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

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СКАЧАТЬ The piece was condemned, and the author was the first to recognise the fitness of such a fate. His nephew, Cumberland, sat on one side of him, and when Harlequin was hanged in the sight of the audience, as the fulfilment of the last of the "Three Wishes," Bentley whispered into his complacent kinsman's ear: "If they don't damn this, they deserve to be damned themselves!" The piece lingered for a few nights, and an unsuccessful attempt was made to revive it in 1782. So ended the (not first) experiment of introducing a witty-speaking Harlequin, in place of the dumb hero of pantomime.

      At the period when this play was first acted, Garrick and his fellows laboured under a serious disadvantage, when attempting to give full effect to stage illusions, – I allude to the crowding of the stage by a privileged part of the public. In spite of this, Garrick could render perfect and seemingly real, on the same evening, the frantic sorrows of old Lear, and the youthful joyousness of Master Johnny, in the "School Boy." In Dublin, there was often more annoyance than what resulted from mere crowding. Garrick was once playing Lear there, to the Cordelia of Mrs. Woffington, when one Irish gentleman, who was present, actually advanced, put his arm round Cordelia's waist, and thus held her, while she answered with loving words to her father's reproaches. Our sparks never went so far as this, in face of the public, but their intrusion annoyed the great actor. Such annoyance was not felt by his colleagues, and when Garrick resolved once and for ever, in 1762, to keep the public from the stage, there was an outcry on the part of the players, who declared that on benefit nights, when seats and boxes, at advanced prices, were erected on the stage, they should lose the most munificent of their patrons, if these were prohibited from coming behind the curtain. A compromise followed, and Garrick agreed to compensate for driving a part of the audience from the stage, by enlarging the house, and thus affording more room, and the old advantages on benefit nights. Thus, one evil was followed by another, for the larger houses were less favourable to the actor and less profitable to managers, – but stage spectacle became more splendid and effective than ever.

      At this time amateur-acting was a fashionable pastime, and it had princely countenance. The Blake Delavals led the taste in this respect at their neat little theatre in Downing Street. The Duke of York, who had distinguished himself early at the Leicester House theatricals, which Quin, I believe, superintended, was a very efficient actor, and he especially merited praise for the grace and spirit with which he played Lothario to the Calista of Lady Stanhope, a Delaval by birth. Admission to these performances was not easily obtained. Walpole did not lack curiosity, but he would not solicit for a ticket, lest he should be refused. "I did not choose," he says, in his comic-jesuitical way, "to have such a silly matter to take ill!"

      English and French audiences essentially differed in one pleasant feature, at this time. In France it was not the custom for young unmarried ladies to appear at the great theatres, especially the Opera. As soon as they were married they appeared at the latter in full bridal array, and the plaudits of the house indicated to them the measure of their success. With us, it was otherwise. Ladies, before marriage, appeared at the Opera more frequently than at church; and with much the same feelings, regarding both. "I remember," says Lady M. W. Montague, writing to her daughter, Lady Bute, "to have dressed for St. James's Chapel with the same thoughts your daughters will have at the Opera."

      At the latter house, one of the most conspicuous young ladies of her day was Miss Chudleigh, afterwards Duchess of Kingston. She was constantly challenging the attention of the house. On one occasion, when a chorus-singer happened to fall on his face in a fit, Miss Chudleigh drew more notice than sympathy to herself, by pretending to fall into hysterics, and accompanying the pretence with a succession of shrieks and wild laughter. Walpole characteristically ridicules this affectation: "As if she had never seen a man fall on his face before!"

      But ordinary confusion was as nothing, compared with that made on benefit nights, when audiences stood, or were seated in a "building on the stage." When Quin returned to play Falstaff for Ryan's benefit, the impatience of the house was great to behold their old favourite; but he was several minutes forcing his way to the front, through the dense crowd which impeded his path. As for Mrs. Cibber, Wilkinson had seen her as Juliet, lying on an old couch, in the tomb of the Capulets, all solitary, with a couple of hundred of the audience surrounding her. This occurred only on benefit nights, but even Garrick was unable to abolish it altogether.

      It was really high time for this reformation, seeing that on one occasion, when Holland was acting Hamlet, for his benefit, and all Chiswick (his father's bakery still exists close to the churchyard) was there to support their fellow-villager, a young girl, seeing him drop his hat, the three-cornered cock, which Hamlet still wore, she ran, picked it up, and clapped it on his head, wrong side before, in such a way that gave the Dane a look of tipsiness; but see the respect of audiences for Shakspeare; they refrained from laughing, till Hamlet and the Ghost were off the stage, and then gave way to peal on peal of unextinguishable hilarity.

      The author of a "Letter to Mr. Garrick," whom the writer treats with very scant courtesy, remarks, in contrasting the French and English audiences of his time, that it was then usual in France, for the audience of a new and well-approved tragedy, to summon the author before them, that he might personally receive the tribute of public approbation due to his talents. "Nothing like this," he says, "ever happened in England!" "And I may say, never will!" is the comment of the author of a rejoinder to the above letter, who adds: – "I know not how far a French audience may carry their complaisance, but were I in the author's case, I should be unwilling to trust to the civility of an English pit or gallery. We know it is the privilege of an English audience to indulge in a riot, upon any pretence. Benches have been torn up, and even swords drawn, upon slighter occasions than the damning of a play. Suppose, therefore, upon your principle, that every play that is offered should be received, and suppose that some one of them should happen to be damned, might not an English audience, on this occasion, call for the author, not to partake of their applause, indeed, but to receive the tokens of their displeasure. Maugre the good opinion which I have received of my own talents, I would not run the hazard of having my play acted upon these terms; for I think it less tremendous and much safer to bear at distance the groans and cat-calls of ill-disposed critics, than to stand the brunt against half-eaten apples and sour oranges from the two galleries." These calls, however, are now common enough; but the French were before us in adopting the fashion.

      Truculent as were the fine gentlemen in our theatres, in the days when swords were worn, they were less pugnacious than Irish audiences in their wrath. Mossop found this, when he was manager at Cork, in 1769. On one night of the season the house was unusually thin, but especially in the pit, where sat one little Major, determined to see all, though he sat alone. Mossop, unwilling to play at a loss, and to save his having to pay the actors whose salaries were regulated by the number of days on which they performed, came forward, announced that there would be no play, and intimated that all the admission money would be returned. The little Major insisted that the play should proceed. Mossop remonstrated, but kept to his purpose. The Major drew his sword and continued to insist. Mossop gently put his hand to his and declined to act. In a couple of leaps the Major was on the stage, where the soldier and the player's swords were speedily crossed, and the two men fighting as fiercely as for some dear and noble purpose in peril. The actors and the audience seem to have enjoyed the spectacle; at least no attempt was made to part the combatants till the Major had run his sword through the fleshy part of Mossop's thigh, and Mossop had more slightly wounded the Major in the arm. Both sides claimed a victory; for the manager, unable to act, closed the theatre; and the soldier, too much hurt to be immediately removed, remained in the house, as he had declared his intention to do.

      Since that period the manners of most Irish audiences have unfortunately improved, because the old fun and humour have departed with the exercise of the old license. Not that the old license was not frequently of a somewhat uncivilised nature, as when the Irish footmen in attendance upon masters and mistresses within, being angered by the withdrawal of some privilege, flung their lighted torches into the house, and nearly succeeded in burning both theatre and audience. Sometimes the license had an aspect of rough gallantry. When an actress was more than ordinarily pretty, it was the custom of ardent officers and gentlemen to insist upon escorting the СКАЧАТЬ