therefore only 
 talk to you, as at Tusculum, (for so I will call 
 that sweet retreat, which your own hands have 
 raised) where, like the famed orator of old, when 
 public cares permit, you pass so many rational, 
 unbending hours. There, and at such times, to 
 have been admitted, still plays on my memory, 
 more like a fictitious than a real enjoyment. 
 How many golden evenings, in that theatrical 
 paradise of watered lawns, and hanging groves, 
 have I walked, and prated down the sun, in 
 social happiness ! Whether the retreat of Cicero, 
 in cost, magnificence, or curious luxury of anti- 
 quities, might not out-blaze the simplex mundi- 
 tits, the modest ornaments of your villa, is not 
 within my reading to determine. But that the 
 united power of nature, art, or elegance of taste, 
 could have thrown so many varied objects into 
 a more delightful harmony, is beyond my con- 
 ception. 
 
 When I consider you, in this view, and as the 
 gentleman of eminence, surrounded with the 
 general benevolence of mankind, I rejoice, sir, 
 for you, and for myself ; to see you in this parti- 
 cular light of merit, and myself sometimes ad- 
 mitted to my more than equal share of you. 
 
 If this apology for my past life discourages you 
 not from holding me in your usual favour, let 
 
DEDICATION XXllI 
 
 me quit this greater stage, the world, whenever 
 I may, I shall think this the best acted part of 
 any I have undertaken, since you first conde- 
 scended to laugh with. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient, 
 
 Most obliged, and 
 
 Most humble servant, 
 
 COLLEY ClBBER. 
 November 6, 1739. 
 
AN 
 
 APOLOGY* 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 The Introduction. — The author's birth. — Various fortune at 
 schooL — Not liked by those he loved there. — Why. — A di- 
 gression upon raillery- — The use and abuse of it. — The 
 comforts of folly — Vanity of greatness. — Laughing no bad 
 philosophy. 
 
 YOU know, sir, I have often told you that, one time or 
 other, I should give the public some memoirs of my own 
 life ; at which you have never failed to laugh, like a friend, 
 without saying a word to dissuade me from it ; concluding, 
 I suppose, that such a wild thought could not possibly re- 
 quire a serious answer. But you see I was in earnest. And 
 now you will say the world will find me, under my own 
 hand, a weaker man than perhaps I may have passed for, 
 even among my enemies. With all my heart : my ene- 
 mies will then read me with pleasure, and you, perhaps, 
 with envy, when you find that follies, without the reproach 
 of guilt upon them, are not inconsistent with happiness. 
 But why make my follies public ? Why not ? I have passed 
 my time very pleasantly with them, and I don't recollect 
 that they have ever been hurtful to any other man living. 
 
 * This apology was written at Bath. 
 
 B 
 
S? AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Even admitting they were injudiciously chosen, would it 
 not be vanity in me to take shame to myself for not being 
 found a wise man ? Really, sir, my appetites were in too 
 much haste to be happy, to throw away my time in pursuit 
 of a name I was sure I could never arrive at. 
 
 Now the follies I frankly confess I look upon as, in some 
 measure, discharged ; while those I conceal are still keeping 
 the account open between me and my conscience. To me 
 the fatigue of being upon a continual guard to hide them, is 
 more than the reputation of being without them can repay. 
 If this be weakness, defendit numerus ; I have such com- 
 fortable numbers on my side, that were all men to blush that 
 are not wise, I am afraid, in ten, nine parts of the world 
 ought to be out of countenance : but since that sort of mo- 
 desty is what they don't care to come into, why should I be 
 afraid of being stared at, for not being particular ? Or if the 
 particularity lies in owning my weakness, will my wisest 
 reader be so inhuman as not to pardon it ? But if there 
 should be such a one, let me, at least, beg him to show me 
 that strange man who is perfect. Is any one more unhappy, 
 more ridiculous, than he who is always labouring to be 
 thought so, or that is impatient when he is not thought so ? 
 Having brought myself to be easy under whatever the world 
 may say of my undertaking, you may still ask me why I give 
 myself all this trouble ? Is it for fame or profit* to myself, or 
 use or delight to others ? For all these considerations I have 
 neither fondness nor indifference : if I obtain none of them, 
 the amusement, at worst, will be a reward that must constantly 
 go along with the labour. But behind all this, there is some- 
 thing inwardly inciting, which I cannot express in few words : 
 I must therefore a little make bold with your patience. 
 
 * However indifferent Mr. Gibber might have felt or fancied 
 himself to the " profit" of this publication, it netted 5^1,500, which 
 he took with avidity. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 3 
 
 A man who has passed above forty years of his life upon 
 a theatre, where he has never appeared to be himself, may 
 have naturally excited the curiosity of his spectators to know 
 what he really was, when in nobody's shape but his own ; 
 and whether he, who by his profession had so long been 
 ridiculing his benefactors, might not, when the coat of his 
 profession was off, deserve to be laughed at himself; or from 
 his being often seen in the most flagrant and immoral cha- 
 racters, whether he might not see as great a rogue when he 
 looked into the glass himself, as when he held it to others. 
 
 It was, doubtless, from a supposition that this sort of cu- 
 riosity would compensate their labours, that so many hasty 
 writers have been encouraged to publish the lives* of the 
 late Mrs. Oldfield, Mr. Wilks, and Mr. Booth, in less time 
 
 * These compilations were catchpenny attempts upon the purses 
 of those who wanted discretion to anticipate their fallacy. Our 
 modern biographers of departed eminence pursue a safer track, 
 and instead of depending upon hasty episodes for extemporary 
 matter, collect the materials of a posthumous narrative, while its 
 hero is living to assist their researches. 
 
 Mr. Gibber might have instanced the " Life of Congreve," as a 
 shining example of this injurious celerity. When Curl, whom Dr. 
 Arbuthnot denominated one of the new terrors of death, from his 
 constantly printing the " Memoirs" of every eminent individual, 
 announced the publication alluded to, Mrs. Bracegirdle interested 
 herself so far in the departed author's reputation, as to solicit a 
 sight of the manuscript. This was refused. She then asked, upon 
 what authority the book had been compiled, and what pieces con- 
 tained in it were genuine ? Upon being told there would be several 
 of his essays, letters, &c., she answered, " Not a single sheet of pa- 
 per, I dare say, that Congreve ever saw." And in this she was 
 prophetically right, as far as the new matter extended, though it 
 must be owned that various articles were incorporated with the 
 volume which had been repeatedly printed before. 
 
 b2 
 
* AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 after their deaths than one could suppose it cost to tran- 
 scribe them. 
 
 Now, sir, when my time comes, lest they should think it 
 worth while to handle my memory with the same freedom, 
 I am willing to prevent its being so oddly besmeared, or at 
 best, but flatly white- washed, by taking upon me to give 
 the public this, as true a picture of myself as natural vanity 
 will permit me to draw : for to promise you that I shall 
 never be vain, were a promise that, like a looking-glass too 
 large, might break itself in the making : nor am I sure I 
 ought wholly to avoid that imputation, because if vanity be 
 one of my natural features, the portrait would not be like me 
 without it. In a word, I may palliate and soften as much 
 as I please ; but, upon an honest examination of my heart, 
 I am afraid the same vanity which makes even homely peo- 
 ple employ painters to preserve a flattering record of their 
 persons, has seduced me to print off* this chiaro 'scuro of my 
 mind. 
 
 And, when I have done it, you may reasonably ask me of 
 what importance can the history of my private life be to the 
 public ? To this, indeed, I can only make you a ludicrous 
 answer ; which is, that the public very well knows my life 
 has not been a private one ; that I have been employed in 
 their service, ever since many of their grandfathers were 
 young men ; ai^d, though I have voluntarily laid down my 
 post, they have a sort of right to inquire into my conduct, for 
 which they have so well paid me, and to call for the account 
 of it, during my share of administration in the state of the 
 theatre. This work, therefore, which I hope they will not 
 expect a man of hasty head should confine to any regular 
 method — for I shall make no scruple of leaving my history, 
 when I think a digression may make it lighter for my reader's 
 digestion — this work, I say, shall not only contain the va- 
 rious impressions of my mind, as in Louis the Fourteenth's 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. O 
 
 cabinet you have seen the growing medals of his person from 
 infancy to old age, but shall likewise include with them the 
 '^ Theatrical History of my Own Time,'' from my first ap- 
 pearance on the stage to my last exit. If, then, what I 
 shall advance on that head may any ways contribute to the 
 prosperity or improvement of the stage in being, the public 
 must of consequence have a share in its utility. 
 
 This, sir, is the best apology V can make for being my 
 own biographer. Give me leave therefore to open the first 
 scene of my life, from the very day I came into it ; and 
 though, considering my profession, 1 have no reason to be 
 ashamed of my original, yet, I am afraid, a plain dry ac- 
 count of it will scarcely admit of a better excuse than what 
 my brother Bays makes for Prince Pretty man in the " Re- 
 hearsal;"* viz. " I only do it, for fear I should be thought 
 to be nobody's son at all ;" for if I have led a worthless life, 
 the weight of my pedigree will not add an ounce to my in- 
 trinsic value. But be the inference what it will, the simple 
 truth is this. 
 
 I was born in London, on the 6th of November, 1671, in 
 Southampton-street, facing Southampton House. My fa- 
 ther, Caius Gabriel Gibber, was a native of Holstein, who 
 came into England some time before the restoration of King 
 Charles the Second, to follow his profession, which was that 
 of a statuary, &c. The basso relievo on the pedestal of the 
 great column in the city, and the two figures of the lunatics, 
 the raving and the melancholy, over the gates of Bethlehem 
 
 * Bays. There's a blustering verse for you now ! 
 
 Smith. Yes, sir ; but why is he so mightily troubled to find he is 
 not a fisherman's son ? 
 
 Bays. Po ! that is not because he had a mind to be his son, but 
 for fear he should be thought to be nobody s son at all. — " Rehear- 
 sal," act III. 
 
 B 3 
 
6 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Hospital,* are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist. My 
 mother was the daughter of William CoUey, Esq., of a very 
 antient family of Glaiston in Rutlandshire, where she was 
 born. My mother's brother, Edward Colley, Esq., who 
 gave me my Christian name, being the last heir-male of it, 
 the family is now extinct. I shall only add, that in Wright's 
 '' History of Rutlandshire," published in 1684, the Colleys 
 are recorded as Sheriffs and Members of Parliament, from 
 the reign of Henry the Seventh, to the latter end of Charles 
 the First, in whose cause, chiefly, Sir Antony Colley, my 
 mother's grandfather, sunk his estate from three thousand to 
 about three hundred per annum. 
 
 In the year 1682, at little more than ten years of age, I 
 was sent to the free school of Grantham in Lincolnshire, 
 where I staid till I got through it, from the lowest form to 
 the uppermost. And such learning as that school could give 
 me is the most I pretend to, which, though I have not utter- 
 ly forgotten, I cannot say I have much improved by study ; 
 but even there, I remember, I was the same inconsistent crea- 
 ture I have been ever since ; always in full spirits, in some 
 small capacity to do right, but in a more frequent alacrity to 
 do wrong, and consequently often under a worse character 
 than 1 wholly deserved. A giddy negligence always pos- 
 sessed me, and so much, that I remember I was once whipped 
 for my theme, though my master told me at the same time, 
 that what was good of it was better than any boy's in the 
 form. And, whatever shame it may be to own it, I have ob- 
 served the same odd fate has frequently attended the course of 
 my later conduct in life. The unskilful openness, or, in plain 
 terms, the indiscretion 1 have always acted with from my 
 youth, has drawn more ill-will towards me than men of worse 
 morals and more wit might have met with. My ignorance 
 
 * Removed to the new hospital in St. George's Fields. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. V 
 
 and want of jealousy of mankind have been so strong, that it 
 is with reluctance I even yet believe any person I am ac- 
 quainted with can be capable of envy, malice, or ingrati- 
 tude ; and to show you what a mortification it was to me, in 
 ray very boyish days, to find myself mistaken, give me leave 
 to tell you a school-story. 
 
 A great boy, nearly the head taller than myself, in some 
 wrangle at play had insulted me ; upon which I was fool- 
 hardy enough to give him a box on the ear ; the blow was 
 soon returned with another that brought me under him, 
 and at his mercy. Another lad, whom I really loved, and 
 thought a good-natured one, cried out, with some warmth, 
 to my antagonist, while I was down, '' Beat him, beat him 
 soundly.". This so amazed me, that I lost all my spirits to 
 resist, and burst into tears. When the fray was over, I 
 took my friend aside, and asked him how he came to be so 
 earnestly against me ? To which, with some glouting confu- 
 sion, he replied, ''Because you are always jeering, and 
 making a jest of me to every boy in the school." Many a 
 mischief have I brought upon myself by the same folly in 
 riper life. Whatever reason I had to reproach my compa- 
 panion's declaring against me, I had none to wonder at it, 
 while 1 was so often hurting him : thus I deserved his enmity 
 by my not having sense enough to know I had hurt him ; 
 and he hated me, because he had not sense enough to know 
 that I never intended to hurt him. 
 
 As this is the first remarkable error of my life I can re- 
 collect, I cannot pass it by without throwing out some fur- 
 ther reflections upon it ; whether flat or spirited, new or 
 common, false or true, right or wrong, they will be still my 
 own, and consequently like me ; I will therefore boldly go 
 on, for I am only obliged to give you my own and not a good 
 picture ; to show as well the weakness as the strength of my 
 understanding. It is not on what I write, but on my reader's 
 
8 AN APOLOGY FOR THEf 
 
 curiosity I rely to be read through ; at worst though the im- 
 partial may be tired, the ill-natured, no small number, I 
 know will see the bottom of me. 
 
 What I observed, then, upon my having undesignedly 
 provoked my school-friend into an enemy, is a common case 
 in society ; errors of this kind often sour the blood of ac- 
 quaintance into an inconceivable aversion, where it is little 
 suspected. It is not enough to say of your raillery that you 
 intended no offence ; if the person you offer it to has either 
 a wrong head, or wants a capacity to make that distinction, 
 it may have the same effect as the intention of the grossest 
 injury : and, in reality, if you know his parts are too slow 
 to return it in kind, it is a vain and idle inhumanity, and 
 sometimes draws the aggressor into difficulties not easily got 
 out of. Or, to give the case more scope, suppose your friend 
 may have a passive indulgence for your mirth ; if you find 
 him silent at it, though you were as intrepid as Caesar, there 
 can be no excuse for your not leaving it off. When you 
 are conscious that your antagonist can give as well as take, 
 then, indeed, the smarter the hit the more agreeable the 
 parry : a man of cheerful sense, among friends, will never 
 be grave upon an attack of this kind, but rather thank you 
 that you have given him a right to be even with you. There 
 are few men, though they may be masters of both, that, on 
 such occasions, had not rather show their parts than their 
 courage, and the preference is just ; a bull-dog may have 
 one, and only a man can have the other. Thus it happens 
 that in the coarse merriment of common people, when the 
 jest begins to swell into earnest, for want of this election, 
 you may observe, he that has least wit generally gives the 
 the first blow. Now, as among the better sort, a readiness 
 of wit is not always a sign of intrinsic merit, so the want of 
 that readiness is no reproach to a man of plain sense and 
 civility, who^ therefore, mcthinks, should never have these 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. V 
 
 lengths of liberty taken with him. Wit there becomes ab- 
 surd, if not insolent ; ill-natured I am sure it is, which im- 
 putation a generous spirit will always avoid, for the same 
 reason that a man of real honour will never send a challenge 
 to a cripple. The inward wounds that are given by the in- 
 considerate insults of wit, to those that want it, are as dan- 
 gerous as those given by oppression to inferiors; as long 
 in healing, and perhaps never forgiven. There is besides 
 (and little worse than this) a mutual grossness in raillery, 
 that sometimes is more painful to the hearers that are not 
 concerned in it than to the persons engaged. I have seen a 
 couple of these clumsy combatants drub one another with as 
 little manners or mercy as if they had two flails in their 
 hands ; children at play with case-knives could not give you 
 more apprehension of their doing one another a mischief; 
 and yet, when the contest has been over, the boobies have 
 looked round them for approbation, and upon being told 
 they were admirably well matched, have sat down bedaubed 
 as they were, contented at making it a drawn battle. After 
 all that I have said, there is no clearer way of giving rules 
 for raillery, than by example. 
 
 There are two persons now living, who though very dif- 
 ferent in their manner, are, as far as my judgment reaches, 
 complete masters of it ; one of a more polite and extensive 
 imagination, the other of a knowledge more closely useful to 
 the business of life. The one gives you perpetual pleasure, 
 and seems always to be taking it ; the other seems to take 
 none till his business is over, and then gives you as much as 
 if pleasure were his only business. The one enjoys his for- 
 tune, the other thinks it first necessary to make it ; though 
 that he will enjoy it then I cannot be positive, because 
 when a man has once picked up more than he wants, he is 
 apt to think it a weakness to suppose he has enough. But 
 as I don't remember ever to have seen these gentlemen in 
 
10 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the same company, you must give me leave to take them 
 separately. 
 
 The first of them,* then, has a title, and no matter 
 
 what : I am not to speak of the great, but the happy part 
 of his character, and in this one single light ; not of his being 
 an illustrious, but a delightful companion. 
 
 In conversation he is seldom silent but when he is atten- 
 tive, nor ever speaks without exciting the attention of others ; 
 and though no man might with less displeasure to his hear- 
 ers engross the talk of the company, he has a patience in his 
 vivacity that chuses to divide it, and rather gives more free- 
 dom than he takes, his sharpest replies having a mixture of 
 politeness that few have the command of. His expression is 
 easy, short, and clear ; a stiff or studied word never comes 
 from him ; it is in a simplicity of style that he gives the high- 
 est surprise^ and his ideas are always adapted to the capacity 
 and taste of the person he speaks to. Perhaps you will un- 
 derstand me better if I give you a particular instance of it. 
 A person at the university, who, from being a man of wit, 
 easily became his acquaintance there, from that acquaintance 
 found no difficulty in being made one of his chaplains : this 
 person afterwards leading a life that did no great honour to 
 his cloth, obliged his patron to take some gentle notice of 
 it ; but as his patron knew the patient was squeamish, he was 
 induced to sweeten the medicine to his taste ; and, therefore, 
 with a smile of good humour, told him, that if to the many 
 vices he had already, he would give himself the trouble to 
 add one more, he did not doubt but his reputation might 
 still be set up again. Sir Crape, who could have no aver- 
 sion to so pleasant a dose, desiring to know what it might 
 be, was answered, " Hypocrisy, Doctor ; only a little hy- 
 pocrisy." This plain reply can need no comment; but, 
 "ex pede Herculera," he is every where proportionable. 
 
 * The Earl of Chesterfield. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 11 
 
 I think I have heard him since say the Doctor thought hypo- 
 crisy so detestable a sin that he died without committing it. 
 In a word, this gentleman gives spirit to society the moment 
 he comes into it, and whenever he leaves it, they who have 
 business have then leisure to go about it. 
 
 Having often had the honour to be myself the butt of his 
 raillery, I must own I have received more pleasure from his 
 lively maimer of raising the laugh against me^than I could have 
 felt from the smoothest flattery of a serious civility. Though 
 wit flows from him with as much ease as common sense from 
 another, he is so little elated with the advantage he may have 
 over you, that, whenever your good fortune gives it against 
 him, he seems more pleased with it on your side than his 
 own. The only advantage he makes of his superiority of 
 rank is that, by always waiving it himself, his inferior finds 
 he is under the greater obligation not to forget it. 
 
 When the conduct of social wit is under such regulations, 
 how delightful must those convivia, those meals of conversa- 
 tion, be, where such a member presides, who can with so 
 much ease, as Shakspeare phrases it, " set the table in a 
 roar." I am in no pain that these imperfect outlines will 
 be applied to the person I mean, because every one who has 
 the happiness to know him, must know how much more in 
 this particular attitude is wanting to be like him. 
 
 The other gentleman,* whose bare interjections of laugh- 
 ter have humour in them, is so far from having a title^, that 
 he has lost his real name, which some years ago he suffered 
 his friends to rally him out of, in lieu of which they have 
 equipped him with one they thought had a better sound in 
 good company. He is the first man, of so sociable a spirit, 
 that I ever knew capable of quitting the allurements of wit 
 and pleasure, for a strong application to business ; in his 
 youth, for there was a time when he was young, he set out 
 
 * Was this Bubb Doddington ? 
 
12 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 in all the hey-day expenses of a modish man of fortune ; but 
 finding himself over-weighted with appetites, he grew re- 
 stifF, kicked up in the middle of the course, and turned his 
 back upon his frolics abroad, to think of improving his estate 
 at home ; in order to which he clapped collars upon his coach- 
 horses, and that their mettle might not run over other peo- 
 ple, he tied a plough to their tails, which, though it might 
 give them a more slovenly air, would enable him to keep 
 them fatter in a foot-pace, with a whistling peasant beside 
 them, than in a full trot, with a hot-headed coachman behind 
 them. In these unpolite amusements he has laughed like a 
 rake, and looked about him like a farmer for many years. 
 As his rank and station often find him in the best company, 
 his easy humour, whenever he is called to it, can still make 
 himself the fiddle of it. 
 
 And though some say he looks upon the follies of the 
 world like too severe a philosopher, yet he rather chuses to 
 laugh than to grieve at them ; to pass his time, therefore, 
 more easily in it, he often endeavours to conceal himself by 
 assuming the air and taste of a man of fashion ; so that his 
 only uneasiness seems to be that he cannot quite prevail with 
 his friends to think him a worse manager than he really is ; 
 for they carry their raillery to such a height, that it some- 
 times rises to a charge of downright avarice against him ; 
 upon which head it is no easy matter to be more merry 
 upon him than he will be upon himself. ' Thus, while he 
 sets that infirmity in a pleasant light^ he so disarms your 
 prejudice that, if he has it not, you can't find in your heart 
 to wish he were without it. Whenever he is attacked where 
 he seems to lie so open, if his wit happens not to be ready 
 for you, he receives you with an assenting laugh, till he has 
 gained time to whet it sharp enough for a reply, which sel- 
 dom turns out to his disadvantage. If you are too strong 
 for him, which may possibly happen from his being obliged 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 13 
 
 to defend the weak side of the question, his last resource is 
 to join in the laugh, till he has got himself off by an ironi- 
 cal applause of your superiority. 
 
 If I were capable of envy, what I have observed of this 
 gentleman, would certainly incline me to it ; for, surely, to 
 get through the necessary cares of life, with a train of plea- 
 sures at our heels in vain calling after us ; to give a con- 
 stant preference to the business of the day, and yet be able 
 to laugh while we are about it ; to make even society the 
 subservient reward of it, is a state of happiness which the 
 gravest precepts of moral wisdom will not easily teach us to 
 exceed. When I speak of happiness, I go no higher than 
 that which is contained in the world we now tread upon ; 
 and when I speak of laughter, 1 don't simply mean that 
 which every oaf is capable of, but that which has its sen- 
 sible motive and proper season, which is not more limited 
 than recommended by that indulgent philosophy. 
 
 Cum ratione insanire. 
 
 When I look into my present self, and afterwards cast my 
 eye round all my hopes, I don't see any one pursuit of them 
 that should so reasonably rouse me out of a nod in my great 
 chair, as a call to those agreeable parties* 1 have sometimes 
 
 * It was in one of these " agreeable parties" that Mr. Garrick 
 asked him if he had not, in his possession, a comedy or two of his 
 own writing. — " What then?" said Gibber. " I should be happy 
 to have the honour," replied Garrick, " of bringing it into the 
 world." " Who have you to act it ?" — " Why, there are Clive, 
 Pritchard, myself, and some others." — " No," said the old man, 
 taking a pinch of snuff with great non-chalance, '' it won't do." 
 
 Foote often declared that Gibber would allow no higher merit 
 to Garrick, than that of acting Fribble; and in a meeting at Sir 
 Francis Delaval's, this assertion was partially verified. The con- 
 versation happening to turn upon past actors, and their peculiar 
 
14 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the happiness to mix with, where I always assert the equal 
 liberty of leaving them, when my spirits have done their 
 best with them. 
 
 Now, sir^ as I have been making my way for above forty 
 years through a crowd of cares, all which, by the favour of 
 Providence, I have honestly got rid of, is it a time of day 
 for me to leave off these fooleries, and to set up a new cha- 
 racter ? Can it be worth my while to waste my spirits, to 
 bake my blood, with serious contemplations, and perhaps 
 impair my health in the fruitless study of advancing myself 
 into the better opinion of those very, very few wise men 
 that are as old as I am ? No, the part I have acted in real 
 life, shall be all of a piece ; 
 
 — — Servetur ad imum, 
 Qualis ab incepto processerit. 
 
 I will not go out of my character, by straining to be wiser 
 than I can be, or by being more aiFectedly pensive than I 
 need be ; whatever I am men of sense will know me to be, 
 put on what disguise I will ; I can no more put off my 
 follies than my skin ; I have often tried, but they stick too 
 close to me ; nor am I sure my friends are displeased with 
 them ; for, besides that in this light I afford them frequent 
 matter of mirth, they may possibly be less uneasy at their 
 own foibles, when they have so old a precedent to keep 
 them in countenance. Nay, there are some frank enough 
 to confess they envy what they laugh at ; and when I have 
 seen others, whose rank and fortune have laid a sort of 
 restraint upon their liberty of pleasing their company by 
 
 method of playing, Garrick observed, that the old style was ba- 
 nished from the stage, and even if revived, would stand but little 
 chance of success. " How do you know that ?" said Gibber : " you 
 never tried it." (I) 
 
 (1) Dramatic Miscellanies. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 15 
 
 pleasing themselves, I have said softly to myself—" Well, 
 there is some advantage in having neither rank nor fortune !" 
 Not but there are among them a third sort, who have the 
 particular happiness of unbending into the very wantonness 
 of good-humour, without depreciating their dignity: he 
 that is not master of that freedom, let his condition be never 
 so exalted, must still want something to come up to the 
 happiness of his inferiors who enjoy it. If Socrates 
 could take pleasure in playing at " Even or Odd" with 
 his children, or Agesilaus divert himself in riding the 
 hobby-horse with them, am I obliged to be as eminent as 
 either of them before I am as frolicsome ? If the Emperor 
 Adrian, near his death, could play with his very soul, his 
 " animula," &c., and regret that it could be no longer 
 companionable ; if greatness, at the same time, was not the 
 delight he was so loth to part with, surely then these cheer- 
 ful amusements I am contending for, must have no incon- 
 siderable share in our happiness. He that does not chuse 
 to live his own way suffers others to chuse for him. Give 
 me the joy I always took in the end of an old song, — 
 
 My mind, my mind is a kingdom to me ! 
 
 If I can please myself with my own follies, have not I a 
 plentiful provision for life ? If the world thinks me a 
 trifler, I don't desire to break in upon their wisdom ; let 
 them call me any fool but an uncheerful one ; I live as I 
 write ; while my way amuses me it is as well as I wish it ; 
 when another writes better I can like him too, though he 
 should not like me. Not our great imitator of Horace* 
 himself can have more pleasure in writing his verses than 1 
 have in reading them, though I sometimes find myself there, 
 as Shakspeare terms it, " dispraisingly" spoken of. If 
 
 * Pope. 
 
16 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 he is a little free with me, I am generally in good company, 
 for he is as blunt with my betters ; so that even here I 
 might laugh in my turn. My superiors, perhaps, may be 
 mended by him ; but, for my part, I own myself incorri- 
 gible ; I look upon my follies as the best part of my fortune, 
 and am more concerned to be a good husband of them, than 
 of that ; nor do I believe I shall ever be rhymed out of 
 them. And, if I don't mistake, I am supported in my way 
 of thinking by Horace himself, who^ in excuse of a loose 
 writer, says, 
 
 Prsetulerim scriptor delirus, inersque videri, 
 Dum mea delectent, mala me, aut denique fallant, 
 Quam sapere, et ringi 
 
 which, to speak of myself as a loose philosopher, I have 
 thus ventured to imitate : 
 
 Me, while ray laughing follies can deceive. 
 
 Blest in the dear delirium let me live. 
 
 Rather than wisely know my wants and grieve. 
 
 We had once a merry monarch* of our own, who 
 thought cheerfulness so valuable a blessing, that he would 
 have quitted one of his kingdoms where he could not en- 
 joy it; where, among many other conditions they had 
 tied him to, his sober subjects would not suffer him to 
 laugh on a Sunday; and, though this might not be the 
 avowed cause of his elopement, I am not sure, had he had 
 no other, that this alone might not have served his turn ; 
 at least he has my hearty approbation either way ; for, had 
 I been under the same restriction, though my staying were 
 to have made me his successor, I should rather have chosen 
 to follow him. 
 
 How far his subjects might be in the right, is not my 
 
 * Charles the Second. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 17 
 
 affair to determine ; perhaps they were wiser than the frogs 
 in the fable, and rather chose to have a log than a stork for 
 their king ; yet I hope it will be no offence to say, that 
 King Log himself must have made but a very simple figure 
 in history. 
 
 The man who chuses never to laugh, or whose becalmed 
 passions know no motion, seems to me only in the quiet 
 state of a green tree ; he vegetates, 'tis true, but shall we 
 say he lives? Now, sir, for amusement. — Reader, take 
 heed ; for I find a strong impulse to talk impertinently ; 
 if, therefore, you are not as fond of seeing as I am of show- 
 ing myself in all my lights, you may turn over two leaves 
 together, and leave what follows to those who have more 
 curiosity, and less to do with their time, than you have. — 
 As I was saying, then, let us, for amusement, advance this 
 or any other prince to the most glorious throne, mark out 
 his empire in what clime you please, fix him on the highest 
 pinnacle of unbounded power, and in that state let us 
 inquire into his degree of happiness ; make him at once the 
 terror and the envy of his neighbours ; send his ambition 
 out to war, and gratify it with extended fame and victories ; 
 bring him in triumph home, with great unhappy captives 
 behind him, through the acclamations of his people, to 
 repossess his realms in peace. Well, when the dust has 
 been brushed from his purple, what will he do next ? Why^ 
 this envied monarch, whom we will allow to have a more 
 exalted mind than to be delighted with the trifling flatteries 
 of a congratulating circle, will chuse to retire, I presume, 
 to enjoy in private the contemplation of his glory; an 
 amusement, you will say, that well becomes his station. 
 But there, in that pleasing rumination, when he has made 
 up his new account of happiness, how much, pray, will be 
 added to the balance more than as it stood before his last 
 expedition ? From what one article will the improvement 
 
18 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 of it appear ? Will it arise from the conscious pride of 
 having done his weaker enemy an injury ? Are his eyes so 
 dazzled with false glory, that he thinks it a less crime in him 
 to break into the palace of his princely neighbour, because 
 he gave him time to defend it, than for a subject feloniously 
 to plunder the house of a private man ? Or is the outrage 
 of hunger and necessity more enormous than the ravage of 
 ambition : Let us even suppose the wicked usage of the 
 world, as to that point, may keep his conscience quiet ; 
 still, what is he to do with the infinite spoil that his impe- 
 rial rapine has brought home ? Is he to sit down, and 
 vainly deck himself with the jewels which he has plundered 
 from the crown of another, whom self-defence had com- 
 pelled to oppose him ? No, let us not debase his glory into 
 so low a weakness. What appetite, then, are these shining 
 treasures food for ? Is their vast value in seeing his vulgar 
 subjects stare at them, wise men smile at them, or his chil- 
 dren play with them ? Or can the new extent ©f his domi- 
 nions add a cubit to his happiness ? Was not his empire 
 wide enough before to do good in ? And can it add to his 
 delight that now no monarch has such room to do mischief 
 in ? But, farther : if even the great Augustus, to whose 
 reign such praises are given, could not enjoy his days of 
 peace free from the terrors of repeated conspiracies, which 
 lost him more quiet to suppress than his ^ ambition cost him 
 to provoke them, what human eminence is secure? In 
 what private cabinet, then, must this wondrous monarch 
 lock up his happiness, that common eyes are never to 
 behold it ? Is it, like his person, a prisoner to its own 
 superiority ? Or does he at last poorly place it in the 
 triumph of his injurious devastations ? One moment's 
 search into himself will plainly show him that real and 
 reasonable happiness can have no existence without inno- 
 cence and liberty. What a mockery is greatness without 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 19 
 
 them ! How lonesome must be the life of that monarch 
 who, while he governs only by being feared, is restrained 
 from letting down his grandeur sometimes to forget himself, 
 and to humanise him into the benevolence and joy of 
 society ; to throw off his cumbersome robe of majesty to 
 be a man without disguise ; to have a sensible taste of life 
 in its simplicity, till he confess, from the sweet experience 
 that " dulce est desipere in loco" was no fool's philosophy. 
 Or if the gaudy charms of pre-eminence are so strong that 
 they leave him no sense of a less pompous though a more 
 rational enjoyment, none sure can envy him, but those who 
 are the dupes of an equally fantastic ambition. 
 
 My imagination is quite heated and fatigued in dressing 
 up this phantom of felicity ; but I hope it has not made 
 me so far misunderstood, as not to have allowed that in all 
 the dispensations of Providence the exercise of a great and 
 virtuous mind is the most elevated state of happiness : ijo, 
 sir, I am not for setting up gaiety against wisdom ; nor for 
 preferring the man of pleasure to the philosopher ; but for 
 showing that the wisest or greatest man is very near an un- 
 happy man, if the unbending amusements I am contending 
 for, are not sometimes admitted to relieve him. 
 
 How far I may have over-rated these amusements let 
 graver casuists decide ; whether they affirm or reject what 
 I have asserted hurts not my purpose, which is not to give 
 laws to others, but to show by what laws I govern myself. 
 If I am misguided, 'tis nature's fault, and I follow her from 
 this persuasion, that as nature has distinguished our species 
 from the mute creation by our risibility, her design must 
 have been, by that faculty, as evidently to raise our happi- 
 ness, as by our os sublime, our erected faces, to lift the dig- 
 nity of our form above them. 
 
 Notwithstanding all I have said, I am afraid there is an 
 absolute power in what is simply called our constitution 
 
 c 2 
 
so AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 that will never admit of other rules for happiness than her 
 own ; ftom which (be we never so wise or weak) without 
 divine assistance we only can receive it ; so that all this my 
 parade and grimace of philosophy has been only making a 
 mighty merit of following my own inclination. A very- 
 natural vanity, though it is some sort of satisfaction to know 
 it does not impose upon me. Vanity again! However, 
 think it what you will that has drawn me into this copious 
 digression, 'tis now high time to drop it : I shall, therefore, 
 in my next chapter, return to my school, from whence, I 
 fear, I have too long been a truant. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 21 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 He that writes of himself , not easily tired. — Boys may give men 
 lessons. — The authors preferment at school; attended with 
 misfortunes. — The danger of merit among equals. — Of sa. 
 tirists and backbiters. — What effect they have had upon the 
 author. — Stanzas published by himself, against him,self. 
 
 IT often makes me smile to think how contentedly I have 
 set myself down to write my own life ; nay, and with less 
 concern for what may be said of it, than I should feel were I to 
 do the same for a deceased acquaintance. This you will easily 
 account for, when you consider that nothing gives a cox- 
 comb more delight, than when you suffer him to talk of him- 
 self ; which sweet liberty I here enjoy for a whole volume 
 together; a privilege which neither could be allowed me, 
 nor would become me to take, in the company I am gene- 
 rally admitted to ; but here, when I have all the talk to 
 myself, and have nobody to interrupt or contradict me, 
 surely to say whatever I have a mind other people should 
 know of me, is a pleasure which none but authors as vain as 
 myself can conceive. — But to my history. 
 
 However little worth notice the life of a school-boy may 
 be supposed to contain, yet, as the passions of men and 
 children have much the same motives, and differ very little 
 in their effects, unless where the elder experience may be 
 able to conceal them ; as, therefore, what arises from the boy 
 may possibly be a lesson to the man, I shall venture to relate a 
 fact or two, that happened while I was still at school. 
 
 In February, 1684-5, died King Charles the Second, who 
 
 c3 
 
20- AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 being the only king I had ever seen, I remember, young as 
 I was, his death made a strong impression upon me, as it 
 drew tears from the eyes of multitudes who looked no fur- 
 ther into him than I did : but it was, then, a sort of school- 
 doctrine to regard our monarch as a deity ; as, in the former 
 reign, it was to insist he was accountable to this world as 
 well as to that above him. But what, perhaps, gave King 
 Charles the Second, this peculiar possession of so many hearts, 
 was his affable and easy manner in conversing ; which is a 
 quality that goes farther with the greater part of mankind 
 than many higher virtues, which, in a prince, might more 
 immediately regard the public prosperity. Even his indo- 
 lent amusement of playing with his dogs, and feeding his 
 ducks, in St. James's Park, which I have seen him do, 
 made the common people adore him, and, consequently, 
 overlook in him what in a prince of a different temper they 
 might have been out of humour at. 
 
 I cannot help remembering one more particular in those 
 times, though it be quite foreign to what will follow. I 
 was carried by my father to the chapel in Whitehall ; where 
 I saw the king and his royal brother, the then Duke of 
 York, with him in the closet, and present during the whole 
 divine service. Such dispensation, it seems, for his inter- 
 est, had that unhappy prince from his real religion, to assist 
 at another, to which his heart was so utterly averse. — I now 
 proceed to the facts I promised to speak of. 
 
 King Charles's death was judged, by our school-master, 
 a proper subject to lead the form I was in into a higher kind 
 of exercise ; he therefore enjoined us, severally, to make 
 his ftmeral oration : this sort of task, so entirely new to us 
 all, the boys received with astonishment, as a work above 
 their capacity ; and though the master persisted in his com- 
 mand, they one and all, except myself, resolved to decline 
 it. But I, sir, who was ever giddily forward, and thought- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 23 
 
 less of consequences, set myself roundly to work, and got 
 through it as well as I could. I remember to this hour that 
 single topic of his affability, which made me mention it be- 
 fore, was the chief motive that warmed me into the under- 
 taking ; and to show how very childish a notion I had of 
 his character at that time, I raised his humanity and love of 
 those who served him to such a height; that I imputed his 
 death to the shock he received from the Lord Arlington's 
 being at the point of death about a week before him. This 
 oration, such as it was, I produced the next morning : all 
 the other boys pleaded their inability, which the master, 
 taking rather as a mark of their modesty than their idleness, 
 only seemed to punish, by setting me at the head of the form : 
 a preferment dearly bought. Much happier had I been to 
 have sunk my performance in the general modesty of declin- 
 ing it. A most uncomfortable life I led among them, for 
 many a day after ! I was so jeered, laughed at, and hated 
 as a pragmatical bastard, (school-boys' language) who had 
 betrayed the whole form, that scarce any of them would 
 keep me company ; and though it so far advanced me into 
 the master's favour, that he would often take me from the 
 school to give me an airing with him on horseback, while 
 they were left to their lessons, you may be sure such envied 
 happiness did not increase their good -will to me; not- 
 withstanding which, my stupidity could take no warning 
 from their treatment. An accident of the same nature hap- 
 pened soon after, that might have frightened a boy of a meek 
 spirit from attempting any thing above the lowest capacity. 
 On the 23d of April following, being the coronation- day of 
 the new king, the school petitioned the master for leave to 
 play ; to which he agreed, provided any of the boys would 
 produce an English ode upon that occasion. The very 
 word ode, I know, makes you smile already ; and so it does 
 me; not only because it still makes so many poor devils turn 
 
 c 4 
 
§i 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 wits upon it, but from a more agreeable motive ; from a re- 
 flection of how little I then thought that, half a century 
 afterwards, I should be called upon twice a year, by my 
 post, to make the same kind of oblations to an unexception- 
 able princfe, the serene happiness of whose reign my halt- 
 ing rhymes are still so unequal to. This, I own, is vanity 
 without disguise; but, '' Ha3C olim meminisse juvat:" 
 the remembrance of the miserable prospect we had then 
 before us, and have since escaped by a revolution, is now a 
 pleasure, which, without that remembrance, I could not so 
 heartily have enjoyed. The ode I was speaking of fell to 
 my lot, which, in about half an hour^ I produced. I can- 
 not say it was much above the merry style of ^' Sing, sing the 
 day, and sing the song," in the farce; yet, bad as it was, 
 it served to get the school a play-day, and to make me not 
 a little vain upon it ; which last effect so disgusted my play- 
 fellows, that they left me out of the party I had most a mind 
 to be of, in that day's recreation. But their ingratitude 
 served only to increase my vanity ; for I considered them as 
 so many beaten tits, that had just had the mortification of 
 seeing my hack of a Pegasus come in before them. This 
 low passion is so rooted in our nature, that sometimes riper 
 heads cannot govern it. I have met with much the same 
 silly sort of coldness, even from my contemporaries of the 
 theatre, from having the superfluous capacity of writing my- 
 self the characters I have acted. 
 
 Here, perhaps, I may again seem to be vain ; but if all 
 these facts are true, as true they are, how can I help it ? 
 Why am I obliged to coliceal them? The merit of the 
 best of them is not so extraordinary as to have warned me to, 
 be nice upon it ; and the praise due to them is so small a 
 fish, it was scarce worth while to throw my line into the wa- 
 ter for it. If I confess my vanity, while a boy, can it be 
 v«iity, when a man, to remember it ? And if 1 have a 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 25 
 
 tolerable feature, will not that as much belong to my pic- 
 ture as an imperfection? In a word, from what I have 
 mentioned I would observe only this : that when we are 
 conscious of the least comparative merit in ourselves, we 
 should take as much care to conceal the value we set upon 
 it, as if it were a real defect : to be elated or vain upon it, is 
 showing your money before people in want ; ten to one but 
 some who may think you have too much may borrow, or 
 pick your pocket before you get home. He who assumes 
 praise to himself the world will think overpays himself. 
 Even the suspicion of being vain ought as much to be dread- 
 ed as the guilt itself. Cassar was of the same opinion, in 
 regard to his wife's chastity. Praise, though it may be our 
 due, is not like a bank-bill, to be paid upon demand ; to be 
 valuable, it must be voluntary. When we are dunned for 
 it, we have a right and privilege to refuse it. If compul- 
 sion insists upon it, it can only be paid as persecution in 
 points of faith is, in a counterfeit coin : and who ever be- 
 lieved occasional conformity to be sincere ? Nero, the most 
 vain coxcomb of a tyrant that ever breathed, could not 
 raise an unfeigned applause of his harp by military execu- 
 tion ; even where praise is deserved, ill-nature and self-con- 
 ceit, passions that poll a majority of mankind, will, with 
 less reluctance, part with their money than their approba- 
 tion. Men of the greatest merit are forced to stay till they 
 die, before the world will fairly make up their account: 
 then, indeed, you have a chance for your full due, because 
 it is less grudged when you are incapable of enjoying it : 
 then, perhaps, even malice shall heap praises upon your 
 memory ; though not for your sake, but that your surviving 
 competitors may suffer by a comparison. It is from the 
 same principle that satire shall have a thousand readers, 
 where panegyric has one. When I therefore find my name 
 at length in the satirical works of our most celebrated living 
 
26 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 authoi',* I never look upon those lines as malice meant to 
 me, (for he knows I never provoked it,) but profit to him- 
 self: one of his points must be to have many readers : he 
 considers that my face and name are more known than those 
 of many thousands of more consequence in the kingdom ; 
 that, therefore, right or wrong, a " Lick at the Laureaff 
 will always be a sure bait, ad captandum vulgus, — to catch 
 him little readers : and that to gratify the unlearned, by now 
 and then interspersing those merry sacrifices of an old ac- 
 quaintance to their taste, is a piece of quite right poetical 
 craft. 
 
 But as a little bad poetry is the greatest crime he lays to 
 my charge, I am willing to subscribe to his opinion of it. 
 That this sort of wit is one of the easiest ways, too, of 
 pleasing the generality of readers, is evident from the com- 
 fortable subsistence which our weekly retailers of politics 
 have been known to pick up, merely by making bold with 
 a government that had unfortunately neglected to find their 
 genius a better employment. 
 
 Hence, too, arises all that flat poverty of censure and in- 
 vective that so often has a run in our public papers, upon 
 the success of a new author; when, God knows, there is sel- 
 dom above one writer among hundreds in being at the same 
 time, whose satire a man of common sense ought to be 
 moved at. When a master in the art is angry, then, indeed, 
 we ought to be alarmed. How terrible a weapon is satire in 
 the hand of a great genius ! Yet, even there, how liable is 
 prejudice to misuse it! How far, when general, it may 
 reform our morals, or what cruelties it may inflict by being 
 angrily particular, J is perhaps above my reach to determine. 
 
 * Pope. 
 
 t This is the tide of a pamphlet in which some of Mr. Gibber's 
 peculiarities have been severely handled. 
 
 I " every dunce of a reader knows he means — angr^ 
 
 with a particular person:'--'' Champion," April 29, 1740. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 27 
 
 I shall, therefore, only beg leave to interpose what I feel 
 for others whom it may personally have fallen upon. When 
 I read those mortifying lines of our most eminent author, in 
 his character of Atticus,* (Atticus, whose genius in verse, 
 and whose morality in prose, has been so justly admired,) 
 though I am charmed with the poetry, my imagination is 
 hurt at the severity of it ; and though T allow the satirist 
 to have had personal provocation, yet, methinks, for that 
 very reason, he ought not to have troubled the public with 
 it : for, as it is observed in the 242d " Tattler," '' In all 
 terms of reproof, when the sentence appears to arise from 
 personal hatred or passion, it is not then made the cause of 
 mankind, but a misunderstanding between two persons.'' 
 But if such kind of satire has its incontestible greatness ; 
 if its exemplary brightness may not mislead inferior wits 
 into a barbarous imitation of its severity, then I have only 
 admired the verses, and exposed myself, by bringing them 
 under so scrupulous a reflection : but the pain which the 
 acrimony of those verses gave me is, in some measure, al- 
 layed, in finding that this inimitable writer, as he advances 
 in years, has since had candour enough to celebrate the 
 same person for his visible merit. Happy genius, whose 
 verse, like the eye of beauty, can heal the deepest wounds 
 with the least glance of favour ! 
 
 Since I am got so far into this subject, you must give me 
 leave to go through all I have a mind to say upon it ; be- 
 cause I am not sure that, in a more proper place, my memory 
 may be so fuU of it. I cannot find, therefore, from what 
 reason satire is allowed more license than comedy, or why 
 either of them, to be admired, ought not to be limited by 
 decency and justice. Let Juvenal and Aristophanes have 
 
 * Addison, to whom this character was privately sent by Pope, 
 its exasperated writer. 
 
28 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 taken what liberties they please, if the learned have nothing 
 more than their antiquity to justify their laying about them 
 at that enormous rate, I shall wish they had a better excuse 
 for them. The personal ridicule and scurrility thrown upon 
 Socrates, which Plutarch too condemns, and the boldness of 
 Juvenal, in writing real names over guilty characters, I can- 
 not think are to be pleaded in right of our modern liberties 
 of the same kind. Facit indignatio versum may be a very 
 spirited expression, and seems to give a reader hopes of a 
 lively entertainment ; but I am afraid reproof is in unequal 
 hands when anger is its executioner ; and though an out- 
 rageous invective may carry some truth in it, yet it will ne- 
 ver have that natural, easy credit with us, which we give 
 to the laughing ironies of a cool head. The satire that can 
 smile " circum praecordia ludit,'* and seldom fails to bring 
 the reader quite over to his side, whenever ridicule and 
 folly are at variance ; but when a person satirised is used 
 with the extremest rigour, he may sometimes meet with com- 
 passion instead of contempt, and throw back the odium that 
 was designed for him, upon the author. When I would, 
 therefore, disarm the satirist of this indignation, I riean little 
 more than that I would take from him all private or personal 
 prejudice, and would still leave him as much general vice to 
 scourge as he pleases, and that with as much fire and spirit as 
 art and nature demand, to enliven his work, and keep his 
 reader awake. 
 
 Against all this it may be objected, that these are laws 
 which none but phlegmatic writers will observe, and only men 
 of eminence should give. I grant it, and therefore only 
 submit them to writers of better judgment. I pretend not 
 to restrain others from chusing what I don't like ; they are 
 welcome, if they please, too, to think I offer these rules more 
 from an incapacity to break them, than from a moral huma- 
 nity. Let it be so still ; that will not weaken the strength of 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 29 
 
 what I have asserted, if my assertion be true. And though 
 I allow that provocation is not apt to weigh out its resent- 
 ments by drachms and scruples, I shall still think that no 
 public revenge can be honourable, where it is not limited by 
 justice ; and if honour is insatiable in its revenge, it loses 
 what it contends for, and sinks itself, if not into cruelty, at 
 least, into vain-glory. v 
 
 This so singular concern which I have shown for others, 
 may naturally lead you to ask me what I feel for myself, 
 when I am unfavourably treated by the elaborate authors of 
 our daily papers. Shall I be sincere, and own my frailty ? 
 Its usual effect is to make me vain ; for I consider, if I were 
 quite good for nothing, these piddlers in wit would not be 
 concerned to take me to pieces, or (not to be quite so vain) 
 when they moderately charge me with only ignorance or 
 dulness, I see nothing in that which an honest man need be 
 ashamed of.* There is many a good soul, who, fi'om those 
 sweet slumbers of the brain, are never awakened by the least 
 harmful thought; and I am sometimes tempted to think 
 those retailers of wit may be of the same class ; that what 
 they write proceeds not from malice, but industry ; and that 
 I ought no more to reproach them, than I would a lawyer 
 that pleads against me for his fee ; that their detraction, like 
 dung thrown upon a meadow, though it may seem at first to 
 deform the prospect, in a little time it will disappear of it- 
 self, and leave an involuntary crop of praise behind it.f 
 
 * When Gibber was charged with moral offences of a deeper 
 dye, he thought himself at liberty, I presume, to relinquish his in- 
 difference, and bring the libeller to account. On a future page will 
 be found the public advertisement in which he offered a reward of 
 ten pounds for the detection of Dennis. 
 
 t There are instances, however, in which detraction has rather 
 lain " like lumps of marl upon a barren moor, encumbering what 
 they cannot fertilise." — Sheridan's " Critic." 
 
so AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 When Ihey confine themselves to a sober criticism upon 
 what I write, if their censure is just, what answer can I 
 make to it ? If it is unjust, why should I suppose that a sen- 
 sible reader will not see it, as well as myself? Or, admit I 
 were able to expose them, by a laughing reply, will not that 
 reply beget a rejoinder? And though they might be gainers, 
 by having the worst on't, in a paper war, that is no temp- 
 tation for me to come into it. Or (to make both sides less 
 considerable) would not my bearing ill-language, from a 
 chimney-sweeper, do me less harm, than it would be to box 
 with him, though I were sure to beat him ? Nor indeed is 
 the little reputation I have as an author, worth the trouble 
 of a defence. Then, as no criticism can possibly make me 
 worse than I really am, so nothing I can say of myself can 
 possibly make me better ; when therefore a determined cri- 
 tic comes armed with wit and outrage, to take from me that 
 small pittance I have, I would no more dispute with him, 
 than I would resist a gentleman of the road, to save a little 
 pocket-money. Men that are in want themselves, seldom 
 make a conscience of taking it from others. Whoever 
 thinks I have too much, is welcome to what share of it he 
 pleases ; nay, to make him more merciful, (as I partly guess 
 the worst he can say of what I now write) I will prevent 
 even the imputation of his doing me injustice, and honestly 
 say it myself; viz. That of all the assurances I was ever 
 guilty of, this, of writing my own life is the most hardy, — I 
 beg his pardon, — impudent is what I should have said ; 
 that through every page there runs a vein of vanity and im- 
 pertinence, which no French ensign's " Memoirs" ever came 
 up to ; but, as this is a common error, I presume the terms 
 of doating trifler^ old fool, or conceited coxcomb, will carry 
 contempt enough for an impartial censor to bestow on me ; 
 that my style is unequal, pert, and frothy, patched and party- 
 coloured, like the coat of an harlequin; low and pompous. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 31 
 
 crammed with epithets, strewed with scraps of second-hand 
 Latin from common quotations ; frequently aiming at wit, 
 without ever hitting the mark ; a mere ragout, tossed up 
 from the offals of other authors ; my subject below all pens 
 but my own, which, whenever I keep to, is flatly daubed by 
 one eternal egotism ; that I want nothing but wit to be as 
 an accomplished a coxcomb here, as ever I attempted to ex- 
 pose on the theatre ; nay, that this very confession is no 
 more a sign of my modesty, than it is a proof of my judg- 
 ment ; that, in short, you may roundly tell me, that 
 
 '' Cinna (or Gibber) vult videri pauper, et est pauper." 
 
 When humble Cinna cries, " Pm poor and low," 
 You may beleve him — he is really so. 
 
 Well, Sir Critic ! and what of all this ? Now I have laid 
 myself at your feet, what will you do with me ? Expose me ? 
 Why, dear sir, does not every man that writes expose him- 
 self? Can you make me more ridiculous than nature has 
 made me ? You could not surely suppose, that I would lose 
 the pleasure of writing, because you might possibly judge 
 me a blockhead, or perhaps might pleasantly tell other peo- 
 ple they ought to think me so, too. Will not they judge as 
 well from what I say, as what you say ? If then you attack 
 me merely to divert yourself;, your excuse for writing will be 
 no better than mine. But perhaps you may want bread : 
 if that be the case, even go to dinner, in God's name ! 
 
 If our best authors, when teazed by these triflers, have 
 not been masters of this indiftbrence, I should not wonder if 
 it were disbelieved in me ; but when it is considered that I 
 have allowed my never having been disturbed into a reply 
 has proceeded as much from vanity as from philosophy, the 
 matter then may not seem so incredible : and though I con- 
 fess, the complete revenge of making them immortal dunces 
 in immortal verse, might be glorious, yet, if you will call 
 
32 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 it insensibility in me, never to have winced at them, even 
 that insensibility has its happiness ; and what could glory 
 give me more ? For my part, I have always had the com- 
 fort to think, whenever they designed me a disfavour^ it ge- 
 nerally flew back into their own faces, as it happens to chil- 
 dren when they squirt at their play-fellows against the 
 wind. If a scribbler cannot be easy, because he fancies I 
 have too good an opinion of my own productions, let him 
 write on, and mortify ; I owe him not the charity to be out 
 of temper myself, merely to keep him quiet, or give him joy : 
 nor, in reality, can I see, why any thing misrepresented, 
 though believed of me by persons to whom I am unknown, 
 ought to give me any more concern, than what may be 
 thought of me in Lapland : 'tis with those with whom I 
 am to live only, where my character can affect me ; and I 
 will venture to say, he must find out a new way of writing, 
 that will make me pass my time there less agreeably. 
 
 You see, sir, how hard it is for a man that is talking of 
 himself, to know when to give over ; but if you are tired, lay 
 me aside till you have a fresh appetite ; if not, I'll tell you 
 a story. 
 
 In the year 1730, there were many authors, whose merit 
 wanted nothing but interest to recommend them to the va- 
 cant laurel, and who took it ill, to see it at last conferred 
 upon a comedian ; insomuch, that they were resolved, at 
 least, to shew specimens of their superior pretensions, and 
 accordingly enlivened the public papers with ingenious epi- 
 grams, and satirical flirts, at the unworthy successor : these 
 papers, my friends, with a wicked smile, would often put 
 into my hands, and desire me to read them fairly in com- 
 pany : this was a challenge which I never declined, and, 
 to do my doughty antagonists justice, I always read them 
 with as much impartial spirit, as if I had written them my- 
 self. While I was thus beset on all sides, there happened 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 33 
 
 to step forth a poetical knight-errant to my assistance, who 
 was hardy enough to publish some compassionate stanzas in 
 my favour. These, you may be sure, the raillery of my 
 friends could do no less than say, I had written to myself. 
 To deny it, I knew, would but have confirmed their pre- 
 tended suspicion : 1 therefore told them, since it gave them 
 such joy to believe them my own, I would do my best to 
 make the whole town think so, too. As the oddness of this 
 reply was, I knew, what would not be easily comprehended, 
 I desired them to have a day's patience, and I would print an 
 explanation to it : to conclude, in two days after I sent this 
 letter, with some doggerel rhymes at the bottom. 
 
 To the Author of the Whitehall Evening Post. 
 Sir, 
 The verses to the laureat, in yours of Saturday last, have occa- 
 sioned the following reply, which I hope you'll give a place in your 
 next, to show that we can be quick as well as smart, upon a pro- 
 per occasion : and, as I think it the lowest mark of a scoundrel to 
 make bold with any man's character in print, without subscribing 
 the true name of the author ; I therefore desire, if the laureat is 
 concerned enough to ask the question, that you will tell him my 
 name, and where I live ; till then, I beg leave to be known by no 
 
 other than that of. 
 
 Your servant, 
 Monday, Jan. 11, 1730. Francis Fairplay. 
 
 These were the verses. 
 
 Ha, ha ! Sir Coll, is that thy way. 
 
 Thy own dull praise to write? 
 And would'st thou stand so sure a lay ? 
 
 No, that's too stale a bite. 
 
 Nature and art in thee combine. 
 
 Thy talents here excel : 
 All shining brass thou dost outshine, , 
 
 To play the cheat so well. 
 D 
 
34 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Who sees thee in lago's part. 
 
 But thinks thee such a rogue, 
 And is not glad, with all his heart, 
 
 To hang so sad a dog ? 
 
 When Bays thou play'st, thyself thou art ; 
 
 For that by nature fit, 
 No blockhead better suits the part. 
 
 Than such a coxcomb wit. 
 
 In Wronghead, too, thy brains we see. 
 
 Who might do well at plough; 
 As fit for parliament was he. 
 
 As for the laurel, thou. 
 
 Bring thy protected verse from court. 
 
 And try it on the stage ; 
 There it will make much better sport. 
 
 And set the town in rage. 
 
 There beaux, and wits, and cits, and smarts. 
 
 Where hissing's not uncivil. 
 Will show their parts, to thy deserts. 
 
 And send it to the devil. 
 
 But, ah ! in vain, 'gainst thee we write. 
 
 In vain thy verse we maul ! 
 Our sharpest satire's thy delight, 
 
 *For — blood ! thou'lt stand it all. 
 
 Thunder, 'tis said, the laurel spares ; 
 
 Nought but thy brows could blast it : 
 And yet — O curst, provoking stars ! 
 
 Thy comfort is, thou hast it. 
 
 This, sir, I offer as a proof, that I was seven years ago the 
 same cold candidate for fame, which I would still be thought ; 
 
 * A line in the epilogue to the " Nonjuror." — Author. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 35 
 
 you will not easily suppose I could have much concern 
 about it, while, to gratify the merry pique of my friends, I 
 was capable of seeming to head the poetical cry then against 
 me, and at the same time of never letting the public know, 
 till this hour, that these verses were written by myself: nor 
 do I give them you as an entertainment, but merely to show 
 you this particular cast of my temper. 
 
 When I have said this, I would not have it thought af- 
 fectation in me, when I grant, that no man worthy the name 
 of an author, is a more faulty writer than myself; that I am 
 not master of my own language, I too often feel, when I am 
 at a loss for expression. I know, too, that I have too bold a 
 disregard for that correctness, which others set so just a value 
 upon : this I ought to be ashamed of, when I find that persons, 
 perhaps of colder imaginations, are allowed to write better 
 than myself Whenever I speak of any thing that highly 
 delights me, I find it very difficult to keep my words within 
 the bounds of common sense : even when I write, too, the 
 same failing will sometimes get the better of me ; of which 
 I cannot give you a stronger instance, than in that wild ex- 
 pression I made use of in the first edition of my preface to 
 the " Provoked Husband;" where, speaking of Mrs. Old- 
 field's excellent performance in the part of Ladj/ Townly^ 
 my words ran thus, xi%. '' It is not enough to say, that here 
 she outdid her usual outdoing."— A most vile jingle, I grant 
 it. You may well ask me, how could I possibly commit 
 such a wantonness to paper ? And I owe myself the shame 
 of confessing, I have no excuse for it, but that, like a lover 
 in the fulness of his content, by endeavouring to be floridly 
 grateful, I talked nonsense. Not but it makes me smile to 
 remember how many flat writers have made themselves 
 brisk upon this single expression ; wherever the verb, " out- 
 do," could come in, the pleasant accusative, " outdoing," 
 was sure to follow it. The provident wags knew, that " De. 
 
 D 2 
 
30 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 cies repetitaplaceret :'' so delicious a morsel could not be 
 served up too often. After it had held them nine times (old 
 for a jest, the public has been pestered with a tenth skull, 
 thick enough to repeat it. Nay, the very learned in the 
 law, have at last facetiously laid hold of it. Ten years after 
 it first came from me, it served to enliven the eloquence 
 of an eminent pleader before a House of Parliament ! 
 What author would not envy me so frolicsome a fault, that 
 had such public honours paid to it ? 
 
 After this consciousness of my real defects, you will easily 
 judge, sir, how little I presume that my poetical labours may 
 outlive those of my mortal cotemporaries. 
 
 At the same time that I am so humble in my pretensions 
 to fame, I would not be thought to undervalue it ; nature 
 will not suffer us to despise it, but she may sometimes make 
 us too fond of it. I have known more than one good writer, 
 very nearly ridiculous, from being in too much heat about 
 it. Whoever intrinsically deserves it, will always have a 
 proportionable right to it. It can neither be resigned, nor 
 taken from you by violence. Truth, which is unalterable, 
 must (however his fame may be contested) give every n^n 
 his due : what a poem weighs, it will be worth ; nor is it in 
 the power of human eloquence, with favour or prejudice, to 
 increase or diminish its value. Prejudice, 'tis true, may a 
 while discolour it ; but it will always have its appeal to the 
 equity of good sense, which will never fail, in the end, to re- 
 verse all false judgment against it. Therefore, when I see 
 an eminent author hurt, and impatient at an impotent attack 
 upon his labours, he disturbs my inclination to admire him ; 
 I grow doubtful of the favourable judgment I have made of 
 him, and am quite uneasy to see him so tender, in a point he 
 cannot but know he ought not himself to be judge of; his 
 concern, indeed, at another's prejudice, or disapprobation, 
 may be natural ; but, to own it, seems to me a natural weak- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. S7 
 
 ness. When a work is apparently great, it will go without 
 crutches ; all your heart and anxiety, to heighten the fame 
 of it, then becomes low and little. He that will bear no cen- 
 sure, must be often robbed of his due praise. Fools have as 
 good a right to be readers, as men of sense have, and why not 
 to give their judgments, too ? Methinks it would be a sort of 
 tyranny in wit, for an author to be publicly putting every 
 argument to death that appeared against him ; so absolute a 
 demand for approbation, puts us upon our right to dispute 
 it ; praise is as much the reader's property, as wit is the 
 author's ; applause is not a tax paid to him as a prince, but 
 rather a benevolence given to him as a beggar ;* and we have 
 naturally more charity for the dumb beggar, than the sturdy 
 one. The merit of a writer, and a fine woman's face, are 
 never mended by their talking of them : how amiable is she 
 that seems not to know she is handsome ! 
 
 To conclude; all I have said upon this subject is much 
 better contained in six lines of a reverend author,f which 
 will be an answer to all critical censure ibr ever. 
 
 Time is the judge ; time has nor friend nor foe ; 
 
 False fame will wither, and the true will grow. 
 
 Arm'd with this truth, all critics I defy. 
 
 For, if I fall, by my own pen I die, 
 
 While snarlers strive, with proud but fruitless pain,. 
 
 To wound immortals, or to slay the slain. 
 
 * This is an assertion in which we cannot coincide, because if 
 even Mr. Gibber's statement be correct, that wit is an author's 
 property, the public in accepting it, are bound to return him an 
 adequate compensation. Will any man maintain that praise is 
 gratuitously bestowed upon the finer passages of Shakspeare,. 
 without any reference to their equitable demands, as rich flights of 
 subhmity, or rare specimens of humour ? 
 
 t Dr. Young. 
 
 n 3 
 
^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 The author^ $ several chances for the church, the court, and the 
 army. — Going to the university, met the revolution at Not- 
 tingham. — Took arms on that side. — Wtiat fie saw of it. — A 
 few political thoughts. — Fortune willing to do for him. — His 
 neglect of her. — The stage preferred to all her favours, — The 
 profession of an actor considered. — The m,isfortunes and ad- 
 vantages of it. 
 
 I AM now come to that crisis of my life, when Fortune 
 seemed to be at a loss what she should do with me. Had she 
 favoured my father's first designation of me, he might then, 
 perhaps, have had as sanguine hopes of my being a bishop, 
 as I afterwards conceived of my being a general, when I 
 first took arms, at the revolution. Nay, after that, I had a 
 third chance, too, equally as good, of becoming an under- 
 propper of the state. How, at last, I came to be none of 
 all these, the sequel will inform you. 
 
 About the year 1687, I was taken from school to stand at 
 the election of children into Winchester College ; and being, 
 by my mother's side, a descendant of William of Wykeham, 
 the founder, my father, who knew little how the world was 
 to be dealt with, imagined my having that advantage, would 
 be security enough for my success, and so sent me simply 
 down thither, without the least favourable recommendation 
 or interest, but that of my naked merit, and a pompous pe- 
 digree in my pocket. Had he tacked a direction to my 
 back, and sent me by the carrier to the mayor of the town, 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 39 
 
 to be chosen member of parliament there, I might have had 
 just as much chance to have succeeded in the one, as the 
 other. But I must not omit in this place, to let you know, 
 that the experience which my father then bought, at my 
 cost, taught him, some years after, to take a more judicious 
 care of my younger brother, Lewis Gibber, whom, with the 
 present of a statue of the founder, of his own making, he 
 recommended to the same college. This statue now stands 
 (I think) over the school- door there, and was so well exe- 
 cuted, that it seemed to speak for its kinsman. It was 
 
 no sooner set up, than the door of preferment was open to 
 him. 
 
 Here, one would think, my brother had the advantage of 
 me, in the favour of fortune, by this his first laudable step 
 into the world. I own, I was so proud of his success, that 
 I even valued myself upon it ; and yet it is but a melan- 
 choly reflection, to observe how unequally his profession 
 and mine were provided for ; when I, who had been the 
 outcast of fortune, could find means, from my income of the 
 theatre, before I was my own master there, to supply, in his 
 highest preferment, his common necessities. I cannot part 
 with his memory without telling you, I had as sincere a 
 concern for this brother's well-being, as my own. He had 
 lively parts, and more than ordinary learning, with a good 
 deal of natural wit and humour ; but fi:om too great a dis- 
 regard to his health, he died a fellow of New College, in 
 Oxford, soon after he had been ordained by Dr. Compton, 
 then Bishop of London. I now return to the state of my 
 own affair at Winchester. 
 
 After the election, the moment I was informed that I was 
 one of the unsuccessful candidates, 1 blest myself to think 
 what a happy reprieve 1 had got, from the confined life of a 
 school-boy, and the same day took post back to London, 
 that I might arrive time enough to see a play (then my dar- 
 
 D 4 
 
40 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 ling delight) before my mother might demand an account 
 of my travelling charges. When I look back to that time, 
 it almost makes me tremble to think what miseries, in fifty 
 years farther in life, such an unthinking head was liable to. 
 To ask, why Providence afterwards took more care of me 
 than I did of myself, might be making too bold an inquiry 
 into its secret will and pleasure : all I can say to that, point 
 is, that I am thankful, and amazed at it.* 
 
 'Twas about this time I first imbibed an inclination, which 
 I durst not reveal, for the stage ; for, besides that I knew it 
 would disoblige my father^ I had no conception of any 
 means, practicable, to make my way to it. I therefore sup- 
 pressed the bewitching ideas of so sublime a station, and 
 compounded with my ambition by laying a lower scheme, 
 of only getting the nearest way into the immediate life of a 
 gentleman collegiate. My father being at this time em- 
 ployed at Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, by the (then) Earl of 
 Devonshire, who was raising that seat from a Gothic, to a 
 Grecian magnificence, I made use of the leisure I then 
 had, in London, to open to him, by letter, my disinclination 
 to wait another year for an uncertain preferment at Win- 
 chester, and to entreat him that he would send me, per sal- 
 tum, by a short cut, to the university. My father, who was 
 
 ^ There is a levity in this sentence, which accords with the 
 charges so often brought against Gibber of impiety and irreligion. 
 Dennis, in a " Letter to Sir John Edgar," alias Sir Richard 
 Steele, accuses him of spitting upon a picture of our Saviour, at 
 Bath, and Dr. Johnson informed Davies, (l) that Gibber having 
 once entered into conversation, at Tunbridge, with the famous 
 Mr. Whiston, on purpose to insult him, that gentleman cut the 
 matter short by declining to discourse with him, he being a clergy- 
 man, and his antagonist, as he told him, not only a player, but, as 
 he had heard, a pimp. 
 
 (1) Dramatic Miscellanies. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 41 
 
 natnrally indulgent to me, seemed to comply with my re- 
 quest, and wrote word, that as soon as his affairs would per- 
 mit, he would carry me with him, and settle me in some col- 
 lege, but rather at Cambridge, where,during his late residence 
 at that place, in making some statues that now stand upon 
 Trinity College new library, he had contracted some ac- 
 quaintance with the heads of houses, who might assist his 
 intentions for me. This I liked better than to go discoun- 
 tenanced to Oxford, to which it would have been a sort of 
 reproach to me, not to have come elected. After some 
 months were elapsed, my father not being willing to let me 
 lie too long idling in London, sent for me down to Chats- 
 worth, to be under his eye, till he could be at leisure to 
 carry me to Cambridge. Before 1 could set out, on my 
 journey thither, the nation fell in labour of the revolution, 
 the news being then just brought to London, that the Prince 
 of Orange, at the head of an army, was landed in the west. 
 When I came to Nottingham, I found my father in arms 
 there, among those forces which the Earl of Devonshire had 
 raised for the redress of our violated laws and liberties. 
 My father judged this a proper season, for a young stripling 
 to turn himself loose into the bustle of the world ; and being 
 himself too advanced in years, to endure the winter fatigue, 
 which might possibly follow, entreated that noble lord, that 
 he would be pleased to accept of his son in his room, and 
 that he would give him (my father) leave to return, and 
 finish his works at Chats worth. This was so well received 
 by his lordship, that he not only admitted of my service, 
 but promised my father, in return, that when affairs were 
 settled, he would provide for me. Upon tftis, my father 
 returned to Derbyshire, while I, not a little transported, 
 jumped into his saddle. Thus, in one day, all my thoughts 
 of the University were smothered in ambition ! A slight 
 commission, for a horse officer, was the least view I had 
 
42 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 before me. At this crisis, you cannot but observe that the 
 fate of King James and of the Prince of Orange, and that of 
 so minute a being as myself, were all at once upon the an- 
 vil. In what shape they would severally come out, though 
 a good guess might be made, was not then demonstrable to 
 the deepest foresight ; but as my fortune seemed to be of 
 small importance to the public, Providence thought fit to 
 postpone it, till that of those great rulers of nations was 
 justly perfected. Yet, had my father's business permitted 
 him to have carried me, one month sooner, as he intended, 
 to the University, who knows but, by this time, that purer 
 fountain might have washed my imperfections into a capa- 
 city of writing, instead of plays and annual odes, sermons, 
 and pastoral letters. But whatever care of the church 
 might so have fallen to my share, as I dare say it may be 
 now, in better hands, I ought not to repine at my being 
 otherwise disposed of. 
 
 You must, now, consider me as one among those despe- 
 rate thousands, who, after a patience sorely tried, took 
 arms under the banner of necessity, the natural parent of all 
 human laws and government. I question, if in all the 
 histories of empire, there is one instance of so bloodless a 
 revolution, as that in England in 1688, wherein whigs, 
 tories, princes, prelates, nobles, clergy, common people, 
 and a standing army, were unanimous. To have seen all 
 England of one mind, is to have lived at a very particular 
 juncture. Happy nation ! who are never divided among 
 themselves, but when they have least to complain of Our 
 greatest grievance since that time, seems to have been, that 
 we cannot all govern ; and till the number of good places 
 are equal to those who think themselves qualified for them, 
 there must ever be a cause of contention among us. While 
 great men want great posts, the nation will never want real 
 or seeming patriots ; and while great posts are filled with 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 43 
 
 persons whose capacities are but human, such persons will 
 never be allowed to be without errors. Not even the revo- 
 lution, with all its advantages, it seems, has been able to 
 furnish us with unexceptionable statesmen, for, from that 
 time, I don't remember any one set of ministers, that have 
 not been heartily railed at; a period long enough, one 
 would think, if all of them have been as bad as they have , 
 been called, to make a people despair of ever seeing a good 
 one. But as it is possible that envy, prejudice, or party, 
 may sometimes have a share in what is generally thrown 
 upon them, it is not easy for a private man to know who is 
 absolutely in the right, from what is said against them, or 
 from what their friends or dependants may say in their 
 favour ; though I can hardly forbear thinking, that they 
 who have been longest railed at, must, from that circum- 
 stance, show, in some sort, a proof of capacity. But to 
 
 my history. 
 
 It were almost incredible to tell you, at the latter end of 
 King James's time, though the rod of arbitrary power was 
 always shaking over us, with what freedom and contempt 
 the common people, in the open streets, talked of his wild 
 measures to make a whole protestant nation papists ; and 
 yet, in the height of our secure and wanton defiance of 
 him, we, of the vulgar, had no farther notion of any re- 
 medy for this evil, than a satisfied presumption that our 
 numbers were too great to be mastered by his mere will 
 and pleasure ; that though he might be too hard for our 
 laws, he would never be able to get the better of our 
 nature ; and that to drive all England into popery and 
 slavery, he would find would be teaching an old lion to 
 dance.* 
 
 * His favourite simile is a lion. Thus, [4to.] page .39, we have 
 a " satisfied presumption, that **** to drive all England into 
 
44 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 But, happy was it for the nation, that it had then wiser 
 heads in it, who knew how to lead a people so disposed 
 into measures for the public preservation. 
 
 Here, I cannot help reflecting on the very different 
 deliverances England met with, at this time, and in the 
 very same year of the century before: then, (in 1588) 
 under a glorious princess, who had at heart the good and 
 happiness of her people, we scattered and destroyed the 
 most formidable navy of invaders that ever covered the 
 seas : and now, (in 1688) under a prince who had alienated 
 the hearts of his people, by his absolute measures to oppress 
 them, a foreign power is received with open arms, in de- 
 fence of our laws, liberties, and religion, which our native 
 prince had invaded. How widely different were these 
 two monarchs in their sentiments of glory ! But, tantum 
 religio potuit suadere malorum.* 
 
 When we consider in what height of the nation's pro- 
 sperity the successor of Queen Elizabeth came to this 
 throne, it seems amazing that such a pile of English fame 
 and glory, which her skilful administration had erected, 
 should, in every following reign, down to the Revolution, 
 
 popery and slavery, **** would be teaching an old lion to dance." 
 At page 104, this " new race of critics seem **^* like the lion- 
 whelps in the Tower," &c. besides a third allusion to the same 
 animal ; and this brings into my mind a story which I once heard 
 from Booth, that our biographer had, in one of his plays, in a 
 local simile, introduced this generous beast in some island or coun- 
 try where lions did not grow ; of which being informed by the 
 learned Booth, the biographer replied, " Pr'ythee, tell me, then, 
 where there is a lion; for. Gad's curse, if there be a lion in Europe, 
 Asia, Africa, or America, I will not lose my simile." — " Cham- 
 pion," May 6, 1740. 
 
 * Vide note on page 43. ^ 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 45 
 
 SO unhappily moulder away, in one continual gradation of 
 political errors : all which must have been avoided, if the 
 plain rule, which that wise princess left behind her, had 
 been observed, viz. — That the love of her people was the 
 surest support of her throne. This was the principle by 
 which she so happily governed herself, and those she had 
 the care of In this she found strength to combat and 
 struggle through more difficulties and dangerous conspira- 
 cies, than ever English monarch had to cope with. At the 
 same time that she professed to desire the people's love, 
 she took care that her actions should deserve it, without 
 the least abatement of her prerogative ; the terror of 
 which she so artfully covered, that she sometimes seemed 
 to flatter those she was determined should obey. If the 
 four following princes had exercised their regal authority 
 with so visible a regard to the public welfare, it were hard 
 to know whether the people of England might have ever 
 complained of them, or even felt the want of that liberty 
 they now so happily enjoy. 'Tis true, that before her 
 time, our ancestors had many successful contests with their 
 sovereigns for their antient right and 'claim to it ; yet 
 what did those successes amount to ? Little more than a 
 declaration, that there was such a right in being ; but who 
 ever saw it enjoyed ? Did not the actions of almost every 
 succeeding reign show, there were still so many doors of 
 oppression left open to the prerogative, that, whatever 
 value our most eloquent legislators may have set upon those 
 antient liberties, I doubt it will be difficult to fix the 
 period of their having a real being, before the Revolution. 
 Or, if there ever was an elder period of our unmolested 
 enjoying them, I own my poor judgment is at a loss where 
 to place it. I will boldly say, then, it is to the Revolution 
 only, we owe the full possession of what, till then, we 
 never had more than a perpetually contested right to : 
 
46 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 And, from thence, from the Revolution, it is that the pro- 
 testant successors of King William have found their pater- ' 
 nal care and maintenance of that right has been the surest 
 basis of their glory. 
 
 These, sir, are a few of my political notions, which I 
 have ventured to expose, that you may see what sort of an 
 English subject I am ; how wise, or weak, they may have 
 shown me, is not my concern; let the weight of these 
 matters have drawn me never so far out of my depth, I 
 «till flatter myself that I have kept a simple, honest head 
 above water. And it is a solid comfort to me, to consider 
 that how insignificant soever my life was at the Revolution, 
 it had still the good fortune to make one, among the many, 
 who brought it about ; and that I now, with my coevals, 
 as well as with the millions since born, enjoy the happy 
 effects of it. 
 
 But I must now let you see how my particular fortune 
 went forward, with this change in the government ; of which 
 I shall not pretend to give you any farther account than 
 what my simple eyes saw of it. 
 
 We had not been many days at Nottingham, before we 
 heard, that the Prince of Denmark, with some other great 
 persons, were gone off, from the King, to the Prince of 
 Orange, and that the Princess Ann, fearing the king her fa- 
 ther's resentment might fall upon her, for her consort's re- 
 volt, had withdrawn herself, in the night, from London, and 
 was then within half a day's journey of Nottingham ; on 
 which very morning we were suddenly alarmed with the 
 hews, that two thousand of the king's dragoons were in 
 close pursuit to bring her back'prisoner to London. But 
 this alarm, it seems^ was all stratagem, and was but a part 
 of that general terror which was thrown into many other 
 places about the kingdom, at the same time, with design 
 to animate and unite the people in their common defence ; 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 47 
 
 it being then given out, that the Irish were every where 
 at our heels, to cut oiF all the protestants within the reach 
 of their fury. In this alarm our troops scrambled to arms, 
 in as much order as their consternation would admit of, 
 when having advanced some few miles on the London 
 road, they met the princess in a coach, attended only by 
 the Lady Churchill, (now Duchess Dowager of Marl- 
 borough) and the Lady Fitzharding, whom they conducted 
 into Nottingham, through the acclamations of the people. 
 The same night all the noblemen, and the other persons of 
 distinction, then in arms, had the honor to sup at her 
 Royal Highness's table, which was then furnished (as all 
 her necessary accommodations were) by the care, and at 
 the charge of the Lord Devonshire. At this entertainment, 
 of which I was a spectator, something very particular sur- 
 prised me. The noble guests at the table happening to be 
 more in number, than attendants, out of liveries, could be 
 found for, I being well known in the Lord Devonshire's 
 family, was desired by his lordship's Maitre d'Hotel to as- 
 sist at it. The post assigned me was to observe what the 
 Lady Churchill might call for. Being so near the table, 
 you may naturally ask me, what I might have heard to have 
 passed in conversation at it, which I should certainly tell 
 you, had I attended to above two words that were uttered 
 there, and those were, "Some wine and water." These, 
 I remember, came distinguished, and observed to my ear, 
 because they came from the fair guest, whom I took such 
 pleasure to wait on. Except at that single sound, all my 
 senses were collected into my eyes, which during the whole 
 entertainment wanted no better amusement, than of steal- 
 ing now and then the delight of gazing on the fair object 
 so near me. If so clear an emanation of beauty, such a 
 commanding grace of aspect, struck me into a regard that 
 had something softer than the most profound respect in it, 
 
4B AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 I cannot see why I may not, without offence, remember 
 it ; since beauty, like the sun, must sometimes lose its 
 power to chuse, and shine* into equal warmth, the peasant 
 and the courtier. Now to give you, sir, a farther proof of 
 how good a taste my first hopefuL entrance into manhood 
 set out with, I remember above twenty years after, when 
 the same lady had given the world four of the loveliest 
 daughters that ever were gazed on, even after they were 
 all nobly married, and were become the reigning toasts 
 of every party of pleasure, their still lovely mother had at 
 the same time her votaries, and her health very often took 
 the lead, in those involuntary triumphs of beauty. How- 
 ever presumptuous or impertinent these thoughts might 
 have appeared at my first entertaining them, why may I 
 not hope that my having kept them decently secret, for full 
 fifty years, may be now a good round plea for their pardon ? 
 Were I now qualified to say more of this celebrated lady, I 
 should conclude it thus : — that she has has lived, to all ap- 
 pearance, a peculiar favourite of Providence ; that few ex- 
 amples can parallel the profusion of blessings which have 
 attended so long a life of felicity. A person so attractive ; 
 a husband so memorably great ; an offspring so beautiful ; 
 a fortune so immense ; and a title, which, when royal f i- 
 vour had no higher to bestow, she only could receive from 
 the author of nature, a great grandmother without grey 
 heirs ! These are such consummate indulgencies, that we 
 might think Heaven has center'd them all in one person, to 
 let us see how far, with a lively understanding, the full pos- 
 session of them could contribute to human happiness. I 
 now return to our military affairs. 
 
 * Though shine has here been most ungrammatically made a 
 verb active, it is impossible to understand our author's meaning, 
 with even thatllicentious assistance. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 49 
 
 From Nottingham our troops marched to Oxford ; through 
 every town we passed, the people came out, in some sort of 
 order, with such rural, and rusty weapons as they had, to 
 meet us, in acclamations of welcome, and good wishes. 
 This, I thought, promised a favourable end of our civil war, 
 when the nation seemed so willing to be all of a side. At 
 Oxford, the Prince and Princess of Denmark met, for the 
 first time, after their late separation, and had all possible 
 honours paid them by the University. Here we rested in 
 quiet quarters for several weeks, till the flight of King 
 James into France ; when the nation being left to take care 
 of itself, the only security that could be found for it, was to 
 advance the Prince and Princess of Orange to the vacant 
 throne. The public tranquillity being now settled, our 
 forces were remanded back to Nottingham, Here all our 
 officers, who had commanded them from their first rising, 
 received commissions to confirm them in their several posts ; 
 and at the same time, such private men as chose to return 
 to their proper business or habitations, were offered their 
 discharges. Among the small number of those, who re- 
 ceived them, I was one ; for not hearing that my name was 
 in any of these new commissions, I thought it time for me 
 to take my leave of ambition, as ambition had before se- 
 duced me from the imaginary honours of the gown, and 
 therefore resolved to hunt my fortune in some other field.* 
 
 * Mr. Gibber's natural temperament was that of notorious ti- 
 midity, which led him, we are justified in supposing, to relinquish 
 his military pursuit. The players, who were subjected to his au- 
 thority, had no other hold upon any of his passions to accomplish 
 these views, and Mr. Victor related the following story in support 
 of this imputation. 
 
 BickerstafT, a comedian, whose benefit-play Sir Richard Steele, 
 in No. 3 of the " Tatler," good naturedly recommended to the 
 public as his relation, had acquired an income of ^4 per week. 
 
 E 
 
50 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 From Nottingham, I again returned to my father at 
 Chatsworth, where I staid till my Lord came down, with 
 the new honours of Lord Steward of his Majesty's house- 
 hold, and Knight of the Garter. A noble turn of fortune, 
 — and a deep stake he had played for ; — which calls to my 
 memory a story, we had then in the family, which, though 
 too light for our graver historians' notice, may be of weight 
 enough for my humble memoirs. This noble lord being in 
 the presence-chamber, in King James's time, and known to 
 be no friend to the measures of his administration, a cer- 
 tain person in favour there, and desirous to be more so, took 
 occasion to tread rudely upon his lordship's foot, which 
 was returned with a sudden blow upon the spot. JFor this 
 misdemeanour, his lordship was fined thirty thousand pounds; 
 but I think had some time allowed him for the payment. In 
 the summer preceding the revolution, when his lordship 
 was retired to Chatsworth, and had been there deeply en- 
 
 Cibber, in an economical moment, retrenched one half of his sa- 
 lary, and was immediately waited upon by the impoverished actor, 
 who knew from what quarter this diminution had arisen. He re- 
 presented the largeness of his family, and concluded by flatly in- 
 forming the cowardly manager, that, as he could not subsist upon 
 the narrow allowance to which he had reduced him, he must call 
 the author of his distress to account, for that he would rather perish 
 by the sword, than die from starvation. The affrighted Gibber re- 
 ferred him to the next Saturday for answer, when he found his usual 
 stipend was restored to its plenary amount." — " Dramatic Miscel- 
 lanies," vol. 3, p. 437. 
 
 To Gibber's passive valour. Lord Ghesterfield ironically al- 
 ludes in a weekly paper, called "Gommon Sense :" — "of all the 
 comedians who have appeared on the stage in my memory, no one 
 has taken a kicking with such humour as our excellent laureat :" 
 and it is said that Gay gave him some striking proofs of the re- 
 sentment he felt against him for the manner in which, when acting 
 BaySy he alluded to his comedy of " Three Hours after Marriage." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 51 
 
 gaged with other noblemen, in the measures which soon 
 after brought it to bear, King James sent a person down to 
 him, with offers to mitigate his fine, upon conditions of 
 ready payment, to which his lordship replied, ^'that if his 
 Majesty pleased to allow him a little longer time, he would 
 rather chuse to play ' double or quit' with him." The time 
 of the intended rising being then so near at hand, the de- 
 mand, it seems, came too late for a more serious answer. 
 
 However low my pretensions to preferment were at this 
 time, my father thought that a little court-favour added to 
 them, might give him a chance for saving the expense of 
 maintaining me, as he had intended, at the University. He 
 therefore ordered me to draw up a petition to the duke, and 
 to give it some air of merit, to put it into Latin, the prayer 
 of which was, that his grace would be pleased to do some- 
 thing (I reaUy forget what) for me. However, the duke, 
 upon receiving it, was so good as to desire my father would 
 send me to London in the winter, where he would consider 
 of some provision for me. It might, indeed, well require 
 time to consider it ; for I believe it was then harder to know 
 what I was really fit for, than to have got me any thing I 
 was not fit for However, to London I came, where I en- 
 tered into my first state of attendance and dependance for 
 about five months, till the February following. But, alas ! 
 in my intervals of leisure, by frequently seeing plays, my 
 wise head was turned to higher views ; I saw no joy in any 
 other life than that of an actor ; so that, as before, when a 
 candidate at Winchester, I was even afraid of succeeding to 
 the preferment I sought fol*. 'Twas on the stage alone I 
 had formed a happiness preferable to all that camps or courts 
 could offer me, and there was I determined, let father and 
 mother take it as they pleased, to fix my non ultra. Here 
 I think myself obliged, in respect to the honour of that noble 
 lord, to acknowledge, that I believe his real intentions to 
 do well for me were prevented by my own inconsiderate 
 
 e2 
 
52 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 folly ; SO that if my life did not then take a more laudable 
 turn, I have no one but myself to reproach for it ; for I was 
 credibly informed by the gentlemen of his household, that 
 his grace had, in their hearing, talked of recommending me 
 to the Lord Shrewsbury, then Secretary of State, for the first 
 proper vacancy in that office. But the distant hope of a 
 reversion was too cold a temptation for a spirit impatient as 
 mine, that wanted immediate possession of what my heart 
 was so differently set upon. The allurements of a theatre 
 are still so strong in my memory, that perhaps few, except 
 those who have felt them, can conceive : and I am yet so 
 far willing to excuse my folly, that I am convinced, were 
 it possible to take off that disgrace and prejudice, which 
 custom has thrown upon the profession of an actor, many 
 a well-born younger brother, and beauty of low fortune, 
 would gladly have adorned the theatre, who by their not 
 being able to brook such dishonour to their birth, have pas- 
 sed away their lives decently unheeded and forgotten. 
 
 Many years ago, when I was first in the management of 
 the theatre, I remember a strong instance, which will show 
 you what degree of ignominy the profession of an actor 
 was then held at. A lady, with a real title, whose female 
 indiscretions had occasioned her family to abandon her, 
 * being willing, in her distress, to make an honest penny of 
 what beauty she had left, desired to be admitted as an ac- 
 tress ; when, before she could receive our answer, a gentle- 
 man, probably by her relations' permission, advised us not 
 to entertain her, for reasons easy ^o be guessed. You may 
 imagine we could not be so blind to our interest as to make 
 an honourable family our unnecessary enemies, by not taking 
 his advice ; which the lady, too, being sensible of, she saw the 
 affair had its difficulties, and therefore pursued it no farther. 
 Now, is not it hard that it should be a doubt whether this 
 lady's condition or ours were the more melancholy ? For, 
 here you find her honest endeavour to get bread from the 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 53 
 
 stage was looked upon as an addition of new scandal to her 
 former dishonour ; so that I am afraid, according to this 
 way of thinking, had the same lady stooped to have sold 
 patches and pomatum, in a band-box, fi'om door to door, 
 she might, in that occupation, have starved with less in- 
 famy, than had she relieved her necessities by being famous 
 on the theatre. Whether this prejudice may have arisen 
 from the abuses that so often have crept in upon the stage, 
 I am not clear in ; though when that is grossly the case, I 
 will allow there ought to be no limits set to the contempt of 
 it. Yet in its lowest condition, in my time, methinks there 
 could have been no pretence of preferring the band-box to 
 the buskin ; but this severe opinion, whether merited or not, 
 is not the greatest distress that this profession is liablp to. 
 
 I shall now give you another anecdote, quite the reverse 
 of what I have instanced, wherein you will see an actress 
 as hardly used for an act of modesty, which, without being 
 a prude, a woman, even upon the stage, may sometimes 
 think it necessary not to throw oflf. This, too, I am forced 
 to premise, that the truth of what I am going to tell you, 
 may not be sneered at before it be known. About the year 
 1717, a young actress, of a desirable person, sitting in an 
 upper box at the opera, a military gentleman thought this 
 a proper opportunity to secure a little conversation with 
 her; the particulars of which were, probably, no more 
 worth repeating, than it seems the demoiselle then thought 
 them worth listening to ; for, notwithstanding the fine 
 things he said to her, she rather chose to give the music the 
 preference of her attention. This indifference was so of- 
 fensive to his high heart, that he began to change the ten- 
 der into the terrible, and, in short, proceeded at last to 
 treat her in a style too grossly insulting, for the meanest 
 female ear to endure unresented ; upon which, being 
 beaten too far out of her discretion, she turned hastily upon 
 
 E 3 
 
5i AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 him, with an angry look, and a reply which seemed to set 
 his merit in so low a regard, that he thought himself ob- 
 liged in honour to take his time to resent it. This was the 
 full extent of her crime, which his glory delayed no longer 
 to punish, than till the next time she was to appear upon 
 the stage. There, in one of her best parts, wherein she 
 drew a favourable regard and approbation from the au- 
 dience, he, dispensing with the respect which some people 
 think due to a polite assembly, began to interrupt her per- 
 formance, with such loud and various notes of mockery, as 
 other young men of honour, in the same place, have some- 
 times made themselves undauntedly merry with. Thus, 
 deaf to all murmurs or entreaties, of those about him, he 
 pursued his point, even to throwing near her such trash 
 as no person can be supposed to carry about him, unless to 
 use on so particular an occasion. 
 
 A gentleman, then behind the scenes, being shocked at 
 his unmanly behaviour, was warm enough to say, that no 
 man but a fool or a bully could be capable of insulting an 
 audience or a woman in so monstrous a manner. The former 
 valiant gentleman,towhose ear the words were soon brought, 
 by his spies, whom he had placed behind the scenes, to ob- 
 serve how the action was taken there, came immediately 
 from the pit, in a heat, and demanded to know of the au- 
 thor of those words, if he was the person that spoke them ; 
 to which he calmly replied, that though he had never seen 
 him before, yet, since he seemed so earnest to be satisfied, 
 he would do him the favour to own, that indeed the words 
 were his, and that they would be the last words he should 
 chuse to deny, whoever they might fall upon. To con- 
 clude, their dispute was ended the next morning in Hyde 
 Park, where the determined combatant, who first asked for 
 satisfaction, was obliged afterwards to ask his life, too ; 
 whether he mended it or not, I have not yet heard ; but 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 55 
 
 his antagonist, in a few years after, died in one of the prin- 
 cipal posts of the government. 
 
 Now though I have, sometimes, known these gallant in- 
 sulters of audiences, draw themselves into scrapes, which 
 they have less honourably got out of, yet, alas ! what has 
 that availed ? This generous public-spirited method of 
 silencing a few was but repelling the disease in one part, 
 to make it break out in another : all endeavours at protec- 
 tion are new provocations, to those who pride themselves 
 in pushing their courage to a defiance of humanity. Even 
 when a royal resentment has shown itself in the behalf of 
 an injured actor, it has been unable to defend him from 
 farther insults, an instance of which happened in the late 
 King James's time. Mr. Smith,* whose character as a 
 
 * This judicious actor, who is said to have been originally a bar- 
 rister, came into the Duke's Company, when acting under Sir Wil- 
 liam D'Avenant, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, about the year 1663, and 
 made his debut, according to conjecture, as the Corregidor in Tuke's 
 " Adventures of Five Hours."( 1 ) He rose soon after to the duties 
 of Buckingham, in " King Henry the Eighth," and subsequently 
 filled a range of characters distinguished by their variety and im- 
 portance. Sir William Stanley, in Caryl's wretched play of the 
 " English Princess," procured him additional estimation and ap- 
 plause, which were still farther enlarged by his performance of 
 Standford in Shadwell's " Sullen Ebvers." Mr. Smith was the 
 original Chamont in Otway's " Orphan," and played many parts 
 of as much local consequence in pieces that are now forgotten. 
 
 Chetwood informs us that Mr. Smith was zealously attached to 
 the interests of King James the Second, in whose army, attended 
 by two servants, he entered as a volunteer. Upon the abdication 
 of that monarch, he returned to the stage, by the persuasions of 
 many friends, who admired his performances, and resumed his 
 
 (1) This is the first part in which his appearance is noted by Downs the 
 prompter. 
 
 E 4 
 
56 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 gentleman, could have been no way impeached, had he not 
 degraded it by being a celebrated actor, had the misfortune, 
 
 original part of Wtlmore in the "Rover;" but having been re- 
 ceived with considerable disapprobation, on account of his party 
 principles, the audience was dismissed, and he departed from pub- 
 lic life in the manner already mentioned. It is difficult to recon- 
 cile these discrepancies. Chetwood's minuteness locks like credi- 
 bility, and Gibber has committed a mistake in stating that Mr. 
 Smith ** entirely quitted" the stage at this secession, he having re- 
 turned in 1695, when at the earnest solicitations of his sincere 
 friends Mr. Betterton and Mrs. Barry, strengthened by the influ- 
 ence of Congreve over many of his connections in high life, he 
 consented to sustain the part of Scandal in that author's comedy of 
 " Love for Love," upon its production at the new theatre in Lit- 
 tle Lincoln's Inn Fields, when his inimitable performance imparted 
 an extra charm to that admirable play. Continued peals of ap- 
 plause attested the satisfaction which his auditors felt at the re- 
 turn of their old favourite, and it seems singular that Congreve 
 should have wholly overlooked this memorable event, in the " pro- 
 logue" at least, where the defection of Williams and Mrs. Monnt- 
 fort is thus obscurely stated : 
 
 Forbear your wonder, and the fault forgive, 
 
 If in our larger family we grieve 
 
 One falling Adam, and one tempted Eve. 
 
 These individuals deserted from the new colony before a single 
 performance had taken place, and returned to their original em- 
 ployment in Drury-lane, from a refusal on the part of Betterton 
 and his associates to reward their services by a fair equivalent. 
 Mr. Smith continued on the stage till about twelve months after 
 this period, when, according to Downs, having a long part in 
 Banks's tragedy of "Cyrus,"( 2) he fell sick on the fourth day of 
 performance, and died from a cold, as Chetwood relates, occa- 
 sioned by cramp, which having seized him while in bed, he rose to 
 
 (2) 4to, 1696. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 57 
 
 in a dispute with a gentleman behind the scenes, to receive 
 a blow from him. The same night an account of this ac- 
 
 get rid of it, and remained so long in his naked condition, that a 
 fever ensued from disordered lungs, and, in three days, put an end 
 to his existence. 
 
 Barton Booth appears to have entertained a profound reverence 
 for the abilities of Mr. Smith, upon whose death he composed the 
 following inscription : 
 
 Scenicus eximius, 
 
 Regnante Carolo Secundo : 
 
 Bettertono coetaneus et amicus. 
 
 Nee non propemodum sequalis : 
 
 Haud ignobile stirpe oriundus. 
 
 Nee literarum rudis humaniorum. 
 
 Rem scenicam 
 
 Per multos feliciter annos administravit, 
 
 Justoque moderamine, et modum suavitate. 
 
 Omnium inter theatrum 
 
 Observantiam, extra theatrum laudem, 
 
 Ubique benevolentiam et amorem, sibi concilia vit.( 3) 
 
 We have but a slender clue to the stage-management of Mr. 
 Smith, which was exercised over the Duke's Company in Dorset- 
 
 (3) Or, in English, as follows : 
 
 An excellent actor. 
 
 Flourishing in the reign of Charles the Second ; 
 
 Betterton's cotemporary and friend. 
 
 And very near him in merit : 
 
 Sprung from a genteel family 
 
 And no stranger to polite literature. 
 
 In the management of the drama 
 
 He acquitted himself many years with deserved success ; 
 
 And, by a just deportment and sweetness of temper. 
 
 Gained respect of all within the theatre. 
 
 The praise of all Avithout it, 
 
 And every where retained the friendship 
 
 And affection of mankind. 
 
58 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 tion was carried to the king, to whom the gentleman was 
 represented so grossly in the wrong, that, the next day his 
 
 garden, conjointly with Betterton and Dr. D'Avenant, when the 
 famous agreement which bears their signatures was concluded with 
 Hart and Kynaston, for an union of the theatres. It has been said 
 that Booth applied to him for an engagement, which was refused 
 from a fear of offending his relatives, but with that kindness of ex- 
 pression and deportment so warmly distinguished in his epitaph. 
 This assertion, however, is unfounded, for when Mr. Smith died. 
 
 Barton Booth was a Westminster scholar, and in the fourteenth 
 
 » 
 year of his age ; the character of this eminent comedian must, ac- 
 cordingly have been drawn up from such intelligence as the writer 
 acquired at a subsequent period.(4) 
 
 It only remains to be remarked, that Chetwood has placed Mr. 
 Smith's original return to the stage in the year 1692 ; but, not to 
 insist upon the known looseness of this writer's information, let us 
 ask if a political offence would be so vehemently remembered, after 
 the lapse of four years, as to drive an estimable actor from the harm- 
 less pursuance of his ordinary duties? Cibber is doubtless correct 
 in the floating date of this fact, which must have haippened previous 
 to the revolution. Mr. Smith was a principal actor in Lee's later 
 tragedies, but in the " Princess of Cleve," 4to, 1689, we find the 
 part he would naturally have played to Betterton's Nemours, sup- 
 ported by Mr. Williams. 
 
 Smith's value as an actor, may be immediately felt by a refer- 
 ence to the parts he enjoyed under Betterton, with whom he lived 
 till death in the most cordial manner, enhancing his fame by ho- 
 nourable emulation, and promoting his interests by unbroken 
 amity. No instance has been recorded of their dissention or dis- 
 pute, and from the notice which Betterton extended to Booth, he 
 very possibly communicated that high account of his departed 
 friend, which the latter has recorded with such spirit and fidelity. 
 
 From Gibber's admission, it appears, that Smith's moral quali- 
 
 (4) Davies's " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. III. p. 334. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 59 
 
 majesty sent to forbid him the court upon it. This indig- 
 nity cast upon a gentleman, only for having maltreated a 
 player, was looked upon as the concern of every gentleman ; 
 and a party was soon formed to assert and vindicate their 
 honour, by humbling this favoured actor, whose slight in- 
 jury had been judged equal to so severe a notice. Accord- 
 ingly, the next time Mr. Smith acted, he was received with 
 a chorus of cat-calls, that soon convinced him he should 
 not be suffered to proceed in his part ; upon which, without 
 ^ the least discomposure, he ordered the curtain to be dropped ; 
 and, having a competent fortune of his own, thought the 
 conditions of adding to it;, by his remaining upon the stage, 
 were too dear, and from that day entirely quitted it.* I 
 shall make no observation upon the king's resentment, or on 
 that of his good subjects ; how far either was, or was not 
 right, is not the point 1 dispute for : be that as it may, the 
 unhappy condition of the actor was so far from being re- 
 lieved by this royal interposition in his favour, that it was 
 the worse for it. 
 
 While these sort of real distresses, on the stage, are so 
 unavoidable, it is no wonder that young people of sense, 
 (though of low fortune,) should be so rarely found, to sup- 
 ply a succession of good actors. Why then may we not, in 
 some measure, impute the scarcity of them, to the wanton 
 inhumanity of those spectators, who have made it so terri- 
 bly mean to appear there ? Were there no ground for this 
 question, where could be the disgrace of entering into a so- 
 ciety, whose institution, when not abused, is a delightful 
 school of morality ; and where, to excel, requires as ample 
 
 ties and professional excellence procured him an extensive recep- 
 tion among people of rank, a patronage which his polished manners 
 continued to exact, till society, by his death, sustained one of its 
 deepest deprivations. 
 
 * This mistake is corrected in the foregoing note. 
 
60 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 endowments of nature,* as any one profession, that of holy 
 institution excepted, whatsoever ? But, alas, as Shakspeare 
 
 says. 
 
 Where is that palace, whereinto foul things. 
 Sometimes, intrude not? 
 
 Look into St. Peter's at Rome, and see what a profitable 
 farce is made of religion there. Why then is an actor 
 more blemished than a cardinal, while the excellence of 
 the one arises froni his innocently seeming what he is not, 
 and the eminence of the other, from the most impious falla- * 
 cies that can be imposed upon human understanding ? If 
 the best things, therefore, are most liable to corruption, 
 the corruption of the theatre is no disproof of its innate and 
 primitive utility. 
 
 In this light, therefore, all the abuses of the stage, all the 
 low, loose, or immoral supplements, to wit, whether, in 
 making virtue ridiculous, or vice agreeable, or in the deco- 
 rated nonsense and absurdities of pantomimical trumpery, 
 I give up to the contempt of every sensible spectator, as so 
 much rank theatrical popery, but cannot still allow these 
 enormities to impeach the profession, while they are so 
 palpably owing to the depraved taste of the multitude. 
 While vice and farcical folly are the most profitable com- 
 
 * And what value is intrinsically attached to the most " ample 
 endowments of nature ?" They are spontaneous, and so far in- 
 ferior to the slightest accomplishments that can be secured by 
 laborious research, or unwearied cultivation. If the honours of 
 acting, as we have long suspected, depend upon no other attri- 
 butes than those that nature accords, — if its highest excellencies lie 
 beyond the grasp of science or acuteness, and yet are attainable 
 by strong nerves and a handsome form, we may pronounce it to 
 be a profession which no being can embrace with any solid claims 
 to intellectual consideration. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 61 
 
 modities, why should we wonder that, time out of mind, 
 the poor comedian, when real wit would bear no price, 
 should deal in what would bring him most ready money ? 
 But this, you will say, is making the stage a nursery of vice 
 and foUy, or at least keeping an open shop for it. — -I gTant 
 it : but who do you expect should reform it ? The actors ? 
 Why so ? If people are permitted to buy it, without blush- 
 ing, the theatrical merchant seems to have an equal right 
 to the liberty of selling it, without reproach. That this 
 evil wants a remedy, is not to be contested ; nor can it be 
 denied, that the theatre is as capable of being preserved, 
 by a reformation, as matters of more importance, which, 
 for the honour of our national taste, I could wish were at- 
 tempted ; and then, if it could not subsist, under decent 
 regulations, by not being permitted to present any thing 
 there, but what were worthy to be there, it would be time 
 enough to consider, whether it were necessary to let it to- 
 tally fall, or effectually support it. 
 
 Notwithstanding all my best endeavours to recommend 
 the profession of an actor to a more general favour, I 
 doubt, whil^ it is liable to sTich corruptions, and the actor 
 himself to such unlimited insults, as I have already menti- 
 oned, I doubt, I say, we must still leave him a- drift, with 
 his intrinsic merit, to ride out the storm as well as he is 
 able. 
 
 However, let us now turn to the other side of this ac- 
 count, and see what advantages stand there, to balance the 
 misfortunes I have laid before you. There we shall stiU 
 find some valuable articles of credit, that' sometimes over- 
 pay his incidental disgraces. 
 
 First, if he has sense, he will consider, that as these in- 
 dignities are seldom or never offered him by people that 
 are remarkable for any one good quality, he ought not 
 to lay them too close to his heart. He will know, too, that 
 
(i^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 when malice, envy, or a brutal nature, can securely hide 
 or fence themselves in a multitude, virtue, merit, inno- 
 cence, and even sovereign superiority, have been, and 
 must be equally liable to their insults ; that, therefore, when 
 they fall upon him in the same manner, his intrinsic value 
 cannot be diminished by them. On the contrary, if, with 
 a decent and unruffled temper, he lets them pass, the dis- 
 grace will return upon his aggressor, and perhaps warm 
 the generous spectator into a partiality in his favour. 
 
 That while he is conscious, that, as an actor, he must be 
 always in the hands of injustice, it does him at least this 
 involuntary good, that it keeps him in a settled resolution 
 to avoid all occasions of provoking it, or of even offending 
 the lowest enemy, who, at the expense of a shilling, may 
 publicly revenge it. 
 
 That, if he excels on the stage, and is irreproachable in 
 his personal morals and behaviour, his profession is so far 
 from being an impediment, that it will be oflener a just 
 reason for his being received among people of condition 
 with favour ; and sometimes with a more social distinc- 
 tion, than the best, though more profitable trade he might 
 have followed, could have recommended him to.* 
 
 * What is the familiarity with which our more notorious ex- 
 hibitors on the stage are treated by persons of lofty rank and intel- 
 lectual power, but a gross violation of their own attributes, and a 
 flagrant departure from inherent propriety? If a singer, for in- 
 stance, the mere possessor of fine natural organs, is not only en- 
 couraged in the sphere of public exertion, but flattered b}^ the 
 smiles of private favour, such monstrous affability is neither due to 
 the individual on whom it falls, nor consistent with the quarter from 
 which it proceeds. Yet such a pander to public enjoyment inhales 
 the very sunshine of worldly splendour, and while talents of labo- 
 rious growth or general utility are excluded from observation, this 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 63 
 
 That this is a happiness to which several actors^ within 
 my memory, as Betterton, Smith, Mountfort, Captain Grif- 
 fin,* and Mrs. Bracegirdle, (yet living,) have arrived at ; 
 to which I may add the late celebrated Mrs. Oldfield. 
 Now let us suppose these persons, the men, for example, 
 to have been all eminent mercers, and the women as fa- 
 mous milliners, can we imagine, that merely as such, 
 though endowed with the same natural understanding, they 
 could have been called into the same honourable parties 
 of conversation ?f People of sense and condition could 
 not but know, it was impossible they could have had such 
 various excellencies on the stage, without having something 
 naturally valuable in them : and I will take upon me to af- 
 firm^ who knew them all living, that there was not one of 
 
 paltry machine of unsubstantial amusement sweeps through the rosy 
 walks of Hfe, surrounded with affluence, and courted by power. 
 
 * This gentleman joined the King's Company at the period when 
 Haynes and others were added to its numbers, and is first men- 
 tioned by Downs for Varnish^ in the " Plain-dealer;" 4to, 1677. 
 He is afterwards set down for Lysimachus, in the " Rival Queens;" 
 Serapion, in " All for Love ;" Archelaus, in " Mithridates ;" and 
 Southampton, 'n\ the " Unhappy Favourite." Upon the junction 
 of the establishments in 1682, Mr. Griffin is said to have abided 
 by Mohun in his opposition to their united measures; we find him, 
 however, recorded for Pontius, in " Valentinian ;" 4to, 1685. 
 During that year his performance of Surly, in " Sir Courtly Nice," 
 excited uncommon admiration ; his Sir Edward Belford, in the 
 " Squire of Alsatia," was also deemed a master-piece; and his as- 
 sumption of Manly, in the " Plain-dealer," upon the retirement of 
 Hart, enhanced his reputation to the utmost. 
 
 Cibber bears evidence to the esteem in which Griffin was pri- 
 vately held, and we have only to lament that nothing farther can 
 be related of so valuable an actor. 
 
 t Certainly not; but, " with the same natural understanding," 
 they would as fully have deserved it. 
 
64 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the number, who were not capable of supporting a variety 
 of spirited conversation, though the stage were never to 
 have been the subject of it. 
 
 That, to have trod the stage has not always been 
 thought a disqualification from more honourable employ- 
 ments ; several have had military commissions ; Carlile* and 
 Wiltshiref were both killed captains ; one, in King Wil- 
 liam's reduction of Ireland ; and the other, in his first war, 
 in Flanders ; and the famous^Ben Jonson, though an unsuc- 
 cessful actor, was afterwards made poet-laureat. 
 
 To these laudable distinctions let me add one more ; 
 that of public applause, which, when truly merited, is, per- 
 haps, one of the most agreeable gratifications that venial 
 vanity can feel. A happiness, almost peculiar to the actor, 
 insomuch that the best tragic writer, however numerous 
 his separate admirers may be, yet, to unite them into one 
 general act of praise, to receive at once, those thundering 
 peals of approbation, which a crowded theatre throws out, 
 he must still call in the assistance of the skilful actor, | to 
 raise and partake of them. 
 
 * James Carlile, whom Downs alludes to as having " grown," 
 about 1682, " to the maturity of a good actor," was a native of 
 Lancashire, and embraced his theatrical life upon the boards of 
 Drury-lane. That he joined the united companies, there is ample 
 reason to believe, but his choice was at length directed ta the pro- 
 fession of arms, which he followed beneath the conduct of King 
 Wilham the Third, in whose service he fought and fell at the bat- 
 tle of Augrhira, in Ireland, on the 1 1th of July, 1691. 
 
 Mr. Carlile produced a comedy, called the " Fortune-hunters," 
 which experienced a favourable reception. 
 
 t This actor is merely mentioned by Downs, as adhering to the 
 fortunes of Mohun, in his contest with the united companies, after 
 their famous junction in 1682. 
 
 I However unimpeachably this rule might have been admitted 
 to prevail in the time of Mr. Cibber, an actor has now but little 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 65 
 
 In a word, it was in this flattering light only, though 
 not perhaps so thoroughly considered, I looked upon the 
 life of an actor, when but eighteen years of age ; nor can 
 you wonder, if the temptations were too strong for so warm 
 a vanity as mine to resist ; but, whether excusable or not, 
 to the stage, at length, I came, and it is from thence, chief- 
 ly, your curiosity, if you have any left, is to expect a farther 
 account of me.* 
 
 reason to court the ** thundering peals" of popular applause, by 
 any other requisites than those of adventurous novelty, and news- 
 paper approbation. 
 
 * It is a pity for Mr. Gibber, that one of Cumberland's apos- 
 trophes to the stage was not in being at the time his sorrows for its 
 degradation were penned. I shall transcribe this morceau, how- 
 ever, as a peace-offering to such of the fraternity as my unguarded 
 doubts of their superior value may have tended to incense. 
 
 Wonderful in all ages, and honoured by all enlightened nations, hath been 
 the actor's magic art ; the theatres and forums of Greece were embeUished 
 with his statues ; they gazed upon him " like a descended god ;" their great- 
 est poets, down to >Eschy]us and Aristophanes, trod the stage in person : 
 Rome also honoured her actors, and they in return were the grace and orna- 
 ment of all societies ; their sayings were recorded, and collections of their 
 apothegms have come down to our times ; Caesar, in all his power, made suit 
 to them, and even knights of Rome did not revolt from the profession. 
 
 Yet, surely, it remains to be lamented, after all this mass of eulo- 
 gium, that the man who only brings the Muse's bantlings into the 
 world, has a better lot in it than he who claims the credit of beget- 
 ting them. 
 
66 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 A short view of the stage, from the year 1660, to the revolution. 
 — T%e King's and Duke's Companies united, composed the 
 best set of English actors yet known. — Their several theatrical 
 characters. 
 
 THOUGH I have only promised you an account of all the 
 material occurrences of the theatre during my own time> 
 yet there was one which happened not above seven years 
 before my admission to it, which may be as well worth no- 
 tice, as the first great revolution of it, in which, among 
 numbers, I was involved. And as the one will lead you 
 into a clearer view of the other, it may therefore be previ- 
 ously necessary to let you know that King Charles the Se- 
 cond, at his Restoration, granted two patents, one to Sir 
 William D'Avenant,* and the other to Thomas Kille- 
 
 * To this gentleman the English stage stands more deeply in- 
 debted than to any other individual, so far as zealous application 
 deserves to be considered, in promoting those rational pleasures 
 that are fittest for the entertainment of a civilised people. 
 
 Having been created poet-laureat at the death of Jonson, as a 
 further mark of royal favour, he was complimented with his Ma- 
 jesty's letters-patent to direct a theatrical company, bearing date 
 at Westminster, the six-and-twentieth day of March, 1639. In 
 pursuance of this latent authority. Sir William D' Avenant put hin. 
 self at the head of a company collected for temporary entertain- 
 ment; and having obtained a fresh license from Charles the Se- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 67 
 
 grew,* Esq. ; and their several heirs and assigns, for ever, 
 for the forming of two distinct companies of comedians. 
 The first were called the King's Servants, and acted at the 
 Theatre Royal in Drury-lane ; and the other the Duke's 
 Company, who acted at the Duke's Theatre, in Dorset-gar- 
 den. About ten of the King's Company were on the royal 
 household-establishment, having each ten yards of scarlet 
 cloth, with a proper quantity of lace allowed them for live- 
 ries; and in their warrants from the Lord Chamberlain, 
 were styled Gentlemen of the Great Chamber. Whether 
 the like appointments were extended to the Duke's Com- 
 pany, I am not certain ; but they were both in high estima- 
 tion with the public, and so much the delight and concern 
 of the court, that they were not only supported by its being 
 frequently present at their public presentations, but by its 
 taking cognisance even of their private government, inso- 
 
 cond, on the fifteenth day of January, 1662, he opened his new 
 theatre in Lincoln's-inn-fields, with a piece in which Mr. Betterton 
 introduced the moving scenes and other decorations, never, pub- 
 licly seen till that period upon the British stage. 
 
 He continued to manage the Duke's Company, which was after- 
 wards removed to a more magnificent theatre in Dorset-garden, 
 till the time of his death, an event that happened on the seventeenth 
 of April, 1668, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. 
 
 * The facetious Mr. Killegrew was page of honour to King Charles 
 the First, and faithfully adhered to that hapless monarch till the 
 period of his untimely death ; after which he attended his son into 
 exile, to whom he was highly acceptable on account of his many 
 convivial qualities. At the restoration he was appointed a groom 
 of the bedchamber, and complimented with one of the patents, em- 
 p wering him to preside over a certain set of actors, to be denomi- 
 nated the Company of the King and his Royal Consort. He died 
 at Whitehall, on the nineteenth of March, 1682. 
 
 f2 
 
68 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 much, that their particular differences, pretensions, or com- 
 plaints, were generally ended by the king or duke's personal 
 command or decision. Besides their being thorough mas- 
 ters of their art, these actors set forwards with two critical 
 advantages, which perhaps may never happen again in many 
 ages. The one was, their immediate opening after the so 
 long interdiction of plays, during the civil war, and the 
 anarchy that followed it. What eager appetites from so 
 long a fast must the guests of those times have had, to that 
 high and fresh variety of entertainments which Shakspeare 
 had left prepared for them ? Never was a stage so provid- 
 ed ! a hundred years are wasted, and another silent century 
 well advanced, and yet what unborn age shall say, Shak- 
 speare has his equal ? How many shining actors have the 
 warm scenes of his genius given to posterity, without being 
 himself, in his action, equal to his writing ! A strong proof 
 that actors, like poets, miist be born such. Eloquence and 
 elocution are quite different talents : Shakspeare could write 
 '' Hamlet," but tradition tells us, that the ghost in the same 
 play, was one of his best performances as an actor : nor is it 
 within the reach of rule or precept to complete either of 
 them. Instruction, it is true, may guard them equally 
 against iaults or absurdities^ but there it stops ; nature 
 must do the rest : to excel in either art, is a self-born hap- 
 piness, which something more than good sense must be the 
 mother of.* 
 
 * " There is such a combination of natural gifts requisite to the 
 formation of a complete actor, that it is more a case of wonder how 
 so many good ones are to be found, than why so few instances of 
 excellence can be produced. Every thing, that results from na- 
 ture alone, lies out of the province of instruction, and no rules 
 that I know of will serve to give a fine form, a fine voice, or even 
 those fine feelings, which are amongst the first properties of an 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 69 
 
 The other advantage I was speaking of is, that before 
 the Restoration, no actresses had ever been seen upon the 
 English stage.* The characters of women, on former 
 
 actor. These in fact are tools and materials of his trade, and these, 
 neither his own industry, nor any man's assistance can bestow. 
 But the right use and application of them is another question, and 
 there he must look for his directions from education, industry, and 
 judgment." — Cumberland's " Observer," No. 59. 
 
 * Their introduction was expressly stipulated for in Sir William 
 D'Avenant's patent, as the following extract will evince : 
 
 • ■ And for as much as many plays, formerly acted, do contain several 
 profane, obscene, and scurrilous passages ; and the womeris parts therein 
 have been acted hy men in the habits of women, AT WHICH SOME HAVE TAKEN 
 OFFENCE ; for the preventing' of these abuses for thefiture, We do hereby 
 strictly command and enjoin, that from henceforth no new play shall be acted 
 by either of the said companies, containing any passages offensive to piety and 
 good manners, nor any old or revived play, containing any such oflfensive 
 passages as aforesaid, until the same shall be corrected and purged, by the 
 said Masters or Governors of the said Companies, from all such offensive and 
 scandalous passages as aforesaid. And We do \\kew\se permit and give leave 
 that all the women's parts to be acted in either of the said two companies, for 
 the time to come, tnay be performed by tvomen, as long as these recreations, 
 which, by reason of the abuses aforesaid, were scandalous and offensive, may, 
 by such reformation, be esteemed not only harmless delights, but useful and 
 instructive representations of human life, to such of our good subjects as shall 
 resort to the same. 
 
