Moore was on intimate terms with the Mapledurham ladies—the Blounts, and with others of Pope's friends, as well as with Pope himself. Some tags of the poet's lines he had introduced into his unlucky comedy, and on this Pope supported a grossly-expressed and weakly-founded charge of plagiarism. Welsted, who was of a good Leicestershire family, and of fair abilities, had moved Pope's wrath by writing satirical verses against him, and the feeling was embittered when the two dramatists united in addressing One Epistle to Pope, in which they touched him more painfully than he cared to confess. Neither Moore nor Welsted ever tempted fortune on the stage again. "Cœstus artemque repono," said the former, on the title-page of his comedy, as if he was revenging himself on society. Welsted confined himself, after some skirmishing with his critics, to his duties in the Ordnance Office. His wives were women of some mark. The first was the daughter of Purcell; the second the sister of Walker, the great defender of Londonderry.
A better gentleman than either, Philip Frowde—scholar, wit, poet, true man, friend of Addison, and a friend to all,—was praised by the critics for his "Fall of Saguntum;" but the public voice did not ratify the judgment, though Ryan, as Fabius, and Quin, as Eurydamas, with Mrs. Berriman, as Candace,—an Amazonian queen, with nothing very womanly about her,—exerted themselves to the utmost. One other failure has to be recorded—"Philip of Macedon," by David Lewis, the friend of Pope. With a dull tragedy, Pope's friend had no more chance of misleading the public, than his foes, with weak comedies. The greater poet's commendation so little influenced that public, that on the first night, with Pope himself in the house, the audience was so numerically small,—though Walker, Ryan, Quin, Mrs. Berriman, Mrs. Younger, and others, were, in their "habits" as unlike Macedonians as they could well be,—the managers deemed acting to such a house not profitable, and dismissed it accordingly. The author's final condemnation was only postponed for a night or two, when he sank, never to rise again.[122]
With Booth's failing health, and the ill-success of novelties produced at either house, there was a gloom over theatrical matters. But at this very time a sun was rising from behind the cloud. In one of the irregular series of performances, held at the little theatre in the Haymarket, in 1726, there appeared a young lady, in the part of Monimia, in the "Orphan," and subsequently as Cherry, in the "Beaux' Stratagem." She was pretty, clever, and eighteen; but she was not destined to become either the tragic or the comic queen. Soon after, however, thanks to the judgment of Rich, who gave her the opportunity, she was hailed as the queen of English song. She was known as Lavinia Fenton, but she was the daughter of a naval lieutenant, named Beswick. Her widowed mother had married a coffee-house keeper in Charing Cross, whose name of Fenton was assumed by his step-daughter. Before we shall hear of her at Lincoln's Inn Fields, a lieutenant[123] will be offering her everything he possessed except his name; but Lavinia, without being as discreet, was even more successful than Pamela, and died a duchess.
Throughout the reign of George I., Barton Booth kept his position as the first English tragedian,—undisturbed even by the power of Quin. Associated with him, were comedians,—Wilks, Cibber, Mrs. Oldfield, Porter, Horton, and others, who shed splendour on the stage, at this period. The new dramatic poets of that reign were few, and not more than one of those few can be called distinguished. The name of Young alone survives in the memory, and that but for one tragedy, the "Revenge." Of comedies, there is not one of the reign of George I. that is even read for its merits. It is otherwise with the comedies of an actress and dramatist who died in this reign,—Susanna Centlivre; and yet a contemporary notice of her death simply states that, as an actress, "having a greater inclination to wear the breeches than the petticoat, she struck into the men's parts;" and that the dramatist "had a small wen on her left eyelid, which gave her a masculine air." Eventful to both houses was the season of 1727-28. It was the last season of Booth, at Drury Lane; and it was the first of the "Beggars' Opera," at Lincoln's Inn Fields. After thirty years' service, in the reigns of William, Anne, George I., and now in that of George II., in which Garrick was to excel him, that admirable actor was compelled, by shattered health, to withdraw. For many nights he played Henry VIII., and walked in the coronation scene, which was tacked to various other plays, in honour of the accession of George II., who, with the royal family, went, on the 7th of November, to witness Booth enact the King. On the 9th of January, Booth, after a severe struggle, played, for the sixth and last time, Julio, in the "Double Falsehood;" a play which Theobald ascribed to Shakspeare; Dr. Farmer, to Shirley; others, to Massinger; but which was chiefly Theobald's own, founded on a manuscript copy which, through Downes, the prompter, had descended to him from Betterton, and which served Colman, who certainly derived his Octavian from Julio.
