LJiiiii JnLJiLX 
 
 ENGLISH LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 No. 
 
 
EMINENT ACTORS 
 
 EDITED BY WILLIAM ARCHER 
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 
 
EMINENT ACTORS. 
 EDITED BY WILLIAM ARCHER. 
 
 Crown 8z>0, 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 I. 
 
 WILLIAM CHARLES MAGREADY. 
 
 By the EDITOR. 
 
 " The first complete biography of Macready that has yet been 
 published. No 'series' of eminent men has made a more excellent 
 beginning." St. James's Gazette. 
 
 "A full and accurate biography." Graphic. 
 
 " Ought to be acceptable." Morning Post. 
 
 II. 
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON. By ROBERT 
 
 W. LOWE. 
 
 III. 
 
 CHARLES MACKLIN. By A. E. PARRY. 
 
 [Immediately. 
 
 LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & Co., LT?. 
 
THOMAS 
 
 BETTERTON 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT W. LOWE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LT T ?. 
 1891 
 
LIB. 
 
 (The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.) 
 
B t 
 LI I 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the documentary material for the history of 
 the Restoration stage has been pretty thoroughly ransacked 
 by previous inquirers, my researches into the life and 
 times of Betterton have brought to light a considerable 
 number of new facts, and have enabled me to confirm or 
 to contradict several old hypotheses. In no case have I 
 relied upon the mere assertion of previous historians, but 
 have always checked their statements by a reference to 
 the original evidence on which they proceeded. I have 
 at all times been careful to distinguish between ascertained 
 fact and mere conjecture ; so that the reader may accept 
 as undoubted any unqualified assertion contained in the 
 following pages. The course of events during the few 
 months immediately succeeding the reopening of the 
 theatres is here, I believe, set forth with greater accuracy 
 than in any previous work for I have been so fortunate 
 as to disentangle a knot which had baffled Genest and 
 other historians. They had understood Pepys's allusions 
 to " the Cockpit " as referring to the theatre of that name 
 
 145 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 in Drury Lane ; whereas they really referred to the Royal 
 Playhouse at the Cockpit in St. James's Park. This 
 fact, with one or two other minor discoveries, brings com- 
 parative clearness into a period which has hitherto seemed 
 very obscure and confusing. 
 
 The chapter dealing with the Restoration Playhouse, 
 its structure and arrangements, and the manners and 
 customs which prevailed before and behind the scenes, 
 will, I hope, interest both the general reader and the 
 specialist. No such systematic attempt has hitherto been 
 made, so far as I am aware, to paint an accurate picture 
 of the surroundings amid which Betterton acted to 
 describe the material conditions of the stage for which 
 Wycherley and Congreve wrote. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE STAGE BEFORE THE RESTORATION ... i 
 
 II. A RESTORATION THEATRE ... ... 12 
 
 III. THOMAS BETTERTON (1635-1660) ... ... 56 
 
 IV. THOMAS BETTERTON (1660-1682) ... 82 
 V. THOMAS BETTERTON (1682-1695) ... ... 124 
 
 VI. THOMAS BETTERTON (1695-1705) ... 146 
 
 VII. THOMAS BETTERTON (1705-1710) ... ... 176 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE STAGE BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 
 
 UNTIL the Puritan Revolution stopped the theatres, and 
 threw the actors out of employment, the stage in England 
 seems to have been in very prosperous condition. Shortly 
 before the outbreak of the Civil War, according to the 
 Historia Histrionica, there were at least five companies 
 of players in existence. The chief of these were the 
 King's Servants, " men of grave and sober behaviour," 
 who acted at the Blackfriars Theatre in winter, and at the 
 Globe on the Bankside in summer. Next came the 
 Queen's Servants, whose theatre was the Cockpit, or 
 Phoenix, in Drury Lane; then the Prince's Servants, 
 who played at the Private House in Salisbury Court. 
 Two theatres of lower rank complete the list the Fortune, 
 near Whitecross Street ; and the Red Bull, at the upper 
 end of St. John Street, Clerkenwell, which were mostly 
 frequented by "citizens and the meaner sort of people." 
 All these companies "got money, and lived in reputa- 
 tion " for the theatre was at this time held in much 
 higher estee.m than in the scandalous times after the 
 
 B 
 
2 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Restoration. Plays, if not very refined in language, were 
 at least not immoral in intention ; vice was poetically 
 punished ; virtue was not made a scoff. Consequently, 
 very good people thought the play an innocent diversion 
 for an idle hour; and as the prices of admission were 
 small, for there were no expenses of scenery or setting, 
 the town supported five companies handsomely, though, 
 after the Restoration, with a largely increased population, 
 it could not support two. 
 
 To us the recital of the names of the actors who saw 
 the stage go down in the turmoil of the Civil War conveys 
 little idea. They were a generation whose history has 
 failed to attract much attention, for they come as it were 
 between the great generation which Shakespeare adorned, 
 and the Restoration period, in which there is so much 
 that is curious and interesting. A few of the actors 
 whose names appear in the First Folio still survived. 
 One of these was John Lowin, famous for playing Fal- 
 staff and Henry VIII. When Betterton first acted bluff 
 King Hal, the traditions of the earliest players of the 
 part were handed on to him by Sir William *Davenant, 
 who had seen old Lowin act, and Lowin, although not 
 the original representative of the character, had "had 
 his instructions from Mr. Shakespear himself." In the 
 part of Hamlet also Betterton benefited by Davenant's 
 recollection of the acting of Joseph Taylor, who probably 
 was the successor of the original Hamlet, Burbage, and 
 who survived the breaking out of the Civil War some 
 thirteen years. Other contemporaries of these famous 
 players were Richard Robinson, in his youth a noted 
 "boy-actress," who died in 1647 ; and John Shank, who 
 did not live to see the actual beginning of the wars. 
 These older actors were all members of the Blackfriars 
 company, where their chief companions were Stephen 
 
THE STAGE BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 3 
 
 Hammerton, u a most noted and beautiful woman Actor ; " 
 Eliard Swanston, the recognized representative of Othello ; 
 and Thomas Pollard, a celebrated comic actor. At the 
 Cockpit, which ranked second in importance to the 
 Blackfriars Theatre, the leading actors were Perkins, 
 Bowyer, Sumner, William Allen (not to be confused with 
 Edward Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College), Bird, 
 and William^Robins (or Robinson). Younger actors who 
 attained to eminence after the Restoration were Hart, 
 Mohun, Burt, Clun, and Shatterel. 
 
 When the Civil War broke out, the actors, as might be 
 expected, ranged themselves on the side of the king. 
 One only is recorded to have joined the Parliamentarians, 
 Swanston; and he, says Wright, "profest himself a 
 Presbyterian, took up the trade of a jeweller, and liv'd in 
 Aldermanbury, within the territory of Father Calamy." * 
 Lowin, Taylor, and Pollard were unable to give the king 
 more than their good wishes, for they were too old to 
 fight. Lowin went to Brentford, where he kept the inn 
 called the Three Pigeons, and died very old and very 
 poor. Taylor died and was buried at Richmond ; while 
 Pollard, who was a bachelor, and had saved some money, 
 ended his days in comfort with relations who lived in the 
 country. William Robins (or Robinson) lost his life at 
 the taking of Basing House, in 1645. Wright tells us 
 that he was killed by " Butcher " Harrison, who refused 
 him quarter, and shot him through the head after he had 
 laid down his arms, saying, as he murdered the defence- 
 less player, " Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord 
 negligently ! " 
 
 As soon as the actual righting was over, and the power 
 
 * Edmund Calamy was a noted preacher. He was appointed 
 Rector of St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, in 1639, and was ejected by 
 the Act of Uniformity in 1662. 
 
4 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 firmly held in the hands of the Presbyterians and Inde- 
 pendents, the actors gravitated towards London, and 
 made some feeble attempts to resume, by stealth, the 
 practice of their calling, which had been declared unlaw- 
 ful by several Edicts of the Parliament* But their 
 success was small. In the winter of 1 648 a company of 
 them, including Lowin, Taylor, Pollard, Burt, and Hart, 
 ventured to play privately at the Cockpit. But, after 
 remaining unmolested for three or four days, they were 
 at last surprised by a party of soldiers in the middle of 
 acting Fletcher's tragedy of The Bloody Brother, and 
 carried off to prison in their stage-clothes. Here they 
 remained some time, until, having plundered them of 
 their valuables, the soldiers released them, t Afterwards 
 they were more careful, and played mostly in gentlemen's 
 houses, where the guests made up a purse to reward their 
 services. Occasionally, too, they succeeded in bribing 
 the officer who commanded the guard at Whitehall, and 
 he winked at their performing for a day or two at the 
 Red Bull; but even then they were never safe from 
 disturbance. 
 
 In 1656 we find, strangely enough, that Cromwell per- 
 mitted a sort of theatrical performance at Rutland House, 
 under the control of Sir William Davenant. This per- 
 mission seems to have been obtained through the influ- 
 ence of the Lord Keeper, Sir Bulstrode Whitelock, in 
 whose Memorials we find, under date September 3, 1656, 
 an interesting letter from Davenant, in which he says 
 
 * On September 2, 1642, plays were forbidden during "these 
 times of humiliation ; " they were altogether suppressed by an 
 Ordinance of October 22, 1647 ; and a still stricter decree to the 
 same effect was passed on February II, 1648. 
 
 t Whitelock, in his Memorials, mentions a similar occurrence on 
 December 20, 1649. 
 
THE STAGE BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 5 
 
 " When I consider the nicety of the times, I fear it may 
 draw a curtain between your Lordship and our opera ; there- 
 fore I have presumed to send your Lordship, hot from the 
 press, what we mean to represent, making your Lordship 
 my supreme judge, though I despair to have the honour of 
 inviting you to be a spectator." 
 
 The work which Davenant sent was no doubt his opera 
 of The Siege of Rhodes, which was published in Sep- 
 tember, 1656, and has a preface dated August 17, 1656. 
 But this opera was not the first of Davenant's productions. 
 It had been preceded by an entertainment, probably pro- 
 duced on May 21, 1656. The stage-directions of this 
 entertainment will sufficiently explain its nature. The 
 first is, " After a flourish of music, the curtains are drawn 
 and the Prologue enters." He speaks his piece, and 
 retires. Then, " a concert of instrumental music, adapted 
 to the sullen disposition of Diogenes, being heard a while, 
 the curtains are suddenly opened, and in two gilded 
 rostras appear, sitting, Diogenes the Cynic, and Aristo- 
 phanes the Poet, in habits agreeable to their country and 
 professions, who declaim against, and for, public enter- 
 tainment, by moral representations." After Diogenes 
 has had his say, " a concert of music, befitting the plea- 
 sant disposition of Aristophanes, being heard, he thus 
 answers." When Aristophanes has effectually routed his 
 sour antagonist, " the curtains are suddenly closed, and 
 the company entertained by instrumental and vocal 
 music." After which, " a concert of instrumental music, 
 after the French composition, being heard a while, the 
 curtains are suddenly opened, and in the rostras appear, 
 sitting, a Parisian and a Londoner, in the livery robes of 
 both cities, who declaim concerning the pre-eminence of 
 Paris and London" The Parisian opens the ball, and, 
 after a concert imitating the Waits of London, his oppo- 
 
6 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 nent replies. The curtains are then closed, more instru- 
 mental and vocal music follows, and the entertainment 
 concludes with an epilogue. 
 
 It will be seen that the scenic arrangements of this 
 Entertainment were of the simplest. From them to the 
 ambitious attempts made in The Siege of Rhodes was a 
 great advance. This opera, produced in September, 
 1656, was described as "The Siege of Rhodes. Made a 
 Representation by the Art of Prospective in Scenes, and 
 the Story sung in Recitative Musick." The scenes, no 
 doubt, demanded a good deal of make-believe ; but, crude 
 as they probably were, they were the most important 
 scenes ever set on an English stage, for they were the 
 first. At Court Masques elaborate scenery had long 
 before appeared, but the stage knew nothing more than 
 coarse hangings or rude tapestry.* Davenant himself 
 gives an amusing description of the difficulties of his 
 scenery, which was designed and painted by John Webb. 
 He says 
 
 " It has been often wisht that our Scenes (we having 
 oblig'd ourselves to the variety of five changes according to 
 the Ancient Dramatic distinctions made for time) had not 
 been confined to eleven foot in height, and about fifteen in 
 depth, including the places of passage reserv'd for the 
 Musick. This is 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 carved upon a nut." 
 
 To the literary merits of the opera Dryden has given 
 the highest praise. In his dedication to The Rival Ladies 
 he says that if Waller first showed the proper beauty of 
 
 * The question of the introduction of scenery has greatly 
 exercised Shakespearian commentators. Malone enters very fully 
 into the matter. 
 
THE STAGE BEFORE THE RESTORATION. ^ 
 
 rhymed verse, " we are acknowledging for the noblest use 
 of it to Sir William D'avenant ; who at once brought 
 it upon the stage, and made it perfect, in The Siege of 
 Rhodes" As a specimen of the rhymes, take this 
 
 " Solyman. Away ! range all the camp for an assault ; 
 Tell them they tread in graves who make a halt. 
 Fat slaves, who have been lull'd to a disease, 
 Cramm'd out of breath, and crippled by their ease ! 
 Whose active fathers leapt o'er walls too high 
 For them to climb : Hence from my anger fly ! 
 Which is too worthy for thee, being mine, 
 And must be quench'd by Rhodian blood or thine." 
 
 Another specimen, of different style, is a chorus, by 
 soldiers of several nations 
 
 " i. Come, ye termagant Turks, 
 
 If your Bassa dares land ye, 
 Whilst the wine bravely works 
 
 Which was brought us from Candy. 
 
 " 2. Wealth, the least of our care is, 
 
 For the poor ne'er are undone ; 
 Avous, Monsieur of Paris, 
 
 To the back-swords of London. 
 
 " 5. It is seven to one odds 
 
 They had safer sail'd by us : 
 
 Whilst our wine lasts in Rhodes 
 
 They shall water at Chios." 
 
 To Davenant and his opera Dryden again alludes in 
 a passage of interest in his Essay on Heroick Plays, in 
 which he says 
 
 " For Heroick Plays, ... the first light we had of them 
 on the English Theatre was from the late Sir William 
 D'avenant : It being forbidden him in the rebellious times to 
 act tragedies and comedies, because they contained some 
 
8 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 matter of scandal to those good people, who could more 
 easily dispossess their lawful Sovereign, than endure a 
 wanton jest; he was forced to turn his thoughts another 
 way, and to introduce the examples of moral virtue, writ in 
 verse, and perform'd in Recitative Musick. The original of 
 this Musick, and of the scenes which adorn'd this work, he 
 had from the Italian operas." 
 
 The performers in The Siege of Rhodes were personages 
 of some note, as the following list shows (naturally they 
 were all musicians) : 
 
 Solyman the Magnificent ... CAPT. HENRY COOK. 
 
 Villerius ... ... ... MR. GREGORY THORNDALL. 
 
 Alphonso ... ..". MR. EDWARD GOLEM AN. 
 
 Admiral ... ... ... MR. MATTHEW LOCK. 
 
 Pirrhus ... ... ... MR. JOHN HARDING. 
 
 Mustapha ... ... MR. HENRY PERSILL. 
 
 lanthe ... ... ... MRS. COLEMAN, wife of MR. 
 
 COLEMAN. 
 
 The vocal music was the composition of Henry Lawes, 
 Captain Cook, and Matthew Lock, while Dr. Charles 
 Coleman and George Hudson were responsible for the 
 instrumental. 
 
 The claims of this opera to consideration can scarcely 
 be overstated. Mr. Joseph Knight, in his preface to 
 his edition of the Roscius Anglicanus, thus summarizes 
 them 
 
 "Coming after an entertainment which cannot by any 
 stretch be called dramatic, it marks the re-establishment of 
 the theatre after Puritan rule ; it is the first opera ever given 
 in this country ; it introduces the first English actress who 
 ever chaunted (not spoke) on the English stage ; it exhibits 
 the first scenery ever employed in the case of a regular 
 dramatic production, not being a miracle-play or a masque ; 
 and it names the first provider of scenery for a work of this 
 class, as distinguished again from the jnasque, in which, at a 
 much earlier date, elaborate decorations were employed." 
 
THE STAGE BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 9 
 
 Toleration seems to have made Davenant resolve on 
 the bolder step of taking a regular theatre as the scene 
 of his operations. We accordingly find him two years 
 later at the Cockpit in Drury Lane, his productions 
 being still of the nature of an opera. The first of which 
 we have record was The Cruelty of the Spaniards in 
 Peru ; " exprest by vocall and instrumentall Musick, and 
 by art of perspective in scenes." To the end of the first 
 edition of this opera was appended a note : " Notwith- 
 standing the great expense necessary to scenes, and 
 other ornaments in this entertainment, there is good pro- 
 vision made of places for a shilling." So that already 
 the question of the expense of scenery was necessitating 
 consideration. The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru is 
 said to have been permitted by the Protector as a means 
 of stirring up popular feeling against the Spanish enemies 
 of England and the Protestant religion. The purpose of 
 the piece was to show first the happy condition of the 
 people of Peru "when their inclinations were govern'd 
 by Nature;" then their history under the Incas; the 
 conquest of the empire by the Spaniards, and their cruel 
 treatment of the natives; the conclusion being a pro- 
 phetic rescue of the Peruvians from their Spanish 
 oppressors by English soldiers. The opening speech of 
 the Priest of the Sun is well worth quoting. He is point- 
 ing to the scene of the primitive happiness of the Peru- 
 vians, and says 
 
 " Thus fresh did Nature in our world appear, 
 
 When first her roses did their leaves unfold : 
 Ere she did use art's colours, and ere fear 
 
 Had made her pale, or she with cares lookt old. 
 When various sports did man's lov'd freedom show, 
 
 And still the free were willing to obey ; 
 Youth did to age, and sons to parents bow. 
 
 Parents and age first taught the laws of sway. 
 
io THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 When yet we no just motive had to fear 
 
 Our bolder Incas would by arms be rais'd ; 
 When, temp'rately, they still contented were, 
 
 As great examples, to be only prais'd. 
 When none for being strong did seek reward, 
 
 Nor any for the space of empire strove : 
 When valour courted peace and never car'd 
 
 For any recompence, but public love. 
 We fetter'd none, nor were by any bound ; 
 
 None follow'd gold through lab'rynths of the mine : 
 And that which we on strands of rivers found, 
 
 Did only on our priests in temple shine." 
 
 The Priest is the solitary speaker throughout, intro- 
 ducing and explaining each of the six scenes. Every 
 speech is followed by a song, and every scene ends in a 
 dance, joyous or mournful, as the subject demands. 
 
 In this piece the speaker seems to have acted merely 
 as showman, and to have recited in ordinary tone ; but 
 in the other opera which we know that Davenant pro- 
 duced at this time, the dialogue (for there were more 
 speakers than one) was carried on in recitative. This 
 opera was entitled, The History of Sir Francis Drake, 
 and, excepting that it contained many more lines, was 
 of precisely the same nature as its predecessor. It was 
 published in 1659, but at what part of that year we can 
 form no idea. 
 
 Before leaving Davenant and his operas, I may quote 
 the following Order from the Publick Intelligencer of 
 December 20 to 27, 1658, that is, shortly after Richard 
 Cromwell became Protector : 
 
 " Whitehall, December 23. A courte is ordered for taking 
 into consideration the opera, shewed at the Cockpitt in 
 Drury Lane, and the persons to whom it stands referred, 
 are to send for the poet and actors, and to inform themselves 
 of the nature of the work, and to examine by what authority 
 
THE STAGE BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 11 
 
 the same is exposed to publick view ; and they are also to 
 take the best information they can, concerning the acting of 
 stage-playes, and upon the whole to make report." 
 
 It may be concluded that the report was not unfavour- 
 able, since The History of Sir Francis Drake was dated 
 1659. 
 
 With this play our glance at the theatre during the 
 Commonwealth concludes, and we pass to the stage 
 on which Thomas Betterton acted the stage of the 
 Restoration. 
 
12 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A RESTORATION THEATRE. 
 
 FASHION changes so quickly in things theatrical that the 
 usages and methods of fifty years ago appear almost ante- 
 diluvian to the playgoer of to-day. The plays that are 
 acted, the technique of the actors, the style of the elocution, 
 the arrangements and appearance of the theatre, all have 
 changed ; so that if Edmund Kean could be summoned by 
 some magician to see a play acted in our Lyceum Theatre 
 to-day, alike on the stage and in the auditorium he would 
 see enormous changes. And if this is true of Kean, how 
 much more is it true of Betterton ! To that great actor 
 our theatre would be a veritable terra incognita. And, as 
 we are about to consider the life and work of Betterton, 
 let us in the first instance try to convey ourselves back to 
 his stage, to realize the conditions under which he played 
 his part, to reconstruct in our mind's eye the theatre in 
 which he shone so bright a star. 
 
 Placing ourselves, then, in the position of a theatre-goer 
 of two centuries ago, we first ask how we are to know 
 what play we shall choose to see. And this brings us to our 
 first question advertising. At a time when, practically, 
 a different play was acted each day, and when newspaper 
 advertisements were as yet undreamt of, how did the 
 actors communicate with the public ? In two ways : by 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 13 
 
 giving out the next day's play at the end of each per- 
 formance (a method which survived almost to our own 
 time) ; and by displaying bills on posts in the street, as 
 had been the practice before the Civil Wars. Of both 
 methods our most valuable authority on Restoration 
 customs, Samuel Pepys, gives examples. On September 
 15, 1668, Pepys went to the King's Playhouse to see a 
 new play by Dryden, called, The Ladies a la Mode, of 
 which, by the way, this is the only record ; and when the 
 actor, Beeston, came forward to give the new play out 
 for repetition on the following day, Pepys records that 
 both Beeston and the audience "fell a-laughing," be- 
 cause the house was not a quarter full at that perform- 
 ance, and would naturally be still emptier the next day. 
 To the advertising on the posts Pepys alludes twice. 
 Once (March 24, 1662) he goes out to see what play 
 is to be acted, and finds none upon the post, it being 
 Passion Week; and another time (July 28, 1664), being 
 abroad, he observes on the posts that The Bondman is 
 to be acted at the Duke's House, and goes to see it. 
 
 That these bills sometimes contained something more 
 than a mere announcement of the play * is probable. In 
 the Key to " The Rehearsal" published in 1704, the pub- 
 lisher states that his author declaimed against the practice 
 of the English stage, saying that he believed that the 
 regular theatres were in a confederacy to ruin the Fair 
 of Smithfield, "by outdoing them in their bombastick 
 bills, and ridiculous representing their plays." The only 
 one of these bills which I have been able to see is, how- 
 
 * We learn from a letter from Dryden to Mrs. Steward, that the 
 first occasion on which an author's name appeared on the bill of 
 the play, "at least in England," was the revival of The Double 
 Dealer, in March, 1699, when the play was announced as "written ^ 
 "by Mr. Congreve." 
 
14 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 ever, a model of plainness and brevity. It occurred in 
 the famous Mansfield-Mackenzie sale, and, though some- 
 what mutilated, was sufficiently preserved to be quite 
 intelligible. It ran thus 
 
 "W. R. 
 
 At the Desire of several Persons of Quality 
 
 at the 
 
 NEW THEATRE 
 In Little Lincolns-Inn Fields, 
 this present TUESDAY being the 2;th of Fe- 
 bruary, will be presented, 
 
 a Tragedy calPd, 
 
 THE MOURNING BRIDE. 
 ...... h Entry perform 'd by 
 
 . . . . e Boy. 
 
 Vivat Rex." 
 
 This bill, which must have been that for February 27, 
 1700, the only year of William's reign in which that date 
 fell on a Tuesday, is the earliest bill of which, so far as 
 I know, a copy has been published. The commonly 
 quoted programme for the opening of the Drury Lane 
 Theatre on April 8, 1663, is, as I shall show in a 
 subsequent chapter, a forgery. 
 
 The use of different coloured announcements, now so 
 common that nearly every London theatre has its dis- 
 tinctive colour of bill, dates back at least as far as 1672. 
 In that year a troop of French players, which seems to 
 have comprised both comic and tragic performers, visited 
 London, and attracted great audiences, to the serious 
 detriment of the native theatre. Dryden wrote a pro- 
 logue against them, and from it we learn that these 
 exotic performers used red bills to attract public atten- 
 tion. Dryden writes 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 15 
 
 " A brisk French troop is grown your dear delight ; 
 Who with broad bloody bills call you each day, 
 To laugh and break your buttons at their play." 
 
 Having settled, then, which playhouse we will pa- 
 tronize, we must next discover the hour at which the 
 play begins, and also make up our minds how long 
 before the appointed time we must go to get places; 
 for such a thing as booking or reserving seats was not 
 dreamt of for many years after this time. 
 
 Immediately after the Restoration, plays seem to have 
 commenced at half-past three o'clock. The prologue 
 to Dryden's Wild Gallant, produced on February 5, 
 1663, gives us this information. Two Astrologers are 
 introduced, who cast the nativity of the new play in 
 order to ascertain its success or failure. To these the 
 prologue is presented. 
 
 " And from this scheme, drawn for the hour and day, 
 Bid me enquire the fortune of his play." 
 
 The ist Astrologer then reads, "A figure of the hea- 
 venly bodies in their several apartments, February 5, half 
 an hour after three, afternoon, from whence you are to 
 judge the success of a new play called The Wild Gallant." 
 How long this early hour saw the rising or opening of 
 the curtain I do not know, but before the end of the 
 century five o'clock was the fashionable hour; and it 
 seems probable that by 1706 the play began so late as 
 six o'clock. For the five-o'clock hour we have many 
 authorities. Let us quote, for example, the facetious 
 Tom Brown's Dialogues of the Dead. In the " Trial of 
 Cuckolds," Lord Flippant's Ghost, in describing his day's 
 occupation on earth, says, "Whilst I was at Will's 
 coffee house, fastened in controversy or poetick rhapso- 
 dies, though I had neither religion nor learning, she was 
 
L 
 
 1 6 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 sure of me till play-time, and then too ; for at five, l Come, 
 Dick,' says I (to a brother of the orange and cravat 
 string), ' d me, let us to the play.' " 
 
 From the epilogue to Farquhar's Recruiting Officer, 
 produced April 8, 1706, we learn that the hour of 
 performance was then six o'clock. It begins, " All 
 ladies and gentlemen that are willing to see the Comedy 
 called The Recruiting Officer, let them repair to-morrow 
 night, by six o'clock, to the sign of the Theatre Royal in 
 Drury-lane, and they shall be kindly entertain'd." 
 
 This rapid progress in the direction of later hours is, 
 of course, only one consequence of the gradual change 
 of habits, which has now landed us in the extremity of 
 frequently beginning our chief piece at a fashionable 
 theatre at nine o'clock at night. The progress towards 
 late hours at the time under review becomes still more 
 noticeable when we remember that immediately before 
 the Restoration the hour for beginning the play was 
 three o'clock. This we learn from a piece which has 
 already come under our notice, Davenant's Cruelty of the 
 Spaniards in Peru, which was " Represented daily at the 
 Cockpit in Drury-Lane, At Three afternoone punctually." 
 At the end of the piece the time is specially intimated : 
 " And it shall begin certainly at 3 after noon." 
 
 Having thus settled the hour of the play, we must 
 make up our minds how long we are prepared to sit in 
 the theatre unemployed, in order to ensure good places. 
 If we mean to get advantageous seats at a new play 
 regarding which there is much public curiosity, we must go 
 appallingly early. Up to at least 1669, the doors of the 
 theatre were thrown open about twelve o'clock. On the 
 first day of Sir Charles Sedley's comedy of The Mulberry 
 Garden (May 18, 1668), of which, the author "being so 
 reputed a wit, all the world do expect great matters," 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 17 
 
 Pepys went to the King's Playhouse about noon, shortly 
 after which time the doors opened. A fortnight earlier 
 he went to the Duke's House at a little past twelve to get 
 a good place in the pit, the play being Shadwell's Sullen 
 Lovers. The same indefatigable playgoer records (February 
 25, 1669) that before one o'clock the Duke's House was 
 "infinite full," the attraction being again a play by 
 Shad well his tragi-comedy of The Royal Shepherdess. 
 It must have been an idle age, for all sorts and conditions *" 
 of men seem to have submitted to the inconvenience of 
 passing the whole afternoon in the playhouse. I know 
 only one allusion to the waste of time involved in play- 
 going. It is in "A Satyr," published in Poems on 
 Affairs of State ', vol. iii. (1704), with the motto, " Quern 
 Natura negat dabit Indignatio Versum." : The writer-, 
 abusing Otway, says 
 
 " Was't not enough, that at his tedious Play, 
 I .lavish'd half a Crown, and half a Day ? " 
 
 Of course, measures were taken by some to obviate this 
 inconvenience to a certain extent, but we have every 
 reason to think that most people simply accepted the 
 situation. The only method of avoiding the penitential 
 wait was to hire some one to keep your place. This Pepys 
 did twice. On the first day of The Mulberry Garden the 
 pangs of hunger were not to be withstood, so he got a 
 boy to keep his place in the pit, while he himself slipped 
 out to the Rose Tavern, " got half a breast of mutton, off 
 of the spit, and dined all alone. And so to the play 
 again." On another occasion he set a poor man to keep 
 his place, Pepys going to Martin's, his bookseller's, and 
 there spending an hour. 
 
 The plan of sending a footman to keep places, which 
 before the end of the seventeenth century was quite 
 
 c 
 
1 8 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 general, does not seem to have been adopted before 
 1672 ; for in that year Dryden, in the prologue to Carlell's 
 Arviragus and Philida, from which I have already 
 quoted the passage regarding red bills, quotes apparently 
 the substance of an announcement from the French 
 players' bills 
 
 " ' And therefore, Messieurs, if you'll do us grace, 
 Send lacqueys early to preserve your place. ' ' 
 
 It is a fair inference from Dryden's special allusion to 
 this announcement that the practice he mentions was 
 jioy,e4 to English playgoers. 
 
 The different parts into which the auditorium of the 
 theatre was divided seem to have undergone little change 
 for very many years. The floor of the house was entirely 
 devoted to the pit ; the first tier was divided into boxes ; 
 so, it seems, was part of the second or middle gallery ; 
 and the upper gallery was given up to the proletariat, 
 and, as will be described later, to the footmen of the 
 quality in the boxes and pit. The prices for these 
 various parts also remained unaltered for a long time. 
 The admission to the boxes was four shillings ; to the 
 pit, half a crown ; to the middle gallery, eighteenpence ; 
 and to the upper gallery, a shilling. Allusions to these 
 charges are common in the prologues and epilogues of 
 the period especially in the case of the half-crown 
 admission to the pit. 
 
 That four shillings was the charge for the boxes is 
 clearly stated in the second epilogue to Dryden and Lee's 
 Duke of Guise. Referring to the disgraceful rowdyism of 
 the pit, Dryden writes 
 
 " This makes our boxes full ; for men of sense 
 Pay their four shillings in their own defence : 
 That safe behind the ladies they may stay, 
 Peep o'er the fan, and judge the bloody fray." 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 19 
 
 The same poet alludes, in the epilogue to Southerne's 
 Disappointment ; or, The Mother in Fashion (1684), to 
 the middle gallery thus 
 
 " Let all the boxes, Phoebus, find thy grace, 
 And, ah, preserve the eighteenpenny place ! " 
 
 From Pepys we hear a good deal about the eighteen- 
 penny place, the diarist being somewhat of Mrs. Gilpin's 
 complexion, fond of combining pleasure and economy. 
 From him, also, we learn that some part at least of the 
 middle gallery was divided into boxes. On November 
 29, 1 66 1, Sir William Pen and Mr. Pepys, being unable 
 to find room in the pit, " went up to one of the boxes 
 and into the i8</. places." On December 21, 1668, 
 Pepys has a passage which proves conclusively the 
 existence of boxes in the middle gallery. He relates how 
 the notorious Moll Davis was in the box over the king's, 
 which was, of course, on the first tier. The king cast 
 glances at the ex-actress, and Lady Castlemaine, who was 
 in the king's box, " looked like fire " when she glanced up 
 to see who it was that attracted Charles's attention, and 
 saw a rival mistress. I think it probable that these upper 
 boxes were situated only at the sides of the middle gallery, 
 and that the centre space was simply arranged in benches 
 like the pit, -as. is the case in the third gallery of the 
 Theatre Frangais. 
 
 To the shilling gallery Dryden alludes in his prologue 
 to Tate's tragedy of The Loyal General (1680), where he 
 advises the degenerate pit to remove its benches, " and 
 take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit." To this humble, 
 though lofty position, Pepys, in his earlier days of theatre- 
 going, occasionally went, especially if the admission money 
 was doubled, as was the case when a new play was pro- 
 duced. Thus he chronicles (December 16, 1661) how, on 
 
20 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 the first day of Cowley's Cutter of Coleman Street, Mrs. 
 Pepys and he, to save money, for " the pay was doubled," 
 went into the gallery, and there sat and saw very well. 
 In the beginning of the same year the worthy Clerk of the 
 Acts was sorely troubled in his mind at being seen in the 
 shilling seats by four clerks in his office who had spent 
 half a crown on their admission. Pepys notes that these 
 clerks were in " the half-crowne box," which, I think, must 
 be an error of expression, for I have met with no other 
 allusion whatever to boxes at half a crown. Pepys may 
 have meant the eighteenpenny box, or may have intended 
 to convey the idea that they were in the pit. Or, though 
 I think this unlikely, there may have been one or two 
 omnibus boxes, the admission to which would be the same 
 as to the pit. 
 
 Regarding the price of admission to the pit, we have 
 abundant testimony ; Pepys, for instance, giving most 
 definite information. On the first day of the year 1668 
 he moralizes on the advancing vanity and prodigality of the 
 age. He is in the pit of the Duke's Playhouse, and 
 " here," he notes, " a mighty company of citizens, 'pren- 
 tices, and others ; and it makes me observe, that when I 
 began first to be able to bestow a play on myself, I do 
 not remember that I saw so many by half of the ordinary 
 'prentices and mean people in the pit at 2s. 6d. a-piece 
 as now; I going for several years no higher than the 
 12^., and then the i8*/. places, though I strained hard to 
 go in when I did." In the epilogue to The Generous 
 Enemies, a comedy by John Corye, produced in 1671, 
 Mrs. Boutell spoke the lines 
 
 " Though there I see Propitious Angels sit, 
 
 [Points at the boxes, 
 Still there's a Nest of Devils in the Pit, 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 21 
 
 By whom our Plays, like Children, just alive, 
 
 Pinch'd by the Fairies, never after thrive : 
 
 Tis but your Half-crown, Sirs : that won't undo." 
 
 Another prologue gives us corroboration of Pepys's state- 
 ment as to the doubling of prices on the first day of a - 
 new play. This is the prologue written by Dr. Charles 
 Davenant for his tragic opera of Circe (1677), in which he 
 says 
 
 " But move not you, the brothers of the trade, 
 Who, scattering your infection through the pit, 
 With aching hearts and empty purses sit, 
 To take your dear fiveshillings' worth of wit." 
 
 For admission behind the scenes a charge appears to 
 have been made, but I have been unable to find any state- 
 ment as to the amount levied. Indeed, the point is so 
 seldom mentioned by any writer that it might easily 
 escape notice altogether. But in the report of the 
 evidence brought against Lord Mohun at his trial for 
 being accessory to the murder of Mountfort, the actor, in 
 1692, we find that John Rogers, a doorkeeper in the 
 theatre, testified that he asked Mohun and his equally 
 disreputable companion, Captain Hill, for money, " that 
 they ought to pay more than the rest that were in the pit, 
 because they came upon the stage." I am inclined to 
 fancy, from the fact that Rogers mentions no particular 
 sum, that perhaps there was no definite charge for admis- 
 sion to the stage, but that the amount was left to the 
 generosity of the beaux and gallants. That the stage was 
 sometimes used as a convenient means of passing from 
 the pit to the boxes is shown by the epilogue to The 
 Man's the Master, in which Davenant, describing the 
 tricks of the theatre-goers, writes 
 
22 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 " Nay, often you swear, when places are shewn ye, 
 That your hearing is thick, 
 And so, by a love-trick, 
 You pass through our scenes up to the balcony." 
 
 But everybody did not pay for admission. Leaving 
 for the present those who dishonestly obtained entrance 
 for nothing, we find that the noble army of "dead- 
 heads," to use the expressive modern word, existed two 
 hundred years ago in great strength. All authors who 
 had written plays, whether damned or otherwise, and all 
 poets who had written prologue or epilogue, were on 
 the free list ; indeed, I am not sure that almost any poet 
 who had printed his works had not a claim for free 
 admission. In A Satyr upon the Poets, being a Trans- 
 lation out of the ^th Satyr of Juvenal, the following lines 
 occur : 
 
 " But on your Ruin stubbornly pursue, 
 Herd with the hungry little chiming Crew, 
 Obtain the empty Title of a Wit, 
 And be a free-cost Noisy in the Pit : 
 Print your dull Poems, and before 'em place 
 A Crown of Laurel, and a Meager Face." 
 
 However irregular their conduct, the poets were at any 
 rate recognized as entitled to free admission ; but there 
 was a considerable class who by force or fraud made 
 their way into the playhouse without paying. To this 
 nefarious practice one of the usages of the theatre 
 specially lent itself. This was the regulation an utterly 
 absurd one, as it seems to us now that any one who did 
 not remain in the theatre till the end of the act then in 
 progress did not require to pay anything. Our good 
 friend Pepys again helps us to an example. He went to 
 the two playhouses " into the pit, to gaze up and down, 
 and there did by this means,jfor nothing, see an act in 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 23 
 
 The Schoole of Compliments at the Duke of York's house, 
 and Henry the Fourth at the King's house; but, not 
 liking either of the plays, I took my coach again, and 
 home." In the ballad-epilogue to The Man's the Master, 
 just quoted, there is a verse referring to this practice 
 
 "And some a deuce take 'em ! pretend 
 They come but to speak with a friend ; , 
 
 Then wickedly rob us of a whole play 
 
 By stealing five times an act in a day. 
 O little England ! speak, is it no pity, 
 That gallants ev'n here, and in thy chief city, 
 
 Should under great perruques have heads so small, 
 
 As they must steal wit, or have none at all ? " 
 
 The way in which such a foolish practice would be 
 abused is obvious enough. The dishonest playgoer would 
 swagger, probably with his hand on his sword, past the 
 doorkeepers, declaring that he was only going in for a 
 few minutes, and would certainly come out before the end 
 of an act. Then he would take his seat and keep it till 
 the end of the play. To him the doorkeeper * would 
 come, importuning him to pay his money, and a noisy 
 altercation would promptly ensue, to the disturbance of 
 the audience and the detriment of the play. So objec- 
 tionable did this nuisance become, that a special decree 
 was issued in 1665 against it, commanding that every 
 one should pay on entering, but allowing the money to 
 be returned if the playgoer left by the same entrance 
 before the end of one act. Some ten years later the 
 king issued another order, withdrawing the latter privilege. 
 He commanded " that the money which shall be paid so 
 by any persons in their respective places shall not be 
 
 * There were two doorkeepers at each entrance. To the first of 
 these you paid your money, and from him received a ticket, which 
 you gave up to the second doorkeeper. 
 
24 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 returned again, after it is once paid, notwithstanding that 
 such persons shall go out at any time before or during 
 the play." 
 
 But, like all royal proclamations on theatrical subjects 
 at this time, these decrees seem to have been quite as 
 much " honoured in the breach as the observance ; " for 
 Pepys's last narrated proceedings took place on January 
 7, 1668, within three years of the issue of the 1665 edict, 
 and seem to have been accepted as quite regular and 
 unobjectionable. But an even more curious usage than 
 this is revealed to us by an order which may be found 
 among the records of the Lord Chamberlain's office, under 
 date of December 7, 1663 : " Whereas we are informed 
 that diverse persons doe rudely presse and with evill 
 language and blowes force theire ways into the two theatres 
 without paying the prices established ; " therefore the king 
 declares such proceedings j unlawful, " notwithstanding 
 theire pretended priviledge by custom of forcing theire 
 entrance at the fourth or fifth acts without payment." 
 
 This particular method of swindling, being peculiar to 
 the Restoration theatre, is of interest to us. But I must 
 also mention a form of dishonesty which, like Shake- 
 speare, is " for all time " that is, the giving of bad 
 money. This is brought specially under notice in the 
 epilogue last mentioned, two lines of which are 
 
 " You visit our plays, and merit the stocks 
 For paying half-crowns of brass to our box." 
 
 A curious usage in connection with paying, or rather 
 with inability to pay, is mentioned by Pepys on December 
 30, 1667. After dining with Sir George Carteret at his 
 house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Pepys went to the King's 
 Playhouse with Philip, Sir George's eldest son. Sir 
 Philip (so he calls him) was anxious to stand treat to 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. zf 
 
 Mr. Pepys : as the diarist puts it, " I could not but 
 observe that Sir Philip Carteret would fain have given 
 me my going into a play." But Mr. Pepys would not 
 hear of such a thing. As it happened, Sir Philip had not 
 money enough to pay for himself, but went in notwith- 
 standing; from which Mr. Pepys learned that he was 
 known there, and " did run upon the score for plays." 
 "This," adds the diarist, "is a shame; but I perceive 
 always he is in want of money." It will be noticed that, 
 though Pepys expresses regret at the proceeding, he 
 shows no surprise, and we thus gather that it was by no 
 means an uncommon practice. This view is confirmed 
 by a passage in the fourth act of Shadwell's True Widow, 
 which was produced in 1679. The scene is laid in the 
 pit of the playhouse, and several men come in without 
 paying. 
 
 " ist Doorkeeper. Pray, Sir, pay me ; my Masters will make 
 me pay it. 
 
 yd Man. Impudent Rascal ! do you ask me for money ? 
 Take that, Sirrah ! 
 
 ind Doorkeeper. Will you pay me, Sir ? 
 
 4/yfc Man. No ; I don't intend to stay. 
 
 2nd Doorkeeper. So you say every day, and see two or 
 three Acts for nothing. 
 
 tfh Man. I'll break your Head, you Rascal ! 
 
 i st Doorkeeper. Pray, Sir, pay me. 
 
 yd Man. Set it down ; I have no Silver about me ; or 
 bid my man pay you. 
 
 Theodosia. What ! do Gentlemen run on Tick for Plays ? 
 
 Carlos. As familiarly as with their Taylors." 
 
 Suppose, then, that we have paid our half-crown at the 
 door, or even that we are known to the doorkeeper, and 
 have got in on credit; we find ourselves in the pit, 
 which, it is scarcely necessary to mention, occupies the 
 
26 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 entire floor of the house. It is seated with benches, 
 which are covered with matting. Dryden says 
 
 " Who, to save coach-hire, trudge along the street, 
 Then print our matted seats with dirty feet." 
 
 _y There are no backs to the benches, I am afraid, for we 
 find numerous allusions to the fops standing on the seats 
 of the pit, and walking over them. 
 
