the following prices for admission:-Stage boxes, 10s. 6d.; Boxes, 8s.; Pit, 5s.; Lower Gallery, 2s. 6d.; Upper Gallery, 1s. 6d. Let me note here that in May, 1708, Vanbrugh wrote to Lord Manchester :-" I have parted with my whole concern (the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket) to Mr. Swiney, only reserving my rent, so he is entire possessor of the Opera, and most people think will manage it better than anybody. He has a good deal of money in his pocket, that he got before by the acting company, and is willing to venture it upon the singers." There was fine quality left in that old acting company, albeit the town sometimes neglected them, and managers, in despair their empty pit to fill, Set up some foreign monster in a bill." Dryden says of the old stagers : "Their setting sun still shows a glimm'ring ray, CHAPTER XIII. THE UNITED AND THE DISUNITED COMPANIES. THE United Companies, which now commenced acting at Drury Lane, were, in some respects, perhaps never equalled. Betterton only "played" occasionally. The young Kentish attorney, and future editor of Shakspeare, Theobald, gave the first of about a score of forgotten dramas to the stage. Taverner, the proctor's "Maid the Mistress," was barely listened to. The only success was achieved by Mrs. Centlivre's "Busy Body" (Marplot, by Pack), and that was a success of slow growth. Baker satirized the women; but the public hissed his "Fine Lady's Airs," almost as much as they did Tom Durfey's "Prophets." Then there was the "Appius and Virginia," of Dennis, of which nothing survives but the theatrical thunder. In this piece, Betterton acted the last of his long list of the dramatic characters created by him,-Virginius. Shortly after this, took place that famous complimentary benefit for the old player, when the pit tickets were paid for at a guinea each. The actors could scarcely get through "Love for Love," in which he played Valentine, for the cloud of noble patrons clustered on the stage, when guineas by the score were delicately pressed upon him for acceptance, and Mistresses Barry and Bracegirdle supported him at the close; while the former spoke the epilogue, which was the dramatic apotheosis of Betterton himself. On the following June, actors and patentees were at issue; and their dissensions were not quelled by the Lord Chamberlain closing the house. Pope, writing to Cromwell, August 19, 1709, says:" Drury lies desolate, in the profoundest peace, and the melancholy prospect of the nymphs yet lingering about its beloved avenues, appears no less moving than that of the Trojan dames lamenting over their ruined Ilium. What now can they hope, dispossessed of their ancient seats, but to serve as captives to the insulting victors of the Haymarket? Collier, the M.P. for Truro, obtained, for political reasons, a licence to open Drury Lane. He took forcible possession of the house, and he opened Drury on November 23rd, 1709, under the direction of Aaron Hill, with "Aurungzebe," and Booth for his leading tragedian. Booth wished to appear in a new tragedy, and Hill wrote in a week, that "Elfrid" which the public damned in a night. He allowed that it was an unpruned wilderness of fancy, with here and there a flower among the leaves, but without any fruit of judgment." Then, the trial of putting the fairy dancer, Santlow, into boy's clothes, and giving her the small part of the Eunuch in "Valentinian" to play, and an epilogue to be spoken in male attire, succeeded so well, that she was cast for Dorcas Zeal in Charles Shadwell's "Fair Quaker of Deal," wherein she took the town, and won the heart of Booth. The Queen's Theatre, Haymarket, commenced its season on the 15th of September, 1709, with Shakspeare. The play was "Othello," with Betterton in the Moor; but there was between the acts a performance by "a Mr. Higgins, a posture-master from Holland!" The only great event of the season was the death of Betterton, on the 27th of April, 1710, of which I have already spoken at length. During the trial of Sacheverel, and its attendant excitement, the theatre was badly attended, but pieces were acted by subscription, to make the manager some amends. About this period, the word encore was introduced at the operatic performances in the Haymarket, and very much objected to by plain-going Englishmen. It was also the custom of some who desired the repetition of a song, to cry altra volta! altra volta! The Italian phrase was denounced as vigorously as the French exclamation; and a writer in the Spectator asks, when it may be proper for him to say it in English? and would it be vulgar to shout again! again! The season of 1710-11 at either house produced no novelty of of merit. There was sad lack of success. But, of the actors themselves, the Tatler gives a good testimony:-"You see a wonderful benevolence among them towards the interests