FOOTNOTES:
[29] Malone gives the date of his baptism as 11th August 1635.
[30] I see no reason to doubt that Hart rather than Harris was the rival in question. Hart was an older actor than Betterton, and he and Mohun were the supports of the old school, which its admirers pronounced infinitely superior to that of Betterton. See, for instance, the Historia Histrionica.
[31] Should be Sir Thomas Beaumont in "The Platonic Lady."
[32] It is generally implied, if not stated outright, that Mrs. Betterton never recovered her reason after her husband's death; but this seems an error, because she made a Will, which is dated 10th March 1711-12, when she was presumably sane.
THE DUKE'S THEATRE, DORSET GARDEN.
[CHAPTER VI.]
"EXEUNT" AND "ENTER."
After Betterton, there was not, in the Duke's Company, a more accomplished actor than Harris. He lived in gayer society than Betterton, and cared more for the associates he found there. He had some knowledge of art, danced gracefully, and had that dangerous gift for a young man—a charming voice, with a love for displaying it. His portrait was taken by Mr. Hailes;—"in his habit of Henry V., mighty like a player;" and as Cardinal Wolsey; which latter portrait may now be seen in the Pepysian Library at Cambridge.
Pepys assigns good grounds for his esteem for Harris. "I do find him," says the diarist, "a very excellent person, such as in my whole acquaintance I do not know another better qualified for converse, whether in things of his own trade, or of other kind; a man of great understanding and observation, and very agreeable in the manner of his discourse, and civil, as far as is possible. I was mighty pleased with his company," a company with which were united, now Killigrew and the rakes, and anon, Cooper the artist, and "Cooper's cosen Jacke," and "Mr. Butler, that wrote Hudibras," being, says Mr. Pepys, "all eminent men in their way." Indeed, Harris was to be found in company even more eminent than the above, and at the great coffee-house in Covent Garden he listened to or talked with Dryden, and held his own against the best wits of the town. The playwrights were there too; but these were to be found in the coffee-houses, generally, often wrapped up in their cloaks, and eagerly heeding all that the critics had to say to each other respecting the last new play.
Harris was aware that in one or two light characters he was Betterton's equal. He was a restless actor, threatening, when discontented, to secede from the Duke's to the King's Company, and causing equal trouble to his manager Davenant, and to his monarch Charles—the two officials most vexed in the settling of the little kingdom of the stage.
There was a graceful, general actor of the troop to which Harris belonged, who drew upon himself the special observation of the Government at home and an English ambassador abroad. Scudamore was the original Garcia of Congreve's "Mourning Bride;" he also played amorous young knights, sparkling young gentlemen, scampish French and English beaux, gay and good-looking kings, and roystering kings' sons; such as Harry, Prince of Wales. Off the stage, he enacted another part. When King James was in exile, Scudamore was engaged as a Jacobite agent, and he carried many a despatch or message between London and St. Germains. But our ambassador, the Earl of Manchester, had his eye upon him. One of the Earl's despatches to the English Government, written in 1700, concludes with the words:—"One Scudamore, a player in Lincoln's Inn Fields, has been here, and was with the late King, and often at St. Germains. He is now, I believe, at London. Several such sort of fellows go and come very often; but I cannot see how it is to be prevented, for without a positive oath nothing can be done to them." The date of this despatch is August 1700, at which time the player ought to have been engaged in a less perilous character, for an entry in Luttrell's Diary, 28th May 1700, records that "Mr. Scudamore of the play-house is married to a young lady of £4000 fortune, who fell in love with him."
