CHAPTER IX
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
In tragedy the division between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is less marked than that which distinguishes in general the literatures of the Restoration and the Augustan eras. Yet by 1700 most of the leading dramatists of the preceding generation had ceased to write for the stage; and the death of Dryden marked the end of the old, as the beginning of the reign of Anne, with its important changes in politics, society, and literature, marked the beginning of a new development in tragedy. The attack of Jeremy Collier (1698) was also an important landmark in the history of the drama, assisting in a notable change from the preceding licentiousness and toward a moralized and sentimentalized comedy. A similar change in tragedy was its most apparent departure from Restoration models. Chastened language and a stricter moral censorship of both subjects and sentiments reflected that refinement of which the age of Addison and Pope was wont to boast.
The theatrical conditions governing the reign of Queen Anne were not very different from those of the Restoration. There was a general complaint, as there has been ever since, that operas and spectacles were crowding the serious drama out of favor, but there was still abundant opportunity to see many of the best plays of the Elizabethan and Restoration periods. Of tragedies, we find in a single season, 1703-04, "Hamlet," "Othello," "Julius Cæsar," and alterations of "Macbeth," "Lear," "Richard III," "Timon," and "Titus Andronicus," Shirley's "Traitor," and Beaumont and Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy," "Valentinian," and "A King and No King," "The Loyal Subject," and other of their tragicomedies. "Henry VIII," "Rollo," "Bonduca," and "Philaster" were performed within the next few years. Of Restoration tragedies, Banks's "Unhappy Favorite" and Lee's "Rival Queens" were perhaps the most popular, and other plays of Banks, Lee, Otway, Dryden, Congreve, and Southerne were acted yearly. A number of the heroic plays also still kept the stage, including Howard's "Indian Queen," Dryden's "Conquest of Granada," "Indian Emperor," and "Aureng Zebe." Throughout the century both the London and the provincial theatres presented each year a large number of old plays, including many of these already mentioned. The Elizabethan tragedies, except Shakespeare's, and the heroic plays gradually disappeared from the regular repertoire, but Shakespeare's tragedies steadily gained in popularity, and "The Unhappy Favorite" (rewritten as "The Earl of Essex"), "The Orphan," "Venice Preserved," "Oronooko," "The Fatal Marriage" (altered as "Isabella"), "All for Love," and "The Mourning Bride" maintained their places into the nineteenth century. Tragedy thus had its permanent representatives in this group of stock plays, to which newcomers gained admission only by marked success on the stage.
To these stock plays no writer of the eighteenth century made more notable additions than Nicholas Rowe, the first editor of Shakespeare, whose work began the century, borrowed much from his predecessors, and yet introduced most of the changes which distinguish the eighteenth century type of tragedy from that of the Restoration or Elizabethan period. His first play was followed by four other tragedies by 1707, and, after an interval of seven years, by "Jane Shore" (1714) and "Lady Jane Grey" (1715). Of the first five, three are of little interest except as representing common variations of the prevailing type. They all relate love stories of rivalry and intrigue among heroic personages, and all observe the French proprieties in structure. "The Ambitious Stepmother," like so many predecessors and successors, places the scene in an oriental court; "Ulysses" more daringly invades Homeric territory; and "The Royal Convert" turns to early English history, a field which literary patriotism was appropriating for tragedy.
In "Tamerlane" (1702), love and intrigue play subordinate parts to the political and moral interest which the author endeavored to centre upon his protagonist. Tamerlane, who, we are told, was patterned on William III, is an extremely pious pagan, who overtops conquest with mercy and adorns every occasion with a moralizing discourse. Had he ever encountered his Marlowean namesake, he would have shed the pitying tear. In general, the structure is on the French plan, but the large number of characters and the considerable amount of action recall Elizabethan models. The verse, too, with its feminine endings, occasionally reminds one of Fletcher, and the figures of speech are feebly patterned on Shakespeare, while the ravings of Bajazet are worthy of Nat Lee. The play, long acted every November fifth, seems to have owed its great success to its high moral tone and its patriotic eloquence. It set the key for many similarly patriotic tunes.
"The Fair Penitent" (1703) links itself with the two later "She-tragedies," to borrow a term from one of their epilogues. Its prologue proclaims an innovation from the usual tragic themes of monarchs' cares and lost royalty, because—
"We ne'er can pity what we ne'er can share
*....*....*....*
Therefore an humbler Theme our Author chose,
A melancholy Tale of Private Woes."
This was the play of which Dr. Johnson said that "scarcely any work of any poet is at once so interesting by the fable and so delightful by the language." The domestic theme, the female protagonist, and the insistent appeal to pity were all already familiar in the plays of Otway and Southerne. Rowe gave these a larger popularity; and from his Lothario and Calista Richardson received suggestions for Lovelace and Clarissa.
"The Fair Penitent" is also interesting as an adaptation of an Elizabethan play. Rowe borrowed the plot and some hints in the characterization from "The Fatal Dowry" of Massinger and Field, but he refashioned the scenes and rewrote the verse in accord with current modes. While "The Fatal Dowry" is by no means one of the best of Elizabethan tragedies, a comparison of it with Rowe's version of the story emphasizes the losses which tragedy was suffering as it moved farther and farther from its old traditions.[28] "The Fair Penitent" reduces the host of dramatis personae to eight, the fair penitent, her husband, his rival, his sister, and three friends or confidants, and confines the action to one place and something over twenty-four hours. Much of the action of the early play is omitted or reduced to narrative, including all the opening scenes of the funeral of the husband's father and the origin of his friendship with the father of the heroine. The various attempts of the faithful friend to mend matters are also restricted, and Massinger's usual trial scene omitted. The result of these structural changes is a loss of verisimilitude. The old play had something of the illusion of a true history; in "The Fair Penitent" the action, though narrowed, is still far too much for the time supposed, and improbabilities are solved by well-worn theatrical devices. The guilt is discovered by means of a lost letter and an over-heard conversation, and throughout literary and moral proprieties lead to a reduction of action and an increase of talk. This is well illustrated in the scenes in which the husband confronts the guilty wife. In "The Fair Penitent," the wife and Lothario are having a final meeting, or declamation contest, on the day after the wedding. She upbraids him and incidentally relates the story of her seduction; the husband overhears. In "The Fatal Dowry," the husband comes unexpectedly to the house of Aymer where the lovers have an assignation. Aymer is attempting to divert him with music, when a laugh is heard within,—more music, and the lady's laugh again. The husband rushes from the stage and returns driving in the lovers. Further, the restricted action of Rowe's play causes a conventionalizing of the characters. The wife and her lover are shallow persons in Massinger's play, but they have some plausibility. In Rowe, he becomes the avenging rival; she, an impossible declaimer, now the evil woman of the heroic plays, now the lachrymose moralizer. The moralizing, emphatic in all of Rowe's plays, also adds to the general artificiality. Calista dies after most voluble repentance, and her husband matches her "groan for groan and tear for tear."
