Pope satirised the introduction of horses in Shakespeare's "Henry VIII.," revived with great splendour in 1727, when a representation was given of the coronation of Anne Bullen, and the royal champion, duly mounted and caparisoned, proclaimed his challenge. But for many years the appearances on the stage of equine performers were only of an occasional kind. It was not until the rebuilding of Astley's, in 1803, that the equestrian drama became an established entertainment. An extensive stage was then added to the circus, and "horse spectacles," as they were called, were first presented. A grand drama called "The Blood-Red Knight," produced in 1810, resulted in a profit to the proprietors of £18,000, a handsome sum, seeing that the season at that time only extended from Easter to the end of September.
The triumphs of Astley's excited the envy of the Covent Garden managers. Colman's drama of "Blue Beard" was reproduced, with Mr. Johnson's imitation elephant and a troop of real horses. The performance was presented on forty-four nights, a long run in those days. There was, of course, much wrath excited by this degradation of the stage. A contemporary critic writes: "A novel and marked event occurred at this theatre on this evening (18th of February, 1811), which should be considered as a black epocha for ever by the loyal adherents to wit and the Muses. As the Mussulmen date their computation of years from the flight of Mahomet, so should the hordes of folly commence
their triumphant register from the open flight of common-sense on this memorable night, when a whole troop of horses made their first appearance in character at Covent Garden." The manager was fiercely denounced for his unscrupulous endeavours "to obtain money at the expense of his official dignity." Another critic, alleging that "the dressing-rooms of the new company of comedians were under the orchestra," complained that "in the first row of the pit the stench was so abominable, one might as well have sitten in a stable." Still the "equestrian drama" delighted the town. "Blue Beard" was followed by Monk Lewis's "Timour the Tartar," in which more horses appeared. Some hissing was heard at the commencement of the new drama, and placards were exhibited in the pit condemning the horses; but in the end "Timour" triumphed over all opposition, and rivalled the run of "Blue Beard." It is to be remembered, especially by those who insist so much on the degeneracy of the modern theatre, that these "horse spectacles" were presented in a patent house during the palmy days of the drama, while the Kemble family was still in possession of the stage of Covent Garden.
These equestrian doings were satirised at the Haymarket Theatre in the following summer. "The Quadrupeds of Quedlinburgh, or the Rovers of Weimar," was produced, being an adaptation by Colman of a burlesque, attributed to Canning, in "The Anti-Jacobin." It was designed to ridicule not merely the introduction of horses upon the stage, but also the then prevailing taste for morbid German dramas of the Kotzebue school. The prologue was in part a travestie of Pope's prologue to "Cato," and contained references to the plays of "Lovers' Vows" and "The Stranger."
To lull the soul by spurious strokes of art,
To warp the genius and mislead the heart,
To make mankind revere wives gone astray,
Love pious sons who rob on the highway,
For this the foreign muses trod our stage,
Commanding German schools to be the rage.
Dear Johnny Bull, you boast much resolution,
With, thanks to Heaven, a glorious constitution;
Your taste, recovered half from foreign quacks,
Takes airings now on English horses' backs.
While every modern bard may raise his name,
If not on lasting praise, on stable fame.
Think that to Germans you have given no check,
Think bow each actor horsed has risked his neck;
You've shown them favour. Oh, then, once more show it
To this night's Anglo-German horse-play poet.
In the course of the play the sentimental sentinel in "Pizarro" was ridiculed, and the whole concluded with a grand battle, in which the last scene of "Timour the Tartar" was imitated and burlesqued. "Stuffed ponies and donkeys frisked about with ludicrous agility," writes a critic of the time. The play was thoroughly successful, and would seem to have retrieved the fortunes of the theatre, which had been long in a disastrous condition.
Drury Lane also struck a blow at the "horse spectacles" of the rival house. In 1812 was produced "Quadrupeds; or, The Manager's Last Kick." This was only a revised version of the old burlesque of "The Tailors, a Tragedy for Warm Weather," usually ascribed to Foote. In the last scene an army of tailors appeared, mounted on asses and mules, and much fun of a pantomimic kind ensued. Some years later, however, Drury Lane was content to derive profit from a drama in which "real horses" appeared, with the additional attraction of "real water." This was Moncrieff's play of "The Cataract of the Ganges." Indeed, Drury Lane was but little entitled to vaunt its superiority in the matter. In 1803 its treasury had greatly benefited from the feats of the "real dog" in Reynolds's melodrama "The Caravan." "Real water," indeed, had been brought upon the stage by Garrick himself, who owed his prosperity, not more to his genius as an actor than to his ingenuity as a purveyor of pantomime and spectacles. One of his addresses to his audience contains the lines—