No More Learning

77 (#103) #############################################

George Barnwell and Fatal Curiosity 77
6
The late found Western World glows with unnumber'd veins of
gold and silver ore. ' Most grotesque is the dialogue of the scenes
of the uncle's murder. His prophetic soul forebodes evil and his
'imagination is fill’d with gashly forms of dreary graves, and
bodies chang'd by death. His apostrophe to 'Death, thou strange
mysterious power—seen every day, yet never understood but by the
incommunicative dead'-unnerves the murderer for the moment,
and hardly has the deed been perpetrated when Barnwell throws
himself on the body of the 'expiring saint,' his 'martyr'd uncle,'
with an outbreak of inflated rhetoric which expires in moralised
heroic couplets. Judged by the modern standards of prose drama
that has felt the influence of Ibsen, Lillo's prose is sheer travesty.
Yet his was an age accustomed to the artificial rhetoric of senti-
mental drama, as it was to the 'grand manner' in acting. Even
so classical a critic as Pope deemed that, if Lillo 'had erred
through the whole play, it was only in a few places, where he had
unawares led himself into a poetical luxuriancy, affecting to be
too elevated for the simplicity of the subject' In Lillo's hands,
the old shackles of verse tragedy are broken ; but cruel marks of
the fetters remain visible. Beyond doubt, he sinned greatly; yet
much may be forgiven to one who showed, however imperfectly,
that serious drama might find expression in prose.
In The Christian Hero (1735), Lillo relapses into more con-
ventional tragedy. Prose gives way to blank verse, the London
prentice to 'a pious hero, and a patriot king,' and London to
Albania. In Fatal Curiosity: A True Tragedy of Three Acts?
(1736), Lillo retains blank verse, but reverts to domestic tragedy.
'From lower life we draw our scene's distress' The elder Colman,
in his prologue written for the revival of the play in 1782, pro-
claimed Lillo's kinship with Shakespeare in disregard of dramatic
rules and boldly suggested that
Lillo's plantations were of forest growth,
Shakespear's the same, great Nature's hand in both!
The strong verbal reminiscences of Macbeth and Hamlet would
seem rather to indicate that Shakespeare's hand was in Lillo's.
The plot itself, based on an old story of a Cornish murder, shows
how old Wilmot, urged by his wife to relieve their poverty, kills
the stranger that is within their gates, only to find that he has
1 The Lives of the Poets of Great-Britain and Ireland. By Mr (Theophilus) Cibber,
and other Hands. (1753), vol. v, p. 339.
? The original title was Guilt Its Own Punishment, or Fatal Curiosity.
3 Fielding's prologue.


## p. 78 (#104) #############################################

78
The Drama and the Stage
murdered his son, whom 'fatal curiosity' has led to conceal his
identity. In Lillo's play, fatality, not poverty, is the real motive
force. With something of the Greek conception, destiny dominates
the tragedy. Old Wilmot, to be sure, expires with the confession
that ‘We brought this dreadful ruin on ourselves. ” But Randal,
whose couplets point the conventional moral,
The ripe in virtue never die too soon,
protests against any censure of
Heaven's mysterious ways.
In Lillo's tragedy of destiny, we are not 'to take upon 's the
mystery of things, as if we were God's spies. '
Lillo's other dramatic works may be dismissed with brief
mention. Marina (1738), a three-act drama, based on Pericles,
Prince of Tyre, is additional evidence of Lillo's indebtedness to
Shakespeare. The brothel-scenes, which tend to abandon decency
as well as blank verse, can hardly be justified by a conclusion
that shows “Virtue preserv'd from fell destruction's blast. '
Britannia and Batavia, a rather belated instance of masque,
Elmerick, or Justice Triumphant, a regular blank-verse tragedy
which won Fielding's praise, and Arden of Feversham, which gives
further evidence of Lillo's interest in domestic tragedy and of his
indebtedness to Elizabethan drama, were published posthumously.
In the history of English drama, Lillo holds a position wholly
disproportionate to his actual dramatic achievement. Like
D'Avenant, his importance is chiefly that of a pioneer. The
modern reader sympathises more readily with Charles Lamb's
familiar strictures upon Lillo than with Fielding's praise. But,
artificial as his work appears today, Lillo set in motion powerful
forces that pointed toward natural tragedy. He deliberately put
aside the dignity of rank and title and the ceremony of verse. He
animated domestic drama, and paved the way for prose melodrama
and tragedy.
The influence of Lillo is not to be measured simply in the
records of English drama. On the continent, especially in France
and Germany, the effect of his domestic tragedy was striking. In
French drama, this influence may best be observed in Diderot.
From the previous discussion of the rise of sentimental drama
and its development on the continent as well as in England, it is
evident that French drama had already responded to the influences
of sentimental drama before the success of George Barnwell
moralised bourgeois tragedy. Destouches had admitted a serious