 " And so the hot Burgundian on the side, 
 Ply vizard-mask, and o'er the benches stride." 
 
 And in Wycherley's Gentleman Dancing- Master Hippo- 
 lita says to Gerrard, " This is one of your confident 
 tricks . . . you'll be acquainted with a woman in the 
 time you can help her over a bench in the playhouse " 
 which proceeding would be practically impossible if the 
 benches had backs. 
 
 In front of the pit, in fact just as it is now, was the 
 orchestra. In earlier times the music occupied a gallery, 
 and the change seems to have been made when the New 
 Theatre Royal in Drury Lane was built for Killigrew. 
 // Pepys visited it on the day after its opening (May 8, 
 1663) and found that "the musique being below, and 
 most of it sounding under the very stage, there is no 
 hearing of the bases at all, nor very well of the trebles, 
 which sure must be mended." What the orchestra con- 
 sisted of I do not know, but, if we believe Tom Killi- 
 grew, the musical part of theatrical entertainments was 
 distinctly primitive. He recited to Pepys the improve- 
 ments he had wrought in stage matters ; among other 
 things he had increased the number of fiddlers from two 
 or three to nine or ten of the best. But notwithstanding 
 this, the quality of the music purveyed was something 
 of the simplest. Killigrew, who seems to have been an 
 excellent judge of music, complained that his efforts to 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 27 
 
 introduce good music, both in the reign of Charles I. and 
 that of his successor, had been unavailing. In 1667, the 
 time when Killigrew spoke, we had got no further than 
 ballads. He says, " ' Hermit poore ' and ' Chiny Chese ' 
 [' Chevy Chase '] was all the musique we had ; and yet 
 no ordinary fiddlers get so much money as our's do here, 
 which speaks our rudenesse still." In fact, we had more 
 money than taste : we paid high salaries to the musi- 
 cians, but did not care to hear them play good music. 
 
 From the orchestra to the stage is but a step, and here 
 we find the greatest difference between the Restoration 
 theatre and that of to-day. Even in our own time we 
 have seen the final step taken which has changed the 
 stage from literally a stage, or platform, into a flat picture 
 of which nothing comes in front of the proscenium. The 
 stage of the present Haymarket Theatre represents the 
 furthest possible development of this idea, the heavy 
 gilded proscenium being actually a picture-frame, which 
 the curtain when it is down completely fills, j But in the 
 Restoration theatre the curtain was a long"" way back 
 from the front edge of the stage. In other words, the 
 stage projected or ran out into the auditorium ; and that 
 to such a considerable distance that a number of the 
 audience in the pit were accommodated in the space on 
 either side of it, the spectators being thus on three sides 
 instead of on one. Cibber gives a very interesting 
 account of the stage in front of the curtain as it existed 
 before the time when Rich, in order to get more room 
 for his pit, altered the structure of Drury Lane. He 
 says 
 
 " It must be observ'd, then, that the Area or Platform of 
 the old Stage projected about four Foot forwarder, in a 
 Semi-oval Figure, parallel to the Benches of the Pit ; and 
 that the former lower Doors of Entrance for the Actors were 
 
28 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 brought down between the two foremost (and then only) 
 Pilasters ; in the Place of which Doors now the two Stage- 
 Boxes are fixt. That where the Doors of Entrance now 
 are, there formerly stood two additional Side-Wings, in front 
 to a full Set of Scenes, which had then almost a double 
 Effect in their Loftiness and Magnificence. 
 
 " By this Original Form, the usual Station of the Actors, in 
 almost every Scene, was advanc'd at least ten Foot nearer 
 to the Audience than they now can be ; because, not only 
 from the Stage's being shorten'd in front, but likewise from 
 the additional Interposition of those Stage-Boxes, the 
 Actors (in respect to the Spectators that fill them) are kept 
 so much more backward from the main Audience than they 
 us'd to be : But when the Actors were in Possession of that 
 forwarder Space to advance upon, the Voice was then more 
 in the Centre of the House, so that the most distant Ear had 
 scarce the least Doubt or Difficulty in hearing what fell 
 from the weakest Utterance : All Objects were thus drawn 
 nearer to the Sense ; every painted Scene was stronger ; 
 every grand Scene and Dance more extended ; every rich or 
 fine-coloured Habit had a more lively Lustre : Nor was the 
 minutest Motion of a Feature (properly changing with the 
 Passion or Humour it suited) ever lost, as they frequently 
 must be in the Obscurity of too great a Distance." 
 
 In treating of the stage behind the curtain I shall 
 have occasion to discuss the " doors of entrance." 
 Dealing now only with the appearance of the house in 
 front, we will rest content with the general impression 
 conveyed by Gibber's description namely, that the 
 actors played principally on a platform which brought 
 them so well forward into the theatre that they were 
 frequently level with the audience occupying the two 
 comers of the pit. 
 
 Satisfied with this general impression of the stage as 
 seen from the pit, let us return to the consideration of 
 the audience in front. For the upper gallery the poets 
 had little but abuse and sarcasm. To the ordinary 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 29 
 
 frequenters of that part who paid down their modest 
 shilling they seldom allude. The upper gallery only 
 comes into notice in connection with the footmen, who 
 had under varying conditions gratis admission to it. In 
 his Epilogue on the Union of the two Companies in 1682, 
 Dryden complains of the rude and boisterous behaviour 
 of the footmen. 
 
 " Then for your lacqueys, and your train beside, 
 By whate'er name or title dignified, 
 They roar so loud, you'd think behind the stairs 
 Tom Dove, and all the brotherhood of bears : 
 They've grown a nuisance, beyond all disasters ; 
 We've none so great but their unpaying masters." 
 
 From the words, "behind the stairs," I am inclined to 
 fancy that Dryden alludes to the noise which the servants 
 made before they were admitted into their gallery, which 
 at this time was not until the end of the fourth act. 
 While hanging about the entrances and lobbies their noise 
 might be quite audible in the theatre. 
 
 When, in 1701, Farquhar, in the prologue to Sir Harry 
 Wildair, alludes to the footmen, their privileges had been 
 enlarged, as will be related in its due place, and they were 
 admitted to their gallery at the beginning of the perform- 
 ance. Farquhar declares that he learns his lesson in play- 
 writing by studying his audience. 
 
 " First, from you beaus, his lesson is formality ; 
 And in your footmen there most nice morality ; 
 To pleasure them his Pegasus must fly, 
 Because they judge and lodge three stories high." 
 
 The middle gallery, or eighteenpenny place, had the 
 unenviable distinction of being that part of the theatre 
 principally affected by, if not set aside for, women of the 
 town. In the early years of the Restoration its reputa- 
 tion may not have been quite so bad, but by 1682 it had 
 
7 
 
 30 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 quite lost character. In Dryden's Epilogue on the Union, 
 which I have already quoted, the lines occur 
 
 " But stay ; methinks some vizard-mask I see, 
 Cast out her lure from the mid gallery : 
 About her all the fluttering sparks are ranged ; 
 The noise continues, though the scene is changed : 
 Now growling, sputtering, wauling, such a clutter ! 
 'Tis just like puss defendant in a gutter." 
 
 It will be seen that " vizard mask " is here used as a 
 synonym for a woman of loose character. Originally 
 the mask was a sign of modesty, real or affected, and, 
 according to Gibber, was worn by ladies for the supposed 
 purpose of concealing their blushes at loose passages in 
 plays. This custom seems to have been revived in 1 663, for 
 Pepys notes, on June 1 2 of that year, that the Lady Mary 
 Cromwell, being at the theatre, put on her vizard when 
 the house began to fill, and kept it on through the whole 
 play. This, Pepys remarks, " has of late become a great 
 fashion among the ladies, which hides their whole face." 
 After the play Mrs. Pepys promptly carried off her hus- 
 band to the Exchange, and made him buy her a mask, 
 her wearing of which is afterwards recorded in the Diary 
 as late as 1667. By this time I fancy that vizard-masks 
 were being given up by ladies, because, owing to their 
 convenience for intrigues, they were so largely adopted 
 by women of the town. I mean, of course, in theatres, 
 for they were in common use out of doors long after this. 
 In the prologue to the second part of The Conquest of 
 Granada, produced in 1670, Dryden alludes to the vizard- 
 masks in terms which seem to show that a vizard was even 
 then a mark of bad character 
 
 " But, as when vizard-mask appears in pit, 
 Straight every man, who thinks himself a wit, 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 31 
 
 Perks up, and, managing his comb with grace, , 
 
 With his white wig sets off his nut-brown face ; 
 
 That done, bears up to the prize, and views each limb, 
 
 To know her by her rigging and her trim ; 
 
 Then, the whole noise of fops to wagers go, 
 
 ' Pox on her, 't must be she ; ' and ' damme, no ! ' " 
 
 In 1694 the epilogue to Congreve's Double Dealer 
 makes the distinction very clearly. It says 
 
 " The Vizor-Masks, that are in Pit and Gallery, 
 Approve, or Damn the Repartee and Rallery. 
 The Lady Criticks, who are better Read, 
 Enquire if Characters are nicely bred ; 
 If the soft things are Penn'd and spoke with grace : 
 They judge of Action too, and Time, and Place." 
 
 But at whatever time this gallery was given up to base 
 uses, it is certain that it was never frequented by the 
 quality. In The Country Wife (1673) Pinchwife, for the 
 express purpose of concealing Margery from the sparks 
 whom he fears, takes her into the middle gallery. 
 
 " Homer. ... I saw you yesterday in the eighteenpenny 
 place with a pretty country-wench. 
 
 Pinchwife. How the devil ! did he see my wife then ? I 
 sat there that she might not be seen. But she shall never go 
 to a play again. [Aside. 
 
 Homer. What! dost thou blush, at nine-and-forty, for 
 having been seen with a wench ? 
 
 Dorilant. No, faith, I warrant 'twas his wi'fe, which he 
 seated there out of sight." 
 
 Mrs. Pinchwife, the verdant country wife, complains of 
 the class of neighbours she had in the middle gallery. 
 She says, "We sat amongst ugly people. He [Pinch- 
 wife] would not let me come near the gentry, who sat 
 under us, so that I could not see 'em. He told me, 
 none but naughty women sat there. ... But I would 
 have ventured, for all that." 
 
32 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Probably it was to this gallery that Dapperwit, in the 
 same play, took Lucy, whom he asks, when they quarrel, 
 if- she will never more sit in his lap at a new play. Such 
 a proceeding would be quite in keeping with the cha- 
 racter of the place as given by Dryden, who in another 
 prologue from that already quoted says, "... Some 
 there are who take their first degrees Of lewdness in our 
 middle galleries." In the prologue to The Island Princess 
 (1699) we find an allusion to similar goings-on 
 
 " Ye gallery-haunters, who love to lie snug, 
 And munch apples or cakes while some neighbour you hug." 
 
 Under the middle gallery, where the dress circle or 
 balcony is in a modern theatre, were the boxes. To 
 these the poets were always markedly polite, for their 
 occupants were the beauties and toasts of the town. 
 The speaker of the epilogue to Corye's Generous Emmies, 
 already quoted, spoke the line, " Though there I see 
 Propitious Angels sit," pointing at the boxes ; and in the 
 " tag " to Tuke's Adventures of Five Hours, Camilla's 
 lines, commencing, " You Ladies, whilst unmarried," are 
 to be spoken " addressing to the Boxes." Of course the 
 boxes were not the exclusive resort of ladies, for, as we 
 shall see, Pepys chronicles their presence in the pit on 
 several occasions. 
 
 The box of the Restoration theatre did not resemble 
 our modern private box, in being taken by one party 
 whose sole property it was for the day. It was rather 
 like the boxes on some of the tiers of the Paris Grand 
 Opera, or, to give a humbler illustration, the stage-boxes 
 of the Britannia Theatre, where, for eighteenpence, 
 you may have yolir single seat, among a miscellaneous 
 company. Of course, the king had his box when he 
 visited the theatre; but when his Majesty was not present 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 33 
 
 even the royal box was let off in separate seats, for I 
 know more than one allusion to the front row of the 
 king's box as being a specially conspicuous and coveted 
 position. Thus, in the well-known anecdote of the 
 commencement of Wycherley's intrigue with Charles's 
 mistress, the Duchess of Cleveland, the lady meets the 
 gentleman at the theatre by appointment, and, says 
 Dennis "She was that Night in the first Row of the 
 King's Box in Drury Lane, and Mr. Wycherley in the Pit 
 under her, where he entertain'd her during the whole Play." 
 If this passage stood alone, we should be apt to conclude 
 that the Duchess of Cleveland sat in the king's box by 
 virtue of her dishonourable connection with Charles, but 
 other quotations will show that this would be a wrong 
 conclusion. In Tom Brown's Letters from the Dead to 
 the Living, Julian, late Secretary to the Muses, writing 
 to Will Pierre [Peer] of Lincoln's Inn Fields Playhouse 
 his letter is dated " Pandemonium t the Wi of the month 
 of Belzebub " recalls how in the lampoons of which he 
 had been the channel while living "the antiquated 
 Coquet was told of her age and ugliness, tho' her vanity 
 plac'd her in the first row in the king's box at the play- 
 house ; " and in Etheredge's Sir Fopling Flutter, Dori- 
 mant talks of " some awkward, ill-fashioned, country toad, 
 who, not having above four dozen of black hairs on her 
 head, has adorned her baldness with a large white fruz, 
 that she may look sparkishly in the forefront of the king's 
 box at an old play." 
 
 From Pepys, too, we learn that the arrangement in the 
 boxes was as I have stated. On his first visit to that 
 sphere (October 19, 1667), which he proudly chronicles, 
 he adds, "And in the same box came by-and-by, my 
 Lord Barkeley and his lady ; but I did not turn my face 
 to them to be known, so that I was excused from giving 
 
 D 
 
34 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 them my seat." Thus we establish beyond question the 
 letting of the seats in the boxes to separate persons. 
 
 One other point may be alluded to the height of the 
 circle of boxes above the pit. This must have been very 
 inconsiderable, for the beaux in the pit seem to have 
 been able to talk to the ladies in the boxes without any 
 difficulty as, for instance, Wycherley to the Duchess of 
 Cleveland, in the story I have just quoted. In all pro- 
 bability the boxes bore the same relation to the pit that 
 the balcony of the present Haymarket Theatre does to 
 the stalls. This theory is borne out by a passage in one 
 of Congreve's letters, where, in relating the arrangements 
 on a specially fashionable day at Dorset Garden Theatre, 
 he writes, " The boxes and pit were all thrown into one, 
 so that all sat in common ; and the whole was crammed 
 with beauties and beaux." 
 
 When we come to the occupants of the pit, we are 
 rather embarrassed by the quantity of allusions to them 
 in contemporary authors. Remonstrance, satire, abuse, 
 are so freely showered upon them by angry or nervous 
 dramatists, that we are able to construct a tolerably 
 elaborate picture of that part of the house. First, let 
 us dispose of the most solid and perhaps least interesting 
 of its occupants those prosaic people who came to see 
 the play. They seem to have affected the centre of the 
 pit. Dryden says 
 
 " Here's good accommodation in the pit ; 
 The grave demurely in the midst may sit." 
 
 But nobody cared for these dull attentive auditors; 
 the pittites in whom the poets took an interest were 
 the fops and the critics or perhaps I ought to say the 
 fops who were the critics. As there were no newspapers 
 in which to advertise the performances, so there were no 
 
A RESTajZATIOW THEATRE. 35 
 
 periodical channels by which criticism could be commu- 
 nicated to the public. It is a curious proof of the small- 
 ness of London and of the playgoing public, that the 
 success or failure of a play could be made in a day by 
 the mere report of those who had seen it. How these 
 self-constituted critics conducted themselves during the 
 progress of the play they were engaged in judging shall 
 be our first inquiry ; and as our first witness we will 
 call a famous wit, no less a person than Sir Charles 
 Sedley. The play is The Maid's Tragedy, and on 
 February 18, 1667, it is being played at the King's House. 
 Mr. Pepys, who has seen a portion of it two months 
 before, has been so pleased that he has come on this 
 occasion to see the whole play; but, unfortunately, he 
 has taken his seat near Sir Charles Sedley and two ladies 
 with whom the wit has fallen into conversation. One of 
 the fair damsels wears her mask, and rejects all Sir 
 Charles's entreaties to reveal her identity to him. Yet 
 she shows by many pleasant hints that he is well known 
 to her, and excites his curiosity to the utmost. An en- 
 counter of wits goes on during the entire progress of the 
 play, and at the end Mr. Pepys has to confess that, 
 while the wit-combat has given him the keenest pleasure, 
 he has not heard a word of the dialogue on the stage. 
 And Mr. Pepys's experience must have been that of all 
 the neighbours of the beau and the lady, but they ap- 
 parently made no protest, and did not think the pro- 
 ceedings in any way objectionable. A gentleman who 
 wished to talk was quite entitled to prevent his neigh- 
 bours hearing the play, even though on the stage were 
 two of the most famous actors in the world, Charles 
 Hart and Michael Mohun, in their great characters of 
 Amintor and Melantius. 
 And such an excuse as, Sir Charles Sedley had was 
 
36 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 not required to allow talk and noise. In fact, talk and 
 noise seem to have been the recognized business of the 
 fop at the play. 
 
 " There are a sort of prattlers in the pit, 
 Who either have, or who pretend to, wit ; 
 These noisy sirs so loud their parts rehearse, 
 That oft the play is silenced by the farce/ 3 
 
 So Dryden writes, in his Epilogue on the Union ; and 
 in his prologue to the opera of The Prophetess he gives 
 some idea of the class of conversation indulged in. He 
 is condoling with the ladies on the absence of their 
 gallants, who are away, taking part in the campaign in 
 Ireland 
 
 " With your propitious presence grace our play, 
 And with a sigh their empty seats survey ; 
 Then think, on that bare bench my servant sat ! 
 I see him ogle still, and hear him chat ; 
 Selling facetious bargains, and propounding 
 That witty recreation, called dumfounding." 
 
 " Dumfounding" was simply a rude and silly style of 
 hoaxing ; but " selling bargains " was an indecent amuse- 
 ment, the point of which lay in getting your interlocutor 
 to ask a question, and answering it by a reference too 
 gross to be particularized. To such talkers Dryden no 
 doubt alluded when he wrote 
 
 " And when a lot of smilers lent an ear 
 To one that talked, I knew the foe was there. 
 The club of jests went round : he, who had none, 
 Borrow'd o' the next, and told it for his own." 
 
 And "selling bargains" is pointedly mentioned in the 
 prologue to Lee's Rival Queens 
 
 " As for you, sparks, that hither come each day 
 To act your own and not to mind our play, 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 37 
 
 Rehearse your usual follies to the pit, 
 And with loud nonsense crown the stage's wit ; 
 Talk of your clothes, your last debauches tell, 
 And witty bargains to each other sell." 
 
 The head-quarters of the disturbance was that portion 
 of the pit which the poets nicknamed " Fops' Corner," 
 which was, no doubt, one of the corners nearest the 
 stage, for we find various allusions to the critic-fops, 
 in feather and huge white periwig, sitting on the fore- 
 most benches of the pit. But these fine gentlemen did 
 not always confine themselves to humour and noise, and 
 sometimes a real tragedy made the mimic scene lose its 
 interest. For instance, that learned writer, Gerard Lang- 
 baine, who was so assiduous a tracker of the plagiarism 
 of contemporary dramatists, records how in the pit of the 
 Dorset Garden Theatre he saw Mr. Scroop receive his 
 death-wound from the sword of Sir Thomas Armstrong, 
 what time the tragedy of Macbeth was being acted on 
 the stage. Dryden, too, in his prologue to The Spanish 
 Friar, alludes to quarrels in the pit as of frequent 
 occurrence. 
 
 Tom Brown divided wits and beaux into three classes : 
 first, beaux, but not wits, "and these are easy to be 
 known by their full periwigs and empty skulls ; " second, 
 wits that are not beaux, who, " not to talk of their out- 
 sides, are distinguish'd by censuring the ill taste of the age, 
 and railing at one another ; " and third, those who were 
 both wits and beaux. Our critics have so far been of this 
 last order, but the first class mentioned was also power- / 
 fully represented in the playhouse. - Lord Flippant, who ^ 
 has been already quoted, will serve as a type of these. 
 
 " Come, Dick, says I ... d me, let's to the play : r t 
 me, says he, 'tis a dull one : d me, says I, I value not the 
 play, my province lies in the boxes, ogling my half-crown 
 
38 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 away, or running from side-box to side-box, to the inviting 
 incognitas in black faces, or else wittily to cry out aloud in 
 the pit, &*<:., Bough, or Boyta, and then be prettily answer'd 
 by the rest of the Wits in the same note, like musical instru- 
 ments tuned to the same pitch." 
 
 Such, too, were the gallants who, as described in She 
 ^ Would if She Could^ run "from one playhouse to the 
 other playhouse, and, if they like neither the play nor 
 the women, seldom stay any longer than the combing of 
 their periwigs or a whisper or two with a friend; and 
 then they cock their caps and out they strut again." 
 
 One other point regarding the pit may be alluded to 
 the social condition of its occupants. This was certainly 
 very miscellaneous. We have seen how ladies of con- 
 dition and women of the town frequented it. We have 
 seen also that Pepys saw ordinary 'prentices and mean 
 people in the same pit where, on another occasion, he 
 sat next Sir Charles Sedley. But even higher folks than 
 the witty baronet were found there. On the first day of 
 Etheredge's She Would if She Could (February 6, 1668), 
 the Duke of Buckingham sat openly in the pit, in com- 
 pany with Lord Buckhurst, Sedley, and Wycherley. Fine 
 ladies, too, in the earlier years of Charles II. 's reign, were 
 constant frequenters of the pit. On January 31, 1661, 
 Pepys " sat in the pitt among the company of fine ladys, 
 etc. ; " but I think that class of auditor gradually found this 
 part of the house too rough for them, though it would be 
 a mistake to attribute too great delicacy to these fine 
 ladies. Witness this little incident, which I quote from 
 Pepys without comment, " To the Theatre . . . and 
 here I sitting behind in a dark place, a lady spit back- 
 ward upon me by a mistake, not seeing me ; but after 
 seeing her to be a very pretty lady, I was not troubled 
 at it at all." 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 39 
 
 Having described the critics, we can proceed to 
 consider the mode of criticism. First, then, the " cursed 
 critics," the " good savage gentlemen," as poets addressed 
 them, criticized the play freely as it progressed. Dryden 
 says of one of them 
 
 " For he (he vows) at no friend's play can sit, 
 But he must needs find fault, to show his wit." 
 
 And, of course, the criticism was spoken loudly, with the 
 purpose of attracting attention. When the play was 
 ended the wits remained to talk it over. They were 
 good leisurely times, those of the second Charles ; there 
 was no hurrying away as soon as the curtain fell; no 
 managers were expected to clear their theatres of the 
 audience in three minutes. In fact, the people seem to 
 have been allowed to remain as long as they pleased ; for 
 Pepy relates how on a wet afternoon he and many others 
 stayed in the pit an hour and a half, waiting till the rain 
 ceased. 
 
 It is to Dryden, whose prologues and epilogues are 
 perfect storehouses of information regarding the habits of 
 the playgoers of his time, that we owe the knowledge of 
 the late sitting of the critics. The epilogue to Sir 
 Martin Mar-all commences 
 
 <f As country vicars, when the sermon's done, 
 Run huddling to the benediction ; 
 Well knowing, though the better sort may stay, 
 The vulgar rout will run unblessed away : 
 So we, when once our play is done, make haste 
 With a short epilogue to close your taste. 
 In thus withdrawing, we seem mannerly ; 
 But, when the curtain's down, we peep, and see 
 A jury of the wits, who still stay late, 
 And in their club decree the poor play's fate ; 
 Their verdict back is to the boxes brought, 
 Thence all the town pronounces it their thought." 
 
40 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Having seen the audience fairly seated, and whiling 
 away the tedious hours by the aid of talk and jest, the 
 purchase of oranges, and banter, which we may be 
 assured was none too delicate, with the orange-women 
 who infested the pit, we will use the privilege of the 
 beaux and men about town, and wander behind the 
 scenes ere the curtain rises. Of course, the stage was 
 no longer a recognized camping-ground for the gallants, 
 as it was in earlier times; and from the circumstance 
 that Pepys, so far as I know, makes no allusion to 
 company on the stage, we may conclude that the practice 
 of beaux exhibiting themselves to the audience during 
 the play was not revived after the Restoration.* Pepys 
 certainly went behind the scenes, but he went as the 
 friend of Mrs. Knipp, and he assuredly did not show 
 himself to the audience. Dryden, too, who may be 
 supposed to miss no usage of the theatre, so full are his 
 works of allusions to them, has very little mention of the 
 beaux who exhibited their persons and clothes on the 
 stage. Dryden's beaux run from box to box, they loll 
 on the foremost benches of the pit, they fill Fop-Corner 
 full of noise and rattle, but they keep in the front of the 
 house. Even__Tom Brown's Lord Flipmnt, the typical 
 fop whom I have quoted, says nothing of showing 
 himself off on the stage. I think, however, that between 
 the acts of the play a certain amount of promenading 
 on the stage went on. It is difficult otherwise to under- 
 stand the following lines, which occur in the epilogue to 
 which I have already referred that to The Man's the 
 Master : 
 
 * Up to comparatively modern times performers were allowed 
 on benefit nights to accommodate people on the stage ; but this 
 practice had no affinity to the old usage of camping on the 
 stage. 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 41 
 
 K 
 
 " Others are bolder, and never cry, shall I ? 
 For they make our guards quail, 
 And 'twixt curtain and rail, 
 Oft combing their hair, they walk in Fop-Alley." 
 
 This term, " Fop-Alley," or " Fops' Alley," continued 
 to be applied to a certain portion of the Italian Opera 
 House (Her Majesty's Theatre) until comparatively 
 recently. In the theatre as it is at present arranged, 
 " Fops' Alley " was the space between the orchestra and 
 the first row of stalls, in which the exquisites were accus- 
 tomed to stand, during the entfactcs, ogling the fair 
 occupants of the boxes. In earlier times, while yet the 
 pit occupied the entire floor, the passage which ran down 
 the centre of the house from the back wall to the orchestra 
 bore this name. But in the Restoration theatre " Fops' 
 Alley " was surely on the stage. Witness the expression, 
 " 'twixt curtain and rail ; " witness also Jo. Haines's 
 epilogue " spoken on an ass," which mentions " a beau- 
 crowded stage." 
 
 Having made our way to the stage, our steps, in the 
 Restoration theatre, would probably turn first to the 
 " tiring-room " (as yet there were no separate dressing- 
 rooms for particular performers), where we should see 
 Mrs. Ellen Gwynne and her fair companions in various 
 states of unreadiness. They are in no way disturbed at 
 our entrance, but proceed with their toilet with perfect 
 nonchalance. We are not surprised at our favourable 
 reception, for the epilogue to The Gentleman Dancing- 
 Master had even invited citizens behind the scenes 
 
 " Into the pit already you are come, 
 'Tis but a step more to our tiring room ; 
 Where none of us but will be wondrous sweet 
 Upon an able love of Lombard Street." 
 
 After paying a few quite frank compliments to the 
 
42 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 personal perfections of the fair actresses, we next betake 
 ourselves to the green-room, or, as it was then generally 
 called, the " Scene-room," where we meet the gentlemen 
 of the company as well as the ladies. Here we sit down, 
 and if we are as intimate with any of the actresses as Mr. 
 Pepys was with Mrs. Knipp, we may hear her part in 
 that day's play, we giving her the " cues," and she 
 repeating her lines, or, as Pepys puts it, we "reading the 
 questions," while she answers. Let us hope that it will 
 not be our fate on this occasion to hear Mrs. Gwynne 
 curse because there is a bad house, as was once Mr. 
 Pepys's experience. 
 
 Now we wander a step further, and come to the actual 
 stage. We must suppose our visit to be paid not earlier 
 than 1 66 1, and we accordingly find scenery set much as 
 it is now. The days are gone when " coarse hangings 
 then instead of scenes were worn," and the stage-play now 
 vies with the court masque in the magnificence of its 
 adornment. In the stage are traps, but this is no new 
 fashion, for the Shakespearian theatre knew these con- 
 trivances well. In the theatre we are now visiting, the 
 traps must have been both large and numerous to allow 
 the effects to be produced which were necessary in every 
 spectacular production. Such a direction as the following 
 necessitates a very large trap door for its carrying out : 
 
 " The Cave of Proteus rises out of the Sea, it consists of 
 several Arches of Rock-work, adorn'd with Mother of Pearl, 
 Coral, and abundance of Shells of various kinds : Through 
 the Arches is seen the Sea, and parts of Dover Peer : In 
 the middle of the Cave is Proteus asleep on a Rock adorn'd 
 with Shells, etc.) like the Cave." 
 
 Whether the stage was honeycombed with traps as the 
 stage of to-day is, in which only the main beams, or 
 1 'fillets," as they are technically called, are immovable, 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 43 
 
 I do not know; but in the ninety-ninth Tatler, relating 
 Rich's evacuation of Drury Lane, it is said that he " left 
 to the enemy nothing but an empty stage, full of trap- 
 doors, known only to himself and his adherents." 
 
 Such stage-directions as that which I have just quoted 
 were the outcome of the elaborate mechanism which had 
 been used in Masques by Inigo Jones and other artists, 
 and which had been constructed at a vast expenditure of 
 money. They were employed on the regular stage only 
 in such productions as Operas; the setting of the 
 legitimate drama being of necessity not too elaborate. I 
 say of necessity, because the changes of scene in regular 
 plays were frequent, and must have been instantaneous. 
 Some plan such as we are all familiar with that is either 
 a " cloth " or a " pair of flats " must have been the 
 common method of changing the scene. Take, for 
 instance, the fourth act of The Indian Emperor. The 
 first scene of the act, which no doubt occupied the whole 
 stage, is "A Prison/' in which Cortez is " discovered," to 
 use the technical phrase, chained and laid asleep. At the 
 conclusion of the scene he "goes in, and the Scene 
 closes upon him." This must have been a " carpenter's 
 scene," again to use a technicality, and probably it was 
 set just within the proscenium. It represented "A 
 Chamber Royal." The stage was cleared at its con- 
 clusion, and scene the third was "A Pleasant Grotto 
 discover'd." This means, of course, that the " carpenter's 
 scene " was taken off and the grotto shown, set half-way 
 up the stage. The fourth and last scene of the act 
 returns to the prison-scene which opened it the 
 " grotto " being cleared away and revealing the prison, 
 which must have been set at the very back of the stage. 
 We thus see that the scene-plot of this tragedy was 
 comparatively simple, and we may take it as a fair type 
 
44 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 of its class. That such changes were made instanta- 
 neously, or as quickly as stage carpenters could work the 
 scenes, is shown by the curious fact that we find cases in 
 which the characters remain on the stage while the scene 
 is changing, and go on with the dialogue in the new 
 situation. Thus in The Rival Ladies, the scene of the 
 last act is laid on board a ship, and the Captain and 
 another seaman are discovered on deck. The Captain, 
 after some conversation, remarks, " Don RocFricKs door 
 opens, I'll speak to him," and the stage-direction is, " The 
 scene draws and discovers the Captain's cabin ; Roderick 
 on a bed, and two servants by him." The Captain then 
 proceeds with his speech, " How is it with the brave Don 
 Roderick ?" as if nothing had happened. 
 
 This illustration has been taken from a comedy, but I 
 might have chosen a tragedy with equal effect. A very 
 interesting succession of scenes may be found, for instance, 
 in the fifth act of Dryden and Lee's Duke of Guise. The 
 first scene is " The Castle of Bloise," whither come the 
 Guise's enemy, Grillon, and Alphonso Corso. The 
 King and the heroine, Marmoutier, next occupy the 
 stage, and the Deputies of the three States of the Realm 
 interview the King. After a long scene, the King and 
 Grillon are left on the stage ; they " exeunt severally ; " 
 and " the scene opens, and discovers men and women 
 at a Banquet, Malicorne standing by." Malicorne, an 
 unfortunate rascal who has sold his soul to the devil, 
 soliloquizes on his bargain, and, feeling somewhat de- 
 pressed, calls for a song. A duet and chorus, and a 
 dance, are performed by the company; then comes a 
 loud knocking at the door ; and a servant enters to 
 announce a stranger who will not be denied admittance. 
 " Bid him enter, and go off thyself," says Malicorne 
 " exit Servant. Scene closes upon the company. Enter 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 45 
 
 Melanax, an Hour-glass in his hand almost empty " and 
 Malicorne continues his speech, addressing Melanax, who 
 is a demon : " How dar'st thou interrupt my softer 
 hours ? " All this is very quaint stage-management, the 
 banquet episode being curious enough in itself, but still 
 more curious as introducing Malicorne into the principal 
 scene, on which he proceeds to die, or at least to be 
 carried downwards through a trap-door, a la Giovanni. 
 Then the stage is occupied by Guise, Marmoutier, and 
 others, and at the end I should say that the scene closed 
 on Guise solus spouting 
 
 " No more, blue Fires, and ye dull rowling Lakes. 
 Fathomless Caves, ye Dungeons of old Night, 
 Fantoms, be gone ! if I must die, I'll fall 
 True Politician, and dene you all." 
 
 Scene II. for the episode of the banquet is not 
 reckoned a scene is " The Court before the Council- 
 Hall," which was no doubt a "front" or "carpenter's" 
 scene. A few short speeches are spoken, giving time 
 for the rearrangement of the scenery behind, and the 
 stage is cleared to disclose Scene III., " Council-Hall," 
 set, we may assume, a little further back than Scene II. 
 This is also a very brief scene. The Duke of Guise, who 
 is on the stage with others of the conspirators against the 
 King, is commanded to go into his Majesty's presence. 
 He obeys, and after he leaves the stage, his friends, the 
 Cardinal of Guise and the Archbishop of Lyons, express 
 their fear that the Duke will be assassinated by the King's 
 orders. The scene then proceeds thus 
 
 " Guise (within}. Murderers, Villains ! 
 Archbishop. I hear your Brother's voice, run to the door. 
 Cardinal. Help, help ! the Guise is murder'd. 
 Arch. Help, help ! 
 
46 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Grillon. Cease your vain Crys ; you are the King's 
 
 Prisoners. 
 
 Take 'em, Dugast, into your Custody. 
 Card. We must obey, my Lord, for Heaven calls us. 
 
 {Exeunt. 
 
 The Scene draws, behind it a Traverse. 
 [The GUISE is assaulted by Eight', they stab him in all 
 
 Parts, but most in the Head. 
 Guise. O Villains ! Hell Hounds ! Hold : 
 
 [Half draws his Sword, is held. 
 Murder'd, O basely, and not draw my Sword. 
 Dog, Logniac, but my own Blood choaks me : 
 
 [Flings himself itpon him. 
 Down, Villain, Down ! I'm gone, O Marmoutier. [Dies. 
 
 The Traverse is drawn. 
 [The KING rises from his Chair, comes forward with 
 
 his Cabinet Council. 
 
 King. Open the Closet, and let in the Council ; 
 Bid Dugast execute the Cardinal, 
 Seize all the Faction's Leaders, as I order'd, 
 And every one be answer'd on your Lives." 
 
 Picture the scene after the exit of the Duke of Guise. 
 The characters on the stage hear the cries of the Duke, 
 literally behind the scene, for he and his murderers are, 
 of course, waiting on the stage ready to strike the 
 necessary attitudes in a moment or two. The characters 
 hurry off, and the scene is quickly drawn, revealing 
 the Guise struggling with the assassins. He no doubt 
 fights forward, and dies effectively far down the stage. 
 At the back is a " Traverse," that is, a pair of curtains 
 running on a rod ; and behind these the King and his 
 Cabinet Council sit waiting till their presence is revealed 
 to the audience by the drawing of the " Traverse." Then 
 the curtains are run apart, and the King is in the same 
 scene with the dead body of the Guise. Why a 
 " Traverse " should be used instead of a regular scene, 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 47 
 
 is no doubt owing to the exigencies of the stage. It is 
 quite> conceivable that all the " grooves " in which the 
 scenes ran were used already ; Scene II. occupying the 
 first grooves, Scene III. the second, and the Council 
 Chamber in which the King and his Council were dis- 
 covered being set in the uppermost grooves. 
 
 I have entered at some length into the consideration of 
 the arrangements in this play, because the stage-directions 
 are so explicit as to enable us to form a tolerably clear 
 idea of how the scenery of a regular play was managed 
 in the Restoration theatre. In the case of irregular 
 plays or spectacles, which were popularly designated 
 operas, the scenic arrangements were much more elaborate 
 than in the legitimate drama. Indeed, it is difficult for 
 us to realize their magnificence, and we must go to the 
 most gorgeous of pantomime transformation scenes now- 
 adays to find any parallel to the scenery which adorned 
 such pieces as Psyche, Circe, Albion and Albanius, every - 
 scene of which was elaborately built and set, and changed 
 time after time by means of the stage-traps or by the 
 " machines " and other devices which the scene-painter uses 
 now to produce the various stages of a huge transforma-^ 
 tion scene. We will take Albion and Albanius as a 
 specimen opera, not only because it is by Dryden, the 
 greatest writer of this class of work, but also because it 
 has a special interest for us, inasmuch as the scenes and 
 decorations were invented and arranged by Betterton, 
 whose very words describing them we are able to quote. 
 
 In Albion and Albanius, not only was the scenery new ; 
 a new frame was made for the pictures. Immediately 
 inside the proscenium a new " Frontispiece " was built, 
 being an elaborate arch and columns, on which were 
 designed allegorical figures, some of which were " bigger 
 than the Life." When the curtain rose this frontispiece 
 
48 THOMAS BETTE%.TON. 
 
 was discovered ; alongside of each of the front columns 
 stood an equestrian statue of gold on a marble pedestal ; 
 and beyond was " a Street of Palaces, which lead to the 
 Front of the Royal Exchange." The chief spectacular 
 effect of this scene is thus described, " The Clouds divide, 
 and Juno appears in a Machine drawn by Peacocks ; 
 while a Symphony is playing, it moves gently forward, 
 and as it descends it opens and discovers the Tail of 
 the Peacock, which is so large, that it almost fills the 
 opening of the Stage between Scene and Scene." That 
 is to say, it was -nearly as large as the proscenium open- 
 ing truly a magnificent effect ! The next scene is " A 
 Poetical Hell," with figures of Prometheus, Sisyphus, 
 and other unfortunates. "Then a great Arch of Fire. 
 Behind this three Pyramids of Flames in perpetual 
 agitation. Beyond this, glowing Fire, which terminates 
 the Prospect." 
 
 In the next act the cave of Proteus rises through the 
 stage, as has already been described, and another 
 " Machine " rises, which opens and shows Venus and 
 Albanius sitting in a great scallop-shell, attended by 
 Loves, Graces, and Heroes. The shell is drawn by 
 dolphins, and moves forward till it lands Venus and 
 Albanius on the stage, when it closes and sinks. The 
 last scene has also a special interest for us, showing as it 
 does that elaborate " set-pieces," row behind row, were 
 used in these productions. With the recital of Better- 
 ton's description of the scene we may leave this part of 
 our subject, sufficient having been quoted to show the 
 lavish extent to which decoration was used on the 
 Restoration stage. The scene was 
 
 " A Walk of very high trees : at the end of the Walk is a 
 view of that part of Windsor which faces Eaton: in the 
 midst of it is a row of small trees, which lead to the Castle- 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 49 
 
 Hill : In the first scene, part of the Town and part of the 
 Hill : in the next the Terrace Walk, the King's Lodgings, 
 and the upper j)art of St. George's Chapel, then the Keep ; 
 and lastly, that part of the Castle beyond the Keep." 
 
 When a scene was set immediately behind the pro- 
 scenium, as I have surmised was sometimes the case in 
 regular drama, we naturally ask, " How did the actors 
 get on the stage?" and this brings us to one of the 
 strangest points of the old theatre that is, strange in the 
 sense of unfamiliar the doors for entering and leaving 
 the stage. No matter what the scene was the deck of " 
 a ship, the interior of a prison, the heart of a forest the 
 principal method of entrance was by the doors in the. 
 proscenium. So clear are the stage-directions on this 
 point that I need only quote one or two. In Dryden's 
 King Arthur, the scene of Act III. is " a deep wood," and 
 at one point " Exeunt ARTHUR and MERLIN at one door. 
 Enter OSMOND at the other door." In Etheredge's She 
 Would if she Could, the doors are -of great service. The 
 second act opens in the Mulberry Garden, to which open- 
 air resort the two young girls Ariana and Gatty go to 
 meet their gallants. They walk nimbly over the stage, 
 and Freeman and Courtal at once give chase. The men 
 go off the stage pursuing the girls, and the scene then 
 proceeds 
 
 " Enter Women again, and cross the stage. 
 T Ariana. Now if these should prove two men-of-war that 
 are cruising here to watch for prizes. 
 
 Gatty. Would they had courage enough to set upon us ! 
 I long to be engaged. 
 
 Aria. Look, look yonder, I protest, they chase us. 
 
 Gat. Let us bear away, then ; if they be truly valiant, they'll 
 quickly make more sail and board us. 
 
 \The Women go out, and go about behind the Scenes 
 to the other door. 
 
 E 
 
50 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Enter COURTAL and FREEMAN. 
 
 Free. 'Sdeath, how fleet they are ! whatsoever faults they 
 have, they cannot be broken-winded. 
 
 Court. . . . We shall never reach them. 
 
 Free. I'll follow directly, do thou turn down the cross walk 
 and meet 'em. 
 
 Enter the Women, and after them COURTAL at the lower 
 door, and FREEMAN at the upper on the contrary side" 
 
 From this we learn that there were two doors of 
 entrance on either side of the stage. If we refer to the 
 passage, already quoted (p. 27), in which Gibber describes 
 the alterations made on the Drury Lane stage by Rich, 
 we see that both doors were at first in front of the curtain, 
 and that, later, two stage-boxes were substituted for the 
 lower doors. From the circumstance, mentioned by 
 Gibber, that two side-wings formerly stood where in the 
 altered stage the upper doors of entrance were placed, 
 we must conclude that in the later form these entrances 
 were behind the proscenium. This is confirmed by the 
 passage in the two hundred and fortieth Spectator, which 
 describes the conduct of a beau exhibiting himself on the 
 stage. It runs 
 
 " This was a very lusty Fellow, but withal a sort of Beau, 
 who getting into one of the Side-boxes on the Stage before 
 the Curtain drew, was disposed to shew the whole Audience 
 his Activity by leaping over the Spikes ; he pass'd from 
 thence to one of the entering Doors, where he took snuff 
 with a tolerable good grace, display'd his fine cloaths, made 
 one or two feint passes at the curtain with his cane, then 
 faced about and appear'd at t'other door ; Here he affected 
 to survey the whole house, bow'd and smiPd at random, and 
 then shew'd his teeth, which were some of them indeed very 
 white : After this he retired behind the curtain, and obliged 
 us with several views of his person from every opening." 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 51 
 
 There are several very interesting allusions in this 
 passage, which refers to the - very stage Gibber has 
 described for us that of Drury Lane. First we have 
 the boxes on the stage, occupying the place of the old 
 lower doors of entrance. On the front of the box there 
 are spikes, uncomfortable ornaments, which are alluded 
 to by Fielding in his farce of Miss Lucy in Town (1742) ; 
 where Mrs. Tawdry, describing the behaviour of fine 
 ladies at the play, says, " Why, if they can they take a 
 stage-box, where they let the footman sit the first two 
 acts to show his livery; then they come in to show 
 themselves, spread their fans upon the spikes, make 
 curtsies to their acquaintance, and then talk and laugh 
 as loud as they are able." 
 