If the Elizabethan play is confused, long spun out, and not especially edifying, it is yet occasionally intense in its emotional effect and maintains some verisimilitude of life and character. Rowe's artificially ingenious and morally mellifluous play, if edifying, is never thrilling. Its conventional persons and scenes do not depict life by action; they declaim sentimentally a story that ends in a sermon. In its conventionalization and moralization Rowe illustrates the main tendencies of the drama, tendencies derived largely from the French, but it must not be thought that either his play or the majority in the century altogether forsake English models for French. Rowe's declamations and laments, immeasurably inferior in all respects, differ essentially from Racine's in that they fail to disclose psychological moments and emotional crises. They also differ from Racine in their retention of spectacle, incident, and business in accord with English tradition. Like other of his contemporaries and successors, Rowe was prone to copy the Elizabethans at their worst. The most Elizabethan thing in his play, though not found in "The Fatal Dowry," is the setting for the long famous fifth act. "The Scene is a Room hung with Black; on one side, Lothario's body on a Bier; on the other, a Table with a Scull and other Bones, a Book, and a Lamp on it. Calista is discovered on a Couch in Black, her Hair hanging loose and disordered: After Musick and a Song, she rises and comes forward"—and begins her midnight soliloquy. Perhaps, as Dr. Ward surmises, this business went far to give the act its great effectiveness.
Of the two later "She-tragedies," "Lady Jane Grey" presents the usual love intrigue (fomented here by the discarded rival), the female protagonist, and much Protestant and Whig patriotism, but nothing not paralleled in Rowe's other plays. "Jane Shore" (1714), one of the most popular plays of the century, represents another treatment of "the fair penitent," this time not only in a story used in the Elizabethan drama, but in a style avowedly in imitation of Shakespeare's.
Gloster, who is closely modeled on Shakespeare's Richard III, plays an important part, usually in consultation with his two confidants, Catesby and Radcliffe. Hastings, suspected by Gloster of loyalty to the child prince, becomes enamored of Jane Shore, the former mistress of Edward IV. She, now dedicated to penitence, resists his persuasions, in which she is encouraged by Dumont (her husband in disguise) and his confidant Bellmour. When Hastings resorts to force, Dumont comes to the rescue and disarms him. Alicia, deserted by Hastings, is the jealous and vengeful woman, well known in tragedy; and she denounces Hastings and Jane Shore in a letter which she substitutes for the petition for the release of Dumont, imprisoned through Hastings, that Jane Shore presents to Gloster. Gloster, upon testing Hastings and Jane Shore, is met by frank protestations from both of their loyalty to the prince. Hastings is condemned to death, but has time for a final interview with Alicia, and the exchange of mutual upbraidings, confessions, and forgiveness. Jane Shore is condemned to public penance. She has a parting interview with Alicia, who has gone mad, and then encounters Dumont, who, after a long discussion with his confidant, has decided to reveal himself and forgive his wife. She dies and he is led away to prison.
"Let those who view this sad Example, know
What Fate attends the broken Marriage Vow;
And teach their Children in succeeding Times,
No common Vengeance waits upon their Crimes,
When such severe Repentance could not save
From Want, from Shame, and an untimely Grave."
The play is undoubtedly Rowe's masterpiece, the closing scenes having a natural pathos that he rarely attains elsewhere. The only Shakespearean imitation now discernible is in the character of Gloster, though Rowe may have endeavored in his female characters to supply the naturalness and greatness of emotions which he recognized as characteristic of Shakespeare's men, but curiously thought lacking in his women. Here and elsewhere in language and metaphors Rowe reverts at times to the Elizabethans, as also in the admission of much action and spectacle, in pale horrors, and in the plots of his two best known plays. In the general conception and structure of his plays he follows Otway. Taken as a whole, however, his plays, without comedy, with much heroic love, with few persons, and a restricted action, come nearer to French models than those of any preceding writer of large reputation. Sentimentalized, moralized, conventionalized as the plays are, Rowe may be said to have made a novel departure in tragedy, though one accomplished a century before by Heywood's "A Woman Killed with Kindness." Penitence is the sole theme of his two famous plays, and the moral lesson is constantly enforced. The protagonist is a repentant sinner for whom we feel pity because of her punishment, which we nevertheless regard as just.
Rowe's plays, tame as they are, seem to have been too exciting and too rude for the coterie of wits who set the standards of criticism; and before the appearance of "Jane Shore" an effort was made under the direction of Addison toward still greater refinement and closer accord with French rules. Smith's "Phædra and Hippolitus" (1706), an adaptation of Racine, failed on the stage in spite of Addison's approval, but it was later often revived, and it prepared the way for the great success of Ambrose Philips's "Distrest Mother" (1712), a translation of the "Andromaque." This success, promoted by the zealous support of Mr. Spectator and Sir Roger de Coverley, was due in large measure to the story, sentimental and moral in accord with the taste of the day.[29] In these respects "The Distrest Mother" had the advantage of "Phædra," though both illustrate the tendency, growing since Lee and Otway, of making the heroine the protagonist. At all events, the success of Philips's translation was not only great for the moment, but long continued. It remained a popular stock play through the century, gave a favorite part to Mrs. Siddons, and introduced Macready to a London audience.
In the flush of Philips's first success, Addison was emboldened to present his long withheld "Cato" upon the stage. The political circumstances made the first night one of the most memorable in the history of the theatre, and gave the play what was then the enormous initial run of a month. Voltaire praised; and, with the exception of the doughty Dennis, English critics seemed agreed that here at last was an English tragedy in full accord with classical precedents and the rules of reason. The play continued a favorite on the stage into the nineteenth century, and even after the retirement of Kemble, who found in Cato one of his great parts. It would be vain to search for dramatic merits to account for this great success. The play combines love intrigues, as absurd as those usual in contemporary plays, with lucid declamation and aphoristic moralizing. Aphorism and declamation have, indeed, rarely been absent from the tragedy of any period or nation, but they were especially delightful to the taste of the Augustan era. Addison was only continuing the success of Rowe's "Tamerlane," reducing its rant to a more reasonable pattern. The reforming classicists, like the theatre-pleasing Rowe, hit on the two themes which pleased the public, the distressed female and the patriotic moralizer.
The success of "The Distrest Mother" and "Cato" was the beginning of the long triumph of French influence over English tragedy, yet the victory was never more than half won. There was no capitulation, and the battle continued through the century both among the critics and on the stage. Rowe's plays maintained at least a feeble English tradition, and Shakespeare's won increasing admiration. If critical opinion was for a time warm in support of French classicism, the theatre still clung to Elizabethan practices. Later, when imitations of the French models had established themselves in some degree upon the stage, criticism turned to condemnation of the unities and renewed its laudations of Shakespeare. The lines of battle were often obscured. Between Rowe's refinements of Elizabethan plays and Addison's imitation of the French there is little difference; and later, in spite of the din of critical essays and prefaces, the representatives of "Shakespeare's school" and of "correct taste" have a great similarity.
The Elizabethan tradition was directly represented by Elizabethan imitations and revivals, by many new plays that reverted in one way or another to the early methods, by the conservatism of actors and playgoers, and by the tragedies of Shakespeare. As Shakespeare grew in the appreciation of readers and critics, there was a tendency toward the restoration of a real Shakespearean text to the stage. There were, to be sure, innumerable new alterations and adaptations, but these were mostly of little importance on the stage. They dealt with the minor plays, as "Cymbeline," "Coriolanus," or "Timon;" or they were the essays of admiring amateurs with a bent for restringing the rough diamonds of the original, or of playwrights trying to meet the theatrical demands of the moment. Cibber's "Richard III" and Tate's "Lear" held the stage well into the next century, but "Julius Cæsar," "Hamlet" (except for Garrick's alteration, 1772-80), and "Othello" admitted no alterations. After 1744 Shakespeare's "Macbeth" took the place of Davenant's, and "Romeo and Juliet" of Otway's "Caius Marius." "Coriolanus," variously revised, altered, and finally combined with Thomson's play of the same name, was toward the end of the century given a great vogue by Kemble; and, indeed, the only one of the tragedies neglected during the century was "Antony and Cleopatra."[30] Dryden's "All for Love" had usurped its place. As the critical tone toward Shakespeare grew more admiring and less tainted by condescension, so the attitude of actors and audiences grew in heartiness of appreciation. The revival of the romantic comedies marked an important change of taste, though not calling for more than mention here. Year after year his comedies, histories, and tragedies were acted oftener and to larger audiences, and gave opportunity for the best efforts of a long series of great actors and actresses. Garrick's revivals and triumphs were followed by those of Mrs. Siddons and Kemble. Now one play became a favorite, now another, under the influence of a great impersonation; but few were neglected, and over the theatre Shakespeare's domination was unquestioned.