## p. 79 (#105) #############################################

Lillo and Diderot
79
undertone in his Philosophe marié (1727), and Marivaux, in his
Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard (1730), had delicately touched senti-
ment with pathos. In the score of years between the English
production of George Barnwell and the French translation which
probably directly influenced Diderot, drame sérieux was developing
toward comédie larmoyante. Nivelle de la Chaussée bathed virtue
in tears, and, in dramatising Pamela, had brought the influence
of Richardson's novel of sentiment to swell the tide of sentimental
drama. Even Voltaire borrowed from Pamela and found praise
for George Barnwell.
Though the general tendencies of the time should thus be
remembered, there is no need to belittle Lillo's direct and powerful
influence on Diderot. Like Voltaire, Diderot's influence on drama
was twofold—in actual dramatic production and in dramatic
theory. But Diderot set himself in direct opposition to the
classical standards which, despite some inconsistencies, Voltaire
maintained. In Le Fils Naturel (printed 1757), and in Le Père
de Famille (printed 1758), with the critical discourses that accom-
pany them, Diderot set forth the type of drama which he sought
to introduce into France. His very term, tragédie domestique et
bourgeoise, suggests the nature of Lillo's influence upon him.
Diderot carried his enthusiasm for George Barnwell to the point
of comparing the prison scene between Barnwell and Maria with
the Philoctetes of Sophocles. He followed his English master in the
choice of characters drawn from ordinary life, in the moralisation
of tragedy and in the use of prose. Diderot, in fact, carried his
belief in prose into more consistent practice than did Lillo. In
his treatise De la Poésie Dramatique, he expresses the conviction
that domestic tragedy should not be written in verse, though,
doubtless, it is French verse that he has in mind rather than the
English blank verse to which Lillo himself reverted in Fatal
Curiosity. The length of time before Diderot's plays were put
on the stage, and their rather indifferent reception by the public,
suggest that his own dramatic accomplishment was less significant
than his influence upon dramatists like Sedaine and Lessing.
Largely through Diderot, Lillo's influence was extended to
German drama. Lessing's translations of Diderot's plays and his
critical interpretations of his dramatic theories fell on favourable
soil in Germany. Lessing's own domestic tragedy, Miss Sara
Sampson (1755), which dissolved its audience in tears, has the
1 Le Fils Naturel, publicly produced in 1771, failed. Le Pere de Famille had
found moderate favoar on the Parisian stage in 1761.


## p. 80 (#106) #############################################

80
The Drama and the Stage
general tone of Lillo's drama. To the influence of George Barnwell
upon German domestic tragedy (bürgerliches Trauerspiel) should
be added that of Fatal Curiosity upon the German tragedy of
destiny (Schicksalstragödie). During the last two decades of the
eighteenth century, versions of Fatal Curiosity appeared in
German, its actual theme was taken for a brief play by Werner
(1812), and other examples of the 'tragedy of destiny' were borne
along on the passing wave of popularity'.
Though the effect of Lillo's dramas was far-reaching and
persistent, it must not be supposed that his bourgeois tragedy
thereafter dominated the English stage. Occasional plays, like
Charles Johnson's Caelia, or The Perjured Lover (1732), reflect
Lillo's influence. But, year after year, the English stage con-
tinued to produce a remarkable variety of theatrical productions,
from classical tragedy to nondescript farce. Not until the days
of Edward Moore did Lillo find a conspicuous follower. Moore,
like Lillo and Gay, was an apprentice turned playwright. The
mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease, in days when playwriting
was more in fashion, had noticeably, like the old drama itself, given
way to a less high-born school. Moore's early comedy, The
Foundling (1748), has some suggestion of Steele's last sentimental
comedy, while Gil Blas (1751) darkens the comic action with
a tragic underplot. But Moore's tragic and moral bent unite
most clearly and forcibly in The Gamester (1753).
In The Gamester, prose domestic tragedy again prevails.
Moore dramatises a new commandment—Thou shalt not gamble. '
To the playful hits of Pope and the more vigorous attacks of
Addison upon gambling, Moore gave tragic intensity. The very
singleness of his purpose gives unity to his drama. Without
remarkable dramatic skill, he conceived his framework on large
lines, and, in many ways, executed it impressively. He stoops, at
times, to melodrama, in the use of surprise ; but, like Lillo, he shows
dramatic restraint in not permitting Mrs Beverley to expire on
her husband's corpse. His failure to introduce his hero in the
actual setting of the gaming-house seems, however, a needless
sacrifice of a situation that would have strengthened at least the
acting possibilities of the drama. Moore's prose, despite obvious
evidences of unnaturalness, marks an advance over Lillo's. They
author's own confession? , that in scenes of elevated passion, it was
>
a
cala
1 For further details, see the study of Lillo's work and its influence in Ward's, A. W. ,
edition of The London Merchant and Fatal Curiosity (Belles Lettres Series).
· See Introduction to The Gamester.


## p. 81 (#107) #############################################

81
Voltaire and the English Drama
harder to refrain from verse than to produce it, helps to explain
Lillo's inflated diction. Diderot coupled The Gamester and The
Merchant of London as instances of English tragedies in prose,
and Saurin's vein in Beverlei (1768) is further evidence of Moore's
influence on the continental drama.
While Lillo and Moore were thus enlarging the field of tragedy
by extending it to the concerns of ordinary life and developing,
however crudely, a new medium of prose expression, the influence
of Voltaire was being exerted in behalf of classical standards. In
1726, he began a residence of almost three years in England which
brought him into contact with English drama. Cato he regarded
as a masterpiece of classical tragedy. Yet, like Addison, he con-
fessed, once, at least, that creative energy such as Shakespeare's
'leaves far behind it everything which can boast only of reason
and correctness' The greater freedom and vigour of action of
the English stage clearly affect both Voltaire's classical dramatic
standards and his own dramatic practice. In a letter of 1735, he
declares that French drama 'is ordinarily devoid of action and of
great interests,' and, in another of 1750, full of his usual strictures
on the barbarities of English tragedy, he concedes that “'tis true
we have too much of words, if you have too much of action,
and perhaps the perfection of the art should consist in a due
mixture of the French taste and the English energy? His own
dramas borrow from Shakespeare with a freedom that impressed
even those who translated and adapted Voltaire's plays for the
English stage. In the prologue to Aaron Hill's Zara (1736), a
version of Voltaire's Zaire, Colley Cibber says plainly:
From English plays, Zara's French author fired,
Confessed his muse, beyond himself, inspired;
From rack'd Othello's rage he raised his style,
And snatched the brand that lights his tragic pile.
The prologue to James Miller's version of Mahomet (1744) is
equally frank:
Britons, these numbers to yourselves you owe;
Voltaire bath strength to shoot in Shakespeare's bow.
The monstrosities which Voltaire took pains to point out in
Shakespeare's tragedies did not prevent him from borrowing from
such dramas as Othello, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth and
King Lear far more than he troubled himself to acknowledge.
i Quoted by Lounsbury, T. R. , Shakespeare and Voltaire, p. 52.
? Ibid. pp. 71, 138.
E. L. X.
CH. IV.
6


