English drama of the restoration and eighteenth century (1642-1780)

Front matter

ex '/ o u '

fr* ^

\0 ^ -~ tf> %

Preface

Despite the activity of research in the general field of English drama, and the marked growth of critical interest in its contemporary aspects, little heed has yet been given to certain earlier periods of modern English drama which help to explain its later development. For the most part, students of English dramatic history have preferred even the by-paths and meanders of Elizabethan drama to the maintravelled roads that lead onward from the eighteenth century. In one of the bibliographical notes in his admirable volume entitled Tragedy, Professor A. H. Thorndike puts the case tersely : ' Ward's History of Dramatic Literature ends with the death of Queen Anne; and there is no adequate history of the English drama for the last two centuries, and no good bibliography.' So vigorously, indeed, have almost all the fields of English literature been cultivated, that it is doubtful whether there now remains any other equally neglected area comparable in breadth with that clearly suggested by Professor Thorndike. His own concluding chapters, though confined to tragedy, form, in fact, one of the few significant contributions toward the broader critical investigation which must review the whole course of modern English dramatic development.

The present volume owes its origin to a plan, formulated some dozen years ago, to continue, though

Vili PREFACE

on a lesser scale, the history of English drama from the point where it was abandoned by Doctor — now Sir — Adolphus W. Ward. So intimate, however, are the relations between eighteenth-century drama and that of the Restoration, that it soon became advisable to include the earlier period, and ultimately to revert even to the dramatic interregnum which in reality links, while it seems to separate, Restoration and Elizabethan drama. In this way, it is hoped, the continuous development of modern English drama has been more clearly emphasized, and the necessary background for later critical discussion more definitely supplied. The present volume, accordingly, deals with the entire period from the closing of the theatres in 1642 to the culmination of eighteenth-century drama in Sheridan. A subsequent volume, for which the material is largely in hand, will continue the record from about 1780 through the nineteenth century.

The aim of this work has been rather to ascertain the actual course of English drama than to warp its often discordant facts into conformity with a preconceived theory of dramatic evolution. Almost from the outset, in fact, it became necessary to discard many of the traditional assumptions of dramatic criticism. Even in the case of Restoration drama, which has received far greater critical attention than has hitherto been given to that of the eighteenth century, investigation has disclosed much that fails to harmonize with some of the articles prescribed by an earlier critical creed. Yet the tone of this work has not consciously been controversial. Throughout the main text and the Bibliographical Notes it has seemed

PREFACE IX

preferable to emphasize the more trustworthy sources of information rather than to expose the shortcomings of unreliable works. Corrections of errors not infrequently detected even in many standard sources of reference have usually been made without comment. Even in the single detail of determining the dates of stage production of plays, full controversial evidence would have far exceeded the limits, as well as the purpose, of this volume. In the interest of accuracy, the Bibliographical Notes and footnotes supply definite information as to specific texts and editions cited, and the means of verifying statements of fact have been freely supplied even at the risk that the author may become an ' enginer hoist with his own petar.' It would be difficult to exaggerate the difficulties of accurate investigation, especially in those eighteenth-century theatrical records which reflect the careless gossip, anecdote, and reminiscences of the green-room. The effort to reduce the chances of error has included a checking at the British Museum and Bodleian Libraries of the entire proof, independent of the manuscript, and a similar rechecking of the page proof, so far as possible, at the Yale University Library. Yet I can hardly hope to have avoided all the pitfalls of the way, especially where it has often been overgrown with long neglect.

In a work which has spread over many years and over so broad a field, it is impossible to acknowledge fully the many debts constantly incurred. Yet by far my deepest obligation is to Sir Adolphus W. Ward. The extent to which all students of the drama are dependent on his History of English Dramatic Literature can best be realized by one who