 Next we have the lower entrance doors, situated between 
 the stage-box and the curtain ; while the phrase, " faced 
 about and appear'd at t'other door," confirms the theory 
 that the upper doors of entrance were behind the curtain ; 
 for it is quite obvious that Steele had in his mind's eye ' 
 only one door on either side. The curtain, too, is 
 described, by implication, as a divided curtain which hung 
 in two parts, and was drawn when it was opened. If it 
 had been a curtain which rose, as curtains do now, the 
 beau could not have shown himself " at every opening." 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that the doors, 
 though they were most commonly used, were the only 
 entrances. Occasionally the characters entered or made 
 their exit within the scene. In Dryden's King Arthur 
 we have, " Enter EMMELINE and MATILDA at the far end of 
 the Wood ; " and in the same poet's Rival Ladies, Gonsalvo 
 " Goes farther off towards the end of the Stage " a few 
 moments before his exit. But, comparing the infrequency 
 of such stage-directions with the continual references to 
 the " doors," we must conclude that it was only in excep- 
 
52 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 tional circumstances that any other entrances than the 
 latter were used. 
 
 In old plays a frequent direction is that a character 
 " appears above," or " looks over the Balcony." So 
 common is this that I cannot help fancying that the 
 Restoration theatre had some substitute for the balcony 
 which, in the Shakespearian theatre, was the appointed 
 location of all action that took place above the level of 
 the stage which served for Juliet's balcony, for the walls 
 of Angiers, for the battlements of Rouen. Whether the 
 balcony were fixed, or formed a portion of the movable 
 scene, it is certain that it had a door beneath it. For 
 instance, in The Indian Emperor, Cydaria is in a tower, 
 and Montezuma " Knocks at the door, at last CYDARIA looks 
 over the Balcony" and a little later " CYDARIA descends and 
 opens the Door" It is extremely unlikely, considering the 
 important action that frequently took place " above," that 
 the situation of this balcony was anywhere except well 
 forward. Indeed, we should gather this from the scene I 
 have just quoted, for Almeria, desiring to conceal her 
 presence from Cydaria, while Montezuma knocks at the 
 door, " steps behind ; " and, again, " CORTEZ and Spaniards 
 appear at the other end" which I take to mean up at the 
 back of the scene. This being so, I would suggest that 
 the balcony was the space over the doors of entrance, 
 which in our own time presented the appearance of a 
 stage-box, though it was never used as such. I think 
 that some confirmation of this view is afforded by the 
 famous scene in Sir Martin Mar-All, in which the 
 foolish knight pretends to serenade his mistress, and is 
 detected by reason of his stupidity in continuing to make 
 the motion of playing his lute and singing long after the 
 actual musician has ceased. The stage-directions are, 
 " Enter MILLICENT and ROSE, with a candle by 'em 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 53 
 
 above" and " Sir MARTIN appears at the adverse 
 Window" 
 
 From the various peculiarities of the stage which we 
 have been considering, it follows that most of the action 
 took place on the projecting platform, or stage proper. 
 How large this space was we may gather from Gibber's 
 statement that by the change in the stage the actors' 
 position was put backward ten feet from their former 
 station, and yet sufficient room was left for proper 
 action. It is scarcely necessary to prove so self-evident 
 a proposition as that this space was not left vacant; 
 but I may just point out that Gibber's already quoted 
 remarks imply the fullest use of the front of the stage. 
 He says, " When the Actors were in possession of that 
 forwarder Space to advance upon, the Voice was then 
 more in the Centre of the House . . . Nor was the 
 minutest Motion of a Feature . . . ever lost, as they fre- 
 quently must be in the Obscurity of too great a Distance." 
 
 But it may be asked, " Did the actors die on this for- 
 ward stage, and remain in sight of the audience after 
 the curtains had been closed ? " The answer is that they 
 certainly did. Remember, for instance, the famous epi- 
 logue spoken by Nell Gwynne to Dryden's Tyrannick 
 Love. Nell played a serious part, Valeria she probably 
 played it "most basely," as Mr. Pepys remarked upon 
 another occasion and in the last act she stabs herself 
 twice, and dies, " sighing her soul into her lover's eyes." 
 She lies dead on the stage ; then, when the bearer comes 
 to carry her off, she starts to her feet, exclaiming 
 
 " Hold ! are you mad ? you damned confounded dog ! 
 I arn to rise, and speak the Epilogue." 
 
 The stage-direction is, "Epilogue. Spoken by Mrs. 
 Ellen, when she was to be carried off dead by the 
 
54 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Bearers." One of the editors of Dryden's works, com- 
 menting on this epilogue, pictures the delight of the 
 audience when Nell Gwynne "flung off her enforced 
 \ gravity, and ran to the foot-lights to give vent to her 
 *jj*s , wn wild animal spirits ; " and no doubt he is right about 
 the delight and the animal spirits, but he perpetrates a 
 strange anachronism in mentioning foot-lights, which 
 j^y were things of the dim and distant future. At this time 
 the stage was lighted from above, by branches or hoops 
 of candles suspended from the ceiling. Immediately 
 after the Restoration, we are told, on Killigrew's authority, 
 three pounds of tallow candles were all the light-giving 
 material of the stage, but before many years had passed 
 wax candles were employed instead of humble tallow. 
 But even at the best we can easily understand that 
 Gibber's remark as to the " obscurity of too great a 
 distance" from the audience was no figure of speech, 
 and can sympathize with Thackeray's pity for the dark- 
 ness of our forefathers' lives. 
 
 But these same candles, in their decorous obscurity, 
 concealed the weaknesses in the players' wardrobes which 
 the garish light of day revealed. For this statement we 
 have Mr. Pepys's authority. On March 19, 1666, the 
 inquisitive diarist went to the King's Playhouse, which 
 was closed for alterations, on purpose to have a close 
 examination of the mysteries of the stage. 
 
 "And, indeed, it was a sight worthy seeing. But to see 
 their clothes, and the various sorts, and what a mixture of 
 things there was ; here a wooden leg, there a ruff, here a 
 hobby-horse, there a crown, would make a man split himself 
 to see with laughing : and particularly Lacy's wardrobe, and 
 ShotrelFs. But then again to think how fine they show on 
 the stage by candle-light, and how poor things they are to 
 look at too near hand, is not pleasant at all." 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say that such costumes as 
 
A RESTORATION THEATRE. 55 
 
 Pepys saw made no pretension whatever to historical 
 accuracy. A simple conventionality was the utmost that 
 was attempted. The Romans wore garments somewhat 
 resembling the toga, and the costume of Eastern nations 
 was roughly suggested by barbaric ornaments, turbans, 
 and feathers ; but Henry V. wore the cast-off clothes of 
 Charles II., and Hamlet and Macbeth were apparelled 
 in such dresses as might have been worn in the Mall 
 before the play began without attracting attention by 
 their oddity. A huge periwig, of course, crowned the 
 head of every actor, whether he played Roman, Early 
 Briton, Spaniard, or Scot; whether the character he 
 represented was one that had lived two thousand years 
 before, or only fifty. Certain conspicuous characters, 
 of periods so recent that a general conception of their 
 peculiarities of costume still dwelt in the popular memory, 
 were no doubt dressed with some attempt at verisimili- 
 tude for instance, Henry VIII. but even in such cases 
 the correctly attired character was alone in his accuracy. 
 So late as the middle of the eighteenth century, Davies 
 mentions that the plays of Richard III. and Henry VIII. 
 were distinguished by the two principal characters being 
 dressed with propriety, though differently from all the 
 rest. But all this is scarcely wonderful when we re- 
 member that Garrick played Macbeth in a scarlet-and- 
 gold military suit of his own day, and that he dressed 
 Hotspur in a laced frock and a Ramilies wig. 
 
 Such, then, was the theatre in which the second Charles 
 took his pleasure ; such the conditions under which the 
 dramas of Dryden, Otway, and Nat Lee, the comedies 
 of Congreve, Wycherley, and Farquhar, were first played. 
 Let us now, having seen the theatre and its audience, 
 make the acquaintance of the great actors over whose 
 battle-ground we have been walking. 
 
$6 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON (1635-1660). 
 
 AMONG the motley crowd of players that fretted their 
 hour upon the Restoration stage, one figure stands con- 
 spicuous that of Thomas Betterton. Pre-eminent as an 
 actor, he is not less remarkable for his qualities as a man. 
 As the figures of his contemporaries pass before our 
 mind's eye, vague and unsubstantial though they be, 
 there is on most of them the smirch of some scandal, 
 the stain of some crime. Nell Gwynne, Mrs. Hughes, 
 Mrs. Knight, the two Marshalls, even the great Mrs. 
 Barry, bear the imputation of a profligate life. Hart was 
 the paramour of Nell Gwynne ; Mountford lost his life 
 because he was believed to have been the successful 
 lover of Mrs. Bracegirdle ; George Powell was a drunkard ; 
 Goodman, a highway robber ; Kynaston is accused, in the 
 filthy lampoons of the time, of gross immorality. Even 
 the Diana of the stage, beautiful Anne Bracegirdle, is the 
 subject of frequent attacks, which attributed her honour- 
 able and modest reputation to the cunning with which 
 she concealed her amours. Among this wild rout Thomas 
 Betterton walked unspotted. I have not, in the course of 
 extensive wading through the mud-heaps of Restoration 
 satire, met with one derogatory allusion to him, or to the 
 great actress and good woman who was his wife. How 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 57 
 
 high a tribute this is to their worth can be understood 
 when we remember how profligate and shameless was the 
 life of court and society during much of his career, and 
 how the profligacy was focussed in the theatre. There 
 are some of Dryden's prologues and epilogues so atro- 
 cious in their filthiness that the player who spoke them 
 and the audience for whose delectation they were written 
 must have given up even the affectation of decency. 
 And Dryden was not the only sinner, though perhaps he 
 was the chief. The whole atmosphere of the theatre 
 was indescribably wicked ; yet, though Betterton is the 
 actor of whom we know most, we know no hint that he 
 was other than an upright and estimable man. Indeed, 
 as will be related, we have positive evidence of his good- 
 ness and generosity. 
 
 Thomas Betterton was the son of Matthew Bet- 
 terton, who is generally described as having been one 
 of the under-cooks of King Charles L, although, as 
 Colonel Chester points out in his invaluable work on 
 Westminster Abbey, he described himself in his will as 
 "gentleman," and bequeathed, among other valuables, 
 his "grandfather's Seal Ring." In 1635 Matthew Bet- 
 terton was living in Tothill Street, Westminster, in a 
 house which was the property of his father-in-law, Thomas 
 Flowerdew (or Flowerday), vintner, of St. Margaret's, 
 Westminster.* Here Thomas Betterton was born, and, 
 in the parish church of St. Margaret's, he was baptized 
 on August n, 1635. During the time of the Common- 
 wealth Matthew Betterton seems to have lived in London ; 
 perhaps he had remained in it during all the troubles of 
 the Civil Wars. At any rate, as soon as young Thomas 
 
 * Frances, daughter of Thomas Flowerdew, was Matthew Bet- 
 terton's second wife. They were married in October, 1630, Thomas 
 being their second child. 
 
58 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 came to sufficient age to go out into the world, he was 
 bound apprentice to a bookseller ; the choice of his 
 occupation being determined, as an apparently trust- 
 worthy tradition leads us to believe, by the intelligence 
 and taste for reading which the youth manifested. As 
 the actor himself in his old age told Pope that he was 
 apprenticed to John Holden, it may be assumed that the 
 publisher of Gondibert was his first employer. Here the 
 youth was in a theatrical atmosphere, for Holden was 
 the friend as well as publisher of Sir William Davenant, 
 and his daughter was one of the first of Davenant's 
 actresses. John Rhodes, who sold books at the sign of 
 " The Bible," at Charing Cross, is said by Gildon to have 
 been Betterton's employer ; but it is impossible to decide 
 whether this is an accurate statement, or whether it is 
 merely a fable arising out of the fact that, when Rhodes 
 became manager of the Cockpit, Betterton was one of 
 the original members of his company. It is quite pos- 
 sible that the young man was first in the service of 
 Holden, and afterwards in that of Rhodes ; and it is more 
 than probable, moreover, that he was for some time in 
 business on his own account. This last statement is 
 warranted by the existence of (at least) two little volumes 
 which bear the imprint of Thomas Betterton. One is 
 " A Mixt Poem, Partly Historicall, partly Panegyrical!, 
 upon the Happy Return of His Sacred Majesty Charles 
 the Second. . . . By J. C. [Crouch], Gent., London. 
 Printed for Thomas Bettertun at his shop in Westminster- 
 hall, 1660." The other, " The Muses Joy For the 
 Recovery of that weeping Vine, Henretta Maria," was 
 ''Printed for Tho. Batterton* Anno, 1661." I see no 
 
 * It may be convenient to note here that it is impossible to 
 dogmatize on the spelling of seventeenth-century proper names. 
 Betterton frequently appears in the cast of plays as " Batterton," 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 59 
 
 reason to doubt that this was the actor, and that for some 
 time he carried on his business of publisher as well as his 
 profession of player, such double occupation being by 
 no means uncommon. Mr. Sidney L. Lee, to whom 
 belongs the credit of this interesting discovery, pointed 
 out in Notes and Queries that Crouch's subsequent publi- 
 cations, as, for instance, his poem on the coming of 
 Charles's Queen (1662), bore the imprint of a different 
 publisher a fact which strongly supports the theory that, 
 for the first year or two of his stage career, Betterton 
 did not entirely give up his connection with publishing. 
 
 It has been asserted that Betterton played in Sir 
 William Davenant's spectacular and operatic productions 
 during the last years of the Commonwealth, but this is 
 highly improbable. \ Certainly he took no part of any 
 importance, and his real connection with the stage began 
 in 1660, when Rhodes, under a licence from General 
 Monk, reopened the Cockpit in Drury Lane as a theatre. 
 
 To follow the fortunes of Rhodes's company, and of 
 the other bodies of players which were speedily formed, 
 is a task of some difficulty ; for, unfortunately, the facts 
 regarding them are very imperfectly known. Genest,* 
 who may generally be relied on as a safe guide through 
 the theatrical maze, here fails us. An unfortunate mis- 
 take in his interpretation of a series of entries in Pepys's 
 Diary has led him on an utterly false trail, in the pursuit 
 of which he not only goes wrong himself, but contradicts 
 authorities who are quite accurate. The mistake is the 
 confounding of Charles II.'s private theatre, situated at 
 the Cockpit in St. James's Park, with the Cockpit Play- 
 ana "Bettertun;" Mohun is often "Moone;" Mountford is 
 " Monfort," "Mounfort," and even " Mumford." 
 
 * The Rev. John Genest's history of the Stage (10 vols. 8vo) is 
 a monument of industry and research. 
 
60 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 house in Drury Lane ; the effect of which, it will be seen, 
 is very serious. 
 
 When General Monk, ruling London with his seven 
 thousand soldiers, showed no leaning toward the Puri- 
 tanical sect, and was even suspected of an intention of 
 restoring the monarchy, the poor players took heart of 
 grace, and John Rhodes, the bookseller to whom Better- 
 ton is said to have been apprenticed, applied for and 
 obtained a licence to get together a company of actors 
 and to give public performances. Rhodes was not with- 
 out theatrical experience, for he had been wardrobe- 
 keeper to the old actors of King Charles I.'s company at 
 the Blackfriars house. At what precise date he obtained 
 this licence it is impossible to say. Monk entered 
 London on February 3, 1660, and the earliest allusion 
 to a play which I can find is an entry by Pepys, on 
 June 6, 1660, when he notes, " My letters tell me "... 
 that the two Dukes [Duke of York and Duke of Glou- 
 cester] do haunt the Park much, and they were at a play, 
 Madam Epicene, the other day." But Rhodes in all pro- 
 bability got his licence some time before June. Downes 
 says that he got it in the year 1659 (old reckoning), and, 
 if we can trust this statement, it fixes the date as not 
 later than March 24, 1660. At any rate, we may assume 
 that it is roughly correct, and that, accordingly, Rhodes 
 began to get his company together not later than the 
 end of March. As a matter of necessity, he opened at 
 one of the old theatres, which were standing unoccupied 
 and ready to his hand. The Cockpit in Drury Lane was 
 the playhouse which he chose, a small theatre, one of 
 those which, before the Civil War, were called " Private 
 Houses." In these the performances took place by candle- 
 light, whereas the larger, or public playhouses, being 
 partly open to the weather, were used only in daylight. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 61 
 
 At the head of Rhodes's company was Betterton, who 
 seems at once to have taken his position as leading 
 actor, and, like his successor, David Garrick, to have 
 developed immediately into a fully accomplished artist. 
 Within a few months after his becoming an actor he had 
 played with the utmost success such important parts as 
 Pericles, Prince of Tyre ; Archas in Fletcher's Loyal 
 Subject ; Memnon in the same author's Mad Lover ; 
 Deflores, the powerfully drawn villain of Rowley and 
 Middleton's Changeling ; and Marullo, the romantic hero 
 of Massinger's Bondman. It is in connection with one of 
 these characters that we have a curious little glimpse 
 of the talented young actor. Mr. Pepys paid his first 
 visit to the play after the Restoration on August 18, 
 1660, when he saw The Loyal Subject 3& the Court play. 
 " After the play done," writes the diarist, " we went to 
 drink, and by Captain Ferrer's means, Kinaston, and 
 another that acted Archas the General, came and drank 
 with us." The editor of Pepys's Diary remarks on this 
 passage that the actor of Archas is unknown ; but 
 Downes expressly states that Betterton played the part 
 at the same time that Kynaston, whom Pepys mentions, 
 played leading female parts to his heroes. At this time 
 Betterton was only five and twenty, yet his voice, Downes 
 tells us, was " as audibly strong, full and articulate, as in 
 the prime of his acting." 
 
 He had for his "heroine" Edward Kynaston, most 
 beautiful of boys, whom Pepys enthusiastically described 
 as "the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life." It is 
 not probable that either of these young people had had 
 any previous training in acting, and the rest of the com- 
 pany were, no doubt, equally inexperienced. Their 
 names were Thomas Sheppey, Thomas Level, Thomas 
 Lilleston, Cave Underbill, Robert Turner, Dixon, Robert 
 
62 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Nokes, James Nokes, Angel, Floid, William Betterton, 
 and John Moseley. 
 
 This young company was no doubt first in the field, 
 but it was soon opposed by very formidable rivals. The 
 remnant of the old actors who survived the Common- 
 wealth formed themselves into a company, and began to 
 give performances at the Red Bull in St. John's Street. 
 Here the leading actors were Michael Mohun, Charles 
 Hart, Robert Shatterel, William Shatterel, Nicholas Burt, 
 William Cartwright, Walter Clun, and William Wintersell. 
 A third company was also constituted under the direction 
 of William Beeston, who received a licence from Sir 
 Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, to play 
 " comedies, tragedies, tragicomedies, pastoralls, and in- 
 terludes " at the theatre at Salisbury Court. This house, 
 like the Cockpit in Drury Lane, was small; the Red 
 Bull, which the old actors occupied, was a large house, 
 partly open to the weather. The composition of this 
 company of Beeston's is a puzzle. Neither Wright nor 
 Downes mentions it; and, indeed, it is difficult to 
 imagine where his actors could come from. The only 
 scrap of information which I have been able to gather is 
 that in 1661 George Jolly was leading actor.* This I 
 learn from the records of the Lord Chamberlain's Office, 
 where, under date of November 13, 1661, I find an order 
 that George Jolly and his company at the Cockpit should 
 cease playing until their quarrel with their manager 
 Beeston was adjusted. It will be observed that Beeston's 
 company had left Salisbury Court by this time, and were 
 
 * George Jolly must have been sometimes a manager as well as 
 an actor. On December 24, 1660, I find, in the Calendar of State 
 Papers, he received a licence to build a theatre in London ; and in 
 January, 1663, he was licensed to play at any town in England 
 except London and Westminster. In July, 1663, his first licence 
 was revoked. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 63 
 
 playing at the Cockpit, which Rhodes and his company 
 had vacated. 
 
 These three companies were probably all formed not 
 later than the end of June, 1660, and they were certainly 
 all in existence in August of that year. This we learn in 
 connection with a curious petition by one John Rogers, 
 which 
 
 " Most humbly sheweth : 
 
 " That your petitioner, at the beginning of the late calamitys, 
 lost thereby his whole estate, and during the warr susteyned 
 much detriment and imprisonment, and lost his limbs or 
 the use thereof; who served his Excellency the now Lord 
 General, both in England and Scotland, and performed good 
 and faithfull service ; in consideration whereof and by being 
 so much decreapitt as not to act any more in the wars, his 
 Excellency was favourably pleased, for your petitioner's future 
 subsistance ... to grant him a tolleration to erect a play- 
 house or to have a share out of them already tollerated, your 
 petitioner thereby undertaking to suppress all riots, tumults, 
 or molestations that may thereby arise." 
 
 John Rogers therefore prays his Majesty to confirm the 
 grant made by General Monk, and to order the players 
 to pay him an allowance, in return for which he would 
 undertake to provide soldiers to keep order in the 
 theatres. In answer to this petition, the king, on August 
 7, 1660, refers Mr. Rogers's case to Sir Henry Herbert, 
 and he, on August 20, orders the actors to pay Rogers 
 the allowance requested. This order is addressed " To 
 the Actors of the playhouses called the Red Bull, Cockpit, 
 and theatre in Salisbury Court, and to every of them, in 
 and about the citties of London and Westminster" 
 affording thus a clear statement of the number of com- 
 panies in existence. 
 
 On the very next day to that on which Sir Henry 
 
64 HQMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Herbert, as Master of the Revels, gave this peremptory 
 order to the actors, a fatal blow was given alike to his 
 power and his profit. Up to this time Sir Henry, who 
 had virtually been Master of the Revels since 1623, had 
 ruled his unfortunate charges with a rod of iron, and with 
 the strictest attention to making as much out of them 
 as possible. Of his personal character we get rather a 
 mean idea from his Office-Book, large portions of which 
 are quoted by Malone. We see in these the picture of a 
 grasping official, tenacious of his rights, eager to make 
 money, overbearing and insolent to the unfortunates who 
 were under his control, but in no way too proud to 
 accept a present of money from them for services done. 
 The act which gave the death-blow to the power of 
 the Master of the Revels was the issue of a grant 
 empowering Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant 
 " to erect two companies of players, consistinge respec- 
 tively of such persons as they shall chuse and appoint, 
 and to purchase, builde, and erect, or hire at their 
 charge,, as they shall thinke fitt, two houses or theatres 
 ... for the representation of tragydies, comedyes, 
 playes, operas, and all other entertainments of that 
 nature, in convenient places." 
 
 Sir Henry Herbert was quick enough to see how disas- 
 trous to him this new departure would be, and he raised 
 a shriek of protest. But his complaints were unavailing, 
 and the grant to Killigrew and Davenant passed the 
 Privy Signet on August 21, 1660. But, whether on 
 account of Sir Henry Herbert's opposition or from the 
 difficulty of making arrangements with the three com- 
 panies already in existence, this grant seems to have 
 been curiously inoperative. It is not surprising that on 
 August 30, nine days after the date of the grant, the 
 three companies of the Red Bull, the Cockpit, and 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 65 
 
 Salisbury Court, were still in existence ; * but it is curious 
 that, so late as October 13, a settlement had not been 
 come to.f 
 
 It is at this period, that is, between August and 
 November, 1660, that the transactions of the stage are 
 so difficult to trace, and, unfortunately, it is at this point 
 that Genest breaks down. He says (vol. i. p. 30), "it is cer- 
 tain, from Pepys, that the old actors were in possession 
 of the Cockpit in August, 1660." But he misreads Pepys 
 the diarist makes no such statement. Genest assumes 
 that Pepys's entries regarding the Cockpit refer to the 
 theatre in Drury Lane, and I am not aware that it has 
 ever occurred to any stage historian to doubt that he was 
 right. But the following entry in Pepys suggested to 
 me the possibility of Genest' s being wrong: "1660, 
 November 2oth. . . . This morning I found my Lord 
 in bed late, he having been with the King, Queen, 
 and Princesse, at the Cockpit all night, where General 
 Monk treated them; and after supper a play." This 
 suggested to me that all the entries regarding the Cock- 
 pit might refer to the Royal Playhouse in St. James's 
 Park a theory which careful examination fully con- 
 firmed. This examination showed that visits to the 
 Cockpit are entered by the diarist in quite different 
 terms from those employed to record visits to the 
 ordinary theatres in Salisbury Court or Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields. Here are entries of the latter order: " 1661, 
 February 23rd. To the Play-house, and there saw The 
 Changeling:' " 1661, March ist. To White- fryers 
 [Salisbury Court], and saw The Bondman acted." "i 66 1, 
 
 * This is shown by a letter from Humphrey Mosely to Sir Henry 
 Herbert, dated August 30, 1660, which is quoted by Malone. 
 
 t See/flrf, p. 67, where Sir Henry Herbert's warrant of that date 
 is referred to. 
 
66 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 March 2nd. After dinner I went to the theatre." But 
 there are always circumstances stated in connection with 
 visits to the Cockpit, thus : " 1660, August i8th. Cap- 
 tain Ferrers took me and Creed to the Cockpitt play." 
 "1660, October nth. To walk in St. James's Park. 
 . . . Here, in the Park, we met with Mr. Salisbury, who 
 took me and Mr. Creed to the Cockpitt." " 1661, April 
 2oth. To the Cockpitt; and there, by the favour of 
 one Mr. Bowman, he and I got in." " 1662, November 
 1 7th. At Whitehall by appointment ; Mr. Creed carried 
 my wife and I to the Cockpitt, and we had excellent 
 places." But the most conclusive entry of all is that of 
 October 2, 1662 
 
 "At night, hearing that there was a play at the Cockpit, 
 (and my Lord Sandwich, who came to town last night, at it,) 
 I do go thither, and by very great fortune did follow four or 
 five gentlemen, who were carried to a little private door in a 
 wall, and so crept through a narrow place, and come into 
 one of the boxes next the King's." 
 
 Obviously it could not have been a public performance 
 to which Pepys gained entrance in this surreptitious 
 manner, and the entire matter of the entry shows clearly 
 that the diarist did not refer to the Cockpit in Drury 
 Lane. Of course, both companies of actors played at the 
 Cockpit in St. James's Park, as they were commanded 
 by the king; and the entry of August 18, 1660, really 
 conveys no information regarding the regular location of 
 the actors who that day played in the Royal Theatre. 
 But Genest assumes that the old actors on that day 
 played at, and were in possession of, the Cockpit play- 
 house in Drury Lane ; whence he deduces that Downes's 
 statements regarding the houses at which the diiferent 
 companies acted are inaccurate throughout, and that 
 Rhodes's company probably never acted at the Cockpit 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 67 
 
 in Drury Lane, nor the old actors at the Red Bull. But, 
 as I have shown, his theory is founded on a complete 
 misconception. 
 
 Genest's evidence thus invalidated, we are left pilotless 
 to struggle through the confusing records which have 
 come down to us, and are compelled to piece together 
 scraps of fact which, on first view, seem hopelessly con- 
 tradictory. Most staggering of all the documents are 
 a couple of warrants, preserved by Malone, which were 
 issued by Sir Henry Herbert in assertion of his un- 
 diminished authority. The first is dated October 8, 
 1660, is addressed " To Mr. John Rhodes at the Cock- 
 pitt playhouse in Drury Lane," and commands him " to 
 attend mee concerning your playhouse called the Cock- 
 pitt playhouse in Drury Lane, and to bring with you 
 such authority as you have for erecting of the said house 
 into a playhouse, at your perill." The second is a 
 " Warrant sent to the actors at the Cockpitt in Drury 
 Lane by Tom Browne, the 13 Octob. 1660." Now, it 
 would naturally be expected that a warrant addressed to 
 Rhodes's company, as this apparently is, would be 
 directed to Betterton as chief of the company for it 
 was usual to address, such documents to the leading actor 
 by name, and to his companions. But the direction of 
 this warrant is, " To Mr. Michael Mohun, and the rest 
 of the actors of the Cockpitt playhouse in Drury Lane." 
 Thus is established the extraordinary fact that, in October, 
 1660, Rhodes, and presumably his company, were at the 
 same theatre as Mohun and the rest of the old actors. 
 At first sight this is incomprehensible it is in direct con- 
 tradiction to all our beliefs ; and I confess that my first 
 impression was that there was a blunder in the address. 
 But, after careful sifting of the evidence, I have come to 
 the conclusion that, however strange it may seem, these 
 
68 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 two companies were amalgamated, though for a very 
 short time. 
 
 The first point which is made clear is that, on October 
 13, 1660, the actors were under the control neither of 
 Killtgrew nor Davenant, for the warrant of that date 
 alludes to complaints which had been made to the king 
 by the two patentees regarding the prices charged by the 
 actors for admission to the theatre ; which complaints, 
 says Sir Henry Herbert, " were made use of by the said 
 Mr. Killegrew and Sir William D'Avenant as part of their 
 suggestions for their pretented power, and for your late 
 restrainte." In a petition (No. viii. in Malone) another 
 point is established. This petition is made to the king 
 by Michael Mohun, Robert Shatterel, Charles Hart, 
 Nich. Burt, William Cartwright, Walter Clun, and William 
 Wintersell, and is apparently (it is not dated) a protest 
 against the last-quoted warrant. In it occur these words : 
 " And according to your Majesties approbation, from all 
 the companies we made election of one company" 
 
 The crucial point then comes the discovery of any 
 clear allusion to this united company ; and this, I believe, 
 I have accomplished. I find in the Lord Chamberlain's 
 records a document dated October 6, 1660, constituting 
 the king's company of comedians ; and the list of actors 
 appointed includes not only Mohun, Hart, and the other 
 players who had played at the Red Bull, and who were 
 afterwards, under Killigrew, known as "the King's 
 Company," but also Edward Kynaston and Thomas 
 Betterton, members of Rhodes's Cockpit company. If, 
 therefore, the interpretation which I put upon these 
 various transactions is just, we may consider it certain that, 
 after the issue of the grant to Killigrew and Davenant 
 on August 21, 1660, the king, wearied of the squabbles 
 between Sir Henry Herbert, Killigrew, and Davenant, 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 69 
 
 erected the chief actors of both companies into one. 
 This amalgamation no doubt lasted until Davenant took 
 away a certain number of the actors to form a company 
 under his management, which he did in November, 1660, 
 as evidenced by arr agreement dated the fifth of that 
 month. This agreement, which is referred to later on, 
 marks the clear divergence of the two companies, and 
 from November, 1660, to November, 1682, Killigrew's 
 and Davenant's companies existed as separate bodies. 
 
 The two managers were sufficiently interesting persons. 
 Thomas Killigrew was the son of Sir Robert Killigrew, 
 and was born in February, 1611. He was not educated 
 at any university, but was made page to Charles L, to 
 whom he was a faithful adherent during his changes of 
 fortune. To Charles II. he was equally devoted, and in 
 1651 was deputed by that monarch to represent his 
 maimed authority at Venice, as English Resident. But 
 Killigrew was a somewhat disreputable representative, 
 and was forced to give up his post at the remonstrance 
 of the Venetian ambassador, who complained to the 
 king of his Resident's vicious courses. During his abode 
 at Venice, Killigrew seems to have written six plays, as 
 we learn from Sir John Denham's verses on his return 
 
 I. 
 
 " Our Resident Tom 
 
 From Venice is come, 
 And has left all the statesman behind him ; 
 
 Talks at the same pitch, 
 
 Is as wise, is as rich, 
 And just where you left him, you find him. 
 
 II. 
 
 " But who says he's not 
 A man of much plot, 
 
70 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 May repent of this false accusation ; 
 
 Having plotted, and penn'd, 
 
 Six plays to attend 
 On the Farce of his Negotiation." 
 
 Tom's tastes seem early to have run in the direction 
 of theatricals, as witness Pepys's account of "Thos. 
 Killigrew's way of getting to see plays when he was a boy. 
 would go to the Red Bull, and when the man cried 
 to the boys, ' Who will go and be a devil, and he shall 
 see the play for nothing ? ' then would he go in, and be 
 a devil upon the stage, and so get to see plays for 
 nothing." At the Restoration, Killigrew came over with 
 the king himself, and Pepys records, on May 24, 1660, 
 how, " walking upon the decks, where persons of honour 
 all the afternoon, among others, Thomas Killigrew (a 
 merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem with the 
 King), who told us many merry stories." Perhaps we 
 need not regret that these anecdotes are unreported. 
 
 Killigrew, after the Restoration, held the appointment 
 of a Groom of the Bedchamber, and that of the King's 
 Jester. Chalmers (Apology for the Believers, p. 527) seems 
 to object to Anthony a Wood's curt statement that Killi- 
 grew was the King's Jester, but the old biographer is 
 strictly accurate in so putting it. The Lord Chamberlain's 
 records contain a copy of a warrant, dated July 12, 1661, 
 " to deliver to Mr. Killegrew thirty yards of velvett, three 
 dozen of fringe, and sixteene yards of Damaske for the 
 yeare 1661 ;" and this is headed by the blunt statement. 
 " Livery for y e Jester." * It is to Killigrew's credit that 
 some anecdotes of his conduct in this office show him 
 
 * A propos of this may be noted an entry in Pepys (February 13, 
 1668) : "Mr. Brisband tells me in discourse that Tom Killigrew 
 hath a fee out of the wardrobe for cap and bells, under the title 
 of the King's Foole or Jester. " 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 71 
 
 using his folly to stimulate the king's torpid sense of 
 duty towards his realm. Looking for more employment, 
 or at least for more profit, the jester cast his eye on the 
 theatre ; and on the actors accordingly he was quartered. 
 Sir William Davenant, the other manager, was of more 
 plebeian descent than Killigrew. His father was a 
 vintner in Oxford, at the Crown Tavern, where the 
 future poet-laureate was born in February, 1606. His 
 mother was a very beautiful woman, and a foolish story 
 arose that Shakespeare, who frequently stayed at the 
 Crown Tavern on his way to and from Warwickshire, was 
 Mrs. Davenant's lover and the father of William. Malone 
 quotes the Aubrey MS. to show that this story was 
 endorsed, if not originally promulgated, by Davenant 
 himself, " Now Sir William would sometimes, when he 
 was pleasant over a glasse of wine with his most intimate 
 friends (e.g. Sam Butler, author of Hudibras, etc., etc.\ 
 say, that it seem'd to him, that he writt with the very 
 spirit that Shakespeare [wrote with], and was contented 
 enough to bee thought his son : he would tell them the 
 story as above." After a brief schooling, Davenant was 
 made page to the Duchess of Richmond, and was after- 
 wards in the household of Sir Fulke Greville, Lord 
 Brooke. On the death of Ben Jonson, in 1637, Dave- 
 nant, who had cultivated the friendship of the court, 
 obtained the vacant laurel. In the Civil Wars he fought 
 valiantly for the king, and was knighted ; at the end of 
 them he went into exile. Being taken at sea, on his 
 way to Virginia, by a Parliamentary ship, he was brought 
 prisoner to England, and was in imminent danger of 
 execution. But his life was saved, by Milton, according 
 to one account; by two aldermen of York, according 
 to another; and in 1656, as already related, he began 
 to give dramatic performances. At the Restoration no 
 
72 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 ill will was shown on account of the indulgence given 
 him by Cromwell, and he seems to have been taken into 
 immediate favour by Charles II., by whom he, too, was 
 presented with an indome at the expense of the poor 
 players. 
 
 When the two patentees divided the actors between 
 them, the younger company, which had been under 
 Rhodes, was transferred to Davenant, the only important 
 exception being Kynaston, who remained with the old 
 actors under Killigrew. In Davenant's company Better- 
 ton was the leading player, and his name is the first 
 mentioned of the actors who entered into the agreement 
 of November 5, 1660. 
 
 The high contracting parties are " Sir William Davenant 
 of London, Kt., of the first part ; Thomas Batterton, 
 Thomas Sheppey, Robert Noakes, James Noakes, 
 Thomas Lovell, John Moseley, Cave Underbill, Robert 
 Turner, and Thomas Lilleston, of the second part ; and 
 Henry Harris, of the citty of London, painter, of the 
 third part." All the actors mentioned as companions of 
 Betterton had been members of Rhodes's company at 
 the Cockpit; but Henry Harris is a new name in the 
 transactions of the period. I have no doubt that he is 
 the celebrated actor who, as recorded by Pepys, was 
 afterwards considered Betterton's rival, and of whom 
 there is a beautiful print, in the character of Wolsey, in 
 the Pepysian Library at Cambridge. His Christian name 
 has sometimes been given as Joseph, but this is a mistake, 
 arising from the fact that there was another less impor- 
 tant actor of that name. Genest says (i. 387) that his 
 Christian name " is probably unknown," but it seems to 
 me beyond any question that this Henry Harris, painter, 
 was the great actor. By the terms of the agreement, 
 Betterton and his comrades were to act at the Salisbury 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 73 
 
 Court Playhouse (or elsewhere) "untill the said Sir 
 William Davenant shall provide a newe theatre with 
 scenes." When the new theatre was ready, Betterton 
 and his companions were, at a week's notice, to cease 
 playing, to shut up their old house, and " to remove and 
 joyne with the said Henry Harris, and with other men 
 and women provided or to be provided by the said Sir 
 Wm. Davenant, to performe such tragedies, comedies, 
 playes, and representations in that theatre to be provided 
 by him the said Sir William as aforesaid." 
 
 At the new playhouse the receipts, after deducting the 
 general expenses, were to be divided into fifteen shares ; 
 three of which were to go to the manager, for "house-rent, 
 buildinge, scaffoldinge, and making of frames for scenes," 
 and for "provision of habitts, properties, and scenes, 
 for a supplement of the said theatre." Of the remaining 
 twelve shares, the expense of " men hirelinges " (whom 
 we now call by the less picturesque name of " supers ") 
 and other customary expenses being deducted, seven 
 belonged to the manager, " to mainteine all the women 
 that are to performe or represent women's parts in the 
 aforesaid tragedies, etc.," and " in consideration of erect- 
 inge and establishinge them to bee a Companie, and his 
 the said Sir Wms. paines and expences to that purpose 
 for many yeeres." The remaining five shares to be 
 divided among the actors, " whereof the said Henry 
 Harris is to have an equal share with the greatest pro- 
 portion in the said five shares or proportions " a 
 stipulation showing the importance attached to Harris's 
 services. Indeed, he speedily became so popular an 
 actor that he set himself up as the rival, or rather the 
 superior, of Betterton. In July, 1663, he deserted 
 Davenant's company because he was refused a higher 
 salary than any of his companions. He demanded, says 
 
74 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Pepys, " 2o/. for himself extraordinary, more than 
 Betterton, or any body else, upon every new play, and 
 io/. upon every revive;" and when Davenant declined to 
 accede to his terms, swore he would act there no more. 
 He expected to be allowed to join Killigrew's company, 
 but this the king prevented; and Mr. Harris, after 
 "resting" for a few months, was glad to rejoin his old 
 comrades. Pepys's gossiping shoemaker told the diarist 
 that " the fellow grew very proud of late, the King and 
 everybody else crying him up so high, and that above 
 Betterton, he being a more ayery man, as he is indeed." 
 The contrast between these two artists is very interest- 
 ing even to us now, displaying as they do two types 
 which are familiar to this day. Betterton was above all 
 an artist. Social distinctions came to him, but they were 
 unsought tributes to his greatness in his profession, and 
 his real life was divided between his home and the 
 theatre. Put Harris was a man about town. His 
 dressing-room was the rendezvous of the wits, who came 
 there to discuss the play, and, to quote Pepys, "to 
 assign meetings." His companions were "as very 
 rogues as any in the town, who were ready to take hold 
 of every woman that came by them ; " and the popular 
 young player was, if one may judge by the unsavoury 
 anecdote of Lady Bennett and her ladies which he 
 retailed to Pepys, as very a rogue as any of them. If Mr. 
 Pepys wanted a companion to go merry-making, if he 
 wanted an entertaining friend for a dinner-party, if he 
 wanted to see a new picture, Harris was always at his 
 service; and, being an excellent musician, a famous 
 judge of painting, and a man of the most varied know- 
 ledge, Pepys delighted in his company. Harris's 
 knowledge of painting is constantly alluded to by Pepys, 
 and this confirms my theory that the " Henry Harris, 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 75 
 
 painter," of Davenant's company was the famous actor. 
 The tradition is that Harris had been a seaLengraver ; 
 but as this rests on the notoriously untrustworthy authority 
 of Curll's History of the Stage, it need not disturb us. /* 
 
 Among the minor provisions of the agreement between 
 .Davenant and his company are one or two articles which 
 curiously illustrate the theatrical usages of the time. For 
 instance, we learn that the "general receipte of the 
 theatre " was by " ballatine, or tickets sealed for all doores 
 and boxes." Davenant provided three persons to receive 
 the money for these tickets, in a room adjoining the 
 theatre a sort of box office, in fact and the actors were 
 entitled to appoint two or three persons to act as a check 
 upon the manager's nominees. Another interesting point 
 is that the manager's seven-fifteenths had to be handed 
 over to him every night. Again, it is curious that a pro- 
 vision should be in these articles which exists almost 
 unchanged to the present day. It is that the manager 
 should not provide " eyther hatts, feathers, gloves, ribbons, 
 sworde-belts, bands, stockings, or shoes, for any of the 
 men actors aforesaid, unless it be a propertie." /-~ 
 
 Under these articles Davenant's company began to 
 play at Salisbury Court Theatre on November 15, 1660. 
 A curious regulation was made on December 12, 1660, 
 by which certain plays were set aside as the special 
 property of Davenant's company. These, according to 
 the Lord Chamberlain's records, Davenant proposed " to 
 reform and make fitt for the Company of Actors appointed 
 under his direction and command." They were the 
 following plays of Shakespeare : The Tempest, Measure 
 for Measure, Much Ado about Nothing, Romeo and 
 Juliet, Twelfth Night, Henry VI II. , King Lear, Macbeth, 
 Hamlet ; Sir John Denham's Sophy ; and John Webster's 
 Duchess of Malfy. In addition to these, Davenant had, 
 
76 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 for two months from the date of the permission, sole 
 right to Shakespeare's Pericles, and to The Mad Lover, 
 The Maid in the Mill, The Spanish Curate, The Loyal 
 Subject, and Rule a Wife and Have a Wife by John 
 Fletcher. He was also allowed the sole right, apparently 
 in perpetuity, to produce his own plays. The edict 
 winds up with a prohibition against any actor deserting 
 Davenant's company for that of Killigrew, or vice versa. 
 
