He offers no gross vices to your sight,—
Those too much horror raise, for just delight."
Steele's comedy was a step in a right direction; and his great fault was pretending to be half-ashamed of having made it. That it had a "clear stage and no favour," is literally true. It was one of the first pieces played without a mingling of the public with the players;—an evil fashion, which was not entirely suppressed for threescore years after Queen Anne's decree, when Garrick proved more absolute than her majesty. It was a practice which so annoyed Baron, that proudest of French actors, that to suggest to the audience in the house the absurdity of it, he would turn his back on them for a whole act, and play to the audience on the stage. Sometimes the noise was so loud, that an actor's voice could be scarcely heard. "You speak too low!" cried a pit-critic to Defresne. "And you too high!" retorted the actor. The offended pit screamed its indignation, and demanded an abject apology. "Gentlemen," said Defresne, "I never felt the degradation of my position till now;" ... and the pit interrupted the bold exordium by rounds of applause, under which he resumed his part.
Of the other pieces produced this season at Drury Lane, it will suffice to say, that "Love the Leveller" was by "G. B., gent.," who ascribes its failure to his having adopted the counsel of friends, and who consoles himself by the thought, that "it found so favourable a reception that the best plays hardly ever met with a fuller audience." Happy man! his piece was at least damned by a full house. The "Albion Queens" was an old play, by Banks, which, dealing with the affairs of England and Scotland, was held to be politically dangerous; but good Queen Anne now licensed it, on the report of its inoffensiveness made by "a nobleman;" and its dulness, relieved by good acting, delighted our easy forefathers for half a century.
Lincoln's Inn failed to distinguish itself this season. Eton had no reason to be proud of the comedy of its alumnus, Walker, "Marry, or Do Worse;" and in the tragedy of "Abra Mulé," with its similes, which continually run away with their rider, the young Master of Arts, Trapp, shows that he was as poor a poet,[82] in his early days, as that translation of Virgil, which so broke the rest of Mrs. Trapp, proved him to be in his later years, when he was D.D., and Professor of Poetry. Dennis's "Liberty Asserted" only demonstrated how heartily he hated the French; and as there was no dramatist who did so, in the same degree, when the French and the Pretender were very obnoxious, some years later, this thunder of Dennis was revived to stimulate antipathies. Queen Anne's Scottish historiographer did nothing for the English stage, by his comedy of "Love at First Sight," and farces like the "Stage Coach," the "Wits of Woman," and "Squire Trelooby," are only remarkable because Betterton and the leading actors played in them as readily as in "first pieces."
During May Fair, the theatre was closed, some of the actors playing there, at Pinkethman's booth. In the same season they played before the Queen at St. James's, in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," with Betterton as Falstaff, which he subsequently acted for his own benefit. This piece, and also "Julius Cæsar," "Othello," and "Timon of Athens," were the plays by or from Shakspeare, which were played this season.
The season of 1704-5, at Drury Lane, now prospering, to the considerable vexation of Kit Rich, chief proprietor, who felt himself unable to avoid paying his company their salaries, is notable for the production of Cibber's "Careless Husband." He who now reads it for the first time may be surprised to hear that in this comedy a really serious and eminently successful attempt to reform the licentiousness of the drama was made by one who had been himself a great offender.[83] Nevertheless the fact remains. In Lord Morelove we have the first lover in English comedy, since licentiousness possessed it, who is at once a gentleman and an honest man. In Lady Easy, we have, what was hitherto unknown, or laughed at,—a virtuous, married woman. It is a conversational piece, not one of much action. The dialogue is admirably sustained, not only in repartee, but in descriptive parts. There is some refinement manifested in treating and talking of things unrefined, and incidents are pictured with a master's art. Cibber's greatest claim to respect seems to me to rest on this elegant and elaborate, though far from faultless comedy. So carefully did he construct the character of the beautiful and brilliant coquette, Lady Betty Modish, whose waywardness and selfishness are finally subdued by a worthy lover, that he despaired finding an actress with power enough to realise his conception. It was written for Mrs. Verbruggen (Mountfort), but she was now dead; Mrs. Bracegirdle might have played it; but "Bracy" was not a member of the Drury Lane company. There was, indeed, Mrs. Oldfield, but Colley could scarcely see more in her than an actress of promise. Reluctantly, however, he entrusted the part to her, forboding discomfort;[84] but there ensued a triumph for the actress and the play, for which Colley was admiringly grateful to the end of his life. To her, he confessed, was chiefly owing the success, though every character was adequately cast. He eulogised her excellence of action, and her "personal manner of conversing." He adds, "There are many sentiments in the character of Lady Betty Modish that I may almost say, were originally her own, or only dressed with a little more care than when they negligently fell from her lively humour; had her birth placed her in a higher rank of life, she had certainly appeared in reality what in this play she only excellently acted, an agreeably gay woman of quality, a little too conscious of her natural attractions."
Neither Cibber's friends nor foes seem to have at all enjoyed his success. They would not compromise their own reputation by questioning the merit of this rare piece of dramatic excellence, but they insinuated or asserted that he was not the author. It was written by Defoe, by the Duke of Argyll, by Mrs. Oldfield's particular friend, Maynwaring! Congreve, who had revelled in impurity, and stoutly asserted his cleanliness, ungenerously declared, "Cibber has produced a play consisting of fine gentlemen and fine conversation, all together, which the ridiculous town, for the most part, likes." Congreve had not then forgiven the ridiculous world for receiving so coldly his own last comedy, "The Way of the World." Dr. Armstrong has more honestly analysed the play, and pointed out its defects, without noticing its merits; but Walpole, no bad judge of a comedy of such character, has enthusiastically declared that it "deserves to be immortal." It has failed in that respect, because its theme, manners, follies, and allusions are obsolete, to say nothing of a company to follow even decently the original cast, which included Sir Charles Easy, Wilks; Lord Foppington, Cibber; and Lady Betty Modish, Mrs. Oldfield.
Steele's "Tender Husband, or the Accomplished Fools," in which he had Addison for a coadjutor, was produced in April 1704.[85] Addison's share therein was not avowed till long subsequently; but it was handsomely acknowledged, at last, by Steele, in the Spectator. In the concluding paper of the seventh volume, Steele alluded to certain scenes which had been most applauded. These, he said, were by Addison; and honest Dick added, that he had ever since thought meanly of himself in not having publicly avowed the fact. This comedy was chiefly a satire on the evils of romance reading; and was of a strictly moral, yet decidedly heavy tendency; but with a Biddy Tipkin (Mrs. Oldfield), to which there has been, as to Lady Betty Modish, no efficient successor. There was a good end in both these plays. The other novelties, "Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus," an opera; "Gibraltar, or the Spanish Adventurer," a failure of Dennis's; "Farewell Folly," by Motteux; and the "Quacks," by Swiney—oblivion wraps them all.
In this season Dick Estcourt made his first appearance in London as Dominic, in the "Spanish Friar." Of Shakspeare's plays, "Hamlet," "Henry IV.," and "Macbeth," were frequently repeated during the season.