A PIT ADMISSION CHECK.
[CHAPTER VI.]
RIVALRY; AND ENTER, SPRANGER BARRY.
Hitherto, under the mismanagement of the lazy and reckless patentee, Fleetwood, Drury Lane had fallen to a level with Sadler's Wells—tumblers and rope-dancers being put forward as the chief attractions. Even after Garrick's accession, gross mismanagement continued, and drove the principal actors, whose salaries were often unpaid, into open rebellion. They sought permission from the Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Grafton, to open the theatre in the Haymarket on their own account. But the grandson of Charles II. sneered at the fact of an actor earning £600 a year, when a relative of his own, in the navy, repeatedly exposed his life, in the kings service, for half that sum. The duke put constraint on them to return to their allegiance to Fleetwood. The latter dictated hard terms to most of them, except to Garrick, and he flatly refused to receive Macklin at all. This exclusion brought on a remarkable theatrical riot. The confederate actors had agreed to triumph or to fall together. To allow Macklin to be sacrificed to the resentment of Fleetwood, was a betrayal on their part of the compact. Macklin appealed to the town, and Roscius would have been driven from the stage but for Fleetwood's hired pugilists, who pummelled one portion of the audience into silence, and enabled the whole house to enjoy, after all, what they most cared for—the acting of Garrick, undisturbed. In this season, 1743-4, Roscius did not appear till the 6th of December,[40] when he acted Bayes. Between that night, and the close of the season, on the 31st of May, he played in all seventy times. His most marked success was in Macbeth, in the tragedy "written by Shakspeare," when he had Mrs. Giffard for his Lady; he repeated this part thirteen times. Covent Garden opposed to him, first Quin, in Davenant's alteration of Shakspeare, and subsequently Sheridan, who on the 31st of March 1744, made his first appearance at Covent Garden, in opposition to Garrick, as Hamlet.
The force of the two theatres will be better understood, perhaps, if I show the exact amount of the opposition brought to bear against each other. Garrick's Richard was met by that of Ryan; the Lord and Lady Townley of Garrick and Mrs. Woffington, by those of Ryan and Mrs. Horton; the Hamlet and Ophelia of the former two, by those of Ryan (and afterwards of Sheridan) and Mrs. Clive. Garrick and Mrs. Giffard, in "Macbeth," were opposed, first by Quin, then by Sheridan and Mrs. Pritchard, who played everything, from the Thane's wife to Kitty Pry. To oppose to him an amateur, like Highmore, in Lothario, was absurd; Quin's Lear had no weight against the mad old king by his young rival; and Mrs. Charke's Plume, one of the many male characters which Cibber's daughter loved to play, was pale, compared with that of the universal actor.
All the above were honourable competitors; but there also appeared this season an actor, who became Garrick's personal enemy—namely, Foote. The latter commenced his career at the Haymarket, February 6, 1744, as Othello, to the Iago of Macklin, who had opened that house with a "scratch company," including "pupils"—while he was disengaged at Drury Lane. Foote also played Hamlet,[41] to the Ghost and First Gravedigger of Macklin; and did not find his vocation, as he thought, in such parts as Lord Foppington.
At both patent houses the "Beggars' Opera" was produced; at Drury, the Macheath and Polly were Blakes and Miss Budgell, an illegitimate daughter of Eustace Budgell; at the Garden, Cashell's Macheath gave way to that of Beard, while the Polly and Lucy of Kitty Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, at the same theatre, charmed the auditors for a time, and gave them pleasant memories for a long period to come.
The literature of the stage did not make progress this season. Classical Cooke selected an assize case of murder in Kent, and spoiled its terrible simplicity in his "Love the Cause." To Havard's cold, declamatory tragedy, "Regulus," Garrick gave warmth and natural eloquence; but even his Zaphna, admirable as it was in "Mahomet," would not have saved the Rev. Mr. Miller's adaptation from Voltaire, had that part of the public who hated the adapter, known to whom they were indebted for it. Miller ended his uneasy life, during the run of the play, a representation of which, after his death, contributed a hundred pounds to the relief of his widow and children.
In the season of 1744-45, the old opposition was feebly sustained on the part of Covent Garden, but with some novelty appended—especially in the case of a ballad-singer like Cashell, attempting Hamlet against Garrick![42] Further, the King John of the latter in Shakspeare's play was opposed to old Cibber's alteration of the same piece, produced at Covent Garden, as "Papal Tyranny," in which Quin played the King, and toothless, nerveless Cibber, Pandulph. The indulgent audience pitied the quavering old player.
Garrick's King John was a fine, but not the most perfect of his performances; he was happy in such a Constance as Mrs. Cibber. Quin congratulated himself on having such a Hubert as Bridgewater, the ex-coal-dealer. The value of Cibber's mangling of Shakspeare, got up to abuse the Pope, because of the Pretender, may be conjectured by a single instance—that John is too shy to hint at the murder of Arthur till Hubert has "shut the window-shutters." The modesty of the mangler may be more than guessed at from the fact, that Cibber—in his own words—"endeavoured to make it more like a play than I found it in Shakspeare!"