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

THE STAGE.

BOOK IX. FROM THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF CARRICK TO HIS DEPARTURE FOR ITALY.

CHAP. I. COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH STAGE, AND A CONTINUATION OF AUTHORS.

BEING now upon the point of introducing the greatest actor that ever existed, for so we must pro|nounce GARRICK to have been if all we have wit|nessed of him, added to all we have been told of others, be fairly weighed and considered, it will be necessary to shew how many adventitious circum|stances combined together to lend assistance to that merit which, like every thing else transcendant, re|ceived brilliancy from competition.

The collateral advantages from which GARRICK derived assistance, in a higher degree than BETTER|TON, were the large and valuable stock of materials with which the stage had been furnished originally at home, as well as those imported from FRANCE; which last, however inferior to the sterling value of meritorious English productions, by lending a va|riety to dramatic entertainments, heightened consi|derably the effect of talents so versatile as those of this actor.

It will be unnecessary again to go over the ground of the French drama, or to shew that, whatever there might have been both of theatrical regularity and sprightliness, there was a pancity, and a same|ness, which the worst English writers would have disdained to copy, or, indeed, if they had copied, the dullest English auditor would have been absurd enough to tolerate. VANBRUGH, nevertheless, turned MOLIERE and REGNARD to advantage, DESTOUCHES, Le SAGE, BOURSAULT, and at length VOLTAIRE, and many others, became fashion|able when metamorphosed by their English transla|tors, and that merit which it has been pretty clearly shewn that the French originally derived from us, after being filtered into insipidity by them, rege|nerated by being again revived in its more congenial

soil, exactly as our golden pippin, planted in AME|RIA, enlarges in bulk and degenerates in flavour, but which, replanted in ENGLAND, regains its usual size, and embibes its original sweetness.

The French authors, who died in the interval between SHAKESPEAR and GARRICK, a list of which I have before me where I count more than four hundred and fifty, many of them voluminous writers, inundated the theatre with an incomprehen|sible number of pieces—but what were they? The most trifling and flimzy popular anecdote was sub|ject enough for a French comedy, and this maigre kind of diet made their season of acting plays a sort of dramatic Lent, and the Dorantes, and Erastes, the Scapins, the Crispins, and the Blaises, differently dressed and ornamented, were stuffed down their throats, like the painted eggs in Careme, which, whe|ther you chuse red, yellow, blue, or purple, are still hard, undegestible and insipid, and still eggs.

These would not content an English stomach, and, therefore, none of their plays were ever trans|lated to advantage, except by those who knew how to incorporate with them a little stamina. When they were brought out here in that state, it cannot be denied that we have benefited by the chance,

of which the Confederacy, and Zara, are still striking proofs. The contrary has however, at particular periods prevailed, and we have seen genteel come|dies, and sentimental comedies, banish for a time, fair humour and honest laughter from the stage.

But, as there will hereafter come an opportunity when we may indulge in observation upon this sub|ject, I shall at present wave this and every thing else to bring up the account of authors till 1741, after which, to the death of GARRICK, though there will remain plenty of names, and certainly some ad|mirable materials, it is wonderful how little that can be called excellent, will be sound when the number of admirable actors are considered that gave advan|tage to literary fame during that period.

To prepare my way for this examination, I must slightly touch again on those whose productions are yet brought no further than 1708, and the first left in that imperfect state, was STEELE, whose private conduct, having already been noticed pretty much at large as it was involved in the history of theatrical management, it will be only necessary to speak now of The Conscious Lovers, his last play that was performed, though there are two other plays attributed to him, called, The Gentlemen, and The School of Action.

The Conscious Lovers is an instance that there is no danger in permitting an author to borrow when he knows as well as STEELE did how to improve his ma|terials. This comedy which was produced in 1721, is imitated from the Andria of TERENCE, but im|proved exactly in the way that an excellent engra|ver imortalizes an insipid and spiritless painter. Here, however, the comparison drops for it is not only heightened, so as to be superlatively superior to the original, but embellished with scenes of great in|trinsic merit purely the author's own. Among these are every thing that belongs to Tom and Phillis, and that admirable scene between Myrtle and Bevil, in which duelling is execrated in so no|ble and so dignified a manner, from which scene RICHARDSON has evidently taken more than a hint in Sir Charles Grandison.

We now go to Mrs. CENTLIVRE's comedy of the Busy Body, which proves that members of a theatre have not in all cases any very strong eventual judgment; for, as we have seen, it was expected to be damned, and even WILKS swore that no audience would ever endure such stuff. The event, as we well know, gave the lie to their predictions, and whenever there has been a good Marplot it has never ceased to be a popular play.

The Man's Bewitched, performed in 1710, has the usual fault of Mrs. CENTLIVRE's plays. It is flimzy; it is however sprightly and full of whim, and those, who have an inclination to leave rigid criticism at home, may laugh very heartily at many of the inci|dents whenever they are well acted. Bickerstaff's Unburrying, Marplet, a sequel to the Busy Body, and the Perplexed Lovers add little to this lady's repu|tation, and will never again, perhaps, trouble the public.

The Wonder, performed 1713, is certainly the best of Mrs. CENTLIVRE's plays; and, for an in|tricate and perplexed plot, is one of the fullest of in|terest and pleasantry that can be conceived. There is nothing that the dullest auditor cannot easily con|ceive, and yet the whole depends upon a mystery in|extricable to the characters themselves. Jealousy in comedy is, perhaps, depicted in this play better than in any other, and the characters are highly drawn, and strongly contrasted. It requires, however, ex|cellent acting, and perhaps, Felix was never repre|sented to perfection, from its first appearance to this moment, but by GARRICK.

Mrs. CENTLIVRE, seems to have written well only at intervals. The Gotham Election, The Wise Well Managed, and The Cruel Gift, not having the

gift of pleasing the public, or ensuring any reputation for their writer. The latter of these pieces was a tragedy, and therefore too ponderous a subject for so feeble a pen.

A Bold Stroke for a Wise, which except The Artifice, a comedy that had no success, is the last of this writers productions, was brought out in 1718. It is by no means a good play, for the language is poor, and the circumstances impossible; but there is so much of whim, contrivance, and pleasant va|riety in it, that it is difficult to refrain from laughing at different parts of it. The performance, however, of Feignwell is so hard a task that the part has never yet been acted in all its requisites to perfection.

SOUTHERN remains yet to be spoken of, so does CIBBER, with whom I shall finish the account of re|sumed authors. The Spartan Dame, which was pro|duced in 1719, though it has not kept the stage, is by no means a trifling addition to the same of this charm|ing writer. The heroine of this play is finely drawn, and the language has, a great deal of that nature, and pathos, that characterize so markingly the beauties of SOUTHERN. This play, nobody knows why, was prohibited for a considerable time. One attempt more, an abortive one, closes the list of this author's

productions, in which those requisites of exquisite beauty and impressive interest that I have with plea|sure enumerated, stand highly distinguished among the best excellencies of tragedy,

CIBBER's remaining pieces are twelve in num|ber. The Rival Fools was performed in 1709. It did not succeed owing in some measure to those enemies that CIBBER's comfortable situation very naturally conjured up against him. It has a resem|blance of BEAUMONT and FLETCHER's Wit at several Weapons, but is not so good an improvement on these authors as CIBBER's amendments gene|rally were.

Venus and Adonis is merely an interlude, and one of those things which managers, inconveniently enough, are now and then constrained to prepare to eke out other matter. The music was composed by PEPUSCH, who had great merit, but who too ser|vilely shrunk under the influence of HANDEL. Myrtillo is criticized by the above comment on Venus and Adonis,

We come now to the Nonjuror, confessedly taken from MOLIERE's Tartuffe, but materially improved. The Coquet of High Life has never been drawn so

well upon the whole as by CIBBER; and after Lady Betty Modish, perhaps Maria, is in his boldest and truest manner. Nothing can answer the true end and drift of real comedy better than the operation of this piece upon the human mind. A pernicious serpent, under the veil of sanctity, who gets ad|mittance into the house of a gentleman to work his ruin by the seduction of his family, it is the true province of the stage to expose and punish.

CIBBER, however, got all the critics against him, as had MOLIERE before him; and, as they were stirred up by those who did not, perhaps, chuse to appear openly, for fear of appropriating to them|selves some of those fair strokes of satire which could alone be levelled against the villany of hypocricy, they employed, by way of a vehicle, Mist's Journal, a paper of all work, and it is shrewdly suspected, not without great colour of truth, that POPE was not a little active in this dirty work, for it happened immediately after the damnation of that farce written by POPE, ARBUTHNOT, and GAY, which we know gave rise to the enmity of POPE against CIBBER, and introduced the Laureat into the Dunciad.

CIBBER with his usual gaiety and good nature, for it must be allowed that he had the good sense

never to be hurt by folly of this kind, speaks of this circumstance with the same coolness with which he wrote to POPE, where he most pointedly shews the malignity and burning envy that had actuated all his conduct, towards him, merely one would think be|cause nature had not given him the talent to write plays. The Nonjuror, in spite of all its enemies, had great success, and made a considerable addition to its author's reputation* 1.1.

Ximena, performed in 1709, is a tragedy, a sort of productions in which CIBBER certainly did not excel. It is in some degree taken from The Cid of CORNEILLE. The Refusal, or the Lady's Philosophy, borrowed principally from Les Femmes Savantes of MOLIERE, had not so much success as it deserved. MIST and his abetters had not forgot The Nonjuror, and besides the severe strokes in it which were le|velled at the famous South Sea bubble, were not

easily pardoned by those they exposed; though no|thing can be fairer game for scenic detection than any species of national fraud. Caesar in Egypt is an|other tragedy, the subject of which is furnished by CORNEILLE. It would have been better for CIB|BER and the stage if he had employed the time he took to prepare this piece for the theatre, by writing a comedy.

The Provoked Husband, as the world knows, was left in an unfinished state by VANBRUGH, and brought forward with material alterations by CIB|BER; indeed more than half of it was written by him; VANBRUGH having written little more than that part of it which relates to sir Francis Wronghead and his family. CIBBER's enemies, however, determined to do the thing judiciously, chose to select what they supposed to be his, and right or wrong damned VANBRUGH when they thought they were damning CIBBER. This he detected to their confusion, by publishing the play as VANBRUGH had left it be|hind him, and thus he proved, to the satisfaction of every sensible critic, with how much judgment he had improved a celebrated author without injuring his fame.

The Rival Queens was a parody on LEE's Alex|ander.

We know but little of its reputation, yet, though it had some humour, it is very unlikely that it had success. Love in a Riddle was a pastoral, and one of the earliest pieces of this kind brought out after the Beggar's Opera. It is wonderful how CIB|BER could see so little of probable consequences as to imagine that any thing written professedly in imitation of a piece so very popular, let whatever be its merit, could possibly succeed. There can be no doubt but party, right or wrong, wrought the fall of this opera; for it certainly had merit, and the idea of the author's endeavour to strike a ballance in favour of morality by making virtue as captivating as GAY had rendered vice alluring, was perfectly laudable; but to oppose the torrent of fashion is always madness, and CIBBER ought to have known better. The piece, cut down to a farce, under the title of Damon and Phillida, has always been con|sidered as an entertaining trifle.

Papal Tyranny in the reign of King John, is by no means borrowed from SHAKESPEAR's play, though written upon the same subject. In this play CIBBER, in imitation of AESOP, returned to the stage very late in life, for it came out in 1744, at which time its author was seventy-three. He did not, however, meet, with the reception of AESOP;

for, in spite of the impediments nature had added to those he formerly laboured under, there was a dignity and a grace in his performance of Pandolph which the public very warmly applauded. The play had merit, but it is very probable that the actor saved the author, or at least reaped the greatest share of public favour. It is needless to say that no King John has since been popular but that written by SHAKESPEAR.

With Hob in the Well, which is well known, and no more than DOGGET's Country Wake cut into a farce, we take leave of CIBBER; an author, a ma|nager, and an actor, whose whole study was to pro|mote the credit, the character, and the consequence of the theatre; who, in his writing, as well as in all his public conduct, was the encourager of merit, the friend of decorum, and the advocate of morality.

CHAP. II. ADDISON, GAY, FIELDING, AND HILL.

AS the authors, immediately preceding GARRICK, furnished many of the materials with which he worked out his fame, it is proper to continue a clear ac|count of them till his appearance. We have, there|fore, yet to examine all those who wrote in the in|terval between 1708 and 1741.

ADDISON, a very great ornament to letters in this country, who possessed many of the useful requisites of an author, and hit the middle line of writing with more felicity and exactness, than per|haps any other, claims a place here as the author of Calo, Rosamond, and The Drummer. It will not, how|ever, be enough to mention his plays; for, though I cannot be of opinion with Dr. JOHNSON that it is either worth while or necessary to give our days and nights to the labours of ADDISON as the ultimatum of atchieving an English style, yet many of those labours are valuable and an advantage to literature.

The Spectator, certainly not originally ADDISON's idea but that of STEELE, who began the Tatler, a work of the same complexion, without the partici|pation of any other writer, has in it particular papers which have such a peculiar neatness, for what they are, as perhaps cannot be parallelled. Those essays which are written on the common and ordinary oc|currences of life, are wonderfully adapted to all ca|pacities, and at the same time they teach an elegance of speaking and thinking, they have a drift more no|ble; no less than that of regulating the mind, and teaching the heart to love morality.

When ADDISON goes beyond these known and obvious subjects, he however is not so happy. His zeal is as fervid, and his motives as sincere; but his arguments are often fallacious, and he seems more to have the wish than the ability to convince. As, how|ever, common readers do not make this distinction, his end is generally obtained; and, whatever may be the nice difference which oblige men of discern|ment to give him that credit for the will which they cannot for the deed, it were to be wished that the youth of both sexes might be restricted from reading that abominable trash which lumbers up the circu|lating libraries, and obliged to treasure the admira|ble lessons which will be found in ADDISON's pa|pers in this publication.

As for the rest of his prose, it was generally pro|voked from him to serve that party purpose, which for the moment he espoused, and we see him pro|moted from a pension of three hundred a year, to the place of secretary of state, mounting step by step to the top of preferment's ladder, of which his va|rious publications formed the rounds. All this is manifested in various papers in The Guardian, The Freeholder, The Old Whig, and other productions.

As to his poetry, however it might have been extolled by those whom he patronized, it has now found its level; and, when we hear from his ad|mirers, of which they are now but few, that his Ode to St. Cecilia is beautifully correct, though it is a poor copy from DRYDEN, that The Letter from Italy is more correct, though Dr. JOHNSON acuses him of having made a goddess a horse, and a boat, in two lines by bridling her for fear she should launch into a song, and that The Campaign is corrector still of which nobody remembers any thing but the Angel, borrowed, though it has escaped all his critics, from King David, we are furnished with all the praise bestowed on ADDISON as a poet.

Though I have by no means the smallest incli|nation to qualify the foregoing paragraph, it cannot be denied that ADDISON has some sterling merit as

a poet, but whenever poetry is derived from eru|dition rather than from genius it must of course be in proportion less intrinsic, and occasional and com|plimentary verses, however well written, claim a place only on the threshold of Parnassus.

ADDISON's first dramatic piece was Rosamond. It was performed in 1704, and contains, perhaps, more lines truly poetical than any thing he has written. It is, however, flimzy; and, though there is some attempt at comedy in Sir Trusty and Gride|line, the whole is a drawing in water colours, neat, correct, and pretty, but neither interesting, warm, or beautiful. A great deal has been urged to prove that it was a folly in ADDISON to write so well for music, which he himself says, as we have seen, ought only to be coupled with nonsense. Now it so happens that this remark stigmatizes for one thing Alexander's Feast, and for another thing MILTON's Comus, and TICKEL, ADDISON's Dumby, insists upon this rule so strongly, in a flaming copy of verses, that he says poetical compositions for music are

"innocent of thought,"

meaning to shew, by a stroke of his own, that he knows what it is to be both ignorant and dull, for poetical compositions cannot think; but, if they could, it would be difficult to prove why thought must necessarily imply guilt.

It is not very material to go at length into the merits of Cato. It is a most ponderous tragedy, and was rated, at least, according to its weight. It ran for eighteen nights, and was ushered into notice by eight complimentary verses, besides a prologue by POPE, and an epilogue by GARTH. It is by much the best written of all ADDISON's poetical works; and, that they may securely rate its real merit, it is decided by the French to be a true model for tragedy; that is to say, it is the essence of every thing heavy, dull, and declamatory.

At the time this play made its appearance, it was considered and taken up as a party business. CIBBER tells us that the whigs applauded it as a warm compliment to their cause, and the tories re|echoed the applause to shew that they were not hurt. POPE says, that at every two lines of his prologue he was clapped into a staunch whig, and that at the same time the author was sweating behind the scenes to find that the applause came more from the hand than the head.

Cato has been too warmly admired, and too severely censured. VOLTAIRE has run into both these errors. Great French poets with less judgment have found in it no errors at all. DENNIS, whose observations

were always warped, has nevertheless hit upon a great deal of truth in his strictures on Cato. His ri|dicule of ADDISON's having religiously observed, the unity of place, and thereby rendered the action impossible, is as good as any thing in the rehearsal, and it cannot be denied that, as to conduct, there is nothing on the stage more completely absurd than the management of the circumstances in this play.

Time has, as usual, settled every dispute upon this subject. The day of prejudice is gone by, and, without reference to any party or any opinion, we soberly find that Cato is more properly a succession of declamatory scenes than a tragedy; elegantly written, perfectly moral, and correctly in nature. We care no more about the characters than we are solicitous about the deliverer of a sermon; we listen to the sentiments, we admire the beauty of their language, and we are delighted with the morality they convey. We are told that ADDISON was of this opinion, but that it was hurried on the stage through the importunity of his friends. Party pre|judice turned out a lucky hit, otherwise, as the ex|perience of the present time evinces, ADDISON would have been under the necessity of upbraiding his friends for inflicting on him a mortification which his own better judgment had warned him to avoid.

The Drummer, out of excessive modesty, as it is supposed, ADDISON sought to have concealed his pretensions to as its author; nay, we have nothing but strong circumstances to warrant his being consi|dered so at this moment. STEELE kept the secret till after his friend's death, and then asserted that he only knew it by a circumstance; having been told by ADDISON, who put the play into his hands while some friends were present, that it was the production of a gentleman in company. The trait is singu|lar and has been productive of some disputation. STEELE's conduct, however, seems to be full of ve|racity and honour.

Willing to give every bird of Parnassus its proper feather he took an opportunity, when the feelings of the author could no longer be hurt, and indeed when the play had grown into a fame which was at first denied it, of placing it among ADDISON's works ob|serving that it made no figure on the stage originally, though exquisitely well acted,

"and when I ob|serve this,"

says he,"

I say a much harder thing of the public than of the comedy."

It is said that both THEOBALD and TICKELL, knew the truth of this business even more correctly than STEELE, and that CONGREVE was very severe upon TICKELL for his taciturnity.

Certainly, considered as a play, it is the best in AD|DISON's works, for it is as WARTON says,

"a just pic|ture of life and manners,"

and indeed the characters have a truth and a propriety that might have served as a model, as WARTON hints, for more expert dramatic writers. There is a novelty and an interest in the fable, and none of the requisites are for a mo|ment violated; but the misfortune is that it is correct even to coldness, and, as Cato was translated by DES CHAMPS, and pronounced the model of French tragedy, so was the Drummer by DESTOUCHES, and pronounced the model of French comedy* 1.2.

This brief account is all that comes within my province in relation to ADDISON; who, as a man, was too modest to speak in public, acknowledge his own writings, or in any other way appear to arrogate the smallest merit; yet he comfortably took to him|self every lucrative situation that came in his way, and even married the mother of his pupil for ag|grandizement, though he knew he should not be happy, with all the sacerdotal forbearance of a bishop at his induction, which situation he is said once to have aimed at; who was so good, that he under|mined and injured almost all his friends, some of which conduct POPE called damning with saint praise. He took his friend STEELE in execution for a paltry hundred pounds, he sickened with jealousy at POPE's Homer, and he prevented the harmless and amiable GAY from enjoying that court favour which he had been so often promised, and was so justly entitled to; but he, no doubt, repented of these faults before he called in Lord WARWICK, to shew

"how a christian ought to die."

But the Gods took care of Cato, and fortune of ADDISON, and there is a spice of inflated vanity, of hypocritical affectation both in the author and his nominal prototype; a circumstance that posterity has pretty well regulated. We have here, however, no|thing to do with him but as a writer, in which capa|city he is better known by infinite degrees by those papers in The Spectator, where he has treated familiar and domestic subjects, in, which narrow circle no|body ever moved so nimbly or so expertly, than by the rest of his writings. These will secure him a peculiar fame, small indeed, but brilliant; confined but valuable; brilliant because they infuse pleasure, and valuable because that pleasure mends the heart.

The history of GAY is so well known, his amia|ble, mild, unsuspecting heart, which permitted him to be bubbled by the South Sea scheme, and disap|pointed at court, without having the power to bear up against misfortune, has been so much pitied and applauded, for it broke by the weight of the calamity it sustained, and was afterwards universally and de|servedly commiserated, that it is impossible to say any thing of this valuable man and meritorious wri|ter here that the reader cannot anticipate.

GAY was an elegant poet, as his Pastorals, his

Trivia, his Fables, and other things evince, and in proof that I speak the general opinion, all these things are at this moment read with pleasure. It is true they are of a secondary rank; but a great mind may be seen through an humble covering, and the violet, and the jessamine have charms in their sim|plicity with which the lily and the tulip, with all their gaudiness, cannot impress the heart. If poetry be meant to dignify sentiment, to exalt idea, and to charm the mind, why must the poet's reputation wait upon lofty and towering subjects, always false, and always dazzling?

When such a poem as Alexander's Feast astonishes the world, a circumstance that does not happen per|haps in seven centuries, I am willing to give any en|thusiastic tribute of admiration you please to the wonderful effort of extraordinary genius, and feel a servent glow of gratitude that such celestial ideas should be conceived by a human creature; but, for feeling, for pathos, for mental pleasure, for something delicious to the soul, I had rather, and I am sure I shall have every votary of sensibility on my side, be the author of Black eyed Susan than half the Odes of PINDAR.

'Tis the cant of great poets, and the cant of great

critics, to rate every thing domestic, every thing fa|miliar, every thing common, among the lowest classes of poetry. This mode, however, of narrowing the avenues to the heart is a serious injury to the cause of rhime, which, by this rule, to be great must have every thing of pomp, and nothing of sentiment; but the position is false. The conception achs at being perpetually fixed on grand objects, as our eyes are dazzled by looking full on the fun; we sicken at the glare though the genial influence it diffuses is even necessary to our existence. Thus when splendid virtues and striking qualities are brought home to us, and exemplified in real life, the fiction is rea|lized, and the heroes, gods, and guardian angels of poets, are found to have a practical existence in the courage, love, and friendship of common mortals.

Among those capable of giving poetry this im|pression was GAY; who, if he had had nerve equal to idea, would have blendid all that is great in his writings with all that is beautiful, His dramatic pieces are upon various subjects, and variously con|ducted. Some are by no means happy, but none are destitute of merit.

The Mohocks is a short piece attributed to this author, and generally believed to be his. It is in|tended

to expose the bucks of that day, who were a terror to all peaceable passengers, as we read in the Tatlers and Spectators. It had a laudable tendency, but being temporary we know but little of its suc|cess. The Wife of Bath, 1713, was GAY's first co|medy, but it was an unsuccessful attempt, and was even rejected by the public upon a revival of it after the appearance of The Beggar's Opera.

The What d'ye call It, a burlesque production well known, had merit in its way. It was so well acted, as we are told by POPE, that MR. CROM|WELL, who was deaf, could not conceive how the audience could be kept in a roar of laughter while every thing was conducted with such solemnity on the stage. Three Hours after Marriage, though always set down to GAY, was, as CIBBER's letter to POPE sufficiently proves, the production of POPE, GAYS and ARBUTHNOT.

Every body knows that the piece failed, and that POPE grew upon this so inveterate against all dramatic writers, that he for ever afterwards envied them, and of course abuted them in his writings; but it is not generally known that its failure was owing to the spirit of ARISTOPHANES which it breathed. It ri|diculed most pointedly, and most undeservedly, a

very valuable member of society because he hap|pened to be fond of fossils, and the public were not at that time ripe for that bold, ungenerous and wan|ton personality, which I shall certainly warmly re|probate when I come to FOOTE. It, therefore, dis|gusted the audience, and was in consequence very properly withdrawn from the stage.

Dione was a tragic pastoral, and professedly in the manner of Amynta, and Paster Fido, subjects which we have seen frequently attempted before. It has merit, but when we consider that RANDOLPH's Amyntas, though performed before the King and Queen, had very little public success it is natural to suppose, however it might enrich the poems of GAY, that it was very wisely suppressed as a subject for the stage.

The Captives, performed in 1723. GAY was uniformly unfortunate in relation to this play. He obtained leave to read it to the Princess of WALES; but, being very timid, and his attention entirely fixed on the personages about him, as he advanced to the company assembled upon this occasion, he made a pantomime trick of his tragedy by tumbling over a stool, overturning a screen, and throwing the audience into the completest confusion. This is supposed to have been remembered during the re|presentation

of the piece, which, on this and other accounts was very little attended to.

We come now to mention a performance cele|brated more variously than any other production in the English language. The reader's recollection anticipates the mention of The Beggar's Opera, a piece which has been criticised in all manner of ways, and which has begot all manner of opinions. Some of these I shall presently examine. In the mean time let us literally see its success.

This piece, as we are told from the notes to the Dunciad, was performed sixty three nights, the first season, and repeated the following season with the same extraordinary success. It was performed thirty or forty times at most of the principal towns in the kingdom; at BATH and BRISTOL it was repeated fifty nights. The ladies carried about the favourite songs in fans, and handkerchiefs, and houses were furnished with them in skreens. The Beggar's Opera was not only performed in ENGLAND but in IRE|LAND, SCOTLAND, and WALES, nay at MINORCA, and many other foreign places.

