And obedient servant,
Wm. Davenant."
[75] Our author was so far happy as to obtain by this letter the favour of Whitlocke, who was, perhaps, a man of more humanity and gentleness of disposition, than some other of the covenanters. He at last obtained his liberty entirely, and was delivered from every thing but the narrowness of his circumstances, and to redress these, encouraged by the interest of his friends, he likewise made a bold effort. He was conscious that a play-house was entirely inconsistent with the gloominess, and severity of these times; and yet he was certain that there were people of taste enough in town, to fill one, if such a scheme could be managed; which he conducted with great address, and at last brought to bear, as he had the countenance of lord Whitlocke, Sir John Maynard, and other persons of rank, who really were ashamed of the cant and hypocrisy which then prevailed. In consequence of this, our poet opened a kind of theatre at Rutland House, where several pieces were acted, and if they did not gain him reputation, they procured him what is more solid, and what he then more wanted, money. Some of the people in power, it seems, were lovers of music, and tho' they did not care to own it, they were wise enough to know that there was nothing scandalous or immoral in the diversions of the theatre. Sir William therefore, when he applied for a permission called what he intended to represent an opera; but when he brought it on the stage, it appeared quite another thing, which when printed had the following title:
First day's entertainment at Rutland House by declamation and music, after the manner of the ancients.
[76] This being an introductory piece, it demanded all the author's wit to make it answer different intentions; for first it was to be so pleasing as to gain applause; and next it was to be be so remote from the very appearance of a play, as not to give any offence to that pretended sanctity that was then in fashion. It began with music, then followed a prologue, in which the author rallies the oddity of his own performance. The curtain being drawn up to the sound of slow and solemn music, there followed a grave declamation by one in a guilded rostrum, who personated Diogenes, and shewed the use and excellency of dramatic entertainments. The second part of the entertainment consisted of two lighter declamations; the first by a citizen of Paris, who wittily rallies the follies of London; the other by a citizen of London, who takes the same liberty with Paris and its inhabitants. To this was tacked a song, and after that came a short epilogue. The music was composed by Dr. Coleman, Capt. Cook, Mr. Henry Laws, and Mr. George Hudson.
There were several other pieces which Sir William introduced upon this stage of the same kind, which met with as much success, as could be expected from the nature of the performances themselves, and the temper and disposition of the audience. Being thus introduced, he at last grew a little bolder, and not only ventured to write, but to act several new plays, which were also somewhat in a new taste; that is, they were more regular in their structure, and the language generally speaking, smoother, and more correct than the old tragedies. These improvements were in a great measure owing to Sir William's long residence in France, which gave him an opportunity of reading their best writers, and hearing the sentiments [77] of their ablest critics upon dramatic entertainments, where they were as much admired and encouraged, as at that time despised in England. That these were really improvements, and that the public stood greatly indebted to Sir William Davenant as a poet, and master of a theatre, we can produce no less an authority than that of Dryden, who, beyond any of his predecessors, contemporaries, or those who have succeeded him, understood poetry as an art. In his essay on heroic plays, he thus speaks, "The first light we had of them, on the English theatre (says he) was from Sir William Davenant. It being forbidden him in the religious times to act tragedies or comedies, because they contained some matter of scandal to those good people, who could more easily dispossess their lawful sovereign, than endure a wanton jest, he was forced to turn his thoughts another way, and to introduce the examples of moral virtue written in verse, and performed in recitative music. The original of this music, and of the scenes which adorned his works, he had from the Italian opera's; but he heightened his characters, as I may probably imagine, from the examples of Corneille, and some French poets. In this condition did this part of poetry remain at his Majelty's return, when grown bolder as now owned by public authority, Davenant revived the Siege of Rhodes, and caused it to be acted as a just drama. But as few men have the happiness to begin and finish any new project, so neither did he live to make his design perfect. There wanted the fulness of a plot, and the variety of characters to form it as it ought; and perhaps somewhat might have been added to the beauty of the stile: all which he would have performed with more [78] exactness, had he pleased to have given us another work of the fame nature. For myself and others who came after him, we are bound with all veneration to his memory, to acknowledge what advantage we received from that excellent ground work, which is laid, and since it is an easy thing to add to what is already invented, we ought all of us, without envy to him, or partiality to ourselves, to yield him the precedence in it."
