Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 2 of 3)

It was indecorously hurried through the Commons and tossed to the Lords, at the close of the session of 1737. There it met the sturdy opposition of Chesterfield. He looked upon the bill as an attempt, through restraining the licence of the stage, to destroy the liberty of the press; for what was seditious to act, it would be seditious to print. And, if the printing of a play could be stopped, there would soon be a gag on pamphlets and other works.

The very act of Giffard showed that the players were anxious not to come in collision with government; and the existing laws could be applied against them if they offended. But those laws were not applied, or Mr. Fielding would have been punished for his "Pasquin," wherein the three great professions – religion, physic, and law – were represented as inconsistent with common sense. Chesterfield thought that the same law might have been put in force against Havard, for his "King Charles I."

If ministers dreaded satire or censure all they had to do was so to act as not to deserve it. If they deserved it, it would be as easy to turn passages of old plays against them, as to make them, in new. When the Roman actor, Diphilus, altered the words "Nostrâ miseriâ tu es magnus!" – a phrase from an old play – the eyes of the audience were turned on Pompeius Magnus, who was present; and the speaker was made to repeat the phrase a hundred times. Augustus, indeed, subsequently restored "order" in Rome; but God forbid that order should be restored here, at such a price as was paid for it in Rome!

False accusations, too, could be lightly made. Molière complained that "Tartuffe" was prohibited on the ground of its ridiculing religion, which was done nightly on the Italian stage; whereas he only satirised hypocrites. "It is true, Molière," said the Prince de Conti, "Harlequin ridicules heaven and exposes religion; but you have done much worse, – you have ridiculed the first minister of religion."

Against the power of prohibition being lodged in one single man, Chesterfield protested, but in vain. One consequence, he said, would be, that all vices prevalent at court would come to be represented as virtues. He told the Lords that they had no right to put an excise upon wit; and said, finely, "Wit, my Lords, is the property of those who have it, – and too often the only property they have to depend on. It is, indeed, but a precarious dependence. Thank God!" he said, "we, my Lords, have a dependence of another kind!"

Such is the substance of his famous but unavailing remonstrance. The bill, not to protect morality, but to spare the susceptibilities of statesmen and place-men, passed; and the result was a "job." In the ensuing spring, Chetwynd was appointed, under the Chamberlain, licenser of plays, with a salary of £400 per annum; and to help him in doing little, Odell was named a deputy-licenser, with £200 yearly; – and therewith the job was consummated; and the deputy-licenser began to break the law he was appointed to see strictly observed. When the Act was passed, his most sacred majesty, who commanded unsavoury pieces occasionally to be played before him, prorogued the parliament, after lamenting the spirit of insubordination and licentiousness which pervaded the community!

The government made use of its authority, by prohibiting plays, and the public took their revenge, by hissing those that were licensed. Among the prohibited, were Brooke's "Gustavus Vasa;" Thomson's "Edward and Eleanora;" and Fielding's "Miss Lucy in Town;"[30 - It is very questionable whether this farce was prohibited. There is nothing in the bills to show that it was; and the Biog. Dram., which says it was prohibited after having been played for some nights, is probably wrong. Fielding published "A Letter" to the Lord Chamberlain, on the subject of this farce; but the point of it is, why was "Miss Lucy" licensed, when less objectionable matter was condemned?]– the first, as dangerous to public order; the second, as too freely alluding to royal family dissensions; the third (after it had been licensed) as satirising "some man of quality!" To these must be added "Arminius," by Paterson, Thomson's deputy in his post of Surveyor of the Leeward Islands. The deputy had copied out his principal's "Edward and Eleanora;" and as "Arminius" was in the same hand, it was forbidden, as being, probably, an equally objectionable piece by the same author! The prohibition applied to it was profitable; for he published his play by subscription, and gained £1000 by it, – not for the reason that it was a good, but because it was a forbidden drama.[31 - Dr. Doran must refer to Brooke, who made £1000 by publishing "Gustavus Vasa." Paterson, I think, was not likely to be equally lucky.]

