University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

The life of the British actor in the eighteenth century

(USC Thesis Other)

The life of the British actor in the eighteenth century

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content THE LIFE OF THE BRITISH ACTOR
IN THE EIGHTEENTH. CENTURY
A Dissertation
Presented to
the Faculty of.the School of Speech
University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment
of the'Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Willard Wilson
May 1959
UMI Number: DP31942
All rights reserved
INFORMATION TO ALL USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.
UMT
Dissertation Publishing
UMI DP31942
Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author.
Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.
All rights reserved. This work is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code
ProQuest LLC.
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346
This dissertation^ written by
............^l^ARD WILSON
under the guidance of hX3.... F acu lty Comm ittee
on Studies, and approved by a ll its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the C ouncil
on Graduate Study and Research, in p a rtia l f u l
fillm e n t of requirements fo r the degree of
D O C T O R H F P H ILO S O P H Y
D ean
Secretary
Date.
Commtttee on Studies
Chairman
■ ^
3-C
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study of the life of the eighteenth century
British actor had its origin in work done at Columbia Uni
versity in 1929 under the wise stimulation of the late
Ashley H* Thorndyke. It was carried to its completion at
the University of Southern California in 1937-38 under the
direction of the members of my doctoral committee, to each
of whom I am variously endebted*
Three libraries have been used extensively. The
Brander Mathev/s Dramatic Library of Columbia University
supplied the first bibliographical clues to material. The
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library of Los Angeles made
available to me much valuable connotative material on the
eighteenth century theatre. But my greatest obligation is
to the Huntington Memorial Library of San Marino, which
contains the extremely valuable'Devonshire-Kemble collection
of theatrical material, as well as thousands of other per
tinent items. To Miss Bowen of the reference department
and Mrs. Swanson of the rare book department I am particu
larly indebted.
President David L. Crawford of the University of
Hawaii, by his kind cooperation in the matter of leaves of
absence, has greatly facilitated the completion of this
task, a fact for which I am duly grateful.
TABIE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PROBLEM AND DEFINITION OF TERMS USED. • . 1
Background of the study.................. 1
Statement of the problem................. 10
Importance of the study.................. 13
Definitions of terms used .............. 14
Spelling and incidental terms............ 17
Organization of the study........... 18
Style......................... 19
Literature of the subject ......... 20
II. BIRTH AND EDUCATION...........'........... 36
Birth...................‘............... 36
Children of the slums................... 36
Origin in upper classes .................. 38
The military contribution........... 45
Contribution of minor professions........ 49
The nobility............................. 59
General education ........ 64
"Female'* education....................... 69
Theatrical education..................... 72
General educational standards in the
theatre............................. . 74
Actor-scholars........................... 77
The end of the century................... 84
Ill
CHAPTER PAGE
III. STAGE-STRUCK CHILDREN...................... 92
Age of actors at debut.................... 96
Reasons for entering the profession. The
escape mechanism....................... 100
Strolling players......... 120
College men as actors ............... 125
Stage-bred actors ....................... 129
Amateur actors. ..................... 133
The debut............................... 144
Stage idols............................. 144
IV. SOCIAL STATUS OF THE ACTOR.................. 148
Background........... 148
Late Restoration heritage................ 153
Improving status......................... 157
Social attacks on the actor ........... 160
Mid-century developments. David Garrick. . 166
Alliances of actors with nobility ..... 176
Social activities of actors . ............ 181
General status at the end of the century. . 185
V. MANNERS, MORALS, AND RELIGION ........ 192
Early criticism......................... 192
The neighborhood of the theatre.......... 199
Sex and the actor....................... 203
"Minor" morals................ 228
iv
CHAPTER PAGE
The gambling actor. ............... 235
The generous actor....................... 242
Religion. ....... ................ • 247
VI. FINANCIAL STATUS OF THE ACTOR........... . 267
Economic background of the profession ... 267
Salaries........................... 270
Managerial delinquencies.............. 293
Fines and forfeits. ......... 296
Benefit performances............... 300
The actor on strike..................... 313
The actor in debt . .................. 321
Overpaid singers...................... 329
Savings of the actors. Financial reserves. 332
Theatrical funds and pensions ............ 336
VII. THE ACTOR'S HOÎ/IE....................... 343
Marriage............................. 343
The family......................... 358
The "Theatrical Family" myth.......... 368
Lodgings............................. 370
VIII. THE PHYSICAL MAN........................ 389
Food................................ 389
Drink ............................. 405
Clothing............................. 417
Health............................... 431
V
CHAPTER PAGE
Dentistry •... .............. ..... 447
Miscellaneous ailments. .............. . # 463
Hazards to the actor's life. Accidents • . 459
IX. AVOCATIONS AND RECREATIONS............. 471
The actor's day .............. 471
Rehearsals. ............ ......... 484
Study..................................... 490
Avocations......... 499
Writing actors......... 503
Reading................................. 512
Graphic arts........................... 518
Recreations. The tavern. ......... 521
Clubs................................... 626
The green-room. ........ 531
Travel. .................. 535
Incidental amusements of actors......... 538
Physical exercise. Sports. ........ 546
Swordplay and duelling............. 550
X. THE DID ACTOR: RETIREMENT, DEATH, AND
BURIAL................................. 561
The retired actor ................. 561
Death of the actor. Age, and cause ... 584
Finale. The actor's funeral. ...... 597
Vi
CHAPTER PAGE
BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................... 617
A. Bibliographical and general reference • . 618
B. Specific............................... 625
C. Eighteenth century periodicals......... 635
D* Selections and collections............ . 637
E. Publications of learned societies • • • • 637
APPENDIX ..................................... 638
EPILOGUE........................................... 662
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND DEFINITION OP TERMS USED
Background of the study. The dramatist and actor,
since the time of Aristophanes, have rarely been able to go
very far In advance of their age unless they were willing
to court theatrical failure. Always the stage has been the
scene of celebrations for causes already won. It has been
the battlefield after the battle, and the sound of the actor's
voice has been the fanfare of triumph and not the bugle
leading the charge. The function of the dramatist and of
the actor is far more that of a mirror than a searchlight.
If either is to survive, he must be just enough in advance
of the openly acknowledged beliefs of his age to attract
attention, and not far enough in the lead to provoke actual
alarm. The actor of Garrick's age seems to have been parti
cularly adept at walking this narrow and precariously balan
ced ridgepole.
Granted its weakness from the literary point of view,
the theatre of the eighteenth century is second only to that
of the Elizabethan age in our history. If one is interested
primarily in the actor, and not in the drama, it tops even
that golden era of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, and their
numerous illustrious brothers. Strangely enough, in this
age of profusion of acting and managerial talent, the author
fell into the background. Only four plays of real signifi-
2
canoe were produced during the century: one by Gay, one by
Goldsmith, and two by Sheridan. The success of Addison's
Cato, the greatest dramatic hit of its time, was an unmerited
accident of political timing; while the Jane Shore and
Douglas type of play owed its popularity not to any intrin
sic merit, but to a temporary fashion of pseudo-Shakespearian
thought and pseudo-poetic phraseology.^ The scores of
oriental romances that had their short vogue have interest
today only as over-dressed examples of dramatic misrepre
sentation. Nevertheless, in spite of the lack of contempo
rary material in the plays, in spite of the predominant
popularity of Restoration and Elizabethan playwrights, the
theatre of the time was a potent influence in social and
political life. Part of this is accounted for by the custom
of attaching to every play a prologue and an epilogue which
was frequently a pointed and highly contemporary comment
on the subject matter of the drama. More important is that
fact that the actors themselves, by their vitality and
lusty personal outlook, made the theatre (with the possible
exception of the sterile stretch from about 1708 to 1728)
an active expression of the British people. In these actors
the true Zeitgeist moved; and when it ceased to actuate
them, toward the end of the eighteenth century, their
^ Oliver Elton, A Survey of English Literature,
(New York: Macmillan Co., 1928), I^ 25Y.
3
importance as symbols of their time faded, and their in
fluence over their countrymen with it.
Not only were these facts true of London, where
dramatic activity has always centered in England, but also
of Bath, Edinburgh, and Dublin. They were even true, to a
lesser extent, of the small villages and hamlets where the
strolling companies, meagre as they were, constituted the
most exciting mental stimulus touching the lives of the al
most illiterate townspeople. The surface reasons for this
are obvious to one who has considered the subject, and are
more often found in physical than in intellectual causes.
The ordinary man of the audience could not read, and in the
theatre his reading was done for him by the story-telling
actor. The poor man of the gallery could not find as warm
a place to sit on a raw night as in the theatre. Loving the
companionship of his fellows, he could not find a more
homogeneous crowd with which to blend and lose his own
little futile life in that curious feeling of power that
dwells in an audience. Delighting in spectacle and show,
in brilliant lights and glittering garments, neither of which
he could afford in his own miserable lodgings, he was gen
uinely entertained by the barbaric lack of taste that
characterized much of eighteenth century stage decoration
and dress. And finally, there was in the century almost no
other place of public diversion where the ordinary man could
4
go for indoor amusement. Cockfights and bear-pits were
popular but comparatively expensive and uncomfortable places
of entertainment, and for the man who could not afford to
go to the select upstairs club-room, the taverns were merely
places in which one might secui'e a drink.
It may be objected that the theatre was not supported
by the middle-class early in the century, but by the wealthy
^lite. That is true, in essence; but even before Betterton's
retirement in 1710 the actor had ceased to be merely the
petted plaything of the nobility, and had begun to feel the
strong pressure of the developing bourgeosie. Even though
the patronage of the wealthy dilletante was still the pri
mary support of the theatre, it was this strong arm of middle-
class public opinion that enabled Garrick, before the middle
of the century, actually to kick the chattering, insolent
gentleman fops from the wings of his stage out the back door,
and forever to bar them from hunkering in a proprietary way
about the English stage. All through the Restoration and
well into the eighteenth century the young "gentlemen" had
considered it their prerogative to sit and stroll about
the stage while a play was actually in progress; but by
1760 the audience had again become master, and the audience
was no longer composed of the court of the king. Through
out the remainder of the period the upper class hung about
the emancipated theatre, attempting by lavish individual
5
subsidies and flattery to tame this Frankenstein that had
turned on them. But the Mob was in the saddle, and until it
absorbed some measure of moderation and sophistication,
gave the nag a desperate ride. For all practical purposes,
the theatre of eighteenth century London is a middle-class,
or a proletarian theatre.
By 1700, with the exception of spasmodic productions
at Richmond Palace in the summer, a Court stage as such had
ceased to exist. The production of plays at Whitehall had
governed theatrical taste for a long while, but with the
new order of things, the London public chose its own dramatic
fare.2 The spectacular development of the patent theatres
and the raising of their standards of production drew the
court followers more and more to the democratic Drury Lane,
Covent Garden, Haymarket, and Lincoln's Inn Fields theatres.
Thus was the theatre given back to the people. Royalty
patronized and was patronized by the stage; but the voice
of the pit and of the gallery had united by Garrick's day
to form the master's voice.
There occurred in the latter part of the century,
and in the first part of the nineteenth century a remarkable
expansion within the theatre Itself. With the building of
^ For a full account of this dying "Court stage"
see: Eleanore Bosv/ell, The Restoration Court Stage
{Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952)•
6
new theatres and the enlarging of the old houses, the numbers
of actors necessarily increased. By 1807 there were in
London ten theatres playing regularly in the winter season,
whereas in Garrick's time there had been only a half-dozen
at most. That number was augmented in the next fifty years
by an increase of approximately one new theatre every two
years. With such theatrical activity it might appear that
the theatre in the first half of the nineteenth century was
a greater force than ever before, but such was not the case.
The very expansion and ostensible growth marked the end of
the theatre as a concentrated, unified influence in England.
In its diffusion the theatre fell victim to the chief vice
of any democratic institution, and seemed to lose much of
its sense of direction. That this was a bad thing for the
English stage does not necessarily follow of course, for
competition often produces progress as rapidly as does dic
tatorship and autonomy.
The eighteenth century was a period of great economic
and social stress throughout England. The great storms of
1703 which half-wrecked the city of London, the financial
panic attending the bursting of the South Sea Bubble (which
began its inflation about 1711 and burst just in time to
wipe out Gay's profits from The Beggar's Opera). the terrific
earthquakes that wrought havoc in 1750, the revolt of the
American colonies, and the French Revolution— all these
were things which had a tremendous influence on the thought
of English people.
7
It is commonly thought also concerning the century
that its later half was, because of the encroaching of that
technological monster called Industrialism, a sort of minor
dark age. During the early part of the age, according to
popular conception, the working man had a comparatively
happy lot, while toward mid-century he began to be forced
by the developing middle-class into factories and other
smoky breeding-places of discontent and bad health. While
this was true of the manufacturing centers in the north of
England and of the smaller shipping ports, it was not true
of London, in which the dramatic life of Britain was centered
Life in London became progressively safer, healthier, more
sane and more pleasant for all classes as the years went by.
By the end of the century, thanks to an improved constabu
lary, the teeth of the London mob had been pretty thoroughly
pulled, and the Jonathan Wilds driven to hiding. Artisans
and skilled craftsmen often had earnings in excess of those
of the minor professions, true; but that was probably a
healthy sign of economic vigour. The Vicar and the school
master often received less than the butcher and the chandler;
but who is to say that for their time they were more impor
tant than those gentlemen?
That the lot of the minor actor does not improve
proportionately in the century is not particularly astonish
ing, just as the topheavy development of the star system
8
Is no anachronism. Both of these things are unfortunately
the natural and inevitable concomitants of a bourgeois
society which places too high a premium on brilliant surface
accomplishment, and too low valuation upon the ground-work
lying below the achievement. The theatre at the beginning
of the period was still Restoration, and actors were the
playthings of the nobility. In mid-century the actors were
themselves members of the middle-class, actually for the
first time not "Their Majesties* Servants" but bourgeois
professionals. By the end of the century their status had
again changed, and they had become the pampered puppets,
this time not of the nobility but of their own class of
society.
Conditions under which actors worked in London were
immeasurably better by the end of the century. All life
was better in London. Open sewage had been banished from
most of the streets, and an idea of modern sanitation had
begun to take hold. Drinking had fallen off remarkably
under the administration of more drastic tax laws on liquor,
and the educating influence of such public-spirited artists
as Hogarth and Fielding. The dark lanes of London town had
been lighted. Crimes of violence in the public streets had
greatly abated, and a man could walk through most of London
at night without being afraid of being beaten and robbed by
roving bands of smart young bloods out for a lark--the
9
"Mohocks" and "Hawkubites" of Addison's day* The bitter
atheism and blind Puritanism of the Restoration had been
supplanted in the minds of the populace, albeit by the poor
substitute of ignorant bigotry in too many cases. Under
the impact of the sentimentalism of Sterne and Goldsmith,
the classical restraint of Addison, the intellectual piety
of Johnson, and finally the blazing fervor of the Wesleys
and Whitefield, the religious feeling of the people had been
revived, however chaotically; and it is probable that all
of those things assisted in developing a more healthy moral
tone*
Education had undoubtedly received a considerable
impetus from the shift in occupations, and its attendant
chance for advancement* The influence of Methodism with
its class-meetings and innumerable Sunday-schools had un
doubtedly been considerably underrated by many commentators*
Charity schools for children increased enormously in number.
The death rate among infants and adults alike dropped with
the increase in sanitary measures, and the installation of
a hospital system in London. There grew up a new attitude
toward crime, health, accomplishment--©, new idea of social
consciousness that began to permeate the mass. Much was
done to abolish the horrors of the debtor's position. Of
the voices upraised in these movements toward a more livable
London, Fielding's was the most consistently humanitarian
10
and clear. In 1753 he wrote: "The sufferings of the poor
are indeed less observed than their misdeeds.. . . They
starve and freeze and rot among themselves, but they beg,
steal, and rob among their betters."^
All of these things had a tremendous influence on the
life of the London actor, and in them he shared with every
other Englishman. When we appraise the changes in acting
technique, the increases made in actors' salaries, the build
ing of the new theatres we must constantly remind ourselves
that these things were after all merely symptoms of a larger
movement that was going forward in national life.
Statement of the problem. It is the purpose of this
study to make a more analytical and comprehensive survey
of the life of the British actor in the eighteenth century
than has yet been attempted. Heretofore the approach has
been made in one of two ways: either by writing a biography
of one or of several actors, in which a picture of the life
of the entire group was implied, or by compiling a history
of the stage and acting developments of the period (actually
by writing a history of the theatre) in which the life of
the actor was incidentally indicated.
^ Dorothy M. George, London Life in the XVIIIth
Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926T, p. 11. See
Introduction" of this book for summary of social changes.
For clearly indexed material on the period see Sir Walter
Besant, London in the Eighteenth Century (London; A. and C.
Black, 1Ü26)
11
Both of these methods have obvious faults. In the
first the chief fault is of too great selectivity. There
were in the acting profession of the period few Bettertons,
GEürrlcks, Barrys, and Clives, just as in our own time there
have been few Bernhardts, Buses, or even Arlisses. Conse
quently if one is to take as typical of the acting profession
the lives lead by those leading performers, he will be
badly misled. In the second method, that of theatrical
history, the fault is evidently one of incompleteness. The
actor's life is not lived entirely on the stage and in the
green-room, and yet that is in effect what we are led to
believe. The actor often,had sore feet, and bad digestion,
and trouble with his clothes and with his wife. Those were
troubles, unspectacular in themselves, which to the minor
actor were often more important than the fact that he was
going to march across the Drury Lane stage that night and
shout "M'lud, your carriage waits without!"
We have had many studies of specific aspects of the
eighteenth century stage, of its scenery and its costumes,
its style of acting, its leading celebrities and their lives
as they were related to the stage. Except in the case of
such well-worked fields as those furnished by the lives of
Garrick and Siddons, however, the authors have usually been
so concerned with the relations of these people to the
theatre that significant domestic aspects of their lives
12
have been neglected* This is accounted for in part by the
well-founded feeling that actors live in a world apart from
reality, a feeling which has always persisted regarding the
theatrical profession, and which our contemporary publicists
lovingly foster* The special concern of this study however
is to approach the actor's life through his back door so to
speak, and to look at him as a man rather than as Richard
the Third, or as Abel Drugger; to see him calmly and com
pletely as a significant but not exceptional unit of eigh
teenth century society, and not as a sport from that society;
to realize that when Macklin refused to play at his friend
Ryan's benefit and said, "By God, Sir, I'll whistle Palstaff
for no mani" he was not alluding to any unreasonable musical
demands of a theatre manager, but merely referring to the
fact that he had just lost two of his most important front
teeth--a commodity not so easily replaced in those days as
in our own t ime.^
The personal struggle of the actor through the century
was largely a two-fold one. In the first place, he was try
ing desperately to raise himself in the social scale, in the
eyes of the audience and of the world. In the second place,
he was trying to free himself from the increasing tyranny of
the theatre manager. One was a struggle carried on largely
^ John Galt, The Lives of the Players (London:
H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 183ÎT I, 211.
13
outside the theatre, in ordinary life; the other was a bitter
contest fought in the green-room, in the periodical litera
ture, and on the stage where often the embattled actor ap
pealed his case directly to the audience. We are here con
cerned largely with the first struggle, and shall touch
upon technical aspects of the second only when it becomes
essential to do so. A man's social standing in the community
often has a direct correlation to his income, and the actor's
income in the eighteenth century usually had a close relation
to the temper of the theatre management.
Obviously neither battle has ever been decided except
temporarily. The manager of an actor may still, in 1938,
attempt to hold him to a contract into which he was enveigled
when he was a rank amateur, and on the social score the
purple-blooded royalty of Hollywood still points with super
cilious and rather sterile pride to the fact that only a
handful of actors of the silver screen appear in the current
social "Blue-Book.”
Importance of the study. In spite of the seeming
exhaustiveness with which the English theatre and actor have
been treated in contemporary histories of the drama and the
stage, there seems to be a definite place for such an analysis
of the life of the eighteenth century actor. To judge the
life of the actor by that of Nell Gwynn, Betterton, Garrick,
Quin, and Mrs. Siddons is as presumptions as would be the
14
judging of the life of today's aviators by that of Lindbergh
or of Admiral Byrd. There has been no chronicle of the
period that has laid emphasis upon the average rather than
the exceptional actor. There has been no history of the
profession in the period which has attempted to show clearly
the bulk of the mountain rather than its highest peaks.
There has been no general theatrical biographical study of
the time which has given the minor actor his due, although
Dr. Doran's enormous opus probably comes closest to it.
This study is an attempt to supply that lack to some extent
by giving a composite picture of the offstage life of the
actor of the period, keeping in mind always that this is
merely a complementary painting to the already generously
splashed canvas with which orthodox stage historians have
presented us.
Although many things are herein made readily available
for the first time, no great pretensions to stores of undis
covered or new material are made. If the work has an offering
to make to the history of our eighteenth century theatre,
it is an offering of emphasis and of balancing.
Definitions of terms used. "The Life of the British
Actor in the Eighteenth Century" is a subject so exceedingly
broad, in spite of its implied limitations, that it has been
thought wise to impose on it certain additional interpretations.
15
"Life." From what has been said previously it is
clear that by "life" of the actor is meant not so much his
entire life, as significant aspects of his off-stage exis
tence. For that reason, because the stage activities of the
period have already been covered so thoroughly, what might
be called the actor's "theatrical life" has been deliberate
ly ignored in many cases.
"British actor." The term has been employed in
preference to "English actor" in order to exclude from our
discussion the actor connected primarily with the Dublin or
Edinburgh stage, and the quit© considerable American theatre
of the time. This is meant as a limitation of geography,
however, rather than as a limitation of nationality. In
an informal survey of about three hundred eighteenth century
actors who appeared on the London stage, it was found that the
percentage of Irish-born ran well over thirty. Many of the
greatest performers of the age were of Irish parentage,
among them being the Kembles, Delane. Quin, Barry, Mossop,
Sheridan, Macklin, Cooke, Barry Sullivan, Woffington, Clive,
Bellamy, and Misses Catley, Parren, and O'Neil. That money
making phenomenon of the early nineteenth century. Master
Betty, was Irish, as was the great Macready.
The subject might have been limited even more by the
term "London actor" without doing violence to the chief in
tention of this study, for the British stage in the
16
eighteenth, century was the London stage. There are of course
various exceptions to this. The Bath theatre, which flour
ished through most of the century, was actually an acting
subsidy of the London theatres, drawing its leading actors
almost exclusively from Drury Lane and Covent Garden in the
off-season. The strolling companies, which were certainly
a tremendously influential and interesting part of theatre
life of the time, present a subject too large and complex
to concern us except incidentally. They constitute a fas
cinatingly interwoven problem, the complexities of which
have not yet by any means been comprehended, or solved.5
Thaler and others have jnade excellent contributions recently
to our knowledge of the subject, but it is one that still
calls for an adequately comprehensive treatment.G
"The eighteenth century." Few periods in dramatic
history have ever been bounded by definite dates with any
great success. By the eighteenth century is meant, roughly,
the hundred and fifteen or twenty years lying between
5 Eighteenth century classics of the stroller's life
are Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs of His Own Life (York: Wilson,
Spence, Mawman, 1790) and his The Wandering Patentee (Same
publisher, 1795.) Another excellent personal record of the
stroller's life;. John Bernard, Retrospections of the Stage
(London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1830.)
^ See Alwin Thaler, ”Strolling Players and Provincial
Drama after Shakespeare,” M* L. A., XXXVII, 243, etc.
17
Jeremy Collier's memorable Short View of the Stage in 1698,
to about the year 1814 when Edmund Kean, the short, half-
starved little ex-stroller, hobbled on the Drury Lane stage
as the new Shylook of a new era.
Spelling and incidental terms. There are several
things which to one not familiar with the literature of the
century may at times appear confusing. One of the most
annoying is the habit, which persisted almost to mid-century
of calling unmarried women by the title "Mrs.” In the cases
of minor actresses who never attained sufficient fame to
warrant their inclusion in theatrical literature other than
by name it is sometimes impossible to tell whether they were
married or not, unless one stumbles upon the husband's name
in the playbills or notices of the time; and even more then
than now the mere taking of a man's name and prefixing a
"Mrs.” was no guarantee of a legal ceremony. Marriage, as
will be indicated in another chapter, was customary, one
might almost say chronic in the acting profession, but it
was not quite so general as the prefix "Mrs." might indicate.
Another confusing element was added by the habit then in
vogue, as now, of the actress holding to her maiden name
even after her marriage because of the publicity value in
volved. Few actresses had the ability to act under and make
famous three names in succession as did the famous wife of
Will Mountfort, who died in 1703. She had a distinguished
18
career on the Restoration stage, first as Mrs* Percival,
then as Mrs. Mountfort, and finally as Mrs. Verbruggen,
and all names stand for the same person in different marital
incarnations•
Another confusing thing about the literature of the
time is its apparent lack of uniformity in spelling. This
is of course a carry-over from the preceding age when
Shakespeare himself evidently had some difficulty fixing
upon a standardized signature. Thus in theatrical books we
find the name of the famous dramatist-architect. Sir John
Vanbrugh often spelled "Vanburgh"; we find an actress called
"Abington" or Abingdon," or an actor called alternately
"Mountfort," "Mountford," or "Montford"; or perhaps we dis
cover our old friend Madame Ellen, of delightful memory,
appearing as Nell Guyn, Guynn, Gwyn, Gwynn, or Gwinn.
Rather than do violence to the customs of the time, this
study refrains from trying to bring about a standardization
which the age of Queen Anne did not itself regard as essen
tial. It is a symptom of the times which disappeared toward
the middle of the century under the codifying influence of
pseudo-classical writers, plus the new education and its
standard texts.
Organization of the study. In a survey of this
scope it has been manifestly necessary to break up the
19
subject into manageable sections. That these arbitrary
divisions will do violence to many ideas, that they will
destroy to some extent a logical continuity is an unfortu
nate necessity. An adequate chronological history of the
period is badly needed; but such a treatment, applied to
this particular study, would disintegrate the centralizing
ideas which appear to be more important than mere logic of
format •
There will be apparent, however, some system in the
organization of the material* In the first major division,
which migiht be labelled "Youth, " is discussed the birth,
early training, and stage debut of the actor. In the second
appears the bulk of the important material concerning the
adult actor's physical, mental, social, and economic life.
In the third section appears the life of the old actor--his
retirement, his death, and his burial.
Style. An attempt has been made to write the study
by documenting all general statements carefully with short
sketches of actors' lives, and by quoting copiously from
eighteenth century sources, rather than by using an involved
technique of cross-references. In other words, the actors
have been allowed to speak for themselves, instead of the
author merely reporting his conclusions drawn from their
speech. There are several difficulties inherent in this
20
method, the most obvious of whioh is the danger of fuzzi
ness in conclusions. Wherever such possibilities of am
biguity have appeared likely, an attempt has been made to
state the point beyond any possibility of uncertainty. The
thought that a dissertation rather than a thesis is being
written has been frequently before the author, and hence
fullness of discussion rather than direct pertinence has been
the object in many instances.
From a moral point of view, the attitude taken toward
the material has been thoroughly impersonal, and objective.
Prudishness has no place in stage history, obviously, and
although offensive biological particularities have been
avoided unless they appeared absolutely essential, the
material under discussion demands frankness which at times
may approach crudity. The age was a lusty, deep-breathing
age, especially in its early years; and to write of the
times of Anne Oldfield, Peg Woffington, James Quin, and
Mrs. Bellamy in the deodorized language of Victorianism is
like trying to climb Pike's Peak in silk slippers.
Literature of the subject. Although as has been
pointed out the writing concerning the eighteenth-century
stage and its actors has been very profuse, the interest
has centered so largely on the actual stage-life and activity
of the actors that little time has been given, outside con
temporary memoirs, to the offstage lives of the actors
21
themselves. The feeling has been, in other words, that the
actor onstage was news, but offstage was just another me
chanic or tradesman. The exception always has been made,
of course, when he did something startlingly unconventional
or immoral, or departed in any way from the respectable norm.
The distortion that has resulted in our estimation of the
average actor is obvious. And yet the truth has lain sifted
in small grains throughout the tremendous mass of material
that has accumulated on the subject, ready to be winnowed
out and compacted together by those who have had the patience
and time to do the tremendous amount of reading involved.
It is to a rapid survey of the most important winnowers of
this field that this chapter is devoted.
First of all a student of the actors of the century
must acknowledge his indebtedness to the numbers of patient
biographers, those devoted Boswells who followed their heroes
carefully through the perilous vicissitudes of life, and
sat down afterward to turn out "The Memoirs of the Late ____,"
etc., usually in from two to five volumes. Biography writing
was popular through the eighteenth century, and actors*
lives have always made excellent reading. There are literal
ly scores of these productions in the period, and the numbers
are swelled by the work of writers of the next age who were
in love with stage life of an earlier period.
. Of the first type we have such pleasant examples as
22
the highly moral Mrs. Elizabeth Steele who lived for many
years with, and later wrote a meticulous life of, the highly
immoral Mrs. Sophia Baddeley.? Or Thomas Campbell, the
rather sentimental poet and spiritual amanuensis of Mrs.
Siddons, who soaked up as many of her shafts of glory as
his limited contact with her would allow, and out of the
scattered bits of memoirs she left him, pieced together a
two-volume life of the actress.8
Of the second type--those stage-struck fiction writers
of the next age, the two most famous, although not most pro
lific in the field, were of course Charles Reade and Charles
Dickens. Dickens published in 1838 a fairly creditable and
interesting life of the late eighteenth-century mountebank
and actor, Joe Grimaldi— surely half of it being fictionized
from the meagre facts at Dickens’ disposal. Charles Reade
was even more frank in his approach to the subject. Wrote
he in his Diary: "I am in love with Peg Woffington. She is
dead and cannot sting me. I love her, and hope to make many
love her. That he accomplished his aim will be attested
by the thousands of readers who for the past seventy-five
Elizabeth Steele, The Memoirs of Mrs. Sophia
Baddeley (London: for the author, 1787)
8
Thomas Campbell, Life of Mrs. Siddons (London:
Effingham Wilson, 1834)
^ Harold Simpson and Mrs. Charles Braun, A Century
of Famous Actresses (London: Mills and Boon, n. d.), p. 66.
2 3
years have been reading Peg’s story as told in his novel
which goes under her name.
A third type of contributor to this enormous mass of
private-life literature was the professional man of letters
who saw in the tremendous public interest in the stage a
fruitful field for his efforts. It is to his labours, of
course that we are indebted for the great bulk of confusing
and confused biography. Grub-streeters have seldom either
the time, scholarship, or facilities for checking their work
against the facts. Often errors crept in which might have
been avoided with comparative ease if they had been granted
more time for their work. One of the earliest and most
notorious of these was Curll— "the unspeakable Cur11" as he
is known to students of English literature. As a bookmaker
he has made himself a perpetual fame in the history of the
literature of his time because he printed so many books that
otherwise might not have seen the light; but to the student
his name always carries a connotation of inaccuracy in what
he did print.
There are also, of course, the more conscientious,
thoroughly devoted though not too scholarly records of the
actors* lives and informal histories of the stage. Of the
dozen most valuable of these, the best-known and most
For a full account of Curll*s life and publica
tions see: Ralph Strauss, The Unspeakable Curll (London:
Chapman and Hall, 1927).
24
readable is the compilation of super-gossip concerning the
theatre found in Dr. Doran*s oft-printed book. Annals of the
English Stage, or Their Majesties Servants. While unfor
tunately lacking in annotation, Doran*s work is otherwise
scholarly and thoroughly reliable.H On it I have leaned
rather heavily in some instances. Dr. Doran, just as his
contemporary Dickens, was in love with the stage of a pre
ceding age, and spent the better part of his lifetime master
ing the literature of it. More important than the specific
small errors of fact into which he occasionally falls is the
general tone of his work. Dutton Cook’s Book of the Play is
another of these nineteenth-century productions which is a
classic of its kind.3-2 w. J. Lawrence refers to these books
facetiously in the preface to his valuable Old Theatre Days
and Ways as works by which he was entranced in his "salad
days," and for v/hich he still retains esteem.13 But they are
thorough works which certainly require no apology from any
one, and to the scope of which we are greatly indebted.
11 This book has been reprinted, since its first
publication by Nimmo in 1864, in many editions. The most com
plete is probably that edited and revised by Robert W. Lowe,
published by J. 0. Nimmo in three volumes in 1888. The Amer
ican edition which considerations of availability have obliged
me to use is: John Doran, Their Majesties Servants (New York:
Bigelow and Payne, n. d.) 3 Vols.
12
Dutton Cook, A Book of the Play (London: Sampson
Low, Marston. Searle, and Rivington, 18767, 2 Vols.
W. J. Lawrence, Old Theatre Days and Ways (London:
George G. Harrap and Company, 1935), p.^.
25
Probably no two men since the days of Garrick have been so
intimately familiar with the intricacies of early English
stage affairs as Dr. Doran, and Dutton Cook.
Of the journalist historians of the theatre, one of
the most successful early in the nineteenth century was James
boaden, known widely in his time as "Billy the go-by" Boaden.
He acquired that peculiar nickname on the occasion of the
production of his play The Italian Monk at the Haymarket
Theatre. Referring to the undoubted Shakespearian flavour
of the play he remarked playfully that he had "given Billy
the go-by." Boaden was a man of wide acquaintance in the
history of the theatre, and turned out a generous number of
memoirs in the early years of the nineteenth century. His
biographies of Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Inchbald, and
of John Philip Kemble are classics of their rather long-
winded genre, and his edition of Garrick*s private corre
spondence is invaluable.
Of course by far the most important of all are the
autobiographical memoirs which were quite the fashion in the
eighteenth century. Any actor who attained the rank of a
leading player at one of the patent houses, and many who never
did, sat down in their declining years with a deadly deter
mination to tell all. It is from these curiously exhibi
tionist documents that we really may extract the vital juices
of the age; for here, in spite of what the authors may
26
attempt to cover up or to adorn with fine words, is the
spirit of the age made clear. The model of them all is of
course that fortunately discursive autobiography by Colley
Cibber, which ranges all over the subjects of the theatrical
profession, arts and letters., general morals, and the needs
of the physical man! Less reliable, although no less in
teresting, are the lives written by his daughter Charlotte
(Mrs. Charke) and his son Theophilus— both of them, in con
trast to their foppishly respectable papa, among the most
disreputable persons connected with the stage in the
century.3-4 The 1 ife written by the entrancing George Anne
Bellamy, as she sat in her repentant retirement and brooded
over her sins in five volumes, is another high spot of the
literature of confession with which the age abounded.3-3 in
the famous Memoirs of Tate Wilkinson, the life of the stroll
ing actor and manager is mirrored, 3-6 while the Retrospections
of Bernard3-'7 and the many effusions of Garrick, the Colmans,
An Apology for the Life of Mr. The’ Cibber.
Comedian (DuFlin: George Faulkner,"TVlT) Has been attributed
to Fielding, on what grounds I have been unable to discover.
15
George Anne Bellamy. ^ Apology for the Life of—
(London: for the author, 1785).
16
Wilkinson, 0£. cit.
17
John Bernard, Retrospections of the Stage (London;
Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830) 2 Vols.
27
and Sheridan give a pretty adequate picture of the city manager’s
side of the picture. In these personal chronicles are recorded
much of the minutae so essential to our purpose.
While these books, written by the actors themselves and
their intimate friends, are accurate in their personal reflec
tions of life and character, they lack all perspective and
power of general analysis. They are the pure, crude pigments
from which any large picture of the actor’s life of the time
must be painted.
Contemporary occasional poetry, especially of the
epitaph, eulogy, or epigram type, is not altogether trust
worthy as a statement of carefully balanced opinion. It is,
however, invariably a clue to a certain element of surface
thought. Thus the epigram published in the Gentlemen's
magazine for July, 1732:
'Tis strange, you say, in this refined Age,
That Brothels, Bawds, and Whores adorn the State.
I think ’ tis not. They justly lay the Scene;
Don’t Drury Play-House stand in Drury Lane?
And own you must; tho' void of Wit and Art,
They naturally write and act their part.3.8
And yet it will appear obvious, as we look into the subject
more closely, that actually the actors of 1732 had among
their ranks many people, both male and female, of fairly
high social and moral standing.
One of the easiest mistakes to make in dealing with
Gentleman’s Magazine. July, 1732 (II, 858)
28
the lives of actors is to confuse their acted parts with
their unacted parts; to assume that they are in real life
the same kind of person that they appear behind the foot
lights. It is a natural error, and is naturally the be
setting sin of students of the theatre who read plays for
their information, instead of players. It has excellent
precedent in error among the ancient fathers of stage
criticism, especially in that classic of misrepresentation
and misdirected emphasis. Collier’s Short View. Especially
is this fault of method dangerous in such an age as the
eighteenth century, when the plays in which the actors be
came familiar were for the most part written by a preceding
generation of playwrights, whose morals were perfumed with
the rather high odor of the Restoration court of Charles II.
Until those unaccountable twins of genius. Goldsmith
and Sheridan, the century did not have playwrights with
either the strength or the imagination to use their own times
as inspiration, and so were thrown back upon the stale plays,
hastily refurbished, from an earlier time. An attempt to
dissect from eighteenth century plays the portrait of the
eighteenth century actor is doomed to failure, for he isn’t
found there. There will be exhumed instead a full-blooded
picture of a Restoration actor, who on the whole is related
to his later brother much as a roaring, powerful farmboy is
related to his supple, athletic, gymnasium-trained city
29
cousin* David Garrick has been for some time considered
a fair actor; but if one deduces his personal character
from his magnificent roles on the boards of Drury Lane he
will be, alas, sadly in the wrong. The brooding Hamlet of
1760, the fascinating Richard, the brilliant Don Felix was
offstage, in much of his conduct, merely a jealous, "sneak
ing little rascal."
To see the common fallacy of critical reasoning at
work most flagrantly, one has only to recall the attacks
of Collier, Bedford, and other like pyromaniacs of the
theatre. Even when these men were ostensibly attacking the
actors as immoral and profane reprobates and vagabonds,
they were in reality levelling their darts at the playwrights
instead. Collier, who was far from stupid and knew very
well what he was doing, deliberately sets out to confuse
the issue and to make it appear that actors on the stage
are merely dramatizing their own personal lives. Nor, of
course, if the truth is to be bold, was Collier without
evidence in many instances that such was the case. It was
well known that many actors of the 1690s fitted into his
scorching pen-portrait of the stage gentleman:
A fine Gentleman, is a fine Whoring,
Swearing, Smutty, Atheistical Man. These are
qualifications that seem to complete the Idea
of Honour. They are the Top-Improvements of
Fortune, and the distinguishing Glories of
Birth and BreedingI This is the Stage-Test
30
for Quality, and those that can’t stand it,
ought to he Disclaimed.3-9
This is not, on the whole, an extreme misrepresentation of
the Restoration "stage" gentleman; but it is not, because it
was spoken of actors portraying the heroes of the plays of
Wycherly, Congreve, Dryden, and Mrs. Behn— it is not for that
reason an accurate portrait of the typical actor offstage,
as Collier quite clearly intimates, and many of his dis
ciples have unquestioningly affirmed that it is.
One can hardly study the life of the hard-working
Restoration actor for long .without coming to. the obvious
conclusion that he was not quite so whoring, not nearly so
smutty, and almost never so atheistical as the bulk of his
contemporary audience, which was composed of people who
spent most of their time in the cultivation of those dubious
accomplishments, and none of it in learning lines for a new
play which had to go on the stage the next night. The
scarcity of time alone was a powerful check on licentious
extra-curricular activity of the actor. The scarcity of
money was another almost as powerful deterrent to extreme or
spectacular wickedness. Really noticeable SIN is a most
expensive luxury, and demands adequate financial backing.
When that backing was secured by an actor, or more often by
an actress, a notable swath was cut through the vineyards
Jeremy Collier, A Short View (London: S. Keble
and R. Sare, 1698, 3rd edit.), pp. 12-14.
31
of the righteous, and the mantle of doughty little orange-
wench Nell Gwyn was tossed lightly back and forth among the
reigning beauties of the stage. The point appears suffi
ciently clarified. There were, as will appear, sufficient
numbers of delinquent members of the profession. But their
delinquency as a professional group may not be deduced from
the daily chores which they performed on the stage.
To this general rule there appears one slight excep
tion. In the prologues and epilogues, which last throughout
the century as companion pieces to the plays, the eighteenth
century actor is often revealed as a person. For it there
are various reasons. First: the epilogue in many cases
was written by an actor, and not by some distantly removed
literary person. Exigencies of production forced a sort of
honesty of mannerism. Secondly: the prologues and epi
logues early assumed an objectivity which looked at the play,
and at its performers, from an intellectual rather than an
emotional point of view. Thirdly; they were spoken general
ly "out of character," and since the audience was devoted to
its actors, and knew them intimately, any extreme misrepre
sentation of character was likely to precipitate a riot of
sorts. Fourthly: the epilogues, particularly, often re
ferred to personal deficiencies of the actors in an unmis
takable fashion. They form for us a sort of news-reel of the
actor’s thoughts on the subject of the play he has just
32
performed* Thus, where it is certain that the prologue and
epilogue were actually written by a theatrical person, we
have something that, if taken with certain inevitable reser
vations, may indicate valid ideas.
With formal historians of the stage, the eighteenth
century was quite liberally supplied. From "Betterton’s"
History of the English Stage (attributed variously to Oldys,
and Curll), Gildon’s Art of Acting which he incorporated in
his Life of Betterton, and Victor’s History of the Theatres
of London, up to Baker’s valuable Biographica Dramatica
which appeared in a completely revised edition in 1812, the
century is strewn with dissertations on the stage, its people,
and their conductThe tremendous impetus given to matters
theatrical by Garrick’s infatuation with the Elizabethans
and his production of Jonson and Shakespeare plays undoubt
edly had much to do with the editing of early masterpieces;
and whatever one may think of the play-butchery carried on by
Garrick, Francis Gentleman, and their contemporaries who
"adapted" classics for their stage in much the same way that
Hollywood does today, the weight of their publicly-expressed
opinion was on the side of scholarship and method.
Probably the most valuable single work ever written on
the English theatre was that brought out by the rusticating
^S e e Bibliography for annotations on these works.
33
clergyman, John Genest, in 1832.81 Genest’s Account of the
English Stage covers an enormous span of years from 1660 to
1830, and its ten volumes contain reports on most of the
performances at Drury Lane, the Haymarket, Govent Garden,
and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and many of the performances at
Liverpool, Bath, and the minor London theatres such as
Goodman’s Fields where Garrick made his d^hut. The work
entailed the collating of thousands of playbills and notices
of all sorts, the appraising of actors’ performances, and
occasional excursions into the personal lives of the actors.
While Genest inevitably makes many mistakes in dates and
small notations, his work is singularly free from error and
has formed the working dictionary for every student of the
eighteenth and early nineteenth century stage who has labored
since his time. When one realizes the thousands upon thous
ands of notes which he took (apparently written in his fine,
cramped hand on little slips of paper about two by five
inches in length), the comparative accuracy of his work
amounts almost to a result of inspiration.
Our own time has seen a remarkable rebirth of interest
in the theatre of Garrick’s age. Probably because a wealth
of new information has been uncovered too rapidly, it has
not always been adequately checked or evaluated. To such
John Genest, Some Account of the English Stage
from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830. (Bath: H. E. Carring
ton, 1832T^ 10 vols.
34
men as Montagu Summers and AHardyce Niccol, in spite of
their frequent grievous errors of fact, we are vastly in
debted for the groundwork which they have done in unearthing
a tremendous mass of pertinent material. With the upsurge
of a secondary and more meticulous schoolof writing on the
subject of the Restoration and eighteenth century theatre,
headed by the brilliant and fortunate scholar Leslie Hotson,
we may expect a speedy refining of the o r e . 82
Gross mistakes concerning the period, in writing of
a general nature, are infrequent today, but in minor details
there remains much obvious copy-reading to be done on contem
porary scholarship. Not often, fortunately, is an accredited
writer so totally wrong as was Sheldon Cheney when he wrote
about Garrick, a few years ago;
And off the stage, Garrick was as well liked
as on: he was amiable, intelligent, well-read,
witty. Indeed, his success on the stage as actor
was, if one may so express it, very little due to
his being a born actor; to an undoubted natural
gift for mimicry he brought influences out of wide
learning, out of intelligent training, out of a
broad purpose to meet life n o b l y .83
Garrick was not well-liked off-stage; he was not generally
amiable; he was not well-read even for his day; and at times
Leslie Hotson, The Commonwea1th and Restoration
Stage (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 19287 §ee foFt-
notes for numerous corrections of statements in Niccol's
History of Restoration Drama.
Sheldon Cheney, The Theatre (New York, Longmans
Green and Co., 1929), p. 350.
35
his wit is distinctly suspect. His enormous success was
due, in addition to his undoubted natural talents, to the
most extraordinary good fortune of time and place. To put
it bluntly, David Garrick, professionally, was probably the
luckiest actor who ever lived. As has been said, the time
is fast coming when even such minor errors of analysis as
those in Cheney’s entertaining book will be rendered im
probable by the exactness of contemporary scholarship.
CHAPTER II
BIRTH AND EDUCATION
Birth. Concerning the origin of the eighteenth cen
tury actor there has been for a long time a fairly clear
formula in the minds of casual students of the stage. He
was an urchin of the street who, by holding horses outside
the theatre, or selling oranges within, finally managed to
attach himself in some minor way to the professional stage;
he was the son of a village curate, looking longingly over
the inhibiting walls of the manse at the strolling actors
who passed along the dusty road, and finally running after
them and seeking romance on the stage; or he was a young
gentleman, often a younger son, "following the lamp" that he
might be near his inamorata, or that he might "forget".
Both of these ideas have, of course, some foundation
in a superficial knowledge of the actor of the time. But
there were innumerable other sources which poured their human
contribution into the theatrical profession. The real truth
of the matter lies, as always, about midway of the two ex
tremes. All trades, all professions, all social classes of
England were drawn upon for the actors of the time, just as
they are nov/.
Children of the slums. Nell Gwynn, although she be
longs in the late Restoration period, provides such a perfect
example of the rise from poverty to riches idea that her
57
intrusion here can hardly be prevented. Thomas Davies, that
indefatiguable book-maker, penned an excellent concise life
of her in 1789:
Ellen Guynn, or Guyn, so far as appears to us
from all accounts hitherto known, had no education
at all. What we learn of her is, .that she was
born in a night-cellar (State Poems) sold fish
about the streets, rambled from tavern to tavern
entertaining the company after dinner and supper
with songs (her voice being very agreeable); was
next taken into the house of Madam Ross, a noted
courtezan; admitted afterwards into the theatre-
royal as early as the year 1667; . . was mistress
both to Hart and Lacey, two famous actors, and
kept by Buckhurst ... if I mistake not, whom
Charles the Second sent on a sleeveless errand to
France in order to pave his approach to her.
From that period she began to be pretty well
known, ... As this giddy and dissipated creature
gave rise to a noble and most worthy family, one
would have nothing devised against her by way of
romance; she had some very good qualities to con
trast against her bad education and vicious habits.1
Whatever her education, it was quite evidently suf
ficient for her earthly and rather earthy needs. The re
sourcefulness and strength of will, the generosity and af
fection which marked this piquant little waif of the. London
gutters who rose to be Dryden's favorite actress and her king's
favorite mistress make her one of the most attractive fig
ures in the Restoration theatre. Certainly to her contem
poraries this squat, red-haired little baggage was a
generally adorable person. She did very well for herself
in a financial way, with her country house and her town
^ John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (With additions by
Tho8. Davies) (London: T. Davies, 1789), See Appendix.
38
house. She was called "Madam Ellen" as a sort of audible
recognition of her high place in the bed royal. But she
never forgot her indebtedness to her theatrical friends who
had made it possible for her to leave her fish and orange
baskets, and she was constantly thinking of ways to reward
them. After the king's death she purchased a house in Pall-
Mall where she lived a blameless life for many years, dying
universally beloved in 1691.
Origin in upper classes. But for one to conclude
that the majority of even the Restoration actors were re
cruited from the slums of London would be obviously silly--
low as the social status of the actor was in those times.
If one takes a cross-section through the profession at various
times he gets a more accurate picture. John Bowman, who was
born in 1664 and made his debut at the tender age of seven
years, came of a good family and married a daughter of Sir
Francis Watson,.Bart. His wife was herself an excellent
amateur actress, and thus early illustrates the liason that
would help to break down the social restrictions against the
acting profession seventy-five years later. William
Mountfort, the victim of that unfortunate assasination famous
at the turn of the century, was a "Gentleman descended of a
very good family". For a time he retired from the stage to
become a Gentleman attendant to Lord Chancellor Jeffreys--
an indication of a fair social position. Wilks, the famous
59
partner of Cibber and Doggett in the management of Drury
Lane theatre after Betterton's retirement, although born in
Ireland the son of an army officer, came from a fine old
family in Warwickshire. Thomas Betterton himself, although
the son of one of King Charles* cooks, had a social position
not too ignoble in his youth. His father, being evidently
enough of a gentleman to give his son the best education
available at the time, probably held a position in the royal
household which allowed him a comparatively high standing in
his own neighborhood in Tothill Street, Westminster, where
he then lived. Thomas, after finishing his fundamental
schooling, was apprenticed to a book-seller— in those days
a very genteel apprenticeship which claimed the sons of
many high churchmen and landed gentlemen. As a young man
Betterton travelled quite widely, and otherwise conducted
himself as a gentleman born. He went to France seriously to
study the stage, and brought back to England and introduced
many innovations for which Devenant has usually received
credit. He was really a gentleman and a scholar. "Major
Michael Mohun," that delightfully alliterative name of a
delightfully talented actor, speaks for itself. Not only
was his military honor high, but his favour at court as a
diplomat was constant. If the king was offended by any of
Killigrew's players, Mohun was sent bearing the pipe of
peace.
40
Early in the century we find Colley Cibber complain
ing of the dearth of good actors, and speculating concerning
the reasons for it. After noting the various humiliations
to which actors were often subjected by audiences, about
1730, he wrote:
While these sort of real distresses, on the
stage, are so unavoidable, it is no wonder that
young people of sense, (though of low fortune)
should be so rarely found to supply a succession
of good actors. Why then may we not, in some meas
ure, impute the scarcity of them to the wanton
inhumanity of those spectators who have made it
so terribly mean to appear there?8
Of course Cibber was wrong in intimating that there
was a great scarcity of capable actors in London even then,
although to his jaundiced eye talent may have been at a low
ebb. Certainly there was no one of the genius of Betterton
then performing; but it will be recalled that Gibber always
carried a chip on his shoulder when it came to the subject
of histrionic talent. At the beginning of the century
Betterton had stood magnificently alone as the chief of
his clan, and Cibber had probably hoped that the old actor's
mantle would fall on him. For a long while, it will be
recalled, he resisted the charms of the delicious Peg
Woffington, the "Irish jade" as he called her, insisting
that she was no actress at all compared with his old favor
ite from Betterton days, Mrs. Bracegirdle. And yet at that
8 Colley Cibber, to Apology for his Life (New York:
E. P. Dutton. Everyman's Series. 1914), p. 47.
41
time Y/offington was beginning to be acclaimed by all I*ondon
as the superior to îÆrs. Clive, then the ruling queen of the
stage.^ And it took Mrs. Bracegirdle herself to drag from
him an admission of Garrick*s talent, grudging as it was:
"Faith, Bracey, I believe you are right: the young fellow
is cleverÎ"
Mrs. Bracegirdle held no such niggardly view of the
talents of actors in the first half of the eighteenth cen
tury. The valiant old actress who had made her debut in
1680, retired in 1707, and lived to see Garrick’s glory,
was charmed with the ability of her successors whenever she
could be enticed from her snug cottage into the theatre.
She thought Peg Woffington a very bright child, and respected
the talents of Mrs. Clive.
Often one finds good birth or early scholarship among
the actors where it is least expected. Joseph Haines, or
Jo Haynes as he is known to students of the Restoration
theatre, furnishes an excellent illustration. Before he
became the petted comedian of the King’s Company at Drury
Lane, Jo had led a fairly academic life. As a boy he was a
brilliant student at the School of St. Martins in the Fields,
and prevailed on friends to send him, upon completion of his
studies there, to Queen’s College at Oxford. There also he
^ See Charles Reade, Peg Woffington (New York, E. P.
Dutton, 1907, Everyman’s edition). Chap. II. Delightful
fictionized account of the affair.
4 2
made a brilliant, though, erratic record. He became secre
tary for Sir Joseph Williamson, then Secretary of State--
but lost his position because of "too little taciturnity".
He quickly got a similar position with one of the heads of
Cambridge University, but fell in love with acting and de
parted unceremoniously with a group of strollers that hap
pened by. Whatever one might say of the legitimacy of Jo
Haines’ clowning in serious plays, it could certainly never
be said that he was without an average background of birth,
education, and social training. The cause of his downfall
as an actor was his tendency to horseplay and love of prac
tical jokes rather than any lack of talent or training."^
One actually finds among these early actors dozens
who came from excellent families, had educations far superior
to those of the majority of their contemporaries, and went
on the stage because they were drav/n to the profession by
their natural talents. Indeed, the actor of the early decades
of the century begins to emerge as a decidedly superior
person, in spite of the slurs against his mean origin to
which we have become accustomed.
Cibber’s own partner, Robert Wilks, was born about
1670 in Dublin of an excellent family, which had formerly
been very wealthy although not noble. He worked in the office
^ John Doran, Annals of the English Stage (Hew York:
Bigelow, Brown & Co., n. d.l I, 95-99.
43
of the Irish Secretary of War for some time, having balked
at classical studies. Then by association with actors at
the theatre and offstage he began to appreciate the flatness
of his duties. Instead of following his official business,
he spent most of his time at his desk in reading plays, and
his leisure time making love to the daughter of a neighbor.
Soon he persuaded the girl to a clandestine marriage, and
then things began to happen rapidly. He was thrown out by
his father, ejected from the home of his bride, and dis
charged from his job all in rapid succession.^ He was al
ready enough of an actor, however, to talk the Irish Secre
tary of Yfar out of a quarter’s salary in advance! His. mar
riage was annulled, and he went to London to become one of
the leading comedians of his time. He married the daughter
of an army captain, had several children, and prospered
solidly on the London stage. After the disintegration of
Killigrew’s company, he was chosen with Colley Cibber,
Doggett, and Mrs. Oldfield to head the new company at Drury
Lane and share in the management of the old Haymarket theatre.
Another of these actor-managers had much the same sort of
background. Barton Booth had a fair education at Westminster
^ John Galt, op. cit.. I, 44. For different account
of the affair see: Edmund Curll, The Life of That Emminent
Comedian Robert Wilks, Esq. (London: E. Curll, 1733), p. 5.
This life by "the unspeakable Curll" is, as might be ex
pected, quite unreliable. He lists only two wives, for
instance, though Wilks married thrice.
44
school, where he distinguished himself at Latin at the age
of nine. He had been designed for the church, but his taste
for the stage had been aroused at Westminster where he was
a classmate of dramatist Nicholas Rowe and other rising
stars, and where he played in the annual Latin play. At the
age of seventeen he could stand the pressure no longer and
ran away to Ireland. In the Dublin theatre he trained him
self in stage technique, and when his fame began to burgeon
returned to London where he entered Betterton’s company. He
worked industriously, conducted himself with propriety, and
finally by his increased reputation procured a share in the
management of the theatre— an intrusion which crusty old
Doggett so resented that he resigned. Booth made his great
success in Addison’s Cato, and the quality of his talents
was such as to recommend him to the society of the choicest
literary and social circles. When poor health forced his
retirement at the height of his fame, his going was lamented
by all devotees of the theatre in London.^
Statistics have not been compiled on the subject, but
in a thorough reading of the lives of hundreds of eighteenth
century actors it becomes apparent that a large percentage
No author. The Thespian Dictionary (London: J.
Cundee, 1802) See "BoothT" The Thespian Dictionary is not
accurate in minor details, nor is it dependable for complete
ness; but it is filled with interesting bits of information
concerning most of the important actors of the eighteenth
century. Minor actors are badly slighted.
45
of the actors are children of either clergymen, or of army
officers* There are many possible explanations of the
phenomenon, but probably the obvious one is nearest to the
truth: that both the church and the army are essentially
dramatic organizations, and their personnel is imbued with
all the innate tendencies toward extroversion which charac
terize the actor *
The military contribution* The army was particularly
generous in its gifts to the stage in Garrick’s age. Garrick
himself was the son of an army captain who was away on duty
in Gibralter through most of David’s boyhood days. His
mother was a daughter of one of the vicars at the dowdy
little Lichfield Cathedral. Although his father was not
generously paid, he managed to keep his family in fairly
comfortable circumstances. David had the advantage of an
excellent preliminary education in the Lichfield Free School,
and then the rather dubious advantages of Samuel Johnson’s
teaching in his ill-fated private school. He spent some
time in the Rochester school, read law for a while in a de
sultory fashion, and then abandoned academic education for
the more strenuous training of the business world. But he
was a stage-struck boy, and most of the time he should have
been tending the wine business of his brother Peter he ac
tually spent in the taverns fraternizing with the actors,
and performing for their delectation "imitations" of various
46
people. That, with the one summer of stock playing which he
did under the name of Lyddal at Ipswich, constituted his
education and training for his memorable d^but at the
Goodman’s Field Theatre as Richard III in 1741. That his
habits of study were never profound has been testified to by
many of his contemporaries. Dr. Johnson’s scorn of his
intellectual attainments was open; and Garrick never once
played Othello after Quin made the remark, when asked how
he liked Garrick in the part: ’ ’Othello, Madam--0 shal no
such thing--there was a little black boy, like Pompey attend
ing with a tea-kettle, who fretted and fumed about the stage—
but I saw no Othello."*7
George Frederick Cooke, one of the first great British
actors to make a tour of the American theatres, was the son
of a subaltern in an English Garrison. Cooke was sent to
school for a time in northern England, and there through
amateur theatricals he imbibed the fatal love of acting which
finally led him to the heights as an eccentric tragedian.
For a time he was apprenticed to a printer, and he used to
declaim aloud above the clacking of the press, to the de
light of his fellow devils and the annoyance of his employer.
For a time he went to sea, and then he was put to business,
but when he reached twenty-one he made his dA*ut at the
7
Ibid. See "Garrick." - "Pompey" was cant of the
time for a small negro boy slave.
47
Haymarket theatre, and soon became a favorite in many roles.
He finally drank himself to death, but he blazed a brilliant
path before succumbing to his evil genius.
Beautiful Mary Robinson, born in 1758, was the daugh
ter of an army officer. Captain Darby, who had himself been
born in America. She had a short but brilliant career, and
devoted herself to the writing of novels and memoirs after
ill-health forced her retirement.® John Palmer, who was on
the stage from about the time of Garrick’s retirement to
1798, was of array parentage— his father, who was a "bill-
sticker" at Drury Lane, being a retired soldier. John him
self had been headed for the service when he was sidetracked
into painting, and from that into the theatre. Bensley, a
minor actor who retired two years before poor Palmer died
on the stage of the theatre, was himself an officer in the
marines, and had served in America. Vi/hile there he had
acted with his brother officers in amateur theatricals--
perhaps under the patronage of that other great dabbler in
the theatre. General Burgoyne— although the dates when he
was in America are not clear. John Bernard, who after a
fairly prominent career as actor-manager in England came to
the United States and managed theatres in the neighborhood
of New York and Philadelphia, was the son of a navy
Mrs. Mary D. Robinson, Memoirs of the Late Mrs
Robinson written by Herself (London; R. Phillips, 180TT
One of the most pleasant sets of memoirs in the century,
in the Gothic style!
48
lieutenant.^ Also the son of an army officer was Francis
Gentleman, that "namhy pamby royal fabulist" as he was de
risively called by a contemporary. Gentleman’s fame rests
more on his writing, especially his mangling of several
Shakespeare and Jonson plays, than upon his acting. He
himself was commissioned in his father’s regiment at the age
of fifteen, and at the conclusion of his enlistment tried
the stage— which he was encouraged to leave soon thereafter.
Mr. Wathen, who became familiar on the stage of Lord Barry
more’s private amateur theatre, had been an army officer,
and had become interested in the stage while on duty in
Jamaica. After his retirement from active duty, he became
fairly well known on the London stages as an actor of minor
roles. Finally he became manager of the Richmond theatre,
and was invited to Dublin to play in Daly’s company in 1793,
where he acquitted himself with credit.
One might go on sketching the lives of many other
actors who sprang from military soil, but it would give to
the total picture an inaccuracy of perspective. The truth
of the matter is that the bulk of the actors--those solid,
substantial, and unspectacular citizens of the theatrical
profession, the "minor actors"— came largely from the grow
ing bourgeoisie. They were the sons and daughters of farmers.
^ See John Bernard, Retrospections of the Stage
(London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830)
49
shop-owners, merchants, barristers, and craftsmen of all
sorts. As the century went toward its close there were
fewer and fewer of them who came from the extremely poor
class, as did the comedian James Spiller, born in 1692 of
very poor parentage, but whose father had resolved "to breed
him a Gentleman," and so put him to studying painting. Un
doubtedly the improving social status of the profession
through the age had much to do with this attracting of middle
class recruits; although as has been indicated the stage
even in Restoration times had not drawn heavily on the slums
for its actors.
Contribution of minor professions. In the middle of
the century the kitchen gave to the stage two notable re
cruits, one by parentage and the other more directly. Thomas
Weston was instructed in all the polite accomplishments of
his time, his father having been first cook to King George
the Third, "the salary and emoluments of which place were
fully sufficient to enable him to live as a gentleman, and
give his son an education."1® Weston played Abel Drugger in
Jonson*s Alchemist while Garrick was in Italy, and was uni
versally said to have "excelled every one in the part."
Thomas Weston, Memoirs of that Celebrated Comedian.
and very singular Genius THOMAS WESTON ' ( London: S. Bladon,
17761 pT 2. See also the Thespian Dictionary, which mis
quotes the Memoirs. and also for some inscrutable reason
changes "George the Third" to "George the Second."
50
His brilliant acting of the sneaking tobacconist probably
had more to do with Garrick’s abandoning the part than did
the crudeness of the play, which Garrick gave as his excuse,
when in later years he wished he had never played those
"low parts." The other actor was Baddeley, who at one time
had been a cook’s apprentice, and baker. He used to recall
that while he was still working in the kitchen, a little
errand girl often called with her basket on her arm--the
little poverty-stricken wretch who later was to become the
brilliant actress, Mrs. Abington--a lady who was more bril
liant in her amours than in her acting, one fears. Poor
Baddeley did not have a happy time of it, even after he left
the steamy atmosphere of the kitchen for the glorified air of
the stage. He married unfortunately, was forced into a - duel
for the honor of his dissolute, though excessively lovely
wife, and finally was forced to admit to himself that he
was fighting in a lost cause. He died one night in 1794,
while he was making up to play Moses in School for Scandal.
He left an endowment, among other things, to furnish a large
cake annually which was to be eaten by the actors in the
green room, in memory of the ex-baker.
As has been said, there are numerous instances of the
sons of clergymen going on the stage, Tate Wilkinson being
one of the most perennially astonishing examples. But rarely
in the rather anti-Semitic century does one find the account
51
of-a Jewish churchman joining the profession. Decastro was
a Portuguese Jew trained as a rabbi. It happened again in
the person of a Mr. Leoni, who was evidently a cantor or
singer in a synagogue, and made his d^but at Covent Garden
in 1775 in opera. He later was manager with Giordani of the
opera house in Dublin, but returned to England where he
gained tremendous fame. His case is interesting as an il
lustration of the broadening of religious and racial tolerance
toward the end of the century.
Lacy Ryan, whose father was a tailor, was recommended
to the stage by Sir Richard Steele in 1710, and played
"Scyton," an old officer in Macbeth, opposite Betterton at
the age of sixteen. Betterton, who had evidently not both
ered to rehearse the play recently, was rather astonished
to meet on the stage "a boy in a large full-bottomed wig,”
but commended the lad when the scene was over, although he
reprimanded the prompter Downes for sending a child to act
an old man’s part. Although only sixteen, Ryan had already
gone through St. Paul’s school, and studied law to some
extent. He became a very thorough actor. Garrick often
said that he learned his greatest tricks of acting Richard
the Third from Ryan’s performance of it.
The celebrated Anne Gatley, one of the greatest singers
Thespian Dictionary; see Leoni for further account
52
of the eighteenth century, was the daughter of a gentleman’s
coachman, and of a washerwoman who took in clothes near
Tower Hill. At fifteen, already noted for her voice and
her beauty, she was apprenticed to Bates, a famous and
scoundrelly composer of the time. Because of her poverty,
she probably had no other schooling than that which she
received incidentally w ith her music. But she was thrifty,
and intelligent, and by careful saving and close application
managed to make of herself a really cultured woman. When she
retired in 1784 she had built up a sizable fortune, was the
favorite of the town, and rumor had it was the actual wife
of General Lascelles, at whose house near Brentford she spent
her declining days.Mrs. Crawford, a much-married actress
of Garrick’s time, was the daughter of an apothecary. Peg
Woffington, whose story has been told so many times it
scarcely bears repeating, was the daughter of a Journeyman
bricklayer who died and left Peggy’s mother to support her
self and children as best she could. The mother became a
washerwoman, and little Peg as the most able of the children
became her messenger. Hers was a familiar figure in the
neighborhood of Dame Street when she was barely ten years
old, fetching water from the Liffey for her mother, and
carrying laundry about the city. It was while she was on
one of these errands no doubt that old Madame Violante , the
Ihid: See "Catley."
53
mistress of a nearby booth, took a fancy to her and started
her on the career which led her to the top of the acting
profession. Of formal schooling she had practically none;
but she read a great deal, had a very quick memory, and by
the time she became Garrick’s mistress probably was at least
as cultured as he. Mrs. Centlivre, who became very well
known at the beginning of the century as a playwright as
well as actress, had a somewhat similar childhood. Practical
ly all the education she received as at the hands of a kind
neighboring Frenchman, who taught her to read Holiere well
at the age of twelve. Ill-treated by her step-mother, she
ran away from home when her father died, and joined a company
of strollers. Mrs. Pope, who was a well-known actress of the
Garrick era, as a girl was apprenticed to a milliner’s shop,
just as was Mrs. Oldfield much earlier. Mrs. Crouch, the
lovely singer who made her d^ut at Drury Lane in 1781, was
the daughter of an attorney, and married an officer in the
navy.
Robert Elliston, whose stage life tied over the end
of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth,
was the son of either a watchmaker or of a farmer in a
Suffolk villageHowever that may be, it is certain that
he was the nephew of the famous Dr. Elliston, master of
Doran, op. cit., III, 263. The Thespian Dic
tionary states Elliston senior was "a Suffolk farmer^
54
Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge, and often spent his
vacations with his uncle. Although he was a bright boy,
ranking fourth in St. Paul’s at the time, he ran away when
he was sixteen and went to Bath where in the search for
romance he found employment in a lottery office. Soon he
secured an introduction to the manager of the Bath theatre,
a theatre which throughout the eighteenth century was the
best known of all the provincial houses, and attained some
reputation in minor roles. Overestimating his reputation
he soon went to London, but was refused employment at the
leading houses. He returned to Bath, became a leading play
er, and when Drury Lane finally realized his ability, he
refused their offer of forty shillings per week and remained
at Bath for a larger salary, a four-year contract, and
increased applause. Before he was twenty years of age,
however, he was released to go to the persistently calling
London stage where he became a favorite on the Haymarket,
Covent Carden, and Drury Lane stages.
Another well-educated gentleman was Mr. Raymond (whose
real name was Grant) who made his dAut at Drury Lane in
the last year of the century. Raymond
went abroad as tutor, or secretary to a young
gentleman, and on his return was enabled,
through the liberality of this gentleman, to
indulge his inclination for the stage, and
practice in the country, with considerable
advantage; for being supplied with cash, he
never experienced the distresses common to
65
an Itinerant life, and had always the advantage
of playing such characters as he pleased. 3-4
Certainly the advantage which he enjoyed was no slight one.
Joe Munden, a very famous comedian toward the end of
the century, and the friend of Charles Lamb, had a humble
origin. He was born in 1758 in Holburn, where his father
was a tradesman, dealing in geese and chickens. Joe was
apprenticed to an apothecary; but although he was not well-
educated even by the standards of his own time, because of
his excellent handwriting he managed to get a better position
in a law stationery stall in Chancery-Lane. Here, it is
said, he trained the other hack clerks to perform Richard
III, while he wielded a directorial ruler over their
aspiring heads. In the evenings he would climb from his
window and sneak into the gallery of the theatre at half-
time to see Garrick act. Many times the stage-struck Joe
eloped from his home with a band of strollers, only to be
overtaken at a nearby village and brought back by his fond
mother, who knew his haunts. She disliked making a scene,
and so would usually hide in the audience until her actor
son appeared on the stage, v/hen she would pounce on him and
drag him off in triumph--to the immense delight of the as
sembled rustics. One night she saw his coat appear three
times on the stage before its owner appeared in it, it being
Thespian Dictionary. See "Raymond."
56
the habit among the strollers for the man with the best ooat
to relinquish it as a kind of common stage property1 Final
ly, however, the disheartened parent gave up the useless
struggle against Joe’s determined effort to become an actor,
and relinquished him to an actor’s life. He very nearly
starved for a few years; but then began to command enough
attention to earn a living w a g e .IS
There are various instances of printers’ sons who
went on the stage in the period. Such a one was Thomas
Ryder, whose father was a printer in Nottinghamshire. Ryder
was himself given the meagre education accorded an appren
tice printer, but left the press to try his luck on the
Irish stage. He was only moderately successful as an actor,
but made himself famous by building an elaborate town house
after winning a lottery--and then selling it because he ran
out of money when it was half-finished. He finally made his
d^but in London at Covent Garden in 1787, and five years
later, just before his death, had the pleasure of seeing
two daughters appear on the Haymarket stage. Woodv/ard, who
until about 1768 was a popular member of Garrick’s company,
was the son of a fencing master, and was himself noted for
superior grace, swiftness, and elegance in drawing his sword
William O’Brien, who appropriately brought out a comedy
Joseph Munden,' Memo ir s of Joseph Shepherd Munden.
Comedian. By his son, (London: Richard Bentley, 1844).
57
called The Duel at Drury Lane In 1773, was likewise a fenc
ing-master ’s son, and had received a sketchy education around
the theatre. After six years on the stage he married Lady
Susan Strangways and went to America, where "he enjoyed a
profitable p o s t " .T6
James Quin, who was the grand old grouch of the theatre
when Garrick made his appearance, came from an ancient Irish
family, and had a remarkable education for the average man
of his time. His grandfather had been a very wealthy man,
and his father was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin.
Several confusing tales are told of his parentage; but the
most reliable seems to be that his mother was a supposed
widow when Quin senior married her, her first husband having
disappeared some five years previously on a trip to the
Indies. But when little James was about five years old this
ungallant Enoch Arden returned and claimed back his reluc
tant wife, thoroughly disrupting the Quin household. The
illegitimacy of James wa.s a handle by which relatives wrenched
away his property from him after his father’s death, and at
twenty-one James Quin was a well-educated but destitute
young Dubliner, with a training for the law and not the
slightest inclination for it. In 1715 he left Dublin for
See; David Erskine Baker, Biographica Dramatica
(London; Longman, Hurst, Rees, etc., 1812 revised edition)
3 vols. Actors are listed alphabetically. Cf. also with
Thespian Dictionary, for lives of these actors.
58
London, at the advice of the prompter Chetwood, and soon
afterward began that tumultous life which he led on the
London stage for fifty y e a r s . 1*7
A modern psychologist would probably suspect that
much of Quin’s crusty exterior, his continuous quarreling
arid dueling with actors and laymen, the surface defense of
fierceness for v/hich he was noted, was brought about to some
extent by the fight he was having within himself. The shock
of illegitimacy was even in the eighteenth century a severe
one for a boy--and Quin was an extremely sensitive, intelli
gent boy. It seems obvious that much of his outward conduct
was a defense mechanism which he developed perhaps uncon
sciously to protect himself from the tongues which might
have stung him. Certainly his conduct with his intimate
friends, and with those whom- he respected, was generous and
sincere in the extreme. The anecdote of his visit to the
poet Thompson who had been confined in prison for a seventy
pound debt is perfectly illustrative of his kindly nature.
It is narrated in the Thespian Dictionary that after Quin
had introduced himself to the poor servant of the muse, he
proposed that they have dinner together, and explained that
T7 There are many excellent accounts of Quin’s life.
I have relied principally for facts, however, on the 1766
life which was reprinted late in the nineteenth century.
The Life of Mr. James Quin. Comedian (London: Reader, 1887)
Cf. also particularly the sketch in Biog. Dram.
59
he had taken the liberty of ordering food from a neighboring
tavern, together with a half-dozen of claret. After the
bottle had circulated pretty freely Quin suddenly said to
the astounded author: "î/Ir. Thompson, the pleasure I have had
in perusing your works I cannot estimate at less than a hun
dred pounds; and I insist upon now acquitting the debt."
Whereupon he deposited a hundred pound note and with
drew. T8 The tact and generosity signified by the act were
as deeply characteristic of Quin as was his blustering roar,
or his satirical innuendo.
The nobility. Although there are numerous instances
of marriage alliances between actors and the nobility in the
eighteenth century, there are few instances of children of
the titled classes becoming professional actors. Samuel
Foote’s father was an M. P. from Tiverton, Devonshire, but
that hardly constitutes nobility of birth. Late in the
century Lord Barrymore made considerable reputation on the
Drury Lane stage as well as in his own private theatre; but
he never outright adopted the acting profession as his own,
and remained to the last a virtual amateur. Practically the
only case of approximately noble birth that one finds among
the rank and file of eighteenth century actors is that of
the minor player Charles Murray, who made his London d^but
at Covent Garden as Shylock in 1796, and became an excellent
See Thespian Dictionary: "Quin". For account of
his illegitimacy see Benjamin Victor, History of the Theatres
of London (London: T. Davies, 1761), III, 90.
60
actor of old men’s parts. Murray was the son of Sir John
Murray, bt., and was born at Broughton in 1754. But his
father was very democratic, and after giving his son an
excellent education in the classics under his own instruc
tion, allowed him to travel extensively and study pharmacy
and surgery. Several trips at sea as a surgeon’s mate con
vinced the boy he was not destined for the medical profession;
and after some amateur acting at Liverpool between trips, he
made his stage d^ut in Tate Wilkinson’s company at York
under the name of Raymur (an obvious acrostic of his own
name). He was an exceedingly quick study, being able to
learn a long part overnight without inconvenience, and made
himself a valuable player for many years well into the nine
teenth century.T9
Of course the most prolific source of actors in the
century was the theatre itself. Especially was this true
late in the century when the profession had rid itself of
much of the social discredit under which it labored earlier,
and which tended to make the actor’s child seek other
professions.
When one realizes something of the stress of the
actor’s life in the century, especially that of the stroll
ing actor who contributed so many sons and daughters to the
London stage, he marvels that the children had time to be
19
Ibid : "Raymur♦"
61
born at all. In a strolling company everyone was pressed
into service in a performance--often indeed several parts
being performed by the same person. Under the circumstances
it is not surprising to learn that in spite of very generous
child-bearing, the actresses rarely took extended maternity
leave. They could not afford it financially, and the audien
ces of the day evidently were somewhat closer to realities
than our pseudo-sophistocates of today, and accepted without
objecting to the obvious approach of motherhood. It also may
be true that for the greater part of the century costumes
were admirably adapted to conceal pregnancy, with enormous
puffs and ruffles, and hoop-skirts.
Be that as it may, it is certain that many actresses
played on the stage until a Very few days before the birth
of their children. Stephen Kemble was born on a night in
1758 a few hours after his trouper mother had played Anne
Bo ley n: although to this doughty mother of the theatre
such a maternal feat was no doubt but a minor episode in a
life filled with many more dramatic o c c u r r e n c e s.20 Mrs. Kean,
the actress wife of the struggling young Edmund who was
to become one of the most famous actors of his time, seems
to have been in more than ordinary trouble with the stork,
whose dark shadow hovered over her practically continuously
for years. At one time the young couple walked the two
20
Doran, op. cit.. Ill, 166
62
hundred miles from Birmingham to Swansea, twelve dogged
miles per day, while the young wife was expecting the birth
of a child almost hourly. She finally arrived at Bristol
almost dead, and there gave birth to her son.^T At another
time she was playing a "Virgin of the Sun," when it was
quite obvious, as Dr. Doran chastely remarks, that the
character "least suited her".
Although as has been said several actresses appeared
on the stage the same night they gave birth to children,
none of them so far as I can discover was forced to leave
the theatre with such precipitation as the lady at Bristol.
This delightful person, although in an exceedingly delicate
condition of health, could not refrain from attending her
favorite Shakespearean play which was being presented at
the usual time of five o’clock in the afternoon. Being
seized with the pangs of maternity, she succeeded in making
her exit from the theatre, but as Watts says, "v/as overcome
on Brandon Hill, and there, within sight of the theatre,
gave birth to a fine boy, whom she subsequently, and with
true dramatic feeling, christened R o m e o .25
John Bannister, Jr., says that his mother had a dream
Ibid.- Ill, 312
22 Ibid, III, 314
22 Guy Tracey Watts, Theatrical Bristol (Bristol:
Holloway and Son, 1916) p. 44.
63
a few weeks before his birth, which she related to Charles
Bannister, her actor husband. The dream was that she saw
her infant son, then unborn, dancing a hornpipe on the head
of Garrick! While Jack Bannister never did mount in actual
life to anything like that dramatic eminence, he did manage
to become a passable comedian and all-round actor. Whether
this pre-natal influence had anything to do with his choice
of profession is doubtful. It is quite certain that his
boyhood circumstances were responsible for the development
of his love of the stage. From the time he could walk he
trailed his beloved father around the house and imitated
his dramatic gestures; as soon as he could talk he was learn
ing speeches from plays, and at the age of four he entertained
the audience at Ipswich with his representation of the infant
York, in Richard III.
Becoming interested in painting, he was sent to study
with the artist Loutherbourg, his father having agreed to pay
the apprentice fee of two hundred pounds. But the Bannisters,
father and, son, soon wearied of their contract and abandoned
it over the shrill protestations of the painter. From that
time on the die was cast, and the boy trod the boards as a
son of T h e s p i s.24
See The Monthly Mirror, "Biographical Sketch of
Mr. John Bannister" (June, 1797), p. 323-328.
64
General education. In appraising the education of
actors in the eighteenth century one does well to remember
something of the general education level of the time. The
ordinary man in the London streets was by our standards
wholly illiterate. A person who could read the daily broad
sides or the weekly dispatch sheets and newspapers could
often pick up a meagre living doing nothing but reading for
the poor chaps whose education had never been so generous to
them. True, not many of the actors were college men, but all
of them at least could r e a d .25 on the whole it is probable
that they were, at least as far as the London group was
concerned, of higher intelligence and general learning than
many of the members of the professions such as law and
medicine. The clergy was then the most "learned" professional
group outside the universities.
For a player to write upon a learned subject without
college sanction, regardless of his intellectual qualifica
tions, was looked upon early in the century as a shocking
offence. It was a time of intense intellectual snobbishness
on the part of academic men. "The dainty Mr. Gray," as
Davies calls him, was very much upset when Colley Cibber
An exception may be made for the case of Joe
Miller, the most famous punster of his age, who admitted
that he could neither read nor write, and that he had no
other method of getting his parts except by his wife’s read
ing them to him. See: William Cooke, Memoirs of Char les
Macklin (London: Jas. Asperne, London, 1806), p. 348. Of.
also European Magazine (August, 1797), p. 101.
66
published an essay on the character and conduct of Cicero,
although before the middle of the century various scholars
were quoting the work with respect. By that time, however,
Cibber had entrenched himself as the poet laureate of England,
and was not to be snubbed so successfully even by the Oxford
and Cambridge scholars. He never quite forgot his own un
successful application for admission to Winchester College,
and poked fun at the ease with which his younger brother
Lewis was admitted after the father of the boys had donated
a statue to the college!
The educational institutions of the century were
little changed from those of the time of Shakespeare. The
classics formed the core of the curriculum, and the classics
meant Latin, "and some Greek". There were, of course, the
great "Public Schools" as they are still called— those highly
private, restricted preparatory schools such as today’s Eton
and Harrow— to which no one but a child of wealth or high
birth might aspire. There were numerous smaller and cheaper
schools, especially in and around London, which seem to have
been without central supervision of any sort. Then there
were both in London and in the smaller cities, those private
academies such as the one Samuel Johnson attempted for a time
to supervise at Lichfield, in which were gathered, usually
Cibber^ o^. cit.. p. 34
66
under the supervision of a clergyman, a group of boys whose
parents thought should be taught the rudiments of knowledge#
Toward the end of the century the lot of girls began to im
prove considerably, and dozens of "boarding schools" or
"seminaries" sprang up all over England, under the super
vision usually of phenomenally inhibited spinsters who in
structed their charges in the ladylike arts of reading and
writing, although quite universally omitting any instruction
in such masculine studies as geography, arithmetic, or
natural science#
Richard Cumberland, who was a student about the middle
of the century, gives a clear statement of the ordinary
student^s chief occupation;
The tasks of a school-boy are of three descrip
tions; he is to give the construction of the author,
to study his repetitions, and to write what are
called his exercises, whether in verse or prose. In
the former two, the tasks of construing and saying
by heart, it was the usage of our school to chal
lenge for places. In this province my good fortune
was unclouded; in my exercises I did not succeed
so well, for by aiming at something like fancy and
invention I was too frequently betrayed into gram
matical errors, whilst my rivals presented exer
cises with fewer faults, and by attempting
scarcely anything, hazarded little.
This is probably a fairly accurate picture of the practice
in most of the public schools of his time. It presents a
rather dreary, Latinical picture to a student of today.
P7
Richard Cumberland, Memoirs of Richard Cumberland
(London: Lackington, Allen and Co., 1806), p. 32.
67
Even the study of Latin was not without its charms,
however, and one of the greatest of these for the school
boys was the presentation of a Latin play just before the
Christmas holidays. One year, when the play was omitted in
his school, Cumberland and his fellows gave privately a
performance of Cato; and being detected in such nefarious
goings-on by the masters, they gave excerpts for the benefit
of their superiors the next day, who fined them memory pas
sages of Juvenal to atone for their wretched acting.
Cumberland got his real literary training, however, not in
school but at home, where he read Shakespeare aloud to his
mother nightly through his vacations. He started his liter
ary career then and there by trying to write a play in
Shakespeare *s own language.
In the small towns of England there were "free schools,"
as opposed to the exclusive "public schools". Sometimes
these "free schools" were equal in many ways to their more
pretentious brothers. Colley Cibber attended such a school
at Grantham, Lincolnshire, from the time he was eleven until
he was sixteen years of age. With the rise in his fortune,
however, he sent his own children to better schools, pro
bably hoping that they would thus avoid the social stigma
68
which he had borne, of lack of formal e d u c a t i o n .^8 Private
tutors were of course in great favor, but few members of the
theatrical profession ever came in contact with them except
across the footlights.
The tuition for a boy at a country boarding school
would seem to have been generally quite reasonable during
the later part of the century. George Homney the painter,
who was born in 1734, was sent to school with a Rev. Mr.
Fell a few miles from his home in Lancaster, where he was
boarded for four pounds ten shillings per annum. Tuition,
which presumably was the same for day scholars, was five
schillings per quarter. In the London Evening Post for
January 16, 1777 appeared an advertisement from a school
at Shunfield, near Reading, Berkshire, in which it was
stated that young gentlemen were genteelly boarded and care
fully taught the English language and penmanship, "arith-
metick, vulgar and decimal, according to the latest improve
ments," and 8ingle-entry bookkeeping; all of this for one
guinea entrance fee, and fourteen pounds per year tuition.^^
Thus early was the movement under way to provide more
Gibber was of course one of the villains of Pope’s
Dunciad, the sneers of which he answered by a pleasantly
nasty open letter to Mr. Pope. The letter concerned a visit
the two of them had once made to a bawdy house, with nearly
disastrous results to the unfinished translation of the
OdysseyI (See: Thespian Dictionary, under "Cibber," for
reproduction of it.)
I^oiidon Evening Post. January 16, 1777,
"Advert is ements"•
69
practical education instead of the strictly classical train
ing in vogue in the public schools.
"Female" education. Education for girls was not
popular at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In spite
of the brilliant careers of such women as Aphra Behn— who
wrote Restoration plays with more of a Rabelaisian leer than
did most of her male contemporaries— and of the capable
actresses in Betterton’s group, education of any formal sort
was still regarded as superfluous for women. The daughters
of the gentry were tutored in reading and writing, but aside
from that were not mentally taxed. Their training was more
generally in the "female arts" of manners and superficial
social conduct than it was in intellectual pursuits. Not
always were their manners looked to with sufficient care.
Especially was this true of the actresses, who for the most
part had not been given the benefit of anything but the most
superficial contacts with proper society before they came upon
the Restoration or eighteenth century stage. Jo Haines
poked fun at them, from his vantage point of a college-bred
man, in his most famous and obscene prologue, in which he
threatened to turn the play-house into a boarding school to
instruct these ignoramuses. Said he; "To mend their Manners
and coarse English feeding. They went to Ireland, to improve
their breeding." The inference is obvious, as "Irish man
ners" in those days was cant for no manners at all. The
70
irrepressible Jo could not resist saying with a leer:
"D’ye think the Maids won’t be in a sweet Condition, VÆien
they’re under Jo Haynes’s grave Tuition?
Cibber’s ideas on education were much more liberal
than were most, and as has already been intimated he gave
his children exceptional educations. He sent his peculiarly
eccentric little daughter Charlotte (later Mrs. Charke) to a
famous school in Park Street, Westminster, governed by a
Mrs. Draper. There Charlotte, at the age of eight, studied
both Italian and Latin by special dispensation, those being
subjects generally reserved for boys. French she had studied
from her earliest years. Reading and writing were of course
ordinary and universal subjects. Ciphering, a science which
would have come in handy in Mrs. Charke’s later involved
financial life, was omitted. Geography she studied, both
terrestrial and celestial, although that again was permitted
by special dispensation. She worked on music under the
tutelage of a famous organist and singing master, Mr. Young
of St. Clements Danes; dancing she studied with the cele
brated Mr. Grosconet. After two years of this school, so
rapid was her progress and so singular her disposition, she
was permitted to continue her education at home. Thus the
two years from eight to ten were the only ones she spent
in the school. In her spare time moreover she amused herself
Cur11, up. cit.. p. 10. For a satirical summary
of "female education" in 1797 see Appendix, II, 2.
71
by becoming an expert shot and a superlative horsewoman.
She had a mind which seemingly skipped from one thing to
another with more than ordinary facility. After a slight
acquaintance with a physician she once set herself up in
a small pharmacy (the outfitting of which she charged to
her father) as a practicing doctor. Her Gil Bias approach
didn’t turn out at all badly, and people flocked to her
office for the free prescriptions— until her father began to
receive the bills. Later she was an actress, puppeteer,
grocery woman, tavern-keeper, groom, and actual beggar.
Finally in extreme straits, outlawed by society, disowned by
her father and brother, deserted by one husband and widowed
of another, wretched in health and lodging, she sat down in
the squalor of her little hovel and penned her memoirs in
the hope of getting thereby enough money to keep some life
in her destitute body.
Brilliant as Charlotte was in some ways, there was
always in her a touch of insanity. Her life is the most
pathetic example of maladjustment chronicled in the theatri
cal history of the eighteenth century, and her father can
never be entirely absolved of blame in her ruin: especially
Charlotte Charke, A Narrative of the Life of
Mrs^ Charlotte Charke (Reprinted in Constable’s Miscellany,
London: Constable, 1929) Of. also Doran, op. cit.. II,
215-215. For condensation of her life see also The Gentle-
man’s Magazine for October, 1775.
72
in the light of his sentimental and unreasonable defense of
his vicious son, Theophilus.
Milliner’s shops might be said to.have trained more
actresses for the eighteenth century stage than any other
type of school. Evidently they were influential in getting
aspiring actresses on the stage. Mrs. Saunders, the daughter
of a well-known wine-cooper, was thus apprenticed early in
the century. And after the expiration of her time she was,
"at the earnest Request of her hearty Friend Mrs. Oldfield,
tho* but 16 years of Age, brought on the Drury-Lane Theatre." 32
Mrs. Saunders had already been sent by her parents to a
boarding school in Wiltshire where she had received a "gen
teel education" in at least two of the "Rs". Mrs. Oldfield
no doubt had taken a particular interest in the little mil
liner’s apprentice, because she herself had started life as
apprentice to a Mrs. Wotton, a sempstress in King Street,
Westminster, before being introduced to Christopher Rich by
the alert Sir John Vanbrugh.
Theatrical education. Actual stage training was not
a common thing early in the century, before the famous elo
cution schools, if such they may be called, of Macklin and
his contemporaries were founded. Instruction for the stage.
Thomas Betterton, The History of the English
Stage. from the Restauration to the Present Time (Thiswork
is commonly Attributed to Oldys) (London; E. Cur11, 1741),
p. 161*
73
when it was given, was invariably an individual matter.
Very few of the aspirants were so fortunate as Elizabeth
Barry, however,— the young prot^g^ of Devenant, and mistress
of the dissolute Rochester who vowed to make an actress of
her. The young lord made good his word; he personally taught
her the dramatic works, line by line, and to familiarize
her with the stage he superintended thirty rehearsals of
each character in which Barry was to appear, twelve of them
in full costume. No wonder that the intelligence of the
girl "leaped into life and splendor under such instruction,"
as Doran says. But this is obviously a case of special
training, and not at all typical of the ordinary routine of
the theatre. The literature of the period up to Garrick is
full of notices concerning badly memorized lines, poorly
rehearsed business, and ineffectively mounted spectacles—
things which could only have come about through faulty
training and lax discipline.
More typical was the theatrical education of Peg
Woffington, who learned by quick observation and constant
practice--never by precept. She was very young when Madame
Violante persuaded her mother to allow the little sprite to
become a pupil in her side-show, f^ggy was apt, and in
Doran’s resounding phrase which deserves perpetuity, "per
formed little tricks while her mistress was on the rope,
learned French thoroughly, and acquired grace of person.
74
style, and carriage, by which she gained fortune, and reaped
ruin."33
Through most of the century the great training school
for the stage was the rural or provincial theatre, or the
strolling companies. Few actors in the first half of the
period are found going directly from amateur theatricals to
the London stage. It was a frequent habit of London managers
to send "back to grass" an actor whose talents were not yet
sufficiently matured for their city audiences--although it
is difficult to find many traces of mature taste in the
early theatre audience itself!34
General educational standards in the theatre. The
managers themselves often had none too much of either edu
cation or taste. Old John Rich, says Davies, had grossly
neglected his own training, for though his understanding
was good his language was vulgar and ungrammatical. "He
was a perfect male Slip-Slop." He had contracted a peculiar,
servile habit of calling everybody "Mister," and the habit
irritated Foote particularly. One day Foote asked Rich why
he couldn’t call people by their names. "Don’t be angry,"
said the manager, "for I often forget my own name." Foote
Doran, up. cit., II, 180.
See Alwin Thaler, "Strolling Players and Pro
vincial Drama after Shakespeare," P_. M. 31. , (June, 1922)
XXXVII, 243-280. Cf., also, Elbridge Colby, "A supplement
on Strollers," g, L- A*, (September, 1934) XXXIX, 642-654
Of., Appendix, II, 1.
75
scowled at him# "That’s extraordinary Indeed," he grunted.
"I knew you couldn’t write your own name, hut I did not
suppose you could forget it."35 it may be that Rich had
attended the sort of school Thomas Holcroft, the son of a
London shoemaker, attended later in the century.
My father one day whipped me very severly for
crying to go to a school in the neighborhood,
(i. e., Leicester Fields) where children were sent
rather to keep them out of the way, than to learn
anything. He afterward ordered an apprentice he
had to take me to school. ... I perfectly re
member his carrying me in my petticoats, consoling
me as we went, and giving me something nice to
eat.36
This school was evidently a sort of kindergarten for very
young children, although it is probable that many more
adult institutions were used for much the same purpose, as
a repository for troublesome youth rather than a training
school for it. Holcroft’s artistic education consisted of
a year’s study on the violin, during which time his cobbler
father thought him on the way to being a virtuoso; but
his father’s, rather than his interest soon flagged, and
the fiddling with it.
Doran says that he had read somewhere that Macklin
could not read at thirty-five, but correctly reasons that
it was a pure fable. Macklin himself once said that his
35
Thomas Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David
Garrick, Esq. (London: The author, 1780), p. 334.
William Hazlitt (ed.), Memoirs of the Late Thomas
Holcroft (London: Longman, Hurst, etc., 1816)I, 2*
76
earliest recollection was of trudging the three miles to
his uncle’s house where he was taught the rudiments of
learning. At eight or nine he was appearing as Monimia in
private theatricals. At any rate, if he did not then have
the ability to read, he certainly had plenty of time to
acquire the ability in his centenarian life : he created
the part of Sir Pertinax Macsycophant in his own play, Man
of the World, when he was at least ninety, and was probably
ninety-eight when he made his last appearance as Shylock.
He used to say Jokingly that he was a Trinity College man--
which he was in a way. For some time he had been a badge-
man, or porter, in the ancient seat of learning, a title
which he relinquished for the precarious trade of a stroll
ing player. With such a background, it is easy to under
stand the supercilious disdain with which the contemporary
intelligentsia regarded the combined College of Elocution
and Dining Room, which he opened at one time on the Piazza
in Covent Garden. The old gentleman was simply out of his
depth. He was a firm believer in systematic education,
however, in spite of his lack of it, and is said to have
expended over twelve hundred pounds on the training of his
daughter--that triumphantly modest actress who finally died
of the results of an infection rather than allow a male
77
surgeon to examine her leg!
Aotor-soholars. Toward the end of the century the
general level of education among actors had been raised to
an unmistakably high plane. Too.much credit has been given
to Garrick for this fact, as for many other things with
which he had little to do, except incidentally. It is true
that he systematized and made more cohesive the program of
actual stage training; but by over-working his actors, and
when it was possible under-paying them, he actually made
it more difficult for the average actor to be a truly well-
educated man. To such men as Roger Kemble and more parti
cularly Thomas Sheridan, the father of Richard Brinsley,
is due credit for indicating a really scholarly approach
to acting.
Roger Kemble of course never designed any of his
children for the stage, and indeed did everything that he
could to keep them from adopting the profession which he
had followed as a country theatrical manager for many years.
John Philip, the most brilliant of the boys, had undoubt
edly the most thorough education of the lot. From an
elementary school in Worcester he went to a Roman Catholic
37
The most authentic information concerning the
life of Macklin comes from James Thomas Kirkman, Memo ir s
of the Life of Charles Macklin, Esq. (London: Lackington,
Allen Co., 179971 One version of the well known modesty
of Miss Macklin is given by Genest, p£. cit.. V, 580.
78
seminary at Sedgely Park, Staffordshire. There the lad
distinguished himself, and his father decided to have him
complete his studies, even at considerable sacrifice to
himself. Hence he was sent to the English college at
Douay where he was to be qualified for one of the learned
professions--probably the priesthood. At Douay he became
famous for his declamatory powers, and beloved by his class
mates for his prodigious memory. It is said that at one
time he assumed a penalty which had been laid upon his
entire class, and memorized two books of Homer--upward of
fifteen hundred lines I This vicarious attonement, accepted
for the common sin, made John a prime favorite, as can be
imagined.
On the completion of his college course, in which
he had concentrated heavily on religion, he returned to
England and over his father’s protest went on the stage,
making his d^ut in 1776 at Wolverhampton as "Theodosius"
in The Force of Love. He played in many of the provincial
theatres, most notably in Daly’s famous Dublin theatre,
and in 1784 made his London debut as a very scholarly Hamlet
at Drury Lane. His roving rural theatre acting got him
little profit or fame; but all of it was excellent train
ing and as such deserves to be classed as one of the most
important elements in his education. His rise from that
time until the early nineteenth century when he stood at
79
the very peak of his profession both as actor and manager,
was steady if not meteoric. Throughout his life he main
tained his studious and scholarly habits, as the careful
annotation of material in the Kemble-Devonshire collection
now in the Huntington Library amply attests. He built up
the best private dramatic library in London, and he read
his own booksGarrick collected books, but there is
ample evidence of the fact that he rarely looked farther
than the bindings.
All of the Kemble boys were given excellent educa
tions; but the financial limitations of an itinerant thea
trical manager were limited, the family was very large
(Roger Kemble had twelve children, eight of whom grew to
adulthood), and so the girls got their education pretty much
by their own efforts supplemented by the advice of their
mother and father. Sarah, who was the oldest of the brood,
early cultivated habits of thorough study which she applied
to every theatrical part she undertook in her long c a r e e r .39
Although she was undoubtedly a self-educated woman, she
was by the same token one of the best educated women of the
century.
The best general authority on Kemble is James
Boaden’s Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, Esq.
(London: Longman, Hurst, etc., 1825).
39
See her careful and original analysis of the
character of Lady Macbeth: Thomas Campbell, Life of Mrs.
Siddons, (London: Effingham Y/ilson, 1834), p. 10-35.
80
Richard Brinsley Sheridan belonged really to the
aristocracy of the theatre. His father was the leading
force in the Irish theatre, and was a brilliant scholar as
well as capable actor and manager. He gave his children
the best basic education that was available at the time in
England, and supplemented it with travel in France where
they could absorb the language and customs of that most
sophisticated of nations. That there were other advantages
in French residence appears obvious from a letter that he
wrote to his friend Samuel Whyte. It is dated from Biois,
October 14th, 1764:
--The air here is inconceivably fine, and the
alteration it has already made in me makes me
coni'idently hope for a perfect cure. Mrs. Sheridan,
Charles, and the two girls are with me; Dick con
tinues at Harrow. . .. The journey was confounded
ly expensive; but the cheapness of the place will
make full amends. I could support my family here
better upon a hundred pounds a year than upon five
in London.40
Lest a wrong impression be given, it should be noted
that the learned theatre manager could certainly not have
supported his family on five hundred pounds in London at the
time. He was as extravagant in his way, and as unfortunate
financially as his gambling son Richard Brinsley, who was
later to out such a swath in theatrical and political af
fairs in London. Even in 1776-77, when he was nearly sixty
40
Samuel Whyte and E. A. Whyte, A Miscellany
(Dublin: Robert Marchbank, 1799), p. 12sT
81
years of age, Thomas Sheridan earned in benefits and shares
at the Dublin theatre over £966. He had played earlier in
the season at Covent Garden, for which he had been substan
tially rewarded, and in the summer played at Cork— again,
one may be assured, for more than mere pleasure!
Thus Richard Brinsley Sheridan, although the son of
a "provincial theatre manager," as were the Kembles, was
accustomed to a high place in society and sufficient spend
ing money to enable him to grow up with the aristocrats of
London. After Harrow he with his brother who had just re
turned from Prance had a high time of it in London, attend
ing Mr. Angelo’s famous fencing and riding school, and other
wise amusing themselves pretty much without any parental
restriction. Their father, the actor-manager Dr. Thomas
Sheridan,—was a man with a scholarly background of Univer
sity training, and with a comparatively large income.
Roger Kemble was after all merely an ex-hairdresser who had
married the daughter of a manager of a strolling company,
and inherited the business as a dowry. Yet both of them
managed to spawn children who did great service in the
theatre in lifting the educational and social level of the
actor.