## p. 82 (#108) #############################################

82
The Drama and the Stage
Nor did his borrowings from Shakespeare measure his indebted-
ness to English drama. William Duncombe's adaptation of
Brutus (1734), which begins the long list of English stage
versions of Voltaire, brought upon the French dramatist the
charge of plagiarism from Lee's restoration tragedy, Brutus.
Voltaire's influence upon English drama is, accordingly, not
that of an uncompromising continental classicist. In the main,
he supported the cause of classical drama ; but it is wholly
misleading to ignore the strength of the counter influences of
English drama upon him. Criticism, likewise, has frequently
exaggerated the influence of Voltaire's dramas on the English
stage. Of the various versions of Voltaire that appeared during
the second quarter of the eighteenth century, which include, besides
those already mentioned, Hill's Alzira (1736) and Merope (1749), the
most successful was the same writer's Zara. Yet its continuous run
of fourteen nights was an exceptional success.
The early recog-
nition of Voltaire's large indebtedness to Shakespeare helps to
explain why he failed to supplant the native genius from whom
he borrowed. Performances of Shakespearean drama far out-
numbered those of English versions of Voltaire's plays. The
succession of critical editions of Shakespeare, beginning with that
of Rowe (1709) ? , increased Shakespeare's influence with readers.
David Garrick powerfully advanced his popularity with playgoers.
The tide of patriotic feeling rose in increasing resentment against
Voltaire's strictures on English drama. Even Aaron Hill, the
zealous adapter of Voltaire, in the preface to Merope, asserts that
80 much over-active sensibility to his own country's claims, with so unfeeling
a stupidity in judging the pretensions of his neighbors might absolve all
indignation short of gross indecency towards one who has not scrupled. . . to
represent the English as incapable of tragedy; nay, even of painting or of
music.
The plain speech of Voltaire's English sympathisers became violent
invective, when Foote, in 1747, denounced him as 'that insolent
French panegyrist who first denies Shakespeare almost every
dramatic excellence, and then, in his next play, pilfers from him
almost every capital scene,' and pictured him in his dual role of
critic and dramatist as the carping, superficial critic and the low,
paltry thief? . ' Such bursts represent the extreme of patriotic ire
rather than the mean of ordinary criticism; yet there is abundant
evidence that the mid-eighteenth century stage which acclaimed
>
>
1 Cf. ante, vol. v, pp. 267 ff.
Cf. Lounsbury, u. 8. pp. 148—9.


## p. 83 (#109) #############################################

Fielding and Burlesque
83
Garrick's Shakespearean productions was in little danger of blind
allegiance to a continental authority.
Even before the deference at first accorded to Voltaire had
perceptibly abated, classical drama did not hold the English
stage unchallenged. Lillo's bold innovations threatened its pres-
tige, and pantomime its popularity. The vein of dramatic
burlesque struck by Gay in What-dye-Call-it and The Beggar's
Opera was developed by Fielding and Carey. In Tom Thumb;
A Tragedy (1730), afterwards called The Tragedy of Tragedies ;
or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great (1731),
Fielding (of whose comedies something has been said in an earlier
chapter)? ridiculed the absurdities of contemporary drama, and,
in his later mock critical and explanatory notes, satirised the
theories of Corneille and such tragedies as Cato, Busiris and
Fenton's popular Mariamne (1723). The coarser burlesque
of Fielding's Covent Garden Tragedy (1733) is directed, in part,
against Philips's Distrest Mother. The spirit of Tom Thumb is
maintained in Henry Carey's Chrononhotonthologos, the Most
Tragical Tragedy that ever was Tragediz'd by any Company
of Tragedians (1734), and, less effectively, in his burlesque
opera, The Dragon 'of Wantley (1734), which displays, in the
words of its dedication, the beauty of nonsense, so prevailing
in Italian opera' While Fielding and Carey thus out-Heroded
Herod, they, too, were on the side of sanity in English drama.
Tom Thumb is the ironic expression of that revolt against con-
ventional English tragedy which Fielding phrased seriously in
his prologue to Lillo's Fatal Curiosity :
No fustian Hero rages here to-night;
No armies fall, fix a tyrant's right.
To the negative effect of burlesque, Fielding added a positive
influence against the accepted dramatic conventions by devoting
a large share of his energies to the composition of short dramatic
pieces. Though some of his plays accept the five-act formula,
most of them do not exceed three acts. The production of brief
dramatic pieces by Samuel Foote and other followers of Fielding
is intimately connected with the eighteenth century fashion of
appending to regular drama an after-piece, usually farce or
pantomime. The ultimate effects of this practice may be illus-
trated by the fact that Sheridan's Critic was produced, originally,
as an after-piece to Hamlet.
1 Cf. ante, chap. 11, pp. 21–2.
* Cf. ante, vol. ix, chap. VI, p. 190.
7
6
6--2


