I have alluded to the proclamation against swords in 1724. It appears to have been made in vain, for in 1755 I find the aristocrats still ruling the theatre by power of naked weapons and impudence. Garrick received from them this questionable support when he brought out the ‘Chinese Festival,’ with Noverre and other foreign dancers from the neighbourhood of “Zurich’s fair waters.” A war with France had just broken out, and the mob were like Foote’s patriot gingerbread-maker in the Borough, who would not tolerate three dancers from Switzerland because he hated the French. The ochlocracy hissed; the aristocracy drew their swords to silence the villains; the latter welcomed the battle, and they not only damaged the theatre and many illustrious heads, but they pretty nearly destroyed Garrick’s own private residence. Roscius lost nearly £4000 in this quarrel, wherein swords were drawn and blood spilt that was of no value to the manager; and the present Mr. Noverre, of Norwich (I believe), can hardly make even a faint guess of the dire storm which greeted his great-grandsire when he first cut an entrechat on the boards of Old Drury.
But actors had bloody frays of their own, and that too among the gentler part of the profession. One I may mention, as it is connected with a matter of dress. The charming George Anne Bellamy had procured from Paris two gorgeous dresses, wherein to enact Statira in the ‘Rival Queens.’ Roxana was played by Peg Woffington; and she was so overcome with malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness, when she saw herself eclipsed by the dazzling glories of the resplendent Bellamy, that Peg at length attempted to drive her off the stage, and with upheld dagger had wellnigh stabbed her at the side-scenes. Alexander and a posse of chiefs with hard names were at hand, but the less brilliantly-clad Roxana rolled Statira and her spangled sack in the dust, pommelling her the while with the handle of her dagger, and screaming aloud—
“Nor he, nor Heaven, shall shield thee from my justice;
Die, sorceress, die! and all my wrongs die with thee!”
Poor Madge! Not many weeks afterwards she was playing Rosalind, when she was, at the age of forty-four, struck with the fit that slowly conducted her to the grave. Her last words were, “If I were among you, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me.” The stroke followed, then a scream, and she who had charmed multitudes was for ever charmless. I will only add here that it is said of O’Brien, of whom I have spoken elsewhere as having married an earl’s daughter, that “in the drawing of his sword he threw all other performers at a wonderful distance by his swiftness, grace, and superior elegance.” But O’Brien was the son of a fencing-master, and his brother actors were as jealous of him as Pepys of his friend Pen, as illustrated by the entry which says (May, 1662), “Walked with my wife to my brother Tom’s; our boy waiting on us with his sword, which this day he begins to wear, to outdo Sir W. Pen’s boy.” From which it would appear that gentlemen and footmen once had fashions, if not vices, in common; and that our ancestors, with regard to pride, were as great fools as ourselves; and that is eminently, nay, pre-eminently consoling.
The players were not scared from using swords as well as displaying them. When Garrick played Bayes in the ‘Rehearsal,’ in 1741-2, he gave imitations of Hall, Delaney, Ryan (the ex-tailor), Bridgewater, and of Gifford. The first four bore the ridicule better than Roscius would have endured the like of himself; but Gifford was so dreadfully enraged at the liberty taken with him that he sent Davy a challenge, and the two mimes fought until Gifford, whipping his rapier through the fleshy part of Garrick’s arm, laid him up for a fortnight, and cured him of mere mimicry.
I have noticed above how Peg Woffington, with her pointed dagger, punched the ribs of the exquisite Bellamy; a similar, but more disagreeable sort of excitement, once seized on Woodward, the old pupil of Merchant Tailors’, who had turned actor. He was playing Petruchio to Kitty Clive’s Catherine, when, borne away by his towering rage, he not only threw the lady down, but ran a fork into her finger; and as he had no love for Kitty, it is said that there was more design than accident in the matter. But this I do not believe. More credit, I fancy, is to be attached to the story which says, that when Pasta played Otello to Sontag’s Desdemona, the former was so excited by the superabundant applause gained by her rival, that in the killing scene Otello twisted a strong hand into Desdemona’s luxuriant hair, and gave it a series of such hearty tugs, that the gentle lady, married to the Moor, screamed with all her might, au naturel!
When the most pleasant and reasonable of Popes was Legate at Bologna, a circumstance connected with swords came under his observation. Two senators had fallen into a deadly quarrel touching the pre-eminence of Tasso and Ariosto. A duel ensued, in which the champion of Ariosto was mortally wounded. The future Pope visited the dying man, whose sole observation to his visitor’s religious injunctions was—“What an ass I am, to get run through the body in the very flower of my age, for the sake of Ariosto, of whom I have never read a line.” “But—” interrupted the priest. “And if,” exclaimed the dying man, not heeding the interruption, “if I had read him, I should not have understood him; for I am but a fool at the best of times.” Benedict himself had a respect for swordsmen; and it was said of him and that other pleasant fellow, his contemporary, the Sultan Mahmoud, that if they were made to change places, the Holy Father becoming Grand Seigneur, and the Sultan becoming Pope, nobody would be sensible of any consequent difference; except, perhaps, the most intimate portion of the Sultan’s household. Benedict was, at all events, wiser than that celebrated Capuchin, who, preaching repentance to a party about to resort to the arbitration of the sword, exclaimed, “Brethren, admire and bless Divine Providence, who has placed death at the close of life, in order that we might have the more time to be prepared for it.” This confusion of ideas reminds me of that which existed in the mind of the soldier who remarked, that people nowadays did not live to such a lengthened age as when he was young. “Not that there are not old people now,” said he, “but then they were born a very long time ago!”
Finally, let me conclude the subject of swords with something better worth remembering than mere gossip. Toledo, Damascus, and Milan have been especially renowned for the excellence of the swords manufactured in those respective places. The quality of the Spanish blade is said to have been given it by the cunning of Arab workmen; but the fact is, that Spanish blades were famous for their power of letting daylight into the soul’s tabernacle as early as the old Roman time. When the first Cæsar was master of the empire, Iberian tailors (and ladies) worked only with Toledo needles; while Iberian officers and gentlemen (for the characters were distinct in those heathen times: as for the matter of that, they sometimes are now) fought only with Toledo blades. Virgil alludes to the excellence of the Spanish steel in his first Georgic: “At Chalybes nudi ferrum (mittunt).” Justin says the Chalybes were Spaniards; and the nudi, no doubt, refers to the fashion in which they worked at the forge. Dryden translates the line—“And naked Spaniards temper steel for war.” Further, Diodorus Siculus states, “that the Celtiberians so tempered their steel, that no helmet could resist the stroke of the sword.”
The temper of the Damascus blade was of another sort. It was so fine that the sword passed through the lightest object floating in the air. The merits of the two methods will be found admirably illustrated in Scott’s story of ‘The Talisman.’