If we were to judge of the character of women by the comedies of the last half of the seventeenth century, we might conclude that they were all, without exception, either constantly at the play, or constantly wishing to be there. But the Marquis of Halifax, in his Advice to a Daughter, shows that they were only a class. "Some ladies," he says, "are bespoke for merry meetings, as Bessus was for duels. They are engaged in a circle of idleness, where they turn round, for the whole year, without the interruption of a serious hour. They know all the players' names, and are intimately acquainted with all the booths at Bartholomew Fair. The spring, that bringeth out Flies and Fools, maketh them inhabitants in Hyde Park. In the winter, they are an encumbrance to the play-house, and the ballast of the drawing-room."
We may learn how the playhouse, encumbered by the fast ladies of bygone years, stood, and what were the prospects of the stage at this time, by looking into a private epistle. A few lines in a letter from "Mr. Vanbrook" (afterwards Sir John Vanbrugh) to the Earl of Manchester, and written on Christmas Day, 1699, will show the position and hopes of the stage as that century was closing. "Miss Evans," he writes, "the dancer at the new play-house, is dead; a fever slew her in eight and forty hours. She's much lamented by the town, as well as by the house, who can't well bear her loss; matters running very low with 'em this winter. If Congreve's play don't help 'em they are undone. 'Tis a comedy, and will be played about six weeks hence. Nobody has seen it yet." The same letter informs us that Dick Leveridge, the bass singer of Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, was tarrying in Ireland, rather than face his creditors in England, and that Dogget (of whom there is no account, during the years 1698, 1699, 1700), had been playing for a week at the above theatre, for the sum of £30! This is the first instance I know of, of the "starring" system; and it is remarkable that the above sum should have been given for six nights' performances, when Betterton's salary did not exceed £5 per week.
The century closed ill for the stage. Congreve's play, "The Way of the World," failed to give it any lustre. Dancers, tumblers, strong men, and quadrupeds, were called in to attract the town; and the Elephant at the Great Mogul, in Fleet Street, "drew" to such an extent that he would have been brought upon the stage, but for the opinion of a master-carpenter, that he would pull the house down. There was an empty treasury at both the theatres. There was ill-management at one, and ill-health (the declining health of Betterton) to mar the other. And so closes the half century.
Note.—In the second edition, after the words, "This is the first instance of the 'starring' system," Dr. Doran adds:—If Dogget was the first star, he was also an early stroller, and head of a strolling company. Each member wore a brocaded waistcoat, rode his own horse, and was everywhere respected, as a gentleman. So says Aston, reminding one of Hamlet's "Then came each actor on his ass."
Steele, in the Tatler (No. 12), speaks of the manager, MacSwiney, as "little King Oberon," who mortgaged his whole empire (the theatre) to Divito (Christopher Rich), whom Steele thus describes: "He has a perfect skill in being unintelligible in discourse, and uncomeatable in business. But he, having no understanding in this polite way, brought in upon us, to get in his money, ladder-dancers, rope-dancers, jugglers, and mountebanks, to strut in the place of Shakspeare's heroes and Jonson's humorists."
FOOTNOTES:
[70] Pepys certainly means on account of the dulness of the play.
[71] Should be 15th and 22d December 1674.