## p. 84 (#110) #############################################

84
The Drama and the Stage
In still another way, Fielding shook the conventions of formal
drama. Improving on Gay’s ‘local hits’ at politicians of the day,
Fielding carried personal allusion and innuendo to daring extremes.
Pasquin (1736) is 'a dramatick Satire on the Times,' and The
Historical Register for 1736 (acted 1737) overruns with political,
theatrical and social satire. Fielding's bold political references
were largely responsible for the licensing act of 1737, which
limited the metropolitan theatres to two, and brought plays,
prologues and epilogues under direct legal supervision. Though
Sir John Barnard, in March 1735, had interested himself, in the
House of Commons, in the question of restricting the theatres,
and, though the immediate stimulus to the licensing act is usually
held to have been an abusive piece, called The Golden Rump,
there is little reason to doubt that Walpole recognised in Fielding
his most dangerous foe. The licensing act restricted Fielding's
lawless freedom; already, however, he had set in motion forces
which the censorship of the stage might in part check, but
could not wholly control. Essentially the playwright of his own
day, Fielding influenced drama in the direction of themes of
contemporary life. Even Lillo, who set his face against a
social restriction of the sphere of tragedy, passively conceded
the historic background in giving, nominally, at least, an
Elizabethan setting to George Barnwell, in assigning Fatal
Curiosity to the reign of James I and in choosing Arden of
Feversham as the theme of 'an historical tragedy. Fielding's
actual dramatic works resembled cartoons rather than finished
works of comic art. Yet, his burlesque of conventional drama,
his development of short dramatic pieces that challenged the
authority of the five-act formula and his attention to the subjects
and personages of contemporary life, powerfully combined towards
enlarging the freedom and advancing the naturalness of dramatic
expression.
The transfer of Fielding's literary activity from drama to
novel suggests another potent factor in the decline of the drama.
To the forces of Italian opera, pantomime, burlesque, ballad-
opera, farce and spectacle, whose constant inroads had grievously
thinned the ranks of regular drama, was now added a more
dangerous, if more subtle, rival off the boards. Robinson Crusoe
(1719—20) and Gulliver's Travels (1726—7) had already fired the
fancy of English readers. With Richardson's Pamela (1740), the
English novel began its great period of literary dominance! It
1 Cf. ante, chap. I.


## p. 85 (#111) #############################################

Garrick
85
is not an accidental coincidence that the middle of the eighteenth
century is marked by poverty in dramatic composition as well as
by the strenuous advance of the novel. Nevertheless, two powerful
forces helped to sustain the vitality of the theatre. Provided with
a strong repertory of stock plays, the genius of actors was able to
triumph even over the mediocrity of contemporary drama. It
was the age of the player, not of the playwright. The period of
which we speak is the era of Garrick.
The record of David Garrick belongs, primarily, to theatrical
annals. Yet his own dramatic work, his Shakespearean revivals
and the influence of his natural method of acting, which indirectly
affected the artificiality of the drama itself, while directly opposing
the old school of acting, entitle him to a place in English dramatic
history. His mythological skit Lethe (1740) gained a place on
the boards in the year before its author's histrionic triumph as
Richard III. Reynolds's picture showing Garrick torn between
the rival muses of tragedy and comedy suggests his range and
versatility both as actor and as manager. He produced on the
stage more than a score of Shakespeare's dramas, and himself
appeared in the great majority of them. He was the dominant
factor in confirming Shakespeare's popularity with audiences in the
middle of the eighteenth century. Yet his service consisted rather
in accelerating the popular current than in setting it in motion.
Rich's noteworthy Shakespearean revivals, in 1738, which included
many long unacted plays, Macklin's famous triumph as Shylock
and the Drury lane productions of Shakespearean comedies, in
1740—1, are but instances of increasing interest in Shakespearean
performances before Garrick's advent. Furthermore, though
Garrick's influence, in the main, was salutary, his versions of
Shakespeare were, at times, unfaithful both to the original text
and to its spirit. Early in 1756, he produced, within a month,
alterations of three Shakespearean dramas, excising most of the
first three acts of The Winter's Tale, despite the protestation of
the prologue,
'Tis my chief Wish, my Joy, my only Plan,
To lose no Drop of that immortal Man!
Theophilus Cibber indignantly demanded, “Were Shakespeare's
ghost to rise, would he not frown indignation on this pilfering
pedlar in poetry-who thus shamefully mangles, mutilates, and
emasculates his plays? ?
' Though sweeping generalisations as to
Garrick's fidelity to his original are thus disproved by actual facts,
i Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, vol, wv, p. 452.


## p. 86 (#112) #############################################

86
The Drama and the Stage
his services to Shakespearean drama must not be rated beneath
their real value. It was in his hand to set the fashion, and he set
it beyond dispute. His own masterly acting of Shakespearean
characters far outweighs the infelicities, and occasional outrages,
of his acting texts.
The popularity of Shakespeare during the Garrick era did not,
however, lead to general adoption of Elizabethan models by play-
wrights of the period. Adaptations like Garrick’s Gamesters
(1757), altered from Shirley's Gamester, seem somewhat accidental.
Otway, Southerne and Rowe were greater favourites on the stage
than any Elizabethan writer of tragedy save Shakespeare. In
The Earl of Essex (1753), Henry Jones worked over again the
theme of one of John Banks's quasi-heroic English dramas; but
tragedies such as Johnson's Irene (1749) follow stricter classical
models. The classical cause, indeed, may be said to have received
a new impetus of some importance in William Whitehead's success-
ful version of Horace in The Roman Father (1750). The wave of
influence from Philips's Distrest Mother, which had led to more
than a dozen translations of plays by Thomas and Pierre Corneille
and Racine within a dozen years, seems to have subsided with
William Hatchett's Rival Father (1730). Whitehead's success
revived the interest that had lain dormant for a score of years.
The Roman Father remained a stock play throughout the rest of
the century, and, doubtless, was the chief stimulus to some eight
or ten other translations from French classical drama during
that period. In Creusa, Queen of Athens (1754), Whitehead
continued to work the vein of classical tragedy; but The School
for Lovers (1762) is an excursion into the realm of comedy. The
latter is not without some comic energy, but Sir John Dorilant,
'a Man of nice Honour,' and Carlia, who justifies the complaint
that she talks at times like a sentimental lady in a comedy,' have
a ‘nicety of sentiments' which brings them dangerously close to
the pitfalls of sentimental drama.
Despite vigorous attacks upon his critical authority, Voltaire
maintained, during the third quarter of the eighteenth century,
some hold on the English stage. Of English versions of his plays
the most successful was Arthur Murphy's Orphan of China (1759).
Orestes (1768), Almida and Zobeide (1771) and Semiramis (1776)
adapt other tragedies of Voltaire, while some of his comedies had
an English rendering, as in Murphy's No One's Enemy but his
Own (1764) and Colman’s English Merchant (1767)? Merope
Founded, respectively, on L'Indiscret and L'Écossaise.