 Mrs. Betterton is said to have been the first woman, before her 
 marriage, that appeared upon the English stage ; but this is an 
 error, as a Mrs. Coleman represented lanthe in the first part of 
 D'Avenant's " Siege of Rhodes," in 1656. Andrew Pennycuicke, 
 so late as the year before, had played the heroine of Davenport's 
 " King John." 
 
 It seems from a prologue written by Thomas Jordan, expressly 
 " to introduce the first woman that came to act on the stage," that 
 this lady, who performed Desdemona, was an unmarried woman, 
 and as Ann Marshall was the principal unmarried actress in the 
 
 f3 
 
70 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 theatres, were performed by boys, or young men of the 
 moste effeminate aspect. And what grace, or master- 
 strokes of action can we conceive such ungain hoydens to 
 have been capable of? This defect was so well considered 
 by Shakspeare, that in few of his plays, he has any greater 
 dependance upon the ladies, than in the innocence and 
 simplicity of a Desdemona^ an Ophelia^ or in the short 
 specimen of a fond and virtuous Portia. The additional 
 objects, then, of real, beautiful women, could not but draw 
 a proportion of new admirers to the theatre. We may 
 imagine, too, that these actresses were not ill chosen, when 
 it is well known, that more than one of them had charms 
 sufficient at their leisure hours, to calm and mollify the 
 cares of empire. Besides these peculiar advantages, they 
 had a private rule or agreement, which both houses 
 were happily tied down to, which was, that no play acted 
 at one house, should ever be attempted at the other. All 
 the capital plays, therefore, of Shakspeare, Fletcher, and 
 Ben Jonson, were divided between them, by the approba- 
 
 royal company, soon after the time this prologue was written, she 
 is perhaps entitled to its dubious distinction. It is said in Curl's 
 " History of the Stage," a book of no authority, and has been 
 repeated in various other compilations, that Mrs. Norris, the mother 
 of the celebrated comedian well known by the name of Jubilee 
 Dicky, ( 1 ) was the first actress who appeared upon the English 
 stage ; but this is highly improbable. 
 
 (1) Henry Norris was born in 1665, a fact which certainly does away the 
 inference of Mr. Malone, that his mother was too old, eight or ten years be- 
 fore, to sustain so juvenile a part as Desdemojia. It strikes me that the truth 
 recorded by Downs, of her not being a principal actress in D'Avenant's com- 
 pany at the time of its opening, militates much more strongly against the 
 tradition here contested. Davies, in his second volume of " Dramatic Mis- 
 cellanies," speaks of her as Norris's grandmother. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 71 
 
 tion of the court, and their own alternate choice: so that 
 when Hart* was famous for Othello^ Betterton had no 
 
 * Charles Hart was the great nephew of Shakspeare, his father, 
 William, ( 1 ) being the eldest son of our poet's sister Joan. 
 Brought up as an apprentice under Robinson, a celebrated actor, 
 he commenced his career, conformably to the practice of that time, 
 by playing female parts, among which the DuchesSy in Shirley's 
 tragedy of the " Carnival," was the first that exhibited his talents, 
 or enhanced his reputation (2). 
 
 Puritanism having gathered great strength, opposed theatrical 
 amusements as vicious and profane institutions, which it was at 
 length enabled to abolish and suppress. On the 1 1 th day of Fe- 
 bruary, 1 647, and the subsequent 22d of October, two ordinances 
 were issued by the Long Parliament, whereby all stage-players were 
 made liable to punishment for following their usual occupation. 
 Before the appearance of this severe edict, most of the actors had 
 gone into the army, and fought with distinguished spirit for their 
 unfortunate master; when, however, his fate was determined, the 
 surviving dependants on the drama were compelled to renew their 
 former efforts, in pursuance of which they returned, just before the 
 death of Charles, to act a few plays at the " Cockpit" theatre, where, 
 while performing the tragedy of " RoUo," they were taken into 
 custody by soldiers, and committed to prison (3). Upon this 
 occasion. Hart, who had been a lieutenant of horse, under Sir 
 Thomas Dallison, in Prince Rupert's own regiment, sustained the 
 character of Otto, a part which he afterwards relinquished to 
 
 (1) " He settled in London, and was an actor." — Malone. 
 
 (2) " Historia Histrionica," a dialogue on old plays and players, printed at 
 the end of thb work ; third edition, 1750. 
 
 (3) " A party of foot-soldiers beset the house, surprised them about 
 
 the middle of the play, and carried them away in their habits, not admitting 
 them to shift, to Hatton-house, then a prison, where having detained them 
 some time, they plundered them of their clothes, and let them loose again." 
 — /iirf. 
 
 f4 
 
72 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 less a reputation for Hamlet. By this order, the stage was 
 supplied with a greater variety of plays than could pos- 
 
 Kynaston, in exchange for the fierce energies of his ambitious 
 brother. 
 
 At the Restoration, Hart was enrolled among the company con- 
 stituting his Majesty's Servants, by whom the new Theatre Royal, 
 Drury-lane, was opened on the 8th of April, 1663, with Beaumont 
 and Fletcher's play of the " Humourous Lieutenant," in which he 
 sustained a principal character for twelve days of successive repre- 
 sentation (4). 
 
 About the year 1667, Hart introduced Mrs. Gwyn upon 
 the dramatic boards, and, has acquired the distinction of being 
 ranked among that lady's first felicitous lovers, by having suc- 
 ceeded to Lacy, in the possession of her charms (5). Nell had 
 been tutored for the stage by these admirers in conjunction, and 
 after testifying her gratitude to both, passed into the hands of Lord 
 Buckhurst, by whom she was transferred to the custody of King 
 Charles the Second. 
 
 The principal parts, according to Downs, sustained by Mr. 
 Hart, were Arbaces, in " King and No King;" Jmintor, in the 
 " Maid's Tragedy ;" (6) Othello, Rolla, Brutus, and Alexander 
 
 (4) The following curious announcement of this performance has been 
 preserved : 
 
 By His Majesty's Company of Comedians. 
 
 At the New Theatre in Drury-lane, 
 
 This day, being Thursday, April 8, 1663, will be acted a Comedy, called 
 
 THE HUMOUROUS LIEUTENANT. 
 
 King Mr. Wintersel. 
 
 Demetrius .... Mr. Hart. 
 
 Seleucus Mr. Burt. 
 
 Leontius Major Mohun. 
 
 Lieutenant Mr. Clun. 
 
 Celia Mrs. Marshal. 
 
 (5) This fact is declared in a satirical poem by Sir George Etherege, pub- 
 lished with the " Lives of the most celebrated Beauties," &c. 1715. 
 
 (6) Othello was acted for a short time, by Burt, while Hart played Cnssio. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 73 
 
 sibly have been shown, had both companies been employed 
 at the same time upon the same play ; which liberty, too, 
 
 the Great. Such was his attraction in all these characters, that, to 
 use the language of that honest prompter, " if he acted in any of 
 these but once in a fortnight, the house was filled as at a new play: 
 especially Alexander, he acting that with such grandeur and agree- 
 able majesty, that one of the court was pleased to honour him with 
 this commendation — * that Hart might teach any king on earth how 
 to comport himself.'" (7) His merit has also been specified as 
 Mosca, in the " Fox," Don, John, in the " Chances," and Wild- 
 blood, in an " Evening's Love ;" which, however, according to the 
 same authority, merely harmonised with his general efforts, in 
 commanding a vast superiority over the best of his successors. 
 
 Rymer has said (8) that Hart's action could throw a lustre round 
 the meanest characters, and, by dazzling the eyes of the spectator, 
 protect the poet's deformities from discernment. He was taller, 
 and more genteelly shaped than Mohun, on which account he pro- 
 bably claimed the choice of parts, and was prescriptively invested 
 with the attributes of youth and agility. He possessed a consider- 
 
 He soon, however, took the lead of him, though a good actor, so effectually, 
 as to monopolise this and every other capital part, not appropriated to Mohun, 
 in the Drury-lane company. 
 
 (7) Vide " Roscius Anglicanus," and see the note upon Mohun, for a fur- 
 ther corroboration of the vast esteem in which Hart was held. 
 
 (8) See this critic's '* Tragedies of the last age considered." His words are 
 these : 
 
 ** What Mr. Hart delivers, every one takes upon content ; their eyes are 
 prepossessed and charmed by his action, before aught of the poet's can ap- 
 proach their ears ; and to the most wretched of characters he gives a lustre and 
 brilliant, which dazzles the sight, that the deformities in the poetry cannot be 
 perceived." 
 
 In addition to this tribute, another contemporaiy writer pays Hart the fol- 
 lowing homage :' — 
 
 *' Were I a poet, nay a Fletcher, a Shakspeare, I would quit my own title to 
 immortality, so that one actor might never die. This I may modestly say of 
 him, (nor is it my particular opinion, but the sense of all mankind) that the 
 best tragedies on the English stage have received their lustre from Mr. Hart's 
 performance ; that he has left such an impression behind him, that uo less 
 
74 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 must have occasioned such frequent repetitions of them, by 
 their opposite endeavours to forestal and anticipate one 
 
 able share in the profits and direction of the theatre, which were 
 divided among the principal performers ; and besides his salary of 
 ^3 a week, and an allowance as a proprietor, amounting to six 
 shillings and three-pence a day, (9) is supposed to have occasion- 
 ally cleared about ^1000 per annum. (10.) 
 
 On the 14th of October, 1681, an agreement was signed be- 
 tween Dr. D'Avenant, Thomas Betterton, and William Smith, on 
 the one part, with Hart and Edward Kynaston, on the other, by 
 which a junction was effected of the companies acting at the the- 
 atres in Drury-lane and Dorset-garden ; an arrangement that 
 received the sanction of King Charles himself, who had recom- 
 mended this treaty, of which Betterton was a principal promoter. 
 Declining age had rendered Hart less fit for exertion than in the 
 vigour of life, and certain of the young actors, such as Goodman 
 and Clark, (II) became impatient to get possession of his and 
 Mohun's characters, A violent affliction, however, of the stone 
 and gravel, compelled him to relinquish his professional efforts, (12) 
 and having stipulated for the payment of five shillings a-day, dur- 
 
 than the interval of an age can make them appear again with half their ma- 
 jesty from any second hand." 
 
 (9) Vide Gildon's " Life of Betterton," 1710. 
 
 (10) *' for several years next after the restoration, every whole sha- 
 rer in Mr. Hart's company got j^lOOO per annum." — Wright's " Historia His- 
 trionica." 
 
 (11) See p. 82. 
 
 (12) Downs expressly says, that Mr. Hart " never acted more, by reason 
 of his malady" 
 
 From the preface to Settle's " Fatal Love," 4to. 1680, it should seem that 
 he had retired from the stage, perhaps in the preceding year; for in the pro- 
 logue to the "Ambitious Statesman," 1679, are these lines, evidently alluding 
 to him and Mohun : 
 
 The time's neglect and maladies have thrown 
 The two great pillars of our playhouse down. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 75 
 
 another, that the best actors in the world must have grown 
 
 ing the season, (13) he retired from the stage, and died a short 
 time after. 
 
 Hart was always esteemed a constant observer of decency in 
 manners, and the following anecdote will evince his respect for 
 the clergy. That witty, but abandoned fellow, Jo Haynes, had 
 persuaded a silly divine, into whose company he had unaccount- 
 ably fallen, that the players were a set of people, who wished to be 
 reformed, and wanted a Chaplain to the Theatre, an appointment 
 for which, with a handsome yearly income, he could undertake to 
 recommend him. He then directed the clergyman to summon his 
 hearers, by tolling a bell to prayers every morning, a scheme, in 
 pursuance of which Haynes introduced his companion, with a bell 
 in his hand, behind the scenes, which he frequently rang, and cried 
 out, audibly, "Players! players! come to prayers !" While Jo 
 and some others were enjoying this happy contrivance, Hart 
 came into the theatre, and, on discovering the imposition, was ex- 
 tremely angry with Haynes, whom he smartly reprehended, and 
 having invited the clergyman to dinner, convinced him that this 
 buflfoon was an improper associate for a man of his function. (14.) 
 
 (13) In the agreement already alluded to, it was stipulated that that the 
 managers of Dorset-garden, " do pay, or cause to be paid, out of the profits 
 of acting, unto Charles Hart and Edward Kynaston, five shillings a-piece, for 
 every day there shall be any tragedies, or comedies, or other representa- 
 tions acted,"&c. &c. — Gildon's " Life of Betterton." 
 
 (14) Vide Davies's " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 3, p. 264. 
 
 Another anecdote of the same kind is found in a " Life of the late famous 
 comedian, J. Haynes," 8vo. 1701, which, as it preserves a characteristic trait 
 of this valuable actor, is worth repeating. 
 
 " About this time, [1673] there happened a small pick between Mr. Hart 
 and Jo, upon the account of his late negotiation in France,* and there spending 
 so much money to so little purpose, or, as I may more properly say, to no 
 purpose at all. 
 
 * Soon after the theatre in Drury-laue was burnt down, Jan. 1671-2, Haynes had been sent 
 to Paris by Mr. Hart and Mr. Killegrew, to examine the machinery employed in tiie French 
 Operas.— Malone. 
 
76 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 tedious and tasteless to the spectator : for what pleasure is 
 
 Of this accomplished actor, the" Tattler," in No. 138, has pre- 
 served a very just remark on acting. " It was impossible," he 
 said, " to act with grace, except the actor had forgotten that he 
 was before an audience. Till he had arrived at that, his motion, 
 his air, his every step and gesture have something in them which 
 discovers he is under a restraint, for fear of being ill-received ; or, 
 if he considers himself as in the presence of those who approve 
 his behaviour, you see an affectation of that pleasure run through 
 his whole carriage." (15.) 
 
 Though versatility was, perhaps, the error of Hart's age, yet, 
 even generally considered, that he never slackened the reins with 
 which judgment had clothed the neck of genius, there seems ample 
 
 There happened to be one night a play acted, called ** Cataline's Conspira-» 
 cy," wherein there was wanting a great number of senators. Now Mr. Hart 
 being chief of the house, would oblige Jo to dress for one of these senators, 
 although his salary, being 50s. per week, freed hira from any such obligation. 
 But Mr. Hart, as I said before, being sole governor of the playhouse, and 
 at a small variance with Jo, comriiands it, and the other must obey. 
 
 Jo being vexed at the slight Mr. Hart had put upon him, found out this 
 method of being revenged on him. He gets a Scaramouch dress, a large full 
 ruff, makes himself whiskers from ear to ear, puts on his head a long Merry- 
 Andrew's cap, a short pipe in his mouth, a little three-legged stool in his hand ; 
 and in this manner follows Mr. Hart on the stage, sets himself down behind 
 him, and begins to smoke his pipe, laugh, and point at him, which comical 
 figure put all the house in an uproar, some laughing, some clapping, and some 
 hollaing. Now Mr. Hart, as those who knew him can aver, was a man of that 
 exactness and grandeur on the stage, that let what would happen, he'd never 
 discompose himself, or mind anj' thing but what he then represented ; and had 
 a scene fallen behind him, he would not at that time look back, to have seen 
 what was the matter ; which Jo knowing, remained still smoking. The audi- 
 ence continued laughing, Mr. Hart acting, and wondering at this unusual oc- 
 casion of their mirth ; sometimes thinking it some disturbance in the house, 
 again that it might be something amiss in his dress : at last turning himself 
 toward the scenes, he discovered Jo in the aforesaid posture ; whereupon he 
 immediately goes off the stage, swearing he would never set foot on it again, 
 unless Jo was immediately turned out of doors, which was no sooner spoke, 
 but put in practice." 
 
 (15) In the ninety-ninth number of this publication, Sir Richard Steele has 
 particularised Hart's ** natural and proper force," io the most striking manner. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 77 
 
 not languid to satiety?* It was, therefore, one of our 
 greatest happinesses, during my time of being in the manage- 
 ment of the stage, that we had a certain number of select plays, 
 which no other company had the good fortune to make a 
 tolerable figure in, and, consequently, could find little or 
 no account by acting them against us. These plays, there- 
 reason to suppose. While distinguished as a tragedian, for the 
 fierceness of jealousy, the pride of contention, and the fervour of 
 love, in corned}^ he supported the gay gentleman with equal advan- 
 tage. Rymer, an acute, though fastidious critic, has pointed out 
 his merits with a lavish hand ; and Downs, whose plain narrative 
 has an air of invincible truth, expatiates with ardour upon his un- 
 paralleled excellence. The scanty particulars we have been able to 
 collect, corroborate this evidence, though but in a trifling degree ; 
 yet, notwithstanding their deficiencies, it may be safely asserted 
 that our dramatic annals, in Hart, were enriched with one of the 
 brightest ornaments that admiration, at his period, could appreciate, 
 or candour, in ours, can revere. 
 
 * However highly inclined to appreciate the amusing powers of 
 Mr. Gibber, in anecdote or narrative, we cannot help acceding to 
 much of the severity with which his digressional arguments have 
 been assailed. It strikes us that the reasons here assigned for a 
 monopoly of theatrical pieces, are far from conclusive, and that 
 competition, which he so strenuously decries, is at once the source 
 of actorial excellence, and popular entertainment. Had Hart and 
 Betterton alternately played Othello and Hamlet, the public 
 observer of their respective merits would have frequented both 
 the theatres at which they performed, to try them, in specific cha- 
 racters, by the test of comparison. As to any fear that the 
 audiences would have been wearied by injudicious rivalry, or fre- 
 quent repetition, we are too well acquainted with the playhouse 
 aspirations after profit, to indulge the remotest idea of their pro- 
 tracted adherence to any measures that might thin the harvest of 
 }^cuniary advantage. 
 
78 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 fore, for many years, by not being too often seen, never 
 failed to bring us crowded audiences ; and it was to this 
 conduct we owed no little share of our prosperity. But 
 when four houses are at once, as very lately they were, all 
 permitted to act the same pieces,* let three of them perform 
 never so ill, when plays come to be so harrassed and hack- 
 neyed out to the common people, half of which, too, perhaps, 
 would as lieve see them at one house as another, the best 
 actors will soon feel that the town has enough of them. 
 
 I know it is the common opinion, that the more play- 
 houses, the more emulation ; I grant it ; but what has this 
 emulation ended in ? Why, a daily contention which shall 
 soonest surfeit you with the best plays ; so that when what 
 ought to please, can no longer please, your appetite is again 
 to be raised by such monstrous presentations, as dishonour 
 the taste of a civilised people. If, indeed, to our several 
 theatres we could raise a proportionable number of good 
 authors, to give them all different employment, then, per- 
 haps, the public might profit from their emulation : but 
 while good writers are so scarce, and undaunted critics so 
 plenty, I am afraid a good play, and a blazing star, will be 
 equal rarities. This voluptuous expedient, therefore, of 
 indulging the taste with several theatres, will amount to 
 much the same variety as that of a certain oeconomist, who, 
 to enlarge his hospitality, would have two puddings and 
 two legs of mutton, for the same dinner. f But, to resume 
 the thread of my history. 
 
 These two excellent companies were both prosperous for 
 some few years, till their variety of plays began to be ex- 
 
 * Including the lesser theatres in the Haymarket and Goodman's 
 Fields, which were restricted to minor amusements, by the Licensing 
 Act, in 1738. 
 
 t — " Another observation which I have made on our author's 
 similes is, that they generally have an eye towards the kitchen. 
 Thus, two plai/'house* are like two puddings , or two legs of mvt- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 79 
 
 hausted : then, of course, the better actors, which the king's 
 seem to have been allowed, could not fail of drawing the 
 greater audiences. Sir William D'Avenant,* therefore, mas- 
 ter of the duke's company, to make head against their success, 
 was forced to add spectacle and music to action ; and to 
 introduce a new species of plays, since called dramatic 
 operas, of which kind were the " Tempest," " Psyche," 
 " Circe," and others, all set off with the most expensive 
 decorations of scenes and habits, with the best voices and 
 dancers. 
 
 This sensual supply of sight and sound, coming in to the 
 assistance of the w eaker party, it was no w onder they should 
 grow too hard for sense and simple nature, when it is con- 
 sidered how many more people there are that can see and 
 hear, than think and judge. So wanton a change of the 
 public taste, therefore, began to fall as heavy upon the 
 king's company, as their greater excellence in action had, 
 before, fallen upon their competitors ; of which encroach- 
 ment upon wit, several good prologues in those days fre- 
 quently complained. 
 
 But, alas ! w hat can truth avail, when its dependence is 
 much more upon the ignorant, than the sensible auditor ? 
 A poor satisfaction, that the due praise given to it, must at 
 last sink into the cold comfort of — laudatur et alget. 
 Unprofitable praise can hardly give it a soupe maigre. Taste 
 and fashion, with us, have always had wings, and fly from 
 ton. ***** As we cannot draw the sarcastical conclusion 
 which would attend a less rich author, we must necessarily conclude 
 that our biographer is too much inclined to write on a full stomach. 
 — " Champion," May 6^ 1740. 
 
 * Mr. Cibber is correct in ascribing the introduction of dramatic 
 operas to[Sir William D'Avenant, though he died two years before 
 the first of them, the " Tempest," was produced by Dryden, who 
 had been his coadjutor in this barbarous deviation from the beauty 
 of Shakspeare. 
 
80 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 one public spectacle to another so wantonly, that I have 
 been informed, by those who remember it, that a famous 
 puppet-show, in Salisbury 'Change, then standing where 
 Cecil-street now is, so far distressed these two celebrated 
 companies, that they were reduced to petition the king for 
 relief against it : nor ought we, perhaps, to think this 
 strange, when, if I mistake not, Terence himself reproaches 
 the Roman auditors of his time, with the like fondness for 
 the funambuH, the rope-dancers.* Not to dwell too long, 
 therefore, upon that part of my history, which I have only 
 collected from oral tradition, I shall content myself with 
 telling you, that Mohunf and Hart now growing old, for, 
 
 * The passage to which Gibber alludes, is in the prologue to 
 " Hecyra :"— 
 
 Ita populus studio stupidus in funambulo 
 Animum occuparat^ 
 
 t The life of Michael Mohun, though passed in its early stage 
 beneath a different teacher, was chequered by the very shades 
 which distinguished that of Hart, with whom he acquired his mili- 
 tary distinctions, and reverted to a theatrical life. He was brought 
 up with Shatterel, ( 1 ) under Beeston, (2) at the " Cock- 
 
 (1) Robert and William Shatterel are enumerated in Downs's list of the 
 king's company, as filled up at the opening of their new theatre, in 1663. One 
 of these was a fellow-apprentice with Mohun, as already related, and having 
 repaired to the standard of King Charles the First, was made quarter-master 
 to the very troop of horse in which Hart was serving as lieutenant. Among 
 other capital parts, he is recorded for Bessusy in " King and No King," and 
 Poins, in the first part of ** King Henry the Fourth." By one of the inter- 
 locutors in Wright's " Historia Histrionica," he is referred to as a per- 
 former of the highest eminence, and Downs ranks him as a " good actor," 
 with Burt and Cartwright ; but nothing farther can be traced of his merits or 
 career. 
 
 (2J Christopher Beeston, a player, prefixed certain verses to Heywood's 
 ** Apology for Actors," and was undoubtedly the individual here alluded to. 
 Another Beeston, of whom he was probably the father, is mentioned by 
 Downs for RoderigOy in *' Othello," Nigrinusy in ** Tyrannic Love," and Va/i 
 Herring, in " Amboyna." 
 
 I 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. SI 
 
 above thirty years before this time, they had severally borne 
 the king's commission of major and captain, in the civil 
 
 pit,"(3) in Drury-lane, where, in Shirley's play of" Love's Cruel- 
 ty," he sustained the part of Bellamente, among other female 
 characters, and held it even after the restoration. 
 
 Having attained the rank of captain in the royal forces, Mohun 
 went to Flanders upon the termination of the civil war, where he 
 received pay as a major, and acquitted himself with distinguished 
 credit. At the restoration, he resumed his pristine duties, and be- 
 came an able second to Hart, with whom he was equally admired 
 for superlative knowledge of his arduous profession. 
 
 He is celebrated by Lord Rochester, as the great iEsopus of the 
 stage ; praise, which, though coming from one of so capricious a 
 temper, may be relied on, since it is confirmed by more respect- 
 able testimony. He was particularly remarkable for the dignity 
 of his deportment, and the elegance of his step, which mimics, said 
 his lordship, attempted to imitate, though they could not reach the 
 sublimity of his elocution. The duke's comedians, it would seem, 
 endeavoured to emulate his manner, when reduced by age and in- 
 firmity, a baseness which the same noble observer has thus warmly 
 reprehended : — 
 
 Yet these are they who durst expose the age 
 Of the great wonder of the English stage, 
 Whom nature seem'd to form for your delight. 
 And bade him speak as she bade Shakspeare write ; 
 These blades, indeed, are cripples in their art. 
 Mimic the foot, but not the speaking part ; 
 Let them the Traitor or Volpone try. 
 Could they 
 Rage like Cethegus,(4) or like Cassius die ? 
 
 (3) This theatre, which also bore the designation of the ** Phoenix," was 
 termed a private house, being remarkably small in its dimensions, and the 
 company performing at it were denominated the queen's servants. 
 
 (4) In Ben Jonson's " Cataline ;" a part which Mohun apparently preferred 
 to the more important and laborious character of Cicero. 
 
 G 
 
82 - AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 warS) — and the younger actors, as Goodman,* Clark,-)- and 
 others, being impatient to get into their parts, and growing 
 
 Mohun, from his inferior height and muscular form, generally 
 acted grave, solemn, austere parts, though upon more than one oc- 
 casion, as in Valentine, in " Wit without Money," and Face, in 
 the "Alchemist," — one of his most capital characters, — he was 
 frequently seen in gay and buoyant assumptions to great advan- 
 tage. He was singularly eminent as Melantius, in the " Maid's 
 Tragedy ;" Mardonius, in " King and No King ;" Clytus, Mith- 
 ridates, and the parts alluded to by Lord Rochester. No man had 
 more skill in putting spirit and passion into the dullest poetry than 
 Mohun, an excellence with which Lee was so delighted, that on 
 seeing him act his own King of Pontus, he suddenly exclaimed, 
 " O, Mohun, Mohun, thou little man of mettle, if I should write a 
 hundred plays, I'd write a part for thy mouth !"(5) And yet Lee 
 himself was so exquisite a reader, that Mohun once threw down a 
 part in despair of approaching the force of the author's expression. 
 The " Tattler" has adverted to his singular science ;(6) " in all his 
 parts, too," says Downs, " he was accurate and correct ;" and per- 
 haps no encomium can transcend the honours of unbroken pro- 
 priety. 
 
 About the year 1681, there are some reasons to suspect that the 
 king's company was divided by feuds and animosities, which their 
 adversaries in Dorset-garden so well improved, as to produce an 
 union of the separate patents. Hart and Kynaston were dexter- 
 ously detached from their old associates, by the management of 
 Betterton, (7) whose conduct, though grounded upon maxims of 
 
 (5) Vide Downs's *' Roscius Anglicanus ;" p. 17, ed. 1708. 
 
 (6) " My old friends Hart and Mohun, the one by his natural and proper 
 force, the other by his great skill and art, never failed to send me home full 
 of such ideas as affected my behaviour, and made me insensibly more cour- 
 teous and humane to ray friends and acquaintance." — " Tattler," No. 99. 
 
 (7) This memorable actor had been a fellow-apprentice, under Rhodes, 
 with Kynaston, over whom it is supposed his influence was principally ex- 
 erted. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 83 
 
 intractable, the audiences, too, of both houses then falling off, 
 the patentees of each, by the king's advice, which perhaps 
 
 policy, can derive no advantage from so unfair an expedient. 
 Upon the completion of this nefarious treaty, Mohun, who found 
 means to retain the services of Kynaston,(8) with the remnant of 
 the royal company, continued to act in defiance of the junction 
 just concluded, as an independent body. Downs, in his " Roscius 
 Anglicanus," so far as the imperfect structure of its sentences can 
 be relied on, expressly asserts this ; and yet if " the patentees 
 of each company united patents, and, by so incorporating, the 
 duke's company were made the king's, and immediately removed 
 to the Theatre Royal in Drury-lane," what field did Mohun and 
 his followers select for their operations, to pitch their tents, and 
 hoist their standard ? Till some period, at least, of the year 1682, 
 this party were in possession of their antient domicile, as Mohun at 
 that time, acted Burleigh^ in Banks's " IJnhappy Favourite," and 
 sustained a principal character in Southern's " Loyal Brother," 
 with, for his heroine, in both pieces, the famous Nell Gwyn. 
 
 If Hart's malady should not be admitted as a sufficient cause for 
 their separation, we must then avow the validity of Mr. Davies's sus- 
 picion,(9) that these estimable actors, who had been fellow-soldiers 
 in the royal cause, and partners in the direction of the theatre, at 
 last, by some unhappy difference, became alienated from each other. 
 Mohun, perhaps, felt dissatisfied with the conditions upon which 
 Hart was contented to coalesce, and could not tamely bear the 
 transfer of those laurels, which his comrade was anxious to relin- 
 quish. Be this as it may, their disunion most certainly ensued, and 
 Mohun did not long survive it; dying, as CoUey Cibber seems to 
 intimate,(IO) of a broken heart, and leaving no traces behind him 
 
 (8) Old Downs expressly mentions Kynaston among the adherents to Mo- 
 hun ; the rest of whom included Griffin, Goodman, Wiltshire, the father of 
 George Powel, Mrs. Cory, Mrs. Boutel, and Mrs. Mountfort. 
 
 (9) Vide Davies's *' Dramatic Miscellanies ;" vol. Ill, p. 263. 
 
 (10) His words are emphatically these : — " This union, was, however, so 
 much in favour of the duke's company, that Hart left the stage upon it, 
 
 g2 
 
84 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 amounted to a command, united their interests, and both 
 companies into one, exclusive of all others, in the year 
 
 of his grand and original excellence, beyond the scattered scraps 
 that Downs's pamphlet has recorded, and tradition was enabled to 
 supply(ll). 
 
 * Cardell Goodman, according to his own admissions, as detailed 
 by Gibber elsewhere, was expelled the university of Gambridge, 
 for certain political reasons,(l) a disgrace, however, which did not 
 disqualify him for the stage. He came upon it, accordingly, by 
 repairing to Drury-lane theatre, where Downs has recorded his first 
 appearance, as Polyperchon, in the " Rival Queens," 4to. 1677. 
 Here, although we cannot trace his success in any character of im- 
 portance, Mr. Gibber has adverted to his rapid advances in repu- 
 tation. He followed the fortunes of Mohun in opposing the united 
 actors, but, about three years afterwards, resorted to them, (in 
 1685,) and sustained the hero of Lord Rochester's "Valentinian." 
 It is about this period that his excellence must have blazed out as 
 
 and Mohun survived not long after." — i. e. The effects of the measure were 
 such, &c. 
 
 (11) The following extract from a pamphlet, called *' A Comparison be- 
 tween the Two Stages," will amply evince the popular estimation in which 
 Hart and Mohun were held : 
 
 " The late Duke of Monmouth was a good judge of dancing, and a good 
 dancer himself ; when he returned from France, he brought with him St. An- 
 dr^, then the best master in France. The duke presented him to the stage, 
 the stage to gratify the duke admitted him, and the duke himself thought he 
 might prove a mighty advantage to them, though he had nobody else of his 
 opinion. A day was published in the bills for him to dance, but not one more 
 besides the duke and his friends came to see him ; the reason was, the plays 
 were then so good, and Hart and Mohun acted them so well, that the audience 
 would not be interrupted, for so short a time, though 'twas to see the best 
 master in Europe." 
 
 1 suspect that Mohun was born about the year 1625, from the circumstance 
 of his acting BellamentCy the heroine of Shirley's " Love's Cruelty," in 1640, 
 when he had probably reached, and could hardly have exceeded, the age of 
 fifteen years. 
 
 (1) *' Dramatic Miscellanies." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 85 
 
 1682.* This union was, however, so much in favour of 
 the duke's company, that Hart left the stage upon it, and 
 Mohun survived not long- after. 
 
 Alexander the 6rrea/, since Gibber, who went upon the stage in 1690, 
 says Goodman had retired before the time of his appearance. 
 
 The highest salary enjoyed at that period we are now treating 
 of, was six shillings and three pence per diem, a stipend that was 
 by no means equal to the strong passions and large appetites of a 
 gay, handsome, inconsiderate young fellow. He was consequently 
 induced to commit a robbery on the highway, and sentenced upon 
 detection, to make a summary atonement for his fatal error ; but 
 this being the first exploit of that kind to which the scantiness of 
 his income had urged him, King James was persuaded to pardon 
 him, a favour for which Goodman was so grateful, that, in the year 
 1696, he shared with Sir John Fenwick in a design to assassinate 
 King William, who spared his life in consideration of the testimony 
 he was to render against his accomplice. This condition, however, 
 Goodman did not fulfil, as he withdrew clandestinely to the conti- 
 nent, to avoid giving evidence, and died in exile. 
 
 Having been selected as a fit instrument for her abandoned 
 pleasures by the Duchess of Cleveland, Goodman, long before his 
 death, became so happy in his circumstances, that he acted only at 
 intervals, when his titled mistress most probably desired to see 
 him; for he used to say, he would not even act Alexander, un- 
 less his duchess were in front to witness the performance. 
 
 t This actor is first mentioned by Downs for Massina, in " So- 
 phonisba," 4to. 1676; he also played Novel, in the "Plain- 
 dealer," and Hephestion, in the " Rival Queens," both 4to. 1 677 ; 
 Aquilim, in '' Mithridates," 4to. 1678; and though Davies af- 
 fects to have lost his name " after the junction of the companies 
 in 1681," it appears for Essex, in Banks's " Unhappy Favourite," 
 4to. 1682. 
 
 * Our author's date is 1684, but as the memorandum-agreement 
 for this famous junction, was concluded on the 14th of October 
 1681, and Downs unequivocally refers its occurrence in three dis- 
 
86 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR ITHE 
 
 One only theatre being now in possession of the whole 
 town, the united patentees imposed their own terms upon 
 the actors ; for the profits of acting were then divided into 
 twenty shares, ten of which went to the proprietors, and 
 the other moiety to the principal actors, in such sub- divi- 
 sions as their different merit might pretend to. These 
 shares of the patentees were promiscuously sold out to mo- 
 ney-making persons, called adventurers, who, though utterly 
 ignorant of theatrical affairs, were still admitted to a pro- 
 portionate vote in the management of them ; all particular 
 encouragements to actors were by them, of consequence, 
 looked upon as so many sums deducted from their private 
 dividends. While, therefore, the theatrical hive had so 
 many drones in it, the labouring actors, surely, were under 
 
 tinct passages,( 1 ) to the year we have adopted, Mr. Gibber's heed- 
 lessness is hardly worth more than a silent correction. 
 
 Gildon also, in his " Life of Betterton," explicitly asserts, that 
 *' the union was effected in 1682." It is ascertained, however, 
 from information supplied by Mr. Malone, that the united com- 
 pany opened Drury-lane Theatre, on the 16th of November, 1682, 
 with a prologue and epilogue by Dryden. 
 
 (1) Tliese passages run as follows : 
 
 * ' Many others were acted by the old company at the Tlieatre Royal, from the 
 time they begun, till the patent descended to Mr. Charles Killegrew, which, 
 in \6S2,he Jot7ied to Dr. Z>'Avenant's patent, whose company acted then in 
 Dorset-garden." 
 
 " Next follows an account of the rise and progression of the duke*s servants, 
 under the patent of Sir William D'Avenant ; who, upon the said junction in 
 1682, removed to the Theatre Royal in Drury-lane, and [were] created the 
 king'^8 company." 
 
 " All the preceding plays, being the chief that were acted in Dorset-garden, 
 from November, 1671, to the year 1682 ; at which time the patentees of each 
 company united patents, and, by so incorporating, the duke's company were 
 made the king's company, and immediately removed to the Theatre Royal, in 
 Drury-lane." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CiBBER. 
 
 87 
 
 the highest discouragement, if not a direct state of oppres- 
 sion. Their hardship will at least appear in a much stronger 
 light, when compared to our later situation, who, with 
 scarce half their merit, succeeded to be sharers under a 
 patent upon five times easier conditions : for as they had but 
 half the profits divided among ten, or more of them, we 
 had three fourths of the whole profits divided only among 
 three of us: and as thej might be said to have ten task- 
 masters over them, we never had but one assistant-manager, 
 not an actor, joined with us ; who, by the crown's indul- 
 gence, was sometimes, too, of our own chusing. Under this 
 heavy establishment, then, groaned this united company, 
 when I was first admitted into the lowest rank of it. How 
 they came to be relieved by King William's license, in 
 1695 ; how they were again dispersed, early in Queen Ann's 
 reign ; and from what accidents Fortune took better care 
 of us, their unequal successors, will be told in its place : but 
 to prepare you for the opening so large a scene of their his- 
 tory, methinks I ought, in justice to their memory, too, to 
 give you such particular characters of their theatrical merit, 
 as in my plain judgment they seemed to deserve. Presum- 
 ing, then, that this attempt may not be disagreeable to the 
 curious, or the true lovers of the theatre, take it without 
 farther preface. 
 
 In the year 1690, when I first came into this company, 
 the principal actors then at the head of it were, — 
 
 OfMen,—Uv. Betterton, Mr. Mountfort, Mr. Kynas- 
 ton, Mr. Sandford, Mr. Nokes, Mr. Underbill, and Mr. 
 Leigh ; 
 
 Of Women J — Mrs. Betterton, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Leigh, 
 Mrs. Butler, Mrs. Mountfort, and Mrs. Bracegirdle. 
 
 These actors, whom I have selected from their cotempo- 
 raries, were all original masters in their different styles, not 
 
88 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 merely auricular imitators of one another, which commonly 
 is the highest merit of the middle rank ; but self judges of 
 nature, from whose various lights they only took their true 
 instruction. If in the following account of them I may be 
 obliged to hint at the faults of others, I never mean such 
 observations should extend to those who are now in posses- 
 sion of the stage ; for, as I design not my memoirs shall 
 come down to their time, I would not lie under the impu- 
 tation of speaking in their disfavour to the public, whose 
 approbation they must depend upon for support. But to 
 my purpose. 
 
 Betterton was an actor, as Shakspeare was an author, — 
 both without competitors, formed for the mutual assistance 
 and illustration of each other's genius ! How Shakspeare 
 wrote, all men who have a taste for nature may read and 
 know, — but with what higher rapture would he still be read^ 
 could they conceive how Betterton plai/ed him ! Then 
 might they know, the one was born alone to speak what 
 the other only knew to write ! Pity it is, that the momen- 
 tary beauties flowing from an harmonious elocution, cannot, 
 like those of poetry, be their own record ; that the animated 
 graces of the player can live no longer than the instant 
 breath and motion that presents them ; or at best can but 
 faintly glimmer through the memory, or imperfect attesta- 
 tion, of a few surviving spectators. Could how Betterton 
 spoke be as easily known as what he spoke, then might 
 you see the muse of Shakspeare in 'her triumph, with all 
 her beauties in their best array, rising into real life, and 
 charming her beholders. But, alas ! since all this is so far 
 out of the reach of description, how shall I show you Bet- 
 terton ? Should I therefore tell you, that all the Othellos, 
 Hamlets^ Hotspurs^ Macheths^ and Brutuses, whom you 
 may have seen since his time, have fallen far short of him, 
 
I 
 
 LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 89 
 
 this still would give you no idea of his particular excellence. 
 Let us see, then, what a particular comparison may do^ — 
 whether that may yet draw him nearer to you. 
 
 You have seen a Hamlet ^ perhaps, who, on the first ap- 
 pearance of his father's spirit, has thrown himself into all 
 the straining vociferation requisite to express rage and fury, 
 and the house has thundered with applause, though the mis- 
 guided actor was all the while, as Shakspeare terms it. 
 tearing a passion into rags. I am the more bold to offer 
 you this particular instance, because the late Mr. Addison, 
 while I sate by him, to see this scene acted, made the same 
 observation, asking me, with some surprise, if I thought 
 Hamlet should be in so violent a passion with the Ghost, 
 which, though it might have astonished, had not provoked 
 him ? for you may observe that in this beautiful speech, the 
 passion never rises beyond an almost breathless astonish- 
 ment, or an impatience, limited by filial reverence, to in- 
 quire into the suspected wrongs that may have raised him 
 from his peaceful tomb, and a desire to know what a spirit 
 so seemingly distressed might wish or enjoin a sorrowful son 
 to execute, towards his future quiet in the grave. This was 
 the light into which Betterton threw this scene, which he 
 opened with a pause of mute amazement ; then rising slowly 
 to a solemn, trembling voice, he made the Ghost equally 
 terrible to the spectator as to himself, and in the descrip- 
 tive part of the natural emotions which the ghastly vision 
 gave him, the boldness of his expostulation was still go- 
 verned by decency, and manly but not braving ; his voice 
 never rising into that seeming outrage or wild defiance of 
 what he naturally revered. But, alas ! to preserve this me- 
 dium, between mouthmg and meaning too little, — to keep 
 the attention more pleasingly awake by a tempered spirit, 
 than by mere vehemence of voice, — is, of all the master- 
 
90 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 strokes of an actor the most difficult to reach. In this none 
 yet have equalled Betterton. But I am unwilling to show 
 his superiority only by recounting the errors of those, who 
 now cannot answer to them ; let their farther failings, there- 
 fore, be forgotten. Or, rather, shall I in some measure ex- 
 cuse them ? For I am not yet sure, that they might not be 
 as much owing to the false judgment of the spectator, 
 as the actor. While the million are so apt to be trans- 
 ported when the drum of their ear is so roundly rattled ; 
 while they take the life of elocution to lie in the strength of 
 the lungs, it is no wonder the actor, whose end is applause, 
 should be also tempted, at this easy rate, to excite it. Shall 
 I go a little farther, and allow that this extreme is more par- 
 donable than its opposite error ? I mean that dangerous af- 
 fection of the monotone^ or solemn sameness of pronuncia- 
 tion, which to my ear is insupportable ; for of all faults that 
 so frequently pass upon the vulgar, that of flatness will have 
 the fewest admirers. That this is an error of antient stand- 
 ing, seems evident by what Hamlet says, in his instructions 
 to the players ; m%. 
 
 Be not too tame, neither, &c. 
 The actor, doubtless, is as strongly tied down to the rules of 
 Horace as the writer : — 
 
 Si vis me flere, dolendum est 
 Primiim ipsi tibi.* 
 
 * i. e. If you would have me weep, you must first weep yourself. 
 
 " This is not literally true, for it would have been as rightly 
 «aid, if you do observe nature, that * I shall certainly weep, if you 
 do not.' But what is intended by that expression, is, that it is not 
 possible to give passion, except that you show you suffer yourself. 
 Therefore, the true art seems to be, that when you would have 
 the person you represent pitied, you must show him at once, in the 
 
 s 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 91 
 
 He that feels not himself the passion he would raise, will 
 talk to a sleeping audience. But this never was the fault 
 of Betterton ; and it has often amazed me to see those who 
 soon came after him, throw out, in some parts of a charac- 
 ter, a just and graceful spirit, which Betterton himself 
 could not but have applauded ; and yet, in the equally 
 shining passages of the same character, have heavily dragged 
 the sentiment along, like a dead weight, with a long-toned 
 voice, and absent eye, as if they had fairly forgotten what 
 they were about. If you have never made this observa- 
 tion, I am contented you should not know where to apply 
 it. 
 
 A farther excellence in Betterton was, that he could vary 
 his spirit to the different characters he acted. Those wild 
 impatient starts, that fierce and flashing fire, which he threw 
 into Hotspur^ never came from the unruffled temper of his 
 Brutus — for I have, more than once, seen a Brutus as warm 
 as Hotspur; — when the Betterton Brutus yvas provoked, in 
 his dispute with Cassius, his spirit flew only to his eye ; his 
 steady look alone supplied that terror, which he disdained 
 an intemperance in his voice should rise to. Thus, with a 
 settled dignity of contempt, like an unheeding rock, he re- 
 pelled upon himself the foam of Cassius. Perhaps the very 
 words of Shakspeare will better let you into my meaning : 
 
 Must I give way, and room, to your rash choler? 
 Shall I be frighted, when a madman stares? 
 
 And a little after : — 
 
 There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, &c. 
 
 Not but in some part of this scene, where he reproaches 
 
 highest grief, and struggling to bear it with decency and patience. 
 In this case, we sigh for him, and give him every groan he sup- 
 presses."—" Tattler ;" No.'^es. 
 
92 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Cassius^ his temper is not under this suppression, but opens 
 into that warmth which becomes a man of virtue ; yet this 
 is that hasty spark of anger, which Brutus himself endea- 
 vours to excuse. 
 
 But with whatever strength of nature we see the poet 
 show, at once, the philosopher and the hero, yet the image 
 of the actor's excellence will be still imperfect to you, un- 
 less language could put colours in our words to paint the 
 voice with. 
 
 Ety si vis similem pingere, pinge sonum^ is enjoining an 
 impossibility. The most that a Vandyke can arrive at, is, 
 to make his portraits of great persons seem to think ; a 
 Shakspeare goes farther yet, and tells you what his pictures 
 thought; a Betterton steps beyond them both, and calls 
 them from the grave, to breathe, and be themselves again, 
 in feature, speech, and motion. When the skilful actor 
 shows you all these powers at once united, and gratifies at 
 once your eye, your ear, your understanding, to conceive 
 the pleasure rising from such harmony, you must have been 
 present at it ; — 'tis not to be told you. 
 
 There cannot be a stronger proof of the charms of harmo- 
 nious elocution, than the many even unnatural scenes and 
 flights of the false sublime it has lifted into applause. In 
 what raptures have I seen an audience at the furious fustian 
 and turgid rants in Nat. Lee's "Alexander the Great!" 
 For though I can allow this play a few great beauties, yet it 
 is not without its extravagant blemishes.* Every play of 
 
 * " Though the taste of wit and pleasure is at present but very 
 low in this town, yet there are some that preserve their relish un- 
 debauched with common impressions, and can distinguish between 
 reality and imposture. A gentleman was saying here( 1 ) this evening, 
 that he would go to the play to-morrow night to see heroism, as it 
 has been represented by some of our tragedians, represented in 
 burlesque. It seems the play of " Alewnder" is to be then turned 
 (1) Will's Coffee-house. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 9S 
 
 the same author has more or less of them. Let me give 
 you a sample from this. Alexander^ in a full crowd of 
 
 into ridicule for its bombast, and other false ornaments in the 
 thought as well as the language. The bluster Alexander makes is 
 as much inconsistent with the character of an hero, as the roughness 
 of Clytus, an instance of the sincerity of a bold artless soldier. To 
 be plain is not to be rude, but rather inclines a man to civility and 
 deference ; not indeed to show it in the gestures of the body, but 
 in the sentiments of the mind. It is, among other things, from the 
 impertinent figures unskilful dramatists draw of the characters of 
 men, that youth are bewildered and prejudiced in their sense of the 
 world, of which they have no notions but what they draw from 
 books, and such representations. Thus, talk to a very young man, 
 let him be of never so good sense, and he shall smile when you speak 
 of sincerity in a courtier, good sense in a soldier, or honesty in a 
 politician. The reason of this is, that you hardly see one play 
 wherein each of these ways of life is not drawn by hands that know 
 nothing of any one of them ; and the truth is so far of the opposite 
 side to what they paint, that it is more impracticable to live in es- 
 teem in courts, than any where else, without siticerity. Good sense 
 is the great requisite in a soldier, and honesty the only thing that 
 can support a politician. This way of thinking made the gentle- 
 man of whom I was just now speaking, say, he was glad any one 
 had taken upon him to depreciate such unnatural fustian as the 
 tragedy of "Alexander." The character of that prince indeed was, 
 that he was unequal, and given to intemperance ; but in his sober 
 moments, when he had warm in his imagination the precepts of his 
 great instructor, he was a pattern of generous thoughts and dispo- 
 sitions, in opposition to the strongest desires which are incident to a 
 youth and conqueror. But instead of representing that hero in the 
 glorious character of generosity and chastity, in his treatment of 
 the beauteous family of Darius, he is drawn all along as a monster 
 of lust, or of cruelty ; as if the way to raise him to the degree of an 
 hero, were to make his character as little like that of a worthy man 
 as possible. Such rude sitid indigested draughts of things are the 
 
94 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 courtiers, without being occasionally called or provoked to 
 it, falls into this rhapsody of vain-glory : — 
 
 Can none remember, — Yes, I know all must !— — 
 
 And therefore they shall know it again 
 
 When Glory, like the dazzling eagle, stood 
 Perch'd on my beaver, in the Granic flood ; 
 When Fortune's self my standard, trembling, bore, 
 And the pale Fates stood frighted on the shore ; 
 When the immortals on the billows rode. 
 And I myself appear'd the leading god? 
 
 When these flowing numbers came from the mouth of a 
 Betterton, the multitude no more desired sense to them, 
 than our musical connoisseurs think it essential in the cele- 
 brated airs of an Italian opera. Does not this prove, that 
 there is very near as much enchantment in the well-governed 
 voice of an actor, as in the sweet pipe of an eunuch? If I tell 
 you there was no one tragedy, for many years more in favour 
 with the town than "Alexander," to what must we impute 
 this its command of public admiration ? Not to its intrinsic 
 merit, surely, if it swarms with passages like this I have 
 shown you ! If this passage has merit, let us see what figure 
 it would make upon canvas — what sort of picture would 
 rise from it. If Le Brun, who was famous for painting the 
 battles of this hero, had seen this lofty description, what one 
 image could he have possibly taken from it ? In what co- 
 lours would he have shown us Glory perched upon a bea- 
 ver ? How would he have drawn Fortune trembling ? Or, 
 indeed, what use could he have made of pale Fates, or Im- 
 mortals riding upon billows, with this blustering god, of 
 
 proper objects of ridicule and contempt, and depreciating Alexander 
 as we have him drawn, is the only way of restoring him to what he 
 was in himself."—" Tattler," No.l 9 1 . 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEV GIBBER. 95 
 
 his own making, at the head of them ?* Where, then, must 
 have lain the charm, that once made the public so partial to 
 this tragedy ? Why, plainly, in the grace and harmony of 
 the actor's utterance. For the actor himself is not account- 
 able for the false poetry of his author ; that, the hearer is to 
 judge of; if it passes upon him, the actor can have no quar- 
 rel to it ; who, if the periods given him are round, smooth, 
 spirited, and high-sounding, even in a false passion, must 
 throw out the same fire and grace, as may be required in one 
 justly rising from nature ; where those his excellencies will 
 then be only more pleasing in proportion to the taste of his 
 hearer. And I am of opinion, that to the extraordinary suc- 
 cess of this very play, we may impute the corruption of so 
 many actors, and tragic writers, as were immediately misled 
 by it. The unskilful actor, who imagined all the merit of de- 
 livering those blazing rants, lay only in the strength and 
 strained exertion of the voice, began to tear his lungs, 
 upon every false or slight occasion, to arrive at the same 
 applause. And it is from hence I date our having seen the 
 same reason prevalent, for above fifty years. Thus equally 
 misguided, too, many a barren-brained author has streamed 
 into a frothy flowing style, pompously rolling into sounding 
 periods, signifying roundly, nothing; of which num- 
 ber, in some of my former labours, I am something more 
 
 * The criticisms of Gibber upon a literary subject are hardly 
 worth the trouble of confuting, and yet it may be mentioned that 
 Bishop Warburton adduced these lines as containing not only the 
 most sublime, but the most judicious imagery that poetry can con- 
 ceive. If Le Brun, or any other artist, could not succeed in pour- 
 traying the terrors of fortune, it conveys, perhaps, the highest pos- 
 sible compliment to the powers of Lee, to admit that he has mas- 
 tered a difficulty beyond the most daring aspirations of an accom- 
 plished painter. 
 
96 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 than suspicious, that I may myself have made one. But 
 to keep a little closer to Betterton. 
 
 When this favourite play I am speaking of, from its 
 being too frequently acted, was worn out, and came to be 
 deserted by the town, upon the sudden death of Mount fort,* 
 who had played Alexander with success, for several years, 
 the part was given to Betterton, which, under this great dis- 
 advantage of the satiety it had given, he immediately re- 
 vived with so new a lustre, that for three days together it 
 filled the house ; and had his then- declining strength been 
 equal to the fatigue the action gave him, it probably might 
 have doubled its success ; an uncommon instance of the power 
 and intrinsic merit of an actor. This I mention not only to 
 prove what irresistible pleasure may arise from a judicious 
 elocution, with scarcely sense to assist it, but to show you, too, 
 that though Betterton never wanted fire and force, when 
 his character demanded it, yet, where it was not demanded, 
 he never prostituted his power to the low ambition of a 
 false applause. And, further, that when, from a too ad- 
 vanced age, he resigned that toilsome part of Alexander^ 
 the play, for many years after, never was able to impose 
 upon the public ; and I look upon his so particularly sup- 
 porting the false fire and extravagancies of that character, 
 to be a more surprising proof of his skill, than his being 
 eminent in those of Shakspeare ; because there, truth and 
 nature coming to his assistance, he had not the same diffi- 
 culties to combat, and, consequently, we must be less amazed 
 at his success, where we are more able to account for it. 
 
 Notwithstanding the extraordinary power he showed in 
 blowing Alexander once more into a blaze of admiration, 
 Betterton had so just a sense of what was true or false ap- 
 plause, that I have heard him say, he never thought any 
 
 * See a subsequent page. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 97 
 
 kind of it equal to an attentive silence ; that there were 
 many ways of deceiving an audience into a loud one, but to 
 keep them hushed and quiet, was an applause which only 
 truth and merit could arrive at : of which art, there never 
 was an equal master to himself. From these various 
 excellencies, he had so full a possession of the esteem and 
 regard of his auditors, that upon his entrance into every 
 scene, he seemed to seize upon the eyes and ears of the 
 giddy and inadvertent. To have talked or looked another 
 way, would then have been thought insensibility or igno- 
 rance. In all his soliloquies of moment, the strong intelli- 
 gence of his attitude and aspect drew you into such an im- 
 patient gaze, and eager expectation, that you almost im- 
 bibed the sentiment with your eye, before the ear could 
 reach it. 
 
 As Betterton is the centre to which all my observations 
 upon action tend, you will give me leave, under his charac- 
 ter, to enlarge upon that head. In the just delivery of 
 poetical numbers, particularly where the sentiments are pa- 
 thetic, it is scarce credible upon how minute an article of 
 sound depends their greatest beauty or inaffection. The 
 voice of a singer is not more strictly tied to time and tune, 
 than that of an actor in theatrical elocution : the least sylla- 
 ble too long, or too slightly dwelt upon in a period, depre- 
 ciates it to nothing ; which very syllable, if rightly touched, 
 shall, like the heightening stroke of light from a master's 
 pencil, give life and spirit to the whole. I never heard a 
 line in tragedy come from Betterton, wherein my judgment, 
 my ear, and my imagination, were not fully satisfied; 
 which, since his time, 1 cannot equally say of any one actor 
 whatsoever : not but it is possible to be much his inferior, with 
 great excellencies ; which I shall observe in another place. 
 Had it been practicable to have tied down the clattering 
 hands of all the ill judges who were commonly the majority 
 
 H 
 
96 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 of an audience, to what amazing perfection might the Eng- 
 lish theatre have arrived, with so just an actor as Betterton 
 at the head of it ! If what was truth only could have been 
 applauded, how many noisy actors had shook their plumes 
 with shame, who, from the injudicious approbation of the 
 multitude, have bawled and strutted in the place of merit ! 
 If, therefore, the bare speaking voice has such allurements 
 in it, how much less ought we to wonder, however we may 
 lament, that the sweeter notes of vocal music should so have 
 captivated even the politer world, into an apostasy from 
 sense, to an idolatry of sound ? Let us inquire from whence 
 this enchantment rises. I am afraid it may be too naturally 
 accounted for : for when we complain that the finest music, 
 purchased at such vast expense, is so often thrown away 
 upon the most miserable poetry, we seem not to consider, 
 that when the movement of the air, and tone of the voice, 
 are exquisitely harmonious, though we regard not one 
 word of what we hear, yet the power of the melody is so 
 busy in the heart, that we naturally annex ideas to it of our 
 own creation, and, in some sort, become ourselves the poet 
 to the composer. And what poet is so dull as not to be 
 charmed with the child of his own fancy ? So that there is 
 even a kind of language in agreeable sounds, which, like 
 the aspect of beauty, without words speaks and plays with 
 the imagination. While this taste, therefore, is so natu- 
 rally prevalent, I doubt to propose remedies for it, were but 
 giving laws to the winds, or advice to inamoratos : and how- 
 ever gravely we may assert, that profit ought always to be 
 inseparable from the delight of the theatre, — nay, admitting 
 that the pleasure would be heightened by the uniting them, 
 yet, while instruction is so little the concern of the auditor, 
 how can we hope that so choice a commodity will come to a 
 market where there is so seldom a demand for it ? 
 
 It is not to the actor, therefore, but to the vitiated and 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 99 
 
 low taste of the spectator, that the corruptions of the stage, 
 of what kind soever, have been owing. If the public, by 
 whom they must live, had spirit enough to discountenance, 
 and declare against all the trash and fopperies they have 
 been so frequently fond of, both the actors and the authors, 
 to the best of their power, must naturally have served their 
 daily table, with sound and wholesome diet. — ^But 1 have 
 not yet done with my article of elocution. 
 
 As we have sometimes great composers of music, who 
 cannot sing, we have as frequently great writers that can- 
 not read ; and though, without the nicest ear, no man can 
 be master of poetical numbers, yet the best ear in the world 
 will not always enable him to pronounce them . Of this truth, 
 Dryden, our first great master of verse and harmony, was a 
 strong instance. When he brought his play of" Amphy- 
 trion" to the stage,* I heard him give it his first reading to 
 the actors, in which, though, it is true, he delivered the 
 plain sense of every period, yet the whole was in so cold, so 
 flat, and unaffecting a manner, that I am afraid of not being 
 believed, when I affirm it. 
 
 On the contrary, Lee, far his inferior in poetry, was so 
 pathetic a reader of his own scenes, that I have been in- 
 formed, by an actor who was present, that while Lee was 
 reading to Major Mohun, at a rehearsal, Mohun, in the 
 warmth of his admiration, threw down his part, and said, 
 " Unless I were able to play it, as well as you read it, to 
 what purpose should I undertake it?" And yet this very 
 author, whose elocution raised such admiration in so capital 
 an actor, when he attempted to be an actor himself, soon 
 quitted the stage, in an honest despair of ever making any 
 profitable figure there, f From all this I would infer, that 
 
 * In the year 1690. 
 t It would almost appear from this, that Lee's attempt on the 
 H 9, 
 
100 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 let our conception of what we are to speak, be ever so just, 
 and the ear ever so true, yet, when we are to deliver it to an 
 audience, — I will leave fear out of the question, — there 
 must go along with the whole, a natural freedom, and be- 
 coming grace, which is easier to conceive than describe: 
 for without this inexpressible somewhat, the performance 
 will come out oddly disguised, or, somewhere defectively, un- 
 surprising to the hearer. Of this defect, too, I will give you 
 yet a stranger instance, which you will allow fear could not 
 be the occasion of. If you remember Estcourt,* you must 
 
 stage had been made subsequent to his appearance in the capacity 
 of a writer. But this is not the fact, for his first play( l) was pro- 
 duced in 1675, and he had played Duncan^ in D'Avenant's alter- 
 ation of " Macbeth," three years before ; so that, instead of being 
 tempted to make his debiit as an actor, in consequence of Mohun's 
 encouragement, it is more plausible to presume that his demerits 
 and bad fortune as a player, induced him to take up the trade of 
 dramatic composition. 
 
 There is a striking coincidence between the fate of Lee and of 
 Otway, who both became authors for the stage in consequence of 
 their unsuccessful ejflforts on it. Both began by writing in rhyme, 
 and deserted it, much to the advantage of their reputation, for 
 blank-verse; both were reduced, from voluntary dissipation, to 
 miserable indigence; and both died, at almost the same age, within 
 about five years of each other, in a state of starvation, obscurity, 
 despair, and disgrace. 
 
 * Richard Estcourt, according to the biographical notice of 
 Chetwood,(l*) Mfas born at Tewksbury, in Glostershire, in the 
 
 (1) " Nero, Emperor of Rome." 
 
 (1*) See " General History of the Stage," page 140, 1749, in which Mr. 
 Chetwood, by medium of the following note, communicates the source of his 
 information : — 
 
 ** The first account of this eminent performer I had from the late Mr. John 
 Soman, an actor more than half an age on the London theatres." 
 
 Notwithstanding the explicitness of this declaration, it is suggested in the 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 101 
 
 have known that he was long enough upon the stage, not to 
 be under the least restraint from fear, in his performance. 
 
 year 1668, and received a competent education at the Latin gram- 
 mar-school of his native town. Influenced by an early attach- 
 ment to the stage, he left his father's house, in the fifteenth year of 
 his age, with an itinerant company, and on reaching Worcester, 
 to elude the possibility of detection, made his first appearance as 
 Roxana^ in the " Rival Queens." Having received a correct inti- 
 mation of this theatrical purpose, his father sent to secure the fugi- 
 tive, who slipped away in a suit of woman's clothes, borrowed 
 from one of his kind-hearted companions, and travelled to Chip- 
 ping-Norton, a distance of five-and-twenty miles, in the course of 
 the day. On arriving at the inn, beds were so scarce, that he was 
 invited to partake of the daughter's, behind the bar, to which, 
 when its fair occupant resorted, she found him in a sound sleep, 
 but observing a shirt instead of a shift, she began to suspect her 
 fellow-lodger's identity. A scrupulous examination of his remain- 
 ing apparel confirmed this eventful doubt, in consequence of which 
 she alarmed the people of the house, and awakened her drowsy 
 companion. The horse-pond was at first proposed as a salutary 
 corrective for his deception, till Estcourt avowed the motives that 
 had occasioned it, and a traveller from Tewksbury, being by 
 chance at the inn, corroborated his story. In two days his cus- 
 tomary clothes were brought him from Worcester, by a person in 
 whose charge he returned to his father. 
 
 To prevent such excursions for the future, he was quickly car- 
 ried up to London, and apprenticed to an apothecary in Hatton- 
 garden, with whom, according to some authorities,(2) he continued 
 till the expiration of his indentures, and duly entered into business; 
 which, either from want of liking or success, he soon afterwards re- 
 
 " BiograpMa Dramatica," that Chetwood, in recording these particulars of 
 Estcourt, might have liad them " from his own mouth." So much for the 
 diligent investigation of the last editor ! 
 
 (2) Giles Jacob, 
 
 h3 
 
102 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 This man was so amazing and extraordinary a mimic, that 
 no man or woman, from the coquette to the privy counsel- 
 
 nounced, and returned to his favourite avocation.(3) Chetwood, 
 on the contrary, asserts that he broke away from his master's au- 
 
 , thority, and after strolling about England for two years, went over 
 to Dublin, where his performances were sanctioned by ardent and 
 universal applause. 
 
 About the opening of the seventeenth century, Mr. Estcourt was 
 
 ^ engaged at Drury-lane Theatre, where he made his debiit as Do- 
 minic, in the " Spanish Friar," and established his efforts, it is 
 said, by a close imitation of Leigh,(4) the original possessor of that 
 
 (3) This account, though generally rejected, appears to me more deserving 
 of credit than Chetwood's notoriously neglectful habits, in gleaning intelli- 
 gence, or making assertion. If Estcourt ran away from the pharmacopolist 
 with all the celerity imputed by his biographer, he could not have been above 
 fifteen or sixteen years old at the time he resumed his itinerant excursions, 
 and yet we find him in Dublin, at the age of one-and-thirtt/, playing charac- 
 ters that required but little ability, and conferred even less importance.* 
 For these reasons, I am inclined to think that a considerable lapse, as ac- 
 counted for above, occuiTcd between the relinquishment and resumption of 
 his theatrical pursuits. On a further consultation of the " Tattler," I find the 
 following passage, which appears to put the fact of Estcourt's having prac- 
 tised as an apothecary, beyond the reach of future contention : — 
 
 " The mention of this person,f who is a great wit, and a great cripple, puts 
 me in mind of Mr. Estcourt, who is under the same circumstances. He teas 
 formerly my apothecary , and being at present disabled by the gout and stone, 
 I must recommend him to the public on Thursday next ; that admirable play 
 of Ben Jonson's called the " Silent Woman," being appointed to be acted for 
 his benefit. It would be indecent for me to appear twice in a season at 
 these ludicrous diversions ; but as I always give my man and my maid one 
 day in the year, I shall allow them this, and am promised by Mr. Estcourt, 
 my ingenious apothecary, that they shall have a place kept for them in the 
 first row of the middle gallery." — Tuesday, February 7, 1709. 
 
 (4) Now, admitting the correctness of this criticism, if Estcourt had been 
 " uninterruptedly absent" from the English metropolis, «nce his boyhood, till 
 
 * He played but secondary parts in Sir George Etherege's three comedies, to Booth, who 
 joined the Dublin company in IfiDS, and left it in 1700. 
 t Pasquin, the maimed statue at Rome. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 103 
 
 lor, ever moved or spoke before him, but he could carry 
 their voice, look, mien, and motion, instantly into another 
 
 part. In the year 1705, such was his merit or reputation, that 
 Farquhar selected him for Sergeant Kite,{5) in the " Recruiting 
 Officer," a character to which Downs has alluded in terms of un- 
 qualified praise.(6) It is asserted in the " Biographia Dramatica," 
 that Mr. Estcourt was " mostly indebted for applause to his powers 
 of mimicry, in which he was inimitable; and which not only at 
 times afforded him opportunities of appearing a much better actor 
 than he really was, — by enabling him to copy very exactly several 
 performers of capital merit, whose manner he remembsred and as- 
 sumed, — but also, by recommending him to a very numerous ac- 
 quaintance in private life, secured him an indulgence for faults in 
 his public profession, that he might otherwise, perhaps, never have 
 been pardoned." As if an actor, in defiance of peculiar incapa- 
 city, associated emulation, and public disgust, could maintain, for 
 twelve successive years, the very highest station in the Drury-lane 
 company, attainable by talents, such as he was only flattered with 
 possessing! Upon this subject, however, we may quote the re- 
 
 the date of this d^bvlt, how could he have acquired this brilliant imitation of 
 Leigh, who died in December, 1692, — about ten years before the period of 
 his appearance ? 
 
 (5) He had previously been intrusted with Pounce, in Steele's " Tender 
 Husband ;" 4to, 1703. 
 
 (6) " Mr. Estcourt, histrio-natus. He has the honour, — Nature enduing 
 him with an easy, free, unaffected mode of elocution, — in comedy always 
 to laetificate his audience, especially quality ; witness Sergeant Kite. He is 
 not excellent only in that, but a superlative mimic." 
 
 This commendation from an impartial and practised observer, must go far 
 to refute the charge against its subject, of stiff, scrupulous, and unbending 
 mimicry. 
 
 Mr. Chetwood has also furnished the following curious anecdote in connec- 
 tion with this part :— 
 
 " Mr. Estcourt was the original Sergeant Kite, and every night of per- 
 formance entertained the audience with a variety of little catches and flights 
 of humour, that pleased all but his critics." 
 
 H 4 
 
104 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 company : I have heard him make long harangues, and 
 form various arguments, even in the manner of thinking,* 
 
 marks of a candid and discerning writer, who has done ample jus- 
 tice to the estimation in which Estcourt stood, by vindicating his 
 abilities against the mistake, or malevolence, that has ventured to 
 asperse it ; 
 
 " With respect to his stage abilities, Colley Gibber speaks of 
 them, in his * Apology,' but slightingly. He confesses, indeed, that 
 Estcourt understood a character well, though he had not, he said, 
 acquired the art to do justice to it in representation ; he instances, 
 particularly, Falstaff. But Gibber and the public seemed widely 
 to have differed ; for Estcourt's name is often placed in the bills for 
 characters of consequence, at a time, too, when Gibber was a ma- 
 nager of the theatre. Nay, we see that such was the confidence of 
 the directors of the stage in his powers to please the public, that 
 Gibber, who afterwards played Bays, contented himself, during 
 the life of Estcourt, with the inferior part of Prince Volscius.(7) 
 
 (7) " There cannot be a stronger proof of the old custom of distributing the 
 parts in a play according to the strength of the company, before the introduc- 
 tion of those exotics, the pantomimes, than the following bill of theatrical 
 fare, which I produce from the first edition of the " Spectator," published in 
 numbers : — 
 
 THE REHEARSAL. 
 
 Bays, Mr. Estcourt. 
 
 Johnson, Mr. Wilks. 
 
 Smith, Mr. Mills. 
 
 Prettyman, Mr. Powel. 
 
 Volscius, Mr. Gibber. 
 
 tr. J- T> ^j" 1 f Mr. Bullock. 
 
 Kxngs of Brentford, . . ^ j^^ g^^^^ 
 
 Gentleman- Usher, Mr. Pinkethman. 
 
 Physician, Mr. Cross. 
 
 Tom Thimble, Mr. Dogget. 
 
 Fisherman, Mr. Johnson. 
 
 Pallas, Mr. Bullock. 
 
 Heigh-ho 1 Mr. Norris. 
 
 Davies's ** Dramatic Miscellanies;" vol. 3, p. 291. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 105 
 
 of an eminent pleader at the bar, with every the least arti- 
 cle and singularity of his utterance so perfectly imitated, 
 
 Gibber, I doubt not, mixed a degree of envy in his criticism. Of 
 a player's merits the public is a fairer judge than the most enlight- 
 ened of his own profession." 
 
 That Estcourt was happy in a " very numerous acquaintance," 
 there is no reason to conceal or deny. He was remarkable for the 
 promptitude of his wdt, and the permanence of his pleasantry, qua- 
 lifications that recommended him to the most cordial intercourse 
 with Addison, Steele, Parnelle,(8) and other choice spirits of the 
 age, who enjoyed the variety of his talents, and acknowledged the 
 goodness of his heart. He was highly in favour with the great 
 Duke of Marlborough, but those who know his grace's character, 
 will hardly be surprised to learn that he did not improve his fortune 
 by that dazzling distinction. Estcourt's honours, indeed, were strictly 
 nominal, for though constituted providore of the Beef-steak Club, 
 — an assemblage comprising the chief wits and greatest men of the 
 nation, — he gained nothing by the office but their badge of em- 
 ployment, — a small golden gridiron, suspended from his neck by 
 a bit of green riband. 
 
 If the foregoing remarks should be held sufficient to redeem his 
 dramatic character from the obloquy with which it has so long 
 been attended, the following anecdote will perhaps be accepted as 
 ample evidence of his great talent for private mimicry. 
 
 Secretary Craggs, when very young, in company with some of 
 his friends, went, with Estcourt, to Sir Godfrey Kneller's, and whis- 
 pered to him that a gentleman present was able to give such a re- 
 presentation of many among his most powerful patrons, as would 
 occasion the greatest surprise. Estcourt accordingly, at the artist's 
 earnest desire, mimicked Lords Somers, Halifax, Godolphin, and 
 others, so exactly, that Kneller was delighted, and laughed heart- 
 ily at the imitations. Craggs gave a signal, as concerted, and 
 
 (8) This author has honoured him in a Bacchanalian poem, by the name 
 of Jocus. 
 
106 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 that he was the very alter ipse, scarcely to be distinguished 
 from* his original. Yet more ; I have seen, upon the mar- 
 
 Estcourt immediately mimicked Sir Godfrey himself, who cried out 
 in a transport of ungovernable conviction, ** Nay, there you are 
 out, man ! By G— , that's not me !"(9) 
 
 About a twelvemonth before his death, having retired from the 
 stage, Estcourt opened the Bumper tavern, in Covent-garden, 
 and by enlarging his acquaintance, most probably shortened his 
 days. He died in the year 1713, and was buried near his brother 
 comedian, Jo Haynes, in the church-yard of St. Paul's, Covent- 
 garden. The following summary of his merits, from the pen of 
 Sir Richard Steele, appeared in the " Spectator," and confers re- 
 ciprocal honour upon the one who possessed, and the other who 
 praised its recorded virtues : 
 
 " It is certainly as great an instance of self-love to a weakness, 
 to be impatient of being mimicked, as any that can be imagined. 
 There were none but the vain, the formal, the proud, or those 
 
 (9) Sir Richard Steele adverts to Estcouft's surprising powers of personal 
 imitation, under the name of Tom Mirror, too, compliments, him as the " first 
 mimic that ever gave the beauties, as well as deformities, of the man he 
 acted," and furnishes the following affectionate picture of that hard fate to 
 which his peculiar excellencies were condemned : — 
 
 *' You are to know, that this pantomime may be said to be a species of 
 himself : he has no commerce with the rest of mankind, but as they are the 
 objects of imitation; like the Indian fowl called the mock[ing] bird, who 
 has no note of his own, but hits every sound in the wood as soon as he hears 
 it ; so that Mirror is at once a copy and an original. Poor Mirror's fate, as 
 well as talent, is like that of the bird we just now spoke of: the nightingale, 
 the linnet, the lark, are delighted with his company ; but the buzzard, the 
 crow, and the owl, are observed to be his mortal enemies. Whenever So- 
 phronius meets Mirror, he receives him with civility and respect, and well 
 knows a good copy of himself can be no injury to him ; but Bathillus shuns 
 the street where he expects to meet him ; for he that knows his every slip 
 and look is constrained and affected, must be afraid to be rivalled in his ac- 
 tion, and of having it discovered to be unnatural, by its being practised by 
 another as well as himself."—" Tattler ;" Saturday, August 6, 1709. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 107 
 
 gin of the written part of Falstaff, which he acted, his own 
 notes and observations upon almost every speech of it, de- 
 scribing the true spirit of the humour, and with what tone 
 of voice, look, and gesture, each of them ought to be de- 
 
 that were incapable of amending their faults, that dreaded him; 
 to others he was in the highest degree pleasing; and I do not 
 know any satisfaction of any indifferent kind I ever tasted so 
 much, as having got over an impatience of my seeing myself in the 
 air he could put me in when I have displeased him. It is indeed 
 to his excellent talent this way, more than any philosophy I could 
 read on the subject, that my person is very little of my care ; and 
 it is indifferent to me what is said of my shape, my air, my man- 
 ner, my speech, or my address. It is to poor Estcourt I chiefly 
 owe that I am arrived at the happiness of thinking nothing a dimi- 
 nution to me, but what argues a depravity of my will. 
 
 " It has as much surprised me as any thing in nature, to have it 
 frequendy said, that he was not a good player : but that must be 
 owing to a partiality for former actors in the parts in which he suc- 
 ceeded them, and judging by comparison of what was liked be- 
 fore, rather than by the nature of the thing. When a man of his 
 wit and smartness could put on an utter absence of common sense 
 in his face, as he did in the character of Bullfinch, in the " Nor- 
 thern Lass," and an air of insipid cunning and vivacity in the 
 character of Pounce, in the " Tender Husband," it is folly to dis- 
 pute his capacity and success, as he was an actor. 
 
 " Poor Estcourt ! let the vain and proud be at rest ; they will 
 no more disturb their admiration of their dear selves, and thou art 
 no longer to drudge in raising the mirth of stupids, who know 
 nothing of thy merit, for thy maintenance." 
 
 * " What was peculiarly excellent in this memorable compa- 
 nion was, that, in the accounts he gave of persons and sentiments, 
 he did not only hit the figure of their faces, and manner of their 
 gestures, but he would, in his narrations, fall into their way of 
 thinking."—" Spectator;" No. 468. 
 
108 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 livered. Yet in his execution upon the stage, he seemed 
 to have lost all those just ideas he had formed of it, and, 
 almost through the character, laboured under a heavy load 
 of flatness : in a word, with all his skill in mimicry, and 
 knowledge of what ought to be done, he never, upon the 
 stage, could bring it truly into practice, but was upon the 
 whole, a languid, unaflfecting actor. After I have shown 
 you so many necessary qualifications, not one of which can 
 be spared in true theatrical elocution, and have at the same 
 time proved, that with the assistance of them all united, the 
 whole may still come forth defective ; what talents shall we 
 say will infallibly form an actor ? This, I confess, is one 
 of nature's secrets, too deep for me to dive into ; let us con- 
 tent ourselves, therefore, with afiirming, that genius, which 
 nature only gives, only can complete him. This genius, 
 then, was so strong in Betterton, that it shone out in every 
 speech and motion of him. Yet voice and person are 
 such necessary supports to it, that, by the multitude^ 
 they have been preferred to genius itself, or at least often 
 mistaken for it. Betterton had a voice of that kind, which 
 gave more spirit to terror, than to the softer passions ; of 
 more strength than melody. The rage and jealousy of 
 Othello, became him better than the sighs and tenderness of 
 Cast alio : for though in Castalio he only excelled others, 
 in Othello he excelled himself; which you will easily be- 
 lieve, when you consider that, in spite of his complexion, 
 Othello has more natural beauties than the best actor can 
 find in all the magazine of poetry, to animate his power, 
 and delight his judgment with. 
 
 The person of this excellent actor was suitable to his 
 voice ; more manly than sweet ; not exceeding the middle 
 stature ; inclining to the corpulent ; of a serious and pene- 
 trating aspect ; his limbs nearer the athletic than the deli- 
 cate proportion ; yet, however formed, there arose from the 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 109 
 
 harmony of the whole a commanding mien of majesty, 
 which the, fairer- faced, or, as Shakspeare calls them, the 
 curled darlings of his time, ever wanted something to be 
 equal masters of. There was some years ago to be had, 
 almost in every print-shop, a mezzotinto, from Kneller, 
 extremely like him.* 
 
 * The following picture of Mr. Betterton's person has been 
 drawn by Antony Aston, in his " Brief Supplement," to this 
 " Apology :" 
 
 " Mr. Betterton, although a superlative good actor, laboured 
 under an ill figure, being clumsily made, having a great head, a 
 short thick neck, stooped in the shoulders, and had fat short arms, 
 which he rarely lifted higher than his stomach. His left hand fre- 
 quently lodged in his breast, between his coat and waistcoat, while 
 with his right he prepared his speech. His actions were few, but 
 just. He had little eyes and a broad face, [was] a little pock- 
 fretten, [and had] a corpulent body and thick legs, with large 
 feet. He was better to meet than to follow ; for his aspect was 
 serious, venerable, and majestic ; in his latter time a little para- 
 lytic. His voice was low and grumbling, yet he could tune it by 
 an artful climax, which enforced universal attention, even from the 
 fops and orange-girls. He was incapable of dancing, even in a 
 country-dance ; as was Mrs. Barry : but their good qualities were 
 more than equal to their deficiencies." 
 
 The character of Tony Aston, — so notorious for his frauds, 
 ignorance, and audacity, — is sufficiently established to exonerate 
 this philippic against Gibber's assertions from minute exposure or 
 momentary reliance. Let the following instance of his sharping 
 dexterity, as related by Chetwood, convince the impartial reader 
 of his fitness for any task of the most daring or dirty nature : 
 
 " His finances, like those of kingdoms, were sometimes at the 
 tide of flood, and as often at low ebb. In one, where his stream 
 had left the channel dry, yet ready to launch out on a trading 
 voyage without a cargo, or provision, he called up his landlord. 
 
110 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 111 all I have said of Betterton, I confine myself to the time 
 of his strength, and highest power in action, that you may 
 make allowances from what he was able to execute at fifty, 
 to what you might have seen of him at past seventy ; for 
 though to the last he was without his equal, he might not 
 then be equal to his former self; yet so far was he from 
 
 to whom there was something due, told him of his losses in his pre- 
 sent voyage, and being sent for to another place, desired he would 
 lend him a small sum upon his wardrobe, (which he showed him in 
 a large box,) ten times the value of the debt owing, or the sum 
 borrowed. The honest landlord, seeing a proper security, easily 
 complied, gave him the sum demanded, locked up the trunk, put 
 the key in his pocket, and retired. But as no vessel can make a 
 voyage without sails, and other proper materials, he had contrived 
 a false bottom to this great box, took out the stuffing, and by de- 
 grees, sent off his wardrobe by his emissaries, unperceived. And 
 that the weight should not detect him, he filled up the void with 
 cabbage-stalks, bricks, and stones, clothed with rags to prevent 
 moving, when the vehicle was to be taken the next morning into 
 the landlord's custody. Every thing succeeded to his wish, and 
 away went Tony, but far wide of the place he mentioned to mine 
 host. A week was the stated time of redemption, which the land- 
 lord saw elapse with infinite satisfaction, for he had a bill of sale 
 of the contents in the trunk : he opened it with great pleasure ; 
 but when he saw the fine lining, he was motionless ; like a statue 
 carved by a bungling hand. He had recourse to revenge. A 
 bailiff with proper directions was sent to the place mentioned ; 
 but if he had discovered the least wit in his anger, he might have 
 thought Tony knew better than to tell him truth. I only mention 
 this little story, to let the reader know the shifts the itinerant gen- 
 try are sometimes put to. For Tony, when his finances were in 
 order, and cured of the consumption, honestly paid him. I have 
 had this tale both from Tony and the landlord, who then kept the 
 Black-boy inn, at Chelmsford, in Essex." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. Ill 
 
 being ever overtaken, that for many years after his de- 
 cease, I seldom saw any of his parts in Shakspeare supplied 
 by others, but it drew from me the lamentation of Ophelia^ 
 upon Hamlet's being unlike what she had seen him : 
 
 -O, woe is me, 
 
 T'have seen what I have seen, see what I see ! 
 
 The last part this great master of his profession acted, 
 was Melantius, in the " Maid's Tragedy," for his own be- 
 nelSt ; when being suddenly seized by the gout, he submit- 
 ted, by extraordinary applications, to have his foot so far 
 relieved, that he might be able to walk on the stage in a 
 slipper, rather than wholly disappoint his auditors. He 
 was observed that day, to have exerted a more than ordi- 
 nary spirit, and met with suitable applause ; but the un- 
 happy consequence of tampering with his distemper was, 
 that it flew into his head, and killed him in three days, I 
 think; in the seventy- fourth year of his age.* 
 
 * Thomas Betterton was born in Tothill-street, Westminster, 
 in the year 1635, his father at that time being under-cook to 
 King Charles the First. He received the rudiments of a genteel 
 education, and testified such a propensity to literature, that it was 
 the steadfast intention of his family to have had him qualified for 
 some congenial employment. This design, the confusion and 
 violence of the times most probably prevented, though a fondness 
 for reading induced them to consult his inclinations, and he was 
 accordingly apprenticed to Mr. Rhodes, a respectable bookseller, 
 residing at the Bible, in Charing-cross. 
 
 This person, who had been wardrobe-keeper to the theatre in 
 Blackfriars, before the suppression of dramatic amusements, on 
 General Monk's approach to London, in the year 1659, obtained 
 a license from the local authorities to collect a company of actors, 
 and employ them at the " Cockpit," in Drury-lane. Here while 
 Kynaston, his fellow-apprentice, sustained the principal female 
 
11^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 I once thought to have filled up my work with a select 
 dissertation upon theatrical action, but I find, by the di- 
 
 parts, Betterton was distinguished by the vigour and elegance of 
 his manly personations. The fame of Beaumont and Fletcher was 
 then at its zenith, and in their plays of the " Loyal Subject," and 
 the " Mad Lover," added to " Pericles," the " Bondman," and the 
 ** Changeling," Mr. Betterton established the groundwork of his 
 great reputation. ( 1 ) 
 
 Sir William D'Avenant having been favoured with a patent 
 before the civil wars broke out, obtained a renewal of that royal 
 grant upon the restoration, and in the spring of 1662, after re- 
 hearsing various plays at Apothecaries'-hall, he opened a new 
 theatre in Lincoln's-inn-fields, where Rhodes's comedians, with the 
 addition of Harris, (2) and three others, were sworn before the 
 
 (1) His voice being then as audibly strong, full, and articulate, as in the 
 prime of his acting. — " Roscius Anglicanus." 
 
 (2) Joseph Harris, an actor of amazing versatility, who is said, in Curl's 
 ** History of the Stage," to have been bred a seal-cutter, played Alphonsoy in 
 the " Siege of Rhodes," on his retention by Sir William D'Avenant at the 
 theatre in Lincoln's-inn-fields. His most distinguished parts, in rapid suc- 
 cession, were Romeo, Sir Andrew Ague-cheek, and Cardinal Woisey, in the 
 last of which, according to the rapturous eulogy of honest Downs, he acted 
 *' with such state, port, and mien," as to transcend the reputation of all pre- 
 ceding excellence. 
 
 Upon the death of D'Avenant, in 1668, the dominion of his company de- 
 volved upon Harris, in conjunction with the widow, and Mr. Betterton. In 
 1672 he had the misfortune to wound an actor, named Cademan, so severely 
 in the eye, as to unfit him for the farther pursuit of his profession. 
 
 The talents of Harris were not confined to speaking alone, as singing was 
 another of his qualifications, in the exercise of which he and Sandford sang a 
 humourous epilogue to the " Man's the Master," in the characters of two 
 itinerant vocalists. The variety of power enjoyed by Harris is calculated to 
 excite astonishment, and from the force with which its excellence has been 
 attested, he must have possessed the most comprehensive ability. 
 
 Owing to the total suppression of his name upon the junction of the com- 
 panies, in 1682, till the appearance of ** Bussy D'Amboia," as revived from 
 Chapman by D'Urfey, in 1691, when it stood among the dramatis personee for 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 113 
 
 gressions I have been tempted to make in this account of 
 Betterton, that all I can say upon that head will naturally 
 
 Lord Chamberlain, as servants of the crown, and honoured by the 
 sanction of the Duke of York. 
 
 Here Sir William D'Avenant produced his" Siege of Rhodes," 
 a play in two parts, embellished with such scenery and decorations 
 as had never been before exhibited on the boards of a British 
 theatre. The parts were strongly cast, and this drama, assisted by 
 its splendid appendages, was represented for twelve days, succes- 
 sively, with unbounded approbation. 
 
 At this period Mr. Betterton first assumed the part of Hamlet, 
 deriving considerable advantage from the hints of Sir William 
 D'Avenant, to whom the acting of Taylor, its original representa- 
 tive, had been formerly familiar. Downs expressly declares that 
 this character enhanced Mr. Betterton's reputation to the utmost, 
 and there is much collateral evidence to substantiate its brillianr 
 superiority. (3) 
 
 Lanooy Mr. Daries has conjectured that he left the stage upon this event, in 
 oflFence at the arrangements made by D'Avenant and Betterton, without his 
 privity or assent. Such a supposition is not injudicious, and if once admitted, 
 we shall, perhaps, have reason to lament that necessity drove Harris, in dis- 
 tress and decay, to a resource he could only resimie under circumstances of 
 submission, despondency, and reproach. 
 
 There is an original picture of Harris, as Wolsey, in the collection at Straw- 
 berry-hill, which, though tinctured with suitable severity, exhibits features 
 susceptible of mild, and even comic expression. 
 
 (3) — "I was going on in reading my letter, when I was interrupted by Mr. 
 Greenhat, who has been this evening at the play of * Hamlet.' Mr. Bick- 
 erstafF, said he, had you been to-night at the play-house, you had seen the 
 force of action in perfection : your admired Mr. Betterton behaved himself so 
 well, that, though now about seventy [four] , he acted youth, and by the pre- 
 valent power of proper manner, gesture, and voice, appeared through the 
 whole drama a young man of great expectation, vivacity, and enterprise. The 
 soliloquy, where he began the celebrated sentence of * To be, or not to be' — 
 the expostulation, where he explains with his mother in her closet, the noble 
 ardour, after seeing his father's ghost, and his generous distress for the death 
 of Ophelia, are each of them circumstances which dwell strongly upon the 
 
 I 
 
114 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 fall in, and possibly be less tedious, if dispersed among the 
 various characters of the particular actors, I have promised 
 
 Mr. Betterton was so favourably considered by Charles the Se- 
 cond, that, upon his performance of Alvaro, in **' Love and Ho- 
 nour," he received that monarch's coronation-suit for the charac- 
 ter, as a token of esteem. Public opinion kept pace with his 
 efforts to secure it, and by evincing unparalleled talent in such 
 diversified parts as Mercutio, Sir Toby Belch, and Henry the 
 Eighth f (the last of which was adopted from his manager's remem- 
 brance of Lowin) he speedily attained to that eminence in his art, 
 above which no human exertion can probably ascend. 
 
 At the king's especial command, it has been asserted by some 
 of his biographers that Mr. Betterton went over to Paris to take a 
 view of the French stage, and suggest such means as might ensure 
 a corresponding improvement upon our own. They even go so 
 far as to term him the first who publicly introduced our moving 
 scenes, though Sir William D'Avenant, to whom that honour de- 
 cidedly belongs, had attached them, less perfectly, perhaps, in 
 1658, to his " Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru." 
 
 minds of tlie audience, and would certainly affect their behaviour on any pa- 
 rallel occasions in their own lives." — "Tattler," No. 71. 
 
 ** I have lately been told by a gentleman who has frequently seen Betterton 
 perform Hamlet , that he observed his countenance, which was naturally ruddy 
 and sanguine, in the scene of the third act where his father's ghost appears, 
 through the violent and sudden emotion of amazement and horror, turn in- 
 stantly, on the sight of his father's spirit, as pale as his neckcloth ; when his 
 whole body seemed to be affected with a tremor inexpressible ; so that, had 
 his father's ghost actually risen before him, he could not have been seized 
 with more real agonies. And this was felt so strongly by the audience, that 
 the blood seemed to shudder in their veins likewise ; and they, in some mea- 
 sure, partook of the astonishment and horror with which they saw this excel- 
 lent actor affected." — " Lick at the Laureat." 1730- 
 
 ** I have seen a pamphlet, written above forty years ago, by an inteL 
 
 ligent man, who greatly extols the performance of Betterton in this last scene, 
 commonly called the closet scene." — Davies's ** Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 
 3, j). 112, ed. \iU. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 115 
 
 to treat of; I shall therefore make use of those several ve- 
 hicles which you will find waiting in the next chapter, to 
 carry you through the rest of the journey, at your leisure. 
 
 By or before I663,Mr. Betterton liad married Mrs. Saunderson, 
 a performer in the same company, of matchless merit and unsul- 
 lied virtue, though that event, by the " Biographia Dramatica," 
 and other incautious compilations, is referred to the year 1670. 
 This lady, it may be remarked, was single, while denominated 
 mistress; the appellation of miss not being made familiar to the 
 middle classes, till after the commencement of the ensuing cen- 
 tury.(4) 
 
 The duke's company, notwithstanding the favour and excellence 
 to which Betterton, Harris, Smith, and other members were ad- 
 mitted, began to feel its want of attraction so forcibly, that Sir 
 William D'Avenant was induced to try the effects of anew theatre, 
 which was accordingly opened, with unparalleled magnificence, in 
 Dorset-garden, Salisbury-court, notwithstanding an earnest oppo- 
 sition by the city of London, in November, 1671. Opinion, how- 
 ever, still inclining to their antagonists, dramatic operas were in- 
 vented, and soon enabled the players at this place to achieve a 
 triumph over merit unassisted by such expensive frivolity. 
 
 At the death of D'Avenant, on the I7th of April, 1668, Mr. 
 Betterton succeeded to a portion of the management, and so great 
 was the estimation in which both he and his lady were held, that in 
 the year 1675, when a pastoral, called " Calisto ; or, the Chaste 
 Nymph," written by Mr. Crown, at the request of King Charles's 
 consort, was to be performed at court by persons of the great- 
 est distinction, they were appointed to instruct them in their res- 
 pective parts. In 1682, an union was effected with tlie rival com- 
 
 (4) Miss was formerly understood to mean a woman of pleasure. So Dry- ' 
 den, in his epilogue to the ** Pilgrim ;"170t) : 
 
 Misses there were, but modestly concealed. 
 Miss Cross, who is particularly noticed in Haynes's epilogue to Farquhar's 
 ** Love and a Bottle," was the first of our stage misses, and received that dis- 
 tinction about the year 1702. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 AN ArOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 pany, which Mr. Betterton continued to direct, till Rich, in 1690, 
 obtained possession of the patent, and dispossessed him of impor- 
 tance and authority. 
 
 Exasperated by ill treatment, Mr. Betterton confederated with 
 the principal performers to procure an independent license, which 
 being granted by King William, they built a new theatre in Lin- 
 coln's-inn-fields,(5) by subscription, and opened it on the 30th of 
 April, 1695, with Congreve's comedy of " Love for Love." 
 
 In 1697, Mr. Collier published his invective against the stage, 
 which had so immediate an effect upon the public mind, that Bet- 
 terton and Mrs. Bracegirdle were fined for utteringprofane and in- 
 decent expressions. A further annoyance resulted from certain 
 inhabitants of Lincoln's-inn-fields, who fancying themselves in- 
 commoded by the concourse of coaches which the play-house drew 
 together, moved the court of King's-bench for its suppression ; but 
 whatever was the result of this lawsuit, the performers continued to 
 act till their pwn voluntary removal. 
 
 In the meantime, the company from which Mr. Betterton had 
 seceded, after struggling against all the evils that an obstinate, ig- 
 norant, captious, and oppressive manager could inflict, began to 
 remove the mists of public prejudice, and obtain their due portion 
 of applause. Many of them were much improved, and by the ad- 
 vantages of youth and novelty, became able to bear up against 
 the force that Betterton had enlisted beneath his banner. En- 
 feebled by age and infirmity, this distinguished veteran transferred 
 his license to Sir John Vanbrugh, who erected a handsome theatre 
 in the Haymarket, at which, divested of influence or control, he 
 accepted an engagement as an actor. 
 
 Mr. Betterton's salary never exceeded eighty shillings a-week, 
 and having sustained the loss of more than ^^2,000,(6) by a com- 
 mercial venture to the East Indies, in 1692, necessity compelled 
 him to pursue his professional avocations. On Thursday, April 
 
 (5) Or rather, Little Lincoln's-inn-fields, as Portugal-street was then 
 called. 
 
 (6) Gildon says, £8,000. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. ^ 17 
 
 the 13th, 1709,(7) the play of " Love for Love" was performed 
 for his benefit, an occasion which summoned Mrs. Barry and Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle from their retirement, to aid this antient coadjutor by 
 the resumption of those parts they had originally sustained. Con- 
 greve is said to have furnished a prologue, though withdrawn and 
 never submitted to print, which was delivered by the latter lady, 
 the former reciting an epilogue from the pen of Rowe, which re- 
 mains in lasting testimony of his affectionate regard. From this 
 address the following lines are worthy of transcription : 
 
 But since, like friends to wit, thus throng'd you meet. 
 
 Go on, and make the generous work complete ; 
 
 Be true to merit, and still own his cause, 
 
 Find something for him more than bare applause. 
 
 In just remembrance of your pleasure past. 
 
 Be kind and give him a discharge at last ; 
 
 In peace and ease life's remnant let him wear. 
 
 And hang his consecrated buskin here. 
 
 This hint, however, proved unavailing, and " Old Thomas" still 
 continued to labour, when permitted by intermissions of disease, 
 for that subsistence his age and his services should long before have 
 secured. 
 
 Mr. Betterton accordingly performed at intervals in the course 
 of the ensuing winter, and on the 25th of April, 1710, was admit- 
 ted to another benefit, which, with the patronage bestowed upon its 
 predecessor, is supposed to have netted nearly ^1000. Upon 
 
 (7) In No. 157 of the " Tattler," for Tuesday, April the 11, 1709, we find 
 the following advertisement : — 
 
 '* Mr. Bickerstaff, in consideration of his antient friendship, and acquaint- 
 ance with Mr. Betterton, and great esteem for his merit, summons all his dis- 
 ciples, whether dead or living, mad or tame, toasts, smarts, dappers, pretty 
 fellows, musicians, or scrapers, to make their appearance at the play-house in 
 the Hay-market on Thursday next, when there will be a play acted for the 
 benefit of the said Betterton." 
 
 In Gildon's "Life," &c. 1710, there is a copy of Rowe's " Epilogue,'* 
 stated to have been spoken by Mrs. Barry, " at the Theatre Royal, in Drury- 
 lane, April the 7th," and this mistaken date has been perpetuated by the " Bio- 
 graphia Dramatica." 
 
 I 3 
 
U8 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 this occasion, he was announced for his celebrated part of Melati" 
 tins, in the '' Maid's Tragedy," from the performance of which he 
 ought, however, upon strict consideration, to have been deterred ; 
 for ImTtng been suddenly seized with the gout, a determination not 
 to disappoint theexpectancy of his friends, induced him to employ 
 a repelkitory medicine, which lessened the swelling of his feet, and 
 permitted him to walk in slippers. He acted, accordingly, with pe- 
 culiar spirit, and was received with universal applause ; but such 
 were the fatal effects of his laudable anxiety, that the distemper 
 returned with unusual violence, ascended to his head, and termi- 
 nated his existence, in three days from the date of this fatal assump- 
 tion. On the 2nd of May, his remains were deposited with much 
 form in the cloisters of Westminster-abbey, an event which Sir 
 Richard Steele hds related in the following pathetic manner : — 
 
 " Having received notice that the famous actor, Mr. Betterton, 
 was to be interred this evening in the cloisters, near Westminster- 
 abbey, I was resolved to walk thither, and see the last office done 
 to a man whom I always very much admired, and from whose action 
 I had received more strong impressions of what is great and noble 
 in human nature, than from the arguments of the most solid philo- 
 sophers, or the descriptions of the most charming poets I had ever 
 read. As the rude and untaught multitude are no way wrought 
 upon more effectually than by seeing public punishments and exe- 
 cutions, so men of letters and education feel their humility most 
 forcibly exercised, when they attend the obsequies of men who had 
 arrived at any perfection in liberal accomplishments. Theatrical 
 action is to be esteemed as such, except it be objected, that we 
 cannot call that an art which cannot be attained by art. Voice, 
 stature, motion, and other gifts, must be very bountifully bestowed 
 by nature, or labour and industry will but push the unhappy en- 
 deavourer in that way, the further off his wishes. 
 
 ** Such an actor as Mr. Betterton ought to be recorded with the 
 same respect as Roscius among the Romans. The greatest orator 
 has thought fit to quote his judgment, and celebrate his life. Ros- 
 cius was the example to all tliat would form themselves into pro- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 119 
 
 per and winning behaviour. His action was so well adapted to 
 
 the sentiments he expressed, that the youth of Rome thought they 
 
 wanted only to be virtuous to be as graceful in their appearance 
 
 asRoscius. (8) The imagination took a lively impression of what 
 
 was great and good ; and they who never thought of setting up 
 
 for the art of imitation, became themselves inimitable characters. 
 * * * -x- * * 
 
 " I have hardly a notion that any performer of antiquity could 
 surpass the action of Mr. Betterton in any of the occasions in which 
 he has appeared on our stage. The wonderful agony which he 
 appeared in, when he examined the circumstance of the handker- 
 chief in "Othello;" the mixture of love that intruded upon his 
 mind upon the innocent answers Desdemona makes,(9) betrayed 
 in his gesture such a variety and vicissitude of passions, as would ad- 
 monish a man to be afraid of his own heart, and perfectly convince 
 him, that it is to stab it, to admit that worst of daggers, jealousy. 
 (10) Whoever reads in his closet this admirable scene, will find 
 that he cannot, except he has as warm an imagination as Shaks- 
 peare himself, find any but dry, incoherent, and broken sentences ; 
 but a reader that has seen Betterton act it, observes there could 
 not be a word added ; that longer speeches had been unnatural, 
 nay impossible, in Othello's circumstances. The charming pas- 
 sage in the same tragedy, where he tells the manner of winning 
 the affection of his mistress, was urged with so moving and grace- 
 ful an energy, that while I walked in the cloisters, I thought of him 
 with the same concern as if I waited for the remains of a person 
 who had in real life done all that I had seen him represent. The 
 gloom of the place, and faint lights before the ceremony appeared, 
 contributed to the melancholy disposition I was in ; and I began to 
 
 (8) This assertion must be taken cum grano salts ; but Steele's sincerity, 
 in framing it, conveys a high compliment to Betterton's parallel value. 
 
 (9) Here is a noble hint to modern representatives of this arduous charac- 
 ter. 
 
 (10) Sir Richard Steele, in the warmth of his deprecation, has treated 
 jealousy as an optional attribute; but such an assumption, I believe, is 
 «qually at variance with reason and example. 
 
IfO 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 be extremely afflicted that Brutus and Cassius had any difference ; 
 that Hotspur'' s gallantry was so unfortunate ; and that the mirth 
 and good-humour of Falstaff could not exempt him from the 
 grave. 
 
 " The mention I have here made of Mr. Betterton, for whom I 
 had, as long as I have known any thing, a very great esteem and 
 gratitude for the pleasure he gave me, can do him no good ; but it 
 may possibly be of service to the unhappy woman he has left be- 
 hind him, to have it known that this great tragedian was never in 
 a scene half so moving, as the circumstances of his affairs created 
 at his departure.( 11) His wife, after the cohabitation of forty- 
 [seven] years in the strictest amity, has long pined away with a 
 sense of his decay, as well in his person as his little fortune ; and, 
 in proportion to that, she has herself decayed both in her health 
 and reason. Her husband's death, added to her age and infirmi- 
 ties, would certainly have determined her life, but that the great- 
 ness of her distress has been her relief, by a present deprivation 
 of her senses. This absence of reason has been her best defence 
 against age, sorrow, poverty, and sickness. I dwell upon this 
 account so distinctly, in obedience to a certain great spirit, who 
 hides her name, and has by letter applied to me to recommend to 
 her some object of compassion, from which she may be con- 
 cealed."(12)— -" Tattler;" No. 1 68 ; Thursday, xMay 4, 1710. 
 
 Mr. Betterton was celebrated for polite behaviour to the dra- 
 matic writers of his time, and distinguished by singular modesty, 
 in not presuming to understand the chief points of any character 
 
 (11) These circumstances, remarks Mr. Davies, " were reproachful to an 
 age of which he was so great an ornament," but such a sentiment, however 
 humane, we cannot easily subscribe to. Mr. Betterton had accumulated a 
 handsome property by public support, of which when misfortunes deprived 
 him, the descendants of his early admirers contributed with very honourable 
 ardour to cherish those exertions in which they had been permitted but slight- 
 ly to participate. 
 
 (12) Herg is probably an allusion to the bounty of Queen Ann, who after- 
 wards supplied the widow with a handsome addition to her slender means of 
 subsistence. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 1^1 
 
 they offered him, till their ideas had been asked, and, if possible, 
 adopted.(13) He is also praised in some verses published with 
 the " State Poems," for extending pecuniary assistance to embar- 
 rassed writers, till the success of a doubtful production might 
 enable them to remunerate their generous creditor. Indeed, Mr. 
 Betterton's benevolence was coupled with such magnanimity, that 
 upon the death of that unhappy friend to whose counsels his little 
 fortune had been sacrificed, he took charge of a surviving daugh- 
 ter, educated her at considerable expense, and not only made 
 her an accomplished actress, but a valuable woman.(14) 
 
 Among many testimonies of deference to his judgment, and 
 regard for his zeal, the tributes of Dryden and Rowe have been 
 brilliantly recorded.(15) He was naturally of a cheerful temper, 
 with a pious reliance upon the dispensations of providence, and 
 nothing can yield a higher idea of his great affability, than the 
 
 (13) " Dramatic Miscellanies ;" vol. 3, p. 399. 
 
 (14) This lady, who was remarkably handsome, married Boman, the 
 actor. 
 
 (15) The passages here alluded to are as follows: — 
 
 " Above twelve hundred lines have been cut off from this tragedy, since it 
 was first delivered to the actors. They were, indeed, so judiciously lopped by 
 Mr. Betterton, to whose care and excellent action I am equally obliged, that 
 the connexion of the story was not lost." — *' Don Sebastian ;" preface; 4to, 
 1690. 
 
 " I cannot leave * Hamlet,* without taking notice of the advantage with 
 which we have seen this masterpiece of Shakspeare distinguish itself upon the 
 stage, by Mr. Betterton's fine performance of that part. A man who, though 
 he had no other good qualities, as he has a great many, must have made his 
 way into the esteem of all men of letters, by this only excellency. No man is 
 better acquainted with Shakspeare's manner of expression, and indeed he has 
 studied him so well, and is so much master of him, that whatever part of his 
 he performs, he does it as if it had been written on purpose for him, and that 
 the author had exactly conceived it as he plays it. I must own a particular 
 obligation to him, for the most considerable part of the passages relating to 
 this life, which I have here transmitted to the public, his veneration for the 
 memory of Shakspeare having engaged him to make a journey into Wanvick- 
 shire, on purpose to gather up what remains he could, of a name for which he 
 had so great a veneration." — " Life of Shakspeare ;" 1709. 
 
lis AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 effect his behaviour produced upon Pope, who must have been a 
 mere boy, when first admitted to his society. He sat to the poet 
 for his picture, which Pope painted in oil, ( 16) and so eager was the 
 bard to perpetuate his memory, that he published a modernization of 
 Chaucer's " Prologues," in this venerable favourite's name, though 
 palpably the produce of his own elegant pen.(17) As an author, 
 Mr. Betterton's labours were confined to the drama, and if his 
 original pieces are not entitled to much praise, his alterations ex- 
 hibit some judicious amendments. 
 
 (16) This curiosity, I believe, is still preserved in the Earl of Mansfield's 
 mansion, at Caen- wood. 
 
 (17) Pope, in the postscript of a letter to Cromwell, writes thus : — 
 
 ** This letter of death puts me in mind of poor Betterton's, over whom 
 
 I would have this sentence of TuUy for an epitaph, which will serve for his 
 moral as well as his theatrical capacity : 
 
 *' Vitts bene actee jucundissima est recordation 
 
 In another part of his correspondence, he intimates that Betterton's " re- 
 mains" had been taken care of, alluding, I suppose, to this posthumous 
 forgery. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 19S 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 The theatrical characters of the principal actors, in the year 
 1690, continued. — A few words to critical auditors. 
 
 THOUGH, as I have before observed, women were not ad- 
 mitted to the stage till the return of King Charles, yet it 
 could not be so suddenly supplied with them, but that there 
 was still a necessity, for some time, to put the handsomest 
 young men into petticoats, which Kynaston was then said 
 to have worn with success ; particularly in the part of 
 Evadne, in the " Maid's Tragedy," which I have heard 
 him speak of; and which calls to my mind a ridiculous dis- 
 tress that arose from these sort of shifts which the stage 
 was then put to. The king coming a little before his usual' 
 time to a tragedy, found the actors not ready to begin, when 
 his majesty, not chusing to have as much patience as his 
 good subjects, sent (o them, to know the meaning of it ; 
 upon which the master of the company came to the box, 
 and rightly judging that the best excuse for their default, 
 would be the true one, fairly told his majesty, that the 
 Queen was not shaved yet. The king, whose good humour 
 loved to laugh at a jest, as well as to make one, accepted the 
 excuse, which served to divert him, till the male queen 
 could be effeminated. In a word, Kynaston at that time 
 was so beautiful a youth, that the ladies of quality prided 
 themselves in taking him with them in- their coaches to 
 Hyde Park, in his theatrical habit, after the play ; which 
 in those days they might have sufficient time to do, because 
 
1S4 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 plays then were used to begin at four o'clock ; the hour 
 that people of the same rank, are now going to dinner. 
 Of this truth, 1 had the curiosity to inquire, and had it con- 
 firmed from his own mouth, in his advanced age : and, in- 
 deed, to the last of him, his handsomeness was so very little 
 abated, that even at past sixty his teeth were all sound, 
 white, and even, as one would wish to see in a reigning 
 toast of twenty. He had something of a formal gravity in 
 his mien, which was attributed to the stately step he had been 
 so early confined to, in a female decency. But even that, 
 in characters of superiority, had its proper graces ; it mis- 
 became him not in the part of Leon ^ in Fletcher's " Rule a 
 Wife and have a Wife," which he executed with a deter- 
 mined manliness and honest authority, well worth the best 
 actor's imitation. He had a piercing eye, and in characters 
 of heroic life, a quick imperious vivacity in his tone of 
 voice, that painted the tyrant truly terrible. There were 
 two plays of Dryden in which he shone with uncommon 
 lustre : in " Aurengzebe," he played Morat^ and in " Don 
 Sebastian," Muley Moloch ; in both these parts he had a 
 fierce, lion-like majesty in his port and utterance, that gave 
 the spectator a kind of trembling admiration. 
 
 Here I cannot help observing upon a modest mistake, 
 which I thought the late Mr. Booth committed in his 
 acting the part of Moral. ^ There are in this fierce charac- 
 
 * " The remark is just. Mr. Booth would sometimes slur over 
 such bold sentiments so flightily delivered by the poet. As he was 
 good-natured, and would hear each man's censure, yet reserve 
 his judgment, I once took the liberty of observing that he had 
 neglected, as I thought, giving that kind of spirited turn in the 
 afore-mentioned character. He told me I was mistaken ; it was not 
 negligence, but design, made him so slightly pass over them : * For 
 though,' added he, * in these places one might raise a laugh of 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 123 
 
 ter so many sentiments of avowed barbarity, insolence, and 
 vain-glory, that they blaze even to a ludicrous lustre, and 
 doubtless the poet intended those to make his spectators 
 laugh, while they admired them : but Booth tliought it 
 depreciated the dignity of tragedy, to raise a smile in any 
 part of it, and therefore covered these kind of sentiments, 
 with a scrupulous coldness, and unmoved delivery, as if he 
 had feared the audience might take too familiar a notice 
 of them. In Mr. Addison's " Cato," Sj/phajohas some sen- 
 timents of nearly the same nature, which I ventured to 
 speak as I imagined Kynaston would have done, had he 
 been then living to have stood in the same character. Mr. 
 Addison, who had something of Mr. Booth's diffidence at 
 the rehearsal of his play, after it was acted, came into my 
 opinion, and owned, that even tragedy, on such particular 
 occasions, might admit of a laugh of approbation. In 
 Shakspeare, instances of them are frequent; as in Macbeth, 
 Hotspur, Richard the Third, and Henry the Eighth;* 
 
 approbation in a few, yet there is nothing more unsafe than excit- 
 ing the laugh of simpletons, who never know when or where to 
 stop; and as the majority are not always the wisest part of an au- 
 dience, I don't chuse to run the hazard.' " — " Life and Character 
 of Booth," by Theophilus Gibber. 
 
 * Theophilus Gibber, in the tract already ^quoted, expressly 
 states, that Booth " was not so scrupulously nice or timorous" in this 
 character, as in that to which our author has invidiously referred. 
 I shall give the passage, for its powerful antidote to Golley's 
 venom : — 
 
 " Mr. Booth in this part, though he gave full scope to the humour, 
 never dropped the dignity of the character. You laughed at 
 Henry ^ but lost not your respect for him. When he appeared most 
 * familiar,' he was 'by no means vulgar.' The people most about 
 him felt the ease they enjoyed was owing to his condescension : he 
 maintained the monarch. Hans Holbein never gave a higher pic- 
 
1^ LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 all which characters, though of a tragical cast, have some- 
 times familiar strokes in them, so highly natural to each par- 
 ticular disposition, that it is impossible not to be transported 
 into an honest laughter at them : and these are those happy 
 liberties, which though few authors are qualified to take, 
 yet, when justly taken, may challenge a place among their 
 greatest beauties. Now whether Dry den in his Moral ^ 
 feliciter audet^ or may be allowed the happiness of having 
 hit his mark, seems not necessary to be determined by the 
 actor ; whose business, surely, is to make the best of his 
 author's intention, as in this part Kynaston did, doubtless 
 not without Dry den's approbation. For these reasons, then, 
 I thought my good friend Mr. Booth, (who certainly had 
 many excellencies) carried his reverence for the buskin too 
 far, in not following the bold flights of the author, with 
 that wantonness of spirit which the nature of those senti- 
 ments demanded : for example ; — Moral having a criminal 
 passion for Indamora, promises, at her request, for one day, 
 to spare the life of her lover Aurengzebe, but not chusing 
 to make known the real motive of his mercy, when Nour- 
 mahal says to him, 
 
 'Twill not be safe to let him live an hour. 
 Marat silences her with this heroical rhodomontade : 
 
 I'll do't, to show my arbitrary power. 
 Risum teneatis f It was impossible not to laugh, and rea- 
 sonably, too, when this line came out of the mouth of 
 
 ture of him than did the actor, (Booth) in his representation. When 
 angry, his eye spoke majestic terror; the noblest and the bravest 
 of his courtiers were awe-struck : he gave you the full idea of that 
 arbitrary prince, who thought himself born to be obeyed ; the bold- 
 est dared not to dispute his commands; he appeared to claim a 
 right divine to exert the power he imperiously assumed." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. .W 
 
 Kynaston, with the stern and haughty look that attended 
 it. But above this tyrannical, tumid superiority of cha- 
 racter, there is a grave and rational majesty in Shakspeare's 
 Henry the Fourth^ which though not so glaring to the vul- 
 gar eye, requires thrice the skill and grace, to become 
 and support. Of this real majesty Kynaston was entirely 
 master ; here every sentiment came from him as if it had 
 been his own, as if he had himself, that instant, conceived 
 it, as if he had lost the player, and were the real king he 
 personated, — a perfection so rarely found, that very often, 
 in actors of good repute, a certain vacancy of look, inanity 
 of voice, or superfluous gesture, shall unmask the man to 
 the judicious spectator ; who, from the least of those errors, 
 plainly sees the whole but a lesson given him to be got by 
 heart, from some great author, whose sense is deeper than 
 the repeater's understanding. This true majesty Kynaston 
 had so entire a command of, that when he whispered the 
 following plain line to Hot spur ^ 
 
 Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it ! 
 he conveyed a more terrible menace in it than the loudest 
 intemperance of voice could swell to. But let the bold 
 imitator beware, for without the look and just elocution 
 that waited on it, an attempt bf the same nature may fall to 
 nothing. 
 
 But the dignity of this character appeared in Kynaston 
 still more shining in the private scene between the King 
 and the Prince^ his son : there you saw majesty in that 
 sort of grief which only majesty could feel ; there the pater- 
 nal concern for the errors of the son made the monarch 
 more revered and dreaded : his reproaches so just, yei so 
 unmixed with anger, (and therefore the more piercing) 
 opening, as it were, the arms of nature with a secret wish 
 that filial duty, and penitence awaked, might fall into 
 them with grace and honour. In this affecting scene I 
 
12S AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 thought Kynaston showed his most masterly strokes of 
 nature ; expressing all the various emotions of the heart 
 with the same force, dignity, and feeling they are written ; 
 adding to the whole that peculiar and becoming grace, 
 which the best writer cannot inspire into any actor that is 
 not born with it. What made the merit of this actor, and 
 that of Betterton, more surprising, was, that though they 
 both observed the rules of truth and nature, they were each 
 as different in their manner of acting, as in their personal 
 form and features. But Kynaston staid too long upon the 
 stage ; till his memory and spirit began to fail him. I 
 shall not, therefore, say anything of his imperfections, 
 which, at that time, were visibly not his own, but the 
 effects of decaying nature,* 
 
 * Edward Kynaston made his first appearance in 1659, at the 
 "Cockpit" in Drury-lane, under the management of Rhodes, to 
 whom, in his trade of bookselling", he had previously been appren- 
 ticed. Here he took the lead in personating female parts, ( 1 ) among 
 which he sustained Calls, in the " Mad Lover ;" Ismena, in the 
 ** Maid in the Mill ;" the heroine of Sir John Suckling's " Aglaura;" 
 Arthiope, in the " Unfortunate Lovers;" and Evadne, in the 
 " Maid's Tragedy." The three last of these parts have been dis- 
 tinguished by Downs and our author as the best of his efforts, and 
 being then but a " mannish youth," he made a suitable represen- 
 tative of feminine beauty. Kynaston's forte, at this period, ap- 
 pears to have consisted in moving compassion and pity, " in which," 
 says old Downs, " it has since been disputable among the judi- 
 cious, whether any woman that succeeded him so sensibly touched 
 the audience as he." 
 
 At the restoration, when his majesty's servants re-opened the 
 " Red Bull" playhouse, in St. John-street, next shifted to Gibbons's 
 tennis-court, in Clare-market, and finally settled, in 1663, at their 
 
 (1) Gildon's " Life of Betterton." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 129 
 
 Mountfort, a younger man by twenty years, and at this 
 time in his highest reputation, was an actor of a very dif- 
 
 new theatre in Drury-lane, Kynaston was admitted to their ranks, 
 and played Peregrine^ in Jonson's comedy of the " Fox.'* He also 
 held StrDaupkine, a minor personage, in the same actor's " Silent 
 Woman," and soon after succeeded to Otto, in the " Duke of 
 Normandy," a part which was followed by others of variety and 
 importance. 
 
 In derogation of Gibber's panegyric, we are assured by Davies, 
 upon the authority of some old comedians, (2) that, from his 
 juvenile familiarity with female characters, Kynaston contracted 
 some disagreeable tones in speaking, which resembled the whine or 
 cant that genuine taste has at all times been impelled to explode. 
 When George Powel was once discharging the intemperance of 
 a recent debauch from his stomach, Kynaston asked him if he still 
 felt sick. " How is it possible to be otherwise," said Powel, 
 ** when I hear you speak?" Much as Kynaston, however, might 
 have been affected by the pecuharities of early practice, we can- 
 not consent, upon evidence such as this, to rob him of the laurels 
 that have sprung from respectable testimony. 
 
 On the 14th of October, 1681, Kynaston, in conjunction with 
 Hart, conveyed over to Dr. D'Avenant, Betterton, and Smith, all 
 right and title to such property as he possessed in Drury-lane the- 
 atre; on consideration of receiving five shillings for every day upon 
 which the duke's company should act at Dorset-garden, or elsewhere. 
 He engaged, if possible, to break from his alliance with the king's 
 company, to act at the duke's house, in the event of which his 
 pension was to cease upon a weekly payment of ^3 ; and joined 
 with Hart in a promise to enforce Mr. Killegrew's consent to this 
 compact, if necessary, by an action at law, for the expenses of 
 which they were also made responsible. 
 
