Of this Good-fortune perhaps I had more than my Share from the two very different chief Characters I had succeeded in; for I was equally approv'd in Æsop as the Lord Foppington, allowing the Difference to be no less than as Wisdom in a Person deform'd may be less entertaining to the general Taste than Folly and Foppery finely drest: For the Character that delivers Precepts of Wisdom is, in some sort, severe upon the Auditor by shewing him one wiser than himself. But when Folly is his Object he applauds himself for being wiser than the Coxcomb he laughs at: And who is not more pleas'd with an Occasion to commend than accuse himself?
Though to write much in a little time is no Excuse for writing ill; yet Sir John Vanbrugh's Pen is not to be a little admir'd for its Spirit, Ease, and Readiness in producing Plays so fast upon the Neck of one another; for, notwithstanding this quick Dispatch, there is a clear and lively Simplicity in his Wit that neither wants the Ornament of Learning nor has the least Smell of the Lamp in it. As the Face of a fine Woman, with only her Locks loose about her, may be then in its greatest Beauty; such were his Productions, only adorn'd by Nature. There is something so catching to the Ear, so easy to the Memory, in all he writ, that it has been observ'd by all the Actors of my Time, that the Style of no Author whatsoever gave their Memory less trouble than that of Sir John Vanbrugh; which I myself, who have been charg'd with several of his strongest Characters, can confirm by a pleasing Experience. And indeed his Wit and Humour was so little laboured, that his most entertaining Scenes seem'd to be no more than his common Conversation committed to Paper. Here I confess my Judgment at a Loss, whether in this I give him more or less than his due Praise? For may it not be more laudable to raise an Estate (whether in Wealth or Fame) by Pains and honest Industry than to be born to it? Yet if his Scenes really were, as to me they always seem'd, delightful, are they not, thus expeditiously written, the more surprising? let the Wit and Merit of them then be weigh'd by wiser Criticks than I pretend to be: But no wonder, while his Conceptions were so full of Life and Humour, his Muse should be sometimes too warm to wait the slow Pace of Judgment, or to endure the Drudgery of forming a regular Fable to them: Yet we see the Relapse, however imperfect in the Conduct, by the mere Force of its agreeable Wit, ran away with the Hearts of its Hearers; while Love's last Shift, which (as Mr. Congreve justly said of it) had only in it a great many things that were like Wit, that in reality were not Wit: And what is still less pardonable (as I say of it myself) has a great deal of Puerility and frothy Stage-Language in it, yet by the mere moral Delight receiv'd from its Fable, it has been, with the other, in a continued and equal Possession of the Stage for more than forty Years.[246]
As I have already promis'd you to refer your Judgment of me as an Actor rather to known Facts than my own Opinion (which I could not be sure would keep clear of Self-Partiality) I must a little farther risque my being tedious to be as good as my Word. I have elsewhere allow'd that my want of a strong and full Voice soon cut short my Hopes of making any valuable Figure in Tragedy; and I have been many Years since convinced, that whatever Opinion I might have of my own Judgment or Capacity to amend the palpable Errors that I saw our Tragedians most in favour commit; yet the Auditors who would have been sensible of any such Amendments (could I have made them) were so very few, that my best Endeavour would have been but an unavailing Labour, or, what is yet worse, might have appeared both to our Actors and to many Auditors the vain Mistake of my own Self-Conceit: For so strong, so very near indispensible, is that one Article of Voice in the forming a good Tragedian, that an Actor may want any other Qualification whatsoever, and yet have a better chance for Applause than he will ever have, with all the Skill in the World, if his Voice is not equal to it. Mistake me not; I say, for Applause only—but Applause does not always stay for, nor always follow intrinsick Merit; Applause will frequently open, like a young Hound, upon a wrong Scent; and the Majority of Auditors, you know, are generally compos'd of Babblers that are profuse of their Voices before there is any thing on foot that calls for them. Not but, I grant, to lead or mislead the Many will always stand in some Rank of a necessary Merit; yet when I say a good Tragedian, I mean one in Opinion of whose real Merit the best Judges would agree.