## p. 87 (#113) #############################################

87
6
6
Home. Hoadly. Foote
was, occasionally, revived at Drury lane and seems to have inspired
Hoole's Cyrus (1768). Yet, even the most successful of these
pieces could not outrun several tragedies by English playwrights
of the period or rival in popularity Shakespearean plays. Vol-
taire's influence still counted strongly in maintaining the belief
that Shakespeare was not a great dramatic artist; but it could
not successfully challenge his actual triumph on the boards.
In contrast to many conventional dramas of the period, Home's
Douglas (first acted at Edinburgh in 1756, and in London in 1757)
strikes a distinct romantic note. In the desert of Scottish drama,
Douglas was an oasis, and, to some patriotic enthusiasts, its author
seemed a Scottish Shakespeare. The philosopher Hume ascribed to
his friend Home the true theatric genius of Shakespeare and Otway,
refined from the unhappy barbarism of the one and licentiousness
of the other. ' Even Gray, in August 1757, wrote to Walpole:
"The author seems to me to have retrieved the true language
of the stage, which has been lost for these 100 years. ' Age has
withered Douglas, and custom staled the declamation of Young
Norval. Yet the plot of Home's drama, based on an old Scots
ballad, its native background, and its atmosphere of brooding
melancholy, invest it with something of the romantic atmosphere
of his friend Collins. A succession of later tragedies showed that
Home was unable to repeat his first theatrical success; but
Sheridan's palpable hits in The Critic are incidental proof of the
continued stage popularity of Douglas.
The general poverty of original English drama in the middle of
the eighteenth century is apparent in comedy as well as in tragedy. Scanis.
.
Job Hoadly's popular comedy The Suspicious Husband (1747), ': inicio
which gave to Garrick a most successful part in Ranger, has some-
thing of the comic power of earlier drama. But, for the most
part, sentimental drama had so constrained formal comedy,
that laughter sought free outlet in the larger licence of farce,
burlesque and spectacle. Among multifarious theatrical enter-
tainments, attention must be directed to the efforts of Samuel
Foote. Early appearances as an actor showed that his forte
lay in comic mimicry. In April 1747, he established himself
at the Little theatre in the Haymarket, evading the licensing
act by announcing 'a Concert of Musick,' or 'an Auction of
Pictures,' or inviting his friends to drink a 'dish of Chocolate'
or a dish of Tea' with him. Thus, for two seasons, Foote found
pretexts for mimicry and caricature of Garrick, Mrs Woffington
and other familiar figures of the day. Though he found little
6
6


## p. 88 (#114) #############################################

88
The Drama and the Stage
trouble in evading the law, he was fortified with a patent in 1766.
The grant, though covering only performances during the summer
season and limited to his own lifetime, in reality created a third
patent theatre.
Foote's career as playwright coincides almost exactly with
Garrick's managership at Drury lane (1747-76).
He was a
direct descendant of Fielding, fully developing personal satire
through the medium of brief dramatic sketches. Of about a score
of printed dramatic pieces, none exceeds three acts. With Foote,
as with Fielding, most of the zest of his 'local hits' is now lost.
Taylor the quack oculist, the extortioner Mrs Grieve, chaplain
Jackson and many other once familiar personages whom he boldly
caricatured are now shadowy or forgotten figures. Foote's
characters often have animation and theatrical effectiveness ; but
they are not developed in action. Though his pieces are usually
printed as comedies, they mainly belong to the realm of farce.
Like his own art as an actor, they tend to substitute mimicry for
original delineation of character.
The zest of Foote's farces, without their personal bitterness,
is seen in various contemporary after-pieces. Garrick produced
-
a number of lively farces, such as The Lying Valet (1741), Miss in
her Teens (1747), The Irish Widow (1772) and Bon Ton (1775).
James Townley's High Life below Stairs (1759) proved a welcome
variety to those who, like George Selwyn, were tired of 'low life
above stairs,' and it long maintained its popularity.
Of the playwrights of the Garrick era, Arthur Murphy may
serve as a type of prolific industry. His dramatic efforts include
farces, like The Upholsterer (1758), in the general vein of Fielding's
political satire; adaptations from Voltaire; comedies, often, like
All in the Wrong (1761) and The School for Guardians, based on
Molière ; and tragedies such as Zenobia (1768) and The Grecian
Daughter (1772). Without enough originality to channel out his
own way, he drifted easily with the tide, appropriating whatever
came within easy reach. His comedy has the usual didactic note,
schooling wives in the way to keep their husbands”, and husbands
in the lesson that constancy should not be shamefaced. His tragedy
preserves the conventional cast, and The Grecian Daughter owes
its place in theatrical traditions largely to Mrs Siddons. Yet,
1 The satire against Whitefield and his methodist followers in The Minor (1760)
and that against the suitors of Elizabeth Linley before her romantic marriage to
Richard Brinsley Sheridan in The Maid of Bath (1771), have a personal interest.
2 The Way to keep him (1760).