 Kynaston's first part, after this famous union, was Maximus, in 
 
 (2) " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 3, p. 337. 
 K 
 
130 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 ferent style. Of person he was tall, well-made, fair, and of 
 an agreeable aspect ; his voice clear, full, and melodious : 
 in tragedy he was the most affecting lover within my me- 
 mory. His addresses had a resistless recommendation from 
 
 Lord Rochester's alteration of " Valentinian." In 1695 he fol- 
 lowed the fortunes of Betterton to Lincoln's-inn-fields, and sup- 
 ported a considerable character in John Banks's " Cyrus the 
 Great," produced the year after this removal. The time of his 
 retirement is not known, but it appears from our author that 
 he continued upon the stage till his memory and spirit both began to 
 fail him. He had left it, however, before 1706, when Betterton 
 and Underhill have been specified by Downs, as " being the only 
 remains of the Duke of York's servants," at that time before the 
 public. Kynaston died wealthy, and was buried in the church- 
 yard of St. Paul's, Covent-garden. 
 
 Kynaston bore a great resemblance to the noted Sir Charles 
 Sidley, a similitude of which he was so proud, that he endeavoured 
 to display it by the most particular expedients. On one occasion, 
 he got a suit of laced clothes made in imitation of the baronet's, 
 and appearing publicly in it. Sir Charles, whose wit very seldom 
 atoned for his ill-nature, punished this vain propensity in his usual 
 mischievous manner. He hired a bravo to accost Kynaston in the 
 Park, one day when he wore his finery, pick a quarrel with him on 
 account of a pretended affront from his prototype, and beat him 
 unmercifully. This scheme was duly put in practice, and though 
 Kynaston protested that he was not the person his antagonist took 
 him for, the ruffian redoubled his blows, on account of what he 
 affected to consider his scandalous falsehood. When Sir Charles 
 Sidley was remonstrated with upon the cruelty of this transaction, 
 he told the actor's friends that their pity was misplaced, for that 
 Kynaston had not suffered so much in his bones as he had in his 
 character, the whole town believing that it was he who had under- 
 gone the disgrace of this chastisement. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 131 
 
 the very tone of his voice, which gave his words such soft- 
 ness, that, as Dryden says, 
 
 Like flakes of feather'd snow. 
 
 They melted as they fell !* 
 All this he particularly verified in that scene of Alexander, 
 where the hero throws himself at the feet of Statira for 
 pardon of his past infidelities. There we saw the great, 
 the tender, the penitent, the despairing, the transported^ 
 and the amiable, in the highest perfection. In comedy, 
 he gave the truest life to what we call the Fine Gentleman ; 
 his spirit shone the brighter for being polished with de- 
 cency : in scenes of gaiety, he never broke into the regard 
 that was due to the presence of equal, or superior charac- 
 ters, though inferior actors played them : he filled the 
 stage, not by elbowing, and crossing it before others, or 
 disconcerting their action, but by surpassing them in true 
 and masterly touches of nature. He never laughed at his 
 own jest, unless the point of his raillery upon another re- 
 quired it. He had a particular talent in giving life to bons 
 mots and repartees : the wit of the poet seemed always to 
 come from him extempore, and sharpened into more wit, 
 from his brilliant manner of delivering it : he had himself 
 a good share of it, or what is equal to it, so lively a plea- 
 santness of humour, that when either of these fell into his 
 hands upon the stage, he wantoned with them to the highest 
 delight of his auditors. The agreeable was so natural to 
 him, that even in that dissolute character of the '^ Rover, "f 
 he seemed to wash off the guilt from vice, and gave it 
 
 * " Spanish Friar," a, 2, sc. 2. 
 
 t Acted at the Duke's theatre, and published, in two parts, 4to, 
 1677, 1681. Both comedies are full of bustle and intrigue, and 
 have been founded by Mrs. Aphra Behn upon Thomas Killegrew's 
 " Thomaso." 
 
 K 2 
 
132 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 charms and merit. For, though it may be a reproach to 
 the poet to draw such characters, not only unpunished, but 
 rewarded, the actor may still be allowed his due praise in 
 his excellent performance. And this is a distinction which, 
 when this comedy was acted at Whitehall, King William's 
 queen, Mary, was pleased to make in favour of Mountfort, 
 notwithstanding her disapprobation of the play. 
 
 He had, besides all this, a variety in his genius which few 
 capital actors have shown, or, perhaps, have thought it any 
 addition to their merit to arrive at. He could entirely 
 change himself; could at once throw off the man of sense, 
 for the brisk, vain, rude, and lively coxcomb, the false, 
 flashy pretender to wit, and the dupe of his own suffici- 
 ency : of this he gave a delightful instance in the character 
 of Sparkish, in Wycherley's '' Country Wife." In that 
 of Sir Courtly Nice, his excellence was still greater : 
 there his whole man, voice, mien, and gesture, was no 
 longer Mountfort, but another person. There, the insipid, 
 soft civility, the elegant and formal mien ; the drawling 
 delicacy of voice ; the stately flatness of his address, and 
 the empty eminence of his attitudes, were so nicely ob- 
 served and guarded by him, that had he not been an entire 
 master of nature, had he not kept his judgment, as it were, 
 a sentinel upon himself, not to admit the least likeness of 
 what he used to be, to enter into any part of his perform- 
 ance, he could not possibly have so completely finished 
 it. If, some years after the death of Mountfort, I myself 
 had any success in either of these characters, I must pay 
 the debt I owe to his memory, in confessing the advantages 
 I received from the just idea and strong impression he had 
 given me, from his acting them. Had he been remembered 
 when I first attempted them, my defects would have been 
 more easily discovered, and, consequently, my favourable 
 reception in them must have been very much, and justly, 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 133 
 
 abated. If it could be remembered how nmch he had the 
 advantage of me in voice and person, I could not, here, be 
 suspected of an affected modesty, or of overvaluing his ex- 
 cellence: for he sung a clear counter-tenor, and had a 
 melodious, warbling throat, which could not but set off 
 the last scene of Sir Courtly with an uncommon happiness ; 
 which I, alas ! could only struggle through, with the faint 
 excuses, and real confidence of a fine singer, under the 
 imperfection of a feigned and screaming treble, which at 
 best could only show you what I would have done, had 
 nature been more favourable to me. 
 
 This excellent actor was cut off by a tragical death, in 
 the thirty-third year of his age, generally lamented by his 
 friends, and all lovers of the theatre. The particular acci- 
 dents that attended his fall are to be found at large in the 
 trial of the Lord Mohun, printed among those of the State, 
 in folio.* 
 
 * William Mountfort, according to Gibber's estimate, was born 
 in 1660, ( 1 ) and having, I suppose, joined the king's company at a 
 very early age, about the year 1682, " grew," in the words of 
 old Downs, " to the maturity of a good actor." (2) At this pe- 
 riod he certainly followed the fortunes of Mohun, (3) but was re- 
 admitted to Drury-lane theatre, now occupied by the united com- 
 pany, and sustained Alfonso Corso, in the " Duke of Guise," in 
 1683. His rise was so rapid, that in 1685 we find him selected for 
 the hero of Growne's " Sir Gourtly Nice," " which," says Downs, 
 
 (1) The " Biograpliia Dramatica" says 1659, but as Mountfort died in 
 December, 1692, and had only entered on YAs thirty-third year, the time I 
 have assigned for his birth is most probably correct. 
 
 (2) " Roscius Anglicanus." p. 39, ed. 1708. 
 
 (3) I am borne out in this belief by the fact of Mrs. Mountfort having beem 
 among the seceders. 
 
 K 3 
 
134 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Sandford might properly be termed the Spagnolet of the 
 theatre, an excellent actor in disagreeable characters ; for, 
 
 ** was so nicely performed," that none of his successors, but Col- 
 ley Gibber, could equal him. Perhaps the last new character 
 assumed by Mountfort was Cleanthes, in Dryden's " Cleomenes," 
 a play to which he spoke the prologue. 
 
 It is said in the " Biographia Dramatica," a book which the last 
 editor has stripped of nearly all its claims to consultation, that 
 Mountfort's family was settled in Staffordshire ; and Jacob informs 
 us that he was entertained for some time in the establishment of Lord 
 Chancellor Jefferies, on the fall of whom he resumed his professional 
 pursuits, and wrote half a dozen dramatic pieces. His merits, as 
 an actor, are so vividly described in the text, that I can add nothing 
 to the fulness of Mr. Gibber's information. 
 
 I here present the reader with a narrative of those circumstances 
 attending the death of Mountfort, which have so long been misun- 
 derstood and misrepresented. 
 
 A Gaptain Richard Hill had made proposals of marriage to Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle, which were declined from what Hill appeared to con- 
 sider an injurious preference for Mountfort, between whom, though 
 a married man, and the lady, at least a platonic attachment was 
 often thought to subsist. Enraged at Mountfort's superior suc- 
 cess, and affecting to treat him as the only obstacle to his wishes, 
 Hill expressed a determination at various times, and before several 
 persons, to be revenged upon him, and as it was proved upon the 
 trial, coupled this threat with some of the bitterest invectives that 
 could spring from brutal animosity. Among Hill's associates was 
 Lord Mohun, a peer of very dissolute manners, whose extreme 
 youth afforded but a faint palliative for his participation in the act 
 of violence and debauchery to which Hill resorted. This noble- 
 man, however, who seems to have felt a chivalric devotion to the 
 interests of his friend, engaged with Hill in a cruel and perfidious 
 scheme for the abduction of Mrs. Bracegirdle, whom Hill proposed 
 to carry off, violate, and afterwards marry. They arranged with 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 135 
 
 as the chief pieces of that famous painter were of human 
 nature in pain and agony, so Sandford, upon the stage, 
 
 one Dixon, an owner of hackney carriages, to provide a coach and 
 six horses to take them to Totteridge, and appointed him to wait 
 with this conveyance over against the Horse-shoe tavern in Drury- 
 lane. A small party of soldiers was also hired to assist in this 
 notable exploit, and as Mrs. Bracegirdle, who had been supping 
 at a Mr. Page's in Prince's-street, was going down Drury-lane, 
 towards her lodgings in Howard-street, Strand, about ten o'clock 
 at night, on Friday the 9th of December, 1692, two of these sol- 
 diers pulled her away from Mr. Page, who was attending her home, 
 nearly knocked her mother down, and tried to lift her into the 
 vehicle. Her mother, upon whom the blow given by these ruffians 
 had providentially made but a short impression, hung very obsti- 
 nately about her neck, and prevented the success of their endea- 
 vours. While Mr. Page was calling loudly for assistance. Hill ran 
 at him with his sword drawn, and again endeavoured to get Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle into the coach, a task he was hindered from accom- 
 plishing, by the alarm that Page had successfully given. Com- 
 pany came up, on which Hilb insisted on seeing Mrs. Bracegirdle 
 home, and actually led her by the hand to the house in which she 
 resided. Lord Mohun, who during this scuffle was seated quietly 
 in the coach, joined Hill in Howard -street, the soldiers having 
 been previously dismissed, and there they paraded, with their 
 swords drawn, for about an hour and a half, before Mrs. Brace- 
 girdle's door. Hill's scabbard, it ought to be remarked, was 
 clearly proved to have been lost during the scuffle in Drurj'-lane, 
 and Lord Mohun, when challenged by the watch, not only sheathed 
 his weapon, but offered to surrender it. These were strong points 
 at least in his lordship's favour, and deserve to be noted, because 
 the prescriptive assertion that Mountfort was treacherously killed, 
 is weakened by the establishment of those facts. Mrs. Brown, the 
 mistress of the house where Mrs. Bracegirdle lodged, went out on 
 her arrival, to expostulate with Lord Mohun and his confederate, 
 
 K 4 
 
136 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 was generally as flagitious as a Creon,* a Maligni^f an 
 lagOyi or a Machiavel,^ could make him. The painter, 
 
 and after exchanging a few words of no particular importance, 
 dispatched her maid servant to Mountfort's house, ( I ) hard by in 
 Norfolk-street, to apprise Mrs. Mountfort of the danger to which, 
 in case of coming home, he would be subjected. Mrs. Mountfort 
 sent in seach of her husband, but without success, and the watch on 
 going their round, between eleven and twelve o'clock, found Lord 
 Mohun and Hill drinking wine in the street, a drawer having 
 brought it from an adjacent tavern. At this juncture Mrs. Brown, 
 the landlady, hearing the voices of the watch, went to the door 
 with a design of directing them to secure both Lord Mohun and 
 Hill, and some conversation passed upon that subject, although 
 her directions were not obeyed. Seeing Mountfort, just as he had 
 turned the corner into Howard-street, and was apparently coming 
 towards her house. Mrs. Brown hurried out to meet him, and men 
 tion his danger, but he would not stop, so as to allow her time for 
 the slightest communication. On gaining the spot where Lord 
 Mohun stood. Hill being a little farther off, he saluted his lordship 
 with great respect, and was received by him with unequivocal 
 kindness. Lord Mohun hinted to Mountfort that he had been sent 
 for by Mrs. Bracegirdle, in consequence of her projected seizure, 
 a charge which Mountfort immediately denied. Lord Mohun 
 then touched upon the affair, and Mountfort expressed a hope, with 
 some warmth, that he would not vindicate Hill's share in the busi- 
 ness, against which, while disclaiming any tenderness for Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle, he protested with much asperity. Hill approached in 
 
 * In " (Edipus." 
 
 t In the "Villain," a tragedy, by Thomas Porter, 4to. 1663. 
 
 I In " Othello." 
 
 § In " Caesar Borgia," a tragedy, by Lee. 
 
 (1) Mrs. Brown swore she went herself, but appears to liave been mis- 
 taken. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 137 
 
 'tis true, from the fire of his genius, might think the quiet 
 objects of nature too tame for his pencil, and therefore 
 
 time to catch the substance of Mountfort's remark, and having 
 hastily said that he could vindicate himself, gave him a blow on 
 the ear, and at the same moment a challenge to fight. They both 
 went from the pavement into the middle of the road, and after 
 making two or three passes at each other, Mountfort was mortally 
 wounded. He threw down his sword, which broke by the fall, and 
 staggered to his own house, where Mrs. Page, who had gone to 
 concert with Mrs. Mountfort for her husband's safety, hearing a 
 cry of" murder" in the street, threw open the door, and received 
 him pale, bleeding, and exhausted, in her arms. Hill fled and 
 escaped, but Lord Mohun, having surrendered himself, was ar- 
 raigned before parliament as an accomplice, on*-the 31st of Janu- 
 ary, 1693, and, after a laborious, patient, protracted, and impar- 
 tial trial, acquitted of the crime, in which he certainly bore no 
 conspicuous part. Mountfort languished till noon the next day, 
 and solemnly declared, at the very point of death, that Hill stabbed 
 him with one hand while he struck him with the other. Lord 
 Mohun holding him in conversation when the murder was com- 
 mitted. From the fact, however, of Mountfort's sword being 
 taken up unsheathed and broken, there is no doubt, without 
 insisting upon the testimony to that effect, that he used it; and 
 that he could have used it after receiving the desperate wound 
 of which he died, does not appear, by his flight and exhaustion, to 
 have been possible. Some of his fellow-players, it seems, had 
 sifted the evidence of a material witness, the day after his death, 
 and at this evidence they openly expressed their dissatisfaction. 
 Mountfort, it was indisputably shown, too, went ovt of the way to 
 his own house, in going down Howard-street at all, as he ought to 
 have crossed it, his door being the second from the south-west cor- 
 ner. These circumstances will perhaps support a conjecture that 
 some part of the odium heaped upon Lord Mohun(2) and Hill has 
 
 (2) It is remarked by a narrator of Lord Mohun's life, that imperfect edu- 
 
13S AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 chose to indulge it, in its full power, upon those of violence 
 and horror : but poor Sandford was not the stage-villain 
 
 proceeded from the cowardice and exasperation of a timid and vin- 
 dictive fraternity, coupled with the individual artifices of Mrs. Brace- 
 girdle, to redeem a character which the real circumstances of 
 Mountfort's death, dying as her champion, severely affected. Gib- 
 ber's assurance of her purity, may merely prove the extent of his 
 dulness or dissimulation, for on calmly reviewing this case in all 
 its aspects, chequered as it is by Hill's impetuosity, Mrs. Brace- 
 girdle's lewdness, and Mountfort's presumption, I cannot help 
 inferring that he fell a victim, not unfairly, to one of those casual 
 encounters which mark the general violence of the times. The 
 record of his murder is therefore erroneous, and we may hope to 
 see it amended in every future collection of theatrical lives, 
 
 cation, having lost both his parents, led him into many imlucky follies, and 
 even criminal excesses. It might, however, have been reasonably expected, 
 that upon his release from the imputation of Mountfort's murder, he wpuld 
 have abandoned his rakish courses, and cultivated the society of sober com- 
 panions. But in seven years after this serious warning, he was again tried, 
 with the Earls of Warwick and Holland, upon a charge of murder, from which, 
 it is true, he was honourably freed by the unanimous verdict of his noble 
 judges. This event made a proper impression upon his mind, and in a very 
 feeling address at the bar, he proclaimed his determination of so regulating his 
 life for the future, as to avoid the disgraceful circumstances, in which he had 
 been repeatedly involved. True to this purpose, he applied himself sedulously 
 to the improvement of his mind, and became an ornament to the peerage upon 
 which he had so long been a stigma. He obtained more than one public em- 
 ployment, and discharged his several trusts with such talent and fidelity, as to 
 secure the thanks of his countrymen, and the affection of his relatives. In 
 consequence of succeeding to a handsome property left him by the will of his 
 uncle, the Earl of Macclesfield, he was involved in a law-suit with James, 
 Duke of Hamilton, which ended after the lapse of eleven years in a duel, the 
 result of which was so sanguinary, that Hamilton perished on the spot, and 
 Mohun scarcely survived his removal. This fatal affair happened on Satur- 
 day the 15th of November, 1712, and Lord Mohun's memory did not escape 
 the accusation by which his life had twice before been tarnished. It was sworn 
 by a person present, that one Macartney, a friend of Lord Mohun's, stabbed 
 the Duke of Hamilton, but there, for want of stronger testimony, the accusa- 
 tion ended. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 139 
 
 by choice, but from necessity ; for, having a low and 
 crooked person, such bodily defects were too strong to be 
 admitted into great, or amiable characters ; so that when- 
 ever, in any new or revived play, there was a hateful or 
 mischievous person, Sandford was sure to have no compe- 
 titor for it. Nor, indeed, (as we are not to suppose a vil- 
 lain or a traitor can be shown for our imitation, or not for 
 our abhorrence) can it be doubted, but the less comely the 
 actor's person, the fitter he may be to perform them. The 
 spectator, too, by not being misled by a tempting form, 
 may be less inclined to excuse the wicked or immoral 
 views or sentiments of them. And though the hard fate 
 of an CEdipus^ might naturally give the humanity of an 
 audience thrice the pleasure that could arise from the wilful 
 wickedness of the best-acted Creon^ yet who could say that 
 Sandford, in such a part, was not master of as true and 
 just action, as the best tragedian could be, whose happier 
 person had recommended him to the virtuous hero, or any 
 other more pleasing favourite of the imagination ? In this 
 disadvantageous light, then, stood Sandford, as an actor ; 
 admired by the judicious, while the crowd only praised 
 him by their prejudice. And so unusual had it been to see 
 Sandford an innocent man in a play, that whenever he was 
 so, the spectators would hardly give him credit in so gross 
 an improbability * Let me give you an odd instance of 
 it, which I heard Mountfort say was a real fact. A new 
 play (the name of it I have forgotten) was brought upon 
 
 * " When poor Sandford was upon the stage, I have seen him 
 groaning upon a wheel, stuck with daggers, impaled alive, calling 
 his executioners, with a dying voice, cruel dogs and villains, and 
 all this to please his judicious spectators, who were wonderfully 
 delighted with seeing a man in torment so well acted." — " Tat- 
 tler," Feb. 16, 1709. 
 
1^0 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the stage, wherein Sandford happened to perform the part 
 of an honest statesman : the pit, after they had sate three or 
 four acts, in a quiet expectation that the well-dissembled 
 honesty of Sandford, for such of course they concluded it, 
 would soon be discovered, or at least, from its security, 
 involve the actors in the play in some surprising distress or 
 confusion, which might raise, and animate the scenes to 
 come ; when, at last, finding no such matter, but that the 
 catastrophe had taken quite another turn, and that Sand- 
 ford was really an honest man to the end of the play, they 
 fairly damned it, as if the author had imposed upon them 
 the most frontless or incredible absurdity.* 
 
 It is not improbable, but that from Sandford's so masterly 
 personating characters of guilt, the inferior actors might 
 think his success chiefly owing to the defects of his person ; 
 and from thence might take occasion whenever they ap- 
 peared as bravos, or murtherers, to make themselves as 
 frightful and as inhuman figures, as possible. f In King 
 Charles's time, this low skill was carried to such an extra- 
 vagance, that the king himself, who was black-browed, and 
 of a swarthy complexion, passed a pleasant remark, upon 
 his observing the grim looks of the murtherers in " Mac- 
 beth;" when, turning to his people, in the box about him, 
 '^ Pray, what is the meaning," said he, '' that we never see 
 a rogue in the play, but, godsfish ! they always clap him on 
 a black periwig, when, it is well known, one of the great- 
 est rogues in England always wears a fair one ?" Now, 
 
 * This anecdote has more vivacity than truth, for the audience 
 were too much accustomed to see Sandford in parts of even a comic 
 nature, to testify the impatience or disappointment which Mr. Gib- 
 ber has described. 
 
 t This is a most ridiculous deduction, and does not deserve to be 
 seriously refuted. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 141 
 
 whether or no Dr. Oates, at that time, wore his own hair, 
 I cannot be positive : or, if his majesty pointed at some 
 greater man, then out of power, I leave those to guess at 
 him, who may yet remember the changing complexion of 
 his ministers. This story I had from Betterton, who was a 
 man of veracity : and, I confess, I should have thought the 
 king's observation a very just one, though he himself had 
 been fair as Adonis. Nor can I, in this question, help vot- 
 ing with the court ; for were it not too gross a weakness to 
 employ in wicked purposes, men whose very suspected looks 
 might be enough to betray them ? Or are we to suppose it 
 unnatural, that a murther should be thoroughly committed 
 out of an old red coat, and a black periwig ? 
 
 For my own part, I profess myself to have been an ad- 
 mirer of Sandford, and have often lamented that his masterly 
 performance could not be rewarded with that applause which 
 I saw much inferior actors met with, merely because they 
 stood in more laudable characters. For, though it may be 
 a merit in an audience to applaud sentiments of virtue and 
 honour, yet there seems to be an equal justice, that no dis- 
 tinction should be made as to the excellence of an actor, 
 whether in a good or evil character ; since neither the vice 
 nor the virtue of it is his own, but given Tiim by the poet ; 
 therefore, why is not the actor who shines in either, equally 
 commendable ? No, sir ; this may be reason, but that is not 
 always a rule with us ; the spectator will tell you, that when 
 virtue is applauded he gives part of it to himself; because 
 liis applause, at the same time, lets others about him see that 
 he himself admires it. But when a wicked action is going 
 forward ; when an lago is meditating revenge and mis- 
 chief; though art and nature may be equally strong in the 
 actor, the spectator is shy of his applause, lest he should, in 
 sonie sort, be looked upon as an aider or an abettor of the 
 wickedness in view ; and therefore rather chuses to rob the 
 
142 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 actor of the praise he may merit, than give it him in a cha- 
 racter, which he would have you see his silence modestly 
 discourages. From the same fond principle, many actors 
 have made it a point to be seen in parts, sometimes, even 
 flatly written, only because they stood in the favourable 
 light of honour and virtue. 
 
 I have formerly known an actress* carry this theatrical 
 prudery to such a height, that she was very near keeping 
 herself chaste by it : her fondness for virtue on the stage, 
 she began to think, might persuade the world that it had 
 made an impression on her private life ; and the appearance 
 of it actually went so far, that, in an epilogue to an obscure 
 play, the profits of which were given to her, and wherein 
 she acted a part of impregnable chastity, she bespoke the 
 favour of the ladies by a protestation, that, in honour of their 
 goodness and virtue, she would dedicate her unblemished 
 life to their example. Part of this vestal vow , I remember^ 
 was contained in the following verse : 
 
 Study to live the character I play. 
 But, alas ! how weak are the strongest works of art, when 
 nature besieges it ! for though this good creature so far held 
 out her distaste to mankind, that they could never reduce 
 her to marry any one of them ; yet we must own she grew, 
 like Caesar, greater by her fall. Her first heroic motive to 
 a surrender was to save the life of a lover, who, in his des- 
 pair, had vowed to destroy himself ; with which act of mercy, 
 in a jealous dispute once, in my hearing, she was provoked 
 to reproach him in these very words ; '' Villain ! did not I 
 save your life ?" The generous lover, in return to that first 
 tender obligation, gave life to her first-born,t and that pious 
 
 * Mrs. Rogers, the mistress of Wilks, to whom the latter part of 
 this paragraph alludes. 
 
 t The wife of Christopher Bullock, the comedian, with whom 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 145 
 
 offspring has since raised to her memory, several innocent 
 grand- children. 
 
 So that, as we see, it is not the hood that makes the monk, 
 nor the veil the vestal, I am apt to think, that if the personal 
 morals of an actor were to be weighed by his appearance 
 on the stage, the advantage and favour, if any were due to 
 either side, might rather incline to the traitor, than the 
 hero ; to the Sempronius, than the Cafo ; or to the Sj/phajOy 
 than the Juba ; because no man can naturally desire to 
 cover his honesty with a wicked appearance ; but an ill 
 man might possibly incline to cover his guilt with the ap- 
 pearance of virtue, which was the case of the frail fair one, 
 now mentioned. But be this question decided as it may, 
 Sandford always appeared to me the honester man, in pro- 
 portion to the spirit wherewith he exposed the w icked and 
 immoral characters he acted : for had his heart been un- 
 sound, or tainted with the least guilt of them, his conscience 
 must, in spite of him, in any too near a resemblance of him- 
 self, have been a check upon the vivacity of his action. 
 Sandford, therefore, might be said to have contributed his 
 equal share, with the foremost actors, to the true and laud- 
 able use of the stage ; and in this light, too, of being so fre- 
 quently the object of common distaste, we may honestly 
 style him a theatrical martyr to poetical justice : for in mak- 
 ing vice odious, or virtue amiable, where does the merit dif- 
 fer ? To hate the one, or love the other, are but leading 
 steps to the same temple of fame, though at different portals. 
 
 This actor, in his manner of speaking, varied very much 
 from those I have already mentioned. His voice had an 
 
 she married in the year 1717, and, dying in 1739, left a daughter 
 who was united to Mr. Dyer, a respectable member of the Covent- 
 garden company, in which, upon his demise, he was succeeded by 
 the late Lee Lewes. 
 
144 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 acute and piercing tone, which struck every syllable of his 
 words distinctly upon the ear. He had likewise a peculiar 
 skill in his look of marking out to an audience whatever he 
 judged worth their more than ordinary notice. When he 
 delivered a command, he would sometimes give it more 
 force, by seeming to slight the ornament of harmony. In 
 Dryden's plays of rhyme, he as little as possible glutted the 
 ear with the jingle of it, rather chusing, when the sense 
 would permit him, to lose it than to value it. 
 
 Had Sand ford lived in Shakspeare's time, I am confident 
 his judgment must have chosen him, above all other actors, 
 to have played his Richard the Third : I leave his person 
 out of the question, which, though naturally made for it, 
 yet that would have been the least part of his recommenda- 
 tion. Sandford had stronger claims to it : he had sometimes 
 an uncouth stateliness in his motion, a harsh and sullen pride 
 of speech, a meditating brow, a stern aspect, occasionally 
 changing into an almost ludicrous triumph over all good- 
 ness and virtue ; from thence falling into the most assuasive 
 gentleness and soothing candour of a designing heart. 
 These, I say, must have preferred him to it ; these would 
 have been colours so essentially shining in that character, 
 that it will be no dispraise to that great author, to say, 
 Sandford must have shown as many masterly strokes in it, 
 had he ever acted it, as are visible in the writing of it. 
 
 When I first brought " Richard the Third," with such 
 alterations as I thought not improper, to the stage,* Sand- 
 ford was engaged in the company then acting under King 
 William's license in Lincoln's-inn-fields ; otherwise, you 
 cannot but suppose my interest must have oiFered him that 
 part. What encouraged me, therefore, to attempt it my- 
 self at the Theatre Royal, was, that I imagined I knew how 
 
 * Acted atDrury-lane theatre, and printed, 4to. in 1700. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 145 
 
 Sandford would have spoken every line of it : if, therefore, 
 in any part of it I succeeded, let the merit be given to him : 
 and how far I succeeded in that light, those only can be 
 judges who remember him. In order, therefore, to give 
 you a nearer idea of Sandford, you must give me leave, 
 compelled as I am to be vain, to tell you, that the late Sir 
 John Vanbrugh, who was an admirer of Sandford, after he 
 had seen me act it, assured me, that he never knew any one 
 actor so particularly profit by another, as I had done by Sand- 
 ford, in Richard the Third : " You have," said he, '- his 
 very look, gesture, gait, speech, and every motion of him, 
 and have borrowed them all, only to serve you in that cha- 
 racter." If, therefore, Sir John Vanbrugh's observation was 
 just, they who remember me in Richard the Third, may 
 have a nearer conception of Sandford, than from all the 
 critical account I can give of him.* 
 
 * Samuel Sandford made his first appearance upon the stage, 
 under D'Avenant's authority, in the year 1663, at the time when 
 that company was strengthened by the accession of Smith and 
 Matthew Med bourn. The first part for which he has been men- 
 tioned by Downs, is Sampson, in " Romeo and Juliet ;" he soon 
 after sustained a minor part in the " Adventures of Five Hours," 
 fol. 1663; and when D'Avenant produced his comedy of the 
 " Man's the Master," he and Harris sung an eccentric epilogue in 
 the character of two street ballad-singers. Sandford was the ori- 
 ginal Foresight, in " Love for Love," and though Mr. Gibber has 
 exclusively insisted upon his tragic excellence, he must have been a 
 comedian of strong and diversified humour. When Betterton and 
 his associates seceded to the new theatre in Lincoln's-inn-fields, he 
 refused to join them as a sharer, but was engaged at a salary of 
 three pounds per week. As Sandford is not enumerated by Downs 
 among the actors transferred to Swiney, in the latter end of 1706, 
 when Betterton and Underbill, indeed, are mentioned as " the 
 only remains" of the duke's company, it is clear he must have 
 died during the previous six years, having been referred to by Cib- 
 
146 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 I come now to those other men actors, who, at this time, 
 were equally femous in the lower life of comedy ; but I 
 find myself more at a loss to give you them, in their true 
 and proper light, than those I have already set before you. 
 Why the tragedian warms us into joy, or admiration, or 
 sets our eyes on flow with pity, we can easily explain to 
 another's apprehension : but it may sometimes puzzle the 
 gravest spectator to account for that familiar violence of 
 laughter that shall seize him, at some particular strokes of 
 a true comedian. How then shall I describe what a better 
 judge might not be able to express ? The rules to please 
 the fancy cannot so easily be laid down, as those that ought 
 to govern the judgment. The decency, too, that must be 
 observed in tragedy, reduces, by the manner of speaking 
 it, one actor to be much more like another, than they can 
 or need be supposed to be in comedy : there the laws of 
 action give them such free, and almost unlimited liberties, 
 to play and wanton with nature, that the voice, look, and 
 gesture of a comedian may be as various as the manners 
 and faces of the whole of mankind are different from one 
 another. These are the difficulties I lie under. Where I 
 want words, therefore, to describe what I may commend, I 
 can only hope you will give credit to my opinion : and 
 this credit I shall most stand in need of, when I tell you, 
 that Nokes was an actor of a quite different genius from any 
 
 ,ber, as exercising his profession in 1700.(1) His ancestors were 
 long and respectably settled at Sandford, a village in Shropshire ; 
 and he seems to have prided himself, absurdly, upon the superi- 
 ority of his birth. 
 
 (1) Sandford's lago is adverted to in the ** Tattler," No. 158, as a part in 
 which he *' very highly excelled." 
 
 There is a Thomas Sanford mentioned in the will* of Underwood, one of 
 Shakspeare's fellow-comedians, whom I suspect to have been the grandfather 
 of our present subject. 
 
 * Dated 1624. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 147 
 
 I have ever read, heard of, or seen, since or before his 
 time ; and yet his general excellence may be comprehended 
 in one article ; viz, a plain and palpable simplicity of na- 
 ture, which was so utterly his own, that he was often as 
 unaccountably diverting in his common speech, as on the 
 stage. I saw him once, giving an account of some table- 
 talk, to another actor behind the scenes, which a man of 
 quality accidentally listening to, was so deceived by his 
 manner, that he asked him, if that was a new play he was 
 rehearsing ? It seems almost amazing that this simplicity 
 so easy to Nokes, should never be caught by any one of his 
 successors. Leigh and Underbill have been well copied, 
 though not equalled by others. But not all the mimical skill 
 of Estcourt, famed as he was for it, though he had often 
 seen Nokes, could scarcely give us an idea of him. After this, 
 perhaps, it will be saying less of him, when I own, that 
 though I have still the sound of every line he spoke in my 
 ear, which used not to be thought a bad one, yet I have 
 often tried by myself, but in vain, to reach the least distant 
 likeness of the vis comica of Nokes. Though this may 
 seem little to his praise, it may be negatively saying a good 
 deal of it, because I have never seen any one actor, except 
 himself, whom I could not, at least so far, imitate, as to give 
 you a more than tolerable notion of his manner. But 
 Nokes was so singular a species, and was so formed by na- 
 ture for the stage, that I question if beyond the trouble of 
 getting words by heart, it ever cost him an hour's labour to 
 arrive at that high reputation he had, and deser\^ed. 
 
 The characters he principally shone in, were Sir Martin 
 Mar- all; Gomez, in the '' Spanish Friar;" Sir Nicholas 
 Cullj/, in "Love in a Tub;" Barnahy Brittle^ in the 
 " Wanton Wife ;" Sir Davy Dunce, in the " Soldier's 
 Fortune;" Sosia, in ^^ Amphytrion," &c. To tell you how 
 he acted them is beyond the reach of criticism ; but to tell 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 you what effect his action had upon the spectator, is not 
 impossible ; this then is all you will expect from me, and 
 from hence I must leave you to guess at him. 
 
 He scarcely ever made his first entrance in a play, but he 
 was received with an involuntary applause, not of hands 
 only, for those may be, and have often been partially pros- 
 tituted, and bespoken ; but by a general laughter, which 
 the veiy sight of him provoked, and nature could not resist ; 
 yet the louder the laugh, the graver was his look upon it ; 
 and, surely, the ridiculous solemnity of his features was 
 enough to have set a whole bench of bishops into a titter, 
 could he have been honoured (may it be no offence to 
 suppose it) with such grave and right reverend auditors. In 
 the ludicrous distresses, which, by the laws of comedy, folly 
 is often involved in, he sunk into such a mixture of piteous 
 pusillanimity, and a consternation so ruefully ridiculous 
 and inconsolable, that when he had shaken you to a fatigue 
 of laughter, it became a moot point, whether you ought not 
 to have pitied him. When he debated any matter by him- 
 self, he would shut up his mouth with a dumb studious pout, 
 and roll his full eye into such a vacant amazement, such a 
 palpable ignorance of what to think of it, that his silent per- 
 plexity, which would sometimes hold him several minutes, 
 gave your imagination as full content, as the most absurd 
 thing he could say upon it. In the character of Sir Mar^ 
 tin Mar- ally who is always committing blunders to the pre- 
 judice of his own interest, when he had brought himself to 
 a dilemma in his affairs, by vainly proceeding upon his own 
 head, and was afterwards afraid to look his governing ser- 
 vant and counsellor in the face ; what a copious and dis- 
 tressful harangue have I seen hin^ make with his looks, 
 while the house has been in one continued roar, for several 
 minutes, before he could prevail with his courage to speak 
 a word to him ! Then might you have, at once, read in his 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 149 
 
 face vexation — that his own measures, which he had piqued 
 himself upon, had failed; envy — of his servant's superior 
 wit ; distress — ^to retrieve the occasion he had lost ; shame 
 — to confess his folly ; and yet a sullen desire to be recon- 
 ciled and better advised for the future. What tragedy ever 
 showed us such a tumult of passions rising, at once, in one 
 bosom, or what buskined hero, standing under the load of 
 them, could have more effectually moved his spectators, by 
 the most pathetic speech, than poor miserable Nokes did, 
 by this silent eloquence, and piteous plight of his features ? 
 His person was of the middle size ; his voice clear, and 
 audible ; his natural countenance grave, and sober ; but the 
 moment he spoke, the settled seriousness of his features 
 was utterly discharged, and a dry, drolling, or laughing- 
 levity took such full possession of him, that I can only re- 
 fer the idea of him to your imagination. In some of his 
 low characters, that became it, he had a shuffling shamble 
 in his g*ait, with so contented an ignorance in his aspect, 
 and an aukward absurdity in his gesture, that had you not 
 known him, you could not have believed that, naturally, 
 he could have had a grain of common sense. In a word, 
 I am tempted to sum up the character of Nokes, as a come^ 
 dian, in a parody of what Shakspeare's Mark Antony says 
 of Brutus^ as a hero. 
 
 His life was laughter, and the ludicrous 
 
 So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up. 
 
 And say to all the world — This was an actor.* 
 
 * Robert Nokes formed part of the company collected at the 
 "Cockpit," in 1659, and is first mentioned by Downs for Norfolk, 
 in " King Henry the Eighth," some time after D'Avenant's open- 
 ing in Lincoln's-inn-fields. Upon this assumption Mr. Davies ( 1 ) 
 
 (1) *' Dramatic Miscellanies;" vol. 1, p. 357. 
 
 l3 
 
150 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Leigh was of the mercurial kind, and though not so 
 strict an observer of nature, yet never so wanton in his per- 
 
 has expressed a very reasonable doubt, and conjectured, with 
 much plausibility, that it was sustained by James Nokes, who sup- 
 ported female characters, at the same theatre, in a very creditable 
 manner. 
 
 In Cowley's " Cutter of Coleman-street," 4to, 1663, the part 
 of Puny was allotted to Nokes, whose reputation at that period 
 appears to have been but feebly established, as the more important 
 comic characters were intrusted to Lovel(2)and Underhill. We 
 find the name of Nokes affixed to Lovis, in Etherege's " Comical Re- 
 venge," 4to, 1664, but his performance of that part, whatever merit 
 it might have evinced, acquired no distinction. The plague then 
 beginning to rage, theatrical exhibitions were suspended, in May, 
 1665, and the company ceased to act, on account of the great 
 fire, till after Christmas, 1666, when their occupation was resum- 
 ed in Lincoln's-inn-fields, and Lord Orrery produced his play of 
 " Mr. Antony." In this piece there was an odd sort of duel be- 
 tween Nokes and Angel, (3) in which one was armed with a blun- 
 
 (2) Lovel was a member of the company with which Rhodes opened the 
 ** Cockpit," in 1659, and passed with Betterton, and other associates, to Sir 
 William D'Avenant. In the spring of 1662, we find his name for Polonius ; 
 in 1663, for Shakspeare's Malvolio, a part which has often been perform- 
 ed by actors of sedate but palpable humour ; and for Trueman, sen., in the 
 " Cutter of Coleman-street." Mr. Lovel died by or before the year 1673, 
 when Downs expressly states that " the company was very much recruited" 
 in consequence of that and similar events. 
 
 (3) Angel belonged to Rhodes's company, in which he was commonly an 
 actor of female parts, and succeeded to James Nokes, as the heroine of the 
 " Maid in the Mill." He was engaged by D'Avenant for his new theatre in 
 Lincoln's-inn-fields, where he is first noticed by Downs for the Earl of War- 
 wick, in Lord Orrery's " Henry the Fifth," played, though not published, 
 in 1667. He is highly praised by the same authority for his admirable per- 
 formance of Woodcock, in the " Sullen Lovers," 4to, 1668. He played 
 Fribble, in " Epsom Wells;" 4to, 1673, after which period we can trace no 
 fartl^er evidence of his estimation or endeavours. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 151 
 
 forraance, as to be wholly out of her sight. In humour, 
 he loved to take a full career, but was careful enough to 
 
 derbuss, and the other with a bow and arrow. Though this frivol- 
 ous incident procured Nokes some accession of public notice, it 
 was Dryden's " Sir Martin Mar-all," 4to, 1668, which developed 
 his powers to their fullest extent, and raised him to the highest 
 pitch of popularity. 
 
 According to Downs, the Duke of Newcastle (4) gave a literal 
 translation of Moliere's " Etourdi" to Dry den, who adapted the 
 part of Sir Martin Mar-all " purposely for the mouth of Mr. 
 Nokes;" and the old prompter has corroborated Mr. Gibber's as- 
 sertion of his success. (5) Nokes added largely to his reputation, 
 in the same year, by performing Sir Oliver, in " She would if 
 she could ;" and strengthened Shadwell's " Sullen Lovers," by 
 accepting the part of Poet Ninny. In the spring of 1671,(6) 
 the king commanded the duke's servants to attend him at Do- 
 ver, (7) to which place he had proceeded with all the court, to 
 
 (4) " Sir Martin Mar-all" is entered on the books of the Stationers' Com- 
 pany as his grace's production. It is not, however, a mere translation from 
 Moliere, but is indebted to other quarters. Vide " Biographia Dramatica ;" 
 vol. 3, p. 278 ;ed. 1812. 
 
 (5) Downs's words, after recapitulating the dramatis persons, run thus: 
 — " All the parts being very just and exactly performed, especially Sir Martin 
 and his man, Mr. Smith, and several others since have come very near him, 
 but none equalled, nor yet Mr. Nokes in Sir Martin." — Upon this passage a 
 late editor (Mr. M'^aldron) remarks, " that, in despair of being able to throw 
 light on it, I shall leave it in its original obscurity." I cannot help thinking, 
 however, that a very slight interpolation will retrieve the meaning of this 
 sentence, and restore its identical structure : — '* All the parts being very just- 
 Py] and exactly performed, especially Sir Martin and his man; Mr. Smith and 
 several others since have come very near him, (Nokes) but none equalled 
 [Mr. Harris in Warner y'\ nor yet Mr. Nokes in Sir Martiti." 
 
 (6) Downs writes, but wrongly, « in May, 1670." 
 
 (7) ** Neither Queen Elizabeth, nor King James the First, nor Charles 
 the First, I believe, ever went to the public theatre ; but they frequently or- 
 dered plays to be performed at court, which were represented in the royal 
 theatre caUed the Cockpit, in Whitehall : and the actors of the King's Com- 
 
 l4 ' 
 
152 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 stop short, when just upon the precipice. He had great 
 variety in his manner, and was famous in very different 
 
 meet his sister, the Duchess of Orleans. Here Nokes was for- 
 tunate enough, in the rude narrative of Downs, to meet with the 
 following distinction : — 
 
 " The French court wearing then excessive short-laced coats, 
 some scarlet, some blue, with broad waist-belts, Mr. Nokes having 
 at that time one shorter than the French fashion, to act Sir Arthur 
 Addle {S) in, the Duke of Monmouth gave Mr. Nokes his sword 
 and belt from his side, and buckled it on himself, on purpose to 
 ape the French ; [so] that Mr. Nokes looked more like a dressed- 
 up ape than Sir Arthur, which, upon his first entrance, on the 
 stage, put the king and court to an excessive laughter; at which 
 the French looked very chagrined to see themselves aped by such 
 a buffoon as Sir Arthur. Mr. Nokes kept the duke's sword to his 
 dying-day." 
 
 Nokes acted Barnaby Brittle at the original appearance — about 
 
 pany were sometimes commanded to attend his majesty in his summer's pro- 
 gress, to perform before him in the country. Queen Henrietta Maria, how- 
 ever, went sometimes to the public theatre at Blackfriars. I find from the 
 council-books that in the time of Queen Elizabeth, ten pounds was the pay- 
 ment for a play performed before her ; that is twenty nobles, or six pounds, 
 thirteen shillings, and four pence, as the regular and stated fee ; and three 
 pounds, six shillings, and eight pence, by way of bounty or reward. The 
 same sum, as I learn from the manuscript notes of Lord Stanhope, treasurer 
 of the chamber to King James the First, continued to be paid during his reign ; 
 and this was the stated payment during the reign of his successor also. Plays 
 at court were usually performed at night, by which means they did not inter- 
 fere with the regular exhibition at the public theatre, which was early in the 
 afternoon ; and thus the royal bounty was for so much a clear profit to the 
 company : but when a play was commanded to be performed at any of the 
 royal palaces in the neighbourhood of London, by which the actors were pre- 
 vented from deriving any profit from a public exhibition on the same day, the 
 fee, as appears from a manuscript in the Lord Chamberlain's office, was, in 
 the year 1630, and probably in Shakspeare's time also, twenty pounds." — 
 Malone's " Historical Account of the English Stage." 
 (8) In ♦♦ Sir Salomon ;" 4to, 1671. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 153 
 
 characters In the canting, grave hypocrisy of the Spa- 
 nish Friar, he stretched the veil of piety so thinly over him, 
 
 1670 — of Betterton's " Amorous Widow," and in 1672, per- 
 formed Old Jordan^ in Ravenscroft's " Citizen turned Gentle- 
 man," (9) a part which the king and court |were said to have 
 been more delighted with than any other, except Sir Martin Mar- 
 all. {10) His Nurse, in " Caius Marius," 4to, 1680, excited 
 such uncommon merriment, that he carried the name of Nurse 
 Nokes to his grave. In 1688, he supported the hero of Shad- 
 well's " 'Squire of Alsatia," a play which was acted in every part 
 with remarkable excellence, and enjoyed the greatest populari- 
 ty. ( 11 ) We find no farther mention of him, subsequent to this pe- 
 riod, though included by Gibber among those who were performing 
 under the united patents, in 1690, when he first came into the 
 company. According to Brown, (12) who has peculiarly marked 
 out his " gaiety and openness" upon the stage, he kept a " nick- 
 nackatory, or toy-shop," opposite the spot which has since re- 
 ceived the denomination of Exeter Ghange. The date of his 
 death is uncertain, but there is some reason to presume that it 
 happened about the year 1692. (13) 
 
 Edmund Smith, in his " Poem to the memory of Mr. John 
 Phillips," has alluded, in very complimentary terms, to the merit 
 
 (9) This play was afterwards printed in 4to, 1675, by its established name 
 of ** Mamamouclii." 
 
 (10) So Downs, in his " Roscius Anglicanus." 
 
 (11) " This play by its excellent acting, being often honoured with the pre- 
 sence of Chancellor Jetferies, and other great persons, had an uninterrupted 
 run of thirteen days together." — ** Roscius Anglicanus." 
 
 (12) *' Letters from the Dead," etc., part 1, p. 5, ed. 1744. 
 
 (13) In one of Brown's " Letters from the Dead," etc., dated 1701, Nokes 
 is made to assure Haynes that his arrival had been long looked-for, — ** Upon 
 my salvation, we have expected you here this great while." — A proof that h« 
 was not recently deceased. — ** Works of Thomas Brown;" vol. 2, p. 5, 8th 
 edition, 1744. 
 
 I see, also, that Gibber, on a subsequent page, says that Nokes, Mountfort, 
 and Leigh, *' died about the same year," viz. 1692. 
 
154 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 that in every look, word, and motion, you saw a palpable, 
 wicked slyness shine through it. Here he kept his vivacity 
 demurely confined, till the pretended duty of his function 
 demanded it ; and then he exerted it, with a choleric sa- 
 cerdotal insolence. But the Friar is a character of such 
 glaring vice, and so strongly drawn, that a very indifferent 
 actor cannot but hit upon the broad jests, that are remark- 
 able in every scene of it ; though I have never yet seen any 
 one, that has filled them with half the truth and spirit of 
 Leigh. Leigh raised the character as much above the 
 poet's imagination, as the character has sometimes raised 
 other actors above themselves ; and I do not doubt but the 
 poet's knowledge of Leigh's genius helped him to many a 
 pleasant stroke of nature, which, without that knowledge, 
 never might have entered into his conception. Leigh was 
 so eminent in this character, that the late Earl of Dorset, 
 who was equally an admirer and a judge of theatrical me- 
 rit, had a whole length of him, in the Friar's habit, drawn 
 by Kneller : the whole portrait is highly painted, and ex- 
 tremely like him. But no wonder Leigh arrived to such 
 fame in what was so completely written for him ; when 
 characters that would make the reader yawn, in the closet, 
 have by the strength of his action been lifted into the loud- 
 
 of Nokes,(l4) and his influence upon public opinion has been 
 grudgingly admitted by Dryden.(15) He was unquestionably a 
 great original actor, and one of the firmest pillars by which the 
 temple of comedy can ever be supported. 
 
 (14) So, when Nurse Nokes to act young Amnion tries, 
 With shambling legs, long chin, and foolish eyes. 
 With dangling hands he strokes th'imperial robe. 
 And with a cuckold's air commands the globe : 
 The pomp and sound the whole buffoon display'd. 
 And Amnion's son more mirth than Gomez made. 
 (15) Prologue to the " Conquest of Grenada ;" part I. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 155 
 
 est laughter, on the stage. Of this kind was the Scrivener's 
 great booby son, in the " Villain ;"* and Ralph, a stupid, 
 staring, under-servant, in " Sir Solomon Single, "f Quite 
 opposite to those were Sir Jolly Jumble, in the " Sjldier's 
 Fortune ;" and his Sir William Bel fond, in the ^' 'Squire 
 of Alsatia." In Sir Jolly he was all life, and laughing hu- 
 mour ; and when Nokes acted with him J in the same play, 
 they returned the ball so dexterously upon one another, that 
 every scene between them seemed but one continued rest§ 
 of excellence. But, alas ! when those actors were gone, 
 that comedy and many others, for the same reason, were 
 
 * Coligni, the character alluded to, at the original representa- 
 tion of this play, was sustained, says Downs, " by that inimita- 
 ble sprightly actor, Mr. Price, — especially in this part." Joseph 
 Price joined D'Avenant's company on Rhodes's resignation, be- 
 ing one of " the new actors," according to the " Roscius Angli- 
 canus," who were " taken in to complete" it. He is first men- 
 tioned for Guildensiern, in " Hamlet;" and, in succession, for 
 Leonel, in D'Avenant's " Love and Honour," on which occasion 
 the Earl of Oxford gave him his coronation-suit; for Paris, in 
 " Romeo and Juliet;" the Corregidor, in Tuke's " Adventures of 
 five hours;" and Coligni, as already recorded. In the year 
 1663, by speaking a " short comical prologue" to the " Rivals," 
 introducing some " very diverting dances," Mr. Price " gained 
 him an universal applause of the town." The versatility of this 
 actor must have been great, or the necessities of the company im- 
 perious, as we next find him set down for Lord Sands, in " King 
 Henry the Eighth." He then performed Will, in the " Cutter of 
 Coleman-street," and is mentioned by Downs as being dead, in the 
 year 1673. 
 
 t The proper title of this play is " Sir Salomon ; or, the Cau- 
 tious Coxcomb." 
 
 I Sir Davy Dunce. 
 
 § Rest. — A term from Tennis. 
 
156 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 rarely known to stand upon their own legs; by seeing no 
 more of Leigh or Nokes in them, the characters were quite 
 sunk, and altered. In his Sir William Belfond, Leigh 
 showed^ more spirited variety than ever I saw any actor, in 
 any one character, come up to : the poet, it is true, had here 
 exactly chalked for him the outlines of nature; but the 
 high colouring, the strong lights and shades of humour that 
 enlivened the whole, and struck our admiration with sur- 
 prise ad delight, were wholly owing to the actor. The easy 
 reader might, perhaps, have been pleased with the author 
 without discomposing a feature ; but the spectator must have 
 heartily held his sides, or the actor would have heartily 
 made them ache for it. 
 
 Now, though I observed before, that Nokes never was 
 tolerably touched by any of his successors, yet in this cha- 
 racter, I must own, I have seen Leigh extremely well imi- 
 tated by my late facetious friend Pinkethman, who, though 
 far short of what was inimitable in the original, yet, as to 
 the general resemblance, was a very valuable copy of him ; 
 and, as I know Pinkethman cannot yet be out of your me- 
 mory, I have chosen to mention him here, to give you the 
 nearest idea I can, of the excellence of Leigh in that parti- 
 cular light : for Leigh had many masterly variations, which 
 the other could not, nor ever pretended to reach ; particu- 
 larly in the dotage and follies of extreme old age, [as] in 
 the characters of Fumble, in the " Fond Husband,"* and 
 the toothless lawyer, in the " City Politiques;'*t both 
 which plays lived only by the extraordinary performance of 
 Nokes and Leigh. 
 
 There were two other characters of the fercical kind, 
 
 * A comedy by D'Urfey, 4to, 1676, and generally esteemed to 
 be the best of his indifferent productions. 
 t A comedy by Crowne, 4to, 1676. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 157 
 
 Geta^ in the " Prophetess," and Cracky in " Sir Courtly 
 Nice," which, as they are less confined to nature, the imi- 
 tation of them was less difficult to Pinkethman ; who, to 
 say the truth, delighted more in the whimsical than the na- 
 tural; therefore, when I say he sometimes resembled Leigh, 
 I reserve this distinction on his master's side ; that the plea- 
 sant extravagancies of Leigh were all the flowers of his own 
 fancy, while the less fertile brain of my friend was content- 
 ed to make use of the stock his predecessor had left him. 
 What I have said, therefore, is not to detract from honest 
 Pinky 's merit, but to do justice to his predecessor. And 
 though it is true we as seldom see a good actor as a great 
 poet arise from the bare imitation of another's genius, yet, 
 if this be a general rule, Pinkethman was the nearest to an 
 exception from it ; for, with those who never knew Leigh, 
 he might very well have passed for a more than conunon 
 original. Yet, again, as my partiality for Pinkethman 
 ought not to lead me from truth, I must beg leave, though 
 out of its place, to tell you fairly what was the best of him, 
 that the superiority of Leigh may stand in its due light. 
 Pinkethman had certainly, from nature, a great deal of co- 
 mic power about him ; but his judgment was by no means 
 equal to it ; for he would make frequent deviations into the 
 whimsies of an Harlequin, By the way, — let me digress a 
 little farther, — whatever allowances are made for the license 
 of that character, — I mean of an Harlequin, — whatever 
 pretences may be urged, from the practice of the antient 
 comedy, for its being played in a mask, resembling no part 
 of the human species ; I am apt to think the best excuse a 
 modern actor can plead for his continuing it, is, that the 
 low, senseless, and monstrous things he says and does in it, 
 no theatrical assurance could get through, with a bare 
 face : let me give you an instance of even Pinkethman's be- 
 ing out of countenance for want of it. When he first 
 
158 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 played Harlequin in the " Emperor of the Moon,"* seve- 
 ral gentlemen, who inadvertently judged by the rules of na- 
 ture, fancied that a great deal of the drollery and spirit of his 
 grimace was lost, by his wearing that useless, unmeaning 
 mask of a black cat, and therefore insisted that, the next 
 time of his acting that part, he should play without it. 
 Their desire was accordingly complied with, — but, alas ! 
 in vain : Pinkethman could not take to himself the shame 
 of the character without being concealed ; he was no more 
 Harlequin ; his humour was quite disconcerted ; his con- 
 science could not, with the same effrontery, declare against 
 nature, without the cover of that unchanging face, which 
 he was sure would never blush for it ; no, it was quite ano- 
 ther case ; without that armour his courage could not come 
 up to the bold strokes, that were necessary to get the bet- 
 ter of common sense. Now if this circumstance will jus- 
 tify the modesty of Pinkethman, it cannot but throw a 
 wholesome contempt on the low merit of an Harlequin. 
 But how farther necessary the mask is to that fool's coat, 
 we have lately had a stronger proof in the favour that the 
 " Harlequin Sauvage" met with at Paris, and the ill fate 
 that followed the same Sauvage, when he pulled off his 
 mask in London. f So that it seems, what was wit from an 
 Harlequin, was something too extravagant from a human 
 creature. If, therefore, Pinkethman, in characters drawn 
 from nature, might sometimes launch out into a few game- 
 some liberties, which would not have been excused from a 
 more correct comedian, yet, in his manner of taking them, 
 he always seemed to me in a kind of consciousness of the 
 
 * A farce by Mrs. Behn, 4to, 1687. 
 
 t The piece thus obliquely satirised, is the " Savage; or, the 
 Force of Nature,'* advertised in 1736, with other plays published 
 by I. Watts, but imagined not to be in print. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 159 
 
 hazard he was running ; as if he fairly confessed that what 
 he did was only as well as he could do ; that he was willing 
 to take his chance for success, but if he did not meet with it, 
 a rebuke should break no squares ; he would mend it ano- 
 ther time, and would take whatever [it] pleased his judges 
 to think of him in good part : and I have often thought 
 that a good deal of the favour he met with was owing to 
 this seeming humble way of waiving all pretences to merit, 
 but what the town would please to allow him. What con- 
 firms me in this opinion, is, that when it has been his ill for- 
 tune to meet with a disgraccia, I have known him say apart 
 to himself, yet loud enough to be heard, '' Odso ! I believe 
 I am a little wrong here ;" which once was so well received 
 by the audience, that they turned their reproof into ap- 
 plause.* 
 
 * The anecdote alluded to is thus related by Mr. Davies :( 1) 
 " In the play of the " Recruiting Officer," Wilks was the Plume, 
 and Pinkethman one of the recruits. The captain, when he en- 
 listed him, asked his name: instead of answering as he ought, 
 Pinky replied, * Why, don't you know my name, Bob? I thought 
 every fool had known that ! ' Wilks, in a rage, whispered to him 
 the name of the recruit, — Thomas Appletree. The other retorted 
 aloud, ' T/iomas Appletree? Thomas Devil! my name is Will 
 Pinkethnaan :' and, immediately addressing an inhabitant of the 
 upper regions, he said * Hark you, friend ; don't you know my 
 name 1 ' — * Yes, Master Pinky,' said a respondent, * we know 
 your name very well.' The play-house was now in an uproar : 
 the audience, at first, enjoyed the petulant folly of Pinkethman, 
 and the distress of Wilks; but, in the progress of the joke, they 
 grew tiresome, and Pinky met with his deserts, — a very severe 
 " reprimand in a hiss ; but this mark of displeasure he changed into 
 applause, by crying out, with a countenance as melancholy as he 
 could make it, in a loud nasal twang, * Odso! I fear I am wrong.' " 
 
 (1) " Dramatic Miscellanies ;" vol. 3, p. 87. 
 
160 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Now, the judgment of Leigh always guarded the hap- 
 pier sallies of his fancy from the least hazard of disapproba- 
 
 The first mention of Pinkethman, (2) by Downs, is for the part 
 of Ralph, in " Sir Salomon," when commanded at court, in the be- 
 ginning of 1705, but he had been alluded to, three years before, 
 in Gildon's " Comparison between the Two Stages," as the " flow- 
 er of Bartholomew-fair, and the idol of the rabble. A fellow that 
 overdoes every thing, and spoils many a part with his own 
 stuff." (3) He is again mentioned in the " Roscius Anglicanus" 
 for Dr. CaiuSf in the " Merry Wives of Windsor," and continued 
 to act in the Drury-lane company till his death ; about the year 
 1725. 
 
 Pinkethman was a serviceable actor, notwithstanding his irregu- 
 larities, and performed many characters of great importance. He 
 was the orginal Don Lewis, (4) in " Love makes a Man," 4to, 
 1701, a proof that his talents were soon and greatly appreciated. 
 
 (2) I suspect that Pinkethman's first appearance upon the London boards 
 was made in 1696, as Downs, writing in 1708, alludes to the money he had 
 accumulated " in twelve years." 
 
 (3) In a poem called the " Players ;" a satire, 1733, are the following lines, 
 with the subjoined note : 
 
 Quit not your theme to win the gaping rout. 
 Nor aim at Pinky's leer, with "Blood ! I'm out ;" 
 An arch dull rogue, who lets the business cool. 
 To show how nicely he can play the fool. 
 Who with buffoonery his dulness clokes, 
 Deserves a cat-o'-nine-tails for his jokes. 
 
 ** This was not designed as an invidious reflection on the memory of Mr. Pin- 
 kethman, who was a pleasant and successful comedian ; but to caution others 
 from taking such liberties as he very often did ; which have been censured in 
 him, notwithstanding his uncommon pleasantry, and must appear verj^ mon- 
 strous in persons of less humour." 
 
 (4) It was in this part, according to Steele, in his " Theatre," No. 28, that 
 Pinkethman ate " two chickens in three seconds," and hence, the assertion in 
 No 188 of the " Tattler," that he " devours a cold chick with great ap- 
 plause." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 161 
 
 tion : he seemed not to court, but to attack your applause, 
 and always came off victorious ; nor did his highest assur- 
 ance amount to any more than that just confidence, without 
 which the commendable spirit of every good actor must be 
 
 His eccentric turn led him, in too many instances, from the sphere 
 of respectability, and we find him in the constant habit of frequent- 
 ing fairs, for the low purpose of theatrical exhibition. (5) His 
 stage talents were marred, it is true, by an extravagant habit of 
 saying more than had been •* set down" for him ; (6) and though this 
 abominable blemish is fully admitted, still its toleration proves that 
 Pinkethman must have been an actor of uncommon value. His 
 son was a comedian of merit, who played Waitwell, in the " Way 
 of the World," at the opening of Covent-garden theatre, in De- 
 cember, 1*732, and died in May, 1 740. 
 
 (5) " Advices froHithe upper end of Piccadilly say, that May-fair is utterly 
 abolished ; and we hear Mr. Pinkethman lias removed his ingenious company 
 of strollers to Greenwich. But other letters from Deptford say, the com- 
 pany is only making thither, and not yet settled ; but that several heathen 
 gods and goddesses, which are to descend in machines, landed at the King's- 
 head stairs last Saturday. Venus and Cupid went on foot from thence to 
 Greenwich ; Mars got drunk in the town, and broke his landlord's head, for 
 which he sat in the stocks the whole evening ; but Mr. Pinkethman giving se- 
 curity that he should do nothing this ensuing summer, he was set at liberty. 
 The most melancholy part of all was, that Diana was taken in the act of for- 
 nication with a boatman, and committed by Justice Wrathful, which has, it 
 seems, put a stop to the diversions of the theatre of Blackheath. But there 
 goes down another Diana and a Patient Grissel, next tide, from Billingsgate." 
 — " Tattler;" Tuesday, April 18, 1709. 
 
 (6) *' Will Pinkethman, of merry memory, was in such full possession of the 
 galleries, that he would hold discourse with them for several minutes. To 
 fine him for this fault was in vain ; he could not forsake it, and the managers 
 were too generous to curtail him of his income. At length, I was told, he 
 and Wilks came to this whimsical agreement : Pinky consented, that when- 
 ever he was guilty of corresponding >vith the gods, he should receive, on his 
 back, three smart strokes of Bob Wilks's cane. This fine, however, was I 
 believe, never exacted." — " Dramatic Miscellanies;" vol. 3, p. 86. 
 
 M 
 
162 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 abated ; and of this spirit Leigh was a most perfect master. 
 He was much admired by King Charles, who used to distin- 
 guish him, when spoken of, by the title of his actor : which, 
 however, makes me imagine, that in his exile that prince 
 might have received his first impression of good actors from 
 the French stage ; for Leigh had more of that farcical viva- 
 city than Nokes, but Nokes was never languid by his more 
 strict adherence to nature : and as far as my judgment is 
 worth taking, if their intrinsic merit could be justly weighed, 
 Nokes must have had the better in the balance. Upon the 
 unfortunate death of Mountfort, Leigh fell ill of a fever, 
 and died in a week after him, in December, 1692.* 
 
 * The . " famous Mr. Antony Leigh," as Downs denominates 
 him, came into the duke's company, about the year 1673, upon the 
 deaths of several eminent actors, whose places he and others were 
 admitted to supply. He played Bellair, sen., in Etherege's " Man 
 of Mode," at its production in 1676. In 1681, Leigh supported 
 Father Dominic, in Dryden's " Spanish Friar ;" a piece, which, 
 according to the '* Roscius Anglicanus," was " admirably acted, 
 and produced vast profit to the company." Leigh's success was 
 so great in this character, that a full-length portrait was taken of 
 him in his clerical habit, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, for the Earl of 
 Dorset, from which a good mezzotinto engraving is now in the 
 hands of theatrical collectors. In 1685, we find him allotted to 
 Sir Nicholas Calico, in the " Man of Mode :" in J 688 he sup- 
 ported Sir William Belfond, in Shadwelfs " Squire of Alsatia," 
 and these parts, with a few others, appear to have constituted his 
 peculiar excellence. 
 
 The satirical allusions of such a random genius as Brown, are 
 rarely to be relied upon, or we might suspect Leigh, from the 
 following extract, to have been distinguished by pious hypocrisy : — 
 
 " At last, my friend Nokes, pointing to a little edifice, which ex- 
 actly resembles Dr. Burgess's conventicle in Russel-court, says he, 
 * your old acquaintance Tony Leigh, who turned presbyterian 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 163 
 
 Underbill was a correct and natural comedian ; his par- 
 ticular excellence was in characters that may be called still- 
 life, — I mean the stiff, the heavy, and the stupid : to these 
 he gave the exactest, and most expressive colours, and in 
 some of them, looked as if it were not in the power of hu- 
 man passions to alter a feature of him. In the solemn for- 
 mality ofObadiah, in the " Committee," and in the boobily 
 heaviness of Lolpoop, in the " Squire of Alsatia," he 
 seemed the immovable log he stood for. A countenance 
 of wood could not be more fixed than his, when the block- 
 head of a character required it : his face was full and long ; 
 from his crown to the end of his nose, was the shorter half 
 of it, so that the disproportion of his lower features, when 
 soberly composed, with an unwandering eye hanging over 
 them, threw him into the most lumpish, moping mortal, that 
 ever made beholders merry ; not but, at other times, he 
 could be wakened into spirit equally ridiculous. In the 
 coarse, rustic humour of Justice Clodpate, in " Epsom 
 Wells,'* he was a delightful brute ; and in the blunt viva- 
 city o^ Sir Sampson, in " Love for Love," he showed all 
 that true perverse spirit, that is commonly seen in much wit 
 and ill-nature. This character is one of those few so well 
 written, with so much wit and humour, that an actor must 
 be the grossest dunce, that does not appear with an unusual 
 life in it : but it will still show as great a proportion of skill, 
 to come near Underbill in the acting it, which (not to un- 
 dervalue those who soon came after him) I have not yet 
 seen. He was particularly admired, too, for the Grave- 
 digger, in "^ Hamlet." The author of the " Tattler" re- 
 parson upon his coming into these quarters, holds forth most not- 
 ably here every Sunday.' " — " Letters from the Dead to the Liv • 
 ing." 
 
 M 2 
 
164 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 commends him to the favour of the town,* upon that play's 
 being acted for his benefit, wherein, after his age had some 
 years obliged him to leave the stage, he came on again, for 
 that day, to perform his old part ; but, alas ! so worn and 
 disabled, as if himself was to have lain in the grave he was 
 digging. When he could no more excite laughter, his in- 
 firmities were dismissed with pity. He died soon after, a 
 superannuated pensioner, in the list of those who were sup- 
 ported by the joint sharers, under the first patent granted 
 to Sir Richard Steele. f 
 
 * Vide a subsequent page. 
 
 t Cave Underbill was a member of the company collected by 
 Rhodes in June, 1660, and which, soon afterwards, submitted to 
 the authority of Sir William D'Avenant. He is first mentioned by 
 Downs, for his performance of Sir Morglay Thwack, in the 
 " Wits," after which he sustained the Grave-digger, in " Hamlet," 
 and soon testified such ability, that the manager publicly termed 
 him " the truest'comedian" at that time upon his stage. (1) Under- 
 bill, about this time, strengthened the cast of " Romeo and Juliet," 
 by playing Gregory, and though the custom of devoting the best 
 talent which the theatres afford, to parts of minor importance, has 
 ceased, it is a practice to which the managers, were public amusement 
 consulted, might safely recur. In Shakspeare's " Twelfth Night," 
 which, says Downs, " had mighty success by its well performance," 
 Underbill soon after supported the Clown, a character in which the 
 latter attributes delineated by Cibber, could alone have been em- 
 ployed. Underbill's reputation appears to have been speedily 
 established, as we find him intrusted by Cowley, in 1663, with the 
 hero of bis " Cutter of Coleman-street ;" and he is mentioned by 
 Downs for especial excellence in performing Joclelet, in D'Aven- 
 ant's " Man's the Master." His first new part after the accession 
 of James, was Hothead, in " Sir Courtly Nice;"*'on the 30th of 
 
 (1) ** Roscius Anglicanus." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 165 
 
 The deep impressions of these excellent actors, which I 
 received in my youth, I am afraid, may have drawn me into 
 
 April, 1695, he distinguished himself by his chaste and spirited 
 performance of Sir Sampson Legend, in Congreve's " Love for 
 Love,"(2) and in 1700, closed a long„arduous, and popular career 
 of original parts, by playing Sir Wilful Witwou'd, in the " Way 
 of the World. 
 
 A brief account of this valuable comedian has been furnished by 
 Mr. Davies, which, for the satisfaction of our readers, we shall pro- 
 ceed to transcribe, 
 
 " Underbill was a jolly and droll companion, who divided his gay 
 hours between Bacchus and Venus, with no little ardour, if we may 
 believe such historians as Tom Brown. Tom, I think, makes Un- 
 derbill one of the gill-drinkers of his time ; men who resorted to 
 taverns, in the middle of the day, under pretence of drinking Bris- 
 tol milk, (for so good sherry was then called) to whet their appetites, 
 where they indulged themselves too often in ebriet3\ Underbill 
 acted till he was past eighty. He was so excellent in the part of 
 Trinculo, in the " Tempest," that he was called Prince Trin- 
 culo. (3) He had an admirable vein of pleasantry, and told his 
 lively stories, says Brown, with a bewitching grace. The same 
 author says, he was so afflicted with the gout, that he prayed one 
 minute, and cursed the other. His shambling gait, in his old age, 
 
 (2) The following adrertis^ment appears in the first edition of the " Tatt- 
 ler," No. 20 :— 
 
 ** Mr. Cave Underhill, tlie famous comedian in the reigns of King Charles the 
 Second, King James the Second, King William and Queen Mary, and her 
 present majesty Queen Ann ; but now not able to perform so often as hereto- 
 fore in the playhouse, and having had losses to the value of near j^2,500, is to 
 have the tragedy of '* Hamlet" acted for his benefit, on Friday, the 3rd of 
 June next, at the Theatre Roj^l, in Drury-lane, in which he is to perform his 
 original part, the Grave-digger." 
 
 (3) I find, on looking over the " Roscius Anglicanus," that Trinculo is 
 termed Duke Trinculo y in a short reference to the " Tempest." - 
 
 M 3 
 
166 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the common tbible of us old fellows ; which is a fondness, 
 and, perhaps, a tedious partiality for the pleasures we have 
 formerly tasted, and think are now fallen off, because 
 we can no longer enjoy them. If, therefore, I lie under 
 
 was no hindrance to his acting particular parts. He retired from 
 the theatre in 1703." 
 
 On the 31st of May, 1709, Underhill applied for a benefit, and 
 procured it, upon which occasion he played his favourite part of 
 the Grave-digger, and received the following cordial recommen- 
 dation from Sir Richard Steele : — (4) 
 
 " My chief business here,(6) this evening, was to speak to my 
 friends in Behalf of honest Cave Underhill, who has been a comic 
 for three generations ; my father admired him extremely when he 
 was a boy. There is certainly nature excellently represented in 
 his manner of action ; in which he ever avoided that general fault 
 in players, of doing too much. It must be confessed, he has not 
 the merit of some ingenious persons now on the stage, of adding to 
 his authors ; for the actors were so dull in the last age, that many of 
 them have gone out of the world, without having ever spoken one 
 word of their own in the theatre. Poor Cave is so mortified, that 
 he quibbles and tells you, he pretends only to act a part fit for a 
 a man who has one foot in the grave; viz. a Grave-digger. All 
 admirers of true comedy, it is hoped, will have the gratitude to be 
 present on the last day of his acting, who, if he does not happen 
 to please them, will have it then to say, that it is the first time." — 
 " Tattler," No. 22. 
 
 Sir Richard Steele obtained the patent alluded toby Cibber, on 
 the 19th of January, 1714, and as Underhill was maintained for a 
 space, however short, by the joint proprietors, his death may be 
 placed, I suspect, about the commencement of the following year. 
 
 (4) I cannot refrain from instancing the rare talent, which has recently 
 been evinced in this arduous character by Mr. Terry, who is perhaps the only 
 actor now before us, by whom its sordid and unnatural sternness could have 
 been adequately depicted. 
 
 (5) Will's Coffee-house. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 167 
 
 that suspicion, thoiie^h I have related nothing incredible, 
 or out of the reach of a good judge's conception, I must 
 appeal to those few, who are about my own age, for the 
 truth and likeness of these theatrical portraits. 
 
 There were, at this time, several others in some degree 
 of fevour w ith the public ; Powel, Verbruggen,* Williaras,t 
 
 * JohnVerbruggen, it appears from the assertion of Mr.Davies,( 1 ) 
 was a dissipated young fellow, who determined, in opposition to 
 the advice of his friends, to be an actor, and accordingly loitered 
 about Drury-lane theatre, at the very time when Gibber was also 
 endeavouring to get admittance, in expectation of employment. 
 On' the death of Mountfort, whose widow he married, Verbruggen 
 was intrusted, Ihave no doubt, with the part of Alexander, his 
 fondness for which was such, that he suffered the players and the 
 public, for many years, to call him by no other name. (2) It is 
 mentioned in more than one pamphlet, that Gibber and Verbruggen 
 were at variance, and hence the animosity and unfairness with 
 which the latter has been treated. (3) 
 
 (1) " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 3, p. 417- 
 
 (2) ** I have seen the name of Mr. Alexander to several parts in Dryden's 
 plays; to Ptoleyny^ in" Cleomenes; or, the Spartan Hero ;" to ^urelitis, in 
 ** King Arthur ;" and Ramirez^ in ** Love Triumphant ; or, Nature will Pre- 
 vail." Verbruggen, I believe, did not assume his own name, in the play- 
 house bills, till the secession of Betterton and others from Drury-lane in 1695.*" 
 " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 3, p. 418. 
 
 (3) " That Verbruggen and Gibber did not accord, is plainly insinuated by 
 the author of the " Laureat." It was known that the former would resent an 
 injury, and that the latter's valour was entirely passive. The temper of Ver- 
 bruggen may be known, from a story which I have often been told by the old 
 comedians as a certain fact, and which found its way into some temporary 
 publication.* 
 
 " Verbruggen, in a dispute with one of King Charles's illegitimate sons, was 
 so far transported by sudden anger, as to strike him, and call him a son of 
 
 * The publication alluded to is an " Answer to the Case of Sir Richard Steele," 1720, wheie 
 it is said that Verbruggen offered this aflfront to two young gentlemen of quality.at the theatre 
 in Dorset-garden. The scene, at least, of this anecdote is not correctly laid, as the Dorset- 
 garden house was finally abandoned before Verbruggen came to the stage. 
 
 M 4 
 
168 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 &c. But as I cannot think their best improvements made 
 them in any wise equal to those I have spoken of, 1 ought not 
 
 The first part to which Verbruggen can be traced, is Aurelius, 
 in " King Arthur," 4to, 1691 : in the year 1696, Mr. Southern as- 
 signed him the character of Oroonoko, by the special advice of 
 William Cavendish, the first Duke of Devonshire ; and as the au- 
 thor informs us in his preface, " it was Verbruggen's endeavour, 
 in the performance of that part, to merit the duke's recommenda- 
 tion." A further proof of Mr. Gibber's partiality, is the constant 
 respect paid to Verbruggen by such judges of ability asRowe and 
 Congreve, for whose pieces he was uniformly selected. His Mi- 
 rabel, in the " Way of the World," and Bajaset, in " Tamer- 
 lane," were parts of the highest importance, and it will be difficult 
 to show that an ordhiary actor could have been intrusted, by wri- 
 ters of equal power and fastidity, with duties of which he was not 
 thoroughly deserving. When Verbruggen died it is impossible to 
 ascertain. He played Sullen, in the " Beaux' Stratagem," at its 
 production in 1707, and as Elrington made his appearance in 
 Bajazet, in 1711, there is some reason to conclude that Verbrug- 
 gen's death occurred during that interval. 
 
 Though Gildon, a scribbler whose venality was only exceeded 
 by his dulness, has mentioned Verbruggen in the most derogatory 
 terms, (4) there is ample evidence in the bare record of his busi- 
 
 a whore. Tfa^ affront was given, it seems, behind the scenes of Drury-lane. 
 Complaint was made of this daring insult on a nobleman, and Verbruggen 
 was told, he must either not act in London, or submit publicly to ask the no- 
 bleman's pardon. During the time of his being interdicted acting, he had en- 
 gaged liimself to Betterton's theatre. He consented to ask pardon, on liberty 
 granted to express his submission in his own terms. He came on the stage 
 dressed for the part of Oroonokoy and, after the usual preface, owned that he 
 had called the Duke of St. A. a son of a whore. * It is true,' said Verbrug- 
 gen, * and I am sorry for it.* On saying this, he invited the company pre- 
 sent to sec him act the part of Oroonokoy at the theatre in Lincoln's-inn- 
 $elds." — " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 3, p. 419. 
 
 (4) " A fellow with a cracked voice : he clangs his words as if he spoke out 
 of a broken drum."—** Comparison, &c." 1702." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 169 
 
 to range them in the same class. Neither were Wilks or 
 Dogget yet come to the stage ; nor was Booth initiated till 
 
 ness, to justify the most unqualified merit we may incline to ascribe. 
 Chetwood alludes to him, in pointing out EIrington's imitation of 
 his excellencies, as " a very great actor in tragedy, and polite parts 
 in comedy, "(5) and the author of the " Laureat" enumerates a 
 variety of important characters, in which he commanded universal 
 applause. (6) 
 
 * ( 1 ) Joseph Williams, who was bred a seal-cutter, came into 
 the duke's company, about the year 1673, when but a boy, and 
 according to the practice of that period, being apprenticed to an 
 eminent actor, " served Mr. Harris."(2) I find him first mentioned 
 by Downs, for Pi/lades, in the serious opera of*' Circe;" his next 
 character of importance being Polt/dore, in the " Orphan," 4to, 
 1680; and, same year, T/ieodosius, in Lee's tragedy of that 
 name. The union in 1682, without diminishing his merit, appears 
 to have lessened his value, by the introduction of Kynaston and 
 others, who had more established pretensions to parts of impor- 
 tance. 
 
 The secession of Williams from Betterton's company, just be- 
 fore the opening in 1695, has been noticed and explained by Mr. 
 Gibber, in a subsequent passage. Greatly, as I have no doubt, he 
 has depreciated the merit of this actor, no materials remain of a 
 more recent date than those already quoted, by which we may con- 
 jecture his talents, or enforce his estimation. Williams is not to be 
 confounded with an actor of the same appellation, who was at Dru- 
 ry-lane theatre in the year 1730, and relieved Gibber of *S'cejt?20, 
 in Thomson's " Sophonisba," a curious account of which is given in 
 the " Dramatic Miscellanies." 
 
 (5) " History of the Stage," p. 137. 
 
 (6) Besides Oroonoko, are Cassius, Ventidiusy Chamont^ Pierre^ Cethegus, 
 and the hero of the " Rover." 
 
 (1) There was also a David Williams ; perhaps the person who played the 
 2d Grave-digger, in ** Hamlet." 
 
 (2) " Roscius Anglicanus." 
 
 (3) Vol. 3, p. 242. 
 
170 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 about six years after them ; or Mrs. Oldfield known till 
 the year 1700.* I must, therefore, reserve the four last 
 for their proper period, and proceed to the actresses that 
 were famous with Better ton, at the latter end of the last 
 century. 
 
 Mrs. Barry was then in possession of almost all the chief 
 parts of tragedy : with what skill she gave life to them, 
 you will judge from the words of Dryden, in his preface to 
 " Cleomenes," where he says, 
 
 Mrs. Barry, always excellent, has in this tragedy excelled herself, 
 and gained a reputation beyond any woman I have ever seen on 
 the theatre. 
 
 I very perfectly remember her acting that part; and 
 however unnecessary it may seem to give my judgment 
 after Dryden's, I cannot help saying I do not only close 
 with his opinion, but will venture to add, that though Dry- 
 den has been dead these thirty-eight years, the same com- 
 pliment, to this hour, may be due to her excellence. And 
 though she was then, n6t a little, past her youth, she was 
 not, till that time, fully arrived to her maturity of power and 
 judgment : from whence I would observe, that the short 
 life of beauty is not long enough to form a complete 
 actress. In men, the delicacy of person is not so absolutely 
 necessary, nor the decline of it so soon taken notice of. The 
 fame Mrs. Barry arrived to is a particular proof of the diffi- 
 culty there is in judging with certainty, from their first 
 trials, whether young people will ever make any great 
 figure on a theatre. There was, it seems, so little hope of 
 Mrs. Barry, at her first setting out, that she was, at the end 
 of the first year, discharged the company, among others 
 that were thought to be a useless expense to it. I take it 
 
 * The four last performers are duly noticed in more suitable si- 
 tuations. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 171 
 
 for granted that the objection to Mrs. Barry, at that time, 
 must have been a defective ear, or some unskilful disson- 
 ance in her manner of pronouncing : but where there is a 
 proper voice and person, with the addition of a good under- 
 standing, experience tells us that such a defect is not always 
 invincible ; of which both Mrs. Barry and the late Mrs. 
 Oldfield are eminent instances. Mrs. Oldfield had been a 
 year in the theatre royal, before she was observed to give 
 any tolerable hope of her being an actress ; so unlike to all 
 manner of propriety, was her speaking. How unaccount- 
 ably, then, does a genius for the stage make its way towards 
 perfection! For, notwithstanding these equal disadvan- 
 tages, both these actresses, though of different excellence, 
 made themselves complete mistresses of their art, by the 
 prevalence of their understanding. If this observation may 
 be of any use to the masters of future theatres, I shall not 
 then have made it to no purpose. 
 
 Mrs. Barry, in characters of greatness, had a presence of 
 elevated dignity ; her mien and motion superb, and grace- 
 fully majestic; her voice full, clear, and strong, so that no 
 violence of passion could be too much for her : and when 
 distress or tenderness possessed her, she subsided into the 
 most affecting melody and softness. In the art of exciting 
 pity, she had a power beyond all the actresses I have yet 
 seen, or what your imagination can conceive. Of the for- 
 mer of these two great excellencies, she gave the most de- 
 lightful proofs in almost all the heroic plays of Dryden and 
 Lee ; and of the latter, in the softer passions of Otway's 
 Mom7nia^ and Belvidera. In scenes of anger, defiance, or 
 
 * " 1 have heard her say, that she never said. 
 
 Ah, poor Castalio ! 
 without weeping ; and I have frequently observed her change her 
 countenance several times, as the discourse of others on the stage 
 have [has] affected her in the part she acted." — Gildon's " Life of 
 Betterton," p. 40, 1710. 
 
172 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 resentment, while she was impetuous and terrible, she 
 poured out the sentiment with an enchanting harmony; 
 and it was this particular excellence, for which Dryden 
 made her the above-recited compliment, upon her acting 
 Cassandra-, in his "Cleomenes." But here, I am apt to 
 think his partiality for that character, may have tempted 
 his judgment to let it pass for her master-piece : when he 
 could not but know, there were several other characters in 
 which her action might have given her a fairer pretence to 
 the praise he has bestowed on her, for Cassandra ; for, in 
 no part of that, is there the least ground for compassion, as 
 in Monimia ; nor equal cause for admiration, as in the 
 nobler love of Cleopatra^ or the tempestuous jealousy of 
 Roxana, 'Twas in these lights, I thought, Mrs. Barry 
 shone with a much brighter excellence than in Cassandra, 
 She was the first person whose merit was distinguished by 
 the indulgence of having an annual benefit-play, which was 
 granted to her alone, if I mistake not, first in King James's 
 time,* and which became not common to others, till the di- 
 vision of this company^, after the death of King William's 
 queen, Mary. This great actress died of a fever, towards 
 the latter end of Queen Ann ; the year I have forgotten ; 
 but perhaps you will recollect it, by an expression that fell 
 
 * Mr. Gibber is inaccurate in this fact ; for it appears from the 
 agreement concluded between Dr. D' Avenant, Hart, Betterton, and 
 others, on the 14th of October, 1681, that the actors then had bene- 
 fits ; as by this agreement five shillings a-piece were to be paid to 
 Hart and Kynaston, " for every day there shall be any tragedies or 
 comedies, or other representations, acted at the Duke's Theatre, 
 in Salisbury-court, or wherever the company shall act, during the 
 respective lives of the said Charles Hart and Edward Kynaston, 
 excepting tfie day the young men or young women play for their 
 own profit onlyT — Giidon's " Life of Betterton," p. 8. 
 
 In Shakspcare's time the actors had not annual benefits. 
 
Wm' 
 
 LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 173 
 
 from her in blank verse, in her last hours, when she was de- 
 lirious, viz. 
 
 Ha, ha ! and so they make us lords, by dozens !* 
 
 ' * Elizabeth Barry, it is said, was the daughter of Edward Barry, 
 Esq., a barrister, who was afterwards called Colonel Barry, from his 
 having raised a regiment for the service of Charles the First, in the 
 course of the civil wars. The misfortunes arising from this engage- 
 ment, involved him in such distress, that his children were obliged 
 to provide for their own maintenance. Lady D'Avenant, a rela- 
 tion of the noted laureat, from her friendship to Colonel Barry, 
 gave this daughter a genteel education, and made her a constant 
 associate in the circle of polite intercourse. These opportunities 
 gave an ease and grace to Mrs. Barry's behaviour, which were of 
 essential benefit, when her patroness procured her an introduction 
 to the stage. This happened in the year 1673, when Mrs. Barry's 
 efforts were so extremely unpropitious, that the directors of the 
 duke's company pronounced her incapable of making any pro- 
 gress in the histrionic art. Three times, according to Curl's " His- 
 tory of the Stage," ( 1 ) she was dismissed, and by the interest of 
 her benefactor, re-instated. When Otway, however, produced his 
 *' Alcibiades," in 1675, her merit was such, as not only to excite 
 the public attention, but to command the author's praise, which has 
 been glowingly bestowed upon her in the preface to that produc- 
 tion. We find her, next season, filling the lively character of 
 Mrs. Lovit, in Etherege's " Man of Mode ;" and in 1680, her per- 
 formance of Monimia, in the " Orphan," seems to have raised that 
 reputation to its greatest height, which had been gradually increas- 
 ing. The part of Belvidera, two ^ears afterwards, and the heroine 
 of Southern's "Fatal Marriage," in 1694, elicited unrivalled ta- 
 lent, and procured her universal distinction. 
 
 When Mrs. Barry first resorted to the theatre, her pretensions to 
 notice were a good air and manner, and a very powerful and plea#- 
 
 (1) Published in 1741. 
 
174 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Mrs. Betterton, though far advanced in years, was so 
 great a mistress of nature, that even Mrs. Barry, who acted 
 
 ing voice. Her ear, however, was so extremely defective, that se- 
 veral eminent judges, on seeing her attempt a character of some 
 importance, gave their opinion that she never could be an actress. 
 Upon the authority of Curl's historian, Mr. Davies (3) has com- 
 piled what appears to me an apocryphal tale of her sudden rise to 
 the pinnacle of excellence, though there is no reason to dispute 
 her criminal intimacy with the Earl of Rochester. (4) I am not in- 
 clined, while doubting the precise anecdote of his assistance, to 
 deny that much advantage might have been derived from his ge- 
 neral instructions. 
 
 Mrs. Barry was not only remarkable for the brilliancy of her 
 talent, but the earnestness of her zeal, and the ardour of her assi- 
 duity. Betterton, that kind, candid, and judicious observer, bore 
 
 (3) " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 3, p. 198. This narrative, considering 
 it to be valueless, is too long for transcription, and I shall therefore content 
 myself with remarking, that Lord Rochester is said to have qualified Mrs. 
 Barry for the part of Isabella, Queen of Hungary, in the Earl of Orrery's 
 ** Mustapha." Now this tragedy was originally produced in 1668, when Mrs. 
 Davies sustained the character alluded to, and it is not likely, while revivals 
 were uncommon, that so temporary a piece should be restored to the stage, 
 for the mere purpose of exhibiting Lord Rochester's exploded pupil. 
 
 Independent of these reasons, it may be urged, that as Mrs. Barry was but 
 fifteen years of age when she entered the company, in 1673,* and distinguish- 
 ed herself during the season of 1675, that there could not have been the 
 slightest grounds for such a desperate exertion as her noble protector is al- 
 leged to have made. 
 
 (4) It has been said, that he fixed his affections on her more strongly 
 
 than on any other female. Letters addressed to Madam B , by the 
 
 Earl of Rochester, were printed in that edition of his poems fit for the 
 public eye, which was published by J. Tonson, in 1716, and are generally 
 said to be the earl's epistolary correspondence with this celebrated actr/ess. 
 In some of them, he speaks with great fondness of a child he had by her, and 
 to whom he afterwards left, by will, au annuity oi £iO. — *' Dramatic Miscel- 
 lanies," vol.3, p. 198. ' 
 
 * It will be seen on the next page, that she died, aged 55 years, in 1713. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 175 
 
 Lad^ Macbeth after her, could not in that part, with all her 
 superior strength, and melody of voice, throw out those 
 
 this testimony to her eminent abilities, and unyielding good-nature, 
 that she often exerted herself so greatly in a pitiful character, that 
 her acting has given success to plays which would disgust the most 
 patient reader. (5.) When she accepted a part, it was her uni- 
 form practice to consult the author's intention. Her last new cha- 
 racter was the heroine of Smith's " Phaedra and Hippolytus," and 
 though Mrs. Oldfield and the poet fell out concerning a few lines 
 in the part of Ismena, Mrs. Barry and he were in perfect har- 
 mony. 
 
 Mrs. Barry must have closed her career with this performance, 
 being mentioned by Steele, in the " Tattler," when assisting at 
 Betterton's benefit, on Thursday, April 7, 1709, as " not at pre- 
 sent concerned in the house." She died on the 7th of November, 
 1713, aged 65 years, and was buried in Acton church-yard. Mr. 
 Davies ascribes her death to the bite of a favourite lap-dog, who, 
 unknown to her, had been seized with madness, and there seems to 
 be no grounds for disturbing his supposition. 
 
 The moral character of Mrs. Barry appears to be unworthy of 
 particular estimation, for though we may feel reluctant to depend 
 upon the satirical testimony of Brown, (6) there is complete rea- 
 son to conclude, that she dispensed her favours with considerable 
 liberality. The temptations to which a popular actress is exposed, 
 are many and powerful ; vice, too, obtains an excuse among. this 
 class of persons, from the meanness of their origin and the poverty 
 of their intellect ; but let them remember that the honours of tri- 
 umph are always proportioned to the dangers of trial, and they 
 will enrich the stage with a character for virtue and discretion, 
 which the warmest friends to their calling must feel anxious to 
 see it attain. 
 
 (5) " Lifeof Betterton," p. 16. 
 
 (6) ** Should you lie with her all night, she would not know you next morn- 
 ing, unless you had another five pounds at her service." — Brown's "Works," 
 vol. 3, p. 36, 1744. 
 
176 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 quick and careless strokes of terror, from the disorder of a 
 guilty mind, which the other gave us, with a facility in her 
 manner, that rendered them at once tremendous and delight- 
 ful. Time could not impair her skill, though he had 
 brought her person to decay. She was to the last, the admi- 
 ration of all true judges of nature, and lovers of Shakspeare, 
 in whose plays she chiefly excelled, and without a rival. 
 When she quitted the stage, several good actresses were 
 the better for her instruction. She was a woman of an un- 
 blemished and sober life; and had the honour to teach 
 Queen Ann, when princess, the part of Semandraj in 
 '' Mithridates," which she acted at court in King Charles's 
 time. After the death of Mr. Betterton, her husband, that 
 princess, when queen, ordered her a pension for life, but she 
 lived not to receive more than the first half year of it.* 
 
 Mrs. Barry is supposed to be alluded to in the 20th Number of 
 the " Tattler," as the" famous (7) she tragedian," who, " had set- 
 tled her estate, after her death, for the maintenance of decayed wits, 
 who are to be taken in as soon as they grow dull, at whatever time 
 of their life that shall happen." 
 
 * When Sir William D'Avenant undertook the management of 
 the duke's company, he lodged and boarded four principal ac- 
 tresses in his house, among whom was Mrs. Saunderson, the sub- 
 ject of this article. 
 
 In the year 1656, a Mrs. Coleman had represented lanthe, in 
 the first part of D'Avenant's " Siege of Rhodes;" but the little 
 she had to communicate was delivered in recitative. The first wo- 
 man that appeared in any regular drama on a public stage, per- 
 formed the part of Desdemona; but who that lady was, it is im- 
 
 (7) The epithet of "famoiiSy" by which Mrs. Barry has been exclusively 
 distinguished, is perhaps sufficient to authorise our pronouncing her the ob- 
 ject of this satirical fabrication. Downs, speaking of her Jfommia, Belvideray 
 and Isabella^ says, they " gained her the name of famous Mrs. Barry, both at 
 court and city." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 17T 
 
 Mrs. Leigh, the wife of Leigh already mentioned, had a 
 very droll way of dressing the pretty foibles of superan- 
 
 possible to ascertain. " Othello" was performed by the Red Bull 
 company, at their new theatre in Vere-street, Clare-market, on 
 Saturday, December 8th, 1660, for the first time that winter, and 
 on that day, it is probable, an actress first appeared on the English 
 stage. A prologue was furnished for this occasion by Thomas Jor- 
 dan, who seems to insinuate that the lady performing Desdemona, 
 was an unmarried woman, which precludes Mrs. Hughs, ( l) whose 
 husband was in the company, from the honours of that assumption. 
 It has been conjectured, that Mrs. Saunderson made her first essay 
 there, though afterwards attached to D'Avenant's company, and in 
 this case, the received tradition that she was the first English actress, 
 will be completely confirmed. 
 
 Mrs. Saunderson's first appearance in D'Avenant's company, 
 was made as lanthe, in the " Siege of Rhodes," on the opening of 
 his new theatre in Lincoln's-inn-fields, in April 1662. She played 
 Ophelia soon afterwards, and that part being followed by Shaks- 
 peare's Juliet, evinces the consideration in which her services were 
 held. In 1663, she married Mr. Betterton, and not in 1670, as it 
 is erroneously mentioned in the "Biographia Dramatica," and 
 other worthless compilations. (2) 
 
 (1) Margaret Hughs must have joined the royal company before its estab- 
 lishment at the theatre in Druiy-lane, as her name is mentioned by Downs for 
 Desdemona, in the year 1663. We afterwards trace her to Theodosia, in Dry- 
 den's " Evening's Love," 4to, 1671 ; after which she is no more to be met 
 with. 
 
 In Brown's collection of " Letters from the Dead to the Living," there is 
 a very objurgative epistle addressed by Nell Gwyn to this lady, to which she 
 replies in a suitable strain. Various allusions are also made to Prince Ru- 
 pert, by whom Mrs. Hughs had been taken from the stage, and enriched with 
 a splendid property, which, in the decline of life, she entirely exhausted by 
 dice and cards. Brandenburgh-house, now inhabited by her Majesty, was 
 settled upon this actress by her gallant lover, and formed the scene, for many 
 years, of their unchaste and luxurious orgies. These letters were published 
 in the year 1702, and Mrs. Hughs at that time was evidently in existence. 
 
 (2) Downs expressly mentions her as Mrs. Betterton for Camilla^ in the 
 
 N 
 
178 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 nuated beauties. She had, in her self, a good deal of hu- 
 mour, and knew how to infuse it into the affected mothers, 
 aunts, and modest stale maids, that had missed their market : 
 of this sort were the modish mother, in the " Chances," 
 affecting to be politely commode^ for her own daughter ; 
 the coquette prude of an aunt, in " Sir Courtly Nice," who 
 prides herself in being chaste and cruel, at fifty ; and the 
 languishing Lady WishforH^ in the '' Way of the World." 
 In all these, with many others, she was extremely enter- 
 
 The principal characters sustained by Mrs. Betterton, were 
 Queen Catharine^ in " Henry the Eighth ;" the Duchess of Mai- 
 fy; the Amorous Widow J- those enumerated in the text, and many 
 others, not less remarkable for their importance than their variety. 
 On the death of her husband, in April 17 10, she was so strongly af- 
 fected by that event, as to lose her senses, which were recovered, 
 however, a short time previous to her own decease. Mr. Gibber 
 may be right in stating that she only enjoyed the bounty of her 
 royal mistress for about half a year; but, in that case, the pension 
 could not have been granted directly he died, as we find that Mrs. 
 Betterton was alive on the 4th of June, 1711, more than thirteen 
 months after, and had the play of " Sir Fopling Flutter," per- 
 formed at Drury-lane for her benefit. (3) Mrs. Betterton, though 
 prevented from performing, by age and infirmity, enjoyed a sine- 
 cure situation in Drury-lane theatre, till she withdrew from it, in 
 1709, and was paid at the rate of two pounds a- week. The " Bio- 
 graphia Britannica" says she survived her husband eighteen months, 
 but the precise date of her decease has never been discovered. 
 
 " Adventures of Five Hours," folio, 1663 ; and she also acted by that name, 
 a few months after, in the " Slighted Maid." This error originated with the 
 " Biographia Britannica," but Mr. Jones, the late slovenly editor of the book 
 alluded to, had ample means to correct it. 
 
 (3) See an advertisement quoted from the original edition of the " Specta- 
 tor," in Davies's " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 3, p. 398. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. lt9 
 
 taining, and painted, in a lively manner, the blind side of 
 nature.* 
 
 Mrs. Butler, who had her christian name of Charlotte 
 given her by King Charles, was the daughter of a decayed 
 knight, and had the honour of that prince's recommenda- 
 tion to the theatre ; a provident restitution, giving to the 
 stage in kind, what he had sometimes taken from it : the 
 public, at least, was obliged by it ; for she proved not only 
 a good actress, but was allowed in those days, to sing and 
 dance to great perfection. In the dramatic operas of" Dio- 
 clesian," and "King Arthur," she was a capital and ad- 
 mired performer. In speaking, too, she had a sweet-toned 
 voice, which, with her naturally genteel air and sensible 
 pronunciation, rendered her wholly mistress of the amiable, 
 in many serious characters. In parts of humour, too, she 
 had a manner of blending her assuasive softness, even with 
 the gay, the lively, and the alluring. Of this she gave an 
 agreeable instance, in her action of the (Villiers) Duke of 
 Buckingham's 2d. Const antia^ in the " Chances," in which, 
 if I should say I have never seen her exceeded, I might still 
 
 * According to the statement of Downs, Mrs. Leigh came into 
 the duke's company, about the year 1670, and is first mentioned 
 for Betti/ Trickmore, in " Mamamouchi," 4to, 1672. I cannot 
 explain the oddness of her being engaged three years before the 
 retention of her husband, who is said by Downs to have joined the 
 same company in 1673, but there may be an oversight in not 
 placing the employment of Leigh to an earlier period. I cannot 
 find any mention of this respectable lady, subsequent to her perfor- 
 mance of Lad^ Wishfor^ti in 1700, soon after which, as honest 
 Downs says, she was probably " erept the stage." (l) 
 
 (1) This lady is probably not a distinct person from the Mrs. Mary Lee, 
 or Leigh, who played the heroine of Dryden's *' Troilus and Cressida," at 
 its appearance in 1679. I should not have entertained a doubt upon the sub- 
 ject, had Gibber spoken, however lightly, of her tragic attempts. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 do no wrong to the late Mrs. Oldfield's lively performance 
 of the same character. Mrs. Oldfield's fame may spare 
 Mrs. Butler's action this compliment, without the least di- 
 minution or dispute of her superiority, in characters of more 
 moment.* 
 
 Here I cannot help observing, when there was but one 
 theatre in London, at what unequal salaries, compared to 
 those of later days, the hired actors were then held, by the 
 absolute authority of their frugal masters, the patentees; 
 for Mrs. Butler had then but forty shillings a week, and 
 could she have obtained an addition of ten shillings more, 
 which was refused her, would never have left their service ; 
 but being offered her own conditions, to go with Mr. Ash- 
 buryt to Dublin, who was then raising a company of actors 
 for that theatre, where there had been none since the revo- 
 lution, her discontent, here, prevailed with her to accept of 
 his offer, and he found his account in her value. Were 
 not those patentees most sagacious oeconomists, that could 
 
 * Very little can be added to this account of Charlotte Butler, 
 who appeared upon the Dublin boards, some time in the month of 
 March, 1692. Her line of business, both serious and comic, was 
 but of a secondary nature, as I find her set down for Serina, in the 
 "Orphan," and Philidel, in " King Arthur." 
 
 t Joseph Ashbury was a Londoner, and born in the year 1638, 
 of an antient family. He was related, by the mother's side, to Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, and after receiving a classical education at Eton, 
 procured a pair of colours under the Duke of Ormond, and went 
 over to Ireland, in the last year of Cromwell's protectorate. Mr. 
 Ashbury was concerned in the seizure of Dublin Castle, when Go- 
 vernor Jones was secured in behalf of Charles the Second. He 
 was made lieutenant of foot in 1680, and succeeded his deceased 
 predecessor, Ogilby, as Master of the Revels, in 1682, at the nomi- 
 nation of the Duke of Ormond, then viceroy of the kingdom. He 
 died, July 24, 1720. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 181 
 
 lay hold on so notable an expedient to lessen their charge ? 
 How gladly, in my time of being a sharer, would we have 
 given four times her income, to an actress of equal merit ! 
 
 Mrs. Mountfort, whose second marriage gave her the 
 name of Verbruggen, was mistress of more variety of hu- 
 mour than I ever knew in any one woman actress. This 
 variety, too, was attended with an equal vivacity, which 
 made her excellent in characters extremely different. As 
 she was naturally a pleasant mimic, she had the skill to 
 make that talent useful on the stage, a talent which may be 
 surprising in a conversation, and yet be lost when brought 
 to the theatre, which was the case of Estcourt* already 
 mentioned ; but where the elocution is round, distinct, vo- 
 luble, and various, as Mrs. Mountfort's was, the mimic, 
 there, is a great assistant to the actor. Nothing, though 
 ever so barren, if within the bounds of nature, could be flat 
 in her hands. She gave many heightening touches to cha- 
 racters but coldly written, and often made an author vain 
 of his work, that in itself had but little merit. She was so 
 fond of humour, in what low part soever to be found, that 
 she would make no scruple of defacing her fair form, to 
 come heartily into it ; for when she was eminent in several 
 desirable characters of wit and humour, in higher life, she 
 would be in as much fancy, when descending into the anti- 
 quated Abigail^ of Fletcher, as when triumphing in all the 
 
 * Mr. Gibber's animosity to the merit of Estcourt, is too conspi- 
 cuous to be overlooked. Perhaps the following notice from the 
 " Tattler," No. 20, will suffice to set this question at rest. 
 
 " This evening was acted the *' Recruiting Officer," in which Est- 
 court's proper sense and observation is what supports the play. 
 There is not, in my humble opinion, the humour hit in Serjeant 
 Kite, but it is admirably supplied by his action. If I have skill to 
 judge, that man is an excellent actor." 
 
182 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 airs, and vain graces, of a fine lady ; a merit, that few ac- 
 tresses care for. In a play of D'Urfey's, now forgotten, 
 called, the " Western Lass," which part she acted, she 
 transformed her whole being, body, shape, voice, language, 
 look, and features, into almost another animal ; with a strong 
 Devonshire dialect, a broad laughing voice, a poking head, 
 round shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the most bedi- 
 zening, dowdy dress, that ever covered the untrained limbs 
 of a Joan Trot. To have seen her here, you would have 
 thought it impossible the same creature could ever have been 
 recovered to what was as easy to her, the gay, the lively, 
 and the desirable. Nor was her humour limited to her sex ; 
 for, while Ker shape permitted, she was a more adroit pretty 
 fellow than is usually seen upon the stage : her easy air, 
 action, mien, and gesture, quite changed from the quoif, to 
 the cocked hat, and cavalier in fashion. People were so 
 fond of seeing her a man, that when the part of Bai/s^ in 
 the '^ Rehearsal," had, for some time, lain dormant, she 
 was desired to take it up, which I have seen her act w ith 
 all the true coxcombly spirit and humour, that the suffi- 
 ciency of the character required. 
 
 But what found most employment for her whole various 
 excellence at once, was the part oi Melantha^ in ^' Mar- 
 riage- Alamode." Melantha is as finished an impertinent 
 as ever fluttered in a drawing-room, and seems to contain 
 the most complete system of female foppery, that could pos- 
 sibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine lady. Her 
 language, dress, motion, manners, soul, and body, are in a 
 continual hurry to be something more than is necessary or 
 commendable. And though I doubt it will be a vain la- 
 bour, to offer you a just likeness of Mrs. Mountfort's action, 
 yet the fantastic impression is still so strong in my memory, 
 that I cannot help saying something, though fantastically, 
 about it. The first ridiculous airs that break from her, are, 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER' 183 
 
 upon a gallant, never seen before, who delivers her a letter 
 from her father, recommending him to her good graces, as 
 an honourable lover. Here, now, one would think she 
 might naturally show a little of the sex's decent reserve, 
 though never so slightly covered. No, sir ; not a tittle of it ; 
 modesty is the virtue of a poor-souled country gentlewoman ; 
 she is too much a court lady, to be under so vulgar a con- 
 fusion ; she reads the letter, therefore, with a careless, drop- 
 ping lip, and an erected brow, humming it hastily over, as 
 if she were impatient to outgo her father's commands, by 
 making a complete conquest of him at once ; and that the 
 letter might not embarrass her attack, crack ! she crumbles 
 it at once into her palm, and pours upon him her whole 
 artillery of airs, eyes, and motion ; down goes her dainty, 
 diving body, to the ground, as if she were sinking under 
 the conscious load of her own attractions ; then launches 
 into a flood of fine language and compliment, still playing 
 her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon 
 waving water ; and, to complete her impertinence, she is so 
 rapidly fond of her own wit, that she will not give her lover 
 leave to praise it : silent, assenting bows, and vain endea- 
 vours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is 
 admitted to, which, at last, he is relieved from, by her en- 
 gagement to half a score visits, which she swims from him 
 to make, with a promise to return in a twinkling. 
 
 If this sketch has colour enough to give you any near 
 conception of her, I then need only tell you, that throughout 
 the whole character, her variety of humour was every way 
 proportionable ; as, indeed, in most parts that she thought 
 worth her care, or that had the least matter for her fancy 
 to work upon, I may justly say, that no actress, from her 
 own conception, could have heightened them with more live^ 
 ly strokes of nature.* 
 
 * Susanna Mountfort is first mentioned in the " Roscius Angli- 
 
 n4 
 
184 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 I come now to the last, and only living person of all those 
 whose theatrical characters I have promised you, Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle ; who, I know, would rather pass her remaining 
 days forgotten, as an actress, than to have her youth recol- 
 lected in the most favourable light I am able to place it in ; 
 yet, as she is essentially necessary to my theatrical history, 
 and as I only bring her back to the company of those, with 
 whom she passed the spring and summer of her life, I hope 
 it will excuse the liberty I take, in commemorating the de- 
 
 canus" for Serina, in the " Orphan," a part, however, which she 
 did not play, it having been allotted to Mrs. Butler. She conti- 
 nued with Mohun during his short opposition to the united compa- 
 nies, and was then admitted with her husband into Drury-lane 
 theatre, where the first parts to which I find her name affixed, are 
 Morayma^ in " Don Sebastian," and Phcedra, in " Amphytrion," 
 both produced in 1690. She was a widow at her flight from Lin- 
 coln's-inn-fields, in 1695, upon which she returned to her old sta- 
 tion, and, perhaps soon afterwards, married Verbruggen. Her 
 reputation shortly stood so high, that Gildon, in his " Comparison," 
 &c., 1702, terms her a miracle, in direct depreciation of Mrs. Old- 
 field and Mrs. Rogers. 
 
 I can add nothing to the copious, animated, and correct account 
 of this lady which Gibber has left us, beyond a notification of the 
 spirited manner in which she performed the part of Bays. She 
 died, giving birth to a child, in the year 1703, and left an only 
 daughter, Susanna Mountfort, who made her debut at Drury-lane 
 theatre, in 1705, on which occasion she spoke a temporary epi- 
 logue, frankly avowing her own deficiencies, but claiming support 
 from the memory of her mother's merits. 
 
 A phoenix once you had, that each allows ; 
 Think from her ashes I, I only rose : 
 Like her no pains I'll spare, like her to last, 
 And please in various ways your various taste. 
 Believe mc promising, though young and wild, 
 And for the mother's worth support the child.* 
 * " Poems on State Affairs," vol. 4. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 185 
 
 light which the public received from her appearance, while 
 she was an ornament to the theatre. 
 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle was now but just blooming to her 
 maturity ; her reputation, as an actress, gradually rising 
 with that of her person ; never any woman was in such 
 general favour of her spectators, which, to the last scene 
 of her dramatic life, she maintained, by not being un- 
 guarded in her private character.* This discretion contri- 
 
 * Mrs. Bracegirdle was decidedly not " unguarded" in her con- 
 duct, for though the object of general suspicion, no proof of posi- 
 tive unchastity was ever brought against her. Her intrigue with 
 Mountfort, who lost his life in consequence of it, ( 1 ) is hardly to 
 be disputed, and there is pretty ample evidence that Congreve 
 was honoured with a gratification of his amorous desires. (2) 
 
 (1) " We had not parted with him as many minutes as a man may beget his 
 likeness in, but who should we meet but Mountfort the player, looking as pale 
 as a ghost, sailing forward as gently as a caterpillar 'cross a sycamore leaf, 
 gaping for a little air, like a sinner just come out of the powdering-tub, crying 
 out as he crept towards us, * O my back I Confound 'em for a pack of brim- 
 stones : O my back!' — ' How now. Sir Court Ij/,' said I, ' what the devil makes 
 thee in this pickle ?' — * O, gentlemen,' says he, * I am glad to see you ; but I 
 am troubled with such a weakness in my back, that it makes me bend like a 
 superannuated fornicator.' * Some strain,' said I, * got in the other world, 
 with overheaving yourself.' — ' "What matters it how 'twas got,' says he ; * can 
 you tell me anything that's good for it ?' * Yes,* said I ; * get a warm ^rdle 
 and tie round you ; 'tis an excellent corroborative to strengthen the loins.* — 
 * Pox on you,' says he, * for a bantering dog I how can a single girdle do me 
 good, when a Brace was my destruction?'" — Brown's ** Letters from the 
 Dead to the Living.'* 
 
 (2) In one of those infamous collections known by the name of ** Poems 
 on State Affairs," there are several obvious, though coarse and detestable, 
 hints of this connexion. Collier's severity against the stage is thus sarcasti- 
 cally deprecated, in a sliort piece called the " Benefits of a Theatre." 
 
 Shall a place be put down, when we see it affords 
 Fit wives for great poets, and whores for great lords .' 
 Since Angelica, bless'd with a singular grace. 
 Had, by her fine acting, prescrv'd all his plays, 
 In an amorous rapture, young Valentine said, 
 One so fit for his plays might be fit for his bed. 
 
186 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 buted, not a little, to make her the cara^ the darling of the, 
 theatre ; for it will be no extravagant thing to say, scarce 
 an audience saw her that were less than half of them lovers, 
 without a suspected favourite among them : and though she 
 might be said to have been the universal passion, and under 
 the highest temptations, her constancy in resisting them 
 served but to increase the number of her admirers : and 
 this, perhaps, you will more easily believe, when I extend 
 not my encomiums on her person, beyond a sincerity that 
 can be suspected ; for she had no greater claim to beauty, 
 than what the most desirable brunette might pretend to. 
 But her youth, and lively aspect, threw out such a glow of 
 health and cheerfulness, that, on the stage, few spectators 
 that were not past it, could behold her without desire. It 
 was even a fashion among the gay and young, to have a 
 taste or tcndre for Mrs. Bracegirdle. She inspired the best 
 authors to write for her, and two* of them, when they 
 
 * Rowe and Congreve, the latter of whom is believed to have 
 been the object of Mrs. Bracegirdle's congenial attachment. His 
 assiduous attentions were by no means unnoticed ; nor, if the sub- 
 joined extract from Brown's " Amusements" be not utterly devoid 
 of foundation, were they unfitted for censure : 
 
 " That poet there that shows his assiduity by following yon- 
 
 The allusion to Congreve and Mrs. Bracegirdle wants, of course, no corro- 
 boration ; but the liint at their marriage, broached in the half line I have 
 italicised, is a curious though unauthorized fact. From the verses I shall con- 
 tinue to quote, it will appear that this marriage between the parties, though 
 thought to be private, was currently believed ; it is an expedient that has often 
 been used, in similar cases, to cover the nakedness of outrageous lust. 
 
 He warmly pursues her, she yielded her charms, 
 And bless'd the kind youngster in her kinder arms : 
 But at length the poor nymph did for justice implore. 
 And he 's married her nowy though he 'd her before. 
 
 On a subsequent page of the same precious miscellany, there is a most offen- 
 sive statement of the cause wldch detached our great comic writer from the 
 object of his passion. The thing is too filthy to be even described. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 187 
 
 gave her a lover, in a play, seemed palpably to plead their 
 own passions, and make their private court to her in ficti- 
 tious characters. In all the chief parts she acted, the de- 
 sirable was so predominant, that no judge could be cold 
 enough to consider, from what other particular excellence 
 she became delightful. To speak critically of an actress 
 that was extremely good, were as hazardous as to be posi- 
 tive in one's opinion of the best opera singer. People often 
 judge by comparison, where there is no similitude in the 
 performance. So that, in this case, we have only taste to 
 appeal to, and of taste there can be no disputing. I shall 
 therefore only say of Mrs. Bracegirdle, that the most 
 eminent authors always chose her for their favourite cha- 
 racter, and shall leave that incontestible proof of her merit 
 to its own value. Yet let me say, there were two very 
 different characters, in which she acquitted herself with 
 uncommon applause : if anything could excuse that despe- 
 rate extravagance of love, that almost frantic passion of 
 Lee's Alexander the Great, it must have been, when 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle was his Statira : as when she acted Mil- 
 lamantj all the faults, follies, and affectation of that agree- 
 able tyrant, were venially melted down into so many 
 charms, and attractions of a conscious beauty. In other 
 characters, where singing was a necessary part of them, her 
 voice and action gave a pleasure, which good sense, in those 
 days, was not ashamed to give praise to. 
 
 She retired from the stage in the height of her favour 
 from the public, when most of her cotemporaries, whom 
 
 der actress, is the most entertaining sort of an animal imaginable. 
 But 'tis the Wai/ of the World to have an esteem for the fair sex ; 
 and she looks to a miracle, when she is acting a part in one of his 
 own plays.***^ He dines with her almost every day, yet she's a 
 a maid ; lie rides out with her, and visits her in private and public, 
 yet she's a maid," &c. — Vol. 3, p. 36, 1744. 
 
J88 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 she had been bred up with, were declining, in the year 
 1708,* nor could she be persuaded to return to it, under 
 new masters, upon the most advantageous terms, that were 
 offered her ; excepting one day, about a year after, to 
 assist her good friend; Mr. Betterton, when she played 
 Angelica^ in " Love for Love," for his benefit. She has 
 still the happiness to retain her usual cheerfulness, and to 
 be, without the transitory charm of youth, agreeable, f 
 
 If, in my account of these memorable actors, I have not 
 deviated from truth, which, in the least article, I am not 
 conscious of, may we not venture to say, they had not their 
 equals, at any one time, upon any theatre in Europe ? Or, 
 if we confine the comparison to that of France alone, I 
 believe no other stage can be much disparaged, by being 
 left out of the question ; which cannot properly be decided, 
 
 * The original date here is 1710, but as Mr. Betterton's benefit 
 occurred on the 7th ofAprily 1709, and as Mr. Gibber clearly 
 means to assert that Mrs. Bracegirdle had left the stage twelve 
 months before it took place, I have corrected accordingly. 
 
 t Ann Bracegirdle was driven from the stage by the predomi- 
 nating youth, beauty, talents, and influence of Mrs. Oldfield, about 
 the year 1708. ( 1 ) The friends of the latter lady, conceiving her 
 to be entitled to that distinction, claimed a right to appoint her 
 benefit before Mrs. Bracegirdle's, whose partizans insisted upon 
 her precedence, not only from long prescription, but superior 
 merit. It was at last settled that the rival queens should fix on a 
 favourite character, to be acted by them alternately : the part 
 chosen was Mrs. Brittle, in the " Amorous Widow,'* and the pre- 
 ference of the public appeared so strongly in favour of Mrs. Oldfield, 
 that her mortified rival abandoned the theatre, and never played 
 
 (1) The ** Royal Convert" of Rowe was played in 1708, when the part of 
 Ethelinda was acted by Mrs. Oldfield ; from which circumstance we may 
 conclude that Mrs. Bracegirdle was not upon the stage, as Rowc,othcrwi5e, 
 would certainly have given it to her. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 189 
 
 by the single merit of any one actor ; whether their Baron 
 or our Betterton, might be the superior, (take which side 
 you please) that point reaches, either way, but to a thir- 
 teenth part of what I contend for, viz. that no stage, at any 
 one period, could show thirteen actors, standing all in equal 
 lights of excellence, in their professioji : and I am the 
 bolder in this challenge to any other nation, because no 
 theatre having so extended a variety of natural characters, 
 as the English, can have a demand for actors of such va- 
 rious capacities ; why then, where they could not be equally 
 wanted, should we suppose them, at any one time to have 
 existed ? 
 
 How imperfect soever this copious account of them may 
 be, I am not without hope, at least, it may in some degree 
 show, what talents are requisite to make actors valuable : 
 and if that may anyways inform or assist the judgment of 
 future spectators, it may as often be of service to their 
 public entertainments; for as their hearers are, so will 
 actors be ; worse or better, as the false or true taste ap- 
 plauds or discommends them. Hence only can our theatres 
 improve, or must degenerate. 
 
