The Female Wits

by Anonymous

You must know, my Lord, at first I design'd this for a Tragedy; and they were both taken; She was Poyson'd, and dy'd, like an Innocent Lamb, as she was indeed: I was studying a Death for him; once I thought Boys shou'd shoot him to Death with Pot-Guns; ... and that wou'd have been Disgrace enough, you know: But at length I resolv'd to ram him into a great Gun, and scatter him o're the sturdy Plain: This, I say, was my first resolve. But I consider'd, 'twou'd break the Lady's Heart; so there is nothing in their Parts Tragical; but as your Lordship shall see miraculously I turn'd it into an Opera.

The continual interruptions in the rehearsal by Marsilia giving orders to the increasingly irritated actors, their hostile asides as they come out of their roles to ask bewildered questions, object to her directions, or attempt to resign their parts keep the stage in an uproar. The asinine remarks of her sycophantic followers, her own erratic behavior which culminates in her rage and her stalking out, vowing to take her play to Lincoln's Inn Fields, while George Powell, Mrs. Knight, and Miss Cross double up with laughter—all make The Female Wits an hilarious piece of dramatic satire as well as a valuable theatrical document.

All but forgotten, as it was when it was published in 1704, the played version of The Female Wits had its impact on women playwrights in 1696. Mrs. Manley did not produce another play until Almyna was acted in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1706, ten years later. As a result of the unjustified attack upon her, Mrs. Pix thereafter wrote for Lincoln's Inn Fields, and at the beginning of the 1697-98 season was engaged in a name-calling dispute with Drury Lane over the flagrant plagiarism of one of her plays by George Powell, the actor who figures prominently in The Female Wits. Mrs. Trotter gave her plays to the Betterton group until 1700 when a new management regulated affairs at Drury Lane.

Whether Mrs. Manley was driven from the stage for ten years by the jeers of the Town is a matter of debate. She became one of the leading Tory pamphleteers, political editors, and literary hacks in London, employed for years and respected in an odd way by such people as Richard Steele and Dean Swift. Her most famous work, The Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality ... by the New Atalanta (1709) and her semi-autobiographical The Adventures of Rivella (1714) caused government inquiries, and she never ceased to be a controversial figure.

Up to the present time, no one has ventured to say who wrote The Female Wits. The titlepage gives "Mr. W. M." as the author, but this information is immediately refuted by the preface signed "W. M." which gives most of the facts of composition, performance, and publication. According to the preface, the satire was written by a friend (now dead), and the "Quality" had insisted it be played at Drury Lane, where it had enjoyed a run of six nights and could have continued longer "had the Company thought fit to oblige the Taste of the Town in General rather than that of some particular Persons." The Female Wits was published in 1704 even though "the Town has almost lost the Remembrance of it," but unless the taste of the critics today is different from what it was in 1696, readers cannot fail to have as much satisfaction as the earlier audience had in seeing it. W. M.'s identification of Mrs. Manley as Marsilia, Mrs. Pix as Mrs. Wellfed, and Mrs. Trotter as Calista as well as his commendation of the acting of Mr. and Mrs. Powell, and his praise of Mrs. Verbruggen (now deceased also) are expressions of nostalgia from a man whose duty to his dead friend is now accomplished. He ends his laconic preface with a reference to the reformers led by Jeremy Collier, "a Fig for their Censures, which can neither affect him that Wrote this Play, nor him that Publishes it." [7]

It is evident that the anonymous author knew all of the actors at Drury Lane intimately: "honest" George Powell, who "regards neither Times nor Seasons in Drinking," Mrs. Lucas, the dancer, and her coffee habit, hoydenish Letitia Cross with her sassy aside of "now have I such a mind to kick him i'th'chops" about some show-off fop who wished to kiss the strap of her shoe in homage, Frances Marie Knight's haughty withdrawal from any complication with Mrs. Manley or the other playwrights. His knowledge of Mrs. Manley's colossal arrogance, of Mrs. Pix's easy-going acceptance of her great bulk and lack of charm, of beautiful Mrs. Trotter's considerable learning in the classics and her early tendency toward critical writing—all are sharply etched from observation and intimate knowledge.

