"He has got into our tiring-house amongst us, Our planets and our constellations, Our giants, monsters, furies, beasts, and bugbears, I dive not to his thoughts: wonder he did He has justly gained the kingdom by his conquest." When these lines were written, enemies of a more real kind were preparing for an onslaught into the strongholds of the profession; the players were to gather soon for the support of a "crown and royal robes," which should be no mimic toys of the 'tiring-room, but the symbols of a mighty power round which, both in attack and defence, armies of Englishmen would congregate, and where they would find what one of their number had in another sense desired— "A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!" In 1642 appeared an ordinance of the Long Parliament, commanding the cessation of plays, on the ground that "public sports do not well agree with public calamities, nor public stage-plays with the seasons of humiliation, this being an exercise of sad and pious solemnity, and the other being spectacles of pleasure, too commonly expressing lascivious mirth and levity." For a time the ordinance was obeyed, though of course a cruel one to the actors, whose means of existence were annihilated; but gradually theatres opened again, first in one quarter and then in another, and by 1647 the ordinance seems to have been almost forgotten. A second then appeared, dealing in a more summary mode with all offenders, directing the governing powers and magistracy of London and adjoining counties. to enter houses where performances were taking place, arrest the players, and commit them for trial at the next sessions, there to be "punished as rogues according to law." Even this being found insufficient, the Lords and Commons met and debated the matter warmly, and at last an Act was passed on the 11th of February, 1648, which, after denouncing stage-plays, interludes, and common plays as "the occasion of many and sundry great vices and disorders, tending to the high provocation of God's wrath and displeasure, which lies heavy upon this kingdom," ordained the demolition of all stage galleries, seats and boxes used for performances, and the punishment of convicted players with open and public whipping for the first offence, and with still severer penalties for a second. No wonder we hear of so many of the players joining the ranks of the Cavaliers during the Civil War, where, it may be added, they are understood to have honourably distinguished themselves. Some few actors, however, appear to have kept together, and acted occasionally in private at the residences of noblemen and others in the vicinity of London without interruption: Holland House was one of these places. Under Cromwell there was still greater toleration, as Sir William D'Avenant gave "entertainments of declamation and music, after the manner of the ancients, at Rutland House, Charter House Square," in 1656, and in 1658 re-opened the Cockpit in Drury Lane, where he performed without molestation until the Restoration. A new era then opened for the drama. Perhaps the most characteristic feature of the restored English theatre was its extraordinary facility for extracting the evil out of everything it touched. The Elizabethan drama was not forgotten-far from it; there is scarcely a grossness in those old writers which the new ones did not now imitate and greatly improve upon; they only forgot the truth and vividness of character and life that accompanied them-their high sentiment, their noble passions, their wonderful ever-gushing fount of poetry. So again with the French drama, which they so much admired: they borrowed from it an air of conventional stiffness and formality which did not sit altogether ungracefully on a truly great poet like Corneille, whose spirit was cast in the antique mould; but that air they mistook for him. Lastly, when they began to turn their eyes homewards, and inquire what materials for an English play English society might afford, nothing can be more perfect than the tact with which, in their comedies for instance, they avoided whatever was solid, or permanent, or productive of true genial humour and universal wit. Their wit, for no one can deny the brilliancy of their repartee, was conventional. One has only to ask where we should look for the greatest amount of conjoined frivolity, and profligacy, and sensuality, during the reign which was as a perfect hotbed to these vices, and there we shall find the greatest dramatic writers of the latter part of the seventeenth century, from Dryden and Wycherley to Congreve and Vanbrugh. They have had their reward. One or two solitary plays (the Provoked Husband') of all the dramatic writings of these men, who were so well calculated by nature to support the reputation of a national drama, alone, we believe, remains upon the stage. But in the precise proportion that they are neglected now, were they read, and acted, and enjoyed then. Universal popularity among playgoers was theirs-unbounded the royal admiration and approval of their works. Theatres filled-in opposition to the puritan spirit it became a proof of loyalty to attend them-managers smiled, there was no stirring in society but they met the echoes of their own wit. D'Avenant was the first to profit by so cheering a state of things, both as manager and author, and was certainly well fitted for his position. His residence in France had brought his tastes into a state of proper harmony with those of his sovereign; and the personal favours he enjoyed with Charles II. offered peculiar opportunities for the diffusion of those tastes. He obtained a licence (the origin