[ [25] "Caviare to the general."—"Hamlet," act ii. sc. 2.
[ [26] Malone supposes that Skipwith acquired his shares from the Killigrew family, but in the indenture by which he transferred his interest to Brett, it seems as if he had acquired part of it from Alexander Davenant, and the remainder by buying up shares of the original Adventurers. The indenture will be found at length in Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's "New History of the English Stage," i. 252. Skipwith is described in the "Biog. Dram." (i. 487) as "a weak, vain, conceited coxcomb." The proportion in which the shares were divided among the various holders is shown by the "Opinion" of Northey and Raymond, in 1711, to have been this: Three-twentieths belonged to Charles Killigrew. The remainder was divided into tenths, of which two-tenths belonged to Rich; the other eight parts were owned by the Mortgagees or Adventurers. If Cibber's supposition is correct, two of these parts belonged to Shipwith.
[ [27] It is dated 6th October, 1707.
[ [28] As noted vol. i. p. 213, January, 1695, Old Style; that is, January, 1696.
[ [29] Davies ("Dram. Misc.," iii. 84) says: "The heads of the English actors were, for a long time, covered with large full-bottomed perriwigs, a fashion introduced in the reign of Charles II., which was not entirely disused in public till about the year 1720. Addison, Congreve, and Steele, met at Button's coffee-house, in large, flowing, flaxen wigs; Booth, Wilks, and Cibber, when full-dressed, wore the same. Till within these twenty-five years, our Tamerlanes and Catos had as much hair on their heads as our judges on the bench.... I have been told, that he [Booth] and Wilks bestowed forty guineas each on the exorbitant thatching of their heads."
[ [30] "The Laureat," p. 66, relates with great acrimony an anecdote of Colonel Brett's reproving Cibber harshly for his treatment of an author who had submitted a play to him. Cibber is said to have opened the author's M.S., and, having read two lines only, to have returned it to him saying, "Sir, it will not do." Going to Button's, he related his exploit with great glee, but was rebuked in the strongest terms by Colonel Brett, who is said to have put him to shame before the whole company. This is related as having occurred many years after the time Cibber now writes of; the suggestion being that Brett did not consider Cibber as a friend.
[ [31] This was the Countess of Macclesfield, the supposed mother of Richard Savage, who had a large fortune in her own right, of which she was not deprived on her divorce from the Earl of Macclesfield. Shortly after her divorce, probably about 1698, she married Brett. She lived to be eighty, or over it, dying 11th October, 1753.
[ [32] A comedy by Mountfort the actor, originally played at the Theatre Royal, 1691. The part of Young Reveller was then taken by the author, and we have no record of Cibber's playing it before 1708; but from this anecdote he must have done so ten years earlier.
[ [33] In Boswell's Life of Johnson (i. 174) there is a note by Boswell himself:—
"Miss Mason, after having forfeited the title of Lady Macclesfield by divorce, was married to Colonel Brett, and, it is said, was well known in all the polite circles. Colley Cibber, I am informed, had so high an opinion of her taste and judgement as to genteel life, and manners, that he submitted every scene of his Careless Husband to Mrs. Brett's revisal and correction. Colonel Brett was reported to be too free in his gallantry with his Lady's maid. Mrs. Brett came into a room one day in her own house, and found the Colonel and her maid both fast asleep in two chairs. She tied a white handkerchief round her husband's neck, which was a sufficient proof that she had discovered his intrigue; but she never at any time took notice of it to him. This incident, as I am told, gave occasion to the well-wrought scene of Sir Charles and Lady Easy and Edging."