X PREFACE

fares forth on the unfrequented seas of eighteenth-century English drama, deprived of the friendly charts that have thus far safeguarded him. My personal debt, however, exceeds the common measure of obligation to Doctor Ward's scholarship. From his first generous endorsement of my general plan, his friendly counsel has been unfailing. During the past three or four years he has followed the entire work with stimulating and suggestive annotation of the manuscript, and with a constant and cordial encouragement which can here be acknowledged but imperfectly. It is a pleasant privilege, also, to recognize a deep and long-standing indebtedness to Professor Henry A. Beers of Yale. Many of the critical views here expressed were essentially derived from a graduate course under his direction, and doubtless these definite obligations are enlarged by many unconscious reminiscences of his thought or phrase. To other colleagues at Yale I am indebted in various ways — in particular, to Professor Cross, for reviewing in proof the chapter on Fielding, and to Mr. Andrew Keogh, of the Yale University Library, for frequent and unwearying assistance. Much of this work would have been impossible without constant access to the British Museum and Bodleian Libraries, and its progress has been greatly furthered by the courteous aid of various officials at these places, and at the Cambridge University Library and the Bibliotheque Nationale.

This work is essentially based on original texts and documents. In the earlier drafts of the manuscript, quotations from plays or theatrical documents were regularly taken from the original texts, but

PREFACE Xi

since imperfections of typography and of scene division often involved correction or elaborate textual annotation, it seemed better eventually to modify a method of reference often inconvenient to the reader, and to utilize, to the extent indicated in the Bibliographical Notes, certain generally accessible modern critical editions and reprints. Dates of plays given in the main text are habitually those of their stage production, and have largely been determined through contemporary newspapers, magazines, playbills, and other definite records, such as authentic dated letters and diaries. These dates, it should be noted, often do not coincide with those of the first printed editions. Contemporary works of general character, such as memoirs, theatrical histories, and even autobiographies, have often proved very unreliable, but the best of them have supplied much valuable material. Though the present work is but incidentally concerned with questions of individual biography, the Dictionary of National Biography has proved of much assistance. Its statements have been largely verified, however, by independent investigation of early records, and some minor inaccuracies have thus been corrected. The Bibliographical Notes and the footnotes to the main text supply references to works consulted in the preparation of this volume, and indicate, at least to a considerable degree, those that have proved especially useful. Many of the works listed have contributed, at most, only indirectly to the present pages, but I wish to acknowledge as fully and as cordially as possible the investigations of previous writers. It would be idle to claim acquaintance with every work bearing on any part of the wide range of dramatic xii PREFACE

literature and theatrical history here discussed, but I have sought to acquaint myself as far as possible with the results of modern critical study as well as with the contemporary literature of the various periods.

There remains one matter in which a personal reference seems unavoidable. Some of the results of my investigation of eighteenth-century drama have already been formally presented. The Major Dramas of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, published in the Athenceum Press Series in 1906, gives a much more detailed study of Sheridan and his relation to English drama than suits the proportions of the present work. It has seemed unnecessary to reproduce here the references and bibliographical data there accessible. For the tenth volume (191 3) of The Cambridge History of English Literature, I prepared the fourth chapter, entitled 'The Drama and the Stage.' This section reviews the general aspects of Queen Anne drama and continues the critical account of eighteenth-century drama down to Goldsmith and Sheridan. Naturally, no essential modification of general viewpoints was possible, and a certain amount of duplication has been inevitable. That the work for the Cambridge History was undertaken at Doctor Ward's request, after he had in hand the manuscript of the present book, may account for my assumption of a dual r61e. Numerous differences in the selection and arrangement of the common material available for critical use, together with the marked distinction between the more extensive method of bibliography permitted in the Cambridge History and the more selective method in the present Bibliographical Notes,

PREFACE xiii

make these two works, it is hoped, supplementary rather than identical in character. Yet even if the history of eighteenth-century English drama has, in any sense, become a twice-told tale, I trust that the retelling of a much neglected story may find some listeners as generous as the kindly critic who has befriended both versions, and to whom I am privileged to inscribe this volume.

