THOMAS DOGGET.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
THE UNITED AND THE DISUNITED COMPANIES.
The names of Betterton, Booth, Wilks, Cibber, Mills, Powell, Estcourt, Pinkethman, jun., Keen, Norris, Bullock, Pack, Johnson, Bowen, Thurmond, Bickerstaff—of Mistresses Barry, Bradshaw, Oldfield, Powell, Rogers, Saunders, Bicknell, Knight, Porter, Susan Mountfort, and Cross,—indicate the quality of a company, which commenced acting at Drury Lane, and which, in some respects, was perhaps never equalled; though it did not at first realise a corresponding success. Betterton only "played" occasionally, though he invariably acted well. The new pieces produced failed to please. The young Kentish attorney, and future editor of Shakspeare,—Theobald, gave the first of about a score of forgotten dramas to the stage; but his "Persian Princess" swept it but once or twice with her train. Taverner, the proctor, who could paint landscapes almost as ably as Gaspar Poussin, proved but a poor dramatist; and his "Maid the Mistress," was barely listened to.
Matters did not improve in 1708-9, in which season Brett's share of the patent was made over to Wilks, Cibber, and Estcourt,—the other shares amounting to nearly a dozen. The only success of this season was achieved by Mrs. Centlivre's "Busy Body" (Marplot, by Pack), and that was a success of slow growth. Baker, who had ridiculed his own effeminate ways in Maiden ("Tunbridge Walks"), now satirised the women; but the public hissed his "Fine Lady's Airs," almost as much as they did Tom Durfey's "Prophets." In the latter piece, rakish, careless, penniless Tom, laughed at the religious impostors of the day who dealt with the past dead and with future events; but the public did not see the fun of it, and damned the play, whose author survived to write worse. Then there was the "Appius and Virginia," of Dennis,—of which nothing survives but the theatrical thunder, invented by the author for this tragedy,—and the use of which, after the public had condemned the drama of a man who equally feared France abroad and bailiffs at home, was always resented by him as a plagiarism. In this piece, Betterton acted the last of his long list of the dramatic characters created by him,—Virginius. Shortly after this took place that famous complimentary benefit for the old player, when the pit tickets were paid for at a guinea each. The actors could scarcely get through "Love for Love," in which he played Valentine, for the cloud of noble patrons clustered on the stage, when guineas by the score were delicately pressed upon him for acceptance,—and Mistresses Barry and Bracegirdle supported him at the close; while the former spoke the epilogue, which was the dramatic apotheosis of Betterton himself.
On the following June, actors and patentees were at issue; and their dissensions were not quelled by the Lord Chamberlain closing the house; from which Rich, of whose oppressions the actors complained, was driven by Collier, the M.P. for Truro, to whom, for political as well as other reasons, a licence was granted to open Drury Lane. When Collier took forcible possession of the house, he found that Rich had carried off most of the scenery and costumes; but he made the best of adverse circumstances and a company lacking Betterton and other able actors; and he opened Drury on November 23rd, 1709, under the direction of Aaron Hill, with "Aurungzebe," and Booth for his leading tragedian.
Booth wished to appear in a new tragedy, and Hill wrote in a week that "Elfrid" which the public damned in a night.[91] Hill was always ready to write. At Westminster, he had filled his pockets by writing the exercises of young gentlemen who had not wit for the work; and by and by he will be writing the "Bastard," for Savage. Meanwhile, here was "Elfrid," written and condemned. The author allowed that it was "an unpruned wilderness of fancy, with here and there a flower among the leaves, but without any fruit of judgment." At this time, Hill was a young fellow of four and twenty, with great experience and some reputation. A friendless young "Westminster," he had at fifteen found his way alone to Constantinople, where he obtained a patron in the ambassador, the sixth Lord Paget,—a distant relation of the youthful Aaron. Under the peer's auspices, Hill travelled extensively in the East; and subsequently, ere he was yet twenty, accompanied Sir William Wentworth, as travelling tutor, over most of Europe. Later, his poem of "Camillus," in defence of Lord Peterborough, procured for him the post of secretary to that brave and eccentric peer, with whom he remained till his marriage. Then Aaron lived with a divided allegiance to his wife and the stage, for the improvement of which he had many an impracticable theory. He would willingly have written a tragedy for Booth once a week.
Tragedies not being in request, Hill tried farce, and produced his "Walking Statue," a screamer, as improbable as his "Elfrid" was unpruned. The audience would not tolerate it; and Hill came before them in a few days with a comedy,—"Trick upon Trick," at which the house howled rather than laughed.[92] Whereupon Hill new-nibbed his pen, and addressed himself to composition again.
The treasury gained more by the appearance of Elrington, in "Oroonoko," than by Hill's novelties. Then, the trial of putting the fairy dancer, Santlow, into boy's clothes, and giving her the small part of the Eunuch in "Valentinian" to play, and an epilogue to be spoken in male attire, succeeded so well, that she was cast for Dorcas Zeal in Charles Shadwell's "Fair Quaker of Deal," wherein she took the town, and won the heart of Booth. In this character-piece Flip, the sea-brute, is contrasted with Beau Mizen, the sea-fop; but the latter is, in some degree, a copy of Baker's Maiden, the progenitor of the family of Dundreary.