Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 2 of 3). Doran John

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"Hic juxta requiescitTot inter poetarum laudata nomina,ANNA OLDFIELDNec ipsa minore laude digna,Quippe quæ eorum operaIn scenam quotidies prodivit,Illustravit semper et nobilitavitNunquam ingenium idem ad parties diversissimasHabilius fuitIta tamen ut ad singulasNon facta sed nata esse videretur,In tragœdiisFormæ splendor, oris dignitas, incessus majestas,Tanta vocis suavitate temperabanturUt nemo esset tam agrestis, tam durus spectator,Quin in admirationem totus rapereturIn comœdia autemTanta vis, tam venusta hilaritas, tam curiosa felicitasUt neque sufficerent spectando oculi,Neque plaudendo manus."

      I have said that her last original part was Sophonisba. Among the last words she uttered in it, when mortal illness was upon her, were these: —

      "And is the sacred moment then so near,

      The moment when yon sun, these heavens, this earth

      Shall sink at once, and straight another state,

      New scenes, new joys, new faculties, new wonders,

      Rise, on a sudden, round?"

      These words were first spoken by her, on the last day of February 1730. On the 23rd of the following October she died, in her forty-seventh year. A week later, Dr. Parker "buried her very willingly, and with much satisfaction!"

      CHAPTER II

      FROM THE DEATH OF ANNE OLDFIELD TO THAT OF WILKS

      Between the season of 1729-30, and that of 1733-34, great changes took place. It is correct to say, that the stage "declined;" but if we lose Mrs. Oldfield in the former period, we find some compensation at the beginning of the latter, by first meeting, in Fielding and Hippisley's booth, at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs, with one who was destined to enthral the town, – modest Mrs. Pritchard, playing Loveit, in a "Cure for Covetousness."

      Meanwhile, Mrs. Porter reigned supreme; but the stage was deprived, for more than a year, of the presence of her whom Mrs. Oldfield loved to address as "mother," by an accident which dislocated her thigh. Even after her recovery, the tragedy queen was forced to walk the stage with a crutched stick, which, like a true artist, she turned to account in her action.

      Of actors of eminence, the greatest whom the stage lost was Wilks, airy and graceful down to the last; – of him, who died in 1732, I will speak more fully presently. Death also carried off quaint, squeaking, little Norris, the excellent comic actor, popularly known as "Jubilee Dicky." After Norris went Boheme, the pillar of the Lincoln's Inn Fields, a dignified and accomplished tragedian, whose Lear was full of antique grandeur and pathos; – it was, perhaps, the only character in which the former young sailor's quarter-deck walk was not discernible. Colley Cibber, too, must be reckoned among the departed, since he retired from the stage, at the end of the season 1732-33, but occasionally returned to it. He was disheartened by the break-up in the old partnership, and the manifest close of a period of prosperity. Booth had sold half of his share in the patent to a rich and silly amateur actor – Highmore. Wilks's widow, who inherited her husband's share, was represented by attorney; Colley was uneasy at having to encounter new partners, and he ultimately sold his share to Highmore, for three thousand guineas.

      While the stage failed in players, it was not upheld by the poets. The gentlemen of the inns of court hissed Charles Johnson's "Medea," and did not even applaud the satirical allusion contained in it to Pope. The town was weary of classical pieces. The "Eurydice" of Mallet – who had been gate-keeper at the Edinburgh High School, and had picked up learning enough to enable him to efficiently exercise the office of tutor in the Duke of Montrose's family – fared no better,3 despite Mrs. Porter. The piece was as hard and as dry as granite; but the author thought it had as much pathos as his ballad of "William and Margaret."

      In the prologue, tragedy was especially recommended to the patronage of ladies, because therein the character of women is exalted; while in the comedies of the day it was debased. But the epilogue, spoken by Miss Robinson, in boy's clothes – "born for this dapper age – pert, short, and clever" – showed that the poet did not much care for the female character.

      Jeffreys' "Merope" had no better success. His cousins of the Chandos family may have laughed at the young collegian's bathos; but on the second night there was not audience enough to make a laugh comfortable; and the curtain did not rise.4 Critics complained that all tragic action on our stage turned on love; and Jeffreys contrived to make three couple of nymphs and swains sigh or swear in this story of mother and son! "Who could believe," says Voltaire, "that love could have been introduced into such a story? But, since the times of Charles II., love has taken possession of the English stage; and one must acknowledge that no nation in the world has painted that passion so badly." But Voltaire, you will remember, also said that Shakspeare was "a savage!"

      A Gloucestershire squire, named Tracy, tried his hand on "Periander," and failed, though he was guiltless of a false quantity; unlike Addison's learned friend, Frowde, who tripped in his penultimates, with the alacrity of Hughes!

      It was not altogether because our ancestors were weary of classical tragedies, that a short, fat, one-eyed, and well-to-do dissenter and jeweller, of Moorgate Street, reaped such a triumph, with his modern and domestic tragedy, "George Barnwell." Mr. Lillo had previously written a ballad-opera, "Sylvia;" but now he aimed to show the hideousness and consequence of vice. "George Barnwell" was first acted at Drury Lane, at the beginning of the Midsummer holidays of 1731. Theophilus Cibber played the hero; Mrs. Butler, Milwood. The audience looked for fun, and took the old ballad, – there was the flutter of a thousand copies in the house, to compare it with the play. Pope was present, and expressed an opinion that the language was often too elevated for the personages;5 and the hearers thought only of the story as illustrated by Lillo, and every eye was weeping. It was the first fairly honest attempt made to amend, from the stage, the vices and weaknesses of mankind; and it certainly, in some degree, succeeded. It enlisted the sympathies of honest women. "The distresses of great personages," says a lady, in the Gentleman's Magazine, "have ceased to affect the town," and "none but a prostitute could find fault with this tragedy." Fault, however, was found; but the objection was answered in this way; – that "lowness of action was disallowed in a tragedy, but not lowness of character: the circumstances here are all important." One critic holds the story to be improbable; but contemporary journals furnish a parallel. A mercer's apprentice, who sleeps in his master's shop, admits a Milwood, who at a later hour refuses to leave, unless he will cut off satin enough, to make her a robe. Great distress! but, at a happy moment, a virtuous porter arrives, who, on hearing the circumstances, and perhaps having seen the tragedy, lays hold of the lady, who had no more drapery about her than Lady Godiva, claps her into a sack, carries her off, and shoots her into a cart full of grains, standing unguarded. The naughty person is suffocated, if I remember rightly; but the honour of the apprentice is saved!!

      "George Barnwell" brought domestic tragedy into fashion, and Charles Johnson closed his dramatic career with "Cœlia, or the perjured Lover," which was a warning to young ladies. Cœlia has a bad and a good lover, – warring principles! She prefers the former, with ruin for a consequence. He lodges her in a bagnio, where she is swept up by the watch, in the arrest of all the inmates, and taken to Bridewell. Thence her very heavy father takes her home, while the good lover kills the bad one in a duel; but the latter politely requests that the avenger will consider Cœlia as having been his lawful wife. The lady, however, dies in her father's arms; the curtain comes down with a "tag," and then on tripped the epilogue, to ridicule all those present who were disposed to profit by the moral of the drama!

      Theophilus СКАЧАТЬ