Shakspeare's plays, but with Dryden's comedy called Sir Martin Marall. "Mean time the comick poets made a ring about them, as boys do when they hifs dogs together by the ears; till at laft they were feparated by Pluto's officers, as diligent to keep the peace and part the fray, as your Italian Sbirri, or Spanish Alguazilo; and fo they drag'd them both away, the doctor to the ftocks, for raifing tumult and difturbances in hell, and the knight to the tribunal, where Minos, Æacus, and Rhadamanthus were to fit in judgement on him, with Momus the common accuser of the court. "Here being arriv'd, and filence commanded, they ask'd him his quality and profeffion: to whom he answer'd, he was a Poetlaureate, who for poetry in general had not his fellow alive, and had left none to equal him now he was dead: and for eloquence, "How never any hyperbolies "Were higher, or farther ftretch'd than his; "Made things compar'd more clear and plain. Then for his plays or dramatick poetry. "How that of The Unfortunate Lovers "To which Momus anfwered: that though they were never fo good, it became not him to commend them as he did; that there were faults enough to be found in them; and that he had mar'd more good plays, than ever he had made; that all his wit lay in hyperbolies and comparifons, which, when acceffory, were commendable enough, but when principal, deferved no great commendations; that his mufe was none of the nine, but onely a 6 The building, fcenes, &c. of that theatre coft 5000l. according to a statement given in a petition prefented to Queen Anne about the year 1709, by Charles D'Avenant, Charles Killegrew, Chriftopher Rich, and others. Between the year 1671 and 1682, when the King's and the Duke of York's fervants united, (about mungril, or by-blow of Parnaffus, and her beauty rather fophifticate than natural; that he offer'd at learning and philofophy, but as pullen and ftubble geefe offer'd to fly, who after they had flutter'd up a while, at length came fluttering down as fast agen; that he was with his high-founding words, but like empty hogfheads, the higher they founded, the emptier ftill they were; and that, finally, he fo perplex'd himself and readers with parenthesis on parenthesis, as, just as in a wilderness or labyrinth, all fense was loft in them. "As for his life and manners, they would not examine those, fince 'twas fuppos'd they were licentious enough: onely he wou'd fay, "He was a good companion for "The rich, but ill one for the poor; 66 Whilft he must be a lord at least, "For whom he'd fmile or break a jeaft. "And though this, and much more, was exaggerated against him by Momus, yet the judges were fo favourable to him, because he had left the mufes for Pluto, as they condemned him onely to live in Pluto's court, to make him and Proferpina merry with his facetious jeafts and ftories; with whom in fhort time he became fo gracious, by complying with their humours, and now and then dreffing a dish or two of meat for them, as they joyn'd him in patent with Momus, and made him fuperintendent of all their sports and recreations: fo as, onely changing place and perfons, he is now in as good condition as he was before; and lives the same life there, as he did here. * POSTSCRIPT. "To the Actors of the Theatre in Lincolns-Inn-Fields. "I promifed you a fight of what I had written of Sir William D'Avenant, and now behold it here: by it you will perceive how much they abused you, who told you it was such an abufive thing. If you like it not, take heed hereafter how you difoblige him, who can not onely write for you, but against you too. "RICH. FLECKNOE.” This feems to allude to a fact then well known. D'Avenant was probably admitted to the private fuppers of Charles the Second. which time Charles Hart,' the principal support of the former company, died,) King Lear, Timon of 7 From the preface to Settle's Fatal Love, 1680, it should seem that he had then retired from the ftage, perhaps in the preceding year; for in the prologue to The Ambitious Statefman, 1679, are thefe lines, evidently alluding to him and Mr. Mohun: "The time's neglect and maladies have thrown "The two great pillars of our playhouse down." Charles Hart, who, I believe, was our poet's great nephew, is faid to have been Nell Gwin's firft lover, and was the most celebrated tragedian of his time. "What Mr. Hart delivers, (fays Rymer,) every one takes upon content; their eyes are prepoffeffed and charmed by his action before aught of the poet's can approach their ears; and to the most wretched of characters he gives a luftre and brilliant, which dazzles the fight, that the deformities in the poetry cannot be perceived." "Were I a poet, (fays another contemporary writer,) nay a Fletcher, a Shakspeare, I would quit my own title to immortality, fo that one actor