Mr Greville, it may be necessary to add here, had perused Mr Holcroft’s piece before it came out, and had suggested some alterations both in the plot and language. Several were also made by Mr Holcroft in the course of the rehearsals, and more by Mr Harris; some of them against the author’s judgment.
Mr Holcroft now considered his fame as established, and his fortune as already made. The author of a successful and admired comedy he thought had a passport which would carry him securely through the world. In these flattering hopes, he was unhappily deceived.
He also wrote on the same day to his father, in terms which his success and the warmth of his affection dictated.
‘My Dear Father, I know that a short letter will be acceptable to you rather than none, especially on this occasion. My piece is come out at Covent Garden Theatre under the title of Duplicity. You may perhaps have heard some account of its reception from the newspapers: its success has been very flattering, and no circumstance relative to it gives me more satisfaction than that I shall now be enabled to provide for my dear father.’
Only three days after the date of the preceding letters, his brilliant prospects were dissipated, and we find him addressing the following letter to Mr Harris.
‘Sir, It is with reluctance I begin to write to you on the present subject: but my feelings are too powerful to be resisted. My labours have been great; my cares, hopes, and fears innumerable, and just at the moment when I was to be rewarded, to see my golden dreams vanish, to have the blessings I had so hardly earned snatched from me, is more than I can support in silence. It is not now, Sir, vanity in me to say the comedy is deserving of reward, every body says so, many say much more, at least to me. Had it been brought out at a good time of the year, I should not have gained less than five hundred pounds by it. But to be played at the most barren of all seasons, and when the fineness of the weather concurs to make it still worse, is certainly a severe fate; and I appeal to you, Sir, whether it is a misfortune, the whole weight of which should be borne by a man who has strained every faculty, and endured every kind of mental torture to give others pleasure. Again, though I have no doubt but you thought it best, yet it is the opinion of every body that the playing the piece at intervals, so contrary to the established mode, has thrown a damp upon it of the most stagnating kind. There is not a person I meet, who does not ask the reason with a face of wonder. This you know was not with my judgment, nay, I was exceedingly vexed when I first saw another play advertised over its head. What added still more to the surprise of the town, was to hear it given out for Tuesday, and to see it put off till Wednesday, in order to give place to an old piece, of which they therefore concluded you had greater expectations than of the new comedy. They could not know your real motive. The concluding stroke thus far finishes this melancholy tragedy. You told me my night should be on the Friday or Saturday; I objected to the first, and you agreed to the other: but circumstances alter—you allege the business of the theatre—I am obliged to take the Friday, and King Arthur, with every force of novelty, dress, decoration, etc. etc. is opposed to me at a time when there is scarcely one full audience of play-going people in town. The consequence is, the profits of my first and best night are twenty pounds. I appeal to you, Sir, whether I have not a claim to some reparation. I wish you to allow me a certain sum for my nights; what, I leave to your candour. My hopes are so lowered that my views now are not very extravagant. If you think I have reason, you will be kind enough to inform me what you think proper to give; and then, Sir, you will do with the piece whatever you think fit.’
The next night that the comedy was played for the author’s benefit, it did not clear the expenses of the house; and Mr Harris then said, that unless it was commanded by the king, he should not think of playing it any more; but, at the same time, desired Mr Holcroft to draw on the theatre for a hundred pounds. This sum, with the price which he got for it from the booksellers, was all that he cleared by this his first comedy. It was shortly after published with a very well written preface.
Mr Harris appears to have behaved in a liberal and friendly manner on this occasion. Mr Holcroft afterwards called on him, and he proposed that the play should be laid by for a time, till he had a strong afterpiece to play with it. This set Mr Holcroft’s imagination at work again, and he conceived the idea of writing a pastoral, and laying the scene in Ireland, so as to have an opportunity of introducing all the good Irish music. I do not know whether he ever executed this idea.
After the appearance of Duplicity, Mr Holcroft wrote to Mr Linley to decline singing in the choruses and oratorios. His salary had been raised by Mr Sheridan to two pounds a week, but still Mr Holcroft seems to have been dissatisfied with not being brought forward in considerable parts; and he entertained thoughts of going to Ireland as an actor, unless a more respectable class of characters was assigned him at the theatre. He seems to have thought it inconsistent, not only with his dignity, but with his interest, as an author, to appear only in the lowest and most insignificant parts. I ought to have mentioned above, that when his own play of Duplicity was acted at the other house, Mr Wewitzer being taken ill, he had played the part of Vandervelt at an hour’s notice, which he continued to do afterwards. He also tried to procure an engagement with Mr Colman this year at the Haymarket, but I believe ineffectually.
A project, which about this time engaged a good deal of Mr Holcroft’s attention, and excited very sanguine hopes in him, was the pretended discovery of the polygraphic art. The person who set this plan on foot, as we have before noticed, was Booth, the manager of one of the theatrical companies to which Mr Holcroft had belonged. He undertook, by some mechanical process, to produce copies of the old masters, such as Titian and Rubens, which, both in colour and execution, should not be distinguishable from the originals, and which were to be sold as cheap, or cheaper, than a common coloured print. This certainly was promising great things, if the performance had been answerable. Mr Holcroft was so full of this scheme, and of the golden advantages it held out, that Booth having applied to him to assist him in it, and become a partner in the profits, he wrote to Mr Greville, informing him of his sudden good fortune; and indeed offering him a share in so lucrative an undertaking. Mr Greville, however, seems to have thought the success not so certain; and it was not long before Mr Holcroft began to incline to his opinion. In his next letter to this gentleman, he confesses that he entertained some doubts on the subject, especially since he had heard that the same scheme had been tried before, and had failed; and farther, that there were not half a dozen artists in the kingdom, who could copy the best pictures well enough to make it an object. In fact, this last observation betrayed the real secret: after an imperfect outline, or rude sketch, had been struck off by a mechanical operation, any bungling artist, who could be found to do it cheap enough, was employed to finish the picture. So that, after all, this new mode of superseding the necessity of copying the old masters, was nothing more than an attempt to set up a cheap wholesale manufactory of bad copies of good pictures.—Mr Holcroft, however, though his ardour very soon cooled, was willing to wait till he had seen the specimens which Mr Booth was busy in making of some famous picture, but which he was very backward in producing. The subsequent fate of this polygraphic scheme is well known to the public. To excuse Mr Holcroft’s credulity on this occasion, it may be remarked, that it was long before he had paid any particular attention to the subject of painting; that he was really and truly a novice in the art; and, probably, would not have been much struck himself with the difference between one of these polygraphic imitations and a real Titian or Rubens.