ENGLISH DRAMA; Op XRE; RESTORATION aM) EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (1642-1780) BY GEORGE HENRY NETTLETON ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL OF YALE UNIVERSITY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1923 Ail righU mtrvti. ' ' ' nUNTEIX ^N THE TTNITBD STATES OF AMSBIOA o^^\'^< ConrwGHT, 1914, Br THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. S«t up and electrotyped. Published March, 1914. Norfoooti l^rres J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. SIR ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD IN TOKEN OF FRIENDSHIP 959640 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/englishdramaofreOOnettrich PREFACE Despite the activity of research in the general field of English drama, and the marked growth of critical interest in its contemporary aspects, little heed has yet been given to certain earlier periods of modern English drama which help to explain its later de- velopment. For the most part, students of English dramatic history have preferred even the by-paths and meanders of Elizabethan drama to the main- travelled roads that lead onward from the eighteenth century. In one of the bibliographical notes in his admirable volume entitled Tragedy, Professor A. H. Thorndike puts the case tersely : * Ward's History of Dramatic Literature ends with the death of Queen Anne; and there is no adequate history of the English drama for the last two centuries, and no good bibliography.' So vigorously, indeed, have almost all the fields of English literature been cul- tivated, that it is doubtful whether there now remains any other equally neglected area comparable in breadth with that clearly suggested by Professor Thorndike. His own concluding chapters, though confined to tragedy, form, in fact, one of the few significant contributions toward the broader critical investigation which must review the whole course of modern English dramatic development. The present volume owes its origin to a plan, for- mulated some dozen years ago, to continue, though Vili PREFACE on a lesser scale, the history of English drama from the point where it was abandoned by Doctor — now Sir — Adolphus W. Ward. So intimate, however, are the relations between eighteenth-century drama and that of the Restoration, that it soon became advisable to include the earlier period, and ultimately to revert even to the dramatic interregnum which in reality links, while it seems to separate. Restoration and Elizabethan drama. In this way, it is hoped, the continuous development of modern English drama has been more clearly emphasized, and the necessary background for later critical discussion more def- initely supplied. The present volume, accordingly, deals with the entire period from the closing of the theatres in 1642 to the culmination of eighteenth- century drama in Sheridan. A subsequent volume, for which the material is largely in hand, will con- tinue the record from about 1780 through the nine- teenth century. The aim of this work has been rather to ascertain the actual course of English drama than to warp its often discordant facts into conformity with a pre- conceived theory of dramatic evolution. Almost from the outset, in fact, it became necessary to discard many of the traditional assumptions of dramatic crit- icism. Even in the case of Restoration drama, which has received far greater critical attention than has hitherto been given to that of the eighteenth century, investigation has disclosed much that fails to har- monize with some of the articles prescribed by an earlier critical creed. Yet the tone of this work has not consciously been controversial. Throughout the main text and the Bibliographical Notes it has seemed PREFACE ix preferable to emphasize the more trustworthy sources of information rather than to expose the shortcom- ings of unrehable works. Corrections of errors not infrequently detected even in many standard sources of reference have usually been made without com- ment. Even in the single detail of determining the dates of stage production of plays, full controversial evidence would have far exceeded the limits, as well as the purpose, of this volume. In the interest of accuracy, the Bibliographical Notes and footnotes supply definite information as to specific texts and editions cited, and the means of verifying statements of fact have been freely supplied even at the risk that the author may become an * enginer hoist with his own petar.* It would be difificult to exaggerate the difficulties of accurate investigation, especially in those eighteenth-century theatrical records which re- flect the careless gossip, anecdote, and reminiscences of the green-room. The effort to reduce the chances of error has included a checking at the British Museum and Bodleian Libraries of the entire proof, independent of the manuscript, and a similar recheck- ing of the page proof, so far as possible, at the Yale University Library. Yet I can hardly hope to have avoided all the pitfalls of the way, especially where it has often been^ overgrown with long neglect. In a work which has spread over many years and over so broad a field, it is impossible to acknowledge fully the many debts constantly incurred. Yet by far my deepest obligation is to Sir Adolphus W. Ward. The extent to which all students of the drama are dependent on his History of English Dramatic Literature can best be realized by one who X PREFACE fares forth on the unfrequented seas of eighteenth- century English drama, deprived of the friendly charts that have thus far safeguarded him. My personal debt, however, exceeds the common measure of obli- gation to Doctor Ward's scholarship. From his first generous endorsement of my general plan, his friendly counsel has been unfailing. During the past three or four years he has followed the entire work with stimulating and suggestive annotation of the manu- script, and with a constant and cordial encouragement which can here be acknowledged but imperfectly. It is a pleasant privilege, also, to recognize a deep and long-standing indebtedness to Professor Henry A. Beers of Yale. Many of the critical views here ex- pressed were essentially derived from a graduate course under his direction, and doubtless these def- inite obligations are enlarged by many unconscious reminiscences of his thought or phrase. To other colleagues at Yale I am indebted in various ways — in particular, to Professor Cross, for reviewing in proof the chapter on Fielding, and to Mr. Andrew Keogh, of the Yale University Library, for frequent and unwearying assistance. Much of this work would have been impossible without constant access to the British Museum and Bodleian Libraries, and its progress has been greatly furthered by the courteous aid of various officials at these places, and at the Cambridge University Library and the Biblioth^que Nationale. This work is essentially based on original texts and documents. In the earlier drafts of the manu- script, quotations from plays or theatrical documents were regularly taken from the original texts, but PREFACE Xi since imperfections of typography and of scene di- vision often involved correction or elaborate textual annotation, it seemed better eventually to modify a method of reference often inconvenient to the reader, and to utilize, to the extent indicated in the Bibli- ographical Notes, certain generally accessible modern critical editions and reprints. Dates of plays given in the main text are habitually those of their stage production, and have largely been determined through contemporary newspapers, magazines, playbills, and other definite records, such as authentic dated letters and diaries. These dates, it should be noted, often do not coincide with those of the first printed editions. Contemporary works of general character, such as memoirs, theatrical histories, and even autobiog- raphies, have often proved very unreliable, but the best of them have supplied much valuable material. Though the present work is but incidentally con- cerned with questions of individual biography, the Dictionary of National Biography has proved of much assistance. Its statements have been largely verified, however, by independent investigation of early records, and some minor inaccuracies have thus been corrected. The Bibliographical Notes and the footnotes to the main text supply references to works consulted in the preparation of this volume, and indicate, at least to a considerable degree, those that have proved especially useful. Many of the works listed have contributed, at most, only indirectly to the present pages, but I wish to acknowledge as fully and as cordially as possible the investigations of previous writers. It would be idle to claim acquaintance with every work bearing on any part of the wide range of dramatic Xii PREFACE literature and theatrical history here discussed, but I have sought to acquaint myself as far as possible with the results of modern critical study as well as with the contemporary literature of the various periods. There remains one matter in which a personal reference seems unavoidable. Some of the results of my investigation of eighteenth-century drama have already been formally presented. The Major Dramas of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, published in the Ath- encBum Press Series in 1906, gives a much more detailed study of Sheridan and his relation to Eng- lish drama than suits the proportions of the present work. It has seemed unnecessary to reproduce here the references and bibliographical data there accessible. For the tenth volume (191 3) of The Cam- bridge History of English Literature, I prepared the fourth chapter, entitled * The Drama and the Stage.' This section reviews the general aspects of Queen Anne drama and continues the critical account of eighteenth-century drama down to Goldsmith and Sheridan. Naturally, no essential modification of general viewpoints was possible, and a certain amount of duplication has been inevitable. That the work for the Cambridge History was undertaken at Doctor Ward's request, after he had in hand the manuscript of the present book, may account for my assumption of a dual r61e. Numerous differences in the selection and arrangement of the common material available for critical use, together with the marked distinction between the more extensive method of bibliography permitted in the Cambridge History and the more se- lective method in the present Bibliographical Notes, PREFACE Xiii make these two works, it is hoped, supplementary rather than identical in character. Yet even if the history of eighteenth-century EngHsh drama has, in any sense, become a twice-told tale, I trust that the retelling of a much neglected story may find some listeners as generous as the kindly critic who has befriended both versions, and to whom I am privileged to inscribe this volume. Yale University, 1 November, 1913 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGB I. Contrasts between Elizabethan and Res- toration Drama i II. The Dramatic Interregnum, 1642-1660 . 14 III. The Beginnings of Restoration Drama and Opera 30 IV. Dryden, and the Heroic Drama ... 53 V. Etherege and Wycherley (Shadwell) . 71 VI. Dryden, Lee, and Otway .... 88 VII. Aspects of Minor Restoration Drama . 104 VIII. Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar . .120 IX. The Moral Reawakening . . . .141 X. Some Aspects of Queen Anne Drama . . 166 XI. Pantomime and Ballad Opera . . .183 XII. Voltaire's Influence and Bourgeois Trag- edy 195 XIII. Fielding and the Licensing Act . . . 213 XIV. The Garrick Era 227 XV. The Lighter Drama of the Garrick Era . 245 XVI. The Rise and Height of Sentimental Drama 264 XVII. Goldsmith and the Reaction in Comedy . 277 XVIII. Richard Brinsley Sheridan .... 291 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ..... 315 INDEX 341 XV ENGLISH DRAMA OF THE' RES'fORA-^^' TION AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CHAPTER I CONTRASTS BETWEEN ELIZABETHAN AND RESTORATION DRAMA Modern English drama may be said to begin with the Restoration of 1660. The term ^modern' admits various definitions, but a convenient distinction may- be made between the earlier period of Enghsh drama ending with the closing of the theatres, in 1642, and the more modem period beginning, formally, with the creation of the Patent Theatres, under Charles II. The history of a literature is, indeed, too continuous to permit rigid division into precise periods. Even the interregnum when theatres were under Puritan ban does not, in reaHty, break a continuous dramatic tradition. The doors that closed against the earlier drama reopened to admit its reentrance to the boards. Yet never has the course of English drama been inter- rupted so decisively as during the years when theatres were closed and drama underwent almost total eclipse. The ordinance of 2 September, 1642, which decreed that 'publike Stage-Playes shall cease, and bee for- borne,' ^ marked, rather than caused, the end qi that great dramatic era which had risen to full height in Shakespeare and had already lapsed into Hterary and 1 Facsimile reprint in Joseph Knight's edition, 1886, of Roscius Anglicanus; Journals of the House of Lords, V, 336. B I i». \; r,/.:,; ENGLISH DRAMA chap. ,ih<)^al' dechdeme. The wave of creative power had well-nigh spent itself before reaching the barrier set up to arrest its progress. Originality had yielded largely to conventionality. There was dearth of poetry and excess of rhetoric. Comedy portrayed manners rather than the man. Tragedy sullied itself with gross passion and lust. Furthermore, the tragedy of blood on the mimic stage was destined to give way to the actual tragedy of civil war. Even before the formal suppression of the theatres, the Master of the Revels found his occupation gone, for his register closed with the significant entry: *Here ended my allowance of plaies, for the war began in Aug. 1642.' ^ The years between 1642 and 1660 formed a virtual, but not absolute, interregnum in the history of the drama and of the theatre. Closer examination of the actual conditions prevalent during the period will presently show that, despite severe threats of the law, the drama maintained a semblance of life. It had, however, no genuine vitality. With the creation of two companies of actors, under letters patent issued by Charles II, 21 August, 1660, and with the establish- ment of the two 'Patent Theatres,' the period of modem English drama may be said to have been inaugurated. It will be important hereafter to em- phasize constantly the essential continuity of Eng- lish dramatic development. It is, perhaps, equally important, at the outset, to review broadly, even at the risk of repeating famiHar facts, some of 1 Sir Henry Herbert's * Office-book/ cited in Malone's Shakspeare, 1790 edition, Vol. I, Part II, p. 237. 1 ELIZABETHAN AND RESTORATION DRAMA 3 the salient differences between earlier English drama and that which begins with the Restoration. Even in the mechanism of stage presentation, the Restoration theatre is distinct from its Elizabethan predecessor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider here the disputed questions of Elizabethan scenery and of the sporadic appearances of actresses in England before the Restoration. It is enough to recognize that the general adoption of movable scenery and the regular employment of women as actors are noteworthy departures from the habitual usages of the Elizabethan stage. These and similar changes which affected primarily the theatrical man- ager or producer were not, to be sure, without direct influence upon the dramatist. The playwright is never independent of the conditions of actual stage production. Yet superficial differences between the Elizabethan and Restoration stages are less striking than fundamental differences in the drama they pre- sented. How far the old order of drama changed in yielding place to new may be suggested by some general contrasts drawn between Elizabethan and Restoration drama. It is a commonplace of criticism that the Eliza- bethan age is creative, the Restoration^cn In an uiicreative age, criticism and satire become prom- inent. Dryden, the most commanding figure of Restoration drama, was less dramatist than critic and satirist. Broadly speaking, Elizabethan drama is spontaneous and original. Restoration dr^pja arti- ficial and imitative. Elizabethan comedy at its height is creative ; Restoration comedy at its best is 4 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. imitative of the fashions and follies of the heau monde. The one notably interprets character, the other chiefly reproduces characteristics. Between Falstaff and Sir Fopling Flutter is the difference between a masterly portrait and an admirable photograph. Again, the Elizabethans were impatient of artificial restraints. Shakespeare violated the dramatic unities ; Dryden advocated them, eveiilf Ms pfactfce did not always square with his precept. The Elizabethans were fond of blending tragedy with comedy; the Restoration playwrights usually inclined to separate them. The Elizabethans adapted freely materials from various sources, but their Restoration followers often borrowed manner as well as matter from Con- tinental models. Restoration drama, in a word, lacks the spontaneity and originality of EKzabethan drama — imitates rather than creates — recognizes, even though it does not follow implicitly, conventional rules. No less marked is the contrast between Elizabethan and Restoration drama in breadth of scope. The for- mer is national, the latter local. Shakespeare sounds the whole gamut of Ufe, but the comic dramatists of , the Restoration repeat the notes of fashion, frivolity, i^and vice. Comedy in Dryden's age represents pri- marily only the hfe of the court. Hero and heroine know the world, but the world is London. The * country ' becomes a term of banishment w 'th which to threaten wives not clever enough to hooovink their husbands. Shakespeare portrays all the oassions; Restoration comedy constantly reverts to the single passion of unlawful love. Tragedy, which flowed I ELIZABETHAN AND RESTORATION DRAMA 5 full and free in Elizabethan days, is channelled in 'heroic drama' between artificial banks difficult to surmount. If Restoration drama lacks breadth of scope, it lacks also depth of feeling and height of poetic im- agination. Even in rhymed and blank- verse tragedies there is dearth of poetic fancy. Comedy abandons poetry for prose. Romantic comedy yields to the comedy of manners. Common sense replaces poetic sensibility. Wit is more common than humour. The intellectual faculties are exalted above the emotional. It is an age which sees the founding of the Royal Society, and which has philosophers like Hobbes and Locke, and scientists like Newton, but poets are few. Rarely does even Restoration tragedy utter those melodious bursts, that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo stUl. The attitude toward Shakespeare is a valuable sidelight upon Dryden's period. Shakespeare was rewritten to suit an age which found Elizabethan genius rude and unrefined. Native wood-notes were too wild in days when Dryden deemed Shakespeare 'untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age.' ^ Nahum Tate perverted King Lear with a happy ending. Dryden and D'Avenant with profane hands broke the charm of The Tempest. 'The Tragedy of Macbeth, alter 'd by Sir William Davenant; being drest in all it's Finery, as new Cloath's, new Scenes, Machines, as flyings for the Witches ; with all the Singing and Danc- 1 Prologue to Dryden's version of Troilus and Cressida. 6 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. ing in it ... it being all Excellently perform'd, being in the nature of an Opera, it Recompenc'd double the Expence.' ^ Samuel Pepys, a confirmed and by no means unrepresentative playgoer, found Midsummer Night's Dream 'the most insipid ridic- ulous play that ever I saw in my life/ ^ and Othello * a mean thing' ^ in comparison with The Adventures of Five Hours. Beyond the Restoration horizon lay the forest of Arden and the seacoast of Bohemia. But perhaps the most significant contrast between Elizabethan and Restoration drama is in moral tone. The immoraHty of Restoration comedy has become a byword, yet the subject is too vital to be dismissed lightly. Judged by modern standards, Ehzabethan drama admitted at its best considerable vulgarity and indecency of speech, and in the period of its decUne showed increasing tendencies toward grossness of thought as well as freedom of phrase. Distinction should, obviously, be made between frankness of expression and uncleanness of mind. The standard of permissible expression is, in a sense, matter of custom rather than of moraUty. Restraint of phrase counts less than purity of intention, for immorality may Ue as much in what is to be read between the lines as in what actually appears on them. Yet, with every fair allowance, it must be admitted that Elizabethan drama is often not merely coarse butjmpure. Not even in its decadence, however, does it touch the depths of Restoration immorality. 1 Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, 1708, p. 33. * Diary, 29 Sept., 1662. Wheatley edition, II, 347- *Zhid., 20 Aug., 1666. Wheatley edition, V, 407- I ELIZABETHAN AND RESTORATION DRAMA 7 Restoration comedy differs fundamentally from Eliza- bethan in deliberately enlisting the sympathy of the audience in favour of the wrong-doer. The earUer drama, with all its sins, inclines to award dramatic justice, however belated, to the virtuous. Restora- tion comedy, disdaining fifth-act compromise, often lets vice rampant in the earlier acts remain vice triumphant. The curtain falls with plaudits for the coimtry wife who carries out a London intrigue with- out detection, and with derisive laughter for the hus- band who alone remains unconscious of his dishonour. Restoration comedy flaunts shamelessly the blazon of the 'scarlet letter.' It laughs not merely indul- gently at vice, but harshly at the semblance of virtue. Cavalier contempt went so far as to regard the show of virtue as proof of hypocrisy. Cynicism replaced religion. Piety was considered bourgeois. Contempt for hypocrisy, however, did not extend to the hypoc- risy of the intriguant. All was fair in amorous intrigue. The seducer wlio l)i?tw!Tte3'^ the" deluded husband became not the villain but the hefo. In the women deception was both a necessity and a virtue. Restoration comedy showed less the frailty of human nature than the strength of ^nJimal passion. So utterly subversive of moral standards is Res- toration comedy that an attempt has been made to defend it on the ground that it dealt with an unreal world to which no ordinary standards are appHcable. This brilliant fallacy is put forward by Charles Lamb in his essay On the Artificial Comedy of the Las* Century. The characters of Restoration comed> seem to Lamb to have escaped from the actual world 8 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. where moral law still reigns into 'the Utopia of gal- lantry, where pleasure is duty, and the manners perfect freedom. . . . We are not to judge them by our usages. No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings, — for they have none among them. No peace of families is violated, — for no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is stained, — for none is supposed to have a being. No deep affections are disquieted, — no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder, — for affection^s depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil. There is neither right nor wrong, — gratitude or its opposite, — claim or duty, — paternity or sonship.* But Restoration comedy was * artificial' only in so far as the court life which it mirrored was artificial. It portrayed all too faithfully the Vanity Fair of the Merry Monarch. Macaulay, with the heavy hand of common sense, relentlessly crushed to earth Lamb's poetic fancy. His essay on the Comic Dramatists of the Restoration^ swept away specious pleas in defence of artificial comedy. ^The morality of the Country Wife and the Old Bachelor,' he writes, 4s the morality, not, as Mr. Charles Lamb maintains, of an imreal world, but of a world which is a great deal too real. . . . Here the garb, the manners, the topics of conver- sation are those of the real town and of the passing day. The hero is in all superficial accompKshments exactly the fine gentleman whom every youth in * Often entitled Leigh Hunt, of whose edition of The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar Macaulay*s essay was ostensibly a review. I ELIZABETHAN AND RESTORATION DRAMA 9 the pit would gladly resemble. The heroine is the fine lady whom every youth in the pit would gladly marry. The scene is laid in some place which is as well known to the audience as their own houses. . . . A hundred little touches are employed to make the fictitious world appear like the actual world. And the immorality is of a sort which never can be out of date, and which all the force of reHgion, law, and public opinion united can but imperfectly restrain.' Macaulay utterly scouts the idea that Restoration dramatists deal with an un-moral world. * Morality constantly enters into that world, a sound moraHty, and an unsoimd morality; the soimd morality to be insulted, derided, associated with everything mean and hateful; the unsound morality to be set off to every advantage, and inculcated by all methods, direct and indirect. It is not the fact that none of the inhabitants of this conventional world feel rev- erence for sacred institutions and family ties. Fondlewife, Pinchwife, every person in short of narrow understanding and disgusting manners, ex- presses that reverence strongly. The heroes and heroines, too, have a moral code of their own, an ex- ceedingly bad one, but not, as Mr. Charles Lamb seems to think, a code existing only in the imagination of dramatists. It is, on the contrary, a code actually received and obeyed by great numbers of people. We need not go to Utopia or Fairyland to find them.' The final conclusion is driven home inexorably. ^The question is simply this, whether a man of genius who con- stantly and systematically endeavours to make. . . . [evil] character attractive, by imiting it with beauty, lO ENGLISH DRAMA chap. grace, dignity, spirit, a high social position, popu- larity, literature, wit, taste, knowledge of the world, bjilhant success in every undertaking, does or does not make an ill use of his powers. We own that we are unable to understand how this question can be answered in any way but one.' Macaulay's blunt dogmatism has sometimes irri- tated the artistic sympathies of sensitive critics. Some have been tempted to err with Lamb rather than take sides with Macaulay. Yet contemporary evi- dence is significant in this clash between sense and sensibility. It will suffice to mention two differ- ent but equally convincing documents. Hamilton's Memoirs of Count Grammont gives testimony of the court ; the Diary of Samuel Pepys gives testimony of the city. The Diary is both too extensive and too familiar to permit minute comment. Pepys, himself not unaware of human frailty, was doubtless readier to extenuate than to set down aught in malice, yet his pages echo the gossip and scandal of the court of the Merry Monarch, the notes of changing fashions and unchanging folly and vice. Wide differences there are between the quaint entries in the Diary of Pepys and the gay, vivacious, graceful pages of Hamilton, but the differences are of style rather than of substance. In the Memoirs live again the King and his courtesans, the profligate Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Rochester, who boasted that he had been drunk for five years at a stretch. To Hamilton, Grammont is the beau ideal of the age. 'It is this indefinable brilliancy, which, in/War, in love, in gam- ing, and in the various stages of a long life, has / / ELIZABETHAN AND RESTORATION DRAMA ii rendered the Count de Grammont the admiration of his age, and the delight of every country wlierein he has displayed his engaging wit, dispensed his generosity and magnificence, or practised his inconstancy.' ^ Macaulay might have termed Grammont an unprin- cipled gambler, a dishonourable adventurer, and an abandoned profligate. Late in Hfe the ChevaHer looked back upon the past with Shallow's smack of satisfaction in 'the days that we have seen,' but with- out need of magnifying glasses. The adventures in the Memoirs are one with the incidents of the Restoration stage. Miss Price and Miss Jennings, in merry mood, diguise themselves as orange-girls, visit the theatre, and encounter Beau Sidney andKilli- grew. Rochester, with the devihsh ingenuity of Wycherley's Horner, practises intrigue in the disguise of 'a famous German doctor.' Lady Chesterfield, taken off by her husband to the country, consoles herself by writing her lover of her sufferings in ' the most horrible of prisons' in phrases which voice the famiHar sentiments of Restoration heroines on the stage: 'Whatever the country affords most melancholy, in this season, presents itself to my view on all sides : surrounded by impassable roads, out of one window I see nothing but precipices ; but wherever I turn my eyes within doors, I meet those of a jealous husband, still more insupportable than the sad ob- jects that encompass me.'^ Incidents, adventures, and attitude are one with those of 'artificial comedy.' The world of Restoration comedy was not Utopia, but London. 1 Memoirs of Count Grammont, Goodwin edition, I, 3. Ubid., II, s-A' 12 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. The general contrasts drawn in the preceding pages between Elizabethan and Restoration drama have been so unfavourable to the later period that it may- be asked what defence can be made for Restoration drama. Defence, it may at once be answered, is not the business of the historian. His task is rather to set forth the facts as he finds them, and to interpret them, to the best of his abiHty, not as a special pleader but as an impartial judge. Nor should it be necessary for him to try to heighten lesser peaks in the range of English drama by Umiting his horizon to the im- mediate foreground. It would be possible, no doubt, since Gulliver becomes a giant in Lilhput, to magnify the achievements of Restoration drama by lowering the standard of judgment. Study of the beginning and growth of modern EngHsh drama does not, however, need questionable aids to give it value or enhance its interest. Despite its limitations and shortcomings, the drama of the past two centuries and a half has been linked too closely with the lives and interests of the English people to be dismissed as unworthy of serious notice. Whether comedy laughs with the sins of the Restoration, or weeps with the sentimentality of the eighteenth century, it bears the form and pressure of the age. Even when tragedy seems most aloof from human hearts, it won the plaudits of its passing day. ^The drama's laws the drama's patrons give' — at least, in large measure. Furthermore, in the period whose development is about to be traced, the comedy of manners comes to its fullest development. Tragedy learns to speak the accents of prose as well as the"ca3ehce'13rvef§e7^d I ELIZABETHAN AND RESTORATION DRAMA 13 finds suffering and sorrow in bourgeois life. Stage- craft schools itself with experience, and acting touches noble heights. Opera and pantomime rise to do battle for popular favour with regular drama. Gain and loss, success and failure, play their parts in the varying record. And because the story of modern English drama, with its conflicts and struggles, is essentially human, it is itself a great drama of English national life. CHAPTER II THE DRAMATIC INTERREGNUM, 1642-1660 The period between the closing of the theatres, in 1642, and the formal resumption of theatrical activity under royal patent, in 1660, may conveniently be termed the dramatic interregnum. Throughout this period, especially toward its close, the drama main- tained some semblance of life, but it had no genuine vitality. During the civil war most of the actors seem to have enlisted on the Royalist side, in natural loyalty to the party which had supported them against Puritan hostility. They had not forgotten that Prynne's attack upon them had been visited with fines, imprisonment, and even physical punishment. Under the commonwealth, however, the hand of the law was against them. An ordinance of 22 October, 1647, providing that actors in 'Stage Plays, Inter- ludes, or other Common Plays* be 'punished as Rogues, according to Law,' ^ was followed by the drastic ordinance of 11 February, 1648, which em- powered the Lord Mayor and others to destroy galleries, seats, and boxes in the theatres, to flog actors, and to cause them to enter into recognizances 'never to Act or play any Plaies or Interludes any more,' and to fine spectators for the benefit of the ^Journals of the House of Lords, IX, 490; W. C. Hazlitt, The English Drama and Stage, pp. 64-65. 14 CHAP. n. THE DRAMATIC INTERREGNUM, 1642-1660 15 poor.^ The distractions of civil war and the severity of the law thus miUtated alike against the stage. The cessation of dramatic and theatrical activity between 1642 and 1660 was, nevertheless, virtual rather than absolute. Even legal deterrents did not prove wholly effectual. 'When the Wars were over,' says Historia Histrionica: An Historical Account of the English-Stage (1699), 'and the Royalists totally Subdued; most of 'em [the actors] who were left aHve gather'd to London, and for a Subsistence endeavour'd to revive their Old Trade, privately. They made up one Company out of all the Scatter'd Members of Several; and in the Winter before the King's Murder, 1648, They ventured to Act some Plays, with as much caution and privacy as cou'd be, at the Cockpit.'' After three or four days they were interrup- ted while presenting a tragedy and carried off to prison for a time. 'In Oliver's time, they used to Act pri- vately, three or four Miles, or more, out of Town, now here, now there,' but such performances were rather surreptitious. While more ambitious dramatic ventures thus ran the hazards of the law, the edicts against stage-plays seem not to have been applied rigorously to various minor theatrical pieces. The very title of The Actors Remonstrance, or Complaint: for the silencing of their profession, and banishment from their severall Play-houses (1643) calls attention to the players' 'grievances, for their restraint ; especially since Stage- playes, only of all pubHke recreations are prohibited; iHazlitt, op. ciL, pp. 65-70; Journals of the House of Lords, X, 41-42. l6 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. the exercise at the Beares CoUedge [Bear-Garden], and the motions of Puppets being still in force and vigour/ The pamphlet itself protests that 'Puppit- plays, which are not so much valuable as the very musique betweene each Act at ours, are still up with uncontrolled allowance, witnesse the famous motion of Bell and the Dragon, so frequently visited at Holhourne-hridge ; these passed Christmas Holi- dayes.' To the same effect runs the testimony of ^ Francis Kirkman as to the production of MroUs'^: *When the publique Theatres were shut up, and the Actors forbidden to present us with any of their Tragedies, because we had enough of that in earnest ; and Comedies, because the Vices of the Age were too lively and smartly represented ; then all that we could divert our selves with were these humours and pieces of Plays, which passing under the Name of a merry conceited Fellow, called Bottom the Weaver, Simpleton the Smith, John Swabber, or some such title, were only allowed us, and that but by stealth too, and under pretence of Rope-dancing, or the like; and these being all that was permitted us, great was the con- fluence of the Auditors.' Kirkman then pays tribute to ^the incomparable Robert Cox, who was not only the principal Actor, but also the Contriver and Author of most of these Farces,' and points out that Hhese Compositions . . . were the fittest for the Actors to Represent, there being Httle Cost in Cloaths, which often were in great danger to be seized by the then Souldiers.' ^ . The I droUs '^ were short pieces, usually of a comic 1 Preface to The Wiis: or, Sport upon Sport (1673). n THE DRAMATIC INTERREGNUM, 1642-1660 17 nature, and often culled from regular plays. As early as 1662, the bookseller Francis Kirkman pub- lished a collection of them entitled, The Wits, or. Sport upon Sport. In Select Pieces of Drollery^ Digested into Scenes by way of Dialogue. In the various editions of this popular work the different terms, Mrolls,' ^humours,' 'droll-humours,' MroUeries,' and 'farces,' seem to be used with little or no distinction in meaning. The adoption of the single term 'droll' may, accordingly, avoid confusion. The drolls of the dramatic interregnum must not, however, be confused with the earUer puppet-shows sometimes designated by the same term, or with the non-dra- matic versifications found in such a collection as the Westminster Drolleries of 1672. With the revival of formal drama after the Restoration, the drolls attracted less favour, but the title of the 1673 edition of Kirkman's collection is a valuable indication of their previous scope and popularity : ' The Wits : or, Sport upon Sport. Being A Curious Collection of several Drols and Farces, Presented and Shewn For the Merriment and Delight of Wise Men, and the Ignorant: As they have been sundry times Acted In Publique, and Private, In London at Bartholomew In the Countrey at other Faires. In Halls and Taverns. On several Mountebancks Stages, At Charing-Cross, Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and other places. By Several Stroking Players, Fools, and Fidlers, And the Mountebancks Zanies. With loud Laughter, and great Applause. Written I know not when, by several Persons, I know not who; But now newly Collected by your Old Friend to please you, Francis Kirkman.' l8 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Kirkman's tribute to Robert Cox as ' the Contriver and Author of most of these Farces ' may prove some- what misleading. Most of these farces can, in fact, be traced to Elizabethan sources. The 1672 and 1673 editions of Kirkman's collection contain two very brief pieces based on the Old Testament, King Ahasuerus and Queen Esther, and King Solomon's Wisdom, but usually a marked preference is shown for excerpts from Elizabethan plays. It is preferable to select for more detailed examination the 1662 edition of The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport, since its early date gives strong presumption that most of the pieces were used during the interregnum. This collection contains twenty-seven pieces, of which two drawn from Shakespearean plays may serve as con- venient examples. The Grave-Makers takes the grave-diggers' scene from Hamlet, The Bouncing Knight [Falstaff] includes most of two Eastcheap tavern scenes and parts of the scenes that include Falstaff's description of his ragged company and his soliloquy on 'Honour,' and concludes with Fal- staff's counterfeit death on the battle field. Prince Hal's eulogy, and Falstaff's resurrection. Striking testimony to the popularity of Beaumont and Fletcher is afforded by the fact that of the remaining pieces in this collection about half are apparently from plays in which they either collaborated or had an important hand. That performances of Beaumont and Flet- cher's A King and No King^ and Fletcher's The Bloody 1 J. P. Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry, 1879 edition, II, 37, 40. Collier's contradiction in dates does not affect the main fact. n THE DRAMATIC INTERREGNUM, 1642-1660 19 Brother should have been forcibly interrupted,^ while lighter passages from their works appear to have escaped censure, seems hardly consistent with Macau- lay's famous dictum that the Puritans objected to bear-baiting not because it gave pain to the bear but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Yet Kirkman's Preface shows that various devices were adopted to cloak the real nature of some of these entertainments. Whatever the reasons were for their comparative immunity from attack, the drolls main- tained effectively that comic spirit which needed only the formal reopening of the theatres to find free utter- ance. They bear significant testimony to the con- tinuity of Elizabethan dramatic tradition even during the interregnum. Further proof of the maintenance of some interest in the drama during the interregnum may be drawn from the continued publication of dramatic work.\ Various plays of Shirley, Quarles, D'Avenant, Baron, the Killigrews, Cokayne, Chamber layne, and others, appeared in print. Even under the commonwealth, Cavalier resentment sometimes found a way to vent, in printed drama, feelings that were debarred utterance on the public stage. In 1648 were pub- Hshed the two parts of a play whose title-pages give sufficient indication of party feeling : ' Craf tie Crom- well : or, Oliver ordering our New State. A Tragi- Comedie. Wherein is discovered the Trayterous undertakings and proceedings of the said Nol, and his Levelling Crew. Written by Mercurius Melan- cholicus' and 'The Second part of Crafty Crumwell 1 Historia Histrionica, 1699, pp. 8-9. 20 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. or Oliver in his glory as King. A Trage Commedie Wherein is presented, the late treasonable undertak- ings, and proceedings, of the Rebells, their murther- ing of Capt. Burley, with their underhand workings to betray their KING. Written by Marcurius Prag- maticusJ It was a portent of that Cavalier spirit which, after the Revolution, could drop the mask of anonymity, and turn to rend its persecutors. The evidence already presented is enough to prove that the dramatic interregnum interrupts, but does not wholly break, the continuous course of English drama. Yet publication of plays, sporadic attempts to perform regular plays, and even frequent produc- tions of drolls imparted to the drama artificial stimu- lus rather than genuine vitality. As the period of the commonwealth drew toward its close, however, the languid pulse of drama was quickened by the stimulus of a more vital force. This more definite reawakening of dramatic activity was due pri- marily t o Sir William D ' Avenant ( 1 606-1 668) . In D'AvenanFira,Se/as'm"tIiat of the drama itself, the interregnum arrested, but did not fully check, dra- matic effort. D'Avenant himself may be regarded as the most conspicuous Hnk between Elizabethan and Restoration drama. As the successor of Ben Jonson to the poet laureateship, he is, in a sense, heir to the Elizabethans. More literally, tradition has sought to link the story of his birth with the name of Shake- speare. Shakespearean blood can be traced, at all events, in the veins of D'Avenant's dramatic adapta- tions. His early plays, often resembling Beaumont and Fletcher's romantic dramas, antedate the closing n THE DRAMATIC INTERREGNUM, 1642-1660 21 of the theatres; The Siese of Rhodes (16 "56) and its immediate successors mark the reawakening of dra- matic impulses during the interregnum ; his later plays belong to the opening of the Restoration period, but are chiefly Shakespearean adaptations. Through him the Elizabethan birthright, however debased by the misuse of years, was transmitted to Restora- tion playwrights. It was natural that D'Avenant, who had tasted dramatic success in the decade before the closing of the theatres, and who had been prevented by force of adverse circumstances from profiting by the patent empowering him, in 1639, to erect a playhouse, should seek an early opportunity to resume his dramatic career. Under the commonwealth, his activities in behalf of the RoyaUsts brought upon him imprison- ment and even the fear of death. During the closing years of the commonwealth, however, the edicts against dramatic productions seem not to have been enforced with their former rigour. Yet D'Avenant was careful to disguise the real nature of his new theatrical projects. In seeking the support of Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke, the Lord Keeper, for his venture, he took pains to term his work 'our opera.' ^ The title-page of the 1656 quarto of The Siege of Rhodes betrays equal caution in describing the piece as 'Made a Representation by the Art of Prospective in Scenes, And the Story sung in Recitative Musick.' Scenery and music thus became stalking-horses under the presentation of which D'Avenant shot his dramatic * Letter to Whitelocke, under date 3 September, 1656, Whitelocke's Memorials of the English Affairs, 1732 edition, p. 650. 22 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. bolts. His first tentative theatrical essay was given at a private house, though the taking of admission fees gives to the performance a quasi-public character. This First Days Entertainment at Rutland-House ^ By Declamations and Musick : After the manner of the Ancients, was produced in 1656, though it did not appear in print until the following year. It consists of two disputes, one between Diogenes and Aris- tophanes on the general question of public entertain- ments, the other between *a Parisian and a Londoner in the Livery Robes of both Cities, who Declaim concerning the prae-eminence of Paris and London.' Each dispute concludes with a song and chorus, while the four long harangues are each preceded by appropriate music. The epilogue shows the underlying hope of reviving real plays in its final hint to the audience to 'get them if you can.' But D'Avenant was not content with suggestion merely. Boldly developing the use of music and scenery, he produced in T];i£,,jM^Mf^^MkQdes (1656) what has been regarded usually as the first English opera, and sometimes as the first English heroic play. The masque, with its music, sceriei-y, and dancing, had already anticipated in private entertain- ments salient features which opera was now to de- velop on the regular stage. Elements of the heroic play had, likewise, already appeared in Elizabethan days. Through hero-plays like Marlowe's Tambur- laine, through the heroic romances of Beaumont and Fletcher, through such tragi-comedies as those of Massinger and Shirley, may be traced, at least roughly, a line of descent toward the heroic play. n THE DRAMATIC INTERREGNUM, 1642-1660 23 Long before the Continental impress was stamped upon Restoration tragedy, the English stage had become acquainted with many essential elements of heroic drama. Love and honour^ had already fought their way through sensational entanglements to surprising denouements. The horrors of the early tragedy of blood had been largely mitigated, and virtue and valour had often been crowned not with death, but with victory. Yet despite deep under- currents which flow from early sources, the stream of English drama may, with The Siege of Rhodes^ be said to take a new and noteworthy turning. Whether or not this piece is to be regarded as a heroic play is largely a matter of arbitrary definition. Those who associate ^ heroic drama' primarily with the use of the 'heroic couplet' usually set as its extent the years from 1664 to i6:j^ This, certainly, is its period of fullest development and authority. Those who prefer to accentuate the elements suggested by the very term 'heroic' rather than the strict rhymed verse form are willing to admit wider limits. With- out attempting to settle a controversy whose conclu- sion varies with the premises adopted, it may be con- venient to accept the strict limits set for heroic drama proper, at the same time insisting upon its intimate relation with plays that fail to conform to the rigid definition. Dryden, the most conspicuous advocate and exemplar of the 'heroic couplet' in tragedy, did not fail to acknowledge that 'for Heroic Plays ... the first light we had of them, on the * This is the very title of one of D'Avenant's pla3rs, acted 1634, though not published imtil 1649. 24 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. English theatre, was from the late Sir William D'Ave- ^ant.' ^ In presenting, in a semi-historical atmosphere land inji^ foreign setting, "tHemes of love and valour I that concern characters of high rank moving before a i background of war, The Siege of Rhodes resembles 1 the heroic play in essence, but it substitutes freedom ^in verse forms for the restraint of the ' heroic couplet.' D'Avenant himself, in his address 'To the Reader,' gives interesting comment upon both the heroic and poetic elements in his piece : ' The Story represented ... is Heroical, and not withstanding the con- tinual hurry and busie agitations of a hot Siege, is (I hope) intelHgibly convey'd to advance the Charac- ters of Vertue in the shapes of Valor and conjugal Love. . . . You may inquire, being a Reader, why in an heroick Argument my numbers are so often diver- sify'd and fall into short fractions ; considering that a continuation of the usual length of English verse would appear more Heroical in reading. But when you are an Auditor you will finde that in this, I rather deserve approbation then need excuse; for frequent alterations of measure . . . are necessary to Recitative Musick for variation of Ayres.' These latter phrases emphasize the fact that The Siege of Rhodes, however closely akin to heroic drama, , was written not as a play but as an opera. With lines ranging from two to five accents and variously rhymed, it was intended partly for song and partly for recitative. In a passage that shows the novelty of recitative, and suggests its foreign origin, D'Ave- nant terms it 'unpractis'd here; though of great 1 Essay of Heroic Plays, Ker, I, 149. n THE DRAMATIC INTERREGNUM, 1642-1660 25 reputation amongst other Nations.' ^ Again he suggests the limitations imposed by its use, in de- fending the poverty of plot 'because we could not convey it by more than seven Persons; being con- strain'd to prevent the length of Recitative Musick, as well as to conserve, without incmnbrance, the narrowness of the place.' Each of the five 'Entries' into which the opera is divided ends with a chorus. The lame and impotent conclusion of the final one will sufficiently show the variety of verse form, while the first four fines quoted might, with some justice, be applied to D'Avenant's own poetic efforts : You began the Assault With a very long Hault ; And, as haulting ye came, So ye went off as lame ; And have left our Alphonso to scoff ye. To himself, as a Daintie, He keeps his lanthe; Whilst we drink good Wine, and you drink but Coffy. In the use of scenery, The Siege of Rhodes de- liberately emphasized an element of theatrical art to which the public stage of the Elizabethans had been, in general, indifferent. Court masques had been lavishly set and costumed, and evidences are not wanting of occasional attempts to enrich the back- ground of regular drama. Yet it would be unfair to deny the essential novelty of the conscious and continuous movement to elabor ate scenic art which is so largely indebted for its impulse to D'Ave nant. Even hir"' Ornament which en compass 'i ffie"Scene* 1 Address *To the Reader' in 1656 quarto of the play. 26 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. has suggestions of historical setting in showing 'the proper cognisance of the Order of the Rhodian Knights/ and 'on an Antique Shield the Crescent of the Ottomans.'' ^ The stage direction before the 'First Entry' runs thus: 'The Curtain being drawn up, a lightsome Sky appear'd, discov'ring a Maritime Coast, full of craggy Rocks, and high CHffs, with several Verdures naturally growing upon such Scituations; and, a far off, the true Prospect of the City Rhodes, when it was in prosperous estate : with so much view of the Gardens and Hills about it, as the narrowness of the Room could allow the Scene. In that part of the Horizon, terminated by the Sea, was represented the Turkish Fleet making towards a Promontory some few miles distant from the Town.' The description before the 'Fourth Entry' reads: 'The Scene is vary'd to the Prospect of Mount Philermus: Arti- ficers appearing at work about that Castle which was there, with wonderful expedition, erected by Solyman, His great Army is discover'd in the Plain below, drawn up in Battalia; as if it were prepar'd for a general Assault.' D'Avenant probably produced these effects on small painted scenes or screens, for his limitations of space and cost are plainly emphasized. His Address to the Reader says, 'It has been often wisht that our Scenes (we having oblig'd our selves to the variety of Five changes) according to the Ancient Drammatick distinctions made for time) had not been confin'd to eleven foot in height, and about fifteen in depth, including the places of passage reserv'd for the Musick. This is ^ These and the following quotations are from the 1656 quarto. n THE DRAMATIC INTERREGNUM, 1642-1660 27 SO narrow an allowance for the Fleet of Solyman the Magnificent, his Army, the Island of Rhodes, and the varieties attending the Siege of the City; that I fear you will think, we invite you to such a contracted Trifle as that of the Caesars carv'd upon a Nut.' The Prologue to the Second Part, in the later enlargement of the piece, ^ exclaims that if to the poet were given half the money Which Faction gets from Fools to nourish Warr; Then his contracted Scenes should wider be, And move by greater Engines, till you see (Whilst you Securely sit) fierce Armies meet, , And raging Seas disperse a fighting Fleet. / In The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) and \^ The History of Sir Francis Drake (1659), D'Avenant continued to mask dramatic matter under the garb of music and scenery. Both pieces are described in the first quartos as 'Exprest by Instrumentall and Vocall Musick, and by Art of Perspective in Scenes, &c,' and the Peruvian setting in each allowed one * Frontispiece' or 'Ornament' to do double duty.^ Both operas, too, may have owed their immunity from Puritan persecution partly to the dominant English spirit of hostility to the Spaniards. Their real interest lies in the continuance of the musical elements of The Siege of Rhodes, in their kinship with heroic drama in the choice of semi-historical material and foreign setting, in the introduction of ^ The Siege of Rhodes, enlarged into two parts, was acted at Lin- coln's Inn Fields in 1661, and printed in 1663. 2 See 'The Discription of the Frontispiece' in the 1659 quarto of The History of S^ Francis Drake. 28 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. dancing, and in the evidences of some attempts at appropriate scenery and costumes. The * First Entry' in The Cruelty of the Spaniards is prefaced thus : ^ The Audience are entertain'd by Instrumental! Musick and a Symphany (being a wild Ayre sutable to the Region) which having prepar'd the Scene, a Lantdchap of the West-Indies is discern'd; distin- guisht from other Regions by the parcht and bare Tops of distant Hills, by Sands shining on the shores of Rivers, and the Natives, in feather'd Habits and Bonnets, carrying, in Indian Baskets, Ingots of Gold and Wedges of Silver. Some of the Natives being likewise discerned in their natural sports of Hunting and Fishing. This prospect is made through a wood, differing from those of European CHmats by representing of Coco-Trees j Pines and Palmitos; and on the boughs of other Trees are seen Munkies, Apes and Parrots; and at farther distance Vallies of Sugar-Canes.^ The Chief Priest of Peru is described as ' cloth'd in a Garment of Feathers longer then any of those that are worne by other Natives, with a Bonnet whose ornament of Plumes does likewise give him a distinction from the rest, and carryes in his hand a guilded Verge. He like- wise, because the Peruvians were worshipers of the Sun, carryes the Figure of the Sun on his Bonnet and Breast.' The 'feather'd habits' of the Indians, the bows, glaives, spears, and quivers of the Peru- vians, the cloaks, ruffs, rapiers, and daggers of the Spaniards, and the red coats of the English are care- fully indicated in various stage directions. In thus deliberately attempting not merely a more n THE DRAMATIC INTERREGNUM, 1642-1660 29 elaborate pictorial background, but a more faithful and consistent historical setting for drama, D'Avenant set in play forces whose ultimate results he could not have foreseen. Yet even the Restoration stage, in the brief years before his death, witnessed such development of scenery, costume, and stagecraft that the faint-hearted were fearful that the noble proportions of drama itself were being obscured imder too sumptuous a mantle. D'Avenant's later work belongs to the opening years of Restoration drama. But his real significance in dramatic history lies in his reawakening of dramatic impulse in the closing years of the interregnum. He is at once both follower and leader — a link between Elizabethan and Restoration drama and a forerunner of modern English drama. CHAPTER III THE BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA AND OPERA The formal opening of the period of modem Eng- lish drama may be dated from the issuing by Charles II, on 21 August, 1660, of letters patent conferring upon Thomas KilHgrew and Sir William D'Avenant the right to 'erect' two companies of players. The advent of Charles II to the throne meant the restora- tion of drama, as well as of monarchy. The grant of 21 August was of large significance. It restored to English drama, with the seal of royal authority, rights and privileges of which it has never subse- quently been deprived. Yet the act that thus con- ferred larger liberty upon the drama marks, in fact, the creation of a theatrical monopoly from whose shackles the London stage was not wholly freed for almost three centuries. For the moment, however, it was enough that the ban on English drama was formally lifted. The way, indeed, had already been opened for the resumption of theatrical activity. D'Avenant's pro- ductions at Rutland House had been followed by the performances of his operas, in 1658 and 1659, on the public stage at the Cockpit Theatre, in Drury Lane. In early February, 1660, General Monck entered London, and soon afterward a license for 30 CHAP, in BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 31 acting was given to John Rhodes, a London bookseller, said to have been previously connected with the Blackfriars Theatre as wardrobe-keeper. Before the issue of the patent of 21 August, three companies of actors had begun to be assembled — at the Cockpit, at the Red Bull, and at SaHsbury Court, in White- friars. The royal grant to Killigrew and D'Avenant, accordingly, aroused some dissensions. Sir Henry Herbert, standing on his dignity as Master of the Revels, protested to the King against this 'unjust surprize' which disregarded his authority, and sought to discredit D'Avenant by describing him as one 'who obtained leave of Oliver and Richard Cromwell to vent his operas, at a time when your petitioner owned not their authority.' Even after the failure of his petition, Herbert strove to block D'Avenant's path by the assumption of rights of censorship. His warrant demanding that plays to be acted at the Cockpit be submitted to him that 'they may be reformed of prophanes and ribaldry' fomented the dispute, but eventually the struggle ended with the practical victory of the patentees. Meanwhile, under definite agreement between the two patentees, the actors were divided into two companies. D'Avenant's company — known as the Duke of York's — settled, in 1 66 1, at the new theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, removing finally to Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. Killigrew's company — known as the King's — was definitely estabhshed, in 1663, at the Theatre Royal, later known as Drury Lane. D'Avenant's dramatic work after the reopening 32 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. of the theatres is far less significant than that which he inaugurated during the interregnum. Yet his revivals of several of his own pre-Restoration plays and his various adaptations from Elizabethan drama- tists are definite Hnks between Restoration and earUer English drama. The Siege of Rhodes was now ex- panded into two parts, and two plays that had been produced by D'Avenant in the days of Charles I were successfully revived. These were Love and Honour, which may be regarded as one of the transi- tional plays between the heroic romances of Beau- mont and Fletcher and the ^heroic drama' of the Restoration, and The Unfortunate Lovers, a tragedy pronounced by Pepys, who witnessed it the day after its author's death, 'no extraordinary play.' ^ D'Ave- nant's new productions after the Restoration are chiefly adaptations from EHzabethan drama. Thus, The Law against Lovers (1662) blends with the darker tones of Measure for Measure the lively accents of Benedick and Beatrice ; The Rivals (1664) alters The Two Noble Kinsmen; Macbeth (1664 ?) and The Tempest (1667) recast Shakespeare. Dryden, who assisted in the alteration of The Tempest, ascribed to D'Avenant the doubtful credit for the introduction, as a counterpart to Miranda, of 'a man who has never seen a woman.' The Playhouse to be Let (circ. 1663)^ is a sort of pot- pourri, including such diverse elements as two of D'Avenant's interregnum operas, a burlesque on the story of Antony and Cleopatra, and a rendering of Mohere in broken Enghsh. *The Man's the Master ^ Diary, 8 April, 1668. Wheatley edition, VII, 397- 2 Printed in the 1673 folio of D'Avenant's Works, in BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 33 (1668), a comedy with borrowings from Scarron, was revived as late as 1775. D^Avenant's importance in English dramatic his- tory is to be measured not by his own actual dramatic product but by the far-reaching and powerful forces which he set in motion. Crude and ineffective seem [ to the modern reader his dramatic efforts, yet to them must be accorded a prominence denied to many works of greater Hterary worth. The Siege of Rhodes is a distinct innovation whose historical significance is out of all proportion with its intrinsic merits. It remains one of the most notable landmarks in the course of English drama. In reviving theatrical performances, in regularly employing actresses and movable scenery, in heralding the 'heroic drama,' and in introducing opera, D'Avenant not merely set I the fashion for early Restoration playwrights, but stirred impulses that have powerfully affected the whole course of modern English dramatic develop- ment. Yet his merits as a leader are enforced by his services as a follower of the Elizabethans. Through the dark years of the interregnum he kept alive some memory of a great national dramatic tradition. The fire of the Elizabethans had well-nigh burned itself out, but D'Avenant did not suffer its last sparks to become extinct. Like D'Avenant, Thomas Killigrew (161 2-1683) is a Hnk between Elizabethan and Restoration drama. Some of his plays, among them several tragi-comedies in which the romantic vein of Fletcher is debased by extravagant conception and surcharged sentiment, appeared on the public stage before the 34 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Civil War. During the interregnum, in the course of a protracted foreign sojourn, he continued to write plays. After the reopening of the theatres, he re- vived some of his pre-Restoration dramas. Pepys witnessed Claracilla on 4 July, 1661, and on 11 October, 1664, recorded the suggestive comment of Luellin on the revival of KilUgrew's early comedy. The Parson^ s Wedding : 'What a bawdy loose play this ''Parson's Wedding" is, that is acted by nothing but women at the King's house.' The Restoration stage had become so quickly habituated to the ap- pearance of actresses that it had discovered a novel way to whet the appetites of playgoers. It is as a 'merry droll' — to borrow a phrase from Pepys — that Thomas Killigrew seems to have impressed the Merry Monarch and his followers. 