Audiences amused themselves by hissing the permitted plays, sometimes with the additional luxury of personal feeling against the author, – as in the case of the Rev. Mr. Miller's "Coffee House," "Art and Nature," and "Hospital for Fools." Thomson was fortunate in saving his "Agamemnon" from the censors, for it is not unworthy of ranking with the "Iphigenia" of Racine; and its merit saved it. Mallet was still more lucky with his "Mustapha;" and the audience were too pleased to hiss a piece, the licensers of which were too dull to perceive that Sultan Solyman and his vizier, Rustan, were but stage portraits of George II. and Sir Robert Walpole. They had no such tenderness for the "Parricide" of William Shirley, – a gentleman who understood the laws of trade better than those of the drama. A French company, at the Haymarket, were of course hissed out of the country. There was no ill-will against them, personally. It was sufficient that the Licensing Act authorised them to play, and the public would not tolerate them, accordingly! If they bore with Lillo's "Marina," it was, perhaps, because it was a re-cast of "Pericles;" and if they applauded his licensed "Elmeric," the reason may have been, that the old dissenting jeweller, who set so brave an example in writing "moral" pieces, was then dead; and the "author's nights" might be of advantage to his impoverished family.

But there were licensed dramas at which the public laughed too heartily, to have cared to hiss, or which so entranced them that they never thought of it. Thus, Dodsley's merry pieces, "Sir John Cockle," and the "Blind Beggar;" Carey and Lampe's hilarious burlesque-opera, the "Dragon of Wantley," and its sequel, "Margery;" with "Orpheus and Eurydice," one of Rich's burlesques and pantomimes – the comic operatic scenes not preceding, but alternating with those of the harlequinade – in which, by the way, the name of Grimaldi occurs as pantaloon, – rode riotously triumphant through the seasons, which were otherwise especially remarkable, by numerous revivals of Shakspeare's plays, according to the original text; and not less so by that of Milton's "Comus," in which graceful Mrs. Cibber played and sang the Lady, and sunny Kitty Clive gladdened every heart, as Euphrosyne.

As far as new pieces are concerned, thus stood the stage till Garrick came. In further continuing to clear it for his coming, I have to record the death of Bowman, the best dressed old man at eighty-eight, and the cheeriest that could be seen. My readers, I hope, remember him, in the chapter on Betterton. Miller is also gone, – a favourite actor, in his day, whose merit in Irish characters is set down in his not having a brogue, which, at that period, was unintelligible to English ears. Miller played a wide range of characters; and he married for the very singular reason that, being unable to read the manuscript copy he had to get by heart, his wife might read it to, and beat it into, him. Bullock, too, the original Boniface and Gibby; and Harper, the original Jobson; and Ben. Griffin, quaint in Simon Pure, comic and terrific in Lovegold; with Milward, the original Lusignan; and Ben Jonson, always correct and natural, – have now departed. With them has gone Mrs. Hallam, an actress of repute, – the original Duchess of Malfy, in the revival of Webster's tragedy of horrors. By her death, the boards of old Drury were relieved from a load of fourteen stone weight! – almost as great as that of Mademoiselle Georges.

Of those that were left, Quin was the great chief; but he received a rude shock from Macklin, when the latter, after playing Roxana, in a burlesque of the "Rival Queens," achieved his first triumph, by taking Shylock from low comedy, and playing it as a serious character.[32 - Macklin played Roxana on 17th May, 1738; Shylock on 14th February, 1741.] The managers were as nervously afraid of a riot as those of the Ambigu were, when Frederic Lemaître, making no impression as the villain, Robert Macaire, during the first act of "L'Auberge des Adrets," played it through the rest of the piece as a comic part! In either case, the greatest success ensued, but that of Macklin was most honestly earned; and he took rank forthwith as one of the noble actors of his time.

Turning to other players, I find Mrs. Pritchard progressing from Lady Macduff to Isabella, – from Lucy to Viola and Rosalind. Walker meets a rival in the Macheath of mellifluous Beard. Woodward and Yates are rising to fame. Young Mrs. Cibber disappears for awhile, carrying with her the charms that strike the sight, and the merit that wins the soul. There is a terrible scandal in the cause of her disappearance. "Pistol," her worthless husband, has something more than pushed her into temptation, that he may make money by the offence to which he is the prompter. The public voice condemns him; a jury awards him damages, which show their contempt for his "sense of honour;" and the lady, running away from the house in which he had shut her up, while he was absent, playing that congenial character, Scrub – took for her better friend the man who had fallen in love with her through her husband's contrivance.

