A complete history of the English stage: ... by Mr. Dibdin. ... [pt.5]

THE STAGE.

BOOK X. FROM 1763 TO THE DEATH OF GARRICK.

CHAP. I. STATE OF THE OPERA AND MUSIC IN GENERAL.

AS this is the warmest opportunity that can possibly occur to take up the opera, and all collateral parti|culars relative to music, I shall certainly avail myself of it, which will be the more necessary as it is com|letely a novelty; no such thing having been done in any publication similar to this.

I know it has been the fashion to consider music as a menial and servile attendant of the theatre, ra|ther than an ally and an auxiliary. Nothing can be more usual than to read accounts of operas and

masques that have been performed with success without even a single hint as to who were the com|posers of the music, but I would beg leave to ask if a piece were to be advertised, written by a pen su|perior, could it be, to that of SHAKESPEAR, and acted by the best members of the schools of BET|TERTON and GARRICK, whether the audience would not hiss down the curtain if they were deprived of the first music?

I look upon this ungrateful contempt of music, in authors and managers, to have arisen from their want of a taste for it, and their total inability to de|scribe it. Music has never been encouraged but when BEARD had the management of Covent Gar|den theatre. What I mean to say is judiciously en|couraged; for, LACEY as we shall see, aped the fashion exactly as a guinea pig apes a squirrel, or a clown a tumbler. When at any other time have we seen a manager like BEARD competent to afford the public amusement in this way? I have known GARRICK, and more than GARRICK, imposed upon by experiments till it was apparent they did not know one tune from another.

What hope or expectation then can the public en|tertain of receiving that rational, that irriproachable

delight which the theatre is capable of affording us through the medium of music? If managers know not what it is, and if it is not to be known through the theatre, much less, heaven knows, is it to be known through the opera; a spectacle where the dance is the plot and the opera the episode* 1.1; but remarks of this complexion will come better after I have gone through an account of music, which, during forty years, grew into the highest perfection in this country and is now sunk into insignificance, as land when it ceaces to be fertilized degenerates into fourness and sterility.

As ITALY, as well in the opinion of PURCELL as of every man who when he speaks of music is competent to judge of it by its effects upon the heart, was the school alone in which English music could receive congenial improvement, and as GERMANY has ever thrown an impervious gloom over our plea|sures, which has entangled our reason, and misled our senses into error and perplexity, which, in music

in particular, has constantly introduced schisms till we have been left nothing of harmony but its dis|cords, so it will be particularly my business to watch the progress of this corn that once produced a fair and plentious harvest, and the tares which have since completely choaked it up.

It is impossible for me here to go into the dif|ferences of HANDEL and BONONCINI, and the dis|putes of various kinds that kept up the opera as a subject of perpetual contention for a considerable time, and which, in proportion as HANDEL turned more to oratorios, and the Italian interest gained ground of the German, materially brought the opera gradually to perfection. The progress of music in ILALY had been astonishing; and, though the great genius and judgment of CORELLI had in the public opinion conducted it to perfection, it was soon af|terwards seen that music, though an imitative art, had properties immediately derived from nature which had been but little noticed, and, when no|ticed, were almost altogether rejected.

What I mean to allude to is the distinction be|tween melody and harmony, two things that though they assist each other in union are completely dif|ferent in their nature, whereas it is generally under|stood

at this moment that they both mean the same thing* 1.2. Composers, about 1720, began to feel that

melody was an animating principle which though it

could exist of itself, harmony, the carcase which it was intended by nature to vivify, could not. In other words, that melody was the song, and harmony the accompanyment; and, in proportion as the judg|ments of musicians began to be more simplified and the grand and natural effect manifested by the an|cients in the other arts considered as subjects of imi|tation, which circumstance was adventitiously for|warded by the sudden appearance of many com|posers instructed by nature and their feelings, the true end and tendency of music were accomplished; laboured, abstruse, calculated harmony was rejected, and nothing but what served to give appropriate em|bellishment to melody was retained.

The moment this system was fully resolved on,

it is astonishing how beautifully the bird music sung, emancipated from its cage; but to keep to plain narrative, HANDEL, whose great disadvantage ad|ded to his ignorance of the English language, which was a great impediment to his vocal music, was this harmonic mania, though he turned and twisted it about pretty well, came forward with improved ex|cellence after his trip to ITALY, where he composed The Triumph of Time and Truth, in which he has imitated Italian basses almost to servility. GEME|NIANI appeared the advocate of melody, TARTINI introduced an appropriate union of melody and har|mony, and instrumental music dared not further in|trude than to the modest and becoming bounds pre|scribed to it by nature.

PERGOLESI, that musical wonder; who, though we know nothing more of his compositions than two comic interludes, La Serva Padrona, and It Maestro de Musica, one Salva Regina, and his immortal Stabat Mater, reached perfection, and therefore was poisoned at twenty-two. GALLUPPI, who composed most sweetly because he despised extraneous har|mony, deliciously agitated every pleasing sentation by his music. VINCI, PEREZ, JOMELLI, and a long string of celebrated Italians brought this taste to ENGLAND, and confirmed its reputation till, from about 1756, to 1766.

About this time the German taste began again to prevail; and, though BACH and ABEL, but parti|cularly ABEL, still adhered to the perfect style in which harmony had no triumph over melody, yet the manner began by PICCINI of loading air with accompanyment, which was ingenious enough in him, but followed awkwardly and bungingly by others, shook that reputation which truth and nature had established; and, in spight of the meritorious efforts of VENTO, and a few others, the ear began to be stunned instead of delighted, and music, that had so lately roused the affections and soothed the soul, was considered as destitute of merit unless it could describe the confusion of a battle, or the vio|lence of a hurricane.

The opera having thus been considered as the criterion and regulator as to music in this country, not very properly indeed since music ought not to be submitted to any criterion or regulator but the heart and its feelings, the prevalent taste of the opera be|came the prevalent taste of the nation, and thus operas, which had certainly been a national benefit, became more and more a national injury, till the theatres following this retrogade motion, not step by step, but halt by halt, sidled off gradually; and left

the throne of music to be usurped by the demon of discord.

As I have attributed this false taste to the pre|valence of German music, it is but fitting that I honestly make out my position. I have shewn, in how many periods of the history of music in this country, this innovation was to be dreaded. We have, in consequence of the researches of the ori|nal printers of music, in the sixteenth century, proved that documents were found which plainly shew that the style of musical study would be nature in the Italians, and art in the Germans. We have seen ARON RAMIS and AGRICOLA lost in the labyrinth of harmony, to which, by their own con|fession, they knew not how to find a clue, and yet these men, AGRICOLA in particular, wrote lessons for young beginners. Were not, therefore, the in|extricable barbarities of the Germans then exactly what they are now?

What did ZARLINO and his followers? The co|temporaries of those Germans, did they lose nature to perplex themselves and the world with art? No. They traced music to its origin, and not only felt but demonstrated that music is not derived from construction and calculation, but from nature and

simplicity. My premises then are clearly made out by that most infallible of all proofs the evidence of long experience; and, as the stage upon the same principal is now adopting every thing monstrous and unnatural, it becomes a question whether, in our in|satiable thirst after novelty, we may not one day or other take it into our heads to discard art and adopt nature.

But not to lose sight at present of music it will be fairly asked me whether there is no such thing as melody in the compositions of the Germans? It would be very hard indeed if in such an immense wilderness there should not be a few flowers; but luxuriance was never yet a symptom of strength or maturity. And this is the very thing I complain of; for were the Germans barren of genius, their impositions would be detected; whereas, by scat|tering here and there a few traits of fancy, a study of their works is something like what the poets de|scribe of the road to the temple of pleasure, which is flowery and deceitful, and which beguiles our time with idle trifling, till the night of disappoint|ment overtakes us, and we view the promised goal through the medium of delusion, and presently lose it in the shades of obscurity.

Melodies however these Germans have, but, by introducing them by fits and starts, their music has no character, except indeed the sort of character that a masque has compared to a face; which serves to disguise it by the substitution of deformity. I will not allow a work of genius to be complete in all its parts unless, like a perfect poem, its drift be pre|mised, followed up, and concluded: and upon this ground the stoutest stickler for the present fashiona|able music, has not a single argument to stand upon.

I cannot more clearly give an idea of these re|dundant compositions, and their opposites, than by supposing two orators: One shall be a man of na|tural eloquence, who supports his arguments in simple and perspicuous language, who borrows no ornament but from reason, nor courts assistance but from truth: The other shall deal in metaphor, al|legory, and allusion. He shall wrap up the plainest axiom in figure, logic, and system; in soaring to sublimity he shall fall into quaintness, and in striv|ing to transcend, he shall sink to nothing.

What must be the different effect on their hear|ers? One shall delight and convince, the other daz|zle

and mislead. One shall win from attention the willing tribute of praise, the other wrest from asto|nishment a mixture of admiration and pity.

Every thing the ear acknowledges as music is song. Poetry is originally supposed to have been sung. ITALY, therefore, must be considered as the first mu|sical school; vocal music having been ever in greater repute there than in any other part of the world, and, on that account, the Italians are less apt than other composers to go into any thing extraneous, for vocal music is in its nature regular. This is not the case with the Germans, whose study being al|most wholly instrumental music, they traverse the wide field of modulation, and quarter it as regularly as a pointer in the stuble: or rather, like a citizen on a Sunday, who walks out till he is tired, forgetting that he has to come home again.

This then I conceive to be the cause of that per|version of taste in this country which has unhappily obtained, and in particular as to music; our national characteristic being warm benevolence and broad liberality, which too frequently encourages, when it ought to discriminate.

CHAP. II. THE THEATRE DURING THE INTERREGNUM, AND IMMEDIATELY ON GARRICK's RETURN.

WHEN the finishing stroke, which was no less than indifference and neglect, had been given to GAR|RICK's determination of travelling for two years, that the public, which was infalliable, might feel their loss; both BEARD and LACEY, felt bold at the circumstance. BEARD, from a consciousness that, having established opera upon a firm and solid basis he should exclusively possess the favour of the town, and LACEY, from a contempt he had ever en|tertained of GARRICK's judgment as a manager, and a firm belief that through his fancied superiority he should both eclipse Covent Garden, and lower his partner in the opinion of the public.

Both these effects GARRICK had foreseen, and had very early anticipated the consequence of them. He saw the certain operation of all that could possi|bly be brought forward to supply the place of his

exertions; he saw, supported as it was by a national taste, that music would naturally make a considerable head against him; but he saw that LACEY would court the assistance of this auxiliary to the temporary disadvantage of the theatre, and that even BEARD would not be able to find a sufficient stock of ma|terials to compensate for the loss of tragedy and comedy.

His penetration was equally keen in respect to writing and acting, which he knew must in his ab|sence come to what the sportsmen call a complete stand still. As to the veteran writers, they so uni|quivocally adopted this sentiment that they pati|ently waited his return; and, for the novices, their certain ruin must have been the consequence of venturing any thing material in his absence. Both these effects were in a remarkable manner produced. COLMAN, whose reputation had received complete confirmation by the assistance of GARRICK in The Jealous Wife, had the good sense to venture at no production of a first rate kind, till his coadjutor re|turned; and POWEL, whom nature had endowed with many of the best requisites of an actor, by hav|ing the reins thrown over his neck, soon lost sight of the admirable lessons he had received from GAR|RICK, who had been his most able preceptor, and

was bewildered out of that little native judgment he he possessed, by folly, vanity, and indiscriminate applause.

All this which GARRICK had foreseen literally happened. ARNE was the only composer of real eminence known to the theatre at that time, for BOYCE had retired to the church. MICHAEL ARNE's music was always passable but never ex|cellent, RUSH had just arrived from ITALY and knew the taste of that country, but wanted the judg|ment to adopt that taste to English ears, or rather to English hearts. BATES had bluster, and bustle, and could compose songs as fast as a blacksmith can make hobnails all of the same size and quality; and, as to the rest, they were still inferior pretenders.

It is true that there were plenty of compilers, who furnished the theatres with lumping penny|worths; and this mode sometimes, as in the case of Love in a Village, and The Maid of the Mill, was adopted with success but never unless superintended with judgment and assisted by the original compo|sition of some excellent musician. Love in a Village though benefitted by very beautiful music by GA|LUPPI, GIARDINI, and others, received two-thirds of its value from ARNE, and The Maid of the Mill

being, though better assisted by Italians, rather a grand than interesting selection.

All this, however, was neither seen nor felt by LACEY; who, being accustomed to hear God save the King, Roast Beef, and Rule Britannia, knew there were such tunes but could scarcely distinguish one of them from another, fancied that three com|posers must naturally conquer one, and therefore set RUSH, BATES, and MICHAEL ARNE to work, and presently, in opposition to Artaxerxes, came out The Royal Shepherd, Pharnaces, and Almena.

In the mean time GARRICK received very dis|mal accounts from VICTOR, the treasurer, of the immense sums squandered away to decorate serious operas on the one side of the account, and, on the other, a beggarly account of empty boxes of which, though it was the very effect he anticipated, he bit|terly complained while he privately hugged him|self for his own sagacity, well knowing that the tendency of this temporary loss would be future same, and permanent profit.

GARRICK now began to feel a consequence he had never known till that moment; and, excellent as his worldly acting had always been, he was asto|nished

at his own power of attracting such universal applause. He was wished for and expected with the most anxious curiosity at home, while the ac|counts we received of him from abroad, some of which by the bye, by way of whetting public im|patience, even went to insituate that he meant to pass the remainder of his life in Italy, were the ho|nourable and flattering reception he every where met with, the invitations he continually received from Princes and Ambassadors, which, another stroke of acting, he rejected to sort with men of professional eminence, and in short the great and distinguished attention he daily experienced, such as never had been paid to any other individual.

Nor was this all. He found the success of dra|matic writers as indifferent as his most sanguine hopes would possibly have suggested; he found that, in proportion as POWEL got SHAKESPEAR in his head he lost him in his heart; he found that his partner, having begun to give up operas as a bad thing, had, by way of retrieving his declining for|tune, conceived an expectation of finding coals in Oxfordshire, from which circumstance he knew he should get as much of the theatrical property into his own hands as he thought proper; he found, in short, that the musical mania began to be on the decline; nay he found JOHNNY BEARD deaf, and Dr. ARNE

damned, and yet, can it be credited? Such was the strange crooked policy and singular vanity of this extraordinary man—he wrote The Sick Monkey.

It was well for GARRICK that the public dispised this contemptible production under an idea that it was written by an insidious enemy, otherwise it must have operated heavily against him; but the tide was in his favour and nothing could stop it. The town knew no other topic. Presents awaited him, and every trifling circumstance relative to him in ever so remote a degree was a subject of general conversation. In short, no object of the greatest national importance could engross more attention; the Royal family graced his first appearance, while he as contentedly swallowed all this adulation as an alderman does the green fat of a turtle, still keeping up those outward signs of diffidence and apparent self-denial, which he ever put on, by chusing Much ado about Nothing for his first appearance, that it might signify how much the goodness of the public surpassed his desert. What a wonderful union of merit and modesty; no bishop ever repeated Noli episcopari more devoutly.* 1.3

He certainly, however, deserved every attention

that could possibly be paid to him. His absence had shewn, that without him the theatre could exist but not live, and on that return, which, for the re|mainder of his management, ensured the stage a large flow of health and vigour, no wonder he be|came more than ever the theme of universal ad|miration.

Having now turned to as the sailors call it and gone in earnest to work; materials of course flocked in upon him from every quarter, and he even began to have a better choice of new goods than he had been in possession of since he had become ma|nager.* 1.4 With these advantages, seconded by the ex|ertions

of his company, who were glad enough to welcome his return that something like regularity might be restored, he set himself busily forward, and saw each department conducted with every possible propriety, and decorum. Instead of the indecency, profligacy, and debauchery, that had been known at different periods to characterize the green rooms, the dressing rooms, and the avenues of the play-house, the manners of the actors and the actresses were unoffending, polite, and elegant; and nothing appeared in the conduct of the theatre but might have graced a drawing room. It is but justice also to say. that during BEARD's manage|ment of Covent Garden, every possible attention was paid to propriety and decorum.

CHAP. III. GARRICK, AS AN AUTHOR, RESUMED.

AS an examination of the merits of authors and actors, will naturally bring out all that will be ne|cessary now to relate concerning the stage, and my limits are verging towards a close, I shall go on with authors and such collateral particulars as are involved in a description of their works.

The first dramatic undertaking GARRICK en|gaged in after his return was the production of a play, in conjunction with COLMAN, who had given strong proof both of genius and judgment in The Jealous Wife; he had given also proof of deference, modesty, and good sense, in permitting GARRICK to teach him his trade, for it proved in the event that COLMAN was never so good a dramatic writer as while he had GARRICK at his elbow.

GARRICK's share of this play The Clandestine Marriage, was Lord Ogleby, and the courtly fa|mily, COLMAN's, Sterling, and the city family, and

it is astonishing how the two men appear in their se|parate tasks. COLMAN has chastely and accurately delineated character, GARRICK has added to strong character, strong situation; and, to add to this con|summate knowledge of stage effect, how admirably well it was got up!

It is really honourable to letters, and to the nation, that the theatre could be capable of furnish|ing so rational a treat, so greatly perfect and ex|cellent in all its parts; so unaffectedly attractive, as this play; which, though GARRICK only superin|tended it, was acted to perfection. I don't make this remark as a singularity, for many pieces at that time deserved this praise. I only mean to prove that, when we consider the incomparable acting of KING, which, like a single jewel rescued from the plunder of time, is now preserved to us with equal brilliancy, his mixture of gout, folly, pleasantry, philanthropy, debility, and dignity, put on with such fancy and worn with such elegance—

When we reflect on that astonishing creature Mrs. CLIVE; who, if she herself had written the part as the portait of a real character, and, not con|tent with this, had infused herself into this real cha|racter, could not have been more in nature—When we go on and speak of the chaste propriety and

sound good sense of YATES, the pert, vulgar con|sequence so naturally and characteristically assumed by Miss POPE, the accommodating servility of BADDELEY, than whom nobody ever performed that particular foreigner, a Swiss, so well, as GAR|RICK perfectly knew, the easy, familiar imperti|nence of PALMER, not the late PALMER, but his predecessor.

When we add to all this, that the play was strengthened by HOLLAND in Melville, and POWEL, in Lovewell, that Mrs. ABINGTON performed one of the chambermaids, and that the inferior parts, even to the counsellors, witness the admirable per|formance of LOVE in Serjeant Flower, were sup|ported most ably, I cannot resist a belief that the stage at any time whatever could not have been in a state of higher perfection as to acting; for the merits of every performer I have mentioned were of such superior excellence that the parts be what they might, could not degrade them, and the public accorded their applause to HOLLAND, and POWEL, as much for the good sense and condescension in accepting parts below their usual standard, as for the intrinsic merit they displayed under such disad|vantages, and it heightened their opinion of Mrs. ABINGTON, in whom they plainly saw, under the

ease of Betty the chambermaid, that merit which af|terwards perfected into the elegance, grace and fashion, of Lady Betty Modish.

The Country Girl, which was performed in 1766, was a judicious altercation of WYCHERLEY's Country Wife. As it is now frequently performed and the public have had many recent opportunities of judging of its merits, I shall only say that every thing has not yet been done which might have been to the advantage of that subject. Neck or Nothing, almost a literal translation of Le SAGE's Crispin Rival de Son Maitre deceived GARRICK when he read it in the French, as it would have done any person, for it there seems to be the very sort of farce to please on the English stage. The event however, did not justify the experiment, though it was admirably performed.

Cymon, a piece written to display those scenic effects which GARRICK had witnessed in France, and Italy, was in itself a weak production but it was neither without interest nor pleasantry. There was always a want of consequence in those first pieces, which were the sole production of GAR|RICK, his pen was not equal to more than a farce. The performance, however, was powerfully sus|tained; and among other material advantages, MI|CHAEL

ARNE, by copying the manner of his father, and thinking of BOYCE as he composed, produced a number of sweet airs, particularly those so delici|ously sung by his wife.

A Peep behind the Curtain, came out in 1767, with good success.* 1.5 It was a fair satire, indeed rather an admonition, than a castagation; it hit but it did not wound; besides which, there are some things in it irresistably comic, particularly the cir|cumstance of making the old man dance against his will. This piece was incomparably performed,

and the music, which was composed by BARTHE|LEMAN, and which had a mixed character of Italian, French, and English, produced a degree of novelty which gave it good effect.

The Jubilee,* 1.6 a spectacle, in which were in|troduced

characters in SHAKESPEAR's plays, was performed as every body knows, more than half the season of 1769, and 1770; a circumstance certainly unprecedented in the annals of the theatre. King Arthur, was brought forward in 1771, and assisted by scenery, and most judiciously improved, as to the music, by ARNE, who greatly to his honour, though according to GARRICK's plan, he was obliged to introduce some music of his own, so far from mutilating PURCELL, rescued those beauties from oblivion, which time and ignorance had before obscured. ARNE idolized PURCELL, and it was his pride in this particular instance, to place him in that conspicuous situation the brilliancy of his repu|tation demanded. GARRICK's view in bringing

out this piece was to perform the same duty by DRYDEN.

Hamlet, was, in the same season, with great dif|fidence, altered by GARRICK, in compliance with the judgment of a host of critics, who have so often suggested a necessity of getting rid of Ostric, the grave diggers, and as much as possible of the lighter parts of the play. The critics, however, on the other side of the question, began to consider him like Bottom the weaver, who wishes to play all the piece. After a very few nights it was withdrawn. The Institution of the Garter, was brought out in honour of that ceremony at Windsor. GARRICK used WEST's materials, and added a Fool, and some other comic characters. It was performed twenty-six nights a run at least, equal to its merits.

