CHAPTER XXII.
ENGLISH COMEDY.—BEN JONSON.—THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS SCHOOL.—INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES.—COMEDY AFTER THE RESTORATION.—THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM; THE REHEARSAL.—WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE LATTER PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.—INDECENCY OF THE STAGE.—COLLEY CIBBER.—FOOTE.
In England, as in Athens of old, perfect comedy arose gradually out of the personalities of the rude dramatic attempts of an earlier period. Such productions as Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton’s Needle were mere imperfect attempts at, we may perhaps rather say feelers towards, comedy itself—that drama, the object of which was to caricature, and thus to dissect and apply correctives to, the vices and weaknesses of contemporary society. The genius of Shakespeare was far too exquisitely poetical to qualify him for a task like this; it wanted some one who could use the lancet and scalpel skilfully, but soberly, and who was not liable to be led astray by too much vigour of imagination.
Such a one was Ben Jonson, whom we may rightly consider as the father of English comedy. “Bartholomew Fair,” first performed at the Hope Theatre, on Bankside, London, on the 31st of October, 1614, is the most perfect and most remarkable example of the truly English comedy, remarkable, among many other things, for the extraordinary number of characters who were brought upon the stage in one piece, and who are all at the same time grouped and individualised with a skill that reminds us of the pictorial triumphs of a Callot or a Hogarth. London life is placed before us in all its more popular forms in one grand tableau, the one in which it would show itself in its more grotesque attitudes; the London citizen, his vain or easy wife, sharpers of every description, and their victims no less varied in character, the petty city officers, all come in for their share of satire. The different groups are distributed so naturally, that it is difficult to say who is the principal character of the piece—and who ever was the principal character in Bartholomew Fair? Perhaps the character of Cokes, the young booby squire from Harrow—for in those times even so near London as Harrow, a young squire was considered to be in all probability but a young country booby—strikes us most. It is said to have been at a later period the favourite character of Charles II. Among the other principal characters of the play are a proctor of the Arches Court named Littlewit, who imagines himself to be a bel esprit of the first order; his wife, and her mother, dame Purecraft, who is a widow; Justice Overdo, a London magistrate, to whose ward, Grace Wellborn, Cokes is affianced in marriage; a zealous Puritan, named Zeal-of-the-land Busy, who is a suitor to the widow Purecraft, herself also a Puritan; Winwife, Busy’s rival; and a gamester named Tom Quarlous, who figures as Winwife’s friend and companion. All these meet in town, on the morning of the fair, Cokes under the care of a sort of steward or upper servant, named Waspe, who was of a quarrelsome disposition, and separate in groups among the crowd which filled Smithfield and its vicinity, each having their separate adventures, but meeting from time to time, and reassembling at the end. Cokes behaves as a simpleton from the country, longs for everything, and wonders at everything, buys up toys and gingerbread, is separated from all his companions, robbed of his money and even of his outer garments, and in this condition finally settles down at a puppet-show. Meanwhile the Puritan Busy, by his zeal against the “heathen abominations” of the fair on one hand, and Waspe, by his quarrelsome temper on the other, fall into a series of scrapes, which end in both being carried to the stocks. They are there joined by another important personage. Justice Overdo, who is distinguished by an extraordinary zeal for the right administration of justice and the suppression of social vices of all kinds, has come into the fair in disguise, in order to make himself acquainted with its various abuses, and he passes among them unknown; and his inquisitive intermeddling brings him into a variety of mishaps, in the course of which he also is seized by the constable, and allows himself to be taken to the stocks, rather than betray his identity. Thus all three, Busy, Waspe, and Overdo, are placed in the stocks at the same time; but Waspe, by a clever trick, escapes, and leaves the Puritan and the justice confined together, the one looking upon himself as a martyr for religion’s sake, the other rather glorying in suffering through his disinterested zeal for the common good. They, too, after a while make their escape through an accidental oversight of their keepers, and mix again with the mob. The women, likewise, have been separated from their male companions, have fallen among sharpers and bullies, been made drunk, and escaped but narrowly from still worse disasters. They all finally meet before the puppet-show, which has fixed the attention of Cokes, and there justice Overdo discovers himself. Such are the materials of Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair,” the busiest and most amusing of plays. It is said, when first acted, to have given great satisfaction to king James, by the ridicule thrown upon the Puritans, and it continued to be a favourite comedy when revived after the Restoration.