As if to compensate for the loss of Mrs. Cibber's honied tones, the stage was wakened to a new delight, by the presence of Margaret Woffington. This Irish actress made her first appearance at Covent Garden, on the 6th of November, 1740, as Sylvia, in the "Recruiting Officer;" and when, a few nights later, she played Sir Harry Wildair, – the ecstatic town were ready to confess, that in the new and youthful charmer they had at once recovered both Mrs. Oldfield and Robert Wilks. And yet this enchantress, so graceful, so winning, so natural, so refined, had commenced her public career as one of the children who were suspended by a rope from the ancles of Madame Violanti, when that wonder of her day exhibited her powers in Dublin on the tight-rope.

Loth to leave entirely, Colley Cibber now and then, at £50 a night, played a round of characters, always to crowded houses, but most so when he enacted some of his old beaux and fops. His Richard did not so well please; and one night, when playing this character, he whispered to Victor that he would give £50 to be in his easy chair again, by his fireside.

There was a Richard at hand who was likely to drive him there, and keep all others from the stage. The season of 1741-42 opened at Drury, on September 5, with "Love for Love," and the "Mock Doctor." The additions to the company, of note, were Delane, Theophilus Cibber, and Mrs. Woffington. Quin was absent starring in Ireland. Covent Garden opened on October 8th with the "Provoked Wife." On the 19th of the latter month, while Drury was giving "As You Like It," and Covent Garden was acting the same piece, the little theatre in Ayliffe Street, Goodman's Fields, announced the "Life and Death of King Richard III.," "the part of King Richard by a gentleman who never appeared on any stage."

At last! the hour and the man had come. Throughout this season no new piece was produced at either of the patent theatres,[33 - "Miss Lucy in Town" was produced at Drury Lane this season.] so influenced were they by the consequences of this first appearance of a nameless actor at Goodman's Fields. Of course, the new actor was David Garrick.

CHAPTER V

GARRICK, QUIN, MRS. PORTER

He had selected the part of Richard III., for reasons which now appear singular. "He had often declared," says Davies, "he would never choose a character that was not suitable to his person; for, said he, if I should come forth in a hero, or in any part which is generally acted by a tall fellow, I shall not be offered a larger salary than 40s. a week. In this," adds the biographer, "he glanced at the follies of those managers who used to measure an actor's merit by his size."

On that 19th of October 1741, there was no very great nor excitedly expectant audience at Goodman's Fields. The bill of the day first promises a concert of vocal and instrumental music, to begin exactly at six o'clock; admission by tickets "at 3s., 2s., and 1s." Between the two parts of the concert, it is further announced that the historical play of the "Life and Death of Richard III.," with the ballad-opera of "The Virgin Unmasked," would be "performed gratis by Persons for their Diversion." The part of King Richard, "by a gentleman who never appeared on any stage," is an announcement, not true to the letter; but the select audience were not troubled therewith. From the moment the new actor appeared they were enthralled. They saw a Richard and not an actor of that personage. Of the audience, he seemed unconscious, so thoroughly did he identify himself with the character. He surrendered himself to all its requirements, was ready for every phase of passion, every change of humour, and was as wonderful in quiet sarcasm as he was terrific in the hurricane of the battle-scenes. Above all, his audience were delighted with his "nature." Since Betterton's death, actors had fallen into a rhythmical, mechanical, sing-song cadence. The style still lingers among conservative French tragedians. Garrick spoke not as an orator, but as King Richard himself might have spoken in like circumstances. The chuckling exultation of his "So much for Buckingham!" was long a tradition on the stage. His "points," indeed, occurred in rapid succession. We are told that the rage and rapidity with which he delivered

"Cold friends to me! What do they in the North,
When they should serve their sovereign in the West?"

made a wonderful impression on the audience. Hogarth has shown us how he looked, when starting from his dream; and critics tell us that his cry of "Give me another horse!" was the cry of a gallant, fearless man; but that it fell into one of distress as he said, "Bind up my wounds," while the "Have mercy, Heaven," was moaned piteously, on bended knee. The battle-scene and death excited the utmost enthusiasm of an audience altogether unused to acting like this. The true successor of Betterton had, at last, appeared. Betterton was the great actor of the days of Charles II., James II., William, and of Anne. Powell, Verbruggen,[34 - Verbruggen died before Betterton.] Mills, Quin, were unequal to the upholding of such a task as Betterton had left them. Booth was more worthy of the inheritance; but after him came the true heir, David Garrick, the first tragic actor who gave extraordinary lustre to the Georgian Era.

