Contemporary journals, indeed, affirm that the audiences grew thin towards the end of the fortnight, but this seems doubtful, as Barry's twenty-third representation, in the course of the season, was given expressly on account of the great number of persons who were unable to obtain admission to his twenty-second performance.
There is no doubt that Mrs. Cibber had the handsomer, more silver-tongued, and tender lover. She seemed to listen to him in a sort of modest ecstasy; while Miss Bellamy, eager love in her eyes, rapture in her heart, and amorous impatience in every expression, was ready to fling herself into Romeo's arms. In Barry's Romeo, the critics laud his harmony of feature, his melting eyes, and his unequalled plaintiveness of voice. In the garden scenes of the second and fourth acts, and in the first part of the scene in the tomb, were Barry's most effective points. Garrick's great scenes were with the Friar and the Apothecary. Miss Bellamy declared that in the scene with the Friar alone was Garrick superior to Barry; Macklin swore that Barry excelled his rival in every scene.
The Juliets, too, divided the public judgment. Some were taken by the amorous rapture, the loveliness, and the natural style of Bellamy; others were moved by the grander beauty, the force, and the tragic expression of distress and despair which distinguished Mrs. Cibber. Perhaps, after all, the truest idea of the two Romeos may be gathered from the remark of a lady who did not pretend to be a critic, and who was guided by her feelings. "Had I been Juliet," she said, "to Garrick's Romeo,—so ardent and impassioned was he, I should have expected that he would have come up to me in the balcony; but had I been Juliet to Barry's Romeo, so tender, so eloquent, and so seductive was he, I should certainly have gone down to him!"
Respectively, Barry acted Romeo twenty-three, Garrick nineteen times this season,—a season of which there is nothing more to be said, save that Garrick created the part of Gil Blas, in Moore's comedy of that name, and that he produced Mallet's version of "Alfred"—playing the king.
At this time, the poets were not inspired, or managers could dispense with them, so attractive were the old actors in old pieces, with new actors—Shuter, Palmer, and Miss Macklin—aiding them. Thus, in the season 1751-52, Covent Garden, save in a burletta called the "Oracle," relied on its stock-pieces; and Drury only produced Foote's farce, "Taste," in which Worsdale, the painter, who kept, starved, beat, and lived upon Laetitia Pilkington, played Lady Pentweazle, with humorous effect;—and "Eugenia," a tragedy, by the Rev. Dr. Francis, the father of Sir Philip, in which there was the coarseness of sentiment, but none of the beauty of language or tenderness of feeling of Otway. Yet it was approved by Chesterfield, who sneered at the pit and gallery as "common people who must have objects that strike the senses, and are only moved by the sufferings they see, and even then must be dyed with the blood." But this is untrue, although my lord said it, for Johnson's "Irene" failed because of the strangling of the heroine in presence of the audience; and it was only tolerated, during its brief run, after the killing was described and not performed.
I have said that the managers relied on the actors and not on the poets. In return, the actors exerted themselves to the very utmost. Mrs. Cibber was as much stirred by Miss Bellamy as Barry by Garrick, and the reverse. In "Jane Shore," for instance, Mrs. Cibber, who played Alicia to the Jane of pretty and modest Miss Macklin, seemed, on the 25th of October especially, to be inspired "with something more than mortal." Though Alicia had always been looked on as one of her very best characters, yet this night's performance she never equalled, before nor since.
In this season, Barry acted Romeo twelve, Garrick only six times; but the latter introduced a new opposition to his formidable rival, in the persons of Mossop and Ross, both from Ireland. Mossop first appeared in Richard, which he repeated seven times with great applause. His Zanga was still more successful; indeed, he has never been excelled in that character. Six times he played Horatio to Garrick's Lothario, and charmed the town more frequently by his grand Theseus to Mrs. Pritchard's Phædra. In Macbeth, Othello, Wolsey, and Orestes, he also displayed great powers. Ross, a gentlemanlike actor, made his début in Young Bevil, by Garrick's advice, and acted Lord Townley, Altamont, and Castalio,—the latter to Garrick's Chamont, with great effect. Garrick, no doubt, would have reluctantly seen himself eclipsed by either of those players; but because inferior actors sought to flatter him by calling Mossop a ranter, and Ross a sniveller, and epigrammatists declared indifference to both, it is not conclusive that the flattery pleased or the sneer delighted him. Garrick had his own peculiar triumphs. His Kitely, to Woodward's Bobadil, Yates's Brainworm, Shuter's Master Stephen, Ross's Young Knowell, and Palmer's Wellbred, gave new life to Ben Johnson's comedy of character. Thenceforward was associated the name of Captain Bobadil with that of the scholar from Merchant Tailors'—Harry Woodward.
But this has brought us into a new half-century, Let us pause and look back at the audiences of that which has gone by.