“The Alchemist,” by the same author, preceded “Bartholomew Fair,” by four years, and was designed as a satire upon a class of impostors who, in that age, were among the greatest pests of society, and were instruments, one way or other, in the greatest crimes of the day. “The Alchemist” belongs, also, to the pure English comedy, but its plot is more simple and distinct than that of “Bartholomew Fair.” It involves events which may have occurred frequently, at periods when the metropolis was from time to time exposed to the vicissitudes of the plague. On one of these occasions, Lovewit, a London gentleman, obliged to quit the metropolis in order to avoid the plague, leaves his town house to the charge of one man-servant, Face, who proves dishonest, associates himself with a rogue named Subtle, and an immoral woman named Dol Common, and introduces them into the house, which is made the basis for their subsequent operations. Subtle assumes the character of a magician and alchemist, while Dol acts various female parts, and Face goes about alluring people into their snares. Among their dupes are a knight who lives upon the town, two English Puritans from Amsterdam, a lawyer’s clerk, a tobacco man, a young country squire, and his sister dame Pliant, a widow. The various intrigues in which these individuals are involved, show us the way in which the pretended conjurers and alchemists contributed to all the vices of the town. At length their base dealings are on the point of being exposed by the cunning of one upon whom they had attempted to impose, when Truewit, the master of the house, returns unexpectedly, and all is discovered, but the alchemist and his female associate contrive to escape. The object of their last intrigue had been to entrap dame Pliant, who was rich, into a marriage with a needy sharper; and Lovewit, finding the lady in the house, and liking her, marries her himself, and, in consideration of the satisfaction he has thus procured, forgives his unfaithful servant. Many have considered the Alchemist to be the best of Jonson’s dramas. “Epicœne, or the Silent Woman,” which belongs to the year 1609, is another satirical picture of London society, in which the same class of characters appear. Morose, an eccentric gentleman of fortune, who has a great horror for noise, and even obliges his servants to communicate with him by signs, has a nephew, a young knight named Sir Dauphine Eugenie, with whom he is dissatisfied, and he refuses to allow him money for his support. A plot is laid by his friends, whereby the uncle is led into a marriage with a supposed silent woman, named Epicœne, but she only sustains the character until the wedding formalities are completed, and these are followed by a scene of noise and riot, which completely horrifies Morose, and leads to a reconciliation with his nephew, to whom he makes over half his fortune. The earliest of Ben Jonson’s comedies, “Every Man in his Humour,” was composed in its present form in 1598, and is the first of these dramatic satires on the manners and character of the citizens of London, of whom it was fashionable at the courts of James I. and Charles I. to speak contemptuously. Kno’well, an old gentleman of respectability, is highly displeased with his son Edward, because the latter has taken to writing poetry, and has formed a friendship with another gentleman of his own age, who loves poetry and frequents the rather gay society of the poets and wits of the town. Wellbred has a half-brother, a “plain squire,” named Downright, and a sister married to a rich city merchant named Kitely. Kitely, the merchant, who is extremely jealous of his wife, has a great desire to reform Wellbred, and draw him to a steadier line of life, a sentiment in which Downright heartily joins. Kitely’s jealousy, and the steps taken to reform Wellbred, lead to the most comic parts of the play, which concludes with the marriage of young Kno’well to Kitely’s daughter, Miss Bridget, and his reconciliation with his father. Among the other characters in the piece are captain Bobadil, “a blustering coward,” justice Clement, “an old merry magistrate,” his clerk, Roger Formal, and a country gull and a town gull.
