The next novelty was a tragedy in one act and with four characters, "Fatal Extravagance," attributed to Miller,[112] the son of a Scottish stone-cutter. Miller was a sort of exaggerated Richard Savage; inferior to him as a poet, and in every respect a more inexcusable vagabond. He had no redeeming traits of character, and he destroyed health and fortune (both restored more than once), as insanely as he did fame and the patience of his friends. In "Fatal Extravagance," Belmour, played by Quin, kills a creditor who holds his bond, of which he also robs the dead man, mixes a "cordial," administers it to his wife and three children (off the stage), drinks and dies. The butchery[113] is soon got through, in one act. Miller subsequently declared that the piece was a gift to him from Aaron Hill. That busy and benevolent person had no money to give to a beggar; so he sat down and wrote a tragedy for him. It was a piece of clever extravagance.
It was far more amusing than Ambrose Philip's tragedy the "Briton," which was the sole novelty of the Drury Lane season 1721-22. The tragedy lacked neither skill, poetical spirit, nor incident; indeed, of love incidents there is something too much. But the amours of Yvor (Wilks) and Gwendolin (Mrs. Booth), the infidelities of Queen Cartismand (Mrs. Porter) to Vanoc (Booth), and the intervention of the Romans in these British domestic matters, interested but for a few nights, if then, an audience ill-read in their own primitive history.
Lincoln's Inn Fields was scarcely more prolific in novelty; this, with the exception of a poor drama, the "Hibernian Friend,"[114] being confined to Sturmy's tragedy, "Love and Duty;" Lynceus, one of the half hundred sons of Ægyptus, by Quin. The love is that of Lynceus and his cousin, Hypermnestra; the duty, that of killing her husband, on the bridal night, by command of her father. The "Distressed Bride," which is the second name of this piece, wisely disobeys her sire, who is ultimately slain; after which, the young people, sole survivors of fifty couples married yesterday (the bridegrooms, all brothers; and sisters, all the brides), are made happy by the hope of long life unembittered by feuds with their kinsfolk.
The last two tragedies may be looked upon as a backsliding, after "Cato," "Jane Shore," and the "Revenge;" and in tragedy there was little improvement for several years. Meanwhile, Lincoln's Inn Fields acquired Walker, from Drury Lane, and Tony Aston, an itinerant actor, the first, perhaps, who travelled the country with an entertainment in which he was the sole performer. On the other hand, the house lost pretty Miss Stone, humorous Kit Bullock (Wilks's son-in-law), and busy George Pack; the last, the original Marplot, Lissardo, and many similar characters. Pack turned vintner in Charing Cross. Quin's ability was nightly more appreciated.
There was more "study" for the Drury Lane actors in 1722-23. Mrs. Centlivre's muse died calmly out with the comedy of the "Artifice." In the good scenes there was an approach to sentimental comedy, more fully reached, in November, by Steele, in his "Conscious Lovers," in which Booth played Young Bevil, and Mrs. Oldfield, Indiana. There was not an inferior performer in any of the other parts of this comedy, which Fielding sneers at, by making Parson Adams declare that there were things in it that would do very well in a sermon. Modern critics have called this comedy dull, but decent; perhaps because Steele affected to claim it as at least moral in its tendency. The truth, however, is, that it is excessively indecent. There is nothing worse in Aphra Behn than the remarks made by Cimberton, the "coxcomb with reflection," on Lucinda. This fop, played by Griffin, is for winning a beauty by the rules of metaphysics. There is more pathos than humour in this comedy; the author of which had now recovered his share in the patent, by favour of Sir Robert Walpole; and it is by directing attention only to such scenes as those between Bevil and Indiana, or between the former and his friend Myrtle (Wilks), that critics have not correctly declared that the sentiments are those of the most refined morality! For the very attempt to render them so, even partially, Sir Richard has been sneered at, very recently, by a writer who looks upon Steele as a fool for preferring to make Bevil the portrait of what a man ought to be rather than what man really was. The story of the piece is admirably manipulated and reformed from the "Andria," of Terence, though Tom (Cibber) is but a sorry Davus.
On one night of the performance of this play, a general officer was observed in the boxes, weeping at the distresses of Indiana. The circumstance was noted to Wilks, who, with kindly feeling ever ready, remarked, "I am certain the officer will fight none the worse for it!" Steele must have had more than ordinary power, if he could draw tears from martial eyes in those days.
It is not to be supposed that Pope set the author, as a writer, below Crowne; and yet, in the following lines, where the two are mentioned, there is no very complimentary allusion to Sir Richard:—
"When simple Macer, now of high renown,
First sought a poet's fortune in the town,