'Tom Elilligrew hath a fee out of the Wardrobe for cap and bells under the title of the King's Foole or Jester,' — so writes Pepys, 13 February, 1668, — 'and may with privilege revile or jeere anybody, the greatest person, without offence, by the privilege of his place.' His serious dramatic efforts seem, for the most part, laboured, and most of the pieces collected in the 1664 folio of his works may be dismissed as ' closet-dramas,' but in some of his comic passages, whetted with the zest of inde- cency, there are suggestions of the *many merry stories' which estabHshed his reputation as a wit. In turning from an account of the dramatic work of D'Avenant and Killigrew to a broader survey of the Restoration drama under the leadership of the two patentees, it is well to emphasize one fact of vital importance. fThe roots of Restoration drama m BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 35 lie in Elizabethan soil. [Yet the foreign graftings upon English stock have often attracted more at- tention than the native growth. Dryden and his followers based their theories largely on Gallic rules and conventions and their practice on Continental models, but it is wholly misleading to regard Restora- tion drama as an essentially foreign product. Comedy felt the influence of Jonson as well as of MoHere, and tragedy pointed backward to Beaumont and Fletcher as well as to Corneille and Racine. Dryden could preach classical doctrines of the drama and admire Shakespeare. Theory might seek to separate tragedy from comedy, but the tragi- comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher still held the stage. The ^heroic drama' borrowed consciously from foreign sources, yet in- herited no less surely an English birthright. Not seldo m the hand is the hand of France, but the voice is the voice of England. The drama of Dryden's period is not the projection across the Channel of the straight line of GalUc convention ; it is the resultant of English and Continental forces. The reopening of the theatres brought the revival of numerous Elizabethan plays. John Downes, prompter at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre during practically the entire Restoration period, gives ^ a list of fifteen * Principal Old Stock Plays' acted during the earlier years of the Theatre Royal, later known as the Drury Lane. Two plays are by Dryden, three by Shake- speare, three by Jonson, seven by Beaumont and Fletcher. A supplementary list of old plays which * were Acted but now and then ; yet being well Per- * Roscius Anglicanus, 1708, pp. 3-8. 36 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. formed, were very Satisfactory to the Town ' consists largely of works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Shirley. Adaptations of still other Shakespearean plays gave them at least counterfeit presentment on the stage. Though his romantic com- edies were denied the favour shown to The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's tragedies were reanimated by the genius of Better ton. Blurred and imperfect as was the Restoration vision, it was never blind to Elizabethan achievement. The interregnum had weakened, but not broken, the continuous chain of English drama. With the Restoration, the pent-up forces of Cavalier sentiment that had found but narrow outlets under the commonwealth burst the barriers. The anony- mous attacks upon Cromwell in such printed dramas of the interregnum as those previously described now gave way to open animosity. Early in 1660, John Tatham (fl. 1 63 2-1 664), whose early dramatic efforts before the closing of the theatres had been followed by productions of city pageants during the closing years of the interregnum, produced 'at the Private House in Dorset-Court,^ ^ The Rump, or the Mirrour of the Late Times. Some of the characters are thinly disguised by the transparent trick of in- verting their names — Bertlam for Lambert, Wood- fleet for Fleetwood — but others are introduced without semblance of pretence. The abusive satire does not respect sex, for Lambert's wife and Crom- well's widow are alike victims. The bitter Cavalier feeling of The Rump found expression in various ^ See title-page of 1660 edition. in BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 37 dramatic pieces not produced on the stage. Of these it is enough to cite two early examples. CromwelVs Conspiracy (printed 1660) represents Cromwell in guilty- intrigue with Mrs. Lambert, and in Hells Higher Court of Justice (printed 1661) the 'damned plagues' devised for his punishment seem adequate even for one said to deserve 'all, Nay more then ever hell yet knew.' The virulence of Cavalier feeHng was tempered to milder satire upon the Puritans by Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) in Cutter of Coleman-Street (1661). This piece was a revision of The Guardian, which had been acted at Cambridge in 1641, printed in 1650, and, according to its author,^ privately pre- sented several times during the interregnum. It is a commentary on the times that Cutter of Coleman- Street aroused resentment on account of its supposed strictures on the King's party. RoyaKst sentiment did not relish the frank portrayal of a dnmken Cavalier in the person of Colonel Jolly, and Cowley deemed it necessary in an indignant preface to his first edition (1663) to answer charges of disloyalty because Cutter, 'a merry sharking fellow about the Town,' was represented as 'pretending to have been a Colonel in the Kings Army.' Yet Cutter mocks Puritan speech, garb, and the habit of referring everything to visions, and ends by marrying Puritan Tabitha and making her drimk and lewd. Apart from its political interest, Cowley's comedy has some effective strokes of characterization, and Lamb found it 'the link between the Comedy of Fletcher and of Congreve.' ^ * Preface to first edition of Cutter of Coleman-Street, 1663. * Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, in Lamb's WorkSt Lucas edition, IV, 432, footnote. 38 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Though the opening years of the Restoration theatres seem largely devoted to the revival of earlier dramas and to the novelty of poHtical dramatic satire, there were early indications of more significant dramatic progress. In the work of John Wilson (1627 ?-i696), Recorder of Londonderry, Restoration comedy is at once quickened by EHzabethan impulse and shown to be capable of genuine comic achieve- ment. The comedies of Ben Jonson were speedily installed as favourites on the Restoration stage. Pepys saw The Silent Woman, 7 January, 1661, and Downes mentions it, together with Volpone and The Alchemist, as among the principal old stock plays at the Theatre Royal. John Wilson, though too vigorous to be dismissed merely as an imitator, fell naturally under Jonson's influence. In the Preface to The Cheats (written 1662)^ he says: Xomedy, either is, or should be, the true Picture of Vertue, or Vice; yet so drawn, as to shew a man how to follow the one, and avoid the other.' The Cheats is preeminently a 'humour comedy,' with deception, in its various forms, as the vice depicted. Bilboe and Titere Tu usurp the titles of Major and Captain, though they are but common bullies ; Runter is a pretended legal authority ; Scruple is a hypocrite — a Nonconformist who conforms for a living of £300, but goes back to his flock for £400 by 'natural affection' ; Mopus is a quack astrologer. The strength of the comedy lies rather in characters and in dialogue than in plot. In The Projectors (printed 1665) the influence of Jonson shows in characters like Sir Gudgeon Credu- 1 See title-page of first edition, printed 1664. in BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 39 lous, the miser, Suckdry, the usurer, and Leanchops, the servant. The very names of the characters reveal the habit which Jonson popularized in * humour comedy.' The generous treatment usually accorded to Wilson's dramatic work by modern critics has tended perhaps to magnify his real position with his contem- poraries. The Cheats was reprinted in each of the remaining decades of the century and had occasional performances as late as 1727, yet theatrical chroniclers of the day, like Downes, are apt to give it little or no mention. In a letter of 28 March, 1663, Abraham Hill says: 'The new play, called The Cheats, has been attempted on the stage ; but it is so scandalous, that it is forbidden.' ^ Genes t is so sceptical of the actual production of The Projectors that he includes it with Wilson's vigorous blank-verse tragedy, Andr on- ions Comnenius (printed 1664), in his long list of 'Plays not acted.' Belphegor, or The Marriage of the Devil, described in the edition of 1691 as 'lately acted at the Queen's Theatre in Dorset-Garden,' had a tardy posthumous hearing. Even the Biographia Dramatica dismisses Wilson briefly as 'the author of four plays.' No reader who has found relief from the dull monotony of so many lesser contemporary play- wrights in Wilson's best passages will seek to disparage his dramatic merits. Yet the weight of evidence seems to point toward less decisive assertion of his immediate dramatic prominence and of his influence upon his contemporaries. None the less he remains an early Restoration follower of ' the tribe of Ben,' and * Familiar Letters of Abraham Hill, 1767, p. 103. 40 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. a proof that the revived ^humour comedy' could create as well as imitate. While frequent revivals, adaptations, and imita- tions of Elizabethan drama were thus exerting potent influence upon the early dramatic productions k- after the reopening of the theatres, the rapid develop- ment of scenic and other theatrical novelties tended more and, more to differentiate the Restoration stage from the Elizabethan. Not in the written drama, but in the conditions of its presentation, are to be found the most striking early evidences of a new era in the development of the theatre. The' influence of the theatrical innovations upon the drama itself was speedily recognized. Hardly had the Patent Theatres ' been well established when Richard Flecknoe, in A Short Discourse of the English Stage, ^ uttered a warning i against the danger of allowing stage setting to dis- I tract attention from the drama proper. 'Now, for i the difference betwixt our Theaters and those of former I times, they were but plain and simple, with no other ■: Scenes, nor Decorations of the Stage, but onely old : Tapestry, and the Stage strew'd with Rushes, (with t their Habits accordingly) whereas ours now for cost and \ ornament are arrived to the heighth of Magnificence ; : but that which makes our Stage the better, makes our I Playes the worse perhaps, they striving now to \v make them more for sight, then hearing ; whence that '^ solid joy of the interior is lost, and that benefit which men formerly received from Playes, from which they seldom or never went away, but far better and wiser then they came.' Furthermore, in the prac- * Attached to Love's Kingdom. A Pastoral Trage-Comedyy 1664. m BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 41 tice that became well established during the next decade of transforming tragedy into opera, the change was ejffected in large part not merely by the use of music, but by the prominent introduction of scenery and stage devices. Of this, Downes gives abundant contemporary evidence. D'Avenant's alteration of Macbeth was 'drest in all it's Finery, as new Cloath's, new Scenes, Machines, as flyings for the Witches';^ The Tempest 'was made into an opera . . . having all New in it; as Scenes, Machines; particularly, one Scene Painted with Myriads of Ariel Spirits; and another flying away, with a Table Furnisht out with Fruits, Sweet meats, and all sorts of Viands' ;2 'In February 1673. The long expected Opera of Psyche, came forth in all her Ornaments ; new Scenes, new Machines, new Cloaths, new French Dances: This Opera was Splendi[d]ly set out, especially in Scenes; the Charge of which amounted to above 800 /.' ^ The very success of these devices in opera reacted upon the regular drama, so that tragedy shows a new and increasing reliance upon spectacular effects. Detailed account of various changes in scenery, costume, and stage machinery belongs rather to theatrical than to dramatic history. Yet it is im- portant to recognize that the acted drama is never independent of the conditions attending its production. Even the crude settings of D'Avenant's operas show that ejfforts to visualize the drama's scenes cannot fail * Roscius Anglicanus, p. 33. *7i»«/., p. 34. *Ibid.yp.ss, 42 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. to raise questions, however imperfectly they may be answered, as to appropriateness of scene and costume. The introduction of movable scenery is, furthermore, not without direct influence on the Restoration limitation of scenes as compared with the free practice of the Elizabethan stage. Nor is it merely the scene- shifter with whom the playwright must now reckon. When the dramatist is no longer left alone to paint I the moonlit avenue at Belmont or the fairy wood outside Athens, poetry of words may clash with prose of paint. Even Puff discovered that a clock striking four in the morning 'saves a description of the rising sun and a great deal about gilding the eastern I hemisphere.^ There need be no attempt to seek in the increasing attention to scenic art a vain excuse for the dull fancies of many Restoration playwrights, yet it should not be forgotten that the very poverty {of Elizabethan setting doubtless. stimulated the wealth of Shakespearean descriptions. The habitual em- ployment of actresses on the Restoration stage may, likewise, be held to have influenced a drama which bent its energy largely to a licentious comedy of in- trigue, and which speedily found ways to whet interest by the presentation of plays given wholly by actresses and by capping tragedy with epilogues whose coarseness was accentuated in a woman's mouth. In so far, then, as these radical innovations of the estoration stage changed the environment of the laywright, they directly influenced his dramatic product. In reviewing the early activities of the Restoration theatre, it has seemed advisable to defer until a separate Ill BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 43 chapter discussion of the dramatic work and influence of the most prominent Restoration dramatist. Yet, both to summarize the account already presented and to enlarge the scope of subsequent discussion, it is desirable to resolve, if possible, the component forces which have their resultant in Dryden^s dra- matic work. The dominant influence on English drama during the interregnum and the opening years of the Restoration period was, as has been seen, English. The Elizabethan tradition was continued through D'Avenant's essentially heroic themes to the 'heroic drama' of Dryden and Orrery, and through MroU humours,' culled chiefly from Eliza- bethan plays, to Jonsonian 'humour comedies' like those of Wilson. It was likewise enforced by the Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare and the stage revivals of Elizabethan plays. As the decade advanced, nevertheless, alien in- fluences asserted themselves with increasing power. In The Siege of Rhodes D'Avenant had already introduced English opera, using recitative music which he declared to be 'unpractis'd here; though of great reputation amongst other Nations.' His words raise at once the question of foreign influence upon English opera. Too much stress should not be laid on D'Avenant's chance phrase. The facile assump- tion that early English opera is the product of French influences is dangerous. Under the protection of Mazarin, Italian opera had been carried into France as early as 1645. The real development of French opera, however, dates only from the decade of the seventies, a period subsequent to the operas of 44 ENGLISH DRAMA D^Avenant and other English writers. As operatic tendencies became accentuated in France, dramatists like Corneille, Moliere, and Quinault had more or less to do with its libretti. All three, in fact, contrib- uted to Psyche (167 1), whose success turned Quinault to writing for Lulli, its composer, libretti which thoroughly established the popularity of French opera. The first French opera has been recently de- clared^ to be the Pomone (1671) of Cambert and Pierre Perrin, and the popular collaborations of Lulli and Quinault begin only in the very year, 1673, when Shad well turned The Tempest into an opera. Un- questionably the popularity of opera in France, and its occasional actual transfer to the English stage, stimulated operatic activity in England, especially in the decadfe which produced Matthew Locke's music to Psyche and the earliest of Purcell's operas, Dido and A eneas ( 1 680) . Yet a score or so of years had already elapsed since the production of The Siege of Rhodes. Without attempting to disprove wholly the foreign influence upon early EngHsh opera which D'Avenant'sown words imply, it would seem that the case should not rest here. Two reasons naturally suggest themselves to account largely for D'Avenant's introduction of English opera — his previous practice in the masque and his desire to cloak, under a novel disguise, the real nature of his dramatic efforts. His early operas are not an alien Continental product. >y In a word, French influence was more potent in the later I development of Restoration opera than at its outset. \ ^ Of Continental influences upon Restoration drama ^C. H. C. Wright, A History of French Literature, 191 2, p. 361. nr BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 45 proper — as distinguished from its by-product, opera, — two deserve particular attention. These are the Spanish and the French. Broadly speaking, Eliza- bethan drama had been but slightly affected by Spanish influences. Tudor dramatists had occasion- ally introduced Spanish scenes or characters for the sake of variety, and had at times drawn from Spanish sources some suggestions for plot. Later play- wrights before the Restoration had borrowed, some- times directly, but more often indirectly, from Spanish originals. Usually, as in the familiar instance of Fletcher's obligations to the prose of Cervantes, material had been drawn rather from non-dramatic than from dramatic Spanish literature. Under Charles I, there are signs of an interest in Spanish drama which was continued after the reopening of the theatres. KilUgrew's early comedy. The Parson^s Weddings successfully produced on the Restoration stage in 1664, drew from Calderon. Adaptations by George Digby, Earl of Bristol, of two comedies by Calderon were acted, according to Downes, ^ between 1662 and 1665, and the publication of Digby's Elvira, in 1667, is further proof of his interest in Calderon. Sir Samuel Tuke^s Adventures of Five Hours (1663) — in contrast with which Pepys deemed Othello *a mean thing' — adapted a Spanish play ascribed to Antonio Coello. Other plays during the first decade of the Restoration which seem to show Spanish influence are Dryden's Rival-Ladies (1664) and his Evening^ s Love (1668), Orrery's Guzman (circ. 1669),^ and St. Serfe's ^ Roscius Anglicanus, p. 26. 2 Pepys mentions its anonymous production, 16 April, 1669. Diaryj Wheatley edition, VIII, 296. 46 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Tarugo^s Wiles (1668).^ Translations, such as those of Sir Richard Fanshawe (printed 1670-1671) from Antonio de Mendoza, give additional evidences of attention to Spanish drama, but deserve only inci- dental mention in a record primarily concerned with actual stage productions. The slender thread of Spanish weave which is thus apparent in the fibre of early Restoration drama is discernible from time to time in the texture of later English drama. Wycherley, Mrs. Behn, and Crowne, in the later seventeenth century, and Steele, Gibber, and Mrs. CentHvre in the early eighteenth century may serve as sufiicient examples of the continuance of Spanish influence, however faint at times, upon English dramatists. In general, however, Spanish "^ drama, or even Spanish literature, made but minor contribution to English drama of the Restoration. Apart from its occasional suggestions for plot, Spanish drama may have somewhat stimulated early Restoration tendency toward the comedy of intrigue. In a familiar passage, Scott declared^ that 'the Spanish comedy, with its bustle, machinery, disguise, and complicated intrigue, was much more agreeable' to the taste of Restoration audiences than 'regular comedy . . . depending upon delicate turns of expres- i-sion, and nicer delineations of character.' Yet this must not be mistaken for proof of the dominance of Spanish influence over Restoration comedy. From Etherege onward, the 'artificiar Restoration comedy * St. Serfe borrowed from Moreto's No puede ser, a source from which Crowne drew to better advantage in his Sir Courtly Nice (1685). ' Life of John Dryden, Scott-Saintsbury edition of Dryden, I, 62. < m BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 47 of manners is largely characterized by a grace and flu- ency of prose dialogue which, in Congreve, is carried even to indifference toward dramatic action. The bustle and machinery of Spanish comedy actually af- fected but slightly the course of English dramatic de- velopment. The indebtedness of Restoration play- wrights to Spanish sources is neither considerable in extent nor potent. Far more significant in its bearings upon Restora- tion drama was French influence. French drama, French dramatic theory, and French romance affected English writers of the period so notably that it was once almost habitual to regard Restoration drama as an essentially Gallicized product. In its simplest form, this theory held that Charles II and his followers returned from CavaHer exile on the Continent dom- inated by French dramatic standards which forth- with gave to English drama its primary stimulus and determined its content, form, and general charac- ter. The ease with which proofs may be amassed of direct Gallic influence upon Restoration plays doubtless contributed to the wide acceptance of this facile theory. Its fault lies not in its underlying elements of partial truth, but in its gross exaggeration. It would be an eqiial error to belittle evidences of French influence upon English drama, some of which are too obvious to escape even a superficial reader. Translations, adaptations, and imitations of French/ drama are numerous and important. Moliere was! despoiled by English writers of comedy; Corneille, and later Racine, left indubitable marks upon English tragedy. Potent, especially, was the force of French 48 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. dramatic theory. Yet not even the multiple proofs of Gallic graftings on the stock of Restoration drama can obscure the contention that its roots lie in English soil. The stage which D'Avenant helped to reestab- lish owed neither its origin nor its initial progress to GalUc masters. Throughout the interregnum the EUzabethan dramatic tradition persisted. With the reopening of the theatres, the managers of the Patent Houses turned to Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and other early English dramatists, and in them Restoration playwrights found models to imitate and materials to refashion. Even the novelty of English opera seems chiefly attributable to native influences. Subsequent dis- cussion of the later development of Restoration drama will frankly recognize its large indebtedness to GalHc models, yet even when French authority seems most dominant it never fully imposed its yoke upon the English theatre. The rigid con- ventions of the classical Continental dramas were, again and again, abated on the freer English stage. In a word, Restoration drama is not to be dismissed as an essentially foreign product. It is the resultant of English and Continental forces. With this general conclusion always in mind, it is none the less essential to indicate some of the im- portant evidences of French influence upon early Restoration dramatists. The tendency to identify French drama and dramatic theory with the so-called classical school makes it advisable to recall the fact that French drama of the first half of the seventeenth century by no means confined itself to the more m BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 49 regular forms of tragedy and comedy. Pastoral and tragi-comedy were popular. The tragi-comedies of the prolific Hardy and of his successor, Rotrou, clearly transgress the strict bounds of Senecan tragedy. The influence of French drama upon English, before the closing of the theatres, was not circumscribed by classical prejudices. In England the doctrines of classical drama, though at times supported, as in the theory of Sir Philip Sidney and in the partial prac- tice of Ben Jonson, had been too rigid for the free fancy of most EHzabethans. As the wave of creative energy subsided, however, playwrights who lacked the genius that is a law unto itself were more suscep- tible to dramatic guidance. The advent of new and commanding forces in French drama, during the EngUsh dramatic interregnum, was naturally of import to the rising dramatists of a reawakening English stage. To Pierre Corneille (i 606-1 684) have been largely ^ ascribed the classical tendencies early apparent in English drama of the Restoration. Without disput- ing the general conclusions of many critics, it may be well to point the danger of regarding him as an uncom- promising classicist. The identification of Corneille with classical drama rests on his later dramatic work and theory, but tends to disregard both his earher plays and the romantic tendencies often apparent even in his so-called classical tragedies. Corneille dramatized before he theorized. Though habitually classed as a writer of tragedy, his 'peches de jeunesse' — as he termed his early comedies — and Le Menteur broaden the scope of his dramatic work. The roman- 50 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. tic atmosphere of the time colours the splendid rhetoric of Le Cid (1636), and the tribute of the Academy to * la naivete et la vehemence de ses passions ' suggests that its triumph was not that of classical restraint in tragedy. Horace (1640), indeed, is a more strictly classical tragedy, but the melodramatic note in Rodogune, the operatic element in Andromede, and the very name comedie heroique which its author gave to Don Sanche D^Aragon are sufficient proof that Corneille is not to be dismissed merely as a writer of classical tragedy. His important pronouncements of classical dramatic theory, furthermore, belong to his later days. His own practice he found dilB&cult to harmonize with his theory. Yet all this is not to deny his unquestioned influence upon Restoration dramatists in the direction of classical drama. The various Discours and Examens accompanying the printed texts of his plays formulated a critical theory of classical drama which offered direct suggestion to Restoration playwrights. The doctrine of the dra- matic unities was to find almost immediately a power- ful EngHsh advocate in Dryden. To the influence of Corneille upon EngHsh tragedy j^' and dramatic theory must be added that of MoHere "^^ upon English comedy. Not until the closing decade of the English dramatic interregnum did MoKere (1622-1673) attain eminence as a writer of comedy. His significant dramatic work covers the score of years from the production of UEtourdi (1653?) to his death. With Les Precieuses Ridicules, produced late in 1659, his success was firmly established. In the opening years of the Restoration period, his m BEGINNINGS OF RESTORATION DRAMA 51 fame was furthered by VEcole des Maris (1661) and VEcole des Femmes (1662) . The advent of the master of French comedy brought to English playwrights of the new era a model to admire and imitate. Some of them had already come in contact with his early work during the closing years of the interregnum. With the reopening of the theatres and the growth of Moliere's reputation, English writers turned increas- ing attention to French comedy. Translations and adaptations of Moliere multipKed, and suggestions were freely pilfered for plot, incident, and character.^ lYet Restoration borrowers reproduced the outward - ; semblance, not the real spirit, of the French master. I In their hands Gallic gaiety was coarsened into t gross brutahty, satire became cynically harsh, and I human comedy lost its humanity. In comedy,, I as in tragedy, the spirit of French drama evaded the I grasp of English copyists. It would be as unfair to ! Moliere as it would be untrue to the facts of English I dramatic history to regard Restoration comedy as an I essentially Gallicized product. In the developments of Restoration drama about to be traced, Continental influences will be found constant and powerful. Yet the English influences that dominated the interregnum and the opening years of the new era remain, throughout the Restora- tion period, the underlying factor. Gallic theory and English practice clashed ceaselessly for years, but in the end the predominant forces were English. Even Dryden, the most notable advocate of classical 1 The extent of English borrowings from French drama is indicated jn Ward's suggestive footnote, III, 315-316. 52 ENGLISH DRAMA chap, in theories, bore repeated testimony to the triumphs of Elizabethan genius, turned eventually against his * long-loved mistress Rhyme,' and led the return to English blank verse and an at least partial return to Elizabethan themes and methods. It is well to enter the study of the drama of Dryden and his period with the recollection that the roots of Restoration drama lie in Elizabethan soil. CHAPTER IV DRYDEN, AND THE HEROIC DRAMA The central figure in the history of Restoration < drama is John Dryden (1631-1700). Yet Dryden was more at home in verse satire or prose criticism than in comedy or tragedy. Much of his dramatic work seems written against the grain, in response not to his own impulse, but to the popular demand. He early voiced and long followed the doctrine of the practical playwright : He^s bound to please, not to write well ; and knows, There is a mode in plays as well as clothes.^ In comedy he had neither the wit nor the ease of Congreve. Even in heroic tragedy, of which he is the chief exemplar, his fancy seems to have been caught rather by rhyme than by dramatic action. Never- theless, practice gave him facility in pla3rwriting, and the touch of poetry raised his best dramas far above the level of ephemeral stage successes. From flabby perversions of Shakespeare he rose, in AU for Love, to real power in handling the theme of Antony anB Cleopatra. Though not at heart a dramatist, he led both in critical discussion of dramatic theory and in practice of dramatic composition. JKith him, essentiallY-rose and fell English rhymed heroic drama. ' ■'"■^ -^''**^"* * Prologue to The Rival-Ladies (1664), 53 54 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. His advent as a playwright promised little. His first comedy, The Wild Gallant (1663), was to Pepys 'so poor a thing as I never saw in my life almost,' ^ and to the author himself a 'motley garni- ture of fool and farce.' ^ The Rival-Ladies (1664), based on a Spanish plot, is a tragi-comedy with elements of heroic drama. Especially noteworthy is the introduction of some scenes in rhyme. Dryden, whose carelessness is shown by his citation of Queen [sic] Gorboduc, a blank-verse tragedy, as a precedent for Enghsh rhymed drama, and by his assignment of the invention of blank verse to Shakespeare, in dedi- cating his play to the Earl of Orrery credits him with an earHer adoption of the 'new way ... of writing scenes in verse.' Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery (1621-1679), of whose work The History of Henry the Fifth (1664) and Mustapha, the Son of Solyman the Magnificent (1665), may serve as sufficient examples, has been frequently credited with the introduction of rhymed heroic drama, but it is well not to lay too much stress on Dryden's generous words. It is true that 'the new way of writing scenes in verse' differs widely from the Elizabethan use of the rhymed couplet to mark the close of scenes or to emphasize certain passages, and from Shakespeare's frequent employment of rhyme for lyrical effect in his earlier plays. Yet even the more rigid 'heroic couplet' of Restoration drama is perhaps anticipated in such a play as The Virgin Widow (printed 1649), by Francis Quarles. Although this appeared during the interregnum, 1 Diary, 23 Feb., 1663. Wheatley edition, III, 51. * Second Epilogue, written for the revival of the play in 1669. IV DRYDEN, AND THE HEROIC DRAMA 55 the first quarto speaks of it as 'having been sometimes at Chelsie privately Acted,' and the fact that one of its most conspicuous rhymed passages receives extended parody in The Rehearsal (1671) ^ seems to strengthen beUef that the play should not be dis- missed as a * closet-drama.' Dry den himself ascribes to D'Avenant the introduction of rh3niied couplets on the stage. It may, furthermore, be questioned whether Orrery's plays preceded Dryden's in actual employment of the rhymed couplet on the Restoration stage.^ Orrery certainly exhibits an early tendency toward the use of the 'heroic couplet' in serious drama, , but Dryden's adoption and development of rhyme was the dominant factor in its notable, though brief, triumph. Although rhyme makes an early appearance in^^ less serious plays like The Rival-Ladies and Etherege's Comical Revenge (1664), its real supremacy was to come in tragedy. With The Indian Queen (1664), ' in which Sir Robert HowaSd^ ^(1626-1698) had somfe'assistance from Dryden, and especially with Dryden's sequel, The Indian Emperor, or The Con- \\ quest of Mexico hy the Spaniards (1665), rhj^ed ' heroic tragedy . xoiries into full being. The Indian^ Emperor gave an adequate test of the heroic couplet in serious drama and estabUshed Dryden's position as a dramatist. In the conflicts of love and honour 1 Quarles, The Virgin Widow, III, i, is burlesqued in The Rehearsal, III, 2. See Arber's reprint of The Rehearsal, pp. 86-88. 2 Pepys, who saw Orrery's Henry the Fifth, 13 Aug., 1664, speaks of it as 'the new play.' He mentions The Indian Queen, 27 Jan., 1664, and he saw The Rival-Ladies, 4 Aug., 1664. 56 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. between characters of high rank, including personages Kke Montezuma and Cortez, who move, before a foreign and semi-historical background, through scenes of stirring incident toward the triumphant union of martTaThero"*§:fiLd angehc heroine and the death of those unable to survive the tragic stress, Dry3en assembled many elements of earlier EngUsh plays, and wedded heroic action to the heroic coup- let by the new formula of * heroic drama.' ^ The new species of drama was now fairly established, but Dry den did not wholly abandon comedy. Yet despite the light under-plot of Celadon's love for Florimel which Nell Gwynn helped to popularize. Secret Love, or The Maiden Queen (1667) shows in its main plot influences of heroic drama in both form and substance. The love conflict involved in the Queen of Sicily's affection for her sister's lover, and solved by the Queen's renunciation, is essentially heroic in theme and employs the heroic couplet as well as blank verse. Probably in the same year, 1667, Dryden produced versions both of Continental and of Elizabethan plays. Sir Martin Mar-All^ or The Feigned Innocence is a prose adaptation of Moliere's UEtourdi, with some borrowings from Quinault which accentuate Dryden's indebtedness to French sources. In The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island,^ the tempest of Restoration perversion of Shakespeare breaks with violence, and the enchantment fades into the Hght of common day. An Evening's Love, or It The Mock Astrologer (1668) coarsens materials drawn l' * Probably most of die work belongs to D'Avenant, whom Dryden aided. This play must be distinguished from Shadwell's opera, 1673. IV DRYDEN, AND THE HEROIC DRAMA 57 from the younger Comeille and from Moliere's Le Depit Amour eux. Its most engaging characters, Wildblood and Jacintha, resemble, if they do not match. Celadon and Florimel. Perhaps Dryden's most agreeable contributions to comedy are, in fact, these pairs of light-hearted lovers, who, without the deeper traits of Benedick and Beatrice, have yet real vivacity and superficial attraction. The range and variety of these different plays show not merely Dryden's versatility as a dramatist but the contending forces that bear on Restoration drama. The conflict between Continental example and English practice may be seen especially in the English treatment of heroic drama. Emphasis has already been laid upon the continuous development from early English sources of many important elements in heroic drama. Into this current now poured French streams. The heroic romances of such authors as La Calprenede and Madeleine de Scudery influenced English drama not merely indirectly, through the French drama which they stimulated, but in many cases directly.^ Yet English heroic plays usually reproduced but imperfectly the French romances or plays which were their models. Whatever their professed allegiance to Corneille's theories as to the dramatic unities, the Restoration dramatists by no means caught either the spirit or the form of Corneille's tragedies. Observa- tion of French models resulted, in the English heroic play, in simplification of character, scene, and action rather than in absolute observance of the unities of ^ Waxd, III, 309, footnote 2, gives a suggestive list of instances in point. 58 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. time, place, and action.^ The grand manner of French heroic romance was distorted rather than copied ; its themes handled grossly. Honour was put to the proof of sensational and impossible adventure, and love exploded in a torrent of rhetoric. Hero and heroine must tear a passion to tatters and out-Herod Herod. It is a far cry from The Indian Emperor to Le Cid. Classical French doctrine sought to separate tragedy from comedy, but its effect on EngHsh drama was somewhat inconclusive. There resulted, indeed, stricter discrimination between comedy and tragedy in Restoration than in Elizabethan drama. Yet the tragi-comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher main- tained their stage popularity, and no doubt influenced the happy endings of numerous heroic plays. The French distaste for bloodshed and violence on the stage could not be transmitted undiminished to an English stage that had tasted the tragedy of blood. f In writing The Indian Emperor as a sequel to The i Indian Queen, Dry den was forced to confess a cer- tain paucity of materials, * there remaining but two of the considerable characters alive.' ^ The heroic { drama almost required the eventual triumph of the I superhuman hero, but victims were needed to exhibit ^ his prowess. It is not surprising, therefore, that English heroic drama remains frequently closer to the type of Elizabethan tragi-comedy than to classical tragedy. At almost every turn, there is discernible a conflict between foreign classical restraint and native 1 The use of increasingly elaborate scenery was also a factor in the simplification in number of scenes. * Scott-Saintsbury edition of Dryden, II, 321. IV DRYDEN, AND THE HEROIC DRAMA 59 romantic freedom. In this conflict, Gallic theory is not translated literally into English practice. In one particular, this clash of forces seems to have resulted, at least temporarily, in a decisive French l victory, in the introduction of rhyme in serious English drama. That French example is wholly responsible for this innovation in the EngKsh heroic play seems, however, hardly tenable. The precision and regularity of the r h ymed c ouplet might, con- ceivably, have recoimnended itto^estoration taste, even without the authority of the Alexandrines of French drama. The couplet which commended itself to Jonson and which had already been approved in non-dramatic verse had received some trial in an inter- regnum play by Quarles. French seed fell upon good soil, and the estimate of its yield should not ignore the favourable season in which it ripened. There need be little hesitation, however, in admitting the definite and potent French influence toward rhymed drama. Under the Merry Monarch, when ^all, by the king's example, lived and loved,' ^ there was royal precedent for acceptance of Continental dramatic tendencies. In speaking of his rhymed tragedy, The Black Prince , as 'wrote in a new way,' Orrery says that he wrote 'in the French Manner, because I heard the King declare himself more in favour of their Way of Writing than ours.' ^ The general adoption of rhyme in serious English '-w drama was not effected without a struggle. The 1 * All, by the King's Example, live and love,' The Progress. of Beauty, George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, Genuine Works y 1732, 1, 78. « Quoted by Ward, IH, 340. 6o ENGLISH DRAMA chap. various stages of the notable controversy on the sub- ject between Dryden and Howard are tersely sum- marized in the last paragraph of Dryden's Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) : *In my epistle dedicatory, before my Rival Ladies, I had said somewhat in behalf of verse, which he was pleased to answer in his preface to his plays [Foure New Plays, 1665] : that occasioned my reply in my Essay [An •^- Essay of Dramatic Poesy, 1668] ; and that reply begot this rejoinder of his, in his preface to the Duke of Lerma [1668]/ The essence of Howard^s argument is that rhyme is unnatural in drama. Dryden's position is that, in serious plays, rhyme is 'as natural and more effectual than blank verse,' ^ for it 'cir- cumscribes the fancy' ^ and adds sweetness, that the faults of rhymed tragedy are due to 'ill rhyming,' and that Jonson, Fletcher, and Shakespeare have so thoroughly exhausted dramatic writing that 'this way of writing in verse they have only left free to us.' ^ To such arguments Dryden's own abandonment of rhyme within the next decade gives sufficient answer, but for the moment, putting theory into practice, he set the fashion of rhyme. v< In Tyrannic Love, or The Royal Martyr (1669) and Almanzor and Almahide, or The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards (1669-16 70), the heroic drama has characteristic illustration. In Tyrannic 1 Essay of Dramatic Poesy, Ker, I, 94. It should be noted that the discussion of rhyme forms but part of this Essay, which deals at length with the unities and with the relative merits of ancient and modern dramatists. 2 Dedication to The Rival-Ladies. »Ker, I, 99. IV DRYDEN, AND THE HEROIC DRAMA 6l Love, Maximin, Tyrant of Rome, chooses Porphyrius as his heir and as husband for his daughter, Valeria. Porphyrius, in love with the Empress herself, refuses the match and is sentenced to death. Catherine, Princess of Alexandria, a Christian captive, who con- verts the heathen philosopher ApoUonius and others with remarkable celerity, captures Maximin's heart. A conjurer is consulted to win Catherine for the Tyrant, but her guardian angel wards off the evil spirits. Maximin then orders Catherine and her mother to be killed on account of their religion, and the Empress ; and her lover are sentenced to death. Valeria stabs herself in despair, her lover Placidius stabs Maximin, and he in turn stabs Placidius — a 'solution by mas- i \ sacre' which eventually leaves Porphyrius and the | Empress free to moimt the bloody throne. Though it is { easy to exaggerate the defects of the heroic drama, some of Maximin's speeches are almost proverbial for rant, and the solution certainly takes the step from the sublime to the ridiculous. After Placidius and Maximin have exchanged stabs, 'Placidius falls, and the Emperor staggers after him, and sits down upon him.' Disdaining the help of guards, Maximin strives to rise but has to resume his uneasy seat of vantage upon Placidius, who heroically rounds out a dej&ant couplet. Both are finally rhymed to death. PLAcmius. Oh I am gone. [Dies.] Maximin. And after thee I go, Revenging still, and following ev'n to the other world my blow ; [Stabs him again.] ^ And shoving back this earth on which I sit, | J'U mount, and scatter all the gods I hit. [Dies.] 62 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Valerius, Valeria, Maximin, and Placidius meet death on the stage, contrary to the classical tendency. On the other hand the Empress and her lover have a happy issue out of their afflctions. The classical influence is evident in the attitude toward the three imities. The unity of place is well preserved, except in the shift of scene in the fourth act, and the action is simpUfied to a few leading characters. But in order to conform to the unity of time, the action has to proceed sometimes with remarkable celerity. The Tyrant's son does battle, is killed, and is greeted with his dead march, within some sixty lines. In the second act, ApoUonius, the heathen philosopher, despite his own excellent argument, is converted with theatrical speed. ^Xisie_tocdsJiardJ--with.Jieroic drama. jThe Conquest of Granada is perhaps the typical heroic drama. It is based largely on Madeleine de Scudery's Almahide, and partly on her Le Grand Cyrus and Ibrahim. Like Marlowe's Tamburlainey it is in two parts, and centers in the character of the hero. The plot is a maze through which Almanzor advances with assured tread. ^ In the Dedication, Dryden says, 'I have formed a hero, I confess, not absolutely perfect, but of an excessive and over-boiling courage ; but Homer and Tasso are my precedents.' For rant, Almanzor 'out-Herods Herod,' and for prowess one shudders to contemplate his meeting with Achilles or Rinaldo, his confessed originals.^ Once only, when he is overcome in the last act of Part I, * An excellent summary of it is in Saintsbury's Dryden, pp. 46-50. 8 Essay of Heroic Plays, Ker, I, 155. rv DRYDEN, AND THE HEROIC DRAMA 63 the hero seems human. Doctor Jofenson says ^ that the two parts of the play *are written with a seeming determination to glut the pubHck with dramatick wonders ; to exhibit in its highest elevation a theatrical meteor of incredible love and impossible valour, and to leave no room for a wilder flight to the extrava- gance of posterity/ Nevertheless, despite^bombast and grotesqueness, a certain masterful vigour sweeps the action onward. Spirited coup[ets"Tiel^^to sus- tajn'^lte'Mialogue, and the vitality of the central character is abundant enough to impel him trium- phantly through double the ordinary number of acts of heroic drama. Yet when the curtain falls on the ' last of many scenes of battle, murder, and sudden death, one recalls with amazement Dryden's definition of a play as ^a just and lively image of human nature.' ^ The zeal of the heroic play seems for a time to have eaten Dryden up. In the Epilogue to The Conquest of Granada he speaks with the extravagance of his own Almanzor. Dryden had once been content to claim ^a mingled chime Of Jonson's humour, with Corneille's rhyme,' ^ but now he extols his own age far above that when Jonson did mechanic humour show, When men were dull and conversation low. The Elizabethans, who 'rose, but at their height could seldom stay,' could not meet the test of Restoration refinement, for ^ Life of Dryden. In Lives of the English Poets , Hill edition, 190S, I, 348-349. 2 Essay of Dramatic Poesy, Ker, I, 36. ' Prologue to Secret Love (printed 1668). 64 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. Wit's now arrived to a more high degree ; Our native language more refined and free. But while Dryden was viewing with complacency his good fortune in writing ' to please an age more gallant than the last/ and asserting with easy assurance the merits of rhymed heroic drama, profane hands had been quietly laying a mine of satire which was pres- ently to explode under his feet. The Rehearsal, said ^ to have been begun in 1663, was produced 7 December, 1671. Its chief author, George Villiers (1628- 1687), the graceless Duke of Buckingham, had been assisted by Martin Clifford, Thomas Sprat, and, it is sometimes said, by ' Hudibras ' Butler. In the years of its conception it had accumulated a varied body of ridicule upon contemporary drama and dramatists. The main attack, doubtless first directed against D'Avenant,^ was diverted after his death, in 1668, to Sir Robert Howard, and finally to Dryden, the new poet laureate. Though by no means the sole target, - Dryden received most of the shafts of burlesque. Drawcansir, hero of the mock-heroic tragedy which is rehearsed, is Almanzor, and Bayes, the author, is \ Dryden himself. Many of Dryden's lines are closely ; parodied : Almanzor : Spite of myself I'll stay, fight, love, despair ; And I can do all this, because I dare. Drawcansir : I drink, I huff, I strut, look big and stare ; And all this I can do, because I dare. ^ Bayes, whose broken nose adorned with a *wet piece of brown papyr' (II, 5) is a hit at D'Avenant's personal disfigurement, retains evidences of the original intention. IV DRYDEN, AND THE HEROIC DRAMA 65 And again : Almanzor : He, who dares love, and for that love must die, And, knowing this, dares yet love on, am I. Drawcansir : He that dares drink, and for that drink dares die, And, knowing this, dares yet drink on, am I.^ Almahide, Dryden's heroine, has her ^So, two kind turtles, when a storm is nigh' tr^jisprosed into 'So Boar and Sow, when any storm is nigh? Dryden, though the most conspicuous, is by no means the only dramatist held up to ridicule. Fan- shawe, Quarles, and Stapylton are among the lesser dramatists who are not overlooked in specific passages of parody. Indeed, the burlesque overflows with so many 'local hits' and so many close parodies of forgotten plays that much of the fun is now lost. Burlesque, in its very nature, is ephemeral, and can hardly survive the subject it ridicules. The vitality of parts of The Rehearsal is due to the general satire of stage absurdities common to all time. Uncalled for exits and entrances, omissions in the plot of vital points, rant and fustian, are subjects for lasting satire. Parts of The Rehearsal move even the modem reader's mirth — Volscius in love, with one boot on and the other off, torn between Honour urging him to 'pluck both boots on' and Love urging him to 'put on none' — Pallas, with French wine in her lance, a pie in her helmet, and a buckler of cheese — Draw- cansir who 'kills 'em all on both sides,' and boasts : Others may boast a single man to kill ; But I, the bloud of thousands, daily spill. * See Arbor's reprint of The Rehearsal, pp. 102-103. p 66 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Sheridan's Critic has displaced on the stage the earlier burlesque which served as its rough model, but The Rehearsal yet retains much of its zest for the reader familiar with the extravagant absurdities of heroic drama. The actual effect of The Rehearsal in its own day- has often been greatly misrepresented. Short-lived the heroic drama doubtless was, but its death-knell had not yet been sounded. Probably the authors of The Rehearsal cared little whether heroic plays were laughed off the stage, so long as their piece was laughed at on the stage. They had no insistent artistic quarrel with the reigning favourite, and none of Jeremy Collier's saeva indignatio in exposing the shortcomings of the drama. Amid the laughter evoked by The Rehearsal, Dryden pubHshed An Essay of Heroic Plays (1672), in the opening sentence dogmatically reasserting his attitude toward rhymed plays: 'Whether Heroic Verse ought to be admitted into serious plays, is not now to be disputed : 'tis already in possession of the stage; and I dare confidently affirm that very few tragedies, in this age, shall be received without it.' With zeal worthy of a better cause, he still stood to his guns, maintaining that 'an heroic play ought to be an imitation, in little, of an heroic poem ; and, consequently, that Love and Valour ought to be the subject of it ' ; that ' an heroic poet is not tied to a bare representation of what is true, or exceeding probable ' ; that the introduction of magic machinery is justifiable; and that the 'fre- quent use of drums and trumpets, and my represen- tations of battles' had Shakespearean precedent, and were essential to heroic drama. IV DRYDEN, AND THE HEROIC DRAMA 67 Dryden's somewhat desultory dramatic efforts during the next few years do not justify in practice his positiveness in theory. The Prologue to Amboynaj or The Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants (1673) justly warns the audience to 'hope not either language, plot, or art/ and the sorry tragedy, deprived even of the false gallop of verse, shuffles through bad prose and worse blank verse to its wretched end. There followed an operatic version of Paradise Lost, entitled The State of Innocence and Fall of Man (printed 1 6 74) , which was not intended for the stage. Criticism has fastened more readily upon the ludicrous than upon the sometimes fine passages. Yet Eve*s pride that goeth before the fall shows a mastery of the personal pronouns hardly consonant with the State of Innocence : Sure, I am somewhat which they wish to be, And cannot ; I myself am proud of me. (II, 2) Meantime, Dryden had not abandoned comedy, though The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery (1672) tends to confirm his own admitted weakness in su(^i— , work. Marriage-d-la-Mode (1672?), a comedy with a serious under-plot, is, however, of a different stamp, and has been pronounced by Saintsbury^ 'Dryden's only original excursion into the realms of the higher comedy.' Mdanlha, a fashionable lady, 'runs mad in new French words, ' and perhaps foreshadows in spirit Congreve's ]\JiUamant, to whom she has some- times been compared. In 1675, appeared the last of Dryden's rhymed 1 Dryden, p. 54. 68 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. heroic plays, Aureng-Zebe. Already his spirit is restive under the fetters of rhyme. In the Dedication he desires that, if he ^must be condemned to rhyme/ he may find 'some ease in his change of punishment,' and in the Prologue he confesses that he 'grows weary of his long-loved mistress. Rhyme.' In- stinct is struggHng against respect for classical forms and conventions. Though he still impUes that his own age excels Shakespeare's in literary art and finish, his lines are now in marked contrast to his earlier vaunts : But spite of all his pride, a secret shame Invades his breast at Shakespeare's sacred name : Awed when he hears his god-like Romans rage, He, in a just despair, would quit the stage ; And to an age less polished, more unskilled, Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield. Yet Aureng-Zebe has less rant and fustian than The Conquest of Granada, and sometimes strikes the note of true poetry.^ Heroic drama is tempered with some suggestion of Gallic restraint. The heroic couplet in drama needed, however, more than half- hearted support. When Dryden lost confidence in his theory, it was in vain that he continued a con- stantly more repugnant practice. When in All for Love (1678) he turned to blank verse and a Shake- spearean theme, rhymed heroic drama had had its day and practically ceased to be. The modern critical attitude toward the English rhymed heroic play has sometimes been only less ^Quotation has not staled the fine passage beginning *When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat/ IV, i. IV DRYDEN, AND THE HEROIC DRAMA 69 unsympathetic than that of The Rehearsal. So patent are the gross excesses of heroic drama that some have thought its substance mere rant and fustian, and its form rhyme without reason. No- where, indeed, are absurdities easier to find; never, perhaps, has it been easier to laugh a case out of court. Yet the ends of dramatic justice would not be defeated by recommendations to mercy. The failure of heroic drama lay in its attempt to achieve the impossible. Its reach exceeded its grasp, but the effort was not ignoble. Dramatists aimed at the grand, and hit the grandiloquent. With them the 'grand manner' became what Scott, in another con- text, called the 'big bow-wow' style. If there is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, it is filled by the grotesque. Yet if heroic drama is grotesque, it is unfair to regard only its comic facet. Beneath the grin of a mediaeval gargoyle may lurk a tragic shadow, and the Devil of the Mystery plays may touch more than the laughter of the groundlings. Love and honour — the unvarying themes of heroic drama — are not (poniic. It ir hnTy \lne. a,pglp,-Q£ viginn that r^^^P^ fhpm y;nmptimp<; apppar sn. Possibly it is not idle fancy to read between the lines of heroic drama the tragedy of lost romance. The Foimtain of Youth that flowed free for the Elizabethans had run dry, but its tradition had not been wholly for- gotten. If exiles from the court could no longer fleet the time carelessly in the Forest of Arden, as they did in the golden world, perhaps they sometimes turned eagerly from the jaded London world to dis- tant lands where fiction outran fact, and fancy still 70 ENGLISH DRAMA chap, iv was free. The heroic dramatist failed to prove that it was an easy task to pluck bright honour from the | pale-faced moon, but despite that failure, he echoes / faintly an earher faith in chivalry and love. Doubt- f less it was a sorry age that confused grandeur with ( sheer bulk, and mistook that which glitters for gold. Doubtless heroic tragedy merits, in no small degree, the measure that has been meted out to it. But though its heroes can no longer hope to touch the Happy Isles, and see the great Achilles, there yet remains beneath the tinsel of heroic drama some work of noble note not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. CHAPTER V ETHEREGE AND WYCHERLEY (sHADWELL) While heroic drama fought its rivahries of love and its valorous sieges and conquests in far-away lands of incredible adventure, Restoration comedy was busy with familiar themes and scenes. As tragedy moved farther and farther from ordinary Hfe and adopted the unfamiliar accent of verse, comedy de- ^ scended from romance to realism and found easiest expression in prose. The increasing divergence be- tween the paths of tragedy and comedy seems in harmony with the classical tradition that sought to separate them. But Galhc influence did not prevail to the exclusion of tragi-comedy. Heroic drama frequently averted tragedy from its heroes, and comedy often blended more serious matter with lighter themes. Habitually, heroic tragedy uses rhyme, and comedy prose, yet early tragi-comedies of Dryden and Etherege experiment with rhyme, and tragedy, even during the dominant period of rhyme, sometimes employs prose as well as blank verse. Dramatists, like Dryden, who preferred tragedy, also wrote comedy; comic dramatists, like Congreve, essayed tragedy. In D'Avenant's revival of drama during the inter- regnum the emphasis had fallen on the side of more serious drama. With the opening of the theatres, 71 72 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. comedies of Ben Jonson reappeared on the boards and stimulated dramatists like Wilson. The influence of Elizabethan romantic comedy, and still more of romantic tragi-comedy, so far as it persisted, was diverted chiefly toward heroic drama. Some of the comedies of Middleton, Rowley, and Brome, however, as well as those of Ben Jonson, may be regarded as Elizabethan forerunners of the realistic tendencies of Restoration comedy. In an age that . exalted wit rather than humour, and external form rather than innate genius, it was natural for drama to turn to the comedy of manners. In this tendency, a potent force was the influence of the court. The Patent Theatres held their license from the King, and play- wrights sought the patronage of nobles rather than the support of the public. Under the Merry Monarch, drama found its most characteristic expression in comedy.^ Comedy mirrored not English nature, still less human nature, but the nature of the court. Elizabethan comedy had been national ; Restoration comedy was local. Not to know London was to argue yourself unknown. Restoration comedy was 'artificial,' not in Lamb's sense that it dealt with an '^mreal Utopia, but in that it arbitrarily narrowed the range of comedy, and found love synonymous with fashionable intrigue. Although the comedy of manners developed in Elizabethan days, the ' society comedy ' of the Restora- tion may conveniently be regarded as a new school. 1 Crowne, Dedication to Sir Courtly Nice, 1685 quarto : 'The greatest pleasure he [i.e. 'our late most Excellent King'] had from the Stage was in Comedy, and he pften Commanded me to Write it.* V ETHEREGE AND WYCHERLEY 73 Its real founder has usually been held to be 'gentle ^ George' Ethereqe (i 634-1635 ?