 This prohibition was reaffirmed in the Patents which, 
 two years later, were issued to Davenant and Killigrew, 
 and formed the final authority under which they con- 
 ducted their theatres. Davenant's Patent was dated 
 January 15, 1663, while Killigrew's bore the date of 
 April 25, 1662. The enlarged powers conferred by these 
 Patents were not obtained without considerablelskirmish- 
 ing between the patentees and their old enemy, Sir Henry 
 Herbert. Against Davenant the Master of the Revels 
 brought two actions at law, one of which he gained, but 
 lost the other He also brought two actions against 
 Mohun and his fellow-actors, and on May 6, 1662, 
 Betterton was sued for offending against Sir Henry's 
 privileges. How the action against Betterton ended we 
 do not know, but the Master of the Revels seems to 
 have won both cases against the old actors. 
 
 A glance at the names of the comrades of Betterton 
 who signed the agreement with Davenant shows that 
 Kynaston, Dixon, Angel, William Betterton, and Floid 
 do not appear. Kynaston has become a member of 
 Killigrew's company; William Betterton has met his 
 death while swimming in the Thames at Wallingford; 
 and Floid is also probably dead, for I cannot trace his 
 name to any character after the company came under 
 Davenant's command. Dixon's name was perhaps 
 omitted because of his insignificance (his line of business 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 77 
 
 seems to have been such parts as Rosencrantz) ; but the 
 absence of Angel's name is not to be accounted for on the 
 same hypothesis. He was a comedian of great merit, and 
 played many important parts between 1660 and 1673. It 
 may possibly be that he was a very inferior actor in 1660, 
 and that he afterwards developed extraordinary merit ; 
 otherwise I can suggest no reason for the omission of his 
 name from the list of actors who entered into articles with 
 Davenant. Of these actors, four became famous Thomas 
 Betterton, James Nokes, Cave Underhill, and Henry 
 Harris ; the others were never more than " respectable." 
 Sheppey appears to have held the first place in the second 
 rank, for he was chosen as one of three actors who were 
 to serve as deputies for Sir William Davenant, his com- 
 panions being Betterton and James Nokes. Of Robert 
 Nokes, brother of the great actor, James Nokes, we know 
 little or nothing. Indeed, so meagre is the information 
 regarding him that if Downes, who never distinguishes 
 the one brother from the other, had not chronicled the 
 death of Robert Nokes before 1673, we should have been 
 in some doubt whether James or Robert was the more 
 famous brother's name. Lovell seems to have played 
 " old men," and to have been an actor of some impor- 
 tance. Among his characters the most notable were 
 Polonius and Malvolio. Lilleston played the King in 
 Hamlet, and must have been a very useful second-rate 
 actor, for he played in all classes of parts. 
 
 Compared with this young and not very powerful 
 company, the old actors, who began playing at the 
 Theatre in Vere Street, Clare Market, under Killigrew's 
 management, on November 8, 1660, make a formidable 
 show on paper, at least. Michael Mohun and Charles 
 Hart, whom Rymer the critic called, in 1677, the 
 ^Esopus and Roscius of the English stage, were already 
 
78 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 actors of established reputation. As a boy, Mohun had 
 been trained under Beeston at the Cockpit, and, before 
 the Civil War, must have come to something like man's 
 estate, for Wright records that the part of Bellamente in 
 Shirley's Love's Cruelty, which Mohun played after the 
 Restoration, had been his character before the Civil Wars. 
 Bellamente is a part which a boy could not act. In the 
 Wars Mohun specially distinguished himself, and attained 
 the rank of captain. On the final downfall of the 
 monarchy, he served in Flanders, whence he returned 
 with the title of major, by which he is generally described. 
 Hart, grandson of Shakespeare's sister Joan, was boy 
 or apprentice to Robinson at the Blackfriars Theatre, 
 and played female parts. He too served in the wars, 
 and was a lieutenant of horse in Prince Rupert's 
 regiment. Burt was trained under Shank at the 
 Blackfriars, and afterwards under Beeston at the Cockpit. 
 Here he played the principal female characters, one of 
 his best parts being Clariana in Lovers Cruelty. Clun 
 was a boy-actress at the Blackfriars; Shatterel was 
 trained by Beeston at the Cockpit ; while Cartwright and 
 Wintersell belonged to the private house in Salisbury 
 Court. Regarding Lacy we know little more than that 
 he was a dancing-master, and that he fought in the Civil 
 Wars. In all probability he had become an actor before 
 1642, for not only does Wright treat him as one of the 
 generation of Hart, Mohun, Burt, Clun, and Shatterel, 
 but we find that he was playing leading parts as early as 
 May, 1662, and that Pepys, in June, 1663, declares his 
 preference for him over any of his distinguished comrades. 
 Among the other members of the King's company were 
 Kynaston, already famous as a boy-actress, Richard 
 Baxter, Thomas Loveday, and Theophilus Bird. It seems 
 certain, too, that, in spite of the old tradition that 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 79 
 
 Davenant's actresses were the first women who appeared 
 on the Restoration stage, Killigrew numbered female 
 performers among his company almost from the first. 
 Within two months of his opening Pepys saw women on 
 his stage. " 1661, January 3. To the Theatre, where 
 was acted Beggars Bush, it being very well done ; and 
 here the first time that ever I saw women come upon the 
 stage." On the 2oth of the previous November, the diarist, 
 paying his first visit to Killigrew's new theatre, had seen 
 the same play acted entirely by men and boys ; so it may 
 be assumed that women first appeared between Novem- 
 ber 20, 1660, and January 3, 1661. We know from A 
 Prologue, to introduce the first ivoman that came to act on 
 the stage, in the tragedy called " The Moor of Venice," by 
 Thomas Jordan, that Desdemona was the first part played 
 by a female ; and, as Malone ascertained from a manu- 
 script of Sir Henry Herbert's that Othello was played by 
 the old actors on December 8, 1660, for the first time 
 that season, it is almost certain that this was the date of 
 the first appearance of women on our stage. Of course, 
 it was not at once possible to cast all the female characters 
 to women. On January 4, 1661, the night after that on 
 which Pepys saw the Beggar's Bush played by women, he 
 saw Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady acted by a 
 man;* and three days afterwards he saw Kynaston in 
 The Silent Woman. Again, on the next day (January 8, 
 1661) Pepys saw Jonson, Fletcher, and Middleton's 
 comedy of The Widow, on which his criticism is that it 
 was "an indifferent good play, but wronged by the 
 women's being much too sad in their parts." From this 
 time no doubt men were rapidly taken out of female 
 
 * This is shown by his chronicling on February 12, 1661, "To 
 the Theatre, and there saw The Scornful Lady, now done by a 
 woman, which makes the play much better than ever it did to me." 
 
8o THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 characters, except where the design was to represent old 
 and hideous women. 
 
 Jordan's prologue contains some interesting lines on 
 the men who had up to this time played female 
 characters 
 
 " I come, unknown to any of the rest, 
 To tell you news ; I saw the lady drest : 
 The woman plays to-day ; mistake me not, 
 No man in gown, nor page in petticoat : 
 A woman to my knowledge ; yet I can't, 
 If I should die, make affidavit on't. 
 
 In this reforming age 
 We have intents to civilize the stage. 
 Our women are defective, and so siz'd, 
 You'd think they were some of the guard disguis'd : 
 For, to speak truth, men act, that are between 
 Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen ; 
 With bone so large, and nerve so incompliant, 
 When you call DESDEMONA, enter GIANT." 
 
 Old Chetwood tells a story which amply illustrates the 
 absurdity of the " men-actresses." King Charles II., he 
 says, coming to the theatre to see Hamlet, and being 
 kept waiting for some time, sent the Earl of Rochester 
 behind to see what was causing the delay. He returned 
 with the information that " the Queen was not quite 
 shaved." "Odsfish!" said the king, "I beg her 
 Majesty's pardon. We'll wait till her barber has done 
 with her." 
 
 The female members of Killigrew's company, mentioned 
 by Downes, were Mrs. Corey, whose mimicry of Lady 
 Harvey, at the instigation of Lady Castlemaine, caused 
 a riot in 1669; Mrs. Ann Marshall and Mrs. Rebecca 
 Marshall, the not too reputable daughters of the 
 Presbyterian divine, Stephen Marshall Mrs. Eastland ; 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 81 
 
 Mrs. Weaver ; Mrs. Uphill ; Mrs. Knipp, the chere amie 
 of Pepys ; Mrs. Rutter ; and Mrs. Hughes, Prince 
 Rupert's mistress, for whom it is claimed, with some 
 probability, that she was the Desdemona regarding whom 
 Jordan's prologue was written, and therefore the first 
 woman who acted on the English stage after the 
 Restoration. 
 
82 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON (1660-1682). 
 
 IN the twenty-two years (1660-1682) during which the 
 companies of Davenant and Killigrew existed as separate 
 establishments, many changes took place in them and in 
 their surroundings. Both changed the scene of their opera- 
 tions. The first removal was made by Davenant, who, as 
 we have seen, covenanted with the players to provide, as 
 soon as possible, a new theatre ; and who accordingly 
 built a house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which was opened 
 v in June, 1661. This theatre was situated in Portugal 
 J^ow that is, the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 
 which now stands the Royal College of Surgeons. Here, 
 no doubt, Harris joined the company, as stipulated in the 
 agreement, and with him came, according to Downes, 
 Price, Richards, and Blagden. Here, also, we must 
 assume, women joined the company : Downes gives their 
 names as Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Saunderson, Mrs. Davies, 
 Mrs. Long, Mrs. Ann Gibbs, Mrs. Holden, and Mrs. 
 Jennings.* The first four of these were Davenant's 
 principal actresses, and were boarded by him at his own 
 
 * I need scarcely note that the use of the word " Mrs." does not 
 imply that the ladies were married. "Miss," as describing an un- 
 married lady, did not come into use for more than half a century 
 after this time. When a seventeenth-century writer uses the word he 
 means to describe either a very young girl or a kept mistress. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 83 
 
 house ; one of the provisions of the agreement being, as 
 will be remembered, that he was to " mainteine all the 
 women that are to performe." 
 
 Most interesting of these ladies is Mrs. Saunderson, 
 who, in December, 1662, became the wife of Betterton. 
 In her marriage license, the terms of which have been 
 recorded by Colonel Chester, she is described as Mary 
 Saunderson, of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, spinster. Her 
 mother was a widow, Christian name not recorded, whose 
 consent to the marriage was attested by Enoch Darrack, 
 of St. Pancras, Soper Lane, London, grocer. The 
 license is dated December 24, 1662, and from it we learn 
 that Thomas Betterton was then supposed to be about 
 thirty, and Mrs. Saunderson about five and twenty. 
 
 If Killigrew had the advantage of Davenant in being 
 the first to introduce women to the stage, to Davenant , 
 belongs the credit of introducing elaborate scenery and 
 decorations. Downes says that Davenant " Open'd his 
 House with the said \ Plays [Siege of Rhodes and Wits\ 
 having new Scenes and Decorations, being the first that 
 e're were introduc'd in England" Wright, too, states 
 expressly that scenes had been " introduced upon the 
 publick Stage by Sir William Davenant at the Duke's Old 
 Theater in Lincolns-Inn-Fields" There has been much 
 fighting round this question of the introduction of scenery, 
 but I can see no reason to doubt the statement of 
 Wright, that scenery was first introduced on the public 
 stage by Davenant in 1661 : that is, in regular drama, as 
 distinguished from his operatic productions before the 
 Restoration. 
 
 Downes states that Davenant opened his new theatre 
 in Lincoln's Inn Fields in the spring of 1662, but this is 
 a blunder. We know that the actual date was some day 
 in June, 1661 ; for on July 2, 1661, Pepys saw the second 
 
84 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 part of the Siege of Rhodes, at what he calls Sir William 
 Davenant's " Opera," and he notes that this was " the 
 fourth day that it hath begun." It seems so strange that 
 Downes should have made such an error in a date which 
 ought to have impressed itself on his memory for on the 
 day on which Davenant opened his theatre Downes 
 made his first appearance as an actor that it has been 
 doubted whether Pepys and he refer to the same building. 
 But this is easily proved, because Pepys saw, before the 
 spring of 1662, several of the plays which Downes 
 catalogues as following the opening of Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 Thus Downes gives The Wits as the play which, he 
 expressly states, followed next after The Siege of Rhodes, 
 and Pepys saw The Wits on August 15, i66r. Hamlet 
 is the next play mentioned by the old prompter ; and 
 Pepys duly chronicles it on August 24. Next comes 
 Love and Honour ; and Pepys was present at its first 
 production on October 21, 1661. If a further proof of 
 Downes's blunder were wanted, it can be found. He 
 states that the king first attended a public theatre on 
 the opening day of Davenant's playhouse. Now, Charles 
 was at a public theatre long before the spring of 1662. 
 On August 15, 1 66 1, Pepys himself saw the king at the 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields house ; again he saw him at Vere 
 Street less than a fortnight afterwards ; on September 7, 
 at Vere Street ; September n, at Lincoln's Inn Fields; 
 and on October 10, at Vere Street. We can thus fix 
 the opening of Lincoln's Inn Fields playhouse as having 
 taken place in June, 1661. According to Pepys, the new 
 theatre with its novelty of scenery played havoc with the 
 opposition house. On July 4 he notes how strange 
 it was " to see .this house [Vere Street], that used to be 
 so thronged, now empty since the Opera began ; and so 
 will continue for a while, I believe." 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 85 
 
 Within a year of their opening the Duke's company 
 received some valuable recruits Smith, Sandford, Med- 
 burn, Young, and Norrisj and these practically completed 
 the company. Their list of plays included a few of Shake- 
 speare's works. Foremost among these was Hamlet, 
 which enjoys the distinction of being one of the very 
 few Shakespearian plays of which Pepys had any great 
 opinion. On several occasions he passes it with a sort 
 of indulgent abstention from criticism, and once (August 
 31, 1668) he actually allows that he was mightily pleased 
 with it. Nay, more : he employed himself one Sunday 
 afternoon (November 13, 1664) in committing a portion 
 of it to memory. As he notes, " With my wife within 
 doors, and getting a speech out of Hamlett, ' to bee or not 
 to bee,' without book." The cast of the tragedy was a 
 strong one. Betterton himself must have been a tower 
 of strength as Hamlet. Downes says that he was in- 
 structed in the " business " of the part by Davenant, who 
 had studied the playing of Taylor of the Blackfriars, an 
 actor who had been trained in the character by Shake- 
 speare himself. Downes adds, "which by his exact 
 performance of it, gain'd him Esteem and Reputation, 
 Superlative to all other Plays." Gibber exhausts himself 
 in praise of Betterton's Hamlet. 
 
 " How," he exclaims, "shall I shew you Betterton? Should 
 I therefore tell you that all the Othellos, Hamlets, Hotspurs, 
 Mackbeths, and Brutus'* whom you may have seen since his 
 Time, have fallen far short of him ; this still would give you 
 no Idea of his particular Excellence. Let us see then what 
 a particular Comparison may do ! whether that may yet 
 draw him nearer to you. 
 
 "You have seen a Hamlet perhaps, who, on the first 
 Appearance of his Father's Spirit, has thrown himself into 
 all the straining Vociferation requisite to express Rage and 
 Fury, and the House has thunder'd with Applause ; tho' the 
 
86 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 mis-guided Actor was all the while (as Shakespear terms it) 
 
 tearing a Passion into Rags 1 am the more bold to offer 
 
 you this particular Instance, because the late Mr. Addison, 
 while I sate by him to see this Scene acted, made the same 
 Observation, asking me, with some Surprize, if I thought 
 Hamlet should be in so violent a Passion with the Ghost, 
 which, tho' it might have astonish'd, it had not provok'd 
 him ? for you may observe that in this beautiful Speech the 
 Passion never rises beyond an almost breathless Astonish- 
 ment, or an Impatience, limited by filial Reverence, to 
 enquire into the suspected Wrongs that may have rais'd 
 him from his peaceful Tomb ! and a Desire to know what 
 a Spirit so seemingly distrest might wish or enjoin a sorrow- 
 ful Son to execute towards his future Quiet in the Grave ? 
 This was the Light into which Betterton threw this Scene ; 
 which he open'd with a Pause of mute Amazement ! then 
 rising slowly to a solemn, trembling Voice, he made the 
 Ghost equally terrible to the Spectator as to himself ! and 
 in the descriptive Part of the natural Emotions which the 
 ghastly Vision gave him, the boldness of his Expostulation 
 was still govern'd by Decency, manly, but not braving ; his 
 Voice never rising into that seeming Outrage or wild De- 
 fiance of what he naturally rever'd. But alas ! to preserve 
 this medium, between mouthing and meaning too little, to 
 keep the Attention more pleasingly awake by a temper'd 
 Spirit than by meer Vehemence of Voice, is of all the 
 Master-strokes of an Actor the most difficult to reach. In 
 this none yet have equall'd Betterton? 
 
 In The Laureat, a venomous attack upon Colley Gibber, 
 published in 1740, the author specially mentions Better- 
 ton's Hamlet. He says 
 
 " I have lately been told by a Gentleman who has fre- 
 quently seen Mr. Betterton perform this Part of Hamlet, 
 that he has observ'd his Countenance (which was naturally 
 ruddy and sanguin) in this Scene of the fourth Act where 
 his Father's Ghost appears, thro' the violent and sudden 
 Emotions of Amazement and Horror, turn instantly on the 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 87 
 
 Sight of his Father's Spirit, as pale as his Neckcloth,* when 
 every Article of his Body seem'd to be affected with a Tremor 
 inexpressible ; so that, had his Father's Ghost actually risen 
 before him ; he could not have been seized with more real 
 Agonies ; and this was felt so strongly by the Audience, that 
 the Blood seemed to shudder in their Veins likewise, and 
 they in some Measure partook of the Astonishment and 
 Horror, with which they saw this excellent Actor affected." 
 
 We can scarcely wonder, then, that Pepys interjects 
 notes of admiration again and again regarding this great 
 impersonation. "Above all," he writes, on August 24, 
 1 66 1, " Betterton did the Prince's part beyond imagina- 
 tion." Again, on May 28, 1663, he "saw Hamlett 
 done, giving us fresh reason never to think enough of 
 Betterton." And his last notice of the play (August 31, 
 1668) appropriately reaches a climax of approval "To 
 the Duke of York's Playhouse, and saw Hamlet, which 
 we have not seen this year before, or more ; and mightily 
 pleased with it ; but, above all, with Betterton, the best 
 part, I believe, that ever man acted." 
 
 His Ophelia was Mrs. Saunderson; the King was 
 played by Lilliston; the Ghost, by Richards ; Cave Under- 
 bill played ist Gravedigger, a character which he made 
 his own; Polonius was Lovel; and the Queen was 
 acted by the young and beautiful Mrs. Davenport ; 
 Harris, important actor though he was, played the small 
 but beautiful part of Horatio. One would naturally have 
 
 * In the marvellous collection of theatrical portraits which is 
 worthily housed in the Garrick Club, there is a picture of Betterton 
 and Mrs. Barry in this very scene. The actor's face is certainly 
 depicted pale as his neckcloth, which, by the way, is a very clerical- 
 looking article of costume. Indeed, the whole dress is distinctly 
 ministerial, and is in style not unlike that in which Dr. Cantwell 
 is played. Mrs. Barry wears a crimson velvet robe, over a white 
 satin underskirt. 
 
S8 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 expected that Harris would have been the Laertes of the 
 cast ; but, unless Downes has blundered, this is not so. 
 Hamlet, to the credit of the public taste be it recorded, 
 was a conspicuous success. " No succeeding Tragedy 
 for several Years got more Reputation, or money to the 
 Company than this." 
 
 The next of Shakespeare's plays produced at the 
 Duke's Theatre was Twelfth Night, which Pepys saw 
 on September n, 1661. On this occasion he does not 
 commit himself to any opinion of its merits or demerits. 
 He certainly confesses that the play was tiresome, but he 
 seems to attribute this to his own frame of mind rather 
 than to any defect in the entertainment. Why his mind 
 was ill at ease will be best gathered from his entry 
 
 "Walking through Lincoln's Inn Fields, observed at the 
 Opera a new Play, Twelfth Night, was acted there, and the 
 King there : so I, against my own mind and resolution, 
 could not forbear to go in, which did make the play seem 
 a burthen to me ; and I took no pleasure at all in it : and 
 so, after it was done, went home with my mind troubled for 
 my going thither, after my swearing to my wife that I would 
 never go to a play without her." 
 
 He saw the play again on January 6, 1663 (which was 
 Twelfth Day), and then delivered his mind thus : " It be 
 but a silly play, and not relating at all to the name or 
 day." From Downes we learn that Twelfth Night was 
 a great success. He says that it had " mighty Success 
 by its well Performance." In it the rollicking character 
 of Sir Toby Belch was splendidly acted by the same 
 player who had, a few weeks previously, given such tragic 
 and pathetic expression to the woes of the melancholy 
 Prince of Denmark. Yes, Betterton acted Hamlet and 
 Sir Toby Belch apparently with equal success and effect 
 surely a wonderful proof of Gibber's dictum that " any- 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 89 
 
 thing naturally written ought to be in every one's way 
 that pretends to be an actor." Sir Andrew Ague-check 
 was played by Harris ; the Fool, by Cave Underbill ; 
 and Malvolio, by Lovel. The only female character 
 mentioned by Downes is Olivia, which was played by 
 Mrs. Ann Gibbs. 
 
 If Pepys is contemptuous about Twelfth Night, he is 
 rabid against Romeo and Juliet, which he saw on the first 
 day of its production by the Duke's company, March i, 
 1662. " It is," says the dogmatic diarist, " a play of itself 
 the worst that ever I heard." It is only just to take into 
 consideration, however, that the actors were not too well 
 up in their parts. As Pepys notes, " I am resolved to 
 go no more to see the first time of acting, for they were 
 all of them out more or less." Yet we can scarcely ima- 
 1 gine that, even taking all disadvantages into account, 
 such a cast of the play as Pepys saw can have been 
 ineffective. Harris was principal, playing Romeo, while 
 Mrs. Saunderson was Juliet. Betterton took the charac- 
 ter of Mercutio, which, though subordinate to Romeo, 
 and much shorter, is no less difficult. This distribution 
 of the two parts is somewhat curious in view of Pepys's 
 opinion and Pepys was a good judge of acting of the 
 respective merits of the two actors. He singles out 
 as Harris's most conspicuous quality, and the only point 
 in which he was clearly superior to Betterton, that he 
 was " a more ayery man." Now, airiness strikes one as 
 the prime qualification of Mercutio rather than of Romeo. 
 The comedy characters of Gregory and Sampson were 
 acted by Cave Underhill and by the famous representa- 
 tive of villains, Sandford another instance of versatility. 
 Whether the public felt the catastrophe of Shakespeare's 
 play ( to be too harrowing, or whether the Honourable 
 James Howard simply suffered from an attack of the 
 
90 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 adaptor's mania, we cannot tell ; but we know that this 
 author metamorphosed Romeo and Juliet into a tragi- 
 comedy, in which both lovers survived, and, as we may 
 suppose, lived happy ever afterwards. The oddity of 
 this arrangement is not lessened by the fact that you 
 could pay your money and take your choice between 
 Shakespeare and Howard. "When the Tragedy was 
 Reviv'd again," says Downes, " 'twas Play'd Alternately, 
 Tragical one Day, and Tragicomical the another; for 
 several Days together." It was probably in Howard's 
 alteration that the character of Count Paris's Wife, which 
 Downes mentions, appeared. It was played by Mrs. 
 Holden, regarding whom the old prompter relates an 
 anecdote which smacks so strongly of Restoration 
 humour that, to- use Genest's favourite expression in such 
 cases, " it must not be quoted." 
 
 A considerable interval elapsed between this play and 
 the next recorded Shakespearian production at the 
 Duke's Theatre, which was Henry VIII. It was produced 
 some time in December, 1663, but Pepys, being under 
 one of his periodical vows to abstain from wasting his 
 time at the theatre, did not see it till January i, 1664. 
 Then he chronicles 
 
 " Went to the Duke's House, the first play I have been at 
 these six months, according to my last vowe, and here saw 
 the so much cried-up play of Henry the Eighth ; which, 
 though I went with resolution to like it, is so simple a thing, 
 made up of a great many patches, that, besides the shows 
 and processions in it, there is nothing in the world good or 
 well done." 
 
 From a passage in Pepys (December 10, 1663) it 
 would almost seem as if Davenant had altered Shake- 
 speare's play. Pepys, visiting his shoemaker, hears " of 
 a rare play to be acted this week of Sir William 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 91 
 
 Davenant's ; the story of Henry the Eighth, with all his 
 wives." 
 
 Particular care seems to have been taken to make this 
 a specially complete production which, by the way, 
 rather tends to encourage the idea that it was one of the 
 manager's own adaptations. Downes tells us that "this 
 Play, by Order of Sir William Davenant, was all new 
 Cloath'd in proper Habits : The King's was new, all the 
 Lords, the Cardinals, the Bishops, the Doctors, Proctors, 
 Lawyers, Tip-staves, new Scenes." The result of all this 
 care was satisfactory, for the public do not appear to 
 have shared Pepys's contempt for the play. " Every 
 part, by the great Care of Sir William, being exactly 
 perform'd ; it being all new Cloath'd and new Scenes ; 
 it continu'd Acting 15 Days together with general Ap- 
 plause." Downes commits himself to the most enthusi- 
 astic eulogy of Betterton and Harris, who played the 
 King and the Cardinal. He says, "The part of the 
 King was so right and justly done by Mr. Betterton, he 
 being Instructed in it by Sir William, who had it from 
 Old Mr. Lowen, that had his Instructions from Mr. 
 Shakespeare himself, that I dare and will aver, none can, 
 or will come near him in this Age, in the performance 
 of that part : Mr. Harris's performance of Cardinal 
 Wolsey, was little Inferior to that, he doing it with such 
 just State, Port and Mein, that I dare affirm, none 
 hitherto has EqualPd him." Queen Katherine, which 
 was, more than a century later, Mrs. Siddons's master- 
 piece, was played by Mrs. Saunderson, whose name is 
 now given as Mrs. Betterton. 
 
 Although Downes does not catalogue Macbeth until 
 about 1672, we know from Pepys that it was produced at /, 
 the Duke's Theatre on November 5, 1664. On this occa- 
 sion he pronounces it " a pretty good play, but admirably 
 
92 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 acted;" but he is more enthusiastic two years later 
 (December 28, 1666), when he found it "most excellently 
 acted, and a most excellent play for variety." On 
 January 7, 1667, he again went to the Duke's Theatre to 
 see Macbeth, " which, though I saw it lately, yet appears 
 a most excellent play in all respects, but especially in 
 divertisement, though it be a deep tragedy, it being 
 most proper here, and suitable." Three months later 
 (April 19, 1667) Pepys " saw Macbeth, which, though 
 I have seen it often, yet is it one of the best plays for a 
 stage, and variety of dancing and Musick, that ever I 
 saw." These allusions to variety and divertisement point 
 plainly to the fact that Pepys saw Davenant's wretched 
 version of Shakespeare's play with all its atrocities of 
 singing witches and other excrescences. Betterton was 
 a grand representative of Macbeth, and the Lady was 
 played by his wife. 
 
 King Lear completes the list of Shakespeare's plays 
 acted by the Duke's company about this time. Pepys 
 did not see it, so we do not know its date, but Downes 
 tells us that it was played " as Mr. Shakespear Wrote it ; 
 before it was alter'd by Mr. Tate." 
 
 Sir William Davenant's company naturally acted 
 several of their manager's own productions. The Siege of 
 Rhodes was, as has been noticed, the play with which he 
 opened his new theatre, and he followed it up by his 
 comedy of The Wits, produced on August 15, 1661. 
 Two months afterwards another of his plays saw the 
 light, the tragicomedy of Love and Honour. Pepys saw 
 it on the first day of its production, October 21, 1661, 
 and allowed it to be a good play and well acted. It 
 certainly seems to have been magnificently dressed. 
 Downes tells us that "this Play was Richly Cloth'd; The 
 King giving Mr. Betterton his Coronation Suit, in which 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 93 
 
 he Acted the Part of Prince Alvaro ; The Duke of York 
 giving Mr. Harris his, who did Prince Prospero ; And 
 my Lord of Oxford, gave Mr. Joseph Price his, who did 
 Lionel, the Duke of Parmds Son." This proceeding 
 must strike modern readers as a somewhat curious one. 
 ,,Fancy the Prince of Wales giving his state robes to 
 Mr. Irving to use in a great production at the Lyceum !.;. 
 It is an interesting proof of the close connection be- 
 tween the court and the theatre during the time of 
 Charles II. On February 18, 1662, Pepys saw another 
 of Davenant's plays, The Law against Lovers. This, a 
 mutilation of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, with 
 the characters of Benedick and Beatrice thrown in, 
 Pepys considered "a good play, and well performed." 
 Anotherj outrage on an old author was committed by 
 Davenant in his Rivals, a bad alteration of Fletcher's 
 Two Noble Kinsmen, which was seen by Pepys on 
 September 10, 1664. He found it "no excellent play, 
 but good acting in it." Downes notes that all the 
 women's characters were admirably acted, "chiefly Celia 
 [should be Celania], a Shepherdess being Mad for Love ; 
 especially in Singing several Wild and Mad Songs 
 
 ' My Lodging is on the Cold Ground,' etc. 
 
 She perform'd that so Charmingly, that not long after, it 
 Rais'd her from her Bed on the Cold Ground, to a Bed 
 Royal." This is, no doubt, an allusion to Moll Davis, 
 and her amour with the king. But Downes is probably 
 wrong in connecting this liaison with this particular pro- 
 duction of The Rivals, for, so far as we can judge from 
 Pepys's method of referring to her, Moll Davis must 
 have been at this time quite a child ; and it is not till 
 more than three years later that he alludes to her con- 
 nection with the king. On January n, 1668, he relates 
 
94 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 that Mrs. Knipp told him "how Miss Davis is for 
 certain going away from the Duke's House, the King 
 being in love with her; and a house is taken for her, 
 and furnishing; and she hath a ring given her already 
 worth 6oo/. ... I am sorry for it, and can hope for no 
 good to the State from having a Prince so devoted to 
 his pleasure." It will be noticed that, even in 1668, 
 Pepys says, " Miss " Davis, showing that she was still 
 quite a young girl. It is probable that Downes is think- 
 ing of some revival of the play about 1667. 
 
 Among the other pieces produced about this time at 
 the Duke's House were few of which modern readers know 
 more than the name. Perhaps the most notable was 
 The Duchess of Malfy, John Webster's powerful tragedy, 
 in which Betterton as Bosola, and Harris as Duke 
 Ferdinand, specially distinguished themselves, according 
 to Downes ; while Pepys, who saw the play on September 
 30, 1662, singles out for praise Betterton and lanthe* 
 [Mrs. Betterton], who performed to admiration. Cowley's 
 Cutter of Coleman Street, in which Betterton played 
 Colonel Jolly, was one of the successes of the period, 
 although it was felt that the characters of the Cutter and 
 Captain Worm, played by Underhill and Sandford, were 
 not a little injurious to the indigent Cavalier officers 
 who frequented the town. The Villain, a tragedy by 
 Major Thomas Porter, was another great success. Pepys 
 had his expectation excited regarding it by young 
 Killigrew, who commended it "as if there never had 
 been any such play come upon the stage." Pepys 
 promptly went (October 20, 1662) to see this wonderful 
 play, " but whether it was in over-expecting, or what, I 
 know not ; but I was never less pleased with a play in 
 
 * Pepys frequently calls Mrs. Betterton lanthe, from her famous 
 acting of the character of that name in Davenant's Siege of Rhodes. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 95 
 
 my life. Though there was good singing and dancing, 
 yet no fancy in the play." Malignii, the Villain, was 
 acted by Sandford, whose qualifications for the part are 
 thus amusingly stated by Anthony Aston 
 
 " Mr. Sandford, although not usually deem'd an Actor of 
 the first Rank, yet the Characters allotted him were such, 
 that none besides, then, or since, ever topp'd ; for his Figure, 
 which was diminutive and mean, (being Round-shoulder'd, 
 Meagre-fac'd, Spindle-shank'd, Splay-footed, with a sour 
 Countenance, and long lean Arms) render'd him a proper 
 Person to discharge Jago, Foresight, and Mtflignij, in the 
 VILLAIN. This Person acted strongly with his Face, and 
 (as King Charles said) was the best Villain in the World." 
 
 Yet the king on another occasion expressed his dis- 
 satisfaction with the practice of making up stage-villains 
 after the fashion which Anthony Aston approves. The 
 play was Macbeth, and when the swarthy and dark-visaged 
 Charles saw the two Murderers as black of complexion 
 as he himself was, he turned to those around him and 
 said, " Pray, what is the meaning that we never see a 
 rogue in a play, but, odsfish ! they always clap him on 
 a black perriwig, when it is well known one of the 
 greatest rogues in England always wears a fair one?" 
 an allusion, I suppose, to the Earl of Shaftesbury. 
 But Sandford was the accepted villain of the period, and, 
 according to Gibber, the public had strenuous objections 
 to consider him in any other light. Colley tells us that 
 a new author wrote a play, in which Sandford acted the 
 part of an honest man." The audience sat through three 
 or four acts in keen expectation of the trouble in which 
 the dramatis persona would be involved through the well- 
 dissembled villainy of Sandford ; but when they found 
 that the play took quite another turn, and that he was, 
 after all, an honest man, they fairly damned the piece, 
 
$6 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 "as if the author had impos'd upon them the most 
 frontless or incredible absurdity." 
 
 In The Villain Betterton played Brisac, not a first- 
 rate character; and he was even less fortunate in Sir 
 George Etheredge's comedy of Comical Revenge ; or, Love 
 in a Tub, though the play itself was brilliantly successful. 
 It was particularly well acted, especially by Nokes as 
 Sir Nicholas Cully, Harris as Sir Frederick Frollick, 
 Price as Dufoy, and Mrs. Long as Widow Rich. Downes 
 bursts into verse in his enthusiasm over these impersona- 
 tions 
 
 " Sir Nich'las, Sir Fred'rick ; Widow and Dufoy, 
 Were not by any so well done, Mafoy." 
 
 He adds that the " clean and well performance " of this 
 piece got the company more reputation and profit than 
 any preceding comedy, one thousand pounds being 
 taken at it in a month. Yet Pepys, who saw it on 
 January 4, 1665, was not specially struck by it. He 
 allows that it is a very merry play, but adds that it is 
 "only so by gesture, not wit at all, which methinks is 
 beneath the house." Betterton played the serious hero of 
 the piece, one Lord Beauford, and Mrs. Betterton played 
 Graciana, the serious heroine. It is not surprising that 
 neither they nor any of the tragic members of the cast 
 are singled out for praise by Downes, for it would be 
 impossible for any actor to excite the interest of an 
 audience in such hopelessly dismal characters. To my 
 thinking The Comical Revenge is a very feeble production 
 both in its serious and comic elements. 
 
 Such were the principal plays in which Betterton 
 appeared between 1661 and June, 1665, on the 5th of 
 which month an edict was issued from the Lord 
 Chamberlain's office stopping all plays on account of the 
 Plague. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 97 
 
 During these five years the struggle between the 
 opposing companies seems to have been carried on with 
 fairly equal fortune. Eacb had its devoted adherents. 
 Killigrew's company, of course, had its keenest sup- 
 porters among the older playgoers, while the younger 
 generation were all for Betterton. For instance, Downes, 
 the prompter, who was probably a few years younger 
 than his idol, was a devout Bettertonian ; and Pepys, a 
 couple of years older than the great actor, was equally 
 enthusiastic. To Pepys, Betterton is " the best actor in 
 the world," and his Hamlet is " the best part that ever 
 man acted." Colley Gibber, many years after, wrote, 
 " I never heard a line in tragedy come from Betterton 
 wherein my judgment, my ear, and my imagination were 
 not fully satisfy'd." On the other hand, James Wright, 
 barrister-at-law, in his rare pamphlet, Historia Histrionica, 
 published in 1699, enthusiastically champions the old 
 school, making the two Cavaliers who take part in the 
 dialogue speak thus 
 
 " LOVEWIT. But in my Opinion, they [the plays of the 
 Restoration period] are all of 'em (some few excepted) as 
 much inferior to those of former Times, as the Actors now 
 in being (generally speaking) are, compared to Hart, 
 Mohun, Burt, Lacy, Clun, and Shatter el ; for I can reach no 
 farther backward. 
 
 " TRUEMAN. I can ; and dare assure you, if my Fancy and 
 Memory are not partial (for Men of my Age are apt to be 
 over indulgent to the Thoughts of their youthful Days), I say 
 the Actors that I have seen before the Wars, Lowin, Tayler, 
 Pollard, and some others, were almost as far beyond Hart 
 and his Company, as those were beyond these now in 
 being." 
 
 Thomas Rymer is another believer in the older actors. 
 In his Tragedies of the Last Age Consider d and Examirid 
 
98 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 he takes Hart and Mohun as the representative players. 
 He calls them the Roscius and ^Esopus of the age, and 
 seems sublimely unconscious that such a person as 
 Betterton had any existence. This, however, I should 
 take as a proof that Betterton was high in general 
 estimation at the time, for Mr. Rymer was one of those 
 extremely superior persons who are always in opposition 
 to anything that is popular and successful. 
 
 Against these supporters of the old school may be set 
 the opinion of Pepys, who considered not only Betterton, 
 but the Duke's players in general, infinitely superior to 
 their rivals. They are, he notes on one occasion, " in all 
 particulars better than at the other house ; " and, writing 
 of the King's company, he notes that he is " quite out 
 of opinion of any of their actings but Lacy's, compared 
 with the other house." On one occasion he relieves his 
 soul in the following strong terms : " The play (Love in 
 a Maze) is pretty good, but the life of the play is Lacy's 
 part, the clown, which is most admirable; but for the 
 rest, which are counted old and excellent actors, in my 
 life I never heard both men and women so ill pronounce 
 their parts." 
 
 Regarding the plays acted by the old actors we have 
 few particulars. Do.wnes being prompter to Betterton' s 
 company, his knowledge of their rivals' proceedings was 
 derived from Charles Booth, prompter to the King's 
 Theatre, and he apologizes in his preface for its incom- 
 pleteness. Pepys was a very frequent attender at the 
 King's House; but, even combining his account with 
 that of Downes, we get little real information as to the 
 theatre or the actors. 
 
 As has already been mentioned, this company com- 
 menced acting at the theatre in Vere Street, Clare 
 Market, which had formerly been Gibbon's Tennis 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 99 
 
 Court.* But this was, no doubt, too small for their 
 requirements, especially as the introduction of scenery 
 must have become a necessity in order to compete with 
 their rivals. In December. 1661, accordingly, we find 
 Killigrew making arrangements to obtain a more com- 
 modious playhouse. He seems to have associated with 
 himself Sir Robert Howard, the dramatist, who probably 
 advanced money to help the manager's necessities ; and 
 he also made his principal actors shareholders. The 
 ground which the associated actors and managers pro- 
 cured for their theatre was the historical ground of the 
 English drama, the site of the present Drury Lane theatre. 
 From the Earl of Bedford they acquired a lease for forty- 
 one years of the piece or parcel of ground situate in 
 the parishes of St. Martin' s-in-the-Fields and St. Paul's, 
 Covent Garden, known by the name of the Riding Yard. 
 Its dimensions were in length, from east to west, one 
 hundred and twelve feet; in breadth, at the east end 
 fifty-nine feet, and at the west end fifty-eight feet. For 
 this an annual rent of fifty pounds was to be paid, and 
 Killigrew and his partners covenanted to spend fifteen 
 hundred pounds on building the house. Pepys saw the 
 outside of the new theatre on February 6, 1663. "To 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields ; and it being too soon to go to 
 dinner, I walked up and down, and looked upon the 
 outside of the new theatre building in Covent Garden, 
 which will be very fine." When it was opened Pepys 
 found it "made with extraordinary good convenience." 
 Yet it was not without serious faults, he considered, for 
 the passages giving entrance to the pit were too narrow, 
 
 * Gibbon's Tennis Court was situated in Bear Yard, Vere Street. 
 It was afterwards used as a carpenter's shop, then as a slaughter- 
 house, and was destroyed by fire on September 17, 1809 (Julian 
 Marshall's Annals of Tennis}. 
 
ioo THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 and the distance between the stage and the boxes so 
 great that it was questionable if the occupants of the 
 latter would hear what was said on the stage. The 
 music, too, was more or less inaudible, the orchestra 
 being now, for the first time apparently, placed in some- 
 thing like the modern position, that is, in front of, and 
 partly under, the stage. 
 
 The date given by Downes as that on which Killigrew 
 opened his new theatre in Drury Lane has hitherto been 
 accepted without question by all stage historians. The 
 old prompter says, "The Company being thus Compleat, 
 they open'd the New Theatre in Drury-Lane, on Thurs- 
 day in IZasterWeek, being the 8M Day of April, 1663, 
 With The Humorous Lieutenant" But I doubt if this 
 is accurate, and that in spite of a play-bill which has 
 frequently been published as being that for the opening 
 day of Killigrew's theatre.* Pepys explicitly states, on 
 May 8, 1663, that he took his wife to the "Theatre 
 Royall, being the second day of its being opened." He 
 had been at the King's House on the 22nd of the pre- 
 
 * The following is a copy of the play-bill in question : 
 
 " By His Majesty's Company of Comedians 
 
 At the New Theatre in Drury Lane, 
 
 This day being THURSDAY, April 8, 1663, will be acted 
 
 A Comedy called 
 
 THE HUMOROUS LIEUTENANT. 
 
 The King ... ... ... MR. WINTERSHAL. 
 
 Demetrius ; .. MR. HART. 
 
 Seleucus ... ... *.. MR. BURT. 
 
 Leontius ... ... ... MAJOR MOHUN. 
 
 Lieutenant MR. CLUN. 
 
 Celia ... ... ... MRS. MARSHALL. 
 
 The play "will begin at three c? clock exactly. 
 
 Boxes, 4-f. ; Pit, is. 6d. ; Middle Gallery, u. 6d. ; 
 
 Upper Gallery, is." 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. ioi 
 
 vious month, and they had obviously been then in their 
 old theatre, for he makes no remark about the house, 
 which he elaborately describes on May 8. I thus have 
 little hesitation in asserting that Killigrew opened his 
 theatre on Thursday, May 7, 1663. At any rate, if I 
 am wrong, Downes and his followers are not right, for 
 April 8, 1663, was not Thursday in Easter week, and in 
 point of fact was not a Thursday at all, but a Wed- 
 nesday; which, I am afraid, stamps the play-bill I have 
 quoted as a not very astute forgery. 
 
 After the opening of the new theatre, the company 
 was joined by Joseph Haynes, Griffin, Cardell Goodman, 
 Lyddoll, Charleton, Sherly, Beeston. Of these, the first 
 three became notable actors ; of the others we know 
 little or nothing, the only character of importance for 
 which we find any of them cast being Jerry Blackacre 
 in Wycherley's Plain Dealer, which was played by 
 Charleton. 
 