The loss in Booth was, in some degree, supplied by the "profit" arising from a month's run of a new comedy by Vanbrugh and Cibber—the "Provoked Husband;" in which the Lord and Lady Townley were played by these incomparable lovers—Wilks and Mrs. Oldfield. Cibber acted Sir Francis Wronghead, and young Wetherell, Squire Richard. Vanbrugh was at this time dead—in 1726, at his house in Whitehall, of quinsey. The critics and enemies of Cibber were sadly at fault on this occasion. Hating him for his "Nonjuror," they hissed all the scenes of which they supposed him to be the author; and applauded those which they were sure were by Vanbrugh. Cibber published the imperfect play left by Sir John, and thereby showed that his adversaries condemned and approved exactly in the wrong places.
Cibber enjoyed another triumph this season. Steele, abandoning the responsibilities of management, to follow his pleasure, had submitted to a deduction of £1, 13s. 4d. nightly, to each of his partners, for performing his duties. Steele was at this time in Wales, dying, though he survived till September 1729. His creditors, meanwhile, claimed the "five marks" as their own, and the case went into the Rolls Court, before Sir Joseph Jekyll. Cibber pleaded in person the cause of himself and active partners, and so convincingly, that he obtained a decree in their favour.
In presence of this new audience, the old actor confesses he felt fear. He carried with him the heads of what he was about to urge; but, says Colley, "when it came to the critical moment, the dread and apprehension of what I had undertaken so disconcerted my courage, that though I had been used to talk to above fifty thousand people every winter, for upwards of thirty years together, an involuntary and unexpected proof of confusion fell from my eyes; and as I found myself quite out of my element, I seemed rather gasping for life, than in a condition to cope with the eminent orators against me." Cibber, however, recovered himself, and vanquished his adversaries, though two of them were of the stuff that won for them, subsequently, the dignity of Lord Chancellor.
The "Beggar's Opera" season at Lincoln's Inn Fields was the most profitable ever known there. Swift's idea of a Newgate pastoral was adopted by Gay, who, smarting under disappointment of preferment at Court, and angry at the offer to make him gentleman-usher to the youngest of the royal children, indulged his satirical humour against ministers and placement, by writing a Newgate comedy, at which Swift and Pope shook their heads, and old Congreve, for one of whose three sinecures Gay would have given his ears, was sorely perplexed as to whether it would bring triumph or calamity to its author. The songs were added, but Cibber, as doubtful as Congreve, declined what Rich eagerly accepted, and the success of which was first discerned by the Duke of Argyle, from his box on the stage, who looked at the house, and "saw it in the eyes of them."
Walker, who had been playing tragic parts, and very recently Macbeth, was chosen for Macheath, on Quin declining the highwayman. Lavinia Fenton was the Polly; Peachum, by Hippisley; and Spiller made a distinctive character of Mat o' the Mint. Walker "knew no more of music than barely singing in tune; but then his singing was supported by his inimitable action, by his speaking to the eye and charming the ear." It was at the close of a long run of the piece that Walker once tripped in his words. "I wonder," said Rich, "that you should forget the words of a part you have played so often!" "Do you think," asked Walker, with happy equivocation, "that a man's memory is to last for ever?"