The Irish Widow, performed in 1772, grew po|pular through the exertions of Mrs. BARRY, to whom GARRICK most pompously dedicated it. It is extraordinary, that he, who better than any man, knew it to be bad policy, should be so fond of de|precation. The Chances, in which GARRICK per|formed Don John so incomparably, and in which performance he was so ably assisted by Mrs. ABING|TON, then in the zenith of her reputation, was pro|duced in 1773, and is only BEAUMONT and

FLETCHER's play with appropriate alterations. Al|bumazor was performed the same year. It was an alteration of the old play, as I have before stated. It had no success. Alfred came out the beginning of the following season; it had great support but little success. The music was confided to the care of THEODORE SMITH, who had better have let ARNE alone, since he had not the ability to treat him as ARNE had treated PURCELL in Arthur.

A Christmas Tale appeared in 1774. The subject was la Fee Urgelle, of FAVART, which BEAUMONT and FLETCHER had treated, under the title of Wo|man Pleased, but which had a much more ancient date. This piece was full of magic, and intended, like Cymon, to give advantage to scenery and deco|ration; a circumstance which GARRICK had adopted with great caution after the Chinese Festival, till his return from Italy.* 1.7 LOUTERBOURG was at that

time first known in this country, who wanted com|pletely, with great propriety, to alter the system of scenery which always had prevailed, and indeed it does in a great measure yet prevail; but GARRICK, finding the new system very expensive, would not adopt the whole of it, and therefore, though scenes were improved, the evil has not to this day been completely cured. This piece has been most un|mercifully handled, and heaven knows it was poor enough, but where spectacle only calls in assistance from the relative acts, if the piece be of that cha|racter that admits it, there certainly is not so much

injury done to the public as by the exhibition of finery, monsters and gewgaws. I dont care how much the Dramatist employs the painter. My quarrel to him is when the taste of the town is to be regulated by the property man.

Bon Ton, which is High Life Below Stairs revers|ed, is a farce of considerable merit. It was per|formed in 1775. May Day was a mere trifle, it had very little success. There were two or three pre|ludes written by GARRICK, and Prologues and Epi|logues out of all number and reckoning, which though they cannot be quoted for excellent poetry were nevertheless full of excellent point.

CHAP. IV. FOOTE, AND MURPHY RESUMED.

I SHALL now return to those authors, an account of whose works remains to be completed. We left off FOOTE at the MAYOR OF GARRATT. His next piece was The Patron, brought out in 1764. The subject is from MARMONTEL, which COLMAN had an idea of treating, but was forestalled by FOOTE. This comedy had pretensions to more favour than it received; perhaps its cool reception was owing to its want of that personality which he had taught the town to grow pleased with. It is true, the prin|cipal character was intended for a nobleman whose follies were known to the literati, but the public at large were strangers to them.

The Commissary, the next piece of this writer, per|formed in 1765, was of another complexion. Here was character and personality enough. This co|medy,

though it must be confessed, the best writers of that day held it in contempt, the town greatly approved. It is more a melange, and a patch work play, than almost any thing upon the English Stage. The Commissary is Le Bourgeouis gentilhomme of MO|LIERE, from which author, many other parts, and particularly the orator, who in the original, which is better than in FOOTE, after he is locked out of the door, harangues from the window, is also taken.

This is not all. The whole of the plot which re|lates to Mrs. MECHLIN, is still a stronger plagiary, for it is rendered almost word for word from La Fem|me d'Intrigue, and bits and scraps from other pieces of D'ANCOURT. Nay, the old widow who wants a young husband is not omitted, nor even the music-master, nor the circumstance of sending the child home in a bass viol.* 1.8 It cannot be denied, how|ever, that there is much pleasantry in the piece, but still that wanton personality that pervades it, de|votes it to execration in all honest minds.

The Devil upon two Sticks, which was produced in 1768, contained a good deal of general, and a good deal of personal satire. For the vehicle, its author had, as every body knows, to thank LE SAGE; and, for many parts of the piece he had obligations to MOLIERE. The controversy between the Fellows and the Licentiates of Warwick-lane, was fair game, and Dr. LAST, which it is said was actually a living character, and which was so wonderfully performed by WISTON, is that sort of personality which may be tolerated, because the object was obscure, and the drift was general admonition for the cure of folly. Other objects, however, had better have been left alone. Knavery will never be corrected by the exposition of one notorious knave, except by law; nor will intrigues of a court wear a new face by informing an audience, rather indecently by the bye, that a commoner has been disgraced by accept|ing a coronet.* 1.9

The Lame Lover was performed in 1770. It had a good deal of the sort of merit which characterized this authors pieces, that is to say asperity and good writing; but the string may be wound up till it cracks. Health, and property, are objects of great solicitude in this and every other country, but this does not prove that there is no fair game for the Stage but Physicians and Lawyers. The Maid of Bath acted in 1771, ought to have been hissed off the Stage, not as a dramatic production, for it is one of the pleasantest pieces by this writer, but because it was an unwarrantable and scandalous attack on a family, who were the more likely to feel the injury, by being in a public situation. It is certainly best when it can be practicable to treat unprincipled malignity, like this, with contempt; but the world in such cases should be the arbitrator, and do justice to individuals. That this sentiment was felt, the first nights recep|tion of this piece evinced; indeed FOOTE's pieces were generally very nearly damned the first night, though they grew afterwards into fame. The fact is, what is every body's business is nobody's busi|ness, and thus harmless and unoffending characters are held up to derision, to fill the pockets of profli|gate satirists.

The Nabob, performed in 1772, is a play strongly

written, and boldly drawn, and upon a subject, had it been generally treated, which might have come within the province of the stage; but the Theatre is no court of enquiry, and it was extreme|ly indecent to judge a cause before an audience which was at that moment agitating in the Senate. It was unhandsome and unjust, to excite a general odium against a body, by the exposition of a single character; but these were the means by which this satirist is said to have caught the living manners, which assertion is false; he never caught the living manners at all, he only caught the peculiarities of a few living individuals.

Piety in Pattens was produced in February 1773, to eke out a spectacle, which FOOTE had long pro|mised the town, under the title of The Primitive Puppet Show, and in which he pronounced an exor|dium, celebrated at that time as the achmé of elo|quence, genius, and erudition, but afterwards found to be a mixture of historical narrative, abuse against the other Theatres, and a promise of excellence at his own, that never was kept; for, to use the words of an Irishman upon the occasion, the entertainment was all exordium. Any other author would have had his Theatre pulled down for this imposition. The Bankrupt had for its drift the exposition of those

nefarious members of society, who manufacture ar|tificial failures, and systematically evade the bank|ruptcy laws. It also went into the arcana of doing newspapers, both which objects were clearly fair game It was successful; and except in a few trifling particulars, deservedly so.

The Cozeners, which play we find again a good deal from D'ANCOURT, and in which also we are perpe|tually put in mind of FACE, SUBTLE, and DOLL COMMON, in the Alchymist, was one of FOOTE's boldest pieces. If Lord Chesterfield and his graces had been laudably attacked, there could not have been found a fairer object of satire, because it was not a reprobation of the man, otherwise than as it concerned a foul and poisonous system that he had disseminated; but merely to bring on a clown and put him perpetually in mind of the graces, was leav|ing the improper tendency of the publication where he found it. Mrs. SIMONY was an unwarrantable attack. Strike at the vice with all my heart, but let the individual receive his punishment from the hand of justice. It is not for the Stage to super|cede the practice of the Courts; and, if the laws have determined the necessity of establishing sober, solemn enquiry into the perpetration of crimes, and if after all the innocent have sometimes suffered

for the guilty, shall the characters of men lie at the mercy of a prowling satirist, and their fame be de|stroyed by the dash of a pen? No man can defend the measure, for it is not only a libel on the man, but on the government by which he is pro|tected.

The Capuchin, performed in 1776, is an aggrava|tion of all this author's former temerity, for to shameless impudence, it added despicable coward|ice. To attack and expose to public ridicule, a woman! It was too contemptible. But FOOTE seems to have studied his own safety through the whole of his conduct; having chosen characters either so in|dependent, that he excited only their contempt, or so insignificant as to be sheltered by kindred pusila|nimity, and this grew on him, for, in the Cozeners, be was protected by Dr. DODD's gown, and in the Capuchin, by the Duchess of KINGSTON's pet|ticoat.

Thus have I, with some pain, because the merit of FOOTE was equal to any undertaking had he pur|sued the right road, examined the dramatic works of this author, which I have conceived it my duty to hold out as a beacon to warn others of those rocks FOOTE split upon, in his attempts to emulate

ARISTOPHANES, whose moral character has been de|voted to execration and contempt, and introduce that vicious and licentious perversions of broad truth and universal morality on the English Stage, which even the wonderful genius of MENANDER was unable to recover, and by which the Grecian Stage degenerated more and more; till at length it was lost in the wreck of the Grecian Empire.

We now return to MURPHY, who produced at Covent-Garden, in 1764, on the same evening, a Comedy, called No One's Enemy But His Own, and a Farce, under the title of What We Must All Come To; two misnomers. A man, who is an enemy to morality, and the exercise of it in all mankind, cannot be said to be no one's enemy but his own; nor are fighting and squabbling for trifles what ne|cessarily we must all come to in marriage during the honey-moon. The last piece was the best, and per|haps was damned for being in bad company. It has, however, given repeated pleasure since, under the title of Three Weeks after Marriage. The Choice was a Farce hurried up for the benefit of Mrs. YATES.

The School for Guardians, a Comedy, performed at Covent-Garden in 1767, was taken from three of

MOLIERE's plays. The materials were good in their kind, but they made up a strange incongruous mass, when mixed together. The Play was performed but six nights.

Zenobia was a tragedy which had great success. The opportunity MURPHY had at that time of wri|ing for the BARRY's was of great consequence to his reputation and their's. It cannot be denied that the fault of pompous language pervades this, as well as the rest of this author's tragedies; but strong ef|fect, by no means strange or unnatural, was emi|nently their characteristic.

MURPHY's next piece was the Grecian Daughter, on which a variety of opinions have been ventured. It has been an acted pantomime, virtue outraged, and a great deal more, but no observation has been able to controvert one plain fact, which is, that it has been long a favorite of the public; that the grand incident on which the plot hinges is simple, and natural, and begets a most extraordinary degree of interest.

The subject is the old story of the Roman Matron, and the author is candid enough to confess that he

in some degree availed himself of the Zelmire of BELLOY.* 1.10 He might perhaps have gone further, and traced the subject to METASTASIO, from whom BELLOY took his play.† 1.11

Alzuma, 1773, had the fault of the School for Guardians. It was a mixture of three French tra|gedies, as that had been of three French comedies, consequently the author endeavoured to reconcile those jarring interests without effect. It was just permitted on the stage, where it lingered nine nights and then expired.

Know your own Mind, performed in 1777, is a comedy of considerable merit. It had a long run during the season in which it was produced, and has been repeated frequently with good effect.

With this comedy I finish my account of MUR|PHY's dramatic productions; an author who studied stage effect very happily, and whose writings, whe|ther in tragedy, comedy, or farce, never outraged nature, nor wounded morality.

CHAP. V. HAWKESWORTH, HUME, FRANKLIN, BICKERSTAFF, HIFFERNAN, ARNE, KENRICK, GENTLEMAN, REED, AND LOVE.

AS those authors, who wrote principally after 1763, and but little before that period, had better, for the sake of a general review of their productions, come in this place, I shall bring them now under a regular review.

One of these was HAWKESWORTH, celebrated for several works of great ingenuity. For the stage he altered Amphytrion, from DRYDEN, at the desire of GARRICK, but introduced very little of his own; the principal part of what he supplied being from MO|LIERE. It did very little.

Oroonoko was altered from SOUTHERN, by HAWKES|WORTH, by leaving out the whole of the comic

scenes. A vacuum that required much more than he has supplied, admirable as his writing is, though not equal to SOUTHERN's, to fill it. The interest was beautifully kept alive in the original by the re|lief, bad as it was, the author had given it. The Planters were in nature and material to the plot, though it must be confessed they were gross. It was difficult to protract the principal story; and, however meritorious the attempt, so both HAWKES|WORTH and the public felt it. Edgar and Emmeline was an elegant piece; but changing of sexes has always something in it preposterous and revolting, unless contrived for some comic purpose.

When we talk of HUME, we always add, the au|thor of Douglas, a play that ever was, and ever will be ranked among those of first rate merit, though it must be confessed it is the less interesting because of its resemblance in the catastrophe to many other things. The language is, however, beauti|fully poetic. GRAY calls it the true language of the stage; and adds, that though it has infinite faults, the scene between Matilda and the old Peasant is so masterly, that it strikes him blind to all the de|fects in the world.

Agis was finely acted and assisted by spectacle,

otherwise it is probable it would not have been per|formed a second night. GRAY, who loved HUME as a writer, says of this play,

"I cry to think that it be by the author of Douglas: why, it is all modern Greek. The story is an antique statue painted white and red, frized, and dressed in a negligee made by a Yokshire mantua maker."

The Siege of Aquileia, performed in 1759, had suc|cess; and as to the writing, it certainly is, in many places, very fine: but for a siege, it is a tame busi|ness; and, so far from being a resemblance to the memorable circumstance it ought to describe, it is actually the description of the Siege of Berwick, in the reign of Henry the Third.

The Fatal Discovery was performed in 1769. HUME had certainly by this time greatly fallen off as a writer. This tragedy was reluctantly permit|ted during nine nights; and so was Alonzo, which play, through Mrs. BARRY's admirable acting, de|ceived the audience on the first night into a high opi|nion of its merit. HUME says, in his preface, that she received applause greater than ever shook a theatre. Alfred, the last production of this author, lived only three nights. In short, Douglas is equal in value to all the rest of HUME's works.

FRANKLIN, a voluminous writer and translator, but who, like many other men of literary conse|quence, is supposed to have lent his name to book|sellers, than which nothing can be more reprehen|sible, for it is actually literary swindling, is said to have translated the works of SOPHOCLES and VOL|TAIRE, and to have either written, or translated, the following plays.

The Earl of Warwick, performed in 1767, was little more than a direct translation of Le Comte de Warwick of LA HARPE. Mrs. YATES performed Margeret of Anjou incomparably. Orestes, pro|duced in 1769, from VOLTAIRE, was performed for Mrs. YATES's benefit. Electra, from VOLTAIRE's play, which he stole from Hamlet, after having abused SHAKESPEAR, was performed in 1774, but it had very little success. Matilda was little more than a translation of VOLTAIRE's Duc de Foix. The Contract, a comedy brought out at the Haymarket, and damned in the presence of the KING, and the ROYAL FAMILY, the only time perhaps they ever partook of such an amusement, is stolen from Le triple Mar|riage of DESTOUCHES.* 1.12

BICKERSTAFF produced the following dramatic pieces. Thomas and Sally, the principal merit of which piece was ARNE's charming music. Some of the poetry is neat and lyric, for this author knew the art of writing for music; but, whatever there is technical in it is completely false. I heard a sailor say, when he heard the expression

"tack about and bear away,"

"why that's go out of the door, and go up the chimney."

Love in a Village, 1762, which had a run almost equal to the Beggar's Opera, is made up, as we have seen, of several things, even to the stealing of CHARLES JOHNSON's songs, which were before stolen; one of these,

"My Dolly was the fairest thing,"

from RAN|DOLPH.

The circumstances are nevertheless inte|resting and entertaining, and the poetry is well calculated to assist musical expression, but nothing can be more puerile than the dialogue. The music is a beautiful selection, and those songs composed by ARNE are delightful.

The Maid of the Mill, 1765, is much better written than Love in a Village, the first act is perhaps as perfect as any thing on the stage. It however anticipates the denouement, and every thing after|wards declines. The fault of this author was that he was bigotted to Italian music, and French dia|logue, and therefore the music in this opera is fine, and the dialogue dull, Ralph and Fanny are the best characters in the piece, but they are only an improve|ment on Hodge and Madge.

Daphne and Amintor, 1765, was ST. FOIX's L'Oracle interspersed with songs to bring forward the won|derful singing of Mrs. ARNE. GALLUPPPI's music was delightful, and CHALONS, the compiler, com|posed a good overture and a pleasing duett. The Plain Dealer was judiciously enough altered from WYCHERLEY. It was greatly performed. Love in the City, 1767, which piece has been since cut down

to the Romp, was hissed through six nights and then withdrawn. SHUTER, who would not allow this author to be more than a good cook, said when he came off the stage on the fifth night, it was all up with the piece; brandy would not save it.

Lionel and Clarissa had considerable merit; but, in this piece, there were too many cooks; and, when it came to be altered under the title of A School for Fathers, it did no better. This author measured his scenes as an engraver squares a picture, and thus, though correct, by being always regular, they were always cold. The prepetually going off with a song and teaching the audience, in imitation of the opera, when to expect a bravura song, a comic song, a cavatina, a duett, a quar|tetto, and a finale, began to grow intolerable tiresome; besides sentiment at this time was only for comedy, and, just as that author had com|plained that the Clandestine Marriage has antici|pated Love in the City, though he himself had stolen the hint, so he now complained that False Delicacy had anticipated Lionel and Clarissa.

The Absent Man, performed in 1768, was only BRUYERE's story, which was copied into the Spec|tator,

put into dialogue. It was too ••••imzy to do any thing material. The Padlock was performed at Drury Lane, in 1768, as every body knows, with very great success. This author's pen never held out to the end. There is a great disproportion between the first act and the second. It was however well managed. The plot is from CERVANTES. Nothing could exceed the sweetness of Mrs. ARNE's singing, and BANNISTER as a manly, chaste, and natural singer, gave a specimen of abilities that had perhaps never before been heard.

The Hyprocrite, which was altered from CIBBER's Nonjuror, with an additional character for WESTON, had success. Mrs. ABINGTON's acting was a rich display of fashion and elegance, as well as feeling and nature. The Ephesian Matron, was performed at Ranelagh, where it was considered as vulgar to listen to music, and therefore the real effect of this piece was never known. Dr. Last in his Chariot was a bad sequel to a good piece. It was taken from MOLIERE's Malade Imagenaire. FOOTE wrote a complete scene, indeed the best in the piece. The Captive, which was taken from DRYDEN's Don Sebastian, had no success.

It's well it's no Worse, a comedy which has since been cut down to a farce under the title of The Pannel, was nearly damned on the first night. It was taken from CALDRONE. The plot was ex|tremely intricate and betrayed a great want of knowledge in this author of tying and untying a dramatic knot. KING, and Mrs. ABINGTON, were incomparable in the Valet and the Maid. The Re|cruiting Serjeant was performed successfully at Drury Lane, after being repeated without attention, for two seasons at Ranelagh. He Would if he Could, was LA SERVA PADRONA's. It was performed but once.

HIFFERNAN, a character in the style of SMART, and HOLT, who, on account of his want of prudence and principle, every body shunned, wrote an after-piece called the Ladies Choice, which had no success. The Wishes of a Free People, was a handsome com|pliment, though by the bye it is most miserably written, to the Queen, on her arrival in this country. It is dedicated to her Majesty in French. It con|tained a charge on Managers for not bringing out meritorious productions, which charge the want of merit in the piece itself completely refuted.

The New Hippocrites, which is intended to ridi|cule the absurd practice of pinning implicit faith on the judgment of empiricks, was performed only two nights. It was a miserable business. The Earl of Warwick was a translation from LA HARPE, but not so good as FRANKLIN's. These and a poor farce, called The Philosophic Whim, make up all the pieces of this curious character.

ARNE, to whose incomparable musical talents it will be my pride to pay every tribute of praise and admiration, ventured incautiously, though in one instance not unwisely, to write for the stage. I allude to Artaxerxes, there was no translation of this piece except the literal one which was used for English readers at the Opera house, where it had been performed with the music of HASSE.

With this translation for want of a better, and so much knowledge of Italian as might serve to assist him in the adoption of METASTASIO's ideas, ARNE formed his opera. There is nothing sublime in his language certainly, but the circumstances, which are strong, and the conduct, which is artful, were so rendered as not to lose their original force; If the poetry of the songs is not beautiful, it is at

least flowing; and, as care has been taken to pre|serve the images which give the best expression to the music, of which this wonderful composer was surely competent to judge, he would have found it diffi|cult to furnish himself with a translation to better purpose. HOOLE's is the best translation we have, but it has a most forbidding musical aspect. Nor is this declaration at all in favour of ADDISON's assertion that nonsense is best suited to music, for there are many passages in this opera that in idea are grand and beautiful, and lend a powerful help to musical expression. I shall only out of many of these give only one instance.

Behold, on Lethe's dismal strand, Thy father's murdered spirit stand; In his face what grief profound: See, he rowls his haggard eyes, And hark! revenge, revenge, he cries, And points to his still bleeding wound.

When it is recollected how these lines are set, and how BEARD sung them, I think the appropriate epithet instead of despicable, which has unsparingly been applied, ought to be exquisite.

In relation to the next piece of ARNE, he cer|tainly

cannot be so well defended. Here he had no METASTASIO to lend him assistance, yet the po|sition of ADDISON is so fairly inverted; that, by having indifferent words to set, he never composed such indifferent music. It was damned on the sixth night, which would have been its fate on the third, but for SHUTER; who, when the galleries were very riotous, seized a moment of suspension and uttered very comically in the language of Justice Clack,

"Nay, if we all speak together how shall we hear one another."

KENRICK, who will longer be remembered to his infamy for his unmanly and scandalous attack on GARRICK,* 1.13 than to his credit for any work of genius, wrote Fun, which was a satirical thing in|tended to ridicule FIELDING, HILL, and other well known characters; but, FIELDING determined to spoil this same fun of KENRICK, apprehended the actors and the audience on the first, and of course

the only, night's performance, which was at the Castle Tavern in Paternoster Row.