Except for Shakespeare the direct influence of the Elizabethans was small. A few of the tragedies were acted intermittently in the first half of the century, and a few comedies kept their places in the stock list much longer. Revivals, though not infrequent, were rarely permanent. Revampings sometimes resulted in an almost unconditional surrender to the French. Theobald in the first half of the century attempted a reversion to the Elizabethans without much success, and later a revival of interest in Massinger succeeded in restoring only his two comedies to the theatre. As sources of incentive for those writers who shunned French modes, Otway, Southerne, and Rowe took the places of the Elizabethans other than Shakespeare. The English tradition which these names represent had, as we have seen, already been much subject to French influence, though protected by the adherence of the theatre to old custom. Consequently, while the majority of eighteenth century tragedies retain some Elizabethan practices, there is not one of importance that is a thoroughgoing representative of the old methods and technic.
French influence, on the contrary, had many representatives among the new plays. The success of "The Distrest Mother" led to a number of translations. In the first quarter of the century there were ten of Racine's plays and four of Corneille's; and of these fourteen, eight were acted, and several with success. Later on, Whitehead's "Roman Father" (1750), an adaptation of Corneille's "Horace," won a place in the stock list. But the leading factor in the French influence on English tragedy during the century was Voltaire. The long critical debate which he waged in behalf of the rules and against the barbarities of Shakespeare has its importance in English as well as French literary history. But while the English critics grew more and more eager as the century advanced to uphold the glory of Shakespeare and to denounce an atheist who denied this, or to proclaim their freedom from the narrowing rules which were French, yet the triumphs of Voltaire's plays upon the English stage continued unabated. Adaptations of no less than nine of his tragedies had appeared on the London stage before the English translation of his full works in 1779-80, and there were manifold borrowings from him in many other plays.[31] A number of the translations, Hill's "Zara" and "Merope," Miller's "Mahomet," and Murphy's "Orphan of China," made notable successes. From the production of "Brutus" to that of "Semiramis" in 1776 Voltaire may be said to have been the most popular and influential of the writers of tragedy for the English theatre.[32]
The translations of these tragedies, however, indicate the influence of English traditions. The long speeches are shortened, the dialogue is broken and enlivened, the minor proprieties disregarded, the sentiments and morals Anglicized, and some business and bloodshed introduced on the stage. In Hill's "Merope," for example, the great scene where Merope strives to kill the murderer of her long-lost son and discovers the supposed murderer to be her son himself, loses all its simplicity as well as its poetry. It is ornamented by Hill with processions, virgins in white, music, a sacrificial song, and many starts and strains. Where on the French stage Egisthe decorously withdraws behind the scenes as his mother approaches with the dagger, on the English stage everything was in full sight. If some of the other translations are less altered, the imitations and unavowed adaptations are much more so. Hoole's "Cyrus" (1768), a popular play, is obviously based on "Merope," but adds a much complicated plot, a mad woman, a love intrigue between the long-lost son and the daughter of the old tutor, and a returning husband for Mandane (Merope). The great success of Voltaire in England did not, in fact, produce any very marked change in the course of tragedy. He represents the continuance of French influence but established no departures of note from the general type established in the English theatres by 1725. Virtually no English tragedies in the eighteenth century introduced comedy; few reveled in horrors and bloodshed, the majority observed the unities, nearly all had few persons, a restricted action, and themes and situations confined to slight variations of a stereotyped love story; and nearly all had regard for poetic justice. The differences between French and English tragedy were largely those which adapters of Voltaire eliminated when they made over his plays for the London theatres and gave them a more broken dialogue and more stage action, and perhaps a mad woman or a villain. Moreover, the amelioration of the differences between the two theatres was not all on one side, as is shown by Voltaire's own imitations of Shakespeare and his introduction of ghosts and horrors, and by the growing interest in France in Shakespeare and other English dramatists.[33] Voltaire, with his ingenious plots and telling crises, was nearer than Racine to the English tradition, and he wrote at a time when the differences between the two national theatres were minimized to a degree that made intercommunication easy. His talents gave him an easy superiority over any English writer of tragedies after the classical formulas.
In the course of the century there were also a considerable number of plays that turned from French to Greek models. While these cannot be regarded as wholly representative of a reaction from a pseudo to a truer classicism, they certainly offered hardly more resemblance to Voltaire than to Shakespeare. The Greek influence was, however, variously manifested. Adaptations of Euripides were numerous, half a dozen of which were presented at the theatres. In addition, a number of original plays were written, following the Greek form. Most famous of these were two by Gray's friend Mason, "Elfrida" and "Caractacus." The latter, while stilted and academic, compares favorably in point of literary excellence with most tragedies of the century, and not altogether unworthily takes its place in a series that includes "Samson Agonistes" and "Prometheus Unbound." "Read Shakespeare," wrote Lyttleton to Aaron Hill, "but study Racine and Sophocles." But the classicists were occupied in the main with neither poet, but in discussing various minor questions of dramatic propriety: Should any violence or bloodshed be permitted? Should rhyme tags end the scenes? Should the epilogue be comic or serious? Should figures of speech be allowed? Should long speeches be shortened for presentation? Classicism in both England and France was not greatly imitative of either Sophocles or Racine, but mainly insistent on immaterialities.
If we attempt to follow the diminishing differences between English and French standards in the work of individual authors, Young's "Busiris" (1719) and "Revenge" (1721) are the most important of those tragedies in the first quarter of the century which cling to some of the characteristics of the early English drama, while his "Brothers," written at about the same time but not acted until 1753, is based upon Thomas Corneille's "Persée et Demetrius." In "Busiris" there is no villain, but tyranny, conspiracy, and a passionate revenging queen play their usual parts. There is an attempt, both in incidents and expression, at Elizabethan force and horror; the main action deals with a rape, and five of the principal persons are killed upon the stage. "The Revenge" is still more Elizabethan, being a palpable imitation of "Othello." The prologue declares that the proper field for tragedy is not villany but "the tumults of a Godlike mind," yet the villain, the Moor Zanga, is the chief character and was acted by Garrick, Kemble, and Kean. The villain's part, it is interesting to note, affords the most striking difference between this popular play and the even more popular "Zara." In both, the heroine, pure and innocent, is killed by the husband, Othello-like in both magnanimity and jealousy; but in Voltaire the jealousy is occasioned by the heroine's meetings with her brother, a captive Christian, in Young by the busy and ponderous intrigues of a Moorish Iago.
