It may be here noticed that Shakspeare owed some of his reputation, at this time, to the dissensions which existed between the King and his son. Had it, at least, not been for this circumstance, it is not likely that the play of ‘Henry IV.’ would have been so often represented as it was at the three theatres—Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, Covent Garden, and Drury Lane. Every auditor knew how to make special application of the complainings and sorrowings of a royal sire over a somewhat profligate son; or of the unfilial speeches and hypocritical assurance of a princely heir, flung at his Sovereign and impatient sire. The house in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields had the reputation of being the Tory house; and the Prince of Wales there was probably represented as a proper gentleman; not out of love to him, but rather out of contempt to the father. It was not a house which received the favour of either Caroline or her consort. The new pieces there ran too strongly against the despotic rule of kings—the only sort of rule for which George at all cared, and the lack of which made him constantly abusive of England, her institutions, parliament, and public men. It is difficult to say what the real opinion of Caroline was upon this matter, for at divers times we find her uttering opposite sentiments. She could be as abusive against free institutions and civil and religious rights as ever her husband was. She has been heard to declare that sovereignty was worth little where it was merely nominal, and that to be king or queen in a country where people governed through their parliament was to wear a crown and to exercise none of the prerogatives which are ordinarily attached to it. At other times she would declare that the real glory of England was the result of her free institutions; the people were industrious and enterprising because they were free, and knew that their property was secure from any attack on the part of prince or government. They consequently regarded their sovereign with more affection than a despotic monarch could be regarded by a slavish people; and she added, that she would not have cared to share a throne in England, if the people by whom it was surrounded had been slaves without a will of their own, or without a heart that throbbed at the name of liberty. The King never had but one opinion on the subject, and therefore the theatre at Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields was for ever resounding with clap-traps against despotism, and that in presence of an audience of whom Frederick, Prince of Wales, was chief, and Bolingbroke led the applause.
But even Drury Lane could be as democratic as Lincoln’s Inn. Thus, in the very year of which we are treating, Lillo brought out his ‘Christian Hero’ at Drury Lane, and the audience had as little difficulty to apply the parts to living potentates as they had reluctance to applaud to the echo passages like the following against despotic rulers:—
Despotic power, that root of bitterness,
That tree of death that spreads its baleful arms
Almost from pole to pole, beneath whose cursed shade
No good thing thrives, and every ill finds shelter,
Had found no time for its detested growth
But for the follies and the crimes of men.
But ‘Drury’ did not often offend in this guise, and even George and Caroline might have gone to see ‘Junius Brutus,’ and have been amused. The Queen, who well knew the corruption of the senate, might have smiled as Mills, in Brutus, with gravity declared that the senators—
Have heaped no wealth, though hoary grown in honours,