In the paucity of information about the drama in America at this early period, it may be admissible to refer to what fiction has attempted respecting it in a novel by John Esten Cooke, entitled “The Virginia Comedians,” in which he describes the Williamsburg theater, and the representation in it of a play of Shakespeare’s. As Shakespeare expressed it, “imagination bodies forth the form of things unknown,” and men of genius, like Sir Walter Scott and the elder Dumas, could, in the exercise of this faculty, represent scenes and incidents of the past more vividly and apparently as truthfully as can be derived from the scant material usually left for the historian—an illustration of which will be found in Dumas’s account of the trial and execution of Charles I., in his sequel to “The Three Musketeers,” “Twenty Years After”; and in Scott’s novels there are many like illustrations. “This history,” says Fielding, in the preface to his celebrated novel which he calls “The History of Tom Jones,” “differs from other histories in this, that in other histories nothing is true but the names, whilst in this everything is true but the names”; and the author of “The Virginia Comedians,” though not ranking with the great masters of fiction that have been referred to, appears to have been well informed respecting Colonial Virginia, and may be accepted as having given what is probably a fair picture of a night in the Williamsburg theater during the Colonial period.[20]
One of the principal characters in the novel is a young Virginian, Mr. Effingham, who, after a visit and some stay at Oxford and in London, has returned to the paternal home, Effingham Hall, in Virginia, and whilst riding on horseback to visit a manorial estate on a plantation known as Riverhead, of a gentleman called Lee, the father of two very attractive daughters, draws up suddenly in the road, seeing a young lady on horseback in the center of it apparently awaiting his approach, who is thus described:
The lady was mounted on a tall white horse, which stood perfectly quiet in the middle of the road, and seemed to be docility itself, though the fiery eyes contradicted the first impression. Rather would one acquainted with the singular character of horses have said that this animal was subdued by the gentle hand of the rider, and so laid aside, from pure affection, all his waywardness.
The rider was a young girl about eighteen, and of rare and extraordinary beauty. Her hair—so much of it as was visible beneath her hood—seemed to be dark chestnut, and her complexion was dazzling. The eyes were large, full, and dark—instinct with fire and softness, feminine modesty and collected firmness, the firmness, however, predominating. But the lips were different. They were the lips of a child—soft, guileless, tender, and confiding; they were purity and innocence itself, and seemed to say that however much the brain might become hard and worldly, the heart of this young woman never could be other than the tender and delicately sensitive heart of a child.
She was clad in a riding-dress of pearl color, and from the uniformity of this tint, it seemed to be a favorite with her. The hood was of silk, and the delicately gloved hand held a little ivory-handled riding-whip, which now dangled at her side. The other gloved hand supported her cheek; and in this position the unknown lady calmly awaited Mr. Effingham’s approach still nearer, though he was already near touching her.
Mr. Effingham took off his hat and bowed with elegant courtesy. The lady returned the inclination by a graceful movement of the head.
“Would you be kind enough to point out the road to the town of Williamsburg, sir?” she said, in a calm and clear voice.
“With great pleasure, madam,” replied Mr. Effingham. “You have lost your way?”
“Yes, sir, and very strangely; and as evening drew on I was afraid of being benighted.”
“You have but to follow the road until you reach Effingham Hall, madam,” he said,—“the house in the distance yonder; then turn to the left, and you are in the highway to town.”