Falstaff's Wedding. This was a sequel to the se|cond part of Henry the Fourth, and written professedly in imitation of SHAKESPEARE. It was an arrogant performance, and must sink to nothing while the English language endures, for so long will SHAKESPEARE's Falstaff be remembered. This play was afterwards altered and performed at LOVE's benefit to as little purpose as before. The Widowed Wife, in which GARRICK assisted the author, who un|kindly in return said he had spoiled his play, was per|formed to bad houses for nine nights. The Duellist, taken from FIELDING's Amelia, was damned on the first night. This author also brought out one plot of JOHNSON's Country Lasses, as an opera which, with the help of some Vauxhall music, was performed for a time, and the other plot as a farce which was damned on the second night. As to the rest, KEN|RICK would write, but it was with difficulty he could procure himself to be read; for, what, be|tween his perpetually filling his head with rancour, and his stomach with brandy, he burnt with envy at the success of every rational man's pursuit, and, by hating every body, was hated by every body.

GENTLEMAN, an author of very poor abilities, wrote and altered the following pieces, Sejanus, The Stratford Jubilee, the Sultan, the Tobacconist, the Cox|combs, Cupid's Revenge, the Pantheonites, the Modish Wife, Zaphira, Richard the Second, the Mentalist, and the Fairy Court, none of which are now known to the stage, and it is of very little consequence that they ever were. REED, a rope maker, wrote the Super|anuated Gallant, a farce never performed, Madrigal and Trulletta, a mock tragedy, performed only one night, and also the Register Office, a piece which was written with a very laudable intention, and from which FOOTE stole Mrs. Cole. It was performed for a length of time at Drury Lane, in 1761, and several successive seasons, which considerable ap|plause. Dido, a tragedy, was performed three times, and Tom Jones, taken of course from FIELD|ING's novel, was performed with some success.

LOVE, an actor of merit and much respected, whose real name was DANCE, and who was brother to the present City surveyor, and the member for East Grinstead, wrote, for the stage, Pamela, 1742, a piece remarkable for nothing but that GARRICK performed in it before he was an actor professionally. The Village Wedding, a piece tolerably written, but very thinly constructed, for it contained but

three characters. Timon of Athens was by no means an injudicious alteration of SHAKESPEARE's play. It was only performed at Richmond. The Ladies Frolick, which is the Jovial Crew cut into a farce, was brought out at Drury Lane in 1770 with tolerable success. The City Madam altered from Massinger, was brought forward in 1771, at Richmond. The alterations were judicious, and indeed LOVE had good sense and talents enough to render every thing he undertook respectable.

CHAP. VI. COLMAN, KELLY, LLOYD, Mrs. SHERIDAN, Mrs. GRIFFITHS, AND GOLDSMITH.

I SHALL next speak of COLMAN, as an author of great value to the theatre; for, though it is clearly apparent that his dramatic pieces were not so well constructed nor operated upon at any time of his life as when he benefited by the advice and assistance of GARRICK; yet there is a peculiar neatness, a beauty, a correctness, without, however, tame|ness or vapidity, that has scarcely ever been equal|led. He was a kind of English, TERENCE, and engrafted classical eloquence upon truth and na|ture; indeed MENANDER's salt which is supposed to have evaporated in its passage from Greece to Rome.

The first Dramatic essay of this author was Polly Honeycomb, written purposely to bring forward

Miss POPE. The end of warning young girls from that destruction of which they are in danger, from swallowing the mental poison which, to the scandal of the press, is disseminated through the circula|ing libraries, is well accomplished, and there is something extremely dramatic and perfectly novel in the man's being gradually deserted by his whole family, at the finish. This piece was first performed in 1760.

The Jealous Wife was produced in 1761. This is one of the best comedies on the Stage; thanks, however, in great measure to GARRICK; for ne|ver was there an occasion where his assistance was more wanted, or rendered more honestly or more effectually. COLMAN was a young author, which will easily be credited, when the reader knows that the Musical Lady made originally a part of the Jealous Wife. He had the good sense to listen to GARRICK, who took great pains with the task assigned him, and in the performing it evinc|ed great judgment and knowledge of effect. It is generally supposed, that this play was written by COLMAN and GARRICK in conjunction, in the same manner that they wrote the Clandestine Marriage, but this is not the fact, GARRICK suggested the al|terations, but COLMAN wrote the whole.

Let the public regret the acting of that day, when they are told that Oakly was performed by GAR|RICK, Major Oakley by YATES, Lord Trinket by O'BRIEN, Sir Harry Beagle by KING, Lady Free|love by Mrs. CLIVE, and Mrs. Oakley by Mrs. PRITCHARD, and that the other characters were proportionably supported.

The Musical Lady, 1762, has as good a tendency as Polly Honeycomb. Ladies make themselves re|diculous in no way so much as in pretending to un|derstand the science of music, of which it is the study and the interest of their instructors to keep them in the dark, frequently for fear of an investi|gation of their own ignorance. The plot lies very round, and is most judiciously worked up. KING, YATES, and Miss POPE, very ably supported the piece.

Philaster was altered from BEAUMONT and FLETCHER by COLMAN, for the purpose of intro|ducing POWEL on his first appearance. This alter|ation was made with great good sense, and with an eye strictly to the reputation of the original au|thors. The assistance given to it by POWEL and Mrs. YATES, was of infinite benefit to the piece. The Deuce is in Him was brought out while GAR|RICK

was in Italy, and had good success. It was one of those things in the style of the French after pieces, and was full of that peculiar neatness with which this author always wrote. The plot is partly from Marmontel, and partly from a circum|cumstance publicly known at that time.

The Clandestine Marriage has been already spoken of. The English Merchant, which is a close transla|tion of VOLTAIRE's l'Ecossaise, was performed at Drury-Lane in 1767. This play is full of sound good sense; but it is too French, and too cold for any great admiration on the English stage: in fact it is gold, and sterling, but is unfashioned. Lear was altered from SHAKESPEAR, and with some pro|priety; but we have already seen why TATE's alter|ation will ever have the preference. COLMAN be|ing at this time in the infancy of his Covent-Garden management, he was obliged to buckle to this kind of work, which was not his fort so much as original writing. It was for COLMAN to invent, and for GARRICK to improve; and this is clearly evident here, COLMAN having lost himself very materially as to stage effect from the moment he parted from GARRICK.

The Oxonian in Town, in which piece it was

clearly evident that COLMAN was left alone, ap|peared at Covent-Garden. It very properly at|tacked a favourite vice; but the 'Squire of Alsatia, and other similar things, had anticipated all the effect that could be expected from it. It would have quietly sunk to oblivion if some gamblers had not stupidly volunteered themseves as the guardians of ••…••…sh honour, which finished by their tacit confes|sion that they were the very outcasts of society that the author meant to detect and punish.

Man and Wife was a very injudicious performance. COLMAN ought to have known that nothing could stand against the Spectacle that GARRICK was pre|paring at Drury-Lane. It must, therefore, natu|rally lose him reputation. It had, however, the good effect of furnishing GARRICK with the idea in his prologue of comparing the two houses to the two Magpies between Hounslow and Colnbrook. The Portrait, taken from Le Tableau Parlant of AN|SEAUME, was a burletta; the music by Dr. ARNOLD. It had very little success. The Fairy Prince was a spectacle gathered from SHAKESPEAR, DRYDEN, and GILBERT WEST, and brought out to introduce the ceremony of the Installation of the Knights of the Garter. In this piece Miss BROWN, afterwards the unfortunate Mrs. CARGYL, made her first appearance.

Comus, performed in 1772, was of course altered from MILTON. COLMAN would have more obliged the public, and assisted his own reputation, by un|dertaking some original piece. Achilles in Petticoats was an alteration from GAY. It met with very little success. The Man of Business is another strong proof that COLMAN felt himself awkward when left alone. It had but very moderate success, notwith|standing he produced it at his own theatre with all the advantages that a manager has in his power to give his own productions. Epicene, altered of course from JONSON, is judicious enough, but it had not great success.

Islington Spa was brought out at Drury-Lane, after COLMAN had sold his share of the other thea|tre. It was well written, but it wanted the touch of GARRICK's promethean pencil, which he was not much inclined perhaps to lend after COLMAN's apostacy; for though it is true that COLMAN made money by his Covent-Garden expedition, he certainly would have made more reputation had he staid at Drury-Lane. New Brooms, an interlude, at the opening of Drury-Lane theatre, after GARRICK's secession, was of course well re|ceived.

The Spanish Barber, performed in the Haymarket in the summer of 1777, at which time COLMAN be|came manager of that theatre, was performed with merited success. It was during that season Miss FARREN, now Countess of DERBY, made her first appearance on the stage. The music of this piece was composed by Dr. ARNOLD. The Female Cheva|lier had no great success; it was altered from the Artful Husband of TAVERNER. Bonduca, altered from BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, did no great mat|ters. The Company at the Haymarket were not competent to the representation of such a piece.

With the Suicide I shall finish an examination of this author's dramatic works. It was performed at the Haymarket in 1778, and was certainly COL|MAN's best piece, after the Clandestine Marriage, which evidently confirms how much the genius of COLMAN was indebted to the judgement of GAR|RICK. COLMAN, however, is an author very wor|thy to be imitated. Chaste, neat, unexaggerated nature, he hit most wonderfully. He was a kind of TENIERS in writing. His figures were small, but they were beautifully finished. They had always the best effect however when they were grouped by GARRICK, who knew their keeping better than the painter did; and yet, though GARRICK knew light

and shade, style and effect, better than COLMAN, without such admirable materals as COLMAN pos|sessed, the public would not have had so much opportunity of benefiting by the judgement of GARRICK.

KELLY, who ought to follow COLMAN at an humble distance, wrote nevertheless for the stage with some success. He happened, fortunately for himself, and unluckily for the public taste, to take advantage of the rage that then prevailed for senti|ment. Every thing was at that time sentiment. It was the only secret of writing for success. If a man was to be hanged, or m•••…•••…ed, out came a sentiment. If a rogue triumphed, or was tossed in a blanket, what an opportunity for a sentiment! If the butler was drunk, or the chambermaid im|pertinent, listen to a sentiment! In short, if the alderman ate too much custard, or his wife fre|quented too many routs; if the vice was gaming in the Alley, or at Brooks's, wenching, or drinking; if fortune came unasked, or was deaf to solicita|tion; if the subject was health or sickness, happi|ness or misery; hooraw for a sentiment!

False Delicacy, 1768, had almost all these requi|sites; and, that the audience might have enough of

their darling sentiments after they had been delight|ed with a plentiful number of them in the course of the action, the moment the catastrophe finished, for|ward came every individual actor and actress, and suspended the fall of the curtain with a sentiment. Nay, so far did this folly prevail, that the critics themselves began to congratulate the world on the restoration of MENANDER, classically conveyed in the manner of the Greek chorus.

A Word to the Wise, 1770, was damned on the stage, but the author was remunerated by a large subscription. This failure has been imputed to KELLY's having broached his political opinions pretty freely in the newspapers; but without any outrage of probality or common sense, it would be more natural to impute its failure to the want of merit in the piece, which was miserably bad; be|sides GOLDSMITH had, before this, balanced the account between nature and sentiment, in which poor sentiment was left minus by a considerable difference.

Clementina, a tragedy, by this author, performed at Covent-Garden in 1771, was almost as dull as his sentimental comedy. It set the audience asleep, and therefore they had not spirits enough to damn

it,* 1.14 which they nevertheless might have been tempt|ed to have done if it had not been for Mrs YATES's admirable acting. The Prince of Agra, altered from DRYDEN, and also brought out at Covent-Garden, was performed for the benefit of Mrs. LESSING|HAM, but had very little success. This play, and the School for Wives, were fathered, out of kindness to KELLY, by a respectable gentleman now at the head of the police, which shews that the public manifest their sentiments, as to plays, without regard to the circumstances or situations of the authors, but merely according to their merits; for this play had no success, and the School for Wives not enough to flatter the pretentions of a reputable author.

The Romance of an Hour was taken from MAR|MONTEL, and was passable enough; the Man of Reason is acknowledged, by KELLY's biographer, to have been inferior to the rest of his works, for which there was no occasion; but yet the failure of it is very kindly attributed to WOODWARD's misconception of the principal character. In short,

KELLY was but an indifferent writer; but, by hav|ing many companionable qualities, and being ready at all times to render his conduct pleasurable and serviceable to society, both the public and his friends, wherever they properly could, were happy in return to oblige and serve him.

LLOYD, the friend and companion of CHURCHILL and WILKES, was a good writer. His Actor is a poem of considerable merit; and proved a bone that wits of high reputation have been happy to nibble at. His dramatic productions however are of no high rank. The Tears and Triumphs of Par|nassus was merely an ode. Arcadia, or the Shep|herd's Wedding, was a compliment on the nuptials of their Majesties. It was neatly written. The School for Wives, from MOLIERE, was printed, but never acted. Indeed it was merely written to shew how far MURPHY had borrowed from the French.

The Death of Adam was translated from the Ger|man of KLOPSTOCK. It is complained of as a bad translation; and certainly it is not a good play. The Capricious Lovers, to say the truth, is the only piece of LLOYD which can be called in the smallest

degree an acquisition to the stage. It was per|formed at Drury-Lane while GARRICK was in Italy. The music was composed by RUSH, and it was well acted. The subject was FAVART's Ninette á la Cour.

Mrs. SHERIDAN, who had pretensions as a writer greatly beyond those which are possessed by ladies in general, wrote Sydney Biddulph for the closet, and for the stage, the Discovery, in which there is great nature and spirit; and the Dupe, in which indelicacy, a quicksand so often fatal to lady writers, sunk her venture. It has been urged that the audience were too delicate, but this was not the truth, for the Dupe was performed in 1763, and the rage for false delicacy did not prevail till 1768.

Mrs. GRIFFITHS was a writer widely different from Mrs. SHERIDAN, for she was a type of the celebrated Mrs. PHILIPS, the never to be enough admired Orinda, even to her Platonic Letters. Her dramatic pieces were the Platonic Wife, performed in 1765, and taken from MARMONTEL. It lingered through six nights. Amana was a kind of dramatic poem, but it was never acted. The Double Mistake

had about the same reception as the Platonic Wife. The School for Rakes, 1769, was a translation from BEAUMARCHAIS, and proved to be the best of this lady's productions. It was well performed, and had a tolerable run. A Wife in the Right exhibited a lady writer in the wrong, for it was performed only one night. It came out at Covent-Garden in 1772. The Times gave Mrs. GRIFFITHS a hint that it was time she should leave off writing for the stage. This hint she took, and this piece finished her dra|matic career.

GOLDSMITH, who has done honour to English literature; who was the best meaning, strange, good, whimsical creature in the world; whose in|tentions, though always right, by doing nothing like any body else he executed always wrong; whose writings, which are a mixture of merit and singularity, scarcely had a part that did not contain some trait of himself; who has left two beautiful poems, a sweet ballad, and a charming novel, wrote successfully for the stage, but not up to the standard of his other productions.

The good natured Man was brought out at Covent-Garden, exactly at the moment when the public

began to be under the influence of the sentimental mania. There is nothing, however, better than Croker, and the incident of the incendiary letter; but Bailiffs were introduced on the stage, which had been done an hundred times before, and has been an hundred times since, and it was enough that the audience did not like such vulgar acquaintance. There have been times when, if they had been real bailiffs, the managers would have sympathized with the audience. To see however that the public are a very short time deluded when they adopt false taste without consideration, they were glad of the next opportunity GOLDSMITH gave them of laughing away the gloom that had been thrown over their minds by the introduction of an in|fatuation so totally contrary to the English cha|racter.

She stoops to Conquer GOLDSMITH considered as a desperate remedy for a desperate disease. It ope|rated effectually; indeed like electricity. The au|diences seemed as if they had been at some place the reverse of the Cave of Trophonius, for they went in sad and came out merry. This piece was a good deal abused, and no wonder, for it went to the ruin of dull authors. Its efficacy, however, was con|firmed;

and, whatever absurdities the public taste may have assumed at times, it has not since then trenched upon the pulpit. GOLDSMITH also altered for QUICK's benefit, the Grumbler, from SEDLEY.

CHAP. VII. CUMBERLAND, BENTLEY, MASON, Mrs. BROOKE, Mrs. LENNOX, HULL, O'HARA, HOOLE, and VICTOR.

CUMBERLAND, a well known voluminous writer; who, besides a prodigious number of dif|ferent productions, has laboured in the Theatrical vineyard with great earnestness and some reputation, even from 1761, to the present moment, brought out, during the period to which my strictures extend, thirteen dramatic pieces.

The Banishment of Cicero, 1761, was offered to GARRICK, but not accepted. The business of Clodius and his sister, and the debauching of Pompey's wife in the temple of Juno, were not to be tolerated. It was in fact, though strongly written in many parts, evidently an inexperienced

production, and therefore, the manager, in refusing it, did his duty by the public. The Summer's Tale was an opera, performed at Covent Garden Theatre in 1765. It was too heavy for a comic opera, and therefore was called a comedy with songs. The music was an Italian selection, but it was in general dull and ill chosen. This piece was cut down to a farce, but it did as little in that form as at first.

The Brothers was performed at Covent Garden, 1769, and received considerable applause. The West Indian, by infinite degrees the best production of this author, was performed at Drury Lane in 1771. Mr. CUMBERLAND had by this time seen, that recourse must be had to other authors if any expectations of success were formed by him with safety. He had tried this expedient with effect in the Brothers, which were Tom Jones and Blifil, and here he was determined not to inconvenience him|self; but I do not mean this a as reproach, since CAMPLEY's generosity, and other circumstancs in the Funeral, the Twin Rivals, and other plays, so whetted his theatrical knife, that it carved a most entertaining play, which, in spight of a great deal of affected language, created interest and afforded pleasure.

Timon of Athens was an alteration from SHAKE|SPEAR, and performed at Drury Lane, in 1771, with but little success. The Fashionable Lover came out the same season, but it was a most injudicious play and contained such a mixture of the Conscious Lovers, False Delicacy, Taste, and Clarissa Harlowe, that it was impossible for any thing to be more heterogeneous; and, to add to the other misfortunes of this comedy, MOODY was brought forward to per|form a Scotchsman. The Note of Hand, a farce, had some success, but was not equal to the after-pieces of MURPHY or COLMAN, The Choleric Man was very much attacked by the critics, which brought out an irascibility from the author which has been ever since played upon. Let no man write unless he can know how to treat calumny with con|tempt.

The Battle of Hastings, performed at Drury Lane in 1778, turned out the battle of the critics, who had certainly too much reason on their side. They alledged that the truth of history had been violated, and that a perpetual imitation of SHAKESPEAR ex|hibited the writing of this author, as indeed it would of any other, to a disadvantage; not how|ever that it is not tolerated and praised too by

authors of the present day. The fact is, the public had been caught to expect too much from this play, which was certainly a strange incongruous business. Any man might have sworn that the West Indian would have been the be all, and the end all with this gentleman. When a man finishes a work with saying

"this is well but I shall make the next better,"

it is a thousand to one but he succeeds; if he pronounces that nothing in its way can go beyond it, he speaks truth as to himself, for he will not exceed it again.

BENTLEY, son of the celebrated Dr. BENTLEY, wrote a piece, in the nature of the old Italian comedy, called the Wishes, which, as we have seen, was performed at Drury Lane, during that Summer that MURPHY and FOOTE had the manage|ment of it. It was odd, extravagant and eccentric, but there was something so novel in making the whole pantomimic family speak, when we had been accustomed to be entertained only with their atti|tudes and jesticulation, that the public knew not how to take it. This helped its sate which was however accelerated by its want of plan, connection, and interest. BENTLEY also wrote Philodamus, a kind of tragedy, on which GRAY has written a most

elaborate eulogium; but the best that can be said of it is, that it may be passable in the closet, but it would be intolerable on the stage.

MASON, a sweet and beautiful writer, and a man universally beloved and esteemed, wrote Elfrida, and Caractacus, neither of which pieces were in|tended for the stage, they were brought out, assisted by the music of ARNE, and though it is both natural and proper to prefer regular tragedy, as time and custom has established it, yet it was a compli|ment to the stage and a proof of COLMAN's classical discrimination to bring forward Elfrida, though not so well altered by him as it was afterwards by the author. In this kind of tragedy, Caractacus is the best because the catastrophe is more noble, more elevated, and the distress is heightened by a consideration that valour suffers for Patriotism, and that history is not violated.

In Elfrida the punishment is hard, but it is the punishment of treason, and truth is outraged, by making ELFRIDA retire to a convent, rather fondly by the way than religiously, while recollection bu|sily reminds us, that the real ELFRIDA married the KING who murdered her husband. Again, a chorus of Druids, who were professionally bards, is superior

both naturally and musically to a chorus of virgins; but on the other hand, domestic woe always makes the deepest impression, and the lyric part of Elfrida is better written for music than that of Charactacus.* 1.15

Mrs. BROOKE, who has written many novels that have been well received by the world, if that be a criterion of merit, wrote also a tragedy, the only production I am entitled to mention here, called Virginia. Mrs. LENNOX stands upon much the same foundation as to reputation as Mrs. BROOKE. Her Dramatic pieces are Philander, never performed; the Sister, performed one night only, in 1769, at Covent-Garden, and Old City Manners, altered from Eastward Hoe, and performed with very little ap|plause at Drury-Lane.