-i69i?). Handling the comedy of manners with Gallic grace and ease stimulated by residence in France, Etherege vividly portrays the outward brilliancy of fashionable London. His gallants and fops breathe the atmosphere of Restoration society, and reflect, though with greater wit, the talk and thought of the beau monde. Pepys pronounced Etherege's first play, The * Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub (1664), 'very merry.' ^ The merriment — a comic underplot in which two gamesters translate the Elizabethan art of cony-catching into Restoration 'bubbhng' — is blended with a romantic love plot. Two pairs of lovers are involved in cross purposes and compHca- tions not imlike those of Midsummer NigMs Dream, and unhappily with no magic philtre to aid in the solution, which has finally to be effected by a sort of tour d^amour. A noteworthy feature of the play is the deHberate adoption of rhyme in the heroic love <- plot,^ but the spirit of Ehzabethan romance could not thus be wooed back. How far poetic imagination had departed from the drama may be seen in Colonel Bruce's speech when he learns that Graciana has given her love to another: Fate, thou hast done thy worst, thy triumph sing; Now thou hast stung so home, thou'st lost thy sting. I have not power, Graciana, to exclaim {After a pause) Against your fault ; indeed you are to blame. (Ill, 6) * Diary, 4 Jan., 1665. Wheatley edition, IV, 325. ' Dryden's Rival-Ladies (1664) also employs rhyme somewhat. 74 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. The comic underplot suggests Gallic influence. Dufoy, the saucy French valet, is doubtless a descend- ant of the Mascarille of Moliere's pre-Restoration comedies.^ The local colour is very vivid in an effective tavern scene (II, 3), in the mention of resorts familiar to Samuel Pepys, hke the Fleece tavern and The Rose, and especially in the evidences of Cavalier feeling in the sneers at Cromwell and his followers. Sir Nicholas Cully is 'one whom OUver, for the tran- scendent knavery and disloyalty of his father, has dis- honoured with knighthood' (I, 2), and when Wheedle seeks to cozen him through flattery, it is by suggesting that he is the ideal gallant — 'the prettiest, wittiest, wildest gentleman about the town, and a Cavalier in your heart, the only things that take her ' (IV, 2) . Some of the prose dialogue suggests the piquancy and sprightliness of Etherege's later comedy. Etherege's second play, She Would if she Could (1668), emphasizes the characteristics of 'society comedy.' Freeman and Courtall are a typical pair of gallants whose daily round of life, as Gatty tells them, consists in 'every moment ratthng from the eating-houses to the playhouses, from the playhouses to the Mulberry Garden ' (II, i) . A bit of their own dialogue shows the Restoration view of honour: Courtall. Fie, fie, the keeping of one's word is a thing below the honour of a gentleman. Freeman. A poor shift ! fit only to uphold the reputation of a paltry citizen. (II, 2) Lady Cockwood's defence of her own conduct really supplies tfa^ picture of the lady of fashion: 'Were 1 Gosse, Seventeenth-Century Studies, p. 240. V ETHEREGE AND WYCHERLEY 75 I every day at the plays,, the Park, and Mulberry Garden, with a kind look secretly to indulge the un- lawful passion of some young gallant ; or did I asso- ciate myself with the gaming madams, and were every afternoon at my Lady Briefs and my Lady MeanwelFs at ombre and quebas, pretending ill luck to borrow money of a friend, and then pretending good luck to excuse the plenty to a husband, my suspicious demeanour had deserved this' (111,3). The charms of the town and the horrors of the country are por- trayed in the very spirit of the Memoirs of Count Grammont. Etherege's dramatic masterpiece is imquestionably The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter (1676). SirJ'opling Flutter 'lately arrived piping hot from Paris,' with six footmen with French names, with French phrases at his tongue's end, and French dances at the tips of his toes, is one of the most notable character types of Restoration comedy. He is an ancestor of Lord Foppington, Sir Courtly Nice, and many other fops. The Man of Mode reflects the usual contempt for the country. Dorimant asserts .to Harriet as the highest proof of his affection that to be with her he could live in the country *and never send one thought to London.' But Harriet cannot believe the incredible : * Whate'er you say,' she rejoins, 'I know all beyond High Park's a desert to you, and that no gallantry can draw you farther ' (V, 2) . She herself, however, is even will- ing to be 'mewed up in the country again . . . rather than be married to a man I do not care for.' Many of Harriet's scenes are typical of Etherege's piquant 76 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. dialogue, such as that in which she makes light of Dorimant's advances (IV, i), or the one (III, i) where she and Young Bellair pretend love to deceive their parents — a situation not unlike that in Gold- smith's She Stoops to Conquer, where Tony Lumpkin and Miss Neville deceive Mrs. Hardcastle by pre- tended bilHng and cooing. So vividly does The Man of Mode mirror the Restoration court that Dorimant has sometimes been held to portray Lord Rochester ; ^ Medley, Sir Charles Sedley; and Sir Fopling, 'Beau' Hewitt. Etherege has not always received full recognition for his services to the drama. Leigh Hunt's failure to include him with Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar in his edition of the comic dramatists of the period may perhaps have had its effect. The intrinsic value of Etherege's work is lessened, to be sure, by obvious dramatic defects. He is weak in plot construction and in dramatic action ; lacking deep emotional power, he glosses over shallowness with a superficial veneer of easy flippancy ; he turns comedy, from lashing vice with ridicule, to laughter at sin as well as at folly. Historically, however, his work has marked importance. In the early introduc- tion of rhymed verse, in the development of Ught and graceful prose dialogue, animated with wit that some- times rises to brilliancy, in the establishment of a type of 'society comedy' which led to Congreve and Sheridan, and in vivid reproduction of the atmosphere ^ Spence's Anecdotes, Malone edition, 1820, p. 116, however, quotes Lockier as saying that Etherege 'designed Dorimont [sic], the genteel rake of wit, for his own picture.' V ETHEREGE AND WYCHERLEY 77 of the Restoration heau monde, Etherege is entitled to high regard both for his actual achievements and for what he heralded. A strong claimant to some of the honours of early Restoration comedy which seem more properly to belong to Dryden and Etherege was William Wycherley (i 640 ?-i 716). The story that Wycherley as a veteran had told the juvenile Pope that he had composed his comedies at very early dates is, unfortunately, based on the unreliable authority of Spence's Anecdotes, but it at least suggests Wycherley 's jealousy of the prior claims of other early comic writers. Pope is thus quoted by Spence: *The chronology of Wycherley 's Plays I was well acquainted with, for he has told me over and over. Love in a Wood he wrote when he was but nineteen; The Gentleman Dancing-Master at twenty-one; the Plain Dealer at twenty-five ; and the Country Wife at one or two-and-thirty.' ^ If Wycherley wrote Love in a Wood at nineteen, it would antedate the Patent Theatres, but it is against probabiHty that the various plays remained so long in manuscript, and that all the allusions to later events were inserted in final revisions for later stage presentation. Yet, if Wycherley must yield the priority which he probably coveted, he surpasses earlier comic dramatists of the Restoration in power and dramatic skill. In his hands, comedy is grasped with brutal but undeniable force, and dragged relentlessly through the mire of animalism. For some years, especially while Dryden was devoting his best energies to heroic drama, and * Spence's Anecdotes^ Malone edition, 1820, p. 125. 78 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. « Etherege was so far indulging in his 'crying sin, idle- ness' as to lead Rochester to rebuke *his long seven years* silence/ ^ Wycherley was the central figure of Restoration comedy. From the outset, Wycherley borrowed freely. Love in a Wood (1671 ?) owes to Moliere^ a debt not unnatural in a writer who had resided in France before the Restoration. Probably Wycherley took hints also from Sir Charles Sedley's The Mulberry Garden (1668), and the scene in 'St. James's Park at night' (II, i), where Vincent and Dapperwit pursue Lady Flippant and Lydia, recalls Etherege 's Mulberry Garden scene in She Would if She Could (II, i), where Freeman and Courtall pursue Ariana and Gatty. The dramatis personce are for the most part Jon- sonian 'humour' characters. Ranger, Dapperwit,^ Alderman Gripe, and Lady FHppant are obviously significant names, and, for that matter, it is hardly necessary to define Mrs. Joyner as 'a Match-maker,' or Mrs. Crossbite as 'an old cheating jill.' The general setting in which these characters move is sufficiently suggested in Lady Flippant's speech: 'Have I not constantly kept Coven t-Garden church, St. Martin's, the playhouses, Hyde Park, Mulberry garden, and all the other public marts where widows and maids are exposed?' (I, i), and the usual moral attitude by her indignant exclamation, 'Fy! madam, 1 Rochester's Session of the Poets (1675). The lines may have prompted Etherege to write The Man of Mode (1676). 2 UEcole des Maris and UEcole des Femmes, Ward, III, 463. 3 The description of the various kinds of wit in the conversation between Dapperwit and Lydia (II, i) seems a reminiscence of Touch- stone's seven degrees of the lie. V ETHEREGE AND WYCHERLEY 79 do you think me so ill bred as to love a husband ? ' (111,4). The Gentleman Dancing-Master (167 1) shows Con- tinental influences upon Wycherley's work. 'Mr. Paris, or Monsieur de Paris, a vain coxcomb, and rich city heir, newly returned from France, and mightily affected with the French language and fashions,' is an earlier Sir FopHng Futter. The dancing-lesson scenes seem derived from Calderon's El Maestro de Danzar. But French and Spanish sources do not supply the EngHsh immoraHty. The conversation in the opening scene between Hippolita and her maid Prue shows the chasm that separates the ingenue of French drama from her Restoration counterpart. What the Restoration age thought of itself has excel- lent definition in HippoHta's phrase, 'By what IVe heard, 'tis a pleasant, well-bred, complaisant, free, frolic, good-natured, pretty age' (I, i). And what London thought of the country appears in her re- mark to Gerrard, 'What young woman of the town could ever say no to a coach and six, unless it were going into the country' (III, i). In The Country Wife (1673 ?), Wycherley reveals at once perhaps the height of his dramatic power and the depth of his moral degradation. (^Borrowing from MoHere's UEcole des Femmes something of the general situation for his main plot, he transformed the real ingenue Agnes into Mrs. Pinchwife, whose nominal purity at the outset is due to lack of opportunity to sin. The progress of her corruption when she is transferred from the country to the fashionable world of London is detailed without sympathy either 8o ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. for the degraded wife or for the dishonoured husbandry Horner, who prosecutes his vices through an assump- tion perhaps the most atrocious in all Restoration comedy, is Wycherley's real hero. Ingenuity is prostituted in the service of animal license. From Moliere's VEcole des Maris, Wycherley took the device of making an unsuspecting lover the bearer of a love letter to another, but in his hands the mild deception of a would-be husband becomes grim tragedy, when Mrs. Pinchwife makes her husband the bearer to Homer of the message of his own dis- honour. I^d when, at the end of the play, Pinchwife remains unconscious of the ruin wrought, and the curtain falls to a mo cking dance of cu ckolc[s, ^o!ie ^ees^'^IE'e'guir'l^efween e^ of Ehzabethan drama and what the Restoration age termed ' comedy. \J Yet, when The Country Wife could not longer be tolerated on the stage, Garrick was able to recast some of the material of the play in The Country Girl, which continued to hold the stage and has had modern revivals. Even more striking is the fact that, in The School for Scandal, Sheridan, in the story of Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, handled essentially the same general situation, but in a different atmosphere. Like Mrs. Pinchwife, Lady Teazle is a 'country wife' who is plunged into the sea of temptation in London society, but she is rescued from the waves which submerge Mrs. Pinchwife. The Plain Dealer (1674) furnishes the best illus- tration of Wycheley's indebtedness to French drama. Manly, the 'plain dealer,' is so obviously taken from V ETHERZGE AND WYCHERLEY 8l Moliere's Le Misanthrope as to make it seem remark- able that Wycherley could borrow from Moliere so much of the letter, and so little of the spirit, of his work. The verba) parallels are sometimes so close as to be literal tr^-nslation.^ Sincerity in word and deed is the motto of both Manly and Alceste. Both are merciless to flatterers, both object to the misuse of the word ' friend ' an i to esteem lavished on everybody. Yet Moliere would not have created the debased Manly, and Wycher^'ey could not have conceived the spirit of Alceste. The influence of MoKere is by no means confined to the title-role. Oronte suggests Major Oldfox in his desire for flattery of his literary merits. CeHmene plays with Acaste and Clitandre as Olivia does with Novel and Plausible, and OUvia's duplicity toward them is disclosed, as in MoHere, by an exchange of letters. In The Plain Dealer Wycherley comments on The Country Wife as does Moliere on his own play in the Critique de UEcole des Femmes. In a famiHar passage in his Letters concern- ing the English Nation, ^ Voltaire draws this compari- son : 'All Wycherley^ s strokes are stronger and bolder than those of our Misanthrope, but then they are less delicate, and the Rules of Decorum are not so well ob- served in this Play.' Another possible French in- fluence has been noticed in The Plain Dealer, the resemblance of the Widow Blackacre to the Countess ^ Compare the scenes where Philinte takes issue with Alceste, and Freeman with Manly, on their insistence upon absolute sincerity in speech. Note their identical laconic responses, e.g. *Oui' — * Yes ' ; * Sans doute ' — * No doubt on't.' ^ 1733 edition. Letter xix, pp. 182-3. 6 82 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. in Racine's Les Plaideurs (1668). Wycherley's brief experience in law may have supplied some specific touches to a portrait which has sometimes been unjustly regarded as an absolute copy of Racine. The Plain Dealer takes its hero from Moliere, its heroines from Shakespeare. FideUa is a debased Viola — a pandar to Manly's base intrigue. Olivia's fondness for her, the very name Olivia, Fidelia's disguise, the duel thrust upon her — all clearly recall Twelfth Night. Yet, despite the fact that Wycherley not merely borrowed but defaqed his borrowings, he is more than a faint echo of great originals. The skill with which he cx)mbined varied materials, the vigour, however animal, which he imparted to some- of his characters, the dialogue through which they move and in which they have their being, bear wit- ness to dramatic power. Wycherley's Olivia, though her nimbleness of wit in dissecting suitors may not vie with Portia's, gives a spirited description of cox- combry, and at times anticipates Lady Teazle and her school. Of Lady Autumn she says, 'She looks like an old coach new painted; affecting an unseemly smugness, whilst she is ready to drop in pieces'; of her daughter, ' She is still most splendidly, gallantly ugly, and looks like an ill piece of daubing in a rich frame' (II,. i). In the 'Apology' that prefaced his State of Innocence, Dry den pronounced The Plain Dealer 'one of the most bold, most general, and most useful satires, which has ever been presented on the English theatre.'^ With somewhat the same feeling, Congreve's Prologue to Love for Love (1695) declares that 1 Scott-Saintsbury edition of Dryden, V, 115. V ETHEREGE AND WYCHERLEY 83 Since The Plain Dealer^ s scenes of manly rage Not one has dared to lash this crying age. The boldness of Wycherley^s satire need not be dis- puted, but the hypocrisy which he lashed was not that of vicious passion. 'Honest Manly' did well to anticipate Burns in asserting, 'I weigh the man, not his title ; 'tis not the king's stamp can make the metal better or heavier' (I, i). Yet Wycherley's estimate of manhood did not rest on moral integrity. Of Wycherley's general merits as a dramatist, per- haps the most obvious is strength. 'Manly' Wych- erley he was dubbed, and, however brutalized the man, and however animal the strength, there rims through his work a dominant tone of masculine virility. This strength of dramatic power expresses itself in plot, character, and^ comic spirit. Though his plots are generally borrowed, tE^ are skilfully constructed and combined. The characters are distinct and often memorable — Manly, the 'Plain Dealer,' Mrs. Pinch wife, the ingenue, the Widow Blackacre, the 'pert railing Coxcomb' Novel, ^Sparkish, and Major Oldfox. Wycherley's defects are self-evident. His strength is perverted by harsh cynicism, bitter irony, and animalism. The passions are unmuzzled, and virtue is derided. Yet he remains a commanding figure in early Restoration comedy. The influence of Moliere upon Restoration comedy, so apparent in the work of Etherege and Wycherley, by no means brought about an essentially Gallicized English comedy. Side by side with Gallic influence was maintained the English line of tradition. Jon- son, who had found an early follower in Wilson, was 84 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. an acknowledged model to Dryden when he sought *a mingled chime Of Jonson's humour, with Corneille's ^-^ rhyme.' ^ Still more marked homage was paid to Jonson in the deliberate theory and practice of '^ 'RiOMAS Shadwell (i642?-i692). In the Preface to The Sullen Lovers (1668), his first comedy, Shad- well calls Jonson Hhe man of all the world, I most passionately admire for his excellency in his dramatic poetry.' The Humorists (1670) bears, in its title, testi- mony to the declarations in its Preface. The Virtuoso (1676) has 'humour' characters like Sir Formal Trifle, the Orator, and Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, the Virtuoso, who is so fond of theoretical knowledge that he con- tents himself 'with the Speculative part of Swimming' by practising on a table. Shadwell, indeed, borrowed readily from MoHere, as in The Sullen Lovers and The Miser (1671), but the Preface to the latter play asserts that, ' 'Tis not barrenness of wit or invention, that makes us borrow from the French, but laziness.' Even in this adaptation of L^Avare, Shadwell added numerous characters not in the original, and Bury Fair is indebted to the Duke of Newcastle's Trium- phant Widow as well as to Les Precieuses Ridicules. Prejudged by Dryden's 'But Shadwell never de- viates into sense,' Thomas Shadwell has often failed to secure a fair hearing. Yet it would be hard to find more faithful reproduction of the details of fashionable Restoration Kfe than in some of his comedies of man- /- ners. With the usual Restoration coarseness, Shad- well portrays vividly the external minutiae of fashion and folly. Epsom Wells (1672) is a lively picture of • Prologue to Secret Love (printed 1668). V ETHEREGE AND WYCHERLEY 85 contemporary life. The characters include a pair of deceived husbands, Mrs. Jilt, who runs the gauntlet of gallantry with many stumbKngs, Clodpate, a stupid Country Justice, who is captured by Mrs. Jilt^s crafty catering to his known aversion to London, Kick and Cuff, bullies whose function is to assault unprotected women, and Rain and Bevil, two fast Londoners, who are won to marriage, after many amours, by Lucia and Carolina. Some chance passages in the opening scene illustrate the general tone towards wine and women : ^ We should no more be troubled at the Feavers we get in drinking, than the Honourable woimds we receive in Battle'; *We live more in a week, than those insipid-temperate- fools do in a year' ; ^Is it not better to let life go out in a blaze than a snuff ? ' ' Well, the sin's so sweet, and the temptation so strong ; I have no power to resist it.' Though his earlier plays are so far contemporary with those of Etherege and Wycherley that he shares with them some of the early distinctions in Restora- tion comedy, his comedies, like Dryden's, continued long after theirs had ceased. Shadwell satisfied the popular taste for opera in his version of The Tempest (1673) ^ and in Psyche (1674), produced with elaborate scenery. In revising Timon of A thens (1678), the veneration for Shakespeare expressed in ShadwelPs tribute did not prevent him from adding : 'Yet I can truly say, I have made it into a Play.' ^ Among his * This should not be confused with the version by D'Avenant and Dryden, acted 1667, printed 1670. 2 Epistle Dedicatory to The History of Timon of Athens j the Man- Hater^ 1678 quarto. 86 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. later plays are A True Widow, The Lancashire Witches, The Squire of Alsatia (1688), in which the lively local colour of Whitefriars is emphasized with an abun- dance of sharpers' slang, and Bury Fair (1689), often regarded as his best comic achievement. Almost a score of pieces for the stage testify to dramatic activity which was not wholly checked either by Dryden's satire of the 'last great prophet of tautology' or by that prophet's succession to the laureateship left vacant by the satirist. It is indicative of the trend of the times that three laureates, D'Avenant, Dryden, and Shadwell, are prominently connected with the history of Restoration drama. Shadwell's own posi- tion in that drama is suggested in Rochester's dis- passionate words : ShadwelVs unfinish'd Works do yet impart Great Proofs of Force of Nature, none of Art ; With just bold Strokes he dashes here and there, Shewing great Mastery with Httle Care.^ Not merely the excesses of heroic drama, but the shortcomings of Restoration comedy, were exposed in the Prologue to The Rehearsal: Our Poets make us laugh at Tragedy, And with their Comedies they make us cry. Yet comedy in the early years of the Restoration finds not unworthy expression in the work of Wilson, Dryden, Etherege, Wycherley, and Shadwell. Her- alded by the Jonsonian 'humour' comedy, the Res- toration comedy of manners had now stepped forth to take the centre of the comic stage. Reproducing * The Works of . . . John Earl of Rochester, 17 18, p. 21. ETHEREGE AND WYCHERLEY 87 \i ithout reserve the license and immorality, as well as the fashions and foibles of society, it presented a brilliant picture of the London world. Superficial, almost of necessity, was the comedy that mirrored the manners of a superficial society. Yet the type of comedy already presented by earlier dramatists was to develop greatly in the work of WilHam Con- greve, and its genius, purged of offence, was to find full expression in Richard Brinsley Sheridan. CHAPTER VI DRYDEN, LEE, AND OTWAY . The record of early Restoration tragedy and comedy alike shows ceaseless conflict between English and Continental forces. When Dryden, abandoning rhyme, sought in All for Love (1678) a Shakespearean model both in verse and subject, the tide of battle seems to turn decisively. In reality, the victory of EKzabethan practice over classical theory is but partial. Dryden's very Preface shows that he serves two masters ; for, if he loves 'the divine Shakespeare,' he certainly does not hate Hhe ancients, who, as Mr. Rymer has judiciously observed, are and ought to be our masters.' In Thomas Rymer (1641-1713), whom Dryden thus quoted with approval, Eliza- bethan drama found an intolerant critic. In his Preface to an English translation of Rapin's Reflec- tions on Aristotle^ s Treatise of Poesie (1674), Rymer tried to show 'how imhappy the greatest English Poets have been through their ignorance or negli- gence of these fundamental Rules and Laws of Aristotle.^ In the very year of the production of All for Love, he concentrated his attack upon Eliza- bethan drama in The Tragedies of The last Age, Con- sidered and Examined by the Practice of the Ancients, and by the Common sense of all Ages, and made an in- effective effort to translate theory into practice by 88 CHAP. VI DRYDEN, LEE, AND OTWAY 89 publishing a rhymed heroic tragedy, Edgar} It is perhaps suggestive that, of the six plays which Rymer proposed to discuss as examples of 'the choicest and most applauded English Tragedies of this last age/ three were by Fletcher, two by Shakespeare, and one by Jonson. As the attack upon Fletcher exhausted his limits of space, Shakespeare escaped for the nonce. But these were not passing shots of criticism. In A Short View of Tragedy; It^s Original, Excellency, and Corruption. With some Reflections on Shakes pear and other Practitioners for the Stage (1693), Rymer still stood by his guns. From the standpoint of 'common sense' he aimed in earnest at the license of Elizabethan romantic drama, as the light-hearted authors of The Rehearsal had done in jest at the ex- cesses of heroic drama. 'We want,' he urged, 'a law for Acting the Rehearsal once a week, to keep us in our senses.' ^ Sense, indeed, there is beneath the nonsense of The Rehearsal, but Rymer's 'sense' leads him to the conclusion that the 'tragical part' of Othello 'is, plainly none other, than a Bloody Farce, without salt or savour.' ^ There is Uttle need to discuss here verdicts on Rymer ranging from Pope's opinion that he was 'on the whole, one of the best critics we ever had ' ^ to Macaulay 's brusque charac- terization of him as the worst critic that ever lived. What is significant is that Rymer was a prophet ^ Many of Rymer's couplets seem to indicate either extraordinary perversities of rhyme or lapses into blank verse. 2 A Short View of Tragedy, p. 158. ' Ibid., p. 146. * Spence, Anecdotes, Malone edition, 1820, p. 85. go ENGLISH DRAMA chap. not without honour in his own day and in later genera- tions that felt the classical impulse. The passing of rhymed heroic drama may have urged the swing of the pendulum toward EHzabethan dramatic models, but the weight of classical authority retarded the motion. The Preface to All for Love shows Dry den's own indecision. Though he shakes off the fetters of *A rhyme under which the Prologue to Aureng-Zebe had shown him to be restless, the verdict against rhyme is qualified : ' In my style, I have professed to imitate the divine Shakespeare ; which that I might perform more freely, I have disencumbered myself ^{ from rhyme. Not that I condemn my former way, but that this is more proper to my present purpose.' He admits, with Rymer, that the ancients 'are and ought to be our masters. . . . Yet, though their models are regular, they are too little for English tragedy ; which requires to be built in a larger com- pass.' But the old fear that the Elizabethan compass was too large seems to linger: 'The fabric of the play is regular enough, as to the inferior parts of it ; and the unities of time, place, and action, more exactly observed, than perhaps the English theatre requires. Particularly, the action is so much one, that it is the only of the kind without episode, or underplot; every scene in the tragedy conducing to the main design, and every act concluding with a turn of it.' In contrast with the romantic freedom of Antony and Cleopatra, All for Love shows classical ^^ restraint. Dryden compresses time and action, and confines the scene to Alexandria ; Shakespeare sweeps VI DRYDEN, LEE, AND OTWAY 91 in action over a dozen years and in scene over seas and continents. Equally marked is the contrast between Dryden's simplicity and Shakespeare's multiplicity in number of dramatis personce and of separate scenes. Dryden's deference to classic theories results happily for him in an avoidance of some direct comparisons with Shakespeare which might have been fatal. He could not hope to rival the imperial sweep and infinite variety of Shakespeare's world tragedy, but the classical limita- tions brought a gain in unity and concentration of action. Soimd sense and becoming modesty are not wanting in Dryden's estimate of his own drama. * Since I must not be over-confident of my own performance after him [Shakespeare], it will be prudence in me to be silent. Yet, I hope, I may affirm, and without vanity, that by imitating him, I have excelled myself throughout the play; and particularly, that I prefer the scene betwixt Antony and Ventidius in the first act, to anything which I have written in this kind.' Dryden's hopes have been realized and his judgment usually confirmed. The only play which he wrote to please himself pleased both his contemporaries and the audiences of the next century, and has found high favour with modern critics. Though admittedly inferior to Antony and Cleopatra, All for Love may fairly be said to be worthy of its great theme. Dry- den's Cleopatra cannot stand with one of whom her greatest critic wrote, 'Age cannot wither her, Nor custom stale her infinite variety.' Yet, in his verse, »ryden touched perhaps the height of poetic tragedy 4. 92 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. of his age. Save Milton's/ Restoration blank verse had but rarely triumphed. But Antony's words over Ventidius have almost the Shakespearean note, and many passages in the drama not merely arrest atten- tion, but charm the fancy. In the actual manipulation of the plot there are marked differences between All for Love and Antony and Cleopatra. Shakespeare keeps Octavia and Cleo- patra apart ; Dryden7paying toll perhaps to the unity of place, brings them together in what^cptt calls a 'scolding scene.' - Shakespeare's Antony really mourns the loss of his first wife, and accepts Octavia with good intentions. Shakespeare introduces the defection and final repentance of Enobarbus, and the scene of the drunken carousal on Pompey's galley, but has only a hint of the Dolabella-Cleo^atra episode which Dryden makes prominent. It is noteworthy ILhat perhaps the highest achievement of Restoration tragedy, with the possible exception of Otway's Venice Preserved, turns not to French masters, but to the greatest Enghsh dramatist. Yet the reversion toward an Elizabethan model is somewhat checked by the restraint of classical convention. In the same year with All for Love (1678), Dryden produced a coarse comedy, Limberham, or The Kind Keeper, and, in conjunction with Nathaniel Lee, (Edipus, a tragedy of which the theme is classical, but in which the introduction of incantations and ^Samson Agonistes (1671), which Milton's preface declares 'never was intended ' for the stage, and which accordingly omitted * divii3*x>n into act and scene/ belongs to poetical rather than to dramatic literature. VI DRYDEN, LEE, AND OTWAY 93 ghosts (Act III) seems Elizabethan. With Lee he again collaborated in The Duke of Guise (1682). To Troilus and Cressida (1679), an alteration from Shake- speare, Dryden prefixed his important essay on The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy, in which he extols the genius of characterization in Shakespeare and Fletcher, a 'limb of Shakespeare,' but cites with approval Rymer's strictures on their plots, and advo- cates strongly the classical unity of action. The Spanish Friar, or The Double Discovery (1681), a tragi-comedy, reveals more comic force than was usual with Dryden, and suggests that his own con- fession that he was 'not so fitted by nature to write comedy' ^ as more serious drama has perhaps been accepted too readily as sufiicient proof of his medioc- rity in comedy. In Scott's opinion, Dryden's dra- matic masterpiece is Don Sebastian (1690), a tragedy in blank verse and prose. Its length and the poverty of its comic parts hardly justify this superlative, but the characters of Sebastian and Dorax are strongly drawn and their clash results in a powerful dramatic scene (IV, 3). In the same year appeared Amphi- tryon, in which Dryden follows Plautus and Moh^re, but with real individuality of treatment, and with a vigour coarse, but undeniable. In Cleomenes (1692), he took a Spartan hero from Plutarch and fashioned a tragedy that suggests the general influence of French classical tendencies, though perhaps, as Scott con- ceived, with some specific obligation to Fletcher's Bonduca. An unsuccessful tragi-comedy, Love Trium- phant (1694) has Uttle interest apart from the fact * A Defertce of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy, Essays, Ker, 1, 116. 94 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. that, like Cleomenes, it sometimes employs rhymed couplets. >y Dryden's operas deserve some mention, not from their intrinsic merits, but from their bearings on the development of EngHsh opera. Albion and Albanius (1685), with music by the French bandmaster of Charles II, shows the growing influence of French opera at a time when Locke and Purcell had already given attention to operatic productions. Saint-Evre- mond, who professed himself 'no great Admirer of Comedies in Musick,' ^ confessed some interest in their 'magnificence,' their surprising 'machines,' and their sometimes 'charming' music, but found them, on the whole, 'very tedious.' To the modern reader, Albion and Albanius, and its sequel, King Arthur, or The British Worthy (1691) seem to confirm Saint-Evremond's caustic definition of opera as 'An odd Medley of Poetry and Musick, wherein the Poet and the Musician, equally confined one by the other, take a world of Pains to compose a wretched Performance. ' Dryden's operas, however, help to confirm the variety of his dramatic product and to illustrate the influence of French opera upon the later Restoration stage. In the history of Restoration drama, Dryden holds the centre of the scene. The foremost of the heroic dramatists, he formulated the rules of the school, produced its chief examples, and by abandoning rhyme sealed its fate. In the return to blank verse and the partial recurrence to other EHzabethan dramatic standards, he is again the commanding figure. As he matured, his critical judgments changed decidedly. * Works of Monsieur de S*, Evremond, 1714, II, 85-87, VI DRYDEN, LEE, AND OTWAY 95 His appreciation of Shakespeare, at first checked by the conventional attitude of his day to the * bar- barous age' of Elizabeth, finally outgrew artificial restraint. The larger charity of old age led him to accept in the main the strictures which Jeremy ColHer passed upon the looseness of his earlier dramatic work.^ His death closed the century. Already the old order was changing, as the tide of moral regeneration rose steadily. Of the many parts which Dryden played in the history of English hterature the greatest was not in drama. Yet he remains, despite his limitations, the most imposing figure in Restoration dramatic history. It has b een_conveni ent to regard the year 1678 v. as the end of the period of rhymed heroic drama and to consider, though with some qualifications, All for^ Love SiS in some sense a point of departure for the res- toration of blank verse and other Elizabethan ten- dencies. One evidence of the growth of Elizabethan influence is the decided increase thereafter in Restora- tion adaptations of Shakespeare. More significant, however, in the increasing dominance of Elizabethan forces is the advent of two powerful tragic dramatists who belong essentially to the new period of blank- verse tragedy. Among the heroic dramatists Dryden -•■ towered almost solitary. In blank- verse tragedy, v^ Nathaniel Lee and Thomas Otway rose to heights that fairly challenged comparison. Through the tawdry bombast of Lee's verse break many gleams of true poetry, and in Venice Preserved Otway equalled, if he did not surpass, Dryden's highest dramatic achieve- ment, 1 Dryden, Preface to the Fables^ Ker, II, 272. 96 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Widely separated in many ways as tragic dramatists, Nathaniel Lee (i653?-i692) and Thomas Otway (165 2-1 685), were close contemporaries. Their early lives had much in common. Both were sons of clergy- men, attended one of the great imiversities, failed as actors, and turned to playwriting. Both produced their first plays in 1675, and both used rhyme, wholly or chiefly, in their first three tragedies. This fact is but another warning against attempts to estabHsh inelastic divisions between Uterary periods and to make individual dramatists conform to arbitrary classification. Schooled in rhyme, they outgrew early habit, and Lee anticipated Dryden in the actual adoption of blank verse. In Nero {i6'j$), Sophonisba, or Hannibars Overthrow (1676), and Glorianaj or The Court of Augustus CcBsar (1676), Lee wrote tragedy, chiefly in rhyme, with semi-historical themes and the foreign setting usual in heroic drama. His great dramatic success The Rival Queens, or The Death of Alexander the Great (1677) anticipated All for Love in the use of blank verse. Like Gloriana, it is indebted to one of La Cal- prenede's romances. The main theme of this famous play is the jealousy between Roxana, Alexander's first wife, and his second wife, Statira. In the parts of the rival queens, actresses vied with each other on the English boards for a century and a half. Most of Lee's theatrical effectiveness is lost to the reader. Yet it is by no means wholly modern criticism that has fastened upon the rant and extravagance of the play for familiar illustration of the excesses of tragedy of the period. 'In what Raptures,' wrote CoUey VI DRYDEN, LEE, AND OTWAY 97 Gibber/ '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 extrava- gant Blemishes.' Furthermore, Gibber thought it a greater proof of Betterton's skill that he succeeded in 'the false Fire and Extravagancies' of Alexander than that he triumphed in any of the Shakespearean rdles. The extravagance is, certainly, apparent. A good example is the absurd account (Act IV) of how Lysimachus does battle with a lion, pulls out his tongue, bestrides, and kills him — a feat which moves Alex- ander to pardon the 'active Prince' more than 'all the Prayers Of the lamenting Queens.' In the last scene, Alexander, maddened by poison, mounts a chair, shouting, 'Bear me, Bucephalus, amongst the billows.' Amid the obvious extravagances of the play, however, its merits have sometimes been undervalued. Not all the talk is bombast. Many lines are in famihar quotation : ' 'Tis Beauty calls, and Glory shews the way ;' 'When Greeks joyn'd Greeks, then was the tug of War.' 2 The attack of Glytus upon Alexander's arrogance at the banquet (Act IV) is fervent and effective. There is real as well as 'false fire,' and force instead of farce. Mithridates (1678) is in marked contrast to Racine's earUer play on the same subject. Racine is simpler ^ Colley Gibber's Apology, Lowe edition, I, 105. 2 Both lines occur in Act IV. See 1677 quarto, pp. 53, 48. The lines beginning 'See the conquering hero comes' are not Lee's, but were written by Doctor Morell for a Handel oratorio, and were later interpolated in Lee's play, in Act II. 98 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. in plot, nobler in characterization, and without the sensational intrigues and accumulated horrors which Lee lavished upon his play. The appearance, in the fourth act, of the ghosts of Mithridates's sons, who 'set Daggers to his Breast and vanish,' and the use of spectacular devices point not across the Channel to French drama, but backwards to the Elizabethans. Theodosius, or the Force of Love (1680) deals with the rivalries of brothers in love. Ccesar Borgia (1680) proceeds to its grim conclusion with the strangling of the heroine on the stage, and with the poisoning of the rest of the chief characters. By the irony of fate MachiaveUi, the villain, is left to pronounce a moral which is singularly inappropriate in his mouth : No Power is safe, nor no Religion good, Whose Principles of Growth are laid in Blood. Lucius Junius Brutus^ Father of his Country (1681), met its end on the third night, when it was suppressed on account of supposed allusions to the vices of Charles II. All these dramas are essentially blank-verse tragedies, though Theodosius freely admits rhyme. The Princess of Cleve (1681) is described in the dedi- cation as 'this Farce, Comedy, Tragedy, or meer Play.' 'Mere play' seems hardly epithet sufficient for this coarse offspring of Madame de La Fayette's French romance. Constantine the Great (1684) and The Massacre of Paris (1690) revert to blank- verse tragedy. Despite the rant and fustian associated with Lee's name, there is something more than bombast in his extravagance. He is one of the few dramatists of the / VI DRYDEN, LEE, AND OTWAY 99 last half of the seventeenth century who had the poetic touch. The insanity brought on by his dissolute life pervades some of his stage characters. His poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolled, though often there is frenzy without poetry. In the midst of a prosaic age, it is a surprise to find embedded in conventional tragedy passages which reveal poetic imagination, such as that often quoted from the last act of (Edipus: Thou, Coward, yet Art living, canst not, wilt not, find the Road To the great Palace of magnificent Death ; Tho' thousand ways lead to his thousand doors, Which day and night are still unbarr'd for all. Lee had, to take a phrase from one of his dedications,* \ an 'ungoverned fancy.' Force and weakness, pathos and bathos, poetry and rant, mingle in his uneven pages. The impure element of insanity in his blood overran into his work. In him lived the promise of poetry, but the 'magnificent death' which his genius/ conceived brought him to a dissolute's grave. Lea touched the heights, but sank into the depths. I The dramatic work of Thomas Otway (1652-1685) ' began with Alcibiades (1675), a conventional rh)aned tragedy. Don Carlos (1676), based on a theme from a French historical romance, shows genuine dramatic ability. It won marked favour in its own day, and Gosse thinks 'we should be justified in calling Don Carlos the best English tragedy in rhyme.' ^ The comparative poverty of English rhymed plays, it * Epistle Dedicatory to Theodosius. \Sevmteenth'Century Studies, p. 279. lOO ENGLISH DRAMA chap. should be remembered, tempers praise which may sound superlative. Titus and Berenice (1677), a good version of Racine's Berenice, and The Cheats of Scapin (1677), a version of Moliere's Les Fourberies de Scapin, were followed by two dull comedies, Friend- ship in Fashion (1678), and The Soldier^ s Fortune (1681, or earlier),^ the latter containing perhaps some per- sonal touches drawn from the author's brief military service in Flanders. The History and Fall of Caius Marius (1680), a version of Romeo and Juliet, roughly accentuates the element of comedy, but aggravates also the tragic conclusion by allowing Lavinia to awake in the tomb before the death of her Marius. Otway's real fame rests on his last two tragedies. Following the fashion of Lee and Dry den, he now adopted blank verse. In The.Qrphan (1680), Castalio and Polydore, twin sons of Acasto, fall in love with Monimia, an orphan under Acasto's guardianship. Polydore, ignorant of CastaKo's secret marriage to Monimia, overhears their plan for what he believes is a guilty assignation, and under cover of night keeps his brother's appointment. The discovery of the marriage leads Polydore to provoke a quarrel in which he allows his brother to stab him. Castalio, on learning the truth, commits suicide, and Monimia takes poison. The action gains in simplicity and intensity by being centred in three main characters. Usually the action is rapid, though Castalio indulges in some descriptive passages, and Acasto in some talk against court flattery and h)^ocrisy. The plot turns upon an act of brutality, but the pathos of the * A 'Second Part,' entitled The Atheist^ was produced in 1684. VI DRYDEN, LEE, AND OTWAY lOI conclusion is indisputable. The pdwei't^f: the, tragedy* lies rather in cumulative force tliaji i^i- detached passages of verse. As Moniniia/Mrs." Sarry liv'bri'^iif great stage triumph, and even in the reading of the drama the improbabihty on which the plot rests is largely forgotten in the pathos of the last acts. Grief is portrayed with almost feminine tenderness. Otway points back to Elizabethan tragedy. Even his diction seems reminiscent of Shakespeare.^ The Orphan may, possibly, be termed the first domestic tragedy since EHzabethan drama. The royal person- ages and impossible heroes of heroic drama are banished from the boards. Rank is forgotten in the poignancy of human woe. In an artificial age, Otway awakens EUzabethan echoes. Venice Preserved, or a Plot Discovered (1682), is one of the greatest tragedies of modern English drama. In its own age possibly only Dryden's All for Love can sustain the comparison with it, and it touches, in the fourth act, perhaps the highest mark of Restoration tragedy. The main subject, drawn from the Abbe de St. ReaFs account of a Venetian conspiracy in 161 8, is unhappily yoked to a subordinate theme which reflects English politics. The doting buffoon, Antonio, is Shaftesbury caricatured. His age, sixty-one, Ms, garrulity of speech, his desire to be elected King of Poland, are mocked in Prologue and in the play. The comic scenes detract greatly from the merits of the tragedy, yet Taine curiously found them worthy * The description of the witch (II, i) recalls Shakespeare's method in descriptions like that of the * I do remember an apothecary' speech in Romeo and Juliet. 102 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. cxf praise.^ ArrOtigh parallel may be suggested in the comic - scenes of Mariowe's Dr. Faustus, though it shotiitl' \}t s^id that modern stage revivals of Dr. Faustus have done much to prove that even these comic passages may be made fairly effective. The setting of the play, with perhaps an opening hint of Othello, is picturesque. The action, save for the intrusion of the comic scenes, advances rapidly, and towards the end almost breathlessly. Passion not merely is sustained but rises to greater heights. As in The Orphan, three characters dominate the action. Pierre, a sort of Brutus with the high Roman courage, leads Jaffier to join the conspiracy against Venice. Belvidera, Jaffier's wife, persuades her husband to save her father and the Senate by revealing the plot. The action unfolds in masterly scenes, where Pierre con- fronts his friend with his falseness, and where Jaffier, conquered by his wife, melts into love, and yields to her desire to save her father and the state. On the scaffold, Jaffier is to pay the penalty of his vacilla- tion, but stabs both himself and Pierre. The ap- parition of the ghosts of Jaffier and Pierre and Bel- videra's madness and death strongly suggest the EKzabethans. The secret of Otway's success is truth to nature. The irresolute Jaffier, standing midway between the tender Belvidera and the iron Pierre, is the centre of dramatic conffict. Rant, bpinbast, and exaggeration^ — the fundamentals of heroic drama — give way to human emotion. Pathos does not sink into bathos, 1 History of English Literature, Edinburgh, 1873-4 edition, HI, 39-41. VI DRYDEN, LEE, AND OTWAY 103 and if Otway's tragedies end in blood, it is wrung from the human heart. The almost classical unity w- of action in Otway's two masterpieces results less from a following of rules than from a natural impulse to centre the attention on the chief characters. It is a simplicity which recalls Hawthorne's handHng in the novel of a few great characters. The phrasing is terse and lucid ; the plot sweeps forward with resist- less force. It is easy to find Otway's limitations and positive faults. To evident poverty of comic genius must be added lack of high lyrical poetry. The imagination does not soar with the Elizabethan gift of song. Nor does the breadth of his character conceptions equal their depth. Don Carlos, Castalio, and JajSier are cast in one mould. Infatuated with woman's love they stand irresolute. The Queen in Don Carlos, Monimia, and Belvidera are aUke tender, sensitive heroines, with the feminine appeal to the sensibiHties. Otway could not run the whole gamut of human emotion, but he touched a few notes with the certainty of a master hand. If his tragedies do not inspire awe, they touch the gentler spring of pity. Sincerity, . natiiralness, and artistic, restraint — quahties rarer tEan ever in Restoration tragedy — are the foundation \ of Otway's dramatic genius. CHAPTER VII ASPECTS OF MINOR RESTORATION DRAMA The main currents of Restoration drama have thus far been noted chiefly in the work of its leading writers. Yet it is wholly unsafe to disregard the lesser and some- times contrary currents of minor drama. The sea of dramatic forces cannot, in any case, be charted with entire precision, but it is especially dangerous to base calculations simply upon the major turns of the tide. The convenient grouping of the comedies of Etherege, Wycherley, and Shadwell, in distinction from the tragedies of Dryden, Lee, and Otway, should not lead to the facile assumption that Restoration drama can arbitrarily be separated into distinct schools of comedy and tragedy. With the exception of Dry- den, the leading dramatists seem, perhaps, to conform roughly to such classification. Yet Ether ege's comedy shows, at least in one instance, the influence of heroic drama ; heroic tragedy often adopts a happy issue out of its affictions, and tragi-comedy violates the classi- cal distinctions between comedy and tragedy. Even disregarding opera, with its complex and varying relations to heroic drama, to comedy, and to the masque, the more regular drama often oversteps precise limits. Especially should the irregularities and inconsistencies of many minor dramatists be a warning against rigid lines of division. During the 104 CHAP.vn ASPECTS OF MINOR RESTORATION DRAMA 105 height of rhymed heroic tragedy, Crowne wrote a tragi-comedy largely in blank verse, and, long after the general adoption of blank verse, he reverted to rhymed heroic tragedy. Howard, though advocating blank verse in his dispute with Dryden, used rhyme to a considerable extent. Even brief study of the lesser products of Restoration drama will show that convenient generaHzations must not be mistaken for fixed laws governing dramatic development. The terms * major' and ^ minor' are here applied to Restoration drama primarily for convenience. The objection already urged against rigid separation of tragic and comic dramas would apply with at least equal force to arbitrary distinctions between drama- tists whose importance varies greatly according to the critic's point of view. D'Avenant, for example, has historical significance wholly out of proportion with his literary achievement. Shad well, whose comedies it has been convenient to discuss in con- nection with those of Etherege and Wycherley, might well be classed with lesser dramatists. With no in- tention, then, to insist dogmatically on precise classi- fication of individual playwrights, and with no desire to essay the impossible task of presenting an all- inclusive estimate of the dramatic output of the period, attention will be directed in this chapter to some aspects of that mass of dramatic writings which, in the main, gave bulk rather than distinction to Res- toration drama. So continuous is this dramatic output, that it is difficult to set even a general chronological limit to the plays that might here be considered. Roughly speaking, however, the Revolu- lo6 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. tion of 1688 may be adopted as a more or less elastic limit. If only the more prominent dramatists were to be included, there would be Httle difficulty in adopting definitely the division suggested by Edmund Gosse.^ He distinguishes clearly between the earlier group of dramatists, such as Crowne, Mrs. Behn, Wycherley, Lacy, Settle, Otway, and Lee, for whom he reserves the name of Restoration dramatists, and a later group, including Congreve, Gibber, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, and Rowe, whom he entitles the 'Orange dramatists.' It is true, indeed, as he points out, that the later writers are not connected with the reign of Gharles II, but this is no more insuperable obstacle to their inclusion as 'Restoration dramatists' than is the death of Queen Elizabeth to the frequent extension of the term 'EHzabethan' to the later work of Shake- speare and his successors. Thus Leigh Himt was warranted in grouping, in his well-known edition, the comedies of Wycherley, Gongreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, for not even the end of the seventeenth century marks the full conclusion of the dramatic period ushered in by the Restoration. Furthermore, the apparent gap between the two groups of major dramatists is somewhat bridged by the work of minor playwrights.^ In the last analysis, the division lines between dramatic periods and the nomenclature adopted must remain largely arbitrary, a matter of * Seventeenth-Century Studies^ pp. 270-271. 2 Mr. Gosse's statement that, after the adveat of the dramatists whose first plays fall between 1670 and 1675, 'twenty years passed quieitly on without a single new writer, except Southeme,' seems to neglect so popular a dramatist as John Banks. vn ASPECTS OF MINOR RESTORATION DRAMA 107 personal preference rather than for conclusive argu- ment. In this work, the term 'Restoration drama' will include both of Mr. Gosse's groups, but the present chapter will in the main discuss playwrights the bulk of whose work precedes the Revolution of 1688. The widely divergent plays that may be grouped imder the head of pastorals illustrate the difficulties of applying to minor Restoration drama absolute distinctions between comedy and tragedy. The very disagreements as to the acceptance of particular plays as pastorals are an index of their complex dramatic elements. For the most part these plays have kinship with heroic drama and romance, with comedy, and sometimes with rough farce, and with the masque. Their nondescript character is evident from the fact that one of the first three items in a suggestive Hst of Restoration pastorals^ is described on the title-page as 'A Comical History,' and the others as * tragi- comedies,' while Crowne's Calisto (1675) is *The Late Masque at Court.' The Thracian Wonder, though printed in 166 1, belongs, as its usual ascription to Webster and Rowley would imply, to an earlier dramatic period. Yet its publication so soon after the reopening of the theatres is another Unk between Elizabethan and Restoration drama. Not even the interregnum had broken the dramatic chain, for pastorals like Richard Flecknoe's Lovers Dominion (printed 1654) and Robert Cox's Actaeon and Diana (printed 1656) had found publishers. Tasso's Aminta and Guarini's Pastor Fido, two classic ItaHan pastorals already influential through Elizabethan translations, ^eannette Marks, English Pastoral Dramas pp. 179-180. Io8 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. appeared in Restoration versions.^ The lyric impulse of the Elizabethans had, indeed, passed, and the charm of naturalness had been lost in an artificial age. Simplicity and spontaneity, so necessary to re- deem the pastoral from conventionality, were miss- ing in Restoration days, but the earlier tradition had not been wholly forgotten. Restoration dramatic pastorals usually exhibit a blend of comic, tragic, and musical elements. The Thracian Wonder, which bears marked resemblance to The Winter^ s Tale, includes some rustic scenes and shepherds' dances, mingles verse with prose, and has heroic as well as pastoral elements. Thomas Killigrew's two-part Bellamira in- troduces an * Arcadian Nymph' who dwells in a cave with her brother, and a King and Prince who battle with Spaniards as well as invade Arcadia. Shadwell, who fashioned The Royal Shepherdess (1669) from the material of 'one Mr. Fountain of Devonshire . . . en- deavour'd to carry on those few Humors, which were but begun by him ; and (to satisfie the Concupiscence, as Mr. Johnson calls it, of Jigge and Song) I designed as fit occasions for them as I could.' Crowne's Calisto, with songs and music that link the masque with opera, has pastoral elements in its nymphs and shepherds. The Constant Nymph, or The Rambling Shepheard (1677), 'written by a Person of Quality/ borrows from Sidney's Arcadia, and largely uses the heroic couplet instead of the blank verse of tragedy or the prose of comedy. At almost every turn may be noted divergencies in subject, treatment, and * Dancer's translation of the former in 1660, Settle's rendering o! the latter in 1677. vn ASPECTS OF MINOR RESTORATION DRAMA 109 versification from what may be regarded as the normal standard, but cannot possibly be accepted as the fixed practice, of Restoration drama. Dull, monotonous, vulgar, and tawdry, the Restoration pastoral usually is. It holds, doubtless, the least honoured position in the dramatic record of the time, yet some interest attaches to it as proof of the con- tinuity of EHzabethan dramatic influences and of the complexity of dramatic development during the Restoration. The dramatic pastoral may perhaps be regarded as a by-product of Restoration drama. Attention should now be directed to more regular tragic and comic products of minor Restoration drama. Often these lesser plays afford further illustration of prac- tices and tendencies apparent in the work of leading dramatists. Here, for example, may be multiplied the proofs of Continental influences upon Restoration drama, yet here again is disproof of the theory that English drama became denationalized. The use of Spanish material, already observed in early comedies of Dryden and Wycherley, in Digby's adaptations from Calderon, and in Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours (1663), is continued in Crowne's Sir Courtly Nice (1685), taken from Moreto, and in various plays of Mrs. Aphra Behn, such as The Dutch Lover (1673) and The Rover (1677), said to reflect, in part, Spanish influences. The French romances of La Calprenede and Madeleine de Scudery, which con- tributed to the work of Dryden and Lee, supplied material for Lord Orrery, Settle, Mrs. Behn, and John Banks. Translations, adaptations, and borrow- no ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. ings of varying importance from French drama con- stantly appear in minor Restoration drama, as, for example, in the work of Charles Cotton, John Dancer, Mrs. Catharine Philips — the * matchless Orinda' — Sir Charles Sedley, Ravenscroft, and Crowne. Despite manifest and frequent debts to foreign sources, however, the lesser as well as the greater Restoration dramatists abundantly disprove the assumption that English drama became an essentially foreign product. Plots, names, and phrases were freely appropriated from Gallic drama, but external imitation did not bring reproduction of the spirit and genius of French drama. To the influence of Corneille was added that of Jean Racine (1639-1699). In the decade following his first signal success in Andromaque (1667), Racine so far perfected French classical drama that English play- wrights began to imitate the new master of tragedy. Yet his subtle analysis of character, his strength of dramatic conception, and his noble diction seem almost travestied in the conscious heroics and bombast of English heroic drama. The humanity of Moliere is forgotten in the heartless immorality of Restoration comedy. Again and again do the lesser dramatic pieces of the English stage follow the letter of Gallic example, not the spirit. Consideration of the work of a few individual dramatists will effectually disprove any theory of rigid separation between comic and tragic writers. Sir Robert Howard (1626-1698), who collaborated with Dryden in The Indian Qtteen, wrote both tragedies and comediesTTlis'most successful comedy, vn ASPECTS OF MINOR RESTORATION DRAMA m The Committee (1662)/ satirizes the underhanded methods of committees of sequestration of property in the later Commonwealth period. Teague, an early Irish comic character, if deficient in dialect, has Irish wit enough to ' take the Covenant ' by steal- ing a copy of it from a bookseller. The Great Favour- ite, or The Duke of Lerma (1668), a tragedy, has 'some Scenes in blank Verse, others in Rhime,' despite Howard's protest against Dryden's theory of rhyme. The Epilogue tersely describes it as * A melancholly Plot ty'd with strong Lines.' Sir Charles Sedley (1639 ?- 1 701), whose rhymed heroic tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra (1677), was, in Shadwell's ill-founded judg- ment, the 'only' tragedy '(except two of Jonson's and one of Shakespear's) wherein Romans are made to speak and do Hke Romans,' ^ produced three comedies. In The^ Mulberry Garden (1668), partly based on Moliere, Sedley mingles prose with heroic couplets somewhat as did Etherege in The Comical Revenge. Bellamira, or The Mistress (1687), based on the Eunuchus of Terence, is a gross, but vigorous, satirical comedy.^ Edward Ravenscroft (fl. 1671- 1697) whose assiduous efforts were largely devoted to unscrupulous reworking of old veins of comic ore, also adapted Titus Andronicus, and produced a tragi-comedy and a tragedy. His theatrical successes 1 The date of its production has often been confused with diat of its publication, 1665. But Evelyn witnessed it 27 November, 1662, and Pepys, 12 June, 1663. 2 Epistle Dedicatory to A True Widow, 1679 quarto. ^ The Grumbler was not printed until 1702. It was acted in 1754 as a farce. 