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A Book of the Play by Dutton Cook

D >> Dutton Cook >> A Book of the Play




Moreover, the Chamberlain had arrogated to himself the right of
interfering in dramatic affairs upon all occasions that he judged
fitting. Upon his authority the theatres were closed at any moment,
even for a period of six weeks, in the case of the death of the
sovereign. If any disputes occurred between managers and actors, even
in relation to so small a matter as the privileges of the latter, the
Chamberlain interfered to arrange the difficulty according to his own
notion of justice. No actor could quit the company of one patent
theatre, to join the forces of the other, without the permission of
the Chamberlain, in addition to the formal discharge of his manager.
Powell, the actor, even suffered imprisonment on this account,
although it was thought as well, after a day or two, to abandon the
proceedings that had been taken against him. "Upon this occasion,"
says Cibber, with a mysterious air, and in very involved terms,
"behind the scenes at Drury Lane, a person of great quality, in my
hearing, inquiring of Powell into the nature of his offence ... told
him, that if he had patience, or spirit enough to have stayed in his
confinement till he had given him notice of it, he would have found
him a handsomer way of coming out of it!" Of the same actor, Powell,
it is recorded that he once, at Will's Coffee House, "in a dispute
about playhouse affairs, struck a gentleman whose family had been some
time masters of it." A complaint of the actor's violence was lodged at
the Chamberlain's office, and Powell having a part in the play
announced for performance upon the following day, an order was sent to
silence the whole company, and to close the theatre, although it was
admitted that the managers had been without cognisance of their
actor's misconduct! "However," Cibber narrates, "this order was
obeyed, and remained in force for two or three days, till the same
authority was pleased, or advised, to revoke it. From the measures
this injured gentleman took for his redress, it may be judged how far
it was taken for granted that a Lord Chamberlain had an absolute power
over the theatre." An attempt, however, upon the authority of the
Chamberlain to imprison Dogget, the actor, for breach of his
engagement with the patentees of Drury Lane Theatre, met with signal
discomfiture. Dogget forthwith applied to the Lord Chief Justice Holt
for his discharge under the Habeas Corpus Act, and readily obtained
it, with, it may be gathered, liberal compensation for the violence to
which he had been subjected.

The proceedings of the Lord Chamberlain had, indeed, become most
oppressive. Early in 1720, the Duke of Newcastle, then Lord
Chamberlain, took upon himself to close Drury Lane Theatre. Steele,
then one of the patentees, addressed the public upon the subject. He
had lived in friendship with the duke; he owed his seat in Parliament
to the duke's influence. He commenced with saying: "The injury which I
have received, great as it is, has nothing in it so painful as that it
comes from whence it does. When I complained of it in a private letter
to the Chamberlain, he was pleased to send his secretary to me with a
message to forbid me writing, speaking, corresponding, or applying to
him in any manner whatsoever. Since he has been pleased to send an
English gentleman a banishment from his person and counsels in a style
thus royal, I doubt not but that the reader will justify me in the
method I take to explain this matter to the town." Steele could obtain
no redress, however. He was virtually dispossessed of his rights as
patentee. He estimated his loss at nine thousand eight hundred pounds,
and concluded his statement of the case with the words: "But it is
apparent the King is grossly and shamelessly injured ... I never did
one act to provoke this attempt, nor does the Chamberlain pretend to
assign any direct reason of forfeiture, but openly and wittingly
declares that he will ruin Steele.... The Lord Chamberlain and many
others may, perhaps, have done more for the House of Hanover than I
have, but I am the only man in his majesty's dominions, who did all he
could." For some months Steele was replaced by other patentees, of
whom Cibber was one, more submissive to "the lawful monarch of the
stage," as Dennis designated the Chamberlain; but in 1721, upon the
intervention of Walpole, Steele was restored to his privileges. It is
not clear, however, that he took any legal measures to obtain
compensation for the wrong done him. Cibber is silent upon the
subject; because, it has been suggested, the Chamberlain had been
instrumental in obtaining him the appointment of poet laureate, which
could hardly have devolved upon him in right of his poetic
qualifications.