Its same was not confined to the author. The actress who performed Polly, till then an obscure

and not a very respectable character, became all at once the favourite, nay the toast, of the town. Her portrait was painted, and engraved, and sold in great numbers; her life was written, eulogiums in prose and verse swarmed in the newspapers, and in different periodical publications, books were made of her sayings, and jests; and, to crown all, here I quote SWIFT,

"after being the mother of several anti|nuptial children, she obtained the rank and title of a duchess by marriage."

As to the tendency of The Beggar's Opera, as if there was no fixed rule whereby to judge of a stage representation, nothing can be more contradictory than public opinion concerning it. On one side Dr. HERRING, afterwards archbishop of Canter|bury, and a number of adherents, condemned it as giving encouragement to vice by making a high|wayman the hero, and dismissing him with reward rather than punishment. On the other side, SWIFT, and another large party, contended that the piece was highly moral, for that it is impossible to place vice in too strong or too odious a light.

SWIFT was certainly more in the right than HERRING; for, if the great, who are severely sa|tirized

in the persons of Macheath and his gang, are truly satirized, then is the labour of GAY a valuable one; if not he wrote it only for those whom the cap might happen to fit; and, as place, and preferment, and bribes, are the vehicles through which all gangs are kept together, no doubt there are characters in the world who are obliged to make wry faces and put it on, for as to HERRING's remark, that the hero goes unpunished it is literally, but not virtually, a fact; for the Beggar's Opera was written as well to ridicule the Italian opera as to convey general morality, which last end the author had it in idea literally to inculcate, and therefore makes the poet say that it is his intention to hang Macheath, and either to hang or transport all the rest of the personages.

"Aye,"

says the player,

"this would be very right provided your piece were a tragedy, but being an opera it it must end happily."

"Your objection,"

replies the poet,

"is very right, but the difficulty is easily removed; for, in these kind of dramas, no matter how absurdly matters are brought about."

He then makes the rabble cry a reprieve, and the cap|tain, is brought back to his wives in triumph.

Under this crooked policy, those who smarted at the satire in this piece affected to shield their feelings; for no man in his senses will aver that refusing a li|cence

to the sequel to it called Polly, which was the next of GAY's productions, was lest, highwaymen and housebreakers should be taught to glory in their wickedness; but lest corruption should be exposed.

We know that whenever a magistrate, or other forward character, has wished to add to his popu|larity he has pretended to deplore the immorality in the Beggar's Opera. Sir JOHN FIELDING did this, and others have done it; but it is difficult to say why thieves should think it necessary to emulate Macheath when they can find the examples of Turpin, and Jack Shepherd, in the Newgate Chron|icle; and, as to any hope of their escaping un|punished, the very end of their existence would not, according to their ideas, be accomplished if every thief of them did not make his exit upon his death bed at Tyburn. For the rest, as this piece has so much of what SWIFT calls

"not wit, nor humour, but something better than either;"

as the songs are most charmingly written; as the fair purposes of honest satire are triumphantly accomplished; and, lastly, as we owe to this lucky hit the ballad opera, which has very elegibly served the cause of the drama, of poetry, and of music; I know not to whom the stage in any one instance has had more ob|ligations than in this to GAY.

Polly was printed by subscription. The reader has seen why it was never performed. It produced a much larger sum of money for its author than it could have done had it made its public appearance even had its success been equal to the Beggar's Opera, which event is impossible to have happened, for it had neither the novelty, the interest, the writing, or any other single requisite of equal merit to recom|mend it, and this shews how absurd those who were inimical to GAY acted, for had they let it come out, it would not only have died away unheeded itself, but have been a severer reproach to its author than its suppression; which, rather than injure GAY, lifted him into more consequence* 1.3.

Acis and Galatea, a well known and beautiful written pastoral opera, has been so often repeated and attended to with so much pleasure, that it is un|necessary

here to dwell upon its merits. As to the music, as a work of genius, it is clearly the best composition of HANDEL. It is astonishinly varied, and yet always pastoral; nay the very gigantic pipe of Polypheme seems to breath magnified tender|ness; but I shall go into this more particularly here|after, when I place HANDEL and ARNE by the side of each other.

Achilles was again an opera. It has had very little success, either originally, or at any time when it has been revived. The Distressed Wife, a comedy, was left finished by GAY, but not perhaps to that per|fection it would have been had he lived to have seen it brought on the stage. It has been attempted, but without success. There is another thing attributed to this author called The Rehearsal at Gotham, which we know but little about.

Thus we have seen that no one of his pieces had success any thing equal to The Beggar's Opera, and the reason, in great measure, is, that they were ge|nerally upon the same plan without the merit of originality, or so fortunate a conveyance. This blunted the edge of the satire, and destroyed the interest. Another reason is that the music of The Beggar's Opera seems to have exhausted all that was

to be found beautiful in ballad composition, or at least it comprehended the most choice selection; for there cannot be any thing more exquisite, natural, sweet, and delightful, than those airs. Who selected them we are not told; they were harmonized by PEPUSCH; and, when we find in them that the best airs originated as far back as FERRABOSCO and RIZZIO, who only improved what was more an|cient, who shall shew melodies so delicious, so af|fecting, so winning, as those of the English, and the Scotch.

Thus we have seen GAY leave a counter to shine in the most brilliant circles of poetic attraction; to be praised, envied, disappointed, neglected, and at last to die with a broken heart. The world are cer|tainly the better for this; but as to himself, how|ever he acquired applause, patronage, reputation, and Posthumous fame, his life would have been more happy and contented had he pursued any trade but the trade of a poet.

FIELDING was but an indifferent poet, but he has left behind him one species of reputation which no author ever so eminently possessed. His novels have hitherto been unequalled. Tom Jones is, per|haps, the finest assemblage of natural characters and

happy incidents in any language. Joseph Andrews has a vein of the purest and most gratifying hu|mour within the conception of human ingenuity; and were it not that it is professedly written as a satire on one author, and in imitation of another, it would be very nearly a complete work in its kind. Amelia manifests a most astonishing judgment of FIELDING's knowledge of the world. There is scarcely a person or circumstance introduced in that novel but every body knows to be somebody or something already seen in real life. In short, though these novels may have—and indeed so has the sun, resplendent as it is—something to cavil at, yet the worst of them greatly excels the best of any other author, if nature, truth, interest, humour, and cha|racter are the requisites of such productions.

FIELDING's dramatic works have great merit, but they are not so well calculated for the stage as the closet. He could not write ill; and, in general, his dialogue has marks of strong nature and pointed character, but it is too witty. CONGREVE at last fell off as to success. Sweets will cloy. This is however no reproach, but as men of genius, rather a compliment to both CONGREVE and FIELDING.

As it was impossible for FIELDING to bring for|ward

any work unworthy the attention of the pub|lic, so his dramatic pieces have a considerable claim to applause, but they were in general slight and in|digested as to stage effect, the author seeming to fancy that the strong and nervous style in which he was at all times capable of writing would answer every purpose. In this he was mistaken, for CIB|BER, who did not write so well, by knowing the trim of the theatre and the town had at all times better success.

FIELDING's first piece was a comedy, called Love in several Masques. It came out immediately after The Provoked Husband. It nevertheless had good success, and there is certainly in it some strong and nervous dialogue. The Temple Beau was per|formed at Goodman's Fields in 1730. This was a hasty play but has nevertheless strong wit and hu|mour; but it is more gay than interesting, which is FIELDING's great fault. The Author's Farce, which contains the rehearsal of another farce, called The Pleasures of the Town, is a thing intended to ridicule the Italian opera. This has always been done with partial success, but whoever attempts to destroy the Temple of Folly will soon see its votaries mend|ing the depredations, as carefully, though not so laud|ably, as ants repair every innovation upon their nests.

Tom Thumb is at this moment well known. Its humour is in the truest style of burlesque. The Coffee House Politicians was performed at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, and had good success. It is however greatly inferior to the generality of this author's dramatic works. The Letter Writers had much about the same sate and possessed the same pretensions. FIELDING's five act pieces have al|ways something good but always want consequence. The Welch Opera, which was afterwards called The Grub Street Opera, is by no means a good piece; some of the ballads are sprightly, but upon the whole it is a strange jumble.

The Lottery is a very pleasant ballad farce. In|deed there are very few of FIELDING's after pieces that are not very entertaining. The Modern Husband, 1734, was a found written comedy, but it was not sufficiently ballanced by either pleasantry or interest. The Mock Doctor, taken from MOLIERE's Medicin Magre lui, has been always a successful favourite. FIELDING's genius seems to have a kindred feeling with that of MOLIERE; the humour however of both, though perfectly chaste and natural, had some|thing too saturnine, something too much of CER|VANTES, for general broad laugh, an ingredient considered so necessary in farces.

The Debauchees was levelled at the Jesuits, and to good purpose; but one species of religious hy|pocricy is like another, and FIELDING was a good deal forestalled by DRYDEN's Spanish Friar, and CIBBER's Nonjuror, there is nevertheless considera|ble merit in the piece. The Covent Garden Tragedy is a burlesque on the Distressed Mother, but the cha|racters are too low, being composed of bawds, bul|lies, and others of that description. It has neverthe|less considerable humour. The Miser is certainly the most valuable of FIELDING's plays; it is MO|LIERE's Avare but greatly improved. It is chaste, proper, and full of nature; and, would some of our modern playwrights in this age of equivoque look at the scenes of coincidence in that comedy, it might be no bad hint to correct that monstrous assem|blage of unnatural and incongruous circumstances that seem now to be received as the criterion of comic writing, or rather of comic plotting. Every real well wisher to the interest and consequence of the stage must grieve to see this valuable play cut down to a farce, and performed by the most indif|ferent actors in the theatre.

The Intriguing Chambermaid, 1733, is an admira|ble farce. It is in some measure taken from the Dissipateur of DESTOUCHES, a piece with which several authors have made pretty free. Don Quioxte

in England is, what one must naturally suppose, well written, for whoever copied CERVANTES so faithfully as FIELDING, and ill calculated for the stage, because mere knight errantry without specta|cle never yet had success upon the English theatre. If he had carried Don Quixote to any other part of the world and have introduced a few elephants, or camels, and made him fight half a dozen tygers, and have decorated the stage with castles that lose their battlements in the air, about fifteen feet from the ground, the whole an outrage upon nature, and art, the redoubted knight, as mad as his audiences, might have acted every species of extravagance to the admiration of full houses.

The Virgin Unmasked, and Miss Lucy in Town, which is the sequel to it, are pleasant pieces, and claim a place among the Hoydens, Notables, Prues, and Corinnas; which, by being always in nature, give constant pleasure. Pasquin and all the consequences of its being performed we have already gone over as well as the Historical Register. Euridice was damned, and Euridice hissed its sequel, met with and deserved the same fate, for an apology for a bad piece, when an author could have pro|duced a good one, is an insult and ought not to be admitted.

Tumble Down Dick was a satire upon RICH's Pantomimes, a useless one, because nobody cared about the propriety of pantomimes so they had enough of Harlequin and Colombine. Plutus was translated from ARISTOPHANES by FIELDING and YOUNG. It was never performed. The Wed|ding Day, acted in 1743, is a comedy which met with very little success, and indeed deserved very little. It was the last of FIELDING's pieces; who had he lived in ease and tranquility would certainly have written better for the stage, for it is absurd to suppose that he did not know every dramatic re|quisite, and no man has given more abundant proof of being a complete judge of character, of effect, and of human nature.

AARON HILL, who seems to have fagged himself into learning, if not into genius; who did the task of the noble dunces at Westminster school, that his mind might have an unusual portion of exercise; who, in his thirst after knowledge, followed his rela|tion lord PAGET, to CONSTANTINOPLE, and by this means travelled through EGYPT, PALESTINE, and the greatest part of the East, in company with a well informed tutor; who afterwards became tutor to sir WILLIAM HAMILTON, and acquitted himself, though little more than a boy, to the satisfaction of

his pupil's friends; who was the projector of nut oil, of masts of ships from Scotch firs, of cultivating GEORGIA, and of pot ash; and who, in short, as a writer had all the merit due at least to indefatigable toil and industry, was the author of seventeen dra|matic pieces, principally tragedies.

Elfrid, produced in 1710, was afterwards re|written and brought out in 1731, under the tittle of Athelwold. It is an exaggeration of the story of EL|FRIDA, in which the character of Athelwold is so totally different from the history as to be an object of detestation instead of pity; a circumstance that totally destroys the poetical beauty of the fable. Who but such an author in stilts could have thought of making that character an object of commiseration who is a traytor to his mistress, his friend, and his king. The Walking Statue was a farce and a very indifferent one. Trick upon Trick was again a farce. It was damned on the first night.

Rinaldo was the celebrated opera composed by HANDEL. We have seen that it was written by HILL in English, and translated into Italian by ROSSI, the BADINI of that day. The Fatal Vision was a tragedy, and performed in 1716. The second title of The Fate of Siam is fictitious and intended

only to give the appearance of truth to enforce the facts, which are wholly invention. It is written to reprobate rashness; a kind of Lear in water colours. Henry the Fifth is a historical play, imitated from SHAKESPEAR. There is some merit in it, and the introduction of lord Scrope's niece, who had been seduced by Henry, and yet who discovers the plot upon his life, is interesting; but nobody wishes to see SHAKESPAR's plays altered, since it is so diffi|cult for alteration to amend them.

Zara was performed in 1735. In this tragedy, which is taken from VOLTAIRE, and upon the whole is his best play, if not the best play upon the French theatre, HILL has gone so infinitely beyond all his other productions, that, in point of the true requisites of tragedy, it is almost the most perfect also on the English stage. It consists of a simple, interesting, and unembarrassed story; and, being written at that time when VOLTAIRE had still all that glow of patriotism in his mind which had revolted the minds of his countrymen when he wrote Brutus, it was peculiarly adapted to the English stage; so that HILL had that part of the work most likely to insure its popularity ready done to his hands* 1.4.

It is remarkable that Zara, both in FRANCE and in ENGLAND, had the adventitious advantage of being greatly assisted at its first representation; for as on the French stage, as I have already mentioned, it brought forward DUFRESNE, and Mademoiselle GAUSSIN, so on the English stage, a near relation of HILL performed Osman, and Mrs. CIBBER made her first appearance on the theatre in Zara.

Alvira, 1736, was also a translation from VOL|TAIRE;

but, though it is well written, it did not as we have seen succeed greatly in FRANCE. The truth is, it was too much after their own model in point of stage regularity, and too full of declamation, which HILL has unfortunately rendered duller than in the original. In FRANCE envy attributed it to some scribbler from whom it was said VOLTAIRE stole it, in ENGLAND it excited no envy, and there|fore HILL was permitted quietly to keep it to himself.

These were all the works of HILL before the appearance of GARRICK, to whom we shall arrive, after I have in the next chapter given an account of inferior authors, from 1708 to that period.

CHAP. III. CHARLES JOHNSON, HUGHES, THOMSON, THEO. BALD, SAVAGE, LILLO, AND OTHER AUTHORS.

I AM now compelled to give the account of other authors, before GARRICK, as briefly as possible. I shall nevertheless mark as strongly as my limits will permit me the most prominent features of their re|spective works; and, though I cannot dwell parti|cularly on all the circumstances that attended their success, I shall endeavour to place every author in as conspicuous a situation as his public reception en|titled him to.

CHARLES JOHNSON, who, as we are told, was famous for writing a play every year, and being at BUTTON's every day, must, according to this calcu|lation, have been before the public nineteen years; for he produced that number of dramatic pieces; the fact is, however, that he took one and thirty years to accomplish that task. His first piece, The

Gentleman Cully, came out in 1702. It is only at|tributed to JOHNSON by COXETER, but it is no matter who was the author of it, for it has very little merit.

Fortune in her Wits, 1705. This is a bad transla|tion of COWLEY's Naufragium Joculare. It was not performed. Love and Liberty, a tragedy, was in|tended for Drury Lane theatre. It is dedicated to the judicious critics throughout the town, who had, however, no proper opportunity of judging of its merits for it was never performed. The Force of Friendship was a tragedy, and the first play poor JOHNSON could get on the stage. It however might as well have been kept off, for it was com|pletely damned as well as an after piece, called Love in a Chest which accompanied it; so that, as far as we have gone, JOHNSON's labour was labour in vain.

JOHNSON, having hitherto sound very few dra|matic materials in himself, thought it would be a wiser way to have recourse to others. His next play called The Wise's Relief, is borrowed from SHIRLEY's Gamester, and had success. Its principal merits, however, we have gone over in the account of SHIRLEY. It was produced in 1712, The Suc|cessful

Pirate, 1713. JOHNSON next paid a visit to CARLELL, from whom he stole the best materials he could in Arviragus and Philicia; but the original was bad, and the copy worse. The Generous Husband was borrowed from nobody, and therefore had no success. The Victim, 1714. JOHNSON is charged with having borrowed this play from BOYER's Achilles, and RACINE's Iphigenie. It was time mis|applied however, and so the public thought.

The Country Lasses was a more fortunate busi|ness; for, in order to make assurance double sure, it is as I formerly noticed taken from three plays, which had been in part taken from others. It has been at times revived with success, and KENRICK fashioned it into an opera which was performed at Covent Garden theatre. Upon this occasion the mu|sician, whose name appeared in the bills as the com|poser, was determined to convince the public that he understood thieving as well as the original au|thor of the piece.

The Cobler of Preston, which is taken from SHAKESPEAR, was thought so well of before it made its appearance that BULLOCK, the actor wrote a piece upon the same subject which was begun and finished in four and twenty hours, in order to get the

start of the other; but if they had been both burnt before they had made their appearance it would have been no great matter. The Sultaness is a trans|lation of RACINE's Bazajet, which is his worst play, and we find it here less considerable than the original. It was performed in 1717, and some how or other procured JOHNSON a corner in the Dunciad.

The Masquerade was an insignificant thing, en|tirely invented by JOHNSON. Love in a Forest is neither more nor less than SHAKESPEAR's As You Like It, most barbarously mangled and disfigured. It would insult the reader to notice its success. The Female Fortune Teller. This play is only attributed to JOHNSON. It is not very material, however, for it has not merit enough to help even his fame. The Village Opera is very poorly written, and had but in|different success. It furnished the hint, however, of Love in a Village, which is made up of this play, The Gentleman Dancing Master, Le Jeu de L'amour et du Hazard of MARIVAUX, and two or three other things.

With The Ephesian Matron, a farce of one act, Medea, a tragedy, only attributed to him, and bad enough to have belonged to a worse author, and Coelia, or the Perjured Lover, we finish the plays of

CHARLES JOHNSON. The last of these he calls a play, and the epilogue was written by FIELDING; but he seems to have profited so little by his long experience that he left off as much slighted as he began.

Of HUGHES, whom it has been the fashion to praise as a man and condemn as a poet, the world have seen nothing dramatic but The Siege of Damascus except some trifling and some unfinished pieces. In that tragedy, however, there is enough of the poet and enough of the dramatist to shew that, had he thought proper to bend his talents more towards the stage, he would have stood very high as a theatrical writer. ADDISON had such an opinion of him that he entreated him, out of despair, as he said, of his own powers, to write a fifth act to Cato; but the jealousy of the Dramatic Tartusse made him soon re|pent of his request, and before HUGHES had finished it he took care to write one himself.

HUGHES, as well as a poet, was a musician, and a painter, and of no mean description; but he seems to have possessed the two last accomplishments more as an amateur than a master. His taste for music in|duced him to write cantatas and ballads; which, though hasty, are many of them very creditable.

STEELE speaks of him in those three capacities very warmly, and, had not his zeal to check the Italian opera, the abuses of which spectacle has always been abused and always will prevail, pervaded his musical pieces, his time would not been have so ill employed.

Besides the Siege of Damascus, of which the coolest of his admirers, for he had no enemies, speaks of in terms of commendation, he wrote The Misan|thrope, a mere translation, and never performed, and Calypso and Telemachus, an opera, performed in 1712. The music was composed by GALLIARD, and it seems intended to shew what ought to be considered as rational in an opera, a part of that species of dra|matic amusement, even if it could be admitted, that would never be admired.

Apollo and Daphne was a masque. This was written with the same laudable view but to no better purpose, Cupid and Hymen was a masque of the same description; which, with the first act of the Miser from MOLIERE, and one scene only, from the Orestes of Euripides, make up the small catalogue of this author's dramatic works.

THOMSON, the celebrated author of the Seasons, poems full of extraordinary merit, and extraordinary

singularity, to which latter quality they most owed their success* 1.5, whose poetry has eminent beauties and gross faults; but who had such an original ge|nius that the want of his name would make a ma|terial

chasm in English literature, was the author of six dramatic pieces.

The first play of THOMSON was Sophonisba; a subject we have seen repeatedly treated. It came out in 1730. At the time he was writing it, he had published Winter, which was written into fame, though it had merit, before it was known whether it possessed any at all. The public expectation, there|fore, was a tip toe for this his first dramatic produc|tion, and the rehearsals were crouded by an assem|blage of all that was fashionable about town. This anticipation of its public reception, however, only foretold that its real effect would not be reputable. It was considered as a dull moral performance, and one single line gave a ludicrous opportunity to turn it into a jest; a symptom generally fatal to tragedy.

This line was parodied in FIELDING's Tom Thumb. In THOMSON's play it was,

Oh, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, oh!

In FIELDING's sarce it was,

Oh, Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!

and the town, by way of making it more ludicrous, added

Oh, Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, oh!

If every tragedy were to be laid aside for a nonsensical line, I am afraid there would be but little employ for MELPOMENE.

Agamemnon, a tragedy, was performed in 1738, and had every assistance from THOMSON's friends, and among the rest, POPE, affecting to patronize it, placed himself very forward in the theatre during its representation. The good people of ENGLAND, however, like to feel for themselves, and could not be taught to find any merit in it.

Edward and Eleonora was prepared for the stage, but interdicted by the Lord Chamberlain, some say by the connivance of the author, who feared its pub|lic fate; but this is a very improbable story. The history of the play is well known, or rather well be|lieved. It is the circumstance of ELEONORA, queen to EDWARD the first, who is said to have cured her husband by sucking the venom from a wound he received from a poisoned arrow.

The Masque of Alfred, written in conjunction with MALLET, so beautifully composed by ARNE, and of which every body knows the success, is the last of THOMSON's dramatic performances before

GARRICK, who performed in Tancred and Sigismunda his next play, which circumstance of course lent that consequence to the piece that has been the means of keeping up the reputation it acquired.

THEOBALD—whose edition of SHAKESPEAR's works was preferred to the editions of POPE, WAR|BURTON, and HANMER, and with reason; because, however he might have been

"a heavy minded man,"

it had that sort of merit for which ADDISON pre|ferred TICKLER's Homer to POPE's, that is to say, more of SHAKESPEAR in it, and indeed more honest inclination to do justice to the subject it treated—has very little else to be remembered by. He wrote eighteen dramatic pieces of one description or other which I shall now describe. I am sorry to say that justice will not let me speak their eulogium.

Electra, 1714, was a mere translation from SO|PHOCLES. The Persian Princess, 1715, was written, according to the author's account, before he was nineteen. This is one reason, perhaps, that it is so full of puerility. The Perfidious Brother, 1715, is the Orphan spoilt. Another man, a watch maker of the name of MESTAYER, says that THEOBALD stole this play from one written by him on the same sub|ject. Oedipus, King of Thebes, is a translation from

SOPHOCLES, with critical notes, and a heavy business it is. Plutus, and The Clouds, are of course from ARISTOPHANES. None of these Greek tragedies and comedies were intended for the stage.

Pan and Syrinx was an opera set to music by GALLIARD, who was a sprightly composer with con|siderable genius. This piece had some success. In the Lady's Triumph, a piece written by SETTLE, THEOBALD introduced some episodic parts which were set to music. Richard the Second, altered from SHAKESPEAR, had success. Lord ORRERY made THEOBALD a present upon this occasion of a hun|dred pounds enclosed in a snuff box worth twenty. The Rape of Proserpine, Apollo and Daphne, and Harlequin Sorcerer, were the next productions of this author. These pantomimes are well known, though they do more credit to the machinest and musician than the author; some of the music of the Sorcerer, was composed, and in a very fine style, by Dr. ARNE, the rest and all that remains of the original is by GALLIARD.

The Double Falsehood, 1727, THEOBALD endea|voured to palm on the world for a production of SHAKESPEAR, probably because he wished the brat to have a good father. Dr. FARMER says it was

by SHIRLEY, and Mr. MALONE gives it to MAS|SINGER It is generally however believed to be THEOBALD's and thus these reports compose a triple falsehood. The proverb of too many cooks spoil the broth was here reversed, for the play had very good success. Orestes, 1731. Why this piece is called an opera it is difficult to say; perhaps be|cause the subject is romantic, and it is interspersed with a little music. It is a strange thing and the public were of that opinion. The Fatal Secret was k•••••••• to every body before it came out, for it is stolen from WEBSTER's Duchess of Malfy. Orpheus and E••••idice is the famous pantomime under that title. The Happy Captive is the last of THEO|BALD's pieces and intended to ridicule the Italian opera. It is however so ridiculous itself that it re|coiled and wounded its author.

SAVAGE, whose strange turbulent life has been so laboriously written by Dr. JOHNSON, had how|ever very little either in that or his writings to command public applause. If he had an unnatural mother, he was himself unnatural and ungrateful to|wards all his brothers and sisters of creation, for he never enjoyed the bounty or friendship of any indi|vidual whom he did not offend and incence, which is so well known by those who have read the long ca|talogue

of his strange vicissitudes that it is unnec|cessary if it were not impossible to go into it here.

SAVAGE's dramatic works are Love in a Veil, a comedy, and Sir Thomas Overbury, a tragedy. The first, though brought out under the advantage of the kindest attention from WILKS and STEELE, which he returned as usual with ingratitude, had no suc|cess; the other was sparingly praised. It yielded altogether from the theatre and the press some say two hundred pounds, some only one.

