In Westminster, "Barton Street" keeps up the actor's name; and "Cowley Street" the remembrance of his proprietorship of a country estate near Uxbridge. To pass through the former street is like being transported to the times of Queen Anne. It is a quaint old locality, very little changed since the period in which Barton built it. No great stretch of imagination is required to fancy the original Pyrrhus and Cato gliding along the shady side, with a smile on his lips and a certain fire in his eye. He is thinking of Miss Santlow!
With Booth slowly dying, and Mrs. Oldfield often too ill to act, the prospects of Drury began to wane in 1728-29. Elrington could not supply the place of the former; nor Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Horton combined, that of the latter. Cibber carefully instructed his son Theophilus in the part of Pistol, which became his one great part, and the appearance of Miss Raftor as Dorinda, in Dryden's version of the "Tempest," on the 2nd of January 1729, marks the first step in the bright and unchequered career of one who is better remembered as Kitty Clive, of whom, more hereafter.[131] She was not able to save Cibber's pastoral comedy, "Love in a Riddle," from condemnation by an audience who had the ill-manners, as it was considered, to hiss, despite a royal presence in the house. As the new names rose the old ones fell off, and Congreve and Steele—the first rich and a gentleman, the second needy, but a gentleman, too—died in 1729, leaving no one but Cibber fit to compete with them in comedy. Musical pieces, such as the "Village Opera" and the "Lover's Opera," born of Gay's success, brought no such golden results to their authors or the house, which was still happy in retaining Wilks.
On the other hand, in the Fields, where ballad-opera had been a mine of wealth to astonished managers, classical tragedy took the lead, with Quin leading in everything, and growing in favour with a town whose applause could no longer be claimed by Booth. But classical tragedy reaped no golden harvests. Barford's "Virgin Queen" lives but in a line of Pope to Arbuthnot. The "Themistocles" (Quin) of young Madden, whom Ireland ought to remember as one of her benefactors who was no mere politician, lived but for a few nights.[132] Mrs. Heywood succeeded as ill with her romantic tragedy, "Frederick, Duke of Brunswick," which was five acts of flattery to the House of Hanover, some of whose members yawned over it ungratefully. But the "Beggar's Opera" could always fill the house whether Miss Cantrell warbled Polly, with the old cast, or children played all the parts—a foolish novelty, not unattractive. Hawker, an actor, vainly tried to rival Gay, with a serio-comic opera, the "Wedding," and Gay himself was doomed to suffer disappointment; for the authorities suppressed his "Polly," a vapid continuation of the fortunes of Macheath and the lady, and thereby drove almost to the disaffection of which he was accused, not only Gay, but his patrons, the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, who punished the Court by absenting themselves from its pleasures and duties. The poet, who desired nothing but the joys of a quiet life, a good table, and a suit of blue and silver, all which he enjoyed beneath the ducal roof, happiest of mercer's apprentices, found compensation in publishing his work by subscription, whereby he realised so large a sum as to satisfy his utmost wishes.
Drury Lane was not fortunate in any of its new pieces in the season of 1729-30. It was, perhaps, unfortunate that Mrs. Oldfield, by her recommendation, and by her acting, obtained even partial success for a comedy, by the Rev. James Miller, the "Humours of Oxford." This satirical piece brought the author into trouble with his University, at some of whose members it was aimed, and it did not tend to raise him in the estimation of his congregation in Conduit Street.
The tragedy of "Timoleon" was ruined[133] by the zeal of the author's friends, who crowded the house, and as loudly applauded the candle-snuffers and furniture as they did Mills or Mrs. Porter. Martyn, the author, had been a linen-draper, but his epitaph in Lewisham Churchyard describes him as "one of the best bred men in England." He was certainly well connected, but he exhibited more efficiency in colonising Georgia than in writing poetry. His "Timoleon" had neither beauty of style, nor incident.
This season, too, saw the first dramatic attempt of Thomson, in "Sophonisba." Lee's tragedy of that name used to drown the female part of the house in tears; but Thomson's could not stir even his own friends to enthusiasm. They rose from the full-dress rehearsals to which they were invited, dulled in sense rather than touched or elevated. Thomson's play is far less tender than Lee's; his Sophonisba (the last character originally played by Mrs. Oldfield), more stern and patriotic, and less loving. The author himself described her as a "female Cato," and in the Epilogue not too delicately indicated that if the audience would only applaud a native poet,
"Then other Shakspeares yet may rouse the stage,
And other Otways melt another age."
"Sophonisba," which Thomson was not afraid to set above the heroine of Corneille, abounds in platitudes, and it was fatal to Cibber, who, never tolerable in tragedy, was fairly hissed out of the character of Scipio, which he surrendered to a promising player, Williams. The latter was violently hissed also on the first night of his acting Scipio, he bore so close a resemblance to his predecessor. Mrs. Oldfield, alone, made a sensation, especially in the delivery of the line,