Nevertheless, Cibber had been active in organising a form of
opposition to the authority of the Chamberlain and the Master of the
Revels, which, although it seemed of a trifling kind, had yet its
importance. For it turned upon the question of fees. The holders of
the patents considered themselves sole judges of the plays proper to
be acted in their theatres. The Master of the Revels claimed his fee
of forty shillings for each play produced. The managers, it seems,
were at liberty to represent new plays without consulting him, and to
spare him the trouble of reading the same--provided always they paid
him his fees. But these they now thought it expedient to withhold from
him. Cibber was deputed to attend the Master of the Revels, and to
inquire into the justice of his demand, with full powers to settle the
dispute amicably. Charles Killigrew at this time filled the office,
having succeeded his father Thomas, who had obtained the appointment
of Master of the Revels upon the death of Sir Henry Herbert in 1673.
Killigrew could produce no warrant for his demand. Cibber concluded
with telling him that "as his pretensions were not backed with any
visible instrument of right, and as his strongest plea was custom, the
managers could not so far extend their complaisance as to continue the
payment of fees upon so slender a claim to them." From that time
neither their plays nor his fees gave either party any further
trouble. In 1725 Killigrew was succeeded as Master of the Revels by
Charles Henry Lea, who for some years continued to exercise "such
authority as was not opposed, and received such fees as he could find
the managers willing to pay."

The first step towards legislation in regard to the theatres and the
licensing of plays was made in 1734, when Sir John Barnard moved the
House of Commons "for leave to bring in a bill for restraining the
number of houses for playing of interludes and for the better
regulating common players of interludes." It was represented that
great mischief had been done in the city of London by the playhouses:
youth had been corrupted, vice encouraged, trade and industry
prejudiced. Already the number of theatres in London was double that
of Paris. In addition to the opera-house, the French playhouse in the
Haymarket, and the theatres in Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Lincoln's
Inn Fields, and Goodman's Fields, there was now a project to erect a
new playhouse in St. Martin's-le-Grand. It was no less surprising than
shameful to see so great a change in the temper and inclination of the
British people; "we now exceeded in levity even the French themselves,
from whom we learned these and many other ridiculous customs, as much
unsuitable to the mien and manners of an Englishman or a Scot, as they
were agreeable to the air and levity of a Monsieur." Moreover, it was
remarked that, to the amazement and indignation of all Europe, Italian
singers received here "set salaries equal to those of the Lords of the
Treasury and Judges of England!" The bill was duly brought in, but was
afterwards dropped, "on account of a clause offered to be inserted ...
for enlarging the power of the Lord Chamberlain with respect to the
licensing of plays." It is curious to find that Tony Aston, a popular
comedian of the time, who had been bred an attorney, was, upon his own
petition, permitted to deliver a speech in the House of Commons
against Sir John Barnard's bill.

But two years later the measure was substantially passed into law. The
theatres had certainly given in the meantime serious provocation to
the authorities. The power of the Chamberlain and the Master of the
Revels had been derided. Playhouses were opened and plays produced
without any kind of license. At the Haymarket, under the management of
Fielding, who styled his actors "The Great Mogul's Comedians," the
bills announcing that they had "dropped from the clouds" (in mockery,
probably, of "His Majesty's Servants" at Drury Lane, or of another
troop describing themselves as "The Comedians of His Majesty's
Revels"), the plays produced had been in the nature of political
lampoons. Walpole and his arts of government were openly satirised,
Fielding having no particular desire to spare the prime minister,
whose patronage he had vainly solicited. In the play entitled
"Pasquin, a Dramatic Satire on the Times; being the rehearsal of two
plays, viz., a Comedy, called The Election, and a Tragedy, called the
Life and Death of Common Sense," the satire was chiefly aimed at the
electoral corruptions of the age, the abuses prevailing in the learned
professions, and the servility of place-men who derided public virtue,
and denied the existence of political honesty. "Pasquin," it may be
noted, was received with extraordinary favour, enjoyed a run of fifty
nights, and proved a source of both fame and profit to its author. But
the play of "The Historical Register of 1736," produced in the spring
of 1737, contained allusions of a more pointed and personal kind, and
gravely offended the government. Indeed, the result could hardly have
been otherwise. Walpole himself was brought upon the stage, and under
the name of Quidam violently caricatured. He was exhibited silencing
noisy patriots with bribes, and then joining with them in a dance--the
proceedings being explained by Medley, another of the characters,
supposed to be an author: "Sir, every one of these patriots has a hole
in his pocket, as Mr. Quidam the fiddler there knows; so that he
intends to make them dance till all the money has fallen through,
which he will pick up again, and so not lose a halfpenny by his
generosity!" The play, indeed, abounded in satire of the boldest kind,
in witty and unsparing invective; as the biographer of Fielding
acknowledges, there was much in the work "well calculated both to
offend and alarm a wary minister of state." Soon both "Pasquin" and
"The Historical Register" were brought under the notice of the
Cabinet. Walpole felt "that it would be inexpedient to allow the stage
to become the vehicle of anti-ministerial abuse." The Licensing Act
was resolved upon.

