Ad Lalauze, sc
CHAPTER VIII.
The Patentee of Drury-Lane wiser than his Actors. His particular Menagement. The Author continues to write Plays. Why. The best dramatick Poets censured by J. Collier, in his Short View of the Stage. It has a good Effect. The Master of the Revels, from that time, cautious in his licensing new Plays. A Complaint against him. His Authority founded upon Custom only. The late Law for fixing that Authority in a proper Person, considered.
Though the Master of our Theatre had no Conception himself of Theatrical Merit either in Authors or Actors, yet his Judgment was govern'd by a saving Rule in both: He look'd into his Receipts for the Value of a Play, and from common Fame he judg'd of his Actors. But by whatever Rule he was govern'd, while he had prudently reserv'd to himself a Power of not paying them more than their Merit could get, he could not be much deceived by their being over or under-valued. In a Word, he had with great Skill inverted the Constitution of the Stage, and quite changed the Channel of Profits arising from it; formerly, (when there was but one Company) the Proprietors punctually paid the Actors their appointed Sallaries, and took to themselves only the clear Profits: But our wiser Proprietor took first out of every Day's Receipts two Shillings in the Pound to himself; and left their Sallaries to be paid only as the less or greater Deficiencies of acting (according to his own Accounts) would permit. What seem'd most extraordinary in these Measures was, that at the same time he had persuaded us to be contented with our Condition, upon his assuring us that as fast as Money would come in we should all be paid our Arrears: And that we might not have it always in our Power to say he had never intended to keep his Word, I remember in a few Years after this time he once paid us nine Days in one Week: This happen'd when the Funeral, or Grief à la Mode,[288] was first acted, with more than expected Success. Whether this well-tim'd Bounty was only allow'd us to save Appearances I will not say: But if that was his real Motive for it, it was too costly a frolick to be repeated, and was at least the only Grimace of its kind he vouchsafed us; we never having received one Day more of those Arrears in above fifteen Years Service.
While the Actors were in this Condition, I think I may very well be excused in my presuming to write Plays: which I was forced to do for the Support of my encreasing Family, my precarious Income as an Actor being then too scanty to supply it with even the Necessaries of Life.
It may be observable, too, that my Muse and my Spouse were equally prolifick; that the one was seldom the Mother of a Child, but in the same Year the other made me the Father of a Play: I think we had a Dozen of each Sort between us; of both which kinds, some died in their Infancy, and near an equal Number of each were alive when I quitted the Theatre—But it is no Wonder, when a Muse is only call'd upon by Family Duty, she should not always rejoice in the Fruit of her Labour. To this Necessity of writing, then, I attribute the Defects of my second Play, which, coming out too hastily the Year after my first, turn'd to very little Account. But having got as much by my first as I ought to have expected from the Success of them both, I had no great Reason to complain: Not but, I confess, so bad was my second, that I do not chuse to tell you the Name of it; and that it might be peaceably forgotten, I have not given it a Place in the two Volumes of those I publish'd in Quarto in the Year 1721.[289] And whenever I took upon me to make some dormant Play of an old Author to the best of my Judgment fitter for the Stage, it was honestly not to be idle that set me to work; as a good Housewife will mend old Linnen when she has not better Employment: But when I was more warmly engag'd by a Subject entirely new, I only thought it a good Subject when it seem'd worthy of an abler Pen than my own, and might prove as useful to the Hearer as profitable to my self: Therefore, whatever any of my Productions might want of Skill, Learning, Wit, or Humour, or however unqualify'd I might be to instruct others who so ill govern'd my self: Yet such Plays (entirely my own) were not wanting, at least, in what our most admired Writers seem'd to neglect, and without which I cannot allow the most taking Play to be intrinsically good, or to be a Work upon which a Man of Sense and Probity should value himself: I mean when they do not, as well prodesse as delectare,[290] give Profit with Delight! The Utile Dulci[291] was, of old, equally the Point; and has always been my Aim, however wide of the Mark I may have shot my Arrow. It has often given me Amazement that our best Authors of that time could think the Wit and Spirit of their Scenes could be an Excuse for making the Looseness of them publick. The many Instances of their Talents so abused are too glaring to need a closer Comment, and are sometimes too gross to be recited. If then to have avoided this Imputation, or rather to have had the Interest and Honour of Virtue always in view, can give Merit to a Play, I am contented that my Readers should think such Merit the All that mine have to boast of—Libertines of meer Wit and Pleasure may laugh at these grave Laws that would limit a lively Genius: But every sensible honest Man, conscious of their Truth and Use, will give these Ralliers Smile for Smile, and shew a due Contempt for their Merriment.
But while our Authors took these extraordinary Liberties with their Wit, I remember the Ladies were then observ'd to be decently afraid of venturing bare-fac'd to a new Comedy 'till they had been assur'd they might do it without the Risque of an Insult to their Modesty—Or, if their Curiosity were too strong for their Patience, they took Care, at least, to save Appearances, and rarely came upon the first Days of Acting but in Masks, (then daily worn and admitted in the Pit, the side Boxes, and Gallery[292]) which Custom, however, had so many ill Consequences attending it, that it has been abolish'd these many Years.
These Immoralities of the Stage had by an avow'd Indulgence been creeping into it ever since King Charles his Time; nothing that was loose could then be too low for it: The London Cuckolds, the most rank Play that ever succeeded,[293] was then in the highest Court-Favour: In this almost general Corruption, Dryden, whose Plays were more fam'd for their Wit than their Chastity, led the way, which he fairly confesses, and endeavours to excuse in his Epilogue to the Pilgrim, revived in 1700 for his Benefit,[294] in his declining Age and Fortune—The following Lines of it will make good my Observation.
Perhaps the Parson[295] stretch'd a Point too far,
When with our Theatres he wag'd a War.