These comedies of London life became popular, and continued so during this and the following reign—in fact, the mass of those who attended the theatres could understand and appreciate them better than any others, and, what was more, they felt them. Among Jonson’s contemporaries in the literature of this English comedy were Middleton and Thomas Heywood, both very prolific writers, Chapman, and Marston. Certain classes of characters are continually repeated in this comedy, because they belonged especially to the London society of the time, but the employment and distribution of these characters admitted of great variations, and they perhaps often had at the time a special interest, as representing known individuals, or as being combined in a plot which was built upon real incidents in London life. Among these were usually a country gentleman of fortune, who was very avaricious, and had a spendthrift son, or who had a daughter, a rich heiress, who was the object of the intrigues of spendthrift suitors; young heirs, who have just come to their estates, and are spending them in London; young country squires who are easy victims; a needy knight, as poor in principles as in money, who lived upon the public in every way he could; designing and unscrupulous women; bullies and sharpers of every description. In fact, we seem to be always in the smell of the tavern, and in the midst of dissipation. Then there are fat, sleek, and wealthy citizens, whole souls are entirely wrapt up in their merchandise, who are proud, nevertheless, of their position; and easy, credulous city wives, who are fond of finery and of praise, eager for gaiety and display, impatient of the rule of husbands, or of the dulness of home, and very ready to listen to the advances of the gay gallants from the court end of the town, or from the tavern. The city tradesman has generally an apprentice or two, sometimes very sober but perhaps more frequently dissipated, who play their parts in the piece; and often a daughter, who is either a model of modesty and all the domestic virtues, and is finally the reward of some hero of good principles, who has been temporarily led astray, and his character misinterpreted, or who is gay and intriguing, and comes to disgrace. But the favourite idea of excellence, or, to use a technical phrase, the beau ideal of this comedy, appears to have been a wild youth, who goes through every scene of dissipation, in a gentlemanly manner (as the term was then understood), and comes out at the end of the play as an honest, virtuous man, and receives the reward for qualities which he had not previously displayed.
Sometimes the writers of this comedy indulged in personal, or even in political, allusions which brought them into trouble. In the year 1605, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston, wrote jointly a comedy entitled “Eastward Hoe.” It is a very excellent and amusing comedy, and was very popular. Touchstone, an honest goldsmith in the city, has two apprentices, Golding, a sober and industrious youth, and Quicksilver, who is an irreclaimable rake. Touchstone has also two daughters, the eldest of whom, Gertrude, affects the fine lady, and is ambitious of finding a husband in the fashionable world, while her younger sister, Mildred, is all virtue and humility. An attachment arises between Golding and Mildred. Another character in this drama is a needy, scheming knight, who lives upon the town, and rejoices in the name of Sir Petronel Flash. Sir Petronel is attracted by the rich dowry which the young lady, Gertrude, had to expect, pays his court to her, and easily works upon her vanity; and, her mother encouraging her, they are hastily married, contrary to the wishes of her father. The knight is supposed to possess a magnificent castle somewhere to the east of London, and the young bride and her mother proceed in search of this, from which the comedy derives its title of “Eastward Hoe,” but they are involved in various disagreeable adventures in the search, which ends in the conviction that it is all a fable. Another character in the play is a greedy and unprincipled usurer, who is so jealous of his young and pretty wife, that he keeps her under lock and key; and this man is deeply involved in money-lending with Sir Petronel Flash, and they are engaged in a series of unprincipled transactions, which lead to the disgrace of them all, and in the course of which the virtue of the usurer’s wife falls a sacrifice. Meanwhile the fortunes of the two apprentices have been advancing in directly opposite directions. Quicksilver, the unworthy apprentice, leaves his master, proceeds from bad to worse, and finally is committed to prison, for a crime the punishment of which was death. On the other hand, Golding has not only gained his master’s esteem and married his daughter Mildred, and been adopted as the heir to his wealth, but he has merited the respect of his fellow-citizens, and has been promoted in municipal rank. It becomes Golding’s duty to preside over the trial of his old fellow apprentice Quicksilver, but the latter escapes through Golding’s generosity.
There is some sound morality in the spirit of this comedy, and a very large amount of immorality in the text. There was, indeed, a coarse licence in the relations of society at this period, which are but too faithfully represented in its literature. But there are two circumstances, accidentally attached to this drama, which give it a peculiar interest. When brought out upon the stage it contained reflections upon Scotchmen which provoked the anger of king James I. to such a degree, that all the authors were seized and thrown into prison, and narrowly escaped the loss of their ears and noses, but they obtained their release with some difficulty, and only through powerful intercession. In the copy which has been brought down to us through the press, we find no reflections whatever upon Scotchmen, so that it must have been altered from the original text. When we consider that, at this time, the English court and capital were crowded with needy Scottish adventurers, who were looked upon with great jealousy, it is not improbable that in the original form of the comedy, Sir Petronel Flash may have been a Scotchman, and intended not only as a satire upon the Scottish adventurers in general, but to have been designed for some one in particular who had the means of bringing upon the authors the extreme displeasure of the court.
The other circumstance which has given celebrity to this comedy, is one of still greater interest. After the Restoration, it was new modelled by Nicholas Tate, and brought again upon the stage under the title of “Cuckold’s Haven.” Perhaps through this remodelled edition, Hogarth took from the comedy of “Eastward Hoe,” the idea of his series of plates of the history of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices.