Edward Robins

“ Nowadays Addison and the Spectator go rolling down to fame together, an indivisible reminder—the very essence indeed—of the virtues, peccadilloes, greatness and meanness of early eighteenth century life. We may forget that Joe was quite a politician in his prime, we are even loth to recall that there was ever such a play as "Cato," but so long as the English language has power to charm, the dear old volumes of the Spectator will stand out as a delightful landmark of that literature which forms the heritage of American and Briton alike. ”

“ Nance Oldfield may have been almost mute for a twelvemonth, yet more than a few feminine novices, Anno Domino 1898, would never be content to remain silent; not only must they make a noise behind the footlights, but they feel it incumbent to be heard in the newspapers as well. Any dramatic editor could tell a weary tale of the importunities of a progressive young lady who wants to enlighten an aching public at least six times a week as to the number of her dresses, the colour of her hair, and the attention of her admirers. ”

“ A spectre has very often saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the stage, or rose through a cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors; and when they only come in as aids and assistances to the poet, they are not only to be excused, but to be applauded. Thus the sounding of the clock in "Venice Preserved" makes the hearts of the whole audience quake, and conveys a stronger terror to the mind than it is possible for words to do. ”

“ He beheld a creature in all the gentle bloom of highbred beauty—tall, well-formed, and radiating a sort of natural elegance, with a fine-shaped, expressive face, to which great speaking eyes and a mouth half pensive, half smiling, lent an air of rare distinction. These were the eyes which in after years Anne would half close in a roguish way, as when, for instance, she meditated a brilliant stroke as Lady Betty Modish, and then, opening them defiantly, would make them glisten with the spirit of twinkling comedy. ”

“ Puzzle are not still inculcated? Nay, the whole play furnishes a capital instance of the truism that the world changes but little, and, furthermore, that the mould of nigh two centuries cannot spoil the wit of sparkling Steele. Ah, Dick! Dick! you may have been a sorry dog, with your toasts and your taverns, yet 'tis a thousand pities that a few dramatists of to-day cannot drink inspiration from the same cups.
To continue our cheerful journey with this unusual "Funeral," we soon find ourselves introduced to Lord Hardy, the unjustly discarded son of Brumpton. ”

“ WIDOW. Nay, thou hast ever been my comfort, my confident, my friend, and my servant; and now I'll reward thy pains; for tho' I scorn the whole sex of fellows I'll give them hopes for thy sake; every smile, every frown, every gesture, humour, caprice and whimsy of mine shall be gold to thee, girl; thou shalt feel all the sweets and wealth of being a fine rich widow's woman. ”

“ You, ladies, who depend for theatrical success upon the elegance of your gowns, and fondly believe that fairness of face and litheness of figure will atone for a thousand dramatic sins, take pattern by the industry of Oldfield. It will be a much better pattern than those over which you are accustomed to worry your pretty heads. The enterprising dressmakers who go to the play to get inspiration for new clothes may cease to worship you, but think of the other sort of inspiration which you will give to lovers of the drama! ”

“ Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in which they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there is sometimes a greater judgment shown in deviating from the rules of art than in adhering to them; and, secondly, that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them. ”

“ To raise the genius, and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream through every age;
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept."
At last came the eventful evening of April 13, when "Cato" saw the light. The theatre was packed, just as Steele promised that it should be, yet the audience would have been large had Dick never existed. ”

“ You must know, Sir, that it is always my custom, when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that those pieces are often very well writ, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some of it home with me; and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world. ”

“ It was a pity, no doubt, that the light of opera shone but dimly at the Haymarket, yet the ill wind which almost extinguished that light blew a blessing towards the nimble Santlow. For the dear creature prospered exceeding well as Dorcas Zeal; the heart of the public waxed warm toward the ex-dancer, and so did the cardiac organ of Barton Booth. A few years later Booth married the charmer, and she, having become virtuous and prim, made the remainder of his life a bed of domestic roses. ”