In opposition to Young, Thomson represents the vogue of classicism both in literary circles and in the theatres. His early tragedies, "Sophonisba" (1730), "Agammemnon" (1738), and "Edward and Eleonora," prohibited by the censor because of its attacks upon Walpole, won little favor except in the circle of wits who attempted to dictate the national taste in letters and among the opponents of Walpole. The first was dedicated to the Queen and the two later to the Princess of Wales, and "Tancred and Sigismunda" (1743) to Frederick, Prince of Wales, the patron of the drama and the hope of the Tories. This play, the presentation of which was fathered and superintended by Lyttleton and Pitt, achieved a large popular success; and portions of "Coriolanus," acted after the author's death in 1749, were combined with Shakespeare's tragedy in versions by Thomas Sheridan and Kemble, and supplied the latter with his greatest part. All Thomson's plays endeavor to retell stories often used in tragedy, in strict accord with the rules, with absolute propriety of diction, some reference to political events, and a due inculcation of moral sentiments. In the language of one of their admirers, they were intended to be "reasonable entertainments becoming virtue itself to behold with tears of approbation."[34] "Sophonisba" is sternly heroic in its subordination of love to patriotic hate of Rome in the character of its heroine, and sternly classic in the simplicity of its plot and the heaviness of its inflated rhetoric. "Agammemnon," also a "She-tragedy," is designed after the school of Racine rather than of Corneille; and its wavering, inconsistent Clytemnestra, who closes the play with a torrent of remorse and a faint, its Melisander saved from a desert island, and its courtly love-sick Egisthus are queer denizens of the house of Atreus. "Edward and Eleanor," telling of the queen who sucked poison from her husband's wound, and of the sultan who, suspected of the attempted murder, bore a truly miraculous antidote to the Christian camp, owes allegiance to Voltaire. Its emotional changes and elaborate intrigue bring it also more closely in accord with the prevailing English type. "Tancred and Sigismunda," based on the story as told in "Gil Blas,"[35] makes the lover a claimant to the throne and the intervention of the father due to reasons of state. The plot is developed with more skill than is usual in Thomson, and the rival lovers, the marriage in revenge, the midnight interview, the duel, and the murder of the heroine are quite in conformity to the prevailing model. "Coriolanus," the subject of many French tragedies and of Shakespearean alterations by Tate and Dennis, illustrates the inferiority of the classic scheme to the Elizabethan in the presentation of history. The action, beginning with the arrival of Coriolanus as a suppliant for Tullus's hospitality, crowds the remaining events and the changes in the two rivals within the impossible confines of the unities of time and place. Coriolanus himself exemplifies the effort toward "Nature," that is, typicality and reasonableness, in pseudo-classical characterization. He expresses the sentiments and manners approved by the eighteenth century, and, even when pride and revenge most fire his passion, is a very tame lion. The moral lessons, somewhat clouded in Shakespeare, are distinctly enunciated and finally summed up by Galesus:—
"This man was once the glory of his age,
Disinterested, just, with every virtue
Of civil life adorn'd, in arms unequall'd.
His only blot was this; that, much provok'd,
He rais'd his vengeful arm against his country," etc. (v. 4).
In Thomson's other plays the inflated declamation occasionally gives way to a bit of description that recalls "The Seasons," but in "Coriolanus" he follows the promise of the Prologue to "Tancred" with unerring fidelity:—
"Your taste rejects the glittering false sublime,
To sigh in metaphor, and die in rhyme.
High rant is tumbled from his gallery throne;
Description, dreams,—nay, similes are gone."
He was obviously seeking what he called Shakespeare's "simple, plain sublime," and his declamations occasionally reach a sententious lucidity worthy of Addison, but the pseudo-classic diction freezes every emotion with its "transports," "charms," and "nuptial loves." This is Volumnia's appeal to Coriolanus, her husband in Thomson's play:—
"Ah Coriolanus!
Is then this hand, this hand to be devoted,
The pledge of nuptial love, that has so long
Protected, bless'd, and shelter'd us with kindness,
Now lifted up against us? Yet I love it,
And, with submissive veneration, bow
Beneath th' affliction which it heaps upon us.
But O! what nobler transports would it give thee!
What joy beyond expression! couldst thou once
Surmount the furious storm of fierce revenge,
And yield ye to the charms of love and mercy.
Oh make the glorious trial!" (v. 1).
Thomson's plays were not esteemed even by his master Voltaire as contributing greatly to that perfection of art possibly attainable by a "due mixture of the French taste and English energy." For, though "wisely intricated and elegantly writ," Voltaire found him, like Addison, lacking in warmth, an "iced genius."[36] Frigid to his contemporaries, the tragedies were long since decently interred. They constitute, nevertheless, the most considerable attempt made by any author of the eighteenth century to conserve the classic theory of tragedy, and they recall nearly every variety of pseudo-classic endeavor. Of classicism it might be said, as of Thomson, that it attempted classic and early English history, that it found in partisan patriotism its favorite theme for rhetoric, that its French rules and taste usually pleased readers better than spectators, but that when it took one of Shakespeare's tragedies as the basis for an infusion of classical theory, or when it was tempered with a love story and a lively action, it triumphed in the theatre.
Thomson's friends, Mallet and the versatile and indefatigable Aaron Hill, joined him in his efforts to redeem the tragic muse. Hill's efforts, if no more successful than Thomson's and much less consistent, are at least more amusing. His general theory seems to have been not unlike that which actually controlled theatrical practice; he purposed a combination of French rules with romantic incident, theatrical bustle, and his own inimitable style. His "Fatal Vision, or Fall of Siam" (1716), he boasted, had "a deeper and more surprising plot than any play which has been published, that I know of, in the English tongue; and yet is written in strict observance of the dramatic rules" and affords "room for topical reflections, large description, love, war, show, and passion," and also "a very high regard to decoration." The play is noticeable for its tangle of trite dramatic motives.
The emperor's vision is of a son who shall kill him and usurp the throne. The two elder sons are in love with the Princess of Siam. Sworn by her to kill their father, and condemned by him for a murder they did not commit, they die fighting in his behalf. The third son kills the emperor, marries the princess, and ascends the throne. In his rapid advance he is aided by the banished empress, who has returned to court and attained high power, disguised as the favorite eunuch.
Hill adapted three of Voltaire's plays, "Zara," "Alzira," and "Merope." To the first he wrote some comic choruses intended to be sung between the acts, and to the third he prefixed his revised and final opinion of Voltaire and French tragedy:—
"Our unpolished English stage (as he assumes the liberty of calling it) has entertained a nobler taste of dignify'd simplicity, than to deprive dramatic poetry of all that animates its passions; in pursuit of a cold, starv'd, tame abstinence, which, from an affectation to shun figure, sinks to flatness: an elaborate escape from energy into a groveling, wearisome, bald, barren, unalarming chilness of expression, that emasculates the mind, instead of moving it."
"Athelwold" (1731), a revision of his early "Elfrid," is colorlessly conventional; "The Roman Revenge" (1753) is an alteration of "Julius Cæsar"; "The Insolvent" (1758) is a rewriting of "The Fatal Dowry," making the heroine an innocent object of jealousy. Most Aaronic of all is "Henry V" (1723). Here he gives up French unities and technic, and introduces many characters, shifting scenes, a bit of comedy, and the "genius of England," who sings a song. His greatest addition to Shakespeare is his Harriet, who starts out like one of the evil queens in the heroic tragedies. When abandoned by Henry, she is still jealous and revengeful; next she appears disguised as a page in the French camp, and, Viola-like, relates a story of a love-lorn sister; then recaptured by Henry, she storms and melts; but the Jane Shore mood is transient, and, like a tragedy queen again, she stabs herself. A man who could write a comic duet for Voltaire's "Zaïre" and could supply Prince Hal with a paramour whose grandmothers were Viola and the Indian Queen, ought not to be wholly forgotten.