And yet, for seven nights, the receipts averaged but about £30 a night; and Garrick only slowly made his way at first. Then suddenly the town was aroused. The western theatres were abandoned. "Mr. Garrick," says Davies, "drew after him the inhabitants of the most polite parts of the town. Goodman's Fields were full of the splendour of St. James's and Grosvenor Square. The coaches of the nobility filled up the space from Temple Bar to Whitechapel." Among these, even bishops might have been found. Pope came up from Twickenham, and without disparaging Betterton, as some old stagers were disposed to do, only "feared the young man would be spoiled, for he would have no competitor." Quin felt his laurels shaking on his brow, and declared that if this young man was right, he and all the old actors must be wrong. But Quin took courage. Dissent was a-foot, and he compared the attraction of Garrick to the attraction of Whitfield. The sheep would go astray. The throwster's shop-theatre was, in his eyes, a sort of conventicle. It would all come right by-and-bye. The people, he said, who go to chapel will soon come to church again.

Meanwhile let us trace the new actor through his first and only season in the far east. During that season, from the 19th of October 1741, to the 29th of May 1742, Garrick acted more comic than tragic characters; of the latter he played Richard (eighteen times), Chamont, Lothario, the Ghost in "Hamlet" (Giffard, the manager, playing the Dane), Aboan, King Lear, and Pierre. In comedy, he played Clodio ("Love Makes a Man"), Fondlewife, Costar Pearmain, Witwoud, Bayes, Master Johnny ("School Boy"), Lord Foppington ("Careless Husband"), Duretete, Captain Brazen, and two characters in farces, of which he was the original representative; Jack Smatter in "Pamela," and Sharp in the "Lying Valet." This is, at least, a singular selection.

The most important of his comic essays in his first busy season, when he frequently played in tragedy and farce, on the same night, without affecting to be wearied, was in the part of Bayes. His wonderful powers of mimicry, or imitation, were not known till then; and in displaying them, his Bayes was a triumph, although other actors excelled him in that part, as a whole.

His great scene was at the rehearsal of his play, when he corrected the players, and instructing them how to act their parts, he gave imitations of the peculiarities of several contemporary actors. Garrick began with Delane, a comedian of merit, good presence, and agreeable voice, but, we are told, a "declaimer." In taking him off, Garrick retired to the upper part of the stage, and drawing his left arm across his breast, rested his right elbow upon it, raising a finger to his nose; he then came forward in a stately gait, nodding his head as he advanced, and in the exact tone of Delane, spoke the famous simile of the "Boar and the Sow." This imitation is said to have injured Delane in the estimation of the town; but it was enjoyed by no one more than by tall and handsome Hale of Covent Garden, where his melodious voice was nightly used in the character of lover. But when Hale recognised himself in the soft, plaintive accents of a speech delivered without feeling, he was as disgusted as Giffard, who was so nettled by Garrick's close mimicry of his striking peculiarities that he is said to have challenged the mimic, fought with him, and wounded him in the sword-arm. Ryan, more wisely, let Garrick excite what mirth he might from the imitation of the hoarse and tremulous voice of the former; and Quin, always expecting to be "taken off," was left untouched, salient as were his points, on the ground, according to Murphy, of Quin's excellence in characters suited to him.

From a salary of £1 a night, Garrick went up at once to half profits. The patent theatres remained empty when he played at Goodman's Fields, and accordingly the patentees, threatening an application to the law in support of their privileges, shut up the house, made terms with Giffard, and Garrick was brought over to Drury Lane, where his salary was speedily fixed at £600 per annum, being one hundred more than that of Quin, which hitherto had been the highest ever received by any player.