“ A third poet being resolved to outwrite all his predecessors, a few years ago introduced three children with great success: and, as I am informed, a young gentleman, who is fully determined to break the most obdurate hearts, has a tragedy by him where the first person that appears upon the stage is an afflicted widow in her mourning weeds, with half a dozen fatherless children attending her, like those that usually hang about the figure of Charity. Thus several incidents that are beautiful in a good writer become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one. ”

“ Although she shone in comedy with the brighter light, she could play serious rôles with majesty and power, and feel, or pretend to feel, a trifle bored in so doing. "I hate to have a page dragging my train about," she used to cry, with a pout of the pretty mouth; "why don't they give Porter those parts? She can put on a better tragedy face than I can." Yet whatever might be the undoubted capabilities of Porter for assuming the tragic mask, audience and manager sometimes insisted that Nance should banish all the sunlight and becloud her features with the sorrows of a high-strung heroine. ”

“ CHAPTER VII NANCE AT HOME "Home?" An actress at home? Does it not seem strange to apply the dear old English noun, so redolent of peace, and quiet, and privacy, to the feverish life of a mummer? We go, night after night, to see our favourite players shining 'mid the fierce glare of the footlights, watch them approvingly as they pass from rôle to rôle, and finally begin to believe, like the egotists we are, that they have no existence apart from the one we are pleased to applaud. ”

“ In that temple of domesticity there are no thoughts of rouge, or paint-pots, or of Richard Brinsley Sheridan—it is merely home. Dost thou always hurry back to so attractive a one, thou patronising theatre-goer?
Our Nance had a home to which she was glad enough to hurry back, like the aforesaid Miss Smith, after the play was over at Drury Lane. There was no husband there to await her, but a very devoted knight in the person of Mr. Arthur Maynwaring, who, though he gave not his name nor the ceremony of bell, book, and candle to the union, played the part of spouse to the fair charmer. ”

“ How many white staffs and great places do we find, in our histories, have been laid at the feet of a monarch, because they chose not to give way to a rival in power, or hold a second place in his favour? How many Whigs and Tories have changed their parties, when their good or bad pretentions have met with a check to their higher preferment?"
The fact is that there was never any artistic sympathy between the two distinguished actors. Booth could play comedy, and play it quite well, but his soul was all for tragedy. ”

“ As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up, and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper centre to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the knight told me, that he did not believe the king of France himself had a better strut. ”

“ So important a rôle did politics play in this first performance of "Cato" that to many in the house the merits of the actors must have passed unrecognised. And yet those merits were striking. Who could have made a lovlier Marcia than did Nance; and how thoroughly she must have justified the passion of that most virtuous of princes, the sententious Juba. The character was not worthy of her genius, but that did not prevent this true artist from giving to it all manner of dignity and beauty. ”

“ Yet any one would sing a bad song, provided nobody else had a good one, till at last they were thrown together like so many feather'd warriors, for a battle-royal in a cock-pit, where every one was oblig'd to kill another to save himself! What pity it was these froward misses and masters of musick had not been engag'd to entertain the court of some King of Morocco, that could have known a good opera from a bad one! ”

“ The modern young woman, be her station high or low, would take no pleasure in such a literary occupation, but in the days of Nance Oldfield to con the pages of Beaumont and Fletcher was considered a privilege rather than a duty. Then, again, the little seamstress had a soul above threads and thimbles; her heart was with the players, and we can imagine her running off some idle afternoon to peep slyly into Drury Lane Theatre, or perhaps walk over into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the noble Betterton and his companions had formed a rival company. ”

“ In many a laboured scene of the wannest humour and of the most affecting passion I have seen the best actors disconcerted, while these buzzing muscatos have been fluttering round their eyes and ears. How was it possible an actor, so embarrassed, should keep his impatience from entering into that different temper which his personated character might require him to be master of? ”

“ I can't believe it; nay, I always thought it, madam.
"WIDOW. Sure, 'tis impossible the demure, prim thing. Sure all the world is hypocrisy Well, I thank my stars, whatsoever sufferings I have, I have none in reputation. I wonder at the men; I could never think her handsome. She has really a good shape and complexion but no mein; and no woman has the use of her beauty without mein. Her charms are dumb, they want utterance. ”