LILLO, the celebrated author of George Barn|well, was an original English writer of great merit. It is impossible to deny that domestic subjects are best treated in natural and unaffected language, and derive most pathos and interest from forcible prose than measured blank verse. The heart knows no|thing of heroics; it cannot feign; it cannot be de|pressed, shocked, or torne, raised, interested, or de|lighted, so well by any language as that which utters ideas expressive of naked and instant con|ception. All sublimity is simple; and, if no author has hit it oftner than SHAKESPEAR, it is because his verse has all the force and fidelity of prose.

LILLO's first piece was Silvia, or the Country

Burial. It was an opera, and was performed in 1731, at which time nothing of this description could possibly succeed owing to the great reputation of the Beggar's Opera. It must be confessed that its own fair pretentions to public favour were very slender,

George Barnwell is so well known that it is diffi|cult to make any addition to what has been already said of it. Dr. JOHNSON has declared that

"he scarcely thinks a tragedy in prose dramatic; that it is difficult for performers to speak it; that the lowest when impassioned raise their language,"

I think he had better have said their voices, for as to their language I believe upon such occasions it is lowered even to blackguardism,

"and that the writing of prose is generally the plea or excuse of poverty of genius."

LILLO has very plainly given the lie to all this in George Barnwell, a play that would have lost all its pathos had it been in blank verse; and this fact is so strongly proved that, if it had not boasted ster|ling and valuable merit to a most uncommon de|gree, it must have sunk under the weight of that calumny which was intended to crush it; but says an author those auditors who brought with them the

old ballad, from which the play was taken, with a view to ridicule and decry it, were at length ob|liged to drop their ballads and pull out their hand|kerchiefs.

The Christian Hero is taken from SCANDERBEG and is by no means a proper subject either for the stage or for LILLO. Fatal Curiosity is however pro|per for both, for it is certainly very interesting and admirably well treated. There is a mixture of horror and tenderness in it which in a very uncom|mon degree penetrate the heart. The story, though the circumstance really happened, is extremely novel, and the moral is grand and commanding. There seems nothing against us success, were it to be re|vived, but its length, for it is in three acts, and even a good author would tremble at an attempt to ex|tend it to five. Marina, a play of three acts, is taken from PERICLES. Britannia is a masque written on the marriage of the Princess of ORANGE and the Princess Royal.

Elmeric was a posthumous work of LILLO. It did no particular credit to his reputation. Arden of of Feversham was left in an imperfect state, but it was finished by Dr. HOADLY, and brought out with success in 1759. This play is written upon the

old story from which a tragedy had before been made. It was falsely imputed to SHAKESPEAR, and introduced by the following title. The lamentable and true tragedie of M. Arden of Feversham, in Kent, who was most wickedlye murdered by the means of his disloyall and wanton wyse; who, for the love she bare for one Mosbie, hyred two desperate ruffins, Blackwill and Shagbag, to kill him.

CHARLES SHADWELL, nephew, or as some say son, to the laureat whom DRYDEN has immortalized by his Mac Flecknoe, enjoyed some public post in IRELAND, and wrote seven dramatic productions, all which, except one, The Fair Quaker of Deal, an account of which and Miss SANTLOW's celebrity we have seen, were performed on the Irish stage. They were called The Humours of the Army, The Hasty Wedding, Sham Prince, Rotheric O'Connor, Plotting Lovers, and Irish Hospitality. In all these pieces SHADWELL has studied DANCOURT, taking up such slight flimzy circumstances as might form temporary exhibitions. The Humours of the Army is exactly Les Curieux de Compeigne.

TAVERNER was a name a good deal distinguished in various branches of the arts. The present object of our notice practised the civil law in Doctor's

Commons, and painted and wrote plays for his amusement, and certainly in no mean degree for the amusement of the public. He, however, painted better than he wrote. The titles of his plays are The Faithful Bride of Grenada, The Maid the Mistress, The Female Advocates, The Artful Husband, The Artful Wife, and 'Tis Well if it Takes.

SWINEY, whose history has been already pretty well traced, wrote The Quacks, Camilla, and Pyrrhus and Demetrius. The first is a poor farce and the others were done in quality of Operatical Manager. WARD was a whimsical fellow of strong natural parts; who, finding that he could breathe no at|mosphere but that of an alehouse, resolved to keep one himself. He was by no means a bad writer, and was distinguished by a mock heroic poem in the style of Hudibras, called The Reformation. His dramatic pieces are Honesty in Distress, The Humours of a Coffee House, and The Prisoners Opera. There was another WARD who wrote The Happy Lovers, The Petticoat Plotter, and The Widow's Wish.

PHILIPS, who was one of the satelites that moved about ADDISON, and whose Sappho is thought by some to be worth all the rest of his works, his pasto|rals

and his tragedy included, even though he is sup|posed to be greatly indebted to his friends for their assistance in it, and whose Namby Pamby is said by a great man to have delighted all ranks, from a WAL|POLE, the steerer of the helm, to Miss PULTENEY in her nursery, wrote for the stage The Distressed Mother, The Briton, and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester.

The Distressed Mother is completely from the Andromacque of RACINE. It was puffed into re|putation by ADDISON and all his friends, and cer|tainly has a degree of merit. The perpetual see|saw however of interest being divided between four characters, who relieve one another like centinels, or buckets in a well, is intolerably tedious. I once saw it acted by four performers, each of whom had a different lisp. The Briton was brought out in 1721. It was well received, but has been ever since neglected. Humphrey, as good a designation of a Briton as the other, was not so well received.

OZEL was little more than an industrious transla|tor. His pieces are principally translations from MOLIERE, whose whole works he has given the public, CORNEILLE, RACINE, and others; and, as he thus occupied himself for amusement rather than emolument, being employed in business very

lucratively and respectably, his pieces were little adapted for the stage.

CAREY, the well known writer of several farces which occasionally are now revived with pleasure, was by profession a musician. He had some genius but little taste. There is scarcely any thing of his however but has something like merit, though not actually the thing itself. Sir JOHN HAWKINS has impartially and rather generously described his cha|racter.

"As a musician,"

says he.

"CAREY seems to have been the first of the lowest rank; and as a poet the last of that class of which DURFEY was the first, with this difference, that in all the songs written on love, wine, and such kind of subjects, he seems to have manifested an inviolable regard for decency and good manners."

The author be|fore me finishes an account of his history with these words.

"He led a life free from reproach and hanged himself October 4th, 1743."

Harging and Marriage was never acted. The Contrivances has been acted and very frequently with considerable success. Everybody knows that Arethusa used to be the probationary part of female singers before they were bold enough to venture upon characters of more consequence, a mode of

conduct which would be more serviceable to the stage than beginning as is usual now, with stepping on the top round of the ladder, a circumstance that precludes asscension and may produce a fall. Amelia after the Italian manner, and produced at the French theatre had no great merit. Here we begin to see the extent of CAREY's musical abilities; for, when|ever the limits of the poetry exceeded mere trifles he was obliged to call in assistance, LAMPE, a man of considerable merit, composed this opera. Tera|minta was a piece of the same description; the music was composed by SMITH. I very much suspect that CAREY could do little more than in|vent a melody and get some other person to transmit his ideas from his mind to paper, or at least the arrangement of it; not so bad but something like the lady composers of the present day, and indeed the gentlemen too in some cases.

Chrononhotonthologos is a well known burlesque in which there are many passages that successfully ridicule inflated and bombastic writing. The idea of the warrior's piling himself upon dead bodies, till he reached the gods, who invited him for his heroism to remain with them, which offer he rejected because he was summoned to earth by the eyes of his mistress, is very happy. The Honest Yorkshireman is a true

English farce and has much pleasantry. The parts of the music, which are not selected, came very properly within the reach of CAREY's musical genius.

The Dragon of Wantley has frequently given pleasure on the stage. It is much more the right sort of burlesque on Italian operas than the gene|rality of pieces written upon that principle. The terror excited in the old ballad by the dragon and the superiority of MOORE, of MOOREHALL, to either Hercules or St. George, are admirable materials for the purpose,

"for,"

says the ballad, speaking of Hercules and the Dragon of Lerna,

" He had a club " His dragon to drub, " Or he never had don't I warrant ye; " But MOORE of Moorehall, " With nothing at all, " Soon slew the Dragon of Wantley."

Margery, the sequel to the Dragon, is unfortu|nate, as indeed are sequels in general. Betty, or the Country Bumpkin, was not successful, but Nancy, or the Parting Lovers, is a happy trisle, and has al|ways had success. The song of

"And can'st thou leave thy Nancy,"

shews that CAREY's mind was

musical. There is more genius in it than in many a laboured fugue.

BULLOCK, son to the celebrated actor of that name, was himself an actor and a dramatic writer; but he fell short of his father in one profession, and of his cotemporaries in the other. His pieces are as follows: Woman's Revenge, a comedy, 1715, is a filtration of BETTERTON's Match in Newgate, which he had filtrated from MARSTON's Dutch Courtezan; The Slip merits its name for it is no more than a cion from MIDDLETON's Mad World my Masters. Adventures of Half an Hour was scarcely suffered by the audience half that time. The Cobler of Preston we have already seen an account of in the article, Charles Johnson.

The Perjuror is a very poor thing. It seems in|tended to reprobate the constant breach of official oaths, and to strike at trading justices, constables, and their understrappers; but such characters are too callous to be hurt by so tiny a club. BULLOCK seems to have acted the Hercules with a switch in his hand. Woman's a Riddle was claimed by SAVAGE and brought out by BULLOCK, but is nothing more than a translation of a Spanish play by a lady. The Traytor, 1718. If BULLOCK's attempts in comedy

were so ineffectual, this single effort of tragedy must be of course ten times worse. This Traytor, which has been also attributed to SHIRLEY and to RI|VERS, betrayed BULLOCK into the folly of con|firming the town in their opinion that he had very poor pretensions as a dramatic writer.

THEOPHILUS CIBBER, whose variegated and complicate history was as scandalous, and would have been as noticeable, as that of SAVAGE, if he had been born with as much genius, who was for|ward in all manner of theatrical schisms, and got into all manner of scrapes, who has been considered by GOLDSMITH and others to have fortunately es|caped hanging by being drowned, who, in short, was a constant imposition in every thing he said and did, all which is attributed by an author to his having been born on the day of the most memorable storm ever known in this kingdom, which happened No|vember 26th, 1703, brought out, for we cannot say he wrote, six dramatic pieces* 1.6.

Henry the Sixth, a miserable alteration of SHAKE|SPEAR's play, was performed only in the summer and received very little applause, but yet more than it merited. The Lover, which play he dedicated to his wife, whose acting gave it the little celebrity it obtained, was a flimzy piece full of common place and puerility. Patie and Peggy, is ALLEN RAM|SEY's Gentle Shepherd reduced to one act. CIBBER boasts that he atchieved this mighty task in one day, which he might easily do, pen and ink being totally out of the question, and nothing more being ne|cessary for the labour of this memorable playwright than paste and a pair of scissars. The Harlot's Pro|gress was an obscene thing which was deservedly

hissed. Romeo and Juliet. If any thing could revolt the town, I think it must have been to see an attempt to improve SHAKESPEAR by THEOPHILUS CIB|BER. The Auction was an interlude stolen from FIELDING's Historical Register.

COFFEY, an Irishman, who was possessed of an inexhaustable fund of that humour that distinguishes the low Irish, who had a knack of patching up old plays and farces, and who performed Aesop for his benefit merely because he was deformed, for he was an execrable actor, brought out Southwark Fair, a droll, taken from an old play, The Beggar's Wedding, made up from the Jovial Crew and other things, Phoebe, the same piece cut into a farce, The Female Parson, which was damned the first night, The Devil to Pay, or the Wives Metamorphosed, a well known and justly admired farce, not however written by COFFEY but metamorphosed by him, MOTTLEY, the two CIBBERS, and others, from SHADWELL's Devil of a Wife, The Boarding School, taken from a miserable play of DURFEY, The Merry Cobler, a sequel to the Devil to Pay, and damned the first night, and The Devil upon two Sticks, stolen from an indifferent play written by one GWINNET.

MOTTLEY derived more consideration from his

being a man of family, and some fortune, than by his dramatic efforts. The Imperial Captives, a tra|gedy, 1720, merely a passable production, was per|formed for a few nights with that negative sort of success which to an author of any spirit, is more than a positive damnation. Antiochus is founded on the strange improbable, or if probable the unnatural story of Seleucas Nicanor, who gave up his wife Stratonice to his son Antiochus, who was dying for love of her. That folly which is a satire on the passions instead of a compliment to them ought not to be made a subject of the drama. This would be a good theme for KOTZEBUE.

Penelope, 1728. This is a burlesque of HOMER's Odyssey. MOTTLEY was assisted in it by COOKE. It was intended, or supposed to be so by POPE, as a satire upon his Homer, and therefore COOKE is crammed into the notes in the Dunciad. The Crafts|man is only a poor satire on a newspaper under that title. Widow Bewitched. This was the best of MOTTLEY's plays, and had the best success; but

"the wicked compared with the more wicked seem lovely."

GRIFFIN was an author and an actor. He brought out Injured Virtue, a tragedy, 1715, merely altered from MASSINGER and DECKER. Love in a

Sack, a poor farce; Humours of Purgatory, taken from the comic part of SOUTHERN's Fatal Marriage, The Masquerade, a thing that had temporary success. and Whig and Tory, which had no success at all.

The remainder of those authors before GARRICK, I shall take in a summary way. HUNT wrote The Fall of Tarquin, a most wretched piece, says my intelligence. JACOB was author of The Poetical Register, and produced Love in a Wood, a farce never performed, and The Soldier's Last Stake. This he informs his readers was ready for the stage which of course was not ready to receive it, for it never made its appearance. Sir HILDIBRAND JACOB, who wrote poems and other publications, produced The Fatal Constancy, a tragedy, 1723, performed with applause enough to encourage its author to go on, just as we are tempted to play after winning the first stakes. The Nest of Plays was three come|dies in one. It was damned the first night, some say because it had no merit, and others because it was the first play brought out after the Licensing Act; the last reason seems nonsence.

Mrs HAYWOOD, a most whimsical writer, who seemed determined to prove that women cannot not only talk faster but write faster than men, whose novels, essays, and other productions of a similar

kind, take up nineteen volumes, who took Mrs. MANLFY for her model, whose indecency so of|fended POPE that he clapt her up in the Dunciad, and who is defended by her biographer because, though she wrote indecently at first, she wrote de|licately afterwards, from which this charitable ad|vocate supposes that she was gallant in the early part of her life and afterwards, reformed—wrote four dramatic pieces, Fair Captive, Wife to Let, Frederick Duke of Brunswick, and Opera of Operas, which the same gentleman confesses were but indifferent. The first was not written by her but by Captain HURST, the second did not succeed, though the lady attempted the principal part, the third was damned, and the fourth was FIELDING's Tom Thumb set to music.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, not the lexicographer, but the author of Hurlothrumbo, got some reputation by affecting singularity; a trick that has too often im|posed upon the public. He wrote also Cheshire Comics, The Blazing Comet, and All alive and Merry. These pieces were all represented at the Haymarket. The rage for Hurlothrumbo was a disgrace to the public, for the audience were fairly laughed at all through the piece.

The author honestly tells them that they will find

it full of madness and extravagance, fine thoughts, and unintelligible fustian and fiction; and thus goes on in a mixed style between the Euphiusm of LYLLY, and the Visions of RABELAIS, performing the principal character himself, and confessing that it is impossible for them to understand him, owing to their not tasting the different sentiments as he did when he composed the piece, by sometimes playing on a siddle, and sometimes walking in stilts.

How such incomprehensible stupidity cold have been followed with the insatiable avidity it was, challenges astonishment. The fact however is indubitable. All the world flocked to hear this rhapsodical nonsense. A set of smarts formed themselves into what they called the Hurlothrumbo Society, nay, it is said that Sir ROBERT WALPOLE encouraged this infatuation to amuse the people while some state secrets were getting properly ripe for discovery.

ESTCOURT, of whom I have already spoken of as an actor, brought out The Fair Example, a co|medy, and Prunella, an interlude; neither of which claim much rank as dramatic pieces. SMITH wrote Phoedra and Hyppolitus, 1707. This play was per|formed but three nights, which doctor JOHNSON ac|counts for by saying that it pleased the critics and the critics only; 'tis true that ADDISON says the

neglect of it was disgraceful to the nation; but AD|DISON always lavished praises on those writers from whose abilities he had nothing to fear.

FYFE, an obscure author, wrote The Royal Martyr, King Charles the First. Governor HUNTER, who took two thousand Palatines to settle at NEW YORK, and who was at different times governor of NEW YORK, VIRGINIA, the JERSEYS, and JA|MAICA, wrote a thing distinguished as a biographical farce, called Androborus. Lord BLESSINGTON wrote a contemptible farce called The Lost Princess. CHARLES, Lord Otrery, was the author of an unsuccessful comedy, the prologue by Lord LANDS|DOWN, called As you find It. Dr. KING, known by his siding with SACHEVERAL, by having a hand in the Examiner, by writing The Art of Love and The Art of Cookery, produced a tragi-comedy called Joan of Headington. CRIMES, who was a school|master, and famous for exciting insurrections among his boys, wrote a thing which he called an Opera alluding to Peace.

The famous Puppet Shew POWELL, rival of the Italian opera, produced a mock performance called Venus and Adonis. JACKSON translated Ajax from SOPHOCLES. BLANCH wrote three pieces, which

were however not performed; they were called The Beau Merchant, Swords into Anchors, and Hoops into Spinning Wheels. HAMILTON wrote two miserable things called Doating Lovers, and The Petticoat Plotter; the last of which, however, in consequence of the author's interest, who was related to the Duke of HAMILTON, procured him a handsome benefit at advanced prices.

MOLLOY, who was a staunch advocate for go|vernment, and therefore, says my author, was ne|glected by ministry, wrote The Perplexed Couple, The Coquette, and The Half Pay Officers, neither of which met with any great success says the same author, although in one of them an old woman of eighty-five, called PEG FRYER, played a part and danced a jig. Three pieces called The Earl of Mar marred, The Prerender's Flight, and The In|quisition, are attributed to an author of the name of JOHN PHILIPS, though very uncertain accounts are given of either this author, or these plays. KNIPE wrote a farce called The City Ramble.

BRERETON, a major in the army, in two pieces he produced, imitated RACINE's Esther, and COR|NEILLE's Policuete. BOOTH, the actor, wrote an opera called The Death of Dido, which was com|posed

by PEPUSCHE. Mrs. DAVYS, an Irishwoman, and the keeper of a coffee house, wrote The Northern Heiress, and The Self Rival; one only of these pieces was performed and that had but very indifferent success. LEVERIDGE, the singer, wrote Pyramus and Thisbe. BREVAL wrote The Confe|derates, and the Play is the Plot, from which pieces were taken, The Strollers, and the Rape of Helen. The Confederates is a satire on Three Hours after Mar|riage, which BREVAL published under the assumed name of JOSEPH GAY. This was provocation enough for POPE; who, instantly introduced BRE|VAL into the Dunciad. WEAVER was a dancing master, and a dramatic poet, a coalion of extremities in talents rather rare; the head and the heels seldom having any thing to do with each other in the way of genius. These pieces are a sort of pantomimes and are called Mars and Venus, Orpheus and Euri|dice, Persius and Andromeda, and The Judgment of Paris.

BECKINGHAM, who was represented as a soldier and nothing more, wrote Scipio Africanus, and Henry the Fourth of France; two pieces correctly re|gular and therefore insufferably dull. BROWN produced a stupid farce called The Two Harlequins, from the French of LE NOBLE. Sir THOMAS MOORE

brought out a tragedy full of the absurdities of Hur|lothrumbo without its genius, called Manjora. It is impossible to avoid selecting the following passages by way of giving an idea of the bombast that ig|norant authors fancy they may foist upon the town with impunity. In one part of the play, the King says,

By all the ancient gods of Rome and Greece, I love my daughter better than my niece; If any one should ask the reason why, I'll, tell 'em nature makes the strongest tie.

In another,

Call up my guards, call 'em up every one, If you don't call all, you may as well call none.

Dr. SMITH. Of this gentleman a circumstance is related which does the highest honour to the feel|ings and friendship of WILKS the actor. SMITH was designed for the church; but finding it impossi|ble to become an orator from an impediment in his speech, he was determined to turn his thoughts to some other profession; and, upon considering the matter every way, he at last thought physic the best choice he could possibly make. To furnish himself with the means of prosecuting his studies, he wrote a play, called The Captive Princess. It was refused by the actors; but WILKS, entering into the spirit

of SMITH's intention, and greatly approving the good sense of his plan, offered him a benefit for it, which he rendered so profitable, that it enabled his friend to enter himself at LEYDEN, where he applied to the study of physic so diligently that doctor BOERHAAVE recommended him to the Czarina, who made him one of the physicians of the Russian court.* 1.7

TOLSON, who was a clergyman, and by his ir|regularities begat a suspicion that he had murdered a child, the consequence of an illicit amour with a young lady of distinction, and who afterwards be|came chaplain to the earl of SUSSEX, and was pro|tected by lady LONGUEVILLE, produced The Earl of Warrick, T. KILLIGREW, of the old stock of his name, who was gentleman of the bed chamber to GEORGE the second when he was prince of

WALES, wrote a trifle called Chit Chat. CROXALL, of whom there is nothing remarkable but his being a staunch whig, wrote a dramatic performance, which is however nothing more than a version of SOLO|MON's Song, called The Fair Circassian.

CHETWOOD, who was many years prompter of Drury Lane, and to whose anecdotes relative to theatres and actors all those who have written on the subject of the Stage have been materially in|debted, wrote The Stock Jobbers, intended as well as another farce of this author, to expose the South Sea mania. The Lover's Opera, a piece which had but little success, and The Generous Free Mason, a trifle only intended for Bartholomew Fair. LEIGH, an inferior actor, wrote Kensington Gardens, and Hob's Wedding, to shew one would think that he was an indifferent writer as he was an actor; the latter was a continuation of DOGGET's Country Wake.

ODELL, who had been patronized by lord WAR|TON, and who lost first an estate in the court in|terest, but afterwards obtained a pension, erected a theatre in Goodman's Field's, as we have already seen, and afterwards ceded his interest to GIFFARD. He is thought however to have made the theatre afterwards assist his fortune: for, soon after the busi|ness

of The Golden Rump, and the accomplishment of the Licencing Act, he was made Deputy Master of the Revels under the duke of GRAFTON, which place he held to his death. He produced for the stage, Chimera, a temporary thing on the South Sea bubble, The Patron, performed with very little suc|cess, The Smugglers, a farce better received, and The Prodigal, a comedy which is little more than an alteration of SHADWELL's Woman Captain

MITCHEL, called sir ROBERT WALPOLE's poet, and who was famous, like SAVAGE, for companion|able qualities and dissipation, wrote only a piece, of some merit, called The Highland Fair, for The Fatal Extravagance, which is attributed to him, was written by AARON HILL to do him a pecuniary kindness. CONCANEN, who was attorney general of JAMAICA, and wrote some poems, produced a thing in imitation of Tunbridge Wells and Epsom Wells. It was called Wexford Wells. Two BLLLAMY's husband and son to a lady who kept a boarding school at Chelsea, wrote between them eight pieces merely for the scholars. They are principally translations from GUARINI and others. STURMY, who is but little known, wrote Love and Duly, The Compro|mise, and Sesostris. These pieces are said to be ill written but they afforded some hints to other

writers. Sefostris in particular is supposed to have furnished VOLTAIRE with materials for his Merope, which is possible; though, as GILBERT in 1643, CHAPELLE in 1683, and LE GRANGE in 1691, had treated this subject; it is more likely not only that VOLTAIRE borrowed from his own countrymen, but that STURMY resorted to the same source.

DUNCOMBE translated RACINE's Athaliah, and wrote Junius Brutus. He is only known by being re|lated by marriage to HUGHES. STERLING was one of the associates of MITCHELL; but he reformed, and took orders. He wrote the Rival Generals, and the Parricide, neither of which are particularly no|ticed by any writer. PITCAIRNE, intended for the church, and afterwards eminent as a physician, wrote a comedy called The Assembly, as we are told; but, as the invidious and unhandsome abuse, of which this piece is full, does not by any means character|ize the mind or talents of this great man, the au|thenticity of his being the author of it is very questionable.

FENTON who experienced various fortune, who translated several books of HOMER's Odyssey pub|lished by POPE, and was requited by a small gra|tuity and a stolen epitaph, wrote a tragedy upon the

well known subject of Mariamne. It came out in 1723, and was the means of raising the reputation of the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. SOUTHERN is said to have assisted FENTON. CIBBER had no opinion of the play which fact, has been told to his prejudice. The town and CIBBER certainly did not think alike for FENTON got a thousand pounds for his trouble.

The celebrated ALLAN RAMSAY, besides The Gentle Shepherd, which has at various times been performed with much reputation, brought out a com|plimentary piece called The Nuptials. ROBE pro|duced The Fatal Legacy. WILLIAMS brought out a local performance called Richmond Wells. HOW|LING promised to produce four pieces of which we are furnished with the titles, but I fancy nobody ever saw the plays themselves. LOVET, one of MITCHELL's intimates, wrote The Bastard. THUR|MOND was the son of the actor of that name, and produced five pantomimic operas called Harlequin Shepherd, Apollo and Daphne, Harlequin Dr. Faustus, another Apollo and Daphne, and Harlequin's Triumph, none of these have any relation to THEOBALD's pantomimes. SANDFORD wrote The Female Fop.

COOKE at nineteen gave the world an edition of

Andrew Marvel, and afterwards other productions, through which he stands upon good ground as a scholar. This reputation he has however thrown down by his dramatic writings which are Albion, Battle of the Poets, The Triumph of Love and Honour, The Eunuch, from TERENCE of course, The Mournful Nuptials, Love the Cause and the Cure of Grief, and Amphytrion from PLAUTOS. H. JOHN|SON translated Romulus from De la MOTTE. JEF|FREYS wrote three pieces published together called Edwin, Merope, and The Triumph of Truth; the last is an oratorio.

