Volume 1 — DRAMATICUS.
Reading edition
No. II.
Edward and Eleonora.
This excellent and interesting tragedy, the production of the admired author of the Seasons, was, for some reason not easily discoverable, prohibited from representation by the Lord Chamberlain,[L] with whose dictatorial power over dramatic performances the world is well acquainted. Many of the scenes are most exquisitely tender and pathetic, and for the effects they produce on hearts of sensibility, are equal (with due deference be it said) to any in the English or perhaps any other language.
SOUTHERN.
Previous to the era of Southern's writing for the stage, the authors of dramatic pieces had only the emoluments of the third night of representation[M]. He deserves the gratitude of all succeeding dramatists, for successfully contending with the managers, for the proceeds of every third night of the run of a new play. The vast increase of advantage from a very successful drama, produced by this arrangement, holds out a great additional inducement to the exertions of the talents of dramatists. Southern cleared, according to Baker, seven hundred pounds sterling by one play—which, I presume, must have been Oronoko.
OTWAY.
The manner of this unfortunate writer's death is variously stated by various writers. I wish some of the correspondents of the Dramatic Censor would elucidate this point. I hope the general opinion is not true, that, being almost famished, he began so ravenously to devour a loaf which was given him for charity, that the first mouthful choaked him, and put a period to his existence.
Few dramatic performances require the pruning knife so much, and would so amply repay the trouble, as some of those of Otway. In the Orphan there are some passages as gross and offensive as are to be found, probably in any tragedy whatever. There is moreover too much of horror in it. The stage, it has been justly remarked, is made a mere slaughter-house. These objections, both of which are very strong, might be easily removed—and if they were, the tragedy would be excellent. After writing these lines I have doubted whether I should not erase them. The incestuous connexion of Polydore and Monimia, on which the chief interest of the performance turns, is revolting, and incapable of being eradicated without destroying the piece.
The error of judgment in Venice Preserved is equally conspicuous. Less alteration would be necessary to render this tragedy, which is now to the last degree exceptionable, a chef d'œuvre. Had the tyranny and oppression of the senators been made prominent and conspicuous—had the conspirators been animated with the glorious spirit that fired a Bruce, a Wallace, a Gustavus Vasa, a Hampden, a Sydney, a William Tell, or a Washington—then angels might have bowed down to hear the language of a Pierre deploring the miseries of his oppressed countrymen. But when, instead of glorying in the risk they ran, and the sacrifice they made for their country, their whole object clearly appears to be rapine and murder, the liberal mind turns with horror from such a prostitution of the writer's talents, which, had they been under the government of a sound judgment and correct principles, would have reflected high honour on the age and country in which they flourished.
Candour and Modesty.
Henry Metayer, author of a tragedy called the Perfidious Brother, committed it to Theobald, of Dunciad memory, for examination and correction. The latter had the monstrous effrontery, after having made a few verbal alterations in it, to have it acted and printed as his own.[N] Metayer, incensed at this piratical proceeding, appealed to the public, and had his own work printed. The literary thief excited the contempt and detestation such a base procedure merited.
Charles Macklin.
This actor has the credit of having checked a nefarious practice, which has prevailed to a certain degree in almost every theatre, and of which Philadelphia and New-York have exhibited some striking instances. I mean the practice of certain meanspirited wretches, who bear malice towards particular performers, and make parties to hiss them off the stage. It is not easy to conceive of a greater degree of baseness, turpitude, and cowardice, than is manifested by this conduct. The object of their malice is unable to defend himself from their attacks. This, to a generous mind, would be an ægis, and protect the person who could make such a plea, as completely as her sex protects a woman. But with the persons here contemplated, the impunity they expect is the very incitement to their inglorious warfare.
Some of these ruffians having in this mode assailed Macklin, he singled out as many of them as he could identify by the deposition of competent witnesses. Against these offenders he commenced a prosecution[O] in which they were found guilty, and exemplarily punished. The salutary effects of this spirited procedure, I am informed, are still perceptible in the London theatres.
Richard Fullerton.