HULL, whose various merits as author, actor, and manager, have long been known to the public, produced the following dramatic pieces. The

Twins altered from the Comedy of Errors, and per|formed with success; the Absent Man, performed once; Pharnaces, an opera, set by BATES, and per|formed at Drury-Lane, while GARRICK was in Italy. The Spanish Lady performed for the author's bene|fit in 1765; All in the Right from DESTOUCHES, also performed for the author's benefit; the Perplexities, a comedy, that deserved its title, for there never was so perplexed a plot, which was taken from TUKE's Adventures of Five Hours, and in which BEARD sung, spoke, and with his usual philanthropy did every thing else in his power to serve his friend; and the Fairy Favour, a trifle performed in 1767, for the entertainment of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

HULL also wrote or rather fashioned into an opera, the Royal Merchant from BEAUMONT and FLETCHER. The music was by LINLEY. It had but little success. Some of the songs were taken into the Camp, a piece performed at Drury-Lane in 1778, and supposed to have been written by the Ma|nager of that Theatre, at which time the public re|ceived them as we have seen with rapture, when they had passed them by with indifference at Covent-Gar|den, so much fascination is there some times in a great name. Rosamond was a wonderful favorite for some

time, wonderful, I say, because perhaps nothing could have been more insufferably dull, but the story did the business. Queen ELENOR's poisoned bowl and dagger penetrated to the very back of the upper gallery. Edward and Eleonora was altered from THOMPSON but it did nothing; Love will find out the Way, an opera, and the Victim a tragedy, finish Mr. HULL's works neither of which expe|rienced much success.

O'HARA, through whose pieces we have been taught to admire the native Irish melodies, pro|duced Midas, the Golden Pippin, and April Day, original burlettas; and translated the Two Misers, from FENOILLOT, and altered Tom Thumb from FIELDING. Midas, in which there was certainly much excellent humour, and fair burlesque, was by infinite degrees the best of these pieces.

HOOLE, who translated METASTASIO, altered three of that admirable author's operas into tragedies, which producing a new effect by ending happily, received considerable applause. It was only an in|novation, however, for they completely exhibited an anticlimax, and lowered in proportion as the no|velty wore off. These tragedies are Cyrus, Timanthes, and Cleonice. It is worthy of remark that this new

era of tragedy began with sentimental comedy, Cyrus being the companion of False Delicacy, and brought out in 1768.

VICTOR, more celebrated as a theatrical treasurer than a theatrical writer, produced, however, several things of different descriptions. He altered, most miserably, SHAKESPEAR's Two Gentlemen of Verona; Altemira, a tragedy, was published but never per|formed. The Fatal Error, a soft name for the com|mission of adultery, altered from HEYWOOD's Wo|man Killed with Kindness, was also never performed. The Fortunate Peasant, taken from MARIVAUX's Paysan Parvenu, shared the same fate and so did the Sacrifices.

CHAP. VIII. SHERIDAN, JEPHSON, BATE, MISS MORE, BUR|GOYNE, KING, ANDREWS, MRS. COWLEY, AND HOLCROFT.

AS I profess to close this work at the death of GARRICK, to which period we are now hastening, and, as the authors of whom I have lately spoken produced theatrical exhibitions after that event, as well as those whose names are placed at the head of this chapter, I shall merely have oppor|tunity to speak of the nature and tendency of their different merits, and review such pieces as they pro|duced up to 1779.

SHERIDAN, a man of most commanding talents, would have stood inferior to very few writers, on this or any other similar list, had his time been en|tirely devoted to the theatre; for, in that case, as genius loves to spread and expand, and seldom sa|tisfies

itself with adopting when it can have oppor|tunity of traversing the wide range of invention, the public would no doubt have seen original tra|gedies and comedies, such as might have served as models for the imitation of authors not so happily gifted, instead of scenes, hints, and cir|cumstances, most ingeniously wrought together in|deed, but as far as any thing on the stage from originality.

This is a fact so universally known, and so con|stantly admitted, that it has been often argued upon. It has been said that there is not in nature a new character, nor a new sentiment, and all that can be done is to take old matter and give it a novel ap|pearance. That it is safer to do so I will not deny; for certainly, when any thing comes in contact with the imagination that has been familiar to it, without consideration, we give credit for its merit upon the spot, whatever we may do upon reflec|tion; and, having once praised a thing, a false pride prevents us from discovering that we were de|ceived. It must not be believed that CONGREVE's bon mots were all impromptus; and it is a literal fact that some of JOE MILLER's best jests are stolen from the ancients; but when this is allowed, it will yet be granted, that Mr. SHERIDAN could have in|vented

incidents as good as those he has bor|rowed.

This is confirmed by this author's first produc|tion, the Rivals; which, though Lydia Languish, Falkland and his Mistress, and some other charac|ters, are copies instead of portraits, is the most ori|ginal of his plays, and by many of the judicious thought the best. It was nearly damned on the first night; and he is said to have remarked to a friend, as he withdrew it,

"I have now got the last, and it shall be my fault next time if I don't make the shoe to fit."

His labour, however, being only cobler's work, it required too much method for his volatile genius to buckle to. For the rest, the adopted passages are not judicious; for Polly Ho|neycomb was better in its former place. The Nut|brown Maid is only fit for the poem she adorns; for though her language on the stage is full of sweetness and delicacy, it is no more appropriate than would be the fine strokes of a miniature painter in the finishing of flats and wings. Being, there|fore, neither wholly original, nor wholly imitation, this piece stands like this author's own simile, in the Duenna, of the wall between church and synagogue, for it is part natural and part incongruous.

We shall see that Mr. SHERIDAN completely got rid of the original part of the system in his next piece. In the Duenna there is not a single new situ|ation from beginning to end. The whole of the plot of turning the Daughter out of doors is con|jointly the Sicilienne of MOLIERE and Il Filosofo di Campagna, where every circumstance is to be found from the serenade in the first scene to the marriage in the last.

In Il Filosofo di Campagna a father insists on his daughter's marrying to please him, and refuses her the man of her heart, which trouble she gets rid of by palming her maid on the object of her aversion, to which maid in the end he is actually married; and it is impossible but the equivoques in one piece must be extremely similar to those in the other. It must be allowed there is more humour, or, if you will, farce in the Duenna, than in the other piece, but not so much nature; for the countryman might be supposed without difficulty to mistake a smart country lass for his friend's daughter, whereas it is a very strong violence on probability to make Isaac mistake the Duenna for Louisa; one he is told is twenty years old, and the other he must know to be sixty.

The business of Ferdinand and Clara is the Wonder. Clara elopes, Louisa keeps the secret; Isabella elopes, Violante keeps the secret; Louisa is the sister of Ferdinand, so is Isabella of Don Felix; Lissardo is threatened sword in hand by Don Felix, so is Isaac by Ferdinand; Don Felix quarrels with his sister's lover, so does Ferdinand; Don Felix mistakes Isabella veiled for Violante, so does Ferdi|nand mistake Louisa for Clara; nay, so closely is the wonder copied, that Lissardo's anxiety to get Gibby a drubbing is apparent in Isaac's telling Ferdinand that he may cut Antonio's throat and welcome.

Father Paul is MARMONTEL's Philosophe soi disant, who, as he sits at a feast and enveighs against gor|mandizing, actually says, as he entreats a lady to help him to some nicety at table,

"Can't we be satisfied with the wholesome roots of the earth?"

and laments, after drinking a glass of Burgundy, that people will not be content, like our forefa|thers,

"with the chrystal stream."

But the cir|cumstance that proves this author as fallible as any other is, that he has made the Critic laugh at the Duenna; for the clock strikes four at the beginning of the Tragedy rehearsed, which, according to the

dedication, professes to be critical, with a view of course to ridicule the unity of time; and it strikes three at the beginning of the Duenna, intending, without doubt, to mark that unity as a beauty.

The poetry, though seldom original, is every where neat and stowing, and well suits the beauti|ful music, partly selected, and partly from LINLEY, which proved of infinite advantage to the piece. It was, however, very fortunate both for the author and the musician that the rage for catches and glees prevailed a good deal at that time, otherwise the public might have thought it a little out of place to make the characters express their happiness by sing|ing anthems. It has the effect of reviving false de|licacy by setting sentiment to music. It is im|possible to omit in this place that the beautiful glee of

"How merrily we live,"

was rehearsed, and thrown aside under an idea that it would have no effect.

As to the dialogue of this piece it is lively, pointed, and pertinent. It has not the ease of VANBURGH, the neatness of FARQUHAR, nor the wit of CONGREVE, and yet it has something of them all. It is managed with the cunning of a painter who does not imitate any particular artist, but who

copies the school. The aside speeches of Isaac, shewing before hand, and without his knowledge how easily he is himself to be taken in by his dif|ferent attempts to cheat others, convey the most artful species of anticipation that ever was prac|tised, and shew a judgment of theatrical effect, powerful, new and extraordinary.

The School for Scandal is no more original than the Duenna. The school itself is CONGREVE's Cabal, and the play may fairly be called A Sequel to the Way of the World. The scandal has been all detailed in different pieces, but principally in the Plain Dealer, where in Novel, Lord Plausible, Olivia, and Eliza will be found, Sir Benjamin, Crab, Lady Sneerwell and Mrs. Candour. The brothers have been in a variety of productions from the Adelphi to fifty other things; but the Squire of Alsatia, on the stage, and Tom Jones, in the closet, contain the closest resemblances. The Uncle, lately returned from abroad and introduced to the drunken com|pany, and the sale of the pictures, are extremely like the intriguing chambermaid, which was taken from Destouches.* 1.16 The reserving the Uncle's picture is in a

French piece, called L'Ecole de la Jeunesse; Joseph, and Lady Teazle, are Constant, and Lady Brute, but with an infinitely worse argument on the side of the gallant, and less provocation on the side of the lady, for it would be a species of ingratitude dan|gerous to risk, even in fiction, for Lady Teazle to swerve even in the remotest degree from her duty, whereas Lady Brute has more provocation to justify her wavering fidelity than any wife on the stage. Thus upon the principle that men had better be born fortunate than rich, so it is profitable to theatrical writers to use penetration, rather than genius.

The dialogue of the School for Scandal is in general admirable, but it is expressly warped in places for the purpose of procuring that applause as ADDISON calls it which proceeds from the head rather than the heart. HERON, the critic, points out several of these tinsel ornaments, which he tells you are known by the name of Clap traps, and, in particular instances, the speech of Charles to Rowley, who tells him to observe the old proverb, and to be just before he is generous,

"Why, so I would,"

says Charles,

"if I could; but justice is an old lame hobbling beldame, and I can't get her to keep pace with generosity for the soul

of me."

This sentiment, which half the audi|ences to this play have received with the loudest applause, is, he tells us, and he tells us truly, false and immoral; and that no reprobation can be too se|vere for it; and nothing can be more sterling reason, for the money that a man holds who has not paid his debts is not his, and therefore it is not in his power to bestow it; but these are errors easily in this author's power to rectify, and it is truly to be lamented that either indolence or avocation should check the exertions of talents which are so reputable to himself, so gratifying to the public, and so honourable to literature.

JEPHSON, a gentleman I believe greatly courted and beloved by his private friends, produced Bri|ganza, a piece written with considerable judgment and good poetic effect. The scene of the Monk, though evidently an imitation of King John and Hubert, is uncommonly beautiful and highly wrought. The resemblance of this play to Venice Preserved in the end injured its success, though it was well received and frequently repeated during the first season, which was in 1775. The Law of Lombardy, 1779, was performed but nine nights. It was much inferior to Briganza.

BATE DUDLEY, a gentlemen who has written more for his amusement, than, for the sake of the public, he ought to have done, produced for the stage, Henry and Emma, performed for Mrs. HARTLEY's benefit, in 1774. The Rival Candidates, an after-piece at Drury Lane, 1775, which had creditable success. The Blackamoor Washed White, 1776, which was damned, as it was generally un|derstood, by a party created by the author's poli|tical disputes, and the Flitch of Bacon, performed at the Haymarket, in 1778, which was frequently in that season, and has been since performed repeat|edly with considerable success.

Miss MORE, who, as a writer and a school mis|tress, is well known, produced a dramatic pastoral called, A Search after Happiness, only recited by young ladies in the manner of RACINE's Athaliah; The Inflexible Captive, a tragedy, performed one night at Bath; Percy another tragedy, performed at Covent Garden, which had considerable success, and Fatal Falsehood which was exhibited only three nights.* 1.17

BURGOYNE, the Saratoga General produced before GARRICK's death, the Maid of the Oaks; which, with the assistance of GARRICK, was made into a very entertaining performance. There was a good deal of CIBBER in this author's dialogue; and had he oftener tried his hand, while he had opportunity of deriving assistance from so able a friend, he cer|tainly would have been a respectable playwright.

KING, who has sometimes amused himself with writing, and never without success, produced a

musical piece called Love at first Sight; and a farce called Wit's last Stake, both at Drury Lane.

ANDREWS, a most curious and singular author, a kind of dramatic cuckoo, with this difference, that after he took possession of the nests of other writers, and sucked the eggs of their imaginations, instead of being able to produce any of his own, sat upon the shells expecting to hatch ideas after the sub|stance and the vital speck were gone. I thank chance that I have only to speak of three non enti|ties produced by this gunpowder merchant, all which have long since flown in fumo. The Election, a trifling interlude, which proved him a very unpro|mising candidate for the public favour, the Con|juror, at which title was levelled the pun of the day to the disadvantage of the author, and Belphe|gor, the acquaintance of which devil he seems to have courted in order that he might be familiar with damnation.

Mrs. COWLEY, of whose temper we have just now seen a specimen in her squabble with Miss MORE, wrote the Run-away, a comedy, and Who's the Dupe, a farce, before the time my task expires. The comedy was touched a good deal by GARRICK; and, being of a sprightly kind and having nothing

particular to offend, it had the usual success of that description of pieces. The farce was a much better thing. It was performed with reputable success.

HOLCROFT, a most extraordinary author, has written a great deal, has been greatly encouraged, and yet has done nothing for literature; because, perhaps, he has done little for morality, less for truth, and nothing for social order. His only dra|matic work, that comes under my examination, is a trifling opera, called the Crisis, which was per|formed for a benefit.

CHAP. IX INFERIOR AUTHORS.

I SHALL now, in a summary way, take up those authors that remain, just as they come to hand, without respect of persons. Indeed it is impossible for me to be very prolix, for they amount to up|wards of ninety; and I must reserve as much room as possible to bring this history to that sort of round|ness which it will require the relation of many par|ticulars to effect.

CRANE, a weaver at Manchester, contrived to manufacture a collection of poems; among which he published two tragedies, called the Female Pari|cide, and Saul and Jonathan. POTTINGER was a sober bookseller, till STEVENS's lecture on heads set him literally mad for lecturing and writing plays. During his lucid intervals he produced the Methodist, a comedy; and the Humourous Quarrel, a farce.

DELAP, a clergyman, brought out at Drury-Lane a tragedy, which had but little success, called Hecuba. COOK, an author more mad than POTTINGER, pro|duced the King cannot Err, and the Hermit Con|verted.

HARRIS, whose Hermes, and some other works, are deservedly celebrated, wrote the Spring, a pas|toral, which was performed at Drury-Lane. PERCY, well known by his reliques of ancient English poetry, produced a piece, of no great merit how|ever, called, The Little Orphan of China. WIGNELL, an under actor, who was remarkable for making tragedy comic and comedy tragic, and was in con|sequence a wonderful favorite with the bumkins in the country,* 1.18 was as much a traverse at writing as at acting. His attempts were a farce, called Love's Artifice; and a masque, called the Triumph of Hymen. GRAHAM, a schoolmaster, wrote Telemachus, and some other play, which GARRICK refused. BAKER, celebrated for compiling the Playhouse Dictionary,

wrote a dramatic poem, acted at Edinburgh, called the Muse of Ossian. Mrs. LUTTER, a shopkeeper at Reading, who neglected her business to write plays, published a tragedy called the Siege of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian. DOWNING, a true strolling actor, wrote Newmarket, a farce; and the Parthian Exile, a tragedy.

The celebrated SCHOMBERG, GARRICK's great favorite as a physician, could however find no fa|vour with him as an author, for he repeatedly re|fused to perform his pieces. One was a farce, called the Death of Bucephalus; another a burletta, called the Judgement of Paris; and the third, and last, a tragedy, called Romulus and Herselia. CARR is only known by having a hand in a tragedy called Eugenia. POTTER, wrote a trifling piece called the Choice of Apollo. DENIS, son of a French refugee, translated the Siege of Calais from BELLOY. ASPI|NAL published a tragedy called the Brothers, done according to his own words from CORNEILLE. CUN|NINGHAM, wrote a pastoral, called the Royal Shep|herds. OSBORNE, an artist, who rendered himself celebrated by painting a fish with wings, a calf with six legs, the ghastly Miller of Billericay, and other provincial monsters, but who however was pos|sessed of considerable merit, attempted, with toler|able

success, to unite poetry with painting, by writ|ing a piece called the Midnight Mistake.

BOURGEOIS is supposed to be a fictitious name, but it stands before two plays, called the 'Squire Burlesqued, and the Disappointed Coxcomb. SADLER, a Shropshire man, wrote at Shrewsbury a piece called the Merry Miller. THOMPSON, whose nautical character is well known, and who was distinguished early in life by the title of Poet of the Stews, wrote, for the stage, the Hobby Horse, an indifferent piece; brought out for BENSLEY's benefit; the Fair Quaker, altered from the Fair Quaker of Deal, and brought out with great care by GARRICK; the Syrens, an unsuccessful masque; and St. Helena, performed at Drury-Lane only one night. This gentleman is said also to have written the Seraglio, performed at Covent-Garden in 1776; but though this intelli|gence is reiterated and many circumstances con|cerning it, to my knowledge, it is every word false, and that the person in question had not seen a single word of the piece when it was put into the hands of Mr. HARRIS. I only mention this to shew the wonderful consistency of theatrical historians.

ROGERS, an officer in the army, published a piece the subject of which he was perhaps a judge

of, but it must have been Cherokee language to us. It was called Ponteach and the scene lay in America. CAREY, well known as a writer, and a lecturer, produced the Inoculator, the Cottagers, Liberty Chastised, Shakespeare's Jubilee, Three Old Women Weatherwise, the Magic Gridle, and the Nutbrown Maid. One of these pieces was I believe performed at the Haymarket, and another at Marybone Gardens. LANGHORNE, a clergyman, is said most pathetically to have lamented the death of his wife, and to have washed away his sorrow by large libations of Burton ale; and, in those moments of melancholy, to have written a tragedy called the Fatal Prophecy Mrs. WILLIAMS, the blind pensioner of Dr. JOHNSON, translated ME|TATASIO's Uninhabited Island. WISE wrote the Coronation of David, and Nadir, neither of which were performed. COCKINGS produced the Con|quest of Grenada.

Dr. BURNEY, an ingenious and elegant writer, whose History of Music is full of general enquiry, and sound knowledge, translated ROUSSEAU's dry and correct piece Le Devin de Village; and, that it might be as cold and dull as it was in the French, the original music was perserved. It was called the Cunning Man. ROUSSEAU was in England and

heard it performed, but he had the mortification to find that nobody was cunning enough to find out the merit of it. TOMS, a hanger on of Lord Sandwich, brought out at Covent Garden, through the interest of SIMPSON, the Hautboy Player, a very poor translation of La Buona Figliola with PIC|CINI's music.

JACKSON produced an alteration of MILTON's Lycidas, as a subject of condolence on the death of the Duke of York, which was performed but one night. THORNTON translated the comedies of PLAUTUS. HARTSON wrote the Countess of Salisbury. It was originally performed in Ireland, and, with the support of the BARRYS afterwards at Drury Lane, but did not prevail so as to be a favourite. HAZARD, the original proprietor of the Lottery Office, known now by the firm of HAZARD and Co. determined to get as much as possible acquainted with his name by venturing in a lottery where he was not so adroit in calculating the chances. His ticket however, which was a masque, called Redo|wald, did not go into the theatrical wheel.

BOULTON, probably a Liverpool Guinea captain, wrote the Sailor's Farewel, or the Guinea Outfit. DOSSIE, principal secretary to the society for the

encouragement of Arts and Manufactures, wrote a poor piece called the Statesman Foiled. WAL|POLE, the celebrated author of the Castle of Otranto, which, as if it had been magical spawn, has engen|dered all the mysteries, enchantments, monsters, and every other species of extraneous and hetero|geneous outrage on probability and nature, that has ever since been the delight and terror of weak minds, wrote also a tragedy, most shockingly revolting, called the Mysterious Mother. Nothing can be so dangerous as such employment for men of talents. Monsters of the mind, like all other monsters should be smothered. It was greatly to the honour of the theatre and its manager that this piece was refused. If the theatre should get on however the same pace it is now going, these sentiments may in a few years be thought mere squeamishness.

DOW, who wrote on oriental subjects, produced a tragedy called Zingis, and another called Sethona, neither of which had any great success. HARROD, a Kentish man, produced a tragedy called the Patriot. It was never acted. JERES, translated a part of Voltaire, and published a tragedy called Richard in Cyprus. WEST wrote, for the Dublin theatre, a tragedy called Ethelinda. HORDE pub|lished,

according to one account, thirteen dramatic pieces, and according to all others only one me|lancholy business, an opera, called Damon and Phaebe. The reader will have no objection to my taking the majority upon this fact.

ARMSTRONG, the celebrated author of the Art of Preserving Health, a poem of uncommon merit, wrote a tragedy, which however was refused by GARRICK, called the Forced Marriage. Mrs. BUR|TON, an actress, brought out a poor ricketty thing called Fashion Displayed. JENNER, a clergyman, wrote, to eke out some poems, two dramatic pieces called Lucinda, and the Man of Family. The best is from DIDEROT. HOWARD, who though a lawyer has piqued himself upon not having in the whole course of his life, written a single syllable to the prejudice of his neighbour or the peace of society; and, to keep up this idea perhaps of be|ing completely a harmless character, he has written three tragedies, than which nothing can be more perfectly inoffensive; for they exercise no other feeling than patience, and therefore inculcate a very wholesome doctrine. These pieces are called Almeyda, the Siege of Tamor, and the Female Gamester.