112 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. were largely due to bold pilferings from Moliere, and to the farcical abandon of such a piece as his London Cuckolds (1682). John Crowne (d. 1703 ?) began a prohfic dramatic career with a tragi-comedy, Juliana, or The Princess of Poland (1671), chiefly in blank verse, turned in the next year to rhymed historical tragedy, and in 1675 produced Andromache, a prose adaptation of Racine, The Country Wit, a comedy partly drawn from Moliere, and Calisto, a court masque. Among his plays during the next decade are a heavy two-part heroic drama, The Destruction of Jerusalem, several blank-verse tragedies, and a satirical comedy, City Politiques. Sir Courtly Nice, or It cannot Be (1685) marks the height of his dramatic achievement. The titular hero, though reproducing the type of fop already evident in Etherege, may be regarded as Crowne's best contribution to the gallery of Restora- tion comedy portraits. Crowne's later dramatic work shows some tendency to revert to earlier dra- matic influences, for The Married Beau (1694) is a blank-verse comedy which, in Dr. Ward's judgment, *may be regarded as an attempt to return to the style of Fletcher and Shirley,' ^ and Caligula (1698) is a tragedy in rhyme. Some of Crowne's indifferent tragedies seem to have achieved their success largely through scenic aids, while his comedies are without subtlety of characterization, yet 'Httle starch Johnny Crowne' achieved a respectable measure of stage success. To the modern reader he may serve as an . illustration of the blend of dramatic types and styles f in the work of a single playwright. His dramatic » Ward, in, 407. vn ASPECTS OF MINOR RESTORATION DRAMA 113 reputation must rest almost wholly upon the creation of a single character, Sir Courtly Nice. While many of the lesser dramatists, with more or less impartiality, divided their efforts between tragedy and comedy, with not infrequent departures into tragi-comedy, opera, or masque, there are those whose names are primarily associated with a single dramatic type. John Lacy (d. 1681), comedian, besides adapting comedies of Moliere and Shake- speare, made original excursions into the field of comedy. The rough realism of The Old Troop, or Monsieur Raggou (1664?), his best dramatic effort, doubtless owed somewhat to Lacy's own military experience during the Civil War. Elkanah Settle (1648-17 24), on the other hand, takes his place with the heroic dramatists. Beginning tragedy literally in 'Cambyses' vein' with his youthful Cambyses, King of Persia, he achieved a spectacular success in The Empress of Morocco (1671?),^ which led to a pamphlet controversy against the combined attacks of Crowne, Dryden, and Shadwell. Ibrahim, the Illustrious Bassa (1676), based on Georges de Scudery's play from his sister's romance, sufficiently answers the rhetorical question of its Epilogue as to the deadly efficacy of heroic love : What need of Siege and Conquest in a Play, When Love can do the work as well as they ? To the *Doeg' of Dryden's satire still attaches the unsparing epithet ^heroically mad.' *The first edition, 1673, contains valuable drawings which show the attention paid to scenic effects. I 114 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. \^ Upon the unlucky head of Mrs. Aphra Behn (1640- 1689) have been visited many of the sins which she shared in common with her contemporaries. *The chaste Aphra' does, assuredly, justify by her works her reputation for ^ijcamorality. Yet perhaps some- thing should be forgiven a writer who produced in V Oroonoko a humanitarian novel, and who revealed beneath her licentiousness in drama some evidences of lively ingenuity. Before turning to play writing she had an adventurous career. A barber's daughter, who had spent her youth at Surinam, she returned to England shortly before the Restoration, married a Dutch merchant who brought her into some notice at the court of Charles II, and after his death served as a spy at Antwerp, was shipwrecked, and finally returned to London, where she supported herself as a writer. Her dramatic career began in 1671 with the production of a tragi-comedy, The Forced Marriage, and a coarse comedy, The Amorous Prince. A single tragedy, Abdelazar, two later tragi-comedies, and a farce entitled Emperor of the Moon (1687), are less characteristic than the dozen or more comedies from her proHfic pen. Of these, perhaps the best examples are The Rover, or The Banished Cavaliers (1677; Second Part, 1681) and The Roundheads (1682), which reecho the militant notes of the Civil War, and The City Heiress (1682). With the un- scrupulousness of her friend Ravenscroft, though ^ with more than his ability, Mrs. Behn appropriated dramatic materials wherever she found them — in Killigrew, Brome, Middleton, Tatham, or Moli^re. With no more hesitation she stooped to conquer by vn ASPECTS OF MINOR RESTORATION DRAMA 115 pandaring to the coarsest taste. Yet her best come-< dies have vivacity of action as well as depravity of speech, and some touches of lively, though habitu- ally gross, humour. Nahum Tate (165 2-1 7 15) merits perhaps less * attention as a dramatist than as a poet. His continu- ation of Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel in a second part is directly indebted to Dryden for its most notable passages, and his metrical version of the Psalms was effected in collaboration with Nicholas Brady, but Shadwell's successor to the poet laureateship holds some place among the minor poets of his day. Tate had not an independent or original mind. He was most at home in collaboration with other writers, or in imitation of their work. His dramatic efforts were largely concerned with adaptations from Shakespeare, Chapman, Fletcher, and Webster. In 1 68 1 and 1682 he produced adaptations of Richard II, Coriolanus, and King Lear, eliminating the fool, and allowing Cordelia to marry Edgar. Despite Addison's early protest in The Spectator (No. 40), this perversion of Lear continued to hold the stage until almost the middle of the nineteenth century. Such adaptations, not merely of Shakespeare, but of other Ehzabethans, emphasize at least the continued attention paid by Restoration playwrights to earlier English drama. To the playwrights already mentioned might readily be added a host of mediocrities. The Duke of Newcastle, loyally pronounced by his Duchess, who shared his dramatic activities, 'the best lyric and Il6 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. dramatic poet of his age/ ^ Sir Robert Stapylton, ^ and many others show that the dramatic contagion touched rank and title. Edward and James Howard, and 'sing-song' Thomas D'Urfey are perhaps sufficient examples of the prolix mediocrity of writers who lacked even the distinction of title. Sufficient illustration, however, has already been found in minor Restora- tion drama of the continuity of English dramatic traditions, even during the height of Continental influences, of the constant inter-relation between different types of dramatic writing, and of the union in the work of individual dramatists of both comic and tragic impulses. Brief mention may be accorded to some matters which, though primarily connected with theatrical history, are not without direct bearing upon the drama itself. The development of scenic and musical elements, already noted at some length in connec- tion with the rise of heroic drama and the opera, had increasing influence. The Prologue to Tun- hridge-Wells (1678) declares that every Scribler sends his Envoys out To fetch from Paris, Venice, or from Rome, Fantastick fopperies to please at home. And that each act may rise to your desire, Devils and Witches must each Scene inspire. Wit rowls in Waves, and showers down in Fire. With what strange Ease a Play may now be writ, When the best half's compos'd by painting it ? And that in th' Ayr, or Dance lyes all the Wit ? * Ward, III, 332, footnote 3. 2 Stapylton's plays are The Slighted Maid (1663), a comedy, The Step-Mother (1664), a tragi-comedy, and Hero and Leander (1669), a tragedy. vn ASPECTS OF MINOR RESTORATION DRAMA 117 Dorset Gardens Theatre, opened in 1671, devoted itself so frankly to elaborate scenic effects that Dryden found occasion to allude to ^ the gaudy house with scenes.'^ CoUey Gibber, in his account of the Patent Theatres, says that Sir Wilham D'Avenant, to offset the success of the King's Gompany, *was forced ... to introduce a new Species of Plays, since call'd Dramatick Opera's, 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.' ^ French actors and 'Italian merry-andrews ' who * quite debauched the stage with lewd grimace' left 'their itch of novelty behind.' ^ To such conditions the minor Restoration playwrights responded by increasing attention to theatrical rather than to dramatic effects. It seems advisable to conclude this chapter with some account of two dramatists who form convenient ^ Unks between the earlier and later Restoration writers of tragedy. John Banks (fl. 1696) began a pro- \ Ufic career with The Rival Kings (1677).^ His real success came in exploiting the vein of English his- torical tragedy. The Unhappy Favourite (1682) deals with the Earl of Essex; The Island Queens^ printed in 1684, and produced as The Albion Queens in 1704, deals with EHzabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots; Vertue Betrayed (1682), with Anne Boleyn. ^ * Prologue for the Women,' Works, Scott-Saintsbury edition, X, 317. See also Prologue, Ihid., X, 318-320. 2 Apology, Lowe edition, I, 94. ' Dryden's * Epilogue to the University of Oxford, 1673,* WorkSt Scott-Saintsbury edition, X, 382. * The date and title suggest the influence of Lee's Rival Queens, Il8 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. A later tragedy, Cyrus the Great, or The Tragedy of Love (1696), reverts more definitely to the stock material of heroic drama in basing its theme on Madeleine de Scudery's romance. Despite an evident prejudice for the Continental unities and the simpli- fication of scenes and characters, Banks ranted in ' Cambyses' vein,' and indulged in Cyrus the Great in a gruesome episode in which Panthea reassembles on the battlefield the disjecta membra of her dead lord. Banks won theatrical, rather than dramatic, success, and stimulated interest without touching real emotion. A far more important link between earlier and yy later tragedy was Thomas Southerne (i 660-1 746). Although one of his comedies reminded Dryden of Terence,^ Southerne is now remembered as a writer of tragedy. The Loyal Brother, or The Persian Prince (1682), is a blank- verse tragedy with some admix- ture of prose. A succession of comedies was followed by two very considerable successes in tragedy, The Fatal Marriage, or The Innocent Adultery (1694), and Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave (1696), both founded on novels of Mrs. Behn. These plays found con- tinued favour in the eighteenth century, the former, in Garrick's version, Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage (1757)7 the latter, in Hawkesworth's alteration in 1759. Both adapters removed from these works the scenes of dull comedy. The Fate of Capua (1700) and The Spartan Dame (1719), in which he turned to classical themes, and an unimportant comedy ^Dryden's verses, 'To Mr. Southern; on his comedy called The Wives Excuse,' in 1692 quarto of The Wives Excuse. vn ASPECTS OF MINOR RESTORATION DRAMA 119 prolong Southerne's dramatic career through the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Yet his most successful achievement was in the tragedies which, at the close of the seventeenth century, help to bridge the gap between the Restoration and the Augustan age. With something of Otway^s dramatic pathos, i^ though without his genius, Southerne points the way, perhaps, toward the sentimental drama of the eighteenth century. The school which Richard Steele is usually held to have founded seems foreshadowed, however unconsciously, in the almost feminine appeal of Otway and Southerne to the sentiment of pity. CHAPTER VIII CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR The Revolution of 1688 is without the immediate significance to EngHsh drama of the Restoration of 1660. PoHtical change did not bring forthwith dramatic reform. Yet, if the outward aspect of drama responded but slowly to the passing of the old regime, its inner life soon felt the stirrings of a new spirit. As the license of the earlier Stuart Court gave way to the healthier moral tone of the reign of William and Mary, a different standard was set for imitation. Latent forces of decency and moral restraint, which had been obscured by the dazzling vices of royalty and fashion, now began to reassert themselves. The very excesses of the Restoration brought natural reaction. If the pendulum had swung during the interregnum to the extreme of dramatic restraint, it had touched after the reopening of the theatres the extreme of license. An awakening moral sense could neither applaud nor condone the sins of the drama. Disapproval soon grew to direct attack. In his Prefaces to Prince Arthur (1695) and to King Arthur (1697),^ Sir Richard Blackmore remon- strated with the excesses of recent dramatists, and, early in 1698, George Meriton issued a pamphlet, * These two 'heroick poems' and their separate prefaces have often been confused. The later preface highly praises Congreve's Mourning Bride. 120 CHAP.vm CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR 12I Immorality, Dehaiichery, and Profa[ne]ness Exposed, Random attacks, however, turned to concentrated assault in Jeremy Collier's A Short View of the Imr morality J and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698). With much of the Puritan spirit whose intolerant ex- pression had brought disaster to William Prynne, Col- lier set himself squarely against prevalent immorality in drama. It should be said, at the outset, that not Jeremy Collier alone, but the power of pubhc opinion, carried the day. Not in the virulence of his invective, but in the essential soundness of his cause, lay Col- lier's real strength. It was his good fortune to voice audibly the growing convictions of many. The soil was ready for good seed. A generation earlier he might have raised the voice of protest with no more effect than the blind poet who had fallen upon evil days. Yet if Collier is not to be regarded as the single-handed reformer of the stage, it is idle to ignore the outspoken, though ill-balanced, energy with which he formulated a more or less intangible public senti- ment. To the slowly gathering force of moral re- form he gave direct impetus. His definite challenge to Restoration dramatists could not be evaded. The number and energy of the replies evoked from his adversaries, and the confessions of their leader, Dryden, show that he had struck home. Before entering upon a more detailed examination of Collier's work and its effect upon the tone of English drama, it will be well to resume the course of dramatic history with some account of the later dramatists whose careers began before the bursting of the storm, and who maintained even to the end 122 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. much of the earlier spirit of Restoration drama. The last decade of the seventeenth century marks the advent of three important writers in whose work Restoration comedy touches its zenith — Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. With a single exception, Congreve's plays preceded Collier's attack, but much of Vanbrugh's work and all of Farquhar's followed it. In an age that prided itself on wit and elegance of style, William CoNGREVE (1670-1720) wasthewitJ Lifi&t^ and perhaps most graceful writer of English comedy. Born near Leeds, schooled at Trinity College, Dublin, Congreve came to London as a law student, pub- lished a minor novel, contributed to a poetical trans- lation of Juvenal, and at twenty-three had won Dryden's favour and general applause with his first comedy. The Old Bachelor (1693). Dryden declared that 'he never saw such a first play in his life, and that the author not being acquainted with the stage or the town, it would be a pity to have it miscarry for want of a little assistance ; the stuff was rich in- deed, only the fashionable cut was wanting.' ^ This assistance Dryden himself helped to give, and Southerne, an early sponsor for Congreve, generously hailed him as Dryden's successor.^ In comparison with Congreve's later work. The Old Bachelor won disproportionate success. Its characters were largely conventional, yet even Captain Bluffe, a cowardly blusterer anticipated in the first English comedy, 1 Gosse, Life of William Congreve, pp. 33-34. 2 See his striking lines To Mr. Congreve, on The Old Bachelor, Mer- maid edition of Congreve, p. 3. viu CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR 123 Ralph Roister Bolster , has a certain vividness and in- dividuality. Fondlewife recalls Wycherley's Pinch- wife, and Heartwell, the * surly old Bachelor, pre- tending to slight Women, secretly in love with Silvia,' has some touches of Manly, while some of the characters of the underplot suggest Jonsonian humours. Yet if The Old Bachelor somewhat lacks originaHty in characterization, Bellmour's words in the opening act might well have been Congreve's own invocation, 'Wit, be my faculty !' It was more than a decade and a half since Etherege had produced The Man of Mode and Wycherley had taken a cynical farewell of comedy in The Plain Dealer. With a style more graceful than Etherege's and wit more sparkling than Wycherley's, Congreve showed that there had appeared a new master of comedy. Though far less gross and brutal than Wycherley, i Congreve Has a tone of subtle but pervasive im- morality which he later strove vainly to dispf6ve. In answer to Jeremy Collier he urged that the end of a play pointed the moral. Unfortunately Collier^ found the real moral of The Old Bachelor in its closing lines: What rugged ways attend the noon of life ! Our sun declines, and with what anxious strife, What pain we tug that galling load, a wife ! In the Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to his next play, The Double-Dealer (1693), Congreve makes an uncon- u vincing reply to the charge that 'some of the ladies 1 A Defence of the Short View . . . Being a Reply to Mr. Congreve' s Amendments f 6*c. And to the Vindication of the Author of the Relapse^ 1699, p. 19. 124 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. are offended' by its immorality. It is fair to note, however, that, in the denouement, C3aithia's virtue escapes even Maskwell's plots and is rewarded by union with Mellefont, Lady Touchwood is driven off by her husband with an orthodox ^Go, and thy own infamy pursue thee,' and Maskwell is seized and held for punishment. Though all is not well that ends well, the curtain no longer falls on the dishonoured husband amid derisive laughter. In the Epistle Dedicatory, Congreve claims origi- nality of plot and deliberate intention ' to preserve the three unities of the drama.' Yet the admirable scandal scene (III, 3) recalls Olivia's scene with Novel and Plausible,^ and Moliere's still earlier pas- sages in Le Misanthrope, while the obscure turns in the labyrinth of plot are even further complicated by a network of bypaths and meanders. Congreve has perplexity, not unity, of action. The characters of The Double-Dealer are familiar types — Mellefont, the lover. Careless, the confidant, Maskwell and Lady Touchwood, villains. Lord Froth and Brisk, coxcombs. Lady Froth, 'a great Coquette,' Lady Plyant, 'insolent to her Husband, and easy to any pretender.' Lady Plyant 's sesquipedaUan words possibly suggest Mrs. Malaprop, but there is Httle 'mathemacular demonstration,' to borrow one of her phrases, of Mrs. Malaprop's 'nice derangement of epitaphs.' Even with the aid of the soliloquy, a de- ^ Wycherley, The Plain Dealer (II, i). Y^t Cynthia turns with disgust from the gossip which OHvia welcomes. Cf. Maria's and Sir Peter Teazle's disgust with the scandal-mongers in The School for Scandal. vni CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR 125 vice comparatively infrequent in Restoration comedy, though defended by Congreve in the Epistle Dedi- catory, the devious ways of Maskwell are followed with difficulty. Plot is subordinated to brilHancy of dia- L logue. The numerous technical defects in dramatic construction perhaps account for the somewhat in- different reception at first accorded The Douhle-Dealer, but its vividness of characterization and vitaHty of phrase eventually established it in a popularity which lasted through the eighteenth century. Love for Love (1695) was the first play produced at the new Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, by Betterton and the actors who had revolted from the Patent Theatres. Its success was well merited, for in it wit^ is married to grace of diction. Valentine, a young spendthrift who is lucky in love, has had many successors in EngHsh comedy, among them. Young Honeywood in Goldsmith's Good Natur'd Man and Charles Surface. His wit does not stop with his assumption of madness. In a way that curiously recalls Hamlet,^ he ' uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.* Jeremy, his witty servant, takes after his master, as do Sheridan's Fag and David. Jeremy, who * waited upon a gentleman at Cambridge,' cites Epictetus, Seneca, Plato, and Diogenes in a single speech, as readily as Fag alludes to Jupiter's masquerades in love. The ceaseless showers of wit fall alike on master and man. Sir Sampson Legend, Valentine's father, is a vigorous portrait of the crusty father. Scandal is the famiHar confidant of Restoration ^ Compare, e.g. IV, 2, with some of Hamlet's speeches to Polonius. 126 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. comedy, not too busy to neglect his own intrigue. Foresight, ^pretending to understand Astrology, Palmistry, Physiognomy, Omens, Dreams, &c,' though in point of fact not an anachronism, seems dramati- cally a Jonsonian character, out of place amid Con- greve's beaux and belles. Miss Prue, an admirable example of the Restoration perversion of the ingenuey is essentially of the same t)^e as Wycherley's Mrs. Pinchwife and Miss Hoyden in Vanbrugh's Relapse. Miss Prue has some admirable scenes — one where Tattle initiates her into the mystery of saying one thing while meaning the opposite — another with her sailor suitor Ben,^ whose awkward advances lead to a mutual disagreement which anticipates the scene of Tony Lumpkin and Miss Neville. Comedy borders dangerously upon farce when Tattle, thinking he is wedding Angelica in nun's disguise, is tricked into marriage with Mrs. Frail — a situation possibly saved by the fact that the marriage takes place off the stage. Congreve's Dedication of the play shows that he was not unconscious of the danger in its length, but un- flagging zest of dialogue, skill in characterization, and more effectiveness in plot construction than he usually attained made Love for Love an acting comedy success. J Congreve's sole tragedy. The Mourning Bride (1697), has often been viewed as a soHtary excursion into an alien dramatic field, and unrelated to his comic work. Yet in the villainy and passion of Mask- well and Lady Touchwood may be found strains * Gosse, Congreve, p. 76, calls Ben * the founder of a long line of stage-sailors, of whom he is the earliest specimen.' vm CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR 127 of tragic suggestion, just as Wycherley's Plain Dealer does not depart too far from Le Misanthrope to forget entirely the grim aspect of misanthropy. Doubtless it would be fantastic to exaggerate in Wycherley and Congreve the sombre threads in the weave of comedy, yet the latter's venture into the realm of tragedy is perhaps not an extraordinary and unheralded phe- nomenon. From the modern standpoint it seems the irony of fate that The Mourning Bride achieved in its own day greater success than Congreve's comedies. It held the boards through most of the eighteenth century, and the passage at the end of the first scene of the second act eHcited Doctor Johnson's famous eu- logy of it as ^the finest poetical passage he had ever read ' ^ — a dictum whose extravagance has reacted too severely against even a reasonable appraisal of a fine passage. The customary modern ver- dict, that Congreve's departure from comedy proved his incapacity for tragedy, is perhaps testimony to the change of popular taste quite as much as to the author's lack of judgment in essaying an uncongenial task. Plot and c haracters are, indeed, arti ficial, and ^ t he probabilities are s tretche d almost j^gyond the limits of the possibilities. That its writing took three years suggests^ thatTt was a tragedy not born, but made. Yet Congreve's shortcomings are those of all but a few of the Restoration tragic dramatists. The ^ Mourning Bride, in fact, though written in blank verse, resumes in many respects the habits of heroic drama. It develops themes of love and honour in the foreign setting of Granada, and adopts a happy ^ Boswell's Life oj Dr. Johnson, Hill edition, II, 85. 128 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. issue for the heroic loves of the Princess Almeria and the noble Osmyn. The modern reader might prefer either a full tragic solution or an anticipation of the denouement by a somewhat lighter handling of the earlier tragic elements. The final surprise seems rather a let-down than a wind-up. There has been no comic rehef, and the advent of Osmyn at the end comes as a fortuitous trick, not as a logical dramatic climax. The plot, complicated by the motives of 'cross purposes' and ^mistaken identity,' has, apart from its artificiality, more coherence and vigour in development than is characteristic of Congreve's comedies. Gosse believes that the blank verse 'is the parent of Thomson's,' and that Congreve's real model is Milton.^ Apart from such possible bearings on the history of poetry, Congreve's verse is of interest chiefly in some good, if rather conventional, Hues, some of which are famiUar in quotation. The Prologue sets a higher standard than Congreve attained either in comedy or in tragedy: To please and move has been our poet's theme, Art may direct, but nature is his aim ; And nature missed, in vain he boasts his art, For only nature can affect the heart. Congreve is a great Hterary artist, but without the gift that blends art with nature. ^ The Dedication of The Mourning Bride had termed it a *poem constituted on a moral whose end is to recommend and to encourage virtue.' This high * Congreve, p. 92. vm CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR 129 purpose did not shield Congreve from ColKer's de- termined attack in the following year, nor did that attack deter the dramatist from one further venture in comedy. Notwithstanding the fact that The Way of c the World (1700) contained Congreve's most^l^iriJliant character creation, it met with a reception so luke- warm that the author was somewhat piqued. 'But little of it,' he writes in his Dedication, 'was prepared for that general taste which seems now to be predomi- nant in the palates of our audiences.' Even Steele, in his Commendatory Verses, admits that it was caviare to the general by asking : How could, great author, your aspiring mind Dare to write only to the few refined ? Congreve's Dedication voices a deliberate intention to depict not the gross fools 'which are meant to be ridiculed in most of our comedies' but^^somejcharac- ters which should appear ridiculous, not so much through a natural folly (which is incorrigible, and therefore not proper for the stage) as through an affected wit ; a wit, which at the sameJ;ime^ihat it is affected, is also false.' With evident pique at critics who faile3*To"note such subtleties, Congreve added that 'this play had been acted two or three days, before some of these hasty judges could find the leisure to distinguish betwixt the character of a Wltwoud and a Truewit.' In a letter to Dennis,^ Congreve had defined 'humour' as 'A singular and unavoidable Manner of doing or saying any thing, pecuHar and * 10 July, 1695, 'Concerning Humour in Comedy,' The Select Works oj Mr. John Dennis, 1718, II, 514-525. 130 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. natural to one Man only ; by which his Speech and Actions are distinguish^ from those of other Men/ and had declared that ^Humour is from Nature, Habit from Custom, and Affectation from Industry.' He had further asserted : ' The saying of humorous things does not distinguish Characters; for every Person in a Comedy may be allow' d to speak them. From a witty Man they are expected; and even a Fool may be permitted to stumble on 'em by chance. Tho I make a difference betwixt Wit and Humour; yet I do not think that humorous characters exclude Wit : No, but the Manner of Wit, should be adapted to the Humour.^ Yet Congreve's own weakness lay in his inability to adapt his own wit to the various characters he should have differentiated. His 'fools' are permitted to stumble on too many brilHants. His diamond beds are without sand. Even in The Way of the World, ^^gMe, the maid, like Congreve's earlier servants, hasj:he wit of her betters. The unconscious humour of GoISsmTEIfsTJrggory is closer to life than the brilHant quips of Congreve's servants. It is small wonder that critics overlooked a theoretical distinction that seemed without a difference in practice. Yet if, in Dryden's words, The Way of the World 'had but moderate success, though it deserves much better,' ^ the judgment of posterity has gone far to correct the error. j^yyi^arng,;^j Congreve's most brill- iant character creation, has commanded HazUtt's eulogy 2 and George Meredith's tribute to the 'perfect * Letter to Mrs. Steward, 12 March, 1700. Quoted by Ward, III, 475. ' Lectures on the English Comic Writers^ Lecture IV, pp. 139-142. VIII CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR 131 portrait of a coquette.' ^ They had been anticipated, however, by an earHer critic, her lover Mirabel: *I like her with all her faults; nay, like her for her faults. Her foUies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her; and those affectations which in another woman would be odious, serve but to make her more agreeable' (I, 2). She enters with a flash, and goes off in a blaze of wit. Even amid the cease- less pyrotechnics of Congreve her departure seems Uke the extinction of a briUiant rocket. Yet Milla- mant is an artificial creation — beautiful and fragile as Dresden china. She has the wit, but not the / V humanity, of Shakespeare's Beatrice. ' Congreve' s wit is his supreme strength and perhaps < his greatest weakness. It led him to sacrifice not merely naturalness in character and dialogue, but effec- tiveness of plot. In his comedies the action usually halts while the train of wit passes gaily by. Sheridan, '^with greater dramatic art, showed that brilliant wit need not clog the movement of plot, for even the scandal scenes which have at times been instanced to the contrary have some justification, apart from their briUiancy, as a necessary background for Lady Teazle. Yet it would be unfair to judge Congreve chiefly by his defects. To supreme wit he added ^ grace of diction. He has the ease of Addison. He is a sort of avant-courier of eighteenth-century felicity of phrase and dehcacy of diction. Hazlitt's eulogy, if somewhat superlative in expression, is sound in es- sence : ' His style is inimitable, nay perfect. It is ^ An Essay on Comedy, Constable edition, 1897, p. 35. See also pp. 39-42, 132 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. the highest model of comic dialogue. Every sentence is replete with sense and satire, conveyed in the most polished and pointed terms. Every page presents a shower of brilHant conceits, is a tissue of epigrams in prose, is a new triumph of wit, a new conquest over dulness.' In the record of English comedy Congreve holds a foremost place. His early work, especially The Old Bachelor J shows the influence, without the > malignant bitterness, of Wycherley. In comic spirit he seems rather the descendant of Etherege and the ancestor of Sheridan. With Etherege's weakness in plot, he has greater ease of dialogue ; in brilliancy and ceaseless wit, he vies with Sheridan. In his hands the comedy of society is touched with rare literary skill. It is artificial comedy, but the art is masterly. _X? If, in a general sense, Congreve is a follower of Ethe- . ^^rege, Wycherley's successor is Sir John Vanbrugh (^ (1664-17 26). After some early architectural training , in France and experience in the army which culminated in his seizure at Calais and imprisonment in the Bastille as a suspected spy, Vanbrugh settled down to the life of a dramatist and an architect. The combi- nation of professions once came near to causing personal disaster. From CoUey Cibber's account^ of the opening of the Haymarket Theatre, in 1705, it appears that Vanbrugh almost wrecked his own play, The Confederacy, through the wretched acoustics of the theatre in which he had sacrificed too much to spacious- ness of dome and splendour of construction. Flemish in descent, Vanbrugh had a taste for the massive in architecture, to which his mock epitaph bore witness : ^ Apology, Lowe edition, I, 319 ff . vm CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR 133 Lie heavy on him, Earth! for he Laid many heavy loads on thee! ^ In character painting, too, he shows at times a certain Flemish heaviness, a following of the 'fleshly school' of Rubens. Whether Swift was right in satirizing some of Vanbrugh's efforts in architecture, or Sir Joshua Reynolds was justified in praising the picturesque effect of Blenheim, which Vanbrugh built for the Duke of Marlborough, is, from the present standpoint, of less moment than the fact that his prominence as an architect enforced his notoriety as a dramatist. Vanbrugh's dramatic fame rests chiefly upon three comedies — his first, TheRelapse, or Virtue in Danger (Dec. 1696), The Pjrpygk'd Wife (1697), and TheCjQJ^- federacy (1705). Of his minor pieces, jEsop (1697) is a free translation of a French comedy by Boursault, The Pilgrim (1700), an adaptation from Fletcher, The False Friend (1702), from Le Sage's version of a Spanish comedy, The Country House (1705), from one of Dancourt's farces, and The Mistake (1705), from Moliere's Le Depit Amour eux. A Journey to London is an unfinished comedy, completed by CoUey Gibber as The Provoked Husband. The chief interest of most of these minor pieces lies in the illus- tration of Vanbrugh's variety of materials. The success of CoUey Gibber's uninspired, but well- constructed and well-acted, comedy, Lovers Last Shift, or The Fool in Fashion, suggested a sequel. Written in six weeks, The Relapse was presented to * On Sir J. Vanbrugh ; an epigrammatical epitaph [by Dr. Evans]. In John Nichols's Select Collection of Poems, 1780-82, III, 161. 134 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. the Drury Lane management in April, 1696, and produced in December. Vanbrugh took three charac- ters from Gibber — Loveless, the hbertine, Amanda, the virtuous spouse, and Sir Novelty Fashion, who becomes Lord Foppington. Gibber, the first Sir Novelty Fashion, and the actors who had appeared as Loveless and Amanda, continued their original successes in Vanbrugh's sequel. The comparison between Gibber and Vanbrugh centres in the figures of Sir Novelty Fashion and Lord Foppington. From Gibber, Vanbrugh has taken the general idea of the fop and some specific touches. Li Gibber, Sir Novelty is described as 'one that Heaven intended for a Man ; but the whole business of his Life is, to make the World believe, he is of another Species ' (Act I) . Gibber's character amuses for the moment; Vanbrugh's has permanent vitaHty. Hazlitt,^ who regards Lord Fop- pington as a 'copy from Etherege's Sir Fopling Flutter,' thinks that 'perhaps, Sir Fopling is the more natural grotesque of the two,' but he does not fail to regard Lord Foppington as 'a most splendid carica- ture.' Dr. Ward ^ remarks, ' Lord Foppington I am inclined to pronounce the best fop ever brought on the stage — unsurpassed and unsurpassable, and admirable from first to last.' In The Relapse virtue, in the person of Amanda, triumphs. Yet, as the sub-title of the play impKes, virtue is very much in danger. Furthermore, though Amanda resists temptation. Loveless prosecutes his intrigue with Berinthia to its relentless end. Gom- * Lectures on the English Comic Writers j pp. 157-158. « Ward, III, 479. vm CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR 135 pared with Wycherley, Vanbrugh's immorality seems less black, because it is gayer and less cynical. He seems, for the most part, to have the buoyancy of ani- mal spirits rather than the brutality of animal passions. Yet in The Provoked Wife, Sir John Brute does not belie his name. He is of the beef-and-beer school, an alehouse brawler, with a bully's cowardice. Like Sir Tunbelly Clumsey in The Relapse, he shows Van- brugh's heavy Flemish touch. Constant and Heart- free are the usual pair of friends, Rasor and Mademoi- selle the clever valet and maid. Lady Brute and Belinda are the confidantes. Yet these are not hfe- less reproductions of stock characters, but vitalized individuals. The Confederacy, largely taken from Dancourt's Les Bourgeoises a la Mode, shows much skill in plot construction. The way in which the plot is made to turn on the possession of a necklace recalls somewhat Goldsmith's later handHng of Miss Neville's jewels in She Stoops to Conquer. Despite marked obligations to its French original, Vanbrugh's play has individuality. Dick Amlet and his mother and Brass are vigorous character creations. Unlike Etherege and Congreve, Vanbrugh excels in dramatic construction. The Relapse is doubtless too long, and Sheridan, who revised the play under the title of A Trip to Scarborough, though he sacrificed some of the pristine vigour of his original, improved the plot by considerable cuts and some rearrange- ment, especially in the last part. But, for the most part, Vanbrugh's plots, like Wycherley's, though often borrowed, are skilfully built, easily followed, and pro- ductive of excellent stage situations. The effective- 136 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. ness of plot is enhanced by distinctness of character drawing. Sometimes, indeed, he outlines his sketches so heavily that they approach caricature, as in Lady Fancyful, the female fop in The Provok'd Wife. His portrait of Lord Foppington merits the place of honour, yet many of Vanbrugh's other pictures deserve to be hung on the line. Young Fashion, the gallant, Sir Tunbelly Clumsey, the country gentleman, Flip- panta, the soubrette maid. Miss Hoyden, the romp- ing ingenue, Amanda, the virtuous wife, Berinthia, the reckless widow, Sir John Brute, the sottish squire, Rasor, the clever valet — these, and others, show Vanbrugh's power of touching the stock characters of the comedy of his day with vigour and vitaHty. Without the epigrammatic skill of Congreve, Van- brugh has admirable ease and fluency of style. CoUey Gibber, who acted several of the strongest parts, con- firms by his own testimony what he records as the gen- eral observation of 'all the Actors of my Time, that the Style of no Author whatsoever gave their Memory less trouble than that of Sir John Vanbrugh,' and that 'his Wit and Humour was so Httle laboured, that his most entertaining Scenes seem'd to be no more than his common Conversation committed to Paper.' ^ In his best work, well-rounded strength in plot, char- acter, and dialogue, deservedly won signal success in comedy. ^;^) George Farquhar (1678-1707) brought to English comedy an endowment of native Irish wit, good- humour, and originality. Of Londonderry birth, a sizar at Trinity GoUege, Dublin, and then an actor on 1 Apology, Lowe edition, I, 219. VIII CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR 137 the Dublin stage, he was brought by Wilks to Lon- don. His first play, Love and a Bottle, appeared when , he was perhaps twenty.^ A commission in the army and a visit to Holland with his regiment gave him military experience on which he drew in his later comedies. It was Farquhar who discovered the six- teen-year-old niece of the hostess of the Mitre Tavern reading behind the bar one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, interested Vanbrugh in her, and through him brought to Christopher Rich the actress who was to become famous as Nance Oldfield. Far- quhar's second play, ThejConstant Couple, or A Trip to the Jubilee (1699), was a highly successful comedy. ^ Its hero lent his name to a sequel. Sir Harry Wildair (1701), which increased the popularity of Farquhar 's dramatic portrait of a gentleman ^ newly come from Paris,' endowed with 'gaiety of humour.' ^ The In-*. constant, or The Way to Win Him (1702) was taken from Fletcher's The Wild Goose Chase. The Twin- Rivals (1702) contains a humpback villain and a rather amusing Irish servant, Teague. The Recruit-< ing Officer (1706), animated by Farquhar's own mili- tary experience, enlarges the bounds of comedy that had hitherto been too closely confined to city limits and the gallantries of its fops. The vigorous charac- ters of Sergeant Kite and Captain Plume have the rough freedom of a coun try atmosphere. The Beaux' Stratagem (i 707) shows both the tradi- <• tions of Restoration comedy and the advent of new 1 Genest dates it 1699, but the first edition, dated 1699, actually- appeared in December, 1698. ' The Constant Couple, I, i. 138 ENGLISH DRAMA chas. tendencies. Here are present in full force the familiar flings of the beau monde at the country, and yet something of real country atmosphere ; French char- acters and phrases/ and yet a hearty English element ; much of the immorality of earher comedy, with some of the later improvement in moral tone. Though Squire and Mrs. Sullen separate at the end with scant regard for~the marriage tie, Farquhar does not scoff at virtue and exalt vice in Wycherley's fashion. The seeming intrigue between Mrs. Sullen and Count Bellair is only her scheme to solve her matrimonial troubles. Instead of trying to deceive her husband, she has him brought to her rendezvous with the Count. As the Count says, when Mrs. Sullen shows him that she has not taken his advances seriously: 'Begar, madam, your virtue be vera great, but gar- zoon, your honeste be vera little ' (III, 3). The dialogue is bright, witty, and vigorous. Mrs. Sullen, who epitomizes her husband as 'a sullen, silent sot^ breaks out with these words: 'Since a woman, must wear chains, I would have the pleasure of hearing 'em rattle a Httle' (II, i). Archer and Cherry have some excellent passages.^ Though Mrs. SuUen's long speeches (II, i) voice the usual contempt of the town for the country, the play has genuine country atmos- phere. The countrywoman who comes to Lady Bountiful to have her husband's leg cured is given, in fact, some dialectic forms of speech — 'mail' for 'mile,' and 'graips' for ' gripes ' (IV, i). Scenes with * Besides Count Bellair, there is Foigard, an Irishman who tries to make his speech pass for French. ' End of I, I, and of II, 3, with Archer's catechism of love. vm CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, AND FARQUHAR 139 the landlord, the tavern maid, and the highwaymen come as a relief from the ceaseless intrigues of fash- ionable London. The plot construction is highly ingenious, especially v in the very effective last act. Archer — whose name is sufficiently explained by Boniface's words (II, 3), 'You're very arch' — justifies his name by replacing the French Count at the rendezvous, and obtains entrance to Mrs. Sullen's chamber. This leads to a situation famiUar in Restoration comedy in such scenes as Vanbrugh's, where Loveless carries off Berinthia {The Relapse, IV, 3), and Farquhar's own scene in his Love and a Bottle, where Roebuck invades Lucinda's chamber. But the ingenuity with which a stock situation is rescued from the relentless issue in Vanbrugh is Farquhar's own. The attempted robbery not merely interrupts the amour at the critical point, but offers an effective chance for Archer to dis- play his bravery and to merit Mrs. Sullen's regard. Mrs. Sullen herself well describes him: 'The devil's in this fellow ! he fights, loves, and banters, all in a breath' (V, 4). The next scene is full of rapid movement of plot and shift of situation. The whole act, handled with vigorous assurance, is of sustained interest. Farquhar is to some extent a forerunner of Gold- 4. smith. The opening conversation between Boniface, the innkeeper^ and Aimwell and Archer about the menu is quite Hke that of Mr. Hardcastle, the sup- posed innkeeper, with Marlow and Hastings in She Stoops to Conquer. There is something, too, in thet freshness of atmosphere, in the group of country and I40 ENGLISH DRAMA chap, vm innjolk, and in the Irish good-humour, which is akin to the spirit of Goldsmith. Whatever Farquhar's lapses in point of morality, he has none of Wycherley's vindictive and brutal cynicism. Most of his char- acters, with all their faults, are companionable. They are not so clever as Congreve's, but fertile brains and facile manners make them attractive, despite some heartless traits. While Wycherley adapted Moliere and Vanbrugh followed a variety of models, Farquhar's ready brain was responsible for most of his effectiveness in plot and characters. Farquhar usually suggests to others. Highwaymen in league with the landlord may be as old as the First Part of Henry IV, but both Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer and Gay's Beggar^ s Opera may have found a nearer model in The Beaux' Stratagem, Farquhar imparts to his characters individuality. He presents a whole gallery of full-length portraits — the country squire, the Irish adventurer, the fop, the landlord, the tavern maid, the recruiting officer. He sets them in scenes vivid in their portrayal of eigh- teenth-century life. The inn, the country house, the gatherings of soldiers and highwaymen, enlarge a canvas which has usually represented only the fashion- able world of courtier and intriguante. Effective in plot, varied in scenes and characters, Farquhar's last and best comedy brings Restoration comedy to a brilliant close, and points to the healthier humour of Goldsmith. IaJ^^^^^^-^ "^"^ CHAPTER rX THE MORAL REAWAKENING With Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, Restora- tion comedy draws towards its end. Its brilliant dramas continued to hold the boards for many years, and powerfully influenced eighteenth-century drama. Yet even Sheridan, on whom descended Congreve's mantle of wit, did not reproduce the traditional li- cense of Restoration comedy. The awakening forces of moral reform to which Jeremy Collier gave their most decisive expression were steadily in the ascend- ant. Against them battled vainly the defenders of a lost cause. Neither the ridicule nor the serious arguments desperately essayed by opponents, nor even Colher's own absurdities, could avail against the solid strength of his main contention. Collier himself was less the prophet of an unrealized evil than a voice through which revolt against the immorality of the stage became fully articulate. Other voices had already been raised in partial protest. Evelyn's Diary expressed at times his regret at the license of drama, and even Pepys had not always been tolerant of the evils of the theatre of his day. James Wright's Country Conversations (1694) anticipated Collier in resenting the abuse of the clergy at the hands of dram- atists, and suggested that ' now most of our New Comedies are become very Pictures of Immorality/ 141 142 ENGLISH DRAMA cHAP. and Sir Richard Blackmore's Preface to Prince Arthur (1695) declared that ' The Poets that write for the stage (at least a great part of ^em) seem deeply con- cern' d ' in a conspiracy to ' bring Vice and Corruption of Manners into Esteem and Reputation.' Collier's main attack was thus prefaced by various skirmishes. His success was due not to strategy, but to an im- pregnable position. It is important to examine, in some detail, the real content of A Short View of the Immorality, and Pro- faneness of the English Stage (169&). Vagaries of individual criticisms blend curiously with sound general truths. Collier has much of the Puritan in- tolerance of William Prynne's Histrio-Mastix and much of the inartistic obtuseness of Thomas Rymer's Short View of Tragedy. The first chapter, 'The Im- modesty of the Stage,' an. attack upon indecency of lajiguage, justly declares that 'The Present English Stage is superlatively Scandalous. It exceeds the Liberties of all Times and Countries.'^ Yet Collier, who finds some excuse for Aristophanes and for Fletcher, laments that Shakespeare keeps Ophelia alive 'only to sully her Reputation.' The second chapter, on ' The^ Profa[ne]ness of the Stage,' enters a sensible objection to swearing as 'an ungentlemanly, as well as an unchristian Practice,' but finds it 'a heavy Piece of Profaness' to call Jehu a 'Hackney Coachman.'^ In the third chapter, 'The Clergy abused by the Stage,' Collier shifts from the moral to the social standpoint, in deprecating the representation on the * 1698 edition, p. 54. IX THE MORAL REAWAKENING 143 stage of the priesthood, on the ground that this de- grades 'the profession of a Gentleman.'^ The title of the fourth chapter shows that ColUer could not readily go astray in seeking arguments from con- temporary drama: ' The Stage-Poets make their " Principal Persons Vitious, and reward them at the End of the Play.' Chapter five singles out certain ^ plays, ior attack, notably Vanbrugh's Relapse. At one moment, Collier justly upbraids Vanbrugh for permitting Berinthia to go off 'without Censure or Disadvantage,' but, in the next, cites as proof of her profanity a bit of persiflage about lovers' oaths which shows that ColHer was not the man to laugh at lovers' perjuries.^ The _£nal chapter, 'The Opinion of Paganism, of the Church, and State, concerning the Stage,' carries the discussion far afield. Heathen philosophers, orators, and historians, the constitu- tions of Athens, Sparta, and Rome, and the edicts of church councils, are marshalled into an attack not upon the abuses of the drama, his original target, but upon the stage itself. For a time he bids fair to chal- lenge comparison even with the inimitable prolixity and absurdity of Prynne's Eistrio-Mastix. In the end, however, he returns to the more definite charge that the stage 'cherishes those Passions, and rewards those Vices, which 'tis the business of Reason to dis- countenance.' ^ From even these illustrations it will be apparent that CoUier's strength lay more in the justice of his «- ^Ihid., p. 136. ^ Ibid., pp. 219-220. ^Ihid., p. 287. 144 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. cause than in sustained logic of argument. Had the basic truth of his general contention been open to question, he might easily have defeated his own ends. He often failed to distinguish between immorality and harmless jest, between moral and artistic issues. He poured censure alike on plays that rewarded vice and on those that violated the dramatic unities. He sought examples not even remotely connected with the real question, and did not hesitate to alter the ques- tion itself. Yet if he often fought as one that beat- eth the air, many of his blows landed with deadly strength. His pamphlet has at times zest and vivacity as well as blunt force. His work should be judged not merely by its flagrant eccentricities but by its underlying elements of strength. So obvious are the immediate responses to his in- vective that Collier has at times been credited with originating rather than expressing a new moral stand- ard. At all events, he remained the central figure in the war of pamphlets which prolonged for more than a quarter of a century. Charles Gildon, Edward Filmer, John Dennis, Vanbrugh, and Congreve ^ all took up the cudgels in behalf of the stage within some four months from the pubhcation of Collier's attack. Gildon, Filmer, and Dennis did not fail to admit in many respects the justice of his strictures, but took issue with his extreme arguments. Yet even Dennis, who had the candour to admit that ' No man can make any reasonable defence, either for the immorality or the immodesty, or the unnecessary wanton pro- * For titles and discussion of these pamphlets and^those cited below, see Gosse's Congreve ^ pp. 112-129. IX THE MORAL REAWAKENING 145 phaneness which are too justly charg'd upon* ^ contem- porary drama, is partisan enough to defend Wych- erley. Vanbrugh was able to pierce cleverly a few weak points in Collier's armour, but was far from finding a vital spot. Congreve for once found wit failing him, and anger a sorry substitute for argu- ment. His reckless attempt to show that Collier's citations were proof of the critic's impurity fell flat, and Congreve soon learned that Vanbrugh had been right in admitting that the Short View was ^now a thing no farther to be laught at.' ^ ColHer was not left to fight his battle single-handed. Early in September, two minor pamphlets took issue with Congreve's Amendments, and, not long after, The Stage Condemned brought him the doubtful aid of its dull proHxity. But Collier was not content to rest his case on his first main indictment. In Novem- ber appeared A Defence of the Short View, in which he dealt chiefly with Congreve and Vanbrugh. Other later treatises added bulk, rather than weight, to the controversy. Collier's answers to specific details of controversy seem to-day to detract somewhat from the concentrated force of his first invective. Still, his provocation was strong, and the severity of his personalities was fully matched by his opponents. Yet Dryden, despite flashes of very human resentment at ColHer's extreme charges,^ bowed to the justice of the main indictment.^ While the tide of controversy * The Usefulness of the Stage, 1698, Introduction. 2 Vanbrugh, A Short Vindication of the Relapse and the Provoked Wife, 1698, p. 4. ' See beginning of Cytnon and Iphigenia. * Preface to the Fables (1700), Essays, Ker, II, 272. L 146 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. still raged fiercely, he uttered what sounds more like the verdict of an impartial judge than the plea of the defendant : Perhaps the parson stretched a point too far, When with our theatres he waged a war. He tells you, that this very moral age Received the first infection from the stage ; But sure, a banished court, with lewdness fraught, The seeds of open vice, returning, brought.^ Congreve and Vanbrugh had reaped the whirlwind which had been sown in the court of the Merry Monarch. The extent of Collier's influence upon the tone of English drama has been variously estimated. Not infrequently the question has been dismissed with positive assertion rather than with positive proof. Macaulay evidently assumed that Collier was prac- tically responsible for the reform of the English stage. Recently, there has been a reaction, sometimes almost amounting to violence, against this once popular assumption. In its most aggressive form, modern criticism has sometimes gone so far as to deny Collier any influence upon contemporary drama and to dis- miss his attack as a complete failure. This is to swing the pendulum to the other extreme. Enough has been said already to suggest the danger of assigning to Collier results of forces too far-reaching to be at- tributed to an individual. Yet distaste for what is intolerant and extravagant in Collier should not pro- voke a like intolerance in the critic. The course of 1 Epilogue to The Pilgrim (1700), Scott-Saintsbury edition of Dryden, VIH, 502. IX THE MORAL REAWAKENING 147 drama was not immediately and violently turned into a purer channel. Despite Collier's strictures, Far- quhar and Vanbrugh, in his later plays, maintain the license of Restoration comedy, and the looseness of earher Restoration comedies did not prevent their retention on the stage. Yet, if the superficial aspect of drama was not largely altered, there were indubi- table signs of reaction against the immorality of the stage. The attitude of the law and government is significant. In an excellent summary, supported by definite proofs, Dr. Ward says:^ 'The censorship of the Master of the Revels began to be exercised more strictly ; actors were prosecuted for the use of profane language, and the playhouses were once more pre- sented as nuisances by the grand-jury ; the admission of women wearing masks into any of the theatres was prohibited ; and Convocation occupied itself with the condition of the stage as a matter of moment to be pressed upon the consideration of the Crown.' _Tlie slow, but perceptible, influence upon the character of the dramatic output becomes more apparent with rising dramatists like Colley Cibber and Richard Steele. The effect of the pamphlet controversy over the morals of the theatre continued for almost a gen- eration until William Lawls treatise. The Absolute Unlawfulness of the Stage-Entertainment fully demon- strated (i-T^). Collier's attack upon the stage may not, indeed, claim absolute priority in the dispute, but it focussed the discussion. It became the centre of attack and the rallying-point of defence. It would be idle to exaggerate to heroic proportions the medi- 1 III, 514-515. 148 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. ocre figure of Jeremy Collier, but it would be unfair to deny him in the controversy of his day a prominence which his very opponents recognized. The death of Dryden and the withdrawal of Con- greve from dramatic work accentuate the passing of the old order. Whether the comparative failure of The Way of the World, or an uneasy sense of Collier's superiority in their controversy, or simply Congreve's fondness for the social Hfe which the emoluments of office now permitted him to enjoy, was the dominant factor in the case, Congreve 'left the stage early.' And though the generous words of Dennis, that ' Comedy has quitted it with him,' ^ have the exag- geration of compHment, they suggest a truth. Even Farquhar, whose later work, with that of Vanbrugh, disproves the Uteral accuracy of the phrase, bore striking testimony to the significance of Colher's attack. His Preface to The Twin-Rivals (printed 1703) begins as follows : ' The success and countenance that debauchery has met with in plays, was the most severe and reasonable charge against their authors in Mr. ColHer's Short View; and indeed this gentleman had done the drama considerable service, had he arraigned the stage only to punish its misdemeanours, and not to take away its Ufe; but there is an advantage to be made sometimes of the advice of an enemy, and the only way to disappoint his designs, is to improve upon his invective, and to make the stage flourish, by virtue of that satire by which he thought to suppress it.' Farquhar's play, however, by no means puts virtuous 1 The Poetical Register: or, the Lives and Characters of the Eng- lish Dramaiick Poets [by Giles Jacx)b], 1719, p. 46. IX THE MORAL REAWAKENING 149 theory into practice. It was not through the reform of dramatists of the old school, but through the ad- vent of new playwrights that comedy was to be purged of gross license. Two years before Jeremy Collier^s invective, ap- peared the first play of Colley Ctbt^^ ^e (^^7^-^757)- Conspicuous in his own day as actor, manager of Drury Lane, plajnvright, and finally poet-laureate, Gibber Uves to-day chiefly as the author oiAn Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber . . . Written by Him- self, an entertaining record not merely of his own Ufe but of the whole dramatic history of his times. In writing comedy Cibber avowed a dehberate moral inJ;g;ntion. In comparing his first comedy. Love's Last Shift, or The Fool in Fashion (1696), with Van- brugh's famous sequel, Cibber later wrote : ^ ^ The Relapse, however imperfect 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 PueriHty 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 atid equal Possession of the Stage for more than forty Years.' Despite its 'moral de- light,' the play did not escape the censure of Jeremy Collier, though Cibber protests^ that 'his greatest Charge against it is, that it sometimes uses the word * Apology y Lowe edition, I, 220. 2 Ibid., I, 274. I50 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Faith! as an Oath, in the Dialogue/ Modern taste might find a stronger objection to the ease with which a faithless husband, after eight years' quest of pleasure, is permitted to reclaim a faithful wife. Yet difference in moral standards rather than insincerity on Gibber's part may fairly account for apparent ethical short- comings. Gibber's alteration of Richard III gave to the stage a famous acting version, for more than a century the accepted stage text. Some minor comedies, one of which was drawn partly from Fletcher and another from a Spanish source,^ were followed by Gibber's most conspicuous success in comedy. In The Careless EMsband (1704) he seeks definitely to moralize comedy. Yet Gibber's play is rather an expurgated Restoration comedy than a new comedy type. The plot is two- fold. Sir Gharles Easy, the ^Gareless Husband,' engages in amours with Lady Grave- Airs and Edging, his wife's maid. Lord Morelove, coquettishly allured and repulsed by Lady Betty Modish, pretends affec- tion to Lady Grave-Airs, while Lady Betty flirts with Lord Popping ton. The seven characters are famiHar comic types. Lady Betty Modish is the coquette of the school of Gongreve's Millamant. Lady Grave-Airs is the cast-off mistress, like Gon- greve's Belinda, in The Way of the^Wbrla. In Lord Foppington, Gibber reclaims the fop that Vanbrugh had taken from Gibber's Sir Novelty Fashion. All these fops are of the school of Etherege's Sir Fop- ling Flutter and Growne's Sir Gourtly Nice. Yet Gibber's Lord Foppington is no mere echo. Lady 1 Ward, III, 486. DC THE MORAL REAWAKENING 151 Easy is the one character who is represented as ^ ethically admirable. In the scene where Lady Easy finds her husband and the maid asleep in chairs, founded according to Boswell ^ on fact, Lady Easy's ascent from prose to blank verse in apostrophizing her sleeping husband is striking. But when, anxious Uke a good wife lest he catch cold 'bare-headed and in so sound a sleep,' she determines to intercept the wrath of 'Heav'n offended' and 'takes her Steinkirk from her Neck, and lays it gently over his Head, ' she relapses, appropriately to the anti-climax, into prose. Steele's earlier introduction of blank verse in plays Hke The Funeral (1701) and The Lying Lover (1703) points to an attempt to invest the serious passages of moralized comedy with the traditional dignity of verse. The Lady^s Last Stake, or The Wife's Resentment <«' (1707) inculcates the same moral as The Careless Husband — that love, not jealousy, binds the wife to the husband's heart. Of The N on- Juror (i 717), an w adaptation of MoHere's Tartujffe to English setting. Gibber wrote : ^ 'I borrow'd the Tartufe of Moliere and turn'd 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 seduc'd into the treasonable Cause of a Roman Catholick Out-law.' The N on- Juror contains some well-drawn characters, ^ Life of Johnson, Hill edition, 1, 174, footnote 2. 2 Apology, II, 186. t$it ENGLISH DRAMA chap. and its bold strokes of caricature are retouched in Isaac Bickerstaff's The Hypocrite (1768), but Gibber's attempt to blend politics with morals is a dubious procedure. The Provoked Husband (172^), a completion of Vanbrugh's unfinished comedy, A Journey to London, encountered, according to Gibber,^ the resentment which people had not dared to show openly to the political tone of The Non- Juror. In another connection, there will be good reason to discuss Gibber's resolute championship of 'legitimate drama ' against the encroachments of pantomime and spectacle. Here, it is of primary importance to centre attention on his conscious moral aim. The Dedica- tion of The Careless Husband shows an evident wish to reform contemporary comedy; the Prologue de- clares the intention not to deal with the grossness of 'the Vile Scum' of humanity who 'deserve not Satyrs but the Hangman's Lash,' but to hit 'some weak Part, where Folly's found.' Judged by modern standards, Gibber permits even gross folly and sin to be re- deemed with ready indulgence. Yet, if Lady Easy does not belie her name in viewing her careless hus- band's errors, her position is treated not with ridicule, but with sympathy. If Gibber welcomes the home- coming of his prodigals with an easy forgetfulness of their lapses from virtue, he seeks to lay chief empha- sis on the pure affection and constancy of their wives. Nor are his prodigals libertines 'as sensual as the" brutish sting.' They are more akin to Tom Jones than to Wycherley's Horner. There is no reason to question Gibber's sincerity when, from the vantage- * Apology f II, 189-190. IX THE MORAL REAWAKENING 153 point of his later years, he reviewed his attitude toward the drama : ^ * It has often given me Amazement that our best Authors of that time could think the Wit and Spirit of their Scenes could be an Excuse for making the Looseness of them publick. 