“ These extracts are not from the manuscript of a modern farce-comedy, [A] but belong to Steele's play of "The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode." If they have about them all the air of fin-de-siècle wit, so much the more eloquently do they testify to the freshness of Dick's satire. Freshness, satire, and death! Surely the three ingredients seem unmixable; yet when poured into the crucible of Steele's genius they resulted in a crystal that sparkled delightfully amid the lights of a theatre—a crystal which might still shed brilliancy if some enterprising manager would exhibit it to a jaded public. ”

“ There was a manager of Oldfield's day who surely did not escape, and that was Christopher Rich, Esquire, one of the patentees of Drury Lane Theatre, and sole director, as a rule, in the affairs of that Thespian temple. Thespian temple, indeed! What cared Mr. Rich for Thespis or for art? He looked upon actors as a lot of cattle whose sole mission in life was to make him rich in pocket as well as in name, and who might, after the performance of that pious act, betake themselves to the Evil Gentleman for aught he cared. ”

“ Being thus acquitted of predatory designs upon the peace of English wives, and having the further virtue of constancy, a host of Londoners, men and women, high and low alike, gazed with charitable eyes upon Nance's private life. And she, dear girl, sinned on joyously.
Mr. Maynwaring, who helped Oldfield to break the spirit of one commandment, was a brilliant figure in the reign of Queen Anne, albeit, like other brilliant figures of that period, he has passed into the darkness of oblivion. ”

“ Curious, perplexing conditions they are, marking as they do a transition between the brilliant but generally filthy period of the Restoration—a period in which some of the worst and some of the best of plays saw the light—and the time when the punctilio and artificial decency of the age will cast over the stage the cold light of formality and restraint. The nation is but slowly recovering from the licentiousness which characterised the merry reign of Charles II., that witty, sceptical sovereign, who never believed in the honesty of man nor the virtue of frail woman. ”

“ The "Careless Husband" has not been acted these many, many years, yet to all who treasure the historical memories of the stage it should be recalled with interest, for it was in this gay comedy that the ravishing Nance shone forth in all the silvery light of her resplendent genius. Read the pages of the old play in unsympathetic mood and they may look musty and worm-eaten, but imagine Oldfield as the sprightly Lady Betty Modish, the elegant Wilks as Sir Charles Easy, and Cibber [A] himself in the empty-headed rôle of Lord Foppington, and, presto! everything is changed. ”

“ Protect, for its attempt, this helpless play;
Nor leave it to the vulgar taste a prey;
Appear the frequent champion of its cause,
Direct the crowd, and give yourselves applause."
"Zounds, madam," cries a beau who is ogling a woman of quality in a stage box, "they say Anne Oldfield will never see forty-two again, but I'll warrant you, madam, she looks not a day older than yourself." And the woman of quality, who is over forty, bows at the compliment, as well she may. Bellchambers records that Lady Townley was universally regarded as Oldfield's ne plus ultra in acting. ”

“ Yet it was under the auspices of such a man that Oldfield made several of her most brilliant successes, not forgetting the memorable appearance as Lady Betty. And all the while, no doubt, Mr. Rich was thinking how much more sensible an attraction would be an elephant or a tight-rope walker. But Nance, who had now a firm friend in Cibber, went merrily on her way, creating new characters in comedy and astonishing even her most enthusiastic admirers by the imposing air she could frequently give to a tragic part. ”

“ The fact was that Wilks hid within his breast the troublesome, green-eyed monster of jealousy; he feared the rising genius of Booth, and, now that he was part manager of Drury Lane, probably took pains to keep the rival as much as possible in the background. Unfortunately for this plan of annihilation the screen provided in the commonplace person of Mills proved entirely too flimsy to hide the coming man. Barton Booth was in many ways an ideal actor, in that he was blessed with the poetic imagination and scholarship to understand his rôles and the tragic power to play them. ”