Cave Underhill was another member of Davenant's Company. He was not a man for a lady to fall in love with; but in 1668 Davenant pronounced him the truest comedian of his troop. He was on the stage from 1661 to 1710, and during that time the town saw no such Gravedigger in "Hamlet" as this tall, fat, broad-faced, flat-nosed, wide-mouthed, thick-lipped, rough-voiced, awkwardly-active low comedian. So modest was he also that he never understood his own popularity, and the house was convulsed with his solemn Don Quixote and his stupid Lolpoop in "The Squire of Alsatia" without Cave's being able to account for it.[33]
In the stolid, the booby, the dully malicious, the bluntly vivacious, the perverse humour, combining wit with ill-nature, Underhill was the chief of the actors of the half century during which he kept the stage. Cibber avers thus much, and adds that he had not seen Cave's equal in Sir Sampson Legend in Congreve's "Love for Love." A year before the old actor ceased to linger on the stage he had once made light with laughter, a benefit was awarded him, viz., on the 3d of June 1709.[34] The patronage of the public was previously bespoken by Mr. Bickerstaffe, in the Tatler, whose father had known "honest Cave Underhill" when he was a boy. The Tatler praises the old comedian for the natural style of his acting, in which he avoided all exaggeration, and never added a word to his author's text, a vice with the younger actors of the time.
On this occasion Underhill played his old part of the Gravedigger, professedly because he was fit for no other. His judgment was not ill founded, if Cibber's testimony be true that he was really worn and disabled, and excited pity rather than laughter. The old man died a pensioner of the theatre whose proprietors he had helped to enrich, with the reputation of having, under the pseudonym of Elephant Smith, composed a mock funeral sermon on Titus Oates; and with the further repute of being an ultra-Tory, addicted in coffee-houses to drink the Duke of York's health more heartily than that of his brother, the King.
With rare exchange of actors, and exclusive right of representing particular pieces, the two theatres continued in opposition to each other until the two companies were formed into one in the year 1682. Meanwhile, fire destroyed the old edifice of the King's Company, in Drury Lane, in January 1672, and till Wren's new theatre was ready for them in 1674, the unhoused troop played occasionally at Dorset Gardens,[35] or at Lincoln's Inn Fields, as opportunity offered. On the occasion of opening the new house, contemporary accounts state that the prices of admission were raised: to the boxes, from 2s. 6d. to 4s.; pit, from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d.; the first gallery, from 1s. to 1s. 6d.; and the upper gallery, from 6d. to 1s. Pepys, however, on the 19th October 1667, paid 4s. for admittance to the upper boxes, if his record be true.[36] Down to the year 1682, the King's Company lost several old and able actors, and acquired only Powell, Griffin, and Beeston. George Powell was the son of an obscure actor. His own brilliancy was marred by his devotion to jollity, and this devotion became the more profound as George saw himself surpassed by steadier actors, one of whom, Wilks, in his disappointment, he challenged to single combat, and, in the cool air of "next morning," was sorry for his folly. Idleness made him defer learning his parts till the last moment; his memory often failed him at the most important crisis of the play; and the public displeasure fell heavily and constantly on this clever but reckless actor. The Tatler calls him the "haughty George Powell," when referring to his appearance in Falstaff for his benefit, in April 1712. "The haughty George Powell hopes all the good-natured part of the town will favour him whom they applauded in Alexander, Timon, Lear, and Orestes, with their company this night, when he hazards all his heroic glory in the humbler condition of honest Jack Falstaff." Valuable aid, like the above, he obtained from the Spectator also, with useful admonition to boot, from which he did not care to profit; and he fell into such degradation that his example was a wholesome terror to young actors willing to follow it, but fearful of the consequences. During his career, from 1687 to 1714, in which year he died, he originated about forty new parts, and in some of them, such as Brisk, in the "Double Dealer;" Aboan, in "Oroonoko;" the gallant, gay Lothario; Lord Morelove, in the "Careless Husband;" and Portius, in "Cato," he has rarely been equalled. On the first night of the "Relapse," in which he played Worthy, he was so fired by his libations, that Mrs. Rogers, as Amanda, was frightened out of her wits by his tempestuous love-making. Powell's literary contributions to the drama were such as a man of his quality was likely to make,—chiefly plagiarisms awkwardly appropriated.
Griffin was an inferior actor to Powell; but he was a wiser and a better man. He belonged to that class of actors whom "society" welcomed with alacrity. He was, moreover, of the class which had served in the field as well as on the stage, and when "Captain Griffin" died in Queen Anne's reign, the stage lost a respectable actor, and society a clever and a worthy member.