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 — Liber- tines of meer Wit and Pleasure may laugh at these grave Laws that would limit a lively Genius: But every sensible honest Man, conscious of their Truth and Use, will give these Ralliers Smile for Smile, and shew a due Contempt for their Merriment/ Convenient illustration of the failure of much of the drama of the time to respond to suggestions for its moral betterment maybe found in the work of JMrs. Centlivre (1667 ?-i 723). Her comedies emphasize the fact that neither the preaching of Collier nor the practice of Cibber is indication of more than a general turn of the tide. For some two decades after Collier's attack, Mrs. Centlivre continued to write down to the level of vulgarity. Her first play, a blank- verse tragedy with some comic admixture, and a later trag- edy with a happy solution are not wholly aloof from the comic vein which she chiefly worked. Aptitude for effective play construction and a certain ease of dialogue gave her best comedies theatrical life, if not 1 Ibid., I, 266. 154 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. dramatic vitality. Though most of her characters, like Sir William Mode, in The Beau's Duel, or A Sol- dier for the Ladies (1702), are familiar comic types, Mrs. Centlivre occasionally chanced upon more in- dividual characters. Conspicuous among these are Marplot in The Busie-Body (1709), and its sequel (17 10), later known as Marplot in Lisbon, and Don Felix in The Wonder I A^JWpman Keeps a Secret (17 14), one of Garrick's most successful roles. Mrs. Centlivre's dramatic activities, which extended over more than a score of years, concluded with a popular comedy, A Bold Stroke for a Wife (17 18), and The Artifice (1722), which suggests the pervasive influence of sentimental drama. She had no hesitation in acknowledging indebtedness for material to Moliere and to Spanish sources in some of her work, but she is not without skill in adapting materials to her own purpose and not without cleverness in infusing new elements. Her characters, though habitually super- ficial and conventional, sometimes found genuine favour on the stage. With little of the vigour and indi- viduality which have preserved distinction for the greater Restoration dramatists, Mrs. Centlivre adopted but too readily their looseness. With small compunction, she sacrificed on the altar of expedi- ency. If the plays of CoUey Cibber mark the transition toward healthier moral standards, the new move- ment in eighteenth-century drama is fairly inaugu- rated in the work of Richard Steele (1672-1729). ^ To the conscious moral aim of Cibber, Steele added literary art and genius. Unfortunately, that genius K THE MORAL REAWAKENING 155 did not lie naturally in drama. Like Addison, his humour was less for the footlights than for the quiet nooks of the co£fee-houses. Though at first he broadened his humour to the coarser gauge of the play- house, his later dramas shrank usually from such ex- pedients. Like Gibber, Steele resolutely turned his back on the Hcentious, but the finer grain of his nature seems to have exacted for the most part a higher standard than that which satisfied Gibber. Since Steele lacked the vis comica and demonstrative wit needed for sustaining comedy without other aids, he sought for it a new prop. This he found in senti- ment. Steele was, in a sense, the founder of sentimental comedy. Yet it must not be thought that the field of which he took possession had lain hitherto wholly imdiscovered. Perhaps the real origin of sentimental comedy should be sought not simply in the moraHzed comedy of Gibber but in the somewhat sentimental- ized tragedy of Otway and Southerne. The rising tide of sentiment invaded the entire drama. Its ap- ^: peal to pity touched a fundamentally tragic emotion. Its conscious moral aim was essentially serious. To regard sentimental comedy as a separate stream, whose ultimate source is Steele, is to disregard earlier and broader aspects of dramatic history. Further- more, the eighteenth-century current of sentiment was not confined to drama. Later, it caught up and swept along novelists like Richardson and Sterne. Nor was it confined to English shores. Back and forth across the Ghannel swept its currents and counter- currents. English sentimental comedy from Steele 156 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. to Hugh Kelly and Richard Cumberland is but one channel of the great stream of sentiment which sought an outlet by many mouths of a vast delta. Before turning to the drama, Steele published, in 1 701, a religious tract, entitled The^ Christian HerOy which brought him the reputation among his com- rades of being *a disagreeable Fellow.' He then deemed it * incumbent upon him to enliven his Charac- ter, for which Reason he writ the Comedy called The Funeral, in which (tho' full of Incidents that move Laughter) Virtue and Vice appear just as they ought to do.' ^ The Preface to The Funeral (1701) declares that ' the innocence of it moved ' the Duke of Devon- shire 'to the humanity of expressing himself in its favour.' Yet Steele did not deny himself keen satire and humour so broad that it sometimes verges on farce. 'The subject of the drama 'tis hoped will be acceptable to all lovers of mankind,' says his Preface, 'since ridicule is partly levelled at a set of people who live in impatient hopes to see us out of the world, a flock of ravens that attend this numerous city for their carcases.' In the opening scene Mr. Sable, an under- taker, has trained his flock of ravens so effectively that a gravedigger, unable to secure easily the ring from a dead man's hand, has 'brought the finger and all,' and Sable himself announces that ' our friend . . . Dr. Passeport, with the powder, has promised me six or seven funerals this week.' There is rough humour in the scene (IV, 3) where Lord Hardy reviews a regi- ment as ragged as Falstaff's, and Kate Matchlock re- counts matrimonial vicissitudes which surpass those of * Mr. Steele's Apology for Himself and his Writings, 1714, p. 80. IX THE MORAL REAWAKENING l$f the Wife of Bath. There is the extravagance of farce, too, in the scene (V, 3) where the widow who asks, *Do you think there are really people sorry for their husbands ? ' apostrophizes her dead squirrel in blank verse of dubious rhythm, while Tattleaid weeps sympathetically, and then laughs at her sallies of wit, in imminent danger of swallowing a mouthful of pins. Yet, if insincerity in grief is painted in high colours, there are not wanting portraits of virtue in Lady Harriot and Mr. Trusty, the honest steward.^ Fur- thermore, the play bears evidence of the vein of moral sentiment which Steele later developed more definitely. Mr. Campley, whose ardent phrases of passion for Lady Harriot Steele himself censured in The Specta- tor (No. 51), is reproved by Lord Hardy, who expects his 'fehcity from Lady Sharlot, in her friendship, her constancy, her piety, her household cares, her maternal tenderness' (H, i). When the lovers are united at the end, the apparition of Lady Sharlot from a coflSn startles Lord Hardy into raptures, if not of genuine blank verse, at least of capitalized prose. Lady Sharlot responds in kind: How sweet applause is from an honest tongue ! Thou lov'st my mind — hast well affection placed ; In what, nor time, nor age, nor care, nor want can alter. Pure, I approach thee ; nor did I with empty shows, Gorgeous attire, or studied negligence, Or song, or dance, or ball, allure thy soul ; * 'Mr. Trusty is the earliest example of a t>T)e which became familiar to the stage and of which Sheridan's Rowley is the best- known specimen.' Ward, III, 494. 158 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. Nor want, or fear, such arts to keep or lose it : Nor now with fond reluctance doubt to enter My spacious, bright abode, this gallant heart. As she appropriately ^Reclines on Hardy,' the 'senti- mental Muse' seems already mounting toward that bad eminence from which Sheridan later sought to dethrone her. Lord Brompton, too, dehvers to his son a moral harangue on the duties of British peers, in blank verse that limps perceptibly. Comedy slinks to the wings, while morality holds the centre of the stage, till Lord Brompton, with a belated sense of the exigencies of comedy, drops from verse to prose with a ^Not but I intend your nuptials as soon as possible, to draw entails and settlements.' The Epilogue, however, reverts to the author's moral pur- pose — 'He'd not aim to please only, but inspire' — and declares that 'Courage is brutal, if untouched with love.' If the success of The Funeral is to be at- tributed to the comic elements, its historical impor- tance lies chiefly in its introduction of conscious moral- ity and sentiment. The Lying Lover, or The Ladies^ Friendship (1703), strikes more firmly the notes of morality and senti- ment already sounded in The Funeral. A passage in his Apology,^ in which Steele declares himself 'a great Admirer ' of Jeremy Collier's work, says that he took it into his head 'to write a Comedy in the Severity he [Collier] required,' and adds : 'I have been a Martyr and Confessor for the Church; for this Play was damn'd for its Piety.' Dedication, Preface, and Prologue alike testify to the deliberate moral purpose. ^Mr. Steele's Apology ^ I7i4> P- 48. K THE MORAL REAWAKENING 159 In the first, he states that ^The design of it is to banish out of conversation all entertainment which does not proceed from simplicity of mind, good-nature, friendship, and honour'; in the second,' he confesses 'an honest ambition to attempt a Comedy which might be no improper entertainment in a Christian common- wealth ' ; and in the third, he suggests that he ' treads the stage With just regard to a reforming age.' More significant, however, than this distinct moral purpose is the development of sentiment in comedy. Dr. Ward^ writes, 'The serious portion of the plot of The Lying Lover . . . renders this play remarkable as the first instance of Sentimental Comedy proper.' Following the tentative essays in The Funeral, this portion is largely cast in the form of blank verse. Perhaps the deepest significance of The Lying Lover <^ is the proof it affords that sentiment was essentially a link between comedy and tragedy. The Preface remarks that Young Bookwit, the 'Lying Lover,' after prodigal waste of his opportunities, 'in the fifth Act awakes from his debauch, with the compunction and remorse which is suitable to a man's finding him- self in a gaol for the death of his friend, without his knowing why. The anguish he there expresses, and the mutual sorrow between an only child and a tender father in that distress, are, perhaps, an injury to the rules of comedy, but I am sure they are a justice to those of morahty. And passages of such a nature being so frequently applauded on the stage, it is high time that we should no longer draw occasions of mirth from those images which the religion of our 1 Ward, III, 495. l6o ENGLISH DRAMA chap. country tells us we ought to tremble at with horror.' Equally significant is the Epilogue : Our too advent 'rous author soared to-night Above the little praise, mirth to excite, And chose with pity to chastise delight. For laughter's a distorted passion. . . . While generous pity of a painted woe Makes us ourselves both more approve and know. In thus deliberately appealing to pity instead of laugh- ter, sentimental comedy, in its very inception, links itself with the tragedy of Otway and Southerne. Henceforward, to adapt the words of Sir Fretful Pla- giary, the writer of sentimental comedy * might take out some of the best things in tragedy, and put them into his own comedy.' A wide gulf yawns between the conception of comedy as 'Laughter holding both his sides' and Steele's idea that 'laughter's a distorted passion.' Already Thalia is beginning to lose her smile under the borrowed mask of her tragic sister. Steele could have little foreseen the devastating spread of those fires of revolution which he had helped to kindle. If the sentimentalized morality of the last act caused the play to be 'damned for its piety,' the earlier acts show that the author by no means aban- doned wholly the usual methods of comedy. The scene (III, i) where the rivals, Penelope and Victoria, misuse patch and powder to disfigure each other's charms has the piquant touch of Restoration light comedy. Even the introduction of the hero to New- gate prison does not forbid a comic scene (IV, 4) IX THE MORAL REAWAKENING l6l where he is hailed by the * crowd of gaol-birds' as a hero, since he is thought to have killed his man. In borrowing from Corneille, Steele followed a familiar practice of EngHsh pla3nvrights. The significance of The Lying Lover, however, rests not in its indebted- ness to Continental sources, but in its radical depar- tures into new fields. In The Lying Lover, Young Bookwit had pronounced himself (III, 2) ' the founder of accomplished fools, of which I'll institute an order.' This order Steele seems to have instituted in The Tender Husband, or The Accomplished Fools (1705). For the main title, and something of the treatment of the theme, he may have taken suggestions from Gibber's Careless Hus- band. In dedicating this play to Addison, who wrote the Prologue, Steele says that he would not offer it as a memorial of their friendship 'had I not been very careful to avoid everything that might look ill-natured, immoral, or prejudicial to what the better part of man- kind hold sacred and honourable.' Yet the opening scene develops Clerimont's repellant scheme of test- ing his wife by disguising his mistress, Fainlove, in man's attire, and the scene (V, i) where Clerimont interrupts their assignation approaches too closely the dangerous path of Restoration comedy. It may be said that Steele reunites husband and wife in the recognition that married happiness rests on constant love, but it is a doubtful ethical standard that permits the erring husband to pose as tenderly magnanimous. When he condescendingly forgives his wife with the words, 'And now I have shown you your error, I'm in so good humour as to repeat you a couplet on the 1 62 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. occasion/ one would gladly substitute * Forgiveness to the injured does belong.' i^ Far more interesting is that part of the play which concerns Biddy Tipkin and her cousin Humphry Gubbin — ancestors, in some sense, of Sheridan's Lydia Languish ^ and Goldsmith's Tony Lumpkin. Biddy Tipkin, who 'has spent all her solitude in read- ing romances ' and has renamed herself ' Parthenissa/ is steeped in French and English romances as thor- oughly as is Lydia Languish in the sentimental novels of the circulating library. Biddy's romantic ' humour ' gives rise to excellent comic scenes — with Clerimont, who humours her with the fantastic language of chiv- alry, and with her country bumpkin cousin, who sub- mits his intended bride to scrutiny, 'as not caring to buy a pig in a poke.' The scene (III, 2) where Biddy and her cousin agree to disagree, and the Aunt is led to think ' they are come to promises and protestations,' is closely akin to Goldsmith's scene between Tony Lumpkin and Miss Neville where Mrs. Hardcastle imagines they are bilhng and cooing. It is somewhat remarkable that Goldsmith and Sheridan who led so powerfully the revolt against sentimental comedy borrowed from Steele. Fielding, too, possibly found suggestions for Squire Western in Sir Harry Gubbin. On the other hand, Steele owed somewhat to Moliere, to Gibber, and to Addison,^ while the passage (V, 2) in which Tipkin insists on being written down a rascal is obviously reminiscent of Dogberry. Viewed as a ^For more detailed comparison, see the present writer's Major Dramas of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Introduction, liv-lvi. 2 See Steele's acknowledgement in The Spectatorf No. 555. IX THE MORAL REAWAKENING 163 whole, The Tender Husband is perhaps Steele*s most l, genuine comedy. During the period of The Tatler, The Spectator, and The Guardian, Steele turned from drama to essay. The Conscious Lovers (1722) resumes the vein of v sentimental comedy. The attacks upon it of Dennis and other pamphleteers may have increased its suc- cess. Revivals of it were frequent for some forty years, and it was acted at times in the first decades of the next century. Definitely directed againstc duelling, it is devoted so seriously to the cause of virtue that the Preface declares some incidents *are esteemed by some people no subjects of comedy.^ The distresses of the sentimental Indiana drew tears from General Churchill.^ Fielding's Parson Adams ^ never heard of any plays fit for a Christian to read, but Cato and The Conscious Lovers' and owned that 'in the latter there are some things almost solemn enough for a sermon.'^ Welsted's Prologue declares that Steele 'By new and desperate rules resolved to write,' and sought to 'please by wit that scorns the aids of vice.' The audience is invoked 'with breeding to refine the age. To chasten wit, and moraHse the stage.' Fortunately, at CoUey Gibber's suggestion, Steele admitted a larger comic element than he had at first allowed himself. The excellent scene where Tom recalls to Phillis his torments of love while he washed the outside of a window which she was clean- ing inside is a delightful bit of foolery — an uncon- ^ See Steele's Preface, and G. A. Aitken's footnote, Mermaid edi- tion of Steele, p. 270. ^Joseph Andrews, Book III, Chapter XI (end). ■ l64 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. scious burlesque, one is tempted to suggest, of the sen- timent of the conscious lovers. Unhappily such by- play only partially relieves the essentially sentimental strain. More prominent are the virtuous loves of Bevil and Indiana, the moral heroics which tend to convert Bevil from hero to prig, and the tragic heart- rendings of Indiana before her restoration to her long-lost father. The dialogue responds to the sen- timental strain. 'If pleasure,' says Bevil (II, 2), 'be worth purchasing, how great a pleasure is it to him, who has a true taste of life, to ease an aching heart ; to see the human countenance lighted up into smiles of joy, on the receipt of a bit of ore which is super- fluous and otherwise useless in a man's own pocket ?' Bevil ushers the music-master to the door with less of the instinctive courtesy of the gentleman than the complaisant condescension of the conscious prig, declaring 'we ought to do something more than barely gratify them for what they do at our command, only because their fortune is below us.' To this Indiana responds with 'a smile of approbation' and the senti- ment that she ' cannot but think it the distinguishing part of a gentleman to make his superiority of fortune as easy to his inferiors as he can.' Many of the scenes conclude with moral tags in verse. Already the habit of moral aphorism had fastened itself on comedy, a habit that was to develop to great extremes before it lost its charm in the ftiouth of the hypocrite, Joseph Surface. In the history of English drama, Richard Steele attains a prominence disproportionate to his actual dramatic merits. Without the dramatic power of DC THE MORAL REAWAKENING 165 many of his Restoration predecessors, and without the insight that makes moraUty the ally, rather than the conscious master, of dramatic art, Steele at least perceived that the art that holds the mirror up to nature cannot be divorced from the greatest law of nature. Despite both his own ethical shortcomings and the excessive zeal that turned morality into moralizing, he gave powerful and salutary aid to a reform of vital necessity to drama. Yet, if Steele led *» the way to moral reform, he also led the way uncon- sciously to dramatic decay. Sentiment becomes in inferior hands sentimentality. The appeal of Steele's sentimental comedy to the emotion of pity became with inferior playwrights a false emotional motive. The doctrine that 'laughter's a distorted passion' led comedy to substitute tears for mirth. The moral ^ reform of English drama was won at the expense of almost half a century during which Comedy bowed her head in the presence of Sentimentahty. Restora- tion comedy has long worn the title of 'artificial,' but in another sense, it was an equally artificial comedy that in the first half of the eighteenth century offered its sacrifices to 'The Goddess of the woeful countenance — the Sentimental Muse.' CHAPTER X SOME ASPECTS OF QUEEN ANNE DRAMA ^ As the retirement of Congreve largely eclipsed the gaiety of comedy, the death of Dryden emphasized the close of Restoration tragedy. The fine frenzy of Lee had burned itself out in gusts of insanity; * tender Otway ' had long since met his tragic end. Neither the theatrical declamation of Banks nor the sentimental pathos of Southerne could achieve an All for Love or a Venice Preserved. At the time of ColHer's invective, an enfeebled tragedy held the stage. The brunt of his attack had fallen naturally upon comedy. With the exception of its coarsely comic prologues and epilogues. Restoration tragedy had done violence to nature rather than to morality. Its very unreality had removed it from the fashionable vice which had been too faithfully reproduced in contemporary comedy. The heroic drama had torn passion to tatters, yet there had remained shreds of heroic valour and love. With the awakening tendency to reform the stage, tragedy became more moralized and more sentimentalized. The titles of some of the tragedies of 1698 distinctly suggest a recurrence to themes of heroic drama — Victorious Love; The Fatal Discovery, or Love in Ruins; Heroick Love; Beauty 1 The present chapter is not confined rigidly to the exact limits of Queen Anne's reign, 1 702-1 714. 166 CHAP. X SOME ASPECTS OF QUEEN ANNE DRAMA 167 in Distress; Queen Catharine ^ or The Ruins of Love. Though Mrs. Fix's Queen Catharine has English char- acters, most of the tragedies of the year give to their themes of love and valour a foreign setting. Crowne's Caligula reverts even to the use of rhyme. Yet not love itself, but the ghost of love moves among the ruins of heroic sentiment. In vain did George Granville proclaim the heroine of his Heroick Love The brightest Pattern of Heroick Love And perfect Virtue, that the World e're knew. (V, 2) In the dire distress of comedy, the writers of tragedy may perhaps have seen an opportunity which they lacked ability to grasp. It is dangerous to generalize from imperfect data, but Genest's lists of plays pro- duced at the various London theatres seem to show a preponderance of comedies for the years 1696 and 1697, and of tragedies for the years 1698 and 1699. Yet the decline of comedy, owing partly to dearth of comic genius, partly to its more rigorous restriction, and partly to its increasing substitution of sentiment and pathetic appeal instead of mirth, cannot be said to be accompanied by a corresponding rise in tragedy. If the waters of tragedy broaden, they do not run deep. Neither the advent of female dramatists like Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Fix, and Catharine Cockburn (later Mrs. Trotter), nor the excursions of critics like Charles Gildon and John Dennis in the field of drama, could vitalize tragedy. Alike unavailing were Dennis's attempts, in 1699, "to borrow tragic themes from Tasso in Rinaldo and Armida, and from Euripides in Iphigenia. l68 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. While the stage was sore beset by Collier and other foes from without, it had to struggle against enemies from within. Attention has already been directed to the tangible effect upon drama of the elaboration , of scenery and stage mechanism and of the operatic ' accessories of music and dancing. The last decades of the seventeenth century show many proofs of the continued force of such influences. Dorset Gardens, in Dryden's words, 'the gaudy house with scenes/ became increasingly a home for spectacle. The Prologue to Farquhar's Constant Couple (1699) laments: Ah, friends ! Poor Dorset-Garden house is gone ; Our merry meetings there are all undone : Quite lost to us, sure for some strange misdeeds, That strong dog Samson's puU'd it o'er our heads. Under Christopher Rich its 'gay shows' were devoted frequently to feats of acrobats and exhibitions of ani- mals. Cibber recalls Rich's project of introducing 'an extraordinary large Elephant' and his reluctant abandonment of ' 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 rais'd them to.'^ Dorset Gardens Theatre was not alone in catering to the popular taste for 'such conceits as clownage keeps in pay.' The Prologue to Steele's Funeral (1701) begins thus : Nature's deserted, and dramatic art. To dazzle now the eye, has left the heart ; Gay lights and dresses, long extended scenes, Demons and angels moving in machines, » Apology, II, 6-7. X SOME ASPECTS OF QUEEN ANNE DRAMA 169 All that can now, or please, or fright the fair, May be performed without a writer's care, And is the skill of carpenter, not player. Old Shakespeare's days could not thus far advance ; But what's his buskin to our ladder dance ? A generation earlier Dryden had deplored the advent of a Trench troop' that 'left their itch of novelty be- hind.' His forebodings were amjply justified. Downes says in his Roscius Anglicanus (1708) ^ : 'In the space of Ten Years past, Mr. Betterton [then manager of Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre] to gratify the desires and Fancies of the Nobility and Gentry; procur'd from Abroad the best Dances and Singers, as, Monsieur UAhhe, Madam Suhlini [Subligny], Monsieur Balon, Margarita Delpine, Maria Gallia and divers others; who being Exorbitantly Expensive, produc'd small Profit to him and his Company, but vast Gain to them- selves.' To the same effect runs the testimony of CoUey Gibber and Charles Gildon,^ while Rowe, in the Epilogue to The Ambitious Step-M other (1700), pro- duced at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, declares : Show but a Mimick Ape, or French buffoon. You to the other House in Shoals are gone. And leave us here to tune our Crowds alone. Must Shakespear, Fletcher, and laborious Ben, Be left for Scaramouch and Harlequin? Referring to a somewhat later date, CoUey Gibber says that ^the Patentee of Drury-Lane [Rich] went on in his usual Method of paying extraordinary Prices ip.46. * Apology, I, 316-317. Gildon, A Comparison between the Two Stages J 1702, p. 49 : 'The Town ran mad to see him' [Balonl. I70 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. to Singers, Dancers, and other exotick Performers, which were as constantly deducted out of the sinking Sallaries of his Actors. . . . For it seems he had not purchas'd his Share of the Patent to mend the Stage, but to make Money of it. . . . His point was to please the Majority, who could more easily compre- hend any thing they saw than the daintiest things that could be said to them.'^ Yet even Gibber, whose Apology bristles in defence of regular drama, and who once refused to appear on the stage on the same day with 'a Set of Rope-dancers,' ^ confesses that, as a manager, he compromised his convictions, 'and had not Virtue enough to starve by opposing a Multitude that would have been too hard for me.' ^ Among the var ous stage diversions which thus challenged regular drama in the competition for popu- lar favour none was more conspicuous, in the first decade of the eighteenth century, than Italian opera. Some account has been given previously of D'Ave- nant's introduction of English opera and of the subse- quent development of what Gibber describes ^ as 'a new Species of Plays, since calFd Dramatick Opera's, 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.' In his Prologue spoken at the Opening of the New House (1674), Dryden declared it folly To build a playhouse while you throw down plays ; While scenes, machines, and empty operas reign. » Apology, II, 6. « Ibid., H, 7. »J6«^.,II, 182. «/Wi.,I,94. X SOME ASPECTS OF QUEEN ANNE DRAMA 171 Yet Dryden himself, in 1685, produced his opera Albion and Albanius, and in the Preface defined opera as *a poetical tale, or fiction, represented by vocal and instrumental music, adorned with scenes, ma- chines, and dancing.' The EngHsh stage had, there- fore, been familiar with some forms of opera long before the appearance of Arsinoe (1705) which Addi- son calls ' the first opera that gave us a taste of ItaHan music' ^ Gibber pictures ^ unsparingly the advent of Italian opera in England 'in as rude a disguise and un- hke it self as possible ; in a lame, hobhng 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 misapply'd to al- most every Sentiment, and with Action Hfeless and unmeaning through every Gharacter.' Native Eng- lish writers vigorously denounced the foreign invader. In the Epilogue to The Tender Husband (1705), Steele bade Britons From foreign insult save this English stage. No more th' Italian squalling tribe admit, In tongues unknown. John Dennis, in An Essay on the Opera^s After the Italian Manner, Which are about to be Established on the English Stage (1706), after pronouncing ItaHan opera *mon- struous,' declares^ that in Italy, however, it is 'a beauti- ful harmonious Monster, but here in England 'tis an ugly howling one.' Addison, whose later strictures on 1 The Spectator, No. 18. This entire paper, together with Nos. 5, 13, and 29, should be consulted for Addison's views on opera. 2 Apology f I, 324. »p. 14. 172 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. Italian opera include an attack on the mongrel blend- ing of English words with the Itahan recitativo style/ seemingly attempted, with the aid of the composer Clayton, to produce in Rosamond (1707) a native English opera. ^ Yet dramatists like Vanbrugh and Congreve recognized, as managers, the 'prevailing Novelty' by opening Hheir new Hay-Market Theatre with a translated Opera to Italian Musick, called the Triumph of Love'^ (1705)' Of three distinguished operatic singers, Valentini, Nicolini, and Mrs. Tofts, Colley Gibber himself says ^ that * three such excellent Performers in the same kind of Entertainment at once, England till this Time had never seen.' The main reliance of Rich during the Drury Lane season of 1 706- • 1707 was opera. Rinaldo (i 7 1 1) , the first of Handel's numerous operas for the English stage, was a popular . success. Doubtless the effect of opera upon the drama is to be measured not merely by the extent to which it usurped the place of drama on the pubHc stage, but also by the inevitable tendencies of its theatrical and spectacular features toward the improbable and the unnatural in dramatic representation. u Notwithstanding the powerful forces that thus threatened regular drama, its cause was by no means desperate. Diuring the first decade of the eighteenth century, Elizabethan and Restoration plays were con=. 1 The Spectator, No. 29. * * It appears to have been intended as a kind of protest against the librettos of operas written to suit the English performers, who helped out the arias and duets sung by the Italians in their native tongue.* Ward, III, 323, footnote. » Apology, I, 325. < Ibid., II, 55' X SOME ASPECTS OF QUEEN ANNE DRAMA 173 stantly reproduced. Tragedies of Shakespeare — some oi them, unfortunately,~iii''* their Restoration per- versions — tragi^comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher, heroic dramas of Dryden, and many plays of Otway, Lee, Banks, Southerne, and Congreve may fairly be regarded as stock plays of the period. Nor was the theatre forced to draw its vitahty wholly from the strength of the past. Farquhar, Gibber, and Steele won success in comedy. Tragedy, which seemed for a time to have fallen upon evil days, found some encouragement in the advent of a new;^ dramatist of real ability. On the death of his father, a London barrister, Nicholas Rowe (1674-17 18) turned from the un- congenial pursuit of law to drama. The Amb itious- Step-Mother (i 700) gives to court intrigues an Oriental setting, somewhat in the fashion of heroic tragedy, but with a pathetic appeal in the self-sacrifice of Cleone which recalls Otway. Betterton, Mrs. Brace- girdle, and Mrs. Barry gave the play much of its stage success. Tamerlane (1702), the tragedy on which, it was said,^ the author 'valuM himself most,' was helped by its pohtical intention. The hero was drawn to suggest William III, and his rival, Bajazet, to sug- gest Louis XIV. Until 181 5, it was played annually at Drury Lane on 5 November, the anniversary of the landing of William III and of the Gunpowder Plot. The moralized sentiments of the hero show the stirrings of sentimental drama. The Fair Penitent (1703), a sentimental adaptation * James Welwood, Preface, p. xl, to Lucan's Pharsalia; Translated into English Verse, by Nicholas Rowe, 1720 edition. 174 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. from The Fatal Dowry by Massinger and Field, was one of the most successful tragedies of the eighteenth century.^ Doctor Johnson said,^ ^ There is scarcely any work of any poet at once so interesting by the fable and so delightful by the language.' Like Otway's Orphan and Southerners Fatal Marriage^ The Fair Penitent is essentially a dqanestic tragedy. The Prologue shows that Rowe was deliberate in his choice of theme : Long has the fate of kings and empires been The common bus'ness of the tragick scene, As if misfortune made the throne her seat, And none cou'd be unhappy but the great. Stories like these with wonder we may hear, But far remote, and in a higher sphere, We ne'er can pity what we ne'er can share. w Therefore an humbler theme our author chose, A melancholy tale of private woes : No princes here lost royalty bemoan, But you shall meet with sorrows like your own. Tragedy becomes not merely domestic, but moralized. Horatio is full of wise saws such as 'To be good is to be happy,' and 'Guilt is the source of sorrow.' ' In a concluding speech he points the moral in a rhymed tag which may be compared with the last lines in Steele's contemporary comedy, The Lying Lover (1703) : 1 Genest cites more than a score of revivals up to 1824. ^ Lives of the English Poets, Hill edition, 1905, II, 67. » III, I, 98, 100. X SOME ASPECTS OF QUEEN ANNE DRAMA 175 By such examples are we taught to prove, The sorrows that attend unlawful love ; Death, or some worse misfortunes, soon divide The injur'd bridegroom from his guilty bride : If you would have the nuptial union last, Let virtue be the bond that ties it fast. Compared with its Elizabethan model, The Fatal Dowry, by Massinger and Field, The Fair Penitent is less free and varied. With a consciousness of French restrictions, Rowe reduces the characters to eight, condenses the time of action, and simplifies the action. This simplification, indeed, is carried too far. Rowe begins with the end of Massinger's second act, and has accordingly to give in the first part of the play too much exposition of matter which Massinger presents actually. In Massinger, the hero dominates; in Rowe, the villain. Massinger's heroine, already mar- ried, is seduced through the contrivance of a serving- woman, and her repentance is that of a contrite heart. Calista's hot passion accounts for her own downfall, and she )delds to a disgraceful marriage later. Nor does her penitence begin until she is found out. How- ever 'fair/ she is not really 'penitent.' The father in Massinger's play is tender and full of anguish; Calista's parent is a Roman father. The freedom and vitality of the Elizabethan play are lacking in Rowe's work. The Prologue sets forth still another principle of Rowe's creed : Who writes shou'd still let nature be his care, Mix shades with lights, and not paint all things fair, But shew you men and women as they are. 176 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. It is somewhat curious that Rowe, whose Lothario and CaHsta evidently influenced Richardson's Lovelace and Clarissa, should be here setting forth a creed that would suit Thackeray better than Richardson. To a certain extent Rowe may be said to have succeeded in his attempt to blend shade with light. Altamont and Horatio, though somewhat icily regular, are at least not faultily faultless. Lothario has the courage of his vices and evidently some personal magnetism. The * haughty, gallant, gay Lothario' — as Calista calls him in the fifth act — has achieved the rare distinction of a place among those characters whose mere names connote the characterizing epithet. Even in the last act, when the villain is dead, his body dominates the sinister scene. The 'Scene is a room himg with black; on one side Lothario's body on a bier; on the other a table with a skull and other bones, a book, and a lamp on it. CaHsta is discover'd on a couch in black, her hair hanging loose and dis- ordered : after musick and a song, she rises and comes forward.' It is a scene that points backward to the Elizabethans, and forward to Joanna Baillie's imita- tions a century later. ^, In the next years Rowe's dramatic work declines abruptly. In The^Biter (1704), he encountered his only real dramatic failure. Ulysses (1705),^ a classi- cal tragedy, whose story Genest conservatively pro- nounces 'less interesting' than Homer, and The Royal Convert (1707), based on Hengist and early British history, abandon the Elizabethan type. In 1 This play has recently been assigned to 1706, but Genest gives the first performance, 23 November, 1705. X SOME /SPECTS OF QUEEN ANNE DRAMA 177 1709, Rowe published his six- volume edition of Shakespeare, with a biography based partly on ma- ■pgfialcollected by Betterton, with Hsts of the dramatis personcB and indications of exits and entrances, and with some }evision of the text in spelling and punctuation. It was the first critical edition of Shakespeare. The study of Shakespeare directly influenced Rowe's subsequent dramatic career, lTx^Jane._Shqre {i^ji^) and Lady Jane Gray (i 715), he strove to follow Shake- speare. The first is professedly 'Written in Imitation of Shakespear's Style.' In the Prologue to The Am- bitipuj. Sup-Mother he had already delivered the curious verdict that Shakespeare excelled in male characters only : Shakespear, whose Genius to it self a Law, Could Men in every Height of Nature draw, And copy'd all but Women that he saw. As Dryden had hoped to refine Shakespeare's lan- guage, Rowe seemingly thought to supply his defi- ciency in heroines. At least, his last dramas are, to borrow the phrase in the Epilogue to Jane ShorCy 'She- tragedies.' His imitation of Shakespeare has been regarded by some as merely nominal. Yet most of the male characters of Jane Shore figure in Richard III, and Gloster himself, though reduced by Rowe to a subordinate position, shows signs of Shakespeare's influence. In comparison with The Fair Penitent, Jane Shore shows dramatic progress. The earlier tragedy de- pended largely on scenic background and the acces- 178 ENGLISH DRAMA J chap. sories of fertile invention. In Jane Shore the heroine is a true penitent, and arouses more genuine pity. The appeal, as in Otway, is largely feminiK e, and some- times Rowe descends to mere tameness. Yet the hall- mark of his tragedies is refinement. The grossness of the elder dramatists gives way befor*^ an impulse of higher tone. His verse may appeal rather to the ear than to the heart, his sentiment may be surcharged with moralizing, but if he lacks mascuHne vigour he is at least free from animal brutality. Rowe is the dramatist of repentant love. Ad- mitting no comic relief, and ruling himself largely in accordance with Gallic restraint and convention, he follows to a large extent the French traditions. But in professing to imitate Shakespeare, and in cer- tainly following Otway, he links to English drama. Despite his laureateship, he lacked genuine poetic impulse. He could touch pity, but not with the fer- vour of poetic passion. As a dramatist he lacked dif- ferentiation of character. Though Richard III does not have the characteristic Shakespearean develop- ment of minor characters, it is only necessary to com- pare the historical characters in Jane Shore with those in Richard III to see how Rowe omits the details which are the charm, not merely, as Macaulay says, of biography, but also of drama. With all his de- fects, Rowe holds a place of his own in the history of English tragedy. His most important plays main- tained their vitality through the whole of the eigh- teenth century, and well into the nineteenth. Garrick, Charles Kemble, Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Yates, Kean, and Macready are but some of those who won sue- X SOME ASPECTS OF QUEEN ANNE DRAMA 179 cess in his dramas. The best of them were translated into French, and pubHshed in many English editions. Even to-day, when his tragedies are no longer familiar to playgoers, the character of Lothario has not lost its individuality. The Elizabethan tendencies of Rowe's later plays should not be mistaken for evidence of the general state of drama. The sympathies of Queen Anne critics were habitually with classical precept and prac- tice. The powerful influence of Addison was felt in the direction of dramatic rule and regularity. Rowe himself, in restricting characters and action and ex- cluding comedy, follows largely Continental examples. The direct influence of Racine upon English tragedy appears in Edmund Smith's Phcedra and Hip poly tus (1707),^ modelled on Phedre, and Ambrose Philips 's Distrest Mother (17 12), a slightly modified translation of A ndromaque. Addison wrote a prologue for the first and an epilogue for the second, while Steele's com- ments in The Spectator increased the vogue of The Distrest Mother. PhiKps doubtless owed much of his initial success to the popular tone of moralizing sentiment, but in following Racine he contributed to the strengthening of classical influences. A conspicuous triumph for classical drama was won by Joseph Addison (1672-1719) in Cato (17 13). Like Dry den, Addison had critical t^ste rather than natural dramatic instinct. Like both Dry den and Steele, he felt the force of the theatrical tide. No stronger evidence of the continued hold of the drama need be *The date, 1706, recently given by several critics, seems to over- look Genest, II, 368, who says, 21 April, 1707. l8o ENGLISH DRAMA chap. sought than in the long line of masters of other forms of literature who have become servants for a time of drama. Perhaps only the Elizabethan age found its natural and characteristic expression in drama. Yet the critical essayists of the Queen Anne period and the creative poets of the Victorian alike felt the same magnet. Addison's opera, Rosamond, and his feeble comedy, The Drummer (1716), though failures, show his attempts to win the applause of the theatre. Not even the signal and continued stage success of Cato can disguise the fact that Addison's genius was non-dramatic. Addison was the Spectator who saw the outside rather than the heart. He is without the dramatist's impulse to animate character into action. Sir Roger de Cover ley might possibly have been the hero of a character novel, but hardly of a drama. The stage triumph of Cato may have seemed an effective answer to Pope's advice to Addison to have the play printed rather than acted ; but Pope's judgment was wiser perhaps than he knew. Much of Addison's unquestionable influence upon English drama must be sought in his critical work. Though in at least one striking passage ^ he puts Shakespeare's genius above artificial restraints, Addi- son was at heart a confirmed classicist. He had the French fondness for the unities, the distaste for tragi- comedy,^ the disUke not merely of stage violence but of excess of emotional appeal.^ Yet in banishing excess of emotion, Addison came dangerously near » The Spectator, No. 592. 2 Ibid., No. 40. »/Wspel. In the picturesque accounts^ of the disputes between author and actors over the performance, Yoimg • 1 Dr. Doran, * Their Majesties Servants ^^ Annals of the English Stage, Lowe edition, II, 161-163. 196 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. is said to have protested against an objection to what he regarded as the most forcible line in the drama — *I will speak to you in thunder/ At all events, the line might well have been his dramatic motto. The violent action and swelling phrases of Busiris needed little heightening when Fielding set himself to travesty them in his burlesque tragedy, Tom Thumb. Young has often been said to follow French models, but the violence and bloodshed of his dramas reflect the freedom of the EngHsh stage rather than the restraint of classical tragedy. The Revenge, in its endeavour to portray 'the tumults of a GodUke mind,' suggests the heroic tragedy of the Restoration, while the conception of Zanga, the Moor, is doubtless drawn in part from lago. The coarse epilogues to Young's plays recall, likewise, a practice of the earher English stage which had survived CoUier's attacks upon the immorality of the theatre. There is, then, marked V kinship between Young's tragedies and earlier English drama. Judged independently as a dramatist. Young has, in general, violence, rather than vigour, of action, and heat, without warmth, of dramatic utterance. John Hughes (167 7-1 720), who had acquired litera^r*recognitibn by papers in The Taller and The Speclalor, and had produced an opera. Calypso and Telemachus (17 12), won on the very night of his death genuine dramatic success with The Siege V- o£Damascus (1720). Both Swift and Pope regarHeH him as "a" mediocre writer in prose and verse ahke, but a certain dignity of style and setting may partly justify Buncombe's commendatory lines on The Siege of Damascus: xn VOLTAIRE'S INFLUENCE I97 No modern phrases in these scenes appear, Antiquity's more noble dress they wear. While Young inclined largely toward English dramatic models, James Thomson (i 700-1 748) lent the influence oFTiis poetic reputation won in The Seasons to the cause of classical tragedy. In SoJ^hpnisha (1730), classical simpHcity of plot is deadened by ponderous phrase. Massinissa's in- vocation, *0h, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, oh,' is remembered because of its waggish perversion to *0h. Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, oh,' and by Fielding's parody in Tom Thumb, ' Oh ! Hunca- munca, Huncamunca, oh ! ' Yet Mrs. Oldfield, as hero- ine, succeeded for a time in commanding applause. More noteworthy is his collaboration with David Mallet in TheJ£as£ueof Alfred (1740), performed at a fete given by the Prince of Wales, for to it Thomson contributed the famous ode, ^Rule Britannia.' In Agamemnon (1738), Edward and Eleonora, rejected by the censor, and Tancred and Sigismunda (1745), Thomson relentlessly pursued the path of tragedy. A version of Coriolanus (1749) heroically struggles to compress the action in conformity with the dramatic unities, and emasculates its vigour. Thomson aimed to couch poHtical and moral sentiments in chaste diction, but if at times 'High Rant is tumbled from his Gallery Throne,' ^ it only makes way for frigid medi- ocrity. He thought to reject 'the glittering false SubHme,' but the effort to banish ghtter did not banish falsity from his tragedy. The soulless trag- * Prologue to Tancred and Sigismunda. igS ENGLISH DRAMA chap. edies of Thomson and his like were appropriately- exposed to the heartless ridicule of burlesque. The French influence upon English drai^ia has con- stantly been found exerted in two ways —^ in classical dramatic theory and in the practice of such dramatists as Corneille and Racine. In both theory and practice French influence derived a new and powerful support from Voltaire.^ In 1726, he began a residence of al- ^most three years in England which placed him in touch, rather than brought him into sympathy, with English drama. Cato he considered a masterpiece of classical tragedy ; yet, at least in one passage, he was forced to conclude that 'creative genius' such as Shakespeare's 'moves forward without guide, with- out art, without rule. It loses its way in its progress ; but it leaves far behind it everything which can boast only of reason and correctness.' ^ But so catholic an utterance as this would convey a wrong impression of Voltaire's habitual point of view. Taste, that touchstone of classical criticism, Voltaire deemed lacking in Shakespeare. Strangely silent as to . Shakespeare's comedies, Voltaire readily found mon- strosities in his tragedies. ' Shakespear/ he admitted, ' boasted a strong, fruitful Genius : He was natural and sublime, but had not so much as a single Spark of good Taste, or knew one Rule of the Drama.' ^ This, indeed, was the frequent judgment of those Restora- tion wits who had often to acknowledge Shakespeare's 1 See for the fullest and most scholarly discussion of Voltaire's influence in England, T. R. Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire. 2 Quoted by Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire, p. 52. * Letters concerning the English Nation (translated), 1733, p. 166. XII VOLTAIRE'S INFLUENCE 199 dramatic instinct at the very moment that they sought to improve his text. It was, in a word, the concession of classicism to the genius of romantic drama. When Voltaire set himself the difficult task of ^ translating dramatic theory into practice, his classical taste showed the efifect of Enghsh contagion. Not merely did he borrow in his own plays from Julius CcBsar, Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Lear more freely than he was disposed to acknowledge, but he relaxed the rigorous precepts of classical drama in partial deference to Enghsh freedom of action. 'France is not the only country where tragedies are written;' he wrote in a letter of 1735, 'and our taste, or rather our practice, of putting upon the stage nothing but love-dialogues does not please other nations. Our theatre is ordinarily devoid of action and of great interests.' ^ Fifteen years later, in a letter full of strictures on the barbarities of English tragedy, he admitted, ' 'Tis true we have too much of words, if you have too much of action, and perhaps the perfection of the Art should consist in a due mix- ture of the french taste and enghsh energy.' ^ The French and English critical war, waged so long and so vigorously, resulted in concessions even by the leaders on both sides. To the influence of Voltaire's critical authority < and to the indirect influence in England of the French production of his plays must now be added the direct influence of versions of Voltaire on the EngUsh * Quoted by Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire, p. 71. * Quoted Ibid., p. 138. 200 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP. stage. William Duncombe's adaptation of Brutus (1734) proved a lukewarm tragedy, whose dramatic fire could not be stirred by the English innovation of permitting the death of the heroine on the stage. Buncombe's version brought upon Voltaire the charge of plagiarism from Lee's Restoration tragedy, Brutus} More friendly in tone, but hardly less definite in assertion of Voltaire's debt to English tragedy, was Colley Gibber's Prologue to Hill's Zara (1736; pri- vately presented, 1735), a version of Voltaire's Zaire: From English Plays, Zara's French Author fir'd, Confess'd his Muse, beyond herself, inspir'd ; From rack'd Othello's Rage, he rais'd his Style, And snatch'd the Brand, that lights his Tragick Pile. Aaron Hill (i 685-1 750), whose literary activity had ^Slready manifested itself in the libretto to Handel's opera, Rinaldo (1711), and in several tragedies,^ was encouraged by his success in Zara, to produce in the same year another adaptation of Voltaire, Alzira. Hill's third adaptation from Voltaire, Merope (1749), failed, Kke its predecessor, to equal the success of Zara. One other adaptation of Voltaire on the English stage prior to 1750 may be mentioned — James Miller's version of Mahomet (1744).^ Its Prologue contains further proof that Voltaire's debt to Shakespeare did not escape EngHsh eyes : * Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire, pp. 75-76. ^The Fatal Vision, or The Fall of Siant (17 16), The Fatal Ex- travagance, whose title fits more than one of Hill's works with fatal felicity, King Henry the Fifth, and Athelwold (1731), a revision of his Elfrid, or The Fair Inconstant. 'A note to the * fourth edition, with new Improvements' (1766), - of Mahomet the Imposter, says : * the first four Acts composed by the Rev. Mr. Miller: xn VOLTAIRE'S INFLUENCE 20I Britons, these Numbers to yourselves you owe ; Voltaire hath Strength to shoot in Shakespeare's Bow. With English Freedom, English Wit he knew, And from the inexhausted Stream profusely drew. To trace further Voltaire's influence on English drama would be to carry the present chapter beyond its proper limits. Yet something may be said by- way of present summary. The respect accorded to Voltaire's critical authority and the frequency of the EngHsh versions of his plays gave him marked influence upon English drama. Yet this influence has sometimes been exaggerated. Many of his plays, in their EngHsh version, met with but moderate favour. Zara had a continuous run of fourteen nights, but its success was exceptional. Almost from the outset it was recognized that Vol- taire had borrowed freely from Shakespeare, and hence his plays could hardly be expected to conquer ulti- mately the native genius to whom he was much in- debted. Dramas of Shakespeare had far more fre- quent performance than had the English adaptations of Voltaire's plays, and, as the century advanced, the tide of English criticism set strongly in Shake- speare's favour. Critical editions of his works in- creased his influence with readers, and Garrick's masterly performances notably deepened Shake- speare's popularity on the stage. While English tragedy pursued its rather unevent- ful course during the second quarter of the eighteenth century, one radical departure from the usual types merits attention wholly out of proportion with its ^ 202 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. intrinsic literary value. This was the introduction of prose bourgeois tragedy in Lillo's George Barnwell (1731). Domestic tragedy itself was, in a sense, no novelty. Apart from somewhat sporadic appearances in such Elizabethan dramas as Arden of Fever sham, A Yorkshire Tragedy, and Heywood's A Woman Killed with Kindness, definite examples of it had been fur- nished by Qtway, Southerne, and Rowe. Further- more, as has already been shown, so-called * senti- mental comedy' was in reality often semi- tragic in character. Though the trials and sorrows of or- dinary life did not, therefore, supply a wholly new dramatic motif, they found novel application in the form of tragedy now inaugurated. It is not surprising that George Lillo (1693-1739), when he turned from the trade of jeweller to which his father had brought him up, became the dramatist of bourgeois life. LHis first piece Silvia, or The Country Burial (1730) is a ballad opera in which virtue and vice blend rather coarsely .^ In The London Merchant, or The History of George Barnwell (1731), Lillo pro- duced a tragedy that stands as a landmark in the history of English drama. The domestic tragedies of Otway, Southerne, and Rowe seem rather to have depressed the aristocratic tone of tragedy than to have exalted its democratic character. Otway's Or- phan is more noticeable for the absence of distinc- tions of rank than for the presence of bourgeois elements. In Jane Shore, Rowe pictures the downfall of a woman of lower class, but the agent of her ruin is an aristocrat. Lillo deliberately set his piece in the surroundings of everyday citizen life. George Barnwell xn VOLTAIRE'S INFLUENCE 203 is the exaltation of trade. The virtue of the mer- chant's calling is second only to that of morality. Commercial cleanliness is next to godliness. At the opening of the third act, Thorowgood and True- man, whose names are significant, show how trade 4, has 'promoted humanity' and how it is 'by mutual benefits diffusing mutual love from pole to pole.' The sacred object of the merchant's calling is thus defined: 'It is the industrious merchant's business to collect the various blessings of each soil and climate, and, with the product of the whole, to enrich his native country.' Charles Lamb ^ evinced distaste for Lillo's work, but Fielding, in Joseph Andrews, has an ironical fling at those who dislike Lillo because his expression is bourgeois — ' those low, dirty, last dying speeches, which a fellow in the city of Wrap- ping, your Dillo or Lillo, what was his name, called tragedies.' ^ ._*•♦.. George Barnwell is the story of the ruin of an ap- t prentice by a courtesan. Millwood leads Barnwell steadily downward to theft, murder, and the gallows. The piece suggests Hogarth's plates — Trueman is the industrious, and Barnwell the idle, apprentice. Lillo based his play on an old ballad which presented Barnwell in a less sympathetic light. In the ballad, Barnwell offers of his own accord to rob his father and rich sister to meet Millwood's importunities, and him- ^ On the Tragedies of Shakespeare. See discussion by A. W. Ward, edition (Belles-Lettres Series) of Lillo's London Merchant and Fatal Curiosity, Introduction, pp. xxviii-xxix. Ward's suggestive and scholarly study of Lillo is an important contribution to the history of EngHsh drama. 2 Book III, Chapter X. 204 ENGLISH DRAMA chap, self proposes his uncle's murder, which the Millwood of the play suggests. Lillo emphasizes Barnwell's repentance; the ballad makes but brief mention of the 'fear and sting of conscience' which prompt his written confession. The play enlarges the rather scant materials of the ballad by the introduction of the lovelorn Maria, of Trueman, and of Millwood's servants, Lucy and Blunt. \^ The conscious moral aim of sentimental drama, apparent in the comedies of Gibber and Steele, re- appears in Lillo's tragedy. He cared more to point a moral than to adorn the tale. As if the moralized justice of the denouement were insufficient, the dialogue is filled with such aphorisms as Thorow- good's, ' When vice becomes habitual, the very power of leaving it is lost.' The Beggar's Opera had been declared an incentive to vice, but there are contem- porary documents to prove that George Barnwell could reclaim a sinner. Lee Lewes quotes a long letter^ telling of a youthful embezzler who was so struck by the similarity between his situation and that of Barnwell that he wished death, but was happily reclaimed by his father, became an eminent merchant, and annually presented to the actor Ross ten guineas as 'a tribute of gratitude from one who was highly obliged, and saved from ruin, by seeing Mr. Ross's performance of Barnwell.' Despite the weight of moralizing, Lillo's play has marked unity and dramatic movement. Everything centres in Barnwell, and the plot unfolds clearly and 1 Memoirs of Charles Lee Lewes . . . Written by Himself, 1805, IV, 243-248. xn VOLTAIRE'S INFLUENCE 205 inevitably. So much, indeed, is sympathy enlisted for Barnwell as a man more sinned against than sinning that Httle compassion is felt for the murdered uncle, who is introduced only as a lamb led to the slaughter. The motive of the action does not always seem adequate, nor is the character portrayal consist- ent. Barnwell might seemingly have robbed his uncle without murdering him. Barnwell meets Millwood's soHcitations with the simpHcity of unsullied youth; but his immediate yielding to temptation cannot be V forgiven on the score of ignorance, since his very words acknowledge guilt. The veneer of morality is super- ficial — a sort of bourgeois piety that yields almost without resistance. Yet certainly this is not the impression that Lillo sought to convey. Again, if Barnwell is so thoroughly under the spell of Millwood that he commits murder at her suggestion, it is questionable whether he would have left untouched the money which was his object. Stevenson's Markheim, who remains in the shop of the murdered dealer and gives himself up to the police, is hardly a case in point. Millwood is a more logical study in depraved passion. Lillo shows dramatic restraint in allowing the faithful Maria to survive Barnwell's death. Melodrama would have had her die of a broken heart just before the curtain-fall. Important as was the influence of George Barnwell <. upon the subject matter of English tragedy, it was no less important in its effect upon its language. Shake- speare's occasional employment of prose in tragedy does not alter the fact that Elizabethan tragedy is essentially poetic both in conception and in phras- 2o6 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. ing. Lillo attempted to give to domestic tragedy the vocabulary of everyday life. To the modern reader the effect is often grotesque. Highly stilted passages, unnatural inversions of phrase, rhymed 'scene tags,' often not limited to single couplets and sometimes not confined to the last scenes of each act, show that Lillo 's language has by no means thrown off all the shackles of old-school tragedy. Yet it is idle to judge Lillo 's prose by the standards of a modern drama that has been affected by Ibsen. Artificial as was his expression, Lillo had at bottom the same idea as Wordsworth in seeking to tell a simple story in the prose language of ordinary life. In justice to Lillo it may be remembered that his dialogue does not seem much more artificial than the language of Richardson's novels. The age was accustomed tofi overcharged phrasing in drama, as it was to the 'grand f manner' in acting. Lillo's conception of natural 1 dialogue, however crude^ marks a step forward toward modern realism. ITlt was this doubtless that led Fielding, who was so ready to burlesque the tragedies of Young and Thomson and to turn away from the conventional moralizing of Richardson in the novel, to confess appreciation of Lillo. Even Pope, who attended the first performance, though he deemed the dialogue too stilted, found that Lillo had only occasionally been led ' into a poetical lux- uriancy, affecting to be too elevated for the simplicity of the subject.' ^ Yet if much is to be forgiven to Lillo, there is no doubt that at times he sinned greatly. ^ The Lives of the Poets of Great-Britain and Ireland. By Mr. [Theophilus] Gibber and other Hands, 1753, V, 339. X xn VOLTAIRE'S INFLUENCE 207 The uncle's soliloquies (III, 6 and 7) go far to justify his murder. They bear the mark of the conventional rhetoric of tragedy, with little gain in their substitu- tion of unpoetic prose for prosaic verse. If the old shackles of verse tragedy have been broken, the marks of the fetters remain visible.