The ladies were not in force; Mrs. Knightly, Mrs. Ashbury, and Mrs. Hook, were the principal under Ashbury, who added the names of Quin and the two Elringtons, and Mrs. Thurmond, to his company, before he closed a management of about thirty years. In that period, Ashbury raised the Irish stage to a prosperous and respectable position. His son-in-law, Thomas Elrington, succeeded him in the management.
Under Ellington's rule, young Stirling first awaked the Irish muse to tragedy, and Charles Shadwell furnished the house with half-a-dozen pieces of very inferior merit. Meanwhile, in 1727, Madame Violanti opened a booth, with her wondrous rope-dancing, and her Lilliputian company, whose representation of the "Beggar's Opera" excited a perfect sensation. The Macheath was a Miss Betty Barnes; Polly, Miss Woffington; Peachum, Master Isaac Sparks; and Filch, Master Barrington,—all of these were, subsequently, players of more or less renown.
Up to this time, the best native actor was Wilks, now we have Peg Woffington; in 1728 appeared the handsome, young Delane, of Trinity College; his graceful figure, full-toned voice, added to his zeal and application (both too short-lived), rendered him an unusual favourite. In the same company were Mr. and Mrs. Ward, whose daughter, born at Clonmel, was the mother of "the Kembles."
Elrington died in 1732. He was the first actor who played Zanga in Dublin; much to the admiration of Dr. Young, who thought Mills mouthed and growled the character overmuch. After Elrington's death, disorder sprung up. Smock Alley was opposed by a new theatre, erected in Rainsford Street, in the "Earl of Meath's Liberty," and beyond the jurisdiction of the mayor. At the former, the company, including, occasionally, some of the best actors from London, was better than the house which was so decayed, that a new, a much grander, but in every other way a less efficient house, was erected in Aungier Street, at which the tall, cold beauty, the ex-quakeress, Mrs. Bellamy, mother of George Anne Bellamy, was a principal actress. A committee of noblemen managed this house, with the usual result of enormous loss. Dublin having more theatres than could prove profitable, the old theatre in Smock Alley was pulled down; but a new one was erected, which was opened in December 1735, with "Love for Love."[46] In which Don Duart was played by Cashel, subsequently a popular Macheath. He was one of the many actors who have died, or received their death-stroke, on the stage. While acting Frankly, in the "Suspicious Husband," at Norwich, in 1748, he was smitten by apoplexy and died in a few hours.
The Theatre Royal in Aungier Street had its real opponent in this house, opened by licence of the Lord Mayor, in the more central position, in Smock Alley. The house in Rainsford Street was soon closed. London performers, who were sure of profitable benefits, went over to both houses; but I much prefer to remark that, at Aungier Street, in February 1737, Margaret Woffington, her childhood being past, first appeared as an actress, in the part of Ophelia. Her beauty, grace, her ease, simplicity, her pretty singing, her coquetry, and the wonderful "finish" of the male characters she afterwards assumed, gave a fortune to the theatre, which was only checked by the famine of the severe winter 1739-40, during which the houses were closed for three months.
This theatre in Aungier Street had a company so powerful, including Quin, Delane, and Mrs. Cibber, at the close of the London season, that, on its re-opening, in 1741, Smock Alley, with Elrington, Isaac Sparks, and Mrs. Furnival,[47] could not successfully compete with it; but, in June 1742, Duval, the proprietor, by engaging Giffard, Mrs. Woffington, and Garrick, turned the scale, and during three of the hottest months of the hottest summer ever known, attracted crowds to Smock Alley, and spread fever over the city!
After success, and when the great players had disappeared, came re-action, empty houses, tumblers, rope-dancers, equestrianism,—and nightly losses. On the 29th of January 1743, however, the town felt a new sensation, afforded by the acting of a "young gentleman" in Richard, at Smock Alley. The Mithridates of the debutant was as successful as Richard, and then the young actor was known to be the son of Dr. Sheridan, a young man of three-and-twenty, whose appearance on the stage brought great vexation to all his friends. But also much reputation to himself in Richard, Brutus, Hamlet, Othello, Cato, and the highest walks of comedy.
A curious incident carried Sheridan to the rival house in Aungier Street. One night in July 1743, his robe for Cato was not forthcoming from the Smock Alley wardrobe, and Sheridan refused to play without it. Theophilus Cibber was there among the London birds of passage. He was cast for Syphax, and his offer to read the part of Cato and play his own was accepted. Cato and Syphax are never on the stage together; but in the second act, Theophilus must have been put to it, for there, Syphax enters close upon the heels of the retiring Cato.
How the "numerous and polite audience" enjoyed the piece thus represented, I cannot say; a paper war ensued, and Sheridan passed to the other house. But two houses could not exist, and an agreement was at length made to consolidate the two companies, and to open at Aungier Street, whereupon the rejected actors, of course, opened Smock Alley, and thence came confusion worse confounded, till Sheridan, quarrelling with the proprietors at Aungier Street, passed back to Smock Alley, and did something towards retrieving its fortunes. But he was ill seconded, and in March, 1744, flushed by his new honours, he crossed the Channel and appeared at Covent Garden.
And now, instead of two companies in one house, Dublin saw one company alternately playing in two houses, with little profit, till on the night of February 15th, 1744, "Othello" was given at Smock Alley, the part of Othello by Spranger Barry (Iago, Wright; Desdemona, Mrs. Bailey). His noble person, his harmonious voice, his transitions from love to jealousy, from tenderness to rage, enchanted the audience, though in some respects the performance was unfinished. His principal characters were Othello, Pierre, Hotspur, Lear, Henry V., Orestes, and that once favourite comedy-character with young tragedians, Bevil, jun. Barry filled the house every night he played; but, I suppose, a feature of Irish management, he played only occasionally. Foote, in this his first Irish season, drew a few good houses, but Barry was the chief attraction. He was opposed by the old ejected comedians, who opened a temporary house in Capel Street, which, however, was soon closed.