Hill's career may remind us both of the din of the critics over Voltaire and Shakespeare, and also of the virtual compromise and amalgamation that had taken place on the stage between French and English traditions. English tragedy, after a long national development, had become materially modified by French influence and had assumed a fixed and restricted form. This type, recognizable early in the century, continues to prevail nearly to the end. The century had little power of innovation, little that can be called a development in the history of tragedy. The pendulum swings now toward French, now toward Elizabethan models, but its oscillations are slight and regulated. The plays thus far considered offer unimportant variations from the type, and plays after the middle of the century vary still less. Home's famous "Douglas" (1757), that thrilled every heart and in the opinion of the judicious redeemed the stage anew from barbarism, fails now to distinguish itself from its fellows, unless by its touches of melancholy, medievalism, and nature, that hint of romanticism. Here, as so often, a much suffering woman is beset by villany and jealousy. Home's other tragedies and those of Glover, Hoole, Brown, Murphy, and Cumberland offer even less of novelty, except that toward the end of the century refinement in sentiments and morals becomes increasingly attenuated. Miss Hannah More best represents this feminization of the type. Her "Percy" (1777), a very successful play, is devoted to the sentiment:—
"Will it content me that her person's pure?
No, if her alien heart doats on another,
She is unchaste."
"The Fatal Falsehood" (1779) presents in a domestic guise the usual plot of rivals in love and an intriguing villain, with the addition of a love-sick lady who runs mad. "The curtain falls to soft music." The century has one marked innovation in the realistic plays of Lillo and Moore, and after 1780 there are signs of the romanticism stirring elsewhere in literature; but in the main the new tragedies are hopelessly commonplace representatives of an extremely conventionalized form.
Yet tragedy was by no means neglected in literature or on the stage. Several hundred tragedies were published during the century and many of them went through several editions. Three or four were brought out every year in the theatres, and many of these maintained themselves for a time as stock plays. Most men of letters essayed tragedy,—Addison, Johnson, Young, Thomson, Gay, the laureates Cibber, Rowe, Whitehead, Pye, and a host of minor celebrities. Besides the tragedies acted, there were almost as many not acted but printed. Closet dramas, common in the Elizabethan period, grew more numerous after the Restoration. Whether the writer scorned or was scorned by the manager, an appeal to the reading public was always easy and apparently sometimes profitable. Tragedies were bought and read; a popular play might start with an edition of five thousand and run through a number of editions. Even after the novel had supplanted the drama among readers, there was no diminution of printed plays. The non-acted plays, however, offer nothing of importance for the history of the drama. The majority are unactable; others follow the usual formulas; a few Greek plays, alterations of Shakespeare, and sacred dramas have some interest as curiosities. The increase in the number of these plays does indicate a growing separation between the drama and the theatre. Plays were no longer written by a set of dramatists who made a profession; they were written by any one who had literary pretensions. Only a few new plays were required; the supply greatly exceeded the demand. The theatrical monopoly maintained by the two patented theatres offered no great encouragement to dramatists, and the number who wrote without any acquaintance or knowledge of the stage increased. Literary fame rather than success in the theatre was perhaps the greater incentive in the case of tragedy. Whatever the incentive, individual ambition resulted in no individuality of expression. The popular ballad of tradition is scarcely less expressive of personality than the average eighteenth century tragedy. Even the plays of temporary importance have no flavor of their own.[37]
The features of this type have often been mentioned in connection with particular plays, but it may be convenient to collect them in a composite picture. In structure and technic French models are mainly followed. Very long speeches, indeed, are rare, bloodshed and violence are permitted on the stage, and there is a good deal of incident; but bloodshed and horrors after the Elizabethan style no longer appear. Comedy also has disappeared, and is tabooed even in adaptations of Shakespeare or of Restoration plays. Comedy is reserved for the farce which is always performed after a tragedy. Each tragedy concerns itself with a single plot, involving only from six to ten persons, and observing the unities, even after Johnson's salutary condemnation of them. There are few changes of scene, ordinarily none within an act. With the disappearance of other medieval characteristics there has also departed the medieval freedom in respect to the suitability of an action for the stage. The range of incidents possible for presentation is very limited; exposition is largely by narrative; supernatural elements, common in Lee, are unusual; the ghost at last rests in peace. Madness, however, is still retained, especially in the case of the long-suffering heroine. Battles, armies, stage spectacles of all kinds, are restricted, though the scenes may be elaborate, and processions, sacrifices, even music and songs are permissible. The first essential for the action is a love story, the second some kind of historical setting. The fatal or hazardous loves of princes and queens are the themes; Eastern, classic, or early English courts are the scenes.
The love story itself often keeps to the form customary in the heroic plays. Two rivals in love, two heroines, major and minor, a tyrant, an intriguing minister, and the accompanying confidants appear again and again to assist in similar stories of jealousy, ambition, and villany. The old Elizabethan motives continue, as "Rape" and "The Fate of Villany," the titles of two plays acted in 1729-30, may witness, but usually they are refined and tamed. Incest and rape are averted; the tyrant in love with the heroine only threatens; the villain who pursues casts suspicion on her virtue but abstains from violence; the two brothers, or the son and the father, in love with the same lady sometimes find renunciation possible. Unjustified jealousy is perhaps the leading motive, and there are many feeble imitations of "Othello." A secret marriage, a long-lost son, and marriages, either for revenge or in order to save a lover, are common elements in the plot. Hero and heroine are examples of virtue. Their difficulties or ruin are sometimes due to one fatal error duly emphasized, or they may be due wholly to the machinations of the villain. In the latter case, poetic justice is usually regarded and the good are saved.
The villain is the most constant reminder of Elizabethan tragedy. He has all the traits of the stage Machiavellis of Marlowe and Kyd, and sometimes imitates Iago. He is wholly black at heart, but he is apparently frank and honest; his revenge or ambition works by most devious intrigue; he confides his schemes to the audience in long soliloquies, yet his accomplished hypocrisy long baffles the rest of the dramatis personae. As in late Elizabethan and Restoration plays, he is often a prime minister. A collection of these villains' speeches would illustrate the conventionalized character of eighteenth century tragedy and the tendency of stage types to perpetuate themselves in theatrical tradition. A few lines from two may be sufficient. The first is the opening soliloquy of Seyfert in "The Heroine of the Cave," a play of some popularity acted in 1774.
"Revenge, thou art the deity I adore!—
From thy auspicious shrine I hope a cure
For the corroding pain that rends my heart.
The vain Alberti being thus preferr'd
By fair Constantia, passeth all enduring!
Colredo I have rouz'd—another wooer—
And in his name are such reflections dropp'd,
As 'twixt the two a duel must provoke—
My purpose is, whoe'er the conqu'ror be,
To reap advantage for my private views," etc.
The second is the opening soliloquy of Bertrand in Miss Hannah More's "Fatal Falsehood" (1779).
"What fools are serious melancholy villains!
I play a surer game, and screen my heart
With easy looks and undesigning smiles;
And while my actions spring from sober thought,
They still appear th' effect of wild caprice,
And I, the thoughtless slave of giddy chance.
What but this frankness has engag'd the promise
Of young Orlando, to confide in me
That secret grief which preys upon his heart?
'Tis dangerous, indiscreet hypocrisy
To seem too good: I am the careless Bertrand,
The honest, undesigning, plain, blunt man:" etc.