 The older actors, strangely enough, do not seem to 
 have been as partial to Shakespeare's plays as were their 
 younger competitors. Before 1665 Pepys records the 
 production of only four of these Othello, The Merry 
 Wives, Henry IV., and Midsummer Nighfs Dream. Of 
 Othello he seems to have approved, for he gives no 
 criticism of the play, merely remarking (October n, 
 1660) that it was well done. On this occasion Burt 
 acted the Moor, and that with such effect that a very 
 pretty lady who sat beside Mr. Pepys " called out, to 
 see Desdemona smothered." When our diarist again 
 saw Othello, on February 7, 1669, it was but ill acted 
 in most parts. Burt was not so good as he used to be ; 
 Mohun, very much to Pepys's surprise, was not nearly 
 so effective in lago as Clun had been; while the suc- 
 cessor of Hart in the character of Cassio was not a 
 
102 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 success. Clun, who was esteemed so highly in lago, 
 was one of the best actors of the King's company. 
 His acting, however, did not long delight Mr. Pepys and 
 his contemporaries, for on a summer night in 1664, the 
 unfortunate actor, riding home to his country house at 
 Kentish Town, was " robbed and most inhumanly 
 killed." He had been spending the evening in jovial 
 society, and was no doubt a little elevated. Near 
 "Tatnam Court" he was set upon by robbers, who 
 wounded him in the arm, bound him, and flung him 
 into the ditch. Here the poor fellow, struggling to 
 release himself, bled to death; and, says Mr. Pepys, 
 " the house will have a great miss of him." Apparently 
 it had, for in his famous characters, lago and the Al- 
 chemist, his successors only made the public think of 
 the superiority of the dead player. The cast of Othello 
 which Downes gives must be that of a production of the 
 piece subsequent to Clun's murder; for Mohun is the 
 lago, while Burt plays Othello ; Hart, Cassio ; Cartwright, 
 Brabantio ; and Beeston, Roderigo ; Desdemona and 
 Emilia are represented by Mrs. Hughs and Mrs. Rutter 
 respectively. 
 
 Pepys saw The Merry Wives of Windsor on December 
 5, 1660, and was not at all satisfied with the acting: 
 " the humours of the country gentleman and the French 
 doctor very well done, but the rest but very poorly, and 
 Sir J. Falstaffe as bad as any." Who played Shallow 
 and Doctor Caius we do not know, but in all probability 
 the representative of Falstaff was Cartwright. Again, 
 on September 25, 1661, Pepys saw the play "ill done," 
 and six years after (August 15, 1667) he notes a wholesale 
 condemnation : " And so went to the King's, and there 
 saw The Merry Wives of Windsor, which did not please 
 me at all, in no part of it." 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 103 
 
 A Midsummer Nights Dream, which Pepys saw on 
 Michaelmas Day, 1662, received very short shrift. " We 
 saw Midsummer Nighfs Dream, which I had never 
 seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most 
 insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life." We ~- 
 may guess that the play was produced for the sake of 
 the show and spectacle that could be introduced into it ; 
 but we have no other record of this production, and can 
 form no idea as to how it was cast and played. 
 
 Ben Jonson's plays were much more suited to the 
 public taste at this time than Shakespeare's, and nearly 
 all his best works were played by the King's company. 
 The Fox, The Silent Woman, The Alchemist, Cataline's 
 Conspiracy, Bartholomew fair, The Devil's an Ass, Every 
 Man in his Humour, Every Man out of his Humour, 
 and Sejanus, are catalogued by Downes, and he selects 
 characters in these plays as the most famous parts of 
 some of the King's actors. Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 Shirley, Brome, Webster, and Glapthorne were among 
 the older dramatists affected by the King's company, 
 while among the modern poets Dryden took the first 
 place. 
 
 The edict stopping the performance of plays on ' 
 account of the Plague remained in force for about a year 
 and a half. At court, theatrical performances were 
 resumed on October n, 1666, but it was nearly the end 
 of November before the public theatres were allowed to 
 reopen. Pepys was deeply shocked at the resumption 
 of theatricals before the Plague had completely ceased ; 
 and in chronicling the Thanksgiving Day for the cessa- 
 tion of the Plague (November 20, 1666), notes that it 
 was generally said that the thanksgiving was hurried on 
 before the scourge had entirely disappeared, simply to 
 allow plays to be acted, which the bishops would not 
 
104 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 permit so long as there were any sufferers from the 
 " sickness." His first visit to a public playhouse was paid 
 on December 7, and he was so uneasy in his mind as 
 to the propriety of his conduct that he sat with his cloak 
 about his face, and was in " mighty pain," lest he should 
 be seen by anybody to be at a play. Acting of plays, 
 he chronicles, had been resumed for about a fortnight. 
 
 Betterton's first part of importance after the reopening 
 of the theatre was Richard III. in Caryl's tragedy of 
 The English Princess; or, The Death of Richard III. 
 This play was produced on March 7, 1667, an d was 
 considered by Mr. Pepys " a most sad, melancholy play, 
 and pretty good; but nothing eminent in it, as some 
 tragedys are." The day of its production was " reckoned 
 by all people the coldest day that ever was remembered 
 in England ; and, God knows ! coals at a very great 
 price." But the cold did not infect the audience in the 
 theatre, for the play was a great success, bringing profit 
 to the company and reputation to the chief actors 
 Betterton ; Harris, who played the Duke of Richmond ; 
 and Smith, who acted Sir William Stanley. We do not 
 know whether Betterton had a part in the Duke of 
 Newcastle's comedy, The Humorous Lovers, notable 
 because of the odd conduct of the mad Duchess of 
 Newcastle, who " at the end, made her respects to the 
 players from her box, and did give them thanks ; " and 
 we have no information that he played any character of 
 importance during this year, in the autumn of which he 
 had a serious illness. We first hear of his indisposition 
 on October 16, 1667, when Pepys, to his great disgust, 
 found Young playing Macbeth. So far as we can gather 
 from Pepys, the great actor's illness did not permit him 
 to play again until the following July, on the 6th of which 
 month our diarist, hearing from Harris that his favourite 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 105 
 
 had returned to the stage, hurried off to the Duke's Play- 
 house, and saw Henry V., and "glad to see Betterton." 
 
 The year 1667 was an unfortunate one for the theatre. 
 Twice at least edicts of suspension were issued, one of 
 which silenced both theatres. A play by the Honourable 
 Edward Howard was the cause of one of these tyrannical 
 edicts. It was entitled The Change of Crowns, and in it 
 was the part of a country gentleman, just come up to 
 court, who, though the king was in the theatre, abused 
 him and his courtiers for their venality, "with all the 
 imaginable wit and plainness." Lacy, the king's pet 
 actor, played this part, and the usually thick-skinned 
 Charles was so infuriated at being abused to his face that 
 he promptly had Lacy committed to prison, and forbade 
 the company to act any more. But Mohun, who was 
 highly esteemed by Charles, pleaded his comrades' cause 
 so well that the order for suspension was rescinded, and, 
 apparently, Lacy was released after a very brief confine- 
 ment. On his return to the theatre he unfortunately 
 met the author of the play which had been the cause of 
 his incarceration, and answered the Honourable Ned's 
 congratulations on his release by cursing him and his 
 nonsensical play. Howard made some reply, and Lacy 
 retorted that he was more a fool than a poet, to which 
 Ned replied by slapping the actor's face with his glove. 
 Lacy, having a cane in his hand, brought it sharply over 
 the dramatist's head, and the bystanders all expected to 
 see the Honourable Ned run the actor through the body, 
 he being, as Mr. Pepys puts it, " too mean a fellow to 
 fight with." But no such violent measures were taken ; 
 the dramatist did nothing but complain to the king of 
 the actor's misconduct ; the theatre was closed by royal 
 command ; and poor Lacy apparently had a longer spell 
 of imprisonment. The gentry rejoiced much at this 
 
io6 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 snub to the actors, who were getting too high and 
 insolent a complaint made against them as early as 
 February, 1661, when Pepys notes, "Besides, I see the 
 gallants do begin to be tyred with the vanity and pride of 
 the theatre actors, who are indeed grown very proud and 
 rich." 
 
 This order for silence lasted about ten days, but a 
 month or two later a much more serious suspension was 
 enforced, of which, however, we know nothing further 
 than that Pepys records that July 20 was the first day 
 on which the King's or the Duke's company had per- 
 formed for a month or six weeks. 
 
 In April, 1668, while Betterton was absent from the 
 stage, his manager, Sir William Davenant, died. Although 
 we find little mention of Davenant's interference in the 
 management of the theatre, there is no ground for doubt 
 that he exercised full control over his company, and was 
 the moving spirit in many of/ the advances which were 
 made in the theatrical art. (_He seems to have been a 
 thoroughly practical manager, with a perfect knowledge 
 of stage conditions and necessities, as well as consider- 
 able ability as a dramatist. His chief service to the 
 stage was the introduction of scenery, but he is also 
 credited with others in a poem quoted by Richard 
 Flecknoe in his attack on Davenant, entitled Sir 
 William D'Avenanfs Voyage to the other World, with 
 his Adventure in the Poets' Elizium 
 
 " Now Davenant's dead the stage will mourn, 
 And all to barbarism turn ; 
 Since he it was, this later age, 
 Who chiefly civiliz'd the stage. 
 
 " Great was his wit, his fancy great, 
 As e're wa any poet's yet ; 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 107 
 
 And more advantage none e'er made 
 O' th' wit and fancy which he had. 
 
 " Not onely Dedalus' art he knew, 
 But even Prometheus's too ; 
 And living machins made of men, 
 As well as dead ones, for the scene. 
 
 " And if the stage or theatre be 
 A little world, 'twas chiefly he, 
 That, Atlas-like, supported it 
 By force of industry and wit. 
 
 " All this, and more, he did beside, 
 Which having perfected, he dy'd : 
 If he may properly be said 
 To die, whose fame will ne'er be dead." 
 
 One thing that can be said in Davenant's praise is that 
 he appears to have lived in amity with the company under 
 his control. Between Killigrew and his players there 
 were continual quarrels, and not infrequently the Lord 
 Chamberlain was obliged to intervene in their disputes. 
 But Davenant and his actors needed no such interference, 
 and when the manager died his whole company attended 
 his funeral. That indefatigable sight-seer, Pepys, did not 
 miss the chance of so interesting a spectacle as the con- 
 gregation of so many notable artists, and he relates how 
 he hung about to see the show. " 1668, April Qth. I 
 up and down to the Duke of York's Playhouse, there to 
 see, which I did, Sir W. Davenant's corps carried out 
 towards Westminster, there to be buried. Here were 
 many coaches and six horses, and many hacknies, that 
 made it look/ methought, as if it were the burial of a 
 poor poet." Davenant's body was not, I need scarcely 
 say, carried out from the theatre, as Pepys might be 
 
io8 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 supposed to imply, but from his lodging, which imme- 
 diately adjoined the Duke's Playhouse. 
 
 At his death his property in the theatre was vested in 
 his widow, Lady Davenant, for whom her son, Dr. Charles 
 Davenant, acted. This young gentleman, who was said 
 by old Aubrey to inherit " his father's beauty and phancy," 
 was well known in later years as a lawyer and politician. 
 He had, moreover, theatrical leanings, and wrote a play 
 called Circe. With him were associated Betterton and 
 Harris, who, no doubt, had control of the purely artistic 
 side of the business. 
 
 During this year we have no record of any new 
 character played by Betterton, though we may certainly 
 assume that he acted in the revival of William Habing- 
 ton's tragi-comedy of The Queen of Arragon, at which 
 Pepys was so surprised and delighted. It was so good 
 that the diarist was astonished at it, and wondered where 
 it had lain asleep all this while, that he had never heard 
 of it before. But we know that about 1669 or 1670 
 Betterton made a great success in the part of Sir Solomon 
 Single, in Carrol's comedy of Sir Solomon ; or, The Cau- 
 tious Coxcomb, giving thereby a proof of his great versa- 
 tility; for Sir Solomon is a comedy part, and quite out of 
 his usual line. It is, as Genest states, a part of the class 
 played by Dowton and Munden. It was in this play that 
 Nokes caused the king and court to roar with laughter at 
 an exhibition of bad taste that is almost incredible. The 
 English court travelled down in May, 1670, to Dover, 
 there to meet the king's sister, the Duchess of Orleans. 
 The players were ordered to attend the king, and one of 
 the pieces chosen was this comedy, Sir Solomon. Now, 
 the French court then wore exceedingly short, laced coats, 
 with broad waist-belts, and Nokes, who played the foolish 
 knight, Sir Arthur Addle, dressed the part in deliberate 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 109 
 
 burlesque of the French fashion. To make the parody 
 more pointed, the Duke of Monmouth gave Nokes his 
 sword and belt, and buckled it on himself, so that, as 
 Downes puts it, " Mr. Nokes lookt more like a Brest up 
 Ape than a Sir Arthur : Which upon his first Entrance 
 on the Stage, put the King and Court to an excessive 
 Laughter ; at which the French look'd very Shaggrin, to 
 see themselves Ap'd by such a Buffoon as Sir Arthur : 
 Mr. Nokes kept the Duke's Sword to his Dying 
 Day." 
 
 It is difficult to imagine gentlemen countenancing such 
 an outrage on their guests, especially gentlemen so jealous 
 of their own dignity as these courtiers were. Sir Charles 
 Sedley, for instance, conceiving himself abused by Kynas- 
 ton, took a very summary revenge. The actor bore a 
 great resemblance to the dissolute baronet, and did all in 
 his] power to emphasize the likeness by dressing in the 
 same style. Pepys says that the chief provocation was 
 that Kynaston acted a part in The Heiress^ a play of 
 which we know nothing, " in abuse to Sir Charles Sedley ; " 
 but another account states that the offence was simply 
 Kynaston's wearing a suit of laced clothes exactly similar 
 to Sedley's. At any rate, Sedley hired several bravoes, 
 who accosted Kynaston in the Park, picked a quarrel with 
 him under the pretence that he was Sir Charles Sedley, 
 and beat him unmercifully. The actor protested that 
 they had mistaken their man, but they redoubled their 
 blows because of what they affected to consider his bare- 
 faced lying. As a result, the poor player was confined to 
 his bed for some days, and his part in The Heiress^ was 
 read by Beeston ; regarding which Pepys has a delightful 
 note " But it was pleasant to see Beeston come in with 
 others, supposing it to be dark, and yet he is forced to 
 read his part by the light of the candles : and this I ob- 
 
no THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 serving to a gentleman that sat by me, he was mightily 
 pleased therewith, and spread it up and down." 
 
 The year 1670 was more notable for a political occur- 
 rence connected with the stage than for any really 
 theatrical event. This was the attack made on Sir John 
 Coventry, a Member of Parliament, in revenge for a jest 
 made by him at the king's expense in the House of 
 Commons. It Was proposed in Parliament that a tax 
 should be imposed on the playhouses a proceeding which 
 was naturally violently opposed by the court party. They 
 argued that the actors were the king's servants, and a part 
 of his pleasure ; whereon Coventry jestingly asked whether 
 the king's pleasure lay among the men or women that 
 acted. For this thoughtless speech the king took terrible 
 revenge. On the night of December" 21, 1670, Coventry 
 was waylaid by a party of the Guards, Sir Thomas Sandys, 
 O'Bryan, and others, who, after a brave resistance, over- 
 came and disarmed him, cut his nose to the bone, and 
 left him. This outrage was executed by special order of 
 the Duke of Monmouth, at the instigation of the king 
 himself, and was bitterly resented by the House of 
 Commons, who passed a bill of banishment against the 
 offenders, and inserted in it a clause that the king should 
 not have the power to pardon the criminals thus de- 
 priving the king of a part of his prerogative. Andrew 
 Mar veil, in his poem of " Royal Resolutions," has some 
 vigorous verses on the subject 
 
 " And whate'er it cost me, I'll have a French Whore, 
 As bold as Alice Pierce, and as fair as Jane Shore, 
 And when I am weary of her, I'll have more. 
 Which if any bold Commoner dare to oppose, 
 I'll order my Bravo's to cut off his Nose, 
 Tho' for't I a branch of Prerogative lose. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. in 
 
 I'll wholly abandon all publick Affairs, 
 
 And pass all my time with Buffoons and Players, 
 
 And santer to Nelly when I should be at Prayers." * 
 
 And in the same collection from which the above is 
 quoted, there is "A Ballad, calPd The Hay-market 
 Hectors" referring to the occurrence, of which the follow- 
 ing is a verse : 
 f 
 " Beware all ye Parliamenteers, 
 
 How each of his Voice disposes : 
 Bab May in the Commons, C. Rex in the Peers, 
 
 Sit telling your Fates on your Noses ; 
 And decide, at the mention of every Slut, 
 Whose Nose shall continue, and whose shall be cut." f 
 
 The well-known " Coventry Act " was passed in conse- 
 quence of this outrage. 
 
 According to some authorities, the popularity of Better- 
 ton and his fellow-players was by this time very much 
 eclipsed by the superior ability of the King's company, and 
 they therefore tried what the attraction of a new and 
 gorgeous theatre [would do. The site chosen was in 
 Salisbury Court, J Fleet Street, where a magnificent 
 building was erected. Both in its exterior and interior 
 it was much finer than any of its predecessors, and the 
 prologues and epilogues spoken at the rival theatre in 
 Drury Lane contained many sneering references to its 
 grandeur. In one of Dryden's prologues, spoken at the 
 King's House, he writes 
 
 " So we expect the lovers, braves, and wits ; 
 The gaudy house with scenes will serve for cits ; " 
 
 * See Poems on Affairs of 'Slate ', vol. i. (1703), p. 252. 
 
 t Ibid., vol. iii. (1704), p. 69. 
 
 J Being built on ground which had once been the Earl of Dorset's 
 garden, it was commonly known as the theatre in Dorset Garden. 
 The City gas-works, I believe, now occupy the site. 
 
112 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 and in another he returns to the charge, identifying the 
 citizens with the Dorset Garden Theatre, which was, of 
 course, situated much nearer the city than Drury Lane. 
 The lines are 
 
 " Our city friends so far will hardly come, 
 They can take up with pleasures nearer home ; 
 And see gay shows, and gaudy scenes., elsewhere ; 
 For we presume they seldom come to hear." 
 
 Of the appearance of this playhouse we know more 
 than we do of any other old theatre, both its exterior 
 and interior being represented in drawings published in 
 Elkanah Settle's tragedy of The Empress of Morocco, 
 which was produced at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset 
 Garden in 1673. The first plate shows the front eleva- 
 tion of the theatre, an elegant and striking design in the 
 Italian fashion. There is a colonnade running the entire 
 breadth of the building, under which is a large double 
 door reached by circular steps. The upper part of the 
 theatre is highly ornamental, festoons of carved flowers 
 decorating panels above and between the windows, a 
 balustrade surmounted by statues running along the top 
 of the main building, while the whole is surmounted by 
 a striking tower and cupola. The back of the theatre 
 was close to\the river, and there was a landing-place for 
 those who came by water. The designer is said to have 
 been Sir Christopher Wren. The magnificent carvings 
 in the interior of the house were by Grinling Gibbons ; 
 and there were also portraits, on panels, no doubt, of the 
 principal dramatists, as we learn from one of Dryden's 
 unfriendly addresses, where he happily makes capital for 
 Ins friends out of their opponents' splendour 
 
 M "Though in their House the Poets' Heads appear, 
 We hope we may presume their Wits are here." 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 113 
 
 The proscenium was a most elaborate and beautiful 
 structure. All round it, round the doors of entrance, 
 round the balconies above the doors, and round the 
 panels which were over the balconies, ran beautiful 
 carved work by Gibbons, representing fruits and flowers, 
 exquisite in effect even in the rough copper-plates which 
 illustrate Settle's tragedy. At the top, the proscenium 
 swept out in graceful curves from the two sides, forming 
 a sort of sounding-board* over the actors' heads. On 
 this projecting portion were the Duke's coat of arms sup- 
 ported by two cherubs, gigantic figures of Comedy and 
 Tragedy, and paintings of various musical instruments. 
 
 In this magnificent building every opportunity was 
 afforded for elaborate scenery and stage appointments, 
 and it is recorded that Betterton invented new machines 
 and otherwise developed materially the spectacular re- 
 sources of the stage. He is said to have visited Paris, 
 by the special command of the king, in order to observe 
 how the English theatre could be improved in the matter 
 of scenery and decorations. If he made such a journey 
 it was most probably about this time. 
 
 The expense of this splendid building is said to have 
 been over five thousand pounds, an enormous sum in 
 those days, and the money was raised by subscription, 
 the subscribers or shareholders being called "Adven- 
 turers." We 'learn from the prologue spoken on the 
 opening day that these adventurers were extremely 
 anxious about the success of their new venture. The 
 lines referring to them are 
 
 * This use of the proscenium was further developed on some 
 occasions. Thus we read that when the music to Congreve's 
 masque, The Judgment of Paris, was played at this theatre in 1701, 
 "the front of the stage was all built into a concave with deal 
 boards ; all which was faced with tin, to increase and throw for- 
 ward the sound." 
 
 I 
 
114 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 " But hold ! I in this business may proceed too far, 
 And raise a storm against our theatre, 
 And then what would the wise adventurers say 
 Who are in a much greater fright to-day 
 Than ever poet was about his play ? " 
 
 The new theatre was opened on November 9, 1671, 
 with Dryden's comedy of Sir Martin Marrall, " which 
 continu'd Acting 3 Days together, with a full audience 
 each Day ; notwithstanding it had been Acted 30 Days 
 before in Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and above 4 times at 
 Court." In this Betterton had no part, and in Love in a 
 Tub, which succeeded it, his part, as has already been 
 mentioned, was a very poor one. His first original 
 character in the new theatre was Charles, King of France, 
 in Crown's Charles VIII., a robustious tragedy, which, 
 in spite of being "all new cloath'd, yet lasted but 6 Days 
 together." 
 
 Somewhere about this time the Duke's company were 
 temporarily strengthened by the accession of the notorious 
 Jo Haynes, one of the chief low comedians of the period, 
 who, having offended Hart, was dismissed from the King's 
 company. Jo was a buffoon and farceur of the first 
 water, and the offence which he gave to Hart is a charac- 
 teristic piece of misconduct. It is thus related in that 
 very scarce little volume, The Life of the late Famous 
 Comedian, Jo Hayns 
 
 "There happened to be one night a play acted, called 
 Catiline's Conspiracy, wherein there was wanting a great 
 number of senators. Now Mr. Hart being chief of the house, 
 would oblige Jo to dress for one of these senators, although 
 Jo's salary, being then 50^. per week, freed him from any 
 such obligation. But Mr. Hart, as I said before, being sole 
 governor of the playhouse, and at a small variance with Jo, 
 commands it, and the other must obey. 
 
 "Jo being vexed a.t the slight Mr. Hart had put on him, 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 115 
 
 found out this method of being revenged on him. He gets a 
 Scaramouch dress, a large full ruff, makes himself whiskers 
 from ear to ear, puts on his head a long Merry- Andrew's cap, 
 a short pipe in his mouth, a little three-legged stool in his 
 hand ; and in this manner follows Mr. Hart on the stage, 
 sets himself down behind him, and begins to smoke his pipe, 
 laugh, and point at him. Which comical figure put all the 
 house in an uproar, some laughing, some clapping, and some 
 hollowing. Now Mr. Hart, as those who knew him can aver, 
 was a man of that exactness and grandeur on the stage, that, 
 let what would happen, he'd never discompose himself, or 
 mind anything but what he then represented ; and had a 
 scene fallen behind him, he would not at that time look 
 back, to have seen what was the matter ; which Jo knowing, 
 remained still smoking. The audience continued laughing, 
 Mr. Hart acting, and wondering at this unusual occasion of 
 their mirth ; sometimes thinking it some disturbance in the 
 house, again that it might be something amiss in his dress : 
 at last turning himself toward the scenes, he discovered Jo 
 in the aforesaid posture ; whereupon he immediately goes 
 off the stage, swearing he would never set foot on it again, 
 unless Jo was immediately turned out of doors, which was 
 no sooner spoke, but put in practice." 
 
 Old Anthony Aston, who seems to have known Jo 
 well, gives a very entertaining account of his pranks, of 
 which I will quote that part which is quotable. Aston's 
 last anecdote is much too strong for modern palates. 
 
 "JOE HAINES is more remarkable for the witty, tho' 
 wicked, Pranks he play'd, and for his Prologues and Epi- 
 logues, than for Acting. He was, at first, a Dancer. After 
 he had made his Tour of France, he narrowly escaped being 
 seiz'd, and sent to the Bastile, for personating an English 
 Peer, and running 3000 Livres in Debt in Paris ; but, happily 
 landing at Dover, he went to London, where in Bartholomew- 
 Fair, he set up a Droll-Booth, and acted a new Droll, call'd, 
 The Whore of Babylon, the Devil, and the Pope. This was 
 in the first Year of King James II. when Joe was sent for, 
 
n6 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 and roundly admonish'd, by Judge Pollixfen for it. Joe 
 reply'd, That he did it in Respect to his Holiness \for, whereas 
 many ignorant People believed the Pope to be a Beast, he 
 shewed him to be a fine, comely old Gentleman, as he was; 
 not with Seven Heads, and Ten Horns, as the Scotch Parsons 
 describe him. However, this Affair spoil'd Joe^s expiring 
 Credit ; for next Morning, a Couple of Bailiffs seiz'd him in 
 an Action of 2O/. as the Bishop of Ely was passing by in his 
 Coach. Quoth Joe to the Bailiffs, Gentlemen, herds my 
 Cousin, the Bishop 0/"Ely, going into his House ; let me but 
 speak to him, and he^ll pay the Debt and Charges. The 
 Bailiffs thought they might venture that, as they were within 
 three or four Yards of him. So, up goes Joe to the Coach, 
 pulling off his Hat, and got close to it. The Bishop order'd 
 the Coach to stop, whilst Joe (close to his Ear) said softly, 
 My Lord, here are two poor Men, who have such great 
 Scruples of Conscience, that, 1 fear, they'll hang themselves. 
 Very well, said the Bishop. So, calling to the Bailiffs, he 
 said, You two Men, come to me To-morrow Morning, and 
 Pll satisfy you. The Men bow'd, and went away. Joe 
 (hugging himself with his fallacious Device) went also his 
 Way. In the Morning, the Bailiffs (expecting the Debt and 
 Charges) repair'd to the Bishop's ; where being introduced, 
 Well, said the Bishop, what are your Scruples of Con- 
 science ? Scruples f (said the Bailiffs) we have no Scruples : 
 We are Bailiff's, my Lord, who, Yesterday, arrested your 
 Cousin, Joe Haines, for 2O/. Your Lordship promised to 
 satisfy us To-day, and we hope your Lordship will be as good 
 as your Word. The Bishop, reflecting that his Honour and 
 Name would be expos'd, (if he complied not) paid the Debt 
 and Charges." 
 
 During Haines's sojourn with Betterton and his com- 
 panions he played the characters of the French Master 
 in Ravenscroft's Citizen turned Gentleman, and Plot in 
 the Earl of Orrery's comedy of Mr. Anthony. However, 
 neither of these is a part of first performance, and Jo 
 very soon took himself and his pranks back to the King's 
 company, who had by this time been forced to change 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 117 
 
 their scene of action. The cause of their removal was 
 a fire, which utterly destroyed the Theatre Royal, on 
 January 25, 1672. The houseless actors were glad to 
 take refuge in the old theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields 
 which the Duke's company had just vacated, where they 
 began to play on February 26, 1672, and where they 
 remained till their new theatre in Drury Lane was ready, 
 in March, 1674. 
 
 In spite of the high opinion which Pepys and Downes 
 continually express regarding Betterton, there seems 
 strong reason to suppose that the King's company con- 
 tinued to be more attractive than the Duke's, at least so 
 long as Hart and Mohun were in the full glory of their 
 powers. Yet this seems strange when we recall that 
 Betterton, Harris, Smith, and Sandford were among the 
 younger company. It is conceivable that the conjunction 
 of Hart, Mohun, and Kynaston was stronger than any 
 that the others could bring forward. Betterton was no 
 doubt quite as strong as any single one of his opponents, 
 but Harris probably was on a lower level, in tragedy at 
 least, than the chiefs of the rival company ; and, while 
 we have every reason to believe that Hart and Mohun 
 were bosom friends, we know that there was an amount 
 of rivalry between Betterton and Harris which might very 
 likely prevent their playing perfectly together. Whatever 
 the cause, it seems pretty certain that the Duke's company 
 were sorely put to it to maintain a successful fight. 
 They removed, as we have seen, to a gorgeous new 
 theatre, which, they expected, and their opponents 
 certainly seemed to fear, would give them a great 
 advantage in the struggle. Then fate struck in on their 
 side, burning their rivals out of their own house, and 
 sending them to a deserted old playhouse, worn and ill 
 furnished. Yet with all these disadvantages, the older 
 
n8 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 actors held their own, and the younger company tried 
 another plan to attract the town. This was the produc- 
 tion of operas. 
 
 An opera is described by Dryden as, strictly speaking, 
 "a poetical tale, or fiction, represented by vocal and,/ 
 instrumental music, adorned with scenes, machines, and 
 dancing ; " which is very much how we should describe 
 an opera now. But this academical description was not 
 the popular idea of an opera, which was rather founded 
 on such productions as Dryden and Davenant's Tempest. 
 This Dryden describes as " a tragedy mixed with opera ; 
 or a drama written in blank verse, adorned with scenes, 
 machines, songs and dances, so that the fable of it is all 
 spoken and acted by the best of the Comedians ; the 
 other part of the entertainment to be performed by the 
 singers and dancers." Next to the music, the "ma- 
 chines " seem to have been esteemed the most essential 
 characteristic of operas, for, as Genest points out, 
 Downes considers machinery so essential to an opera, 
 that he calls the Lancashire Witches a kind of opera, 
 because there were machines for the witches. Macbeth, 
 too, was described by the old prompter as "in the 
 nature of an opera," although there was probably little 
 more music and dancing in it than in " revivals " of 
 Macbeth with Locke's music, such as all of us have 
 seen within a very few years. The chief of these exotic 
 entertainments were Shadwell's perversion of The Tem- 
 pest, in which the principal effect of the "machines" 
 was the flying away of a table laid with fruits and sweet- 
 meats just as Trinculo and his companions were going 
 to dinner; the same writer's Psyche, which cost over 
 eight hundred pounds to mount; and Dr. Charles 
 Davenant's Circe, the music to which was composed by 
 Banister. In the last mentioned the dramatic part was 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 119 
 
 in good hands, Orestes being played by Betterton; 
 Pylades, by Williams ; Ithacus, by Smith ; Thoas, by 
 Harris ; Iphigenia, by Mrs. Betterton. 
 
 Before the production of The Tempest, one of Aphra 
 Behn's plays, The. Forced Marriage, was played, and was 
 tolerably successful. It is interesting to us solely from 
 the fact that Otway made his first, and last, appearance on 
 the stage in it. His fate as an actor is so quaintly related 
 by Downes that it would be unfeeling to tell the incident 
 in any but the prompter's very words. "Note/' he 
 begins, " In this play, Mr. Otway the poet having an 
 inclination to turn actor j Mrs. Behn gave him the King 
 in this play, for a probation part, but he being not us'd 
 to the stage ; the full house put him to such a sweat and 
 tremendous Agony, being dash't, spoilt him for an actor." 
 About the same time another poet met with a similar 
 mischance. This was poor Nat Lee, who, says Downes, 
 "had the same fate in acting Duncan in Macbeth, ruin'd 
 him for an actor too." This failure of Lee's is curious, 
 because he was so admirable an elocutionist that, as 
 Gibber records, Mohun, while Lee was reading a play 
 one day at rehearsal, threw down his part in despair, 
 exclaiming, " Unless I were able to play it as well as you 
 read it, to what purpose should I undertake it ? " 
 
 As actors, Otway and Lee were thus no advantage to 
 the Duke's company, which began to need recruits. 
 Death had carried off Price, Lovel, Lilliston, Robert 
 Nokes, Mosely, and others ; while Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. 
 Davies, and Mrs. Jennings, in the words of Downes, " by 
 force of Love were Erept the Stage." In place of these 
 came Anthony Leigh, the most famous of the actors who 
 bore that surname ; Gillow, Jevon, and Williams ; Mrs. 
 Barry the great Mrs. Barry Mrs. Currer, Mrs. Butler, 
 and others of less importance. No doubt the acquisition 
 
120 THOMAS BETTERTON'. 
 
 of such admirable artists as Leigh and Mrs. Barry did 
 much to support the reputation of the younger company, 
 who within the next few years caught up and even passed 
 their powerful rivals. To this result the excellence of 
 many of the new plays which they produced must have 
 contributed powerfully. Between 1676 and 1682 they 
 played new pieces by Dryden, Etheredge, Otway, Lee, 
 and Aphra Behn, many of which were among the different 
 authors' masterpieces. Otway, who had just failed to aid 
 the company in one capacity, supported it brilliantly in 
 another. After an ineffectual attempt at soldiering, which 
 followed his failure as an actor, Otway found his real 
 vocation in writing for the stage. His comedies were 
 conspicuously licentious even in such an age of license, 
 but in pathetic tragedy he was undoubtedly a master. 
 To Betterton his plays afforded a brilliant series of original 
 characters, and we have pleasing proof that the great 
 actor was grateful to the author who had given him so 
 many opportunities of distinction. In A Satyr upon tfye 
 Poets, being a Translation out of the 7th Satyr of Juvenal, 
 there are the following lines : 
 
 " There was a time when Otway charm'd the Stage, 
 Otway, the hope, the Sorrow of our age ; 
 When the full pit with pleas'd attention hung, 
 Wrapt with each accent from Castalids Tongue. 
 With what a laughter was his Soldier read ! 
 How mourn'd they when hisjaffier struck, and bled ! 
 Yet this best poet, tho' with so much ease, 
 He never drew his pen but sure to please ; 
 Tho' lightning were less lively than his wit, 
 And thunder-claps less loud than those o' th' pit ; 
 He had ofs many wants much earlier dy'd, 
 Had not kind Banker Betterton supply d, 
 And took for pawn the embryo of a play, 
 Till he could pay himself the next third day.' 
 
THOMA.S BETTERTON. 121 
 
 The first character which Otway's plays afforded 
 Betterton was not a good one, for the poet's Alribiades 
 is a very poor production ; but in Don Carlos, Prince of 
 Spain, the actor had a powerful and effective part as 
 KingjJPhilip II.," 1 and being well supported by Harris 
 as Don John of Austria, Smith as the Prince of Spain, 
 and Mrs. Mary Lee as the Queen, he won for the piece 
 a striking success. It was played for ten days in succes- 
 sion, and brought more money than any preceding 
 tragedy by a modern writer. Booth long afterwards 
 related how Betterton informed him that Don Carlos was 
 more applauded and drew better houses for many years 
 than either The Orphan or Venice Preserved ; and in 
 Rochester's Session of the Poets the popularity of this play 
 is coarsely alluded to 
 
 " Tom Otway came next, Tom Shadwell's dear zany, 
 And swears, for Heroicks, he writes best of any. 
 Don Carlos his pockets so amply had filled, 
 That his mange was quite cur'd, and his lice were all killed." 
 
 Titus and Berenice was the next of Otway's plays ; but 
 Betterton did not increase his reputation much by this 
 poor part of Titus. Next came a diverting but indecent 
 comedy, Friendship in Fashion, which was very success- 
 ful, and in which Betterton acted Goodvile, a married 
 rake, on whom his wife takes revenge in kind. In this 
 comedy occurs the character Malagene, which afforded 
 Steele so apt a reference in the course of his quarrel with 
 the Duke of Newcastle, the Lord Chamberlain who 
 deprived him of his license. He refers to the duke's 
 threat to ruin him, "which," he adds, "is in a man of 
 his circumstances against one in mine, as great as the 
 humour of Malagene in the comedy, who values himself 
 on his activity in tripping up cripples." Friendship in 
 
122 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Fashion was followed by the famous tragedy of The 
 Orphan, and by Otway's strange version, or rather 
 perversion, of Romeo and Juliet, called Caius Marius, 
 both of which were produced in 1680. On the merits 
 and reputation of The Orphan it is unnecessary to 
 enlarge. Dr. Johnson said of it that it was one of the 
 few pieces that had kept the stage, and continued to 
 please through all the vicissitudes of dramatic fashion ; 
 and we may add to this that it remained a stock play 
 until tragedy went out of fashion. The hero, Castalio, 
 was played by Betterton ; Chamont, by Smith ; Polydore, 
 by Joseph Williams ; and Monimia, by Mrs. Barry. All 
 got great glory from the play, but Mrs. Barry in an 
 especial degree. Downes says, "This and Belvidera in 
 Venice Preserved . . . together with Isabella in the Fatal 
 Marriage : these three parts gained her the name of 
 Famous Mrs. Barry, both at Court and City ; for when 
 ever she acted any of those three parts, she forc'd tears 
 from the eyes of her Auditory, especially those who 
 have any sense of pity for the Distress' t " which is, 
 after all, comparatively mild commendation. 
 
 Caius Marius did not afford much chance for Betterton 
 to distinguish himself, but in Beaugard in The Soldier's 
 Fortune he had a capital comedy part, and in Jaffier in 
 Venice Preserved one of the most effective tragic parts 
 ever written. In the former play Betterton was sup- 
 ported by Nokes as Sir David Dunce, Leigh as Sir Jolly 
 Jumble, Smith as Courtine, and Mrs. Barry as Lady 
 Dunce; while in the latter Smith played Pierre, Wilt- 
 shire, Renault ; and Mrs. Barry, Belvidera. 
 
 Lee's contributions to the Duke's House were Casar 
 Borgia and Lucius Junius Brutus, in which Betterton 
 played the title-parts ; Theodosius, in which Varanes, the 
 Persian Prince, was Betterton's character; and CEdipus, 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 123 
 
 which was written in conjunction with Dryden, and was 
 admirably acted, especially by Betterton and his wife, 
 who played CEdipus and Jocasta. Dryden, most of 
 whose plays were given to the other company, contri- 
 buted his alteration of Troilus and Cressida, and his 
 famous comedy of The Spanish Friar, to the Duke's 
 company. Betterton played Troilus, and spoke the 
 prologue of the play in the character of the Ghost of 
 Shakespeare. In The Spanish Friar he played the 
 principal serious part, Torrismond; in connection with 
 which it is curious to recollect that in his later years he 
 played the principal comedy character in the play, the 
 Spanish Friar himself, of which Leigh was the original 
 representative. 
 
 Among the important parts played by Betterton 
 between 1676 and 1682, I may mention the delightful 
 comedy character of Dorimant in Etheredge's Man of 
 the Mode, Antony in Sedley's Antony and Cleopatra, 
 Belville in Mrs. Behn's Rover, Timon in Shadwell's 
 alteration of Timon of Athens, and King Lear in Nahum 
 Tate's foolish perversion of Shakespeare's play. 
 
124 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON (1682-1695). 
 
 NUMEROUS allusions by contemporary writers show 
 clearly that before 1680 the stage had fallen into con- 
 siderable disrepute. To this several causes had contri- 
 buted. The condition of the country made it almost 
 impossible that the theatre could be anything more than 
 a resort of the thoughtless and dissipated. The disgrace- 
 ful life of the king, who was shameless in his neglect of 
 duty and in his indulgence of vice, kept the realm in 
 a continual state of turbulence. The horrors of the 
 Popish Plot were in full blast, and king and Parliament 
 were at hopeless odds. No wonder, then, that thought- 
 ful men had little inclination for the theatre, or that the 
 class who sought amusement were debased and brutal in 
 their tastes, and frivolous in their desires. 
 
 The sort of amusement which was most popular was, 
 as might be expected, such as appealed to the eye rather 
 than to the mind. Rope-walking, dancing, puppet-shows, 
 were followed to the exclusion of plays, and such plays 
 as were popular were mostly operas or farces, " full of 
 inexplicable dumb shows and noise." Dryden, in his 
 prologue to Tate's tragedy of The Loyal General, writes, 
 in his usual outspoken style 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 125 
 
 " The plays that take on our corrupted stage, 
 Methinks, resemble the distracted age ; 
 Noise, madness, all unreasonable things, 
 That strike at sense, as rebels do at kings. 
 
 They talk of fevers that infect the brains ; 
 But nonsense is the new disease that reigns. 
 Weak stomachs, with a long disease oppressed, 
 Cannot the cordials of strong wit digest ; 
 Therefore thin nourishment of farce ye choose, 
 Decoctions of a barley-water muse. 5 '' 
 
 Of the two theatres, the King's House seems to have 
 been the weaker. Being led by actors of the older 
 generation, it naturally suffered more from the lapse of 
 time than its younger rival. Its great leaders, Hart and 
 Mohun, were now men well up in years, and seem to 
 have been to some extent incapacitated for work by their 
 age and infirmities before 1680 ; for they must have been 
 the actors referred to in the following lines in the 
 prologue to Crowne's Ambitious Statesman, which was 
 produced by the older company in 1679 : 
 
 " The Times Neglect, and Maladies have thrown ( 
 The two great Pillars of our Play-house down." 
 
 The King's actors seem, too, to have been divided 
 against themselves. Curll, in his History of the English 
 Stage, expressly mentions the feuds and animosities of 
 the King's company; and Gibber also refers to them, 
 giving as their cause the intractability of Goodman, Clark, 
 and the younger actors, who were eager to seize the parts 
 for which they, no doubt, considered their seniors unfit. 
 One company was thus in a condition of hopeless dis- 
 organization ; and although the internal affairs of the 
 Duke's company appear to have been in a better state, 
 they too felt the effect of the unsettled times in very much 
 
126 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 diminished audiences. Under these circumstances, it 
 was natural that steps should be taken to amalgamate the 
 two competing houses. What form the negotiations took 
 at first is not known, but we can guess, from after-events, 
 that the Duke's company, powerful, well conducted, and 
 comparatively prosperous, took the initiative, with the 
 idea of absorbing a troublesome though weaker rival. 
 The King's players appear to have realized that absorption 
 in the Duke's company was by no means a desirable fate 
 for them, and to have resisted it accordingly. But their 
 opposition was made useless and their cause was betrayed 
 by an agreement between Dr. Charles Davenant, Better- 
 ton, and Smith, as representatives of the Duke's company, 
 and their own leaders, Hart and Kynaston. This 
 extraordinary document, which is given by Gildon, in his 
 Life of Betterton, appears to us, ignorant as we are of the 
 precise circumstances, rather unfair and high-handed. 
 By it Hart and Kynaston, in consideration of a payment 
 of five shillings for every acting day, covenant to cease 
 playing for the King's company. They also assign to 
 Davenant, Betterton, and Smith all their interest in 
 plays, books, clothes, and scenes in the King's Playhouse, 
 and they undertake to do all in their power to bring about 
 a union between the two companies. 
 