Dr. SHERIDAN, the intimate and merry friend of Dr. SWIFT, of whom my lord CORKE says

"This ill starred, good natured, improvident man returned to Dublin, unhinged from all favour at court, and even banished from the castle. But still he remained a punster, a sidler, and a wit,"

wrote, or rather translated, Philoctetes. HURST wrote the Roman Maid. ODINGSELLS became a lunatic, wrote three plays, and hanged himself. The coroner's jury might have returned their verdict of lunacy upon the strength of examining the plays. CAMPBELL is said to have been the author of a play called The Rover Reclaimed. WEST, lord chancellor of IRELAND, produced Hecuba. He

complains it was not heard out. It was merely a translation from EURIPIDES.

LEWIS wrote a miserable play called Philip of Macedon. It was dedicated to POPE; and according to the dedicator,

"read and approved in all its parts by his discerning and consummate judgment."

As it is a vile performance let us hope that POPE read only the dedication. SMYTHE, who was really a man of merit, was unable however to infuse any of it into his only dramatic piece. It was called The Rival Modes. Great expectations were how|ever formed of it; and, while the town was on tip|toe for its appearances a play with much more merit, called The Dissembled Wanton, written by WEL|STEAD, was produced, which was undeservedly ne|glected. HARRISON, an obscure writer, produced a play called Belteshazzar.

FROWDE, who was one of ADDISON's satelites, wrote The Fall of Saguntum, and Philotas, both tra|gedies, which however had no success, though they were strongly supported both privately and publicly, ASHTON wrote an indifferent play called The Battle of Aughrim. WALKER, the original Macheath, wrote The Quaker's Opera, and The Fate of Villany. BARFORD produced an unsuccessful piece called

The Maiden Queen. Dr. MADDEN wrote The|mistocles; it had success. ADAMS translated seven plays from SOPHOCLES, and also wrote The Death of Socrates. RYAN, the actor, wrote The Cobler's Opera. LANGFORD, the auctioneer and successor to the celebrated Mr. COCK, though very expert at a hammer was very clumsy at a pen; for charmed by his own eloquence, and fancying it would suc|ceed if transmitted from the pulpit to the stage, he produced two pieces called The Judgment of Paris, and The Lover his own Rival, which were just put up and knocked down again.

GATAKER produced The Jealous Clown, WE|THERBY wrote Paul the Spanish Sharper. MILLER wrote The Humours of Oxford, The Mother in Law, The Man of Taste, Universal Passion, The Coffee House, Art and Nature, An Hospital for Fools, Ma|homet, The Picture, Joseph and his Brethren, and Sir Roger De Coverley; all which, except the first, are taken from other writers. MARTYN, nephew to professor MARTYN of Gresham College, wrote Timolean. EDWARD PHILLIPS, an author but little known, wrote The Chambermaid, a squeeze from CHARLES JOHNSON's Village Opera, stolen, as we have already seen, itself; The Mock Lawyer, which

had temporary success, Livery Rake and Country Lass, successful also in some small degree; Royal Chace, the music by GALLIARD; and Britons Strike Home, which failed. WANDESFORD, in the style of a gentleman for his amusemeat, for he amused nobody else, produced a play called Fatal Love.

HATCHET, who was an actor, wrote two in|different pieces called The Rival Father, and The 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Orphan. RALPH, from an obscure origin, rendered himself celebrated by his merit and perse|verance. His dramatic pieces are not the best of his writings. His History of England is much esteemed, and so are his political pamphlets, One of his productions dared to point at POPE and his friends, and he was most illiberally, and in a strain of malignant falsity, put into the Dunciad. His plays are The Fashionable Lady, one of the mass of operas that generated from the Beggar's Opera, The Fall of the Earl of Essex, altered from BANKS, The Astrolo|ger, altered from Albumazor. This play was performed but one night, and then to twenty one pounds, and revived afterwards with a prologue written by GAR|RICK, and yet the audience were dismissed. The Lawyer's Feast was a mere trifle. It however had some success. TRACY wrote Periander, of which we only know that it was privately praised and publicly con|demned.

The private applause can be accounted for. The author read his tragedy to his friends and on the same evening gave them an elegant supper, when it was universally agreed that, if the play was relished as well as the supper it would do.

DRAPER, wrote The Spendthrift. There is no trace of the author or his piece, except this positive as|sertion. Of GORDON, who wrote a piece called Lupone, the accounts are just as clear. The Duke of WARTON began a play on the subject of Mary Queen of Scots. HIPPESLEY, the father of Mrs. GREEN, and the tutor of SHUTER, wrote a piece called A Journey to Bristol. It was merely local, RANDALL wrote The Disappointment, which disap|pointed both the author and the public. BELLERS wrote a play called Injured Innocence. BODENS, a sprightly man of fashion, wrote a comedy called The Modish Couple, which had little success at first, and less when it was cut down to a farce and performed for Mrs. YATES's benefit in 1760.

KELLY was a member of the Middle Temple Society, and rendered himself conspicuous by the concern he had in a periodical work called The Universal Spectator. His dramatic pieces are The Married Philosopher, taken of course from DES|TOUCHES,

Timon in Love, from D'LISLE, a poor translation of a poor play, The Fall of Bob, a low farce, The Levee, refused a licence, and Pill and Drop, which was never offered to either licencer or manager. DRURY, an attorney, wrote a farcical ballad opera called The Devil of a Duke, The Mad Captain, The Fancied Queen, and The Rival Milliners, which last is a burlesque, a species of writing that cannot be attempted to effect but by men of merit, of which number DRURY unfortunately did not make one. LEDIARD wrote a masque called Bri|tannia. DARCEY produced two pieces in IRE|LAND, they were called Love and Ambition, and The Orphan of Venice.

HUGGINS wrote an oratorio on the subject of Judith. HUMPHRIES wrote an opera called Ulysses. ASTON, The Restoration of Charles the Second, which was interdicted. NESBIT brought out at EDIN|BURGH, Caledon's Tears, a piece taken from Chroni|cles and Records. POTTER produced an opera called Decoy, which however was not attractive. BOND wrote The Tuscan Treaty, as we are told by some, but others say it was written by another gen|man, and only revised and brought forward by BOND* 1.8

FREEMAN produced a piece called The Downfall of

Bribery. DOWNS, not the promptor, brought out a play at Smock Alley, called All Vows Kept. POP|PLE wrote The Lady's Revenge, and The Double Deceit. J. PHILIPS, an indifferent writer, pro|duced Love and Glory, and a very poor thing called The Rival Captains. FABIAN wrote Trick for Trick.

Mrs. CHARKE, whose memoirs in the annals of profligacy make almost as conspicuous a figure as those of THEOPHILUS CIBBER, her brother, who, a sort of English D'EON, amused herself in fencing, shooting, riding races, currying horses, digging in gardens, and playing upon the fiddle, who was at different times an actress, a grocer, an alehouse keeper, a valet de chambre, a sausage seller, and a puppet shew woman, one day in affluence, the next in indigence, now confined in a spunging house, pre|sently released by a subscription of prostitutes, in short one of those disgraces to the community that ought not to be admitted into society, wrote three strange pieces called The Carnaval, The Art of Management, and Tit for Tat. CONOLLY wrote The Connoiseur, intended as a satire, in the style of SHADWELL and FOOTE. PRITCHARD produced The Fall of Phaeton, one of the pantomimical trisles which swarmed about that time. BAILLIE wrote a piece called The Patriot.

HARMAN brought out The Female Rake, per|formed once. HEWITT produced a comedy called A Tutor for the Beaux, the bad success of which piece did not teach the author prudence, for he brought forward a tragedy which had still less merit. LYNCH, wrote The Independent Patriot, and CHETWOOD says, The Man of Honour. Doubt however implies poverty of merit celebrity being the best test of success. To HARPER is given a piece called The Mock Philosopher, and to AYRE, Aminta from TASSO, and Merope from another Italian author. BROOKES, a clergyman, produced a Chinese piece called Tchao Chi Cou Ell. DAVEY brought out in IRELAND, The Treacherous Husband, BAKER wrote The Madhouse.

NEWTON wrote a trifle called Alexis's Paradise. BENNET produced another trifle called The Beau's Adventure. Mrs. COOPER, another dramatic trifler, wrote the Rival Widows, taken probably from St. FOIX, which had success through the curious expe|dient of the lady's performing the principal cha|racter on the nights of her benefit. The town al|lowed her in return to get the usual emoluments, but after the curtain dropt on the ninth night, it never rose again to this play. She wrote also The Nobleman; this piece did not succed. WARD, an ac|tor,

published three pieces called The Happy Lovers, The Petticoat Plotter, and The Widow's Wish.

DALTON altered MILTON's Comus for the stage, and it must be confessed very judicously, the songs, however, are many of them falsely attributed to him, for they were written by LANDSDOWNE, and other cotemporary poets* 1.9. DOWER produced The Sa|lopian Squire, in which he abuses the managers in a most outrageous manner for not receiving it, charg|ing them with want of taste and judgment. If he could have looked at the play with impartial eyes, he would have found a better reason for their con|duct. ROBINSON wrote a poor farce called The Intriguing Milliners. Mrs. BOYD, a voluminous reader, who therefore fancied she could write, pro|duced

two faragoes called Don Sancho, and Min|erva's Triumph. BROWN with whom, to the rea|der's great satisfaction, I shall close my present ac|count of authors, brought out a tragedy called The Fatal Retirement, which was deservedly damned* 1.10.

Over and above this list of plays for which we have been able to find authors I count a hundred and eighty-five, many of them attributed to individuals, but none of them authentically traced to authors at all; and, now having got rid of materials which it was incumbent on me to produce, but which can have no great claim upon the reader's praise, except that due to accuracy and method, I shall proceed to par|ticulars which will be more interesting, and of course more entertaining both to myself and to those I study to please.

CHAP. IV. GARRICK.

IT is neither within my promise nor my inclination to put myself forward as the biographer of GAR|RICK. For my own part I think it very immaterial to the fame of a public character to manifest much anxiety as to where he was born, at what school he was brought up, and many other particulars which I am not to learn are held sacredly and indispensibly necessary in biography; a research generally however terminating in uncertainty, and disappointment, and which therefore unfortunately leaves this species of writing incomplete by the want of one of its at|tributed unities. As I have had opportunity to urge this before, and, as all those who esteem merit and genius for their intrinsic value will be naturally more solicitous to set up their locality than that of the person who possesses them, I shall endeavour to gratify these by a description of the mental acqui|sitions of GARRICK, which I had particular op|portunity

of watching for seven years through all their shades and gradations.

The words that CIBBER applied to BETTER|TON, that he was an actor as SHAKESPERR was a poet, may unequivocally be applied to GARRICK, but one strong circumstanee, which I believe has never been noticed, and which when noticed will be, sparingly at first perhaps, but afterwards gene|rally and literally admitted, shews that GARRICK must have been nearer in his genius to the com|parative merit of SHAKESPEAR than BETTERTON. This circumstance, which I assert without hesitation, is that GARRICK, at any time, on or off the stage, alone or in company, about whatever occupation, study or pursuit, or in short employed in any man|ner he might, was an actor, a complete actor, and nothing but an actor, exactly as POPE during the whole course of his life was a poet and nothing but a poet.

The acting of GARRICK on the stage was to ac|quire fame and fortune, than which nothing was ever more fairly earned and merited; and off the stage, to make that fame and fortune a source of reputa|tion, consequence, and importance, and in this last species of acting he certainly manifested more po|tent

merit, more commanding talents, than in the first, incompatible as his public acting was. No man exacted homage from all ranks with more suc|cess than GARRICK. He was a man, as the Irish say, that you never caught without himself.

'Tis true that to attain this sort of rank with the world the marvellous side must be perpetually turned outward, and the hidden springs and wires must be managed with great dexterity and exactness to keep up the deception. Any invention, how|ever ingenious in its construction, and wonderful in its operation, would cease to excite admiration if the spectator was to discover that it worked upon common mechanical principles, and therefore GAR|RICK, who GOLDSMITH seems to have known au fond.

" Who threw off his friends, as a huntsman his pack, " For he knew well enough he could whistle them back,"

knew also that off the stage, as well as on, it was his business to subdue his own passions that he might the better subdue the passions of his spectators.

I never saw GARRICK either laugh or cry; that is to say, shed tears, or manifest mirth, or even plea|sure, spontaniously, involuntarily, and from the soul.

I have seen him taking the hint from SHAKESPEAR, who has certainly well described real acting by the passage,

"in a fiction, in a dream of passion, force his soul so to its conceit that from her working all his visage warmed."" Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, " A broken voice, and his whole function suiting " With forms to his conceit, and, all for nothing " For Hecuba—"

All this and the opposite extreme were always at his command* 1.11. His laugh was well put on, but it was not a natural laugh of his own. He seemed afraid that if he did not conquer a propensity to risi|bility in himself, the better to provoke it in his audience, he should like TOM THIMBLE, in the Rehearsal, be so tickled by the humour of his au|thor,

as not to be able to play his part. In short, no man will deny but that the very essence of excellent acting centered in GARRICK, and yet every mem|ber of the theatre will vouch for me, that the greatest and most astonishing effects produced by his acting arose from an artful suspension of his real feelings, lest they should provoke him into a sensibility which it was his business to transfer to his auditors.

In acting, the human passions would run riot were they not kept in absolute command. Feeling and sensibility are the riches of an actor, and would too soon be squandered if they were not managed with economy. There are very few situations in tragedy, and the great art is how to vary them. A passion, like a colour, must have a variety of sha|dows; nor will every shadow do for the same light; and I will even venture to say, that a good actor or actress should vary the mode of acting, according to the different dispositions of the audiences before whom they appear.

I sincerely mention this as my real sentiments on good acting. Every thing on the stage must be a little elevated. The scenes, if they were highly finished, would lose all their effect. The same mode must be observed in dress, and it holds good

throughout every thing else. A hero must not speak in common prose—it must be measured for him into what we call blank verse. This gives a dignity, an emphasis to the feeling that is to be expressed, and unless the actor who represents the character can so far possess himself with an idea that he is the very hero for the time being, he will never attain perfection as his substitute.

These requisites, which GARRICK taught himself on the stage, he could with the same facility transfer to his private conduct; and, whether he conde|scended at his own levee to smile at a borrowing actor who was praising his poety, cut jokes with BECKET the bookseller, explain an unintelligible passage to PHIL BUTLER the carpenter, blame HOPKINS the prompter for having the gout because he was at the expence of chair hire, rebuke MES|SINK the pantomime trick maker for attempting to be witty like him, chuckle at newspaper criticisms that he intended to buy off, or burn cards and letters from dukes, lords, judges, and bishops, to strike his dependants with awe and admiration—

Whether at court he honoured men of title with the hopes of bolstering up the reputation of some dramatic brat produced with the assistance of the

chaplain, whether ladies were promised that their friends should be disappointed of boxes that had never been let, or that the new fashion they last pro|duced should be noticed in the next epilogue, or that an epitaph on a favourite parrot should grace the toilette table, or whether he appeared distressed that he could not be let down by an ambassador, because he had given a prior promise to a countess dowager—

Whether at the rehearsal of a piece, his own, he demanded an acknowledgment that every passage was the achme of perfection, or at the rehearsal of a piece, not his own, he himself allowed praise in pro|portion as he was permitted to make alterations; or, to be brief, in whatever manner by managing not the minds, for many of them were too ponderous for him to wield, but the tempers of men, both of the first wordly and professional distinction—he so played his part as to be courted, carressed, admired, and looked up to by rank and talents, with very slight pretensions to the character of eminent abilities him|self otherwise than as an actor.

GARRICK prosessedly studied the character of CIBBER, than whom however he possessed more consummate abilities except as a writer, but he

blended with this character the essence of every other that had been celebrated for acquiring fame by wordly conduct, and possessed so much super|raded good sense, that he seldom ran into any of their inferior follies, and never into those of any magnitude. He had what he called common sense, to which he gave an unbounded definition, and practically shewed that its meaning was to take every advantage within the pale of fair dealing, upon the mart, like a chapman; upon this principle he con|ducted all his wordly concerns, liberal in offers, and close at a bargain.

By this mode of conduct, though his wishes were characterized by boundless ambition, he never let them impose upon his reason, and thus, by never out soaring his strength, he was at no time in dan|ger of falling. GARRICK might, have been laureat, he might have had a seat in parliament, he might have been knighted, but he knew he could write a a prologue better than a birth day ode, that his oratory would have been a poor business if it had been called upon extemporaneously in his own lan|guage, and without dress and action, and he could anticipate the ridicule of seeing against the wall the

part of Abel Drugger to be performed by Sir DAVID GARRICK.

All these meritorious acts of becoming forbear|ance spoke in him the highest degree of good sense, and became the foundation of that general action by which he commanded the attention, the regard, the solicitude, and better than these, the contributions of mankind. It was this put into practise, through the medium of common sense, as we have seen it de|fined, that made him the idol of the great in fortune, and the great in talents; to none of whom he was at any time offensive, though he always arrogated equa|lity. In short, he was a duke, a lawgiver, a philoso|pher, a logician, an architect, a painter, nay a scho|lar, and a critic, and even in the opinions of those most eminent for these distinctions, when in fact those sentiments which he had deliberately collected, and which he sported through the advantage of a lucky moment, were the studied ideas of others, acted by him.

One of GARRICK's great strokes of Mundane acting was the fame he was so solicitous to com|mand abroad, in which he so succeeded that the French accounts of him in particular, which it is a

pity his biographers had no opportunity of consult|ing, exalt his merit, excellent as it was, infinitely beyond any thing that we have of him* 1.12. It was,

however, occasioned sometimes by rather bold and prodigious flights. A friend might have shuddered for him to have been present when VOLTAIRE re|ceived his Ode on SHAKESPEAR, especially as it happened at the time when that dictator was fretting away his life in his retirement at GENEVA, and ful|minating his critical anathemas against dunces; but whether he was softened by the present that accom|panied it, or however he might be wrought upon by that magical persuasion which GARRICK sometimes accorded but never gave, it is certain, for I saw it, that the circumstance produced an acknowledgment full of insincere praise of which GARRICK believed perhaps but very little, but, what was better for him, the world believed the whole.

In the performance of all these various parts, one consideration obtruded itself on GARRICK's mind and operated as a material deduction from the ap|plause so lavishly bestowed on so much professional excellence. This was no less than a continual sore|ness occasioned by certain flies that perpetually buzzed about him and never ceased to teaze and torment him till they were suffered to suck their fill and drop off. If he had set out with a firm and re|solute determination, the fatal examples of DRY|DEN and POPE before him, to have armed himself with indifference, they would have hummed their day and been forgotten; but he wanted strength of mind to take this course. He should have considered that he had not the abilities to resort to Mac Fleck|noes and Dunciads, or even had he been capable of wielding such formidable weapons, they had been already rendered useless by the immaterial beings they had to cope with. Clubs cannot wound atoms.

GARRICK, a better actor in every other respect, though constantly his emulator, unfortunately dis|dained to copy CIBBER in this; half of whose re|putation at least was owing to a steady resolution of disregarding anonymous cavillers, or else coaxing them into some scrape that he might take a most tri|umphant

advantage of them. CIBBER turned the satire in the Dunciad most pointedly against POPE, whereas GARRICK would have sunk under it; but CIBBER was a writer of a different description, far however from being perfect, and this he so truly knew and so honestly acknowledged, that cavil was by him politically deprecated, and the shafts of ill nature disarmed by anticipation.

Had GARRICK given an idea that he went for nothing but a prologue writer, and that his other productions were merely in aid of that experience and dramatic knowledge which as a manager he must necessarily possess, the fostering care of the public would have carressed and nurtured these offsprings of diffidenee, and, having adopted them, have be|come so blind to their foibles that he would have re|ceived credit for much more than his fair reputation; whereas, fondly fancying that the world implicitly believed him an author of first rate merit, that they would find better poetry in his prologues than in those of DRYDEN, truer character and nature in his plays than in any of his predecessors, and more lyric beauty in his Ode than in Alexander's Feast, the world have not come up to his actual desert, but have sunk him in every other respect, and quietly have set him down as a mere prologue writer; which

as the subjects of his prologues and epilogues were merely temporary and a lash at some prevailing folly, is every thing but denying him any merit as a writer at all.

Unfortunately this was GARRICK's foible. His writings were his tendon Achilles, which the meerest witling was at any time Paris enough to find out; and, lest he feared it would remain undiscovered, un|less he himself perpetually exposed it, he unneces|sarily and upon every trivial occasion bared it to view; till, by shewing how he might be wounded, the worst bungler at critical archery in all Grub|street, was sure to hit him.

When he was afraid the wits should be satirical on his marriage, he anticipated their satire by calling himself

" A very Sir JOHN BRUTE all day, " And FRIBBLE all the night."

When he trembled at what he feared might be the judgment of the critics on his performance of Mac|beth, he foolishly wrote a pamphlet

"on the mimi|cal behaviour of a certain fashionable faulty actor."

When he dreaded the censure and ridicule that he imagined he should be greeted with on his return from a tour to ITALY, he produced the Sick Monkey

as a ridicule on what was supposed to have been his conduct abroad. These are some of the instances in which his favourite common sense deserted him.

He imagined that these things would be consi|dered as illiberal, and therefore treated them with contempt. There were three risks in this; first, filth generally sticks, and in this world many want ability, and more inclination to rub it off; secondly, in this pretended satire it was possible that faults might have been exposed through consciousness which an indifferent person would never have sus|pected; and lastly, a discovery might have been at|tended with indelible, because meritorious, ridicule. His conduct was evidently an imitation of POPE in relation to his pastorals, but POPE had more ability, and his reputation was less involved.

Upon an examination of his conduct as it was concerned in those transactions that led him to the management of the theatre, which most worthily im|proved it into an extraordinary degree of credit and reputation, his character and genius will more gradually develope than in a studied detail, I shall therefore ceace to speak of him particularly till I have traced the steps by which he ascended to the highest pitch of fame and fortune.

CHAP. V. STATE OF THE STAGE FROM 1741 TO 1763.

AS GARRICK, in imitation of CIBBER, not only looked up from his infancy to the chair of ROSCIUS, which CHURCHILL accorded him after he had pos|sessed it by universal suffrage, but also to the chair of management, it will be necessary to shew what a theatrical MACHIAVAL he was in attaining the first reputation in both capacities, neither situations hav|ing been filled at any time with such ability or such credit.

To drop at present the merit of GARRICK as an actor, to whom in that capacity I shall hereafter pay my tribute of warm and willing admiration, let us see with what cautious and wary judgment he con|ducted himself to become a master of his profession; and while the account is read by all young actors who emulate his merit, let them at the same time emulate his industry, his various trials of his thea|trical

powers, his gradual ascent to superiority, or let them for ever despair of attaining his excellence, or indeed any excellence as actors.

GARRICK knew that the profession he was pecu|liarly gifted to fill required more variety of requisites than any other, that there is scarcely any accom|plishment the human mind or form is capable of re|ceiving but must be studied and learnt by the actor; that conception and memory which are too often considered as perfection in the science of acting are only parts of a complicate whole, and that without the possession of every one of these various qualities, which acquire versatility, and teach the passions a ca|pable scope of representing human nature in all its moods and humours, an actor can no more be per|fect than a watch without its wheels.

GARRICK knowing this, both by the examples of those actors in the school of BETTERTON, and by his own consummate keenness and foresight, de|termined to be sure of his mark, and that the arrow should go beyond the barb; instead, therefore, of risking a raw and unexperienced genius and ven|turing crudity and awkwardness, he put himself to school, and not only learnt practically every thing that experience could give as to the exercise of his

versatile powers in tragedy and comedy, but head|ded dancing, fencing, and pantomime, and even stu|died the character of Harlequin.

Thus his first appearance was facination, for it blended all the attraction of novelty with veteran experience. It was useless, for QUIN to say that

"it was a fashion and would soon be over. It was a new religion; that WHITFIELD was followed for a time, but the people came back again to church."

"It was not heresy but reformation,"

as GARRICK himself wittily enough said in reply, and it proved so, for the world with one consent stampt it as theatrical orthodoxy.

GARRICK's great success, which thinned the other theatres and brought all the world to Good|man's Fields, began very early to prove a source of fortune in proportion to the savour he received, which was prodigious. GIFFARD gave him half the profits, and he soon of course amassed a very large sum, for he performed every night for a con|siderable time. This would have been a serious blow at the fame and fortune of the theatres had not an application been intended, though I believe never made, to government, which was backed by the au|thority of Sir JOHN BARNARD, who in the name of

the city was prepared to revive those objections which we have already seen preferred by the ma|gistrates, lest the theatre should be an injury to the members of the commercial part of the town by be|ing immediately seated among them.

GARRICK seeing plainly how this would operate proposed to accommodate matters with FLEETWOOD, provided GIFFARD were made a party to the treaty. This was soon adjusted, and he received five hun|dred a year for his acting, and GIFFARD appears to have been satisfied with the emolument allotted him in return for giving up a concern which he held by no legal authority.

GARRICK being now come to Drury Lane, and having in the following summer experienced im|provement, reputation, and profit by an excursion to DUBLIN, where he was so attended that the vast crouding produced a contagious disorder which was called GARRICK's fever, began to look forward to|wards the management; and, while FLEETWOOD was swindling the tradesmen and performers, and bribing attornies and bailiffs to keep executions out of the house which it was their duty to levy, he for|tified himself for the occasion both as to property and friends. He saw, however, that the moment

was not arrived for him to step forward, for that the theatre was going so fast to ruin that it would be ex|tremely difficult to have any concern in it without involving his private fortune with the general in|terest of the concern.

He was taught by this an extraordinary con|temptation. He could not be insensible that, pro|perly applied, the large sums his performance brought to the theatre might have liquidated, or at least lessened the demands on the property so as to make it in time a clear possession to the proprietor; but the reverse was the fact. The treasury was the sieves of the Danaides always full and always empty, and FLEETWOOD plainly saw that, by a proper gloss and a little adroitness in legerdemain, hidden by well applied juggling and small talk, the richer he got the more he should persuade the poor devils who were mortified at his pride, his insolence, and his want of feeling, but at the same time delighted by his good humour, his wit, and his plausibility, to believe him in necessity.