Yale University, 1 November, 1913

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Contrasts between Elizabethan and Restoration Drama i

II. The Dramatic Interregnum, i 642-1 660 . 14 III. The Beginnings of Restoration Drama and

Chapter I Contrasts Between Elizabethan And Restoration Drama

Modern English drama may be said to begin with the Restoration of 1660. The term ' modern' admits various definitions, but a convenient distinction may be made between the earlier period of English drama ending with the closing of the theatres, in 1642, and the more modern period beginning, formally, with the creation of the Patent Theatres, under Charles II. The history of a literature is, indeed, too continuous to permit rigid division into precise periods. Even the interregnum when theatres were under Puritan ban does not, in reality, break a continuous dramatic tradition. The doors that closed against the earlier drama reopened to admit its reentrance to the boards. Yet never has the course of English drama been interrupted so decisively as during the years when theatres were closed and drama underwent almost total eclipse. The ordinance of 2 September, 1642, which decreed that 'publike Stage-Playes shall cease, and bee forborne,' * marked, rather than caused, the end of that great dramatic era which had risen to full height in Shakespeare and had already lapsed into literary and

1 Facsimile reprint in Joseph Knight's edition, 1886, of Roscius Anglicanus; Journals of the House of Lords, V, 336.

B I moral decadence. The wave of creative power had well-nigh spent itself before reaching the barrier set up to arrest its progress. Originality had yielded largely to conventionality. There was dearth of poetry and excess of rhetoric. Comedy portrayed manners rather than the man. Tragedy sullied itself with gross passion and lust. Furthermore, the tragedy of blood on the mimic stage was destined to give way to the actual tragedy of civil war. Even before the formal suppression of the theatres, the Master of the Revels found his occupation gone, for his register closed with the significant entry: 'Here ended my allowance of plaies, for the war began in Aug. 1642.' *

The years between 1642 and 1660 formed a virtual, but not absolute, interregnum in the history of the drama and of the theatre. Closer examination of the actual conditions prevalent during the period will presently show that, despite severe threats of the law, the drama maintained a semblance of life. It had, however, no genuine vitality. With the creation of two companies of actors, under letters patent issued by Charles II, 21 August, 1660, and with the establishment of the two 'Patent Theatres/ the period of modern English drama may be said to have been inaugurated. It will be important hereafter to emphasize constantly the essential continuity of English dramatic development. It is, perhaps, equally important, at the outset, to review broadly, even at the risk of repeating familiar facts, some of

1 Sir Henry Herbert's ' Office-book,' cited in Malone's Shakspeare, 1790 edition, Vol. I, Part II, p. 237.

the salient differences between earlier English drama and that which begins with the Restoration.

Even in the mechanism of stage presentation, the Restoration theatre is distinct from its Elizabethan predecessor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider here the disputed questions of Elizabethan scenery and of the sporadic appearances of actresses in England before the Restoration. It is enough to recognize that the general adoption of movable scenery and the regular employment of women as actors are noteworthy departures from the~habitual usages of the Elizabethan stage. These and similar changes which affected primarily the theatrical manager or producer were not, to be sure, without direct influence upon the dramatist. The playwright is never independent of the conditions of actual stage production. Yet superficial differences between the Elizabethan and Restoration stages are less striking than fundamental differences in the drama they presented. How far the old order of drama changed in yielding place to new may be suggested by some general contrasts drawn between Elizabethan and Restoration drama.

It is a commonplace of criticism that the Elizabethan age is creative, the Restoration critical. In an uncreative age, criticism and satire become prominent. Dryden, the most commanding figure of Restoration drama, was less dramatist than critic and satirist. Broadly speaking, Elizabethan drama is spontaneous and original, Restoration drama artificial and imitative. Elizabethan comedy at its height is creative ; Restoration comedy at its best is imitative of the fashions and follies of the beau monde. The one notably interprets character, the other chiefly reproduces characteristics. Between Falstaff and Sir Fopling Flutter is the difference between a masterly portrait and an admirable photograph. Again, the Elizabethans were impatient of artificial restraints. Shakespeare violated the dramatic unities ; Dryden advocated them, even if his practice did not always square with his precept. The Elizabethans were fond of blending tragedy with comedy; the Restoration playwrights usually inclined to separate them. The Elizabethans adapted freely materials from various sources, but their Restoration followers often borrowed manner as well as matter from Continental models. Restoration drama, in a word, lacks the spontaneity and originality of Elizabethan drama — imitates rather than creates — recognizes, even though it does not follow implicitly, conventional rules.