It is never wise to exaggerate the importance of for
mal education, even in appraising a man’s knowledge of
classical subjects. The actor John Henderson, who took over
82
many of Garrick’s favorite roles at Drury Lane after his
retirement, had a very meagre education from the schools,
and yet was known in his day as an excellent classical
scholar. As a boy he studied art, for which he showed a
remarkable talent. But his mother had given him a volume
of Shakespeare, and from a frequent reading of the plays
he may be said to have educated himself in all the essen
tials of dramatic thought, and at the same time imbibed the
heady desire for acting. For ten years he worked strenuously
to develop his thin, piping voice until it could be heard
in the theatre, meanwhile practicing dramatic parts con
stantly. In spite of the lack of schooling, however, Davies
says that he knew the French language well, was not unac
quainted with.the Latin classics, and was perfectly conver
sant with all the best English writers.41 He had undoubtedly
started the study of such subjects in his school (where it
was is uncertain although it is true that he didn’t spend
much time there); and they were probably the subject of
much more study during that lean ten-year period when he was
working on his voice, and trying to get a hearing with
Colman and Garrick on the London stage.
Singers of the eighteenth century operatic stage were
often then, as now, excellently trained musically but very
Thomas Davies, A Genuine Narrative of the Life
and Theatrical Transactions of Mr. John Henderson (London;
T. Evans, 1777), p. 43.
83
poorly trained histrionically. For this fact one suspects
that the early vogue of Italian opera in England is much to
blame. Yet very early in the century, and Indeed throughout
the second quarter up to Garrick’s time, probably the favor
ite role for dramatic debut among the actresses was Polly
Peachum, that charming heroine of Gay’s Beggar’s Opera,
which the beautiful Lavinia Fenton had p layed on its memo
rable premiere in January of 1728. Evidently in the early
years of the century even musical training was not particu
larly essential. After Handel’s venture in Italian opera had
apparently collapsed with the great success of Gay’s light
opera, Handel began to turn his attention to the oratorio
and to Biblical opera. The musical demands of his scores
were such that singers were perforce highly trained before
they could even passably sing them. He continued the strongest
musical force in England until his death in 1759, and much
of his music, difficult of performance as it is, holds its
audience today.
Of the highly trained singing actors produced in
England during Handel’s period, or rather just after it, the
most famous was Michael Kelly, who was born in 1762, the
son of a Dublin wine-merchant and dancing teacher. Kelly
had the best training in singing that his fairly prosperous
father could buy for him, and coached with three of the
best known Italian teachers of his time. Passerini, Peretti,
84
and St. Giorgio. He studied piano with Morland, Michael
Arne, Dr. Cogan, and coached with the famous Ra-uzzini. On
the continent he completed his musical education while sing
ing in the leading opera houses and concert halls. He became
a friend of Haydn and an intimate of Mozart--indeed sang in
%
the premiere of Nozze di Figaro. Later he returned to London
to become manager of the Opera House, and musical director
of Sheridan’s Drury Lane Theatre.42 The point that seems
important is that by his time, late in the century, a singer
in opera thought of himself as having a definite profession,
requiring a definite course of study, and not merely as an
actor who could carry a tune*
The end of the Century. This r^sum^ of the circum
stances of the birth and early training of eighteenth cen
tury actors was started with a summary of the life of Nell
Gwynn. Undoubtedly she was typical in many ways of the
profession early in the period; gay, rather un-moral, without
reputable birth, and certainly not very "seriously minded".
Just as typical of the changed status of the profession
toward the end of the period was the innocent life of Mary
Robinson, who was born in 1758 and was brought out by
Garrick at the age of seventeen, in Romeo and Juliet. The
Michael Kelly, Reminiscences of Michael Kelly of
the King’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane (London; Henry Colburn,
1826, 2nd. ed.) See also the article in Grove’s Dictionary
of Music.
85
soberness that had come over the profession since the roaring
days of Charles II and his rowdy court is reflected in the
life of this star of later years. Says she, in her memoirs:
The nursery in which I passed my hours of in
fancy was so near the great aisle of the minster,
that the organ, which re-echoed its deep tones,
accompanied by the chanting of the choristers, was
distinctly heard both at morning and evening ser
vice. . . . While my brothers were playing on the
green before the minster, the servant who attended
us has often, by my earnest entreaties, suffered
me to remain beneath the great eagle which stood
in the centre of the aisle, to support the book
from which the clergyman read the lessons of the
day. . .
As soon as I had learned to read, my greatest
delight was that of learning epitaphs and monumental
inscriptions. A story of melancholy import never
failed to excite my attention; and before I was
seven years old, I could correctly repeat Pope’s
Lines to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady; Mason’s
Elegy on the Death of the beautiful Countess of
Coventry; and many smaller poems on similar sub
jects. I had then been attended two years by
various masters.43
From this rather mournful background of upper-class
respectability, Mary went to the boarding school which was
kept for a time by Hannah More and her five sisters. The
Mores were theatrically minded, and often took their whole
group of students to the theatre. Little Mary saw for her
first play, in the Bristol Theatre, King Lear, with Powel
and Mrs. Fisher in the leading roles. It was certainly an
auspicious start for her dramatic appreciation; and although
the Bristol company was not the best in the land, the
43
Robinson, up# cit., I, 13-14.
86
performance seemed very grand to the awe-stricken girl.
Soon after that dramatic venture, Mary started on an
educational trek which led her through several small semi
naries; first &Irs. Lorrington’s, then Mrs. Leigh’s, and
finally that kept by her own mother. Her mother, who had
been practically abandoned by her wealthy husband when he
ran off to America with a mistress, did as many another
matron with a brood to support has done--she started a
school. Mary, at the age of fourteen, became the head of
the department of English literature in this institution of
learning. But the return of the father, and his snobbishly
horrified command, forced the abandonment of this scheme,
although he had little money left and the family was poorly
provided for in the London establishment which he gave them.
Mary was finally attracted to the stage largely through the
economic necessity of assisting in the support of her mother
and brothers and sisters.
She was brought to the attention of Garrick, who was
in his last seasons as an actor, and was grooming several
actors to fill the enormous hole which he fancied his re
tirement would create. He became personally interested in
her, and took over her training for the stage d^but which
he had chosen for her--that same Cordelia which had fas
cinated her on her first night in a theatre. Garrick worked
with her frequently on gesture, voice, and interpretation.
87
and gave her a pass to the theatre where he requested her to
be found on as many evenings as was possible. He put great
faith in the stage as a teacher of acting.
Little Mary was meanwhile progressing socially as
well as dramatically. She had received two offers of mar-
riage--one from a rake whose wife was out of town, and the
other from a wealthy man three times her age. She had also
met and fallen in love with her future husband, a young law
student who nursed her devotedly through a sickness of small
pox which she had contracted from her brother. And so at
the mature age of sixteen she married Mr. Bobinson.
She soon found her husband unfaithful, a cheat and a
liar, an illegitimate son who had posed as an heir, a weak
ling whom she nevertheless loved, and with whom her memoirs
deal v/ith extraordinary charity. Her account of her
peregrinations with her "sweet little infant," Maria, asleep
in a large basket, are as genuine as anything in human
history, and as sentimental. Her delicacy of thought is
innate, and her sensitivity of phrase is best indicated by
the way in which she refers to a notorious lady of the day;
". . .at the period in which I first saw her, she was, I
believe, devoted to a life of unrestrained impropriety."
Finally at the age of seventeen, after two years of
peculiar stress and discomfort, she was presented at Drury
Lane by Sheridan in the role of Juliet under the patronage
8 8
of the Duchess of Devonshire. The dress she wore for dA)ut
was peculiarly fitting to one of such an angelic nature;
. . . pale pink satin, trimmed with crape, richly
spangled with silver; my head was ornamented with
white feathers, and my monumental suit, for the
last scene, was white satin and completely plain;
excepting that I wore a veil of the most trans
parent gauze which fell quite to my feet from the
back of my head, and a string of beads round my
waist to which was suspended a cross appropriately
fashioned.44
Her beauty made her constantly besieged offstage by
gentlemen who offered her every inducement to leave her
faithless, spendthrift husband, but she remained true to him
and continued her activities on the stage. Her youngest
infant died pathetically. Her virtue was assaulted by men
of rank, several dukes and a lord being in the group. Two
years after her debut, when she was a ravishing beauty of
eighteen, she received overtures from the then Prince of
Wales (later King George the IV) and her scruples began to
melt away. Soon afterward began that Florizel-Perdita
romance, (for so the lovers always called themselves) between
the young Prince and the lovely actress. Stricken at twenty-
four with rheumatic fever, she very nearly died, but re
covered to lead a rather romantic semi-invalid existence.
She was provided for generously by her erstwhile lover, and
recovered her health sufficiently to travel extensively in
Ibid.. I, 191.
89
Europe. She wrote novels of the Gothic Romance type, turned
out a little farce or two, but never again appeared on the
stage.
This portrait of Mary Robinson is given at length as
a sort of set piece for the end of the century. The actress
of the eighteenth century came in as a vulgar, hard-headed,
clever hoyden from the streets--a Nell Gwynn, or Peg Woffing
ton, with a somewhat soiled plume draggling from her gaudy
hat, and a broad jest on her tongue. She went out as a
rather gentle, sentimental, religiously inclined mother of
"a sweet infant," dressed in pale pink satin with clouds of
white feathers surrounding her modestly averted head, and
with a benison on her lips. The actor came in from Res
toration days--a swashbuckling, drinking, dueling, lady-
killing fellow of the high spots: a Mohun or a Jo Haines.
He crept out on dramatic tiptoe, a sombrely clothed trage
dian, with subdued voice, and a book in his hand; a J. P.
Kemble, a Charles Bannister, or an Edmund Kean.
Extreme statements concerning the lack of education
among eighteenth century actors must always be tempered by
a realization of the low state of general education among the
members of the audience before which he appeared. It was
not an age of wide or intelligent education in England.
Even the standards of the Universities were not particularly
high. There was not the driving, fresh interest in the
90
rediscovered classics which had made scholars of the Oxford
and Cambridge men of the sixteenth century; nor were there
the synthetic but nevertheless exciting ideas of the new
Romanticism which began to ferment in the m inds of thinkers
toward the end of the century.
For the most part it was an age of sterile neo-
classicism, paralleled by the extreme sentimentalism re
corded in the monstrous novels"of Richardson, and the effete
emotionalism of Sterne. Cults grev; and flourished. Reli
gious revivals swept the common people. Many thinkers,
revolting against the extremes of the Restoration period,
became at first terrifically concerned with the reformation
of morals; and then seeing the extremes to which reforma
tion could go, as in the Jeremy Collier pamphlet war, swung
back toward sentimentalism* One is hard put to it to decide
between the frank animal lack of inhibition of the late
Restoration, and the equally gross and often more sickening
extremes of sentimentalism of the middle and late eighteenth
century novel.
The bourgeoisie had a terrific time of it in the
century trying to grow up into the backbone of England which
it was to become. The most significant feature of social
England of the time is the mob— that hydra-headed thing
always to be placated by the government, the church, the
theatre, and the individual; governed by nothing but
91
momentary whim, disturbed and clumsy under the goad of its
newly felt sense of power, constantly getting out of control
and smashing things in the throes of its creative orgasms.
And as the century went onward it was this mob— this unedu
cated, almost illiterate mass of people who had just begun
to lick at the edges of knowledge and freedom— it was this
mob that became the supporter and the destroyer of the
actor. It was with its individuals that the actor was
compared, and with them that he did mental battle. He was
then often, in spite of occasional lack of academic training
or of reputable birth, one of the best informed men in
England. Certainly by 1810 the acting profession was filled
with men and women who were as well-born and as well-educated
as the members of any profession in the land, with the
exception of the ministry, and the law. Nobility of birth
they had not, in a technical sense; but integrity within
their ovm ranks they had assuredly won.*^^
For a footnote on the education of the nobility
of the age see Appendix, II, 3, a letter of Lord Melbourne
to his mistress, Mrs. Baddeley.
CHAPTER III
STAGE-STRUCK CHILDREN
The Play-House was a Land of Enchantment, the
Country of metamorphosis, and performed it with
the greatest Speed Imaginable. Here, in the twinkl
ing of an Eye, you shall see Men transformed into
Demi-Gods, and Goddesses made as true Flesh and
Blood as our Common Women. Here Fools by slight
of Hand are converted into Wits, Honest Women
into arrant Whores; and which is most miraculous.
Cowards into Valiant Heroes, and rank Coquettes
and Jilts into as chast and virtuous Mistresses
as a Man would desire to put his Knife into.
---Tom Brown.^
The lure of the stage is a strange and almost univer
sal thing. It is essentially the call of the unreal, or the
ideal, plus a form of exhibitionism, and on that indefinable
lure depends the attractiveness of the theatre for the actor
as well as the audience. It offers the perfect escape from
reality into a world unbounded by physical, social, or in
tellectual laws of operation. Even more then than today
was this attitude prevalent in the eighteenth century. One “
who has read even meagerly in the novels and biographies of
the period must have felt this peculiar ’ -beyond the horizon”
y earning with which the youth of the day looked at the
theatre. We have today only a pale counterpart of it in
the hitch-hiking of pretty sub-debs from Jersey to Hollywood,
^ Thomas Brown, The Works of Mr. Thomas Brown.
Serious and Comical (London: Sam Briscoe, 1720), p. 42.
93
determined to break into the motion pictures#
Of course the obvious conclusion would be that the
attractiveness was due to a life outside which was unpleas
ant in the extreme, and from which an escape was sought.
This was often the case, but not nearly enough to account
for the tremendous numbers of boys and girls who, in the
delightful phrase of the time, had "smelt the lamp". Often,
as has been pointed out in a preceding chapter, they came
from excellent homes and quite pleasant families. But the
romantic lure of the stage claimed them, and they sacrificed
whatever other chances they might have had to follow the
tattered banner of some strolling company, or sneaked into
a minor role at an established theatre, evidently quite con
tent with their bargain.
Insofar as one can judge, the pull of the footlights--
pr more literally the glitter of the chandeliers— continued
unabated throughout the century, even with the great improve
ment in general living conditions in England. Various ele
ments in the attraction of the profession changed, it is
true; in the late Restoration times it was the obvious moral
freedom of the stage atmosphere that drew recruits, while in
the era of Garrick and of Siddons it was the financial re
ward of enormous salaries for stars, and also an almost
fanatical reverence for acting genius that exerted the
greatest pull.
Toward the end of the period there was a deal of
94
nonsense talked about the actors. Garrick, who was in
many ways mediocre as an actor; Mrs. Siddons, who must have
been in many ways magnificently, classically ridiculous;
these were people who inspired a form of hero worship that to
us today seems stupid and unbalanced in the extreme. Young
writes, in the Memoirs of Mrs. Crouch, of a certain "immi
nent Physician," who was reckoned a very learned and
sensible man, who said,
. . . He would never go to see Mrs. Siddons in
comedy; never stay to hear her speak an epilogue,
nor go into company after seeing her perform; be
cause he wished to hold her sacred in his idea,
and dreaded lest the breath of laughter should for
a moment dim the rays of her glory in the first
instances; and in the last, he thought it was a
respect due to her wonderful power of creating woe,
to let it exist with contemplative silence until
annihilated by the irresistible magic of sleep.^
When adult, well-educated men felt this way, certainly the
young people cannot be censured for having a few similar
ideas and yearnings.
Thus instead of decreasing, this stage-struck atti
tude actually seems to have increased steadily through the
century. There is no way of determining exactly how many
actors of all sorts there were in England by 1800, but it is
quite certain that there were not nearly so many actual
actors as there were would-be performers.
2
M. J. Young, Memoirs of Mrs. Crouch (London:
James Asperne, 1806), I, 229.
95
Pierce Egan, in his delightful Life of an Actor,
published in 1825, tells of "The Light Horseman," a tavern
in Leicester Fields which at the turn of the century was
kept by a minor actor, Mr. Finch. At this tavern there was
nightly gathered a crowd of waggish gentry who delighted in
gulling the credulous, stage-struck boys who were enticed to
perform for them in the hope of getting into the theatre.
These playful fellows pretended to be great managers of
theatres in the country, in search of dramatic talent; and
the simple lads roared right lustily in demonstrations of
their ability as heavy tragedians and light comedians, while
the pseudo-managers beat their mugs on the table in applause.
Finally the farce would be brought to a conclusion by a
whispered signal, "Exit!" upon which all the bystanders
emptied the dregs of their beer over the.heads of the luck
less victims.^ That the net result of this practice was
good for the future of the English stage is entirely possible
Many are called, even today, and few are chosen.
of actors at debut. If one glances for a few
moments at the ages of various actors when they made their
stage debuts, he really begins to appreciate the extent of
the adolescent surge toward the stage. There were, of course,
many child actors--usually the children of old troupers or
^ Pierce Egan, The Life of An Actor (London: G. S.
Arnold, 1825), p. 42.
96
theatre employees who were glad to earn a few extra shill
ings by the services of little Mary or John as a stage Fairy,
or as "the infant York". Some of these children, like Sarah
Siddons, and later Edmund Kean, worked hard at their job and
became superlative adult actors. Many of them, when their
childish vogue was passed, dropped into obscurity--as did
the famous Master Betty. Most of Roger Kemble *s children
were performing on the country stages with their father * s
company as soon as they could walk without holding to the
furniture. Mrs. Siddons acted "from infancy," and according
to Campbell was at thirteen "the heroine of several English
operas, and sang very tolerably". Thomas Dibdin, who later
wrote a famous history of the stage in addition to his
Memoirs and many adaptations of romantic German plays, made
his stage debut at Drury Lane at the age of four, being led
before the audience by îÆrs. Siddons. Peg Woffington began
her dramatic career with Madame Violante*s child troupe,
"The Lilliputian Actors," at the age of either ten or twelve
according to varying accounts.
There were various abortive non-professional ventures
upon the stage by future performers. Garrick himself made
his unofficial debut as "Serjeant Kite" in The Recruiting
Officer when he was eleven years of age. The production
was, however, an amateur one in the school which Garrick
attended. David inspired and drilled his cast, and then
97
practically put on the show himself. "It is said," Murphy
remarks dourly, "that he acquitted himself with great
humour %" He asked Samuel Johnson to write a prologue for
the performance, but for some reason his friend declined.
It was not until he was twenty-five, however, that Garrick
really made an official d^but in a theatre. Pepys states
that he came near playing "Arthur" at school. That the
craze for child actors early in the century was a carry
over from pre-Restoration days and the marvelous boys who
were on the stage in Shakespeare's time seems somewhat im
probable, however. They were rather merely children who by
some accident of birth or of circumstance were forced on the
stage.
When one gets into the ranks of adolescent actors,
however, there is no question of forcing or of accident.
Most of them went on the stage because they wanted to, and
were willing to leap hurdles in order to get the chance.
Beautiful Anne Gatley by diligent study and practice
had made herself a celebrated singer and actress at the age
of fifteen. Mrs. Jordan, one of three acting sisters, made
her début at Daly’s Dublin theatre at the same age, as did
also Miss Barren who later became the Countess of Derby.
Richard Estcourt, who was famous as the pampered doll of the
Court ladies in late Restoration times, ran away to join a
strolling company of actors when he was fifteen, and played
98
female roles actually to escape detection by his parents.
Such a pretty lady did he make, that he was universally the
cause of infatuations. His father penetrated his disguise,
however, and apprenticed him to a London apothecary; but
Richard soon escaped again, and after making some reputation
on the Irish stage, returned to London to become the greatest
mimic of his time. Lacy Ryan, whose youth so annoyed Bet
terton when he met him on the stage in an old man’s makeup,
was hard at work playing Shakespearian roles at sixteen.
Many others made their debut at that susceptible age, among
them Mrs. Ann Merry (daughter of John Brunton), Miss
Broadhurst, and Mrs. Saunders.
The age of seventeen seems,‘ * " “ iiov/ever, to have been the
critical age for stage aspirants. Literally dozens of them
took their first timid steps across the boards of the pro
vincial or even the London theatres at that age. Barton
Booth ran away to Dublin and became an actor at seventeen.
Mrs. Abington, who had spent her girlhood running about
London streets with messages, and had then combined the pro-
fession of flower-girl and prostitute, made her debut at the
Haymarket theatre at seventeen. The eccentric Tate Wilkinson
made his bid at the same age, as did William Brereton very
early in the century. Colley Cibber was attracted by the
voice of Kitty Clive, and gave her a chance at the stage in
1728 when she was seventeen. She amply justified his
99
opinion of her abilities, and continued a prime favorite of
the London stage until late in the century--puncturing
Garrick’s ego periodically with her fearless thrusts of wit,
and entertaining Walpole and his assorted friends at Straw
berry Hill, where she lived after her retirement.
Mrs. Cibber, the wife of Theophilus and an actress
whom Garrick considered the finest tragedian of his time,
came on the stage at the mature age of eighteen, as did
Lavinia Fenton, the famous original Polly Peachum. Thomas
- Baker was a famous impersonator of old men’s parts at nine
teen, and old Colley Cibber himself was a mature twenty-two
when he made his official debut in Betterton’s company, when
he had, as he says, "but twenty pounds a year which my father
had assur’d to me, and twenty shillings a week from my
theatrical labors, to maintain as I then thought, the hap
piest young couple that ever took a leap in the dark."
These are largely the names of actors who made some
thing of a reputation for themselves in the period. They
were the stars of their time. There were many others of the
profession, those players of footmen and maids and walk^on
parts who sacrificed just as much, struggled just as hard,
started just as young, and yet didn’t have the fortune of
the Booths, the Barrys, or the Kembles. One is constantly
running across the records of these smaller fry who swam
along beneath the surface of the stream and could never
100
break the water into the sun.
Such a one undoubtedly was that nephew of Wilks, the
theatre manager of Cibber’s day, who was enamoured of the
stage and could not be turned from it. Finally Wilks sent
the boy to Dublin with a note to Ashbury, the manager:
He was bred an attorney, but is unhappilly fallen
in love with that fickle mistress, the stage; and
no arguments can dissuade him from it. . . . If you
find my nephew wants either genius or any other
necessary qualification, I beg you will freely tell
him his disabilities; and then it is possible he
may be more easily persuaded to return to his friends
and business, which I am informed he understands
perfectly well.^
But, says Doran, he never advanced a step, died at thirty,
and never earned more than thirty shillings per week. And
for that he was willing to desert the bar.
Reasons for entering the profession* The escape
mechanism. Often there were, in the century, excellent
reasons for young people going on the stage. The stage was
not all romance. For one thing, it was a way to make a
living, and a fairly entertaining one. Many a young actor
who knew perfectly well that he had no Garrick in his make
up was nevertheless glad to earn his two or three pounds
per week as a minor actor rather than struggle for a like
amount in commercial life. Especially was this true toward
1800, as the white-collar professions were rapidly approach-
^ Doran, ££. cit., II, 40.
101
ing a saturation point in London. Cooper, who made his
debut as a mediocre Hamlet at Covent Garden in 1795, was
the son of an old surgeon who died intestate in India; and
he went on the stage purely to earn a living, lacking any
other way to do it. His friend and teacher Holcroft spon
sored him to a slight success. Miss Chapman, who evidently
had little histrionic qualifications except a certain ele
gant ease of manner and "soft plaintiveness of voice," was
a native American whose father had lost his fortune in the
Revolutionary War. She went to Yorkshire to live with rela
tives, and rather than become a burden to them she Joined a
travelling troupe and went on the road. She was fairly
successful, and was finally engaged for Covent Garden by
Harris in 1 7 8 8 There are many other instances .of this
sort of pressure forcing on the stage people who had no
particularly romantic inclinations in that direction.
One of the blackest smirches on the disorganized
social system of the century was the unfairness of the ap
prentice life, in various trades. Masters were notoriously
hard. The apprentice fee, which was a thing determined
separately in each case, might be retained and the appren
tice discharged at any time his master saw fit. All that
was necessary was for the master to accuse the boy of
misconduct--and masters were notoriously apt at finding
^ Thespian Dictionary, see "Cooper" and "Chapman."
102
or stimulâting misconduct. The master might then take a
new apprentice, get a new fee, and repeat the procedure
ad infinitum. This was no slight consideration as a source
of capital for the business, for sometimes the apprentice
fee of a wealthy man’s son ran as high as £1,000.^
The life of the apprentice was at best a miserable
existence. He usually lived in a dark, unsanitary room back
of the shop in which he worked ten to fifteen hours dally,
frequently crowded with his fellows into a space not large
enough for one. He was a virtual slave to his master,
waited on him hand and foot, and took the leavings from
his table as his fare. Of course he received no wages of any
kind. His chief amusement was brawling in the streets at
night-time with other apprentices. It is a well-known fact
that the apprentices of London used to gather in the evening,
for lack of anything better to do, and engage in real gang
battle, swaggering up and down the streets and provoking
innocent bystanders into combat so that they might exercise
their very considerable knowledge of boxing. The boys of
St. Anne’s parish had an annual engagement with those of
St. Giles, usually about two weeks before the holidays; and
in one of these battles the captain of the St. Giles boys,
a twenty-one year old chimney sweep, was killed.^ There
^' Dorothy George, 0£. cit., p. 278.
Ibid.. p. 280.
103
were no libraries in which he might secure books for reading—
even if by some strange accident he had acquired the art.
There were no mot ion-picture halls in which he might for a
few pence sit temporarily warm and exalted before the ad
ventures of a Robin Hood, or the antics of a Mickey Mouse.
There were few public parks where he might play cricket or
bowls on his day off--if he were so fortunate as to have a
day off.
That this sort of thing inevitably forced many young
men to try to escape their apprenticeship is not remarkable;
and probably the frequent Joining of strolling companies by
these ex-apprentices was not so much a testimony to the
romantic appeal of the profession as it was to the repellent
aspects of the life the apprentice would have to lead if he
remained in service. Certainly the life of a stroller,
miserable as it frequently was, could not have been much
worse than that of an ordinary city apprenticeship. The
strolling actor had plenty of air and water, and in spite
of opinion to the contrary usually had enough food. Village
people were generous in sharing their provisions with the
actors, who often were awaited as eagerly in Spring as the
first robins. There is in the century, record of more than
one actor who went to a London theatre as a minor actor, and
after a time voluntarily left to return to the more pleasant
haunts of the strolling player.
104
The first Barrymore of the English stage, who was
playing as early as 1780, was one of these ex-apprentices.
His real name was Belwit, and at an early age he was appren
ticed to a sugar-baker in his native village of Taunton.
Being an extremely volatile person, he ran away with a stroll
ing company to the west of England where he played for several
seasons under the more aristocratic name of Barrymore. He
had, according to all accounts, a most pleasant life as a
stroller. He became especially famous as an off-stage
Romeo, and was beloved by the village maids who, as Roach
says, "eagerly flocked around him, to lick the hand up
raised to shed their blood".^
Often the choosing of the stage for a profession
seems to have been almost accidental, although there is
usually back of it some sort of motivation toward escape.
Such was the case with Mrs. Centlivre who, although she never
rose above the station of a country actress, is still re
membered for her versatility as a playwright early in the
century. The distressing and romantic story of her early
youth is excellently told by Baker:
After her Father’s Death, finding herself very
ill treated by her Stepmother, she determined,
tho most destitute of Money and every other Ne
cessity, to go up to London to seek a better for
tune than what she had hitherto experienced. . .
That as she was proceeding on her Journey on Foot,
she was met by a young Gentleman from the Univer
sity of Cambridge--who was so extremely struck with
8
Roach, op. cit., p. 63.
105
her Youth and Beauty and so affected with the
Distress which her Circumstances naturally de
clared in her Countenance, that he fell instantly
in Love with her, and enquiring into the Particu
lars of her Story, soon prevailed on her inexper
ienced Innocence to seize on the Protection he
offer’d her, and go with him to Cambridge, where,
equipping her in Boy’s Gloaths, he introduced her
to his Intimates at College as a Relation who was
come down to see the University and pass some Time
with him there; and that they continued this In
tercourse for some Months, till at length, sated
perhaps with Possession or perhaps afraid that the
Affair would be discovered at the University, he
persuaded her to come to London, providing her
however with a considerable Sume of Money, and a
Letter of Recommendation to a gentlewoman of his
Acquaintance in Town, sealing the whole with a
Promise, which however it does not appear he ever
performed, of speedily following her to London,
and there renewing their amorous Intercourse.^
Baker adds rather cynically, "If this story is true, it must
have happened when she was very young."
The poor girl later managed to acquire one husband,
who deserted her, and then a second, who died and left her
desolated by grief. To distract her mind then she turned
to the stage, writing plays at first, and later becoming
also an actress. As an actress she smote the heart of her
final spouse, Ivïr. Joseph Centlivre, "Yeoman of the Mouth,
or in other Words principal Cook to her Majesty," with
whom she lived pleasantly until her death.
James Quin was driven to the stage by economic pres
sure which was brought about when his father’s relatives
David Erskine Baker, Biog. Dram., op. cit.. see
"Centlivre". --- ---- ---
106
deprived him of his natural heritage, because of his pecu
liarly complicated illegitimacy#^^ The law, for which he had
trained, offered no acceptable opening to him under the
circumstances# Fortunately he had studied under Ashbury,
Queen Anne’s competent elocution teacher# Chetv/ood the
prompter advised him to try his luck in London on the stage,
and not because he was particularly stage-crazy, but because
he wished so desperately to get away from Dublin and its
torturing associations, and had at the same time to make a
living for himself, he followed Chetwood’s advice. For
three years, as serious training for this new career he
played everything that came his way. Then his powers of
comic mimicry began to attract attention, and he was em
barked safely.
This forsaking of the legal profession with hardly
a qualm, certainly does not Jibe with our usual conception
of the low state of the acting profession in the eighteenth
century. But it must be remembered that the social status
of the actor was improving by leaps and bounds. By the
middle of the century, largely no doubt because of the re
markable rebirth of a sophisticated theatre under Garrick’s
influence, the profession< was being looked upon as almost
respectable. In the first issue of the fourth unsuccessful
10
Vide supra. Chap. II.
107
journal started by Fielding, The Covent Garden Journal,
appeared the notice of a performance of Cato given by boys
of the free grammar school of Nottingham, and of a collec
tion made for them of £90/6s/6, "for their encouragement to
become actorsThis certainly indicates a remarkable
change in attitude toward these erstwhile "rogues and vaga
bonds," as they had been branded since the Act of George II.
Thomas Ho1eroft, actor and playwright who won such
high praise from Hazlitt, had the wildly improbable sort of
life we all like to imagine characterized many of the
eighteenth century actors. He says, "Til I was about six
years old, my father kept a shoe maker’s shop in Orange
Court; and I have a faint recollection that u : i y mother dealt
in greens and oysters. " But Holcroft senior could not
long remain at any trade. This delightfully mercurial
gentleman--who at one time moved thirty miles into the country,
and would often walk the sixty miles to London and back in
one day— this scorner of the realities of life became in turn
a collector and vender of rags, a hardware dealer, a dealer
in buckles, buttons, and pewter spoons: "in short," says
his son, "a trafficker in whatever could bring gain". The
11
Quoted in The Gentleman’s Magazine or Monthly
Intelligencer,(London: January, 1752), p. 27.
12
Holcroft, up. cit., I, 4.
108
most lucrative occupation he ever found was the hawking of
London Pottery throughout all of north England, thus com
bining his pedestrianism with business. Little Thomas often
went along with his father on these tours. What became of
his mother meanwhile, he says, he had not the foggiest idea.
Occasionally she was with them at Lichfield, or at Coventry.
When he was nine, Thomas really discovered his family
seat— an old, half-ruined house near Rugeley. There he was
exquisitely miserable in this only home he ever knew. He
was the drudge of all the family, and the scape-goat of
every brawl. His father was as extreme in anger as in com
passion, and would often beat the boy, pull his hair out
by the roots, and drag him along the ground by the ears
"till they ran with blood". In spite of all this, the
little urchin loved his father with the same kind of emo
tional intensity with which he hated the life r01e in which
he had been cast. When he had a chance to get away and be
come a racing jockey for a Mr. Woodcock, he took it. He
was an excellent jockey, he won fame of a sort, and at the
age of fifteen he went to London to make his fortune. There
he didn’t do too well at first, working with his father in
another shoemaking shop. Then he decided to go somewhere.
A wanderlust seized him, just as it had his father so many
times before. On his way to enlist in the service of the
East India Company, he learned that Macklin wanted a young
109
actor to go to Ireland. That started him on a pursuit that
soon landed him a job with Foote at the fabulous salary of
one pound per week. Through England and Scotland he played
as a stroller, and when engaged by Sheridan, the new manager
of Drury Lane, he had built up a repertoire of sixteen minor
rô'les. His fame as a comedy writer soon far outstripped
that of his acting.
It seems almost universally true that actors do not
wish their children to go on the stage. Probably the pe
culiarity is not confined to that profession. At any rate
Thomas Holcroft ran true to form. He was determined that
his boy William should be a gentleman, and behave himself.
Undoubtedly his restless days as a stroller and itinerant
peddler with his father made him too severe in his restric
tions on his son. Before he was fifteen the latter had run
away from home repeatedly; and finally, when he was sixteen,
he broke open his father’s lock drawer, took forty pounds
of money and a set of pistols, and started for the West-
Indies. He boarded a ship then in port, paid the greater
part of his money for passage, and then barricaded himself
in the steerage.
He sent word that if anyone came to take him off he
would shoot to kill; and if his father came for him, he
would commit suicide. His father, not believing the youth,
did come, and the boy shot himself, expiring almost
110
Immediately. The shock to his father, who in spite of his
poor psychological treatment of his son loved him deeply,
was so great that he was forced to retire from the theatre
for about a year. His whole later life was embittered and
saddened by the tragedy which he had unwittingly brought
about. And yet here again is merely a picture of another
boy of the theatre acting out in real life this time his
longing to escape a life detestable to him, and making his
exit in the most dramatic manner of which he is capabXe.
John Bernard, whose Retrospections furnish some of the
most delightful stage pictures we have of the stroller’s
life, gives a first-hand picture of his escape from home to
the stage late in the century:
I attired myself in ray best blue suit of clothes;
had a watch in my fob, about five pounds in my
pocket, two shirts and two pairs of stockings in
a bundle, with a light heart, a burning brain,
a slim, genteel figure, and a weak, ladylike voice.
My chamber-window looking into the street, I
had no difficulty in descending upon a rope ladder--
without giving an alarm either to our housedog or
the servants. I then took to my heels, and ran
along the Southampton road, till overtaken by the
night-coach from London, when I jumped up and
proceeded in safety.
What a perfect picture of a scene that surely must
have been repeated a great many times in the century. The
Ibid., II, 97-102.
Bernard, 0£. cit.. I, 33.
Ill
stage-struck boy lying quivering in the ancestral bed, with
the poetry of Shakespeare and the applause of the audience
jumbling about in his head. Then the decision to act, the
bundling together of slight possessions, the creeping down
the ladder outside the window, and the wild spurt toward
freedom!
This particular boy went to Bristol and there pre
sented himself to the manager of the Bristol company, a Mr.
Bensley, who rather sadly agreed to hear him declaim.
Bernard, quite in the story-book tradition, chose the noble
lines from Hamlet’s over-worked soliloquy. He rolled his
eyes "in a fine frenzy," threw himself into an attitude, and
began, "To be or not to be, that is the question." When he
came to the "rub?" as he said, it was such a close one he
could barely get past. His auditor sighed at the conclu
sion of his efforts, and gave him some kindly advice.
Again Bernard’s own words can’t be improved on.
Mr. Bensley, who had been sitting in judgment
on my efforts,■with the stern, stonelike attention
of a Roman Consul, or (with less poetry and more
truth) in the sad silence of a sympathizing but
cher, who watches the last convulsions, and with
one or two strokes of his too-dreaded tongue, put
me out of my misery.
He conceived that my enterprise was not to be
approved of; that I was wrong to leave a home and
settled employments,-for* the precarious subsistence
of the stage; that only men of extraordinary merit
were known to succeed; and that even he was not
as well off as he ought to have been; and that I
did not appear to present any pretensions whatever
112
to warrant the sacrifices I should be compelled
to make. He accordingly recommended ray im
mediate return home.lo
To the failure of Bernard to take this excellent
advice we are indebted for an interesting chapter in the
history of the early American theatre: but the general
wisdom of Mr. Bensley seems indubitable. Most of the mana
gers of even rural theatres would not even bother to listen
to the spoutings of these embryo actors who beseiged their
gates constantly.
Whether minister’s sons had any more reason to leave
home in the eighteenth century than did the sons of brick
layers or shoemakers is doubtful. But that they did often
gaze yearningly at the passing strollers* wagons, and fre
quently hike up the road in the dust after them is beyond
doubt. Mad Hat Lee, the wild Restoration actor-dramatist,
had been one of these sons of clergymen who chose the actual
tribulations of the theatrical life as an escape from the
theoretical purgatory of his father’s pulpit. Barton Booth,
the son of a Lancashire gentleman, was himself ostensibly
on the road to Holy Orders as a student at Westminster
School, when the stage-lights got in his eyes. "Luckily or
unluckily he played" says Doran, "in Steele’s Conscious
Lovers. with such ease, perfection, and charming intelli
gence that the old dormitory shook with plaudits. The shouts
Ibid.. op. cit.. I, 33.
113
of approbation changed the whole purpose of his sire; they
deprived the church of a graceful clergyman, and gave to
the stage one of the most celebrated of our actors."IG
John Decastro, a Portuguese Jew born in 1758, was intended
for the priesthood--his father being a rabbi. He was edu
cated under the patronage of the Portuguese Jew’s Synagogue,
and specialized in the Hebrew language. But there was one
fatal error in the educational system under which he imbibed
his knowledge; the boys in his school were given ten shill
ings per month for pocket money, which they used to raise
a fund to enable them to visit Garrick’s theatre. Soon they
were putting on little plays themselves commemorating various
Hebrew holidays. And it wasn’t long until Decastro was
hiking up the road with his Gentile absconders from the
vicarage.
Most interesting and entertaining of all the sons of
the parsonage, however, was Tate Wilkinson, that memorable
eccentric of the rural theatres. He paints a truly dismal
picture of the life in a minister’s household. Xle had first
of all his^studies; but then, he says lugubriously.
My idle hours, however, were not bestowed on
marble, cricket, or mixing with intimates of my
own age and complexion; for except my friend
Doran, op. cit., I, 364.
1 ri
See John Decastro, The Memoirs of John Decastro
(London: Sherv/ood, Jones & Co., 18^4), p. 1-50.
114
George Forbes, I had but few playmates. • • For,
loi a prayer-book was ever in my hand--the whole
day was employed in reading exhortations, and every
part of the church service. • .
Certainly this sort of thing provided some incentive for
escape. But although little Tate had no inclinabion what
ever toward the theatre, both his father and mother wished,
for its educational value, that he would go to see a play.
He had been badly frightened by a crude puppet show at a
fair he had visited, and couldn’t be induced to enter a
theatre. Finally his father compelled him to go. After that
experience Tate spent his evenings shut in his own room,
lighting pieces of candles, dressing in fantastic attire,
and repeating as nearly as he could remember them parts of
plays--of which by spring he had seen nine.
The yeast was really working in the boy now. Through
his acquaintance with I^lr. Page, the "House-Keeper" of Covent
Garden, Wilkinson was admitted frequently to the morning
rehearsals. From watching the performance (he was now ten
years of age) he would rush to his playbill-plastered room
and stomp back and forth behind the locked door, declaiming.
Quin used to spy him lurking near the wings of the stage and
with his bellowed "Get away, boyI" send Tate out of the
theatre fairly shivering with delight at even this adverse
notice of royalty. But from each performer that he watched
18
Wilkinson, Memoirs, op. cit., I, 15
115
îie learned something. Thus when he had his first real thea
trical experience in a play at Harrow School, he was able to
give such an excellent account of himself that his performance
amounted to a small triumph. And before long one more boy
had "smelt the lamp," and found the odor to his liking.
The tales of stage debuts in the century appear to
have many things in common, and it is this very similarity
which is significant. It follows a pattern of thinking into
which the whole youth of the nation seemed ready to fall.
Pierce Egan tells of Cooke’s early amateur adventures
on the stage. It seems that after witnessing a comedy called
The Journey to London--an inflaming title to a country lad--
he was so histrionically excited he could read nothing but
plays. Finally that pale exercise became insufficient, and
he gathered a parcel of boys together and produced what must
have been the worst performance in the century of Love in a
Village. He sang then, but never afterward attempted it.
His next appearance was as Horatio in Hamlet, in v/hich
character he thundered out his lines with adolescent zeal.
When a travelling company arrived in Berwick on
Tweed to play in a glorified barn. Cook was determined to
get on the stage somehow. He did, resoundingly. He hid
himself in the "thunder-barrel"--that empty cask which was
commonly rolled about back-stage to produce sound effects—
and when the elements were put in motion he rolled quite
116
out onto the stage before the truly ”thunder-struck*’ audi
ence of delighted yokels, to make one of the noisiest dAiuts
in history. Shortly after this, it should be added, young
Mr. Cooke was apprenticed to a printer, but because he in
sisted on spouting in the press room, and contributing to the
Thespian delinquincy of his fellow apprentices, his inden
tures were given up. At the age of eighteen he went to
London. For a time he worked for a printer in White-Friar;
but the call was on him, and he went back to the country for
fifteen years of strolling before his fame finally brought
him again to London.
Jack Bannister, the son of that excellent minor-part
actor of Garrick*s company, was one of the most persistent
of stage hangers-on until finally his father gave in and
allowed him to become an actor. As a youth Jack was sent to
the Royal Academy where he was a classmate of Rowlandson,
the celebrated caricaturist. He had excellent prospects as
an artist--but threw the whole thing up after performing
in a few amateur shows, to go on the road with a company of
strollers. Of course he was not a layman; his father and
mother had both been actors since he could remember, and he
learned to talk by trailing his father around the house and
imitating his declamations of stage roles. Jack was a
Pierce Egan, The Life of an Actor (London: G. S.
Arnold, 1825), p. 32.
117
likeable young lad, and Garrick was very fond of him and
gave him considerable instruction in a fatherly way. He
was, on the early nineteenth century stage, almost the sole
survivor of the instruction of that revered master. But
although he was as truly stage-struck as any of the village
youths, young Bannister was merely gaily, intelligently in
love with the theatre. He knew what it was, and he loved it
anyhow. There was in his early life none of the mooning
around under Mrs. Siddons* window, or prancing back and forth
in his locked room before a pair of lighted candles. He
was full of pranks and yet a severe realist. He used to
delight in taking one of his old paintings to his father
now and then, and selling the worthless blob for whatever
the old gentleman would pay for it. His father had a great
taste for painting, albeit no taste 3^ it. His father once
became so exasperated at the trickery of his son that he
said, "Jack, you dog, 1*11 cut you off with a shilling.” To
which the dutiful son immediately replied, ”I wish, father,
you would give it me now.” And the old man was so delighted
at the Indication of wit in his offspring that he made him a
substantial present on the spot. There is obviously in
this sort of chap little of the romantic urge that made
Colley Gibber enter Rich* s company at Drury Lane, agreeing
20
John Adolphus, MemoIrs of John Bannister,
Comedian (London; Richard Bentley, 1839), I, 13.
118
to play a half year without pay, and sustaining himself with
the glorious hope that some day he might he allowed to walk
on the same stage with Mrs. Bracegirdle!
Occasionally it happened that personal persistence in
trying to get on the stage apparently had little to do with
ones success: now and then it appears to have been a matter
of pure accident. It is well known that Parquhar was the
means of getting Anne Oldfield before the public: ”he acci
dentally at a tavern kept by a near relation of hers, heard
a person reading a Comedy in a room behind the bar, with
such vivacity and humour of the characters, as gave him
infinite surprize.” When he insinuated himself into the
room and sav/ her beauty, he was astonished; but not too
astonished to bring her to the attention of his friend
Vanbrugh.Kitty Clive, according to tradition, owed her
chance on the stage to a similar accident. She was one
day washing down the steps of Mrs. Snell*s house, where
she was employed as a servant, when the famous Beefsteak
Club was meeting in the Bell Tavern just opposite. Her
bright, tuneful voice was heard by the carnivorous gentle
men who crowded to the door, and practically dragged her off
to the theatre and lasting f a m e .22 it was a day of finding
Cenest, 0£. cit.. II, 181.
Percy Fitzgerald, The-Life of Mrs. Catharine
Clive (London: A. Reader, 1888), p. 4.
119
”new talent,” and any gentleman who could discover a fairly
successful new performer had a feather in his cap, although
he would perhaps not benefit in any material sense from the
exploit.
In many ways it was very easy to get into the theatre
in those days. Many adults who certainly had no training
whatever for the stage made their debuts almost without op
position, and seem to have held their own fairly well with
the old troupers. It is of course largely a matter of rela
tive intelligence anyway. Arthur Murphy, actor and biog
rapher of Garrick, was a bank clerk for several years before
he went on the stage. King, an actor in Garrick* s company,
was an ex-barber, and very sensitive on the subject too.
Baddeley was an ex-baker. In other words, the stage training
required for the eighteenth century was no more standardized
than it is for our contemporary motion picture, whence ex
drygoods clerks and shoe-salesmen rub shoulders with former
district attorneys and philosophy Masters of Arts. Ko train
ing, not even that of the rural stock company, seemed es
sential to success on the London stage; although certainly
the great majority of performers did go tlirough an appren
ticeship of a sort in one of the rural theatres, to which in
turn the strolling companies contributed many of their shin
ing lights. It constituted a system of a sort, but nothing
like a universal system. On© of the most familiar lines to
12 0
readers of eighteenth, century playbills is, "This part to
be played by a Gentleman who never appeared on any stage.”
Strolling players. The whole subject of the stroll
ing companies is not within our province here, but some
aspects of it should be touched upon. When one realizes
the contempt in which the strolling actors were held by the
intelligentsia of the day, and the miserable life that many
of them obviously led, it is easier to realize the tremen
dous urge that must have been back of these youngsters and
adults who were constantly forsaking fairly secure circum
stances to risk the hazards of the open road. The contem
porary feeling about strollers in general with an excellent
picture of their life was summarized viciously in 1761 by
Charles Churchill:
The strolling tribe, a despicable race.
Like wand * ring Arabs, shift from place to place.
Vagrants by law, to justice open laid.
They tremble, of the beadle*s lash afraid.
And fawning cringe, for wretched means of life.
To Madam Mayoress, or his Worship*s Wife.
The mighty monarch, in theatric sack.
Carries his whole regalia at his back; '
His royal consort heads the female band,
and leads the heir-apparent in her hand;
The Pannier*d ass creeps on with conscious pride,
■Bearing a future prince on either side.
• • •
By need compelled to prostitute his art.
The' varied actor flies from part to part;
And, strange disgrace to all theatric pride!
His character is shifted with his side.#
121
But If kind Fortune, who we sometimes know
Can take a hero from a puppet-show,--
Forgetful of himself he rears the head.
And scorns the dunghill where he first was bred.23
It must be acknowledged, in spite of any defense of
the strollers, that they were on the whole an ignorant,
dirty, and quite properly despised group of people. In
another place we shall have several things to say about their
good qualities, and the ways in which they have been maligned;
but it may never be denied that judged by our standards
their lot was a hard one. Although, after all, the lot of
a country minister,or of a schoolteacher, was a miserable
one two hundred years ago, the standing of the strolling
actor was quite indisputably lower than that of either of
tho s e worthies.
As late as 1796 a lady wrote, from stockton, what
may be regarded as only a slightly exaggerated picture of
an average company of the lesser sort:
We have a company of provincial comedians come
to the town a few weeks every spring; and they,
poor souls, are very well off if they can manage
to read their native language, with a good deal
of spelling; consequently, they cannot soar so
high as Italian; but they have got so much into the
“London Way,” as they call it, of giving their
auditors sound without sense, that if one ventures
to applaud - a song, the air of which'pleases the
ear, it is ten to one but it proves, when after
ward seen in print, such a compound of loose ideas
Charles Churchill,'The Rosciad (Ed. by Lowe),
(London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1891), p. 69. #This line
refers to the necessity for playing more than one part in a
play. The script is a “side.”
122
and Indelicate wit, as ought to make all modest
women hide their faces.24
The theatres in which these actors performed would
seem to us impossible places of amusement; and yet to the
villagers of their day they were probably alluring palaces
of light. Sometimes the strollers merely set up their booth
in a public square and played in the open. More often they
converted a deserted barn or warehouse into something re
sembling a theatre. Porter’s account of the first theatre
in Brighton may be regarded as fairly typical.
Prior to 1774, there was no permanent theatre in
Brighton; but frequently in the summer season com
panies of travelling players used to take up their
quarters in barns. The first pioneer of any note
was Charles Johnson, who, having already converted
a maIthouse in South Street, Chichester, in 1764,
into an Aeschylian resort, included in his circuit
Brighton. There, on some waste ground, where now
stands the London and County Bank, was a big barn;
this Johnson hired, and a pit was dug to contain
one hundred spectators. The roof was decorated
with floral offerings to hide the rude beams, and
the initial performance took place on November 7th.,
1764, when the Busy Body and the farce of the
Mock Doctor were essayed by Messrs. Johnson, Sal
mon, Petro, Irish, Bruton, Master Petro, Mesdames
Cuthbert, Bruton, Salmon, ' and Miss Bruton. The
manager before the comedy, recited a rhyming pro
logue in the garb of a bumpkin. The doors opened
at 6, the curtain rose at 7; the prices being,
pit, 2s.; first gallery. Is.; second, 6d. 25
The London Monthly Mirror (August, 1796), p. 150.
pCv
Henry G. Porter, The History of the Theatres of
Brighton (Brighton: King and Thorne, 1886), p. 3. See also
T. L. G. Burley, Playhouses and Players of East Anglia
(Norwich: Jarrold"& Sons Ltd., 1928).
123
That the bustling comedy of Mrs. Centlivre sent the
unsophisticated Brighton townspeople away delighted, regard
less of the special merits of the performance, we may be
sure. It may not have been a bad performance; the Brutons
at least had enough talent to become well known on the
London stage later. Indeed there is cause to believe that
often the performances of the larger strolling companies
compared favorably, in their acting, with those of the
London houses. Often early in the century the city actors
went on the road, when the plague or some other cause dimi
nished the London audience, and thus bolstered up the per
formances. Even in the middle of the century we find many
of the minor actors of the patent houses playing in booths
at the fairs in the off season, just as Ethel Barrymore in
our day has often spelled out a lean year by touring the
vaudeville circuits in Sir James Barrie’s Twelve-Pound Look»
and other Broadway stars go into the summer stock companies
of New England and the Middle West.
The attitude of Dickens’ Mr. Crummies is not wholly
a caricature of the ingenuousness with which many actors
regarded the strolling companies. Some of the so-called
strolling companies were in actuality well-organized groups,
functioning regularly over a definite circuit. Such was
Tate Wilkinson’s in York. But the majority of them were
merely loosely organized bands of actors, fortune-tellers.
124
and handymen wandering on aimlessly from village to village.
Their pay was small, although Vifilkinson* s famous ”two pieces
of candle and eighteen pence” has been too universally ac
cepted as the standard; their journey dusty and usually on
foot; their sleep frequently in the farmer’s hay-piles;
their dinner often foraged from the country through which
they passed. It was “barn-storming” with a v e n g e a n c e .26
By 1790, hov/ever, due to the building of theatres in most of
the larger provincial towns, the-more picturesque features
of the stroller’s life had entirely disappeared.
After having drawn this rather dismal picture of the
stroller’s life, there still remains much to be said for it.
As has beqn indicated already, there were among the strollers
many actors of great ability. Contrary to popular belief,
also, the minor actor of the London theatre was often not so
well off as the stroller. Country people are notoriously
eager for news of other lands, and even in the eighteenth
century would pay for it gladly with food and drink, v/hereas
a panhandler in the London of that day was in a sad state
indeed. The arrival of a strolling company in a village
was an event of magnitude, and the actors were even in their
dusty raiment covered with a sort of glory which they wore
with some complacence. Though they certainly did not make
fortunes, though they v/ere not clothed in purple and fine
Elbridge Colby, P. M. L. A., XXXIX, 0£. clt.
125
linen, nevertheless there was much that was pleasant in
their lives.27
College men as actors. Despite the fierce, unreward
ing life of the beginning actor, it seems to have had enough
glamour to it to attract a large number of college men of
good education. Oxford and Cambridge undergraduates were
constantly running away to join troupes. Jo Haines the
wit “takes his M. A. at Cambridge, which scarce had he
performed, when down comes certain strowling Players. . .
induce him to become their fellow Companion.“ Samuel Foote
thirty or forty years later had a mischievous career at
Oxford (from which he retired as an undergraduate after a
misunderstanding with the provost), and left his books at
The Temple to join a strolling company. When Mr. Holman
made his first appearance at Covent Garden as Romeo
(Oct. 25, 1784) he was presented by a prologue which mentioned
him as a young Oxonian eager for dramatic fame:
From letter’d ease, and academic grove.
Seduced his steps, these sheIvy paths to rove,
In Shakespeare’s car a giddy height to soar,
¥/hence, if he falls, he falls, to rise no m o r e .28
To the youth’s credit be it said that he didn’t fall under
this terrific challenge, but ravished the youthful heart of
See the eighteenth century novel of strolling
life: Thomas Mozeen, Young Scarron,(London: J. Tyre,
1752), p. 72-78. .
Young, ££. cit.. I, 220.
126
Juliet to the complete satisfaction of the audience. From
Restoration times it had been the custom for the London com
pany of comedians to make a trip to Oxford nowand then with
a play which was presented for the delectation of the stu
dents , It was a rare occasion when one or two or the drama-
smitten lads did not try to sneak back to the city with the
company.29
Not often however did even the Oxford student, with the
small halo of a superior education, have the opportunity of
going directly upon the London stage, as did Holman. Usu
ally he had to be content with a stroller’s blanket until he
had proved his stuff. An old playbill quoted by Boaden,
which contains such an anonymous d^but of “a young gentleman
from the University of Oxford,” has so much of intrinsic
interest it deserves a full reproduction.
At the old theatre in East Grinstead, on Satur
day, May , (sic.) 1758, will be represented (by
particular desire, and for the benefit of Mrs. P.)
the deep and affecting tragedy of Theodosius, or
The Force of Love, with magnificent scenes, dresses,
etc.
Varanes by Mr. P. who will strive, so far as
possible, to support the character of this fiery
Persian Prince, in which he was so much admired and
applauded at Hastings, Arundel, Petworth, Midworth,
Lewes, etc.
29
See Colley Gibber, o^. cit. , p. 239 for an
account of one of these trips to Oxford with the 1812 hit
play, Addison’s Cato.
127
Theodosius by a young gentleman from the Uni
versity of Oxford, who never appeared on any stage.
Athenais by Mrs. P. Though her present condi
tion will not permit.her to wait on gentlemen and
ladies out of town with tickets, she hopes, as on
former occasions, for their liberality and support.
Nothing in Italy can exceed the altar in the
first scene of the play. Nevertheless, should any
of the Nobility or Gentry wish to see it ornamented
with flowers, the bearer will bring away as many as
they choose to honor him with.
As the coronation of Athenais, to be introduced
in the fifth act, contains a number of personages,
more than sufficient to fill all the dressing
rooms, &c., it is hoped no gentlemen and ladies
will be offended at being refused admission behind
the scenes.
N. B. The great yard-dog, that made so much
noise on Thursday night, during the last act of
King Richard the Third, will be sent to a neighbor’s
over the way; and' on account of the prodigious
demand for places, part of the stable will be laid
into the boxes on one side, and the granary open
for the same purpose on the other.30
The tremendous odds against which a nervous young
actor would be working on his debut in such a performance,
with all its rural bustle, are patent in this charmingly
loquacious playbill. The perhaps unconscious humor of the
play itself. The Force of Love. being presented as a benefit
performance for Mrs. P. who is quite evidently a highly ex
pectant mother, the tactful request to the townspeople for
flowers with which to decorate the stage, the careful
James Boaden, Memo ir s of Mrs. Siddons (Philadelphia:
Carey, Lea, Littell, 1827T1 F* 7-8. London, 1882, edition
(see bibliog. ) , p. 9-10.
128
explanation of the reason for the exclusion of spectators
from the stage, and finally the promise concerning the bay
ing dog--all these things bespeak a warm actor-audience re
lationship which certainly had its advantages over the hard,
business-like London stage of the same year, when Garrick
was battling rather pontifically with the unruly Mob, and too
often with his hirelings in the theatre. The “young gentle
man from the University of Oxford” may not have been so un
fortunate in his debut as at first might appear.
That acting was still, in the middle of the century,
considered a demeaning occupation for a University graduate
is beyond question. In 1755 William Pulteney, the Earl of
Bath, wrote to his nephew George Golman (who was to become
the famous dramatist and theatre manager) conveying his con
gratulations on George’s taking his degree at the University,
and also some pungent advice concerning his law studies.
Said he:
I furnish you only with the means of rising,
and recommend to you, never to stop in your career,
til your (sic.) have got to the Head of the Law.
I tell you before hand, that I shall have you
closely watch’d, that you do not idle away your
time, in running to Playhouses and such other di
versions, as I know you are fond of; such Amuse
ments will not agree with your circumstances, who
are by industry to get your own Livelihood.31
George Golman, Jr., Posthumous Letters, from
various celebrated Men (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies,
1820}, p. 57. See also letter in Richard Brinsley Peake,
Memoirs of the Golman Family (London; Richard Bentley,
1841), p. 44-47.
129
And yet in spite of such specific warning, George Golman
did persist in his love of the playhouse, in company with
many another University graduate and young lawyer.
Most of these gentlemen made their debuts directly,
with no specific stage training other than the experience
they had picked up in amateur college performances, or at
home. Toward the end of the century many “schools” of
elocution sprang up, although of course the provincial stage
provided the real training. Prompters of the patent theatres
had from early times supplemented their salary by coaching
dramatic aspirants on the side. Ghetwood, who v/as for twenty
years prompter at Drury Lane, although himself no actor,
coached many of the great actors of his time--Barry most
notably.^2
Stage-bred actors. One does well now and then in
thinliing of these stage-smitten people to remember that in
spite of the continual influx of new blood into the ranks
of actors, many of them were born and bred in the tradition.
They are the most genuinely stage-struck of all. Old John
Hippisley, who at the time of his death in 1748 was a
V/illiam Rufus Ghetwood, who published in 1752 his
entertaining history. The British Theatre. In the early part
of the century prompters corresponded to a sort of hybrid
impressario-director of our time. Because of his intimate
connection with many actors and plays, the prompter was the
one person best qualified to pass on those specific tricks
of the trade— which after all are the only things an actor
can be “taught” exteriorly.
130
popular low comedian although he had started out at Lincoln’s
Inn Fields as a candle-snuffer, gave two daughters to the
stage. Roger Kemble’s eight children were on the stage
before they were out of their mother’s arms--thus furnish
ing his rural company with a sort of perpetual “infant in
arms” for many years. Joe Grimaldi, as did many actors
late in the century, actually grew up in the theatre. At
the age of one year and eleven months he made his debut at
Drury Lane as the Little Clown in Robinson Crusoe, in which
his father played the part of the shipwrecked mariner. So
successful was he in his first appearance that he was put
on the permanent roll at a salary of fifteen shillings weekly
From that time until his retirement about forty-five years
later he tumbled about the London stage and the green-room.
In that habitat of actors, as a boy he was a pampered imp.
Often unmercifully beaten by his father--who would lift him
up by the hair and stand him in a corner with the roared
order “Don’t move at your peril!“— robbed by his father of
the money he earned, he nevertheless was devoted to the
stage and never considered leaving the only life he really
knew. Edmund Kean, that determined small genius of the
end of the age, the illegitimate son of a shiftless car
penter father and an irresponsible strolling-actress mother.
Joseph Grimaldi, Memo ir s of Joseph Grimaldi
(London: Richard Bentley, 1838). Charles Dickens edited
these memoirs, and probably wrote much of the material him
self. It is one of the most entertainingly written bio
graphies of the century.
131
as a boy knew nothing but the country theatres through which
he was dragged rapidly by his mother, who let him act that
he might bring in some revenue for her. At ten this little
ragamuffin knew Hamlet, Richard III, Speed the Plough, and
several other peculiarly assorted p l a y s .34 And yet so great
was his devotion to the light that never shone anywhere but
on the stage that he stuck doggedly with a profession that
brought him nothing but disappointment and suffering until
he was in middle-age. His meteoric rise after his playing
of Shylock on a snowy February night in 1814 is too well
known to require retelling, here, but it was a triumph well
earned by years of bitter struggle. These real troupers
and children of troupers had not only “smelt the lamp“--
they had breathed in its aroma until the atmosphere of the
more genteel professions was pale and unsustaining.
What influence, if any, this continuous flow of new
and untried talent into the theatre had on the excellence
of the acting is open to d i s c u s s i o n . 35 That the quality of
the London acting in the eighteenth century has been much
over-rated appears highly probable, much as the Garrick
enthusiasts hate to admit it. Opinion must at this distance
Bryan W. Proctor(?), The Life of Edmund Kean.
(London: Edward Moxon, 1835), I, 21.
See Lily B. Campbell, M. L. A., o^. cit.. for
a brief and fairly accurate survey of the history of acting
in the century.
132
always vary. Certainly the level of acting in the Restora
tion theatre, except that of Betterton and a few of his
associates, was very lov/ indeed. What we know of the lack
of general education and stage training, of the loosely
conducted rehearsals and hap-hagard setting of plays pre
cludes any other conclusi o n . A contemporary remarked of
Gibber one time that his acting was “in place of menacing
and majestic transports, the distorted heavings of an un
jointed caterpillar.“ Quin and Theophilus Gibber were once
compared sententiously by a critic: “Now, there is one
little difference between them; Mr. Quin must be confessed
to be sometimes wrong in his tragick characters; ,Mr. Cibber
to be always so.“ In an early issue of the Gentleman’s
Ma^azine in 1734 the low state of the theatre at the time
is bemoaned, and the lack of acting talent attributed di
rectly to the audience demand for gymnastic H a r l e q u i n s .37
Even the acting ability of Garrick was not without its dis
senters, as anyone who has read Macklin’s scorchingly sati
rical criticisms will realize. Almost the mildest thing the
See AHardyce Niccol, A^ History of Restoration
Drama, 1660-1700 (Cambridge: University Press, 1923),
p. 63-73. It would appear that Prof. Niccol makes a rather
silly generalization when he insists that the Restoration
actors must have been superlative in talent in order to
overcome the noise and confusion of the playhouse. A loud
bellow and violent gesture would have been, and probably
were, of more immediate importance.
The Gentleman’s Mag., Feb., 1734, p. 92.
133
crusty old actor said about Garrick was that he was “all
bustle, bustle, bustle”. Genest says that Macklin’s malice
is so apparent it defeats its own ends; but he admits that
there was a deal of truth in the c r i t i c i s m .38 Genest him
self has some oblique remarks to make about “the old ti-
tumpti“ school of acting. On the other side of course there
are numerous testimonies to Garrick’s genius, the most re
liable of all being that of the fiery Kitty Clive, who had
every reason to be jealous of him, when she burst into tears
and rushed from the wings where she was watching his Lear,
paying him in exit the most remarkable compliment an actor
ever received: “Damn him; I believe he could act a grid
iron. Certainly the beating of new talent against the too
easily solidified traditions of acting did no damage.
Amateur actors. There remains one manifestation of
the stage-struck boy— often in this case a man--to be com
mented on specifically, namely the amateur actor, so called
in financial rather than technical distinction from the
professional actor. It is probable that in no age before
our own, when the phenomenally popular “Little Theatre”
For Macklin’s character of Garrick see Kirkman,
op. cit.. II, 263-4. Cf. Genest, o^. cit., V, 499
An oft-repeated anecdote. See especially
Fitzgerald’s Life of Mrs. Clive, op. cit.,'p. 77. Cf. John
O’Keefe, Personal Reminiscences (by O’Keef, Kelly, and
Taylor), (New York: Scribner and Armstrong, 1876), p. 272.
134
movement has actually been worldwide, has there been one-
fifth the amateur dramatic activity that existed in eigh
teenth century England. Just as the amateur theatres today
are in reality the feeder stages for Broadway in our country,
3 0 in that time they were contributary to the liondon stage.
One is constantly impressed, in looking through the
hundreds of play-bills of the time, with the stressing of
“firsts”. Constantly the bills advertised a play as “The
first time acted on any stage.” Frequently an actor is
presented with the line, “Positively his first appearance
on any stage.” Curiosity, in other words, was played up
more than the positive virtues of experience which we stress
today. That the- first appearance of the play as well as the
new actor might also be the last was a concern more of the
individual actor than of the manager. The manager rightly
judged that an audience would be drawn by that persistent
hope that “Tonight I may see a new Garrick in a play by a
new Shakespeare.” Often the “firsts” were not such in
reality. Garrick had gone through a strenuous testing season
at Ipswich before he acted Richard III at Goodman’s Inn
Fields in 1741; but he was advertised on that memorable
playbill as “A Gentleman--who never appeared on any Stage.”
As Genest remarks good-naturedly, “This sort of pious fraud
is not uncommonly practised in the theatre.”
Amateur groups sprang up in all sorts of places.
135
There were first, of course, the many amateur productions in
the Public Schools, imitated probably from the original cus
tom at famous Westminster, and stemming in turn from Nicholas
Udall’s famous court-subsidized performances with St. Paul’s
Boys in the sixteenth century. As a matter of fact, schools
and colleges, as well as Inns of Court, were presenting
plays before fifteen hundred. Many a wide-eyed young Thes
pian was started on the candle-lit trail by his transient
success in such a performance. Toward the middle of the
century there sprang up also, in addition to the informal
coffee-house discussion groups such clubs as the “Robin Hood
society for disputation,“ which met near Temple Bar. Pro
bably more than one actor was lured to them by the chance to
discuss political and social matters at large; and certainly
more than one stripling cut his eye-teeth on disputatious
matter while rubbing shoulders with the men of the stage.
Macklin used to speak regularly to the Robin Hood club, and
for a while “held a room for disputation in Hart-street,
near Co vent-garden playhouse. So popular did these various
“Spouter’s Clubs” become, that they were frequently lampooned
in the verse and song of the time. They are to be regarded
as another symptom of the same acting urge that spurred
amateurs on. Mention has already been made of various boys
See comment on this club in Gentleman’s Magazine
(January, 1792), p. 29.
136
who independently gathered together groups of friends to
“Put on a play,“ even as they do today; Cooke with his fel-
low-apprentices in the print shop, Wilks with his associates
from, the offices in Dublin, where he was at the time clerking
in the Office of the Secretary of State, eleven-year-old
David Garrick with his playmates of Lichfield.
It was the custom of Irish managers, says O’Keefe, to
encourage “stage-bit” young Englishmen to come over to Dublin
where they might try out in such parts as Othello, Hamlet,
or Shylock, and then return to London and demand vast sums
for their services. Fortunately, most of the worst lasted
only two or three performances, when they would be driven
from the stage in what an old stager circuitously denomi
nated ”the vegetarian manner,” and were so shrunken in their
estimation that they troubled Garrick and company no further.
Occasionally these aspirants had mortgaged their very shirts
to reach Dublin, and were stranded there after their dra
matic debacle as completely as a small-town beauty contest
winner in Hollywood of today. More often, however, the
Dublin managers had shrewdly picked would-be actors with
some financial backing. Then, to put it concisely, when the
monetary support gave way, the Thespian career collapsed.
In Restoration times the actor had been the plaything
of the nobility. During the first half of the eighteenth
century he was struggling to free himself of such class
157
domination, but it was not until David Garrick in mid-century
deprived the “Gentlemen” of the nominal privilege of loung
ing on the stage and in the wings that the actor could call
his soul his own. Thus it may have been that in something
of a friendly retaliation for the loss of their theatrical
plaything, gentlemen became amateur actors themselves. It
was quite the thing indeed. Doran says that about 1760
amateur-acting was a fashionable pastime, and had princely
countenance.
The Blake Délavais led the taste in this respect
at their neat little theatre in Downing Street.
The Duke of York, who had distinguished himself
early at the Leicester House theatricals, which
Quin, I believe, superintended, was a very effi
cient actor. . . . Admission to these.performances
was not easily obtained. Walpole did not lack
curiosity, but he would not solicit for a ticket,
lest he should be r e f u s e d .
Doran gives us also an account of a notable amateur perfor
mance of a very pretentious sort which occurred at Drury
Lane Theatre on March 7, 1751.
The theatre had been hired by some noble ama
teurs who. acted the tragedy of Othello. . . Macklin
superintended the rehearsals, and Walpole was present;
for he says in his characteristic way: “They really
acted so well, that it is astonishing they should
not have had sense enough not to act at all!“'...
The rage was so great to see this performance, that
the House of Commons literally adjourned at three
oclock on that purpose. The footman’s gallery was
strung with blue ribands. What a wise people !
what an august senate!^2
Doran, op. cit.. I, 46.
Tbid.. Ill, 31. See also Genest, op. cit.,
IV, 325, for cast.
138
There was a terrific jam at this performance because the
amateurs, although being careful to sell enough tickets to
fill the house, had neglected to number them. Hence it was
“first come first served,“ and many peers and Knights of the
Garter with their ladies had their first experience with
theatrical democracy, and mounted to the galleries.
Most of these performances were purely social affairs,
and the acting, as Walpole indicated, was not of a high
standard. None of them were the training schools for any
notable actors of the professional stage. They were rather
opportunities for a select coterie of drama “enthusiasts”
to gather together and display their finery without being
troubled by the rabble of the pit and the gallery. This is
not a generalization applying to all private theatricals in
the age, but rather to the productions put on by the idle
nobility of London. Macklin, it will be recalled, made his
debut in the amateur theatricals conducted by the benevolent
Ulster lady v/ho sheltered him in his orphaned youth; and in
rural districts in general the amateur theatrical was a
healthy and socializing instrument of education.
One of the most notable stage romances of the age
was a result of these noble amateur performances. The Sari
of Derby, who was himself a fair actor, met and fell in
love with the beautiful Miss Farren when she was directing
the private plays for the Duke of Richmond. To the
139
charming actress he remained comparatively faithful for
twenty years, while waiting in a polite eighteenth century
manner for his wife to die. Finally that wished-for event
occurred; and six weeks after the funeral there was a wedding,
and Miss Farren became one of the select group of actresses
in the century who actually married into the nobility. All
London society knew of the situation, and the happiness of
the couple was universally applaudedI
Probably the most talented, and certainly the best
known of all these noble enthusiasts of the stage was Lord
Barrymore, who became well known for his acting in the last
few years of the century. He was an excellent comedian, and
often appeared with his professional bretliren on the Drury
Lane stage. An inveterate gambler and tippler, he was
nevertheless good-natured and exceedingly generous with his
friends. He had tv/o cronies, the first a lame nobleman and
the second a clergyman who spent much of his life in debtor’s
prison. The members of the motley trio were known by the
names of Nev/gate, Cripplegate, and Hellgate--one of those
crude plays on words with which the eighteenth century amused
itself. Barrymore built a small theatre at his seat at
Wargrave and there put on many plays, often with the assis
tance of hisprofessional friends. He died by an accidental
gunshot wound which he received while commanding a company
of local militia; but his fortune was almost completely
140
exhausted, and he would not have enjoyed a poverty-burdened
existence. That he could have made a generous living on the
professional stage is probably true; but he preferred to
dabble at it as a dilletante of superior talents
During the interval of the American Revolution, from
1776 to 1783, one of the most peculiar dramatic developments
of the time was that of the productions put on by the offi
cers of the British army and navy. Amateur acting had for a
long while been a favorite means of diversion among men of
the service; but it seemed during these times to have amounted
almost to an obsession, with time being taken off from more
serious tasks for rehearsals and performances. General
Burgoyne was already a well-known figure in amateur theatri
cal ranks in England, and he perhaps encouraged such diver
sions to take his officers’ minds from the vicissitudes of
army campaigning. The eighteenth century English soldier
was often a sort of play-acting soldier, as Braddock’s
luckless experience with the Yanlcee riflemen and Indians
amply demonstrated. However that may be the plays of Garrick,
Cumberland, Golman, O’Keefe, Sheridan, and many others v/ere
enacted by officers of the British army and navy on duty in
America.
This Barrymore is the one who figures in several
engravings in Bell’s British Library, that excellent series
of illustrated plays which appeared in the 1790’s. He should
not be confused with the country actor Barrymore (ne. Belwit)
whose offstage amatory talents evidently outstripped his
dramatic gifts !
• John W. Francis, Old New York ( New York: Chas.
Roe, 1868), p. 200.
141
That this play-acting had anything to do with the
British defeat is highly improbable, especially since it is
known that the American army officers were doing precisely
the same thing, and of all improbable places at Valley Forge
immediately following the famous black winter. In spite of
an express interdiction by the Colonial Congress against
"Plays, and other expensive Diversions and Entertainments,”
a military theatre was organized, and opened with Addison*s
stuffy C a t o George Washington attended the performance,
although he himself had signed the bill prohibiting such
frivolity--if one may by any stretch of the imagination call
a production of Cato frivolityI
The methods which stage-struck amateurs employed to
get on the professional stage were devious and often sadly
lacking in imagination. John Bernard relates that he finally
got on the professional stage--if one of the largest rooms
of the ”Black Bull” in Farnham may be called the profes
sional stage I— by promising the manager of a strolling company
to fill the house if he might be allowed to play the role
of George Barnwell.He had already been acting for some
time on improvised stages with his friends. There is little
doubt that many of the actresses influenced the managers to
George C. D. Odell, Annals ' of the New York Stage
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1927}, I, 194-1$5.
Bernard, op^. cit.. I, 11.
142
admit them to the company not so much on the basis of dra
matic talent as for personal charms. Garrick was known to
be very susceptible to pulchritude, although his shrewd
little wife kept him toeing the mark of domestic rectitude;
Cibber always fancied himself a ladies* man even to his
dotage; Harris, at the very end of the century, never ex
perienced difficulty with the conquest of his actresses until
he encountered the stuttering stubbornness of ÎÆrs. Inchbald.
Harris it was, also, who in 1790 let Miss Esten play all the
leading r^les she wished at the Haymarket theatre--without
pay. She v/as getting publicity, and her choice of the
favorite roles of Siddons and Î/Irs. Jordan; and Harris un
doubtedly considered that she was being amply repaid, although
she seems to have been fairly successful in her first season,
and to have drawn good houses
Although it is obvious, therefore, that many actors
made the leap from amateur to professional status because
in some way they could bring pressure to bear on the managers,
it is doubtful if many of them actually "bought” their
debut, as Pierce Egan intimates in his semi-fictional Life
of an Actor. Says he of his hero, a stage-smitten youth;
The wishes of Proteus were soon gratified, by
an opportunity offering to him of his making an
appearance at the Haymarket Theatre; and our hero
was determined to embrace it at all events. The
47
Thespian Dictionary, op. cit.» ”Esten”.
143
principal difficulty to be overcome was the cash
amount. The benefit was announced (under the usual
gag) for the Widow of an Officer. The play was
Othello; and the characters, generally, were sold.
The Moor produced £20 and the gentle Desdemona was
put up and bargained for at nearly the same price,
lago was performed by an experienced country actor,
in order to keep the amateurs together in some
thing like a scene. In fact, it was for the bene
fit of the latter stroller; no uncommon thing for
distressed country actors. Proteus purchased the
part of Cassio for £5 with the liberty of selling
tickets to relieve his expenses. Othello was per
sonified by a young man in public office, who had
plenty of money, but no talents for the stage; and
Desdemona, equally deficient, might be termed as
the worst of heroines: loud hisses greeted them
through every scene; and the house was one con
tinued scene of tumult and riot till the conclu
sion of the p i e c e.48
This is admittedly a satirical sketch, but it was substan
tially duplicated in reality several times in the century.
John Henderson tried for several years to get on the London
stage, even after he was well known as "The Bath Roscius,”
but without success until he wrote to Garrick and offered
to play several roles at Drury Lane, without salary if he
should not be applauded in them. Garrick*s cupidity could
not ignore such a solid bet, especially since he had heard
of Henderson*s real utility in many p a r t s .49 Henderson*s
experience would indicate that even the greatest of managers
was exceedingly vulnerable from the financial angle.
Egan, ££. cit., p. 53
Thomas Davies, A. Genuine Harrative of the Life
and Theatrical Transactions of Mr. John Henderson (London:
T. Evans, 1777), p. 2-8, passim.
144 .
The d^ut. The professional debut was what most of
these theatrical moon-calves dreamed of, and comparatively
few ever attained. Often when it did come it found them in
sufficiently prepared, emotionally and histrionically. Such
was evidently the case with that mid-century wanton, George
Anne Bellamy, one of the most brilliantly plumaged birds
of the flock. In her Memoirs she writes:
It is impossible to describe my sensations on
my first entrance. I was so much dazzled by the
lights, and stunned by the repeated plaudits, that
I was for some time deprived of memory and voice.
I stood like a statue. Till Compassion for my
youth, and probably some prepossession for my
figure and dress, which was simply elegant. .
induced a gentleman who was dictator to the pit,
and therefore ludicrously denominated îvîr. Town,
to call out, and order the curtain to be dropped,
till I could recover my confusion.^0
Quin, who had opposed the d^ut at first, was de
lighted at this debacle; but when George Anne swept on in
the fourth act with great energy and lifted the audience to
an ecstasy of applause, old Quin forgot his grouch and em
braced her at the end of the play with the famous line,
”Thou art a divine creature, and the true spirit is in thee.”
Master Betty, the ”Infant Roscius” as he was called,
was a blazing success practically from the time of his of
ficial debut at Belfast in 1803, at the age of twelve years.
He it was who, when as a boy of ten he saw Mrs. Siddons play.
50
George Anne Bellamy, to Apology for the Life of
Gebrgè Anne Bellamy (London: For the author, 1785), I,
54-55.
145
exclaimed: ”I shall certainly die if I do not become an
actor I” Ironically enough, Mrs. Siddons was one of the few
who never yielded to his appeal. She refused to play oppo
site him when other actresses were clamoring for that
privilege. She did go once to see him act, and admitted
that he was a very clever little boy, ”though nothing more.”
The remarkable parrotings of this stage-struck lad who could
learn Hamlet in three days took all England by storm, and in
the second year of his perfox’ ming his parade through the
rural theatres alone netted him often five hundred pounds
per week, which even conservatively would figure out to
about twenty-five thousand dollars per month in our times.
Even the dour Edinburghers melted before his appeal, and as
Doran remarks. Home himself blubbered that Young Norval in
his play Douglas had never been played correctly before.^3.
Stage idols. If one might have the privilege of
witnessing one single dramatic performance in the eighteenth
century, he might have a difficult task in choosing. How
ever, there would seem to be only three possible selections.
It might be, first, that night in 1741 when Macklin walked
on the Haymarket Theatre stage in his revolutionary, realis
tic performance of Shylock. That was undoubtedly the most
51
For most concise and entertaining account of
Betty* s phenomenal career see Doran, o_p. cit. . Ill, 191-198.
Cf. George D. Harley, An Authentic Sketch of the Life of--
etc. (London: Richard Phillips, 1804.)
146
significant single performance of the century--a performance
that turned the tide of dramatic production sharply away
from burlesque of the classics, toward intelligent interpre
tation, and made the audience ask, ”Is this the Jew that
Shakespeare drew?” Or the choice might possibly be that
night at little Goodman* s Field*s theatre, only a few months
later, when the greatest all-round actor of the age, David
Garrick, first trod the London stage as Richard III.
But one suspects that the selection would ultimately
fall on the night of October 10th, 1782, when Sarah Siddons,
timid and fearful from many mediocre successes in rural
theatres and mindful of her first stillborn London appearance
some time before, made her real London debut as Isabelle in
Southerne * s tragedy. After battling a nervous hoarseness
that had frightened her for a fortnight, she dressed ”with a
desparate tranquillity and many sighs,” as Doran ways, and
went before the audience holding the hand of her little son
Henry, then only eight years of age. There followed un
doubtedly one of the most superb performances of theatrical
history, by an inspired actress who breathed the awful breath
of life even into the spiritual nonsense of Southerne*s
high-flown melodrama. Little Henry, staunch young trouper
that he was, was so overcome by his mother * s acting in the
death scene that he burst into genuine tears .52 jj© was not
Campbell, op. cit.. I, 155-164. Gf. Doran, op.
cit.. Ill, 119-120.
147
alone in tills; and this first performance was hut a prelude
to the libations poured out before the ”tragic muse” which
she liked to exemplify* Lord Byron*s excitable mother-to-
be one night had to be carried screaming from the theatre,
so terrific was the effect of Mrs. Siddons reading of the
a propos line in Isabelle, ”0h, my BironI my Bironî”^^
When Siddons played Jane Shore there were sobs and shrieks
from the impressionable women of the audience; and the
emotion, plus no doubt a surfeit of heavy English food,
wretched ventilation, and too-tight lacing, brought on
fainting fits which contributed to the general excitement of
a Siddons performance*
It is apparent that not nearly all of the stage-
struck children of the eighteenth century were on the
actor * 8 side of the footlights.
53
Doran, op. cit.. Ill, 126-127
CHAPTER IV
SOCIAL STATUS OP THE ACTOR
Background. No one seems ever to have identified
satisfactorily the first English actor. Although as a race
we are inordinately zealous for firsts, we have never been
able to unearth a satisfactory Thespis. Probably acting as
a profession was known as far back as Henry VI (1421-1471).
Even the barbaric Saxons seem to have had their comic enter
tainers who might lay claim to the title of actors. The
Church early cradled the theatre in England. About the
thirteenth century the guilds of laymen took it over, and
the inevitable rivalry between the religious and dramatic
emotional entertainment soon led to friction. Cast out
from their original place of performance in the church, the
lay actors began to take to the road with their dramatic
performances. In places remote from the large cities they
often found a churchman weary of pious boredom who prevailed
on the strollers to entertain him. Nay, sometimes the
reverend brother lifted his skirts and capered a bit, or
dipped his quill in the sacred ink and scribbled a fresh
ditty or ’ ’hymn” for the show. ^
Back and forth since that time has always gone this
1
This is a drastic abridgement of generally accepted
theories found in The Cambridge History of English Litera
ture and other conservative source books.
149
interplay between the church and its troublesome offspring,
the theatre. Now the mother owns the brat that she spawned
in the days of the Miracle and Morality plays, and now she
hides her face in shame at any mention of her relationship
to the wayward child--a child that has inherited its mother’s
evangelical tendencies and voice, although it has gradually
freed itself from most of her inhibitions.
The infamous Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III)
is generally regarded as the first English employer of actors
on a regular business basis, permitting his troupe to go on
tour for the actors* own benefit when they were not needed
to entertain him. Others of the nobility followed his ex
ample, and thus the regular ’ ’profession” of acting came into
being. From their close attachment to the generally disso
lute courts of nobility, and their failure to elevate the
profession above the status of a court buffoon, all players
were from the first suspect by the conservative element.
Especially were they suspect socially and morally. 1/Wiile
the bills were being paid by the nobility, actors in general
didn’t worry, and cheerfully made derisive gestures at both
the church and the rabble. When their profession outgrew
the nobles* parlors, however, and was perforce returned to
the courtyards of the public, their troubles began to mount.
In 1543 the first act for regulation of the stage
was passed, and from that time until Cromwell it was hard
150
going for-the aotor. In 1549 all public performances were
suppressed; in 1551 the Players of the Marquis of Dorset
were forbidden to perform except before their employer; in
1556 all ’ ’players and pipers” were forbidden to stroll; and
in 1572 came a decree that actors must secure licenses or be
treated as ’ ’rogues and. vagabonds” — indicating at least that
the members of the profession had become numerous and pros
perous enough to warrant the government in taxing their
proceeds; proceeds which continued in spite of all inter
dictions against the theatre. In 1579 Gosson’s famous
School of Abuse, ”a pleasant invective against players and
such-like caterpillars,” appeared. It was obvious that
the theatrical profession was firmly established, although
perhaps not too creditably, when it could be formally sati
rized in this way.
The tremendous expansion and enricliment of the theatre
during the Elizabethan era actually drowned out much of the
opposition. But with the Puritan triumph and the closing
of the theatres from 1642 to the Restoration in 1660, the
theatrical profession ceased to function except in clandes
tine productions.2 The Restoration court of Charles II in
stituted a brilliant theatre under a patronage system which
2
There was more of this sub rosa theatrical activity
than we have been accustomed to think. See Leslie Hotson.
The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 19281 for account.
151
as a matter of fact did little to restore the standing of
the actor among the people. Actresses were introduced on
the stage, a move which farther lowered the moral tone of
the stage.^
This was the state of the British theatrical profes
sion when Jeremy Collier’s Short View of the Immorality and
Profaneness of the English Stage was published in 1698.
This attack, which was primarily directed against the drama
of the time and not the actor, nevertheless had a tremendous
effect upon popular opinion, which was already reacting
noticeably against the dissolute habits of the court with
which the actors were allied.
We too easily forget the extremely severe language
with which the Puritan Parliament, made up of representatives
of the majority of public opinion of the time, condemned the
actors a few years before. It is probable that even after
the Restoration, if a secret popular vote could have been
taken, the actors would have fared little better among any
but the nobility. In the act of February 9, 1647, the
voice of the people of England had spoken:
. . • all Stage-players, and Players of Interludes,
and common Players, are hereby declared to be, and
are, and shall be taken to be Rogues, and punishable,
within the statutes of the thirty-ninth yeare of the
Actresses had appeared on the English stage as
early as 1629, although they were not tolerated for long by
the English audience. They were French women, and enjoyed
no higher prestige actually than would have imported bisque
dolls.
152
Relgne of Queen Elizabeth, and the seventh yeare of
the Reigne of King James, and! lyable unto the
paines and penalties therein contained, and pro
ceeded against according to the'said Statutes,
whether they be wanderers or no, and nothwithsband
ing any License whatsoever from the King or any
person or persons to that purpose.4
And even when the government of Cromwell had been repudiated
and the monarchy restored to the land amidst unprecedented
rejoicing, many of the laws of that reforming Parliament
remained on the books and in popular memory. Not until the
very end of the eighteenth century did actors liberate them
selves from that phrase, ’ ’rogues and vagabonds,” and not
until they did liberate themselves, could the profession hold
up its head in any company.
The social status of the French actor at the beginn
ing of the century was far above that of his English brother.
In 1680 the king had formed a chartered company of players,
put them under the direction of the First Gentleman of the
Chamber, and guaranteed them a subsidy of twelve thousand
livres every year. There were only about twenty-seven mem
bers of this select group, but at that time there were not
many more in the leading company in London. The profits
were divided into twenty-three parts, eighteen of the company
receiving a whole part each, six half a part each, and three
a quarter each. A full part yielded its possessor
W. C. Hazlitt (ed.). The - English Drama and Stage
Under the Tudor and Stuart Princes, Doclunents (London: For
the Roxburghe Library, 1869T% F* 67.
153
approximately six pounds weekly, which was about what
Betterton, the leading English actor, received as salary in
his prime. But this Theatre Française had in its ranks men
of learning and high social rank, as well as common actors,
in spite of the comparatively moderate salaries; for the
stigma which attached to the profession across the channel
had been wiped out by State favour, the homage of society,
and the declaration by Louis XIV that a gentleman did not
cease to be a gentleman by going on the stage.6 The chief
contribution of the French theatre to the English stage in
Restoration times was not so specific as it was general, a
sort of cynical joie de vivre that Charles and his men
brought back.^
Late Restoration heritage. Whatever the player’s
social status--or lack of social status, perhaps one should
say— most of the members of the profession were actors be
cause they wanted to bè, and endured their trials with ex
cellent humour. The exuberant Jo Haynes, in an epilogue
^ Frederick Hawkins, The French Stage in' the Eigh
teenth Century (London; Chapman and Hall, 1888T, I, xii, xiii
^ The debt of our Restoration drama to Moliere is too
often stressed. We should remember that the racy plays of
the Restoration were actually Congreve, by Moliere, out of
Ben Jonson--as our horsey friends would say. The genius of
our Restoration drama was not French, but essentially still
the blunt English satire of Noah’s Wife plus the "humours”
technique of Ben Jonson.
154
written for a play produced at the Theatre Royal in 1679,
makes his attitude quite clear:
. . .
For I’ve three plagues no flesh and blood can bear,
I am a Poet, Married, and a Player.
But till of late a Player was a toy.
That either sex lilt’d well enough to enjoy;
Happy the Spark that cou’d a night carouse
With a whole Sharer once of either house.
Nay Women once in our acquaintance crept;
You hardly will believe me— I was kept.7
This sly male gigolo was not exaggerating anything about the
situation; and yet it must be remembered that he himself had
been enough attracted by the player’s life to desert a fair
chance for success in the reputable professions, as an Oxford
man. Galt says that at this time and early in the eighteenth
century intercourse between people of rank and players was
in a remarkable state; ”... the great received theatrical
persons only as a means of amusement, and were very little
scrupulous about their personal reputation, even while they
treated them apparently in the most condescending manner.”^
To speak seriously of "acting” as a profession in
those days would have been as laughable as to refer gravely
today to the ”art” of shelling peas. True, there were many
great and well-known actors: the peculiarly honourable
7
Genest, o^# cit., I, 259,
^ Galt, 02' cit., II, 99.
155
Betterton, the Immensely popular mistress of the royal bed
chamber, Nell Gwynn, the drunken comedian Weston, and the
strutting young Colley Gibber; but they were great and
popular only on sufferance, for the audience did not regard
their dignity as worth two straws. Even up to Garrick’s
time the actors were constantly laboring under this illegi
timacy of occupation, and the necessity of comparative
humility lest they be haled into court on vagrancy charges.
The actors were not without public advocates in this
continual social-legal battle that went on. In an early
copy of the Grubstreet Journal appeared an essay advocating
"that actors be put on a footing in Reputation with all other
Professors of the liberal Arts; so that even an unsuccess
ful Attempt to please upon the Stage, shall not in the,least
disqualify any Person for any genteel Employment; no, not
for the Gown.But that this lack of legal standing in the
community was still in force for the actor after the middle
of the century is apparent; for Arthur Murphy, who played
Othello in his debut at Covent Garden in 1764, was refused
admittance to the Societies of both the Temples and Gray’s
Inn when he decided to study law, on the grounds that he had
been on the stage. Pie finally was admitted to Lincoln’s
Inn, and to the practice of law; but everyone considered it
a feat of legerdemain that a person so without caste should
^ Quoted in Gentleman’s Magazine, April, 1775, p. 198.
156
have thus redeemed h i m s e l f .
One thing which of course helped even the minor actors
to some sort^of social position early in the century was the
cheapness with which they could secure stage-struck servants
who would lackey for them around the theatres. Servants
have always indicated a step upward in the social scale,
for if a man has a valet, he is at least higher than the
valet, regardless of the size of the pittance he may pay
the servant. The actors frequently took out on these poor
devils their own feeling of social inferiority. Such was
evidently the case with Powell, .concerning whose dresser,
Warren, an entertaining story is told. During the run of
The Fair Penitent at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1703 poor
Warren claimed a right to lie for his master and perform
the part of the dead Lothario:
About the middle of the scene Powell called
aloud'for Warren; who as loudly replied from the
stage, "Here Sir". . . . Powell (who v/as ignorant
of the part his man was doing) repeated without
loss of time, "Come here this moment you Son of a
Whore or I’ll break all the bones in your skin."
. . . Warren knew his hasty temper, and therefore
without any reply jumped up with all his sables
about him, which unfortunately were tied to the
handles of the bier and dragged after him. .
The commotion of the delighted audience so upset the poise
^6 See Thespian Dictionary, op. cit., "Murphy."
11
Genest, op* cit., II, 281-282. Warren was on the
general payroll of the theatre at the time, and was evidently
not the hired man of Powell.
157
of the actors that the play ended then and there, and
Betterton wouldn’t produce the piece again until the inci
dent had faded in popular memory.
_Improving status. Great credit for the improvement
of the actor’s social standing early in the century is due to
Colley Cibber. His constant fighting for the actor’s rights,
both while he was an actor and later as a manager with Wilks,
Doggett, and Booth, had a definite effect, especially on
upper-class thinking. Probably the most influential thing
he did was to get himself appointed Laureate in 1730. In
spite of his obvious mediocrity as a bard, the mere fact of
his appointment gave a certain standing to the acting pro
fession. In Restoration times actors had been often received
by society and were the pampered darlings of the nobility;
but Gibber made himself an autocrat, and the weight of his
words, such as they were, carried far outside the theatre
walls. The waspish attacks of Pope in the Duneiad and else
where merely served as added publicity for the imperturbable
little man, who controlled his own temper excellently. Here
for the first time was an actor, risen from the ranks, who
walked among nobles with a scornful tread and was not dis
allowed. There had been plenty of dilletante dabblers in
the theatre from the days of Sir Thomas More, who is reputed
to have been an excellent court actor two hundred years
before, to the Restoration Vanbrughs and Parquhars. But
158
this was something quite different--a self-made gentleman
and scholar who was almost annoyingly insistent on his
origin in the ranks of ordinary actors.
That Cihher was still somewhat conscious of his lack
of support socially is obvious in his remarks concerning
other actors who have attained some sort of social recogni
tion. When speaking of IVIrs. Oldfield, for instance, he
notes v/ith pride that he has often seen her "in private
societies where women of the best rank might have borrowed
some part of her behavior, without the least diminution of
their sense of dignity.It is possible that his foppish
exterior and excessive ease in the company of the upper
classes may have been merely a covering for the self-cons
ciousness of the son of a poor eccentric sculptor.
Mrs. Oldfield attained a solid standing in the social
circles of her day, as well as in intellectual groups. This
remarkable woman, it will be remembered, was proposed as
joint manager of the new company which came out of Betterton’s
group and which the Gibber-Doggett-Wilks triumvirate managed,
but refused the position on account of her sex. Asked to
name her own terms to remain as an actress, she took tv/o
hundred pounds and a benefit per year. (This was later
raised voluntarily by the managers to three hundred guineas.)
Gibber, o^- cit., p. 158
159
Throughout her adult life this ex-dressmaker moved in the
highest of circles socially, and apparently on a pleasant
footing of equality. Although she was certainly not prudish,
as the Thespian Dictionary says "it was never known that she
troubled the repose of any lady’s lawful claim." This is of
course merely another way of saying that she confined her
attention to.unmarried men such as M r, Maynwaring, with whom
she lived for the ten years before his death, and to Briga
dier General Charles Churchill, with whom she later main
tained her residence. She left handsome legacies to her
two natural sons, îvîr. Maynwaring and Mr. Churchill, and her
funeral at Westminster Abbey in the same year Cibber was
elevated to the laureateship was one of really noble pomp.
Her pall was supported by Lord de la War, Lord Harvey, the
Right Honorable George Doddington, Charles Hedges, Esquire,
William Carey, Esquire, and Captain Elliot--with her son
Mr. Maynwaring being the chief mourner. It is evident that
the actor, even in 1730, was capable of pretty high social
standing.
Mrs. Porter, a somewhat younger contemporary of
Cibber who retired in 1743, was favourable received in all
classes of society in spite of her rather eccentric habits.
Her constant companions were a book and a brace of horse-
pistols, and with the mechanics of both she was perfectly
familiar. She it was who, on her way home from the theatre
160
one night>-was halted hy a highwayman, and got the drop
on him. The poor startled fellow abjectly confessed his
contrition and told such a sad story of poverty and a starv
ing family that Porter generously emptied her purse into
his hat. When the tale was noised abroad, she became ex
ceedingly popular with the lower as well as the higher
classes of society.
Social attacks on the actor. Social snobbishness is
a thing of course not of one age or any particular profession;
but the actor was especially vulnerable in the eighteenth
century. Mrs, Gentlivre’s last husband was chief cook to
Queen Anne.13 Pope, the inevitable social snob, alluded to
her as "the cook’s wife in Buckingham Court." That such an
attitude was highly artificial is evident, for the chief
cook of Queen Anne was so far as rank was concerned pretty
far up in the scale of royal service. It was not the first
time that the stage had been connected with the royal kitchen,
either; the fathers of both Betterton and Weston had served
their monarchs in a like capacity.
Dr. Doran said that Anthony Hammond was in love
v\rith her, a nephew of Sir Stephen Pox married her, and a
Captain Carrol left her a widow, all before she v/as well
out of her teens.' It was from this wealth of experience,
he slyly observes, that she began to act and write for the
stage. Her marriage to Centlivre the cook was a very happy
one and was dissolved only by death. Cf. Thespian Dictionary,
op. cit., "Centlivre".
161
Social attacks on actors and dramatists early in the
century were often made for political or personal reasons,
and in notably bad faith. Such undoubtedly were the surly
blasts of John Dennis who opposed himself in the lists
against Sir Richard Steele--who certainly often laid himself
open to attack on his personal conduct. But using such
specious arguments as that because Steele wore a black peruke
and had a dark complexion there must perforce be something
shady about his personal conduct, Dennis clearly indicated
the shallowness of his condemnation. By talking about actors
as rogues and vagabonds in the eyes of the law, which tech
nically they still were, he sought to blacken the entire
theatrical profession. Doran dismisses his testimony on the
actors’ social status with the admirable nineteenth century
snobbishness in turn: "Such was the testimony of this coarse
cockney, the son of a saddler, and a fellow who, for his
ill-doings, had been expelled from Cambridge University."^4
Riots, which heaven knows were not confined to the
playhouse in the eighteenth century, nevertheless flourished
there and were universally blamed on the actors— as silly
a condemnation as blaming the horses for the iniquity which
seems to flourish around a race-track. For the riot at
Drury Lane in April of 1737, there is an item in the Gentle
man’ 3 Magazine stating that two footmen, of the three hundred
14
Doran, o^- cit., I, 335.
162
participating in a mob that Injured twenty-five people,
were sentenced to bard labor for six months. The next year
there was a great riot at the Haymarket theatre when some
French players attempted to act. They
. . • met with such rude Treatment, and were so
interrupted■with hissing, catcalling, ringing •
small Bells, knocking out the Candles, pelting,
etc., notwithstanding the Guard of three Files of
Musqueteers, that they were forced at last to
quit the Stage with Precipitation.16
Under the date of November 17, 1744, Genest states:
. . . a serious riot took place this evening . . .
it v/as occasioned by Fleetwood’s continuing raised
prices to old Entertainments ; the Manager was called
for by the audience in full cry, but not being an
actor he pleaded his privilege of being exempted
from appearing on the stage before t h e m .16
This sort of conduct is of course typical of the cowardly
Flee tv/o od, who never had the courage to face and quell a
mob as Garrick did on several occasions. Unfortunately,
however, it is symbolical of the hiding behind the actor
which most of the managers did, and the making of him the
spokesman, and hence the scapegoat for the management.
Although the populace was to riot again seriously
early in the nineteenth century (the famous 0. P., or "old
price" riots as they were called), in the second half of the
eighteenth century it appeared that the actor was gaining
15
Genest, o^* cit., IV, 137.
Gentleman’s Magazine, (Oct. 17, 1738), p. 545.
16
163
ground in his fight for justice. \¥hen the audience rioted
against Macklin in 1774 he sued five of the ring-leaders,
young gentlemen who had admittedly and arrogantly come to
the theatre to ruin him and not to pass judgment on his
acting. Peculiarly the judge. Lord Mansfield, decided in
Macklin’s favour; and the actor agreed to drop proceedings
if the rioters would pay his court costs and buy three hun
dred pounds worth of tickets to his and his daughter’s bene
fits. This the surprised and crestfallen young blades were
obliged to do. It was nothing less than a monumental moral
and social victory for the entire profession when a judg
ment could be rendered in favor of an actor--a man who was
still legally classed, according to his profession, as a
rogue and vagabond. Players had come a long way from the
legal "infamia" of the Roman actor.
This extra-legal status of the actor was maintained
until late in the century, and seemingly was deliberately
aggravated by the government. The excessively severe laws
concerning the licensing and censoring of plays and theatres,
laws by which those in authority sought to control the
profitable theatrical profession, were of course the chief
instruments toward that end. The Theatres Royal had a
virtual monopoly. So soon as an actor presented a play
without a permit, he was a lawbreaker and as such was abso
lutely without legal recourse. Actually this sort of
164
oppression made of a majority of actors lawbreakers in theory,
although so long as their ventures didn’t appear excessively
profitable they were usually unmolested.
The devices they used to avoid legal involvement form
an amusing chapter in theatrical history. Performances could
not be given without a license from the Lord Chamberlain?
Very well. They would give a "Rehearsal" of a play, to which
spectators were invited. Or it might be that a "Concert"
would be given, with a dramatic interlude of sorts--which
was of course the main play. It might be an "Actor’s School"
with spectators welcome, if they cared to contribute of their
own free will. Most of these tricks had probably been used
by actors under the Cromwell oppression. The most famous
device of the age was that originated by the mischievously
legal Foote, who finding himself barred from the patent
theatres invited his friends to "take a dish of tea" with
him, while he and his fellows ran through a play. For a
long while afterward "to take a dish of tea with Foote"
was merely a circumlocution for playgoing.
These practices, while smiled upon by the populace,
did not help the actors* social standing. They gave them
much the same dubious status as that enjoyed by polite
bootleggers in the United States during our Prohibition days.
Such actors were in effect evaders of the law; but the law
was one not universally approved by its makers, and so its
evaders suffered no more than a casual loss of prestige so
165
long as they conducted themselves with fair propriety* Un
doubtedly it did however add an overtone of unsoundness to
the actor’s social standing- It thrust him more deeply
into the purple shadows of the demi-monde.
Another thing that injured the social prestige of the
actor was the growing commercialization of the theatre.
Many people had the idea then, as they have now, that a
business-like venture cannot by its very nature be artistic
as v/ell. One effete gentleman, writing ponderously in a
letter to the Gentleman’s Magazine of January, 1732, asks;
"But can it be supposed that Persons, who consider Acting
as a Trade, and Dramatical Writings as their Tools, are
proper to be made Judges of the politest Learning, and
qualified to give their Royal Authority to Wit before it
can be current or allowed to pass?" After several moral
observations he concludes, "... Farce and Pantomimes have
taken Place of Shakespeare and Otway; and the Players have
destroy’d that Taste they did not understand." While there
is some truth in this, it is again an example of blaming the
poor actorfor a state of affairs which the ignorance of the
audience had really brought about--for the audience had