Having so far given up my Pretensions to the Buskin, I ought now to account for my having been, notwithstanding, so often seen in some particular Characters in Tragedy, as Iago,[247] Wolsey, Syphax, Richard the Third, &c. If in any of this kind I have succeeded, perhaps it has been a Merit dearly purchas'd; for, from the Delight I seem'd to take in my performing them, half my Auditors have been persuaded that a great Share of the Wickedness of them must have been in my own Nature: If this is true, as true I fear (I had almost said hope) it is, I look upon it rather as a Praise than Censure of my Performance. Aversion there is an involuntary Commendation, where we are only hated for being like the thing we ought to be like; a sort of Praise, however, which few Actors besides my self could endure: Had it been equal to the usual Praise given to Virtue, my Cotemporaries would have thought themselves injur'd if I had pretended to any Share of it: So that you see it has been as much the Dislike others had to them, as Choice that has thrown me sometimes into these Characters. But it may be farther observ'd, that in the Characters I have nam'd, where there is so much close meditated Mischief, Deceit, Pride, Insolence, or Cruelty, they cannot have the least Cast or Profer of the Amiable in them; consequently, there can be no great Demand for that harmonious Sound, or pleasing round Melody of Voice, which in the softer Sentiments of Love, the Wailings of distressful Virtue, or in the Throws and Swellings of Honour and Ambition, may be needful to recommend them to our Pity or Admiration: So that, again, my want of that requisite Voice might less disqualify me for the vicious than the virtuous Character. This too may have been a more favourable Reason for my having been chosen for them—a yet farther Consideration that inclin'd me to them was that they are generally better written, thicker sown with sensible Reflections, and come by so much nearer to common Life and Nature than Characters of Admiration, as Vice is more the Practice of Mankind than Virtue: Nor could I sometimes help smiling at those dainty Actors that were too squeamish to swallow them! as if they were one Jot the better Men for acting a good Man well, or another Man the worse for doing equal Justice to a bad one! 'Tis not, sure, what we act, but how we act what is allotted us, that speaks our intrinsick Value! as in real Life, the wise Man or the Fool, be he Prince or Peasant, will in either State be equally the Fool or the wise Man—but alas! in personated Life this is no Rule to the Vulgar! they are apt to think all before them real, and rate the Actor according to his borrow'd Vice or Virtue.
If then I had always too careless a Concern for false or vulgar Applause, I ought not to complain if I have had less of it than others of my time, or not less of it than I desired: Yet I will venture to say, that from the common weak Appetite of false Applause, many Actors have run into more Errors and Absurdities, than their greatest Ignorance could otherwise have committed:[248] If this Charge is true, it will lie chiefly upon the better Judgment of the Spectator to reform it.
But not to make too great a Merit of my avoiding this common Road to Applause, perhaps I was vain enough to think I had more ways than one to come at it. That, in the Variety of Characters I acted, the Chances to win it were the stronger on my Side—That, if the Multitude were not in a Roar to see me in Cardinal Wolsey, I could be sure of them in Alderman Fondlewife. If they hated me in Iago, in Sir Fopling they took me for a fine Gentleman; if they were silent at Syphax, no Italian Eunuch was more applauded than when I sung in Sir Courtly. If the Morals of Æsop were too grave for them, Justice Shallow was as simple and as merry an old Rake as the wisest of our young ones could wish me.[249] And though the Terror and Detestation raised by King Richard might be too severe a Delight for them, yet the more gentle and modern Vanities of a Poet Bays, or the well-bred Vices of a Lord Foppington, were not at all more than their merry Hearts or nicer Morals could bear.
These few Instances out of fifty more I could give you, may serve to explain what sort of Merit I at most pretended to; which was, that I supplied with Variety whatever I might want of that particular Skill wherein others went before me. How this Variety was executed (for by that only is its value to be rated) you who have so often been my Spectator are the proper Judge: If you pronounce my Performance to have been defective, I am condemn'd by my own Evidence; if you acquit me, these Out-lines may serve for a Sketch of my Theatrical Character.