 Some of the points of this agreement are not very clear. 
 For instance, it seems curious that Hart and Kynaston 
 should be able to refrain from playing with their own 
 company. It would naturally be supposed that, so long 
 as they were sharers and members, they would be obliged 
 to play such characters as were allotted to them. Then, 
 again, it is difficult to see what value Hart's and Kynaston's 
 shares in the plays, books, clothes, and scenes of the 
 King's Theatre can have had to members of another 
 company ; except, perhaps, as a means of embarrassing 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 127 
 
 the deserted comedians. But, with all limitations, it is 
 obvious that the agreement must have been fatal to the 
 very existence of the older company, and, accordingly, 
 the union of 1682 was consummated. Downes makes 
 no allusion whatever to any trouble in the negotiation, 
 and simply chronicles that the patentees united their 
 patents. Gibber, who alludes to the dissensions, yet 
 attributes the union to the influence of the king himself, 
 who saw the failing audiences of both houses. 
 
 At the union the Duke's company removed from 
 Dorset Garden to the smaller but better situated Theatre 
 Royal ; and Dorset Garden was afterwards only occasion- 
 ally used, when specially elaborate productions demanded 
 a huge stage. The amalgamated companies began opera- 
 tions on November 16, 1682, the prologue on opening 
 the season being written by Dryden, and evidently 
 spoken by one of the former Duke's company. After 
 comparing the removal that had taken place to the 
 emigrations to the American plantations, the poet alludes 
 to the dissensions in the King's company which had led 
 to the union 
 
 " The factious natives never could agree ; 
 But aiming, as they called it, to be free, 
 Those play-house Whigs set up for property. 
 
 " Some say, they no obedience paid of late ; 
 But would new fears and jealousies create, 
 Till topsy-turvy they had turned the state. 
 
 " Plain sense, without the talent of foretelling, 
 Might guess 'twould end in downright knocks and quelling ; 
 For seldom comes there better of rebelling." 
 
 He next exults in the successful result of the Duke's 
 players' tactics, and promises good entertainment 
 
128 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 " But since the victory with us remains, 
 You shall be called to twelve in all our gains, , 
 
 If you'll not think us saucy for our pains. 
 
 " Old men shall have good j|P plays to delight them : 
 And you, fair ladies and gallants, that slight them, 
 We'll treat with good new plays, if our new wits can write 
 them." 
 
 Three great actors left the stage about the time of the 
 union Hart, Mohun, and Harris. Regarding the first 
 of these, Downes writes, " Upon this Union, Mr. Hart 
 being the Heart of the Company under Mr. Killigrew's 
 Patent never Acted more, by reason of his Malady; 
 being Afflicted with the Stone and Gravel, of which he 
 Dy'd some time after." Mohun's name occurs very 
 seldom after the union, though he probably acted for 
 some little time ; as Downes refers to him as being still 
 a member of the company. Harris is not mentioned by 
 Downes in connection with the union, and his name 
 cannot be traced in any cast later than 1681, so that in 
 all probability he died, or had retired, about 1682. 
 
 All these events materially improved Betterton's posi- 
 tion on the stage. The retirement of his great rivals 
 gave him the unquestioned lead of the company, and the 
 first choice of characters in every play. With the union 
 of the two companies came necessarily the abolition of 
 all regulations as to the division of plays ; and Betterton 
 had now the opportunity of playing the great characters 
 which had before belonged to Hart and Mohun. It is, 
 therefore, not surprising that for a considerable period 
 much attention was bestowed upon the revival of famous 
 old plays. To this the genus irritabile vatum naturally 
 objected, and George Powell, in the preface to his 
 Treacheroics Brothers (1690), complains that "upon the 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 129 
 
 uniting of the two theatres, the reviveing of the old 
 stock of plays so ingrost the study of the house, that the 
 Poets lay dormant ; and a new play cou'd hardly get 
 admittance, amongst the most precious pieces of antiquity 
 that then waited to walk the stage." Betterton, in 
 fact, having such parts as Othello, Brutus, and Hotspur 
 thrown open to him, did not care to waste his time 
 and his energy on Powell's Menaphon, or Ithocles, or 
 Orgillus. Downes gives a list of the old plays which 
 had been the property of Killigrew's company, and which 
 were now revived, with Betterton, no doubt, in the chief 
 characters. They were Othello ; Brome's Jovial Crew ; 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady ; John Fletcher's 
 Rule a Wife and have a Wife (in which Betterton 
 acted Michael Perez), Beggar's Bush, Rollo, Humorous 
 Lieutenant, and Double Marriage ; Wycherley's Plain 
 Dealer ; Dryden's Evenings Love; and Ben Jonson's 
 Bartholomew Fair. 
 
 To this list must be added Julius Ccesar, in which 
 Hart's character of Brutus became the property of 
 Betterton. How he played this character we are told 
 by Gibber. 
 
 " A farther Excellence in Betterton was, that he could vary 
 his Spirit to the different Characters he acted. Those wild 
 impatient Starts, that fierce and flashing Fire, which he 
 threw into Hotspur, never came from the unruffled Temper 
 of his Brutus (for I have more than once seen a Brutus as 
 warm as Hotspur) when the Betterton Brutus was provok'd 
 in his Dispute with Cassius, his Spirit flew only to his Eye ; 
 his steady Look alone supply'd that Terror which he dis- 
 dain'd an Intemperance in his Voice should rise to. Thus, 
 with a settled Dignity of Contempt, like an unheeding Rock 
 he repelled upon himself the Foam of Cassius. Perhaps 
 the very Words of Shakespear will better let you into my 
 Meaning : 
 
130 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Must I give way and room to your rash C holer ? 
 
 Shall I be frighted when a Madman stares f 
 And a little after, 
 
 There is no Terror^ Cassius, in your Looks ! &c. 
 Not but in some part of this Scene, where he reproaches 
 Cassius, his Temper is not under this Suppression, but opens 
 into that Warmth which becomes a man of virtue ; yet this 
 is that Hasty Spark of Anger which Brutus himself en- 
 deavours to excuse." 
 
 Our quaint old friend, Anthony Aston, has one of his 
 characteristic references to this performance. He is 
 praising the naturalness and untutored force of Ver- 
 bruggen, when playing Cassius to Betterton's Brutus. 
 " Then," he exclaims, " you might behold the grand 
 Contest, viz. whether Nature or Art excell'd Verbruggen 
 wild and untaught, or Betterton in the Trammels of 
 Instruction." 
 
 Of his Othello, another character which Hart had 
 played, we have a beautiful picture in the Tatter, where 
 Steele, with exquisite art, paints such an Othello as seems 
 almost beyond imagination perfect 
 
 " I have hardly a notion that any performer of antiquity 
 could surpass the action of Mr. Betterton in any of the occa- 
 sions in which he has appeared on our stage. The wonderful 
 agony which he appeared in, when he examined the circum- 
 stance of the handkerchief in Othello ; the mixture of love 
 that intruded upon his mind upon the innocent answers 
 Desdemona makes, betrayed in his gesture such a variety 
 and vicissitude of passions, as would admonish a man to be 
 afraid of his own heart, and perfectly convince him, that it is 
 to stab it, to admit that worst of daggers, jealousy. Whoever 
 reads in his closet this admirable scene, will find that he 
 cannot, except he has as warm an imagination as Shakspeare 
 himself, find any but dry, incoherent, and broken sentences ; 
 but a reader that has seen Betterton act it, observes there 
 could not be a word added ; that longer speech had been 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 131 
 
 unnatural, nay impossible, in Othello's circumstances. The 
 charming passage in the same tragedy, where he tells the 
 manner of winning the affection of his mistress, was urged 
 with so moving and graceful an energy, that while I walked 
 in the cloisters, I thought of him with the same concern as 
 if I waited for the remains of a person who had in real life 
 done all that I had seen him represent." 
 
 About this time, too, Betterton seems to have played 
 his own productions pretty often, as we learn from the 
 opening lines of A Satyr on the Modern Translators. 
 By Mr. Pr, which run 
 
 " Since the united cunning of the Stage 
 Has balk'd the hireling Drudges of the Age : 
 Since Betterton of late so thrifty's grown, 
 Revives old Plays, or wisely acts his own. 
 
 Those who with nine months' toil had spoil'd a Play, 
 In hope of eating at a full Third day 
 
 Have left Stage-practice." 
 
 Of these plays of Betterton's it is not necessary to say 
 much. Downes mentions three of them as having been 
 produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields about 1670 The 
 Woman made a Justice, and The Amorous Widow, 
 comedies, and The Unjust Judge, a tragedy. The 
 Amorous Widow is founded on Moliere's George Dandin; 
 and The Unjust Judge is simply a version of Webster's 
 Appius and Virginia, a story made familiar to us by 
 Sheridan Knowles's well-known drama. The Woman 
 made a Justice has not been printed, so that we do not 
 know who played the various parts, but we know that, 
 in The Amorous Widow, Betterton acted Lovemore, and, 
 in The Unjust Judge, Virginius. He also turned Fletcher's 
 Prophetess into an opera, and arranged the two parts of 
 Shakespeare's Henry IV. for the stage. His adaptations 
 
132 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 are skilful and workmanlike, showing great judgment 
 and thorough knowledge of stage requirements, but the 
 original passages contained in them have no particular 
 merit. All his pieces were very successful. 
 
 The debased public taste and the unsettled condition 
 of political affairs, to which I have already made refer- 
 ence, together contributed to the further lowering of the 
 stage by making it a political battle-ground. In A 
 Lenten Prologue refund by the Players (1682), the case 
 is stated with much plainness 
 
 "Our Prologue-wit grows flat : the Nap's worn off; 
 And howsoe'er we turn and trim the Stuff, 
 The Gloss is gone, that look'd at first so gaudy ; 
 'Tis now no jest to hear young girls talk b y. 
 But Plots and Parties give new matter birth ; 
 And State-distractions serve you here for mirth ! 
 At England's cost poets now purchase fame \ 
 While factious heats destroy us, without shame > 
 These wanton Nero's fiddle to the flame. 
 The Stage, like old Rump Pulpits, is become 
 The Scene of News, a furious Party's Drum. 
 Here Poets beat their brains for Voluntiers, 
 And take fast hold of Asses by their ears." 
 
 Of these political plays the most notable was The 
 Duke of Guise, by Dryden and Lee, which was acted 
 on December 4, 1682, and to the stage* arrangements 
 of which I alluded in my second chapter. In this 
 Betterton played the Duke, Smith played Grillon, and 
 Mrs. Barry was the heroine, Marmoutier. This was one 
 of the most political of Dryden's productions. The 
 history of the Duke of Guise had very obvious resem- 
 blance to that of the Duke of Monmouth, and though 
 Dryden afterwards denied that this was the intention of 
 the authors, the Whig faction made every effort to con- 
 demn the piece. In this they were unsuccessful. Crowne's 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 133 
 
 City Politics (1683) was another political play, attacking, 
 as may be gathered from the title, the City and the 
 Whigs. Even Ravenscroft's comedy of Dame Dobson ; 
 or, The Cunning Woman (1683 or 1684), which is non- 
 political, had a furious anti-Whig epilogue, while Roches- 
 ter's adaptation of Fletcher's Valentinian (probably 1 684) 
 carried the doctrine of non-resistance to the court to an 
 absurd pitch. This tragedy, which Rochester did not 
 live to complete, was a great success, partly because it 
 was well acted, and partly by reason of the interest made 
 for it by the author's friends. To quote Downes, the 
 play was " Crown'd with great Gain of Reputation and 
 Profit to the Actors" Betterton played ^Ecius ; Good- 
 man, Valentinian ; Kynaston, Maximus ; Griffin, Pon- 
 tius ; and Mrs. Barry, Lucina. 
 
 The popularity of these political plays was injurious 
 alike to dramatic art and to its exponents, and furnished 
 another reason why, for some years after 1682, Betterton 
 played few characters in new plays, and none which were 
 really of the first importance. 
 
 The death of Charles II., on February 6, 1685, 'de- 
 prived the theatre of its greatest supporter. The event 
 was duly lamented on the stage in an elaborate pro- 
 duction entitled Albion and Albanius* which Dryden 
 originally wrote as a satire on the Whigs and Republicans, 
 and a panegyric of Charles and James. While it was 
 in preparation Charles died, and Dryden introduced into 
 his last scene the apotheosis of the king. This piece 
 of loyalty run mad is of great interest from the stage 
 historian's point of view, for Dryden has given with 
 much minuteness a description of the machinery and 
 decorations invented by Betterton for the occasion. 
 
 * Albion is intended to represent Charles II. ; Albanius his 
 brother James. 
 
134 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 " The Descriptions of the Scenes, and other Decorations 
 of the Stage," says Dryden in his preface, " I had from 
 Mr. Betterton, who has spar'd neither for Industry nor 
 Cost, to make this Entertainment perfect, nor for Inven- 
 tion of the Ornaments to beautifie it." These elaborate 
 stage decorations have been referred to in a previous 
 chapter; meanwhile it is interesting to gather from 
 Dryden's words that Betterton was stage-manager of the 
 theatre, having apparently even the control of the money 
 expended on the mounting of the piece. In spite of its 
 loyal sentiments, its violent abuse of the Whigs, and its 
 elaborate decorations, the opera resulted in great loss to 
 the treasury. This arose from several causes. First, 
 there was the opposition of political opponents to reckon 
 with. Then there was a musical opposition, probably 
 quite as bitter as the political. The composer who acted 
 as Dryden's collaborator was Louis Grabut or Grebus, 
 the master of the king's music ; and all the followers of 
 Purcell and English music were up in arms against 
 him." * Fate, too, warred against the unfortunate piece, 
 for the intelligence of the Duke of Monmouth's landing 
 in the west seems to have reached London on the day 
 of the play's production, and in the general consternation 
 Albion and Albanius came to grief, Albanius himself 
 being, no doubt, too anxious about the stability of his 
 throne to think -about his theatrical eulogy. In stating 
 that the opera was produced on the day when the news 
 of Monmouth's landing was received, I follow Downes, 
 our only first-hand authority on the point, who says, 
 
 * Pepys has several allusions to this composer. On February 20, 
 1667, he notes that "the King's Viallin, Bannister, is mad that the 
 King hath a Frenchman come to be chief of some part of the King's 
 musique : " and on October I of the same year he criticizes the 
 music of the Frenchman with refreshing vigour. 
 
THOMAS a&RAfifeaAfeX '35 
 
 " This [opera] being perform'd on a very Unlucky Day, 
 being the Day the Duke of Monmouth landed in the 
 West : The Nation being in a great consternation, it 
 was perform'd but Six times, which not Answering half 
 THE Charge they were at, Involv'd the Company very 
 much in debt." 
 
 Regarding Betterton and his decorations, the music, and 
 the failure of piece, some very good verses were written, 
 three of which I quote. I do not know where they were 
 published, having found them in a curious volume of 
 dramatic cuttings in the Guildhall Library. 
 
 " Each actor on the stage his luck bewailing, 
 
 Finds that his loss is infallibly true ; 
 Smith, Nokes, and Leigh, in a fever with railing, 
 Curse poet, painter, and Monsieur Grabu. 
 
 " Betterton, Betterton, thy decorations, 
 
 And the machines, were well written, we knew ; 
 But all the words were such stuff, we want patience, 
 And little better is Monsieur Grabu. 
 
 " Damme, says Underbill, I'm out of two hundred 
 Hoping that rainbows and peacocks would do ; 
 Who thought infallible Tom could have blundered ? 
 A plague upon him and Monsieur Grabu ! " 
 
 " Infallible Tom " is, of course, Betterton ; and the re- 
 ference to rainbows and peacocks will be understood 
 by those who remember the descriptions of the scenery 
 and effects of the piece given in my second chapter. 
 
 In 1687, Bellamira ; or, The Mistress, the best of Sir 
 Charles Sedley's plays, was produced ; while two of Aphra 
 Behn's pieces saw the light about the same time. These 
 were The Lucky Chance ; or. An Alderman's Bargain, a 
 comedy, in which Betterton played Cayman, who profits 
 by his bargain with the Alderman ; and the farce of The 
 Emperor of the Moon. In the former, Mrs. Behn reaches 
 
136 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 her high-water mark of indecency ; and in the second 
 she has written one of the best pantomimic farces ever 
 seen, the characters of Harlequin and Scaramouch, 
 played by Jevon and Leigh, being models of their class. 
 Shadwell's Squire of Alsatia, an excellent comedy, 
 largely founded on the Adelphi of Terence, was one of 
 the great successes of the period. Being, says Downes, 
 "often Honour'd with the presence of Chancellour 
 JefferieS) and other great Persons," it ran for thirteen 
 days. For his third day the author received one hundred 
 and thirty pounds, the largest receipt ever taken in the 
 theatre at single prices. This does not sound a very 
 formidable sum to us now, but, at 4^., 2s. 6d., is. 6d., 
 and is. admission, it means a huge audience. In the 
 dedication Shadwell says, " I had the great honour to 
 find so many friends, that the house was never so, full 
 since it was built, as upon the third day of this Play, and 
 vast numbers went away, that could not be admitted." 
 
 Somewhere about this point the Revolution comes in, 
 and the Whig dramatists of course came to the top. 
 Their ranks were recruited by such time-serving poets as 
 Dryden and Crowne, who had preached the most high- 
 flying Tory doctrines while Charles and James were on 
 the throne, but changed their tune to Whiggery when 
 Whigs were uppermost. Crowne, whose City Politics 
 (1683) was written to abuse the City and the Whigs, 
 writes The English Friar (1689) to expose the Romish 
 priests; Dryden, the author of the fulsome Albion and 
 Albaniiis (1685), in which Charles and James are 
 bespattered with nauseous praise, writes in his Don 
 Sebastian, King of Portugal (1690), such lines as 
 
 "Alvarez. Were Kings e'er known in this degenerate Age, 
 So passionately fond of noble acts 
 Where Interest shar'd not more than half with honour ? 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 137 
 
 Sebastian. Base groveling soul, who know'st not Honour's 
 
 worth, 
 
 But weigh'st it out in mercenary scales ; 
 The secret pleasure of a generous act, 
 Is the great mind's great bribe. 
 
 Alvarez. Show me that King, and I'll believe the Phoenix." 
 
 In the preface to this democratic tragedy Dryden pays 
 Betterton the greatest compliment ever paid to player by 
 a poet of such eminence. He tells how he allowed the 
 actor to cut twelve hundred lines out of his play, and 
 was pleased with his skill in doing so. He writes, 
 "About twelve hundred lines have been cut off from 
 this Tragedy, since it was first deliver'd to the Actors. 
 They were indeed so judiciously lopt by Mr. Betterton, 
 to whose care and excellent action I am equally obliged, 
 that the connexion of the story was not lost." Better- 
 ton's " excellent action" was displayed in the character 
 of Don Alonzo, a noble Portuguese, who being injured, 
 as he supposes, by Don Sebastian, turns Renegade, and 
 assumes the name of Dorax. 
 
 As a make-weight to Dryden's and Crowne's apostasy, 
 Elkanah Settle shifted round the other way. He was at 
 first the poet of the Whigs, but prostituted his powers so 
 shamefully as to write a poem on the coronation of 
 James II., and even went so far as to perpetrate a 
 panegyric on Judge Jefferies. Poor Elkanah did not 
 profit by his tergiversation, for the Revolution came 
 before he had got his reward. In his dedication to 
 Distressed Innocence (1691) he complains of his hard lot. 
 " I grew weary," he writes, " of my little talent in dra- 
 matics, and forsooth must be rambling into politics ; 
 and much I have got by it, for, I thank 'em, they have 
 undone me." 
 
 About this time were produced also Aphra Behn's 
 
138 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 tragi-comedy of Widow Ranter ; or, The History of 13 aeon 
 in. Virginia, in which Mrs. Currer played the Widow, a 
 masculine female, who dresses as a man, fights, drinks, 
 smokes, and swears, in quite roystering fashion; Dryden's 
 comedy of Amphitryon^ in which Betterton acted Jupiter ; 
 and the opera of The Prophetess, altered from Fletcher 
 by Betterton. In this opera, and in that of King Arthur, 
 by Dryden (1691), the music was composed by u Famous 
 Mr. Henry Parcel" as Downes puts it, and the dances 
 were arranged by Joseph Priest, the decorations being 
 no doubt under the care of Betterton himself. Downes 
 seems to have considered that both pieces got the actors 
 reputation and the managers gain ; but Gibber took a 
 different view of the case. He says that though the 
 apparent success of these expensive luxuries was very 
 great, yet their cost was so extravagant that, in spite of 
 the large receipts they brought, they resulted in loss 
 rather than profit. 
 
 After the union the actors do not appear to have 
 found their condition bettered. Gibber, speaking, of 
 course, of .what he had been told, not of what he had 
 seen, says that the patentees imposed hard terms on their 
 actors, knowing that there was no other theatre to which 
 they could betake themselves. The profits of the house 
 were divided into twenty shares, ten of which the pro- 
 prietors took, the remainder being shared among the 
 actors in their several proportions. Nor were monetary 
 arrangements the only hardships under which the players 
 groaned. The Adventurers, whether original shareholders 
 of Dorset Garden Theatre, or, as Gibber states, " money- 
 making persons " to whom the patentees had sold por- 
 tions of their shares, seem to have had power of control 
 over the theatrical as well as the business management, 
 and to have interfered materially in stage affairs, resenting 
 
7 HO MAS BETTERTON. 139 
 
 every expense as tending to reduce their dividends. 
 Actors were badly paid, plays were cheaply put on the 
 stage ; in fact, the theatre was starved. No wonder, then, 
 that, when Gibber joined the Theatre Royal in 1690, the 
 actors were in a state of simmering discontent, which, 
 five years later, broke into open revolt. 
 
 About 1692 the theatre was weakened by the death of 
 James Nokes, Mountfort, and Anthony Leigh. So far 
 as we know, the first and last of these actors died in the 
 ordinary course of nature, but poor Will Mountfort re- 
 ceived his death from a scoundrel's sword, though 
 whether he was assassinated or killed in fair fight is a 
 disputed point. His slayer was one Captain Richard 
 Hill, a dissipated fellow who proposed to marry beautiful 
 Anne Bracegirdle. His addresses being rejected, Hill 
 swore to be revenged on Mountfort, whom he considered 
 to be Mrs. Bracegirdle's favoured lover, and the principal 
 hindrance to his suit. Aided by that most disreputable 
 of noblemen, Lord Mohun, he tried to carry off the lady 
 by force. Foiled in this attempt, Mohun and Hill lay in 
 wait for Mountfort, and, whether in fair fight or by a 
 cowardly blow, killed him. Hill fled from England, but 
 Mohun took his trial for murder before his peers, and 
 was acquitted by a majority of voices, a considerable 
 number of noblemen, however, giving a verdict of guilty 
 against him. As it was never hinted that Mohun was 
 more than an accessory in the deed, the fact that fourteen 
 of his peers voted for finding him guilty of assassinating 
 Mountfort shows that, to them at least, Hill's action was 
 murder. 
 
 The death of Nokes and Leigh did not make any 
 vacancies in the casts of plays which Betterton could 
 supply ; but Mountfort's decease furnished him with the 
 opportunity of distinguishing himself in one of the late 
 
140 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 actor's best parts. This was Alexander the Great in Lee's 
 Rival Queens. Gibber gives so admirable an account 
 of Betterton's excellence in this part that it would be 
 unpardonable to omit to quote it. 
 
 "When this favourite Play I am speaking of, from its 
 being too frequently acted, was worn out, and came to be 
 deserted by the Town, upon the sudden Death of Monfort^ 
 who had play'd Alexander with Success for several Years, 
 the Part was given to Betterton, which, under this great 
 Disadvantage of the Satiety it had given, he immediately 
 reviv'd with so new a Lustre that for three Days together it 
 fill'd the House ; and had his then declining Strength been 
 equal to the Fatigue the Action gave him, it probably might 
 have doubled its Success ; an uncommon Instance of the 
 Power and intrinsick Merit of an Actor. This I mention 
 not only to prove what irresistible Pleasure may arise from 
 a judicious Elocution, with scarce Sense to assist it ; but to 
 shew you too, that tho' Betterton never wanted Fire and 
 Force when his Character demanded it ; yet, where it was 
 not demanded, he never prostituted his Power to the low 
 Ambition of a false Applause. And further, that when, from 
 a too advanced Age, he resigned that toilsome Part of 
 Alexander, the Play for many Years after never was able 
 to impose upon the Publick ; and I look upon his so par- 
 ticularly supporting the false Fire and Extravagancies of 
 that Character to be a more surprizing Proof of his Skill 
 than his being eminent in those of Shakespear ; because 
 there, Truth and Nature coming to his Assistance, he had 
 not the same Difficulties to combat, and consequently we 
 must be less amaz'd at his Success where we are more able 
 to account for it." 
 
 And on another page Gibber, quoting some bombastic 
 lines from this play, adds, " When these flowing numbers 
 came from the mouth of a Betterton the multitude no 
 more desired sense to them than our Musical Con- 
 noisseurs think it essential in the celebrate Airs of an 
 Italian Opera." 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 14 r 
 
 Davies has preserved an anecdote in connection with 
 this part which is pleasantly characteristic of the amiable 
 and modest Betterton. At rehearsal one day he was 
 striving to recall a particular tone or emphasis given by 
 Hart to a certain passage, which had struck him many 
 years before as being especially effective. Unable himself 
 to' ; recall it, he applied to the other actors, but they could 
 not help him. At last one of the lowest of the company 
 repeated the line exactly in Hart's key, and, says Davies, 
 " Betterton thanked him heartily, and put a piece of 
 money in his hand, as a reward for so acceptable a service." 
 Before 1695 Congreve's famous comedies, The Old 
 Bachelor and The Double Dealer ; Dryden's Cleomenes, 
 and, his last play, Love Triumphant ; and Southerners 
 powerful tragedy of The Fatal Marriage, afforded 
 Betterton a series of admirable characters, both tragic 
 and comic. In The Old Bachelor the wonderful genius 
 of Congreve, a youth of three and twenty, burst on the 
 town. The highest expectations were aroused regarding 
 the merits of the piece, for John Dry den had declared 
 that he never saw such a first play in his life, and 
 Southerne, himself a dramatist of position, was also loud 
 in its praise. The actors, too, did all that could be done 
 to aid its success, for it was cast with the full strength of 
 the company. Betterton played the surly Old Bachelor ; 
 Powell and Williams were the Bellmour and Vainlove ; 
 while Dogget was an absolutely ideal representative of 
 the much-abused Fondlewife. The female characters 
 were played by five of the most beautiful and talented 
 women ever seen in one play Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Brace- 
 girdle, Mrs. Mountfort, Mrs. Bowman, and Mrs. Leigh. 
 The success of the comedy, which was produced in 
 January, 1693, was immediate and striking. It was 
 acted fourteen times successively, was repeatedly revived, 
 
142 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 and became a regular stock piece in the theatre. The 
 Double Dealer (November, 1693) was less successful, 
 though the cast was again superb Betterton playing 
 Maskwell; Dogget, Sir Paul Plyant; and Kynaston, 
 Lord Touchwood; while the same actresses, with the 
 exception of Mrs. Bowman, who had no part, lent their 
 powerful services. 
 
 But in spite of the interest aroused by the production 
 of the pieces which I have mentioned, the loss of three 
 actors of the importance of Nokes, Mountfort, and Leigh 
 materially diminished the attractiveness of the theatre; 
 and the proprietors naturally bethought themselves how 
 the deficit which their returns showed could be turned 
 into a profit. Unfortunately, instead of endeavouring to 
 increase the attractions they offered to the public by good 
 new plays and revivals, and by judicious encouragement 
 of their remaining actors, they embraced a penny-wise- 
 and-pound-foolish policy, and tried to reduce their actors' 
 salaries into agreement with the decreased income from 
 the public. This, which ought to have been their last 
 resort, was apparently their first thought, and, with a 
 courage that demands recognition, they struck boldly at 
 the most powerful of their actors. To give some show 
 of justice to their proceedings, they attempted as much 
 as they dared to shelve their oldest and best paid players, 
 and to bring forward in leading parts the younger actors, 
 this, of course, under a pretence that they wished to 
 encourage rising talent. Accordingly, George Powell, 
 young, clever, and presumptuous, was cast for several of 
 Betterton's best parts ; and Mrs. Bracegirdle was offered 
 the chance of supplanting Mrs. Barry if she could. 
 But the patentees' scheme miscarried, for Mrs. Bracegirdle 
 was too wise to interfere with her famous companion's 
 characters, and positively declined to play any part that 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 143 
 
 was the acknowledged property of Mrs. Barry. Even if 
 the younger players had fallen into the scheme of their 
 rulers, the result could not have been good. No con- 
 siderations whatever will reconcile the public to accept 
 an inferior actor in a part for which a better representative 
 is still on the stage ; and such an experiment simply ends 
 in empty benches. 
 
 Another result, which might have been foreseen, was 
 the rousing of the players to measures of self-defence. 
 Betterton brought about a coalition of all the leading 
 actors and actresses, engaging to adhere to one another 
 through all vicissitudes of the fight they were about to 
 wage against the patentees. This coalition seems to 
 have been quite well known to the ruling powers, and 
 they on their side got up an association to support them. 
 An offer of peace made by the actors was scornfully 
 refused by the patentees, who could not conceive that 
 any effective steps could be taken by the rebels so long 
 as the authority of the two patents was in their hands. 
 But herein they reckoned without their host. The feeling 
 of the public was all in favour of the actors, and their 
 cause was espoused by many powerful friends among the 
 nobility. Foremost among these was Sir Robert Howard, 
 a persona grata to the court, and one whose intimate 
 knowledge of theatrical matters entitled him to speak 
 with authority on the subject in dispute.* When the ill- 
 used actors took the formal step of complaining to the 
 Lord Chamberlain, Lord Dorset, who then held that 
 office, seems to have taken Sir Robert Howard into 
 council, and he having declared that he thought the 
 actors' complaints just, the Chamberlain recommended 
 King William to grant their petition. His Majesty, 
 
 * It will be remembered that he was a partner with Killigrew in 
 the erection of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. 
 
144 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 though he took little interest in theatrical matters, was 
 yet curious to see at close quarters such notable artists as 
 Betterton and Mrs. Barry ; and he accordingly granted 
 the seceding actors an audience. The lawyers having 
 pronounced that the previous grants by Charles II., while 
 remaining valid in succeeding reigns, did not disable the 
 king from making further concessions of the same nature, 
 William granted the actors' petition; and on March 25, 
 1695, a license was issued to Thomas Betterton, Elizabeth 
 Barry, Anne Bracegirdle, John Bowman, Joseph Williams, 
 Cave Underhill, Thomas Dogget, William Bowen, Susan 
 Verbruggen, Elizabeth (at first incorrectly said to be 
 Elinor) Leigh, and George Bright, by which they were 
 empowered to perform practically any sort of play at any 
 place they might select. For the company thus licensed 
 a theatre was erected within the walls of the Tennis 
 Court in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as will be related in the 
 following chapter. 
 
 Two leading members of Betterton's company do not 
 appear in this list William Smith and Samuel Sandford. 
 We may assume that, though they preferred to act with 
 their great chief, they were not prepared to undertake 
 any pecuniary responsibility, and so took the position of 
 salaried actors rather than that of sharers in the specu- 
 lation. This view is confirmed by Aston's anecdote of 
 Sandford, of whom he relates that 
 
 "he would not be concern'd with Mr. Betterton, Mrs. 
 Barry, &>c. as a Sharer in the Revolt from Drury-Lane to 
 Lincolris-Inn-Fields ; but said, This is my Agreement. To 
 Samuel Sandford, Gentleman, Threescore Shillings a Week. 
 Pho ! pho ! said Mr. Betterton, Three Pounds a Week. No, 
 no, said Sandford ; To Samuel Sandford, Gentleman, Three- 
 score Shillings a Week. For which Cave Underhill, who 
 was a | Sharer, would often jeer Sandford', saying, Samuel 
 Sandford, Gent, my Man. Go, you Sot, said Sandford. To 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 145 
 
 which t'other ever replied, Samuel Sandjord, my Man 
 Samuel." 
 
 Before leaving this period, one of the few personal 
 incidents regarding Betterton of which we have know- 
 ledge demands notice. This was the loss of all, or 
 nearly all, the money which he had saved, by an unfor- 
 tunate speculation in which he was induced to join a 
 friend, Sir Francis Watson, in 1692. The ship which 
 carried the fortunes of Betterton and his friend was 
 captured in the Channel by the French, and the old 
 actor lost a sum variously stated at two thousand and 
 eight thousand pounds. Probably he was forced also to 
 part with the little farm in Berkshire, regarding which 
 Anthony Aston is our informant. He mentions it in the 
 following anecdote : 
 
 " Mr. Betterton had a small Farm near Reading, in the 
 County of Berks ; and the Countryman came, in the Time of 
 Bartholomew -Fair, to pay his Rent. Mr. Betterton took 
 him to the Fair, and going to one Crawlers Puppet-Shew, 
 offer'd Two Shillings for himself and Roger, his Tenant. 
 No, no, Sir, said Craw ley j we never take Money of one 
 another. This affronted Mr. Betterton who threw down the 
 Money, and they enter'd. Roger was hugeously diverted 
 with Punch, and bred a great Noise, saying, that he would 
 drink with him, for he was a merry Fellow. Mr. Betterton 
 told him, he was only a Puppet, made up of Sticks and Rags : 
 However, Roger still cried out, that he would go and drink 
 with Punch. When Master took him behind, where the 
 Puppets hung up, he swore, he thought Punch had been 
 alive. However, said he, though he be but Sticks and Rags, 
 /'// give him Six-pence to drink my Health. At Night, 
 Mr. Betterton went to the Theatre, when was play'd the 
 ORPHAN ; Mr. Betterton acting Castalio ; Mrs. Barry 
 Monimia. Well (said Master) how dost like this Play, 
 Roger ? Why, I don't knows, (says Roger) its well enought 
 for Sticks and Rags." 
 
146 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON (1695-1705). 
 
 WHILE the struggle between the might of the patentees 
 and the right of the actors was still in progress,* the 
 patentees had endeavoured to bring the chief actors who 
 were of neither party into their interest. These, know- 
 ing how dire the condition of the theatre would be if 
 Betterton and his associates deserted, naturally made 
 good terms for themselves ; and Gibber records that 
 George Powell and Jack Verbruggen, who had previously 
 two pounds per week, insisted on double that amount as 
 the price of their faithfulness to their employers. Other 
 actors' salaries were raised in equal proportion, and 
 Colley himself was advanced from twenty shillings per 
 week to thirty. But the company remaining at the 
 Theatre Royal was a woefully feeble one, and to recruit 
 their weakened forces the patentees brought new actors 
 from the country. Gibber says that they were forced to 
 beat up for volunteers in several distant counties ; which, 
 I suppose, can only mean that the new recruits were 
 strolling players. Among these two notable actors were 
 included : Benjamin Johnson, famous for playing cha- 
 
 * It was prolonged by the death of Queen Mary (on December 
 28, 1694), which, of course, put a stop to all theatrical performances 
 for the time. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 147 
 
 racters in his great namesake's comedies; and William 
 Bullock, a large and vivacious low comedian, full of drol- 
 lery, but much addicted to " gagging." But by far the 
 most valuable recruits whom the Theatre Royal received 
 were presented to it by its opponents. These were Mrs. 
 Mountfort (now Mrs. Verbruggen) and Joseph Williams, 
 who left Betterton's company before having appeared in 
 a single part, and, in fact, before the new theatre had 
 opened. It was a pecuniary dispute that led to their 
 return to their old allegiance. Williams and Mrs. 
 Verbruggen considered themselves entitled to an equal 
 share of the profits with their fellows ; but Betterton and 
 his companions would not agree to this, and the dis- 
 satisfied players seceded. Gibber strongly censures the 
 foolishness of the Lincoln's Inn Fields company, point- 
 ing out that though Williams "loved his bottle better 
 than his business," and though Mrs. Verbruggen was only 
 a comedian, yet they were too good players to be lightly 
 lost. But, indeed, the troubles of Betterton's company 
 seem to have commenced at once, and it is a curious fact 
 that of the eleven players whose names I gave in the 
 last chapter as sharers in the new speculation, only seven 
 appear to have completed the agreement. Williams and 
 Mrs. Verbruggen deserted; Dogget and Bowen appa- 
 rently continued as salaried actors, but not as sharers. 
 
 The patentees naturally were ready to take the field 
 before their rivals had made . all their preparations, and 
 Drury Lane opened on Easter Monday, April, 1695. 
 The first play was a revival of Aphra Behn's Adelazar ; 
 or, The Moor's Revenge, a strong tragedy, adapted from 
 Lusts Dominion. On the first day the house was very 
 full ; but whether the play or the actors did not please, 
 on the second it was empty, and this was the precursor 
 of many similar houses. 
 
148 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Betterton and his comrades were not in a position to 
 begin so quickly as the patentees. They appear to have 
 had some difficulty in raising the funds for their campaign, 
 for Gildon says that their expenses were great, and that 
 " we all know what means they found to make 'em 
 lighter, we know what importuning and dunning the 
 Noblemen there was, what flattering, and what promising 
 there was, till at length the incouragement they received 
 by liberal Contributions set 'em in a condition to go on." 
 Gibber gives the result of these negotiations with their 
 noble patrons. He says that many people of quality 
 voluntarily subscribed forty guineas or twenty guineas for 
 the purpose of erecting a theatre within the walls of the 
 Tennis Court in Lincoln's Inn Fields. By April 30, 1695, 
 all difficulties were surmounted, and on that day the New 
 Playhouse (for so it was always entitled) was opened with 
 the first production of Congreve's Love for Love. 
 
 The site of this theatre has been the subject of some 
 discussion, but it seems to me that we have very clear 
 evidence of its exact situation. I do not know any plan 
 of London on which the theatre is marked during Better- 
 ton's tenancy of it. But we are able to discover its position 
 by a very simple chain of reasoning. Gibber, in chap, 
 xiii. of his Apology ', relates how Christopher Rich, when 
 turned out of Drury Lane by William Collier in November, 
 1709, set about "rebuilding the New Theatre in Lincolns- 
 Inn-Fields, of which he had taken a Lease at a low Rent, 
 ever since Betterton 's Company had first left it ; " that is, 
 in March, 1705. This being so, the identification of 
 Betterton' s theatre is simple, for old maps of London 
 show clearly that Rich's house was situated in Portugal 
 Street, opposite the end of the then unnamed street, now 
 called Carey Street. In George Foster's " New and 
 Exact Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster," 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 149 
 
 published on August 30, 1738, it is marked as "The New 
 Play House" a name which it will be observed Gibber 
 gives Betterton's theatre, and by which Downes also 
 describes it. This title seems to have stuck to it until 
 many years after it was finally closed as a theatre. The 
 site is now occupied by a portion of the museum of the 
 Royal College of Surgeons ; the old building, which had 
 been successively a barrack, an auction-room, and a china 
 repository, being pulled down by the college about 1848. 
 In the prologue, spoken by Betterton on the opening 
 night, the action of the seceders is explained and defended 
 in the following lines : 
 
 " The Husbandman in vain renews his Toil, 
 To cultivate each Year a hungry Soil ; 
 And fondly hopes for rich and generous Fruit, 
 When what should feed the Tree, devours the Root : 
 Th' unladen Boughs, he sees, bode certain Dearth, 
 Unless transplanted to more Kindly Earth. 
 So, the poor Husbands of the Stage, who found 
 Their Labours lost upon ungrateful Ground, 
 This last and only Remedy have prov'd ; 
 And hope new Fruit from ancient Stocks remov'd. 
 Well may they hope, when you so kindly aid, 
 Well plant a Soil, which you so rich have made. 
 As Nature gave the World to Man's first Age, 
 So from your Bounty we receive this Stage ; 
 The Freedom Man was born to, you've restor'd, 
 And to our World such Plenty you afford, 
 It seems, like Eden, fruitful of its own Accord." 
 
 The allusions in the last seven lines to their benefactors 
 of course refer to the noble subscribers to their theatre, 
 whose "appearance in the Boxes," says Gildon, " gave 
 the House as much Advantage as their Contributions." 
 
 The epilogue, delivered by Mrs. Bracegirdle, is of quite 
 exceptional interest, giving as it does an account of the 
 
150 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 theatre in which it was spoken. It has also the remark- 
 able merit of being entirely quotable a rare thing in 
 post-Restoration addresses. 
 
 " Sure Providence at first design'd this Place 
 To be the Player's Refuge in Distress ; 
 For still, in every Storm, they all run hither 
 As to a Shed, that shields them from the Weather. 
 But thinking of, this Change which last befell us, 
 It's like what I have heard our Poets tell us : 
 For when behind our Scenes their Suits are pleading, 
 To help their Love, sometimes they shew their Reading ; 
 And, wanting Ready Cash to pay for Hearts, 
 They top their Learning on us, and their Parts. 
 Once of Philosophers they told us Stories, 
 Whom as I think they called Py-Pythagories, 
 I'm sure 'tis some such Latin Name they give them, 
 And we, who know no better, must believe them. 
 Now to these Men (say they) such Souls were given, 
 That after Death ne'er went to Hell nor Heaven, 
 But liv'd, I know not how, in Beasts ; and then 
 When many Years were past, in Men again. 
 Methinks, we Players resemble such a Soul. 
 That, does from Bodies ; we, from Houses Strole. 
 Thus Aristotle's Soul, of old that was, 
 May now be damn'd to animate an Ass ; 
 Or in this very House, for aught we know, 
 Is doing painful Penance in some Beau : 
 And thus, our Audience, which did once resort ) 
 To shining Theatres, to see our Sport, 
 Now find us toss'd into a Tennis-Court. ) 
 
 These walls but t'other Day were fill'd with Noise 
 Of Roaring Gamesters and your Damme Boys ; 
 Then bounding Balls and Rackets they encornpast ; 
 And now they're filled with Jests, and Flights, and 
 
 Bombast ! 
 
 I vow, I don't much like this Transmigration, ) 
 
 Stroling from Place to Place, and Circulation ; 
 Grant Heaven, we don't return to our first Station ! ) 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 151 
 
 I know not what these think ; but, for my part, ) 
 
 I can't reflect without an aking heart, 
 
 How we should end in, our Original, a Cart. ) 
 
 But we can't fear, since you're so good to save us, 
 
 That you have only set us up, to leave us. 
 
 Thus, from the Past, we hope for future Grace, 
 
 I beg it 
 
 And some here know I have a begging Face. 
 
 Then pray continue this your kind Behaviour ; 
 
 For a clear Stage won't do, without your Favour." 
 