## p. 89 (#115) #############################################

George Colman the elder
89
Murphy had the cleverness required for fashioning successful
acting plays, and to some ingenuity added much industry.
Another popular Irish playwright of the day was Isaac Bicker-
staff. His facile pen turned most successfully to opera libretti.
With much of Murphy's ability in adaptation and sense of theatrical
effectiveness, he blended materials from such divergent sources as
Charles Johnson, Wycherley and Marivaux into his successful comic
opera, Love in a Village (1762), and found in Richardson's
Pamela the basis for his popular Maid of the Mill (1765). In
1768, he scored two popular hits at Drury lane by his ‘musical
entertainment,' Padlock, and by his version of Cibber's Non-Juror,
and produced successfully at Covent garden (1768) Lionel and
Clarissa (published anonymously in 1748)'. To many of his
operatic works, Charles Dibdin, later a prolific playwright, supplied
much of the music.
A more important dramatist than either Murphy or Bicker-
staff was George Colman the elder, who, amidst prevalent
sentimentality, maintained something of the earlier and more
genuine comic spirit. Polly Honeycombe (1760), his first dramatic
venture, produced anonymously in deference to his uncle's dislike
of his dramatic aspirations, became a popular after-piece. In its
satirical thrusts at the sentimental school, it anticipates Sheridan's
Rivals. The opening scene between Polly and her nurse suggests
Lydia Languish's discussion with Lucy of the sentimental novels of
the circulating library, and enforces the satirical hits of Colman's
prologue at the sentimental novel. Polly and Lydia Languish are
alike familiar with 'ladders of ropes' and other accessories of
sentimental elopements. A decade and a half before Sheridan,
Colman turned the laugh against The goddess of the woful
countenance-The Sentimental Muse. '
It is not surprising that Colman, who made the sentimental
novel a target for satire, turned to Fielding's Tom Jones for the
ground-work of a genuine comedy. The Jealous Wife (1761) is
conspicuous as an early example of successful dramatisation of
a popular novel. Tom Jones, Sophia, Lady Bellaston, Lord Fellmar,
squire Western and Blifil become respectively Charles Oakly,
Harriot, Lady Freelove, Lord Trinket, Russet and Beagle. Yet,
Colman is more than a copyist. He introduces new characters
in Mr and Mrs Oakly, and effectively transfers to Beagle squire
Western's sporting instincts. Furthermore, in welding his material
1 It was reprinted in 1786, with the alternative title of the School for Fathers,
and, with this title only, in 1797.
73j* $


## p. 90 (#116) #############################################

90
The Drama and the Stage
into effective drama, he 'took some hints from The Spectator, a
suggestion from The Adelphi of Terrence l' and advice from
Garrick. The dramatic structure shows skill in developing action
through effective stage-situations, while Harriot's flight to Oakly's
house, which arouses the suspicions of the jealous wife, firmly links
,
the two plots. The solution is kept somewhat in suspense ; but,
finally, with a belated touch of Petruchio's manner in taming his
shrew, Oakly breaks his wife's spirit.
Though the tide of sentimental drama was yet to reach its
height in Hugh Kelly and Cumberland, The Jealous Wife has
some foreshadowings of Sheridan's comic masterpieces. It inherits
something of the spirit, without the gross immorality, of restoration
comedy. The restoration contempt for the country and the
exaltation of good manners at the expense of good morals reappear
in Lady Freelove and Lord Trinket, as they do in Lady Teazle and
her scandal school. Lord Trinket’s French phrases have the familiar
Gallic affectation ; Lady Freelove, in action as in name, recalls a
;
stock restoration character; and Sir Harry Beagle's rough-and-
ready love-making somewhat resembles that of sailor Ben in
Congreve's Love for Love, with the lingo of the stable replacing
that of the sea? . Charles Oakly, with his easy morals, is an
earlier instance of a type more familiar in Charles Surface.
Captain O'Cutter, with his readiness for a duel without inquiry as
to its cause, suggests the Irish ancestry of Sir Lucius O'Trigger.
Though without Sheridan's brilliant wit and masterly dramatic
skill, Colman fashioned the rough materials of drama into
really popular comedy.
During the next two years, he produced successfully two
after-pieces, The Musical Lady and The Deuce is in Him, and
a revision of Philaster. With the collaboration of Garrick, he
rose again to genuine comedy in The Clandestine Marriage (1766).
Taking a hint from one of Hogarth’s plates in his Marriage-à-la-
Mode, and animating, at least, some characters said to have been
drawn from Townley's False Concord, Colman and Garrick pro-
duced a highly effective comedy. Lord Ogleby, a late connection
of the Fopling Flutters and Foppingtons of restoration comedy, is
a distinct character creation. In the illiterate Mrs Heidelberg,
some have sought the original of Mrs Malaprop, but there is a
decided difference between her blunders in pronunciation and
1 Advertisement to The Jealous Wife.
? Compare The Jealous Wife, act iv, scene 2, with Love for Love, act III,
scene 3.


