CHAPTER XII. A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY. IN novelties, during the first season of the eighteenth century, Drury led the way with Cibber's "Love Makes a Man." It was not excelled by the "Humour of the Age," by Baker, nor by Settle's mad operatic tragedy, the "Siege of Troy," with a procession in which figured six white elephants, nor by Farquhar's sequel to his "Constant Couple," "Sir Harry Wildair," or Mrs. Trotter's "Unhappy Penitent," which gave way in turn for Durfey's comedy, The Bath, or the Western Lass." The play itself was of no great value. It justified Dryden's remark to a friend, some years before, who had said, "Mr. Durfey cannot write a worse piece." 'If you knew my friend Tom, as I do, you would know that he'll write many a worse piece.” 66 66 In the same season, the company at Lincoln's Inn Fields produced, Mrs. Pix's "Double Distress," the "Czar of Muscovy," and the "Lady's Visiting Day," by Burnaby. After which, the hilarity of the public was challenged by the production of Granville (Lord Lansdowne's) "Jew of Venice,"" improved" from Shakspeare. In this piece, Bassanio (Betterton) is the most prominent character; and though the whole piece was converted into a comedy, Doggett is said to have acted Shylock with much effect, and without buffoonery. Granville gave the profits of the play to one who needed them, Dryden's son. Gildon's dull piece of Druidism, "Love's Victim, or the Queen of Wales," failed, and Corye's "Cure for Jealousy" brought the list of unsuccessful novelties to a close. The author attributed his failure to the absurd admiration of the public for Farquhar ! In 1702, the Drury Lane company commenced the production of novelties with Dennis's "Comical Gallant,"-an "improved" edition of Shakspeare's "Merry Wives," which gave way to the STEELE AND PUBLIC OPINION. 97 "Generous Conqueror," of the ex-fugitive Jacobite, Bevil Higgons, who made even his fellow Jacobites laugh, by his bouncing line, "The gods and god-like kings can do no wrong." The next novelty, Farquhar's "Inconstant," with Wilks for Young Mirabel, did not affect the town hilariously. Still less pleased were the public with the next play, tossed up for them in a month, and condemned in a night, Burnaby's "Modish Husband." Not much more successful was Vanbrugh's "False Friend," a comedy in which there is a murder enacted before the audience! But, the next new piece, the "Funeral, or Grief à la Mode,” was a greater success. The author was six and twenty years of age; this was his first piece, and his name was Steele. All that was known of him was, that he was a native of Dublin, had been fellow-pupil at the Charter House with Addison, had left the University without a degree, and was said to have lost the succession to an estate in Wexford by enlisting as "a private gentleman in the Horse Guards." He was the wildest and wittiest young dog about town, when in 1701, he published, with a dedication to Lord Cutts, to whom he had been private secretary, and through whom he had been appointed to a company in Lord Lucas's Fusiliers, his Christian Hero, a treatise in which he showed what he was not, by showing what a man ought to be. It brought the poor fellow into incessant perplexity, and even peril. Some thought him a hypocrite, others provoked him as a coward, all measured his sayings and doings by his maxims in his Christian Hero, and Dick Steele was suffering in the regard of the town, when he resolved to redeem the character which he could not keep up to the level of his religious hero, by composing a comedy! He thoroughly succeeded, and there were troopers enough in the house to have beat the rest of the audience into shouting approbation, had they not been well inclined to do so, spontaneously. The "Funeral" is the merriest and the most perfect of Steele's comedies. The characters are strongly marked, the wit genial, and not indecent. Steele was among the first who set about reforming the licentiousness of the old comedy. The most genuine humour in the piece was in the satire against undertakers. Take the scene in which Sable (Johnson) is giving instructions to his men, and reviewing them the while :you're a little more upon the dismal. This fellow has a good mortal look-place him near the corpse. That wainscot-face must be a-top o' the stairs. That fellow 's almost in a fright, that looks as if he were full of some strange misery, at the end Ha, 66 o' the hall! So!-But I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no laughing now, on any provocation. Look yonder at that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, didn't I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving wages? Didn't I give you ten, then fifteen, then twenty shillings a week, to be sorrowful? And the more I give you the gladder you are!" This sort of humour made of Steele the spoiled child of the town. "Nothing," said he, ever makes the town so fond of a man as a successful play." Old Sunderland and younger Halifax, patronised Steele for his own, and for Addison's sake; and the author of the new comedy received the appointment of Writer of the Gazette. After a closing of the houses during Bartholomew Fair, the Drury Lane Company met again; and again won the town by Cibber's "She Would and She Would Not." This excellent comedy contrasts well with the same author's "Careless Husband." In the latter there is much talk of action; in the former there is much action during very good talk. There is much fun, little vulgarity, sharp epigrams on the manners and morals of the times, good humoured satire against popery, and a succession of incidents which never flags from the rise to the fall of the curtain. Far less successful was Drury with the last and eighth new play of this season, Farquhar's "Twin Rivals," for the copyright of which the author received £15. 