Ad Lalauze, sc apres Peter Van Bleeck
CHAPTER V.
The Theatrical Characters of the Principal Actors in the Year 1690, continu'd.
A few Words to Critical Auditors.
Tho', as I have before observ'd, Women were not admitted to the Stage 'till the Return of King Charles, yet it could not be so suddenly supply'd with them but that there was still a Necessity, for some time, to put the handsomest young Men into Petticoats;[128] which Kynaston was then said to have worn with Success; particularly in the Part of Evadne in the Maid's Tragedy, which I have heard him speak of, and which calls to my Mind a ridiculous Distress that arose from these sort of Shifts which the Stage was then put to.——The King coming a little before his usual time to a Tragedy, found the Actors not ready to begin, when his Majesty, not chusing to have as much Patience as his good Subjects, sent to them to know the Meaning of it; upon which the Master of the Company came to the Box, and rightly judging that the best Excuse for their Default would be the true one, fairly told his Majesty that the Queen was not shav'd yet: The King, whose good Humour lov'd to laugh at a Jest as well as to make one, accepted the Excuse, which serv'd to divert him till the male Queen cou'd be effeminated. In a word, Kynaston at that time was so beautiful a Youth that the Ladies of Quality prided themselves in taking him with them in their Coaches to Hyde-Park in his Theatrical Habit, after the Play; which in those Days they might have sufficient time to do, because Plays then were us'd to begin at four a-Clock: The Hour that People of the same Rank are now going to Dinner.——Of this Truth I had the Curiosity to enquire, and had it confirm'd from his own Mouth in his advanc'd Age: And indeed, to the last of him, his Handsomeness was very little abated; even at past Sixty his Teeth were all sound, white, and even, as one would wish to see in a reigning Toast of Twenty. He had something of a formal Gravity in his Mien, which was attributed to the stately Step he had been so early confin'd to, in a female Decency. But even that in Characters of Superiority had its proper Graces; it misbecame him not in the Part of Leon, in Fletcher's Rule a Wife, &c. which he executed with a determin'd Manliness and honest Authority well worth the best Actor's Imitation. He had a piercing Eye, and in Characters of heroick Life a quick imperious Vivacity in his Tone of Voice that painted the Tyrant truly terrible. There were two Plays of Dryden in which he shone with uncommon Lustre; in Aurenge-Zebe he play'd Morat, and in Don Sebastian, Muley Moloch; in both these Parts he had a fierce, Lion-like Majesty in his Port and Utterance that gave the Spectator a kind of trembling Admiration!
Here I cannot help observing upon a modest Mistake which I thought the late Mr. Booth committed in his acting the Part of Morat. There are in this fierce Character so many Sentiments of avow'd Barbarity, Insolence, and Vain-glory, that they blaze even to a ludicrous Lustre, and doubtless the Poet intended those to make his Spectators laugh while they admir'd them; but Booth thought it depreciated the Dignity of Tragedy to raise a Smile in any part of it, and therefore cover'd these kind of Sentiments with a scrupulous Coldness and unmov'd Delivery, as if he had fear'd the Audience might take too familiar a notice of them.[129] In Mr. Addison's Cato, Syphax[130] has some Sentiments of near the same nature, which I ventur'd to speak as I imagin'd Kynaston would have done had he been then living to have stood in the same Character. Mr. Addison, who had something of Mr. Booth's Diffidence at the Rehearsal of his Play, after it was acted came into my Opinion, and own'd that even Tragedy on such particular Occasions might admit of a Laugh of Approbation.[131] In Shakespear Instances of them are frequent, as in Mackbeth, Hotspur, Richard the Third, and Harry the Eighth,[132] all which Characters, tho' of a tragical Cast, have sometimes familiar Strokes in them so highly natural to each particular Disposition, that it is impossible not to be transported into an honest Laughter at them: And these are those happy Liberties which, tho' few Authors are qualify'd to take, yet, when justly taken, may challenge a Place among their greatest Beauties. Now, whether Dryden, in his Morat, feliciter Audet,[133]——or may be allow'd the Happiness of having hit this Mark, seems not necessary to be determin'd by the Actor, whose Business, sure, is to make the best of his Author's Intention, as in this Part Kynaston did, doubtless not without Dryden's Approbation. For these Reasons then, I thought my good Friend, Mr. Booth (who certainly had many Excellencies) carry'd his Reverence for the Buskin too far, in not following the bold Flights of the Author with that Wantonness of Spirit which the Nature of those Sentiments demanded: For Example! Morat having a criminal Passion for Indamora, promises, at her Request, for one Day to spare the Life of her Lover Aurenge-Zebe: But not chusing to make known the real Motive of his Mercy, when Nourmahal says to him,
'Twill not be safe to let him live an Hour!
Morat silences her with this heroical Rhodomontade,