## p. 91 (#117) #############################################

Chief Dramatic Features of the Period
91
Mrs Malaprop’s ‘select words so ingeniously misapplied, without
being mispronounced. '
After The Clandestine Marriage, Colman's theatrical record
continues for more than a score of years,
but without
any notable
contribution to original drama. During the seven years of his
management of Covent garden theatre (1767—74), he produced
various minor pieces of his own composition, ranging from comedy
to operetta. The credit attaching to his Shakespearean revivals
is lessened by his retention of a happy ending for King Lear, and
the honour of having produced The Good-Natur'd Man and She
Stoops to Conquer is clouded by the obstacles which he allowed
to obstruct Goldsmith's path'. Yet, as a member of the Literary
club, as a successful dramatist and manager, translator of Terence's
comedies, editor of the dramatic works of Beaumont and Fletcher
and writer of prologues and epilogues-among them the epilogue
to The School for Scandal—the elder Colman was a noteworthy
figure in the theatrical and literary world of the latter half of
the century.
The success of occasional comedies like The Jealous Wife and
The Clandestine Marriage did not, for the time being, seriously
check the popularity of sentimental drama. Six days before
Goldsmith's Good-Natur'd Man finally achieved its belated pro-
duction at Covent garden, Garrick triumphantly produced at
Drury lane Hugh Kelly's False Delicacy (1768). It was the clash
between sentimental comedy and an upstart rival, and for the
moment victory rested with the established favourite. In contrast
with the moderate favour accorded to Goldsmith's piece, False
Delicacy won a theatrical triumph. Three thousand copies of it
sold in a day, it was translated into several languages and was
acted with applause at Lisbon and Paris. False Delicacy is full
of the wise saws and modern instances of sentimental comedy.
One of its phrases, indeed, may be taken, not merely as Kelly's
own motto, but as the creed of sentimental drama—The stage
should be a school of morality. ' Two characters, Mrs Harley and
Cecil, afford some comic relief to the usual didactic banalities of
the dialogue. Yet the 'elevated minds of the chief personages
.
'
continue to deal in 'delicate absurdities' and to emit moral
platitudes until the final fall of the curtain.
Kelly's next comedy, A Word to the Wise (1770), despite its
sentimental appeal, was refused a fair hearing by his political
opponents and was driven off the stage. Clementina (1771), a dull
1 Cf. chap. IX, post.


## p. 92 (#118) #############################################

92
The Drama and the Stage
.
tragedy, was followed by a happier return to comedy, A School
for Wives (1773), which achieved five editions within two years,
and had various stage revivals during the next forty years. The
failure of a later comedy, The Man of Reason, marked the close
of Kelly's theatrical efforts. With Kelly, as with Richard Cumber-
land, dramatic probability is sacrificed on the altar of sentiment.
The development of English drama during the period reviewed
in the present chapter is too varied and complex to admit of
being summarised in a narrow formula. Yet, despite the diversity
of counter currents, the stream of sentimental drama runs strong
from Steele to Hugh Kelly and Richard Cumberland. Pantomime,
ballad-opera, burlesque and farce often oppose its progress. The
current of tragedy frequently flows from classical or Elizabethan
sources. The breath of the restoration spirit still, at times, ripples
the placid waters of formal comedy. Yet, moralised tragedy and
moralised comedy contribute alike to the stream of sentimental
drama. Even Lillo and Moore, who sturdily stemmed the tide
of conventional tragedy, were submerged in the waves of senti-
ment, and The Jealous Wife and The Clandestine Marriage
did not prevent the course of sentimental comedy from run-
ning smooth in Kelly's False Delicacy and Cumberland's West
Indian. Nevertheless, the undercurrent of reaction was gathering
strength. To the satirical attacks of burlesque upon sentimental
drama, Fielding had added his description in Tom Jones' of that
'very grave and solemn entertainment, without any low wit,
or humour, or jests,' in which there was not "anything which
could provoke a laugh. ' Goldsmith, who dared to challenge the
authority of the epithet 'low' with which critics were wont to
stigmatise comedy which was not 'genteel,' and who learned the
power of that 'single monosyllable' from the excision of his own
bailiffs' scene in The Good-Natur'd Man, was not to be daunted
in his attack upon this species of bastard tragedy' called senti-
mental drama. In his Essay on the Theatre; or, A Comparison
between Laughing and Sentimental Comedys, he put the pertinent
query : ‘Which deserves the preference,—the weeping sentimental
comedy so much in fashion at present, or the laughing, and even
low comedy, which seems to have been last exhibited by Vanbrugh
and Cibber? ' The answer was given in the comedies of Goldsmith
and of Sheridan,
1 Description of the puppet-show, The Provoked Husband, bk xii, chap. v.
? The Present State of Polite Learning, ed. 1759, p. 154.
3 The Westminster Magazine, December 1772.


## p. 93 (#119) #############################################

CHAPTER V
THOMSON AND NATURAL DESCRIPTION IN POETRY
>
In a general estimate of the poetry of the earlier half of the
eighteenth century, Thomson's work, from the exceptional character
of its subject, may, perhaps, be apt to receive undue prominence.
It called attention to a field of verse which his contemporaries,
absorbed in the study of man, in ethical reflection and moral satire,
had ceased to cultivate; it looked back with admiration to models
which were almost forgotten, and, through its influence on the
poetry of Collins and Gray, it lent impulse to the progress which
was to culminate in the romantic movement. On the other hand,
Thomson was not the champion of an opposition or the apostle of
a new order, contending against prejudices and destroying barriers.
In essential qualities of thought, he was at one with the taste of
bis day; and, if his talent was most happily exercised in the obser-
vation and delineation of nature, his point of view was the very
antithesis of that emotional treatment of the subject which marked
the ultimate revolt against the limitations of eighteenth century
convention.
James Thomson was born at Ednam in Roxburghshire, where
his father was parish minister, in September 1700. In the following
year, his father obtained the cure of Southdean, at the head of the
Jed valley, and here Thomson spent his boyhood. For some time,
he went to school in the abbey church of Jedburgh, and, in 1715,
he entered Edinburgh university, intending, as it seems, to become
a presbyterian minister. His early surroundings could hardly fail
to disclose to him the natural charms of a district which, seventy
years later, kindled the romantic imagination of Scott; and they
duly received Thomson's tribute when he wrote
The Tweed (pure Parent-stream,
Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed,
With, silvan Jed, thy tributary brook).
In these early experiments, which show little promise, he was
· The Seasons, Autumn, 11. 913—15.


