To conclude, Sir, if by our constant Attendance, our Care, our Anxiety (not to mention the disagreeable Contests we sometimes meet with, both within and without Doors, in the Menagement of our Theatre) we have not only saved the whole from Ruin, which, if we had all follow'd Sir Richard's Example, could not have been avoided; I say, Sir, if we have still made it so valuable an Income to him, without his giving us the least Assistance for several Years past; we hope, Sir, that the poor Labourers that have done all this for Sir Richard will not be thought unworthy of their Hire.
How far our Affairs, being set in this particular Light, might assist our Cause, may be of no great Importance to guess; but the Issue of it was this: That Sir Richard not having made any Objection to what we had charged for Menagement for three Years together; and as our Proceedings had been all transacted in open Day, without any clandestine Intention of Fraud; we were allow'd the Sums in dispute above-mention'd; and Sir Richard not being advised to appeal to the Lord-Chancellor, both Parties paid their own Costs, and thought it their mutual Interest to let this be the last of their Law-suits.
And now, gentle Reader, I ask Pardon for so long an Imposition on your Patience: For tho' I may have no ill Opinion of this Matter myself; yet to you I can very easily conceive it may have been tedious. You are, therefore, at your own Liberty of charging the whole Impertinence of it, either to the Weakness of my Judgment, or the Strength of my Vanity; and I will so far join in your Censure, that I farther confess I have been so impatient to give it you, that you have had it out of its Turn: For, some Years before this Suit was commenced, there were other Facts that ought to have had a Precedence in my History: But that, I dare say, is an Oversight you will easily excuse, provided you afterwards find them worth reading. However, as to that Point I must take my Chance, and shall therefore proceed to speak of the Theatre which was order'd by his late Majesty to be erected in the Great old Hall at Hampton-Court; where Plays were intended to have been acted twice a Week during the Summer-Season. But before the Theatre could be finish'd, above half the Month of September being elapsed, there were but seven Plays acted before the Court returned to London.[154] This throwing open a Theatre in a Royal Palace seem'd to be reviving the Old English hospitable Grandeur, where the lowest Rank of neighbouring Subjects might make themselves merry at Court without being laugh'd at themselves. In former Reigns, Theatrical Entertainments at the Royal Palaces had been perform'd at vast Expence, as appears by the Description of the Decorations in several of Ben. Johnson's Masques in King James and Charles the First's Time;[155] many curious and original Draughts of which, by Sir Inigo Jones, I have seen in the Musæum of our greatest Master and Patron of Arts and Architecture, whom it would be a needless Liberty to name.[156] But when our Civil Wars ended in the Decadence of Monarchy, it was then an Honour to the Stage to have fallen with it: Yet, after the Restoration of Charles II. some faint Attempts were made to revive these Theatrical Spectacles at Court; but I have met with no Account of above one Masque acted there by the Nobility; which was that of Calisto, written by Crown, the Author of Sir Courtly Nice. For what Reason Crown was chosen to that Honour rather than Dryden, who was then Poet-Laureat and out of all Comparison his Superior in Poetry, may seem surprizing: But if we consider the Offence which the then Duke of Buckingham took at the Character of Zimri in Dryden's Absalom, &c. (which might probably be a Return to his Grace's Drawcansir in the Rehearsal) we may suppose the Prejudice and Recommendation of so illustrious a Pretender to Poetry might prevail at Court to give Crown this Preference.[157] In the same Reign the King had his Comedians at Windsor, but upon a particular Establishment; for tho' they acted in St. George's Hall, within the Royal Palace, yet (as I have been inform'd by an Eye-witness) they were permitted to take Money at the Door of every Spectator; whether this was an Indulgence, in Conscience I cannot say; but it was a common Report among the principal Actors, when I first came into the Theatre-Royal, in 1690, that there was then due to the Company from that Court about One Thousand Five Hundred Pounds for Plays commanded, &c. and yet it was the general Complaint, in that Prince's Reign, that he paid too much Ready-money for his Pleasures: But these Assertions I only give as I received them, without being answerable for their Reality. This Theatrical Anecdote, however, puts me in mind of one of a more private nature, which I had from old solemn Boman, the late Actor of venerable Memory.[158] Boman, then a Youth, and fam'd for his Voice, was appointed to sing some Part in a Concert of Musick at the private Lodgings of Mrs. Gwin; at which were only present the King, the Duke of York, and one or two more who were usually admitted upon those detach'd Parties of Pleasure. When the Performance was ended, the King express'd himself highly pleased, and gave it extraordinary Commendations: Then, Sir, said the Lady, to shew you don't speak like a Courtier, I hope you will make the Performers a handsome Present: The King said he had no Money about him, and ask'd the Duke if he had any? To which the Duke reply'd, I believe, Sir, not above a Guinea or two. Upon which the laughing Lady, turning to the People about her, and making bold with the King's common Expression, cry'd, Od's Fish! what Company am I got into!