 There is another point, relating to the hard condition of 
 those who write for the stage, which I would recommend 
 to the consideration of their hearers ; which is, that the 
 extreme severity with which they damn a bad play, seems 
 too terrible a warning to those whose untried genius might 
 hereafter give them a good one : whereas it might be a 
 temptation to a latent author, to make the experiment, could 
 he be sure that, though not approved, his muse might, at 
 
 again, but for Betterton's benefit. Congreve bequeathed a legacy 
 of ^200 to Mrs. Bracegirdle, who retired to the house of Mr. 
 Chute, a few years previous to her death, which happened in 1748, 
 just before she attained the age of eighty-five. 
 
190 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 least, be dismissed with decency : but the vivacity of our 
 modern critics is of late grown so riotous, that an unsuc- 
 cessful author has no more mercy shown him, than a noto- 
 rious clieat in a pillory ; every fool, the lowest member of 
 the mob, becomes a wit, and will have a fling at him. 
 They come now to a new play, like hounds to a carcase, 
 and are all in a full cry, sometimes for an hour together, 
 before the curtain rises, to throw it amongst them. Surely, 
 those gentlemen cannot but allow, that a play condemned 
 after a fair hearing, falls with thrice the ignominy, as when 
 it is refused that common justice. 
 
 But when their critical interruptions grow so loud, and 
 of so long a continuance, that the attention of a quiet people 
 (though not so complete critics) is terrified, and the skill of 
 the actors quite disconcerted by the tumult, the play then 
 seems rather to fall by assassins, than by a lawful sentence. 
 Is it possible that such auditors can receive delight, or 
 think it any praise to them, to prosecute so injurious, so 
 unmanly a treatment ? And though, perhaps, the compas- 
 sionate, on the other side, (who know they have as good a 
 right to clap and support, as others have to catcall, damn, 
 and destroy,) may oppose this oppression, their good-na- 
 ture, alas ! contributes little to the redress ; for in this sort 
 of civil war, the unhappy author, like a good prince, while 
 his subjects are at mortal variance, is sure to be a loser by 
 a victory on either side ; for still the commonwealth, his 
 play, is, during the conflict, torn to pieces. While this 
 is the case, while the theatre is so turbulent a sea, and so 
 infested with pirates, what poetical merchant, of any sub- 
 stance, will venture to trade in it ? If these valiant gentle- 
 men pretend to be lovers of plays, why will they deter gen- 
 tlemen from giving them such as are fit for gentlemen to 
 see ? In a word, this new race of critics seem to me, like 
 the lion-whelps in the Tower, who are so boisterously 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 191 
 
 gamesome at their meals, that they dash down the bowls of 
 milk, brought for their own breakfast. 
 
 As a good play is certainly the most rational, and the 
 highest entertainment that human invention can produce, 
 let that be my apology (if 1 need any) for having thus 
 freely delivered my mind, in behalf of those gentlemen, 
 who, under such calamitous hazards, may hereafter be re- 
 duced to write for the stage, whose case I shall compas- 
 sionate, from the same motive that prevailed on Dido to 
 assist the Trojans in distress. 
 
 Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco, 
 or, as Drjden has it, 
 
 I learn to pity woes so like my own. 
 
 J f those particular gentlemen have sometimes made me 
 the humbled object of their wit and humour, their triumph 
 at least has done me this involuntary service, that it has 
 driven me a year or two sooner into a quiet life, than, other- 
 wise, my own want of judgment might have led me to : I 
 left the stage before my strength left me, and though I 
 came to it again, for some few days, a year or t\^ o after ; 
 my reception there not only turned to my account,* but 
 seemed a fair invitation that I would make my visits more 
 frequent : but, to give over a winner, can be no very im- 
 prudent resolution. 
 
 * Mr. Gibber is said to have netted fifty guineas a night by these 
 fugitive performances ; perhaps the largest remuneration, consider- 
 ing the relative value of money, that ever was granted to a thea- 
 trical performer. His last appearance was in 1744, but the period 
 he alludes- to was in the season of 1738, when he agreed with 
 Fleetwood, the proprietor of Drury-lane, to represent Richard, 
 Fondlewife, Sir John Brute, and a few more of his favourite 
 characters. 
 
192 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 The author's first step upon the stage. — His discouragements. — 
 The best actors in Europe ill-used. — A revolution in their 
 favour. — King William grants them a license to act in Lin- 
 colrCs-inn-fields. — The author"* s distress, in being thought a 
 worse actor than a poet. — Reduced to write a part for himself 
 — His success. — More remarks upon theatrical action. — Some 
 upon himself, 
 
 HAVING given you the state of the theatre at my first ad- 
 mission to it, I am now drawing tovvards the several revo- 
 lutions it suffered in my own time. But, as you find (by 
 the setting out of my history) that I always intended my- 
 self the hero of it, it may be necessary to let you know me, 
 in my obscurity, as well as in my higher light, when I be- 
 came one of the theatrical triumvirate. 
 
 The patentees, who were now masters of this united, and 
 only company of comedians, seemed to make it a rule, that 
 no young persons, desirous to be actors, should be admitted 
 into pay under, at least, half a year's probation ; wisely 
 knowing, that how early soever they might be approved of, 
 there could be no great fear of losing them, while they had, 
 then, no other market to go to. But, alas ! pay was the 
 least of my concern ; the joy and privilege of every day 
 seeing plays for nothing, I thought was a sufficient consi- 
 deration for the best of my services. So that it was no pain 
 to my patience, that I waited full three quarters of a year, 
 
LIFE OF MR COLLEY CIBBER. 193 
 
 before I was taken into a salary of ten shillings per week ;* 
 which, with the assistance of food and raiment, at my fa- 
 ther's house, I then thought a most plentiful accession, and 
 myself the happiest of mortals. 
 
 The first thing that enters into the head of a young actor, 
 is that of being a hero : in this ambition I was soon snubbed, 
 by the insufficiency of my voice ; to which might be added, 
 an uninformed, meagre person, though then not ill-made, 
 with a dismal, pale complexion. Under these disadvan- 
 tages, I had but a melancholy prospect of ever playing a 
 lover mth Mrs. Bracegirdle, which I had flattered my 
 hopes, that my youth might one day have recommended me 
 to. What was most promising in me, then, was the apt- 
 ness of my ear ; for I was soon allowed to speak justly, 
 though what was grave and serious, did not equally become 
 me. The first part, therefore, in which I appeared with 
 any glimpse of success, was the Chaplain^ in the " Orphan" 
 
 * The manner in which Mr. Gibber obtained this trifling salary, 
 is thus pleasantly related by Mr. Davies, in the " Dramatic Miscel- 
 lanies :" 
 
 " Mr. Richard Cross, late prompter of Drury-lane theatre, gave 
 me the following history of Colley Gibber's first establishment as a 
 hired actor. He was known only, for some years, by the name of 
 Master Golley. After waiting impatiently a long time for the 
 prompter's notice, by good fortune he obtained the honour of car- 
 rying a message on the stage, in some play, to Betterton. Whatever 
 was the cause. Master Golley was so terrified, that the scene was 
 disconcerted by him. Betterton asked, in some anger, who the 
 young fellow was that committed the blunder. Downs replied, 
 " Master Golley."—" Master Colley ! then forfeit him."—" Why, 
 sir," said the prompter, " he has no salary." — " No !" said the old 
 man ; " why then put him down ten shillings a-week, and forfeit 
 him five."— Vol. 3, p. 417. 
 
194 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 of Otway. There is in this character* (of one scene only) 
 a decent pleasantry, and sense enough to show an audience, 
 whether the actor has any himself. Here was the first ap- 
 plause I ever received, which, you may be sure, made my 
 heart leap with a higher joy, than may be necessary to de- 
 scribe ; and yet my transport was not then half so high, as 
 at what Goodman (who had now left the stage) said of me, 
 the next day, in my hearing. Goodman often came to a re- 
 hearsal for amusement, and having sat out the " Orphan,'* 
 the day before, in a conversation with some of the principal 
 actors, inquired what new young fellow that was, whom he 
 had seen in the Chaplain^ Upon which, Mountfort replied, 
 " That's he, behind you." Goodman then turning about, 
 looked earnestly at me, and, after some pause, clapping me 
 on the shoulder, rejoined, '' If he does not make a good 
 actor, I'll be d— 'd !" The surprise of being commended 
 by one who had been himself so eminent on the stage, and 
 in so positive a manner, was more than I could support ; in 
 a word, it almost took away my breath, and (laugh, if you 
 please) fairly drew tears from my eyes. And, though it 
 may be as ridiculous as incredible, to tell you what a full 
 vanity and content at that time possessed me, I will still 
 make it a question whether Alexander himself, or Charles 
 the Twelfth of Sweden, when at the head of their first vic- 
 torious armies, could feel a greater transport in their bo- 
 soms, than I did then in mine, when but in the rear of this 
 troop of comedians. You see to what low particulars I 
 
 * This part was originally played by Percival, a respectable 
 actor^ who came into the duke's company about the year 1673. Mr. 
 Gibber's first appearance must have been made before the death of 
 Mountfort, in December 1692; which I merely mention to regu- 
 late the error of Mr. Wewitzer's dramatic chronology, which places 
 it in 1696. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEV CIBBER. 195 
 
 am forced to descend, to give you a true resemblance of the 
 early and lively follies of my mind. Let me give you ano- 
 ther instance of my discretion, more desperate than that of 
 preferring the stage to any other views of life. One might 
 think that the madness of breaking from the advice and 
 care of parents to turn player, could not easily be exceeded : 
 but what think you, sir, of — matrimony, which, before I 
 was two-and-twenty, I actually committed, when I had but 
 twenty pounds a-year, w hich my father had a^ured to me, 
 and twenty shillings a-week for my theatrical labours, to 
 maintain, as I then thought, the happiest young couple that 
 ever took a leap in the dark ? If, after this, to complete 
 my fortune, I turned poet, too, this last folly, indeed, had 
 something a better excuse — necessity : had it never been my 
 lot to have come on the stage, 'tis probable I might never 
 have been inclined or reduced to have written for it : but 
 having once exposed my person there, I thought it could be 
 no additional dishonour to let my parts, whatever they were, 
 take their fortune along with it. — But, to return to the pro- 
 gress I made as an actor. 
 
 Queen Mary having commanded the " Double Dealer" 
 to be acted, Kynaston happened to be so ill, that he could 
 not hope to be able next day to perform his part of Lord 
 Touchwood. In this exigence, the author, Mr. Congreve, 
 advised it might be given to me, if, at so short a \yarning, I 
 would undertake it. The flattery of being thus distin- 
 guished by so celebrated an author, and the honour to act 
 before a queen, you may be sure, made me blind to what- 
 ever difficulties might attend it. I accepted the part, and 
 was ready in it before I slept ; next day the queen was pre- 
 sent at the play, and was received with a new prologue 
 from the author, spoken by Mrs. Barry, humbly acknow- 
 ledging the great honour done to the stage, and to his play 
 
 o 2 
 
196 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 in particular ; two lines of it, which though I have not since 
 read, I still remember. 
 
 But never were in Rome nor Athens seen, 
 So fair a circle, or so bright a queen. 
 
 After the play, Mr. Congreve made me the compliment of 
 saying, that I had not only answered, but had exceeded his 
 expectations, and that he would show me he was sincere, by 
 his saying more of me to the masters. — He was as good as 
 his word, and the next pay-day, I found my salary of fif- 
 teen, was then advanced to twenty shillings a-week. But, 
 alas ! this favourable opinion of Mr. Congreve made no 
 farther impression upon the judgment of my good masters ; 
 it only served to heighten my own vanity ; but could not 
 recommend me to any new trials of my capacity ; not a step 
 farther could I get, till the company was again divided ; 
 when the desertion of the best actors left a clear stage, for 
 younger champions to mount, and show their best preten- 
 sions to favour. But it is now time to enter upon those 
 facts, that immediately preceded this remarkable revolution 
 of the theatre. 
 
 You have seen how complete a set of actors were under 
 the government of the united patents in 1690 ; if their 
 gains were not extraordinary, what shall we impute it to, 
 but some extraordinary ill-management ? I was then too 
 young to be in their secrets, and therefore can only observe 
 upon what I saw, and have since thought visibly wrong. 
 
 Though the success of the " Prophetess,*" and ^' King 
 Arthur,t" (two dramatic operas, in which the patentees 
 
 * The tragical history of that title, altered by Betterton from 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, in 1690, and made into an opera for 
 the music of Purcel. 
 
 " It gratified the expectations," says Downs, " of court and city ; 
 and got the author great reputation.^' 
 
 t '* ' King Arthur,' an opera wrote by Mr. Drydon. It was ex- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 197 
 
 had embarked all their hopes) was, in appearance, very 
 great, yet their whole receipts did not so far balance their 
 expense, as to keep them out of a large debt, which it was 
 publicly known was, about this time, contracted, and which 
 found work for the court of Chancery for about twenty years 
 following, till one side of the cause grew weary. But this 
 was not all that was wrong ; every branch of the theatrical 
 trade had been sacrificed to the necessary fitting out those 
 tall ships of burthen, that were to bring home the Indies. 
 Plays, of course, were neglected, actors held cheap, and 
 slightly dressed, while singers and dancers were better 
 paid, and embroidered. These measures, of course, created 
 murmurings on one side, and ill-humour and contempt on 
 the other. When it became necessary, therefore, to lessen 
 the charge, a resolution was taken to begin with the salaries 
 of the actors; and what seemed to make this resolution 
 more necessary at this time, was the loss of Nokes, Mount- 
 fort, and Leigh, who all died about the same year : no won- 
 der, then, if when these great pillars were at once removed, 
 the building grew weaker, and the audiences very much 
 abated. Now in this distress, what more natural remedy 
 could be found, than to incite and encourage (though with 
 some hazard) the industry of the surviving actors ? But the 
 patentees, it seems, thought the surer way was to bring 
 down their pay in proportion to the fall of their audiences. 
 To make this project more feasible, they proposed to begin 
 at the head of them, rightly j udging, that if the principals 
 acquiesced, their inferiors would murmur in vain. To bring 
 
 cellently adorned with scenes and machines : the musical part set by 
 the famous Mr. Henry Purcel, and dances made by Mr, Jo Priest : 
 the play and music pleased the court and city, and being well per- 
 formed, 'twas very gainful to the company." — '' Roscius Anglica- 
 nus." It was produced in 1691 . 
 
 o3 
 
1^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 this about with a better grace, they, under pretence of bring- 
 ing younger actors forward, ordered several of Betterton's 
 and Mrs. Barry's chief parts to be given to young Powe],* 
 and Mrs. Bracegirdle. In this they committed two palpa- 
 ble errors ; for while the best actors are in health, and still 
 on the stage, the public is always apt to be out of humour, 
 when those of a lower class pretend to stand in their places ; 
 or admitting, at this time, they might have been accepted, 
 this project might very probably have lessened, but could 
 not possibly mend an audience ; and was a sure loss of that 
 time, in studying, which might have been better employed 
 in giving the auditor variety, the only temptation to a palled 
 appetite ; and variety is only to be given by industry : but 
 industry will always be lame, when the actor has reason to 
 be discontented. This the patentees did not consider, or 
 pretended not to value, while they thought their power se- 
 cure and uncontrollable : but, farther, their first project did 
 not succeed ; for though the giddy head of Powel ac- 
 cepted the parts of Betterton, Mrs. Bracegirdle had a dif- 
 ferent way of thinking, and desired to be excused from 
 those of Mrs. Barry ; her good sense was not to be misled 
 by the insidious favour of the patentees ; she knew the stage 
 was wide enough for her success, without entering into any 
 such rash and invidious competition with Mrs. Barry, and 
 therefore wholly refused acting any part that properly be- 
 longed to her. But this proceeding, however, was warning 
 enough to make Betterton be upon his guard, and to alarm 
 others with apprehensions of their own safety, from the de- 
 sign that was laid against him : Betterton, upon this, drew 
 
 * Mr. Powel, sen. is mentioned by Downs, as following the for- 
 tunes of Mohun, in his opposition to the united companies. He was 
 father to the actor now mentioned, and died, according to Gildon, 
 about the year 1698. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 199 
 
 into his party most of the valuable actors, who, to secure 
 their unity, entered with him into a sort of association, to 
 stand or fall together. All this the patentees for some time 
 slighted, but when matters drew towards a crisis, they found 
 it advisable to take the same measures, and accordingly 
 opened an association on their part ; both which were se- 
 verally signed, as the interest or inclination of either side 
 led them. 
 
 During these contentions, which the impolitic patentees 
 had raised against themselves, (not only by this I have men- 
 tioned, but by many other grievances which my memory 
 retains not) the actors offered a treaty of peace ; but their 
 masters imagining no consequence could shake the right of 
 their authority, refused all terms of accommodation. In the 
 meantime, this dissention was so prejudicial to their daily 
 affairs, that I remember it was allowed by both parties, that 
 before Christmas, the patent had lost the getting of at least 
 a thousand pounds by it. 
 
 My having been a witness of this unnecessary rupture, 
 was of great use to me, when, many years after, I came to be 
 a manager myself. I laid it down as a settled maxim, that 
 no company could flourish while the chief actors and the 
 undertakers were at variance. I therefore made it a point, 
 while it was possible upon tolerable terms, to keep the va- 
 luable actors in humour with their station ; and though I 
 was as jealous of their encroachments as any of my co-part- 
 ners could be, I always guarded against the least warmth, 
 in my expostulations with them ; not but at the same time 
 they might see, I was perhaps more determined in the ques- 
 tion, than those that gave a loose to their resentment, and, 
 when they were cool, were as apt to recede. I do not re- 
 member that ever I made a promise to any, that I did not 
 keep, and therefore was cautious how I made them. This 
 coldness, though it might not please, at least left them no-^ 
 
 o 4 
 
SOO AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 thing to reproach me with ; and if temper and fair words 
 could prevent a disobligation, I was sure never to give of- 
 fence, or receive it. But as I was but one of three, I could 
 not oblige others to observe the same conduct. However, 
 by this means, I kept many an unreasonable discontent 
 from breaking out, and both sides found their account in it. 
 How a contemptuous and overbearing manner of treating 
 actors had like to have ruined us, in our early prosperity, 
 shall be shown in its place : if future managers should 
 chance to think my way right, I suppose they will follow 
 it ; if not, when they find what happened to the patentees, 
 (who chose to disagree with their people) perhaps they may 
 think better of it. « 
 
 The patentees, then, who, by their united powers, had 
 made a monopoly of the stage, and consequently presumed 
 they might impose what conditions they pleased upon their 
 people, did not consider, that they were all this while endea- 
 vouring to enslave a set of actors, whom the public (more 
 arbitrary than themselves) were inclined to support ; nor 
 did they reflect that the spectator naturally wished that the 
 actor, who gave him delight, might enjoy the profits arising 
 from his labour, without regard of what pretended damage, 
 or injustice, might fall upon his owners, whose personal 
 merit the public was not so well acquainted with. From 
 this consideration, then, several persons of the highest 
 distinction espoused their cause, and sometimes, in the circle, 
 entertained the king with the state of the theatre. At length 
 their grievances were laid before the Earl of Dorset, then 
 Lord Chamberlain, who took the most effectual method for 
 their relief.* The learned of the law were advised with, 
 
 * Mr. Davies has the following elucidatory note upon this oc- 
 currence : 
 
 " The generous Dorset introduced Betterton, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. 
 
LIFE OF MR. CQLLEY GIBBER. 201 
 
 and they gave their opinion, that no patent for acting 
 plays, &c. could tie up the hands of a succeeding prince 
 from granting the like authority, where it might be thought 
 proper to trust it. But while this affair was in agitation,* 
 Queen Mary died, which, of course, occasioned a cessation of 
 all public diversions. In this melancholy interim, Betterton 
 and his adherents had more leisure to solicit their redress ; 
 and the patentees now finding that the party against them 
 was gathering strength, were reduced to make sure of as 
 good a company, as the leavings of Betterton's interest could 
 form ; and these, you may be sure, would not lose this oc- 
 casion of setting a price upon their merit, equal to their 
 own opinion of it, which was but just double to what they 
 had before. Powel and Verbniggen, who had then but 
 forty shillings a week, were now raised each of them to 
 four pounds, and others in proportion : as for myself, I was 
 then too insignificant to be taken into their councils, and 
 
 Bracegirdle, and others, to the king, who granted them an audience. 
 William, though deficient in the charm of affability and condescen- 
 sion, with which Charles, his uncle, captivated all who approached 
 him, was yet ready to extend his favour to the players. He was 
 not displeased to see in his presence, two such wonders in the the- 
 atrical world as Betterton and Mrs. Barry, whose keen expressive 
 look commanded attention and respect, William, who had freed 
 all the subjects of England from slavery, except the inhabitants of 
 the mimical world, rescued them also from the insolence and tyran- 
 ny of their oppressors." — " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 3, page 
 394. 
 
 It is a fact which has been strangely overlooked, that Sir Robert 
 Howard was mainly instrumental in procuring the license by which 
 these comedians were relieved.(l) 
 
 * In 1694. 
 
 (1) " Roscius Anglicanus." 
 
202 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 consequently stood among those of little importance, like 
 cattle in a market, to be sold to the first bidder. But 
 the patentees seeming in the greater distress for actors, 
 condescended to purchase me. Thus, without any farther 
 merit, than that of being a scarce commodity, I was ad- 
 vanced to thirty shillings a- week : yet our company was 
 so far from being full, that our commanders were forced 
 to beat up for volunteers in several distant counties ; and 
 it was this occasion that first brought Jonson* and Bul- 
 lockf to the service of the theatre royal. 
 
 * This excellent actor, who was familiarly known by the appel- 
 lation of his great namesake, Ben Jonson, came into the theatre 
 royal, from an itinerant company, as Mr. Gibber relates, about the 
 year 1694. He was bred a sign painter, but took more pleasure 
 in hearing the actors, than in handling his pencil or spreading his 
 colours, and, as he used to say in his merry mood, left the saint's 
 occupation at last to take that of the sinner. 
 
 Jonson's merit was evinced as *S'*> William Wisewould, in Gib- 
 ber's comedy of" Love's Last Shift," 4to, 1696 ; but I find him first 
 mentioned by Downs, for Justice Wary, in Garyl's " Sir Salomon ;" 
 the old prompter, in a species of postscript to his valuable tract, 
 then terms him " a true copy of Mr. Underbill," and instances his il/o- 
 rose, Corbaccioy and Sir Hothead, as very admirable efforts. Jonson 
 passed over to the management of old Swiney, in 1706, with other 
 members of Betterton's company, and established a very high repu- 
 tation by his chaste and studied manner of acting. When Rich, in 
 1715, opened his new theatre in Lincoln's-inn-fields, Booth, Wilks, 
 and Gibber, the managers of Drury-lane, solicitous to retain in their 
 service comedians of merit, paid a particular respect to Johnson, by 
 investing him with such parts of Dogget, who had taken leave of 
 them, as were adapted to his powers. Here he continued with 
 fame and profit, till August, 1742, when he expired in the seventy- 
 seventh year of his age. Mr. Davies, who appears to have been 
 familiar with his excellencies, has given a description of Jonson, 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 203 
 
 Forces being thus raised, and the war declared on both 
 sides, Betterton and his chiefs had the honour of an audi- 
 
 which, for its evident taste and candour, I shall do myself the plea- 
 sure to transcribe. 
 
 *^ That chaste copier of nature, Ben Jonson, the comedian, for 
 above forty years, gave a true picture of an arch clown in the 
 Grave-digger. His jokes and repartees had a strong effect from 
 his seeming insensibility of their force. His large, speaking, blue 
 eyes he fixed steadily on the person to whom he spoke, and was 
 never known to have wandered from the stage to any part of the 
 theatre." 
 
 In the second volume of Mr. Victor's notes upon the stage, I 
 find the following corroboration of this actor's merits : 
 
 " Jonson was a comedian that all the critics allowed to have the 
 sterling vis comica. He was most happily adapted to all the 
 characters he appeared in. He was one of those comedians, who, 
 like the incomparable Nokes, could give life to many comedies 
 that existed only by their extraordinary performances. The Mo- 
 rose, in the " Silent Woman," was one that died with this great 
 actor. His steady countenance never betrayed the least symptom 
 of the joke he was going to give utterance to. His decent mien 
 (never exaggerated by dress or conduct) made him, at all times, 
 appear the real man he represented." 
 
 t This excellent actor came to London, as we see, about 1694, 
 deriving his engagement from the distress in which Drury-Iane 
 theatre was involved by the desertion of Betterton, and other prin- 
 cipal performers. He quitted this establishment in 1 714, owing, as 
 Mr. Gibber insinuates, to the ungovernable temper of Wilks ; and 
 passed over to John Rich, at the opening of Lincoln's-inn-fields. 
 He is first mentioned by Downs, for the Host, in Shakspeare's 
 " Merry Wives of Windsor," and appears to be pointed at in 
 Dennis's " Epistle Dedicatory" to the " Comical Gallant," where 
 the irascible writer thus addresses the Hon. George Granville :— 
 "Falstaflf's part, which you know to t)e the principal one of the play. 
 
204 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 ence of the king, who considered them as the only subjects 
 whom he had not yet delivered from arbitrary power ; and 
 graciously dismissed them, with an assurance of relief, and 
 support. Accordingly, a select number of them were em- 
 powered by his royal license, to act in a separate theatre 
 for themselves. This great point being obtained, many 
 people of quality came into a voluntary subscription of 
 twenty, and some of forty guineas a-piece, for erecting a 
 theatre within the walls of the Tennis-court, in Lincoln's 
 Irm Fields. But as it required time to fit it up, it gave the 
 
 and that which on all the rest depends, wag by no means acted to 
 the satisfaction of the audience, upon which several fell from dis- 
 liking the action, to disapproving the play." 
 
 This piece was printed in 1702, as acted " at the Theatre Roy- 
 al in Drury-Iane;" with a list of the dramatis personce^ but the 
 names of the actors not annexed. Bullock, however, sustained 
 the part of Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, in Vanbrugh's " Relapse," 
 which had been previously performed under the same auspices, and 
 from its nature, most probably by the same actor. 
 
 William Bullock was a comedian of great glee and much vivacity, 
 and in his person large, with a lively countenance, full of humour- 
 ous information. Steele, in the " Tattler," with his usual kind 
 sensibility, very often adverts to Bullock's faculty of exciting amuse- 
 ment, but sometimes censures his habit of interpolation, (l) In 
 Gildon's " Comparison between the Two Stages,'' 1702, he is 
 termed the " best comedian since Nokes and Leigh, and a fellow 
 that has a very humble opinion of himself." Bullock's abilities 
 have been ratified by the sanction of Macklin, who denominated 
 him a true theatrical genius ; and Mr- Davies saw him act several 
 parts with great applause, and particularly the Spanish Friar y 
 when beyond the age of eighty. He died on the 18th of June, 
 1733. 
 
 (1) " You'll have Pinketbmau and Bullock helping out Beaumont and 
 Fletcher."—" Tattler,'' No. 81). 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 205 
 
 patentees more leisure to muster their forces^who, not with- 
 standing, were not able to take the -field till the Easter 
 Monday in April following. Their first attempt was a re- 
 vived play, called " Abdelazar ; or, the Moor's Revenge," 
 poorly written, by Mrs. Behn. The house was very full, 
 but whether it was the play or the actors that were not ap- 
 proved, the next day's audience sunk to nothing. How- 
 ever, we were assured, that let the audiences be never so 
 low, our masters would make good all deficiencies, and so 
 indeed they did, till towards the end of the season, when 
 dues to balance came too thick upon them. But that I 
 may go gradually on with my own fortune, I must take 
 this occasion to let you know, by the following circum- 
 stance, how very low my capacity, as an actor, was then 
 rated. It was thought necessary, at our opening, that the 
 town should be addressed in a new prologue ; but to our 
 great distress, among several that were offered, not one 
 was judged fit to be spoken. This I thought a favourable 
 occasion to do myself some remarkable service, if I should 
 have the good fortune to produce one that might be accept- 
 ed. The next (memorable) day my muse brought forth 
 her first fruit that was ever made public ; how good or bad 
 imports not ; my prologue was accepted, and resolved on 
 to be spoken. This point being gained, I began to stand 
 upon terms, you will say, not unreasonable ; which were, 
 that if I might speak it myself, I would expect no farther 
 reward for my labour : this was judged as bad as having no 
 prologue at all. You may imagine how hard I thought it, 
 that they durst not trust my poor poetical brat to my own 
 care. But since I found it was to be given into other 
 hands, I insisted that two guineas should be the price of 
 my parting with it; which with a sigh I received, and 
 Powel spoke the prologue : but every line, that was ap- 
 plauded, went sorely to my heart, when I reflected, that 
 
906 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the same praise might have been given to my own speaking ; 
 nor could the success of the author compensate the distress 
 of the actor. However, in the end, it served, in some sort, 
 to mend our people's opinion of me ; and whatever the cri- 
 tics might think of it, one of the patentees, (who, it is true, 
 knew no difference between Dry den and D'Urfey,) said, upon 
 the success of it, that, in sooth, I was an ingenious young 
 man. This sober compliment, (though I could have no 
 reason to be vain u,pon it,) I thought was a fair promise to 
 my being in favour. But to matters of more moment : now 
 let us reconnoitre the enemy. 
 
 After we had stolen some few days' march upon them, the 
 forces of Betterton came up with us in terrible order. In 
 about three weeks following, the new theatre was opened 
 against us, with a veteran company, and a new train of ar- 
 tillery ; or in plainer English, the old actors, in Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields began with a new comedy of Mr. Congreve's, 
 called '' Love for Love;"* which ran on with such extra- 
 ordinary success, that they had seldom occasion to act any 
 other play, till the end of the season. This valuable play 
 had a narrow escape from falling into the hands of the pa- 
 tentees ; for, before the division of the company, it had been 
 read, and accepted of at the theatre royal : but while the 
 articles of agreement for it were preparing, the rupture in 
 the theatrical state was so far advanced, that the author 
 took time to pause before he signed them; when finding 
 that all hopes of accommodation were impracticable, he 
 thought it advisable to let it take its fortune with those 
 actors for whom he had first intended the parts. 
 
 Mr. Congreve was then in such high reputation as an au- 
 thor, that, besides his profits from this play, they offered him 
 a whole sharef with them, which he accepted ; and in con- 
 
 * Produced on the 30th of April, 1695. 
 
 t InShakspeare'stime the nightly expenses for lights, supernumer- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 207 
 
 sideration of which he obliged himself, if his health permit- 
 ted, to give them one new play every year. Dryden, in 
 King Charles's time, had the same share with the king's 
 company ; but he bound himself to give them two plays 
 every season.* This, you may imagine, he could not hold 
 
 aries, etc., was but forty-five shillings, and having deducted this 
 charge, the clear emoluments were divided into shares, (supposed to 
 be forty in number,) between the proprietors, and principal actors. 
 In the year 1666, the whole profit arising from acting plays, masques, 
 etc., at the king's theatre, was divided into twelve shares and 
 three quarters, of which Mr. Killegrew, the manager, had two 
 shares and three quarters, each share computed to produce about 
 3^250, net, per annum. In Sir William D'Avenant's company, 
 from the time their new theatre was opened in Portugal-row, the 
 total receipt, after deducting the nightly expenses, was divided into 
 fifteen shares, of which it was agreed that ten should belong to 
 D'Avenant, for various purposes, and the remainder be divided 
 among the male members of his troops according to their rank 
 and merit. I cannot relate the arrangement adopted by Better- 
 ton in Lincoln's-inn-fields, but the share accepted by Congreve 
 was, doubtless, presumed to be of considerable value. 
 
 * Dryden had a share and a quarter in the king's company, 
 for which he bound himself to furnish not two, but three plays 
 every season. The following paper, which, after remaining long 
 in the Killegrew family, came into the hands of the late Mr. Reed, 
 and was published by Mr. Malone in his *' Historical Account of 
 the English Stage," incontestibly proves the practice alluded to. 
 The superscription is lost, but it was probably addressed to the 
 lord-chamberlain, or the king, about the year 1678, " CEdipus," 
 the ground of complaint, being printed in 1 679 : 
 
 Whereas upon Mr. Dryden's binding himself to write three playes a 
 yeere, hee the said Mr. Dryden was admitted and continued as a sharer in the 
 king's playhouse for diverse years, and received for his share and a quarter 
 three or four hvmdred pounds, communibus annis ; but though he received 
 
AN APOLOGY FOR THE ^ 
 
 long, and, 1 am apt to think, he might have served them 
 better with one in a year, not so hastily written. Mr. 
 Congreve, whatever impediment he met with^ was three* 
 years before, in pursuance to his agreement, he produced 
 the " Mourning Bride ;" and, if I mistake not, the interval 
 had been much the same, when he gave them the " Way 
 
 the moneys, we received not the playes, not one in a yeare. After which, 
 llie house being burnt, the company in building another, contracted great 
 debts, so that shares fell much short of what they were formerly. There- 
 upon Mr. Dryden complaining to the company of his want of profit, the 
 company was so kind to him that they not only did not presse him for the 
 playes which he so engaged to write for them, and for which he was paid be- 
 forehand, but they did also at his earnest request give him a third day for his 
 last new play called " All for Love j" and at the receipt of the money for the 
 said third day, he acknowledged it as a guift, and a particular kindnesse of 
 the company. Yet notwithstanding this kind proceeding, Mr. Dryden has 
 now, jointly with Mr. Lee, (who was in pension with us to the last day of our 
 playing, and shall continue,) written a play called " CEdipus," and given it 
 to the duke's company, contrary to his said agreement, his promise, and all 
 gratitude, to the great prejudice and almost imdoing of the company, they 
 being the only poets remaining to us. Mr. Crowne, being under the like 
 agreement with the duke's house, writt a play called the ** Destruction of Je- 
 rusalem," and being forced by their refusall of it, to bring it to us, the said 
 company compelled us, after the studying of it, and a vast expence in scenes 
 and cloaths, to buy off their clayme, by paying all the pension he had receiv- 
 ed from them, amounting to one hundred and twelve pounds paid by the king's 
 company, besides near forty pounds he the said Mr. Crowne paid out of his 
 owue pocket. 
 
 These things considered, if notwithstanding Mr. Dryden's said agree- 
 ment, promise, and moneys freely given him for his said last new play, and 
 the many titles we have to his writings, this play be judged away from us, we 
 must submit. 
 
 (Signed) Charles Killegrew. 
 
 Charles Hart. 
 
 Rich. Burt. 
 
 Cardell Goodman. 
 ^ Mic. Mohun. 
 
 * Only two years, the " Mourning Bride" being printed in 
 1697. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 209 
 
 of the World."* But it came out the stronger for the 
 time it cost him, and to their better support, when they 
 sorely wanted it : for though they went on with success for 
 a year or two, and even, when their affairs were declin- 
 ing, stood in much higher estimation with the public, than 
 their opponents ; yet, in the end, both sides were great suf- 
 ferers by their separation ; the natural consequence of two 
 houses, which I have already mentioned in a former chapter. 
 The first error this new colony of actors fell into, was 
 their inconsiderately parting with Williams, and Mrs. 
 Mountfort, upon a too nice, not to say severe, punctilio ; in 
 not allowing them to be equal sharers with the rest ; which, 
 before they had acted one play, occasioned their return to 
 the service of the patentees. As I have called this an 
 error, I ought to give my reasons for it. Though the in- 
 dustry of Williams was not equal to his capacity, for he 
 loved his bottle better than his business ; and though Mrs. 
 Mountfort was only excellent in comedy, yet their merit was 
 too great, almost on any scruples, to be added to the ene- 
 my ; and, at worst, they were certainly much more above 
 those they would have ranked them with, than they could 
 possibly be Under those, they were not admitted to be equal 
 to. Of this fact there is a poetical record, in the prologue 
 to '^ Love for Love," where the author, speaking of the, 
 then, happy state of the stage, observes that, if in Paradise, 
 when two only were there, they both fell, the surprise was 
 less, if, from so numerous a body as theirs, there had been 
 any deserters : 
 
 Forbear yourt wonder, and the fault forgive, 
 
 If, in our larger family, we grieve 
 
 One falling Adam, and one tempted Eve. 
 
 * Published, 4to, 1700. 
 
 t Mr. Gibber, with his usual inaccuracy, reads here. 
 Abate the wonder, etc. 
 P 
 
 } 
 
210 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 These lines alluded to the revolt of the persons above-men- 
 tioned. 
 
 Notwithstanding the acquisition of these two actors, who 
 were of more importance than any of those to whose assist- 
 ance they came, the affairs of the patentees were still in a 
 very creeping condition ; they were now, too late, con- 
 vinced of their error in having provoked their people to this 
 civil war of the theatre : quite changed, and dismal, now, 
 was the prospect before them : their houses thin, and the 
 town crowding into a new one ; actors at double salaries, 
 and not half the usual audiences to pay them ; and all this 
 brought upon them by those whom their full security had 
 contemned, and who were now in a fair way of making 
 their fortunes, upon the ruined interest of their oppressors. 
 
 Here, though at this time my fortune depended on the 
 success of the patentees, I cannot help, in regard to truth, 
 remembering the rude and riotous havoc we made of all the 
 late dramatic honours of the theatre. All became at once 
 the spoil of ignorance and self-conceit. Shakspeare was 
 defaced and tortured in every signal character; Hamlet 
 and Othello lost, in one hour, all their good sense, their dig- 
 nity, and fame ; Brutus and Cassius became noisy blus- 
 terers, with bold unmeaning eyes, mistaken sentiments, and 
 turgid elocution. Nothing, surely, could more painfully 
 regret* a judicious spectator, than to see, at our first setting 
 out, with what rude confidence, those habits, which actors 
 of real merit had left behind them, were worn by giddy 
 pretenders, that so vulgarly disgraced them ! Not young 
 lawyers in hired robes and plumes, at a masquerade, could 
 be less what they would seem, or more aukwardly person- 
 
 * Mr. Gibber's usage of the verb reffret here, may be said to 
 confirm the censure of Fielding, who urged, in reviewing some other 
 of his inadvertencies, that it was " needless for a great writer to 
 understand his grammar." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 21 1 
 
 ate the characters they belonged to. If, in all these acts of 
 wanton waste, these insults upon injured nature, you observe 
 I have not yet charged one of them upon myself; it is not 
 from an imaginary vanity, that I could have avoided them ; 
 but that I was rather safe, by being too low, at that time, to 
 be admitted even to my chance of falling into the same emi- 
 nent errors : so that as none of those great parts ever fell to 
 my share, 1 could not be accountable for the execution of 
 them. Nor, indeed, could I get one good part of any kind, 
 till many months after ; unless it were of that sort which 
 no body else cared for, or would venture to expose them- 
 selves in. The first unintended favour, therefore, of a part 
 of any value, necessity threw upon me, on the following 
 occasion. 
 
 As it has been always judged their natural interest, where 
 there are two theatres, to do one another as much mischief 
 as they can ; you may imagine it could not be long, before 
 this hostile policy showed itself in action. It happened, 
 upon our having information on a Saturday morning, that 
 the Tuesday after, " Hamlet" was intended to be acted at the 
 other house, where it had not yet been seen ; our merry 
 managing actors, (for they were now in a manner left to 
 govern themselves) resolved, at any rate, to steal a march 
 upon the enemy, and take possession of the same play the 
 day before them: accordingly, "Hamlet'* was given out 
 that night, to be acted with us on Monday. The notice of 
 this sudden enterprise soon reached the other house, who, 
 in my opinion, too much regarded it ; for they shortened 
 their first orders, and resolved that " Hamlet" should to 
 " Hamlet" be opposed on the same day ; w^hereas, had they 
 given notice in their bills, that the same play would have 
 been acted by them the day after, the town would have 
 been in no doubt, which house they should have reserved 
 themselves for ; ours must certainly have been empty, and 
 
 p2 
 
212 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 theirs, with more honour, have been crowded : experience, 
 many years after, in like cases, has convinced me, that this 
 would have been the more laudable conduct. But, be that 
 as it may, when, in their Monday's bills, it was seen that 
 '^ Hamlet" was up against us, our consternation was terri- 
 ble, to find that so hopeful a project was frustrated. In 
 this distress, Powel, who was our commanding officer, and 
 whose enterprising head wanted nothing but skill to carry 
 him through the most desperate attempts ; (for, like others 
 of his cast, he had mTirdered many a hero, only to get into 
 his clothes.) this Powel, I say, immediately called a 
 council of war ; where the question was, whether he should 
 fairly face the enemy, or make a retreat, to some other 
 play of more probable safety ? It was soon resolved, that to 
 act " Hamlet" against " Hamlet," would be certainly 
 throwing away the play, and disgracing themselves to little 
 or no audience ; to conclude, Powel, who was vain enough 
 to envy Betterton, as his rival, proposed to change plays 
 with them, and that as they had given out the " Old Ba- 
 chelor," and had changed it for " Hamlet," against us, we 
 should give up our '' Hamlet," and turn the '' Old Bache- 
 lor" upon them. This motion was agreed to, nemine 
 contradicente ; but, upon inquiry, it was found, that there 
 were not two persons among them, who had ever acted in 
 that play : but that objection, it seems, (though all the parts 
 were to be studied in six hours) was soon got over ; Powel 
 had an equivalent, in petto^ that would balance any defi- 
 ciency on that score ; which was, that he would play the 
 Old Bachelor himself, and mimic Betterton, throughout 
 the whole part. This happy thought was approved with 
 delight and applause, as whatever can be supposed to ridi- 
 cule merit, generally givesi joy to those that want it : ac- 
 cordingly, the bills were changed, and at the bottom in- 
 serted, 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 213 
 
 The part of the Old Bachelor, to be performed in imitation 
 of the original. 
 
 Printed books of the play were sent for in haste, and every 
 actor had one, to pick out of it the part he had chosen : 
 thus, while they were each of them chewing the morsel they 
 had most mind to, some one happening to cast his eye over 
 the dramatis personce^ found that the main matter was still 
 forgot, that no body had yet been thought of for the part of 
 Alderman Fondlewife. Here we were all aground again ; 
 nor was it to be conceived who could make the least toler- 
 able shift with it. This character had been so admirably 
 acted by Dogget, that though it is only seen in the fourth 
 act, it may be no dispraise to the play, to say, it probably 
 owed the greatest part of ifs success to his performance. 
 But, as the case was now desperate, any resource was better 
 than none ; somebody must swallow the bitter pill, or the 
 play must die. At last it was recollected, that I had been 
 heard to say in my wild way of talking, what a vast mind I 
 had to play Nyldn^ by which name the character was more 
 frequently called. Notwithstanding they were thus dis- 
 tressed about the disposal of this part, most of them shook 
 their heads, at my being mentioned for it ; yet Powel, who 
 was resolved, at all hazards, to fall upon Betterton, and 
 having no concern for what might become of any one that 
 served his ends or purpose, ordered me to be sent for ; and, 
 as he naturally loved to set other people wrong, honestly 
 said, before I came, "If the fool has a mind to blow him- 
 self up, at once, let us even give him a clear stage for it.'* 
 Accordingly, the part was put into my hands, between 
 eleven and twelve that morning, which I durst not refuse, 
 because others were as much straitened in time, for study, 
 as myself. But I had this casual advantage of most of them, 
 that having so constantly observed Dogget's performance, 
 I wanted but little trouble, to make me perfect in the words ; 
 
 p 3 
 
214 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 SO that when it came to my turn to rehearse, while others 
 read their parts, from their books, I had put mine in my 
 pocket, and went through the first scene without it ; and 
 though I was more abashed to rehearse so remarkable a part 
 before the actors, (which is natural to most young people) 
 than to act before an audience, yet some of the better-na- 
 tured encouraged me so far, as to say, they did not think I 
 should make an ill figure in it. To conclude, the curiosity 
 to see Betterton mimicked drew us a pretty good audience, 
 and Powel, (as far as applause is a proof of it) was allowed 
 to have burlesqued him very well. As I have questioned 
 the certain value of applause, I hope I may venture, with 
 less vanity, to say how particular a share I had of it, in the 
 same play. At my first appearance, one might have ima- 
 gined, by the various murmurs of the audience, that they 
 were in doubt whether Dogget himself were not returned, 
 or that they could not conceive what strange face it could be, 
 that so nearly resembled him ; for I had laid the tint of forty 
 years more than my real age, upon my features, and, to the 
 most minute placing of an hair, was dressed exactly like 
 him : when 1 spoke, the surprise was still greater, as if I had 
 not only borrowed his clothes, but his voice, too. But 
 though that was the least difficult part of him to be imitat- 
 ed, they seemed to allow I had so much of him in every 
 other requisite, that my applause was, perhaps, more than 
 proportionable : for, whether I had done so much, where 
 so little was expected, or that the generality of my hearers 
 were more than usually zealous, upon so unexpected an oc- 
 casion, or from what other motive such favour might be 
 poured upon me, I cannot say ; but, in plain and honest 
 truth, upon my going off from the first scene, a much better 
 actor might have been proud of the applause that followed 
 jBie ; after one loud plaudit was ended, and sunk into a 
 general whisper, that seemed still to continue their private 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. ^215 
 
 approbation, it revived to a second, and again to a third, still 
 louder than the former. If to all this I add, that Dogget 
 himself was in the pit at the same time, it would be too rank 
 affectation, if I should not confess, that, to see him there a 
 witness of my reception, was to me, as consummate a triumph 
 as the heart of vanity could be indulged with. But whatever 
 value I might set upon myself, from this unexpected suc- 
 cess, I found that was no rule to other people's judgment of 
 me. There were few or no parts, of the same kind, to be 
 had ; nor could they conceive, from what I had done in 
 this, what other sort of characters I could be fit for. If 
 I solicited for anything of a different nature, I was 
 answered, ^' That was not in my way." And what was 
 in my way, it seems, was not as yet resolved upon. And 
 though I replied, " That I thought anything, naturally 
 written, ought to be in every one's way that pretended to 
 be an actor," this was looked upon as a vain, impracti- 
 cable conceit of my own. Yet it is a conceit, that, in forty 
 years* farther experience, I have not yet given up ; I still 
 think, that a painter, who can draw but one sort of object, 
 or an actor that shines but in one light, can neither of them 
 boast of that ample genius, which is necessary to form a 
 thorough master of his art : for, though genius may have 
 a particular inclination, yet a good history painter, or a 
 good actor, will, without being at a loss, give you, upon 
 demand, a proper likeness of whatever nature produces. 
 If he cannot do this, he is only an actor, as the shoemaker 
 was allowed a limited judge of Apelles's painting, but not 
 beyond his last. Now, though to do any one thing well, 
 may have more merit than we often meet with, and may 
 be enough to procure a man the name of a good actor from 
 the public ; yet, in my opinion, it is but still the name 
 without the substance. If his talent is in such narrow 
 bounds, that he dares not step out of them, to look upon 
 
 p 4 
 
216 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the singularities of mankind, and cannot catch them in 
 whatever form they present themselves ; if he is not master 
 of the " quicquid agunt hominesy'' &c. in any shape human 
 nature is fit to be seen in ; if he cannot charge himself 
 into several distinct persons, so as to vary his whole tone 
 of voice, his motion, his look, and gesture, whether in high 
 or lower life, and, at the same time, keep close to those 
 variations, without leaving the character they singly belong 
 to : if his best skill falls short of this capacity, w hat pre- 
 tence have we to call him a complete master of his art? 
 And though I do not insist that he ought always to show 
 himself in these various lights, yet, before we compliment 
 him with that title, he ought, at least, by some few proofs, 
 to let us see that he has them all in his power. If I am 
 asked who ever arrived at this imaginary excellence, I con- 
 fess the instances are very few ; * but I will venture to 
 name Mountfort as one of them, whose theatrical character 
 I have given in my last chapter : for, in his youth, he had 
 acted low humour with great success, even down to Tallboy ^ 
 in the '^ Jovial Crew ;" and when he was in great esteem as 
 a tragedian, he was, in comedy, the most complete gentle- 
 man that I ever saw upon the stage. Let me add, too, that 
 Betterton, in his declining age, was as eminent in SzV John 
 Falstaffy aS; in the vigour of it, in his Othello. 
 
 While^ I thus measure the value of an actor, by the va- 
 riety of shapes he is able to throw himself into, you may 
 naturally suspect, that I am all this while, leading my own 
 theatrical character into your favour : why, really, to 
 speak as an honest man, 1 cannot wholly deny it : but 
 in this, I shall endeavour to be no farther partial to myself, 
 
 * Mr. Gibber has not done justice to his own assertion, as the 
 instances are particularly numerous, before his time, in which the 
 leading actors were remarkable for dieir extreme versatility. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. §17 
 
 than known facts will make me ; from the good or bad 
 evidence of which, your better judgment will condemn or 
 acquit me. And to show you that I will conceal no truth 
 that is against me, I frankly own, that had I been always 
 left to my own choice of characters, I am doubtfiil .whe- 
 ther I might ever have deserved an equal share of that 
 estimation, which the public seemed to have held me in : 
 nor^am I sure that it was not vanity in me, often to have 
 suspected that I was kept out of the parts I had most mind 
 to, by the jealousy or prejudice of my cotemporaries ; some 
 instances of which I could give you, were they not too 
 slight to be remembered : in the meantime, be pleased to 
 observe how slowly, in my younger d:iys, my good-fortune 
 came forward. i 
 
 My early success in the " Old Bachelor," of which I 
 have given so full an account, having opened no farther 
 way to my advancement, was enough, perhaps, to have 
 made a young fellow, of more modesty, despair ; but being 
 of a temper not easily disheartened, I resolved to leave 
 nothing unattempted, that might show me in some new 
 rank of distinction. Having, then, no other resource, I 
 was at last reduced to write a character for myself; but as 
 that was not finished till about a year after, I could not, in 
 the interim, procure any one part that gave me the least 
 inclination to act it ; and, consequently, such as I got, I 
 performed with a proportionable negligence. But this 
 misfortune, if it were one, you are not to wonder at ; for 
 the same fate attended me, more or less, to the last days of 
 my remaining on the stage. What defect in me this may 
 have been owing to, I have not yet had sense enough to 
 find out, but I soon found out as good a thing, which was, 
 never to be mortified at it ; though I am afraid this seem- 
 ing philosophy was rather owing to my inclination to plea- 
 sure than business. But to my point. The next year I 
 
S18 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 produced the comedy of ^^ Love's last Shift;'** yet the 
 difficulty of getting it to the stage was not easily sur- 
 mounted ; for, at that time, as little was expected from me, 
 as an author, as had been from my pretensions to be an 
 actor. However, Mr. Southern, the author of" Oroonoko," 
 having had the patience to hear me read it to him, hap- 
 pened to like it so well, that he immediately recommended 
 it to the patentees, and it was accordingly acted in Janu- 
 ary, 1695. In this play I gave myself the part of Sir No- 
 xelty^ which was thought a good portrait of the foppery 
 then in fashion. Here, too, Mr. Southern, though he had 
 approved my play, came into the common diffidence of 
 me as an actor ; for when, on the first day of it^ I was 
 standing, myself, to prompt the prologue, he took me by 
 the hand, and said, " Young man, I pronounce thy play 
 a good one ; I will answer for its success, if thou dost not 
 spoil it by thy own action." Though this might be a fair 
 salvo, for his favourable judgment of the play, yet, if it 
 were his real opinion of me, as an actor, I had the good 
 fortune to deceive him. I succeeded so well in both, that 
 people seemed at a loss, which they should give the pre- 
 ference to. But (now let me show a little more vanity, 
 and my apology for it shall come after) the compliment 
 which my Lord Dorset (then Lord Chamberlain) made me 
 upon it, is, I own, what I had rather not suppress ; X)i%, 
 that it was the be^ first play that any author in his me- 
 mory had produced, and that for a young fellow to show 
 himself such an actor and such a writer, in one day, was 
 something extraordinary. But as this noble lord has been 
 celebrated for his good-nature, I am contented, that as 
 much of this compliment should be supposed to exceed my 
 deserts, as may be imagined to have been heightened by 
 
 * Published in 4to, 1696. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 219 
 
 his generous inclination to encourage a young beginner. 
 If this excuse cannot soften the vanity of telling a truth 
 so much in my own favour, I must lie at the mercy of my 
 reader. But there was a still higher compliment passed 
 upon me, which I may publish without vanity, because it 
 was not a designed one, and apparently came from my 
 enemies ; viz, that, to their certain knowledge, it was not 
 my own.* This report is taken notice of in my dedication 
 to the play.f If they spoke truth, if they knew what other 
 person it really belonged to, I will, at least, allow them true 
 to their trust, for, forty years have since past, and they 
 have not yet revealed the secret. 
 
 The new lights in which the character of Sir Noveltj/ 
 had shown me, one might have thought, were enough to 
 have dissipated the doubts, of what I might now be pos- 
 sibly good for. But to whatever chance my ill- fortune 
 was due, whether I had still but little merit, or that the 
 managers, if I had any, were not competent judges of it ; 
 or whether I was not generally elbowed by other actors, 
 (which I am most inclined to think the true cause) when 
 any fresh parts were to be disposed of, not one part of any 
 consequence was I preferred to, till the year following : 
 then, indeed, from Sir John Vanbrugh's favourable opinion 
 
 * Dennis, who hated Gibber for obstructing, as he imagined, 
 the progress of one of his tragedies, some years afterwards, in very 
 passionate terms, denied liis claim to this comedy. " When the 
 * Fool in Fashion' was first acted," says the critic, " Cibber was 
 hardly twenty years of age; now could he at the age of twen- 
 ty, write a comedy with a just design, distinguished characters, and 
 a proper dialogue,who now, at forty, treats us with Hibernian sense, 
 and Hibernian JEnglish?" 
 
 t This dedication was addressed to Richard Norton, of South- 
 wick, Esq., a gentleman who was so fond of plays and players, 
 that he has been accused of turning his chapel into a theatre. 
 
220 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 of mc, I began, with others, to have a better of myself : for 
 he not only did me honour, as an author, by writing his 
 '^ Relapse,*' as a sequel, or second part, to " Love's last 
 Shift;" but as an actor, too, by preferring me to the chief 
 character in his own play ; which, from Sir Novelti/, 
 he had ennobled by the style of Baron of Foppington, This 
 play, (the " Relapse") from its new and easy turn of wit, 
 had great success, and gave me, as a coniedian, a second 
 flight of reputation along with it. 
 
 As the matter I write must be very flat or impertinent, 
 to those who have no taste or concern for the stage, and 
 may, to those who delight in it, too, be equally tedious when 
 I talk of nobody but myself; I shall endeavour to relieve 
 your patience, by a word or two more of this gentleman, 
 so far as he lent his pen to the support of the theatre. 
 
 Though the " Relapse" was the first play this agreeable 
 author produced, yet it was not, it seems, the first he had 
 written ; for he had at that time by him (more than) all 
 the scenes, that were acted of the " Provoked Wife;" but 
 being then doubtful, whether he should ever trust them to 
 the stage, he thought no more of it : but after the success 
 of the '' Relapse," he was more strongly importuned, than 
 able, to refuse it to the public. Why the last- written play 
 was first acted, and for what reason they were giv<.n to dif- 
 ferent stages, what follows will explain. 
 
 In his first step into public life, when he was but an 
 ensign, and had a heart above his income, he happened 
 somewhere, at his winter- quarters, upon a very slender 
 acquaintance with Sir Thomas Skipwith, to receive a parti- 
 cular obligation from him, which he had not forgotten at 
 the time I am speaking of: when Sir Thomas's interest in 
 the theatrical patent (for he had a large share in it, though 
 he little concerned himself in the conduct of it) was risuig 
 but very slowly, he thought that, to give it a lift, by a new 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 221 
 
 comedy, if it succeeded, might be the handsomest return he 
 could make to those his former favours ; and having ob- 
 served, that in ^' Love's last Shift," most of the actors had 
 acquitted themselves beyond what was expected of them, 
 he took a sudden hint from what he liked in that play, and 
 in less than three months, in the beginning of April follow- 
 ing brought us the " Relapse" finished; but the season 
 being then too far advanced, it was not acted till the suc- 
 ceeding winter. Upon the success of the " Relapse," the 
 late Lord Halifax, who was a great favourer of Betterton's 
 company, having formerly, by way of family amusement, 
 heard the '' Provoked Wife" read to him, in its looser 
 sheets, engaged Sir John Vanbrugh to revise it, and give 
 it to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. This was a re- 
 quest not to be refused to so eminent a patron of the muses, 
 as the Lord Halifax, who was equally a friend and admirer 
 of Sir John himself. Nor was Sir Thomas Skipwith in 
 the least disobliged by so reasonable a compliance : after 
 which. Sir John was again at liberty to repeat his civilities 
 to his friend Sir Thomas; and^ about the sariie time, or 
 not long after,* gave us the comedy of " iEsop ;" for his 
 inclination always led him to serve Sir Thomas. Besides, 
 our company, about this time, began to be looked upon in 
 another light; the late contempt we had lain under was 
 now wearing off, and from the success of two or three new 
 plays, our actors, by being originals in a few good parts, 
 where they had not the disadvantage of comparison against 
 them, sometimes found new favour, in those old plays, 
 where others had exceeded them. 
 
 Of this good-fortune, perhaps, I had more than my 
 share, from the two very different chief characters I had 
 succeeded in ; for I was equally approved in j^sop^ as the 
 
 * During the same season, 1697. 
 
222 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Lord Foppington^ allowing the difference to be no less, 
 than as wisdom, in a person deformed, may be less enter- 
 taining to the general taste, than folly and foppery finely 
 dressed : for the character that delivers precepts of wisdom, 
 is, in some sort, severe upon the auditor, by showing him 
 one wiser than himself. But when folly is his object, he 
 applauds himself, for being wiser than the coxcomb he 
 laughs at : and who is not more pleased with an occasion to 
 commend, than accuse himself? 
 
 Though to write much, in a little time, is no excuse for 
 writing ill ; yet Sir John Vanbrugh's pen is not to be a lit- 
 tle admired, for its spirit, ease, and readiness, in producing 
 plays so fast, upon the neck of one another ; for, notwith- 
 standing this quick dispatch, there is a clear and lively 
 simplicity in his wit, that neither wants the ornament of 
 learning, nor has the least smell of the lamp in it. As the 
 face of a fine woman, with only her locks loose about her, 
 may be then in its greatest beauty ; such were his produc- 
 tions, only adorned by nature. There is something so 
 catching to the ear, so easy to the memory, in all he wrote, 
 that it has been observed, by all the actors of my time, 
 that the style of no author whatsoever, gave their memory 
 less trouble, than that of Sir John Vanbrugh ; which I my- 
 self, who have been charged with several of his strongest 
 characters, can confirm by a pleasing experience. And, 
 indeed, his wit and humour were so little laboured, that his 
 most entertaining scenes seemed to be no more than his 
 common conversation committed to paper. Here I confess 
 my judgment at a loss, whether, in this, I give him more 
 or less than his due praise. For may it not be more lauda- 
 ble, to raise an estate, whether in w ealth or fame, by pains 
 and honest industry, than to be born to it? Yet, if his 
 scenes really were, as to me they always seemed, delight- 
 ful, are they not, thus exiDcditiously written, the more sur- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 223 
 
 prising ? Let the wit and merit of them, then, be weighed 
 by wiser critics than I pretend to be; but no wonder, 
 while his conceptions were so full of life and humour, his 
 muse should be sometimes too warm to wait the slow pace 
 of judgment, or to endure the drudgery of forming a regu- 
 lar fable to them : yet we see the " Relapse," however im- 
 perfect in the conduct, by the mere force of its agreeable 
 wit, ran away with the hearts of its hearers ; while '' Love's 
 last Shift," which, as Mr. Congreve justly said of it, had only 
 in it, a great many things that were like wit, that in reality 
 were not wit ; and what is still less pardonable, as I say of 
 it myself, has a great deal of puerility, and frothy stage- 
 language in it, yet by the mere moral delight received from 
 its fable, it has been, with the other, in a continued, and 
 equal possession of the stage, for more than forty years. 
 
 As I have already promised you to refer your judgment 
 of me, as an actor, rather to known facts, than my own 
 opinion, which I could not be sure would keep clear of 
 self-partiality, I must a little farther risk my being tedious, 
 to be as good as my word. I have elsewhere allowed that 
 my want of a strong and full voice soon cut short my hopes 
 of making any valuable figure in tragedy; and I have been 
 many years since convinced, that whatever opinion I might 
 have of my own judgment or capacity, to amend the palpa- 
 ble errors that I saw our tragedians, most in favour, com- 
 mit; yet the auditors who would have been sensible of any 
 such amendments, could I have made them, were so very 
 few, that my best endeavour would have been but an un- 
 availing labour, or, what is yet worse, might have appear- 
 ed both to our actors, and to many auditors, the vain mis- 
 take of my own self-conceit : for so strong, so very near 
 indispensible, is that one article of voice, in the forming a 
 good tragedian, that an actor may want any other qualifi- 
 cation whatsoever, and yet have a better chance for ap- 
 
224 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 plause, than he will ever have, with all the skill in the 
 world, if his voice is not equal to it. Mistake me not ; I 
 say, for applause only — but applause does not always stay 
 for, nor always follow intrinsic merit ; applause will fre- 
 quently open, like a young hound, upon a wrong scent; 
 and the majority of auditors, you know, are generally com- 
 posed of babblers, that are profuse of their voices, before 
 there is any thing on foot that calls for them : not but, I 
 grant, to lead, or mislead the many, will always stand in 
 some rank of a necessary merit ; yet when I say a good 
 tragedian, I mean one, in opinion of whose real merit the 
 best judges would agree. 
 
 Having so far given up my pretensions to the buskin, I 
 ought now to account for my having been, notwithstand- 
 ing, so often seen, in some particular characters in tragedy, 
 as lagOy Wolsey^ St/phaoc^ Richard the Third^ S^c. If 
 in any of this kind I have succeeded, perhaps it has been a 
 merit dearly purchased ; for, from the delight I seemed to 
 take in my performing them, half my auditors have been 
 persuaded that a great share of the wickedness of them 
 must have been in my own nature : if this is true, as true I 
 fear, I had almost said hope, it is, I look upon it rather as 
 a praise, than censure of my performance. Aversion there 
 is an involuntary commendation, where we are only hated, 
 for being like the thing we ought to be like; a sort of 
 praise, however, which few actors besides myself could en- 
 dure : had it been equal to the usual praise given to virtue, 
 my cotemporaries would have thought themselves injured, 
 if I had pretended to any share of it : so that, you see, it 
 has been as much the dislike others had to them, as choice, 
 that has thrown me sometimes into these characters. But it 
 may be farther observed, that in the characters I have nam- 
 ed, where there is so much close meditated mischief, de- 
 ceit, pride, insolence, or cruelty, they cannot have the least 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 225 
 
 cast, or proffer of the amiable in them; consequently, there 
 can be no great demand for that harmonious sound, or 
 pleasing round melody of voice, which in the softer senti- 
 ments of love, the wailings of distressful virtue, or in the 
 throes and swellings of honour and ambition, may be need- 
 ful to recommend them to our pity, or admiration : so that, 
 again, my want of that requisite voice might less disqualify 
 me for the vicious, than the virtuous character. This, too, 
 may have been a more favourable reason for my having 
 been chosen for them. A yet farther consideration that in- 
 clined me to them, was, that they are generally better writ- 
 ten, thicker sown with sensible reflections, and come by so 
 much nearer to common life and nature, than characters of 
 admiration ; as vice is more the practice of mankind than 
 virtue : nor could I, sometimes, help smiling at those dainty 
 actors that were too squeamish to swallow them, as if they 
 were one jot the better men for acting a good man well, or 
 another man the worse, for doing equal justice to a bad 
 one. It is not, surely, what we act, but how we act what 
 is allotted us, that speaks our intrinsic value ; as in real 
 life, the wise man or the fool, be he prince or peasant, will, 
 in either state, be equally the fool, or the wise man. But, 
 alas ! in personated life, this is no rule to the vulgar ; they 
 are apt to think all before them real, and rate the actor ac- 
 cording to his borrowed vice or virtue. 
 
 If, then, I had always too careless a concern for false or 
 vulgar applause, I ought not to complain if I have had less 
 of it than others of my time, or not less of it than I desired :' 
 yet I will venture to say, that from the common, weak ap- 
 petite of false applause, many actors have run into more 
 errors and absurdities, than their greatest ignorance could 
 otherwise have committed : if this charge is true, it will lie 
 chiefly upon the better judgment of the spectator to re- 
 form it. 
 
226 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 But not to make too great a merit of my avoiding this 
 common road to applause, perhaps I was vain enough to 
 think I had more ways than one to come at it. That, in 
 the variety of characters I acted, the chances to win it were 
 the stronger on my side ; that, if the multitude were not in 
 a roar to see me in Cardinal WoIsct/^ I could be sure of 
 them in Alderman Fondlewife. If they hated me in lago^ 
 in Sir Fopling they took me for a fine gentleman ; if they 
 were silent at Si/phax^ no Italian eunuch was more ap- 
 plauded than when I sung in Sir Courtly. If the morals 
 o^jEsop were too grave for them. Justice Shallow^ was as 
 simple, and as merry an old rake, as the wisest of our young 
 ones could wish me. And though the terror and detesta- 
 tion raised by King Richard, might be too severe a delight 
 
 * Mr. Davies has furnished the following account of Gibber's 
 excellence in this character, which, for its spirit and fidelity, appears 
 to deserve the honour of transcription : 
 
 Whether he was a copy or an original in Shallow, it is certain no audi- 
 ence was ever more fixed in deep attention, at his first appearance, or more 
 shaken with laughter in the progress of the scenes, than at CoUey Cibber's 
 exhibition of this ridiculous justice of the peace. Some years after he had 
 left the stage, he acted Shallow for his son's benefit, I believe in 1 737, when 
 Quin was the Falstaff, and M ilward the King. W^hether it was owing to the 
 pleasure the spectators felt on seeing their old friend return to them again, 
 though for that night only, after an absence of some years, I know not ; but, 
 surely, no actor or audience were ever better pleased with each other: his man- 
 ner was so perfectly simple, his look so vacant, when he questioned his cousin 
 Silence about the price of ewes, and lamented, in the same breath, with silly 
 surprise, the death of old Double, that it will be impossible for any surviv- 
 ing spectator not to smile at the remembrance of it. The want of ideas occa- 
 sions Shallow to repeat almost every thing he says. Gibber's transition from 
 asking the price of bullocks, to trite, but grave reflections on mortality, was 
 so natural, and attended with such an unmeaning roll of his small pig's eyes, 
 accompanied with such an important utterance of " tick ! tick ! tick ! " not 
 much louder than the balance of a watch's pendulum, that I question if any 
 actor was ever superior in the conception or expression of such solemn insig- 
 nificancy. — ** Dramatic Miscellanies ; " vol. 3, p. 306. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 227 
 
 for them, yet the more gentle and modern vanities of a Poet 
 Bai/Sj or the well-bred vices of a Lord Foppington, were 
 not at all more than their merry hearts, or nicer morals 
 could bear. 
 
 These few instances, out of fifty more 1 could give you, 
 may serve to explain what sort of merit I at most pretended 
 to ; which was, that I supplied, with variety, whatever I 
 might want of that particular skill, wherein others went be- 
 fore me. How this variety was executed, for by that only 
 is its value to be rated, you who have so often been my spec- 
 tator, are the proper judge : if you pronounce my perform- 
 ance to have been defective, I am condemned by my own 
 evidence; if you acquit me, these outlines may serve for a 
 sketch of my theatrical character. 
 
 Q 2 
 
S88 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 CHAP. VIT, 
 
 The state of the stage, continued. — The occasion of Wilks^s 
 commencing actor. — His success. — Facts relating to his thea- 
 trical talent. — Actors more or less esteemed for their private 
 characters. 
 
 The Lincoln's Inn Fields company were now, in 1696,* 
 a commonwealth, like that of Holland, divided from the 
 tyranny of Spain : but the similitude goes very little far- 
 ther. Short was the duration of their theatrical power, for 
 though success poured in so fast upon them, at their first 
 opening, that every thing seemed to support itself; yet ex- 
 perience, in a year or two, showed them that they had never 
 been worse governed, than when they governed themselves. 
 Many of them began to make their particular interest more 
 their point, than that of the general : and though some de- 
 ference might be had to the measures and advice of Better- 
 ton, several of them wanted to govern in their turn ; and 
 were often out of humour, that their opinion was not 
 equally regarded. But have we not seen the same infirmity 
 in senates ? The tragedians seemed to think their rank as 
 much above the comedians, as in the characters they sever- 
 ally acted ; when the first were in their finery, the latter 
 were impatient at the expense ; and looked upon it as rather 
 laid out upon the real, than the fictitious person of the 
 actor ; nay, I have known in our own company, this ridi- 
 culous sort of regret carried so far, that the tragedian has 
 
 * Mr. Gibber erroneously writes, 1693. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 229 
 
 thought himself injured, when the comedian pretended to 
 wear a fine coat. I remember Powel, upon surveying my 
 first dress in the " Relapse," was out of all temper, and 
 reproached our master in very rude terms, that he had not 
 so good a suit to play CcBsar Borgia in, though he knew, 
 at the same time, my Lord Foppington filled the house, 
 when his bouncing Borgia would do little more, than 
 pay fiddJes and candles to it : and though a character of 
 vanity might be supposed more expensive in dress, than 
 possibly one of ambition, yet the high heart of this hero- 
 ical actor could not bear that a comedian should ever pre- 
 tend to be as well dressed as himself. Thus again, on the 
 contrary, when Betterton proposed to set off a tragedy, the 
 comedians were sure to murmur at the charge of it : and 
 the late reputation which Dogget had acquired, from acting 
 his Ben J in " Love for Love," made him a more declared 
 malcontent on such occasions ; he overvalued comedy for 
 its being nearer to nature than tragedy, which is allowed 
 to say many fine things, that nature never spoke, in the 
 same words ; and supposing his opinion were just, yet he 
 should have considered, that the public had a taste as well 
 as himself; which, in policy, he ought to have complied 
 with. Dogget, however, could not, with patience, look 
 upon the costly trains and plumes of tragedy, in which, 
 knowing himself to be useless, he thought they were all a 
 vain extravagance : and when he found his singularity 
 could no longer oppose that expense, he so obstinately ad- 
 hered to his own opinion, that he left the society of his old 
 fi'iends, and came over to us at the theatre royal : and yet 
 this actor always set up for a theatrical patriot. This 
 happened in the winter following the first division of the 
 (only) company. He came time enough to the theatre 
 royal, to act the part of Lory^ in the " Relapse," an arch 
 valet, quite after the French cast, pert and familiar. But 
 
 Q 3 
 
AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 it suited so ill with Dogget*s dry, and closely-natural man- 
 ner of acting, that, upon the second day, he desired it might 
 be disposed of to another; which the author complying 
 with, gave it to Pinkethman ; who though, in other lights, 
 much his inferior, yet this part he seemed better to become. 
 Dogget was so immovable in his opinion of whatever he 
 thought was right or wrong, that he could never be easy, 
 under any kind of theatrical government ; and was gene- 
 rally so warm in pursuit of his interest, that he often out- 
 ran it. I remember him three times, for some years, unem- 
 ployed in any theatre, from his not being able to bear, in 
 common with others, the disagreeable accidents, that in 
 such societies are unavoidable. But, whatever pretences 
 he had formed for this first deserting fi'om Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, I always thought his best reason for it was, that he 
 looked upon it as a sinking ship; not only from the melancholy 
 abatement of their profits, but, likewise, from the neglect 
 and disorder in their government. He plainly saw that 
 their extraordinary success at first, had made them too con- 
 fident of its duration, and from thence had slackened their 
 industry ; by which he observed, at the same time, the old 
 house, where there was scarcely any other merit than in- 
 dustry, began to flourish. Andj indeed, they seemed not 
 enough to consider, that the appetite of the public, like 
 that of a fine gentleman, could only be kept warm by va- 
 riety ; that let their merit be never so high, yet the taste of 
 a town was not always constant, nor infallible : that it was 
 dangerous to hold their rivals in too much contempt ; for 
 they found, that a young industrious company were soon a 
 match for the best actors, when too securely negligent ; and 
 negligent they certainly were, and fondly fancied that had 
 each of their diflferent schemes been followed, their au- 
 diences would not so suddenly have fallen off. 
 
 But, alas I the vanity of applauded actors, when they are 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 231 
 
 not crowded to, as they may have been, makes them natu- 
 rally impute the change to any cause, rather than the true 
 one, satiety : they are mighty loth to think a town, once so 
 fond of them, could ever be tired ; and yet, at one time 
 or other, more or less, thin houses have been the certain 
 fate of the most prosperous actors, ever since I remember 
 the stage. But against this evil the provident patentees 
 had found out a relief, which the new house were not yet 
 masters of; viz. never to pay their people, when the money 
 did not come in ; nor then, neither, but in such proportions 
 as suited their conveniency. I myself was one of the many 
 who, for six acting weeks together, never received one 
 day's pay ; and, for some years after, seldom had above 
 half our nominal salaries : but, to the best of my memory, 
 the finances of the other house held it not above one season 
 more, before they were reduced to the same expedient of 
 making the like scanty payments. 
 
 Such was the distress and fortune of both these compa- 
 nies, since their division from the theatre royal ; either 
 working at half wages, or, by alternate successes, intercept- 
 ing the bread from one another's mouths; irreconcilable 
 enemies, yet without hope of relief from a victory on either 
 side ; sometimes both parties reduced, and yet each sup- 
 porting their spirits, by seeing the other under the same 
 calamity. 
 
 During this state of the stage it was that the lowest ex- 
 pedient was made use of, to ingratiate our company in the 
 public favour. Our master,* who had some time prac- 
 tised the law, and therefore loved a storm, better than fair 
 weather, (for it was his own conduct^ chiefly, that had 
 brought the patent into these dangers) took nothing so 
 
 * Christopher Rich, whose history is so well detailed by our au- 
 thor, that he leaves me no opportunity of enlarging it. 
 
 Q 4 
 
232 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 much to heart, as that partiality wherewith, he imagined, 
 the people of quality had preferred the actors of the other 
 house to those of his own. To balance this misfortune, 
 he was resolved, at least, to be well with their domestics, 
 and therefore cunningly opened the upper gallery to them 
 gratis : for before this time no footman was ever admitted, 
 or had presumed to come into it, till after the fourth act 
 was ended : this additional privilege (the greatest plague 
 that ever playhouse had to complain of) he conceived, 
 would not only incline them to give us a good word in the 
 respective families they belonged to, but would naturally 
 incite them, to come all hands aloft, in the crack of our 
 applauses : and, indeed, it so far succeeded, that it often 
 thundered from the full gallery above, while our thin pit 
 and boxes below, were in the utmost serenity. This riotous 
 privilege, so craftily given, and which, from custom, was 
 at last ripened into right, became the most disgraceful 
 nuisance that ever depreciated the theatre. How often 
 have the most polite audiences, in the most affecting scenes 
 of the best plays, been disturbed and insulted by the noise 
 and clamour of these savage spectatoi-s ! From the same 
 narrow way of thinking, too, were so many ordinary people, 
 and unlicked cubs of condition, admitted behind our scenes, 
 for money, and sometimes without it : the plagues and in- 
 conveniencies of which custom, we found so intolerable, 
 when we afterwards had the stage in our hands, that, at 
 the hazard of our lives, we were forced to get rid of them ; 
 and our only expedient was, by refusing money from all 
 persons, without distinction, at the stage-door. By this 
 means we preserved to ourselves the right and liberty of 
 chusing our own company there, and by a strict observance 
 of this order, we brought what had been before debased 
 into all the licenses of a lobby, into the decencies of a 
 drawing-room. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 233 
 
 About the distressful time I was speaking of, in the year 
 1696, Wilks,* who now had been five years in great esteem 
 
 * The ancestors of this great comedian were seated at Broms- 
 grove, in Worcestershire, where Judge Wilks, his grandfather, 
 raised a troop of horse, at his own expense, for the service of 
 Charles the First. In the cause of this misguided monarch, the 
 family suffered so much, that the father of our hero, with his wife, 
 and the scanty remains of an ample fortune, removed to Dublin, 
 near which, at a place called Rathfarnham, Robert Wilks was born 
 in the year 1 670. 
 
 Having received a liberal education, his father procured him a 
 genteel place under government, but from this situation he was 
 attracted at a very early age, to try his fortune in the theatre. 
 Being intimate with an actor named Richards, ( 1 ) he frequently 
 read a speech from the parts this person was studying, and 
 Richards complimented him so often upon his success in such 
 efforts, that the mind of Wilks began to imbibe a passion for the 
 drama. With a little persuasion, he ventured to act, privately, 
 the Colonel, in Dryden's " Spanish Friar," and acquitted himself 
 in this character with so much ecldt, that he resolved upon a public 
 trial of the talent he was warmly assured of possessing. His first 
 public appearance was made as Othello, about January, 1689, 
 and he continued for the two subsequent years upon the Dublin 
 boards, till his friend Richards advised him to try the London 
 theatre, where, as Betterton, his old associate, was in power, he 
 could procure him an introduction. Furnished with letters from 
 this veteran, Wilks embarked for England, was admitted into the 
 
 (1) This gentleman was one of the actors taken in by Sir William D'Ave- 
 nant, about the year 1662, to complete the company he inherited from 
 Rhodes. One of his earliest parts was the Ghost, in '* Hamlet," and perhaps, 
 it was his most important, as we afterwards find him set down in the " Roscius 
 Anglicanus" for Friar Lawrence, in *' Romeo and Juliet." He is said by 
 Chetwood, upon the information of old Ashbury, to have been a good actor 
 both in tragedy and comedy, but uot fortunate in his personal appearance. 
 
234^ 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 on the Dublin theatre, returned to Drury-lane ; in which 
 last he had first set out, and had continued to act some 
 
 Drury-lane company, and received a salary of fifteen shillings per 
 week. Here his business, as Gibber relates, was insignificant, 
 Lysippus, in the " Maid's Tragedy," being not only the first, but 
 the best part he assumed. It is to be remembered, however, that 
 the youth and figure of Wilks qualified him particularly for this 
 personation, and that in characters of consequence, Mountfort, the 
 most popular comedian of his time, had just been established. In 
 this play, Mr. Betterton, who performed Melantius, had to address 
 Wilks, in extenuation of the King's death, and such was the dig- 
 nity with which Betterton delivered himself, that Wilks, as he ac- 
 knowledged to Chetwood, could hardly muster up courage enough 
 to make the proper replies. Betterton, who had observed his em- 
 barrassment, took occasion to encourage him, in the following 
 words : " Young man, this fear does not ill become you. A horse 
 that sets out at the strength of his speed will soon be jaded." 
 
 Wilks remained in London but one winter, during which he 
 married a lady of most respectable connections, and with whom, on 
 a refusal from the manager to raise his salary, he departed for 
 Dublin. There it was raised to ^60 per season, and a clear bene- 
 fit; much higher terms than had previously been given to any other 
 actor. He took a respectful leave of Betterton, who expressed 
 some concern at parting with him, and said, in presence of Rich 
 himself, that he thought the manager would be among the first to 
 lament his loss; for, if he augured rightly, his assistance would 
 very soon be wanted. 
 
 The success of Mr. Wilks, upon his return to Ireland, was ex- 
 tremely brilliant; and, it is said by Chetwood, that upon the death of 
 Mountfort, which happened very soon after he had left the London 
 theatre, an offer of four pounds a-week was made him by the mana- 
 ger, to go back and sustain the characters which Mountfort had filled. 
 Chetwood even couples this assertion with a romantic account of 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 235 
 
 small parts for one winter only. The considerable figure 
 which he so lately made upon the stage in London, makes 
 me imagine that a particular account of his first commen- 
 cing actor may not be unacceptable to the curious ; I shall, 
 therefore, give it them as I had it from his own mouth. 
 
 In King James's reign he had been some time employed 
 in the secretary's office in Ireland, (his native country) and 
 remained in it, till after the battle of the Boyne, which com- 
 pleted the Revolution. Upon that happy and unexpected 
 deliverance, the people of Dublin, among the various ex- 
 pressions of their joy, had a mind to have a play ; but the 
 actors being dispersed during the war, some private persons 
 agreed, in the best manner they were able, to give one to 
 the public, gratis y at the theatre. The play was " Othello," 
 in which Wilks acted the Moor ; and the applause he re- 
 ceived in it warmed him to so strong an inclination for 
 the stage, that he immediately preferred it to all his other 
 views in life : for he quitted his post, and with the first fair 
 occasion came over, to try his fortune, in the (then only) 
 company of actors in London. The person who supplied 
 his post in Dublin, he told me, raised to himself, from 
 thence, a fortune of fifty thousand pounds. Here you have 
 a much stronger instiince of an extravagant passion for the 
 stage, than that which I have elsewhere shown in myself; 
 I only quitted my hopes of being preferred to the like post, 
 for it ; but Wilks quitted his actual possession, for the 
 imaginary happiness which the life of an actor presented to 
 him. And though, possibly, we might both have bettered 
 our fortunes, in a more honourable station, yet whether 
 better fortunes, might have equally gratified our vanity 
 
 his flight from Dublin, to accept the offer, but Gibber is certainly 
 correct in the date he has assigned to his re-appearance. 
 
236 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 (the universal passion of mankind) may admit of a ques- 
 tion. 
 
 Upon his being formerly received into the theatre royal 
 (which was in the winter after I had been initiated) his 
 station there was much upon the same class with my own ; 
 our parts were generally of an equal insignificancy ; not of 
 consequence enough to give either a preference : but 
 Wilks being more impatient of his low condition than I 
 was, (and, indeed, the company was then so well stocked 
 with good actors, that there was very little hope of getting 
 forward,) laid hold of a more expeditious way for his ad- 
 vancement, and returned again to Dublin, with Mr. Ash- 
 bury, the patentee of that theatre, to act in his new com- 
 pany there : there went with him, at the same time Mi^. 
 Butler, whose character I have already given, and Est- 
 court, who had not appeared on any stage, and was yet 
 only known as an excellent mimic. Wilks, having no com- 
 petitor in Dublin, was immediately preferred to whatever 
 parts his inclination led him, and his early reputation on 
 that stage, as soon raised in him an ambition to show him- 
 self on a better. And I have heard him say, in raillery of 
 the vanity which young actors are liable to, that when the 
 news of Mountfort's death came to Ireland, he from that 
 time thought his fortune was made, and took a resolution 
 to return a second time to England, with the first opportu- 
 nity ; but as his engagements to the stage where he was 
 were too strong to be suddenly broke from, he returned not 
 to the theatre royal till the year 1696. 
 
 Upon his first arrival, Powel, who was now in possession 
 of all the chief parts of Mountfort, and the only actor that 
 stood in Wilks's way, in seeming civility, offered him his 
 choice of whatever he thought fit to make his first appear- 
 ance in ; though, in reality, the favour was intended to 
 hurt him. But Wilks rightly judged it more modest to 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 237 
 
 accept only a part of PowePs, and which Mountfort had 
 never acted, that of Palamede^ in Dryden's " Marriage 
 Alamode. '* Here, too, he had the advantage of having the 
 ball played into his hands by the inimitable Mrs. Mount- 
 fort, who was then his Melanthe in the same play. What- 
 ever fame Wilks had brought with him from Ireland, he 
 as yet appeared but a very raw actor, to what he was after- 
 wards allowed to be : his faults, however, I shall rather 
 leave to the judgments of those who then may remember 
 him, than to take upon me the disagreeable office of being 
 particular upon them, farther than by saying, that in this 
 part of Palamedcj he was short of Powel, and missed a 
 good deal of the loose humour of the character, which the 
 other more happily hit. But, however, he was young, 
 erect, of a pleasing aspect, and, in the whole, gave the 
 town, and the stage, sufficient hopes of him. I ought to 
 make some allowances, too, for the restraint he must natu- 
 rally have been under, from his first appearance upon a new 
 stage. But from that he soon recovered, and grew daily 
 more in favour, not only of the town, but likewise of the 
 patentee, whom Powel, before Wilks's arrival, had treated 
 in almost what manner he pleased. 
 
 Upon this visible success of Wilks, the pretended con- 
 tempt which Powel had held him in, began to sour into 
 an open jealousy ; he now plainly saw he was a formidable 
 rival, and, which more hurt him, saw, too, that other people 
 saw it ; and therefore found it high time to oppose, and 
 be troublesome to him. But Wilks happening to be as 
 jealous of his fame as the other, you may imagine such 
 clashing candidates could not be long w ithout a nipture. 
 In short,, a challenge, I very well remember, came from 
 Powel, when he was hot-headed ; but, the next morning, he 
 was cool enough to let it end in favour of Wilks. Yet 
 however the magnanimity, on either part, might subside, the 
 
238 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 animosity was as deep in the heart as ever, though it was not 
 afterwards so openly avowed : for when Powel found that 
 intimidating would not carry his point, but that Wilks, 
 when provoked, would really give battle, he (Powel) grew 
 so out of humour, that he cocked his hat, and in his pas- 
 sion walked off to the service of the company in Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields. But there, finding more competitors, and that 
 he made a worse figure among them, than in the company 
 he came from, he staid but one winter with them, before 
 he returned to his old quarters, in Drury-lane ; where, after 
 these unsuccessful pushes of his ambition, he at last became 
 a martyr to negligence, and quietly submitted to the advan- 
 tages and superiority which, during his late desertion, 
 Wilks had more easily got over him. * 
 
 * The father of George Powel was an actor in the king's com- 
 pany at the time of its junction, in 1682, with the duke's, when, 
 accompanying a few others of the old stock, he followed Mohun in 
 his fruitless opposition to the cruel monopoly that had just been 
 concluded. Powel's access to the theatre was, therefore, easy ; 
 and we are intitled to suspect, though the time is not to be ascer- 
 tained, that he began to act at a very early period. 
 
 We can apply to no source but the pages of Gibber, for a record 
 of those qualifications by which Powel was distinguished, the merit 
 he displayed, or the estimation that attended him. Gibber's enthu- 
 siasm for Betterton clouded his best faculties, and many brilliant 
 gems have been sullied, that this precious diamond might exclu- 
 sively sparkle. 
 
 Some are reproached that others may be blamed (I). 
 
 There cannot be a justifiable suspicion that the great and gene- 
 rous Betterton was less than Gibber has depicted him, but we have 
 indisputable testimony that several of his cotemporaries were more 
 than he has recorded. His stiff, reluctant praise of Wilks has been 
 
 (1) Earl of Stirling's tragedy of ** CrcESus." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 239 
 
 However trifling these theatrical anecdotes may seem, to 
 a sensible reader, yet as the different conduct of these rival 
 
 immeasurably heightened, and to this estimable actor he admits that 
 Powel, in the best natural requisites, was proudly superior. Powel 
 was an actor whom Rich, his employer, preferred to any he had 
 ever seen; and in the advertisement to plays attached to the first 
 edition of the" Spectator," published in 1711 and 1712, his name, 
 under the management of Dogget, Gibber, and Wilks, was placed 
 to many important characters (2). Even, according to Gibber's 
 allowance, when Powel was appointed to the principal parts aban- 
 doned by Betterton and his revolters, they were parts for which, 
 whether serious or comic, he had both elocution and humour. It 
 is remarked by Davies, (3) that Gibber " seems to have hated 
 Powel," and if so, we have a ready clue to the neglect and aspe- 
 rity with which he has treated him. 
 
 Powel succeeded Betterton, it is supposed, in the part of Hot- 
 spur, when that excellent comedian exchanged its choleric attri- 
 butes, in his declining years, for the gaiety and humour oi Fahtaff. 
 Edgar, in " King Lear," was also one of his most successful cha- - 
 racters, but of this, owing to his irregularities, he was dispossessed 
 by Wilks. To such a height, indeed, was the intemperance of 
 this actor carried, that Sir John Vanbrugh, in his preface to the 
 " Relapse,^' 4to, 1697, speaking of Powel's Worthy, has exposed 
 it in the following manner : 
 
 One word more about the bawdy, and I have done. I own the first night 
 this thing was acted, some indecencies had like to have happened ; but it was 
 not my fault. The fine gentleman of the play, drinking his mistress's health 
 in Nantes brandy, from six in the morning to the time he waddled on upon 
 the stage in the evening, had toasted himself up to such a pitch of vigour, I 
 confess I once gave up Amanda for gone, and am since, with all due respect 
 to Mrs. Rogers, very sorry she escaped : a certain lady, (let no one take it to 
 herself that is handsome) who highly blames the play, for the barrenness of 
 the conclusion, would then have allowed it a very natural close. 
 
 • (2) Lear, Leoriy Falstaff, &c. 
 (3) " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 2, p. 322. 
 
240 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 actors may be of use to others of the same profession, and 
 from thence may contribute to the pleasure of the public ; 
 
 To the folly of intoxication he added the horrors of debt, and 
 was so hunted by the Sheriffs' officers, that he usually walked the 
 streets with a sword (sheathed) in his hand, and if he saw any of 
 them at a distance, he would roar out, " Get on the other side of 
 the way, you dog !" The bailiff, who knew his old customer, would 
 obligingly answer, " We do not want you now, Master Powel." 
 Harassed by his distresses, and unnerved by drink, it is hardly to be 
 wondered at if his reputation decreased, and his ability slackened; 
 but that his efforts were still marked by a possession of the very 
 highest qualities that criticism can attest, is proved by the follow- 
 ing extract from the " Spectator :"- 
 
 Having spoken of Mr, Powel as sometimes raising liimself applause from 
 the ill taste of an audience, I must do liim the justice to own, that he is excel- 
 lently formed for a tragedian, and, when he pleases, deserves the admiration 
 of the best judges. — No. 40. 
 
 Addison and Steele continued their regard for this unhappy 
 man as long as they could render him any service, and that he 
 acted Fortius, in " Cato," on its appearance in 1713, must have 
 been with the author's approbation. The last trace we have of 
 Powel is confined to a playbill, for his benefit, in the year 1717, 
 since when no vestige has been found of his career. He lies 
 buried, it has been said, m the vault of St. Clement-Danes; but 
 though the period of his death may be fixed not far from the date 
 of this document, it cannot be minutely ascertained. 
 
 In the intervals of excess Powel found time for repeated lite- 
 rary labour, having written four plays, and superintended the pub- 
 lication of three more. His fault was too great a passion for 
 social pleasure, but though the irregularities this passion produced, 
 disabled him from exerting the talents he was allowed to possess, 
 still his excellence on the stage is not to be disputed. He was 
 esteemed at one period of his life a rival to Betterton, and had the 
 prudence of his conduct been equal to the vigour of his genius, 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 241 
 
 let that be my excuse for pursuing them. I must, therefore, 
 let it be known, that though in voice and ear, nature had 
 been more kind to Powel, yet he so often lost the value of 
 them, by an unheedful confidence, that the constant wake- 
 ful care and decency of Wilks, left the other far behind in 
 the public esteem and approbation. Nor was his memory 
 less tenacious than that of Wilks ; but Powel put too much 
 trust in it, and idly deferred the studying of his parts, as 
 school-boys do their exercise, to the last day ; which com- 
 monly brings them out proportionably defective. But Wilks 
 never lost an hour of precious time, and was, in all his parts, 
 perfect to such an exactitude, that I question, if in forty 
 years he ever five times changed or misplaced an article, in 
 any one of them. To be master of this uncommon diligence, 
 is adding to the gift of nature, all that is in an actor's 
 power; and this duty of studying perfect, whatever actor is 
 remiss in, he will proportionably find, that nature may have 
 been kind to him in vain : for though Powel had an assurance 
 that covered this neglect, mugh better than a man of more 
 modesty might have done, yet, with all his intrepidity, 
 very often the diffidence, and concern for what he was to 
 say^ made him lose the look of what he was to he. While, 
 therefore, Powel presided, his idle example made this 
 fault so common to others, that I cannot but confess, in the 
 general infection, I had my share of it ; nor was my too 
 critical excuse for it a good one, m%, that scarce one part 
 in five, that fell to my lot, was worth the labour. But to 
 
 he would have held, as well as reached, that lofty station for which 
 nature had designed him. 
 
 If the testimony of Aston can be relied on, Powel was born in 
 the year 1658, being incidentally mentioned by that facetious 
 writer, in a pamphlet already quoted, as Betterton's junior by 
 three and twenty years. 
 
 R 
 
9*^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 show respect to an audience is worth the best actor's labour, 
 and his business considered, he must be a very impudent 
 one, that comes before them with a conscious negligence of 
 what he is about. But Wilks was never known to make 
 any of these venial distinctions, nor, however barren his 
 part might be, could bear even the self-reproach of favour- 
 ing his memory ; and I have been astonished to see him 
 swallow a volume of froth and insipidity, in a new play, 
 that we were sure could not live above three days, though 
 favoured and recommended to the stage, by some good 
 person of quality. Upon such occasions, in compassion to 
 his fruitless toil and labour, I have sometimes cried out 
 with Cato^ "Painful pre-eminence!" So insupportable, 
 in my sense, was the task, when the bare praise of not 
 having been negligent was sure to be the only reward of it. 
 But so indefatigable was the diligence of Wilks, that he 
 seemed to love it, as a good man does virtue, for its own 
 sake ; of which the following instance will give you an ex- 
 traordinary proof. 
 
 In some new comedy, he happened to complain of a 
 crabbed speech in his part, which, he said, gave him more 
 trouble to study than all the rest of it had done ; upon 
 which he applied to the author, either to soften or shorten 
 it. The author, that he might make the matter quite easy 
 to him, fairly cut it all out. But, when he got home, from 
 the rehearsal, Wilks thought it such an indignity to his 
 memory that anything should be thought too hard for it, 
 that he actually made himself perfect in that speech, though 
 he knew it was never to be made use of. From this singu- 
 lar act of supererogation, you may judge how indefatigable 
 the labour of his memory must have been, when his profit 
 and honour were more concerned to make use of it. 
 
 But besides this indispensiblc quality of diligence, Wilks 
 had the advantage of a sober character in private life, which 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 243 
 
 Powel not having the least regard to, laboured under the 
 unhappy disfavour, not to say contempt, of the public, to 
 whom his licentious courses were no secret. Even when 
 he did well, that natural prejudice pursued him : neither 
 the hero, nor the gentleman ; the young Ammon^* nor the 
 Dorimant^f could conceal, from the conscious spectator, 
 the true George Powel. And this sort of disesteem, or 
 favour, every actor will feel, and more or less, have his 
 share of, as he has or has not a due regard to his private 
 life and reputation. Nay, even false reports shall affect 
 him, and become the cause, or pretence at least, of under- 
 valuing, or treating him injuriously. Let me give a known 
 instance of it, and at the same time, a justification of myself 
 from an imputation that was laid upon me, many years 
 before I quitted the theatre, of which you will see the con- 
 sequence. 
 
 After the vast success of that new species of dramatic 
 poetry, the '' Beggar's Opera," the year following, I was 
 so stupid as to attempt something of the same kind, upon a 
 quite difterent foundation, that of recommending virtue and 
 innocence, which I ignorantly thought, might not have a 
 less pretence to favour, than setting greatness and authority 
 in a contemptible, and the most vulgar vice and wickedness 
 in an amiable, light. But behold how fondly I was mis- 
 taken ! '' Love in a Riddle" (for so my new-fangled per- 
 formance was called) was as vilely damned and hooted at^ 
 as so vain a presumption, in the idle cause of virtue, could 
 deserve. Yet this is not what I complain of: I will allow 
 my poetry to be as much below the other, as taste or cri- 
 ticism can sink it ; 1 will grant, likewise, that the applauded 
 author of the " Beggar's Opera," (whom I knew to be an 
 honest good-natured man, and who, when he had descended 
 
 * " Rival Queens." t " Man of Mode." 
 
 11 2 
 
244 
 
 AK APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 to write more like one, in the cause of virtue, had been as 
 unfortunate as others of that class ;) I will grant, I say, 
 that in his " Beggar's Opera," he had more skilfully grati- 
 fied the public taste, than all the brightest authors that ever 
 wrote before him ; and I have sometimes thought, from the 
 modesty of his motto, " Nos hcBC novimus esse nihil,^^ that 
 he gave them that performance as a satire upon the depra* 
 vity of their judgment, (as Ben Jonson, of old, was said to 
 give his '^ Bartholomew Fair," in ridicule of the vulgar taste, 
 which had disliked his '' Sejanus,") and that, by artfully 
 seducing them to be the champions of the immoralities he 
 himself detested, he should be amply revenged on their 
 fornier severity and ignorance. This were indeed a triumph 
 which even the author of '• Cato" might have envied. 
 "• Cato,'* it is true, succeeded, but reached not, by full 
 forty days, the progress and applauses of the ''Beggar's 
 Opera." Will it, however, admit of a question, which of 
 the two compositions a good writer would rather wish to 
 have been the author of? Yet, on the other side, must we 
 not allow, that to have taken a whole nation, high and low, 
 into a general applause, has shown a power in poetry, 
 which, though often attempted in the same kind, none but 
 this one author could ever yet arrive at ? By what rule, 
 then, are we to judge of our true national taste ? But, to 
 keep a little closer to my point. 
 
 The same author, the next year, had, according to the 
 laws of the land, transported his hero to the West Indies, 
 in a second part to the " Beggar's Opera ;" but so it hap- 
 pened, to the surprise of the public, this second part was 
 forbid to come upon the stage. Various were the specu- 
 lations upon this act of power : some thought that the 
 author, others that the town, vv^as hardly dealt with ; a 
 third sort, who, perhaps, had envied him the success of his 
 first part, affirmed, when it was printed, that, whatever the 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. !^45 
 
 intention might be, the fact was in his favour ; that he had 
 been a greater gainer, by subscriptions to his copy, than 
 he could have been by a bare theatrical presentation. 
 
 Whether any part of these opinions were true, I am not 
 concerned to determine or consider ; but how they affected 
 me, I am going to tell you. Soon after this prohibition , my 
 performance was to come upon the stage, at a time when 
 many people were out of humour at the late disappoint- 
 ment, and seemed willing to lay hold of any pretence of 
 making a reprisal. Great umbrage was taken that I was 
 permitted to have the whole town to myself, by this abso- 
 lute forbiddance of what they had more mind to have 
 been entertained with. And, some few days before my bau- 
 ble was acted, I was informed that a strong party would be 
 made against it : this report I slighted, as not conceiving 
 why it should be true ; and when I was afterwards told 
 what was the pretended provocation of this party, I 
 slighted it still more, as having less reason to suppose any 
 persons could believe me capable (had I had the power) of 
 giving such a provocation. The report, it seems, that had 
 run against me was this : that to make way for the success 
 of my own play, I had privately found means, or made in- 
 terest, that the second part of the '' Beggar's Opera" 
 might be suppressed. What an involuntary compliment did 
 the reporters of this falsehood make me, to suppose me 
 of consideration enough to influence a great officer of state, 
 to gratify the spleen or envy of a comedian, so far as to rob 
 the public of an innocent diversion, (if it were such) that 
 none but that cunning comedian might be suffered to give 
 it them. This is so very gross a supposition, that it needs 
 only its own senseless face to confound it ; let that alone, 
 then, be my defence against it. But against blind malice, 
 and staring inhumanity, whatever is upon the stage has 
 no defence. , There, they knew, I stood helpless, and 
 
 R S 
 
!^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 and exposed to whatever they might please to load or 
 asperse me with. I had not considered, poor devil I that, 
 from the security of a full pit^ dunces might be critics, 
 cowards valiant, and apprentices gentlemen. Whether any 
 such were concerned in the murder of my play, I am not 
 certain ; for I never endeavoured to discover any one of its 
 assassins ; I cannot afford them a milder name, from their 
 unmanly manner of destroying it. Had it been heard, they 
 might have left me nothing to say to them : 'tis true, it 
 faintly held up its wounded head a second day, and would 
 have spoken for mercy, but was not suffered. Not even the 
 presence of a royal heir apparent could protect it. But 
 then T was reduced to be serious with them ; their clamour, 
 then, became an insolence, which 1 thought it my duty, by 
 the sacrifice of any interest of my own, to put an end to. 
 I therefore quitted the actor for the author, and, stepping 
 forward to the pit, told them, " That since I found they 
 were not inclined that this play should go forward, I gave 
 them my word, that after this night, it should never be acted 
 again : but that, in the meantime, I hoped they would con- 
 sider in whose presencfe they were, and, for that reason at 
 least, would suspend what farther marks of their displeasure 
 they might imagine I had deserved." At this there was a 
 dead silence ; and, after some little pause, a few civilised 
 hands signified their approbation. When the play went 
 on, I observed about a dozen persons, of no extraordinary 
 appearance, sullenly walked out of the pit ; after which, 
 every scene of it, while uninterrupted, met with more ap- 
 plause than my best hopes had expected. But it came too 
 late : peace to its manes ! I had given my word it should 
 fell, and I kept it, by giving out another play for the next 
 day, though I knew the boxes were all let for the same 
 again. Such, then, was the treatment I met with : how 
 much of it, the errors of the play might deserve, I refer to 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 247 
 
 the judgment of those who may have curiosity and idle time 
 enough to read it. But if I had no occasion to complain 
 of the reception it met with from its quieted audience, 
 surely it can be no great vanity, to impute its disgraces, 
 chiefly, to that severe resentment which a groundless re- 
 port of me had inflamed. Yet those disgraces have left 
 me something to boast of, an honour preferable even to the 
 applause of my enemies. A noble lord came behind the 
 scenes, and told me, from the box where he was in waiting, 
 '^ That what I said to quiet the audience was extremely 
 well taken there ; and that I had been commended for it, 
 in a very obliging manner." Now, though this was the 
 only tumult that I have known to have been so effectually 
 appeased, these fifty years, by anything that could be said 
 to an audience, in the same humour, I will not take any 
 great merit to myself upon it ; because when, like me, you 
 will but humbly submit to their doing you all the mischief 
 they can, they will, at any time, be satisfied. 
 
 I have mentioned this particular fact, to inforce what I 
 before observed, that the private character of an actor will 
 always, more or less, affect his public performance. And 
 if I suffered so much, from the bare suspicion of my hav- 
 ing been guilty of a base action, what should not an actor 
 expect, that is hardy enough to think his whole private 
 character of no consequence ? I could offer many more, 
 though less severe, instances of the same nature. I have 
 seen the most tender sentiment of love, in tragedy, create 
 laughter, instead of compassion, when it has been applica- 
 ble to the real engagements of the person that uttered it. 
 I have known good parts thrown up, from an humble con- 
 sciousness that something in them might put an audience 
 in mind of what was rather wished might be forgotten : 
 those remarkable words of Evadne, in the " Maid's Tra- 
 il 4 
 
!^48 . AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 gedy*'— " A maidenhead, Amintor, at my years ?" — have 
 sometimes been a much stronger jest, for being a true one. 
 But these are reproaches, which, in all nations, the theatre 
 must have been used to, unless we could suppose actors 
 something more than human creatures, void of faults or 
 frailties. It is a misfortune, at least, not limited to the 
 English stage. I have seen the better-bred audience, in 
 Paris, made merry even with a modest expression, when it 
 has come from the mouth of an actress, whose private char- 
 acter it seemed not to belong to. The apprehension of 
 these kind of fleers, from the witlings of a pit, has been 
 carried so far in our own country, that a late valuable ac- 
 tress* (who was conscious her beauty was not her greatest 
 merit) desired the warmth of some lines might be abated, 
 when they have made her too remarkably handsome : but 
 in this discretion she was alone ; few others were afiraid of 
 undesei-ving the finest things that could be said to them. 
 But to consider this matter seriously, I cannot but think, 
 at a play, a sensible auditor would contribute all he could 
 to his being well deceived, and not suffer his imagination so 
 far to wander from the well-acted character before him, as 
 to gratify a frivolous spleen, by mocks or personal sneers, 
 on the performer, at the expense of his better entertain- 
 ment. But I must now take up Wilks and Powel again, 
 where I left them. 
 
 Though the contention for superiority between them 
 seemed about this time to end in favour of the former, yet 
 the distress of the patentee (in having his servant his mas- 
 ter, as Powel had lately been,) was not much relieved by 
 the victory ; he had only changed the man, but not the 
 malady : for Wilks, by being in possession of so many 
 good parts, fell into the common error of most actors, 
 
 - * Most probably Mrs. Old field. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 249 
 
 that of overrating their merit, or never thinking it is so 
 thoroughly considered as it ought to be ; which generally 
 makes them proportionably troublesome to the master, who, 
 they might consider, only pays them, to profit by them. 
 The patentee, therefore, found it as difficult to satisfy the 
 continual demands of Wilks, as it was dangerous to refuse 
 them ; very few were made that w ere not granted, and as 
 few were granted as were not grudged him : not but our 
 good master was as sly a tyrant as ever was at the head of 
 a theatre ; for he gave the actors more liberty and few er 
 days' pay than any of his predecessors : he w ould laugh 
 with them over a bottle, and bite them in their bargains : 
 he kept them poor, that they might not be able to rebel ; 
 and sometimes merry, that they might not think of it : all 
 their articles of agreement had a clause in them that he was 
 sure to creep out at, viz. their respective salaries were to 
 be paid in such manner and proportion as others of the 
 same company were paid ; w hich, in effect, made them 
 all, when he pleased, but limited sharers of loss, and him- 
 self sole proprietor of profits ; and this loss or profit they 
 only had such verbal accounts of, as he thought proper to 
 give them. It is true, he would sometimes advance them 
 money, (but not more than he knew, at most, could be 
 due to them) upon their bonds ; upon which, whenever 
 they were mutinous, he would threaten to sue them. This 
 was the net we danced in for several years : but no wondor 
 we were dupes, while our master was a lawyer. This 
 grievance, however^ Wilks was resolved, for hhnself at 
 least, to remedy at any rate ; and grew daily more intract- 
 able, for every day his redress was delayed. Here our 
 master found himself under a difficulty he knew not well 
 how to get out of: for as he was a close subtle man, he sel- 
 dom made use of a confident in his schemes of govern- 
 ment : but here the old expedient of delay would stand 
 
250 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 him in no longer stead ; Wilks must instantly be complied 
 with, or Powel come again into power. In a word, he 
 was pushed so home, that he was reduced even to take my 
 opinion into his assistance, for he knew I was a rival to 
 neither of them ; perhaps, too, he had fancied that, from 
 the success of my first play, I might know as much of the 
 stage, and what made an actor valuable, as either of them : 
 he saw, too, that though they had each of them five good 
 parts to my one, yet the applause which in my few I had 
 met with, was given me by better judges than, as yet, had 
 approved of the best they had done. They generally mea- 
 sured the goodness of a part by the qauntity or length of it : 
 I thought none bad for being short, that were closely natural ; 
 nor any the better for being long, without that valuable qua- 
 lity. But, in this, I doubt, as to their interest, they judged 
 better than myself; for I have generally observed that those 
 who do a great deal not ill, have been preferred to those 
 who do but little, though never so masterly. And there- 
 fore I allow, that while there were so few good parts, and 
 as few good judges of them, it ought to have been no won- 
 der to me that, as an actor, I was less valued by the master 
 or the common people than either of them : all the advan- 
 tage I had of them was, that by not being troublesome, I 
 had more of our master's personal inclination than any actor 
 of the male sex ; and so much of it, that I was almost the 
 only one whom, at that time, he used to take into his parties 
 of pleasure; very often ^e^e a ^e<^, and sometimes in a j9 a W/e 
 quarree. These, then, were the qualifications, however 
 good or bad, to which may be imputed our master's having 
 made choice of me, to assist him in the diflGiculty under which 
 he now laboured. He was himself sometimes inclined to set 
 up Powel again as a check upon the overbearing temper of 
 Wilks : though, to say truth, he liked neither of them ; but 
 was still under a necessity that one of them should preside ; 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 251 
 
 though he scarce knew which of the two evils to chuse. 
 This question, when I happened to be alone with him, was 
 often debated in our evening conversation ; nor, indeed, 
 did I find it an easy matter to know which party I ought to 
 recommend to his election. I knew they were neither of 
 them well-wishers to me, as in common they were enemies 
 to most actors, in proportion to the merit that seemed to 
 be rising in them. But as I had the prosperity of the stage 
 more at heart than any other consideration, I could not be 
 long undetermined in my opinion, and therefore gave it to 
 our master, at once, in favour of Wilks. I, with all the 
 force I could muster, insisted, that if Powel were preferred, 
 the ill example of his negligence and abandoned character 
 (whatever his merit on the stage might be) would reduce 
 our company to contempt and beggary ; observing, at the 
 same time, in how much better order our affairs went for- 
 ward, since Wilks came among us, of which I recounted 
 several instances, that are not so necessary to tire my reader 
 with. All this though he allowed to be true, yet Powel, he 
 said, was a better actor than Wilks, when he minded his 
 business ; that is to say, when he was, what he seldom was, 
 sober. But Powel, it seems, had a still greater merit to 
 him, which was, (as he observed) that when affairs were in 
 his hands, he had kept the actors quiet, without one day's 
 pay, for six weeks together, and it was not every body could 
 do that ; "for you see," said he, " Wilks will never be easy, 
 unless I give him his whole pay when others have it not, 
 and what an injustice would that be to the rest, if I were 
 to comply with him ! How do I know, but then they may 
 be all in a mutiny, and mayhap (that was his expression) 
 with Powel at the head of them ?" By this specimen of our 
 debate, it may be judged under how particular and merry a 
 government the theatre then laboured. To conclude, this 
 matter ended in a resolution to sign a new agreement with 
 
^52 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Wilks, which entitled him to his full pay of four pounds a 
 week, without any conditional deductions. How far soever 
 my advice might have contributed to our master's settling 
 his affairs upon this foot, I never durst make the least 
 merit of it to Wilks, well knowing- that his great heart 
 would have taken it as a mortal affront, had I, though 
 never so distantly, hinted that his demands had needed any 
 assistance but the justice of them. From this time, then, 
 Wilks became first minister, or bustle-master general of 
 the company. He now seemed to take new delight in 
 keeping the actors close to their business ; and got every 
 play revived with care, in which he had acted the chief 
 part in Dublin: 'tis true, this might be done with a parti- 
 cular view of setting off himself to advantage, but if, at the 
 same time, it served the company, he ought not to want our 
 commendation : now, though my own conduct neither had 
 the appearance of his merit, nor the reward that followed 
 his industry, I cannot help observing, that it showed me, to 
 the best of my power, a more cordial commonwealth's man. 
 His first views, in serving himself, made his service to the 
 whole but an incidental merit ; whereas, by my prosecuting 
 the means to make him easy in his pay, unknown to him, or 
 without asking any favour for myself, at the same time, I 
 gave a more unquestionable proof of my preferring the 
 public to ray private interest : from the same principle I 
 never murmured at whatever little parts fell to my share, 
 and though I knew it would not recommend me to the fa- 
 vour of the common people, I often submitted to play 
 wicked characters, rather than they should be worse done 
 by weaker actors than myself. But, perhaps, in all this 
 patience under my situation, I supported my spirits by a 
 conscious vanity ; for I fancied I had more reason to value 
 myself upon being sometimes the confident and companion 
 of our master, than Wilks had in all the more public fa- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 253 
 
 vours he had extorted from him. I imagined, too, there 
 was sometimes as much skill to be shown in a short part, as 
 in the most voluminous which he generally made choice of; 
 that even the coxcombly, follies of a Sir John Daw^ might 
 as well distinguish the capacity of an actor, as all the dry 
 enterprises and busy conduct of a Truezcit. Nor could I 
 have any reason to repine at the superiority he enjoyed, 
 when I considered at how dear a rate it was purchased, at 
 the continual expense of a restless jealousy, and fretful im- 
 patience. These were the passions that, in the height of 
 his successes, kept him lean to his last hour, while what 1 
 wanted in rank or glory was amply made up to me in ease 
 and cheerfulness. But let not this observation either lessen 
 his merit, or lift up my own ; since our different tempers 
 were not in our choice, but equally natural to both of us. 
 To be employed on the sta^e was the delight of his lite ; to 
 be justly excused from it was the joy of mine : I loved 
 ease, and he pre-eminence : in that he might be more com- 
 mendable. Though he often disturbed me, he seldom 
 could do it without more disordering himself: in our dis- 
 putes his warmth could less bear truth than I could support 
 manifest injuries : he would hazard our undoing to gratify 
 his passions, though otherwise an honest man ; and I rather 
 chose to give up my reason, or not see my wrong, than ruin 
 our community by an equal rashness. By this opposite 
 conduct, our accounts at the end of our labours stood thus: 
 while he lived, he was the elder man, when he died, he was 
 not so old as I am : h<^ never left the stage till he left the 
 world : I never so well enjoyed the world, as when I left 
 the stage : he died in possession of his wishes ; and I by 
 having had a less choleric ambition, am still tasting mine in 
 health and liberty. But as he, in a great measure, wore 
 out the organs of life, in his incessant labours to gratify the 
 
254 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 public, the many whom he gave pleasure to will always 
 owe his memory a favourable report. Some fiicts, that will 
 vouch for the truth of this account, will be found in the 
 sequel of these memoirs. If I have spoken with more free- 
 dom of his quondam competitor Powel, let my good inten- 
 tions to future actors, in showing what will so much concern 
 them to avoid, be my excuse for it : for though Powel had 
 from nature much more than Wilks ; in voice and ear, in 
 elocution, in tragedy, and humour in comedy, greatly the 
 advantage of him ; yet, as I have observed, from the neg- 
 lect and abuse of those valuable gifts, he suffered Wilks to 
 be of thrice the service to our society. Let me give another 
 instance of the reward and favour which, in a theatre, dili- 
 gence and sobriety seldom fail of. Mills the elder grew into 
 the friendship of Wilks, with not a great deal more than 
 those useful qualities to recommend him : he was an honest, 
 quiet, careful man, of as few faults as excellencies, and 
 Wilks rather chose him for his second in many plays, than 
 an actor of perhaps greater skill, that was not so laboriously 
 diligent. And from this constant assiduity. Mills, with mak- 
 ing to himself a friend in Wilks, was advanced to a larger 
 salary than any man-actor had enjoyed, during my time on 
 the stage. I have yet to offer a more happy recommenda- 
 tion of temperance, which a late celebrated actor was 
 warned into, by the misconduct of Powel. About the year 
 that Wilks returned from Dublin, Booth, who had com- 
 menced actor upon that theatre, came over to the com- 
 pany in Lincoln's Inn Fields : he was then but an under- 
 graduate of the buskin, and as he told me himself, had been 
 for some time too frank a lover of the bottle ; but having 
 had the happiness to observe into what contempt and dis- 
 tresses Powel had plunged himself by the same vice, he 
 was so struck with the terror of his example, that he fixed 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 255 
 
 a resolution (which, from that time to the end of his days, 
 he strictly observed) of utterly reforming it ; an uncommon 
 act of philosophy in a young man, of which, in his fame 
 and fortune, he afterwards enjoyed the reward and benefit. 
 These observations I have not merely thrown together as a 
 moralist, but to prove that the briskest loose liver or intem- 
 perate man, though morality were out of the question, can 
 never arrive at the necessary excellencies of a good or use- 
 ful actor. 
 
2f5e 
 
 AM APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 The Patentee of Drury-lane wiser than his actors. — His particu- 
 lar management. — The author continues to write plays. — 
 Why. — The best dramatic poets censured by Jeremy Collier 
 in his " Short View of the Stage. ^"^ — It has a good effect. — The 
 Master of the Revels, from tJmt time, cautious in his licensing 
 of new plays. — A complaint against him. — His authority 
 founded upon custom only. — The late law for fixing that autho- 
 rity in a proper person considered. 
 
 THOUGH the master of. our theatre had no conception 
 himself of theatrical merit, either in authors or actors, yet 
 his judgment was governed by a saving rule in both. He 
 looked into his receipts for the value of a play, and from 
 common fame he judged of his actors. But, by whatever 
 rule he was governed, while he had prudently reserved to 
 himself a power of not paying them more than their merit 
 could get, he could not be much deceived by their being 
 over or under-valued. In a word, he had, with great skill, 
 inverted the constitution of the stage, and quite changed 
 the channel of profits arising from it ; formerly, when there 
 was but one company, the proprietors punctually paid 
 the actors their appointed salaries, a»d took to themselves 
 only the clear profits : but our wiser proprietor took first 
 out of every day's receipts two shillings in the pound to 
 himself, and left their salaries to be paid only as the less or 
 greater deficiencies of acting, according to his own ac- 
 counts, would permit. What seemed most extraordinary 
 in these measures was that, at the same time, he had per- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. ^^ 
 
 suaded us to be contented with our condition, upon his 
 assuring us that, as fast as money would come in, we should 
 all be paid our arrears : and that we might not have it 
 always in our power to say he had never intended to keep 
 his word, 1 remember, in a few years after this time, he 
 once paid us nine days in one week : this happened when 
 the " Funeral ; or, Grief a la Mode," was first acted, with 
 more than expected success. Whether this well-timed 
 bounty was only allowed us, to save appearances, I will 
 not say : but if that was his real motive for it, it was too 
 costly a frolic to be repeated, and was, at least, the only 
 grimace of its kind he vouchsafed us ; we never having 
 received one day more of those arrears, in above fifteen 
 years' service. 
 
 While the actors were in this condition, I think I may 
 very well be excused in my presuming to write plays, which 
 I was forced to do, for the support of my increasing family, 
 my precarious income, as an actor, being then too scanty to 
 supply it with even the necessaries of life. 
 
 It may be observable, too, that my muse and my spouse 
 were equally prolific ; that the one was seldom the mother 
 of a child, but in the same year the pther made me the fa- 
 ther of a play : I think we had a dozen of each sort between 
 us ; of both which kinds, some died in their infancy, and 
 near an equal number of each were alive when I quitted 
 the theatre. But it is no wonder, when a muse is only 
 called upon by family duty, she should not always rejoice 
 in the fruit of her labour. To this necessity of writing, 
 then, I attribute the defects of my second play, which 
 coming out too hastily, the year after my first, turned to 
 very little account. But having got as much by my first 
 as I ought to have expected irom the success of them both, 
 I had no great reason to complain : not but,* I confess, so 
 bad was my second, that I do not chuse to tell you the 
 
258 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 name of it ; and that it might be peaceably forgotten, I 
 have not given it a place in the two volumes of those I pub- 
 lished in quarto, in the year 1721. And whenever I took 
 upon me to make some dormant play of an old author, to 
 the best of my judgment, fitter for the stage, it was, ho- 
 nestly not to be idle that set me to work ; as a g:ood house- 
 wife will mend old linen, when she has not better employ- 
 ment : but when I was more warmly engaged by a subject 
 entirely new, I only thought it a good subject, when it 
 seemed worthy of an abler pen than my own, and might 
 prove as useful to the hearer, as profitable to myself: there- 
 fore, whatever any of my productions might want of skill, 
 learning, wit, or humour, or however unqualified I might 
 be to instruct others, who so ill governed myself; yet such 
 plays (entirely my own) were not wanting, at least, in 
 what our most admired writers seemed to neglect, and 
 without which, I cannot allow the most taking play to be 
 intrinsically good, or to be a work upon which a man of 
 sense and probity should value himself: I mean when they 
 do not, as well prodesse, as delectare^ — give profit with 
 delight. The utile dulci was, of old, equally the point ; 
 and has always been my aim, however wide of the mark, 
 I may have shot my arrow. It has often given me amaze- 
 ment, that our best authors of that time could think the 
 wit and spirit of their scenes could be an excuse for mak- 
 ing the looseness of them public. The many instances of 
 their talents so abused, are too glaring to need a closer 
 comment, and are sometimes too gross to be recited. If, 
 then,, to have avoided this imputation, or rather to have ■ 
 had the interest and honour of virtue always in view, 
 can give merit to a play, I am contented that my readers 
 should think such merit the all that mine have to boast of. 
 Libertines of mere wit and pleasure may laugh at these 
 grave laws that would limit a lively genius, but every sen- 
 
LTFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 259 
 
 sible honest man, conscious of their truth and use, will 
 give these ralliers smile for smile, and show a due contempt 
 for their merriment. 
 