changed in the first thirty years of the century from a
group of sophisticated court followers to a mob of poorly
educated proletarians to whom the drama had not yet adjusted
itself. That the commercialization of the stage was
166
practically complete by 1767 is indicated by some circum
stances surrounding tbe purcbase of Govent Garden Theatre
by a group of four men, backed originally by two newcomers
into the theatrical fieId--Thomas Harris and John Rutherford,
• • • neither of whom had had any theatrical con-'
nection with Beard or any of his company. (Beard,
the son-in-law of Rich, was the manager of C. G.}
Harris was a soap manufacturer, and Rutherford a
wine merchant, and apparently they were both young
men who fancied they would gain prestige in the
social world as well as make a fortune by their
ownership of a theatre.
This sort of intrusion was still resented by those socialites
who could not forget that the theatre had once been the toy
of the aristocrats, just as the actors were still ”Their
Majesties* Servants.*'
Mid-century developments. David Garrick. With the
obvious improvement in popular estimation of the actors
toward the middle of the century, the members of the pro
fession began to take themselves more seriously. This was
especially noticeable in the founding of numerous coaching
and elocution schools such as Macklin* s ill-fated academy,
in the tendency of notable actors such as Garrick to take
private students for dramatic instruction, (a prerogative
which had usually been exercised by prompters and managers).
17
Eugene R. Page, George Colman the Elder (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1035), p. 138.
167
and In the flood of oratorical guidebooks which poured from
the pres s. 3-8
In the famous trial of Thomas Sheridan in the Dublin
riot case of 1747, voice was given to a sentiment which was
increasingly being uttered by actors in the second half of
the century. Sheridan, Sr., one of the most truly cultured
men of the stage— and indeed, of the age--was being ques
tioned by one of the prosecutors.
"I have often seen," said this person sneeringly,
"a gentleman soldier, and a gentleman tailor; but I have
never seen a gentleman player."
&Ir. Sheridan bowed and said quietly, "Sir, I hope
you see one now. "3-9
While this episode occurred in the notably hostile
atmosphere of an Irish city where the acting of a play even
up to those of our contemporary Sean 0*Casey has been the
signal for a riot, the attitude is thoroughly typical of a
strong element of thought that was growing in England as well.
And Sheridan* s retort courteous is as significant a turning
^ A representative title from the group is one which
appeared in London in 1774: The sentimental spouter; or
young actor * s companion. Containing; I-A treatise on oratory
in general— ^I, A collection of most celebrated scenes,
speeches. and soliloquies. The whole comprising the essence
of theatrical delivery, and the beauties of dramatic poetry
Thowe, £p. cit., p. 311)
19 Por full account of the audience rebellion against
the rioters see the Thespian Dictionary, op. cit., "Thomas
Sheridan". ---- -----------------------
168
point in the actor * s attitude toward himself as was Garrick*s
famous edict against hack-stage entry for the social snobs
who still had the Restoration idea that actors were gaily-
plumaged pets kept in gilded cages by their royal favour.
Although one may doubt the extent of Garrick*s in
fluence upon the quality of acting, there is no room for
doubt of his tremendous value to the profession in other ways
Garrick*3 great contribution to the English stage lay in
his "more mechanick arts," his perception of the importance
of staging details, and his rigid ideas regarding rehearsals,
learning of lines, and perfection of movement. As a theatre
manager he was undoubtedly greater than as an actor, and
his reform of the actor * s status, for it amounted to just
that, was effected from within rather than from without. He
made the profession of acting a businesslike profession for
the first time; his actors, because of the way they were
obliged to live, became respectable to themselves--hard-
working craftsmen. Garrick then fairly thrust the solidity
of this rejuvenated profession down the throats of the pro
letarian theatre-goers, and made them respect the actor.
This respect, of course, is something that had little to do
with the fact that Ivïrs. Clive didn* t clamber in and out of
different beds as rapidly as did Nell Gwynn, although that
fact had some bearing on the matter. It was a respect com
pounded of a new social, moral, and economic esteem in which
169
the profession began to be held in the community*
Garrick*s personal popularity among theatre-goers
was so great that it was a foregone conclusion that he could
have had a seat in Parliament if he had wished it* That
prime acknowledgement of the social equality of a playhouse
man, and final absolution from the stigma of "vagabond"
remained for his brilliant successor in the management of
Drury Lane, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Garrick himself
probably gave the exact reason for his refusal to run for
election in some lines he wrote at the time Lord Lyttelton
proposed it to him:
More than content with what my labours gain
Of public favour, though a little vain;
Yet not so vain my mind, so madly bent.
To wish to play the fool in Parliament;
In each dramatic unity to err.
Mistaking time, and place, and character ! 20
Garrick would probably have done just that, too, for he was
none too acute when his lines- were not written in advance
for him. Another reason for his refusal to run might be
found in the fact that he had been openly snubbed by Lord
Chesterfield on his first trip to Ireland as an actor at
Thomas Sheridan*s theatre. Chesterfield, who was then Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, often came to the theatre; but on
the night of Garrick*s benefit, when both Sheridan and
Garrick waited on the great aristocrat "with candles in
their hands," he very graciously chatted with Sheridan,
Doran, 0£. cit., II, 296
170
whom he thought it his political duty to cultivate, and did
not even acknowledge Garrick* s salute. Garrick could never
endure the thought of being openly snubbed; and no doubt
the idea of the public possibilities of such a thing on the
floor of the House, even though remote, v/as more than he
could bear. No one who has studied his character even super
ficially could doubt that the bait tempted him sorely.21
Too often, especially among literary scholars, the
idea of the eighteenth century actor is taken wholesale from
the eructations of the most potent literary power of Garrick*s
era. Doctor Johnson*s opinion of players in general is so
well known it hardly bears repeating. He called them riff
raff and mountebanks who were lower in the social scale than
rope-dancers or ballad-singers--". . . a fellow who claps a
hump on his back, and a lump on his leg, and cries, * I am
Richard the Third. * " With that thoroughly inane and yet
irrefutable logic of which he was master he turned on Boswell
one day; "Nay, Sir," said he, "a ballad-singer is a higher
man, for he does two things; he repeats and he sings; there
is both recitation and musick in his performance; the player
only recites." Everyone has heard the famous anecdote of
Johnson* s remarks when Garrick* s name v/as proposed for the
Literary Olub, then forming. "If Garrick does apply, 1*11
blackball him. Surely one ought to sit in a society like
Davies, Life of Garrick, op. cit., I, 86.
171
ours, * Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player.*" But
Boswell implicitly rejoices that he is able to vindicate
"at once the heart of Johnson and the social merit of Garrick,"
by proclaiming the falsity of the anecdote,22
Although in the late years of the century there did
remain a residue of social ostracism, it is doubtful if
Johnson* s attitude was common among many members of the
literary group, or even of the more socially exclusive pro
fessions. H. B. Irving undoubtedly came pretty close to the
truth when he wrote:
Johnson*3 depreciation of acting (and actors)
is ignorant and unfeeling--the utterance of a
Philistine: his behavior to Garrick is, in more
ways than one, grudging and ungenerous: he was
not philosopher enough to accept with equanimity
the failure of his own tedious play, or the success
of his old schoolfellow.^^
The basic cause of the learned Doctor * s dislike for the
theatre, in addition to his disgruntlement over Irene * s
failure as a play, was largely physical. His eyesight was
exceedingly poor, and anything he did see on the stage must
have been badly lacking in focus, and probably imposed a
disagreeable strain on his vision.
Most of the actors of the century were as extrovert
as performing monkeys, and delighted in displaying their
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.
(London: Oxford University Press, TD"27T^ 1% 321. “
H. B. Irving, Occasional Papers (London: Bickers
and Son, 1906), p. 44.
172
finery and strutting before the populace at every oppor
tunity. A few of them had an innate instinct for showmanship
that prompted them to take advantage of this general ten
dency of their brothers, and so by seclusion heightened
their fame. Mrs. Siddons built up a reputation for avoidance
of public appearance which corresponded somewhat in her day
to that of Miss Garbo in our own time. Macklin once said
that she was right in not suffering herself to be "hacknied
at the tables or speculations of the great." Whether this
did spring from design or merely from a natural domesticity
which made her love less social pursuits it is impossible
to tell. Certainly there was in the divine Sarah an egotism
which placed her only a little lower than the gods in her
own eyes; and the adulation with which she was acclaimed
did nothing to reduce her opinion of herself--justified as
it undoubtedly was by her abilityI But such poses whether
real or hastily assumed in public are never calculated to
put one *s fellows at their ease. In Siddons and Kemble,
in other words, the profession of acting had created its own
aristocracy which could afford to accept or condemn members
of any class. As an actress Mrs. Siddons probably felt no
slightest handicap socially. She had not triumphed over
her calling-“her calling had merely raised itself in the
social scale to a parity with other respectable professions,
and she was its shining light.
173
It would be nonsense to assert, however, that by the
end of the eighteenth century the acting profession had
really lifted itself beyond censure. An actor * s social and
moral indiscretions will inevitably command more attention
than will those of a barber or even of a lawyer. Because
of the abnormal life he leads, his late hours, his dinners
in the middle of the afternoon and his suppers after the
show, his brilliant stage clothing, his fondness for relaxing
.
in peculiar ways, the ordinary stage-struck man of the streets
will create tales of theatrical irregularities even when
they do not have basis in fact.
Probably Haslewood was blinded by these spectacular
stories of the playboys of the stage when he wrote in 1795,
at the height of the virtuous fame of Siddons and the Kembles:
However the heroes and heroines of the Drama
may contemn the opprobrium so generally affixed
by the world to the profession of a Player, they
are themselves principally the cause of its at
taching so much disrespect in Society. Suddenly
elevated from obscurity and indigence to affluence
and fame, very few of them have sufficient prudence
and good sense to make the esteem of their moral
keep pace with that of their professional character;
and the only use they in general make of Fortune * s
bounty, is an unbounded indulgence in the extremes
of dissipation and fashionable follies.
As another writer said sententiously at about the same time,
"such is the contagion of the green-room that to be strictly
virtuous amounts almost to a particularity." The problem of
O A .
Joseph Haslewood, The Secret History of the Green-
Room (London: J. Owen, 1795), II, 93.
174
the actor’s morals is discussed elsewhere; hut it seems not
out of place to remark in passing that one reads history
with a Jaundiced eye indeed if he places the actor at the
close of the century lower in the social scale than the bulk
of his audience, made up of brawling footmen and servants
in the galleries, smug and often corrupt noblemen in the
boxes, and disputatious and carping pseudo-intelligentsia
in the piit.
The city actor on tour in the provinces was generally
feted, wined and dined by the bored rural aristocracy, the
members of which when they came to London disdained to have
more than the slightest contact with actors. As Wilkinson
said, "Many gentlemen wear different faces on seeing an
actor in London and seeing him in the country," and Wilkinson
speaks with authority, for he was well known in both places.
And yet as a rule the middle class people of rural districts
seem to have had no social aversion to actors, except the
aversion natural to people who work with their hands when
they contemplate a man who works with more intellectual
tools, and— to the layman’s eye--seems scarcely to "work"
at all.
Oxberry quotes a rare old ballad of a strolling
player and a farmer which summarizes exactly the contempo
rary state of the player in the country. In the ballad the
Wilkinson’s Memoirs, op. cit., II, 216.
175
farmer admits the social equality of the actor, and does
what country people usually did unless the stroller were
exceptionally filthy--offers him hospitality. The actor
had stood at the farmer’s gate heating his drum, and had
then by way of advertisement delivered a scene from Macbeth;
The honest farmer, sighing, said,
’What ways'there are of getting bread:
1 dare say, friend, you’ll think it hard
To work in any farmer’s yard;
You tell me, tho’ you speak so fine.
Whose trade is better, yours or mine?
Is any fellow in your station
Of half our value to the nation?
And yet at us you turn your nose
Vvhene’er you get a rag of- clothes;
Vi/ith saucy Jests presume to flout us,
Altho ’ you could not eat without us.
In London, why I’ve seen the players
In better waistcoats than our mayors;
Nay, I declare it on my word.
I’ve seen an actor wear a sword;
When but the very summer after--
Scarce can mention it for laughter—
He came among the country boors
And beat Just such a drum as yours."
The young actor makes bold reply, and defends himself right
ably. Finally he says:
"A rascal high, so ever drawn.
Has been a rascal still in lawn;
And worth will every eye engage,
Tho’ fortune place it on the stage;
Profession, Sir, you’ll never find '
Have changed the temper of the mind.
And if a man genteely bred,
A faultless life has ever led.
Why will your censure wish to blame
The merit Justice should proclaim?
Why is an actor made a Jest,
V\fhen pity smiles on all the rest?
Had Fortune burnt your haggard’s down.
You, Sir, had worked about the town.
Had beat a drum, or acted worse.
Without a sixpence in your purse."
176
There then comes the resounding conclusion which must be
loved by any true ballad connoisseur!
Here paused the youth--The farmer turned,■
Whose breast with true good-nature burned,--
"Of all thy trade, I ne’er espied
A man possess so'little pride:
I ask thy pardon, honest youth;
Thou hast spoke nothing but the truth;
And while with us you chuse to stay,
I beg thou’1 see me every day;
Nor blush, if e’er thou art distrest.
To be an honest farmer’s guest*
A man, I dare be sv/orn, thou art.
Blest with a very noble heart.
And, ■ harkee--nay--but this way stand.
Here, take a guinea in thy hand;
Had I been in thy place, I see.
You would have acted just like m e . "26
After such a clear statement of the position of even the
lowly strolling player in the country, when he was met by a
thinking man and not by a snob, further elaboration of the
point would seem superfluous.
Alliances of actors with nobility. That actor’s
blood Viras not necessarily a bar to formal marriage with the
members of England’s aristocracy is shown by the fact that
at least five actresses in the century married titled men.
Anastasia Robinson after a short career on the stage became
the Countess of Peterborough about 1724. The beautiful
Lavinia Fenton in 1752 married the Duke of Bolton. Miss
Bolton, an actress concerning whom detailed information is
'William Oxberry, The Theatrical Banquet (London:
W. Calvert, 1809), I, 198.
177
lacking, became Lady Thurlow. Miss Brunton, of a famous
acting family, whose sister Lies. Merry was famous on the
American stage in the early eighteen hundreds, became the
Countess of Craven. Finally in 1797 occurred that romantic,
long-delayed marriage of Elizabeth Barren and the Earl of
Derby. To this list should perhaps be added by courtesy
the name of Mrs. Billington, an excellent musician and singer,
who while touring Italy lost her husband, Mr. Billington,
and married an Italian nobleman.27
James Smith, a gentleman v/hose memoirs appeared in
1840, hymned several of these ladies lost to the stage through
noble marriages. The jingles are not great, but they are
pleasant.
Regarding Miss Barren he writes:
Barren, Thalia’s dear delight.
Can I forget the fatal night,'
Of grief unstained by fiction,
(E’en now the recollection damps)
When Wroughton led thee to the lamps.
In graceful valediction?
The Earl of Derby thus pleasantly wedded; or as he put it.
The Derby prize by Hymen won.
Again the god made bold to run
Beneath Thalia’s steerage;
Sent forth a second earl to woo
Edward Waiford. Old and New London (London:
Cassell and Co., n. d.), III, 221. Haydn admired Mrs.
Billington’s voice exceedingly. ¥/hen Sir Joshua Reynolds
showed the old composer his painting of her, the gallant
Haydn said: "It is a very fine likeness, but there is a
strange mistake in the picture. You have painted her listen
ing to the angels ; you ought to have represented the angels
listening to her."
178
And captivating Brunton too.
Exalted to the p e e r a g e .28
The marriage of an actress to an Earle was not neces
sarily for the betterment of her financial status, no matter
what it may have done for her socially. The independence
which went with a large income was not a thing to be sacri
ficed lightly to a titled gentleman v/ho kept his fingers on
the purse-strings much more tightly than v/ould a more light
hearted actor husband. It is said that Lord Derby, after
he had married the brilliant Miss Barren, presented himself
one evening in the green-room and demanded of Sheridan the
balance of his wife’s unpaid salary--for she quitted the
stage at the time of her marriage. "My dear Lord," said
Sheridan sadly, "this is too bad; you have taken from us the
brightest star in our little world, and now you quarrel with
us for a little dust which she has left behind h e r ."29
Far more numerous than the actresses who married into
the peerage were those vfho did not marry, but had other
intimate claims on the nobility. Many of the actresses no
doubt actually refused marriage, preferring to have their
freedom and income at the same time that they enjoyed extra-
legal relationships. Unofficially of course, since the
precedent set by Charles II with his Nell Gwynn and Mrs.
Ibid.. Ill, 232
Loo. cit.
179
Mary Davis, even royalty had looked to the stage for its
mistresses. The bar sinister had appeared, even as it does
today, in the crest of many a proud family with actor blood
flowing through its veins. Charles himself had by îiÆrs.
Davis a daughter who took the name of Tudor, and became a
comedian at the Duke of York’s theatre. She in turn was
married to the son of Sir Francis Radcliffe, who became
Earl of Derwenter.39
One of the complicated affairs of the stage was that
of Mrs. Jordan who for years was the mistress and common
law wife of the Duke of Clarence. When the Duke ascended
the throne he enobled all of their children, raising the
eldest son to the rank of Earl of Munster, and giving rank
to the remaining sons and daughters. A daughter Sophia was
elevated to the rank of a marquis’ daughter, and her blood
still runs in the family of the Lords De L’Isle and D u d l e y . 3 1
And yet after Mrs, Jordan retired to St. Cloud she was
socially neglected and poorly provided for. There, while
living obscurely under the name of Lirs. James, she died in
1815, and her meagre effects were seized and sold by the
police•32
See Gentleman’s Magazine.(Jan.. 1784), p. 25.
^3- Doran, op. cit. , III, 263.
Ibid., III, 262.
180
The extravagant Mrs. Baddeley, even as her contem
porary George Anne Bellamy, was solicited with offers of
support by various noble gentlemen— several of which offers
she accepted. But there was about these affairs usually
an unflattering connotation of intrigue which precluded any
idea of social equality. Mrs. Baddeley’s amanuensis, Mrs,
Steele, records a visit which she made to her friend when
she found Lord Melbourne at tea with her; and so frightened
was his Lordship at being discovered by an intruder that he
leaped out a window, slipped in the courtyard, but not
being materially injured scrambled up and away as though
the devil were at his heels. "His Lordship, however, as an
atonement for his intrusion, left bank-notes on the parlor
table to the amount of two-hundred p o u n d s . "33 This is, at
the best, well-paid courtezanship; but Mrs. Baddeley was the
lady who on a theatre salary of about five hundred pounds
a year, could not live on less than ten thousand pounds.
Knighting of actors was not yet possible, the only
"Sir" in the lists of the eighteenth century theatre being
that bogus "Sir John" Hill, by virtue of a Swedish order.
He was also called "Doctor" Hill because of a degree he
had purchased from St. Andrews. Actually he was merely John
Hill, a mid-century quack, who was in turn an actor, .dramatist.
33
Mrs. Steele, op. ç it., I, 83
181
apothecary, writer of botanical books, and editor of a daily
sheet called The Inspector. Garrick gave him more publicity
than he deserved with his two-line epigram:
For physic and farces his equal there scarce is;
His farces are physic, his physic a farce is.34
Social activities of actors. Actors have always been
accused of currying favour with society when they appear at
social gatherings of a semi-private nature, and especially
has this applied to dinner parties. One probable reason
is that because of the actor’s peculiar time schedule the
hour for dinner has usually to be shifted somewhat--thus
directing attention to the cause for such a change. Actors
are inevitably lionized by hostesses, often to the intense
discomfort of the victims. But whatever may have been the
causes, the actor in the eighteenth century suffered from a
great deal of criticism in this regard. He was undoubtedly
admitted to certain social circles because of his entertain
ment value as a performer, but if he performed he was se
cretly censured as a showoff.
Smollett said a great many very nasty things about
Garrick, largely out of peevishness at the actor’s rejection
of a play that the lumbering ex-physician and sailor had
sent him. None of the remarks, however, could have annoyed
Lowe’8 edition of The Rosciad, op. cit.. p. 7.
Sir Henry Irving was the first English actor to be regularly
knighted by the king of England. That honor was conferred on
him in 1895.
182
the actor more than that regarding Garrick’s appeal to the
haut monde. largely because of the amount of truth in the
statement.
It is not for the qualities of his heart, that
this little parasite is invited to the tables of
dukes and lords, who hire extraordinary cooks for
his entertainment ; . • but he is chiefly courted
for his buffoonery, and will be admitted into the
choicest parties of quality for his talent of mi
micking Punch and his wife Joan, when a poet of
the most exquisite genius is not able to attract
the least r e g a r d .35
Although Smollett later retracted his statements regarding
Garrick after the shrewd little actor had overpaid him for a
play which failed, there was enough obvious truth in the
words to make them bite into a man who was never quite sure
of his own status, and was all his life on the defensive.
Garrick was lionized and petted. In the same way today
society matrons trot on leash such gentlemen as heavy-weight
prize-fighters, famous football players, taciturn aviators
of note--and actors. Only perhaps at the Beefsteak Club
did Garrick feel himself welcome for himself alone--and even
there he had to keep a sharp lookout for traitorous tongues.
Elsewhere he knew it to be his not unpleasurable duty to
arise at the dinner table, after the meal, and with his
hands modestly locked on his chair-back to "run the gamut
of emotions" for the delectation of the reverent guests.
George Pierce Baker, Some Unpublished Gorrespon-
dence of David Garrick (Boston; Houghton Mifflin and Co.,
1907), p. 40.
183
That Garrick liked to do it was true, and in calling it
buffoonery Smollett was also perfectly just.
The social status of Peg Woffington in Ireland, where
she had gone presumably to escape the sad spectacle of
Garrick married to someone else, was a thing for wonder.
She was the only female member of the famous Irish Beef
Steak Club, which met every Saturday, at the expense of the
manager of the theatre, and was composed largely of Lords
and M. P.s. That she was a more lovable and entertaining
person than Garrick, however, goes without saying. Quick
witted, vivacious, and highly intelligent. Peg would have
been an adornment to any social group so long as she didn’t
lose her temper and over-exert her rich vocabulary. It will
be recalled that Dr. Johnson used to enjoy her conversation
in a surly way when he took dinner at the establishment which
she and Garrick maintained together before his marriage, and
over which she presided with admirable social tact.
When Tate Wilkinson was enjoying his first popularity
as a mimic, he says he had a perpetual round of engagements
and invitations to dinner, either with his own friends or
with his patron Foote at many of the fashionable tables,
"such as Mr. Calcraft’s, Lady Vane’s, Sir Francis Delaval’s;
and mixed with the first set of gentlemen at the principal
hotels and taverns of L o n d o n ."36 And yet a bit later he
rtf
Wilkinson, Memoirs, op. pit., II, 45.
184
remarks, "There are many who profess to the actor great
friendship by giving him an invitation for the evening, but
the day after do not know how to meet him with civility• "3*1
This was undoubtedly true in Wilkinson’s time late in the
century, but it is also true today of social snobs, regard
less of their position in society. It was not general, and
was no more true at the end of the century of an actor than
of a painter or musician.
At the end of the century there evidently existed
very little social discrimination against players by the
members of the clergy, whereas in Betterton’s day a member of
the cloth would not have been seen in an actor’s vicinity.
Mrs. Siddons’ best friend was Dr. Whalley of Bath, and her
performances were referred to almost reverently in the
orthodox pulpits of her time. The dramatic literature of
the late eighteenth century is sprinkled with plays written
by clergymen— although it is true that Home, the author of
the famous Douglas, was ejected from his Scotch Presbytery
for this highly moral poem in mid-century. Most of the
scholars in the history of theatrical subjects were clergy
men, as was Genest in the nineteenth century and Gerard
Langbaine in the seventeenth. At the end of the eighteenth
century there was evidently little opposition even to the
Jbld.. II, 251.
185
association of actors and clergymen on quite intimate terms.
Dr. Young, the pious and discreet author of Night Thoughts,
one day got into an argument with Mrs. Bellamy over the in
terpretation of a line in one of his plays. That charming
wench finally calmed his rage, won her point regarding the
line, and entertained him at her lodgings for dinner--an
unusual thing to happen to such a doughty stickler for piety
as the Doctor, and also no doubt a strange episode for one
of the gayest and most openly unprotected actresses in
London.38
General status at the end of the-- century. Mrs.
Bellamy it was who, in an address written by Bicknell and
spoken at a benefit for the veteran Juliet of the stage,
adds a clear footnote in documentâtion of the softening that
was going on in the public attitude toward the stage at the
end of the century. The prologue is already touched strongly
by the flavour of early nineteenth century sentimentalism,
although it was delivered in 1785. It drips. Actresses
earlier in the century, perhaps because they were socially
on the defensive, had been of sterner stuff.
Long absent from these boards, alarm’d, I find
Unusual tremors agitate my mind.
In vain I strive my feelings to impart,
and speak the grateful dictates of my heart.
Yet, tho thus trembling, something would I say;
Pain, fain I would my duteous tribute pay:
Galt, 0£. cit., II, 103.
186
Tell that your kind undulgence, deep Imprest
In liveliest tints, is glowing in this breast—
But, overwhelm’d by gratitude and fears--
Accept th* attempt--accept these speaking tears— 39
The softening blanket of the age of Victoria is already
being prepared. The audience attitude toward actresses has
certainly changed when a Bellamy feels called to dissolve in
tears before the pit; where Peg Woffington or Kitty Clive
would have stood up defiantly and had it out with the ground
lings in an open verbal give and take. Nell Gwynn once cut
short the applause which greeted her final death scene by
raising herself on one elbow and shouting at the delighted
audience, when the stage keeper started to carry her offstage:
Hold, you damn’d confounded dog.
I’m to rise, and speak the e p i l o g u e 240
The extreme rivalry which had characterized the
theatres of the early part of the century, when the patent
laws had held the numbers down so severely, faded tov/ard
1800 with the opening of new houses of entertainment, and the
interlocking of the managerial staffs. Actors began to enjoy
more fellowship among themselves, and their social inter
course took on a more normal tone. An excellent illustra
tion of the change that had come over the profession is given
by the all-day party that Kemble gave when he assumed the
Gentleman’s Magazine (June, 1785), p. 450. cf.
p. 482. “ “
Dov/nes, op. cit., p. 55.
187
managership of Covent Garden in 1803. He invited all the
leading players of the theatre to his house in Great Russel
Street, and even his great rival Cooke had a good time.
Boaden, who attended the party, tells of the after-dinner
declaiming, when Incledon concluded with some of his best
airs, sung with such pathos and power that "the vibration he
excited in the room . . . seemed -absolutely to threaten
everything vitreous around him." Kemble’s new friend Harris,
manager of the rival house, was there and obviously enjoyed
himself--thus marking a formal end to the bitter rivalry of
the two houses which had lasted intermittently for two-thirds
of the preceding century.
The enormously enlarged theatres at the end of the
century forced in turn enlarged productions. Plays were
consequently adorned by various spectacular devices which
would be visible to the spectators sitting a half-block
distant in the rear seats. The competition became not so
much one of acting as of shows within which actors competed
for attention with trapeze artists, tumblers, and animals
of assorted breeds. The ridiculous "troops of horse"
maintained by the theatres and used in many plays, and
Sheridan’s out horsing the rival house with his elephants,
while perhaps an excellent comment on the strength of piling
under the stage floors, were certainly hard on the status
of the actor. Too often he became instead of a dramatic
188
actor merely a competitor with a circus. It illustrates the
peak of absurdity reached by an uncultured bourgeois taste.
Michael Kelly took the credit for having first sug
gested to Sheridan the use of a "grand procession" and tour
nament, with triumphal cars drawn by horses, giants, dwarfs,
leopards, lions, tigers, and other beasts, the idea being
adopted when the operas at Sheridan’s disposal were not
feasible because of the absence of many of the leading
actors. Although the scheme worked in attracting an audi
ence, as Kelly had said it did in Naples where he got the
idea, it ultimately was against the interests of the actors
who were steadily squeezed off the stage by the zoo. Kelly
later regretted the silly persistence of these animals on
the stage, but too late to recall the vogue that he had
benevolently started.
Finally in 1811, after a flat performance of a play
to a small house at Covent Garden, the actors decided to do
something. They met in the green-room and drew up a long
petition to the managers Harris, Kemble, and Sheridan,
pleasantly but pointedly summarizing the state of the theatre
It concluded with a bit of rhyme of which the first and last
stanzas follow:
Who will say that the laws are no longer in force.
Recorded in Metamorphosean fable?
Since our Manager’s rais’d to a Master of Horse,
And our Theatre sunk to a livery stable.
189
In wisely attempting our stages to make
Of riding, not morals, the properest schools,
Mr. Merryman’s part it is fit you should take.
The last of our actors,— the first of our fools.41
Even in the enormous audiences which the animal actors often
drew there were many people who longed for better days. The
Smith brothers wrote in their satirical Rejected Addresses
in 1812:
Amid"the freaks that modern fashion sanctions.
It grieves me much to see live animals
Brought on the stage. Grimaldi has his rabbit,
Laurent his cat, and Bradbury his pig;
Fie on such tricksÎ Johnson the machinist
Of former Drury Lane, imitated life
Quite to the life. The Elephant in Blue Beard,
Stuff’d by his hand, wound round his lithe proboscis.
As spruce as he who roared in P a d m a n a b a . 4 2
It must be acknowledged that the competition which
some of these animal actors gave to their human rivals was
adequate. The famous "Spanish Horse" as he was called,
which performed for years at the Royal Amphitheatre and
finally died at the ripe age of forty-two, having existed
for some years on a pension of two loaves of bread daily,
out of respect to his decayed dentistry, is illustrative of
J. M. Williams, The Dramatic Censor--for the Year
1811 (London: G. Brimmer, 1812T^ p^ ^4.
42
James Smith and Horace Smith, Rejected Addresses,
(London: John Murray, 1862), p. 123. The elephant who
"roared in Padmanaba" was a famous actor of his time. He
was exhibited throughout England, and finally died in 1826
by musketry, his conduct having become more than a mere
theatre manager could deal with.
190
the sort of thing that held public interest in that sterile
period between the end of the century and the great days
of Kean and Macready.
This beast was accustomed, at a public perfor
mance, to ungirt his own saddle, wash his feet in a
pail of water, fetch and carry a complete tea
equipage, with many other strange things. He would
take a kettle of boiling water off a flaming fire,
and acted in fact after the manner of a waiter at
a tavern or tea gardens.
At last, nature being exhausted, he died in the
common course of it, and Mr. Davis, with an idea
to perpetuate the animal’s memory caused the hide
to be tanned and made into a thunder-drum, which
now stands on the prompt side of the theatre.43
One is tempted to remark that this horse, which was trained
under the personal care of Philip Astley, manager of the
Royal Amphitheatre, showed evidence of more ability than some
of his masters.
It would seem inevitable that the encroachment of
these "exotick Performers," as Gibber called them, would
lower the social esteem in which their actor associates of
the stage were held. One obvious reason is that the added
expense of production came more often from the actor’ssalary
than from the manager’s profits. But fortunately this pe
culiar manifestation was of short duration and left no
permanent blemishes on our English stage— unless the continu
ance of Italian opera with us may indeed be remotely connected
with it.
Decastro, op. cit., p. 30.
191
Actually, at the end of the century the acting pro
fession had gone almost as far socially as it needed to go*
Actors were accepted in practically any company, at any
dinner-table, at any public gathering, as equal to the members
of any other class of people* Marriage with an actor or
actress was no cause for more than casual concern, even among
the greatest aristocrats* The regular actors of the licensed
theatres had adequate incomes to support themselves above
the ordinary level of the best society; and although the
minor actors were still in a wretched state financially,
they had rid themselves of general stigma* But let us
listen,for a summary of the situation,to a contemporary
writer who wrote **An Account of the state of England” for a
London periodical in 1772*
The English stage is as elegant and well con
ducted as any theatre in Europe, whether we consider
the music, the actors, or the decorations* There is
a complete band at each theatre, consisting of able
performers* The actors are in general decent, sen
sible, and masters of the different parts they repre
sent* Some of both sexes are excellent, both in
tragedy and comedy: one or two are admired as
prodigies in the art of acting* Many motives concur
to stimulate their endeavors * Their salaries are
very large; and far from being stigmatized with the
mark of reprobation, as in other countries, they
are esteemed by the public, and caressed by the best
company, provided they preserve their morals un
tainted. The income of a favourite player commonly
exceeds one thousand pounds yearly. They keep their
equipages and assembles, appear in rich attire,
and live in ease and affluence*^^
Town and Country (April, 1772), p* 172, ”An
Account of the state of England*”
CHAPTER V
MANKER8, MORALS, AND RELIGION
Early oritlolsm* In the Restoration satire. The Play
House, which was thought of sufficient timeliness to be re
printed in 1709, the actor is treated with a ferocity hardly
equalled elsewhere outside the realm of religious pamphle
teering. And yet it voices sentiments which were undoubtedly
quite general at that time.
But most the Women are Audacious seen.
All Paint their Out-sides and all Pox within.
Here ’tis our Quality are fond of such.
Which even their wiser footmen scorn to touch.
To speak 'em all were tedious to discuss;
But if You'll Lump 'em, they're exactly thus:
A Pimping, Spunging, Idle, Impious Race,
The Shame of Vertue, and Despair of Grace:
A Nest of Leachers worse than Sodom bore.
And Justly Merit to be Punished more.
Diseas'd, in Debt, and ev'ry Moment dun'd;
By all Good Christians loath'd, and their
own Kindred shun'd.
To say more of 'em would be wasting Time;
For it with Justice may be thought a Crime
To let such Rubbish have a Place in Rhime.1
Yet in even the short space of time that had elapsed since
that violent work had been written in 1685, the morals of
actors had undergone marked improvement in general estima
tion, due largely to the estimable character of such men as
Thomas Betterton and the changed relation of the stage to
^ Quoted in Montagu Summers, The Restoration Theatre
(London: Kegan Paul, 1934), pp. 311-314.
193
the audience.
The history of attacks upon the morals of the stage
is a long and devious one, and need be indicated here only
very briefly. Stephen Gosson's School of Abuse appeared in
1579, two years after lord Northbrooke*s less well known
Treatise wherein DicIng, Dauncing, Vaine Playes or Interlude
etc. are reproved. Two years later Sir Philip Sidney answered
some of the charges against the stage in his Apologie for
Poesie--and the paper war was on. Gosson was a vicar, and
after having admittedly penned at least three plays himself
saw the error of his ways and attacked the theatre bitterly,
although on the whole with more logic and restraint than
many of his successors. In that day of deadly pamphleteers
he chose Thomas Lodge, the dramatist and poet, for his par
ticular opponent. Even then, however, he had to admit that
the theatre was not all iniquity:
I speak not this as though every one that pro-
fesseth the qualitie so abused him selfe, for it is
well knowen that some of them are sober, discreete,
properly learned, honest householders, and citizens
well thought on among their neighbors at home. . . .^
His successors in theatrical censorship throughout the seven
teenth century were universally more severe.
Jeremy Collier's Short View of the Stage, which ap
peared in 1698, is commonly given too much credit as a
o
Stephen Gosson, The School of Abuse. Containing a
piesaunt invective against Poets > Pipers, Plaiers, lesters
. . . etcT ( London: The Shakespeare Society, 1841 reprint),
p. 29.
194
revolutionary document in stage history, and its inl’luence
has been exaggerated by most commentators. It was merely
a lucky summary of the tendencies of popular thought, rather
than a moulder of thought. Dryden's public recantation and
repentance for his sins of dramatic pornography of younger
days was probably merely an adroit bit of sail-trimming by a
master opportunist. Certainly audiences in general did not
revolt against immorality because of anything an irate
clergyman wrote, but because being surfeited somewhat with
Restoration filth, they were bored enough to welcome the new
sentimentality of Steele and his fellows which was preparing.
And the impression that Collier cleaned up the English stage
with one sweep of his moral broom Is certainly the naive
idea of a person who has never bothered to read the plays
written in the years immediately following his blast.^
However, Collier's pamphlet attained a tremendous circula
tion. By 1699 it had gone through four editions; nor did
Collier rest on his first statement, but brought out various
defenses of his first statement for the next fifteen years
and more. There were also many defenses of the actors,
largely by professional Journalists such as the meddlesome
John Dennis who in 1704 published The person of quality's
answer to Mr. Collier's letter. and James Drake with his
^ See Lowe, ££. cit., p. 313, for material concern
ing immoral passages in plays between 1698 and 1704.
195
misleading title, A second defence of the Short View.^
Bedford's famous Serious Remonstrance trod heavily
in the footprints of Collier, quoting him and then basing
all of its ideas regarding actors on their reputed antagonism
to the established church, and attacking them with fourteen
hundred biblical textsNot only was Bedford against plays
and players, but as a puritan of the puritans he castigates
the other arts, such as music and painting. In 1729 he was
still at it, preaching a sermon at St. Butolph, Aldgate,
"occasioned by the erection of a playhouse in the neighbor
hood,” The theatre so castigated at its birth by the good
Bedford was that very Goodman's Field's Theatre where David
Garrick was to make his debut but a dozen years later.
Bedford was a bigot, and for that reason his work is
not convincing, nor was it particularly influential. Collier
on the other hand, in spite of the extremity of his position,
had a deal of objectivity in his method. By his classical
approach, his documentation of every statement, he achieves
a reasonableness that is not to be denied. One feels that
he is really interested in improving the world, and not en
tirely, as apparently was Bedford, in merely saying as many
nasty things about the stage and its supporters as v/as
^ See Notes and Queries, Third Series, IV, 435.
^ Arthur Bedford, A Serious Remonstrance in Behalf
of the Christian Religion TDondon; J. Darby, 171ÜT, Espe
cially p. 121.
196
permissable to a man of God. A fanatic who knew no restraint
in the expression of his personal belief, he felt no hesita
tion in fighting without rules of courtesy or scholarship.
The end Justified the means. Such men are always popular
with people who are already convinced of the rightness of the
cause for which they fight, but their work rarely begets
converts. The word of neither type of propogandist should
be taken as final.^
Although the effect of Collier's work was probably
indirect on those actors whom it affected, the talented come
dian Bowen actually left the London stage, according to a
note in the Post Boy for November 16, 1700, ”... being
convinced by Mr. Collier's book against the stage, and satis
fied that a shopkeeper's life was the readiest way to heaven
of the two. ”' 7 Doran notes however that Bowen's righteous
scruples against the stage lasted only a year before he was
back playing. He later perished in an abortive duel with
Quin, whom he one evening attacked with such sudden blind
fury that supposedly he ran himself through with his own sword.
All of this commotion in print about the immorality
of the stage undoubtedly worried Queen Anne, who was anxious
to appease the reformers, and yet knew the power and theatri
cal taste of her commoners. In 1704 she forbade the wearing
^ See Joseph Wood Krutch, "Governmental Attempts to
Regulate the Stage,” P.M.L.A., XXXVIII, 153-174. Also,
Alfred Jackson, "The Stage and the Authorities, 1700-1714,”
Review of English Studies, Vol. 14, 1938, No. 53.
^ Cited also in Doran, oj^. cit. . I, 159.
197
of vizard masks in the playhouse--a device which had made
the theatre a rendezvous for most of the upper-class pros
titutes in London in Restoration timesÇ After that many
notes, warrants, and commands of various sorts were issued
by officials of greater or lesser rank, all without much
immediate effect upon the morality of the stage, or the
actors* It was the old story of laws without enforcement.
The Lord Chamberlain in 1699 had sent an order to the theatre
calling attention of actors to the profane and indecent ex
pressions used in plays, and warning them not to offend
again; but he was interested obviously in a political control
of the theatres, and not sincerely in their morals. By 1720
the power of the Lord Chamberlain had practically slipped
from him, in spite of his control over the theatre patents.
But by that time undoubtedly popular sentiment was strongly
for a cleaner stage; and there had been born upon the British
stage the puling infant of eighteenth century sentimental
drama which was the weakling sister of the lusty bawd which
had been Restoration comedy.^
At the risk of being tiresomely repetitious it must
be stated again that plays, and hence actors, are mirrors
of the society in which they live. Sophisticated comedy of
® Nicoll, Restoration Drama, o^. cit., p. 7.
^ For an excellent and detailed analysis of Collier's
and Gibbon's censure of the theatre see Genest, op. cit.,
II, 123-135.
198
the early century presented stage gentlemen of the age. As
Etherege wrote In his prologue to the Man of Mode ;
Tis by your follies that we players thrive.
As the physicians by diseases live;
And as each year some new distemper reigns.
Whose friendly poison helps t* increase theIf gains.
So among you there starts up every day
Some new, unheard-of fool for us to play.
We fall too easily into the habit of speaking of the ”immoral
ity" of the Restoration stage and dramatists as though the
immorality were somehow centered there. Yet as the dramatist
echoes the spirit of his time, only rarely leading it, so the
actor follows the social and moral customs. It must be
admitted that the early eighteenth century actor was a bit
behind his times with regard to morals, probably because the
plays in which he was still appearing represented the noxious
looseness of the court of Charles; but there we are likely
to make the mistake of judging the private character of the
actor by the public role that he must play on the stage.
Though much of the criticism of the actors' morals
of the age is justified, one must not forget that there were
many purely malicious critics who abused the actors for
ulterior aims. Hugh Kelly was probably the most notorious
of these super gossips, and was famous in mid-century. He
conceived the idea of escaping from his occupation of stay-
maker into the theatre by writing personal squibs about the
actors and giving them to the public press. He hung about
199
the playhouses and from disgruntled menials picked up bits
of scurrilous gossip which he retailed with supreme disre
gard of their basis in fact. As Davies remarks, "he rather
loaded them with reproaches than criticised their errors."
Some of them smiled at him as beneath notice; others vowed
such revenge that he took to wearing a sword whenever he
visited the playhouse or walked down a London street. He
imitated Churchill’s Roselad with his rhymed criticism,
Thespis, in which he made an utterly uncalled-for attack on
Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Dancer, and Mr. Moody. But when he had his
first play accepted by Garrick and was ready to cast it, he
found that he had talked too loudly. The actresses refused
to play in it, and it took all of Garrick’s coaxing to build
False Delicacy into the semi-hit that it became. Although
later he unsuccessfully tried the stage again, he was ex
ceedingly industrious, and became a highly prosperous lawyer
and newspaper editor.
The neighborhood of the theatre. From the late
seventeenth century the very neighborhood of the two patent
theatres had carried a bad name. It has been facetiously
remarked that Drury Lane has a singularly apt origin for its
name, coming as it does from, a line in Chaucer with undoubted
amorous significance:
See Davies, Dlfe of Garrick, op. oft., II, 133-139.
200
Of bataile and of chevalrie.
Of ladies’ love and druerie.
Anon I wot to tell.
The lane actually took its name directly, of course,
from Drury House, built by Sir William Drury during the reign
of Elizabeth. Hov/ever that may be, it is certain that through
the Restoration period and most of the eighteenth century
it was the location of all sorts of iniquitous houses and
stews. Whether these grew up to catch the playgoing crowd
after the theatre, or the theatres were built there to
attract fun-loving audiences is immaterial. They quite
evidently went together.
To go to "Drury Lane" or to "Covent Garden" for the
evening meant to embark upon riotous dissipation quite as
often as it meant to go to the theatre. It will be recalled
that it was on the balcony of a Covent Garden house that
Sir Charles Sedley, that dissolute man of letters of the
court of Charles, exposed himself naked and committed lewd
acts before the crowd below in the most publicized case of
exhibitionism in literary history. H There is mention in
Henry Fielding, A Charge Delivered . . ., etc.,
Q£., eft.. p. 46-46. In order that the record may be kept
clean— or at least clear--it was only about two years ago
that Sedley’s micturating offense from a balcony was repeated
in most particulars by one of our own actors, who while in
his cups on vacation in a Mexican city, cast insults of
various kinds on the passersby on the sidewalk below. Sedley
was fined £2,000, and practically removed from Restoration
society. Our contemporary actor had his motion-picture con
tract with one studio suspended, temporarily, it is said.
201
many early accounts of gentlemen brawling and fighting in
the streets by the theatres, "as naked as their swords."
The painted "Drabs of Drury Lane" were always milling about
the theatres early in the century, mixing with the procurers
for the gambling houses which took most of the space not
preempted by public houses. In the Gentleman's Magazine for
May, 1744 is published a presentment by the Grand Jury of
Middlesex county, asking that certain evils congregating
about the Govent Garden theatre be eliminated. It gives
a rather, drastic picture of the neighborhood.
. . . And we do accordingly hereby present as
Places riotous, of great Extravagance, Luxury,
Idleness, and 111 Fame, the several Houses, Places,
and Persons following, within this county to wit.
1- The Lady Mordington, and her Gaming-House
in or near Covent Garden.
2- The Lady Castle, and her Gaming-House in
or near Covent Garden. -
3- The proprietors of the Avenues leading to
and from the several Playhouses in Covent-Garden
and Drury-Lane, in this County, for not prevent
ing wicked, loose, and disorderly Persons, from
loitering at the Front of their several Houses at
Play Nights, by which neglect, and the riotous
Behavior of such disorderly persons, many of his
Majesty's good subjects are often in danger of
losing their Lives, or receiving some other bodily
Harm, and are frequently robbed of their Watches
and Money, to the great discredit of Civil
Government.12
The Tricks of the Town Laid Open, a sort of eigh
teenth century Gull's Hornbook that appeared in 1735, gives
Gentleman's Magaz ine (May, 1744), p. 278.
202
a thoroughly distasteful picture of the playhouse and its
habitues $ The place, according to its account, was then
swarming with gamblers and sharpers of all kinds who were
closely in league with the "ladies" of the neighborhood,
who v/ere themselves usually established in a professional
way. If a patron of a playhouse betrayed any weakness of
vanity or affectation, he was quickly set upon if a stranger,
and his financial carcass dismembered. Such goings-on did
not raise the theatre in the estimation of decent citizens;
and the fact that such parasites had no official connection
with the theatre did not help matters. They were the in
evitable accompaniment of the theatre, and as such were the
constant associates of people of the theatre, from whom they
were not popularly distinguished.1^
Another thing that brought the theatre into great
disrepute was the unmannerliness of its audience, especially
that part of the audience in the upper galleries which became
increasingly vociferous throughout the century. The foot
men seem to have been the most consistent offenders, and
are constantly being censured for their conduct. In 1732
there appeared in a periodical an essay by an irate gentle
man who wanted measures taken.
13 ,
Ralph Straus, Eighteenth Century Diversions.
Tricks of the Town (London: Chapman and Hall, ig27 reprints ) .
p. 37-48.
203
The Theatre should be esteemed the Centre of
Politeness and good manners ; yet numbers of them
(footmen) are lolling over the Boxes, while they
keep Places for their Masters, with their Hats
on, play over their Airs, take Snuff, laugh aloud,
adjust their Cocks-combs, or hold Dialogues with
their Brethren from one side of the House to the
other. • •
After the Play is begun, we have often seen
the noblest parts of it interrupted by their Bear-
Garden Quarrels in the Upper Gallery. For these
reasons they ought to be banished out of the Play
house for ever.i'^
That this sort of evil was not done away with entirely until
well into the next century every student of the theatre knows
Sex and the actor. Enough has probably been said of
the morals of the theatre in general; and in looking at the
morals of actors in particular we should make several things
very clear. It is natural that in speaking of the morals of
actors we invariably concentrate on sexual divergences from
what may constitute the conservative conduct of the time
in such matters. No one who has read the history of Charles’
court will maintain that his actors were more immoral in
their amours than were the other members of that gay circle;
but because the actor was more vulnerable (being without
the protection afforded by social rank and birth), because
he was then as now more in the public eye than any other
man, and because then as now he was answerable to the demon
"Footmen a Menace," Gentleman's Magaz ine, March,
1732, II, 661. Also, Ibid, p. 646, "Players Recommended."
204
of the Pit, his moral conduct in the Restoration age has
been widely advertised.
One need be no prude to maintain, also, that he has
always given the reforming public plenty of fuel for the
fires of righteous indignation. Actors as a tribe are extro
verts, and are constantly being thrown into contact with
glamorous extroverts of the opposite sex. They are by pro
fession experts in the expressing of emotions, and in the
management of emotional intrigues. They are often vain to
an extreme degree, and hence are loath to conceal from the
world their remarkable success in the arts of love practised
offstage, in order to balance their obvious skill displayed
under the stage lights. The ordinary man is probably in
clined to resent this more from a personal than from a
social point of view; but his instincts of self-preservation,
and natural timidity, lead him to concentrate publicly on
condemnation of the actor's conduct, laying stress on its
bad social connotations. The libidinous excursions of the
player thus become matter for public concern and comment,
while those of the pub-keeper at the corner of the Square,
or even of the theatre manager, arouse nothing more than
mild interest.
However that may be, the sexual morals of the actors
of the period are justly our concern here. Roughly we may
say that they were a hangover from Restoration days, and as
205
such were undoubtedly divergent from conservative practises
of the time. Many things help to account for this, the most
obvious being that they learned their morals from the bawdy
plays which persisted through the century to some extent.
It must be remembered, too, that the actors were still
officially outlaws, vagabonds, and rogues--although by the
end of the century often very pious rogues.
Gildon, in his Life of Betterton in 1710, makes a
strong plea for more attention to the morals of actresses
and actors. Says he:
Mr. Harrington in his Oceana, proposing something
about a regulated Theatre, would have all Women,
who have suffered any Blemish in their Reputation,
excluded the Sight of the Play, by that means to
deter Women from Lewdness, while by that they lost
the Benefit of Public Diversions. If this were
push'd farther, and all Ladies of the House imme
diately discarded on the Discovery of their Pollies
of that nature, I dare believe, that they would
sooner get Husbauds, and the Theatre lose Abundance
of that Scandal it now lies under. Nor is this so
hard a task but even our times, as corrupt as they
are, have given us Examples of Virtue in our Stage
Ladies. I shall not name them, because I would
draw no Censure on those, who are not named.
Actually, as Gildon well knew, he would have been hard put
to it to cast even a small play with the virtuous actresses
of the time. Mrs. Betterton headed, and very nearly com
pleted the list! It may be said without fear of contradiction
1 R
Charles Gildon, The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton
(London: Robert Gosling, 1710), p. 21.
206
that a moral actress was Indeed a rara avis in the early
part of the century. It may just as positively be stated
that at the end of the century the actress who was by common
standards an immoral woman was open to constant censure, and
was certainly not higher in public opinion for it. She had
become, moreover, a minority leader. Such actresses of the
Garrick era as Mrs. Olive, Mrs. Yates, Mrs. Bannister, Mrs.
Pritchard, and Llrs. Siddons lived their lives with hardly a
breath of suspicion blown over their fair names. Even the
fair Farren, who was for twenty years the devoted mistress
of Lord Derby, was commonly regarded as the soul of honour,
as no doubt she was. The fact that Derby's remarkably
tenacious wife would not die and let them be married--an
event which finally rejoiced London--was certainly considered
no matter for public condemnation. But promiscuity was
frowned on severely.
Colley Cibber invariably speaks of virtue in connec
tion with an actress with his tongue in his cheek--always,
that is, except in the case of his beloved "Bracey," Mrs.
Bracegirdle. But Cibber's point of view was actually pure
Restoration, and to his death he was an ogling fop, who
pretended in many matters more intimate gossip than he really
knew. He could strike off a pointed remark on the matter,
however, as when he said; "I have formerly known an actress
carry this theatrical prudery to such a height that she was.
207
very near, keeping herself chaste by it." And his more
famous statement, regarding an actress who refused a part :
. . . For though this good creature so far held
out her distaste for mankind, that she could never
reduce her to marry any one of * em; yet we must
own she grew, like Ceasar, greater by her fall!
Her first heroick motive, to a surrender, was to
save the life of a lover, who, in his despair, had
vow'd to destroy himself, with which act of mercy
• . • she was provok'd to reproach him in these very
words: Villain! did not I save your life? The
generous lover, in return to that first tender
obligation, gave life to her first-born, and that
pious offspring has, since, raised to her memory,
several innocent grandchildren.13
Regarding the confusion which many critics make between an
actor's stage characters and his offstage life, he makes a
very Just observation:
I am apt to think, that if the personal morals
of an actor were to be weighed by his appearance
on the stage, the advantage and favour . . . might
rather incline to the traitor than to the heroe,
to the Sempronius, than the Cato; . • • because
no man can naturally desire to cover his honesty
with a wicked appearance; but an ill man might
possibly incline to cover his guilt'with the ap
pearance of virtue. 1*7
Extra-marital relationships were entered upon much
more frequently for economic than for sentimental reasons.
Prostitution among actresses was not at all uncommon for money,
whereas it was rather sparingly indulged in promiscuously
from motives of love. Especially was this true among the
Gibber, 0£. c_it., p. 75
17
Gibber, loc. cit.
209
miserably paid minor actors, and the lowly members of the
strolling companies--those hangers-on to the skirts of the
profession. As Haslewood states, quite frankly.
the deficiency of emolument from their pro
fessional exertions. Is somebimes necessary to be
supplied by a prostitution of their charms; from
which they are not deterred by the odium that attaches
to women in more respectable Societies.
Nor was this practice confined to obscure performers in rural
theatres. Elizabeth Barry, who at the beginning of the cen
tury was the greatest tragic actress on the English stage,
had a notoriously bad private character, and appears to have
been utterly unscrupulous. Tom Brown said, "Should you lie
with her all night, she would not know you next morning,
unless you had another five pounds at her service."IG
Not only were actresses guilty of considerable pro
miscuity offstage, but up to the early years of the eighteenth
century they often advertised it quite openly. Montagu
Summers gives a choice collection in his Restoration Theatre,
the most candid being those four lines from the prologue to
The Country Wife, which v/as produced at the Theatre Royal
in 1675.
We set no Guards upon our Tyring-Room,
But when with flying Colours there you come.
We patiently, you see, give up to you
Our poets. Virgins, nay, our Matrons too.20
Haslewood, 0£. cit., II, 177
Lowe, 02" cit., p. 14.
Summers, oj^." oijb., p. 55-56. The Country Wife by
Wycherly was dehydrated by Garrick and presented as "The
Country Girl, without this prologue.
210
But by 1682 this patronage back-stage had begun to work an
actual enervation on the profession, a fact which Dryden
recognized in a very frank plea to the aristocracy, which he
larded into an epilogue*
V/e beg you, last, our Scene-room to forbear
And leave our Goods and Chattels to our Care *
Alas, our Women are but washy Toys,
And wholly taken up in Stage Employs :
Poor willing Tits they are : but yet I doubt
This double duty soon will wear them out.
That the crowds of pimping nobles and lecherous boys back
stage was actually large enough at times to hinder the busi
ness of play production is beyond any question. That this
sort of semi-official prostitution seemed to the actresses
of the time a necessary sideline to acting is also, unfortu
nately, a fact.
An actress looked upon a steady relationship with a
wealthy nobleman as a highly desirable thing, regardless of
the social status involved. Often it was the custom for the
gentlemen in such fairly stable affairs to settle a definite
amount on their mistresses. Thus we find Swift writing in
a letter of July 6, 1728, "The Duke of Bolton has run away
with Polly Peachum, having settled four hundred per year on
her during pleasure, and upon disagreement, two hundred
more."22 The Polly Peachum mentioned was of course Lavinia
1^id., loc. cit.
pp
William Cooke, Memoirs of Charles Macklin, Comedian-
(London: James Asperne, 18061, p. 46.
211
Fenton, with, whom the Duke seems to have been in love.
Cooke intimates that he would have married the girl then
but for the fact that he was already encumbered. At any
rate he lived with her fairly happily for twenty-three
years, and married her upon the death of the Duchess in
1751. The notorious Mrs. Baddeley eloped light-heartedly
from her husband with a Jew, Mendez; and after a week in the
country with this gentleman, afraid to return to her hus
band, she went back to London and threw herself into the
arms of the actor Holland with whom she lived until he died
of the smallpox. From that time on she had a succession
of "sponsors," although she seemed most fond of the weal
thiest of them, the addle?pated Lord Melbourne. Mrs. Abington,
who as a poor messenger girl of the London streets had early
learned to augment her meagre income by a little prostitu
tion on the side, after her remarkable success as an actress
in Garrick's company led an elaborate life of sin.
Haslewood says that she left her husband, and decided to
separate her lovers into two groups--those who supported
her, and those on whom her fancy pitched. She had at one
time three separate households which she maintained in
London for this purpose. Eventually it is said she lost
all her money gambling, and had to continue on the stage
long after her acting had decayed; for her beauty had paid
the penalty of dissipation, and she had no other means of
212
support•
Not many of the actresses did by singing such songs
as "My Lodging it is on the Gold Ground" elevate themselves
from a bed actually on the cold ground to a bed royal, as
Pepys so pleasantly remarked of Moll Davis, the mistress of
Charles 11.34 Hell Gwynn ousted that lady from her favored
position in the harem by an even less musical bit of stra-
tegy, according to tradition. An honest student of actors
of the period is inclined to the cynical observation that
it was merely a scarcity of available royal couches rather
than conservative morals of the actresses that prevented
widespread following of these ladies in their relations with
the royal household.
The spirit of moral opportunism that was so common
among actresses early in the age was undoubtedly a carry
over from the days of Nell Gwynn and Mrs. Davis. Bedford
quoted aptly a speech from The Roving Husband as typifying
the attitude:
I am for the modern way. Love a little, not
long, but often; and never make myself uneasy for
any man. The virtue you so much boasted of, I
See the sketch of her life in the European Maga
zine . March, 1798, p. 147, for a contradictory account of her
finances. It seems possible that she considered retiring
from the stage when Garrick did, and was with difficulty
persuaded by Sheridan to remain, for £1,000 per year.
34 See Genest, 0£. cit., I, 55. Cf. Arthur Colby
Sprague, Beaumont and Fletcher on the Restoration Stage
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926), p. 28-29.
215
own. Is a very fine thing, if one could have it
insured; but it often happens. Women grow weary
of it, when no body cares to take it from them:
And lest this should be your Chance, you had as
good give it while you may be thank'd for it, as
keep it, and cry it about the streets, v/hen no
body will buy it.25
While as has been noted one may not with impunity identify
the morals of the actors with those of their stage roles,
nevertheless there is ample evidence to justify a parallel
in this c a s e .26
However prudish one may be about the subject, he is
unable to read the memoirs of the actors of the century
without marking numerous highly entertaining anecdotesin
connection with the ligh-hearted morality of the time. Such
is the story of Garrick and his then mistress, Peg Woffing
ton, who were surprised in her apartment one night by the
unexpected arrival of her current noble "protector," the
gentleman who, one presumes, was paying the rent. Garrick
grasped his clothing and scuttled for Macklln’s apartment
above--but forgot his wig which remained criminally obvious
ù - '
in the middle of the floor 2 ^Yg^en more delightful in the
telling is that concerning a Miss Barton, who appeared at
23 Bedford, 22' cit., p. 198.
23 Note should be made that the spiritual ancestor
of both Collier and Bedford was Prynne, who in his Histrio-
mastix. 1633, took the opposite view; that actors are all
hypocrites because they pretend to be something they are not.
The fact that he lost his freedom and his ears does not
nullify the fact that he spoke the belief of many puritans
of his day.
;,27 Genest, o^* cit., IV, 273. Cf. Cooke, Life of
Macklin, op. cit., 116-118.
214
the Hajmarket under Theophilus Gibber's brief management in
1752. This lady, in the course of her music lessons, had
become attached to her maestro, Mr. Abington, who was ac
customed to receive various favours from her in the afternoon
without either suffering any loss of reputation. All would
have been well; but one evening, after the pupil had escorted
the teacher downstairs and as she thought shut the door
behind him. Miss Barton demurely returned to her landlady's
respectable family circle. But a servant, going to Miss
Barton's room to warm her bed, as usual, found something
amiss :
What was her astonishment, when on running the
pan full of red-hot coals in at the foot of the
bed, it saluted the posteriors of Mr. Abington, who
leaped up with uncommon alacrity, and put on his
cloaths, while the maid servant roared out murder2--
thieves 2--ran out of the room, and left the bed
to burn, risking the safety of the h o u s e .28
One might sententiously observe that a girl who started out
by conniving at such things could never hope to come to any
good end. The best that one can say of these Abingtons
(for she later married the man and became the notorious lady
already mentioned), these Baddeleys, these George Anne
Bellamys, is that they were evidently un-moral rather than
immoral.
Actresses were constantly subjected to extreme temp
tation from gentlemen without scruples and with something
Haslewood, o^* cit., I, 47.
215
that the beginning actress needed badly--money. Old James
Quin, one of the kindest of men for all his gruff exterior,
once called in his little fifteen year old actress Bellamy
and said to her:
My dear girl, you are vastly followed I hear.
Do not let the love of finery or other inducement,
prevail upon you to commit an Indiscretion. Men
in general are rascals. You are young and engag
ing, and therefore ought to be doubly cautious.
If you want anything in my power, which money can
purchase, come to me and say, "James Quin, give
me such an thing," and my purse shall be always
at your service!29
Although in her wild life she swerved about as far from the
path of rectitude as was possible, she never forgot that she
had been duly warned, and admitted that her delinquency was
her own fault.
Peg Woffington, although altogether charming, was
very lax in her morals, and made no bones about it. Murphy
relates a story of her naive lack of prudery, to put it
mildly. She had one night just finished performing her most
famous rOle, the "breeches" part of Sir Harry Wildair. The
applause was thunderous, and after taking her call she ran
down to the green-room, flushed w ith her triumph, and there
found Quin dourly sitting.
"Mr. Quin," said she, "I have played this part
30 often that half the town believe me to be a
real man."
Quin in his rough stile made answer, "Madam, the
other half know you to be a woman."
Bellamy, o^* cit., I, 59
216
In relating this, Mrs. Woffington laughed most
heartily, and made the best apology for Quin's
8atur nine humour.30
Many actors and actresses who became pillars of re
spectability in their adulthood were of course pretty wild
by any standards in their youth. Macklin for Instance, who
lived sedately to be more than, a hundred years of age, was
called "Vificked Charley" and "The Wild Irishman" in his youth,
He was in his early days a great gambler; and one night in
Dublin, having won over four hundred pounds, with an actor's
son and accompanied by two "ladies of the town," he went
to the immaculate burough of St. Albans. The group left
soon afterward, by request, after painting that quiet resi
dence community a brilliant hue of vermillion.
The status of marriage among the actors is discussed
at some length in a later chapter, but from a moral point
of view a few words should be said here. In the epilogue to
Fielding's play. The Temple Beau, printed in 1730, the con
temporary attitude toward marital fidelity seems fairly well
presented. Berating the author the actress is made to say;
liVhat did the Dullard mean, by stopping short.
And bringing in a Husband to spoil Sport?
No sooner am I in my Lover's Arms,
But--pop--my Husband all our Joys alarms 2
Madam, to save your Virtue, cries our Bard,
I was obliged -To save my Virtue2----Lard2
Murphy, cit., I, 36.
«Z-1
See G-alt, op_. cit. , II, 2.
217
A ¥/oman is her own sufficient Guard.
Per, spight of all the Strength that Men relv in.
We very rarely fall--without complying. . •
It was, in other words, the golden age of cuckoldry. People * s
minds seem to have run constantly on the subject. Songs
were sung about it, plays were written about it, and it was
a more open if not more commonly practiced art than in the
nineteenth century. In the entertaining Dialogue in the
Shades, published in 1766, Peg Woffington is made to say:
"A husband! Good Heaven! of what use can a husband be to an
actress, who has no reputation to lose, and who is to make
the most of her person?” To which Mrs. Cibber, the great
tragedian and unhappy wife of the miserable Theophilus
Cibber, replies :
There are many advantages to be derived from
the married state. In the first place, a woman is
thereby sure of a maintainanee, in case of illness,
or if the managers should be so tyrannical as to
pretend stipulating our salaries beneath what we
chuse to accept. In case we should by imprudence,
extravagance, or necessity, run in debt, our hus
bands may appease our creditors, or satisfy them
by their confinement; and in case of children, it
takes off the infamous reproach of their being
illegitimate.
But in the Epilogue to a play produced at Covent Garden only
seven years later we find an actress giving the follov/lng
illuminating lines.
Henry Fielding, The Dramatic Works of Henry
Fielding (London: A. Millar, 1755), 1% 81.
A Dialogue in the Shades. Between the Celebrated
l'Ærs. Cibber, and the no less Celebrated Mrs. Woffington.
Both of Amorous Memory (London: S. Bladon, 1766), pi Ï-S.
218
In the old plays, gallants take no denial.
But put the struggling actress to the trial.
In modern plays, more safe the female station;
Secure as sad our solemn situation!
No rakish, forward spark dares now he rude :
The comic muse herself grown quite a prude!
No wonder then, if, in so pure an age.
No Congreve write for a demurer stage.
It is quite evident that the temper of the time has changed,
and that seduction is becoming instead of the gay, light
hearted affair it was in the seventeenth century, the solemn,
tearful, and protracted debauch of sentimentalism which it
becomes in Richardson’s novels.
Illegitimacy had of course not nearly the terrors
for the eighteenth-century Londoner that it has for the
Englishman of today. Even the cosmopolitan American of that
century was more liberal than we are accustomed to think.
Benjamin Franklin, it may be recalled, startled his young
bride Deborah by presenting to her ”as a pledge of his love,
his illegitimate son William Franklin, the mother of v/hom
remains unknown to this day, although there are many
claimants to the honor.” (The left-handed family develop
ments are traced briefly in Dr. Rosenbach’s delightful
little monograph. The All-Embracing Doctor Franklin.)
William Franklin later became the Royal Governor of New
Jersey; an illegitimate son of William’s, William Temple
34
Genest, cit., V, 416.
219
Prank, became secretary to grand-father Benjamin; he in turn
had illegitimate issue, thus ”continuing that noble example
inaugurated by Franklin a hundred years before. While
in the case of an especially sensitive person such as Quin,
whose illegitimacy has already been explained elsewhere, the
bar sinister might amount to a considerable handicap even
in the eighteenth century, it quite evidently was not often
a matter for grave concern. Certainly the fact that ”the
gentle Cautherly,” as he was called, was an illegitimate
son of Garrick’s did not hinder him in his debut in London
in 1765, nor did it prevent him in later years from becoming
the leading actor of the Dublin stage.
While the early part of the century was obviously one
of rather frank sexual indulgence, of bawdry gimong the women
and of wenching among the men, it was not an age of hidden
nastiness and perversion. The breath of the age seems sin
gularly sweet in this respect. Homosexuality for instance,
which one might expect to be fairly common among the actors
of a decadent age, seems to have been a very rare t h i n g .36
The pitiful tale of Charlotte Charke, that destitute daughter
of Colley Cibber, has been eyed askance since the habit of
literary psycho-analysis has become almost second nature to
A. S. W. Rosenbach, The All-Embracing Doctor
Franklin (Philadelphia: privately printed, 1932), 0. 17.
36 One of the few unmistakeable anecdotes connected
with it is a yarn supposedly related by Macklin. See Cooke’s
Life of Macklin, op. cit., p. 432.
220
us; but a fairly close clinical study of her Narrative
fails to reveal anything other than a lamentable Oedipus
complex which was tv&risted and tortured into extreme manifes
tations which appeared to her unsympathic father to be in
sanity. One can’t escape the conviction that Cibber was
directly culpable in his treatment of this brilliant girl.
His conduct in disowning her becomes even less excusable
when one reads that pathetic description of her dressing
up as a little child in the wig, sword, hat and other ac
coutrements of her father whom she adored and whom she
wished above all else to r e s e m b l e . 37 Her ability with a
shotgun, her knowledge of gardening, her masquerading as a
man with a stroller’s company, her ”natural aversion to a
needle and profound respect for a curry-comb” as she puts
it, need not damn her to unnaturalness or perversion in
sexual affairs. And aside from her the ”analysts” have little
on which to fasten.
Throughout the age there were, however, virtuous
ladies whose lives would be models of deportment to the ac
tresses of any time. They were spaced at wider intervals
earlier in the century, but they could be found. Mrs. Brace
girdle, who played with the great Betterton and lived to
approve David Garrick was notable in her age for her -chastity.
Charlotte Charke, A Narrative of the Life of Ivirs
Charlotte Charke (London: Constable, 19SÜ”" reprint), P* 20.
221
The poetic hints at her alliance with Congreve seem to have
been merely malicious gossip. It is significant however
that old John Genest, who certainly knew the lives of the
actors as well as a man of another century could know them,
was so amazed by ”Bracey’s” obvious virtue that he conjec
tures in explanation that she was ”perhaps a woman of a cold
constitution.” Davies in his Life of Garrick states that
Mrs. Clive was so far above censure in her private life that
it was laudable and exemplary. "Her company was always
courted by women of high rank and character, to whom she
rendered herself very a g r e e a b l e .”38 Yet this was the Kitty
Clive who was known for her caustic wit and hoydenish ways,
and might have been suspected of loose morals in addition
from her stage conduct and style of acting.
Mrs. Siddons led a life so removed from scandal that
it constituted even in the late century almost a prudish ex
istence. The only approximate besmirching of her private
reputation came in the famous libelious,. and later suppressed,
letter which Ivîrs. Galindo published in 1809. In it the
jealous wife of Mrs. Siddons’ fencing master accuses the
other woman of having improper relations with Mr. Galindo--
in of all places a parked coach in the country. She ac
cuses Mrs. Siddons moreover of lending her husband a
38
Davies, o^. cit., II, 194.
222
thousand pounds to put him more deeply in her debt. She
mentions with pseudo-pathos her children, her formerly happy
home, and concludes:
. . . unassisted, oppressed by illness and sorrow,
with all the imperfections which I am but too
conscious this story is filled with, still I dare
hope for their indulgence, their consideration. I
now take my leave. Madam, subscribing myself. With
the greatest truth. Your wretched victim.
Gather ine Galindo.39
In spite of Ivîrs. Galindo’s careful documentation of this mis
sive with dates and places, it must still be entirely dis
counted by the reader as the Jealous attack of an unscrupu
lous and embittered wife. Mrs. Siddons might not have had
moral scruples which would have deterred her from such an
act; but she did have scruples of taste, and an over-weening
reverence for outward respectability.
More amusing is the account of the morality of the
writer and actress, Mrs. Inchbald--who had taken up the pen
largely because of an unconquerable impediment in her speech.
Harris, the manager of Covent Garden late in the century,
asked her to call at his house one morning regarding a play.
Vifhen the consultation was ended Mr. Harris, ”a very gallant
man” who had never encountered difficulty v/ith her sisters
of the theatre on the matter of virtue, attempted to take
the fort by storm. Mrs. InchbaId, in great indignation and
alarm, seized him by the hair and forced him to desist.
Catherine Galindo, Mrs. Galindo’s Letter to Mrs
Siddons (London: Printed for the authoress, 1809), p. 42.
223
Then after fleeing through the streets, she burst into the
green-room of the theatre, out of breath, and stuttered her
story. She concluded v/ith the remarkable and startling
statement: ”0h! if he had wo-wo-worn a wig, I had been
r u - r u i n e d l”^9 The important thing is of course that she
thought her virtue worth fighting for; althougia cynic might
point out that she had an economic advantage over the manager,
in her playwr it ing, which was not enjoyed by most of the
other luckless actresses. However that may be, it is an
undeniable fact that the morals of the actresses of the
London stage had improved Immeasureably with the passage of
the years, and had at least kept pace with the improvement
in general morality in England.
While the morals of the major actors may thus be
deduced from their memoirs and the inevitable gossip concern
ing each other that gets into print, the lives of those bit
players who formed a large part of the profession are not
so easily uncovered. That they were often miserably poor
we know from the salaries paid them, and the cost of living
at the time. Many of them, as we shall see, were men of
other occupations who worked at the theatrical trade only
part of the time. They were often able to support their
families comfortably and in a passable class of society.
40
O’Keef, Kelly and Taylor, 0£. cit., p. 278
225
The lowest of them however, those fellows still being paid
by Garrick in 1765 only twelve shillings to a pound per week,
unless they had some other anchor to windward must have had
a tough bit of going indeed. They had to live in the most
wretched circumstances, unable to save enough money in the
theatrical season to carry them through the off-season, and
so forced to go on the road with some miserable company of
strollers. Often no doubt they took the cheapest lodgings
they could find in London, and the cheapest available was
the infamous twopenny house which was the equivalent of our
flop-house of today. While not necessarily indicative of
-an actor’s lodging, a description of one such place seems
warranted, as a comment on general living conditions. One
of the most heart-rending accounts of these places to be
found in the social literature of the period comes from
Fielding, who quotes his friend Welch, High-Constable of
Holburn.
• . . in the Parish of ST. Giles’s there are
great Number of Houses set apart for the Reception
of idle persons and Vagabonds, who have their Lodg
ings there for Twopence a Night: that in the
above Parish, and in St. George, Bloomsbury, one
Woman alone occupied seven of these Houses, all
properly accommodated with miserable Beds from the
Cellar to the Garret, for such Twopenny Lodgers:
That in these Beds, Men and ¥/omen, often Strangers
to each other, lie promiscuously, the Price of a
double Bed being no more than threepence, as an
encouragement to them to lie together ; That as
these Places are thus adapted to ¥/horedom, so are
they no less provided for Drunkeness, Gin being sold
in them all at a Penny a Quartern; . . . That in
226
one of these Houses, and that not a large one,
he hath numbered 58 Persons of both Sexes, the
Stench of whom v/as so intolerable, that it com
pelled him in a very short time to quit the
Place. Nay, I can add, what I myself once saw in
the Parish of Shoreditch, where two little Houses
were emptied of near seventy Men and Women; amongst
whom was one of the prettiest Girls I had ever
seen, who had been carried off by an Irishman, to
consummate her Marriage on her Wedding-night, in a
Room where several others were in Bed at the same
t ime .41
Miserable as these conditions were--and often, says Fielding,
an entire family would subsist on a loaf of bread for a
week--if they fell sick or could not pay they were thrust
straight out into the street to perish.
While not many of even the poorest actors were forced
to endure conditions such as these, the general prevalence
of such things in London at the time would indicate that
struggles of the lesser actors were so strenuous for life
itself, that their morals probably were highly opportunist
and unconventional. And certainly the lot of the minor
actor at the London theatre could not have been a very pleas
ant one even at the end of the century. One wonders, when
he investigates the city in which they lived, that their
lives were as inoffensive as they were--for there are remark
ably few actors who were getting into the public print with
legal and social difficulties. Many of the poor devils were
Henry Fielding, Enquiry into the Causes of the
late Increase of Robbers, &c. (London: A. Millar, 175TT,
p. 91-92.
227
constantly being hounded by creditors, and it is remarkable
that in their ranks one finds so few thieves, pickpockets,
robbers, or swindlers. Certainly they had enough provocation^
It is interesting to note in passing that the moral
standing of the theatrical profession in America toward the
end of the century was very lov/, probably largely because
of the official disapproval precipitated as a war measure.
A resolution passed by the Continental Congress on October 12,
1778 seems more generally directed however:
Whereas true religion and good morals are the
only so solid foundations of public liberty and
happiness:
Resolved, That it be, and it is hereby earnestly
recommended to the several states to take the most
effective measures for the encouragement thereof,
and for the suppressing of theatrical entertain
ments, horse-racing, gaming, and such other di
versions as are productive of idleness, dissipa
tion, and a general depravity of principles and
manners. . . 42
Four days later, in an afternoon session, sandwiched
in between orders to build log cabins for troops and other
like weighty matters of war, we find a more specific ruling:
Whereas frequenting play houses and theatrical
entertainments has a fatal tendency to divert the
minds of the people from a due attention to the ■
means necessary for the defence of their country,
and the preservation of their liberties:
Resolved, That any person holding'an office un
der the United States, who shall act, promote,,
Journals of the Continental Congress (Edited bv "W. C.
Ford)(Washington, D. C., Gov’t. Pntg. Office, 1904), XII, 1101.
228
encourage or attend such, plays, shall be deemed
unworthy to hold such office, and shall be ac
cordingly dismissed.43
It is only fair to state that this resolution met with very
stiff debate, and was apparently defeated by a close vote.
It was directed against Army officers who evidently then,
as nov/, enjoyed amateur theatricals and participated in them
whenever they could get the time. (As witness the already
noted performance of Cato at Valley Forge.) Hov/ever that
may be, it is obvious that when such matters are the subject
of Congressional debate, the general moral standing of the
theatre is still not of the best.
"Minor” morals. However one may defend or account
for the morals of the eighteenth century actor, however,
he must bring in a heavy indictment against him on the sub
jects generally considered as minor morals, closely related
to manners. The eighteenth century, in spite of its golden
spindle-legged chairs, lace cuffs, powdered wigs, and outward
artificiality of manners, was an age of barbaric taste in
small things. In literary circles it is best exemplified
by the fact that the ruling divinity. Dr. Johnson, was an
ill-mannered, surly, prejudiced old boor who would say
anything rather than agree with anyone else. In theatrical
circles it is demonstrated by the fact that his friend
Garrick, the idol of his age and profession, was a jealous.
Ibid., XII, 1018.
229
mean, untrustworthy little man.
Of course the actors were men of their age, and could
not be expected to develop a high degree of tolerance and
polish when nightly called upon to face audiences made up of
the London rabble, which had never heard of public etiquette.
As late as 1772, when on a Monday night occurred the premiere
of Mrs. Griffith’s play. The ¥/if e in the Right, the audience
tastefully testified its dislike of the play by hurling
pennies and apples at the chandeliers--certainly an expen
sive and fruitful way of getting results.44 The manners
of the actors are likewise nothing to brag about. Garrick,
fond of practical jokes and cruel witticisms at the expense
of anyone but himself, was a paragon of restraint compared
to some of his fellows. Foote used to make everyone in his
vicinity uneasy with his wicked wit. Typical is the remark
he made one night to a timid young author who said he had a
mind to publish his poems, but he had too many irons in the
fire already. "Then,” snapped Foote, ”put your"poems where
your irons are %” No one can deny the wit of such a remark,
but the taste of it is bitter at best. If the age lacked in
culture more in one thing than in another, it was in this
respect, that anything would be sacrificed to a witty remark.
The bon mot was a sort of god, and the pun a minor diety.
44
See account in Town and Country Magazine, March,
1772, p. 120.
230
Garrick, whose mind was really of a rather plodding sort,
could never resist an opportunity to play on words, and
usually with mediocre results. Dining one day with a friend
in a tavern they found the menu to contain no meat hut
poultry, and Garrick took occasion to observe that "the bill
is but a foul copy." This was quoted throughout London as a
prime example of wit. A good pun is a good pun in any age;
but by the same token a feeble pun is a perpetual crime.
Actors seem to have been particularly fond of this sort of
linguistic sabotage.
Although the general moral tone of the age improved
almost constantly, in one respect it seems to have made little
progress. This is in regard to the slanderous and libellous
statements which people made concerning one another. Re
course at law was a dubious thing until the publication of
Fielding’s remarkable Charge to the Grand Jury which came
out in 1749, and even then was resorted to only rarely.
Fielding, the most intelligently public-s;^ited man of his
time, went to some extent in pointing out the gravity of
this form of immorality, and its effects, "Breaches of the
Peace, and very often to Bloodshed and Murder itself." V/ith
great relish he quotes a passage from Demosthenes who com
pared the libellous wretch to a viper "which Men ought to
crush wherever they find him, without staying until he bite
them."45
45
Fielding, Charge to Grand Jury, op. cit., p. 56-61.
231
Again Garrick may be taken as illustrative of the
extremity of this fault in actors--and was one of the worst
offenders in that jealous company with unkind cuts at his
rivals- He was by nature suspicious and underhanded in many
ways where it would have repaid him richly to have walked
in the open. Whether it was true, as was oftensaid, that
he lived in a circle of paid spies, it is certain that he
was constantly lotting go at his associates unjustified and
certainly unkind quips and bursts of alleged v/it which were
ill-timed. Macklin, who had suffered considerably from
them although usually giving as good as he received, said
in his famous Character of Garrick that David’s best trick
was in
. . . . writing epigrams and short poems in praise
of himslf and his productions, and in defamation of
a rival actor, or of any of those poor people of
the stage whom he wished to be unpopular. . . With
such shreds and patches he constantly fed the daily
papers, the reviews, and m a g a z i n e s .4o
One of the most pleasant compoundings of idealism
and stern realism every concocted in statute form was the
proclamation issued in 1698 by the Lord Justices General
and General Governors of Ireland, in a futile attempt to curb
the terrific profanity with which the Irishmen of that time
Kirkman, op. cit., II, 263-264. Cf. "Macklin’s
Character of Garrick!^ Monthly Mirror, July, 1799, p. 41-43.
Also, "Letter to the Editor" of Monthly Mirror, August,
1799, p. 99.
232
evidently relieved their emotions. It corresponds in most
particulars to the act already in effect in England. The
act increased the fines and mulcts already in force for
swearing; hut on a sliding scale which delicately took
cognizance of the superior temptations to profanity inherent
in some professions.
. . . That is to say, every Servant, Day
Labourer, Common Soldier and Seaman is to forfeit
One Shilling for such their first Offence, and
every other person Two shillings, and if any per
son after having been guilty of prophane Cursing
and Swearing, shall offend a second time, such
person shall pay double, and if a third time treble
the sum. . .47
Although the stage profanity of actors early in the century
should certainly have been laid at the doors of the authors
and not the actors, Betterton and Anne Oldfield among others
were haled into court on just such an act. Until the ex
cellently inclusive act of Queen Anne in 1704 cleared up
such matters for the actor, he could be accused by spite
detectives in the audience of violating the civil statute;
and after paying that fine, if found guilty, he could also
be fined by the manager of the theatre if he omitted any
words from the play in the next performance. Such a com
bination of injustices must have been enough to make any
actor swear offstage.
47
The Post Boy, No. 476, May, 31, 1698. For the
statute of 1679 see Appendix, Ch. V, 1.
233
The matter of Insincerity in the ranks of the actor
of Garrick’s time has been often commented on, and no doubt
there is matter there for some censure. This again applies
however to the stage actor, rather than the actor in private
life. On the stage he had all the mannerisms of the Restora
tion hero, with little of the genuine glitter. He was still
a Sir Popling Flutter, but his flutterings were merely the
feebly realistic efforts of a paper butterfly. He has little
of the lusty genuineness of the Restoration actor, vulgar
though that man may have been. That the artificial nature
of the plays influenced the nature of the actor very much
is however improbable. It has never been true that the
characters played on the stage have noticeably influenced
the character played offstage. Indeed, the romantic tales
told a few years ago concerning the moral derelictions of the
girl playing the Magdalene in a modern morality play were
good newspaper copy largely because they were so romantic,
or unreal, and divorced from ordinary knowledge. The taste
in such romantic beliefs seems at present to be swinging to
the other extreme, since our publicity agents have decided
to display the typical cinema vampire as a potato-mashing
homebody off the set, and the Madonna of the stage as a
veritable Katrina in her own home.
The subject of drunkenness is an important one, and
unfortunately is of such extent that it receives separate
234
treatment elsewhere. Probably one of the reasons for Gar
rick’s great success on the stage was that he was one of the
few really sober English actors in the eighteenth century.
The actresses conducted themselves with somewhat more de
corum, although most of them were not averse to a good pull
at the bottle now and then; and some of them, such as Mrs.
Bellamy, spent their later years in a perpetual stupor from
the effects of alcohol and other narcotics. Many of the
actors never went before the footlights unless they were
partially intoxicated, and often maintained that they played
better for it. The great trouper Cooke, who late in the
century made a notable tour of the American theatres, often
had to be almost poured into his costume and shoved upon the
stage, where he would then portray a Shakespearian hero
until the house rang with applause.
Theft of plays and librettos had been common from
Elizabethan days. Copywright laws were either non-existent
or practically uninforceable, and each theatre manager re
garded his plays as his property, to be guarded constantly.
Of course he had no recourse to law, outside the loose patent
law, once the play had been produced. Wilkinson late in the
century was reproducing in the country one of Sheridan’s
plays for which he could not get producer’s rights or a
script. Tate went to see the play, wrote down what he could
remember of it afterward, and filled in the interstices with
235
the songs which had been reprinted in contemporary magazines!
This sort of plagiarism was common, and probably not
regarded as positively immoral. But occasionally the actors
helped out their own cause by outright theft,- when the
rivalry betv/een theatres was intense, and a forthcoming
play was regarded as important. One of the most brazen
examples is that of the roguish Spiller, who got his rival
actor from Drury Lane so drunk that the poor chap went into
a coma, and then picked his pocket of the script for the
key role to the new play. This he rushed to the rival manager,
Bullock, who quickly threw together from such a clue a
fairly identical play which he produced a fortnight before
Drury Lane was prepared with the original version.'^®
The gambling actor. Gambling has often been cited
as the great sin of the eighteenth century in London. Dice
and gin certainly do constitute a formidable blemish on the
moral escutcheon. Probably never in England’s history has
the vice of play been so prevalent and so vicious in its
influence. Lotteries were almost unbelievably numerous and
were played by everyone who could find a spare shilling.
They were devised to function on every conceivable basis.
A man selling out his stock of shop goods held a lottery
for them; another man would conduct a real-estate lottery;
James Spiller, Spiller’s Jests,(London; H. Cook,
n. d.), p. 23. This work is attributed to George Akerby.
236
every coffeehouse In the city had lotteries of several sorts
available to their guests; and practically every newspaper
carried advertisements of the state lotteries. V/henever a
notice is inserted in a newspaper lost and found column,
of a lost letter-case or bill-fold, the lottery tickets
invariably are listed by number as the most valuable c o n t e n t s . 49
Tom Brown gives a comically pathetic picture of a
gambling house in which, among other victims, he found one
chap
. . . that had played away even his Shirt and
Cravat, and all his clothes but his Breeches, stood
shivering in a Corner of the Room, and another
comforting Him, and saying. Damme Jack, who ever
thought to see thee in a State of Innooency:
Cheer up. Nakedness is the best receipt in the
World against a Fever.30
That the custom of excessive gambling was prevalent not only
among the gay blades but also among the ladies of moderate
means is testified frequently by plaints published in the
periodicals. Well on toward the middle of the century a
distressed husband writes to the Universal Spectator ;
Sir,
To be polite now is a synonymous term of
Prodigality. I have a polite Wife, so extremely
well bred, that unless I can put a Stop to the
Elegancy of her Taste, she will soon bankrupt me.
As I am a Tradesman, I can’t conceive it necessary
to have the Plate, Table and Equipage of a Man of
For numerous examples see "Advertisements" in the
Post Boy, through 1698-99.
Thomas Brown’s Works, op. cit., III, 66.
237
Fortune; yet my Wife says it is polite, and she must
and will have it; ' therefore too she has her Gard-
Day, her Foot-boy, and her Confidante Abigail; goes
to Plays almost every Evening, games till Midnight,
lies a bed till Noon, only because it’s polite.
On my telling her that her Extravagance would ruin
me, that I would indulge in her every Thing my Cir
cumstances would allow, but-- What, says she, do
you grudge me the Necessaries of Life?31
Til is "society gambling" was probably carried over from the
gay court of Charles II, which had learned too well the
ways of the continent, but unfortunately the vice continued
unabated throughout the century.
The State Lottery was the cause of the ruin of many
respectable tradesmen who were caught in the same sort of
gambler’s fever that caused the unsound inflation of the
South Sea stock in the 1720s. By 1778 the lottery was a
regular means of raising money for all sorts of government
purposes. There grew up also an incubus evil called "lottery
insurance" by which a person could insure a ticket, against
coming up blank. Usually this insurance was an outright
fraud, but it added to the sale of tickets. Beside the
enormous State, Lotteries (listed regularly in the periodical
stock market reports of the time!) there were numerous smaller
lotteries called "Little Goes," an exceptionally apt n a m e . 32
It was natural then that the emotional, show-off
The Gentleman’s Magazine, March, 1734, p. 131.
32 For detailed account of this activity see Dorothy
George, ££. cit., p. 316.
238
actor should often be sucked into the whirlpool of this con
stant betting and taking of chances that went on around him.
Thrown constantly with leisure-class people, it is no wonder
that he fell a ready victim to the evil, and often quite
literally lost his shirt on the turn of the cards, the nose
of a horse, the spurs of a cock, or the flip of a ticket.
Colley Cibber started the century out as a gambler, and
Richard Brinsley Sheridan finished it that way. Cibber was
a notorious gamester, and would frequently be cleaned com
pletely of the contents of his pockets by his friends of the
"settle,” that peculiar little room back of the scene room
at Drury Lane, which as an actor’s lounging room preceded
the great green-room. When these "settlers" as they were
called had left him nothing more to gamble he would often
rise and cry out, "Now I must go hone and eat a child!" In
the early days of the century it was the custom for the men
of the theatre to have dinner entirely out of the v/ay by
two o’clock; and from that hour until curtain time the
"settle" was packed with actors, men of the town, cobblers,
princes— a prodigious mixture of persons, talking and gam
bling with cards, or making wagers on anything that might
turn up, from the direction of the wind to the success of
the next p l a y . 35 The little actors who could ill afford to
5 *5
Percy Fitzgerald, A New History of the English
Stage,(London; Tinsley Brothers, 1882), I, 364.
239
risk their one or two pound per week salary, often oould
not resist this noble gathering, and once there they could
not resist the universal impulse to be thought of greater
financial stature than they really were. The hardship that
followed swiftly was inevitable, for the place was over-run
with sharpers, just as the London playhouse was in Dekker*s
day. Only Macklin, among the actors of the eighteenth cen
tury, seems to have been a consistent winner in his gambling,
and he gave up the vice when he was about half-way through
that enormous life of his.
Samuel Foote was a notorious gambler, and threw away
thousands of pounds on cards. He was an indifferent player,
says Genest, and loved to tell stories constantly as he
played, to his own distraction and great financial loss. In
1768, after a tremendous success at the Haymarket with The
Devil Upon Two Sticks. he left for Ireland after depositing
twelve hundred pounds with his banker and lining his pockets
with five hundred pounds cash. But at Bath he fell into a
"nest of gamblers" and lost not only the five hundred pounds,
but the twelve hundred at his banker’s as well--and had to
borrow a hundred pounds to carry him to his destination.34
If this were a particularly startling occurrence in the cen
tury it might not have great significance; but it wasn’t.
54 Genest, op^. cit. , V, 215.
2 4 0
Similar things were constantly happening to all but the
canniest of the actors, who seem to have almost rejoiced
in their misfortune. They probably regarded it as a badge
of "politeness," as did the wife of the distressed gentleman.35
It is beyond question that the tendency of Richard
Brinsley Sheridan to gamble was often responsible for his
annoying financial straits. (He was at one time actually
put into a spunging house for debt.) His biographer lists
eleven bets he made in 1793 for a total of fifteen hundred
guineas--a sizable sum for a man in his condition of near
insolvency. Usually he looked on such wagers as affairs of
honor, and paid his losings scrupulously, when he could
scrape up the money--often evidently at the expense of the
fair salaries of his actors, with whom he was frequently
far in arrears. He would bet on anything that took his
fancy, although his favourite subject was any kind of elec
tion. His bets ranged in size from a few pounds to five
hundred guineas, usually with the other man getting the odds.36
It has been contended by moralizers that Sheridan’s miserable
old age when he was harassed by debt and poverty was the
33 Lotteries were evidently patronized by all classes.
In the London Gazette for April 21, 1712, I find an amusing ad
vertisement to the effect that since the death'of the-Rev. î^îr.
Richard Tilsley, late Curate of St. Sepulchres, London, there
has been missing from his effects a series of lottery tickets,
among which was the winner of a twenty pound prize. With
great optimism, it strikes me, the advertiser offers a reward
of two guineas.
33 Thomas Moore, Memoirs of the Life of the Right
Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan (London: Longman.
Hurst, etc., 1825}, II, 165.
241
result of his early gambling, but in the light of the facts
this seems nonsense. A careful reading of the man’s life
will trace his economic downfall even more directly to a
noble quality than to an ignoble one; to a natural lavish
ness of manners, and warm-hearted trustfulness and generosity
in large affairs. He starved his actors, whom he neverthe
less treated like his children it is said, and yet always
had a penny for a beggar.
Perhaps Doctor Johnson may have had something of this
sort in his mind when he once remarked, in a conversation
regarding a new gaming club:
Depend upon it. Sir, this is mere talk. Who
is ruined by gaming? You will not find six in
stances in an age. There is a strange rout made
about deep play: whereas you have many more
people ruined by adventurous trade, and yet we do
not hear such an outcry against it.37
There is as usual a deal of common sense in what Johnson
says. He several times expressed regret that he had never
learned to play cards, but he never did anything about
remedying that omission in his education. His censure
against "adventurous trade" is just, although also peculiar
ly illogical in the Johnson manner. Certainly there is
little difference in the morals involved in the two methods
of gambling, and the age which produced a bumper crop of
suckers for the South Sea company and the Mississippi Bubble
57
Boswell’s Life of Johnson, op. cit., II, 16
242
was perfectly consistent in producing swarms of lesser
fry who gambled with smaller stakes. There is hov/ever no
possible doubt that many people in his day were ruined by
gambling, and many more severely injured. The kindest thing
to say of Johnson’s judgment in the matter is that he was
merely making table-talk again.38
The general opinion of thinking men of the theatre
as well as the general public was the same as that of the
anonymous author who wrote in 1712:
But Gamesters through an Age of Vices run
In one short hour, and are the Next Undone.
Leaving their Heirs, (not Heirs but abject Slaves)
To beg their Bread and curse ’em in their Graves;
The Mourning Wife shut from her Kindred’s Door,
And, doomed to the hard Choice of Lew’d or Poor.
The Son turns Padder, and the Daughter VVh 39
With that obvious but unfinished rhyme we may conclude the
mention of this, one of the most deadening immoralities of
the age and of the men of the stage.
The generous actor. It is a relief to turn to one
aspect of morality in which the actors undoubtedly ran up an
58
Dr. Johnson would have relished the epigram which
appeared early in the century in The Monitor, a moral broad
side issued for several months in 17121 (Vo1. I, No. 18)
"A Prodigal’s an Ass;
The Miser a worse Sot,
Who wants as much the Things he has.
As those v/hich he has not."
59
Ibid., I, No. 9.
243
excellent record to their credit, namely that of generosity
and kindliness. The generosity of actresses is almost legen
dary-- if it may be said with no facetiousness intended, a
generosity both of the flesh and of the spirit. It may be
merely the fault of favourable accounts, but it does seem
that actors of the eighteenth century were on the whole a
more warm-hearted, impulsively generous race than were the
carping literary men, for instance, the supercilious members
of the nobility, or the bitterly embroiled members of the
lower class that made up the London Mob. It may be true that
such generous natures naturally gravitate to the artistic
creative professions, where they may find an outlet for the
lavish giving of their own personalities which their makeup
demands. Generosity is not a universal trait of actors by
any means; but that it is and was then a very common charac
teristic is undeniable.
People make darlings of their stage favourites, and
pamper them even in history. There seems to be little truth
in the story of Nell Gwynne*s founding of Chelsea Hospital,
and yet the story is one of the most commonly repeated legends
in theatrical history.But whether she founded the
The probable origin of this "apocryphal tale,"
as Doran calls it, lay in the fact that Nell used to go to
Chelsea to visit her mother, who lived in a tall house beside
the Thames. It is said that the old lady died there by
falling from her window into the river one day, in consequence
of having stretched her neck too far; a delightful picture
of the mother of the strumpet Nell, perishing while leaning
out a window to gossip with another old dame nearby2 (See
Doran, 1, 81, etc.)
243
hospital or not, the drinking, gambling, prostituting little
red-head was undoubtedly the kind of person who could have
done such an act of charity. She was universally beloved
by everyone but Puritans and the king's other mistresses;
and when she went into the markets was followed, *tis said,
by swarms of adoring subjects. IVIrs. Bellamy, another no
torious actress who lived fifty years later, was of the same
disposition. Reckless and extravagant, she was constantly
running into trouble with her creditors. At one time she
was so hard pressed that she pawned her jewels and gave a
personal note for a few hundred pounds at exorbitant in
terest to satisfy a few of the most pressing demands; and
yet before she had paid the money a relative by the name of
Crawford touched her heart with a hard-luck story, and she
gave him half of her hard-won cash, with which he promptly
absconded to Ireland. The life of Quin is full of anecdotes
concerning the generosity of this crusty old actor. The
stories of his generous offer to Mrs. Bellamy, and of his
kindly visit to the poet Thompson in jail have already been
narrated. Another which is no less illustrative concerns
a friend of his, Richard Whinstone, who returning to London
after two years meagre strolling in Y/ales was shipwrecked and
arrived destitute. Quin secured a job for him at his old
salary at the theatre, and took him to his own tailor for a
suit of clothes. "But Z ds, my dear Jemmy," said Whinstone.
244
"what shall 1 do for clothes, and a little money?" "As
for the clothes," said Quin, "there they are; but as for the
money, by G--, you must put your hand in your own pocket."
Whinstone truculently jammed his hands into the pockets of
his new breeches, and found there ten guineas IRarely in
the century does one find an actor intent upon hoarding his
gold— indeed the lavishness v/ith which the actors gave away
what they had has been criticized frequently as unjustified
lack of foresight--as indeed it may have been. But it is a
lack of foresight which endears one to his fellows. Great
wealth in itself seems to have meant very little to even those
actors who might have had it. As Bannister said one day about
his friend, the late-century comedian Joseph Munden, "Just
like my friend Joe; he would go an honest mile to save an
honest penny, but he would not budge a single step out of the
road to pick up a purse of gold."G2 Such uprightness of
character combined with generosity was not so uncommon in
the profession as might be thought.
Generosity was a virtue that Garrick certainly did
not always exemplify. He constantly pinched his actors,
and calculated his theatrical budgets v/ith extreme nicety.
It is said that one day when he was leaving Bedford's
See Thespian Dictionary, "Quin," and "Whinstone."
6P
Adolphus, op. cit.. IV, 325.
245
coffee-house with Foote, the other actor let fall a guinea*
"V/hy where on earth has it gone to?” asked Foote, looking
down. Garrick was already on his hands and knees, searching
desperately. "Gone to the devill" he said in exasperation.
"Well said, David," remarked Foote complacently. "Let you
alone for making a guinea go further than anyone else in
the world."G3 And yet it is entirely possible that we have
done even Garrick an injustice in this respect. Although
Johnson's remarks on his former pupil are always suspect,
they must be given some credence. At any rate, according to
the fussy Boswell, one evening after the usual stale
witticisms had been passed about Garrick's making "small
beer smaller," Johnson spoke his mind at some length.
Yes, Sir, 1 know that Garrick has given away more
money than any man in England that 1 am acquainted
with, and that not from ostentatious views. Garrick
was very poor'when he began life; so when he came
to have money, he probably was very unskillful in
giving away, and saved what he should not. But
Garrick began to be liberal as soon as he could;
and 1 am of the opinion, the reputation of avarice
which he has had, has been very lucky for him, and
prevented his having many enemies. You despise a
man for avarice, but you do not hate him.
In further extenuation of Garrick's carefulness in money
matters it must of course be borne in mind that he had on his
shoulders the financial responsibility of supporting his
large company of actors, and paying their salaries as well
63 Thornbury and Waiford, pp. cit., 111, 250.
Boswell's Lif e of Johnson, op. cit. . 11, 51.
246
as his own* To his credit it must he said that he usually
was able to do that, although he often drove remarkably sharp
bargains when the salary was fixed.
The well known story, re-told by Genest, of old Roger
Kemble, the father of a half-dozen well-paid actors, apply
ing in his old age for relief to a charitable fund is at
best doubtful. If it is true, probably Dr. Doran has the
ansY/er in the old actor's pride, which might have forbade
his asking aid from his children. The tale itself is however
very doubtful. The devotion of the Kemble children, while
it may have had something of expediency and theatricality
about it, was nevertheless fairly constant. ÎÆrs. Siddons in
particular was very unlikely to allow her father, of whom she
seemed genuinely fond, to suffer actual want. It is entirely
possible that her enemies started the story in an attempt to
undermine the character of that otherwise monumentally un
assailable female. Certainly there is little in her life
otherwise to indicate that she was at all niggardly.
In this respect she may quite fairly be taken as
representative of her fellows, both great and small, in the
eighteenth century theatre. Often they were miserably poor,
but they shared what they had with cheerful good will; some
times they were rich, and in that state were rarely approached
65
See Doran, op. cit.. Ill, 122
247
in vain by a needy member of their fraternity. But whether
rich or poor they were universally a warm-hearted, open-
handed tribe. They were not thrifty; they gambled, drank,
and dissipated too much; but they were not misers. That
certainly is something in their moral favour!
Religion. It has often been thoughtlessly stated
that actors have no morals and no religion. One generaliza
tion is of course as foolish as the other. Critics of all
sorts are prone to ignore the existence of anything which
does not conform to their particular pattern of thought.
The hostility of the organized church, founded usually
on a legitimate fear of rivalry in the sphere of dramatic
entertainment, was of very long standing in England, and
plays and players had been fair game for crusading preachers
as far back as the fourteenth century. In a volume of
homilies written at the close of that period there appears
a sermon against the Miracle plays, in which the actors are
accused of levity and lack of reverence toward sacred things.
The gist of the argument is contained in the exclamation:
Al Lord I sythen an erthely servaunt dar not
taken in pley and bourde that that her erthely
lord takith in ernest, myche more we shulden not
maken oure pieye and bounded of tho myraclis and
werkis that Cod so ernestly wrought to us
In the seventeenth century the antagonism of the church was
Hazlitt, op. cit.. p. 74
248
more often grounded on a dislike for the extreme immorality
of the drama which then held the hoards. Naturally, in all
the conflict that went on, the actor as the visible symbol
of the drama took the brunt of the blame, and quite naturally
he did become an anti-church member of society. The church
did not want him, and he had little choice.
The prologue to îvirs. Behn's play. Feigned Courtezans.
which appeared in 1679, complains of the furor aroused by
the Popish plots.
Which do so employ the busy, fearful tovm.
Our honest calling here is useless grown.
To what a wretched pass will poor plays come.
This must be damn'd, the plot is laid in Rome;
'Tis hard--yet--
Not one among you all I'll undertake
E're thought that we should suffer for
Religion's s a k e .67
Yet Mrs. Behn must have known that actually one of her com
panions in the playhouse, unfortunate Mathew Medbourne, had
by his zeal been drawn into these same Popish plots, and had
actually died just the year before "of the Newgate rigour,"
as Doran so delicately puts it.68 It is no wonder that the
actors of the seventeenth century had such general hatred of
organized religion which had originally spawned them, and
then pushed them gradually into outer darkness. Reviled by
67
Genest, op. cit., I, 271
Doran, op. cit., I, 133.
249
the Puritans, prostituted by the nobility, excommunicated
by the Catholics, and denounced by the Protestant Church of
England, the men of the theatre certainly had scant spiritual
haven.
With the early years of the eighteenth century however
conditions began to improve. Dryden assisted in the molli
fication of the spiritual fathers by his acknowledgment of
his fault in writing passages offensive to morals and religion.
Betterton threw his influence in favour of cleaner drama.
But most important of all was the effect of the work of Sir
Richard Steele--who in his youth had been an embarrassingly
gay blade about London. Steele wrote his book. The Christian
Hero, as a sort of repentant bid for moral favour. Cer
tainly it was not autobiographical. His sentimental dramas
which followed upon that move were openly calculated to
appeal to the forces of righteousness in the land, and they
did achieve more reputation than they deserved on their
dramatic merit because of that fact. When the patent for a
theatrical venture was granted to Steele, Cibber, Wilks,
Dogget, and Barton Booth in 1715, it specifically charged
them with reforming the stage from a moral and religious
point of view, with promoting the "honour of religion and
virtue," and concluded with a specific command:
We do hereby command and enjoin that no new
play, or any old or revived play, be acted under
the authority hereby granted containing any passages
