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

On one result the Grub Street congratulated itself with unctuous pride. If the stage were reformed, the universities and inns of court would supply actors. Gentlemen , said the Grub Street , with some arrogance, were reluctant to go among the scamps on the stage. Then, as for actresses, Grub rudely declared that every charity school could supply a dozen wenches of more decent education and character, of better health, brighter youth, more brilliant beauty, and more exalted genius, than the common run of hussies then on the stage; and a season's training, he added, would qualify them for business. This was a hard hit at men, among whom there were many well born; and at women, who, whatever they lacked, possessed the happy gifts of health, youth, beauty, and genius; but Grub Street's cynicism was probably founded on the fact, that he was not invited by the men, nor smiled on by the women.

A reform before the curtain was, however, now as loudly called for as behind it. One of the greatest grievances complained of this year was the insolence of the footmen. Occupying their masters' places, they lolled about with their hats on, talked aloud, were insolent on rebuke from the audience, and when they withdrew, on their masters' arrival, to their own gallery, they kept up a continual tumult there, which rendered their presence intolerable. What with the fine gentlemen on the stage, and their lacqueys, selected for their size, personal good looks, or fine hair, in the gallery, the would-be attentive audience in the pit were driven well nigh to desperation.

Much of this last grievance was amended when Covent Garden Theatre was opened on the 7th of December 1732. The first piece acted was Congreve's "Way of the World;" Fainall by Quin, Mirabel by Ryan, who, with Walker, Hippisley, Milward, Chapman, and Neal, Mrs. Younger, Mrs. Bullock, and Mrs. Buchanan, formed the principal members of the company. Gay was not now alive to increase his own and Rich's fortune in this elegant and well-appointed theatre; but Rich produced Gay's operatic piece "Achilles," which represented the hero when lying disguised as a girl. By the treatment of the subject, Gay did not manifest the innocency to which he laid claim, nor show himself either in wit a man, or in simplicity a child. Theobald's adaptation of Webster's "Duchess of Malfy" (Bosola, by Quin; the Duchess, Mrs. Hallam), brought no credit on "King Log." Generally, indeed, the novelties were failures, or unimportant. The only incident worth recording is the debut of Miss Norsa, as Polly. But before greeting new comers, let us say a word or two of greater than they who have gone – of Wilks dead, and, by and by, of Cibber withdrawn. The loss of such actors seemed irreparable; but during this past season there had been a lad among the audience at either house, who was to excel them all. Meanwhile, he studied them deeply, and after times showed that the study had not been profitless to this boy of sixteen, whose name was David Garrick.

Quin's most brilliant days lay between this period and the ripening into manhood of this ardent boy. Before we accompany him through that time of triumph, let us look back at the career of Wilks.

In Mr. Secretary Southwell's office, in Dublin, there sits the young son of one of the Pursuivants of the Lord Lieutenant; he is not writing a précis , he is copying out the parts of a play to be acted in private. His name is Robert Wilks, and the wise folk of Rathfarnham, near Dublin, where he was born in 1665, shake their heads and declare that he will come to no good.

The prophecy seemed fulfilled when the Irish wars between James and William forced him, an unwilling volunteer, into the army of the latter. As clerk to the camp he is exempt from military duty; but he tells a good story, sings a good song, and the officers take him for a very pretty fellow.

Anon, he is back in the old Dublin office. At all stray leisure hours he may, however, be seen fraternising with the actors. He most affects one Richards; he hears Richards repeat his parts, and he speaks the intervening sentences of the other characters. This he does with such effect that Richards swears he is made for an actor, and the young Government clerk, fired by the fame of Betterton, is eager to leap from the stool, which his father considered the basis of his fortune, and to don sock and buskin.

His old comrades of the camp were then about to vary the monotony of life at the Castle, by getting up a play to inaugurate the new theatre, re-opened, like the Temple of Janus, at the restoration of peace. Judicious and worthy Ashbury was the only professional player. Young Wilks had privately acted with him as the Colonel in the "Spanish Friar." Ashbury now offered to play Iago to his Othello, and the officers were well pleased to meet again with their old clerk of the camp. The tragedy was acted accordingly. "How were you pleased?" asked Richards, who thought Wilks took it as a pastime. "I was pleased with all but myself," answered the Government clerk, who was thoroughly in earnest.

Wilks had gone through many months of probation, watched by good Joseph Ashbury, and honest Richards, when one morning the latter called on the young actor, with an introductory letter to Betterton in his hand. Wilks accepted the missive with alacrity, bade farewell to secretaries and managers, and in a brief space of time was sailing over the waters, from the Pigeon House to Parkgate.

The meeting of Wilks and Betterton, in the graceful costume of those days, the young actor travel-worn, a little shabby, anxious, and full of awe; the elder richly attired, kind in manner, his face bright with intellect, and his figure heightened by the dignity of a lofty nature and professional triumph, borne with a lofty modesty, is another subject for a painter.

Betterton instructed the stranger as to the course he should take, and, accordingly, one bright May morning of 1690, 7 7 All dates regarding Wilks are difficult to determine; but as his appearance in Othello, previously referred to, took place at the end of the Irish Revolution – (Hitchcock says in December 1691) – this date, 1690, must be wrong. Besides, Rich does not seem to have obtained a footing in the theatre till March 1691. a handsome young fellow, with a slight Irish accent, presented himself to Christopher Rich as a light comedian. He was a native of Dublin county, he said, had left a promising Government clerkship, to try his fortune on the Irish stage; and, tempted by the renown of Betterton, had come to London to see the great actor, and to be engaged, if that were possible, in the same company.

Christopher Rich was no great judge of acting, but he thought there was something like promise of excellence in the easy and gentleman-like young fellow; and he consented to engage him for Drury Lane, at the encouraging salary of fifteen shillings a week, from which half a crown was to be deducted for instruction in dancing! This left Wilks twelve and sixpence clear weekly income; and he had not long been enjoying it, when he married Miss Knapton, daughter of the Town Clerk of Southampton. Young couple never began life upon more modest means; but happiness, hard work, and good fortune came of it.

For a few years, commencing with 1690, 8 8 See previous note. Wilks laboured unnoticed, at Drury Lane, by all save generous Betterton, who seeing the young actor struggling for fame, with a small salary, and an increasing family, recommended him to return to Ashbury, the Dublin manager, who, at Betterton's word, engaged him at £50 a year, 9 9 Chetwood says sixty pounds. and a clear benefit. "You will be glad to have got him," said Betterton to Ashbury. "You will be sorry you have lost him," said he, to Christopher Rich. Sorry! In three or four years more, Rich was imploring him to return, and offering him Golconda, as salaries were then understood. But Wilks was now the darling of the Dublin people, and, at a later period, so universal was the desire to keep him amongst them, that the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant, issued a warrant to prohibit his leaving the kingdom. But, on the other hand, £4 per week awaited him in London. It was nearly as high a salary as Betterton's! 10 10 It was apparently the same salary as Betterton's. Wilks, however, caring less for the terms than for the opportunity of satisfying his inordinate thirst for fame, contrived to escape, with his wife. With them came a disappointed actor, soon to be a popular dramatist, Farquhar; who, in the year 1699, after opening the season with his "Love and a Bottle," produced his "Constant Couple," with Wilks as Sir Harry Wildair. On the night of Wilks's first appearance, in some lines written for him by Farquhar, and spoken by the debutant , the latter said: —