‘Nor is there any necessity a philosopher should stand by, like an interpreter at a puppet-show, to explain the moral to the audience. The mystery is seldom so deep but the pit and boxes can dive into it, and ’tis their example out of the playhouse that chiefly influences the galleries. The stage is a glass for the world to view itself in; people ought, therefore, to see themselves as they are; if it makes their faces too fair, they won’t know they are dirty, and, by consequence, will neglect to wash them. If, therefore, I have showed “Constant” upon the stage what generally the thing called a fine gentleman is off it, I think I have done what I should do. I have laid open his vices as well as his virtues; ’tis the business of the audience to observe where his flaws lessen his value, and, by considering the deformity of his blemishes, become sensible how much a finer thing he would be without them.’
It is impossible to improve upon these instructions; they are admirable. The only pity is that, as, naturally enough, Sir John wrote his plays first, and defended them afterwards, he had not bestowed a thought upon the subject until the angry parson gave him check. Vanbrugh, like most dramatists of his calibre, wrote to please the town, without any thought of doing good or harm. The two things he wanted were money and a reputation for wit. To lecture and scold him as if he had degraded some high and holy office was ridiculous. Collier had an excellent case, for there can be no doubt that the dramatists he squinted at were worse than they had any need to be. But it is impossible to read Collier’s two small books without a good many pishes and pshaws! He was a clericalist of an aggressive type. You cannot withhold your sympathy from Vanbrugh’s remark:
‘The reader may here be pleased to take notice what this gentleman would construe profaneness if he were once in the saddle with a good pair of spurs upon his heels.’
Now that Evangelicalism has gone out of fashion, we no longer hear denunciations of stage-plays. High Church parsons crowd the Lyceum, and lead the laughter in less dignified if more amusing resorts. But, for all that, there is a case to be made against the cheerful playhouse, but not by me.
As for Sir John Vanbrugh, his two well-known plays, ‘The Relapse’ and ‘The Provok’d Wife,’ are most excellent reading, Jeremy Collier notwithstanding. They must be read with the easy tolerance, the amused benignity, the scornful philosophy of a Christian of the Dr. Johnson type. You must not probe your laughter deep; you must forget for awhile your probationary state, and remember that, after all, the thing is but a play. Sir John has a great deal of wit of that genuine kind which is free from modishness. He reads freshly. He also has ideas. In ‘The Provok’d Wife,’ which was acted for the first time in the early part of 1697, there appears the Philosophy of Clothes (thus forestalling Swift), and also an early conception of Carlyle’s stupendous image of a naked House of Lords. This occurs in a conversation between Heartfree and Constant, which concludes thus:
Heartfree. Then for her outside—I consider it merely as an outside—she has a thin, tiffany covering over just such stuff as you and I are made on. As for her motion, her mien, her air, and all those tricks, I know they affect you mightily. If you should see your mistress at a coronation, dragging her peacock’s train, with all her state and insolence, about her, ’twould strike you with all the awful thoughts that heaven itself could pretend to from you; whereas, I turn the whole matter into a jest, and suppose her strutting in the selfsame stately manner, with nothing on but her stays and her under, scanty-quilted petticoat.
Constant. Hold thy profane tongue! for I’ll hear no more.
‘The Relapse’ must, I think, be pronounced Vanbrugh’s best comedy. Lord Foppington is a humorous conception, and the whole dialogue is animated and to the point. One sees where Sheridan got his style. There are more brains, if less sparkle, in Vanbrugh’s repartees than in Sheridan’s.
Berenthia. I have had so much discourse with her, that I believe, were she once cured of her fondness to her husband, the fortress of her virtue would not be so impregnable as she fancies.
Worthy. What! she runs, I’ll warrant you, into that common mistake of fond wives, who conclude themselves virtuous because they can refuse a man they don’t like when they have got one they do.
Berenthia. True; and, therefore, I think ’tis a presumptuous thing in a woman to assume the name of virtuous till she has heartily hated her husband and been soundly in love with somebody else.
A handsome edition of Vanbrugh’s Plays has recently appeared, edited by Mr. W. C. Ward (Lawrence and Bullen), who has prepared an excellent Life of his author.
Vanbrugh was, as all the world knows, the architect of Blenheim Palace, as he also was of Castle Howard. He became Comptroller of Works in the reign of Queen Anne, and was appointed by King George Surveyor of the Works at Greenwich Hospital, in the neighbourhood of which he had property of his own. His name is still familiar in the ears of the respectable inhabitants of Blackheath. But what is mysterious is how and where he acquired such skill as he possessed in his profession. His father, Giles Vanbrugh, had nineteen children, of whom thirteen appear to have lived for some length of time, and of John’s education nothing precise is known. When nineteen he went into France, where he remained some years.