Immediately after the restoration there were two companies of players formed, one under the title of the King's Servants, the other, under that of the Duke's Company, both by patents, from the crown; the first granted to Henry Killigrew, Esq; and the latter to Sir William Davenant. The King's company acted first at the Red Bull in the upper end of St. John's Street, and after a year or two removing from place to place, they established themselves in Drury-Lane. It was some time before Sir William Davenant compleated his company, into which he took all who had formerly played under Mr. Rhodes in the Cock-Pit in Drury-Lane, and amongst these the famous Mr. Betterton, who appeared first to advantage under the patronage of Sir William Davenant. He opened the Duke's theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields with his own dramatic performance of the Siege of Rhodes, the house being finely decorated, and the stage supplied with painted scenes, which were by him introduced at least, if not invented, which afforded certainly an additional beauty to the theatre, tho' some have insinuated, that fine scenes proved the ruin of acting; but as we are persuaded it will be an entertaining circumstance to our Readers, to have that matter more fully explained, we shall take this opportunity of doing it.
[79] In the reign of Charles I, dramatic entertainments were accompanied with rich scenery, curious machines, and other elegant embellishments, chiefly condufted by the wonderful dexterity of that celebrated English, architect Inigo Jones. But these were employed only in masques at court, and were too expensive for the little theatres in which plays were then acted. In them there was nothing more than a ouftain of very coarse stuff, upon the drawing up of which, the stage appeared either with bare walls on the sides, coarsly matted, or covered with tapestry; so that for the place originally represented, and all the successive changes in which the poets of those times freely indulged themselves, there was nothing to help the spectator's understanding, or to assist the actor's performance, but bare imagination. In Shakespear's time so undecorated were the theatres, that a blanket supplied the place of a curtain; and it was a good observation of the ingenious Mr. Chitty, a gentleman of acknowledged taste in dramatic excellence, that the circumstance of the blanket, suggested to Shakespear that noble image in Macbeth, where the murderer invokes
Thick night to veil itself in the dunnest smoke of Hell,
Nor Heaven peep thro' the blanket of the dark
To cry hold, hold.
It is true, that while things continued in this situation, there were a great many play-houses, sometimes six or seven open at once. Of these some were large, and in part open, where they acted by day light; others smaller, but better fitted up, where they made use of candles. The plainness of the theatre made the prices small, [80] and drew abundance of company; yet upon the whole it is doubtful, whether the spectactors in all these houses were really superior in number, to those who have frequented the theatres in later times. If the spirit and judgment of the actors supplied all deficiencies, and made as some would insinuate, plays more intelligible without scenes, than they afterwards were with them, it must be very astonishing; neither is it difficult to assign another cause, why those who were concerned in play-houses, were angry at the introduction of scenes and decorations, which was, that notwithstanding the advanced prices, their profits from that time were continually sinking; and an author, of high authority in this case, assures us, in an historical account of the stage, that the whole sharers in Mr. Hart's company divided a thousand pounds a year a-piece, before the expensive decorations became fashionable. Sir William Davehant considered things in another light: he was well acquainted with the alterations which the French theatre had received, under the auspice of cardinal Richelieu, who had an excellent taste; and he remembered the noble contrivances of Inigo Jones, which were not at all inferior to the designs of the best French masters. Sir William was likewise sensible that the monarch he served was an excellent judge of every thing of this kind; and these considerations excited in him a passion for the advancement of the theatre, to which the great figure it has since made is chiefly owing. Mr. Dryden has acknowledged his admirable talents in this way, and gratefully remembers the pains taken by our poet, to set a work of his in the fairest light possible, and to which, he ingenuously ascribes the success with which it was received. This is the hislory of the life and progress of scenery on [81] our stage; which, without doubt, gives greater life to the entertainment of a play; but as the best purposes may be prostituted, so there is some reason to believe that the excessive fondness for decorations, which now prevails, has hurt the true dramatic taste. Scenes are to be considered as secondary in a play, the means of setting it off with lustre, and ought to engross but little attention; as it is more important to hear what a character speaks, than to observe the place where he stands; but now the case is altered. The scenes in a Harlequin Sorcerer, and other unmeaning pantomimes, unknown to our more elegant and judging fore-fathers, procure crowded houses, while the noblest strokes of Dryden, the delicate touches of Otway and Rowe, the wild majesty of Shakespear, and the heart-felt language of Lee, pass neglected, when put in competition with those gewgaws of the stage, these feasts of the eye; which as they can communicate no ideas, so they can neither warm nor reform the heart, nor answer one moral purpose in nature.