No less marked is the contrast between Elizabethan and Restoration drama in breadth of scope. The former is national, the latter local. Shakespeare sounds the whole gamut of life, but the comic dramatists of the Restoration repeat the notes of fashion, frivolity, and vice. Comedy in Dryden's age represents primarily only the life of the court. Hero and heroine know the world, but the world- is London. The 1 country ' becomes a term of banishment with which to threaten wives not clever enough to hoodwink their husbands. Shakespeare portrays all the passions; Restoration comedy constantly reverts to the single passion of unlawful love. Tragedy, which flowed full and free in Elizabethan days, is channelled in 'heroic drama' between artificial banks difficult to surmount.

If Restoration drama lacks breadth of scope, it lacks also depth of feeling and height of poetic imagination. Even in rhymed and blank- verse tragedies there is dearth of poetic fancy. Comedy abandons poetry for prose. Romantic comedy yields to the comedy of manners. Common sense replaces poetic sensibility. Wit is more common than humour. The intellectual faculties are exalted above the emotional. It is an age which sees the founding of the Royal Society, and which has philosophers like Hobbes and Locke, and scientists like Newton, but poets are few. Rarely does even Restoration tragedy utter

those melodious bursts, that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still.

The attitude toward Shakespeare is a valuable sidelight upon Dryden's period. Shakespeare was rewritten to suit an age which found Elizabethan genius rude and unrefined. Native wood-notes were too wild in days when Dry den deemed Shakespeare 'untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age.' 1 Nahum Tate perverted King Lear with a happy ending. Dryden and D'Avenant with profane hands broke the charm of The Tempest. ' The Tragedy of Macbeth, alter 'd by Sir William Davenant; being drest in all it's Finery, as new Cloath's, new Scenes, Machines, as flyings for the Witches ; with all the Singing and Danc-

1 Prologue to Dryden's version of Troilus and Cressida.

ing in it ... it being all Excellently perform'd, being in the nature of an Opera, it Recompenc'd double the Expence.' 1 Samuel Pepys, a confirmed and by no means unrepresentative playgoer, found Midsummer Night's Dream 'the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life,' 2 and Othello 'a mean thing' 3 in comparison with The Adventures of Five Hours. Beyond the Restoration horizon lay the forest of Arden and the seacoast of Bohemia.

But perhaps the most significant contrast between Elizabethan and Restoration drama is in moral tone. The immorality of Restoration comedy has become a byword, yet the subject is too vital to be dismissed lightly. Judged by modern standards, Elizabethan drama admitted at its best considerable vulgarity and indecency of speech, and in the period of its decline showed increasing tendencies toward grossness of thought as well as freedom of phrase. Distinction should, obviously, be made _ between frankness of expression and un cleanness of mind. The standard of permissible expression is, in a sense, matter of custom rather than of morality. Restraint of phrase counts less than purity of intention, for immorality may He as much in what is to be read between the lines as in what actually appears on them. Yet, with every fair allowance, it must be admitted that Elizabethan drama is often not merely coarse but impure. Not even in its decadence, however, does it touch the depths of Restoration immorality.

1 Dowries, Roscins Anglicanus, 1708, p. 33.

2 Diary, 29 §ept., 1662. Wheatley edition, II, 347- s IMd., 20 Aug., 1666. Wheatley edition, V, 407.

Restoration comedy differs fundamentally from Elizabethan in deliberately enlisting the sympathy of the audience in favour of the wrong-doer. The earlier drama, with all its sins, inclines to award dramatic justice, however belated, to the virtuous. Restoration comedy, disdaining fifth-act compromise, often lets vice rampant in the earlier acts remain vice triumphant. The curtain falls with plaudits for the country wife who carries out a London intrigue without detection, and with derisive laughter for the husband who alone remains unconscious of his dishonour. Restoration comedy flaunts shamelessly the blazon of the 'scarlet letter.' It laughs not merely indulgently at vice, but harshly at the semblance of virtue. Cavalier contempt went so far as to regard the show of virtue as proof of hypocrisy. Cynicism replaced religion. Piety was considered bourgeois. Contempt for hypocrisy, however, did not extend to the hypocrisy of the intriguant. All was fair in amorous intrigue. The seducer who outwitted the deluded husband became not the villain but the hero. In the women deception was both a necessity and a virtue. Restoration comedy showed less the frailty of human nature than the strength of animal passion. So utterly subversive of moral standards is Restoration comedy that an attempt has been made to defend it on the ground that it dealt with an unreal world to which no ordinary standards are applicable. This brilliant fallacy is put forward by Charles Lamb in his essay On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century. The characters of Restoration comedy seem to Lamb to have escaped from %he actual world where moral law still reigns into 'the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, and the manners perfect freedom. . . . We are not to judge them by our usages. No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings, — for they have none among them. No peace of families is violated, — for no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is stained, — for none is supposed to have a being. No deep affections are disquieted, — no holy wedlock bands are snapped asunder, — for affection's depth and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil. There is neither right nor wrong, — gratitude or its opposite, — claim or duty, — paternity or sonship.' But Restoration comedy was l artificial' only in so far as the court life which it mirrored was artificial. It portrayed all too faithfully the Vanity Fair of the Merry Monarch.

