FOOTNOTES:
[40] There is some obscurity about this date. Garrick's handbill in answer to Macklin's "case" says that the latter was published in order to prejudice him that night, and the bill is dated 5th December 1743; but, in succeeding advertisements, the disturbance is alluded to as "Tuesday night's" riot. Now Tuesday was certainly the 6th, not the 5th.
[41] It is extremely improbable that Foote was the unnamed "Gentleman" who played Hamlet on this occasion.
[42] Cashell's Hamlet was a personal eccentricity on his benefit night; not an attempt on the part of the theatre to oppose Garrick.
[43] Very doubtful. The statement rests on Victor's authority.
[44] Faulconbridge and Iago seem also to have been new characters this season.
JAMES LACY.
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE OLD DUBLIN THEATRE.
But for a murder in the house of a Mrs. Bungy, Dublin would not have had its famous old theatre in that locality, which the popular voice would call by the name of Smock Alley (from the handsome hussies who lived there), long after Mrs. Bungy's house and those adjacent to it had been swept away, and the newer and finer edifices were recorded as standing in "Orange Street." The first theatre in this questionable locality was erected soon after the Restoration; but at the period named, this house and theatricals, generally, were opposed with as much bitterness in Dublin as in Edinburgh.
I learn from Gilbert's "History of Dublin" that, in 1662, the Chapter of Christchurch expressed its horror at "one of the stipendiaries of the church having sung among the stage-players in the play-house, to the dishonour of God's service and disgrace to the members and ministers of the church." The ultra-religious portion of the Dublin community hated the theatre, with all their hearts, and to such persons two little incidents occurred to the play-house in Smock Alley, which must have been peculiarly pleasant to their humane yet indignant hearts. One was, that in 1671, the gallery of the above-mentioned house being over-crowded, fell into the pit. The consequences, of course, were lamentable, but, you see, those godless players were acting Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," and what could be expected when that satire on the super-righteous was raising a laugh in the throats of the Philistines? Again, in 1701, a part of the same house fell in during a representation of Shadwell's "Libertine," and nothing could seem more natural than this catastrophe, to the logical bosoms of the upright; for at the devil's jubilee, Satan himself was present, and carried home with him the lost souls of his children. Even the play-going public grew a little suspicious of the stability of the building, but they were re-assured by the easy certificate of a "Surveyor-general," who asserted that there was no chance of a failure in the holdfasts and supports of the edifice, for several years! In half-a-dozen years, however, the house was down; and, in seven months, the new house was open to an eager public. The latter, however, were not quite so eager to enter as the managers were to receive them. "So eager were they to open, that they began to play before the back part of the house was tiled in, which, the town knowing, they had not half an audience the first night, but mended leisurely by degrees."[45] It was in the old house that Elrington, the great support of Drury Lane when Booth was indisposed, ruled supreme in the hearts and houses of his enthusiastic Irish admirers. His old patrons never forgot him. "I have known," says one already quoted, "Tom Elrington in the part of Bajazet to be heard all over the Blind Quay; and I do not believe you could hear Barry or Mossop out of the house."
We are here, however, anticipating events. Let us return to chronological order. In the old houses, heavy classical tragedy seems to have been most popular; and when Dublin was tired of it, the company took it to Edinburgh. Rough times of war closed the house; but when William's authority was firmly established, theatrical matters looked up again, and in March, 1692, Ashbury, who, with Mr. and Mrs. Betterton, had instructed the Princess Anne how to speak and act Semandra, in "Mithridates," when that piece was played at Whitehall, opened the house with "Othello," playing Iago to the Moor of Robert Wilks. Among this early company are also to be noted Booth, Estcourt, Norris, Bowen, and Trefusis, contributions from England, and the latter so admirable for dancing the rustic clown, that General Ingoldsby once handed him a £5 note from his box, and gave him a second when Joe went up to the Castle to thank him,—the General not recognising him till Trefusis imitated his dialect and action of the night before.
The ladies were not in force; Mrs. Knightly, Mrs. Ashbury, and Mrs. Hook, were the principal under Ashbury, who added the names of Quin and the two Elringtons, and Mrs. Thurmond, to his company, before he closed a management of about thirty years. In that period, Ashbury raised the Irish stage to a prosperous and respectable position. His son-in-law, Thomas Elrington, succeeded him in the management.
Under Ellington's rule, young Stirling first awaked the Irish muse to tragedy, and Charles Shadwell furnished the house with half-a-dozen pieces of very inferior merit. Meanwhile, in 1727, Madame Violanti opened a booth, with her wondrous rope-dancing, and her Lilliputian company, whose representation of the "Beggar's Opera" excited a perfect sensation. The Macheath was a Miss Betty Barnes; Polly, Miss Woffington; Peachum, Master Isaac Sparks; and Filch, Master Barrington,—all of these were, subsequently, players of more or less renown.
Up to this time, the best native actor was Wilks, now we have Peg Woffington; in 1728 appeared the handsome, young Delane, of Trinity College; his graceful figure, full-toned voice, added to his zeal and application (both too short-lived), rendered him an unusual favourite. In the same company were Mr. and Mrs. Ward, whose daughter, born at Clonmel, was the mother of "the Kembles."