The continuance of the stage villain is worthy of some note beyond its evidence of conventionalization. It calls attention to the fact that English tragedy has always been largely concerned with evil persons. Though the utterly bad were condemned as tragic figures by Aristotle, and the overthrow of the wicked as a tragic theme has ever since been held in some contempt by theorizers; yet from the time of Marlowe, or even earlier, English tragedy has told the stories of evil-doers with careers of cruelty or lust, or of machinators who have turned to bitterness and disaster the lives of the pure and the good. Of the first class are the tyrants, usurpers, lustful monarchs, and bloody avengers; of the second, the Machiavellian prime ministers, the hypocritical counselors, and the traitorous friends; and the two are often united as in Barabas or Richard III. English authors, actors, and audiences have delighted in a visible representative of the devil upon the stage, in an impersonation of the source of evil. Given grandeur of ambition, the evil one becomes the protagonist; given mere revenge and hatred as motives, he is still the main opponent of the hero. Perhaps the highest kind of tragic feeling is not aroused either by the fall of the depraved or by the ruin of the noble through trickery and cunning, yet "Richard III" and "Macbeth" deal with the one theme, and "Othello" and "Lear" with the other. Shakespeare's tragedies, indeed, represent other conflicts than this between good and evil, and in the representation of that conflict they are not confined by theological or dramatic formulas. Such formulas were just what eighteenth century writers enjoyed, and in attacking the problem of evil they clung to one of the most artificial if also one of the most typical persons in literature, the Elizabethan stage machinator. The conflict of bad and good, a natural if not inevitable motive of a drama descending from medieval times, found its expression in the excessively amiable hero and heroine and the utterly black villain, stage types that have maintained themselves in fiction as well as the drama through Scott and Dickens down to the present day. The stage villain, a theory of poetic justice that refused to punish the good except for some distinctly emphasized fault, and a faith in the potency of moral precepts, these are the devil, providence, and salvation of a theatrical theology, which, along with conventional technic, narrowed plots, and some refinement in moral taste, distinguish the eighteenth century type of tragedy.
The bird, caged and clipped, no longer sang. There was no poetry left in tragedy, and no human nature. Was there anything, then, in this type that showed advance over the preceding centuries, or anything that offered promise for future development? Not one of the literary forms in which the eighteenth century excelled, and not one fully representing the pseudo-classical theories, tragedy cannot be fairly judged as representing classicism versus romanticism. It merely presents a deteriorated English tradition modified and narrowed by pseudo-classical rules and theory. Yet it corrected and modified English tradition where it needed corrections and modifications, without quite denationalizing it. The admixture of comedy, prone to become gross farce, the horrors and bloodshed, and the brutal and revolting themes were rightly abandoned. In structure there was a more positive reformation. Stage illusion and precision of effect may be aided by an observance of the unities, and the limitation of the action to a single plot, a few persons, and a few scenes,—Shakespeare and encomiasts of his art to the contrary notwithstanding. It must be added that in practice the unities are likely to result in a counter-balancing defect, in a concentration of incident improbable and artificial, as often in eighteenth century tragedies, and even in Ibsen. The pseudo-classicists erred mainly in taking their rules as masters instead of as guides. Yet eighteenth century tragedy deserves this meed of praise that it sought for literary form, which preceding tragedy had largely lacked; and its attempts to secure this offered useful lessons for the future. But here the usefulness of its dramatic art ends. In the limitation of what could be acted and of what belonged to the species, it was suicidal. French tragedy in its effort to imitate Greek failed to take advantage of the resources of modern theatres; and English tragedy, halting between English and French precedents, simply confined itself to well-worn theatrical customs. There are not only no new subjects or characters, there are no new situations, surprises, or catastrophes, no new methods of exposition or dialogue. Some of the worst of the old conventions survived, as the soliloquies, which continue long, frequent, and undisguised, but it would be hard to find even a bit of stage business that was new. Eighteenth century tragedy made no adequate demands of its splendid theatres and great actors.[38]
The only daring departure from the prevailing type, and the most important contribution to the general development of European tragedy in the eighteenth century, came in the success of "George Barnwell, or the London Merchant" (1731). This was the first tragedy of George Lillo, a London jeweler, who had hitherto had no known theatrical or literary connections, save for one unsuccessful play. It was followed within a few years by another domestic tragedy, "Fatal Curiosity," two tragedies of the regular type, "The Christian Hero" and the posthumous "Elmerick," and by adaptations of "Pericles" and "Arden of Feversham." The two domestic tragedies differ somewhat in both form and purpose. "The London Merchant," in prose, tells the story of Barnwell's downfall through the courtesan Millwood, his murder of his uncle at her instigation, and the final execution of both criminals. Barnwell's repentance is much dwelt upon, and the moral lesson is enforced in every line. "The Fatal Curiosity," in blank verse, tells of a frightful murder of a son by a father at the instigation of the mother. From the innocent "curiosity" of the long-lost son in concealing his identity from his parents, there is traced the chain of circumstances which finally drive the poverty-stricken and wretched couple to the murder of the stranger. The play is thus nearer to Greek than modern ideas of tragedy, in that it represents destiny as something separate from character, and it links itself with the German species of Schicksalstragödie, which indeed it directly influenced. "The London Merchant," on the contrary, seeks the causes and effects of crime in a crude and popular presentation of character that always makes the most of human will and sentiment.
Daring and important as was Lillo's innovation, it was by no means without progenitors and near kinsmen. The relations of his plays to Elizabethan domestic tragedies are evident. Like "Arden of Feversham," which Lillo may have been copying, "The London Merchant" presents a murder, portrays a monstrous woman, and ends with an execution. Like the Elizabethan plays, Lillo's are bald, detailed, and moralizing. The very pleas that he advances in his dedication for realism and liberty had been advanced in "Arden" and the "Warning for Fair Women." Moreover, while since 1660 no tragedies had dealt solely with middle-class society, there had been much chafing against the restrictions that limited tragedy to princes; and from English writers as well as Corneille had come forecasts of the sweeping democracy of Lillo's creed:—
"What I would infer is this, I think, evident truth; that tragedy is so far from losing its dignity, by being accommodated to the circumstances of the generality of mankind, that it is more truly august in proportion to the extent of its influence, and the numbers that are properly affected by it. As it is more truly great to be the instrument of good to many, who stand in need of our assistance, than to a very small part of that number."[39]
Southerne, Otway, and Rowe had won great success for domestic themes, and their examples were naturally cited in the prologue which introduced "The Merchant." Comedy might also have been summoned to support. After the scourging from Collier it had joined in the general movement at the beginning of the century toward sentiment and moralizing. Sentimental comedy, seeking both pathos and a moral, may be said to begin in England at least as early as Colley Cibber's "Careless Husband" (1704) and Steele's "Tender Husband" (1705). Steele's "Conscious Lovers" (1722) shows the species in full development. More general but not less important encouragements for realism in tragedy came from the realistic tendencies manifest in the literature of the preceding generation, notably in the novels of Defoe, and from the moralistic tendencies everywhere manifest in both fiction and drama. Lillo was one with his time, though out with truth and art, in thinking "the more extensively useful the moral of any tragedy is, the more excellent that piece must be of its kind."[40] The ascendancy of the middle class in letters, their expanding social life, their attachment to a conventional morality and a utilitarian art, and their delight in sentimentality, all help to explain the appearance of "George Barnwell." Lillo was writing for a generation that had "The Fair Penitent" and was waiting for "Pamela."
