Well, learning to enjoy Horace, you will say, was no specific for turning a boy into a player. Perhaps not; but there was less satisfactory customs then prevailing among the Mercatores Scissores. The masters treated the boys who missed their election to St. John's, with canary and cake, as if to teach them that drinking was a solace for disappointment. Then the discipline was lax, and young Merchant Tailors of the Bench were seduced by the rather older Merchant Tailors of the Table, to taverns, and to ordinaries, where gaming was practised, and to the playhouse, where they learned something new from the Vizard Masks in the pit. Then, there was young Beckingham, the linen-draper's son, and a Merchant Tailor of the Table, who wrote a tragedy, "Scipio Africanus," to see which the whole school occupied a great portion of the Lincoln's Inn Fields' pit, and sent up applauding shouts for Quin, who acted Scipio, as well as for their schoolfellow, the author. These practices and the traditions of others may have influenced a lively and thoughtless boy, who was proud to play Peachum in the juvenile company, who acted the "Beggar's Opera," under the elder Rich, at Lincoln's Inn Fields. I cannot find exactly the date when Woodward commenced as a professional actor; but he was not more than a mere youth. There was a boy of his name, at Goodman's Fields, who played pantomime parts before Harry Woodward appeared there in 1730,—commencing then a career with Simple, in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," which ended at Covent Garden, on the 13th of January 1777, with Stephano, in the "Tempest." On the 10th of April, the then new comedy, "Know your own Mind," was acted, for his benefit, and on that day week, the lad who used to play under the gateway of the Anchor brewery,—to trudge, in all weathers, over old London Bridge, to Merchant Tailors' School, and who preferred the life of a player to that of a candle-maker, died; and with him, it was said, as Wildair with Wilks, Captain Bobadil died too.
Woodward was one of the most careful dressers on the stage; not as regards chronology, but perfection of suit; of fitness, no one then made account. Woodward played Mercutio in the full dress of a very fine gentleman of Woodward's day; it was unexceptionable as costume, though not fitting in the play. Then, he was one of the few lucky actors who never seemed to grow old. After nigh upon half a century of labour, his Fitzpatrick,[124] in "News from Parnassus," was as young in look and buoyant in manner as the Spruce of his earlier days. He was also among one of the few judicious and generous actors, when in the highest favour with the town; at which season, he did not disdain, when it was needful, to go on as a soldier, to deliver a message; but then he delivered it like a soldier, and the frequenters of the joyous rooms under and over the "Piazza," made approving reference to that "clever little bit of Woodward's, last night."
Woodward always found a defender in Garrick. Foote, who abused hospitality by mimicking his host, called Woodward a "contemptible fellow," when he heard that the latter was about to dress Malagene so as to look like Foote. "He cannot be contemptible," said Garrick, "since you are afraid of him in the very line in which you yourself excel." Of course, being naturally a comic actor, Woodward had an affection for tragedy; but it was not in him to utter a serious line with due effect. His scamps were perfect in their cool impudence; his modern fops shone with a brazen impertinence; his fops of an older time glistened with an elegant rascality; his mock heroes were stupendously but suspiciously outrageous; his every-day simpletons, vulgarly stolid; and his Shaksperian light characters brimful and running over with Shaksperian spirit. Graceful of form, his aspect was something serious off the stage, but he no sooner passed the wing than a ripple of funny emotion seemed to roll over his face, and this, combined with a fine stage-voice, never failed to place him and his audience in the happiest sympathetic connection. "Bobadil was his great part, in which he acquired a vast increase of reputation and gave a striking proof of his genius;" but there were two other characters in which Woodward could hardly have been inferior, for it may be gathered from Wilkinson, that in Marplot, he was everything author or audience could wish, and that in Touchstone, he excelled at least all his contemporaries, and had no equal in it till Lewis came.
Woodward was at one time a good man, in the mercantile view of the phrase, for he was a rich man. Unfortunately, he was induced by Spranger Barry to become partner with him in the Dublin Theatre,—in which venture, Woodward lost all he had saved; and Barry, too, made shipwreck of his fortune. Garrick passed from the stage to years of repose and enjoyment. Barry and Woodward could not quit it till, having had more than enough of labour, Death summoned them to a, perhaps, not unwelcome rest.
Little is known of the origin of Edward Shuter. Small trust can be placed in the report that he was the son of a clergyman—not because he himself was, at one time, only a billiard-marker, or that he could with difficulty read his parts, and had much perplexity in even signing his own name; but because Ned himself never boasted of it. What is certain of him is, that he was an actor entirely of the Garrick period, commencing his vocation as Catesby, at Richmond, in 1744, and concluding as Falstaff, to the Prince, in "Henry V.,"[125] of Lewis, played for his own benefit, at Covent Garden, in May 1776.
I suppose Chapman, who directed the theatre at Richmond, was struck by the rich humour of the billiard-marker; but it was strange that a low comedian should make his début in so level a part as Catesby. He was then, however, a mere boy. In June 1746, when he acted Osrick and third Witch in "Macbeth," Garrick playing Hamlet and the Thane, he was designated "Master Shuter." Thence, to the night on which he went home to die, after playing Falstaff, his life was one of intense professional labour, with much jollification, thoughtlessness, embarrassment, gay philosophy, hard drinking, and addiction to religion, as it was expounded by Whitfield.
He played through the entire range of a wide comic repertory, and among the characters which he originated are Papillion in the "Liar," Justice Woodcock, Druggett, Abrahamides, Croaker, Old Hardcastle, and Sir Anthony Absolute. His most daring effort was in once attempting Shylock! There are few comic actors who have had such command over the muscles of the face as Shuter. He could do what he liked with them, and vary the laughter as he worked the muscles. Not that he depended on grimace; this was only the ally of his humour, and both were impulsive—as the man was by nature; he often stirred the house with mirth by saying something better than the author had put down for him. Off, as on the stage, it was Shuter's characteristic that he pleased everybody—and ruined himself. I never pass his old lodgings in Denzil Street without thinking kindly of the eccentric but kind-hearted player. Some laughed at him, perhaps, for taking to serious ways, without abandoning his old gay paths of delight; but the former was of his sincerity, the latter of his weakness. That he should choose to follow Calvinistic Whitfield rather than Arminian Wesley, does seem singular; but poor Ned felt that if salvation depended on works, "Pilgarlick," as Whitfield called him, was lost; whereas faith rescued him, and Shuter could believe. He did something more; works he added to his faith, though he made no account of them. Of all the frequenters of Whitfield's Tabernacle in Tottenham Court Road there was no more liberal giver than the shattered, trembling, laughing, hoping, fearing, despairing—in short, much perplexed actor and man, who oscillated between Covent Garden stage and the Tabernacle pulpit, and meditated over his pipe and bottle in Drury Lane upon the infinite varieties of life. And therewith exit, Shuter; and enter, Mr. Foote.
Mr. Shuter as Justice Woodcock.