In the following October, Drury commenced a season which, save a few days of summer vacation, extended to the close of August 1716. During this time, Shakspeare's best plays were frequently acted, old comedies revived with success, and obscure farces played and consigned to oblivion. The great attempt, if not success, of the season, was the comedy of the "Drummer, or the Haunted House," first played in March 1716, and not known to be Addison's till Steele published the fact after the author's death. Tonson, however, knew or suspected the truth, for he gave £50 for the copyright. Wilks, Cibber, Mills, and Mrs. Oldfield could not secure a triumph for the play—which Steele thought was more disgraceful to the stage than to the comedy. There is a novel mixture of sentiment, caricature, and farcical incident in this piece. Warton describes it as "a just picture of life and real manners; where the poet never speaks in his own person, or totally drops or forgets a character, for the sake of introducing a brilliant simile or acute remark; where no train is laid for wit, no Jeremys or Bens are suffered to appear." More natural, it was less brilliant than the artificial comedies of Congreve; but its failure probably vexed the author, as it certainly annoyed the publisher. Tickell omitted it from his edition of Addison's works, but Steele gave these reasons for ascribing it to the latter; they are a little confused, but they probably contain the truth:—"If I remember right, the fifth act was written in a week's time.... He would walk about his room, and dictate in language with as much freedom and ease as any one could write it down.... I have been often thus employed by him.... I will put all my credit among men of wit, for the truth of my averment, when I presume to say, that no one but Mr. Addison was in any other way the writer of the 'Drummer.' ... At the same time, I will allow that he has sent for me ... and told me, that 'a gentleman, then in the room, had written a play that he was sure I would like; but it was to be a secret; and he knew I would take as much pains, since he recommended it, as I would for him.'"
At Lincoln's Inn Fields, the season of 1715-16 had this of remarkable in it, that John Rich revived the "Prophetess," as it enabled him to display his ability in the introduction and management of machinery, and his success in raising the prices of admission. Bullock's farce, the "Cobbler of Preston," was begun on a Friday, finished the next day, and played on the Tuesday following—in order to anticipate Charles Johnson's farce,—like this, derived from the introduction to the "Taming of the Shrew," at Drury Lane. Of the other plays—one, the "Fatal Vision," was written by Aaron Hill, who, having lost property and temper in a project how to extract olive oil from beech-nuts, endeavoured to inculcate in his piece the wrongfulness of giving way to rash designs and evil passions. This play he dedicated to the two most merciless critics of the day, Dennis and Gildon. Then of the "Perfidious Brother," it is only to be stated that it was a bad play stolen by young Theobald from Mestayer, a watchmaker, who had lent him the manuscript. That an attorney should have the reprehensible taste to steal a worthless play seemed a slur upon the lawyer's judgment. Another new play, the "Northern Heiress," by Mrs. Davys, a clergyman's widow, but now the lively Irish mistress of a Cambridge coffee-house, reminds me of the five-act farces of Reynolds, with its fops, fools, half-pay officers, fast gentlemen, and flippant ladies. There are ten people married at the end, a compliment to matrimony, at the hands of the widow; but there is a slip in poetical justice; for, a lover who deserts his mistress, when he finds, as Lord Peterborough did of Miss Moses, that her fortune was not equal to his expectations, marries her, after discovering that he was mistaken.
Herewith we come to the Drury Lane season of 1716-17. Booth, Wilks, and Cibber had a famous company, in which Quin quietly made his way to the head,[103] and Mrs. Horton's beauty acted with good effect on Mrs. Oldfield. In the way of novelty, Mrs. Centlivre produced a tragedy, the "Cruel Gift," in which nobody dies, and lovers are happily married. The most notable affair, however, was the comedy, "Three Hours after Marriage," in which Gay, Pope, and Arbuthnot, three grave men, who pretended to instruct and improve mankind, insulted modesty, virtue, and common decency, in the grossest way, by speech or inuendo. There is not so much filth in any other comedy of this century, and the trio of authors stand stigmatised for their attempt to bring in the old corruption. In strange contrast we have Mrs. Manley, a woman who began life with unmerited misfortune, and carried it on with unmitigated profligacy, producing a highly moral, semi-religious drama, "Lucius."
But while moral poets were polluting the stage, and immoral women undertaking to purify it, a reverend Archdeacon of Stowe, the historian, Lawrence Echard, in conjunction with Lestrange, put on the stage of Drury Lane, a translation of the "Eunuchus" of Terence. It did not survive the third night; but the audience might have remarked how much more refinedly the Carthaginian of old could treat a delicate subject than the Christian poets of a later era—or, to speak correctly, than the later poets of a Christian era.