or expressions offensive to piety and good manners.
250
until the same be corrected and purged by the sd
governor from all such offensive and scandalous
passages and expressions. . . 69
And this obligation of the stage to improve morals and
religion formed a favorite text for moralizers throughout
the century.
Throughout the preceding century the hatred of Catholi
cism in London had been general and intense among the common
people. The Romish leanings of Archbishop Laud, the Papist
Plots already mentioned, the widely distributed stories of
the Spanish Inquisition--all these forced on the people a
deep suspicion of the Catholic Church. Even more important
in its anti-Catholic influence v/as the Huguenot invasion
after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, about 1685. It
was estimated that about sixty thousand of these people found
haven in England, bringing with them about three million
pounds in savings. They were largely craftsmen--silk-weavers,
metal-smiths, watchmakers, carvers ; and as such they fil
tered through the whole fibre of London life. To say that
they were anti-Catholic in sentiment is a vast understatement.
They were constant and virulent propagandists against their
oppressors who had driven them from France. Among them was
of course the ancestor of David Garrick--the actor who only
two generations later was to marry the staunch little Aus
trian Catholic, Violette, and himself "study Catholicism"
I, 403.
Fitzgerald, New History of the Stage, op. cit.,
251
seriously. In 1679, says Besant, all Roman Catholics in
London were ordered to leave the city and to withdraw at
least ten miles from it. But such ordinances, of which
there were many, were enforced only by zealots who occa
sionally got into power. In 1792 England felt the impact
of another great invasion by French refugees, the remnants
of the nobility; but they were swallowed this time with
hardly a gulp, and those who didn't soon return to France
were easily assimilated.
It is obvious from this hasty survey of conditions
that the actor of Catholic faith had extra hardships to
bear early in the century. In spite of the Catholic sym
pathy in court circles, the bourgeois audiences were still
essentially Puritan in sympathy--and Puritan was a term which
at the time had much more weight than the term Anglican
carries, today. Catholics were often openly jeered by the
rabble; and yet many of the actors were professed Catholics,
especially those of Irish birth. Nell Gwynn is said to have
affected great orthodoxy in her religion, and of course
often traded upon the popular dislike of Catholics. A
typical instance is the charmingly vulgar story of her being
insulted by a crowd of Oxford students while riding near
the college. They mistook her, probably because she* was
riding in the royal coach, for the Duchess of Portsmouth,
another of the king's "femmes de chambre". Nelly looked out
252’
the window, and with her usual pleasant humour called out,
"Pray, good people, he civil: I am the protestant whore."
Gilliland says that this "laconic speech drew upon her the
blessings of the populace.
There were undoubtedly many political and economic
overtones to the persecution of Catholics throughout the
century which we do not catch at this distance. Certainly
when we read that as late as 1767 a priest was condemned to
"perpetual imprisonment" for saying mass and giving com
munion to a sick person in Hog Lane near Seven Dials, we
wonder if religion had anything to do with it. In the
MemoIrs of Decastro is related an anecdote which fairly
illustrates the temper of the time regarding religion, even
during the bitter anti-Catholic riots of 1780. It was the
custom then to write on the shutters and doors of the houses
with chalk the words, "No Popery". The comedian Grimaldi
seeing it, asked, "Vat is all dis about?" Vifhen they told
him, he went out in front of his own house and blithely
wrote, "No Religion here at all." And, says the account,
the rioters were so pleased by the conceit that they passed
over his house unmolested, whereas otherwise they would most
certainly have bashed in a few windows at the least.
•70
Thomas Gilliland, The Dramatic Mirror,(London:
G. Chappie, 1808), II, 772.
71
Decastro, op. cit.. p. 205.
253
Yet in spite of all this opposition, many of the
actors refused to desert their religious beliefs. Mrs.
Cibber, the wife of Theophilus and one of the most talented
tragedians of the age, was a staunch Catholic. At one time
when she offered to play three nights gratis for the Veteran's
relief fund after the Scottish revolution, she was snubbed
in the newspapers for her religion. She indignantly retorted
that she loved king George no whit less because she rever
enced the Pope, and the genial monarch, to show his good
will, took the entire royal family to the theatre to see her
performance. Toward the middle of the century evidently the
matter of the actor's religion was no great concern of the
audience. Certainly if he had thought his alliance with the
Catholic Violetti would seriously injure his stage career,
Garrick would never have married her. Peg Woffington's
forsaking of the Catholic faith has been variously expiained--
but never on the basis of any effect it might have on her
career on the stage, except incidentally. Murphy gave the
fantastic reason that it was because she wanted to play
male parts and wear a sword, and the wearing of swords was
still forbidden to Catholics. Doran scorns this explanation,
and votes for the even more cheerful story that the ex-manager,
MacSwiney, had left her a two hundred pound per year legacy
on condition that she become a Protestant— which the amiable
Keggy of course obligingly did. Whatever the direct cause
254
of her apostasy, it is certain that she didn't regard the
matter of personal religion of much consequence.
Quin, like so many other actors, disliked and dis
trusted the members of the clergy, especially those in high
office, feeling that the church had not dealt kindly nor
understandingly with the sons of Thespis. Bishop Warburton
he particularly despised, and lost no occassion to vent his
thoughts on the subject. When Warburton brought out his
edition of Shakespeare, Quin remarked sourly, "he had better
stick to his own Bible, and leave ours to us." But one has
only to run through a list of the playwrights of the last
part of the century to realize the tremendous number of
Church of England and Presbyterian clergymen who had turned
casual play-maker, although few of them with the success of
the Reverent Ivlr. John Home, the author of Douglas. The
memoirs of the actors and actresses betray an increasingly
strong rapport between the Church of England curate and the
solid, responsible actor of the theatre.
One reason for this probably was in the poor state
of the clergy itself outside of London, and the consequent
feeling of fraternity v/hich developed with other professions
It is a fact that the decay of the organized church outside
72
The quality of these ministerial plays has often
been questioned, justly; but so may the literary quality of
most plays of the century. When Walpole was asked what
"prose" the author of Douglas had written, he replied that
he knew of none but his poetry.
255
of England in the early part of the century augmented thea
trical receipts. The country clergyman was poorly paid,
and these "brother actors" of the pulpit actually occupied
an economic niche only slightly above the ordinary stroller.
Seldom did they receive more than fifty pounds per year,
and according to Besant they often eked out a living by
selling on the side such un-churchly items as poultry, pigs,
and beer. It has been from the ranks of such rusticated
members of the clergy that much of the early and most thorough
scholarly work on the history of the English drama and
theatre has come.
The clergy in London was much better off of course;
men well thought of as pastors and lecturers, often receiving
from one hundred to seven hundred pounds per year. In most
of the churches there were daily sermons. At St. James,
Westminster, and St. Paul's in Covent Garden there were four
services daily, and five on Sunday. The church was really
giving the theatre competition as far as number of perfor
mances was concerned, although the church had not yet learned
the technique of incidental appeal, with clubs and extra
curricular activities of various kinds. The dissenting
evangelists put on a much better show than the standard
church, and early in the century began to attract huge
Sir Walter Besant, London in the XVIII Century,
(London: A. and C. Black, 1925), pT 148.
256
throngs of people to their meetings# Sometimes these almost
illiterate, hut violently convinced and highly articulate
preachers, interpreting the scriptures as inspired outlines
of what was going to happen to the then monarchy, got into
very serious difficulties indeed with the law. There were
many others who fared somewhat better however. Isaac
Chauncey, Robert Ferguson, Joseph Caryl--these were names
known in one circle of London Society just as Betterton,
Bracegirdle, Booth, and Quin were in another. That all this
religious activity should frequently affect emotionally sus
ceptible members of the acting profession was inevitable.
Macklin's conversion was a casual thing. Strolling
one day in the vicinity of Lincoln's Inn Fields, he saw on
a bookstall a little volume titled. The Funeral of the Mass.
Just what was in the book we have not the slightest idea,
nor at the time did he. But he took it home with him, read
it attentively several times, and in consequence became a
staunch Protestant--at least, as he said, . .as staunch
as the Archbishop of Canterbury, and on as pure principles.
Although not overly religious in his own life, he had ex
cellent ideas for his son, and started him on the study of
law by giving him a polyglot Bible which cost tv/enty pounds.
But the boy, as his father said regretfully, had his father's
Cooke, Life of Macklin, op. cit., p. 76
257
dissipations in his system, and died before he was thirty-
five because of a broken constitution brought on by his
excesses•
The name of Wesley was already known in London at the
turn of the century, although the force of Methodism didn't
exert its real effect until about the time of Garrick. As
early as 1698 Samuel Wesley, M. A., the father of John and
Charles, at that time "Chaplain to the most Honourable John
Lord Marques of Normandy, and Rector of Epworth in the County
of Lincolnshire," was printing his sermons for public sale
and distribution by religious societies. Methodism seems
to have incurred the particular enmity of actors very early,
for some reason— an enmity which the wild gesticulations of
Whitefield for instance never excited. The cult is con
stantly being referred to with excessive sarcasm in the actors*
memoirs of the time. According to a visitor at the country
home of Rich, proprietor of Lincoln's Inn Field's theatre
near mid-century, his wife "having been converted to Methodism,
now thought of nothing but praying and accumulating wealth
for herself and her spouse."76 And very late in the century
See The Post Boy. No. 456, April 7, 1698: "A
Sermon Concerning Reformation of Manners, preached at St.
James Church, Westminster. . ."
Fitzgerald, New Hist. of Stage. op. cit., II, 388.
Evidently the Rich intended is John Rich. This wife of Rich
provided an interesting footnote in social evolution. She
had first been barmaid at Bret's coffee-house; was then a
mediocre actress; and upon Rich's solicitation became his
housekeeper. After his wife died. Rich married her, and ele
vated her to the position of mistress of the theatre!
258
one rinds the repentant Mrs. Bellamy writing rather sarcas
tically of her mother's religion:
My mother, from being one of the pure ones, had
changed her religion to that of a methodist; and
being regenerated, was become too immaculate for
mo to hopo that my error would moot with pardon
from her. . .VV
The real disagreement between these vigorous new
sects and the actors was not so much one of morals, as has
been intimated, but of business rivalry. Tate Wilkinson did
not far overstate the case when he said: "A methodist and a
player, like a spider and a toad were in those days natural
enemies, each one using his lungs in hope of a crowded benefit
Whitefield and Wesley never refused a "golden ticket," he
intimates. He said once that while he didn't wish to in
sinuate that every Methodist was a hypocrite, he thought the
greatest part were so, and Foote's lampooning of this quality
in the evangelistic ministers of his time tickled Tate
immensely. Yet this same harsh critic was evidently of a
peculiarly reverent and innately religious turn of mind,
finding the hand of God in many strange places:
The amazing powers displayed by a Garrick, a
Barry, a Mrs. Cibber, and a Siddons, and many others,
is evidently the hand of God:--He alone could give
the finish to such intrinsic merit.78
One wonders if the versatile ¥ v ' ‘ ilkinson could see the same
77 Bellamy, op. cit.. II, 45.
78
Wilkinson, Memoirs, op. cit., III, 4.
269
hand of Dlety at work in the performances of such dissolute
geniuses as Foote, Peg Woffington, or Mrs. BellamyI
The immensely popular actress Mrs* Jordan one day
had occasion to befriend a poor mother and her children who
accosted her in the city, and was overheard by a lank preacher
who, in spite of telling her that she was in consequence of
her profession a child of Satan, insisted nevertheless on
walking with her to her door--a really brave and companion
able thing for a man in his position to do in those days.
At the portal he delivered a significant farewell.
"Fare thee well. Sister; I know not what the
principles of people of thy calling may be;--thou
art the first I ever conversed with; but if their
benevolent practices equal thine, I hope and trust,
at the great day, the Almighty God will say to
each--Thy sins are forgiven thee."79
The intenseness with which these evangels took their reli
gion was a thing at which to marvel. Methodism was a very
vigorous business indeed in 1774 when Lackington opened his
first bookshop, and his pious wife, fearing that the vistas
of wealth opening before them might lead him astray, reminded
him that the wealth of the world was all vanityI Said she,
according to her amused husband:
James Boaden, The Life of Mrs. Jordan (London:
Edward Bull, 1831), I, 364. Mrs. Jordan had several child
ren of her own. The Thespian Dictionary says: "She is kind
to her relations, and generous to the distressed."
260
You are very right, my dear--and to keep our
minds as spiritual as we can, we will always attend
our class and band meetings, hear as many sermons
etc. at the Foundery, on week days, as possible,
and on Sabbath days we will mind nothing but the
good of our souls; our small beer shall be fetched
in on Saturday nights, nor will we dress even a
potatoe on the Sabbath. We will still attend the
preaching at five o'clock in the morning; at eight
go to the prayer meeting; at ten to the public
worship at the Foundery; hear Mr. Perry at Cripple-
gate at two; be at the preaching at the Foundery
at five; meet with the general society at six;
meet in the united bands at seven, and again be
at the prayer meeting at eight; and then come home,
and read and pray by ourselves.60
That this is a satirical exaggeration of the usual routine
of“an average Methodist is obvious; but it has enough truth
in it to indicate at least one reason for the actor's pre
ference for the rather easy-going Anglican worship, or the
less "methodical" although more pyrotechnic displays of the
Whitefield services.
For strange as it may seem, the actors of the latter
part of the eighteenth century seem to have been peculiarly
fascinated by the fire and brimstone breathings of this
religious phenomenon. Part of the reason for it may have
been that they felt an interest in this ex-actor who had
turned to the stage of the church for his career; but more
J. Lackington, Memo ir s of the Forty-Five First
Years of the Lif e of— ( Lohdbhl Lackington, Allen and' Do. ,
18Ü3T, p. 123.
Wilkinson says Whitefield left the stage because
of his squinting eyes, which moved the ladies to mirth rather
than a more sobre emotion. The story seems unsupported from
other sources.
261
probably it was the very theatricality of his methods that
fascinated them. John Wesley had always about his ministry
a certain dignity--as a matter of fact he never did formally
leave the Anglican Church, and held strongly to the principle
of Episcopacy. Whitefield on the other hand would do prac
tically anything to get attention. One Sunday evening in
February of 1739, for instance, he marched by force into the
pulpit of the parish church of St. Margaret and preached a
sermon to the astonished audience. They were no more con
founded than was the intrepid evangelist when he started to
leave and found that the sexton and six lusty assistants
had locked him up in the holy box, and were firmly intent
upon keeping him there for some timei
Vifhitefield referred to actors in his sermons as "the
devil's children," although he was never averse, as in the
case of poor Shuter, to receiving their hell-receipted
pounds. Lackington says that in 1757, "as Shuter was bounti
ful to the Tabernacle, Mr. IVhitefield not only permitted,
but advised his hearers to attend Shuter*s benefit; but for
that night only.The befuddled comedian Shuter was no
doubt the staunchest support of Whitefield among the actors;
but Wilkinson and Foote, both of whom gave public "imitations"
of the evangelist on the stage, had been disciples of sorts.
82 Thornbury and Waiford, op. pit.. Ill, 574.
Lackington, op. cit., p. 78.
262
Wilkinson rather disparages his rival.
Mr. Foote was only a spy at Mr. liVhitef ield * s
academy, while I had been a zealot for some seasons
before my encounter at Covent Garden with Mr.
Foote, my attendance had been constant with my
friend Shuter, and as he actually was one of the
newborn, and paid large sums to stay with him, for
he was really bewildered in his brains more by his
wishing to acquire imaginary grace than by his
drinking; and whenever he was warm with the bottle,
and with a friend or two, like Maw-worm, he could
not mind his shop, because he thought it a sin,
and wished to go a-prcaching; for Shuter, like
Maw-worm, believed he had a call.
Wilkinson, who had religious leanings himself of no meagre
sort, had more than an academic interest in Whitefield, and
peculiarly enough was not at all unsympathetic to the evan
gelist in the exhibitions, or imitations which he gave of
him. Says he;
I having had so much practice (while a zealot)
I really obtained and exhibited a much stronger
likeness of ’ Whitefield than Foote did. The week
before my Covent Garden exhibition, I met Shuter
at the tabernacle; a great coolness had continued
for some time, as we had not spoke, nor even looked
at each other since the breach between us in 1758;
. . . before Whitefield's lecture was done we were
perfectly reconciled: we adjourned to the Rose,
and by three the next morning were sworn friends,
and continued so until his death.85
Foote's takeoffs of Whitefield, however, with those of
Wilkinson, undoubtedly had a great deal to do with minimizing
the influence of the roaring evangelist with people of
discrimination. They had something of the same relation to
vYilklnsoni Memoirs, op. cit. . Ill, 27. Cf.
Lackington, op. cit., p. 76.
Wilkinson, Memoirs, op. cit.. Ill, 28. Quoted in
accurately in Lackington, op. cit.. p. 77. Cf. Tate Wilkinson,
IVandering Patentee. op. cit. » I, 110.
263
contemporary thought as did the comedies of Aristophanes
which lampooned the absurdities of the Socratic school in a
more classic age. As such they were no doubt valuable in
assisting the English people to stem off for a while longer
the Romantic mass movement which stifled objectivity so
completely in the early nineteenth century.
It becomes apparent then that the actor of the cen
tury was deeply concerned with religion and religious matters
throughout the period. In the early years, when his connec
tion with France and the strongly Catholic Court of Charles
was still close, when the influx from the Irish stage was
great, he was as often as not a member of the Catholic church.
As the anti-Catholic sentiment held, and the control of the
court weakened, the mass of actors became sympathetic to the
Church of England through the middle of the century. Toward
its close, in common with the members of the ruling middle-
class, the actors began to feel and react to the various less
formalized religious movements that caught the fancy of the
people, and typified by the emotionalism of Methodism and
Whitefieldism, affected all of England.
A distinctly improved tone was evident in the think
ing of common men regarding religion about the middle of the
century. The pendulum had swung from the rigours of the
Cromwell revolt, to the extremes of the Restoration, and
then back to the denunciations of Jeremy Collier and
264
Bedford. It had oscillated from the weaker sentimentalism
of Steele, to the temporary half-hawdry of Gay's Beggar's
Opera. and finally by 1749 had practically stopped on the
common-sense utterances of Fielding. Fielding it must be
remembered was as famous in his day as a Jurist as he is in
our day as a novelist. His address to the Westminster Grand
Jury in 1749 v/as reprinted by court order and given wide
circulation. In it he quite openly attacks the general
profanity of his day, and points out its indictability. He
goes further and notes that "all scandalous and contemptous
Words spoken against our holy Religion, are by the Wisdom of
the Common Law made liable to an indictment; for Christianity
. . . is Parcel of the laws of England ; therefore to reproach
the Christian Religion is to speak in subversion of the law.
He is in other words concerned not with the defense of a
sect or formal style of worship, but with general religious
morals.
By the end of the century church-going had become a
sort of disease with the middle class in London, With the
coming of such spectacular religious entertainments as were
staged by the Wesleys and WhitefiêIds--entertainments in which
the audience was allowed to participate as performers as well
as spectators (for there, one suspects, lay the great secret
of Methodism's success, with its "class meetings" for
Fielding, Charge to, etc., £p. cit.. p. 31.
265
testimony, and its constant hymn singing), ordinary people
began to desert the cockpit and the gaming table for the
mourner's bench and the sawdust trail. Although the evil
of public drunkeness had diminished slightly by the end of
the century, the tavern, the "Pub," had supplanted the theatre
as the great enemy of the church. It had not then reached
the amicable truce which now prevails, under the terms of
which the tap-rooms are closed while divine service is in
progress, and opened immediately upon the closing of the
church door8--as though the thirst of the soul being satis
fied, it necessitated a more material quenching to follow.
Toward the end of the century general sentiment even in the
theatre seems to have become religious rather than other
wise. Thus when a version of Boaden's The Monk was acted at
Drury Lane (December 28, 1798), several members of the
audience objected to it as being sacrilegious because it
represented a church on the stage, and more so because it
represented Mr. Kemble as so much like a divinity.87 More
significant than the matter of their complaint is the fact
that there should be so many zealous church-goers in the
audience, and that their opinion should carry so much weight
with the theatre as it did.
The eighteenth century was one of searching for a
87
Young, Memo irs of Mrs. Crouch, op. cit., II, 303.
266
"method, " and the "golden mean," even in dealing with such
things as the emotional expression of religion. The actors,
most evanescent of people, swung easily with the wind. By
1800 it actually begins to seem that actors have as many
friends among the established clergy as in the theatre.
Whether they were converted or not, they were nevertheless
in excellent company— certainly far better company than
that with which they started the centuryI
CHAPTER VI
FINANCIAL STATUS OF THE ACTOR
Eoonomio Uackpiround of the profession* George Bernard
Shaw, some years ago secured much attention by his statement
that poverty is the greatest crime in the world. If that is
true— and certainly it has an element of truth in it--then
certainly the minor actors of the eighteenth century were
more sinned against than sinning. Their lot evidently im
proved little with the passing of the years, while the in
come of the “star** was mounting to startling proportions.
Poverty among actors was almost legendary in England.
Whether it arose more often from an improvident nature and
tendency to squander earnings thoughtlessly than from a
lack of income is of course an open question. That it often
did arise from both causes is obvious. There were of course
certain extenuating circumstances— the most important pro
bably being that so long as they were without social status,
actors were little better than serfs under a feudal system,
and had no right to hoard their earnings. The great numbers
of poor strollers of course added to the disreputable stand
ing of the profession, wandering from one end of England to
the other in their ragged clothes, many times actually
begging their way from town to town. That they were hardly
bona-fide members of the acting profession was not taken
into account by the public anxious to discredit members of
268
a profession which the common man instinctively distrusted.
In Restoration times the reputation of players had become
one of prodigality, but also of perpetual insolvency. As
the scurrilous Satyre on the Players stated:
Imppimis Slingsby has the fatall Curse _
To have a Lady's Honor, with a Player's Purse. . .
In those days one was as empty as the other.
Before considering the specific questions involved
in an account of the finances of the eighteenth century
actor, it may be well to review briefly a few things relat
ing to theatrical finance up to that time. About 1613 the
actor Charles Massye, being in financial difficulties, wrote
to Edward Alleyn in an attempt to secure a loan— offering to
bind over his share in the company of the King's Men as
security; and from his note we may deduce the value of a
share in Shakespeare's time:
. • . never would I desire you should hasard
the losse of one penny by me, for ser I know you
understand that ther is the composisions betwene
oure compenye that if any one give over with con
sent of his fellowes, he is to receve three score
and ten pounde {anatony Jefes hath had so much)
if any on dye his widow or friende whome he appoynte
it tow reseve fyfte pounde ('mres pavie, and mres
roune hath had the lyke) be side that lytell moete
I have in the play housses wch I would willingly
pass over unto you by dede of gifte. . . 2
^ John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (Edited by M.
Summers) (London: The Fortune Press, n. d. - 1934), p. 57.
^ Henslowe Papers (London: A. H. Bullen, 1907),
p. 64.
269
This seventy pounds evidently represents the most substan
tial interest an actor had in the company in those days,
although it should not be confused with the interest in an
actual playhouse. This system of shares in the proceeds,
distributed in various ways, held pretty generally through
out the seventeenth century.
In 1695 the Patentees, being in control of the theatres,
agreed to divide the profits into twenty shares, ten going
to the proprietors and ten to the principal actors. One can
imagine the pickings left for the miserable second and third
string players, who at best received a bare living. The
shares of the Patentees, to make things worse, were often
sold to outright speculators, called “Adventurers,“ says
Cibber; and these theatrically ignorant investors were thus
given a voice in the management of the theatre. The con
fusion they added was merely another buzz in the already
roaring hive. The actors, to whom the theatre rightfully
belonged, were often caught between two lines of fire: the
Patentees wanted a large profit from their company, and the
“Adventurers** wanted enormous dividends. The actor wanted
principally food in his belly. The first two wishes were
frequently granted, because of shrewd manipulations, before
the last. The socially and legally impotent actor was as
270
yet unable to do much about the situation#^
Salaries. By the beginning of the eighteenth century
the old system of actor -sharers was in disrepute. The
houses were drawing badly, and practically any actor was
glad to have a regular salary, however small, rather than
a share in the often minus-proceeds of the house. Betterton,
after his resignation from the managership in 1705, received
only about five pounds per week, and he was more than usually
well off. When he had organized his new company, in the
secession of actors from Drury Lane to Lincoln's Inn Fields
in 1695, Samuel Sandford, one of the actors, actually refused
to take the doubtful income of a sharer, and insisted on
having a salary--which was fixed at sixty shillings per
week. Gave Underhill, who was a three-quarter sharer at the
time, used to call him “Samuel Sandford, Gent, my Man“ in
Joking reference to the other actor's position as a mere
employee of the theatre in which Underhill was a sharer;
but there were no doubt plenty of times when the miserable
part-share of Cave's was worth less than Sandford's scorned
but reliable salary.^ The buying power of money had declined
^ See Alwin Thaler, “The Elizabethan Dramatic Com
panies," P.M.L.A., XXXV, 150-156, (Mar., 1920). Thaler's
conclusion that the buying power of money in Elizabethan
times was about 8 to 10 times what it is today is quite gen
erally accepted as a conservative estimate. The pound de
clined in purchasing power throughout the eighteenth century
until in 1800 it was worth roughly four times its present value
^ Alwin Thaler, Shakespeare to Sheridan (Cambridge:
Harvard Univ. Press, 1922), p. %. Thaler gives an excellent
general discussion of actors* finances on pages 78-96.
271
sharply after the Restoration; and a salary of two to four
pounds weekly, which might be taken as an exceedingly gen
erous average about 1700, was none-too-generous for the
actual necessities of an actor’s life— especially when, as
was often the case, the actors had large families to support.
Starting salaries for actors varied throughout the
century, but were uniformly low— as indeed they still are
in the theatrical profession. In the strolling companies
the beginner was lucky to get “tuppence and a piece of candle"
in some towns. In the London companies it was quite common
for an actor to work in the theatre for several months or a
year without pay of any kind, as a sort of apprenticeship.
Colley Cibber, who gives us so much information about the
financial difficulties of the actor early in the period,
entered Betterton’s Company as an apprentice, agreeing to
play for a half year without remuneration. At that time he
was sustained rather gloriously by the brittle hope of some
day walking on the same stage with the star, Mrs. Bracegirdle.
He was half-starved in the home of his sculptor father, who
seems to have spent much of his time carving out gate-orna
ments for the homes of indifferent noblemen, and the
hospitals for the insane, and to have been none-too-punctual
in providing for his family. While young Colley Cibber was
working as a sort of Jack of all Trades in the theatre, he
received nothing; but after his first appearance on the
272
stage he was given a salary of a sort under conditions which
will always hear repeating.
The boy had been lurking about for some time when he
was finally one night given a letter to carry on-stage to
the great Betterton. But when he got there, with the eyes
of the audience on him and Betterton’s hand outstretched,
he was so overcome by stagefright that he very nearly stopped
the show. Betterton inquired afterward who the young blun
derer was, and the prompter Downes replied, “Master Colley".
“Then forfeit him. “ **Why Sir," said Downes, “he has no
salary.“ “No?" said the old man, with a sparkle to his eye.
"Why then put down ten shillings a week and forfeit him
five. Thus began the professional career of the future
poet laureate of England. He seems not to have minded his
eight months of apprenticeship without pay, evidently con
sidering the privilege of seeing the plays adequate recompense
Cibber makes it clear that in Rich’s company the
actors were very badly treated financially. The old man took
out two shillings from each pound for himself before he even
began to settle the obligations to his actors and other
creditors. If the profits of the house did not cover the
agreed salaries of the actors, he simply did not pay them.
Cibber states:
^ Galt, 0£. cit., I, 138.
273
I myself was one of the many, who for six act
ing weeks together never received one day’s pay;
and for some years after, seldom had above half
our nominal sallarles.^
This manager was not on the whole a bad fellow, being evi
dently what we call today a "good business man". As Cibber
said of his treatment of the actors, "He kept them poor,
that they might not be able to rebel; and sometimes merry,
that they might not think of it. "
Trying to struggle along on his parental endowment
of one pound twenty shillings per year plus his twenty shill
ings per week salary, to which he had been raised, Cibber
found it impossible to support his wife and children.
Necessity forced invention, and he started to write. His
first pay for writing was for a prologue to Mrs. Behn’s old
play. The Moor’s Revenge, for which he demanded and received
two guineas. Of course the whole secret of Christopher Rich’s
success lay in his absolute monopoly of the London theatre
at the time. Actors had to take what they could get, or find
another profession.
Thus Rich starts out the century by giving the thea
trical manager a reputation for closeness from which he had
a difficult time escaping. Rich, Doggett, Fleetwood, Harris,
Sheridan— these are names that stood for stinginess in the
age. Garrick seems to have been fairly clean-cut in his
^ Cibber, ££. cit., p. 121.
274
dealings with actors, at least to the extent of paying what
they legally demanded, but his terms were notoriously close,
and he made the constantly protesting actors feel that he
was ready to snatch every penny they dropped.
There seems to have grown up a tradition of ten to
fifteen shillings per week for the beginning actor early in
the century, a tradition which was hard to shake off. Wilks,
on his arrival in England to act, was engaged by Rich at
fifteen shillings per week, "of which he was to allow ten
Shillings per Month for learning to d a n c e ."^7 Mrs. Oldfield
was hired by the same man at the same salary, but because of
a word from the Duke of Bedford she was soon raised to twenty
shillings.® After some time Wilks returned to Ireland,
against Betterton’s advice, for an engagement with Ashbury
the Dublin manager at sixty pounds per year, plus a clear
benefit: "which in those days was more than any other per
former ever had"
Top salaries of the actors early in the century were
quite respectable, considering the extra emoluments which
the players received in the way of benefits and gifts from
^ Betterton, op^. cit. . "Wilks".
^ Memoirs of Mrs. Oldfield. issued with 1741 edition
of Betterton’s History, supra, p. 56.
^ Thespian Dictionary, op. cit.. "Wilks".
275
patrons, and the difference In the value of money then and
now. The leading actors such as Betterton, Wilks, Cibber,
and Estcourt were receiving five pounds per week, generally
with a free benefit added each season by which they could
realize from fifty to a hundred pounds extra. Other actors
such as Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and Mills had four
pounds per week. Mrs. Oldfield’s highest salary never ex
ceeded three hundred guineas per year; but that was exclu
sive of benefits, and personal gifts, from which she reaped
large rewards. Mrs. Bracegirdle in 1706 and several years
after was receiving only about £250 per year, including her
benefit. Toward the end of her career this was raised to
about five-hundred pounds. A condensation of a payroll of
the Drury Lane theatre in 1708-9 reveals another angle to
this comparison of the income of various actors--for it is
apparent that "salary" and "income," for the eighteenth
century actor, were entirely different things. It must be
borne in mind that there is no possible way of estimating
the amounts each actor received from personal patrons.
Wilks for acting 100 times: Salary plus benefit £299/l/5
Betterton " " 16 " " " " £638/14/6
Estcourt " " 52 " " " " £363/18/6
Cibber * * " 71 " " " " £212/10/10
Mills " " ? " " " " £191/11/4 .
Ær s. Oldfield" " 39 " " " " £252/ 6/7 ^ ^
^Given in Genest, pp. cit.. II, 423. Note also
tables in Appendix, VI, 3, for a full discussion of salary
disputes in 1742-43. Multiplication of any of these figures
by ten will give a fairly accurate idea of contemporary buy
ing power.
276
In this list Betterton, who at the time was listed as re
ceiving four pounds per week, grossed almost three times as
much as Cibber, who was listed at the time at five pounds,
and this although he played only about one-fourth the number
of times that Cibber did. The discrepancy, of course, came
about because of the difference in benefits. Betterton was
near the end of his great career, and enjoying tremendous
patronage from his admirers. Wilks was not being over-worked
with his hundred performances, for !, many of his r^les were
small bits which the jealous old actor vsrould not relinquish
to other capable and eager players. Mrs. Oldfield actually
was allowed to set her own salary when.she declined a part
in the managing of the theatre with Cibber, Wilks, Doggett,
and Booth, so high was the general opinion of her fairness
in financial matters. Doran seems to think that she was
underpaid in her later years, although she annually accounted
for about five hundred pounds, including her benefits.
Certainly she had nothing like the several thousand pounds
annually which Garrick took in, or the ten thousand pounds
which Edmund Kean took in annually for almost tv/enty years;
but judged by her associates both in and out of the theatre,
she did very well for herself.
Most of the minor actors of the theatre in these
Doran, op. cit.. II, 7.
277
early days of the century were on a daily wage scale, and
consequently had a difficult time of it if they were kept
from the stage for any reason. They had no popular benefits
to depend on to supplement their incomes, and although from
Restoration times they were evidently allowed now and then to
give a joint benefit, there v/as scant profit in it for them
when the manager had deducted the house expenses, and the
remainder--when there was a remainder— had been split among
the various penurious players. Collier in 1710 assumed
control of the Haymarket theatre, with sole rights to the
production of opera, and worked out a treaty with the Clbber-
Wilks-Doggett management stipulating that Drury Lane was to
be shut on Wednesday, on account of the opera production at
the Haymarket. The managers unanimously liked this arrange
ment, for their Thursday audience was larger, and their house
maintenance costs out slightly; but the poor actors who were
on a daily salary of course suffered because of it.
Occasionally, even very early, various minor members
of the company attempted summer acting as a means of supple
menting their income. In 1706 at the close of the regular
season Vanbrugh allowed Verbruggen, Booth, and the younger
members of the company to act during the summer. Genest
says however that their profit did not amount to half their
usual salaries.12 They at least made enough to tide them
Genest, pp. cit., II, 361.
278
over a lean period, however, when actors below the status of
stars were often in actual straits for food and shelter.
Doran perpetuates the distressing stories concerning
the poor state of the Irish stage about this time, and unless
he exaggerates the case it is easy to understand why none of
the leading actors went to Dublin in the summer time, as
they did later in the century, to reap substantial profits
there. He says there were performers of merit whose salaries
were from twelve shillings to a guinea per week--and often
they actually didn’t receive more than half the stipulated
sum.
On one occasion we hear of the acting manager
coming down to the theatre one evening, when, on
comparing notes, they were all found to be dinner-
less, for want of cash and of credit. With the
first money that was paid at the doors, they ob
tained a loin of mutton, with the next they sent
for bread, and with a third supply they procured
the generous beverage they most required; and then
dined behind the scenes while the performance was
in progress.1^
With conditions such as this common in the Dublin theatre,
(at Edinburgh the theatre was in even worse straits) it is
no wonder that the Irish stage was so generous in contribut
ing actors to the London theatres early in the century.
Under the management of the elder Sheridan in Garrick’s time,
the Irish stage once more became a going concern, to the
later substantial profit of such troupers as Macklin,
Doran, op. cit., II, 83.
279
Garrick, Woffington, Siddons, and the prodigious Master Betty.
The more we look into the matter of comparative sala
ries, the more apparent becomes this great chasm between the
salary of a principal actor and the wage of a siipporting
player. Pepys says that Betterton in 1662 was already "rich
with what he gets and saves;" although probably Pepys was
too much impressed by that "brave show without doors" which
he mentions in connection with his actress friend Mrs.
Knipp. It is thought that Kynaston, the popular portrayer
of female roles who died in 1712, managed to amass a size
able fortune during his lifetime. Wilks, who had been for
years before his death recipient of at least a thousand
pounds annually from his interest in the theatre whose patent
he shared with Cibber and Doggett, would have been comfor
tably fixed if he could have held to his money. About 1740
James Quin went to Drury Lane for five hundred pounds annually,
which Fleetwood the wealthy new manager offered the leading
star of his day. John Rich sat in his study surrounded by
his cats and purred disgustedly that no actor was worth
more than three hundred poundsi Peg Woffington, after
making her first success in Dublin, had no trouble in getting
nine pounds per week in London in mid-century. Garrick lured
Barry and Mrs. Dancer to Drury Lane from the rival house in
1767 by an unprecedented offer of fifteen hundred pounds.
Davies, Life of Garrick, op. cit., I, 62.
280
It v/as an unusual salary, but Garrick was forced to pain
fully desperate measures by the desertion of Mr. and Mrs.
Yates, excellent troupers both, and the actor-manager Powell
who had broken his engagement and forfeited a thousand pounds
bond in so doing*
This parade of Increasing salaries keeps up through
the century, even exceeding the obvious decrease in purchas
ing power of the pound. Garrick himself in the 1742-45
season, the second year after his London debut, received
£630 straight salary for acting, and at least five hundred
pounds from his benefits. Macklin and Mrs. Clive the same
season received nearly as much.^® Late in the century the
salaries of the stars were very high, but they were not a
circumstance to the value of the benefits, which brought
in enormous sums to favourites. Cooke was persuaded soon
after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War to go to
America on an acting tour, and really started the procession
of British actors who ever since have found a happy hunting
ground in the purlieus of our provincial stage, and in us a
remarkable appetite for their severe criticisms of our lack
of culture, stage technique, theatrical diction, and dramatic
ability in general. Cooke, on his rather befuddled alcoholic
itinerary, often played in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York
See Appendix, VI. Cf. Fitzgerald, Life of Mrs.
Clive, 0£. cit., p. 31, for slightly different version.
281
to houses of two thousand dollars* His net salary was from
four hundred to fifteen hundred dollars per night--certainly
a fee at which even the best of actors today will look twice!
John Philip Kemble and his sister Mrs. Siddons both
set high records in income at the very end of the century
and in the first decade of the nineteenth. Edmund Kean by
1816 was earning his already noted ten thousand pounds
a n n u a l l y .I G But probably the record for rapid earning on the
stage was set by Master Betty, the child Roscius, who started
his meteoric career at Dublin in 1803. After his success in
Dublin and Edinburgh he made a tour of the rural theatres of
England which netted him great publicity and sometimes five
hundred pounds per week. Silver testimonial cups were
dumped on him in managerial acclaim, and finally the im
pressed John Kemble wrote from London that he and Harris,
the joint patentees of Govent Garden, would be glad to pay
the young genius fifty pounds per night and half a clear
benefit. His success on the London stage has already been
mentioned, including that first night when twenty gentlemen
fainted in the Pit and were all but trampled to death in
the crush. In two years, splitting his time between the
two theatres, for they allowed him to do that, he built up a
fortune of indeterminate but evidently ample proportions to
enable him to live in luxury the remainder of his life.
Porter, o^. cit♦, p. 202.
282
While this was going on, the lesser actors of the
London theatres were struggling along on comparatively star
vation wages. The situation, one imagines, was similar to
that which prevails in our motion picture Industry at the
present time. In 1937, it is said, the best paid grade "A"
extra player in Hollywood received less than $2,800 for his
work, while a dozen stars received salaries in excess of
seventy-five thousand dollars— the salary enjoyed by the
President of the United States. There were approximately
ten thousand "extra" or minor players in Hollywood regis
tered in the casting bureau. Thus it seems true that instead
of the high salary of the featured actor lifting the financial
level of the whole group, the opposite is sometimes the case.
If one glances at the supposedly complete payroll of Drury
Lane for February 9, 1765--a time when Garrick’s prosperity
was at its height— he will observe that of the actors only
seven men out of thirty-nine, and three women out of seven
teen, are receiving more than five pounds weekly.To
suppose that an actor receiving only £1/10 per week could
live and support his family in anything but the meagrest
style even in those days is ridiculous; and yet almost half
of Garrick’s actors were receiving that, or much less.
That much of the fault for this situation lay at the
doors of the managers cannot be denied. The star system had
See payroll in Appendix, VI, 4.
285
been fostered and developed by them as a method of meeting
the competition of rival entertainments. Competition had
then forced the constant increasing of top salaries. The
income of the theatre did not increase proportionately to its
expenditures, and of necessity the more defenseless members
of the company suffered. Eventually the star system became
such an intolerable load that some new source of revenue had
to be found--and it was found in the early nineteenth centui'y
by enlarging the theatres until they were all but useless for
spoken drama, and were practically turned into circus amphi
theatres across whose stages trouped the nightmarish spec
tacles and animal processions that Sheridan and his desperate
contemporaries foisted on a jaded public.
Whereas ten or fifteen shillings per week seems to
have been a fairly stable beginning salary for a novice
player almost throughout the century, the salaries of minor
leads seem to havè varied widely, and to have been just what
the managers could get the actors to accept. Cibber says
that Mrs» Butler had only forty shillings a week before he
assumed managership of the company, and in consequence,
because the patentees refused her a ten shilling raise, went
to Ashbury’s new Dublin company which was forming early in
the century.Davies states that Garrick made his debut
in the role of Richard the Third because he wished to avoid
Cibber, 0£. cit., p. 89.
284
roles which had been acted by tall actors, lest he be of
fered a salary of only forty shillings a week. Yet when
Garrick himself became a manager he was the closest of them
all, and invariably held down his minor actors, and jealous
ly watched his major actors for signs of insubordination.
John Henderson had a typical experience with him. Henderson,
after two years of exceptional success as the leading player
at Bath, wished very much to try the London stage, but was
still refused a job by Garrick, who could have used him to
advantage in his company. But Colman thought Henderson’s
voice still too weak for the large Govent Garden stage,
Foote had whispered to a friend after entertaining Bath
visitors at his theatre that "he will not do," and so
Garrick was averse to taking a chance with him at Drury Lane.
In 1774 Henderson wrote to Garrick and offered to play
several parts at Drury Lane at his own risk, his salary to
be nothing if the public did not applaud him. It was this
peculiar plea that Garrick’s cupidity could not withstand,
and the manager wrote him an offer of "not less than five
pounds weekly, not more than ten pounds"— a typical Garrick
proposal. Henderson indignantly refused the offer, since
285
his salary at Bath was far in excess of such terms
Another famous case, which Illustrates the sort of
chicanery of which the managers were capable when dealing
with an actor whose public reputation was not yet established,
is that of Palmer, who after trying to get into the Drury
Lane company for some time was finally hired by Garrick on
condition that he get his release from Beard, his former
manager. Securing his release, he sped on joyful wings to
Southampton street to say that he would be happy to join the
Garrick company. Rather timidly he asked his nev/ master what
his salary would be, and David, smiling benignly, patted
him on the shoulder and said, "Leave that to me." Palmey,
having had no experience with this managerial Garrick, did
just that--and at the end of the week received twenty-five
shillings. Mild-mannered man that he was, he was properly
outraged, and told Garrick that he expected at least as much
as the three pounds weekly that Beard had promised him.
Garrick adopted a pontifical air and said, "That is impossible;
It must be admitted however that Garrick, by a
letter to the Bath manager, had introduced Henderson to his
first job there at one guinea per week. Although Garrick
had kept Henderson dangling about London in suspense about
a position for two years after he first heard him, there is
no doubt that his personal recommendation to the Bath manager
carried great weight, and gave the young actor an excellent
chance for success. He made his début there in Hamlet. to
a full house of interested and generous people; and he finished
the performance in a burst of triumph, after a first act
rendered by fright almost inaudible! For a full account of
the matter, see Davies’ Genuine Narrative of the Life of
Henderson, op. cit., p. 2-10.
286
however, your salary shall be better next week#" And it
was, by five shillings. Garrick thus secured for his company
one of the best all-round actors of his time.20
When Palmer’s reputation began to mount high enough
to make his weight felt, Garrick of course raised his salary.
It was this sort of sharp practice in ordinary affairs, which
Murphy was always coming acrossin his writing of Garrick’s
life, that made him utter that famous biography in a line :
"Offstage he was a little sneaking rascal. Onstage— Oh my
great God!"
That this habitual custom of underpaying everyone in
his company except the leading actors had a detrimental ef
fect on the ensemble of the company is certain, and is
merely another indication of what many people have often
suspected, that much of the acting of Garrick’s stage was
more startling than consistently excellent. The Irish actor
O’Keefe tells a pleasant story of the Dublin stage that
illustrates the point.
At Grow Street there was a little thin actor
of the name of Hamilton. Barry one morning remark
ing to him, "Hamilton, you might have done your
part (Drawcansir, in the Duke of Buckingham’s
Rehearsal) with a little more spirit last night,"
he replied, "To be sure I might, and could; but
with my salary of forty shillings a week, do you
think I ought to act with a bit more spirit, or a
bit better? Your Woodward there has a matter of a
^ "Biographical Sketch of the Late Mr. Palmer,"
Monthly Mirror, October, 1798, p. 216. For detailed cor
respondence of Garrick and Miss Pope on the matter of
salary see Appendix, VI, 1.
287
thousand pounds a year for his acting. Give me
half a thousand and see how I’ll act ! but for a
salary of two pounds a week, Mr. Barry, I cannot
afford to give you better acting, and I will not."21
Lest we gain too low an opinion of the earnings of
even the minor actors, however, it is well to keep in mind
that they were living in an age of low-paid professions and
trades. Doctor Johnson said that fellowships in the Univer
sities were at the most about a hundred pounds a year, "which
is no more than is necessary to keep a man decently as a
scholar." It is possible that he may have spoken bitterly,
having in mind his own unfortunate experience as a teacher;
but it is certain that the rewards of academic life were
in the eighteenth century, even as they are today, more of
a spiritual than a temporal nature.. In The Storm, a piece
attributed to DeFoe and chronicling the terrific storm of
November, 1703, it is stated that practically all the roofs
in London were stripped of tiles, which in consequence rose
in price "from 21s. to 120s. per thousand, while bricklayers*
labour rose to 5s. per d a y . "22 The inference seems to be
logical that bricklayers had been paid at the rate of about
one to two shillings per day. For purposes of extreme com
parison it may be noted that the House Ways and Means Com
mittee of Parliament in 1796, to defray the expenses of the
O’Keefe, Kelly, and Taylor, 0£. cit., p. 5.
Quoted in Besant, London Life in the XVIIIth,
Cent., op. cit.. p. 3.
288
next year’s navy of one hundred twenty thousand men, voted
four pounds per man, per month. This evidently included all
maintenance costs, as v/ell as the pittance each man r e c e i v e d .23
Even in the middle of the century many servant girls
and waitresses in public houses worked for their food alone,
and had to secure lodgings as best they could through other
agencies. Many people died annually in London from outright
starvation. There were horrible instances constantly getting
into the press of unbelievable hardships endured by the poor.
Miss George cites one case of a landlord, showing a prospec
tive tenant through a supposedly empty house in Stonecutter
Street, who came upon the emaciated corpses of two women in
one of the rooms, both of whom had been basket women in
Fleet Street, and were known only by the name of "Bet".24
It is obvious even without discussing here the costs of
living in London in the eighteenth century that a minor
actor could manage to exist on his twenty to forty shillings
a week, and even raise a family after a fashion.
There were from early in the century various means by
which an actor might supplement his earnings in the London
theatre. Most important of them were the rural theatre and
the fairs, in which even the leading actors of early times
Note in "Domestic Affairs," Monthly Mirror,
October, 1796, p. 381.
OA
George, ojgi. cit. , p. 171.
289
did not scorn to keep booths. Plnkethman-“Whom Genest says
was like a drunkard in his fondness for cold chicken--had a
small theatre of his own at Richmond, and usually kept a
performance booth at Bartholomew Pair. Downes wrote in
1708, "He’s the darling of Fortunatus, he has gain’d more
in Theatres and Fairs in Twelve Years, than those that have
tugg’d at the Oar of Acting these 50."^^ Many of the comedians
of the century made an excellent thing out of their fair
booths at Bartholomew, and at Southv/ark particularly. In
these little stages they presented "drolls," those late
survivals of the interlude and early progenitors of the
vaudeville sketch, for the delectation of the holiday folk
and the pecuniary benefit of themselves. Shuter and Yates
very late in the century were much beloved of the people;
and although Garrick, Siddons, and such tragic actors never
thought of demeaning themselves by such buffoonery for pay,
the high example of their time did not keep the custom from
remaining prevalent through the century.
The strolling companies at no time in the century
paid high wages; but the life of the strollers had a care
free lilt to it, and provided usually food and shelter.
Consequently less prosperous actors frequently went on the
road in the off-season. The company of Tate Wilkinson by the
end of the century was so well-organized and solidly financed
Downes, Rose. Anglic. ( 17806#icit.P. 69.
290
that it had really lost all resemblance to those tatter
demalion groups that had wandered over England since the
Restoration* Wilkinson could afford to pay John Bernard and
his wife, mediocre actors both, sixty guineas for a five-
week engagement. Holcroft, who knew the stroller’s life
from bitter experience, gives a -more representative picture
which for completeness has not been equalled. Says he:
A company of travelling comedians then is a
small kingdom, of which the manager is the monarch.
Their code of laws seems to have existed with few
material variations since the days of.Shakespeare,
who is, with great reason, the god of their idola
try. . . The person who is rich enough to furnish
a wardrobe and scenes, commences manager, and has
his priviledges accordingly; if there are twenty
persons in the company, for instance, the manager
included, the receipts of the house, after all
incidental expenses are deducted, are divided into
four and twenty shares, four of which are called
dead shares, and taken by the manager as payment
for the use of his dresses and scenes ; to these is
added the share to which he is entitled as a per
former. Our manager (Stanton), has five sons and
daughters all ranked as performers ; so that he sweeps
eleven shares, that is, near half the profits of the
theatre, into his pocket every night. This is a
continual subject of discontent to the rest of the
actors, who are all, to a man, disaffected to the
higher powers. They are, however, most of them in
debt to the manager, and of course chained to his
galley; a circumstance which he does not fail to
remind them of, whenever they are refractory.
They appear to be a set of merry, thoughtless
beings, who laugh in the midst of poverty, and who
never want a quotation or a story to recruit their
spirits. When they get any money, they seem in
haste to spend it, lest some tyrant, in the shape
of a dun, snatch it from them. . . I observe that
the townspeople are continually railing at them:
yet are exceedingly unhappy, if they fail to return
at the appointed time. It is a saying among us
that a player’s sixpence does not go so far as a
291
town’s-man’s groat; therefore, though the latter
are continually abusing them for running in debt,
they take good care to idemnify themselves, and
are no goodIL osers, if they get ten shillings in
the pound.
This quotation, in addition to making pretty clear several
facts about the strolling player’s precarious financial
state, also substantiates what has been said previously:
that in spite of the obvious disadvantages, the stroller’s
life was often pleasant and evidently preferable to the
miserable existence of an ill-paid menial in a London theatre
And we need waste little sympathy on those actors who in the
off-season went on the road in order to assist themselves
financially. The mediocre actor Bannister, when in 1797
Coman refused to raise his salary at the Haymarket above the
twelve pounds weekly he was receiving, arranged a tour of
the provincial theatres. To Colman’s mortification--for he
had prophesied the actor would lose by the move--Bannister
cleared fourteen hundred pounds in twelve week’s absence .27
While certainly he did not do this in strolling companies,
he did it in the rural theatres which had become the anchor
ages of many strollers from mid-century.
From this mass of statement concerning the fixed
salaries of actors In the century certain facts begin to be
Holcroft, oj^. cit. , I, 228-231.
P7
Adolphus, 02# cit., III, 3-6.
292
obvious. Early in tli© century the actor usually started on
the London stage, after a non-salaried apprenticeship, at
from ten to fifteen shillings per week. In late Restoration
days it was more often ten than fifteen, according to Tom
Brown’s sneering references. The top salary in those days,
in spite of the assertions in the Historia Histrionica
about the thousand pound salaries of Betterton and some of
his fellows, was nearer a hundred pounds.By 1742 several
of the leading actors were approaching the five hundred
pound mark; and counting in their benefits had passed a
thousand pounds. But in 1765 Garrick had at least ten ac
tors on his roll who were still getting no more than the
pittance at which Anne Oldfield and Wilks had started acting,
fifteen shillings per week. Toward the end of the century
Mrs. Jordan, mistress to the Duke of Clarence and mother to
several of his children,in the last year of her appearance
is said to have earned the staggering sum of seven thousand
pounds, which in buying power would be equal to about a
quarter of a million dollars in our money today.Master
Betty took in at least twice that much annually for his two
spectacular years after 1808, and was given closer financial
competition by the magnetic Mrs. Siddons than is sometimes
Thos. Brown, Works, 0£. cit.. Ill, 39.
OQ
See Thaler’s statement regarding Restoration
salaries, o£. cit., p. 78.
Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, op. cit., II, 305.
293
realized. Her brother Charles Kemble, although not by any
means the most famous of the Kembles, was In such a position
that he could write autocratically to a manager in 1826:
"1 shall be ready to act for three nights at Whitehaven(?)
upon the same terms which I have at Glasgow; namely, a clear
half of the receipts on each night of my performance.”^^
When one actor can thus demand, and receive, half of the
receipts of the house, it is time to stop talking of salaries,
as such.
Managerial delinquencies. If the actors could always
have received their salaries, meagre though some of them
were, there would not be half the case against the managers
that there is. But very early the managers began to find
excuses for not paying the agreed salaries to the performers.
Doran says that it was with considerable vexation that
Christopher Rich, proprietor of Drury Lane, was forced by
the phenomenally prosperous season of 1704-05 to pay his
actors their salaries.Cibber Justly states that the
situation was better under the management of himself, Doggett,
and Wilks— although he admits the pain that parting with a
penny cost poor Doggett. Says he:
Mss. letter ; bound in Adolphus, ££. cit., II,
opposite p. 333, Huntington Library copy.
32
Doran evidently bases his opinion largely on
Gibber’s statements concerning the manager. See Cibber, op,
cit.. p. 137.
294
In the twenty years, while we were our own di
rectors, we never had a creditor that had occasion
to come twice for his bill: every Monday morning
discharged us of all demands, before we took a
shilling for our own use. And from this time,
we neither ask’d any actor, nor were desired by
them, to sign any written agreement (to the best
of my memory) whatsoever
That was probably the last management in the century which
got, or deserved such trust. John Rich was a notorious
miser and held to his profits until they were fairly wrung
from him by his legitimate creditors in the theatre. Fleet
wood’s mismanagement of Drury Lane at the time of Garrick’s
début is notorious, and drove the' principal actors, whose
salaries were often unpaid, into open rebellion, in the
famous Garrick-led secession of 1742-3. Garrick was on the
whole the most businesslike manager of the century, although
probably the stingiest and slipperiest. He did however pay
his actors the salaries to which he had agreed, and the
security which that fact gave them was of tremendous importance
Often the custom, which at times prevailed, of paying
entire salaries at the end of the season worked a tremendous
hardship upon actors who had not enough weight to command
cash for running expenses. The father of John Bannister,
’ ’Old Charles” as he was called by his friends, gives an
accurate idea of the situation.
Ibid. p. 226
295
When I played under Mr. Garrick. . . I had six
pounds a week and a benefit, and I was then out
of debt and an independent man. The reason was
this. In Mr. Garrick’s time, when Saturday night
came, there were my six pounds on the treasurer’s
table, and I could pay all my urgent debts of the
week. Afterwards I had to wait many weeks, per
haps to the end of the season, for my salary; and
so was under the necessity of dealing where I could
get credit, and of course to a great disadvantage.^^
For such business-like methods in the theatre Garrick de
serves great credit.
Undoubtedly the worst manager of the entire lot, so
far as treatment of the actor v/as concerned, was the genial
orator and brilliant playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
Sheridan had gained the control of the theatre through an
intricate series of financial manipulations and mortgages,
and in addition was such a confirmed gambler that he simply
was incapable of holding to any money that came his way.
Under his management it is no wonder that the people of the
theatre were in a constant ferment of anxiety, and that the
actors were constantly meditating strikes.
Fanny Kemble, in her "Records,” tells us how,
on Saturday morning, the work people would assail
with, "For God’s sake, Mr. Sheridan, pay us our
Bannister’s Memoirs. op. cit.. Ill, 63-64.
Brander Mathews, in his introduction to the 1885
edition of Sheridan’s comedies gives a concise summary of the
involved transaction, and states that Sheridan actually raised
in cash only about £1,300 of the £10,000 for which he was
responsible. Of. Odell, From Betterton to Irving, op. cit..
II, 3. Cf. Moore, Memoirs of Sheridan. op. cit.. p. 137.
296
salaries. For Heaven’s sake let us have something
this week;" how he would faithfully promise that
their wants should he attended to, and then, after
emptying the treasury of the week’s receipts, would
slip out of the theatre by another door, and leave
them penniless
Certainly this sort of dodging of obligations was far worse
than the frank acknowledgment of inability to pay which
J. P. Kemble was occasionally obliged to make in the early
nineteenth century. After all, Kemble and Mrs. Siddons were
putting forth Herculean efforts and devoting much of their
personal savings in an effort to make the overbuilt, barn
like theatre a going concern. Sheridan was suavely milking
the cow with one hand, and stealing her hay with the other.
Fines and forfeits. The actor had another financial
goblin to contend with throughout the century. Fines of
various sorts apparently had been a good old Elizabethan
trick for holding the actors in line. It is recorded that
Robert Dawes, a sharer of Lady Elizabeth’s Men in 1614,
agreed to a series of stipulated fines if he in any way
broke his contract: one shilling for lateness at rehearsal,
two for absence, and three for lateness at the play unless
excused by six members of the company. Intoxication, that
nemesis of managers of the seventeenth as well as eighteenth
century, was provided for. He agreed to pay a forfeit of
36
H. Barton Baker, History of the London Stage,
(London: Geo. Routledge and sons, 1904T7 P* 84.
297
ten shillings if in the Judgment of four of his associates
he were found drunk at acting time. Stage costumes were
practically insured by Henslow and Meadpf by a forty pound
fine to be assessed if he left with any of the playhouse
property, "or shall be consentinge (or privy to any other
of the said company going out of the howse with any of their
appareil on his or their bodies. . .)"
Throughout the eighteenth century it was considered
the manager’s prerogative to fine an actor for refusing a
part. In 1762 Beard, the son-in-law of Rich and new manager
of Covent Garden, threatened to fine one of his old actresses,
Mrs. Hamilton, twenty pounds for declining a part for which
she said she was not suited. She resisted, and he discharged
her for insubordination. At that theatre, as late as 1800,
if an actor did not wish to play a part, he was perfectly
free to refuse it--and pay a little matter of thirty pounds.
It is obvious that here was a deadly weapon in the hands of
a ruthless manager; and it was indeed used many times as a
club over the heads of the actors.
Tate Wilkinson says that Garrick threatened to fine
him the penalty of his article, which amounted to three
hundred pounds, because he had aroused the ire of his fellow
37
Henslowe, 0£. cit., p. 123-124. Cf. Thaler, op.
cit., p. 75.
38
Henslowe, o^. cit., p. 125.
298
actors by doing public "Imitations" of them. Garrick’s
habitual opportunism and lack of a sense of humour is here
apparent, for he himself had in his early days prided him
self as an impersonator. When he discovered that the perfor
mances of Tate were popular with the audiences, and drew
full houses, he immediately reversed his verdict and ordered
the actor to continue his impersonations.
Most of the theatres had a system of "forfeits," with
the "forfeit book" being held by the prompter. In this
damning tome were entered fines for such casual slips as poor
entrances, slowness on cues, or blunders in action. Holcroft,
before his success as a dramatist, while in his second season
as a minor actor at Drury Lane wrote a letter to Sheridan
protesting against any more deductions or fines being levied
against his salary, which was then about twenty-five shillings
weekly and against which were being levied deductions of
nine shillings. "Were I not under deductions at the office,"
said he, "my receipts would very little exceed sixty pounds
a year.That the poor chap had difficulty in supporting
his family on this salary is not to be wondered at.
Kitty Clive once really unsheathed her claws on the
manager about a fine which was assessed on her because she
had been late to a rehearsal of The Devil to Pay. The play
Holcroft, 0£. cit.. I, 269.
299
had not been previously announced, she was dining with some
friends in the country, and in addition, as she said in her
spirited defense, "I recollected I had given my servant
leave to go out, as I did not want her, who had the key to
all my things." In the same letter she objected to a pre
vious fine of four days* salary which had been fixed when
she went to Dublin, although she had secured advance per
mission for her absence. She also objected, while she was
about it, to being fined early in the season for not coming
to town for two rehearsals of a play that she could repeat in
her sleep. She concluded with a really eloquent burst which
had nothing to do with the reason for the fine, but was
evidently responsible for getting it remitted:
You gave Mrs. Cibber £600 for playing sixty
nights, and £300 to me for playing 180, out of
which I can make it appear it cost me £100 in
necessaries for the stage; surely you need not
want to take anything from it
In 1800 the matter came to a head with an open revolt
by eight members of the Covent Garden company, Holman,
Munden, and Fawcett being among them, largely over the in
creasing of the fine for refusing a part from the former
five pounds to thirty pounds. The actors maintained quite
rightly that this gave a proprietor the power to "depress
and degrade" actors of ability by taking their whole salaries
in fines. They also objected strenuously to the increase of
Fitzgerald, Life of Clive, op. cit., p. 76
300
the house charges for a benefit--that is, the amount the
proprietor deducted for expenses--an increase from £140
to £160, although the proprietors offered affidavits to
show that their nightly expenses ran over £160. (In 1780
the charge had been only £65/5, and hence the new figure
represented an increase in twenty years of over ninety
pounds.) The matter was submitted to the Lord Chamberlain
for arbitration, and, as was to be expected, he decided in
favour of the managers. The actors, with the exception of
the recalcitrant Holman, were reinstated, and the screws
again began to turn. The matter rested there as the
century ended, with the managers firmly in the saddle.
Benefit performances. The idea of benefit perfor
mances in the theatre seems to have originated shortly after
the Restoration. Pepys notes several visits to the theatre
in 1667 when benefit performances were played by the actors.
Since Cibber’s statement to that effect, it has been gen
erally agreed that the brilliant Mrs. Barry was the first
actress in the London theatre to be granted a personal bene
fit, "in Consideration of the extraordinary Applause that
had followed her Performance" and she alone previous to
41
Thespian Dictionary, op. cit., "Holman".
301
1 6 9 5 . Probably the group benefits which are known to have
existed before her time were instituted by the management as
a sort of publicity stunt to draw crowds through the inevi
table actor solicitation that would result, rather than
because the managers were concerned over the salaries of
actors. Undoubtedly at first benefits were a boon to the
actor, whose "salary" was frequently far in arrears anyhow,
and who thus had a chance to get something on account. But
since the actors had to pay all the theatre operating ex
penses to the managers for benefit nights, the managers were
still in control of the situation, and found means of bilking
their employees of the profits. This became especially true
in the eighteenth century, and lasted through Sheridan’s
term of mis-management. Genest and other commentators record
many instances of "benefits" that turned out far .from bene
ficial to the actors themselves. In general the stars gained
by the device, while the minor actors lost. '
Personal popularity of an actor with the audience
gave him a certain leverage over the manager, and compelled
Professor Thaler criticizes Gibber and "many
others" for saying that Mrs. Barry, in the time of James II,
was the first actress to receive a benefit performance; and
cites Pepys who in 1667 saw "only the young men and women of
the house act; they having liberty to act for their own
profit on Wednesday’s and Fridays this Lent." Thaler, per
haps, has read his Pepys more carefully than his Cibber.
Cibber intimates quite clearly that Mrs* Barry was the first
single actress to receive a benefit for herself alone; and I
can discover nothing in Pepys’ statement to contradict this
statement. See Thaler, o^. cit., p. 81.
302
some consideration. So soon as this popularity was suffi
ciently established, the actor was furnished with a potent
defense against exploitation. The growth of the benefit
system was then essentially a development of the actor’s
realization of his own drawing power, and ability to take
his salary directly from the audience. By 1710 the benefit
had come to be the biggest article in the actor’s agreement
with the manager, the salary having for the time rather gone
by the board. (As has already been noted, Betterton was
drawing less salary than several other actors, and yet getting
by far the largest actual returns.) The managers met this
situation usually by increasing the rental of the house for
benefits. The minor actors, when they could secure permis
sion, banded themselves together for a single benefit, and
split the proceeds--if there were any after a third or half
had gone to the house manager.
Actually the amount of money taken in at a benefit is
almost as misleading as the stipulated salary, however, when
checked against actual income. It was the custom, on benefit
night, to make a substantial addition to the standard ticket
price. The term "gold ticket" which is found frequently in
the literature of the time does not apply, as might be supposed,
to the composition of the metal admittance tag to a particu
larly choice seat, nor, except indirectly, to the price of
Cibber, o^* cit., p. 206.
303
the ticket* It was the custom for actors to go about town
several days before their benefit and peddle tickets to
theatrical patrons. Quite early the generous custom arose
of paying for the ticket, whatever its price, in gold. The
poor actor of course was not expected to make change. In
this way an actor’s benefit might, and often did bring in
many times the actual money capacity of the house. Thus
Betterton’s benefit in 1709, when the public thought he was
making his farewell appearance, brought him in only £76 as
his share of the box-office receipts; but in addition he had
from his generous "gold ticket" money about £450. (The next
year he had another benefit which was nearly as large, the
two bringing in about a thousand pounds.) Estcourt’s benefit
in the same year netted him £51 in house money, and two
hundred pounds from his friends. Wilks, Gibber, Mills, and
Anne Oldfield were accustomed about this time to receive
from fifty to two hundred pounds at each benefit. Mrs.
Bellamy, that versatile and brilliantly plumaged bird of
passage late in the century, asserted that at one benefit
she cleared about eleven hundred pounds.When Mrs. Siddons
took her second benefit in 1783 at Drury Lane, according to
Boaden, "Lady Spencer gave ninety guineas for her side box,
and Lady Aylesbury a bank-note for fifty pounds for an upper
44
See Bellamy, o^. cit., II, 198.
304
box." These are "gold tickets" with a vengeance; but it is
doubtful if more than a half-dozen actors in the century
ever equalled that record. Macready in 1820 at Covent
Garden refused to take more than the specified, price for his
tickets, and thus struck the death blow at the "gold ticket"
system, and incidentally indicated the final liberation of
the actor from the noble patronage which in spite of the
triumph of the middle class had largely supported him through
the preceding era.45
Of course every salary must come from some source,
and early in the century there simply was not enough money
taken into the house to pay adequate salaries to the neces
sary actors. In Shakespeare’s day twenty pounds had been
reckoned a good house. Rich’s theatre, before he added the
seats on the stage which Garrick later removed, held only
two hundred pounds before the curtain on a sell-out night,
and such nights were few. Cibber says that Mrs. Rich was
perfectly content if the receipts reached three figures for
a night. By the end of the century this situation no longer
45 For much interesting information concerning "Gold
Tickets" see W. J. Lawrence, Old Theatre Days and Ways, (London:
George G. Harrap & Co., 1935), Chap. XX. Mention should be
made of the fact that often, for benefit performances, the re
gular ticket price of the theatre was raised for the night.
Thus for Betterton’s famous benefit on April 7, 1709, when
"the Stage itself was covered with Gentlemen and Ladies," the
boxes were opened to the Pit, and no person was admitted with
out a printed ticket which cost one guinea. Regular prices
were: boxes, 5s., pit, 3s., first gallery, 2s., second gal
lery, Is. See excellent account in Genest, o^. cit., II, 415.
305
existed, since the houses had been tremendously enlarged,
and the possible revenue proportionately increased*
Benefits always were ticklish affairs; and their
tremendous importance to the actor concerned--for often
they constituted potentially half a year *s salary--made him
especially sensitive about them* Peg Woffington, in spite
of her generally good sense, was morbidly sensitive on the
subject, and was as touchy as a sea-anemone about any re
marks concerning it. Consequently when in 1761 some anony
mous enemy writing to the public prints from St. George’s
Coffee House exhorted the public not to go to her benefit
because she was to play"a French farce, wrote by a poor,
wretched author," Peggy exploded with a roar that shook
theatrical London to its roots. The comedian Shuter being
the first object of suspicion who came under her glare, she
accused him of writing the squib. Shuter, with a wit as
maliciously inclined as her own, replied to her accusation
publiely--and as an added insult printed her own letter
with all its original misspellings and crudities of compo
sition. Hot to chagrin the ghost of Woffington further, but
to illustrate the sort of thing that ernenated from these
actors’ quarrels, the letter is quoted.
Fitzgerald, Life of Clive, op. cit., p. 56.
306
Sir :
I Much. Desire you would Do Me the Favour to let
me know if you was the author of a letter in The
Dayle Gazeteer relating to his Hew Piece I had for
my benefet; as it was intended to hurt my Benefet,
and serve yours everybody will naturally conclude
you was the author if you are not concerned in
wrightin it I shall be very glad; for I should be
extreamly shock’d that an actor should be guilty of
so base an action; I don’t often take the liberty
of wrighting to the Pub lick but am Hov/ under a
Hessity of Doing it--therefore Desier your answer.46
^ondon was tickled by this evidence of the spirit of their
beloved actress; and Shuter completely vindicated himself by
publishing an affidavit that he had not written the note.
But the whole incident is typical of the tension which of
necessity developed concerning personal benefits.
The custom of a farewell benefit of unusual propor
tions that had been popular in Betterton’s day actually
persisted well into the nineteenth century. Joseph Grimaldi
performed a double farewell in 1828, for the old clown had
been popular right up to his retirement at both Salder’s
Wells and Drury Lane. Although he was only forty-eight, he
had worked himself into a premature decline by his tremen
dous physical activities, which had started on the stage with
a tumbling act when Joe was only two years of age. His fare
well benefit at Sadler’s Wells brought in £350, while that
at Drury Lane netted £270 clear profit. In addition he
Fitzgerald, Life of Clive, op. cit., p. 56.
507
received anonymous gifts that swelled his farewell fortune
to quite respectable size. Six letters contained twenty
pounds each; eleven contained ten, and sixteen contained
five pounds--a total of about nine hundred pounds realized
from his exertions in the last two performances. This sum,
which in our times would amount in purchasing power to
approximately $15,000, must have been a fair nest-egg for
the old man to tuck under his belt for the few remaining
years of his life.47
Salaries of minor actors were undoubtedly adversely
influenced by the strength of the benefit system. Obvious
injustices were done to those actors who played supporting
roles, and yet never found the centre of the spotlight. In
order to meet the popularity of the stars on-stage, the
minor actor, therefore, was forced to exert himself in other
ways to attract audiences to his joint benefit. Since the
actor’s histrionic ability could not be expected to draw
his friends, it was his concern to get several of the stars
to perform gratis. This the more generous of them did--Mrs.
Siddons once performing over a score of free benefits for
other people In one season. In addition to this method of
filling the house he bestirred himself socially, and prac
tically dragged in from the highways and byways his friends
47
Grimaldi, 0£. cit., II, 242-243.
308
and acquaintances. The custom led often to the haunting of
the taverns by minor actors who hoped by making themselves
hail-fellows to gain a reputation which might draw more
spectators to their benefits. When the houses were enlarged,
after Garrick’s time, two hundred pounds went for house ex
penses before the actors could have any share in the proceeds
The only way they could fill these enormous caverns was
through personal influence, and the only way to build up that
influence seemed to be.to live in expensive taverns, and to
frequent clubs--a habit, says Bannister, "expensive in it
self, and of bad consequence as a habit." Thus the actors
too often were entertaining the tap-room audiences when they
should have been studying their parts or working at some
other aspect of their profession.
Benefits in the country were for many reasons very
profitable throughout the century, after permanent theatres
were built. The houses were small, but the expenses were
negligible and practically all the money that came in was
profit. In the Liverpool theatre, in 1799, London actors
who were engaged for short runs received at their benefits
from £102 to £251. Knight, Bannister, Johnston and his wife,
and Miss Leake all played there, with Bannister naturally
drawing the top benefit. The stars of the regular Liverpool
company that year averaged about £140 each at their benefits,
with the top offering of the year, £269, going to their
309
favourite actress. Miss Mellon.48 At the Hull theatre the
same year Mrs. Siddons drew slightly over £140, although the
Hull theatre was about a third smaller than the theatre at
L i v e r p o o l .49 Under the circumstances, these benefits at
rural houses must be considered exceedingly profitable.
In a short comment on the preposterous salaries of the
time being paid at Drury Lane, which peculiarly enough are
blamed on the "American Management," a writer to the London
Weekly Times of March 8, 1829, makes one pertinent revelation
regarding the decay of the benefit system. It appears that
at least two of the actors at Drury Lane, Liston and Braham,
received five pounds in addition to their salary for each
benefit they played for other actors. This is a far cry from
the middle of the century when the minor actors begged the
stars to play for their benefits, gratis. By 1796 it had
become the habit also of occasionally borrowing actors from
one theatre for a worthy benefit at the other— a thing which
would have been impossible during the bitter rivalry between
houses earlier in the century. Hor were the benefits of the
specific actors necessarily related to their own talents.
For instance, on May 27 of that year at Covent Garden Holman
presented Hamlet for the benefit of the singer Sedgwick;
'PL.e Monthly Mirror, September, 1799, p. 182.
Lbid., November, p. 311.
310
although the singer "could not muster up resolution to un
dertake it himself, though there is little doubt but his
friends would have, been highly entertained by the perfor
mance," as a newspaper critic remarked at the t i m e . ^9 Since
Holman had no adequate cast available at the time, he borrowed
most of his leads from Drury Lane--a practice condemned by
the critic as injurious to both theatres.
As the century drew to its close, the popularity of
the benefit with the actor had begun to decline. The reason
from the actor’s point of view was clear; the houses were so
large they could not be filled profitably. Audiences had to
be pulled in later, it will be recalled, by the spurious
attraction of prancing horses and parading elephants. In
1800 the benefit charges -at Covent Garden, as already ex
plained, were increased to £160. At Drury Lane the charges
were already two hundred pounds. In addition the incidental
expenses rarely fell short of forty pounds. While such an
actor as Siddons, Kemble, or Kean would have no trouble mak
ing a profitable showing under such circumstances, the minor
actor was beginning to hold out for a more satisfactory
salary, knowing that he was in financial peril if he even
risked a benefit; for to cap his fears concerning small at
tendance, the actor was forced to make up out of his own
so
Ibid.. June, 1796, p. 118
311
pocket the deficit if his audience didn’t bring in enough
to cover the house expenses set by the management. Tate
Wilkinson’s first benefit with the Wignell troupe at Maid
stone, it will be recalled by readers of the Memoirs of that
entertaining gentleman, brought him the enormous profit of
one shilling and sixpence, plus two pieces of candle. Even
at that he was better off than he might have been at Drury
Lane under the benefit system of the late nineties 1
The benefit system was a sort of loose financial
scheme which had worked fairly well in Betterton’s time when
the theatre roll contained only about twenty-five names at
the most, but by the end of the century a positive necessity
for more businesslike conduct of the theatres was imperative.
Covent Garden theatre of the early nineteenth century had a
There has been so much misapprehension concerning
the actual earnings of Garrick as an actor, that a note on
the subject may not be out of place here. Garrick started
acting at Goodman’s Inn Fields theatre at one pound per per
formance. So soon as it became evident that he was a great
performer, the manager advanced him to half-profits. The
patent theatres of D. L. and G. G. were empty when Garrick
was playing in the little Goodman’s theatre; and so the
managers, after threatening to sue the non-patent house,
made terms with the manager Giffard and brought Garrick to
Drury Lane, where his salary was fixed at six hundred pounds,
or one hundred more than was being paid to Quin, at that time
the highest paid actor in the world. (Victor says Quin had
eight hundred pounds).In 1747-48 Garrick became joint patentee
with Lacy, with Garrick retaining sole direction of dramatic
activities. His salary never went to more than six or seven
hundred pounds per year, while Quin’s salary in 1750-51 was
a thousand pounds. Garrick’s private fortune came about, in
other words, through his theatrical partnership, his author
ship, and his "gold tickets". He was smart enough never to
pay himself enormous salaries, and shrewd enough to hold on
to much that he really earned.
312
capacity of 3,044 persons, and grossed when full about six
hundred pounds. An even more graphic picture of the tremen
dous extent of the theatrical machine about 1805 is given by
a condensation of the Drury Lane payroll of over one hundred
fifty persons. Drury Lane had at that time a slightly greater
capacity than the other theatre, it being given as 3,611,
with nightly operating expenses of two hundred pounds--the
staggering equivalent of about $4,000 in our time. Salaries
were paid at the following rates:
Per week. .. £ 8 d
One at• . . . . . 31 10 0
Four at . . . . . 17 17 0
Four at ... .. 15 15 0
Twenty at . . .. 10 10 0
Ten at..... 8 8 0
Ten at..... 7 7 0
Six at..... . 6 6 0
Six at. . . . . 5 5 0
Ten at..... 3 3 0
Ten at..... 2 2 0
Fifty at. . . . 1 11 6
Ten at. . . . . 1 10 0 (52)
This represents an expenditure of about £740 per week, a
stiffish sum for which the manager was responsible. The
season at both houses consisted of thirty-five weeks, or
about two hundred playing nights. It is obvious that the
books of the London theatre could no longer be kept on the
manager’s cuff. The abandonment of the uneven, undependable
First printed, I believe, in J. M. Williams’,
The Dramatic Censor, op. cit., p. 99. Quoted with some
slight errors of transcription in Odell, Shakespeare from
Betterton to Irving, II, 14.
313
benefit system as a basis for theatrical salaries was in
evitable.
Long term contracts were not much in favour through
the century, although toward the 1800’s, when more theatres
entered the field and competition began to increase, an
attempt was frequently made to tie up a promising young actor,
Garrick was accustomed to giving his actors articles for
three to four years--as he did Palmer, after squeezing him
as long as he thought the actor would take it without revolt
ing. Harris evidently learned the same trick. In July of
1797 the manager of the York theatre advertised Miss Betterton
in a play as a young lady of only seventeen years who had
nevertheless just signed a contract with Harris of Covent
Garden for five years, at "fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,
eighteen, and nineteen pounds per weekIFleetwood, who
was manager of the Drury Lane theatre before Garrick, avoided
entanglements of all kinds merely by refusing to sign any
agreements with any of his players. That the policy, among
other practices inimical to justice, would bring him to
grief was inevitable.
The actor on strike. Probably much of the trouble
with seceding actors in the eighteenth century (and it is an
interesting and full chapter) came about because of the
Monthly Mirror, August, 1797, p. 114
314
practical abandonment of the policy of making each actor a
stock-holder in the theatre, and by that change releasing
him to free-lance. In Shakespeare’s time the actors were
bound together by common economic interest. In the seven
teenth century often they were obliged to furnish a substan
tial bond, sometimes reaching in the case of actor-sharers
the respectable sum of five thousand p o u n d s . ^ 4 With the rise
of commercial managers such as Davenant and Rich the actors
were often reduced to the status of hirelings, and had little
to bind them to a company or theatre. Consequently if an
opportunity arose for them to mutiny, if there were anything
to be gained by it, they rebelled. Up until about 1730 the
power of the Lord Chamberlain over the theatre patents was
such that there was little insubordination among leading
actors; for if they left'the patent theatres, there was
nothing for them to do unless they joined a strolling company
or went to Ireland* By the middle of the century however
there were other theatres operating in London, and although
they were legally without right, so long as they didn’t
infringe heavily on the business of Covent Garden and Drury
Lane they were tolerated. They began to constitute enough
of a threat of competition so that a secession of actors
was possible.
Thaler, ojd. cit., p. 75.
315
The life of an insurgent actor in London could he
made very disagreeable. In 1745 the actor Wills was excluded
by both Drury Lane and Covent Garden. In connection with a
sort of bootleg production which he threw together at the
little Haymarket -theatre he printedthe following pathetic
plea:
To the Publick--Gentlemen and Ladles--being
unfortunately excluded from both theatres (I don’t
know for what reason) and consequently deprived of
getting my living by my profession, the favour of
your company at a Concert, which I take for my
Benefit on this day at the little House in the
Hay, will be a very great obligation to your faith
ful and devoted humble Servant--William Mills.--
after the Concert, gratis, the Careless Husband,
the characters by persons for their own diversion.
One of the most famous walkouts of the century occurred
in the season of 1733-34, and was motivated largely by the
^hift in ownership of the theatre to Highmore. Victor says
that the friends of the seceders urged that they were free
people and "not to be sold with the Patent as slaves with
a plantation in the West Indies." There evidently were no
separate contracts existing at this time between manager
and actor.^8 Thus deserted, Highmore, the new and unfortu
nate patentee, cast out his net into the country companies.
He brought in but small fry on the who le--although among the
fingerlings was one Charles Macklln, who grew into a fine
Genest, 0£. cit.. IV, 170.
Cf. Ibid.. Ill, 402.
316
strong fish indeed. The strike moved along about as di
sastrously as such a thing does today. The audiences fell
off until the patentee was forced to make up a deficiency of
fifty or sixty pounds each Saturday. Finally a mixed con
ciliatory and threatening note was sent to the actors, but
being unclaimed was re-addressed to Theophilus Gibber, one
of the prominent "leftist" leaders of the group. He answered:
I have received a letter from you which speaks
of several persons and different companies; but
as no particular names are mentioned and the let
ter is directed to me alone, I can only answer
for myself. . . I am well advised, that what I am
about is legal, and I know *tis reasonable; and
therefore I do not think of changing my present
condition for servitude.^7
Highmore appealed to the Lord Chamberlain, and failing to get
results there he had Harper--one of the least offensive of
the seceding actors, a meek, pleasant little lambkin--had
Harper arrested under the Vagrant Act. Many eminent barris
ters arrayed themselves on both sides. When the smoke of
verbal combat cleared away it was found that since Harper was
not a wandering vagabond player, wasn’t chargeable to any
parish, was a freeholder and a housekeeper, and "farther
that he was an honest man and paid his debts," he was not
punishable under the Vagrant Act. It was a great day for the
whole acting profession when little Harper was discharged
and stepped proudly forth from Vfestminster Hall amidst the
Ibid. . Ill, 405.
317
die ers of the most enth.usiastic audience to which, he had ever
playedI--The anti-climax came however when the actors tried
to manage their own playhouse, and failed miserably. Most of
them crept back to the patent house meekly enough as soon
as they had an opportunity.
Just ten years later, in 1743, Fleetwood’s conduct
led to another serious actor secession. The actors were
headed in this dispute by Garrick and Macklin, and agreed
before they seceded to stand or fall together. They actually
formed a sort of actors’ ’ ’Union,” and used that term. After
the secession they attempted to get a license to play at the
Hay market, but the manager was too strong for them this time
and they failed. The opportunist Garrick, with the other
actors, agreed to return to Drury Lane. But Fleetwood would
not agree to take back Macklin, whom he held to be the cause
of the whole upheaval— as he probably was in a large part.
Garrick offered to pay Macklin’s salary out of his own, but
still the manager was obdurate. Finally the actors were
forced to give in and return without Macklin, But that
fiery Irishman enraged at his dastardly betrayal, appealed
to the town and descended upon the theatre with a private
army of sympathizers who would have prevented any perfor
mances if it had not been for Fleetwood’s hired pugilists
who were stationed in the audience to preserve order--a
charge which they joyfully carried out in their own sweet
318
way•
After a few beautifully free but sobering months in
Ireland, Macklin was readmitted to Drury Lane and spoke an
eloquently indicative prologue:
From scheming, pelting, famine, and despair.
Behold to grace restor’d an exil’d Play’r.
Your sanction yet his fortune must complete.
And give him privilege to laugh and eat.
No revolution plots are mine, again
You see, thank Heaven, the quietest of men.
Once warn’d, I meddle not with state affairs.
But play my part, retire, and say my pray’rs.^^
It was not in his nature however to avoid disputes. In 1774
he concluded another embroilment with a manager--the court
trial of Macklin vs. Colman, in which the actor sued the
manager for one thousand guineas for the time that he had
not been permitted to appear on the stage over nine years
before--the case having been in Chancery all that time. The
case v/as decided on a compromise basis, although the actor
certainly gained a moral victory by an award of five hundred
guineas— each side to pay his costs. The costs of a nine-
year ease probably left him little of the award.
Individual holdout strikes became more popular than
A satirical note appeared at the time in a periodi
cal. "It is said that Mr. Macklin is to be excluded from
both Theatres, at the earnest Request of several eminent Jev/s,
that he may not appear any more in the Character of Shylock in
the Merchant of Venice.” A sly comment on his realistic act
ing of the role. The Gray’s Inn Journal (Excerpts)(London:
P. Vaillant, 1756), I, 3001"
Genesfc, o£. cit.. IV, 141.
319
group movements toward, the end of the century. A typical
case was that of Harley, who had started life as a merchant
and after changing his name, by dint of hard work became hero
of the Norwich company. Harris heard of the young man and
brought him to Govent Garden, introducing him in King Lear
in 1789. For two seasons he performed principal roles with
good success, and received only forty shillings per week,
while inferior actors were being paid double the sum. At the
end of the second season he went on a personal rebellion,
and forced Harris to raise his salary to five pounds per
week--a sum which he received for at least four seasons
thereafter.
Minor actors did enjoy one advantage over their more
lordly brethren in this regard : that they were rarely put
under a bond or protracted contract, and so were comparatively
free to desert to another theatre at almost a moment’s notice.
Sometimes they did this, to the confusion of the manager who
had underpaid and otherwise mistreated them. Cibber notes
that when the new Lincoln’s Inn Field theatre was opened,
seven or eight of his actors left in one day to join the new
company, obliging the Drury Lane management to postpone some
of their best plays, and rearrange the whole repertoire.
Some of the actors were men well known--notably Keene,
Thespian Dictionary, op. cit., "Harley”
320
Bullock, Pack and Leigh--and -their loss was a serious blow
to the organized company*
The eighteenth century audience has been maligned so
often that we sometimes forget that it was as impulsive in
preserving its actors as in chastising them. Its jealous
attitude was something like that of Dr. Johnson toward
Garrick— he would cast extreme aspersions on Davy, but he
would allow no one else to do so. Thus the riots at the
Haymarket theatre in 1738 really came about because the
audience was blunderingly trying to protect the English
actors. A troupe of French actors had been imported to per
form at a time when many English actors had been deprived of
their livelihood by Parliamentary act, and were in debtors
gaol. The indignant audience, unable to express their ideas
directly to the Lord Chamberlain, rioted at the theatre and
prevented the bewildered French actors from performing.
The incidental fact that they would eventually as audience
pay for the wrecking of their own theatre never seemed to
deter a mob which was riotously inclined. Perhaps they did
realize that fact, and were still willing to pay for the
entertainment most in favour at the time— a good brawl.
In march of 1800 commenced what we may consider the
last serious revolt of actors in our period--the major actors
at Covent Garden seriously rehelling against certain injus
tices which they contended Harris the manager had imposed on
321
them. These actors, the "rebellious eight” as they were called,
were entertained at dinner by the principal performers of
Drury Lane; a group containing Bannister, Jr., Charles Kemble,
Kelly, Barrymore, and others. They also received supporting
letters from many retired actors, and started a tremendous
newspaper furore. Their principal objection seems to have
been the already mentioned raising of the house charge for
benefit nights, and the imposition of a ”sick clause” under
which their salary was stopped during illness. They were
finally obliged to submit to Harris, however, and he gradually
eased out of his employ those actors whom he considered the
ring-leaders in such disturbances.61 in the decade of com
parative theatrical depression that marked the opening of the
nineteenth century, all was quiet on the managerial front.
The actor in debt. Practically from the beginning of
our records of the organized theatre, the London actors were
in frequent trouble with the law on account of debt. When
the actors were organized to some extent in Elizabethan times,
their interdependence and mutual loyalty was at times nothing
short of remarkable. How many actors, if such a situation
could be duplicated today, would feel free to write to the
manager of their company as did Nathan Field about 1613:
Munden*V Memo1rs, op. cit., p. 81-84
322
Father Hinchlow
I am unluckily taken on an execution of 30 £•
I can be discharged for xx £, x £ I have had from
a friend,.if now in my extremity you will venture
X £. more for my liberty, I will never share penny
till you have it againe, and make any satisfaction
by writIng, or otherwise yt you Can devise. • •
yor loving son Nat: Field
While it has been pointed out that Henslowe’s practices as
money-lender might have been calculated to further enslave
his actors, the fact remains that they evidently seldom came
away from him empty-handed.
In Restoration times conditions were little better,
although the direct patronage of the nobles frequently solved
the actor’s troubles fairly quickly. Even fairly prosperous
playwrights were often in difficulties, as witness the case
of Wycherley, one of the most popular of the Restoration
writers. Wycherley’s marriage, eleven days before his death
in 1716, was purely one of convenience. He was eighty years
old, had lived a fairly honest life, and wished to die sol
vent; but the bailif was hanging about his door with notices
of debts amounting to about a thousand pounds. He had been
left a small fortune which he could not obtain while un
married. And so the feeble old man who had assisted in the
compounding of some peculiar marital situations on the stage,
compounded another one in actual life by sitting up against
Henslowe Papers * op. cit., p. 67.
325
îiis pillows, being married to a young woman on whom he set
tled a handsome jointure with which his debts were to be
paid#
In the early days of the eighteenth century the minor
actors were always in debt, and converted the theatre into a
sort of provisioned garrison in which they would defend
themselves against their creditors. Of this group the cheer
ful Spiller was at one time the most fortunate member, because
while he was in jail he had by his antics made such a friend
of the head master of that institution that he could come
and go about town without fear. In spite of his compara
tively liberal salary of four pounds per week, he could never
keep his head above water; and finally in 1722 was forced
into temporary seclusion for debt--in spite of his friendship
with the jailor# It is not clear whether he was actually
incarcerated in an institution, or merely hid out in the
purlieus of London# However it may have been, he was not
crushed by the catastrophe#
Being drove to very great Straits, he was re
duced to have a play acted in that place; but the
South-Sea Business having brought a little better
company there than usual, he made a Shift to scrape
together about Twenty Pounds
Charles Gildon, Memoirs of the Life of Wm# Wycherly,
Esq # (London: E. Curll, 1718), p. 21.
^PillQJ^ ’ 3 Jests. op. cit. . p. 26.
It)id. 4 p. 26. The "South Sea Business" refers of
course to the famous financial swindle of the early century
in which Gay lost his savings from the phenomenal run of The
Beggar’s Opera. That play brought in £11,363 for the first
season, from which Gay had cleared £600. See Henry Saxe
Wyndham, Annals of Govent Garden Theatre (London; Ghatto
and Windu8, 1906T7 I, 19.
3 2 4
Because the salaries of the actors were frequently
in arrears, as has been noted, the actors often had no
choice but default in their own obligations, regardless of
their personal honesty. That there was so much of comedy
in this pursuit of the luckless player by a bailiff with a
process in his hand is all that saves the situation from
the bitterest tragedy. There are dozens of anecdotes con
cerning these financial pursuits; such as that concerning the
two process servers disguised as stage hands who reverently
lifted Barry up from the floor where he had perished in the
last act, and then spoke their line— "For the plaintiff,
Siri” Or of Macklin’s puzzlement whether to dun Robert
Mahon before, or after his benefit. If he should do it
before, Mahon would be a pauper and in additon couldn’t
perform; if after, Mahon would already have frittered it
away "no one knows where or how."
The methods by which actors avoided creditors and
process servers were usually without much imagination, and
consisted of a hasty removal of themselves from the vicinity.
Now and then, however, an ingenius mind gave a peculiar
twist to the solution. One of the most complicated maneu
vers was that of the extravagant Mrs. Gardner, who while on
a trip to Dublin had so involved herself that she was in
325
danger of being snatched from the stage by her creditors.
Her friends, although unable to assist her financially, did
it histrionically. They gave out news of her sudden ill
ness, then of her death; and the next day they staged a
convincing funeral, with the connivance of a friendly under
taker, and a few potent onions in their handkerchiefs.
Meanwhile a lady resembling Mrs* G. had taken passage in a
Holyhead packet, and in two days was drinking to îÆrs. Gardner’s
health in lodgings near the Strand.James Spiller, the
genius whom we have already mentioned, once induced two
stage-struck bailiffs who came to arrest him to perform non
speaking parts in the play. He had them lead on stage two
immense dogs; and while the minions of the law stood there
in their glorified surroundings, Spiller was hastily skipping
out of town. He often laughed afterward over the time when
he had in reality, as the cant phrase had it then, "given
the bailiffs a dog to hold. Poor Palmer, whose early
career was beset by such difficulties as a shy fear of Barry
which prevented his playing opposite that actor, the ridicule
of Garrick who thought him no actor, and his nearly fatal
stabbing by ÎÆrs. Barry who picked up a real instead of a
stage dagger--poor Palmer lived much of his theatrical life
66
Spiller’3 Jests, op. cit.. p. 9.
Bernard, o^. cit. , I, 3'04.
67
326
in extreme terror of the bailiffs. Often he would spend a
whole week in the theatre, subsisting on food smuggled in
by his actor friends. At other times he would make his
entrance and exit to and from the theatre in some large
piece of theatrical scenery in which he had been concealed.
Probably the most convenient theatre in all England, from the
actor’s economic point of view, was that kept by the shrewd
Mrs. Baker at Tunbridge Wells toward the end of the century.
This house was on a county line, the audience part being in
Kent and the stage in Sussex. Between them ran a narrow
ditch, easily leaped by an actor in flight. When a debt
laden player was in danger of being lassoed by a bailiff, he
merely leaped the ditch and was in another county where he
could not be pursued!
That the actors were poor risks for credit was pro
bably generally true; that they were any worse risks than
the average professional man of their time is doubtful.
Many of them were meticulous about their obligations, and
many of them were of excellent financial standing. In 1757
the author of the Theatrical Examiner wrote:
Mr. Scruple says, they do not pay their debts.
True, it is so sometimes; yet may not that be said
of the best family in the kingdom? But it would
be rigorous Indeed to suppose that there was no
Doran, ££. cit., III, 101.
Ibid.. Ill, 218.
327
player or family but destitute of principle; though
I must beg leave to say, that, if paying debts is
not always ranked among the virtues, it is some
times no more than the better part of selfishness,
yet I believe there are some who act from a far
better m o t i v e .’ 70
But in spite of this fact, the actor’s reputation throughout
the century continued to be so bad that he had almost no
credit with financial institutions. When he did borrow
money, he invariably paid through the nose. Mrs. Bellamy,
when she was first sinking under the load of debt brought
on by her paramour Galcraft’s failure in business, tried
desperately to secure financial aid. Says she:
Being much pressed for some hundreds, I endea
vored to raise them of one of the sons of Isreal,
and, to my future sorrow, succeeded. . . This gentle
man advanced me five hundred pounds, on condition of
my paying him one hundred pounds a year for my
life, out of the hundred and twenty IVIr. Galcraft
had settled on me. But as there could not be a
line drawn in the deed to make it a real sale, he
gave me a written paper, wherein I was permitted
at any time to redeem it, on repayment of the money,
with an additional fifty pounds by way of premium.71
Certainly this was an exorbitant rate of interest, if such
usury can be called interest. But a kept actress of ex
travagant tastes was in no position to bargain. That George
Anne Bellamy, who always lived from hand to beautiful mouth
would never be able to pay off such a debt even in its
70 The Theatrical Examiner : An Enquiry into the
Merits and Demerits of the present English Performers in
general \ London: J. Doughty, 1757), p. 13.
*^1 Bellamy, Memoirs, op. cit.. Ill, 122.
328
installments, was a foregone conclusion. She was even more
heartlessly treated at another time hy a Mr. Cohan who got
her signature on two notes, never gave her a pound of the
money, and yet presented the notes for payment when they
were due. That George Anne was not much of a business woman
is fairly obvious. Weston and Garrick for some time alter
nated in the part of Abel Drugger in Johson’s Alchemist.
and Weston was by many critics hailed as superior to Garrick.
When Garrick was very free with Weston he used to call him
"Brother Abel," but he and Foote found that it was dangerous
to joke with the other actor because so sure as they did he
would try to borrow money from t h e m . 72 Weston played later
at Covent Garden, where he was in such constant terror of
bailiffs that he drowned his sorrows in drink until finally
"he destroyed his inside," as the Thespian Dictionary puts it.
Not always were the actors in financial disrepute
outside of London. Tate Wilkinson says of the company from
Bath, which was one of the most reputable groups outside of
London;
• . . tho their incomes were not superabundant
or superfluous, though an amazing concourse of
people in the time of war, and provisions not cheap,
but scarce and high priced, yet I do not believe
one guinea was owing in the town of Winchester from
a single actor. or the whole collected company
of comedians.73
72 Edward Cape Everard, Memoir of an Unfortunate son
of Thespis (Edinburgh: J. Ballentyne Co., 1818), pi 44.'
Wilkinson, Memoirs. op. cit. . II, 237.
329
That such a reputation was rare in the century no one need,
deny. More often they were avoiding the payment of debts
which were legitimately contracted, for for which they could
not find the cash.
Fortunately they took their plight with a certain
degree of philosophy. The age is full of laconic letters
on the subject of life, death, and debt; but none of them
are more expressive or concise than the two that were ex
changed between the mother of Samuel Foote, who was sent to
the spunging house on the same day that his mother fell
under the unfortunate glance of the King’s Bench. She wrote:
"Dear Sam,
I am in prison.
Anne Foote."
To which her dutiful son answered immediately:
"Dear Mother,
So am I.
Sam Foote." 74
There really was nothing more to say.
Overpaid singers. There is no intention of discussing
in full the peculiar over-emphasis which Italian opera re
ceived in the early eighteenth century in England; but a few
statements regarding the salaries which singers were being
74
Oxberry, o£. cit.» II, 183.
330
paid during these years of meagre living for the actors will
serve to highlight the scene. In 1734, seven years after
the phenomenal success of The Beggar’s Opera, an article in
The Prompter stated, after attacking "foreign" talent:
Are the Operas any more than sing-song Concerts?
Is there Plot, Meaning, or Connection in their
Dramas? . . . Are not our English Singers shut
out, with our Mother Tongue? So engrossing are
Italians, and so prejudiced the English against
their own Country, that our Singers are excluded
from our very Concerts: . . . who not content with
monstrous Salaries at the Operas, stoop so lov/ as
to be hired to sing at Clubs I thereby eating some
English Singer’s B r e a d . 75
That the salaries paid to many of these imported stars were
actually bleeding the theatre is true. Parinelli, a singer
who astonished London "by the force, extent, and mellifluous
tones of his voice, even when he had nothing to execute or
express," was about 1735 receiving a salary of fifteen thousand
pounds per year, plus a clear benefit of two thousand p o u n d s . 76
This was so far beyond what any actor of the time was re
ceiving that there is no comparison. At a conservative
estimate of relative money values, that works out to at
least a half-million dollars in our own time.
In 1770, when Italian opera had declined greatly in
favour. The Haymarket theatre hired a leading Italian singer,
Sig. Manzoli, at a salary of one thousand guineas. He had to
Quoted in Gentleman’s Magazine. Dec., 1734, p. 693.
76
H. Barton Baker, o^. cit.. p. 171.
331
supply his own costumes; but in lieu of that usual relief
the theatre managers agreed to furnish him with a "genteel
equipage." In that day when hackney coaches, careening
thickly about London, were a constant danger to life and
limb, a "genteel equipage" must have been something to charm
the angels from heaven. It may have been merely a gesture
to a visiting celebrity, as a publicity stunt. Certainly
there were few actors in that time riding about London in
their own carriages.
The popularity of Handel in the early Garrick era
was tremendous. Practically single-handed he carried Govent
Garden through those years of Garrick’s popularity at Drury
Lane, when Covent Garden was feeble in dramatic offerings,
but wealthy in its musical performances. Burney said that he
had been told that Handel would carry out to his carriage
after the performance enough gold and silver to bow him down.
It is certain that between 1750 and 1759 he amassed the whole
of the fortune of twenty thousand pounds which he left at
his death.77 one thing that made opera and oratorio so
enormously profitable was the fact that until 1789 admittance
prices were almost double those for ordinary theatrical
pieces. But however one accounts for the enormous salaries
being paid to the singers through much of the century, he
77
Saxe Wyndham, o^. cit.. I, 133-134. Cf. article
on Handel in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
332
must always keep in mind that the same audience paid for the
singer that paid for the actor. There were also, fortunately
for the minor actors and chorus singers, few Farinellis and
Handels in the century178
Savings of the actors. Financial reserves. Among
minor actors in the eighteenth century, the building up of
any financial reserve was close to the impossible. Large
families were the rule rather than the exception. London
lodgings for the family were, because of the rapid urbaniza
tion of the country, difficult to obtain and expensive to
maintain. Food was decidedly dear. Clothes were dispro
portionately expensive. When George III died in 1760 the
theatres were closed for three weeks, and Wilkinson says
that many actors were actually forced on charity rolls--
not having a sixpence of savings. His statement may be
taken as true of the average, and not the exceptional
situation.
Because of the tremendous commercial expansion going
on in the century and the industrialization of England in
particular, there were numerous opportunities for profitable
investment of money, if the actors could have saved enough
for a start. But to tell the truth, it was not an age of
sound investments, but of speculations. It was a gambling
78
See Covent Garden payroll in Appendix, VI, 4,
for comparative salaries of minor singers and actors.
333
rather than a solidly building age. The South Sea Company,
formed in 1711 with the ostensible object of trading with
the Spanish controlled colonies in South and Central America,
was actually never on a sound financial basis, and its
weakness was known; and yet in 1719 a wild craze started
that drove the stock from par up to eleven hundred. When
the bottom dropped out of the market it fell to 135. The
grandfather of the historian Gibbons lost fifty thousand
of a sixty thousand pound family fortune which had been real
money. Gay lost the thousand pounds of profit he had cleared
from The Beggar * s Opera, which according to tradition had
"made Rich gay, and Gay rich".79 Only a few of the most
prosperous actors had any money for investment, and so the
actors on the whole took the financial breakdown of English
business with fair equanimity. It doesn’t seem to have hurt
the theatre business directly to any enormous extent, the
years from 1730 to 1740 being fairly prosperous, if one may
judge from Genest’s notices. Indeed the actors, in a fairly
objective and good-natured way, seem to have enjoyed the
financial gulling of their superiors. References to it in
contemporary prologues to plays and in popular songs are
plentiful. Two stanzas of a song that was sung in 1720 are
Gay lost the thousand pounds which in the rise of
the market price df the stock had become twenty thousand.
This circumstance gave rise to the tall tales that have been
perpetuated ever since of his losing twenty thousand pounds
royalties from the opera.
334
indicative of the popular playhouse attitude toward the
stock exchange.
Our greatest. Ladies hither come.
And ply in chariots daily.
Oft pawn their Jewels for a sum.
To venture*t in the Alley.
Young Harlots too, from Drury-Lane,
Approach the ’Change in Coaches,
To fool away the Gold they gain
By their obscene Debauches—