What a school was this for parsimony to a parsi+monious man like GARRICK. I never heard that there was any complaint as to his money, indeed it has been thought that GARRICK, MACKLIN, and

another or two, were in a compact with FLEET|WOOD that so he might laugh at the rest of the com|pany, covered by their united strength. I scarcely know, however, how to give credit to this, because MACKLIN declared in my hearing, and in the pre|sence of several gentlemen now living, that it was the business of the performers to invent all manner of tricks to procure that money which, though their own, they could not obtain by persuasion, importu|nity, or menace, and that he himself, who was im|powered as acting manager to undertake for the pay|ment of certain articles, and was therefore in some sort amenable, was once under the necessity of putting into practise a stratagem in which he pretended to have broke out of Newgate, where he said he had been put by a creditor, and thereby obtained the sum he wanted, which he appropriated to his own use, it being part of his just demand, and afterwards left the creditor to sue FLEETWOOD.

Certainly somehow or other GARRICK sound his account in staying at Drury Lane, for Covent Gar|den was at any time open to him; but he accepted no engagement any where till 1745, at which time, though the published accounts are against me, I think it very probable that FLEETWOOD went to FRANCE, and not in 1747, as it is generally believed, for at

that time the patent was sold by FLEETWOOD to GREEN and AMBER, bankers in the city, who spe|culated upon it clogged with a hopeful condition no less than that LACEY, who we shall presently see as the partner of GARRICK, was to manage the concern.

LACEY had been a sort of assistant to RICH, after leaving an unprofitable trade at NORWICH, and becoming a very indifferent actor. The conditions of this purchase were that GREEN and AMBER should pay three thousand two hundred pounds for the patent, and an annuity to FLEETWOOD, till it should be expired, of six hundred pounds, and at the same time a mortgage of seven thousand pounds on the property was suffered to remain, and LACEY for his management was to have a third of the pro|fits. GREEN and AMBER in a very short time be|came bankrupts, and the patent was put up to pub|lic sale. Whether, therefore, GARRICK foresaw every one of these consequences and did not chuse to interfere till a clear and an easy purchase should present itself, or perhaps till his interest was strength|ened by an accumulation of connections, it is equally certain that from the moment of his first appearance he had an eye to the management, and that he de|termined to forbear from engaging in it till it should

be in his power to do so without being entangled or embarrassed.

This is pretty well proved by his conduct previous to his taking the management, which was of a piece with that prior to his commencing actor; for, as he had gone in 1740 to IPSWICH to try the effect of his personal appearance on the stage, so, in 1745, he went again to IRELAND, in order to feel out what his deportment ought to be as director behind the scenes, and even here he proved himself an ex|cellent discriminator, for he allied himself to Mr. SHERIDAN, a man from whose knowledge, judg|ment, liberality, and rectitude he would not fail to receive every instruction necessary for his purpose.

After attaining this experience GARRICK en|gaged himself at Covent Garden during the season of 1746, and then in conjunction with LACEY pur|chased the patent, and paid off the mortgage, the whole sum amounting to twelve thousand pounds. They also continued FLEETWOOD's annuity, which certainly was not all he got by the bargain; for be|sides the three thousand pounds he received for the patent, very little of which one would suppose he gave to his creditors, he most probably had been for a considerable time saving out of the fire. I

can myself vouch that his son, I do not mean the son that went to India, but him to whom he left his for|tune, lived about four and thirty years ago in a very handsome style, went to court, and joined in ex|pensive pleasures with people of distinction.

It is true this fortune was dissipated in a few years, but it must certainly have been something very considerable, and as this was at the distance of sixteen or seventeen years after the expiration of the patent, when the annuity to FLEETWOOD ceased, he must have saved money, and that not a trifle, exclusively, that is to say, out of the earnings of those performers he cajoled, imposed upon, disap|pointed, delighted, and robbed.

The next wonder is how LACEY could get the mo|ney to purchase his share of the patent, for we know he was not assisted by GARRICK, because his full and entire half remained with him till that unfortu|nate propensity to dig for coals in OXFORDSHIRE induced him to get also a propensity of mortgaging his share piecemeal to his partner. It has been said that he bought a very beautiful horse to captivate the Duke of GRAFTON; who, offering any price for it, was told that the highest price that could be

fixed for it would be his Grace's acceptance, which handsome offer being graciously acceded to, he, through the interest of this nobleman, obtained a renewal of the patent, and that, therefore, he was assisted by GARRICK; but this is very improbable, for it is not difficult to see that GARRICK could scarcely at that time have hinted a request to persons of condition and in power which would not have been readily granted, especially any thing so evidently beneficial to the public and the credit of the theatre, after the distress and discredit it had so long ex|perienced.

The real fact must remain a mystery* 1.13. In the mean time it is my business to relate that, with a renewal of the patent these joint proprietors upon equal shares opened the theatre in 1747, with JOHNSON's cele|brated Prologue. The best actors and actresses of

course rallied round GARRICK, and he was soon re|inforced by BARRY, Mrs. PRITCHARD, and Mrs. CIBBER.

As to Covent Garden theatre it continued till 1760, to be uninteruptedly managed by RICH; who, it must be confessed, upon his father's plan, though he was not the same nesarious character, con|tinued to keep himself up as a formidable rival to the managers of Drury Lane. His own performance of Harlequin, and the advantage he took of English inclination for foreign gewgaws now and then ope|rated in his favour with decided superiority. In the time of FLEETWOOD, his pantomimes were a great injury to his opponents; and, though I do not find he was ever splendidly off, indeed he is described to have been at one time so necessitated as to have taken a house situated in three different counties to avoid the importunity of the Sheriffs' officers, yet he took care to satisfy, to the letter, his performers, and all those with whom he made engagements.

This gave him a certain respectability without which no concern can maintain solid reputation; but his situation was nevertheless fluctuating, for, though at times the run of a successful pantomime filled his treasury, yet his ignorance of the common

business of the theatre, and want of discernment as to the merit of performers, gave the other house a pre-eminence which, with all the assistance of QUIN and others, bespoke the favour of the critical and the judicious, especially after it began to feel the in|fluence of GARRICK's management.

Thus the success of RICH was by fits and starts. At Christmas, perhaps, his house overflowed, and caricature prints were circulated with Harlequin weighing down the the theatrical scales, and GAR|RICK, BARRY, and all the force of Drury Lane kicking the beam; the infatuation over, his benches were empty and continued so till the French painter invented new scenery, and he perfected himself in new attitudes, and invented new pantomime tricks.

RICH, by this means, was of great utility through|out, his whole management to the general theatrical interest. He was what a formidable minority are to an able ministry; and, though his measures were not so efficacious; yet it kept the exertions of his oppo|nents braced to their full strength and vigour, and this, by the operation now and then of a lucky hit, wrought wonderfully in his favour, both as to ad|vantage and popularity. We have seen one instance of this in the Beggar's Opera. His own perfor|mance

also, which was incomparable in its way, was greatly followed, and when GARRICK ran Romeo and Juliet, in which he and Mrs. CIBBER performed the lovers, RICH instantly opposed to them BARRY and Miss NOSSITER.

By these and other spirited instances of oppo|sition he kept up a constant and formidable bustle which it required very frequently the whole united force of his rivals to oppose. In Spectacle he was confessedly superior to them; and as GARRICK knew and felt this, he ought to have entered into no competition with him, but have rested his sole ex|pectation on the more respectable ground of giving every advantage to tragedy and comedy, and this he would very probably have done had it not been that sufficient novelty was not to be procured, fewer authors of eminence by a considerable difference, as we shall presently see, having appeared during the first sixteen years of his management than during any equal period since SHAKESPEARE.

To this it may, perhaps, be owing that GARRICK was obliged to permit Spectacle occasionally in his own defence. It however at length sapped the foundation of his popularity; for, when RICH brought out The Coronation, which so completely

and deservedly triumphed over the stupid, nig|gardly, parsimonious apology for it, that had been for a few nights foisted on the public at Drury Lane, Covent Garden began to feel a powerful superiority.

This superiority gathered such strength that it began to master the whole exertions of GARRICK, gigantic as they were. These advantages a number of circumstances combined to strengthen. BEARD, perhaps upon the whole the best English singer that ever was heard, whose excellence I shall not inter|rupt the thread of my present narrative to describe, had married the daughter of RICH, and stept pretty forward in the musical management. This circum|stance induced GARRICK to play off the old trick of Romeo and Juliet, by opposing LOWE and Mrs. VINCENT, as Macheath and Polly in the Beggar's Opera, to BEARD and Miss BRENT, which, by way of parenthesis, provoked RICH to start WILKINSON in the Minor against FOOTE. The contest, however operated greatly against Drury Lane. BEARD at the head of his phalanx was irresistible, and cer|tainly at no period has the real excellence and true character of English music been so well understood or so highly relished.

Though it would be irregular to go at length

into this subject now, yet I shall indulge myself with saying a few proud words merely to shew that, in arts as well as in arms, we want only union to con|quer the world. The public decision was at that time honest, fair, candid and impartial. The Italian opera was in a state of merited celebrity which it had never known before, nor can ever know again; yet was the true and genuine beauties of English music felt and acknowledged, and the same taste and judgment that admired the delicacy, the sweetness, and the grandeur of JOMELLI, GALLUPPI, and PERGOLESE, delighted in the nature, the truth, and the beauty of PURCELL, ARNE, and BOYCE.

RICH, at the instance of BEARD, brought for|ward every thing which had musical merit with every possible advantage. The Beggar's Opera, and The Jovial Crew, were relieved by The Chaplet, and The Shepherd's Lottery; and, to give contrast consequence, and diversity to those familiar ma|terials, Comus, that wonderful union of exquisite sound, with incomparable sense, which in these days of elephants, dragons, and flying cats, after being tortured, crippled, and mutilated, is compelled to halt on and sing the dirge to its once perfect exist|ence, was brought forward with all its appropriate advantages, playful, winning, and dissusing round

that enchantment by which the theatre was intended to delight and improve its auditors.

RICH died during the run of The Coronation, having accomplished the sum of his glory, and left the theatre in equal shares between his widow and Mrs. BEARD, Mrs. BENCROFT, and Mrs. MORRIS, his three daughters. BEARD was very sensibly ap|pointed manager; who, dreading, perhaps the su|perior power and ability of GARRICK, whom he both loved and feared, determined to raise as for|midable an opposition as possible upon the only ground on which he was able to make any thing like an effectual stand.

Italian singing was at that time rationally and judiciously tasted. He therefore thought that if opera could be attempted upon a grand scale to a grand effect it might give our theatres a consequence as to music, which it had never known before. He knew there was an Englishman in whom were united the great requisites of all the Italian school; whose genius, mind, understanding, and knowledge were superlative. He knew the composition of this man could be greatly supported with but very little aux|iliary assistance, and the world were thus obliged by, perhaps, the greatest musical production in its

way in this or any other country, the Artaxerxes of ARNE.

Other musical pieces followed, as we shall pre|sently see in their place, till the property of Covent Garden became so valuable that it was at length eagerly purchased in 1767 for sixty thousand pounds. Thus we find that the unremitting success of this theatre was the sole cause of GARRICK's retirement to Italy. He had no novelty to produce that could stem this torrent. Host as he was, he was al|most alone. There were scarcely any authors to support him; and, as to actors, KING had certainly attained that height of reputation which he has ever since invariably maintained and kept; but HOL|LAND, and O'BRIEN, were only opening into fame. QUIN had long retired, and IRELAND had deprived the stage of BARRY, and WOODWARD. He had certainly started POWEL, whose merit he is said to have dreaded, which I can scarcely credit, because he knew better than any body that, admirable as POWEL's genius was, with so poor an understanding, it must run riot.

Thus the literal fact is, that the public were no longer GARRICK-mad, which I say more to their

shame than to his. His name was no longer an at|traction. He performed to empty benches, notwith|standing the last season before he left ENGLAND he personated Scrub, the Ghost in Hamlet, and a great variety of other charcters in which he had never be|fore appeared, and this very naturally made him so sick that he retired to ITALY, that the public might feel his loss; which they did most completely by the management of his partner; who, finding Artaxerxes had grown into high celebrity instantly brought out a string of serious operas, without considering that to produce pieces of that description it is necessary to have writers, composers, and singers.

CHAP. VI. GARRICK AS AN AUTHOR TO 1763.

THOUGH the merit of GARRICK, considered as an author, is the deepest shade in his public character, yet it is one that very frequently relieves the picture to advantage; for, though, had he been nothing else his reputation would have been indeed but of a very inferior kind, the assistance this quality lent to the stage, and to stage effect, was of a first rate conse|quence, for it improved and elevated his own acting, seperated, simplified, and regulated the productions of greater talents, and gave altogether a tone to the theatre which rendered it within the comprehension and taste of the public, and highly promoted its in|terest as a school of nature.

As manager, a quality of this perfect kind was to him and indeed to the public of consummate ad|vantage, and his conduct here in opposition to CIB|BER shews that he not only possessed it in a much

more eminent degree, but knew better how to make use of it; for GARRICK would never have refused The Beggar's Opera, which CIBBER did; he knew too well his own interest. It is true we shall at times trace some traits of the man that now and then eclipsed the actor, such as his refusal of She Stoops to Conquer, because GOLDSMITH wrote Retaliation* 1.14, and other instances; but upon the whole his judg|ment was a very material cause of the success of dra|matic authors in the reign of GARRICK.

Justice obliges us from this conclusion to acknow|ledge that GARRICK's merit, as a dramatic writer,

consists more of what is concealed from the public than what has been published; for he had little ge|nius and great judgment, and, therefore, though his judgment became of the highest consequence in di|recting genius in the productions of others it only served to detect a paucity of genius in his own.

There is another and a material deduction from the merit of GARRICK, and yet it ought not to weigh against his reputation. I mean the reiterated ne|cessity of writing pieces for temporary purposes in quality of manager. We have seen the best talents upon these subjects wasted to little purpose, and therefore much merit is attributable to him, who never actually failed in any one of these instances; on the contrary, there, as every where else, whatever absence there might be of excellent poetry and fine conception in his pieces of this stamp, those de|ficencies were so made up by disposition and effect, that his judgment kept his reputation constantly afloat. Having premised so much, which certainly is but fair and candid, we shall let his dramatic pieces speak for themselves, at the same time that they bring out such collateral circumstances as may serve to illustrate the history of the stage.

It is plain that GARRICK had predetermined to

become an author as soon as possible, under an idea that if bad acting could be defended by an able pen good acting might be celebrated even by an indif|ferent one. To manifest, therefore, as soon as possi|ble that such was his resolution, he brought out the Lying Valet in 1741, the very season of his first appear|ance in Goodman's Fields, in which, of course, he performed the principal character. He has been ac|cused of borrowing this piece from the French, and indeed Sharp has a family resemblance of all the Scapins, and Crispins, and Frontins of that theatre; it is not, however, the likeness of any one character but of the Valet, not only of FRANCE but of EN|GLAND, and every where else. He lies out of fidelity to his master, he is in love with the chambermaid of his master's mistress, and he is, in short, what every other convenient servant ever was and ever will be. This is only the vehicle. The piece itself appears to me to be original, and is, as far as it goes, a com|plete dramatic performance. It is full of pleasantry, interest, and effect, the writing is elevated enough for the purpose, and it has sewer faults than many productions of much greater men. I say so much because I rather think that it is GARRICK's most complete dramatic production, and this shews that his mind was well made up to his profession at starting.

Whether GARRICK's time was so taken up in the study and performance of that prodigious num|ber of parts of all descriptions by which he ac|quired so deservedly the highest reputation, or whe|ther he found any difficulty in keeping FLEETWOOD to a performance of his engagements, he did not bring out his next piece, which was Miss in her Teens, till the latter part of the season in which he was engaged with RICH. This piece had so much success that on the fifteenth night, a fact that I had both from RICH and GARRICK, when the author received the play bills, he found his name advertised for a second benefit, without his previous know|ledge. RICH declared there was so much merit in the piece, and it had done the theatre so much ser|vice, that the compliment itself would not have been recompense enough without this manner of conveying it, and GARRICK said that he valued it only upon that account. At the same time it must be confessed that RICH has said he would not have done this had he expected to have lost GARRICK, and GARRICK, though he was struck with the gene|rosity of the action, never imitated it but once during his whole management. Miss in her Teens derived its best reputation from the performance of GARRICK and WOODWARD, in Fribble and

Flash. The piece itself is a strong caracature, and therefore very little in nature.

Lethe was the first piece written by GARRICK, which was produced after he became manager of Drury Lane. It had made its appearance at the same theatre in 1740, but it was then a mere sketch and soon withdrawn. GARRICK has added the character of Lord Chalkstone when he produced it in 1747, which he acted most admirably. I cannot refrain from noticing that all the world have been deceived in the idea that this piece is taken from the French, and was originally called Les Eaux D'Oblivion, and I was myself in the error. I have however searched every authority, and particularly a book where I have at one view every piece that ever came out at the French theatre from the Trouba|dours up to 1773, and there is no such piece to be found.

Romeo and Juliet, which play has been repeat|edly altered on account of the sudden change in Romeo's love from Rosaland to Juliet, and the ef|fect of the catastrophe which was conceived to be in|complete, the propriety of which objections I have considered before, had so much effect that it has ever since kept the stage. GARRICK has touched

SHAKESPEAR with much modesty and deference. It gave great assistance to his own incomparable act|ing. Every Man in his Humour is BEN JONSON's comedy altered with the same view to the original author's reputation. The Fairies from the Midsum|mer's Night's Dream, was attempted by GARRICK to less effect, though formed into an opera with the addition of songs by some celebrated writers. There was merit in it; but the different ingredients did not mix. It was performed by children. It was composed by SMITH, HANDEL's pupil; a good musician with but little genius. The Tempest. This piece was some of SHAKESPEAR's scenes made into an operas and also composed by SMITH. It had little effect; GARRICK should not have brought it out; it was sacrificing SHAKESPEAR to his own vanity. Florizel and Perdita was produced from a better motive. The two parts of the Winter's Tale can bear separa|tion on account of the great distance of time. GAR|RICK preserved SHAKESPEAR. This piece, with the addition of songs, was afterwards performed at Covent Garden, the music was beautifully composed by ARNE. Catherine and Petruchio is SHAKES|PEAR's Taming of the Shrew, cut into a farce, which every body has seen and every body admires. These are the occasions on which GARRICK evinced great dramatic judgment.

Lilliput was performed in 1757. This was the worst of GARRICK's pieces. It had very little suc|cess. It was performed by children. The Male Coquette, 1757. This piece was written at a very short warning for WOOWARD's benefit, and intended to ridicule a species of men, or rather non-entities, who, though incapable of love, and insensible of fe|male loveliness, talk like LOTHARIO of beauty that they never saw, and fancy raptures that they never felt. The character, however, was so disgusting that as it involved an unmanly and shocking idea with it, the public very properly revolted at it. Fribble was bad enough, but Dafodil was detestable.

GARRICK altered The Gamester from SHIRLEY in 1751. I have already explained the merit of of this alteration which is not so judicious as the al|terations of GARRICK in general. Isabella is al|tered from SOUTHERN by leaving out the comic part, much to the advantage of the play. The Guardian, a comedy of two acts, performed in 1759, and written for the purpose of bringing forward Miss PRITCHARD, daughter to the celebrated actress of that name, is taken from the Pupile of FAGAN. The success of Mademoiselle GAUSSIN in this piece, who was complimented with verses out of number, induced GARRICK, perhaps, to hope that his Pupile would arrive at the same celebrity. He was, how|ever,

ever, mistaken. He brought it out with the united strength of himself, YATES, and O'BRIEN, and it had, as it deserved, great success.

The Enchanter, a kind of opera. It was merely a passable piece. The music was by SMITH; and LEONI, then a boy, appeared in it to great advan|tage. Cymbeline, in which GARRICK performed Posthumous so admirably, is of course SHAKES|PEAR's play, whose fame is certainly rescued from HAWKINS, MARSH, BROOKS, and others, who had handled it too roughly. GARRICK, however, has sunk the conduct of the physician, which accounts for the harmless potion swallowed by Imogen, and therefore the piece is incomplete. The Farmer's Re|turn from London, was a temporary interlude written happily enough to ridicule the Cock Lane Ghost, which at that time engrossed the talk of the town. This is the last production of GARRICK before his tour to ITALY. I shall therefore examine other au|thors up to that time, a review of whose works will bring out many collateral particulars relative to GARRICK.

CHAP. VII. FOOTE, MACKLIN, AND MURPHY.

TO shew how much the stage was indebted to GARRICK as an actor, and how transcendantly ad|admirable his acting must have been, he maintained that great rank in reputation he so meritoriously filled during twenty-two years without the advantage of performing original characters, except a very few, and those were principally written by himself.

As a proof of this, I cannot find during that period as many celebrated writers as I have often enumerated, in the course of this work, within a given period of five or six years. Instead, there|fore, of inserting in the head of this chapter the names of several writers of dramatic fame, I am unable to discover more than FOOTE, MACKLIN, and MURPHY. What then could possibly have kept the reputation of the theatre and brought it step by step to that bright fame it acquired, but the vigilance added to the transcendant merit of GARRICK, who

ransacked the hidden treasures of SHAKESPEAR, and his cotemporaries, brought them to view and gave them a polish by his exquisite acting. MAS|SINGER, in some degree, eclipsed SHAKESPEAR, immediately before GARRICK.

FOOTE, an admirable but a most mischievous writer, who emulated ARISTOPHANES with less ge|nius and less feeling, who seemed fondly to fancy that to torture individuals was the only way to de|light their fellow creatures, measuring their pleasure by his malignity, who knew no quality of satire but personality, who would sacrifice his best friend for the gratification of tormenting him, and who, after all was perpetually the cats paw to his own vanity, created, among the fastidious, the sour, and the heart burnt, a sort of veneration for that exotic from GREECE the middle comedy, which greatly to the honour of the manly and benevolent character of the English, may have a dwindling and a rickety existence, but can never flourish to maturity in this country.

Who cares now for any thing that CHURCHILL wrote? The topic of the day kept the world a tip toe for every new libel in which public men were branded with the accusation of public crimes to lift

into notice private profligates and apostates. Had such talents, for they were certainly eminent, been employed in general satire, which, by admonishing all, corrects many, and privately induces amendment by conviction. CHURCHILL would have lived in out minds. Now he is forgotten. Common nature is often absurd, but it is never monstrous. An inde|lible stain upon the reputation of DRYDEN, and of POPE, was caused by Mac Flecknoc, and the Dunciad, FOOTE, like CHURCHILL, was stained in this man|ner all over, and would have been at this moment as fast, for neither of them can ever be peaceably, asleep, if it were not for an attempt now and then to revive his pieces, which, however, their malice be|ing defeated, have now but little attraction.

There is another thing which naturally presents itself on an examination of these Drawcansirs, these dealers in fiats, who expect the world to pay an impli|cit obedience, not to their opinions, for I will not be so uncharitable as to believe they always think what they write, but to their assertions, and this is, that, upon the principal that all critics ought to possess in their own minds a certificate of their ability to write as well as those authors they criticise, so the minds of all moral menders ought to be moral.

As the dramatic pieces of FOOTE will bring out various observations naturally connected with them, I shall now proceed to their examination. Taste. This piece was produced in 1752, at which time FOOTE was in that prosperity which rendered it needless to write for profit. He therefore gave all the emoluments to the celebrated JEMMY WORSDALE, the very person who took. POPE's ma|nuscript letters to CURL. It did not however greatly succeed. It was intended to ridicule generally an absurd passion for virtû, but it was so confined to the great, who are too callous to feel attacks of this kind, that it was no further useful to the au|thor's reputation than to shew that he could write, and that he was capable of attacking whatever might be the reigning folly.

The Englishman in Paris, 1758, is a farce of con|siderable merit. The characters are natural, the plot is interesting, and the drift is laudable. Had FOOTE uniformly kept to this species of writing, he would certainly have established a legitimate repu|tation. In his next piece, The Knights, he began to indulge his favourite propensity by personating a peculiar character whom he had the supreme felicity of rendering ridiculous in his neighbourhood, where till then he had been respected and beloved, and

had never, till the exhibition of this exaggerated portrait, been suspected of possessing any follies but what were perfectly harmless and innofensive and in common with those of his neighbours and friends.

The Englishman returned from Paris, is a piece of a better kind. It is general and has good dis|crimination. It is also remarkable for a peculiar neat diction that FOOTE had a good knack of writing. He had, however, perpetually the contrary fault, and having filled his head with that short responsive dialogue, which, though tierce enough in the French, is flat and palling on the English stage, the ear was in his pieces too frequently tired with,

"certainly, no doubt, granted",

and a long string of other similar expressions which are repeated almost verbatim in every one of his plays.

The Author, one of FOOTE's outragious person|alities, was performed at Drury Lane in 1757. The gentleman mimicked in this piece and held up by FOOTE as an object for the hand of scorn to point its slow and moving ringer at was a person of fortune not in any respect deserving of public or private reprehension for any breach of honour, li|berality, or moral rectitude, but because he hap|pened

to have pecularities. It would have been more to the honour of the satirist if his own pecu|larities had been as little liable to reproach. The gentleman alluded to had interest enough to get the piece suppressed. The Diversions of the Morning was composed of Taste and other things.

The Minor was performed in 1760. This piece is full of personalities. We here begin to see in FOOTE a mixture of SHADWELL and FIELDING; from the first he had plenty of opportunity to take his bullies, and his bawds, and, if the latter ridiculed COCK, the auctioneer, FOOTE had nothing to do but retail the same materials in order to represent COCK's successor LANGFORD.

The drift of this piece, which it must be con|fessed is laudable enough, might have been brought about without any of these reprehensibles vehi|cles. Profligacy, imposition, and hypocrisy are the proper objects of ridicule for the theatre; but why are particular characters held up as the only promulgators of these evils? If the hydra vice is to be destroyed by striking at a single bawd, a single auctioneer, and a single methodist, then is the la|bour no longer Herculean,

Every body knows that this was not the fact. Mother DOUGLAS, LANGFORD, and WHITEFIELD were laughed at, but wenching, tricking, and pray|ing went on as before; and thus general reproba|tion was lost in personal ridicule, and the severity of the satirist eclipsed by the adroitness of the mimic

The Orators, performed at the Haymarket in 1762, is a kind of acted illustration of the principles of oratory. It contains as usual many personalities, and was rendered celebrated by FOOTE's mimicking a well known Dublin printer, who had but one leg. The satirist little dreamt at that time that the per|sonal defect, at least which he thought proper to ex|pose to laughter, would one day be his own. The printer, when he caught him upon his own ground, trounced him severely; a Dublin jury not being of opinion that natural infirmities ought to be quietly sported with. Upon this occasion FOOTE wrote a Prologue in which he modestly procured himself to be called the English ARISTOPHANES.