While I am writing on this topic, I may be allowed to drop a tear to the memory of this unfortunate victim to the brutal system I have referred to in the preceding paragraphs. That he was hunted to suicide, I could, if necessary, establish by indisputable testimony. A very worthy man, of the most strict veracity, now residing in Baltimore, informed me that he was in a corner of the green-room, in the theatre of this city one night when Fullerton was actually hissed off the stage. When the poor persecuted actor came into the green-room, he did not perceive the gentleman, and clenching his fists, struck his forehead, and swore with a most desperate oath, that the ruffians would be the death of him. His sensibility to outrage and insult overpowered and unmanned him. A few days afterwards he consigned himself to the waves of the Delaware, to escape from the fury of his remorseless persecutors.
What is here stated, was asserted in a cotemporaneous pamphlet, published in this city on the occasion. The New-York reviewers, grossly violating every principle of decency, propriety and justice, assailed the writer, as if he had been guilty of a base fabrication, and had invented this hideous charge, to dishonour the Philadelphia audience. Without any fair opportunity of investigating the facts, they had the decency and modesty to pronounce sentence with an assumption of oracular infallibility. Probably the annals of literature can hardly produce a more unfair attack upon any writer than the review to which I here allude.
A Dramatic Bull.
In a sorry tragedy, called the Fall of Tarquin, written by one Hunt, there is a description of a forest, in which the author has this ludicrous line—
And the tall trees stood circling in a row.[P]
She would and she would not—or the kind Impostor.
The humour of this comedy, in many of the scenes, has hardly ever been exceeded by any writer in any language. The dialogue between Don Manuel and Don Philip, in which the former undertakes to "bamboozle" the son of his friend, whom he conceives to be an arrant impostor, is absolutely a masterpiece of humour. There are several other scenes of nearly equal merit. It is difficult even at this day, to form a correct judgement of Cibber—as the disgrace attached to him by Pope in the Dunciad excited against him a prejudice which at this distance of time continues to operate on the mind of the reader.
High life below Stairs.
It is generally known, I believe, that the livery servants, a very numerous and formidable body, formed a combination to suppress this elegant and humorous satire on their vices and follies, the first night it was performed. But fortunately for good taste and good sense, these heroes of the epaulette were suppressed, and the piece had much more success than it probably would have had, but for this ill-judged attempt.
It is not, however, so generally known that this after piece owes its origin to one of the papers in the Spectator, in which a number of servants of the nobility are introduced, aping the manners, the airs, and graces of their masters. The perusal of this essay suggested the idea which has been so felicitously expanded in High life below Stairs.
A hard fought theatrical battle.
No person in the smallest degree acquainted with theatrical affairs, can be ignorant of the strong spirit of rivalship that exists between Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and that has prevailed since the first establishment of those theatres. The anecdote I am going to relate, affords probably the strongest instance of this spirit that is on record.
When Garrick's celebrity was at its highest pinnacle of glory, Rich, the manager of Covent Garden, engaged Barry and Mrs. Cibber, performers of very great talents, and high reputation, and entered the lists with Garrick in the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Barry performed the young Montague, and Mrs. Cibber the delicate and elegant Juliet. Garrick produced the celebrated, but frail and unfortunate Mrs. Bellamy in Juliet, while he played Romeo. Every exertion within the compass of human powers was made by both parties, and the public opinion was held for a time divided between the rivals. The warfare was continued for twenty nights successively. At length Rich, growing tired of the contest, abandoned Romeo and Juliet; and Garrick in triumph had it represented one night more. The constant repetition of the same play disgusted the public, and gave rise to the following epigram, which was published in the papers of the day—
"What play tonight?" says angry Ned, As from his bed he rouses. "Romeo again!" he shakes his head— "A pox on both your houses."[Q]
What is it about?
However incredible the following story may appear, it stands on the very respectable authority of Arthur Murphy[R] and David Erskine Baker[S]. A tragedy, called Zingis, written by Alexander Dow, was so totally unintelligible that the audience were continually asking each other—What is it about? What is it about?—That such nonsense should be written is not so very marvellous, as that the miserable farrago should have had a run of nine nights, which has been frequently denied to works of first rate merit.