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

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 5 Pope said "in a few passages." 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 Cibber's "Lover" was a sort of pendant to the "Nonjuror," – Granger being in the habit of going regularly to church, and daily breaking the ten commandments. The only enjoyment the audience had, – who fought for or against the piece till blood flowed abundantly, – was in the epilogue, in which Mrs. Theophilus Cibber smartly satirised the failings of her lord! The audience relished it amazingly.

These were the principal novelties of the period about which I am treating; but I must add, that at the Haymarket, and at Goodman's Fields, where Giffard had created in Ayliffe Street a commodious theatre, far superior to the old throwster's shop, which had served an early dramatic purpose, in Leman Street, sterling old plays, with operettas and burlesques, were played at irregular seasons. Fielding especially distinguished and sometimes disgraced himself. He had not yet struck upon the vein which made him the first and most philosophical of English novelists; but he rose from his squibs and farces to the achievement of the "Miser," in itself an adaptation, but done by a master hand, and with a double result of triumph, – to the author, and to Griffin, the clergyman's son, who played Lovegold. There were smaller attempts by smaller men, but these I omit, to record the failure of Quin in Lear, – a character which it was temerity to touch, so soon after Boheme had ceased to be the King. Mills made as great a mistake, when, at nearly sixty, he played for the first time – Hamlet. The public cared more for the pantomimic "Harlot's Progress," got up by Theophilus Cibber for Drury Lane, where this piece, preceded by "George Barnwell," must have been as edifying to both sexes as going to church, – a result in which Hogarth had full share with Lillo.

I have noticed the actors departing and departed, and the appearance in a booth of Mrs. Pritchard, a name yet to be famous and respected – like Mrs. Betterton's. So during this period I find a young player, Delane, at Goodman's Fields, who will advance to the first rank; but also a greater than he, Macklin, quietly playing any little part given him at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and securing his firm standing ground by the ability with which he acquitted himself at that house, when, in 1731, he was suddenly called upon to play Brazencourt, 6 6 Genest doubts this story, and gives very strong grounds for doing so. Vol. iii. pp. 306-8. in Fielding's "Coffee House Politicians." He had only four lines to speak; but those he spoke so well, that the true actor was at once discerned. One may fancy the tone and manner in which the rascal exclaimed: – "I was forced to turn her off for stealing four of my shirts, two pair of stockings, and my Common Prayer Book." With such small opportunity, Mr. Maclean, as he was then called, led up to Shylock and Sir Pertinax Macsycophant!

Macklin was the last of the great actors who played at Lincoln's Inn Fields; and he did not leave Covent Garden until after the appearance there of Braham, who was yet among us but yesterday. The first-named house had never rivalled the success of Drury Lane, but Rich had gained enough to enable him to build a new house, and the last play acted in the Fields was Ravenscroft's "Anatomist," one of the worst of a second-rate author of King Charles's days. This was on December 5, 1732. Except for a few nights, irregularly, the old house never opened again. It was the third theatre which had occupied the site since 1662. In 1756 it was converted into a barrack. As late as 1848, it was Copeland's China Repository, when the old stage door and passage, through which Quin had so often passed, still existed.

There had been a long expressed desire for a new theatre; that is, not merely a new edifice, but a new system. The proposal embraced prospective delights for authors, such as they had hitherto never dreamed of. In the published prospectus it was stated that actors and authors should be excluded from the management, which was to be entrusted to individuals, who, at least, knew as little about it, namely, men of quality, taste, figure, and of a fortune varying from ten to twelve hundred pounds. A committee was to be appointed, whose duty it would be, among others, to provide for the efficient reading of new plays, and for their being listened to with reverence and attention. It was calculated that the annual profit of such a theatre would amount to £3000 a year, and that out of it an annuity of £100 might be set aside for every author who had achieved a certain amount of success. In the following year, the Weekly Miscellany and the Grub Street Journal were very eager on the subject of theatrical reform. The former complained that high comedy and dignified tragedy had deserted the stage; remarked that plays were not intended for tradesmen! and denounced pantomimes and harlequinades as infamous. The Journal was rather practical than reflective. Old Exeter Change was then to let, and the Journal proposed that it should be converted into a theatre; adding a suggestion, which required above a century and a quarter to be carried into realisation, namely, that a college should be founded for decayed actors. This college was to form the two wings of the theatre; which wings were to be inhabited respectively by the emeriti among actors, and destitute actresses, whose new home was to be within sound of the old stirring echoes of their joyous days. The direction of the establishment was to be confided to a competent governor and officers selected from among the decayed nobility and gentry; and the glory and profit resulting were calculated at a very high figure indeed!