The Mayor of Garrat, performed in 1763, is ge|nerally supposed to be in every respect original. This, however, is not true, as any one may be con|vinced who chuses to look at SHADWELL's Epsom Wells, where they will find Major Sturgeon, Jerry

Sneak, Bruin, and the two wives. The Major, who every body knew, talked of mustering up courage enough to cane the poet. No body would have been sorry if he had kept his word. These are all FOOTE's pieces within my present promise.

MACKLIN, whose writing was as harsh and as hard as his conduct was rude and dogmatic, who, though he did not produce many pieces, contrived to make one answer the purpose of many, whose strange pecularities made him a torment to himself and to every body else, was, however, a useful and sometimes a great actor, and very far from an in|ferior author.

MACKLIN's first piece was Henry the Seventh, or the Popish Impostor. It appeared at Drury Lane the year that GARRICK performed at Covent Gar|den. The second title of this piece is a misnomer, for the story is that of Perkin Warbeck, which we have seen treated unsuccessfully before, and a man could not be said to be an impostor by professing the established religion. It was, however, in every respect faulty and universally rejected. MACK|LIN's friends are solicitous to retrieve his fame by the stale excuse that it was done in a hurry, to which they add that his employment as manager prevented him

from paying it the private attention it ought to have received. In the first place, if he did not take time enough he ought to have found more, and in the second, he was not manager in that year, LACEY be|ing then in that capacity and proprietor as we have seen with GREEN and AMBER.

A Will or no Will has been frequently acted for MACKLIN's benefit but never was considered of consequence enough to be regularly brought for|ward. The Suspicious Husband Critized, is of course an invidious thing. The play it was meant to ridi|cule standing deservedly high in the public opinion. It had but little success, yet more than it merited. The Fortune Hunters never was performed ex|cept three or four different times at the author's benefits. Covent Garden Theatre, or Peter Pasquin turned Drawcansir. Up to this period we find MACKLIN nothing more than an imitator of FIELD|ING. His performances were temporary, and prin|cipally a ridicule on theatres and plays, naturally poor and unprofitable to the fame of an author.

Love Alamode was performed at Drury Lane in 1760. This piece, though heaven knows it has no superior traits of genius or talents, made the author a little fortune. When it came out, it was strongly

supported and strongly opposed. Its partizans, how|ever, at length got the better, and this victory gave the farce an admitted conseqenee it certainly did not critically deserve. The story has been fifty times gone over, and the denouement has always been the same in fact, though never so bad in effect as in Love Alamode. To made a needy Irishman the only dis|interested lover of a lady apparently without fortune is certainly a little too much upon the brogue, espe|cially when this Irishman is the nephew of the lady's guardian, who would certainly, both naturally and theatrically speaking, have let him into the secret.

This farce, owing to a number of adventitious circumstances, had great success, and this created a report, naturally enough, that MACKLIN was not the author of it, which, according to custom, though every body knew the contrary, was at one time pretty generally believed. The report itself is not so extraordinary as that with all his sourness and irrascibility he had the good sense to treat it with contempt.

The Married Libertine was performed at Covent Garden in 1761. It was very strongly opposed dur|ing its run, which was no more than nine nights. The contest relative to this play was like that which

distinguished Love Alamode. It did not, however, terminate so fortunately. The author was as stre|niously supported by his countrymen, who remem|bered their triumph in favour of Little Ireland and Sir Callaghan, but the merits were universally al|lowed not to bear them out; the distinction, how|ever, was not correct. As FOOTE's characters were notoriously held out to ridicule some person well known, so the public gave MACKLIN the credit, or rather the obloquy, of intending by his some person the idea of whom had never entered his imagination, and thus, as the supposed personification of Lord BUTE had created a host of friends and enemies in Sir Archy, so here the character of Lord Bellevile was supposed to imply a married nobleman whose intrigues at that time were pretty notorious. The Married Libertine has never since been resumed, though it certainly had more merit than Love Ala Mode.

MURPHY, an author of merited celebrity, who has written tragedy, comedy, and farce, with fair and legitimate pretendons to fame, an extent of dramatic talents very rarely concentrated in one wri|ter, comes next into consideration, and I am pleased to acknowledge that the repugnance naturally arising from an unwillingness to give pain to living authors

will in this instance yield to the pleasure of record|ing truth and praise in the same delineation.

With the different pursuits of Mr. MURPHY I have nothing to do. Biographers of the living have at best an awkward task to perform, and it is there|fore seldom attempted with success but by the il|liberal and the malignant, who are as sure to find readers in those whose minds are congenial to their own as they are to be spurned and execrated by men of candour, generosity, and judgment.

Mr. MURPHY was intended for business, has been a party man, was an actor, a dramatic writer, and at length a barrister, about which a great deal has been said; but how any part of it can, as fact, tell to his disadvantage is beyond the admission of my ca|pacity. All professions are honourable, if they are honourably borne; but the ipse dixits of CHURCHIL have found their low and dirty level, and it would be well for the societies of the Inns of Court if they never had admitted among them men whose pur|suits had been more dishonourable than those who have followed the profession of an actor.

MURPHY's first piece was the Apprentice, 1756, a farce so well known and so generally approved

that every reader can anticipate a description of it. I shall, therefore, say that, being his first attempt, it gave good proof of that coming dramatic reputa|tion which this author has so ably established. The Spouter, or the Triple Revenge, is a strange piece in which GARRICK, RICH, and young CIBBER, con|nived at being ridiculed. It seems to have been one of those left handed whims of GARRICK, like The Sick Monkey, to anticipate ridicule, which, per|haps, would never have been conceived but in his own imagination. It had no success. The English|man from Paris, which was performed in 1756 only a single night, and to which MURPHY spoke the Pro|logue, was, of course, the subject of FOOTE's En|glishman returned from Paris, to which latter the town gave the preference.

The Upholsterer. This piece, which has been so long and so deservedly a favourite, was originally performed for MOSSOP's benefit, but was found to possess so much merit that the managers very gladly admitted it among their stock performances. The hint is taken from the Spectator, and is most com|pletely to the very purpose of farce; a discrimina|tion which was peculiarly the talent of MURPHY.

We now come to this author's first tragedy, which was The Orphan of China. The original story

of this play is to be met with in DU HALDE's History of China, which VOLTAIRE had wrought into a tra|gedy, and of which I have already spoken. MUR|PHY's play is an alteration of VOLTAIRE, with an eye, perhaps, to the Heraclius of CORNEILLE. It was certainly judicious to bring forward the Orphan and make him a principal character in the piece, but it has given it, therefore, a resemblance to Merope, and those numerous tragedies of the same complexion.

This piece, notwithstanding GARRICK's incom|parable acting, and the opportunity it gave of dis|playing the valuable merits of Mrs. YATES, and other adventitious circumstances, did not certainly succeed to the degree its merits had promised, for which a variety of reasons have been given, and one of them of a curious and private nature relative to a pique taken absurdly by GARRICK, in consequence of a political transaction but I apprehend it princi|pally arose, for these circumstances are generally easily traceable, from this play being considered a sort of innovation on tragedy, and consisting of pomp|ous and poetic, rather than affecting and interesting language, and depicting great rather than natural manners. There may be too much truth in this last

observation, and perhaps it obtains too generally in MURPHY, but the opportunities this has given to call forth great and transcendant powers in actors have made ample amends, as far as it respects the general advantage of the theatre, no dramatic author, in our recollection, having given additional lustre to the merits of more various and eminent performers.

The Desart Island, 1760. This piece, which is taken from Metastasio, is better written, that is to say with more nature, than this author's serious pieces in general. It is, however, too barren of incident. The Way to Keep Him accompanied this piece; they were each written in three acts and intended to make up the same evening's entertainment, a mode of introduction that has seldom succeeded. The De|sert Island was soon withdrawn, and the author, by adding two acts to The Way to Keep Him, gave it a permanent right to keep the stage.

The Way to Keep Him is certainly a play of con|siderable merit; its bent and drift are truly praise worthy, and it is in many respects a kind of improve|ment upon CIBBER. It is curious to remark that the critics decided, when it was performed in three acts, that it was imperfect; and, when it was extend|ed to five, that the addition had spoiled a perfect

piece. The new character of Sir Bashful Constant, was also settled both to be totally out of nature and to be the actual portrait of a person then living. That Sir Bashful is not out of nature will, I believe, be easily granted, and as to the other assertion, it cannot be truth, unless the person alluded to was both an Englishman and a native of France, for the character and a good deal of the conduct are taken from a play of LA CHAUSSEE.

All in the Wrong was brought out in 1761, at Drury Lane, during the summer season, at which time FOOTE, MURPHY, and YATES, had the theatre to themselves, a plan, which GARRICK well knew would come to nothing, and that he should get the pieces then produced upon easy terms, several of which were intended to have been brought forward. None however, was actually produced, except those of MURPHY, and one written by BENTLEY, which we shall see in its place called The Wishes, or Harle|quin's Mouth Opened.

MURPHY was a most powerful ally in this con|federacy. All in the Wrong, a play which has been long a deserving favourite, had in it as much of stage bustle and perplexity as any piece that ever ap|peared; and, as it was intended to ridicule a na|tural

though absurd passion at all points, and in every possible view, it certainly exhibited a most happy combination of circumstances by no means too strong, for what is there extravagant that jealousy will not fancy, and gave that inveterate folly a vio|lent correction which alone can master its own irratibility.

If the knot of circumstances in All in the Wrong had been as ingeniously untied as it was knit together, no candid critic could have found in it any thing to caval at. As to the objection that has been generally made to MURPHY's comedies, that they have not the wit of CONGRIEVE and VANBRUGH, the an|is that they have then more nature, for indeed quib|ble and point is not the common language of man|kind, and in particular when the passions are busily at work it is a stronger proof of nature to consult the heart, than the head; from one the language comes measured and cold, from the other intuitive and animated.

The Old Maid was performed the same summer. It contains a series of pleasant circumstances occa|sioned by a simple and natural equivoque, a mode of conveying comic humour of the best kind when it is rationally treated, but of the most monstrous

and burlesque when violently caricatured. The stage is too much a stranger to this species of after-piece. Every thing in The Old Maid is just, happy, full of effect, and managed with a nice and pene|trating discrimination that are highly creditable to the author; upon the whole there is scarcely any piece upon the stage more perfect in its way. The resemblance it bears to L'Etourderie, of FAGAN, is only that fair advantage of which every author has a right to a avail himself,

The Citizen, which was also performed in the summer of 1761, and which brought Miss ELLIOT on the stage, has proved of considerable value to the theatre. Nothing is more sensible or more meritorious in managers than to strengthen their in|terest as to the half price. MURPHY was admirably well calculated to assist the theatre in this particular. When WOODWARD came from IRELAND, The Citizen, The Upholsterer, and The Apprentice, brought at half price a most incredible sum for at least three years, and no trifle for several years afterwards

The Citizen was well calculated to display the various merit of Miss ELLIOT, who certainly per|formed Maria incomparably; and, though there is

some extravagance in the conduct, the drift is laud|able, and the circumstances are natural. The scene which the author pretends to cover by giving an idea that it is an imitation of Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, is The Fausse Agnes of DESTOUCHES, even to the oui Monsieur, which has always so good an effect. There is, however, no harm in this. Every author has a right to imitate whatever he is capable of improving.

CHAP. VIII. YOUNG, MALLET, DODSLEY, BROOKE, WILLIAM SHIRLEY, AND OTHERS.

THE works of the authors now under consideration do not by any means militate against my declaration as to the inconsiderable number of celebrated dra|matic pieces during the first sixteen years of GAR|RIK's reign, most of their productions, as will ap|pear, having seen the world before the year 1741; but, as part of them were brought forward after that period, I thought it best to give the whole in one view.

YOUNG, whose great character was singularity, who seems in the course of his life to have been constant to all the virtues and vices, and like Cap|tain PLUME with his fifteen attachments never me|lancholy for one, whose writings are in places trite and in others sublime, who had great natural requi|sites, but who seems ambitious to be considered more as an uncommon than an origiginal poet, wrote

three tragedies, one of which is well known to the public.

Busiris 1719, like most of YOUNG's works is an original conception of its author, who seems every where to have introduced characters which he knew from the beginning he should not know how to dis|pose of at last, and, therefore, he calls in the assist|ance of a dagger to get rid of them. Busiris is high and sounding, but has no means of access to the heart.

The Revenge is well known, because it has been by some considered as an improvement on Othello, Zanga's revenge being held up as more natural and more equitable than that of Iago; but this would be to make a virtue of revenge and to tolerate murder. It is ridiculous to compare the probable or the moral propriety of the two pieces upon this point. Othello trusts a man whom he had loaded with benefits, and on whose gratitude he has every right to repose. Alonzo confides his soul to a proud African Prince, his slave, whose nature he must know, if he knew any thing, was vindictive malignity; and as if it was not enough to submit his senses to the controul of such a mind, he does all this with his eyes open, for he is conscious of having dealt this gloomy and im|placable

Moor a blow, which indelible stain and dis|grace he would infallibly wipe off with his blood, after having reproached him with his folly and weak|ness in having listened to him.

As to the causes of jealousy they are infinitely pre-eminent on the side of SHAKESPEAR, whose trifles, light as air, blind suspicion, while forged let|ters, pictures, and such gross and palpable evidence would detect the villain in the mind of any man above an idiot, and a driveller. In short, the plot cannot be defended except by those who are mad enough to maintain that a family ought to be des|troyed for a fancied injury, that the revenge of Zanga, which supersedes law, justice, and morality, may be tolerated, and that the folly and stupidity of Alonzo deserves an exemplary punishment. There are certainly passages of considerable merit in the play; for, whoever YOUNG has imitated, the writ|ing is his own, which it is too little to say is greatly above Mrs. BEHN, and it would be too much to say that it is any thing equal to SHAKESPEAR.

Of the tragedy of The Brothers, Dr. JOHNSON tells us the world has said nothing, and therefore he may be allowed the same indulgence. One author

has, however, said a great deal of it; and, after go|ing into an elaborate and general account of its me|rits, he tries to prove his assertion by saying that the author nobly gave up the profits for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts. YOUNG has been said to have written with the energy of DRYDEN, but the only resemblance between them seems to be, that YOUNG dedicated the Revenge to the infamous WHARTON, and DRYDEN his Marriage ala Mode to WHARTON's infamous relation ROCHESTER.

MALLET, a writer with more cunning than ge|nius, who courted the great to better purposes than authors in general are able to do, and whom JOHN|SON has, meanly for himself, stigmatized in his Dic|tionary in his etymology of the word alias* 1.15, wrote

several things of different descriptions and the fol|lowing pieces for the theatre.

Euridice is a weak tragedy and never had repu+table success, though strengthened by the perform|ance of GARRICK and Mrs. CIBBER, when it was revived in 1760. It originally appeared in 1731. Mustapha, a subject treated before by Lord ORRERY and Lord BROOK, was probably written by MAL|LET to shew his attention to noble writers. It had better success than Euridice, but not enough to sa|tisfy any author of reputation. Alfred was originally performed in 1740, at the Gardens at Cliefdon, in commemoration of the accession of GEORGE the first, and in 1751 at Drury Lane* 1.16, at which time it had undergone considerable alterations and had suc|cess, great part of which, however, was ascribable to the beatiful music of ARNE. THOMPSON had a hand in this piece.

Britannia, in which there is some charming mu|sic by ARNE, had good success, chiefly owing, how|ever to a prologue that GARRICK spoke in the cha|racter of a drunken sailor. Elvira, 1763. This is MALLET's best dramatic production, but it had lit|tle success notwithstanding GARRICK, whom MAL|LET seems to have known how to manage, did his utmost for it. It however contained unpopular sen|timents and could not resist the opposition that was made to it.

DODSLEY, who by his industry and his ingenuity was of great use to the cause of the theatre, and in|deed of literature in general, and who by his modesty and good sense preserved a respectable reputation, and accomplished the difficult task of conciliating the favour of many friends, wrote the following pieces.

The Toyshop, which is one of those various dramas that have originated from RANDOLPH's Muses Looking Glass, and which good naturedly re|bukes fashionable follies. In short it is FOOTE's piece called Taste with all its points, and none of its asperity. It was performed at Covent Garden in 1735 with good success. The King and the Miller of Mansfield, a pleasant and well known farce, which was afterwards translated into French by SEDAINE,

the music by MONSIGNY, with most extraordinary success, is founded on a traditional story in the reign of HENRY the second. It has ever been de|servedly a favourite. Sir John Cockle at Court, also has merit but has the disadvantage of all sequels. The circumstance, however, of making a man of plain integrity resist the corruption of a court is cer|tainly a fair object for a dramatic pen.

The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green is an un|happy subject. It did not succeed. Rex et Ponsifex is only known in a volume ef DODSLEY's works modlestly called Trifles. Cleone, is a tragedy of some merit. It had great success which was principally owing, however, to the acting of Mrs. BELLAMY, who certainly was never in any other character so excellent. It is, however unaffected, and pathetic, and the interest is in many places strong and home to the heart.

BROOKE, who was a respectable though by no means a first rate author, wrote fifteen dramatic pieces generally with indifferent success. In his writings is diffused a turbulent spirit of liberty, which may serve party purposes, but ought not to pervade theatrical productions. Gustavus Vasa was prohibited, but a subscription of a thousand pounds

made the author amends. The piece was afterwards performed on the Irish stage with alterations. The Earl of Westmoreland was performed in IRELAND with success. Jack the Giant Queller was interdicted, though performed in IRELAND.

The Earl of Essex is well written in places, but the public gave the preference to the play of BANKS on this subject for the reasons we have already seen* 1.17.

Antony and Cleopatra, The Impostor, Cymbeline, Mon|tezuma, The Vestal Virgin, The Contending Brothers, The Charitable Asiociation, The Female Officer, The Marriage Contract, and Ruth, make up the number of this author's plays. They are all imitations or alterations of other writers as may be seen by their titles, but they were never performed.

WILLIAM SHIRLEY, an excellent calculator, except as to the merit of dramatic productions, wrote a string of pieces, the reception of which tolerably well proves my assertion. The Paricide was performed once and undeservedly damned, if we may credit the author's dedication of it to RICH. King Pepin's Campaign, was short and unsuccessful. Ed|ward the Black Prince, an awkward attempt at an imi|tation of SHAKESPEAR, was the third misfortune that befel this author on his dramatic road. Electra was as unfortunate an imitation of SOPHOCLES as Ed|ward had been of SHAKESPEAR. It had a more

merciful exit, for the Lord Chamberlain interdicted it, and therefore the author was less exposed.

The Birth of Hercules was written immediately after Artaxerxes, and composed by ARNE. It was rehearsed but never performed. The music was extremely beautiful, but it would not probably have succeeded; it was not dramatic. The songs com|posed for BEARD, TENDUCCI, PERETTI, and Miss BRENT, were of the first excellence. I was present at the rehearsal and their effect will never be erased from my memory. It was withdrawn, as it was ge|nerally understood, through some caprice of the au|thor. The Roman Sacrifice, the last of this author's plays that appeared on the stage, was, however, only performed four nights, the remainder of the list which were printed but never otherwise produced, were the Roman Victim, Alcib••ades, The First and Second Parts of Henry the Second, The Fall of Car|thage, All Mistaken, The Good Englishman, Fashion|able Friendship, The Shepherd's Courtship, and He|cate's Prophecy.

WORSDALE, a painter and a mimic, and rather a retainer to authors than an author himself, and in particular the Jackall of the Lion POPE* 1.18, was an

apprentice to Sir GODFREY KNELLER, and turned out of his master's house for marrying the knight's niece. He was a facecious good natured fellow, and author of many trifling productions, in short a kind of second DURFEY. His dramatic pieces are A Cure for a Scold, which is SHAKESPEAR's Taming of the Shrew, made very unsuccessfully into a ballad opera. The Assembly, which had no merit but his own admirable performance of an old woman, The Queen of Spain, which was probably a burlesque, The Extravagant Justice, known only by name, and Gasconade the Great, intended as a laugh at the partiality of the King of FRANCE to Madame de POMPADOUR.

HAVARD, a respectable actor, and a reputable

character, wrote Scanderbeg, founded upon LILLO's Christian Hero, which had little success. King Charles the First, did credit to the author and the stage, but Lord CHESTERFIELD's remark on it in his famous speech against the licencing act was that it was of too recent, too melancholy, and too solemn a nature to be heard of any where but in a pulpit; Regulus, has some sterling merit, but it had but little success, The Elopement, a mere farce, was acted only at his benefit.

MARSH, who was at different times a parish clerk, a bookseller, and a Westminster justice, and who fancied himself an author, wrote a miserable piece called Amasis, King of Egypt, performed one night only in the Haymarket; and altered, from SHAKESPEAR, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and Romeo and Juliet, neither of which, so altered, was ever performed at all. ARTHUR, the actor, wrote The Lucky Discovery, merely to assist his benefit.

CHAP. IX. THE HOADLYS, WHITEHEAD, JOHNSON, MOORE, AND OTHER AUTHORS TO 1763.

DR. BENJAMIN HOADLY, the eldest son of the cele|brated bishop of Winchester, was a physician of con|siderable eminence, and, in addition to other inge|nious productions, wrote the well known and greatly admired comedy of The Suspicious Husband. This was one of the first novelties that GARRICK brought out after he had possession of the management. It certainly has great intrinsic merit as every body knows; much of which, however, was owing to GAR|RICK's judicious advice and assistance during its pre|paration for the stage, which he gave very honestly, and which was permitted with even deference by HOADLY; who, admirable as he was in his various writings upon grave subjects, found great judgment and knowledge in the alterations made by his friend, who in particular modelled Ranger to his own man|ner, and afterwards performed it incomparably.

Dr. JOHN HOADLY, brother of BENJAMIN who had also a hand in writing the Suspicious Husband, which was originally intended to be called The Rake, wrote several dramatic pleces* 1.19.

The Contrast was written by the Chancellor, with the assistance of his brother BENJAMIN, indeed they seldom wrote upon any subject without consulting each other. The design of this piece was to ridicule the poets of that day, but the bishop their father, thinking the subject too ludicrous to be treated by his sons, prevailed upon them to withdraw it. It however had been played five times before this

mandate, and with great applause. The subject did not die for FIELDING afterwards modelled his Pasquin after it.

Jeptha was an oratorio, Love's Revenge an opera, so was Phaebe, so was The Force of Truth, Doctor GREENE was the composer of these operas. HOAD|LY would have written other pieces for the stage if he had not been restrained by the entreaties of his father, who with great paternal regard had studied to make his means honourable and ample. He dabbled, however, a great deal in private, and, among other efforts, he revised LILLO's Arden of Feversham, wrote a tragedy called Cromwell, and planned a farce called The Housekeeper, on the sub|ject of High Life below Stairs, something relative to which I privately know; but, as much of my know|ledge of the stage during the seven years I was ar|ticled to GARRICK, is derived from confidential conversation, it would be a weak way of recom|mending one species of veracity by violating an|other. I shall withold nothing, however that I may fairly communicate.

WHITEHEAD, who held the situation of poet laureat for many years, with considerable ability, wrote The Roman Father, a tragedy that has borne

a good rank on the theatre. It is confessedly taken from CORNEILLE, and except in one or two respects materially mended. It appeared in 1750. Fatal Constancy was a mere sketch given to eke out FOOTE's Diversions of the Morning. Creusa, which is founded on the Jon of Euripides, and in which WHITEHEAD has introduced with great effect a youth bred up in the service of the gods, and kept unacquainted with the vices of mankind, was per|formed at Drury Lane in 1754. It was, however, too lofty and classical for general effect.

The School for Lovers, though a respectable play came out to disadvantage after The Guardian. It was one of the first attempts at what was called sen|timental comedy, which the French under the term drame have classed as superior in a moral sense to either tragedy or comedy; In ENGLAND it at last became a mere rhapsody of words. The play in question is by no means of this outragious species; it is delicate, sensible, and to a degree impressive, but neither the situations nor the interest was found sufficiently powerful, notwithstanding it was admira|bly acted, to ensure it permanence. The Trip to Scotland was a passable farce and that was all. WHITEHEAD could not write ill but his attempts at comedy are rather sketches than pictures.

JOHNSON, who has written so many volumes him|self, and filled so many volumes written by others, can only have a very small corner in this work, because he wrote but one play, and that an unsuccessful one. I could with no great difficulty go largely into his literary character which I might be tempted to do were I not under an incumbent necessity of paying impartial attention to all those of whom I have un|dertaken to speak. The reflections resulting from this forbearance perhaps are pleasurable, for it is inconceivable how like the bundle of rushes he sinks more and more into insignificance upon our nearer acquaintance.

Irene, the only play of JOHNSON, was per|formed by GARRICK, BARRY, Mrs. CIBBER, Mrs. PRITCHARD, and all the strength of the company, and yet excited no extraordinary curiosity, or at|tracted any warmth of applause; for which the public taste has been arrogantly arrainged by the cri|tics, though no dramatic piece was ever ushered into the world with more support and patronage. In short it was regular to preciseness, and verbose to dullness; and, what with the mixture of SENECA and ARISTOTLE that pervaded it, neither the critics, the author, or the actors could persuade the public that there can be any mode of delight and enjoy|ment

but that which the heart and the understand|ing approve.

