and Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Pritchard,-exerted themselves with indifferent success. There is no local colour in this Turkish piece; the language and sentiment are never oriental in form or spirit. The unities are strictly preserved, but nature is not; and therewith the piece was set aside,—and Johnson never tried the drama again. In this season, too, Aaron Hill brought his efforts to a close, with "Merope." Garrick, Dorilas; and Mrs. Pritchard Merope. Covent Garden had its classical tragedy, in Thomson's "Coriolanus," brought forward by Quin, after the author's death. Quin played the hero. This tragedy is worth reading, if it be only to see how very civil and colloquial the hot leader of the Volsci could be made by the Scottish poet in Kew Lane. In Shakspeare's tragedy, we have the annals of a life put into action. In Thomson's, we have a single incident diluted through five acts;-the secession from Rome, and its consequences, forming the staple of a play which ends with a tag of trotting rhymes, as natural, and not half so amusing, as if the grave speaker of them had danced a hornpipe in his cothurni. In 1749-50, Mrs. Cibber, at odds with Garrick, withdrew; and Barry, not allowed to play Romeo, repeated many of his old parts with Garrick, and created Publius to Garrick's Horatius, in Whitehead's "Roman Father." At Covent Garden, Delane exerted his dying efforts fruitlessly against Barry; and Woffington opposed Woodward in Sir Harry Wildair. To Drury, William Shirley brought his "Edward, the Black Prince," in which Edward, for love of Marianne, deserts to the French ! in 66 66 66 66 And now we come to the famous "Romeo and Juliet season,' that of 1750-51, in which Garrick and Barry were the rival Romeos, Mrs. Bellamy and Mrs. Cibber the opposing Juliets. Barry, passing to Covent Garden, was enabled to play with Quin, Othello," the Orphan," Jane Shore," Henry V.," "Julius Cæsar," "Distressed Mother," Fair Penitent," "Tamerlane," and "King John." In these, Barry's Falconbridge was alone a failure, and Quin held his own so well that his terms for the season were £1000, the largest sum ever yet received by English actor. Garrick, Mrs. Pritchard, and Mrs. Bellamy appeared together in "Zara;" Barry, Mrs. Cibber, and Mrs. Woffington, in the "Conscious Lovers." Mrs. Cibber, as Indiana, made a great point by her delivery of such simple words as these : Sir, if you will pay the money to a servant, it will do as well!” Barry and Mrs. Woffington in Lord and Lady Townly, and Quin 66 RIVAL ROMEOS AND JULIETS. 187 and Mrs. Woffington in " Macbeth," were among the attractions of Covent Garden, added to which was Rich's Harlequin; but for that, Garrick found a rival in Woodward, who played the motley hero with effect. But all these matters were as nothing, compared with the rival Romeos and Juliets. They appeared on the same night, at their respective houses, the 28th of September, 1750. At Covent Garden, the public had Romeo, Barry; Mercutio, Macklin; Juliet, Mrs. Cibber. At Drury, Romeo, Garrick; Mercutio, Woodward; Juliet, Mrs. Bellamy. On the first night, Barry spoke a prologue, in which it was insinuated that the arrogance and selfishness of Garrick had driven him and Mrs. Cibber from Covent Garden. Garrick answered in a lively epilogue, delivered saucily by Mrs. Clive. It was considered a wonderful circumstance that this play ran for twelve nights successively; Garrick, indeed, played it thirteen, to show that he was not beaten from the field. At that period the Londoners, who were constant play-goers, demanded a frequent change of performance; and hence, the epigram: "Well, what's to-night, says angry Ned, As up from bed he rouses; 'Romeo again!' he shakes his head : 'A plague on both your houses!'" In Barry, Mrs. Cibber had the handsomer, more silver-tongued, and tender lover. She seemed to listen to him in a sort of modest ecstacy; while Mrs. Bellamy, eager love in her eyes, rapture in her heart, and amorous impatience in every expression, was ready to fling herself into her Romeo's arms. In Barry, the critics laud his harmony of feature, his melting eyes, and his unequalled plaintiveness of voice. In the garden scenes of the second and fourth acts, and in the first part of the scene in the tomb, were Barry's most effective points. Garrick's great scenes were with the Friar and the Apothecary. Mrs. Bellamy declared that in the scene with the Friar, alone, was Garrick superior to Barry; Macklin swore that Barry excelled his rival, in every scene. The Juliets, too, divided the public judgment. Some were taken by the amorous rapture, the loveliness, and the natural style of Bellamy; others were moved by the grander beauty, the force, and the tragic expression of distress and despair which distinguished Mrs. Cibber. Perhaps, the truest idea of the two Romeos may be gathered from the remark of a lady who was guided by her feelings. "Had I been Juliet," she said, "to Garrick's Romeo,—so impassioned was he, I should have expected that he would have come up to me in the balcony; but had I been Juliet to Barry's Romeo,-so tender and so seductive was he, I should certainly have jumped down to him!" Garrick thought that to play Romeo, it required a grey head on young shoulders,that is, great judgment as well as feeling. But by giving too much prominence to the grey head, he justified the lady's criticism. Respectively, Barry acted Romeo