 But while our authors took these extraordinary liberties 
 with their wit, I remember the ladies were then observed 
 to be decently afi-aid of venturing bare-faced to a new 
 comedy, till they had been assured they might do it, w ith- 
 out the risk of an insult to their modesty : or, if their curi^ 
 osity were too strong for their patience, they took care, 
 at least, to save appearances, and rarely came upon the 
 first days of acting but in masks, (then daily worn, and 
 admitted in the pit, the side-boxes, and gallery) which 
 custom, however, had so many ill consequences attending 
 it, that it has been abolished these many years. 
 
 These immoralities of the stage had, by an avowed in- 
 dulgence, been creeping into it ever since King Charles's 
 time ; nothing that was loose could then be too low for it : 
 the " London Cuckolds," the most rank play that ever 
 succeeded, was then in the highest court favour. In this 
 almost general corruption, Dryden, whose plays were more 
 famed for their wit than their chastity, led the way, which 
 he fairly confesses, and endeavours to excuse, in his epi- 
 logue to the " Pilgrim," revived in 1700 for his benefit, in 
 his declining age, and fortune. The following lines of it 
 will make good my observation. 
 
 Perhaps the Parson* stretch'd a point too far, 
 When with our theatres he wag'd a war. 
 He tells you, that this very moral age 
 Receiv'd the first infection from the stage, 
 But sure, a banish'd court, with lewdness fraught. 
 The seeds of open vice returning brought; 
 
 * Mr. Collier. 
 S 2 
 
^0 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Thus lodg'd (as vice by great example thrives) 
 It first debauch'd the daughters, and the wives : 
 London, a fruitful soil, yet never bore 
 So plentiful a crop of horns before. 
 The poets, who must live by courts or starve. 
 Were proud, so good a government to serve, 
 And mixing with buffoons, and pimps, profane, 
 Tainted the stage, for some small snip of gain : 
 For they, like harlots under bawds profess'd. 
 Took all th'ungodly pains, and got the least. 
 Thus did the thriving malady prevail. 
 The court, its head, the poets but the tail. 
 The sin was of our native growth, 'lis true. 
 The scandal of the sin was wholly new. 
 Misses there were, but modestly conceal'd ; 
 Whitehall the naked Venus first reveal'd. 
 Where, standing as at Cyprus, in her shrine. 
 The strumpet was ador'd with rites divine, &c. 
 
 This epilogue, and the prologue to the same play, written 
 by Dryden, I spoke myself, which not being usually done 
 by the same person, I have a mind, while I think of it, to 
 let you know on what occasion they both fell to my share, 
 and how other actors were affected by it. 
 
 Sir John Vanbrugh, who had given some light touches 
 of his pen to the " Pilgrim," to assist the benefit day of 
 Dry den, had the disposal of the parts, and I being then, as 
 an actor, in some favour with him, he read the play, first, 
 with me alone, and was pleased to offer me my choice of 
 what I might like best for myself in it. But as the chief 
 characters were not (according to my taste) the most shin- 
 ing, it was no great self-denial in me, that I desired he 
 would first take care of those who were more difficult to be 
 pleased ; I therefore only chose, for myself, two short inci- 
 dental parts, that of the Stuttering Cook, and the Mad 
 
LIFE OF MR.COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 261 
 
 Englishman, in which homely characters I saw more mat- 
 ter for delight, than those that might have a better pretence 
 to the amiable ; and when the play came to be acted, I was 
 not deceived in my choice. Sir John, upon my being con- 
 tented with so little a share in the entertainment, gave me 
 the epilogue to make up my mess ; which being written so 
 much above the strain of common authors, I confess I was 
 not a little pleased with. And Dryden, upon his hearing 
 me repeat it to him, made me a farther compliment of 
 trusting me with the prologue. This so particular dis- 
 tinction was looked upon by the actors as something too 
 extraordinary. But no one was so impatiently ruffled at it 
 as Wilks, who seldom chose soft words when he spoke of 
 any thing he did not like. The most gentle thing he said 
 of it was, that he did not understand such treatment ; that 
 for his part he looked upon it as an affront to all the rest of 
 the company, that there should be but one out of the whole 
 judged fit to speak either a prologue, or an epilogue. To 
 quiet him, I offered to decline either in his favour, or both, 
 if it were equally easy to the author : but he was too much 
 concerned to accept of an off^T that had been made to ano- 
 ther in preference to himself, and which he seemed to think 
 his best way of resenting, was to contemn. But from that 
 time, however, he was resolved, to the best of his power, 
 never to let the first off*er of a prologue escape him ; which 
 little ambition sometimes made him pay too dear for his 
 success : the flatness of the many miserable prologues that 
 by this means fell to his lot, seemed wofully unequal to the 
 few good ones he might have reason to triumph in. 
 
 I have given you this fact, only as a sample of those fre- 
 quent rubs and impediments I met with, when any step was 
 made to my being distinguished as an actor ; and from this 
 incident, too, you may partly sec what occasioned so many 
 prologues, after the death of Betterton, to Ml into the hands 
 
 s 3 
 
262 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 of one speaker : but it is not every successor to a vacant 
 post that brings into it the talents equal to those of a pre- 
 decessor. To speak a good prologue well is, in my opinion, 
 one of the hardest parts, and strongest proofs, of sound elo- 
 cution, of w^hich, I confess, I never thought that any of the 
 several who attempted it, showed themselves, by far, equal 
 masters to Betterton. Betterton, in the delivery of a good 
 prologue, had a natural gravity, that gave strength to good 
 sense ; a tempered spirit, that gave life to wit ; and a dry 
 reserve in his smile, that threw ridicule into its brightest 
 coloui's. Of these qualities, in the speaking of a prologue. 
 Booth only had the first, but attained not to the other two : 
 Wilks had spirit, but gave too loose a rein to it, and it was 
 seldom he could speak a grave and weighty verse harmo- 
 niously : his accents were frequently too sharp and violent, 
 which sometimes occasioned his eagerly cutting off half the 
 sound of syllables, that ought to have been gently melted into 
 the melody of metre : in verses of humour, too, he would 
 sometimes carry the mimicry farther than the hint would 
 bear, even to a trifling light, as if himself were pleased to see 
 it so glittering. In the truth of this criticism, I have been 
 confirmed by those whose judgment I dare more confidently 
 rely on than my own. Wilks had many excellencies, but 
 if we leave prologue-speaking out of the number, he will 
 still have enough to have made him a valuable actor. And 
 I only make this exception from them, to caution others 
 from imitating what, in his time, they might have too im- 
 plicitly admired. But I have a word or two more to say 
 concerning the immoralities of the stage. Our theatrical 
 writers were not only accused of immorality, but profane- 
 ness ; many flagrant instances of which were collected and 
 published by a non-juring clergyman, Jeremy Collier, in his 
 " View of the Stage," &c.,* about the year 1697. How- 
 ^ Steele, in the " Tattler," No. S, recommends the stage as an 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 263 
 
 ever just his charge against the authors that then wrote for 
 it might be, I cannot but think his sentence against the stage 
 
 easy and agreeable method of making a polite and moral gentry, 
 which would end in rendering the rest of the people regular in their 
 conduct, and ambitious of laudable undertakings. The business of 
 plays, observes Collier, in strict consonance with this remark, is 
 " to recommend virtue and discountenance vice ; to show the uncer- 
 tainty of human greatness, and the unhappy conclusions of violence 
 and injustice; to expose the singularities of pride, to repress affec- 
 tation, to make falsehood contemptible; and, in short, to bring in- 
 famy and neglect upon every bad thing that deserves their visita- 
 tion." This is that " apt use of a theatre," in which all moralists 
 must agree, and the only difference that exists in their efforts to 
 maintain it, has sprung from the manner in which the blasphemy 
 and indecencies of the theatre were viewed. 
 
 Indignant at the lewdness and debauchery by which the stage 
 was disgraced, Mr. Collier proceeded, from a consideration of its 
 design, to trace and exhibit the evils by which that design was per- 
 verted. He saw that our dramatic poets were writing from another 
 principle, and though he owned the value of that power with which 
 they were invested, he denounced the evils that were flowing from 
 its utter misapplication. The advantages of show, music, action, 
 and eloquence, to use his own forcible figure, were now in the ene- 
 my's hands, and, like captured cannon, being pointed the wrong 
 way, by the very strength of the defence the mischief was made 
 the greater. To manifest the truth of his complaint, he undertook 
 to prove the misbehaviour of the stage, with respect to morality and 
 religion, and though his remarks upon both points were sometimes 
 rude, intolerant, and fanatical, he certainly substantiated various 
 gross irregularities, that the objects of his severity were unable to 
 defend. 
 
 It has been admitted, that many authors in high esteem with the 
 public, had written in a style which warranted the censure of 
 every person who felt the least dislike of profaneness and immo- 
 rality. The leading dramatists of the day were severely handled, 
 
 s 4 
 
264 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 itself is unequal : reformation he thinks too mild a treatment 
 for it, and is therefore for laying his axe to the root of it. If 
 this were to be a rule of judgment for offences of the same 
 nature, what might become of the pulpit, where many a se- 
 ditious and corrupted teacher has been known to cover the 
 most pernicious doctrine with the mask of religion ? This 
 xynis me in mind of what the noted Jo. Hayns, the comedian, 
 a fellow of a wicked wit, said upon this occasion ; who 
 being asked what could transport Mr. Collier into so blind a 
 zeal for a general suppression of the stage, when only some 
 particular author had abused it; whereas the stage, he 
 could not but know, was generally allowed, when rightly 
 conducted, to be a delightful method of mending our mo- 
 rals ? "For that reason," replied Hayns: "Collier is by 
 profession a moral-mender himself, and two of a trade, you 
 know, can never agree." 
 
 The authors of the " Old Bachelor," and of the " Re- 
 lapse," were those whom Collier most laboured to convict 
 of immorality ; to which they severally published their re- 
 ply : the first seemed too much hurt, to be able to defend 
 
 and though several replies to his book were immediately made 
 such was the soundness of his arguments, and the pleasantry of his 
 humour, that Mr. Collier succeeded in a. sudden, thorough, perma- 
 nent reformation of the prevailing excesses. His chapter upon the 
 treatment of the clergy, in which he contends for their exemption 
 as a class, from the just raillery their vices might provoke, is a piece 
 of bigotry that shames his powerful understanding ; and the zeal with 
 which he advocates a total suppression of the stage, though setting 
 out with an acknowledgment of its value, merely proves to what a 
 pitch of absurdity and error the best minds may be carried by reli- 
 gious mistake. Mr. Collier's " View" is not to be tried, however, 
 by its failings; they may be many and palpable, but the good he 
 achieved was so great and lasting, that his work deserves the very 
 warmest admiration in which it has ever been held. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 255 
 
 himself, and the other felt him so little, that his wit only 
 laughed at his lashes.* 
 
 My first play of the " Fool in Fashion," too, being then 
 in a course of success^ perhaps, for that reason only, this 
 severe author thought himself obliged to attack it; in 
 which, I hope, he has shown more zeal than justice. His 
 greatest charge against it is, that it sometimes uses the 
 word " Faith !" as an oath, in the dialogue ; but if '' faith" 
 may as well signify our given word or credit, as our reli- 
 gious belief, why might not his charity have taken it in the 
 less criminal sense ? Nevertheless, Mr. Collier's book was, 
 upon the whole, thought so laudable a work, that King 
 William, soon after it was published, granted him a nolo 
 prosequi y when he stood answerable to the law for his 
 having absolved two criminals, just before they were exe- 
 cuted for high treason. And it must be farther granted, 
 that his calling our dramatic writers to this strict account, 
 had a very wholesome effect upon those who wrote after 
 this time. They were now a great deal more upon their 
 guard ; indecencies were no longer wit ; and, by degrees, 
 the ikir sex came again to fill the boxes on the first clay of 
 a new comedy, without fear or censure. But the Master 
 of the Revels, who then licensed all plays for the stage, 
 assisted this reformation with a more zealous severity than 
 ever. He would strike out whole scenes of a vicious or 
 immoral character, though it were visibly shown to be re- 
 formed, or punished ; a severe instance of this kind falling 
 upon myself, may be an excuse for my relating it. When 
 
 * " Congreve's pride was hurt by Collier's attack on plays, which 
 all the world had admired and commended ; and no hypocrite 
 showed more rancour and resentment, when unmasked, than this 
 author, so greatly celebrated for sweetness of temper, and elegance 
 of manners." — " Dramatic Miscellanies," vol. 3, p. 377. 
 
266 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 " King Richard the Third," as I altered it from Shak- 
 spearCj came from his hands to the stage, he expunged the 
 whole first act, without sparing a line of it. This extraor- 
 dinary stroke of a sic volo, occasioned my applying to him 
 for the small indulgence of a speech or two, that the other 
 four acts might limp on, with a little less absurdity. No ! 
 he had not leisure to consider what might be separately 
 inoffensive. He had an objection to the whole act, and 
 the reason he gave for it was, that the distresses of King 
 Henry the Sixth^ who is killed by Richard in the first act, 
 would put weak people too much in mind of King James, 
 then living in France. A notable proof of his zeal for the 
 government ! Those who have read either the play or the 
 history, I dare say, will think he strained hard for the 
 parallel. In a word, we were forced, for some few years, 
 to let the play take its fate, with only four acts divided into 
 five ; by the loss of so considerable a limb, may not one 
 modestly suppose it was robbed of, at least, a fifth part of 
 that favour it afterwards met with ? For though this first act 
 was at last recovered, and made the play whole again, yet 
 the relief came too late to repay me for the pains I had 
 taken in it. Nor did I ever hear that this zealous severity 
 of the Master of the Revels was afterwards thought justi- 
 fiable. But my good fortune, in process of time, gave me 
 an opportunity to talk with my oppressor in my turn. 
 
 The patent granted by his majesty King George the 
 First, to Sir Richard Steele and his assigns, of which I was 
 one, made us sole judges of what plays might be proper for 
 the stage, without submitting them to the approbation or 
 license of any other particular person. Notwithstanding 
 which, the Master of the Revels demanded his fee of forty 
 shillings, upon our acting a new one, though we had spared 
 him the trouble of perusing it. This occasioned my being 
 deputed to him, lo inquire into the right of his- demand 9 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 267 
 
 and to make an amicable end of our dispute. I confess I 
 did not dislike the office ; and told him, according to my in- 
 structions, that I came not to defend even our own right, 
 in prejudice to his ; that if our patent had inadvertently 
 superseded the grant of any former power or warrant, 
 whereon he might ground his pretensions, we would not 
 insist upon our broad seal, but would readily answer his 
 demands, upon sight of such his warrant, anything in our 
 patent to the contrary notwithstanding. This I had reason 
 to think he could not do ; and when I found he made no 
 direct reply to my question, I repeated it with greater civi- 
 lities, and offers of compliance, till I was forced in the end 
 to conclude with telling him, that as his pretensions were 
 not backed with any visible instrument of right, and as his 
 strongest plea was custom, we could not so far extend our 
 complaisance, as to continue his fees upon so slender a 
 claim to them : and from that time, neither our plays nor 
 his fees gave either of us any farther trouble. In this nego- 
 tiation I am the bolder to think justice was on our side, 
 because the law lately passed,* by which the power of 
 
 * The Abbe Le Blanc, (1) who was in England at the time this 
 law passed, has the following remarks upon it in his correspon- 
 dence : 
 
 " This act occasioned an universal murmur in the nation, and 
 was openly complained of in the public papers : in all the coffee- 
 houses of London it was treated as an unjust law, and manifestly 
 contrary to the liberties of the people of England. When winter 
 came, and the play-houses were opened, that of Covent-garden 
 began with three new pieces, which had been approved of by the 
 Lord Chamjberlain. There was a crowd of spectators present at 
 the first, and among the number myself. The best play in the 
 
 (1) Mr. Garrick, when in Paris, refused to meet this writer, on account of 
 the irreverence with which he had treated Shakspeare. 
 
268 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 licensing plays, &c. is given to a proper person, is a strong 
 presumption that no law had ever given that power to any 
 such person before. 
 
 world would not have succeeded the first night. (1) There 
 was a resolution to damn whatever might appear, the word hiss 
 not being sufficiently expressive for the English. They always 
 say, to damn a piece, to damn an author, &c. and, in reality, the 
 word is not too strong to express the manner in which they receive 
 a play which does not please them. The farce in question was 
 damned indeed, without the least compassion : nor was that all, 
 for the actors were driven off the stage, and happy was it for the 
 author that he did not fall into the hands of this furious assembly. 
 
 " As you are unacquainted with the customs of this country, you 
 cannot easily devise who were the authors of all this disturbance. 
 Perhaps you may think they were schoolboys, apprentices, clerks, 
 or mechanics. No, sir, they were men of a very grave and gen- 
 teel profession ; they were lawyers, and please you ; a body of 
 gentlemen, perhaps less honoured, but certainly more feared here 
 than they are in France. Most of them live in colleges, (2) 
 where, conversing always with one another, they mutually pre- 
 serve a spirit of independency through the body, and with great 
 ease form cabals. These gentlemen, in the stage entertainments 
 of London, behave much like our footboys, in those at a fair. 
 With us, your party-coloured gentry are the most noisy ; but 
 here, men of the law have all the sway, if 1 may be permitted to 
 call so those pretended professors of it, who are rather the organs 
 of chicanery, than the interpreters of justice. At Paris the cabals 
 of the pit are only among young fellows, whose years may excuse 
 
 (1) The action was interrupted almost as soon as begun, in presence of a 
 numerous assembly, by a cabal who had resolved to overthrow the first effect 
 of this act of parliament, though it had been thought necessary for the regu- 
 lation of the stage. 
 
 (2) Called here Inns of Court, as the two Temples, Lincoln's Inn, Gray's 
 Inn, Doctor's Commons, &c. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 269 
 
 My having mentioned this law, which so immediately 
 affected the stage, inclines me to throw out a few observa- 
 tions upon it : but I must first lead you gradually through 
 
 their folly, or persons of the meanest education and stamp; here 
 they are the fruit of deliberations in a very grave body of people, 
 who are not less formidable to the minister in place, than to the 
 theatrical writers. 
 
 " The players were not dismayed, but soon after stuck up bills 
 for another new piece : there was the same crowding at Covent- 
 garden, to which I again contributed. I was sure, at least, that if 
 the piece advertised was not performed, I should have the pleasure 
 of beholding some very extraordinary scene acted in the pit. 
 
 " Half an hour before the play was to begin, the spectators gave 
 notice of their dispositions by frightful hisses and outcries, equal, 
 perhaps, to what were ever heard at a Roman amphitheatre. I 
 could not have known, but by my eyes only, that I was among an 
 assembly of beings who thought themselves to be reasonable. The 
 author, who had foreseen this fury of the pit, took care to be 
 armed against it. He knew what people he had to deal with, 
 and, to make them easy, put in his prologue double the usual dose 
 of incense that is offered to their vanity; for there is an established 
 tax of this kind, from which no author is suffered to dispense him- 
 self This author's wise precaution succeeded, and the men that 
 were before so redoubtable grew calm ; the charms of flattery, 
 more strong than those of music, deprived them of all their fierce- 
 ness. 
 
 " You see, sir, that the pit is the same in all countries : it 
 loves to be flattered, under the more genteel name of being com- 
 plimented. If a man has tolerable address at panegyric, they 
 swallow it greedily, and are easily quelled and intoxicated by the 
 draught. Every one in particular thinks he merits the praise that 
 is given to the whole in general ; the illusion operates, and the 
 prologue is good, only because it is artfully directed. Every one 
 saves his own blush by the authority of the multitude he makes 
 
^70 AN APOLOGY FOU THE 
 
 the facts and natural causes that made such a law neces- 
 sary. 
 Although it had been taken for granted, from time imme- 
 
 a part of, which is, perhaps, the only circumstance in which a man 
 can think himself not obliged to be modest. 
 
 " The author having, by flattery, begun to tame this wild 
 audience, proceeded entirely to reconcile it by the first scene of 
 his performance. Two actors came in, one dressed in the English 
 manner very decently, and the other with black eyebrows, a 
 ribbon of an ell long under his chin, a bag-peruke immoderately 
 powdered, and his nose all bedaubed with snuff. What English- 
 man could not know a Frenchman by this ridiculous picture ! The 
 common people of London think we are indeed such sort of 
 folks, and of their own accord, add to our real follies all that their 
 authors are pleased to give us. But when it was found, that the 
 man thus equipped, being also laced down every seam of his 
 coat, was nothing but a cook, the spectators were equally charm- 
 ed and surprised. The author had taken care to make him 
 speak all the impertinencies he could devise, and for that reason, 
 all the impertinencies of his farce were excused, and the merit of it 
 immediately decided. There was a long criticism upon our man- 
 ners, our customs, and above all, upon our cookery. The excellence 
 and virtues of English beef were cried up, and the author main- 
 tained, that it was owing to the qualities of its juice, that the Eng- 
 lish were so courageous, and had such a solidity of understand- 
 ing, which raised them above all the nations in Europe : he pre- 
 ferred the noble old English pudding beyond all the finest ragouts 
 that were ever invented by the greatest geniuses that France 
 has produced ; and all these ingenious strokes were loudly clapped 
 by the audience. 
 
 The pit, biassed by the abuse that was thrown on the French, 
 forgot that they came to damn the play, and maintain the ancient 
 liberty pf the stage. They were friends with the players, and 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 271 
 
 morial, that no company of comedians, could act plays, &c. 
 without the royal license, or protection of some legal autho- 
 rity.; a theatre was, notwithstanding, erected in Good- 
 man's-Fields*, about seven years ago, where plays, without 
 any such license, were acted for some time unmolested, and 
 with impunity. After a year or two, this playhouse was 
 thought a nuisance, too near the city ; upon which the 
 Lord Mayor and Aldermen petitioned the crown to suppress 
 it : what steps were taken, in favour of that petition, I 
 know not, but common fame seemed to allow from what 
 had, or had not been done in it, that acting plays in the 
 said theatre was not evidently unlawful. However, this 
 question of acting without a license, a little time after, 
 came to a nearer decision in Westminster Hall. The occa- 
 sion of bringing it thither was this : it happened that the 
 purchasers! of the patent, to whom Mr. Booth and myself 
 
 even with the court itself, and contented themselves with the pri- 
 vilege left them, of lashing our nation as much as they pleased, in 
 the room of laughing at the expense of the minister. The license 
 of authors did not seem to be too much restrained, since the court 
 did not hinder them from saying all the ill they could of the 
 French. 
 
 " Intractable as the populace appear in this country, those who 
 know how to take hold of their foibles, may easily carry their 
 point. Thus is the liberty of the stage reduced to just bounds, 
 and yet the English pit makes no farther attempt to oppose the 
 new regulation. The law is executed without the least trouble, 
 all the plays since having been quietly heard, and either succeeded, 
 or not, according to their merit.." 
 
 * This theatre was erected in the year 1729, by a Mr. Odell, in 
 defiance of a strong opposition raised by many residents in the 
 neighbourhood. See an account of this person, and his project, in 
 the " Biographia Dramatica." 
 
 t Highmore and GifTard. 
 
272 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 had sold our shares, were at variance with the comedianSj 
 that were then left to their government, and the variance 
 ended, in the chief of those comedians deserting, and setting 
 up for themselves, in the little house in the Haymarket, in 
 1733, by which desertion the patentees were very much 
 distressed, and considerable losers. Their affairs being in 
 this desperate condition, they were advised to put the act 
 of the twelfth of Queen Ann,* against vagabonds, in force 
 against these deserters, then acting in the Haymarket with- 
 out license. Accordingly, one of their chief performersf 
 was taken from the stage, by a justice of peace's warrant, 
 and committed to Bridewell as one within the penalty of the 
 said act. VV hen the legality of this commitment was dis- 
 puted in Westminster Hall, by all I could observe from the 
 learned pleadings on both sides, (for I had the curiosity to 
 hear them) it did not appear to me that the comedian so 
 committed was within the description of the said act, he 
 being a housekeeper, and having a vote for the Westmin- 
 ster members of Parliament. He was discharged, accord- 
 ingly, and conducted through the hall, with the congratu- 
 lations of the crowds that attended, and wished well to his 
 cause. 
 
 The issue of this trial threw me, at that time, into a very 
 
 * It was ordained by this act " that all persons pretending them- 
 selves to be patent-gatherers, or collectors for prisons, gaols, or 
 hospitals, and wandering abroad for that purpose; all fencers, 
 bearwards, common players of interludes, &c. should be deemed 
 rogues and vagabonds." This act was enforced, by explanation 
 and amendment, in the year 1 737. 
 
 t This was Harper, a just and spirited comedian, who had the 
 honour to compete with Quin in Fahtaff\ and the critics agreed, 
 says Davis, " that though the latter was more judicious. Harper 
 caused more laughter." — " Life of Garrick," vol. 1. ed. 1780. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 2T3 
 
 odd reflection, viz, that if acting plays without license did 
 not make the performers vagabonds, unless they wandered 
 from their habitations so to do, how particular was the case 
 of us three late managing actors, at the theatre royal, who 
 in twenty years before had paid, upon an average, at least 
 twenty thousand pounds, to be protected, as actors, from 
 a law that has not since appeared to be against us. Now, 
 whether we might certainly have acted without any license 
 at all^ I shall not pretend to determine ; but this 1 have, of 
 my own knowledge, to say, that in Queen Ann's reign the 
 stage was in such confusion, and its affairs in such distress, 
 that Sir John Vanbrugh and Mr. Congreve,. after they had 
 held it about one year, threw up the management of it, as 
 an unprofitable post, after which a license for acting was 
 not thought worth any gentleman's asking for, and almost 
 seemed to go a-begging, till, some time after, by the care, 
 application, and industry of three actors, it became so pros- 
 perous, and the profits so considerable, that it created a 
 new place, and a sinecure of a thousand pounds a-year, 
 which the labour of those actors constantly paid to such 
 persons as had, from time to time, merit or interest enough 
 to get their names inserted as fourth managers in a license 
 with them, for acting plays, &c. ; a preferment that many 
 a Sir Francis Wronghead would have jumped at. But to 
 go on with my story. This endeavour of the patentees to 
 suppress the comedians acting in the Haymarket proving 
 ineffectual, and no hopes of a reunion then appearing, the 
 remains of the company left in Drury-lane were reduced to 
 a very low condition. At this time a third purchaser, 
 Charles Fleetwood, Esq.,* stepped in; who, judging the 
 
 * The transactions of this period are subsequent to the era 
 which Gibber means to depict, and being brought in merely for the 
 illustration of a legal principle, I shall abstain here from giving that 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 best time to buy, was when the stock was at the lowest 
 price, struck up a bargain at once^ for five parts in six of 
 the patent ; and, at the same time, gave the revolted come- 
 dians their own terms to return, and come under his govern- 
 ment in Drury-lane, where they now continue to act, at 
 very ample salaries, as I am informed in 1738. But (as I 
 have observed) the late cause of the prosecuted comedian 
 having gone so strongly in his favour, and the house in 
 Goodman's Fields, too, continuing to act with as little autho- 
 rity, unmolested ; these so tolerated companies gave encou- 
 ragement to a broken wit,* to collect a fourth company, 
 who, for some time, acted plays in the Haymarket, which 
 house the united Drury-lane comedians had lately quitted. 
 This enterprising person, I say, (whom I do not chuse to 
 name, unless it could be to his advantage, or that it were of 
 importance) had sense enough to know that the best plays, 
 with bad actors, would turn but to a very poor account, 
 and therefore found it necessary to give the public some 
 pieces of an extraordinary kind, the poetry of which, he 
 conceived, ought to be so strong, that the greatest dunce of 
 an actor could not spoil it. He knew, too, that as he was 
 in haste to get money, it would trike up less time to be in- 
 trepidly abusive, than decently entertaining ; that, to draw 
 the mob after him, he must rake the channel, and pelt their 
 superiors ; that, to show himself somebody, he must come 
 up to Juvenal's advice, and stand the consequence : 
 
 Aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris, et carcere dignum 
 Si vis esse aliquis. 
 
 Such, then, was the mettlesome modesty he set out with ; 
 
 historical notice of the stage, which may be rendered more fitly 
 in another place. 
 
 * Fielding, the novelist, who stiled his actors the " Great Mo- 
 gul's company of comedians." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEV CIBBER. 275 
 
 Upon this principle he produced several frank and free 
 farces, that seemed to knock all distinctions of mankind on 
 the head : religion, laws, governments, priests, judges, and 
 ministers, were all laid flat, at the feet of this herculean 
 satirist, this Drawcansir in wit, that spared neither friend 
 nor foe ; who, to make his poetical fame immortal, like ano- 
 ther Erostratus, set fire to his stage, by writing up to an 
 act of parliament to demolish it. I shall not give the par- 
 ticular strokes of his ingenuity a chance to be remembered, 
 by reciting them; it may be enough to say, in general 
 terms, they were so openly flagrant, that the wisdom of the 
 legislature thought it high time to take a proper notice of 
 them. 
 
 Having now shown by what means there came to be four 
 theatres, besides a fifth for operas, in London, all open at 
 the same time, and that while they were so numerous it 
 was evident some of them must have starved, unless they 
 fed upon the trash and filth of buffoonery and licentious- 
 ness ; I now come, as I promised, to speak of that neces- 
 sary law w hich has reduced their number, and prevents the 
 repetition of such abuses, in those that remain open for the 
 public recreation. 
 
 While this law was in debate, a lively spirit, and un- 
 common eloquence was employed against it.* It was 
 urged, that one of the greatest goods we can enjoy, is 
 liberty. (This we may grant to be an incontestible truth, 
 without its being the least objection to this law.) It was 
 said too, that to bring the stage under the restraint of a 
 licenser, was leading the way to an attack upon the liberty 
 
 * The eloquence alluded to was that of Lord Chesterfield, who 
 delivered a speech against this restrictive bill, which has left im- 
 mortal evidence to the intrepidity of his spirit, and the splendor 
 of his understanding. 
 
 t2 
 
276 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 of the press. This amounts but to a jealousy at best, 
 which I hope and believe all honest Englishmen have as 
 much reason to think a groundless, as to fear it is a just, jea- 
 lousy : for the stage and the press, I shall endeavour to 
 show, are very different weapons to wound with. If a 
 great man could be no more injured, by being personally 
 ridiculed, or made contemptible, in a play, than by the 
 same matter only printed, and read against him, in a pam- 
 phlet, or the strongest verse ; then indeed the stage and 
 the press might pretend to be upon an equal foot of liberty : 
 but when the wide difference between these two liberties 
 comes to be explained and considered, I dare say we shall 
 find the injuries from one, capable of being ten times more 
 severe and formidable than from the other : let us see, at 
 least, if the case will not be vastly altered. Read what 
 Mr. Collier, in his " Defence of the Short View of the 
 Stage," &c. page 25, says to this point : he sets this differ- 
 ence in a clear light. These are his words : 
 
 The satire of a comedian, and another poet have a different 
 effect upon reputation: a character of disadvantage, upon the 
 stage, makes a stronger impression than elsewhere : reading is but 
 hearing at second-hand; now hearing, at best, is a more languid 
 conveyance, than sight. For, as Horace observes, 
 
 Segnins irritant animum, demissa per aurem, 
 Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus. 
 
 The eye is much more affecting, and strikes deeper into the me- 
 itiory, than the ear : besides, upon the stage, both the senses are 
 in conjunction. The life of the actor fortifies the object, and 
 awakens the mind to take hold of it. — Thus a dramatic abuse is 
 rivetted, in the audience ; a jest is improved into argument, and 
 rallying grows up into reason : thus a character of scandal be- 
 comes almost indelible ; a man goes for a blockhead, upon con- 
 tent, and he that is made a fool in a play, is often made one 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 277 
 
 for his life. It is true, he passes for such only among the preju- 
 diced and unthinking; but these are no inconsiderable division of 
 mankind. For these reasons, I humbly conceive the stage stands 
 in need of a great deal of discipline and restraint : to give them 
 an unlimited range, is in effect to make them masters of all 
 moral distinctions, and to lay honour and religion at their mercy. 
 To show greatness ridiculous, is the way to lose the use, and abate 
 the value of the quality. Things made little in jest, will soon be 
 so in earnest; for laughing and esteem are seldom bestowed on 
 the same object. 
 
 If this was truth and reason (as sure it was) forty years 
 ago, will it not carry the same conviction with it to these 
 days, when there came to be a much stronger call for a 
 reformation of the stage than when this author wrote 
 against it, or perhaps than was ever known since the Eng- 
 lish stage had a being ? And now let us ask another ques- 
 tion. Does not the general opinion of mankind suppose 
 that the honour and reputation of a minister is, or ought 
 to be, as dear to him as his life ? Yet when the law, in 
 Queen Ann's time, had made even an unsuccessful attempt 
 upon the life of a minister capital, could any reason be 
 found that the fame and honour of his character should not 
 be under equal protection ? Was the wound that Guiscard 
 gave to the late Lord Oxford, when a minister, a greater 
 injury than the theatrical insult which was offered to a 
 later minister, in a more valuable part — his character ? 
 Was it not as high time, then, to take this dangerous 
 weapon of mimical insolence and defamation out of the 
 hands of a mad poet, as to wrest the knife from the lifted 
 hand of a murderer ? And is not that law of a milder na- 
 ture which prevents a crime, than that which punishes it, 
 after it is committed ? May not one think it amazing that 
 the liberty of defaming lawful power and dignity should 
 have been so eloquently contended for ; or, especially, 
 
 t3 
 
278 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 that this liberty ought to triumph in a theatre, where the 
 most able, the most innocent, and most upright person 
 must himself be, while the wound is given, defenceless ? 
 How long must a man so injured lie bleeding, before the 
 pain and anguish of his fame (if it suffers wrongfully) can 
 be dispelled ? Or say, he had deserved reproof and public 
 accusation, yet the weight and greatness of his office never 
 can deserve it from a public stage, where the lowest ma- 
 lice, by saiicy parallels and abusive inuendoes, may do 
 every thing but name him : but, alas, liberty is so tender, 
 so chaste a virgin, that, it seems, not to suffer her to do 
 irreparable injuries, with impunity, is a violation of her! 
 It cannot surely be a principle of liberty, that would turn 
 the stage into a Court of Inquiry, that would let the partial 
 applauses of a vulgar audience give sentence upon the 
 conduct of authority, and put impeachments into the mouth 
 of a Harlequin ? Will not every impartial man think 
 that malice, envy, faction, and misrule, might have too 
 much advantage over lawful power, if the range of such a 
 stage liberty were unlimited, and insisted on to be enrolled 
 among the glorious rights of an English subject ? 
 
 I remember much such another antient liberty, which 
 many of the good people of England were once extremely 
 fond of; 1 mean that of throwing squibs and crackers at 
 all spectators, without distinction, upon a Lord Mayor's 
 day ; but about forty yeais ago a certain nobleman hap- 
 f>ening to have one of his eyes burnt out by this mis- 
 chievous merriment, it occasioned a penal law to pre- 
 vent those sorts of jests from being laughed at for the 
 future: yet I have never heard that the most zealous 
 patriot ever thought such a law was the least restraint u[)on 
 our liberty. 
 
 If I am asked, why I am so voluntary a cliam)»ion for 
 the honour of this law that has limited the number of play- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 279 
 
 houses, and which now can no longer concern me, as a 
 professor of the stage, I reply, that it being a law so 
 nearly relating to the theatre, it seems not at all foreign to 
 my history to have taken notice of it ; and as I have farther 
 promised to give the public a true portrait of ray mind, I 
 ought feirly to let them see how far I am, or am not, a 
 blockhead, when I pretend to talk of serious matters, that 
 may be judged so far above my capacity : nor will it in the 
 least discompose me, whether my observations are con- 
 temned or applauded. A blockhead is not always an 
 unhappy fellow, and if the world will not flatter us, we 
 can flatter ourselves ; perhaps, too, it will be as difficult to 
 convince us we are in the wrong, as that you wiser gentle- 
 men are one tittle the better for your knowledge. It is yet 
 a question with me, whether we weak heads have not as 
 much pleasure, too, in giving our shallow reason a little 
 exercise, as those clearer brains have, that are allowed to 
 dive into the deepest doubts and mysteries ; to reflect, or 
 form a judgment upon remarkable things past, is as delight- 
 ful to me, as it is to the gravest politician to penetrate into 
 what is present, or to enter into speculations upon what is, 
 or is not likely to come. Why are histories written, if all 
 men are not to judge of them ? Therefore, if my reader 
 has no more to do than I have, I have a chance for his 
 being as willing to have a little more upon the same subject, 
 as I am to give it him. 
 
 When direct arguments against this bill were found too 
 weak, recourse was had to dissuasive ones : it was said, 
 that this restraint upon the stage would not remedy the 
 evil complained of: that a play refused to be licensed, 
 would still be printed, with double advantage, when it 
 should be insinuated, that it was refused, for some strokes 
 of wit, &c., and would be more likely, then, to have its 
 effect among the people. However natural this conse- 
 
 T 4 
 
280 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 quence may seem, I doubt it will be very difficult to give 
 a printed satire, or libel, half the force or credit of an 
 acted one. The most artful, or notorious lie, or strained 
 allusion, that ever slandered a great man, may be read, by 
 some people, with a smile of contempt, or, at worst, it 
 can impose but on one person, at once: but when the 
 words of the same plausible stuff shall be repeated on a 
 theatre, the wit of it among a crowd of hearers is liable to 
 be over- valued, and may unite and warm a whole body of 
 the malicious, or ignorant, into a plaudit ; nay, the partial 
 claps of only twenty ill-minded persons, among several 
 hundreds of silent hearers, shall be, and often have been, 
 mistaken for a general approbation, and frequently draw 
 into their party the indifferent, or inapprehensive, who 
 rather thau^ be thought not to understand the conceit, will 
 laugh with the laughers, and join in the triumph. But, 
 alas, the quiet reader of the same ingenious matter, can 
 only like for himself; and the poison has a much slower 
 operation upon the body of a people, when it is so retailed 
 out, than when sold to a full audience by wholesale. The 
 single reader, too, may happen to be a sensible, or unpre- 
 judiced person ; and then the merry dose meeting with the 
 antidote of a sound judgment, perhaps may have no opera- 
 tion at all : with such a one, the wit of the most ingenious 
 satire, will only by its intrinsic truth or value gain upon 
 his approbation ; or if it be worth an answer, a printed 
 falsehood may possibly be confounded by printed proofs 
 against it. But against contempt and scandal, heightened 
 and coloured by the skill of an actor, ludicrously infusing 
 it into a multitude, there is 1:0 immediate defence to be 
 made, or equal reparation to be had for it ; for it would be 
 but a poor satisfaction, at last, after lying long patient 
 under the injury, that time only is to show (which would 
 probably be the case) that the author of it was a desiK^rate 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 281 
 
 indigent, that did it for bread. How much less dangerous 
 or offensive, then, is the written than the acted scandal. 
 The impression the comedian gives to it is a kind of double 
 stamp upon the poet's paper, that raises it to ten times the 
 intrinsic value. Might we not strengthen this argument, 
 too, even by the eloquence that seemed to have opposed 
 this law ? I will say for myself, at least, that when I came 
 to read the printed arguments against it, I could scarcely be- 
 lieve they were the same, that had amazed, and raised 
 such admiration in me, when they had the advantage of 
 a lively elocution, and of that grace and spirit which gave 
 strength and lustre to them, in the delivery. 
 
 Upon the whole, if the stage ought ever to have been re- 
 formed ; if to place a power somewhere of restraining its 
 immoralities, was not inconsistent with the liberties of a ci- 
 vilised people, (neither of which, surely, any moral roan of 
 sense can dispute) might it not have shown a spirit too 
 poorly prejudiced, to have rejected so rational a law, only 
 because the honour and office of a minister might happen, 
 in some small measure, to be protected by it ? 
 
 But however little weight there may be in the observa- 
 tions I have made upon it, I shall for my own part -always 
 think them just ; unless 1 should live to see, (which I do not 
 expect) some future set of upright ministers use their ut- 
 most endeavours to repeal it. 
 
 And now we have seen the consequence of what many 
 people are apt to contend for, variety of playhouses, how 
 was it possible so many could honestly subsist, on what 
 was fit to be seen ? Their extraordinary number, of course, 
 reduced them to live upon the gratification of such hearers 
 as they knew would be best pleased with public offence ; 
 4ind public offence, of what kind soever, will always be a 
 good reason for making laws to restrain it. 
 
 To conclude, let us now consider this law in a quite dif- 
 
2S^ ' AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 fcrent light ; let us leave the political part of it quite out of 
 the question : what advantage could either the spectators of 
 plays, or the masters of playhouses have gained, by its hav- 
 ing never been made ? How could the same stock of plays 
 supply four theatres, which (without such additional en- 
 tertainments as a nation of common sense ought to be 
 ashamed of) could not well support two ? Satiety must have 
 been the natural consequence of the same plays being twice 
 as often repeated as now they need be ; and satiety puts an 
 end to all tastes that the mind of man can delight in. Had, 
 therefore, this law been made seven years ago, I should 
 not have parted with my share in the patent under a thou- 
 sand pounds more, than I received for it ; so that, as far as 
 i am able to judge, both the public, as spectators, and the 
 patentees, as undertakers, are, or might be, in a way of 
 being better entertained, and more considerable gainers 
 by it. 
 
 I now return to the state of the stage, where I left it, 
 about the year 1697, from whence this pursuit of its immo- 
 ralities has led me farther than I first designed to have fol- 
 lowed it. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 283 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 A small apology for writing on. — The different state of the two 
 companies. — Wilks invited over from Dublin. — Estcourt front 
 the same stage, the winter following . — Mrs. Oldfield' s first ad- 
 mission to the Theatre Royal. — Her character. — The great theatre 
 in the Haymarket built, for Betterton's company. — It answers 
 not their expectation. — Some observations upon it. — A theatri' 
 cat state secret. 
 
 I NOW begin to doubt that the gaiete du cceur in which 
 I first undertook this work, may have drawn me into a 
 more laborious amusement than I shall know how to away 
 with :* for though I cannot say I have yet jaded my va- 
 nity, it is not impossible but, by this time, the most candid 
 of my readers may want a little breath ; especially when 
 they consider that all this load I have heaped upon their 
 patience, contains but seven years of the forty-three I passed 
 upon the stage ; the history of which period I have enjoined 
 myself to transmit to the judgment (or oblivion) of poste- 
 rity. However, even my dulness will find somebody to do 
 it right. If my reader is an ill-natured one, he will be as 
 much plc:5sed to find me a dunce in my old age, as possibly 
 he may have been to prove me a brisk blockhead in my 
 
 * To away with."] This expression is scriptural. It occurs in 
 the book of " Isaiah," and having been adopted by Shakspeare, 
 has occasioned some very ignorant surprise among his commen- 
 tators. 
 
284 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 youth : but if he has no gall to gratify, and would (for his 
 simple amusement) as well know how the playhouses went 
 on forty years ago, as how they do now, I will honestly tell 
 him the rest of my story as well as I can. Lest therefore 
 the frequent digressions that have broken in upon it may 
 have entangled his memory, I must beg leave just to throw 
 together the heads of what 1 have already given him, that 
 he may again recover the clue of my discourse. 
 
 Let him, then, remember, from the year 1662 to 1682,* 
 the various fortune of the (then) King's and Duke's two 
 famous Companies ; their being reduced to one united ; the 
 distinct characters I have given of thirteen actors, which, 
 in the year 1690 were the most famous, then, remaining of 
 them ; the cause of their being again divided in 1693, and 
 the consequences of that division, till 1697 ; from whence I 
 
 shall lead them to our second union in hold ! let me see 
 
 ay, it was in that memorable year, when the two king- 
 doms of England and Scotland were made one. And I re- 
 member a particular that confirms me I am right in my 
 chronology ; for the play of " Hamlet" being acted soon 
 after, Estcourt, who then took upon him to say any thing, 
 added a fourth line to Shakspeare's prologue to the play, in 
 that play, which originally consisted but of three ; but Est- 
 court made it run thus : 
 
 For us, and for our tragedy, ii i^'.'*:: 
 
 Thus stooping to your clemency, 
 [This being a year of unity,] 
 We beg your hearing patiently. 
 
 * From 1662 to 1682.] Gibber says, "from 1660 to 1684," 
 but as the " King's and Duke's" two famous companies, were not 
 embodied till the spring of 1662, and united in November, 1682, 
 1 have corrected his erroneous dates. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. ^^85 
 
 This new chronological line coming unexpectedly upon the 
 audience, was received with applause, though several grave 
 faces looked a little out of humour at it. However, by this 
 fact, it is plain, our theatrical union happened in 1707. 
 But to speak of it, in its place, I must go a little back again. 
 From 1697, to this union, both companies went on, 
 without any memorable change in their affairs, unless it 
 were that Betterton's people (however good in their kind) 
 were most of them too far advanced in years to mend ; and 
 though we, in Drury-lane, were too young to be excellent, 
 we were not too old to be better. But what will not satiety 
 depreciate ? For though I must own and avow, that, in our 
 highest prosperity, I always thought we were greatly their 
 inferiors ; yet, by our good fortune of being seen in quite 
 new lights, which several new-written plays had shown us 
 in, we now began to make a considerable stand against them. 
 One good new play, to a rising company, is of inconceivable 
 value. In " Oroonoko," and (why may 1 not name ano- 
 ther, though it be my own ?) in "Love's Last Shift," and 
 in the sequel of it, the " Relapse," several of our people 
 showed themselves in a new style of acting, in which na- 
 ture had not as yet been seen. I cannot here forget a mis- 
 fortune that befel our society, about this time, by4he loss 
 of a young actor, Hildebrand Horden,* who was killed at 
 the bar of the Rose tavern, in a frivolous, rash, accidental 
 quarrel ; for which a late resident at Venice, Colonel Bur- 
 gess, and several other persons of distinction, took their 
 trials, and were acquitted. This young man had almost 
 every natural gift that could promise an excellent actor ; he 
 had, besides, a good deal of table wit and humour, with a 
 handsome person, and was every day rising into public fa- 
 
 * Horden was a respectable scholar, and complimented Powel, 
 in a Latin encomium, on his " Treacherous Brothers." 
 
286 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 vour. Before he was buried, it was observable that, (wo or 
 three days tog<*ther, several of the fair sex, well dressed, 
 cjime in masks, (then frequently worn) and some in their 
 own coaches, to visit this theatrical hero, in his shrowd. 
 He was the elder son of Dr. Horden, minister of Twick- 
 enham, in Middlesex. But this misfortune was soon re- 
 paired, by the return of Wilks, from Dublin, (who upon 
 this young man's death, was sent for over) and lived long 
 enough among us to enjoy that approbation from which the 
 other was so nnhappily cut off. The winter following, Est- 
 court, the famous mimic, of whom I have already spoken, 
 had the same invitation from Ireland, where he had com- 
 menced actor. His first part here, at the Theatre Royal, 
 was the Spanish Friar, in which, though he had remem- 
 bered every look and motion of the late Tony Leigh, so far 
 as to put the spectator very much in mind of him, yet it was 
 visible through the whole, notwithstanding his exactness in 
 the outlines, the true spirit, that was to fill up the figure, 
 was not the same, but unskilfully daubed on, like a child's 
 painting upon the face of a mezzo- tinto : it was too plain to 
 the judicious, that the conception was not his own, but im- 
 printed in his memory by another, of whom he only pre- 
 sented a dead likeness. But these were defects not so ob- 
 vious to common spectators ; no wonder, therefore, if by 
 his being much sought after in private companies,* he m^ 
 with a sort of indulgence, not to say partiality, for what he 
 Sometimes did upon the stage. 
 
 In the year 1699, Mrs. Oldfield was first taken into the 
 house, where she remained about a twelvemonth almost a 
 mute, and unheeded, till Sir John Vanbrugh, who first re- 
 
 * Sought after in private companies.'] Estcourt is said in the 
 " Spectator," to be " wholly employed in the a^eeable service of 
 wit and wine." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER 287 
 
 commended her, gave her the part of Alinda, in the " Pil- 
 grim" revised. This gentle character happily became that 
 want of confidence which is inseparable from young begin- 
 ners, who, without it, seldom arrive to any excellence: 
 notwithstanding, I own I was then so far deceived in my 
 opinion of her, that I thought she had little more than her 
 person, that appeared necessary to the forming a good ac- 
 tress ; for she set out with so extraordinary a diffidence that 
 it kept her too despondingly down, to a formal, plain, (not 
 to say) flat manner of speaking. Nor could the silver tone 
 of her voice, till after some time, incline my ear to any hope 
 in her favour. But public approbation is the warm weather 
 of a theatrical plant, which will soon bring it forward, to 
 whatever perfection nature has designed it. However, Mrs. 
 Oldfield (perhaps for want of fresh parts) seemed to come 
 but slowly forward, till the year 1703. Our company, that 
 summer, acted at Bath, during the residence of Queen Ann 
 at that place. At that time it happened, that Mrs. Ver- 
 bruggen, by reason of her last sickness, (of which she some 
 few months after died) was left in London ; and though 
 most of her parts were of course, to be disposed of, yet so 
 earnest was the female scramble for them, that only one of 
 them fell to the share of Mrs. Oldfield — that of Leonora, in 
 '' Sir Courtly Nice ;" a character of good plain sense, but 
 not over elegantly written. It was in this part Mrs. Old- 
 field surprised me into an opinion of her having all the in- 
 nate powers of a good actress, though they were yet but in 
 the bloom of what they promised. Before she had acted 
 this part, I had so cold an expectation from her abilities, 
 that she could scarcely prevail with me to rehearse with her 
 the scenes she was chiefly concerned in with Sir Courtly 
 which I then acted. However, we ran them over, with a 
 mutual inadvertency of one another. I seemed careless, as 
 concluding that any assistance I could give her, would be to 
 
288 AN APOLOGY FOxl THE 
 
 little, or no purpose ; and she muttered out her words in a 
 sort ofmiftj manner, at my low opinion of her. But when 
 the play came to be acted, she had a just occasion to triumph 
 over the error of my judgment, by the (almost) amazement 
 that her unexpected performance awaked me to ; so for- 
 ward and sudden a step into nature I had never seen ; and 
 what made her performance more valuable was, that I knew 
 it all proceeded from her own understanding, untaught 
 and unassisted by any one more experienced actor. Per- 
 haps it may not be unacceptable, if I enlarge a little more 
 upon the theatrical character of so memorable an actress. 
 
 Though this part o^ Leonora, in itself, was of so little va- 
 lue, that when she got more into esteem it was one of the 
 several she gave away to inferior actresses, yet it was the 
 first (as I have observed) that corrected my judgment of 
 her, and confirmed me in a strong belief, that she could not 
 fail, in very little time, of being what she was afterwards 
 allowed to be, the foremost ornament of our theatre. Upon 
 this unexpected sally, then, of the power and disposition of 
 so unforeseen an actress, it was that I again took up the two 
 first acts of the " Careless Husband," which I had written 
 the summer before, and had thrown aside, in despair of 
 having justice done to the character of Zrflrfy Betti/ Mod- 
 ish) by any one woman then among us ; Mrs. Verbruggen 
 being now in a very declining state of health, and Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle out of my reach, and engaged in another com- 
 pany : but, as I have said, Mrs. Oldfield having thrown 
 out such new proffers of a genius, I was no longer at a loss 
 for support ; my doubts were dispelled, and I had now a new 
 call to finish it. Accordingly, the " Careless Husband" 
 took its fate upon the stage, the winter following, in 1704. 
 Whatever favourable reception this comedy has met with 
 from the public, it would be unjust in me not to place a 
 large share of it to the account of Mrs. Oldfield ; not only 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 289 
 
 from the uncommon excellence of her action, but even from 
 her personal manner of conversing. There are many sen- 
 timents in the character of hady Betty Modish^ that I may 
 almost say, were originally her own, or only dressed with a 
 little more care than when they negligently fell from her 
 lively humour : had her birth placed her in a higher rank 
 of life, she had certainly appeared in reality, what in this 
 play she only excellently acted, an agreeable gay woman of 
 quality, a little too conscious of her natural attractions. I 
 have often seen her, in private societies, where women of 
 the best rank might have borrowed some part of her be- 
 haviour, without the least diminution of their sense or dig- 
 nity. And this very morning, where I am now writing at 
 Bath, November the 1 1 th, 1738, the same words were said 
 of her by a lady of condition, whose better judgment of her 
 personal merit, in that light, has emboldened me to repeat 
 them. After her success in this character of higher life, all 
 that nature had given her of the actress seemed to have 
 risen to its full perfection : but the variety of her power 
 could not be known, till she was seen in a variety of charac- 
 ters ; which, as fast as they fell to her, she equally excelled 
 in. Authors had much more from her performance than 
 they had reason to hope for from what they had written for 
 her ; and none had less than another, but as their genius 
 in the parts they allotted her was more or less elevated. 
 
 In the wearing of her person she was particularly fortu- 
 nate ; her figure was always improving to her thirty-sixth 
 year ; but her excellence in acting was never at a stand ; and 
 the last new character she shone in, Lady Townly^ was a 
 proof that she was still able to do more, if more could have 
 been done for her. She had one mark of good sense, rarely 
 known in any actor of either sex but herself. I have ob- 
 served several with promising dispositions, very desirous of 
 instruction at their first setting out -, but no sooner had they 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 found their least account in it, than they were as desirous of 
 being left to their own capacity, which they then thought 
 would be disgraced by their seeming to want any farther 
 assistance. But this was not Mrs. Oldfield's way of think- 
 uig ; for, to the last year of her life, she never undertook 
 any part she liked, without being importunately desirous of 
 having all the helps in it, that another could possibly give 
 her. By knowing so much herself, she found how much 
 more there was of nature yet needful to be known. Yet it 
 was a hard matter to give her any hint that she was not able 
 to take or improve. With all this merit, she was tractable, 
 and less presuming in her station, than several that had not 
 half her pretensions to be troublesome : but she lost nothing 
 by her easy conduct ; she had every thing she asked for, 
 which she took care should be always reasonable, because 
 she hated as much to be grudged, as denied a civility. 
 Upon her extraordinary action in the " Provoked Hus- 
 band," the managers made her a present of fifty guineas 
 more than her agreement, which never was more than a 
 verbal one ; for they knew she was above deserting them, 
 to engage upon any other stage, and she was conscious 
 they would never think it their interest to give her cause of 
 complaint. In the last two months of her illness, when she 
 was no longer able to assist them she declined receiving her 
 salary, though, by her agreement, she was intitled to it. 
 Upon the whole she was, to the last scene she acted, the 
 delight of her spectators : why then may we not close her 
 character with the same indulgence, with which Horace 
 speaks of a commendable poem ? 
 
 Ubi plura nitent — non ego paucis 
 
 Offender maculis 
 
 Where, in the whole, such various beauties shinej 
 'Twere idle upon errors to refine. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 291 
 
 What more might be said of her as an actress, may be 
 found in the preface to the " Provoked Husband," to which 
 I refer the reader. 
 
 With the acquisition, then, of so advanced a comedian, 
 as Mrs. Oldfield, and the addition of one so much in favour 
 as Wilks, and by the visible improvement of our other 
 actors, as Pinkethman, Johnson, Bullock, and I think 1 may 
 venture to name myself in the number (but in what rank, I 
 leave to the judgment of those who have been my specta- 
 tors) the reputation of our company began to get ground ; 
 Mrs. Oldfield, and Mr. Wilks, by their frequently playing 
 against one another in our best comedies, very happily sup- 
 ported that humour and vivacity which is so peculiar to 
 our English stage. The French, our only modern compe- 
 titors, seldom give us their lovers in such various lights : 
 in their comedies, however lively a people they are by na- 
 ture, their lovers are generally constant simple sighers, both 
 of a mind, and equally distressed about the difficulties of 
 their coming together ; which naturally makes their con- 
 versation so serious, that they are seldom good company to 
 their auditors : and though I allow them many other 
 beauties of which we are too negligent, yet our variety of 
 humour has excellencies that all their valuable observance 
 of rules has never yet attained to. By these advantages, 
 then, we began to have an equal share of the politer sort of 
 spectators, who for several years could not allow our com- 
 pany to stand in any comparison with the other. But thea- 
 trical favour, like public commerce, will sometimes deceive 
 the best judgments, by an unaccountable change of its chan- 
 nel ; the best commodities are not always known to meet 
 with the best markets. To this decline of the old company 
 many accidents might contribute ; as the too distant situa- 
 tion of their theatre ; or their want of a better, for it was 
 not then in the condition it now is ; but small, and poorly 
 
 u 2 
 
292 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 fitted up, within the walls of a Tennis quaree Court, which 
 is of the lesser sort. Booth, who was then a young actor 
 among them, has often told me of the difficulties Betterton 
 then laboured under, and complained of; how impractica- 
 ble he found it, to keep their body to that common order 
 which was necessary for their support ; of their relying too 
 much upon their intrinsic merit ; and though but few of 
 them were young, even when they first became their own 
 masters, yet they were all now ten years older, and conse- 
 quently more liable to fall into an inactive negligence, or 
 were only separately diligent, for themselves, in the sole 
 regard of their benefit plays ; which several of their prin- 
 cipals knew at worst, would raise them contributions that 
 would more than tolerably subsist them for the current year. 
 But as these were too precarious expedients to be always 
 depended upon, and brought in nothing to the general sup- 
 port of the numbers who were at salaries under them, they 
 were reduced to have recourse to foreign novelties; 
 L'Abb^e, Balon, and Mademoiselle Subligny, three of the, 
 then, most famous dancers of the French opera, were, at 
 several times, brought over at extraordinary rates, to revive 
 that sickly appetite which plain sense and nature had sa- 
 tiated. But, alas, there was no recovering to a sound con- 
 stitution by those mere costly cordials ; the novelty of a 
 dance was but of a short duration, and perhaps hurtful in 
 its consequence ; for it made a play without a dance less 
 endured, than it had been before, when such dancing was 
 not to be had. But, perhaps, their exhibiting these no- 
 velties might be owing to the success we had met with in 
 our more barbarous introducing of French mimics and 
 tumblers the year before ; of which Mr. Rowe thus com- 
 plains, in his prologue to one of his first plays : 
 
 Must Shakspeare, Fletcher, and laborious Ben, 
 Be left for Scaramouch and Harlequin ? 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEV GIBBER. 293 
 
 While the crowd, therefore, so fluctuated from one house 
 to another, as their eyes were more or less regaled than their 
 ears, it could not be a question much in debate, which had 
 the better actors ; the merit of either seemed to be of little 
 moment ; and the complaint in the foregoing lines^ though 
 it might be just for a time, could not be a just one for ever ; 
 because the best play that ever was written, may tire by 
 being too often repeated, a misfortune naturally attending 
 the obligation to play every day ; not that, whenever such 
 satiety commences, it will be any proof of the play's being a 
 bad one, or of its being ill acted. In a word, satiety is sel- 
 dom enough considered, by either critics, spectators, or 
 actors, as the true, not to say just, cause of declining au- 
 diences to the most rational entertainments : and though I 
 cannot say I ever saw a good new play not attended with 
 due encouragement, yet to keep^a theatre daily open, w ith- 
 out sometimes giving the public a bad old one, is more than, 
 I doubt, the wit of human writers, or excellence of actors, 
 will ever be able to accomplish. And, as both authors and 
 comedians may have often succeeded, where a sound judg- 
 ment would have condemned them, it might puzzle the 
 nicest critic living, to prove in what sort of excellence the 
 true value of either consisted : for if their merit were to be 
 measured by the full houses they may have brought ; if the 
 judgment of the crowd were infallible, I am afraid we shall 
 be reduced to allow, that the " Beggar's Opera" was the 
 best- written play, and Sir Harry fVildair, as Wilks 
 played it, was the best acted part, that ever our English 
 theatre had to boast of. That critic, indeed, must be rigid 
 to a folly, that would deny either of them their due praise, 
 when they severally drew such numbers after them; all 
 their hearers could not be mistaken ; and yet, if they were 
 all in the right, what sort of fame will remain to those 
 celebrated authors and actors, that had so long and 
 
 u 3 
 
* AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 deservedly been admired, before these were in being ? Tlie 
 only distinction I shall make between them is, that to write 
 or act like the authors or actors of the latter end of the last 
 century, I am of opinion,will be found a far better pretence to 
 success, than to imitate these who have been so crowded to 
 in the beginning of this. All I would infer from this ex- 
 planation is, that though we had then the better audiences, 
 and might have more of the young world on our side, yet 
 this was no sure proof that the other company were not, in 
 the truth of action, greatly our superiors. These elder 
 actors then, besides the disadvantages I have mentioned, 
 having only the fewer true judges to admire them, naturally 
 wanted the support of the crowd, whose taste was to be 
 pleased at a cheaper rate, and with coarser fare. To reco- 
 ver them, therefore, to their due estimation, a new project 
 was formed, of building them a stately theatre in the Hay- 
 market, by Sir John Vanbrughj for which he raised a sub- 
 scription of thirty persons of quality, at one hundred pounds 
 each, in consideration whereof every subscriber, for his own 
 life, was to be admitted to whatever entertainments should 
 be publicly performed there, without farther payment for 
 his entrance. Of this theatre I saw the first stone laid, on 
 which was inscribed 
 
 THE 
 
 LITTLE 
 WHIG, 
 in honour to a lady of extraordinary beauty, then the cele- 
 brated toast and pride of that party. 
 
 In the year 1706, when this house was finished. Better- 
 ton and his co-partners dissolved their own agreement, and 
 threw themselves under the direction of Sir John Van- 
 brugh and Mr. Congreve ; imagining, perhaps, that the 
 conduct of two such eminent authors might give a more 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 295 
 
 prosperous turn to their condition : that the plays it would 
 now be their interest to write for them, would soon recover 
 the town to a true taste, and be an advantage that no other 
 company could hope for; that, in the interim till such 
 plays could be written, the grandeur of their house, as it 
 was a new spectacle, might allure the crowd to support 
 them : but if these were their views, we shall see that their 
 dependence u}X)n them was too sanguine. As to their 
 prospect of new plays, I doubt it was not enough consider- 
 ed, that good ones were plants of a slow growth ; and 
 though Sir John Vanbrugh had a very quick pen, yet Mr. 
 Congreve was too judicious a writer, to let any thing come 
 hastily out of his hands : as to their other dependence, 
 the house, they had not yet discovered that almost every 
 proper quality and convenience of a good theatre had been 
 sacrificed or neglected, to show the spectator a vast, tri- 
 umphal piece of architecture ; and that the best play, for 
 the reasons I am going to offer, could not but be under 
 great disadvantages, and be less capable of delighting the 
 auditor there, than it could have been in the plain theatre 
 they came from. For what could their vast columns, their 
 gilded cornices, their immoderate high roofs avail, when 
 scarce one word in ten could be distinctly heard in it? . 
 Nor had it, then, the form it now stands in, which neces- 
 sity, two or three years after, reduced it to. At the first 
 opening it, the flat ceiling, that is now over the orchestra, 
 was then a semi-oval arch, that sprung fifteen feet higher 
 from above the cornice : the ceiling over the pit, too, was 
 still more raised, being one level line from the highest 
 back part of the upper gallery, to the front of the stage : 
 the front- boxes were a continued semi -circle, to the bare 
 walls of the house on each side : this extraordinary, and 
 superfluous space occasioned such an undulation from the 
 voice of every actor, that, generally, what they said souiid- 
 
 u 4 
 
^^^ • AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 ed like the gabbling of so many people in the lofty aisles 
 in a catliedral. The tone of a trumpet, or the swell of an 
 eunuch's holding note, it is true, might be sweetened by 
 it ; but the articulate sounds of a speaking voice were 
 drowned by the hollow reverberations of one word upon 
 another. To this inconvenience, why may we not add that 
 of its situation ; for at that time it had not the advantage of 
 almost a large city, which has since been built, in its neigh- 
 bourhood ? Those costly spaces of Hanover, Grosvenor, 
 and Cavendish Squares_, with the many and great adjacent 
 streets about them, were then all but so many green fields 
 of pasture, from whence they could draw little or no suste- 
 nance, unless it were that of a milk diet. The city, the 
 inns of court, and the middle part of the town, which were 
 the most constant support of a theatre, and chiefly to be 
 relied on, were now too far out of the reach of an easy 
 walk ; and coach-hire is often too hard a tax upon the pit 
 and gallery. But from the vast increase of the buildings 
 I have mentioned, the situation of that theatre has since 
 that time received considerable advantages; a new world 
 of people of condition are nearer to it than formerly, and 
 I am of opinion, that if the auditory part were a little more 
 reduced to the model of that in Drury-lane, an excellent 
 company of actors would, now, find a better account in 
 it, than in any other house in this populous city. Let me 
 not be mistaken. I say, an excellent company, and such 
 as might be able to do justice to the best of plays, and throw 
 out those latent beauties in them, which only excellent 
 actors can discover and give life to. If such a company 
 were now there, they would meet with a quite different set 
 of auditors than other theatres have lately been used to : 
 polite hearers would be content with polite entertainments ; 
 and I remember the time when plays, without the aid of 
 farce or pantomime, were as decently attended as operas, 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 297 
 
 or private assemblies ; where a noisy sloven would have 
 l>assed his time as uneasily, in a front-box, as in a drawing- 
 room ; when a hat upon a man's head there would have 
 been looked upon as a sure mark of a brute or a booby : but 
 of all this I have seen, too^ the reverse, where in the pre- 
 sence of ladies, at a play, common civility has been set at 
 defiance, and the privilege of being a rude clown, even to 
 a nuisance, has, in a manner, been demanded as one of 
 the rights of English liberty. Now, though I grant that 
 liberty is so precious a jewel that we ought not to suffer 
 the least ray of its lustre to be diminished, yet methinks 
 the liberty of seeing a play in quiet, has as laudable a claim 
 to protection, as the privilege of not suffering you to do it, 
 has to impunity. But since we are so happy as not to 
 have a certain power among us, which, in another country, 
 is called the police^ let us rather bear this insult, than buy 
 its remedy at too dear a rate; and let it be the punish- 
 ment of such wrong-headed savages, that they never will 
 nor can know the true value of that liberty which they so 
 stupidly abuse : such vulgar minds possess their liberty, as 
 profligate husbands do fine wives, only to disgrace them. 
 In a word, when liberty boils over, such is the scum of it. 
 But to our new erected theatre. 
 
 Not long before this time, the Italian opera began first 
 to steal into England ; but in as rude a disguise, and as 
 unlike itself as possible ; in a lame, hobbling translation 
 into our own language, with false quantities, or metre out 
 of measure, to its original notes, sung by our own unskilful 
 voices, with graces misapplied to almost every sentiment, 
 and with action lifeless and unmeaning, through every cha- 
 racter. The first Italian performer that made any distin- 
 guished figure in it, was Valentin!, a true sensible singer, 
 at that time, but of a throat too weak to sustain those melo- 
 dious warblings, for which the fairer sex have since ido- 
 
298 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 lised his successors. However, this defect was so well 
 supplied by his action, that his hearers bore with the absur- 
 dity of his singing his first part of Turnus^ in ^' Camilla," 
 all in Italian, while every other character was sung and 
 recited to him in English. This I have mentioned, to 
 show not only our tramontane taste, but that the crowded 
 audiences which followed it to Drury-lane, might be 
 another occasion of their growing thinner in Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields. 
 
 To strike in, therefore, with this prevailing novelty, Sir 
 John Vanbrugh and Mr. Congreve opened their new Hay- 
 market theatre, with a translated opera, to Italian music, 
 called the '^ Triumph of Love," but this not having in it 
 the charms of ^' Camilla," either from the inequality of the 
 music or voices, had but a cold reception, being performed 
 but three days^ and those not crowded. Immediately, 
 upon the failure of this opera, Sir John Vanbrugh pro- 
 duced his comedy called the " Confederacy," taken (but 
 greatly improved) from the " Bourgeois a la Mode" of 
 Dancour. Though the fate of this play was something 
 better, yet I thought it was not equal to its merit, for it is 
 written with an uncommon vein of wit and humour ; which 
 confirms me in my former observation, that the difficulty of 
 hearing distinctly in that, then, wide theatre, was no small 
 impediment to the applause that might have followed the 
 same actors in it, upon every other stage ; and, indeed, 
 every play acted there, before the house was altered, seemed 
 to suffi3r from the same inconvenience. In a word, the 
 prospect of profits from this theatre was so very barren, 
 that Mr. Congreve, in a few months, gave up his share and 
 interest in the government of it wholly to Sir John Van- 
 brugh. But Sir John being sole proprietor of the house, 
 was, at all events, obliged to do his utmost to support it. 
 As he had a happier talent of throwing the English spirit 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 299 
 
 into his translation of French plays than any former author 
 who had borrowed from them, he, in the same season, gave 
 the public tliree more of that kind, called the '' Cuckold in 
 Conceit," from the" Cocu Imaginaire" ofMoliere ; " Squire 
 Trelooby," from his " Monsieur de Pourceaugnac," and 
 the " Mistake,*' from the " Depit Amoureux" of the same 
 author Yet all these, however well executed, came to 
 the ear in the same undistinguished utterance, by which 
 ahiiost all their plays had equally suffered : for what few 
 could plainly hear, it was not likely a great many could 
 applaud. 
 
 It must farther be considered, too, that this company 
 were not now what they had been, when they first revolted 
 from the patentees in Drury^lane, and became their own 
 masters in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Several of them, excellent 
 in their different talents, were now dead ; as Smith, Ky- 
 naston, Sandford, and Leigh : Mrs. Betterton, and Under- 
 bill being at this time also superannuated pensioners, whose 
 [)laces were generally but ill supplied: nor could it be 
 expected that Betterton himself, at past seventy, could 
 retain his former force and spirit, though he was yet far 
 distant from any competitor. Thus, then, were these 
 remains of the best set of actors that, I believe, were ever 
 known, at once, in England, by time, death, and the satiety 
 of their hearers, mouldering to decay. 
 
 It was now the town-talk that nothing but a union of 
 the two companies could recover the stage to its former 
 reputation ; which opinion was certainly true. One would 
 have thought, too, that the patentee of Drury-lane could 
 not have failed to close with it, he being, then, on the 
 prosperous side of the question, having no relief to ask for 
 himself, and little more to do in the matter, than to consider 
 what he might safely grant. But it seems this was. not his 
 way of counting ; he had other persons who had great 
 
SOO AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 claims to shares in the profits of this stage, which profits, 
 by a union, he foresaw would be too visible to be doubted 
 of, and might raise up a new spirit in those adventurers, 
 to revive their suits at law with him ; for he had led them 
 a chase in Chancery several years, and when they had 
 driven him into a contempt of that court, he conjured lip 
 a spirit in the shape of six and eight pence a-day, that 
 constantly struck the tipstaff blind whenever he came near 
 him. He knew the intrinsic value of delay, and was re- 
 solved to stick to it, as the surest way to give the plaintiffs 
 enough of it. And by this expedient our good master had 
 long walked about, at his leisure, cool and contented as a 
 fox, when the hounds were drawn off, and gone home from 
 him. But whether I am right or not in my conjectures, 
 certain it is, that this close master of Drury-lane had no 
 inclination to a union, as will appear by the sequel. 
 
 ^ir John Vanbrugh knew, too, that to make a union 
 worth his while, he must not seem too hasty for it ; he 
 therefore found himself under a necessity, in the mean time, 
 of letting his whole theatrical farm to some industrious te- 
 nant, that might put it into better condition. Thi^ is that 
 crisis, as I observed in the eighth chapter, when the royal 
 license for acting plays, &c. was judged of so little value, 
 as not to have one suitor for it. At this time, then, the 
 master of Drury-lane happened to have a sort of premier 
 agent in his stage affairs, that seemed in appearance as 
 much to govern the master, as the master himself did to 
 govern his actors : but this person was under no stipula- 
 tion, or salary, for the service he rendered ; but had gra- 
 dually wroiight himself into the master's extraordinary 
 confidence and trust, from an habitual intimacy, a cheerful 
 humour, and an indefatigable zeal for his interest. If I 
 should farther say, that this person has been well known 
 in almost every metropolis in Europe ; that few private 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 301 
 
 men have, with so little reproach, run through more 
 various turns of fortune ; that, on the wrong side of three 
 score, he has yet the open spirit of a hale young fellow of 
 five and twenty ; that though he still chuses to speak what 
 he thinks, to his best friends, with an undisguised freedom, 
 he is, notwithstanding, acceptable to many persons of the 
 first rank and condition ; that any one of them (provided 
 he likes them) may now send him for their service to Con- 
 stantinople, at half a day's warning ; that time has not yet 
 been able to make a visible change in any part of him, 
 but the colour of his hair, from a fierce coal-black, to that 
 of a milder milk-white. When I have taken this liberty 
 with him, methinks it cannot be taking a much greater, if 
 I at once should tell you, that this person was Mr. Owen 
 Swiny,* and that it was to him Sir John Vanbrugh, in this 
 
 * Mr. Swiny, or M'Swiny, on his return from Italy, procured a 
 place in the custom-house, and was also made keeper of the king's 
 mews. He died on the 2d of October, 1754, and having long 
 been an admirer of Mrs. Woffington, bequeathed her the whole of 
 his property. 
 
 Swiny is the " old man," of whom Davies, in his " Dramatic 
 Miscellanies," relates the following anecdote : 
 
 " Small matters, they say, often serve as preludes to mighty 
 quarrels. In the year 1754, the play of" Henry the Fourth" was 
 acted at the theatre in Drury-Iane. Barry was the Hotspur; a 
 very beautiful and accomplished actress condescended, in order 
 to give strength to the play, to act the trifling character of LMdy 
 Percy; Berry was the Falstaff. The house was far from crowded; 
 for the public could no more bear to see another Falstaff, while 
 Quin was on the stage, than they would now flock to see a new 
 Shylock, as long as Macklin continues to have strength fit to repre- 
 sent ' the Jew which Shakspeare drew.' 
 
 '* A very celebrated comic actress triumphed in the barren- 
 ness of the pit and boxes; she threw out some expressions 
 
30g 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 exigence of his theatrical affairs, made an oifer of his ac- 
 tors, under such agreements of salary as might be made 
 with them ; and of his house, clothes, and scenes, with the 
 queen's license to employ them, upon payment of only the 
 casual rent of five pounds, upon every acting day, and not 
 to exceed seven hundred pounds in the year. Of this pro- 
 posal Mr. Swiny desired a day or two to consider ; for, 
 however he might like it, he would not meddle in any sort, 
 without the consent and approbation of his friend and 
 patron, the master of Drury-lane. Having given the rea- 
 sons why this patentee was averse to a union, it- may now 
 seem less a wonder, why he immediately consented that 
 Swiny should take the Haymarket house, &c. and continue 
 that company to act against him ; but the real truth was, 
 that he had a mind both companies should be clandestinely 
 
 against the consequence of the Lady Percy. This produced a 
 very cool, but cutting, answer from the other; who reminded 
 the former of her playing, very lately, to a much thinner audience, 
 one of her favourite parts. And now, the ladies, not being able 
 to restrain themselves within the bounds of cool conversation, a 
 most terrible fray ensued. I do not believe that they went so far 
 as pulling of caps, but their altercation would not have disgraced 
 the females of Billingsgate. While the two great actresses were 
 thus entertaining each other in one part of the green-room, the 
 admirer of Lady Percy, an old gentleman who afterwards be- 
 queathed her a considerable fortune, and the brother of the comic 
 lady, were more seriously employed. The cicisbeo struck the 
 other with his cane ; thus provoked, he very calmly laid hold of 
 the old man's jaw. * Let go my jaw, you villain !' and * Throw 
 down your cane, sir!' were repeatedly echoed by the combatants. 
 Barry, who was afraid lest the audience should hear full as much 
 of the quarrel as of the play, rushed into the green-room, and 
 put an end to the battle. The printsellers laid hold of this dispute, 
 and published a print called ' The Green-room Scuffle.' " 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 303 
 
 under one and the same interest ; and yet in so loose a 
 manner, that he might declare his verbal agreement with 
 Swiny good, or null and void, as he might best find his 
 account in either. What flattered him that he had this 
 wholesome project, and Swiny to executq it, both in his 
 power, was, that at this time, Swiny happened to stand in 
 his books debtor to cash, upwards of two hundred pounds. 
 But here, we shall find, he overrated his security. How- 
 ever, Swiny as yet followed his orders ; he took the Hay- 
 market theatre, and had, farther, the private consent of the 
 patentee to take such of his actors from Drury-lane, as, 
 either from inclination or discontent, might be willing to 
 come over to him in the Hay- market. The only one he 
 made an exception of was myself: for though he chiefly 
 depended upon his singers and dancers, he said it would 
 be necessary to keep some one tolerable actor with him, 
 that might enable him to set those machines a-going. Under 
 this limitation of not entertaining me, Swiny seemed to 
 acquiesce, till afler he had opened with the so-recruited 
 company in the Haymarket. The actors that came to 
 him from Drury-lane, were Wilks, Estcourt, Mills,* 
 
 * Our first notice of this actor is found in the " Roscius Angli- 
 canus," where Downs, who seems anxious to dispatch his sub- 
 ject, says summarily that he " excels in tragedy," but without 
 making the remotest allusion to any characters in which his talent 
 had been displayed. 
 
 John Mills the elder was, in person, inclined to the athletic 
 size ; his features were large, though not expressive ; his voice was 
 full, but not flexible; and his deportment was manly, without 
 being graceful or majestic. He was considered one of the most 
 useful actors that ever served in a theatre, but though invested by 
 the patronage of Wilks with many parts of the highest order, he 
 had no pretensions to quit the secondary line in which he ought 
 
304 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Keen,* Johnson, Bullock, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Rogers, 
 and some few others of less note. But I must here let you 
 
 to have been placed. Steele ( 1 ) taxes him very broadly with a 
 want of " sentiment," and insinuates that by making gesture too 
 much his study, he neglected the better attributes of his art. 
 
 On the death of Betterton, or soon after, Wilks, who took upon 
 himself to regulate the theatrical cast, gave Macbeth, with great 
 partiality, to Mills, while Booth and Powel were condemned to 
 represent the inferior parts of Banquo and Lenox. Mills, though 
 he spoke the celebrated soliloquy on time,— 
 
 To-morrow, and to-morrow, etc., 
 
 with propriety, feeling, and effect, wanted genius to realise the tur- 
 bulent scenes in which this character abounds. So much, indeed, 
 was his deficiency perceived, that the indignation of a country 
 gentleman broke out one night, during the performance of this 
 play, in a very odd manner. The 'squire, after having been 
 heartily tired with Mills, on the appearance of his old companion, 
 Powel, in the fourth act, exclaimed, loud enough to be heard by 
 the audience, " For God's sake, George, give us a speech, and 
 let me go home." (2) 
 
 One of the best parts sustained by Mills, was that of Pierre, 
 which he acted so much to the taste of the public, that the ap- 
 plause it produced him exceeded all that was bestowed upon his 
 best efforts in every thing else. He also acted Ventidius with the 
 true spirit of a rough and generous old soldier, and in Bajazety 
 by the aid of his strong, deep, melodious voice, he displayed 
 more than ordinary power. (3) 
 
 (1) "Tattler;" No. 201. 
 
 (2) " Dramatic Miscellanies ;" vol. 2, p. 132. 
 
 (3) Aaron Hill, no mean judge of acting, was very severe upon Mills in 
 this personation, and even made the mistakes in his manner a subject of pre- 
 ceptive remark. 
 
 *' Mr. Mills found out that a great uoise was one sure mark of anger ; but 
 he forgot that all this noise in the anger of a sovereign, should take its mea- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 303 
 
 know, that this project was formed and put in execution 
 all in very few days, in the summer season, when no theatre 
 
 I recollect an incident of the same sort occurring at Bristol, 
 where a very indifferent actor, declaimed so long and to such 
 little purpose, that an honest farmer, who sat in the pit, started 
 up with evident signs of disgust, and waving his hand, to motion 
 the speaker off, cried out," Tak' un away, tak' un away, and let's 
 have another." 
 
 It is supposed that Mills died in November, 1736, respected by 
 the public as a decent actor, and beloved by his friends as a worthy 
 man. Nor can a higher tribute, perhaps, be paid to his memory ; 
 for though wanting the glitter of genius, it possesses the lustre of 
 virtue ; and, if life may be resembled to a garment, what is 
 genius but the spangling that adorns it, while virtue is the stuff of 
 which it is composed ? 
 
 * Theophilus Keen received his first instructions in acting from 
 Mr. Ashbury, of the Dublin theatre, in which he made his appear 
 ance about the year 1695. He most probably came into the 
 Drury-lane company with Johnson and others, when Rich had 
 beaten up for recruits. On the opening of the new house in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, he went over to it, and, according to Chet- 
 wood, had a share not only of the management, but in the profit 
 and loss, which latter speculation proved so disastrous to him, that 
 he died in the year 1719, of a broken heart. He was buried in 
 the church of St. Clement-Danes, and so much does he seem to 
 have been respected, that more than two hundred persons in deep 
 mourning, attended his funeral. 
 
 The influence he possessed in the theatre sometimes led him to 
 assume such parts as Edgar, Oroonokoy and Essex, while his 
 
 sure from his dignity, and the decorum proper to his condition. Mr. M. — , 
 again, was lucky enough to guess right, that a captive king, in fury and de- 
 spair, should move \vith turbulence and agitation ; but it never came into his 
 head that there is a turbulence without bullying, and an agitation without 
 aukwardness," — Victor's " Histoiy of the Theatres ; " vol. 2, p. 200. 
 
 X 
 
306 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 was open. To all which I was entirely a stranger, being 
 at this time at a gentleman's house in Gloucestershire, 
 scribbling, if I mistake not, the " Wife's Resentment." 
 
 The first word I heard of this transaction, was by letter 
 from Swiny, inviting me to make one in the Hay market 
 company, whom he hoped I could not but now think the 
 stronger party. But, I confess, I was not a little alarmed 
 at this revolution ; for I considered, that 1 knew of no visi- 
 ble fund to support these actors, but their own industry ; 
 that all his recruits from Drury-lane would want new cloth- 
 ing ; and that the warmest industry would be always la- 
 bouring up hill, under so necessary an expense, so bad a 
 situation, and so inconvenient a theatre. I was always of 
 opinion, too, that in changing sides, in most conditions, 
 there generally were discovered more unforeseen inconve- 
 niencies than visible advantages ; and that, at worst, there 
 would always some sort of merit remain with fidelity, though 
 unsuccessful. Upon these considerations, I was only thank- 
 ful for the offers made me from the Haymarket, without 
 accepting them ; and soon after came to town, towards the 
 usual time of their beginning to act, to offer my service to 
 our old master. But I found our company so thinned, that 
 it was almost impracticable to bring any one tolerable play 
 upon the stage. When I asked him where were his actors, 
 and in what manner he intended to proceed, he replied, 
 
 excellence lay in Clytus, and characters of a similar cast. His 
 figure and voice, though neither elegant nor soft, were good, and 
 his action was so complete, that it obtained for him the epithet of 
 majestic, and when he spoke those lines of the King, in " Ham- 
 let," where he descants upon the dignity that " doth hedge" a 
 monarch, his look and whole deportment were so commanding, 
 that the audience accompanied them always with the loudest ap- 
 plause. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 307 
 
 ** Don*t you trouble yourself; come along, and I'll show 
 you." He then led me about all the by-places in the house, 
 and showed me fifty little back-doors, dark closets, and nar- 
 row passages ; in alterations and contrivances of which 
 kind he had busied his head most part of the vacation ; for 
 he was scarcely ever without some notable joiner, or a 
 bricklayer extraordinary, in pay, for twenty years. And 
 there are so many odd obscure places about a theatre, that 
 his genius in nook-building was never out of employment ; 
 nor could the most vain-headed author be more deaf to an 
 interruption in reciting his works, than our wise master 
 was, while entertaining me with the improvements he had 
 made in his invisible architecture ; all which, without think- 
 ing any one part of it necessary, though I seemed to ap- 
 prove, I could not help, now and then, breaking in upon 
 his delight, with the impertinent question of — " But, master, 
 where are your actors ?" But, it seems, I had taken a 
 wrong time for this sort of inquiry ; his head was full of 
 matters of more moment and, (as you find) I was to come 
 another time for an answer: a very hopeful condition I 
 found myself in, under the conduct of so profound a vir- 
 tuoso, and so considerate a master ! But, to speak of him 
 seriously, and to account for this disregard to his actors, his 
 notion was, that singing and dancing, or any sort of exotic 
 entertainments, would make an ordinary company of actors 
 too hard for the best set, who had only plain plays to subsist on. 
 Now, though I am afraid too much might be said in favour 
 of this opinion, yet I thought he laid more stress upon that 
 sort of merit than it would bear ; as I therefore found my- 
 self of so little value with him, I could not help setting a 
 little more upon myself, and was resolved to come to a short 
 explanation with him. I told him I came to serve him at 
 a lime when many of his best actors had deserted him ; that 
 he might now have the refusal of me ; but I could not af- 
 
 x2 
 
308 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 ford to carry the compliment so far as to lesson my income 
 by it ; that I therefore expected either my casual pay to be 
 advanced, or the payment of my former salary made certain, 
 for as many days as we had acted the year before. — No, he 
 was not willing to alter his former method ; but I might 
 chuse whatever parts I had a mind to act of theirs who had 
 left him. When I found him, as I thought, so insensible 
 or impregnable, I looked gravely in his face, and told him 
 he knew upon what terms I was willing to serve him ; and took 
 my leave. By this time, the Haymarket company had be- 
 gun acting to audiences something better than usual, and 
 were all paid their full salaries, a blessing they had not felt, 
 in some years, in either house before. Upon this success, 
 Swiny pressed the patentee to execute the articles they had 
 as yet only verbally agreed on, which were in substance, 
 that Swiny should take the Haymarket house in his own 
 name, and have what actors he thought necessary from 
 Drury-lane, and after all payments punctually made, the 
 profits should be equally divided between these two under- 
 takers. But, soft and fair. Rashness was a fault, that had 
 never yet been imputed to the patentee ; certain payments 
 were methods he had not of a long, long time been used to ; 
 that point still wanted time for consideration. But Swiny 
 was as hasty as the other was slow, and was resolved to 
 know what he had to trust to, before they parted ; and to 
 keep him the closer to his bargain, he stood upon his right 
 of having me added to that company, if I was willing to 
 come into it. But this was a point as absolutely refused on 
 one side, as insisted on on the other. In this contest, high 
 words were exchanged on both sides, till, in the end, this 
 their last private meeting came to an open rupture : but 
 before it was publicly known, Swiny, by fairly letting me 
 into the whole transaction, took effectual means to secure 
 me in his interest. When the mystery of the patentee's in- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. S09 
 
 difference to me was unfolded, and that his slighting me 
 was owing to the security he relied on of Swiny's not dar- 
 ing to engage me, I could have no further debate with my- 
 self which side of the question I should adhere to. To 
 conclude, I agreed, in two words, to act with Swiny ; and 
 from this time, every change that happened in the theatri- 
 cal government, was a nearer step to that twenty years of 
 prosperity, which actors, under the management of actors, 
 not long afterwards enjoyed. What was the inmiediate 
 consequence of this last desertion from Drury4ane, shall be 
 the subject of another chapter. 
 
310 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 The recruited actors, in the Haymarket encouraged by a sub- 
 scription. — Drury-lanCy under a particular management. — 
 The power of a Lord Chamberlain over the theatres consider- 
 ed. — How it had been formerly exercised. — A digression to 
 tragic authors. 
 
 HAVING shown the particular conduct of the patentee, in 
 refusing so fair an opportunity of securing to himself both 
 companies under his sole power and interest, 1 shall now 
 lead the reader, after a short view of what passed in this 
 new establishment of the Haymarket theatre, to the acci- 
 dents that, the year following, compelled the same patentee 
 to receive both companies, united, into the Drury-lane the- 
 atre, notwithstanding his disinclination to it. 
 
 It may, now, be imagined that such a detachment of ac- 
 tors, from Drury-lane, could not but give a new spirit to 
 those in the Haymarket; not only by enabling them to act 
 each others' plays to better advantage, but by an emulous 
 industry, which had lain too long inactive among them, 
 and without which, they plainly saw, they could not be 
 sure of subsistence. Plays, by this means, began to recover 
 a good share of their former esteem and favour ; and the 
 profits of them, in about a month, enabled our new manager 
 to discharge his debt (of something more than two hundred 
 pounds) to his old friend the patentee, who had now left 
 him and his tioop, in trust, to fight their own battles. The 
 greatest inconvenience they still laboured under was the im- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 31 1 
 
 modcmte vvideness of their house ; in which, as I have ob- 
 served, the difficulty of hearing may be said to have buried 
 half the auditors' entertainment. This defect seemed evi- 
 dent from the much better reception several new plays (first 
 acted there) met with when they afterwards came to be 
 played by the same actors in Drury-lane : of this number 
 were the " Beaux' Stratagem," and the " Wife's Resent- 
 ment ;" to which I may add, the " Double Gallant." This 
 last was a play made up of what little was tolerable in two 
 or three others that had no success, and were laid aside as 
 so much poetical lumber ; but by collecting and adapting 
 the best parts of them all into one play, the " Double Gal- 
 lant" has had a place, every winter, amongst the public 
 entertainments, these thirty years. As I was only the com- 
 piler of this piece, I did not publish it in my own name ; 
 but as my having but a hand in it could not be long a se- 
 cret, I have been often treated as a plagiary on that ac- 
 count : not that I think I have any right to complain of 
 whatever would detract from the merit of that sort of la- 
 bour. Yet a cobbler may be allowed to be useful, though he 
 is not famous ; and I hope a man is not blamable for doing 
 a little good, though he cannot do as much as another. But 
 so it is ; twopenny critics must live, as well as eighteen- 
 penny authors. 
 
 While the stage was thus recovering its former strength, 
 a more honourable mark of favour was shown to it than it 
 was ever known before or since to have received. The 
 then Lord Halifax was not only the patron of the men of 
 genius of his time, but had likewise a generous concern for 
 the reputation and prosperity of the theatre, from whence 
 the most elegant dramatic labours of the learned, he knew, 
 had often shone in their brightest lustre. A proposal, there- 
 fore, was drawn up, and addressed to that noble lord, for 
 his approbation and assistance, to raise a public subscrip- 
 
 x4 
 
312 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 tion for reviving three plays of the best authors, with the 
 full strength of the company ; every subscriber to have three 
 tickets, for the first day of each play, for his single pay- 
 ment of three guineas. This subscription his lordship so 
 zealously encouraged, that, from his recommendation chief- 
 ly, in a very little time it was completed. The plays 
 were " Julius Cassar" of Shakspeare ; the " King and no 
 King" of Fletcher; and the comic scenes of Dry den's 
 " Marriage a la Mode," and of his " Maiden Queen," put 
 together, for it was judged that as these comic episodes were 
 utterly independent of the serious scenes they were origin- 
 ally written to, they might on this occasion be as well epi- 
 sodes either to the other, and so make up five livelier acts 
 between them : at least the project so well succeeded, that 
 those comic parts have never since been replaced, but were 
 continued to be jointly acted, as one play, several years 
 after. 
 
 By the aid of this subscription, which happened in 1707, 
 and by the additional strength and industry of this com- 
 pany, not only the actors (several of which were hand- 
 somely advanced in their salaries) were duly paid, but the 
 manager himself, too, at the foot of his account stood a con- 
 siderable gainer. 
 
 At the same time the patentee of Drury-lane went on in 
 his usual method of paying extraordinary prices to singers, 
 dancers, and other exotic performers, which were as con- 
 stantly deducted out of the sinking salaries of his actors. 
 It is true, his actors, perhaps, might not deserve much more 
 than he gave them ; yet, by what I have related, it is plain 
 he chose not to be troubled with such as visibly had de- 
 served more : for it seems he had not purchased his share 
 of the patent to mend the stage, but to make money of it: 
 and to say truth, his sense of every thing to Ix^ shown there, 
 was much upon a level with the taste of the multitude. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 313 
 
 whose opinion and whose money weighed with hun full as 
 much, as that of the best judges. His point was to please 
 the majority, who could more easily comprehend any thing 
 they saw, than the daintiest things that could be said to 
 them. But in this notion he kept no medium ; for, in my 
 memory, he carried it so far, that he was (some few years 
 before this time) actually dealing for an extraordinary large 
 elephant,* at a certain sum, for every day he might think 
 fit to show the tractable genius of that vast quiet creature, in 
 any play or farce, in the theatre (then standing) in Dorset- 
 garden. But from the jealousy which so formidable a rival 
 had raised in his dancers, and by his bricklayer's assuring 
 him that, if the walls were to be opened wide enough for its 
 entrance, it might endanger the fall of the house, he gave 
 up his project, and with it so hopeful a prospect of making 
 the receipts of the stage run higher than all the wit and force 
 of the best writers had ever yet raised them to. 
 
 About the same time of his being under this disappoint- 
 ment, he put in practice another project of as new, though 
 not of so bold a nature ; which was, his introducing a set of 
 rope-dancers into the same theatre, for the first day of 
 whose performance he had given out some play in which I 
 had a material part : but I was hardy enough to go into the 
 pit, and acquaint the spectators near me, that I hoped they 
 would not think it a mark of my disrespect to them, if I de- 
 clined acting upon any stage that was brought to so low a 
 disgrace as ours was like to be by that day's entertainment. 
 My excuse was so well taken, that I never after found any 
 ill consequences, or heard of the least disapprobation of it : 
 and the whole body of actors, too, protesting against such 
 
 * We have seen this admirable scheme realised of late years, by 
 the proprietors of Covent-garden. 
 
314 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 an abuse of their profession, our cautious master was too 
 much alarmed and intimidated to repeat it. 
 
 After what I have said, it will be no wonder that all due 
 regards to the original use and institution of the stage 
 should be utterly lost or neglected : nor was the conduct of 
 this manager easily to be altered, while he had found the 
 secret of making money out of disorder and confusion : for, 
 however strange it may seem, I have often observed him 
 inclined to be cheerful in the distresses of his theatrical 
 affairs, and equally reserved and pensive when they went 
 smoothly forward with a visible profit. Upon a run of 
 good .audiences he was more frightened to be thought a 
 gainer, which might make him accountable to others, than 
 he was dejected with bad houses, which, at worst, he knew 
 would make others accountable to him: and as, upon a 
 moderate computation, it cannot be supposed that the con- 
 tested accounts of a twenty years' wear and tear in a play- 
 house could be fairly adjusted by a master in chancery, 
 under four-score years more, it will be no surprise, that by 
 the neglect, or rather the discretion of other proprietors, 
 in not throwing away good money after bad, this hero of a 
 manager, who alone supported the war, should in time so 
 fortify hunself by delay, and so tire his enemies, that he 
 became sole monarch of his theatrical empire, and left the 
 quiet possession of it to his successors. 
 
 If these tacts seem too trivial for the attention of a sen- 
 sible reader, let it be considered, that they are not chosen 
 fictions, to entertain, but truths necessary to inform him 
 under what low shifts and disgraces, what disorders and 
 revolutions, the stage laboured, before it could recover that 
 strength and reputation wherewith it began to flourish to- 
 wards the latter end of Queen Ann's reign ; and which it 
 continued to enjoy for a course of twenty years following. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 315 
 
 But let us resume our account of the new settlement in the 
 Haymarket. 
 
 It may be a natural question, why thet>actors whom 
 Swiny brought over to his undertaking, in the Haymar- 
 ket, would tie themselves down to limited salaries ; for 
 though he, as their manager, was obliged to make them 
 certain payments, it was not certain that the receipts would 
 enable him to do it; and since their own industry was the 
 only visible fund they had to depend upon, why would 
 they not, for that reason, insist upon their being sharers as 
 well of possible profits, as losses ? How far in this point 
 they acted right or wrong, will appear from the following 
 state of their case. 
 
 It must first be considered, that this scheme of their de- 
 sertion was all concerted and put in execution in a week's 
 time, which short warning might make them overlook that 
 circumstance, and the sudden prospect of being delivered 
 from having seldom more than half their pay, was a con- 
 tentment that had bounded all their farther views. Be- 
 sides, as there could be no room to doubt of their receiving 
 their full pay, previous to any profits that might be reaped 
 by their labour, and as they had no great reason to appre- 
 hend (hose profits could exceed their respective salaries so 
 far as to make them repine at them, they might think it but 
 reasonable to let the chance of any extraordinary gain be 
 on the side of their leader and director. But, farther, as 
 this scheme had the approbation of the court, tliese actors, 
 in reality, had it not in their power to alter any part of it : 
 and what induced the court to encourage it was, that by 
 having the theatre and its manager more immediately de- 
 pendent on the power of the Lord Chamberlain, it was not 
 doubted but the stage would be recovered into such a repu- 
 tation as might now do honour to that absolute conmiand, 
 
316 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 which the court, or its officers, seemed always fond of 
 having over it. 
 
 Here, to set the constitution of the stage in a clearer 
 light, it may not be amiss to look back a little on the power 
 of a Lord Chamberlain, which, as may have been observed, 
 in all changes of the theatrical government, has been the 
 main spring without which no scheme, of what kind soever, 
 could be set in motion. My intent is not to inquire how 
 far, by law, this power has been limited or extended ; but, 
 merely as an historian, to relate facts to gratify the curious, 
 and then leave them to their own reflections. This, too, I 
 am the more inclined to, because there is no one circum- 
 stance which has affected the stage, wherein so many spec- 
 tators, from those of the highest rank to the vulgar, have 
 seemed more positively knowing, or less informed in. 
 
 Though in all the letters patent for acting plays, &c., 
 since King Charles the First's time, there has been no men- 
 tion of the Lord Chamberlain, or of any subordination to 
 his command or authority, yet it was still taken for grant- 
 ed, that no letters patent, by the bare omission of such a 
 great officer's name, could have superseded, or taken out of 
 his hands, that power which, time out of mind, he always 
 had exercised over the theatre. The common opinions 
 then abroad were, that if the profession of actors was un- 
 lawful, it was not in the power of the crown to license it ; 
 and, if it were not unlawful, it ought to be free and inde- 
 pendent, as other professions ; and that a patent to exercise 
 it was only an honorary favour from the crown, to give it a 
 better grace of recommendation to the public. But as the 
 truth of this question seemed to be wrapt in a great deal of 
 obscurity in the old laws, made in former reigns, relating 
 to players, &c., it may be no wonder that the best compa- 
 nies of actors should be desirous of taking shelter under the 
 visible power of a Lord Chamberlain, who, they knew, 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 317 
 
 had, at his pleasure, favoured and protected, or borne hard 
 upon them : but be all this as it may, a Lord Chamberlain, 
 from whencesoever his power might be derived, had, till 
 of later years, had always an implicit obedience paid to it : 
 I shall now give some few instances in what manner it was 
 exercised. 
 
 What appeared to be most reasonably under his cognis- 
 ance was the licensing or refusing new plays, or striking 
 out what might be thought offensive in them ; which pro- 
 vince had been, for many years, assigned to his inferior 
 officer, the Master of the Revels ;* yet was not the license 
 irrevocable; for several plays, though acted by that per- 
 mission, had been silenced afterwards. The first instance 
 of this kind that common fame has delivered down to us, is 
 that of the ^' Maid's Tragedy," of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 which was forbidden in King Charles the Second's time, 
 by an order from the Lord Chamberlain. For what reason 
 this interdiction was laid upon it, the politics of those days 
 have only left us to guess. Some said, that the killing of 
 ihQ king in that play, while the tragical death of King 
 Charles the First was then so fresh in people's memory, 
 was an object too horribly impious for a public entertain- 
 ment. What makes this conjecture seem to have some 
 foundation is, that the celebrated Waller, in compliment 
 to that court, altered the last act of this play (which, is 
 printed at the end of his works) and gave it a new catas- 
 trophe, wherein the life of the king is loyally saved, and 
 the lady's matter made up, with a less terrible reparation. 
 Others have given out, that a repenting mistress, in a ro- 
 mantic revenge of her dishonour, killing the king in the 
 very bed he expected her to come into, was showing a too 
 dangerous example to other Evadnes^ then shining at court 
 
 * This office was instituted in the time of Edward the Sixth. 
 
318 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 in the same rank of royal distinction ; who, if ever their 
 consciences shonld have run equally mad, might have had 
 frequent opportunities of putting the expiation of their 
 frailty into the like execution. But this, I doubt, is too deep 
 a speculation, or too ludicrous a reason, to be relied on ; it 
 being well known, that the ladies then in favour were not 
 so nice in their notions as to think their preferment their 
 dishonour, or their lover a tyrant : besides, that easy mo- 
 narch loved his roses without thorns ; nor do we hear that 
 he much chose to be himself the first gatherer of them. 
 
 The ^' Lucius Junius Brutus" of Nat. Lee was, in the 
 same reign, silenced after the third day of acting it ; it be- 
 ing objected, that the plan and sentiments of it had too 
 boldly vindicated, and might inflame republican princi- 
 ples. 
 
 A prologue (by Dryden) to the " Prophetess," was for- 
 bidden by the Lord Dorset, after the first day of its being 
 spoken. This happened when King William was prose- 
 cuting the war in Ireland. It must be confessed that this 
 prologue had some familiar, metaphorical sneers at the re- 
 volution itself; and as the poetry of it was good, the offence 
 of it was less pardonable. 
 
 The tragedy of " Mary Queen of Scotland" had been 
 offered to the stage twenty years before it was acted ; but 
 from the profound penetration of the Master of the Revels, 
 who saw political spectres in it that never appeared in the 
 presentation, it had lain so long upon the hands of the au- 
 thor ; who had at last the good fortune to prevail with a 
 nobleman to favour his petition to Queen Ann, for permis- 
 sion to have it acted : the queen had the goodness to refer 
 the merit of his play to the opinion of that noble person, al- 
 though he was not her majesty's Lord Chamberlain ; uix)n 
 whose report of its being, every way, an innocent piece, it 
 was soon after acted with success. 
 
LIFE OF MR. OOLLEY CIBRER. 319 
 
 Reader, by your leave.— I will but just speak a word or 
 two to any author that has not yet written one line of his 
 next play, and then I will come to my point again. What 
 I would say to him is this : sir, before you set pen to paper, 
 think well and principally of your design, or chief action, 
 towards which, every line you write ought to be drawn, as 
 to its centre : if we can say of your finest sentiments, this or 
 that might be left out, without maiming the story you 
 would tell us, depend upon it that the fine thing is said in 
 a wrong place ; and though you may urge that a bright 
 thought is not to be resisted, you will not be able to deny 
 that those very fine lines would be much finer, if you could 
 find a proper occasion for them : otherwise, you will be 
 thought to take less advice from Aristotle or Horace than 
 from poet Bai/s^ in the " Rehearsal," who very smartly 
 says — " What the devil is the plot good for, but to bring 
 in fine things ? " Compliment the state of your hearers as 
 much as you please with them, provided they belong to 
 your subject ; but don't, like a dainty preacher, who has his 
 eyes more upon this world than the next, leave your text 
 for them. When your fable is good, every part of it will 
 cost you much less labour to keep your narration alive, than 
 you will be forced to bestow upon those elegant discourses 
 that are not absolutely conducive to your catastrophe, or 
 main purpose: scenes of that kind show but, at best, the 
 unprofitable or injudicious spirit of a genius. It is but 
 a melancholy commendation of a fine thought, to say, when 
 we have heard it, " Well ! but what's all this to the pur- 
 pose ?" Take, therefore, in some part, example by the au- 
 thor* last mentioned. There are three plays of his, the 
 " Earl of Essex," " Anna Bullen," and " Mary Queen of 
 Scots," which, though they are all written in the most bar- 
 
 * John Banks. 
 
320 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 ren, barbarous stile that was ever able to keep possession of 
 the stage, have all interested the hearts of his auditors. To 
 what then could this success be owing, but to the intrinsic 
 and naked value of the well-conducted tales he has simply 
 told us ? There is something so happy in the disposition of 
 all his fables ; all his chief characters are thrown into such 
 natural circumstances of distress, that their misery or afflic- 
 tion wants very little assistance from the ornaments of stile, 
 or words to speak them. When a skilful actor is so situ- 
 ated, his bare plaintive tone of voice, the cast of sorrow 
 from his eye, his slowly graceful gesture, his humble sighs 
 of resignation under his calamities ; all these, I say, are 
 sometimes, without a tongue, equal to the strongest elo- 
 quence. At such a time, the attentive auditor supplies 
 from his own heart whatever the poet's language may fall 
 short of in expression, and melts himself into every pang of 
 humanity, which the like misfortunes in real life could have 
 inspired. 
 
 After what I have observed, whenever I see a tragedy de- 
 fective in its fable, let there be never so many fine lines in 
 it, I hope I shall be forgiven, if I impute that defect to the 
 idleness, the weak judgment, or barren invention of the au- 
 thor. 
 
 If I should be asked, why I have not always myself fol- 
 lowed the rules I would impose upon others, I can only 
 answer, that whenever I have not, I lie equally open to the 
 same critical censure. But having often observed a better 
 than ordinary stile thrown away upon the loose and wander- 
 ing scenes of an ill-chosen story, I imagined these observa- 
 tions might convince some future author of how great 
 advantage a fable well planned must be to a man of any 
 tolerable genius. 
 
 All this, I own, is leading my reader out of the way; but 
 if he has as much time upon his hands as I have, (provided 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER 321 
 
 we are neither of us tired) it may be equally to the purpose, 
 what he reads, or what I write of. But as I have no ob- 
 jection to method when it is not troublesome, I return to my 
 subject. 
 
 Hitherto we have seen no very unreasonable instance of 
 this absolute power of a Lord Chamberlain, though we were 
 to admit that no one knew of any real law, or construc- 
 tion of law, by which (his power was given him. I shall 
 now offer some facts relating to it, of a more extraordinary 
 nature, which I leave my reader to give a name to. 
 
 About the middle of King William's reign, an order of 
 the Lord Chamberlain was then subsisting, that no actor of 
 either company should presume to go from one to the other, 
 without a discharge from their respective managers,* and 
 the permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Notwithstanding 
 such order, Powel, being uneasy at the favour Wilks was 
 then rising into, had, without such discharge, left Drury- 
 lane theatre, and engaged himself to that of Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields: but, by what follows, it will appear that this order 
 was not so much intended to do both of them good, as to do 
 that which the court chiefly Civoured (Lincoln's Inn Fields) 
 no harm. For when Powel grew dissatisfied at his station 
 
 * This order was superfluous, because in the patent granted to 
 Kiilegrew and D'Avenant that very prohibition was inserted : 
 
 And the better to preserve amity and correspondency betwixt the said 
 companies, and that the one may not encroach upon the other by any indirect 
 means, we will and ordain, that no actor or other person employed about 
 either of the said theatres, erected by the said Sir William D'Avenant and 
 Thomas Kiilegrew, or either of them, or deserting his company, shall be re- 
 ceived by the governor or any of the said other company, or any other person 
 or persons, to be employed in acting, or in any matter relating to the stage, 
 without the consent and approbation of the governor of the company, where- 
 of the said person so ejected or deserting was a mt^mber, signified under his 
 band and seal. 
 
 Y 
 
322 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 there, too, he returned to Drury-lane (as he had before 
 gone from it) without a discharge : but, halt a little here, 
 on this side of the question : the order was to stand in force, 
 and the same offence against it, now, was not to be equally 
 passed over. He was the next day taken up by a messen- 
 ger, and confined to the porter's-lodge, where, to the best 
 of my remembrance, he remained about two days ; when 
 the managers of Lincoln's Inn Fields, not thinking an actor 
 of his loose character worth their farther trouble, gave him 
 up ; though, perhaps, he was released for some better rea- 
 son. Upon this occasion, the next day, behind the scenes 
 at Drury-lane, a person of great quality, in my hearing, in- 
 quiring of Powel into the nature of his offence, aftfer he had 
 heard it, told him, that if he had had patience or spirit 
 enough to have staid in his confinement till he had given 
 him notice of it, he would have found him a handsomer way 
 of coming out of it. 
 
 Another time the same actor, Powel, was provoked at 
 Will's Coffee-house, in a dispute about the playhouse 
 affairs, to strike a gentleman whose family had been some- 
 times masters of it; a complaint of this insolence was, in the 
 absence of the Lord Chamberlain, immediately made to the 
 Vice Chamberlain, who so highly resented it, that he thought 
 himself bound in honour to carry his power of redressing it 
 as far as it could possibly go : for Powel having a part in 
 the play that was acted the day after, the Vice Chamberlain 
 sent an order to silence the whole company, for having suf- 
 fered Powel to appear upon the stage, before he had made 
 that gentleman satisfaction, although the masters of the 
 theatre had had no notice of Powel's misbehaviour ; how- 
 ever, this order was obeyed, and remained in force for two 
 or three days, till the same authority was pleased, or advis- 
 ed, to revoke it. From the measures this injured gentle- 
 man took for his redress, it may be judged how far it was 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEV GIBBER. 323 
 
 taken for granted that a Lord Chamberlain had an absolute 
 power over the theatre. 
 
 I shall now give an instance of an actor who had the re- 
 solution to stand upon the defence of his liberty, against 
 the same authority, and was relieved by it. 
 
 In the same king's reign, Dogget, who though, from a 
 severe exactness in his nature, he could be seldom long 
 easy in any theatre, where irregularity, not to say injustice, 
 too often prevailed, yet, in the private conduct of his 
 affairs, he was a prudent, honest man. He therefore took 
 an unusual care, when he returned to act under the patent, 
 in Drury-lane, to have his articles drawn firm and binding : 
 but having some reason to think the patentee had not dealt 
 fairly with him, he quitted the stage, and would act no 
 more, rather chusing to lose his, whatever unsatisfied, de- 
 mands, than go through the chargeable and tedious course 
 of law to recover it. But the patentee, who (from other 
 people's judgment) knew the value of him, and who want- 
 ed, too, to have him sooner back than the law could possi- 
 bly bring him, thought the surer way would be, to desire a 
 shorter redress from the authority of the Lord Chamberlain. 
 Accordingly, upon his complaint, a messenger was immedi- 
 ately dispatched to Norwich, where Dogget then was, 
 to bring him up, in custody : but doughty Dogget, who had 
 money in his pocket, and the cause of liberty at his heart, 
 was not in the least intimidated by this formidable sum- 
 mons. He was observed to obey it with a particular 
 cheerfulness, entertaining his fellow-traveller, the messen- 
 ger, all the way in the coach (for he had protested against 
 riding) with as much humour as a man of his business 
 might be capable of tasting. And as he found his charges 
 were to be defrayed, he, at every inn, called for the best 
 dainties the country could afford, or a pretended weak ap- 
 
 y2 
 
394 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 petite could digest. At this rate they jollily rolled on, 
 more .with the air of a jaunt than a journey, or a party of 
 pleasure, than of a poor devil in durance. Upon his arrival 
 in town, he immediately applied to the Lord Chief Justice 
 Holt, for his habeas corpus. As his case was something 
 particular, that eminent and learned minister of the law 
 took a particular notice of it : for Dogget was not only 
 discharged, but the process of his confinement (according 
 to common fame) had a censure passed upon it in court, 
 which I doubt I am not lawyer enough to repeat. To 
 conclude, the officious agents in this affair finding that, 
 in Dogget, they had mistaken their man, were mollified in- 
 to milder proceedings, and (as he afterwards told me) whis- 
 pered something in his ear, that took away Dogget's farther 
 uneasiness about it. 
 
 By these instances we see how naturally power, only 
 founded on custom, is apt, where the law is silent, to run 
 into excesses, and while it laudably pretends to govern 
 others, how hard it is to govern itself. But since the law 
 has lately opened its mouthy and has said plainly, that some 
 part of this power to govern the theatre shall be, and 
 is placed in a proper person ; and as it is evident, that the 
 power of that white staff, ever since it has been in the no- 
 ble hand that now holds it, has been used with the utmost 
 lenity, I would beg leave of the murmuring multitude, 
 who frequent the theatre, to offer them a simple question or 
 two, viz. '^ Pray, gentlemen, how came you, or rather 
 your forefethers, never to be mutinous upon any of the oc- 
 casional facts I have related ? And why have you been so 
 often tumultuous upon a law's being made that only con- 
 firms a less power than was formerly exercised, without any 
 law to support it? You cannot, sure, say such discon- 
 tent is either just or natural, unless you allow it a maxim 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 325 
 
 in your politics, that power exercised without law, is a 
 less grievance than the same power exercised according to 
 law?" 
 
 Having thus given the clearest view I was able of the 
 usual regard paid to the power of a Lord Chamberlain, the 
 reader will more easily conceive what influence and opera- 
 tion that power must naturally have in all theatrical revolu- 
 tions ; and particularly in the complete re-union of both 
 companies, which happened in the year following. 
 
 y3 
 
326 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 CHAP. XI. 
 
 Some chimerical thoughts of making the Stage useful. — Some to 
 its reputation. — The patent unprofitable to all the proprietors 
 but one. — A fourth part of it given away to Colonel Brett. — 
 A digression to his memory. — The two companies of actors 
 re-united, by his interest and management. — Th£ first direc- 
 tion of Operas, only, given to Mr. Swing. 
 
 FROM the time that the company of actors in the Hay- 
 market was recruited with those from Drury-lane, and 
 came into the hands of their new director, Swiny, the 
 theatre, for three or four years following, suffered so many 
 convulsions, and was thrown every other winter under such 
 different interests and management, before it came to a 
 firm and lasting settlement, that I am doubtful if the most 
 candid reader will have patience to go through a full and 
 fair account of it. And yet I would fain flatter myself 
 that those who are not too wise to frequent the theatre (or 
 have wit enough to distinguish what sort of sights there 
 either do honour or disgrace to it) may think their national 
 diversion no contemptible subject for a more able historian 
 than I pretend to be. If I have any particular qualifica- 
 tion for the task more than another, it is that I have been 
 an ocular witness of the several facts that are to fill up the 
 rest of my volume ; and am, perhaps, the only person 
 living (however unworthy) from whom the same materials 
 can be collected : but let them come from whom they may, 
 whether, at best, they will be worth reading, perhaps a 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLl^EY GIBBER. 327 
 
 judgment may be better formed after a patient perusal of 
 the following digression. 
 
 In whatever cold esteem the stage may be among the 
 wise and powerful, it is not so much a reproach to those 
 who contentedly enjoy it in its lowest condition, as that 
 condition of it is to those who (though they cannot but 
 know to how valuable a public use a theatre, well esta- 
 blished, might be raised) yet in so many civilised nations 
 have neglected it. This, perhaps, will be called thinking 
 my own wiser than all the wise heads in Europe. But I 
 hope a more humble sense will be given to it ; at least I 
 only mean, that if so many governments have their reasons 
 for their disregard of their theatres, those reasons may be 
 deeper than my capacity has yet been able to dive into. 
 If, therefore, my simple opinion is a wrong one, let the 
 singularity of it expose me : and though I am only build- 
 ing a theatre in the air, it is there, however, at so little 
 expense, and in so much a better taste than any I have yet 
 seen, that I cannot help saying of it, as a wiser man did 
 (it may be) upon a wiser occasion : 
 
 Si quid novisti rectius istis. 
 
 Candid us imperti ; si non~ 
 give me leave to play with my project in fancy. 
 
 I say, then, that as I allow nothing is more liable to 
 debase and corrupt the minds of a people than a licentious 
 theatre, so, under a just and proper establishment, it were 
 possible to make it, as apparently, the school of manners 
 and of virtue. Were I to collect all the arguments that 
 might be given for my opinion, or to enforce it by exem- 
 plary proofe, it might swell this short digression to a vo- 
 lume ; I shall therefore trust the validity of what I have 
 laid down to a single fact, that may be still fresh in the 
 memory of many living spectators. When the tragedy of 
 '^ Cato" was first acted, let us call to mind the noble spirit 
 
 Y 4 
 
328 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 of patriotism which that play then infused into the breasts 
 of a free people that crowded to it ; with what affecting 
 force was that most elevated of human virtues recom- 
 mended! Even the false pretenders to it felt an unwilling 
 conviction, and made it a point of honour to be foremost in 
 their approbation ; and this, too, at a time when the fer- 
 mented nation had their different views of government. 
 Yet the sublime sentiments of liberty, in that venerable 
 character, raised in every sensible hearer such conscious 
 admiration, such compelled assent to the conduct of a suf- 
 fering virtue, as even demanded two almost irreconcileablo 
 parties to embrace, and join in their equal applauses of it. 
 Now, not to take from the merit of the writer, had that 
 play never come to the stage, how much of this valuable 
 effect of it must have been lost ? It then could have had 
 no more immediate weight w^ith the public, than our 
 poring upon the many antient authors, through whose works 
 the same sentiments have been, perhaps, less profitably 
 dispersed, though amongst millions of readers; but by 
 bringing such sentiments to the theatre, and into action, 
 what a superior lustre did they shine with ? There, Cato 
 breathed again in life ; and though he perished in the 
 cause of liberty, his virtue was victorious^ and lefl the 
 triumph of it in the heart of every melting spectator. If 
 effects like these are laudable ; if the representation of such 
 plays can carry conviction with so much" pleasure to the 
 understanding, have they not vastly the advantage of any 
 other human helps to eloquence ? What equal merit can 
 be found to lead or stimulate the mind to a quicker sense 
 of truth and virtue, or warm a people into the love and 
 practice of such principles, as might be at once a defence 
 and honour to their country ? In what shape could we 
 listen to virtue with equal delight, or appetite of instruc- 
 tion ! The mind of man is naturally free, and when he is 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 329 
 
 compelled or menaced into any opinion that he does not 
 readily conceive, he is more apt to doubt the truth of it, 
 than when his capacity is led by delight into evidence and 
 reason. To preserve a theatre in this strength and purity 
 of morals, is, I grant, what the wisest nations have not 
 been able to perpetuate, or to transmit long to their poste- 
 rity : but this difficulty will rather heighten than take from 
 the honour of the theatre. The greatest empires have de- 
 cayed for want of proper heads to guide them, and the ruins 
 of them sometimes have been the subject of theatres, that 
 could not be themselves exempt from as various revolutions. 
 Yet may not the most natural inference from all this be, 
 that the talents requisite to form good actors, great writers, 
 and true judges, were like those of wise and memorable 
 ministers, as well the gifts of fortune as of nature, and not 
 always to be found in all climes or ages. Or can there 
 be a stronger modern evidence of the value of dramatic 
 performances, than that in many countries where the papal 
 religion prevails, the holy policy (though it allows not to 
 an actor Christian burial) is so conscious of the usefulness 
 of his art, that it will frequently take in the assistance of 
 the theatre, to give even sacred history in a tragedy, a 
 recommendation to the more pathetic regard of their people ? 
 How can such principles, in the face of the world, refuse 
 the bones of a wretch the lowest benefit of Christian cha- 
 rity, after having admitted his profession (for which they 
 deprive him of that charity) to serve the solemn purposes 
 of religion ? How far, then, is this religious inhumanity 
 short of that famous painter's, who, to make his crucifix a 
 master-piece of nature, stabbed the innocent hireling from 
 whose body he drew it ; and, having heightened the holy 
 portrait with his last agonies of life^ then sent it to be the 
 consecrated ornament of an altar ? Though we have only 
 the authority of common fame for this story, yet be it true 
 
S30 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 or false, the comparison will still be just. Or let me ask 
 another question more humanly political. 
 