^ The importance of George Barnwell is not an inven- tion of recent dramatic criticism. Though the first performance of the play did not occur until late in June, it achieved some twenty performances during the summer season, and became a stock play at Drury Lane. It was often acted at hoUday seasons, was revived by Charles Kemble, in 1796, and its story was retold in the form of a novel, by T. S. Surr (1798), which had various editions. France, Holland, and Germany felt Lillo's influence. Diderot paid him high tribute and in his own plays introduced on the French stage the 'tragedie domestique et bour- geoise.' Lessing, in turn, through his translation of Diderot's plays, and through his adoption of The London Merchant as the model for his Miss Sara Sampson (1755), brought German drama under the influence of Lillo. Not merely English, but Continen- tal drama, found in Lillo a powerful leader.^ ^"^Z *^ **7 I In The Christian Hero (1735), Lillo continued to c moralize tragedy, but deserted prose and the characters of lowly rank to 'sing a pious hero, and a patriot king.' With a scene set in Albania, with the ^ For further discussion of Lillo's influence on Continental drama, see the present writer's Chapter IV, in Volume X, of the Cambridge History of English Literature, and especially A. W. Ward's edition of Lillo already cited. 2o8 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. dramatis personcB divided between Turks and Chris- tians, Lillo seems to have lapsed into the familiar conventions of tragedy. Much more important is Fatal CunQMty: A True Tragedy of Three Acts (1736). Though Lillo retains blank verse, in his hands a ^^lumsy instrument, he turns again to domestic tragedy. Old Wilmot, impelled by his wife to seek a desperate remedy for their poverty, kills the stranger that is within their gates, only to find that he has mur- dered his son whom ' fatal curiosity ' has led to conceal his identity. With something of the Greek concep- tion, destiny dominates the tragedy. Thus Fatal Curi- osity is, as Ward has clearly pointed out,^ *an early experiment in a species to which the Germans, who alone cultivated it to any considerable extent, have given the name of Schicksalstragddie — the tragedy of destiny.' Translation and imitation brought it into influence upon German drama. Upon English drama its influence lay not in the development of the Greek idea of tragedy, but in its domestic character. ' From lower Hfe we draw our scene's distress,' runs a line in the Prologue. farin a, a three-act drama in which blank verse yields to prose in the needlessly coarse brothel scenes, is based on Pericles^ Prince of Tyre. The end shows * Virtue preserv'd from fell destruction's blast,' but ^ the means hardly justify the end. Three of Lillo's dramatic works were published after his death — Britannia and Batavia, a somewhat late survival of the maisq\ie,Elmerick, or Justice Triumphant, a tragedy in blank verse, and Arden of Fever sham , an adaptation of Elizabethan domestic tragedy. ^ LUlo, Introduction! p. L xn VOLTAIRE'S INFLUENCE 209 Lillo's importance in the history of English drama depends primarily on George Barnwell. Artificial as his work may appear to modern taste, he set in motion powerful forces that pointed toward natural tragedy. In attempting 'to show, In artless strains, a tale of private woe, ' he consciously divested tragedy of its traditional deference to rank and title and to the ceremonious dignity of verse form. Tragedy still needed emancipation from sentimentalized morahty. But if Lillo accepted some conventions of the sentimental school, he was none the less a pioneer in English drama. He animated domestic drama, and in the adoption of prose led the way to prose melodrama and tragedy. * The marked success of George Barnwell must not be mistaken for proof of the dominance of domestic tragedy thereafter on the English stage. Year after year, the London theatres continued to produce a remarkable variety of dramas, from classical tragedy to nondescript farce. Genest's lists show, if not the survival of the fittest, at least a remarkable survival of earlier plays that still proved, for one reason or another, theatrically effective. The season following George Barnwell, for example, saw performances of various plays of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Etherege, Otway, Southerne, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Addison, Steele, Mrs. Centlivre, and many others. Yet Lillo 's continued success had its influence on other playwrights. Charles Johnson, a minor dramatist who usually had his ear to the ground, probably fashioned his moralized tragedy Caelia, or The Perjured Lover (1732), after Lillo's pattern. 2IO ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Wronglove is a Lothario who repents after he has been fatally wounded in a duel, while the woman he has wronged dies of a broken heart. Fielding's Epilogue mocks the distressed heroine, but the play itself is a sentimentalized domestic tragedy. The most conspicuous follower of Lillo was Edward *- Moore (1712-1757). Lillo had been a jeweller's apprentice; Moore, like Gay, was brought up as apprentice to a mercer. It is significant that the aristocratic preferences of tragedy were set aside by pla3rwrights whose origin was as humble as their dramatic themes. Like Gay, Moore was something of a fabulist, showing in his Fables for the Female Sex the conscious moral aim which dominates his important play. Of his early dramatic efforts, The Foundling (1748), a jiQinedy in which has been deiecte(f"""some resemblance to Steele's Conscious Lovers, gave to MackUn, in the part of the foppish Faddle, an opportunity to mimic an * agreeable rattle' of the day named Russell. ^ Hpil Bias (1751), comedy is darkened with an underplot involving a scheme of assassination, but the author's strong tragic and moral tendencies found fullest expression in V The Gamester (1753). TCIoore^3?amatizes a new commandment, IThou shalt not gamble.' Addison had already attacked gambHng in The Spectator, and Pope had laughed at ombre playing in The Rape of the Lock. Draper, in an unimportant comedy. The Spendthrift (1731), had introduced a young prodigal ruined by gaming, but had finally reconciled him to his father and mated him to his faithful Jenny. Moore, however, xn VOLTAIRE'S INFLUENCE 211 strikes no glancing blow at gambling. All his energy centres in one relentless attack which gives unity to his tragedy. Without halt The Gamester advances to its fatal conclusion. At times tragedy stoops to melodrama. Surprise, instead of expectation, is the motive when Lewson appears after the supposed murder. Again, in the opening scene of the last act, Bates recounts the murder to Stukely with no hint that he is inventing the whole story. But if the appeal is made sometimes to theatrical effect rather than to the fundamental motives of tragic action, Moore has escaped some melodramatic pitfalls. Remembering, perhaps, Lillo's restraint in not dispos- ing of Maria in the culmination of his tragedy, he does not allow Mrs. Beverley to expire on her husband's corpse. Less happy, doubtless, is the sup- pression of actual gambling scenes on the stage. In failing to show his character directly under the spell of the gambling passion, Moore seems to have sacri- ficed a situation that would have strengthened not merely the drama itself but its acting possibilities. The career of the gambler is shown by effect rather than by cause. The actual gambler's life is seen only in the background. The characters show more dramatic power than Lillo's. Jarvis, the faithful servant, with his offers of money, recalls Orlando's Adam : ' I have a Httle Money, Madam ; it might have been more, but I have lov'd the Poor. All that I have is yours' (I, i). Moore is not without faults in dramatic construction, but there is a certain im- pressiveness in his main structural outline, and a certain resolute energy in the execution of his design. 212 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. xn. Moore's prose is an improvement over Lillo's, yet is by no means colloquial. There is none of the ease and naturalness of the best dialogue of comic dramatists. Tragedy inclines naturally toward a more elevated style than comedy, but Moore has ^ not mastered the lesson of simplicity. The result is something between Lillo's inverted and quasi-poetic prose and the language of ordinary life. 1^ Moore's name is closely linked with that of David Garrick. His plays were produced at Drury Lane, with Garrick in the leading roles. Garrick was the Beverley of The Gamester, wrote its Prologue, and, according to the testimony of Davies,^ supplied part of the dialogue of the play, especially in the scene between Lewson and Stukely in the fourth act. It is significant in the history of the English stage that the mid-eighteenth century found its dominant in- fluence not in the playwright but in the actor. ^Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, 'New Edition,' 1780, I, 166-167. 4 CHAPTER XIII FIELDING AND THE LICENSING ACT The prestige of conventional English tragedy, somewhat disturbed by Lillo's bold innovations, was further shaken by the destructive force of bur- lesque. The Rehearsal had turned the laugh against heroic tragedy; Fielding and his fellows ridiculed the absurdities oT contemporary eighteenth-century tragedy. J^^Jui Gay had already pointed the way with his What-d^y^-c,all-it (17 15), burlesquing especiallj'" Otway's Venice Preserved, and had in The Beggar^ s Opera satirized impartially Italian opera, senti- mental drama, and contemporary poHtics. Yet neither Gay's nor Fielding's influence on English drama was confined to the negative force of burlesque. TJte Beggar^s Opera presented in ballad opera a positive dramatic type. Fielding did not confine himself to ridicule of pompous tragedy, but in many pieces helped to estabHsh the popularity of short draina^k _satire. WitF him farce Hafed to'^old its own with five-act^formaLdraina. The long dramatic record of Henry Fielding (1707-17 54) began, some two months before he came of age, with the production at Drury Lane of Love-in Several. M^qsgues (1728). This comedy of the Con- greve type, if its characters somewhat betoken the *raw and unexperienced pen' which its Preface 213 214 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. modestly admits, has considerable sprightliness of dialogue. Gibber's Provoked Husband had just achieved a run of twenty-eight consecutive nights, and The Beggar's Opera was in the opening weeks of its phenomenal success, yet Fielding obtained a fair hearing. Two years later he launched forth on the flood of dramatic activity. Though some of his early pieces like The Temple Beau (1730) and Rape upon Rape} or The Justice Caught in his own Trap (1730) are five-act comedies, Fielding seems for the most part to have followed the advice which he puts into Witmore's mouth in his Author'' s Farce (1730) : 'When the theatres are puppets-shows, and the comedians ballad-singers ; when fools lead the town, would a man think to thrive by his wit? If thou must write, write nonsense, write operas, write Hurlothrumbos.' ^ With a reminiscence of The Re- hearsal, The Author's Farce includes the rehearsal of a puppet-show by an impecunious author. Luckless, who at times suggests Fielding himself. The scene at the Court of Nonsense, introducing such characters as Signior Opera, Sir Farcical Comic, Don Tragedio, and Monsieur Pantomime, obviously satirizes popular theatrical taste. But Fielding did not confine his satire to generahties. Hits at Johnson, the author of Hurlothrumho, at ^Orator Henley,' and possibly at 1 Another edition (also 1730) gives the main title as The Coffee- House Politician, but retains Rape upon Rape as a running-title in the text. 2 Quotations in this chapter are from W. E. Henley's edition of The Complete Works of Fielding, Vols. I-V. The dates on the fac- simile title-pages there reproduced naturally do not always coincide with those of the first stage productions. XIII FIELDING AND THE LICENSING ACT 21 5 Wilks and Gibber open up the vein of personal satire which he later exploited to the full. Most entertaining of Fielding's early dramatic work is Tom Thumb, first produced in two acts, in 1730, and then expanded to three acts as The Tragedy of Tragedies, or The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great. . . With the Annotations ofH. Scriblerus Secundus. This admirable burlesque hits such vulnerable parts of regular tragedy as its conventional opening passages, its heroic themes of love and valour, its pompous phrases and artificial rhymed similes. The tragedy Ghost passes from the subHme to the ridiculous in the apparition of Tom Thumb's dead father, the classical sonority of Thomson's 'Oh, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, oh ' is parodied in * Oh ! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!' and the solution by massacre is outdone by half-a-dozen consecutive murders in as many lines, followed by the suicide of the King. Not merely contemporary tragedy but dramatic criticism is burlesqued. A long prefactory essay that pretends to seek authority in Aristotle and Horace, and elaborate paraphernaha of mock critical and explanatory notes, embellish the satire. To the line, 'The mighty Thomas Thumb victorious comes,' this note is appended: 'Dr. B[entle]y reads: The mighty Tall-mast Thumb. Mr. D[enni]s : The mighty Thumbing Thumb. Mr. T[heobal]d reads: Thun- dering. I think Thomas more agreeable to the great simplicity so apparent in our Author.' It is a mocking echo of the critical controversies over Shakespeare that had begun to multiply since the first critical edition by Rowe in 1709. In the notes, 2l6 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. likewise, Fielding's hits are specifically aimed not merely at recent tragedies like Cato, Young's Busiris, and Fen ton's popular Mariamne (1723), but at the ^-^ theories of Corneille and the practice of Dryden, Banks, and Lee. Tom Thumb had been anticipated by The Rehearsal and was to be surpassed by The Critic, but it holds its place as one of the few permanently noteworthy burlesques in EngUsh drama. TJie^Covent-Gqrden Tragedy (1732) continues in part the burlesque method of Tom Thumb, but the manner is coarsened. The mock preface to Tom Thumb is here replaced by 'Prolegomena,' purporting to be a collection of critiques upon the tragedy, per- haps the most significant suggestion being that the characters of Lovegirlo and Kissinda 'are poor imitations of the characters of Pyrrhus and Androm- ache in The Distrest Mother, as Bilkum and Stor- mandra are of Orestes and Hermione.' In thus at- tempting to ridicule Ambrose Philips by degrading tragedy to the stews of Covent Garden, the keen point of Fielding's satire becomes blunt with coarse use. The real spirit of Tom Thumb was more genuinely revived by Henry Carey (d. 1743) mChrononhoton- thologos : Being tUe Most Tragical Tragedy, that ever was Tragediz'd by any Company of Tragedians (1734). Carey was the author of several operas and of the popular ballad Sally in Our Alley. The gift of phrase, which nicknamed Ambrose PhiUps 'Namby-pamby,' is apparent in Carey's burlesque from the opening speech of Rigdum-Funnidos : Aldiborontiphoscophornio ! Where left you Chrononhotonthologos ? xm FIELDING AND THE LICENSING ACT 217 to the death of the 'Faithful Bombardinion.' The tragedy groan' with which the survivors conclude the piece might properly have been invoked at such earlier phrases as : His cogitative Faculties immers'd In Cogibundity of Cogitation. Carey's burlesque opera, The Drag on of Wantley (1737), hits at the absurdities of formal opera. While Fielding and Carey thus out-Heroded Herod they, Hke Lillo, in reality promoted sanity in English drama. Tom Thumb is the ironic expression of that revolt against conventional English tragedy which Fielding phrased seriously in his Prologue to Lillo's Fatal Curiosity: No fustian hero rages here to-night ; No armies fall, to fix a tyrant's right. Fielding was a prolific playwright. In addition to the regular comedies and the burlesques already mentioned, he wrote many short farces. Some of these, hke his early Lottery'^ and An Old Man Taught Wisdom (1735), are reenforced with popular music, light ditty, and topical song. In The Qrub-Street Opera (1731), where m^chief-making Master Owen courts the maid-servants, and in The, Intriguing Chambermaid (1734), Fielding was unconventional enough to give prominence to servants in his dramatis personce, thus anticipating Townley's well-known farce. High Life Below Stairs (i759).2 The frequent * Genest, III, 328, gives i January, 1732, as ' seemingly ist time.' 2 In 1732, an opera called The Footman dealt chiefly with servants who, as in Townley's farce, assume the names of their masters and mistresses. See Genest, III, 356. 2l8 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. interpolations of song and the adoption of the three- act form show Fielding's independence both of the spirit and structure of formal drama. The Letter Writers (1731), an outspoken farce in which young Jacli Commons comes to town ^resolved to take one swing in the charming plains of iniquity ' before being received into Holy Orders, The Debauchees (17^2), a comedy which coarsely sets forth the exposure of a lewd Jesuit priest, and Don Quixote in England (1734), a comedy loosely sketched at Ley den, in 1728, and enlarged with some satirical * scenes concerning our elections' and some fifteen songs, ahke adopt the three-act form. The Modern Husband (1732) boasts, in the Prologue, a reversion 'to nature and to truth' and a moral purpose which it is difficult to detect in five acts that recount how 'A willing cuckold sells his willing wife.' The considerable success of his adaptation from Moliere's Le Medecin Malgre Lui, entitled The Mock Doctor (1732), led Fielding to a more important production, T}mJ£iser (1733), * taken from Plautus and Moliere,' which won the praise of Voltaire and the plaudits of Drury Lane audiences. An ill-fated comedy. The Universal Gal- lant (1735), and an unpublished piece c?iS^€d Deborah ^cted but once, 1733), complete the varied dramatic record of Fielding prior to his important dramatic satire, Pasquin. In coiitfast with the great Patent Theatres, Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields, the 'Little Theatre in the Haymarket' had followed a desultory career. Since its opening, in 1720, motley had been its usual wear. French comedians, acrobats, rope-dancers, xra FIELDING AND THE LICENSING ACT 219 and tumblers had taken their turn on the boards. Genest's fitful records of its early performances show productions of burlesque opera, rough comedy, and such medleys as Hurlothrumbo , or the Supernatural (1729). In this the author, a dancing master named Johnson, himself acted the part of Lord Flame, ^speaking sometimes in one key, and sometimes in another, sometimes dancing, sometimes fiddling, and sometimes walking upon stilts.' ^ With the production of The Author's Farce and Tom Thumbs in 1 730, the Haymarket secured a succession of pieces by Fielding, and begins to demand more atten- tion. In 1733, it had the brief eclat of performances by the leading actors who had seceded from Drury Lane. Yet it had acquired but slender dramatic tradition when, in 1736, Fielding, now its manager, convulsed the town with more than forty performances of Pasquin. Pasquin is 'a Drama tick Satire on the Times.' In introducing rehearsals of both a mock comedy and a mock tragedy it elaborS,tes the device of The Re- hearsal already used in The Author's Farce. Like some of Fielding's other farces, it seems to have sup- plied Sheridan with hints for The Critic.'^ Trapwit's comedy boldly satirizes political bribery and corrup- tion, pointing at Sir Robert Walpole and the creed now commonly attributed to him in his supposed generalization that every man has his price. The burlesque tragedy presents *The Life and Death 1 Genest, III, 247. *See, for specific parallel passages, the present writer's Major Dramas of Sheridan, Introduction, pp. Ixxxviii-xci. 220 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. of Queen Common Sense,' and, for that matter, her resurrection, for it is her Ghost who finally drives Ignorance off the stage. Upon this, Fustian, the tragic poet, remarks that ' this is almost the only play where she [Common Sense] has got the better lately.' Though Fielding himself was ready enough to cater to the popular taste for entertainments, he puts into the mouth of Fustian (Act V) a hit at pantomime which might have satisfied even Colley Cibber. Tumbl^^^x^^J^ick^ or Fhaeton i^Jli§_,.Suds (1736)^ biJrIesqued a Drury Lane production. The Fall of Phaeton, and in the dedication of the piece to Mr. John Lun [Rich's stage name] hit at Rich's unsuccess- ful production at Coven t Garden of Marforio, a satire on Pasquin, While London was still laughing at s. iPasquin, Fielding produced Lillo's Fatal Curiosity, I and as at first this tragedy met with but moderate I success, he added it to his own Historical Register for II i^j6 in the following season, thus securing for it I] further hearing. During the season of 1737, Fielding developed to the full at the Haymarket his novel method of dra- matic satire. The Historical Register for 1736 (acted 1737) introduced political satire in allusions to Sir Robert Walpole in the character of Quidam, theatrical satire in hits at Colley and Theophilus Cibber, at the controversy between Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Cibber as to the part of Polly, and at the dilemmas of the 'Green Room,' and social satire, as in the parting 1 1 am indebted to Professor W. L. Cross for copies of contem- porary playbills of April, 1736, which disprove the usual assignment of this play to 1737. xm FIELDING AND THE LICENSING ACT 221 fling at the ladies' literary clubs which seem to have espoused the rival causes of Shakespeare and of Beau- mont and Fletcher. One of the most vigorous scenes, that of the auction, introduces, as Mr. Hen, the famihar figure of Cock the Auctioneer. Nor did Fielding spare himself, for in Eurydice Hissed^ or a Word to the Wise, he dealt with the failure of. his own farce Eurydice at Drury Lane. The reckless freedom of Fielding's satire was carried C, too far for its own safety. Whatever the immediate provocation, it was largely due to Fielding that the law took cognizance of the lawlessness of dramatic satire. In March, 1735, Sir John Barnard had in- terested himself in the House of Commons in the question of restricting the theatres, and, though his bill was finally abandoned, the theatrical situation came up for discussion. This occurred before Pas- quin and the Historical Register had dealt their satiri- cal attacks, especially upon Sir Robert Walpole. The immediate stimulus to the Licensing Act is usually # held to have been an abusive piece, called The Golden Rump, which led Giffard, manager of the Gk)odman's Fields Theatre, to consult Walpole with immediate results. According to some accounts,^ even this piece is to be attributed to Fielding. In any event, there is little reason to doubt that Walpole recognized in Fielding his most dangerous foe. * Religion, Laws, Government, Priests, Judges and Ministers,' de- clared Cibber^ bitterly, 'were all laid flat, at the * Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second, second edition, revised, 1847, I> i3~i4) footnote. * Apology, I, 287. l^ 222 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Feet of this Herculean Satyrist ! This Drawcansir in Wit, that spared neither Friend nor Foe ! * The Licensing Act of ^73 7 Hmited the metropolitan theatres to ,two, and brought plays, prologues, and epilogues under direct legal authority. It is true that the Lord Chamberlain had already prohibited some dramatic pieces,^ notably Gay's Polly, but with the passage of this act and the appointment of a licenser under his jurisdiction, in 1738, the Lord Chamberlain was formally invested with the censorship of the stage. Popular indignation at the restrictions of the Licensing Act found vent in a riot at the attempted performance at the Haymarket, in October, 1738, of a French com- pany of comedians who sought to fill the place de- barred to English actors. According to the account in The Gentleman^ s Magazine (Oct. 1738), 'when the Bill appeared' for the first performance of these French actors, ' with the Word authority placed at Top, the Publick was stung to the Quick, and thought themselves concerned to exert that Liberty they enjoy, and to resent the Affront put upon them by the Chamberlain.' Henceforth the London stage knew the authority of the censor. If the Licensing Act was designed tp_ check the reckless satire of Fielding, it was successful. The Haymarket productions of 1737 mark the virtual close of Fielding's theatrical activity. Miss Lucy in Town (1742), a short farce with songs, for which he declared he was but partly responsible, a five-act comedy. The Wedding-Day (1743), in which Garrick * The Restauration of King Charles the Second had been ' forbidden to be acted,' in 1732. Genest, III, 357-358. xm FIELDING AND THE LICENSING ACT 223 took a leading part, and the posthumous comedy, The Fathers, or The Good-Natured Man (1778),^ whose chief interest perhaps Ues in the subtitle and in the Prologue which appeals for indulgence to the author on the score of his great novels, are of little signifi- cance, and represent largely early dramatic material. Perhaps it was not without relief that Fielding turned from the theatre. He had written in haste, and his later comment that he 'left off writing for the stage when he ought to have begun '^ seems to show that he repented at leisure. In Eurydice Hissed, Hones tus bids the author whose 'farce without contrivance, without sense' may win accidental popularity Think how you will be read in after-times, When friends are not, and the impartial judge Shall with the meanest scribbler rank your name. The author of Tom Thumb ^d Pasquin can hardly suffer such a fate ; yet his worst pieces sink to sheer mediocrity. Fielding's dramatic work forms a period of literary apprenticeship. It bears to his great novels somewhat the same relationship as do Thackeray's burlesques to his novels. Fielding and Thackeray alike show in their early work vivacity, humour, satire. Yet bur- lesque is but negative, and their positive genius awaited full expression in the mature character portrayal of their novels. Nevertheless, Fielding is neither a negligible nor a wholly destructive force in English drama. Careless in conception and hasty in execu- ^Genest, VI, 77, under 30 November, 1778. * Quoted by Austin Dobson, Fielding, p. 58. 224 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. tion as was most of his dramatic work, its influence was significant. While regular comedy was being increasingly sentimentalized and tragedy moralized, he let satirical farce and burlesque trample on the five-act formula and conventional spirit of formal drama. He was essentially the playwright of his own day. Even Lillo, who set his face against aristocratic tragedy, still conceded the historic background in assigning, nominally at least, an Elizabethan setting to The London Merchant, in placing Fatal Curiosity in the reign of James I, and in choosing Arden of Fever- sham as the theme of 'an historical tragedy.' Field- ing turned to the immediate present. Contemporary society, drama, and politics gave him themes ready to hand. Though he paid some heed to regular comedy, especially in early plays that follow Con- greve's general model, he was peculiarly at home in satirical farce. He developed Gay's 'local hits' at politicians of the day, and, Uke his follower Samuel Foote, carried personal allusion and innuendo to daring extremes. Without the range of a great comic dramatist. Fielding heightened farce with the zest of contemporary caricature. Although the public made hue and cry over the Li- censing Act, the real danger to English drama of that day lay deeper than in the restriction of its freedom of speech. In point of fact, Samuel Foote was soon to show that not merely Hberty, but license, of phrase could be compassed in defiance of authority. The vital peril to English drama lay in its dead level of__jiiediocrity. Constant buffetings from almost every quarter had enfeebled its vitaUty. Italian xra FIELDING AND THE LICENSING ACT 225 opera, pantomime, burlesque, ballad opera, farce, and spectacle had sorely wasted the ranks of regular comedy and tragedy. Against such dangerous rivals legitimate drama' could muster but sorry force. Comedy showed frequent traces of Restoration im- morality, but hardly a sign of its comic power, while the sentiment which Steele had substituted had de- clined into flabby sentimentality. Tragedy wavered between respect for classical conventions and the need of larger Hfe. If it followed Continental example, it was apt to catch the chill formaUty, but not the stately spirit, of classical drama ; if it followed Eng- lish dramatic models, it was more apt to imitate their crudities and exaggerations than their native strength. To the rivals which it encountered on the actual stage must now be added a new and more subtle rival off the boards. The Queen Anne age, in which the periodical essay had reached the height of popularity, had passed when Robinson Crusoe (ijig) and Gulliver's Travels (1726) fired the fancy of English readers. With the advent of Richardson's Pamela (1740) the EngHsh novel began its great period of literary dominance. Field- ing himself, from minor dramatist, became major novelist in Joseph Andrews (1742), beginning, in accordance with his dramatic schoohng, with burlesque of Richardson's novel, but rising out of it into the 'human comedy' of Parson Adams. As one looks askance at the playbills of the new dramas of the mid-eighteenth century, it is necessary to recall that, within the four years from 1747 to 1751, appeared Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe, Smollett's Roderick Q 226 ENGLISH DRAMA chap, xiii Random and Peregrine Pickle^ and Fielding's Tom Jones (1749), and that the first volumes of Sterne's Tristram Shandy were soon to follow (17 59-1 760). In the decline of drama the novel had foimd its opportunity. CHAPTER XIV THE GARRICK ERA Despite the formidable foes that threatened Eng- lish drama in the middle of the eighteenth century, two powerful forces helped to sustain the vitality of the theatre. These were the strong repertory of / 'stock plays' which maintained the continuity of dramatic tradition and the genius of actors able to triumph not merely in the successes of the past but even in the mediocre productions of contemporary drama. Unlike other forms of literature, the drama is primarily dependent upon the actual conditions of its presentation. Yet this very circumstance which has often militated against the dramatist proved in this crisis his surest support. It was the age of the player, not of the playwright. The mid- eighteenth-century dramatic period is th e 'iSarrigk .. era.' / Though the record of David Garrisk (17 17-17 79) /belongs primarily to theatrical annals, it is vitally connected with the course of English dramatic his- tory. Apart from his own dramatic productions, Garrick in an extraordinary measure increased the < popularity of Shakespeare, besides partly redeeming his texts from current perversions. The natural methods of his art affected not merely the old school of acting but the artificiality of the drama itself. 227 228 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. The son of a recruiting army captain, David Garrick appropriately made his venture as an actor about the age of eleven, in the part of Serjeant Kite, in Far- quhar's Recruiting Officer. There was little chance that Garrick, who had come under the tutelage of Samuel Johnson, would long continue in his imcle's trade of wine merchant. In 1740, his mythological skit, Lethe, was produced at Drury Lane, and, with various alterations, long held a place in the repertory. Though Garrick acted, in the summer of 1741, with a travelling company at Ipswich, he was refused admission to the companies of Drury Lane and Covent Garden. But on 19 October, 1741, he made his historic triumph at Goodman's Fields. In deference to the Licensing Act, the playbill announced, some- what guardedly, that there would be performed ^A Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Music/ between whose parts would be presented 'an Historical Play, called the Life and Death of King Richard the Third. '' Garrick awoke to find himself famous. London flocked to Goodman's Fields. The plague that fell upon the rival houses was the 'Garrick fever.' Quin, the chief tragedian of the old school, recognized the passing of the old order of acting by declaring that, 'if the young fellow was right, he, and the rest of the players, had been all wrong.' ^ There is no need to detail here the familiar episodes of Garrick's Hfe — the menage with Peg Woffington and Charles Macklin, the dissensions among the Drury Lane actors and the consequent breach with Macklin, Garrick's appearances at Covent Garden 1 Thomas Davies, Memoirs of Garrick^ ' New Edition/ 1780, I, 44. XIV THE GARRICK ERA 22g and at Dublin, and his final installation, with Lacy, as manager of Drury Lane in 1747. It will suffice to indicate some of the ways in which his dominance as actor and manager affected the course of EngUsh drama. Highly suggestive is the picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds which shows Garrick torn between the rival Muses of Tragedy and Comedy. From Richard III he turned to the part of Clodio, in Gib- ber's early comedy, Love makes a Man ; from Ghamont in Otway's Orphan to Jack Smatter, in Dance's dramatization of Richardson's Pamela; from char- acters in his own Lethe and in his farce. The Lying Valet, to Lothario in Rowe's Fair Penitent. During his first season he acted also such different roles as the Ghost in Hamlet, Fondlewife in Gongreve's Old Bachelor, and Witwoud in his Way of the World, Aboan in Southerne's Oronooko, Gostar Pearmain, and later Gaptain Brazen, in Farquhar's Recruiting Officer, Bayes in The Rehearsal,^ Lear, Pierre in Otway's Venice Preserved, and Lord Foppington in Gibber's Careless Husband. Such a record proves more than Garrick 's extraordi- 1 nary versatility and his impartiality as towards tragedy and comedy. It shows the remarkable dependence of the theatre upon the drama of the past. If it be argued that Garrick 's record is an ex- ceptional instance and proves little more than an actor's natural prudence in adhering to established successes, it may be answered that Garrick's name * Garrick made this one of his most popular comic parts, introduc- ing imitations of various actors of the day in the passages where Bayes instructs the players how to speak their lines. 230 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. would have been sufficient magnet for any novelty. An interesting indication of the public insistence upon the appearance of their favourite is in the Prologue to Fielding's Wedding-Day, where Macklin, humor- ously apologizing because Garrick does not speak the prologue, prefaces the announcement with the assurance that he 'performs a principal character in the play.' Furthermore, despite inevitable vari- ations in acting repertory from year to year, Genest's Drury Lane Hsts, perhaps the most representative of the status of regular drama, show from the season of 1 7 34-1 73 5 onward to Garrick's time remarkable de- pendence on stock drama. The poverty of dramatic novelties was counterbalanced by the wealth of suc- cessful stock plays. One especial feature of Garrick's revivals, of earlier, drama merits especial notice — his Shakespearean productions. Shakespeare had, indeed, recovered in part from the sorry treatment to which he had been subjected in Restoration alterations. The early eighteenth century had not hesitated to adapt or remake Shakespeare after its own fashion, as in Dennis's versions of The Merry Wives and Coriolanus ^ or in Gibber's theatrically successful Richard III, but as the century advanced there was a growing tendency to revert toward the original texts. To this the increase of critical editions of Shakespeare's works inevitably contributed. Before the middle of the century, Rowe's pioneer work had been fol- 1 Entitled respectively, The Comical Gallant, or The Amours of Sir John Falstafe (1702), and The Invader of his Country, or The Fatal Resentment (1720). XIV THE GARRICK ERA 231"^ lowed by the critical work of Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton. Even before the advent of Garrick, there were not wanting signs of increasing response on the part of theatregoers to productions of Shake- speare. In February, 1738, Rich, who had in pre- vious seasons given over Covent Garden largely to such varied attractions as pantomime, French danc- ing, opera, and the long series of performances of Handel's oratorios and operas, began a noteworthy succession of Shakespearean revivals. Plays like Richard II, Henry IV, Part II, Henry V, and Henry VI, Part I, set down loosely in the playbills as not acted for forty or fifty years, and probably in some cases not really acted for a much longer period, were produced within six weeks. The inclusion in the series of King John, 'as written by Shakespeare,' recalls a suggestive bit of theatrical history. The year previous Gibber had put into rehearsal at Drury Lane his alteration of King John, but 'so much had been said by the critics, who wrote against Gibber, in commendation of the original play,' ^ that not merely did Gibber withdraw his piece but Rich, al- ways alert to cater to the taste of the moment, success- fully revived the original play at Govent Garden. Pope, in The Dunciad, with the line 'King John in silence modestly expires,' and Fielding, in The His- torical Register, in the scene where Ground-Ivy ex- 1 Genest, III, 504. The sequel to this incident is curious. On 15 February, 1745, Gibber's version, entitled Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John, was produced at Covent Garden, and was immediately answered by the Drury Lane revival of Shakespeare's play, both versions attaining a number of performances. Genest, IV, 146, 158-162. 232 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. plains at length how to alter King John, effectively ridiculed Gibber's abihty to 'alter Shakespeare for the worse.' 'It was a maxim of mine,' says Ground- Ivy, 'that no play, though ever so good, would do without alteration.' ^ From the Restoration period onward, Shakespeare's leading tragedies had constantly triumphed over the mutilations of revisers and the inanities of critics, but the comedies, with the exception of The Merry Wives of Windsor, had been habitually sUghted. With the eighteenth century, the Shakespearean comedies fared better. In the Drury Lane season, 1 740-1741, that preceded Garrick's advent, there were revivals oi As You Like It, Twelfth Night, both parts of Henry IV, and, most notably, of The Merchant of Venice. Macklin discarded not merely Lord Lansdowne's current text in favour of Shakespeare's but the tradi- tional admixture of low comedy in the conception of Shylock. Notwithstanding general prophecies of failure, Macklin won a triumph which is familiar from the couplet popularly ascribed to Pope: This is the Jew- That Shakespeare drew. Thus, even before the appearance of Garrick, there was evidence of growing thoroughness in the appre- ciation of Shakespeare's dramatic genius and of increasing fidehty to his text and spirit. The day had long since passed when two of Beaumont and Fletcher's pieces were produced to one of Shake- speare's. Though the test of time had already established XIV THE GARRICK ERA 233 Shakespeare's supremacy among the earlier English dramatists, Garrick powerfully confirmed his popu-«f larity with theatregoers. As arbiter of Drury Lane, it lay in Garrick's power to set the fashion, and he set it decisively. As manager, he produced more \ than a score of Shakespeare's dramas, and, as actor, took part in the great majority of these productions. For the most part his influence was highly beneficial, t but he did not wholly shake off the bad habits of some of his predecessors. Though he largely re- stored the original texts of various plays, he was not without the actor's craving for theatrical situa- tion. When he substituted Romeo and Juliet, in 1748, for Otway's popular Caius Marius, he took the hint from Otway's melodramatic device of awaken- ing Lavinia in the tomb before the death of Young Marius. He even ventured to lay violent hands on Hamlet, which had been shielded from adaptation largely by the tradition of Betterton's acting, though according to Davies,^ his ' audience did not approve what they barely endured.' Early in 1756, he pro- duced within a month alterations of three Shake- spearean comedies. If to The Taming of the Shrew he applied the pruning-knife, it was, in Puff's phrase, Hhe axe' that he set to The Winter's Tale, lopping from it most of the first three acts, though professing in the Prologue to his ' Dramatic Pastoral,' Florizel and Perdita : 'Tis my chief Wish, my Joy, my only Plan, To lose no Drop of that immortal Man ! * Thomas Davies, Dramatic Miscellanies, 1784, III, 146. 234 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Still less defensible was the operatic version of The Tempest, a sorry mixture of Shakespeare and Dry den, for which Garrick was responsible as manager, if not as compiler also. In a Dissertation, too frank for full quotation, Theophilus Gibber unsparingly attacked these very alterations of Garrick, and de- manded, 'Were Shakespear^s Ghost to rise, wou'd he not frown Indignation, on this pilfering Pedlar in Poetry — who thus shamefully mangles, mutilates, and emasculates his Plays ? ' ^ Gibber, to be sure, argued rather from Garrick's most flagrant excep- tions than from his usual rule, but there is danger of exaggerating the fidelity of the actor's adherence to Shakespeare's original texts. A fairer view would be that, if Garrick sinned at times, he was one to whom much should be forgiven. If he frequently violated the letter, he nobly served the spirit, of his master. The stimulus which he gave to Shake- speare's popularity at Drury Lane directly affected the rival house. In 1750, Barry, Macklin, and Mrs. Gibber at Govent Garden produced Romeo and Juliet in nightly rivalry for almost a fortnight with Garrick, Woodward, and Miss Bellamy at Drury Lane, and in 1756, the struggle between the Lears of the two great Patent Theatres brought forth such epi- grams as: A King — nay, every inch a King; Such Barry doth appear : But Garrick's quite a different thing ; He's every inch King Lear.^ * Dissertations on Theatrical Subjects^ 1756, p. 36. 2 Genest, IV, 469. See also Theophilus Gibber, op. cit., ' Second Dissertation,' pp. 43-47. :av THE GARRICK ERA 235 The increasing recognition of Shakespeare naturally- had its bearings on the English attitude toward French drama and dramatic standards. The success < of Ambrose Philips in The Distrest Mother had stimu- lated more than a dozen translations of plays by Pierre and Thomas Comeille and by Racine within eighteen years. But from the appearance of William Hatchett's Rival Father (1730), a version of Thomas Corneille's La Mort d^Achille, twenty years elapsed before interest revived in translation from French classical drama. During this interval The Distrest Mother continued to hold the stage, but not even Voltaire^s superlatives about Cato could reawaken fully the old enthusiasm for the classical school of Philips and Addison. The deference at first accorded to Voltaire's critical< opinions had likewise perceptibly lessened. The very- men who adapted Voltaire's plays to the English stage flatly proclaimed his indebtedness to Shake- speare, and resented both the substance and the tone of his strictures on English drama. In the Advertise- ment to Merope (1749), Aaron Hill says of Voltaire: ' So much over-active Sensibility, to his own Country's Claims : With so unfeeling a Stupidity, in judging the Pretensions of his Neighbors, might absolve all Indig- nation, short of gross Indecency ; toward one who has not scrupled ... to represent the English as incapa- ble of Tragedy; nay, even of Painting, or of Musick.'^ Even Arthur Murphy, whose Orphan of China (1759) ^ Quoted by Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire, p. 153. The whole chapter, 'Resentment of the English/ is particularly valu- able. 236 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. was the most successful of the later English adapta- tions of Voltaire's tragedies, tempered his general praise of Voltaire by observing: ^We islanders have remarked of late that M. de Voltaire has a particu- lar satisfaction in descanting on the faults of the most wonderful genius that ever existed since Homer.' ^ The plain speech of Voltaire's translators became in less friendly mouths violent denunciation. In 1747, Foote vigorously attacked Voltaire as Hhat insolent French Panegyrist, who first denies Shakespear al- most every Dramatic Excellence, and then, in his next Play, pilfers from him almost every capital Scene,' and pictured him in his dual r61e of critic and dramatist as 'the carping superficial Critic and the low paltry Thief.' 2 4k Extreme bursts of patriotic ire must not, however, be mistaken for proof of general contempt for Voltaire. Garrick himself acted in Mahomet, Merope, and The Orphan of China, appearing eleven times in the second and nine times in the last of these plays during their first seasons.^ Other adaptations of Voltaire's trage- dies were essayed, though with less success, in Orestes (1768), Almida and Zoheide (1771), and Semiramis (1776). These versions, though varying considerably in point of adherence to their originals, in general show compromise between French restrictions and English freedom. Voltaire himself, under Shake- speare's influence, had relaxed the letter of the classical * Quoted by Lounsbury, Shakespeare and Voltaire, p. 150. 2 The Roman and English Comedy Considered and Compared, 1747, pp. 21-22. ' Figures based on Genest, IV, 269, 272, 549, 555* XIV THE GARRICK ERA 237 law, even permitting the introduction of ghosts in Eriphyle and Semiramis. His adapters did not hesitate to abridge long declamatory speeches, to invigorate the action, and to break over various minor conventions of classical drama. Some of Voltaire's comedies had an English rendering, as in Murphy's No One^s Enemy hut His Own (1764), founded on VIndiscret, and in Colman's successful version of UEcossaise in The English Merchant (1767). Vol- taire thus continued through the third quarter of the eighteenth century to contribute to English drama; but few of his pieces attracted more than temporary interest, and some were actual failures. Merope had occasional revival at Drury Lane and seems to have inspired John Hoole's Cyrus (1768). The Orphan of China was reproduced, with indifferent success, at Covent Garden in 1777, and at Dublin in 1810. Yet, in point of actual stage popularity, even these dramas did not surpass some of the native English tragedies of the day. Occasional tragedies, such as Murphy's Alzuma (1773), show the continued influence of Vol- taire; but playwrights were more ready to imitate than the pubUc was to applaud such borrowings. On the critical side, Voltaire's extreme censures of Shakespeare met with increasing disfavour, yet his influence counted strongly in maintaining the belief that Shakespeare's now indisputable supremacy was the triumph of genius over the canons of dramatic art. Great as was the progress of Shakespeare's reputation during the Garrick era, it was not yet fully understood that he was not merely a great dramatist but a great dramatic artist. \ 238 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Shakespeare's popularity did not lead to the general adoption of Elizabethan models by the dramatists of the Garrick era. The publication, in 1744, of Dods- ley's famous collection of old plays, which with few exceptions antedate the Restoration, is evidence chiefly of awakening literary interest in the history of earlier English drama. An occasional adaptation like Garrick's Gamesters (1757), altered from Shirley's Gamester, seems somewhat accidental. Otway, South- eme, and Rowe were greater favourites in tragedy than any of the Elizabethans save Shakespeare. Yet such English examples hardly seem to have drawn such deliberate imitation as is discernible in plays that follow the classical model. In Irene (1749), I)r. Samuel Johnson (i 709-1 784) produced a chill tragedy which not even the loyal efforts of his former pupil, Garrick, could warm into real vitaHty. The scene set in Constantinople after its fall has the faint local colour to be found in the old heroic tragedies, and the theme, which turns on the temptation of the Greek maiden Irene by the offer of a throne rejected by the more loyal Aspasia, is equally aloof from ordinary Hfe. The moraHzing spirit of sentimental drama finds expression in such precepts as 'Angelic Greatness is Angelic Virtue,' and Be virtuous Ends pursued by virtuous Means, Nor think th' Intention sanctifies the Deed.^ At the end the didactic note is apparent in the lines which proclaim 'the Justice of all-conscious Heav'n.' 1 These are but two of the maxims inflicted upon Lrene by Aspasia (ni, 8). See 1749 edition, pp. 42, 44. XIV THE GARRICK ERA 239 One is tempted to borrow from Johnson's Prologue spoken by Garrick at the opening of Drury Lane, in 1747, some of the Hnes in which he brought his excellent review of English drama down toward his own day : Then crush'd by Rules, and weaken'd as refin'd, For Years the Pow'r of Tragedy declin'd ; From Bard, to Bard, the frigid Caution crept. Till Declamation roar'd, while Passion slept. Though declamation did not roar with Garrick, pas- sion slept with Irene. In 1750, William Whitehead (17 15-1785), later poet laureate," in a version of Horace entitled The Rqmmi! Father won a success only second to that of The Distrest Mother among the English versions of French classical tragedy. For half a century The Roman Father remained a stock play, and its success was doubtless the chief stimulus to some eight or ten other translations from the dramas of Pierre and Thomas Corneille and Racine during the last half of the eighteenth century. Of original dramatic power there are few traces in the tragedies of the Garrick era. Never perhaps in English dramatic history has the poverty of the play- wright been so generously aided by the wealth of the actor. The new tragedies which won success in the first decade after the mid-century include, besides Moore's Gamester which has been discussed previously, Jones's Earl of Essex (1753), Crisp's Virginia (1754), Brown's Barbarossa (1754), and Home's Douglas (1756). Of these the first reworks the theme of 240 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Banks's Unhappy Favourite, which still held the stage and had been produced that very season, and the sec- ond and third gave to Garrick the parts in which he most frequently appeared during their respective sea- sons of 1 753-1754 and 1 754-1 7 55. Crisp's Virginia, a mediocre handling of a familiar dramatic subject, probably suggested Moncrief's Appius (1755). The part of Achmet in Barbarossa, which Garrick played no less than sixteen times in its first season, was that in which ' Master Betty,' the ' Young Roscius,' made his extraordinary London debut at Co vent Garden, in 1804. w John Home (172 2-1808), a Scotch minister who eventually paid for dramatic enterprise in the en- forced resignation of his clerical charge, obtained in liSMil^s (1756, Edinburgh; 1757, London) a success that led some enthusiasts to hail him as the 'Scotch Shakespeare.' His first dramatic ventures promised little. While settled in his East Lothian parish he wrote a tragedy, Agis, which Garrick rejected. In 1755 he travelled to London on horseback with the manuscript of Douglas, only to encounter another rejection from Garrick. But Home was a prophet who found honour in his own country. In December, 1756, Douglas was produced in Edinburgh and be- came a national triumph. A few months later, Rich produced it at Covent Garden ^ with Barry and Peg Woffington, and its success led Garrick to accept Agis, Later tragedies. The Siege of Aquileia (1760), The ^Moi^PJscovery (1769), AIouM- (i773)j 2-nd Alfred ^Its initial success in London has at times been exaggerated. Genest, IV, 495, under date of 28 April, 1757, records its 'gth and last time' of production that season. XIV THE GARRICK ERA 241 (1778), met with indifferent reception or failure. Home's fame rested on his one great triumph. In the barren ground of Scotch drama it is not surprising that Douglas seemed an oasis. The famil- iar ancedote of the Scotchman who was said to have risen in the pit triumphantly with the words, ^Weel, lads; what think ye of Wully Shakespeare noo/ reflects more patriotism than judgment. Yet Thomas Gray, in a letter, August, 1757, declared^: 'I am greatly struck with '' The Tragedy of Douglas ; " though it has infinite faults : The Author seems to me to have retrieved the true Language of the stage, which had been lost for these hundred years, and there is one scene (between Matilda and the old Peasant) so masterly, that it strikes me bHnd to all the defects in the world. ' The philosopher Hume ascribed to his friend Home ' the true theatric genius of Shake- spear and Otway, refined from the unhappy barbarism of the one, and licentiousness of the other. '^ If this extraordinary verdict showed that there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in Hume's philosophy, it was counterbalanced by Doctor Johnson's severe dictum that ' there were not ten good lines in the whole play.' ^ At all events, its stage success was indisputable. Home received a gold medal from Thomas Sheridan, a pension from the Princess of Wales, and the plaudits of the pit. ^The Letters of Thomas Gray, edited by D. C. Tovey, 1900-1912, I> 335 > footnote 2. Genest, who says Gray's letter was to Walpole, has (IV, 490) many variants in his text. 2 The Philosophical Works of David Hume, edited by Green and Grose, 1874-1875, III, 67. " Boswell's Life of Johnson, Hill edition, 1887, V, 360. 242 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. To-day Douglas is remembered chiefly by Young NorvaPs speech, long a favourite piece for declamation, 'My name is Norval: on the Grampian hills, My father feeds his flocks ' (II, i ) . The extravagant praises of Home's contemporaries have sometimes reacted nowadays against a fair appraisal of the play. In contrast with the frigid dulness of many classical imitations, Douglas strikes a distinctly romantic note. As the successor of Robert Blair, author oi The Grave j in his East Lothian parish, and the friend to whom William Collins inscribed his Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands, Home had breathed a romantic atmosphere. Douglas is based on the old ballad, 'Child Maurice' — the Scotch 'Gil Morrice' which found a place in Percy's Reliques. The tone of brooding melancholy and the touches of nature, which differentiate its background from the unreal foreign setting of so many conventional tragedies, impart to Douglas a novel tinge of romanticism. It is not difficult to detect flaws in its dramatic construction. Action sometimes gives way to declamation, and the scene between Lady Randolph and her confidante, Anna, handles exposition in a fashion so artless that Sheridan may have taken a hint from it for Tilburina and her confidante in The Critic. Sheridan, also, may have burlesqued some passages, such as Lady Randolph's utterances and Young Norval's familiar lines.^ But such parody would at least attest the continued stage popularity of Douglas. The frequent suggestion that Garrick rejected the tragedy because * See for specific discussion, the present writer's Major Dramas of Sheridan f Introduction, pp. ciii-cv, and Notes, p. 312. XIV THE GARRICK ERA 243 he feared that his part might be overshadowed is open to question, but it is certain that Mrs. Siddons scored a triumph as Lady Randolph. Amid the tragedies at the beginning of the last half of the eighteenth century, two stand forth distinctly. In The Gamester, Moore continued Lillo's tendency toward prose realistic tragedy. In Douglas, Home struck a note of romantic tragedy which seems pre- monitory of the romantic movement late in the cen- tury. The classical tragedies of William Mason (1724- 1797) belong, in a sense, to literary rather than to dramatic history. Yet their ultimate, though long- delayed, production at Covent Garden entitles them to some consideration here. Mason was one of the Cambridge set of 'polite scholars' among whom was numbered his friend, Thomas Gray. His classical tastes found expression in his dramatic poem Elfrid a, published in 1752. Twenty years later, without the author's consent, George Colman altered it for the stage with sufficient success to justify more than a score of performances. Not content with Colman's version. Mason himself revised the piece for a later production (1779), also at Covent Garden. Qarac- tacus, 'Written on the Model of The Ancient Greek Tragedy,' printed in 1759, was acted, with the author's revisions, in 1776, fourteen times. Mason's classical tragedies are more noteworthy for form than for sub- stance. He built on the Knes of Greek tragedy, with deference to the dramatic unities and to the classical distaste for violent action, and with a fondness for the introduction of Greek choruses which his own 244 ENGLISH DRAMA chap, xiv alterations for the stage recognize as unwise. His verse shows the influence of Milton and Gray, but at best reproduces external form without poetic content. Yet his dramatic shortcomings are those of his age. Not the play, but the player dominated the Garrick era. CHAPTER XV THE LIGHTER DRAMA OF THE GARRICK ERA The general poverty of original English drama ^ during the mid-eighteenth century is apparent in comedy as well as in tragedy. A few regular comedies still show the partial survival of the vis comica of earlier drama. Benjamin Hoadley's comedy, The Sus- picious Husband (1747), whose initial run of a dozen successive nights was but the beginning of Garrick's long-continued success in the part of Ranger, became a stock drama. The Jealous Wife, The Clandestine Marriage, and occasional comedies of less signij&cance are welcome proof that the earHer comic tradition did not wholly disappear under the wave of moralized sentiment. It must also be remembered that the comic spirit found constant expression in the stage revivals of earlier masterpieces. The genius of comedy was not dead in an age that knew David Garrick as Abel Drugger in The Alchemist. Yet, for the most part, laughter felt so constrained in the formal Hmits of five acts that it sought free outlet in the larger Hcense of farce, burlesque, and pantomime. Throughout the Garrick era, regular drama found <, constant rivals for popular favour in pantomime, far- cical entertainment, and spectacle. After the seces- sion of Barry and Mrs. Gibber to Covent Garden, Garrick reopened his theatre, in September, 1750, 245 246 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. with a prologue which pronounced Drury Lane sacred to Shakespeare, but declared his willingness to cater to popular demand if Harlequin was preferred to Ham- let and the stage carpenter to the dramatic poet. In point of fact, he produced that season with con- spicuous success ^a new Entertainment, in Italian Grotesque characters, called Queen Mob,'' with Wood- ward as Harlequin. Once Garrick even overshot the mark in *a new grand Entertainment of Dancing called The Chinese FestivaV (1755), an elaborate spectacle 'with new music, scenes, machines, habits, and other decorations,' and a large company of per- formers. The inclusion of a number of foreign dancers was made the occasion of a series of serious riots, and led to the withdrawal of the piece after its sixth performance. At Covent Garden, through the ups and downs of his long managerial career. Rich relied on pantomime as his surest support. Upon one of his great successes, Orpheus and Eurydice (1740), he spent about two thousand pounds. This piece, which may sufficiently illustrate the general nature of Rich's entertainments, is part opera and part comedy, and includes among the comic characters in the pantomime Harlequin, Pantaloon, Columbine, Squire Gawky and his mother, and Pantaloon's servant. Its most famous spec- tacular device was the mechanical serpent whose busi- ness was to pierce Eurydice's heel. Rich also made capital out of the revival, in 1759, of The Beggar^ s Opera, which, apart from the interruption of the habitual performance of Rowe's * Fifth of November play' Tamerlane, ran for thirty-seven consecutive XV LIGHTER DRAMA OF THE GARRICK ERA 247 nights. Thus, though in a large sense Shakespeare dominated the drama as Garrick did the theatre of the day, their supremacy was resolutely challenged. The conflict between regular drama and its less dignified rivals was not seldom settled by a practical compromise. As Restoration tragedy had frequently its coarsely comic epilogue, eighteenth-century drama was often capped with a comic afterpiece. Panto- mime, burlesque, farce, and operetta proved well adapted for this purpose. Pieces of two or three acts, often so nondescript in character that they are loosely described as ' entertainments,' found ready favour. As this practice of the theatres increased in popularity, even so considerable a play as Sheridan's Critic was produced as an afterpiece. Colley Gibber reluctantly admitted pantomimes 'as crutches to our weakest plays,' and his fellow-manager Booth, with an eye to the box-office, found no harm in an addition to the evening's entertainment which greatly enlarged the audience for regular drama. When the increase of prices on pantomime nights was declared an imposi- tion upon the patrons of regular drama, the Drury Lane management met the objection, as early as 1734, by allowing 'the advanced money to be returned to those who go out before the Overture of the Enter- tainment begins ' — a custom whose long continuance is presumptive proof that no serious financial loss re- sulted.