His first appearance at Drury Lane was on May 11, 1742, when he played gratuitously for the benefit of Harper's widow, taking what was then considered the inferior part of Chamont, in the "Orphan," of which he made the principal character in the play. With Bayes, on the 29th,[35 - Should be on the 26th.] Lear and Richard, each part played once, he brought his preliminary performances at Drury to a close. In June, 1742, after playing triumphantly during the brief remainder of the spring season at Drury Lane, Garrick, in company with Mrs. Woffington, crossed, by invitation, to Dublin. During an unusually hot summer he drew such thickly-packed audiences that a distemper became epidemic among those who constantly visited the ill-ventilated theatre, which proved fatal to many, and which received the distinction of being called the Garrick fever. Of course, Garrick had not equally affected all the judges. Neither Gray nor Walpole allowed him to be the transcendent actor which the town generally held him to be, from the first night of his appearance. "Did I tell you about Mr. Garrick, that the town are horn-mad after?" writes Gray to Chute; "There are a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman's Fields, sometimes; and yet I am stiff in the opposition." In May, 1742, Walpole writes in like strain to Mann: – "All the run is now after Garrick, a wine-merchant, who is turned player at Goodman's Fields. He plays all parts, and is a very good mimic. His acting I have seen, and may say to you, who will not tell it again here, I see nothing wonderful in it; but it is heresy to say so. The Duke of Argyll says he is superior to Betterton." The old Lord Cobham, who was then at Stowe nursing Jemmy Hammond, the poet, who was then dying for love of the incomparable Miss Dashwood, was of the same opinion with the Duke; but they could only contrast Betterton in his decline with Garrick in his young and vigorous manhood.

In November of the last-named year, Mrs. Pendarves (Delany) saw the new actor in Richard III. "Garrick acted," she says, "with his usual excellence; but I think I won't go to any more such deep tragedies, they shock the mind too much, and the common objects of misery we daily meet with are sufficient mortification." This lady, too, records the great dissensions that raged among critics with respect to his merits.

Before we accompany this great actor in his career of thirty years and upwards, let us close the present chapter by looking back over the path he has already passed, and which comes towards us, singularly enough, from Versailles, and the cabinet of the Great King!

Yes! When Louis XIV., on the 22nd of October, 1685, signed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he lost 800,000 Protestant subjects, filled Spitalfields, Soho, St. Giles, and other parts of England, with 50,000 able artizans, and gave David Garrick to the English stage!

The grandfather of David was among the fugitives. That he moderately prospered may be believed, since his son ultimately held a captain's commission in the English army. Captain Garrick married a lady named Clough, the daughter of a Lichfield vicar; and the most famous son of this marriage, David, was born at Hereford, his father's recruiting quarters, in February, 1716. In the same city was born Nell Gwyn, if that, and not Margaret Simcott, be her proper name. Her great grandson, Lord James Beauclerk, was not yet bishop of the place when Garrick was born, but a much more dramatic personage, Philip Bisse, was. This right reverend gentleman was the audacious individual who, catching the Duchess of Plymouth in the dark, kissed her, and then apologised, on the ground that he had mistaken her for a Maid of Honour. The lively Duchess, who was then the widow of Charles Fitz-Charles, natural son of Charles II., by Catherine Peg, married the surpliced Corydon. Their life was a pleasant comedy; and under this very dramatic episcopate was Roscius born.

His boyhood was passed at Lichfield, where he became more remarkable for his mania for acting than for application to school studies. At the age of eleven years, chief of a boyish company of players, he acted Kite, in the "Recruiting Officer," in which one of his sisters represented the Chambermaid, and to which Master Samuel Johnson refused to supply an introductory address. From Lichfield he made a trip to Lisbon, and therewith an attempt to fix himself in a vocation. His failure was no source of regret to himself. His uncle, a wine-merchant in the Portuguese capital, was not disposed to initiate the volatile lad into the mysteries of his craft, and David returned to Lichfield, with such increase of taste for the drama, that "several of his father's acquaintances," says Davies, "who knew the delight which he felt in the entertainment of the stage, often treated him with a journey to London, that he might feast his appetite at the playhouse." By this singular liberality, the ardent youth was enabled to see old Mills and Wilks, the two Cibbers, Ryan (of whose Richard, Garrick always spoke with admiration), and Quin. Booth was then stricken with the illness which ultimately killed him, and Garrick thus failed to study the greatest of actors between the era of Betterton and the coming time of Garrick himself. Of actresses the most important whom he saw, were Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Cibber, with whom he was destined to rouse the passions of many an audience, and Miss Raftor, who, as Mrs. Clive, was afterwards to rouse and play with his own.