of the existing Covent Garden patent right, as the licence granted at the same period to Killigrew is of that of Drury Lane) and built a theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1662, where, instead of the old half-lighted houses, wax-candles shed a brilliant blaze around, moveable painted scenes were introduced-music, operas, and an orchestra. But these novelties were as nothing compared to that of the appearance of actresses on the stage, as a part of the regular company; a feature so amazingly relished by Charles and his courtiers (and, indeed, it had its peculiar advantages for them, as we learn from the list of their female favourites) that certain pieces-we need not describe them-were occasionally played by females alone. It is pleasant to turn for a moment from these reminiscences to some of a purer character. Shakspere's plays, or at least so much of them as met the approval of D'Avenant, were played in a style of high excellence. Many of the actors were men of the old school, the remnants of the former companies; and one of them, Betterton, has, from all we can learn, never been surpassed in the performance of some of the grandest of the Shaksperian creations. And he has been fortunate in having had critics at once capable of appreciating his excellence, and enabling posterity to appreciate it too. Hamlet' was one of D'Avenant's early revivals, and the story goes that the manager taught Betterton how Taylor, whom he remembered, had acted the part from Shakspere's own instructions; but such acting as that described by Cibber in a well-known passage is learnt from within, not from without; though in the general apprehension of a character like Hamlet's, the smallest hint, no matter by what medium it came, from the poet himself, would be of incalculable value. Such a man was of course little fitted for the rhyming and eminently "mouthing" tragedies Dryden now poured forth in rapid succession, as if to show his contempt for his own early avowed admiration for Shakspere, or, as we would rather suggest, as if to give us unconsciously a proof of the high nobility of his own spirit, by a public renunciation in his latter days of the entire principles and practices of his dramatic career,—of his public return to the only true school, from which he had unwisely or recklessly departed. There are few things in literary history more instructive than this part of Dryden's life-nothing in all his works, excellent as they are when not dramatic, that more elevates or endears to us the memory of "glorious John." The rise of the school of "genteel comedy," as it has been called, is another interesting feature of the same reign, for, impure as it was in the hands of its founders, it gradually lost that impurity, whilst improving at the same time in excellences of a more positive character, as it passed, step by step, from Congreve to Sheridan, who, whilst almost rivalling the former writer in his own especial excellence, wit, has, in addition, plot, and varied character, and moral purpose in his satires to which Congreve could lay no claim. The English opera, too, must not be forgotten in reckoning the demands of the era in question upon our attention. In 1673 appeared Shadwell's Psyche,' with music by Matthew Lock; and some years later Dryden's, or rather Purcell's, King Arthur,' for the only valuable portion of the work is the composer's. Those who availed themselves of the recent opportunity of enjoying its music will not soon forget such passages as the frost scene,—such duets as that of "Two daughters of this aged stream are we." Other works by the same composer followed; then came Arne, and Jackson, and Linley, and Dibdin, and Shield, and Storace, and gave us that school of genuine national music which we know so well how to forget. We have now noticed the two most characteristic periods in the history of our national drama, which is, in the best sense of the word, the history of our metropolitan theatres; and, long as is the period that has elapsed since the latest of them, we can add no third. The fact is that, with here and there a few exceptions to the general current of theatrical literature, such as must arise in every art from the peculiar characters of individuals, and which have given us such genuine plays, even in the most unpromising of times, as Otway's 'Venice Preserved,' or as some of the productions of an actor-dramatist of the present day, our dramatic history may be summed up in three words: we have grown as correct in everything as spiritless (Cato,' and the plays of the Cato form in the Anglo-French school, may be looked on as mere emanations of this feeling of propriety, as far as their dramatic excellence is concerned); we have imported --and subsequently worked hard at the same manufacture at home till we were wearied of it-the Kotzebue-German productions of the Pizarro' and Stranger' classes; we have established a melo-drama, which may yet rise into respectability, with a few more well-intentioned mistakes on the parts of certain authors, in thinking they are all the while writing plays. The dramatic-poem writers, who so carefully disclaim all connexion with the theatre, of course may be here disclaimed in return. The Italian Opera, as something exotic in its origin, and still needing the shelter of the aristocratic conservatory in which it was first planted, for its due support, demands separate notice. The first building in the Haymarket was erected by Vanbrugh at the beginning of the last century, the funds having been provided by a numerous body of subscribers, among whom were the chief members of the Kit-Cat Club. A