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

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СКАЧАТЬ laughter, which must have become the more lugubrious on every repetition. A good man struggling against evil destiny is said to be a sublime spectacle to gods and men; but a dramatic author, known to half the audience, upholding his own piece, and striving to rescue it from ruin by a convulsive hilarity, must have been a sight as astonishing to his foes as to his friends. The poor fellow laughed vehemently; but the house could not be tempted to sympathise with him, and the "Biter" was condemned under the applause and laughter of its hysterical author.

      Aaron Hill took his failures more calmly. The public of 1710, at Drury Lane, would not tolerate his "Elfrid." Aaron shared the public opinion, and devoted twenty years to re-writing his tragedy, which was subsequently produced under the title of "Athelwold." Mrs. Centlivre was not equally patient with her public; from whom, a month earlier, she withdrew in pique her coolly-received comedy, "The Man's Bewitched." Elkanah Settle was so systematically visited with damnation, that he was at last compelled to bring out his plays under fictitious names, and during the long vacation, lest when the town was full, some enemy should discover him. Pope was as sensitive as Settle, if the story be true that he was one of the authors of "Three Hours after Marriage," and that the cool reception of this piece caused him to express dislike for the players. Dennis, however, was perhaps the most irritable of his race. When his adaptation of "Coriolanus" ("The Invader of his Country") failed, in 1719, to draw £100 to the house, and was consequently shelved by the management, Dennis thundered against the insolence, incapacity, and disloyalty of Cibber and his colleagues, and invoked against them the vengeance of the Duke of Newcastle, the Lord Chamberlain! Theobald took another course; and when the pit hissed his pieces, he abused the "little critics," in a preface, scorned their "ill nature," and appealed to "better judges."

      Gay, considering his dramatic failures in tragedy, found more consolation than most damned authors. The public of 1724 had no sympathy for his "Captives;" which, despite Booth, Wilks, and Mrs. Oldfield, soon disappeared from the stage. To console the author, the Princess of Wales requested him to read this play in presence of herself and little court. On being ushered into the august company, Gay, nervous from long waiting, tragedy in hand, bashful and blundering, fell over a stool, thereby threw down a screen, and set his illustrious audience in a comical sort of confusion, which, notwithstanding the kindness of the princess, marred the self-possession of the poet. The piece, however, went off more merrily at Leicester House than it had done at Drury Lane.

      More touching than this was the way in which the aged Southerne, in 1726, took the condemnation of his "Money, the Mistress," at Lincoln's Inn Fields. The audience refused the request made in the prologue to protect the man who had filled their mothers' eyes with tears. They had no particular reverence for "the last of Charles's bards;" nor especial regard for "great Otway's peer and greater Dryden's friend." The audience hissed mercilessly. The old man was standing at a wing with Rich, who asked him, if "he heard what they were doing." "No, sir," said Southerne, calmly, "I am very deaf!" So quietly did he see fall from his grey head, the wreath "for half a century with honour worn."

      But "Money" was not more unequivocally damned on the first night than was the "Provoked Husband," in 1728, at Drury Lane. The difference was that the last piece suffered shipwreck, on political grounds, but survived the storm. All the Jacobites in town united to condemn a play, by the author of the "Nonjuror," with Vanbrugh for colleague. Cibber played Sir Francis Wronghead, in the face of the hurricane, and never forgot his part, though he gave up all as lost when, in the fourth act, the play was brought to a "stand-still," by the fierce antagonism of the house. Nevertheless, Colley persevered, and the comedy went on to the end. The critics acknowledged or boasted that it had been a miserable failure, but Cibber would not confess himself beaten. The "Provoked Husband" ran for eight-and-twenty successive nights, and on the last of those nights drew £140, "which happened," says the naturally-exulting Cibber, "to be more than in fifty years before could be said of any play whatsoever."