This ardent youth returned to Lichfield with more eager desire than ever to achieve fame and fortune on the stage. To supply what had been lacking in his education, he became the pupil of Samuel Johnson; but master and scholar soon wearied of it, and they together left Lichfield for London, Garrick with small means and great hopes, Johnson with means as small, and his tragedy of "Irene."

The resources of David were speedily increased by the death of his uncle, who bequeathed him a thousand pounds, with the interest of which David paid the cost of instruction which he received from the Rev. Mr. Colson. Other opportunities failing, he joined with his brother Peter in the wine trade, in Durham Yard, where, said Foote, in after years, and with his characteristic ill-nature, "David lived, with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine-merchant." Had the father of David been at home, instead of on service at Gibraltar, the latter would probably have been a Templar student; but Garrick hated the study of the law, and, out of deference to his mother, the vicar's daughter, he refrained from appearing on the stage; but when both parents had passed away, within the same year, Garrick, who had studied each living actor of mark, and even recorded his judgment of them, anonymously and honestly, in the public papers, left the stock in trade at Durham Yard to his senior partner and brother. In 1741, a diffident young gentlemen, calling himself Lyddell,[36 - Davies and Murphy both give the name as "Lyddal."] made his first appearance on the stage; at Ipswich. He selected the part of Aboan for two reasons: that it was a secondary character, and that Aboan was a "black." The attempt presented less difficulty, for the first reason; and failure need not be followed by recognition, seeing that his features would be half-concealed under "colour." The attempt, however, was fairly successful, but not a triumph. David went earnestly into training. He played every species of character, solemn tragedy heroes, high and low comedy, and even that incarnation of the monkey in man, as Alphonse Karr calls him, the bustling, glittering, active, and potent Harlequin.

His career of a few months at Ipswich was as the preparatory canter of the high-mettled racer over the course. All who witnessed it augured well of the young actor; and Giffard, the manager, agreed to bring him out in London in the autumn of the same year, 1741, at that theatre, in Goodman's Fields, which had been made, twelve years previously, out of a throwster's shop. It had been opened, without competent licence, by Odell, the dramatist, and subsequently deputy licenser of plays under the famous Act which Walpole introduced and Chesterfield opposed. Odell was so conscientious, or so prudent, that in consequence of a sermon preached against the theatre, in one of the Aldgate churches, he sold his interest to Giffard, who enlarged the house, and opened it in 1732. After a struggle of three seasons' duration, the determined opposition of the Eastern puritans drove him to Lincoln's Inn Fields. He returned, however, at the end of two years; and maintained his position with varying fortunes, till at length, in 1741, he brought Mr. Lyddell,[37 - Lyddal.] now Mr. Garrick, from the banks of the Orwell to the neighbourhood of the old gate, where the statues of Love and Charity still stood, and near which, crowds soon awoke such echoes as had not been heard in the vicinity since the godlike effigies were first erected.

In the season of 1742-43, Garrick acted about eighty nights, – Hamlet, thirteen times; Richard and Bayes, eleven; Archer, nine; Lear, six; Fondlewife and Hastings, four; Chamont, three; Plume, Clodio, and Pierre, twice; Abel Drugger, once; Wildair, created by him in Fielding's "Wedding Day," Lothario, Millamour,[38 - Should read: – "Millamour, created by him in Fielding's 'Wedding Day,' Lothario, Wildair."] and Sharp, occasionally.[39 - This list is very inaccurate. It is obviously taken from Genest, iv. 38, but Dr. Doran has mistaken the meaning of Genest's list, which includes only those nights for which the bill is not given in the text. The record should stand thus: – Hamlet, fifteen times; Richard and Bayes, fourteen; Archer, eleven; Lear, seven; Fondlewife and Hastings, five; Chamont, four; Plume, five; Clodio, four; Pierre, three; Abel Drugger, four or five times, it cannot be decided which. Then the Schoolboy must be added to the list of occasional characters; and it should be noted that there are no bills for April 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.] Of these, Wildair was a decided failure.