^ The Drury Lane playbill for 28 December, 1 *It may be questioned if there was a demand for the return of £20 in 10 years.' Genest, III, 158. See Genest, III, 441-442, under date of 14 December, 1734, as to the return of advanced money. On that occasion Farquhar's Recruiting Officer was followed by a 'Pantomime called Merlin, or the Devil at Stone-Henge.' 248 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. 1744, reproduced by Genest/ repeats substantially the same announcement, and will serve as sufficient illustration of the connection between formal drama and the afterpiece in actual stage representation. To the drama for the evening, Steele's Conscious Lovers, was added 'a Pantomime Entertainment calFd Harlequin Shipwrecked.^ It does not seem fantastic to detect a reactionary effect of the afterpiece on the drama itself, for The Conscious Lovers is billed 'with Entertainments' which include 'Singing by Mr. Lowe' in the second act, and at the 'End of Act IV. a Grand Dance hy Mr. Muilment, and others.' Examination of many eighteenth-century playbills seems to support the suggestion here ventured that the popular practice of including a pantomime or other afterpiece may have increased the tendency of regu- lar drama to fortify itself with music, dancing, and various other accessories of pantomime and spectacle. That such influences exerted real pressure may be seen in Garrick's retention of operatic features in his pro- duction of The Tempest, and in the addition of more than a score of songs and the employment of some Italian singers in the version of Midsummer Nighfs Dream called The Fairies (1755), usually ascribed to Garrick and certainly produced under his direction. It may further be suggested that the multipUcation of such short dramatic pieces as Fielding's facihtated the practice of including an afterpiece, and that in turn the increased possibiKties of stage production encouraged the writing of short theatrical pieces that would serve for passing amusement. In such aspects, 1 IV, 142. XV LIGHTER DRAMA OF THE GARRICK ERA 249 the custom of the afterpiece concerns more than the theatrical antiquary. It may be said to exercise a real, though not definitely determinable, influence on regular drama. Most conspicuous among writers of minor drama during the Garrick era is S^^j^jlEooie (17 20-1 7 77). Though appearing, in 1744, in the ill-chosen r61e of Othello, Foote soon found his forte in comedy. Like Garrick, he introduced in the part of Bayes mimicry and caricature of his fellow-actors. In April, 1747, evading the Licensing Act by advertising *a Concert of Mustek with which will be given gratis a new Enter- tainment called the Diversions of the Morning,^ ^ Foote estabUshed himself at the Little Theatre in the Hay- market. The vein of mimicry already successfully struck was now developed unsparingly in caricature of the Ungering accents of Garrick's dying speeches, the * squeaking pipe' of Mrs. Woffington, and even the physical defect in Delane's eyesight. During the season Foote varied his announcements by invit- ing his friends 'to come and drink a dish of Chocolate with him' at noon or 'a dish of Tea' at half-past six. For two subsequent seasons the * Auction of Pictures' was his framework for a set of dramatic sketches, out- lined sometimes with general satirical strokes and sometimes with individual touches of caricature. In The Knights (1749), Foote essayed more regular dramatic form, casting his 'comedy' in two acts and, according to the Preface, drawing the ' three principal characters' from life 'in their plain natural habit.' Yet Foote depended largely on his own actor's art 1 Genest, IV, 225. 25© ENGLISH DRAMA chap. and somewhat on the addition of a 'Cat's Opera' burlesquing Italian opera. Foote had found little difficulty in evading the Licensing Act, but he was fortified in 1766, with the patent obtained through the influence of the Duke of York which entitled him to perform during the summer season, from the middle of May to the middle of September. Though this patent was only for a summer theatre and for Foote's lifetime, it was in reaHty a grant for a third Patent Theatre. Pos- sessed of powers of caricature which even Doctor Johnson thought dangerous,^ and backed by royal license, Foote kept Garrick constantly uneasy at his animosity and jealous of his success. His career as playwright curiously coincides within a few months with Garrick's managership at Drury Lane (1747- 1776). As a dramatist, Foote was a direct descendant of Fielding. With him, Fielding's partiality for short theatrical pieces becomes quite consistent practice. Of Foote's printed dramatic works, numbering about a score, none exceeds in length three acts. The personaHties, 'local hits,' and contemporary sat- ire of Fielding were developed to the full by this clever mimic who convulsed those whom he did not hold up to ridicule. With Foote, as with Fielding, much of the zest of personal satire is now lost. Taylor, the quack oculist, the Welshman Ap Rice, the extor- tioner, Mrs. Grieve, the Quaker doctor Fordyce, and so many other passing figures whom Foote delighted to ridicule are now unfamiHar. Even George Faulk- 1 Boswell's Life of Johnson^ Hill edition, 1887, H, 299. XV LIGHTER DRAMA OF THE GARRICK ERA 2^1 ner, remembered perhaps as Swift's Dublin publisher, is too shadowy to give distinctness to the mockery of him as Peter Paragraph in The Orators (1762). Doctor Johnson told Boswell ^ that the fear of broken bones restrained Foote from caricaturing him, but for the most part Foote was no respecter of persons. When A^Trip to Calais was so plainly directed at the Duchess of Kingston in the character of Lady Kitty Crocodile that she interfered to secure the suppression of the piece, Foote altered his sketch into The Capuchin (1776), and vented his satire upon her chaplam Jackson in the abusive portrait of Doctor Viper. Sometimes, as in the two farces. The Englishman in Paris (1753) and The Englishman Returned from Paris (1756), where racial peculiarities are touched, Foote essayed the broader strokes of general satire, but such efforts seem less successful than those that are whetted with the zest of personal caricature. The modern reader will perhaps more readily appreciate Footers methods of dramatic satire in The Minor (1760) and The Madd^^oJ^JS^ (1771)- The Minor, though not free from grossness, is in Footers best vein of ready wit, lively characterization, and tell- ing satire. From Little Transfer, the broker, Sheri- dan doubtless took the hint for 'Uttle Premium' in The School for Scandal, while Charles Surface is some- what reminiscent of the improvident young Wealthy, whose father, in the disguise of a German baron, tests his son's character in a fashion that bears some resemblance to Sir Oliver's methods with his nephews. If Sheridan took freely such suggestions, he had the 252 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. dramatic genius which Foote lacked of welding inci- dents firmly into his plot and giving action to charac- ter. The Minor has more dramatic substance than is usual with Foote, yet its chief point is satire of Whitehead and his Methodist followers. White- head himself, caricatured as Doctor Squintum, does not actually appear among the dramatis personcBy but his precepts are given mock author- ity in the mouth of Mrs. Cole, whose shameless profession is no obstacle to her conversion to the cult of Whitehead's Tabernacle. In the Intro- duction, Foote in person explains to Smart and Canker that * ridicule is the only antidote against this pernicious poison' which he finds in Whitehead, but his resort to the ^ comic muse' was in the interest of theatrical success and not of rehgious reform. In Shift, Tate Wilkinson, the actor who had once dared to mimic Foote on his own stage, was ruthlessly cari- catured. With Foote the whirHgig of time was sure to bring in his revenges. The Maid oj^ Bath (1771) is based on episodes in the C earHeFHf e of EHzabeth Linley, the bewitching favour- ite of the concert stage whose pubHc career ended with her romantic marriage to Richard Brinsley Sheri- dan. 'The lively Uttle Linnet' is Miss Linley, 'that old fusty, shabby, shuffling, money-loving, water- drinking, mirth-marring, amorous old hunks, master Solomon Flint' caricatures Miss Linley 's elderly admirer Long, and Major Rackett is the notorious married rake. Major Mathews, who later slandered Sheridan and met him in duel. The upshot of Foote's play is that Miss Linnet, setting aside the worldly XV LIGHTER DRAMA OF THE GARRICK ERA 253 advice of her mother and the propositions of her various suitors, commends herself to the patrons who have welcomed her 'Httle talents.' Amid the per- sonalities of the piece Foote inserted a puff direct for himself. When Lady Catherine fails to secure from Flint ' a pecuniary acknowledgement for the damage ' done to Miss Linnet by his attentions, she says: * Gad's wuU, it sha' cum to the proof : You mun ken, gued folk, at Edinbrugh, laist winter, I got acquainted with Maister Foote, the play-actor: I wuU get him to bring the filthy loon on the stage' (HI, i) . Foote, indeed, was his own prompter in bringing on the stage the local gossip and town tattle of the hour. Foote's other dramatic pieces follow the general lines already suggested. His satire hit readily at <^ whatever subject was ready to hand — at the credu- lity of collectors of antiques and of pictures in Taste, at the pretences of authors and their patrons in The ^uthor and The Patron, at the unmartial spirit of the militia in The Mayor of Garratt, at the quackery of doctors in The Devil upon Two Sticks, and at knavery in The Cozeners. Yet such themes served mainly as general framework for living pictures of Taylor, the 'Itinerant Oculist,' of Ap Rice, of Thomas Sheri- dan, and of other definite personalities of the day. Without the conscious zeal of the reformer or the sympathy that deeply interprets character. Footed., turned his satire chiefly to the oddities and eccentrici- ties of society. For the most part, his characters have animation and theatrical effectiveness, but they are exposed rather than developed in action. Action, indeed, with Foote is more apt to be the bustle of 254 ENGLISH DRAMA CHAP, | the stage than the coherent development of dra- matic plot. Again and again, dialogue is allowed to wander from the forward path into the meanders of personal gossip, somewhat in the fashion of Air- castle in The Cozeners , a deHghtful ^humour' char- acter who keeps up a running but aimless fire of speech. Though Eoote's pieces are usually printed as ^come- .^dies,^ they belong mainly to the realm of farce. Like his own actor's art, they are fond of substituting mim- icry for original interpretation of character. There are occasional flashes of comic genius, but more frequently an artificial cleverness. Among the dram- atists of his day Foote holds a distinct, if not imique, position, but it is as a cartoonist rather than as a dramatic artist. £ The zest of Footers farces, without their personal sting, is seen in various contemporary afterpieces. Garrick's practical knowledge of the stage helped him to produce successfully a number of lively farces, such as The Lying Valet (1741), Miss in her Teens (1747), The Irish Widow (1772), and Bon Ton (1775). Per- haps better than any of these is High J^ife,. Below Stairs (1759), frequently ascribed to Garrick, but" really the work of his friend. Rev. James Townley (17 14-17 78). A long career as schoolmaster led finally to Townley's appointment as head-master at the Merchant Taylors' School, where he enlivened the curriculum with some dramatics. His later farces. False Concord (1764) and The Tutor (1765), were less successful. Though High Life Below Stairs is perhaps not so wholly novel in theme as is sometimes asserted, it proved a welcome variety to those who, like George XV LIGHTER DRAMA OF THE GARRICK ERA 255 Selwyn, were tired of ^low life above stairs.' For the most part, servants had been relegated to the back- ground, but Townley opened the door of servants' < hall, as Thackeray did in the Diary of C. Jeames de la Pluche. The brisk farce has considerable action, and leads to a good dramatic situation where the returned master, Lovel, is about to shoot through the door at the supposed cat which has been declared responsible for the noise made by the refugees now in hiding. Faithful Tom, the honest servant, is vindicated in rather conventional fashion, but the spirit and fim of the piece gave it long vitaUty on the English stage, led to its translation into French and German, and secure for it even to-day occasional hearing. Among playwrights of the period a place must be accorded to the prolific Arthur Murphy (1727- 1805). The diversity apparent in his various pursuits as bank clerk, periodical writer, barrister, actor, and playwright, is characteristic also of his wide range of dramatic effort. The Spouter, or The Triple Revenge^ pubhshed in 1756, attributed to Murphy, follows the vein of Fielding's and Foote's personal satires. Hill, Theophilus Gibber, and Foote are the objects of the triple revenge, while Garrick and Rich come in for some satirical strokes. The^ Upholsterer (1757), a farce that seems indebted to Fielding's Coffee-House Politician, is a general satire of political quidnuncs. From personal and farcical satire Murphy rose to comedy in The Way to Keep Him (1760), expanded theT'oUowing year from three to five acts, and All in the Wrppg (1761), drawn from Moliere, plays ^which held a place on the stage until well into the next 256 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. century. Less successful were his three adaptations from Voltaire previously discussed. The School for Guardians, compounded largely from Molieire7Tr an- other instance of Murphy's indebtedness to French drama. Of his tragedies, Zenohia (1768) and Th^Gre- cian Daughter (iff 2) sufficiently illustrate his adherence to the remote unrealities of classical drama. The initial success of The Grecian Daughter was largely due to the Barrys, but its theatrical fame rests more securely upon the tradition of Mrs. Siddons in the role of Euphrasia. In many ways, Arthur Murphy may be taken as a fair representative of the ordinary drama of his period. He was content to cast his plays in the conventional ' mould, and to draw his materials from sources as ob- vious, and yet as varied, as Fielding's farces, Moliere's comedies, and Voltaire's tragedies. In comedy he sounded the familiar didactic note, schooling wives in ' the way to keep ' their husbands, and husbands in the lesson that constancy should not be shamefaced. In tragedy he struck the conventional chords. Yet, with sufficient theatrical sense to follow industriously the fashions which he had not the originality to lead, he won a considerable measure of popular favour. His dramas lack distinction and individuality, but are not without ingenuity in adaptation of materials to his purposes. His dramatic aim may have been higher than that of Fielding or Foote, but none of his comedies leaves so distinct an impression as Town- ley's less pretentious farce, and none of his tragedies seems so memorable as Fielding's burlesque tragedy, Tom Thumb. XV LIGHTER DRAMA OF THE GARRICK ERA 257 Another popular Irish playwright of the Garrick period was Isaac Bickerstaff ^ (1735 circ.-i8i2?). He had a facile hand for opera hbretti, giving to Thomas and Sally (1760) the typical eighteenth-cen- tury plot of a villainous squire foiled by the hero in his attempt to seduce the innocent maiden, and taking hints from an earlier opera and from Wycherley's Ge?zfemiWi-J3awawg-ilf (Zj/er for his Love in a Village (1762). The Maid of the Mill (1765), drawn largely from Pamela, and Lionel .and Clarissa (1768) were conspicuous operatic successes for which Bickerstaff supplied the words. In 1768, he produced at Drury Lane, in successive months, two very popular pieces — Tke^JPadlockj a musical entertainment which had more than fifty performances, and The_ Hypocrite, an excellent revision of Gibber's Non-Juror, with the addition of the effective stage character, Maw-worm. With little creative dramatic power, Bickerstaff had considerable facility in adaptation and practical knowledge of theatrical effects. The mediocrity of playwrights like Murphy and Bick- erstaff enhances by contrast the far more noteworthy comic achievement of George Colman, the Elder (173 2-1 794). In his best work are traces of the^.^ earlier and more genuine comic spirit which had been largely lost as drama had become sentimentalized. His father, envoy at the court of Tuscany, died the year after his son's birth at Florence. Educated by ^The name is frequently spelled ' Bickerstaff e.' His plays were habitually published anonymously, but The Romp (1786), gives his name as 'Bickerstaff,' and this is the spelling in the Garrick Corre- spondence, s 258 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. his iincle who urged him, after his course at Oxford, to follow the law, and prodded by his aunt toward the ministry, his own taste turned toward Hterature. By 1760 he had won reputation as a man of literary taste and discernment, and had made friends with Garrick. Conscious of his uncle's dislike for his dra- matic tendencies, Colman produced his first dramatic venture, Polly Honey combe (1760), anonymously. Slight as rrtKis popular afterpiece, it merits unusual attention as a reaction against the sentimental school and as a forerunner of Sheridan's Rivals. The satire difected in the Prologue against the sentimental novel foreshadows the opening scene where Polly bids her Nurse * call at the Circulating Library ' for the novels of the day — ^a scene which inevitably recalls Lydia Languish's introductory conversation with Lucy about the novels of the circulating Hbrary. The exclamation of Polly's father, 'A man might as well turn his daughter loose in Covent-Garden, as trust the cultivation of her mind to a circulating library,' suggests Sir Anthony Absolute's more finished dictum, ^A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge.' Like Lydia Languish, Polly thinks of ' ladders of ropes ' and other accessories of sentimental elopements. In Polly Honeycombed Colman anticipates the laugh which Sheridan was to turn against sentimentality. The Jealous Wife (1761), deservedly the most popu- lar comedy of its day, is essentially a dramatization of Tom Jones. Tom Jones becomes Charles Oakly; Sophia, Harriot; Lady Bellaston, Lady Freelove; Lord Fellmar, Lord Trinket ; Squire Western, Russet ; XV LIGHTER DPAMA OF THE GARRICK ERA 259 Blifil, Beagle, with an effective transfer to him of Squire Western's sporting instincts. Mr. and Mrs. Oakly are not in Tom Jones. Numerous situations in the novel and the play are identical, and from the novel are taken the use of the press-gang, the chal- lenge for the duel, and Charles's intoxication. Fur- ther questions as to the sources of the play are com- fortably settled by Colman's statement in the 'Ad- vertisement' that he took 'some hints' from the Spectator, a suggestion from the Adelphi of Terence, and advice from Garrick. Colman, however, deserves, full credit for his skill in welding his materials into effective drama. The Jeajpus Wife is strongly reminiscent of Restora- tion comedy, without the unhealthiness of its moral atmosphere. Lord Trinket's French phrases have the familiar GalHc affectation, and Lady Freelove suits her action to her name in the fashion of the Restora- tion. She exhibits the habitual contempt for the country and the preference for good manners over good morals. Sir Harry Beagle's rough love-making to Harriot (IV, 2) recalls sailor Ben's love-making in Congreve's Love for Love (IH, 3), with the substitu- tion of the lingo of the stable for that of the sea.^ The plot is dramatically effective, the situations ingenious. The scene where Mrs. Oakly overhears her husband and Harriot, and then, with Russet's vigorous aid, accuses the innocent Oakly (end of Act III) is an excel- 1 Though the spirit is closer than the phraseology, Sir Harry's *Look'ye, Miss, I am a Man of few Words' is comparable with Ben's *How say you, mistress? The short of the thing is, that if you like me, and I like you, we may chance to swing in a hammock together.* 26o ENGLISH DRAMA • chap. lent illustration of stage effectiveness. The action does not flag, and its two plots are skilfully united by Harriot's flight to Oakly's house which arouses the suspicions of the jealous wife. The final solution re- mains in doubt for a time, as it seems uncertain whether Oakly will assert himself enough to dominate his wife. Eventually, however, with somewhat of Petruchio's manner, he tames his wife's spirit. Charles Oakly is the hero, the familiar type of easy morals and successes in love. Tom Jones is his con- fessed original, and Charles Surface his best known descendant. Harriot is Fielding's Sophia, with some- what of Richardson's Pamela. Lord Trinket slightly recalls Richardson's Lovelace. Captain O'Cutter, an ancestor of Sir Lucius O'Trigger, is distinct, but his dialect is a doubtful experiment. Without the strength of character drawing of Wycherley or Vanbrugh, and without Congreve's finish and epigrammatic wit. The Jealous Wife is a distinct comedy success. During the next two years, Colman produced two successful afterpieces. The Musical Lady^ and The JOeucejs in Him, and an alteration of Philaster (1763) in which Powell, the tragedian, made no less than sixteen appearances during the season. Such theatri- cal successes, it must be remembered, do not neces- sarily imply much dramatic power, for in the season of 1 762-1 763 Garrick's most frequent appearances in tragedy were as Don Alonzo, in Mallet's Elvira, and in comedy as Sir Anthony Branville in Mrs. Sheridan's Discovery, a play whose chief significance to the modern reader is probably that it was written by the mother of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Viflth the^col- 5cv LIGHTER DRAMA OF THE GARRICK ERA 261 laboration of Garrick, however, Colman, rose again to genuine comedy in The Clandestine Marriage (1766). The germ of The Clandestine Marriage was one of Hogarth's plates in his Marriage-d-la-Mode., The characters of Lord Ogleby, Sterling, and Brush, to- gether with a considerable amount of dialogue, are said to have been taken from Townley's farce, False Concord, but in any event their success came only with transfer into a vital drama. Lord Ogleby, at least, becomes a notable stage character, a survivor of the famous Restoration family which included Sir Fopling Flutter, Sir Novelty Fashion, Sir Courtly Nice, and Lord Foppington. In the ' character part ' of Mrs. Heidelberg some have been insistent in dis- covering the original of Mrs. Malaprop, but there is a decided difference between her mispronunciation and Mrs. Malaprop's 'select words so ingeniously mis- applied, without being mispronounced.^ The very palpable hits in the dialogue at the artificiality of eighteenth-century landscape gardening ^ suggest that the play itself breaks over the dull formalities of the mechanical comedy of the period. At times the poverty of comic spirit before Goldsmith and Sheridan has been exaggerated into too positive insistence upon 1 Sterling declares (II, i) : 'You must see my water by daylight, and my walks, and my slopes, and my clumps, and my bridge, and my flow'ring trees, and my bed of Dutch tulips.' Lord Ogleby (II, 2) finds that in Sterling's garden 'the four seasons in lead, the flying Mercury, and the basin with Neptune in the middle, are all in the very extreme of fine taste. ... A most excellent serpentine. . . forms a perfect maze, and winds like a true lover's knot . . . One can hardly see an inch beyond one's nose any where in these walks.' 262 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. its extinction. With The Jealous Wife and The Clan- destine Marriage, it is unnecessary to invoke the aid of farces like Foote's, to prove that the comic spirit was not dead. Without beUtthng the importance of Goldsmith's service to English comedy, it is idle to maintain that he was the first to turn comedy back from tears to laughter. The Clandestine Marriage led to a quarrel between its authors over Garrick's refusal of the role of Lord Ogleby. The breach was widened when Colman, with Powell, Harris, and Rutherford, purchased the Covent Garden Theatre. Managerial disputes between Col- man and Powell on the one hand, and Harris and Rutherford on the other, led to Colman's retirement in 1774. During the seven years of his management at Covent Garden had been produced Goldsmith's Good Natur^d Man, and She Stoops to Conquer,^ a revival of Cymbeline, sl version of King Lear, with Colman's alterations, and some minor work of his own. After his retirement and reconcihation with Garrick, the latter produced for him a two-act comedy and a version of Ben Jonson's Silent Woman. After the transfer by Foote to Colman of the Haymarket Theatre, Colman produced some of his own minor pieces. A member of the Literary Club, a successful dramatist and manager, a translator of the comedies of Terence, an editor of the dramatic works of Beau- mont and Fletcher, a writer of prologues and epilogues, among them the Epilogue to The School for Scandal, George Colman the elder was a notable figure in the 1 The obstacles put by him in Goldsmith's path entitle Colman to little credit for the production of these plays. XV LIGHTER DRAMA OF THE GARRICK ERA 263 theatrical and literary world of the last half of the eighteenth century. The latter part of his career exceeds the limits of the Garrick era, but The Jealous u Wife and The Clandestine Marriage preserve the comic spirit until the advent of Goldsmith and Sheridan. CHAPTER XVI THE RISE AND HEIGHT OF SENTIMENTAL DRAMA ^' Sentimental drama, foreshadowed in the pathetic appeal of Otway and Southerne in tragedy, and carried into comedy by Gibber and Steele, rose to its height in the Garrick era. The vein of sentiment exploited by Steele had run thin with his successors, passing at length into the crude ore of sentimentaKty. On the Continent, comedy, which had admitted a serious undertone in Destouches and a pathetic strain in Marivaux, saw sentiment turn into tears in Nivelle de la Ghaussee. The drame serieux, or comedie bour- geoise and the comedie mixte led to the comedie lar- 1 moyante. The birth of the sentimental novel fostered ji the tendency of comedy to substitute tears for laughter. ' Richardson directly inspired La Ghaussee's Pamela (1743) and even Voltaire's Nanine (1749).^ To these more serious tendencies of French drama the plays of Diderot, strongly influenced by Lillo's bourgeois tragedy, contributed during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. The very term drame suggests the obhteration of the rigid line between comedy and tragedy. In England, the kinship between sentimen- tal comedy and tragedy is discernible even as early ^ Voltaire's Preface, however, declares that, though 'melting pity' is admissible, comedy without the comic element 'would be a very faulty and very disagreeable species.* 264 CHAP. XVI THE RISE OF SENTIMENTAL DRAMA 265 as Steele in the pathetic note which links his senti- mental comedies backwards to the tragedies of Otway and Southerne. Both in France and in England, Thalia was not ashamed to hide her head on the shoulder of Melpomene. Sentimental drama did not develop without some protest. Gay/ Fielding, and Carey burlesqued on the stage some of its artificialities. Even after he had abandoned drama for the novel, Fielding struck a passing blow at sentimental comedy in his descrip- tion in Tom Jones'^ of the puppet-show of The Provoked Husband as a ' very grave and solemn entertainment, without any low wit, or humour, or jests,' in which there was not 'anything which could provoke a laugh.' The word 'low' became the usual brand with which advocates of the sentimental drama stigmatized comedies that stooped to conquer with so mean a weapon as the laugh of ridicule. 'By the power of one single monosyllable,' wrote Goldsmith^ with al- most a presentiment of the criticism which within a decade was to demand the excision of the bailiffs' scene from his own comedy, 'our critics have almost got the victory over humour amongst us. Does the poet paint the absurdities of the vulgar; then he is low; does he exaggerate the features of folly, to render it more thoroughly ridiculous, he is then very low. In short, they have proscribed the comic or satyrical muse from every walk but high life, which, though 1 Book XII, Chapter V. 2 The Present State of Polite Learning, 1759 edition, p. 154, quoted by Austin Dobson, Belles-Lettres edition of Goldsmith's plays, In- troduction, pp. xiii-xiv. 266 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. abounding in fools as well as the humblest station, is by no means so fruitful in absurdity.' Sentimental comedy was dignified by its admirers with the aristo- cratic term 'genteel.' Against its tyranny of tears murmurings were distinctly audible, but it main- tained its dominance until it had to yield to the comedy of Goldsmith and Sheridan. What was sentimental comedy in the Garrick era ? This question may perhaps best be answered by de- fining its general character and by examining some of its most conspicuous products. It would be difficult to find a clearer exposition of its general character thkn that put forth by Goldsmith in his noteworthy Essay on the Theatre; or, A Comparison between Laugh- ing and Sentimental Comedy (1772).^ After enforcing Aristotle's definition of comedy as 'a picture of the frailties of the lower part of mankind, to distinguish it from tragedy, which is an exhibition of the mis- fortunes of the great,' Goldsmith proceeds: 'Yet notwithstanding this weight of authority, and the universal practice of former ages, a new species of dramatic composition has been introduced, imder the name of sentimental comedy, in which the virtues of private life~are exhibited, rather than the vices ex- posed; and the distresses rather than the faults of mankind make our interest in the piece. These com- edies have had of late great success, perhaps from their novelty, and also from their flattering every man in his favourite foible. In these plays almost all the char;^ ^Tnhlished in the Westminster Magazine, December, 1772. A con- venient reprint may be found in Austin Dobson's edition of The Good Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer in the Belles-Lettres Series. XVI THE RISE OF SENTIMENTAL DRAMA 267 acters are good, and exceedingly generous ; they are lav- ish enough of their tin money on the stage ; and though they want humour, have abundance of sentiment and feeling. If they happen to have faults or foibles, the spectator is taught, not only to pardon, but to ap- plaud them, in consideration of the goodness of their hearts; so that folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended, and the comedy aims at touching our passions without the power of being truly pathetic. In this manner we are Hkely to lose one great source of entertainment on the stage; for while the comic poet is invading the province of the tragic muse, he leaves her lovely sister quite neglected. Of this, how- ever, he is no way solicitous, as he measures his fame by his profits.' Towards the end of this short essay Goldsmith turns from direct argument to satire: *But there is one argument in favour of sentimental comedy, which will keep it on the stage, in spite of all that can be said against it. It is, of all others, the most easily written. Those abilities that can hammer out a novel are fully sufficient for the production of a sentimental comedy. It is only sufficient to raise the characters a little ; to deck out the hero with a riband, or give the heroine a title; then to put an insipid dialogue, without character or humour, into their mouths, give them mighty good hearts, very fine clothes, furnish a new set of scenes, make a pathetic scene or two, with a sprinkling of tender melancholy conversation through the whole, and there is no doubt but all the ladies will cry, and all the gentlemen ap- plaud.' The testimony of Goldsmith cannot be dis- missed simply as that of a hostile partisan, for exami- 268 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. nation of the sentimental comedy which he attacked will support the essential sanity of his verdict, p Sentimental comedy rose to its height in the work of Hugh Kelly and Richard Cumberland. *-' Hugh ^LLY (1739-17 7 7), /son of a tavern-keeper in Dublin, turned from early apprenticeship as a staymaker to the life of a literary hack in London. Essays, a suc- cessful novel, theatrical criticisms, and a work in the popular style of Churchill's Rosciad paved the way to dramatic efforts^ False Delica^^ was pro- duced at Drury Lane six days before Goldsmith's Good Natur^d Man finally achieved its belated pro- duction at Co vent Garden. It was the clash of senti- mental comedy with an upstart rival, and for the moment victory rested with the established favourite. Garrick, who had not forgotten Goldsmith's out- spoken strictures in The Present State of Polite Learn- ing on the managerial policy of the theatre, lent his influence to Kelly, fortifying his piece with prologue and epilogue, possibly touching some parts of the play with his practised hand, and forestalling Goldsmith by securing for Kelly the advantage of first hearing. In contrast with the moderate favour accorded at the out- set to Goldsmith's piece, Kelly's ^genteel' comedy won a theatrical triumph. On the morning after the ap- pearance of the first edition, appropriately dedicated to Garrick, the publisher announced that three thou- sand copies had been sold before two o'clock. By the end of the season the sales reached ten thousand copies. The play was translated into German, French, and Portuguese, and acted at Lisbon and Paris to crowded houses. Kelly had struck the XVI THE RISE OF SENTIMENTAL DRAMA 269 popular chords of sentiment and the response was im- mediate. False Delicacy is a comedy of cross-purposes. Three < sets of mismated lovers are entangled in a web of misunderstanding so transparent that it would break at a ruder touch than that of a sentimentalist. False delicacy forbids the various lovers to speak the truth, and the course of sentimental love never would run smooth without the intervention of the bluff Cecil and the practical matchmaker Mrs. Harley. Upon the artificial framework of a plot whose improbabilities would suggest farce if they were not treated seriously is imposed the didactic morahzing dear to sentimental comedy. A few speeches, taken almost at random from different characters and in different situations, will show the prevalent tone. Says Lady Betty (II, 2)^ : *The woman that wants candour where she is ad- dress'd by a man of merit, wants a very essential virtue ; and she who can delight in the anxiety of a worthy mind, is little to be pitied when she feels the sharpest stings of anxiety in her own.' Says Miss Rivers (IV, 2) : ^ An elopement even from a tyrannical father, has something in it which must shock a deli- cate mind. — But when a woman flies from the protec- tion of a parent, who merits the utmost return of her affection, she must be insensible indeed, if she does not feel the sincerest regret.' Says Sidney (V, i) : ^ There is something shocking in a union with a woman whose affections we know to be ahenated; and 'tis difl&cult to say which is most entitled to contempt, ^Scene-divisions are not always clearly indicated either in the 1768 octavo of Fcilse Delicacy or in the 1778 edition of Kelly's Works. 270 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. he that stoops to accept of a pre-engaged mind, or he that puts up with a prostituted person.' Says Win worth (V, 2) : * He is the best manager of a for- tune who is most attentive to the wants of the de- serving.' The last speech of Rivers may be taken as the golden text of the play: 'But the principal moral to be drawn from the transactions of to-day is, that those who generously labour for the happiness of others, will, sooner or later, arrive at happiness them- selves.' In one of Win worth's speeches (V, 2) may be found the expression of Kelly's own attitude to the stage : 'The stage shou'd be a school of morality ; and the noblest of all lessons is the forgiveness of injuries.' *The stage should be a school of morality' — that, indeed, was the creed of sentimental drama. It was the very phrase that Sheridan, in The Critic^ turned ironically against sentimental drama when he made Sneer exclaim : ' The theatre, in proper hands, might certainly be made the school of morality ; but now, I am sorry to say it, people seem to go there principally for their entertainment ! ' - 1. Although False Delicacy is essentially a sentimental comedy, justice must recognize Kelly's partial allevia- tion of the distresses of sentimentality. Mrs. Harley and Cecil give comic relief to the dead level of sen- timent which forms the usual staple of dialogue. 'Thank heav'n,' cries Mrs. Harley, 'my sentiments are not sufficiently refin'd to make me unhappy' (II, i) . If she had a chance to secure an eligible successor to her two previous husbands, she 'would make sure work of it at once, and leave it to your elevated minds to deal in delicate absurdities ' (IV, i). When Miss XVI THE RISE OF SENTIMENTAL DRAMA 27 1 Marchmont declares she is willing at last to accept Lord Winworth, wrongly thinking that this will please Lady Betty, her protectress, Mrs. Harley ejaculates : 'Now will I be hang'd if she does not undo every thing by a fresh stroke of deHcacy,' and again, 'O the devil take this elevation of sentiment! ' and still again, 'Did ever two fools plague one another so heartily with their delicacy and sentiment ? ' Cecil, Hke Mrs. Harley, is frankly contemptuous of delicacy and senti- ment. 'What a ridiculous bustle is there here,' he breaks out in the last act, ' about delicacy and stuff — your people of refin'd sentiments are the most trouble- some creatures in the world to deal with, and their friends must even commit a violence upon their nicety before they can condescend to study their own happiness.' The very title of Kelly's comedy is, in fact, evidence that sentimental delicacy may be car- ried to false extremes. Yet with every allowance of non-sentimental elements in Kelly's work, it remains indisputable that the primary appeal of the dramatist is to sentimental emotion. The chief personages voice their sentiments and emit their moral platitudes in sober earnest and with a reformer's zeal. Their speeches are without the irony with which Sheridan turned sentimental rant to hypocritical cant in the mouth of Joseph Surface. Kelly cared more to point a moral than to adorn his drama. Even false deli- cacy does not prevent the blessings of comedy from descending at last upon its sentimental children and dismissing them with a dower of didactic aphorisms. With False Delicacy the stage has become a school of morality. 272 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Kelly's next comedy, A Word to the Wi^^^ (1770), was crushed by the hostile attacks of his political foes, and his tragedy, Clementina (i 771), by its own weight. Mindful of his enemies, Kelly produced, un- der the friendly name of Adding ton, A School for Wives (1773), a comedy whose continued success soon defied opposition. The utter failure of Th^ Man of Reason (1776) caused him to give up play- wntmg. The leadership of sentimental drama may be said to have been shared between Hugh Kelly and^SiR Rjc?^aJRB.CJapj;iy^ (1732-1811). Yet to-day Cumberland Uves less as a dramatist than as the Sir Fretful Plagiary of Sheridan's Critic. Cumberland's own Memoirs and letters unconsciously prove that Sheridan portrayed to the life the dramatist whom Garrick called a 'man without a skin.'^ It is not surprising that his tender sensibilities found con- genial employment in the writing of sentimental drama. Mathematical honours won at Cambridge and various posts held under Lord HaKfax seemed to promise a successful poUtical career. But when Lord HaHfax became Secretary of State, Cumberland's hopes of an under-secretaryship were not realized. Earlier in Hfe he had written, besides a play upon Caractacus, The Banishment of Cicero, which, though declined by Garrick, was pubKshed in 1761. A musi- cal comedy. The Summer^ s Tale (i 765) , acted with some success, encouraged Cumberland to essay comedy. The^rothers (1769) had more than a score of perform- ances that season and paved the way for the con- ^ Memoirs of Richard Cumberland. Written by himself ^ I, 347. XVI THE RISE OF SENTIMENTAL DRAMA 273 spicuous success of The West Indian (17 71). The sentimental hero, young Belcour, is pictured as 'a heart beaming with benevolence, an animated na- ture, fallible indeed, but not incorrigible.'^' About him clings a sort of romantic glamour. He returns to London from the West Indies the inheritor of a vast estate from his grandfather, who believed him to be a foundling left at his daughter's house in Jamaica. In reality Belcour was her son, and Stockwell, the merchant to whom the young heir betakes himself in London, is his father. The hero's fallibility ap- pears in his base design upon Louisa Dudley, daughter of a retired captain. Her brother Charles has been rejected by Lady Rusport on the score of poverty. Lady Rusport's estate, however, belongs rightly to Charles Dudley, and she bribes her lawyer to destroy the will which discloses the truth. From such melo- dramatic premises it is easy to derive the conclusion. The scheming landlady who is responsible for Bel- cour's attempts upon Louisa is foiled and the benev- olent heart of the hero is rewarded with Louisa's hand. Major O'Flaherty, an Irish officer, who may have given Sheridan some hints for Sir Lucius O'Trigger,^ discloses the secret of the will, and Charles Dudley and Miss Rusport come into their own. With the departure of the baffled Lady Rusport and Stock- iStockwell's final speech (V, 8), 1771 edition, p. 102. 2 O'Flaherty's objection to an explanation of the quarrel to the in- tending duellists (V, i), 'Out upon it, what need is there for so much talking about the matter; can't you settle your differences first, and dispute about 'em afterwards?' at least suggests O'Trigger's ' The quarrel is a very pretty quarrel as it stands — we should only spoil it, by trying to explain it.' X 274 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. welFs disclosure that he is Belcour's father, the cur- tain falls with the double sentiment of united love and reunited family affection. If Belcour reminds one somewhat of Tom Jones, Cumberland uses him to point the lesson that sentiment has more than its own reward. ^The Fashionable Lover (1772), a sentimental comedy to which its author showed strong partiaHty, repro- duces many of the characters and situations of The West Indian — virtuous beauty under the treacherous care of a designing woman, the baffled intriguer ulti- mately reformed, property misappropriated, treachery unmasked, and sentimental love comfortably ce- mented by the restoration of fortune. Comedies such as these represent Cumberland at the height of his dramatic success before the storm had broken in full force upon sentimental drama. Throughout the century and through the first decade of the nine- teenth century, Cumberland remained a prolific play- wright. Among some fifty dramatic pieces are come- dies like X^e Jew (1794) and The Wheel of Fortune (1795), which continue to rescue distressed virtue from moral or pecuniary vicissitudes, heavy tragedies like The Battle of Hastings (1778), various adapta- tions, and numerous pieces which happily escaped print. Like Kelly, Cumberland consciously sought to make \ the stage a school of morality. Even after Sheridan had attacked 'the sentimental Muse,' there were not wanting critics to whom the cause of Cumberland was identified with the cause of morahty. A com- xnimication to The Gentleman's Magazine^ February, XVI THE RISE OF SENTIMENTAL DRAMA 275 1778, entitled 'Animadversions on the Moral Tend- ency of The School for Scandal,' defends Cumberland in significant fashion : ' It has been said that this is a second attempt to destroy the taste for sentimental comedy revived by Mr. Cumberland. It will be readily acknowledged, that the plays of that gentle- man may tend to produce an affectation of sentiment ; but it is better to affect sentiment than vice : and Mr. Cumberland has judiciously executed the whole duty of an author, which is, not only to paint nature, but to paint such parts of it, as every good man would wish to see imitated.' It is not difficult to see wherein lay Cumberland's strength when sentimental comedy was at its height, since not even The School for Scandal could laugh out of countenance the ultra-moraHsts. Yet, in reaUty, Cumberland's own Belcour is reclaimed from quite as flagrant youthful errors as those of Charles Surface, and his heart beams with no greater benevolence than that of Sheridan's 'fallible, but not incorrigible' hero. Cumberland has the sentimental dramatist's lack of differentiation of character. He invests the good with a moral halo, and stamps the bad with the mark of Cain. For power of character he substitutes strength of sentiment, and for truth to nature an artificial manipulation of circumstance. The 'happy endings' of Cumberland's sentimental plays are not the logical outcome of natural comedy but are achieved by a tour de force of moralized melo- drama. Dramatic probability, as well as mirth, is sacrificed on the altar of sentiment. Sentimental drama, which was ready to borrow from tragedy its pathetic appeal, did not hesitate to capture destiny < 276 ENGLISH DRAMA chap, xvi with the enchanted bridle of sentiment. It was mas- ter of its own fate, for it not merely caused the sun to shine on the good and the rain to fall on the unjust, but it made temporal prosperity the handmaiden to morality. CHAPTER XVII GOLDSMITH AND THE REACTION IN COMEDY While sentimental comedy was attaining its bad eminence in the plays of Kelly and Cumberland, the < forces of reaction found a powerful leader in Qliver Goldsmith (i 728-1 774). In The Present State of Polite Learning (1759), Goldsmith had indignantly resented the dominance of 'genteel comedy.' In The , Good Natur'd Man (1768), he put into actual practice his theory as to the proper function of genuine comedy. Doubtless his hostihty toward sentimental comedy was intensified by the vexatious delays which thwarted his attempts to have Garrick produce his piece, and finally by Garrick's evident determination to have Hugh Kelly's False Delicacy overshadow The Good Natur'd Man. Goldsmith's belated comedy was eventually produced by Colman at Covent Garden Theatre, 29 January, 1768. Its moderate success proved that neither the gloomy forebodings <^ of the manager and actors nor the high hopes of the author were fully justified.^ In the hands of Shuter and Woodward, Croaker and Lofty were successful parts. Yet Powell failed to animate the r61e of hero, and the false delicacy of a sentimental audience could not brook the descent of comedy to a scene so 'low' as that of the baiHffs. The discussion which had been ^ The tenth performance was on 21 March. Genest, V, 204. 277 278 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. waged before the production of the piece as to the inclusion of the baihffs' scene ended, after the actual test, in its being 'retrenched.' ^ The Preface to the printed edition of The Good Natur^d Man is not too brief to indicate Goldsmith's attitude toward sentimental drama and his own in- tention in comedy. 'When I undertook to write a comedy,' he begins, 'I confess I was strongly pre- possessed in favour of the poets of the last age, and ^^strove to imitate them. The term, genteel comedy, was then unknown amongst us, and little more was desired by an audience than nature and humour in whatever walks of Hfe they were most conspicuous. The author of the following scenes never imagined that more would be expected of him, and therefore to delineate character has been his principal aim.' In discussing his restoration, in the printed text, of the bailiffs' scene which had been 'retrenched' in the representation 'in deference to the public taste, grown of late, perhaps, too dehcate,' he expresses the hope 'that too much refinement will not banish hu- mour and character from our's, as it has already done from the French theatre. Indeed the French comedy is now become so very elevated and sentimental that it has not only banished humour and Moliere from the stage, but it has banished all spectators too.' Despite protestation that 'upon the whole, the author returns his thanks to the pubhc for the favourable reception ' of his play. Goldsmith fails to disguise his disappoint- ment at the imperfect success of his comedy and his * This scene was, however, included in the printed edition, and was restored *by particular desire,' 3 May, 1773. Genest, V, 372. xvn GOLDSMITH AND REACTION IN COMEDY 279 impatience with the continued popularity of senti- mental drama. Yet the temporary victory of Hugh Kelly was but natural. While he sailed triumphantly with the favouring tide of sentiment, Goldsmith en- countered adverse currents. K contemporary criticism of The Good Natur^d Man was unduly severe, recent criticism has sometimes erred on the side of leniency. Judged by the test of modern stage revival,^ Goldsmith's earlier comedy sustains no such comparison with She Stoops to Conquer as may be made between The Rivals and The School for Scandal. Croaker and Lofty remain L excellent character parts, and the dialogue, though often laboured, is touched with Irish humour, but perhaps only the bailiffs' scene, Lofty's entrance, and Croaker's reading of the letter seem genuinely effective. Neither in dramatic construction nor in character- ization has Goldsmith fully developed his latent dramatic strength. Too much of the mechanism of C plot is left crudely exposed to view. Especially clumsy is the scene in which Leontine and Olivia recount the events that have led to their flight from France and have involved them in an artificial maze of circumstance. Their dialogue is so obviously achieved for the benefit of the audience that it recalls Bangle's innocent query, in Sheridan's Critic, as to the opening dialogue in Puff's tragedy: ^Mr. Puff, as he knows all this, why does Sir Walter go on telling him?' and Puff's rejoinder: 'But the audience are not supposed to know any thing of the matter, are * It was revived by the Yale University Dramatic Association in 1903. 28o ENGLISH DRAMA chap. they?' Goldsmith's very lines betray an uneasy consciousness of some of the improbabilities upon which the situation is made to rest. Leontine has been 'sent to France to bring home a sister/ but has substituted his sweetheart, OUvia. With an evident sense of obHgation to account for the complete success of this deception, he remarks: 'My sister, you know, has been with her aunt at Lyons, since she was a child.' A single letter from France would obviously disclose all. Accordingly, Leontine is forced to explain that 'her aunt scarce ever writes, and all my sister's letters are directed to me.' But there are other improbabihties besides those in exposition of plot. The butler who is 'drunk and sober ten times a day' seems hardly in place even in the easy-going household of Young Honey- wood, and his drunken eccentricities of speech and conduct suggest farcical exaggeration. The most effective characters, Lofty and Croaker, are essentially 'humour' characters, and Croaker's apprehensiveness of trouble seems rather overdone. The weakness of the amiable hero does not fully excuse his colourless portrayal. Young Honeywood has neither the vivac- ity nor the individuality of Charles Surface. Nor is such criticism too severe, since Goldsmith pro- fessed that his 'principal aim' was 'to delineate character.' In contrast with the sentimentalities of contemporary comedy, The Good Natur^d Man un- deniably merits generous recognition. Yet, judged by (joldsmith's own standard of later achievement, it is a tentative dramatic experiment. If the touch of a master is at times discernible, there yet remain many marks of an apprentice hand. xvn GOLDSMITH AND REACTION IN COMEDY 281 The real difference between The Good Natur^d Man and the sentimental comedies of the period lies perhaps rather in general atmosphere than in the handHng of plot and character. The mawkish excesses of sentimentality give way to healthier sentiment and heartier comic energy. There are flashes of Goldsmith's Irish humour as when, to Leon tine's remonstrance, ^An only son, sir, might expect more indulgence,' Croaker rejoins, 'An only father, sir, might expect more obedience ' (I, i) . In the excellent scene where Honeywood tries to pass off as officers the bailiffs who have just arrested him, he parries Miss Richland's embarrassing thrust, *The gentlemen are in the marine service, I presume, sir?' with unusual dexterity: 'Why, madam, they do — occasionally serve in the Fleet, madam ! ' Yet, despite the usual buoyancy and hearty spirit of the play, it is not difficult to find evidence of the uncon- scious influence of conventional drama upon even such a reactionary against sentimentality as Gold- smith. Young Honeywood, the 'good-natur'd, foolish, open-hearted ' hero, whose faults — at least to faith- ful Jarvis — 'are such that one loves him still the better for them,' has traits of Tom Jones which have been seen in Kelly's sentimental hero and some phrases of sentimental diction. Under the doleful contagion of Croaker, he lapses in the opening scene into gloomy aphorisms, terminating a soliloquy on his hapless fate with a sigh, and at the final curtain he draws a moral from the error of his ways. Sir William Honeywood, the benevolent uncle — an earlier Sir 282 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. Oliver Teazle who remains ^ for some time a concealed spectator ' of his nephew's follies and dissipation — cannot resist the temptation that besets superior virtue to moralize on human frailties, and bestows his final benediction with this warning : ' Henceforth, nephew, learn to respect yourself. He who seeks only for applause from without, has all his happiness in another's keeping.' There is no need to lay undue stress on phrases that hastily precede the final cur- tain, yet both the moralized ending of The Good Natur^d Man and the surcharged sentiment of the concluding lines of both The Rivals and The School for Scandal show that not^even Goldsmith and Sheridan wholly shook off the yoke of sentimental drama against which they were essentially in revolt. Only in She Stoops to Conquer does the genuine comic spirit maintain its triumph over sentimental drama to the very end. Notwithstanding its significance to the modern observer of dramatic tendencies. The Good Natur'd Man failed, for the moment, to endanger seriously the popularity of sentimental drama. The success of Hugh Kelly's False Delicacy was reenforced by that of Richard Cumberland's West Indian. The battle, however, was not to be decided by the outcome of a preliminary skirmish. The enemy's advantage in numbers and position may have postponed the crucial attack, but did not finally deter opposition. Gpldsmith bided his time. In 177 1 he was busy with the composition of a new comedy, but not until many months after its completion did he secure the pro- duction, on 15 March, 1773, of She Stoops to Conquer ^ xvn GOLDSMITH AND REACTION IN COMEDY 283 Of The Mistakes of a Night. Despite the friendly offices of Doctor Johnson, Goldsmith's path had been beset with obstacles. Small credit attaches to Colman's ultimate production of a comedy whose advent he had hindered by procrastination and in- difference, and whose chances of success he had en- dangered by predictions of failure. In the admirable dedication of the printed edition of the play to Doc- tor Johnson, Goldsmith inserted a palpable hit at the faint-heartedness and apathy of his manager : 'The undertaking a comedy, not merely sentimental, was very dangerous; and Mr. Colman, who saw this piece in its various stages, always thought it so. However, I ventured to trust it to the public' This trust was not misplaced. She Stoops to Conquer C^ proved so popular that Foote acted it during the sum- mer season at the Haymarket, and Colman con- tinued it next season at Coven t Garden. To-day it remains as one of the few plays since Shakespeare that hold the stage after the test of more than a century. The delays that attended its initial production were, doubtless, not so unfortunate as they were vexatious. Meantime, in December, 1772, Gold smith had con- tributed to the Westminster Magazine his notable Essay on the Theatre; or, A Comparison between Laughing and Sentimental Comedy. In it argument and satire combine to press the question ' whether (^ the true comedy would not amuse us more' than *this species of bastard tragedy' called sentimental comedy. In February, 1773, the powerful weapon of burlesque was directed against sentimental comedy 284 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. by the practised hand of Samuel Foote. The Hand- some Housemaid, or Piety in Pattens, professed to show- how a humble heroine, ' by the mere effects of morality and virtue, raised herself to riches and honours.'^ In the spirit of Goldsmith's raillery at mankind's Melight in weeping at comedy/ Foote now declared that ^his brother writers had all agreed that it was highly improper, and beneath the dignity of a mixed assembly, to show any signs of joyful satisfaction ; and that creating a laugh was forcing the higher order of an audience to a vulgar and mean use of their muscles/ In his exordium to the audience, he promised that *not a single expression shall escape from our mouths that can wound the nicest ear, or produce a blush on the most transparent skin, not even a double entendre from an Irish Widow.'* ^ In thus burlesquing the false delicacies of morahzed sentimental drama, Foote helped to prepare the way for the hearty laughter of Goldsmith's comedy. 1^- The main title of She Stoops to Conquer is an adapta- tion of a Hne from Dryden, and the subtitle. The Mistakes of a Night, was one of various early sug- gestions for naming the play. A few weeks before its production, Doctor Johnson wrote to Boswell, 24 February, 1773, 'The chief diversion arises from a stratagem by which a lover is made to mistake his future father-in-law's house for an inn. This, you see, bo£degjipon farce. '^ Farcical elements, indeed, are frequent in She Stoops to Conquer. Goldsmith 1 Genest, V, 374-377- 2 W. C. Oulton, The History of the Theatres of London, 1796, I, 21. ' Boswell's Life of Johnson, Hill edition, 1887, II, 205-206, XVII GOLDSMITH AND REACTION IN COMEDY 285 has sometimes been defended from the imputation of farce on the ground that he himself actually ex- perienced the mistake to which Johnson referred, butj^o^^ the improbability in plot lies not in the initial error J) ^ of confusing a private house with an inn, but in '^'^'^ the prolongation of the mistake. Mrs. Hardcastle's excessive timidity, likewise, 'borders upon farce' when she fails to recognize that ' Crackskull Common ' is, in reality, her own garden, and that the supposed highwayman is her husband. The story that Sheri- dan played on Madame de Genlis a trick like Tony's deception of Mrs. Hardcastle may be offset by the more famihar story that Goldsmith, upon his belated arrival at the theatre on the opening night of She Stoops to Conquer, heard *a solitary hiss at the improbability of Mrs. Hardcastle J in her own garden, supposing her- self forty miles off on CrackscuU common.' ^ Young Marlow's extreme bashfulness hardly accounts for his failure to recognize the mistress in the maid. Nor are Goldsmith's demands upon the credulity of the audience confined to postulates of the plot. The conception of Young Marlow as a lion among maids and a sheep among ladies is pushed beyond natural bounds. There is inconsistency, as Austin Dobson has well pointed out,^ in the fact that 'Tony ^i_ Lumpkin, who in Act IV is so ilhterate as not to be able to read more than his own name in script, is clever enough, in Act I, to have composed the excel- lent song of The Three Pigeons ' — one stanza of which is reminiscent of Latin grammar and classical * Forster, Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith^ 1848, p. 631. * Belles-Lettres edition of Goldsmith's plays, Introduction, p. xxviii. 286 ENGLISH DRAMA chap. mythology. Such improbabilities in plot and charac- ter are more apparent to the reader than to the audience in the theatre, yet, while it would be folly to forget the theatrical effectiveness of exaggeration, it is easy to justify Doctor Johnson's dictum that the play 'borders upon farce.' \i«liArW^ Despite the presence of farcical elements, however, jj^^J[^5/fe Stoops to Conquer is, in a larger sense, natural - !lf^ comedy. Here is neither the artificial constraint of the conventional comedy of manners, nor the self- conscious diction of sentimental comedy. The at- mosphere is like that of The Vicar of Wakefield. The buoyant spirit already heralded in Farquhar's Beauxl Stratagem'^ finds in Goldsmith free utterance. The fresh air of out-of-doors sweeps through the windows of the old Hardcastle mansion. Mr. Hard- castle himself has the native simplicity and courtesy of a gentleman of the old school. With him sentiment resumes sincerity: 'I love every thing that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine; and, I believe, Dorothy, you'll own I have been pretty fond of an old wife.' The stage direction that bids him take his wife's hand is almost an im- pertinence. His very failings seem the natural out- growth of his simpHcity. One turns gratefully from his wife's impatience with his 'old stories of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough' to the un- wavering loyalty of 'honest' Diggory who has laughed these twenty years at his master's 'story of Ould 1 Goldsmith, it may be noted, makes Miss Hardcastle remark : 'Don't you think I look something like Cherry in the Beaux' Strata- gem?'