Lillo's work, however, was none the less that of a pioneer. "The Fatal Curiosity" had a special influence, beginning forty years after its appearance, in the German tragedies of destiny; and "The London Merchant," soon after its publication, became of importance in both France and Germany. In France its welcome was prepared by the growth of a species of sentimental comedy paralleling the English, and it was translated in time (1748) to serve as an example and stimulant to Diderot's plays and theories. Even before the publication of his "Le Fils Naturel"[41] (1757), and "Le Père de Famille"[42] (1758), Lessing's "Miss Sara Sampson" (1755) had appeared directly modeled on "The London Merchant." Through Diderot and Lessing and, a little later, through German translations of Lillo's plays, domestic tragedy continued its leavening work in the German drama. By that time, sentimental comedy and domestic tragedy were returning from France and Germany to influence the English drama.
In England the direct stream of domestic tragedy never flowed high. A one-act play, "Fatal Extravagance," in prose, had appeared in 1721 under the patronage of Aaron Hill, and was revived the year before the success of "Barnwell," and later enlarged into five acts. There were a few successors—"Caelia, or the Perjured Lover" (1732), by Charles Johnson, presenting a Lovelace-like protagonist; "Love the Cause and Cure of Grief" (1743), a three-act play in prose; and Victor's adaptation of "A Woman Killed with Kindness" (1776). Far more important than any of these was Moore's "Gamester" (1753), long a stock play, and almost as influential on the continent as "Barnwell." Like "The Yorkshire Tragedy," it pictures the horrors of gaming. The gamester, his long-suffering wife, a faithful servant, a spirited girl, her lover, the intriguing villain, and his accomplices play a story of far more insistent dramatic power than Lillo's and of no less sentimental and moral conclusiveness. Cumberland's "Mysterious Husband" (1783) is a later and less crude representative of the same species.[43]
Lord Davenant has deceived his wife into marrying him by slandering her lover Dormer. Later he has entrapped Dormer's sister into a pretended marriage and then deserted her. She, supposing her husband dead, marries Lord Davenant's son. On their marriage day, Dormer returns; Lord Davenant is discovered and kills himself.
Though a man and not a woman is the central figure of this social entanglement, we are reminded of the Tanquerays and Ebbsmiths of a later day in its powerful and not unveracious presentation of domestic ruin.
One reason for the failure of Lillo's pioneering to arouse a larger following in tragedy was the possession which comedy had taken of both domestic sentiment and morality. The species of sentimental and tearful comedy, which had already by 1730 appeared in both England and France, soon flourished in both countries. Their vogue was diminished by the success of "She Stoops to Conquer" and "The Rivals," but there was a further development during the last thirty years of the century in the plays of Cumberland, Holcroft, Mrs. Inchbald, and others. A certain amount of low comedy was, after "The Rivals," admitted to be necessary, as Holcroft avows in the preface to "Duplicity," but in such plays as his "Duplicity" and "Road to Ruin," or Cumberland's "The Jew" and "The Wheel of Fortune," suffering abounds, ruin is imminent, there is much weeping, and a salient moral lesson. The suffering usually is confined to loss of fortune or temptation of virtue, and the moral lesson is directed against gaming, or loose living, or marital infidelity upon the part of the husband. The intriguing villain in this kind of play sinks to insignificance, and the moving force is likely to be a humanitarian benefactor who rescues the lost fortune or saves the heroine from the hated marriage. Occasionally this type of serious comedy comes close to tragedy. In Holcroft's "Deserted Daughter" (1795), a revamping of Cumberland's "Fashionable Lover," the father has disowned his daughter by his first marriage, and, through his wicked agent, she has been sent to a house of ill-fame. Not knowing his own daughter, the father, ruined in fortune and conscience, plans to aid a friend to secure her, and himself visits her. The situation is ghastly enough, but all comes out happily. The happy ending was in fact the dram of eale that corrupted the whole substance of this sentimental comedy. The theatrical necessity of a happy ending forbade either tragedy or a serious study of life. It compelled the dramatist to devote a large part of a play to preparing for the reconciliation, to spend much time on youthful love, to maintain a lightness of tone throughout; and it destroyed the possibility of tracing out character and incident to anything like a logical conclusion. The domestic drama, devoted to a serious presentation of social life, had its opportunity in the eighteenth as well as in the twentieth century. It shrank from tragedy; it advanced as far as attacking fashionable excesses, or as dramatizing moral theses, but it never got beyond the lovers who must be united and the everything that must come out well. It resigned itself to sentimentality and false conclusions, and was naturally overwhelmed by the theatrically more captivating sentimentality and falsity of Kotzebue. When "The London Merchant" and "The Gamester" encouraged the vogue of sentimental comedy, they nourished an ingrate which destroyed the legitimate brood of domestic tragedy. In the theatres men took their realism sugared by a sentimentality that sent them home contented. But Lillo's work was not unheeded by the genius who in "Tom Jones" and "Amelia" gave literary greatness to a realistic study of manners and morals. The sentimentalizing and moralizing of the middle classes, which from the time of Southerne had threatened to have their say on the stage, found their spokesman in the author of "Clarissa Harlowe."
In the last third of the century the various social, intellectual, and imaginative changes that make up the beginnings of the Romantic movement had their effect upon tragedy, but only in a partial and secondary fashion. The drama was already losing place to the novel in popularity, and showing signs of becoming a sort of literary by-product. Successful novels were made over into plays, and the various romantic tendencies to medievalism, melancholy, supernaturalism, and naturalism found expression in novel or verse rather than in play. The reawakening interest in the Elizabethan dramatists was represented by a revival of a number of the plays of Massinger and of Beaumont and Fletcher,[44] and imitations of Elizabethan diction became frequent. A more important departure was furnished by the so-called Terrific School of fiction. Medieval stories and scenes, and the various accessories of horror, ghosts, graveyards, dungeons, vaults, and the midnight bell had never been lacking in eighteenth century tragedy, but the novels of Walpole and his successors offered some novelties. Walpole's own unacted "Mysterious Mother" (1768), perhaps the most powerful of the Gothic tragedies, was the pioneer of the movement. Robert Jephson, whose "Braganza" (1775) was heralded as
"His; no French tragedy,—tame, polish'd, dull by rule!
Vigorous he comes, and warm from Shakespeare's school,"
produced in 1781 an adaptation of Walpole's "Castle of Otranto," called "The Count of Narbonne," which, as the epilogue boasts,
"Midst the placid murmurings of Love
Rolls the rough tide of Gothick force along."
His "Julia" (1787), another popular play with his usual abundance of soliloquies, tells a story of Elizabethan villany; and there were a few other Gothic attempts, as Cumberland's "Carmelite" (1784), before Lewis's "Castle Spectre" (1797) carried the town by storm. The further history of the terrific tragedies belongs to the next chapter, as does that of the German importations which culminated in the craze for Kotzebue, but it may be noted here that "Werter," acted in 1785, and "Emilia Galotti," acted in 1794, were among the earlier indications of German influence on the stage.