The Female Wits has all the remarks of having been put together by group effort, and the evidence points to the actors at Drury Lane, a number of whom had already shown writing ability: Joseph Haynes, Colley Cibber, Hildebrand Horden, and George Powell. Especially George Powell had been active with four plays and two operas already to his credit, one of which, Brutus of Alba, must have been running concurrently with The Female Wits in October, 1696. Because The Female Wits is episodic in character, loosely strung together with songs and dances, it may well have come from various sources recognizable to the audience. For example, Letitia Cross is asked to sing "her dialogue," readily consents, and Mr. Leveridge, a frequent partner, is called to sing the second part. It may or may not be a coincidence that Brutus of Alba contains a dialogue between a flirtatious young girl and an impotent old man featuring Miss Cross [8]. The song achieved a certain notoriety because of its frankness, was re-issued as a separate piece, and is the type of entertainment that would have been repeated in a burlesque like The Female Wits. Other members of the company contribute their specialities: Miss Cross also performs "her dance," Mr. Pate sings an Italian Song. The only song that can be identified positively is "A Scotch Song Sung by Mrs. Lucas at the Theatre," the chorus of which one of the characters sings when he asks her to favor them with her "Last Dance." [9]

Perhaps Joe Haynes, the famous comedian, best fills the role of chief author, as Buckingham was credited with the authorship of The Rehearsal, although it was known that every wit in Town had a hand in it. For over twenty years, Haynes had played the part of Bayes, which satirized Dryden, and was recognized as the zany of the London theatrical world with special licence to burlesque any person or institution that came under his critical eye. The same sort of mad inventiveness peculiar to his elaborate hoaxes upon the public, the incisive satire in his written or ad-libbed prologues and epilogues, and the special touches added to the character parts written for him are present in The Female Wits. He had published a mock heroic tragedy (no record of performance) in 1692 which significantly enjoyed a second printing in 1696. Because of his scatological language and outrageous pranks, he was in and out of trouble with the authorities, both public and theatrical, throughout his career. He was one of the principal comedians through the period under consideration, had been in Mrs. Manley's first play (as indeed had all of the principal players in The Female Wits), and would have been one of the first to resent Mrs. Manley's haughty manner; since he had nothing to lose, he would have been the logical ring-leader in satirizing both the playwright and the veteran actors at Lincoln's Inn Fields.

With so much writing and acting talent among the hungry, ambitious player-authors at Drury Lane, there is little need to look far afield, but Haynes does qualify in another special way for authorship. W. M. states that the author was dead before 1704. Haynes died in June, 1701, and Tobyas Thomas,[10] the author of The Life of the Late Famous Comedian, Jo. Hayns, a picaresque, jest-book type of biography published the same year, reveals the interesting information in the dedicatory epistle to William Mann that Haynes had been a friend and visitor in Mann's home at Charnham in Kent, and that Mann had encouraged Thomas to write the biography. Whether William Mann is Mr. W. M. and the comedian is the friend in the preface to The Female Wits may never be known, but Joe Haynes, aided and abetted by fellow actors, patrons, friends, and self-appointed critics, all of them with a reason to satirize the female writers and the too-successful actors at Lincoln's Inn Fields, could easily have headed up the group effort that resulted in the commedia del arte concoction that finally saw print in 1704.

The prologue and epilogue were added at the time of publication. Topical allusions range from the Collier Controversy, which began in 1698 and continued actively for more than a decade, to John Tutchin, controversial editor of The Observator (which began in 1702), to a mention of the great storm of November 26, 1703, which Collier and his followers believed to be a punishment for England's wickedness, to the proclamation early in 1704 by Queen Anne prohibiting the wearing of masks at the playhouses. More important, however, is the fact that the tone of the prologue and epilogue is entirely different from that found in the play. The tempered language of a decade later than the play is not in keeping with the raucous satire directed at the three women playwrights and the rival actors at Lincoln's Inn Fields that must have kept the audience in a roar of laughter.