SHEPHERD, a clergyman, wrote two dramatic pieces, neither of which however were performed, called Hector, and Bianca. STOCKDALE, who, by GARRICK's interest, was appointed chaplain of a man of war, translated TASSO's Amintas. Mrs. CELISIA, who was daughter to MALLET, and mar|ried a Genoese, brought out a piece without suc|cess called Almida. FADE, a strolling player in Ireland, brought a piece there stolen from CIBBER, called the Miraculous Cure. Mrs. PENNY pub|lished in a volume of poems a piece called the Brith Day. MEILON, a very indifferent writer, published three things called Emilia, Northum|berland, and the Friends. BRIDGES, brought out at the Haymarket a thing, which he principally took from COTTON, who translated VIRGIL, called Dido. It was not ill writeen in some parts, but it was strangely undramatic. He wrote another piece called the Dutchman. These productions were neither very creditable, nor very profitable.

CRADDOCK brought out at Covent Garden, a tragedy, called Zobeide. This piece is altered from VOLTAIRE's Les Scythes, for which compli|ment VOLTAIRE gave CRADDOCK his thanks, a tri|brute easily obtained from a man whose whole soul

was vanity. The play was not heightened suffi|ciently to succeed. O'BRIEN, the actor, who mar|ried into LORD INCHIQUIN's family, and, to the regret of the public, left the stage very young, brought out at Covent Garden, Cross Purposes, a ve|ry pleasant farce, taken from Les Trois Freres of LA FONT; and at Drury Lane, a comedy, called the Duel, taken from the Philosophe sans les Scavoir of SEDAINE;* 1.19 this piece was damned. HARDHAM, whose trade was a diamond cutter, his employ a snuffman, and his amusement a numberer of Dru|ry Lane Theatre, caught the cacoethes from the last employ, and wrote a piece, which GARRICK pru|dently advised him to keep in the back ground, called the Fortune Tellers. HARDHAM was a great favourite of GARRICK, and was remarkably liberal and benevolent, particularly to members of the theatre.

WALDRON, the actor, produced the Maid of Kent, the Contrast, and the Richmond Heiress.

ASCOUGH, well known in the gay world, brought out a translation of VOLTAIRE's Semiramis, which could not possibly have succeeded, it was so very weak. To make amends, however, SHERIDAN adorned it with a most exquisitely written prologue. CHATTERTON, known by his genius and his misfor|tunes, wrote, not intended however for the stage, the Tournament, Ella, Goddwyn, and the Dowager. PILLON, an author who has written with creditable success, produced before GARRICK's death, the Invasion, which was a successful farce, that answer|ed a temporary purpose.

The remaining dramatic efforts, which it is within my promise to record, are of so tiny a nature, that it will be in their favour to make them visible by seeing them in a swarm. I shall therefore only notice their titles, and their authors the names of some of which, are, however, respect|able, without any particular comment, on purpose to shew that I have a pleasure in obliging my read|ers. TOOSEY wrote Sebastian, a tragedy. MACKEN|ZIE, the Prince of Tunis, a tragedy, and the Ship|wreck, a tragedy. WARNER compleated THORN|TON's translation of Plautus. KEATE wrote the Monument in Arcadia. HITCHCOCK wrote for the York theatre, two comedies, called the Macaroni,

and the Coquet. GAMBOLD wrote the Martyrdom of Ignatius. STEWART produced the Two English Gen|tlemen.

RIDLEY wrote two tragedies; they were called Jugurtha, and the Fruitless Redress. PIGUENET, brought out Don Quizote. DOBBS produced the Patriot King. LADY STRATHMORE wrote a tragedy called the Siege of Jerusalem. WALLIS produced at York the Mercantile Lovers. HEARD, the Snuff Box, and Valentine's Day. FORREST, the Weather|cock. HODSON, Arsaces and Zoraida, tragedies, and the Adventures of a Night, a farce. DALTON pro|duced a farce, called Honour Rewarded. JACKSON, Elfrid, Geralda, the British Heroine, and Sir William Wallace, all tragedies. JACKMAN brought out the Milesian, and All the World's a Stage.

COLLIER wrote Selima and Azor, set by LINLEY. LUND produced Ducks and Peas. VAUGHAN brought out at Drury Lane, Love's Metamorphoses, and the Double Valet. POTTER translated AESCHYLUS and EURIPIDES. Mrs. GARDENER brought out at the Hay Market, the Advertisement and the Female Dra|matist. Mrs. RYVES wrote the Prude, and the Tri|umph of Hymen. WARBOYS, the Preceptor, and the Rival Lovers. JERNINGHAM wrote Margaret of

Anjou. Dr. DODD, the Syracusan. GREEN, the Secret Plot. RICHARDS, the Device. VANDER|STOP, altered the Gentle Shepherd, from RAMSAY. HOUGH wrote Second Thought is Best; Mrs. RO|BINSON produced the Lucky Escape, Lady CRAVEN, the Sleepwalker. HILL, the Gospel Shop. WILLET, Buxom Joan; and Mrs. BOOTH, the Little French Lawyer.

In addition to these, which I can particularise, I count twenty-seven Dramatic pieces which are doubtfully attributed, and one hundred and se|venty-nine considered as anonymous; so that I have now, in the course of this history, given an ac|count of more than eight hundred dramatic writers, and about three thousand one hundred pieces of different descriptions. The number of authors in France, during the same period, are above nine hundred and fifty, and their pieces amount in number to nearly four thousand five hundred, so that they have a considerable advantage in point of number; but I fancy the warmest admirer of French Literature will agree without scruple that, when the quality of the manufacture is taken into consideration, we shall find an immense ballance in our favour in point of value.

CHAP. X. ACTORS.

I GET now to a critical part of my task. I am to shew what the merits of those actors were who com|prised the school of GARRICK, to see by compa|rison whether they equalled or excelled the actors before, and at the time of BETTERTON, and to as|certain by deduction how much the acting of the present day has gradually fallen off since it has been obliged to pick up its intelligence without any ac|knowledged preceptor.

With what ability I shall execute this task let my readers judge. I confess I undertake it with a mixture of pleasure and reluctance: pleasure, be|cause I think it has been almost already proved that the acting of GARRICK's pupils was superior to that of BETTERTON's, and reluctance, because I

am afraid it is but too apparent that, when nature shall have destroyed the few remaining traces of that admirable and difficult art, the secret will be wholly lost.

I know I have to guard myself against early pre|judice, and to use every caution, lest I mistake unqualified admiration for fixed judgment. Errors, imbibed in youth, are certainly difficult to irradi|cate; but these are generally single and uncon|firmed. They have their source in the fancy, not in the heart; they are beautiful to the sight, but shrink at the touch; in the absence of reason, they excite pleasure, but reflection shames us into an acknowledgement of the delusion. On the contrary, when the senses receive those pleasures which the mind approves, when reiterated delibe|ration confirms that delight which takes possession of the susceptible soul, nothing palls, nothing satiates; repetition reveals new beauties, and the enjoyment which was born from admiration bears the test of time and accompanies the mind to maturity.

Lest however I may be fallible, lest this doctrine may be fallible, which I cannot easily credit, I shall strengthen my own opinions by the opinions of

infinitely better judges than myself, till it be con|fessed, whatever I may want of ability, I want nothing of candour, or rectitude.

In point of reputation, as men and members of society, actors in their general estimation have de|clined, from SHAKESPEAR onwards to the present hour. See how this has happened. Our immortal bard, who was another AESCHYLUS, was, like AES|CHYLUS, an actor. JONSON was an actor. The best authors of that time were actors; and, therefore, in emulation of the Greeks, were the theatres placed under the management of actors. What was the consequence? Actors accumulated fortunes, were classed and estimated respectably; and, when the troubles of CHARLES the First closed the theatre, its members were considered as loyal and honourable men, fit to be trusted with commissions to fight in the king's cause, till through the interest of CROM|WELL and the puritans, they yielded to the general pressure of the times.

From that moment the theatre got into extrane|ous hands, and thence may be dated the first step toward the degradation of actors. The names of D'AVENANT, and KILLEGREW, gave cold expec|tation of any professional encouragement to actors

in their own right. It is true that they were under the immediate protection of the Lord Chamberlain, and could not be otherwise than safely guarded by their privilege of appeal to that Nobleman, but this subjected them to adverse interests, which were sure to have adverse consequences.

The progress of this however we have seen. We have seen even in D'AVENANT's time that the two companies dwindled into the size of one, and then were glad enough to unite to keep acting upon its legs. We have seen the theatre, after it was split and divided into factions, under RICH, torne, and distracted, till at length the actors, with BETTER|TON at their head, removed, with the permission of King WILLIAM, to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where, inconvenienced as they were, they had success and were respected. We have seen in what manner, from the various ill conduct of RICH, that he was interdicted by the Lord Chamberlain, with both the patents in his pocket which were granted to D'AVENANT and KILLEGREW. We have seen the various changes which fixed CIBBER in the ma|nagement, at which time acting began to grow into fame and reputation. We have seen, imme|diately after his secession, how low it sunk under the management of persons who were not actors. We

have seen the miseries of the stage in the time of FLEETWOOD, and we have seen it rescued from those miseries by GARRICK. GARRICK is now lost to us, and what we see now, and may hereafter see, I rejoice it does not come within my province to notice.

The inference from these observations naturally is; that, as the theatre has invariably been a source of meritorious emolument to every description of actors, as the profession of an actor has been con|sidered as perfectly reputable, as the fair privileges of that profession have been accorded and enjoyed as a ••ight which could not be trenched upon, when the property has been confided to actors; and, as the theatre has been, without a single deviation, plunged into difficulties, as the talents by means of which alone a theatre can exist, for authors are nothing without actors, have been misunderstood, misapplied, slighted and set at nought; as salaries have been curtailed, mulcts imposed, task-masters employed, and other unjust and unfair means resorted to, to distress actors, when the property has fallen into the hands of mere adventurers or men of fortune; so it is evidently proved by circumstances that cannot be controverted, and conclusions that cannot be mistaken, that the theatre can never

flourish to any degree of perfection unless confided to the management of actors, and regulated by that paramount authority, which I have contended throughout this work has ever been, and ever ought to be, vested in the Lord Chamberlain.

Other circumstances corroborate this beyond all possibility of contradiction. Persons of talents, education, family, have become actors without degradation. Can this be so when they are to be considered as persons merely employed, mercena|ries, hirelings? Men with these recommendations would revolt at such an idea. It will therefore be seen that, at the time of SHAKESPEAR, of BET|TERTON, of CIBBER, and of GARRICK, a union of abilities upon an enlarged scale gave a consequence and a respect to the theatre and to acting, and that at every other period it was chilled and discouraged and hid its diminished head.

I come now to consider when acting was in its greatest prosperity, and I think it will not be diffi|cult to prove that moment to have been at the time of GARRICK; and, upon the whole, after his re|turn from Italy. His great example had been long operating on the minds of others, and, when p••ac|tice had grown into maturity, every point of excel|lence

appears to have been attained. We are told that BETTERTON was taught by TAYLOR, BOOTH by BETTERTON, and QUIN by BOOTH. GARRICK, however, seems only to have been taught by nature; and, in spight of all we can gather of the extraordi|nary merits of SHAKESPEAR's cotemporary actors, of those afterwards under BETTERTON, and onward to the end of CIBBER's management, there does not appear a demonstrative reason to suppose that acting reached its consummation till the appear|ance of GARRICK

That GARRICK reached perfection, as far as it is in the power of a human being to be perfect, no|thing can controvert. Nature had given him a most intelligent and comprehensive mind; he knew the passions and all their distinctions, shades and gradations, to infinity. He knew all his author expressed, all he meant, and was frequently equal to a penetration capable of refining upon the senti|ment he had to utter; so that, let the thought be ever so beautiful, ever so greatly conceived, or ad|mirably written, it came mended from his utterance of it.

To assist this strong, just, and profound judge|ment, his person and face were capable of setting off

every character, and every mode of expression to ad|vantage; and so great was his command over his form and his features, that the extremes of personi|fication, from kingly dignity to driveling idiotism, were at his command; but it is enough to say, for his fame needs no eulogium, or if it did is it in the power of words to give it, that from the mo|ment he was dressed for a part to the time he laid it down, be it what it might, he was no longer GARRICK, but the character he assumed: but one part of his acting, which can be easily explained, and which it is not only the duty, but within the capacity, of every member of the theatre to acquire, was his correct attention to the business of the scene when others were speaking to him.

The meanest performer on the stage in this can copy GARRICK. The rules which he laid down for himself were, not to suppose a single auditor pre|sent; and, not only to fancy he was the character he personated, but actually to infuse into his mind an idea that every thing he saw, heard, and felt, was real. He leered at no ladies in the boxes; con|templated no pleasure in any appointment to be kept after the play; anticipated no hired panegyric in the papers of the next morning; the admiration he received was a tribute from the sensibility of the

audience; he realized the fiction; till, at length, all idea of a theatre vanished, and his hearers were willingly deluded into a belief that they were wit|nessing scenes in real life; for, critically attentive to these particulars himself, which make half the value of the representation, the other performers caught the fervor, which, diffusing itself to all around, through the medium of a play, the stage exhibited a faithful representation of nature.

To enumerate the wonderful and extensive vari|ety in GARRICK, throughout the whole round of different characters he assumed, which for number, style, or kind, are beyond credibility, would require volumes. The task however, though the fact is astonishing, would not be difficult. Those who have seen him must remember what they felt, and sensations that are imprinted on the mind are easily explained. Instead, therefore, of saying what he was as an actor, I shall content myself with de|scribing what he was not. In his utterance he was not monotonous, tedious, precise, cold, unimpas|sioned; nor did he rant, bellow, flounder, hoop, or sputter. In his deportment he was not affected, formal, lounging, languid, or awkward; nor did he stride, stalk, jump, kick, or shuffle. He neither buffetted the air with his arms, nor shook his head

like a panteen; whiffled and fluttered like a but|terfly, or rolled about like a porpus.

His conduct was not disrespectful to the audience, nor disreputable to himself; he excited attention, but he did not exact it; though his judgement was consummate, he always submitted it with deference; he never appeared solicitous to investigate a sen|tence, but went at once to the sentiment it en|forced; his business was not to methodize words, but to express passions; he never was pertinacious, pedantic, or critical; he neither whined nor de|claimed; he acted. In a word, what he uttered seemed to be without study; it seemed to be extem|poraneous words arising from the situation con|ceived at the time, upon the spot. Thus his acting could be no other than nature, and thus he excited no cavil upon the meaning of epithets, no creation of opinions, no deriliction of understanding; his power was unequivocally over the heart. In proof of this, in the course of all that unexampled variety of characters which he personated, combining all the situations into which the human passions can possibly be thrown, he never for a single moment inflated tragedy into bombast, nor degraded comedy into buffoonery.

This negative statement shews the requisites which GARRICK possessed in himself, and which he taught to his pupils; and I the more readily try him by this ordeal, because it gives me opportunity to shew that, by avoiding those impediments to good acting, which if persisted in are completely fatal, every member of a theatre, to that degree of ability which nature and education has given him, may be a good actor. It is on this account I therefore naturally wish that it might again be the desire of actors to emulate, and the determination of the public to tolerate, this only plan by which in the most distant degree acting can ever be a representation of na|ture, and reconcileable to truth.

I could with pleasure go into every particular ex|cellence in GARRICK's acting, but that my limits are so confined as to render it impracticable. Indeed it could not be done without establishing a broad system equal to a treatise; I must leave it therefore to some more able, though not more willing pen. In the mean time, I owe myself the duty to say, and I beg it may be so understood, that I have not meant to describe, in my observations on this ex|traordinary man, an actor completely without faults. I only insist that his faults were spots in the sun;

faults which the most perfect mortal must naturally possess; faults to which BETTERTON, as well as GAR|RICK, must inevitably have been liable; and, hav|ing established his perfections, which, in comparison with his faults, were

"ossa to a wart."

I think it will be acknowledged, let BETTERTON's exclusive merit have been what it might, that, as the large field which GARRICK traversed demanded more ex|tensive and more versatile powers, and as taking it in a general point of view he was equally excellent every where; it cannot be but his merits must have stood higher than those of his great prede|cessor.

Next to GARRICK it will be proper to mention BARRY, an actor of most extraordinary merit; which was confined, however, to tragedy, and serious parts in comedies. In some few respects it is ques|tionable whether he did not excel every actor on the stage. These were in scenes and situations full of tender woe and domestic softness, to which his voice, which was melifluous to wonder, lent asto|nishing assistance. In scenes of an opposite descrip|tion, he threw a majesty and a grandeur into his acting which gave it a most noble degree of ele|vation. These peculiar qualities which he possessed in a very striking degree, were greatly manifest in

the tender conflicts of the heart wounded Othello, and the haughty ravings of the high minded Baja|zet; and they were exquisitely blended in the fond, yet kingly Alexander; but certainly beyond these requisites, BARRY's acting did not extend in any eminent degree.

The turbulent, afflicting, and terrible passions were not at the command of BARRY, which those will wit|ness for me who have heard GARRICK utter the curse in Lear, and who have watched him through the va|rious vicissitudes which mark the guilty ambition of Macbeth. BARRY was wonderfully winning, but he was not superlatively great. He missed of the first grand requisite in tragedy, he excited pity, and delight, but not terror. GARRICK possessed every quality in the same eminent degree. I have noticed already that excessive sensibility conquers too fre|quently the powers of an actor, and thus BARRY felt himself what GARRICK transferred to the audience. In BARRY they were interested for the actor, in GAR|RICK for the character.

It cannot be denied however that BARRY was a noble acquisition to the theatre. All exquisitely tender and touching writing came mended from his mouth. There was a pathos, a sweetness, a

delicacy in his utterance, which stole upon the mind and forced conviction upon the memory; every sentiment of honour and virtue recommended to the ear by the language of the author, were ri|vetted to the heart by the utterance of BARRY.

HOLLAND and POWELL were great acquisitions to the theatre. Their merits however were as dif|ferent as possible. HOLLAND acquired fame by perseverance and industry, which therefore grew gradually towards perfection. POWELL burst on the stage with every perfection but experience. They had been always intimate friends and their theatrical emulation was creditable to both? * 1.20POWELL's acting was strong nature, as luxuriant as a wilderness.

It had a thousand beauties, and a thousand faults. He felt so forcibly that, in any impassioned scene, tears came faster than words, and frequently choaked his utterance. If GARRICK had not gone to Italy but had stayed at home and honestly taught him, there is certainly no height of perfection, in tragedy to which such abilities could not have reached; but he hurried over so many characters in the short time he was on the stage, that it was impossible, even had his understanding been as great as his conception, for him to have digested any of them into any thing like form.

HOLLAND was extremely different from POWELL, both as an actor and a man. Though his natural talents were not so strong yet he kept as respectable a situation, and, through the propriety of his con|duct, his company was coveted by the wise and the celebrated, while POWELL's weakness led him into the society of the vain and the frivolous. HOLLAND had not, nor had POWELL, received a very liberal education, but his intellects were of that strong, clear, and decided kind, they performed for him the task of a tutor so well, that his decisions upon all occasions were founded in sound judgment and critical experience. He was free, good natured, chearful, and generous, nor had he an unkind wish

to any human creature: he indulged himself as much as any young man reasonably ought to do; yet, with his purse and his heart ever open, though not sprung from an opulent origin, which circum|stance he had too much sense to conceal, at the age, I believe, of thirty three he left his family six thou|sand pounds.

As to the acting of HOLLAND; what he wanted of POWELL's natural requisities he made up in strong discrimination. One was susceptable, the other critical. Whoever remembers their performing Posthumous and Jachimo will feel the truth of this observation. POWELL made the strongest first im|pression, HOLLAND pleased you best upon repetition; POWELL, though he often charmed, sometimes dis|gusted. HOLLAND, even when you could not ad|mire him, gave you no pain. In short POWELL owed to nature what HOLLAND owed to himself; and, if after all we are obliged to admit something of preminence on the side of POWELL, and regret his loss as an actor, we cannot refrain from heaving a deeper sigh when we reflect that in HOLLAND we lost a most valuable member of society.* 1.21

ROSS and SMITH were not immediately GAR|RICK's disciples, which was a misfortune to ROSS; but SMITH's industry being always alive to his duty, he sought every possible opportunity of improving by a correct study of the merit and manner of GAR|RICK. Thus have fools called HOLLAND and SMITH the copyers of GARRICK. The fair, liberal princi|ple upon which they copied him was emulation, not manner. What painter or poet ought to blush for having studied CORREGIO or DRYDEN, till he was capable of infusing the grace of the first and the energy of the latter into his picture or poem! SMITH, greatly to his credit, studied GARRICK

under this liberal idea; and the public in conse|quence, in their commendation of perfectness, industry, attention, and gentlemanly demeanor, strongly applauded those particular merits in this actor, which he possessed, and passed by trifling im|pediments, which could not be called faults, with the candour due to warm devotion and active ex|ertion.

ROSS was an object of much greater severity. His indolence and supineness were intolerable, and unpardonable, for he certainly possessed very strong requisites as an actor; but CHURCHILL, throughout the Rosciad, did not write better truth, or stronger satire, than the two lines applied to this performer; yet, who shall deny that ROSS was sometimes, and to his disgrace, at will, captivating, and fairly able to stand up to BARRY? Whoever has by chance seen him in his best moods perform Essex, or Alexander, will agree with me. In short, he was a voluptuous man, and particularly a great eater, therefore he had not the perseverence to give the necessary atten|tion to his profession, and thus he happened to be admirable, or insufferable, in proportion as he was more or less plethoric.