By 1790 the decadence of English tragedy had apparently run its course and nearly come to a full stop. The freedom and independence of Elizabethan days had degenerated by the time of Charles I into a fairly definite type. That type, maintained in the Restoration period, though with modifications and innovations, had now become conventionalized, debased, sterile. French influence had proved unprocreative. In spite of the activities of the theatres, the inspiration of Shakespeare, and the assistance of great actors and actresses, tragedy had failed to produce literature comparable to that of its rival, the novel. The drama, to be sure, had played a large part, both in tragedy and comedy, in reflecting and promoting the sentimentality and moralizing common in the literature of the century; Otway, Southerne, and Rowe had in a way fathered the sentimental novels. But in tragedy their Isabellas and Calistas had no successors to rank with Clarissa and Amelia. If tragedy through its alliance with sentiment failed of permanent advance, it was still more unsuccessful in representing the reasonableness, typicality, and austerity which the classical conception required. It was half-hearted, turning now to Shakespeare, now to Voltaire, but never producing anything not conventionalized and dull. The escapes from its dullness remained until the very end of the century only half-opened doors. Through the door opened by "Barnwell" and "The Gamester," the drama saw only the broad path that led back to sentimentality and overlooked the straight and narrow way leading to realism and truth. Over the threshold that opened to medieval castles and chambers of horrors it was still hesitating. The divorce between literature and the stage had widened, and tragedy failed to attract genius to its rescue. Crabbe did not write a tragedy of the village, and Burns did not summon poetry and passion to the stage.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ward's History of Dramatic Literature ends with the death of Queen Anne; and there is no adequate history of the English drama for the last two centuries, and no good bibliography. Genest continues to be the main source of information. Lowe's Bibliographical Account and the histories of the theatre noted in the last chapter are useful for the matter of the present. In addition, The History and Illustration of the London Theatres, by Chas. Dibdin, Jr. (1826); Victor's History of the Theatres of London and Dublin (1761); W. C. Dalton's History of the Theatres, 1771-95; and The Dramatic Censor (1770) become available for this period. A large number of memoirs of actors also supply information in regard to the drama. An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian, written by himself (1750), reviews the Restoration period as well. Others of interest are: Davies's Memoirs of Garrick (1780); Murphy's Life of Garrick (1801); Boaden's Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons (1827) and Memoirs of Kemble (1825); Cumberland's Memoir (1806); Mudford's Critical Examination of the Writings of Richard Cumberland, etc. (1812); Boaden's Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald (1833); Private Correspondence of David Garrick (1831-32); Holcroft's Memoirs, ed. by Hazlitt (1816); Cooke's Memoirs of Charles Macklin (2d ed., 1808).
The plays by authors of note can be found in the collected editions of their works, the more popular plays in the various collections noted in the last chapter. The majority of the tragedies, however, have never been reprinted and can be obtained only in the original editions. Dramatic criticism of the period can be studied in various essays by Addison, Steele, Gildon, Dennis, and Dr. Johnson, especially his Preface to the edition of Shakespeare and his Lives of the Poets. Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism (1762) was highly approved in its own day; and several essays on tragedy are of historical interest: William Guthrie's Essay on Tragedy (1747); Mrs. Montagu's Essay on the Genius and Writing of Shakespeare (1769); Edwin Taylor's Cursory Remarks on Tragedy (1774); William Cook's Elements of Dramatic Criticism (1775); and Hodson's Observations on Tragedy, prefixed to his tragedy Zoraida (1780).
Beljame's Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre bears on this as on the preceding chapter. Voltaire's influence on English tragedy has never been fully studied, but the following recent books bear on his relations with England: A. Ballantyne's Voltaire's Visit to England (1893); J. Churton Collins's Bolingbroke, a historical study, and Voltaire in England (1886); Lounsbury's Shakespeare and Voltaire (1902), which gives much information on the drama and criticism of the period and sufficient directory to Voltaire's comment on the English drama; and Jusserand's Shakespeare en France, which is also very valuable for this period. Miss Canfield's study of Corneille and Racine in England is also of marked service; and L. Morel's James Thomson (Paris, 1895) gives a very full study of Thomson's plays and literary relations. The Belles-Lettres Series contains editions with introductions of plays of Rowe, ed. Miss Sophie Hart; and of Lillo, ed. A. W. Ward (1906). Dr. Ward's introduction is particularly valuable for its sketch of the course of domestic tragedy and sentimental comedy on the continent. From the notes in these various studies, and from La Littérature comparée, essai bibliographique, by Louis P. Betz, Strasbourg, 1904, direction can be had to a number of monographs dealing with special phases of the relations between the dramas of England and France, and, toward the end of the century, between England and Germany.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] For comparisons of the two plays, see Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on the Drama," Cumberland's Observer, Nos. 77, 78, 79; and Gifford's introduction to his edition of Massinger.
[29] See Corneille and Racine in England. Dorothea Canfield. New York, 1904.
[30] Its only appearance on the stage recorded by Genest was in Capell's adaptation, acted six times by Garrick in 1759.
[31] Brutus (1734), Zara (1736), Alzira (1736), Mahomet (1744), Merope (1749), Orphan of China (1759), Orestes (1769), Almida (1771) (from Tancrède), Semiramis (1776). See, also, Hoole's Cyrus (1768), Cradock's Zobeide (1771), Murphy's Alzuma (1773), and Brooke's Imposter (1778), not acted.
[32] Professor Lounsbury seems mistaken in finding a "sudden cessation of interest in Voltaire" after 1750. Shakespere and Voltaire, pp. 304, 305. He neglects the later popularity of The Orphan of China and the continued popularity of plays earlier translated.
[33] Le théâtre anglais (1746-49) of Pierre de La Place contained in its 8 vols. synopses and partial translations of the following plays: Othello, 3 Henry VI, Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth, Cymbeline, Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon of Athens, Merry Wives of Windsor, The Maid's Tragedy, Catiline, The Fair Penitent, Venice Preserved, Aureng Zebe, The Mourning Bride, Tamerlane, Siege of Damascus (by Hughes, 1720), Busiris, Love for Love, The Innocent Adultery, Cato, The Funeral (Steele, 1702). This list, in which it will be noticed tragedy greatly predominates, represents fairly the English taste of the time.
[34] Dr. Rundle, Letters, quoted by Morel, James Thomson, p. 82.
[35] Gil Blas, Book 4, "Le Mariage de vengeance."
[36] For various references to Thomson in Voltaire's Letters, see Morel, op. cit. pp. 192-194; and a letter on the French translation of Tancred and Sigismunda, p. 153.
[37] The following list includes all eighteenth century tragedies, not mentioned in the text, that achieved any considerable popularity. These all became stock plays, and most were acted in the nineteenth century. Hughes, Siege of Damascus(1720); Fenton, Mariamne(1723); Jones, Earl of Essex (1753), which superseded Banks's play as a stage favorite; Brown, Barbarossa (1754); Francklin, Earl of Warwick (1766); Hartson, Countess of Salisbury (1767); Murphy, Zenobia (1768), and The Grecian Daughter (1772), which gave a famous part, Euphrasia, to Mrs. Siddons and later to Miss Fannie Kemble.
[38] The eighteenth century was not blind to the absurdities of its tragedies, but made fun of them without stint. The number of burlesque tragedies is large and includes: Gay's What d'ye Call It (1715); Carey's Chrononhotonthologos (1734); Fielding's Tom Thumb (1730); Foote's Tragedy a la Mode (1764); and Sheridan's Critic (1779).
[39] Dedication to The London Merchant.
[40] Dedication to The London Merchant.
[41] Translated into English as Dorval, or the Test of Virtue(1767).
[42] Translated 1770, and as A Family Picture (1781). Also, cf. General Burgoyne's Heiress (1786), which borrows from Le Père de Famille, and Holcroft's Love's Frailties (1794), based on a German adaptation.
[43] Criticised in The Critical Review, lv, 151, because of its introduction of a comic character.
[44] The elder Colman was a leader in this revival. Besides the few comedies which remained on the stock list and "Philaster," which was frequently acted at this time, the following Elizabethan plays were revived in the decade 1778-88: Bonduca, Bondman, City Madam, Duke of Milan, Knight of Malta, A King and No King, Marcella (based on The Changeling), Maid of Honor, The Picture, The Pilgrim, Scornful Lady (altered as The Capricious Lady), Triumph of Honor, Women Pleased.