The accessions to the Duke's Company were of more importance than those to the company of the Theatre Royal. In 1672, the two poets, Lee and Otway, tempted fortune on the stage: Lee, in one or two parts, such as the Captain of the Watch, in Payne's "Fatal Jealousy," and Duncan, in "Macbeth;" Otway as the King, in Mrs. Behn's "Forced Marriage." They both failed. Lee, one of the most beautiful of readers, lost his voice through nervousness; Otway, audacious enough at the coffee-houses, lost his confidence. There were eight other actors of the period whose success was unquestionable and well deserved. Little Bowman, who between this period and 1739, the year of his death, never failed to appear when his name was in the bills. He was a noted bell-ringer, had sung songs to Charles II., and, when "father of the stage," he exacted applause from the second George. Cademan was another of the company. Like Betterton and Cartwright, he had learnt the mystery of the book-trade before he appeared as a player. He was driven from the latter vocation through an accident. Engaged in a fencing-scene with Harris, in "The Man's the Master," he was severely wounded by his adversary's foil, in the hand and eye, and he lost power not only of action but of speech. For nearly forty years the company assigned him a modest pension; and between the benevolence of his brethren and the small profits of his publishing, his life was rendered tolerable, if not altogether happy.
His comrade, Jevon, an ex-dancing master, was one of the hilarious actors. He was the original Jobson in his own little comedy, "A Devil of a Wife," which has been altered into the farce of "The Devil to Pay." He took great liberties with authors and audience. He made Settle half mad and the house ecstatic, when having, as Lycurgus, Prince of China, to "fall on his sword," he placed it flat on the stage, and falling over it, "died," according to the direction of the acting copy.[37] He took as great liberties at the coffee-house. "You are wiping your dirty boots with my clean napkin," said an offended waiter to him. "Never mind, boy," was the reply; "I'm not proud—it will do for me!" The dust of this jester lies in Hampstead churchyard.
Longer known was Anthony Lee or Leigh, that industrious and mirthful player, who, in the score of years he was before the public—from 1672 to 1692—originated above thrice that number of characters. His masterpiece was Dryden's Spanish Friar, Dominique. How he looked in that once famous part, may be seen by any one who can gain access to Knowle, where his portrait, painted for the Earl of Dorset, still hangs—and all but speaks. But we may see how Leigh looked by another portrait, painted in words, by Cibber. "In the canting, grave hypocrisy, of the Spanish Friar, Leigh stretched the veil of piety so thinly over him, that in every look, word, and motion, you saw a palpable, wicked slyness shine throughout it. Here he kept his vivacity demurely confined, till the pretended duty of his function demanded it: and then he exerted it with a choleric, sacerdotal insolence. I have never yet seen any one that has filled them" (the scenes of broad jests) "with half the truth and spirit of Leigh. I do not doubt but the poet's knowledge of Leigh's genius helped him to many a pleasant stroke of nature, which, without that knowledge, never might have entered into his conception." Leigh had the art of making pieces—dull to the reader, side-splitting mirth to an audience. In such pieces he and Nokes kept up the ball between them; but with the players perished also the plays.
Less happy than Leigh was poor Matthew Medbourne, an actor of merit, and a young man of some learning, whose brief career was cut short by a too fervent zeal for his religion, which led him into a participation in the "Popish Plot." The testimony of Titus Oates caused his arrest, on the 26th of November 1678, and his death;—for poor Medbourne died of the Newgate rigour in the following March. He is memorable, as being the first who introduced Molière's "Tartuffe" on the English stage, in a close translation, which was acted in 1670, with remarkable success. Cibber's "Nonjuror" (1717), and Bickerstaffe's "Hypocrite" (1768), were only adaptations—the first of "Tartuffe," and the second of the "Nonjuror." Mr. Oxenford, however, reproduced the original in a more perfect form than Medbourne, in a translation in verse, which was brought out at the Haymarket, in 1851, with a success most honestly earned by all, and especially deserving on the part of Mr. Webster, who played the principal character.