 How came the Athenians to lay out an hundred thousand 
 pounds upon the decorations of one single tragedy of So- 
 phocles ? Not, surely, as it was merely a spectacle for 
 idleness or vacancy of thought to gape at, but because it 
 was the most rational, most instructive, and most delightful 
 composition that human wit had yet arrived at ; and, con- 
 sequently, the most worthy to be the entertainment of a wise 
 and warlike nation. And it may be still a question, whether 
 the Sophocles inspired this public spirit, or this public spirit 
 inspired the Sophocles. 
 
 But, alas, as the power of giving or receiving such inspi- 
 rations, from either of these causes, seems pretty well at an 
 end, now I have shot my bolt, I shall descend to talk more 
 like a man of the age I live in : for, indeed, what is all 
 this to a common English reader ? Why, truly, as Shak- 
 speare terms it, " Caviare to the multitude." Honest 
 John Trott will tell you, that, if he were to believe what I 
 have said of the Athenians, he is, at most, but astonished 
 at it ; but that if the twentieth part of the sum I have men- 
 tioned were to be applied out of the public money, to the 
 setting off the best tragedy the nicest noddle in the nation 
 could produce, it would probably raise the passions higher 
 in those that did not like it, than in those that did ; it 
 might as likely meet with an insurrection, as the applause 
 of the people, and so, mayhap, be fitter for the subject of a 
 tragedy, than for a public fund to support it. Truly, Mr. 
 Trott, I cannot but own that I am very much of your opi- 
 nion. I am only concerned, that the theatre has not a 
 better pretence to the care and further consideration of 
 those governments where it is tolerated ; but as what I 
 have said will not probably do it any great harm, I hope 
 I have not put you out of patiqnce, by throwing a few good 
 wishes after an old acquaintance. 
 
I 
 
 LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 331 
 
 To conclude this digression. If for the support of the 
 stage, what is generally shown there must be lowered to the 
 taste of common spectators ; or if it is inconsistent with 
 liberty to mend that vulgar taste, by making the multitude 
 less merry there ; or by abolishing every low and senseless 
 jollity in which the understanding can have no share; 
 whenever, I say, such is the state of the stage, it will be as 
 often liable to unanswerable censure, and manifest disgraces. 
 Yet there was a time, not yet out of marty people's memory, 
 when it subsisted upon its own rational labours ; when even 
 success attended an attempt to reduce it to decency ; and 
 when actors themselves were hardy enough to hazard their 
 interest, in pursuit of so dangerous a reformation. And 
 this crisis I am myself as impatient as any tired reader can 
 be to arrive at. I shall therefore endeavour to lead him 
 the shortest way to it. But as I am a little jealous of the 
 badness of the road, I must reserve to myself the liberty of 
 calling upon any matter, in my way, for a little refreshment 
 to whatever company may have the curiosity or goodness 
 to go along with me. 
 
 When the sole managing patentee at Drury-lane, for 
 several years, could never be persuaded or driven to any 
 account with the adventurers. Sir Thomas Skipwith (who, 
 if I am rightly informed, had an equal share with him) grew 
 so weary of the affair, that he actually made a present of his 
 entire interest in it, upon the following occasion. 
 
 Sir Thomas happened, in the summer preceding the re- 
 union of the companies, to make a visit to an intimate friend 
 of his. Colonel Brett, of Sandywell, in Gloucestershire ; 
 where the pleasantness of the place, and the agreeable man- 
 ner of passing his time there, had raised him to such a gal- 
 lantry of heart, that, in return to the civilities of his friend 
 the colonel, he made him an offer of his whole right in the 
 patent ; but not to overrate the value of his present^ told 
 
332 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 him, he himself had made nothing of it these ten years : but 
 the colonel (he said) being a greater favourite of the people 
 in power, and (as he believed) among the actors too, than 
 himself was, might- think of some scheme to turn it to ad- 
 vantage, and in that light, if he liked it, it was at his service. 
 After a great deal of raillery on both sides, of what Sir Tho- 
 mas had not made of it, and the particular advantages the 
 colonel was likely to make of it, they came to a laughing 
 resolution that an instrument should be drawn the next 
 morning of an absolute conveyance of the premises. A 
 gentleman of the law, well known to them both, happening 
 to be a guest there, at the same time, the next day produced 
 the deed, according to his instructions, in the presence of 
 whom, and of others, it was signed, sealed, and delivered 
 to the purposes therein contained. 
 
 This transaction may be another instance (as I have else- 
 where observed) at how low a value the interests in a thea- 
 trical license were then held ; though it was visible, from 
 the success of Swiny in that very year, that, with tolerable 
 management, they could, at no time, have failed of being a 
 profitable purchase. 
 
 The next thing to be considered was, what the colonel 
 should do with his new theatrical commission, which, in 
 another's possession, had been of so little importance. Here 
 it may be necessary to premise, that this gentleman was the 
 first of any consideration, since my coming to the stage, 
 with whom I had contracted a personal intimacy ; which 
 might be the reason, why, in this debate, my opuiion had 
 some weight with him : of this intimacy, too, I am the more 
 tempted to talk, from the natural pleasure of calling back, 
 in age, the pursuits and happy ardours of youth long past, 
 which, like the ideas of a delightful spring, in a winter's 
 rumination, are sometimes equal to the former enjoyment 
 of them. I shall, therefore, rather chuse in this place to 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. dJo 
 
 gratify myself than my reader, by setting the fairest side 
 of this gentleman in view, and by indulging a little consci- 
 ous vanity, in showing how early in life 1 fell into the pos- 
 session of so agreeable a companion Whatever failings he 
 might have to others, he had none to me; nor was he, 
 where he had them, without his valuable qualities to balance 
 or soften them. Let, then, what was not to be com- 
 mended in him rest with his ashes, never to be raked into : 
 but the friendly favours I received from him, while living, 
 give me still a pleasure in paying this only mite of my ac- 
 knowledgment in my power to his memory. And if my 
 taking this liberty may find pardon from several of his fair 
 relations, still living, for whom I profess the utmost respect, 
 it will give me but little concern, though my critical readers 
 should think it all impertinence. 
 
 This gentleman, then, Henry, was the eldest son of Henry 
 Brett, Esq., of Cowley, in Gloucestershire, who coming 
 early to bis estate of about two thousand a-year, by the 
 usual negligences of young heirs, had, before this his eldest 
 son came of age, sunk it about to half that value, and that 
 not wholly free from incumbrances. Mr. Brett, whom I 
 am speaking of, had his education, and 1 might say, ended 
 it, at the university of Oxford ; for though he was settled 
 some time after at the Temple, he so little followed the law 
 there, that his neglect of it made the law (like some of his 
 fair and frail admirers) very often follow him. As he had 
 an uncommon share of social wit, and a handsome person, 
 with a sanguine bloom in his complexion, no wonder they 
 persuaded him that he might have a better chance of fortune, 
 by throwing such accomplishments into the gayer world, 
 than by shutting them up in a study. The first view that 
 fires the head of a young gentleman of this modish ambition, 
 just broke loose from business, is to cut a figure (as they 
 call it) in a side-box, at the play, from whence their next 
 
334 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 step is to the green-room, behind the scenes, sometimes 
 their non ultra. Hither, at last then, in this hopeful 
 quest of his fortune, came this gentleman-errant, not doubt- 
 ing but the fickle dame, while he was thus qualified to re- 
 ceive her, might be tempted to fall into his lap. And 
 though, possibly, the charms of our theatrical nymphs might 
 have their share in drawing him thither, yet, in my obser- 
 vation, the most visible cause of his first coming was a more 
 sincere passion he had conceived for a fair, full-bottomed 
 periwig, which 1 then wore in my first play of the ^' Fool 
 in Fashion,"* in the year 1695. For it is to be noted, that 
 the beaux of those days were of a quite different cast from 
 the modern stamp, and had more of the stateliness of the 
 peacock in their mien, than (which now seems to be their 
 highest emulation) the pert air of a lapwing. Now, what- 
 ever contempt philosophers may have for a fine periwig, 
 my friend, who was not to despise the world, but to live in 
 it, knew very well that so material an article of dress upon 
 the head of a man of sense, if it became him, could never 
 fail of drawing to him a more partial regard and benevo- 
 lence than could possibly be hoped for in an ill-made one. 
 This, perhaps, may soften the grave censure which so youth- 
 ful a purchase might otherwise have laid upon him : in a 
 word, he made his attack upon this periwig, as your young 
 fellows generally do upon a lady of pleasure ; first, by a few, 
 
 * The heads of our actors at the period spoken of, were cover- 
 ed with wigs of an immoderate size, a fashion that arose in the 
 reign of Charles the Second, and was not entirely disused in pub- 
 lic till about the year 1720. They were flowing and flaxen, and 
 both Booth and Wilks, as well as Gibber, are said to have bestow- 
 ed forty guineas each on the exorbitant thatching of their 
 head8.( 1 ) 
 
 (1 j " Dramatic Miscellanies " vol. 3, p. 82. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 335 
 
 familiar praises of her person, and then a civil inquiry into 
 the price of it. But upon his observing me a little surprised 
 at the levity of his question about a fop's periwig, he be- 
 gan to rally himself with so much wit and humour upon 
 the folly of his fondness for it, that he struck me with an 
 equal desire of granting any thing, in my power, to oblige 
 so facetious a customer. This singular beginning of our 
 conversation, and the mutual laughs that ensued upon it, 
 ended in an agreement to finish our bargain that night, 
 over a bottle. 
 
 If it were possible the relation of the happy indiscretions 
 which passed between us that night could give the tenth 
 part of the pleasure 1 then received from them, I could 
 still repeat them with delight ; but as it may be doubtful 
 whether the patience of a reader may be quite so strong as 
 the vanity of an author, I shall cut it short, by only saying, 
 that single bottle was the sire of many a jolly dozen that, 
 for some years following, like orderly children, whenever 
 they were called for, came into the same company. Nor, 
 indeed, did I think from that time, whenever he was to be 
 had, any evening could be agreeably enjoyed without him. 
 But the long continuance of our intimacy, perhaps, may 
 be thus accounted for. 
 
 He who can taste wit in another may, in some sort, be 
 said to have it himself: now, as I always had, and (I bless 
 myself for the folly) still have a quick relish of whatever 
 did or can give me delight, this gentleman could not but 
 see the youthful joy I was generally raised to, whenever I 
 had the happiness of a tete a tete with him, and it may be a 
 moot point, whether wit is not as often inspired by a proper 
 attention, as by the brightest reply, to it. Therefore, as he 
 had wit enough for any two people, and I had attention 
 enough for any four, there could not well be wanting a so- 
 ciable delight on cither side. And though it may be true 
 
336 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 * that a man of a handsome person is apt to draw a partial 
 ear to every thing he says, yet this gentleman seldom said 
 any thing that might not have made a man of the plainest 
 person agreeable. Such a continual desire to please, it 
 may be imagined, could not but, sometimes, lead him into 
 a little venial flattery, rather than not succeed in it. And I, 
 perhaps, might be one of those flies that were caught in this 
 honey. As I was then a young successful author, and an 
 actor in some unexpected favour, whether deservedly or 
 not imports not ; yet such appearances, at least, w6re plau- 
 sible pretences enough for an amicable adulation to enlarge 
 upon ; and the sallies of it a less vanity than mine might 
 not have been able to resist. Whatever this weakness on 
 my side might be, I was not alone in it ; for I have heard 
 a gentleman of condition say, who knew the world as well 
 as most men that live in it, that let his discretion be ever so 
 much upon its guard, he never fell into Mr. Brett's com- 
 pany without being loth to leave it, or carrying away a 
 better opinion of himself from it. If his conversation had 
 this eflfect among the men, what must we suppose to have 
 been the consequence, when he gave it a yet softer turn 
 among the fair sex ? Here, now, a French novelist would 
 tell you fifty pretty lies of him ; but as I chuse to be tender 
 of secrets of that sort, I shall only borrow the good breed- 
 ing of that language, and tell you, in a word, that I knew 
 several instances of his being un homme a bonne fortune. 
 But though his frequent successes might generally keep 
 him from the usual disquiets of a lover, he knew this was a 
 life too liquorish to last ; and therefore had reflection 
 enough to be governed by the advice of his friends, and 
 turn these his advantages of nature to a better use. 
 
 Among the many men of condition with whom his con- 
 versation had recommended him to an intimacy, Sir Tho- 
 mas Skipwith had taken a particular inclination to him, 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 337 
 
 and, as he had the advancement of his fortune at heart, in- 
 troduced him where there was a lady* who had enough in 
 her power to disencumber him of the world, and make him j 
 every way, easy for life. 
 
 While he was in pursuit of this affair, which no time 
 was to be lost in, (for the lady was to be in town but 
 for three weeks) I one day found him idling behind the 
 scenes, before the play was begun. Upon sight of him, 
 I took the usual freedom he allowed me, to rate him roundly 
 for the madness of not improving every moment in his 
 power, in what was of such consequence to him. '^ Why 
 are you not," said I, " where you know you only should 
 be? If your design should once get wind in the town, the 
 ill-will of your enemies, or the sincerity of the lady's friends, 
 may soon blow up your hopes, which, in your circumstances 
 of life, cannot be long supported, by the bare appearance 
 of a gentleman." — But, it is impossible to proceed, without 
 some apology for the very familiar circumstance that is to 
 follow ; yet, as it might not be so trivial in its effect as I 
 fear it may be in the narration, and is a mark of that inti- 
 macy, which, it is necessary should be known, had been 
 between us, I will honestly make bold with my scruples, 
 and let the plain truth of my story take its chance for con- 
 tempt or approbation. 
 
 After twenty excuses, to clear himself of the neglect I 
 had so warmly charged him with, he concluded them, with 
 telling me, he had been out all the morning, upon business, 
 
 * This " lady" was the most infamous and unnatural Countess 
 of Macclesfield, who bastardised her son, Savage, in order to pro- 
 cure a separation from her husband, with whom she had long lived 
 upon uneasy terms. To the discreet conduct of this lady in man- 
 aging Brett, it is said that Gibber owes a chief incident in his 
 " Careless Husband." « 
 
 z 
 
338 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 and that his linen was too much soiled, to be seen in com- 
 pany. " Oh^ ho !" said I, " is that all ? Come along with 
 me ; we will soon get over that dainty difficulty." Upon 
 which I hauled him, 4Jy the sleeve, into my shifting-room, 
 he either staring, laughing,*; t)r. hanging back all the way. 
 There, when I had locked him^in, I Jbegan to strip off my 
 upper clothes, and bad him do the same ; still he either did 
 not, or would not seem to understand me, and continuing 
 his laugh, cried, " What is the puppy mad ?" '' No, no, 
 only positive," said I ; ^' for, look you, in short, the play is 
 ready to begin, and the parts that you and I are to act to 
 day, are not of equal consequence; mine of Young Reveller 
 {in " Greenwich-Park") is but a rake ; but whatever you 
 may be, you are not to appear so ; therefore take my shirt, 
 and give me yours ; for depend upon it, stay here you shall 
 not, and so go about your business." To conclude, we fairly 
 changed linen, nor could his mother's have wrapped him up 
 more fortunately; for in about ten days he married the 
 lady. In a year or two after his marriage, he was chosen 
 a member of that Parliament which was sitting when King 
 William died ; and, upon raising of some new regiments, was 
 made Lieutenant Colonel to that of Sir Charles Hotham : 
 but as his ambition extended not beyond the bounds of a 
 park- wall, and a pleasant retreat in the corner of it, which, 
 with too much expense, he had just finished, he, within 
 another year, had leave to resign his company to a younger 
 brother. 
 
 This was the figure in life he made, when Sir Thomas 
 Skipwith thought him the most proper person to oblige (if 
 it could be an obligation) with the present of his interest in 
 the patent. And from these anecdotes of my intimacy 
 with him, it may be less a surprise, when he came to 
 town invested with this new theatrical power, that I should 
 be the first person to whom he took any notice of it. And 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEV GIBBER. 339 
 
 notwithstanding he knew I was then engaged in another 
 interest, at the Haymarket, he desired we might consider 
 together of the best use he could make of it, assuring me, 
 at the same time, he should think it of none to himself, un- 
 less it could, in some shape, be turned to my advantage. 
 This friendly declaration, though^ it might be generous in 
 him to make, was not needful to incline me, in what- 
 ever might be honestly in my power, whether by inter- 
 est or negotiation, to serve him. My first advice, there- 
 fore, was, that he should produce his deed to the other 
 managing patentee of Drury-lane, and demand immediate 
 entrance to a joint possession of all effects and powers to 
 which that deed had given him an equal title. After 
 which, if he met with no opposition to this demand, (as 
 upon sight of it he did not) that he should be watchful 
 against any contradiction from his cpUeague, in whatever 
 he might propose, in carrying on the affair; but to let 
 him see that he was determined in all his measures, yet 
 to heighten that resolution, with an ease and temper in 
 his manner, as if he took it for granted there could be 
 no opposition made to whatever he had a mind to; for 
 that this method, added to his natural talent of persuad- 
 ing, would imperceptibly lead his colleague into a reliance 
 on his superior understanding ; that, however little he cared 
 for business, he should give himself the air at least of in- 
 quiry into what had been done, that what he intended to do 
 might be thought more considerable, and be the readier 
 complied with : for if he once suffered his colleague to 
 seem wiser than himself, there would be no end of his 
 perplexing him with absurd and dilatory measures; di- 
 rect and plain dealing being a quality his natural diffidence 
 would never suffer him to be master of; of which, his not 
 complying with his verbal agreen?ent with Swiny, when 
 the Hay market house was taken for both their uses, was 
 
 z2 
 
340 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 an evidence. And though some people thought it depth 
 and policy in him to keep things often in confusion, it was 
 ever my opinion they over-rated his skill, and that, in reality, 
 his parts were too weak for his post, in which he had always 
 acted to the best of his knowledge. That his late colleague, 
 Sir Thomas Skipwith, had trusted too much to his capacity 
 for this sort of business, and was treated by him accordingly, 
 without ever receiving any profits from it, for several years : 
 insomuch, that when he found his interest in such desperate 
 hands, he thought the best thing he could do with it was, 
 (as he saw) to giveJt away. Therefore, if he (Mr. Brett) 
 could once fix himself, as I had advised, upon a different 
 foot with this hitherto untractable manager, the business 
 would soon run through whatever channel he might have a 
 mind to lead it. And though, I allowed, the greatest 
 difficulty he would meet with would be in getting his con- 
 sent to a union of the two companies, which was the only 
 scheme that could raise the patent to its former value, and 
 which, I knew, this close manager would secretly lay all 
 possible rubs in the way to ; yet, it was visible, there was a 
 way of reducing him to compliance : for though it was 
 true his caution would never part with a straw, by way of 
 concession, yet to a high hand he would give up any thing, 
 provided he were suffered to keep his title to \t : if his hat 
 were taken from his head, in the street, he would make no 
 farther resistance, than to say, ^' I am not willing to part 
 with it :" much less would he have the resolution, openly, 
 to oppose any just measures, when he should find one who, 
 with an equal right to his, and with a known interest to 
 bring them about, was resolved to go through with them. 
 
 Now, though I knew my friend was as thoroughly 
 acquainted with this patentee's temper as myself, yet 
 I thought it not amiss to quicken and support his re- 
 solution, by confirming to him the little trouble he would 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 341 
 
 meet with in pursuit of the union I had advised him to; 
 for it must be known that, on our side, trouble was a sort of 
 physic we did not much care to take : but as the fatigue of 
 this affair was likely to be lowered by a good deal of enter- 
 tainment and humour, which would naturally engage him 
 in his dealing with so exotic a partner, I knew that this 
 softening the business into a diversion, would lessen every 
 difficulty that lay in our way to it. 
 
 However copiously I may have indulged myself in this 
 commemmoration of a gentleman with whom 1 had passed 
 so many of my younger days with pleasure, yet the reader 
 may by this insight into his character, and by that of the 
 other patentee, be better able to judge of the secret springs 
 that gave motion to, or obstructed^ so considerable an event as 
 that of the re- union of the two companies of actors in 1708. 
 In histories of more weight, for want of such particulars, 
 we are often deceived in the true causes of facts that most 
 concern us to be let into ; which sometimes makes us ascribe 
 to policy, or false appearances of wisdom, what, perhaps, 
 in reality, was the mere effect of chance or humour. 
 
 Immediately after Mr. Brett was admitted as a joint-pa- 
 tentee, he made use of the intimacy he had with the Vice 
 Chamberlain, to assist his scheme of this intended union, in 
 which he so far prevailed, that it was soon after left to the 
 particular care of the same Vice Chamberlain, to give him 
 all the aid and power necessary to the bringing what he 
 desired to perfection. The scheme was to have but one 
 theatre for plays, and another for operas, under separate in- 
 terests. And this the generality of spectators, as well as 
 the most approved actors, had been some time calling for, 
 as the only expedient to recover the credit of the stage, 
 and the valuable interests of its managers. 
 
 As the condition of the comedians at this time is taken 
 notice of in my dedication of the '' Wife's Resentment" to 
 
 z 3 
 
S42 
 
 AN AK)LOGY FOR THE 
 
 the Marquis (qow Duke) of Kent, and then Lord Chamber- 
 lain, which was published above thirty years ago, when I 
 had no thought of ever troubling the world with this thea- 
 trical history, I see no reason why it may not pass as a 
 voucher of the facts I am now speaking of: I shall there- 
 fore give them in the very light I then saw them. After 
 some acknowledgment for his lordship's protection of our 
 (Haymarket) theatre, it is further said : 
 
 " The stage has, for many years, till of late groaned un- 
 der the greatest discouragements, which have been very 
 much, if not wholly, owing to the mismanagement of those 
 that have aukwardly governed it. Great sums have been 
 ventured upon empty projects, and hopes of immoderate 
 gains ; and when those hopes have failed, the loss has been 
 tyrannically deducted out of the actors' salary. And if 
 your lordship had not redeemed them (this is meant of our 
 being suffered to come oveyr to Swiny) they were very near 
 being wholly laid aside, or, at least, the use of their labour 
 was to be swallowed up, in the pretended merit of singing 
 and dancing." 
 
 What follows, relates to the difficulties in dealing with 
 the, then, impracticable manager ; viz. 
 
 ^' — And though your lordship's tenderness of oppress- 
 ing is, so very just, that you have rather staid to convince a 
 man of your good intentions to him, than to do him even a 
 service against his will ; yet since your lordship has so hap- 
 pily begun the establishment of the separate diversions, we 
 live in hope that the same justice and resolution will still 
 persuade you to go as successfully through with it. But 
 while any man is suffered to confound the industry and use 
 of them, by acting publicly, in opposition to your lord- 
 ship's equal intentions, under a false and intricate pretence 
 of not being able to comply with them, the town is likely 
 to be more entertained with the private dissensions than the 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEV GIBBER. 343 
 
 public performance of either, and the actors in a perpetual 
 fear and necessity of petitioning your lordship every season 
 for new relief." 
 
 Such was the state of the stage, immediately preceding 
 the time of Mr, Brett's being admitted a joint-patentee, 
 who, as he saw, with clearer eyes, what was its evident in- 
 terest, left no proper measures unattempted to make this so 
 long despaired-of union practicable. The most apparent 
 difficulty to be got over in this affair was what could be 
 done for Swiny, in consideration of his being obliged to give 
 up those actors, whom the power and choice of the Lord 
 Chamberlain had, the year before, set him at the head 
 of, and by whose management those actors had found them- 
 selves in a prosperous condition. But an accident; at this 
 time, happily contributed to make that matter easy. The 
 inclination of our people of quality for foreign operas had 
 now reached the ears of Italy, and the credit of their taste 
 had drawn over from thence, without any more particular 
 invitation, one of their capital singers, the famous Signior 
 Cavaliero Nicolini, from whose arrival, and the impatience 
 of the town to hear him, it was concluded that operas, be- 
 ing now so completely provided, could not fail of success ; 
 and that, by making Swiny sole director of them, the profits 
 must be an ample compensation for his resignation of the 
 actors. This matter being thus adjusted, by Swiny's ac- 
 ceptance of the opera only to be performed at the Haymar- 
 ket house, the actors were all ordered to return to Drury- 
 lane, there to remain (under the patentees) her majesty's 
 only company of comedians. 
 
 z4 
 

 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 CHAP. XII. 
 
 A thort view of the opera, when first divided from the comedy. — 
 Plays recover their credit. — The old patentee uneasy at their 
 success. — Why. — The occasion of Colonel BretCs throwing up 
 his share in the patent. — The consequences of it. — Anecdotes of 
 Goodman the actor. — The rate of favourite actors in his time. 
 — The patentees, by endeavouring to reduce their price, lose 
 them alia second time. — The principal comedians return to the 
 Haymarket in shares with Swiny. — They alter that theatre. — 
 The original and present form of the theatre in Drury-lane 
 compared. — Operas fall off. — The occasion of it. — Farther ob- 
 servations upon tJiem. — Tfie patentee dispossessed of Brury^ 
 lane theatre. — Mr. Collier, with a new license, heads the re- 
 mains of that company. 
 
 PLAYS and operas being thus established upon separate 
 interests, they were now left to make the best of their way 
 into favour, by their different merit. Although the opera is 
 not a plant of our native growth, nor what our plainer ap- 
 petites are fond of, and is of so delicate a nature that, with- 
 out excessive charge, it cannot live long among us, especi- 
 ally while the nicest connoisseurs in music fall into such 
 various heresies in taste, every sect pretending to be the true 
 one ; yet, as it is called a theatrical entertainment, and by its 
 alliance or neutrality has more or less affected our domestic 
 theatre, a short view of its progress may be allowed a place 
 in our history 
 
 After this new regulation, the first opera that appeared, 
 was ^' Pyrrhus." Subscriptions, at that time, were not 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 345 
 
 extended, as of late, to the whole season, but were limited 
 to the first six days only of a new opera. The chief per- 
 formers in this were Nicolini, Valentini, and Mrs. Tofts ;* 
 and, for the inferior parts, the best that were then to be 
 found. Whatever praises may have been given to the 
 most famous voices that have been heard since Nicolini, 
 upon the whole, I cannot but come into the opinion that 
 still prevails among several persons of condition, who are 
 able to give a reason for their liking, that no singer since 
 his time, has so justly and gracefully acquitted himself, in 
 whatever character he appeared, as Nicolini. f At most, 
 
 * This lady sang in English, while her associates responded in 
 Italian. Such was the delicacy of our national taste. 
 
 t Signor Nicolini Grimaldi is thus described in the " Tattler," 
 No. 1 1 5, from which I extract the passage, given also, overleaf, by 
 Gibber, on account of the complete notice that it furnishes of this 
 eminent performer. 
 
 " I went on Friday last to the Opera, and was surprized to find 
 a thin house at so noble an entertainment, till I heard that the tum- 
 bler was not to make his appearance that night. For my own 
 part, I was fully satisfied with the sight of an actor, who, by the 
 grace and propriety of his action and gesture, does honour to an 
 human figure, as much as the other vilifies and degrades it. Every 
 one will easily imagine I mean Signior Nicolini, who sets off the 
 character he bears in an opera by his action, as much as he does the 
 words of it by his voice. Every limb, and every finger, contri- 
 butes to the part he acts, insomuch that a deaf man might go along 
 with him in the sense of it. There is scarcely a beautiful posture in 
 an old statue which he does not plant himself in, as the different 
 circumstances of the story give occasion for it. He performs the 
 most ordinary action in a manner suitable to the greatness of his 
 character, and shows the prince even in the giving of a letter, or 
 dispatching a message. Our best actors are somewhat at a loss to 
 support themselves with proper gesture, as they move from any 
 considerable distance to the front of the stage ; but I have seen the 
 
346 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the difference between him and the greatest favourite of 
 the ladies, Farinelli, amounted but to this — that he might 
 sometimes more exquisitely surprise us, but Nicolini (by 
 pleasing the eye as well as the ear) filled us with a more 
 various and rational delight. Whether, in this excellence, 
 he has since had any competitor, perhaps will be better 
 judged, by what the critical censor of Great Britain says of 
 him, in his 115th " Tattler ;" m. 
 
 Nicolini sets oflf the character he bears in an opera, by his 
 ~action, as much as he does the words of it, by his voice ; every 
 limb, and finger, contributes to the part he acts, insomuch, that a 
 deaf man might go along with him in the sense of it. There is 
 scarcely a beautiful posture in an old statue, which he does not 
 plant himself in, as the different circumstances of the story give 
 occasion for it. He performs the most ordinary action, in a man- 
 ner suitable to the greatness of his character, ana shows the prince, 
 even in the giving of a letter, or dispatching of a message, &c. 
 
 His voice, at this first time of being among us, (for he 
 made us a second visit when it was impaired) had all that 
 strong, clear sweetness of tone so lately admired in Serie- 
 sino. A blind man could scarcely have distinguished 
 them ; but in volubility of throat, the former had much the 
 superiority. This so excellent performer's agreement was 
 eight hundred guineas for the year, which is but an eighth 
 part more than half the sum that has since been given to 
 several that could never totally surpass him. The conse- 
 quence of which is, that the losses by operas, for several 
 seasons, to the end of the year 1738, have been so great, 
 that those gentlemen of quality who last undertook the 
 direction of them, found it ridiculous any longer to enter- 
 
 persoo of whom I am now speaking, enter alone at the remotest 
 part of it, and advance from it with such greatness of air and mien, 
 as seemed to fill the stage, and at the same time commanded the 
 attention of the audience with the majesty of his appearance."— 
 Monday, Jan. 2, 1710. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEV GIBBER. 
 
 347 
 
 lain the public at so extravagant an expense, while no one 
 particular person thought himself obliged by it. 
 
 Mrs. Tofts, who took her first grounds of music here in 
 her own country, before the Italian taste had so highly pre- 
 vailed, was then not* an adept in it : yet whatever defect 
 the fashionably skilful might find in her manner, she had, 
 in the general sense of her spectators, charms that few of 
 the most learned singers ever arrive at. The beauty of her 
 fine-proportioned figure, and exquisitely sweet silver tone 
 of her voice, with that peculiar rapid swiftness of her 
 throat, w ere perfections not to be imitated by art or labour. 
 Valentini I have already mentioned, therefore need only 
 say farther of him, that though he was every way inferior 
 to Nicolini, yet as he had the advantage of giving us our 
 first impression of a good opera-singer, he had still his 
 admirers, and was of great service, in being so skilful a 
 second to his superior. 
 
 Three such excellent performers, in the same kind of 
 entertainment at once, England till this time had never 
 seen. Without any farther comparison, then, with the 
 much dearer bought who have succeeded them, their no- 
 velty, at least, was a charm that drew vast audiences of the 
 fine world after them. Swiny, their sole director, was 
 prosperous, and in one winter a gainer by them of a moder- 
 ate younger brother's fortune. But as music, by so pro- 
 fuse a dispensation of her beauties, could not always supply 
 our dainty appetites with equal variety, nor for ever please 
 us with the same objects, the opera, after one luxurious 
 season, like the fine wife of a roving husband, began to lose 
 
 * — not an adept in it."] — In his quarto edition of this work, Mr. 
 Gibber wrote — " but an adept," making the word, adept, imply a 
 novice, instead of a proficient. His old inveterate enemy Fielding, 
 in the, " Champion," seized upon this blunder, and very forcibly 
 urged it as a proof of ignorance. 
 
S48 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 its charms, and every day discovered to our satiety, imper- 
 fections which our former fondness had been blind to. But 
 of this I shall observe more in its place : in the mean- 
 time, let us inquire into the productions of our native 
 theatre. 
 
 It may easily be conceived that, by this entire re union of 
 the two companies, plays must generally have been perform- 
 ed to a more than usual advantage and exactness ; for now 
 every chief actor, according to his particular capacity, 
 piqued himself upon rectifying those errors which, during 
 their divided state, were almost unavoidable. Such a 
 choice of actors added a richness to every good play, as it 
 was then served up to the public entertainment. The com- 
 mon people crowded to them, with a more joyous expecta- 
 tion, and those of the higher taste, returned to them, as to 
 old acquaintances, with new desires, after a long absence. 
 In a word, all parties seemed better pleased, but he who, one 
 might imagine, had most reason to. be so, the (lately) sole 
 managing patentee. He, indeed, saw his power daily moul- 
 dering from his own hands, into those of Mr. Brett, whose 
 gentlemanly manner of making every one's business easy to 
 him, threw their old master under a disregard which he 
 had not been used to, nor could, with all his happy change 
 of affairs, support. Although this grave theatrical minis- 
 ter, of whom I have been obliged to make such frequent 
 mention, had acquired the reputation of a most profound 
 politician, by being often incomprehensible, yet I am not 
 sure that his conduct, at this juncture, gave us not an evi- 
 dent proof that he was, like other frail mortals, more a 
 slave to his passions than his interest ; for no creature ever 
 seemed more fond of power, that so little knew how to use 
 it to his profit and reputation ; otherwise, he could not pos- 
 sibly have been so discontented, in his secure and prosper- 
 ous state of the theatre, as to resolve, at all hazards, lo 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 349 
 
 destroy it. We shall now see what infallible measures he 
 took to bring this laudable scheme to perfection. 
 
 He plainly saw that, as this disagreeable prosperity was 
 chiefly owing to the conduct of Mr. Brett, there could be 
 no hope of recovering the stage to its former confusion, but 
 by finding some effectual means to make Mr. Brett weary 
 of his charge. The most probable he could, for the pres- 
 ent, think of, in this distress, was to call in the adventurers 
 (whom for many years, by his defence in law, he had kept 
 out) now to take care of their visibly improvuig interests. 
 This fair appearance of equity, being known to be his own 
 proposal, he rightly guessed would incline these adven- 
 turers to form a majority of votes on his side, in all theat- 
 rical questions ; and consequently become a check upon 
 the power of Mr. Brett, who had so visibly alienated the 
 hearts of his theatrical subjects, and now began to govern 
 without him. When the adventurers, therefore, were re- 
 admitted to their old government, after having recom- 
 mended himself to them, by proposing to make some small 
 dividend of the profits, (though he did not design that jest 
 should be repeated) he took care that the creditors of the 
 patent, who were then no inconsiderable body, should carry 
 off the every week's clear profits, in proportion to their 
 several dues and demands. This conduct, so speciously 
 just, he had hopes would let Mr. Brett see that his share in 
 the patent was not so valuable an acquisition as, perhaps, 
 he might think it ; and probably make a man of his turn to 
 pleasure, soon weary of the little profit and great plague it 
 gave him. 
 
 Now, though these might be all notable expedients, 
 yet I cannot say they would have wholly contributed to 
 Mr. Brett's quitting his post^ had not a matter of much 
 stronger moment, an unexpected dispute between him and 
 Sir Thomas Skipwith, prevailed with him to lay it down : 
 
350 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 for, in the midst of this flourishing state of the patent, Mr. 
 Brett was surprised with a subpoena into Chancery, from 
 Sir Thomas Skipwith, who alleged, in his bill, that the con- 
 veyance he had made of his interest in the patent to Mr. 
 Brett, was only intended in trust. Whatever the intent 
 might be, the deed itself, which I then read, made no men- 
 tion of any trust whatever. But whether Mr. Brett, as Sir 
 Thomas farther asserted, had previously, or after the deed 
 was signed, given his word of honour that, if he should 
 ever make the stage turn to any account or profit, he would 
 certainly restore it, that indeed 1 can say nothing to ; but 
 be the deed valid or void, the facts that apparently fol- 
 lowed were that, though Mr. Brett^ in his answer to this 
 bill, absolutely denied his receiving this assignment, either 
 in trust, or upon any limited condition, of what kind soever, 
 yet he made no farther defence in the cause. But since he 
 found Sir Thomas had thought fit, on any account, to sue 
 for the restitution of it ; and Mr. Brett being himself con- 
 scious that, as the world knew, he had paid no consideration 
 for it, his keeping it might be misconstrued, or not favour- 
 ably spoken of; or perhaps finding, though the profits were 
 great, they were constantly swallowed up (as has been ob- 
 served) by the previous satisfaction of old debts, he grew so 
 tired of the plague and trouble the whole afiair had given 
 him, and was likely still to engage him in, that, in a few 
 weeks after, he withdrew himself from all concern with the 
 theatre, and quietly left Sir Thomas to find his better ac- 
 count in it. And thus stood his undecided right, till, upon 
 the demise of Sir Thomas, Mr. Brett, being allowed the 
 charges he had been at, in this attendance and prosecution 
 of the union, reconveyed this share of the patent to Sir 
 George Skipwith, the son and heir of Sir Thomas. 
 
 Our politician, the old patentee, having thus fortunately 
 got rid of Mr. Brett, who had so rashly brought the patent 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 351 
 
 once more to be a profitable tenure, was now again at 
 liberty to chuse rather to lose all than not to have it all to 
 himself. 
 
 I have elsewhere observed that nothing can so effectually 
 secure the strength, or contribute to the prosi^erity of a 
 good company, as the directors of it having always, as near 
 as possible, an amicable understanding with three or four 
 of their best actors, whose good or ill will must naturally 
 make a wide difference in their profitable or useless manner 
 of serving them. While the principal are kept reasonably 
 easy, the lower class can never be troublesome, without 
 hurting themselves ; but when a valuable actor is hardly 
 treated, the master must be a very cunning man that finds 
 his account in it. We shall now see how far experience 
 will verify this observation. 
 
 The patentees thinking themselves secure, in being re- 
 stored to their former absolute power over this now only 
 company, chose rather to govern it by the reverse of the 
 method I have recommended : for though the daily charge 
 of their united company amounted not, by a good deal, to 
 what either of the two companies now inDrury-lane or Co- 
 vent-garden, singly, arises [to] ; they, notwithstanding, fell 
 into their former politics, of thinking every shilling taken 
 from a hired actor so much clear gain to the proprietor : 
 many of their people, therefore, were actually, if not inju- 
 diciously, reduced in their pay, and others given to under- 
 stand the same fate was designed them ; of which last num- 
 ber 1 myself was one ; which occurs to my memory by the 
 answer I made to one of the adventurers, who, in justifica- 
 tion of their intended proceeding, told me, that my salary, 
 though it should be less than it was by ten shillings a- week, 
 would still be more than ever Goodman had, who was a 
 better actor than I could pretend to be. To which I re- 
 plied, " This may be true ; but then you know, sir, it is 
 
35^ 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 as true, that Goodman was forced to go upon the highway 
 for a livelihood." As this was a known fact of Goodman, 
 my mentioning it on that occcasion, I believe, was of ser- 
 vice to me; at least my salary was not reduced after it. 
 To say a word or two more of Goodman, so celebrated an 
 actor in his time, perhaps may set the conduct of the patent- 
 ees in a clearer light. Though Goodman had left the 
 stage before I came to it, I had some slight acquaintance 
 with him. About the time of his being expected to be an 
 evidence against Sir John Fenwick, . in the assassination 
 plot, in 1696,* I happened to meet him at dinner at Sir 
 Thomas Skipwith's, who, as he was an agreeable compa- 
 nion himself, liked Goodman for the same quality. Here 
 it was, that Goodman, without disguise, or sparing himself, 
 fell into a laughing account of several loose passages of his 
 younger life ; as his being expelled the university of Cam- 
 bridge, for being one of the hot-headed sparks who were 
 concerned in the cutting and defacing the Duke of Mon- 
 mouth's picture, then chancellor of that place. But this 
 disgrace, it seems, had not disqualified him for the stage ; 
 which, like the sea-service, refuses no man for his morals, 
 that is able-bodied. There, as an act6r, he soon grew into 
 a different reputation ; but whatever his merit might be, 
 the pay of a hired hero, in those days, was so very low, 
 that he was forced, it seems, to take the air, (as he called 
 it) and borrow what money the first man he met had about 
 him. But this being his first exploit of that kind, which 
 the scantiness of his theatrical fortune had reduced him to, 
 King James was prevailed upon to pardon him ; which, 
 Goodman said, was doing him so particular an honour, that 
 
 * It is a strange circumstance that Goodman should be suffered 
 to pollute the presence of any honest man, at this juncture, while 
 labouring under the charges of treason and projected murder. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 353 
 
 no man could wonder if his acknowledgment had carried 
 him a little farther than ordinary, into the interest of that 
 prince. But as he had, lately, been out of luck, in back- 
 ing his old master, he had now no way to get home the life 
 he was out, upon his account, but by being under the same 
 obligations to King William. 
 
 Another anecdote of him, though not quite so dishonour- 
 ably enterprising, which I had from his own mouth, at a 
 different time, will equally show to what low shifts in life 
 the poor provision for good actors, under the early govern- 
 ment of the patent, reduced them. In the younger days 
 of their heroism, Captain Griffin and Goodman were con- 
 fined by their moderate salaries, to the economy of lying 
 together in the same bed, and having but one shirt between 
 them. One of them being under the obligation of a ren- 
 dezvous with a fair lady, insisted upon his wearing it out of 
 his turn, which occasioned so high a dispute, that the 
 combat was immediately demanded, and accordingly their 
 pretensions to it were decided by a fair tilt upon the spot, 
 in the room where they lay. But whether Clytus or Alex- 
 ander was obliged to see no company till a worse could 
 be washed for him, seems not to be a material point in their 
 history, or to my purpose. 
 
 By this rate of Goodman, who, till the time of his quit- 
 ting the stage, never had more than what is called forty 
 shillings a- week, it may be judged how cheap the labour, 
 of actors had been formerly ; and the patentees thought it 
 a folly to continue the higher price, (which their divi- 
 sions had since raised them to) now there was but one 
 market for them ; but, alas, they had forgotten their for- 
 mer fatal mistake of squabbling with their actors, in 1695, 
 nor did they make any allowance for the changes and 
 operations of time, or enough consider the interest the ac- 
 tors had in the Lord Chamberlain, on whose protection 
 
 A A 
 
354 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 they might always rely, and whose decrees had been less 
 restrained by precedent than those of a Lord Chancellor. 
 
 Ii^ this mistaken view of their interest, the patentees, by 
 treating their actors as enemies, really made them so. And 
 when once the masters of a hired company think not their 
 actors' hearts as necessary as their hands, they cannot be 
 said to have agreed for above half the work they are able to 
 do in a day. Or, if an unexpected success should, notwith- 
 standing, make the profits, in any gross disproportion, 
 greater than the wages, the wages will always have 
 something worse than a murmur at the head of them, that 
 will not only measure the merit of the actor by the gains of 
 the proprietor, but will never naturally be quiet, till every 
 scheme of getting into property has been tried, to make 
 the servant his own master ; and this, as far as experi- 
 ence can make me judge, will always be, in either of these 
 cases, the state of our English theatre. What truth there 
 may be in this observation, we are now coming to a 
 proof of. 
 
 To enumerate all the particular acts of power in which 
 the patentees daily bore hard upon this now only company 
 of actors, might be as tedious as unnecessary ; I shall, there- 
 fore, come at once to their most material grievance, upon 
 which they grounded their complaint to the Lord Cham- 
 berlain, who, in the year following, 1709, took effectual 
 measures for their relief. 
 
 The patentees, observing that the benefit-plays of the ac- 
 tors, towards the latter end of the season, brought the most 
 crowded audiences in the year, began to think their own 
 interests too much neglected by these partial fevours of the 
 town to their actors, and therefore judged it would not be 
 impolitic, in such wholesome annual profits, to have a fel- 
 low-feeling with them. Accordingly, an indulto was laid 
 of one-third, out of the profits of every benefit, for thfe 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 355 
 
 proper use and behoof of the patent.* But that a clear 
 judgment may be formed of the equity, or hardship of this 
 imposition, it will be necessary to show from whence, and 
 from what causes, the actors' claim to benefits originally 
 proceeded. 
 
 During the reign of King Charles, an actor's benefit had 
 never been heard of. The first indulgence of this kind was 
 given to Mrs* Barry,t (as has been formerly observed) in 
 King James's time, in consideration of the extraordinary 
 applause that had followed her performance : but there this 
 favour rested, to her alone, till after the division of the only 
 company in 1695, at which time the patentees were soon 
 reduced to pay their actors, half in good words, and half 
 in ready money. In this precarious condition, some par- 
 ticular actors (however binding their agreements might be) 
 were too poor, or too wise to go to law with a lawyer ; and 
 therefore rather chose to compound their arrears^, for their 
 being admitted to the chance of having them made up by 
 
 * " After Mr. Rich was again restored to the management of the 
 playhouse, he made an order to stop a certain proportion of the clear 
 profits of every benefit-play, without exception ; which being done, 
 and reaching the chief players as well as the underlings, zealous ap- 
 plication was made to the Lord Chamberlain, to oblige Mr. Rich to 
 return the money stopped to each particular. The dispute lasted 
 some time, and Mr. Rich, not giving full satisfaction upon that 
 head, was silenced ; during the time of which silence, the chief 
 players * * * * * * set up for themselves, and got into the pos- 
 session of the playhouse in Drury-lane." — Answer to Steele's "State 
 of the Case;" 1720. 
 
 Rich, in this business made out his right before the Attorney- 
 general, and other lawyers, and then petitioned the council, who, 
 refusing to determine the matter, referred him to law% and there 
 matters rested till he built a new house in Lincoln's-inn-fields. 
 
 t This mistake is corrected in a former note. 
 A a2 
 
356 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the profits of a benefit-play. This expedient had this con- 
 sequence ; that the patentees, though their daily audi- 
 ences might, and did sometimes, mend, still kept the short 
 subsistence of their actors at a stand, and grew more 
 steady in their resolution so to keep them, as they found 
 them less apt to mutiny while their hopes of being cleared 
 off by a benefit were depending. In a year or two, these 
 benefits grew so advantageous, that they became, at last, 
 the chief article in every actor's agreement. 
 
 Now, though the agreements of these united actors I am 
 speaking of in 1708, were as yet only verbal, yet that made 
 no difference in the honest obligation to keep them. But, 
 as honour at that time happened to have but a loose hold 
 of their consciences, the patentees rather chose to give it 
 the slip, and went on with their work without it. No 
 actor, therefore, could have his benefit fixed, till he had 
 first signed a paper, signifying his voluntary acceptance of 
 it upon the above conditions, any claims from custom to 
 the contrary, notwithstanding. Several at first refused to 
 sign this paper ; upon which the first in rank were offered 
 on the same conditions, to ' come before the refusers ; this 
 smart expedient got some few of the fearful the preference 
 to their seniors ; who, at last, seeing the time was too 
 short for a present remedy, and that they must either come 
 into the boat, or lose their tide, were forced to comply 
 with what they as yet silently resented as the severest in- 
 jury. In this situation, therefore, they chose to let the 
 principal benefits be over, that their grievances might 
 swell into some bulk, before they made any application for 
 redress to the Lord Chamberlain; who, upon hearing 
 their general complaint, ordered the patentees to show 
 cause why their benefits had been diminished one third, 
 contrary to the common usage. The patentees pleaded the 
 signed agreement, and the actors' receipts of the other two 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 357 
 
 thirds, in full satisfaction ; but these were proved to have 
 been exacted from them by the methods already men- 
 tioned. They, notwithstanding, insisted upon them as law- 
 ful. But as law and equity do not always agree, they 
 were looked upon as unjust and arbitrary ; whereupon the 
 patentees were warned at their peril to refuse the actors 
 full satisfaction. But here it was thought necessary that 
 judgment should be for some time respiti'd, till the actors, 
 who had leave so to do, could form a body strong enough 
 to make the inclination of the Lord Chamberlain to relieve 
 them practicable. 
 
 Accordingly, Swiny (who was then sole director of the 
 opera only) had permission to enter into a private treaty 
 with such of the united actors in Drury-lane as might be 
 thought fit to head a company under their own manage- 
 ment, and to be sharers with him in the Hayraarket. The 
 actors chosen for this charge were Wilks, Dogget, Mrs. 
 Oldfield, and myself. But, before I proceed, lest it should 
 seem surprising that neither Betterton^ Mrs. Barry, Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle, or Booth, were parties in this treaty, it must 
 be observed, that Betterton was now seventy-three, and 
 rather chose, with the infirmities of age upon him, to rely 
 on such salary as might be appointed him, than to involve 
 himself in the cares and hurry that must unavoidably attend 
 the regulation of a new company. As to the two celebrated 
 actresses I have named, this has been my most proper oc- 
 casion of making it known, that they had both quitted the 
 stage the year before this transaction was thought of ; and 
 Booth as yet was scarcely out of his minority as an actor, 
 or only in the promise of that reputation, which, in about 
 four or five years after, he happily arrived at. However, 
 at this juncture he was not so far overlooked, as not to be 
 offered a valuable addition to his salary; but this he de- 
 clined, being, while the patentees were under this distress, 
 
 A a3 
 
358 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 as much, if not more, !» favour with their chief manager 
 as a schematist than as an actor; and indeed he appeared, 
 to my judgment, more inclined to risk his fortune in Drury- 
 lane, where he should have no rival in parts or power, 
 than on any terms to embark in the Haymarket, where he 
 was sure to meet with opponents in both. However, this 
 his separation from our interest, when our all was at stake, 
 afterwards kept his advancement to a share with us, in our 
 more successful days, longer postponed than otherwise it 
 probably might have been. 
 
 When Mrs. Oldfield was nominated as a joint sharer in 
 our new agreement to be made with Swiny, Dogget, who 
 had no objection to her merit, insisted that our affairs could 
 never be upon a secure foundation, if there was more than 
 one sex admitted to the management of them. He there- 
 fore hoped that if we offered Mrs. Oldfield a carte blanche y 
 instead of a share, she would not think herself slighted. 
 This was instantly agreed to, and Mrs. Oldfield received it 
 rather as a favour, than a disobligation : her demands, 
 therefore, were two hundred pounds a-year certain, and a 
 benefit clear of all charges ; which were readily signed to. 
 Her easiness on this occasion, some years afler, when our 
 establishment was in prosperity, made us, with less reluct- 
 ancy, advance her two hundred pounds to three hundred 
 guineas per annum, with her usual benefit, which, upon an 
 average, for several years at least doubled that sum. 
 
 When a sufficient nvmaber of actors were engaged under 
 our confederacy with Swiny, it was then judged a proper 
 time for the Lord Chamberlain's power to operate, which, 
 by lying^ above a month dormant, had so far recovered the 
 patentees firom any apprehensions of what might fall upon 
 them, from their late usurpations on the benefits of the 
 actors, that they began to set their marks upon those who 
 had distinguished themselves in the application for redress. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 359 
 
 Several little disgraces were put upon them; particularly in 
 the disposal of parts, in plays to be revived, and as visible a 
 partiality was shown in the promotion of those in their 
 interest, though their endeavours to serve them could be of 
 no extraordinary use. How often does history show us, in 
 the same state of courts, the same politics have been prac- 
 tised? All this while, the other party were passively si- 
 lent; till one day, the actor who particularly solicited their 
 cause at the Lord Chamberlain's office, being shown there 
 the order signed for absolutely silencing the patentees, and 
 ready to be served, flew back with the news to his compan- 
 ions, then at a rehearsal, in which he had been wanted ; 
 when being called to his part, and something hastily quest- 
 ioned by the patentee for his neglect of business ; this actor, 
 I say, with an erected look, and a theatrical spirit, at once 
 threw off the mask, and roundly told him, — ^' Sir, I have 
 now no more business here than you have ; in half an hour 
 you will neither have actors to command, nor authority 
 to employ them."-:-The patentee, though he could not 
 readily comprehend his mysterious manner of speaking, had 
 just a glimpse of terror enough from the words to soften his 
 reproof into a cold formal declaration, that " if he would 
 not do his work, he should not be paid." — But now, to 
 complete the catastrophe of these theatrical commotions, 
 enters the messenger, with the order of silence in his hand, 
 whom the same actor officiously introduced, telling the pa- 
 tentee, that the gentleman wanted to speak w ith him, from 
 the Lord Chamberlain. When the messenger had deliver- 
 ed the order, the actor throwing his head over his shoulder, 
 towards the patentee, in the manner of Shakspeare's Harry 
 the Eighth to Cardinal Wolsey^ cried — " Read o'er that ! 
 and now — to breakfast, with what appetite you may." — 
 Though these words might be spoken, in too vindictive, and 
 insulting a manner, to be commended ; yet, from the fulness 
 
 A A 4 
 
360 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 of a heart injuriously treated, and now relieved by that in- 
 stant occasion, why might they not be pardoned ? 
 
 The authority of the patent now no longer subsisting, all 
 the confederated actors immediately walked out of the 
 house, to which they never returned, till they became 
 themselves the tenants and masters of it. 
 
 Here, again, we see an higher instance of the authority of 
 a Lord Chamberlain, than any of those 1 have elsewhere 
 mentioned : from whence that power might be derived, as 
 I have already said, I am not lawyer enough to know ; 
 however, it is evident that a lawyer obeyed it, though to his 
 cost ; which might incline one to think that the law was not 
 clearly against it : be that as it may, since the law has lately 
 made it no longer a question, let us drop the inquiry, and 
 proceed to the facts which followed this order, that silenced 
 the patent. 
 
 From this last injudicious disagreement of the patentees 
 with their principal actors, and from what they had suffer- 
 ed on the same occasion, in the division of their only com- 
 pany in 1695, might we not imagine there was something 
 of infatuation in their management? For though I allow 
 actors, in general, when they are too much indulged, or 
 governed by an unsteady head, to be as unruly a multitude 
 as power can be plagued with ; yet there is a medium, 
 which, if cautiously observed by a candid use of power, 
 making them always know, without feeling, their superior, 
 neither suffering their encroachments, nor invading their 
 rights, with an immovable adherence to the accepted laws 
 they are to walk by ; such a regulation, I say, has never 
 failed, in my observation, to have made them a tractable 
 and profitable society. If the government of a well-estab- 
 lished theatre were to be compared to that of a nation, 
 there is no one act of policy or misconduct in the one or the 
 other, in which the manager might not, in some jjarallel 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 361 
 
 case (laugh, if you please) be equally applauded, or con- 
 demned with the statesman. Perhaps this will not be 
 found so wild a conceit, if you look into the 19Sd " Tat- 
 tler," vol. 4., where the affairs of the state, and those 
 of the very stage I am now treating of, are, in a letter from 
 Downs the prompter^ compared, and, with a great deal of 
 wit and humour, set upon an equal foot of policy.* The 
 
 * " Honoured Sir: July 1, 1710. 
 
 Finding by divers of your late papers, that you are a friend 
 to the profession of which I was many years an unworthy mem- 
 ber, I the rather make bold to crave your advice touching a pro- 
 posal that has been lately made me of coming again into business, 
 and the sub-administration of stage affairs. I have, from my 
 youth, been bred up behind the curtain, and been a prompter from 
 the time of the restoration. I have seen many changes, as well of 
 scenes as of actors, and have known men within my remembrance 
 arrive to the highest dignities of the theatre, who made their en- 
 trance in the quality of mutes, joint-stools, flower-pots, and tapes- 
 try hangings. It cannot be unknown to the nobility and gentry, 
 that a gentleman of the inns of court, and a deep intriguer, had 
 some time since worked himself into the sole management and di- 
 rection of the theatre. Nor is it less notorious, that his restless 
 ambition, and subtle machinations, did manifestly tend to the ex- 
 tirpation of the good old British actors, and the introduction of 
 foreign pretenders; such as Harlequins, French dancers, and Ro- 
 man singers; which, though they impoverished the proprietors, 
 and imposed on the audience, were for some time tolerated, by 
 reason of his dexterous insinuations, which prevailed upon a few 
 deluded women, especially the vizard masks, to believe that the 
 stage was in danger. But his schemes were soon exposed, and the 
 great ones that supported him withdrawing their favour, he made 
 his exit, and remained for a season in obscurity. During this re- 
 treat the Machiavelian was not idle, but secretly fomented divi- 
 sions and wrought over to his side some of the inferior actors; re- 
 
362 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 letter is supposed to have been written on the last change of 
 the ministry in Queen Ann's time. I will therefore venture, 
 
 serving a trap-door to himself, to which only he had a key. This 
 entrance secured, this cunning person, to complete his company, 
 bethought himself of calling in the mqst eminent strollers from all 
 parts of the kingdom. I have seen them all ranged together be- 
 hind the scenes ; but they are many of them persons that never 
 trod the stage before, and so very aukward and ungainly, that it is 
 impossible to believe the audience will bear them. He was looking 
 over his catalogue of plays, and indeed picked up a good tolerable 
 set of grave faces for counsellors, to appear in the famous scene of 
 " Venice Preserved," when the danger is over ; but they being but 
 mere outsides, and the actors having a great mind to play the 
 " Tempest," there is not a man of them, when he is to perform 
 any thing above dumb show, is capable of acting with a good grace 
 so much as the part of Trmculo. However, the master persists in 
 his design, and is fitting up the old *' Storm ;" but I am afraid he 
 will not be able to procure able sailors or experienced officers for 
 love or money. 
 
 Besides all this, when he comes to cast the parts, there is so 
 great a confusion amongst them for want of proper actors, that for 
 my part I am wholly discouraged. The play with which they de- 
 sign to open is, the " Duke and no Duke ;" and they are so put 
 to it, that the master himself is to play the Conjuror, and they 
 have no one for the General but honest George Powel. 
 
 Now, sir, they being so much at a loss for the dramatis per- 
 sonce, viz. the persons- to enact, and the whole frame of the house 
 being designed to be altered, I desire your opinion, whether you 
 think it advisable for me to undertake to prompt them ? For though 
 I can clash swords when they represent a battle, and have yet lungs 
 enough left to huzza their victories, I question, if I should prompt 
 them right, whether they would act accordingly. — I am 
 
 Your honour's most humble servant, 
 
 John Downs. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 363 
 
 Upon the authority of that author's imagination, to carry 
 the comparison as high as it can possibly go, and say, that 
 as I remember one of our princes, in the last century, 
 to have lost his crown by too arbitrary a use of his power, 
 though he knew how fatal the same measures had been 
 to his unhappy father before him ; why should we wonder, 
 that the same passions, taking possession of men in lower 
 life, by an equally impolitic usage of their theatrical sub- 
 jects, should have involved the patentees in proportionable 
 calamities. 
 
 During the vacation, which immediately followed the si- 
 lence of the patent, both parties were at leisure to form 
 their schemes for the winter ; for the patentee would still 
 hold out, notwithstanding his being so miserably maimed or 
 over-matched: he had no more regard to blows than a 
 blind cock of the game ; he might be beaten, but would ne- 
 ver yield; the patent was still in his possession, and the 
 broad seal to it visibly as fresh as ever : besides, he had yet 
 some actors in his service, at a much cheaper rate than 
 those who had left him, the salaries of which last now they 
 would not work for him, he was not obliged to pay. In 
 this way of thinking, he still kept together such as had not 
 been invited over to the Haymarket, or had been influenced 
 by Booth to follow his fortune in Drury-lane. 
 
 By the patentee's keeping these remains of his broken 
 forces together, it is plain that he imagined this order of si- 
 lence, like others of the same kind, would be recalled, 
 of course, after a reasonable time of obedience had been 
 
 P. S. Sir, since I wrote this, I am credibly informed, that they 
 design a new house in Lincoln's-inn-fields, near the popish chapel, 
 to be ready by Michaelmas next ; which indeed is but repairing an 
 old one that has already failed. Yoa know the honest man who 
 kept the office is gone already." ' 
 
364 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 paid to ft:* but, it seems, he had relied too much upon 
 former precedents ; nor had his politics yet dived into the 
 secret, that the court power, with which the patent had 
 been so long and often at variance, had now a mind to take 
 the public diversions more absolutely into their own hands : 
 not that I have any stronger reasons for this conjecture, 
 than that the patent never after this order of silence got 
 leave to play during the queen's reign. But upon the 
 accession of his late majesty, power having then a different 
 aspect, the patent found no difficulty in being permitted to 
 exercise its former authority for acting plays, &c., which, 
 however, from this time of their lying still, in 1709, did not 
 happen till 17M, which the old patentee never lived to see : 
 for he died about six weeks before the new-built theatre in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields was opened, where the first play acted 
 was the '' Recruiting Officer," under the management of 
 his heirs and successors. But of that theatre it is not yet 
 time to give any further account. 
 
 The first point resolved on by the comedians now re- 
 established in the Haymarket, was to alter the auditory part 
 of their theatre ; the inconveniencies of which have been 
 fully enlarged upon in a former chapter. What embar- 
 rassed them most in their design was, their want of time to 
 do it in a more complete manner than it now remains in, 
 otherwise they had brought it to the original model of that 
 in Drury-lane, only in a larger proportion, as the wider 
 walls of it would require. As there are not many spectators 
 
 * So confident was Rich of this result, that he applied himself, 
 immediately upon his expulsion from Drury-lane theatre, to the 
 building of his new house in Lincoln's-inn-fields. There is a hint 
 of this purpose in the postscript to Downs's letter, already quoted, 
 in which the " new house" is designed to be ready in the autumn 
 of 1710. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 965 
 
 who may remember what form the Drury-lane theatre stood 
 in about forty years ago, before the old patentee, to make it 
 hold more money, took it in his head to alter it, it were but 
 justice to lay the original figure which Sir Christopher 
 Wren first gave it, and the alterations of it, now standing, 
 in a fair light ; that equal spectators may see, if they were 
 at their choice, which of the structures would incline them 
 to a preference. But in this appeal, I only speak to such 
 spectators as allow a good play, well acted, to be the most 
 valuable entertainment of the stage. Whether such plays 
 (leaving the skill of the dead or living actors equally out of 
 the question) have been more or less recommended to their 
 presentation, by either of these different forms of that thea- 
 tre, is our present matter of inquiry. 
 
 It must be observed, then, that the area, or platform, of the 
 old stage projected about four feet forwarder, in a semi-oval 
 figure, parallel to the benches of the pit; and that the 
 former lower doors of entrance for the actors were brought 
 down between the two foremost (and then only) pilasters ; 
 in the place of which doors, now the two stage-boxes are 
 fixed. That where the doors of entrance now are, there . 
 formerly stood two additional side-wings, in front to a full 
 set of scenes, which had then almost a double effect in their 
 loftiness and magnificence. 
 
 By this original form, the usual station of the actors, in 
 almost every scene, was advanced at least ten feet nearer to 
 the audience than they now can be ; because, not only 
 from the stage's being shortened, in front, but likewise 
 from the additional interposition of those stage-boxes, the 
 actors (in respect to the spectators that fill them) are kept 
 so much more backward from the main audience than they 
 used to be ; but when the actors were in possession of that 
 forwarder space, to advance upon, the voice was then 
 more in the centre of the house, so that the most distant 
 
366 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 ear had scarce the least doubt or difficulty in hearing what 
 fell from the weakest utterance : all objects were thus 
 drawn nearer to the sense; every painted scene was 
 stronger ; every grand scene and dance more extended ; 
 every rich, or fine-coloured habit had a more lively lustre ; 
 nor was the minutest motion of a feature (properly changing 
 with the passion or humour it suited) ever lost, as they 
 frequently must be, in the obscurity of too great a distance : 
 and how valuable an advantage the facility of hearing 
 distinctly is to every well-acted scene, every common spec- 
 tator is a judge. A voice scarcely raised above the tone of 
 a whisper, either in tenderness, resignation, innocent dis- 
 tress, or jealousy suppressed, often has as much concern 
 with the heart, as the most clamourous passions ; and when, 
 on any of these occasions, such affecting speeches are 
 plainly heard or lost, how wide is the difierence from the 
 great or little satisfaction received from them? To all 
 this, a master of a company may say, I now receive ten 
 pounds more, than could have been taken formerly, in 
 every full house. Not unlikely. But might not his house 
 be oflener fiill, if the auditors were oftener pleased ? Might 
 not every bad house, too, by a possibility of being made 
 every day better, add as much to one side of his account, 
 as it could take from the other? If what l have said 
 carries an^ truth iti it, why might not the original form of 
 this theatre be restored? But let this digression avail 
 what it may, the actors now returned to the Haymarket, 
 as I have observed, wanting nothing but length of time, 
 to have governed their alteration of that theatre by this 
 original model of Drury-lane, which I have recommended. 
 As their time, therefore, was short, they made their best use 
 of it ; they did something to it : they contracted its wide- 
 ness by three ranges of boxes on each side, and brought 
 down its enormous high ceiling within so proportionable a 
 
LIFE OF MR. COH.EY CIBBER. 367 
 
 compass, that it effectually cured those hollow undulations 
 of the voice formerly complained of. The remedy had its 
 effect : their audiences exceeded their expectation. There 
 was now no other theatre open against them ; they had the 
 town to themselves ; they were their own masters, and the 
 profits of their industry came into their own pockets. 
 
 Yet with all this fair weather, the season of their unin- 
 terrupted prosperity was not yet arrived ; for the great 
 expense, and thinner audiences of the opera, (of which they 
 then were equally directors) was a constant drawback 
 upon their gains, yet not so far, but that their income this 
 year was better than in their late station at Drury-lane. 
 But by the short experience we had then had of operas ; 
 by the high reputation they seemed to have been arrived at 
 the year before ; by their power of drawing the whole 
 body of nobility, as by enchantment, to their solemnities ; 
 by that prodigality of expense at which they were so 
 willing to support them ; and from the late extraordinary 
 profits Swiny had made of them ; what mountains did we 
 not hope from this mole-hill ? But, alas the fairy vision 
 was vanished, this bridal beauty was grown familiar to the 
 general taste, and satiety began to make excuses for its 
 want of appetite : or, what is still stranger, its late admirers 
 now as much valued their judgment, in being able to find 
 out the faults of the performers, as they had before, in dis- 
 covering their excellencies. The truth is, that this kind of 
 entertainment being so entirely sensual, it had no possi- 
 bility of getting the better of our reason, but by its novelty ; 
 and that novelty could never be supported but by an an- 
 nual change of the best voices, which, like the finest 
 flowers, bloom but for a season, and when that is over, 
 are only dead nosegays. From this natural cause, we have 
 seen, within these two years, even Farinelli singing to an 
 audience of five-and- thirty pounds; and yet, if common 
 
368 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 fame may be credited, the same voice, so neglected in one 
 country, has in another had charms sujficient to make that 
 crown sit easy on the head of a monarch, which the jealousy 
 of politicians (who had their views in his keeping it) feared 
 without some such extraordinary amusement, his satiety of 
 empire might tempt him a second time to resign.* 
 
 There is, too, in the very species of an Italian singer, 
 such an innate, fantastical pride and caprice, that the go- 
 vernment of them (here at least) is almost impracticable. 
 This distemper, as we were not sufficiently warned or ap- 
 prised of, threw our musical affairs into perplexities, we 
 knew not easily how to get out of. There is scarcely a 
 sensible auditor in the kingdom that has not since that 
 time, had occasion to laugh at the several instances of it. 
 But what is still more ridiculous, these costly Canary birds 
 have sometimes infested the whole body of our dignified 
 lovers of music with the same childish animosities. Ladies 
 have been known to decline their visits, upon account of 
 their being of a different musical party. Caesar and Pom- 
 pey made not a warmer division in the Roman republic, 
 than those heroines, their countrywomen, the Faustina and 
 Cuzzoiii blew up in our commonwealth of academical 
 music, by their implacable pretensions to superiority. 
 And while this greatness of soul is their unalterable 
 virtue, it will never be practicable to make two capital 
 singers of the same sex do as they should do in one 
 
 * The monarch alluded to, I suppose, was Victor Amadeus, King 
 of Sardinia. Carlo Broschi, better known by the name of Farinelli, 
 was born in the dukedom of Modena, in 1705, and suffered emas- 
 culation, from an accident, when young. The Spanish king Fer- 
 dinand created him a knight of Calatrava, honoured him with his 
 friendship, and added to his fortune. He returned to Italy on 
 his patron's death, and died in 1782. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. ' 369 
 
 opera, at the same time ! No, not though England were to 
 doable the suras it has ah'eady thrown after them: for, 
 even in their own country, where an extraordinary occasion 
 has called a greater number of their best to sing together, 
 the mischief they have made has been proportionable ; an 
 instance of which, if I am rightly informed, happened at 
 Parma, where, upon the celebration of the marriage of that 
 duke, a collection was made of the most eminent voices 
 that expense or interest could purchase, to give as complete 
 an opera as the whole vocal power of Italy could form. 
 But when it came to the proof of this musical project, 
 behold, what woful work they made of it ! Every perfor- 
 mer would be a Caesar, or nothing ; their several preten- 
 sions to preference were not to be limited within the laws 
 of harmony ; they would all chuse their own songs, but not 
 more to set off themselves, than to oppose or deprive ano- 
 ther of an occasion to shine. Yet any one would sing a 
 bad song, provided nobody else had a good one, till, at last, 
 they were thrown together, like so many feathered war- 
 riors for a battle royal in a cock-pit, where every one was 
 obliged to kill another, to save himself. What pity it was 
 that these froward misses and masters of music had not been 
 engaged to entertain the court of some King of Morocco, 
 that could have known a good opera from a bad one. With 
 how much ease would such a director have brought them 
 to better order ! But, alas ! as it has been said of greater 
 
 things, 
 
 Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit. 
 
 Imperial Rome fell by the too great strength of its own 
 citizens ; so feU this mighty opera, ruined by the too great 
 excellency of its singers ; for, upon the whole, it proved 
 to be as barbarously bad, as if malice itself had composed 
 it. 
 
 Now, though something of this kind, equally provoking, 
 
 B B, 
 
370 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 has generally embarrassed the state of operas, these thirty 
 years, yet it was the misfortune of the managing actors at 
 the Haymarket, to have felt the first effects of it. The hon- 
 our of the singer and the interest of the undertaker were 
 so often at variance, that the latter began to have but a bad 
 bargain of it. But not to impute more to the caprice of 
 those performers than was really true, there were two dif- 
 ferent accidents that drew numbers from our audiences, 
 before the season was ended ; which were another company 
 permitted to act in Drury-Iane, and the long trial of Doctor 
 Sacheverel, in Westminster Hall. By the way, it must be 
 observed that this company was not under the direction of 
 the patent, (which continued still silenced) but was set up 
 by a third interest, with a license from court. The person 
 to whom this new license was granted, was William Col- 
 lier, Esq., a lawyer of an enterprising head, and a jovial 
 heart ; what sort of favour he was in with the people then 
 in power, may be judged from his being often admitted to 
 partake with them those detached hours of life^ when busi- 
 ness was to give way to pleasure : but this was not all his 
 merit ; he was, at the same time, a member of parliament 
 for Truro, in Cornwall, and we cannot suppose a person 
 so qualified, could be refused such a trifle as a license to 
 head a broken company of actors. This sagacious lawyer, 
 then, who had a lawyer to deal with, observing that his 
 antagonist kept possession of a theatre without making use 
 of it, and for which he was not obliged to pay rent, unless 
 he actually did use it, wisely conceived it might be the inter- 
 est of the joint-landlords, since their tenement was in so 
 precarious a condition,. to grant a lease to one who had an 
 undisputed authority to be liable, by acting plays in it, to 
 pay the rent of it ; especially when he tempted them with 
 an offer of raising it from three to four pounds per diem. 
 His project.succeeded, the lease was signed ; but the meaus 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEV GIBBER. 371 
 
 of getting into possession were to be left to his own cost 
 and discretion. This took him up but little time. He imme- 
 diately laid siege to it, with a sufficient number of forces, 
 whether lawless or lawful I forget, but they were such as 
 obliged the old governor to give it up ; who, notwithstand- 
 ing, had got intelligence of his approaches and design, time 
 enough to carry off every thing that was worth moving, 
 except a great number of old scenes and new actors that 
 could not easily follow him. 
 
 A ludicrous account of this transaction, under fictitious 
 names, may be found in the 99th ^' Tattler," vol. 2., which 
 this explanation may now render more intelligible to the 
 readers of that agreeable author.* 
 
 This other new license being now in possession of the 
 Drury-lane theatre, those actors whom the patentee, ever 
 since the order of silence, had retained in a state of in- 
 
 * " On the 22d instant, a night of public rejoicing, the enemies 
 of Divito made a largess to the people, of faggots, tubs, and other 
 combustible matter, which was erected into a bonfire before the 
 palace. Plentiful cans were at the same time distributed among 
 the dependencies of that principality; and the artful rival of Divito, 
 observing them prepared for enterprise, presented the lawful owner 
 of the neighbouring edifice, and showed his deputation under him. 
 War immediately ensued upon the peaceful empire of wit and the 
 muses ; the Goths and Vandals sacking Rome did not threaten a 
 more barbarous devastation of arts and sciences. But when they 
 had forced their entrance, the experienced Divito had detached all 
 his subjects, and evacuated all his stores. The neighbouring in- 
 habitants report, that the refuse of Divito's followers marched off 
 the night before disguised in magnificence ; door-keepers came out 
 clad like cardinals, and scene-drawers like heathen gods. Divito 
 himself was wrapped up in one of his black clouds, and left to the 
 enemy nothing but an empty stage, full of trap-doors, known only 
 to himself and his adherents." 
 
 B b2 
 
372 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 action, all to a man came over to the service of Collier. 
 Of these Booth was then the chief. The merit of the rest 
 had as yet made no considerable appearance, and as the 
 patentee had not left a rag of their clothing behind him, 
 they were but poorly equipped for a public review ; con- 
 sequently, at their first opening, they were very little able 
 to annoy us. But during the trial of Sacheverel, our 
 audiences were extremely weakened, by the better rank of 
 people's daily attending it : while, at the same time, the 
 lower sort, who were not equally admitted to that grand 
 spectacle, as eagerly crowded into Drury-lane, to a new 
 comedy, called the '' Fair Quaker of Deal." This play, 
 having some low strokes of natural humour in it, was 
 rightly calculated for the capacity of the actors who played 
 it, and to the taste of the multitude, who were now more 
 disposed, and at leisure to see it : but the most happy inci- 
 dent in its fortune was the charm of the fair Quaker^ 
 which was acted by Miss Santlow, (afterwards Mrs. Booth*) 
 whose person was then in the full bloom of what beauty 
 she might pretend to : before this, she had only been ad- 
 
 * This lady, originally a dancer, who had previously been kept 
 by the Duke of Marlborough and Mr. Craggs, gave her hand to 
 Booth in the year 1719. It is insinuated by Dennis that when this 
 tragedian was admonished by his friends not to form a connection 
 that would cover him with shame and infamy, he swore, from a 
 feeling it is impossible to analyse, that, though his intended wife 
 was a strumpet, " he liked her the better for it."( 1 ) 
 
 Mrs. Booth erected a monument to the memory of her husband, 
 about six months before her death, in Westminster-abbey, and 
 died on the 31st (2) of January, 1773, in the ninety-third year of 
 her age. 
 
 (1) ** Character and Conduct of Sir John Edgar." 
 
 (2) ** Biographia Dramatica," says 15th. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. S73 
 
 mired as the most excellent dancer;* which, perhaps, might 
 not a little contribute to the favourable reception she 
 now met with, as an actress, in this character, which so 
 happily suited her figure and capacity. The gentle soft- 
 ness of her voice, the composed innocence of her aspect, 
 the modesty of her dress, the reserved decency of her gest- 
 ure, and the simplicity of the sentiments that naturally fell 
 from her, made her seem the amiable maid she represented : 
 in a word, not the enthusiastic maid of Orleans was more 
 serviceable of old to the French army, when the English 
 had distressed them, than this^«/r quaker was, at the head 
 of that dramatic attempt, upon which the support of their 
 weak society depended. 
 
 But when the trial I have mentioned, and the run of this 
 play were over, the tide of the town beginning to turn 
 again in our fevour. Collier was reduced to give his thea- 
 trical aflfairs a different scheme ; which advanced the stage 
 another step towards that settlement, which, in my time, 
 was of the longest duration. 
 
 * " Far off from these see Santlow, fam'd for dance." 
 
 Gay's " Mr. Pope's welcome from Greece," 
 
 w li 3 
 
374 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 CHAP. XIII. 
 
 The Patentee^ having now no actors, rebuilds the neiv theatre in 
 Lincoln'' s Inn Fields. — A guess at his reasons for it. — More 
 changes in the state of the stage. — The beginning of its better 
 days, under the Triumvirate of Actors. — A sketch of their 
 governing characters. 
 
 AS coarse mothers may have comely children^ so anarchy 
 has been the parent of many a good government ; and, by a 
 parity of possible consequences, we shall find that from the 
 frequent convulsions of the stage arose, at last, its longest 
 settlement and prosperity ; which many of my readers (or, 
 if I should happen to have but few of them, many of my 
 spectators, at least) who, I hope, have not yet lived half 
 their time, will be able to remember. 
 
 Though the patent had been often under distresses, it 
 had never felt any blow equal to this unrevoked order of 
 silence ; which it is not easy to conceive could have fallen 
 upon any other person's conduct, than that of the old paten- 
 tee : for if he was conscious of his being under the sub- 
 jection of that power which had silenced him, why would 
 he incur the danger of suspension, by his so obstinate and 
 impolitic treatment of his actors ? If he thought such 
 power over him illegal, how came he to obey it now, more 
 than before, when he slighted a former order, that enjoined 
 him to give his actors their benefits, on their usual condi- 
 tions ? But, to do him justice, the same obstinacy that in- 
 volved him in these difficulties, at last preserved to his heirs 
 the property of the patent, in its full force and value ; yet 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 375 
 
 to suppose that he foresaw a milder use of power, in some 
 future prince's reign, might be more favourable to him, is 
 begging at best but a cold question. But whether he knew 
 that this broken condition of the patent would not make his 
 troublesome friends, the adventurers, fly from it, as from a 
 falling house, seems not so difficult a question. However, 
 let the reader form his own judgment of them, from the 
 facts that followed. It must, therefore, be observed, that 
 the adventurers seldom came near the house, but when 
 there was some visible appearance of a dividend : but I could 
 never hear that upon an ill run of audiences they had ever 
 returned, or brought in a single shilling to make good the 
 deficiencies of their daily receipts. Therefore, as the pa- 
 tentee in possession had, alone, for several years, supported 
 and stood against this uncertainty of fortune, it may be 
 imagined that his accounts were under so voluminous a 
 perplexity, that few of those adventurers would have leisure 
 or capacity enough to unravel them : and as they had for- 
 merly thrown away their time and money at law, in a fruit- 
 less inquiry into them, they now seemed to have entirely 
 given up their right and interest : and, according to my 
 best information, notwithstanding the subsequent gains of 
 the patent have been sometimes extraordinary, the farther 
 demands, or claims of right, of the adventurers have lain 
 dormant above these five and twenty years. 
 
 Having shown by what means Collier had dispossessed 
 this patentee, not only of the Drury-lane house, but likewise 
 of those few actors which he had kept, for some time, un- 
 employed in it ; we are now led to consider another project 
 of the same patentee, which, if we are to judge of it by the 
 event, has shown him more a wise than a weak man; 
 which, I confess at the time he put it in execution, seemed 
 not so clear a point : for, notwithstanding he now saw the 
 authority and power of his patent was superseded, or was at 
 
 B b4 
 
376 
 
 AN Ai OLOGY FUR THE 
 
 best but precarious, and that he had not one actor left 
 in his service ; yet, under all these dilemmas and distresses, 
 he resolved upon rebuilding the new theatre in Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields, of which he had taken a lease, at a low rent^ 
 ever since Betterton's company had first left it. This con- 
 duct seemed too deep for my comprehension. What are 
 we to think of his taking this lease, in the height of his 
 prosperity, when he could have no occasion for it ? Was 
 he a prophet ? Could he then foresee he should, one time 
 or other, be turned out of Drury-lane ? Or did his mere 
 appetite of architecture urge him to build a house, while he 
 could not be sure he should ever have leave to make use of 
 it ? But of all this we may think as we please ; whatever 
 was his motive, he, at his own expense, in this interval of 
 his having nothing else to do, rebuilt that theatre from the 
 ground, as it is now standing.* As for the order of silence, 
 he seemed little concerned at it, while it gave him so much 
 uninterrupted leisure to supervise a work which he naturally 
 took delight in. 
 
 After this defeat of the patentee, the theatrical forces of 
 Collier, in Drury-lane, notwithstanding their having drawn 
 the multitude after them, for about three weeks, during the 
 trial of Sacheverel, had made but an indiffbrent campaign, 
 at the end of the season. Collier, at least, found so little 
 account in it, that it obliged him to push his court-interest 
 (which, wherever the stage was concerned, was not incon- 
 siderable) to support him in another scheme ; which was, 
 that in consideration of his giving up the Drury-lane 
 clothes, scenes, and actors, to Swiny, and his joint-sharers, 
 in the Haymarket, he (Collier) might be put into an equal 
 
 * This building, as most persons know, is even " now stand- 
 ing," though occupied as a warehouse for crockery. — " To what 
 base uses we may return, Horatio ! " 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 377 
 
 possession of the Haymarket theatre, with all the singers, 
 &C.5 and be made sole director of the opera. Accordingly, 
 by permission of the Lord Chamberlain, a treaty was enter- 
 ed into, and in a few days ratified by all parties, conform- 
 able to the said preliminaries. This was that happy crisis 
 of theatrical liberty which the labouring comedians had 
 long sighed for ; and which, for above twenty years follow- 
 ing, was so memorably fortunate to them. 
 
 However, there were two hard articles in this treaty, 
 which, though it might be policy in the actors to comply 
 with, yet the imposition of them seemed little less despotic 
 than a tax upon the poor, when a government did not 
 want it. 
 
 The first of these articles was that, whereas the sole li- 
 cense for acting plays was presumed to be a more profitable 
 authority than that for acting operas only, that, therefore, 
 two hundred pounds a-year should be paid to Collier, 
 while master of the opera, by the comedians ; to whom a 
 verbal assurance was given by the plenipoes on the court- 
 side, that, while such payment subsisted, no other com- 
 pany should be permitted to act plays against them, within 
 the liberties, &c. The other article was that, on every 
 Wednesday whereon an opera could be performed, the 
 plays should, toties quoties, be silent at Drury-lane, to give 
 the opera a fairer chance for a full house. 
 
 This last article, however partial in the intention, was, 
 in its effect, of great advantage to the sharing actors; for, 
 in all public entertainments, a day's abstinence naturally 
 increases the appetite to them : our every Thursday's au- 
 dience, therefore, was visibly the better, by thus making the 
 day before it a fast. But as this was not a favour designed 
 us, this prohibition of a day, methinks, deserves a little 
 further notice, because it evidently took a sixth part of their 
 income from all the hired actors, who were only paid in 
 
378 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 proportion to the number of acting days. This extraordi- 
 nary regard to operas was, in effect, making the day-la- 
 bouring actors the principal subscribers to them, and the 
 shutting out people from the play every Wednesday many 
 murmured at, as an abridgment of their usual liberty. And 
 though I was one of those who profited by that order, it 
 ought not to bribe me into a concealment of what was then 
 said and thought of it. I remember a nobleman of the 
 first rank, then in a high post, and not out of court-favour, 
 said openly behind the scenes, — " It was shameful to take 
 part of the actors' bread from them to support the silly di- 
 version of people of quality." But, alas, what was all this 
 grievance, when weighed against the qualifications of so 
 grave and stanch a senator as Collier ? Such visible merit, 
 it seems, was to be made easy, though at the expense of the 
 — I had almost said, honour of the court, whose gracious 
 intention for the theatrical commonwealth might have 
 shone with thrice the lustre, ' if such a paltry price had not 
 been paid for it. But as the government of the stage is but 
 that of the world in miniature, we ought not to have won- 
 dered that Collier had interest enough to quarter the weak- 
 ness of the opera upon the strength of the comedy. Gener- 
 al good intentions are not always practicable to a perfec- 
 tion ; the most necessary law can hardly pass, but a 
 tenderness to some private interest shall often hang such 
 exceptions upon particular clauses, till at last it comes out 
 lame and lifeless, with the loss of half its force, purpose, 
 and dignity. As for instance, how many fruitless motions 
 have been made in parliaments, to moderate the enormous 
 exactions in the practice of the law ? And what sort of 
 justice must that be called, which, when a man has not a 
 mind to pay you a debt of ten pounds, it shall cost you fifty 
 before you can get it ? How long, too, has the public 
 been labouring for a bridge at Westminster? But the 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. ^79 
 
 wonder, that it was not built a hundred years ago ceases, 
 when we are told that the fear of making one end of Lon- 
 don as rich as the other, has been so long an obstruction 
 to it: and though it might seem a still greater wonder, 
 when a new law for building one had at last got over that 
 apprehension, that it should meet with any farther delay, 
 yet experience has shown us that the structure of this 
 useful ornament to our metropolis has been so clogged by 
 private jobs, that were to be picked out of the undertaking, 
 and the progress of the work so disconcerted by a tedious 
 contention of private interests, and endeavours to impose 
 upon the public abominable bargains, that a whole year 
 was lost before a single stone could be laid to its foun- 
 dation. But posterity will owe its praises to the zeal, and 
 resolution of a truly noble commissioner, whose distin- 
 guished impatience has broken through those narrow arti- 
 fices, those false and frivolous objections, that delayed it, 
 and has already began to raise, above the tide, that future 
 monument of his public spirit. 
 
 How far all this may be allowed applicable to the state 
 of the stage is not of so great importance, nor so much 
 my concern, as that what is observed upon it should always 
 remain a memorable truth to the honour of that nobleman. 
 But now I go on. Collier, being thus possessed of his 
 musical government, thought his best way would be to 
 farm it out to a gentleman, Aaron Hill, Esq.,* (who, he 
 
 * This gendeman, whose ardour for the interest of the stage 
 should endear his memory to all by whom its value is still main- 
 tained, bore a conspicuous part in the theatrical transactions of his 
 time, from the period of his admission to the management of Dru- 
 ry-lane theatre, till about ten years before his death, in the year 
 1749. He was almost the only critic of his age who laboured as- 
 siduously to understand the art of acting, and who took incessant 
 
380 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 had reason to suppose, knew something more of theatrical 
 matters than himself) at a rent, if I mistake not, of six 
 hundred pounds per annum: but before the season was 
 ended (upon what occasion, if I could remember, it might 
 not be material to say) took it into his hands again. But 
 all his skill and interest could not raise the direction of the 
 opera to so good a post as he thought due to a person 
 of his consideration : he, therefore, the year following, 
 entered upon another high-handed scheme, which, till the 
 demise of the queen, turned to his better account. 
 
 After the comedians were in possession of Drury-lane, 
 from whence, during my time upon the stage, they never 
 departed, their swarm of audiences exceeded all that had 
 been seen in thirty years before ; which, however, I do not 
 impute so much to the excellence of their acting, as to 
 their indefatigable industry, and good management ; for, 
 as I have often said, I never thought, in the general, that 
 we stood in any place of comparison with the eminent 
 
 pains to communicate the knowledge he had been enabled to ac- 
 quire. His precepts are certainly worth an actor's consideration, 
 but so far from being slavishly adopted, in many cases they must 
 excite his contempt and distrust. The art of acting is a bubble 
 which experience has long dissolved; it is a flower of spontaneous 
 growth, which the hand of system may cultivate, but can never 
 raise. Hill, however, with a wild defiance of natural law, thought 
 actors might be fashioned at any time, and in one of his letters to 
 Victor spoke of producing performers, never " seen, heard of, or 
 thought of," who, at their very outset, should exhibit unquestion- 
 able power, and achieve unqualified success. To heighten the 
 joke, these substitutes for certain," great men of the stage," whose 
 loss the public was yet lamenting, were a parcel of boys who had 
 been drilled *' but a month or two " by their sanguine instructor ! 
 Hill lived long enough to feel the futility of his schemes, but never 
 abandoned the notion upon which they were formed. 
 
L[FE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 381 
 
 actors before us ; perhaps, too, by there being now an end 
 of the frequent divisions and disorders that had, from time 
 to time, broken in upon and frustrated their labours^ not a 
 iittle might be contributed to their success. 
 
 Collier, then, like a true liquorish courtier, observing 
 the prosperity of a theatre, which he, the year before, had 
 parted with for a worse, began to meditate an exchange of 
 theatrical posts with Swiny, who had visibly very fair 
 pretensions to that he was in, by his being first chosen, by 
 the court, to regulate and rescue the stage from the disord- 
 ers it had suffered, under its former managers : yet Collier 
 knew that sort of merit could stand in no competition with 
 his being a member of parliament; he, therefore, had 
 recourse to his court-interest (where mere wiU and pleas- 
 ure, at that time, was the only law that disposed of all 
 theatrical rights) to oblige Swiny to let him be off from his 
 bad bargain for a better. To this it may be imagined 
 Swiny demurred, and, as he had reason, strongly remon- 
 strated against it : but as Collier had listed his conscience 
 under the command of interest, he kept it to strict duty, 
 and was immovable ; insomuch, that Sir John Vanbrugh, 
 who was a friend to Swiny, and who, by his intimacy with 
 the people in power, better knew the motive of their 
 actions, advised Swiny rather to accept of the change, 
 than, by a non-compliance, to hazard his being excluded 
 from any post or concern in either of the theatres : to con- 
 clude, it was not long before Collier had procured a new 
 license for acting plays, &c., for himself, Wilks, Dogget, 
 and Cibber, exclusive of Swiny, who, by this new regula- 
 tion, was reduced to his Hobson's choice of the opera. 
 
 Swiny being thus transferred to the opera in the sinking 
 condition Collier had left it, found the receipts of it, in the 
 winter following, 1711, so far short of the expenses, that 
 he was driven to attend his fortune in some more favour- 
 
382 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 able climate, where he remained twenty years an exile 
 from his friends and country ; though there has been scarce 
 an English gentleman, who, in his tour of France or Italy, 
 has not renewed or created an acquaintance with him. As this 
 is a circumstance that many people may have forgot, I cannot 
 remember it without that regard and concern it deserves 
 from all that know him. Yet it is some mitigation of his 
 misfortune, that, since his return to England, his gray 
 hairs and cheerful disposition have still found a general wel- 
 come among his foreign and former domestic acquaintance. 
 
 Collier, being now first- commissioned manager with the 
 comedians, drove them, too, to the last inch of a hard bar- 
 gain, the natural consequence of all treaties between power 
 and necessity. He not only demanded six hundred a-year, 
 neat money, the price at which he had farmed out his 
 opera, and to make the business a sinecure to him ; but 
 likewise insisted upon a moiety of the two hundred that had 
 been levied upon us the year before, in aid of the operas ; 
 in all seven hundred pounds. These large and ample con- 
 ditions, considering in what hands we were, we resolved 
 to swallow without wry faces ; rather chusing to run any 
 hazard, than contend with a formidable power, against 
 which we had no remedy. But so it happened that for- 
 tune took better care of our interest than we ourselves had 
 like to have done, for had Collier accepted of our first of- 
 fer of an equal share with us, he had got three hundred 
 pounds a-year more, by complying with it, than by the 
 sum he imposed upon us ; our shares being never less than a 
 thousand annually, to each of us, till the end of the queen's 
 reign, in 1714. After which. Collier's commission was 
 superseded ; his theatrical post, upon the accession of his 
 late majesty, being given to Sir Richard Steele.* 
 
 * This appointment he owed to the friendship of the Duke of 
 Marlborough, in consequence of a pleasant repartee. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 383 
 
 From these various revolutions in the government of the 
 theatre, allowing to the patentees' mistaken principle of in- 
 creasing their profits, by too far enslaving their people, and 
 keeping down the price of good actors (and I could almost 
 insist, that giving large salaries to bad ones, could not 
 have had a worse consequence) I say, when it is consid- 
 ered that the authority for acting plays, &c., was thought 
 of so little worth, that (as has been observed) Sir Thomas 
 Skipwith gave away his share of it, and the adventurers 
 had fled from it ; that Mr. Congreve, at another time, had 
 voluntarily resigned it ; and Sir John Vanbrugh (merely to 
 get the rent of his new house paid) had, by leave of the 
 court, farmed out his license to Swiny, who, not without 
 some hesitation had ventured upon it ; let me say again, 
 out of this low condition of the theatre, was it not owing 
 to the industry of three or four comedians, that a new 
 place was now created for the crown to give away, with- 
 out any expense attending it, well worth the acceptance of 
 any gentleman, whose merit or services had no higher 
 claim to preferment, and which Collier and Sir Richard 
 Steele, in the two last reigns, successively enjoyed ? 
 Though, I believe, I may have said something like this, in 
 a former chapter, I am not unwilling it should be twice 
 taken notice of. 
 
 We are now come to that firm establishment of the 
 theatre, which, except the admittance of Booth into a share, 
 and Dogget's retiring from it, met with no change or alter- 
 ation for above twenty years after. 
 
 Collier, as has been said, having accepted of a certain 
 appointment of seven hundred per annum ; Wilks, Dogget, 
 and myself were now the only acting managers, under the 
 Queen's license ; which, being a grant but during plea- 
 sure, obliged us to a conduct that might not undeserve that 
 favour. At this time we were all in the vigour of our ca- 
 
S84 
 
 AN APOLOGV FOR THE 
 
 pacities as actors ; and our prosperity enabled us to pay, 
 Jit least, double the salaries to what the same actors had 
 usually received, or could have hoped for under the gov- 
 ernment of the patentees. Dogget, who was naturally an 
 economist, kept our expenses and accounts to the best of 
 his power, within regulated bounds and moderation. Wilks, 
 who had a stronger passion for glory than lucre, was a 
 little apt to be lavish in what was not always as necessary 
 for the profit as the honour of the theatre : for example, at 
 the beginning of almost every season he would order two 
 or three suits to be made or refreshed for actors of moder- 
 ate consequence, that his having constantly a new one for 
 himself might seem less particular, though he had, as yet, 
 no new part for it. This expeditious care of doing us 
 good, without waiting for our consent to it, Dogget always 
 looked upon with the eye of a man in pain : but I, who 
 hated pain, (though I as little liked the favour as Dogget 
 himself) rather chose to laugh at the circumstance, than 
 complain of what 1 knew was not to be cured but by a 
 remedy worse than the evil. Upon these occasions, there- 
 fore, whenever I saw him and his followers so prettily 
 dressed out, for an old play, I only commended his fancy ; 
 or, at most, but whispered him not to give himself so much 
 trouble about others, upon whose performance it would but 
 be thrown away : to which, with a smiling air of triumph 
 over my want of penetration, he has replied — " Why, now, 
 that was what 1 really did it for ; to show others that I 
 love to take care of them, as well as of myself.'* Thus, 
 whenever he made himself easy, he had not the least con- 
 ception, let the expense be what it would, that we could 
 possibly dislike it. And, from the same principle, pro- 
 vided a thinner audience were liberal of their applause, he 
 gave himself little concern about the receipt of it. As in 
 these diflferent tempers of my brother managers there might 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEV CJBBER. 
 
 3S5 
 
 be equally something right and wrong, it was equally my 
 business to keep well with them both : and, though of the 
 two, I was rather inclined to Dogget's way of thinking, 
 ^ yet I was always under the disagreeable restraint of not 
 letting Wilks see it : therefore, when in any material 
 point of management they were ready to come to a rup- 
 ture, I found it advisable to think neither of them abso- 
 lutely in the wrong ; but by giving to one as much of the 
 right, in his opinion, this way, as I took from the other in 
 that; their differences were sometimes softened into conces- 
 sions that I have reason to think prevented many ill conse- 
 quences in our affairs, that otherwise might have attended 
 them. But this was always to be done with a very gentle 
 hand ; for as Wilks was apt to be easily hurt by opposition, 
 so when he felt it he was apt to be insupportable. How- 
 ever, there were some points in which we were always 
 unanimous. In the twenty years while we were our own 
 directors, we never had a creditor that had occasion to 
 come twice for his bill ; every Monday morning discharged 
 us of all demands, before we took a shilling for our own 
 use. And, from this time, we neither asked any actor, nor 
 were desired by them, to sign any written agreement (to 
 the best of my memory) whatsoever : the rate of their re- 
 spective salaries were only entered in our daily pay-roll ; 
 w hich plain record every one looked upon as good as city 
 security: for where an honest meaning is mutual, the 
 mutual confidence will be bond enough, in conscience, on 
 both sides : but that I may not ascribe more to our con- 
 duct than was really its due, I ought to give fortune her 
 share of the commendation ; for had not our success ex- 
 ceeded our expectation, it might not have been in our 
 power so thoroughly to have observed those laudable rules 
 of economy, justice, and lenity, which so happily supported 
 us : but the severities and oppression we had suffered un- 
 
 ' c c 
 
386 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 der our former masters made us incapable of imposing them 
 upon others ; which gave our whole society the cheerful 
 looks of a rescued people. But notwithstanding this gen- 
 eral cause of content, it was not above a year or two be- 
 fore the imperfection of human nature began to show itself 
 in contrary symptoms. The merit of the hazards which 
 the managers had run, and the difficulties they had com- 
 bated, in bringing to perfection that revolution by which 
 they had all so amply profited, in the amendment of their 
 general income, began now to be forgotten ; their acknow- 
 ledgments, and thankful promises of fidelity, were no more 
 repeated, or scarce thought obligatory : ease and plenty, 
 by an habitual enjoyment, had lost their novelty, and the 
 largeness of their salaries seemed rather lessened than ad- 
 vanced, by the extraordinary gains of the undertakers ; for 
 that is the scale in which the hired actor will always weigh 
 his performance ; but whatever reason there may seem to 
 be in his case, yet as he is frequently apt to throw a little 
 self-partiality into the balance, that consideration may a 
 good deal alter the justness of it. While the actors, there- 
 fore, had this way of thinking, happy was it for the mana- 
 gers, that their united interest was so inseparably the same, 
 and that their skill and power in acting stood in a rank so 
 far above the rest, that if the whole body of private men 
 had deserted them, it would yet have been an easier matter 
 for the managers to have picked up recruits, than for the 
 deserters to have found proper officers to head them. 
 Here, then, in this distinction lay our security : our being 
 actors ourselves was an advantage to our government 
 which all former managers, who were only idle gentlemen, 
 wanted: nor was our establishment easily to be broken, 
 while our health and limbs enabled us to be joint-labourers 
 in the work we were masters of. 
 The only actor who, in the oi)inion of the public, seemed 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER 387 
 
 to have had a pretence of being advanced to a share with 
 us, was certainly Booth : but when it is considered how 
 strongly he had opposed the measures that had made us 
 managers, by setting himself (as has been observed) at the 
 head of an opposite interest, he could not, as yet, have 
 much to complain of : beside, if the court had thought 
 him, now, an equal object of favour, it could not have been 
 in our power, to have opposed his preferment. This I 
 mention, not to take from his merit, but to show from 
 what cause it was not, as yet, better provided for. There- 
 fore, it may be no vanity to say our having at that time no 
 visible competitors on the stage, was the only interest that 
 raised us to be the managers of it. 
 
 But here let me rest awhile, and since, at my time of 
 day, our best possessions are but ease and quiet, I must be 
 content, if I will have sallies of pleasure, to take up with 
 those only that are to be found in imagination When I 
 look back, therefore, on the storms of the stage we had 
 been tossed in ; when I consider that various vicissitude of 
 hopes and fears we had for twenty years struggled with, 
 and found ourselves, at last, thus safely set on shore, to 
 enjoy the produce of our own labours ; and to have raised 
 those labours, by our skill and industry, to a much fairer 
 profit than our task-masters, by all their severe and griping 
 government, had ever reaped from them ; a good-natured 
 reader, that is not offended at the comparison of great things 
 with small, will allow was a triumph, in proportion, equal 
 to those that have attended the most heroic enterprises for 
 liberty. What transport could the first Brutus feel, upon 
 his expulsion of the Tarquins, greater than that which now 
 danced in the heart of a poor actor, who, from an injured 
 labourer, unpaid his hire, had made himself, without guilt, 
 a legal manager of his own ifortune ? Let the grave and 
 great contemn or yawn at these low conceits, but let me 
 
 cc2 
 
AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 be happy inthe enjoyment of them ! To this hour my mem- 
 ory runs over that pleasing prospect of life past, with 
 little less delight than when I was first in the real posses- 
 sion of it. This is the natural temper of my mind, which 
 my acquaintance are frequently witnesses of. And as this 
 was all the ambition Providence had made my obscure con- 
 dition capable of, I am thankful that means were given me 
 to enjoy the fruits of it. 
 
 ' Hoc est 
 Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui. 
 
 Something like the meaning of this the less learned reader 
 may find in my title-page. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 389 
 
 CHAP. XIV. 
 
 The stage in its highest prosperity. — The managers not with' 
 out errors. — Of what kind. — " Ca^o" first acted. — What 
 brought it to the stage. — The company go to Oxford.- — Their 
 success, and different auditors there. — Booth made a sharer. 
 — Dogget objects to him. — Quits the stage upon his admits 
 tance. — That not his true reason. — What teas. — DoggeCs 
 theatrical character. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the managing actors were, now, 
 in a happier situation than their utmost pretensions could 
 have expected ; yet it is not to be supposed but wiser men 
 might have mended it. As we could not all govern our- 
 selves, there were seasons when we were not all fit to govern 
 others. Our passions and our interest drew not always the 
 same way. Self had a great sway in our debates : we had 
 our partialities ; our prejudices ; our favourites of less 
 merit ; and our jealousies of those who came too near us ; 
 frailties which societies of higher consideration, while they 
 are composed of men, will not always be free from. To 
 have been constantly capable of unanimity had been a bless- 
 ing too great for our station : one mind among three peo- 
 ple were to have had three masters to one servant ; but 
 when that one servant is called three different ways, at the 
 same time, whose business is to be done first ? For my own 
 part, I was forced, almost all my life, to give up my share 
 of him, and if I could, by art or persuasion, hinder others 
 from making what I thought a wrong use of their power, it 
 was the all and utmost I desired. Yet, whatever might be 
 
 cc 3 
 
390 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 our personal errors, I shall think I have no right to speak 
 of them farther than where the public entertainment was 
 affected by them. If, therefore, among so many, some 
 particular actors were remarkable in any part of their pri- 
 vate lives, that might sometimes make the world merry 
 without doors, 1 hope my laughing friends will excuse me 
 if I do not so far comply with their desires or curiosity, as 
 to give them a place in my history. I can only recommend 
 such anecdotes to the amusement of a noble person, who, 
 in case I conceal them, does me the flattering honour to 
 threaten my work with a supplement. 'Tis enough for me 
 that such actors had their merits to the public : let those 
 recite their imperfections who are themselves without them : 
 it is my misfortune not to have that qualification. Let us 
 see, then, whatever was amiss in it, how our administra- 
 tion went forward. 
 
 When we were first invested with this power, the joy of 
 our so unexpectedly coming into it, kept Us, for some time, 
 in amity and good humour with one another : and the plea- 
 sure of reforming the many false measures, absurdities, 
 and abuses, that, like weeds, had sucked up the due nour- 
 ishment from the fruits of the theatre, gave us, as yet, no 
 leisure for private dissentions. Our daily receipts ex- 
 ceeded our imagination : and we seldom met, as a board, 
 to settle our weekly accounts, without the satisfaction of 
 joint-heirs, just in possession of an unexpected estate that 
 had been distantly intailed upon them. Such a sudden 
 change of our condition, it may be imagined, could not but 
 throw out of us a new spirit in almost every play we ap- 
 peared in ; nor did we ever sink into that common negli- 
 gence which is apt to follow good fortune : industry, we 
 knew, was the life of our business ; that it not only con- 
 cealed faults, but was of equal value to greater talents with- 
 out it ; which the decadence once of Betterton's company 
 in Lincoln's Inn Fields had lately shown us a proof t)f. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 391 
 
 This then was that happy period when both actors and 
 managers were in their highest enjoyment of general con- 
 tent and prosperity. Now it was that the politer world, 
 too, by their decent attention, their sensible taste, and their 
 generous enconragements to authors and actors, once more 
 saw that the stage, under a due regulation, was capable of 
 being what the wisest ages thought it might be, the most 
 rational scheme that human wit could form, to dissipate, 
 with innocence, the cares of life ; to allure even the turbu- 
 lent or ill-disposed from worse meditations, and to give the 
 leisure hours of business and virtue an instructive recrea- 
 tion.* 
 
 If this grave assertion is less recommended by falling from 
 the pen of a comedian, I must appeal for the truth of it to 
 the tragedy of " Cato," which was first acted in 1712. I 
 submit to the judgment of those who were then the sensible 
 spectators of it, if the success and merit of that play were 
 not an evidence of every article of that value which I have 
 given to a decent theatre ? But, as I was observing, it could 
 not be expected the summer days I am speaking of, could 
 be the constant weather of the year ; we had our clouded 
 hours as well as oar sunshine, and were not always in the 
 same good humour with one another : fire, air, and water, 
 could not be more vexatiously opposite than the different 
 tempers of the three managers, though they might equally 
 have their useful, as well as their destructive qualities. 
 How variously these elements, in our several dispositions, 
 operated, may be judged from the following single instance, 
 as well as a thousand others, which, if they were all to be 
 told, might possibly make my reader wish I had forgotten 
 them. 
 
 * " The stage might be made a perpetual source of the most no- 
 ble and useful entertainments, were it under proper regulations." — 
 " Spectator ;" No. 93. 
 
 c c 4 
 
392 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Much about this time, then, there came over ft'om Dublin 
 theatre two uncelebrated actors, to pick up a few pence 
 among us, in the winter, as Wilks had, a year or two be- 
 fore, done on their side the water, in the summer. But it 
 was not so clear to Dogget and myself, that it was in their 
 power to do us the same service in Drury-lane, as Wilks 
 might have done them in Dublin. However, Wilks was 
 so much a man of honour, that he scorned to be outdone in 
 the least point of it, let the cost be what it would to his fel- 
 low managers, who had no particular accounts of honour 
 open with them. To acquit himself, therefore, with a better 
 grace, Wilks so ordered it, that his Hibernian friends were 
 got upon our stage, before any other manager had well 
 heard of their arrival. This so generous dispatch of their 
 aftair gave Wilks a very good chance of convincing his 
 friends that himself was sole master of the masters of the 
 company. Here, now, the different elements in our tem-. 
 pers began to work with us. While Wilks was only ani- 
 mated by a grateful hospitality to his friends, Dogget was 
 ruffled into a storm, and looked upon this generosity as so 
 much insult and injustice upon himself and the fraternity. 
 During this disorder I stood by, a seeming quiet passen- 
 ger, and since talking to the winds, I knew, could be to no 
 great purpose, whatever weakness it might be called, could 
 not help smiling to observe with what officious ease and de- 
 light Wilks was treating his friends at our expense, who 
 were scarce acquainted with them : for, it seems, all this 
 was to end in their having a benefit play, in the height of 
 the season, for the unprofitable service they had done us, 
 without our consent or desire to employ them. Upon this 
 Dogget bounced, and grew almost as untractable as Wilks 
 himself Here, again, I was forced to clap my patience to 
 the helm, to weather this difficult point between them : ap- 
 plying myself, therefore, to the person I imagined was most 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 393 
 
 likely to hear me, I desired Dogget to consider that I must, 
 naturally, be as much hurt by this vain and overbearing 
 behaviour in Wilks as he could be; and that, though 
 it was true, these actors had no pretence to the favour 
 designed them, yet we could not say they had done us 
 any farther harm, than letting the town see the parts they 
 had been shown in had been better done by those to whom 
 they properly belonged : yet; as we had greatly profited by 
 the ex traor dinar}' labour of Wilks, who acted long parts 
 almost every day, and at least twice to Dogget's once ; 
 and that [though] I granted it might not be so much his 
 consideration of our common interest, as his fondness for 
 applause, that set him to work, yet even that vanity, if 
 he supposed it such, had its merit to us ; and as we had 
 found our account in it, it would be folly upon a punctilio, 
 to tempt the rashness of a man who was capable to undo all 
 he had done, by any act of extravagance that might fly into 
 his head : that, admitting this benefit might be some little 
 loss to us, yet to break with him upon it could not but be 
 ten times of worse consequence, than our overlooking his 
 disagreeable manner of making the demand upon us. 
 
 Though I found this had made Dogget drop the severity 
 of his features, yet he endeavoured still to seem uneasy, by 
 his starting a new objection, which was, that we could 
 not be sure even of the charge they were to pay for it. 
 ^' For Wilks," said he, " you know, will go any lengths 
 to make it a good day to them, and may whisper the door- 
 keepers to give them the ready money taken, and return 
 the account in such tickets, only, as these actors have not 
 themselves disposed of." To make this easy, too, I gave 
 him my word to be answerable for the charge myself. 
 Upon this he acceded, and accordingly they had the bene- 
 fit play. But so it happened, whether as Dogget had sus- 
 pected or not I cannot say, the ready money received fell 
 
394 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 ten pounds short of the sum they had agreed to pay for it. 
 Upon the Saturday following, the day on which we con- 
 stantly made up our accounts, I went early to the office, 
 and inquired if the ten pounds had yet been paid in ; but 
 not hearing that one shilling of it had found its way thither, 
 I immediately supplied the sum out of my own pocket, aftd 
 directed the treasurer to charge it received from me, in the 
 deficient receipt of the benefit day. Here, now, it might 
 be imagined, all this silly matter was accommodated, and 
 that no one could so properly say he was aggrieved as 
 myself. But let us observe what the consequence says. 
 Why, the effect of my insolent interposing honesty proved to 
 be this, — that the party most obliged was the most offended ; 
 and the offence was imputed to me, who had been ten 
 pounds out of pocket, to be able to commit it : for when 
 Wilks found, in the account, how spitefully the ten pounds 
 had been paid in, he took me aside into the adjacent stone 
 passage, and with some warmth asked me what I meant 
 by pretending to pay in this ten pounds, and [said] that, for 
 his part, he did not understand such treatment. To which 
 I replied, that, though I was amazed at his thinking 
 himself ill-treated, I would give him a plain, justifiable an- 
 swer, — ^that 1 had given my word to Dogget the charge of 
 the benefit should be fully paid, and, since his friends had 
 neglected it, I found myself bound to make it good. Upon 
 which he told me I was mistaken if I thought he did not 
 see into the bottom of all this; that Dogget and 1 were al- 
 ways endeavouring to thwart and make him uneasy ; but 
 he was able to stand upon his own legs, and we should find 
 he would not be used so ; that he took this payment of the 
 ten pounds as an insult upon him, and a slight to his 
 friends ; but rather than suffer it he would tear the whole 
 business to pieces ; that I knew it was in his power to do 
 it ; and if he could not do a civil thing to a friend, without 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 395 
 
 all this senseless rout about it, he could be received in Ire- 
 land upon his own terms, and could as easily mend a com- 
 pany there, as he had done here ; that if he were gone, Dog- 
 get and I would not be able to keep the doors open a week, 
 
 and, by G , he would not be a drudge for nothing. As 
 
 I knew all this was but the foam of the high value he had 
 set upon himself, I thought it not amiss to seem a little 
 silently concerned for the helpless condition to which his 
 resentment of the injury I have related was going to reduce 
 us : for I knew I had a friend in his heart, that if I gave 
 him a little time to cool, would soon bring him to reason. 
 The sweet morsel of a thousand pounds a-year was not to 
 be met with at every table, and might tempt a nicer palate 
 than his own to swallow it, when he was not out of hu- 
 mour. This, I knew, would always be of weight with 
 him, when the best arguments I could use would be of 
 none. I therefore gave him no ferther provocation, than 
 by gravely telling him, we all had it in our power to do 
 one another a mischief; but I believed none of us much 
 cared to hurt ourselves; that, if he was not of my opinion, 
 it would not be in my power to hinder whatever new 
 scheme he might resolve upon ; that London would always 
 have a play-house, arid I should have some chance in it, 
 though it might not be so good as it had been ; that he 
 might be sure if I had thought my paying in the ten pounds 
 could have been so ill received, I should have been glad to 
 have saved it. Upon this he seemed to mutter something 
 to himself, and walked off, as if he had a mind to be alone. 
 I took the occasion, and returned to Dogget, to finish our 
 accounts. In about six minutes Wilks came in to us, not 
 in the best humour, it may be imagined ; yet not in so ill a 
 one, but that he took his share of the ten pounds, without 
 showing the least contempt of it ; which, had he been 
 proud enough to have refused, or to have paid in himself, I 
 
396 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 might have thought he intended to make good his menaces, 
 and that the injury I had done him would never have 
 been forgiven ; but it seems we had different ways of 
 thinking. 
 
 Of this kind, more or less delightful, was the life I led 
 with this impatient man, for full twenty years. Dogget, 
 as we shall find, could not hold it so long ; but as he had 
 more money than I, he had not occasion for so much phil- 
 osophy. And thus were our theatrical affairs frequently 
 disconcerted by this irascible commander, this Achilles of 
 our confederacy ; who, I may be bold to say, came very 
 little short of the spirit Horace gives to that' hero in his — 
 
 Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer. 
 
 This, then, is one of those personal anecdotes of our vari- 
 ances, which, as our public performances were affected by 
 it, could not, with regard to truth and justice, be omitted. 
 
 From this time, to the year 1712, my memory, from 
 which repository, alone, every article of what I write is 
 collected, has nothing worth mentioning, till the first act- 
 ing of the tragedy of '' Cato." As to the play itself, it 
 might be enough to say that the author and the actors had 
 their different hopes of fame and profit amply answered by 
 the performance ; but as its success was attended with re- 
 markable consequences, it may not be amiss to trace it, 
 from its several years' concealment in the fcloset, to the 
 stage. 
 
 In 1703, nine years before it was acted, I had the plea- 
 sure of reading the first four acts, which was all of it then 
 written, privately with Sir Richard Steele : it may be need- 
 less to say it was impossible to lay them out of my hand till 
 I had gone through them, or to dwell upon the delight his 
 friendship to the author received, upon my being so warmly 
 pleased with them : but my satisfaction was as highly 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIB5ER. S97 
 
 disappointed, when he told me, whatever spirit Mr. Addi- 
 son had shown in his writing it, he doubted he would never 
 have courage enough to let his " Cato" stand the censure 
 of an English audience : that it had only been the amuse- 
 ment of his leisure hours in Italy, and was never intended 
 for the stage. This poetical diffidence Sir Richard himself 
 spoke of with some concern, and in the transport of his 
 imagination, could not help saying, '' Good God, what 
 a part would Betterton make of CatoT' But this was 
 seven years before Betterton died, and when Booth, who 
 afterwards made his fortune by acting it, was in his theatri- 
 cal minority)'. In the latter end of Queen Ann's reign, 
 when our national politics had changed hands, the friends 
 of Mr. Addison then thought it a proper time to animate 
 the public with the sentiments of** Cato ; " in a word, their 
 importunities were too warm to be resisted ; and it was no 
 sooner finished than hurried to the stage, in April 1712, at 
 a time when three days a-week were usually appointed for 
 the benefit plays of particular actors : but a work of that 
 critical importance was to make its way through all private 
 considerations ; nor could it possibly give place to a custom 
 which the breach of could very little prejudice the benefits, 
 that, on so unavoidable an occasion, were (in part, though 
 not wholly) postponed ; it was, therefore, Mondays excepted, 
 acted every day for a month, to constantly crowded houses. 
 As the author had made us a present of whatever profits he 
 might have claimed from it, we thought ourselves obliged 
 to spare no cost in the proper decorations of it. Its 
 coming so late in the season to the stage proved of par- 
 ticular advantage to the sharing actors ; because the har- 
 vest of our annual gains was generally over before the 
 middle of March ; many select audiences being then usually 
 reserved in favour to the benefits of private actors ; which 
 fixed engagements naturally abated the receipts of the days 
 
AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 before and after them : but this unexpected after-crop of 
 ^' Cato'* largely supplied to us those deficiencies, and was 
 almost equal to two fruitful seasons, in the same year ; 
 at the close of which, the three managing actors found 
 themselves each a gainer of thirteen hundred and fifty 
 pounds : but to return to the first reception of this play from 
 the public. 
 
 Although " Cato" seems plainly written upon what are 
 called whig principles, yet the tories of that time had 
 sense enough not to take it as the least reflection upon their 
 administration ; but, on the contrary, they seemed to 
 brandish and vaunt their approbation of every sentiment in 
 favour of liberty, which, by a public act of their generosity, 
 was carried so high, that one day, while the play was 
 acting, they collected fifty guineas in the boxes, and made a 
 present of them to Booth, with this compliment : " For his 
 honest opposition to a perpetual dictator ; and his dying so 
 bravely in the cause of liberty." What was insinuated by 
 any part of these words is not my affair ; but so public 
 a reward had the appearance of a laudable spirit, which 
 only such a play as " Cato" could have inspired ; nor could 
 Booth be blamed if, upon so particular a distinction of his 
 merit, he began himself to set more value upon it : how far 
 he might carry it, in making use of the favour he stood in 
 with a certain nobleman* then in power at court, was not 
 difficult to penetrate; and, indeed, ought always to have 
 been expected by the managing actors: for which of them, 
 making the case every way his own, could, with* such 
 advantages, have contented himself in the humble station of 
 an hired actor? But let us see how the managers stood 
 severally affected upon this occasion. 
 