## p. 94 (#120) #############################################

94 Thomson and Natural Description in Poetry
2
his verse.
encouraged by a neighbour, Robert Riccaltoun, the author of a
poem called Winter. At Edinburgh, Thomson's talents developed,
and, after coming to London in 1725, he had his own Winter
ready for publication in March 1726. About this time, he gave
up all intention of a clerical career, and devoted himself to poetry,
earning a stipend as tutor in various noble families. His friend
David Mallet was tutor in the household of the duke of Montrose;
and it was, probably, through him that Thomson obtained intro-
ductions which brought him into the society of possible patrons of
He spared no pains to make himself agreeable to the
kindly disposed Aaron Hill; and the prose dedications of the first
three Seasons, which were fortunately cancelled in later editions
in favour of lines inserted in the poem, are remarkable examples
of the effusiveness of bad taste. Winter soon reached a second
edition. Sir Spencer Compton, to whom it was inscribed, showed a
tardy gratitude for the compliment; but George Bubb Dodington,
the patron of Summer (1727), proved a more useful friend.
Thomson visited Dodington's seat Eastbury park, near Blandford ;
and the acquaintance thus formed probably led to his friendship
with George Lyttelton and to his adhesion to the political party
which supported the prince of Wales. Britannia (1729) eulogised
the prince and condemned Walpole's policy. In the printed
copies, this monologue is said to have been written in 1727. In
that year, Thomson dedicated his Poem sacred to the Memory of
Sir Isaac Newton to Walpole himself. The sincerity of the
patriotism which was laboriously expressed in Liberty cannot be
doubted; but the patronage of Walpole, had it rewarded Thomson's
advances, might have curbed his enthusiasm for an aggressive
policy.
Meanwhile, Spring, inscribed to Frances countess of Hertford,
appeared in 1728. Autumn, dedicated to Arthur Onslow, speaker
of the House of Commons, completed the collected edition, under
the title of The Seasons, in 1730. Thomson began his career as a
dramatist with Sophonisba (1729). Of his plays, more will be said
later: they have a special historical interest, in that, for the most
part, their choice of subject and outspoken treatment were directed
against the court party on behalf of the prince. In 1730, he went
abroad as travelling tutor to a son of Sir Charles Talbot, solicitor-
general and, afterwards, lord chancellor. He complained that the
muse did not cross the channel with him, and his ambitious poem
Liberty (1734–6), in which there are some touches due to his
foreign tour, confirms the accuracy of his judgment. Thrown out


## p. 95 (#121) #############################################

Thomson's Life and Literary Work
95
of employment by the death of his pupil in 1733, he received from
Talbot the sinecure secretaryship of briefs in chancery. He could
afford, on the failure of Liberty, to cancel generously his bargain with
the publisher, and, in 1736, to retire to a small house at Richmond,
where he was able to enjoy the society of Pope and other friends.
In these circumstances, he made a thorough revision of The Seasons,
the fruits of which are seen in the transformed text of 1744. A
copy of the 1738 edition in the British museum proves that he
sought and took the advice of a friend whose poetical skill was
considerable ; but whether this helper, as has been assumed, was
Pope or another, is a question upon which experts in handwriting
differ. The new text, while omitting a certain amount which may
be regretted, bears testimony to a judicious pruning of florid
diction; and passages hitherto enervated by excess of colour
gained in vigour what they lost in diffuseness. The poem, however, ,
was lengthened by the insertion of new matter, much of which
increased its general value. One personal feature of these additions
is the introduction of references to Amanda, the subject, also, of
the graceful lyric 'Unless with my Amanda blest. ' Too much may
be made of attachments expressed in verse; but there is no
doubt of Thomson's genuine affection for Elizabeth Young, a
sister-in-law of his friend Robertson, and this fact may be set
against one side of the charge of sensuality imputed to him by
Johnson, probably on the untrustworthy information of Savage.
The Castle of Indolence, published in May 1748, after a long period
of elaborate revision, may stand as the personal confession of a poet
whose industry was not proof against his love of ease and luxury.
Thomson's later days were not without reverses of fortune. The
story of his arrest for debt and delivery from the spunging-house by
Quin the actor may be a legend; but he lost his sinecure after
Talbot's death in 1737, through negligence (so it is said) in applying
for its renewal. Through the instrumentality of Lyttelton, who
was one of the lords of the treasury, he obtained the surveyorship-
general of the Leeward islands, a sinecure well suited to a poet
who had often surveyed the phenomena of nature from the pole
to the tropics in his easy chair. A pension from the prince of
Wales, who had received the dedication of Liberty and about 1737
heard from Thomson that his affairs were “in a more poetical
posture than formerly,' was stopped when Lyttelton fell into dis-
grace with the prince. This was not long before Thomson's death.
One evening in the summer of 1748, after a journey by boat from
Hammersmith to Richmond, he was attacked by a chill. A short


## p. 96 (#122) #############################################

96
Thomson and Natural Description in Poetry
recovery was followed by a relapse, and he died on 27 August. His
tragedy Coriolanus was produced during the next year: the story
of the emotion shown by Quin in the delivery of the prologue is a
testimony to the affection which Thomson inspired in his friends.
The body of Thomson's poetry, excluding the dramas, is not
large, and, historically, The Seasons is his most important poem.
Its form of The Seasons was suggested by the example of Vergil's
Georgics: Thomson expressly reminds his readers of the similarity
of his themes to those of Vergil', of whom he imitated more than
one famous passage? In this respect, he had a conspicuous fore-
runner in John Philips, author of Cyder, and it is impossible to
overlook the debt which Thomson owed to the older writer.
Philips was an imitator of Milton's poetic manner, and it may
have been through Philips's poetry that Thomson first felt that
Miltonic influence which moulded his style and the characteristic
shape of his phrases. Johnson, it is true, denied the influence of
Milton upon Thomson :
As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode of
thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no
more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior
are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own
growth, without transcription, without imitation 3.
This criticism can be justified only to a limited extent.