MOORE, who knew how to feel as he wrote, the tendency of all whose productions was to cultivate truth and morality, and who, therefore, found it difficult to become a fashionable writer, brought out two comedies and a tragedy. The Foundling is a play of sterling merit. It breathes a good deal the air of MERCIER. It has, however, an unfortunate resemblance to The Conscious Lovers in the principal drift of the plot, and therefore, though it has been often performed, and always with applause, yet it yields to STEELE's play what has certainly superior merit. This play was produced in 1748. In 1751 he brought out Gil Blas, which GARRICK said he had the highest opinion of before it came out, pre|facing his declaration, as he always did upon those occasions, with a confession that he had no eventual judgment, which was his way of bespeaking an in|demnity whenever his opinion should turn out to be wrong. It was the story of Aurora in LE SAGE's novel which is difficult to be dramatized to effect* 1.20.

The Gamester is exactly the drame of the French stage, except that it ends unhappily and thence be|comes a tragedy in prose. From this distinction the Gamester, even though the audience were drown|ed in tears, obtained but a cold reception from the public; so reprehensibly does custom triumph over nature. Is it not extraordinary that the feelings dare not manifest themselves but by command, and that the affections of the mind are to halt till they re|ceive the signal to march in measure and cadence? MOORE was aware of this prejudice, and there|fore began his play in blank verse, the subject, how|ever, was too touching, and the grief too natural to bear this heavy and unnatural garb. He threw it off and discovered under it one of the most perfect and beautiful ornaments of the theatre.

Another cause of its cool reception was a more

natural one. The audience could not bear to be touched on the side of that darling vice which the play reprobated. These considerations and the fai|lure of Gil Blas, induced MOORE to persuade a gentleman to father it. The mask was thrown off after the fourth night; when, to shew what critics are, it was loudly condemned by many who had been its warm admirers while MOORE's name was concealed.

SHERIDAN, an excellent actor, a man of strict honour, and a perfect gentleman, who, during part of a life of great credit and public utility, ma|naged one of the theatres in Dublin, for the better purpose of conducting that kind of undertaking, wrote one dramatic piece, and altered three plays the productions of other authors. Captain O'Blunder was a mere juvenile jeu d'esprit, but it nevertheless became a great favourite on the Irish stage, and it was received as a model for all the Sir Callaghans, and other characters of that description, which have added so much pleasantry to the stage. The Loyal Subject, and Romeo and Juliet, were only altered in that slight degree which a revival of plays sometimes makes necessary, and Coriolanus, the last piece this gentleman was concerned in was a mixture of SHAKESPEAR and THOMPSON, and brought for|ward

at Covent Garden with the addition of a grand ovation.

MENDEZ, who though a rich Jew was no churl, for he was a bon vivant and a wit, wrote a farce called The Double Disappointment, which was a pleasant thing and a great favourite, The Chaplet, so exquisitely set by BOYCE, that it, perhaps, contains some of the sweetest and most delightful specimens of simplicity in music that can be conceived, was greatly to the honour of English taste eminently successful. The Shepherd's Lottery also succeeded, but not in the same degree. These pieces are by no means excellently written, but there is enough in them to set such a composer as BOYCE properly to work, and he has made such use of the opportunity that these are some of the proofs that music to per|fection has been produced by English composers, and tasted by English auditors.

SMOLLET, with whose various publications the public are so well acquainted, wrote more for his amusement than for fame. The Regicide. This play was refused, the particulars of which circum|stance SMOLLET has pleasantly but severely treated in Roderick Random. He was remunerated by a subscription. The Reprisals is a farce full of broad

humour, which, as every body knows, had great suc|cess at the theatres, at Bartholomew Fair, and every where else. There is also a piece set down to this author called The Israelite, or the Pampered Nabob.

GLOVER the ingenious author of Leonidas, wrote a tragedy called Boadicea, which, however it may be full of the scholar and the poet, has very little in it of the dramatist. Its merits have been discussed at large, and bishop HERRING has very sensibly distinguished its beauties and its faults. Medea has less pretensions as a tragedy than Boadicea. It was written after the Grecian model, and too full of pre|ciseness and regularity for a chance of success.

HILL, who was an excentric author of so vo|luminous a kind that nothing came amiss to him, who, though he begged to be excused as to the quality of writing, beat out of sight any author that had ever existed in point of quantity, seeming rather to have an ambition to be much than well read, pro|duced, among the wonderful number of things he engaged in, three dramatic pieces. Orpheus was in RICH's hands while his pantomime, or rather THEO|BALD's pantomime, was in preparation. In conse|quence of which, when the latter came out, HILL

publicly and falsely attacked RICH with great viru|lence for having stolen his piece, which slander RICH refuted by the testimony upon oath of several cre|dible witnesses. The Critical Minute was acted one night only at Drury Lane. The Rout, was still a more contemptible piece. It occasioned from GAR|RICK the following distich:

For physic and farces, his equal there scarce is, His farces are physic, his physic a farce is.

The pieces of inferior authors were The False Guardian Outwitted, by GODSHALL, perhaps never performed. The Raree Shew, by PETERSON, a strolling actor, Antiochus, by SCHUCKBOROUGH, The Sharpers, and The Parthian Hero by GARDI|NER, which were probably performed in IRELAND, as well as The Preceptor of HAMMOND, Herod the Great, written by PECK, Arminius, by PATERSON, the friend and successor in office of THOMPSON, Rosalind, and David's Lamentation, by LOCKMAN, secretary to the British Herring Fishery, says his biographer, and one of the compilers of the General Dictionary, Orpheus and Euridice, neither HILL's nor RICH's, by SOMNER, and Sancho at Court, and The Kiss Accepted and Returned, by AYRE, and Amintas, from TASSO, by AYRES.

WEST, an excellent writer, produced The Insti|tution

of the Garter, which was not known to the stage till GARRICK dressed it out at Drury Lane. Iphi|genia in Taurus, translated from EURIPIDES, and The Triumph of the Gout, from LUCIAN. MOR|RIS wrote a tragedy, never performed, called Fatal Necessity, The School Boy's Mask was written by SPATEMAN merely as a sort of school exercise. YARROW, an actor, wrote Love at first Sight, and Trick for Trick. The first piece a mere incident originally in Italian, afterwards in the Magnifique, and then in the Busy Body, and the other taken from the Match in Newgate, and Lord HARVEY wrote Agrippina, a tragedy which, however, was neither printed nor acted.

DELAMAINE produced Love and Honour, from VIRGIL; SOMMERVILLE translated Alzira from VOLTAIRE; JOHN THEOBALD translated VOL|TAIRE's Merope; STEVENS, rather a collector than a writer, produced The Modern Wife; CUTTS wrote Rebellion Defeated, in which he cuts but a poor figure; LYON, in a very lamb like way, produced The Wrangling Lovers; BROUGHTON, with the strength of his namesake, but with very little of the sweetness of a poet, produced Hercules, which was set to music by HANDEL; MAXWELL, a blind poet, and un|fortunately a poor one, wrote The Royal Captive,

The Loves of Prince Emilius and Louisa, and The Distressed Virgin; these pieces were acted at York at different times to raise money for the author.

Dr. PATRICK, an usher of the Charter House School, and superintendant of HENDERIE's Lexi|con, and AINSWORTH's Dictionary, translated all the comedies of TERENCE; BAILLIE, another doctor, not of divinity but of medicine, wrote The Mar|ried Coquette; HYLAND, a farmer, wrote The Ship|wreck; CLANCY, an Irishman, brought out in Dub|lin, Hernon, a tragedy, and The Sharper, a comedy; the latter piece was noticed by SWIFT; MORELL, who was secretary to the Antiquarian Society, and one of the original writers in the Gentleman's Maga|zine, altered and fitted from MILTON, GAY, and other authors, many of those pieces, some sacred and some prophane, which HANDEL brought out under the titles of Oratorios. He also translated Hecuba from EURIPIDES, and Promtheus in Chains from AESCHYLUS; CUNNINGHAM, a poet and ac|tor, whose pastoral writings are deservedly in esti|mation, brought out a farce at Dublin, called Love in a Mist. WINCOP wrote Scanderbeg. LAMBERT, a most admirable scene painter, published a thing called The Wreckers; it would have been a noble acquisition to the stage if his pen had been equal to his pencil.

Mrs. HOOPER wrote two tragedies, and one bur|lesque, though her pieces were all nearer the last denomination than she was aware of. Her trage|dies were called The Battle of Poictiers, The Cyclo|paedia, and her burletta, Queen Tragedy Restored. Mrs. PILKINGTON, whose curious memoirs are in the usual style of those ladies who after the example of CIBBER have conceived it necessary to apology not for their lives but the manner in which they led them, wrote, among others of her excentricties, a a thing quite in her own way, called The Turkish Court. HAWKIN's whose biographer tries to prove his talents by instancing that his father was a great crown lawyer, wrote Henry and Rosamond, and The Siege of Aleppo, and altered Cymbeline. The origi|nals were never performed, and the alteration were damned.

MOSS, or MARRIOT, wrote a contemptible piece called The General Lover. WILDER, an Irish ac|tor and manager, in order to be dabbling, brought out a piece from DANCOURT called The Gentleman Gardener. WOODWARD, another dabler, produced a furious number of things, some of them however, as they were on the subject of those pantomimes he brought out, were not so much amiss. The titles of these pieces, none of which had success but the

pantomimes, are Tit for Tat, Queen Mab, A Lick at the Town, Harlequin Ranger, The Genii, Fortunatus, Proteus, Marplot in Lisbon, altered from Mrs. CENT|LIVRE, Mercury Harlequin, Harlequin Faustus, Har|lequin's Jubilee, The Man's the Master, and The Seasons.

HALLAM, that HALLAM whom MACKLIN killed behind the scenes, for which he took his trial and was acquitted at the Old Bailey, brought out at the French theatre, L'Opera du Gueux. BLAND produced a strange thing called The Song of Solo|mon. Mrs. CLIVE, the celebrated actress, pro|duced now and then for her benefit some new or altered piece, flimzy enough, but set off by her ad|mirable performance, Bayes in Petticoats, Every Wo|man in her Humour, Sketch of a fine Lady's return from a Rout, and The Faithful Irishman are her pieces of this description. STAMPER a pleasant creature and a sound actor, when he could be kept from the bottle, introduced a new character into Aesop.

Mrs. LEAPOR wrote a dismal tragedy called The Unhappy Father; GREENE published two plays, which were never acted, called Oliver Crom|well,

and The Nice Lady. FRANCIS, who was a good classical translator but a bad dramatic writer, produced Eugene, and Constantine, both tragedies. Mrs. CIBBER, the celebrated actress, translated The Oracle of St. Foix with good success. GOR|DON translated the comedies of TERENCE. BOYCE, a bon vivant about town, who had a place in the South Sea house, whence have issued so many choice spirits, wrote a number of fugitive pieces, and a play called The Rover. HENDERSON, whom nobody seems to have known, though he has writ|ten a great deal, produced one dramatic piece called Arsinoe.

GEORGE ALEXANDER STEVENS, who, another DURFEY, was a bon vivant and a ready writer, who at pleasure could lug in the whole heathen mylo|thogy to electrify men into an admiration of poetry which they were too far gone critically to examine, wrote for the stage, Distress upon Distress, never performed, The French Flogged, damned in the the|atre and transferred to Bartholomew Fair; The Court of Alexander, a wretched imitation of the style of O'HARA, wretchedly composed by the curiously celebrated Dr. FISHER, and A Trip to Portsmouth, a musical piece performed upon a temporary occa|sion at the Haymarket. This man has been ad|mired

by those who are now ashamed of their for|mer judgment. He made a fortune by his Lecture upon Heads, which was considered as a work of merit but is now reflected on with contempt. He died, however, in indigence, and had been so pam|pered by false praise that he fancied himself to the last moment a greater writer than HOMER.

SMART, another dissipated promoter of midnight orgies, was a better writer than STEVENS, but not so solicitous to turn his excentric effusions to ad|vantage. He had strong sensibility, and his fits of drunkenness brought him to a madhouse, where he is said to have completed a translation of the Psalms. He recovered however and published many pieces; but nothing could keep him from the most deplora|ble poverty. He wrote, for the stage, The Grateful Fair, and The Judgement of Midas, which are mock operas, and Hannah, an oratorio, a strange heavy thing strangely and heavily set by WORGAN. To the first of these pieces belong the following cele|brated lines, whimsically describing a conflict be|tween love, rage, and jealousy, which have been attributed to so many authors.

Thus, when a barber and a collier fight, The barber beats the luckless collier white; The lusty collier heaves his ponderous sack And, big with vengeance, beats the barber black;

In comes a brickdustman, with grime o'erspread, And beats the collier, and the barber, red. Black, red, and white, in various clouds are tost, And, in the dust they raise, the combatants are lost.

ROLT, to whom SMART was indebted for his initiation into the mysteries of Bacchus, who was originally a hackney writer to an attorney, who had the modesty to publish Dr. AKENSIDE's Pleasures of Imagination as his own work, and in his own name, who was concerned with SMART in the fa|mous amusement called Mother Midnight's Enter|tainment, who was celebrated by his congenial friend CHURCHILL, and, in short, who lived and died in infamy and poverty, wrote Eliza, which was pro|hibited, The Royal Shepherd, which was composed by RUSH, and was one of those pieces which Ar|taxerxes engendered, and which LACEY so much encouraged to no purpose while GARRICK was in ITALY, as we shall presently see, and Almena, an|other thing of the same kind, which was composed by MICHAEL ARNE, and in which Miss WRIGHT, afterwards Mrs. ARNE, sung most beautifully.

De BOISSEY translated MOLIERE's Miser. JONES wrote The Earl of Essex, and The Heroine of the Cave; the last was finished by HIFFERNAN. The Earl of Essex was popular for a time, but BANK's play at last triumphed over all others on this sub|ject,

for the simple reason that feeling and sensibility are objects of superior attraction than any other re|quisites of tragedy. JONES's biographer is very an|gry with him for being a bricklayer, and insists upon it that it is impossible for persons of such a description to produce any writings of merit, a circumstance which probably the gentleman forgot when he ex|tolled BEN JONSON above all other dramatic writers.

STAYLEY brought out, at Dublin, The Court of Nassau, and The Rival Theatres; neither of them, but for regularity, worth recording. DERRICK, who at the death of NASH became master of the ceremonies at Bath and Tunbridge, but who was so extravagant that no curb nor income was sufficient to keep him from distress, translated a piece, from the French of the king of Prussia, called Sylla. LEE, an actor, famous for sterling merit and unaccounta|ble singularity, who in any situation was never at peace himself or would suffer any body else to be so, altered Macbeth most miserably, The Country Girl as bad, and The Relapse equal to either. MOR|GAN, an Irishman, wrote a romantic thing, which he called a tragedy, under the title of Philoclea. CRISP belonged to the custom house, and, about the time of the tobacco dispute with AMERICA, wrote a tragedy called Virginia. Miss FIELDING,

sister to the celebrated novelist, wrote a dramatic novel in three volumes called The Cry.

PRESTON, an itinerant actor, wrote a despicable piece which he called The Rival Father. Mrs. TOLLET produced Susannah. HART, a Scotchman, wrote a tragedy for the theatre of Edinburgh, called Herminia and Espasia. GOODHALL is said to have written Florazene, and to have altered King Richard the Second; very little, however, is known of him or his writings. BROWN, who was known as an inge|nious author and a restless character, and who put a period to his existence from impatience of temper and extreme sensibility, produced a tragedy called Athelstan, certainly well conceived and well written, but ponderous and clogged, in consequence of which it met with a cold reception; Barbarossa, however, which was greatly received, is probably not so well written, and it is besides, too like Merope and other similar pieces. The performance however of GARRICK and MOSSOP, and the great so|licitude with which GARRICK brought it forward, made it an object of profit, and, indeed, reputation to the author. BROWNE also wrote The Cure of Saul, which was composed by Dr. ARNOLD.

LEWIS, out of an inclination to make a total

change in the drama, and introduce every thing horrible, revolting, and dreadful, in the place of na|tural productions calculated to mend the heart and amuse the senses, wrote, for it was never performed, GARRICK was the wrong manager for his purpose, a most extraordinary piece upon the old theme of the Italian Husband, which RAVENCROFT, as we have seen, had before treated. I shall content myself with giving a specimen of the language, first noticing that, by was of catastrophe, the suspected lady is compelled to take an electuary composed of her supposed lover's vitals.

" FORTIA. You know his lordship's bailiff GIOVANNI " Lives in a farm near to his castle gate. " Whilst he at dinner sat, a favourite hen " Came cackling, and at's feet lay'd a live chick, " Perfect with wings and claws, with eyes and voice, " Which ran without delay after its mother, " But lo! a greater wonder justly fills " All hearts with horror and amazement dire: " Just underneath the table th' earth gap'd wide " And did disclose a bubling spring of blood, " Whence drops resulting sprinkled all the board. " Fix'd in suspence at this, one, from the cellar, " Ran and declar'd the wine was in a ferment, " Tho' fin'd before, and boil'd in every vessel, " As if set o'er a fire intense and large. " Mean while a serpent's carcase they beheld " Dragg'd out of doors, with eager haste, by weasels; " A shepherd's bitch came gaping, from whose jaw•…•… " Leap'd forth a lively, large, tunbelly'd toad•…•…

" A ram ran full against a dog spontaneous, " And at one fatal stroke brake the dog's neck."

We are not quite arrived to this; but as ours is the age of improvement on nature, there is no say|ing what may happen in time.

MONCRIEF wrote a weak tragedy called Appius. The Schemers is a piece altered from MAYNE's City Match by BROOMFIELD the surgeon. HILL, a poor bookseller, who tried the stage as an actor without success, wrote and altered four pieces; they were called The Spouter, Minorca, The Mirror, and The Frenchified Lady never in Paris. BRENAN is un|known by any work except a poor piece called The Painter's Breakfast. Mrs. HARRISON wrote a pomp|ous piece called The Death of Socrates. SLADE, a lieutenant of marines, who was cast away in the Ramilies, wrote a play, which was performed one night by his friends, called Love and Duty. AVE|RAY, an obscure author, wrote Britannia, and the Gods in Council.

BACON wrote five pieces, almost totally un|known, called The Taxes, The Insignificants, The Trial of the Time Killers, The Moral Quack, and The Occulist. BARNARD produced two pieces, nei|ther of which was intended for the stage, called The

Somewhat, and Edward the Sixth. FREE wrote Jeptha, an oratorio, set to music by STANLEY. THOMPSON, a clergyman, wrote a tragedy never performed, called Gondibert and Birtha. CLELAND, whose genius has procured for him an infamous im|mortality, and whose last moments, if he was capa|ble of compunction, must have been imbittered with the reflection of having being the destroyer of mo|rality in the youth of both sexes, produced three dramatic nondescripts, called Tombo Chiqui, Titus Vespasian, and The Lover's Subscription.

PORTAL, who was a jeweller, afterwards a book|seller, and at last a money taker at Drury Lane the|atre, wrote for the stage Olinda and Sophronia, The Indiscreet Lover, and The City of Bagdad. Lord CORNBURY wrote The Mistakes. GORE published SHAKESPEAR's Henry the Eighth with notes. BUSHE produced a piece, probably taken from VOLTAIRE, called Socrates. CHAPELLE altered Anthony and Cleopatra from SHAKESPEAR. MORTON wrote a piece called The Register Office, to do which he tells us he was induced to support a large family. As his piece was never performed except at Shrewsbury, I am afraid his family were not much the better for it.

TOWNLEY, master of merchant taylor's school, is said to have written High Life below Stairs. I know it has been ascribed to this gentleman, but the letter which at that time publicly appeared say|ing that this piece

"is not written either by Mr. TOWNLEY or Mr. GARRICK,"

I can, if I may be guided by circumstances, undertake to say is truth. HOADLEY, had certainly a hand in it, and there were other communications from persons who were in the secret, but who conceived the subject to be rather ticklish. That GARRICK fitted it to the stage there can be no doubt. MOZEEN, an in|different actor, but by no means an insignificant writer, produced a piece called The Heiress. WHITE translated The Clouds from ARISTOPHANES. I also reckon a hundred and twenty-five anonymous pieces since my last general account.

CHAP. X. ACTORS.

THE dearth of great excellence in acting, from CIBBER's secession to the time of GARRICK's ap|proach, gave me but little opportunity of going into that subject, and I now take it up merely to join the chain together, so that the reader's view of the comparative merit of actors may be collected and undisturbed.

Many of the actors and actresses ranked re|spectively, but that was all. Among these were, as we have seen, KEEN, MILWARD, the elder, and younger, MILLS, JOHNSON, BOWMAN, THUR|MOND, WALKER, WRIGHT, BULLOCK, and Mrs. BULLOCK, and others, most of whom were brought forward to ENGLAND from ASHBURY's nursery in IRELAND, which certainly promoted very materially the interest of the stage. The public, however, were

obliged to be content with these and a few more till the time of FLEETWOOD, when the later shoots from ASHBURY's stock began to emancipate and expand in English soil.

From this time the English stage began to know, among many others, MACKLIN, QUIN, RYAN, DELANE, HULET, and afterwards SHERIDAN, DIGGES, SPARKS, BARRY, MOSSOP, and WOOD|WARD, among the men, and Mrs. BELLAMY, Mrs. CLIVE, and Mrs. WOFFINGTON, among the wo|men; besides Mrs. CIBBER, and Mrs. PRITCHARD, and a large addition of names somewhat respectable though less eminent than those I have mentioned.

It seems to be evident that acting, having fallen off from the death of BOOTH and the secession of CIB|BER, never regained its natural tone till the pub|lic saw a perfect model for imitation in GARRICK. MACKLIN was surely a turgid heavy actor, with neither real dignity in tragedy, nor native humour in comedy. There was a sort of precise studied correctness which always reached sufferance but seldom admiration, like a reader at a press, who goes critically over every word without feeling the sense of the sentiment, or the beauty of the writer. The acting, therefore, of that day must have been cold

and unnatural, for MACKLIN was the theatrical schoolmaster.

QUIN, though he must have been an actor of much greater understanding and more mind than MACKLIN, was still in stilts, and proved that though action comprehends the whole of oratory, oratory by no means comprehends the whole of acting. Greatness and dignity QUIN is universally allowed to have possessed; for a correct and commanding understanding, and a thorough and discriminating power of expressing the sense of an author, I have always understood he never had a superior. We are told, and I do not dispute the truth of the as|sertion, that his manner of utterance was so just and such a display of that feeling which the sentiment he pronounced conveyed to his mind, that he transfused an equal sensation of pleasure and conviction to his auditors.

This is surely transcendent merit, yet it is only transcendent as far as it goes; for it is but one re|quisite of a great actor; who, when he loses sight of the part he is performing, with all his reason, his understanding, and his judgment is no more than a performer lecturing his auditors. This actor's dig|nity was the dignity of QUIN, not of PYRRHUS, or

CATO; in other words, dignity of person, not dig|nity of mind, and I think we may easily conceive that BOOTH gave more force to the sentiment of CATO, by assuming the suavity of the philosopher, rather than the asperity of the cynic.

It is impossible to assert with certainty any thing po|sitive on this subject; we can only assist our opinions by arguing rationally on such parts of it as we know to be infallible, and to form a conclusion 〈◊〉〈◊〉, an impartial view of the whole. Upon this 〈…〉〈…〉 with the perpetual objection in our teeth▪ 〈…〉〈…〉 however, that actors and their reputations 〈◊〉〈◊〉 •…•…e|ther, we can infallibly pronounce on the me••…••… of ROSCIUS, BETTERTON, GARRICK, and others, who went for and accomplished a correct representation of nature, but we have no guide to lead us to the degree of merit possessed by theatrical readers, and oratorical actors, any further than to conceive that they conveyed the correctness of their authors with|out manifesting the beauty.

RYAN is spoken of in terms of the warmest praise by his biographer; who fancying himself ob|liged to write nevertheless in the language of can|dour, confesses, while he speaks of his person and features, as the model of symetry and perfection,

that having first received a blow in the nose in one affray which turned it out of its place, and a brace of pistol bullets in his mouth in another which broke his jaw, these accidents so discomposed his voice that he became a most ridiculous object of imi|tation, but that he remained a very deserving stage favourite to the last.

It is universally acknowledged that he was a very sensible man, and a most respectable member of so|ciety, and upon this account he was probably encou|raged greatly beyond his professional merit. Nobody seems to have known this better than QUIN; who in the most friendly manner, after he had retired from the stage performed Falstaff regularly for his benefit once a year, till he himself took a hint from nature and found that the deception would not do. In short in spight of whatever may be said by those who, from the best intentions in the world, wish well to the reputation of RYAN he never could have ranked on the stage as an actor of first rate abilities.

* 1.21

DELANE was considered as a sound good actor of a respectable but by no means of a first rate de|scription. He was particular and GARRICK suc|cessfully mimicked him in the Rehearsal. BOWMAN, however, we are told had merit enough to keep alive a spirit of jealousy in QUIN, though BOW|MAN at that time was very old. HULET was a use|ful performer and a good singer. HARPER was a kind of a second to QUIN in comedy, and played Sir Epicure Mammon and other parts of that de|scription with truth and spirit. CASHEL is said to have been a promising actor.

We have thus seen that QUIN, MACKLIN, and RYAN, had a smattering of CIBBER's school, the merits of which have been already canvassed, and which consisted more, except in the instances of chaste and natural representation in BOOTH and Mrs. OLDFIELD, and their imitators, of the art of acting than the power of demonstrating nature. With GAR|RICK came perfection; perhaps that perfection which is supposed to have died with BETTERTON; and I think it may fairly be conceived that even QUIN, afterwards, improved by that novel, because natural, system which at GARRICK's first appearance he had reprobated.

I have not ranked SHERIDAN with these; be|cause, though a mannerist and a peculiar actor, yet he had no necessity to model himself upon the plan of any other performer, having as much genius and judgment as perhaps any one who ever trod the stage. It was not at all times that you would get at GAR|RICK's real sentiments about acting, which indeed was no more than the pardonable duplicity of a tradesman who is obliged now and then to be a little insincere to puff off his wares; but he had his unguarded moments, and through those I am able to ascertain that he had made it his business to avail himself of the sound sense and critical discrimination

which marked the judgment of SHERIDAN, and I can assert with safety, which is greatly to the honour of GARRICK, and a strong proof of his understand|ing, that he sought a connection with that scholar and critic, in uniting himself with him in the ma|nagement of the Irish theatre, as much for the pur|pose of learning to act as learning to manage.