In comedy, as in tragedy, GARRICK led the train;

nay, take it all in all, it is difficult to say whether Thalia and Melpomene possessed him or he either of them with greater ardour, for his devotion to each was equally sincere, and they were to him equally propitious. No wonder then, with such a stimulus, the actors of his day were emulous to at|tain the same perfection according to the force of their respective abilities, which were so various and extensive that it is difficult to say who merits the first notice. I shall therefore take them according to seniority.

WOODWARD, though indifferently gifted by na|ture, except as to his person, which was so complete that he could not throw himself into an inelegant at|titude, possessed such sound principles of acting, that he is for ever to be regretted. There are characters in real life which appear out of nature. These are fair game for authors; and, when they are well drawn, did we not meet with performers of the ad|mirable description of WOODWARD, we should lose the pleasure of seeing such characters well acted. These characters are not general, but particular na|ture, and therefore it requires strong art and judge|ment to delineate them. The great point is to steer between extravagance and vapidity, a know|ledge of effect completely understood by WOOD|WARD.

Thus, in all the coxcombs, WOODWARD must greatly have excelled CIBBER, who designed and originally performed them; for WOODWARD even in voice, which was the worst deduction from his merit by what I could ever understand, had the advantage, and when we consider that, superadded to the experience he had gained by seeing them performed in their original manner, he had the opportunity of im|proving on them by his own observation, assisted by the elegance and gracefulness of his deportment, there can be no doubt that these particular characters have never been performed to perfection but by him.

When we go into a species of parts still more extravagant, such as the braggart through all its gradations, nothing could have been superior to WOODWARD. BOBADIL, PAROLLES, BESSUS, and others of a similar kind never had certainly upon the whole any such representative. I have already drawn a slight comparison between WOODWARD and the French actor DUGAZON. The superiority how|ever is greatly on the side of WOODWARD. The French stage knows nothing of that broad humour, strong character, and striking situation, which cha|racterize ours. They have their coups de theatre, but the general effect is full of frivolity and seldom

gets beyond sprightliness. Their bienseance is but another word for vapidity, and then if DUGAZON had possessed the requisites of WOODWARD, which he certainly did not in any eminent degree, the extravagance of D'ANCOURT, well drawn, as it was, could not have afforded the same opportunity for a display of his talents as WOODWARD found in SHAKESPEAR and JONSON.

YATES was one of those meritorious actors who added to chaste nature becoming respectability. He had his hardnesses, and those, who, like CHURC|HILL, cavil in parcels, and are too acrimonious to be candid, may on this account, condemn him in the lump; but I should not despair of proving that YATES had as good an understanding as CHURCHILL, and that, as an actor, he accomplished his public duty upon honester and more respectable grounds than the other as an author.

I know of no French actor so good as YATES; though, had he been a Frenchman, the Lisimons, Gerontes, and every species of fathers and guardians characterized by humour and caprice would have been exactly in his way. He had the best parts of BONNEVAL, DESSESARTS, and BELLECOUR. On the English stage he resembled UNDERHILL; but with

considerable advantage. No actor was ever more chaste, more uniform, more characteristic; and, though perhaps sometimes he overshot those par|ticular spots which nature designed him to hit, yet upon the whole his acting in an eminent degree was gratifying to the public and exemplary to stage.

SHUTER, whose strong nature and irresistible humour were highly and peculiarly captivating, must be ranked as a theatrical wonder. Neither on the French, nor on the English stage, do we find any one to whom we can compare him. His strong conception, his laughable manner, his perpetual diversity were his own, and were displayed in a thousand various forms, always extraordinary, and yet always in nature. The extremes of life were never so critically displayed as by SHUTER. His performance of the Miser and Master Stephen are incontrovertible proofs of this remark. Has any one seen him in Corbaccio, and will he tell me that acting ever went beyond it?

When he went out of his way, so the question was humour, could any thing be superior to SHUTER? I look upon him, as far as it went, to have been one of the best burletta singers in the

world. Nothing upon earth could have been su|perior to his Midas. His great fault was indolence; but eccentric qualities will naturally be accompanied by eccentric conduct. Thus we perceive in his acting great inequalities, but those parts of it that were sterling were invaluably so; and, in proof of it, see all those vain attempts at an imitation of him from EDWIN onwards that have degraded acting into buffoonery, of which SHUTER had none, through which even actors of good sense have ex|pected to grow into reputation, till mistaking the way, they have made a sort of JOSEPH's coat of their acting; and, in proportion as they have pur|sued manner, have lost sight of nature.

WESTON was another of nature's wonders. He seemed as if he had possessed neither idea, nor conception, yet was he endowed with so many chaste and felicitous gifts, that he uttered rather than acted; but it was such utterance that the most accomplished acting never excelled. The French know nothing of actors such as SHUTER and WESTON. Their naiveté bears an implication that deserts simplicity and almost goes to cunning. The ideas of the French in any one part of their con|duct, either on or off the stage, are never inarti|ficial. They inhale caution, wariness, and distrust,

with their earliest breath, and the first use they make of their tongues is to reason, and this obtains among the very lowest descriptions of that nation; there|fore, if authors fairly depict their manners, though they may find, and this will be rarely the case, naiveté, they never will find what an ingenuous English mind understands by the word simplicity.

NOKES, and NORRIS, as I have noticed already, possessed similar gifts to WESTON; whether in an equal degree it will be impossible for us to ascertain; in a superior degree it will be impossible for us to allow; but many of my readers have seen him in Scrub, Dr. Last, and other characters, and I have nothing to do but appeal to their evidence to make out my assertion.

FOOTE ranked respectably as an actor, a circum|stance that has not been always granted; for, as peoples principles are supposed to be vitiated by keep|ing bad company, so those, who have been professedly mimics, have been rarely allowed to have been good actors, which is more an admitted than a real fact. GARRICK was an incomparable mimic. Take the circumstance as it really is and the truth will be this. Mimickry is the easiest thing in the world,

acting the most difficult; for, if this were not ad|mitted, those who imitate cats, dogs, and birds, as well as all the race of ventriloquists and mummers of every description, would naturally be good actors. On the contrary, acting must have conception, soul, sensibility, and all those mental qualities, which mi|mickry has nothing to do with.

FOOTE was by no means a good mimic. He knew singularity to be very catching, and a strong recommendation with the superficial who admire more that which is merely plausible, than that which is really substantial; and therefore he put on something of this kind in order to heighten his acting: which, added to dress, an extravagant man|ner, and other artful resources, was supposed to con|vey a likeness of the person represented, who had never been seen by one of his auditors, perhaps, out of five hundred. There were characters, how|ever, where mimickry was totally unnecessary, that FOOTE performed admirably, and many of those he wrote himself, which were not merely calculated to ridicule individuals, have not since him found adequate representatives.

O'BRIEN, who was snatched from the Theatre when he had arrived, though young, to great repu|tation,

would certainly have proved an actor of the first consequence. The ease, elegance, and grace in his deportment were peculiar, and his own; and spight of his voice, which for light characters was not by any means an impediment, in the represen|tation of a great variety of parts his acting was cri|tically natural, his manner interestingly impressive, and his deportment uncommonly attractive.

KING, whom I formerly compared to PREVILLE, had, and I am happy, in common with every admir|er of good acting, to add, has, much more exten|sive merit than had that deservedly celebrated per|former. When we speak of French actors, let their intrinsic merit have been what it might, we can only give them credit for that which they have manifested. PREVILLE performed all the Valets, and similar characters to such a degree of perfec|tion, that a revival of MOLIERE, and all celebrated authors was demanded to give opportunity for the display of his talents. It is impossible to deny that he possessed, in the words of his biographer, intelli|gence, variety, deportment, gaiety, grace, and na|ture; but, with all these admirable requisites, he could not perform more than what was given him; fortunately enough perhaps, for, as on the French Stage it is a proverb that Harlequin is always Har|lequin,

and Crispin always Crispin, so PREVILLE was always PREVILLE, and indeed, so are French actors always French actors; and the question is not so much how they would manage if they were trust|ed with contrast, variety, and diversity, as how they are capable of contrasting, varying, and diversifying the eternal sameness of sentiment and situation which pervade the most perfect pieces on the French Stage.

LE KAIN has been compared to GARRICK, so has PREVILLE; but the historian, in fair justice, is obliged to confess, of the first, that, however, the French actor had taste, and knew how to support effect, the English actor had the superiority on the side of nature; and, as to the other, that GARRICK performed with equal celebrity, tragedy, and come|dy, which it is impossible to reconcile on the French Stage. A confession that sufficiently explains the confined ideas of acting on their theatre.

If PREVILLE, therefore, was to cope with KING, it could be only as to the Valets, for in no other way have they performed parts at all similar; and when it is given, which it easily will be, that the French Stage knows no characters of that description which require those powers of acting that are neces|sary

in the performance of Trapanti, Brass,* 1.22 Tom, and various other parts on the English stage, the having stronger situation to manage, better humour to express, and sounder effect to convey, calls for greater talents, and we are obliged to allow the superiority to incline according as we are biassed by the evidence of our senses.

When we go further, and point to such cha|racters as Touchstone, Malvolio, all the bucks, such as Squire Groom and Sir Harry Beagle, to which I could add a prodigious number of others in various ways, but shall however content myself with mentioning Sir Peter Teazle, Sir Anthony Absolute, and Lord Ogleby, which may now be witnessed in as great perfection as ever, and to which every actor of the present day ought to bow out of devotion as to a precious relick, it would be folly any longer to talk of a comparison between KING and PREVILLE. Good English acting is like English punch of which the French know nothing but the lemonade.

It is as difficult to liken KING to any English

actor. Those who performed characters in his style at the time of CIBBER seem to have been fol|lowed by YATES, who, though he was, as I have with pleasure observed, an admirable actor, had a manner perfectly distinct. KING is a performer who has thrown novelty into old characters, con|sequence into new, and nature into all. Indeed his leading feature is integrity; which quality having been invariably his guide during his whole public and private conduct, he has most respectably endeared himself to the world in general by a dis|play of truth, and nature from the stage, and to a large circle of admiring friends by an exercise of benevolence, good humour, and every other social virtue.

I lament that I cannot dwell more particularly on the merit of actors. ARTHUR was an actor of considerable merit, HAVARD and BERRY demand a tribute of respect, SPARKS, DYER, COLLINS, MARTIN, and even BURTON, BRANSBY, VAUG|HAN and many others claim a right to be spoken of as reputable members of the theatre.

AICKIN has performed at all times with judg|ment, feeling and nature. His information being extensive, his knowledge profound, and his dis|crimination

critical, he has often delighted, and never offended; and, though he has not reached the summit of his profession, he has maintained the height at which he arrived, by no means a mediocre station, firm and unshaken; his guide understanding, and his support good sense. The two PALMERS were actors of great merit; the only drawback on both was manner which in the first was too refined, and in the other too vulgar. PARSONS, and DODD, must be spoken of with warmth. Both these actors were favourites with GARRICK. The discrimination of PARSONS, in parents and guardians, was his own, and he went over this walk in a manner perfectly original, which was the more admirable coming as he did after YATES; besides he had treasured up a great fund of knowledge, and was capable of speaking with taste and judgment to every question concerning the arts, a congenial feeling with those enlarged ideas which particularly belong to acting. DODD's great merit was altogether singularity; which, guided by a perfect knowledge of his profession, rendered his exertions very respectable.

There are also other actors who largely contributed to the reputation of the stage, BLAKES, BADDE|LEY, and even HOLTAM, supported the characters

of Frenchmen with great reputation. Nor was their merit confined merely to that cast of parts. MOODY's genteel, and BARRINGTON's blackguard, Irishmen, were excellent, and much might be said to shew that there was at that time scarcely a wheel in the theatrical machine that was not of material use in contributing towards the re|gular, correct, and constant rotation of the whole system.

I cannot with any propriety finish this chapter without noticing that REDDISH, WROUGHTON, HENDERSON, WILSON, LEE LEWIS, and many others were performers of considerable merit, and it would give me real satisfaction to go particularly into an account of their various talents; but, as they do not properly come under my promise, and as the earliest parts of an actors exertions are not so favourable to report as those when his repu|tation becomes more confirmed, in which situation all those whom I have mentioned above stand, it will be better for them, and more becoming in me, to let the judgment on their merits rest with the public, by whom many of them are now remem|bered with pleasure.

CHAP. XI. ACTRESSES.

HAVING spoken of actresses in tragedy who sus|tained the first situations before GARRICK went to Italy, I shall now dwell a little upon those who strove to fill their vacant places after his return.

Mrs. YATES was a performer of extraoardinary merit. If she had a fault it was an emulation of the best French actresses; which gave a declamatory air to her delivery, but in her it was less a fault than it could have been in any other actress, because her voice was so wonderfully well calculated for this part of acting, that what would have appeared monotonous in any other was in her penetrating to admiration. In all the complaints of suffering innocence, she was pathetically affecting; her me|lancholy and despondency excited generous pity,

and her grief was repaid with the tear of commi|seration.

This however was not the boundary to her act|ing. In scenes of animated passion and haughty fierceness, her manner was commanding and her expression majestic. She had all the grand and noble requisities of tragedy in great perfection. If she personated pride, she maintained it even in dis|appointment. If greatness, she never lost sight of its dignity however fallen. Her merits were in the nature of those of BARRY. Her queens were full of elevation, and her lovers of strong sensibility, but here we must stop. Grandeur and tenderness com|prized the whole of her talents; the intermediate passions had nothing to do with them; they en|tirely consisted of the power to awe her auditors into admiration, or melt them into tears.

Mrs. BARRY had more of GARRICK's merit in tragedy and was equal to quickness, passion, rage and an exposition of all the terrible and turbulent passions. Common grief was too tame for her ex|pression. She knew not how to insinuate herself into the heart, her mode was to seize it. Admir|ation was not enough; she must beget astonishment. This difficult effect it must be confessed her acting

very often produced; but it seldom happens that such bold and forcible ••••rokes of art are free from inequality. It required GARRICK's perfectness in a conception of all the passions to be excellent in these; besides turbulent men may be admitted, but turbulent women are unlovely and lose something of feminine delicacy.

Mrs. PRITCHARD was perhaps the only actress who had art enough to reconcile these jarring in|terests. She was every where great, every where impressive, and every where feminine. Mrs. BARRY was sometimes below and sometimes above the standard; sometimes, I had almost said, vulgar, and sometimes, I may truly say, wonderful. To speak truth there could not be two actresses who were so well calculated to set off the perfections of each other as Mrs. YATES, and Mrs. BARRY. The hiatus created by Mrs. YATES the powers of Mrs. BARRY were exactly suited to fill, and perhaps, though I will not allow one to be completely equal, taken seperately, to Mrs. PRITCHARD in Jane Shore, or the other to Mrs. CIBBER in Alicia, yet their acting so exactly sorted together, and there was by means of contract so peculiar a felicity in its operation, that it is difficult to believe the public ever saw better collective effect than in

those characters which were so often performed by Mrs. YATES and Mrs. BARRY.

These two actresses engrossed the principal repu|tation in their time; Mrs. WARD, Miss MACKLIN, Mrs. HAMILTON, Miss BRIDE, Mrs. FITZHENRY and others, had done the state some service; but, either at that time had disappeared or were disappearing. Mrs. WARD had many excellent requisites but she was unequal, almost as unequal as ROSS. She per|formed, however, at times to admiration, and would have succeeded better had she not been at Covent Garden, where the play was generally neglected for the pantomime, and would have been performed to empty benches for the first half of it, had not RICH established a rule to admit no auditor during any part of the evening at less than full price.

Miss MACKLIN performed at times respectably, but she was a parrot, and uttered what had been taught her by her father, as a task got by heart, which she seemed to have neither taste nor inclina|tion for. Mrs. HAMILTON, the stock Covent-Gar|den Queen, had a bustling something in her man|ner that might have been endured, if the pub|lic had not been accustomed to Mrs. PRITCHARD. As to Miss BRIDE, she retired so hastily ftom the

Stage, that there was no forming any judgment of what she would have been, had she remained; and for Mrs. FITZHENRY, she crossed the Shannon to ex|hibit a new species of acting, which, captivating as it might be in Ireland, was not relished here. The reader will excuse me from mentioning inferior ac|tresses to these in tragedy, who, however, let their natural requisites have been what they might, always succeeded best in proportion as they studied in the school of GARRICK.

I must not, however, forget to notice Miss YOUNGE, afterwards Mrs. POPE. GARRICK had al|ways what he used to call a bisque in his sleeve, which was a stroke of policy useful both to him and to the theatre. It was no other, than to fix upon an object of merit, in order to curb other performers, when he either knew or fancied their conduct was likely to grow overbearing, or in any other way troublesome. REDDISH was produced in this man|ner to awe POWELL, and Miss YOUNGE was produced to lessen the consequence of Mrs. BARRY.

With this lady GARRICK took most uncommon pains. It was not, however, till after a variety of experiments that she gained that hold of the public, which she long and deservedly kept. It is needless

to say what were her particular merits, they are too recently in the recollection of the public, to be easily forgot. They had to the last a spice of her pre|ceptor, and even her manner of filling the stage, gave a strong idea of stage conduct in use five and thirty years ago.

As to actresses in comedy, Mrs. CLIVE maintain|ed an undiminished reputation till she took leave of the public, which was in 1768. She had then lived to see her pupils, Mrs. GREEN, and Miss POPE, in possession of high public favour; both of whom, however, were by no means mannerists. Nature had largely furnished them with mental wealth; the experience of Mrs. CLIVE had only shewn them how to lay it it out to advantage. Thus, though they were both admirable in Chambermaids and Hoydens, and indeed almost every other comic part, they were neither like each other, nor like their principal, though perfectly and always in nature.

Mrs. GREEN had humour, even to drollery. She had something of SHUTER, and something of her fa|ther. These were not exactly the talents of Miss POPE; who, however, though perfectly unaffected herself, exceeded Mrs. GREEN in assuming finesse and affectation. Perhaps, Mrs. CLIVE never aped

mock gentility better. I cannot conceive how the Aunt and the Niece in the Clandestine Marriage can ever again be personated to the same degree of per|fection; but to dwell upon comparative excellence is next to cavilling. Some of my readers remember Mrs. CLIVE, many Mrs. GREEN, and all Miss POPE. To the first of these classes my remarks will be recog|nised for truth, as they relate to those three perform|ers; to the second, as they regard the two last; and the third, in the characters Miss POPE has now the good sense to perform, will have a just and a faithful idea of the manner in which parts of that de|scription were acted before boldness and vul|garity usurped the place of truth and nature.

With Mrs. ABINGTON came a species of excel|lence which the Stage seems never before to have boasted in the same perfection. The higher parts in comedy had been performed chastly and truely, perhaps in these particulars more so than by this ac|tress. There was a peculiar goodness gleamed across the levity of Mrs. PRITCHARD, and by what we can learn of Mrs. BRACEGIRDLE, who seems to have possessed the same captivating sort of manner which distinguished Mrs. ABINGTON, she was in these characters natural and winning; but it re|mained for her successor to add a degree of grace,

fashion, and accomplishment to sprightliness, which was no sooner seen, than it was imitated in the po|litest circles.

Mrs. BRACEGIRDLE, let her merit have been what it might, did not perform CIBBER's coquettes; and though that author waited for Mrs. OLDFIELD be|fore he accomplished Lady Betty Modish, yet, however admirable she might have been in the re|presentation of those characters, they did not ap|pear to be so exactly in her way, as Lady Townly and other parts which had a higher degree of con|sequence attached to them. Mrs. ABINGTON kept critically to coquettes, and there can be no doubt, take the round of them through, and it is pretty ex|tensive, that more uniform good acting never was manifested.

I have already spoken comparatively of Mrs. ABINGTON, and Madame BELLCOUR; but with no view to associate them in elegance and grace, which the characters Madame BELLCOUR personated would not in the same degree admit of. The French ac|tress personated French coquettes to admiration, but I have already observed, speaking of KING and PREVILLE, that every thing among the French is underwritten. They know nothing of Beatrice,

Lady Betty Modish or Millamant. The likeness is in those higher kind of chambermaids who aped their mistresses, and thus exactly, as we have been accustomed to say KING and ABINGTON, instead of Tom and Phillis, so it was impossible to speak of PREVILLE without assimilating the idea of BELLCOUR.

In addition to the grace, the ease, and the ele|gance, with which Mrs. ABINGTON personated characters in high life, and aped politeness in cham|bermaids, her taste for dress was novel and inte|resting. She was consulted by ladies of the first distinction, not from caprice as we have frequently seen in other instances, but from a decided con|viction of her judgment in blending what was beautiful with what was becoming. Indeed dress took a sort of ton from her fancy, and ladies, both on the stage and off, piqued themselves on decorating their persons with decency and decorum, and captivating beholders by a modest conceal|ment of those charms, which, in imitation of the French women, who never knew the sensation or a blush, the result of English feminine rectitude, our females now, to the disgrace of the age, make it their study to expose.

Miss ELLIOT was a charming act••ess. Maria in the Citizen certainly never was properly re|presented but by her. Indeed the different cha|racters which she performed with WOODWARD after his return from Ireland were admirably sustained, and a few years would certainly have marked her as a very accomplished actress, had not her early death deprived the stage of a most valuable ornament.