The new measure was not avowedly aimed at Fielding, however. It was
preceded by incidents of rather a suspicious kind. Gifford, the
manager of Goodman's Fields Theatre, professing to have received from
some anonymous writer a play of singular scurrility, carried the work
to the prime minister. The obsequious manager was rewarded with one
thousand pounds for his patriotic conduct, and the libellous nature of
the play he had surrendered was made the excuse for the legislation
that ensued. It was freely observed at the time, however, that Gifford
had profited more by suppressing the play than he could possibly have
gained by representing it, and that there was something more than
natural in the appositeness of his receipt of it. If honest, it was
suggested that he had been trapped by a government spy, who had sent
him the play, solely that he might deal with it as he did; but it was
rather assumed that he had disingenuously curried favour with the
authorities, and sold himself for treasury gold. The play in question
was never acted or printed; nor was the name of the author, or of the
person from whom the manager professed to have received it, ever
disclosed. Horace Walpole, indeed, boldly ascribed it to Fielding, and
asserted that he had discovered among his father's papers an imperfect
copy of the play. But the statement has not obtained much acceptance.

The ministry hurried on their Licensing Bill. It was entitled "An Act
to explain and amend so much of an Act made in the twelfth year of
Queen Anne, entitled 'An Act for reducing the laws relating to rogues,
vagabonds, sturdy beggars, and vagrants, into one Act of Parliament;
and for a more effectual punishing such rogues, vagabonds, sturdy
beggars, and vagrants, and sending them whither they ought to be
sent,' as relates to common players of interludes." But its chief
object--undisclosed by its title, was the enactment that, for the
future, every dramatic piece, including prologues and epilogues,
should, previous to performance, receive the license of the Lord
Chamberlain, and that, without his permission, no London theatre,
unprotected by a patent, should open its doors. Read a first time on
the 24th of May, 1737, the bill was passed through both Houses with
such despatch that it received the royal assent on the 8th of June
following. It was opposed in the House of Commons by Mr. Pulteney, and
in the House of Lords by the Earl of Chesterfield, whose impressive
speech on the occasion is one of the few specimens that survive of the
parliamentary eloquence of the period. With the passing of the
Licensing Act, Fielding's career as manager and dramatist was brought
to a close. He was constrained to devote himself to the study of the
law, and subsequently to the production of novels. And with the
passing of the Licensing Act terminated the existence of the Master
of the Revels; the Act, indeed, made no mention of him, ignored him
altogether. He survived, however, under another name--still as the
Chamberlain's subordinate and deputy. Thence forward he was known as
the Licenser of Playhouses and Examiner of Plays.




CHAPTER III.

THE LICENSER OF PLAYHOUSES.


The Act of 1737 for licensing plays, playhouses, and players, and
legalising the power the Lord Chamberlain had long been accustomed to
exercise, although readily passed by both Houses of Parliament, gave
great offence to the public. The Abbe Le Blanc, who was visiting
England at this period, describes the new law as provoking a
"universal murmur in the nation." It was openly complained of in the
newspapers; at the coffee-houses it was denounced as unjust and
"contrary to the liberties of the people of England." Fear prevailed
that the freedom of the press would next be invaded. In the House of
Lords Chesterfield had stigmatised the measure both as an encroachment
on liberty and an attack on property. "Wit, my lords," he said, "is a
sort of property. It is the property of those that have it, and too
often the only property they have to depend on. It is, indeed; but a
precarious dependence. Thank God, we, my lords, have a dependence of
another kind. We have a much less precarious support, and, therefore,
cannot feel the inconveniences of the bill now before us; but it is
our duty to encourage and protect wit, whosoever's property it may be....
I must own I cannot easily agree to the laying of a tax upon wit;
but by this bill it is to be heavily taxed--it is to be excised; for
if this bill passes, it cannot be retailed in a proper way without a
permit; and the Lord Chamberlain is to have the honour of being chief
gauger, supervisor, commissioner, judge and jury." At this time,
however, it is to be noted that parliamentary reporting was forbidden
by both Houses. The general public, therefore, knew little of Lord
Chesterfield's eloquent defence of the liberty of the stage.