6s. from Tonson. Farquhar, perhaps, took more pains with this than with any of his plays; but, after Steele and Cibber, it failed to attract. To the eight pieces of Drury, Lincoln's Inn opposed half a dozen, only one of which has come down to our times, namely, Rowe's "Tamerlane," with which the company opened the season: -Tamerlane, Betterton; Bajazet, Verbruggen; Axalla, Booth; Aspasia, Mrs. Barry. In this piece, Rowe left sacred for profane history, and made his tragedy so allusive to Louis XIV. in Bajazet, and to William III. in Tamerlane, that it was for many years represented at each theatre on every recurring 4th and 5th of November, the anniversary of the birth and of the landing of King William. There is life in Rowe's tragedy, which, with some of the bluster of the old, has some of the sentiment of a new school. Tamerlane has been a favourite part with many actors. Lady Morgan's father, Mr. Owenson, made his first appearance in it, under Garrick's rule; but a Tamerlane with a strong Irish brogue and comic redundant action, created different sensations from those intended by the author, and though the audience did 66 PRE-EMINENCE OF THE FAIR PENITENT." 99 not hiss, they laughed abundantly. To "Tamerlane" succeeded "Antiochus the Great," a tragedy, full of the old love, bombast, and murder, by a Mrs. Wiseman, Lord Orrery's posthumous play “Altemira,” "The Gentleman Cully," in which Booth fooled it to the top of his bent, in the only English comedy. which ends without a marriage, the "Beaux' Duel," and the Stolen Heiress,"-these sleep in deserved oblivion. 66 In the season of 1703, Drury Lane produced seven, and Lincoln's Inn Fields six, pieces. Those at Drury were Baker's "Tunbridge Walks; " Durfey's "Old Mode and the New," a satirical comedy, on the fashions of Elizabeth's days and those of Anne; "Fair Example, or the Modish Citizens," by Estcourt, a strolling player, but soon afterwards a clever actor in this company; Mrs. Carroll's "Love's Contrivance;" Wilkinson's "Vice Reclaimed;" Manning's "All for the Better;" and Gildon's "Patriot, or the Italian Conspiracy." None of them brought profit, during a season when "Macbeth" was the only one of "Shakspeare's" plays which was performed. The season of 1703, at Lincoln's Inn Fields, was distinguished. by the success of Rowe's "Fair Penitent," the one great triumph of the year. The other novelties, by Oldmixon, Charles Boyle (the worthy antagonist of Bentley, touching the genuineness of the "Epistles of Phalaris"), are not worth noticing. The great event of the season was the "Fair Penitent:" Lothario, Powell; Horatio, Betterton; Altamont, Verbruggen; Calista, Mrs. Barry; Lavinia, Mrs. Bracegirdle. Rowe had, in his "Tamerlane," thundered, after the manner of Dryden; had tried to be as pathetic as Otway, and had employed some of the bombast of Lee. But he lacked strength to make either of the heroes of that resonant tragedy, vigorous. In devoting himself, henceforth, to illustrate the woes and weaknesses of heroines, he discovered where his real powers lay; and Calista is. one of the most successful of his portraitures. There is gross plagiarism from Massinger's Fatal Dowry," but there is a greater purity of sentiment in Rowe, who leaves, however, room for improvement in that respect, by his successors. The Fair Penitent is more angry at being found out, than sorry for what has happened, but all the sympathy of the audience is freely rendered to Calista. The tragedy, however, has lost the popularity it retained during the last century, when even Edward, Duke of York, and Lady Stanhope, enacted Lothario and Calista, in the once famous " private theatre” in Downing Street. 66 66 Shakspeare, iu name, at least, re-appears more frequently on the stage during the Drury Lane season of 1703-4, when "Hamlet," King Lear," " Macbeth," "Timon of Athens," "Richard III.,” the "Tempest," and "Titus Andronicus," were performed. These, however, were the "improved" editions of the poet. The novelties were, the "Lying Lover," by Steele; "Love, the Leveller;" and the "Albion Queens." It was the season in which great Anne fruitlessly forbade the presence of vizard-masks in the pit, and of gallants on the stage: recommended cleanliness of speech, and denounced the shabby people who occasionally tried to evade the money-takers. Steele, in his play, attempted to support one of the good objects which the Queen had in view; but in striving to be pure, after his idea of purity, and to be moral, after a loose idea of morality, he failed altogether in wit, humour, and invention. He thought to prove himself a good churchman, he said, even in so small a matter as a comedy; and in the character of comic poet, "I have been," he says, a martyr and confessor for the church, for this play was damned for its piety." This is as broad an untruth as anything uttered by the "Lying Lover himself. Steele was condemned for stupidity in a piece, the only ray of humour in which, pierces through the dirty, noisy, drunken throng of gallows-birds in Newgate. That Steele seriously intended his play to be the beginning of an era of "new comedy,” is, however, certain. In the prologue, it was said of the author "He aims to make the coming action move On the tried laws of Friendship and of Love. Steele's comedy was a step in a right direction; and his great fault was pretending to be half-ashamed of having made it. It was one of the first pieces played without a mingling of the public with the players. The other new pieces produced this season at Drury Lane are not worthy of record. Walker, Lincoln's Inn failed to distinguish itself this season. Trapp, and Dennis, were the poets; but they produced nothing that has lived. The season of 1704-5, at Drury Lane, is notable for the production of Cibber's "Careless Husband." In this comedy a really serious and eminently successful attempt to reform the licentiousness of the drama was made by one who had been himself a great offender. In Lord Morelove we have the first lover |