In this season I find the first trace of a "fashionable night," and a later hour for beginning the play than any of subsequent times. I quote from Genest:—"18 June, 1717. By particular desire of several Ladies of Quality. 'Fatal Marriage.' Biron, Booth; Villeroy, Mills; Isabella, Mrs. Porter; Victoria, Mrs. Younger. An exact computation being made of the number which the Pit and Boxes will hold, they are laid together; and no person can be admitted without tickets. By desire, the play is not to begin till nine o'clock, by reason of the heat of the weather—nor the house to be opened till eight." What a change from the time when Dryden's Lovely exclaimed:—
"As punctual as three o'clock at the playhouse!"
The corresponding season (1716-17) at Lincoln's Inn requires but brief notice. Rich, who had failed in attempting Essex, played, as Mr. Lun, Harlequin, in the "Cheats, or the Tavern Bilkers," a ballet-pantomime—the forerunner of the line of pantomime which, notwithstanding our presumed advance in civilisation, still has its admirers. In novelty, Dick Leveridge, the singer, produced the burlesque of "Pyramus and Thisbe"—those parts being played by himself and Pack, with irresistible comic effect, especially when caricaturing the style of the Italian opera, where your hero died in very good time and tune. English opera was not altogether neglected in the Fields, but little was accomplished in the way of upholding the drama. Bullock produced a comedy, which he was accused of stealing from a manuscript by Savage—"Woman's a Riddle." It is a long, coarse farce, in which the most decent incident is the hanging of Sir Amorous Vainwit, from a balcony, as he is trying to escape in woman's clothes, which are caught by a hook, and beneath which a footman stands with a flambeau. We learn, too, from this comedy, that young ladies carried snuff-boxes in those days.
Taverner, the proctor, also produced a comedy quite as extravagant, and not a whit less immoral than Bullock's—the "Artful Husband." It had, however, great temporary success, quite enough to turn the author's head, and by his acts to show that there was nothing in it.
The "Artful Husband," however, brought into notice a young actor who had but a small part to play,—Stockwell. His name was Spiller. The Duke of Argyle thought, and spoke well of him before this. On the night in question, Spiller, who dressed his characters like an artist, went through his first scenes exquisitely, and without being recognised by his patron, who came behind the scenes, and had recommended him warmly to the notice of Rich. Genest says he hopes this story is true. I am sure it is not improbable; and for this reason. I once saw Lafont acting the Son in "Père et Fils." Opposite to the side on which he made his exit an aged actor, who represented the father, passed me. I was delighted with the truth and beauty of his acting, and at the end of the scene asked who he was. To my astonishment, I heard that Lafont, whom I had well known as an actor for more than twenty years, was playing both parts. This identifying power was Spiller's distinguishing merit. Riccoboni saw the young actor play an old man with a perfectness not to be expected but from players of the longest experience. "How great was my surprise," says Riccoboni, "when I learnt that he was a young man, about the age of twenty-six. I could not believe it; but owned that it might be possible, had he only used a broken and a trembling voice, and had only an extreme weakness possessed his body, because I conceived that a young actor might, by the help of art, imitate that debility of nature to such a pitch of excellence; but the wrinkles of his face, his sunk eyes, and his loose yellow cheeks, the most certain marks of age, were incontestable proofs against what they said to me. Notwithstanding all this, I was forced to submit to truth, because I was credibly informed that the actor, to fit himself for the part of this old man, spent an hour in dressing himself, and disguised his face so nicely, and painted so artificially a part of his eyebrows and eyelids, that at the distance of six paces it was impossible not to be deceived."
In the next season, at Drury (1717-18), the only remarkable piece produced was Cibber's adaptation of "Tartuffe," under the name of the "Nonjuror." In the lustre of the "Nonjuror" paled and died out the first play by Savage, "Love in a Veil." Not twenty years had elapsed since this luckless and heartless young vagabond was born, in Fox Court, Gray's Inn Lane, his unknown mother, but not that light lady, the Countess of Macclesfield, wearing a mask. Savage had passed from a shoemaker's shop to the streets, had written a poem on the Bangorian Controversy, had adapted a play translated from the Spanish, by the wife of Mr. Baron Price, and which Bullock re-adapted and produced at Drury Lane before Savage could get his own accepted. "Love in a Veil" seems to have been founded on an incident in the Spanish comedy; but however this may be, it failed to obtain the public approval. The author, however, did not altogether fail; generous Wilks patronised the boy, and Steele, befriending a lad of parts, designed to give him £1000, which he had not got, with the hand of a natural daughter, whom the young and wayward poet did not get. The "Nonjuror" alone survives as a memorial of the Drury season of 1717-18.