 Dogget, who expected, though he feared not, the at- 
 
 * Lord Bolingbroke. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 399 
 
 tempt of what after happened, imagined he had thought of 
 an expedient to prevent it : and, to cover his design with 
 all the art of a statesman, he insinuated to us (for he was a 
 stanch whig) that this present of fifty guineas was a sort 
 of a tory triumph, which they had no pretence to ; and that, 
 for his part, he could not bear that so redoubted a champion 
 for liberty as Cato^ should be bought off to the cause of 
 a contrary party : he, therefore, in the seeming zeal of his 
 heart, proposed that the managers themselves should make 
 the same present to Booth which had been made him, from 
 the boxes, the day before. This, he said, would recom- 
 mend the equality and liberal spirit of our management to 
 the town, and might be a means to secure Booth more 
 firmly to our interest ; it never having been known that the 
 skill of the best actor had received so round a reward or 
 gratuity, in one day, before. Wilks, who wanted nothing 
 but abilities to be as cunning as Dogget, was so charmed 
 with the proposal, that he longed, that moment, to make 
 Booth the present with his own hands; and, though he 
 knew he had no right to do it without my consent, had no 
 patience to ask it ; upon which I turned to Dogget, with a 
 cold smile, and told him, that if Booth could be purchased 
 at so cheap a rate, it would be one of the best proofs of his 
 economy we had ever been beholden to : I therefore desired 
 we might have a little patience; that our doing it too 
 hastily might be only making sure of an occasion to throw 
 the fifty guineas away ; for if we should be obliged to 
 do better for him, we could never expect that Booth would 
 think himself bound, in honour, to refund them. This 
 seemed so absurd an argument to Wilks, that he began, 
 with his usual freedom of speech, to treat it as a pitiful 
 evasion of their intended generosity : but Dogget, who 
 was not so wide of my meaning, clapping his hand upon 
 mine, said, with an air of security, " O, don't trouble 
 
400 
 
 AN APOLOGV FOR THE 
 
 yourself; there must be two words to that bargain ; let me 
 alone to manage that matter." Wilks, upon this dark 
 discourse, grew uneasy, as if there were some secret be- 
 tween us that he was to be left out of. Therefore, to avoid 
 the shock of his intemperance, I was reduced to tell him 
 that it was my opinion that Booth would never be made 
 easy by any thing we could do for him, till he had a sh^re 
 in the profits and management ; and that, as he did not 
 want friends to assist him, whatever his merit might be 
 before, every one would think, since his acting of Cato, he 
 had now enough to back his pretensions to it. To which 
 Dogget replied, that nobody could think his merit was 
 slighted by so handsome a present as fifty guineas; and 
 thatj for his farther pretensions, whatever the license might 
 avail, our property of house, scenes, and clothes, was our 
 own, and not in the power of the crown to dispose of. To 
 conclude, my objections that the money would be only 
 thrown away, &c., were overruled, and the same night 
 Booth had the fifty guineas, which he received with a 
 thankfulness that made Wilks and Dogget perfectly easy ; 
 insomuch, that they seemed for some time to triumph in 
 their conduct, and often endeavoured to laugh my jealousy 
 out of countenance : but, in the following winter, the game 
 happened to take a different turn; and then, if it had been a 
 laughing matter, I had as strong an occasion to smile at 
 their former security. But, before 1 make an end of this 
 matter, I cannot pass over the good fortune of the com- 
 pany that followed us to the act at Oxford, which was 
 held in the intervening summer : perhaps, too, a short view 
 of the stage, in that different situation, may not be unac- 
 ceptable to the curious. 
 
 After the restoration of King Charles, before the cavalier 
 and round-head parties, under their new denomination of 
 whig and tory, began again to be politically troublesome. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 401 
 
 public acts at Oxford, as I find by the date of several 
 prologues written by Dry den, for Hart on those occasions, 
 had been more frequently held than in later reigns. Whe- 
 ther the same party dissentions may have occasioned the 
 discontinuance of them, is a speculation not necessary to be 
 entered into. But these academical jubilees have usually 
 been looked upon as a kind of congratulatory compliment 
 to the accession of every new prince to the throne, and 
 generally, as such, have attended them. King James, 
 notwithstanding his religion, had the honour of it ; at which 
 the players, as usual, assisted. This I have only mention- 
 ed, to give the reader a theatrical anecdote of a liberty 
 which Tony Leigh, the comedian, took with the character 
 of the well-known Obadiah Walker,* then head of Uni- 
 versity College, who, in that prince's reign, had turned 
 Roman catholic : the circumstance is this. 
 
 In the latter end of the comedy called the " Committee," 
 Leigh, who acted the part of Teague, hauling in Obadiah, 
 with an halter about his neck, whom, according to his 
 written part, he was to threaten to hang, for no better rea- 
 son than his refusing to drink the king's health, here Leigh, 
 to justify his purpose with a stronger provocation, put him- 
 self into a more than ordinary heat with his captive Obadiahy 
 which having heightened his master's curiosity to know what 
 Obadiah had done, to deserve such usage, Leigh, folding 
 his arms, with a ridiculous stare of astonishment, replied, 
 ^' Upon my shoul, he has shange his religion." As the 
 
 * This man, a native of Yorkshire, obtained his education in 
 University-college, Oxford, of which he rose to be master, but was 
 displaced at the revolution, for his superstitious attachment to po- 
 pery, which he had embraced with the view of court-favour. Rad- 
 cliffe, the physician, who had been his scholar, received him into 
 his house, where he died in 1698. 
 
 D D 
 
402 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 merit of this jest lay chiefly in the auditors' sudden appli- 
 cation of it to the Obadiah of Oxford, it was received with 
 all the triumph of applause which the zeal of a different 
 religion could inspire. But Leigh was given to understand 
 that the king was highly displeased at it, inasmuch as it 
 had shown him that the university was in a temper to make 
 a jest of his proselyte. But to return to the conduct of our 
 own affairs there, in 1712. 
 
 It had been a custom for the comedians, while at Oxford, 
 to act twice a day ; the first play ending every morning, 
 before the college hours of dining, and the other never to 
 break into the time of shutting their gates in the evening. 
 This extraordinary labour gave all the hired actors a title to 
 double pay, which, at the act in King William's time, I 
 had myself accordingly received there. But the present 
 managers, considering that by acting only once a day their 
 spirits might be fresher for every single performance, and 
 that, by this, means, they might be able to fill up the term 
 of their residence without the repetition of their best and 
 strongest plays ; and as their theatre was contrived to hold 
 a full third more than the usual form of it had done, one 
 house, well filled, might answer the profits of two but mod- 
 erately taken up : being enabled, too, by their late suc- 
 cess at London to make the journey pleasant and profitable 
 to the rest of their society, they resolved to continue to 
 them their double pay, notwithstanding this new abatement 
 of half their labour. This conduct of the managers more 
 than answered their intention, which was rather to get 
 nothing themselves, than not let their fraternity be the bet- 
 ter for the expedition. Thus they laid an obligation upon 
 their company, and were themselves considerable, though 
 unexpected, gainers by it. But my chief reason for bring- 
 ing the reader to Oxford, was to show the diiSerent taste of 
 plays there from that which prevailed at London. A great 
 
LIFE OF Mrt; OULLEY CIBBER. 40S 
 
 deal of that false flashy wit, and forced humour, which had 
 been the delight of our metropolitan multitude, was only 
 rated there at its bare intrinsic value ; applause was not 
 to be purchased there, but by the true sterling, the sal 
 atticum of a genius ; unless where the skill of the actor 
 passed it upon them, with some extraordinary strokes of 
 nature. Shakspeare and Jonson had there a sort of classi- 
 cal authority, for whose masterly scenes they seemed io 
 have as implicit a reverence, as formerly tor the ethics of 
 Aristotle ; and were as incapable of allowing moderns to 
 be their competitors, as of changing their academical 
 habits for gaudy colours or embroidery. Whatever merit, 
 therefore, some few of our more politely-written comedies 
 might pretend to, they had not the same effect upon the 
 imagination there, nor were received with that extraordi- 
 nary applause they had met with from the people of mode 
 and pleasure in Londoii, whose vain accomplishments did 
 not dislike themselves in the glass that was held to them. 
 The elegant follies of higher life were not at Oxford among 
 their acquaintance, and, consequently, might not be so good 
 company to a learned audience, as nature in her plain 
 dress, and unornamented in her pursuits and inclinations, 
 seemed to be. 
 
 The only distinguished merit allowed to > any modern 
 writer was to the author of" Cato," which play, being the 
 flower of a plant raised in that learned garden, for there 
 Mr. Addison had his education, what fiivour may we not 
 suppose was due to him, from an audience of brethren, who 
 from that local relation to him, might naturally have a 
 warmer pleasure in their benevolence to his fame ? But, not 
 to give more weight io this imaginary circumstance than it 
 may bear, the fact was that on our first day of acting it our 
 house was, in a manner, invested ; and entrance demanded 
 by twelve o'clock at noon, and, before one, it was not wide 
 
 DD 2 
 
404 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 enough for many who came too late for places. The same 
 crowds continued for three days together, (an uncommon 
 curiosity in that place) and the death of Cato triumphed 
 over the injuries of Caesar^ every where. To conclude, our 
 reception at Oxford, whatever our merit might be, ex- 
 ceeded our expectation. At our taking leave, we had the 
 thanks of the Vice Chancellor, for the decency and order 
 observed by our whole society ; an honour which had not 
 always been paid upon the same occasions ; for at the act in 
 King William's time, I remember some pranks of a dif- 
 ferent nature had been complained of. Our receipts had 
 not only enabled us, as I have observed, to double the pay 
 of every actor, but to afford out of them towards the repair 
 of St. Mary's church, the contribution of fifty pounds : 
 besides which, each of the three managers had to his respec- 
 tive share, clear of all charges, one hundred and fifty more, 
 for his one-and-twenty days' labour ; which, being added 
 to his thirteen hundred and fifty shared in the winter pre- 
 ceding, amounted, in the whole, to fifteen hundred, the 
 greatest sum ever known to have been shared, in one year, 
 to that time: and to the honour of our auditors, here 
 ^d elsewhere, be it spoken, all this was raised without the 
 aid of those barbarous entertainments with which, some 
 few years after, upon the re-establishment of two con- 
 tending companies, we were forced to disgrace the stage, 
 to support it. 
 
 This, therefore, is that remarkable period when the stage, 
 during my time upon it, was the least reproachable : and 
 it may be worth the public observation, if anything I have 
 said of it can be so, that one stage may, as I have proved it 
 has done, very laudably support itself by such spectacles 
 only as are fit to delight a sensible people ; but the equal 
 prosperity of two stages has always been of a very short 
 duration. If, therefore, the public should ever recover into 
 the true taste of that time, and stick to it, the stage must 
 
LIFE OF IVIR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 405 
 
 come into it, or starve; as, whenever the general taste is 
 vulgar, the stage must come down to it, to lixie. But I 
 ask pardon of the multitude, who, in all regulations of the 
 stage, may expect to be a little indulged in what they like : 
 if, therefore, they will have a may-pole, why, the players 
 must give them a may-pole ; but I only speak, in case they 
 should keep an old custom of changing their minds, and by 
 their privilege of being in the wrongs should take a fancy, 
 by way of variety, of being in the right. Then, in such a 
 case, what I have said may appear to have been no in- 
 tended design against their liberty of judging for them- 
 selves. 
 
 After our return from Oxford, Booth was at full leisure 
 to solicit his admission to a share in the management, in 
 which he succeeded, about the beginning of the following 
 winter ; accordingly a new license (recalling all former 
 licenses) was issued, wherein Booth's name was added to 
 those of the other managers. But still there was a difficulty 
 in his qualification to be adjusted, — what consideration he 
 should allow for an equal title to our stock of clothes,, 
 scenes, &c., without which the license was of no more use 
 than the stock was without the license ; or, at least, if there 
 were any difference, the former managers seemed to have 
 the advantage in it ; the stock being entirely theirs, and 
 three parts in four of the license ; for Collier, though now 
 but a fifth manager, still insisted on his former appointment 
 of seven hundred pounds a-year ; which, in equity, ought 
 certainly to have been proportionably abated : but courts 
 favour was not always measured by that yard. Collier's 
 matter was soon out of the question ; his pretensions 
 were too visible to be contested ; but the affair of Booth 
 was not so clear a point. The Lord Chamberlain, there- 
 fore, only recommended it to be adjusted among ourselves ; 
 which, to say the truth, at that time was a greater indul- 
 
 D D 3 
 
406 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 gence than I expected. Let us see, then, how this critical 
 tase* was^ liandled. 
 
 Wilks was of opinion that to set a good round value 
 upon our stock was the only way to come near an equiva- 
 lent for the diminution of our shaies, which ihe admission 
 of Booth must occasion : but Dogget insisted that he had 
 no mind to dispose of any part of his property, and there- 
 fore would set no price upon it at all. Though I allowed 
 that both these opinions might be grounded on a good deal 
 of equity, yet I was not sure that either of them was prac- 
 ticable ; and therefore told them, that when they could both 
 agree which of them could be made so, they might rely on 
 my consent, in any shape. In the meantime, I desired 
 they would consider that as our license subsisted only during 
 pleasure, we could not pretend that the Queen might not 
 rccal or alter it : but that, to speak out, without mincing 
 the matter on either side, the truth was plainly this : that 
 Booth had a manifest merit as an actor, and as he was not 
 supposed to be a whig, it was as evident, that, a good deal 
 for that reason, a secretary of state had taken him into his 
 protection, which I was afraid the weak pretence of our 
 invaded property woidd not be able to contend with : that 
 his having signalised himself in the character of CatOy 
 whose principles the tories had affected to have taken into 
 their own possession, was a very popular pretence of making 
 him free of the stage, by advancing him to the profits of it. 
 And, as we had seen that the stage was frequently treated 
 as if k was not. supposed to have any property at all, this 
 fevoUr intended to Booth was thought a right occasion to 
 avow, that opinion, by disposing of its property at pleasure. 
 But be that as it might, I owned it was not so much my 
 apprehensions of what the court might do, that swayed me 
 into an accommodation with Booth, as what the town, in 
 whose favour he now apparently stood, might think ought 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 407 
 
 to be done. That there might be more danger in contest- 
 ing their arbitrary will and pleasure, than in disputing this 
 less terrible strain of the prerogative. That if Booth were 
 only imposed upon us from his merit to the court, we were 
 then in the condition of other subjects. Then, indeed, law, 
 right, and possession, might have a tolerable tug for our 
 property ; but, as the town would always look- upon his 
 merit to them in a stronger light, and be judges of it them- 
 selves, it would be a weak and idle endeavour in us not to 
 sail with the stream, when we might possibly make a merit 
 of our cheerfully admitting him : that though his former 
 opposition to our interest might, between man and man, a 
 good deal justify our not making an earlier friend of him, 
 yet that was a disobligation, out of the town's regard, and 
 consequently would be of no weight against so approved an 
 actor's being preferred. But all this notwithstanding, if 
 they could both agree in a different opinion, I would, at 
 the hazard of any consequence, be guided by it. 
 
 Here, now, will be shown another instance of our differ- 
 ent tempers : Dogget, who, in all matters that concerned 
 our common weal and interest, little regarded our opinion, 
 and, even to an obstinacy, walked by his own, looked only 
 out of humour at what I had said, and without thinking 
 himself obliged to give any reason for it, declared he would 
 maintain his property. Wilks, who, upon the same occa- 
 sions, was as remarkably ductile as, when his superiority 
 on the stage was in question, he was assuming and intract- 
 able, said, for his part, provided our business of acting was 
 not interrupted, he did not care what we did : but, in 
 short, he was for playing on, come what would of it. This 
 last part of his declaration I did not dislike, and therefore 
 I desired we might all enter into an inimediate treaty with 
 Booth, upon the terms of his admission. Dogget still sullen- 
 ly replied, that he had no occasion to enter into any treaty. 
 
 D D 4 
 
408 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Wilks then, to soften him, proposed that, if I liked it, 
 Dogget might undertake it himself. I agreed. No; he 
 would not be concerned in it. I then offered the same 
 trust to Wilks, if Dogget approved of it. Wilks said he 
 was not good at making of bargains, but, if I was willing, 
 he would rather leave it to me. Dogget, at this, rose up, 
 and said we might both do as we pleased, but that nothing 
 but the law should make him part with his property, and 
 so went out of the room. After which he never came among 
 us more, either as an actor or manager. 
 
 By his having, in this abmpt manner, abdicated his post 
 in our government, what he left of it naturally devolved 
 upon Wilks and myself. However, this did not so much 
 distress our affair as I have reason to believe Dogget 
 thought it would : for though, by our indentures tripartite, 
 we could not dispose of his property without his consent, 
 yet those indentures could not oblige us to fast because he 
 had no appetite ; and if the mill did not grind, we could 
 have no bread : we therefore determined, at any hazard, 
 to keep our business still going, and that bur safest way 
 would be, to make the best bargain we could with Booth ; 
 one article of which was to be, that Booth should stand 
 equally answerable with us to Dogget for the consequence : 
 to which Booth made no objection, and the rest of his 
 agreement was to allow us six hundred pounds for his share 
 in our property, which was to be paid by such sums as 
 should arise from half his profits of acting, till the whole 
 was discharged : yet, so cautious were we in this affair, 
 that this agreement was only verbal on our part, though 
 written and signed by Booth, as what entirely contented 
 him : however, bond and judgment could not have made 
 it more seure to him, for he had his share, and was able to 
 discharge the incumbrance upon it by his income of that 
 year only. Let us see what Dogget did in this affair, after 
 he had left us. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 409 
 
 Might it not be imagined that Wilks and myself, by 
 having made this matter easy to Booth, should have 
 deserved the approbation, at least, if not the favour of 
 the court, that had exerted so much pov»^er to prefer 
 him ? But shall I be believed when I affirm that Dogget, 
 who had so strongly opposed the court in his admission to 
 a share, was very near getting the better of us both, 
 upon that account, and for some time appeared to have 
 more favour there than either of us ? Let me tell out 
 my story, and then think what you please of it. 
 
 Dogget, who was equally obliged with us to act upon 
 the stage as to assist in the management of it, though he had 
 refused to do either, still demanded of us his whole share of 
 the profits, without considering what part of them Booth 
 might pretend to, from our late concessions. After many 
 fruitless endeavours to bring him back to us, Booth joined 
 with us in maldng him an oflfer of half a share, if he had a 
 mind totally to quit the stage and make it a sinecure. No ; 
 he wanted the whole, and to sit still himself, while we (if 
 we pleased) might work for him, or let it alone, and none of 
 us all, neither he nor we, be the better for it. What we 
 imagined encouraged him to hold us at this short defiance 
 was, that he had laid up enough to live upon, without the 
 stage, for he was one of those close economists whom prodig- 
 als call a miser, and therefore partly from an inclination, as 
 an invincible whig, to signalise himself in defence of his pro- 
 perty, and as much presuming that our necessities would 
 oblige us to come to his own terms, he was determined, 
 even against the opinion of his friends, to make no other 
 peace with us. But not being able, by this inflexible per- 
 severance, to have his wicked will of us, he was resolved to 
 go to the fountain-head of his own distress, and try if from 
 thence he could turn the current against us. He appealed 
 to the Vice Chamberlain, to whose direction the adjusting 
 
*^^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 of all these theatrical difficulties was then committed. But 
 there, I dare say, the reader does not expect he should 
 meet with much favour. However, be that as it may ; for 
 whether any regard was had to his having some thousands 
 in his pocket, or that he was considered as a man who 
 would or could make more noise in the matter than cour- 
 tiers might care for ; or what charms, spells, or conjura- 
 tions he might make use of, is all darkness to me ; yet so it 
 was, he, one way or other, played his part so well, that, in 
 a few days after, we received an order from the Vice Cham- 
 berlain, positively commanding us to pay Dogget his whole 
 share, notwithstanding we had complained before of his 
 having withdrawn himself from acting on the stage, and 
 from the management of it. This I thought was a 
 dainty distinction, indeed ; that Dogget's defiance of the 
 commands in favour of Booth should be rewarded with 
 so ample a sinecure, and that we, for our obedience, should 
 be condemned to dig in the mine, to pay it him. This bitter 
 pill, I confess, was more than I could down with, and 
 therefore soon determined, at all events, never to take it. 
 But, as I had a man of power to deal with, it was not 
 my business to speak out to him, or to set forth our treat- 
 ment in its proper colours. My only doubt was whether 
 I could bring Wilks into the same sentiments, for he 
 never cared to litigate any thing that did not affect his 
 figure upon the stage ; but I had the good fortune to 
 lay our condition in so precarious and disagreeable a light 
 to him, if we submitted to this order, that he fired before I 
 could get through half the consequences of it; and I 
 began now to find it more difficult to keep him within 
 bounds, than I had before to alarm him. I then pro- 
 jx)sed to him this expedient ; that we should draw up a 
 remonstrance, neither seeming to refuse or comply with 
 this order, but to start such objections and perplexing dif- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 411 
 
 Acuities as should make the whole impracticable ; that 
 under such distractions as this would raise in our affairs, we 
 could not be answerable to keep open our doors, which 
 consequently would destroy the fruit of the favour lately 
 granted to Booth, as well as of this intended to Dogget 
 himself. To this remonstrance we received an answer in 
 writing, which varied something in the measures to accom- 
 modate matters with Dogget. This was all I desired. When 
 I found the style of sic juheo was altered; when this for- 
 midable power began to parley with us, we knew there 
 could not be much to be feared from it ; for I would have 
 remonstrated till I had died rather than have yielded to the 
 roughest or smoothest persuasion that could intimidate or 
 deceive us. By this conduct we made the afiair, at last, 
 too troublesome for the ease of a courtier to go through 
 with ; for, when it was considered that the principal point, 
 the admission of Booth was got over, Dogget was fairly left 
 to the law for relief. 
 
 Upon this disappointment, Dogget accordingly preferred 
 a bill in Chancery against us. Wilks, who hated all busi- 
 ness but that of entertaining the public, left the conduct of 
 our cause to me ; in which we had, at our first setting out, 
 this advantage of Dogget, that we had three pockets to 
 support our expense, where he had but one. My first di- 
 rection to our solicitor was to use all possible delay that the 
 law would admit of; a direction that lawyers seldom ne- 
 glect ; by this means we hung up our plaintiff about two 
 years in Chancery, till we were at full leisure to come to a 
 hearing before the Lord Chancellor Cowper, which did 
 not happen till after the accession of bis late majesty. The 
 issue of it was this. Dogget had about fourteen days al- 
 lowed him to make his election, whether he would return 
 to act as usual ; but he declaring, by his counsel, that he 
 rather chose to quit the stage, he was decreed six hundred 
 
il2 AN APOLOGV FOR THE 
 
 pounds for his share in our property, with fifteen per cent. 
 interest, from the date of the last license ; upon the re- 
 ceipt of which, both parties were to sign general releases, 
 and severally to pay their own costs. By this decree. Dog- 
 get, when his lawyer's bill was paid, scarcely got one year's 
 purchase of what we had offered him without law, which, 
 as he survived but seven years after it, would have been an 
 annuity of five hundred pounds, and a sinecure for life.* 
 
 * Thomas Dogget was born in Castle-street, Dublin, though at 
 what period it is impossible to ascertain, and made his first theatri- 
 cal attempt upon the stage of that metropolis. Not meeting with 
 the encouragement there that his merit deserved, he came over to 
 England, and joined a travelling company, from which he very 
 soon removed to London, and established himself at Drury-lane 
 theatre. His admirable performance of a part ( 1 ) in D'Urfey's 
 " Marriage-hater," in the year 1692, first brought his talent into 
 notice, and the excellence he displayed shortly afterwards as Fon- 
 dlewife, in the " Old Bachelor," enlarged his reputation. Downs, 
 in the " Roscius Anglicanus," pays a high compliment to each of 
 these personations. 
 
 When the new theatre in Lincoln's-inn-fields was built and open- 
 ed under the auspices of Betterton, Mr. Dogget withdrew from 
 Drury-lane, and sustained his celebrated character of Ben, in 
 " Love for Love," with which the revolters commenced their sea- 
 son. Here he was universally approved in every part he under- 
 took, till upon the removal of this company to the Haymarket, 
 when he retired for a short time, and only returned to assist at 
 Betterton's benefit, (2) in April 1709. When Collier, by displac- 
 ing Rich, obtained his license for Drury-lane theatre, Dogget re- 
 sumed his antient station, and, with Wilks and Cibber, was 
 
 (1) Solon. 
 
 (2) It is expressly said in the " Tattler," No. 1, that he was not ** con- 
 cerned in the house," when that event took place. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 413 
 
 Though there are many persons living who know every 
 article of these facts to be true, yet it will be found that 
 
 admitted to a division of its profits and power. Downs, about this 
 time, is very lavish in his praise of Dogget, whose reputation was, 
 indeed, so high, that Steele honours him with the appellation of 
 " famous," and unequivocally terms him the " best of corned i- 
 ans."(3) He was certainly, in general opinion, an original and 
 peerless actor; a close copier of nature in all her attitudes or dis- 
 guises; a man so sensible of what his own natural abilities could 
 effect, that he never ventured upon any part to which they were 
 not adapted. In addition to his great skill in dressing, it is said he 
 could also colour his face with such exactness, as to represent the 
 different degrees of old age most distinctly; which occasioned Sir 
 Godfrey Kneller to tell him one day, at Button's, that he excelled 
 him in painting ; for, that he could only copy nature from the ori- 
 ginals before him, while Dogget varied them at pleasure, and yet 
 preserved a strong likeness. 
 
 According to Aston, he was " a little, lively, spract man," and 
 there is a portrait of him in the collection of Mr. Mathews, which 
 shows his countenance, though far from handsome, to have been 
 animated and agreeable. In company, his behaviour was modest, 
 cheerful, and complaisant; and though his education had been 
 greatly neglected, he possessed a large share of natural intelligence. 
 He was master of a strolling company, at some period of his life, 
 for several years, and set his troop so excellent an example of 
 feeling and conduct, that they lived, wherever they went, in com- 
 fort and respectability. 
 
 Though Dogget, as we have seen, renounced his share in the 
 management when Booth was forced upon him and his associates, 
 still his name was retained in the patent procured by Sir Richard 
 Steele. By trafficking in the funds, and frugality in the applica- 
 tion of his income, he had amassed a handsome property at the 
 
 (3) "Tattler;" No. 120. 
 
^14r AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the strongest of them was not the strongest occasion of 
 Dogget's quitting the stage. If, therefore, the reader 
 should not have curiosity enough to know how the public 
 came to be deprived of so valuable an actor, let him con- 
 sider that he is not obliged to go through the rest of 
 this chapter, which I fairly tell him, before-hand, w ill only 
 be filled up with a few idle anecdotes leading to that dis- 
 covery. 
 
 After our law-suit was ended, Dogget, for some few 
 years, could scarcely bear the sight of Wilks or myself; 
 though, as shall be shown, for different reasons : yet it was 
 his misfortune to meet with us almost every day. Button's 
 Coffee-house, so celebrated in the " Tattler" for the good 
 company that came there, was at this time in its high- 
 est request. Addison, Steele, Pope, and several other gen- 
 tlemen of different merit, then made it their constant rend- 
 ezvous. Nor could Dogget decline the agreeable conver- 
 sation there, though he was daily sure to find Wilks or 
 myself in the same place to sour his share of it : for as 
 Wilks and he were differently proud, the one rejoicing in 
 a captious, over-bearing, valiant pride, and the other, in a 
 
 time of his retirement, with which he enjoyed himself liil his death, 
 at Eltham, in Kent, on the 22nd of September, 1721. 
 
 The political principles of Mr. Dogget were so strong, that, to 
 mark his veneration for the house of Hanover, he left a waterman's 
 coat and badge to be rowed for, annually, on the first of August, 
 in honour of its accession, on that day, to the throne of- these 
 realms. The expense of this prize is defrayed by the interest of a 
 certain sum appropriated to that purpose, and is still contended for 
 by half-a-dozen rowers. 
 
 Dogget wrote a comedy, called the " Country Wake," which 
 having been reduced to a ballad-farce, is still occasionally per- 
 formed under the title of a " Flora ; or, Hob in the Well." 
 
LIFE OF MR. CDLLEY CIBBER. 415 
 
 stiff, sullen, purse pride ; it may be easily conceived, when 
 two such tempers met, how agreeable the sight of one was 
 to the other. And as Dogget knew I had been the 
 conductor of our defence against his law-suit, which had 
 hurt him more for the loss he had sustained in his reputa- 
 tion of understanding business, which he valued himself 
 upon, than his disappointment had of getting so little by it, 
 it was no wonder if I was entirely out of his good graces, 
 which, I confess, I was inclined upon any reasonable 
 terras to have recovered ; he being of all my theatrical 
 brethren the man I most delighted in ; for, when he was 
 not in a fit of wisdom, or not over-concerned about his 
 ijiterest, he had a great deal of entertaining humour : I 
 therefore, notwithstanding his reserve, always lefl the door 
 open to our former intimacy, if he were inclined to come 
 into it. I never failed to give him my hat, and, " Your 
 servant," wherever I met him; neither of which he would 
 ever return, for above a year after ; but I still persisted in 
 my usual salutation, without observing whether it wa^ 
 civilly received or not. This ridiculous silence between 
 two comedians that had so lately lived in a constant course 
 of raillery with one another, was often smiled at by our 
 acquaintance who frequented the same coffee-r.house, and 
 one of them carried his jest upon it so far that, when I was 
 at some distance from town, he wrote me a formal account 
 that Dogget was actually dead. After the first surprise his 
 letter gave me was over, I began to consider that this, 
 coming from a droll friend to both of us, might possibly be 
 written to extract some merriment out of my real belief of 
 it : in this I was not unwilling to gratify him, and returned 
 an answer, as if I had taken the truth of his news for 
 granted; and was not a little pleased that I bad so fair 
 an opportunity of speaking my mind freely of Dogget, 
 irhich I did in some fevour of his character ; I excused his 
 
416 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 faults, and was just to his merit. His law-suit with us 
 I only imputed to his having naturally deceived himself in 
 the justice of his cause. What I most complained of was, 
 his irreconcilable disaffection to me upon it, whom he 
 could not reasonably blame for standing in my own de- 
 fence ; that not to endure me after it was a reflection upon 
 his sense, when all our acquaintance had been witnesses 
 of our former intimacy ; which my behaviour in his life- 
 time had plainly shown him I had a mind to renew. But 
 since he was now gone, however great a churl he was 
 to me, I was sorry my correspondent had lost him. 
 
 This part of my letter I was sure, if Dogget's eyes were 
 still open, would be shown to him ; if not, I had only 
 written it to no purpose. But, about a month after, when 
 I came to town, I had some little reason to imagine it had 
 the effect I wished from it ; for one day, sitting over against 
 him at the same coffee-house, where we often mixed at 
 the same table, though we never exchanged a single 
 syllable, he graciously extended his hand for a pinch of my 
 snuff: as this seemed, from him, a sort of breaking the 
 ice of his temper, I took courage, upon it, to break silence 
 on my side, and asked him how he liked it. To which, 
 with a slow hesitation, naturally assisted by the action 
 of his taking the snuff, he replied — " Umph ! the best — 
 umph ! — I have tasted a great while." — If the reader, 
 who may possibly think all this extremely trifling, will 
 consider that trifles sometimes show characters in as strong 
 a light as facts of more serious importance, I am in hopes 
 he may allow that my matter less needs an excuse than the 
 excuse itself does ; if not, I must stand condemned at the end 
 of my story.— »But let me go on. 
 
 Aflera few days of these coy, lady-like compliances on his 
 side, we grew into a more con versible temper : at last I 
 took a proper occasion, and desired he would be so frank 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 417 
 
 With me as to let me know what was his real dislike, or 
 motive, that made him throw up so good an income as his 
 share with us annually brought him in ? For though^ by 
 our admission of Booth, it might not probably amount to 
 so much by a hundred or two a-year, as formerly, yet the 
 remainder was too considerable to be quarrelled with, and 
 was likely to continue more than the best actors before 
 us had ever got by the stage. And farther, to encourage 
 him to be open, I told him if I had done any thing that 
 had particularly disobliged him, I was ready, if he could 
 put me in the way, to make him any amends in my power ; 
 if not, I desired he would be so just to himself as to let me 
 know the real truth, without reserve; but reserve he 
 could not, from his natural temper, easily shake off. All 
 he said came from him by half sentences and inuendoes, as 
 — No, he had not taken any thing particularly ill — for his 
 part, he was very easy, as he was ; but where others were 
 to dispose of his property as they pleased — if you had stood 
 it out, as I did. Booth might have paid a better price for it. 
 — You were too much afraid of the court — but that's all 
 over.— There were other things in the playhouse. — No 
 man of spirit — In short, to be always pestered and provok- 
 ed by a trifling wasp — a vain — shallow — a man would 
 sooner beg his bread, than bear it. — Here it was easy to 
 understand him: I therefore asked him, what he had to 
 bear that I had not my share of? " No ; it was not the 
 same thing," he said. — '' You can play with a bear, or let 
 him alone, and do what he would; but I could not let 
 him lay his paws upon me, without being hurt ; you did 
 not feel him, as I did. — ^And for a man to be cutting of 
 throats, upon every trifle, at my time of day ! — If I had 
 been as covetous as he thought me, may be I might have 
 borne it, as well as you — but I would not be a lord of 
 
 E E 
 
418 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the treasury, if such a temper as Wilks's were to be at the 
 head of it." 
 
 Here, then, the whole secret was out : the rest of our 
 conversation was but explaining upon it. In a word, the 
 painful behaviour of Wilks had hurt him so sorely, that the 
 affair of Booth was looked upon as much a relief as a griev- 
 ance, in giving him so plausible a pretence to get rid of us 
 all, with a better grace. 
 
 Booths too, in a little time, had his share of the same 
 uneasiness, and often complained of it to me : yet as we 
 neither of us could, then, afford to pay Dogget's price for our 
 remedy, all we could do was to avoid every occasion, 
 in our power, of inflaming the distemper ; so that we both 
 agreed, though Wilks's nature was not to be changed, 
 it was a less evil to live with him than without him. 
 
 Though I had often suspected, from what I had felt my- 
 self, that the temper of Wilks was Dogget's real quarrel to 
 the stage, yet I could never thoroughly believe it, till I had 
 it from his own mouth. And I, then, thought the concern 
 he had shown at it was a good deal inconsistent with that 
 understanding which was generally allowed him. When I 
 give my reasons for it, perhaps the reader will not have a 
 better opinion of my own : be that as it may, I cannot help 
 wondering that he, who was so much more capable of 
 reflection than Wilks, could sacrifice so valuable an in- 
 come to his impatience of another's natural frailty ; and 
 though my stoical way of thinking may be no rule for 
 a wiser man's opinion, yet, if it should happen to be right, 
 the reader may make his use of it. Why then should we 
 not always consider that the rashness of abuse is but the 
 felse reason of a weak man, and that offensive terms are 
 only used to supply the want oif strength in argument ? 
 which, as to the common practice of the sober world, we 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 419 
 
 do not find every man in business is obliged to resent with 
 a military sense of honour ; or, if he should, would not the 
 conclusion amount to this, — because another wants sense 
 and manners I am obliged to be a madman ? for such every 
 man is, more or less, while the passion of anger is in pos- 
 session of him. And what less can we call that proud 
 man who would put another out of the world only for 
 putting him out of humour ? If accounts of the tongue 
 were always to be made up with the sword, all the wise 
 men in the world might be brought in debtors to block- 
 heads ; and when honour pretends to be witness, judge, 
 and executioner in its own cause, if honour were a man, 
 would it be an untruth to say honour is a very impudent 
 fellow ? But in Dogget's case it may be asked, How was 
 he to behave himself? Were passionate insults to be 
 borne for years together ? To these questions I can only 
 answer with two or three more : Was he to punish himself 
 because another was in the wrong ? How many sensible 
 husbands endure the teasing tongue of a froward wife, 
 only because she is the weaker vessel, and why should not 
 a weak man have the same indulgence ? Daily experience 
 will tell us that the fretful temper of a friend, like the 
 personal beauty of a fine lady, by use and cohabitation 
 may be brought down to give us neither pain nor pleas- 
 ure ; such, at least, and no more was the distress I found 
 myself in upon the same provocations, which I generally 
 returned with humming an air to myself; or, if the storm 
 grew very high, it might, perhaps, sometimes ruffle me 
 enough to sing a little out of tune. Thus, too, if I had any 
 ill nature to gratify, I often saw the unruly passion of the 
 aggressor's mind punish itself by a restless disorder of the 
 bodj. 
 
 What inclines me, therefore, to think the conduct of 
 E E 2 
 
^^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Bogget was as rash as the provocations he complained 
 of, is that, in some time after he had left us, he plainly 
 discovered he had repented it. His acquaintance observ- 
 ed to us that he sent many a long look after his share in the 
 still prosperous state of the stage ; but, as his heart was too 
 high to declare (what we saw, too,) his shy inclination to 
 return, he made us no direct overtures. Nor, indeed, did 
 we care (though he was a golden actor) to pay too dear for 
 him : for as most of his parts had been pretty well supplied, 
 he could not, now, be of his former value to us. However, 
 to show the town, at least, that he had not forsworn the 
 stage, he, one day, condescended to play for the benefit of 
 Mrs. Porter,* in the " Wanton Wife," at which he knew 
 
 * This valuable and respected actress, who was not only an 
 honour to the stage, but an ornament to human nature, obtained 
 the notice of Betterton by performing, when a child, the Genius 
 of Britain, in a Lord Mayor's pageant, during the reign of Charles 
 or James the Second. It was the custom for fruit- women in the 
 theatre formerly to stand fronting the pit, with their backs to the 
 stage, and their oranges, &c. covered with vine leaves, under one 
 of which Betterton threatened to put his little pupil, who was ex- 
 tremely diminutive, if she did not speak and act as he would have 
 her. 
 
 Mrs. Porter was the genuine successor of Mrs. Barry, and had 
 an elevated consequence in her manner, which has seldom been 
 equalled. One of her greatest parts was Shakspeare's Queen 
 Catfierine, in which her sensibility and intelligence, her graceful 
 elocution and dignified behaviour, commanded applause and atten- 
 tion in passages of little importance. When the scene was not 
 agitated by passion, to the general spectator she failed in commu- 
 nicating equal pleasure ; her recitation of fact or sentiment being 
 so modulated as to resemble musical cadence rather than speak- 
 ing. Where passion, however, predominated, she exerted her 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 421 
 
 his late majesty was to be present. Now, though I speak 
 it not of my own knowledge, yet it was not likely Mrs. 
 
 powers to a supreme degree, and exhibited that enthusiastic 
 ardour which filled her audience with animation, astonishment, 
 and delight. 
 
 The dislocation of her thigh-bone, in the summer of 1731, was 
 attended with a circumstance that deserves to be recorded. She 
 Hved at Heywood-hill, near Hendon, and, after the play, went 
 home every night in a one-horse chaise, prepared to defend herself 
 against robbery, with a brace of pistols. She was stopped on one 
 of those occasions by a highwayman, who demanded her money, 
 and having the courage to level one of her pistols at him, the 
 assailant, who was probably unfurnished with a similar weapon, 
 assured her that he was no common thief, and had been driven to 
 his present course by the wants of a starving family. He told her, 
 at the same time, where he lived, and urged his distresses with such 
 earnestness, that she spared him all the money in her purse, which 
 was about ten guineas. The man left her, on which she gave a 
 lash to the horse, who suddenly started out of the track, overturned 
 her vehicle, and caused the accident already related. Let it be 
 remembered to this good woman's credit, that notwithstanding the 
 pain and loss to which he had, innocently, subjected her, she made 
 strict inquiry into the highwayman's character, and finding that 
 he had told the truth, she raised about sixty pounds among her 
 acquaintance, and sent it, without delay, to the relief of his 
 wretched family. There is a romantic generosity in this deed that 
 captivates me more than its absolute justice. 
 
 About the year 1738, Mrs. Porter returned to the stage, and 
 acted many of her principal characters, with much vigour and 
 great applause, though labouring under advanced age and uncon- 
 querable infirmity. She had the misfortune to outlive an annuity 
 upon which she depended, and died in narrow circumstances, 
 about the year 1762. 
 
 ee3 
 
422 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Porter would have asked that favour of him without some 
 previous hint that it would be granted. His coming 
 among us, for that day only, had a strong appearance of 
 his laying it in our way to make him proposals, or that 
 he hoped the court or town, might intimate to us their 
 desire of seeing him oftener : but as he acted only to do 
 a particular favour, the managers owed him no compliment 
 for it, beyond common civilities, and, as that might not be 
 all he proposed by it, his farther views (if he had any) 
 came to nothing; for, after this attempt, he never re- 
 turned to the stage. To speak of him as an actor, he 
 was the most an original, and the strictest observer of 
 nature, of all his contemporaries. He borrowed from 
 none of them : his manner was his own : he was a pat- 
 tern to others, whose greatest merit was that they had 
 sometimes tolerably imitated him. In dressing a character 
 to the greatest exactness he was remarkably skilful ; the 
 least article of whatever habit he wore, seemed in some de- 
 gree to speak and mark the different humour he presented ; 
 a necessary care in a comedian, in which many have been 
 too remiss or ignorant. He could be extremely ridiculous, 
 without stepping into the least impropriety to make him so. 
 His greatest success was in characters of lower life, which 
 he improved, from the delight he took in his observations 
 
 Though her voice was harsh and unpleasing, she surmounted 
 its defects by her exquisite judgment. In person she was tall and 
 well shaped ; her complexion was fair ; and her features, though 
 not handsome, were made susceptible of all that strong feeling 
 could desire to convey. Her deportment was easy, and her action 
 unaffected ; and the testimony upon which the merits of Mrs. Por- 
 ter are placed, entitles us to rank her in the very first class of thea- 
 trical performers. 
 
LIFE OF MR, COLLEY CIBBER. 4:2S 
 
 of that kind in the real world. In songs,* and particular 
 dances, too, of humour, he had no competitor. Congreve 
 was a great admirer of him, and found his account in the 
 characters he expressly wrote for him. In those of Fondle- 
 wife, in his f* Old Bachelor," and Ben, in " Love for 
 Love," no author and actor could be more obliged to their 
 mutual masterly performances. He was very acceptable 
 to several persons of high rank and taste, though he seldom 
 cared to be the comedian, but among his more intimate 
 acquaintance. 
 
 And now let me ask the world a question. When men 
 have' any valuable qualities, why are the generality of our 
 modern wits so fond of exposing their failings only, which 
 the wisest of mankind will never wholly be free from ? Is 
 it of more use to the public to know their errors than their 
 perfections ? Why is the account of life to be so unequally 
 stated ? Though a man may be sometimes debtor to sense 
 or morality, is it not doing him wrong not to let the world 
 see, at the same time, how far he may be creditor to both ? 
 Are defects and disproportions to be the only laboured fea- 
 tures in a portrait ? But perhaps such authors may know 
 how to please the world better than I do, and may naturally 
 suppose that what is delightful to themselves may not be 
 disagreeable to others. For my own part, I confess my- 
 self a little touched in conscience, at what I have just 
 now observed to the disadvantage of my other brother 
 manager. 
 
 If, therefore, in discovering the true cause of the public's 
 losing so valuable an actor as Dogget, I have been obliged 
 to show the temper of Wilks in its natural complexion, 
 
 - * Dogget sang between the acts, the night our first Italian opera 
 was produced upon the English stage. 
 
 E E 4 
 
424 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 ought I not, in amends, and balance of his imperfections, 
 to say at the same time of him that if he was not the 
 most correct or judicious, yet as Hamlet says of the 
 king his father, " Take him for all in all," &c., he 
 was certainly the most diligent, most laborious, and most 
 useful actor that I have seen upon the stage in fifty 
 years. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 425 
 
 CHAP. XV. 
 
 Sir Richard Steele succeeds Collier in the theatre royal. — Lin* 
 colvbs In,n Fields house rebuilt. — The patent restored. — Eiffht 
 actors at once desert from the King's company. — Why. — A 
 new patent obtained by Sir Richard Steele, and assigned in 
 shares to the managing actors of Drury-lane. — Of modern 
 pantomimes. — The rise of them. — Vanity invincible, and 
 ashamed. — The " Non-juror''"' acted. — The author not forgiven, 
 and rewarded for it. 
 
 UPON the death of the queen, plays, as they always had 
 been on the like occasions, were silenced for six weeks, 
 but this happening on the first of August, in the long vaca- 
 tion of the theatre, the observance of that ceremony, which^ 
 at another juncture, would have fallen like wet weather 
 upon their harvest, did them now no particular damage. 
 Their license, however, being of course to be renewed, 
 that vacation gave the managers time to cast about for the 
 better alteration of it : and since they knew the pension of 
 seven hundred a-year, which had been levied upon them 
 for Collier, must still be paid to somebody, they imagined 
 the merit of a whig might now have as good a chance for 
 getting into it, as that of a tory had for being continued 
 in it. Having no obligations, therefore, to Collier, who 
 had made the last penny of them, they applied themselves 
 to Sir Richard Steele, who had distinguished himself, by 
 his zeal for the house of Hanover, and had been expelled 
 the House of Commons, for carrying it, as was judged at a 
 certain crisis, into a reproach of the government. This we 
 
426 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 knew was his pretension to that favour in which he now 
 stood at court. We knew, too, the obligations the stage 
 had to his writings, there being scarcely a comedian of merit 
 in our whole company whom his " Tattlers" had not made 
 better, by his public recommendation of them, and many 
 days had our house been particularly filled by the influence 
 and credit of his pen. Obligations of this kind from a 
 gentleman with whom they all had the pleasure of a per- 
 sonal intimacy, the managers thought could not be more 
 justly returned, than by showing him some warm instance 
 of their desire to have him at the head of them. We 
 therefore begged him to use his interest for the renewal of 
 our license, and that he would do us the honour of getting 
 our names to stand with his in the same commission. This, 
 we told him, would put it still farther into his power of 
 supporting the stage in that reputation to which his lucu- 
 brations had already so much contributed ; and that, there- 
 fore, we thought no man had better pretences to partake 
 of its success. 
 
 Though it may be no addition to the favourable part of 
 this gentleman's character, to say with what pleasure he 
 received this mark of our inclination to him, yet my vanity 
 longs to tell you that it surprised him into an acknowledg- 
 ment that people who are shy of obligations are cautious of 
 confessing. His spirits took such a lively turn upon it, that 
 had we been all his own sons, no unexpected act of filial 
 duty could have more endeared us to him. 
 
 It must be observed, then, that as Collier had no share 
 in any part of our property, no difficulties from that 
 quarter could obstruct this proposal. And the usual time 
 of our beginning to act for the winter season, now draw- 
 ing near,* we pressed him not to lose any time in his 
 
 * The season began, I believe, early in November, and ehded 
 about the middle of June. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 427 
 
 solicitation of this new license. Accordingly Sir Richard 
 applied himself to the Duke of Marlborough, the hero of 
 his heart, who, upon the first mention of it, obtained it of 
 his majesty, for Sir Richard and the former managers, who 
 were actors. Collier we heard no more of. 
 
 The court and town being crowded very early in the 
 winter season, upon the critical turn of affairs so much 
 expected from the Hanover succession, the theatre had its 
 particular share of that general blessing, by a more than 
 ordinary concourse of spectators. 
 
 About this time the patentee, having very nearly finished 
 his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, began to think of form- 
 ing a new company ; and, in the meantime, found it neces- 
 sary to apply for leave to employ them. By the weak 
 defence he had always made against the several attacks 
 upon his interest and former government of the theatre, it 
 might be a question, if his house had been ready, in the 
 queen's time, whether he would, then, have had the spirit 
 to ask, or interest enough to obtain leave to use it. But in 
 the following reign, as it did not appear he had done any- 
 thing to forfeit the right of his patent, he prevailed with 
 Mr. Craggs the younger, afterwards secretary of state, to 
 lay his case before the king, which he did in so effectual a 
 manner, that, as Mr. Craggs himself told me, his majesty 
 was pleased to say upon it, " That he remembered, when 
 he had been in England before, in King Charles's time, 
 there had been two theatres in London, and as the patent 
 seemed to be a lawful grant, he saw no reason why two 
 playhouses might not be continued." 
 
 The suspension of the patent being thus taken off, the 
 younger multitude seemed to call aloud for two playhouses. 
 Many desired another, from the common notion that two 
 would always create emulation in the actors, an opinion 
 which I have considered in a former chapter. Others, too, 
 
428 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 were as eager for them, from the natural ill-will that follows 
 the fortunate or prosperous in any undertaking. Of this 
 low malevolence we had, now and then, had remarkable 
 instances ; we had been forced to dismiss an audience of a 
 hundred and fifty pounds, from a disturbance spirited up 
 by obscure people, who never gave any better reason for it, 
 than that it was their fancy to support the idle complaint 
 of one rival actress against another, in their several preten- 
 sions to the chief part in a new tragedy. But as this tumult 
 seemed only to be the wantonness of English liberty, I shall 
 not presume to lay any farther censure upon it. 
 - Now, notwithstanding this public desire of re-establish- 
 ing two houses ; and though I have allowed the former 
 actors greatly our superiors ; and the managers I am speak- 
 ing of not to have been without their private errors; yet, 
 under all these disadvantages, it is certain the stage, for 
 twenty years before this time, had never been in so flourish- 
 ing a condition : and it was as evident, to all sensible spec- 
 tators, that this prosperity could be only owing to that bet- 
 ter order and closer industry, now daily observed, and 
 which had formerly been neglected by our predecessors. 
 But that I may not impose upon the reader a merit which 
 was not generally allowed us, I ought honestly to let him 
 know that, about this time, the public papers, particularly 
 " Mist's Journal," took upon them very often to censure 
 our management with the same freedom and severity as if 
 we had been so many ministers of state. But so it hap- 
 pened that these unfortunate reformers of the world, these 
 self-appointed censors, hardly ever hit upon what was 
 really wrong in us ; but, taking up facts upon trust or hear- 
 say, piled up many a pompous paragraph that they had 
 ingeniously conceived was sufficient to demolish our admi- 
 nistration, or, at least, to make us very uneasy in it ; which, 
 indeed, had so far its effect, that my equally-injured 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 429 
 
 brethren, Wilks and Booth, often complained to me of 
 these disagreeable aspersions, and proposed that some pub- 
 lic answer might be made to them, which I always opposed, 
 by, perhaps, too secure a contempt of what such writers 
 could do to hurt us ; and my reason for it was, that I knew 
 but of one way to silence authors of that stamp, which 
 was, to grow insignificant and good-for-nothing, and then 
 we should hear no more of them.* But while we conti- 
 nued in the prosperity of pleasing others, and were not 
 conscious of having deserved what they said of us, why 
 should we gratify the little spleen of our enemies, by win- 
 cing at it, or give them fresh opportunities to dine upon any 
 reply they might make to our publicly taking notice of 
 them ? And though silence might, in some cases, be a 
 sign of guilt or error confessed, our accusers were so low 
 in their credit and sense, that the content we gave the 
 public, almost every day, from the stage, ought to be our 
 only answer to them. 
 
 However, as I have observed, we made many blots, 
 which these unskilful gamesters never hit. But the fide- 
 lity of an historian cannot be excused the omission of any 
 truth which might make for the other side of the question. 
 I shall therefore confess a fact which, if a happy accident 
 had not intervened, had brought our affairs into a very tot- 
 tering condition. This, too, is that fact which, in a former 
 chapter, I promised to set forth as a sea-mark of danger 
 to future managers, in their theatrical course of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 * Mr. Gibber sometimes lost this desirable equanimity, and was 
 once so far transported by passion, as to publish the following 
 advertisement in the " Daily Post." 
 
 Ten Pounds will be paid by Mr. Cibber, of the theatre royal, to any per- 
 son who shall (by a legal proof) discover the author of a pamphlet, intituled 
 *' The Character and Conduct of Sh* John Edgar," &c. 
 
430 AN APOLOGY FO^ THE 
 
 When the new-built theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields was 
 ready to be opened, seven or eight actors, in one day, 
 deserted from us to the service of the enemy, which 
 obliged us to postpone many of our best plays, for want 
 of some inferior part in them, which these deserters 
 had been used to fill. But the indulgence of the royal 
 family, who then frequently honoured us by their pre- 
 sence, was pleased to accept of whatever could be has- 
 tily got ready for their entertainment. And though this 
 critical good fortune prevented, in some measure, our 
 audiences falling so low as otherwise they might have done, 
 yet it was not sufficient to keep us in our former prosperity : 
 for that year our profits amounted not to above a third part 
 of our usual dividends, though in the following year we 
 entirely recovered them. The chief of these deserters were 
 Keen, Bullock, Pack,* Leigh,t son of the famous Tony 
 Leigh, and others of less note. 'Tis true, they none of them 
 had more than a negative merit, in being only able to do us 
 more harm by their leaving us, without notice, than they 
 could do us good by remaining with us ; for though the 
 best of them could not support a play, the worst of them, 
 by their absence, could maim it ; as the loss of the least 
 pin in a watch may obstruct its motion. But, to come to 
 
 * Pack was so excellent an actor, that he played Marplot, Beau 
 Mizen, and many other leading parts, at the production of those 
 pieces in which they are comprised. He came upon the stage, 
 when very young, as a singer, having received his instructions in 
 the vocal art from Leveridge, and left it in the meridian of life, to 
 keep the Globe tavern, Charing-cross, just opposite the Hay- 
 market, where he died, but at what time I cannot even conjec- 
 ture. 
 
 t This actor is not to be confounded with John Leigh, who also 
 belonged to the Lincoln's-inn-fields company. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CffiBER. 431 
 
 the true cause of their desertion. After my having disco- 
 vered the (long-unknown) occasion that drove Dogget 
 from the stage, before his settled inclination to leave it, it 
 will be less incredible that these actors, upon the first op- 
 portunity to relieve themselves, should all, in one day, have 
 left us from the same cause of uneasiness. For, in a little 
 time after, upon not finding their expectations answered in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, some of them, who seemed to answer 
 for the rest, told me the greatest grievance they had in our 
 company was the shocking temper of Wilks, who, upon 
 every almost no occasion, let loose the unlimited language 
 of passion upon them, in such a manner as their patience 
 was not longer able to support. This, indeed, was what 
 we could not justify. This was a secret, that might have 
 made a wholesome paragraph in a critical newspaper ; but 
 as it was our good fortune that it came not to the ears of 
 our enemies, the town was not entertained with their pub- 
 lic remarks upon it. 
 
 After this new theatre had enjoyed that short run of fa- 
 vour which is apt to follow novelty, their audiences began 
 to flag : but whatever good opinion we had of our own 
 merit, we had not so good a one of the multitude as to de- 
 pend too much upon the delicacy of their taste. We knew, 
 too, that this company, being so much nearer to the city 
 than we were, would intercept many an honest customer, 
 that might not know a good market fi-om a bad one ; and 
 that the thinnest of their audiences must be always taking 
 something from the measure of our profits. All these dis- 
 advantages, with many others, we were forced to lay be- 
 fore Sir Richard Steele, and farther to remonstrate to him 
 that, as he now stood in Collier's place, his pension of seven 
 hundred pounds was liable to the same conditions that Col- 
 lier had received it upon, which were that it should be 
 only payable during our being the only company permitted 
 
432 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 to act, but in case another should be set up against ui?^ 
 that then this pension was to be liquidated into an equal 
 share with us, and which we now hoped he would be con- 
 tented with. While we were offering to proceed. Sir 
 Richard stopped us short, by assuring us that, as he came 
 among us by our own invitation, he should always think 
 himself obliged to come into any measures for our ease and 
 service ; that to be a burthen to our industry would be more 
 disagreeable to him than it could be to us ; and as he had 
 always taken a delight in his endeavours for our prosperity, 
 he should be still ready, on our own terms, to continue 
 them. Every one who knew Sir Richard Steele in his 
 prosperity, before the effects of his goodnature had brought 
 him to distresses, knew that this was his manner of dealing 
 with his friends in business. Another instance of the same 
 nature will immediately Ml in my way. 
 
 When we proposed to put this agreement into writing, 
 he desired us not to hurry ourselves ; for that he was ad- 
 vised, upon the late desertion of our actors, to get our 
 license (which only subsisted during pleasure) enlarged into 
 a more ample and durable authority, and which he said he 
 had reason to think would be more easily obtained, if we 
 were willing that a patent for the same purpose might be 
 granted to him, only, for his life and three years after, which 
 he would then assign over to us. This was a prospect be- 
 yond our hopes, and what we had long wished for : for 
 though I cannot say we had ever reason to grieve at the 
 personal severities or behaviour of any one Lord Chamber- 
 Iain, in my time, yet the several officers under them who 
 had not the hearts of noblemen, often treated us, to use Shak- 
 speare's expression, with all the ^' insolence of office" that 
 narrow minds are apt to be elated with ; but a patent, we 
 knew, would free us from so abject a state of dependency. 
 Accordingly, we desired Sir Richard to lose no time ; he 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER 433 
 
 was immediately promised it : in the interim, we sounded 
 the inclination of the actors remaining with us, who had all 
 sense enough to know that the credit and reputation we 
 stood in with the town, could not but be a better security 
 for their salaries than the promise of any other stage, put 
 into bonds, could make good to them. In a few days after, 
 Sir Richard told us that his majesty, being apprised that 
 others had a joint power with him in the license, it was ex- 
 pected we should, under our hands, signify that his petition 
 for a patent was preferred by the consent of us all. Such 
 an acknowledgment was immediately signed, and the patent 
 thereupon passed the great seal ; for which, I remember, the 
 Lord Chancellor Cowper, in compliment to Sir Richard, 
 would receive no fee. 
 
 We received the patent January 19, 1718, and Sir Richard 
 being obliged the next morning to set out for Boroughbridge, 
 in Yorkshire, where he was soon after elected member of 
 parliament, we were forced that very night to draw up in 
 a hurry, till our counsel might more advisably perfect it, 
 his assignment to us of equal shares in the patent, with 
 farther conditions of partnership : but here I ought to take 
 shame to myself, and at the same time to give this second 
 instance of the equity and honour of Sir Richard ; for this 
 assignment, which I had myself the hasty penning of, was 
 so worded, that it gave Sir Richard as equal a title to our 
 property as it had given us to his authority in the patent : 
 but Sir Richard, notwithstanding, when he returned to 
 town, took no advantage of the mistake, and consented, in 
 our second agreement, to pay us twelve hundred pounds, 
 to be equally intitled to our property, which, at his death, 
 we were obliged to repay (as we afterwards did) to his ex- 
 ecutors ; and which, in case any of us had died before him, 
 the survivors were equally obliged to have paid to the ex- 
 ecutor of such deceased person, upon the same account. 
 
 1' F 
 
434 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 But Sir Richard's moderation with us was rewarded with 
 the reverse of Collier's stiffness : Collier, by insisting on 
 his pension, lost three hundred pounds a-year ; and Sir 
 Richard, by his accepting a share in lieu of it, was, one year 
 with another, as much a gainer. 
 
 The grant of this patent having assured us of a competent 
 term to be relied on, we were now emboldened to lay out 
 larger sums in the decorations of our plays : upon the re- 
 vival of Dry den's "• All for Love,"* the habits of that tragedy 
 amounted to an expense of nearly six hundred pounds ; a 
 sum unheard of, for many years before, on the like occasions. 
 But we thought such extraordinary marks of our acknow- 
 ledgment were due to the favours which the public were 
 now again pouring in upon us. About this time we were so 
 much in fashion and followed, that our enemies (who they 
 were it would not be fair to gues^, for we never knew them) 
 made their push of a good round lie upon us, to terrify those 
 auditors trom our support whom they could not mislead by 
 their private arts or public invectives. A current report 
 that the walls and roof of our house were liable to fall had 
 got such ground in the town that, on a sudden, we found 
 our audiences unusually decreased by it. Wilks was imme- 
 
 * It was the production of this play, in preference to his altera- 
 tion of Shakspeare's " Coriolanus," which so bitterly incensed 
 Dennis, and occasioned his subsequent animosity against Cibber. 
 The vindictive old critic thus enlarges upon this revival in a letter 
 to Steele: 
 
 Well, sir, when the winter came on, what was done by your deputies ? 
 Why, instead of keeping their word with me, they spent above two months of 
 the season in getting up " All for Love ; or, the Wdrld well Lost," a play 
 which has indeed a noble first act, an act which ends with a scene becoming 
 of the dignity of the tragic stage. But if Horace had been now alive, and been 
 either a reader or spectator of that entertainment, he would have passed his 
 old sentence upon the author ; 
 
 ' Infelix opera summ^, quia ponere totum 
 Nesciet.' 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 4SS 
 
 diately for denouncing war and vengeance on the author of 
 this falsehood, and for offering a reward to whoever could 
 discover him. But it was thought more necessary first to 
 disprove the falsehood, and then to pay what compliments 
 might be thought advisable to the author. Accordingly, 
 an order from the king was obtained to have our tenement 
 surveyed by Sir Thomas Hewett, then the proper officer, 
 whose report of its being in a safe and sound condition, and 
 signed by him, was published in every newspaper.* This 
 had so immediate an effect, that our spectators, whose ap- 
 prehensions had lately kept them absent, now made up our 
 losses, by returning to us with a fresh inclination, and in 
 greater numbers. 
 
 When it was first publicly known that the new theatre 
 would be opened against us, I cannot help going a little 
 back to remember the concern that my brother managers 
 
 * This report from Sir Thomas Hewett, surveyor of his majes- 
 ty's works, to his grace the Duke of Newcastle, lord-chamberlain 
 of his majesty's household, is as folio weth : 
 
 My Lord, Scotland-yard, Jan. 21, 1721. 
 
 In obedience to his majesty's commands, signified to me by your grace 
 on the 18tb instant, I have surveyed the playhouse in Drury-lane, and took 
 with me Mr. Ripley, commissioner of his majesty's Board of Works, the mas- 
 ter bricklayer, and carpenter. We examined all its parts with the greatest 
 exactness we could ; and found the walls, roofing, stage, pit, boxes, galleries, 
 machinery, scenes, &c. sound, and almost as good as Avhen first built ; 
 neither decayed, nor in the least danger of falling ; and when some small 
 repairs are made, and an useless stack of chimneys (built by the late Mr. 
 Rich) taken down, the building may continue for a long time, being firm, 
 the materials and joints good, and no part giving way ; and capable to bear 
 much greater weight than is put on them. 
 
 My Lord Duke, 
 Your Grace's most humble and obedient servant, 
 
 THOMAS HEWETT. 
 N. B. The stack of chimneys mentioned in this report (which were placed 
 over the stone passage leading to the boxes) are actually taken down. 
 
 F f2 
 
^^0 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 expressed at what might be the consequences of it. They 
 imagined that now all those who wished ill to us, and par- 
 ticularly a great party who had been disobliged by our shut- 
 ting them out from behind our scenes, even to the refusal of 
 their money, would now exert themselves in any partial or 
 extravagant measures that might either hurt us or support 
 our competitors : these, too, were some of those farther 
 reasons which had discouraged them from running the 
 hazard of continuing to Sir Richard Steele the same pension 
 which had been paid to Collier, upon all which I observed 
 to them that, for my own part, I had not the same ap- 
 prehensions ; but that I foresaw as many good as bad 
 consequences from two houses: that though the novelty 
 might possibly at first abate a little of our profits, yet, 
 if we slackened not our industry, that loss would be am- 
 ply balanced by an equal increase of our ease, and quiet: 
 that those turbulent spirits which were always molesting 
 us, would now have other employment ; that the ques- 
 tioned iperit of our acting would now stand in a clearer 
 light, when others were fairly compared to us; that 
 though faults might be found with the best actors that 
 ever were, yet the egregious defects that would appear 
 in others would now be the effectual means to make our 
 superiority shine, if we had any pretence to it ; and that 
 what some people hoped might ruin us, would in the end 
 reduce them to give up the dispute^ and reconcile them 
 to those who Qould best entertain them. 
 
 In every article of this opinion they afterwards found I 
 had not been deceived ; and the truth of it may be so well 
 remembered by many living spectators, that it would be 
 too frivolous and needless a boast to give it any further ob- 
 servation. 
 
 But, in what I have said, I would not be understood to 
 be an advocate for two playhouses ; for we shall soon fin d 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 437 
 
 that two sets of actors, tolerated in the same place, have 
 constantly ended in the corruption of the theatre, of which 
 the auxiliary entertainments that have so barbarously sup- 
 plied the defects of weak action, have, for some years past, 
 been a flagrant instance ; it may not, therefore, be here im- 
 proper to show how our childish pantomimes first came to 
 take so gross a possession of the stage. 
 
 I have, upon several occasions, already observed that 
 when one company is too hard for another, the lower in re- 
 putation has always been forced to exhibit some new-fangled 
 foppery, to draw the multitude after them : of these expe- 
 dients, singing and dancing had formerly been the most 
 effectual;* but, at the time I am speaking of, our Eng- 
 lish music had been so discountenanced, since the taste of 
 Italian operas prevailed, that it was to no purpose to pre- 
 tend to it. Dancing, therefore, was now the only weight 
 in the opposite scale, and as the new theatre sometimes 
 found their account in it, it could not be safe for us wholly 
 to neglect it. To give even dancing, therefore, some im- 
 provement, and to make it something more than motion 
 without meaning, the fable of Mars and Venus was 
 formed into a connected presentation of dances in char- 
 acter, wherein the passions were so happily expressed, 
 and the whole story so intelligibly told, by a mute narra- 
 tion of gesture only, that even thinking spectators allowed 
 it both a pleasing and a rational entertainment ; though, at 
 the same time, from our distrust of its reception, we durst 
 not venture to decorate it with any extraordinary expense 
 of scenes or habits ; but upon the success of this attempt, it 
 was rightly concluded, that if a visible expense in both were 
 
 * Entertainments of singing and dancing were first introduced 
 by D'Avenant, to check the superiority enjoyed by the royal 
 comedians in their exhibition of the regular drama. 
 
 F F 3 
 
438 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 added to something of the same nature, it could not fail of 
 drawing the town proportionably after it. From this ori- 
 ginal hint, then, but every way unequal to it, sprung forth 
 that succession of monstrous medleys that have so long in- 
 fested the stage, and which arose upon one another alter- 
 nately at both houses, outvying in expense, like contending 
 bribes on both sides at an election, to secure a majority of 
 the multitude. But so it is, truth may complain, and merit 
 murmur, with what justice it may, the few will never be a 
 match for the many, unless authority shall think fit to inter- 
 pose, and put down these poetical drams, these gin-shops of 
 the stage, that intoxicate its auditors, and dishonour their 
 understanding with a levity for which I want a name. 
 
 If I am asked, after my condemning these fooleries, myself, 
 how I came to assent, or continue my share of expense to 
 them, I have no better excuse for my error than confessing 
 it. 1 did it against my conscience ; and had not virtue 
 enough to starve, by opposing a multitude that would have 
 been too hard for me. Now let me ask an odd question. 
 Had Henry the Fourth of France a better excuse for chang- 
 ing his religion ? I was still in my heart, as much as he 
 could be, on the side of truth and sense, but with this 
 difference, that I had their leave to quit them when they 
 could not support me. For what equivalent could I have 
 found for my falling a martyr to them ? How far the hero 
 or the comedian was in the wrong, let the clergy and the 
 critics decide. Necessity will be as good a plea for the one 
 as the other. But let the question go which way it will, 
 Henry the Fourth has always been allowed a great man ; 
 and what I want of his grandeur, you see by the infer- 
 ence, nature has amply supplied to me, in vanity ; a plea- 
 sure which neither the pertness of wit nor the gravity of 
 wisdom will ever persuade me to part with. And why is 
 there not as much honesty in owning as in concealing it ? 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 439 
 
 For though to hide it may be wisdom, to be without it is 
 impossible; and where is the merit of keeping a secret 
 which every body is let into ? To say we have no vanity, 
 then, is showing a great deal of it ; as to say we have a 
 great deal cannot be showing so much : and though there 
 may be art in a man's accusing himself, even then it will be 
 more pardonable than self- commendation. Do not we find 
 that even good actions have their share of it ; that it is as 
 inseparable from our being as our nakedness ? And, though 
 it may be equally decent to cover it, yet the wisest man 
 can no more be without it, than the weakest can believe he 
 was born in his clothes. If then what we say of ourselves 
 be true, and not prejudicial to others, to be called vain 
 upon it is no more a reproach than to be called a brown or 
 a fair man. Vanity is of all complexions ; 'tis the growth 
 of every clime and capacity ; authors of all ages have had a 
 tincture of it, and yet you read Horace, Montaigne, and Sir 
 William Temple with pleasure. Nor am I sure, if it were 
 curable by precept, that mankind would be mended by it. 
 Could vanity be eradicated from our nature, I am afraid 
 that the reward of most human virtues would not be found 
 in this world ; and happy is he who has no greater sin to 
 answer for in the next. 
 
 But what is all this to the theatrical follies I was talking 
 of? Perhaps not a great deal ; but it is to my purpose ; for, 
 though I am an historian, I do not write to the wise and 
 learned only ; I hope to have readers of no more judgment 
 than some of my quondam auditors ; and 1 am afraid they 
 will be as hardly contented with dr j matters of fact, as with 
 a plain play without entertainments : this rhapsody, there- 
 fore, has been thrown in, as a dance betw een the acts, to 
 make up for the dulness of what would have been by itself 
 only proper. But I^now come to my story again. 
 
 Notwithstanding, then, this our compliance with the vul- 
 
 F F 4 
 
^40 AN APOLOGV FOR THE 
 
 gar taste, we generally made use of these pantomimes but as 
 crutches to our weakest plays. Nor were we so lost to all 
 sense of what was valuable, as to dishonour our best authors 
 in such bad company. We had still a due respect to sever- 
 al select plays that were able to be their own support ; and 
 in which we found our constant account, without painting 
 and patching them out, like prostitutes, with these follies 
 in fashion : if, therefore, we were not so strictly chaste in 
 the other part of our conduct, let the error of it stand 
 among the silly consequences of two stages. Could the in- 
 terests of both companies have been united in one only 
 theatre, I had been one of the few that would have used 
 my utmost endeavour of never admitting to the stage any 
 spectacle that ought not to have been seen there ; the er- 
 rors of my own plays, which I could not see, excepted. 
 And though, probably, the majority of spectators would 
 not have been so well pleased with a theatre so regulated, 
 yet sense and reason cannot lose their intrinsic value, be- 
 cause the giddy and the ignorant are blind and deaf, oi nu- 
 merous ; and I cannot help saying, it is a reproach to a sen- 
 sible people to let folly so publicly govern their pleasures. 
 
 While I am making this grave declaration of what I 
 would have done, had one only stage been continued, to ob- 
 tain an easier belief of my sincerity I ought to put my 
 reader in mind of what I did do, even after two companies 
 were again established. 
 
 About this time* jacobitism had lately exerted itself, by 
 the most unprovoked rebellion that our histories have hand- 
 ed down to us since the Norman conquest : I therefore 
 thought that to set the authors and principles of that 
 desperate folly in a fair light, by allowing the mistaken 
 consciences of some their best excuse, and by making 
 
 1718. 
 
LIFE OP MR. COLLEY GIBBER. ^41 
 
 the artful pretenders to conscience as ridiculous as they 
 were ungratefully wicked, was a subject fit for the honest 
 satire of comedy, and what might, if it succeeded, do 
 honour to the stage, by showing the valuable use of it. 
 And considering what numbers, at that time, might come 
 to it, as prejudiced spectators, it may be allowed that the 
 undertaking was not less hazardous than laudable. 
 
 To give life, therefore, to this design, I borrowed the 
 " TartufFe" of Moliere, and turned him into a modern 
 nonjuror : upon the hypocrisy of the French character I 
 ingrafted a stronger wickedness ; that of an English popish 
 priest, lurking under the doctrine of our own church to 
 raise his fortune upon the ruin of a worthy gentleman, 
 whom his dissembled sanctity had seduced into the treas- 
 onable cause of a Roman catholic outlaw. How this de- 
 sign, in the play, was executed, I refer to the readers of it; 
 it cannot be mended by any critical remarks I can make in 
 its favour: let it speak for itself. All the reason I had 
 to think it no bad performance was that, it was acted 
 eighteen days running, and that the party that were hurt 
 by it, as I have been told, have not been the smallest num- 
 ber of my back friends ever since. But happy was it for 
 this play that the very subject was its protection ; a few 
 smiles of silent contempt v^re the utmost disgrace that, on 
 the first day of its appearance, it was thought safe to throw 
 upon it ; as the satire was chiefly employed on the enemies 
 of the government, they were not so hardy as to own them- 
 selves such, by any higher disapprobation or resentment. 
 But as it was then probable I might write again, they 
 knew it would not be long before they might with more 
 security give a loose to their spleen, and make up accounts 
 with me. And, to do them justice, in every play I after- 
 wards produced they paid me the balance, to a tittle. But 
 to none was I more beholden than that celebrated author 
 
442 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Mr. Mist, whose '' Weekly Journal," for about fifteen 
 years following, scarcely ever failed of passing some of his 
 party compliments upon me : the state and the stage were 
 his frequent parallels, and the minister and Mynheer Keib- 
 er, the manager, were as constantly drolled upon : now, 
 for my own part, though I could never persuade my wit 
 to have an open account with him^ fpr, as he had no elffects 
 of his own, 1 did not think myself obliged to answer his 
 bills ; notwithstanding, I will be so charitable to his real 
 manes, and to the ashes of his paper, as to mention one 
 particular civility he paid to my memory, after he thought 
 he had ingeniously killed me. Soon after the " Nonjuror" 
 had received the favour of the town, I read in one of 
 his journals the following short paragraph, viz : " Yester- 
 day died Mr. Colley Gibber, late comedian of the theatre 
 royal, notorious for writing the ' Nonjuror.' " The com- 
 pliment in the latter part, I confess, I did not dislike, 
 because it came fi-om so impartial a judge ; and it really so 
 happened that the former part of it was very near being 
 true, for I had that very day just crawled out, after having 
 been some weeks laid up by a fever : however, I saw 
 no use in being thought to be thoroughly dead before my 
 time, and therefore had a mind to see whether the town 
 cared to have me alive again ; so the play of the ^' Or- 
 phan" being to be acted that day, I quietly stole myself in- 
 to the part of the Chaplain^ which I had not been seen in 
 for many years before. The surprise of the audience at 
 my unexpected appearance on the very day I had been 
 dead in the news, and the paleness of my looks, seemed to 
 make it a doubt whether 1 was not the ghost of my real 
 self departed : but when I spoke, their wonder eased itself 
 by an applause which convinced me they were then satis- 
 fied that my friend Mist had told a fib of me. Now, if 
 simply to have shown myself in broad life, and about my 
 
LIFE OF MR. GOLLEY GIBBER. 443 
 
 business, after he had notoriously reported me dead, can be 
 called a reply, it was the only one which his paper, while 
 alive, ever drew from me. How far I may be vain, then, 
 in supposing that this play brought me into the disfavour 
 of so many wits and valiant auditors as afterwards appeared 
 against me, let those who may think it worth their notice 
 judge. In the meantime, till I can find a better excuse 
 for their sometimes particular treatment of me, I cannot 
 easily give up my suspicion : and if I add a more remarka- 
 ble fact that afterwards confirmed me in it, perhaps, it may 
 incline others to join in my opinion. 
 
 On the first day of the '- Provoked Husband," ten years 
 after the " Nonjuror" had appeared, a powerful party, not 
 having the fear of public offence or private injury before 
 their eyes, appeared most impetuously concerned for the 
 demolition of it ; in which they so far succeeded, that for 
 some time I gave it up for lost ; and, to follow their blows, 
 in the public papers of the next day it was attacked, and 
 triumphed over, as a dead and damned piece; a swinging 
 criticism was made upon it, in general invective terms, for 
 they disdained to trouble the world with particulars ; their 
 sentence, it seems, was proof enough of its deserving the 
 fate it had met with. But this damned play was, notwith- 
 standing, acted twenty-eight nights together, and left off at 
 a receipt of upwards of a hundred and forty pounds ; which 
 happened to be more than in fifty years before could be then 
 said of any one play whatsoever. 
 
 Now if such notable behaviour could break out upon so 
 successful a play, which, too, upon the share Sir John Van- 
 brugh had in it, I will venture to call a good one, what 
 shall we impute it to ? Why may not I plainly say it was 
 not the play, but me who had a hand in it, they did 
 not like ? And for what reason ? If they were not asham- 
 ed of it, why did not they publish it ? No, the reason had 
 
444 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 published itself, — I was the author of the " Nonjuror," 
 But, perhaps, of all authors, I ought not to make this sort 
 of complaint, because I have reason to think that that par- 
 ticular offence has made me more honourable friends than 
 enemies ; the latter of which 1 am not unwilling should 
 know, however unequal the merit may be to the reward, 
 that part of the bread I now eat was given me for having 
 written the '' Nonjuror,"* 
 
 And yet I cannot but lament, with many quiet spectat- 
 ors, the helpless misfortune that has so many years attended 
 the stage ; that no law has had force enough to give it ab- 
 solute protection : for till we can civilise its auditors, the 
 authors that write for it will seldom have a greater call to 
 it than necessity ; and how unlikely is the imagination of the 
 needy to inform or delight the many in affluence, or how 
 often does necessity make many unhappy gentlemen turn 
 authors, in spite of nature ! What a blessing, therefore, is 
 it, what an enjoyed deliverance, after a wretch has been 
 driven by fortune to stand so many wanton buffets of 
 unmanly fierceness, to find himself, at last, quietly lifted 
 above the reach of them ! But let not this reflection fall 
 upon my auditors, without distinction ; for though candour 
 and benevolence are silent virtues, they are as visible as the 
 most vociferous ill-nature ; and I confess the public has given 
 me more frequent reason to be thankful than to complain. 
 
 * So popular was this play, that Lintot gave an hundred guineas 
 for the copyright of it, though Rowe's tragedies of" Jane Shore," 
 and " Lady Jane Gray," only a few years previous to this pur- 
 chase, had jointly produced but one hundred and twenty-two 
 pounds. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 445 
 
 CHAP. XVI. 
 
 The author steps out of the way. — Pleads his theatrical cause, in 
 Chancery. — Carries it. — Plays acted at Hampton-court. — 
 Theatrical anecdotes informer reigns. — Ministers and mana- 
 gers always censured. — The difficulty of supplying the stage 
 with good actors, considered. — Courtiers, and coinedians gov- 
 erned by the same passions. — Examples of both. — The author 
 quits the stage. — Why. 
 
 HAVING brought the government of the stage, through 
 such various changes and revolutions, to this settled state, 
 in which it continued to almost the time of my leaving it, 
 it cannot be supposed that a period of so much quiet, and 
 so long a train of success, though happy for those who en- 
 joyed it, can afford such matter of surprise or amusement as 
 might arise from times of more distress and disorder. A 
 quiet time in history, like a calm in a voyage, leaves us but 
 in an indolent station : to talk of our affairs, when they 
 were no longer ruffled by misfortunes, would be a picture 
 without shade, a flat performance at best. As I might, 
 therefore, throw all that tedious time of our tranquillity into 
 one chasm in my history, and cut my way short, at once, 
 to my last exit from the stage, I shall, at least, fill it up with 
 such matter, only, as I have a mind should be known, how 
 few soever may have patience to read it : yet, as I despair 
 not of some readers, who may be most awake when they 
 think others have most occasion to sleep ; who may be more 
 pleased to find me languid than lively, or in the wrong than 
 in the right ; why should I scruple, when it is so easy a 
 
446 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 matter, too, to gratify their particular taste, by venturing 
 upon any error that I like, or the weakness of my judg- 
 ment misleads me to commit ? I think, too, I have a very 
 good chance for my success in this passive ambition, by 
 showing myself in a light I have not been seen in. 
 
 By your leave, then, gentlemen : let the scene open, and 
 at once discover your comedian, at the bar. There you 
 will find him a defendant, and pleading his own theatrical 
 cause in a court of Chancery : but as I chuse to have a 
 chance of pleasing others as well as indulging you, gentle- 
 men, I must first beg leave to open my case to them ; after 
 which, my whole speech, upon that occasion, shall be at 
 your mercy. 
 
 In all the transactions of life, there cannot be a more 
 painful circumstance, than a dispute at law with a man with 
 whom we have long lived in an agreeable amity : but when 
 Sir Richard Steele, to get himself out of difficulties, was 
 obliged to throw his affairs into the hands of lawyers and 
 trustees, that consideration, then, could be of no weight : 
 the friend, or the gentleman, had no more to do in the 
 matter. Thus, while Sir Richard no longer acted from 
 himself, it may be no wonder if a flaw was found in our 
 conduct, for the law to make work with. It must be ob- 
 served, then, that about two or three years before this suit 
 was commenced, upon Sir Richard's totally absenting him- 
 self from all care and management of the stage, which, by 
 our articles of partnership, he was equally and jointly 
 obliged with us to attend, we were reduced to let him know 
 that we could not go on at that rate ; but that if he expect- 
 ed to make the business a sinecure, we had as much reason 
 to expect a consideration for our extraordinary care of it ; 
 and that during his absence we therefore intended to charge 
 our selves at a salary of 11. i3s. 4c?. every acting day, un- 
 less he could show us cause to the contrary, for our manage- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 447 
 
 nienl ; to which, in his composed manner, he only answered 
 that, to be sure, we knew w hat was fitter to be done than he 
 did ; that he had always taken a delight in making us easy, 
 and had no reason to doubt of our doing him justice. Now 
 whether, under this easy style of approbation, he concealed 
 any dislike of our resolution I cannot say ; but, if I may 
 speak ray private opinion, I really believe, from his natural 
 negligence of his affairs, he was glad, at any rate, to be ex- 
 cused an attendance which he was now grown weary of. 
 But whether I am deceived or right in my opinion, the 
 fact was truly this, that he never once, directly nor indirect- 
 ly, complained or objected to our being paid the above- 
 mentioned daily sum, in near three years together ; and jei 
 still continued to absent himself from us and our affairs. 
 But, notwithstanding, he had seen and done all this with 
 his eyes open, his lawyer thought here was still a fair field 
 for a battle in Chancery, in which, though his client might 
 be beaten, he was sure his bill must be paid for it : accord- 
 ingly, to work with us he went. But not to be so long as 
 the lawyers were in bringing this cause to an issue, I shall, 
 at once, let you know that it came to a hearing before the 
 late Sir Joseph Jekyll, then master of the rolls, in the year 
 1726. Now, as the chief point in dispute was of what kind 
 or importance the business of a manager was, or in what it 
 principally consisted, it could not be supposed that the 
 most learned counsel could be so well apprised of the nature 
 of it as one who had himself gone through the care and 
 fatigue of it. I was therefore encouraged by our counsel to 
 speak to that particular head myself: which, I confess, I 
 was glad he suffered me to undertake ; but when I tell you 
 that two of the learned counsel against us came afterwards 
 to be successively Lord Chancellors, it sets my presumption 
 in a light that I still tremble to show it in : but, however, 
 not to assume more merit from its success than was really 
 
448 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 its due, 1 ought fairly to let you know that I was not so 
 hardy as to deliver my pleading without notes in my hand 
 of the heads I intended to enlarge upon ; for though I 
 thought I could conquer my fear, I could not be so sure of 
 my memory : but when it came to the critical moment, the 
 dread and apprehension of what I had undertaken so dis - 
 concerted ray courage, that though 1 had been used to talk 
 to above fifty thousand different people every winter, for 
 upwards of thirty years together, an involuntary and unaffect- 
 ed proof of my confusion fell from my eyes ; and, as I found 
 myself quite out of my element, I seemed rather gasping for 
 life than in a condition to cope with the eminent orators 
 against me. But, however, I soon found from the favour- 
 able attention of my hearers, that my diffidence had done 
 me no disservice : and as the truth I was to speak to need- 
 ed no ornament of words, I delivered it in the plain 
 manner following ; viz : 
 
 In this cause, sir, I humbly conceive there are but two points 
 that admit of any material dispute. The first is whether Sir 
 Richard Steele is as much obliged to do the duty and business of a 
 manager as either Wilks, Booth, or Gibber : and the second is 
 whether by Sir Richard's totally withdrawing himself from the 
 business of a manager, the defendants are justifiable in charging 
 to each of themselves the s^l. 13*. Ad. per diem, for their particular 
 pains and care in carrying on the whole affairs of the stage, with- 
 out any assistance from Sir Richard Steele. 
 
 As to the first, if I do not mistake the words of the assignment, 
 there is a clause in it that says all matters relating to the govern- 
 ment or management of the theatre shall be concluded by a 
 majority of voices. Now, I presume, sir, there is no room left to 
 allege that Sir Richard was ever refused his voice, though, in above 
 three years, he never desired to give it : and I believe there will 
 be as little room to say that he could have a voice, if he were not 
 a manager. But, sir, his being a manager is so self-evident, that 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 449 
 
 it is amazing how he could conceive that he was to take the profits 
 and advantages of a manager, without doing the duty of it. And 
 I will be bold to say, sir, that his assignment of the patent to Wilks, 
 Booth, and Gibber, in no one part of it, by the severest construction 
 in the world, can be wrested to throw the heavy burden of the 
 management only upon their shoulders. Nor does it appear, sir, 
 that, either in his bill or in his answer to our cross-bill, he has offered 
 any hint or glimpse of a reason for his withdrawing from the 
 management at all, or so much as pretend, from the time com- 
 plained of, that he ever took the least part of his share of it. 
 Now, sir, however unaccountable this conduct of Sir Richard may 
 seem, we will still allow that he had some cause for it ; but whether 
 or no that cause was a reasonable one, your honour will the better 
 judge, if I may be indulged in the liberty of explaining it. 
 
 Sir, the case, in plain truth and reality, stands thus : Sir Richard, 
 though no man alive can write better of economy than himself, yet, 
 perhaps, he is above the drudgery of practising it : Sir Richard, 
 then, was often in want of money, and, while we were in friend- 
 ship with him, we often assisted his occasions : but those complian- 
 ces had so unfortunate an effect, that they only heightened his im- 
 portunity to borrow more, and the more we lent the less he minded 
 us, or showed any concern for our welfare. Upon this, sir, we 
 stopped our hands at once, and peremptorily refused to advance 
 another shilling, till, by the balance of our accounts, it became due 
 to him. And this treatment, though we hope not in the least un- 
 justifiable, we have reason to believe so ruffled his temper, that he 
 at once was as short with us as we had been with him ; for, from 
 that day, he never more came near us : nay, sir, he not only con- 
 tinued to neglect what he should have done, but actually did what 
 he onght not to have done ; he made an assignment of his share 
 without our consent, m a manifest breach of our agreement ; for, 
 sir, we did not lay that restriction upon ourselves for no reason ; 
 we knew, before hand, what trouble and inconvenience it would 
 be to unravel and expose our accounts to strangers, who, if 
 they were to do us no hurt by divulging our secrets, we were 
 
 G G 
 
450 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 sure could do us no good by keeping them. If Sir Richard had 
 had our common interest at heart, he would have been as warm in 
 it as we were, and as tender of hurting it : -but, supposing his as- 
 signing his share to others may have done us no great injury, it is, 
 at least, a shrewd proof that he did not care whether it did us any 
 or no ; and if the clause was not strong enough to Ihestrain him 
 from it, in law, there was enough in it to have restrained him, in 
 honour, from breaking it. But, take it in its best light, it shows 
 him as remiss a manager in our affairs, as he naturally was in his 
 own. Suppose, sir, we had all been as careless as himself, which 
 I cannot find he has any more right to be than we have, must not 
 our whole affair have fallen to ruin ? And may we not, by a parity 
 of reason, suppose that, by his neglect, a fourth part of it doe» fall 
 to ruin ? But, sir, there is a particular reason to believe that from 
 our want of Sir Richard, more than a fourth part does suffer by it : 
 his rank and figure in the world, while he gave us the assistance of 
 them, were of extraordinary service to us; he had an easier access, 
 and a more regarded audience at court, than our low station of life 
 eould pretend to, when our interest wanted, as it often did, a par- 
 ticular solicitation there. But, since we have been deprived of 
 him, the very end, the very consideration of his share in our profits, 
 is not performed on his part. And will Sir Rk;hard, then, make 
 us no compensation for so valuable a loss in our interests, and so 
 palpable an addition to our labour? I am afraid, sir, if we were all 
 to be as indolent in the managing part as Sir Richard presumes he 
 has a right to be, our patent would soon run us as many hundreds 
 in debt, as he had, and still seems willing to have, his share of, for 
 doing of nothing. 
 
 Sir, our next point in question is, whether Wilks, Booth, and 
 Gibber are justifiable in charging the ^1. 13*. Ad. per diemy for 
 their extraordinary management in the absence of Sir Richard 
 Steele. I doubt, sir, it will be hard to come to the solution of this 
 point, unless we may be a little indulged in setting forth what is the 
 daily and necessary business and duty of a manager. But, sir, we 
 will endeavour to be as short as the circumstances will admit of. 
 
LIFE OF MR. C^LEY ClBBER. 4-51 
 
 Sir, by our books, it is apparent that the managers liave under 
 their care no less than one hundred and forty persons, in constant 
 daily pay ; and, among such numbers, it will be no wonder if a 
 great many of them are unskilful, idle, and sometimes untractable; 
 all which tempers are to be led or driven, watched, and restrained, 
 by the continual skill, care, and patience of the managers. Every 
 manager is obliged, in his turn, to attend two or three hours every 
 morning, at the rehearsal of plays, and other entertainments for 
 the stage, or else every rehearsal would be but a rude meeting of 
 mirth and jollity. The same attendance is as necessary at every 
 play, during the time of its public action, in which one or more of 
 us have constantly been punctual, whether we have had any part 
 in the play then acted or not. A manager ought to be at the 
 reading of every new play, when it is first oflTered to the stage, 
 though there are seldom one of those plays in twenty which, upon 
 hearing, proves to be fit for it ; and upon such occasions the 
 attendance must be allowed to be as painfully tedious, as the getting 
 rid of the authors of such plays must be disagreeable and difficult. 
 Besides this, sir, a manager is to order all new clothes, to assist in 
 the fancy and propriety of them, to limit the expense, and to with- 
 stand the unreasonable importunities of some that are apt to think 
 themselves injured if they are not finer than their fellows. A 
 manager is to direct and oversee the painters, machinists, musi- 
 cians, singers, and dancers; to have an eye upon the door- 
 keepers, under-servants, and officers that, without such care, are 
 too often apt to defraud us, or neglect their duty. 
 
 And all this, sir, and more, much more, which we hope will be 
 needless to trouble you with, have we done every day, without the 
 least assistance from Sir Richard, even at times when the concern 
 and labour of our parts, upon the stage, have made it very difficult 
 and irksome to go through with it. 
 
 In this place, sir, it may be worth observing that Sir Richard, 
 in his answer to our cross-bill, seems to value himself upon Gibber's 
 confessing, in the dedication of a play,* which he made to Sir 
 
 * " Ximenes; or, the Heroic Daughter:" tragedy, 1719. 
 GG 2 
 
452 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Richard, that he (Sir Richard) had done the stage very consider- 
 able service, by leading the town to our plays, and filling our 
 houseSj by the force and influence of his " Tattlers." But Sir Richard 
 forgets that those *' Tattlers" were written in the late Queen's 
 reign, long before he was admitted to a share in the playhouse. 
 And, in truth, sir, it was our real sense of those obligations, and 
 Sir Richard's assuring us they should be continued, that first and 
 chiefly inclined us to invite him to share the profits of our labours, 
 upon such farther conditions as, in his assignment of the patent to 
 us, are specified. And, sir, as Gibber's public acknowledgment of 
 those favours is at the same time an equal proof of Sir Richard's 
 power to continue them, so, sir, we hope it carries an equal 
 probability that without his promise to use that power, he would 
 never have been tliought on, much less have been invited by us 
 into a joint-management of the stage, and into a share of the 
 profits : and, indeed, what pretence could he have formed for 
 asking a patent from the crown, had he been possessed of no emi- 
 nent qualities but in common with other men ? But, sir, all these 
 advantages, all these hopes, nay certainties of greater profits from 
 those great qualities have we been utterly deprived of, by the 
 wilful and unexpected neglect of Sir Richard. But we find, sir, 
 it is a common thing, in the practice of mankiiid, to justify one 
 error by committing another. For Sir Richard has not only refused 
 us the extraordinary assistance which he is able and bound to give 
 us, but, on the contrary, to our great expense and loss of time, 
 now calls us to account, in this honourable court, for the wrong we 
 have done him, in not doing his business of a manager for nothing. 
 But, sir. Sir Richard has not met with such treatment from us : he 
 has not written plays for us for nothing; we paid him very well, and 
 in an extraordinary manner, for his late comedy of the '* Conscious 
 Lovers :" and though, in writing that play he had more assistance 
 from one of the managers than becomes me to enlarge upon, of 
 which evidence has been given upon oath by several of our actors, 
 yet, sir, he was allowed the full and particular profits of that play, 
 as an author, which amounted to three hundred pounds, besides 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 455 
 
 about three hundred more, which he received as a joint-sharer ot 
 the general profits that arose from it. Now, sir, though the mana 
 gers are not all of them able to write plays, yet they have all of 
 them been able to do (I won't say as good, but, at least,) as pro- 
 fitable a thing; they have invented and adorned a spectacle that 
 for forty days together, has brought more money to the house, than 
 the best play that ever was written. The spectacle I mean, sir, 
 is that of the coronation ceremony of" AnnaBullen;" and though 
 we allow a good play to be the more laudable performance, yet, 
 sir, in the profitable part of it there is no comparison. If, there- 
 fore, our spectacle brought in as much or more money than Sir 
 iiichard's comedy, what is there on his side, but usage, that intitles 
 him to be paid for one more than we are for the other ? But then, 
 sir, if he is so profitably distinguished for his play, if we yield him 
 up the preference, and pay him for his extraordinary composition, 
 and take nothing for our own, though it turned out more to our 
 common profit ; surely, sir, while we do such extraordinary duty, 
 as managers, and while he neglects his share of that duty, he 
 cannot grudge us the moderate demand we make for our separate 
 labour. 
 
 To conclude, sir, if by our constant attendance, our care, our 
 anxiety, (not to mention the disagreeable contests we sometimes 
 meet with, both within and without doors, in the management of 
 our theatre) we have not only saved the whole from ruin, which, 
 if we had all followed Sir Richard's example, could not have been 
 avoided ; I say, sir, if we have still made it so valuable an income 
 to him, without his giving us the least assistance for several years 
 paj^t, we hope, sir, that the poor labourers that have done all this 
 for Sir Richard, will not be thought unworthy of their hire. 
 
 How far our affairs being set in this pirticular light 
 might assist our cause, may be of no great importance to 
 guess ; but the issue of it was this, that Sir Richard not 
 having made any, objection to what we had charged for- 
 management, for three years together, and as our pro- 
 ceedings had been all transacted in open day, without any 
 
 GG 3 
 
454 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 clandestine intention of fraud, we were allowed the sums 
 in dispute, above-mentioned ; and Sir Richard Aot being 
 advised to appeal to the Lord Chancellor, both parties paid 
 their own costs, and thought it their mutual interest to let 
 this be the last of their lawsuits. 
 
 And now, gentle reader, I ask pardon for so long an im- 
 position on your patience : for though I may have no ill 
 opinion of this matter myself, yet, to you, I can very easily 
 conceive it may have been tedious. You are, therefore, 
 at your own liberty of charging the whole impertinence of 
 it either to the weakness of my judgment, or the strength of 
 my vanity ; and I will so far join in your censure, that I 
 farther confess I have been so impatient to give it you, that 
 you have had it out of its turn : for some years before this 
 suit was commenced, there were other facts that ought to 
 have had a precedence in my history. But that, I dare 
 say, is an oversight you will easily excuse, provided you 
 afterwards find them worth reading. However, as to that 
 point I must take my chance, and shall therefore proceed 
 to speak of the theatre, which was ordered by his late 
 majesty to be erected in the great hall at Hampton Court, 
 where plays were intended to have been acted twice a week, 
 durinff the summer season. But before the theatre could 
 be finished, above half the month of September being 
 elapsed, there were but seven plays acted before the court 
 returned to London. This throwing open a theatre in a 
 royal palace seemed to be reviving the old English hospi« 
 table grandeur, where the lowest rank of neighbouring 
 subjects might make themselves merry at court, without 
 being laughed at themselves. In former reigns, theatrical 
 entertainments at the royal palaces had been performed at 
 vast expense,* as appears by the description of the dcco- 
 
 * A masque given by the four inns of court, on the 2d of Fe-r 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 455 
 
 rations in several of Ben Jonson's masques, in King James 
 and Charles the First's time; many curious and original 
 draughts of which, by Sir Inigo Jones, I have seen in the 
 museum of our greatest master and patron of arts and archi- 
 tecture, whom it would be a needless liberty to name.* 
 But when our civil wars ended in the decadence of mo- 
 narchy, it was then an honour to the stage to have fallen 
 with it : yet, after the restoration of Charles the Second, 
 some faint attempts were made to revive these theatrical 
 spectacles at court ; but I have met with no account of above 
 one mask acted there, by the nobility ; which was that of 
 ^' Calisto," written by Crowne, the author of " Sir Courtly 
 Nice. " For what reason Crowne was chosen to that honour, 
 rather than Dryden, who was then poet-laureat, and out of 
 all comparison, his superior in poetry, may seem surprising. 
 But if we consider the ofFence which the then Duke of Buck- 
 ingham took at the character of Zitnri, in Dry den's " Absa- 
 lom and Achitophel," (which might probably be a return to 
 his grace's Drawcansir in the '^ Rehearsal,") we may sup- 
 pose the prejudice and recommendation of so illustrious a 
 pretender to poetry, might prevail, at court, to give Crowne 
 this preference. In the same reign, the king had his come- 
 dians at Windsor, but upon a particular establishment ; 
 for though they acted in St. George's Hall, within the royal 
 palace, yet (as I have been informed by an eye-witness) 
 they were permitted to take money at the door of every 
 spectator ; whether this was an indulgence, in conscience, 
 I cannot say, but it was a common report among the prin- 
 cipal actors, when I first came into the theatre royal, in 
 1690, that there was, then, due to the company, from that 
 
 bruary, 1G33-4, cost twenty thousand pounds. The clothes of an 
 hundred horsemen employed in it amounted to half the sum. 
 * The Earl of Burlington. 
 
 G G 4 
 
456 
 
 AK APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 court, about one thousand five hundred pounds, for plays 
 commanded, &c., and yet it was the general complaint, in 
 that prince's reign, that he paid too much ready money for 
 his pleasures. But these assertions I only give as I received 
 them, without being answerable for their reality. This 
 theatrical anecdote, however, puts me in mind of one of a 
 more private nature, which I had from old solemn Boman,* 
 the late actor of venerable memory. Boman, then a youth, 
 and tamed for his voice, was appointed to sing some part in 
 a concert of music, at the private lodgings of Mrs. Gwynn ; 
 at which were only present the king, the Duke of York, 
 and one or two more, who were usually admitted upon those 
 detached parties of pleasure. When the performance was 
 ended, the king expressed himself highly pleased, and gave 
 it extraordinary commendations : " Then, sir," said the 
 lady, '' to show you don't speak like a courtier, I hope 
 you will make the perform ere a handsome present." The 
 king said he had no money about him, and asked the duke 
 if he had any ? To which the duke replied, " 1 believe, 
 sir, not above a guinea or two." Upon which the laugh- 
 ing lady, turning to the people about her, and making bold 
 with the king's common expression, cried, " Odd's fish, 
 what company am I got into !" 
 
 Whether the reverend historian of his Own Timc^f 
 among the many other reasons of the same kiud he nn'ght 
 have for styling this fair one the " indiscreet est, and wildest 
 creature, that ever was in a court," might know this to be 
 one of them, I can't say : but if we consider her, in all the 
 
 * This actor was the last of the Bettertonian school, and conti- 
 nued upon the stage till he had nearly reached his eightieth year. 
 He joined the duke's company, when a boy, in 1673, (I) and 
 played at Drury-lane theatre in 1735. 
 
 t Bishop Burnet. 
 
 (1) ** Roscius A nglicanus." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 457 
 
 disadvantages of her rank and education, she does not 
 appear to have had any criminal errors more remarkable 
 than her sex's frailty to answer for. And, if the same 
 author, in his latter end of that prince's life, seems to re- 
 proach his memory with too kind a concern for her sup- 
 port, we may allow that it becomes a bishop to have had 
 no eyes or taste for the frivolous charms or playful badinage 
 of a king's mistress : yoi^ if the common fame of her may 
 be believed, which in my memory was not doubted, she 
 had less to be laid to her charge than any other of those 
 ladies who were in the same state of preferment. She 
 never meddled in matters of serious moment, nor was the 
 tool of working politicians : never broke into those amorous 
 infidelities which othei*s, in that grave author, are accused 
 of; but was as visibly distinguished by her particular 
 personal inclination to the king, as her rivals were, by 
 their titles and grandeur. Give me leave to carry (per- 
 haps, the partiality of) my observation a little farther. 
 The same author, in the same page, 263^ tells us, that 
 " Another of the king's mistresses, the daughter of a cler- 
 gyman, Mrs. Roberts, in whom her first education had so 
 deep a root that, though she fell into many scandaloug 
 disorders, with very dismal adventures in them all, yet 
 a principle of religion was so deep laid in her that, though 
 it did not restrain her, yet it kept alive in her sufch a con- 
 stant horror of sin, that she was never easy in an ill course, 
 and died with a great sense of her former ill life." To all 
 this let us give an implicit credit. Here is the account of 
 a fraQ sinner made up with a reverend witness, yet I cannot 
 but lament, that this mitred historian, who seems to know 
 more personal secrets than any that ever wrote before him, 
 should not have been as inquisitive after the last hours of 
 our other fair offender, whose repentance, I have been 
 unquestionably informed, appeared in all the contrite symp- 
 
45B 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 toms of a Christian sincerity. If, therefore, you find I 
 am so much concerned to make this favourable mention of 
 tlie one, because she was a sister of the theatre, why may 
 not — but I dare not be so presumptuous, so uncharitably 
 bold, as to suppose the other was spoken better of merely 
 because she was the daughter of a clergyman. Well, and 
 what then ? What's all this idle prate, you may say, to 
 the matter in hand ? Why, I say your question is a little 
 too critical ; and if you won't give an author leave, now 
 and then, to embellish his work by a natural reflection, you 
 are an ungentle reader. But I have done with my digres- 
 sion, and return to our theatre at Hampton Court, where I 
 am not sure the reader, be he ever so wise, will meet with 
 anything more worth his notice : however, if he happens 
 to read as 1 write, for want of something better to do, he 
 will go on ; and, perhaps, wonder when I tell him that a 
 play presented at court or acted on a public stage seem, 
 to their different auditors, a different entertainment. Now 
 hear my reason for it. In the common theatre the guests 
 are at home, where the politer forms of good-breeding are 
 not so nicely regarded ; every one there falls to, and likes 
 or finds fault according to his natural taste or appetite. 
 At court, where the prince gives the treat and honours the 
 table with his own presence, the audience is under the 
 restraint of a circle, where laughter or applause, raised 
 higher than a whisper, would be stared at. At a public 
 play they are both let loose, even till the actor is sometimes 
 pleased with his not being able to be heard, for the clamour 
 of them. But this coldness or decency of attention at 
 court, I observed, had but a melancholy effect upon the 
 impatient vanity of some of our actors, who seemed incon- 
 solable when their flashy endeavours to please had passed 
 unheeded. Their not considering where they were quite 
 disconcerted them ; nor could they recover their spirits 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 459 
 
 till, from the lowest rank of the audience, some gaping 
 John or Joan, in the fulness of their hearts, roared out 
 their approbation : and, indeed, such a natural instance 
 of honest simplicity a prince himself, whose indulgence 
 knows where to make allowances, might reasonably smile 
 at, and perhaps not think it the worst part of his entertain- 
 ment. Yet it must be owned, that an audience may be as 
 well too much reserved as too profuse of their applause : 
 for though it is possible a Betterton would not have been 
 discouraged from throwing out an excellence, or elated 
 into an error, by his auditors being too little or too much 
 pleased, yet as actors of his judgment are rarities, those of 
 less judgment may sink into a flatness in their performance, 
 for want of that applause which, from the generality of 
 judges, they might perhaps, have some pretence to : and 
 the auditor, when not seeming to feel what ought to affect 
 him, may rob himself of something more that he might 
 have had, by giving the actor his due, who measures out 
 his power to please according to the value he sets upon his 
 hearer's taste or capacity. But, however, as we were not 
 here itinerant adventurers, and had properly but one royal 
 auditor to please , after that honour was attained to, the 
 rest of our ambition had little to look after : and that the 
 king was often pleased we were not only assured, by those 
 who had the honour to be near him, but could see it, from 
 the frequent satisfaction in his looks at particular scenes and 
 passages. One instance of which I am tempted to relate, 
 because it was at a speech that might more naturally affect 
 a sovereign prince than any private spectator. In Shak- 
 speare's " Henry the Eighth," that Kmg commands the 
 Cardinal to write circular letters of indemnity into every 
 county where the payment of certain heavy taxes had been 
 disputed ; upon which the Cardinal whispers the following 
 directions to his secretary, Cromwell: 
 
460 
 
 AN ArOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 A word with you : 
 
 Let there be letters writ to every shire, 
 
 Of the king's grace, and pardon : the griev'd comraons 
 
 Hardly conceive of me. Let it be nois'd. 
 
 That through our intercession, this revokement, 
 
 And pardon, comes. I shall anon advise you 
 
 Farther in the proceeding. 
 
 The solicitude of this spiritual minister, in filching* from Ws 
 master the grace and merit of a good action, and dressing 
 up himself in it, while himself had been author of the evil 
 complained of, was so easy a stroke of his temporal conscience, 
 that it seemed to raise the king into something more than a 
 smile, whenever that play came before him : and I had a 
 more distinct occasion to observe this effect ; because my 
 proper stand on the stage, when I spoke the lines,* required 
 me to be near the box where the king usually sate. In a 
 word, this play is so true a dramatic chronicle of an old 
 English court, and where the character of Henry the 
 Eighth is so exactly drawn, even to a humourous likeness, 
 that it may be no wonder why his majesty^s particular 
 taste for it should have commanded it three several times in 
 one winter. 
 
 * " Colley Gibber's pride and passion, in Wolsey, were impo- 
 tent, and almost farcical. His grief, resignation, and tenderness, 
 were inadequate, from a deficiency of those powers of expression 
 which the melting tones of voice, and a corresponding propriety of 
 gesture, can alone bestow." — Davies's " Dramatic Miscellanies," 
 vol. l,p. 407. 
 ' It appears from the same source, that Gibber, in saying 
 
 This candle burns not clear ; 'tis I must snuff It, 
 And out it goes, 
 
 imitated, with his fore-finger and thumb, the extinguishing of a 
 candle with a pair of snuffers. Such wretched mimicry is almost 
 incredible. 
 
 X . 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 461 
 
 This, too, calls to my memory an extravagant pleasantry 
 of Sir Richard Steele, who being asked by a grave noble- 
 man, after the same play had been presented at Hampton 
 Court, how the king liked it, replied, " So terribly well, 
 my lord, that I was afraid I should have lost all my actoi*s ; 
 for I was not sure the king would not keep them to fill the 
 posts at court, that he saw them so fit for in the play." 
 
 It may be imagined that giving plays to the people, at 
 such a distance from London, could not but be attend- 
 ed with an extraordinary expense ; and it was some diffi- 
 culty, when they were first talked of, to bring them under 
 a moderate sum ; I shall, therefore, in as few words as 
 possible, give a particular of what establishment they were 
 then brought to, that in case the same entertainments 
 should at any time hereafter be called to the same place, 
 future courts may judge how far the precedent may stand 
 good, or need any alteration. 
 
 Though the stated fee for a play acted at Whitehall had 
 been formerly but twenty pounds,* yet, as that hindered 
 
 * " Whereas by virtue of his majesties letters patent, bearing 
 date the 16th of June, 1625, made and graunted in confirmation 
 of diverse warrants and privy seales unto you formerly directed 
 in the time of our late soveraigne King James, you are authorised 
 (amongst other things) to make payment for playes acted before 
 his majesty and the queene. Theis are to pray and require you, 
 out of his majesties treasure in your charge, to payor cause to be 
 payed unto John Lowing, in the behalfe of liimselfe, and the rest 
 of the company his majesties players, the sum of two hundred and 
 sixty pounds; that is to say, twenty pounds apiece for four playes 
 acted at Hampton Court, in respect and consideration of the tra- 
 vaile and expence of the whole company in dyet and lodging 
 during the time of their attendance there; and the like somme of 
 twanty pounds for one other play, which was acted in the day- 
 
462 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 not the company's acting on the same day at the public 
 theatre, that sum was almost all clear profits to them : but 
 this circumstance not being practicable, when they were 
 commanded to Hampton Court, a new and extraordinary 
 charge was unavoidable : the managers, therefore^ not to 
 inflame it, desired no consideration for their own labour, 
 farther than the honour of being employed in his majesty's 
 commands ; and, if the other actors might be allowed each 
 their day's pay and travelling charges, they should hold them- 
 selves ready to act any play, there, at a day's warning : 
 and that the trouble might be less by being divided, the 
 Lord Chamberlain was pleased to let us know that the 
 household music, the wax lights, and a chaise-marine, 
 to carry our moving wardrobe to every different play, 
 should be under the charge of the proper officers. Not- 
 withstanding these assistances, the expense of every play 
 amounted to fifty pounds: which account, when all was 
 over, was not only allowed us, but his majesty was graci- 
 ously pleased to give the managers two hundred pounds 
 more, for their particular performance and trouble in only 
 seven times acting. Which last sum, though it might not 
 be too much for a sovereign prince to give, was certainly 
 more than our utmost merit ought to have hoped for : and I 
 confess, when I received the order for the money from 
 his grace the Duke of Newcastle, then Lord Chamberlain, 
 I was so surprised, that I imagined his grace's favour 
 
 lime at Whitehall, by meanes whereof the players lost the benefit 
 of their house for that day ; and ten pounds apiece for sixteen 
 other playes acted before his majestie and the queene at severall 
 times, between the 30th of Sept. and 21st of Feb. last past. As it 
 may appeare by the annexed schedule. 
 " And theis, &c. March 17, 1630-1." 
 
 MS. in the Lord Chamberlain's Office. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 463 
 
 or recommendation of our readiness, or diligence, must 
 have contributed to so high a consideration of it, and was 
 offering my acknowledgments, as I thought them due ; 
 but was soon stopped short by his grace's declaration, that 
 we had no obligations for it but to the king himself, who 
 had given it from no other motive than his own bounty. 
 Now whether we may suppose that Cardinal fVolsej/, as 
 you see Shakspeare has drawn him, would silently have 
 taken such low acknowledgments to himself, perhaps, may 
 be as little worth consideration as my mentioning this cir- 
 cumstance has been necessary : but if it is due to the 
 honour and integrity of the (then) Lord Chamberlain, I 
 cannot think it wholly impertinent. 
 
 Since that time there has been but one play given at 
 Hampton Court, which was for the entertainment of the 
 Duke of Lorrain ; and for which his present majesty was 
 pleased to order us a hundred pounds. 
 
 The reader may now plainly see that I am ransacking my 
 memory for such remaining scraps of theatrical history as 
 may not, perhaps, be worth his notice ; but, if they are 
 such as tempt me to write them, why may I not hope that, 
 in this wide world, there may be many an idle soul, no 
 wiser than myself, who may be equally tempted to read 
 them ? 
 
 I have so often had occasion to compare the state of the 
 stage to the state of a nation, that I yet feel a reluctancy to 
 drop the comparison, or speak of the one without some 
 application to the other. How many reigns, then, do 1 
 remember, from that of Charles the Second, through all 
 which there has been, from one half of the people ox the 
 other, a succession of clamour against every different min^ 
 istry for the time being ? And yet, let the cause of this 
 clamour have been never so well grounded, it is impossible 
 but that some of those ministers must have been wiser and 
 
464 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 honester men than others : if this be true, as true I believe 
 it is, why may 1 not then say, as some fool in a French 
 play does, upon a like occasion — " Justement, comme chez 
 nous!" It was exactly the same with our management: 
 let us have done never so well, we could not please every 
 body. All I can say, in our defence, is that, though many 
 good judges might possibly conceive how the state of 
 the stage might have been mended, yet the best of them 
 never pretended to remember the time when it was better, 
 or could show us the way to make their imaginary amend- 
 ments practicable. For though I have often allowed that 
 our best merit, as actors, was never equal to that of our 
 predecessors, yet I will venture to say that, in all its 
 branches, the stage had never been under so just, so prosp- 
 erous, and so settled a regulation, for forty years before, as 
 it was at the time I am speaking of The most plausible 
 objection to our administration seemed to be that, we took 
 no care to breed up young actors, to succeed us ; and this 
 was imputed as the greater fault, because it was taken for 
 granted that it was a matter as easy as planting so many 
 cabbages : now might not a court as well be reproached for 
 not breeding up a succession of complete ministers ? And 
 yet, it is evident, that if providence or nature do not 
 supply us with both, the state and the stage will be but 
 poorly supported. If a man of an ample fortune should 
 take it into his head to give a younger son an extraordinary 
 allowance, in order to breed him a great poet, what might 
 we^^uj^ose would be the odds that his trouble and money 
 would be all thrown away ? Not more than it would 
 be against the master of a theatre, who should say " This or 
 that young man I will take care shall be an excellent 
 actor." Let it be our excuse, then, for that mistaken 
 charge against us, that since there was no garden or 
 market where accomplished actors grew, or were to be 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 465 
 
 sold, we could only pick them up as we do pebbles of 
 value, by chance : we may polish a thousand before we can 
 find one fit to make a figure in the lid of a snuff-box. 
 And how few soever we were able to produce, it is no 
 proof that we were not always in search of them : yet, 
 at worst, it was allowed that our deficiency of men actors 
 was not so visible as our scarcity of tolerable women : but, 
 when it is considered that the life of youth and beauty is 
 too short for the bringing an actress to her perfection ; were 
 I to mention, too, the many frail fair ones I remember, 
 who, before they could arrive to their theatrical maturity, 
 were feloniously stolen from the tree, it would rather 
 be thought our misfortune than our fault, that we were not 
 better provided. 
 
 Even the laws of a nimnery, we find, are thought no 
 sufficient security against temptations, without iron grates 
 and high walls to inforce them : which the architecture of 
 a theatre will not so properly admit of : and yet, methinks, 
 beauty that has not those artificial fortresses about it, 
 that has no defence but its natural virtue, which, upon the 
 stage, has more than once been met with, makes a much 
 more meritorious figure in life than that immured virtue 
 which could never be tried. But, alas, as the poor stage is 
 but the show-glass to a toy-shop, we must not wonder 
 if now and then some of the bawbles should find a pur- 
 chaser. 
 
 However, as to say more or less than truth is equally un- 
 faithful in an historian, I cannot but own that in the gov- 
 ernment of the theatre I have known many instances 
 where the merit of promising actors has not always been 
 brought forward, with the regard or favour it had a claim 
 to : and if I put my reader in mind that in the early part 
 of this work I have shown through what continued diffi- 
 culties and discouragements I myself made my way up the 
 
 H H 
 
466 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 hill of preferment, he may justly call it too strong a glare of 
 my vanity : I am afraid he is in the right ; but I pretend 
 not to be one of those chaste authors that know how to 
 write without it : when truth is to be told, it may be ds 
 much chance as choice if it happens to turn out in my fa- 
 vour. But to show that this was true of others as well as 
 myself, Booth shall be another instance. In 1707, when 
 Swiny was the only master of the company in the Haymar- 
 ket, Wilks, though he was then but an hired actor himself, 
 rather chose to govern and give orders than to receive 
 them, and was so jealous of Booth's rising, that, with a 
 high hand, he gave the part o^ Pierre ^ in ^' Venice Pre- 
 served," to Mills the elder, who (not to undervalue him) 
 was out of sight in the pretensions that Booth, then young 
 as he was, had to the same part : and this very discourage- 
 ment so strongly affected him, that, not long after, when 
 several of us became sharers with Swiny, Booth rather 
 chose to risk his fortune with the old patentee in Drury- 
 lane, than come into our interest, where he saw he was 
 like to meet with more of those partialities. And yet, again. 
 Booth himself, when he came to be a manager, would some^ 
 times suffer his judgment to be blinded by his inclination 
 to actors whom the town seemed to have but an indifferent 
 opinion of. This, again, inclines me to ask another of 
 my odd questions, tJ22. Have we never seen the same pas- 
 sions govern a court ? How many white staffs and great 
 places do we find, in our histories, have been laid at the 
 feet of a monarch, because they chose not to give way to a 
 rival in power, or hold a second place in his favour ? How 
 tnany whigs and tories have changed their parties, when 
 their good or bad pretebsidns have met with a check to 
 their higher preferment ? 
 
 Thus, we see, let the degrees and rank of men be ever 
 so unequal, nature throws out their passions from the same 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 467 
 
 mofives ; 'tis not the eniinence or lowliness of either that 
 makes the one, when provoked, more or less a reasonable 
 creature than the other: the courtier and the comedian, 
 when their ambition is out of humour, take just the same 
 measures to right themselves. 
 
 If this familiar style of talking should, in the nostrils of 
 gravity and wisdom, smell a little too much of the presump- 
 tuous or the pragmatical, I will, at least, descend lower, 
 in my apology for it, by calling to my assistance the old, 
 humble proverb, viz. " 'Tis an ill bird that," &c. Why 
 then should I debase my profession, by setting it in vulgar 
 lights, when I may show it to more favourable advantages? 
 And when I speak of our errors, why may I not extenuate 
 them by illustrious examples ; or by not allowing them 
 greater than the greatest men have been subject to ? Or 
 why, indeed, may I not suppose that a sensible reader will 
 rather laugh than look grave at the pomp of my parallels ? 
 
 Now, as I am tied down to the veracity of an historian, 
 whose facts cannot be supposed, like those in a romance, to 
 be in the choice of the author, to make them more marvel- 
 lous by invention ; if I should happen to sink into a little 
 farther insigniiicancy, let the simple truth of what I have 
 farther to say, be my excuse for it. I am obliged, there- 
 fore, to make the experiment, by showing you the conduct 
 of our theatrical ministry in such lights as, on various oc- 
 casions, it appeared in. 
 