Long Heads may thrive by sober Rules,
Because they think and drink not.
But Headlongs are our thriving Pools,
Who only drink and think not.
The lucky Rogues, like Spaniel Dogs,
Leap into South-Sea Water,
And there they fish for Golden Progs,
Not caring what comes a’ter. . .
What did come after was of course pretty terrific, but did
not greatly upset the people of the theatre. Indeed, as has
been related, Spiller managed to give a benefit performance
in debtor’s prison and secure twenty pounds from South-Sea
victims then languishing there with him. Chetwood, the
prompter at Drury Lane, capitalized on the catastrophe by
writing two farces : The Humours of Exchange Alley, and
South-Sea. or the Biters Bit.
With the falling into disuse of the share-holding
system soon after the Restoration, few of the actors could
depend upon a paying share which would support them after
their retirement. The only solution for many of them was
"A South-Sea Ballad, or. Merry Remarks upon Ex
change -Alley Bubbles." Printed in The Delights of the Bottle
(London: no. pub., 1720), opposite p. 54.
335
to continue on the stage until they actually died in their
grease-paint--as a surprisingly large number of them managed
to do. A few of the managers allowed pensions to their
favourite actors, but the practice was so infrequent that it
hardly deserves mention. Thus the problem of old-age support
was put squarely upon the actor, where it has remained
rightly ever s inc e.
That the actor is notoriously improvident and short
sighted in this regard is a truism. He is apparently no more
able to carry the load today than he was then, if one is to
Judge from a recent move by ex-stars of Hollywood who have
petitioned the governor of California to force all actors
by law to save ten per cent of their earnings in their heyday,
that they may not be reduced to penury when their fortunes
decline. The idea, it need hardly be remarked, sounds about
as childish as the emotional lack of balance which caused
the initial meed, and is in no great danger of becoming law.^I
In spite of this traditional lack of provision for
retirement, actors of the eighteenth century seem to have
made out with fair success. Impulsive and generous when
they were affluent, they were often taken care of by their
grateful friends when they no longer had money. One is
tempted to remark also that they were phenomenally lucky.
^ See feature article by Frederick C. Othman in Los
Angeles Evening Herald and Express. June 20, 1938, under
head: "Big Money Stars of Past, Now Extras, Act to Save
Others." Of. Thaler, 0£. cit., p. 76.
336
Àn illustrative case is that of Mrs. Robinson, the Perdita
ex-mistress of the king and one of the last remaining pupils
of Garrick, who died in 1800. Mrs. Robinson, after having
spent enormous sums of money while she was in royal favour,
and after having given up her acting career for the sake of
her protector, became practically destitute in her later
years. Finally the Whig statesman Charles Fox, who in his
time had enjoyed several romances with stage beauties
(notably with the Countess of Derby, nee Farren) wangled
through Parliament an annuity of three hundred pounds yearly
for the royal ex-mistress.
Theatrical "funds" and pensions. It was the custom,
at least for a time after the increased popularity of the
stage about 1725, to maintain a kind of general fund which
was contributed to by the managers at the rate of about
fourteen shillings per day, which might be drawn upon to
reward "such actors at the end of the season, as may appear
to have deserved any reward for extraordinary services."
Probably this was the source of some of the special gifts
with which the managers now and then blessed their stars.
Anyone knowing the temper of the managerial setup at the time
will doubt that much of it found its way into the hands of
the really needy and underpaid minor actors.
Soon after Garrick’s debut in 1741 the talk of a
retirement fund for indigent actors was started; but not
337
until the lamentable case of Mrs. Hamilton (a retired ac
tress who by 1765 v/as dependent on alms for a living) brought
the talk to a head was anything done about it. The actors
Hull and Mattocks put forth strenuous efforts toward the
organization of a fund, and secured the cooperation of the then
patentees of Govent Garden, Beard and Mrs. Rich. For the
first six years or so the fund was augmented by annual
benefits, but under Colman those were dropped and the fund
was maintained by contributions. Harris, the next manager,
likewise refused the Fund benefit says Genest.
Garrick, who was on the continent when the plan had
been instituted, was much perturbed that such a momentous
step had been taken without his concurrence. He sulked for
a while; but in 1766 he and Lacy established a second Fund
at Drury Lane, paying down a considerable sum to start it,
and giving at least one benefit annually while they were
patentees. In that year both the Covent Garden and Drury
Lane Funds were incorporated by Act of Parliament, Garrick
paying the legal expenses out of his own pocket— a typically
smart advertising gesture. By 1771 The Theatrical Fund has
its regular benefit night, December 17 at Govent Garden, with
Romeo and Juliet. and Woodward as "Petruchio" in an abridge
ment of Taming of the Shrew— an excellent drawing card with
which to enrich the Fund. In June of 1775 Garrick acted
Hamlet for the Fund, and the next month he appeared in another
338
of ills popular roles, Don Felix in The Wonder, for his last
formal appearance on the stage. The entire proceeds from
this performance, which was his own legitimate benefit and
drew a sell-out house, he donated to the Fund as a farewell
gift. Davies estimates that Garrick through his donations
and benefits built up the Fund to nearly £4,500 before his
retirement. In spite of numerous heavy demands on it, the
Fund in its various mutations and amalgamations has con
tinued to grow until today it is a very wealthy endowment
for theatrical r e l i e f.82
Usually the Fund was excellently supported by the
actors, who knew only too well the uncertainty of their
prosperity and of an actor’s subsistence. Holcroft, among
his other employments such as play-writing, and novel writing,
and acting was for a time secretary to the organization at
a salary of ten pounds per year. John Beard, at his death
in 1791, left a hundred pounds to the Fund— a bequest common
among affluent actors and managers. Baddeley, who from
being Foote’s cook had risen to respectable stature as an
actor, left his cottage at Moulsey to the Drury Lane Fund,
on condition that four comedians who could get along to
gether might have a home there. It is thought that the
house reverted to the Crown through some technical slip in
the devising. Kelly says that the trustees of the Fund sold
82 3ee Appendix, VI, 7, for the original provisions of
the Fund.
539
the house. Be that as it may, Baddeley* s intention is un
questionable. There is record of only one actor of the lot
who refused to contribute anything. He was Yates--whom
Doran says was a better actor on-stage than off. He said
quite coldly that he was never likely to need the fund,
and so felt no call to support it. A moralist would hope
to find that he died in miserable poverty— but actually he
did not, and appeared to be quite right in his reasoning!
By 1814, when on July 4th Kean played Octavian in
The Mountaineers at Drury Lane for the first time, for the
benefit of the Fund, it had been built to such a substantial
sum that a benefit was needed only once in three years. By
tacit agreement between the houses the benefits were not to
come in the same s e a s o n . 83 June 29th of the next season
J
the Covent Garden benefit was staged, with Siddons and Mr.
Young playing one of their best drawing plays, Henry VIII.
In 1839 was founded another fund which afforded relief to many
indigent actors: the Royal General Theatrical Fund. Waiford
says that it granted annuities of from thirty to ninety
pounds per year to needy actors, singers, pantomimists, and
dancers. A discussion of it does not properly come within
our province however. It is, however, another indication
that the unified actors were handling their problem in a
manner as intelligent and successful as that of any other
See Genest for account. 0£. cit., VIII, 462
340
profession.
Toward the end of the century there grew up between
the managers of the various theatres a vicious understand
ing that if an actor disagreed with his manager on the sub
ject of salary, he could not be hired by another manager, until
the dispute was settled. Such monopolistic policies have
nothing to offer in*their defense except the obvious plea
that to some extent they prevented actor strikes. But the
practice subjugated the actor, body and soul, to the
managerial whim and did nothing to promote the intelligent
interests of the theatre. Kemble in 1796 was barred from
the stage for a time by this understanding; Lee Lewes was
excluded from London stages for many years by the same thing,
when his comic talent would have been a great addition to
the acting. Finally, under the force of public attack in
the press and on the platform the managers were forced to
abridge their stand in the matter. The actor had won another
battle in his fight for fair treatment.84
Random pensions had been granted to actors by the
crown and by the theatrical management since the days of
Mrs. Betterton, who v/as given a pension by Queen Anne on
the death of her husband. It will be recalled by students
of Dr. Johnson*s life that his quarrel with Thomas Sheridan
Monthly Mirror, September, 1796, p. 300-301.
341
was occasioned by a Jealous misunderstanding of a two hundred
pound pension given to the actor and manager, of whose art
the learned Samuel had a small opinion. Boswell tried to
explain it :
Mr. Sheridan* s pension was granted to him not
as a player, but as a sufferer in the cause of
government, when he was manager of the Theatre
Royal in Ireland, when parties ran high in 1753.
And it must also be allowed that he was a man of
literature, and had considerably improved the
arts of reading and speaking with distinctness and
propriety.85
The pension custom seems to have been without much patronage
in the century however, except as it was a matter of indi
vidual or crown grants, or later as it was put into effect
by the Theatrical Fund. The exact status of the two
"pensioners" in the Drury Lane pay-roll for a week in 1765
is only c o n j e c t u r a l .86 it is obvious that they could not
constitute the entire group of extant retired indigents.
With one more cheerful note we may close this discus
sion of the actor * s finances in the century. We have perhaps
looked so closely at the actor * s tendency to take no heed of
the morrow, his delight in the momentary thrill of high
spending, his inability to pay his debts, and the oppression
85 Boswell, Life of Johnson, op. cit., I, 257. It is
only fair to say that several times in her life of her mother
Mrs. Frances Sheridan, Alicia Lefanu contests this statement
made by Boswell, and states that her father refused a politi
cal pension.
See Appendix, VI, 4.
342
of the managers which made it impossible for him to earn
enough to pay them--we have seen so much of that side that
we are likely to forget those numerous actors who earned
excellent salaries, paid their debts, saved their money, and
lived comfortably affluent lives until their death. Chief
in respectability among the number was Mrs. Siddons, who was
constantly lending money to her perpetually needy actor
friends and her pathetically unlucky husband, and yet who
was quite businesslike in demanding her interest when it fell
due. Or Garrick with his country house at Hampton and his
city house in Adelphi Terrace, where his sparkling little
widow lived well into the nineteenth century. These big
names stand out. There were also numbers of comfortable,
moderately thrifty middle-class people of the theatre; the
Palmers and Bannisters, the Johnstones and the Kings, whose
hands were never stretched out for alms, and who conducted
themselves acceptably in the society in which their life
roles were cast, in spite of the meagre salaries which they
earned for much of the time.
It was an age of tremendous rewards for a few stars,
an adequate living for a quantity of actors, and a bare
existence for a multitude of hangers-on to the theatre.
CHAPTER VII
THE ACTOR’S HOME
Domesticity Is not a quality which is generally
associated with, the acting profession, and yet it is in
actuality a quality of which actors seem often to have more
than their share. Because the exigencies of their profes
sion make one fixed location for the home impracticable,
and because their domestic time schedule must of necessity
often differ from that of the man on the street, often they
have been accused of a lack of family instincts* Nothing
could be farther from the truth, and no statement is more
easily refuted* Even closer than the ordinary person to
public opinion and its constant expression in the theatre,
the actor is a spiritual chameleon who takes his color from
the age against which he is displayed. Such was the actor
of the eighteenth century--a century when both the high
romanticism of the Elizabethan and the low anti-socialism
of the Restoration ages had waned, and made way gradually
for the middle-class respectability which characterized the
end of the century and the entire succeeding age of Victoria
Marriage. Although there will always be some strong
souls who really scorn, or are not affected by, the stric
tures of conventions, they are not often found among the
thin-skinned tribe of Thespis. Moral codes may not trouble
344
actors; social codes will always be a matter of their con
cern. Marriage actually became popular early in the
eighteenth century. It was increasingly "the thing to do,"
and hence most of the actors and actresses did it. Quite
often it is true actresses quite evidently wished for mar
riage, and were refused it because of their insecure social
position, although that barrier was pretty well removed by
the end of the century. Fitzgerald believed that Peg
Woffington was so mortified by Garrick’s marriage that she
was forced by her vanity to the other theatre. Certainly the
rumour persists in memoirs of the time that Garrick had
promised to marry her, and his failure to keep that promise
may have been public gossip around London, and so have forced
the sensitive Peggy to run away to the Dublin theatre to
escape the wagging tongues.1 That she would have married
Garrick had he given her opportunity seems beyond doubt,
for she was genuinely in love with the man. Whether as his
wife she would have remained with him and endured his petty,
artificial character offstage is certainly open to dispute.
The spirited little dancer Violetti certainly deserves tre
mendous credit for her enduring and managing the man
Garrick, that the world might enjoy him as actor and manager.
Quite early in the century there was under way a very
^ Fitzgerald, Life of Clive, op. cit., p. 49
345
powerful wave of sentiment in favour of marriage. Arguments
of all kinds were used, many of them specious, and some of
them ridiculously logical. In a classically documented
essay in 1731 the Universal Spectator advocated the imposing
of heavy penalties on bachelors, and a sort of state-operated
marriage bureau for single women. Since the chief argument
in favor of the scheme seemed to be the increasing of the
population of the nation, and since the eighteenth century
bachelors were never biological laggards, the argument for
marriage is not too well substantiatedPerhaps this con
stant emphasis on quantitative rather than qualitative mar
riage in the century accounts to some extent for the tremen
dous amount of cuckoldry which went on, or at least is talked
about in the casual writing of the time. In the Gray’s Inn
Journal of 1754 appears a typical satirical note :
Never did the crying Sin of Cuckoldom so much
prevail in this Metropolis, as at present; on which
Account, it is said, the B-sh-p of L-nd-n appre
hends an Earthquake very shortly, and he therefore
intends to publish an Exhortation to Piety, in
order to suspend the Laws of Gravitation.^
V/hile one is inclined to doubt that marital unfaithfulness
was more prevalent in 1754 than it was, for instance, in
1694 it is true that it was being talked about a great deal
^ In Gentleman’s Magazine, February, 1731, p. 60
3
Gray’s Inn Journal, op. cit.. II, 116.
346
in mid-eighteenth century. Probably the reason was that in
Restoration times such infidelity was taken as a matter of
course; but in the later period a grov/ing social consciousness
was beginning to trouble the people. The loose attitude of
the court of Charles toward marriage, which may have been
influenced by the French code of the time and certainly corre
sponds more to the continental than to the native British
feeling in the matter, was increasingly distasteful to the
members of the middle-classes in England. Whether it was a
distaste that arose from a moral objection, or merely a
rationalizing of the economic inability of the middle-class
man to support a life of sin is beside the point. The fact
remains that the age, at least outwardly, became constantly
more monogamous.
Marriage itself however was undermined by many vicious
practices in the century. Before the Marriage Act of 1753,
marriage was valid without banns or license, although it was
against Church regulations, and could be performed at any
hour, in any building, and without a clergyman. In 1686 and
again in 1712 fines were imposed on such marriages, but there
was no enforcement of the penalty against the poor people
who usually had no money anyway. Practically anyone could
set himself up in Fleet street as a parson, and solicitors,
or "plyers" as they were called, were constantly approaching
the passerby with the plea, "Sir, will you please to walk
347
In and be married?" No doubt many of the bigamous and pecu
liarly informal marriages of the minor actors were contracted
in this offhand manner. The ease of the ceremony, if such
it may be called, was matched by the ease of release. En
tries in the Fleet registers were easily erased, for a slight
consideration, and without the mutual consent of the con
tracting parties. This device was often used in victimizing
innocent women and securing possession of their property.4
There was also a great deal of chicanery of one sort and
another concerning the actual marriage contract. For in
stance, a marriage was frequently antedated because of
pregnancy; and sometimes to impose on ignorant souls there
was written after the entry in the registry a Latin barbarism
as follows: "He non nupti fuerunt, sed obtinerunt propter
timorem parentum." That is, "they were not really married,
but got this registration out of fear of parents."5 in one
register alone, which carried many of these sham licenses
there were over twenty two hundred entries in a year.
Naturally, with such a lamentable situation existing among
the lower classes of London people, the responsibility of
children was often not stable. One of the most pitiable
aspects of the early life in the London slums was that of
^ Dorothy George, o£. cit., p. 314-316. Cf. John
Ashton, The Fleet. Its River, Prison, and Marriages (London;
T. Fisher Unwin, 1888T7 Chaps. XXVI-XXX.
® Ibid, p. 339.
348
these hordes of "parish hrats" who were constantly being
deserted by their parents, and left to an outcast life, the
misery of which is almost beyond comprehension.
Bigamy was punishable through the century by branding
in the hand of the guilty person; but it seems to have been
a crime not often punished at hail, unless the offender were
vigorously prosecuted by an interested person. The actor
Digges who was fairly popular in London in Garrick’s time
seems to have suffered no punishment whatever because he
married an actress to whom he took a fancy, althou^he had
another wife already in Ireland. An even better example of
the general attitude taken toward it is found in the trial
of Elizabeth Chudleigh in 1776 for having married the Duke
of Kingston during the lifetime of her husband, without
benefit of divorce. Her beauty and tears, together with
the "privilege of peerage," so worked on the imaginations of
the judges that she got off scot free without any penalty.
She was advised "not to do it again" and was discharged
after paying the fees.^
The coarse lewdness of the Restoration gradually
gave way to a light-hearted cynicism in referring to matters
of marriage, domestic felicity, and death. By October of
1797 the staid Monthly Mirror was carrying in its "Domestic
Events" column rather brisk comments concerning prominent
^ Thorribury and Waiford, oj£. cit., III, 552.
349
marriages of "necessity," done in a somewhat sentimentalized
Walter Winchell style. For instance, in noting a funeral:
"At the funeral of a young lady who died lately at Brighton,
the pall was to he supported by four virgins. By sending
couriers to Lewes, Chichester, &c. the set was, with some
difficulty, made up!" Such indications in the public press
are typical of the change in outward attitude toward mar
riage and its allied subjects: a change from frank and
sneering bawdry to a sophistocated lightness of tone which
really conceals a strong social consciousness.
Boswell once repeated to his pontifical friend the
argument of a lady who said that because her husband was
rather non-selective in his amours, she should be allowed
like freedom. Said Johnson:
"This is miserable stuff. Sir. To the contract
of marriage, besides the man and wife, there is a
third party?-Society; and if it be considered as a
vow--God: and, therefore, it cannot be dissolved
by their consent alone. Laws are not made for
particular cases, but for men in general. A woman
may be unhappy virith her husband; but she cannot be
freed from him without the approbation of the civil
and ecclesiastical power. A man may be unhappy
because he is not so rich as another; but he is
not to seize upon another’s property with his own
hand. . . . This lady of yours. Sir, I think is
very fit for a brothel."’ 7
liVhile Johnson’s vigorous moralisms are of course rarely
accurate reflections of average English thought in his time.
7
James Boswell, 0£. cit., II, 17.
350
they are usually highly colored versions of it. Doctor
Johnson was the apostle of the ordinary man far more often
than he was his leader.
The reaction of the notoriously delinquent actor to
this change in temper of the times is not so marked as one
might anticipate, and for a curious reason. Marriage had
from quite early in the century enjoyed a fairly high status
in the profession. Practically all of the actors of adult
age in the Clbber-Wilks-Doggett company were married, and
most of them quite happily so. Gibber himself, although a
scandalous male flirt and would-be rake, was among his con
temporaries regarded as a fairly domestic man. The publi
city which the affairs of loose-moraled actresses have always
aroused is likely to give us too extreme an idea of the
actual state of things.
Nevertheless one has to take with much salt Doran’s
optimistic statement that, with "some few exceptions," the
marriages of English actors have been exceedingly happy.
He is quite right in saying however that French actors of the
time had a much worse time of it. The French ecclesiastical
law forbade the marrying of actors— an idea bolstered up by
several involved theological arguments. They were excom
municated automatically by the mere fact of being stage
players, and hence could not seek the offices of the church.
The common method of avoiding the illegality of marriage
351
was one of subterfuge. An actor would retire from the stage,
marry the lady of his choice while a man without vocation,
and then return to the stage and public life, blessed by the
church and crowned with virtue. In a way this was much
better than the notorious Fleet marriages of England, for the
French actor had certainly to stop and think a second time
before submitting to such an ordeal.
Doran once remarked slyly that although it had been
said that Mrs.' Oldfield had never troubled the peace of any
lady at the head of a household, she may have marred the
expectations of some who desired to reach that eminence.
lÆrs. Oldfield never married, although she lived for years
with the hard-drinking, rich bachelor Maynwaring, bore him a
son, and at his death was regarded as his widow. Later she
lived with General Churchill, bore him a son, and was quite
respectably regarded by the world in general--although the
inveterate gossip. Queen Caroline, intimated quite openly
to her that she ought to marry the General.® Both of her
sons shared in her will, and the bar sinister seems not to
have worried either in his social standing. Anne Oldfield
herself "kept sisterhood with duchesses," and was often to
be seen on the terraces of Windsor Castle walking with the
consorts of dukes, with countesses, and with the wives of
barons. Even thus early such democratic conduct called for
8
Doran, 0£. cit♦, II, 12.
352
little comment# Indeed, Kitty Clive a few years later was
referring in her saucy way to certain aristocrats as
"damaged quality" and people whom she couldn’t be bothered
to cultivate--although her friendship with Walpole certainly
stood her in good stead in her last years# Oldfield’s
attitude toward marriage is probably explained by a remark
she made to Cibber one day when he asked her, after playing
opposite her for the first time in The Amorous Widow, how
she liked her new husband, meaning himself.
"Very well," she answered, "but not half so
well as Dicliy Norris." "How so?" asked Cibber.
"You are too important a figure," she answered,
"but Diclcy is so diminutive, and looks so sneaking,
that he seems born to be deceived; and when he
plays with me, I make him what a husband most dis
likes to be, with hearty good will.
That some stage husbands had no greater regard for their
actual wives on the other hand is testified to by the remark
of staunch Jack Verbruggen, the husband of that actress who
thought so well of matrimony that she married thrice and
made each name famous. Verbruggen used to remark to the
members of Betterton’s company, with a sort of heavy
courtesy: "D-— me ! though I don’t much value my wife,
yet nobody shall affront her I"
Undoubtedly the reason for much of the matrimonial
trouble of actresses then, as now, lay in the fact that
9 Ibid.. II, 7.
10 Ibid.. I, 159
353
they were selected more often for their pulchritude than for
their intellectual achievements# If it were possible to have
another profession so highly selected for physical charms,
one suspects that there would inevitably be connected with
it the rumour of marital unhappiness* Beauty does not make
an unhappy wife, but it certainly acts as marvelous bait for
temptation* Goldsmith put the truism neatly when he wrote:
"I have seldom seen a girl courted by a hundred lovers, that
found a husband in any. Before the choice is fixed, she has
either lost her reputation or her good sense; and the loss
of either is sufficient to consign her to perpetual virginity."
While a cynic might quibble about the accuracy of the con
cluding word, the sentiment was profoundly true of the
actresses of Goldsmith’s age.
However that may be, the age is full of records of
successful marriages in the ranks of the acting profession.
Garrick leads the parade of the benedicts with one of the
most thorough marriages, from a ceremonial standpoint, in the
century. Thornbury says that Garrick was married to Violetti
in a little chapel that used to stand near Freemason’s
Tavern; but according to Mrs. Garrick’s testimony she was
married at the parish church of St. Giles, and afterward
again married at the chapel of the Portuguese ambassador in
South Audley street. At any rate, it is obvious that Garrick
was profoundly married. The marriage was one in which the
354
fame of the husband has far overshadowed that of the wife.
But a thorough biographical reading of the relations of the
pair seems to indicate that she was a very shrewd little
person, and held the guiding reins skillfully over her skit
tish husband. It is not at all beyond the realm of the
possible that some of Garrick’s acting genius was a product
of her coaching. It will be recalled by students of Kean’s
life that the doughty actor entirely altered his playing of
the closet scene in Hamlet after Mrs. Garrick, who had gone
to his every performance, sent for him and seating him in the
chair of her departed mate schooled him thoroughly in the
manner in which the part should be played. And even though
Kean was enraged at her presumption, and humiliated at his
own acceptance of her advice, he nevertheless was unable
to play the part otherwise thereafter. That Mrs. Garrick
contributed more to the firm than Garrick’s biographer’s have
suspected is quite possible. Certainly in.many ways it was
an ideal marriage. In domestic affairs she managed his
household with excellent taste and skill, and he in turn
treated her with affectionate generosity. It is generally
thought that at their marriage Garrick settled on her ten
thousand pounds as a wedding present. Lady Burlington, who
11
Brander Mathews and Laurence Hutton, Actors and
Actresses of Great Britain and the United States (New York:
Cassel and Go., n. d., 1886T7 HI, 29-30.
355
had in effect become the English godmother of the piquant
Austrian dancer, gave Garrick five thousand pounds as Mrs.
Garrick’s dowry. At that, Garrick loosened up to the extent
of five thousand pounds— a most remarkable evidence of his
genuine feelings in the matter.12
Garrick seems to have been remarkably faithful to his
wife, considering his obvious and constant temptations to
stray, and his earlier life of playhouse gallantry.
At times the actors refrained from public announce
ment of marriage, fearing that it might injure their reputa
tion as romantic stage personalities to let it be known that
they were after all quite normal, domestic humans. This was
the case with the lovely actress Mrs. Crouch of whom her
biographer says rather circuitously that in 1784 "The marriage
of Mrs. Crouch was now declared previous to her being in a
situation which required the title of wife as it plainly
announced that of mother."!^ She had already been married
for some time to her actor husband. The exigencies of the
stage and lack of prudery at the time are indicated by the
fact that she actually played on the stage until she was
eight months pregnant; and then was forced to retire only
by consequence of the premature birth of a child the morning
after she had performed in a strenuous benefit. The child
George P. Baker, o_£. cit., p. 15-21.
13
Young, op. cit., I, 245-253.
356
lived only a few days, and Miss Young moralizes at length
on the supposition that the Grouches might have lived happily
together if this pledge of their affection had survived.
As it was, their marriage was not happy, though protracted.
She travelled with Kelly, the famous Irish singer, as his
admitted mistress— to which under the existing difficulties
of divorce at the time there seems little objection.
The wedding of J. P. Kemble in 1787 may not be typical
of the informality of the nuptuals of actors in general,
although one suspects that it is. Certainly it is typical
of the calm, scholarly man that Kemble was. He wanted a
wife. He knew that he must have one who could understand
and sympathize with the thousand worries and vexations of
theatrical life, and so he calmly looked around for a lady
who could fill the bill. He found her fortunately nearby,
in the person of Mrs. Brereton, the widow of the well know
actor of Garrick*s .later years. They were married at the
church in the morning. Mrs. Bannister, who had acted as
impromptu matron of honor and taken the bride to church,
asked where the happy couple was to eat their wedding dinner.
Kemble said he did not know, at home he supposed. Mrs.
Bannister thereupon invited them to her house in Frith Street
where she and Bannister threw together a hasty banquet. They
ate early, for both Bannister and Mrs. Kemble were appearing
in The West Indian that evening. Kemble, who had gone off on
357
some business, arrived so late they were ready to eat bis
nuptial feast wh.ith.out him when he arrived. Soon after the
cloth was removed Bannister and Kemble’s new wife went off
to the theatre to play. Kemble sat in the Bannister dining
room amusing himself with the children and talking with IVIrs.
Bannister. When it was quite late, he ordered a coach and
drove to the theatre for his wife, to carry her off to his
new house in Caroline Street, Bedford S q u a r e . H Certainly
it is a quiet, perfectly normal picture of domestic felicity
Information concerning the marriages of minor actors
is exceedingly scanty, although many of the most successful
marriages in the theatre took place when those involved
were either leading miserable strollers’ lives, as were the
Keans, or were just beginning apprenticeships in the London
theatre, as was young Colley Cibber. Indeed one of the
interesting things about marriages in the eighteenth century
is the youth of the contracting parties, generally. Espe
cially was this true of the actors. The marriage of Mrs.
Robinson at the age of sixteen seems to have been nothing
unusual, and in the strolling companies where life was
necessarily compact and closely consolidated, sixteen was
probably close to the average. It was quite generally the
rule for actors of mediocre talents to marry actresses, and
thus form a financial corporation which had more chance of
Boaden, Memoirs of Kemble, op. cit., I, 376.
358
surviving than otherwise might have been the case. It is
quite obvious that a minor actor trying to support a family
on his single income would have often run grave risks of
disaster.
If one were to summarize the findings regarding mar
riages of actors in the eighteenth century he would be forced
to admit that far from being a romantic bachelor or spinster,
the actor married early, and often. And on the whole his
marriages were as successful as those of his contemporaries
in other walks of life. Whether it was because misery loves
company or because in unity there is strength, the actors
of Garrick’s age faced their world usually in pairs. There
are few single souls among the lot.
The family. Childless actors were a rarity in the
eighteenth century. Even in the cases of actresses who were
merely the mistresses of noblemen, and never attained the
social triumph of marriage, the bonds were quite generally
welded by children.
Mrs. Jordan, who was the mistress of the Duke of
Clarence (William IV), had by him ten children and while
she set the record for large actor-noble families, it is
certain that she had close competition. Anne Catley, who
lived with General Lascelles for many years, and to whom
Boaden thinks she was secretly married, was devoted to her
brood. She left the General four sons and four daughters--
559
a sizeable group to have been produced, as it were, in the
intervals between performances of plays. Her will left her
property, which was considerably over five thousand pounds,
equally divided among them. Nell Gwynn, although certainly
not domestically inclined, bore at least two sons to the
king--one of whom, created Earl of St. Albans, is the ances
tor of the present family. The largest theatrical family of
which we know, and certainly the most famous for its success
ful children, was that of Roger Kemble and Sarah Ward. They
were married in 1753 and in the next tv/enty-four years,
amidst the other constant trials of rural actors, they had
born to them tv/elve children--a perfect average of one every
two years. Of these children, five died while very young,
but the other seven grew to adulthood and five of the seven
to considerable stature on the stage. Mrs. Siddons, who
with her brother John Philip Kemble formed the best known
theatrical team of the century, had several children, but
had the misfortune to outlive all of them but her daughter
Cecilia. She was devoted to her son Henry, the manager
of the Edinburgh theatre, and sorrow at his death was a
bitter blow to the happiness of her old age. Although she
has been accused of miserly tendencies, she sacrificed every
thing, including at times lucrative theatrical engagements,
to be with her children in times of illness or other distress.
One of the most generous and pleasant of all the early
360
actors of Cibber’s day was Wilks, who had by his first wife
eleven children who died in infancy, and a son who survived
him. Thus it was that this airy actor was practically con
stantly in mourning. He msirried almost immediately after
his devoted first wife had died, this time taking the widow
of a Lancashire gentleman, who brought with her a ready-made
family of four children. With them he lived a happy and ex
emplary existance--in spite of the passion which the actress
ÎÆrs. Rogers conceived for him, and the slight scandal of
his infatuation w^ith Mrs. Oldfield. He kept a house in
London and a country villa at Isleworth, where he delighted
to spend his vacations in the companionship of his hard-won
family.The Secret History of the Green Room says of Mrs.
Farr en, the actress mother of the famous Miss Farr en who was
thriving in the eighties, she was "more remarkable for her
prolification, than for any display of dramatic talents.
She produced her husband three daughters and a son, before
he died, in circumstances of extreme indigence."1® Joe
Munden,who married a jewel of a woman who retired from the
stage that she might be a better wife and mother, had two
children by her, but four by an assortment of women before
See Gurll, Life of Wilks, op. cit., p. 28. As
already noted in Chapter III, Wilks was married three times,
although Cur11 appears to have been ignorant of it. Many
details of Wilks* life are still very hazy.
Haslewood, op. cit., I, 20.
361
he met her. These children Mrs. Munden took in and raised,
giving them a measure of social sanction, a decent educa
tion, and a comfortable home. One of the sons of this ex
officio group died bravely as a minor officer in the East
India service; two of the girls made happy and wealthy
marriages. ^’ 7
One of the most pleasant stories of Mrs. Garrick’s
infrequent interference in theatrical affairs relates to the
pompous little minor actor Dodd, who had been handed many a
distasteful part by the director Garrick. Finally Garrick
asked him to play a eunuch in a performance, and the worm
turned. Still feeling himself constitutionally unable to
face Garrick, he went to the manager’s wife and pleaded for
assistance. Accordingly at the next rehearsal, with all of
the cast present, Mrs. Garrick said: "My dear Mr. Garrick,
I tink dat it is no right dat Mr. Dodd shall play tis Eunuch;
for he has got a wife and two or three childrens." Little
Dodd, conscious probably for the first time in his meagre
life of the absolute centre of the spotlight, drew himself
up proudly. "Yes Ma’am," he said, pulling up his cravat
and pouting out his chest, "and another coming too 1"
Whether Dodd had to play the part is not recorded, but cer
tainly he had justice on his side.
1 * 7
Munden, op. cit., p. 26.
Oxberry, op. cit., II, 445.
362
Not only was the conduct of actors toward their
children generally kind and affectionate, but the relations
between actors and their parents were uniformly excellent.
Mrs. Jordan, whose actress mother had eloped with an army
captain and borne nine children to him, of whom Dorothea
Jordan the actress was at one time the chief support--this
same Mrs. Jordan, at her mother’s death, penned an affect
ing poem, the sincerity of which was amply attested by her
life. It concluded with the lines:
Better a double summons had been giv’n
To wipe out sorrow’s score, and make all ev’n.
By kindly calling both at once to Heav’n.l9
The Thespian Dictionary says "she is kind to her relations,
and generous to the distressed." She herself had several
children to whom she was devoted.
While not many actors would have gone to such melo
dramatic lengths in proclaiming their filial devotion, there
are few instances of anything but affection in the dealings
of the actors with their parents. The story of Nell Gwynn’s
founding of Chelsea hospital is supposed to have originated
from her frequent visits to that neighborhood to visit her
old mother who lived in a house by the river. The wildly
extravagant Mrs. Baddeley who was often thoughtless of others
in general, was nevertheless an exemplary daughter— if one
except her peculiar moral code. Her biographer says: "She
Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, op. cit., I, 368.
363
ever showed the highest affection and attention to her
parents, and from this time gave her mother three guineas a
week during her l i f e . "20 Even the notorious îiÆrs. Billington,
whose memoirs were so scandalous that they were suppressed
on their publication in 1792, wrote the most affectionate
letters to her mother, and spoke of her own frequent babies
with something of real affection.And these ladies are
supposedly the worst of the lot so far as general morals are
concerned. Actually their moral delinquencies were con
tributed to, as has been intimated, by their generous if
somev/hat uns elective natures.
Although unkindness between child and parent is the
exception rather than the rule among the actors, one would
be slighting the truth if he ignored entirely the other side.
There is the well known cruelty of Edmund Kean’s mother, who
practically deserted him when he was a baby, and took him up
later only that she might exploit his phenomenal boyish
powers of acting. But even more disconcerting is that al
ready mentioned episode in the life of the otherwise amiable
Colley Cibber--his disowning and bitterly repudiating his
daughter, Charlotte. Charlotte Charke must have been a
trial to her father, although her affection for him clear
to the end of her dreary life was singularly steadfast. She
21
See Billington, Memoirs of lÆcs. Billington, From
her Birth (London: James Ridgway, 1792), p. 10-30, et passim^
364
ran away from home; she married a worthless scamp; she set
up in business and charged the bills to her father without
his consent; she put on male attire and worked as a groom,
and at another time as a male actor in a strolling troupe;
she was none too fastidious about her personal habits. But
when she published her Narrative in 1755 she certainly had
earned some measure of forgiveness. She wrote a letter to
her father, abjectly admitting her faults and imploring
reconciliation; but the proud and conceited old actor sent
her back only a blank sheet of paper, which she sadly said
"might have been filled up with blessing and pardon, the
only boon 1 hoped for, wished, or expected."®® Surely that
must stand as the crudest treatment accorded an erring
child by any actor of the century. Cibber’s son Theophilus,
although he was a. miserable scheming wretch who at one time
actually gave a man criminal access to Mrs. Gibber that he
might later blackmail the pair, was treated with generosity
and tolerance by his father. Theophilus, as might be ex
pected, was heartily detested by his wife ; but she was re
lieved of him when he was drowned on his way to an Irish
acting engagement. With that drag off, her spirits soared
into the first realm of acting until when she died Garrick
exclaimed, "Then tragedy has died with her I"--fortunately.
®® P. Dorothy P. Senior, The Life and Times of Colley
Gibber (New York: Rae D. Henkle Co., 1927*77 P* 153. The
letter is reproduced in full.
365
a slight overstatement.
One hears little about Garrick’s family, except his
wife, after he became the leading light of London. But his
brother George was very close to David, and indeed was un
doubtedly responsible in some degree for the great man’s
success. George was the acting manager of the theatre, and
as such took from David’s shoulders much of the onerous
work. Needless to say, he neither asked nor received any of
the credit. Peake says that Garrick was extremely nervous
about back-stage noise when he was acting, and George would
parade up and down in the wings constantly saying "Hush--
hushS" to the other actors. When someone inquired one day
why George should get such a comparatively large salary,
Bannister quickly retorted, "It’s hush m o n e y I"23 George
was very affectionately attached to his brother, but to the
day of his death held David in great awe. Being without
much sense of humour, a trait which he shared with his il
lustrious brother, he thought everything the actor might do
was of world-shaking importance. His first question every
night when he came behind the scenes was, "Has David wanted
me?" ^Vhen he died, soon after the great actor’s death it
was commonly and not unkindly remarked in the green room
that "David finally wanted him."
Q'Z
Peake, o£. cit., p. 85
366
It is quite possible that marriage and the needs of
her family, with all the attendant sorrows and trials that
go with heavy responsibility, had much to do with Mrs.
Siddons’ great emotional presentations. Certainly her desire
to provide adequately for her loved ones was one of the
great motivating forces that kept her going when she was in
very poor health and in fairly advanced age. Boaden felt
quite strongly that such was the case. Said he: "The do
mestic claims upon her exertions seem to have awakened a
genius but little suspected, and stimulated that industry,
without which in this difficult art even genius will attain
but little."®'^ By the quality of her friendships, her
exemplary personal conduct, and her undoubted devotion to
her home she did much to establish the possibility of normal
life within her profession.
High spirited Mrs. Clive is another actress of the
Garrick era who was known and admired for her private charac
ter and devotion to her family. Although her marriage to the
barrister Clive was not a success, and she did not stay with
him long, she did not cherish any animosity toward the man.
Garrick writing to her on some business matter once inserted
a note to the effect that he had seen her ex-husband; and
with what Garrick evidently thought wit added that he was,
she would probably be sorry to hear, in excellent health.
Boaden, Memoirs of Kemble, op. cit., I, 120
367
Mrs. Clive rebuked him in lier answer:
You are very much mistaken if you imagine I
shall be sorry to hear Mr. Clive is well; I thank
Cod I have no malice or hatred to any body: be
sides, it is so long ago since I thought he used
me ill, that I have quite forgot it. I am glad
he is well and happy.^5
She was genuinely devoted to her brother Jemmy (James Raftor)
and for years helped him on the stage, in spite of his
hideous face and apparently total lack of histrionic talent.
Her sisterly affection for him never abated, and when she
retired to pleasant Twickenham she took him with her to
form a stable if not very ornamental part of her establish
ment there. Although Jemmy always spoke, as one critic
said, "like a mouse in a cheese,” Walpole was much attached
to him and valued him highly as a dinner companion. Field
ing, in his dedication of The Intriguing Chamb er ma id to Mrs.
Clive, paid her extraordinary compliments. He said in part:
As great a favourite as you. at present are with
the Audience, you would be much more so, were they
acquainted with your private Character; cou’d they
see you laying out great Part of the Profits v/hich
arise to you from entertaining them so well, in the
Support of an aged Father; did they see you who
can charm them on the Stage with personating the
foolish and vitious Characters of your Sex, acting
in real Life the Part of the best Wife, the best
Daughter, the best Sister, and the best F r i e n d .^6
Fitzgerald, Life of Mrs. Clive, op. cit., p. 81.
Mr. Clive died in 1780, very old, after having been separated
from his wife for nearly fifty years.
P6
Fielding, Dramatic Works, op. cit., III, 3.
Quoted inaccurately in Doran, oj^. cit. , II, 323.
368
The ”Theatrical Family” myth. The eighteenth centrui*y
has been regarded often as the spawning ground for ”great
theatrical families,” and yet there seems little actual
ground for the statement when it is closely examined. There
are numerous couples who became famous under one name, but
fev/ of them had children who carried on with marked success.
The Bettertons, the Bannisters, the Palmers, the Yates—
these were merely man and wife teams that bore no lasting
fruit in enriching of the personnel of the theatre. There
are a great many Booths in the century who were on the stage,
but they come from various parts of England and appear to be
unrelated. There were several Barrys, with Spranger Barry
and his wife heading the list, but they did not perpetuate
themselves in the rolls of Drury Lane. There were two Barry
mores playing on the London stage at the end of the century,
but certainly they were utterly unrelated; one was a wealthy
dilettante who had his own private theatre at his country
estate, and the other was that west-England stroller, Belwit,
who had changed his name to the more aristocratic "Barrymore”.
There were, it is true, several families which contri
buted two generations to the stage. Such for instance was
the family of the ex-grocer Brunton who became a fair actor
at Norwich, and contributed three children to the London
stage; or the Gibber family, of which besides the father
Colley there was the eccentric son Theophilus, his sister
369
Charlotte Charke, and the wife of Theophilus, Maria Susana
Gibber--who was a sister of the dramatist-composer Dr. Arne.
There was the Sheridan family stemming from two generations
of famous teachers and scholars in Ireland. Thomas Sheridan,
the father of Richard Brinsley, was one of the first orators
of his time and an actor of a certain commanding solemnity.
His wife Frances was a brilliantly talented writer of novels
and plays. But their son Richard Brinsley, although occupy
ing a prominent place in our theatrical history because of
his writing and his splashy if not financially successful
theatre managership, was a poor actor off the floor of
Parliament•
The one monumental family of the theatre was that of
Roger Kemble. The five children who attained success on the
stage, with their wives, husbands, and children, could have
put together a pretty fair stock company among themselves.
At their height they were playing in practically all of the
principal theatres of England ëimultaneously; Ivlrs. Siddons
and J. P. Kemble in London, Stephen Kemble in Edinburgh,
Charles in Dublin, and another sister, Mrs. V\fhitlock, in the
provinces or at Drury Lane in minor parts. Mrs. Siddon*s
son Henry for a time managed the Edinburgh theatre; but
there the Siddons name seems to die out in theatrical
history. The Kemble name it se If--which had been well known
in theatrical circles as far back as Betterton*s day--sur
vived somewhat better, thanks to the vivacious Fanny Kemble
370
in the nineteenth century.
Some people have marvelled that so much talent should
come from the poor home of the manager of a country theatri
cal troupe. But what we know of the home life of the Roger
Kemhle family tends to dispel such surprise. Their home,
wherever it happened to he, was quiet and orderly. Boaden
says that Roger Kemhle was deemed one of the hest-hred men in
England, and had as great ease and polish at the table as any
man he had ever seen. Mrs. Kemble senior was intellectual,
with a broad knowledge of life and dramatic literature,
deliberate and careful in her enunciation (a priceless gift
which she bequeathed to Mrs. Siddons and her brothers), and
always the soul of propriety in her personal conduct. These
parents made for their children a pleasant home. Their
respect for their children was often commented upon as an
extraordinary thing, and in return their children’s respect
for them was unmistakeable. The Kemble family is typical
of all that is best in the heritage of the theatre, and
certainly represented the most profuse flowering of dramatic
talent in the a g e .27
Lodgings. The question of where the actor was to live
in London in the eighteenth century was not one easy of so
lution. The city was expanding in population at a terrific
27 pqp complete record of this remarkable family see
Campbell, cit., I, 14-15.
371
rate, and yet was doing little to keep up with the increase
by building homes- Most of the rural people who were form
ing the bulk of this new population had no money for build
ing purposes; capitalists had not yet learned the secret
of building enormous rooming houses, apartment buildings,
and cheap hotels. Consequently the population was packed
ever tighter into the already existing houses. The alleys
and twisting streets in the vicinity of Covent Garden and
Drury Lane became almost impassable, and were choked with
sprawling babies, and squalling hucksters who were selling,
with the day’s playbill, everything from the usual oranges
and nuts to new potatoes, watercress, rabbits, and muffins.
Until mid-century the sewage disposal system consisted of
scavengers in winter, and water-carts in summer which did
something to keep the streets navigable. Early in the
century ”kites,” large scavenger birds, floated all day over
this congested part of London, and occasionally settled to
earth to flap away with some particularly nauseus morsel.
The odor must have been terrific— anyone who has been in the
slums of the coastal cities of China in summer will perhaps
have some faint idea of what London must have smelled like.
The ”flower girl” around the theatre had a definite utility.
In Etherege’s Man of Mode Bellinda mentions the country
gentlewomen who go early to the markets to buy a nosegay.
”They complain of the stinks of the town, and are never
372
well but when they have their noses in one.” The inference
seems to be that Londoners who are not accustomed to the air
of the country have become hardened to the smells. Con
siderations of convenience and necessity made it imperative
that the actors early in the century live near the theatre--
and this was the e n v i r o n m e n t .28
In Restoration days it is probable that lodgings in
the theatre were actually a part of the patent rights— at
least for the patentee. Leslie Hotson, that brilliant un-
earther of submerged information, is authority for the state
ment that Davenant had lodgings at the theatre, and his mother
lived there for a time after his death as guardian to Charles
Davenant. Betterton likewise is said to have lived at the
Dorset Garden Theatre, rent-free, as keeper or caretaker
from the time it was built in 1671 to his secession from
that theatre in 1694-5.But after that time not even the
greatest of the actors had such a pleasant and conveniently
located home. Davenant, according to tradition, boarded his
chief actresses in his own home ; and although the custom led
to some gossip, it was probably merely a generous practice.
Betterton’s wife herself, Mrs. Saunderson, was
Besant, London in the XVIIIth Century, op. cit.,
p. 76, _et passim
29
Hotson, 22* cit., p. 234.
373
• . . bred in the House of the Patentee, improved
herself daily in her Profession, and having, by
Nature, all the Accomplishments required to make a
great Actress, she added to them the distinguishing
Characteristick of a virtuous Life.
Certainly little was to be lost by such a practice early in
the century since an actress in those days was, per se. a
woman of no reputation. The lodgings of even the major
actors were probably fairly squalid from our point of view.
Pepys wrote, six years after the Restoration, concerning
his actress ”j ade” as he pleasantly called her : ”To Knipp’s
lodgings, whom I find not ready to go home with me. . . Her
lodging very mean, and the condition she lives in; yet makes
a show without doors, God bless us I”
Macklin said that in the early decades all of the
players lived in the neighborhood of the two theatres.
"Quin, Booth, and Wilks lived almost constantly
in Bowe Street; Colley Cibber in Charles Street;
Mrs. Pritchard and Billy Havard in Henrietta Street;
Garrick a greater part of his life in Southampton
Street; and the inferior players lodged in Little
Russell Street, Vinegar Yard, and the little courts
and streets about the Garden. So that all could
be mustered to rehearsal by beat of drum, as might
be said, and the expense of coach-hire saved. But
now,” said the veteran, speaking at the close of
the century, "we are strangely altered, we are all
looking forward to squares and great streets, high
ground and genteel neighborhoods, no matter how
far distant from the theatre, which should be al
ways the great scene of business.
30
31
Betterton, History of the English Stage, op. cit.,
p. 9.
H. Barton Baker, _op. cit.. p. 545.
374
liYhat Macklin says about the desirability of quarters close
to the scene of operations is undoubtedly true, although in
his case touched by more than a little of senile nostalgia.
The system of fines already discussed made it imperative
that the actors be within easy call. A messenger might be
sent to bring in a star to rehearsal, but it was up to the
small fry to hearken for the "roll-call". If he were too
far away, he would have to come to the theatre daily and
wait for it. If he were very far, he would have to start
very early in the morning to make the ten-o'clock rehearsal—
for it was called usually somewhere near that time— or take a
coach, which he could rarely afford. In any case he was in
danger of being late and receiving a fine.
As the years went by and travel between different parts
of London became easier, the actors scattered more and more
widely until by the end of the century there was not a de
finite locality favoured by them. Jack Bannister and Joseph
Munden were next-door neighbors on Frith Street out in Soho,
where they frequently entertained their informal Club which
met in a circuit of houses and included such theatrical
notables as Lord Barrymore, Golman, O'Keefe, and Captain
Wathen. Several of the actors after their retirement took
cottages out in this direction on Tottenham Court Road, or
out toward the less exclusive Sadler's Wells vicinity*
As Besant states, the population of London went from
375
about three-quarters of a million in 1700 to over a million
in 1800; and in that time little actual construction went
on in the city, except the subdividing of houses already
erected.22 The price of building new houses in London was
practically prohibitive. Laborers demanded high wages, the
supply of building material was inadequate and of poor
quality— bricks for instance being often made with a clay
diluted with ashes and sand, to the future ruin of eigh
teenth century architecture— and moreover practically all
land in London was managed through lease-hoIds which dis
couraged anything like permanence in building.
Common laborers in the country at the beginning of
the century generally received sixpence to elghtpence per day;
and hordes of these workers, hearing of the high wages in
the city, deluged London to become coachmen and footmen.
This of course forced the farmers to pay sixteen to eighteen
pence per day for help, and in turn forced many of them into
bankruptcy. It was a Vicious cycle that seemed to have no
end. House taxes were negligible in London at the beginning
of the century, in spite of much agitation for them, and these
casual coachmen and footmen from the rural districts swelled
An interesting aspect of this population increase
is the fact that in 1800 there were in London 483,781 males,
and 615,323 females. The terrific discrepancy is accounted
for by the drain on manpower brought about by war, and by the
press-gangs that swept boys and men from the streets for ser
vice in the ships that were carrying the Union Jack to glory
everywhere but at home. See Besant, p. 76, et. PO-ssim.
376
the already large population of squatters who lived in little
shacks and makeshift hovels planted often actually on the
pavements of the courts and alleys. Building material for
these "houses" they often got by pulling down other houses,
especially those apparently ownerless ancient tenements which
at night were filled with vagrant beggars— half of them
sleeping in their rags while the other half actually pulled
down the house over their heads to make bundles of salable
wood for the builders and the washerwomen. Samuel Johnson
in 1738 said that London was a place where "falling houses
thunder on your head," and there is evidence that his words
were literal as well as figurative. As late as 1798 the
Annual Register recorded the collapse of two houses in
Houghton Street, Clare Market, in which sixteen people were
k i l l e d . 23 Hot all artisans and craftsmen were in desperate
straits, however. Defoe wrote in 1705 that there were
thousands of journeymen in England who were devoted family
men, and earned from fifteen to fifty shillings per week,
which was perfectly ample for their needs.
It is obvious that the minor actors, with an income
of from fifteen to forty shillings per week, couldn't afford
to live in any kind of luxury. A modest cottage in Dover
Street for instance in 1700 rented for from twenty to fifty
33
For a survey of these conditions see especially
D. George, jO£. cit. , p. 74.
577
pounds per annum;24 and If an actor - Lived in even the cheap
est of such places, he would have to dine largely on air
and clothe himself with rags. He did both of those things
often enough in the century, even while living in the cheap
est, most miserable of lodgings. The common lodging house
was the best known of cheap living accommodations, and in
them the poorer actors often maintained their household
establishments. Besant gives a picture of one of these
places in 1788— not a home for destitute indigents, but a
common lodging house which was patronized by lower middle-
class people.
Matters are conducted in a manner so perfectly
economical, that though there is no more than one
bed in each room, there are usually two or three
and sometimes even four occupiers of that one room
and bed. That the furniture is of an expensive and
luxurious kind no one can say, as it consists only
of a stump bedstead, a flock bed, a pair of sheets'
(frequently only one sheet), a blanket or two, a
chair or tv/o (generally without backs), and a grate,
but mostly without shovel, tongs, and poker. The
sheets were usually marked with the name of the
owner, and the words "stop thief" are added, for
private reasons.22
This is a picture of the frequent "home" of a single man of
limited resources. Taverns were for the comparatively af
fluent, for mere eating of an occasional meal, or, as they were
for Dr. Johnson in his poorer days, places for sitting with
See "Advertisements" in The London Gazette, July
25, 1700.
Quoted in Besant, London in the XVIIIth Cent.,
op. cit., p. 140. Of. D. George, 22* cit., p. 88-89.
378
cronies and talking over a glass of beer. It is altogether
probable that it was in such lodging houses as that described
above that Johnson spent many of his sleeping hours in those
early bitter times in London, when he and Savage often trod
the streets 'till dawn.
These places were however used more particularly by
transients. If an actor were to stay for some time in
London, he might rent a more suitable domecile. Cellar and
garret dwellings of one room often housed an entire family,
and there were many of them that rented for as little as a
shilling or eighteenpence per week. Benjamin Franklin, in
1725 when he was a Journeyman printer in London, lodged with ■
a widow in Duke Street for 3s 6d--which she later reduced,
under his genial influence, to Is 6d rather than lose a
good tenant.26 Probably, if one makes allowance for Franklin's
remarkably persuasive way with the fair sex, the first price
is the best indication of the average. If an actor were
single and were receiving the very low pittance of 15s per
week, he still could have made out very comfortably with a
bit of managing under such circumstances. Wilkinson says
that one of his actors, Robertson, assured him that about
1745 he was well lodged and boarded at Stratford for four
shillings per week--which makes the usual stroller's salary
36
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (Chicago: The
Lakeside Press, 1903), p. 70.
579
of about ten shillings not so impossibly meagre as it might
seem. 37
Toward the end of the century the rural theatre cir
cuits were built up. The most famous was that run by Tate
Wilkinson, and known as the "York circuit". One even more
soundly established and successfully managed was that includ
ing Deal, Rochester, Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells, and Canter
bury, which was run by the eccentric but shrewd Mrs. Baker.
An actor playing for Mrs. Baker was always sure of excellent
accommodations in the town where he played, for she maintained
rigidly supervised dwelling houses for her actors in connec
tion with each theatre.28 This manageress, although she
seemed to know little about the drama, had her box office
well under control. For years, in spite of her increasing
prosperity, she refused to trust the Bank of England, and
so carried around with her prodigious amounts of currency.
When the load became greater than she could bear, she would
secrete a wad in a spice box and hide it. Dibdin, who played
for her for some time, says that she was finally induced to
invest some of her money--and among her unearthings was a
two hundred pound note she had carried in her pocket for
Wilkinson, The Wandering Patentee, op. cit.. I, 34.
"ZO
Charles Dibdin, A Complete History of the Stage
(London: for the author, 1800*77 1% 102.
380
over seven years, "it being in her eyes a rarity." Heaven
knows it was no such rarity to her as it would have been to
most of her theatrical contemporaries.
That other famous rural manager, Tate Wilkinson in
his early days in London had cramped quarters in Half-Moon
Slieet, for which he paid a good share of his earnings. And
in 1786 poor dissipated George Anne Bellamy, from the poverty
of her laudanum-hazed later days wrote to her friend Tate:
I am obliged to give fifteen shillings a week
for an apartment— a chandler's shop in front, back
wards a carpenter's; and what with the sawing of
boards, the screaming of three ill-natured brats,
the sweet voice of the lady of the mansion, who is
particularly vociferous with all the gossips who
owe her a penny, with a coffee-mill which is often
in use, and is as noisy as London bridge when the
tide is coming in, makes such unpleasing sounds,
it is impossible to think of anything.39
Such quarters were not at all uncommon among the actors
even late in the century.
Thomas Weston, in spite of the advantages of an ex
cellent education, remained through life a person of very low
tastes. He set up housekeeping with a prostitute he picked
up one night in the London slums, and suffered her to be
known as Mrs. Weston. During his apprenticeship he lived in
the most miserable holes of the nearby River Street district;
but after his first really successful season at Drury Lane he
rzQ
Wilkinson, Memoirs. op. cit.. IV, 189. The ad
dress of this abode is given as"^Nol 37, Eliot's Row, St.
George's Fields." Mrs. Bellamy frequently spelled her name
"Georgianne," although she. was christened George Anne.
381
moved into a neat little cottage, with, a garden, on the
street leading up from the bridge at Chelsea* This place
he furnished and lived in until about a year before his
death. He was always in debt, and developed a remarkable
technique for shedding bailiffs in the dark back-stage
alleys of the theatre. He used to tell stories of his early
days when, having only one shirt and the sleeve of another
he lay abed while ordering breakfast, the single sleeve on
the arm outside the covers with which he directed the land
lady. His continued inability to pay his debts, in spite
of an adequate salary, led to a sad state of affairs.
His salary at Drury Lane, though three pounds
a week, was pawned to the managers for money ad
vanced to his creditors, who had been obliged to
take disagreeable means; he therefore did not
receive above half, on which he and his demoiselle
were obliged to subsist. In this situation he
felt some distress; for the pittance he received
on the Saturday, was owing before it came for lodg
ing, . . . chandler's shop, public house, &c. and
yet, notwithstanding his situation he would fre
quently neglect the rehearsals, and sometimes even
absent himself the night of performance: a continu
ation of this behavior obliged IVIr. Garrick to dis
charge him from the t h e a t r e.40
His distress was so real however, what with an ulcerated
leg, a needy mistress, no job, and a load of debts, that
Garrick relented and took him back, while his friend Foote
got together a subscription of about seventy pounds to pay
his creditors. The poor fellow was deeply humiliated, and
Weston, 22# cit., p. 26
382
took lodgings near the almshouse district at Newington--after
sneaking out of his house and selling every stick of furni
ture, to the chagrin of the landlord.41 He couldn't keep
out of debt, but he kept out of the way of his acquaintances
as best he could, slinking up to the theatre only when he
was needed for a part. He died soon after, a miserable
drunkard and child of the slums.
It is easy, by taking extreme examples, to focus too
much attention upon the disagreeable aspects of the actor's
living conditions. There were throughout the century many
actors who had homes that were substantial in every sense
of the word. That not more of them built country houses
than did is probably owing to their love of the excitement
of the city as much as to their lack of money. They loved
to be within sound of the applause of the theatre even on the
nights when they were not performing. Once truly stage-
struck, they rarely recovered. Only Mrs. Bracegirdle, of the
early generation of actors, seems to have been really glad
to shake the dust of the playhouse from her feet, and was
rarely enticed back to the green-room where her friend
Colley Cibber pottered about underfoot practically until the
day of his death. For his early letters from London, David
Garrick had a typical address: "at a periwig maker's, corner
Ibid. . p. 42
383
of the Great Piazza, Govent Garden." There he was certainly
in the thick of things, within whistling distance of every
thing he wanted. John Bernard, who later was the American
theatre manager, when he went to London to he an apprentice
actor late in the century, got lodgings in Tavistock Row,
next door to the Rainbow Coffee House, just around the
corner from the theatre.
But as Macklin said, the actors in general toward the
end of the century were moving out toward the less thickly
settled parts of London. Many of them had quite elaborate
homes. Spranger Barry, who with his wife had an average
annual income of about fifteen hundred pounds plus their
benefits, had a house first in Broad Street, then in
Norfolk, and finally in Cecil Street. In his commodious
home he frequently entertained guests at night after the
theatre with a light supper party--invariably eating boiled
fowl himself. His establishment was admirably managed, and
he always served his guests with great ostentation. Once
it was so great, as a matter of fact, that Pelham— a frank,
outspoken M. P.--said he would never dine there again, since
he could not serve a better dinner himself.42 was still
felt, in Garrick's day, that there was something slightly
wrong with actors actually being well-fed and mannered. It
was the dying gasp of the old cry of "rogues and vagabonds".
Doran, jO£* cit., II, 313
384
The Sheridan family, when it was in London, lived in
an adequate house in Henrietta Street, Govent Garden; and it
was there that Richard Brinsley's youngest sister, Anne--
named after the daughter of Samuel Richardson— was horn.
They later took a house out on King's Road, Chelsea, to he
out of the center of the city. The eminently respectable
Mrs. Crouch, then Miss Phillips, a popular singing actress
of the last decade of the century, when she came to London
for her dA)ut took the top floor of a private house in Drury
Lane where she lived with her father. Later, after a rather
tumultuous career, she bought a little house out at Chelsea.
Her biographer says that she delighted in retiring to this
sanctuary when she was not occupied by her profession, and
there amusing herself by working in the garden, reading,
and composing m u s i c . 43 of course such pastoral scenes are
not often encountered in the theatrical gallery, but there
are more of them than one might suspect. Mrs. Siddons,
appropriately garbed, was fond of strolling about the garden
with her flower basket and shears. Kitty Clive enjoyed the
rusticity of her cottage at Strawberry Hill many years
before she went there to live after her retirement.
The idea of the country home for the actor was not
born with Garrick, although he undoubtedly was the most
Young, op. cit.. II, 315
385
thorough of any actor in his carrying out of the country
estate obsession. Vifilks, the paternal marvel already noted,
had his villa at Isleworth as early as Betterton's day. It
is easy to understand Garrick's desire to make a show,
however, when his own meagre boyhood days are recalled. The
poor little Lichfield lad would not be satisfied until he
had established his country home at Hampton, filled his
library shelves ?7ith books in pretty bindings, and gathered
around him a staff of servitors over whom he could rule as
absolute master. Mrs. Garrick presided over this pretentious
establishment with adequate grace, although probably no more
charmingly than had Peg Woffington over Garrick's earlier
quarters in London when she and Garrick handled the expenses
of the household on alternate months, and Doctor Johnson
preferred Peggy's month because the table was more gener
ously suppliedIHowever, Garrick seems to have derived
scant pleasure from his Hampton villa except as a show place.
While there he was constantly uneasy for London, and
squirmed like an unweaned puppy for the milk of adulation
which he knew awaited him at the theatre. Mrs. Garrick
appears to have been an exceedingly adaptable person,, and of
great common sense. It was natural that she should prefer
the London house on Adelphi Street; and it was there that
See Doran, 22- cit., II, 201. Cf. Boswell,
Johnson, op. cit.. II, 200.
386
8lie died in October of 1822, in her arm-cliair in the front
room that had seen so many notable goings and comings. She
had Just ordered her servants to put out on chairs two or
three dresses that she might choose one for her appearance
that night at Drury Lane, there being scheduled a preview
of Elliston's "Improvements" for the next s e a s o n . 4 5
Probably the most elaborate domestic establishment
set up under the direction of an actress in the century was
that to which George Anne Bellamy returned after her trip to
France, and in which she proposed to live with her protector,
Mr. Calcraft. The house was in Parliament Street, and she
calls it "our hotel, for so it was in comparison to the
house in Brewer Street". With Calcraft's fifteen clerks,
the servant roll was over thirty. There was a competent
maître d Lhotel named Guince who could take the load of
management from her seductive shoulders. Calcraft allowed
two thousand five hundred pounds per year for the upkeep of
the stable alone, and he had in the country a farm which
was to supply the table with vegetables and meat of various
k i n d s . 4G This is the same lady who wrote at another time
to Wilkinson with such a doleful tale of her lodgings in
back of a carpenter's shop. Mrs. Baddeley was another of
Thornbury and Waiford, o^. cit., III, 214.
Bellamy, 0£. cit., V, 158.
387
these gilded lilies who ran an expensive establishment so
long as Lord Melbourne's generosity supported her, spending
in the neighborhood of ten thousand pounds per year, while
her theatre salary was not more than six hundred pounds.
But these people are the brilliant exceptions to the majority.
Most of the actors lived either with extreme modesty, or as
upper middle class people. Certainly there never grew up
anything like the competition in palaces which marks our
present Hollywood era of bourgeois ostentation.
In the light of the evidence then we may revise our
ideas of the status of marriage and the home inthe life of
the eighteenth century actor. Marriage was the rule rather
than the exception; it was congenial rather than otherwise;
and by the end of the century it was even in popular opinion
the normal state of the adult actor. The actors had generally
large families of children, v/hom they treated uniformly with
extraordinary affection and generosity. Filial devotion
was certainly as common among the children of the theatrical
profession as elsewhere in England.
Unless the actor were a star of the first or second
magnitude, the actor had to live in a pretty disreputable
hole at the beginning of the century. Being paid often by
the performance and not by a flat salary, he had to be within
call of the theatre drum, otherwise the managers would fine
away his small wage for tardiness, or even drop the poor
388
devil from the roll and compell him to seek a livelihood
elsewhere. He v/as in something of the same position as the
moving picture extra in Hollywood today who, although regis
tered with the Central Casting Bureau, must telephone in
several times daily in order to catch an occasional hit of
w o r k .47 The immediate neighborhood of the playhouses in
London was in 1700 the most disreputable in the city, and
hence the homes of the actors were of necessity rather
miserable holes. Toward the end of the century however,
as the streets were cleaned up and travel became more feas
ible within the city, actors began to scatter more and more
widely, until by 1800 many of the minor actors had livable
quarters at some distance from the theatre. The prosperous
actors, those who made fabulous sums from their theatrical
activities, lived with all the pomp and circumstance of
noblemen. Garrick and Spranger Barry, Mrs. Siddons and
J. P. Kemble, could entertain royalty in their own homes
without apology or added endeavor. Rulers of the theatre,
they lived like kings.
47
For an accurate account of the status of the
"extra" player in Hollywood, and the functioning of the
Casting Bureau, see Jerome Beatty, "Your Chance in the
Movies," American Magazine, May, 1938.
CHAPTER VIII
THE. PHYSICAL MAN
Food. One subject held the unwavering attention of
actors throughout the eighteenth century, and that was the
subject of food* Garrick's well-known prologue at the open
ing of Drury Lane, September 5, 1750, is not merely playing
on words when it says :
Sacred to Shakespeare, was this spot design'd
To pierce the heart and humanize the mind.
But if an empty house, the actor's curse.
Shews us our Lears, and Hamlets lose their force;
For, tho' we actors, one and all, agree
Boldly to struggle for our--vanity;
If want comes on, importance must retreat.
Our first, great, ruling passion, is--to eat.l
Perhaps the starvation rations on which the actors of
Garrick's time were kept during their apprenticeship, and
often after they actually got into the theatre, sharpened
their appetites. It seems almost ridiculously obvious that
they had phenomenal appetites. It is true that the eigh
teenth century was an age of lusty physical appetites in
many ways, and perhaps this gourmandizing is merely another
of the universal traits found in a hungry, growing middle-
class culture. Over-fastidiousness, although found often
among the actresses late in the century, was not
^ Printed in The Gentleman's Magazine, September,
1750, p. 422. Cf. Nicoll, Hist, of Late 18th. Cent. Drama,
op. cit., p. 24.
390
characteristic of either men or women in the early days.
And throughout the century we encounter constant talk among
the actors of food and drink.
Henderson, who was an excellent and quick study, was
accustomed to prepare himself for a strenuous first perfor
mance of a play by dining extraordinarily well, and sitting
over his wine until time to go and don his costume. He
usually went straight from his table to his dressing room.
Some kind soul once told him of Garrick's habit of shutting
himself up in his room all day before such an occasion, and
then dining lightly. Henderson thought the scheme might
be worth a trial; but his performance that night lacked all
fire and vigour as he stumbled hungrily around the stage,
and thereafter he stuck v/ith his own plan. It was not without
reason that he became the greatest Palstaff of his a g e .2
Mrs. Siddons, on the other hand, always pretended to regard
food as a rather unspiritual thing, and eating as a neces
sarily undramatic performance which one was forced to perform
periodically. After her first great triumph at Drury Lane
she says she went home quietly: father, my husband, and
myself, sat down to a frugal neat supper, in a silence un
interrupted, except by exclamations from Mr. S i d d o n s . "2
^ Doran, 22* cit., III, 110.
^ Campbell, 22* cit.. I, 163
391
What a delicately tinted picture this is, to be sure, and
how different from the delightful mental image we conjure
up of impish Nell Gwyn gnawing away at a chicken leg, with
grease liberally smeared from one pretty ear to another*
Garrick loved to tell stories about the great epicure
of his stage, James Quin* One of the most typical he once
wrote to Lord Halifax in a letter thanking his lordship for
a wild turkey which had been sent to the actor-manager's
table* Garrick said that when Quin was on one occasion
ill, he received a present of a similar nature from the same
source as the recently arrived fov/1. His doctor told him
he would not be fit to touch such a thing for a fortnight*
"Sh'ant I?" says Quin, "then by G-- it shall travel with me
till I am fit % About a year before his death there was
published a little epigram which indicates his epicurean
reputation.
Says Epicure Quin, should the Devil in Hell
In fishing for Men take Delight,
His hook bait with ven* son; I love it so well
By G-d, I am sure I should bite.2
Garrick hadn't anything like so strong a constitution as
Quin, and yet he was fond of food. He wrote Golman one
day that he was suffering and had to leave the playhouse
because of the beef-steaks and arrack that he had daintily
^ Peake, 22# cit., 82.
^ Davies, Life of Garrick, op. cit., II, 115.
392
consumed, at the Beef Steak Club that met in Govent Garden
theatre on Saturday mornings* All his life he fought the
demon of corpulence^ Just as Byron did later; and when
finally, in his later years, he could relax and become
pudgy it was a great relief to him. He wrote to a friend in
1771: "I am tight in my Limbs, better in my head, and my
belly is as big as Ever--what * s life without sack and sugarI"^
Tate Wilkinson was a gourmet of a confirmed type after
he became prosperous enough to afford good food. He admitted
frankly that his particularity in the matter was a result of
his near-starvation as a stroller in his early days. He had
a small appetite, but a precise one. Michael Kelly tells
of having an argument with him about salary one day, Kelly
desiring twenty guineas more than Wilkinson wanted to pay.
Finally the agreeable manager said:
"Well, young Apicius, twenty guineas shall not
part us, you shall have it in your own way; but
confess now, honestly, didn^t you think the ducks
were over-roasted yesterday at my Lord Mayor *s?"*^
Wilkinson had a sweet tooth, and loved candy; but he felt
guilty about constantly eating it. He devised the gratifying
scheme of hiding chocolate drops around his house, for the
® George P. Baker, oj^. cit., p. 45.
^ Michael Kelly, Reminiscences of Michael Kelly
(London: Henry Colburn, 1826), TTl 9 7 Kelly was the most
accomplished singer in the century, and was later musical
director at Drury Lane.
393
delicate delight he felt on coming upon them unexpectedly*
(We are reminded of the stories concerning the American author,
James Fenimore Cooper, and his fondness for gum-drops, which
he bought by the keg. ) Wilkinson seems to have had almost a
food obsession, and he rarely conversed at any length with
out mentioning edibles. Kelly gives another even more
culinary conversation. They were talking about acting.
"Sir," said he, "Barry Sir, was as much superior
to Garrick in Romeo, as York Minster is to a Method
ist chapel--not but I think, that if lobster sauce
is not well made, a turbot isn*t eatable, let it be
ever so firm.— Then there*s that Miss Reynolds;
why she. Sir, fancies herself a singer, but she is
quite a squalini, Sirl a nuisance Sir I going about
my house the whole of the day, roaring— not but
when rabbits are young and tender, they are very
nice eating. There was Mrs. Barry, for example;
Mrs. Barry was very fine and very majestic in
Zenobia; Barry in the same play was very good;--
not but that wild rabbits are better than the tame
ones.— Though Mrs. Barry was so great in her day,
yet Mrs. Siddons— stewed and smothered with onions—
It was quite evidently a fad for actors in mid-century
to pretend to be gourmets. Boaden says that Foote loved
wine and good living, and was a mighty pretender to skill
in cookery,, though he didn*t understand a table so well as
he thought. He liked combination dishes, and could not bear
to eat plain beef or mutton, which showed he had a depraved
appetite.^ Quin used to make occasional trips clear to
Plymouth in order to eat John Dories, a kind of golden-
® Ibid.. IX, 11.
Boaden’ ■ Life of Siddons. op. olt.. p. 31.
394
colored fish.. That the Rabelaisian Quin was motivated by a
desire to swank seems improbable, however. Kelly tells
affectionately of the asthmatic little comedian Parsons,
who lived in a band^box of a house near the asylum at
Lambeth— a house he called Frog Hall from its being opposite
a stagnant ditch. Parsons had an ungovernable fondness for
fried tripe, and almost nightly after the play would enjoy
that delicacy at an eating house in Little Russell Street,
opposite the stage door of Drury Lane.
One of the most unusual dishes of the century was
that concocted by the garrulous old actor Macklin, in his
toothless dotage. A gentleman writing to the Monthly Mirror
in 1796 tells of the peculiar recipe. Says he:
He came into Mr. Williams * s coffee-house, in
Bow-street, one night last winter, after the play,
and having seated himself in the public room, he
called lustily on the waiter to furnish him with
a pint of white wine, a pint of water, some sugar,
milk, and a basin of mashed potatoes; with these
ingredients he went to work, emptied them all into
a large bowl, and having mixed them together for
about a quarter of an hour to bring them $o thr
proper consistency, he proceeded to take his supper;
a few spoonfuls of this extraordinary dish soon
gave him spirits. . .
Rarely did actors in the century have the opportunity
to enjoy such a feast as that prepared, in the old Irish
fashion, by Dr. Sheridan at one time for some of his friends;
the piece de resistance being a "swilled mutton," a
Monthly Mirror. Sept., 1796, p. 279, "È/îackliniana"
395
nightmarish concoction indeed.
It consisted of a sheep roasted whole, in the
inside of which was insinuated a lamb; the lamb
was again stuffed with a hare and rabbits. There
was also a goose, the body of which was stuffed
with a duck, and other delicacies of a similar
description.H
The guests, to do them justice, didn* t at all like this
peculiar carnivorous dream, and although proclaiming loudly
the excellence of these "antique dishes," made hard work of it
The routine of meals of the actors seems to have had
little in general to distinguish it from that of the ordinary
man, unless perhaps it was the enforced difference in time
schedule. Breakfast the actor usually ate about nine o * clock
in the morning, and it usually consisted of the same sort
of thing the linen draper or the pub-keeper at the corner
had eaten a couple of hours before. A haIf-pint of beer or
ale, a cut of cold meat or a cold fowl, and a bit of bread.
to assist in the stuffing of it into the mouth seems to
have been the common version. Fruit or light cereal as a
breakfast dish seem to have been almost unknown in the
eighteenth century. "Bacon and eggs" was a common order in
the taverns, but it was a dish eaten as a dinner, and not
for breakfast as it is now eaten by our truck drivers and
other hardy individuals. The eggs and bacon were evidently
prepared even then in the traditional manner, if one is to
11
Alicia Lefanu, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of
Mrs. Frances Sheridan (London: G. & W. B. Whittaker, 1824),
p. 36.
396
judge from a famous pun. Jack Bannister the actor was ap
proached by a friend who said he would dine with him soon
on bacon and eggs, and asked what day it should be. "Why
Pry-day," said Jack. The ordinary workman*s breakfast con
sisted, according to Besant, of a "draught of small-beer
with a crust and a lump of salt beef."
Dinner came for the actor after his morning rehearsal
was concluded, and was usually eaten about three o*clock in
the afternoon. It consisted of every sort of substantial
viand the actor could afford, and was usually his one big
meal of the day. Later he would probably visit the coffee
house for a cup of coffee or chocolate before going to the
theatre. After the performance he went home or to one of the
numerous eating houses which abounded near Covent Garden and
Drury Lane and had a light supper of boiled or roasted fowl,
bread and cheese, and wine. To this routine and this menu
there were of course an infinite number of variations.
Desserts were practically unknown, as such, in those substan
tial days; although in the Gentleman* s Magazine of 1782
there are various mentions of a concoction called "ice
cream". Not everything was beer and beef by any means.
One gets a mental picture of the eighteenth century
as an age of coffee topers--probably because it is a period
1?
Besant, London in the 18th. Cent., op. cit., p.22.
397
so famous for its "Coffee-House". And yet in reality there
was comparatively little drinking of coffee going on. It
was a fashionable delicacy still imbibed almost supersti
tious ly in small doses for its legendary qualities. Tea was
even then, if one may except the London gin, the national
drink of Britain. The famous case of Doctor Johnson, who
practically drowned his liver in gallons of tea, was not
extraordinary. The casual light-drink habits of the populace
at the beginning of the century are clearly stated in a
facetious poem published soon after the Restoration, and
called. The Character of a Coffee-house.
The gallant he for Tea doth call.
The usurer for nought at all;--
The Virtuoso he cries hand me
Some Coffee mixt with Sugar-candy;
Phanaticus (at last) says, come.
Bring me some Aromaticum;
The Flayer bawls for Chocolate,
At which the Bumkin wondring at
Cries, Ho, my Masters 2 What d*ye speak?
Give me some good old Ale or Beer
Or else I will not drink, I swear.
By the middle of the century chocolate as the particular
drink of actors seems to have entirely lost its reputation.
Coffee on the other hand is spoken of with increasing rever
ence, and eulogized in the press with pleasant verses
frequently. Thus a gentleman writes to the Gentleman* s
Magazine ;
13
Reprinted in Gentleman*s Magazine, January, 1785,
p. 27.
598
Where dwells the wretch, beneath what zone.
To every elegance unknown.
Whose soul ne*er felt the genial fire.
That Coffee's subtle fumes inspire?
Auspicious shrub 1 Heaven's gift to man.
To lengthen out his dwindling span. 14
Table manners in the eightoonth century were nothing
to brag about, even in the circles where lace was on the
cuffs and enormous hoops were in the skirts. Although
daintiness is not a thing of time or place, it is quite evi
dent that the eighteenth century was not the time, and London
not the place. It was a juicy age. Dishes, which in the
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were largely of
pewter (except in the noble instances where they were of
gold or silver), were supplanted toward the close of the age
by chinaware, the making of ?/hich supplied England with one
of her most genuinely native arts. Wooden platters were
still used as serving dishes. For utensils there were
knives of various shapes and sharpnesses, often being in
dividually owned and carried about on one’s person. The
two-tined fork was well known by mid-century, although it
was usually made of the troublesome soft pewter or the
easily rusted iron. Only gallants had silverware.
The manner in which these utensils v/ere handled,
especially in the taverns and "Ordinaries" or pension style
Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, Aug., 1742.
This year was made memorable by Garrick's d^but in the Drury
Lane theatre, although he was already the toast of London
because of his brilliant success at Goodman's Fields the
previous season.
399
dining rooms frequented by the actors, was a constant hazard
to life and limb. A dispatch in Gray's Inn Journal, dated
from Pon's Coffee-house, St. Martin's Lane, gives some idea
of the situation.
Last Week an Officer, who dined at the Ordinary
held here, as he was going to carve for his own
Use the V'/ing of a Fowl, very unluckily helped him
self to a Gentleman's Middle Finger. This Acci
dent was occasioned by the Eagerness of the
Company, who all had their Hands in the Dish at
the same Time; which shows the Propriety of Mr.
Quin's Answer, when asked if he had ever dined at
this Place, "No, by G-d, nor at any other Ordinary
in London, till I get a Basket-hilted knife and
fork."
From what one reads of Quin he suspects that the actor's
hand would be into the dish as fast as the next; but he
was undoubtedly right in his emphasis of the danger involved.
Boaden says that Foote, who was such a pretender to Epicure
anism, was "very disgusting in his manner of eating, and not
clean in his person.But the actor was so pleasant an
entertainer at table that he was constantly asked to the
homes of the nobility, where his faults were overlooked for
the sake of his excellent company.
The expense of food and of eating was always a worri
some matter to the minor actor who was an epicure at heart
and a mendicant in pocket. If he maintained his own
15
Gray's Inn Journal, op. cit., I, 155.
Boaden, Life of Mrs. Siddons, op. cit., p. 31.
400
h-ouseh-old establishment his wlfe, or his housekeeper, bought
her daily supplies of vegetables and meat either from the
hucksters who trudged about the streets with their baskets
and barrows, or from one of the large co-operative markets
that were scattered over London, and to which the country
people brought their produce daily. Such an actor might feed
two or three people quite passably on from one to two shill
ings per day--although certainly they would not be dining in
luxury on that amount. In 1779 the prices of a few basic
commodities were as follows.
Coarse beef 3& d. per pound.
Tea • • • . 4-J d. per pound.
Lump sugar 7 d. per pound.
Coarse " 5 d. per pound.
Butter. . . 8 d. per pound.
Coal. • . . 14 d. per bushel
Bread was baked in several sizes; but the penny loaf, an
enormous thing, was the most popular. There were in addition
many other incidental household and personal expenses that
had to be taken care of by the meagre salary of the minor
actor. An ordinary workman could get his washing done for
8d. per week, and could get a shave for 4d., although many
of the poorer actors were saved both of these outlays, ac
cording to tradition, the latter because there was a barber
on the payroll: of most of the theatres, and the former be
cause the minor actor traditionally never v/ashed his shirts.
17
D. George, London Life, oj^. cit., p. 168-169
401
Wine, which was throughout the century practically a neces
sity in the actor's household establishment, was uniformly
cheap. In 1711 Red Port was selling at 4s. 6d. per gallon,
Vüiite Lisbon at 6s. per gallon, and Canaries at 9s. per
gallon,18 and those prices had increased only about one-
third by the end of the century. The comedian Spiller thought
he was being fairly generous with his mistress, Mrs. Stratford,
when he allowed her fourteen pence per week to live on while
he was acting in Ireland toward the end of the century,
although it appears that the lady had some difficulty. Since
she would not prostitute herself for gain, she was forced
to stoop to most peculiar occupations in her Lord's absence
in order to support herself. At one season of the year she
dealt in "asparagus, and at another in Rumps, Burs, and hot
bak’d Faggots."1^
Few of the minor actors could afford to dine at
Taverns and the "Shilling Ordinary" that was popular in
Garrick's time. There were however in the vicinity of the
theatres a great many eating houses which catered to medium-
priced trade, and were very reasonable in price. If the ac
tor didn't have the time or price for a full meal, he could
always step out into Covent Garden and pick up a bun, some
18 'See The Post Man. No. 2053, October 9, 1711.
Spiller's Jests, op. clt.. p. 36.
402
fried fish, an apple, and a mug of beer--certainly as sub
stantial a lunolieon as many of our hard-working clerks and
stenographers have today* Boswell gives an excellent account
of Johnson's method of dining when he first came to London,
a method which may have some clues as to the practice of
penurious actors who nevertheless wished to keep up appearances
"I dined," said he, "very well for eightpence,
with very good company, at the Pine-Apple in New
Street, Just by. Several of them had travelled.
They expected to meet every day; but did not know
one another's names. It used to cost the rest a
shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of
meat for six-pence, and bread for a penny; so that
I was quite well served, nay, better than the rest,
for they gave the waiter nothing." He, at this
time, I believe, abstained entirely from fermented
liquors: a practice to which he rigidly conformed
for many years together at different periods of his
life.
Sam Foote generally spent most of his generous salary soon
after he received payment; and from that time until the next
pay day dined frugally on cold mutton and "humble port or
Lisbon." When he was at Portsmouth playing, his mother
frequently begged him to send her some of those delicious
cheap shrimps and soles for which the place was then famous;
and the devoted son thought it a great pleasure to visit the
fish market on such an errand. Tom Weston, the famous low
comedian of Gibber's day, although perpetually in financial
straits, could not resist out-of-season food when he had
any money.
20
Boswell, Johnson, op. cit., I, 70
403
He was in general more expensive in his eat
ing than drinking; gin and purl, with sometimes
punch or port wine, contented him; yet he would eat
pease at a crown a quart, and green geese at 7s*
6d.21
John Bernard tells of visiting the penurious old manager
Penchard in Brentwood, Essex, and being amazed at the man's
economy* He lived on threepence a day for food. "In the
morning, his roll and milk--at dinner a rasher of bacon and
an egg--his tea, an encore to his breakfast." IVIrs. Crouch,
a famous beauty of the stage, never ate much, but not from
penuriousness. Her biographer says:
Pb?om a child, her constitution was extremely
delicate, and she scarcely eat enough to sustain
life, yet she looked well, and enjoyed that even
flow of spirits which is the surest indication
of good health.
Strangely enough, the only record there seems to be of the
extravagant Mrs. Baddeley's having denied herself anything,
has to do with food. Mrs. Steele says that while walking
along the avenue one afternoon they stopped at a shop and
Mrs. Baddeley asked the price of a pineapple. "... being
told a guinea, for the first time since I knew her, she de
clined to gratify her inclination at such an e x p e n s e ."23
Many of the actors were quite frank in their gratitude
21 Weston, Memoirs, op. cit., p. 39.
Young, 0£. clt.. II, 320.
83 Steele, Memoirs of Mrs. Baddeley. op. clt., I, 165
404
for dinner Invitations, even when they knew they were being
invited purely for their entertainment value. Garrick's
resentment at such utilitarian hospitality was not true of
many of his profession, who were glad to get an excellent
dinner at any inconvenience. Sometimes however even such
dining turned out to be a costly business. Galt tells a
yarn of the exasperation of Quin who had dined at a noble
house one evening.
Upon his taking leave, the servants, who were
very numerous, had ranged themselves in the hall;
Quin finding that if he gave to each of them it
would amount to a pretty large sum, asked, "Which
was the cook?" who readily answered, "Me Sir." He
then enquired for the butler, who was as quick in
replying as the other; when he said to the first,
"Here's half a crown for my eating," and to the
other, "Here's five shillings for my wine; but by
God, Gentlemen, I never made so bad a dinner for
the money in my life I " 24
Superstitions of actors are notorious, but one of the
most peculiar on record, certainly, is that of Mossop, who
carried his superstitions to the table with him. He was
very fond of particular kinds of food for different roles,
and thought they materially contributed to his acting.
"Broth for one; roast pork for tyrants. Steaks for Measure
for Measure ; boiled mutton for lovers; Pudding for Tancred,
^c."25 How Mr. Mossop arrived at this curious diagnosis of
Galt, 22* cit., I, 203.
26 "Biographical Sketch of the late Mr. Mossop,"
Monthly Mirror. Dec., 1799, p. 327.
405
emotional nourishment is not recorded. Certainly it was
never widely accepted.
It was sometimes contended in the eighteenth century
that injudicious eating was one of the major vices of the
age. At this distance, and considering the enormity of the
vice of drinking in the age, that idea appears rather ridi
culous. A writer in The Universal Spectator in 1731 however
appears genuinely concerned over the extent to which concern
for the palate may carry people. He complains of running a
red-hot spit through a living sow to make the flesh more
juicy and sweet; of bruising the paps of the live animal to
make it tender; of roasting lobsters alive and of whipping
pigs to death. To this he adds that "nothing contributes
so much to the numerous tribe of pains and diseases as the
vice of our eating; it dulls the rational faculties, and
oppresses the motions of the soul"^^ It may be after all
that one reason for the supremacy of the actor in the age
was that he started life usually, and grew to adulthood, on
an enforced diet.
Drink. The subject of drink is one which is often
discussed in connection with morality when one speaks of
the eighteenth century, for certainly drunkeness was one of
the great vices of the age. Anyone who has looked at
Hogarth's masterly engraving of Gin Lane, or his Harlot's
Gentleman's Magazine, Feb., 1731, p. 62
406
Progress has realized something of the constant horror that
drunkeness must have heen in Garrick's day. Just as closely
was it tied however to the subject of food, for food it
was to many a poor devil. Beer or ale was commonly drunk
by the working man with every meal, and wine by the upper
classes. Until about 1760 there was a lack of sanitary
drinking water in London, and the tap-room served in place
of the drinking fountain also.
The terrific mortality rate which is obvious between
1720 and 1750 in London is often connected with the over
consumption of hard liquor, more particularly gin. Not
only did the extreme drinking ruin the health of thousands
of adults, but it spoiled the chances of many a child born
during that time. The extreme alcoholism of pregnant mothers
and of responsible fathers was a far more horrible and
detrimental thing than was the flagrant and shameless im
morality of the Restoration court circles, which affected
largely the already genetically sterile nobility.
During*the period, the manufacture of distilled liquor
increased enormously, and found ardent supporters in Par
liament. Distillers were looked upon as the chief suppor
ters of the government, through taxes. In'addition, the
first half of the eighteenth century was fortunate from the
point of view of crops; and the distillers used the economic
argument that their product was the only one that could
407
store surplus corn without deterioration. Be that as it may,
they managed to flood London with such a deluge of gin and
adulterated drinks that the city very nearly went into a
general seizure of delirium tremens.27 Throughout this
reign of alcoholism, there was no adequate check on the
number of liquor dispensers in London. It has been estimated
that one out of every ten houses sold liquor; but that was
merely the beginning. On the streets there were many small
stalls set up on barrel-heads and roadside boxes, and fre
quently unlicensed peddlers went through the lanes with
bottles in wheelbarrows. In addition there were many dealers
who avoided the tax, small as it was, by running bootleg
establishments in their garrets and cellars. Practically
every tobacconist, chandler, fruit or herb dealer handled
liquor. In one shape or another it was constantly being
presented to the eye and nose of the poor inebriate.
Among the poorer classes there were many reasons for
the excessive drinking. Fundamental was the universal
desire of misery to seek relief, even if that relief be only
the temporary anodyne of drink. More particularly however
the custom, which persisted through most of the century, of
paying the workmen in the alehouse on Saturday night, worked
toward inevitable drunkeness. Frequently the laborers were
forced to remain at the tavern, awaiting the paymaster, until
27
D. George, o^* cit., Chapter I,
408
ten o’clock at night, or even occasionally until one the next
morning. The tavern-keeper meanwhile was glad to extend
credit for liquor to these men. By the time the paymaster
arrived the distracted fellov/s were often so drunk they could
not properly account for the few remaining shillings. Some
times wives would accompany their husbands, and lurk about
the tap-room to rescue the miserable remainder of the pay
before it was all squandered on d r i n k . pn the shops and
factories throughout the week a boy was sent out periodically
for beer or ale, and many of the men worked in a state of
constant semi-inebriation. Banjamin Franklin— who was in
his London days an abstainer, even from teal— was forced to
contribute to the weekly ale fund in the print shop where he
worked. Finally by exhortation and example he weaned his
associates from their alcoholic breakfasts of beer, bread,
and cheese, although they continued their mid-morning guzzl
ing of beer as u s u a l .29
The actor likewise was subjected to unusual tempta
tion. With him drink was not so often a means of escape
from reality, as a means of physical relaxation after the
tremendous emotional strain that the stage imposes on its
subjects. Wilkinson puts it clearly when he says:
Ibid.. p. 2 9 6 - 2 9 9 .
29
Franlclin, Autobiography. op. cit. , p. 68.
409
Actors are too likely from their nocturnal line
of revels and conviviality, to be led into the love
of company, which begets a cheerful glass, the
cheerful glass begets a late hour, and these habits
increase into a custom. .
Whatever the reason may have been, the actor of the
eighteenth century was a prodigious consumer of alcohol.
Whether it was because of the inferior moral fibre or educa
tion of the Irish actor, or the superior merits of Irish
whiskey, it apparently is true also that usually "an Irish
actor was a drunk actor." Accounts of productions through
out the century are interlarded with notes of mishaps which
occurred because of the partial drunkenness of one or more
members of the cast, and stories are plentiful, from the
days of Ellen Gwynn down to J. P. Kemble, of the offstage
addiction of the players.
Often too-sudden success went to the heads of young
actors as it does today. Such was the case with young Tom
Walker who had, by being overheard humming a song from the
forthcoming Beggar's Opera, received the part of "Macheath"
which had been first given to Quin. Tom was a sensation in
the role. Booth called him a hero, and Gay a highwayman.
But as the author of the Thespian Dictionary says:
This great success checked his progress as a
general actor, for his company now was so eagerly
courted by the disippated young men of fashion, that
he was scarcely ever sober, and was frequently under
Wilkinson, Memo1rs, op. cit., II, 251.
410
the necessity of eating sandwiches (or as they
were then called, anchovy toasts) behind the scenes
to alleviate the fumes of the liquor
He died in miserable destitution in Dublin in 1744. Tom
Weston, another chronic drinker, had to have his dram before
he would act. One night he held up the performance when
Foote had smashed his gin bottle, until the irate manager
furnished him with another. He died in 1776, says Genest
laconically, "of habitual drunkenness," thus ending one of
the most remarkable careers as a comedian that Garrick's
stage saw.
The case of poor Edward Shuter, another talented
mimic and low comedian, is touched with constant pathos.
He knew his weakness for the bottle, constantly repented of
his drunkenness, and sought forgiveness in Whitefield's
tabernacle practically every spare moment he could get from
the theatre. Nevertheless he died of chronic alcoholism
in November of 1776, when already according to Genest,
"between the bottle and the tabernacle his faculties were
almost gone." At one time he was blamed by Mrs. Griffiths
for the failure of her dull play, Wife in the Right, which
had been postponed - after its announced date because of
Shuter*s indisposition. When he appeared on the stage the
first night he was roundly hissed; but after a moment
stepped to the footlights and made a very humble speech in
Ihespian Dictionary, op. cit, "Walker".
411
which he admitted frankly, "if any Gentleman wanted to know
whether he had been drunk 3 days before, he acknowledged
that he had, and begged pardon for it."32
Excessive drinking was not, alas, confined to male
actors. Nell Gwynn had been a very hard drinker. IVlrs.
Egleton, a comic actress much admired by actors themselves
in the 1720's, as Genest remarks, "was unfortunately too
much addicted to the bottle." When the Duchess of Queensbury
was being deferentially introduced for the first time to the
theatre green-room, the first sight that met her eye was
Peg Woffington hoisting aloft a mug of porter as she cried
"Confusion to all order %
In spite of the constant drinking around the play
house, however, there seems to have been no occasion when a
play had to be stopped because of the incapacitation of the
actors. That had happened with a vengeance in 1693 at Drury
Lane when ". . . there was so much punch-drinking business
in Higden's comedy of The Wary Widow that the players all got
intoxicated and had to close the piece at the third Act. "
Such heavy topers as Powell at the beginning of the century.
Genest, 2£« cit., V, 333. Cf. Town and Country
Magazine. Mar., 1772, p. 119.
Fitzgerald, Life of Clive, op. cit., p. 49.
Allardyce Nicoll, A. History of Restoration Drama
(Cambridge: University Press, 1923), p. 18.
412
Foote and Quin in the middle, and poor mad Reddish at the
end were occasionally pretty drunk on the stage, hut they
seem always to have been able to give some sort of perfor
mance. Cooke and Quin frequently turned up for morning
rehearsal too drunk to run through their lines; but they
were generally able to get themselves in shape for the even
ing performance. Genest very fairly summarized the intelli
gent attitude toward the whole business when he wrote:
When an Actor comes on the stage drunk; or is
in any other way notoriously deficient in his duty
at the theatre, the Public has an undoubted right
to call him to an account and to insist on an
apology--but when a man merely because he has
paid a fev/ shillings at the door of a playhouse,
considers himself entitled to insult a performer,
by wantonly hissing# . . whatever his situation
in life may be, he is no longer worthy of the ap
pellation of a Gentleman.
This, however, is the attitude of an exceptionally sane
nineteenth century critic, and was not the voice of Garrick’s
age speaking.
James Quin was the sort of person around whom stories
of personal habits cluster as inevitably as they do in our
day around a Mae West or W. C. Fields. Of all his personal
vices, drinking was the most widely publicized. It is said
that he once proclaimed in an ecstatic vein: "Oh that my
throat were the centre arch of Westminster Bridge, and the
Genest, o^. cit., V, 16.
413
Thames were flowing claret ! Even more famous is the
epitaph, supposedly written impromptu one evening by David
Garrick at a dinner party, in which appear the lines:
A plague on Egypt’s art, I say !
Embalm the dead I On senseless clay
Rich wines and spices waste!
Like sturgeon, or like brawn, shall I
Bound in a precious pickle lie.
Which I can never taste?
Let me embalm this flesh of mine
With turtle fat and Bordeaux wine.
And spoil th' Egyptian’s trade!
Than Humphrey’s Duke more happy I,
Embalmed alive, old Quin shall die
A mummy, ready made.^"^
Although the drinking of beer and ale was defended
on the basis of its beneficial effect on general health,
there are few champions of gin--certainly not after the
horrible effects of it had become clearly manifest in the
"Gin Lanes" of London.38 There were many attempts to lessen
the evil and control the traffic. About 1743 it was made
illegal to sell spirits in less quantities than two gallons
without a license. By 1751 there were seventeen thousand
private gin shops listed in London, and from 1749 to 1750
3 8
Lest too extreme an idea be conveyed: the bridge
of which Quin was speaking was the second stone bridge over
the Thames, built by a naturalized Swiss named Labelye, and
opened in 1750. It.was 1,223 feet long, 44 feet wide, and
had 15 arches--the center one, to which Quin probably re
ferred, being 76 feet long. It cost £389,500, and lasted
until 1846.
Doran, o^. clt., II, 161.
38 por one of the few defenses see extract from an
early Pharmocopia extemporanea, in James T. Hillhouse, The
Grub-Street J our na1 (Durham: Duke University Press, 19281,
p. 258.
414
there were "upward of four thousand persons who sell spiri-
tous liquors without license--convicted. In that same
year a gentleman writing under the pseudonym of "Sunderlan-
densis" said in the Gentleman’s Magazine;
There are two other great evils with which this
nation is greviously afflicted, I mean gaming and
gin drinking, the former the vice of the great
vulgar, and the latter of the small--Vices which
are become so formidable as to threaten the ruin
of the nation.40
Fielding, who was certainly in a position to see the
results of it, wrote in the same year that he had great
reason to think gin was the chief sustenance, if such it
might be called, of more than a hundred thousand people
in London. "Many of these Vifretches there are, who swallow
Pnts (sic.) of this Poison within the Twenty-four hours ; the
dreadful Effects of which I have the Misfortune every day
to see--and to smell too. Although it is obvious that
Fielding, on the magistrate’s bench, was in a very advan
tageous spot for both of these sensory observations and may
have exaggerated the evil out of exasperation, the evidence
of Hogarth and other graphic recorders of the times seems
to bear out his main contention. It is not surprising that
the actor should partake in this respect of the characteris
tics of his age. When one realizes the sodden plight of the
cit., p. 19.
GQr.tleman’s Magazine, March, 1751, p. 136.
40 Ibid.. April, 1751, p. 165.
Fielding, Aæ Enquiry Into the Causes. etc.. op.
415
ordinary Londoner of the 1750’s, he is amazed that the actors,
with their natural emotional instability, kept as sober as
they did.
One must be a bigot indeed, however, to deny that the
use of alcoholic beverages had some beneficial effects in the
eighteenth century. The drinking of the fairly sterile
beer and ale instead of the badly Infected London water has
already been mentioned. The therapeutic qualities of liquor
were undoubtedly exaggerated, but they were considerable. As
the pleasant poem. The Delights of the Bottle, stated in 1720:
But when the Doctor finds the least
Indisposition touch his Breast,
He wisely passes by the Shop
Where all his Slops are hustled up.
And, thoughtless of his Drops or Pills,
To the next Tavern silly steals.
Submitting there, the healing Pow’r
Of Art, to some more skilful D r a w ’r . 42
Even more important to the actor was the incidental benefit
of the relaxation of nervous tension, due to the depressing
of heart action that alcohol brings about.
The settling of the famous feud between the actors
Quin and Macklin, although having a ridiculous anti-climax,
is as good an illustration of the service performed occasion
ally by alcohol as presents itself in the actors* lives.
After the funeral of a brother actor, which they had attended
with several other actors, they retired to a tavern in
The Delights of the Bottle, op. cit., p. 6-7.
416
Covent Garden. Quin broke the ice by drinking Macklin* s
health, a courtesy which was returned; then after a reverie
he said:
"There has been a foolish quarrel between you
and me, which, though accomodated, I must confess
I have not been able entirely to forget till now.
The melancholy occasion of our meeting, and the
accident of being left together, have made me,
thank God, see my error. If you can therefore
forget it too, give me your hand, and let us live
together in future as brother performers."
Macklin instantly held out his hand, and assured
him of his friendship--a fresh bottle was called
for; to this succeeded another--till Quin could
neither speak nor move— chairs were called to take
them home, but none could be found, when Macklin,
who had still the use of his legs, desired two of
the waiters to put Quin on his back, and trium
phantly carried him to his lodgings.43
With many of the members of the acting fraternity late
in the century, the appearance of the evil was worse than
the evil itself. Actors became often meticulously prudent
in matters that might reflect on their morals, in the years
dominated by the moral Mrs, Siddons. Her brother, the great
J. P. Kemble, always stood very much on his dignity, although
he is said to have been a terrific consumer of heavy wine.
One night as he wove uncertainly from a public house, fairly
loaded with the juice of the grape, he stumbled over the
minor actor Wewitzer, who was in much the same condition,
but upon the only beverage he could afford, beer. Kemble
drew himself up grandly and with a rather vague but pontifical
43
Galt, o£. c it., I, 199.
417
gesture said, ’ *Wewltzer, this will never del” Sir Walter
Scott averred that he was never in his life so nearly fuddled
as one night when dining in his ovm house with Kemble. The
actor and the writer talked upon their favorite subjects,
antiquarian lore and early drama; and after each sentence
Kemble gravely filled and emptied his glass. Whether drink
ing among members of the acting profession in Kemble*s day
had declined greatly over earlier times may perhaps be de
bated. What is perfectly clear is that drunkenness, even
among actors, had by the end of the century become poor busi
ness and consequently unpopular. The sober business sense
of Garrick had started the reform for utilitarian purposes;
the moral precept and example of Mrs. Siddons and her group
strengthened it. The actor had merely again moved forward
with his age in another matter.
Clothing. Stephen Gosson in his School of Abuse
(1579) had mentioned the lavishness of actors* dress, the
**very hirelings*' of whom "Jet it under gentlemen* s noses in
suits of 8ilk--where they look askance over the shoulder at
every man, of whom the Sunday before they begged an alms."
But in the one hundred twenty ÿiears that had elapsed between
Gosson*s time and the eighteenth century, the theatrical
profession had been dragged through a renovating purge and
for many reasons had begun to assume a settled, if not
always elevated status in the social order. In Shakespeare *s
418
day the actor was a newly arrived, pseudo-artist, for whom
there were no ready regulations. By 1700 he was a crafts
man, more or less skillful, who moved in a circle as well-
defined as that of a vintner, bricklayer, or tavern-keeper.
This was reflected in his dress, which became usually a
covering for the body rather than an advertisement for the
spectacle of the playhouse.
The off stage wardrobe of the actor early in the
eighteenth century was often in a pitiable state of repair.
Clad in the gorgeous discarded ceremonial robes of some'court
noble he might play an Emperor of the East on the stage,
and then step into the dressing room to don his miserable
rags. The ladies of the stage were in a better position in
the matter. ' • ■ In the first place, from-early in the century
they were allowed a sum of money for wardrobe, and undoubt
edly managed to chip a bit even from that meagre amount for
personal trifles. In the second place, they could, and
often did wear the gorgeous stage dresses when they went
sweeping socially about London in their non-theatrical hours.
Much rivalry in dress went on among the stage beauties of the
early eighteenth century, and the titled ladies who donated
their cast-off dresses no doubt felt a sort of competitive
pride in seeing their second-hand clothes paraded in Macbeth,
Jane Shore, or The Provoked Wife. With the man it was other
wise. He could not very well drop in at the coffee house.
419
or stroll to even more official palaces of gaming and amatory
delight, clothed in the habiliments of a ruler of the Saracens.
He could not do it, that is, unless he were an affected ass,
or an unmitigated fool. Few of the actors were either.
Theirs was a hard life which demanded constant alertness to
