The gods forgive, when once that crown's put on."
To touch the Lord's anointed is an unpardonable sin; but if the Whigs were rendered uneasy by this sentiment, they probably found comfort in the speech wherein Clerimont[76] (Betterton), while owning respect for the deprived monarch, confesses the fitness of being loyal to the one who displaced him.
To these three tragedies succeeded three now-forgotten comedies, "The Gentleman Cully," in which Booth fooled it to the top of his bent, in the only English comedy which ends without a marriage. The "Beaux' Duel," and the "Stolen Heiress," two of Mrs. Carroll's (she had not yet become Mrs. Centlivre) bolder plagiarisms from old dramatists, brought the Lincoln's Inn season to a close.
In the season of 1703, Drury Lane produced seven, and Lincoln's Inn Fields six, pieces. The first, at Drury, was Baker's "Tunbridge Walks," the manners of which smack of the old loose times. Then came Durfey's "Old Mode and the New," a long, dull, satirical comedy, on the fashions of Elizabeth's days and those of Anne. Durfey was then at his twenty-eighth comedy, and in the decline of his powers. Little flourished about him save that terrific beak which served for a nose, and also for an excuse for his dislike to have his likeness taken. In other respects, the wit, on whose shoulder Charles had leaned, to whose songs William had listened, and at them Anne even then laughed, was in vogue, but not with the theatrical public.
A new author tempted that public, in April, with a comedy, entitled "Fair Example, or the Modish Citizens," by Estcourt, a strolling player, but soon afterwards a clever actor in this company, a man whom Addison praised, and a good fellow, whom Steele admired. His career had, hitherto, been a strange one. He ran away from a respectable home at Tewkesbury, when fifteen, to play Roxalana with some itinerants, and fled from the company, on being pursued thither by his friends, in the dress lent him by a kind-hearted girl of the troop. In this dress, Estcourt made his way on foot to Chipping Norton, at the inn of which place the weary supposed damsel was invited to share the room of the landlord's daughter. Then ensued a scene as comic as any ever invented by dramatist, but from which the parties came off with some perplexity, and no loss of honour. The young runaway was caught and sent home, and thence he was despatched to Hatton Garden, and bound by articles to learn there the apothecary's mystery. It is not known when he broke from these bonds; but it is certain that he again—some say after he had himself failed in the practice of the mystery he had painfully learned, took to the joys and sorrows, trials, triumphs, and temptations of a wandering player's life till 1698, or about that period, when he appeared in Dublin, with success. He was between thirty and forty years of age, when he came to London with the "Fair Example," an adaptation, like the "Confederacy," of Dancour's "Modish Citizens," but not destined to an equal success, despite the acting of Cibber and Norris, and that brilliant triad of ladies, Verbruggen, Oldfield, and Powell. In June, Mrs. Carroll served up Molière's "Médecin malgré lui," in the cold dish called "Love's Contrivance;" and, in the same month, Wilkinson and his sole comedy, "Vice Reclaimed," appeared; and are now forgotten.
Next, Manning tried the judgment of the town with his "All for the Better," a comedy, of triple plots—stolen from old writers. Manning resembled Steele only in leaving the University without a degree. If Steele obtained a Government appointment after his dramatic success, Manning acquired a better after his failure. He was, first, Secretary to our Legation in Switzerland; and, secondly, Envoy to the Cantons; and was about as respectable in diplomacy as in the drama.
Gildon's play of the "Patriot, or the Italian Conspiracy," the last produced this year,[77] with Mills as Cosmo de Medici, and Wilks as his son, Julio, merits notice only as an instance of the mania for reconstructing accepted stories. Gildon, towards the close of his wayward and silly career, transmuted Lee's ancient Roman "Lucius Junius Brutus," into the modern Italian "Patriot." The public consigned it to oblivion.
During this season, when "Macbeth" was the only one of Shakspeare's plays performed,[78] the theatre in Dorset Gardens was prepared for opera; and in the summer the company followed Queen Anne to Bath, by command; but there went not with them the most brilliant actress of light comedy that the two centuries had hitherto seen, Mrs. Verbruggen, that sparkling Mrs. Mountfort whose father, Mr. Perceval, was condemned to death for treason against King William, on the day her husband was murdered by Lord Mohun! The Jacobite father was, however, pardoned. Mrs. Mountfort, or Verbruggen, left a successor equal, perhaps superior, to herself, in Mrs. Oldfield.
The season of 1703, at Lincoln's Inn Fields, was distinguished by the success of Rowe's "Fair Penitent,"—the one great triumph of the year.[79] The other novelties require only to be recorded. That most virulent and unscrupulous of Whig partizan-writers, Oldmixon, opened the season with his third and last dramatic essay, "The Governor of Cyprus," supported by Betterton, Booth, Powell, and Mrs. Barry. Oldmixon was a poor dramatist, but he made a tolerable excise officer,—a post which he acquired by his party-writings. He would not, however, be remembered now, but for the pre-eminence for dirt and dulness which Pope has awarded him in the Dunciad. The entire strength of the company, Betterton excepted, was wasted on the comedies,—"Different Widows," by a judicious, anonymous author; "Love Betrayed," Burnaby's last of a poor four, and that a marring of Shakspeare's "Twelfth Night;" and "As you find It" (for Mrs. Porter's benefit, in April). This was the only play written by Charles Boyle, grandson of the dramatist Earl of Orrery, to which title he succeeded, four months after his comedy (the dullest in the English language) had failed. Boyle may have been a worthy antagonist of Bentley, touching the genuineness of the "Epistles of Phalaris;" but he could not vie with such writers of comedy as Cibber, Farquhar, and Steele. The production of the "Fickle Shepherdess,"—a ruthless handling of Randolph's fine pastoral, "Amyntas,"—pleased but for a few nights, though every woman of note in the company, and all beautiful, played in it,—making love to, or prettily sighing at, or as prettily sulking with, each other. The great event of the season was, undoubtedly, the "Fair Penitent:" Lothario, Powell; Horatio, Betterton; Altamont, Verbruggen; Calista, Mrs. Barry; Lavinia, Mrs. Bracegirdle.