Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704)

by Unknown

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INTRODUCTION

Within two or three years after the appearance in 1698 of Jeremy Collier's A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, the bitter exchanges of reply and counter-reply to the charges of gross licentiousness in the London theaters had subsided. The controversy, however, was by no means ended, and around 1704 it flared again in a resurgence of attacks upon the stage. Among the tracts opposing the theaters was an anonymous pamphlet entitled A Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage, a piece which was published early in 1704 and which appeared in three editions before the end of that year.

The author reveals within his tract some of the reasons for its appearance at that time. He remarks upon the obvious failure of the opponents of the theater to end "the outragious and insufferable Disorders of the STAGE." He stresses the brazenness of the players in presenting, soon after the devastating storm of the night of November 26-27, 1703, two plays, Macbeth and The Tempest, "as if they design'd to Mock the Almighty Power of God, who alone commands the Winds and the Seas." (Macbeth was acted at Drury Lane on Saturday, November 27, as the storm was subsiding, but, because it was advertised in the Daily Courant on Friday, November 26, for the following evening, it would appear that, unless the players possessed the even more formidable power of foreseeing the storm, their presentation of Macbeth at that time was pure coincidence. No performance of The Tempest in late November appears in the extant records, but there was probably one at Lincoln's Inn Fields, which was not regularly advertising its offerings.) The author also emphasizes the propriety, before the approaching Fast Day of January 19, 1704, of noting once more the Impiety of the stage and the desirability of either suppressing it wholly or suspending its operations for a considerable period. Apparently the author hoped to arouse in religious persons a renewed zeal for closing the theaters, for the tract was distributed at the churches as a means of giving it wider circulation among the populace. (The Critical Works of John Dennis [Baltimore, 1939], I, 501, refers to a copy listed in Magga catalogue. No. 563, Item 102, with a note: "19th Janry, Fast Day. This Book was given me at ye Church dore, and was distributed at most Churches.")

Except for the author's ingenuity in seizing upon the fortuitous circumstances of the storm, the acting of Macbeth and The Tempest, and the proclamation of the Fast Day (which was ordered partly because of the ravages of the storm), there is nothing greatly original in the work. The author was engaged, in fact, in bringing up to date some of the accusations which earlier controversialists had made. For example, he reviews the indictments of the players in 1699 and 1701 for uttering profane remarks upon the stage, and he culls from several plays and prints the licentious expressions which had resulted in the indictments. Like Jeremy Collier before him and Arthur Bedford in The Evil and Danger of Stage-Plays later (1706), he adds similar expressions from plays recently acted, as proof, presumably, of the failure of the theaters to reform themselves in spite of the publicity previously given to their shortcomings. In so doing, he damns the stage and plays by excerpts, usually brief ones, containing objectionable phrases. To this material he adds a section consisting of seventeen questions, a not uncommon device, addressed to those who might frequent the playhouses. The questions again stress the great difficulty involved in attending plays and remaining truly good Christians.

The pamphlet must have been completed late in 1703 or very early in 1704. The references to the storm and the performances of Macbeth and The Tempest would place its final composition after late November, 1703, and it was in print in time to be distributed at the churches on January 19 and also to be advertised in the Daily Courant for January 20 under the heading "This present day is publish'd." The fact that it quickly attained three editions during 1704 may be partially accounted for by its being given to churchgoers, for it seems unlikely that the pamphlet would have a tremendous sale, even if one allows for the strong opposition to the stage which persisted in the minds of many people at the turn of the century. The author of the tract is unknown, although Sister Rose Anthony in The Jeremy Collier Stage Controversy, 1698-1726 (Milwaukee, 1937), pages 194-209, ascribed it to Jeremy Collier, an attribution which E. N. Hooker, in a review of the book in Modern Language Notes, LIV (1939), 388, and also in The Critical Works of John Dennis, I, 501, has deemed unlikely.

Advertised also in the Daily Courant for January 20, 1704, under the heading "This present day is publish'd" and in the same paragraph with the advertisement of A Representation, was another short pamphlet, Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady. (Immediately below this notice of publication was a re-advertisement of Jeremy Collier's Dissuasive from the Play-House, with the result that, on the day following the Fast Day, three of the pamphlets attacking the stage and referring to the performances of plays representing tempests soon after the destructive storm of November 26-27, 1703, were brought simultaneously to the attention of the public.)