prevent social scorn of the bystanders turning into open
riot. They lived by their wits, and their wits told them
not to attract more attention than necessary to their per
sonal habits. Hence their clothing, aside from economic
necessity, took on a more sombre hue. That it took on a
sombre hue from other more immediate and pressingly domestic
deficiencies one can well imagine. Laundry systems had not
been perfected, and often the poor actor had not sufficient
linen to be choosey about a soiled shirt, or spotted knee-
hose. The famous story retailed by Gibber about the actors
Goodman and Griffin who dueled one night over the wearing of
their single common shirt has many implications of truth in it.
The presenting of cast-off clothes to actors was
common in Restoration times among the cour-t circles. Charles
II gave his coronation robes to Betterton. The custom lasted
to some extent through the century. Queen Adelaide present
ing her coronation dress to an American actress, Mrs. Mowatt.*^"^
Doran thinks that the custom had lost its popularity by
See Besant, London in the 18th. Cent., op. cit.,
p. 432.
420
Garrick's day to a large extent. By the end of the century
the actor had become so independent that such costume sub
sidy was no longer necessary. Indeed, by the year of 1819
the pendulum had swung so far the other way that the actress
was often the donor. We find a certain "Lady B." borrowing
Mrs. Siddons* banquet dress from Macbeth for a fancy ball.
As the actress wrote to a friend: "But young and old, it
seems, are expected to appear . . . in splendid and fanciful
apparel, and many of these beauties will appear in my stage
finery. Although the custom of outsiders presenting
dresses to the actors declined, within the theatre the custom
persisted between the different actors. Thus it is said that
the costume which Garrick first wore in his historic debut
as Richard III fell into the hands of a strolling manager
Carr, who played all his parts in it. Wilkinson says that
clothes were passed on down through a succession of roles.
An old petticoat, made for a large hoop of the
Duchess of Northumberland, thirty years ago (i. e.,
ca. 1770) would have served a queen in the theatre
several years, then descended to a duchess of
Suffolk, afterwards made two handsome tragedy shapes
for an old rich Spaniard, and ten years after that
burn and produce money to purchase thirty yards of
lustring for a modern stage l a d y ."^6
Although the subject of stage costume is a fascinating
one, it may only briefly concern us here. The vanity of the
Campbell, 0£. cit.. II, 366.
Wilkinson's Memoirs, op. cit . cit., IV, 87.
421
actresses frequently produced remarkable effects: as for
instance when the gorgeous Mrs. Crouch acted one of the
witches in Macbeth in a picture hat, her hair heavily pow
dered, her face delicately rouged, and her whole charming
figure enveloped in a sort of shimmer of point lace and
starched clothl^*^ There occurs to one the well known episode
of the historic performance of The Rival Queens (Oh aptly
titled play!) in 1756 at Covent Garden when Mrs. Woffington
became so enraged at the appearance of her rival Mrs.
Bellamy in a new Parisian gown that she took the action, of
the play seriously, and struck home with the dagger--not
mortally, but painfully through the other lady's stays. "^8
Macklin killed the actor HaHam after a dispute over a wig
which Macklin wore one night, and HaHam appropriated the
nextIn Young Scarron, the little known eighteenth cen
tury satirical novel of the stroller's life that appeared
in 1752, appears a sketch which deserves quoting.
Now I must inform my reader that we had, in our
Wardrobe, but four Tragedy-Dres ses for Women, all
which were very good, and very proper for the four
Heroines in our Tragedy. . . Mrs. Robe and Miss
Whiffle had artfully got hold of all four Dresses,
and apply'd 'em to their own proper Use. Miss
47
For this and other delightful notes on stage cos
tume see Doran, o^. cit., Vol., Ill, Chap., X.
Waiford and Thornbury, o^* cit., III, 230. Doran
affects to believe anent his beloved Peggy that she confined
her thrusts to those of her tongue.
49
European Magazine, August, 1797, p. 103.
422
Yi/hiffl© fIxt upon one to wear, and unrip'd another
and made it into a Train. Mrs. Rohe seiz'd upon
the other two, and put 'em on one over t'other,
saying. The upper one would look so flimsy unless
it had something to set it out, that she would look
as if she were strutting in her Under-petticoat.
This was the Malice these Queens had been consult
ing against their Sisters; who, when they came to
dress, found all their regal Robes dispos'd of,
and nothing left for them to shew their Heroine in,
but common Gowns and Petticoats, so much beneath
the Dignity of Tragedy, that they were scarce grand
enough for Comedy . . . Mrs. Pepper, after wrangling
an Hour about it, was forc'd to content herself
with one of those humble Weeds; but not before her
Husband had promis'd to write her Case, and publish
the ill Treatment she had receiv'd to all the Town
. . . Miss Grin despis'd such mean redress, but
immediately flew at Mrs. Robe, demolished her
Head-Dress, and ran out of the House, swearing she
would not play that Night; and she was as good as
her Word, which oblig'd us to maim our Play, by
leaving., the part of Par isatis quite out.^^
Even in the eighteenth century, actresses were already
setting styles for London. Mrs. Gibber, Mrs. Abington, Mrs.
Bellamy, and finally Mrs. Siddons all had very important
effects upon the contemporary mode of dress, both offstage
and on. To make a complete summary of the innovations of
dress in the century is clearly beyond the scope of this
study. Several things, however, are so characteristic of
the eighteenth century that they may be recalled to mind.
There was first of all the hoop skirt which persisted in
some form throughout the century, although Mrs. Bellamy
revolted against it in the production of Dodsley's Gleone
in 1758 and started a revolt which }ârs. Siddons completed
Mozeen, o^. cit., p. 131-132.
423
at the end of the century, the long-shanked extremities of
Siddons being admirably suited to more Grecian draperies.
In mid-century the management of the hoop was a task ill-
suited to stage exigencies. Mrs. Crisp one evening while
playing Ophelia caught her skirt as she had just completed
her line, "One woe doth tread upon another's heels so fast
. . ." and was fetched up with a jerk. With hardly a pause
she completed the rhyme in a thunderous voice : "Stage-keeper,
my hoop is fasti" Then getting back into her role she
remarked, "I am dis-tress-edlIn order to display the
hoops to advantage the torso was constricted by tight stays—
a fact which probably often had something to do with the
"breathiness" of speech complained of in various actresses.
There were tippets, breast knots, high stomachers, and many
vague swathings. The hair of the actress was often combed
with curls at the neck, and with "horns" as they were called
protruding in front. Mrs. Siddons was particularly influen
tial in simplifying the hairdress of the actress, using a
large rouche in front usually, with a loose sausage roll at
the neck. It will he recalled that Sir Joshua Reynolds
painted her with her hair in two long simple braids over
her shoulders.
ViTilkinson, The Wandering Patentee, op. cit., I, 32
52
For excellent survey of the mutations of dress in
the eighteenth century see The Book of Costume— by a Lady of
Rank. (London: Henry Colburn, 1847), p. 144-175.
424
Against "nn-feminine raiment" there was an increas
ingly strong sentiment as the century progressed. Peg
Woffington was one of the last of the famous actresses who
delighted to show her legs in a "britches part," and was
famous for her portrayal of the foppish Sir Harry Wildair. In
a London Journal in 1731 a gentleman is soundly condemning
the "Lady's Hermaphroditical Riding Habit, and our young
Gentlemen for wearing Dresses, which render it difficult to
distinguish a Man of Quality from a footman." Addison had
already made a great many remarks on the subject in The
Spectator, and was probably one of the leaders in the senti
ment regarding femininity in woman's dress.
Fashions in men's clothing throughout the century
are fairly well known, and were slightly more standardized
than those of the women. The coats were usually knee-length
and square-cut; the hose of white or black silk or cotton;
the knee-trousers of "silk, satin, or sackloth," depending
upon the fortune of their wearer. Whereas the hats of the
women of the time were notable for their plumish extent and
variegated shapes and wierd forms, the men— when they conde
scended to cover their wigs— wore plain tricorns or under
sized toppers. The ordinary man's costume of the period is
easily recalled if we think of a picture of our Benjamin
Franklin, and then decorate mentally the dress of that bluff
gentleman v/ith a few puffs and fluffs, and clap on his head
a shoulder-length wig.
425
Wlggery in the century is a fascinating subject, and
one that touched the theatrical profession closely. The wigs
of the men in Restoration times were often the surest mark
of their social pretensions, if not their worth, and fre
quently the luscious blond curls thereof reached to the
waist. The length of the fashionable wig was steadily shor
tened through the age, until finally it was discarded entirely
toward the end of the next century, when the wearing of one's
own hair powdered became the fashion. Any of Hogarth’s city
life engravings give numerous examples of types of wigs,
and indicate fairly clearly the kinds affected by different
classes of society. Wigs were often very expensive, running
from a few pounds to several hundreds of pounds; and as ac
tors frequently were obliged to have several kinds of wigs
for their different roles, they often formed the most valuable
portion of the wardrobe. The wig profoundly affected the
action on-stage, as well as the life off-stage. Movements
became gliding and stately, for a slight Jar or sudden start
might dislodge the wig from the smooth-shaven poll of its
owner and transform a tragic Hamlet into a comic, bald-
headed buffoon. Offstage, sports that involved strenuous
exertions lost favour with the wig-conscious actors, as with
others. Besant informs us that even in cavalry drill the
horses were made to amble gently, and when they charged,
the wigs invariably fell off their riders. Masters of
426
fencing and men engaging in other violent sports did so v/ith
bare skulls, but the actor's vanity would rarely allow him
to appear thus in public
The actor's clothes seem to have been the first, and
last thing to be pawned when he was in need, and from the
Elizabethan days of the actor-writers, tales of actors with
only one shirt or none at all have been famous. Thomas
Weston after his first ejection from Drury Lane by Garrick,
on his reinstatement was found to have neither hat nor waist
coat, having parted with them for food and other necessaries,
consisting in his case of bottled goodsContrary to
popular opinion, however, the offstage clothing of the actor,
after the Restoration hand-me-downs had worn out, seems to
have been fairly modest. V\Tben Wilkinson went to Dublin to
play, after having been on the Drury Lane list for some
time, he said "My old black was my only suit, a small pair
of bags easily contained my wardrobe." Ghetwood says that
Wilks, at the very beginning of the century, was so genteely
elegant in his fancy of dress for the stage that he was often
followed in his fashion, although in the street his plain
ness of habit was remarkable. Through much of the century
the sword was a necessary part of street wear, O'Keefe
5 3
See Besant, London in the 18th. Cent., op. cit., p. 251
54
Weston, Memoirs, op. cit., p. 28.
427
saying "The sword by the side, in those days (ca. 1765) was
as much an appendage as the hat on the head: this was a
very good fashion for the haberdashers* and milliners* shops,
as the fashion of the sword-knot was as quick in succession
as that of the shoe-buckle. What the actor lacked in
splendor in his private dress, however, he made up on the
stage where he strutted in splendid, and thoroughly unsuitable
costumes much of the time. One remembers appreciatively
Mrs. Bellamy's exclamation when Garrick appeared costumed
for Barbarossa, in a glittering uniform in which little
David's plebeian soul took delight. "My God 1" exclaimed
the irr ever ant George Anne, "‘ 'lAfhat is this? I declare, it
is the royal lamplighter1"56
The expense of clothing need not have been such a
heavy burden to actresses as it evidently was. The wild
extravagance of a few of the more irresponsible ladies of
the stage made a large expenditure almost essential if an
actress were to keep up appearances. In the letter already
quoted of Clive to the theatre manager, it will be recalled
that she claimed to have spent for dress one hundred of
the three hundred odd pounds of salary that she had received;
presumably in addition to her clothes allowance; and Clive,
O'keefe, Kelly, and Taylor, o£. cit., p. 12.
Bellamy, Memoirs, op. cit., VI, 92. (Extra volume
anonymous life of Bellamy bound with Memoirs in the Hunting
ton Library copy.)
428
although, not close, was canny. When young George Anne
Bellamy went to pay her first visit to her future patroness,
the Duchess of Queensbury, she was complimented by her grace
on her present appearance and scolded for her previous
ostentation. "Nothing is so vulgar as wearing silk in the
morning. . . . Therefore dress always plain, except when
you are on the stage."57 if the girl had heeded this advice
she might have saved herself some financial distress later.
The example of Mrs. Baddeley gave a wrong and exaggerated
idea of the extravagance of the actress toward the end of
the century. At one time, after receiving a gift from Lord
Melbourne she went directly to a merciers in King Street,
near Covent Garden, and purchased £120 worth of silk stuff.
At another time after a slight illness, she arose and
celebrated by paying a bill of seventy pounds for ribbons
and gauzes, and running up another of forty pounds. Again
after another illness she went shopping, and to cheer her
self whe bought clothes and trinkets worth seven hundred
pounds. On a trip to Paris she one afternoon bought several
expensive fans, two watches, two dozen pairs of silk stock
ings, and twelve dozen pair of kid gloves. Mrs. Steele says
that she spent upv/ard of two thousand pounds, in two years
and a half, for hats alone. She was very generous to her
sisters of the green room, and if an actress admired a hat.
57
Ibid., I, 65
429
a dress, a cloak, or a diamond ring, îÆrs. B. was likely to
present it to her with the compliments of her wealthy pro
vider Lord Melbourne. She was very popular while her pros
perity lasted.Her disposition and her gorgeous raiment
were, however, neither of them typical of the average actress.59
Patching, or the use of beauty spots of black court-
plaster on the face, is so characteristic of the eighteenth
century actress that it calls for brief mention. Just how
the custom originated is not certain, although it was probably
French. Tom Brown indicates that patches were utilitarian
at first, and originated in the theatre audiences.
Here the ladies come to show their Cloaths,
which are often the only things to be admired in or
about them. Some of them have scabbed, or pimpled
Faces, wear a thousand Patches to hide them, and
those that have none, scandalize their Faces by a
foolish Imitation.50
That the use of the "beauty patch" in Restoration times was
a sign of skin eruption originating in voluptuous living
seems possible. Certainly it was an open advertisement of
the demi-monde. The practice was severely censured by
writers of the age of Queen Anne, both French and English.
One disgusted Frenchman wrote :
See Steele, Memoirs of Mrs. Baddeley, op. cit.,
p. 97-117, ejb passim.
See Appendix, VIII, 1, for price list of ladies'
wearing apparel and accessories in 1719.
Tom Brown, Works, 0£. cit., III, 38.
430
L'usage des mouches n'est pas inconnu aux dames
Francoises, mais il faut ^tre Jeune et Jolie. En
Angleterre, Jeunes, vieilles, belles, laides,
tout est emmouch^ Jusqu'a la decrepitude; J'ai
plus1ers fois compté quinze mouches et davantage,
sur la noire et rid^e face d'une vielle de
soixante et dix ans. Les Anglaises raffinent
ainsi sur nos modes.
By the end of the century this barbarous custom was in high
disfavour, largely because of the frequent reprinting and
quoting of Addison's many adverse remarks on the subject.
Washes for the complexion, rouge, and alabaster pow
ders were used throughout the century, with the actresses
leading the way then, as now, in the matter of makeup.
Makeup for the stage was then little different from street
makeup since stage lighting, until well into the nineteenth
century, was still by oil lamp and candle.
In all of these matters the actor and actress reflected
the tendencies of the age to a great extent. The leading
actor appeared in silks and satins, with a wig suitable to
the occasion, and an appropriate snuff-box up his sleeve.
The poor minor actor crept around as always in his dingy wool
suit, and wore his one scratch wig to funeral, wedding, or
the playing of a Saracen ruler alike. The Bellamys and
Baddeleys threw around their imported Paris gowns and Italian
laces and strung themselves like Christmas trees with the
Jewels of their patrons, while Mrs. Bannister and her
Book of Costume, op. cit., p. 149-150.
431
respectable middle-class companions sat at home between
rehearsals and curtain time and made over their old costumes
into clothes for the children.
Health. We are probably too prone to think of eigh
teenth century London as a pesthouse, with plague and small
pox, rabies and consumption sweeping off horrible percen
tages of the population. It restores something of our sense
of balance to realize that in our own large cities in America
conditions were as bad or worse. At the very end of the
century, when the plague was practically a thing of the past
in London, all England was feeling grave concern over the
fate of New York and "even Boston". A typical report is
from the Monthly Mirror for November of 1798.
The American papers are quite destitute of news,
if we except the horrible accounts of the yellow
fever, which has lately surpassed in destruction
any of its former ravages. At Philadelphia sixty
persons have died in a day upon an average, but
the number had increased so greatly, that the pub
lication ceased, and the unfortunate sufferers
are burled in the night to conceal, as much as
possible, the dreadful effects of the pestilence.
The distemper had made nearly as mortal a progress
in New York; and it had even reached Boston!
About twenty persons die every day at New York,
and all the principal families have deserted the
city. Not a single person is to be met in the
streets without a handful of segars, and one
smoaking in the mouth, as an antidote for the
disease.52
That very season the New York and Philadelphia theatres were
I'Be Monthly Mirror. Nov., 1798, p. 313, "Domes
tic Events".
432
closed on account of the disease, and scores of actors
thrown out of employment. And yet in eighteenth century
London the plague which had decimated the population in the
seventeenth century did not once have a really serious out
break. The cessation of the scourge that had taken 35,417
people in 1625, 10,400 in 1636, and 68,596— or almost one-
third of the London population--in 1665 has been attributed
to various things, but to none conclusively.^^ Certainly
it may not be accounted for by less crowding of population
in London, or of more sanitary conditions during the first
fifty years of the century; for the first fifty years of the
eighteenth century were probably from both of those angles
the most disagreeable half-century in the city's history.
Probably the race merely developed a peculiar immunity from
its great devastations in the preceding century, just as the
Polynesians, who were very nearly exterminated by measles
brought by the white traders, ultimately developed a normal
immunity to that disease. All of these things touched the
life of the actor very closely. Prom early times, because
of his mixing with crowds and plying his occupation before
all classes of people, he had been regarded as a disease
spreader. The playhouses were regarded in the seventeenth
century as plague spots--as they no doubt were— and were the
Sir Walter Besant, London in the Time of the
Stuarts. (London: Adam and Chas. Black, 1903), p. 215-239.
433
first to be closed when pestilence reared its bead. The idea
persisted through the eighteenth century, not without foun
dation in fact. The Thespian Dictionary says that the public
paid dearly for its pleasure at Garrick's theatre where the
stars were concentrated, for
. . . constant and extreme fulness of the house
brought on colds and fevers, besides dislocations
and other accidents which terminated in several
of their deaths. It was then very common to say,
one died of a Garrick, a Quin, or a Barry fever.54
Later on it was a "Siddons” of a "Kean" fever. It is a
remarkable tribute to the vitality of the English actor that
he himself so rarely succumbed to his physical environment.
Sanitary conditions of the first fifty years of the
century were such that a weak-stomached individual may not
even think of them with impunity. The worst aspect was of
course the almost total lack of a sewage disposal system.
Toilet facilities for most of the houses consisted of a
supply of white pots or "Jordans" as they were called, which
at irregular intervals were emptied, usually into the streets,
by servant girls. Waste water, garbage, and night soil
flowed sluggishly down the gutters which in many of the nar
row streets of the theatrical vicinity were in the center
of the highway. In summer water carts occasionally flushed
the roadway and assisted the floating away of debris, where
5“ ^ Thespian Dictionary, op. cit. , "Spranger Barry."
Of. Davies, Life of Garrick, op. cit., I, 52.
434
the down-grade was sufficient to carry it to the river.
Carts came around now and then, and men with buckets, and
collected the most noisome of the ordure to be carried to
the outskirts of the city and dumped there. In these streets,
swarming with flies and other sticky-footed disease carriers,
much of the food daily consumed in London was openly dis
played on stalls and in huckster's carts. In these streets
crawled and romped the brats who, if they survived, would
form Garrick's audience after 1742. And through these streets,
often too rutted and clogged for any conveyance save the
sedan chair, passed the great actor of the Gibber era on
his way to the theatre, or trudged the minor player on his
way to rehearsal.
In a supplement to the Gentleman's Magazine in 1792
appear some highly interesting and typical statistical
summaries. "Out of one thousand infants who are nursed by
the mother, about three hundred die; of the same number
committed to the care of strange nurses, it is calculated
that five hundred perish." It is made clear also that only
one woman in four hundred died in labor, but one in 115 died
in childbed of "child-bed fever". "The small-pox, in the
natural way, usually carries off eight out of one hundred.
By innoculation, one dies out of three h u n d r e d . "55 The
Gentleman's Magazine, Supplement, 1792, p. 1216,
"Statistical Remarks." See Appendix, VIII, 6, for summaries
of vital statistics throughout the century.
435
thing most striking about such figures is the terrific child
mortality regardless of who the nurse is, and the heavy
mortality from smallpox.55
Knowing something of the obstetrical ignorance of the
age, a medically-minded person may well wonder that the
infant mortality was not more than fifty per cent* Early in
the century most deliveries were made by ignorant, dirty,
and often incredibly car e le s's midwives. Not until 1739
was the first lying-in infirmary started by Sir Richard
Manningham as a school of midwifery for his medical students.
In 1741 Smellie, the father of scientific obstetrics in
England, began to teach, and established a scheme for gra
tuitous attention to poor women. His influence and that
of his students led to the establishment of many lying-in
hospitals in London. Six years later the Middlesex Hospital
arranged to take maternity cases, in 1749 the Lying-in
Hospital for married women was founded, and in 1750 the City
of London Lying-in Hospital came into being.56 By the end of
the century when Edmund Kean's unfortunate little wife was
trudging wearily those two hundred miles just before her
baby was born, there was available in London to even the
poorest mothers medical assistance superior to that enjoyed
Gentleman's Magazine, Supplement, 1792, p. 1216,
"Statistical Remarks". See Appendix, VIII, 6 for summaries
of vital statistics throughout the century.
D. George, o^. cit., p. 47-49.
436
by the members of the king's court in Betterton's day.
George Anne Bellamy, who very nearly lost her life with her
first child through modesty which forbade her calling a male
practitioner (a peculiar affectation under the circumstances)
wrote in her Memoirs ;
It is a matter of great surprize to me, that
as female practitioners in midwifery are in general
inexpert, women defer having an accoucheur, till
necessity obliges him to be called in. Those who,
out of a mistaken modesty do this, not only risk
the lives of themselves and infants, but, if dif
ficulties render it necessary that a doctor should
be called in, are informed by it of their danger,
at a time when no addition ought to be made to
their terror.57
In the matter of general medical attention, also,
conditions improved tremendously after 1750. Nurses, whom
Bellamy calls "those unfeeling strippers of the dead" from
their habit of robbing.their defunct patients, were sup
planted by trained attendants from the large hospitals. In
1700 there had been only Bedlam, St. Thomas', and St. Bar
tholomew's hospitals in the city. By 1751 there were
Westminster, Guy's, St. George's, St. Luke's, and two small
pox hospitals beside those others already cited.In
addition there were many dispensaries.
Treatment for ordinary ailments in the century followed
roughly the Gil Bias formula; bleeding, and water. Bathing,
Bellamy, Memoirs, op. cit., II, 52.
See D. George, 0£. cit., p. 49.
437
because of certain mechanical difficulties, was not overdone;
but the "taking" of medicinal waters at various resorts
became a most fashionable thing. Garrick in 1746, Just five
years after his dA)ut, was already in the social swim as to
the manner born, and went to Newberry to drink the waters
for his health. From there he writes to a friend that
I have certainly receiv'd a great deal of pain
from them, wch ye Doctors call Benefit, & if a
Purgatory, is as necessary for ye purification of
ye Body, as the Soul, I am thoroughly cleansed;
for Job had not More Suffering Nor perhaps more
patience than I had; in short to Explain this
Matter, you must Know the Waters forc'd out sever
al Boils upon M e . 59
Doctors and druggists alike were uncertain and slipshod in
their methods, and were constantly taking advantage of the
credulous theatrical folk who had money to spend. Mrs.
Baddeley once was very ill, and the doctor being sent for he
ordered her to take a draught which she said was too vile
to bear. He finally cajoled her into it by agreeing to take
a dose of his own medicine. The tv/o quaffed the drinks off
blithely, and he went on his way; but in two hours' time she
was so deathly ill she sent for him again--but he sent word
back he was too ill to come to h e r l ’ ^O
Surgery was more highly skilled than one might expect,
but lacking suitable anaesthetics, the mortality from nervous
59 George P. Baker, o^. cit., p. 37.
70
Steele, Memoirs of Mrs. Baddeley, op. cit.,
VI, 81.
438
shock in operations was of course tremendous, even as today
it is the most serious single hazard. Any technique of
asepsis was unknown, and infection frequently set in with
serious consequences. The actor Foote lost his leg in this
way after suffering a fracture of the lower hone, and made
his greatest reputation as a comedian while hobbling about
London stages with a badly fitted wooden leg from which he
suffered excruciating agony. The case of Miss Maria Macklin
has already been mentioned--that over-modest lady who would
not allow a doctor to see a painful swelling on her knee
until an operation became absolutely necessary. Genest says
she underwent the operation with great firmness, but never
afterward regained her former strength. "71 Contemporary
opinion was that she died as a direct result of the opera
tion, and not from what appears to have been a severe case
of blood congestion caused by tight garters which she wore
in breeches parts on the stage.
Quack doctors and patent medicines abounded through
the century. The situation seems to get worse instead of
better as the years pass, although advertising in the matter
acquires some finesse. One who is familiar with the Jour
nals of the time will perhaps recall that marvelous remedy
of the 1780s--"Vandour's Nervous Pills,"
Genest, b^. cit., V, 580.
439
The efficacy of which have been sufficiently
proved, for the removal of that disorder in every
degree, viz., lowness of spirits, head-ach, trem
blings, vain fears, and wanderings of the mind,
frightful dreams, catchlngs, anxieties, dimness,
with appearance of specks before the eyes, loss of
memory, hysteric fits, and the falling sickness.
About 1735 there was a IVIrs. Mapp, a bone-setter who came to
London daily from Epsom and set bones, or lectured on the
art at the Grecian Coffee House. Invited to Lincoln Inn
Fields Theatre on October 16th, 1736, with Taylor the oocu
list , she drev/ a full house. An appropriate play. Husband ' s
Relief, was performed, and a song in Mrs. Mapp's honor sung
which started:
Ye surgeons of London who puzzle your pates,
To ride in your coaches and purchase estates.
Give over, for shame, for your pride has a fall.
And the doctress of Epsom has outdone you all.*^^
Actors were constantly being victimized in matters of health.
Credulous Incledon, being once troubled by hoarseness--a
common and easily understandable ailment in the enormous
theatres of the late days of the age--was advised by a
friend to get a certain patent lozenge that would cure it.
Kemble backed up the Joker in the fraud, and added that
keeping it in the mouth at night was a great help also. Thus
London Courant, March 16, 1782, p. 2.
Doran, ojg^. cit., II, 116. Cf. Genest, o^. cit ♦ ,
III, 506. Genest has evidently missed this performance,
and gives MithrIdates as having been performed by Gifford's
company at Lincoln Inn Fields on October 16, 19, 21, and 23
440
Incledon was induced for some time to go around sucking at
a stone lozenge, spitting incessantly, and maintaining hope
fully that he was being materially b e n e f i t e d !"^4
Certainly one of the most unfortunate victims of
quacks in the London theatre was Barton Booth, the actor-
manager contemporary of Colley Cibber. In 1728 this poor
fellow, beset by fever, began to patronize several doctors;
and after unsuccessfully treating him for some time they
"perceived his Fever to be turned into an inveterate
Jaundice." Another doctor was sent for and advised Booth to
go to Bath for the water--but he turned even more yellow
there. He was forced to abandon the stage, of which he was
the leading light at the time, and undertake a sea-voyage
in hopes of his inevitable mal de mer proving a cure for the
other malady; but on the way to Ostend he became convinced
that the cure was worse than the disease, and so returned to
England. He chewed rhubarb and appeared somewhat improved
until periodic gastric cramps developed, and he died. A
post-mortem revealed that he had been following the advice
of a famous doctor who advocated the taking of crude mercury,
of which Booth had managed to imbibe almost two pounds weight.
In addition it was found that he was suffering from an
enlarged liver, gallstones, and degeneration of the intestines
74
Roach, 0£. cit., p. 44.
441
which were "lin'd with Crude Mercury divided in Globules,
about the Bigness of Pins H e a d s •"’ ^5
Strangely few of the actors in the age were known
addicts to drugs, a fact that has been accounted for by the
statement that alcohol and drug addiction rarely go together.
Colley Cibber's unfortunate daughter Charlotte was supposedly
a user of dope. George Anne Bellamy also was under suspicion
in her final dissolute days* But the most pathetic and ob
vious was the case of Mrs. Baddeley who when she made her
last appearance on the stage was so stupidly under the in
fluence of drugs that it was with great difficulty that she
finished the play. Genest says, "the quantity of Laudanum
she took was incredible, and the' little food approached her
lips, her complexion retained its beauty to the last.
The "last" for Mrs. Baddeley was reached soon thereafter,
in 1785. That no prominent male actor of the period was
enslaved by the habit is probably a tribute more to the
strength of other methods of debauchery than to phenomenal
moral stamina.
Although there was little "plague" in eighteenth cen
tury London, there were two plagues which carried off their
75 por complete post-mortem report and prescriptions
taken by Booth see Thomas Wilkes, A General View of the Stage.
(London: J. Coote, 1759), "Life . . . of Barton Booth,"
p. 19-25. See also Appendix, VIII, 5, for a note on patent
medicines.
Genest, o^. cit. , VI, 185.
442
thousands of people annually. One was the inevitable white
curse of tuberculosis of the lungs, and the other was small
pox. A glance through the vital statistics of the century
will make one aware of the horrible virility of this disease
in those days.77 In 1780, for the first time in the century,
deaths from smallpox in London dropped below the thousand
mark, there being only 871 deaths from the disease in that
year. About two thousand deaths per year was a safe minimum
guess at the mortality. Innoculation was known and prac
ticed throughout the century, especially after the founding
of the two smallpox hospitals in mid-century; but the mor
tality even from innoculation was about one in three hundred,
and deterred many people from undergoing it. Vaccination
was practiced in those days with "live vaccine” straight from
smallpox victims. With the development of sterile vaccine,
about 1800, produced in the bodies of innoculated cows,
deaths from innoculation practically ceased, although the new
treatment was skeptically regarded for some years. In 1802
Humphrey in St. James* Street printed a grotesque satirical
cartoon entitled ”The Cow Pock— or the Wonderful Effects of
the New Innoculation”— portraying a large group of people
sprouting from various parts of their anatomies horns, hooves,
and even small calves. Meanwhile a surgeon with a set of
See sample condensations in Appendix, VIII, 6.
443
lancets innocnlates a terrified lady with ”Vaccine hot from
ye Cow.”
Many of the theatrical folk, as was to be expected,
had the disease at one time or another, and although their
faces were often badly pitted from its effects, they other
wise were only better qualified to face the London audiences
in the crowded theatre. The charming mistress of the king,
îÆrs. Robinson, was nursed through a siege of it by her future
husband; and she evidently escaped even facial blemishes, for
she was later known as the most beautiful woman in England.
The records tell of only one well known actor who died of the
disease, Charles Holland, the brilliant young player of
Garrick* s company who died in 1769 at the age of 36. The
excellent health record of the actors as a group in the cen
tury in their resistance to infectious diseases is another
tribute to their hardiness and general virility.
Acting in itself was strenuous work in the eighteenth
century. The actual battling with the audience onstage in
the pre-Garrick days was enough to keep the actor in some
sort of fighting trim. Just as the battling with the
audience offstage served the same purpose later. Genest
says that when Quin returned to the stage to play Falstaff
for Ryan*s benefit, ”notwithstanding the impatience of the
audience to see their old acquaintance, he was several
minutes before he could pass through the numbers that wedged
444
hlm In. ”"78 Wilkinson said that he had seen Mrs. Gibber
playing on a stage with two hundred persons behind her on
the platform— a strain on the actor which was diplomatically
abolished by Garrick in 1762. The terrific strain on the
voice of the actor, due in Betterton* s days to the audience
noise and in Kemble*s to the tremendous size of the theatres,
led to much throat trouble also. The lovely Miss Farren* s
voice was so weak she played down-stage constantly: although
it may have been a sly device for getting closer to the
audience and thus displaying her physical charms more ade
quately. Macklin* s voice, at eighty-five, was a sort of
barking grunt--all that was left of his early bellow. ^79 The
Theatrical Review of 1757 comments that Mr. Arthur, a minor
actor at the enormous Covent Garden theatre, would be the
”Idol of the town” if he might play in a smaller theatre.
Mrs. Bellamy*s voice was forced until it became harsh and
out of tune. It is said that Mrs. Crav/ford, who was as
lovely as a peacock, had an acting voice which resembled the
raucous cry of that bird. Cooke * s voice became ultimately,
from hard use and excessive drinking, merely a croaking
”whiskey bass,** and occasionally left him entirely. This
happened one evening in New York when he was playing
Genest, ojgt. cit. * V, 2.
79
Bernard, op.. cit., II, 119.
445
Richard, and he concluded the performance as dumb as a post,
acting the whole thing in exaggerated pantomime.80 Macklin
said that Garrick*s voice could never last through a play,
and generally was hoarse as a raven*s in the last two acts
In spite of this undoubted strain upon the speaking
mechanism of the actor, a strain which has largely been
removed in our time of improved acoustics and smaller theatres,
his respiratory system undoubtedly benefited from it. The
constant and extreme use of the voice entailed an extraor
dinary lung and bronchial development, and this may be the
reason that singularly few of the actors were touched by
consumption, a scourge that was annually carrying off more
people than any other disease. Henry Siddons, actor-manager
son of Sarah, was one of the few victims. There are many
deaths from pneumonia, and a great many actors suffered from
asthma. The Kentish actor Parsons was reduced to a mere
shadow by that disease, and finally had to yield his roles
to another actor in Kemble*s company in 1794. Dietary
**cures” were popular for pulmonary troubles. Early risers
would find in Covent Garden market many baskets of snails,
brought in by country women, which were extensively used for
brewing a broth for consumptive patients. The braying of
Dunlap, op. cit., 187.
Genest, pp. cit., V, 499.
446
asses as they were being led to the doors of patients to be
milked was a signal of the new day in London# Gay commented
on it in Trivia in the famous lines:
Before proud gates attending asses bray.
Or arrogate with solemn pace the way;
These grave physicians with their milky cheer.
The love-sick maid and dwindling beau repair.
But fortunately there was little call for these long-eared
doctors so far as the theatrical profession was concerned.
With gout, or the various forms of rheumatism, the
actors suffered in common with all of London. One guess is
probably as good as another regarding the cause of this
scourge in eighteenth century London; but it is certainly
obvious that the damp, foggy climate contributed to it, as
it still does, and the almost universally acid diet of starch
and meat with few fresh vegetables helped prepare the patient
for the insidious work. Mrs. Mary Robinson, ”that amiable
unfortunate” as Boaden calls her, passed years of her life
after her enforced retirement from the stage in constant
pain from inflamatory rheumatism. Sheridan used to drop in
now and then for an hour in the evening to talk with her of
literature and the theatre, in which she delighted even
while a cold dew of sweat would stand on her exquisite
forehead. Betterton*s death traditionally was hastened
because in order to play his last benefit performance in
1710 he soaked his painfully gouty foot in hot water and
then thrust it into a slipper, when he should never have
447
put his weight on the foot. Garrick was handicapped through
life by periodic rheumatism, and in his desperation used
lixivium "and other soap medicines, which, in the end, proved
very prejudicial to his health,” according to the Thespian
Dictionary. Mrs. Siddons, in addition to her other delica
cies of health, suffered from a form of rheumatic affection
which at times made the use of her hands very painful. While
the sufferings of the minor actors are not catalogued any
more fully than their joys, it is safe to assume that in
their humble homes they had their share of rheumatism; al
though when it came from rich living, as it often did, they
were in a better position than their more prosperous brothers
to avoid its twinges. It was probably the most widespread
physical ailment of the actors in the century.
Dentistry. A startling fact that emerges from a
study of the vital statistics is that defective teeth were
the admitted cause of hundreds of deaths annually in London.
That they may have been the cause, through focal infection,
of many otherwise attributed deaths stands to reason. For
the theatrical profession, this was a fact of prime impor
tance . Teeth are among the actor * s most cherished possessions,
for obvious reasons, and were parted with most reluctantly.
Today Shirley Temple keeps on making pictures straight
through her second dentition and the audience never sus
pects that she has false teeth. But in the eighteenth
448
century she would have acted snaggle-toothed, or not at all.
If an actor began to lose his teeth, he also began to lose
his standing in the profession. There are numerous records
of actors once great, such as Gibber and Quin, who when their
teeth began to go became indistinct and mumbling in s p e e c h .82
Quin finally quit the stage because he lost two front teeth.
In a memorably terse note to the manager he explained his
refusal to play for his friend Ryan* s benefit.
My dear Friend.— There is no person on earth
that I would sooner serve than Ryan--but, by G-d,
I will whistle Falstaff for no man.83
To Ryan he wrote laconically concerning the episode,
I would play for you if I could; but will not
whistle for you. I have willed you a thousand
pounds. If you want money, you may have it, and
save my executors trouble.84
This correspondence would seem incidentally to clear Quin of
any charges of stinginess or lack of consideration for his
friends. Walpole remarked rather callously in 1776 regarding
the casting of a play that the chief role "will not suffer
in not being sputtered by Barry, who has lost all his teeth.”85
Ibid.. IV, 161-162.
Galt, op. cit.. I, 211. Cf. Gilliland, op. cit.,
II, 945. “
Bellamy, Memoirs, op. cit., II, 169. Of. James
Quin, The Life of Mr. James Quin (London: Reader, 1887),
p. 46.
85
Doran, op. cit., II, 274.
449
Spiller was one night backstage suffering agony from a tooth
ache and the barber offered to pull it for him. Spiller
refused, although he said after the theatre closed for the
summer he might pull all of his teeth and welcome. Poor
Spiller always had a hard time keeping himself in chewable
victuals in the slack s e a s o n l ^ G
Although false teeth of more or less serviceability
were procurable in the eighteenth century, most dentists of
real skill were located in France. The teeth that were made
had many disagreeable aspects aside from their clumsy me
chanical construction. They were usually of rhinocerous or
elephant ivory, and soon acquired an extremely unpleasant
odour and taste from their deterioration in the mouth acids.
In England, until 1771 when the surgeon John Hunter published
his Natural History of the Human Teeth, the treatment of
teeth was almost entirely in the hands of the most ruthless
quacks.87 The most common theory regarding toothache, for
instance, was that it was caused by white worms burrowing
in the gums. A common treatment was cauterization of the
gums. The dexterous quack inserting his hand in the mouth
to catch the retreating worms and withdrawing it with a
Spiller*s Jests, op. cit., p. 41.
Vincenzo Guerini, A History of Dentistry (New York:
Lea and Febiger, 1909), p. SlF. See also Leo Kanner, Folk
lore of the Teeth (New York: Macmillan, 1928), p. 124 et
passim.
450
few spills of twisted paper which were convincing anough to
the agonized gaze of the patient* Thus dentistry consisted
of a sort of combination of slight-of-hand and branding iron.
The father of the comedian Grimaldi, according to one story,
was a dentist. One day after pulling a man*s tooth he in
serted in the mouth a horse * s tooth which he extracted with
a flourish and held up before the eyes of the astounded
gentleman, exclaiming: "Got bless my soul, here * s a tootsi--
why Sir, your Fader must have been a horse.” The gentleman,
so the story runs, gave the doctor a guinea for the spurious
symbol of his ancestry, and proudly took it away with him.88
In 1752 in a London Journal appeared a satirical essay typi
fying the attitude toward the "dentists” of the day, in which
a writer calling himself Sir Courtly Nice proposes to set
himself up as a ”Dent ifr i cat or, or what the vulgar call a
cleaner of teeth,” and concludes with the pleasant postcript:
I have false Teeth for old Maids, and the best
Powder for young ones; I also teach the whole Art
of Ogling, the Exercise of the Fan, the newest
Manner of taking Snuff, and, what is little under
stood in this country, the French Fashion of blowing
the Nose.89
The Journals of the time abound with home recipes for tooth-
cleaning solutions and powders, the most frequently repeated
being plain gun powder, rubbed on with the chewed end of a
Oxberry, op. cit., II, 152.
Gray * s Inn Journal, (Excerpts) op. cit., I, 78.
89
451
twig or meat skewer. In 1792 London was plastered with
handbills announcing ”Simsons Infallible Aetherial Tincture
for the Toothache— now offered to the Publick as a never
failing Specifick, at the very low Price of One Shilling the
Bottle•
Few of the actors of the eighteenth century had false
teeth. Thomas Weston, the famous Abel Drugger before Garrick
took the rü'le, evidently had a set, but so far as can be
learned his were the first, and were evidently of inferior
workmanship and utility.If they were easily available in
satisfactory form surely Ryan, who had had several teeth shot
out by highwaymen as he was on his way home from the theatre
one dark night, would have stopped the gap in his denture
which caused him to fizz and sputter badly in some of his
stage speeches.
Concerning Macklin*s teeth, however, we have some
specific information. He had a set by 1780, and they were
evidently realistic enough to deceive people generally.
Cooke says that the ladies were very curious not only on the
secret of his longevity, (he played on the stage until he
was about 98) but also on the preservative which enabled
him to keep his teeth so well, **For though they were not
Loose bill in Gentleman* s Magazine, March, 1792,
U. S. C., Library copy.
See Pierce Egan, op. cit., p. 118.
452
either so polished or so white as others, they seemed re
markably strong and even.” Macklin pretended for a long
while that they were real, but finally one evening for a
particularly persistent lady he took them out, laid them on
the table, and informed her that she could purchase just
such another set for the sum of seven guineas. He thought no
more of the matter until a few days later when he received a
full bill of directions from the lady, requesting him to buy
her a set of teeth and send them to an obscure house in a
side street where she would receive them.From this it
would appear that there attached to the wearing of false
teeth an extreme degree of reticence. Macklin*s prize molars
were however more ornamental than serviceable, evidently, if
one is to take the evidence of his semi-liquid diet already
mentioned. Cooke says he came in to the "Fountain” in the
Strand one night, after being confined to his bed with
rheumatism, and bellowed at the waiter that he would have his
lamb boiled, ”for I have no teeth for your damned hard f r y s . ”® 3
In 1734 there were 1,316 deaths in London attributed
directly to infected teeth; in 1750, 1,109 deaths; in 1757,
766 deaths--this being the year also when smallpox deaths
dropped below the thousand mark for the first time in the
op
Cooke, Memoirs of Macklin, op. cit., p. 306.
Ibid. . p. 321.
453
century; in 1779 teeth accounted for 539 people; and in
1792, probably due to improved methods of treatment, only
419 people died of tooth infections. All of these statistics
of course are absolute, and do not take into account the
doubling of London*s population which went on in the century.
The diagnoses were probably not too accurate, but neverthe
less the story is increasingly bright from the dental point
of view. Realizing the tremendous professional value of
teeth to the actor, and the expense and inconvenience of such
artificial teeth as were available, it takes no great stretch
of the imagination to see the theatrical folk of the eigh
teenth century gritting their teeth desperately in their
aging gums, at the cost of their general health, when even
they knew the things should be extracted. It may seem a
minor matter to us; it was not to the actors of Garrick*s
day. If by some magic we might apply a super-magnet to the
members of the acting profession today, and by it extract
from their mouths every artificial tooth, bridge, and filling-
things comparatively unknown to the actor of that time--and
then remove from our stages all persons disqualified by their
appearance or defective articulation, then we might begin to
appreciate the overwhelming importance of this minor matter
of dentistry to the actors.
Miscellaneous ailments. Insanity, tradition has it,
is bred in the actor * s very profession. The idea back of
454
this conviction is probably the romantic thought that under
the tremendous emotional pressure of great drama, the average
mind eventually gives way. Whether there is any truth in
the idea that actors go crazy any more readily than do
boilermakers or grocery clerks, it is nevertheless sure that
the eighteenth century had its quota of mad actors. The
majority of them, fortunately, were retired from the stage
before their affliction became noticeable to the public.
Occasionally the audience, as in the case of Macklin’s last
appearance, had the horrible privilege of watching a mind
disintegrate into maundering imbecility before their very eyes
One of the most chilling stories of the sort concerns
the demented Mrs. Susanna Mountfort, who one evening after
her retirement in 1719 eluded her friendly keepers and re
paired to the theatre Y/here her old role of Ophelia was
being played by another actress. Biding her time craftily,
she waited for the mad scene— and then slipping out of the
wings before her startled competitor had entered she ”ex
hibited a far more perfect representation of madness than
the utmost exertions of theatrical art could do. Brereton
died in confinement in 1787--the actor who it v/as rumored had
gone insane for love of Sarah Siddons, the unassailable. On
the night of December 19, 1796, at Covent Garden, a curious
break occurred in the performance of Zara when Middleton,
Bellamy, Memoirs, op. cit., I, 188. Of. Genest,
op. cit., II, 659.
455
one of the leading actors, became temporarily insane and
wandered out of the theatre between acts.^3 Poor samuel
Reddish died in an insane asylum at York where he was sup
ported in his last days by the contributions of his former
companions at Drury Lane. George Golman, Sr., in his old
age became an imbecile, and was placed under the care of a
keeper at Paddington; but his malady never led him to any
thing except depths of melancholia, and he was always quite
harmless
But these scattered instances constitute practically
all of the known cases among the actors of over a hundred
years* time, and certainly are not indicative of anything
abnormal in the group* When the facts are all in, some
psychologists are beginning to suspect, the extrovert actor
will be found less susceptible to pathological mental dis
turbances than the average working man. His profession is
an inevitable emotional release. Certainly the actor of the
eighteenth century was at least normally healthy from a
mental point of view.
Disagreeable as it may be, the subject of venereal
disease certainly cannot be omitted when discussing the
actors* health, for regardless of the truth of the matter.
p. 55.
96
Q C
For account see Monthly Mirror, December, 1796,
European Magazine, August, 1794, p. 86
456
through much of the century actors were constantly suspect
on that score. Bedford reported a conversation on the matter
which gives fairly accurately the conservative point of view.
These Players have marred more Lawyers than
ever Westminster-Hall made. (Answer) With submission.
Sir, I think a Play-house rightly understood is a
very School of Morality. (Reply) Morality! Ay!
picking up Whores is a very moral Business indeed.
I tell you. Sir, an honest Neighbor of mine, that
had never seen London before, runs to the Play
house, and picks up an Orange-Wench. To the Tavern
they go. He gives her a couple of Guineas; she
gives him a Favour; down into the Country he brings
it. He gives it to his IWife, she gives it to the
Doctor, and .now the whole Parish is in a D i e t - D r i n k .^*7
The assumption which Bedford and his successors made, often
justified by the facts, was that the actors were from the
same bolt of cloth as the orange girls. Gould in his ex
ceedingly licentious satire on the Play-House, speaks of the
actresses ”A11 paint their out-Sides and all Pox within.”
And again; ”A ten times cast off Drab, a Hackney Whore.”^8
Although this scurvy poem is a product of the "roaring
eighties” of the Restoration period, it was thought appro
priate for reprinting in 1709.
Most of the professional prostitutes in London through
out the century were badly diseased; and it is not logical
to suppose that these poor souls, who were the frequent
consorts of many of the actors, failed to communicate their
Bedford, 0£. cit. , p. 361.
Summers, Restoration Theatre, op. cit., p. 311.
457
ailment. Fielding said that on a search night when about
forty prostitutes were brought into custody, most of them
under eighteen and several only twelve years of age, the
major part of them were ”half eat up with the foul distemper.
There was little attempt to control the spread of gonorrhea
and syphilis, and the known treatments for the diseases were
comparatively ineffective. Such a situation, especially
under the unsanitary conditions prevailing in the theatre
backstage in those days, was of course far worse than it
could possibly be now. Preventive knowledge is today avail
able, and its dissemination has been stopped more by san
ctimonious fastidiousness than by ignorance.
Naturally there is little definite information on the
subject in the eighteenth century records, for even by 1700
it had become unfashionable to boast of the pox as a sign
of masculinity. Whether it is true, as has been fantastical
ly suggested, that venereal diseases were first brought to
England by Restoration courtiers, it is certain that through
Restoration drama the subject is treated with a sort of
pleasant indulgence. That the acting profession was badly
tainted is certain; but with the cessation of the production
of the cruder Restoration plays it ceases to be so promi
nently mentioned after the turn of the century.TOO As early
See D. George, op^. cit. , p. 324, note 12.
100 Note especially such plays as The Comical Revenge
by Etherege, the plot of which centers around the fact that
Dufoy, the French valet, is sick of the ”pox.”
468
as 1712 when Mrs. Oldfield’s consort, Mr. Maynwaring, died
of a lingering illness, the subject of venereal disease had
become a peculiarly distasteful one even within the acting
profession. Oldys states:
After his Decease, a most scandalous and false
Rumour was spread, chiefly levelled at Mrs. Oldfield,
that he died of a Venereal Malady. But to obviate
so ungenerous a Reflection, his Body, by her Direc
tion, was opened by two Surgeons--These Gentlemen
all declared that there was not the least symptom
of a n y t h i n g V e n e r e a l . 1 8 1
The author goes on to state that Maynwaring had admitted to
his mistress at one time that he had once contracted a dis
temper in an unfortunate affair in Paris, but claimed to have
been thoroughly cured on his return to London. In a vicious
farce performed first in 1764, called Low Life Above Stairs
(a takeoff on the popular High Life Below Stairs), the Res
toration attitude is echoed for almost the last time in the
plays of the century. The Duchess Elizabeth Lovesport has
proposed an assignation with Lawless, who is inclined to
accept. Lord Libertine attempts to dissuade him.
Lord Lib; I should not care to venture; her
ladyship has been pox’d as often as any drab in
Drury Lane•
Lord Lawless: Poh! I don’t mind that! all
such considerations never obstruct my pleasure :
If an accident should happen, there are surgeons
enough in town, and the Duchess is worth going
through a salivation for by G-d!182
101 Oldys, Memoirs of Mrs. Oldfield, op. cit., p. 28.
(See ’ ’Betterton” in bibliography.)
• • •> Eow Life Above Stairs (Dublin: 1766), p. 9.
459
By the end of the century the sensible point of view had
been reached that no duchess was worth it.
Haslewood indicates that Mrs. Abington, who before
her dA)ut in 1762 at the Haymarket Theatre had eked out a
miserable existence as an errand runner and flower girl,
supplemented that means of livelihood with another trade
even more ancient. As ”a consequence of her amours” she went
to a public hospital and was supposedly cured. Late in the
century, when the attitude toward it had definitely cry
stallized into a fierce disgust and fear, we come across one
of the last references to it in connection with actresses
of the age. In the rare, and quickly suppressed memoirs
of Mrs. Billington, published in 1792, it is stated that the
actress was infected "with a loathsome _________ by Captain C.,
a former army officer who had forced his attentions on her,
driven off her rather unconcerned father and brother with a
horsewhip, and evidently often returned thereafter at the
invitation of the wronged lady.183 The blank space instead
of a definite word indicates as clearly as anything could
that the Victorian age was nigh.
Hazards to the actor’s life. Accidents. While actors
were subject to all the ordinary hazards of London city life,
they seem to have been in particular danger from sword and
Memoirs of Mrs. Billington, op. cit., p. 16.
460
and fIre * Swordplay was frequent as a dramatic device on the
stage, and contrary to popular opinion, the eighteenth cen
tury gentleman was often no more skillful with a sword than
is the average man today. He wore it as an ornament rather
than as a weapon, and rarely drew it from the scabard.
Actors occasionally were skilled swordsmen, but there was
little systematic coaching in the art for most of them. Con
sequently one finds through the records of the century fre
quent accounts of stage encounters in which .real blood
flowed. The custom of dueling, which is discussed elsewhere,
of course added to the sanguinary tinge of the actor’s name,
although he did not indulge in it more often than the or
dinary gentlemen of the time.
One of the most unfortunate, or perhaps inept of the
actors, was John Palmer, an excellent actor of Garrick’s
company. Palmer was once confined to his room for several
months by a blow administered on stage by Mrs. Barry, the
blade of her trick dagger having failed to disappear in the
handle as it should have done when she stabbed him. At
another time Kelly and Palmer were fighting in The Siege of
Belgrade with curved scimetars, and the blades got out of
control. Palmer left his head unguarded and received a
slashing cut. At another time he was run through with the
sword of another actor, and very nearly died.^04 Fleetwood,
104
Young, op. cit., II, 96-97.
461
when he was acting Romeo on the Drury Lane stage, one night
forgot his foil and fenced with sharp point against a terri
fied Paris (a ¥ œ • Austin) who perceived his danger and
wouldn’t yield easily. Finally, and it was very nearly
"finally” for Austin, Fleetwood whipped him ”through the
guts” as Wilkinson so graphically remarks ; and soon there
after real swords were prohibited on the stage. George
Farquhar the dramatist, although handicapped by a weak voice,
was in a fair way to be a successful actor when such an acci
dent caused him to desert the foil for the more lethal but
less corporeal weapon of the pen. Having forgotten to change
his sword for a foil he wounded his opponent seriously, and
the accident so shocked him that he deserted the s t a g e .T05
In April of 1723 a young Lincoln’s Inn Fields player named
Reakstraw died of a wound accidentally received at a booth
in Moorfields where he was playing in Darius, King of Persia.
”The foil glanced in at his eye and into his brain.”186 This
was of course a vulnerable spot to either sword or foil.
Downes mentions the actor Cademan who was pierced near the
eye in a stage duel at Drury Lane, an accident which so maimed
his speech and one hand that he had little use of either
afterward, and in 1708 had been for thirty-five years receiv
ing a pension from the theatre. In 1735 Macklin, then a
Ghetwood, op. cit., p. 130. Also Wilkinson^
Memoirs, op. cit., IV, 231.
Genest, op. cit., III, 125.
462
hot-blooded young player, killed the actor Ha11am by thrust
ing his walking stick into the eye and brain of the other
man. Penitent Macklin was let off with a light manslaughter
sentence, but as Genest generously says, ”to say the least of
it, it was a very awkward affair on Macklin’s part.” Hol
lingsworth, a favourite low comedian at the London theatres
in the last quarter of the century, was the victim of one of
those unusual accidents that occurred too often in the loose
ly disciplined theatre. While looking through the peephole
in the curtain between acts, he was hit in the eye by an
apple in which a penknife had been stuck. Fortunately both
his life and his sight were spared, though both were de
spaired of for a while. In spite of the great improvement
that came about in audience deportment during Garrick’s age,
the pit was still filled with volatile stuff at the end of
the century.
The hazard of fire was constant in London, not only
in the theatre but throughout the entire city. The pall of
smoke which hung over the roofs v/as constantly being added
to by small blazes in which one or two houses would be con
sumed before the blaze was smothered. If such a fire ever
got a fair start in a brisk wind, there was no stopping it
except by dynamiting a firebreak some distance away, and
letting the blaze eat its way to the desolated strip. In
such a catastrophe the looting was almost routine, and the
465
misplacing of property in the rush to clean out the doomed
houses probably Just as wasteful. In a minor fire that
occurred in Drury Lane in 1698, for instance, which is
routinely chronicled in small items in the Post Boy as having
started in a baker’s house and burned eight houses, a phar
macist named Bingley advertises forlornly two weeks later
begging the restoration of his stock of drugs which were
"lost" in the fire, and offering a generous ten per cent for
their return. Fire Insurance companies of a sort were in
existence at the beginning of the century, although offering
slight protection, and at exorbitant rates.TO?
The theatres, because of their constant pressure of
attendance, their barnlike construction, the stock of in
flammable materials backstage, and the necessity for many
open flames in their lighting system, were more than or
dinarily liable to the fire hazard. Both Drury Lane and
Covent Garden were often referred to facetiously as Phoenixes.
One of the most disastrous theatrical fires of history was
that of Covent Garden in 1808, in which twenty-three firemen
perished in the falling ruins. Handel’s splendid organ that
he had left to the theatre was burned, and the valuable
stock of wine belonging to the famous Beefsteak Club sup
plied a costly alcoholic stimulus to the blaze. Drury Lane
107
See The Post Boy, Apr. 28, 1698. Advertisement
for "The Friendly Society for Insuring Houses from Fire.**
464
burned again the next year--not to be outdone by her compe
titor. Attempts were evidently made to meet the menace
early in the century. The facetious Joe Hall, one of the
original actors in The Beggar’s Opera, sought once to allay
the tumult of the house when the awful cry of "Fire” had
been raised, by shouting:
"Ladies and gentlemen, for heaven’s sake don’t
be frightened--don*t stir--keep your seats--the
fire is almost extinguished; but if it was not—
we have a reservoir of one hundred hogsheads of
water over your heads that would drown you all
in a few minutes."188
Footlights were evidently known very early in England,
certainly as early as 1743 at Govent Garden; but they were
merely candles with meagre reflectors, and presented a
constant hazard to the petticoated actress in her dramatic
swoops. Oil lamps were first used in Paris in 1784 at the
Odeon, where gas lighting also made its stage debut in 1822.
Garrick’s much-praised innovation in lighting that he brought
back from France would seem very primitive to us, consisting
of a series of^ reflector sconces suspended in the wings and
over the stage, but out of sight of the audience; but they
were a great improvement over old appliances both in light
ing and in safety. Even at that the house was constantly
endangered from the open candles in the wall chandeliers.
In 1812 Smith writes :
108
Saxe Y/yndham, op. cit., I, 71.
465
Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love,
Drops, reft of pin, her play-blll from above:
Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap.
Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap;
But wiser far than he, combustion fears.
And as it flies, eludes the chandeliers.109
Not always did it elude the chandelier however, and the
wooden tinder-box of the theatre was constantly being saved
by the alert and jittery members of the house force.
Michael Kelly tells of a performance of Lodoiska in
which the burning tower on which the lovely Mrs. Crouch was
marooned, burned with unexpected rapidity, and collapsed
just in time to allow him to catch her in his arms and rush
with her to the front of the stage. The audience was de
lighted, and he invariably repeated the last trick, although
Mrs. Crouch objected to a repetition of the first.^^8 lÆrs.
Siddons was very nearly burned to death before the specta
tors’ eyes once while acting "Hermione” in The Winter’s Tale.
In the famous statue scene, in which she was surrounded in a
great swathing of highly inflammable muslin, her train caught
fire ; and but for the prompt action of a stagehand who threw
himself on the flame and smothered it, as she wrote to a
friend, "it would seem as if my fate would have been inevi
table. "^Tl When one reads of the orgies of pre-Victorian
^89 Smith, Rej ected Addresses, op. cit., 163.
^^8 Kelly, Reminiscences, op. cit., II, 60
Campbell, op. cit.. II, 268.
466
emotionalism that swept the theatre in those days, he wonders
however if Mrs. Siddons was not after all in a place safer
than the pit. Boaden records the scene when Siddons played
Jane Shore in the early nineties.
I well remember, (how is it possible that I
should ever forget?) the sobs, the shrieks, among
the tender part of her audiences ; or those tears,
which manhood, at first, struggled to suppress, but
at length grew proud of indulging. Vfe then indeed
knew all the Luxury of grief; but the nerves of
many a gentle being gave way before the intensity
of such appeals; and fainting fits long and fre
quent alarmed the decorum of the house, filled
almost to suffocation.112
What could happen in such an audience at the cry of "Firel” is
horrible to conjecture.
Accidents from stage mechanisms were frequent through
out the century, and were constant hazards in the theatre.
Tumblers and acrobats suffered the most, for they were
goaded on to unreasonable risks by a bloodthirsty audience
with appetites jaded by bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and
similar gentle sports. In 1736 occurred a typical acci
dent, recorded in a contemporary journal.
One James Todd, who represented the Miller’s
Man in Dr. Faustus, this Night, at the Theatre in
Govent Garden, fell from the upper Stage, in a
flying Machine, the Wires breaking, fractured his
Scull, and dy’d miserably; three others were much
hurt, but recovered. Some of the Audience Swooned,
and the whole were in great Confusion upon the
sad Accident.11^
11^ Boaden, Memoirs of Siddons, op. cit., p. 61.
Gentleman’s Magaz ine, October, 1736, p. 617.
467
The perils of travel were great in those days, even
though the speed was not* Hackney coaches were driven
through the streets of London at breakneck speed, by drivers
who were more often drunk than sober* Early in the century
Lîrs* Porter, an excellent actress in tragic roles, suffered
a dislocation of a hip in the overturning of a chaise and
was lost to the stage. Cibber considered it a major blow
to the theatre, coming as it did in 1730 at practically the
same time as Oldfield’s death and VfiIks’ retirement* Mrs*
Steele mentions almost as an afterthought in her . Memoirs of
Mrs * Baddeley an accident which might have had very serious
consequences, indicating the commonness of such things late
in the century*
The boys, through carelessness, overturned us,
and dragged the coach some way before they stopped,
so as to break off the door and the panels on one
side, and tumbled us all out in the road, for the
coach was full*
In 1788 Mrs* Crouch, while going to the theatre in a hackney
coach, was severely injured and cut about the face when her
reckless cabbie overturned the conveyance. She had with her
her sister’s baby, of which she_was very fond; and in trying
to shield the child from the breaking glass, received the
shattering force of it directly in her face* She was badly
cut, and for a time it was feared that the scars would end
Steele, Memoirs of Mrs * Baddeley, op* cit* ,
11, 105*
468
her stage career. In a somewhat similar accident George
Anne Bellamy nearly lost her life . While riding horseback
in the country, her steed ran away with her and stopped
dead on the very edge of an abandoned quarry. Bellamy con
tinued her flight, and when she regained consciousness at
the bottom of the pit her shoulder was dislocated, and both
bones in her left arm were broken— a misfortune that ren
dered that arm ever afterward useless for gesture. Foote
likewise received a fractured leg in a fall from a horse,
and eventually had the limb amputated because of an infection
that developed.
Savage dogs that roamed the streets of London in the
early part of the century must have been a nuisance, and
occasionally were a positive danger. It will be recalled
that Doctor Johnson carried a stout cudgel to protect him
self from dogs and footpads who had the poor judgment to
attack him. Dogs roamed the poorer sections of London in
packs, and subsisted in much the same savage competitive
manner as did their human brothers, by stealing and killing.
There are various accounts of actors being attacked on their
way home from the theatre late at night, but none of them
seems to have suffered serious injury. Not until 1797 with
the passage of a dog-tax law was this menace removed from
the streets.
Far more dangerous to the late-returning actor was
469
the cut-throat highway robber who in the century seems to
have been as nervous on the trigger as some of our contempo
rary public enemies. Lacy Ryan was one evening proceeding
calmly home after his performance at Lincoln’s Inn Fields
theatre, and in Great Queen Street was attacked by a man who
clapped a pistol to the actor’s mouth and fired before poor
Ryan had a chance to defend himself. The wad of chewed
paper in the pistol did the most damage, rooting out four of
his side teeth, and breaking a chunk from his upper Jawbone.
From a physical point of view it is doubtful if Ryan could
have looked at his assailant and said sadly, as the story
has it, * * Friend, you have killed me but 1 forgive you! ”115
At least one actor vindicated himself in a skirmish
with the criminal element, and demonstrated that he could do
battle as bravely in his back yard as on Sheridan’s stage.
Joe Grimaldi returned one night with his mother, about
eleven o’clock, and found his house freshly plundered by
thieves who had really sacked^’ the place. Arming himself
with a broadsword, he crept into the back garden, and spying
a man clambering over the fence he let fly with the weapon
he carried. The man cried out, and tumbled off in great
haste— Grimaldi after him breathing out Shakespearian male
dictions. But unfortunately a dozing cow was in Grimaldi’s
path and sent him head over heels, while the thieves escaped,
See Genest, p^. cit., 111, 464.
470
When he returned to the house it was discovered that his
sword was liberally besmeared with blood, although whether
it was human or bovine in origin was not entirely clear.
At any rate the actor’s valor was demonstrated; and as the
watchmen--picked, as Dickens gravely states, "as the majority
of that fine body of men were, with a specific view to their
old age and infirmities"--soon returned with two bags found
in the field containing all the loot and in addition a com
plete set of burglar’s tools, everyone was h a p p y . 116
With that cheering commentary on the physical vitality
and prowess of the eighteenth century actor we may conclude
this discussion of many of the physical things surrounding
his life. Food, drink, clothes, health--these were after all
things which were basic and closely inter-related. That
the actor generally managed to take care of those essentials
without too much fuss indicates that he was fairly well
adjusted in his age.
116 Grimaldi, op. cit., p. 65-75.
CHAPTER IX
AVOCATIONS AND RECREATIONS
The actor’s day. While any attempt to synthesize and
fuse the lives of eighteenth century actors inLo one repre
sentative example would lead to over-simplification, there
is one obvious advantage to the method : it gives us a sort
of map of the actor’s routine around which to cluster the
facts of his life which have accumulated up to now. For
another thing, it enables us to understand, by demonstrating
the fullness of his everyday existence, the reason for the
actor’s comparative non-participation in the communal life
of his time. Although the theatrical profession contained
throughout the century some of the best minds functioning in
London, except in the rare cases of such men as Cibber,
Garrick, and Sheridan, the force of those minds was rarely
exerted in affairs outside the theatre walls. Such men were,
by their great success and financial skill, relieved of any
theatrical routine which they did not care to endure, and so
could largely call their time their own. Ordinary actors
were not so fortunate, and were uniformly kept busy at their
profession.
The actor arose at from seven to nine o’ckock in the
morning. By the time he had finished his breakfast of beef
and beer, or gruel and tea, with a bit of bread, he had to
bestir himself. From early in the century and to its close.
472
he was due at the theatre for morning rehearsal about ten
o’clock. Sometimes he would be called by the beating of the
drum earlier than that time, and sometimes he would sit in
the green-room until one or two in the afternoon awaiting the
arrival of a sleepy star who had been out carousing the night
before. Generally speaking, however, the system of fines
for lateness at rehearsal kept even the great actors in line,#
and the ten-o’clock rehearsal was traditional. At the con
clusion of that chore, which generally took from one to three
hours, the actor had an hour or tv/o for recreation or for
study. At three in the afternoon he usually had his heavy
meal of the day— roast meats, potatoes, green peas, turnips,
bread, and beer or vzine; this he took in his own home, if
perchance he had one, and otherwise in a tavern or public
eating house near the theatre. Through dinner at four, he
had another hour to spend before appearing at the theatre.
At five or after he was generally in the green-room with his
fellows, ready to prepare for the evening performance. That
important event usually started sometime between six and
seven, and lasted from two hours and a half to four hours,
the century being the really golden age of the double-bill
perf ormanc eI
Being through with his day’s work at ten or eleven
at night, unless a night rehearsal had been called (which
was often the case when a new play v/as preparing) , he went
473
with some friends to a private house, or to a tavern or
coffee-house for a light supper. That concluded, he was
ready for cards, conversation, or v/hatever offered as amuse
ment until he felt relaxed enough to go home to bed. One to
three in the morning was probably a fair average retiring
hour. If he was studying hard on a new part, he sat up after
the family had retired, as lÆrs. Siddons says she often did,
to learn lines. If he had an especially important rehearsal
the next morning, he often arose early to run over his part
again before going to the theatre.
It is obvious from this hypothetical sketch that the
actor had little spare time for activities unrelated to the
stage, activities either domestic or social. Certainly this
would have been true if the actor had been constantly employed
at the theatre in every play that was presented. It will be
to our interest to investigate rapidly a few of the points
related to this outline of an actor’s day, and thus to anno
tate the general idea.
The acting load of the actor throughout the century,
because of the repertory system which was in effect, was
often comparatively light. Even early in the century, when
the acting companies were fairly small, he was not in every
play produced, and thus had occasional layoffs of two or
three days successively. Cibber says that Wilks acted long
parts almost every day, probably more from his fondness for
474
applause than for concern for the profits of the triumvirate.^
Wilks acted one hundred times in the 1708-9 season, Cibber
seventy-one times, Anne Oldfield thirty-nine times, and old
Betterton only sixteen times. Since the average season
throughout the century was about two hundred performances,
it is obvious that the principal performers at least were
not badly over-worked. Most of the minor actors however
were onstage every night either in small speaking parts, or
as part of the mob scenes or process ions with which every
thing from King Lear to False Delicacy was enlivened. Often
the minor actor then, as now, doubled in parts, appearing as
a Roman soldier in Act One and as a barbarian chieftain in
Act Three. Often the minor roles were shifted around reck
lessly at very short notice, and occasionally in rural theatres
even the leading players acted more than one role. Theo-
philus Cibber once performed the rather dubious feat of
playing both Cato and Syphax on the Dublin stage in the same
evening. The two characters are never on-stage at the same
time, and so it was in reality no such trick as that common
one of the strolling actor who sometimes played two charac
ters carrying on a conversâtion--a sort of histrionic dialogue
with oneself. Macklin in his prime generally acted in
London from fourteen to twenty-two separate roles each
^ supra, Ch. VI, 275 for table of performances
per person in Cibber’s company early in the century.
476
season.^ Woffington acted on an average of four times a
week. At the zenith of her career this generous actress
played gratis in twenty-four out of twenty-six benefits given
to other members of the company. John Henderson, in his first
year at Bath, which was also his first on any stage, acted
almost thirty roles. The learning of twenty-five to thirty
parts in a season is certainly a heavy task for even a
quick study, and was far from common except in the case of
minor actors who had only a half-dozen lines to say in each
play. Sometimes there was indeed an actual advantage to such
constant appearing behind the footlights. Palmer, a mediocre
player of Garrick’s company, was nevertheless able to make
himself the most indispensable member of the troupe by his
knowledge of many rûles. Even Hugh Kelly, that vitriolic
hanger-on of the theatre wrote:
Palmer, from playing almost every night.
Has grown so long familiar to our sight.
That even in scenes scarce possible to bear.
We kindly rate him as a decent player*.3
Lacy Ryan was another actor who preferred to play many parts
indifferently than to concentrate on a few. Says Mrs.
Bellamy:
Mr. Ryan might truly have been denominated, in
the theatrical phrase, a wear and tear man; that is.
2
Hugh Kelly, Thespis, op. cit., Bk. 1, 19.
See W. Cooke, op. cit. , p. 436-438
3
476
one who had constant employment, and fills a part
in almost every piece that is performed. This fre
quently occasioned him coming late to the theatre.
1 have known him come at the time the last musick
has been playing; when he has accosted the shoe
black at the stage door in his usual tremulous
tone--with, boy, clean my shoes.
As soon as this needful operation had been per
formed, he has hastened to his dressing room, and
having hurried on an old laced coat and waistcoat,
not a little the worse for wear, a tye wig pulled
buckishly over his forehead, and in the same identi
cal black worsted stockings he had on when he en
tered the house, order the curtain to be drawn up.^
With the tremendous increase of the size of the acting com
panies at Drury Lane and Covent Garden after 1750, it is
doubtful if many of the actors ever acted more than a hundred
times in a normal season.
The length of a run of a play had a great deal to do
with an actor’s offstage life also, for if one play were
acted continuously for two or three weeks it meant fewer
rehearsals, and less of studying of parts. People went in
those days more often to see an actor than a play, however,
and there are singularly few long runs in the century. A
month’s continuous playing, which is about what Cato, The
Beggar’s Opera, and Douglas drew in their first seasons,
seems to have been the limit. However, the repertoire play
would be revived at intervals throughout the remainder of
the season, thus greatly relieving the strain on the actors.
^ Bellamy, op. cit., VI, 20.
477
(The Beggar’s Opera for instance was in all performed sixty-
two nights in its first season.) Fielding says with justi
fiable pride although doubtful justification that his Love
in Several Masques "for the continued Space of twenty-eight
Nights, received as great (and as just) Applauses, as were
ever bestowed on the English Theatre.But even early in
the century before the broken repertoire had become such a
fixed habit, this was a phenomenally long run, as he indi
cated. It can be accounted for not by the excellence of the
play, although it does have a deal of pleasant intrigue and
humour in its lines, but by the superlative cast which in
cluded Mills, Cibber, Griffin, Wilks and Bridgewater, with
the actresses Oldfield, Porter, Booth, Moor, and Mrs. Wills.
The famous competitive run of Romeo and Juliet in mid-century
when Garrick was playing the rSXe at one theatre and Spranger
Barry at the other, lasted only twelve consecutive nights
at Covent Garden, while Garrick played the role triumphantly
before a half-empty house the thirteenth night at Drury Lane.
Yet in spite of this rapid turnover of plays, there were
many seasons when not more than one or two new plays were pro*
duced in London. The managers preferred to stick with the
tried and true products of the Restoration and Elizabethan
masters. In the 1747-48 season, Garrick’s first as joint
patentee with Lacy, only one new play was produced in London,
^ Fielding, Works, op. cit., Vol. 1, preface.
478
and that was the relatively unimportant Foundling by Moore.
Thus we should not conclude that because a great number of
plays were presented in a season, the actor had to learn
a great many new parts. Often an entire season was nothing
but repertoire review.
With these facts concerning the amount of theatrical
work the actor had to do fairly clearly reviewed, we may
fill in with more detail the outline of his day as it has
been sketched. In Mrs. Behn’s play. Sir Patient Fancy,
which appeared at Dorset Garden’s theatre in 1678, one of the
characters describes the day of a married woman of quality:
. . . from 8 till 12 you ought to employ in
dressing, till 2 at dinner, till 5 in visits, till 7
at the play, till 9 in the park, at ten at supper
with your lover. . . ^
In spite of Mrs. Behn’s tendency to overemphasize the bed
room aspect of life, this satirical reference is undoubtedly
a fairly accurate summary of the customs of her time. The
habits of the gentry seem to have changed .little in the next
seventy-five years. Woodward the comedian, writing satiri
cally of the life of the man of the city in 1752, says he
arises fairly early (about ten a.m.), then after being
valeted he goes by carriage to the Bedford coffee house,
there diverting himself with some of the Beaux-Esprits of
the time.
^ Genest, op^. cit., 1, 244
479
At Seven I retired from champaigne and toasting
the Lady to a box at Drury Lane. • • Between dozing
and chattering to three or four Women of Fashion, I
whiled away the hours until ten. . . At a Rout 1
finished the Evening, where Brag and Fortune de
prived me of fifty Guineas.
He then goes home to the arms of his darling Amanda, a woman
"of great quality," and falls fast asleep.
In the life of the actor must be inserted his actual
theatrical duties, but in other particulars, when he could
afford it, and on the days when he was not playing, this is
probably a fair picture of the life he led himself. Often
in mid-day he would stroll in the Piazzas of Govent Garden,
chatting with his fellows and with the literary men who
haunted the vicinity. With them he frequently went to the
Bedford or another coffee house and spent the entire after
noon until curtain time.8 Now and then he spent an hour or
two in a barber shop, being shaved or supervising the dress
ing of a wig while the barber’s apprentice sang and played
on a sort of bastard guitar, for as Tom Brown said, "a
Cittern and a Barber is as natural as milk to a calf."
Perhaps he tired of the closeness of the inner city, and
strolled through the afternoon crowds of Hyde Park, where
the dust from the passing horses was so thick in the air
^ Henry Woodward, A Letter from Henry Woodward, etc
(London: M. Cooper, 1752), p. 13-14.
^ O’Keefe, Kelly, and Taylor, op. cit., p. 274.
480
that one could hardly see the dandy who strutted past with
his coat pulled up behind to show his new silk breeches.
This rather unexciting routine, of which the bulk of
an actor’s days^was composed, evidently changed little when
he went on tour to the rural houses. In 1802 George Frederick
Cooke started a journal on the 15th. of August which he con
tinued religiously for thirty days--a remarkably consistent
effort for that mercurial gentleman. It gives several ex
cellent sketches of peaceful days in his life. One repre
sentative entry is dated at Bristol on September 1st, 1802.
Arose between six and seven. Wrote until nearly
nine. Dressed and breakfasted. Walked to three
carriers’ inns to enquire for a trunk 1. sent off
from Plymouth last week. Sauntered about the city;
purchased two books and some fruit. Went to the
theatre, and ran through the part of Macbeth.
Dined about two. Read in "The New Bristol Guide."
Some time after five went to the theatre, and played
Macbeth; the play not very correct. Mr. Harris, who
v/ith a part of his family was present, carne into
the green room at the end of the fourth act, and, in
the course of a short conversation, gave me per
mission to be absent the first night of the ensuing
season at Covent Garden. Returned home, supped,
and read in "The Guide," Received two letters.
Went to bed about eleven.^
The workaday, sedentary nature of this note is fairly indica
tive of the actor’s life toward the end of the century. The
entry he makes a week later echoes the same general tone.
Arose late, and some time after eleven v/ent to
the theatre and read Bajazet. Looked over some
pages. Dined. Walked out, went into a bookseller’s
shop, and purchased "Broad Grins" by George Colman
Dunlap, op. cit., 1, 250.
481
the Younger, price 5s. very dear indeed. Vifent to
the coffee room at the Bush, drank some brandy and
water, read several newspapers, went home, after
wards to the theatre, where I played Bajazet so very
imperfect, 1 was obliged to cut out a part in the
first scene in the fifth act. Returned home, supped,
and went to bed.^6>
The possibility for this kind of normal, pleasant life is one
thing that made many actors loathe to leave fairly good po
sitions in rural theatres for mediocre positions on the
London stage. Mrs. Baker, the shrewd chain-theatre manager
who had houses at Canterbury, Rochester, Tunbridge Wells,
Maidstone, Deal, and Feversham, although she had barely
learned to write her name and could read almost none at all,
was not by any means a stupid person. She gave Tom Dibdin
his first job, and naturally he sang her praises loudly.
But she knew how to hold her actors and make them fairly
contented, by furnishing adequate lodging facilities and
food.
Sometimes (says Dibdin) a favorite actress or
actor were added to the dinner party, which no
sooner separated than Mrs. B. prepared for the im
portant five-hours’ station of money-taker at box,
pit, and gallery doors, which she very cleverly
united in one careful focus, and saved by it as
much money in her lifetime as 1 lost at the Surrey
Theatre in six or seven years. When the curtain
dropped, she immediately retired to her bedchamber
with the receipts of the evening in a large front
pocket, leaving always a supper table substantially
covered for the rest of the family. . . Twice a
week, when the theatre was not open, a pleasant
little tea and card party, concluded at an early
hour, filled up the time, which, on other evenings.
Ibid.. I, 262.
482
was allotted to the business of the theatre.Ü
Quin’s life at Bath, where he went to recuperate after the
nervous strain of his duel with Theophilus Gibber--when
Quin had been wounded slightly on the forehead because he
stumbled on a stone and hit his head against Cibber’s trembl
ing sword!--was made up of much the same sort of thing;
reading newspapers, drinking the waters, and in Quin’s case
drinking v/ithout the waters, and playing a sober game of
whist in the evening with a few friends.
Performance time, or as we would say "curtain time"
at the theatres varied enough through the century to deserve
a clarifying paragraph. In the Restoration period perfor
mances had started sometimes as early as three or four o’clock
in the afternoon, although by Pepys’ day the play was usually
started about five o’clock. Dinner was eaten at twelve noon,
and was evidently often the first meal of the day for the
lusty bucks of the court of Charles 11.13 By 1695 playing
time was usually about four o’clock, and never earlier.
Thus in a prologue spoken by Mrs. Bracegirdle in that year
appear the lines;
of Mr. James Quin, op. cit., p. 50.
1^ See Ceo. Villiers’ play. The Rehearsal, Act V.
483
On pain of being posted to your Sorrow,
Fail not at Four, to meet me here To-morrow.14
During the early part of the eighteenth century the time
had moved up to five and six o’clock, with six being in
creasingly favoured. In the early years of the centui'y
there was also beginning to be felt a great deal of elas
ticity, in moving the time of the play for various physical
reasons. For instance, on June 18, 1717, the play was not to
begin "till nine o’clock, by reason of the heat of the
weather— nor the house to be opened till eight."13 Up to
mid-century the curtain time of six appears to have been
generally favoured, with notices such as that for Garrick’s
benefit of Hamlet in 1744:
Servants will be permitted to keep places on
the stage, which for the better accommodation of
the Ladies will be formed into boxes--the Ladies
are desired to send their servants by 3 oclock--
to begin at 6 oclock.16
In the country the play was usually somewhat earlier than
in the city, probably a concession to the earlier-rising
audience. In the playbill for one of Wilkinson’s performan
ces at York the acting of the preliminary sketch is announced
for five o’clock. 1*7 By 1782 the time for the play had moved
1"^ Montagu Summers, Roscius Anglic anus, op. cit. ,
footnote on p. 66.
13 Genest, jO£. cit. , 11, 601.
IG Ibid., IV, 64.
1^ Vi/ilkinson, Wandering Patentee, op. cit. , 11, 203.
484
up to about six thirty or seven. Playbills for March 16,
1782, give the King’s Theatre door opening at six, the per
formance at seven; Drury Lane opening at five thirty, the
performance at six thirty. The Covent Garden bill for that
night, with Macklin playing Man of the World, gives no time.1^
During the first half of the century many people avoided
paying full price for their tickets by coming at half-time,
and paying a fraction of the admittance price. Garrick put
an end to this nuisance, although not without several riots
over the matter; on most of the playbills of his regime
appears the notice, "No Money to be received at the Stage-
Door, nor any Money returned after the Curtain is drawn up."
This was merely another of the moves tov/ard standardiza
tion of the theatrical business for which he deserves credit.
Rehearsals. The actor’s day, and night for that
matter, was frequently taken up with rehearsals. Especially
was this true in the latter half of the century when the
standard of production was undoubtedly higher than it had
been since the lavish days of Davenant. Often after the
night performance the stage was taken over by the cast for
the next performance, and work carried on for four or five
hours. This must have been the case in 1789 when on June 18
See playbills in the Kemble-Devonshire collection
at Huntington Library. Also notices of theatre performan
ces in the London Courant, Morning Gazette, and Daily Adver
tiser of the above date.
485
A few minutes before ten at night, a most dread
ful fire broke out at the King’s Theatre in the
Haymarket, at the time when many of the performers
were practicing a repetition of the dances which
were to be performed the next evening.19
Unless the actor lived very near by, this sort of thing was
a great hardship and time-waster for him. Joe Grimaldi, in
his boyhood days, lived in Drury Lane for instance and did
most of his playing at Sadler’s Wells, although occasionally
he did the part of a monkey or a gymnast at Drury Lane for
one shilling per night. He walked from Drury Lane to Sadler’s
Wells in order to be there for rehearsal at ten o’clock in
the morning, returned to Drury Lane for dinner at two, and
walked again to the theatre for the performance at six.
Often he had to change his costume as many as fifteen times
in an evening. Then at eleven or shortly before, his working
day e n d e d . 20 Occasionally a night rehearsal was called,
which meant the detention of the company at the theatre
until at least four in the morning, according to his state
ment.^^ Little Joe fortunately didn’t have to do much
studying of parts, being an acrobatic actor. When he could
have studied, with such a schedule, is a problem.
Gentleman’s Magazine, June, 1789, p. 755. Genest
has no performance listed at the Haymarket from June 3 to 22.
Grimaldi, op. cit., p. 34.
Ibid.. p. 64.
486
The rehearsal Itself was often not much of a strain
on the actors, and too often consisted of a mere routine
running through of the play. Tate Wilkinson says the re
hearsals often resembled schoolboys’ games, with no serious
attention being given to the thought of the author, or to
criticism of past performances. Quin used to maintain a
deadly seriousness at his rehearsals, but evidently gave
little serious study to basic interpretation. In short,
the morning rehearsal of the eighteenth century stock company
was usually merely a period when the actors presented them
selves at the theatre, said a few lines in a desultory
fashion, and gossipped while they rubbed the sleep from their
eyes. Yates, who was one of the most applauded of low come
dians in the century, rarely got through a performance without
fumbling for lines. Churchill wrote satirically in The
Rosciad:
Lo Yates I--Without the least finesse of art
He gets applause;--1 wish he’d get his part. 22
Young, writing early in the next century, speaks with great
respect of the rapidity of production of Follies of a Day,
a play by Beaumarchais which was translated by Ho1eroft in
three weeks, "and read, studied and performed in two weeks
more."23 This was in 1784, comparatively soon after Garrick’s
Churchill, The Rosciad, op. cit«, p. 18. The
Churchilliad, a contemporary scurrilous attack on Churchill,
nevertheless admits the justness of this criticism of Yates.
Young, 0£. cit., 1, 228.
487
retirement. That any high level of production, as judged
by our standards could be reached even with excellent cast
ing under such conditions is doubtful, and yet such con
ditions of hasty production were fairly prevalent through
out the century. Certainly the pressure these methods put
upon the actor was not calculated to bring out his best
talent.
When Victor came to London about 1720 he was much
impressed by the admirable reforms in direction and produc
tion which Cibber and his associates had instituted. One
of the three managers was responsible for the plays each
week. If a new play was coming out, the first three read
ings fell to the author; if it were a revived play, it fell
to the manager who was principal performer in it. Then
there were a limited number of rehearsals, with parts in hand,
after which "a distant morning was appointed for every person
in the play to appear perfect." The theory was excellent,
but of course the practice was far from perfect. One of the
best beloved stories of stage commentators is that of Colley
Cibber, frequently imperfect in his lines, prolonging his bov/,
deliberately taking a pinch of snuff, and gravely stalking
across the stage to ask the prompter what was to come next.
And yet in a plea before the Court of Chancery Cibber main
tained that every manager, in his turn, had to spend two or
three hours each morning at the rehearsal of stage
488
entertainments•24 Probably the rehearsal had little more
actual discipline than than it did later in the century.
Macklin, who stands out as one of the most coura
geously original actors of the century, was also one of the
few real directors in it. He insisted on a close adherence
to text, and frowned on"ad libbing," even in comedy. In
addition he could upon necessity control his temper, in a
smouldering way, and was not constantly fizzing up into the
air in a Garrickian burst of histrionics. One day in Dublin,
after a stiff bit of steady rehearsal, one of the actors
exclaimed, "Why this is worse than the Prussian exercise."
Macklin merely looked at him for a moment, and then said:
"Suppose we all go and sit down a little in the green room."
This they did, while Macklin took out his watch and announced
they would sit for one hour. Finally after sixty minutes of
awful silence he said pleasantly, "Now we are all in good
humour, and we’ll go upon the stage and begin our r e h e a r s a l ."23
One can imagine the intensity of the rehearsing from that
point onward. Actual control of a rehearsal by the director
was hov/ever a rare thing throughout the century. Genest says
that he visited a rehearsal of Woman’s a Riddle in 1780, at
covent Garden.
Fitzgerald, New History, etc., oj^. cit., 1, 368-369.
O’Keefe, Kelly, and Taylor, op. cit., p. 20.
489
Lee Lewes, who was at that time the Harlequin
of C. G., in one of the scenes jumped over a table
which was set on the stage--Lewes interrupted the
performance to show one of the actors a paragraph
in the newspaper--lÆrs - Mattocks requested the
Prompter to take good care of her, as she was very
imperfect--and Miss Younge did not attend at all.
To this sort of lackadaisical attitude toward rehearsals is
undoubtedly due what must have been the gravest defect of
eighteenth century acting— an almost complete lack of ensemble
Rehearsals were often further complicated and bungled
by the interference of the author, who was quite frequently
considered the legitimate "director," though he had never set
foot on a stage before. Thus Addison directed the performance
of his Cato, and intruded constantly in the staging of the
play— a work which became a hit in spite of rather than be
cause of anything its author contributed as a director. His
Ignorance of stage technique must have been monumental.
Rehearsals were further delayed and interfered with by a glut
of dilettantes who quite without reason were admitted to
rehearsals of new plays. These gentlemen lounged about the
stage, talked to the actors, and otherwise delayed what should
have been a strictly businesslike morning’s work. Swift
visited the playhouse while Addison was rehearsing Cato,
and sat on the stage with other interlopers who had no busi
ness there. Doctor Johnson officiously interfered with a
P6
Genest, op. cit.. VI, 396.
490
rehearsal of Dodsley’s play Gleone, when he grabbed Mrs.
Bellamy none-too-gently by the arm and corrected her emphasis
on the line, "Thou shalt not murder," which she had carelessly
uttered "Thou shalt not m u r d e r . "27 That the explosive
Bellamy did not immediately break the commandment of the
line is a tribute to Johnson’s tremendous reputation at the
time. But Johnson’s very presence there on stage, where
he had no business being, is a significant comment upon the
lack of stage discipline at the time.28
Study. In an article appearing in The Gentleman’s
Magazine in 1735 a writer gives what he considers the proper
qualifications for an actor.
He should have a graceful Person, a strong and
harmonious Voice, a genteel Deportment and Behavior,
a good Memory, sound Judgement, and a perfect Know
ledge of Men and Manners; he ought to have a com
petent Skill in Languages; Oratory and Poetry; in
Painting, Statuary, Musick, Dancing, Fencing: nor
is there one Art peculiar in the Education of a
Gentleman of which he need not have any Knowledge,
except only riding of the great H o r s e . 29
If one were to take such statements as indications of what
actually went on, however, he would be far astray. Actors
of the eighteenth century were not models of deportment with
Bellamy, op. cit. , 111, 107.
P R
Fuller discussion of the actual conduct and mis
conduct of the rehearsal seems uncalled for in this study.
For excellent account see Lawrence, op. cit., p. 53-63.
29
Gentleman’s Magazine, April, 1735, p. 198.
491
a perfect knowledge of men and manners. They did not always
have harmonious voices. And very few of them were skilled
in music, dancing, fencing, painting, statuary, or poetry.
When they were to maintain their skill in these arts, even
if they fortunately had been able to acquire them, the
anonymous author does not say. The layman has always de
sired to believe that the actor has time to burn. Far from
having time to assimilate practically the whole lexicon of
knowledge, with the exception of "riding of the great Horse,"
frequently the poor actor had all he could do to cram his
lines into his head and assimilate a bare working knowledge
of the affairs around him.
It is possible however to defend the leading actors
too much on this score. Mental laziness was undoubtedly too
often the sole reason for the slovenly, as well as the
flamboyantly over-dramatic acting of the century. Cibber
complains bitterly about his fellow actor Powell’s negligent
preparation of parts, and yet he himself would sit all after
noon in the "settle" gambling, and then miss his cues a
dozen times in the evening performance. It is entirely
possible that much of Macklin*s unpopularity with other
actors came from his insistence on more close and accurate
study of parts than they were accustomed to.
But whatever aspersions one may cast upon the tho
roughness of dramatic study in the early part of the century
492
or even in Garrick*s day, he may not deny that the companies
were adept at putting on a "show" at phenomenally short
notice--which after all was one of the prime requisites of
a theatre in those peculiar days. The more one looks into
the matter the more he suspects that a quick study was more
valuable as a member of a company than a thorough study.
V/hen the two were combined, as in the case of J. P. Kemble
for instance, one was likely to have something akin to genius.
A classic illustration of the necessity for rapid action
within the companies in the early days of competition be
tween the two major houses is that given by Gibber. He says
that his theatre, thinking to take advantage of the other
company which had announced Hamlet for Tuesday, advertised
the same play for Monday. But Betterton in the other company,
hearing of the strategy, shifted his own Hamlet to Monday—
to the dismay of Powell and his ambitious upstarts. Afraid
that in such a competition of Hamlets on the same night
Betterton would draw all the people, the first company sub
stituted Congreve’s play The Old Batchelor, which Betterton
had originally advertised for Monday, Powell announcing
himself as performing *'in imitation of the original, " or a
burlesque of Betterton in the character. This was fast
thinking, perhaps too fast. Powell discovered that only
two of his company knew the play. By this time only six
hours remained before curtain time. Parts were sent for.
493
and evidently were learned in those six hours* Gibber, who
had seen Doggett play the part of Pondlewife so many times
he had it almost by heart, made enough of a hit in the pro
duction to set him on the road to fame. The success of the
production as a whole was sufficient to draw applause from
the generous audience that turned out. Garrick, it will
be recalled, performed eighteen parts in his first six
months at Drury Lane. Betterton in his career performed
about 130 roles, and thought nothing of creating eight new
parts in a season. But he had learned his acting in an
excellent school. Said he;
When I was a young Player under Sir William
Davenant, we were under a much better Discipline,
we were obliged to make our Study our business,
which our young Men do not think it their duty now
to do; for they now scarce ever mind a Word of
their Parts but only at Rehearsals, and come thither
too often scarce recovered from their last Night’s
Debauch. . • They think it a superfluous Trouble to
study real Excellence, which might rob them of what
they fancy more. Midnight, or indeed whole Nights
Debauches, and a lazy Remisness in their Business.
The husband of Mrs. Siddons, for so he seems destined to be
remembered, was actually an extremely valuable member of
Roger Kemble’s company, in spite of the fact that he was no
great actor. He was a very quick but ”light’ * study, as
actors would say, and could between night and night make
Gibber, ojq. cit. , p. 106-107.
Gildon, Life of Betterton, op. cit., p. 15. See
Appendix, II, 1 for Garrick’s advice to a young actor.
494
himself master of the longest dramatic roles and deliver the
lines with accuracy. But so slight was the impression on
his memory that the words could be erased from his memory
in as short a time as it took to learn them.^2 William
Lyon, a strolling actor and adapter of plays who lived toward
the end of the century one evening while drunk wagered a
crown bowl of punch, of which he was then very fond and full,
that he could repeat verbatim the next morning a copy of the
Daily Advertiser which was lying on the table. His bet was
taken up, and the next morning he demonstrated his remarkable
memory, to the immense surprise of everyone assembled.33
Such an actor, regardless of his histrionic ability, was a
jewel to be prized in those days.
Methods of study have actually changed very little
since actors first tried to memorize.set speeches, and con
sist chiefly of repetition of cues and speeches. This dra
matic catechism is carried out either with a second person,
or in one’s mind. No one who has read Pepys’ delightful
sketch of a bit of study in which he participated on Octo
ber 6, 1667, is likely to forget it.
Boaden, Life of Mrs. Siddons, op. cit., p. 14.
Thespian Dictionary, ’ ’Lyon.” Baker, one of the
editors of Biographica Dramatica, vouches for the story and
indicates that he was a witness to the performance. The
Daily Advertiser was a single sheet newspaper of no great
size, but covered with a profusion of advertisements and
small news items.
496
To the king’s House (i. e. the theatre): and
there, going in, met with Knepp, and she took us
up into the tireing-rooms: and to the women’s
shift where Nell was dressing herself, and was
unready, and is pretty, prettier than I thought.
And so walked all up and down the house above, and
then below into the scene-room and there sat down,
and she gave us fruit : and here I read the ques
tions (i. e. cues) to Knepp, while she answered
me, through all her part of Flora’s Pigary’s which
was acted today.
With the methodical era of Garrick, however, it probably
became fairly popular for the actors to affect deeper study
of their r6les. Garrick himself liked to be thought a scholar,
and surrounded himself with books which he seldom read. A
soberness of method creeps over the theatrical profession.
He begins to think of himself as a craftsman who has a job
to accomplish, and he goes at it in a more serious manner
than had been his wont. Cooke, one of the most eccentric
actors in the post-Garrick age, was quite orthodox in his
study. He wrote out the part himself, underscored each word
having particular emphasis, and then added the stage busi
ness. When he wished to revive a r^le, he would work over
this script and try to improve it in some particular. His
actual learning of lines was usually done on long walks,
when he carried his ’ ’sides” with him and growled out his
lines at the passing carts or the cattle of the countryside.
Tate Wilkinson, that truly intelligent and brilliant man,
said that he studied at night from seven until eleven,
unless on special engagement; but at eleven or twelve at
496
night he was always ready to associate with anyone from a
lord to a cobbler. Although elsewhere he says he was not
given to squandering the night away, it was his almost in
variable custom to stay up until two or three in the morning,
and to sleep rather late the next day.34 Mrs. Siddons wrote
in her Memoranda that it was her custom to study her charac
ters at night, when all ”the domestic cares and business of
the day were over.” She very early learned the necessity
of thorough study of a part, and it was in connection with
her first appearance as Lady Macbeth. In her girlish con
ceit she let the part go until the night preceding her debut
in it. She then shut herself up and commenced her study of
Lady Macbeth with memorable results best told in her own
words•
As the character is very short, I thought I
should soon accomplish it. Being then only twenty
years of age, I believed, as many others believe,
that little more was necessary than to get the
words into my head; for the necessity of discrimi
nation and the development of character, at that
time of my life, had scarcely entered into my ima
gination. But to proceed. I went on with tolerable
composure, in the silence of the night, (a night I
can never forget) till I came to the assassination
scene, when the horrors of the scene rose to a
degree that made it impossible for me to get farther.
I snatched up ray candle, and hurried out of the room,
in a paroxism of terror. My dress was of silk,
and the rustling of it, as I ascended the stairs
to go to bed, seemed to my panic-struck fancy like
the movement of a spectre pursuing me. At last I
reached my chamber, where I found my husband fast
Wilkinson, Wandering Patentee, op. cit., II, 52.
497
asleep. I clapt my candlestick down upon the table,
without the power of putting the candle out; and
threw myself on my bed, without daring to stay even
to take off my clothes. At peep of day I rose to
resume my task; but so little did I know of my
part when I appeared in it, at night, that my
shame and confusion cured me of procrastinating my
business for the remainder of my life.35
Anyone who has read Mrs. Siddons’ highly original and minute
analysis of the character of Lady Macbeth, even though he
may not agree with it, must admit that here was an actress
who thought out her parts before she was satisfied, one who
really "studied” her role and not merely ”learned” it.
In 1759 Thomas Wilkes had advocated just such study
in the most serious book on acting written during the cen
tury. Said he:
His first care will be to study his subject and
character universally, and enter into all the spirit
and variety which it admits of and requires: but
it is not enough that he should study and under
stand his own part perfectly well; he mist also be
intimately acquainted with all the correspondent
characters, else he cannot do justice to the part
he assumes. Neither is it enough that he should
be absolutely perfect in it: a good memory is one
of the smallest, though most necessary of his
qualifications; and to fail in this particular,
shews the greatest weakness and negligence, and is
one of the highest affronts that can be offered
to his audience.36
One who reads the lives of the actors of his age however must
come to the conclusion that Wilkes’ admonition didn’t carry
Campbell, Life of Siddons, op. cit., II, 35.
Wilkes, 0£. cit., p. 91-92.
498
far within the walls of the theatre. The ordinary actor
studied only so hard as was necessary for him to keep his
standing among his brothers. Only toward the end of the
century do we find the profession turning in anything like
a general way toward study as an intensive means of self-
cultivation. Again it was the actor following the trend of
his age, led rather remarkably by the children of a country
theatre manager.
John Philip Kemble was one of the most exact students
of his art the theatre ever had; Garrick worked by instinct
and an almost uncanny appreciation of audience psychology;
but Kemble was moved by an analytical, studiously scientific
mind. The critical faculty which Kemble had to a remarkable
extent undoubtedly inhibited his acting, while Garrick was as
much a sounding board for what he most recently had heard
as Whistler accused Oscar Yi/ilde of being. Y/hile he studied
constantly, however, Kemble was not an uncongenial man. He
was merely the end product of an age that had been moving
steadily toward a methodized art. He devoted his mornings
to business of the theatre, his afternoons to study and
miscellaneous chores, and his evenings when he was not
acting to his friends. He did not carouse, although he
often sat up very late in company, and imbibed great quan
tities of port. He wrote out all his own parts accurately
from the original copies of plays--of which he gathered a
499
notable library. He was intimate with. Steevens, Malone, and
Reed, the most noted scholarly trio of his time. He ac
quired and read (as his marginal notes testify) practically
every critical work on the thea;tre and drama then available.
He studied everything that might be considered collateral
to his profession, and from it digested and assimulated a
vast amount of intelligent good.
It must be admitted nevertheless that even as he is
the natural and crowning development of the tendencies of his
age, he is also the great exception to the majority of his
predecessors. Study with the average actor of the century,
and certainly with most of the minor actors, was merely a
necessary evil which preceded his appearance before an ap
plauding house. It occupied no more of his time than the
minimum of preparedness dictated. He made his study of life
directly in the roaring lanes and alleys of London, and his
textbook was more often the mud-splashed pillars of Govent
Garden Piazza and the sooty walls of Drury Lane than it was
a leather-bound volume pored over late at night, in his own
shabby lodgings, by the light of a Faustian candle.
Avocations. Thespis is a hard master or a demanding
mistress, and absolute loyalty was a quality not often found
among eighteenth century actors. Throughout the century,
first from necessity and later from choice, they often
sought to augment their theatrical earnings by other
600
professional ventures. Early in the century indeed it was
acting that was the avocation, while some more solid trade
took care of the daily bread. Such was the case with the
Irish actor Baker, for instance, after whom Betterton pat
terned his Palstaff. Baker was a Master Paver, and used to
rehearse his lines while on the job. One day, being engrossed
with his inward reviev/ of the Falstaff rûle, he fixed his eye
on a new assistant and muttered, "Who have we here? Sir
Y/alter Blunt--there’s honour for you.” The poor youngster,
aghast at this evidence of madness in his new foreman, leapt
to his feet and with the assistance of a fellow apprentice
bound the hapless actor hand and foot and carried him home—
a delighted Irish mob howling at his h e e l s .37 Lieutenant
Bensley who played minor roles in Golman’s theatre for a
while fell under a similar suspicion of lunacy when a park-
keeper observed him roaming through the shrubbery, addressing
dire speeches to a variety of potted plants and trees.
Hensley maintained his military connections, and later left
the stage to become barrack-master at Khightsbridge, the call
of the bugle proving stronger than the thud of the curtain,
especially as the bugle carried a more solid plating of gold.
Edmund Kean bolstered up his meagre early earnings by teach
ing dancing and fencing, elocution and boxing, at the tavern
Genest, o^. cit. , V, 597.
501
near the theatre In Exeter— "a word and a blow.”
One of the favourite methods of reinforcing the actor’s
income was through the teaching of ’ ’oratory”. Macklin at
one time and another made a very good thing of it, although
his famous ’ ’college” ended in pretty much of a fiasco after
he had demonstrated his lack of general basic education.
Practically all of the leading actors of the period had stu
dents and hangers-on who were willing to pay in cash for
words of dubious wisdom. Garrick seems to have often coached
young actors for the pleasure of it (as in the case of the
actress Mrs. Robinson), while the elder Sheridan was famous
throughout England as a coach in speaking, and at various
times instructed members of parliament who had before them
the task of impressing that august group of men. Seldom were
any of the actors so positively unsuited for the task as was
the actor Cresswick, of Govent Garden, who though a teacher
of elocution was a miserable speaker himself, as he was un
able to sound the letter ”R”. His speeches in Venice Pre
served were considered especially choice, one of them being
quoted as ”Yats die in holes and coyneys--dogs yun mad--man
has a nobley yeraedy than d e a t h - - y e v e n g e l”38 One can well
imagine the unfortunate effect that Mr. Cresswick must have
had on the audience. Certainly the spectacle of an actor
dashing dov/n stage and shouting, ’ ’ Yevenge! Yevengel” is
38 See Thespian Dictionary, op. cit., ’ ’Cresswick.”
502
enough, to upset the already precariously balanced dignity
of Otway’s melodramatic play.
As has been indicated in the chapter on finances, few
of the actors seem to have gone in extensively for specula
tion, although undoubtedly many hard-earned pounds went the
way of Gay’s small fortune that exploded in the South Sea
Bubble. Numbers of them however invested their earnings in
public houses of sorts, and some of them retired from the
stage to play the ro'le of landlord. Est court when he left
the stage opened a wineshop. Macklin tried his famous com
bination of dining salon and lecture hall under the Piazzas
of Govent Garden, and probably would have made a financial
success of it had he not been too lavish in his maintenance
of the place, Charlotte Gharke was probably the most luck
less of would-be tavern-keepers, her soft heart being so
moved by the prayers of mendicants that she gave.away all her
supplies for the asking and ruined her chances for success
before her venture was well under way. Williams, a Welsh
actor at Drury Lane, soon after 1790 took over the
Shakespeare Coffee-house in Bow Street, intending to run it
and continue his activities on the stage. But evidently
by then the dignity of the stage had become a serious thing
in London. He was discharged from Drury Lane, because ”it
was judged that he could not possibly pay due attention to
the duties of an actor.” He later found leisure to act at
503
Richmond however, and became acting-manager of the theatre#39
Bridgewater, that early eighteenth century actor concerning
whom the question was whether he was worse in comedy or in
tragedy, began in his later years to neglect his acting for
the more lucrative occupation of dealer in coals. He died
in 1749, liberally besmudged with coal dust, and evidently
not at all upset over the lowliness of occupation— he who
had strutted the boards with Betterton himself#
George Anne Bellamy by 1760 had, according to her