Quin played against him at Covent Garden, Richard, Chamont, Lear, and Pierre, but in these he proved no competitor. He fell back on his general repertory, and, among many other characters, played Falstaff, Macbeth, Othello, and Brutus, none of which Garrick assumed this year. Garrick's Fondlewife was opposed by that of Hippisley at Covent Garden, and that of Cibber, the younger, at Lincoln's Inn Fields. His Hamlet was encountered by that of Ryan, at Covent Garden, to Quin's Ghost; and a counter-attraction to his Lothario was set up in those of Ryan and of the silly amateur, Highmore, the latter at Lincoln's Inn Fields. From all competition, Garrick came out triumphant.

Of Lincoln's Inn Fields, this was the "positively final" season. Giffard managed the house with judgment, but he lost there some of the wealth which he had acquired at Goodman's Fields, and out of which he purchased the ground on which he built Coventry Court, locality of gloomy reputation, near the Haymarket. Dulwich College was a wiser investment of money acquired in the theatre.

Covent Garden lost, this year, a great actress in Mrs. Porter, who commenced her theatrical career as theatrical attendant to Mrs. Barry, and was one of the old players of King William's days. Among the most marked of her original representations were Araminta, in the "Confederacy;" Hermione, Lucia, in "Cato;" Alicia, in "Jane Shore;" Lady Woodville, in the "Nonjuror;" Leonora, in the "Revenge;" and Lady Grace, in the "Provoked Husband." Few details of her life are known.

Genest combines the testimonies of Victor and Davies in describing Mrs. Porter as the genuine successor of Mrs. Barry, to whom the former had long played the "confidantes" in tragedy, and from the great mistress learned her noble art. We are told that Mrs. Porter was tall and well made, of a fair complexion, but far from handsome; her voice, which was naturally tender, was by labour and practice enlarged into sufficient force to fill the theatre, but by that means a tremor was contracted to which nothing but custom could have reconciled the audience. She elevated herself above all personal defects by an exquisite judgment. In comedy, her acting was somewhat cold and inefficient; but in those parts of tragedy where the passions predominate, she seemed to be another person, and to be inspired with that noble and enthusiastic ardour which was capable of raising the coldest auditor to animation. She had a dignity in her mien, and a spirited propriety in all characters of rage; but when grief and tenderness possessed her, she subsided into the most affecting softness. She acted the tragic parts of Hermione and Belvidera with great applause. Booth, who was no admirer of Mrs. Oldfield in tragedy, was in raptures with Mrs. Porter's Belvidera. She excelled particularly in her agony, when forced from Jaffier, in the second act, and in her madness.

After the dislocation of her limb, and in advanced age, she still acted with vigour and success. In Queen Elizabeth ("Albion Queens"), she turned the cane she used on account of her lameness, to great advantage. After signing Mary's death warrant, she "struck the stage," says Davies, "with such characteristic vehemence that the audience reiterated applause."

On Valentine's night, 1743, the Prince and Princess of Wales were present at her farewell benefit, when she played this Queen Elizabeth, under august patronage. The fine old lady seems to have fallen into some distress, for in 1758 she published, by five shillings subscriptions, for her benefit, the comedy of "The Mistakes, or the Happy Resentment," which had been given to her by Pope's Lord Cornbury, the son, but not destined to be the heir, of the last of the Hydes, who bore the title of Earls of Clarendon. He was a dull writer, but so good a man, that Walpole says, in reference to Pope's line —

"Disdain what Cornbury disdains" —

"it was a test of virtue to disdain what he disdained." After his death, by falling from a horse in France, the decayed tragedy queen published the play. The old and favoured servant of the public modestly says, that her "powers of contributing to their amusement are no more," but that she "always retains a grateful sense of the indulgence she had received from those who have had the goodness to accept her inclination and endeavours to please, as real merit." Nothing could be more modest, but the truth is that this was written for Mrs. Porter by Horace Walpole. The subscription list was well filled, – the Countess Cowper, whose letters figure in Mrs. Delany's memoirs, taking fourscore copies.

Let us now return to the renewed struggles of the rival houses, made fiercer by the rise of a new actor.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VI

RIVALRY; AND ENTER, SPRANGER BARRY