Macaulay, with the heavy hand of common sense, relentlessly crushed to earth Lamb's poetic fancy. His essay on the Comic Dramatists of the Restoration 1 swept away specious pleas in defence of artificial comedy. 'The morality of the Country Wife and the Old Bachelor,' he writes, 'is the morality, not, as Mr. Charles Lamb maintains, of an unreal world, but of a world which is a great deal too real. . . . Here the garb, the manners, the topics of conversation are those of the real town and of the passing day. The hero is in all superficial accomplishments exactly the fine gentleman whom every youth in

1 Often entitled Leigh Hunt, of whose edition of The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar Macaulay's essay was ostensibly a review.

the pit would gladly resemble. The heroine is the fine lady whom every youth in the pit would gladly marry. The scene is laid in some place which is as well known to the audience as their own houses. . . . A hundred little touches are employed to make the fictitious world appear like the actual world. And the immorality is of a sort which never can be out of date, and which all the force of religion, law, and public opinion united can but imperfectly restrain.' Macaulay utterly scouts the idea that Restoration dramatists deal with an un-moral world. ' Morality constantly enters into that world, a sound morality, and an unsound morality ; the sound morality to be insulted, derided, associated with everything mean and hateful; the unsound morality to be set off to every advantage, and inculcated by all methods, direct and indirect. It is not the fact that none of the inhabitants of this conventional world feel reverence for sacred institutions and family ties. Fondlewife, Pinchwife, every person in short of narrow understanding and disgusting manners, expresses that reverence strongly. The heroes and heroines, too, have a moral code of their own, an exceedingly bad one, but not, as Mr. Charles Lamb seems to think, a code existing only in the imagination of dramatists. It is, on the contrary, a code actually received and obeyed by great numbers of people. We need not go to Utopia or Fairyland to find them.' The final conclusion is driven home inexorably. ' The question is simply this, whether a man of genius who constantly and systematically endeavours to make. . . . [evil] character attractive, by uniting it with beauty,

IO ENGLISH DRAMA chap.

grace, dignity, spirit, a high social position, popularity, literature, wit, taste, knowledge Of the world, brilliant success in every undertaking, does or does not make an ill use of his powers. We own that we are unable to understand how this question can be answered in any way but one/

Macaulay's blunt dogmatism has sometimes irritated the artistic sympathies of sensitive critics. Some have been tempted to err with Lamb rather than take sides with Macaulay. Yet contemporary evidence is significant in this clash between sense and sensibility. It will suffice to mention two different but equally convincing documents. Hamilton's Memoirs of Count Grammont gives testimony of the court ; the Diary of Samuel Pepys gives testimony of the city. The Diary is both too extensive and too familiar to permit minute comment. Pepys, himself not unaware of human frailty, was doubtless readier to extenuate than to set down aught in malice, yet his pages echo the gossip and scandal of the court of the Merry Monarch, the notes of changing fashions and unchanging folly and vice. Wide differences there are between the quaint entries in the Diary of Pepys and the gay, vivacious, graceful pages of Hamilton, but the differences are of style rather than of substance. In the Memoirs live again the King and his courtesans, the profligate Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Rochester, who boasted that he had been drunk for five years at a stretch. To Hamilton, Grammont is the beau ideal of the age. 'It is this indefinable brilliancy, which, in war, in love, in gaming, and in the various stages of a long life, has i ELIZABETHAN AND RESTORATION DRAMA n