I might with great propriety speak of other actresses and it would give me pleasure to dwell on their various merits; but to mention those who were, at the time I am confined to, mere novices, would be to place them in a disadvanta|geous point of view, and to notice others, who, though respectable, possessed only secondary situ|ations, it would be difficult to know where to stop. I shall therefore content myself with having given this slight, and I must confess, inadequate description, of those few whose abilities were the most prominent during the time GARRICK had the management of the theatre.

CHAP. XII. SINGERS.

THOUGH I should conceive that I have said every thing on the subject of music itself and its com|posers, that can be requisite, or indeed that ought to occupy a place in this work, it still remains for me to speak of singers. I shall however confine myself to English singers, many of whom have at different periods possessed admitted reputation equal to the Italians, and real reputation superior to them.

Though we know of ARABELLA HUNT, Mrs. TOFTS, Mrs. ROBINSON, and many other celebrated English female singers, we are not so correct as to men, and the reason is, that nothing in the way of public singing has been considered of consequence enough to record, except what related to the opera.

Masques however had been performed with great celebrity; and, when the Beggar's Opera begat so many musical pieces, the theatre gave such a tone of simplicity to English music, that not only cele|brated singers began to be known, but those who had before conceived it indispensibly necessary to be musicians professionaly, in order to attain reputation as singers, were astonished to find that a good voice, a correct ear, a little feeling, and an un|affected utterance embraced the whole mystery.

Every actor furnished with these materials be|came presently a singer. The public began to feel instead of admire, and that admiration which had so disgraced English manliness into effeminacy by lavishing so much money and so much praise on the treble of FARINELLI, turned all at once into applause at the bass of LEVERIDGE. As, however, it will better answer my purpose to bring before the reader's view those singers whom some of them may remember, I shall take the period when BEARD, and Mrs. CIBBER, were so greatly cele|brated, and carry the subject as far onward as will elucidate what I think it material to say upon this head.

BEARD was a singer of great excellence. His

voice was sound, male, powerful, and extensive. His tones were natural and he had flexibility enough to execute any passages however difficult, which task indeed frequently fell to his lot in some of HANDEL's oratorios; but, with these qualifications, where the feelings were most roused, he was, of course, the most excellent. If he failed at all it was in acquired taste, which I will venture to pronounce was a most fortunate circumstance for him; for I never knew an instance where acquired taste did not destroy natural expression; a quality self-evidently as much preferable to the other as nature is to art.

I have already said that I consider BEARD, taken altogether, as the best English singer. He was one of those you might fairly try by SHAKESPEAR's speech to the actors. He did not mouth it, but his words came trippingly over the tongue; he did not out HEROD HEROD, but he begot a temperance that gave his exertions smoothness; he never out|stepped the modesty of nature, nor made the judi|cious grieve; in short he never did more than was set down for him, he never set on a quantity of barren spectators to applaud while some necessary question of the song stood still; he let his own discretion be his tutor, and held the mirror up to

nature. Well might one apostrophize in imitation of Hamlet.

Oh there be singers that I have listened to, and heard others applaud, aye, and encore too, that neither having the accent of Eunuch, man, or beast, yet a mixture of all three, or possessing a single trait of fancy, taste, or expression, have so soared, so sunk, and so cantabileed, that one would have thought some Ventriloquist had made singers, and not made them well, they imitated braying so abominably. BEARD was the reverse of all this; besides he was very valuable as an actor. In the Jovial Crew, Love in a Village, Comus, and Artaxerxes, he gave proof of this in a degree scarcely inferior to any body.

LOWE was a great favourite and perhaps had a more even and mellow voice than BEARD; and, in mere love songs when little more than a melodious utterance was necessary, he might have been said to have exceeded him, but it was in the nature of those particulars, in a much inferior degree how|ever, that BARRY excelled GARRICK. LOWE lost himself beyond the namby pamby poetry of Vauxhall; BEARD was at home ever where.

Coming forwarder we get to VERNON; a most po|werful instance of what good sense does for a singer. He had no voice, without which quality it is difficult to suppose a singer at all, and it is impossible that he could have arrived to any degree of reputation had he not been favoured by nature with strong conception, quick sensibility, and a correct taste. With these and nothing more, he made himself a most respectable favourite, and it was impossible to hear him without saying,

"what an admirable singer that man would have been, had his voice been equal to his judgment."

VERNON besides this was a good actor.

REINHOLD, who did not succeed so well, will solve this seeming paradox relative to VERNON, and shew clearly how much natural expression must in|variably triumph over acquired taste. REINHOLD was a good musician, and not a bad actor, he was really possessed of a voice, not however of the first rate, but, taking the road in which so many singers have been bewildered, leaving the manly part of singing for the less natural qualification of modulating through all the meanders of falcetto, he injured his reputation and rendered those gifts of nature con|temptible which in VERNON would have commanded respect. It is considered as a very curious thing

that the best singers in all countries, have been, generally speaking, the worst musicians, but no|thing can be easier to explain. Voices utter melo|dies, and melodies are not the science itself, but the principle on which it is formed.

MANZOLI, and LOVATINI, were the best singers on the Italian stage; BEARD, VERNON and BAN|NISTER on the English.* 1.23

BANNISTER was in many respects superior to any singer that perhaps ever lived. The body and volume of voice which he possessed were only equalled by its sweetness and interest. He had as much taste, as much playfulness, and as extensive power as the most fashionable of those singers who think singing totally consists in flexibility, and that a voice cannot be exercised to perfection unless when it is flying to the bridge of the fiddle, and sliding back again in chromatics; but BANNISTER had too much sense to use this power, except when

he had an inclination to shew how ridiculous it is. Thus in the Son-in law he sung,

"Water parted from the sea,"

with as much taste, as much sweetness, and as much variety as TENDUCCI, at the same time that he introduced a degree of burlesque into it that gave the blush to modern singing. BANNISTER had no necessity to convey any thing of this extraneous kind into his general singing. That was equally creditable to the poet, to the musician, and to himself. Instead of surprizing, he delighted, and the fine manly accents he conveyed charmed the ear, and interested the heart.

Female singers in England have been unquesti|onably superior, take them all in all, to those of any country in the world, and it is little to say that, at those several moments the public have disgracefully set themselves up to espouse the cause of Italians, as if music wholly depended on them and their caprice, there were English women clearly of greater capacity. Every thing that happened at the time of Mrs. TOFTS, Mrs. HUNT, and Mrs. ROBINSON we'll pass by, though perhaps it might not be difficult to prove that while these were neg|lected for CUZZONI, and FAUSTINA, and others according to the times when they appeared, it was totally unnecessary to import Italian singing and

Italian impertinence, when singing, in as great perfection, was to be found in English women, and modesty along with it.

I am confirmed in this opinion by a comparative view of the English and Italian female singers in my own recollection. Among the Italian, perhaps after all SESTINI was the best. I can just remem|ber those who came immediately before the Buonna Figliola, and it has been my uniform remark that the Italian women have sung better than the men; but their plaintive singers have been the best, and and we have never heard any of their cantabile singers who piqued themselves upon a large compass and the execution of difficult passages, but their tone has been so nasal, that we might have mis|taken them for the hautboy or the clarinet that accompanied them. SCOTTI was a sweet singer, ZAMPERINI a graceful singer, indeed this last was a kind of female VERNON, but what were any of them in point of voice, delicacy, and sweetness, compared to Mrs. ARNE, Miss BRENT, or even Mrs. VINCENT; but when we come forward and speak of Mrs. SHERIDAN, and Miss HARROP, the merit of the Italian females sinks to nothing.

I regret that I am constrained to notice the dif|ferent talents of these singers in a short and general way, for I should to be glad to make out my posi|tion by expatiating largely on them. Mrs. PINTO, possessing an exquisite voice and being under a master, the great characteristics of whose musical abilities were natural ease and unaffected simplicity, was a most valuable singer. Her power was resist|less, her neatness was truly interesting and her variety was incessant. Though she owed a great deal to nature, she owed a great deal to ARNE, without whose careful hand her singing might per|haps have been too luxuriant.

Mrs. ARNE was deliciously captivating. She knew nothing in singing or in nature but sweet|ness and simplicity. She sung exquisitely, as a bird does, her notes conveyed involuntary pleasure and undefinable delight. It should for ever be reiterated that singers of this description never outrage the poet nor the musician. Indeed I conceive that there is a species of ingratitude in such violation, for with|out the poet and the musician what would become of the singer?

Mrs. VINCENT, like LOWE, depended almost upon her voice which was very charming. In short

it was that true English voice which has an even|ness, a fullness, a solidity, that one might analize so as to shew that nothing Italian can have. She was deservedly a great favourite, and sung songs of ease and sweetness with great delicacy.

There is a kind of voice, I will not say peculiarly English, but much more beautiful and perfect, and more common in England than any where else. Such a voice had Mrs. KENNEDY, who, had she have been suffered to keep to parts particularly adapted for her, would have augmented that public admiration she so meritoriously excited to astonish|ment; but, by having the good nature to personate parts totally unfit for her, a left handed policy in a manager, by the bye, who cannot keep up his real interest without keeping up the consequence of the performer, we had perpetually the worst part of her singing. In some light characters this conduct was particularly reprehensible.* 1.24 In short Mrs. KEN|NEDY

was one of those singers who put us in mind of the heartiness of our national character, which, after fashion and folly have for a time flattered us out of it, we resume just upon the same principle as we cherish a kind and sincere friend, who, forgetting our wanderings, kindly points out the road to comfort and content.

I could mention many other female singers of very respectable talents, whose names the reader will supply for me. Among these, however, I ought to confine myself to theatrical singers. I cannot help nevertheless reminding the public of the great and extraordinary merit of Miss HARROP, and Mrs. SHERIDAN, both of whom were just seen and then lost.

I own I prefer Mrs. SHERIDAN before Miss HARROP, and indeed before any singer I ever heard, even to this moment; but this is no ill compliment to Miss HARROP, because, charming and exquisite as they were, her talents were confined to concert singing. The talents of Mrs. SHERIDAN, had the

experiment been made, would been found to have been universal; but the public were not so far to be obliged.

Those who have never heard Mrs. SHERIDAN can be no more able to conceive the force and effect of her merit, than I can be capable of describing it. I can easily make it understood that, if she was possessed of every perfection and free from every fault as a singer, she must have been superior to every other, but this is theory; the practical part of the argument cannot be felt but by those who were fortunate enough to hear her, who, if they have any recollection and will take the trouble to repeat MILTON's passage uttered by Comus imme|diately after he has heard the Lady sing Sweet Echo, they will find their sensations were at that time delighted equal to that description, for indeed,

"she took the prisoned soul and lapped it in Elysium."

I shall only say farther as to singing, that it can|not be excellent except in proportion as it joins in correspondence, which some writer has explained to mean intelligence of the heart, with the poetry and the music it has to convey. Every thing ex|traneous, every thing forced, every thing in short,

as SHAKESPEAR expresses it, overdone, or come tardy of, though it may surprize cannot delight; and, if it cannot delight, it is from the purpose of singing, and though unskilful auditors may applaud, it cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of one of which, must, in the allowance of every man of sense, outweigh a whole theatre of others.

CHAP. XIII. RECAPITULATION.

HAVING by every certain, every probable, and even every possible circumstance, which I have con|sidered necessary to select from those materials I sup|plied myself with for this undertaking, endeavoured to draw the reader's attention to the antiquity of the stage, its operation upon manners both gene|rally and abstractedly, its influence over the mind, its capability of polishing and refining our social nature, and those various ways, in which, in pro|portion as it is respectably and worthily conducted, it may at all times be considered as an object of na|tional importance, I shall now very briefly recapi|tulate those leading particulars which may serve unerringly to demonstrate by what means it has at any time, and in any country lost its consequence, by what means that consequence has become irre|trievable,

by what means it has, or could have been retrieved, and by what means alone it on possibly be kept up and established.

The theatre is a school of morality, or it is no|thing. Its orginal establishment in every country has had this broad feature. The exploits of heroes, the maxims of philosophers, and the good of man|kind were the foundation to which the fabric, even to the superstructure, however fancifully it might have been ornamented, tended in all directions and as by one consent. A stability of this adamantine kind could not have been confirmed but by the en|couragement of workmen of the same description of those who reared the structure. Who were these? Authors and actors.

Every one of the consequences therefore which we are to examine are clearly traceable to this single source, and it only remains to see whether at any time there has been such a dearth of good authors and actors as to weaken the theatre by the absence of valuable exertions, in which case no blame is to be any where imputed; whether good authors and actors have expected terms that were unreasonable, and such as could not possibly be accorded, in which case the blame would be imputable to them;

or whether their labours have been exacted from them upon unworthy and degrading terms, in which case common sense must impute the blame to their employers; and lastly to what authority authors and actors ought to be amenable.

Though neither Greece nor Rome are exactly cases in point as to the illustration of this argument because in both instances the profligacy of the peo|ple brought on the moment which terminated the theatre and the country together, yet we have enough to go upon to shew these positions to be critically right. In the earlier periods of Greece before comedy was generally established, in short before Aristophanes, the theatre was in the hands of poets, and actors, and under the inspection of Government, at which time it was as material an object in its place as the areopagus, and held as distinguished a reputation. It was managed by the great triumvirate; but this was not enough. Judges were appointed and every exhibition un|derwent an ordeal, but when Aristophanes, the most licentious poet that ever lived, became pos|sessed of the stage, it soon hastened to destruction for no reason upon earth but because it was un|controuled.

In Rome, the theatre could have no character because the actors had an ascendancy over the poets. It was regulated certainly, if the word could be properly be allowed me, by Government; but of what nature were the regulations? a crooked and even wicked policy by which the theatre dictated to the people as a cloak for private treachery. Even AUGUSTUS, with all his patronage and all his at|tachment to genius, tolerated rope dancers in pre|ference to poets.

The Spanish theatre for the same reason had as little character as the Roman. Those who have read Gil Blas will see some notable proofs that poets were subservient to actors. The Portuguese theatre was the shadow of the Spanish, the Italian theatre was a chaos of Greek and Roman rubbish, and the German theatre has as little answered the purpose of the stage, owing to the uncontroled licence permitted to poets; who, though not of the breed of Aristo|phanes, are nevertheless as dangerous to society, for they have tainted the manners of Europe, and in particular of England, with productions which violate probability, wound morality, terrify instead of delight, menace instead of conciliate, in short, which among every outrageous and monstrous doctrine, teach filial ingratitude, encourage adultery,

and circulate such revolting and scandalous tenets as thirty years ago would have been spurned at by an English audience with ineffable indignation.

If then we have seen that the conditions upon which alone the theatre can stand firmly upon its true basis were only observed for a short time in primitive Greece, at what time, and among what people, has it ever enjoyed that reputation, which, according to the doctrine here laid down, a com|bination of certain reciprocal interests are alone capable to give it? I answer from CORNEILLE, to VOLTAIRE, almost uninteruptedly in France, and from SHAKESPEAR to 1777, in England; except during the intervals from the Restoration to BET|TERTON's secession, during the fluctuations, imme|diate previous to CIBBER's management; and from CIBBER's secession to the 1747, when GARRICK be|came manager.

In France we shall not find any instance when the proprietors of the theatre were managers. In|deed in general they were mere landlords, and paid by a certain rent; for the rest, all which we have particularly seen, the managers were actors, com|mittees of whom decided upon the reception of plays into the theatre which were finally disposed

of by the public; and, in every difference of opinion either concerning authors or actors, or in any other possible way that could affect the in|terest of the theatre, the parties respectively had a right of appeal to court, where all grievances were redressed, and that the grand object might be always obtained by stimulating the exertions of actors, their various merits were equitably estimated, and, when at length their labours were creditably ended, it became as honourable to retire upon a pension from the stage, as from the army, or the navy.

The face of the English management during those particular periods that I describe wore the same aspect which I have sufficiently gone over in a preceding chapter and which will abundantly prove the position I have here laid down, the most ma|terial part of which has this tendency; that, whenever proprietors of theatres, are neither actors nor au|thors, and are no further connected with the interest of the concern than relates to the emolu|ment it produces, without being responsible for its general fame, the exertions of authors and actors will infallibly be disregarded and the theatre by re|ceiving all its advantage from gewgaws and spec|tacle will sink from its reputation, its consequence,

and its honour, and lose its influence as a school of morality.

I shall shortly state a few circumstances to confirm this last position and go over some particulars rela|tive to the stage, during the period between GAR|RICK's return from Italy and the disposal of the Drury-lane patent; after which I shall take my leave of the reader.

My arguments go to prove that emolument alone, however obtained, has been the view of all those who have bought into the theatres, that the fame and fortune of those men without whose exertions the stage can have no legitimate pretension to pub|lic countenance, have never been properly attended to, and that therefore those means have been con|stantly resorted to, however destructive to the general interest of the theatre, which are most likely to produce the fullest houses.

When the licentiousness of the stage called for the animadversions of PRYNNE, and COLLIER the patents were held by purchasers. When CIBBER came, at which time the proprietors only received a rent, decency and decorum were restored. Dur|ing the time of HIGHMORE, FLEETWOOD, AMBER,

and GREEN, and indeed till GARRICK, the real in|terest of the theatre was deserted. Authors and actors were considered as auxiliaries rather than principals, and every species of profligacy and dis|order prevailed. During the whole management of GARRICK the theatre enjoyed greater repute than ever it had known. Further than that, to be consistent, I have no title to investigate; but it is nevertheless proper that I make out my position by shewing the danger that may arise from extra|neous interest.

Extraneous interest may ruin the theatre. It may consolidate the two theatres into one general interest that may hold authors and actors at defi|ance, it may stretch the two theatres into the size of four. It may pay enormous expences by laying additional charges on the benefits of authors and actors which benefits, after all, by the admission of free tickets may at last be cut to nothing. It may encourage contemptible performances, which, by the assistance of the newspapers, may be crammed down the throats of the public after being damned on the first night. It may import foreign immo|rality and call in the assistance of shew and finery, monsters and conjurations, to the annihilation of English merit. All this and a great deal more it

may do. Now let us see how such consequences must infallibly operate.

No theatres in the kingdom, except those in London, produce the smallest novelty. If there|fore performances of this description obtain at the two theatres, they go through the whole nation and extend to Ireland, and Scotland, and therefore are sure, the source being contaminated, to poison the general taste. Thus genius, for whose support surely the theatres were originally intended, may retire unknown and neglected to deplore the ingra|titude of the most benevolent country upon earth, and therefore, let the theatre be supported by what|ever property it may, it can never expect any thing like permament fame, or fair reputation, unless the primary consideration be the encouragement of au|thors and actors.

There are yet some gleanings relative to the state of the stage. It is necessary that I should no|tice by what means the question came to be de|cided in relation to full price; which, having been originally established to reimburse the expence of new pantomimes, had grown so enormously into an abuse, that managers announced it when they thought proper. This at length produced a riot,

which began at Drury-Lane, where GARRICK, with great good sense, redressed the grievance. Covent-Garden however resisted, under an idea that such performances as Artaxerxes were even more expensive than pantomimes, considerable sums being upon those occasions laid out for extra vocal and instrumental performers. The public how|ever persisted, and, upon BEARD's obstinacy, who was very ill advised, they completely gutted the house. The repairs took a fortnight out of the season; and, after a few of the ring-leaders had been imprisoned, and the manager had reflected on his folly, it was agreed that full price should only be allowed during the run of a new pantomine. This stipulated, the house opened with the play of All's well that Ends well, and nothing has disturbed this question since.

Nothing material happened after this till the dis|pute between the Covent Gardenman agers, a few years after their purchase of the parent. COLMAN had taken care to invest himself with such power by the instrument of partnership drawn up among them, that the Court of Chancery, after a very ex|pensive suit, decreed him competent to decide, without controul, upon every subject;

"for,"

said Baron SMYTHE, who was one of the judges,

the seals being in commission,

"otherwise the agreement must have meant, like Trinculo in the play, that he was to be king, and his partners were to be viceroys over him."

This dispute was at length amicably adjusted by the secession of COLMAN, who sold his share to the rest of the proprietors.

The business of FOOTE's primitive Puppet Shew, which I have already spoken of; FIELDING's left handed interference relative to the Beggar's Opera, which he maintained created an additional number of thieves every time it was performed, an assertion the public considered as unfounded, and a bold in|novation on their pleasures; MACKLIN's mad busi|ness about REDDISH's hissing him, which ended by a legal decision in his favour, and his discharge from the theatre, and GARRICK's retirement, a most awful moment for the stage, are all now which I conceive necessary to notice, unless I were to go into such kind of minutie as in no respect re|gards the general management of the theatre, or in any respect its credit. I shall therefore merely add, that, in 1776, GARRICK resigned the concern into the hands of the present proprietor; and that on the twentieth of January, 1779, the world had to lament the loss of this admirable and very ex|traordinary

man, the most natural, the most for|cible, the most correct, and the most melancholy memento, to whose fame are the words which SHAKESPEAR makes Hamlet apply to his father, and which GARRICK applied to SHAKESPEAR,

"We shall not look upon his like again."

To this period I confine myself as the proper boundary to a History of the Stage. For my own part I will not toil any further. I have not the heart, the conscience, the courage to do it; and, if any other should chuse to risk the consequences of pursuing such a task, I heartily wish him well through his fatigue. In my idea, the catastrophe is accomplished, the play is over, and therefore I drop the curtain at the death of GARRICK; but, as the truth of this position will be questioned, it is but fit I give the most satisfactory reasons in my power for this conduct. I am but a servant of the pub|lic, and, born for their use, I live but to oblige them.

Because then I will not incur the suspicions of an invidious wish to wound the feelings of men who, be their abilities what they may, exert that por|tion of talents with which nature has favoured them for the rational amusement of the public; and who,

if they fail, have frequently to thank false taste in the encouragement of fanciful, experimental, and innovating writers, to the outrage of probability, truth, reason, and the exclusion of weeping nature and offended morality, I drop the curtain at the death of GARRICK.

