The name's kind passport, when the man's no more."
I fear Bolingbroke had few means to materially help the writer, beyond the dedication fee. Even the profits of the author's three nights brought to his family little more than a hundred and odd pounds.
Murphy and Fielding were the first dramatic poets who departed from the old beaten track. Murphy dedicated his "Zenobia," not to an earl, but to an actress,—Mrs. Barry, who had saved his tragedy by her glorious acting. This dedication is gracefully worded, and is a faithful testimony to the ability of a great artist. Unfortunately, flattery could creep into such homage as this. For fulsomeness of praise, Soane's dedication of the "Dwarf of Naples," to Edmund Kean; and Sheil's, of his "Adelaide," to Miss O'Neill, equal any similar offence of the olden time.
I could cite more, but will only add that, of all the writers of dedications, by far the most amusing is the man who wrote none! This ingenious person called himself Adam Moses Emanuel Cooke, but his sole Christian name was simply Thomas. He was a Northumbrian by birth, an Oxonian by education, and a beneficed clergyman who drove all his parishioners mad by his superstitious practices, his mystical enthusiasm, and his turn for unintelligible mysteries. He took all the loving promises to the Jews so much to heart as to believe that the more nearly he approached them in all their old observances, the more true he should be to the Christian dispensation. Accordingly, he practised them all, did not hesitate at the most painful and characteristic, and was very much astonished that other men declined to follow his example.
Cooke was mad, in this one matter, no doubt; but considering that episcopal patience bore with the theatre-haunting Rev. Dr. Dodd, I think Cooke's bishop treated him a little harshly by procuring his deprivation, and driving him out to starve.
To starvation, however, the poor man had reasonable objections; and to obviate such an end, he turned dramatic author, as if to justify those who called him mad. It was then that he showed that there was method in his madness. Having nothing, he denounced the rights of property. Possessing nothing he could throw in to the common lot, he preached communism. At Will's, or Tom's, or Button's, at the Grecian, or any other well-frequented coffee-house, the hungry author of two unrepresented and unrepresentable plays who might have thanked heaven that he was not worth a ducat, would coolly enter and seat himself at the first table which he saw ready furnished with a meal for which he longed, and thought not of paying. The rightful owner, if ignorant of the ways of Adam Moses Emanuel, would blandly smile at the absent man, thinking sighingly of the mighty labours which had brought him to such a pass, and quietly move off. If the gentleman whose chocolate, toast, and eggs Cooke appropriated, knew of the mystic's ways, he would smilingly submit to them, and await the moment which should bring the Gastronome sans argent and mine host into collision.
However this might be, the breakfast concluded, Cooke returned thanks, rose, shook his faded suit of sables, and made, calmly satisfied, for the door. Between that and himself ever stood the landlord, or head waiter, and then ensued a controversy, to hear which, old beaux, middle-aged bucks, and younger bloods crowded with more eagerness than would have marked their going to a sermon. Cooke's theory was not "base is the slave that pays," but that, payment lacking on his part, it would be base to deprive him of breakfast. To the simple and conclusive reasoning of the master he opposed texts from the Talmud, maxims from the Rabbis, and a clincher from Moses, according to whose legislation even a thief was not to be punished, if his so-called offence originated in the natural necessity of satisfying his stomach. Of course, when the audience grew tired of the argument, they clubbed the amount required, and sent the cunning author rejoicingly on his way.
That way took him from the landlord, who was quite "agreeable" to have him for a customer,—he drew so many others—to the patron from whom Cooke hoped to extract sufficient whereon to dine, have his claret, and spin out his evening, like a gentleman. He was always about to publish one of, perhaps both, the mad plays he had written: "The King cannot Err," and the "Hermit Converted, or the Maid of Bath Married." Or he was on the point of giving to the public some treatise on mystical divinity. For suitable patrons he had as fine a scent as for breakfast. He selected them among wealthy old Creoles, or rich young lords just returned from the grand tour; or peers who would be glad to give a guinea to get rid of him; or baronets who would think the fun got out of him well worth the fee; or simple 'squires and gentlemen honestly ready to contribute to the support of literature and distressed authors.
With the guinea for subscription in his pocket, Cooke withdrew on that day, to call on the same or some other patron the next, for permission to dedicate his drama to one of whose virtues, talents, magnanimity, divine endowments, and the like, the town was giving hourly assurance. The fish thus tickled generally proved a gold-fish, and with a dedication fee of, at least, five guineas, Cooke disappeared as solemnly as the Ghost in "Hamlet."
Like that shadowy majesty of Denmark, our dramatic author was a "revenant." He always returned. A happy thought had struck him. A copper-plate engraving of his patron's shield of arms, at the head of the dedication, would magnify every party concerned, and especially him of whose house it was the blazon! There were little incidental expenses, no doubt; but what were they to one so munificent and so disposed to promote the best interests of learning! And, accordingly, Cooke withdrew, all the richer by ten guineas,—for the engraver!