 '* 'Though Wilks had more industry and application than 
 iLti*y actor I had ever known, yet we found it possible that 
 those necessary qualities might sometimes be so miscon- 
 ducted, as not only to make them useless, but hurtful to 
 bur commonwealth ; for while he was impatient to be fore* 
 most in every thing, he frequently shocked the honest am- 
 bition of others, whose measures might have been more ser- 
 viceable, could his jealousy have given way to them. His 
 
 H H !2 
 
468 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 own regards for himself, therefore, were, to avoid a disa- 
 greeable dispute with him, too often complied with ; but 
 this leaving his diligence to his own conduct made us, in 
 some instances, pay dearly for it : for example, he would 
 take as much or more pains in forwarding to the stage the 
 water-gruel work of some insipid author, that happened 
 rightly to make his court to him, than he would for the best 
 play, wherein it was not his fortune to be chosen for the 
 best character. So great was his impatience to be employed, 
 that I scarcely remember, in twenty years, above one pro- 
 fitable play we could get to be revived, wherein he found 
 he was to make no considerable figure, independent of 
 him : but the " Tempest" having done wonders formerly, 
 he could not form any pretensions to let it lie longer dor- 
 mant ; however, his coldness to it was so visible, that he 
 took all occasions to postpone and discourage its progress, 
 by frequently taking up 'the morning stage with something 
 more to his mind. Having been myself particularly soli- 
 citous for the reviving this play, Dogget (for this was be- 
 fore Booth came into the management) consented that the 
 extraordinary decorations and habits should be left to my 
 care and direction, as the fittest person whose temper could 
 jostle through the petulant opposition that he knew Wilks 
 would be always offering to it, because he had but a midd- 
 ling part in it, that of Ferdinand. Notwithstanding which, 
 So it happened, that the success of it showed, not to take 
 from the merit of Wilks, that it was possible to have good 
 audiences without his extraordinary assistance. In the 
 first six days of acting it we paid all our constant and inci- 
 dental expense, and shared each of us a hundred pounds ; 
 the greatest profit that in so little a time had yet been 
 known within my memory. But, alas, what was paltry 
 pelf to glory ? That was the darling passion of Wilks 's 
 heart ; and not to advance in it was, to so jealous an ambi- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 469 
 
 tion, a painful retreat, a mere shade to his laurels ; and 
 the common benefit was but a poor equivalent to his want 
 of particular applause. To conclude, not Prince Lewis of 
 Baden, though a confederate general with the Duke of 
 Marlborough, was more inconsolable upon the memorable 
 victory at Blenheim, at which he was not present, than our 
 theatrical hero was to see any action prosperous that he was 
 not himself at the head of. If this, then, was an infirm- 
 ity in Wilks, why may not my showing the same weak- 
 ness in so great a man mollify the imputation, and keep 
 his memory in countenance ? 
 
 This laudable appetite for fame, in Wilks, was not, how- 
 ever, to be fed without that constant labour which only 
 himself was able to come up to : he, therefore, bethought 
 him of the means to lessen the fatigue, and, at the same 
 time, to heighten his reputation ; which was by giving up, 
 now and then, a part to some raw actor, who, he was sure, 
 would disgrace it, and, consequently, put the audience in 
 mind of his superior performance : among this sort of in- 
 dulgences to young actors, he happened once to ijiake a 
 mistake that set his views in a clear light. The best cri- 
 tics, I believe, will allow that in Shakspeare's '' Macbeth" 
 there are, in the part o^ Macduff ^ two scenes, the one of ter- 
 ror in the second act, and the other of compassion in the 
 fourth, equal to any that dramatic poetry has produced : 
 these scenes Wilks had acted with success,* though far 
 
 * Wilks's merit in the latter of these scenes is mentioned in the 
 " Tattler," No. 68, as follows ; and his manner of delivering the 
 last great expression is worthy of being recorded. 
 
 " In the tragedy of * Macbeth,' where Wilks acts the part of 
 a man whose family has been murdered in his absence, the wildness 
 of his passion, which is overrun in a torrent of calamitous circum- 
 stances, does but raise my spirits, and give me the alarm ; but 
 when he skilfully seems to be out of breath, and is brought too low 
 
 hhS 
 
470 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 short of that happier skill and grace which Mountfort had 
 formerly shown in them. Such a part, however, one might 
 imagine, would be one of the last a good actor would chuse 
 to part with ; but Wilks was of a different opinion ; for Mac- 
 beth was thrice as long, had more great scenes of action, and 
 bor« the name of the play : now to be a second in any play 
 Was what he did not much care for, and had been seldom 
 used to ; this part of Macduff^ therefore, he had given to 
 one Williams,* as yet no extraordinary, though a promis- 
 ing actor. Williams, in the simplicity of his heart, im- 
 
 to say more ; and upon a second reflection, cries, only wiping his 
 
 eyes. 
 
 What, both children ! — Both, both my children gone ! 
 
 there is no resisting a sorrow which seems to have cast about for 
 all the reasons possible for its consolation, but has no resource. 
 t There is not one left, but both, both are murdered ! 
 
 3uch sudden starts from the thread of the discourse, and a plain 
 sentiment expressed in an artless way, are the irresistible strokes 
 of eloquence and poetry." 
 
 " We are told by Colley Gibber, that Wilks had once an inten- 
 tion to resign the part of Macduff, in which he had been much 
 applauded, to an inferior actor, and that Booth had made an ex- 
 change of Banquo for this superior character ; but that the jea- 
 lousy of Booth's abilities had caused Wilks to resume what he 
 had so indiscreetly given away. In the strong expression of 
 horror on the murder of the King, and the loud exclamations of 
 surprise and terror. Booth might have exceeded the utmost efforts 
 of Wilks ; but, in the touches of domestic woe, which require the 
 feelings of the tender father and the affectionate husband, Wilks 
 had no equal. His skill in exhibiting the emotions of the overflow- 
 ing heart with corresponding look and action, was universally 
 admired and felt. His rising, after the suppression of his anguish, 
 into ardent and manly resentment, was highly expressive of 
 noble and generous anger." — " Dramatic Miscellanies;" vol. 2, 
 p. 182. 
 
 * Of Charles Williams, who must not be confounded with his 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 471 
 
 mediately told Booth what a fhvoiir Wilks had done him. 
 Booth, as he had reason, thought Wilks had here carried 
 his indulgence and his authority a little too far; for as 
 Booth had no better a part in the same play than that of 
 Banqtw, he found himself too much disregarded, in letting 
 so young an actor take place of him : Booth, therefore, 
 who knew the value of Macduff , proposed to do it himself, 
 and to give Banquo to Williams ; and, to make him farther 
 amends, offered him any other of his parts that he thought 
 might be of service to him. Williams was content with 
 the exchange, and thankful for the promise. This scheme, 
 indeed, had it taken effect, might have been an ease to 
 Wilks, and possibly no disadvantage to the play ; but, softly 
 -^that was not quite what he had a mind to. No sooner, 
 then, came this proposal to Wilks, but off went the mask, 
 and out came the secret ; for though Wilks wanted to be 
 eased of the part, he did not desire to be excelled in it ; and 
 as he was not sure but that might be the case, if Booth were 
 to act it, he wisely retracted bis own project, took Macduff 
 
 namesake and predecessor, the following anecdote is told in Da- 
 vies's " Dramatic Miscellanies ;" vol. 3, p. 442. 
 
 " When Thomson's " Sophonisba" was read to the actors, Gib- 
 ber laid his hand upon ScipiOi a character which, though it appears 
 only in the last act, is of great dignity and importance. For two 
 nights successively, Gibber was as much exploded as any bad 
 actor could be. Williams, by desire of Wilks, made himself 
 master of the part ; but he marching slowly, in great military 
 distinction, from the upper part of the stage, and wearing the 
 same dress as Gibber, was mistaken for him, and met with repeated 
 hisses, joined to the music of catcalls ; but, as soon as the audience 
 were undeceived, they converted their groans and hisses to loud 
 and long-continued applause." 
 
 " He was," says Theophilus Gibber, (1) " a promising player, 
 
 who died young." 
 
 (1) "Life of Booth." 
 
 H H 4 
 
472 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 again to himself, and while he lived never had a thought of 
 running the same hazard, by any farther offer to resign it. 
 
 Here, I confess, I am at a loss for a fact in history, to 
 which this can be a parallel. To be weary of a post, even 
 to a real desire of resigning it, and yet to chuse rather to 
 drudge on in it than suffer it to be well supplied, though to 
 share in that advantage is a delicacy of ambition that Ma- 
 chiavel himself has made no mention of; or, if in old Rome, 
 the jealousy of any pretended patriot equally inclined to ab- 
 dicate his office may have come up to it, 'tis more than my 
 reading remembers. 
 
 As nothing can be more impertinent than showing too 
 frequent a fear to be thought so, I will, without farther 
 apology, rather risk that imputation than not tell you ano- 
 ther story much to the same purpose, and of no more con- 
 sequence than my last. To make you understand it, how- 
 ever, a little preface will be necessary. 
 
 If the merit of an actor, as it certainly does, consists more 
 in the quality than the quantity of his labour, the other ma- 
 nagers had no visible reason to think this needless ambition 
 of Wilks, in being so often, and sometimes so unnecessarily, 
 employed, gave him any title to a superiority ; especially 
 when our articles of agreement had allowed us all to be 
 equal. But what are narrow contracts to great souls with 
 growing desires? Wilks, therefore, who thought himself 
 lessened in appealing to any judgment but his own, plainly 
 discovered, by his restless behavour, though he did not 
 care to speak out, that he thought he had a right to some 
 higher consideration for his performance: this was often 
 Booth's opinion as well as my own. It must be farther ob- 
 served that he actually had a separate allowance of fifty 
 pounds a year, for writing our daily playbills for the 
 printer, which province, to say the truth, was the only one 
 we cared to trust to his particular intendance, or could find 
 out for a pretence to distinguish him. But, to sj^eak a 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 473 
 
 plainer truth, this pension, which was no part of our origi- 
 nal agreement, was merely paid to keep him quiet, and not 
 that we thought it due to so insignificant a charge as what 
 a prompter had formerly executed. This being really the 
 case, his frequent complaints of being a drudge to the com- 
 pany grew something more than disagreeable to us ; for we 
 could not digest the imposition of a man's setting himself to 
 work, and then bringing in his own bill for it. Booth, there- 
 fore, who was less easy than I was to see him so often setting 
 a merit upon this quantity of his labour, which it neither 
 could be our interest nor his own to lay upon him ; proposed 
 to me that we might remove this pretended grievance, by 
 reviving some play that might be likely to live, and be easily 
 acted, without Wilks's having any part in it. About this 
 time, an unexpected occasion offered itself to put our project 
 in practice : what followed our attempt will be all (if any 
 thing be) worth observation in my story. 
 
 In 1725, we were called upon, in a manner that could not 
 be resisted, to revive the " Provoked Wife," a comedy 
 which, while we found our account in keeping the stage 
 clear of those loose liberties it had, formerly, too justly been 
 charged with, we had laid aside, for some years. The author. 
 Sir John Vanbrugh, who was conscious of what it had too 
 much of, was prevailed upon to substitute a new written 
 scene, in the place of one, in the fourth act, where the wan- 
 tonness of his wit and humour had (originally) made a rake 
 talk like a rake, in the borrowed habit of a clergyman : to 
 avoid which offence, he clapped the same debauchee into 
 the undress of a woman of quality : now the character and 
 profession of a fine lady, not being so indelibly sacred as 
 that of a churchman, whatever follies he exposed in the pet- 
 ticoat, kept him, at least, clear of his former profaneness, 
 and were now innocently ridiculous to the spectator. 
 
 This play, being thus refitted for the stage, was, as I have 
 observed, called for from court, and by many of the nobility. 
 
474 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Now, then, we thought, was a proper time to come to an ex- 
 planation with Wilks : accordingly, when the actors were 
 summoned to hear the play read, and receive their parts, I 
 addressed myself to Wilks, before them all, and told him, 
 that as the part of Constant^ which he seemed to chuse, was 
 a character of less action than he generally appeared in, we 
 thought this might be a good occasion to ease himself, by 
 giving it to another ; — here he looked grave. — That the 
 love-scenes of it were rather serious than gay or humourous, 
 and therefore might sit very well upon Booth; — down 
 dropped his brow^, and furled were his features. — That if 
 we were never to revive a tolerable play without him, what 
 would become of us in case of his indisposition? — here he 
 pretended to stir the fire. — That as he could have no farther 
 advantage or advancement in his station to hope for, his 
 acting in this play was but giving himself an unprofitable 
 trouble, which neither Booth nor I desired to impose upon 
 him. — Softly. — Now the pill began to gripe him.^-In a 
 word, this provoking civility plunged him into a passion 
 which he was no longer able to contain ; out it came, with 
 all the equipage of unlimited language that, on such occa- 
 sions, his displeasure usually set out with; but when his 
 reply was stripped of those ornaments, it was plainly this : 
 that he looked upon all I had said as a concerted design not 
 only to Signalise ourselves, by laying him aside, but a con- 
 trivance to draw him into the disfavour of the nobility, by 
 making it supposed his own choice that he did not act in a 
 play so particularly asked for ; but we should find he could 
 stand upon his own bottom, and it was not all our little 
 caballing should get our ends of him. To which I answered, 
 with some warmth, that he was mistaken in our ends ; ''for 
 those, sir," said I, '' you have answered already, by show- 
 ing the company you cannot bear to be left out of any play. 
 Are not you every day complaining of your being overlabour- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 475 
 
 ed ? And now, upon our first offering to ease you, you fly 
 into a passion J and pretend to make that a greater grievance 
 than the other : but, sir, if your being in or out of the phiy 
 is a hardship, you shall impose it upon yourself : the part is 
 in your hand, and to us it is a matter of indifference, now, 
 whether you take it or leave it." Upon this he threw down 
 the part upon the table, crossed his arms and sate knocking 
 his heel upon the floor, as seeming to threaten most when 
 he said least ; but when nobody persuaded him to take it 
 up again. Booth, not chusing to push the matter too fkr, but 
 rather to split the difference of our dispute, said that, for his 
 part, he saw no such great matter in acting every day ; for 
 he believed it the wholesomest exercise in the world ; it 
 kept the spirits in motion, and always gave him a good 
 stomach. Though this was, in a manner, giving up the 
 part to Wilks, yet it did not allow he did us any favour m 
 receiving it. Here I observed Mrs. Oldfield began to titter, 
 behind her fan : but Wilks, being more intent upon what 
 Booth had said, replied, every one could best feel for him- 
 self, but he did not pretend to the strength of a pack-horse ; 
 therefore, if Mrs. Oldfield would chuse any body else to play 
 with her, he should be very glad to be excused. This 
 throwing the negative upon Mrs. Oldfield was, indeed, a 
 sure way to save himself; which I could not help taking 
 notice of, by saying it was making but an ill compliment to 
 the company, to suppose there was but one man in it fit to 
 play an ordinary part with her. Here Mrs. Oldfield got up, 
 and, turning me half round to come forward, said, with her 
 usual frankness, " Pooh ! you are all a parcel of fools, to 
 make such a rout about nothing ;" rightly judging that the 
 person most out of humour would not be more displeased at 
 her calling us all by the same name. As she knew, too, the 
 best way of ending the debate would be to help the weak, 
 she said she hoped Mr. Wilks would not so far mind what 
 
476 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 had past, as to refuse his acting the part with her ; for 
 though it might not be so good as he had been used to, yet, 
 she believed, those who had bespoken the play would expect 
 to have it done to the best advantage, and it would make 
 but an odd story abroad, if it were known there had been 
 any difficulty in that point among ourselves. To conclude, 
 Wilks had the part, and we had all we wanted ; which 
 was an occasion to let him see that the accident or choice of 
 one manager's being more employed than another, would 
 never be allowed a pretence for altering oui* indentures, or 
 his having an extraordinary consideration for it. 
 
 However disagreeable it might be to have this unsocia- 
 ble temper daily to deal with, yet 1 cannot but say, that 
 from the same impatient spirit that had so often hurt us we 
 still drew valuable advantages ; for as Wilks seemed to 
 have no joy in life beyond his being distinguished on the 
 stage,ye were not only sure of his always doing his best there 
 himself, but of making others more careful than, without 
 the rod of so irascible a temper over them, they would have 
 been : and I much question if a more temperate or better 
 usage of the hired actors, could have so effectually kept 
 them to order. Not even Betterton, as we have seen, with 
 all his good sense, his great fame, and experience, could, 
 by being only a quiet example of industry himself, save his 
 company from falling, while neither gentleness could gov- 
 ern, or the consideration of their common interest reform, 
 them. Diligence, with much the inferior skill or capacity, 
 will beat the best negligent company that ever came upon a 
 stage. But when a certain dreaming idleness, or jolly neg- 
 ligence of rehearsals, gets into a body of the ignorant and 
 incapable, which, before Wilks came into Drury-lane, 
 when Powel was at the head of them, was the case of that 
 company, then, I say, a sensible spectator might have 
 looked upon the fallen stiige, as Porcius, in the play of 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 477 
 
 t 
 
 " Cato," does upon his ruined country, and have lamented 
 it, in (something near) the same exclamation ; viz, 
 
 O ye immortal bards ! 
 
 What havoc do these blockheads make among 
 
 your works ! 
 How are the boasted labours of an age 
 Defac'd, and tortur'd, by ungracious action ! 
 
 Of these wicked doings, Dryden, too, complains in one of 
 his prologues, at that time, where, speaking of such lewd 
 actors, he closes a couplet with the following line ; vis. 
 
 And murder plays, which they miscal reviving. 
 
 The great share, therefore, that Wilks, by his exemplary 
 diligence, and impatience of neglect in others, had in the 
 reformation of this evil, ought, in justice, to be remember- 
 ed ; and let my own vanity here take shame to itself, when 
 . I confess that had I had half his application^ I still think I 
 might have shown myself twice the actor that, in my high- 
 est state of favour, I appeared to be. But, if I have any 
 excuse for that neglect, a fault which, if I loved not truth, 
 I need not have mentioned, it is that so much of my atten- 
 tion was taken up in an incessant labour to guard against 
 our private animosities, and preserve a harmony in our 
 management, that I hope and believe it made ample amends 
 for whatever omissions my auditors might sometimes know 
 it cost me some pains to conceal.* But nature takes care 
 
 * If there is any truth in Dennis's assertion, that Gibber squan- 
 dered away six thousand pounds, in less than two years, at the 
 gaming-table, (l) he might have furnished us with a truer reason 
 for his negligence than he has chosen to supply. Without depend- 
 
 (1) See " Character and Conduct of Sir John Edgar ;" 1720. 
 
478 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 to bestow her blessings with a more equal hand than 
 fortune does, and is seldom known to heap too many upon 
 one man : one tolerable talent in an individual is enough to 
 preserve him from being good for nothing ; and if that was 
 not laid to my charge, as an actor, I have in this light, too, 
 less to complain of than to be thankful for. 
 
 Before I conclude my history, it may be expected I 
 should give some further view of these my last cotemporar- 
 ies of the theatre, Wilks and Booth, in their different acting 
 capacities. If I were to paint them in the colours they 
 laid upon one another, their talents would not be shown 
 with half the commendation I am inclined to bestow upon 
 them, when they are left to my own opinion. But people 
 of the same profession are apt to see themselves in their own 
 clear glass of partiality, and look upon their equals through 
 a mist of prejudice. It might be imagined, too, from the 
 difference of their natural tempers, that Wilks should have 
 been more bliiid to the excellencies of Booth, than Booth 
 was to those of Wilks ; but it was not so : Wilks would 
 sometimes commend Booth to me ; but when Wilks excel- 
 
 ing upon this exaggerated charge, which was partly denied, (2) 
 it is well known that Cibber could not, from his habitual dissipa- 
 tion, have devoted himself entirely to the object which he assured 
 us engrossed him. 
 
 After many an unlucky run at Tom's coffee-house, in Russell- 
 ^YQet, (says Mr. Davies,) (3) he has arrived at the playhouse in 
 great tranquillity, and then, humming over an opera tune, walked 
 on the stage, very imperfect in the part he had to act. I have 
 seen him at fault (continues the same veracious authority) where 
 it was least expi^jjt^d, in parts he had acted an hundred times ; and 
 
 (2j '* Dramatic Miscellanies ;" vol. 3, p. 450. 
 
 (3) See '* Answer to a Whimsical Pamphlet," &c. 1720. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 479 
 
 led, the other was silent.* Booth seemed to think nothing 
 valuable, that was not tragically great or marvellous : let 
 that be as true as it may, yet I have often thought that from 
 his having no taste of humour himself, he might be too 
 much inclined to depreciate the acting of it in others. 
 The very slight opinion which, in private conversation 
 with me, he had of Wilks's acting Sir Harry Wildair^ 
 was certainly more than could be justified ; not only from 
 the general applause that was against that opinion, though 
 applause is not always infallible, but from the visible Capa- 
 city which must be allowed to an actor, that could carry 
 such slight materials to such a height of approbation : for 
 though the character of Wild air scarce in any one scene 
 will stand against a just criticism, yet, in the whole, there 
 are so many gay and false colours of the fine gentleman, 
 that nothing but a vivacity in the performance proportion- 
 ably extravagant, could have made them so happily glare 
 upon a common audience. 
 
 particularly in Sir Courtly Nice ; but Colley dexterously supplied 
 the deficiency of his memory, by prolonging his ceremonious bow 
 to the lady, and drawling out, " Your humble servant, madam," 
 to an extraordinary length ; then, taking a pinch of snuff, and 
 strutting deliberately across the stage, he has gravely asked the 
 prompter, " What is next ?" 
 
 * This charge of uncandid feeling is corroborated by Mr. Da- 
 vies, in his " Dramatic Miscellanies;" vol. 3, p. 241. 
 
 During Booth's inability to act, which lasted from 1729 till his death, in 
 1733, Wilks was called upon to play two of his parts, Jaffier, and Lord Hast- 
 ings in *' Jane Shore." Booth was, at times, in all other respects except his 
 power to go on the stage, in good health, and went amongst the players for 
 his amusement. His curiosity drew him to the playhouse on the nights whfen 
 Wilks acted these characters, in which himself had appeared with uncommon 
 lustre. All the world admired Wilks, except his brother-manager : amidst 
 the repeated bursts of applause which he extorted. Booth alone continued 
 silent. 
 
4S0 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 Wilks, from his first setting out, certainly formed his 
 manner of acting upon the model of Mountfort ; as Booth 
 did his on that of Betterton. But " haud passibus acquis :" 
 I cannot say either of them ever came up to their original. 
 Wilks had not that easy regulated behaviour, nor the har- 
 monious elocution of the one, nor Booth that conscious 
 aspect of intelligence, nor requisite variation of voice, that 
 made every line the other spoke seem his own natural, self- 
 delivered sentiment : yet there is still room for great com- 
 mendation of both the first mentioned ; which will not be so 
 much diminished in my having said they were only ex- 
 celled by such predecessors, as it will be raised in venturing 
 to affirm, it will be a longer time before any successors will 
 come near them. Thus one of the greatest praises given to 
 Yirgil is that, no successor in poetry came so near him, as 
 he himself did to Homer. 
 
 Though the majority of public auditors are but bad 
 judges of theatrical action, and are often deceived into 
 their approbation of what has no solid pretence to it ; yet, 
 as there are no other appointed judges to appeal to, and as 
 every single spectator has a right to be one of them, their 
 sentence will be definitive, and the merit of an actor must, 
 in some degree, be weighed by it : by this law, then, Wilks 
 was pronounced an excellent actor ; which, if the few true 
 judges did not allow him to be, they were, at least, too 
 candid to slight, or discourage him. Booth and he were 
 actors so directly opposite in their manner, that if either 
 of them could have borrowed a little of the other's fault, 
 they would both have been improved by it : if Wilks 
 had sonaetimes too violent a vivacity. Booth as often 
 contented himself with too grave a dignity:* the latter 
 
 * This attribute of Booth, which he passessed to a remarkable 
 degree, is thus instanced by Mr. Victor . 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 481 
 
 seemed too much to licave up his words, as the other 
 to dart them to the ear with too quick and sharp a vehem- 
 ence : thus Wilks would too frequently break into the time 
 and measure of the harmony, by too many spirited accents 
 in one line; and Booth, by too solemn a regard to har- 
 mony, would as often lose the necessary spirit of it: sq 
 that, as I have observed, could we have sometimes raised 
 the one and sunk the other, they had both been nearer to 
 the mark. Yet this could not be always objected to them : 
 they had their intervals of unexceptionable excellence, that 
 more than balanced their errors. The masterpiece of Booth 
 was Othello ;* there he was most in character, and seemed 
 
 His entrance, his walking up to the throne, his manner of saluting the em- 
 bassador, his descending, his leaving the stage, though circumstances of a 
 very common nature in theatrical performances, yet were executed by him 
 with a grandeur not to be described, and never failed meeting with distin- 
 guished applause. 
 
 * " To attempt to give the reader a slight drawing of my favour- 
 ite departed actor, I should proceed as follows : 
 
 He was of middle stature, — five feet eight — his form inclined to 
 be athletic, though nothing clumsy or heavy. His air and deport- 
 ment [were] naturally graceful ; he had a marking eye, and a manly 
 sweetness in his countenance ; his voice was completely harmo- 
 nious, from the softness of the flute, to the extent of the trumpet ; 
 his attitudes were all picturesque ; he was noble in his designs, and 
 happy in his execution. 
 
 It was this actor's peculiar felicity, (writes Aaron Hill) to be heard and seen 
 the same, whether as the pleased, the grieved, the pitying, the reproachful, or 
 the angry. One would almost be tempted to borrow the aid of a very bold 
 figure, and, to express this excellence the more significantly, beg permission 
 to affirm, that the blind might have seen him in his voice, and the deaf have 
 heard him in his visage. 
 
 As to his abilities, he was an excellent scholar, and had a fine 
 taste for poetry, painting, and statuary ; of this he has left us emi- 
 nent proof I will not enlarge on the various characters in which 
 
 I I 
 
482 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 not more lo animate or please himself in it, than his specta- 
 tors. It is true, he owed his last and highest advancement 
 
 he excelled, and therefore shall only observe, that in Othello he has 
 left the strongest impression on me. 
 
 Let us consider this character, as inimitably drawn by the au- 
 thor, where all the various passions of the soul are called forth. 
 Othello's love is excessive, his rage tempestuous, and his grief ago- 
 nising. In the first capital scene, lago works Othello into jeal- 
 ousy, and takes his leave as follows : 
 
 In the meantime. 
 Let me be thought too busy in my fears, 
 As worthy cause I have to fear I am. 
 And hold her free, I do beseech your honour. 
 0th. Fear not my government. 
 
 Iag. I once more take my leave. ^ [Exit. 
 
 Oth. This fellow's of exceeding honesty, 
 And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit. 
 Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard. 
 Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings, 
 I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind. 
 To prey on fortune. Haply, for I am black. 
 And have not those soft parts of conversation 
 That chamberers have,— or for I am declin'd 
 Into the vale of years — Yet that's not much — 
 She's gone ; I am abus'd ; and my relief 
 Must be to loathe her. O the curse of marriage I 
 That we can call these delicate creatures ours. 
 And not their appetites I I had rather be a toad. 
 And live upon the vapour of a dungeon. 
 Than keep a corner in the thing I love 
 For others' uses. — Look where she comes !— * 
 
 Desdemona enters. 
 If she be false, O then heav'n mocks itself 1 — 
 I'll not believe it. 
 I look upon this soliloquy to be the touchstone for every new 
 
 * This hemistich is a deviation from the right reading, which stands thus : , 
 Desdemona comes : 
 The correction , of course , will be applied to the same error in a future instance . 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 483 
 
 to his acting Cato ; but it was the novelty, and critical 
 appearance of that character, that chiefly swelled the torrent 
 
 actor. When logo had left him, after a long pause, the eye kept 
 looking after him. Booth spoke the following remark in a low tone 
 of voice : 
 
 This fellow's of exceeding honesty, 
 
 And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit, 
 
 Of human dealings. 
 Then a pause, the look starting into anger : 
 
 If I do find her haggard. 
 
 Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings, 
 
 I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind, 
 
 To prey on fortune. 
 A long pause, as if to ruminate : 
 
 Haply, for I am black. 
 
 And have not those soft parts of conversation 
 
 That chamberers have, — or for I am declin'd 
 
 Into the vale of years — Yet that's not much- 
 After a pause, the following start of violent passion : 
 
 She's gone ; I am abus'd ; and my relief 
 
 Must be to loathe her. O the curse of man-iage I 
 
 That we can call these delicate creatures ours. 
 
 And not their appetites I 
 What follows in a quicker, contemptuous tone : 
 .■ — —I'd rather be a toad. 
 
 And live upon the vapour of a dungeon. 
 
 Than keep a corner in the thing I love 
 
 For others' uses. 
 A look of amazement, seeing Desdemona coming : 
 
 .. '■ Look where she comes '. 
 
 A short pause, the countenance and voice softened; 
 
 If she be false, O then heav*n mocks itself! — 
 
 I'll not believe it. 
 
 In this soliloquy the transitions are frequent, and require such 
 judicious pauses, such alteration of tones and attitudes, such' cor- 
 responding looks, that no actor, since Booth, has been quite com- 
 plete in it."—" History of the Theatres;" vol. 2, p. 7. 
 
484 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 of his applause: for let the sentiments of a declaiming 
 patriot have all the sublimity that poetry can raise them to ; 
 let them be delivered, too, with the utmost grace and dig- 
 nity of elocution that can recommend them to the auditor ; 
 yet this is but one light, wherein the excellence of an actor 
 can shine ; but in Othello we may see him in the variety of 
 nature : there the actor is carried through the different 
 accidents of domestic happiness and misery ; occasionally 
 torn and tortured by the most distracting passion that can 
 raise terror or compassion in the spectator. Such are the 
 characters that a master actor would delight in ; and, 
 therefore, in Othello I may safely aver that Booth showed 
 himself thrice the actor, that he could in Cato. And yet 
 his merit in acting Cato need not be diminished by this 
 comparison. 
 
 Wilks often regretted that, in tragedy, he had not the 
 full and strong voice of Booth, to command and grace his 
 periods with : but Booth used to say that, if his ear had 
 been equal to it, Wilks had voice enough to have shown 
 himself a much better tragedian. Now though there might 
 be some truth in this, yet these two actors were of so mixed 
 a merit, that, even in tragedy, the superiority was not always 
 on the same side: in sorrow, tenderness, or resignation, 
 Wilks plainly had the advantage, and seemed more pathet- 
 ically to feel, look, and express his calamity : but in the 
 more turbulent transports of the heart. Booth again bore the 
 palm, and left all competitors behind him. A fact, per- 
 haps, will set this difference in a clearer light. I have for- 
 merly seen Wilks act Othello^* and Booth the Earl of Es- 
 
 * Wilks made his first appearance as Othello, on Thursday, the 
 22ndof June,1710,and, as we gather from the " Tattler ,"( 1 ) excited 
 unusual curiosity by his assumption of a character so opposite to 
 
 (1) No. 187. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 485 
 
 sc^j* in which they both miscarried : neither the exclama- 
 tory rage and jealousy of the one, nor the plaintive dis- 
 tresses of the other, were happily executed, or became either 
 of them ; though in the contrary characters they were both 
 excellent. 
 
 When an actor becomes and naturally looks the charac- 
 ter he stands in, I have often observed it to have had as for- 
 tunate an effect, and as much recommended him to the ap- 
 probation of the common auditors, as the most correct or 
 judicious utterance of the sentiments : this was strongly 
 visible in the favourable reception Wilks met with in Ham- 
 let ^ where, I own, the half of what he spoke was as painful 
 to my ear, as every line that came from Betterton was charm- 
 ing ; and yet it is not impossible, could they have come to 
 a poll, but Wilks might have had a majority of admirers : 
 however, such a division had been no proof that the pre- 
 eminence had not still remained in Betterton ; and if I 
 should add that Booth, too, was behind Betterton in Othelhy 
 it would be saying no more than Booth himself had judg- 
 ment and candour enough to know and confess. And if 
 both he and Wilks are allowed, in the two above-mentioned 
 characters, a second place to so great a master as Betterton, 
 it will be a rank of praise that the best actors, since my time, 
 might have been proud of. 
 
 I am now come towards the end of that time, through 
 
 his common line of acting. Steele remarks, in a subsequent part 
 of this paper, (2) that Wilks failed in no part of Othello y but 
 where he became the copyist of Betterton. 
 
 * Wilks's merit in the Earl of Essex was so great, that Steele as- 
 sures us his person and behaviour had " no small share in conduc- 
 ing to the popularity of the play."( 1 ) When Booth played this 
 part I cannot ascertain. 
 
 (2) No. 201. 
 (I) No. 14. 
 
 no 
 
486 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 which our affairs had long gone forward in a settled course 
 of prosperity. From the visible errors of former manage- 
 ments, we had, at last, found the necessary means to bring 
 our private laws and orders into the general observance and 
 approbation of our society : diligence and neglect were 
 under an equal eye'; the one never failed of its reward, and 
 the other, by being very rarely excused, was less frequently 
 committed. You are now to consider us in our height of 
 favour, and so much in fashion with the politer part of the 
 town, that our house, every Saturday, seemed to be the ap- 
 pointed assembly of the first ladies of quality : of this, too, 
 the conunon spectators were so well apprised, that for twen- 
 tjf:yea,rs successively, on that day, we scarcely ever failed of 
 a crowded audience ; for which occasion we particularly 
 reserved our best plays, acted in the best manner we could 
 give them. 
 
 ( 'AnpLongourimany necessary reformations, what not a lit^ 
 tie preserved tons the regard of our auditors, was the decency 
 of our clear stage ; from whence we had now, for many 
 years, shut out those idle gentlemen who seemed more de- 
 lighted to be pretty objects themselves, than capable of any 
 pleasure from the play ; who took their daily stands ; where 
 they might best elbow the actor, and come in for their share 
 of the auditor's attention. In many a laboured scene of the 
 warmest humour, and of the most affecting passion, have I 
 seen the best actors disconcerted, while these buzzing mos- 
 quitoes have been fluttering round their eyes and ears. 
 How was it possible an actor, so embarrassed, should keep 
 his impatience from entering into that different temper 
 which his personated character might require him to be 
 master of?* 
 
 * In the early part of the eighteenth century, the disorders cre- 
 ated by this interruption were carried to such excess, that soldiers 
 were stationed on the stage to prevent it.( 1 ) 
 
 (1) " TnUleri" No. 19. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 487 
 
 Future actors iiicay perhaps wish I would set this griev^ 
 ance in a stronger light ; and, to say the truth, where audit- 
 ors are ill-bred, it cannot well be expected that actors should 
 l)e polite. Let me, therefore, show how far an artist, in any 
 science, is apt to be hurt by any sort of inattention to his 
 performance. 
 
 While the famous Corelli, at Rome, was playing some 
 musical composition of his own, to a select company in the 
 private apartment of his patron-cardinal, he observed, in 
 the height of his harmony, his eminence was engaging in a 
 detached conversation ; upon which he suddenly stopped 
 short, and gently laid down his instrument : the cardinal, 
 surprised at the unexpected cessation, asked him if a string 
 was broken ; to which Corelli, in an honest conscience of 
 what was due to his music, replied, " No, sir, I was only 
 afraid I interrupted business." His eminence, who knew 
 that a genius could never show itself to advantage where it 
 had not its proper regards, took this reproof in good part, 
 and broke off his conversation, to hear the whole concerto 
 played over again. 
 
 Another story will let us see what effect a mistaken of- 
 fence of this kind had upon the French theatre ; which was 
 told me by a gentleman of the long robe, then at Paris, and 
 who was himself the innocent author of i,t. At the tragedy 
 of " Zaire," while the' celebrated Mademoiselle Gaussin* 
 was delivering a soliloquy, this gentleman was seized with a 
 sudden fit of coughing, which gave the actress some sur- 
 prise and interruption ; and his fit increasing, she was forced 
 
 * Marie Magdeleine Gaussin made her debut upon the Parisian 
 boards, as Junie in " Britannicus," on the 2Sth of April, 1731. 
 She was long held in the highest estimation for her pathetic pow- 
 ers, till, having married a dancernamed Taolaigo in 1758, she soon 
 afterwards withdrew from theatrical life. 
 
 1 1 4 
 
488 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 to stand silent so long, that it drew the eyes of the uneasy 
 audience upon him; when a French gentleman, leaning 
 forward to him, asked him if this actress had given him any 
 particular offence, that he took so public an occasion to re- 
 sent it ? The English gentleman, in the utmost surprise, as- 
 sured him, so far from it, that he was a particular admirer 
 of her performance ; that his malady was his real misfor- 
 tune, and if he apprehended any return of it, he would rath- 
 er quit his seat than disoblige either the actress or the au- 
 dience. 
 
 This public decency in their theatre I have myself seen 
 carried so far, that a gentleman in their second loge, or 
 middle-gallery, being observed to sit forward himself, while 
 a lady sate behind him, a loud number of voices called out 
 to him from the pit, " Place a la dame ! Place a la dame!" 
 When the person so offending, either not apprehending the 
 meaning of the clamour, or possibly being some John Trott 
 who feared no man alive, the noise was continued for sever- 
 al minutes ; nor were the actors, though ready on the 
 stage, suffered to begin the play, till this unbred person was 
 laughed out of his seat, and had placed the lady before him. 
 
 Whether this politeness, observed at plays, may be 
 owing to their clime, their complexion, or their govern- 
 ment, is of no great consequence ; but, if it is to be acquir- 
 ed, methinks it is pity our accomplished countrymen, who, 
 every year, import so much of this nation's gawdy garni- 
 ture, should not, in this long course of our commerce with 
 them, have brought over a little of their theatrical good- 
 breeding, too. 
 
 I have been the more copious upon this head, that it 
 might be judged how much it stood us upon* to have got 
 
 * This mode of expression is now obsolete. It occurs very often 
 in our early dramatists. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER 489 
 
 rid of those improper spectators 1 have been speaking of: 
 for whatever regard we might draw by keeping them at a 
 distance from our stage, I had observed, while they were 
 admitted behind our scenes, we but too often showed them 
 the wrong side of our tapestry; and that many a tolerable 
 actor was the less valued, when it was known what ordi- 
 nary stuff he was made of. 
 
 Among the many more disagreeable distresses that are 
 almost unavoidable in the government of a theatre, those 
 we so often met with from the persecution of bad authors 
 were what we could never entirely get rid of. But let us 
 state both our cases, and then see where the justice of the 
 complaint lies. 'Tis true, when an ingenious indigent had 
 taken, perhaps, a whole summer's pains, invitd Minervdy 
 to heap up a pile of poetry into the likeness of a play, and 
 found, at last, the gay promise of his winter's support was 
 rejected and abortive, a man almost ought to be a poet 
 himself to be justly sensible of his distress. Then, indeed, 
 great allowances ought to be made for the severe reflections 
 he might naturally throw upon those pragmatical actors 
 who had no sense or taste of good writing. And yet if his 
 relief was only to be had by his imposing a bad play upon 
 a good set of actors, methinks the charity that first looks at 
 home has as good an excuse for its coldness, as the unhappy 
 object of it had a plea for his being relieved at their expense. 
 But immediate want was not always confessed their motive 
 for writing ; fame, honour, and Parnassian glory, had some- 
 times taken a romantic turn in their heads ; and then they 
 gave themselves the air of talking to us in a higher strain : 
 "Gentlemen were not to be so treated; the stage was like to 
 be finely governed, when actors pretended to be judges of 
 authors," &c. But, " Dear gentlemen, if they were good 
 actors, why not ? How should they have been able to act, 
 or rise to any excellence, if you suppose them not to feel 
 
^^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 or understand what you offered them ? Would you have 
 reduced them to the mere mimicry of parrots and mon- 
 keys, that can only prate, and play a great many pretty 
 tricks, without reflection? Or, how are you sure your 
 friend, the infallible judge, to whom you read your fine 
 piece, might be sincere in the praises he gave it ? Or, in- 
 deed, might not you have thought the best judge a bad one, 
 if he had disliked it ? Consider, too, how possible it might 
 be that a man of sense would not care to tell you a truth, he 
 was sure you would not believe; and, if neither Dry den, 
 Congreve, Steele, Addison, nor Farquhar, (if you please) 
 ever made any complaint of their incapacity to judge, why 
 is the world to believe the slights you have met with from 
 them, are either undeserved or particular? Indeed, in- 
 deed, I am not conscious that we ever did you, or any 
 of your fraternity, the least injustice." Yet this was 
 not all we had to struggle with; to supersede our right 
 of rejecting the recommendation, or rather imposition of 
 some great persons, whom it was not prudence to disoblige, 
 they sometimes came in, with a high hand, to support their 
 pretensions ; and then, coute qui coute^ acted it must be. 
 So, when the short life of this wonderful nothing was over, 
 the actors were perhaps abused in a preface, for obstructing 
 the success of it,* and the town publicly damned us for our 
 private civility. 
 
 I cannot part with these fine gentlemen authors, without 
 mentioning a ridiculous disgraccia that befel one of them, 
 many years ago : this solemn bard, who, like Boj/s, only 
 wrote for fame and reputation, on the second day's public 
 triumph of his muse, marching in a stately full-bottomed 
 
 * Such was the case in Dennis's " Comic Gallant," wJitere one 
 of the actors, whom I beUeve to be Bullock, is most severely 
 handled. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 
 
 491 
 
 l^eriwig into the lobby of the house, with a lady of condi- 
 tion in his hand, when raising his voice to the Sir Fopling 
 sound, that became the mouth of a man of quality^ and 
 calling out — " Hey, box-keeper ! where is my Lady Such- 
 a-one's servant ?" was unfortunately answered, by honest 
 John Trott, which then happened to be the box-keeper's 
 real name, " Sir, we have dismissed ; there was not com- 
 pany enough to pay candles." In which mortal astonish- 
 ment, it may be sufficient to leave him. And yet had the 
 actors refused this play, what resentment might have been 
 thought too severe for them ? 
 
 Thus was our administration often censured for acci- 
 dents, which were not in our power to prevent : a possible 
 case in the wisest governments. If, therefore, some plays 
 have been preferred to the stage that were never fit to have 
 been seen there, let this be our best excuse for it. And 
 yet, if the merit of our rejecting the many bad plays that 
 pressed hard upon us, were weighed against the few that 
 were thus imposed upon us, our conduct, in general, might 
 have more amendments of the stage to boast of, than 
 errors to answer for. But it is now time to drop the 
 curtain. 
 
 During our four last years, there happened so very little 
 unlike what has been said before, that I shall conclude with 
 barely mentioning those unavoidable accidents that drew 
 on our dissolution. The first, that for some years had led 
 the way to greater, was the continued ill state of health 
 that rendered Booth* incapable of appearing on the stage. 
 
 * Barton Booth was descended from an antient and honourable 
 family, long settled in the county palatine of Lancaster, and allied 
 to the Earls of Warrington, upon whose barony of Delaniere the 
 subject of this article had a contingent claim. He was the third and 
 youngest son of John Booth, Esq., a gentleman who having 
 
492 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 The next was the death of Mrs. Oldfield,* which happened 
 on the 23d of October, 1730. About the same time, too, 
 
 impaired his estate by mismanagement, left the country to live in 
 Westminster, where he hoped, by interest and application, to have 
 his children provided for. Barton, who was born in 1681 , and had 
 just attained his third year at the time of this journey, was sent to 
 Westminster-school in 1690, at that time governed by the cele- 
 brated Dr. Busby, under whom the rudiments of his education were 
 received. Booth soon evinced a strong tendency to learning in 
 general, and before his twelfth year was completed, gained the no- 
 tice of even Busby himself, by the extent and precocity of his 
 attainments. With Horace, for whom he felt a strong predilec- 
 tion, he was remarkably familiar, and delighted much in the study 
 and recitation of passages from the other Latin poets; which, 
 by constant application he succeeded in imprinting upon his 
 memory. Shakspeare and Milton were also among the bards 
 from whose pages he declaimed, and such was the melody of his 
 voice, and the elegance of his manner, that these little exercises of 
 inherent genius became the admiration of the whole school. 
 
 In consequence of this superior talent, when, according to 
 annual custom, a Latin play was to be performed, young Booth 
 was selected for the capital part, which happened to be Pam- 
 philius, in the " Andria," and so powerful was the impression 
 which his efforts created, that Dr. Busby, who held theatrical 
 accomplishments in high esteem, adopted the general opinion, and 
 honoured his pupil with unbounded applause. The success of this 
 effort, as Booth freely confessed, filled him with ambition to become 
 an actor, and though his father intended him for the pulpit, 
 he was sedulously bent upon the means of accomplishing this 
 desire. At the age of seventeen, and as the time arrived for 
 his removal to the university, he determined to run any risk, 
 rather than embrace a line of life so opposite to the inclinations of 
 his genius, and the impulse of his temper ; he therefore applied to 
 Mr. Betterton for an appearance at his theatre, but this applica- 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 493 
 
 Mrs. Porter, then in her highest reputation for tragedy, 
 was lost to us, by the misfortune of a dislocated limb, from 
 
 tion was declined, from a fear of offending the noble family to 
 which he was allied. Booth, upon this refusal, becoming ac- 
 quainted with Ashbury, the Dublin manager, who was then 
 probably in London, looking out for recruits, abandoned the 
 prospect which lay before him, and went over to Ireland, a needy 
 and friendless adventurer, in June, 1698. 
 
 Ambition, whatever shape it assumes, has in general some re- 
 deeming feature, though, in its noblest form, but a wild heaping 
 up of many faculties for the consummation of a single object. Its 
 results are like the huge Egyptian pyramids, whose materials, 
 if wisely dispensed, would have edified much grander monuments 
 of the wealth and power by which they were raised. Such is 
 ambition in its fairest aspect; but when it goads us into enter- 
 prises of a mean or derogatory sort, it becomes an apostasy from 
 sense and virtue, and merits the scorn of all who can trace its 
 abject use, or resist its successful splendour. We have seen a 
 being like Booth, gifted with rare endowments, improved by 
 liberal education, and possessed of great influence, forsaking the 
 path that conducted to honour, and devoting his fine qualities to 
 the illustration of an art that none but the lowest creatures of 
 his kind could encourage and reward ; what then is the human 
 mind thus abated in its warmth, and divested of its lustre ? It is 
 " a god kissing carrion ;" an orb that has rolled from its native 
 circuit, " swings blind and blackening in the moonless air," and 
 ceases to claim the reverence it so long commanded. 
 
 Booth made his first appearance on the Dublin stage as Oroo^ 
 nokOf a part in which he came off with every testimonial of 
 approbation. An odd accident attended this performance. It being 
 very warm weather, as he waited to go on in the last scene of the 
 play, he inadvertently wiped his face, so that on entering, to use 
 his own words, he had the appearance of a chimney-sweeper. Mr. 
 Ashbury, who had given Booth some valuable instruction in this 
 
494 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 the overturning of a chaise. And our last stroke was 
 the death of Wilks, in September,* the year following, 1731. 
 
 arduous character, was so pleased l)y the success which attended it, 
 that he made him a present of five guineas, and opportune indeed 
 was this donation, for Booth's finances, at the time, were reduced 
 to less than his last shilling. Here he continued two years, in the 
 course of which he reconciled himself to his friends, and rose 
 to considerable eminence; but growing dissatisfied with his 
 situation, he returned to England, and played in a country com- 
 pany. Fired by the praise of several English gentlemen who 
 had seen him act in Ireland, his chief object was to make a trial of 
 his talents upon the London boards, and as soon therefore, there is 
 reason to suppose, as circumstances would permit, he endeavoured 
 to realise this intention. By the assistance of old Boman, and as 
 a further step towards his success, under the auspices of Lord 
 Fitzharding, he was introduced to Betterton, who, with great 
 kindness took him under his care, and augured sanguinely of 
 those powers which Booth was soon enabled to unfold. He made 
 his first appearance, about Christmas, 1700,(1) as Maximus, in 
 " Valentinian^" and though associated in this play with Betterton, 
 Verbruggen, and Mrs. Barry, the great theatrical luminaries of 
 the age, his merit was conspicuous, and his success, decisive. 
 Booth's school-fellow, Rowe, soon after this produced his tragedy 
 of the " Ambitious Step-mother," in which the part of Artaban 
 tended to establish the reputation he had already acquired. 
 
 While Booth was gradually advancing to the pinnacle of 
 favour, the stage experienced a variety of those changes, to which, 
 while governed by individual caprice, it will always be subjected. 
 There is no situation so arduous, in the whole circle of public 
 amusements, as the dictatorship of our metropolitan drama; and 
 
 (1) Certainly be/ore 1701, to which the " Biographia Dramatica" allots 
 it, because Rowe's>* Ambitious Step-mother," in which Booth played ^rta- 
 ban, was published, accor.diwg to this very book, in 1700. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. > 495 
 
 Notwithstanding such irreparable losses whether, when 
 tliese favourite actors were no more to be had, their sue- 
 yet when we look to the manner in which this seat has been 
 generally filled, it would seem to be one of the easiest upon which 
 imbecility has ever reposed. These convulsions at length divided 
 Booth from his venerable preceptor, and when the chief actors 
 at Drury-lane theatre, exhausted by the tyranny of Rich, sought 
 an asylum elsewhere, Booth, for which Gibber reproaches him, 
 continued firm to his early master, till a last stroke of severity put 
 an end to the dominion he had so long abused. Unworthy 
 motives have been imputed to Booth for the manner in which 
 he acted, and Gibber, who asperses with impunity, has been 
 among the foremost in fixing this imputation. When, however, 
 it is remembered that Wilks, who became assuming and intracta- 
 ble (2) whenever his authority was disputed, had worried Booth 
 for nine years, by putting Mills before him (3) in every character 
 to which, from conscious superiority, he was intitled, his eagerness 
 to shake off the yoke that Wilks had imposed upon him, will 
 justify a more exceptionable step than that of adhering to the 
 patentee in the midst of his accumulated distresses. The actors 
 by whom Dogget, Wilks, and Gibber were followed, fled, like the 
 vermin from Prosperd's boat, upon instinct, without any view 
 to justify their support, or any motive to vindicate their desertion . 
 They were blown away like down from the thistle, which is 
 scattered by the first blast that assails it; and in heaping obloquy 
 upon the conduct of Booth, they hoped to lessen the altitude 
 of their own dishonour. Booth most probably saw and acknow- 
 ledged the tyranny of which his associates complained; but he also 
 felt the usurpations of Wilks, by whose harsh and arrogant 
 measures no member of the company but himself was even par- 
 
 (2) See Gibber's own admission of this truth, on p. 407. 
 
 (3) It is admitted, at p. 466, that Mills had no pretensions to cope with 
 Booth as an actor. 
 
496 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 cessors might not be better borne with than they could 
 possibly have hoped while the former were in being ; or 
 
 lialiy injured. His alliance with the patentee was therefore more 
 an act of necessity than choice, and one for which the rude spirit 
 of Wilks is alone responsible. 
 
 Booth continued to hold his high rank in DruryJane theatre 
 after the possession of it was obtained by Collier, and the con- 
 federated actors. When the " Roscius Anglicanus" was printed 
 in 1708, Downs, who certainly took most of his tones from public 
 opinion, particularised Booth as a " complete tragedian," though 
 Wilks, Mills, and Gibber still excluded him from many opportu- 
 nities of displaying his merit, by engrossing those parts in which he 
 had a right to appear. Philips's vile copy of Racine,. ycleped the 
 " Distressed Mother," supplied Booth with a signal occasion to 
 manifest his superiority, though the part of Pyrrhus, in which 
 his triumph was achieved, is one that even secondary actors have 
 since despised. Such was the awful majesty of his deportment, 
 that his entrance, his walking up to the throne, his salutation of 
 the ambassador, his descent from the throne, and his departure 
 from the stage, though circumstances of a very common sort, in 
 theatrical performances, were yet executed with inconceivable 
 grandeur, and welcomed by tumultuous applause. 
 
 Accident sometimes does more for individuals than all the force 
 of merit, and all the prudence of design. The stage is so peculi- 
 arly exposed to this glorious uncertainty, that many actors, like 
 Malvolio, have " greatness thrust upon them," not only without 
 the slightest desert, but even the remotest expectation. Such was 
 the fate of Booth, who found himself suddenly exalted to a height 
 he had long been qualified to attain, by causes over which no visi- 
 ble agency could exercise its controul. In the year 1712, Mr. 
 Addison produced his play of " Cato," a frigid and declamatory 
 work, exhibiting some popular notions of government, and embel- 
 lished with a few patches of poetry. So heated was the public 
 mind at this juncture by political incendiaries, that " Cato" fired 
 
Life of mr. colley gibber. 497 
 
 that the generality of spectators, from their want of taste, 
 were easier to be pleased than the few that knew better ; 
 
 the train of controversy at both ends, and was eagerly caught at, 
 alike by whigs and tories, as a test of their constitutional opinions. 
 Booth was luckily the prime bearer of this mighty brand, which 
 " lighted him the way" to thickened honours and redoubled emolu- 
 ment. He received a handsome present from the tory supporters 
 of " Cato," with a suitable message, for the zeal his performance 
 had displayed ; and the managers evinced their sense of his super- 
 lative merit, by making him a similar donation. But, though 
 " Glamis and Cawdor" had been gained, the " greatest was be- 
 hind." Lord Bolingbroke, between whom and Booth there reigned 
 the most familiar intercourse, procured a special order from Queen 
 Ann for his admission into the management with which Wilks, 
 Dogget, and Gibber were invested. " If you'd dive into a man's 
 heart," says Vanbrugh, " you must enter into his pleasures ;" and 
 this maxim will perhaps account for the close intimacy which sub- 
 sisted between the peer and the player. Our apologist, who is 
 always ingenious in the fabrication of a bad argument, presumes 
 that Booth was merely brought forward to show that the stage 
 possessed no property but what the crown, at its pleasure, might 
 dispose of; and if the license under which Gibber and his compan- 
 ions managed was only granted during pleasure, what, in equity, 
 was to hinder the crown from disposing of such property as the 
 license might be termed ? Gibber admits (4) that the only title of 
 his colleagues and himself to the pre-eminence they enjoyed, was 
 the superiority of their professional merit, and he owns on a sub- 
 sequent page (5) that Booth had also a " manifest merit," at the 
 time his elevation to their level was imperiously recommended. 
 Now, why the very cause which qualified Wilks, Dogget, and 
 
 (4) Sec p. 387. 
 
 (5) Seep. 406. 
 
 K K 
 
498 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 or that, at worst, our actors were still preferable to any 
 other company of the several, then subsisting ; or, to 
 
 Gibber, should not qualify Booth, it is difficult to understand. 
 They had " no visible competitors on the stage," in 1709, when 
 this license was granted, but when, in 1712, the name of Booth 
 became as glorious as their own, what was to tie up the hands of 
 their royal mistress from receiving him into that favour which his 
 future associates had duly experienced ? It is Gibber, and not the 
 crown, that would make a property of the license; he is for consid- 
 ering it as an inalienable possession in his own case, though not so 
 in the case of Rich ; while the crown, looking only to principle, 
 and not to persons, divides its benevolence with Booth, upon the 
 very grounds that had directed its patronage to Wilks, Dogget, 
 and Gibber. 
 
 Mr. Booth, in 1704, married Miss Barkham, the daughter of a 
 Norfolk baronet, who died without issue about six years after 
 their union. At her death he engaged in an amour with Susanna 
 Mountfort, the only child of Mrs. Verbruggen, by her first hus- 
 band, who deposited property amounting to three thousand two 
 hundred pounds, (6) in his hands, which, at the dissolution of 
 
 (6) The " Biographia Dramatica," by medium of Mr. Jones, says " eight 
 thousand pounds," which it also assures us, most sagaciously, was a " con- 
 siderable" sum. Now as the fact depends upon a deed of release signed by 
 Susanna Mountfort, in June, 1718, 1 will print a passage from it, to show 
 the accuracy of my statement : 
 
 " Whereas I Susanna Mountfort, of the parish of St. Giles', in the county 
 of Middlesex, single woman, did some time past deposit in the hands of 
 Barton Booth, of St. Giles-in-the-fields, in the said county of Middlesex, 
 gent., several exchequer and bank bills, amounting in value to the sum of 
 three thousand and two hundred pounds ; now know all men by these presents 
 that he, the said Barton Booth, hath this day delivered unto me, the said 
 Susanna Mountfort, all and every of the same exchequer and bank bills, so by 
 me formerly deposited with him, the said Barton Booth, as aforesaid, and 
 that the same now are of the full value of three thousand and two hundred 
 pounds" — 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 499 
 
 whatever cause it might be imputed, our audiences were 
 far less abated than our apprehensions had suggested. So 
 
 their intimacy, in June 1718, was most honourably restored. 
 Booth's conduct in the course of this affair was cruelly traduced ; 
 he had not only injured Mrs. Mountfort, it was said, in her 
 feelings, but her fortune, though a formal release, under her own 
 hand, exculpated him from so odious a charge. At the time this 
 attachment commenced. Booth wanted money to purchase the 
 " stock" of his new associate-managers, upon which, as Gibber 
 leads us to conclude, they had set " a good round value ; (7) and 
 hence, perhaps, the cause of Booth's accepting the deposit with 
 which he was intrusted. 
 
 In the year 1719, Mr. Booth, who seems to have been a liber- 
 tine and a sensualist, gave his hand to Miss Santlow, a strumpet of 
 condition, who had just stepped from " the rank sweat of an 
 enseamed bed," where two successive, and perhaps rival, possess- 
 ors,- had revelled in her charms. Booth it is said, was warned 
 against the infamy of this connection, but faced it out, if Dennis's 
 assertion (8) be true and applicable, by protesting that he liked 
 his bride the better for her want of virtue. It is impossible to 
 argue upon taste so depraved, or falsehood so audacious; but 
 Booth must submit to at least a choice of evils, and be treated 
 as either a dolt, upon whom the first charm of woman had been 
 wasted, or a knave who concealed his dislike of immodesty 
 beneath an affectation of indifference. Miss Santlow was wealthy, 
 and in her wealth perhaps consisted the whole secret of Booth's 
 abominable declaration. 
 
 This excellent actor continued to perform his theatrical duties 
 without intermission, till the year 1727, when, early in the acting 
 season, he was seized with a fever, which lasted six-and-forty days. 
 
 (7) See page 406. 
 
 (8) In his first letter on the " Character and Conduct of Sir John Edgar. 
 
 K K 2 
 
500 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 that, though it began to grow late in life with me, having 
 still health and strength enough to have been as useful on 
 
 and though his health was partially restored by the skill and ciare 
 of his medical advisers, yet he never enjoyed it sufficiently for 
 accustomed exertion. He returned to the stage, in his favourite 
 part oi Pyrrhus, about the middle of the season, (9) and though 
 reduced in flesh, seemed to have lost none of that spirit and 
 vigour by which his performances were distinguished. The house 
 was crowded, and the applause universal. 
 
 Soon after the accession of George the Second, " King Henry 
 the Eighth" was revived, with a pompous scene of Anna Bullen's 
 coronation, and in this play Mr. Booth performed King Henry 
 more than twenty successive times. From fatigue, he fell into 
 a relapse of his disorder, which came back with such violence, 
 that he was compelled to relinquish the character of Julio, in 
 Theobald's " Double jfalsehood," which devolved in consequence 
 upon Williams, who sustained it till the sixth evening, when 
 Booth, at Theobald's solicitation, and with a fatal neglect of his 
 illness, took it upon himself for seven nights, after which he finally 
 withdrew from the audience he had so long, so often, and so 
 largely delighted. (10) 
 
 The fever with which Booth was afflicted turned at last to 
 
 (9) The " Biographia Dramatica," that happy melange^ at least in Mr. 
 Jones's hands, of simple ignorance and wilful mistake, says " Booth never 
 appeared again upon the stage, — excepting in the run of a play called the 
 * Double Falsehood,' brought on the theatre by Mr. Theobald, in 1729, and 
 asserted, but unjustly, to be written by Shakspeare." 
 
 (10) This happened in 1728, when Theobald's mystified play was publish- 
 ed. "But no," says the ** Biographia Dramatica;" it was in " 1729," and 
 to prove its veracity, in two other places printeth as follows : 
 
 The Double Falsehood; or, The Distrest Lovers. Play, 8vo. 1728. Vol. 1, 
 part 2 ; p. 706. 
 
 The Double Falsehood ; or. The Distrest Lovers. Play, by Lewis Theobald. 
 Acted at Drury-lane. 8vo. 1728. Vol. 2, p.\7Z. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 501 
 
 the stage as ever, I was under no visible necessity of quitt- 
 ing it. But so it happened that our surviving fraternity, 
 
 an inveterate jaundice, and by the advice of his physicians, he 
 went to Bath for the benefit of the waters. He staid there nearly 
 three months, but without effect, and then returned to London, 
 from which, fancying that sea-sickness might assist his cure, he 
 embarked, with Mrs. Booth, on a trip to Ostend. After travelling 
 through Flanders to Antwerp, with a design of proceeding into 
 Holland, to consult Dr. Boerhaave, who had been made acquainted 
 with his case, he was compelled to return, his fever raging with 
 such force that he was driven, almost every other day, to keep his 
 bed. Strong hopes, during the year 1 73 J, were entertained 
 of his recovery; and such, indeed, was his convalescence about the 
 period spoken of, that he took a house at Hampstead, and received 
 the visits of his anxious friends. Their expectations, however, 
 were defeated by the virulence of his complaint, which, after 
 many fluctuations of acute pain and bitter disappointment, brought 
 him to the grave on Tuesday, May the 10th, 1733. He was 
 buried at Cowley, near Uxbridge. 
 
 The reputation of Mr. Booth is more firm than splendid, for 
 though certainly one of the greatest actors with which our histri- 
 onic annals are enriched, he has not been made the subject of 
 consideration or reference, so often as his talents are intitled 
 to require. Some of his admirers have imputed this fact to 
 the very moderate praise bestowed upon him by Gibber, and 
 others deduce it from the satire of Pope, who has noticed him with 
 all the severity of contempt, in his imitations of Horace. His 
 countenance of pantomime ( 1 1 ) has also immortalised him in the 
 
 (11) " I remember," says Theophilus Gibber, " being with Mr. Booth at 
 a coffee-house, when a number of gentlemen politely addressed him, and gave 
 him their thanks for the extraordinarj' pleasure they had received the night 
 before from his excellent acting in the part of Varanes. They were unani- 
 mous in their almost raptured praises, and as jointly, but genteely blamed 
 
 K k3 
 
^^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 having got some chimerical, and, as I thought, unjust no- 
 tions into their heads, which, though I knew they were 
 
 " Dunciad ;" but these attacks, though collateral aids, were not the 
 causes of that depression which Booth's memory has experienced. 
 It should rather be attributed to the want of being frequently seen 
 in parts of importance, which, till placed upon equal terms with 
 the turbulent and haughty WiJks, who so partially favoured his 
 friend Mills, he could never pretend to. Even when admitted to 
 the management, the sway of this imperious coadjutor was not 
 always to be resisted ; and Booth, whose natural indolence unfitted 
 
 him, for having tacked to so fine a play that senseless stuff, as they were 
 pleased to call it, of ' Perseus and Andromeda,' &c. ; adding, they were much 
 beneath the dignity of the theatre. Mr. Booth frankly answered, that he 
 thought a thin audience was a much greater indignity to the stage than any 
 they mentioned, and a full one most likely to keep up the spirit of the actor, 
 and consequently heighten the representation. He begged them to consider 
 there were many more spectators than men of taste and judgment ; and if, 
 by the artifice of a pantomime, they could entice a greater number to partake 
 of the utile dulci of a good play than could be drawn without it, he could not 
 see any great harm in it : that as they were performed after the play, they 
 were no interruption to it, and gave the people of fashion an opportunity, if 
 they left the house before the farce began, of getting to their coaches with 
 more ease than if the whole audience poured out together. For his own part, 
 he confessed, he considered profit as well as fame : and as to their plays, even 
 they reaped some advantage from the pantomimes, by adding to the accoimts, 
 which enabled the managers to be more expensive in habits, and other deco- 
 rations of the theatre in general, and to give better encouragement to their 
 performers. He desired them to recollect what sums were expended in operas, 
 how much it was the fashion to subscribe to them, how high were their pri- 
 ces,* and what a train of nobility and gentry were drawn to them, to the no 
 small prejudice of the playhouse, as appeared by the melancholy testimony 
 of their receipts, till by those auxiliary pantomimes, they not only found their 
 pit and galleries were fuller, but that their boxes made a nobler appearance ; 
 and, as Mr. Aaron Hill has justly observed, he could not think it the business 
 of the directors to be wise to empty boxes." — ** Life of Booth," p. 68. 
 
 * The same as at piesent. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. <^03 
 
 without much diflicuKy to bo surmounted, I chose not, at 
 my time of day, to enter into new contentions ; and, as I 
 
 him for intrigue or contention, still permitted Wilks to exercise a 
 part of his injurious authority. From the year 1709, when Mr. 
 Rowe published his edition of Shakspeare, the appearance of that 
 author's plays became more frequent ; and Booth, soon after the 
 death of Betterton, profiting by his newly-acquired power, under- 
 took the representation of a few principal parts, and was much 
 admired in them. 
 
 It is a singular thing that Garrick, with all the resources of his 
 tragic art, could never exhibit sufficient merit in any branch 
 of passion of which Othello is composed, to retain possession of 
 that mighty character. Even Barry, a mere automaton, excelled 
 him most immeasurably in this noble part, and Booth, if the 
 record of his success can be relied on, eclipsed them both, by the 
 fervour of his love, the anguish of his jealousy, and the vehemence 
 of his despair. His dignity and force in the gallant Antony were 
 so great, that when Dryden's heavy play was revived in the year 
 1719, he brought six successive audiences to it, without the help 
 of pantomime or farce; which, at that time, was esteemed an 
 extraordinary attraction. Hotspur he is said to have rendered one 
 of the most perfect exhibitions ever witnessed ;( 12) his excellence 
 
 (12) " BooilCs Hotspur " says Davies, " was, in the opinion of the critics, 
 who saw him in the character, one of the most perfect exhibitions on the stage. 
 His str4)ng, yet harmonious pipe, reached the highest note of exclamatory rage, 
 without hurting the music of its tone. His gesture was ever in unison with his 
 utterance, and his eye constantly combining with both to give a correspondent 
 force to the passion. His tread in this part was quick, yet significant, accom- 
 panied with princely grandeur. When Gilfard, late manager of the theatre in 
 Goodman's-fields, an actor mucli favoured by Wilks, on account of paying him 
 that most pleasing of all flattery, an imitation of his manner of acting, was 
 through the interest of his great exemplar, favoured with a benefit, and per- 
 mitted to act that night the Prince of fVales, Booth, who entertained so great 
 a contempt for Wilks in tragedy, and, of consequence, still more despbed his 
 
 K K 4 
 
504 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 found an inclination in some of them to purchase the whole 
 power of the patent into their own hands, 1 did my best, 
 
 iiJ also celebrated in a long line of diversified characters; and such 
 was the facility of his genius, that he could descend to the most 
 cordial touches of the humourous, (13) or mount to the highest pin- 
 nacle of the sublime. 
 
 humble imitator, declared, without any ceremony, that he would that night 
 * let off an Irish actor.' The theatre was extremely crowded, both in the front 
 and on the stage.* I have heard Mr. Lacy, the late manager, Mr. Victor, and 
 others, who were present, declare, that they never saw so animated a perform- 
 ance, and attended with such loud and repeated plaudits from all parts of the 
 theatre, as Booth's Hotspur. Giffard, who was just arrived from the Dublin 
 theatre, honestly owned that he was struck with astonishment, and joined in 
 the general approbation." — *' Dramatic Miscellanies ;" vol. i, p. 222. 
 
 (13) ** Booth," says Davies, " succeeded Betterton in Henry the Eighth, 
 To support the dignity of the prince, and yet retain that vein of humour which 
 pervades this character, requires great caution, and without particular attention, 
 Harry will be manufactured into a royal bully or ridiculous buffoon. Booth 
 was particularly happy in preserving the true spirit of the part through the 
 whole play. Mr. Macklin, who had the good fortune to see him several times 
 in Harry, has declared that he shone in the character with particular lustre." 
 — " Dramatic Miscellanies ;" vol. i, p. 355. 
 
 ♦ It was a custom in the London Theatres, till about the middle of the last century, at par- 
 ticuhir benefits, to erect an amphitheatre across the stage, from one front wing to the other, 
 with rows of benches, more or less in number, as occasion required, which not only destroyed 
 the effect, b?:t greatly incommoded the business of the performance. In some instances 
 the seats of these temporary edifices rose one above tha otiier, hii,'her than the trees, and 
 hats and bonnets were beheld fastened to the clouds, A single entrance was left upon each 
 side next the stage-door, which was often choked up with bystanders, and the feats of Bos- 
 worth-field, amidst drums, trumpets, battle-axes, and spears, were enacted between two au- 
 diences, where Richard spoke his last soliloquy, and his dying lines, upon a carpet no bigger 
 than a table-cloth. 
 
 These iuconveniencies never failed to give disgust to those who came with an intention to 
 be amused, and could yield pleasure to none but the actor, for whose benefit they were toler- 
 ated, and those particular friends, who assembled solely to serve him. Bickerings frequent- 
 Jy arose at the commencement of the play, between the audiences before and behind the 
 curtain ; thence, upon other less attractive performances, arose a practice of inscrtin at 
 {The bottom of the advertisements and play-bills : 
 
 N. B. There will be no building on the stagt, 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 305 
 
 while I staid with them, to make it worth their while to 
 come up to my price ; and then patiently sold out my share 
 
 The tribute paid by Mr. Hill to the talents of this actor, is wor- 
 thy of his reputation as a candid and discerning critic; it was 
 addressed, for publication, to one of Booth's biographers, and 
 forms an eligible supplement to this vindication of his fame : 
 
 To Mr. Victor. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I will comply with your desire in as brief a manner as I am able, 
 and send you my sentiments concerning what was chiefly remarkable in Mr. 
 Booth, as an actor. 
 
 Two advantages distinguished him in the strongest light from the rest of 
 his fraternity : he had learning to understand perfectly whatever it was his 
 part to speak, and judgment to know how far it agreed or disagreed with his 
 character. Hence ai'ose a peculiar grace, which was visible to eveiy spec- 
 tator ; though few were at the pains of examining into the cause of their pleas- 
 ure. He could soften and slide over, with a kind of elegant negligence, the 
 improprieties in a part he acted ; while, on the contrary, he would dwell with 
 energy upon the beauties, as if he exerted a latent spirit which had been kept 
 back for such an occasion, that he might alarm, awaken, and ti'ansport in 
 those places only, where the dignity of his own good sense could be supported 
 by that of his author. 
 
 A little reflection upon this remarkable quality, will help us to account for 
 that manifest languor which has sometimes been observed in his action, and 
 which was generally, though I think falsely, imputed to the natural indolence 
 of his temper. 
 
 For the same reason, though in the customary rounds of his business he 
 would condescend to some parts in comedy, he seldom appeared in any of 
 them with much advantage to his character. The passions which he found 
 in comedy were not strong enough to excite his fire ; and what seemed want 
 of qualification, was only absence of impression. 
 
 He had a talent of discovering the passions, where they lay hid in some 
 celebrated parts, by the injudicious practice of other actors; when he had 
 discovered, he soon grew able to express them; and his secret for attaining 
 this great lesson of the theatre, was an adaption of his look to his voice ; by 
 which artful imitation of nature, the variation in the sound of his words gave 
 propriety to every change in his countenance. So that it was Mr. Booth's 
 
506 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 to the best bidder, wishing the crew I had left in the vessel 
 a good voyage. 
 
 peculiar felicity to be heard and seen tlie same, whether as the pleased, the 
 grieved, the pitying, the reproachful, or the angry. One would almost be 
 tempted to borrow the aid of a very bold figure, and, to express this excel- 
 lence the more significantly, beg permission to affirm, that the blind 
 might have seen him in his voice, and the deaf have heard him in his 
 visage. 
 
 His gesture, or, as it is commonly called, his action, was but the result 
 and necessary consequence of his dominion over his voice and countenance : 
 for having, by concurrence of two such causes, impressed his imagination 
 with the stamp and spirit of a passion, his nerves obeyed the impulse by a 
 kind of natural dependency, and relaxed or braced successively into all that 
 fine expressiveness with which he painted what he spoke, without restraint or 
 affectation. 
 
 I can scarce forbear to be fuller on so inviting a subject ; but I consider the 
 size of the treatise you are about to publish, and shall add nothing but the 
 good wishes with which I am, 
 
 Sir, 
 Your most obedient, humble servant, 
 July 8, 1733. A. Hill. 
 
 A monument has been raised to the memory of Booth, in West- 
 minster-abbey, by the pride, or what Davies calls the " piety," of 
 his wife, who suffered forty years to elapse before she gave this 
 proof of conjugal veneration. A better monument than marble is 
 found in the following anecdote. 
 
 Booth was valued and beloved by the players as a companion, 
 who mixed in their society, and promoted their interests. When 
 Harper remonstrated with him that Shepherd's income was larger 
 than his by twenty shillings a-week, though he presumed that his 
 own diligence and utility were equal ; Booth said in reply, assent- 
 ing to the truth of what he had affirmed, " Suppose now, Harper, 
 we should put you on a level, by reducing his salary to yours?" — 
 "By no means, sir," said the other, " 1 would not injure Mr. 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY GIBBER. 507 
 
 What commotions the stage fell into the year following, 
 or from what provocations the greatest part of the actors 
 
 Shepherd for the world ; I only want, by your favour, sir, honestly 
 to serve myself." The manager said no more; but Harper's 
 allowance was instantly raised. 
 
 * Ann Oldfield was born in the year 1683, and would have 
 possessed a tolerable fortune, had not her father, a captain in the 
 army, expended it at a very early period. In consequence of 
 this deprivation, she went to reside with her aunt, who kept the 
 Mitre tavern, in St. James's-market, where Farquhar, the dramat- 
 ist, one day heard her reading a few passages from Beaumont and 
 Fletcher's " Scornful Lady," in which she manifested such spirit, 
 ease, and humour, that being struck by her evident advantages for 
 the stage, he framed an excuse to enter the room, a little parlour 
 behind the bar, in which Miss Nancy was sitting. If the mere in- 
 dications of genius had thus exercised such power upon this young 
 and gallant Hibernian, we may easily guess at their force when 
 coupled with the personal beauty which Mrs. Oldfield at this junc- 
 ture displayed. Captain Farquhar, there is ample reason to sup- 
 pose, fell a victim to her charms, and it was, perhaps, from a desire 
 of possessing what the theatre would give him means to attempt, 
 that he urged this lovely woman to try her talents in the path he 
 not only felt bound to suggest, but had sufficient influence to open. 
 He pressed Mrs. Oldfield to resume the task his presence had sus- 
 pended : but though she merrily said, soon afterwards, ** I longed 
 to be at it, and only wanted a little decent intreaty," it was not 
 without much trouble on Farquhar's part that she was persuaded 
 to comply. 
 
 Vanbrugh, who frequented the house, and was known to Mrs. 
 Oldfield's mother, received a communication from that lady of the 
 very great warmth with which his friend Farquhar had extolled her 
 daughter's abilities. Vanbrugh, who seems to have been a zealous 
 and sincere friend to all by whom his assistance was courted, im- 
 
50S AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 revolted, and set up for themselves in the little house in 
 the Haymarket, lies not within the promise of my title-page 
 
 mediately addressed himself to our heroine, and having ascer- 
 tained that her fancy tended to parts of a sprightly nature, he 
 recommended her to Rich, the manager of Drury-lane, by whom 
 she was immediately engaged, at a salary of fifteen shillings per 
 week. Her qualifications soon rendered her conspicuous among 
 the young actresses of that time^ and a man of rank being pleased 
 to express himself in her favour, Mr. Rich increased her weekly 
 terms to the sum of twenty shillings. 
 
 The rise of Mrs. Oldfield was gradual but secure, and soon after 
 the death of Mrs. Verbruggen she succeeded to the line of comic 
 parts so happily held by that popular actress. Her Lady Betty 
 Modish, in 1705, before which she was litttle known, and barely 
 suffered, discovered accomplishments the public were not apprised 
 of, and rendered her one of the greatest favourites upon whom 
 their sanction had ever been bestowed. She was tall, genteel, and 
 well shaped ; her pleasing and expressive features were enlivened 
 by large speaking eyes, which, in some particular comic situations, 
 were kept half shut, especially when she intended to realise some 
 brilliant idea; in sprightliness of air, and elegance of manner, she 
 excelled all actresses ; and was greatly superior in the strength, 
 compass, and harmony of her voice. 
 
 Though highly appreciated as a tragic performer, Mrs. Oldfield, 
 in the full round of glory, used to slight her best personations of 
 that sort, and would often say, " I hate to have a page dragging 
 my train about. Why don't they give Porter those parts 1 She 
 can put on a better tragedy face than I can." The constant ap- 
 plause by which she was followed in characters of this description, 
 so far reconciled her to Melpomene, that the last new one in which 
 she appeared was Thomson's Sophonisha. Upon her action and 
 deportment the author has expressed himself with great ardour in 
 the following lines : 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 509 
 
 to relate : or, as it might set some persons living in a light 
 they possibly might not chuse to be seen in, I will rather 
 
 Mrs. Oldfield, in the character of Sopkonisboy has excelled what, even in 
 the fondness of an author, I could either wish or imagine. The grace, dig- 
 nity, and happy variety, of her action have been universally applauded, and 
 are truly admirable. 
 
 Thomson's praise, indeed, is not more liberal than just, for we 
 learn, that in reply to some degrading expression of Massitussa, 
 relating to Carthage, she uttered the following line, — 
 
 Not one base word of Carthage, for thy soul ! — 
 
 with such grandeur of port, a look so tremendous, and in a voice 
 so powerful, that it is said she even astonished Wilks, her Mas- 
 sinissa ; it is certain the audience were struck, and expressed 
 their feelings by the most uncommon applause. ( I ) Testimony 
 like this is sufficient to protect her claim to tragic excellence, 
 eclipsed as it certainly is by the superiority of her comic repu- 
 tation. 
 
 Lady Town^yhas been universally adduced as her ne plus ultra 
 in acting. She slided so gracefully into the foibles, and displayed 
 so humourously the excesses, of a fine woman too sensible of her 
 charms, too confident in her strength, and led away by her pleas- 
 ures, that no succeeding Lady Townly arrived at her many distin- 
 guished excellencies in the character. By being a welcome and 
 constant visitor to families of distinction, Mrs. Oldfield acquired a 
 graceful carriage in representing women of high rank, and ex- 
 pressed their sentiments in a manner so easy, natural, and flowing, 
 that they appeared to be of her own genuine utterance. Notwith- 
 standing her amorous connexions (2) were publicly known, she 
 
 (1) " Dramatic Miscellanies ;" vol. 3, p. 437. 
 
 (2) It is supposed that she was engaged in a tender intercourse with Far- 
 quhar, and was the " Penelope" of his amatory correspondence. She lived 
 
510 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 be thankful for the involuntary favour they have done me, 
 than trouble the public with private complaints of fancied 
 or real injuries. 
 
 was invited to the houses of women of fashion, as conspicuous for 
 unblemished character as elevated rank. Even the royal family 
 did not disdain to see Mrs. Oldfield at their levees. George the 
 Second and Queen Caroline, when Prince and Princess of Wales, 
 often condescended to converse with her. One day the Princess 
 told Mrs. Oldfield, she had heard that General Churchill and she 
 were married : " So it is said, may it please your royal highness," 
 replied Mrs. Oldfield, " but we have not owned it yet." 
 
 In private, Mrs. Oldfield was generous, humane, witty, and well- 
 bred. Though she disliked the man, and disapproved of his conduct, 
 yet the misfortunes of Savage recommended him to her pity, and 
 she often relieved him by a handsome donation. Her influence 
 with Walpole contributed to procure his pardon when convicted, 
 on false evidence, of murder, and adjudged to death, a fate which 
 his most unnatural mother did her utmost to enforce. It is not 
 true that she either allowed this poet an annuity, or admitted his 
 conversation, (3) but still the benefits she did confer upon him 
 were quite numerous enough to warrant his celebration of her 
 memory. The goodness of her heart, and the splendour of her 
 talents, were topics upon which Savage might have ventured to 
 insist, without endangering his piety or wounding his pride. Dr. 
 Johnson has sanctioned the silence of this author, (4) on the 
 grounds of Mrs. Oldfield's condition; but that dogmatic man 
 
 successively with Arthur Manwaring, one of the most accomplished characters 
 of his age, and General Churchill ; by each of whom she had a son. 
 
 (3) This fact is firmly denied in Gibber's ** Lives of the Poets," and with 
 a pointed reference to Johnson's admission pf it. Vol. 5, p. 33. 
 
 (4) Savage, however, was not silent ; though he abstained from putting his 
 name to the poem, he indisputably wrote upon Mrs. Oldfield's death. It is 
 preserved in Chetwood's " History." 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 511 
 
 would have shown a truer taste for benevolence, had he recom- 
 mended the most ardent devotion to individuals of any stamp, who 
 were actuated by so glorious a principle. 
 
 Pope, who seems to have persecuted the name of player with a 
 malignancy un worthy of his genius, has stigmatised the conversa- 
 tion of Mrs. Oldfield by the word " Oldfieldismos,^'' which he 
 printed in Greek characters ; nor can there be a doubt that he 
 meant her by the dying coquette, in one of his epistles. That Mrs. 
 Oldfield was touched by the vanity of weak minds, and drew an 
 absurd importance from the popularity of her low station, may be 
 fairly inferred, and might have been fairly derided ; (5) but Pope, 
 with his usual want of candour, has appealed to less tangible fail- 
 ings, and tried, as in most cases, much more to ridicule the person 
 than correct the fault. I do not dispute the brilliancy of his sar- 
 casm, but I would rather hail the rigour of his justice. (6) 
 
 Mrs. Oldfield died on the 23d of October, 1730, most sincerely 
 lamented by those to whom her general value was not un- 
 known. 
 
 *Wilks died on the 27th of September, 1732, and not in 1731, 
 as Gibber relates, and was buried at midnight, by his own desire, 
 to avoid ostentation, in the church of St. Paul, Go vent-garden, 
 where a monument was erected to his memory. 
 
 The fame of Wilks's efforts stands lower with posterity than it 
 stood in his own time, when he was not considered merely as the 
 fine gentleman of the stage, but possessed a high reputation for 
 
 (5) What can be more ridiculous than the following anecdote ? 
 
 Mrs. Oldfield happened to be in some danger in a Gravesend boat, and 
 when the rest of the passengers lamented their approaching fate, she, with a 
 conscious dignity, told them their deaths would be only a private loss j — 
 " But I am a public concern." — " Dramatic Miscellanies;" vol. 1, p. 226. 
 
 (6) The bitterness of Pope's muse subsided upon no occasion, where the 
 name of Mrs. Oldfield might be aptly introduced. Thus in the " Sober Ad- 
 vice from Horace," one of his inedited poems : 
 
 Engaging Oldfield ! who, with grace aud ease, 
 Could join the arts to ruin and to please. 
 
51^ AN APOLOGY FOR THE 
 
 ^is lalents in tragic characters. Upon the death of Betterton he 
 succeeded to the part of Hamlet, and perhaps a short view of the 
 manner in which this and other parts were played, will justify the 
 very warm Ught in which I wish to place his serious assump- 
 tions. 
 
 ** To beseech gracefully, to approach respectfully, to pity, to 
 mourn, to love, are the places," says Steele, ( 1) " wherein Wilks 
 may be made to shine with the utmost beauty." That he under- 
 stood the tender passions in a superior degree is also the record of 
 an honest observer, (2) and when these attributes are combined 
 with his tall, erect person, his pleasing aspect, and his elegant 
 address, no unfavourable notion will perhaps be entertained of his 
 iStness for tragic success. 
 
 His Prince of Wales was one of the most perfect exhibitions 
 of the theatre. He threw aside the libertine gaiety of Hal, when 
 he assumed the princely deportment of Henry; at the Boar's-head 
 he was lively and frolicsome; in the reconciliation with his father, 
 his penitence was ingenuous, and his promises of amendment were 
 manly and affecting. In the challenge of Hotspur, his defiance 
 was equally bold and modest ; and his triumph over that impatient 
 rebel was tempered by generous regret. 
 
 To the reader of " Henry the Eighth," the part of Buckingham 
 may seem to be of little or no importance ; but there is an affect- 
 ing pathos in it which the actor of merit will exemplify by his 
 powerful elocution. Wilks thought Buckingham intitled to his 
 notice, and in the very first scene of it, the resentment borne by 
 the character against Wolsey, broke out, in Wilks, with an impetu- 
 osity that was not to be restrained. His action was vehement, 
 and his step hurried ; but, when condemned, his demeanour was 
 pathetic and gentle, and his grief such as it became a Christian to 
 display. 
 
 (1) " Tattler," No; 182. 
 
 (2) Davies, in his " Dramatic Miscellanies.' 
 
LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBERt 513 
 
 The Castalio of Wilks was long and justly admired. In deli-^ r : 
 cacy of address to ladies, he surpassed the best actors, except 
 Barry, by whom he has been succeeded, and the charm of his 
 manner in approaching Monimia, at their first interview, may be 
 easily imagined. His delight at their reconciliation in the second 
 act, his rage and resentment in the third and fourth; and, above 
 all, his tenderness and misery in the fine meeting that embellishes 
 the fifth, justly intitled him to the spectator's most generous appro- 
 bation. 
 
 "Wilks appeared in Hamlet, for the first time, on Wednesday the 
 26th of July, 1710, but a few weeks after Steele had termed him 
 a " perfect actor," and " the first of the present stage." In speaking 
 that impassioned soliloquy which discloses Hamlefs method to 
 t* catch the conscience of the king," Wilks had an ample field to 
 display the warmth of his disposition. He felt the various passions 
 of it with energy, and expressed them with vehemence, but to give 
 strength to sentiment, he would occasionally strike the syllables with 
 too much ardour, and, in the judicious ear, create something like 
 dissonance rather than harmony. The great piece of self-commu- 
 nion upon death, he spoke with a pleasing melancholy of counten- 
 ance, and grave despondency of action. In the assumed mad- 
 ness with Ophelia, which Garrick, in good opinions, made too 
 boisterous, Wilks retained enough of covered insanity, but at the 
 same time preserved the feelings of a lover, and the delicacy of a 
 gentleman. If the critics justly blamed Wilks for his behaviour 
 to the Ghost, in the first act, they could not possibly censure his 
 conduct with his mother in the third. His action was there a happy 
 mixture of warm indignation, allayed by the most affecting tender- 
 ness ; his whole deportment was princely and graceful : when he 
 presented the pictures, the reproaches his animation produced were 
 guarded with filial reluctance, and when he came to the pathetic 
 exclamation. 
 
 Mother, for love of gi-ace I 
 there was something in his manner inexpressibly gentle, and pow* 
 
 h I. 
 
514 LIFE OF MR. COLLEY CIBBER. 
 
 erfully persuasive. Wilks, indeed, was so successful in his repre- 
 sentation of this part, that " Hamlet" was frequently chosen, as a 
 favourite play, to open the season with. 
 
 Wilks established his reputation by Sir Harry Wildair, a part 
 into which he entered with the careless gaiety of a young man, 
 whose high spirits and plentiful fortune thre\Va gloss over the great- 
 est extravagancies he could commit. Wildair, it has been remarked, 
 presents but few intermissions of wit or humour ; the whole play 
 was looked upon " as something too low to bear a criticism," (3) 
 at the time of its appearance ; and Wilks's success was therefore 
 heightened by the presumptive inferiority of his author. So pow- 
 erful was the impression created by Wilks in this character, that 
 Steele reprehends the audience for turning their attention to it, 
 while he was performing any other part. (4) In Lord Townly, 
 Wilks has also been justly commended. He was so much the fine 
 gentleman, that in the scene where he felt reduced to the necessity 
 of reproaching iMdy Townly with her faults, he mixed a tender- 
 ness with his anger that softened into tears. 
 
 . In a moral point of view, the memory of Wilks is endeared to 
 us by the honesty of his dealings, and the benevolence of his 
 temper. Chetwood avouches in strong terms for this goodness of 
 heart, and the treatment of Farquhar's orphan family, for whom 
 he provided with parental care, is a fact that corroborates the most 
 favourable testimony. It is Johnson, I remember, who has passed a 
 heavy censure upon actors in general, but the meanness of their 
 conduct, if they are to be stigmatised as a body, is redeemed by 
 many instances of liberal feeling. 
 
 (3) ** Tattler," No. 19. 
 
 (4) ''Tattler," No. 201. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Actors. . .Their endowments, 60. On 
 familiarity with them, 62. Cum- 
 berland on them, 65, 68. Char- 
 acters of them in 1690, 87. Their 
 condition at that time, ih. Import- 
 ance of private character, 247. 
 Prosecution of them, 272. Not to 
 be reared, 465. 
 Actresses. . .Their introduction to the 
 stage, 69. Stipulated for in the 
 patents, ib. The earliest of them, 
 70. 
 Addison, Joseph .. .Sanctions laugh- 
 ter in tragedy, 125. His *' Cato," 
 396. 
 Anecdotes of — Actress, an,. . 53. 
 
 Addison, and *' Ham- 
 let," Mr... 89. 
 Aston, Tony. . . 109. 
 Author, a gentleman 
 
 . . . 490. 
 Booth, in Oroonoko, 
 
 . . . 493. 
 Bracegirdle, Mr.Con- 
 greve, and Curl, 
 the bookseller,Mrs. 
 ...3. 
 Charles 2., and aboy- 
 
 actress, 123. 
 Chesterfield, and a 
 Clergyman, Earl of 
 ...10. 
 Cibber and Garrick, 9. 
 C\hheTinWolsey,^m. 
 Corelli and a Cardi- 
 nal, 487. 
 Dogget, Wilks, and 
 Cibber, 392. 
 
 Anecdotes of — Dryden as a reader, 
 
 99. 
 Estcourtin ATiV^, 103. 
 
 Same, and Sir G. 
 
 Kneller, 105. 
 Etiquette, French. . . 
 
 488. 
 Farmer, a. . . 305. 
 George 1., and Shak- 
 
 speare's " Henry 
 
 VllI ;" 460. 
 Gwyn,and Charles2., 
 
 Mrs.... 456. 
 Hart and Haynes, 75. 
 Kynaston, and Sir C. 
 
 Sidley, 130. 
 Lee and' Mohun, 82. 
 Mills and a country 
 
 'Squire, 304. 
 Oldfield, Mrs...511. 
 Pinkethman & Wilks, 
 
 159. 
 Puppet-show, a cele- 
 brated. . . 80. 
 Sandford and a new 
 
 play, 139. 
 Simile of a lion, a. . . 
 
 44. 
 Steele and the players. 
 
 Sir Richard... 461. 
 Williams and Cibber, 
 
 Charles,,. 471. 
 Angel, Mr. . . 150. 
 
 Banks, John. . .One of his tragedies 
 forbidden, 318. An example to 
 tragic writers, ib. 
 
 Barry, Elizabeth.. .Her theatrical 
 
NDEX 
 
 character, 170. Respectably born ; 
 patronised by Lady D'Avenant ; 
 tries the stage ; fails ; finally suc- 
 ceeds ; intimacy with Lord Roches- 
 ter ; immorality; death; 173 to 
 176. 
 Benefits, Performers'. . .first granted, 
 
 172. 
 Betterton, Thomas. . .His theatrical 
 character, 88. Described by Aston, 
 109. Time and place of birth ; 
 genteel education ; early love of 
 literature ; apprenticed to a book- 
 seller ; appears on the stage ; char- 
 acters and success ; engages with 
 D'Avenant ; taught by him ; es- 
 teemed by Charles 2. ; various pow- 
 er; marries ; becomes a joint-man- 
 ager ; procures an independent 
 license ; fined for profane expres- 
 sions ; acts under Vanbrugh ; sal- 
 ary ; loss of fortune ; final benefit ; 
 death ; burial ; tribute to his mem- 
 ory ; benevolence ; judgment ; 
 111 to 122. 
 
 ,Mr8. . .Her theatrical char- 
 acter, 174. Maiden name; lodg- 
 ed with D'Avenant ; probably the 
 earliest acti'ess ; first appearance ; 
 age, infirmity, and computed de- 
 cease ; 176 to 178. 
 Bickerstaff, Mr. . .Menaces Gibber, 
 
 50. 
 Biographia Dramatica,. . .Its errors 
 exposed, 100, 103, 115, 117, 133, 
 372, 498, 500, ib. 
 Biography of. . .Angel, Mr. . .150. 
 
 Barry, Elizabeth. . . 
 
 173. 
 Beeston, Christo- 
 pher. . . 80. 
 Betterton, Thomas 
 ...88. 
 
 , Mrs... 176. 
 
 Booth, Barton.. 491. 
 
 , Mrs... 372. 
 
 Bracegirdle, Ann... 
 
 188. 
 Bullock, William.. . 
 
 203. 
 Butler, Charlotte... 
 
 179. 
 Carlile, James. . . 64. 
 Clark, Mr. . . 85. 
 D'Avenant, Sir Wil- 
 liam. , . 60. 
 Estcourt, Richard. . . 
 
 100. 
 Farinelli,Sig...368. 
 
 Biography of — Gaussin, Marie Mag- 
 deleine. , . 487. 
 
 Goodman, Cardell . . . 
 84. 
 
 Griffin,Captain. . .63. 
 
 Harris, Joseph. .112. 
 
 Hart, Charles. . . 71. 
 
 Horden, Hildebrand 
 . . . 285. 
 
 Hughs, Margaret. . . 
 177. 
 
 Jonson, the actor, 
 Benjamin. . . 202. 
 
 Killegrew, Thomas 
 ...67. 
 
 Kynaston, Edward, 
 . . . 123. 
 
 Leigh, Antony. . . 
 162. 
 
 Lovel, Mr. . . 150. 
 
 Mohun, Michael. . . 
 80. 
 
 Mountfort, William 
 ...133. 
 
 , Susanna, 
 
 ... 183. 
 
 ,the young- 
 er, Susanna. ..184. 
 
 01dfield,Ann...286. 
 
 Percival, Mr. . . 194. 
 
 Pinkethman, Wil- 
 liam.. . 160. 
 
 ib. 
 
 jun. 
 
 Powel, George. . . 
 
 238. 
 — — — , sen. Mr. . .ib. 
 Richards, Mr... 233. 
 Sandford, Samuel. . . 
 
 145. 
 Shatterel, Robert. . . 
 
 , William 
 
 ...ib. 
 Smith, William. . . 
 
 55. 
 Verbruggen, John. . . 
 
 ...167. 
 — — , Mrs. . . 
 
 183. 
 Underbill, Cave. . . 
 
 164. 
 Wilks, Robert. . . 
 
 233,511. 
 Williams, Joseph. . . 
 
 169. 
 . , Charles 
 
 ...470. 
 Wiltshire, Mr... 64. 
 
m 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hi 
 
 Biography, Modern. . . The trick of 
 it, 3. 
 
 Bolingbroke, Lord. . . Patronises 
 Booth, 497. Their intimacy, ib. 
 Conjecture why, ib. 
 
 Booth, Barton. . .A mistake of his 
 pointed out, 124. Corroborated, 
 but explained, by Theophilus Cib- 
 ber, ib. His excellencies, 125. 
 Intemperance and re formation, 25 4. 
 Derfines quitting Drury-lane thea- 
 tre, 357. Why, 466. Leaves it, 
 372. Strange matrimonial taste, 
 ib. Thought intitled to a share of 
 the license, 387. Un candid to 
 Wilks, 479. Theatrical character, 
 491. Birth, education, capacity, 
 and attainments ; tendency to the 
 stage ; applies to Betterton for an 
 engagement ; refused ; first appear- 
 ance in Dublin ; odd accident at- 
 tending it ; returns to England ; 
 plays in the country ; engaged at 
 Drury-lane; conspicuous merit, 
 and decisive success ; vindicated 
 against Cibber; praised by Downs; 
 elevated by Cato .- presents for 
 playing it ; befriended by Lord Bol- 
 ingbroke ; made a joint-manager ; 
 amoiy with Miss Mountfort ; mar- 
 ries Miss Santlow ; illness ; retire- 
 ment ; return ; relapse ; death ; bu- 
 rial ; merit ; opinions ; and benev- 
 olence; 491 to 506. 
 
 -, Mrs. . .Her theatrical char- 
 
 acter: maiden name ; a famous 
 dancer ; loose morals ; 372, 499. 
 Commemorates her husband, 506. 
 Age and death, 372. 
 
 Bracegirdle, Ann. . .Her remark on 
 Curl's ** Life of Congreve," 3. 
 Fined for profane expressions, 116. 
 Theatrical character, 185. Re- 
 tires ; receives a legacy from Con- 
 greve ; dies ; 188, 189. 
 
 Brett, Colonel... A patentee, .332. 
 Accountand character of him, 333. 
 Covets one of Cibber's wigs, 334. 
 Their friendship and familiarity, 
 336. Unites the two companies, 
 341. Resigns his management, 349. 
 
 Bullock^ William.. . His first appear- 
 ance ; goes from Drury-lane to 
 Lincoln's-inn-fields ; censured by 
 Dennis ; character ; and death : 
 203, 204. 
 
 : , Mrs. . .DaughterofWilks, 142. 
 
 Butler, Charlotte. . .Her theatrical 
 character, 179. 
 
 Carlile James. . .Noticed by Downs ; 
 first appearance ; entere the army, 
 killed in Ireland; 64, 
 Chamberlain, Lord. . .His power trac- 
 ed, considered, instanced, and 
 disputed, 316,360. 
 Characters, Theatrical. . .63 ; 71 ; 80 ; 
 ib.i 84; 87; 88; 100; 112; 123; 
 129 ; 134 ; 150 ; 155 ; 156; 164 ; 
 167; 169; 170; 174; 177; 179; 
 181; 185; 202; 204; 233: lA. ; 
 240 ; 286 ; ib. ; 303 ; 305 ; 372 ; 
 412; 420; 491, 
 Charles 2. . . His affability, 22. Re- 
 mark on stage-murderers, 140. 
 Chesterfield, Earl of... His charact- 
 er, 10. Anecdote of him, ib. Sat- 
 irises Cibber, 50. Argues against 
 the licensing-act, 275. 
 Cibber, Colley...His profit by the 
 ** Apology," 2. Time and place of 
 birth, 5. Where educated, 6. 
 Conversation with Garrick, and 
 mean opinion of his talent, 13. 
 School-anecdote, 23. Lampoons 
 himself, 33. Loses an election at 
 Winchester-college, 38. Commem- 
 orates his brother, 39. Imbibes a 
 taste for the stage, 40. His irre- 
 ligion, ib. Volunteers against 
 James 2 . , 42. Satirised for a sim- 
 ile, 44. Political notions, 45. 
 In love with the Duchess of Marl- 
 borough, 47. Timidity, 49. Prof- 
 it by casual performances, 191. 
 First salary, and ho^v obtained, 
 193. First success, 195. Writes 
 a prologue, 206. Imitates Dog- 
 get, 213. First play; approved 
 by Southern ; produced ; suc- 
 ceeds; and highly complimented, 
 218. Advances as an actor, 219, 
 220. Excellent as Justice Shal- 
 low, 226. Opposed by a party, 
 245. Multiplies his writings, 257. 
 Complimented by Dryden, 261. 
 Alteration of " Richard III." mu- 
 tilated by the licenser, 266. Made 
 a joint-patentee, ib. Vindicates 
 the licensing-act, 275. Why,278. 
 Acts with Swiny at the Haymarket, 
 308. Compites the " Double Gal- 
 lant,"311. Senseof traged)', 319, 
 Oneof hisbhmders, 347. A joint- 
 manager of the Haymarket with 
 Swinv, 357. Of Drury-lane with 
 Collier, 381 ; with Steele, 382. 
 Mediates between Dogget and 
 Wilks, 392. Reads " Cato" in 
 
IV 
 
 INDEX 
 
 M.S. with Steele, 396. Argues 
 for Booth's admission to a share of 
 the management, 406. Conducts 
 a lawsuit against Dogget, 411. 
 Personally conciliates him, 416. 
 Advertises for Dennis, 429. Writes 
 the " Nonjuror," 441. Assailed 
 for it, 446. Great popularity, and 
 uncommon price of copyright, 444. 
 Rewarded for it, ib. Pleads in 
 Chancery against Sir R. Steele, 
 448. Assists him in writing the 
 " Conscious Lovers," 452. Man- 
 ner of playing Wolsey, 460. Loss- 
 esatthe gaming-table, 477, Wrong 
 in the date of Wilks's death, 494, 
 511. Retirement, and reasons for 
 it, 502, 506. Concludes his "Apol- 
 ogy," 507. 
 
 , Lewis.. . 39. 
 
 Coleman, Mrs.. .69. 
 
 Collier, Jeremy.. . His '* View of the 
 Stage" considered, 262. Favoured 
 by government on account of it, 
 265 . Sentiments on theatrical sat- 
 ire, 276. 
 
 , Esq. , William. . . A memb- 
 er of parliament ; heads the Drury- 
 lane company; his interest and 
 qualifications; 370. Dispossesses 
 Rich, 371. Manages the opera, 
 376. Resumes Drury-lane, 38 1 . 
 
 Companies, Theatrical.. .The King's 
 formed ^ allowed cloth and lace for 
 liveries ; styled gentlemen of the 
 Great Chamber; 67. Duke's form- 
 ed, ib. Their junction ascertained, 
 86. The (Fielding's) Great Mo- 
 gul's, 274. United under Brett, 
 343. 
 
 Congreve, William.. . Couplet from a 
 M.S. prologue of his, 196. An 
 alSusion explained, 209. Manages 
 the Haymarket, 294. Retires from 
 it, 298. 
 
 Dancers, French.. .292. 
 
 D'Avenant, Sir William.. . The stage 
 indebted to him; created poet-laur- 
 eate; obtains a patent; heads a 
 company ; introduces scenes ; dies ; 
 G&. Operas projected by him, 79. 
 
 Decoration, Theatrical.. . 434. 
 
 Dennis, John... His animosity, and 
 the ground of it, against Cibber,434. 
 
 Dogget, Thomas . . . Removes from 
 Lincoln's-inn-fields to Dniry-lanc, 
 229. His inflexible temper, 230. 
 Arrested by the Lord Chamber- 
 
 lain, 323. Resists his power and 
 defeats it, 324 . Made a joint-man- 
 ager of the Haymarket with Swiny, 
 357. Of Drury-lane with Collier, 
 381 ; with Steele, 382. Resents 
 Booth's admission to a share of the 
 management, 406. Throws up his 
 own, and claims a sinecure, 409. 
 Decreed a compensation in Chan- 
 cery, 411. His birth ; first appear- 
 ance ; progress ; junction with the 
 Drury-lane company ; merit ; suc- 
 cess ; and estimation ; withdraws to 
 Lincoln's-inn-fields ; retires ; as- 
 sists at Betterton's benefit ; returns 
 to Drury-lane ; shares in its profits 
 and power; praised by Steele; 
 complimented by Kneller ; describ- 
 ed by Aston ; from his portrait ; 
 behaviour, intelligence, and prob- 
 ity ; death ; annual bequest to wat- 
 ermen ; dramatic production ; 412 
 to 414. Hatred of Wilks and Cib- 
 ber, 414. Conciliated by the last, 
 416. True reason of his retire- 
 ment, 418. Final performance,, 
 420. 
 Dryden, John... A bad reader, 99. 
 His " Sir Martin Mar-all," 151. 
 Engagement to write plays, 207. 
 Two of his plays compounded, 312. 
 One of his prologues forbidden, 
 318. 
 
 Estcourt, Richard.. . His birth-place ; 
 education ; early turn for the stage ; 
 elopement from his father ; adven- 
 tures ; apprenticed in London ; 
 powers of mimicry ; plays in Dub- 
 lin ; at Drury-lane ; characters, and 
 estimation ; retires ; keeps a tav- 
 ern ; dies ; 100 to 107. Tribute to 
 him, 181. Local interpolation, 
 284. Further remarks upon him, 
 286- 
 
 Fielding, Henry.. . Collects a compa- 
 ny at the Haymarket, 274. Polit- 
 ical tendency of his pieces, ib. Oc- 
 casions the licensing- act, 275. 
 
 Farinelli...368. 
 
 Farquhar, George , . . Faults of his 
 " Constant Couple," 479. Ac- 
 quaintance with Mrs.Oldfield, 507. 
 Presumed aflfection for her, »i., 
 509. 
 
 Fleetwood, Mr... Purchases a share 
 of the patent, 273. 
 
 Funambuli.. .80. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Garrick, David.. . Censured by Gib- 
 ber, 14, Fails in Othello, 503. 
 
 Gaussin, Marie Magdeleine . . . Her 
 first appearance on the Parisian 
 stage; merit; marriage; and re- 
 tirement, 487. 
 
 Goodman, Cardell. . Expelled from 
 Cambridge university ; appears at 
 Drury-lane ; advances rapidly in 
 reputation ; abides by Mohun ; re- 
 tires ; commits a robbery ; par- 
 doned by King James ; conspires 
 against William ; goes into volun- 
 tary exile ; amour with a titled 
 courtezan, 84, 85. Anecdotes of 
 him, 352. His low salary, 353. 
 
 Griffin, Captain... In the King's com- 
 pany ; abides by Mohun ; his pub- 
 lic and private esteem ; 63. 
 
 Hart, Charles... Great nephew of 
 Shakspeare ; apprenticed to an act- 
 or; plays female parts; joins the 
 royalist army ; imprisoned for act- 
 ing ; one of the King's company ; 
 brings Nell G\vj-n on the stage; 
 his principal parts ; evidence of his 
 merit ; personal appearance ; sal- 
 ary ; profit as a proprietor ; quarrel 
 with Haynes; 71 to 75. 
 
 Harris, Joseph. . . His original occu- 
 pation ; principal parts ; a joint- 
 manager ; versatile talents; sup- 
 posed distress ; 112, 113. 
 
 Haynes, Joseph.. . Imposes on a cler- 
 gyman, 75. His extravagant buf- 
 foonery, 1^. 
 
 Hill, Aaron.. . Farms the opera, 379. 
 His character and claims, ib. 
 Tribute to Booth, 505. 
 
 Horden, Hildebrand.. . A good schol- 
 ar, 285. Killed in a quarrel, ib. 
 His talents, and family connect- 
 ions, 286. 
 
 Howard, Sir Robert. . . Assists in pro- 
 curing Betterton's license, 201. 
 
 Hughs, Margaret.. . In the royal com- 
 pany ; her intercourse with Prince 
 Rupert ; possesses Brandenburgh- 
 house; 177. 
 
 Johnson, Dr.. . A mistake of his cor- 
 rected, 510. His critical inj ustice , 
 511. 
 
 Jonson, Benjamin — In the royal 
 company, under Rich ; his merit ; 
 with Swiny; returns to Drury- 
 lane; dies; 202,203. 
 
 Keen, Theophilus.. . His first appear- 
 ance at Drury-lane ; goes to Lin- 
 coln's -inn -fields ; manages, and 
 speculates in, it ; suffers much 
 loss ; dies of a broken heart ; the- 
 atrical chai-acter ; 305, 431. 
 
 Killegrew, Thomas.. . Obtains a pat- 
 ent ; page of honour to Charles 1. ; 
 serves his son with great fidelity ; 
 groom of the bedchamber ; dies ; 
 
 Kynaston, Edward... His theatrical 
 character, 123 to 128. Apprenticed 
 to Rhodes ; appears at the Cockpit, 
 in female parts; enrolled in the 
 royal company ; disliked by Powel ; 
 promotes the union ; goes to Lin- 
 coln' s-inn-fields; dies ; 128 to 130. 
 
 Lee, Nnthaniel.. . His compliment to 
 Mohun, 82. " Rival Queens," 
 92; defended against Cibber, 95. 
 Excellent as a reader, 99. Plays 
 before he writes, 100. Compared 
 with Otway, ib. One of his plays 
 forbidden, 318. 
 
 Leigh, Antony. . . His theatrical char- 
 acter, 150 to 162. First appear- 
 ance ; great success; death; 162. 
 His liberty with Walker, 401 - 
 
 ,jun., 430, 
 
 , Mrs, . . Her theatrical char- 
 acter, 177 to 179, Principal parts ; 
 merit; retirement; 179. 
 
 Licensing Act. . . Its public reception 
 when passed, 267. Argument 
 against it, 275, 279. 
 
 Lovel, Mr... 150. 
 
 Malone, Edmond.. . A criticism of 
 his corrected, 70. 
 
 Marshall, Ann.. . 69. 
 
 Mills, sen., John... Wilks's friend- 
 ship for him, 254. Noticed by 
 Downs, 303. Description and 
 character of him, ib. Censured 
 by Aaron Hill, 304. Death, 305. 
 
 Mohun, Michael . , . Apprenticed to 
 Beeston ; his first appearance ; 
 plays female parts ; enters the 
 royal army ; serves in Flanders ; 
 resumes his theatrical duties; 
 merit ; success ; chief characters ; 
 disunion with Hart; dies; 80 to 
 84. 
 
 Mountfort, William. . .His theatrical 
 character, 129 to 133. Born in 
 1660; joins the king's company; 
 
VI 
 
 INDEX 
 
 in early estimation; abides by 
 Mohun ; re-admitted to Drury- 
 lane ; zenith of his success ; cor- 
 rected narrative of circumstances 
 attending his death ; 133 to 138. 
 Susanna. . .Her theatrical 
 
 character, 181 to 183. Afterwards 
 Mrs. Verbruggen ; merit ; first 
 appearance ; abides by Mohun ; 
 re -admitted to Drury-lane ; in the 
 highest reputation; dies; 183 to 
 184. 
 , Miss. . .184. Intercourse 
 
 with Booth, 498. 
 
 Nicolini, Sig. . .His vocal character, 
 345 . Criticisms of the ' * Tattler," 
 ib. 
 
 Nokes, Robert. . .His theatrical char- 
 acter, 146 to 149, First appear- 
 ance ; powers developed ; princi- 
 pal parts; merits; death; 149 to 
 154. 
 
 Norris, Henry. . .70. 
 
 — -, Mrs. . .70. 
 
 Oldfield, Ann... Her birth and ex- 
 pectations ; noticed by Farquhar ; 
 by Vanbrugh ; 507. First appear- 
 ance at Diniry-lane ; partial suc- 
 cess ; timidity ; advancement ; 286 
 to 291. Salary, 358. Qualifica- 
 tions and excellence, 508. Thea- 
 trical character, 286, 509. Immo- 
 rality, 509. Benevolence, 510. 
 Aspersed by Pope, 511. Vanity, ib. 
 Death, ib. 
 
 Opera, Italian,. .Introduced, 79, 297. 
 Original condition, 298. Method 
 of subscribing, 345. Freaks of 
 performers, 368. 
 
 Pack, Mr. ...His principal charac- 
 ters ; great merit ; retirement ; 
 death; 340.. 
 
 Pantomimes. . .Tlie origin, and first, 
 of them, 437. Vindicated, 502. 
 
 Patent, Tlie. . .Extracts from it, 69, 
 321 . Sir Richard Steele's, 433. 
 
 Pennycuicke, Andrew.. . 69. 
 
 Percival, Mr... 194. 
 
 Pinkethman, William... His theat- 
 rical character, 156 to 159. First 
 appearance; merit; eccentricity; 
 death; 159 to 161. 
 
 , jun.. . 161. 
 
 Playbills... Early one, 72. Curious 
 one, 104. 
 
 Plays. . . Time of beginning them, 124. 
 
 Profit of new ones, 452. Acted at 
 court, 454, 455. 
 
 Pope, Alexander. . .Reproved by Gib- 
 ber, 16,25. 
 
 Porter, Mrs. . .Her first appearance ; 
 taught by Betterton; theatrical 
 character ; courage, generosity, 
 and suffering ; poverty ; death ; 
 420 to 422. 
 
 Powel, George. ». At the head of 
 Drury-lane, 212. Publicly mimics 
 Betterton, ib. Envies Gibber's 
 dress, 229. Jealous of Wilks, 237. 
 Challenges, but submits to, him, ib. 
 Deserts to Lincoln*s-inn-fields,238. 
 Returns to DrurjMane, ib. Vin- 
 dicated against Gibber, ib. Prized 
 highly by Rich, 239. His impor- 
 tant parts, ib. Censured by Van- 
 brugh, ib, Harrassed for debt, 
 
 240. Praised by the '* Spectator," 
 ib. Last traces of him, ib. Thea- 
 trical character, ib. to 243. Age, 
 
 241. Tribute to him, 254. Im- 
 prisoned by the Lord Chamberlain, 
 322. Occasions the theatre to be 
 closed, ib. 
 
 , sen... 198, 238. 
 
 Price, Joseph. . .155. 
 
 Raillery, Rules for. . .9. 
 Revels, Master of the. . .When creat- 
 ed, 317. 
 Revolution, Reflections on the.. .44. 
 Rich, Christopher... His character, 
 
 231, 300, 307, 314, 348, 355. 
 
 Death, 364. 
 Richards, Mr. . .233 
 Risibility recommended.. .19. 
 Rogers, Mrs... Her pruderj', 142. 
 
 Intercourse with Wilks, ib. 
 Roscius Anglicanus. . .Rectified, 151, 
 
 ib. 183. 
 Rowe, Nicholas. . .His complaint of 
 
 French dancers, 292. Copyrights 
 
 of two of his pieces, 444. 
 
 Salary, Theatrical . . .85 .353. 
 
 Sandford, Samuel. . .His theatrical 
 character, 134 to 145. Of a Shrop- 
 shire family ; appears under D'Ave- 
 nant ; secedes with Betterton ; sal- 
 .ary ; 145, 146. 
 
 Satire, On. . .Theatrically considered, 
 276. 
 
 Savage, Richard. . .Celebrates Mrs. 
 Oldfield, at her deatl^ 510. 
 
 Season, Theatrical. . .Its extent, 426. 
 
 Shatterel, Robert and William. . .One 
 
INDEX 
 
 VU 
 
 of them fellow-apprentice with 
 Mohun ; in the royal army ; a 
 good actor; 80. 
 
 Skipwith, Sir Thomas. . .A patentee, 
 331. Disposes of his share, 332. 
 Regains it, 350. 
 
 Smith, William. . .Originally a barris- 
 ter ; joins the Duke's company ; 
 embraces the interests of James 2.; 
 driven from the stage ; returns to 
 it ; dies ; epitaph on him ; his 
 merit ; cordial friendship with Bet- 
 terton; estimable private qualities ; 
 55 to 59. 
 
 Stage, The. . .How to make it useful, 
 327, 391. Its importance proved, 
 328. 
 
 Steele, Sir Richard. . .Manages Dru- 
 ry-lane with Wilks, Dogget, and 
 Cibber, 382. Befriended by the 
 Duke of Marlborough, ib. 427. 
 At law with, and foiled by, his part- 
 ners, 453. Pleasantry on the play- 
 ers, 461. 
 
 Swiny, Owen... His character, 301. 
 Manages the Haymarket, ib. Con- 
 dition, and death, ib. Anecdote 
 of him, ib. Manages the opera, 
 343. Gains by it, 347. Heads 
 the actors again, 357. Exchanges 
 the opera for Drury-lane, 376. 
 Forced back to the opera, 381. 
 Ruined by it, ib. 
 
 Tattler, The. . .Illustrated, 160, 361, 
 371. 
 
 Theatres, Public. . .Number of them, 
 78. The Phoenix, 81. Only one 
 open, 86. How conducted, 87. 
 Management in the time of Shak- 
 speare, &c., 151 , 206. Goodman's- 
 fields, 271, 274. Lincoln's-inn- 
 fields, a tennis-court, 291. Built 
 and opened, 364, 427. Haymar- 
 ket built, 294. Described, 295. 
 Prospers, 310. Drury-lane built 
 by Wren, 365. Form of it, ib. 
 Closed by order, 360. Rent of it, 
 370. Altered, ib. Extraordinary 
 produce of it, 404. Number of 
 persons employed in it, 451. Mo- 
 nopoly argued for, 405. Abuses 
 rectified, 486. An obsolete cus- 
 tom, 504. 
 
 Tofts, Mrs... 345, 347. 
 
 Tragedy. . .Rules for it, 319. 
 
 Valentini, Sig. . .His vocal character, 
 297, 347. 
 
 Vanbrugh, Sir John. . .His introduc- 
 tion to the theatre, 220. Mana- 
 ges the Haymarket, 294. Hasty 
 measures and ill success, 298. Re- 
 tires, 301. Unfair reception of 
 the " Provoked Husband," and 
 ultimate success, 443. Alters the 
 " Provoked Wife," and why, 473. 
 
 Verbruggen, John. . .His first appear- 
 ance ; marries Mountfort's widow ; 
 disliked, and unfairly treated, by 
 Cibber; highly esteemed; chief 
 characters; 167 to 169. 
 
 , Mrs, . .See Mountfort. 
 
 Underbill, Cave . . . His theatrical 
 character, 163. First appearance ; 
 with D'Avenant; abides by Bet- 
 terton ; merit ; death; 164 to 166. 
 
 Wewitzer, Mr. . .His chronology cor- 
 rected, 194. 
 
 Wigs.. .Anecdotes of them, 334. 
 
 Wilks, Robert. . .His theatrical char- 
 acter, 233, 424, 469, 479, 480, 
 512. Family ; birth-place ; liber- 
 al education ; in government em- 
 ploy ; acts privately ; first public 
 
 . appearance, on the Dublin boards ; 
 engaged at Drury-lane ; first salary; 
 encouraged by Betterton ; returns 
 to Dublin ; 233 to 235. Applause 
 in WildaiTy 293. A joint-mana- 
 ger of the Haymarket, with Swiny, 
 357. Of Drury-lane, with Col- 
 lier, 381 ; with Steele, 382. Jeal- 
 ousy of Booth, 466. Industry 
 and application, 467, 477. Allow- 
 ance for writing play-bills, 472. 
 Testof his impatience, 473. Love 
 of distinction, 476. Death, and 
 unostentatious funeral, 511. Re- 
 putation vindicated, ib. Testimo- 
 nials of merit and benevolence, 
 512, 514. 
 
 Williams, Joseph. . .Apprenticed to 
 Harris ; in the Duke's company ; 
 his merit; 169. 
 
 , Charles. . .470, 500. 
 
 Wiltshire, Mr.. .64. 
 
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