rendered the Count de Grammont the admiration of his age, and the delight of every country wherein he has displayed his engaging wit, dispensed his generosity and magnificence, or practised his inconstancy. ' 1 Macaulay might have termed Grammont an unprincipled gambler, a dishonourable adventurer, and an abandoned profligate. Late in life the Chevalier looked back upon the past with Shallow's smack of satisfaction in 'the days that we have seen/ but without need of magnifying glasses. The adventures in the Memoirs are one with the incidents of the Restoration stage. Miss Price and Miss Jennings, in merry mood, diguise themselves as orange-girls, visit the theatre, and encounter Beau Sidney andKilligrew. Rochester, with the devilish ingenuity of Wycherley's Horner, practises intrigue in the disguise of 'a famous German doctor.' Lady Chesterfield, taken off by her husband to the country, consoles herself by writing her lover of her sufferings in ' the most horrible of prisons' in phrases which voice the familiar sentiments of Restoration heroines on the stage: 'Whatever the country affords most melancholy, in this season, presents itself to my view on all sides : surrounded by impassable roads, out of one window I see nothing but precipices ; but wherever I turn my eyes within doors, I meet those of a jealous husband, still more insupportable than the sad objects that encompass me.' 2 Incidents, adventures, and attitude are one with those of 'artificial comedy.' The world of Restoration comedy was not Utopia, but London.

1 Memoirs of Count Grammont, Goodwin edition, I, 3.

The general contrasts drawn in the preceding pages between Elizabethan and Restoration drama have been so unfavourable to the later period that it may be asked what defence can be made for Restoration drama. Defence, it may at once be answered, is not the business of the historian. His task is rather to set forth the facts as he finds them, and to interpret them, to the best of his ability, not as a special pleader but as an impartial judge. Nor should it be necessary for him to try to heighten lesser peaks in the range of English drama by limiting his horizon to the immediate foreground. It would be possible, no doubt, since Gulliver becomes a giant in Lilliput, to magnify the achievements of Restoration drama by lowering the standard of judgment. Study of the beginning and growth of modern English drama does not, however, need questionable aids to give it value or enhance its interest. Despite its limitations and shortcomings, the drama of the past two centuries and a half has been linked too closely with the lives and interests of the English people to be dismissed as unworthy of serious notice. Whether comedy laughs with the sins of the Restoration, or weeps with the sentimentality of the eighteenth century, it bears the form and pressure of the age. Even when tragedy seems most aloof from human hearts, it won the plaudits of its passing day. "The drama's laws the drama's patrons give' — at least, in large measure. Furthermore, in the period whose development is about to be traced, the comedy of manners comes to its fullest development. Tragedy learns to speak the accents of prose as well as the cadence of verse, and finds suffering and sorrow in bourgeois life. Stagecraft schools itself with experience, and acting touches noble heights. Opera and pantomime rise to do battle for popular favour with regular drama. Gain and loss, success and failure, play their parts in the varying record. And because the story of modern English drama, with its conflicts and struggles, is essentially human, it is itself a great drama of English national life.

Chapter II The Dramatic Interregnum, 1642-1660

The period between the closing of the theatres, in 1642, and the formal resumption of theatrical activity under royal patent, in 1660, may conveniently be termed the dramatic interregnum. Throughout this period, especially toward its close, the drama maintained some semblance of life, but it had no genuine vitality. During the civil war most of the actors seem to have enlisted on the Royalist side, in natural loyalty to the party which had supported them against Puritan hostility. They had not forgotten that Prynne's attack upon them had been visited with fines, imprisonment, and even physical punishment. Under the commonwealth, however, the hand of the law was against them. An ordinance of 22 October, 1647, providing that actors in 'Stage Plays, Interludes, or other Common Plays' be ' punished as Rogues, according to Law,' * was followed by the drastic ordinance of n February, 1648, which empowered the Lord Mayor and others to destroy galleries, seats, and boxes in the theatres, to flog actors, and to cause them to enter into recognizances 'never to Act or play any Plaies or Interludes any more/ and to fine spectators for the benefit of the

1 Journals of the House of Lords, IX, 490; W. C. Hazlitt, The English Drama and Stage, pp. 64-65.