story, made herself fashion dictator to London, with excellent
financial returns to herself.
"My judgement,” she says, ”in this point was
held in so much estimation, that the ladies would
have been wretched who did not consult me relative
to their birthday or fancy deaths .40
¥/ith her private dresser, Mrs* Tinns, she conducted
a sort of advisory designer’s shop before fancy balls, and
saw to it that she got her money back in tickets and recom
mendations to her benefit performances. There seem to have
been few direct methods by which an actress of standing could
supplement her earnings in the theatre, and so she often
took the indirect method. Of course, she could always write--
Writing actors. The acting profession in the century
seems to have been infected with the writing mania to a
Ibid.. "Williams."
Bellamy, o£. cit., 111, 1.
504
remarkable extent. Probably twenty per cent of the actors
who trod the London stage in the hundred years between
Betterton and Kean wrote a play of some sort that got Itself
some kind of production on some stage. Probably sixty per
cent of the actors wrote plays which fortunately did not
reach the stage. It may be that nearby to this duality of
profession lies one of the important causes of the dramatic
mediocrity of the age, paralleled by its brilliant theatri-
calism. Genest’s work is literally sowed thick with notices
of obscure works with either no comment at all, or the terse
remark, "A wretched piece--it held the stage for only one night.”
This is not the place to enter into an analysis of the
contention that actors, the "portrayers” of emotion, are
generally of a different breed from authors, the "creators
and seers” of emotion; but theatrical history seems to bear
it out thoroughly. Certainly we have no record in our cen
tury of a great dramatist who was also above the ordinary as
an actor. The reverse would seem to be almost true— its
exception being approached most closely in the century by
Colley Cibber, and more distantly by David Garrick. As
Genest said and many people have suspected, Garrick was in
his day of mediocre playwrights vastly over-rated as an
author. He could turn out a fair epigram now and then, and
was at times sharp with an almost Greek bite to his satire;
but his serious, weighty attempts invariably bogged down.
505
The best play with which he had anything to do. The Clan
destine Marriage, probably owes more to Colman’s balanced
genius than to Garrick’s brilliant eccentricity* And the most
monumental of all his poetic attempts--the lumbering ”Ode to
Shakespeare” which he wrote for his ill-fated Stratford
Festival— as Doctor Johnson remarked with a pontifical tongue
in his cheek, "defies criticism.” Cibber was a passable
actor, wrote several excellent plays that held the stage for
many years, and wore with fair grace the laurel wreath for
some years. That he was of the top flight of either actors,
poets, or dramatists however few would maintain.
Though actors wrote plays almost as a matter of course,
and were gratified at their occasional success, they seldom
made much fuss about the failure of such casual literary
productions. Certainly it did not affect them as it did
Dr. Browne, vicar of Great Horkesley and author of the
successful Barbares3a for which Garrick attired himself
so barbarically. The reverend gentleman committed suicide
when his next play, Athelstan, failed miserably. (Dr. Doran,
who laboured through the opus, said the second play was the
better of the two.) Most actors took the success of an
original play as a gift from the gods. Rarely did they con
sider leaving the stage for the writing profession unless
under the goad of a specific physical handicap. Such was the
case with Mrs. Inchbald, who stuttered invariably when under
506
an emotional strain, and who was constantly under an emotion
al strain while on the stage. As it was, she turned out a
score of acceptable plays, and did a considerable Job of
dramatic editing in her time.
So far as dramatists were concerned, the age was one
of literary cuckoos who ”took possession of the nests of
other writers, and sucked the eggs of their imaginations.”
The pseudo-classic craze for plays actually made it possible
for a person of limited literary talent to turn out a machined-
to-formula play which had an excellent chance for success.
Johnson’s superbly boring Irene is an example of the sort
of thing which, in a less literary form, was produced in
enormous quantity. Its absolute failure, in spite of
Garrick’s kindly production, is a tribute to the awakening
dramatic consciousness in the audience.
There was in the century little nonsense about divine
inspiration in playwriting. Especially was this true among
the actor writers, who knew that plays were after all merely
clusters of words interspersed with dramatic stage action.
Versatile Tate Wilkinson gives an excellent idea of the way
plays grew, under pressure. He wished at one time to secure
the rights to Sheridan’s new play-operetta. The Duenna, but
Harris would not relinquish them for rural production.
Copyv/rights were nebulous things in those days, possession
being the whole law, but the scores and libretti were
507
closely guarded by each bouse. Necessity forced Tate to
action. He first went to see the play. Then, said he,
I locked myself in my room, sat down first the
jokes I remembered, then I laid a book of the
songs before me, and with magazines kept the regu
lation of the sccnos, and by the help of a numerous
collection of obsolete Spanish plays I produced
an excellent opera.41
Probably many of the excellent farces of Samuel Foote, and
the various comedies written by the un-literary Mrs. Clive
grew more slowly in this synthetic fashion. Even the minor
actor occasionally had his night in the spotlight as author.
Yarrow, a poor minor actor wrote Love at First Sight.
Preston, v/hom Dibdin calls "an itinerant actor,” wrote The
Rival Father. No doubt dozens of other aspirants’ names
are buried in the playbills of the time.
The playwriting craze was obviously quite general
both inside and outside the theatre, and it is not at all
extreme to picture dozens of people scribbling away nightly
in the dingy rooms of London, with as great zeal and as
little talent as most of the million persons who are at
present trying to write short stories in the United S t a t e s .42
The astonishing thing is that so many of these amateur
efforts from outside the theatre got on the stage, when so
Wilkinson, Memoirs, op. cit., II, 230.
The next-to-last plate of Hogarth’s famous "Rake’s
Progress” shows the Rake in debtor’s prison--where he has
written a tragedy.
508
many actors were trying the same medium. Crane, a Manchester
weaver wrote The Female Parricide. Mrs. Lutter, a shopkeeper
at Reading, neglected her business to write The Siege of
Jerusalem. Osborne, the artist who was known as the painter
of a fish vfith wings, a calf with six legs, and other Gothic
horrors, did fairly well with a play called Midnight Mis take.
Rogers, an army officer, published a play in a pseudo-Indian
style, with an American setting, and called it Ponteach.
Schomberg, who was Garrick’s favourite physician, was con
stantly beseiging his celebrated patient to play one of his
numerous works. Reed, a rope-maker, wrote two plays pro
duced about 1760; Portal, a jeweler and bookseller, produced
The Indiscreet Lover and other works; Hyland, a farmer,
wrote The Shipwreck; Lambert, a scene painter, wrote The
Wreckers. “ With such lame competition it is no wonder that
the actors found little difficulty in getting inferior works
produced.
That there was much profit in this extra-curricular
writing of the actor is improbable. The plays that formed
the bulk of the productions during the century were non
royalty adaptations of Shakespeare and the Restoration
writers. Rarely was an author so lucky as Cibber, who when
he dedicated a play to Charles II received an outright gift
of tv/o hundred pounds. The tremendous earnings of Gay from
The Beggar’s Opera and Doctor Home from his Douglas were
509
exceptional. It is true that Garrick and Colman paid them
selves generously for their writing efforts, hut neither
of them was so generous with other authors, unless, as in the
case of Garrick’s apparently liberal treatment of Smollett,
the author was in a position to injure the manager. The
painter Reynolds wrote two tragedies, Werter and Eloisa,
and they brought him in together only eight pounds. Macklin
however laughed at his discomfiture. ’ ’ And very good pay,
too. Sir I So go home and write two more tragedies, and if
you gain four pounds by each of them, why, young man, the
author of Paradise Lost will be a fool to you!” Macklin
himself wrote several plays, and set one record which is not
likely to be eclipsed. In 1781, on the 10th of May, he
created the role of Sir Pertinax MacSycophant in his own
play, Man of the World, at the age of ninety.Thomas
Dibdin, who got his chance in London when he was able between
Friday and Sunday, to produce a play on Nelson’s glorious
victory in 1798 divided his time betv/een acting and writing,
with profitable results, receiving from twenty to seven hun
dred pounds as fees for his plays.44 Often the printing
Boaden, Life of Kemble, op. cit., I, xix.
The play was called The Mouth of the Nile. Dibdin
received the commission from Harris on Friday at Tunbridge
Wells, and took the play to Govent Garden on Sunday. He
himself was given the r5ie of Irish Johnstone, there being
no other actor available. The play was very successful, and
played thirty-five times that season, amounting to a smash
hit in those days of repertory playing.
510
rights to the play, tov/ard the end of the century, were
even more valuable than the theatrical rights. Cumberland
sold the rights to his West Indian for one hundred fifty
pounds, and he said the publisher Griffin sold twelve thousand
copies of the popular p l a y . 45 While that is not typical of
the ordinary payment accorded an author late in the century,
it is indicative of the possibilities.
Female playwrights were plentiful in the century,
and more often than not were, or had been, actresses. From
the coarse Aphra Behn of the Restoration era down to the
moral Mrs. Inchbald, the pages of theatrical history are
speckled with the casual comedies of these ladies. Hannah
More, Mrs. Cowley (who is more famous for having started
the "At home day” for visiting than for the rather crude
plays she wrote), IVIrs. Griffith, Frances Brooke, Sophia Lee,
Miss De Camp, Mrs. Manley, Catherine Cockburn (Mrs. Trotter),
and the almost legendary Mrs. Fix were ladies whose produc
tions found a place, however ephemeral, upon the stage.
This rapport of the sex with drama does not, necessarily,
indicate any moralizing influence at work. Women are oppor
tunists as often as are men, and there is little indication
that they are any more moral. Remembering the redoubtable
Aphra--or "Astrea” as she liked to be called— one is inclined
45
Cumberland; Memoirs, op. cit., p. 220.
511
to regard feminine morals when they existed, merely as tri
butes to an age of generally increasing respectability. The
increasing number of playwrights among women of the stage is
an inevitable concomitant of increased emphasis on female
education and freedom of thought.
One other field of writing afforded the eighteenth
century actor an outlet for his literary proclivities, and
started a wave of confession literature that has ever since
been peculiarly the property of theatrical folk. Practical
ly every important actor in the eighteenth century, and many
not so important, felt the urge to ”tell all” in print, and
for a consideration. Undoubtedly most of the actors enjoyed
writing their Memoirs, and looked upon it more in the light
of a pleasant diversion than as serious work. Occasionally,
as in the case of Mrs. Gharke and of Mrs. Cibber, the writing
was inspired by the hope that definite financial returns
would repay them for the effort. In an age of tremendous
general interest in the personalities of the theatre, they
were rarely disappointed. Occasionally, as in the case of
Mary Robinson, a literary talent developed sufficient to
cause them to launch into the field of novel-writing. More
often however it was true that writing remained for them
merely a pleasant relaxation for which there were incidental
rewards.46
See Theophilus Cibber, An Apology for the Life of
Mr. Th’ Cibber (Dublin: Geo. Faulkner, 1741), p. 15-16 for
an account of pleasant experiments in the writing of theatri
cal advertising copy early in the century.
512
Reading. Doctor Johnson once said of Colley Cibber,
although disclaiming intimacy with him, that he was much more
ignorant than he could well have conceived any man to be who
had lived near sixty years with authors, critics, and some
of the most celebrated characters of his a g e .47 The criti
cism, even after making allowances for Johnson’s usual
Philistinism, was one which might be made generally of the
actors of the age, if taken to mean general and not speci
fic ignorance. (Johnson was no doubt thinking, as usual,
of "classical” knowledge.) Students of English literature
are prone to fall into the habit of thinking that the average
man in the eighteenth century was reading the selections we
have in our anthologies today, and that is far from the truth.
The reading of the ordinary educated man took its bulk large
ly from the contemporary Journals of the day, whbh corre
sponded closely in nature of contents to the ordinary Sunday
edition of a contemporary American newspaper.
Of this reading matter there are several noticeable
characteristics. One of the most -obVious early in the cen
tury was the evident leaning toward somewhat lusty morbidity.
The yellow Journalism of the eighteenth century was much
concerned with tales of the unreal, of ghosts, of abnormal
crimes, and of peculiar manifestations of nature. Conse
cutive items in the September issue of the Gentleman’s
Genest, up* cit. , IV, 166.
513
Magazine in 1731 read, for instance:
Surprising Discoveries of Murtherers by a Dream,
or Apparition. . * By a murdered Corpse opening an
eye and bleeding.
Of 3 Persons executed for the Murder of a Gentle
man then alive*
Of Naden, who murdered his Master at the en
treaty of his Master’s Wife.
Of a Murtherer who escaped 4 years.
Of the Unhappy self Murder of Mrs. Fanny
Braddock, the occasion, and Verses she left.
Mr. Powers* speeches at his Trial for an
Incendiary. . . etc.
There appeared frequent disquisitions on methods of punishing
various crimes in other countries ; the kdea being, probably,
that by unearthing such things as the German custom of com
pelling a bankrupt to ride backwards through his town on an
ass, the tail grasped in his hands, the leniency of the
English custom in such matters would be recognized. The
severe sentences of the courts were often printed, in their
gory details, probably for a like salutory purpose. Thus
appears a notice in May of that same year:
Japhet Crooke, alias Sir Peter Stranger, received
Sentence to stand in the Pollory (sic.), have both
his Ears cut off, his Nose slit, his body imprisoned
for Life, and his Goods and Chattels forfeited to
the Crown for forging Writings to an estate.48
In that day of public floggings and occasional executions,
which were attended by the populace quite as a matter of
Gentleman’s Magazine, May, 1731, p. 218
514
course, such reading matter was not too strong stuff, and
fitted into the age. Later in the century the novel had its
first enormous vogue in London, and it will be recalled that
the "Gothic romance” as it is called had many of these
characteristics of horror and the supernatural. The man of
fashion in 1757, according to a writer in the same periodi
cal, "rises no higher in political knowledge than the secur
ing of a borough; instead of history he reads novels; he knows
nothing of legislation, but from party pamphlets; and instead
of perusing philosophical enquiries, imbibes implicitly the
principles of irréligion.” It was from the journals that
most of the topics of conversation were taken in the taverns
and coffee houses around town.
Besant gives a typical eighteenth century library
consisting of the following volumes;
Bunyan* s Pilgrim* s Progress
Foxe * 8 Book of Martyrs
The Whole Duty of Man
Baker * s Chronicles
The Complete Letter-Writer
Robinson Crusoe
Robin Hood * s Garland
The Seven Champions
Turner * s Spectator
The Tale of a Tub
Culpepper*s H e r b a l 4 9
YVhile this may be a typical library, it was rarely typical
as an index to the reading of the average ovmer. It was a
fairly extensive library for an ordinary home, and undoubtedly
49 Besant, London in the 18th. Cent, op. cit., p. 341.
515
was far larger than that owned hy the average actor. The
moralistic tinge to the selection is thoroughly typical of
the age, and v/as akin to that pseudo-classic affectation which
characterized the literary thinking of the age. The century
saw the rise of the circulating libraries which were patron
ized by incredible numbers of people. Especially was this
true after the enormously protracted romances of Richardson
and his confreres took the fancy of the reading public. In
1761, just a year before Richardson * s death, Colman brought
out one of the many Meropes of the century, a comedy in
which the heroine*s head is turned with reading novels. The
father concludes the mixed-up farce of what happens to her
by saying, "a man might as well turn his daughter loose in
Covent Carden, as trust the cultivation of her mind to— a
Circulating L i b r a r y . " 3 0 The common diversion of girls in
boarding schools was the reading of plays, especially of
spicy comedies which they were not allowed to see at the
theatre. As a certain Astrea Brokage wrote pitifully to a
j ournal in 1770 :
I have perused every novel published by Lowndes
or Noble, and could upon occasion compile a secret
history, as pathetic and Moving, as any other female
author. There is no modern play that I have not
read; from the bright sallies of Foote, to the dull
dialogue of Cumberland.31
30 In Genest, op^. cit., IV, 602.
"Interrogations from a Boarding-School Miss,"
Town and Country Magazine, January, 1770, p. 31.
516
That many of the actors, such as Foote, Cooke, Macklin,
Mrs. Clive, and Ivîrs. Bellamy were fairly omnivorous readers
we know. Holcroft tells entertainingly of his struggling
with Boswell’s Life of Johnson when it came out, reading a
chapter now and then when he came home from the theatre at
night— undoubtedly as a soporific— until finally he finished
it in high dudgeon and wrote in his Joui^nal, "As a piece of
biography it is a vile performance; but as a collection of
materials, it is a mine,"— surely as sound a criticism as
was ever made of the book.32 The tireless Mrs. Baddeley was
fond of books, and according to her biographer read them at
every opportunity. Histories and plays were her chief
dellght--a serious taste for one so flippant in her personal
conduct.
Garrick’s reading was very slim, although he had at
Hampton a large library with which he liked to affect fa
miliarity, but with which he evidently had but a calfskin
and morocco acquaintance. He liked to be flattered by the
pious statement that Shakespeare had left the stage with the
retirement of Garrick, although the great bard undoubtedly
survived that blow in fair shape. He even liked to talk now
and then of the possibility of his editing Shakespeare when
he got around to it, although certainly his reading back
ground and classical scholarship would have made that highly
Holcroft, pp. cit., III, 22.
517
presimiptious• Tate Wilkinson*s anecdote of Johnson’s after-
dinner remark on Garrick’s library is the best snmmary of
the matter; it was made on the evening when the anointed
Samuel, full of tea and rich viands, started pulling out
Garrick’s best books, and after reading the title pages,
dashing them furiously to the floor* Garrick finally cried
out, "Why d--n it, Johnson, you, you, you will destroy all
my books !" At this Johnson is reported to have fixed his
eyes and said, "Lookee, David, you do understand plays, but
you know nothing about books I"S3
Tov/ard the end of the century the interest in casual
reading was shifting from the morbid to more trivial and
pleasant items of pseudo-scientific interest. Typical of
the thing that was making up much of the Journalistic feature
writing is a series of six or seven articles from various
contributors on "An Elephant’s tooth found containing lead--,"
a series which finally ended in 1789 with "Correction about
an Elephant’s tooth." Another was the series of grave articles
in a London periodical on the remarkable phenomenon of a
male macaw that laid an egg, and got himself talked about
in print through 1788-89.Instead of reading about a two-
headed calf born in Surrey, and the phenomena of an extra-
uterine foetus (favourite Journalistic subjects of earlier
London periodical articles), by 1790 the interest had shifted
Wilkinson, Memoirs, op. cit., II, 24.
See The Gentleman’s Magazine for 1788-1789.
518
to such, comparatively pleasant topics as "Natural history
of wild rice." "Observations on South Seas Language," or
"A peculiar call of the throstle noted." This shift in
interest toward the wholesome is too clearly marked in perio
dical literature to,be denied, in spite of the late vogue
of the Gothic 'romance, and one suspects that it was from
such material that the actor’s reading, done largely for
relaxation, was taken.
Graphic arts. After Sir Joshua Reynolds had returned
from his personally disastrous but artistically remunerative
trip to Italy,the art life of London really began to
take intelligent direction and form. In 1760 he staged with
his colleagues a public exhibition of the work of the Society
of Artists, and aroused intense general interest. In 1765
this group secured a royal charter and became known as "The
Incorporated Society of Artists," actually the forerunner
of the Royal Academy which was founded three years later
with Sir Joshua as president. The age was full of alertness
and progress in artistic matters, and yet little interest
seems to have been taken in the national awakening by the
actors--unless the posing for portraits by Siddons,
Abington, Mrs. Jordan, and others may be counted interest.
There are many instances of young artists quitting their
He contracted in Rome a severe cold, and was ren
dered permanently deaf by an accompanying ear infection.
519
profession for the stage, but not one instance of the reverse.
Sketching and painting would seem to be an ideal
recreation for the actor. Among those who combined with their
histrionic talents skill with the pencil and brush was Emery,
whom Doran says was an excellent painter, and Deighton
(or Dighton) who attracted customers to his shop in Charing-
Cross with caricatures of his theatrical colleagues at
Drury Lane. Poor Deighton was finally forced into exile by
his involvement in a scandal which had to do with the dis
appearance from the British Museum of a copy of Rembrandt’s
Hundred Guilder print.56 Ben Johnson, a famous Ioyi comedian
before Garrick’s time, enjoyed considerable fame and in
creased income in his day from his scene-painting, at which
he was considered a real artist. Few of the itinerant
actors were so fortunate as Booth, the manager of the company
in which Holcroft and Mrs. Inchbald toured Scotland in 1744
and almost starved with the rest of the company. Booth
however had more than one string to his bow. Says Holcroft:
The first thing he did when he came to any town,
v/as to wait on the magistrate, to ask leave for his
company to play; or if this was refused, that he
might have the honour of painting his picture. If
his scenes and dresses were lying idle, he was the
more busy with his pencil: and that tempting bait
hunt out at the shop-windows, Likenesses taken in
this manner for half-a-guinea, seldom failed to fill
his pockets, while his company were starving.57
Doran, 0£. cit., III, 213.
57 Holcroft, _qp. cit. , I, 251.
520
In 1740, when Rich was bringing out Orpheus and Eurydice, he
wanted a serpent to kill the heroine at the proper time, and
finally found a theatre artist who undertook to create one.
The snake turned out so well that, .the artist was intoxicated
with his success and went into the reptile business whole
sale . But the public, satisfied with one snake, was indif
ferent to the unsold nests of serpents and the poor chap was
very nearly r u i n e d . 58
]VIrs. Siddons is the only actress of the period who
seems to have derived any great amount of pleasure from her
study and practice of art. At sculpture she became really•
proficient, and the paste medalions which she made show pro
fessional skill. In her old age, sculpture was practically
her sole amusement, and helped her get through many a dreary
day which otherwise would have been filled with only ghostly
memories. In a letter to her friend Mrs. Fitz Hugh, written
on April 7, 1815, she said:
I don’t know why, unless that I am older and
feebler, or that I am now without a profession,
which forced me out of myself in my former afflic
tions, but the loss of my poor dear Harry seems to
have laid a heavier hand upon my mind than any I
have sustained. I drive out to recover ray voice
and my spirits, and am better while abroad; but I
come home and lose them both in an hour. I cannot
read or do anything else but puddle with ray clay.
I have begun a full length figure of Cecilia; and
this is a resource which fortunately never fails
me. Mr. Fitz Hugh approves of it, and that is
Genest, 0£. cit., III, 620.
521
encouragement. I have little to complain of, ex
cept a low voice and lower spirits.59
It is unfortunate that so many of the actors devoted them
selves so coneinuously to the stage and its immediate en
vironment that they had no such casual occupations with which
to entertain themselves when their services were no longer
required at the theatre. "Puddling with clay" may not he
a world shaking occupation; but it is far better than twid
dling one’s thumbs, and leafing sorrowfully through albums
of old portraits.
Recreations. The tavern. If actors of the century
may be said to have had one favourite form of recreation and
entertainment, it was talking. The eighteenth century was
a voluble age for all professions, but particularly was it
so for the gregarious actor, and other theatrical people.
In Restoration times it was the fashion both before and after
the theatre for all who would be thought judges of drama and
actors’ flesh to assemble in the famous "Will’s Goffee House"
at number one Bow Street, Govent Garden. There the wits and
nit-wits of the gentry gathered, and mingled with the actors;
there opinions were given freely on the comparative merits
or demerits of performers, and there the actors gobbled up
Campbell, c^. cit., II, 360. The "Harry" men
tioned was Mrs. Siddons’ son Henry, the actor, who died of
consumption at the age of forty while serving as the manager
of the Edinburgh Theatre.
522
bits of flattery and choked down morsels of scorn in the same
way our modern actors devour the critical notices in Variety
and Billboard. There the lady4clllers would flock to tell
of their conquests among the actresses, or to hint broadly
at the latest indiscretions of a certain lady of the court.
There, after the play, was certainly the hub of the town,
and it was inevitable that the adulation-thirsty actors
gravitated thither after the play to eat their late supper,
and to talk. It was inevitable also, that in the emotion
ally supercharged atmosphere of such a place quarrels sprang
up quickly, and swords flashed. The tavern of the eighteenth
century, in its early days shared the disrepute of the play
house, and the actor was blamed for the state of both.
Within a few steps of Govent Garden theatre early in
the century were located the three most famous coffee houses
of their time. "Will’s" was on the north side, at the corner
of Bow Street, "Button’s" was on the south side, about two
doors from the theatre, and "Tom’s" was also on the north
side at 17 Russell Street. These three houses formed the
center of the recreational life of most of the upper-class
theatrical fraternity, although the minor actors could not
often afford such luxury. "Will’s" had the most illustrious
history, for it was there that Dryden had held forth as
literary and dramatic dictator of his time, from his "winter
chair" before the fireplace in one season, and his "summer
523
chair" on the balcony in another. So long as the upper
room at "Will’s" persisted as the meeting place of gentle
men of the theatre and of the pen, it held its preeminence
as the fountain-head of wit. "Button’s," which had been the
scene for so many of the Tat1er and Spectator papers, de
clined early in the century. "Tom’s," which had been estab
lished about 1700, lasted until about 1756 when it was
wrecked to make room for a new building. The Rose Tavern,
where the young actor Horden, according to Gibber, was killed
in a frivolous quarrel at the bar about 1697, was evidently
located near I^rury Lane theatre, and was a frequent place
of resort after the p l a y . 50 "The Mitre," while some distance
down Fleet Street, and in a very dangerous neighborhood late
at night, was often visited by the actors and critics.
Johnson was very fond of sitting up late there, and it was
there that Boswell finally insinuated himself into the company
of the great man, and started his recording of those personal
remarks with which his biography is so liberally sprinkled.51
Russell Street was throughout the century the home
of many actors, Betterton, Lord Mohun, and Mrs. Barton Booth
among others having had residences there. In that street
also was "The Harp," long notorious as the resort of
60
J. Boswell, 02# cit., I, 267-268.
Genest, 02- cit., II, 84
61
5 2 4
celebrated actors. Especially was this neighborhood and this
tavern popular toward the end of the century and in the early
nineteenth, when one corner was finally christened "The
Edmund Kean Corner". In addition to these places of enter
tainment for the actor, for they served that purpose with
their gaming tables, their incidental music, and their tap
rooms, there were numerous smaller and more modest houses in
which the minor actor might put down his sixpence and have a
mug of ale and a bite of supper while enjoying himself with
his fellows. Galt gives an excellent general picture of the
taverns of the time.
There was a house in Covent Garden remarkable
for selling Derbyshire ale, cheap and much liked
by the customers. The calm which succeeded the
peace of Utrecht reduced many officers to live on
their friends, and those in particular who lived
about London much frequented this house, which they
did at this time in such numbers, that by way of
distinction they were called the Derby Captains;--
Macklin often here drank his pint of Derby ale.
At that time Govent Garden also was a scene of much
dissipation, being surrounded with taverns and night-
house s , which, with the vicinity of the houses in
Glare market, were the rendezvous of the theatrical
spirit. The ordinaries were there from sixpence to
a shilling a-head; at the later were two courses,
and a good deal of what was called good company
in the mixed way. The Bedford Head, in Maiden-lane
was probably among the best of them;• . . The butchers
of Clare-market were the friends of the players, and
always in every riot sided with them, for it was
not criminal in those days to be riotous.--The
lawyers lived mostly in the inns of Court, and the
players around the theatres.52
See Galt, Oj^. cit. , II, 6. Concerning "The Derby
Captains" cf. Genest, op .c it., III, 498.
525
This somewhat jumbled statement nevertheless makes fairly
clear the sort of company the minor actor kept for his even
ing gossip, and the kind of place in which he indulged it.
Although many of the actors spent their afternoons
in the taverns, talking, drinking, and gambling, they rarely
visited the houses before noon. The obvious reason for that
was the morning rehearsal, which might last from ten to two.
Occasionally there was a two-fisted exception to this rule,
as in the case of the actor Powell, v/ho was ticked off
neatly in a comedy acted at Drury Lane in 1697, called
Female Wits, or the Triumvirate of Poets at Rehearsal. One
of the actresses asks where Powell is, and is told that he
is at the tavern. She inquires, "At the tavern in the
morning?" To which one of the older actors replies: "Why
how long have you been a member of this congregation, pretty
Miss, and not know honest George regards neither times
nor seasons in dri n k i n g ? "53 , jn these taverns near the theatres
Garrick evidently spent most of his time while he was sup
posed to be selling wine for his brother Peter, in the early
days. Murphy says he loved to indulge his criticism of other
actors, and mounting on the tables would illustrate his
remarks by mimickry--a thing which he objected to bitterly
in later years when he was the subject of it.54
53 Genest, p2* cit », II, 102.
Murphy, o^* cit., I, 15.
626
It was in the Shakespeare Tavern that the plans were
laid for the premiere of Goldsmith’s play. She Stoops to
Conquer. with Johnson presiding in glee over the early dinner
which the author’s friends were having. It was agreed that
Johnson should give the cues for plaudits, with his organized
laughing section coming in to bolster him up whether the
crowd laughed or not. Cumberland continues the narration:
. . . all eyes were upon Dr. Johnson, who sat
in the front row of a side box, and when he laughed
every body thought himself warranted to roar; in
the mean time Drummond (i.e. Adam Drummond) followed
signals with a rattle so irresistably comic, that
when he had repeated it several times, the attention
of the spectators was so engrossed by his person
and performance that the progress of the play seemed
likely to become a secondary o b j e c t .55
As will be recalled, the play was a success.
Clubs. There were in the century clubs of all descrip
tions and for all ranks of people. The "Punch" clubs met
once a week and their members set themselves to getting
drunk on their favourite drink— an event which v/as consum
mated for the stoutest of them after about five hours of
effort. The card clubs abounded in every tavern of repute,
and often of disrepute. The famous "Literary" and "Beef
steak" clubs, although often they were not literary in nature,
and consumed little beefsteak, were gatherings of men who
talked more than they drank, although there was generally
66
Cumberland, op. cit., 268-270. Cf. Genest, op.
cit.. V, 366.
527
plenty of both. All of these clubs had one thing in common:
they met in taverns, and their members were drawn together
by a need for congenial companionship which they could not
find elsewhere. Some of the clubs were centers of intel
lectual accomplishment. Some of them, such as the disrepu
table "Spread Eagle" in the Strand, were resorts for young
bucks who gathered together after the theatre for various
immoral purposes. The landlord of the tavern where they met
once complained that his was a very uncommon set of customers,
"for what with hangings, drownings, and sudden deaths, he
had a change every six months." 56
There were also the numerous "cock and hen" clubs,
and other gatherings attended by the lowest sort of popula
tion. It is difficult for us, in this day of democratic
prize-fights, movies, public dances, free libraries, and cheap
automobiles to realize the plight of the average man of
eighteenth century London. While his poverty of entertain
ment facilities does not excuse his extreme dissipation, it
certainly helps to explain it. Even these clubs of little
repute probably served some civilizing purpose, the only
alternative for their members being the cheap drinking and
aimless brawling of the lower taverns and stews of Gin L a n e .57
55 D. George, op. cit., p. 275.
67
For general survey of this phase of social life
see Robert J. Allen, The Clubs of Augustan London (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1933).
528
The only clubs enjoying the fellowship of the minor actors
were those informal gatherings which held session periodically
in the nearby taverns. It is not at all a simple.thing to
demonstrate the significance of these clubs in the life of
the actor, important as it must have been. Garrick was im
portant in Doctor Johnson’s famous group, and scintillated
in the company of Burke, Joshua Reynolds, and Goldsmith;
Peg Woffington was practically the center of the famous
"Beefsteak Club" of Dublin, in which she was the only woman
member; but these people v/ere not typical of the actor of
their time, but brilliant exceptions. The ordinary actor
never got his nose inside the portals of such august gather
ings, but it is natural to suppose that he was welcomed into
the companionship of less elevated social groups where his
talents as an entertainer would be valued. Many of the
actors seem to have been fond of card-playing, and several
of them belonged to whist clubs that met regularly and played
for moderate stakes. 58 But whatever the outward purpose
of these clubs, so far as the actor was concerned conversa
tion was the primary object.
55 Munden says there were whist clubs in which the
players sat up to their knees in discarded packs of cards,
curtains being drawn between their faces to "conceal any
expression of disappointment at a bad hand." Often fines
were imposed on any member who was not drunk when the sitt
ings closed. Munden, o^* cit., p. 46.
529
This craving for audible release found expression in
London in the last half of the century in the famous "Spout
ing Clubs," as they were.derisively called, in which the
members unashamedly cut loose the dams of their speech. In
1770 a gentleman writing of the amusements available in
London said:
There is a speaking club near the Strand, where
every member gains admittance for sixpence, and
where he is allowed to hold forth for five minutes,
upon any question proposed. I find this club was in
much repute some years since, when it was frequented
by several of the. greatest geniuses of the age.
The president at the time was a baker, but a very
shrewd, sensible man, and properly qualified for
the post he held.
Macklin often capitalized on this general desire for oratory,
and pulled himself over the financial shoals more than once
by coaching aspirants for the stage. His whole technique,
which in his day was revolutionary, consisted of getting a
person to say a speech naturally, and then increasing the
force back of it. His lecture-hall-dining room which went
bankrupt after a year of good patronage but poor management,
was the frequent resort of actors who were entertained by the
oratorical strivings of the young students, and by the bom
bastic utterances of the old actor. Foote was especially
fond of baiting the old man. One evening when Macklin
bustled in to give his lecture he found Foote the center of
a hubub in one corner. "Well, Sir," he said cheerfully.
and Country Magazine, April, 1770, p. 195
630
"you seem to be very merry there. But do you know what I
am going to say nov/?" "No Sir," said Foote. "Pray, do
you?""70 While Macklin’s "British Inquisition" was operat
ing in his great room, he used to open his house three times
a week, from ten to twelve in the morning, for the tyros of
the profession to come and display their budding talents.
Over this early "amateur hour" he presided with an air,
settling T/ith a word the dramatic hopes of many a budding
hopeful. This abode of Macklin’s under the piazzas of
Covent Garden was a center for informal club life of the
actors, as well as a source for many picturesque anecdotes
concerning the old performer: such for instance as the
serious advice concerning gestures with the right arm that
he gave to a man who was attempting a speech from Othello--
an ex-sailor v/ith one arm, whose empty sleeve Macklin had
mistaken for a limb in actionl*^^ On April 4, 1780, at Drury
Lane was performed a supplementary piece at Brereton’s bene
fit, called The School of Eloquence, which Genest says was
intended to ridicule the numbers of debating societies which
were frequented at the time. But no stage ridicule could
Thespian Dictionary, op. cit. , "Macklin." See
also Doran, o^- cit., III, 72.
71
For full account of Macklin’s venture see Cooke,
Memoirs of Macklin, op. cit., p. 199-216.
72
Genest, op^. cit., VI, 132.
631
destroy the great thing that had come to pass in the eight
eenth century--the final substitution of vocal for physical
weapons. The popularity of the debating societies and
spouting clubs may be regarded as a decisive blow struck
against the sword-carrying, duelling young bloods and their
habits. Here were quarrels ready-provided, conveniently
regulated as to size and ferocity, and limited to weapons of
wind. The duel could not stand up against so potent an
adversary.
The "green-room." It seems rather peculiar that
there should not have.arisen simon-pure actors’ clubs in the
century, but outside of the loose organization of the green
room, that under-stage gathering place of actors, there seems
to have been nothing of the sort* True, the famous Beef
Steak Club met every Saturday morning in Govent Garden Theatre,
but its membership was drawn more from the literary and
social element of London than from the playhouse roster. By
Garrick’s time the theatre had lost the social homogeneity
that it had possessed in Betterton’s day, when actors were
all of a common and often despised lot. The fixing of the
star system had inevitably brought about a shattering of the
democratic unity of theatrical people. Even the green-room
itself was often shunned by minor actors in Garrick’s time
and afterward, the small fry in their shoddy raiment and
ratty wigs undoubtedly feeling ill at ease in the company
532
of the peacocks of Drury Lane and Govent Garden. Quin
rarely visited the greenroom, for other reasons, and Garrick
never did so unless forced there by business.
Yet the greenroom held what was as near an actor’s
club as anything in the century, for it was the playroom
as well as the workroom of the actors. There they lounged
before curtain time, and there they often carried on informal
rehearsals. Frequently, when they didn’t wish to leave the
theatre, they had meals served there, and very frequently
they had drinks there. The general atmosphere of the place
is best conveyed by the speech of Pomander, the satirical
man of the world, in Reade’s delightful novel Peg Woffington.
"The green-room, my dear madam, is the bower
where houris put off their wings, and goddesses
become dowdies; where Lady Macbeth v/eeps over her
lap-dog, dead from repletion; and Belvidera soothes
her broken heart with a dozen of oysters; in a word,
it is the place where actors and actresses become
men and women, and act their own parts with skill,
instead of a poet’s clumsily.
Into this company backstage many outsiders found their way
and Y/ere made v/elcome, but always as visitors and not as
members of the fraternity. Even Doctor Johnson, it will be
recalled, used to frequent for a time the green-room of
Garrick’s theatre after he got somewhat acquainted with
several of the performers during rehearsals for his Irene.
*76
Gharles Reade. Peg Woffington (New York: E. P. gton
Dutton Go., Everyman’s edition, 19Ô7T, p. 116.
533
But finally he denied himself that treat from "considerations
of rigid virtue," as Boswell says. The easy and relaxed
attitude of the actors and actresses at play frightened him,
and he wrote to Garrick: "I’ll come no more behind your
scenes, David: for the silk stockings and white bosoms of
your actresses excite my amorous propensities."*^'^ This is
not, as has been sometimes thought, one of those leviathan
jokes of Johnson, but the simple truth. One of his greatest
merits is his blunt sincerity at times, and in this he was
merely stating the case as he saw it. He was a sensible man,
and when he found himself yielding to a temptation which his
ruling mind told him was dangerous to his dignity, his logi
cal reaction was to remove himself from the vicinity of
temptation.
The green-room was the property of the actor, and
there he could enj'oy himself in the peculiarly uninhibited
manner common to actors at play. Johnson was quite right
in feeling himself an interloper in the green-room, whether
he was welcome there or not. In an age of excessive audience
domination, it was one place which was to an extent a pro
fessional haven for the actor.
Actors have always been inveterate theatre-goers,
and have usually been found, on their free nights, watching
74
J. Boswell, 02* cit., I, 135
534
the performances of others. Thus theatregoing must be listed
as one of the greatest amusements of the actor in the eight
eenth century, just as it was of the shop-keeper around the
corner. The auditorium was only a few steps up from the
green-room, where he had probably gone after his afternoon
dinner, and only a short walk farther to the other theatre
if he wished to watch the rival company. Garrick used fre
quently to be found in the pit at Govent Garden on his
"night out," and the argument that he was merely there in the
way of business is a specious one. Part of the reason was
of course that he knew he would be recognized and applauded,
(as on the first night of Brothers in 1769, when he was
"agreeably surprized at the compliment paid him in the
Epilogue")but the most important reason was merely the fact
that his blood was diluted with grease-paint, and he could
think of no more entertaining place to be than in the theatre.
That he stayed through the entire play is obvious. Another
reason for the actor’s fondness for the theatre as a place
of entertainment was that he was admitted free to perfor
mances at his own theatre. While this consideration, in
spite of Garrick’s unusual stinginess, undoubtedly had little
effect on the great David, it was most certainly a potent
influence on the conduct of lesser members of the green
room society. Actors had access to the theatre through
the rear door, and frequently usurped the best seats in the
535
house before the paying guests arrived. It was a custom
which brought many objections from the audience. As late
as 1796 a gentleman wrote an open letter to the managers
Sheridan, Colman, and Harris, protesting at the practice,
and concluding:
It is perfectly indifferent to an audience
whether they are excluded from the front rows by
the highest or the most inferior performer on the
stage; by a low comedian, a tragedy queen, or a
figure dancer. The merit of the actor does not
lessen the impropriety of the measure, no more than
his insignificance would increase it: in either
case, the audience are unjustly treated. The
preference of place is given to those who are
supported by, and not to those who are the support
of, the theatre.*^5
That this custom of the actors could be so universal as to
provoke a public outbreak testifies to its frequency.
Travel. While the actor of the eighteenth century
would certainly never have started out on a trip merely
"to travel" for amusement, he undoubtedly usually looked
upon any sort of trip within or away from London as a species
of recreation. Stage coaches were run on fairly regular
schedules, even making many of their longer runs at night.
Hackhèy coaches were available in London in constantly in
creasing numbers throughout the century. (Besant says they
had increased from fifty at the beginning of the century to
1,000 by 1770.) In 1730 a hackney coach could be had at one
Letter to the Monthly Mirror, February, 1796, p. 238
536
shilling for a mile and a half, or ten shillings per day.
Short stage runs to nearby towns were usually from sixpence
to one shilling. On the river one might secure a water
taxi for "6d. for two miles with a pair of oars, and 3d,
with a single waterman." If it had been possible for tra
vellers to reach their destinations by water, undoubtedly
that would have been the most popular method of transporta
tion. In 1760 the coaches still had no springs, being
swung directly to the axles, and travelled about a third
faster than they did in Dickens' time, and on rougher roads.
Tate Wilkinson tells of one cross-country journey he made
when he had to be put in the "basket" in order to stay with
the coach. It was in such conveyances that actors journeyed
from London to Bath for theatrical engagements, or to Holy
head to catch a packet for Dublin. Midnight coaches left
for Holyhead and for Bath, and we have frequent notices of
actors rushing from the theatre after a performance in order
to catch the coach. Wilkinson rushed so rapidly one night
that in his excitement he locked up all his money in his
trunk, and had to run around and borrow twenty pounds from
Garrick, whom he found at eleven o'clock already in his
nightcap--a circumstance that evidently made a deep impres
sion on the wakeful Tate. Besant thinks that the actors,
unless they were of the top rank, seldom could afford coach
travel early in the century, and contented themselves in the
537
country with the wagons which ambled placidly along the
English l a n e s . *75 Certainly overland travel was not cheap
even in 1798 when a man could boast of having travelled
ninety miles in seventeen hours, with breakfast, dinner,
and tea, for the "small" sum of £4/9/6.
Much has been made of the fact that Mrs* Siddons
"rode home in her own carriage from the theatre," and yet
that was nothing unusual in the century. True, the carriage
was often furnished by some enamoured nobleman, as in the
case of Nell Gwynn, whereas Mrs. Siddons bought her own with
her generous salary. It is true that carriages were not kept
in the city by any but the very wealthy, and that one of the
indications of an improved fortune in theatrical ranks was
the purchase of a carriage. But one of the chief reasons
the actors avoided carriages both public and private, aside
from their popular reputation for pestilence, was that the
streets around Drury Dane and Govent Garden were until late
in the century hardly navigable except by sedan chair. They
were rutted badly, slimy with muck, and crowded with stalls
and pedestrian traffic. By 1790 however they were fairly
well lighted and drained, the pot-holes filled in, and the
pedestrians pushed back out of harm's way. By then many
of the actors had their homes on the outskirts of the city.
76
Besant, london in the 18th. Gent. , op. cit. , p. 114
538
and had their own equipages with which they drove in to the
theatre for rehearsals and performances daily. By 1800 the
sedan chair had become almost extinct, and the actor was
driving his span of bays around the dusty lanes of Hyde
Park in the afternoon with the other aristocrats, without
attracting more than his normal share of attention.
By 1810 acting had become a truly seven-league pro
fession, for it was on the 21st of November of that year that
George Frederick Cooke made his début on the Nev/ York stage
in Garrick's famous part of Richard III. Francis says of
the event:
His vast renoun had preceded him; but every an
ticipation was more than realized. He had reached
his fifty-fourth year, yet possessed all the physi
cal energies of thirty, profiting largely on the
score of health by his sea voyage.*77
Cooke's success led others from London to try their luck on
the American stage (Holman followed him in 1812), and our
continent soon became a regular outlet for the surplus members
of the British stage as it has remained right down to the
time of Charles Chaplin, George Arliss, Leslie Howard, John
Gielgud, and a minor roll call of Hollywood and Broadway.
Incidental amusements of actors. Spectacles at which
actors might amuse themselves as onlookers were almost as
77
John W. Francis, Old New York (New York: Charles
Roe, 1858), p. 205.
539
numerous in the eighteenth century as they are today, and
with the exception of a heightened brutality were very
similar. There were cock-fights, and baiting of all kinds
of animals that could be made to suffer. Boxing was very
popular, especially in the fairs and at markets. James
Figg, who died in 1734, was an almost legendary hero at
fisticuffs. He was succeeded by Broughton who had a booth
at Tottenham Court Road and met all comers until a butcher
named Stack, alack, located a sound one between Broughton's
"eyes, and blinded him. Hangings there were, and public
floggings, if one were Inclined for more meaty excitement.
In 1775 there began the famous boat races and regattas on the
Thames. Sunday concerts were given often in Stationer's
Hall, and church services were available any day in the week
and any hour of the day in London. It was the golden age
of sideshows, such as that featuring the armless V^arwickshire
young lady who "by the help of her toes and feet only"
threaded needles, sewed, and picked up pieces of money from
hundreds of her gaping countrymen, while her brother per
formed acrobatic tricks. pn the summer season, if the
actor were not working, he usually spent his tim.e in the
country somewhere trying to act as though he were in the city,
and too often succeeding only in being dissipated. He seemed
78
Loose throw-bill in U. S. G. copy Gentleman's
Magazine, Vol. labelled 1777, opposite p. 516.
540
singularly unconstituted to relax and enjoy life quietly.
One of the favourite after dinner diversions of the
actors in the century was a sort of profound mugging which
they practiced for their own amusement and the edification
of others. It consisted of "making faces" to express .various
emotions, and was a trick rated very highly by some critics,
who seem to think it the very foundation of the actor's art.
Garrick used to rise after dinner, by popular request, and
indulge in this sort of thing, his face writhing with his
trionic effort. On his famous visit to France he - performed
for the leading actress of the Comédie Française his cele
brated facial pantomime of an insane man recalling the acci
dental death of a favourite child. The actress was greatly
impressed. Cooke was also very fond of this sort of dramatic
play, and when he was in his cups would insist on demon
strating his ability. One evening, after about three pitchers
of whiskey punch, he began to question the young actor
Mathev/s, on the meaning of each "horrible face" as he made
it. Poor Mathews, not accustomed to this sort of thing,
evidently botched his interpretation.
"There, what's that?" asked Cooke.
"Very fine. Sir."
"But what is it?"
79
See Genest, op* cit., III, 542, for example.
541
"Oh ayeI anger--anger to be sure2"
"To be sure--you're a blockhead.--Pear2 Pear, Sir2"
But when the drunken old toper made a hideous face, compounded
of Satanic malignity and the leer of a satyr, and, said it
was "love," Mathews burst into a guffaw and left him.^^
Practical joking, which was popular with the audience
of the eighteenth century, was as popular with the actors.
One of the favourite diversions of gallery sitters in the
theatre was "wig-fishing" by means of a bent pin and a string,
for the wigs of spectators in the pit below them.51 The
actors got back at the general public in various ways.
Garrick's favourite trick was to stop in the public street,
ga&e intently into the vacant sky until a crowd of curious
yokels surrounded him, and then slip away sniggering up his
sleeve. In the theatre itself the actors were constantly
setting traps for one another. Mrs. Webb for instance, a
very fat actress, was accustomed in-sultry weather to wait
until a few moments before going onstage before renewing her
makeup. One night the call boy, bribed by the other actors,
neglected to call her until her cue came up. He then rushed
into the green-room panting, "îÆrs. Webb, the stage waits for
you2" "My GodI" exclaimed the corpulent victim starting up
William Dunlap, The Life of George Frederick
Cooke (London; Henry Colburn, 1815), I, 8 8.
81
See plate in Smith, Rejected Addresses, op. cit.,
p. 160.
542
all aquiver, and rushed onto the stage, her face '"streaked
with powder and perspiration, to the enormous delight of the
audience. At another time this unfortunate actress swooped
upon the stage only to have her progress suddenly arrested
by a string that had been tied to her dress and anchored
backstage. Aiken, a meticulous actor, was constantly being
tormented by his follows onstage by glances which seemed to
indicate that his clothing was unbuttoned. Incledon, the
natural butt for jokes, used to boast that his voice had
been improved by swallowing by mistake a quantity of train-
oil, a belief that indicates something of his gullibility.
The solemn J. P. Kemble could not resist the temptation, and
recommended to Incledon that he suck a certain piece of
stone for the improvement of his voice--a bit of advice which
the actor follov/ed, with what he swore were very beneficial
results
Young bucks of the stage often employed their free
nights in elaborate practical jokes. Few of these are so
amusing and so curiously fortunate in result as that credited
to young John Bernard when he was with some strolling friends
at Glastonbury. With a few accomplices he constructed an
enormous kite, which it took six men to hold. Then on a
dark night, he affixed to its tail a lantern and a virile
tomcat, and the wind setting directly over the town, flew
Munden,. o^. cit., p. 95-96
543
the kite with marvelous results. All the cats of Glaston
bury rushed to the housetops, and ’ ’sympathizing with their
friend, lifted up their tails and voices, and yelled together
loud enough to have scared all the devils in Milton’s Pan
demonium.” The effect of this strange nocturnal display on
the simple villagers was all that might be wished; and in
deed furnished the actors with the theme for a hastily im
provised farce, ’ ’The Fiend in the Air, or the Glastonbury
Apparition, for which there was no need for advertisements.®^
It is somewhat strange that in the eighteenth century,
which was so full of the most gorgeous profusion of chamber
music ever written, few of the actors seem to have acquired
any proficiency at instrumental music. Whereas the study of
the pianoforte became in the nineteenth century almost a
necessity in theatrical education, few of the actors seem to
have been performers on any instrument in the days of Mozart,
Handel, and Arne. Holcroft may be pointed to as a brilliant
example of an actor who was an excellent musician also, having
kept up his violin practice from his boyhood. At one time
he owned two Cremona violins at the same time. But Holcroft
was better known in his day as an operetta composer than as
an actor, and is certainly not typical of even the most musi
cal of the stage actors.
83
Bernard, ££. cit., 1, 49
544
With, regard to singing the actors did better : and
many of them were fond of informal musicals at which they
entertained each other with more or less well-trained voices.
Through much of the century songs were interpolated in plays,
when they were not actually integral parts of them. Actors
were supposed to be able to ”sing” whether they could carry
a tune or not. There must have been a deal of rather offen
sive squalling in the early eighteenth century theatre.
Malone suggested that street singers were in those days
hired by the actors to sing songs from the plays as a species
of ”puff” for the show. Thaler disagrees with the source
of the singer’s pay, and holds that the printers and sellers
of books hired the singers.®^ However that may be, it is
certain that music of a sort formed a great part of the per
formances of the time, aside from the regular operas.
(King Lear was even produced at Drury Lane with incidental
songs to liven the play.)
Colley Gibber, with all of his conceit, nevertheless
admitted his vocal deficiencies. Speaking of the ill-fated
Monfort, of whom he had a high opinion both as an actor and
singer, he said:
84
Thaler, o^. clt., p. 265-266.
545
. . . he sung a clear counter-tenor and had a
melodious, warbling throat which could not but
set off the last scene of Sir Courtly with an un
common happiness; which I, alas I could only struggle
through, with the faint excuses and real confidence
of a fine singer, under the imperfection of a
feign’d and screaming treble.85
Garrick had no taste nor ear for music. One note was the
same as another to him. Consequently he was always very
loath to employ singers at Drury Lane, and hence often lost
out on excellent opportunities for new taleu.t.®® But such
things as these do not account for the remarkable lack of
interest taken in music by the actors.
Songs which the actors knew and sang were early in
the century often exceedingly smutty; and with everything
else having to do with external morals, they were cleaned
up gradually through the years until playhouse songs of
1800 were in most.cases quite respectable, and often as
inane as our contemporary popular ballad today. Actors
sang the popular tunes of the day just as a brick-layer or
shopkeeper would sing them; but few of the actors evidently
Colley Gibber, op», cit., p. 73.
86 For excellent example see the case of Miss Brent,
who became the star of Beard’s theatre in 1763. Davies,
Life of Garrick, op. cit., II, 63-64.
o ry
For representative songs see John S. Farmer.
Merry Songs and Ballads (Privately printed, n.p., 1897) and
Thos. Durphey, Pills to Purge Melancholy (London: J. Tonson,
1719-20). For excellent discussion of the playhouse songs,
and bibliography on related material see Roy Lamson, Jr.,
"Henry Purcell’s Dramatic Songs and the English Broadside
Ballad,” P. M. L. A;, Llll: 148-161, March, 1938.
546
cared enough, about music to sit down for an evening of
entertainment at it. Music and all its charms must be re
luctantly counted out as a source of entertainment for the
eighteenth century actor.
Physleal exercise. Sports. We are probably, in
this day, over-conscious of the care of the physical body,
and one of our modern codes (as it was that of the ancient
Greeks) is that the body needs frequent and regular ’ ’exer
cise,” as we call it. We have built up numerous sports in
graduated degrees of strenuousness for various ages, consti
tutions, and sexes. The actor of the eighteenth century
was not troubled by many such considerations. It may be
that the strenuous nature of acting in those days supplied
the physical stimulation which our soft-voiced actors seek
today in tennis, golf, fishing, riding, or the recently and
strenuously revived sport of shuttle-cock or badminton.
Besant pointed out that the Puritan abolition of
games on the Sabbath took away the sole amusements of the
working classes of London, and hence caused many of the
sports and outdoor exercises of earlier times to fall into
decay. By the eighteenth century this fact had undoubtedly
led to much of the excessive week-end drinking which is
still a marring feature of London life. Swimming, fishing,
bowling, ”curling” on the ice in winter, skating--all these
lost a popularity which they had enjoyed before 1648; and
547
once lost, the taste and skill for such pursuits came hack
hut slowly. In 1676 Charles II passed a law that, among its
inhibiting clauses, had one which was very beneficial to the
actor--that which prohibited the paying for amusements on
the Sabbath. The actor was thus assured a weekly holiday,
at least from his actual performance.®® But on the other
hand there were still in effect various old laws, such as
the one prohibiting the hiring of boats on the river, which
prevented any wholesome development of outdoor sports.
Indoor games of course were possible, but led to an even
more sedentary life. Chess, backgammon, and any number of
card games were played by actors in a desultory fashion,
but as has been Intimated their favourite indoor sports were
talking and drinking.
There are however instances of actors who were ex
perts at outdoor sports. Skating was a favourite diversion
in the afternoons, between dinner and the curtain time,
among the more athletic actors. Brunton, the father of
Mrs. Siddons* rival Miss Brunton, and an excellent actor in
his own right, was an exceptionally fine skater, and at least
once turned his talent to dramatic use. Skating one day in
front of the nobility he carved his name with his skates,
to the great delight of the Duchess of Devonshire who ex
claimed, "Extremely easy!” The quick-witted actor bowed
88
Besant, London in the 18th. Cent. , op. cit., p. 164.
548
and said, with an icy pirouette, ”I wish I was as easy as
your Grace.” She good-naturedly took the hint and sent him
a twenty-pound note the next day for his benefit.®^
Riding was frequently indulged in by actors who could
afford to keep horses. George Anne Bellamy, until her nearly
fatal accident., delighted in riding in the country. Foote’s
accident which led to the loss of one leg was received while
riding for pleasure at a country estate.^® Of course in
those days of slow travel, the horse was frequently a means
of rapid transport, and it was to the interest of the actor
to be a fair rider; but in the cobbled streets and cramped
lanes of the city, saddle-horses were unsatisfactory and
expensive, and luxuries for theatrical folk to maintain.
Holcroft, after he had deserted acting for playwriting and so
could live farther from the center of the city than was con
venient for the actors, kept a frisky pony onto whose back
he delighted in enticing his actor friends--who came to
regard the beast as a veritable demon of activity. But
Holcroft had been a jockey in his boyhood, and his fondness
for horseflesh, as well as for Cremona violins, was evidently
extraordinary.
Fishing, an admirably relaxing sport for actors, was
indulged in frequently by theatrical people in the country.
Haslewood, 0£. cit., II, 38.
90
Genest, opi. cit., V, 112.
549
but for obvious reasons was not often indulged, in by the
city actors. Bernard says that when he was with the Norwich
company, late in the century, the whole company used to pool
resources periodically and provide tackle, coaches, and food
for a day’s whipping of the streams thereabouts. One of
their actors, the comedian Bowles, was so inordinately fond
of the sport that his hands were constantly "like two pieces
of raw beef." There was also excellent duck shooting in
the country then, and some of the actors occasionally spent
a day in the marshes. Bernard himself was fond of cricket,
but he had to play generally with boys of the tovfns in which
he was acting, as the actors seemed to have no aptitude or
taste for the game.
Undoubtedly the most commonly valued as a physical
exercise by the actor, however, was the practice of taking
long walks. William Lewis, an excellent minor comedian who
retired in 1809, was very methodical about it. Boaden says
that he had a spare habit of body, "but seemed always in
possession of even, florid health, to which his daily walk
for a couple of hours greatly contributed."^! Ryan was a
great walker, and often took long excursions into the country
between plays, whenever he could prevail upon a reluctant
friend to accompany him. The Thespian Dictionary gives an
amusing account of his persistence;
q T
Boaden, Memoirs of Siddons, op. cit., p. 368.
560
. . . when he meditated a sally of unusual length,
as often as he could he would prevail on Gibson to
be his companion; but much exercise not exactly
suiting the disposition and rotundity of this gentle
man, (who chose a book and his ease before a stock
of health purchased at the rate of such unmerciful
agitation) he was rarely to be tempted further than
the outskirts of L o n d o n ,
The largest collecting of perambulating actors in the cen
tury however was that which Macklin headed— a group made up
largely of actors from Drury Lane and Covent Garden who
prided themselves on their walking. They called themselves
"The Walking Society," and held a weekly dinner at St. Albons.
Their only club rule seems to have been that they "would
walk the twenty miles backward and forward the same day."
This club generally began its meetings in Passion Week and
continued them, if the adherents held out, until the end
of the theatrical season. Macklin often said that he thought
these walks contributed to his health. Certainly they con
tributed to his enjoyment.^3
Swordplay and duelling. Through much of the eighteenth
century a fencing master v/as a regular member of a theatrical
company, and evidently had charge of instruction In swords
manship for the actors.94 Swords were in fashion in
fbespian Dictionary, op. cit., addenda, "Gibson".
93
Cooke, Life of Macklin, op. cit.^ p. 7 1.
Note production of Bussy D’Ambois, Genest, op.
cit., II, 10.
551
Restoration times, even on the concert stage. VVyndham says
that no executant could perform in public a solo or con
certo ungraced by a sword, and the title of "sword-bearer"
was temporarily given to the instrumental performer execut
ing a solo.
When the soloist was about to display his talents,
he was presented by the proper official with a
sheath and hilt, with which he was begirt before he
entered the orchestra. Vi/hen the solo was concluded
the hilt and sheath were returned to the official,
and immediately hung up over the chimney-piece of
the private room, where they remained till called
for by the next sword bearer.95
In mid-century the sword was still an ordinary part of every
evening dress uniform, and as Doran says, evil results fol
lowed to others as well as to the v/earers. Many times during
the century swords were actually drawn within the playhouse.
As late as 1751, while The Way of the World was being per
formed on September 21 at Drury Lane, a fight took place
between two gallants in the lobby off the boxes, someone
shouted "Fire!^ and in the ensuing panic many people were
injured.96
Duels were frequently fought near, or indeed in the
theatre by spectators. But there is no denying that the
actors were on the whole more inclined to this sort of sport—
95 Saxe Wyndham, o£. cit., I, 235.
Doran, op. cit. , III, 7. Cf. Genest, _qp. c it. ,
IV, 338. Evidently the perfœmers never got to the second
play on the bill, which was ironically The Anatomist.
552
If sport it may be called--than their less emotional con
temporaries. They were usually familiar, from their stage
work, with the rudiments of fencing--an art not nearly so
common in the century as seems generally supposed— and the
^een-room seems to have been an ideal place for breeding
hot-blooded-quarrels. Jealousies both personal and pro
fessional seemed there to take an especially bitter turn,
and often led to bloodshed.
Genest relates the well-known story of how the promis
ing young actor Mountfort was assassinated by the vile-tem-
pered Lord Mohun and an accomplice, a certain Captain Hill
whose amorous approaches to Mrs. Bracegirdle had been re
pulsed. Hill fancied Mountfort the cause of the rebuff.
Mountfort, on his return home, was met and
saluted in a friendly manner by Lord Mohun--but
while that scoundrel was holding him in conversa
tion, the assassin Hill,being at his back, first
gave him a desperate blow on the head with his
left hand, and immediately afterwards, before
Mountfort had time to draw and stand on his de
fence, he, with the sv/ord which he held ready in
his right, ran him through the b o d y .97
It is an interesting comment on the justice of the time that
although Lord Mohun was seized and tried, he was acquitted
97
Genest, 0£. cit., II, 35. For full and accurate
account of the v/hole affair, including the trial, see Albert
S. Borgman, The Life and Death of Vlfilliam Mountfort, (Cambridge:
Harvard Univ. Press, 1935H ~It is gratifying to learn that
Mohun perished in a duel with Lord Hamilton, which he fought
in Hyde Park a few years later.
553
by the House of Lords. Hill escaped and was not tried. It
takes little imagination to conjecture what the verdict would
have been had the actor been the off ending one, and the lord
the victim.
Duels between actors were plentiful throughout the
century, and an actor who played leading parts was pretty
certain at some time in his life either to receive or make
a challenge. The Irishman Quin'was into his share of devil
ment, and was a participant in more than his share of duels,
although he seems to have been adept at making it appear self-
defense . His first serious quarrel seems to have been with
the actor Bowen, whom he killed in a tavern quarrel in 1717.
Bowen, furious because he had been told that Ben Johnson
played a part better than he, fastened his ire for some
reason on Quin and fought an impromptu duel in which the ex
cellent swordsman Quin gave him a wound of which he died in
three days. Quin was convicted of manslaughter, but let
off with a light sentence, probably branding in the hand.98
The Welsh actor Williams once thought that Quin had been the
ruin of his stage career, and so ambushed him in the Covent
Garden piazzas one day; but Quin whipped out his sword and
in a few moments the other actor was reclining on the flags
with a mortal wound through his vitals. Quin was tried.
Genest, op. cit., II, 622. See also Doran, op.
cit.. I, 175.
554
and again got off with a nominal sentence-99 Quin didn’t
come off so well with Macklin, whom he had annoyed until the
young actor lost his temper and soundly thrashed the grumpy
veteran before the, last act of the play. Quin’s mouth was
so swollen that he could not go on stage. He immediately
and irrascibly challenged Macklin to a duel; but the manager
Fleetwood, who Macklin says was one of the best men in the
world, took him home overnight and made him sleep at his
house, and in the morning got the hot-blooded youngster to
apologize to the bad-tempered oldster, and thus preserved
both of his gamecocks for the more serious business of
dramatic battle. Another Irishman, Daly, the famous manager
of the Dublin theatre before Sheridan’s time there, evidently
set out quite deliberately to prove his fitness for life by
means of duels. Boaden says he fought sixteen of them in
two years: three with the small sword, and thirteen with
pistols.Not a scratch did he sustain in any of these
encounters. Therefore he used to provoke such meetings,
and entered the duelling field like a Restoration dandy, in
99 Quin, cit., p. 24. The reason for the fight,
according to tradition, was the wretched pronunciation of
Williams, who played Decius to Quin’s Cato. In one place he
intoned affectedly, "Caesar sends health to Keeto." Quin,
loathing above all else inaccurate stage diction, answered
quickly : "Would he had sent a better messenger1"--a retort
that greatly amused the alert audience, and greatly discon
certed the herald of the emperor.
Dunlap, Life of Cooke, op. cit., I, 221-223.
!9! Boaden, Life of Mrs. Jordan, op. cit., I, 10.
555
a pea-green suit, embroidered and ruffled and curled. Per
haps this may have been the best post-graduate course for
his days at Trinity College. It certainly gave'him one
point of control over the volatile children under his care.
Garrick was very successful at mimicry, and some
sources credit him with having fought a duel with an aggrieved
imitatee, the actor Giffard, after the first performance of
The Rehearsal. At any rate the play in which Garrick was to
appear was postponed for a fortnight, while the flesh-wound
in his arm healed, "on account of the sudden indisposition
of a principal performer."!®^ Thereafter in his mimicking
of actors Giffard was noticeably absent. Genest says that
Garrick never took off Quin because he considered Quin an
excellent actor in suitable parts. It seems possible that
Garrick had other things in mind, too, and had learned his
lesson. Quin had already killed Bowen and Williams, injured
Theophilus Gibber, and thrashed Aaron Hill in a courtroom
fight. Garrick was no man to tempt Fate when that goddess
pointed with a steady finger. Even Garrick’s meek brother
George once became entangled to the point of desperation--
the cause being the distractingly lovely Mrs. Baddeley, the
opponent being the bewildered and enamoured Mr. Baddeley,
^ Genest, ojp. cit. , IV, 21 and 28. Gif fard was a
stormy petrel both as actor and manager at G. F., and L. I.
P., and as part owner of D. L.
556
and the inciting force being a Jewish friend who by pitting
husband and lover together evidently hoped to make off with
the fair spoils--as he later did for a season. So out to
Hyde Park the principals went early one morning in 1770,
chose their pistols, and tremblingly fired them into the
air. Whereupon the lady rushed upon the scene crying "Spare
him! Spare him!" without indicating anyone in particular.
This everyone concerned was glad to do, and taking her each
by a hand they went to breakfast.The married couple soon
after played together in It’s Well It’s No Worse.
The scholarly J. P. Kemble was challenged by the actor
Aiken over some supposed insult in 1790-91 season. After
playing together on the same stage one night, they met early
the next morning, before coffee, with pistols. Kemble pro
posed that Aiken should fire first, since he was the ag
grieved party. The seconds proposed they fire together, but
Kemble refused, saying he had come out for Aiken’s satisfac
tion, not his own. Poor Aiken was by now so worked upon by
various forces that his hand was trembling pitifully when
he raised his arm to take the first shot. Thrice he lifted
his pistol, and lowered it, until Kemble cried out in exas
peration, "For God’s sake, Mr. Aiken, do you intend to fire
today?" Aiken fired and missed: Kemble discharged his
Doran, o^. cit., III, 52. Also in Town and
Country Magazine, March, 1770, p. 157.
557
pistol in the air; the two shook hands and went to breakfast,
the best of friends. Even in the middle of the century these
affairs of honor had often become merely formalities, with
little danger of severe accident. As the author of Quin’s
life put it so happily, the duellist was frequently mortally
wounded "in the skirt of his coat."
Early in the century fencing and duelling with the
sword had been obviously a sort of dangerous sport in which
the actors indulged for the physical exercise it gave them,
and the mental recreation. By the middle of the century,
as has been indicated, the points of the duelling swords
had, at least figuratively, been considerably dulled and the
priming of the pistols somewhat dampened. (It would take a
long stretch of the imagination to consider pistol duelling
with blank cartridges--if there v/ere such a thing--a physi
cal recreation.) The amusing duel scene in The Rivals had
so many close precedents in real life that its satire v/as
delightfully close to reality. Life was beginning to be
cherished more carefully, and arbitration was, in this age
of reason, much in favour as a means of settling disputes
both inside and outside the playhouse. Certainly there were
fewer and fewer of those brawls of which we hear in Restora
tion times when the young hot-bloods fought in the streets
of London "as naked as their drawn blades." By 1760 the
spectacle of little David Garrick stamping off to the field
558
to fight his Goliath is more ludicrous than serious. One
feels that the wound he received in the hand was probably
gained by grasping his unaccustomed sword by the wrong end,
or pinching a finger in a belt-clasp.
John Palmer, whose father was a bill-sticker at the
theatre, soon after he became an actor of consequence was
one day strutting about the green-room threatening with dire
words one of his mortal enemies. Finally Parsons, a droll
minor actor, grinned at him. "Dam’me Jack," he said dryly,
"if I were you, I would stick him against the wall."!®"^ And
as a matter of fact that sort of sticking, with a brush and
a paste-pot, would have been almost as dangerous as most of
the sword-duelling of the time. There seem to have been
three chief causes for this decline in favour of the duel.
First; the increased accuracy of rifled firearms which made
a pistol a fairly deadly weapon. Second; a decline in the
practice of fencing which made sword-play more a matter of
luck than of skill. Third; a sharpening of the verbal
blades which increasingly took the place of more lethal
weapons. The code of honour still remained in public opinion,
but the duel as it was practiced was anything but an exercise
of nervous control and skilled physical precision.
Genest, op. cit., V, 226.
105
See quotation and note from Foote’s play. The
Lame Lover (1770) in Genest, op. pit., V, 290.
559
As an example of how far the thing had gone from an
exercise of chivalry by the end of the century, we may recall
briefly the famous duel between Richard Brinsley Sheridan
and Thomas Mathews. Mathews had threatened the reputation
of Miss Linley, later Sheridan’s wife, because she would not
yield to his overtures. Sheridan threatened to fight him,
but the cowardly Mathews retreated with excuses, and refused
to fight. Finally they did get together hov/ever in one of
the bloodiest engagements of the century. Mathews broke his
sword off against one of Sheridan’s ribs, then tripped him
up by the heels and had at him with the few inches of steel
remaining in his hand, doing considerable short-arm slashing
of his opponent’s face and neck. Sheridan had bent his own
sword badly, but enough of it remained usable to enable him
to get in some sincerely mean jabs and slashes in the neigh
borhood of his enemy’s belly. The two were finally pulled
apart by their horrified seconds.!®® The reason for re
counting even thus meagerly the details of this classic
battle, which we may consider the concluding major actors’
duel of the century, is to indicate how far it had actually
gone from a codified encounter or game. This was nothing
more or less than a very juicy brawl between two men over a
woman, and might as well have been fought with bare fists.
106
Moore, pp. pit., p. 55-75, pt passIm.
560
Mathews was a disgruntled, middle-aged libertine; Sheridan
was a hot-headed youth of twenty, in love.
That the actor of the eighteenth century had suffi
cient activities with which to fill his non-acting hours is
by now fairly obvious. As has been indicated incidentally,
he had a fairly heavy load of theatrical work to carry, and
a really heavy task of constant memorizing of new parts, and
rehearsing of old ones. From his late breakfast at eight or
nine in the morning, to his late supper at ten or eleven at
night his day was usually filled with theatrical pursuits.
His afternoons he often had for casual diversion or study,
and he could occupy them in a variety of ways. That he did
so much writing, so much talking, and so little listening
as he did is indicative of his essential trueness to type.
The theatre had its actor-shopkeepers, merchants, and finan
ciers in those days just as it has today. It had its
perpetual quarrelers, its gifted drunkards, its smart off
stage speakers, and its highly respectable masters and matrons
just as had any other profession. In short, to be very
unromantic about it, by the time of Mrs. Siddons and Edmund
Kean the acting profession had lost much of its distinguishing
patina of glamour, and had become just another trade. Actors
in 1700 were still just actors; by 1800 they were people.
CHAPTER X
THE OLD ACTOR
RETIREMENT, DEATH, AND BURIAL
The retired actor. Thomas Betterton made his dAut
in London about 1659. For over fifty years he was, without
any close competitor, the leading actor of the English stage,
and when he retired in 1710, forced from the stage even then
only because of his physical inability to endure the excru
ciating pain of the gout in his foot, he was treated with
almost touching affection by the members of the audience.
It was the same audience that could on occasion drive an
actor from the stage with cat-calls, obscene epithets, and
even more substantial tokens of dislike.
At the time of his retirement Betterton with his wife
was living in one of the best houses in Russell Street,
Covent Garden, just off the big Square. Although the fortune
which Pepys says Betterton had earned in the first few years
of his acting had been wasted somewhat by "speculation,"
he nevertheless was quite comfortably fixed; and with the
more than a thousand pounds in cash whichhis last two bene
fits brought in to supplement his savings, the old actor
could have lived comfortably for many years. His house was
filled with mementos of his notable past, the walls were
hung with excellently chosen prints and drawings, and there
was food and wine in the larder. His devoted wife, a famous
562
Ophelia a half century before, was still his proud companion.
Life had still much to offer the old actor when he hobbled
out to his carriage for the Journey to the playhouse for his
last performance. But when he left the stage that night
after a painful performance of the fiery Melantius of The
Maid’s Tragedy, it was to creep home and die. The hot fo
mentations which he had applied to his foot in order to reduce
the swelling and enable him to wear a slipper had forced the
distemper up into his head, according to contemporary accounts,
and he died within the month, on the 28th of April, 1710.!
Queen Anne settled on Mrs. Betterton a pension, whichseems
to have been negligently paid. At any rate the old actress
did not require it for long. Grief caused her soon to become
melancholy, and she died less than a year after her husband.
Such an end for the valiant old troupers is not to be senti
mentally deplored. Death is at best a disagreeable business;
but it must come to everyone, and fev/ people died early in
the eighteenth century so universally honoured, admired,
and on the whole so securely placed in society as did the
Bettertons. That they left the scene before the audience
had in its fickle worship of new gods forgotten them is to
Doran, op. cit.. I, 104. Of. also accounts in
Biographica Dramatica. Vol. I, and The Thespian Dictionary.
Galt has a great deal to say of Betterton’s old age, also,
although bemoaning the lack of biographical material on the
great actor.
563
be accounted fortunate.
Mrs. Barry, who when King James ordered a performance
of the King’s Men for her benefit became the first actress
to be so honoured, in her old age withdrev/ quietly from the
stage and retired to her native village of Acton to spend
the last three years of her life. There she lived pleasantly,
wealthy from the largesse that had been poured out before
her talent and beauty, and beloved of the townspeople whom
she had treated generously.® There she died three years
after Betterton’s death, as Cibber says, of "a fever"--that
inclusive term so convenient to an age which had not yet
bound itself with more accurate diagnostic terms. Colley
Cibber himself had an ideal old age for an actor. Covered
with honours as the Lauréat of England, substantially endowed
v/ith income in spite of his propensity to gamble, filled
with a sort of perennial youth, he hung about his favourite
haunts right up to the time of Garrick. He was petted by
the nobility, tolerated by the actors, and occasionally
allowed by the manager to play a favourite role. When he
was seventy years old he suddenly professed himself an
admirer of the upstart Peg Woffington, and delighted to
play Pondlewife in The Old Batchelor, opposite her Cocky,
or Letitia.^ Nothing delighted him more than to strut about
2 Ibid.. I, 147.
^ Davies, life of Garrick, op. clt., I, 309.
564
in the green-room and tell the young actors who followed
him with pop-eyed wonder that the age of great actors was
past. Vifhen he was not at the theatre he was usually found
in some tavern circle of gossipping oldsters or gambling
youngsters, or visiting with one of his old friends, of whom
Mrs. Bracegirdle was of course the most valued. She thought
him a silly old fool, and often indulgently told him as much,
and Cibber, wise gentleman of the world that he was, never
denied the charge, but accepted it complacently as another
tribute to his versatility. In his extreme old age, when
he could no longer get about town as fluently as had been
his wont, he lived in his house in Berkeley Square, at the
north corner of Bruton Street; and there he used to stand
drumming his fingers on the windowpane and ogling the
passersby.
Most of the actors after their retirement, however,
seemed to prefer the quiet of the countryside, and a com
parative removal from matters theatrical, visiting the
theatre only as very occasional diversion. "Bracey" could
rarely be enticed into a theatre after her retirement. Kitty
Clive evidently felt the same way about it, and was remarkably
content at Little Strawberry Hill, or "Clivedon" as her
cottage on the Walpole estate was variously called. Now
and then one of these old troupers would feel the urge to
return to the boards for a night, either for egotistical or
565
financial reasons. Such, undoubtedly was the motivation for
the appearance early in the century of the tough-fibred
Mrs. Vandervelt,
Not because she was a clever, but that she was
a very aged actress, eighty-f.lve years old, who had
not played since King Charles’ time, but who had
spirits enough to act the Widow Rich in the Half-
Pay Officer. . . and strength enough to dance a
sprightly jog after d-t-.^
This agile old dame kept a prosperous tavern in Tottenham
Court Road for many years, and enjoyed a life provided for
by the vigorous toil of her aged hands. Few of the actors
early in the century had been able to save up enough for a
steady competence by the time they were forced to retire,
and it was quite common for them to invest their earnings in
a small shop, tavern, or public house, which with luck would
furnish them with an agreeably sociable living.
Comparatively few actors in the century at the time
of their retirement had amassed large fortunes ; but never
theless there are remarkably few cases of absolute want among
those concerning whom we have information. Late in the cen
tury this is accounted for by the Theatrical Fund to which
needy actors might appeal for aid after their retirement.®
Doran, op. cit. , I, 338.
5
Vide supra. Chap. VI for discussion of the origin
and extent of this fund, built up largely under Garrick’s
generous patronage.
566
Before Garrick’s era however the phenomenon must be attri
buted to the generous nature of the majority of the actors
who would not often suffer one of their fellows to go hungry
in his old age. There were on the other hand very few of the
major actors, except those dissolute and flighty spenders
such as Mrs. Bellamy or Mrs. Baddeley, who in spite of their
improvidence had not managed to save enough to live in some
comfort in their old age. The theatrical profession is on
the whole remarkably well taken care of in its years of
retirement during this century.
Richard Yates and his wife, according to a notice
which appeared in a periodical in 1783, retired from the
stage with a fortune of between thirty-six and forty thousand
pounds at the ages of seventy and sixty respectively. In
an answering letter to the Pub1Ic Advertiser Yates denied
all three statements regarding retirement, fortune, and age,
but admitted that none of them was far wrong. A fortune of
even thirty thousand pounds was perfectly adequate to main
tain an actor and his family in fair affluence at the end
of the century. Holcroft’s father in his old age lived
with his second wife out near Knutsford; and with a little
shop and garden that he kept, lived comfortably on the
produce and the twenty pounds which his son allowed him
annually. In other words, one might live plainly in the
country on about forty to fifty pounds per year; in the city
567
double that amount would provide middle-class comfort for a
couple, with an occasional luxury thrown in for good measure.
James <^uin lived jovially at Bath for sixteen years after
leaving the stage, amply provided for by a large annuity which
he had had the sense to set aside while he was the highest
paid actor before Garrick. He took walks, went to the ex
cellent Bath theatre now and then, indulged his epicurean
taste for food and his gargauntian appetite for wine, played
whist in the evenings with friends, and habitually slept
like a log. Occasionally he travelled to Hampton to visit
his old enemy Garrick; and on the occasion of his last trip
there in the summer of 1765 Garrick penned that delightful
pre-death epitaph already quoted in full, ending:
Embalmed alive old Quin shall die,
A mummy ready made.
The embalming went on without interruption up to practically
the last hour of the life of the old trouper, one of the
most attractive eccentrics the theatre has ever produced.
Undoubtedly the most fortunately situated of all the
actresses in her old age was Kitty Clive, who after her
retirement from Garrick*s company at the age of 58 (much to
Garrick’s relief no doubt, for she was the one woman in the
theatre who gave him better than she got!) lived at Walpole’s
estate at Twickenham in her own cottage. There she became
the centre of one of the most extraordinary informal salons
568
her time. Doctor Johnson had once said of her that she was
"a good thing to sit by," and her ability as an entertainer
seems to have increased rather than diminished after her
retirement to Strawberry Hill. She was prodigiously active
in a non-athletic way. Clusters of visitors were hanging
on her words night after night, and all sorts of fine people
were flattered to come in the evenings to her gay card par
ties which were invariably followed by suppers plentifully
supplied with wine, wit, and food. She delighted in people,
and was constantly inviting them to visit her. The valley
of the Thames was in those days a pleasantly populated
district: the Garricks were of course at Hampton, lÉrs.
Bellamy was at Richmond, Mrs. Ablngton and Mrs. Pritchard
(that ”inspired idiot" as Johnson called her) in Twickenham
itself, while nearby lived many literary persons such as
George Steevens who were glad to come in for a fourth at
whist, or a fifth or sixth at conversation. An illuminat
ing comment on Mrs. Clive’s generous heart as well as her
spotty literary ability is furnished by the letter that she
wrote to George Colman the elder in 1771, on hearing the
news of his wife’s death;
I hope you heard, that I Sent my Servant to
town to Inquire hou you did; indeed I have been
greatly Surprisd and Sincerly Concernd for you
unexpected Distress; there is Nothing Can be said
upon these Melancholly occations To a person of
understanding, fools Can not feel people of Sence
must, and will and when they have Sank their
569
Spirits till they are ill, will find that Nothing -
hut Submission Can give any Consolation to Inevei-
table missfortunes.
I shall be extreamly glad to See you, and think
it woud be very right of you woud Come and Dine
hear two or three Days in a week it will Change
the Sceen and by the Sincerity of your welloome
you May fancy your Self at home.G
She loved to be surrounded by her theatrical friends, and
by men of ability and "sence." Walpole himself wore a path
to her cottage door, and delighted in the conversation of
Kitty and her brother who lived with her there. In this
pleasantly subsidized retreat, which was a veritable hive
of activity, the old actress lived in great spirits. She
had her own little private "Drury Lane" running to the
common, and she knew everyone in town. She grew enormously
fat, but kept her good health and spirits up to the last.
She finally died of pneumonia after catching a slight cold
while attending the funeral of an old friend in the village,
but her going was, as Walpole said, "without a pang or a
groan."
Garrick’s retirement, for which he had planned so
carefully and saved so penuriously, was never very complete.
He was too much of an egotist to relinquish his throne en
tirely to others; and just as Cibber had done earlier in the
6 Colman, Posthumous Letters op. cit., p. 162.
Also quoted in Peake, 0£. cit.. p. 254. Contrary to common
belief, Walpole gave Clive her cottage almost twenty years
before her retirement, and she occasionally lived there as
early as 1753. See Fitzgerald, Life of Clive, op. cit..
p . 84.
570
century he continued to haunt the theatre. His fine estate
at Hampton was a show-place to which he delighted to take
impressionable people, but he preferred to live in his town
house. He often audibly wondered who would play certain
difficult roles now that he had left the boards, and no
doubt flattered his own ego by coaching a few of the as
pirants. In 1777 he was responsible for the d&ut of Mary
Robinson as Juliet, a part which he had selected for her
and in which he had rehearsed her indefatigably for days,
"frequently going through the whole character of Romeo him
self until he was completely exhausted with the fatigue of
recitation."*^ This was however self-imposed labour, and
undoubtedly gave the great actor more pleasure than anything
else he could find to do. After Garrick’s death, Mrs*
Garrick had a pleasant and triumphant widowhood, living on
to 1822. She had endured the Hampton place for her husband’s
sake, but upon his death she moved to the Adelphi house in
town. There she was a complete conqueror, and came into
the spotlight which she had shunned for David’s sake. She
once refused an offer of marriage with Lord Monboddo, a
Scotch gentleman who was known as the author of a book
showing that men were merely apes sans tails--a theory which
appears to have some basis in fact, although at that time
7
Genest, jop. cit., V. 548. Cf. Memo 1rs of Mrs.
Robinson, o^. cit.. I, 191.
571
it was frowned upon severely. She is reported to have re
marked that the widow of Garrick was higher than the wife
of any other man in the realm.
Be that as it may, it is certain that Mrs. Garrick
was honoured as the guest of the foremost hosts of her time,
and not merely out of respect to the memory of her dead
husband. She was always of a ready wit, and became a favorite
table companion at one of the most brilliant dinner-salons
of early nineteenth century London--that of Bishop Porteus.Q
Macklin, although he had earned a large amount of
money in his ninety-odd years, was quite destitute in his
old age until his friends came to his rescue. In 1791,
ostensibly by publishing his plays, they raised a subscrip
tion of £-1,582 for the old actor, with which they purchased
an annuity of two hundred pounds for his life, and seventy-
five pounds for his wife’s life: a generous and quite ade
quate provision for the ancient actor who had in his day
befriended many a needy fellow. This release from financial
care seemed to take all worries from the old man’s mind.
He loved to frequent the Bedford Coffee House in Covent
Garden piazza, and there hold court with young intellectuals
who were entertained by his fascinating and thoroughly un
reliable tales of an earlier day and stage. There he would
sit for hours at a time, his hooked nose and jutting lower
8
Doran, o£. cit.. I, 205.
672
jaw giving him much the appearance of a self-satisfied eagle.
After his failure of memory while on the stage, at the re
puted age of ninety-eight, he wandered around his old haunts
for several years, but his mind was so impaired that he could
not recognize even his old part of Shylock, and frequently
asked what the play was. When he entered the theatre, no
matter how crowded the pit, someone would always make room
for him. Even in his imbecilic state however he remained
a favourite with the people, and was pointed out by the
newer generation of theatre-goers as the actor who had lived
in the time of Betterton, and acted before Garrick--a walk
ing monument of the theatre
He lived in a little house in Tavistock Row, Covent
Garden, quite comfortably for several years. His health
was scandalously good almost to the time of his death, al
though he roared lustily with rheumatism now and again.
He had plenty of food to eat, a bed to sleep in, and flatter
ing company to keep him entertained. Finally he became
irritable, and used to fancy himself wronged by many of
his friends, against whom he applied f or redress to Bow-
Street. Often before the sympathetic magistrate could
smooth over the imagined hurt, Macklin had forgotten his
grievance. Finally one evening, after conversing vigorously
et passim.
^ Cooke, Memoirs of Macklin. op. cit.. p. 333,
573
with his friends, he composed himself for sleep. His death,
which came quietly in the night, was not so much from any
specific disease as from a sort of general disintegration,
much as a piece of granite will eventually crumble under the
impact of nature. It appears certain that he was more than
106 years of age at the time; the most venerable man of his
profession ever to live in England.
In spite of the enormous sums of money earned by
actors of the first rank, however, there are few of them
who were even by the standards of those times judged really
wealthy. Garrick’s fortune, as has been indicated already,
came not from his acting but from his partnership in the
theatre, and from his considerable vogue as an author. Even
the affluent &Irs. Siddons, as her brother told Boaden, could
not live after her retirement without "some diminution of
her comforts."
After his retirement in 1817 from the active theatri
cal life of the huge Govent Garden theatre which had turned
into something of a white elephant for its owners--!. P.
Kemble went to Lausanne, one of the few places his health
would allow him to remain. His interests in the theatre
took him back to England at the death of the manager, Harris,
a short while afterward, but he soon returned to Lausanne
to spend the remainder of his days. His fortune had dis
appeared, if indeed it had ever existed, and he was actually
574
in need of money* His collection of playbills and quarto
plays had been offered to the Duke of Devonshire for a two
hundred pound per year annuity for himself, but the Duke
persuaded him generously to take an outright offer of two
thousand pounds.His private library, more because of its
sentimental than its academic value, brought slightly over
£2,271 at public auction, and his theatrical prints over
£303* All of his admirers wanted a book annotated by that
careful, precise hand, and inscribed with "J. P. K." Thus
he was actually comfortably fixed for the few remaining
years of his life.
Those years he spent in Lausanne, with the exception
of a short time in Italy. In Switzerland he enjoyed to the
full the nobility of the scenery, the romantic stimulation
of the foreign environment, and the friendship of a refined
social group. In Lausanne he rose early, and spent much of
his time in the cultivation of his garden, which formed his
greatest delight. His deeply religious nature continued to
assert itself--it is said that he started each day with the
reading of a chapter in the protestant Bible. Later he would
study for a while, work in his garden, go for carriage rides,
visit with friends, and otherwise amuse himself in an intel
ligent, quiet fashion. The trip to Italy visibly affected
This collection, although not intact, is now in
the Henry E. Huntington Library. It has contributed materially
to the accuracy and completness of this study.
575
his health, and he died a few months after his return, on
the 26th of February, 1823, after a series of apoplectic
strokes. He was buried in a little cemetery in Lausanne,
his coffin being followed to the grave by all of the English
people of the village, and many of the Swiss with, whom he
had been a great favourite.H
Kemble’s famous sister, Sarah, like Garrick, did not
relinquish the stage easily or gracefully. She was, unlike
Mrs. Clive or Peg Woffington, an extreme sentimentalist:
she played the "Tragic Muse" in real life as well as in Sir
Joshua Reynold’s painting. After she had finally retired
from the stage, her carefully hoarded fortune badly depleted
by the misfortunes that had attended her theatrical ventures
with Kemble at Covent Garden, she used to sit at nightfall
and repeat over and over with a sort of wistful distress:
"Now they are filling the theatre % Now the curtain has
arisen." Then she would recall the roar of applause that
used to greet her, and chill with the nervous force of the
recollection. There was none of this morbid self-indulgence
about Kitty Clive; nothing of the old woman sitting by her
dim firelight in the autumnal evening of her years, conjur
ing up ghosts of her past. She continued right up to the
last the generous, sharp-tongued, lovable hoyden that she
Boaden, Life of Kemble, op. cit., p. 573-580
576
had been when she and Susie Cibber had made the fur fly in
the green-room in the early days of Garrick’s popularity.
After her formal retirement from the stage on June 29,
1812, Mrs. Siddons appeared several times within the next
five years in benefits for the family of her deceased son
Henry, and for her brother Charles. She was invited several
times to Windsor to give readings for the royal family, and
in 1813-14 gave a series of famous Shakespearian readings
at the Argyll Rooms. Although these performances brought
an important addition to her dwindled income, no doubt the
personal satisfaction of being once more the center of the
stage was even more basic in her appreciation. Nor was that
sort of thing distasteful in the personality of Mrs. Siddons.
Vanity there was, and a certain artistic complacency; but
they were backed by such accomplishment and real merit that
they became in themselves added crowns. Boaden gives an
impressive description of the occasion of the Argyll read
ings, and it is a setting in which we would do well to
remember the old actress.
. . . a reading-desk with lights was placed,
on which lay her book, a quarto volume printed with
a large letter. There was something remarkably
elegant in the self-possession of her entrance,
and the manner in which she saluted the brilliant
assembly before her. She assisted her distant
sight by glasses, which she waved from time to
time before her, when memory could not entirely
be trusted, and like the Nereides that attended
her own Cleopatra—
577
"She made their bends a d o r n i n g s ."12
Until her death from erysipelas in June of 1831, she lived
as pleasantly as one in her condition of mind could live.
Her fortune was still sufficient to afford her every luxury
she might wish. She travelled briefly in France and Switzer
land. She built a new room on her house in Baker street for
her sculpturing activities. She was besieged with more
dinner invitations than she cared to accept, and entertained
herself with frequent and large parties. Her restlessness
in her old age seems to have sprung from two sources: first,
her great sorrow at the loss of her family, to which she
had been devoted (she survived all of her children), and
secondly, a habit of tremendous activity which she had ac
quired when she was playing dozens of parts in her father’s
old strolling company, and which she could not break now
that she had leisure to relax. When she finally died at
the age of 76, it was the snapping of a taut wire, and not
the final unravelling of a tangled skein. The years between
her retirement from the stage and her death were, as her
life had been, full of the greatest emotional intensity
generated by any actress in the century.
One of the most patiently successful actors of the
century, and one who may well serve as a transition to
Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons, op. cit.. p. 377.
Of. Campbell, 0£. cit.. II, 349-352.
578
accounts of some less fortunate actors, was also one of the
least inspired. His life was a sort of Horatio Alger epic
of accomplishment and virtue without talent. "Gentleman"
Smith was horn the son of a city grocer, and yet by his in
dustry and his father’s determination got through Eton. At
Cambridge he fared less well, and left hastily to avoid
expulsion. After studying acting with Barry, he appeared
as Theodosius in 1753. His career as an actor was fairly
prosaic, but he played Richard and light tragedy roles even
in Garrick’s day with some success. In mid-career he married
a daughter of Viscount Hinchinbroke, a lady who v/as. also
the widow of a fashionable Devon gentleman. Her marriage to
an actor was thought highly disgraceful by her family, and so
Smith agreeably offered to quit the profession if they would
give him an annuity equal to his salary. The offer was
refused. In 1762 his wife died, and after his retirement
in 1786 he married again, this time to a widow who had enough
in her own right to enable her husband to live in the style
to which he wished to become accustomed. On his country
estate at Bury St. Edmunds he carried on the tradition of
the retired actor as a country squire. In 1798 he tottered
up to London and played a revival of his original role,
Charles Surface--a bit red in the face and shaky in the legs,
but with the greatest humour i m a g i n a b l e With no great
13
Doran, ££. cit.. Ill, 88.
579
With no great talent, but with as much steadiness and pro
saic concentration as though he had been a grocer, he built
for the old age which he wished to enjoy.
Not many of the actors, proportionately, were so
lucky as Gentleman Smith, so talented and famous as Quin,
or so shrewd as Garrick. Consequently a great many of them
found themselves too old to continue on the stage, and too
poor to live otherwise without occupation or charity. This
should not be accounted their fault in every case. Many
of the actors never did receive more than a bare living wage,
and could not be expected to save enough for retirement.
Others were forced to leave the stage by causes other than
age.
When a wholesale attack upon the profession occurred,
the actors scattered to a wide variety of occupations. At
the Puritan accession to power in 1642 the whole body of
players for a time had to go elsewhere for employment.
Dibdin says that those who knew anything of business went
into shops of their own.
Pollard was the richest among them, but he left
them at length, at the instance of his relations in
the country, where he died about 1658 at a very
great age; Lowin kept an inn at Brentford, called
the Three Pigeons, and at last died very poor and
at least as old as Pollard. Tayler was in some
trifling business at Richmond, where he also died
very old; and Perkins and Sumner, who followed some
occupation together near Clerkenwell, did not linger
long after their companions.
Dibdin, History of the Stage, op. cit.. IV, 11.
580
In the eighteenth century it was often obvious, as an actor
neared retirement, that he was practically destitute. Con
sequently there arose the custom of giving such an one a
special retirement benefit. With fair success, such a single
performance would often bring in enough to tide him over the
few remaining years. Thus Bullock, appearing at Covent
Garden in 1739 at the age of 72, makes a pathetic plea for
support of his benefit performance.
In his younger days he had the pleasure and
happiness of entertaining the toYirn--as this is the
last time he may possibly beg the favour of the
town, he hopes to receive their indulgence, which
for the few remaining days shall be gratefully ack
nowledged by them.
Perhaps this benefit didn’t turn out too successfully,
for we find Bullock acting again in The Host of the Garter
three months later, an appearance which seems to have been
his last. In the summer he kept a booth at Bartholomew
Pair, which would also indicate a last desperate attempt to
gather in the sheaves.
About 1731 the Grub Street Journal and the Week I:/
Miscellany made a concentrated drive on the subject of
theatrical reform, more particularly with reference to the
rehabilitation of classic drama, and the providing of a
living for superannuated actors. The general proposal was
that a "college" be formed for these emeritus players, and
in connection with it a theatre be opened in which the new
Genest, o^# cit.. Ill, 586.
581
plays should be efficiently read# The profits from the
later were to support the former. Then if a reform could
be brought about on the general stage, the universities and
the Inns of Court were to supply fresh actors, who it was
hoped would be better than the existing supply of talent.
This peculiar project was never carried out, but it indicates
that thought was being given to the problem. The idea of a
retirement scheme was excellent in motive even if somewhat
Utopian in plan.
liVhat sometimes happened was that the old actor who had
not had the persistence, luck, or parsimoniousness to collect
a competence, exhausted first his meagre store of cash, then
his credit, and finally his physical possessions. The letter
quoted by Wilkinson from a poor actor in Yarmouth Gaol gives
in a fairly humourous fashion an account of the final disin
tegration of hope.
. . With an economy which till now I was a
stranger to, I have made shift hitherto to victual
ray little garrison; but then it has been with the
aid of my good friends and allies--my clothes.--
This week’s eating finishes my last waistcoat;
and next, I must atone for my errors on bread and
water.— A wig has fed me tv/o days; the trimmings
of a waistcoat as long; a pair of velvet breeches
paid my washerwoman, and a ruffle shirt has found
me in shaving--my coats I swallowed by degrees:
The sleeves I breakfasted upon for weeks--the body,
skirts. See served me for dinner two months: ray
silk stockings have paid my lodgings, and two pair
of new pumps enabled me to smoak several pipes. 16
16 Wilkinson’s Memoirs. op. cit.. IV, 196.
582
Poor Mossop, a favourite comedian in Garrick’s company, ac
tually died in 1773 of malnutrition, if not of actual star
vation. With the greatest pride the old actor concealed
from his friends his absolute financial destitution, and
would not appeal for the aid which no doubt would have been
forthcoming. When asked about his needs he used to pretend
not to hear, and would answer that he was better. Finally
he was found dead in his shabby lodgings in the Strand, with
only fourpence-halfpenny in his pocket. Cooke says he died
of a broken heart, but less sentimental commentators seem
to think the empty stomach a more potent factor. That pride
had a great deal to do with it is without question, however.
He was a Trinity College graduate, was only forty-nine
years of age inspite of his old appearance, and had been
practically forced from the London stage by a coiiibination
of ill health and lack of any superlative talent in an age
of great actors.
The old age of a person who has known great fame,
wealth, and beauty is especially distressing to contemplate
when it is spent in want and disgrace. Such was that of the
profligate Mrs. Bellamy. And yet in spite of the obvious
personal blame for her plight, her fellow actors and the
audience of a new ago were generous to her. The picture is
drawn by Barton Baker:
In 1785, worn down by poverty, degredation,
and sickness, the once charming George Anne
583
Bellamy, who had intoxicated the town by her charms
of manner and person, now so decrepit that she
could not rise from the armchair in which she was
seated upon the stage, took leave of the public at
Drury Lane, where a benefit had been organized to
save from utter starvation the woman who once in
her magnificent generosity gave 1,000 £ towards the
better clothing of. • oui’ soldiers abroad, and never
passed a sentinel without a blessing.17
The poor ex-actress, spending most of her money for drugs
rather than food, dragged out the miserable remaining days
of her life in a stupid coma. Even more wretched was the
end of Mrs* Charke, the half-mad daughter of Colley Cibber,
who had been deserted by her father, and ostracized from the
theatres. Only her brother Theophilus, of her family, had
not denounced her; and he had been drowned years before while
on his way to Ireland. She was entirely alone in the world.
Her only home for years was a shack near the New River Head,
in a place where the scavengers dumped the sweepings of the
streets--sweepings that she picked over nov/ and then in the
hope of finding something of value. She had as companion a
slovenly, moronic servant girl, a magpie, a monkey, and a
"skeleton dog named Fidele." There she existed as best she
could, depending upon the occasional profits from her writings
and the alms of compassionate Samaritans for the actual
necessities of live.18
1 7
Barton Baker, oj^. cit. > p. 135.
The oft-quoted eye-witness account by the publisher
Samuel Shyte, who was instrumental in getting her autobio
graphy into print, is found in The Monthly Mirror, June,
1796, p. 94. Cf. Senior, op a ; cit., p. 66.
584
These disagreeable sketches of actors who were suc
cessful at depicting life on the stage and unsuccessful at
living it offstage are not agreeable, but they form the
other side of the picture of which Garrick, Siddons, and
Mrs# Clive are the more pleasant components* On the whole,
one may say fairly that the actors of the eighteenth century,
both stars and minor players, had a pretty fair chance to
spend their old age in comfort and comparative security.
Especially was this true toward the end of the century, when
if their salaries had not provided an annuity for their old
age, the Theatrical Fund and private philanthropists among
the more fortunate actors could always be called upon for aid.
Death of the actor. Age, and cause. It sometimes
appears from a hasty reading of the lives of eighteenth
century actors that they had a remarkable record for lon
gevity. Actually they do seem to have often lived to re
markable ages, and the fact may have been influenced by the
great activity of the lives they led. But it is doubtful
if they could show on the whole any greater tenacity for
life than was exemplified by the members of another profes
sion. The thing that misleads us is the fact that those
actors who lived to such prodigious old age as Macklin*s
one hundred eight, or even Mrs. Siddons* seventy-six years
and Mrs. Clive’s seventy-four years by their persistence in
theatrical history over a long period attract more than
585
their share of attention. There were many famous actors
throughout the century who died very young. Palmer, whom
Boaden regarded as the best all-round actor of the century,
died at the age of forty. Mrs. Oldfield was only forty-
seven when she had her final call, while Macklin’s famous
modest daughter, Maria, v/as forty-eight. The famous Elizabeth
Barry was only fifty-five at the time of her death. The
promising young Drury Lane actor Charles Holland died of
smallpox when he was only thirty-six, while Mrs* Phillips,
mentioned favourably by Evelyn and celebrated by Cov/ley as
the "matchless Orinda" died of the same disease at the ear
lier age of thirty-three. Will Mountfort was assassinated
by Lord Mohun and Captain Hill in that famous attempted
abduction of Mrs. Bracegirdle, when the gallant actor was
only thirty-three. Barton Booth died at forty-tv/o, of
"distemper" and mercury poisoning; William Brereton died at
forty-six, in an insane hospital; the famous beauty Anne
Catley was dead at forty-five; Mrs. Bellamy lasted until
fifty-five, in spite of her dissipation; and Garrick’s
brilliant competitor Spranger Barry died at the age of
fifty-eight.
There seems therefore to be no reason for saying that
actors lived longer then than today. Old Bowman, who died
in 1739 at the ripe age of eighty-eight, was at that time
"the oldest actor, singer, and ringer in England." He told
586
Chetwood shortly before his death that illness had never
hindered him on the stage in his whole life.^^ Ben Johnson,
the famous comedian of the early part of the century, died
in 1741 and was remarkable vigorous to the end. As Genest
states: "He was in his 77th year and stayed on the stage
to the last, but the very dregs of his acting were respec
table."^^ Mrs. Garrick, the widow of the famous David, ac
cording to some accounts lacked only three months of being
a centenarian at her death. But such age was the triumphant
exception rather than the rule.
When we look at the general causes for actors* deaths
in the century, however, it seems that there are a few rather
obvious, and unaccountable facts. In the first place, there
are remarkably few actors who died from what might be called
the "mob" diseases: such things as smallpox, influenza
(or "Grippe," as it was then called), diphtheria, or even
consumption. Some possible reasons for this remarkable
fact have been already intimated in the chapter on health,
but they are certainly not conclusive. The actors seem to
have died frequently of organic diseases such as cirrhosis
of the liver, kidney complaints, and digestive disorders.
Heart disease as such was not often diagnosed in those days,
and was no doubt often attached to some other organic
Genest, ££. cit., III, 581.
^ Ibid.. IV, 1.
587
complaint. There is no slightest doubt that much of the
liver and kidney complaint of the time was traceable directly
to excessive drinking of alcohol, and in Doctor Johnson* s
case probably to tea as well. The actor * s irregular eating
habits might account for his violent and frequent digestive
difficulties. But the reason for the actor*s stubborn and
constant resistance to the contagious epidemics that raged
in eighteenth century London, to which he was more than
normally exposed in the crowded playhouse, is an unsolved
mystery.
There were throughout the century an average number
of deaths in the acting profession from what might be called
normal causes. Consumption claimed the lovely Miss Catley,
probably the most accomplished singer of her time; although
she held to the stage doggedly until her gasping for breath
and her wasted physique was a spectacle too pitiable to be
endured. The less well known actresses Mrs. Bicknell and
Mrs. Boheme were also victims. Mrs. Baddeley succumbed to
the same disease after a six-months* illness, although she
was undoubtedly badly weakened by her thirty-eight years of
one of the most rapidly lived lives in the age. Pneumonia
claimed its toll, from the aging Mrs. Clive to the young
actor Powell who caught a "fever" from lying naked on the
grass just after he had finished a strenuous game of his
favourite sport, cricket.21 Lee Lewes died in 1803 of
Watts, 22# cit., p. 55.
588
"water in the chest," which was probably pleurisy or pneu-
monia--the latter term having not yet come into common use.
Ivîrs. Yates, the successor of Mrs. Gibber in the 1760s, died