 The seceders were extremely fortunate in their opening 
 play, Congreve's Love for Love, one of the most brilliant 
 of English comedies, and one which afforded splendid 
 opportunities for the actors. A glance at the dramatis 
 persona will show how strong the company was. The 
 illiterate old astrologer, Foresight, was played by Sand- 
 ford ; while the other old man of the play, Sir Sampson 
 Legend, was acted by Cave Underbill. The young men 
 are Valentine, played by Betterton, and Ben, the sailor, 
 whom Dogget acted. Tattle, the half-witted Beau, and 
 Scandal, whose name explains his character, were re- 
 presented by Bowman and Smith. Angelica was Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle ; Mrs. Foresight, Mrs. Bowman ; while Mrs. 
 Frail, whose name is also explanatory, was played by 
 Mrs. Barry; and the country girl, Miss Prue, by Mrs. 
 Ayliff. Regarding the success of this wonderfully witty 
 comedy, Downes chronicles that " being Extraordinarily 
 well Acted, chiefly the Part of Ben the Sailor, it took 
 13 Days successively." Gibber adds that the company 
 had seldom any occasion to play any other piece during 
 the whole of that season ; which we may take to mean 
 that they alternated Love for Love with their regular 
 stock plays, such as Hamlet ', The Old Bachelor, etc., and 
 did not require to rely on other new pieces. Gildon, 
 too, adds his testimony to the extraordinary success of 
 
152 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Love for Love. In his Comparison between the Two 
 Stages he has the following : 
 
 '''Ramble. You know the New-house opened .with an 
 extraordinary good Comedy [Love for Love\ the like has 
 scarce been heard of. 
 
 Critick. I allow that Play contributed not a little to their 
 Reputation and Profit ; it was the Work of a popular Author ; 
 but that was not all, the Town was ingag'd in its favour, and 
 in favour of the Actors long before the Play was Acted. 
 
 Sullen. The good Humour those Noble Patrons were in, 
 gave that Comedy such infinite Applause ; and what the 
 Quality approve, the lower sort take upon trust." 
 
 Love for Love was written before the secession of 
 Betterton and his companions, and was designed for 
 Drury Lane. Indeed, so far had matters progressed, that 
 the play had been read and accepted by the patentees. 
 But before all the necessary arrangements were made the 
 revolt began, and Congreve wisely delayed coming to 
 any definite conclusion until he should see how it ended. 
 When the patentees were left destitute of good actors, 
 the author naturally declined to let his play be experi- 
 mented on by raw recruits, and gave it to the actors for 
 whom it had been originally designed. To this he alludes 
 in the last three lines of the prologue 
 
 " And should th' ensuing scenes not chance to hit, 
 He offers this his one excuse 'twas writ 
 Before your late Encouragement of Wit." 
 
 Gibber says that, in consideration of Congreve's pro- 
 mising to give the company one new play each year, if 
 his health permitted, the actors gave him a whole share 
 in the profits of the theatre. There is no reason to 
 doubt Gibber's statement, which is confirmed by Downes ; 
 but we have no information regarding the exact terms of 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 153 
 
 the agreement or the length of its duration. It may be 
 questioned if, after the first year or so, a share in the 
 company was worth anything : at any rate, Congreve did 
 not fulfil the agreement, if he made it, to supply a play 
 annually. The Mourning Bride was not produced till 
 1697, between two and three years after Love for Love; 
 and The Way of the World did not see the light till 
 early in the year 1700. 
 
 We have now seen both companies fairly launched , 
 though in very different trim. The overpowering supe- 
 riority of Betterton's company at first made Drury Lane 
 a desert ; but in a surprisingly short time the younger 
 actors began to hold their own fairly well against their 
 old and experienced rivals. Various causes contributed 
 to this curious result. One of the chief strengths of the 
 Drury Lane company lay in the excellence of some of 
 the new plays which they produced. In 1696 Southerne's 
 admirable play of Oroonoko was a great success. George 
 Powell was originally intended to play the hero, but the 
 Marquis of Halifax, who was Lord Chamberlain, ordered the 
 part to be taken from him and given to Jack Verbruggen, 
 saying that " Jack was the unpolished hero, and would do 
 it best." This strikes us as a strange exertion of the 
 Chamberlain's authority; but his Grace was artistically 
 correct, and Jack played Oroonoko perfectly. Anthony 
 Aston, in a very quaint passage, says he was Oroonoko. 
 Describing his natural and powerful style, Anthony says, 
 " And you may best conceive his manly, wild Starts, by 
 these words in Oroonoko, Ha ! thou hast rous'd the 
 Lyon \in\ his Den ; he stalks abroad, and the wild Forest 
 trembles at his Roar : Which was spoke, like a Lyon, 
 by Oroonoko, and Jack Verbruggen ; for Nature was so 
 predominant, that his second Thoughts never alter'd his 
 prime Performance." Imoinda was played by Mrs. 
 
154 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Rogers, a beautiful and fascinating actress, and Chariot 
 Weldon by the mainstay of the company, Mrs. Verbruggen. 
 She was very loth to accept this character, in which it is 
 necessary to assume male attire ; but she was ultimately 
 prevailed upon to play it, and so lent her valuable aid 
 to a piece which was one of the most popular plays ever 
 produced, and continued on the acting list almost up to 
 the present time. 
 
 Vanbrugh, too, was a powerful contributor to the 
 success of Drury Lane. His comedy of The Relapse: 
 or. Virtue in Danger^ which was written as a sequel to 
 Colley Gibber's Love's Last Shift, was enormously superior 
 to the piece which suggested it, and takes rank as one 
 of the very best of English comedies. Lord Foppington 
 was acted by Colley Gibber, prince of fops and coxcombs, 
 then in the first brilliancy of his success as an actor, and 
 contributed vastly to the reputation both of author and 
 player. The comedy of sEsop, by the same dramatist, 
 was also a great success, to which Colley Gibber's ex- 
 cellent acting of the title-part materially contributed. 
 By this time the Drury Lane company had risen much 
 higher in public estimation, and the cast of this particular 
 comedy is by no means conspicuously weak. Dogget, 
 who had deserted Betterton's company, as will be re- 
 lated further on, played Learchus, father of Euphronia, 
 whom he wishes to marry vEsop ; and Mrs. Verbruggen 
 was the representative of Doris, nurse to Euphronia. 
 Among the characters who come to consult ^sop, Pin- 
 kethman played the ist Tradesman, Quaint, and Sir 
 Polidorus Hogstye ; and Haynes acted Roger, in which 
 he was so good that Anthony Aston declared that nobody 
 but Joe ever touched the character. 
 
 To the value of these three plays to the company 
 The Comparison between the Two Stages bears em- 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 155 
 
 phatic testimony, saying, " Oroonoko, &sop, and Relapse 
 are Master-pieces, and subsisted Drury-lane House, the 
 first two or three years." Nor must it be forgotten, to 
 Colley Gibber's credit, that his first play, Love's Last Shift ; 
 or, The Fool in Fashion (1696), was one of the earliest 
 gleams of good fortune that brightened the path of his 
 fellow-players. Against these successes the older actors 
 could only reckon two really notable plays Vanbrugh's 
 Provoked Wife, in which Betterton acted the boisterous 
 part of Sir John Brute, and Congreve's Mourning Bride, 
 in which he played Osmyn. 
 
 But the greatest advantage which the ,I)rury Lane 
 company enjoyed was the superior order enforced by 
 the governing powers. Among their rivals everybody 
 was a captain, and nobody a private soldier. Some little 
 deference might be paid to Betterton's superior age and 
 genius; but the association was a commonwealth, and 
 every man was as good as his neighbour. On the other 
 hand, at Drury Lane the actors were ruled with a rod of 
 iron by the patentees, or rather by the active intriguer 
 who had by this time contrived to obtain a practical 
 monopoly of the power of the patent, Christopher Rich. 
 
 This extraordinary personage had been a lawyer. 
 How he became possessed of his share in the patent is 
 thus stated by himself in a letter written to the Lord Cham- 
 berlain in 1705 : "I am a purchaser under the Patents, 
 to above the value of two Thousand Pounds (a great 
 part of which was under the Marriage-Settlements of Dr. 
 Davenant)" The date of the assignation of Davenant's 
 share of the patent to Rich was March 24, 1691, and 
 from that time the new-comer seems to have exercised 
 an overwhelming power in the management of the theatre, 
 although his share in it was comparatively small, being 
 in point of fact a trifle more than one-sixth. Charles 
 
156 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Killigrew, it is shown in the legal " Opinion " of Northey 
 and Raymond in 1711, retained three-twentieths of the 
 patent. The remaining seventeen- twentieths were divided 
 into tenths, of which Rich possessed two ; his exact share 
 being thus seventeen one-hundredths. How he came 
 to exercise the preponderating influence he did in the 
 management of the theatre is a mystery, the solution of 
 which may perhaps be found in his strength of will, and 
 freedom from anything resembling scruples or over-nicety 
 of conscience. 
 
 But if Drury Lane suffered from too much manage- 
 ment, Lincoln's Inn Fields, as has already been noted, 
 had no management at all. The tragedians and come- 
 dians quarrelled as to the relative values of their particular 
 departments ; the tragic actors pluming themselves on the 
 superior elevation of their cast of character; the come- 
 dians vaunting the greater naturalness of comedy, and 
 declaring that tragedy was absurd, because nobody ever 
 spoke as tragedy demanded since the world was. This 
 dispute took practical shape when a new play was 
 produced. The comedians were up in arms immediately 
 against the cost of the plumes and trappings of tragedy ; ' 
 the tragedians were indignant that a mere fop should be 
 dressed more expensively than Alexander the Great or 
 Solyman the Magnificent. Dogget was the ringleader of 
 the comedians. His recent success in Ben the Sailor 
 (Love for Love} made him more aggressive, and when he 
 found that his complaints produced no effect, he deserted 
 Betterton and returned to the service of the patentees at 
 Drury Lane. In connection with this secession a curious 
 document exists among the records of the Lord Cham- 
 berlain's office. It is dated October 26, 1696, and recites 
 how both companies were in the habit of seducing actors 
 from their rivals, Dogget having been tempted away from 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 157 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Verbruggen induced to desert 
 the patentees. The Lord Chamberlain orders Ver- 
 bruggen to return to Drury Lane at once, and to remain 
 there till January i, 1697, after which he can act where 
 he chooses. Dogget, curiously enough, was not interfered 
 with, but allowed to remain at Drury Lane. 
 
 So scandalous did the irregularities of the Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields company become that the Lord Chamberlain was 
 at last forced to interfere. On November n, 1700, he 
 issued an edict, commanding Betterton to take upon him- 
 self the sole management of the company, there having 
 been great disorders for want of a sufficient authority to 
 keep the actors to their duty. That the Lord Chamber- 
 lain's interference was not unnecessary is proved by the 
 description which a dramatic author, David Craufurd, 
 gives of the treatment he received from the Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields actors in this same year, 1700. Craufurd wrote 
 a play, Courtship-a-la-Mode, which he submitted to the 
 older actors, but withdrew from them, and gave to their 
 younger rivals in Drury Lane. His reason for doing this 
 is thus stated in his prefacq^-^ jrf 
 
 "It was enter'd in the other House, where Mr. Betterton 
 did me all the justice I 'could indeed reasonably hope for. 
 But that example he gave, was not it seems to be follow'd by 
 the whole company, since 'tis known that Mr. Bowman (I 
 mention his name to keep the reflection from other sharers) 
 kept the first character of my play six weeks, and then cou'd 
 hardly read six lines on't. How far that way of management 
 makes of late for the interest and honour of that House, is 
 easie to be judg'd. Some who valu'd their reputations more, 
 were indeed rarely or never absent. To these I gave my 
 thanks ; but finding that six or seven people cou'd not perform 
 what was design'd for fifteen, I was oblig'd to remove it after 
 so many sham rehearsals, and in two days it got footing upon 
 the other stage. Where 'twas immediately cast to the best , 
 advantage, and plaid in less than twenty days.' 
 
158 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 But while the rival companies were doing their best 
 to ruin each other, a thunderbolt was forging which, when 
 launched, shook the theatre to its foundations. Congreve 
 and Vanbrugh were now the chief supports of the stage, 
 and the principal purveyors of indecency, and on them the 
 bolt fell with crushing effect. A Non-juring clergyman 
 was the Jove whose hand delivered the blow. Jeremy 
 Collier, whose name stank in the nostrils of all theatrical 
 people in his own day, but whom we now esteem as one 
 of the most valuable of theatrical reformers, was born in 
 1650. He graduated at Caius College, was appointed 
 Rector of Ampton in 1679, and Lecturer at Gray's Inn 
 in 1685. He was a vehement Loyalist, and at the 
 Revolution in 1688 not only refused the oaths, but made 
 himself conspicuous by his advocacy of the exiled king. 
 Being an honest, earnest man, he ran his neck into danger 
 by his writings against William, was twice imprisoned, and 
 at last outlawed. He had the courage to attend to the 
 scaffold Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins, who 
 were executed in 1696 for plotting against the life of 
 King William, and to give them absolution just before 
 their death. From the penalties attaching to such con- 
 duct he was relieved by the king, who, in consideration 
 of the good done by his attack on immorality, pardoned 
 him for his political offences. Collier's thunderbolt was 
 entitled, A Short View of the Immorality and Profane- 
 ness of the English Stage: Together with the Sense of 
 Antiquity upon this Argument. It is an octavo volume 
 of some three hundred pages, and was published in 
 March, 1698. 
 
 Jeremy was a born controversialist, and he plunged 
 into the fight with characteristic ardour. "Being con- 
 vinced," he began his preface, " that nothing has gone 
 further in Debauching the Age than the Stage-Poets and 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 159 
 
 Play-House, I thought I could not employ my Time 
 better than by writing against them." He divides his 
 work into six chapters. The first attacks the immodesty 
 of the stage, and seeks to prove that not only is the 
 indecency of the theatre in his time altogether shame- 
 ful, but that it is worse than at any previous time, 
 either ancient or modern. In his second chapter Collier 
 deals with the profaneness of the stage, under three 
 heads cursing and swearing, abuse of religion and 
 Scripture, and "downright blasphemy." His third 
 chapter treats of the abuse showered upon the clergy 
 by the dramatists ; a topic which he discusses with much 
 vehemence, for to Collier, as a High Churchman, the 
 person and office of priest are sacred. In the fourth 
 chapter the crying vice of Restoration comedy is attacked 
 that the hero is a vicious hero, and that he is always 
 rewarded, instead of punished, at the end of the play 
 and Collier ends this division of his work by rebuking 
 " the improper Conduct of the Stage with respect to 
 Poetry and Ceremony." He goes on in his fifth chapter 
 to examine critically Dryden's plays of Amphitryon and 
 King Arthur, Tom Durfey's Don Quixote, and Vanbrugh's 
 Relapse ; and in chapter sixth, and last, he marshals a 
 formidable array of authorities against stage performances 
 rallying to his banner the heathen philosophers, orators, 
 and historians ; the Constitutions of Athens, Sparta, and 
 Rome ; the Primitive Church, the Councils, and the 
 Fathers. 
 
 This tremendous indictment, of course, elicited nume- 
 rous replies. The greatest poet attacked, John Dryden, 
 made no formal answer, thus practically confessing that 
 he acknowledged the general justice of Collier's stric- 
 tures ; but Congreve and Vanbrugh published pamphlets 
 in their own defence. Neither of them made any de- 
 
160 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 fence worth considering; as Gibber says, Congreve 
 seemed too much hurt to be able to defend himself, 
 while Vanbrugh felt Collier's attack so little that his wit 
 only laughed at it. Tom Durfey, Gildon, Motteux, and 
 Tom Brown were the other dramatists who published 
 their abuse of Collier; while John Dennis, the critic, 
 argued at considerable length The Usefulness of the Stage 
 to the Happiness of Mankind, to Government, and to 
 Religion. To his chief assailants the redoubtable Jeremy 
 published crushing replies ; and to Dennis's argument he 
 made as neat an answer as could be desired. He says 
 that Dennis does not deny that lewdness is promoted by 
 the stage, and, he adds, "this is, I suppose, the main 
 reason of his saying that the Play-house contributes so 
 much to the happiness of the nation." * 
 
 But the most interesting expression of opinion by the 
 assailed dramatists was that of Dryden, who took the 
 opportunity of referring to Collier's attack, in the preface 
 to his Fables, published in folio in 1700. There is a 
 dignity and honesty about the great poet's recantation 
 which cannot fail to impress us. He writes 
 
 " I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many 
 Things he has tax'd me justly ; and I have pleaded Guilty 
 to all Thoughts and Expressions of mine, which can be truly 
 argu'd of Obscenity, Profaneness, or Immorality; and retract 
 them. If he be my Enemy, let him triumph ; if he be my 
 Friend, as I have given him no Personal Occasion to be 
 otherwise, he will be glad of my Repentance. It becomes 
 me not to draw my Pen in the Defence of a bad Cause, 
 when I have so often drawn it for a good one." 
 
 * Those who are curious to learn fuller details regarding this 
 controversy will find a complete list of the various publications 
 in my Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature 
 (1888) ; while Mr. Gosse's Life of Congreve (1888) will be found to 
 contain an altogether admirable account of the whole controversy 
 and its literature. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 161 
 
 In a previous passage of the same preface, Dryden 
 explains that he has endeavoured to select such fables 
 as contain some intrinsic moral ; and he adds 
 
 " I wish I could affirm with a safe Conscience, that I had 
 taken the same Care in all my former Writings ; for it must 
 be own'd, that supposing Verses are never so beautiful or 
 pleasing, yet if they contain anything which shocks Religion, 
 or Good Manners, they are at best, what Horace says of 
 good Numbers without good sense, Versus mopes rerum, 
 nugceque canorce" 
 
 Strangely enough, one of the much-abused profession 
 was converted by Collier's fulminations, if we may believe 
 the following very curious paragraph which appeared in 
 the Post-Boy newspaper : " We hear that Mr. Bowen, 
 the late famous comedian at the New Play-house, being 
 convinced by Mr. Collier's book against the stage, and 
 satisfied that a shopkeeper's life was the readiest way to 
 heaven of the two, opens a cane shop, next door "to the 
 King's Head Tavern, in Middle Row, Holborn, where 
 it is not questioned but all manner of canes, toys, and 
 other curiosities, will be obtained at reasonable rates." 
 Poor Bowen, however, returned to the stage, and met 
 his death in a theatrical quarrel in 1718. 
 
 The result of Collier's attack was more striking than 
 even he himself could have anticipated. An immediate 
 improvement in decency took place, and it might almost 
 be said that a distinct line of demarcation can be drawn 
 between the morals of plays before 1698 and after that 
 year. One manifestation of the change in manners was 
 a somewhat unpleasant experience for the actors. By 
 an old statute of James I., a penalty of ten pounds was 
 imposed upon any actor using the name of the Deity 
 on the stage in a jesting or profane manner. A religious 
 society, calling itself the " Society for the Reformation 
 
1 62 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 of Manners," encouraged, no doubt, by the reception 
 accorded to Collier's attack, hired informers, who placed 
 themselves in different parts of the theatre and noted 
 down any profane expression used on the stage. Infor- 
 mations were then laid against the actors, and in some 
 cases the offenders were convicted and fined. The 
 Comparison between the Two Stages informs us that 
 Betterton, Ben Johnson, and Mrs. Bracegirdle were the 
 objects of one such attack ; and adds that Betterton and 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle were fined, while Johnson was acquitted. 
 Ultimately, Queen Anne, conscious that these informers 
 were actuated by no love of morality, but simply by a 
 desire for money, put a stop to the rascally business. 
 
 But if, as has been frankly allowed, Collier's exposure 
 of the vices of the stage was wholly praiseworthy in its 
 effects on virtue and morality, it seems equally certain 
 that to the plays and authors of the time it was simply 
 disastrous. In the three years immediately succeeding 
 1698, the notable new plays produced may be numbered 
 on the fingers of one hand. The dramatists were 
 ashamed, perhaps afraid, to write in their old dissolute 
 style, and they had not learned a new one. To the 
 effect of Collier's attack on authors and actors Dryden 
 alludes in an address " To Mr. Granville, on his Excel- 
 lent Tragedy, called Heroic Love." 
 
 "... thy blooming age 
 Can best, if any can, support the stage ; 
 Which so declines, that shortly we may see 
 Players and plays reduced to second infancy : 
 Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown, 
 
 ( They plot not on the stage, but on the town, 
 
 N And, in despair their empty pit to fill, 
 Set up some foreign monster in a bill. 
 Thus they jog on still tricking, never thriving, 
 And murdering plays, which they miscall reviving. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 163 
 
 Our sense is nonsense, through their pipes conveyed ; 
 
 Scarce can a poet know the play he made, 
 
 'Tis so disguised in death ; nor thinks 'tis he 
 
 That suffers in the mangled tragedy. 
 
 Thus Itys first was killed, and after dressed 
 
 For his own sire, the chief invited guest. 
 
 I say not this of thy successful scenes, 
 
 Where thine was all the glory, theirs the gains. 
 
 With length of time, much judgment, and more toil, 
 
 Not ill they acted, what they could not spoil. 
 
 Their setting sun still shoots a glimmering ray, 
 
 Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay ; 
 
 And better gleanings their worn soil can boast 
 
 Than the crab-vintage of the neighbouring coast." 
 
 There are several allusions of great interest in this 
 address, giving as they do Dryden's criticisms on the 
 position and conduct of the contemporary stage. Thus 
 the lines 
 
 " And, in despair their empty pit to fill, 
 Set up some foreign monster in a bill " - 
 
 point at a blot by which Betterton's management, as 
 well as that of Rich, was disfigured the employment of 
 foreign dancers and posture-makers. Downes says 
 
 " In the space of Ten Years past, Mr. Betterto?i to gratify 
 the Desires and Fancies of the Nobility and Gentry ; pro- 
 cur'd from Abroad the best Dancers and Singers, as Mon- 
 sieur LlAbbe, Madam Sublini, Monsieur Baton, Margarita 
 Delpine, Maria Gallia and divers others ; who being 
 Exorbitantly Expensive, produc'd small Profit to him and 
 his Company, but vast Gain to themselves : Madam Delpine 
 since her arrival in England, by Modest Computation ; 
 having got by the Stage and Gentry, above 10,000 Guineas." 
 
 Naturally the poets were up in arms against this 
 sacrifice of sense to dumb-show and noise, and Rowe, 
 
>n, i 
 
 '" ( 
 le. ) 
 
 164 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 in the epilogue to his Ambitious Stepmother, produced 
 at Lincoln's Inn Fields, writes 
 
 " 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 Harlaquin ? " 
 
 In addition to this allusion to the shows and fripperies 
 which disfigured the stage, Dry den's prologue is interest- 
 ing for its reference to the capabilities of the rival 
 companies. The Drury Lane actors took to themselves 
 the accusation of" murdering plays ; " and Powell, in the 
 preface to the Fatal Discovery, retaliated on Dryden in 
 the following fashion : 
 
 " But, for the most mortal stroke against us, he charges 
 us with downright Murdering of Plays, which we miscall 
 Reviving. I will not derogate from the merit of those Senior 
 Actors of both Sexes, at the other House, that shine in their 
 several Perfections, in whose lavish Praises he is so highly 
 transported ; But at the same time, he makes himself but an 
 arbitrary judge on our side, to condemn unheard, and that 
 under no less a conviction than Murder ; when I cannot 
 learn (for a fair judgment upon us) that his Reverend 
 Crutches have ever brought him within our doors since the 
 division of the Companies." 
 
 No doubt Powell and his companions were highly 
 indignant also at Dryden's allusion to the " crab-vintage 
 of the neighbouring coast." Indeed, the rivalry between 
 the two houses seems to have been conducted at this 
 time with the utmost bitterness. Witness the following 
 
 " Prologue, Spoke by Mr. Powell, in answer to a scurri- 
 lous one, spoke 'against him,* at Bettertorts Booth in 
 Little- Lincolri s-Inn- Fields. 
 
 _\ * This was, no doubt, the prologue to Mrs. Fix's Deceiver Deceived, 
 in which Powell was roundly abused, though not by name, for 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 165 
 
 As when a nauseous Vizor in the Pit, 
 Grossly abuses, without sense or wit. 
 All justifie her merited disgrace, \ 
 
 If they unvail the grievance of the place, j 
 And show the drab in her own ugly face. ' 
 So, Gentlemen, we hope for your excuse, 
 If in return for a dam'd-dull abuse, 
 We pluck the Vizor off from t'other house : 
 And let you see their natural grimmaces 
 Affecting youth with pale autumnal faces. 
 Wou'd it not any Ladies anger move 
 To see a child of sixty-five make love ? 
 Oh ! my Statira I Oh, my angry dear, \Grunting like B. 
 Lord, what a dismal sound wou'd that make here ! 
 
 \Speaking like a Christian. 
 
 Now you must know, I've heard some people say, 
 Should this House fail, where do you think to play ? 
 Why thus, in short, my answer I declare, 
 If we must be o'ercome, I will take care 
 Never to be their Prisoner of War : 
 Nor tug an oar at the New Theatre." 
 
 The allusion to the veteran Betterton as "a child of 
 sixty-five " is in the worst possible taste, but it is difficult 
 to refrain from smiling at the description of the opposing 
 theatre as " Betterton's Booth in Little-Lincoln's-Inn- 
 Fields," or at the distinction drawn in the stage-directions 
 between " grunting like Betterton," and " speaking like a 
 Christian." 
 
 I have already said that the notable plays produced 
 during the years immediately following 1698 were few in 
 number. At Drury Lane no play of any importance was i 
 produced in 1698; in 1699 one author only earned 
 distinction. This was Farquhar, two of whose comedies 
 were first played in that year. These were Love and a 
 
 stealing the plot of this play, which had been submitted to him, 
 and using it in his. 
 
166 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 Bottle, and the famous comedy,. The Constant Couple; or, 
 A Trip to the Jubilee, which, bitterly criticized as it was 
 by Gildon, who declared that it was only calculated to 
 amuse Footmen, was so successful that the author got 
 three benefits during its run. It was excellently cast, 
 and the following list of the dramatis persona will show 
 that the younger comedians were no longer a despicable 
 crew, and that they deserved the commendation which 
 Farquhar gave them in his preface. "The beauties of 
 action/' he wrote, " gave the greatest life to the play, of 
 which the town is so sensible, that all will join with me 
 in commendation of the actors, and allow (without de- 
 tracting from the merit of others) that the Theatre-Royal 
 affords an excellent and complete set of comedians." 
 These comedians were: Sir Harry Wildair, Wilks ; 
 Beau Clincher, Pinkethman ; Colonel Standard, Powell ; 
 Alderman Smuggler, Johnson ; Clincher, Junior, Bullock ; 
 Vizard, Mills ; Dicky, Norris ; Tom Errand, Haines ; 
 Angelica, Mrs. Rogers ; Lady Darling, Mrs. Powell ; 
 Parly, Mrs. Moor ; Lady Lurewell, Mrs. Verbruggen. 
 
 Two reputations were confirmed by this play. Wilks 
 played his part so well, that Farquhar declared in the 
 preface that when the stage had the misfortune to lose 
 Wilks, Sir Harry Wildair might go to the Jubilee ; and 
 Norris was so diverting as Dicky, that he was actually 
 called by the name of " Jubilee Dicky " in many play- 
 bills after this time. 
 
 Motteux was responsible for a mutilation of Fletcher's 
 Island Princess, which he turned into an opera. This 
 was produced at Drury Lane, apparently in the summer 
 of 1699, and was successful only by reason of the 
 meretricious attractions foisted on the original play. In 
 a poem printed in Poems on Affairs of State, vol. iv. 
 PP. 348-365, entitled "The Grove; or, The Rival 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 167 
 
 Muses" (1701), there are some lines referring to this 
 play, which also contain a curious slash in passing at 
 Farquhar's Constant Couple. They are 
 
 " Motteux and Durfey are for nothing fit, 
 But to supply with Songs their want of Wit. 
 Had not the Island Princess been adorn'd, 
 With Tunes, and pompous Scenes, she had been scorn'd. 
 What was not Fletcher's, no more Sense contains, 
 Than he that wrote \hzjubilee, has Brains ; 
 Which ne'er had pleas'd the Town, or purchas'd Fame, 
 But that 'twas christ'ned with a modish Name." 
 
 In 1700, with the exception of The Secular Masque, 
 which Dryden wrote for the purpose of tacking to the 
 end of Fletcher's Pilgrim, no new work of any value was 
 produced ; but the season was notable for Gibber's 
 alteration vi Richard III., which, though full of villainous 
 clap-traps, mixed metaphors, and unmitigated nonsense, 
 was so skilfully adapted for stage effect, that it has held 
 the field until the present day. Farquhar's sequel to his 
 Constant Couple, which he called Sir Harry Wildair, 
 was the most notable play produced at Drury Lane in 
 1701 ; and I allude to another piece, Mrs. Trotter's 
 tragedy of The Unhappy Penitent, only for the purpose 
 of mentioning that from the prologue we gather that 
 another union between the competing companies was 
 already the subject of debate. The lines to which I refer 
 are 
 
 " But now the peaceful tattle of the town 
 Is how to join both houses into one." 
 
 At Lincoln's Inn Fields no remarkable play saw the < 
 light in 1698, for Granville's Heroic Love, in spite of 
 Dryden's eulogy already quoted, is a very unnatural and 
 absurd production, in which Homer's great Greeks are 
 made sighing sentimentalists of approved romantic 
 
168 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 pattern. Fancy Agamemnon raving about Chryseis in 
 this fashion ! 
 
 " Empire and victory, be all forsaken, 
 
 All but Chruseis Yes, ye partial Powers ! 
 
 To Plagues add Poverty, Disgrace, and Shame ; 
 
 Strip me of all my Dignities and Crowns, 
 
 Not one of all your curses will be felt 
 
 Whilst I can keep this blessing. Take, oh ! take 
 
 Your scepters back, and give 'em to my foes ; 
 
 Give me but Life, and Love, and my Chruseis, 
 
 'Tis all I ask of Heaven." 
 
 Downes declares that Heroic Love was " Superlatively 
 Writ ; a very good Tragedy, well Acted, and mightily 
 pleas'd the Court and City." It was certainly cast with 
 the full strength of the company. Betterton played 
 Agamemnon ; Verbruggen, Achilles ; Sandford, Ulysses ; 
 Kynaston, Chryses ; and the female characters Chryseis 
 and Briseis were sustained by Mrs. Barry and Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle. 
 
 Another classical tragedy was the most noteworthy 
 play of the next season (1699); but it had not even the 
 accidental merit of being a popular success. This was 
 Iphigenia^ a dull production by John Dennis, founded on 
 the Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides. Downes con- 
 siders that it was a good play, which is more than 
 questionable, and states that it was well acted, which is 
 no doubt correct, since Betterton played Orestes ; Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle, Iphigenia ; and Mrs. Barry, the Queen of 
 the Scythians, whom Orestes marries (according to 
 Dennis). This travesty met with its due reward, for 
 " it answer'd not the Expences they were at in Cloath- 
 ing it." 
 
 At the end of this season, or the beginning of the next, 
 the first part of Shakespeare's Henry IV. was revived, 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 169 
 
 with alterations for which, it is supposed, Betterton was 
 responsible. In this play the actor materially increased 
 his reputation by his acting of Falstaff. Genest quotes 
 Malone, who states, on the authority of a contemporary, 
 that the wits of all qualities had been highly entertained 
 with the humours of Sir John Falstaff in Henry IV., 
 which had drawn greater audiences than any recent new 
 play. /'The critics, he adds, pronounced that Betterton 
 was thfc best Falstaff that had been seen in that genera- 
 tion. ) Hotspur was played by Verbruggen, whom Better- 
 ton, now nearly three score years and ten, must have 
 found great difficulty in hoisting on his shoulders in the 
 last act. Mrs. Bowman played Katherine Percy, and the 
 Hostess was acted by Mrs. Leigh. Encouraged by the suc- 
 cess of this play, Betterton shortly afterwards revived the 
 second part, again playing Falstaff. In connection with 
 this character old Chetwood tells a story which shows 
 Betterton in a delightful light. There was, it seems, a 
 master-pavior in Dublin named Baker, who was an ex- 
 cellent actor of Falstaff. Ben Johnson, the comedian, 
 saw him play, and being greatly struck by his imper- 
 sonation, "when he return'd to England, he gave Mr. 
 Betterton the manner of Baker's playing Falstaff, which 
 the great actor not only approv'd of, but imitated, and 
 allowed the manner was better than his own." 
 
 Measure for Measure was another revival in this season. 
 It was mutilated, by Gildon it is said, and into it four 
 musical entertainments were introduced, to enable the 
 intelligent audience to sit out Shakespeare's play. Better- 
 ton acted the part of Angelo, two of whose speeches are 
 so funny as to justify quotation. At the end of the first 
 act Isabella asks Angelo, " At what hour shall I attend 
 you, sir?" and he answers, " Soon as the Opera is over;" 
 and in the next act he says 
 
i yo THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 "Consider on it, and at ten this evening, 
 If you'll comply, you'll meet me at the Opera? 
 
 Betterton's next Shakespearian or pseudo-Shakespearian 
 character was Bassanio in the alteration of The Merchant 
 of Venice, named The Jew of Venice. George Granville, 
 Lord Lansdowne Pope's "Granville the polite" was 
 one of those superior gentlemen who condescended to 
 patronize Shakespeare, as being a sort of rude inspired 
 creature who only wanted a little polishing to be a 
 tolerable dramatist. In his preface to this play, Gran- 
 ville begins by apologizing for his choice of a subject, 
 " The Foundation of the following Comedy being liable 
 to some Objections, it may be wonder'd that any one 
 should make Choice of it to bestow so much Labour 
 upon ; " and he winds up by explaining how much he 
 has improved on Shakespeare, " What other Alterations 
 have been requisite as to the change of Words, or single 
 Lines, the Conduct of Incidents, and Method of Action 
 throughout the whole Piece, to bring it into the Form 
 and Compass of a Play, would be superfluous to examine, 
 every Reader being able to satisfy himself, if he thinks 
 fit, by comparing." 
 
 The changes which this scribbling lord made on the 
 play were mainly in the direction 'of giving importance 
 to Betterton's part. Bassanio, for instance, speaks 
 Lorenzo's beautiful lines on music, a propos of a masque 
 of Peleus and Thetis which is dragged into the second 
 act ; he has also some of Gratiano's lines ; he is made by 
 far the most prominent character in the trial-scene ; 
 and he speaks the "tag" to the play. In the trial-scene 
 he carries himself like a proper tragedy-hero, and raves 
 around in fine style 
 
 " Stand off ! I have a word in his behalf, 
 Since even more than in his Avarice, 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 171 
 
 In Cruelty this Jew's insatiable ; 
 Here stand I for my friend. Body for Body, 
 To endure the Torture : But one pound of flesh 
 Is due from him : Take every piece of mine, 
 And tear it off with Pincers : whatever way 
 Invention may contrive to torture man, 
 Practise on me : Let but my Friend go safe, 
 Thy cruelty is limited on him ; 
 Unbounded let it loose on me : Say, Jew, 
 Here's Interest upon Interest in Flesh ; 
 Will that content you ? " 
 
 In the last act, too, Shakespeare makes very little fuss 
 over Portia's supposed meeting with the learned Doctor 
 to whom Bassanio had given her ring. A loose speech 
 of three lines from Gratiano, and then Portia explains 
 the mystery. But Granville would have no such trifling 
 with a fine opportunity. If Shakespeare did not know 
 a good chance when he saw it, Granville was not so 
 stupid. So Bassanio has a speech to tear a cat in 
 
 " And can it be ? That by the secret workings 
 Of Mystick words, and spells, and dire compounds, 
 Potions and invocations horrible, 
 Nature can be so led ? What then is Virtue ? 
 And what security has Love or Reason 
 Thus subjected to every Hell-born Hagg, 
 Who, by such Conjurations can dis-join 
 United Hearts ? uniting the Averse ! 
 How, wretched Man ! how can'st thou boast free Will? 
 If this in very deed be true. I'll not suppos't 
 But then that Ring ! How could she have it : 'tis Witch- 
 craft ! 
 
 Damn'd, damn'd Witchcraft : And I will fathom Hell, ' 
 But I will find a Fiend shall counter-work 
 The Devil that has done this ! " 
 
 Another of Granville's ''improvements" is the degra- 
 dation of Shylock into a comedy part by the introduction 
 
172 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 of colloquialisms and familiar phrases. Shylock, too, as 
 is well known, was acted by the famous comedian, 
 Dogget, who returned to Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1701, and 
 who played Shylock as a comedy character which view 
 was taken of it on the stage until, fortyj"years later, Mack- 
 lin's grim savagery was accepted as the true rendering 
 of the " Jew, that Shakespeare drew." How far Dogget 
 made Shylock comic it is impossible to say. It may be 
 assumed with certainty that he did not make him the 
 low-comedy Jew, such as the stage-Houndsditch pro- 
 duces, but it seems clear that he played the part comic- 
 ally. No other interpretation is possible of Downes's 
 description of the actor : "He is the only Comick 
 Original now Extant : witness, Ben, Solon, Nikin, The 
 Jew of Venice, &c." 
 
 Rowe's plays, The Ambitious Stepmother (1700), Tamer- 
 lane (1702), The Fair Penitent (1703), and The Biter 
 (1704-5), afforded Betterton a series of excellent cha- 
 racters Memnon, an old general who is a friend to 
 Artaxerxes ; Tamerlane himself; Horatio, the virtuous 
 hero of The Fair Penitent ; and Sir Timothy Tallapoy, 
 an old East India merchant, the sworn foe of all " Biters " 
 that is, practical jokers. Dr. Johnson is very con- 
 temptuous to The Biter, and declares that Rowe was a 
 failure as a comedy-writer ; but I agree with old Genest 
 thoroughly in his commendation of this piece. It is a 
 brisk bustling farce, with an amusing plot, good humor- 
 ous characters, and fairly bright dialogue. Johnson tells 
 the story of Rowe's sitting in the theatre laughing 
 vehemently at his own jokes while no one else smiled ; 
 but the anecdote lacks confirmation, for the piece ran six 
 nights, and it is difficult to imagine that any audience 
 should have been so depressed by a brisk farce as to sit 
 so mumchance as the story implies. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 173 
 
 The run of the excellent tragedy, The Fair Penitent, was 
 interrupted by a ludicrous accident, which is related by 
 Chetwood. In the fifth act the body of Lothario lies on 
 a bier in all the solemnity of stage appurtenances of woe. 
 Of course, the actor who plays Lothario does not officiate 
 as his corpse, but a "dresser" supplies his place. On 
 this occasion Powell, who had joined Betterton's company, 
 was the Lothario, and his dresser, Warren by name, lay 
 in state on the bier, decked out in the coat and periwig 
 of the deceased, and plastered with white powder to 
 represent the hue of death. Powell, forgetting the 
 situation of his man, and requiring his services, shouted 
 loudly for him, and Warren as loudly replied, " Here, 
 sir ! " from the stage. Powell then roared, " Come here 
 
 this moment, you , or I'll break all the bones in your 
 
 skin ! " and Warren, knowing that his irascible master 
 would in all likelihood do his best to keep his promise, 
 jumped up with all his sables round him, which unfortu- 
 nately were tied fast to the handles of the bier. The 
 audience, of course, roared with laughter, and Warren, 
 growing desperate, dragged the bier after him, knocked 
 down Mrs. Barry, who played Calista, and, with a final 
 frantic effort, burst his bonds and rushed off the stage. 
 The curtain fell amid " immoderate fits of laughter ; even 
 the grave Mr. Betterton ' Smil'd in the Tumult, and 
 enjoy'd the Storm.' " But he withdrew the tragedy until 
 the memory of Warren's escapade had faded somewhat 
 from the popular mind. 
 
 Betterton, who in 1705 reached the three score years 
 and ten allotted to man, had had more than enough of 
 the cares of management. His physical powers were 
 affected by his great age and by the pains of gout to 
 which he was a martyr. So early as 1701 we meet with 
 an allusion to his failing strength, in Tom Brown's 
 
i/4 THOMAS BETTER TON. 
 
 Letters from the Dead. In the " Letter of News from 
 Mr. Joseph Haines, of Merry Memory," which is dated 
 December 21, 1701, the question is asked, "And pray, 
 sir, how doth Mr. Betterton's lungs hold out ? " Anthony 
 Aston, too, tells us that he was " in his latter Time a 
 little paralytic." In 1698 Dryden writes of Betterton 
 and his companions 
 
 " Their setting sun still shoots a glimmering ray, 
 Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay." 
 
 And Downes, whose chronicle stops at 1706, writes 
 with genuine affection and admiration of his, great idol, 
 " The first and now only remain of the old Stock, of the 
 Company of Sir William Davenant in Lincolns-Inn- 
 Fields; he like an old Stately Spreading Oak now 
 stands fixt, Environ' d round with brave Young Growing, 
 Flourishing Plants." 
 
 Had the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre been a success, 
 it is probable that even his infirmities might not have 
 caused Betterton to resign. But, after various fluctuations 
 of fortune, the star of Drury Lane was in the ascendant. 
 Even so early as 1700 the younger company had gained 
 great popularity, for in that year we find Betterton, in 
 the prologue to Gildon's Measure for Measure, complain- 
 ing almost pathetically of the public desertion. The 
 lines are 
 
 " To please this Winter, we all meanes have us'd ; 
 Old playes have been reviv'd, and New produc'd ; 
 But you, it seems, by US, wou'd not be serv'd ; 
 And others thrive, while we were almost starv'd. 
 Our House you daily shun'd, yet theirs you cram'd, 
 And flock'd to see the very plays you damn'd. 
 In vain you prais'd our Action, and our Wit ; 
 The best applause is in a crowded Pit." 
 
 Farqnhar, too, in the prologue which he furnished for 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 175 
 
 Craufurd's Courtship-a-la-Modc (1700), exults in the 
 failures of the Lincoln's Inn Fields company in the 
 following ill-natured lines 
 
 " Custom makes modern wives break marriage vows, 
 And Custom damns most plays at t'other house." 
 
 The disorders and irregularities which had always dis- 
 figured the. management of the old actors did not, as 
 may be easily understood, decrease as years went on. 
 Barton Booth frequently talked to Colley Gibber of the 
 troubles of Betterton's last years of leadership, of which 
 the old man often complained to Booth, then a young 
 actor full of sympathy for the great chief whom he adored , 
 and of whom he said, " Divinity hung round that man." 
 
 To add to their other troubles, the older company 
 laboured under the disadvantage of playing in a small 
 theatre ; the building in which they acted having been 
 originally a tennis court of the lesser size a court 
 carrie, as it is called. To obviate this disadvantage, a 
 project was formed of building for them a magnificent 
 new theatre in the Haymarket. Sir John Vanbrugh was 
 the originator of the idea, and he succeeded in getting 
 thirty persons of quality to subscribe one hundred 
 guineas each to aid the undertaking. Gibber saw the 
 first stone laid, which bore the inscription, " The Little 
 Whig," in honour of the great toast of the Whig party, 
 Lady Sunderland. The building was ready for occupation 
 in April, 1705 ; and on March 31 of that year the old 
 actors played for the last time in Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 The occasion was the benefit of Cave Underbill, and the 
 play was ShadwelFs capital comedy, The Virtuoso. This 
 was the last day of Betterton's career as a manager, for 
 before the new theatre opened he transferred such 
 authority as he had to Vanbrugh, and was henceforth 
 onlv a salaried actor. 
 