Because, in pursuing the truth and fidelity of an historian, I will not run a risk of reiterating the miseries and theatrical troubles in the reign of FLEETWOOD, I drop the curtain at the death of GARRICK.

Because I will not painfully rouse my feelings to deplore that the public will not wake from their supiness, rally their pride, resume their judgment, and even pity their own weakness in permitting the public prints, in the place of honest truth and fair candour, to set up a corrupt system of puff|ing, of palming off miserable dross for sterling gold, and of dictating to audiences prescribed principles by which they are arrogantly required to applaud what their duty to their pride, to their understand|ings, to their feelings, to their relatives, and to so|ciety, forbids them to tolerate, I drop the curtain at the death of GARICK.

Lastly, because I will not go into the disgracious and hateful task, of reprobating, in merited terms, the conduct of managers in establishing, or the want of spirit in the public in permitting, coffee-rooms, lobbies, and other receptacles, for the avowed pur|pose of giving opportunity to estrange the affec|tions of young men from their parents, and of husbands from their wives and families, by an open, unmasked, and shameless intercourse with prostitutes, to which places they are virtually in|vited by public advertisement, as a lounge previous to their admission at half price, to the disgust, an|noyance, and terror of modesty. For these and many, many, other cogent and similar reasons, I DROP THE CURTAIN AT THE DEATH OF GARRICK.

Notes

• * 1.1

  An amateur, who deplored most pathetically this innovation, by which operas are now sunk to nothing, was listening to an ad|mirable opera which was so little attended to that the audience wished it over with all its merit.

  "This is too bad,"

  said he,

  "such exquisite music to be so slighted!"

  "My dear friend,"

  said a gentleman,

  "the rage for operas is gone by. The only chance for success at the opera house now is to lengthen the dances and shorten the petticoats of the dancers."
• * 1.2

  I hope I shall be pardoned for going into this because, although there is no axiom so clear, no position so infallible, not one in a thou|sand appears to comprehend it; nay, our dictionaries mislead us, while the strictures of the most scientific writers, though they ap|pear to feel the fact, leave the most penetrating understanding in the dark. Look for melody in any dictionary you'll find the explanation to be

  "Music, harmony of sound."

  Look for harmony you'll find

  "Concord, correspondent sentiment,"

  and for music you'll find,

  "The science of harmonical sounds."

  Nothing can be so inde|finite, while nothing can be so clear and simple as the real truth. Melody means a succession of sounds, harmony a combination of sounds, and music the art of uniting melody and harmony, or rather of assisting melody by the addition of harmony. Thus music of all studies ought to be the least complex, and it is on this account that elaborate treatises have done more injury to the cause of music than to any other study, because, in other studies, causes are frequently re|mote and hidden, and therefore demand enquiry and investigation; but in music, where every thing is self evident and apparent, the fact speaks for itself without the assistance of an advocate or a reasoner, and stands confessed, a plain, a beautiful, and an unsophisticated truth. This is clearly made out by the manner in which great men have gone into the subject in the treatises that are extant; out of which prodigious number, I shall instance, which will be sufficient for my purpose, RAMEAU the most profound perhaps of them all, ROUSSEAU the most ingenious, and D'ALEMBERT the most simple and faithful to truth. RAMEAU, with an eye more to scientific reputation than a regard to general and legitimate fame, shews the wonderful variety of which founds are capable, in terms of calculation, so close, so con|nected, and so clear, that the scholar is astonished to find the endless positions, elucidations, and conclusions, to be proposed, agreed upon, and established, by a correct investigation of such numerous varia|tions of harmony. ROUSSEAU, with more sophistry, turns and twists the same propositions in all number of ways; and, making a polypus of music, shews that it may be tortured into a hundred fragments and yet every fragment retain its pristine shape. What is the consequence? RAMEAU, finding his arguments incongruous, and crude, fondly fancies he shall bind them together by an expedient; and, before the mind has time to disentangle itself from the rhapsody in which it has been so long ingeniously bewildered, but not a single moment convinced, he gravely attempts to implore a belief that every difference of opinion ought to be reconciled in the admission that the fundamental bass is exactly NEWTON's center of gravity. ROUSSEAU is not so fortunate; he most indefatigably ransacks invention to prove assertions, which he certainly makes out in argument: but at length, finding that though he has been able to establish nothing for music he has established a great deal for calculation, he is reduced to the necessity of confessing, that a fugue after all is Le mauvais chef d'aeuvre d'un bon musicien. As to D'ALEMBERT the case is not the same. He volunteers himself on the subject; and, finding, scientific as he was, and minutely acquainted with all the subtilties of argu|ment, that music as it had been represented by all those who wrote before him was completely undesinable, for the sake of the world, he set about studying it. What was the consequence? He found a pro|digious mass of chequered trappings and pye balled ornaments which shrouded, eclipsed, and suffocated something like a form; with infinite labour and pains, he stript off this mishapen and motley annoyance, and, having cleared away dissonance, and discord, with those enarmonic, and chromatic auxiliaries that had sweated and smothered this poor unfortunate object, his ears became gradually attracted by some most delicious sounds, which, at length he found to proceed from almost exhausted melody, that like a dying swan was sweetly singing the dirge to its approaching funeral. This treatise, which is professedly written to elucidate, develope, and simplify that of RAMEAU, which D'ALEMBERT will not allow to be a system, has nothing for its object but the grand and simple position, that music consists of two parts, melody, and harmony; that melody is the gift of inventing sounds in succession, which delight the ear, that harmony is the art of flattering the ear by the union of several sounds to|gether; that melody, which has always existed, is nature, that harmony, which is the only decoration of nature, and has been in|vented, is art, that, so far as harmony is pursued for the embellish|ment of melody, it ought to be considered as a friend and a preserver, but that the moment this duty is neglected it beomes a foe and a destroyer.
• * 1.3

  GARRICK prepared an address to the audience, which he de|••ivered previous to the play he first appeared in. When he came upon the stage, he was welcomed with three loud plaudits, each finishing with a huzza. As soon as this unprecedented applause had a little subsided, he used every art of which he was so completely master to lull the tumult into a profound silence—and, just as all was hushed as death, and anxious expectation sat on every face, old CERVETTO, who was better known by the name of NOSEY, antici|pated the very first line of the address by—aw—a tremendous yawn. A convulsion of laughter ensued, and it was some minutes before the wished-for silence could be again restored. That, however, ob|tained—GARRICK delivered his address in that happy, irresistible manner in which he was always sure to captivate his audience; and retired with applause such as was never better given, nor better deserved. But the matter did not rest here—The moment he came off the stage, he flew like lightning to the music room, where, col|laring astonished NOSEY, he began to abuse him pretty vociferously.

  'Wha—why—you old scoundrel—you must be the most infernal'

  —at length poor CERVERTO—

  "Oh! Mr. GARRICK! vat is the matter—vat I haf do—Oh God vat it is!"

  —

  'The matter! why you old, damned, eternal, senseless idiot—with no more brains than your damned bass viol—just at the—a—very moment I had played with the audience—tickled them like a trout, and brought them to the most accommodating silence—so pat to my purpose—so perfect—that it was, as one may say, a companion for MILTON's visible darkness'

  —

  "Indeed, Mr. GARRICK, it vas no darkness."

  'Darkness! stupid fool—but how should a man of my reading make himself understood by—a—answer me, was not the whole house, pit, box, and gallery, very still?'

  "Yes, Sir, indeed—still as mouse."

  'Well then, just at that very moment did you not, with your damned jaws extended wide enough to swallow a six-penny loaf—yaw?—Oh I wish you had never shut your damned jaws again.'

  "Sare, Mr. GARRICK—only if you please hear me von void. It is alvay the vay—it is indeed, Mr. GARRICK—alvay the vay I go when I has the greatest rapture, Mr. GAR|RICK."

  The little great man's anger instantly cooled. The cunning readiness of this Italian flattery operated exactly contrary to the last line of an epigram—the honey was tasted and the sting forgot—and it not only procured NOSEY's pardon, but forced a de|claration from his patron that he ought to be forgiven for the wit of the offence.
• * 1.4

  LACEY in this business played off a stroke of policy which his partner with all his wariness had not foreseen. As soon as he had given the matter breathing time, GARRICK represented to LACEY the prodigious success he had met with, and that the public would not be satisfied, unless they saw him twice a week at least.

  "Well, and what then"

  said LACEY.

  "Hey, what then? Why then, what do you mean to allow me for the advantages the concern will reap, in addition to those derived from my return to the management, by my acting?"

  "Why,"

  said LACEY,

  "I have been thinking of this DAVID and I won't allow a halfpenny. Play and gratify your vanity, or let it alone, and let the theatre take its chance. If you play, we shall have broken legs and arms, and cries of murder, to amuse us two evenings in the week; and on the other four evenings, there will be nobody in the house. If the common business goes on, the receipts will be less but they will be regular, and the average every Saturday will be pretty nearly the same."

  GARRICK, totally unprepared for this thrust, did however all in his power to parry it, but LACEY remained inflexible, and, if GAR|RICK's assertions are to be credited, he never had any stated emolu|ment.
• * 1.5

  GARRICK who always knew consequences, felt that the old vehicle of dramatic strictures and mock rehearsals, had been gene|rally received with a sort of jealousy and revolt. He therefore be|spoke the favour of the town in a most artful manner. KING spoke the prologue, in which there was this line,

  I THOMAS KING, of King-street, am the poet.

  The fact is, this admirable performer was the Bayes of the piece; but this equivocal assertion, which nine-tenths of the audience took literally, gave a warmth to the applause which was of infinite assist|ance to the first nights reception. GARRICK had practised some|thing like this with success before. Cymon came out after the public had been deprived of KING's exertions for some weeks, in conse|quence of his having broken his thigh. They were glad enough naturally to hail the return of their favourite, which GARRICK took the advantage of, by making KING, in the prologue, thus be|speak the public favour, in favour of himself. I believe the last line was, for I quote from memory,

  Scarce well of one, spare me, a second, tumble.
• * 1.6

  As the Jubilee was a memorable epoch in the reign of GAR|RICK, it would be unpardonable to speak of it without noticing some of those curious circumstances that attended so extraordinary a busi|ness. Nothing can be more evident than that SHAKESPEAR might have laid very quietly in Stratford church, nobody would have dis|turbed his ashes, had not such a popular measure been the probable means of insuring a plentiful harvest to Drury-Lane on the following season. And yet, it was managed with so much caution, so much wariness, that, according to the representation of the matter to every body who was concerned in it, there did not appear any such thing in agitatton. This cautiousness answered two purposes—it not only drew many to Stratford who would otherwise have suspended their curiosity till they should have seen it in London, but it served as a feasible excuse for requesting every body's trouble and attendance for nothing. In short, GARRICK, in relation to the Jubilee, manoeuvred every where, and with every body. He procured abuse to be in|serted in the papers, which he got all his friends to answer. He en|listed a prodigious number of volunteers, whose exertions he pretty liberally exacted, at their expence; and at length performed the same entertainment ninety-five times, in one season, at Drury-Lane, which he sent people an hundred miles not to see. Indeed it was impossible it should be seen; for, had the pageant been attempted at Stratford, the streets were so uneven that the cars of Melpomeme, Thalia, and the Fairies, would have been overthrown into chasms in the pave|ment; besides the leather, tinsel, and spangled trappings, would have cut a lamentable figure by day-light. It is true they heard GAR|RICK, an advantage worth ten times the money, repeat so exquisitely his ode, which poem FOOTE pronounced excellent when he heard it, and execrable when he read it, and they heard ARNE's exquisite music to that ode; and, to say the truth, the dinners, and all the circumstances relative to them were pleasurable, if we indeed except the fire-works, the horse-race, and the masquerade. The last in par|ticular, was inconvenient and distressing beyond description, for the booth being built on a swamp close to the river, and nobody having considered that sometimes in the month of September it rains, the company had scarcely assembled, when the wet began to ooze through the crevices; in five minutes after they were paddling in the wet; five minutes after that it was over their shoes, and presently they were obliged to take to the benches, then to the orchestra, and then to the windows—thus there was not a creature out of about four hundred people that escaped being wet through.
• * 1.7

  Though I would not place this spectacle under the head of dramatic pieces, it will not be improper to say a word or two con|cerning it. The Chinese Festival was a grand ballet, indeed nothing more than has been always considered as admissible at the opera, and indeed at the theatre, except in that one instance, produced by NO|VERRE, the VESTRIS of that day. It took eighteen months in its pre|paration, and was expected to eclipse every thing that had been seen of its kind, but unluckily we had just declared war against France, and popular prejudice prevailing, the spectacle was damned without mercy; the theatre was mutilated, and an attempt made to pull GARRICK's house down. Did this spirit prevail rationally it might do service, but why one spectacle of this nature should be interdicted to the toleration of so many others, is an instance of supererogate criti|cism, a kind of intruding justice, that can spring from nothing but absurd and unfair prejudice. FOOTE ridicules this very well in the Minor, where he makes SHIFT say, speaking of his situation as a candle-snuffer, that he acquired intrepidity,

  "but,"

  says he,

  "an unlucky crab apple applied to my right eye, by a patriot gingerbread baker from the Borough, who would not suffer three dancers from Switzerland, because he hated the French, forced me to a preci|pitate retreat"

  I have often lamented that the beauties of real classical writers are seldom tasted by the erudite. FOOTE, who often really meant more than met either the eye or the ear, had in this speech an idea of Military Gasconades. The ball that struck the French General CREQUI, was said to have had a label with the words,

  "A CREQUI."

  This, says the French author who relates the circumstance, is like the arrow that deprived PHILIP of Macedon of his eye, which was addressed,

  "A l'oeil gauche de Philip."

  No|thing can be better burlesque than this.
• * 1.8

  What I particularly allude to is the character of Dr. CATOUT, which was levelled at ARNE, who had peculiarities, and what man who ever lived has been without them? but perhaps upon earth never breathed a being of more honourable principles. I should be the most ungrateful wretch that ever existed, even though it may, perhaps, be deemed intrusion, if I did not force this truth upon the Reader. ARNE rescued my musical fame and character, and established both when his fiat might have crushed me, and all this with scarcely a personal knowledge of me. I have known him the warm and liberal friend of others. He had no radical fault in the world; but his mind was weak, and he was perpetually imposed upon, and is this a reason why a man who has left behind him a most splendid professional reputation is to be publicly exposed at the moment he was getting his bread by the public? Mimickry is at best a poor act, but it becomes infamy when it attempts to wound the peace of individuals.
• * 1.9

  FOOTE has now and then felt this severely, the taking one Lord for ano|ther in this piece had very nearly damned it.
• * 1.10

  I have heard, and I believe my authority is pretty good, that the ••••rst idea of writing this play was suggested by a picture, wh••…••… he author acci|dentally noticed as he was waiting in the room of a 〈…〉〈…〉. In this picture the centinel, as he witnessed the interesting scene of the daughter suckling her parent, bursts into tears.
• † 1.11

  BELLOY was called the dramatic thief. He was, howev••••, a ••avourite of VOLTAIRE, who answered, when he ••eard 〈…〉〈…〉 pilsering from him;

  "Ah, le cher voleur! Il m'a bien embelle!"
• * 1.12

  It is a very curious circumstance, that the same incident that damned the play in England had very nearly procured for it the same fate in France, and yet certainly it is truly comic, and very natural. The father, the son, and the daughter, are married unknown to one another, and are therefore embarrassed at making known the secret; but, when they find that they are all in the same predicament, a general amnesty is passed. Upon this the youngest daughter, a little girl of twelve years old, tells her father that she has her secret to impart too:

  "Hey,"

  cries the father,

  "why zounds you are not married secretly are you?"

  "No,"

  says she,

  "Papa; but I beg you'll let me be married as soon as possible."

  FOOTE said that, when he lighted the KING to his chair, his Majesty asked who the piece was written by▪

  "It is written,"

  replied the wit,

  "by one of your Majesty's chaplains; but it is dull enough to have been written by a bishop."
• * 1.13

  This unprovoked and impudent libel cannot be forgotten. The bu|siness finished by a most servile and pusillamious concession in the news|papers. He asked a gentleman with his usual effrontery, what he thought of his conduct,

  "Why, said the gentleman, the public have for these six months considered you as a rascal, and now lest they should be mistaken, you have given it under your hand."
• * 1.14

  A gentleman was asked, after one of the representations of this play, why he did not hiss it?

  "How the devil could I,"

  said he,

  "It was impossible! A man cannot hiss and yawn at the same time."
• * 1.15

  I am competent to give an answer to all those who have expressed great astonishment that MASON never wrote a regular tragedy, by assuring the reader, that he himself told me, at Aston in Yorkshire, that he had then in his bureau two tragedies, written agreeable to the usage of the English theatre, but that they never should be produced, owing to the trouble and pain he had experienced from the solly and caprice of managers.
• * 1.16

  "We have sold every thing,"

  says the drunken Colonel:

  "What, all my pictures?"

  says the father:

  "Oh, damme, they went first,"

  cried the Colonel.
• * 1.17

  Nothing can be more ridiculous than literary quarrels even among men, but when ladies, fearful lest their poetic offsprings should crawl through life unheeded, publicly expose themselves to the world, in order to ascertain their beauty and legitimacy, who does not wish they had occupied their time with a needle instead of a pen. The attention of the world was called, when Fatal Falsehood came out, to a newspaper dispute between Miss MORE and Mrs. COWLEY, who brought out a tragedy called Albina. Miss MORE

  "was penetrated with the deepest regret at being compelled to take a step so repugnant to her own feelings, and the delicacy of her sex, but her moral character had been grossly attacked, and she felt herself under the necessity of solemnly declaring that she had never seen, heard or read a single line of Mrs. COWLEY's tragedy."

  Mrs. COWLEY in reply said,

  "that she wished Miss MORE had been still more sensible of the indelicacy of a newspaper altercation between women, and of the ideas of ridicule that the world are apt to attach to such unsexual hardiness. She says,"

  in her preface,

  "she has only related events, and is truly sorry to find that Miss MORE can not only be angry, but, when she is angry, she can be very unpolite."

  Had these foolish ladies no friend to prevent their making themselves a town talk? what were they cavilling about after all? One of these plays was withdrawn on the third night, and the other was performed but once and then scarcely heard to an end.
• * 1.18

  WIGNELL was fishing at some place in the country when some clowns came by, and could not but admire the pompous dexterity with which he played with his prey.

  "There, there!"

  said one.

  "Let un aloane,"

  said another,

  "if a do but fish as well as he does act, he wunna leave a fish in the mill dam."
• * 1.19

  It is remarkable that when the Critics read SEDAINE's piece, they made exactly the same objections to it which were made in England. It was therefore not performed at Court. The author nevertheless ventured a representation of it at the theatre, where it received great applause, and in particular in those parts where the critics had condemned it.
• * 1.20

  It is an extraordinary thing that when POWELL died HOLLAND felt a presentiment that he should soon follow him. The last time he ever performed he was in unusual spirits. During the evening he related in the Green-room a number of anecdotes and it is remarkable that they always contained some allusion to POWELL. He repeated the lines which COL|MAN had written and which he had repeated at POWELL's death. Every thing in short was POWELL. At last he uttered those extraordinary words.

  "The first time I ever saw POWELL was at a spouting club where he and I performed Posthumous and Jachimo. The first characters we performed on the stage together were Posthumous and Jachimo. The last time we played together, and, added he, with a sigh it was the last time he ever played, the characters were Posthumous and Jachimo."

  What makes this matter singular almost beyond belief, he was then dressed for Jachimo, and he died a few days after.
• * 1.21

  Before I quit this subject, I shall relate an anecdote relative to the funeral of Poor HOLLAND. He was one of FOOTE's greatest favourities, perhaps in some measure because the world said he was the retailer of his wit; but there was no occasion, HOLLAND had wit enough of his own—besides, ARISTOPHANES dealt in the retail way himself. GEORGE GARRICK, being one of HOLLAND's executors, with his usual good nature (for no man possessed more) undertook to manage the funeral in a way suitable to his friend's circumstances, for which purpose he went to Chiswick, and ordered a decent vault, and such other preparations as he thought necessary. HOLLAND's father was a baker. FOOTE was in|vited to the funeral, which he certainly attended with unfeigned sorrow; for, exclusive of his real concern for the loss of a convivial companion, whenever he had a serious moment, he felt with very strong susceptibility. While the ceremony was performing, G. GARRICK remarked to FOOTE how happy he was, out of respect to his friend, to see every thing so decently conducted.

  "You see,"

  said he,

  "what a snug family vault we have made here."

  "Family vault,"

  said FOOTE, with the tears trickling down his cheeks,

  "Damme, if I did not think it had been the family oven."
• * 1.22

  I am aware that Brass is French, but D'ANCOURT's Frontin and VANBURGH's Brass, are greatly different in point of value.
• * 1.23

  MANZOLI and GUARDUCCI were competitors in Italy. The public were to determine which sung best. MANZOLI had the voice of the spectators, GUARDUCCI of the musicians; what was the consequence? MANZOLI made a fortune every where, GUARDUCCI did nothing any where.
• * 1.24

  In Artaxerxes Mrs. KENNEDY was allotted the part from which the opera takes its title, and in which she was certainly respectable; but the songs were not in her voice, and in every other respect it did not suit her. She ought to have performed Arbaces, which was exactly in her compass, and the different passages in the airs have a peculiar neatness which her voice was remarkably calculated to execute.

  "Amid a thousand rack|ing woes,"

  which is perhaps the most masterly song in the opera, she would have sung with prodigious effect, for it was extraordinary that her voice had as much flexibility as volume.