of dropsy at a comparatively early age. Hîrs. Verbruggen, the
thrice married and thrice famous actress of the early century,
died in childbed, as did also the first wife of the actor
Griffin. Quin as did his illustrious predecessor Betterton
evidently died of rheumatic complications. The famous
partner of Cibber, Robert Wilks, died of symptoms which
Indicate complicated liver and kidney disease. Garrick,
although at the time of his death suffering excruciating
pain from "shingles" or herpes that completely covered his
loins, died of palsy of the kidneys, according to the phy
sician* s report.22 John Rich died of gall-stones, an ailment
which was so common in the century that it has perhaps some
connection with the infected water supply, or the limited
diet. îdrs. Cibber, Garrick* s favourite actress, was in such
poor health for some time before her death that her demise
was reported three months before she actually succumbed.
The King requested a performance of The Provoked Wif©, and she
insisted on playing for His Majesty, although in her pre
carious state of health the effort hastened her death, and
by many was regarded as the immediate cause of it. Doctors
had been very hazy about diagnosis of her malady, supposing
22 por complete diagnosis and post-mortem report by
Dr. Fearon, see Murphy, Life of Garrick, op. cit., II, 332.
589
it to be merely a bilious colic. The post-mortem revealed
that she died of the ravages of "stomach works," which is
about as accurate as diagnosis could be in those days.
Apoplexy was the cause of death in a great many cases,
and often the public nature of the seizure attracted a dis
proportionate amount of interest to the malady. But there
seems no evidence to warrant its being called, "the actor * s
disease," any more than "the writer’s disease." Mr*. Baddeley,
the patient husband of one of the most notorious hussies of
the stage, died one morning after a sudden convulsive fit
which seized him as he was dressing to go on the Drury Lane
stage for rehearsal. He was only one of a number of actors
who died with grease-paint on their faces--an excellent and
thoroughly romantic exit for an actor. The mischievous and
witty James Spiller was seized with an apoplectic fit on the
stage, January 31, 1730, while performing in the Rape of
Proserpine, and died the next w e e k .23 Spiller was evidently
a brilliant young actor, who had the misfortune to play in
a time of dramatic ebb-tide, and in unpublicized productions.
His fame after his death, due largely to the anonymously
collected Spiller’s Jests far outstripped that of his life
time. Valiant Peg Woffington, in May of 1757, was playing
Rosalind when having uttered the words in the epilogue "If
I were among you. I’d kiss as many of you as had beards
Genest, oj^* cit.. Ill, 271.
590
that pleased me--" she was smitten with a paralytic stroke
that deprived her of speech. With a choking sob of terror
she staggered into the wings to be caught by the arms out
stretched to receive her. To all practical purposes, the
great Woffington died that night before her last audience.
She lingered on for three years more, cared for by her last
devoted lover. Colonel Caesar. Most of her small fortune
she used in those last years in building almshouses for the
poor of the slums where she herself had grown up, from the
misery of her crippled state hoping to bring some comfort
to the wretches whom she admitted as brothers and sisters.
The more one reads of the life of this warm-hearted, impul
sive, talented, and unaffected child of the streets, this
little laundry girl who became one of the greatest actresses
in England, the easier it is to understand v/hy the novelist
Charles Heade fell desperately in love with her more than a
hundred years after her death; and the easier it is to under
stand why the ambitious artificiality of David Garrick’s
personal life could not stand the corrosive of her absolute
honesty. She was a magdalene, fortunately for the poor of
London a repentant and generous one; but what was more im
portant, she was also a large-souled person at a time when
the stage was becoming too materialistic and machine-like in
its personnel and its organization.
Doran, ££. cit., II, 189.
591
Peterson, an actor v/ho had played with Garrick on the
stage at Goodman’s Fields in the early days, died on-stage
late in the century of an apoplectic fit. But of all the
dramatic stage deaths in the century, that of John Palmer,
two years before the end of the century, was the most strik
ing. Palmer, in spite of his phenomenally lazy nature and
his tendency to fudge his cues was one of the greatest
comedians of the age; and his death was one of those melo
dramatic scenes which appear to have been staged either
by a thoughtful providence or an indulgent biographer. On
the 29th of July, 1798, while playing the part of "The
Stranger" in The -Lyar on the Liverpool stage, he had just
pronounced the words, "There is another and a better World,"
when suddenly he fell backward, heaved a convulsive sigh,
and immediately expired. He was buried a few days later
at a small village near Liverpool, all the coaches that could
be obtained in the vicinity following his hearse to the
cemetery.25
The thought of death by hydrophobia was a thing which
constantly terrorized the people of the eighteenth century,
when for much of the time bands of semi-wild dogs actually
roamed the streets and hunted in packs at night. It will be
recalled that Doctor Johnson carried a stout cudgel as a
protection against dogs and footpads who might be rash enough
Boaden, Memo irs of Kemble. op. cit., II, 220-221.
592
to molest him at night* Yet remarkably few deaths are
listed in the vital statistics of the period as being caused
by hydrophobia; in no year were there so many as eight, the
number of deaths from rabies reported in the city of Los
Angeles in 1938. Occasionally dogs killed people outright
in their fierce onslaught,but the dog-scare of the eight
eenth century upon close investigation resolves itself into
more of a mental phobia than hydrophobia. It would seem
that the actors, because of their nocturnal habits, would
have been in particular danger, but there is record of only
one performer in the century who died of hydrophobia. That
was the famous Mrs. Barry, who had created over a hundred
original roles on the British stage, and whose death partook
of both comedy and tragedy. She was not set upon in the
public streets and torn limb from limb, however, but was
mildly nipped by her own lapdog from which she contracted
hydrophobia and died.
Even more unusual and freakish in its cause was the
death of Charles Hulett, who had been at first apprenticed
to Cur11 in 1718 and decided there was "more to be got hy
acting of Plays, than by selling of them." The Betterton
history of the stage, which was perhaps written by Curll,
See the distressing account of a boy * s death by
a great dog that "tore him in such a manner that he instantly
died" in The Gentleman* s Magazine, July, 1731, p. 309.
Campbell, 0£. cit., I, 121.
593
gives an account of it upon which many stage commentators
have tried in vain to improve.
He was taken off in the Vigour of his Age in a
most sudden and surprising manner. Being very
fond of shewing the Strength and Soundness of his
Lungs, as he Imagined, by loud Hemming, one Day,
as he was in the Green-Room at Goodman*s-FieIds, to
show the Clearness of his Pipes, as he expressed
himself, he fetched a very hearty Hem, with such
Violence,-that he broke some considerable Blood-
Vessel; for in a short time he found himself Giddy,
Sick, and turned Pale. He went behind the Scene,
and a large Quantity of Blood Issuing from his
Mouth, almost unknown to him, he was advised to go
home. Mr. Giffard sent for Dr. Beaufort, and another
Eminent Physician; but the Flux of Blood continuing
in so large a Quantity from his Mouth as was com
puted in the whole to be near two Gallons, they
thought it in vain to prescribe, and he died the
24th. Hour after his Hemming.^8
It is elsewhere stated that Hulett was fond of walking
quietly behind other actors and startling them with his
prodigious throat-clearings. If such was the case, surely
his death was one of the saddest endings to a practical
joke in a century that was filled with actor pranksters.
Suicide, which might be thought from its spectacular
possibilities to present some appeal to the actor, enjoyed
no vogue in the profession in the eighteenth century.
C1ergymen-playwrights seemed much more addicted to it, as a
matter of fact. The case of the Reverend Dr. Browne, author
of Barbarossa. has already been mentioned. Another victim
Betterton, o^. cit.. p. 158. Cf., Genest, op.
cit.. Ill, 484,
594
of his own hand was the Reverend Mr. Miller, who committed
suicide during the Garrick presentation of his Mahomet, in
1743-44. Actors are after all predominantly extrovert, and
although capable of swift despondency, recover quickly.
Suicide is far more often the result of an accumulated melan
cholia than it is an accident of temporary mood. True, it
was tried several times by impulsive actresses in despair
at the buffets of Pate. George Anne Bellamy once walked to
the river with the full intention of ending it all, and was
deterred by the sound of a mother soothing her poor little
starving child and saying, "God * s will be done." The restless
Mrs. Baddeley once flew to an apothecary*s shop after having
been left by her contemporary consort Mr. Hanger, and pur
chased and swallowed three hundred drops of laudanum. But a
hastily summoned physician induced her to part with this
enormous dose before it had taken effect, and she survived
it many unhappy days. The great-grandfather of Edmund Kean,
Henry Carey— who was the author among other operas and
interludes of the song Sally in Our Alley and that pet jaw
breaker of English school boys, Chrononhotonthologos— in the
year 1743 strangled himself with a bit of cord. But here
again it is the author and not the performer who surrendered.
While there are no definite statistics on the subject, one
suspects that when they are compiled they will demonstrate
that actors commit suicide no more frequently than do truck
695
drivers, while authors have both classes far outstripped.
Certainly that appears true in the eighteenth century.
That there appears so little to say concerning the
actors after their retirement is due often to the fact that
the actor in more cases than not had almost no life after
his retirement. His was a hard-worked profession, and only
the great stars could afford to retire from the stage in
their prime. The lesser players often worked themselves to
death, actually, and as has been indicated sometimes died
almost between acts of a play. It may be Just as well, for
the life of an old stager, no longer able to take his place
behind the footlights, is at best a lonely one unless it be
smoothed by excellent company, and comparative luxury. One
of the most distressing sights on the Broadway of our own
time is that of old, broken-down actors begging ducats for
the new plays, and pan-handling a living from a generation
of young actors who have never even heard the old stars* names.
One could easily draw a picture of the retired eight
eenth century actor sitting in his home surrounded by his
memories and dusty costumes, puttering pleasantly about in
his garden, and occasionally visiting the theatre which he
had helped to shape. He could on the other hand show the
old actor who had once commanded the plaudits of crowned
heads, as he shuffled along the piazzas of Covent Garden,
his ragged coat that had once splendidly wrapped the breast
596
of Macbeth or of Horval tucked closely around his thin chest
to keep out the evil, penetrating fog that licked at the
corners of the ancient theatre. But such emotionalizing
of the scene, whatever merits it might have from the point
of view of Interest and vividness would lack the vital sanc
tion of accuracy. There were paupers in the profession, such
as poor Mosspp and Mrs* Charke, eking out a miserable old
age in the purlieus of London. There were also Garricks and
Master Bettys, living in grandiloquent affluence. One was
as typical as the other, and between them the average truth
lay.
At the end of the century, it must again be emphasized,
the actor was essentially a proletarian member of a proletarian
society. He worked, he saved or he gambled his money, he
lived his life with about the same chances for success as
did the merchant of less spiritual wares. His social equality,
his financial parity, his general status in the community
was on a democratic and entirely personal basis. He no
longer carried the curse of a debasing heritage with him to
the grave; what he did with his life was of no more interest
to the city than was the life of any other person in the
public eye. When he died it was merely as a more or less
worthy member of the community in which he had lived. He
was no longer a public ward. He was a citizen of England.
597
Finale. The actor * s funeral. John Dryden was not,
in the strictest sense, an actor. He was however the greatest
literary figure of the Restoration stage, and his life was
linked so closely to the theatre that he may certainly be
given a sort of honorary membership in the profession. Tom
Brown wrote a remarkable description of his funeral in
1700; and while it was a very grand occasion such as the
death of no ordinary actor might inspire, it nevertheless
was typical of many aspects of those late seventeenth and
early eighteenth century ceremonies. From the rare folio
poem the following excerpts are culled.
The Day is come, and all the Wits must meet
From Covent-Garden down to Watling-street:
They all repair to the Physician* s Dame,
There lies the Corps, and there the Eagles come:
(There follows a list of various kinds of people. Finally--.)
Next these the Play-house Sparks do take their turn.
With such as under Mercury are born.
As Poets, Fid1er8, Cut-purses, and Whores,
Drabs of the Play-house, and of Common-shores ;
Pimps, Panders, Bullies, and Eternal Beaux,
Famed for short Wits, long Wigs, and gaudy Clothes.
The tuneful Rabble now together come.
They fill with dolesome Sighs the sable Room;
Some groan*d, some sobb*d, and some I think there wept.
And some got drunk, loll*d down, and snoared and slept.
...
Next him the Sons of Musick pass along.
And murder Horace in confounded Song.
(The number of people following the hearse in those days often
determined the importance of the funeral. But what peoplel)
598
One pocky Spark, one sound as any Roach,
One poet and two Fidlers in a Coach;
The Play-house Drab, that beats the Beggar * s Bush,
And Bawdy talks, would make an old Whore blush.
Was e*er Immortal Poet thus buffoon*d?
In a long Line of Coaches thus lampoon'd?
A Man with Gout and Stone quite wearied
Would rather live than thus be buried.
The lack of dignity, the drunkeness, the vulgarity of osten
tation and lack of taste displayed in such orgies of emotional
debauchery early in the century is almost unbelievable.
After our reiteration of the incidental thesis that
the actors frequently enjoyed surprising social recognition
even early in the century, it should be no surprise to
discover that from the beginning of the century the leading
actors were honored with very pretentious funerals, in spite
of their surface lack of standing in the social scheme, and
in the religious world. Even Nell Gwynn, who died In 1691,
was buried as Davies says "with great funeral solemnity in
the parish church of St. Martin's in the Fields." Dr.
Tennison, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, preached her
funeral s e r m o n .30 The actor-sharer in Lincoln's Inn Fields
Thos. Brown, A Description of Mr. D n* s Funeral
(London: for A. Baldwin, 1700), p"! 1, at passim. Dryden,
although a famous convert to Catholicism, was buried in
Westminster Abbey.
Dr. Doran deprecates such desecration, and though
generally tolerant, has little stomach for this public con
doning of what he considered an evil life. See Doran, op.
cit.. I, 82-82.
599
theatre. Keen, who died in 1718, was admired sufficiently
by his fellows at both theatres to warrant an impressive
funeral which the actors paid for, and at which upward of
two hundred persons walked, in deep mourning.31
It was even in those early times customary for an
adoring public to parade past the corpse of an actor, as it
lay in state, and whether from motives of sincere interest
or mere curiosity to take a last look at the face familiar
on the stage. Cibber says regarding the young Hildebrand
Horden who was killed in the Rose Tavern in a frivolous,
rash quarrel:
Before he was buried, it was observable, that
two or three days together, several of the fair
sex, well dress'd, came in masks (then frequently
worn) and some in their own coaches, to visit the
theatrical heroe, in his s h r o w d .32
By 1730 when the beloved îÆrs. Oldfield died at the age of
forty-seven, the most respectable element of the church was
glad to do her memory honor. She was dressed in her best
gown, and laid in state in the Jerusalem Chamber while a
vast concourse of people thronged to pay their last respects.
The sorrowful and morbid enthusiasm was tremendous, and sug
gests the modern orgies of sentimentalism which attended the
burial of the "great lover of the screen," Mr. Valentino,
and more recently of Miss Jean Harlow, his female counterpart
31 Ibid.. I, 327.
32 Cibber,- 0£. clt.. p. 156.
600
After tlie lying in state of Mrs. Oldfield, there
was a funeral of as much ceremony as has been ob
served at the obsequies of many a queen. . . .
There were anthems and prayers, and a sermon; and
Dr. Parker, who officiated, remarked, when all was
over, to a few particular friends, and with some
equivocation, as it seems to me, that he "buried
her very willingly, and with much satisfaction."33
The equivocation was undoubtedly more in the Reverend Dr.
Doran's mind than in that of the officiating clergyman however,
for Mrs. Oldfield was, in spite of her frank extra-marital
relations, a devout and highly moral lady, well thought of
in her t ime •
Westminster Abbey and the cloisters were opened to
the burial of notable actors early in the century. The
worthy Betterton was interred there in 1710, and thus un
locked the doors for his successors to the Thespian crown.
Mrs. Oldfield found her last resting place not far from her
old friend a few years later. In 1748 Mrs. Bracegirdle,
"the Romantick Virgin" of the century, was accorded the same
honour, her body being taken late at night from her dwelling
in Howard Street "and interred in a very handsome manner in
the cloisters of Westminster Abbey." 34 Shortly after 1775
Spranger Barry died, and was interred privately in the
cloisters of Westminster. It was a sad day for the theatre;
Garrick had Just retired from the stage, and Barry, who had
33 Doran, o^# cit., II, 15-16. Cf. Gentleman's
Magazine. March 1731, p. 114, for description of funeral.
Genest, 0£. cit.. II, 376.
601
been bis greatest competitor in romantic r^es, was dead*
Old Maoklin, a weary old man, stood by the grave and murmured
"Poor Barry". And when they attempted to lead him away he
said, "Sir, do not disturb me. I am at ray r e h e a r s a l ."35
Not even Macklin himself could have suspected the tremendous
vitality which was to carry him on for another quarter cen
tury. The funeral of David Garrick in 1779 was, as might be
expected, an overpoweringly grand thing. It was an occasion
over which Garrick himself would have liked to preside--as
indeed his dramatic presence did preside. There was an
impressive procession, in which Richard Brinsley Sheridan
was the principal mourner. Garrick was laid in Poet's
Corner of Westminster, with Shakespeare's statue, as Burke
proudly noted, pointing at the spot under which lay his
crypt. It was a circumstance often commented,dn^ and
Sheridan included it in his commemorative ode:
While Shakespeare's image, from its hallow'd base.
Seem'd to prescribe the grave and point the place.
There one may read his graven name today, under the benevo
lent gaze of the great dramatist whose works he did much to
bring back to the stage of his generation.
The parish church of St Paul's in Covent Garden was
a favourite burying place for lesser actors, and those who
^3 Doran, o£. cit., II, 314.
33 For reprint of the "Order of Mr. Garrick's Funeral"
see Davies, Memoirs of Garrick, op. cit., II, 419.
602
for some reason preferred, the theatrical neighborhood- Many
of the minor actors belonged to the parish of St. Paul's,
and it was natural that the churchyard became a rich reposi
tory of theatrical names. Cibber's famous partner Robert
Wilks was buried there in 1732, "with great Decency," about
one o'clock in the morning; and so important was the occasion
considered that the Gentlemen of the King's Chapel attended
and performed an anthem.37 Sixty-five years later Charles
Macklin was buried in the same place,
. . . attended to the grave by several of his
Theatrical Brethren, and a great concourse of others,
whom curiosity had drawn together to contemplate on
the last remains of a man who had nearly seen three,
and had actually touched the extremities of two
centuries.38
The cost of funerals was a thing which was of moment
to an actor's family. Often, in the case of practically
destitute actors, a contribution was taken from theatrical
people for the expense of burial. In the case of Mossop,
the unfortunately proud actor who starved to death rather
than beg alms, Garrick offered to bury him at his own ex
pense— which by some of Mossop's friends was taken as a
gesture of attonement for the fact that Garrick had refused
the poor chap a job the year before, and felt himself some
what responsible. An uncle of Mossop, however, relieved
37 Curll, Memo1rs of Wilks, op. cit., p. 35.
35 Cooke, Life of Macklin, op. cit., p. 343.
603
the manager of the burden. About what that burden probably
was is indicated by the fact that Mrs. Baddeley paid her
father's funeral costs which were forty pounds. Mrs. Bellamy
said that because her mother had always lived as a lady she
should be buried as one; but being in tight circumstances
by the time her mother died, she had to do some bargaining
with the undertaker, a Mr. Gordon. She shrewdly waited
until after the ladylike funeral before betraying to that
gentleman that if he wanted his money, he must get it from
the deceased lady's estate. He insisted that since the
daughter had ordered the funeral, she should pay for it. Out
of extreme generosity he finally cut the costs from fifty
guineas to forty-tv/o, a sum which seems to be a fair indica
tion of the actual cost of a respectable final retirement
near the end of the century.
Many of the actors died and were buried in places
other than London. James Quin, that "Stage Leviathan" as he
was called by Churchill, was perfectly content to be entombed
in the Bath Abbey, in that city where he spent the last
pleasant years of his life after his retirement. There on
his monument can be seen the epitaph supposedly penned by
Garrick, beginning:
That tongue which set the Table on a Roar
And charmed the public ear, is heard no more:
Closed are those eyes, the harbingers of wit.
Which spake before the tongue what Shakespeare writ.
604
On© of the most spectacular funerals was that of the brilliant
young actor William Powell, the city clerk whose bright
promise had so alarmed Garrick and delighted Walpole a few
years before. He died at Bristol in 1769, five years after
his debut there, and his funeral was held at the Bristol
Cathedral. Colman came down from London to be the chief
mourner, the principal actors and citizens of the town marched
from the cathedral to the end of the College Green where
they were met by the Dean of the Cathedral and the choir#
From there they proceeded to the burial ground where an
impressive service was read. The funeral was marred by one
of those horrifying incidents, however, that sometimes occur
when emotional people suffer great shock or sorrow. Ned
Shuter, the religion crazed actor, had been a close friend
of the dead man, and that day his sorrow led him where his
joy usually showed the way. He imbibed too freely. Then for
some reason he dressed himself in a bright scarlet waist
coat and staggered to the cathedral where he hammered on the
door, shouting out the lines from Romeo and Juliet ;
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death.
Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth.
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open.
And in despite. I'll cram thee with more f o o d I39
The funeral of Mrs. Siddons, although well into the
nineteenth century, (for it occurred on June 15, 1831), may
«zq
Watts, 0£. cit., p. 56
605
well serve as a summary conclusion of this discussion of the
actor's old age, his death, and burial. If a mental picture
of it is placed beside Tom Brown's sketch of Dryden's funeral
early in the century, one can realize the enormous change
that has come over London as a whole, as well as members of
the theatrical profession.
About ten o'clock in the morning of the day of the
final service, the procession began to move from Mrs. Siddons'
house in Upper Baker Street to the place of internment in the
New Ground of Paddington Church. The hearse was followed by
the carriages of Mrs. Siddons and Charles Kemble, and two
mourning coaches filled with relatives and close friends
and business associates. Then came eleven mourning coaches
filled with performers from the two Theatres Royal. The
service was read impressively by the Reverend Mr. Campbell
to the enormous crowd (estimated to be about 5,000 in number)
that filled the burial ground. It was a solemn, religious,
and impressive occasion. The crowd was quiet and attentive,
with no disorder or extreme emotionalism. Some of the audi
tors wept quietly, and one mysterious veiled young woman
knelt beside the coffin sobbing; but there was an air of
peace and simplicity about the staging of this last scene
that was as she had requested it. On her grave was placed
a simple inscription, which was entirely in keeping with
her character, and with the end of her age:
606
Sacred to the Memory of
Sarah Siddons
Who departed this life June 8, 1831,
in her 76th. year.
"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."40
Campbell, 0£. clt.. II, 377-378.
CHAPTER XI
FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS
FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
Findings and conclusions. Specific discoveries of
new material in the writing of this dissertation have been
neither numerous nor perhaps of startling importance. It
is not natural to expect that one working in the well-tilled
field of the eighteenth century London theatre will unearth
much that has not at one time or another been appraised by
theatrical scholars. Dubious originality has not been the
purpose of this study; and for that reason the occasional
corrections of errors of fact and judgment in such books
as Professor Thaler's excellent work on the theatre.
Shakespere to Sheridan, and Nicoll's numerous writings on
the Restoration and the eighteenth century theatre--such
corrections are to be regarded merely as footnotes to work
whose general virtues are recognized in the scholarly world.
The general conclusions that have been reached from the com
prehensiveness of the survey, however, would seem to warrant
a modification of widely existing opinion concerning the life
of the eighteenth century London actor. We may take these
conclusions almost categorically from the foregoing chapters.
Eighteenth century actors came from all classes and
levels of society, but it has he come apparent from the
analysis of hundreds of family backgrounds that proportion
ately few of the London players were children of the gutters.
608
The brilliant climb to dramatic fame of such urchins as
Mrs* Abington and Peg Ys^offington, by the very brilliance of
the achievement has attracted undue attention to the actors*
lowly origin. A heavy majority of the players came from the
regnant middle class; they were sons and daughters of trades
men of standing, of respectable landholders, and of profes
sional men. Indeed the profession was salted with enough of
the offspring of the aristocracy, even early in the century,
to give it a start toward social prestige. The education
of actors (excluding of course those miserable strollers
whose lot was a meagre one throughout the century) was on the
whole superior to that of the greater part of their audiences.
From the days of Gibber’s latter triumphs up to the dubious
intellectual achievements of Garrick and the undeniably
scholarly work of Kemble, the actor held his own as an
educated man.
Socially also the actor came off in the century much
t^etter than has been supposed. Although throughout the
period the actor was the object of attack by social snobs,
he often gave as good as he received. That he was usually
on the defensive socially may not be denied. But in spite
of the vulnerability of his position professionally, actors
of genuine talent and personal charm, such as Quin, Garrick,
Spranger Barry, Mrs. Woffington, or Mrs. Clive were certainly
never barred from any society because of the buskin that
609
they wore. By the end of the century, that standard-bearer
of respectability, Mrs. Siddons, had supreme entree to all
English society, including that of the royal household. It
is obviously ridiculous to say, however, as has been said,
that Mrs. Siddons made the actor's profession socially re
spectable in England. The battle was won when she took the
field, and she arrived only in time to blow a fanfare of
triumph, which by some commentators has been mistaken for
a battle cry.
In the matter of morals, the actor of the century does
not come off so well* Although as has been pointed out, he
has been forced to carry a load of opprobrium merely because
of the malodorous neighbors of the playhouses in Drury Lane
and Govent Garden, there is no denying the fact that the
actor of the time was slow to change his Restoration morals.
He gambled incessantly, he drank without restraint, and was
throughout the century a lusty champion of Eros. Even though
his conduct was remarkably modified toward the end of the
century, and upon occasion became prodigiously pious, he
nevertheless led his townsmen in the pursuit of the more
highly tinted fleshpots. Certainly in face of the informa
tion here presented regarding the general morals of actors
throughout the century, the common statement that Mrs.
Siddons brought about a "moral Theatre" in England becomes
ridiculous. Here again she was merely the fortunate epitome
610
of the virtuous work begun early in the century by such up
right ladies as Mrs. Betterton, Mrs. Susannah Cibber, îÆrs.
Clive, ad. What is obvious, however, is the fact that
the actor per se was no more immoral than the young man of
means, or for that matter, comparatively no more immoral
than the actor of today. One highly important point has
been made, and that is the clearing of the actor of charges
of sexual abnormalities--particularly of homosexuality. The
eighteenth century London actor, whatever his moral faults,
is fairly clean of that distasteful mark of decadence.
Several matters relating to the finances of actors
have been cleared up. Most important is the fact that as
the lot of the leading actors improved throughout the century
under the "star" system, the fortunes of the minor actors
underwent slight change for the better. With the improvement
of the legal and social status of the actor, however, the
minor actor found himself in a much more secure position for
making terms with the managers at the end of the century
than he was at the beginning. With the founding and endow
ing of the Theatrical Fund in Garrick's time, also, the
horrible fear of a destitute old age was removed from regular
members of the playhouse roll.
It has been demonstrated clearly that the actor,
contrary to common opinion on the subject, was in the age
of Johnson a fairly domestic creature. He enjoyed his home.
611
he had a family more frequently than not, and generally his
marital arrangements seem to have been as successful as those
of his fellows. The regard for marriage, indeed, seems to
have been extraordinarily high in the acting profession,
while the devotion of actor-parents to their numerous chil
dren was almost phenomenal. When his income permitted it,
the actor invariably made an attempt to establish some sort
of a permanent home around which he delighted to center his
off-stage life.
Physically the actor could have held his own with any
professional man of his time. He seems to have had a remark
able resistance to disease, and in spite of his lack of the
rigid and methodical physical training that came into vogue
in the nineteenth century, when an actor’s dancing lessons
and fencing jousts were looked upon as essential preparations
to his interpretation of Shakespeare, he quite evidently
was often possessed of adequate physique. The numerous in
stances of extreme longevity in the ranks of the actors,
and the significant causes of their deaths, testify to the
virility of the breed. The eighteenth century was an age
of excessive eating and drinking, and the actor certainly
did his share of both; but the results seem on the whole
to have been no more drastically felt within the ranks of
theatrical employees than in more sedate circles of
society.
612
The actor of Garrick's age found his recreation,
insofar as a crowded working schedule allowed recreation,
in the ordinary sports and amusements of the time. Many
players, such as Quin and Brunton for example, were known
even outside the theatre for their excellence in various
athletic sports. We have adequate testimony to the parti
cipation of actors in such sports as riding, swimming, fish
ing, skating, cricket playing, fencing, and walking. The
ladies of the stage found time to occupy themselves with all
of the delicate pursuits allowed their contemporaries— most
notably needle-work, painting, sculpture, and the less -
earthy forms of horticulture. The more sedentary members
of the profession occupied their time with the writing of
plays, novels, and fortunately unpublished poetry.
When it came time for the actor's old age and retire
ment, he was surprisingly well taken care of, as a rule.
There are practically no suicides in theatrical ranks in
the century, and on the whole it seems that there was little
cause for them. The social, economic, and professional po
sition of the actor in London society after about 1730 was
certainly that of a "vagabond and rogue" only in name. As
has been clearly demonstrated, he was an influential and
generally respected member of his community, and suffered
the opprobrium of the mob no more than did any other public
servant.
613
When he died, his memory was honoured, with flowery
epigrams in the news sheets of the day, and his corpse was
often honoured with splendid burial in a noble spot. These
facts obtain throughout the century and are relative to the
genius of the actor involved. Thomas Betterton enjoyed as
great prestige at his death in 1710 as did any professional
man in England, and the splendor of his funeral was surpassed
only by that of a Dryden, or of the actress Mrs. Oldfield.
The picture, on the whole, is not nearly so gloomy as it has
heretofore been painted by commentators inclined to take
as representative the miserable end of a prostituted George
Anne Bellamy, a senile and maundering Macklin, or a drunken
Weston.
Thus it is obvious that the findings of this study
lead us toward a conviction regarding the constantly improv
ing economy of the English actor during the eighteenth century;
and, moreover, a modification of idea regarding the muddiness
of the 1700 pit from which the 1800 actor was digged.
Throughout the century there were many things worse than the
fate of being an actor.
Suggestions for additional research. Probably every
one who has done extensive research in the field of the
eighteenth century theatre has felt the need of a thoroughly
up-to-date bibliographical study of the period. It may be
614
that the field has been covered in the prolific and unfor
tunately often inaccurate works of Allardyce Nicoll in drama,
and in Robert lY. Lowe's invaluable Bibliographical Account
of English Theatrical Literature ; but there is badly needed
a well-edited and conveniently indexed compilation of the
widely scattered bibliography on the theatre of the century.
It is a work which if done conscientiously and thoroughly
will be of tremendous material assistance to everyone working
in the period.
There is also badly needed a thoroughly reliable
chronological history of the British theatres, written from
the economic rather than the dramatic point of view: con
sidering the theatres as business enterprises rather than
as artistic ventures. Professor Odell showed the way with
his volumes on the production of Shakespeare in the century,
and Professor Thaler has admirably supplemented his work.
But both of these writers have been concerned essentially
with the mechanics of production, just as Allardyce Nicoll
has been absorbed in the material of production, and so have
neglected specifically the history of the actual producing
organism, the theatre, as such.
There seem to me to be several aspects of this sub
ject that merit particular and detailed study. One of the
most obvious is that of the finances of the London theatres
from the time of Gibber's triumvirate management to the era
615
of Sheridan's splendid mismanagement* Such a study would
make clear to us the intricacies of theatrical salaries, the
suspected culpability of the majority of theatre managers,
and other matters of vital interest to a student of the
theatre. It is a piece of work that must of necessity be
done in England, however, and by one who has access to the
account books and other financial records of the theatres
which are for the most part in the British Museum.
Another interesting phase of semi-theatrical develop
ment in the century has to do with the existence and growth
in popularity of those bastard children of the theatre, the
oratorical societies, or "Spouting Clubs" as they were
popularly called in the eighteenth century. Many actors
had their first training in such organizations; many other
actors, such for Instance as Thomas Sheridan and Macklin,
acted as supervisors and directors of such clubs.There is
little doubt that their influence on the style of speech
both in Parliament and on the stage was considerable.
Probably one of the most interesting fields for re
search in the life of the eighteenth century actor is that
having to do with his actual domestic life in the home, a
subject which has been treated here very briefly. Here again
the researcher must have a thorough background in economics,
and must be capable of placing the actor correctly from a
historical point of view in his milieu. Such a study will
616
. have greatest value, in the history of the English theatre,
if the lives of the actors in Garrick's day are contrasted
not only with the actors* lives in other days, but also with
the lives of bricklayers, soldiers, doctors, farmers, hackney
coachmen, and the lords of the manor at the time.
All of these surveys and analyses, when totalled up,
will assist materially in giving us a clear and significantly
connected chronicle of the phenomenon of the English Theatre#
As this study has attempted to draw a general map of the
actor's offstage life, those studies might fill in with
more adequate contours, and color more vividly, the various
divisions of the drawing.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Note on bibliographical form» Because of frequent
difficulties In fixing the responsibility for authorship of
Memoirs and Lives of eighteenth century actors. It has been
thought Inadvisable to attempt a strict classification Into
primary and secondary sources. Instead, the bibliography has
been separated Into "Bibliographical and General Reference",
"Specific", and "Periodical" divisions. Generally speaking,
the material In the "Specific" classification is primary and
eighteenth century source material.
The bibliography, it need hardly be added, is a highly
selective one, and contains only references which are essential
to the mechanism of the study. Scores of general reference works
such as The Cambridge History of English Literature have been
consulted, but have been considered too obvious for listing In
this bibliography unless specific footnote reference has been
made to them.)
A. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AM) GENERA'L REFERENCE
Adams, W. Davenport, A Dictionary of the Drama. London;
Chatto and WIndus, 1904. 2 vols.
Allen, Robert J., The Clubs of Augustan London. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1933. 305 pp.
Ashton, John, The Fleet. Its River, Prison, and Marriages.
London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1888. 391 pp.
Baker, Blanch M., Dramatic Bibliography. New York: H. W.
Wilson Co., 1933. 320pp.
Baker, David Epskine, A Companion to the Playhouse. Better
known as Blographica Dramatlca. Revised edition by
Baker, Reed, and Jones. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees,
Orme, Brown, etc., 1812. 4 vols.
The most reliable of eighteenth century source books on
the life of the actor, and theatrical matters.
Baker, H. Barton, History of the London Stage and its Famous
Players. London: Geo. Routledge and Sons, 1904.
Benjamin, Lewis S. (Lewis Melville, pseud.) Stage Favourites
of the 18th. Century. New York: Doubleday Doran, 1929.
619
Besant, Sir Walter, London in the Eighteenth Century. London:
A. and C. Black, 1925. xvii, 667 pp.
London in the Time of the Stuarts. London: A. and C.
Black, 1903. xiii, 400 pp.
Blunt, Reginald, Mrs. Montagu, "Queen of the Blues." Her
Letters and Friendships from 1762 to 1800. London:
Constable: n.d., 2 vols.
See I, 349-369, "Garrick and his wife", for reprint of
letters in the Huntington collection-- accurate except
in punctuation and minor transcriptions.
Boswell, Eleanors, The Restoration Court Stage (1660-1702)•
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932. xvii, 370 pp.
Burley, T. L. G., Playhouses and Players of Old Anglia.
Norwich: Jarrold and Sons, 1928. xi, 180 pp.
Cook, Dutton, A Book of the Play. London: Sampson Low,
Marston. Searle, and Rlvlngton, 1876. 2 vols.
Daly, Augustin, VifoffIngton. A Tribute to the Actress and
the Woman. Troy N. Y. ; for the author, Nlms and Knight,
1891. 122 pp. (2nd edition)
A marvelously illustrated book, written by the great
American producer as a labour of love.
Elton, Oliver, A Survey of English Literature. New York:
Macmillan Co., 1928. 2 vols.
Fitzgerald, Percy, A New History of the English Stage,
From the Restoration to the Liberty of the Theatres,
in Connection with the Patent Houses. London: Tinsley
Brothers, 1882. 2 vols.
Genest, John, Some Account of the English Stage, from the
Restoration In 1660 to 1850. Bath: H. E. Carrington,
1832. 10 vols.
An invaluable and prodigious collection of material re
lating to theatrical matters. Mr. William Van Lennep of
the Folger Shakespeare Library Is presently editing a
part of this work.
George, M. Dorothy, London Life in the XVIIIth. Century.
New York; Alfred A. Knopf, 1925. xi, 452 pp.
620
Gilliland, Thomas, The Dramatid Mirror ; Containing the
History of the Stage from the earliest period to the
present timei including a biographical account of the
principal performers. London: C. Chappie, 1808. 2 vols.
Guerini, Vincenzo, A History of Dentistry from the Most
Ancient Times to' t!be Ënd of the Eighteenth Century.
New York: Lea and Pebiger, 1909. 355 pp.
Harley, George David, ^ Authentic Sketch of the Life,
Education, and Personal Character of William Henry
West Betty, the celebrated young Roscius. London:
Richard Phillips, 1804. 76 pp.
Written evidently as a catch-penny blurb at the height
of Master Betty * s career, it gives the important facts.
Hawkins, Frederick W., The FT»ench Stage in the Eighteenth
Century. London: Chapman and Hall, 1888. 2 vols.
The Llfe of Edmund Kean. From published and original
sources. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1869. 2 vols.
Hazlitt, W. C. (Ed.) The English Drama and Stage Under the
Tudor and Stuart Princes«(1543-1664) London; fpr the
Roxburghe Library, 1869. 289 pp.
An exceedingly valuable collection of royal documents.
Hillebrand, Harold Newcomb, Edmund Kean. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1933. 387 pp.
Hotson, Leslie, The Commonwealth and"Restoration Stage.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928. ix, 424 pp.
Some new technical information. In the footnotes are
many substantial corrections of error in Nicoll*s book
on the same period.
Irving, Henry B., Occasional Papers. London: Bickers and
Son, 1906. 225 pp.
Irving, William Henry, John Gay*s London. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press., xviii, 459 pp.
.... Journals of the Continental Congress (Ed. by W. G. Ford)
Vol. XII. Washington D. C.: Government Printing Office,
1904.
Kanner, Leo, Folklore of the Teeth. New York: Macmillan Co.,
1928. 316 pp.
621
Kelly, John Alexander, German Visitors to English Theatres^
in the Eighteenth Century. Princeton University Press;,
1936. 178 pp.
Foreign.comment on acting, both on the stage and in the
pit. See especially pp. 25, 41, 72, 78, 144-45, and 151.
La Porte, 1*Abbe Joseph, Dlctionaire Dramatique. Paris: no
pub., 1776.
Lawrence, W. J. , Old Theatre Days and Ways. London: George
G. Harrap and Co., 1935. 256 pp.
Lowe, Robert W., Bibliography of English Theatrical Literature,
London: Jolm C. Nimmo, 1888. x, 384 pp.
The standard bibliography on the theatre. Contains a prac
tically complete list of eighteenth century actors* mem
oirs. Also known as: Bibliographical Account of English
Theatrical Literature from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day.
Thomas Betterton. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and
Co., 1891. 196 pp.
The most scholarly life of Betterton available.
Mathews, Brander and Hutton, Laurence (Eds.), Actors and
Actresses of Great Britain and the United States from
the days of David Garrick to the present time. New York:
Cassel and Co., n.d.(1886), 5 vols.
Mowat, R. B., England in the Eighteenth Century. London:
George G. Harrap Co., 1932. 281 pp.
Nicholson, Watson, The Struggle for a Free Stage in London; .
London: Constable, 1906. 475 pp.
Nicoll, Allardyce, A History of Early Eighteenth Century
Drama. Cambridge: University Press, 1929. xiv, 431 pp.
A History of Late Eighteenth Century Drama.1750-1800.
Cambridge: University Press, 1927. x, 387 pp.
A History of Restoration Drama. 1660-1700. Cambridge:
University Press, 1923. vi, 397 pp.
All of these books have in them invaluable material and
exhaustive bibliographies. They must be watched for slight
errors in names, titles, and dates. Hotson*s work has cast
a dark shadov/ on the authenticity of much-of the inform
ation in the above volume.
6 2 2
Nungezer, Edwin, Dictionary o f Actors England before
1642. Oxford , and Yale University Press, 1929. vi, 438 pp.
Odell, George C. D., Annals of the Hew York Stage. Hew York:
Columbia University Press, 1927..... 10 vols.
This work is the basic compilation of material on the
American theatre. Other volumes will be added as completed.
Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving. New York: Scribner*s
Sons, 1920. 2 vols.
Porter, Henry C., The History of the Theatres of Brighton from
1774 to 1885. Brighton: King and Thorne, 1886. 206 pp.
Rosenbach, A. S. W., The All-Embracing Doctor Franklin.
Philadelphia: privately printed, 1932.
A witty summary of the intimate illicit adventures of
Benjamin Franklin.
Selley, W. T., England in the Eighteenth Century. London:
A. and 0. Black, 1934. 406 pp.
Senior, F. Dorothy P., The Life and Times of Colley Gibber.
New York: Rae D. Henkle Co., n.d. (Ï92VT# xvi, 285 pp.
(Published by Constable in London in 1928.)
Simpson, Harold, and Braun, Mrs. Charles, A Century of Famous
Actresses. 1750-1850. London: Mills and Boon, 1913. 380 pp.
Sprague, Arthur Colby, Beaumont and Fletcher on the Restoration
Stage. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926. xx, 322 pp
Straus, Ralph, The Unspeakable Curll, being some account of
Edmund Curll, bookseller. London: Chapman and Hall,
1927. xi, 322 pp.
Summers, Montagu, The Restoration Theatre. London: Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1934. xxi, 352 pp.
Thaler, Alwin, Shakspere to Sheridan. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1922. xviii, 339 pp.
«•.• The Thespian Dictionary of Dramatic Biography of the
Eighteenth Century. London: J. Cundee, 1802. 275 pp.
Poorly written and in details often inaccurate; but con
taining much scarce biographical material.
623
Thornbury, George, and Walford, Edward, Old And New London.
A Narrative of its History, its People, and its Places.
London: Cassell and Co., n.d., 6 vols.
Turberville, A. S., Johnson* s England. Oxford; Clarendon
Press, 1933. 2 vols.
Watts, Guy Tracy, Theatrical Brlstoi. Bristol: Holloway and
Sons, 1915. xi, 131 pp.
Wilson, P. P., The Plague in Shakespeare* s London. Oxford:
The Clarendon Press, 1927. 228 pp.
Highly credible account of the cause and cure of plague
is given on pp. 1-3.
Wyndham, Henry Saxe, Annals of Covent Garden Theatre.
London: Chatto and Windus, 1906. 2 vols.
B. SPECIFIC
Adolphus, John, Memoirs of John Bannister, Comedian.
London: Richard Bentley, 1839. 4 vols.
Aston, Anthony, The Fool* s Opera ; or the Taste of the Age—
to which is prefixed A Sketch of the Author*s Life,
written by Himself. London: T. Payne, 1731 (?). 22 pp.
Baker, George Pierce (ed.). Some Unpublished Correspondence
of David Garrick. Boston; Houghton Mifflin and Co.,
1907, 140 pp.
Bedford, Arthur, A Serious Remonstrance in Behalf of the
Christian Religion against the horrid blasphemies and
impieties which are still... etc. London: John Darby:
( for Henry Hammond!', 1719. xx, 383 pp.
Bellamy, George Anne, to Apology for the Life of George Anne
Bellamy, Late of Govent Garden, written by herself.
London: for the author, 1785. 5 vols. TThird edition.}
Bernard, John, Retrospections of the Stage. London: Henry
Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830. 2 vols.
This most charming of theatrical memoirs was written by
the man who was at one time a stroller, at another the
secretary for the famous Beefsteak Club, and at another
the manager of several American theatres.
624
Betterton, Thomas, The History o f the English Stage, from
the Restauration to the Present Time. London: E. Curll,
1741. 167 pp.
Bound with this book is also Memo irs of Mrs. Oldfield.
The History is generally attributed to William Oldys;
the life of Oldfield is attributed to Egerton, or Curll.
Billington, ïvîrs.. Memo ir s of Mrs. Bill ington, from her Birth.
London; James Ridgway, 179 2- xi, 78 pp.
One of the coarsest of memoirs, this scarce publication
was suppressed immediately after its first printing.
Boaden, James, Memo ir s of Mrs. Inchbald; including her
familiar correspondence with the most distinguished
persons of her time. London: R. Bentley, 1883. 2 vols.
The Life of Mrs. Jordan: including original private
correspondence. London: Edward Bull, 1831, 2 vols.
Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons. Philadelphia; Carey, Lea,
Littell, 1827. xxii, 382 pp. (An extra-illustrated
and very fine edition was privately printed in London
in 1882.)
Borgman, Albert S., The Life and Death of William Mountfort.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935. 221 pp.
A full and complete account of the famous "murder" trial
of Lord Mohun, who with Captain Hill assassinated Mountfort.
Boswell, James, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LID. London:
Oxford University Press, 1927. 2 vols.
Brown, Thomasi, A Description of ¥ir. D n* s Funeral.
London: for A. Baldwin, 1700. (Folio, no paging.)
The Works of Mr. Thomas Brown, Serious and Comical.
London: for Sam Briscoe, 1720. 5 vols.
Campbell, Thomas, Life of Mrs. Siddons. London: Effingham
Wilson, 1834. 2 vols.
ï\ics. Siddons left her personal journals to the poet
Campbell, who wrote this warmly biased biography.
Gharke, Charlotte, A Narrative of the Life of Ivirs. Charlotte
Gharke, Youngest Daughter of Colley Cibber, Esq., told
by Herself. V1755") London: Constable, 1929. 223 pp.
625
Chetwood, William Rufus, The British Theatre. Containing the
Lives of the English Dramatic Poets ;-- together with the
Lives of most of the Principal Actors. London: R. Baldwin
jun., 1752. 3 vols.
Churchill, Charles, The Roselad. (1761) Edited by Robert Lowe.
London: Lawrence and Builen, 1891. xviill, 78 pp.
There are many editions of this work, but Lowe’s is by far
the most desirable for its commentary material.
Cibber, Colley, to Apology for his Life. (1740) New York:
E. P. Dutton Co., 1914.
This excellent edition is number 668 of the Everyman’s
series.
Cibber, Mrs. Susannah Maria, to Account of the Life of that
Celebrated Actress, Mrs.' Susannah Maria Cibber, with
interesting and amusing anecdotes. Also the two remark
able and romantic trials between Theophilus Cibber and
William Sloper. London: Reeder, 1887. 56 pp.
This anonymous biography is interesting chiefly for its
account of the trial in which Mrs. Gibber’s squinting
husband Theophilus sued Sloper, after having concocted a
liason between Sloper and Mrs. Gibber.
Cibber, Theophilus, to Apology for the Life of M r. Th’ Clbber.
Comedian, Being a Proper Sequel to the Apology for the
Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian; with an Historical
view of the Stage to the present Year. Dublin: George
Faulkner, 1741. 178 pp.
"Supposed to be written by Himself, in the Style and Man
ner of the Poet Lauréat," this work because of its scath
ing nature is obviously not autobiographical. It bears
some resemblance to Fielding’s writing, and has on occasion
been attributed to him.
Collier, Jeremy, A Defense of the Short View of the Profane
ness and Immorality of the English Stage. London: S.
Keble and R. Sare, 1705. 139 pp.
Mr. Collier’s Dissuasive from the Play-House; in a letter
to a Person of Quality, Occasioned by the late Tempest.
London: Richard Sare, 1704. 32 pp.
A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the
English Stage. London: S. Keble and R. Sare, 1698. TSrd. ed.)
626
Golïîian, George (jun.), Posthumous Letters, from various cel
ebrated Men; addressed to Francis Colman. and George
Colman the elder: with annotations and occasional remarks.
London: T. Gadell and W. Davies, 1820. 347 pp.
Cooke, William, Memoirs of Charles Macklln. Comedian, With
the Dramatic Characters, Manners. Anecdotes, jof the
age in which he lived. London: James Asperne, 1806. 444 pp.
Cumberland, Richard, Memoirs of Richard Cumberland. Written
by Himself. Containing an Account of his Life and Writings
Interspersed with Anecdotes and Characters of the most
distinguished persons of his time, with whom he has had
'i^b er cours e andr connexion. London: Lackington, Allen and
Co., 1806. 533 pp.
Curll, Edmund, The Life of that Emminent Comedian Robert
Wilks, Esq. London; E. Curll, 1733. vlli, 53 pp.
Davies, Thomas, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick Esq..
Interspersed with Characters and Anecdotes of his theat
rical Contemporaries. The whole forming a History of the
Stage. which includes a Period of Thirty-Six Years.
London; the author, 1780. 2 vols.
A Genuine Narrative of the Life and Theatrical Transactions
of Mr. John Henderson. Gommonly called the Bath Roscius.
London: T. Evans, TtTV. 60 pp.
De Castro, Jacob, The Memo irs of J. Decastro. comedian. In
the course of them will be given anecdotes of various
eminently distinguished characters. London: Sherwood
Jones and Co., 1824. xx, 279 pp.
.... The Delights of the Bottle or, the Compleat Vintner.
"a Merry Poem.'^ London: no pub., 1720.
Attributed by W. H. Irving to Edward Ward, a dissolute
Grub-Streeter who knew whereof he spoke.
Dell, Henry, The Frenchified Lady Never in Par is. London:
S. Crowder and H. Woodgate, 1757. T4to.l
.... A Dialogue in the Shades, Between the Celebrated
Mrs. Cibber, and the no less Celebrated Mrs. Woffington.
both of Amourous Memory.London; S. Bladon, 1766. n.p.
A delightful and at times illuminating bit of spoofing,
carried on at the expense of deceased actors.
627
Dibdin, Charles, A Complete History of the Stage. London:
for the author, 1800. 5 vols.
Dibdin, Thomas John, The Riminlscences of Thomas Dlbdln
of the Theatres Royal. Govent Garden. Drury Lane. Hay-
market. &c. London: H. Colburn, 1827. 2 vols.
Doran, Dr. John, "Their Majestles’ Servants." Annals of the
English Stage, from Thomas Betterton to Edmund Kean.
New York: Bigelow, Brown & Co., n.d. 3 vols.
This classic of nineteenth century stage comment first
appeared in London in 1864. Since that time numerous editions
have appeared. The American edition above corresponds
fairly closely to that put out by Nimmo in London, in
1888. That edition was edited by Robert Lowe.
Downes, John, Roscius Angllcanus. or an Historical View of
the Stage. (With~"additions by Thomas DaviesTl London:
Davies, 1789.
Roscius Angllcanus# etc. Edited by Montagu Suirimers.
London; The Fortune Presa, n.d. (1934).
Dunlap, William, The Life of George Fred. Cooke. Late of the
Theatre Royal. Covent Garden. Composed principally from
Journals and other authentic Documents left by Mr. Cooke.
London: Henry Colburn, 1815. 2 vols.
D’Urphey, Thomas (ed.). Pills to Purge Melancholy. London:
J. Tonson, 1719-20. 6 vols.
A famous collection of contemporary songs by long-nosed
Tom D’XJrphey, whom Tom Brown said "always stutters at
sense and speaks plain when he swears."
Songs Compleat. Pleasant and Divertive; set to MusIck
by Dr. John Blow. Mr. Henry Purcell, and other excellent
Masters of the Town. London: J. Tonson, 1719.
Egan, Pierce, The Life of an Actor. London: C. S. Arnold,
1825. 272 pp.
A delightful semi-fictional book containing the most in
teresting theatrical prints of the time to be found.
Evelyn, John, Fumufugium: or the Inconvenience of the Aer.
and Smoake of London Dissipated. Together with some
Remedies humbly proposed, by J. E. Esq. London: Oxford
Press, 1930 Ashmolean reprint, viii, 274 pp.
628
Everard, Edward Cape, Memoir of an unfortunate Son of Thespis.
Edinburgh: J. Ballentyne Co., 1818. viii, 274 pp.
Farmer, John S., Merry Songs and Ballads, Prior to the Year
1800. Privately printed, 1897. 6 vols.
Fielding, Henry, A Charge Delivered to the Grand Jury, at the
Sessions of the Peace Held for the City and Liberty of
Westminster &c. om Thursday the 29th of June. 1749.
London: A. Millar, *174^1 64 pp.
-Fielding was at the time chairman of the sessions.
The Dramatic Works of Henry Fielding. Esq.* London:
A. Millar, 1765. 3 vols.
An Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of
Robbers. &c. with some Proposals for Remedying this
Crowing Evil. London: A. Millar, 1761. 127 pp.
Fitzgerald, Edward (?), The,Life and Times of that Excellent
and Renouned Actor. Thomas Betterton, of the Duke’s and
United Companies. at the Theatres in Portugal Street.
Dorset Gardens. Drury Lane. etc. Reeder, 1888. 160 pp.
This life corrects many of Curll*s obvious errors.
Fitzgerald, Percy, The Life of Mrs. Catharine Clive with an
account of her adventures on and off the stage. A round
of her characters together with her correspondence.
London: A. Reeder, 1888. viii, 112 pp.
Francis, John W., Old New York; or Reminiscences of the
Fast Sixty Years. New York: Charles Roe, 1868. 384 pp.
Franklin, Benjamin, Autobiography « Chicago : The Lakeside
Press, 1903. vii, 264 pp.
Galindo, Mrs. Catharine, Mrs. Galindo * s Letter to Mrs* Siddons;
Being a c ir cums tantlal detail of ^Irs. Siddons * Life for
the last Seven Years ; with several of her Letters.
London: for the author, 1809. i, 80 pp.
This is the very rare, and suppressed attack on the
florals of Mrs. Siddons— significantly, the only one
that occur ed In her time.
Galt, John, The Lives of the Players. London: H. Colburn
and R. Bentley, 1831. 2 vols.
629
Garrick, David, The Private Correspondence of David Garrick
with the Most Celebrated Persons of his time:--with a
biographical Memoir. London: Henry Colburn and Richard
Bentley, 1831. 2 vols.
An enormous, carefully selected edition by Boaden, in
two royal quartos, containing most of the essential
letters•
Gentleman, Francis, The Dramatic Censor or Critical Companion.
London: J. Bell, 1770. 2 vols.
This work by one of the most prolific hack-dramatists
of the day is dedicated to Garrick, and contains a
curious hodge-podge of theatrical comment.
Gibbon, Edward, Memoirs of the Life of Edward Gibbon. (Ed.
by George Birbeck Hill) London: Methuen Co., 1900.,
xxix, 360 pp.
Gildon, Charles, The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, the late
Eminent Tragedian. Wherein the Action and Utterance of
the Stage, Bar, and Pulpit, are distinctly consider*d.
London: Robert Gosling, 1710. 176 pp., plus 87 addenda.
Memoirs of the Life of William Wycherly, Esq. with a
character of his Writings. By the Right Hon. George,
Lord Lansdowne. London: E. Curll, 1718.
This work, commonly attributed to Gildon, may have been
written in part by Curll. Lansdowne certainly wrote
only a small part of it.
Gosson, Stephen, The School of Abuse. Containing a piesaunt
invective against Poets, Pipers, Plalers, Testers, and
such like Caterpillars of a Commonwelth: betting vp the
Flagge of Defiaunce to their mischievous exercise, and
overthrowing their Bulwark©s, by Prophane Writers, Naturall
reason, and common experience: A Discourse as piesaunt
for Gentlemen that fauour learning as profitable for all
that will follow vertue. (1579) London: The Shakes
peare Society, 1841. xviii, 51 pp.
Gray, Charles Harold, Theatrical Criticism in London to
1795. How York: Columbia University Press, 1931. vi,
333 pp.
Grimaldi, Joseph, Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, Edited by
"Boz♦" London: Richard Bentley, 1838. 2 vols.
630
Just how much Dickens wrote of this work is not known,
but his fine sentimental hand is often apparent.
Haslewood, Joseph, The Secret History of the Green-Room.
London: J. Owen, 1796. 2 vols.
Henslowe, Philip, Henslowe Papers (Ed. by Walter Greg)
London: A. II. Bullon, 1907. 187 pp.
Holcroft, Thomas, Memoirs of the late Thomas Holcroft,
Written by himself, and continued to the time of his
death, from his diary, notes, and other papers, by Wm.
Hazlitt. London: Longman, Hurst, etc., 1816. 3 vols.
Humphreys, R. (Ed.), The Memoirs of J. Decastro, Comedian--
Accompanied by an analysis of the life of the late
Philip Astley, Esq. London: Sherwood, Jones, and Co.,
1824. XX, 279 pp.
Many original anecdotes of Johnson, Garrick, etc.
Kelly, Hugh, Thespis : or, a Critical Examination into the
Merits of all the Principal Performers belonging to
Drury-Lane Theatre. London: G. Kearsly, 1766.. 42 pp.
Scurrilous attack by the Walter Winchell of his time.
Kelly, Michael, Reminiscenses of Michael Kelly of the King*s
Theatre Royal Drury Lane. London: Henry Colburn, 1826.
2 vols.
Kirkman, James Thomas, Memoirs of the Life of Charles Macklln,
Esq., Principally compiled from his Own Papers and
Memorandums ; which contain his Criticisms on and Characters
and Anecdotes of Betterton, Booth, etc. London: Lack
ington, Allen Co., 1799. 2 vols.
Lackington, J., Memoirs of the Forty-five First Years.of the
Life of James Lackington. London: Lackington, Allen
ÏÏHT7 WoEl
This is about the eleventh edition. There have been
several subsequent issues also.
Lanier, Henry Wysham, The First English Actresses--1660 till
1700. Hew York: The Players, privately printed, 1930,
104 pp•
631
Lee, John, Letter from Mr. Lee to Mr. Sheridan. Dublin:
_____ 1757.
Lee was the master of the theatre at Edinburgh, and was
being approached bj Thomas Sheridan concerning an en
gagement in Sheridan's Dublin theatre.
Lefanu, Alicia, Memo 1rs of the Life and. Writings of Mrs.
Frances Sheridan, Mother of the Late Right Hon. Richard
Brinsley Sheridan. London: G. and W. B. ViThittaker,
1824. xi, 435 pp.
Lewes, Charles Lee, (collected posthumous sketches) Comic
Sketches of the Comedian his own Manager. London;
E._D. Symonds, 1804. xxxv, 194 pp.
The London Songster, or Polite Musical Companion. Con
taining Four Hundred and Fifty-four of the newest and
most favourite Songs, Catches, Duets, and Cantatas now in
Vogue at the public Theatres and Gardens. London: W.
Nicoll, 1767. xvi, 380 pp.
Low Life Above Stairs ; a farce. As it is Acted In Most
Families of Distinction, throughout the Kingdom. Dublin:
n. p., 1766.
A rather obscene farce takeoff on the High Life Above
Stairs that was popular at the time.
Moore, Thomas, Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. London: Longman, Hurst, etc.,
1825. xii, 719 pp.
~ An Entire Set of The Monitors. Intended for the Promot
ing of Religion and Virtue, and Suppressing of Vice and
Immorality. London: 1712-13.
Forty-one poems, broadsides, on various subjects.
Mozeen, Thomas, Young Scarron. London: T. Trye, 1752. viii,
182 pp.
Munden, Joseph, Memoirs of Joseph Shepherd Munden, Comedian.
By his son. London: Richard Bentley, 1844. 330 pp.
Murphy, Arthur, Life of David Garrick. London: J. Wright,
1801. 2 vols.
This is the standard life of Garrick. Murphy was a
friend of Garrick from 1752 until Garrick’s death.
632
O'Keefe, John, Personal Reminiscences, by O'Keefe, Kelly,
and Taylor♦ (Ed/ Richard Henry Stoddard) New York:
Scribner, Armstrong and Co., 1876.
Oxberry, William, The Theatrical Banquet ; or, the Actor's
Budget. London: W. Calvert, 1809. 2 vols.
Page, Eugene Richard, George Colman the Elder; essayist,
dramatist, and theatrical manager. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1935. xi, 334 pp.
Parry, Edward Abbott, Charles Macklin. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner and Co., 1891. 208 pp.
Paterson, Peter, Behind the Scenes; being the Confessions of
a Strolling Player. Edinburgh: D. Mathers, 1869. 166 pp.
This work gives an excellent account of the life of a
stroller in the nineteenth century.
Peake, Richard Brinsley, Memoirs of the Colman Family, In
cluding their correspondence with the most dlstinguished
personages of their time. London; Richard Bentley,
1841. 2 vols in one.
Phillips, Edwin (?), The Players, A Satyr. London: for the
author, n. d., n. p.
Some rather biting remarks, in verse.
Pilkington, Letitia, Memoirs of Mrs. Letitia Pilkington
(1712-1750). London; George Routledge and Sons, 1928.
487 pp.
Excellently edited recent reprint of the 1748-54 edition
of the memoirs of the birdlike little amourist of Sv/ift's
circle.
Proctor, Bryan W., The Life of Edmund Kean. London: Edward
Moxon, 1835. 2 vols.
Quin, Mr. James, The Life of Mr. James Quin, Comedian, With
the History of the Stage--. London: Reeder, 1887.
107 pp.
A reprint of the 1766 edition, with addenda. The sup
plement contains a full account of the Bowen trial, in
which Quin was implicated.
633
Ralph, James, The Case of Authors by Profession or Trade,
Stated with regard to Booksellers, the Stage, and the
Public. No matter by whom. London: R. Griff, 1758.
68 pp.
Reade, Charles, Peg Woffington. (First ed. 1852) New York:
E. P. Dutton Co., Everyman's edition, 1907.
This was the first novel written by Reade, who had the
misfortune, as he said, to "be in love with Peg Woffington."
He wrote the book after hearing Tom Taylor read his then
unproduced play by the same name.
Reresby, Sir John, Bart., The Memoirs and Travels of Sir
John Reresby. The former Containing Anecdotes, and
Secret History of the Courts of Charles II and James II.
London: Edward Jeffery, 1813. xii, 414 pp.
Roach, John, Authentic Memoirs of the Green Room, Including
Sketches, Biographical, Critical, and Characteristic,
of the Performers of the Theatres Royal. London: J.
Roach, n. d. xii, 260 pp.
Robinson, Mrs. Mary D., Memoirs of the Late Mrs. Robinson,
written by herself. With some posthumous pieces.
London: R. Phillips, 1801. 4 vols.
Settle, Elkanah, A Defense of Dramatick Poetry; being a
Review of Mr* Collier's View, etc. lÆ>ndon: Eliz.
Whitlock, 1698. 118 pp.
Note: The authorship of this work has been variously
attributed to Filmer, Rymer, Congreve, and by Hazlitt
to Vanbrugh. The recent discovery of the unique "E. S."
printed at the end of the dedication in the Huntington
Library copy has caused it to be assigned in scholarly
works to Settle. A careful examination of the Huntington
copy inclines one to think the dispute still open. There
is a holograph "Ex dono Authoris" in the fly-leaf, but
it may not be Settle's hand. And it is obvious to a
casual observer that the "E. S.” was printed after the
text, from a different font, and with different ink.
One wonders if the fine Italian hand of J. P. Collier
could be here I
Smith, James, and Smith, Horace, Rejected Addresses : or,
the New Theatrum Poetarum. London: John Murray, 1852.
xxxiv, 193 pp.
634
This is the 23rd edition of this popular book which
appeared in celebration of the reopening of the D. L.
theatre in 1812. The Smith brothers were one a retired
banker and the other a dilettante novelist.
Spiller, James, Spiller's Jests ; or the Life and Pleasant
Adventures of the late Celebrated Comedian, Mr. James
Spiller. London; H. Cook, n* d.
Attributed often to George Akerby.
Steele, Mrs. Elizabeth, The Memoirs of Mrs. Sophia Baddeley
Late of the Drury Lane Theatre. London: for the author,
T787. 6 vols.
Straus, Ralph, Eighteenth Century Diversions. Tricks of the
Town. Being reprints of three eighteenth century tracts,
with an introduction by Ralph Straus, and eight illus
trations. London: Chapman and Hall, 1927. xxiv, 256 pp.
----The Theatrical Examiner : An Enquiry into the Merits and
Demerits ^of the present English Performers in general;
the Substance of>theatric Character; public taste; Con
duct of the Managers ; Advice to young Actors ; some slight
Remarks on late Productions ; with a short ConsIderation
on Douglas. London: J. Doughty, 1757. 98 pp.
An interesting mid-century defense of the actor.
^be Theatrical Review for the Year 1757, and Beginning
of 1758. Containing Critical Remarks on the Principal
Performers of both the Theatres. London: J. Goote,
1758. 86 pp.
Victor, Benjamin, Memoirs of the Life of Barton Booth Esq.,
Published by an intimate Acquaintance of Mr. Booth, by
consent of his Widow. London: John Watts, 1733. 58 pp.
History of the Theatres of London. London: T. Davies,
1761. 4 vols.
Weston, Thomas, Memoirs of that Celebrated Comedian, and
very singular Genius, Thomas Weston. London: S. Bladon,
1776. 60 pp.
One of most rare of all memoirs. Author unknown.
Whyte, Samuel, and his son E. A. Whyte, A Miscellany. Dublin:
Robert Marchbank, 1799. 188 pp.
635
Some unique material on Thomas Sheridan's life, and the
salaries of Irish actors.
Wilkes, Thomas, A General View of the Stage. London: J.
Goote, 1759. viii, 335 pp. (Pencilled note in the
Huntington Library copy, "By Samuel Derrick."
Wilkinson, Tate, Memoirs of His Own Life. York: Wilson,
Spence, and Mawman, 1790. 4 vols.
On title page: "If I had held my pen but half as well
as I have held my bottle--what a charming hand 1 should
have wrote by this timei"
The Wandering Patentee ; or, a History of the Yorkshire
Theatres, from~T770 to the present time. York: Wilson,
Spence and Mawman, 1795. 4 vols.
Willett, Edward, Letters addressed to Mrs. Bellamy, Occasioned
by her Apology. London: J. Rozea, 1785.
Specific material refuting many of Bellamy's statements.
Williams, J. M., The Dramatic Censor : or Critical and
Biographical Illustration of the British Stage: for the
Year 1811. London: G. Brimmer, 1812. 493 pp.
Woodward, Henry, A Letter from Henry Woodward, Comedian, the
Meanest of all characters; to Dr. John Hill, Inspector-
General of Great Britain, the Greatest of all Characters.
London: M. Cooper, 1752. FSrd Ed.) 22 pp.
Young, M. J., Memoirs of Mrs. Crouch, Including a Retrospect
of the Stage during the years she performed. London:
James Asperne, 1806. 2 vols.
0. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PERIODICALS
The European Magazine, and London Review. London:
scattered copies from 1790 to 1798.
The Gentleman's Magazine or Monthly Intelligencer.
London: from January, 1731, through century.
Selections from the "no less than two hundred Half
sheets per month" from the press in London alone, and
about "as many elsewhere printed in the Three Kingdoms."
636
The London Courant, Morning Gazette, and Dally Advertiser.
London: March 16, 1782.
There is only this one issue of this rare periodical in
the Huntington Library.
The London Daily Advertiser. London: 1752, Number 262.
See page 1 for contemporary comments on the sacredness
of marriage, and the home.
The London Evening Post. London: January 16, 1777.
The London Gazette.
Scattered numbers from June, 1700, to December 30, 1746.
The London Recorder, or Sunday Gazette.
Scattered numbers through 1793.
London Weekly Times. London: 'March 8, 1829. In
"Specimen Newspapers" vol. II, 61. The Huntington Library.
The Monthly Mirror; reflecting Men and Manners♦ With
Strictures on their Epitome, The Stage. London: 1795
to 1800.
This periodical has many pages each month devoted to
theatrical matters; appraisals of acting, plays, and
personal lives of the performers. Valuable.
The Post Boy. London: scattered numbers from 1698
to 1722.
The most interesting and valuable of the early newspapers.
The Post Man, and the Historical Account. London: from
March 26, 1698, to March 26, 1700.
The Town and Country Magazine, or. Universal Repository
of Knowledge, Instruction, and Entertainment. London:
January! Ï770, to September, 1777.
One of the "sophistocated" magazines that had a brief
life late in the century.
637
D. SELECTIONS AND COLLECTIONS
The Gentleman's Magazine Library. Being a classified
collection of the chief contents of The Gentleman's
Magazine from 1731 to 1868. London: E. Stock, 1883-
1^05. 29 vols.
The Gray's Inn Journal. London: P. Vaillant, 1766.
2 vols.
Hillhouse, James T., The Grub-Street Journal. Durham:
Duke University Press, 1928. vii, 3-354 pp.
E. PUBLICATIONS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES
Colby, Elbridge, "A Supplement on Strollers," Publications
Modern Language Association. XXXIX, 642-664.
Furness, H.. H., "Drury Lane Pay List," Notes and Queries,
6th Series, number IX, June 13, 1885.
See also supplementary pay list in Notes and Queries
6th series, number IV, August 13, 1881.
Jackson, Alfred, "The Stage and the Authorities— 1700-1714,"
Review of English Studies (R. S. S.), XIV, Number 53,
1938.
Full account of the difficulties between the stage and
the reform elements in the early part of the century.
Krutch, Joseph Wood, "Government Attempts to Regulate the
Stage," Publications Modern Language Association.
XXXVIII, 153.
For diverting and elsewhere unobtainable material on
censorship after Jeremy Collier.
Thaler, Alwin, "Strolling Players and Provincial Drama after
Shakespeare," Publications Modern Language Association^
XXXVII, 243-28CT:
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
CHAPTER II.
1- Advice which Garrick gave to the brilliant young ac
tor William Powell (1735-1769) with regard to his study and
acting of parts. Taken from a letter which Garrick wrote
from Paris, dated December 12, 1764.
"You have acted a greater variety of characters
than I could expect in the first winter, and I have
some fears that your good-nature to your brother
actors "which is commendable when it is not injurious)
drove you into parts too precipitately; however, you
succeeded, and it is happy that you had the whole
summer to correct the errors of haste, which the
public will ever excuse in a young performer, on
account of his beauties; but now is the time to
make sure of your ground in every step you take.
You must, therefore, give to study, and an accurate
consideration of your characters, those hours which
young men too generally give to their friends and
flatterers. The common excuse is, 'they frequent
clubs for the sake of their benefit;' but nothing
can be more absurd or contemptible,--your benefits
will only increase with your fame, and should that
ever sink with your idleness, those friends who
have made you idle, will be the first to forsake you."
James Boaden, The Private Correspondence of David
Garrick. (London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley,
183^1) 2 vols.
2- In a slightly satirical article which nevertheless
has enough truth in ib to bite, a writer to the Monthly
Mirror in 1797 contributes a summary of female education of
the time— a description that has a strangely contemporary
sound.
. . At four or five years old she is taught
to entertain false ideas of her own importance;
her mama will not let her be contradicted; if she
fall into a passion she must be soothed and humoured,
not to say applauded as a child of spirit. If she
invent a falsehood, the dear little creature, in
stead of being punished as she deserves, is kissed
and commended for her wit.
"... That Miss may be thoroughly accomplished
640
from head to foot, the aid of a foreign dancing
master is called in— a French governess teaches
her the language of that country ere she is well
mistress of her own; and, perhaps, poisons her
mind with popery into the bargain--an Italian
instructs her on the guitar--and a singing-master,
at least, teaches her to squeak, if she cannot
sing--she has also to attend a monster unheard of
until now, called a card-tutor, that she may know
how to cheat with a genteel grace when she goes
into polite company.
"By this time I take it for granted that she is
a perfect adept in several smaller, but not un
necessary embellishments, such as to lisp, to
mince some words, to be utterly unable to pronounce
some letters, to be extremely near-sighted, to
toss the fan with elegance, to kiss a lap dog with
delicacy, to languish with propriety, and be just
ready on some occasions to faint away judiciously."
"Modern Female Education," Monthly Mirror, February,
1797, pp. 70-72.
3- As something of an antidote for the inelegant letters
of various actresses already quoted, the following literary
epistle from the elegant Lord Melbourne, who supposedly
had a fair education, to his mistress the flamboyant actress
Mrs. Baddeley is quoted.
"My dear Love,
I understand you at present want the
enclosed sum to assist your brother with, which
will be the last inconveniences you are to have
for his sake. I am very hartily glad of it, be
cause excuse me, as I have before told you, from
your great good-nature and goodness of hart, you
have already been to good in frequently distress
ing yourself upon this account, and I hope you
will be prudent and nuf not to be perswalded to
engage yourself further for his depts. I am very
happey that I was informed of it, because it always
gives me the greatest happeyness to oblige my love
with everything in my power. I hope you have got
the horsis, or will find one that will answer well,
butt I beg you will not be to ventersum as there
is bad horsis, butt gett one quite quiet. I shall
long to see your dear face, which I will as soon
as possible, and will endeavor to be back, if only
641
for a moment, in about a fortnight. 1 will write
to you from York. Pray be careful not to mention
my name at Brighthelmston, or anywhere that whe
may not be plagued again by the ill-natured world.
Ten thousand kisses for your dear face, and believe
me Love.
Yours, slnceerly and affectionately,
Melbourne."
Steele, Memoirs of Mrs. Baddeley, op. cit., II,
39-41.
CHAPTER V
1- General Immorality and laxness of social conduct in
late Restoration times may not Justly be attributed to the
non-existence of laws designedly conducive to morality.
Indeed, twenty years after the Restoration, London was as
law-ridden as a New England village. The difficulty then,
as now, lay in enforcement. London had a very imperfectly
organized and administered constabulary force, which
Dickens was to mock a century latter— a body of men univer
sally despised by the civilians and Jeered at by the villains
who roamed the streets almost at will. But the statutes
on the books, if anyone cared to consult them, were certainly
stringent enough to cover any reformer's fanatical idea.
In 1679 the Lord Mayor issued a proclamation in
favour of religion, morality, and cleanliness, from which I
extract the following illuminating morsels:
"To the end therefore that the laws may become
a terror to evil-doers, and that such, in whose
hearts the fear of God and the love of virtue shall
not prefail, being forewarned, may amend their lives
for fear of punishment, his Lordship hath thought
fit to remember them of several penalties provided
by law against notorious offenders: as also of all
Constables and Public Officers (who are to put the
said laws in execution) of their duty therein.
"First, every profane cursor and swearer ought
to be punished by the payment of twelve pence for
every oath: and if the same cannot be levied upon
the offender's goods, then he is to sit three hours
in the stocks.
642
"Secondly, every drxmkard is to pay for the
first offence five shillings: and in default thereof
to sit six hours in the stocks and for the second
offence to find sureties for the good behavior or
to be committed to the common gaol; and the like
punishment is to be inflicted upon all common
haunters of ale-houses and taverns, and common
gamesters, and persons justly suspected to live by
any unlawful means, having no visible living. And
no person is to sit or continue tipling or drinking
more than one hour, unless upon some extraordinary
occasion, in any tavern, victualing house, ale
house, or other tipling-house, upon the penalty of
ten shillings for every offence upon the master of
such house: and upon the person that shall so
continue drinking, three shillings four pence.
"Thirdly, every person maintaining houses sus
pected of common bawdry, by the law, is to find
sureties for their good behavior. . .
"Fourthly, all persons using any unlawful exer
cises on Lord^s day, or tipling in taverns, inns
or ale-houses, and coffee-houses, during divine
service on that day, are to forfeit three shillings
four pence for every offence. . . and no person may
sit in the street with herbs, fruits, or other
things, to expose them for sale, nor no hackney
coachmen may stand or ply in the streets on that day.
"... And whereas there are other disorders of
another nature very dishonourable, and a great
scandal to the government of this City, and very
prejudicial to the trade and commerce of the same;
his Lordship, therefore, is resolved by God^s
blessing, with the assistance of his brethren the
Aldermen, to use his utmost endeavor to prevent
the same. . •
"At first the great resort of rogues, vagrants,
idle persons and common beggars, pestering and
annoying the streets and common passages, and all
places of publick meetings and resort, against whom
very good provision is made by the law, viz:
"That all such persons shall be openly whipped,
and forthwith sent from parish to parish to the
place where he or she was born, if known: if not,
to the place where he or she last dwelt, then to
be sent to the parish where he or she last passed
643
through without punishment."
Basant, London in the Time of the Stuarts, op. cit.,
pp. 355-356.
Under common law, at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
the actor was a man without a profession. He was a vagrant,
and legally a rogue and common nuisance. His social status
was that of a serf--though of a serf without a master. It
was the day of "badging," and the actor had no master^s
badge to protect him against the world.
The implications of the last paragraph above are hor
rible indices to the hedge-life of the time, the vagrancy of
the poor wretches who, having no proof of their origin, were
doomed to lead a sort of unreal life skulking about the lanes
and alleys of England.
CHAPTER VI
1- Garrick*s correspondence with the actress Miss Pope,
regarding a new contract, is reproduced as indicative of the
manager*s shrewdness in dealing with his employees. He was
a master of flattery, even as he was a servant to it; he
could be easily brought to heel by actors who understood
this dominant trait of his character.
In these short letters the essential weakness of
Garrick is apparent, as well as the reasons for his extra
ordinary success as a manager--success, be it said, which
never approached his triumph as actor. Miss Pope, one of the
most versatile actresses of his company, well deserved the
salary she was asking, and which Garrick could have afforded
easily. The flattery which he tried at first, mingled with
avoidance of the issue of actual salary, is typical of his
relations with actors. His stubborness when actually cornered
and his inability to compromise, his dividing of the onus of
the blame when he alone was really concerned, and his insis
tence on having the last highly unnecessary and disagreeable
word in the matter is typical of what some unkind critics
have called his "feminine nature." His good qualities are
apparent in his suavity, his inflexibility in holding to
what he determined upon, and his ability to keep his temper
fairly well, at least when he had the upper hand. He probably
did not at all intend losing such a valuable actress as Miss
Pope; but she did not give in. and was not engaged the next
season. (See Genest, V, 480.) Prom Twickenham on September
7th she wrote a rather pitiable letter begging forgiveness.
644
and praying to be taken back into the fold, her application
to Harris at Covent Garden having been rejected; but Garrick
wrote back a letter full of righteous seIf-vindication,
refusing her plea. (See Boaden, Private Correspondence of
Garrick, op. clt», II, 92-93.)
MISS POPE TO MH. GARRICK
Sir, Wednesday, May 31st, 1775.
The verbal agreement which passed between us three
seasons ago is this year at an end. I should be glad to make
a new engagement, and beg to know the terms you propose.
I have. Sir, the honour to be
Your most humble servant,
J. Pope.
MR. GARRICK TO MISS POPE
Adelph% June 3 rd, 1775.
The proprietors of the Theatre Royal in Drury-lane
present their compliments to Miss Pope, and hope she has no
objection to continue her engagement with them for three
years more, or as long as she pleases.
MISS POPE TO MR. GARRICK
Monday, June 5th, 1775.
Miss Pope presents her respectful compliments to Mr.
Garrick, or to the proprietors of the Theatre Royal in Drury-
lane; did not imagine they would have named a term of years
without an addition of salary: as they are well assured of
her dislike to change, and as she never asked them anything
that has been unreasonable, she throws herself upon Mr.
Garrick*s or the Proprietors* generosity, to name what addi
tion to her appointment they think her diligence deserves.
MR. GARRICK TO MISS POPE
Adelphi, June 9th, 1775.
Mir. Garrick* s compliments to Miss Pope,--his brother * s
great danger these four days has prevented his attending to
645
any business. The Patentees sincerely wish that Miss Pope
would have no objection to continue her present agreement
with them. They should be very sorry to lose her, and hope
that they may depend upon her being at Drury-lane for many
years to come. Should Miss Pope be induced to quit her
present situation, they shall expect an answer in the course
of next week, as her place will be with great difficulty
supplied. If they have no answer to this, they shall depend
upon her continuing with them. They not only acknov/ledge
her diligence, but her merit.
MISS POPE TO MR. GARRICK
Saturday, June 10th, 1775.
Miss Pope presents her compliments to the Patentees;
is very much honoured in their commendations, but as to her
merit and her diligence: the former she never thinks of, as
she has been infinitely overpaid by the public, who have
ever shown her the greatest favour, without even a paragraph
to prejudice them. Her diligence respects the managers, and
from them she looks for the reward due to it— an equal portion
with others that rank in the same situation;--can assure them
that such is her partiality for Drury-lane, that she shall
quit it with infinite regret, and it is their fault alone
that she is not there, as long as her acting powers shall
subsist; but she is determined at length to shake all af
fection off, and like the Swiss to perform only with those
that pay best. Her demand is ten pounds per week, the sum
usually paid to actresses in her walk. If the Patentees
have any objection, desires they may part in friendship,
as she cannot upon other terms remain at Drury-Lane.
MR. GARRICK TO MISS POPE
June 12th, 1775.
The Patentees, with their best wishes to Miss Pope,
feel as much regret in losing her as she can possibly do in
quitting them. Though they cannot agree to the addition
which she insists upon to her present salary, they assure
her that they part on the terms of friendship she desires;
they wish her every happiness that her change of place and
sentiments can give her: at the same time they beg leave to
observe, that if ïtr. Garrick would have agreed to let Mrs.
Barry perform Beatrice and Clorinda, and Mr. Barry to have
had for his benefit the day which he gave last year to Miss
Pope, they would not have lost those capital performers.
646
Mr. Garrick takes no merit to himself in having done this,
hut that of showing a little more than Swiss attachement to
Miss Pope.
Boaden, Private Correspondence of David Garrick, op. cit.,
II, 57-59.
2- A comparative list of minor expenses of a rural theatre,
in 1741, is given by Watts. The Jacob * s Well. Theatre in
Bristol, from which the account was taken, was said to have a
capacity of e
much as that.
eighty pounds, but evidently rareily
; . The pay-roll for Monday, June 8 th
£ s. d.
Musick. •.•••• 13 0
Candles .......... 11 10
Pr int er ........... 2 0
Dancers .......... 1 0
Stage Keeper. . . . 3 6
Properties........ 5 6
Bill Sticker. . . . 2 0
Door Keeper . . . . 2 6
Taylor. ...... 2 6
Men* 8 Dresser . . . 2 6
Women*s Dresser . . ... 0 2 6
Prompter. . . . ♦ . 4 0
Bill Porter . . . . 2 0
Gallery Keeper. . . ... 0 1 0
Newman (Taylor) . . 1 0
Taken in.......... 10 0
Total expenses. . . 16 10:_
Watts, Theatrical Bristol, op. cit., p. 43.
3- One of the most serious actor-manager disputes of the
century was that of 1742-43, in which the Drury Lane actors,
under the leadership of Macklin and Garrick, went on strike.
The insurgent group tried to secure a license to play at the
Haymarket theatre, but failed and eventually had to return
to the theatre— although without Macklin. Fleetwood main
tained throughout the dispute that the actors were doing
very well, and published the following tables in The Gentle
man* s Magazine to prove it.
647
£ s. d
Mr. Wilks * s Acting and Management. • . 250 0 0
By Benefit, Paying Charges ........ 14 0
Mr. Betterton 4 £ a Week ...... 13 14
and 1 £ a Week his Wife, tho she
did not act.
By Benefit, paying Charges . . . . . 4 0
Mr. Estcourt 5 £ a Week. ...... 13 4
By Benefit, Paying Charges ........ 8 0
?Mr. Cibber, 5 £ a Week ............ 13 4
By Benefit, Paying Charges ........ 0 0
Mr. Mills, 4 £ a Week.............. 6 8
By Benefit, Paying Charges ........ 1 0
Mrs. Oldfield, 4 £ a Week.......... 6 a
By Benefit, Paying Charges - ........ 7 0
Cloaths............................ 13 9
£1,419 / 13 / 1
In the Year 1742-43: (the year of the dispute)
Mr. Garrick for acting only........ 0 0
Clear Benefits, and 1 paying 50 £. . . 500
Mr. Macklin 9 £ 9s. a Week and 6 £ 6s
0 0
a Week certain for his Wife, who
acted a few times.......... . . . . 525 0 0
A Clear Benefit, and hers paying 50 £. 230 0 0
Mrs. Woffington 7 £ 10s a Week . . . . 250 0 0
Certain by a clear Benefit • . • . • . 180 0 0
Cloaths............................ 0 0
Mrs. Pritchard 7 £ 10s a Week. ^ . . . 250 0 0
Certain by a Clear Benefit ........ 0 0
Cloaths............................ 0 0
?Mr. Wills jnr. 6 £ a Week.......... 0 0
Certain by a Benefit paying 26 £.. . . 140 0 0
Mrs. Clive, 15 £ 15s a Week........ 0 0
Certain by a clear Benefit ........ 0 0
Cloaths. .... .................. 0 0
Tickets at her Benefit, as by
Agreement . . . .................. 0 0
£4,001 / 0 / u
From Gentleman* s Magazine. October ^ 1743 (XIII,, 553)
To this particular summary of salaries, comparing them
favorably with those of Betterton*s time, the actors them
selves answered promptly with an able statement of their own
case. They maintained that the comparison made by the two
sets of figures was not only unfair, but viciously misleading--
and on the whole they seem to have proved their case. For one
thing, as they stated, both Drury Lane and the Haymarket
648
theatres were in a very bad way financially in the 1708-9
season, from which the early figures were taken. The total
receipts of that season were considerably under the 1742-3
expenses alone; while the receipts of the later season were
above fifteen thousand pounds, of which two thousand pounds
was neat profit, and by retrenching "exotic Expenses" might
have been brought to four thousand pounds.
As for the increase in allowance for the actresses*
clothes, they maintained that fifty pounds was an exceedingly
moderate allowance, and did not nearly cover the cost of the
gorgeous costumes demanded by the exotically minded producer.
For a more accurate idea of the underpaying of actors in
1742-3 they took a list of the seven leading actors in the
1729 season, when the stage was under the direction of Steele,
Booth, Wilks, and Cibber, after the retirement of the parsi
monious Doggett.
£ 8 d.
Mr. Wilks * s Acting and Management. . • 753 06 8
By a Clear Benefit . . . . . . . . . . 60 0 0
Mr. Booth as Mr. Wilks --- -- -
Mr. Cibber ditto................ . ----
Mrs. Oldfield at 12 guineas a Week
for Acting. 420 0 0
only to the end of April.
By a Clear Benefit . 60 0 0
By a Present 52 10 0
Mrs. Porter*s Salary 200 0 0
By a Clear Benefit 60 0 0
Mrs. Thurmond * s Salary . . . . . . . . 166 0 0
By Benefit paying 40 £ . . . . . . . . 20 0 0
£3,746 / 13 / 4
From Gentleman* s Magazine. November, 1743 (XIII, 609)
There are obviously in both summaries various small
errors in either transcription or addition--but in the main
they present an accurate picture of the situation. Yilhether
Macklin, Garrick, or a minor actor prepared the case for the
actors is immaterial. The appeal to the public forced an
improvement in the actor * s financial state, even though it
actually lost the cause for which they were on strike, and
broke their "Union" to which they had pledged themselves.
4- In 1885 H. H. Furness published in Notes and Queries
the most complete pay list available of Drury Lane Theatre in
its heyday. He said the list was given to him, in manuscript,
by Fanny Kemble, who supposed it to be in Garrick* s handwrit
ing. Miss Kemble said it had been one of the treasures of
her father.
649
Drury Lane Theatre Pay List, 9th February, 1765, at •
69 £ 11 8. 6d. p. diem. and. 41*7' £ 9 s. p. week,
Men
Jas. Lacy, Esq.
£
2
Day
s.
15
d.
6
£
16
Week
s.
13
d.
o"
Dav. Garrick, Esqr. •
2 15 6 16 13 0
Mr. Yates and w. .
•
3 6 8 20 0 0
Mr. Palmer and w.
« • * 2 Ô 0 12 0 0
Mr. King........ 1 6 8 8 0 0
Mr. Holland. ...
• $ # 1 6 8 8 0 0
Mr. Dance and w. . # # 1 1 8 6 10 0
Mr. Havard .... 0 16 8 5 e 0
Mr. Hopkins and w. • 0 16 8 5 0 0
Mr. Bransby..... 0 11 8 3 10 0
Mr. Lee.......... 0 10 0 3 0 0
M r. Burton .... 0 10 0 3 0 0
J^îr. Jackson. • . . 0 10 0 3 0 0
Mr. Baddeley and w • 0 10 0 3 0 0
Mr. Moody. .... 0 10 0 3 0 0
îÆc. Rosher .... 0 10 0 3 0 0
Mr. Powell .... # #0 8 4 2 10 0
Mr. Griffith . . . # # 0 8 4 2 10 0
Mr. Adcock .... 0 6 8 2 0 0
Mr* Packer .... 0 6 8 2 0 0
Mr. Parsons. ... G 6 8 2 0 0
Mr. Granger. . . . • 0 5 10 1 15 0
}êr* Ackman .... 0 5 0 1 10 0
Mr. Clough .... 0 5 0 1 10 0
Mr. Didier .... 0 5 0 1 10 0
Mr. Philips. . . . 0 5 0 1 10 0
Mr. Haftor .... 0 5 0 1 10 0
Mr. Vaughan. . . . 0 5 0 1 10 0
Mr. Preston. . . . « 0 5 0 1 10 0
ÎÆr. Cattle .... 0 4 2 1 5 0
Mr. Fox.......... 0 4 2 1 5 0
Mr. Marr ........ 0 3 4 1 0 0
Mr. Strange. . . . 0 3 4 1 0 0
}&r * Wyatt........ 0 3 4, 1 0 0
Master Burton. • . 0 2 6 0 15 0
Mr. Keen ........ 0 2 6 0 15 0
Mr. Mortimer . . . 0 2 0 0 12 0
Mr. West ..... 0 2 0 0 12 0
Mr. Watkins. . . . 0 2 0 0 12 0
Women
Mrs. Cibber. . . . 2 10 0 15 0 0
Mrs. Pritchard . • 2 6 8 14 10 0
Mrs. Clive .... 1 15 0 10 10 0
Miss Pope........ 0 13 0 4 0 0
Mrs. Bennett ... 0 8 4 2 10 0
Mrs • Bradshaw. . . . .
£
. 0
Day
8 .
6
d.
8
Mrs. 6 8
Miss Cheney.......... . 0 6 8
Miss Plym............ 6 8
Mrs. Cross .......... 5 0
Mrs. Simpson........ 4 2
Mrs. Simson. ..... 3
4
Mrs. Mathews ..... . 0 2 6
Mrs. Smith.......... 2 6
M rs. Spires.......... 2 6
Miss Mills ...... 2 6
Miss Pearce. ..... 2 6
Sigr
Singers
. Giustinelli. . . . 1 3 4
Mr. Vernon ...... 16 8
Mrs. Vincent ..... 16 8
Mrs • Scott ...... 13 4
Mir. Champnes • . . . • 13 4
Miss Vilright.......... 13 4
Miss Slack.......... 13 4
Master Haworth .... 6 8
Mrs. Dorman.......... 5 0
Miss Williams. .... . 0 4 2
Miss Dearl ...... 3 4
Week 650
Dancers
Sigr. Grimaldi and w
Sigr. Georgi and w •
Miss Baker ........
Sigr. Berardi.
S igr. Lauciiery
Signora Luchi.
Miss Vi/ilkinson
Miss Tetley. •
Master Rogier
Mr. Wallis .
Master Hurst ,
£ s. d,
2
:o 0
2 0 0
2 0 0
2 0 0
1 10 0
1 5 0
1 0 0
0 15 0
0 15 0
0 15 0
0 15 0
0 15 0
7 0 0
5 0 0
5 0 0
4 0 0
4 0 0
4 0 0
4 0 0
2 0 Q
1 10 0
1 5 0
1 0 0
1 0 0 6 0 0
1 0 0 6 0 0
0 13 4 4 0 0
0 13 4 4 0 0
0 10 0 3 0 0
0 6 8 2 0 0
0 6 8 2 0 0
0 5 0 1 10 0
0 5 0 1 10 0
0 5 0 1 10 0
0 4 2 1 5 0
0 3 4 1 0 0
0 3 4 1 0 0
0 3 4 1 0 0
0 3 4 1 0 0
0 3 4 1 0 0
0 2 6 0 15 0
0 2 6 0 15 0
0 2 6 0 15 0
0 2 6 0 15 0
0 2 6 0 15 0
0 2 6 0 15 0
0 2
0 0 12 0
661
Day Week
Mr.
Office Keepers
Royall . . . . .
£
0
8 .
3
d.
4
£
1
8 .
0
d
0
Mr. Dickinson. . . . 0 3 4 1 0 0
Mr. Smith.......... 0 2 6 0 15 0
Mr. Hays.......... 0 2 6 0 15 0
Mr. Hodges ..... 0 2 0 0 12 0
Mr.
Box Keepers
Berisford. ... 0 2 0 0 12 0
Mr. Bowers ........ •
0 2 0 0 12 0
Mr. Broad. .....
• 0 2 0 0 12 0
Mr. Gridland . . . .
«
0 2 0 0 12 0
Mrs. Dickenson . . .
•
0 2 0 0 12 0
ÎÆr.
Door Keepers
Ghinnal. .... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Carlton, senior.
• • 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Carlton, junior.
• 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr* Danny.......... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr* Foley. ........ 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr* Humphries. • . . • . 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Jones.......... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Ivlr. Kaygill........ 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. No e11. ..... • • 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Palmer ..... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Robinson .... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Roberts. .... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Spilsbury. . . . • • 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Veale.......... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Walker ........ 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr.
Men Dressers
Allen.......... 0 2 0 0 12 0
Mr. Burke.......... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Blagden........ . 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Coastain .... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Cape.......... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Moore..........
«
0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Preston........ 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Renaud ..... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Tomlinson. . . .
«
0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Wilson ........ 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Vdaitty........ 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr. Ward......... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs
Women Dr es sers
. Bride........ 0 1 6 0 9 0
IVlrs• Brockin .... 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs. Berwlsk ....
«
0 1 6 0 9 0
652
Day Week
Mrs. Cleeter ......
£
0
8 .
1
d.
6
£
0
8 .
9
d
0
Mrs • Groath............ 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs. Lilly ............ 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs • Marr.......... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs • Mestiviez ..... 0 1 6 0 9 _0
Mrs • Mann. . . . . . . 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs. Odell ............ 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs. Rogers. ........... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs. Smith ....... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs. Ward.............. 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs. Willoughby........ 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs. Woodfin ...... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mrs. Wright. ...... 0 1 6 0 9 0
Mr*
Treasurer
Victor .......... . 0 8 4 2 10 0
Mr.
Sub-Treasurer
Evans. ............ 0 5 0 1 10 0
Mr.
Wardrobe
Heath and w. . . . . 0 6 8 2 0 0
Mrs. Slaughter ..... 0 5 0 1 10 0
Mrs. Johnston......... 0 3 4 1 0 0
Mrs.
Properties
Berkeley.......... 0 3 4 1 0 0
Miss Berkeley. ...... 0 1 9 0 10 6
Mrs.
C and lew Oman
Bagnal............ 0 2 0 0 12 0
Mr.
Barber
Pope.............. 0 4 0 1 4 0
Humberers
Hardham. . ........ 0 2 6 0 15 0
Mr. Garland........... 0 2 6 0 15 0
Mr. Johnston .......... 0 8 10 3 13 0
Mr. Hulett ....... 0 2 6 0 15 0
The Constable. ..... 0 2 0 0 12 0
Scenemen .............. 1 0 8 6 4 0
Soldiers ........ 0 14 0 4 4 0
Sweepers............ 0 11 6 3 9 0
652
Day Week
Pensioners £ s« d. £ s. d.
Mr. Felling............ 0 2 0 0 12 0
Mr. Reynolds .......... 0 1 8 0 10 0
S. Fund................ 1 25 0 20 10 0
Notes and Queries, 6th. Serle£ XI,
June 13, 1885.
The "s. Fund" concerning which Furness wonders refers
to the "Sinking Fund" maintained by the managers.
As early as 1713 one Knapton was receiving 18s. per
week as a numberer. (Lawrence, o^. cit.. p. 206; The duty
of the numberer was to count the audience--at least those
in the front and side boxes. Reserved seats were in general
unheard of until the nineteenth century. Thomas Arne,
father of Mrs. Cibber, was a numberer at one time, among
other things. Most of them had other occupations as well—
as did Garrick* s under-treasurer, John Hardham, who did
"a roaring business" as a snuff merchant at the Red Lion in
Fleet Street, and at his death left a cash fortune of twenty*
two thousand pounds. (See Biographica-Dramatica.) The
numberer had a special box near the stage, where he frequent*
ly entertained guests. It was not a bad minor sinecure.
5- Some interesting information is contained in the pay
list of 1773--a memorable year near the end of Garrick* s
reign. It was the year that Goldsmith*s She Stoops to
Conquer was produced at Covent Garden, where it became the
hit of the season. Garrick had thought well of the play,
and would have produced it when it was submitted to him,
but the other managers thought it "dangerous."
Drury Lane pay list, 13th February, 1773, at
£87/1/6 p. diem, or £522/7/6 p . week.
Men ^
James 'Èaüy, Esqre.......16 13 0
David Garrick, Esqure ... 16 13 0 (As manager.)
17 10 0 (For acting?)
Mr* S. Barry and 50 0 0
Mr. King..................8 0 0
Mr. Reddish 8 0 0
Mr. Jefferson 8 0 0
Mr. Dame and w. ..... . 8 0 0
Mr. Dibdin 6 0 0
Mr. Bannister and w . . . . 6 0 0
Mr. Clinch 2 10 0
£ 8 . d.
8 0 0
8 0 0
7 0 0
8 0 0
6 6 0
6 6 0
6 0 0
6 0 0
5 0 0
5 0 0
653
Per Week
Women
Mrs. Abington ........
. Miss Pope ............
Miss Young* ..........
Singers
Mr. Vernon. ......
Mrs. Smith............
Miss Venables ........
Dancers
îÆp. Daigville and w . .
Signora Vidini........
Mrs. Sutton ..........
Mr. Grimaldi and w. . .
"Besides, too, very many performers of less
account, there are payments to * Men Dressers,*
* Women Dressers,* * Music Band,*" etc.
Notes and Queries, 6th. series, IV, August 13, 1881.
refers to those
The "8oIdierd*/who were stationed always at the corner
of the stage underneath the royal box, and not to the govern
ment guards at the theatre door. From October to April of
1714 this item was almost fifty pounds. (See Fitzgerald,
New History, op. cit., I, 374.1
6- Weekly salaries of the principal performers at Drury
Lane in J. P. Kemble*s last year there as manager' in 1801-2.
Weekly
Len
Mr. Kemble (actor and Mgr.) .... 66
Bannister
King. . .
Pope. . .
Kelly . .
Wroughton
Suett . .
Dowton. .
G. Kemble......................... 10
Barrymore
Burne . .
R. Palmer
Wathen. .
Raymond .
Wewitzer......................... 6
Sedgwick.
Powell. .
£ s.
66 14
17 0
16 0
13 0
16 0
15 0
12 0
8 0
10 0
10 0
8 0
9 0
8 0
8 0
6 0
6 0
6 0
654
Weekly
£ 8.
Holland 5 0
Caulfield . 4 0
Powell (prmtr). 4 0
Dignum 4 0
Cooke...............................4 0
Grimaldi. ........... .... 4 0
Packer. ....... 4 0
Decamp. 3 0
Mrs. Jordan ca31 10
Mrs. Crouch 14 0
(next year only 7)
Miss Decamp 12 0
Miss Mountain 12 0
Mrs. Bland..........................12 0
ÎIrs. Pope . 11 0
Mrs. Young. ............10 0
Mrs. Powell 10 0
Mrs. Ansell.........................5 0
Miss Mellon.........................5 0
Tyrer..........................5 0
Mrs. Harlow 4 0
Miss B. Menage.......................3 0
Hicks...........................3 0
Campbell.......................3 0
Mrs. Sparks.........................3 0
Henry...........................3 0
Sontley. 3 0
Campbell (2nd.).................. 3 0
Byrne, (dancer ) 6 0
20 female performers .157 10
25 male performers................255 14
Boaden, Memoirs of Kemble, op. cit., II, 354.
(Boaden does not give the names and salaries of
performers who receive under three pounds weekly,
"That I may not seem to discredit the names of
very deserving people.")
7- Theatrical Fund. The original first article of the
D. L. Fund, which follows, gives a clear Insight into some of
the provisions for benefit from it.
"Article First.--That David Garrick Esq. be nomi
nated founder, guardian, and principal trustee.
Carried nem con.
655
"Second.-“That there be three trustees. Carried
nem con.
"Third.— That George Garrick, Esq., be another
trustee, carried nem con.
"Fourth.— That Thomas King Esq., be another
trustee. Carried nem con.
"Propositions consulted and agreed to : -
"That all actors, singers, and dancers, contri
butors to this fund, are allowed claimants.
"That all persons who belong to this theatre,
from their first contribution must and shall be
five years contributors before they become claimants
unless some extraordinary case should happen. The
committee for the time being will then grant relief
as they think meet.
"That all persons who have contributed in any
manner to this charity, and whom the Committee do
not consider as claimants, shall have their monies
refunded if demanded.
"That no levy be made on salaries, or otherwise
(annual benefit night excepted) for the support of
this fund, until Mr. Garrick shall decline acting
for it: and then that the Committee shall lay on
a tax as they shall think fit.
"That the reason Mr. Garrick declined being of
the Committee be fully expressed in the preamble
of the articles."
Boaden, Private Correspondence of David Garrick,
op. cit.. I, 630.
CHAPTER VIII
1- "In a discourse purporting to be delivered by a spin
ster, in defence of the woolen manufactures in the year
1719, we find the following list of the different articles
of dress necessary for the attire of a lady of fashion of
that year:-
656
£ s. d
A smock of cambric ho Hand about
3 ells and a half.............. . 2 2 0
Marseilles quilted petticoat 3
yards wide and 1 yard long. . . . 3 6 0
An hoop-petticoat covered with tabb 2 15 0
A French or Italian silk quilted
petticoat one yard and a quarter
deep, and six yards wide. • • » .10 0 0
A mantua and petticoat of French
Brocade . . . . . . . . . . 0 0
A French point or Flanders laced
head, ruffles and tucker. ... .80 0 0
English stays covered with tabby. . 3 0 0
A French necklace ........ 5 0
A Flanders laced handkerchief . . .10 0 0
French or Italian flowers for the
hair. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 0 0
An Italian fan............... . 0 0
English silk stockings.......... 0 0
English shoes .................. . 2 10 0
French girdle . ................ 15 0
A cambrick pocket handkerchief. • . 0 10 0
French kid gloves.......... .. . 2 6
A black French silk alamode hood. . 0 15 0
A black French laced hood .... 5 0
French embroidered knot and
bosom knot. .......... 2 0
French garters.............. 5 0
Pockets of Marseilles quilting. . . 1 5 0
Muff............................ 5 0
Sable tippet. .................. .15 0 0
Lining of Italian lutestring. . •. 8 0 0
Thread stockings. . ....... 10 0
Turkey handkerchief....... . 5 5 0
A hat of leghorn. ........ 10 0
A beaver and feather for the forest 3 0 0
A riding suit, with embroidery of
Paris ............... 10 0
Three dresses for the masquerade;
two from Venice.............. 0 0
One from Paris, of green velvet
a la Sultanesse, set with
pearls and rubies ....... 123 15 0
Almost all the above objects come from foreign lands. There
are also other trifles, such as essences, pomatums, patches,
powder, and wire, the prices of which are not given."
The Book of Costume, op. cit., pp. 152-154.
6 5 7
2- Standards of personal beauty vary almost as widely as
styles in women*s dresses. At the beginning of the eighteenth
century the preference was evidently for sturdy, generously
proportioned females. Genest quotes Aston as saying concern
ing Mrs. Verbruggen--a prime favourite of the early years of
the century; She
"... had thick legs and thighs, corpulent and
large posteriors--but yet the town received her
• with applause, for she was the most pleasing crea
ture that ever appeared--she was a fair, fine
woman, plump, full-featured, her face of a fine
smooth oval full of beautiful and well-disposed
moles, as were her neck and breast.”
Genest, jO£. cit., II, 277.
3- Rabies. Although there were singularly few deaths
from the bite of mad dogs in the century, the subject was
constantly being written about in the journals; and the
horror with which the subject of rabies was constantly going
through the public mind is attested by the numerous des
perate remedies advocated. In the Grub-Street Journal ap- ^
pear many notices of hypothetical cures ; the most favoured
of which seem to be variants of the old therapy of dipping
the luckless victim in salt water. (The sad case of a
gentleman who succumbed after such treatment, recounted in
No. 271, would indicate that this cure was not entirely
accredited.) In No. 385 was printed another more potent,
if still inappropriate remedy, to be taken internally: "A
cure for mad dog bite consisting of a mixture of liverwort
and black pepper administered on four successive mornings
in a pint of warm milk, and in addition cold baths every
morning for a month and then thrice a week for a fortnight."
It is only fair to note the postscript of the correspondent,
in which cauterization and cupping of the wound is also
advocated.
Hillhouse, The Grub-Street Journal, op. cit., p. 256.
4- Teeth. By 1829 dentistry as a profession was well
established in London, and had advanced to a place where a
certain Mr. Scott, Surgeon, Dentist, of 35 Gerard Street,
Soho, could advertise in the London newspapers:
"... Mr. 8 gives immediate ease, even after all
other remedies have failed, and fills decayed teeth,
although broken, to the gums, with a cement which
adheres firmly in the cavities, and soon becomes
hard and sound as the teeth before they were decayed.
658
• • . Mr. S. fixes Natural and Artificial Teeth from
one to a complete set, without pain and tying etc*
to the adjacent teeth ... to answer every purpose,
nearly equal to nature. Terms moderate."
London Weekly Times. In "Specimen Newspapers,"
Vol. II, No. 51. Huntington Library.
5- Patent Medicine. Illustrative of the medical credulity
of the early, eighteenth century is the public advertising of
a marvelous "patent medicine" which was sold as a cure for
practically every kind of distress.
"Warhams Apoplectick Balsam from Florence. To
be known from all Counterfeit Balsams whatever, by
these five Trials, viz. First, Men, Women, or
Children, being seized with any sort of Fits what
ever, are Presently brought to their Senses and
Speech by only annointing the Nostrils and Temples
with this Balsam, which no counterfeit will perform.
2ndly, All Rhumatick and Sore Eyes, proceeding
from a cold Cause, be the Rhume never so violent,
are perfectly cured in three or four days space to
a wonder, by only annointing around the Brows, and
under the Eyes, Night and Morning; which singular
Virtues no counterfeit Balsam ever had. 3rdly,
All wet and spreading Tetters, which are akin to a
Leprosy, and one of the hardest Cures belonging to
a Surgeon, are perfectly cured in 4 or 5 Day* s
space, by only chafing the place. 5 or 4 times a
day with this Balsam: which cure no counterfeit
Balsam ever did perform. 4thly, Cuts, green Wounds,
and broken Shins, sore feet caused by Chiliblains;
sharp and cancerous Humours, and old Ulcers, are
cured in one quarter of the space of time that
any other applications ever performed, its repelling
the Humours, and quickness of healing, which coun
terfeit Balsams never pretended to. 5thly, this
Balsam is, of ita"own Nature, as black as Jet, yet
by frequent rubbing it on the hand it so totally
vanisheth that it leaves neither black, nor dirty
stain; but all counterfeit Balsams*, which are made
black in imitation of it, leaves a Dirt, or Stain,
on the hand. Here are yet more singular Virtues
inherent to this Balsam. A Swimming, Giddiness
and Pains of the Head, all infection of the Small
pox, Spotted Fever, and Plague, all ill and
noisious Smells from either Sick or Dead persons;
all thick and unwholesome Air is prevented and
taken away by only annointing the Nostrils with
659
this Balsam. Deafness and Noise in the Ears gotten
by Cold is taken away, by keeping this Balsam in
the Ears upon Cotton, or black Wool: fixed Pains
in any part are taken away, by chafing with this
Balsam; as also Bruises and Strains are perfectly
relieved, by chafing the parts as aforesaid.
Gripes and Worms in young Children, that can take
nothing inwardly, are perfectly cured, by only
annointing the Navel and the.Pit in the Stomach
with this Balsam. Price, 12 pence per Box, or 12
shillings per Ounce. . . "
The Post Boy, No. 453, March 31, 1698. Repeated
frequently thereafter in the same periodical*
6- Vital Statistics. The following summaries of Vital
Statistics have been made from the tables which appeared
monthly in The Gentleman* s Magazine from .1731 to the end of
the century. The years summarized were chosen at random to
give a representative cross-section of the century.
1731, which was not a bad plague year, indicates the
unhealthy condition of London by its christening and burial
numbers.
January, christened* * * Bur ied. . * 1969
February " . * .
r »
* * 2176
March " . * .
f t
. * 2388
April " . . . . . 1229
f f
* * 2002
May " * .
f t
. * 1821
June " . . .
I t
* * 1751
The percentage continues fairly constantly through the year.
The grist for this human mill was evidently coming from the
hordes of rural people who were constantly pouring into
London to die.
1734
Christened. . . . Male, 8,955; Female, 8,675
Buried........... " 13,016; " 13,046
Died under the age of two, 10,752.
Diseases causing death;
Age........................1,459
Convulsions............ . 8,295
C onsump tion..............4,139
Fevers and Purples .... 3,116
Small-pox.......... 2,688
Teeth......................1,316
Dropsy .......... 998
660
1750
Causes of death:
Age* * * * ............* 1,896
Consumption * 4,543
Convulsions............* * 5,837
Fever........ ........... 4,294
Small Pox. . * ............1,229
Teeth* ••«**•*•«* 1,109
Suicide* * * * .......... 27
Murdered ................ 4
1757
Causes of death:
Consumption. •••*••« 3,973
Convulsions. . * ......... 5,211
Small-pox. * ............. 3,296
Teeth.............. . . * 766
1770
Causes of death:
Consumption. . * ......... 4,809
Convulsions. ....... 6,156
Small-pox. ........ 1,660
Dropsy....................1,024
Teeth. ..*...... 809
Fever* . * * ............. 2,273
Age........* ............. 1,512
Suicide.................. 34
Drowned.................. 138
(Deaths by drowning are remarkably constant at
about 100 per year throughout the century* Un
doubtedly many of the drownings were suicidal*)
Cf., Be8ant, London in 18th* Cent.» p. 637, for
this year*
1779
Causes of death:
Consumption............... 4,477
Convulsions. . ..........5,401
Small-pox..................2,493
Fevers * . * ....... 2,336
Age......................* 1,235
Teeth.................... 539
In the next year, 1780, the deaths from small-pox
dropped below.1,000 for the first time in the cen
tury, only 871 dying of the disease* Consumption
however in the year took 4,480*
661
1792
Causes of Death:
Age........................1,165
Consumption.............. 5,255
Convulsions............... 4,646
Fevers.............. 2,236
Small-pox..................1,568
Teeth. 419
The supplement to the Gentleman*s Magaz ine in 1792, p. 1216,
has some interesting "statistical remarks," from which the
following are taken.
"Out of 1,000 infants who are nursed by the mother,
about 300 die; of the same number committed to the
care of strange nurses, it is calculated that 500
perish."
"The probability is, that a new-born child will
live 34 years and six months."
"The small-pox, in the natural way, usually carries
off 8 out of 100. By Innoculation, one dies out of
300. "
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
When Thomas Betterton his stately buskin doff’d.
And riddled with disease and age crept home to die.
The audience, which oftentimes before had scoff’d
At "Poor pox*d players** lifted up its mournful sigh.
"Alas," they said, "there never was his like before.
Nor ever likely will there be his peer againl"
Yet Cibber quick picked up the mantle; tho he wore
The tragic crown askew, and dared not risk the Dane.
Before his pompous strut had ceas’d to shake the stage
And titillate the gaping yokels of the pit,
Lo Garrick, comet-like, appeared, to be the rage
And rule with crafty genius where the gods now sit.
Ruled not alone; for on his stage there walked supreme
The handsome Barry, Romeo divinely tall.
The tragic Mrs. Cibber, buffoon Quin, Boheme,
Pert Kitty Clive, and Macklin, patriarch of them all.
Then Roger Kemble spawned his own prodigious race
Of Thespian offspring: Sarah, J. P., Charles— three
Of talent high. Scarce passed, when in their noble place
Uprose to fill the gap Kean’s genius shining free.
Meanwhile the actors from their early humble rank
Had climbed, until they could with fearlessness walk forth
Among their fellows. VYhile the proletarian sank
To serfdom, players lost the stigma of their birth.
In morals and religion, of their lusty age
They stand as common symbols of the common man.
Full oft there is a soiled and dirtied human page;
Full oft the cynic may with justice hurl his ban.
Yet on the whole a sturdy, sober race, they lived
As honest, crafty men who earned their bread;
Not always of kind instincts, gentle thoughts berieved;
Not always seeking with another’s wife to bed.
From jumping, gaudy puppets twitched by noble hands.
They have become the leaders of their social state.
From tattered vagabonds in roving strollers* bands.
Affluent lords who entertain the rich, the great.
664
Even in parliament they dare to stand and speak
On equal footing with their brothers of the gown.
And when the century has climbed its highest peak.
The actor shines aloft, the ruler of the townI
In worldly wealth, in health, in morals, and in pride
That rests within a man’s own soul he is the peer
Of scholar, churchman#_^rtist of the lamp and side,
He’s won his battle, fought with words for many a year.
Thus when the final curtain falls, and sorrowing feet
Attend the bier with honour e’en to death’s chill tomb.
The sound of honest weeping in the crepe-hung street
Accompanies the corpse to England’s noblest room.
There let him rest, like Garrick, ’neath the poet’s gaze.
His laurels by his side, his gestures stopp’d in flight;
There let him lie, content with what he had of days
Of high enchantment--days now hushed in tragic night.
So for all men the curtain falls on one last act.
Whether they’ve played their part in life as man, or dog.
So for all things obtains this constant, awful fact--
The end must come--and so adieu to Epilogue.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

An experimental study of perceived differences in efficient and inefficient voice production in low-pitched male voices by acoustic spectrography

PDF

Student authoring in the American grain

PDF

A generalized scale for the measurement of attitudes toward international issues

PDF

Making it to the top: a study of Black partners in major law firms

PDF

The effects of various factors on the academic achievement of Vietnamese students at Gold Coast College

PDF

The functional gene expression dynamics of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 under various external voltage potentials

PDF

The effects of centralization and board membership reform on health occupational licensing policies

PDF

Development, validation and testing of a new sensor array for intra-articular pressure measurement: in-vitro human lumbar spine intra-articular facet testing

PDF

Realism in the fiction of Frances Burney

PDF

Effects of an intervention approach on the medication prescribing behavior of physicians

PDF

Earnings differences among Black, White and Hispanic males and females: the impact of overeducation, undereducation and discrimination

PDF

Identity change in a therapeutic community

PDF

The Restoration theatre audience: A critical and historical evaluation of the London playgoers of the latter part of the seventeenth century 1660-1700

PDF

Differential acceptance of a new role for pharmacists

PDF

A comparison of attitudes of university seniors and sales executives toward outside selling, as revealed by clinical interview and questionnaire methods