176 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON (1705-1710). 
 
 THE history of Vanbrugh and his theatre no longer 
 belongs to our subject, the era of Colley Gibber having 
 begun; and all that is left for us to do is to mention 
 the principal characters undertaken by Betterton in his 
 few remaining years. Several parts in famous plays 
 were among these, such as Melantius in The Maid's 
 Tragedy, Morose in The Silent Woman, Dominic in The 
 Spanish Friar, and Leontius in The Humorous Lieutenant. 
 Among his original characters there were none of great 
 importance, the best being probably Don Alvarez in 
 Vanbrugh's comedy of The Mistake. His last original 
 part was apparently Virginius, in John Dennis's tragedy 
 of Appius and Virginia. This piece was not a success, 
 but it has contributed a proverbial saying to our language. 
 Dennis invented for this play a new method of producing 
 stage-thunder, and some nights after the withdrawal of 
 the unsuccessful tragedy he, being in the pit, heard his 
 thunder used in Macbeth. He at once arose in a violent 
 passion, exclaiming, " See how these rascals use me ; 
 they won't let my play run, and yet they steal my 
 thunder ! " 
 
 Among the Shakespearian characters which the great 
 player acted in his last years were King Lear, Macbeth, 
 
THOMAS JBETTERTON. 177 
 
 <7~ 
 
 Othello, Henry VIII., Falstaff, and Hamlet. He played 
 
 Hamlet on Tuesday, September 20, 1709, and, though, 
 nearly seventy-five years old, he gave a perfect represen- 
 tation of the Young Prince of Denmark. Fortunately, a 
 record of this very performance has been preserved for 
 us in the pages of the Tatler, which shows the wonderful 
 inspiration of the veteran player. 
 
 " I was going on in reading my Letter," writes Steele, 
 " when I was interrupted by Mr. Greenhat, who has been 
 this evening at the play of Hamlet. Mr. Bickerstaff, said he, 
 had you been to-night at the play-house, you had seen the 
 force of action in perfection : /your admired Mr. Betterton 
 behaved himself so well, that, though now about seventy, he 
 acted youth, and by the prevalent power of proper manner, 
 gesture, and voice, appeared through the whole drama a 
 youth of great expectation, vivacity, and enterprise. The 
 soliloquy, where he began the celebrated sentence of ' To be, 
 or not to be ' the expostulation, where he explains with his 
 mother in her closet, the noble ardour, after seeing his 
 father's ghost, and his generous distress for the death of 
 Ophelia, are each of them circumstances which dwell strongly 
 upon the minds of the audience." 
 
 Even Anthony Aston, writing professedly to point out 
 defects which Gibber had not indicated, praises Betterton's 
 Hamlet even when he seems to dispraise him. 
 
 " I have often wish'd," says Anthony, " that Mr. Betterton 
 would have resign'd the part of HAMLET to some young 
 Actor, (who might have Personated, though not have Acted, 
 it better), for, when he threw himself at Ophelicts Feet, he 
 appear'd a little too grave for a young Student, lately come 
 from the University of Wirtemberg ; and his Repartees 
 seem'd rather as Apophthegms from a sage Philosopher, than 
 the sporting Flashes of a Young HAMLET ; and no one else 
 could have pleas'd the Town, he was so rooted in their 
 Opinion." 
 
 Nicholas Rowe, too, who can only have seen Betterton 
 
 N 
 
178 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 in his later years, has recorded his high opinion of the 
 actor's genius. 
 
 " I cannot leave Hamlet," he writes, " without taking notice 
 of the advantage with which we have seen this masterpiece 
 of Shakspeare distinguish itself upon the stage, by Mr. 
 Betterton's fine performance of that part. A man, who, 
 though he had no other good qualities, as he has a great 
 many, must have made his way into the esteem of all men 
 of letters, by this only excellency. No man is better 
 acquainted with Shakspeare's manner of expression, and 
 indeed he has studied him so well, and is so much a master 
 of him, that whatever part of his he performs, he does it as 
 if it had been written on purpose for him, and that the author 
 had exactly conceived it as he plays it." 
 
 And in another place Rowe records Betterton's enthu- 
 siasm for everything connected with our great dramatist, 
 acknowledging that he was indebted for most of the 
 facts contained in his Life of Shakespeare to Better- 
 ton, who, in his old age, made a special pilgrimage to 
 Stratford-on-Avon to glean information regarding the 
 poet's life. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say that in these later years 
 Betterton acted comparatively seldom. We have actual 
 figures regarding his appearances in 1708-9, which 
 show that he played only sixteen times in the season of 
 twenty-two weeks and three days. We learn this from a 
 curious advertisement published in defence of Christopher 
 Rich, with whom his actors were quarrelling ; and from 
 it we learn also that Betterton's salary w& four pounds a 
 week ! But this did not represent his entire earnings ; 
 for he received one pound a week as a sort of pension to 
 his wife, who no longer acted ; he got from his benefit 
 "at common prices," 76 4^. $d. ; and his drawings 
 from presents and special tickets at his benefit were 
 computed at an additional four hundred and fifty pounds ! 
 
THOMAS BETTER TON. 
 
 179 
 
 This last amount was a very large and very unusual sum 
 to ' be yielded by a benefit, and must not be taken as an 
 ordinary annual receipt from this source. In fact, it was 
 probably an unprecedented amount, and one that has 
 seldom been approached since. This famous benefit 
 took place at Drury Lane on April 7, 1709, and was 
 announced as " By the desire of several Persons of 
 Quality, for Betterton's Benefit." The play was .^ 
 Congreve's Love for Love, and three great players who 
 were not members of the company came to support their 
 honoured comrade. Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Bracegirdle 
 had retired from the stage, but both returned for this 
 night to play their famous characters of Angelica and 
 Mrs. Frail; while Dogget, who was not engaged at 
 Drury Lane, appeared in the character of Ben, which he 
 had made peculiarly his own. Betterton himself played 
 Valentine. The first number of the Tatter describes the 
 crowd and the excitement on this famous occasion 
 
 " On Thursday last was acted for the benefit of Mr. Bet- 
 terton, the celebrated comedy called Love for Love. Those 
 excellent players, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and Mr. 
 Dogget, though not at present concerned in the house, acted 
 on that occasion. There has not been known so great a con- 
 course of persons of distinction ; the stage itself was covered 
 with gentlemen and ladies, and when the curtain was drawn, 
 there appeared also a very splendid audience. This unusual 
 encouragement, which was given to a play for the advantage 
 of so great an actor, gives an undeniable instance that the 
 true relish for manly entertainment and rational pleasures 
 is not wholly lost. All the parts were acted to perfection, 
 and there seemed a peculiar regard had to their behaviour on 
 this occasion ; no one was guilty of the affectation to insert 
 witticisms of his own, but a due respect had to the audience, 
 for encouraging this accomplished player. It is not now 
 doubted but plays will revive, and take their usual place in 
 the opinion of persons of wit and merit, notwithstanding 
 
i8o THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 their late apostacy in favour of dress and sound. This place 
 is very much altered since Mr. Dryden frequented it. ... 
 But however the company is altered, all have shown a great 
 respect for Mr. Betterton; and the very gaming part of this 
 house ... in this gentleman have pitied Mark Antony of 
 Rome, Hamlet of Denmark, Mithridates of Pontus, Theo- 
 dosius of Greece, and Henry the Eighth of England. It is 
 well known he has been in the condition of each of those 
 illustrious personages for several hours together, and behaved 
 himself in those high stations, in all the changes of the 
 scene, with suitable dignity. For these reasons we intend to 
 repeat this late favour to him on a proper occasion, lest he 
 who can instruct us so well in personating feigned sorrows 
 may not be lost to us by suffering under real ones." 
 
 Steele having shown us the artistic and intellectual 
 side of this great benefit, let us turn to the advertisement 
 before alluded to for the prosaic and pecuniary side. It 
 reads 
 
 "Note, that Mr. Betterton having had 76/. 4^. ^d. as 
 above mentioned, for two-thirds of the profits by a benefit 
 play, reckoning his tickets for the boxes at 5^. a piece, the 
 pit at 3^., the first gallery at 2^., and the upper gallery at i s. 
 But the boxes, pit, and stage, laid together on his day, and 
 no person admitted but by his tickets, the lowest at half a 
 guinea a ticket ; nay he had much more, for one lady gave 
 him ten guineas, some five guineas, some two guineas, and 
 most one guinea, supposing that he designed not to act any 
 more, and he delivered tickets out for more persons than the 
 boxes, pit, and stage could hold ; it is thought he cleared at 
 least 45o/., over and besides the 76/. 4s. 5</." 
 
 The epilogue spoken on this occasion was written by 
 Rowe, and was delivered by Mrs. Barry under conditions 
 of unusual interest, for Betterton himself stood in the 
 centre, supported on one hand by Mrs. Barry, and on the 
 other by Mrs. Bracegirdle. The scene must have been 
 supremely affecting, and it is not difficult to imagine that 
 at certain passages both actors and audience were deeply 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 181 
 
 moved. The epilogue is of sufficient interest to justify 
 quotation. 
 
 " As some brave knight, who once with spear and shield, 
 Had sought renown in many a well-fought field, 
 But now no more with sacred fame inspir'd, 
 Has to a peaceful hermitage retir'd ; 
 There, if by chance disastrous tales he hears, 
 Of matrons' wrongs and captive virgins' tears, 
 He feels soft Pity urge his gen'fous breast, 
 And vows once more to succour the distress'd. 
 Buckled in mail he sallies on the plain, 
 And turns him to the feats of arms again. 
 So we to former Leagues of Friendship true, 
 Have bid once more our peaceful homes adieu 
 To aid Old THOMAS, and to pleasure you. 
 Like Errant Damsels boldly we engage, 
 Arm'd, as you see, for the defenceless stage. 
 Time was when this good man no help did lack, 
 And scorn'd that any She should hold his back. 
 But now, so Age and Frailty have ordain'd, 
 By two at once he's forced to be sustain'd. 
 You see, what failing Nature brings man to, 
 And yet let none insult, for ought we know, 
 She may not wear so well with some of you : 
 Tho' old, you find his strength is not clean past, 
 But true as steel, he's mettle to the last. 
 If better he perform'd in days of yore, 
 Yet now he gives you all that's in his pow'r ; 
 What can the youngest of you all do more ? 
 What he has been, though present praise be dumb, 
 Shall haply be a Theme in times to come, 
 As now we talk of RosciUS, and of Rome. 
 Had you with-held your favours on this night, 
 Old Shakespear's Ghost had ris'n to do him right. 
 With indignation had you seen him frown 
 Upon a worthless, witless, tasteless Town ; 
 Griev'd and repining you had heard him say, \ 
 Why are the Muses' Labours cast away ? 
 Why did I only write what only he could play ? ) 
 
182 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 But since, like friends to wit, thus throng' d you meet, 
 Go on. and make the generous work complete ; 
 Be true to merit, and still own his cause, 
 Find something for him more than bare applause. 
 In just remembrance of your pleasures past, 
 Be kind, and give him a discharge at last ; 
 In peace and ease life's remnant let him wear, 
 And hang his consecrated buskin here." 
 
 Another year passed away, and the old actor's benefit 
 again came round. The Tatler warmly recommended 
 the veteran's claims,* and a great audience that filled the 
 huge theatre in the Haymarket again was drawn together. 
 But Betterton was suddenly seized with gout, and 
 although by violent remedies he so far recovered as to 
 play Melantius with such fire and spirit as to arouse more 
 than usual enthusiasm, he did not recover from the 
 attack. The consequence of tampering with the disease 
 was that the gout flew into his head and killed him. He 
 died April 28, 1710, and on May 2 his body was laid in 
 Westminster Abbey, in the east cloister, at the south end. 
 
 Mrs. Betterton survived her husband, and, as Steele 
 states, was so distressed at his death that she lost her 
 reason. She appears to have been of a thoughtful and 
 melancholy temper, being in that respect a complete 
 contrast to Betterton himself, who was cheerful and 
 sanguine in temperament. Mrs. Betterton had retired 
 from the stage about 1695. Of her powers as an actress 
 Gibber gives a very favourable account. He says 
 
 * "Mr. Bickerstaff, in consideration of his ancient friendship 
 and acquaintance with Mr. Betterton, and great esteem for his 
 merits, summons all his Disciples, whether dead or living, mad or 
 tame, Toasts, Smarts, Dappers, Pretty Fellows, Musicians or 
 Scrapers, to make their appearance at the Playhouse in the Hay- 
 Market, on Thursday next ; when there will be a play acted for the 
 Benefit of the said Mr. Betterton" (Tatler, No. 157, April II, 
 1710). 
 
THOMAS BETTERTOtt. 183 
 
 " Mrs. Betterton, tho* far advanc'd in years, was so great 
 a Mistress of Nature that even Mrs. Barry, who acted the 
 Lady Macbeth after her, could not in that Part, with all her 
 superior Strength and Melody of Voice, throw out those 
 quick and careless Strokes of Terror from the Disorder of a 
 guilty Mind, which the other gave us with a Facility in her 
 Manner that render'd them at once tremendous and delightful. 
 Time could not impair her Skill, tho' he had brought her 
 Person to decay. She was, to the last, the Admiration of all 
 true Judges of Nature and Lovers of Shakespear, in whose 
 Plays she chiefly excell'd, and without a Rival. When she 
 quitted the Stage several good Actresses were the better for 
 her Instruction. She was a Woman of an unblemish'd and 
 sober life, and had the Honour to teach Queen Anne, when 
 Princess, the Part of Semandra in Mithridates, which she 
 acted at Court in King Charles's time. After the Death of 
 Mr. Betterton, her Husband, that Princess, when Queen, 
 order'd her a Pension for Life, but she liv'd not to receive 
 more than the first half Year of it." 
 
 In this last statement Gibber is probably inaccurate, 
 unless, indeed, the pension were not granted immediately 
 on Betterton's death ; for his widow survived him two 
 years. Before her death ^she must have recovered her 
 reason, for she made a will on March 10, 1712, by which 
 she bequeathed to her sister, Mrs. Mary Head, the sum 
 of twenty pounds, and to her residuary legatee, Mrs. 
 Frances Williamson, her husband's portrait. There are 
 several other legacies among them twenty shillings each 
 for rings to Mrs. Bracegirdle, Wilks, Dogget, and Mrs. 
 Anne Betterton. The will was proved in the following 
 month. The bequests were payable " out of the arrears 
 of that pension which her Majesty had been graciously 
 pleased to grant her," so that we may assume that Mrs. 
 Betterton was by no means in prosperous circumstances. 
 She received a benefit at Drury Lane on June 4, 1711, 
 when The Man of Mode was played " at the particular 
 
1 84 THOMAS BETTER TON. 
 
 Desire of several Ladies of Quality, for the Benefit of the 
 Widow of the late Famous Tragedian, Mr. Betterton" 
 Mrs. Betterton's death occurred in April, 1712, and on 
 the 1 3th of that month she was laid beside her husband 
 in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 There is little to add to this record of Thomas 
 Betterton's career. He was above all an earnest artist, 
 whose life was in his work, and beyond that work there 
 is 'little to tell. I have, therefore, only to add a few 
 personal particulars, to fill in a few touches to complete 
 my picture of this great actor. 
 
 With his face we are all familiar, thanks to that 
 beautiful portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, which has been 
 so often reproduced. It is impossible to look at him 
 without being impressed by the dignity and sweetness of 
 his mien, the intelligence of his eye, and the expressive- 
 ness of his lips. Anthony Aston, who is nothing if not 
 critical, tells us that Betterton was " a little pock-fretten ; " 
 he also states that he had a large head, and a short thick 
 neck ; but, he adds, " his aspect was serious, venerable, 
 and majestic." In figure he was strong and athletic, not 
 much above the middle height, and rather " inclining to 
 the corpulent;" yet, " however formed, there arose from 
 the harmony of the whole a commanding mien of majesty, 
 which the fairer-faced or (as Shakespear calls 'em) the 
 curled darlings of his time ever wanted something to be 
 equal masters of." 
 
 Betterton's voice, like his person, was manly rather 
 than sweet ; a voice of more strength than melody ; better 
 adapted to give effect to the rage and jealousy of Othello 
 than the sighs and tenderness of Castalio. Such is 
 Gibber's account; and Aston writes to much the same 
 effect, though he does not put it quite so pleasantly. 
 "His voice," says Anthony, "was low and grumbling; 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 185 
 
 yet he could tune it by an artful climax, which enforced 
 universal attention even from the Fops and Orange- 
 Girls " which we may take as the highest compliment 
 that could be paid to an actor. How Betterton used his 
 voice Gibber tells us with honest enthusiasm : " I never 
 heard a line in tragedy come from Betterton wherein my 
 judgment, my ear, and my imagination were not fully 
 satisfied ; which, since his time, I cannot equally say of 
 any one actor whatsoever." But not only in tragedy did 
 Betterton excel. In comedy, says Gibber, " he had a 
 natural gravity that gave strength to good sense, a 
 tempered spirit that gave life to wit, and a dry reserve in 
 his smile that threw ridicule into its brightest colours." 
 And we have no reason to think Gibber's admiration 
 extravagant or over-acted ; for Anthony Aston winds up 
 his carping description of the great actor with sentences 
 as cordial and appreciative as any of honest Colley's : " If 
 I was to write of him all day, I should remember fresh 
 matter in his behalf; " and " To end with this Phoenix of 
 the Stage, I must say of him, as Hamlet does of his 
 father, ' He was a man (take him for all in all) I cannot 
 look upon his like again.' " 
 
 In disposition and in character Betterton appears to 
 have been as lovable as he was admirable in art. How 
 delightfully amiable a picture of the great actor is given 
 by Davies in the story of Gibber's first salary ! 
 
 " Mr. Richard Cross," he writes, "late prompter of Drury- 
 lane theatre, gave me the following history of Colley Gibber's 
 first establishment as a hired actor. He was known only, 
 for some years, by the name of Master Colley. After waiting 
 impatiently a long time for the prompter's notice, by good 
 fortune he obtained the honour of carrying a message on the 
 stage, in some play, to Betterton. Whatever was the cause, 
 Master Colley was so terrified, that the scene was discon- 
 certed by him. Betterton asked, in some anger, who the 
 
186 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 young fellow was that had committed the blunder. Downes 
 replied, ' Master Colley.' ' Master Colley ! then forfeit him.' 
 * Why, sir,' said the prompter, ' he has no salary.'' No ! ' 
 said the old man ; ' why then put him down ten shillings a 
 week, and forfeit him 5 j.' " 
 
 Nor was Betterton's amiability confined to the lighter 
 affairs of life, for we have knowledge of one action at 
 least of the highest magnanimity. He was engaged by 
 one of his friends, Sir Francis Watson, in a trading 
 adventure to the West Indies. As has been already 
 mentioned, the adventure miscarried, and the savings of 
 many years of hard work were lost. But the friend who 
 had persuaded Betterton to join in the speculation was 
 utterly ruined, and the revenge of the old actor was 
 to adopt the daughter of his friend as his own child, 
 to educate and train her, until she was old enough to 
 earn her living on the stage, and to marry John Bowman, 
 a noted singer and an intelligent actor. 
 
 If such was the great mind of the man, it is not sur- 
 prising that he won the love and admiration of his fellow- 
 actors; that he numbered among his friends such men 
 as Archbishop Tillotson, John Dryden, and Sir Richard 
 Steele ; and that, in his old age, he inspired the youthful 
 Pope with an enthusiastic regard for him.* To the 
 respect and esteem with which he inspired Steele we 
 owe that beautiful Tatler which records for us Betterton's 
 funeral, and with a quotation from which I close this 
 attempt to picture a great player, who demands our 
 admiration for his genius as an actor as well as our 
 respect for his blameless life. 
 
 * Pope painted a portrait of Betterton, which is still to be seen 
 in the Earl of Mansfield's collection at Caen House. He also pub- 
 lished a modernization of some of Chaucer's poems in Betterton's 
 name, though they were, no doubt, the poet's own productions. ; 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 187 
 
 " Having received notice that the famous actor, Mr. 
 Betterton, was to be interred this evening in the cloisters, 
 near Westminster-abbey, I was resolved to walk thither, and 
 see the last office done to a man whom I always very much 
 admired, and from whose action I had received more strong 
 impressions of what is great and noble in human nature, than 
 from the arguments of the most solid philosophers, or the 
 descriptions of the most charming poets I had ever read. . . . 
 While I walked in the cloisters, I thought of him with the 
 same concern as if I waited for the remains of a person who 
 had in real life done all that I had seen him represent. ^-THe 
 gloom of the place, and faint lights before the ceremony 
 appeared, contributed to the melancholy disposition I was 
 in ; and I began to be extremely afflicted, that Brutus and 
 Cassius had any difference, that Hotspur's gallantry was so 
 unfortunate, and that the mirth and good humour of Falstaff 
 could not exempt him from the grave. Nay, this occasion 
 in me, who look upon the distinctions amongst men to be 
 merely scenical, raised reflections upon the emptiness of all 
 human perfection and greatness in general, and I could not 
 but regret, that the sacred heads which lie buried in the 
 neighbourhood of this little portion of earth in which my 
 poor old friend is deposited, are returned to dust as well as 
 he, and that there is no difference in the grave between the 
 imaginary and the real monarch. This made me say of 
 human life itself with Macbeth 
 
 " ' To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
 Creeps in a stealing pace from day to day, 
 To the last moment of recorded time ! 
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 To their eternal night ! Out, out, short candle ! 
 Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, 
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
 And then is heard no more.' " 
 
188 THOMAS BETTERTON. 
 
 CHARACTERS PLAYED BY BETTERTON, 
 
 In addition to those mentioned in text (see Genest, ii. 458). 
 
 1 66 1. Solyman in Siege of Rhodes (ist and 2nd parts); 
 Pallatine the Elder in Wits ; Alvaro in Love and 
 Honour. 
 
 1 663. *Don Henrique in Adventures of Five Hours ; *Iberio 
 
 in Slighted Maid '; *Filamor in Step-Mother. 
 
 1664. *Philander in Rivals ; *Owen Tudor in Henry V. 
 
 (Orrery). 
 
 1665. * Solyman in Mustapha. 
 1667. *Cambyses. 
 
 1671. *Ladislaus in Juliana ; *Art in Mr. Anthony. 
 
 1672. *Bevil in Epsom Wells; *Alcippus in Forced Mar- 
 
 riage. 
 
 1673. *Townlove in Morning Ramble ; *Crimalhaz in 
 
 Empress of Morocco. 
 
 1676. *Don John in Libertine-, * Solyman in Ibrahim:, 
 
 *Lord Bellamour in Madam Fickle-, *Sylvano in 
 Pastor Fido. 
 
 1677. *Orontes in Siege of Babylon-, *Abdelazar. 
 
 1678. *Achilles in Destruction of Troy; *Wittmore in 
 
 Sir Patient Fancy ; *Welfofd in Squire Oldsapp ; 
 *Vitelli in Counterfeits. 
 
 1679. *Galliard in Feigned Courtesans. 
 
 1680. Theocrin in Loyal General; *Lorenzo in Loving 
 
 Enemies. 
 
 1 68 1. * Gloucester in Henry VI., Part I. (by Crown) ; * War- 
 
 wick in 2nd part ; *Tom Wilding in City Heiress ; 
 *Nemours in Princess of Cleve. 
 
 1682. *Piercy in Virtue Betrayed. 
 
 1683. Arbaces in King and no King. 
 
 1684. *Crispus in Constantine ; *Beaugard in Atheist; 
 
 *Alphonso in Disappointment. 
 
 1688. *Rheusanes in Injured Lovers. 
 
 1689. * Bellamy in Bury Fair. 
 
 1690. * Admiral of France in Massacre of Parts. 
 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 189 
 
 1691. *King Arthur ; Sir Ralph in Merry Devil of Ed- 
 
 monton. 
 
 1692. *Gunderic in Rape ; *Regulus ; *Henry II. 
 
 1696. * Cyrus ; *Railmore in Lovers a Jest ; *Woodvil in 
 
 Country Wake i *Bellamour in She Gallants-, *Bel- 
 lair in Lover's Luck ; *Osman in Royal Mischief. 
 
 1697. *Grammont in Unnatural Brother; *Cassibelan in 
 
 Boadicea ; *Sanserre in Intrigues at Versailles ; 
 *Sir Charles Beauclair in Innocent Mistress. 
 
 1698. *Owen Tudor in Queen Catherine; *Vincentio in 
 
 Beatify in Distress ; *Gramont in Fatal Friendship ; 
 *Bondi in Deceiver Deceived. 
 
 1699. *Artabanus in Xerxes ; *Rinaldo ; *Doria in Princess 
 
 of Parma; *Zoilus in Friendship Improved; 
 * Orestes in iphigenia. 
 
 1700. *Fainall in Way of the World; *Virginius in Fate of 
 
 Capua. 
 
 1701. *Courtine in Ladies' Visiting Day ; *Rhesus in Love's 
 
 Victim. 
 
 1702. *Clorimon in Altemira. 
 
 1703. *Iopano in Governor of Cyprtts. 
 
 1703-4. *Mahomet IV. in Abra-AIule; *Miramont in 
 
 Liberty Asserted; Antony in All for Love; 
 
 *Lovewell in Squire Trelooby. 
 '1704-5. *Lovewell in Gamester. 
 1705-6. * Ulysses ; *Marus in Faithful General ; *Arwide 
 
 in Revolution of Sweden; *Coelius in British 
 
 Enchanters. 
 1706-7. *Beamont in Platonic Lady; *Almanzor in Al- 
 
 myna; Montezuma in Indian Emperor; Antonio 
 
 in Adventures of Five Hours; * Theseus in 
 
 Phcedra. 
 
 1708. Emperor in A urenge-Zebe ; Mithridates. 
 1708-9. Thersites in Troilus (Dryden). 
 
 Betterton probably played * Manly in Plain Dealer and 
 Bellamy in Evening's Love. 
 
 * Originally played by Betterton. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Allen, William (actor), 3 
 Angel, (actor), 62, 77 
 Aston, Anthony, 95, 115, 130, 144, 
 I45> !53> 154, 174, 177, 184, 185 
 Ayliff, Mrs. (actress), 151 
 
 Banister, John (musician), 118, 134 
 Barry, Mrs. Elizabeth, 56, 87, 119, 
 
 122, 132, 133, 141, 142, 144, 
 
 151, 1 68, 179 
 
 Baxter, Richard (actor), 78 
 Beeston, (actor), 13, 101, 102 
 
 , William (manager), 62 
 
 Betterton, Frances (mother of 
 
 Thomas), 57 
 , Mrs. Mary (wife of Thomas), 
 
 56, 82, 83, 87, 89, 91, 92, 94, 96, 
 
 119, 123, 182, 183. Sec also 
 
 Saunderson, Mrs. 
 , Matthew (father of Thomas), 
 
 57 
 
 , THOMAS, 2, 12, 47, 59, 77 ; 
 
 his high character, 56 ; his birth, 
 
 57 ; apprenticed to a bookseller, 
 
 58 ; himself probably abookseller, 
 58 ; joins Rhodes's company, 61 ; 
 his immediate excellence as an 
 actor, 6 1 ; meets Pepys, 61 ; be- 
 
 comes a member of Davenant's 
 company, 72 ; contrasted with 
 Harris, 74 ; sued by Sir H. 
 Herbert, for offending against his 
 privileges, 76 ; marries Mrs. 
 Saunderson, 83 ; his excellence 
 as Hamlet, 85 ; his acting admired 
 by Pepys, Downes, and Gibber, 97 
 has a serious illness, 104 ; is asso- 
 ciated with Dr. Charles Davenant 
 in the management of the theatre, 
 108; invents new stage machines, 
 113; aids Otway with money, 
 1 20 ; helps in arranging the Union 
 of 1682, 126 ; his excellence as 
 Brutus, 129 ; as Othello, 130 ; his 
 dramatic productions, 131 ; in- 
 vents the machines for Dryden's 
 Albion ana Albanius, 133 ; great 
 compliment paid to him by Dry- 
 den, 137; his excellence in 
 Alexander the Great (Rival 
 Queens], 140; instance of his 
 modesty, 141 ; heads a coalition 
 against the patentees in 1694, 
 143 ; receives a license from the 
 king, 144 ; loses his fortune, 
 145 ; anecdote of him and a 
 
192 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 countryman, 145 ; opens the 
 New Play House in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, 149 ; dissensions in his 
 company, 156; appointed sole 
 manager at Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 157 ; fined for using a profane 
 expression, 162 ; foreign dancers 
 and singers engaged by him, 163 ; 
 attacked from the Drury Lane 
 stage, 164 ; does an adaptation of 
 Henry IV., 168 ; plays Falstaff 
 with great success, 169 ; his 
 strength begins to fail, 173 ; his 
 troubles as manager, 175 ; his ex- 
 cellence in Hamlet in his old age, 
 177 ; his famous benefit in I79 
 179 ; his last benefit (1710), 182 ; 
 his death and burial, 182 ; his per- 
 sonal appearance, 184; his powers 
 as an actor, 184 ; his disposition 
 and character, 185 ; his magna- 
 nimity, 1 86 ; his friendships, 186 ; 
 Steele's tribute to his memory, 
 187 
 
 Principal characters played by 
 Betterton : 
 
 yEcius, 132 ; Agamemnon, 168; 
 Alcibiades, 121 ; Alexander the 
 Great, 140 ; Alphonso, 141 ; 
 Angelo, 169 ; Antony {Antony 
 and Cleopatra by Sedley), 123 ; 
 Archas, 61 ; Bassanio (Gran- 
 ville'sy^ of Venice), 170; Beau- 
 gard, 122 ; Belville, 123 ; Bosola, 
 94; Brisac, 96; Brutus, 129; 
 Caesar Borgia, 122; Caius Marius, 
 122; Castalio, 122; Charles VIII., 
 114; Cleomenes, 141; Colonel I 
 Jolly, 94 ; Deflores, 61 ; Do- 
 minic, 176; Don Alvarez, 176; ' 
 
 Dorax, 137 ; Dorimant, 123 ; the 
 Double Dealer, 141, 142 ; Duke 
 of Guise, 132; Falstaff, 169, 
 177; Gayman, 135; Goodvile, 
 121 ; Hamlet, 85, 177 ; Henry 
 VIII., 91, 177; Horatio (Fair 
 Penitent}, 172 ; Hotspur, 129 ; 
 Jaffier, 122 ; Jupiter, 138 ; Lear, 
 92, 176 ; Lear (Tate's King 
 Lear], 123 ; Leontius, 176 ; Lord 
 Beauford, 96 ; Lovemore, 131 ; 
 Lucius Junius Brutus, 122 ; Mac- 
 beth, 92, 176 ; Marullo, 61 ; 
 . Melantius, 176; Memnon, 6l, 
 172; Mercutio, 89; Michael 
 Perez, 129; Morose, 176; CEdi- 
 pus, 123 ; the Old Bachelor, 141 ; 
 Orestes, 119; Osmyn, 155; 
 Othello, 129, 177; Pericles, 61 ; 
 Philip II., 121 ; Prince Alvaro, 
 93; Richard I II. (Caiyll's ;///>/* 
 Princess), 104 ; Sir John Brute, 
 155; Sir Solomon Single, ic8 ; 
 Sir Timothy Tallapoy, 172; Sir 
 Toby jBelch, 88 ; Tamerlane, 
 172; Timon, 123 ; Titus, 121; 
 Torrismond, 123 ; Troilus, 123; 
 Valentine (Love for Love), 151 ; 
 Varanes, 122 ; Villeroy, 141 ; 
 Virginius (Dennis's Appius and 
 Virginia), 176; Virginius ( Unjust 
 Judge}, 131 
 
 Betterton, William (actor), 62, 
 76 
 
 Bird, Theophilus (actor), 78, 
 
 Blagden, (actor), 82 
 
 Booth, Barton, 175 
 
 , Charles (prompter), 98 
 
 Boutell, Mrs. (actress), 20 
 
 Bowen, William (actor), 144, 147, 
 161 
 
INDEX. 
 
 193 
 
 Bowman, John (actor), 144, 151, 
 
 157, 185 
 
 , Mrs., 141, 151, 169, 185 
 Bowyer, (actor), 3 
 Bracegirdle, Mrs. Anne, 56, 139, 
 
 141, 142, 144, 149, 151, 162, 
 
 1 68, 179 
 
 Bright, George (actor), 144 
 Brown, Tom, 15, 33, 37, 160, 173 
 Bullock, William (actor), 146, 166 
 Burbage, Richard, 2 
 Burt, Nicholas (actor), 3, 4, 62, 78, 
 
 102 
 
 Butler, Mrs. (actress), 119 
 
 Calamy, Rev. Edmund, 3 
 
 Carteret, Philip, 25 
 
 Cart wright, William (actor), 62, 78, 
 
 102 
 
 Castlemaine, Lady, 19 
 Charles II., 19, 80, 84, 95, 105, 133 
 Charleton, (actor), 101 
 Chetwood, W. R., 80, 169, 173 
 Gibber, Colley, 27, 30, 50, 53, 85, 
 
 86, 95 97> 1 19 125, 129, 138, 
 
 140, 146, 148, 154, 155, 160, 184, 
 
 185 
 
 Cleveland, Duchess of, 33 
 Clun, Walter, 3, 62, 78, 101, 102 
 Coleman, Dr. Charles, 8 
 
 , Edward, 8 
 
 , Mrs., 8 
 
 Collier, Jeremy, 158. 160, 161 
 Congreve, W T illiam, 13, 31, 34, 141, 
 
 151, 158,159 
 Cook, Captain Henry, 8 
 Corey, Mrs. (actress), 80 
 Coventry, Sir John, no 
 Craufurd, David (dramatist), 157 
 Cross, Richard (prompter), 185 
 Crouch, John, 58 
 
 Crowne, John, 136 
 
 Curll, Edmund, his History of the 
 
 Stage, 125 
 Currer, Mrs. (actress), 119, 138 
 
 Davenant, Dr. Charles, 21, 108, 
 
 126 
 
 , Sir William, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 
 
 10,21, 59, 64,69, 71, 72, 75, 82, 
 
 83, 90, 92, 106 
 Davenport, Mrs. (actress), 82, 87, 
 
 119 
 Davies, Thomas, 141, 185 
 
 , Mrs. (actress), 82, 119 
 
 Davis, Mary (" Moll"), 19, 93 
 Dennis, John, 160, 176 
 Dixon, (actor), 61, 76 
 Dogget, Thomas, 141, 142, 144, 
 
 147, 151, 154, 156, 157, 172, 179 
 Dorset, Earl of, Lord Chamberlain, 
 
 143 
 
 Downes, John (Roscius Anglicanus], 
 61, 82, 83, 84, 85, 90, 91, 92, 93, 
 96, 97, 100, 118, 119, 131, 134, 
 136, 138, 163, 168, 172 
 
 Dryden, John, 6, 7, 13, 14, 15, 18, 
 19, 26, 29, 30, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, 
 40, 47, in, 112, 118, 124, 127, 
 I3 2 , J33, 136, 137, 159, 160, 162, 
 164, 167, 174, 186 
 
 Durfey, Thomas, 160, 167 
 
 Eastland, Mrs. (actress), 80 
 
 Farquhar, George, 29, 165, 167 
 Floid, (actor), 62, 76 
 
 Genest, Rev. John, his Account of 
 the English Stage, 59, 65, 66, 72, 
 169, 172 
 
 Gibbs, Mrs. Ann (actress), 82, 89 
 O 
 
I 9 4 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Gildon, Charles, 126, 148, 152, 154, 
 
 160, 1 66, 169 
 Gillow, (actor), 119 
 Goodman, " Scum," 56, 101, 133 
 Gosse, Edmund, his Life of Con- 
 
 greve, 160 
 
 Grabut, Louis (musician), 134 
 Granville, George (Lord Lans- 
 
 downe), 162, 167, 170 
 Grebus, Louis. See Grabut 
 Griffin, Captain (actor), 101, 133 
 Gwynne, Ellen, 41, 42, 53, 56 
 
 Hammerton, Stephen (actor), 2 
 Harding, John, 8 
 
 Harris, Henry (actor), 72, 73, 74, 
 77, 82, 87, 89, 91, 93, 94, 96, 
 
 104, lip, 121, 128 
 
 Hart, Charles, 3, 4, 56, 62, 77, 78, 
 98, 102, 114, 125, 126, 128 
 
 Haynes, Joseph (actor), 101, 114, 
 115, 154, 1 66 
 
 Herbert, Sir Henry (Master of the 
 Revels), 62, 63, 64, 67, 76 
 
 Hill, Captain Richard, 21, 139 
 
 Holden, John (bookseller), 58 
 
 , Mrs. (actress), 82, 90 
 
 Howard, Hon. Edward, 105 
 
 , Hon. James, 89 
 
 , Sir Robert, 99, 143 
 
 Hudson, George, 8 
 
 Hughes, Mrs. Margaret, 56, 81, 
 
 James II., 133 
 
 Jennings, Mrs. (actress), 82, 119 
 Jevon, Thomas (actor), 119, 136 
 Johnson, Ben (actor), 146, 162, 
 
 1 66, 169 
 
 Jolly, George (actor), 62 
 Jordan, Thomas, his Prolegue to 
 
 introduce the first English ac- 
 tress, 79, 80 
 
 Killigrew, Thomas, 26, 64, 69, 76, 
 
 79, 82, 83, 99 
 Knight, Joseph, his edition of the 
 
 Roscius Anglicanus, 8 
 
 , Mrs. (actress), 56 
 
 Knipp, Mrs. (actress), 40, 42, 81 
 Kynaston, Edward, 56, 61, 72, 76, 
 
 109, 126, 133, 142, 168 
 
 Lacy, John (actor), 78, 98, 105 
 Langbaine, Gerard, 37 
 Lawes, Henry, 8 
 Lee, Mrs. Mary (actress), 121 
 
 , Nathaniel, 119 
 
 , Sidney L., 59 
 
 Leigh, Anthony, 119, 122, 123, 136, 
 
 139 
 
 , Mrs. (actress), 141, 142, 144, 
 
 169 
 Lilleston, Thomas (actor), 61, 72, 
 
 77, 87, 119 
 Lock, Matthew, 8 
 Long, Mrs. (actress), 82, 96 
 Loveday, Thomas (actor), 78 
 Lovel, Thomas (actor), 6l, 72, 77, 
 
 87, 89, 119 
 
 Lowin, John (actor), 2, 3, 4 
 Lyddoll, (actor), 101 
 
 Malone, Edmond, 67, 79, 169 
 Marshall, Mrs. Ann (actress), 56, 
 
 80 
 , Mrs. Rebecca (actress), 56, 
 
 80 
 
 Marvell, Andrew, HO 
 Medburn, Matthew (actor), 85 
 Mills, John (actor), 166 
 Mohun, Lord, 21, 139 
 
INDEX. 
 
 195 
 
 Mohun, Michael, 3, 62, 67, 77, 78, 
 98, 101, 102, 105, 119, 125, 128 
 Monk, General, 60 
 Moor, Mrs. (actress), 166 
 Moseley, John (actor), 62, 72, 119 
 Motteux, P. A., 160, 166 
 Mountfort, William, 21, 56, 139 
 
 , Mrs., 141, 142. See also 
 
 Verbruggen, Mrs. 
 
 Newcastle, Duchess of, 104 
 Nokes, James, 62, 72, 77, 96, 108, 
 
 122, 139 
 
 , Robert, 61, 72, 77, 119 
 Norris, Henry (actor), 85, 166 
 
 Otway, Thomas, 119, 120, 121, 122 
 
 Penn, Sir William, 19 
 
 Pepys, Samuel, 13, 17, 19, 20, 22, 
 24, 26, 30, 33, 35, 38, 40, 54, 60, 
 61, 65, 66, 70, 73, 79, 84, 85, 88, 
 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, 
 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105 
 
 Perkins, (actor), 3 
 
 Persill. See Purcel 
 
 Pinkethman, William (actor), 154, 
 166 
 
 Pollard, Thomas (actor), 3, 4 
 
 Pope, Alexander, 186 
 
 Powell, George (actor), 56, 128, 
 141, 142, 146, 153, 164, 166, 173 
 
 Powell, Mrs., 166 
 
 Price, Joseph (actor), 82, 93, 96, 
 119 
 
 Priest, Joseph (dancer), 138 
 
 Purcel, Henry (the Elder), 8 
 
 , Henry (the Younger), 138 
 
 Rhodes, John (bookseller and thea- 
 trical manager), 58, 59, 60, 67 
 
 Rich, Christopher, 148, 155 
 Richards, (actor), 82, 87 
 Robins, William (actor), 3 
 Robinson, Richard (actor), 2 
 Robinson, William. See Robins, 
 
 William 
 
 Rochester, Earl of, 133 
 Rogers, John (doorkeeper), 21, 63 
 
 , Mrs. (actress), 154, 166 
 
 Rowe, Nicholas, 163, 172, 177, 180 
 Rutter, Mrs. (actress), 81, 102 
 Rymer, Thomas, 97 
 
 Sandforcl, Samuel (actor), 85, 89, 
 
 94, 95, 144, 151, 168 
 Saunderson, Mrs. (afterwards Mrs. 
 
 Betterton), 82, 83, 87, 89, 91 
 Sedley, Sir Charles, 16, 35, 109 
 Settle, Elkanah, 112, 137 
 Shakespeare, William, 71 
 Shank, John (actor), 2 
 Shatterel, Robert (actor), 62 
 
 , William (actor), 62 
 Sheppey, Thomas (actor), 61, 72, 
 
 77 
 
 Sherly, (actor), 101 
 Smith, William (actor), 85, 104, 
 
 119, 121, 122, 132, 144, 151 
 Steele, Sir Richard, 50, 51, 12 1, 
 
 130, 177, 179, 186 
 Sumner, (actor), 3 
 Swanston, Eliard (actor), 3 
 
 i Taylor, Joseph (actor), 2, 3, 4 
 | Thorndall, Gregory, 8 
 i Tillotson, Archbishop, 186 
 Turner, Robert (actor), 61, 72 
 
 i Underbill, Cave (actor), 61, 72, 77, 
 
 87, 89, 94, 144, I5L 175 
 i Uphill, Mrs. (actress), 81 
 
I 9 6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Vanbrugh, Sir John, 154, 158, 159, 
 
 175 
 Verbruggen, John (actor), 130, 146, 
 
 153, 168 
 
 , Mrs., 144, 147, 154, 157, 166, 
 
 169. See also Mountfort, Mrs. 
 
 Watson, Sir Francis, 145, 186 
 Weaver, Mrs. (actress), 81 
 Webb, John (scene-painter), 6 
 Whitelock, Sir Bulstrode, 4 
 
 Wilks, Robert (actor), 166 
 
 William III., 144 
 
 Williams, Joseph (actor), 119, 122, 
 
 141, 144, 147 
 Wiltshire, (actor), 122 
 Wintersell, William (actor), 62, 78 
 Wright, James (Historia Histrio- 
 
 nica], i, 3> 97 
 Wycherley, William, 33 
 
 Young, (actor), 85, 104 
 
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