A sonorous voice, and an expressive face are very imposing requisites in favour of an actor; and where these are denied, the best understanding and the most critical conception are veiled and obscured. There is something, however, by which they an|nounce themselves. We acknowledge the value of the sun even in a mist; though we do not at that time perceive its brilliancy nor feel its influence, we are only aflicted that nature should oppose such an inconvenient obstacle to what we decidedly know would otherwise be capable of affording a most complete and satisfactory enjoyment; on the con|trary a meteor is a momentary object of delight; but our senses soon correct the fallacy and our ad|miration vanishes with the delusion that created it.

Nature had certainly thrown such impediments in the way of SHERIDAN, who, however, excited abundant admiration in those who were judicious enough to penetrate beyond the veil and view the

commanding power of mind and strength of com|prehension with which he was internally gifted. In the powers of an actor, QUIN seems to have been superior to SHERIDAN, in the feelings of an actor, SHERIDAN appears to have been superior to QUIN. QUIN felt all he expressed, and therefore exceeded SHERIDAN, could SHERIDAN have expressed all he felt he would have soared above QUIN.

MOSSOP from all I can collect was a command|ing but never an agreeable actor. There are va|rious ways of convincing the mind. We are con|vinced by subtilty, by plausibility, by blandishment, and by eloquence, but we can also be convinced by perseverence, by confidence, by earnestness, and even by vehemence. These latter qualities seem to have been MOSSOP's mode of convincing an au|dience into an admiration of him which with all his pomp, his stiffness, his peculiarity and his affecta|tion he contrived to bring about. I have heard MOSSOP praised for great and commanding powers in tragedy such as no other actor ever possessed, and it has been insisted that, if he was quaint and starched at times, he was at other times grand and energetic, and, indeed, that his influence over the feelings of his auditor was irresistable. The mind, however, is not very fond of being threatened into pleasure, nor are those confessions very sincere that are effected by

compulsion. We cannot, therefore, reasonably ac|quiese in the opinions of either the admirers or de|ciples of MOSSOP. Proselytes are seldom gained by denunciations, nor do those scholars turn out brightest who have their educations hammered into them.

As the actors I have yet to name stood high in reputation after GARRICK's return from ITALY, except HAVARD, BARRY, HIPPESLEY, COLLINS, and some others, who certainly deserve to be spoken of with respect, but to whom it is impossible I should be expected to pay separate and particular attention, I shall mention those actresses who, up to the year sixty-three, ornamented the stage with a degree of reputation certainly upon the whole, putting GAR|RICK out of the question, superior to the men, and equal, but most probably exceeding those ladies of whom CIBBER seems to have written the eulogium.

Mrs. CIBBER was a most exquisite actress. In all characters of tenderness and pathos, in which the workings of the feeling mind call for the force of excessive sensibility, she was like GARRICK, the character she represented. Love, rage, resentment, pity, disdain, and all those gradations of the various passions she greatly felt and vigourously expressed. Her face, her figure, and her manner were irresista|bly impressive, and her voice was penetrating to ad|miration.

Actresses may have had more majesty, more fire, but I believe that all the tragic characters, truly femenine, greatly conceived, and highly writ|ten, had a superior representative in Mrs. CIBBER than in any other actress. She was certainly not so happy in comedy, but it would be no bad compli|ment to the present day if there were any actress who could perform it half so well.

Mrs. PRITCHARD was an actress of more ge|neral abilities than Mrs. CIBBER. Mrs. CIBBER's acting was delightful, Mrs. PRITCHARD's command|ing. One insinuated herself into the heart, the other took possession of it. Nothing could be so fortunate for the stage as this junction of different talents. It made acting, like a picture with grand breadths of light and shade. We have seen the ex|cellence of Mrs. CIBBER; that of Mrs. PRITCH|ARD was unceasing variety. Lady Macbeth, the Queen in Hamlet, Clarinda, Estifania, Doll Com|mon, in short, every species of strong nature received from her a polish and a perfection than which nothing could be more truly captivating. CIBBER's judicious remark that the life of beauty is too short to form a complete actress, proved so true in relation to Mrs. PRITCHARD that she was seen to fresh admiration, till in advanced age she retired with a fortune to the great satisfaction of her numerous admirers.

Mrs. WOFFINGTON was an actress of a most extraordinary kind, and in some parts must have been unrivalled. She had a bad voice, but this seems to have been the only impediment to her becoming superlatively excellent; for though it is universally allowed to have prevented her from in|teresting the passions in so eminent a degree as ei|ther Mrs. CIBBER or Mrs. PRITCHARD, yet her su|perior beauty and grace, the industry with which she cultivated her profession by observing the instructions of CIBBER, getting introduced to Mademoiselle DUMESNIL, the attention she paid to GARRICK, and every other eligible opportunity to improve, which she seized with solicitude and avidity, esta|blished for her a solid and firm reputation. She is said in Cleopatra, Jane Shore, and Calista, and all other parts which require a form of commanding and majestic beauty, to have interested her auditors to a degree of astonishment. She also greatly ex|celled in many comic characters, but I cannot think it an addition to her fame, or to female delicacy, that the most prominent of those characters was Sir Harry Wildair. Resources are a bad specimen of great talents, and beauty like charity can hide defects.

Mrs. BELLAMY according to regularity comes next; but this sort of justice puts me out of my way, because the art of sinking is not more advanta|geous

to profe than to poetry. Mrs. BELLAMY, though an actress of considerable abilities, cannot be ranked with Mrs. CIBBER. In short in what I have seen, though it may, perhaps, be proper to rely with dif|fidence on my own opinion, yet I have a confirmed criterion in the recollection of those impressions that authors and actors have made upon their auditors; for, though in particular instances, where both are taken up from partiality and prejudice, such judgment may have deserved to have been arraigned, yet it is impossible upon reflection to mistake those decisions which feeling has excited and conviction confirmed.

Upon this principle we can say of Mrs. BEL|LAMY that she was natural, easy, chaste and impres|sive; that, as far as person, features, voice, and con|ception went, none of which were by any means of an inferior description, she highly pleased and never offended; but these commendations, respectable as they rank her, would be cold and negative applied to Mrs. CIBBER, or Mrs. PRITCHARD, who com|manded attention, who seized the passions and mo|delled them at their will, but with all this deduction the public would be at this moment be a good deal astonished to see such an actress as Mrs. BELLAMY, were Mrs. SIDDONS out of the question.

As I mean to bring into one view towards the

end of this work that prodigious assemblage of ex|cellent acting, which was at its height some time af|ter GARRICK's return from ITALY, and has from that moment gradually declined, which opportunity will give me occasion to exhort the actors of the present day to look up to the few valuable vestiges which remain of that magnificent and ruined fabric, I shall close this book after I have said a few words of Mrs. CLIVE.

This performer, who fairly opened the book of nature, and pointed out every valuable passage to so good effect, that no actress in her way has completely succeeded who has not trod in her steps, and traced her through all those fanciful paths to which she was conducted by the goddess who delighted in her, had certainly most superlative merit. We have seen no|thing succeed in her various styles of acting but what has been modelled after her. She created a sort of school of her own, in which Mrs. GREEN, Miss POPE, and their imitators, studied nature and effect; but this will be hereafter better exemplified when we see her at a time when she had perfected her scholars; to which period I shall defer this subject, to look after the opera, music in general, and other points relative to the theatre as well as to the conduct of both houses, during the theatrical interregnum.

END OF THE NINTH BOOK.

Notes

• * 1.1

  MIST seems to be extremely angry with CIBBER that he could never so far catch him off his guard as to give him any reply, and got at last so exasperated at finding that nothing could irritate him, that a paragraph appeared in his paper, when CIBBER lay very ill, that he was dead. CIBBER, bad as he was, upon this, unex|pectedly appeared on the stage and thus gave the lie direct to the libeller; which, without considering the shame it heaped on him|self, M•••••• congratulates himself upon, calling it an answer to his paragraph.
• * 1.2

  I cannot refrain from noticing the principal heads of the pre|face to the French play of The Drummer. DESTOUCHES says that he does not copy DRYDEN, and other English writers; who, after enriching themselves at the expence of French authors, write long prefaces to criticise them and turn them into ridicule instead of ac|knowledging their obligations to them. On the contrary he frankly owns he has borrowed this play from the great ADDISON, one of the best English authors, and who had not the least aversion to French literature, which he has proved by imitating the exactitude and the decorum of the dramatic productions of that country. This comedy did not succeed on the English stage, and no wonder, for it had too much simplicity and regularity, and too few incidents. It had too much of the wisdom of the French manners, and too little of those enormous and monstrous liberties in which the comic writers indulge themselves in ENGLAND, mocking at the unities, and stuffing their pieces full of episodes, till they no longer can be tasted or under|stood. He goes on censuring that satire in English authors which he says attacks every thing and respects nothing; not even the fair sex, who, however, take nothing amiss if they happen to have their fans with them. He at length winds up this reprobation of English dra|matic writers by advising them to form themselves upon the example of the French theatre and shun the licentious works of BEN JONSON, DRYDEN and CONGREVE.
• * 1.3

  This was pretty well evinced, when COLMAN revived it in the year 1777. It was then found to be an insipid, unentertaining per|formance. A remarkable circumstance happened upon this occasion. The Duchess of Queensberry, who had been GAY's patroness, who had made so much interest to get this piece performed, and who, finding the tide of power so strong against it, was so very instrumental in procuring its author that large subscription on the publishing it, was fifty years afterwards at this representation of it in the Hay|market. She was very old and survived her last visit to this pro|duction of her favourite but a few weeks.
• * 1.4

  I find an anecdote, in a French history of the English stage, re|lative to Zara, so singular; that, though I do not discover the smallest trace of it in all the English materials I have collected, I cannot refrain from relating it; especially as time, place, and circum|stances, very strongly combine to give it feasibility. An English gen|tleman, named BOND, being delighted with the Zaire of VOLTAIRE, employed a poet of reputation to translate it into English, and en|deavoured to get it performed at Drury Lane theatre, but to no pur|pose. He therefore determined to get it represented privately among his friends, and chose the part of Lusignan for himself. It was performed in a concert room, in York Buildings. Neither pains nor expence was spared to render the performance respectable, and the assembly was numerous and elegant. The applause was uni|versal and well merited, but that bestowed on Mr. BOND was much louder and more sincere than all the rest together. His acting was considered as a prodigy, and he yielded himself up so to the force and impetuosity of his imagination, that, on the discovery of his daughter, he fainted away. Here the applause was redoubled; but, finding that he continued a long time in that situation, the audience began, they knew not why, to be uneasy and apprehensive. With some difficulty, Chatillon and Nerestan, placed him in his chair, when he saintly spoke, extended his arms to receive his children, lifted up his eyes to heaven, and then closed them for ever.
• * 1.5

  As the Seasons have been as much read and as much criticised as any thing in the English language, men of uncommon information have generally handled it with the greatest severity, which is a proof that its faults are such as ought not to be pardoned to a man of brilliant genius. HERNE, the critic, whose observations, though cri|tical and accurate, have seldom any acrimony, speaks of THOM|SON in one of his chapters on literature, where he treats of that figure in speech which he calls utter absurdity. I shall transcribe the passage.

  "JAMES THOMSON in his poem called Spring, among his Sea|sons, has with great tenderness of heart pleaded, as from his very bowels, against the inhuman practice of killing oxen to make beef stakes; and almost told us he would rather want his stake than have any such doings. Nay, what is still more tender, he advises us not to torment poor worms, by putting them upon the hook alive.—Upon the hook! For what purpose? Why to catch fish to be sure; which he proceeds to give us cool directions for, as a fine diversion." Strait as above the surface of the flood " They wanton rise, or, urg'd by hunger, leap, " Then fix with gentle twitch the barbed book; " Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank, " And to the shelving shore slow dragging some.

  "O JAMIE, JAMIE! had you no bowels for fish? The poor man forgot that fish had feelings I suppose, because he was fond of catching and eating them; whereas killing of oxen was quite out of his way."
• * 1.6

  T. CIBBER was allowed by the world to claim some share of reputation from the work, published in five volumes, and called Cibber's Lives of the Poets, but JOHNSON upon indubitable authority, no less than having the original manuscript in his possession, insists that CIBBER had no hand in it whatever, for that it was the work of ROBERT SHIELS, a native of Scotland, to whom he pays some handsome compliments. There is one matter rather irreconcileable in this account, for JOHNSON says that this work was never seen by either of the CIBBERS, and yet he informs the reader that CIBBER betrayed the name of the author for ten guineas. This is a curious circumstance altogether. CIBBER published the work as his own; he must, therefore, not only have seen it but have purchased it of SHIELS, and a promise of secrecy along with it, which secrecy must have been kept by SHIELS inviolably till his death, which happened, as JOHNSON tells us, just after the work was published. How came JOHNSON to know this fact? Does he mean to say it was to him that CIBBER betrayed the secret for ten guineas? Or, what is more un|likely, did he know SHIELS and his hand writing? And by that means was able to ascertain that the manuscript in his possession was written by SHIELS? Really this bare assertion, contradicting itself so many ways, is very questionable.
• * 1.7

  WILKS received a letter from SMITH after he was established in RUSSIA, in which he speaks of his situation, and gives him advice of furs and other presents which he had sent him. To shew how much he was obliged to WILKS, and how gratefully he felt towards him I shall quote the latter part of his letter—

  "But who gave me these furs? This affluence? This royal mistress? this happy situa|tion? A man just of your age and stature. If you can't find him out, ask my dear and worthy friend Sir Harry Wildair, and tell him at the same time the grain was his; and the reaper, with the crop, shall ever be at his command."
• * 1.8

  It is more than probable that this is the very BOND of whom I have already related the anecdote concerning Zara. There is a confused account that it was actually AARON HILL's Zara which some persons performed at York Buildings a year before it made its appearance at Drury Lane, but it is easy to prove that this is impossi|ble. Zaire was produced, in FRANCE, in 1732; the following year BOND, through some influence he had over the manager of Covent Garden theatre, brought out The Tuscan Treaty, written by a friend, which was not interesting and therefore did not succeed. In that very year BOND, in the French account, is stated to have been in FRANCE, and so delighted with Zaire, that he was determined to get a translation of it for the English Stage, which he was very com|petent to inspect, though he was no writer, for he had learnt the play by heart, and was such an enthusiast to it that it was continually his practice to repeat the most striking passages in the PARIS coffee houses. Upon his return, as we have seen before, he procured it to be translated, not by AARON HILL, but most likely the author of the Tuscan Treaty, and it is also very likely that the managers refused to accept it because it was the labour of a man who had produced an unsuccessful play. This was in 1734. HILL's play came out in 1735, who would hardly have sneaked into York Buildings to get at the opinion of a few individuals when he was always welcome to the voice of the town. Nay it is possible that the treaty of the managers with HILL for his translation was a reason why they refused the play from BOND. At any rate the historians seem to be wholly in the dark as to the real history of BOND, and therefore as it has been their usual practise, when they could not find out the truth; the private trans|lation of Zara, they give at once to HILL, whose play was known, talked of, and stipulated for, long before it made its appearance, and who could not have had a doubt of its success at a time when VOL|TAIRE's play was in every body's mouth as one of the most popular that ever was produced. In addition to all this I have an account which is corroborated as I understand by the Gentleman's Magazine of Zara, translated by a gentleman of the name of JOHNSON, and printed in the year 1735.
• * 1.9

  A critic loudly complains that the poetry was so little relished with all its incomparable merit that it it had not been for the charms of the music, the piece would not have extended to a second night. Had the same critic lived to witness the performance of Comus at the present time, he would have also to lament that the music, so highly honourable to genius, and to this country, is gone to sleep with the poetry; and that, thanks to mutilation and false taste, a combination of the talents of MILTON and ARNE, is now considered as an intrusion. I could vote most sincerely that this union of beau|tiful poetry and exquisite music might be performed at given periods as a condition of the theatrical patent, if it were only as a lesson to warn the lovers of harmony of their danger in listening to falcetto, divisions, cadences, and cantabiles.
• * 1.10

  This play perhaps never would been remembered but by an anecdote relative to QUIN, who refused to act in it, and therefore was supposed to have occasioned its failure. In consequence of this he was frequently hissed by the author's friends when he came for|ward to perform other parts. At length, to put a stop to their im|portunity, he one evening told the audience that he had read the play before it was performed and given the author his sincere opinion that it was the very worst play he had ever read in his life, and for that reason had refused to act in it, in consequence of this address the audience of course silenced the cabal.
• * 1.11

  GARRICK would indulge some few friends—but it was very rare—with what he used to call his rounds.—This he did by stand|ing behind a chair, and conveying into his face every possible kind of passion, blending one into the other, and as it were shadowing them with a prodigious number of gradations. At one moment you laughed, at another you cried: now he terrified you, and presently you conceived yourself something horrible, he seemed so terrified at you. Afterwards he drew his features into the appearance of such dignified wisdom, that MINERVA might have been proud of the portrait; and then—degrading yet admirable transition—he became a driveller. In short his face was what he obliged you to fancy it; age, youth, plenty, poverty, every thing it assumed.
• * 1.12

  Speaking of his acting, a French author has the following pas|sage.

  "GARRICK the celebrated English ROSCIUS has alone, per|haps, been capable of conveying all that we have heard or can conceive of the astonishing acting of the ancients. I saw him in London,"

  says the writer,

  "perform a tyrant who dies on the stage terrified with the enormity of his crimes and torne with re|morse. Humanity in the last moments of this tyrant triumphs over his crimes, his murders, and his barbarity. Sensible too late of his villainy, his reflections are his judge and his executioner: overwhelmed with this dreadful conflict he dies piece meal; his eyes begin to be extinguished, his voice can scarcely articulate his ineffectual penitence; his gestures announce his last moment; na|ture, yet retains some strength, and, as the human faculties decay and horrible phantoms bring his crimes to his imagination, in his frantic fear he struggles with death and is overcome; he now faintly freezes with horror; he tears up the earth and seems in madening fancy to dig his grave; and now the moment of death arrives, and the convulsive distraction of his face, his quivering lips, the extension of his arms, and a last agonizing sigh, give the finishing stroke to this terrible picture."

  In another French writer I find the following anecdote of GAR|RICK told as a proof that he could not only at will represent all pas|sions but all persons.

  "A woman of fashion in London."

  says this writer,

  "had a great desire to procure the portrait of a nobleman with whom she was in love, but who had a particular aversion to sit for his picture. She prevailed upon GARRICK to notice the face of this lord, and so possess himself of his features that the painter might easily design a faithful likeness through the medium of his borrowed resemblance. This was undertaken; and, after having studied every trait and gesture, and each possible manner of giving them variety till it was no longer GARRICK, but My Lord, the painter was set to work, and so succeeded that the por|trait was universally known for the nobleman in question who was the first to express his astonishment at so perfect a likeness being obtained without his knowledge, and who liberally rewarded the actor and married the lady, in return for her love, and her inge|nuity."

  I never heard of this anecdote through any other chan|nel. There is a story told that GARRICK frightened HOGARTH by appearing to him as the ghost of FIELDING, whom he so resembled by altering his features that HOGARTH is said never to have re|covered the shock. It is a strange story however, unless GARRICK walked upon stilts.
• * 1.13

  I have taken some pains to come at this fact, though after all it is not of any great importance. LACEY was manager during the short time that GREEN and AMBER held the property, and after their bankrupt••y, perhaps in trust for the assignees, and I am in|formed, from an authority I cannot doubt, that he immediately pre|vious to GARRICK's joining with him in the management, stood in a manner in FLEETWOOD's shoes, and compounded with the performers and creditors of different descriptions, which is an additional argu|ment in proof of GARRICK's stipulating for a clear stage and no favour.
• * 1.14

  GOLDSMITH's account of this in my hearing was that GAR|RICK wanted to foist in so much stuff of his own that he grew tired of his objections and would not leave the play with him, which foisting in, perhaps, would have done the effect of the play no in|jury, though GOLDSMITH was twenty times a better writer than GARRICK; but this was not the case. GOLDSMITH had offended GARRICK, for a forced smile with him was always a symptom of anger, and therefore he would not take the pains to whistle to him. Thus knowing that GOLDSMITH was tremblingly alive all o'er upon all such occasions, which as an author was natural enough, but as a play|wright might have been spared, he only claimed the privilege that other authors had given who had been benefited by his assistance, and this offer being, as he knew it would be, refused, he had a fair ex|cuse for getting rid of the play, which both his resentment to GOLD|SMITH and his friendship to KELLY, who, together with sentimental comedy was cut up by it, had predetermined him not to accept upon any account.
• * 1.15

  This curious instance of deliberate malevolence ought be no|ticed. JOHNSON and MALLET were together looking at the wild beasts in the Tower, and MALLET observed, as they were noticing the uncouthness of a Greenland bear, that it had strong resemblance to JOHNSON, remarking dryly that he did not know which was the handsomest, the bear or the doctor. JOHNSON did not chuse to re|sent the matter upon the spot, but laid up this injury in his mind, with a determination to take public revenge. Accordingly, when he compiled his Dictionary, having occasion to explain the etymology of the term alias, he gives it the following construction. It should be observed that MALLET's real name was MALLOOH, and the doctor, of course, concluded that he had some particular reason for concealing it.

  "Alias,"

  says he,

  "is a Latin word signifying other|wise; as Mallet, alias Malloch; that is, otherwise Malloch."
• * 1.16

  We are told from good authority that MALLET procured Al|fred to be performed at Drury Lane by insinuating to GARRICK that in his Life of MARLBOROUGH he should, by an ingenious device find a nich for the hero of the stage.

  "My dear friend,"

  said GAR|RICK,

  "have you left off to write for the stage?"

  The hint was taken, and Alfred was produced.
• * 1.17

  This play would scarcely be known but for a strange thing said by Dr. JOHNSON about it, which without examination passed so implicitly for sterling reason, that even the author consented to alter the line which is reprobated by the remark. JOHNSON is said to have been solicitous to have a specimen of BROOKE's language, and Mr. SHERIDAN repeated to him the line at the end of the first act which runs thus,

  Who rule o'er freemen should themselves be free.

  The Doctor's answer was that it would be as proper to say,

  Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.

  Than which nothing can be more false, either literally or figura|tively. It so happens that nothing can be better or more just than the sentiment of BROOKE, though perhaps bunglingly expressed. He alone is proper to rule over freemen who in his heart feels and cherishes the principles of freedom. What is there amiss in the clear and obvious truth this conveys? Were this principle of argument carried on in the sentiment of JOHNSON it would mean, if it were in|tended to mean any thing, that the drover must not only be corpulent which would be an impediment to his driving oxen, but fit for killing, which is a quality necessary in the oxen, but not in the drover, be|cause men eat oxen, but not drovers. Nay, it is false, sift it how you may. The original position is wrong. Freemen may be ruled and led, but they cannot be driven; but it would be folly to pursue it any further. I shall therefore only add that this was one of those instances in which JOHNSON found it easier to knock down his auditors than to convince them.
• * 1.18

  The circumstance relative to POPE's Letters, which are hinted at already, was briefly thus, and managed with consummate art. It did not succeed. POPE privately employed JEMMY WORSDALE to carry spurious copies of his letters both to LINTOT and CURL. nei|ther of whom, as the letters did not come authenticated by the author, would treat for them. This was the very thing POPE wanted; for it now appeared certain that if something were not done his correspond|ence would be laid before the public surreptitiously. It behoved him, awkward as the circumstance was, to sound his own trumpet. Thus—if I may be allowed the expression—he submitted to the public, with great deference, his own posthumous works; and thus did he cheat that very posterity whose favour he had made it the business of his life to conciliate.
• * 1.19

  I had the honour of receiving a great deal of attention from this gentleman in the early part of my life, when he was Chancellor of Winchester, Rector of St. Mary, at Southampton, and held all those other places of immunity that might naturally be in the pos|session of the bishop of Winchester's son, and, having met him fre|quently afterwards at GARRICK's house at Hampton, at the time I was one of his privy counsel, I have been present at conversations wherein, with all the playfulness of a boy, though he was then tor|mented with the gout and obliged to be wheeled from room to room in one of MERLIN's chairs, who was at that time newly arrived among us, those pranks which he, GARRICK, and HOGARTH played together were reiterated. He delighted in the theatre though an exemplary divine, and, though he knew how to treat serious subjects with proper strength of understanding and due solemnity, he loved a jest in his soul His wit, however, was of the best kind; for, though it was irresistable, it never gave a moment's pain on reflection to him or his hearers.
• * 1.20

  One cause of the failure of this piece was the exposition of a Spanish gentleman drunk on the stage, which was certainly a gross violation of national manners, it being well known that nothing can be considered as a greater disgrace, a law having formerly existed that if a gentleman should be convicted of even a capital offence, he should be pardoned on pleading his having been intoxicated at the time he committed it; It being supposed that any one, with the sen|timents of a gentleman, would rather suffer death than confess him|self capable of so beastly a vice as drunkenness. It were a pity but the custom obtained in ENGLAND.
• * 1.21

  There seems to have been a great deal of this philanthrophy about QUIN. I cannot deny myself the pleasure of relating two anecdotes; which, though they are generally known, will not lose upon repetition. When QUIN found himself admonished by age and infirmities not to appear again in public, he wrote to RYAN that he had the greatest regard for him as a friend, but that he would not whistle Falstaff for him or any man breathing, to which he added, that he had set him down a thousand pounds in his will, and if his occasions required it he was welcome to draw for the whole or any part of it during his life time. The other circumstance relates to THOMPSON, to whom QUIN is said to have introduced himself at a Spunging house, where he informed him, after a delicate and a pro|per introduction, that as he owed him two hundred pounds he thought he could not choose a more seasonable moment to pay his debts. THOMPSON remonstrated, but QUIN insisted upon the fact; and having prevailed upon THOMPSON to receive the money, which, probably, in that situation was not a very difficult task, he informed him that he had received pleasure from a perusal of The Seasons equivalent to the sum he had now reimbursed, a compliment more to his philanthrophy than to his taste.