rival house to Drury Lane, then enjoying a career of remarkable prosperity, was the object of the builder, whose scheme for its attainment was altogether a bold one; namely, that of joining himself and Congreve as writers and managers to such a company as Betterton and his companions, then playing at the Tennis Court, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as actors. All parties were sanguine as to success; the players, it appears, fancying the reputation of their literary allies, and the grandeur of the new house, would cause the whole town to be attracted. "In this golden dream they however found themselves miserably deceived and disappointed, as on the opening of this grand and superb structure it was immediately discovered that almost every quality and convenience of a good theatre had been sacrificed and neglected, to show the spectator a vast triumphal piece of architecture; and that the best play was less capable of delighting the auditor here than it would be in the plain and unadorned house they had just come from; for what with their vast columns, their gilded cornices, and immoderately high roof, scarce one word in ten could be distinctly heard. The extraordinary and superfluous space occasioned such an undulation from the voice of every actor, that, generally, what they said sounded like the gabbling of so many people in the lofty aisles of a cathedral. The tone of a trumpet, or the swell of a musical voice, might be sweetened by it; but the articulate sounds of a speaking voice were drowned by the hollow reverberations of one word upon another. 'Tis true, the spectators were struck with surprise and wonder at the magnificent appearance the house displayed in every way they turned their eyes. The ceiling over the orchestra was a semi-oval arch, that sprung fifteen feet higher from above the cornice. The ceiling over the pit, too, was still more raised; being one level line from the highest back part of the upper gallery to the front of the stage. The front boxes were a continued semicircle to the bare walls of the house on each side, and the effect altogether was truly surprising. In the course of two or three years the ceilings over both orchestra and pit were lowered; and instead of the semi-oval arch, that over the orchestra was made a flat, which greatly improved the hearing."* The very defects of the house, however, helped to promote certain schemes of Vanbrugh's in a new quarter. In July, 1703, interludes and musical entertainments of singing and dancing had been given in Italian at York Buildings. Two years after, a regular dramatic Italian piece, with the narrative and dialogue in recitative, but translated, and performed by English actors and singers, was brought out at Drury Lane. Such were the cautious steps by which the Italian Opera stole into this country. Vanbrugh, in the same year, 1705, opened the new theatre, when, in addition to the English play by Betterton's company, there was presented "Signor Giacomo Greber's Loves of Ergosto,' set to Italian music." But the house failed the very first season, not even the attraction, towards its close, so characteristic of the two managers, of the performance of Love for Love,' by women, serving to draw sufficient audiences for above three nights. Betterton and his company returned to Lincoln's Inn. The Italian Opera was more and more assiduously cultivated in succeeding seasons, to prevent the utter ruin of the house from the continuous failure of the English performances; in 1708, Operas were played in which Italian and native singers were mingled; and, in 1710, the Italian Opera was introduced entire at last, Almahide' having been performed that year in the foreign language, by foreign performers. The popularity which the Opera, or rather the singers who we suspect were much better appreciated than the composers whose strains they warbled-soon obtained, may be illustrated by the well-known expression of a very enthusiastic lady, "One God, one Farinelli!" On the individual histories of the three theatres that are alone licensed to play the regular drama we cannot attempt to enter, but a few dates may be useful. When D'Avenant obtained his licence, and formed his company under the title of the Duke's Servants (the King's brother being their patron), Killigrew, as we have before stated, obtained similar powers for the formation and employment of a company at the old Cockpit in Drury Lane: these were to be the King's servants. At the close of the century both patents had fallen into the same hands, those of Rich, the pantomimist; who, by his parsimony, excited so much disgust, that Drury Lane was taken from him, and the licence granted to another party. Steele's name was subsequently entered in the patent; but it was not till the advent upon the London stage of the most perfect actor, perhaps, the world has yet seen, Garrick, that it obtained its highest state of repute and prosperity. In 1745 Garrick and Lacy purchased the theatre, enlarged the house, and opened it with Johnson's well-known prologue. This was a new era of acting, if not of writing; and one can very well understand the great Shaksperian services of Garrick, if we consider that it was not alone the harmony resulting from the greatest of actors representing the characters of the greatest of poets, but that he appears to have been distinguished at the same time, like the poet, by the naturalness of his style. In 1776 Sheridan became part-proprietor, and it was during his government that the Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1809. The Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata. |