Sandford and Smith were two actors whose names constantly recur together, but whose merits were not all of the same degree. The tall, handsome, manly Smith, frequently played Banquo; when his ghost, in the same tragedy, was represented by the short, spare, drolly ill-featured, and undignified Sandford! The latter was famous for his villains—from those of tragedy to ordinary stage ruffians in broad belt and black wig—permanent type of those wicked people in melodramas to this day. This idiosyncrasy amusingly puzzled Charles II., who, in supposed allusion to Shaftesbury, declared that the greatest villain of his time was fair-haired.
The public of his period were so accustomed to see Sandford represent the malignant heroes, that when they once saw him as an honest man, who did not prove to be a crafty knave before the end of the fifth act, they hissed the piece out of sheer vexation. Sandford rendered villainy odious by his forcible representation of it. By a look, he could win the attention of an audience "to whatever he judged worth more than their ordinary notice;" and by attending to the punctuation of a passage, he divested it of the jingle of rhyme, or the measured monotony of blank verse.
So misshapen, harsh, fierce, yet craftily gentle and knavishly persuasive could Sandford render himself, Cibber believes that Shakspeare, conscious of other qualities in him, would have chosen him to represent Richard, had poet and player been contemporaneous. The generous Colley adds, that if there was anything good in his own Richard, it was because he had modelled it after the fashion in which he thought Sandford would have represented that monarch. Sandford withdrew from the stage, after thirty-seven years' service, commencing in 1661 and terminating in 1698.
The career of his more celebrated colleague, Smith, extended only from 1663 to 1696, and that with the interruption of several years when his strong Toryism made him unacceptable to the prejudiced Whig audiences of the early part of the reign of William.[38] He originally represented Sir Fopling Flutter (1676), and Pierre (1682); Chamont (1680), in "The Orphan," and Scandal (1695), in "Love for Love." In the following year he died in harness. The long part of Cyaxares, in "Cyrus the Great," overtaxed his strength, and on the fourth representation of that wearisome tragedy, Smith was taken ill, and died.
King James, in the person of Smith, vindicated the nobility of his profession. "Mr. Smith," says Cibber, with fine satire, "whose character as a gentleman could have been no way impeached, had he not degraded it by being a celebrated actor, had the misfortune, in a dispute with a gentleman behind the scenes, to receive a blow from him. The same night an account of this action was carried to the King, to whom the gentleman was represented so grossly in the wrong, that the next day his Majesty sent to forbid him the court upon it. This indignity cast upon a gentleman only for maltreating a player, was looked upon as the concern of every gentleman! and a party was soon formed to assert and vindicate their honour, by humbling this favoured actor, whose slight injury had been judged equal to so severe a notice. Accordingly, the next time Smith acted, he was received with a chorus of catcalls, that soon convinced him he should not be suffered to proceed in his part; upon which, without the least discomposure, he ordered the curtain to be dropped, and having a competent fortune of his own, thought the conditions of adding to it, by remaining on the stage, were too dear, and from that day entirely quitted it." Not "entirely," for he returned to it in 1695, after a secession of eleven years, under the persuasion, it is believed, of noble friends and ancient comrades. Dr. Burney states that the audience made a political matter of it. If so, Whigs and Tories had not long to contend, for the death of this refined player soon supervened.
Of the two most eminent ladies who joined the Duke's Company previous to the union of the two houses, Lady Slingsby (formerly Mrs. Aldridge, next Mrs. Lee,) is of note for the social rank she achieved; Mrs. Barry for a theatrical reputation which placed her on a level with Betterton himself. Lady Slingsby withdrew from the stage in 1685, after a brief course of ten or a dozen years. She died in the spring of 1694, and was interred in old St. Pancras churchyard, as "Dame Mary Slingsby, Widow." That is the sum of what is known of a lady whom report connects with the Yorkshire baronets of Scriven. Of her colleague, there is more to be said; but the "famous Mrs. Barry" may claim a chapter to herself.