twenty-three, Garrick, nineteen, times this season, —a season of which there is nothing more to be said, save that Garrick created the part of Gil Blas, in Moore's comedy of that name, and that he produced Mallet's version of "Alfred,"-playing the king. 19 In 1751-2, Covent Garden relied chiefly on its stock-pieces; and Drury only produced Foote's farce,-"Taste," and "Eugenia," a tragedy, by the Rev. Dr. Francis, the father of Sir Philip, in which there was the coarseness of sentiment, but none of the beauty of language or tenderness of feeling, of Otway. In this season, Barry acted Romeo twelve, Garrick only six, times; but the latter introduced a new opposition to his rival, in the persons of Mossop and Ross, from Ireland. Mossop first appeared in Richard, with great applause. His Zanga was still more successful. Six times he played Horatio to Garrick's Lothario, and charmed the town frequently by his grand Theseus to Mrs. Pritchard's Phaedra. In Macbeth, Othello, Wolsey, and Orestes, he also displayed great powers. Garrick had his own peculiar triumphs. His Kitely gave new life to Ben Jonson's comedy of character. But this has brought us into a new halfcentury. Let us look back at the audiences of that which has gone by. CHAPTER XXV. THE AUDIENCES OF 1700-1750. MR. Isaac Bickerstaffe has laid it down as a rule that, "when we see anything divert an audience, either in tragedy or comedy, that strikes at the duties of civil life, or exposes what the best men in all ages have looked upon as sacred and inviolable, it is the certain sign of a profligate race of men, who are fallen from the virtue of their forefathers, and will be contemptible in the eyes of posterity." In those legitimate days, the promised presence of royalty, or of a leash of savages, or a quack doctoress, like Mrs. Mapp, the bone-setter, helped to fill the house. Royalty was the most attractive. Shakspeare's "Henry VIII." was frequently played before George I., both at Hampton Court and at Drury Lane. There was a speech in that play which never escaped his notice. It is that addressed by Wolsey to Cromwell, after the King has ordered the Cardinal to write letters of indemnity, into every county, where the payment of certain heavy taxes had been disputed. "A word with you," says the Cardinal : "Let there be letters writ to every shire Of the King's grace and pardon.-The grieved commons That through our intercession, this revokement On one occasion when the above lines were spoken, the King said to the Prince of Wales, 66 You see, George what you have one day to expect." In 1718, his Majesty's servants played seven times before a royal and noble audience, in the great Hall, at Hampton Court. George I. so thoroughly enjoyed all, that Steele told Lord Sunderland he was afraid he should have lost all his actors for he was not sure the King would not keep them to fill the places at Court, "which he saw them so fit for in the play." To the performers at Hampton Court their ordinary day's wages was given, with their travelling expenses. The cost of the seven plays amounted to £350; but King George generously threw in a couple of hundred more, as a guerdon to the managers. Among the unmerited censures which have been flung at Charles II., the least reasonable is, that the grossness of the dramas produced in his days was owing to his bad taste, exhibited in his fondness for French comedy. Had the English poets of that period imitated that comedy, they would not have offended as they did; for, taken altogether, French comedy was remarkable for its freedom from utter coarseness. George II. was more blameworthy than his predecessor Charles, for he encouraged the representation of immoral dramas, and commanded the restoration of scenes which actors deemed too indecent for acting or expression. For didactic plays the monarch had no stomach; but he savoured Ravenscroft's beastly comedies. This perverted taste was strong upon him from the first. When Prince of Wales, he witnessed the acting of "Venice Preserved," and he commanded that the filthy scenes, between Aquilia and Antonio, should be restored! The former part was given to Mrs. Horton, who, though she was something of the quality of the creature she represented, was not only young and beautiful, but was draped in a certain mantle of modesty which heightened the charms of her youth and her beauty; and she must have had a painful task, less than the younger Pinkethman had who played Antonio, in thus gratifying the low predilections of the graceless Prince, who then gave ton to audiences. The position in which monarch and people stood with reference to each other at the theatre, is shown by the fact of George II. having once been received with murmurs of disapprobation, as he entered his box. He was surprised, but on being told that the house was annoyed at having been kept waiting, he took out his watch, looked at it with an air of concern, made an apologetic bow, and was rewarded by a shout of applause which betokened perfect forgiveness. In the latter part of his life, he took advantage of his position to make loud remarks on the performances at which he was present. Walpole, writing to Mann, says :-" A certain king was last week at the play. The intriguing chambermaid in the farce says to the old gentleman:-'You are villainously old, you are sixty-six, you cannot have the impudence to think of living above two years.' The old gentleman in the stage-box turned about in |