The Act was passed in June, when the patent theatres, according to
custom, were closed for the summer. Some two months after their
reopening in the autumn all dramatic representations were suspended
for six weeks, in consequence of the death of Queen Caroline. In
January was presented at Covent Garden "A Nest of Plays," as the
author, one Hildebrand Jacob, described his production: a combination
of three short plays, each consisting of one act only, entitled
respectively, "The Prodigal Reformed," "Happy Constancy," and "The
Trial of Conjugal Love." The performance met with a very unfavourable
reception. The author attributed the ill success of his work to its
being the first play licensed by the authority of the Lord Chamberlain
under the new bill, many spectators having predetermined to silence,
under any circumstances, "the first fruits of that Act of Parliament."
And this seems, indeed, to have been the case. The Abbe Le Blanc, who
was present on the occasion, writes: "The best play in the world would
not have succeeded that night. There was a disposition to damn
whatever might appear. The farce in question was damned, indeed,
without the least compassion. Nor was that all, for the actors were
driven off the stage, and happy was it for the author that he did not
fall into the hands of this furious assembly." And the Abbe proceeds
to explain that the originators of this disturbance were not
"schoolboys, apprentices, clerks, or mechanics," but lawyers, "a body
of gentlemen perhaps less honoured, but certainly more feared here
than they are in France," who, "from living in colleges (Inns of
Court), and from conversing always with one another, mutually preserve
a spirit of independency through the body, and with great ease form
cabals.... At Paris the cabals of the pit are only among young
fellows, whose years may excuse their folly, or persons of the meanest
education and stamp; here they are the fruit of deliberation in a very
grave body of people, who are not less formidable to the minister in
place than to the theatrical writers." But the Abbe relates that on a
subsequent occasion, when another new play having been announced, he
had looked for further disturbance, the judicious dramatist of the
night succeeded in calming the pit by administering in his prologue a
double dose of incense to their vanity. "Half-an-hour before the play
was to begin the spectators gave notice of their dispositions by
frightful hisses and outcries, equal, perhaps, to what were ever heard
at a Roman amphitheatre." The author, however, having in part tamed
this wild audience by his flattery, secured ultimately its absolute
favour by humouring its prejudices after the grossest fashion. He
brought upon the stage a figure "with black eyebrows, a ribbon of an
ell long under his chin, a bag-peruke immoderately powdered, and his
nose all bedaubed with snuff. What Englishman could not know a
Frenchman by this ridiculous figure?" The Frenchman was presently
shown to be, for all the lace down every seam of his coat, nothing but
a cook, and then followed severe satire and criticism upon the manners
and customs of France. "The excellence and virtues of English beef
were extolled, and the author maintained that it was owing to the
qualities of its juice that the English were so courageous and had
such a solidity of understanding, which raised them above all the
nations in Europe; he preferred the noble old English pudding beyond
all the finest ragouts that ever were invented by the greatest
geniuses that France ever produced." These "ingenious strokes" were
loudly applauded by the audience, it seems, who, in their delight at
the abuse lavished upon the French, forgot that they came to condemn
the play and to uphold the ancient liberties of the stage. From that
time forward, the Abbe states, "the law was executed without the least
trouble; all the plays since have been quietly heard, and either
succeeded or not according to their merits."