      Gay read his tragedy, after it had been consigned to the limbo of such pieces, to a court circle; Tracy read his heavy "Periander" before it was damned at Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 1731, to a circle of friends, who were regaled on the occasion with a magnificent supper. Dr. Ridley spoke on behalf of himself and brother critics, and assured the author that they had been exceedingly well-pleased with the entertainment provided; he alluded particularly, he said, to the supper. This was held for wit, but it was not so neat, so happy, or so friendly as Carl Vernet's reply to the author of the Maison à Vendre. As the curtain fell, Carl remarked, "J'ai cru voir une Maison à Vendre, et je ne vois qu'une pièce à louer!"

      Fielding took disapprobation with infinite indifference. In 1743, his "Wedding Day" was produced at Drury Lane, with Garrick as Millamour, and Macklin as Stedfast. Garrick had asked the author to suppress a scene which, he thought, would imperil the piece. Fielding refused. "If the scene is not a good one," said he, "let 'em find it out." This scene did excite violent hissing; and Garrick left the stage for the green-room, as violently disturbed. "There," says Murphy, "the author was indulging his genius, and solacing himself with a bottle of champagne. He had, at this time, drunk pretty plentifully; and cocking his eye at the actor, while streams of tobacco trickled down from the corner of his mouth, 'What's the matter, Garrick?' said he; 'what are they hissing now?' 'Why, the scene I begged you to retrench. I knew it wouldn't do; and they have so frightened me, that I shall not be able to collect myself the whole night.' 'Oh! d – 'em!' replies the author, 'they have found it out, have they?'"

      Fielding suffered as severely as most authors at the hands of the critics, but he was bold enough to publish one unlucky play, not "as it was acted," but "as it was damned at the Theatre Royal." He accounted, however, for such failures, in himself and others, through Fustian, his tragic poet, in "Pasquin." "One man," says Fustian, "hisses out of resentment to the author; a second, out of dislike to the house; a third, out of dislike to the actor; a fourth, out of dislike to the play; a fifth, for the joke's sake; a sixth, to keep the rest in company; – enemies abuse him; friends give him up; the play is damned; and the author goes to the devil." Fielding might have given another illustration, – such as that of the Frenchman who clapped and hissed at the same moment, and explained his apparent inconsistency, by stating that he had received a free ticket from the author, and that he clapped out of gratitude to the donor, but that he hissed for the satisfaction of his own conscience. Again, there was one French critic who took a more singular way still of expressing his opinion. In the tragedy of "Antony and Cleopatra," a mechanical asp was introduced, which hissed as "dusky Egypt" took it up to apply to her bosom. The Parisian critic, on hearing the sound, arose and said to the pit – "Gentlemen, I am of the same opinion as the asp!"

      Fielding published his play, "as it was damned," but he did not add, "as it deserved to be." He was less candid than Bernard Saurin, a French dramatist of the last century. Saurin's comedy, the "Trois Rivaux," was pitilessly hissed. The author printed it, not to shame the critics, but to confess the justice of their verdict. "Authors who have been humiliated," he says, "are not always the more humble on that account. Self-love supports itself." After enumerating many instances, he adds: "There are few unlucky playwrights who do not look beyond their piece for the cause of an effect which their play alone has produced. After wearying the public by their insipidity, they disgust it by their pride, displayed in some haughty preface to their drama. Perhaps there is a refinement of self-love in what I am myself now doing, when I candidly confess, that my comedy of the 'Three Rivals' thoroughly merited its fate."

      Less reasonable than Saurin was Anthony Brown, the Templar, who produced his "Fatal Retirement," at Drury Lane, in 1739. This conversational tragedy, in which nobody is excited much above the level of every-day talk, fell at the first representation. Anthony Brown attributed the failure to Quin, who, after selecting one part, chose another, and finally threw up both. This conduct, according to Brown, rendered the other players indifferent, and brought on a catastrophe, which the condemned poet, of course, held to be unmerited. Accordingly, down went Templars and the Templars' friends, night after night, to hiss the offending Quin. He was commanded to make an apology, and he did so in his characteristic way. Addressing the audience, he said, blandly, that he had read "Fatal Retirement," at the author's request, and, under like impulse, had given him his sincere opinion СКАЧАТЬ