Whether the reverend Historian of his Own Time,[159] among the many other Reasons of the same Kind he might have for stiling this Fair One the indiscreetest and wildest Creature that ever was in a Court, might know this to be one of them, I can't say: But if we consider her in all the Disadvantages of her Rank and Education, she does not appear to have had any criminal Errors more remarkable than her Sex's Frailty to answer for: And if the same Author, in his latter End of that Prince's Life, seems to reproach his Memory with too kind a Concern for her Support, we may allow that it becomes a Bishop to have had no Eyes or Taste for the frivolous Charms or playful Badinage of a King's Mistress: Yet, if the common Fame of her may be believ'd, which in my Memory was not doubted, she had less to be laid to her Charge than any other of those Ladies who were in the same State of Preferment: She never meddled in Matters of serious Moment, or was the Tool of working Politicians: Never broke into those amorous Infidelities which others in that grave Author are accus'd of; but was as visibly distinguish'd by her particular Personal Inclination to the King, as her Rivals were by their Titles and Grandeur. Give me leave to carry (perhaps the Partiality of) my Observation a little farther. The same Author, in the same Page, 263,[160] tells us, That "Another of the King's Mistresses, the Daughter of a Clergyman, Mrs. Roberts, in whom her first Education had so deep a Root, that though she fell into many scandalous Disorders, with very dismal Adventures in them all, yet a Principle of Religion was so deep laid in her, that tho' it did not restrain her, yet it kept alive in her such a constant Horror of Sin, that she was never easy in an ill course, and died with a great Sense of her former ill Life."
To all this let us give an implicit Credit: Here is the Account of a frail Sinner made up with a Reverend Witness! Yet I cannot but lament that this Mitred Historian, who seems to know more Personal Secrets than any that ever writ before him, should not have been as inquisitive after the last Hours of our other Fair Offender, whose Repentance I have been unquestionably inform'd, appear'd in all the contrite Symptoms of a Christian Sincerity. If therefore you find I am so much concern'd to make this favourable mention of the one, because she was a Sister of the Theatre, why may not—But I dare not be so presumptuous, so uncharitably bold, as to suppose the other was spoken better of merely because she was the Daughter of a Clergyman. Well, and what then? What's all this idle Prate, you may say, to the matter in hand? Why, I say your Question is a little too critical; and if you won't give an Author leave, now and then, to embellish his Work by a natural Reflexion, you are an ungentle Reader. But I have done with my Digression, and return to our Theatre at Hampton-Court, where I am not sure the Reader, be he ever so wise, will meet with any thing more worth his notice: However, if he happens to read, as I write, for want of something better to do, he will go on; and perhaps wonder when I tell him that:
A Play presented at Court, or acted on a publick Stage, seem to their different Auditors a different Entertainment. Now hear my Reason for it. In the common Theatre the Guests are at home, where the politer Forms of Good-breeding are not so nicely regarded: Every one there falls to, and likes or finds fault according to his natural Taste or Appetite. At Court, where the Prince gives the Treat, and honours the Table with his own Presence, the Audience is under the Restraint of a Circle, where Laughter or Applause rais'd higher than a Whisper would be star'd at. At a publick Play they are both let loose, even 'till the Actor is sometimes pleas'd with his not being able to be heard for the Clamour of them. But this Coldness or Decency of Attention at Court I observ'd had but a melancholy Effect upon the impatient Vanity of some of our Actors, who seem'd inconsolable when their flashy Endeavours to please had pass'd unheeded: Their not considering where they were quite disconcerted them; nor could they recover their Spirits 'till from the lowest Rank of the Audience some gaping John or Joan, in the fullness of their Hearts, roar'd out their Approbation: And, indeed, such a natural Instance of honest Simplicity a Prince himself, whose Indulgence knows where to make Allowances, might reasonably smile at, and perhaps not think it the worst part of his Entertainment. Yet it must be own'd, that an Audience may be as well too much reserv'd, as too profuse of their Applause: For though it is possible a Betterton would not have been discourag'd from throwing out an Excellence, or elated into an Error, by his Auditors being too little or too much pleas'd, yet, as Actors of his Judgment are Rarities, those of less Judgment may sink into a Flatness in their Performance for want of that Applause, which from the generality of Judges they might perhaps have some Pretence to: And the Auditor, when not seeming to feel what ought to affect him, may rob himself of something more that he might have had by giving the Actor his Due, who measures out his Power to please according to the Value he sets upon his Hearer's Taste or Capacity. But, however, as we were not here itinerant Adventurers, and had properly but one Royal Auditor to please; after that Honour was attain'd to, the rest of our Ambition had little to look after: And that the King was often pleas'd, we were not only assur'd by those who had the Honour to be near him; but could see it, from the frequent Satisfaction in his Looks at particular Scenes and Passages: One Instance of which I am tempted to relate, because it was at a Speech that might more naturally affect a Sovereign Prince than any private Spectator. In Shakespear's Harry the Eighth, that King commands the Cardinal to write circular Letters of Indemnity into every County where the Payment of certain heavy Taxes had been disputed: Upon which the Cardinal whispers the following Directions to his Secretary Cromwell:
——A Word with you:
Let there be Letters writ to every Shire
Of the King's Grace and Pardon: The griev'd Commons