When Garrick visited Paris he declined to be introduced to the Abbe Le
Blanc, "on account of the irreverence with which he had treated
Shakespeare." There can, indeed, be no doubt that the Abbe, although
he wrote amusing letters, was a very prejudiced person, and his
evidence and opinions touching the English stage must be received with
caution. So far as can be ascertained, especially by study of the
"History of the Stage" (compiled by that industrious clergyman, Mr.
Genest, from the playbills in the British Museum), but few new plays
were produced in the course of the season immediately following the
passing of the Licensing Act; certainly no new play can be found
answering the description furnished by the Abbe with due regard to the
period he has fixed for its production. Possibly he referred to the
"Beaux' Stratagem," in which appear a French officer and an
Irish-French priest, and which was certainly represented some few
nights after the condemnation of Mr. Jacob's "Nest of Plays."
Farquhar's comedy was then thirty years old, however. Nor has the Abbe
done full justice to the public opposition offered to the Licensing
Act. At the Haymarket Theatre a serious riot occurred in October,
1738, fifteen months after the passing of the measure. Closed against
the English actors the theatre was opened by a French company, armed
with a license from the Lord Chamberlain. A comedy, called "L'Embarras
de Richesses," was announced for representation "by authority." The
house was crowded immediately after the opening of the doors. But the
audience soon gave evidence of their sentiments by singing in chorus
"The Roast Beef of Old England." Then followed loud huzzas and general
tumult. Deveil, one of the Justices of the Peace for Westminster, who
was present, declared the proceedings to be riotous, and announced his
intention to maintain the King's authority. He stated, further, that
it was the King's command that the play should be acted, and that all
offenders would be immediately secured by the guards in waiting. In
opposition to the magistrate it was maintained "that the audience had
a legal right to show their dislike to any play or actor; that the
judicature of the pit had been acquiesced in, time immemorial; and as
the present set of actors were to take their fate from the public,
they were free to receive them as they pleased." When the curtain drew
up the actors were discovered standing between two files of
grenadiers, with their bayonets fixed and resting on their firelocks.
This seeming endeavour to secure the success of French acting by the
aid of British bayonets still more infuriated the audience. Even
Justice Deveil thought it prudent to order the withdrawal of the
military. The actors attempted to speak, but their voices were
overborne by hisses, groans, and "not only catcalls, but all the
various portable instruments that could make a disagreeable noise." A
dance was next essayed; but even this had been provided against:
showers of peas descended upon the stage, and "made capering very
unsafe." The French and Spanish Ambassadors, with their ladies, who
had occupied the stage-box, now withdrew, only to be insulted outside
the theatre by the mob, who had cut the traces of their carriages. The
curtain at last fell, and the attempt to present French plays at the
Haymarket was abandoned, "the public being justly indignant that
whilst an arbitrary Act suppressed native talent, foreign adventurers
should be patronised and encouraged." It must be said, however, that
the French actors suffered for sins not their own, and that the wrath
of the public did not really reach the Lord Chamberlain, or effect any
change in the Licensing Act.

For twenty years the Haymarket remained without a license of any
endurance. The theatre was occasionally opened, however, for brief
seasons, by special permission of the Chamberlain, or in defiance of
his authority, many ingenious subterfuges being resorted to, so that
the penalties imposed by the Act might be evaded. One of the
advertisements ran--"At Cibber's Academy, in the Haymarket, will be a
concert, after which will be exhibited (gratis) a rehearsal, in form
of a play, called Romeo and Juliet." Macklin, the actor, opened the
theatre in 1744, and under the pretence of instructing "unfledged
performers" in "the science of acting," gave a variety of dramatic
representations. It was expressly announced that no money would be
taken at the doors, "nor any person admitted but by printed tickets,
which will be delivered by Mr. Macklin, at his house in Bow Street,
Covent Garden." At one of these performances Samuel Foote made his
first appearance upon the stage, sustaining the part of Othello.
Presently, Foote ventured to give upon the stage of the Haymarket, a
monologue entertainment, called "Diversions of a Morning." At the
instance of Lacy, however, one of the patentees of Drury Lane Theatre,
whom Foote had satirised, the performance was soon prohibited. But
Foote was not easily discouraged; and, by dint of wit and impudence,
for some time baffled the authorities. He invited his friends to
attend the theatre, at noon, and "drink a dish of chocolate with him."
He promised that he would "endeavour to make the morning as diverting
as possible;" and notified that "Sir Dilbury Diddle would be there,
and Lady Betty Frisk had absolutely promised." Tickets, without which
no person would be admitted, were to be obtained at George's Coffee
House, Temple Bar. Some simple visitors, no doubt, expected that
chocolate would be really served to them. But the majority were
content with an announcement from the stage that, while chocolate was
preparing, Mr. Foote would, with the permission of his friends,
proceed with his instruction of certain pupils he was educating in the
art of acting. Under this pretence a dramatic representation was
really given, and repeated on some forty occasions. Then he grew
bolder, and opened the theatre in the evening, at the request, as he
stated, "of several persons who are desirous of spending an hour with
Mr. Foote, but find the time inconvenient." Instead of chocolate in
the morning, Mr. Foot's friends were therefore invited to drink "a
dish of tea" with him at half-past six in the evening. By-and-by, his
entertainment was slightly varied, and described as an Auction of
Pictures. Eventually, Foote obtained from the Duke of Devonshire, the
Lord Chamberlain, a permanent license for the theatre, and the
Haymarket took rank as a regular and legal place of entertainment, to
be open, however, only during the summer months. Upon Foote's decease,
the theatre devolved upon George Colman, who obtained a continuance of
the license.

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