Elrington died in 1732. He was the first actor who played Zanga in Dublin; much to the admiration of Dr. Young, who thought Mills mouthed and growled the character overmuch. After Elrington's death, disorder sprung up. Smock Alley was opposed by a new theatre, erected in Rainsford Street, in the "Earl of Meath's Liberty," and beyond the jurisdiction of the mayor. At the former, the company, including, occasionally, some of the best actors from London, was better than the house which was so decayed, that a new, a much grander, but in every other way a less efficient house, was erected in Aungier Street, at which the tall, cold beauty, the ex-quakeress, Mrs. Bellamy, mother of George Anne Bellamy, was a principal actress. A committee of noblemen managed this house, with the usual result of enormous loss. Dublin having more theatres than could prove profitable, the old theatre in Smock Alley was pulled down; but a new one was erected, which was opened in December 1735, with "Love for Love."[46] In which Don Duart was played by Cashel, subsequently a popular Macheath. He was one of the many actors who have died, or received their death-stroke, on the stage. While acting Frankly, in the "Suspicious Husband," at Norwich, in 1748, he was smitten by apoplexy and died in a few hours.
The Theatre Royal in Aungier Street had its real opponent in this house, opened by licence of the Lord Mayor, in the more central position, in Smock Alley. The house in Rainsford Street was soon closed. London performers, who were sure of profitable benefits, went over to both houses; but I much prefer to remark that, at Aungier Street, in February 1737, Margaret Woffington, her childhood being past, first appeared as an actress, in the part of Ophelia. Her beauty, grace, her ease, simplicity, her pretty singing, her coquetry, and the wonderful "finish" of the male characters she afterwards assumed, gave a fortune to the theatre, which was only checked by the famine of the severe winter 1739-40, during which the houses were closed for three months.
This theatre in Aungier Street had a company so powerful, including Quin, Delane, and Mrs. Cibber, at the close of the London season, that, on its re-opening, in 1741, Smock Alley, with Elrington, Isaac Sparks, and Mrs. Furnival,[47] could not successfully compete with it; but, in June 1742, Duval, the proprietor, by engaging Giffard, Mrs. Woffington, and Garrick, turned the scale, and during three of the hottest months of the hottest summer ever known, attracted crowds to Smock Alley, and spread fever over the city!
After success, and when the great players had disappeared, came re-action, empty houses, tumblers, rope-dancers, equestrianism,—and nightly losses. On the 29th of January 1743, however, the town felt a new sensation, afforded by the acting of a "young gentleman" in Richard, at Smock Alley. The Mithridates of the debutant was as successful as Richard, and then the young actor was known to be the son of Dr. Sheridan, a young man of three-and-twenty, whose appearance on the stage brought great vexation to all his friends. But also much reputation to himself in Richard, Brutus, Hamlet, Othello, Cato, and the highest walks of comedy.
A curious incident carried Sheridan to the rival house in Aungier Street. One night in July 1743, his robe for Cato was not forthcoming from the Smock Alley wardrobe, and Sheridan refused to play without it. Theophilus Cibber was there among the London birds of passage. He was cast for Syphax, and his offer to read the part of Cato and play his own was accepted. Cato and Syphax are never on the stage together; but in the second act, Theophilus must have been put to it, for there, Syphax enters close upon the heels of the retiring Cato.
How the "numerous and polite audience" enjoyed the piece thus represented, I cannot say; a paper war ensued, and Sheridan passed to the other house. But two houses could not exist, and an agreement was at length made to consolidate the two companies, and to open at Aungier Street, whereupon the rejected actors, of course, opened Smock Alley, and thence came confusion worse confounded, till Sheridan, quarrelling with the proprietors at Aungier Street, passed back to Smock Alley, and did something towards retrieving its fortunes. But he was ill seconded, and in March, 1744, flushed by his new honours, he crossed the Channel and appeared at Covent Garden.
And now, instead of two companies in one house, Dublin saw one company alternately playing in two houses, with little profit, till on the night of February 15th, 1744, "Othello" was given at Smock Alley, the part of Othello by Spranger Barry (Iago, Wright; Desdemona, Mrs. Bailey). His noble person, his harmonious voice, his transitions from love to jealousy, from tenderness to rage, enchanted the audience, though in some respects the performance was unfinished. His principal characters were Othello, Pierre, Hotspur, Lear, Henry V., Orestes, and that once favourite comedy-character with young tragedians, Bevil, jun. Barry filled the house every night he played; but, I suppose, a feature of Irish management, he played only occasionally. Foote, in this his first Irish season, drew a few good houses, but Barry was the chief attraction. He was opposed by the old ejected comedians, who opened a temporary house in Capel Street, which, however, was soon closed.
Under mismanaging committees of noblemen, three dozen in number, with seven wise men for a quorum, affairs went ill, and Sheridan was, at length, invited from England to take sole government, and restore order and profit where anarchy and poverty reigned. This Sheridan effected, by degrees, aided by his judgment, industry, zeal, perseverance, and unflinching honesty. During his first season, 1745-46, he produced, first, Miss Bellamy, on November 11th, at Aungier Street, in the "Orphan," to the Castalio of Barry, and his own Chamont; and in the following month Garrick appeared as Hamlet. In the "Fair Penitent" Garrick, Barry, and Sheridan played together to the Calista of Mrs. Furnival; and "All for Love" was cast with Antony, Barry; Ventidius, Sheridan; Cleopatra, Miss Bellamy; Octavia, Mrs. Furnival; Garrick and Sheridan played Richard and Hamlet alternately, and each in turn played Iago to Barry's Othello. The following season brought Barry to England, where he laid the foundations of a great professional glory which endured as long as Garrick's, though it was somewhat tarnished and enfeebled, yet still second only to Garrick's towards its close.