and necessities of each other." Thence came the united company that played at Drury under a licence granted to Collier, Wilks, Cibber, and Doggett, for whom a halcyon score of years are now beginning. On the other hand, the opera only brought ruin, and drove into exile its able but unlucky manager, Swiney. CHAPTER XIV. UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY. NATURALLY jubilant is Colley Cibber when giving the history of the united companies, and of a prosperity of twenty years' duration. Cibber and his fellows deserved to prosper; and £1,500 profit to each of the three managers, in one year, showed what might be done, without the aid of "those barbarous entertainments," of acrobats and similar personages, for which Cibber had a wholesome horror. Cibber yielded to the hastiness of Wilks, and lent himself to the waywardness of Doggett. The newspapers, and especially Mist's Journal, Cibber says, "took upon them very often to censure our management. For these critics, Colley had a supreme contempt If we were insignificant, said he, and played only to empty houses, these fellows would be silent. When the fashion of patronising the folly of pantomimes came in, Cibber reluctantly produced one at Drury Lane, but only "as crutches to the plays." In the first season the poets were less successful than the players; of Johnson's "Wife's Relief," Cromwell wrote to Pope:-"We have had a poor comedy of Johnson, not Ben, which held seven nights, and has got him £300, for the town is sharp-set on new plays." The great night of this season was that in which Philips' version of Racine's "Andromaque" was played, -the 17th of March, 1712. Of the "Distressed Mother," the following was the original cast:-Orestes, Powell; Pyrrhus, Booth ; Pylades, Mills; Andromache, Mrs. Oldfield; Hermione, Mrs. Porter. The English piece is as dull as the French one; but there is great scope in it for declamatory actors, and Booth led the town on this night to see in him the undoubted successor of Betterton. Before the tragedy was acted, the Spectator informed the public that a master-piece was about to be represented, and that at the reading of the play by one of the actors, the players, 66 66 who listened, were moved to tears, and the reader, in his turn, was so overcome by his emotions, that he was frequently obliged to lay down the book, and pause, to recover himself and give vent to the humanity which rose in him at some irresistible touches of the imagined sorrow." On the first night of its being played, the performance was said to be "at the desire of several ladies of quality." Turgid as the style of this adaptation now seems,-to Addison, its simplicity was its great merit. "Why!" says Sir Roger, there is not a single sentence in the play that I don't know the meaning of!" The epilogue, spoken by Mrs. Oldfield, and undoing all the soft emotions wrought by the tragedy, was repeated twice, for several nights. The audience could not have enough of it, and long years after, they called for it, whenever the piece was revived. Ambrose Philips, by this play, took higher rank among the wits at Button's Coffee House, and had no reason to fear the ridicule of men like Henry Carey, who fastened upon him the name of Namby Pamby. Success made the author pompous. He wore a sword (although his foes called him Quaker Philips); but the story of his having hung up a rod at Button's, and threatened Pope with a degrading application of it, for expressing contempt of his Pastorals, is not true. Pope says, in 1714, "Mr. Philips did express himself with much indignation against me one evening at Button's Coffee House (as I was told), saying that I had entered into a cabal with Dean Swift and others to write against the Whig interest, and in particular to undermine his own reputation; but Mr. Philips never opened his lips to my face on this or any like occasion, tho' I was almost every night in the same room with him, nor ever offered me any indecorum.' At the close of this season Estcourt retired. This man," says Cibber, in his Apology, was so amazing and extraordinary a mimic, that no man or woman, from the coquette to the privycounsellor, ever moved or spoke before him, but he could carry their voice, look, mien, and motion, instantly into another company. I have seen upon the margin of the written part of Falstaff, which he acted, his own notes and observations upon almost every speech of it, describing the true spirit of the humour, and with what tone of voice, with what look or gesture, each of them ought to be delivered. Yet in his execution upon the stage, he seemed to have lost all those just ideas he had formed of it, and almost through the character he laboured under a heavy load of flatness." It was probably his spirit of good fellowship which induced him to leave the stage for another calling, which the 66 66 |