(UIyi). xvn GOLDSMITH AND REACTION IN COMEDY 287 Grouse in the gun-room/ Nowhere, indeed, can Goldsmith's natural humour be more readily observed 3i-2,5'2. Behn, Mrs. Aphra, dramatic work, 114-115; her Em- peror of the Moon, 1 84 ; Continental influences on, 46, 109 ; Southerne's plays founded on her novels, 118; BIBL., 327. Bellamira (Thomas Killigrew), 108. Bellamira, or The Mistress (Sedley), III. Bellamy, George Anne, actress, 234. Belphegor (Wilson), 39. Betterton, Thomas, as actor, 36, 173, 233 ; as manager, 125,169; collects Shakespeare ma- terial, 177. Betty, William Henry West, the 'Young Roscius,' 240. BickerstaflF, Isaac, dramatic work, 257 ; spelling of his name, 257 n. ; indebtedness of his Hypocrite to Gibber's Non-Juror, 152. Biographia Dramatica, cited, 39, 186; BIBL., 316-317. Biter, The (Rowe), 176. Blackmore, Sir Richard, protests against the excesses of Restoration drama, 120, 142; praises Congreve's Mourning Bride, 120 n. Black Prince, The (Orrery), 59. Bold Stroke for a Wife, A (Mrs. Cent- livre), 154, 195. Bon Ton (Garrick), 254. Boswell, James, his Life of Johnson cited, 127 n., 151, 151 n., 241 n., 250 n., 251 n., 28411. Bottom the Weaver, a 'droll' founded on A Midsummer Night's Dream, 16. Bouncing Knight, The, a 'droll' concerning FalstafiF, 18. Boursault, E., Vanbrugh's debt to, 133. Boyle, Roger (Earl of Orrery), dramatic work, 54-55, 55 n. ; his Guzman, 45, 45 n.; his Black Prince, 59; his debt to French romances, 109; BIBL., 323. Bracegirdle, Anne, actress, 173. Britannia and Batavia (Lillo), 208. Brome, Richard, as a forerunner of Restoration comedy, 72 ; Mrs. Behn's debt to, 114. Brothers, The (Cumberland), 272. Brothers, The (Young), 195-196. Brown, John, his Barbarossa, 239-240. Brutus, Buncombe's adaptation of Vol- taire's tragedy, 200. Buckingham, Duke of (George Villiers), The Rehearsal, 64-66, 55, 55 n., 86, 89, 213, 214, 229, 229 n. ; its in- fluence on Sheridan, 292, 308, 311 ; BIBL., 324. Bury Fair (Shad well), 84, 86. Busie-Body, The (Mrs. Centlivre), 154. Busiris (Young), 195 ; burlesqued by Fielding, 196, 216. Butler, Samuel, his possible share in The Rehearsal^ 64. Caelia (Charles Johnson), 209-210. CcBsar Borgia (Lee), 98. Caius Marius, The History and Fall of (Otway), 100, 233. Calderon, his influence on Restoration dram< atists, 45, 79, 109. Caligula (Crowne), 112, 167. Calisto (Crowne), 107, 108. Calypso and Telemachus (Hughes), 196. 344 INDEX Cambert, Robert, French opera of, 44. Cambridge History of English Litera- ture, The, BIBL., 315, 317, 319, 323, 326, 327, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335, 336, 338. Cambyses (Settle), 113. Capuchin, The (Foote), 251. Caractacus (Mason), 243. Careless Husband, The (Gibber), 150- 152, 161; Garrick acts in, 229. Carey, Henry, dramatic work, 216-217, 194, 265 ; BIBL., 333. Cato (Addison), 17^-182, 183 ; Fielding's reference to, 163 ; Vol- taire's opinion of , 182, 198; Gibber's comment on, 189 ; satirized in Tom Thumb, 216; BIBL., 330. Cavalier spirit, its expression in printed interreg- num plays, 19-20 ; in early printed Restoration plays, 37 ; in early acted Restoration plays, 36-37; in Etherege's Comical Revenge, 74. Gelesia, Dorothea (Madame), her Almida, adapted from Vol- taire's Tancride, 236. Censorship, dramatic. Sir Henry Herbert's position on, 31 ; increased strictness of, 147 ; Gay's Polly and other plays pro- hibited, 193, 222, 222 n.; the Licensing Act of 1737, 221-222, 2-24 ; Thomson's Edward and Elea- nor a rejected by censor, 197 ; BIBL., 334 (under The Licensing Act). Centlivre, Mrs., dramatic work, 153-154; Spanish influence on, 46; BIBL., 329-330. Chamberlayne, William, his play {Love's Victory) published during interregnum, 19. Chapman, George, Tate's adaptation of, 115. Charles II, Patent Theatres established under, 1-2, 30-31 ; his regard for Thomas KilUgrew, 34; his relation to French drama, 47, 59, 59 n. ; his preference for comedy, 72, 72 n. Cheats, The (Wilson), 38. Cheats of Scapin, The (Otway), 100. Chinese Festival, The, produced by Garrick, 246. Christian Hero, The (Lillo), 207- 208. Chrononhotonthologos (Carey), 216- 217, 194; BIBL., 333. Gibber, Colley, dramatic work, 149-153, 147, 154, 204; other references to his Love's Last Shift, 133-134; to his Careless Husband, 161 ; to his Non-Juror, 257 ; to his Provoked Husband, 133, 195, 303; his Heroic Daughter, 183; his altera- tion of King John in Papal Tyranny, 231-232, 231 n. ; his Prologue to Hill's Zara quoted, 200; Spanish influence on his plays, 46 ; Garrick acts in his plays, 229 ; his influence on Steele's plays, 161, 162, 163. — As historian of drama in his Apology; comments on Lee's Rival Queens, 96-97; on 'dramatic operas,' 117, 170; on opening of Haymarket Theatre, 132; on Vanbrugh's style, 136; on spectacular stage diversions, 168, 169-170; on Italian opera, 171, 172; on pantomimes, 184-186, 247 ; on Gay's Beggar's Opera, 189; on Fielding's political satires, 221-222 ; BIBL., 329. Gibber, Mrs., actress, 234, 245. Gibber, Theophilus, his Lives of the Poets cited, 206 n. ; attacks Garrick' s Shakespearean versions, 234, 234 n. Cinna's Conspiracy (often, doubt- fully, ascribed to Colley Gibber), 183. Circe (Dr. Charles D'Avenant), 117, 170. City Heiress, The (Mrs, Behn), 114. City Politiques (Growne), 112. Clandestine Marriage, The (Colman and Garrick), 361-263, 245. INDEX 345 ClaracUla (Thomas Killigrew), revival of, 34. Clayton, William, composer of music to Arsinoe, 171 ; to Addison's opera, 172. Clementina (Kelly), 272. Cleomenes (Dry den), 93, 94. CUfford, Martin, assists in The Rehearsal, 64. Clinch, Lawrence, his success as Sir Lucius O'Trigger, 294, 299. Cockpit Theatre, in Drury Lane, early performances at, 30-31. Coello, Antonio, Spanish dramatist, 45. Cofee-House Politician, The (alterna- tive title ioxRape upon Rape, Field- ing), 214 n., 255. Cokayne, Sir Aston, plays of, published during inter- regnum, 19. Collier, Jeremy, his Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage, 121, 142-144, 148; his De- fence of the Short View, 123, 123 n., 145; pamphlet controversy pro- voked by, 144-145, 147 ; attitude of Dryden towards, 95, 95 n., 145- 146; of Congreve, 123, 129, 144- 14s ; of Vanbrugh, 144-145 ; of Steele, 158; other references to, 153, 166, 196, 301; BIBL., 329. Collier, John Payne, his History of English Dramatic Poetry cited, 18 n. Collier controversy, the, over the immorality of the stage, 121, 141-148, 95, 123, 129, 153, 158, 166, 196; BIBL., 329. Collins, William, his connection with John Home, 242. Colman, George, the elder, dramatic work, 257-263 ; his Eng- lish Merchant, 237 ; his alteration of Mason's Elfrida, 243 ; his general theatrical and literary career, 262- 263 ; his productions of Goldsmith's plays, 262, 277, 283 ; BIBL., 336. Comedy of manners, Restoration, contrasted with Spanish comedy, 46-47; with Elizabethan, 72-73 ; Etherege as founder of 'society comedy,' 73, 76-77; Congreve as follower of, 76, 87, 132; Shadwell in relation to, 84 ; Sheridan in relation to, 87, 306, 313. Comic Dramatists of the Restoration, Macaulay's essay on, 8-10 ; BIBL., 320. Comical Gallant, The, or The Amours of Sir John Falstafe (Dennis), 230, 230 n. Comical Revenge, The (Etherege), 73- 74, 55, HI. Committee, The (Sir Robert Howard), III, III n. Confederacy, The (Vanbrugh), 135, 132, 133. Congreve, William, dramatic work, 122-132; gen- eral references to, 37, 47, 53, 71, 106, 13s, 136, 141, 148, 166; as a follower of 'society comedy,' 76, 87; his Millamant compared with Dryden's Melantha, 67 ; with Gibber's Lady Betty Modish, 150; his Belinda with Gibber's Lady Grave- Airs, 150; his tribute to Wycherley's Plain Dealer, 82-83 ; his Mourning Bride praised by Blackmore, 120 n.; his part in the Collier controversy, 144-146; as theatrical manager, 172 ; Queen Anne performances of his plays, 173; Garrick's per- formances of, 229; his influence on Fielding, 213, 224; on Colman, 259, 259 n. ; on Sheridan, 291, 306 ; BIBL., 327-329- Conquest of Granada by the Span- iards, The (main title, Almanzor and Almahide, Dryden), 62-63, 60; its Epilogue, 63-64; Almanzor burlesqued in The Rehearsal, 64-65. Conscious Lovers, The (Steele), 163— 164, 19s, 210, 248. Constant Couple, The (Farquhar), 137; its Prologue dted, 168. 346 INDEX Constant Nymph, The (Anon.), io8. Constantine the Great (Lee), 98. Cooke, William, his comments on Gay's Beggar's Opera, 191, 193 n. Coriolanus, Tate's adaptation of, 115; James Thomson's version of, 197; Den- nis's version of, 230, 230 n. Comeille, Pierre, influence of his dramas and dra- matic theories on Restoration drama, 49-50, 35, 47, 57, no; his part in PsychS, 44 ; Dryden's refer- ence to ' Corneille's rhyme,' 63, 84 ; Steele's borrowing from, 161 ; Queen Anne adaptations of, 183; general influence of, 198; satirized by Fielding, 216; later adaptations of, 23s, 239; BIBL., 331, 335. Comeille, Thomas, his influence on Dryden's Evening's Love, 56-57 ; English versions of his plays, 235, 239; BIBL., 331, 335. Costvune, D'Avenant's early attempts at his- torical accuracy in, 28-29 J increas- ing attention to, 40-42; expen- sive 'habits' in operas, 117, 170; in pantomimes, 187. Cotton, Charles, minor Restoration dramatist, no. Country Girl, The (Garrick), 80, 300. Country House, The (Vanbrugh), 133. Country Wife, The (Wycherley), 79- 80, 77, 81; Macaulay on its immorality, 8-9; an alleged source of Sheridan's Duenna, 300 ; compared with The School for Scandal, 306. Country Wit, The (Crowne), 112. Covent Garden Theatre, Marforio produced at, 220; Gar- rick's connection with, 228; John Rich's Shakespearean revivals at, 231 ; rivalry with Drury Lane, 234 ; revival of Murphy's Orphan of China at, 237 ; Douglas at, 240, 240 n. ; Mason's plays produced at, 243 ; secession of actors to, 245 ; Colman as manager of, 262 ; Gold- smith's plays produced at, 262, 268, 277, 283 ; Sheridan's plays produced at, 293, 299. Covent-Garden Tragedy, The (Field- ing), 216. Cowley, Abraham, dramatic work, 37; BIBL., 322. Cox, Robert, actor and author of 'drolls,' 16, 18; his pastoral, 107. Cozeners, The (Foote), 253, 254. Cradock, Joseph, his Zobeide adapted from Voltaire's Les Scythes, 236. Craftie Cromwell (pr. 1648, Anon.), 19-20. Crisp, Samuel (often, erroneously, 'Henry'), his Virginia, 239, 240. Critic, The (Sheridan), 308-312, 313; in connection with The Rehearsal, 66; with Tom Thumb, 216; its debt to Fielding's farces, 219, 219 n. ; its parody of Douglas, 242, 242 n. ; its hit at Kelly's senti- mental drama, 270; its portrayal of Cumberland as Sir Fretful Plagiary, 272; its relation to Sheridan and Halhed's Jupiter, 292 ; its personal hit, 302 ; BIBL., 339-340. Cromwell, Oliver, acting 'in Oliver's time,' 15; in- terregnum plays attacking him, 19-20; Sir Henry Herbert's men- tion of, 31 ; early Restoration plays attacking him, 36-37; allu- sions to, by Etherege, 74. Cromwell's Conspiracy (pr. 1660), 37. Cross, W. L., cited as authority, 220 n. Crowne, John, dramatic work, 1 12-113; Con- tinental influences on, 46, 46 n., 109, no; royal command to write comedy, 72 n.; his use of blank verse and rhyme, 105, 167 ; his masque Calisto, 107, 108; his Sir Courtly Nice as a typical fop, 150 ; BIBL., 327. Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, The (D'Avenant), 27-28. INDEX 347 Cumberland, Sir Richard, dramatic work, 272-276, 156, 268, 277, 282 ; as Sheridan's Sir Fretful Plagiary, 310; BIBL., 337. Cutter of Coleman-Street (Cowley), 37- Cymbeline, Colman's revival of, 262. Cyrus (Hoole), 237. Cyrus the Great (Banks), 118. Dance, James, his dramatization of Pamela, 229. Dancer, John, his translation of Tasso's Aminta, 107-108, 108 n. ; of French drama, no. Dancourt, Vanbrugh's debts to, 133, 135. D'Avenant, Dr. Charles, his Circe (1677), 117, 170. D'Avenant, Sir William, dramatic work, 20-33, 41. 43-44» 48, 55, 105 ; his alteration of Macbeth, 5-6, 41 ; of The Tempest (with Dryden), 5, 56, 56 n. ; his plays published during in- terregnum, 19; attacked in The Rehearsal, 64, 64 n. ; as laureate, 86 ; Cibber's accoxmt of his intro- duction of dramatic operas, 117; BIBL., 321-322. Davies, Thomas, his Life ofGarrick cited, 187, 187 n., 188-189, 212 n., 228 n. ; his Dramatic Miscellanies cited, 233, 233 n. ; BIBL., 334. Debauchees, The (Fielding), 218. Deborah (Fielding), 218. Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy, A, by Dryden, 60, 93, 93 n. Dennis, John, his tragedies, 167; Congreve's letter to, 129, 129 n. ; in Collier controversy, 144-145 ; praises Congreve, 148; attacks Steele's Conscious Lovers, 163 ; his essay on operas, 171. Destouches, a forenmner of sentimental drama, 264. Destruction of Jerusalem, The (Crowne), 112. Deuce is in Him, The (Colman), 260. Devil upon Two Sticks, The (Foote), 253. Dictionary of National Biography, BIBL., 318. Diderot, Denis, Lillo's influence on, 207, 207 n., 264, Dido and Aeneas, Purcell's opera, 44. Digby, George (Earl of Bristol), his adaptations of Calderon, 45, 109. Discovery, The (Mrs. Sheridan), 260, 292. Disirest Mother, The (PhiUps), 179, 183, 235, 239; satirized by Fielding, 216. Diversions of the Morning, The, Foote's entertainment, 249. Dobson, Austin, his Fielding cited, 223 n. ; BIBL., 333; his edition of Goldsmith's plays cited, 265 n., 266 n., 285, 285 n.; BIBL., 337- Dr. Faustus (Marlowe), comic scenes in, compared with Otway's, 102. Dodsley, Robert, his collection of old plays, 238. Don Carlos (Otway), 99-100, 103. Don Quixote in England (Fielding), 218. Doran, John, his Annals of the English Stage cited, 195 n.; BIBL., 318. Dorset Gardens Theatre, its opening, 117; its elaborate spectacles, 168. Double-Dealer, The (Congreve), 123- 125. Douglas (Home), 240-243 ; parodied in Sheridan's Critic, 309, 309 n. ; BIBL., 335-336. Downes, John, his Roscius Anglicanus cited, 5-6, 6 n., 35-36, 35 n., 38, 39, 41, 41 n., 45, 45 n., 169, 169 n. ; BIBL., 319 ; Knight's reprint of, cited, in.; BIBL., 319- 348 INDEX Dragon of WanUey, The (Carey), 217. Drama, {see especially Elizabethan drama, French drama, Restoration drama, etc.) ' modern English drama,' definition of, suggested, i, 2; im- portance of, 12-13; formal open- ing of, 30-31. Draper, Matthew, his Spendthrift, 210. 'Drolls,' during dramatic interregnum, 16- 19, 43; BIBL., 321. Drummer, The (Addison), 180. Drury Lane Theatre, earlier known as The Theatre Royal, 31, 35 ; Vanbrugh's Re- lapse produced at, 134; CoUey Cibber as manager of, 149 ; Chris- topher Rich as manager of, 169- 170, 172; annual performance of Rowe's Tamerlane at, 173 ; pantomimes at, 184-186, 188; Lillo's George Barnwell at, 207 ; Fielding's plays at, 213, 218; secession of actors from, 219; bur- lesque of a production at, 220; failure of Fielding's Eurydice at, 221; Garrick's Lethe at, 228; actors' dissensions at, 228; Gar- rick and Lacy as managers of, 229 ; stock plays at, 230 ; Shakespearean productions at, 231 n., 232-234; revivals of Merope at, 237 ; Garrick at, 246; refunding of 'advanced money' at, 247, 247 n. ; Garrick's term as manager of, 250; Kelly's False Delicacy produced at, 268; Sheridan as manager of, 301, 312; Sheridan's plays produced at, 301- 302, 308. Dryden, John, dramatic work and critical theories, 53-68, 88-95 ; his alteration (with D'Avenant) of The Tempest, S, 32; his collaboration with Sir Robert Howard, no ; as critic, 3, 4, 35, SO, 51-52 ; his attitude toward Shakespeare, 5, 5 n., 35, 177; on the origin of 'heroic plays,' 23-24; his dramas as stock plays, 35, 173 ; Spanish influence on, 45, 109; his tribute to Wycherley's Plain Dealer, 82 ; his satire of Shad well, 84, 86; his attitude toward Jonson and Corneille, 84; as laureate, 86; his controversy with Howard, 105, in; his references to Dorset Gardens spectacles, 117, 117 n., 168, 169; to South- erne, n8, 118 n.; his praises of Congreve, 122, 130; his attitude in Collier controversy, 121, 145- 146, 145 n., 146 n. ; his definition of opera, 171; other references to Dryden, 43, 71, 73 n., 77, 85, 86, 104, 113, 115, 148, 166, 170, 173, 179, 182, 216; BIBL., 323-324. Duenna, The (Sheridan), 299-301, 194- Duke of Guise, The (Dryden and Lee), 93. Duke of Lerma, The (main title. The Great Favourite, Sir Robert Howard), in; its Preface cited, 60. Duncombe, WiUiam, adapts Voltaire's Brutus, 200; his verses on Hughes's Siege of Damascus, 196-197. D'Urfey, Thomas, Restoration dramatist, 116. Dutch Lover, The (Mrs. Behn), 109. Earl of Essex, The (Jones), 239-240. Edgar (Rymer), 89, 89 n. Edward and Eleonora (Thomson), 197. Elfrid (Hill), 200 n. Elfrida (Mason), 243. Elizabethan drama, its height and decline, 1-2; its methods of stage presentation, 3; its general contrasts with Restoration drama, 3-12; its in- fluence on 'drolls,' 18-19; D'Avenant as follower of, 20-21, 29, 32-33; T. Killigrew as fol- lower of, 33 ; its anticipation of 'heroic drama,' 22-23; its vital connection with Restoration drama, 35, 43, 48; Restoration INDEX 349 Elizabethan drama — Cont. revivals of, 35-36, 48; Spanish influence on, 45; use of rhymed couplet in, 54; Dryden's attitude toward, 63-64, 68, 95 ; connection of its comedy with Restoration comedy, 72, 83-84, 86; Rymer's attacks on, 88-90; influence of, after All for Love, 95; on Otway, loi, 102 ; Queen Anne perform- ances of, 172-173, 183; its do- mestic tragedies in relation to Lillo, 202; Dodsley's Old Plays published, 238. Elmerick (Lillo), 208. Elvira (George Digby, Earl of Bris- tol), 45- Elvira (Mallet), 260. Emperor of the Moon (Mrs. Behn), 114, 184. Empress of Morocco, The (Settle), 113, 113 n. English Merchant, The (Colman), 237. Englishman in Paris, The (Foote), 251. Englishman Returned from Paris, The (Foote), 251. Epilogues, Restoration tragedies capped with coarse, 42, 166; Young's coarse, 196. Epsom Wells (Shadwell), 84-85. Essay of Dramatic Poesy, An, by Dry- den, 60, 60 n., 63 n. Essay on Comedy, An, by George Meredith, cited, 131 n. ; BIBL., 328. Essay on the Theatre, An, Goldsmith's views on sentimental comedy in, 266-267, 283 ; Dob- son's reprint of, 266 n. ; BIBL., 337- Etherege, Sir George, dramatic work, 73-77; his early use of rhyme, 55, 71, iii; his 'seven years' silence,' 78, 78 n. ; Wycherley's possible debt to, 78; his fop, Sir Fopling Flutter, 112, 134, 150; other references to his comedies, 46, 86, 104, 105, 123, 132, 13s; BIBL., 324. Euripides, Dennis's borrowing from, 167. Eurydice (Fielding), 221, Eurydice Hissed (Fielding), 221, 223. Evelyn, John, his Diary cited, iii n., 141. Evening's Love, An (Dryden), 56-57, 45- Fair Penitent, The (Rowe), 173-176; Garrick as Lothario in, 2 29 ; BIBL., 330. Fall of Phaeton, The, burlesqued by Fielding, 220. False Concord (Townley), 254; as a source of The Clandestine Mar- riage, 261. False Delicacy (Kelly), 268-271, 277, 282, 310. False Friend, The (Vanbrugh), 133. Fanshawe, Sir Richard, his translations of Spanish drama, 46 ; his work parodied in The Re- hearsal, 65. Farquhar, George, dramatic work, 136-140, 122, 141, 173, 209, 247 n.; his attitude toward Collier, 148; Garrick acts in his Recruiting Officer, 228, 229; compared with Goldsmith, 286, 286 n. ; BIBL., 328-329. Fashionable Lover, The (Cumberland), 274. Fatal Curiosity (Lillo), 208; Fielding's Prologue to, 217 ; Field- ing's productions of, 220; BIBL., 332-333- Fatal Discovery, The (Home), 240. Fatal Discovery, The, or Love in Ruins (Anon.), 166. Fatal Extravagance, The (Hill), 200 n. Fatal Marriage, The (Southeme), 118, 174. Fatal Vision, The (Hill), 200 n. Fate of Capua, The (Southeme), 118. Fathers, The, or The Good-Natured Man (Fielding), 223. Fenton, Elijah, his Mariamne, 216. Fenton, Lavinia, as Polly Peachum, 190. 350 INDEX Field, Nathaniel, his Fatal Dowry (with Massinger), 174, 175- Fielding, Henry, dramatic work, 213—224; other references to his Tom Thumb, 194, 196, 197, 256; his Squire Western and Steele, 162; his own reference to Cato and The Conscious Lovers, 163; Gay as a forerunner of, 192, 194; his appre- ciation of Lillo, 203, 206 ; an Epi- logue by, 210; his relation to the Licensing Act, 221-222; turns from drama to novel, 225-226; satirizes Gibber's Shakespearean alterations, 231-232; his relation to dramatic afterpieces, 248; Foote as a follower of, 250; Murphy's debt to his farces, 255, 256; Colman's dramatization of Tom Jones, 258-260; his hits at sentimental drama, 265; Sheridan's Critic indebted to, 311; BIBL., 333. Filmer, Edward, in Collier controversy, 144. First Days Entertainment at Rutland- House (D'Avenant), 22. Fitzpatrick, Richard, his Prologue to Sheridan's Critic, 308, 308 n. Flecknoe, Richard, his Lovers Dominion, 107; his Short Discourse of the English Stage, 40; BIBL., 322. Fletcher, John, (see also Beaumont and Fletcher) D'Avenant's adaptation of The Two Noble Kinsmen, 32; his pos- sible influence on T. Killigrew, 33; Lamb's reference to, 37; his debt to Cervantes, 45 ; Dryden's references to, 60, 93; Rymer's attack on, 89; his Bonduca, 93; his relation to Crowne's Married Beau, 112; Tate's adaptation of, 115; Vanbrugh's adaptation of, 133; Farquhar's debt to, 137; Collier's tolerance towards, 142; Gibber's debt to, 150; revival of his Humorous Lieutenant, 183; BIBL., 323 (under J. W. Tupper). Florizel and Perdita (Garrick), 233. Foote, Samuel, dramatic work, 249-254 ; as a fol- lower of Fielding, 224; attacks Voltaire, 236, 236 n. ; satirized in The S pouter, 255 ; transfers Hay- market Theatre, 262; presents She Stoops to Conquer, 283 ; his burlesque of sentimental drama, 283-284; Sheridan's debt to, in The Critic, $11; BIBL., 336. Footman, The, an anonymous opera, 217 n. Forc'd Marriage, The (Mrs. Behn), 114. Forster, John, his Life of Goldsmith cited, 285 n. ; BIBL., 338. Foundling, The (Moore), 210. French drama, general influence of, on Restora- tion drama, 47-51; on 'heroic drama,' 57-59 ; on minor Restora- tion drama, no; on Queen Anne drama, 179, 183-184; on subse- quent eighteenth-century drama, 235-237. French heroic romances, influence of, on English 'heroic drama,' 57-58, 62, 109. Friendship in Fashion (Otway), 100. Funeral, The (Steele), 156-158, 151; its Prologue cited, 168-169. Gamester, The (Moore), 210-212, 239, 243- Gamesters, The, Garrick's alteration of Shirley, 238. Garrick, David, as actor and playwright, 227-234 ; his Country Girl, 80, 300; his Isabella, 118; his Gamesters, 238; his farces, 254; his Clandestine Marriage (with Colman), 261- 262; his relation to Moore's plays, 212; his attitude towards Home's plays, 240, 242-243; his concessions to popular taste, 246, 248 ; Foote's attitude towards, 249, INDEX 351 Garrick, David — Cont. 250; his connection with Kelly's False Delicacy, 268, 277; inciden- tal references to his acting, 178, 201, 222, 236, 24s, 260; BIBL., 334-335- Gay, John, dramatic work, 189-194; other references to The Beggar's Opera, 140, 204, 213, 214, 246, 299; bur- lesques sentimental drama, 265; BIBL., 331-332. Genest, John, author of Some Account of the English Stage, cited, 39, 137 n., 167, 174 n., 176, 176 n., 179 n., 188 n., 189 n., 209, 217 n., 219 n., 222 n., 223 n., 230, 231 n., 234 n., 236 n., 240 n., 247 n., 248, 249 n., 277 n., 278 n., 284 n.; BIBL., 316. Gentleman Dancing-Master, The (Wycherley), 79, 77; Bickerstaff's debt to, 257. George Barnwell, The History of (main title, The London Merchant, Lillo), 202-207,209; BIBL., 33 2-333- Gil Bias (Moore), 210. Gildon, Charles, dramatic work, 167; in Collier controversy, 144; his Comparison between the Two Stages cited, 169 n. Gloriana (Lee), 96. Golden Rump, The, as a stimulus to the Licensing Act, 221. Goldsmith, Oliver, dramatic work, 277-290; other references to The Good-Natur'd Man, 125, 268; to She Stoops to Conquer, 76, 126 (Tony Lump- kin in), 130 (Diggory in), 135, 139, 140, 162 ; comic spirit not extinct before, 261-262, 263 ; Col- man's productions of his plays, 262, 262 n. ; his attacks on sentimental comedy, 265-268 ; incidental com- parisons with Sheridan, 291, 297 ; BIBL., 337-338. Goodman's Fields Theatre, Giffard as manager of, 221; Gar- rick's triumph at, 228. Good-Natur'd Man, The (Goldsmith), 277-282 ; a predecessor of Yoimg Honey- wood in, 125; Colman's pro- duction of, 262, 262 n.; clashes with Kelly's False Delicacy, 268; compared with She Stoops to Con- quer, 287-289 ; BIBL., 337-338. Gorboduc (Sackville and Norton), cited by Dryden, 54; 'dimib- shows' in, 184. Gosse, Edmund W., his Seventeenth-Century Studies cited, 74 n., 99, 99 n., 106 n.; BIBL., 324,326, 327; his distinction between' Restoration ' and ' Orange' dramatists, 106-107, 106 n, ; his Congreve cited, 122 n., 126 n., 128, 128 n., 144 n., BIBL., 327-328. Granville, George (Lord Lansdowne), his Heroick Love, 166, 167; his ver- sion of The Merchant of Venice, 232. Grave-Makers, a 'droll,' 18. Gray, Thomas, his opinion of Douglas, 241, 241 n. ; his connection with Mason, 243, 244- Great Favourite, The, or The Duke of Lerma (Sir Robert Howard), iii; its Preface cited, 60. Grecian Daughter, The (Murphy), 256. Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy, The, Dryden's essay on, 93. Grub-Street Opera, The (Fielding), 217. Grumbler, The (Sedley), iii n. Guardian, The (Cowley), revised as Cutter of Coleman-Street, 37. Guarini, English translations of his Pastor Fido, 107-108, 108 n. Guzman (Orrery), 45, 45 n. Gwynn, Eleanor (Nell), actress, 56. Halhed, Nathaniel B., collaborates with Sheridan, 292. Hamilton, Anthony, his Memoirs of Count Grammont, 10-11, 75 ; BIBL., 320. 352 INDEX Hamlet, Grave-Makers, a 'droll' based on, i8; Congreve's Love for Love in relation to, 125, 125 n. ; Jeremy Collier's comment on Ophelia, 142 ; Voltaire's borrowings from, 199; Garrick as the Ghost in, 229; Betterton as, 233; Garrick's pro- duction of, 233. Handel, George Frederick, his English operas, 172, 181, 200, 231; oratorios, 97 n., 231. Handsome Housemaid, The, or Piety in Pattens, Foote's burlesque, 284. Hardy, Alexandre, his French tragi-comedies, 49. Harlequin Dr. Faustus, Thurmond's pantomime, 188. Harlequin Sorcerer, Rich's pantomime, 189. Hatchett, William, his Rival Father, 235. Hawkesworth, John, his alteration of Oroonoko, 118. Haymarket, Little Theatre in the, its early history, 218-219; Field- ing's connection with, 219-220, 222 ; Foote's performances at, 249. Haymarket Theatre, its opening performances, 132, 172. Hazlitt, William, his eulogies of Congreve, 130, 130 n., 131-132; his comment on Van- brugh's Lord Foppington, 134, 134 n.; BIBL., 329. Hazlitt, W. Carew, documents in his English Drama and Stage cited, 14 n., 15 n. ; BIBL., 321. Hells Higher Court of Justice (pr. 1661), an attack on Cromwell, 37. Henley, W. E., his edition of Fielding cited, 214 n. ; BIBL., 333. Henry IV, Part I (Shakespeare), revivals of, 183, 232 ; The Bouncing Knight, a 'droll' based on, 18. Henry IV, Part II (Shakespeare), revivals of, 231, 232. Henry V (Shakespeare), revival of, 231. Henry the Fifth, King (Hill), 200 n. Henry the Fifth, The History of (Orrery), 54. Henry VI, Part I (Shakespeare), revival of, 231. Herbert, Sir Henry, his 'Ofl&ce-book' cited, 2, 2 n. ; protests against the patentees, 31. Heroic Daughter, The, or Ximena (Gibber), 183. 'Heroic drama,' D'Avenant's Siege of Rhodes as a possible example of, 23-25; his later operas in relation to, 27-28; introduction and development of rhymed, S4-70; partial survival of, 166-167; BIBL., 323-324. Heroick Love (George Granville), 166, 167. Heroic Plays ^ An Essay of, by Dryden, 66, 23-24, 24 n., 62 n. Heywood, Thomas, as a forerunner of domestic trag- edy, 202. High Life, Below Stairs (Townley), 254-255, 217, 217 n. Hill, Aaron, adapts Voltaire's plays, 200, 201 ; his libretto to Rinaldo, 200; his comment on Voltaire, 235. Hill, Abraham, his notice of Wilson's Cheats, 39, 39 n. HUl, G. B., his edition of Dr. Johnson's Lives of the English Poets cited, 63 n. and passim ; his edition of Bos- well's Life of Johnson cited, 127 n. and passim. Historia Histrionica, by James Wright, cited, 15, 19 n.; BIBL., 319. Historical Register for 1736, The (Fielding), 220-221 ; its hits at Gibber's alteration of Shakespeare, 231-232. History of the Mimes and Panto- mimes, The, by John Weaver, cited, i8s n., 186, 186 n. INDEX 353 Hoadley, Benjamin, his Suspicious Husband, 245. Hogarth, William, his work compared with Lillo's, 203; its connection with The Clandestine Marriage, 261. Home, John, dramatic work, 240-243, 239; Douglas parodied, 309, 309 n. ; BIBL., 335-336. Hoole, John, his Cyrus, 237. Howard, Edward, minor Restoration dramatist, 116. Howard, James, minor Restoration dramatist, 116. Howard, Sir Robert, dramatic work, iio-iii; his Indian Queen (with Dry den), 55, 55 n., 58; his controversy with Dryden over rhymed drama, 60; his own practice, 105 ; attacked in The Rehearsal, 64, 64 n. Hughes, John, dramatic work, 196-197. Hume, David, his opinion of Douglas, 241. Humorists, The (Shadwell), 84. 'Humour comedy,' {see also Jonson, Ben) Wilson's revival of, 38-40; Congreve's definitions and views of 'humour' and 'wit' in comedy, 129-130; 'humours' in Sheridan's Rivals, 298. Hunt, Leigh, his edition of The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Vanbrugh, Congreve, and Farquhar, 8 n., 76, io6 ; BIBL., 324-325, 328-329. Hurlothrumbo (Samuel Johnson, of Cheshire), 214, 219. Hypocrite, The (Bickerstaff), 152, 257. Ibrahim (Settle), 113, Inconstant, The (Farquhar), 137. Indian Emperor, The (Dryden), 55-56, 58. Indian Queen, The (Sir Robert Howard and Dryden), 55, 55 n., S8, no. Innocent Adultery, The (main title, The Fatal Marriage, Southeme), 118. Interregnvun (1642-1660), interrupts rather than breaks con- tinuous course of drama, 1-2 ; con- dition of drama and stage during, 14-29. Intriguing Chambermaid, The (Field- ing), 217. Invader of his Country, The, Dennis's version of Coriolanus, 230, 230 n. Iphigenia (Dennis), 167. Irene (Dr. Samuel Johnson), 238- 239; BIBL., 335. Irish Widow, The (Garrick), 254. Irving, Sir Henry, his opinion of Sheridan, 313. Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage, Garrick's version of Southeme's Fatal Marriage, 118. Island Queens, The (Banks), 117. Jackson, John, his History of the Scottish Stage cited, 188, 188 n. ; BIBL., 331, 336. Jane Shore (Rowe), 177-178, 183, 202; BIBL., 330. Jealous Wife, The (Colman), 358- 260, 245, 262, 263. Jefferson, Joseph, his version of Sheridan's Rivals, 297, 297 n. Jew, The (Cumberland), 274. Johnson, Charles, dramatic work, 209-210. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his Irene, 238-239 ; his opinion of Dryden's Conquest of Granada, 63 ; of Congreve's Mourning Bride, 127; of Rowe's Fair Penitent, 174; of Addison's Cato, 181; of Home's Douglas, 241 ; of Gold- smith's She Stoops to Conquer, 284, 286, 289; his connection with Garrick, 228, 239; with Gold- smith, 283 ; his remarks on Foote, 250, 251 ; his praise of Mrs. Frances Sheridan, 292; BIBL., 335. aA 354 INDEX Johnson, Samuel (of Cheshire), his Hurloihrumbo, 214, 219. Jones, Henry, his Earl of Essex, 239-240. Jonson, Ben., Restoration revivals of his plays, 35-36, 38, 48; his influence on Wilson, 38-39, 43, 72, 83; on Dryden, 63, 84; on Shadwell, 84; his attitude toward classical drama, 49; Dryden's reference to, 60; as a forerunner of Restoration comedy, 72, 86; Jonsonian charac- ters in Wycherley, 78; in Con- greve, 123, 126; Sedley's reference to his tragedies, 1 1 1 ; Queen Anne revivals of his plays, 183; Colman's version of his Silent Woman, 262; Sheridan's 'hu- mours' in The Rivals, 298. Journey to Bath, A, Mrs. Sheridan's unfinished comedy, 292. Journey to London, A (Vanbrugh), 133, 152, 195. Juliana (Crowne), 112. Julius Ccesar, Voltaire's borrowings from, 199. Jupiter, farce written by Halhed and Sheridan, 292, 311. Justice Caught in his own Trap, The (main title. Rape upon Rape, Field- ing), 214, 214 n. Kean, Edmund, actor, 178. Kelly, Hugh, dramatic work, 268-272, 156, 274, 277, 279, 282 ; his creed satirized by Sheridan, 310; BIBL., 337. Kemble, Charles, actor, 178, 207. Ker, W. P., his edition of Dryden's Essays cited, 24 n. and passim; BIBL., 323. Killigrew, Thomas, dramatic work, 33-34 ; his royal patent, 30-31; his company (King's) of actors, 31 ; his debt to Calderon, 45; BIBL., 322. King Ahasuerus and Queen Esther, a 'droll,' 18. King Arthur, opera by Dryden, 94. King John (Shakespeare), 231, 231 n. ; Cibber's version of, 231—232, 231 n. King's, The, company of actors, 31 < Kirkman, Francis, on the 'drolls', 16; his Wits, or Sport upon Sport, 16-19; BIBL., 321. Knight, Joseph, his edition of Roscius Anglicanus cited, I n.; BIBL., 319. Knights, The (Foote), 249-250. Kotzebue, Sheridan's adaptations of, 302, 312. La Calpren&de, his influence on Restoration drama, 57, 96, 109. La Chauss6e, Nivelle de, his connection with sentimental drama, 264. Lacy, John, dramatic work, 113; BIBL., 327. Lady Jane Gray (Rowe), 177. Lady's Last Stake, The (Gibber), 151. La Fayette, Madame de, her influence on Lee, 98. Lamb, Charles, his essay On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century, 7-10 ; BIBL., 320; his opinion of Cowley's comedy, 37, 37 n. ; of Lillo, 203, 203 n. Lancashire Witches, The (Shadwell), 86; BIBL., 325. Lansdowne, Lord (George Granville), his Heroick Love, 166, 167; his version of The Merchant of Venice, 232. Law, William, his treatise against the stage, 147. INDEX 355 Law against Lovers, The (D'Avenant), 32. Lear, King, Tate's alteration of, 5, 115; Vol- taire's borrowings from, 199; Garrick acts in, 229, 234; rival productions of, 234; Colman's version of, 262. Lee, John, his failure as Sir Lucius 'Trigger, 293, 294, 299. Lee, Nathaniel, dramatic work, 95-99; collab- orates with Dryden, 92-93; satirized by Fielding, 216; in- cidental references to, 104, 117 n., 173; BIBL., 326. Lessing, Lillo's influence on, 207, 207 n. Lethe (Garrick), 228, 229. Letter Writers, The (Fielding), 218. Lewes, Charles Lee, his Memoirs cited, 204, 204 n. Licensing Act of 1737, its causes and effect, 221-222 ; evaded by Foote, 249-250 ; BIBL., 334- Lillo, George, dramatic work, 202-209; his prose compared with Edward Moore's, 212; Fielding's connec- tion with his Fatal Curiosity, 217, 220; his historical background, 224; BIBL., 332-333- Limherham (Dryden), 92. Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, Duke of York's company at, 31 ; Downes, prompter at, 35 ; Better- ton as manager of, 169; Rich's pantomimes at, 188-189; The Beggar's Opera at, 189-190; con- trasted with the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, 218. Linley, Thomas, his music for Sheridan's Duenna, 300. Lionel and Clarissa (Bickerstaff), 257. Locke, Matthew, his operatic work, 44, 94. London Cuckglds (Ravenscroft), 112. London Merchant, The, or The His- tory of George Barnwell (Lillo), 202-207, 209; BIBL., 32>2-2,i3. Lottery, The (Fielding), 217, 217 n. Lounsbury, Thomas R., his Shakespeare and Voltaire cited, 198 n., 199 n., 200 n., 235 n., 236 n. ; BIBL., 332. Love and a Bottle (Farquhar), 137, 137 n., 139. Love and Honour (D'Avenant), 23 n., 32. Love for Love (Congreve), 125-126; its Prologue cited, 82-83 ; com- pared with Colman's Jealous Wife, 259, 259 n. Love in a Village (Bickerstaff), 257, Love in a Wood (Wycherley), 78-79, 77. Love in Several Masques (Fielding), 213-214. Love makes a Man (Cibber), Garrick acts in, 229. Love' s Dominion (pr. 1654, Flecknoe), 107; altered as Love's Kingdom (pr. 1664), 40 n. ; Discourse ap- pended to the latter cited, 40; BIBL., 322. Love's Last Shift (Cibber), 133-134, 149-ISO. Loves of Mars and Venus, The (Weaver), 184-186. Love Triumphant (Dryden), 93-94. Lowe, Robert W., his edition of Colley Gibber's Apology cited, 97 n. and passim; BIBL., 329 ; his edition of Doran's Annals cited, 195 n. ; BIBL., 318; his Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature, BIBL., 317- Loyal Brother, The (Southeme), 118. Lucius Junius Brutus . (Lee), 98 ; Voltaire's alleged debt to, 200. LuUi, composer of French operas, 44. Lying Lover, The (Steele), 158-161, 151, 174, 192. Lying Valet^ The (Garrick), 229, 2S4- 356 INDEX Macaulay, Thomas B., his essay on Comic Dramatists of the Restoration, 8-10; BIBL., 320; his remark on bear-baiting, 19; his opinion of Rymer, 89 ; of Col- lier, 146. Macbeth, D'Avenant's alteration of, 5-6, 32, 41 ; Voltaire's borrowings from, 199. Macklin, Charles, actor, 210, 230, 232, 234; his rela- tions with Garrick, 228; his pro- duction of The Merchant of Venice, 232. Macready, William C, actor, 178. Mahomet the Imposter, James Miller's adaptation of Vol- taire, 200, 200 n. ; its Prologue cited, 200-201 ; Garrick acts in, 236. Maid of Bath, The (Foote), 252-253, 251. Maid of the Mill, The (Bickerstaff), 257- Mallet, David, dramatic work, 197, 260. Malone, Edmond, his edition of Shakspeare cited, 2 n. ; BIBL., 322 ; his edition of Spence's Anecdotes cited, 76 n. and passim. Manley, Mrs., dramatic work, 167. Man of Mode, The, or Sir Fopling Flutter (Etherege), 75-76, 78 n., 123; other references to his fop, Sir Fopling Flutter, 112, 134, 150. Man of Reason, The (Kelly), 272. Man's the Master, The (D'Avenant), 32-33- Marforio, produced by John Rich, 220. Mariamne (Fen ton), 216. Marina (Lillo), 208. Marivaux, a forenmner of sentimental drama, 264, Marks, Jeannette, her English Pastoral Drama cited, 107 n. ; BIBL., 326. Marlowe, Christopher, 'heroic' elements in his Tambur- laine, 22, 62 ; comic scenes in his Dr. Faustus, 102. Marplot in Lisbon (Mrs. Centlivre), 154. Marriage-d-la-Mode (Dryden), 67. Married Beau, The (Crowne), 112. Mason, William, dramatic work, 243-244. Masque, English, its introduction of operatic ele- ments, 22; of scenery and cos- tume, 25; D'Avenant's connec- tion with, 44; a somewhat late survival of, 208. Masque of Alfred (Thomson and Mallet), 197. Massacre of Paris, The (Lee), 98. Massinger, Philip, as a forerunner of 'heroic drama,' 22 ; Rowe's debt to, 174, 175. Mayor of Garratt, The (Foote), 253. Measure for Measure, as a partial source of D'Avenant's Law against Lovers, 32. Memoirs of Count Grammont, by Ham- ilton, lo-ii, 75; BIBL., 320. Mendoza, Antonio de, Fanshawe's translations of, 46. Merchant of Venice, The, Macklin's production of, 232; Lord Lansdowne's version of, 232. Meredith, George, his opinion of Congreve's Milla- mant, 130-131; BIBL., 328 (JEj^ay on Comedy). Meriton, George, a forenmner of Jeremy Collier, 120-121. Merope (Hill), 200; its Advertisement cited, 235 ; Gar- rickactsin, 236; revivals of, 237. Merry Wives of Windsor, The, popularity of, during Restoration, 36, 232 ; Dennis's version of, 230, 230 n. Middleton, Thomas, as a forerunner of Restoration comedy, 72 ; his influence on Mrs. Bebn, Z14. INDEX 357 Midsummer Night's Dream, A, Pepys's opinion of, 6; Bottom the Weaver, a 'droll' based on, i6; Garrick's version of, in The Fairies, 248. Miller, James, adapts Voltaire's Mahomet, 200- 201, 200 n. Milton, John, Dryden's operatic version of Para- dise Lost, 67 ; his blank verse, 92, 128; non-dramatic character of his Samson Agonistes, 92 n. Minor, The ''Foote), 251-252. Miser, The (Fielding), 218. Miser, The, Shadwell's adaptation of L'Avare, 84. Miss in her Teens (Garrick), 254. Miss Lucy in Town (Fielding), 222. Mistake, The (Vanbrugh), 133. Mithridates (Lee), 97-98. Mock Doctor, The (Fielding), 218. Modern Husband, The (Fielding), 218. Moli^re, general influence of, on Restora- tion drama, 50-51, 47, 83, no; influences D'Avenant, 32; Dryden, 56, 57. 93 ; Etherege, 74 ; Wycher- ley, 78, 78 n., 79, 80-82, 81 n., 127, 140; Shadwell, 84; Otway, 100; Sedley, in; Ravenscroft, 112; Mrs. Behn, 114; Congreve, 124; Vanbrugh, 133 ; Gibber, 151 ; Mrs. Centlivre, 154; Steele, 162; Field- ing, 218 ; Murphy, 255, 256 ; Sheri- dan, 299, 306 ; as librettist, 44. Moncrief, John, his Appius, 240. Moore, Edward, dramatic work, 210-212, 239, 243 ; BIBL., 333. Moore, Thomas, on The Duenna, 300; his Life of Sheridan, 304; BIBL., 340. Morell, Thomas, his ' See the conquering hero comes,' 97 n. Moreto, A., his influence on St. Serfe, 46 n. ; on Crowne, 46 n., 109. Motteux, Peter Anthony, his Beauty in Distress, 166-167; his Arsino'e, 171. Mourning Bride, The (Congreve), 126-128 ; Blackmore's praise of, 120 n. Much Ado about Nothing, as a partial source of D'Avenant's Law against Lovers, 32. Mulberry Garden, The (Sedley), 78, III. Murphy, Arthur, dramatic work, 255-256; versions of Voltaire, 235-236, 237 ; BIBL., 336. Musical Lady, The (Colman), 260. Mustapha (Orrery), 54. Necromancer, The, or The History of Dr. Faustus, Rich's pantomime, 188. Nero (Lee), 96. Nettleton, George H., his Major Dramas of Sheridan cited, 162 n., 242 n., 293 n., 297 n. ; BIBL., 315, 340; his chapter in Cambridge History of English Litera- ture cited, 207 n. ; BIBL., 315. Newcastle, Duchess of, minor dramatist, 11 5-1 16. Newcastle, Duke of, minor dramatist, 84, 11 5-1 16. Nicholson, Watson, his Struggle for a Free Stage in Lon- don cited, 192 n. ; BIBL., 334. Non-Juror, The (Gibber), 151-152, 195, 257. No One's Enemy but His Own (Murphy), 237. Novel, English, rise of, in relation to the decline of drama, 225-226 ; sentimental ten- dency in, 264. (Edipus (Lee and Dryden), 92-93, 99. Old Bachelor, The (Congreve), 122- 123, 132; Macaulay on its immorality, 8-9; Garrick acts in 229. Oldfield, Anne (Nance), actress, 137, 197. 358 INDEX Old Man Taught Wisdom, An (Field- ing), 217. Old Troop, The (Lacy), 113. Opera, English, D'Avenant's Siege of Rhodes as, 21- 22, 24-25, 43 ; other references to his operatic work, 5-6, 27, 30, 33 ; early spectacular operas, 41, 117, 170; influence of French opera on Restoration opera, 43-44 ; Dry- den's operas, 94 ; his definition of, 171 ; Italian operas on English stage, 170-172, 185 ; satirized, 192, 213 ; Addison's English opera, 172, 172 n. ; Handel's operas, 172; ballad opera (Gay's Beggar's Opera), 189-194, 213 ; Carey's operas, 216, 217; Garrick's ope- ratic versions, 234, 248; Bicker- staff's operas, 257; Sheridan's Duenna, 299-301. Opera, French, its influence on Restoration opera, 43-44, 94- Opera, Italian, its introduction into France, 43; into England, 170-172; satirized by Gay, 192, 213. Orators, The (Foote), 251. Orestes, Francklin's adaptation of Voltaire's Oreste, 236. Oroonoko (Southeme), 118; altered by Hawkesworth, 118; Garrick acts in, 229. Orphan, The (Otway), loo-ioi, 174, 202; Garrick's appearance in, 229; BIBL., 326. Orphan of China, The (Murphy), 235- 236, 237. Orpheus and Eurydice, John Rich's pantomime, 246. Orrery, Earl of (Roger Boyle), dramatic work, 54-55, 55 n. ; his Guzman, 45, 45 n. ; his Black Prince, 59; his debt to French romances, 109; BIBL., 323. Othello, ■ Pepys's opinion of, 6, 45 ; Rymer's opinion of, 89; Young's debt to lago, 196; Voltaire's borrowings from, 199. Otway, Thomas, dramatic work, 99-103, 92, 95-96; as a forerunner of sentimental drama, 119, 155, 160, 264, 265; Rowe's relations to, 173, 178; his Orphan as a domestic tragedy, 174, 202; Garrick's debt to his Caius Marius, 233 ; various references to, 104, 106, 229, 238, 241 ; BIBL., 326. Oulton, Walley C., on the ' immoral tendency ' of Gay's Beggar's Opera, 193, 193 n.; on Foote's Handsome Housemaid, 284, 284 n. ; his History of the Theatres of London, BIBL., 338. Padlock, The (Bickerstaff), 257. Pantomime, English, its rise and importance, 184-189, 246-247. Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John (Gibber), 231, 231 n. Paradise Lost, Dryden's operatic printed version of, 67. Parson's Wedding, The (Thomas Killigrew), revival of, 34 ; its debt to Calderon, 45. Pasquin (Fielding), 219-220, 218, 221. Pastorals, during the Restoration, 107-109. Patent Theatres, (see Drury Lane, Covent Garden, etc.) established vmder Charles II, 1-2, 31; Gibber's account of, 117; rival pantomimes at, 188; Foote's patent virtually establishing third Patent Theatre, 250. Patron, The (Foote), 253, Pepys, Samuel, his Diary, 10; his opinions of Shakespearean plays, 6, 45; his testimony as to Thomas Killigrew, 34; as to Restoration plays and performances, 38, 45 n., 54, 55 n., 73, III n. ; other references to, 74, 141 ; BIBL., 320. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Lillo's Marina based on, 208. INDEX 359 Perrin, Pierre, French opera of, 44. Phadra and Hippolytus (Edmund Smith), 179. Philasier (Beaumont and Fletcher), revival of, 183 ; Colman's alteration of, 260. Philips, Ambrose, dramatic work, 179, 183, 184, 23s, 239; satirized by Fielding, 216. Philips, Mrs. Catherine, the 'matchless Orinda,' no; BIBL., 327. Pilgrim, The (Vanbrugh), 133. Pix, Mrs., dramatic work, 167. Pizarro (Sheridan), 302, 312, Plain Dealer, The (Wycherley), So- fia, 77, 123. Plautus, Dryden's following of, 93; Field- ing's debt to, 218. Playhouse to he Let, The (D'Avenant), 32. Polly (Gay), 193-194, 222. Polly Honeycombe (Colman), 258. Pope, Alexander, on the chronology of Wycherley's plays, 77; on Cato, 180, 181 ; on pantomime (in The Dunciad), 187- 188; note in The Dunciad, 189 n. ; collaborates with Gay, 190; his connection with The Beggar's Opera, 1 90-1 91 ; his opinion of Hughes, 196; of Lillo's George Barnwell, 206; hits at card play- ing, 210; as editor of Shakespeare, 231 ; hits at Gibber's King John, 231. Powell, William, as actor, 260, 277 ; as manager, 262. Present State of Polite Learning, The, Goldsmith essay on, 265-266, 26s n., 268, 277. Princess of Cleve, The (Lee), 98. Projectors, The (Wilson), 38r-39. Provoked Husband, The (Gibber), 133, 152, 195, 214, 303. Provoked Wife, The (Vanbrugh), 135, 133, 136. 'Prynne, William, author of Eistrio-Mastix, 14, 121, 142, 143. Psyche (Shadwell, music by Matthew Locke), 41, 44, 85, 117, 170. Puppet-plays, during dramatic interregnum, 16. Purcell, Henry, his operas, 44, 94. Puritans, hostiUty of, towards theatres, i, 14; Macaulay's dictum on, 19; depicted in early Restoration plays, 36-37. Quarles, Francis, his Virgin Widow published during interregnum, 19, 54; privately acted, 55; its early use of 'heroic couplet,' 54-55, 59; parodied in The Rehearsal, 55, 55 n,, 65. Queen Anne drama, aspects of, 166-184. Queen Catharine (Mrs. Pix), 167. Queen Mab, Garrick's 'entertainment,' 246. Quin, James, his comment on Garrick's acting, 228. Quinault, Philippe, French operatic libretti of, 44; Dryden's borrowings from, 56. Racine, Jean, general influence of, on Restora- tion drama, no, 35, 47 ; influences Wycherley, 81-82; Lee, 97-98; Otway, 100; Crowne, 112; eigh- teenth-century versions of, 179, 183, 198, 23s, 239; BIBL., 331, 33S. Rae, W. Fraser, his Life of Sheridan cited, 313 n. ; BIBL., 340; his edition of Sheri- dan's Plays, BIBL., 339. Rape upon Rape (Fielding), 214, 214 n. Rapin, Rymer's Preface to his Reflections, 88. Ravenscroft, Edward, dramatic work, 111-112, no; his friendship with Mrs. Behn, 114. 36o INDEX Recruiting Officer, The (Farquhar), 137, 247 n.; Garrick's appearances in, 228, 229. Red Bull Theatre, actors assembled at, 31. Rehearsal, The (Villiers and others), 64-66; its parody of Quarles, 55, 55 n.; its Prologue cited, 86; Rymer's opinion of, 89; its influence on Gay, 190; on Fielding, 213, 214, 216; on Sheridan, 292, 308, 311; Garrick as Bayes in, 229, 229 n. ; Foote as Bayes in, 249; Arber's reprint of, 55 n., 308; BIBL., 324. Relapse, The (Vanbrugh), 133-134, 135, 139; Sheridan's adaptation of, 135, 301- 302 ; Collier's attack on, 143 ; Gibber's comment on, 149. Restoration drama, definitions of, 106-107; its stage methods contrasted with Eliza- bethan, 3, 40-42; its general contrasts with Elizabethan drama, 3-12 ; its vital connection with Elizabethan drama, 35, 43, 48; Spanish influences on, 44-47; French influences on, 47-51, no; some general aspects of, 71-72; aspects of minor, 104-119; re- action against immorality of, I20-I2I, 141-148; Gibber's Care- less Husband as an expurgated Restoration comedy, 150; The School for Scandal in relation to, 306. Revenge, The (Young), 195, 196. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 133, 229. Rhodes, John, his license for acting, 30-31. Rich, Ghristopher, as manager at Dorset Gardens, i68; at Drury Lane, 169-170, 172. Rich, John, his pantomimes, 184-189, 246; his productions of Gay's Beggar's Opera, 189, 246; his connection with Fielding, 220; his Shake- spearean revivals, 231 ; his pro- duction of Home's Douglas, 240; BIBL, 331. Richard II, revival of, 231 ; Tate's adaptation of, lis. Richard HI, its relation to Rowe's Jane Shore, 177, 178; Gibber's alteration of, ISO, 230; Garrick's appearance in, 228. Richardson, Samuel, as novelist, 155, 176, 206; Pamela, advent of, 22s; Dance's drama- tization of, 229 ; Bickerstaff's debt to, 2S7; La Chauss6e's Pamila, 264. Rinaldo, Handel's opera, 172, 181 ; Hill's libretto to, 200. Rinaldo and Armida (Dennis), 167. Rival Father, The (Hatchett), 235. Rival-Ladies, The (Dryden), 4s, 54, 55, 55 n., 73 n.; its Prologue cited, 53, 53 n.; its Dedication cited, 60, 60 n. Rival Queens, The (Lee), 96-97, 97 n., 117 n. Rivals, The (Sheridan), 293-299, 279, 282, 301, 304, 306, 307, 313; Mrs. Malaprop in, 124; servants in, 125, 287; Lydia Languish and Steele's Biddy Tipkin, 162, 162 n. ; compared with Colman's Polly Honeycombe, 258 ; Sir Lucius O'Trigger and Cumberland's Major O'Flaherty, 273, 273 n.; BIBL., 339-340. Rochester, Earl of (John Wilmot), his reference to Etherege, 78, 78 n. ; his estimate of Shadwell's work, 86. Roman Father, The (Whitehead), 239. Romeo and Juliet, Otway's version of, in Caius Marius, 100, 233 ; Otway's dic- tion compared with, loi n; Gar- rick's production of, 233. Romp, The (Bickerstaff), 257 n. Rosamond, Addison's opera, 172, 172 n., 180. Roscius Anglicanus, by John Downes, its testimony cited, 5-6, 6 n., 35- 36, 35 n., 38, 39, 41. 41 n., 45, 45 n., 169, 169 n.; BIBL, 3x9; INDEX 361 Roscius Angficanus — Cont. Knight's reprint of, cited, i n. ; BIBL., 319. Ross, David, acts in George Barnwell, 204. Rotrou, Jean, his French tragi-comedies, 49. Roundheads, The (Mrs. Behn), 114. Rover, The (Mrs. Behn), 109, 114. Rowe, Nicholas, dramatic work, I73-I79, 184, 202, 238, 246; Epilogue to his Ambitious Step-Mother cited, 169; its Prologue cited, 177; as editor of Shakespeare, 177, 215, 230; Garrick acts in his Fair Penitent, 229; BIBL., 330. Rowley, William, as a forerunner of Restoration comedy, 72 ; The Thracian Wonder ascribed to, 107, 108. Royal Convert, The (Rowe), 176. Royal Shepherdess, The (Shad well), 108. Rump, The (Tatham), 36. Rymer, Thomas, his attacks on Elizabethan drama, 88-90, 142; Dry den's attitude towards, 88, 90, 93; BIBL., 325. Saint-Evremond, on opera, 94, 94 n.; BIBL., 326. St. Patrick's Day, or The Scheming Lieutenant (Sheridan), 299. St. Serfe, Sir Thomas, his Tarugo's Wiles, 45-46, 46 n. Saintsbury, George, Scott-Saintsbury edition of Dry- den's Works cited, 46 n. and passim; BIBL., 323; his Dryden cited, 62 n., 67, 67 n. ; BIBL., 323 ; his edition of Shadwell, BIBL., 325. Samson Agonistes, its non-dramatic character, 92 n. Scarron, Paul, D'Avenant's borrowing from, 33. Scenery, Elizabethan and Restoration use of, compared, 3 ; D'Avenant's use of, 21, 22, 25-29; rapid development of, on Restoration stage, 40-42, 58 n., 113 n. ; its increasing im- portance, 116-117, 168-169; its use in pantomime and spectacle, i'87-i88, 246. Schelling, F. E., his chapter in Camb. Hist., BIBL., 317, 323- School for Guardians, The (Murphy), 256. School for Scandal, The (Sheridan), 302-307, 124 n., 279, 282, 310, 313 ; compared with Wycherley's Coun- try Wife, 80; Charles Surface in, 125, 280; Rowley in, 157 n. ; its relation to Foote's Minor, 251- 252; Colman's Epilogue to, 262; Joseph Surface in, 271 ; 'Ani- madversions' on, 27s; BIBL., 339-340. School for Wives, A (Kelly), 272. Scott, Sir Walter, his comment on Spanish and Res- toration comedy, 46 ; on Dryden's All for Love, 92 ; on his Don Sebas- tian, 93 ; Scott-Saintsbury edition of Dryden's Works cited, 46 n. and passim; BIBL., 323. Scud6ry, Georges de, his influence on Settle's Ibrahim^ 113. Scud^ry, Madeleine de, general influence on Restoration drama, 57, 109; on Dryden's Conquest of Granada, 62; on Settle's Ibrahim, 113; on Banks's Cyrus, 118. Secret Love, or The Maiden Queers (Dryden), 56; its Prologue cited, 6z, 63 n., 84, 84 n. Sedley, Sir Charles, ^ dramatic work, iii, 78, iro; BIBL., 327. Semiramis, Ayscough's adaptation of Voltaire's Semiramis, 236. Sentimental drama, Otway and Southeme as fore- runners of, 119, 155, 160, 264, 265; Steele as reputed founder of sen- timental comedy, 155; Steele's 362 INDEX Sentimental drama — Cont. dramas in relation to, 155-165; sentimental strains in tragedy, 166- 167,184; in Rov/e^s Fair Penitent, 173-175; Gay's satire on, 192- 103, 194; sentimental strains in Lillo's George Barnwell, 204, 209; in other tragedies, 209-210; rise and full development of, 264-276; Goldsmith and the reaction against, 277-284, 290; Sheridan in rela- tion to, 291, 294-297, 306-310; BIBL., 336-337. Settle, Elkanah, dramatic work, 113; his transla- tion of Pastor Fido, 108 n. ; his debt to French romances, 109; BIBL., 327. Shadwell, Thomas, dramatic work, 84-86, 104, 105 ; other references to his version of The Tempest, 41, 44, 56 n., 117, 170; to his Psyche, 41, 117, 170; his Royal Shepherdess, 108; his opinion of Sedley's Antony and Cleopatra, in, inn.; BIBL., 325. Shakespeare, William, {see also separate plays) contrasted with Restoration dram- atists, 4; Restoration attitude towards, 5-6; 'drolls' based on plays of, 16, 18; D'Avenant's connection with, 20-21, 32; Res- toration production of plays of, 35-36, 43, 48; effect of meagre scenery on, 42 ; Dryden's attitude towards, 68, 93, 95; Shadwell's comment on, 85 ; Rymer's attitude towards, 89; Dryden's All for Love in relation to, 88, 90-92 ; in- fluences Otway, 100, loi, loi n. ; Restoration adaptations of, 95, lis; Queen Anne performances of, 173. 183; Rowe's critical edition of, 177, 215 ; Rowe's ' imitation ' of , 177-178, 184; Addison's opinion of, 180 ; Voltaire's attitude towards, 198-199, 200-201, 236-237; Gar- rick's acting of, 227-229; earlier versions, editions, and productions of, 230-233 ; Garrick's versions and productions of, 233-234; Home as the 'Scotch Shakespeare,' 240, 241 ; Colman's productions of, 262; Sheridan in relation to, 313; BIBL., 335. Sheridan, Mrs. Frances, dramatic work, 260, 292; Rae's edition of her Journey to Bath, BIBL., 339. Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, dramatic work, 291-313 ; other references to The Critic, 66, 216, 219, 219 n., 242, 242 n., 270, 272, 279 ; to The School for Scandal, 80, 124 n., 125, 157 n., 251, 262, 271, 27s, 279, 280, 282 ; to The Rivals, 162, 258, 273, 273 n., 279, 282; to A Trip to Scarborough, 135; to The Duenna, 194; variously com- pared with Congreve, 124, 124 n., 125, 131, 132, 141; his debt to Steele, 162; to Foote, 251-252; BIBL., 339-340- Sheridan, Thomas, father of Richard Brinsley Sheri- dan, 241, 253, 291-292. She Stoops to Conquer (Goldsmith), 282-290 ; compared in plot or characters with earlier dramas, 76, 126, 130, 135, 139, 140, 162 ; Colman's produc- tion of, 262, 262 n. ; compared with Sheridan, 297 ; BIBL., 337-338. She Would if She Could (Etherege), 74-75. Shirley, James, plays of, published during inter- regnum, 19; anticipation of ' heroic drama,' 22 ; Restoration perform- ances of, 36; Crowne's Married Beau in relation to, 112; Garrick's alteration of his Gamester, 238. Short Discourse of the English Stage, A, by Richard Flecknoe, cited, 40; BIBL., 322. Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage, A, Jeremy Collier's essay, 12 1, 142- 144. Short View of Tragedy, A, Rymer's essay on, 89, 142. INDEX 3^3 Shuter, Edward, actor, 277, 293, 294. Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, actress, 178, 243, 256. Sidney, Sir Philip, his dramatic theory, 49; his Arcadia, 108. Siege of Aquileia, The (Home), 240. Siege of Damascus, The (Hughes), 196-197. Siege of Rhodes, The (D'Avenant), 21-27, 32, 33, 43, 44; BIBL., 322. Silmt Woman, The (Jonson), revivals of, 38, 183 ; Colman's version of, 262. Silvia (Lillo), 202. Sir Courtly Nice (Crowne), 112-113 ; Spanish influence on, 46 n., 109; its Dedication cited, 72 n. Sir Fopling Flutter (main title, The Man of Mode, Etherege), 75-76, 78 n., 123; other references to the character. Sir Fopling Flutter, 112, 134, 150. Sir Francis Drake, The History of (D'Avenant), 27, 27 n. Sir Harry Wildair (Farquhar), 137. Sir Martin Mar-All (Dryden), 56. Smith, Edmund, his Phadra and Hip poly tus, 179, Smollett, Tobias George, novels of, 225-226. Soldier's Fortune, The (Otway), 100. Solomon's Wisdom, King, a 'droll,' 18. Sophonisha (Thomson), 197 ; parodied by Fielding, 197, 215. Sophonisha, or Hannibal's Overthrow (Lee), 96. Southeme, Thomas, dramatic work, 118-119; as spon- sor for Congreve, 122, 122 n. ; as a forerunner of sentimental drama, iSS, 160, 264, 265; other references to, 106 n., 173, 174, 202, 229, 238. Spanish Friar, The (Dryden), 93. Spanish literature, (especially Spanish drama) its general influence on early Res- toration drama, 45-47; on later Restoration drama, 109. Spartan Dame, The (Southeme), 118. Spence, Joseph, his Anecdotes cited, 76 n., 77, 77 n., 89 n., 191 n. Spendthrift, The (Draper), 210. Spouter, The (Murphy?), 255. Sprat, Dr. Thomas, assists in The Rehearsal, 64. Squire of Alsatia, The (Shadwell), 86. Stapylton, Sir Robert, dramatic work, 116, 116 n.; bur- lesqued in The Rehearsal, 65. State of Innocence and Fall of Man, The (Dryden), 67 ; its 'Apology' cited, 82. Steele, Sir Richard, dramatic work, 154-165; other references to his Funeral, 151 ; to his Lying Lover, 151, 174, 192; to his Conscious Lovers, 195, 210, 248; Spanish influence on, 46 ; his sen- timental drama anticipated, 119, 264, 265 ; his verses to Congreve, 129; the moral tone of his dramas, 147, 204; his protest against Italian opera, 171 ; BIBL., 330. Sterne, Laurence, novels of, 155, 226. Stranger, The, partly adapted by Sheridan, 302. Sullen Lovers, The (Shadwell), 84. Summer's Tale, The (Cumberland), 272. Surr, T. S., his novel Barnwell, 207. Suspicious Husband, The (Benjamin Hoadley), 245. Swift, Jonathan, his opinion of Vanbrugh's archi- tecture, 133 ; of Hughes, 196 ; his connection with Gay's Beggar's Opera, 1 90-1 91 ; his Gulliver's Travels, 194, 225. Taine, H. A., his History of English Literature cited, 101-102, 102 n. Tamburlaine (Marlowe), its 'heroic' elements, 22, 62. Tamerlane (Rowe), 173, 246. 3^4 INDEX Taming of the Shrew, The, Garrick's alteration of, 233. Tancred and Sigismunda (Thomson), 197; its Prologue cited, 197 n. Tarugo's Wiles (St. Serfe), 46, 46 n. Tasso, Elizabethan versions of his Aminia, 107 ; Restoration versions of, 108, 108 n. ; Dennis's borrowings from (his Gerusalemme Liber ata), 167. Taste (Foote), 253. Tate, Nahum, dramatic work, 115, 5. Tatham, John, dramatic work, 36; his influence on Mrs. Behn, 114; BIBL., 322. Tavern Bilkers, The (Weaver), pan- tomimic entertainment, 186. Tempest, The, D'Avenant and Dryden's version of, 5, 32, 56, 56 n., 85 n. ; Shadwell's version of (music by Locke), 41, 44, 56 n., 85, 8s n., 117, 170; Garrick's production of, 234, 248. Temple Beau, The (Fielding), 214. Tender Husband, The (Steele), 161- 163; its Epilogue cited, 171. Terence, Sedley's debt to his Eunuchus, III; his relation to Sou theme, 118; Colman's debt to his Adelphi, 259. Thackeray, William Makepeace, compared with Fielding, 223; with Townley, 255. Theatre Royal, The, later known as Drury Lane, 31 ; stock plays at 35-36, 38. (For further references see Drury Lane Theatre.) Theodosius (Lee), 98; its Epistle Dedicatory cited, 99, 99 n. Thomas and Sally (Bickerstaff), 257. Thomson, James, dramatic work, 197-198; BIBL., 332. Thorndike, Ashley H., his Tragedy, BIBL., 317-318. Thracian Wonder, The (pr. 1661. Webster and Rowley?), 107, 108. Three Hours after Marriage (Gay, Pope, and Arbuthnot), 190. Thurmond, John, his pantomime, 188. Timon of Athens, Shadwell's alteration of, 85, 85 n. Titus and Berenice (Otway), 100. Titus Andronicus, Ravenscroft's alteration of, iii. Tom Thumb (Fielding), 215-216, 194, 196, 197, 217, 219, 256; BIBL., 333. Tovey, D. C, his edition of Gray's Letters cited, 241 n. Townley, James, dramatic work, 254-255, 217, 217 n. Tragedies of The last Age, The, Rymer's essay on, 88-89. Tragedy of Tragedies, The (see Tom Thumb), Fielding's ex- pansion of Tom Thumb, 215-216. Trip to Calais, A (Foote), 251. Trip to Scarborough, A (Sheridan), 301-302, 135. Triumph of Love, The, an opera with Italian music, 172. Triumphant Widow, The (Duke of Newcastle), 84. Troilus and Cressida, Dryden's alteration of, 93 ; Dry- den's Prologue to, cited, 5, 5 n. ; Dryden's essay prefixed to, 93. Trotter, Mrs., dramatic work, 167. True Widow, A (Shadwell), 86; its Epistle Dedicatory cited, iii, III n. Tuke, Sir Samuel, his Adventures of Five Hours, 6, 45. I09- Tumble-down Dick, or Phaeton in the Suds (Fielding), 220. Tunbridge-Wells (Thomas Baker), its Prologue cited, 116. Tutor, The (Townley), 254. Twelfth Night, Wycherley's debt to, 82; revival of, 232. INDEX 365 Twin-Rivals, The (Farquhar), 137; its Preface cited, 148. Two Noble Kinsmen, The (Fletcher and Shakespeare?), D'Avenant's alteration of, 32. Tyrannic Love (Dryden), 60-62. Ulysses (Rowe), 176. Unfortunate Lovers, The (D'Avenant), revival of, 32. Unhappy Favourite, The (Banks), 117, 240. Universal Gallant, The (Fielding),2i8. Upholsterer, The (Murphy), 255. Vanbrugh, Sir John, dramatic work, 132-136, 122, 150; Sheridan's adaptation of his Re- lapse, 301-302 ; his relation to the Collier controversy, 123 n., 143, 144-145, 145 n. ; Gibber's refer- ence to The Relapse, 149; as manager, 172; BIBL., 328. Venice Preserved (Otway), 101-103, 92, 95 ; burlesqued by Gay, 190; Gar- rick acts in, 229; BIBL., 326. Vertue Betray' d (Banks), 117. Victorious Love (Walker), 166. Villiers, George (Dvike of Bucking- ham), The Rehearsal, 64-66, 55, 55 n., 86, 89, 213, 214, 229, 229 n. ; its influence on Sheridan, 292, 308, 311; BIBL., 324. Virginia (Crisp), 239, 240. Virgin Widow, The (Quarles), its early use of rhyme, S4-55 ; parodied in The Rehearsal, 55, 55 n., 65. Virtuoso, The (Shadwell), 84. Volpone (Jonson), revivals of, 38, 183. C Voltaire, ^ his general relation to English drama and dramatic criticism, 198-201,235-237 ; compares Wych- erley with Molifere, 81, 81 n. ; his opinion of Cato, 182; his Nanine, 264; its Preface cited, 264 n. ; BIBL., 33a- Walker, William, his Victorious Love, 166. Walpole, Horace, his Memoirs of George II dted, 221 n. ; his opinion of She Stoops to Conquer, 289-290; of The School for Scandal, 302-303. Walpole, Sir Robert, satirized in Gay's Beggar^s Opera, 191-192; in Fielding's farces, 219, 220, 221; his connection with the Licensing Act, 221. Ward, Sir Adolphus W., his History of English Dramatic Literature, cited, 51 n., 57 n., 59 n., 78 n., 112, 112 n., ii6 n., 130 n., 134, 134 n., X47, 147 n., 150 n., 157 n., 159 n., 172 n.; BIBL., 317; his edition of Lillo cited, 203 n., 207 n., 208, 208 n.; BIBL., 332- 333. Watkins, John, his Memoirs of Sheridan cited, 310, 310 n. Way of the World, The (Congreve), 129-131, 148, 150; Garrick acts in, 229. Way to Keep Him, The (Murphy), 255- Weaver, John, his connection with pantomime, 184-186; BIBL., 331. Webster, John, The Thracian Wonder ascribed to, 107, 108; Tate's adaptation from (his White Devil), 115. Wedding-Day, The (Fielding), 222; its Prologue cited, 230. Welsted, Leonard, his Prologue to Steele's Conscious Lovers, 163. Welwood, James, his Preface to Rowe's translation of Lucan cited, 173 n. West Indian, The (Cimiberland), 273-274, 282. Westminster Drolleries, a collection of non-dramatic pieces, 17. Wh