might never die. This I may modeftly fay of him, (nor is it my particular opinion, but the fenfe of all mankind,) that the beft tragedies on the English ftage have received their luftre from Mr. Hart's performance; that he has left such an impreffion behind him, that no less than the interval of an age can make them appear again with half their majesty from any fecond hand." In a pamphlet entitled The Life of the late famous Comedian, J. Hayns, 8vo. 1701, a characteristick trait of our poet's kinsman is preferved: "About this time [1673] there happened a fmall pick between Mr. Hart and Jo, upon the account of his late negociation in France, and there fpending the company fo much money to fo little purpose, or, as I may more properly fay, to no purpose at all. "There happened to be one night a play acted called Catiline's Confpiracy, wherein there was wanting a great number of fenators. Now Mr. Hart, being chief of the house, would oblige Jo to drefs for one of these fenators, although his falary, being 50s. per week, freed him from any fuch obligation. "But Mr. Hart, as I faid before, being fole governour of the play-houfe, and at a small variance with Jo, commands it, and the other must obey. Soon after the theatre in Drury Lane was burnt down, Jan. 1671-2, Hayns had been fent to Paris by Mr. Hart and Mr. Killigrew, to examine the machinery employed in the French Operas. Athens, Macbeth, and The Tempest, were the only plays of our author that were exhibited at the theatre in Dorfet Gardens; and the three latter were not represented in their original ftate, but as altered by D'Avenant and Shadwell. Between 1682 and 1695, when Mr. Congreve, Mr. Betterton, Mrs. Barry, and Mrs. Bracegirdle, obtained Jo, being vexed at the flight Mr. Hart had put upon him, found out this method of being revenged on him. He gets a Scaramouch dress, a large full ruff, makes himself whiskers from ear to ear, puts on his head a long Merry Andrew's cap, a fhort pipe in his mouth, a little three-legged ftool in his hand; and in this manner follows Mr. Hart on the ftage, fets himself down behind him, and begins to fmoke his pipe, laugh, and point at him. Which comical figure put all the house in an uproar, fome laughing, fome clapping, and fome hollaing. Now Mr. Hart, as thofe who knew him can aver, was a man of that exactness and grandeur on the ftage, that let what would happen, he'd never difcompofe himself, or mind any thing but what he then reprefented; and had a scene fallen behind him, he would not at that time look back, to have feen what was the matter; which Jo knowing, remained ftill fmoaking the audience continued laughing, Mr. Hart acting, and wondering at this unufual occafion of their mirth; fometimes thinking it fome difturbance in the houfe, again that it might be fomething amifs in his drefs: at laft turning himself toward the fcenes, he difcovered Jo in the aforefaid pofture; whereupon he immediately goes off the ftage, fwearing he would never fet foot on it again, unless Jo was immediately turned out of doors, which was no fooner fpoke, but put in practice." 8 The tragedy of Macbeth, altered by Sir William D'Avenant, being dreft in all its finery, as new cloaths, new fcenes, machines, as flyings for the witches, with all the finging and dancing in it, (the firit compofed by Mr. Lock, the other by Mr. Channel and Mr. Jofeph Prieft,) it being all excellently performed, being in the nature of an opera, it recompenced double the expence: it proves ftill a lafting play." Rofcius Anglicanus, p. 33. 8vo. 1708. "In 1673, The Tempeft or the Inchanted Ifland, made into an opera by Mr. Shadwell, having all new in it, as fcenes, machines; one fcene painted with myriads of aerial fpirits, and another flying away, with a table furnished out with fruits, fweatmeats, and all forts of viands, juft when duke Trinculo and his company were going to dinner; all things were performed in it fo admirably well, that not any fucceeding opera got more money." Ibidem, p. 34. a licence to open a new theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Taming of the Shrew, are the only plays of Shakspeare which Downes the prompter mentions, as having been performed by the united companies: A Midfummer Night's Dream was transformed into an opera, and The Taming of the Shrew was exhibited as altered by Lacy. Dryden's Troilus and Crefida, however, the two parts of King Henry IV. Twelfth Night, Macbeth, King Henry VIII. Julius Cefar, and Hamlet, were without doubt fometimes reprefented in the fame period: and Tate and Durfey furnished the fcene with miferable alterations of Coriolanus, King Richard II. King Lear, and Cymbeline. Otway's Caius Marius, which was produced in 1680, ufurped the place of our poet's Romeo and Juliet for near seventy years, and Lord Lanfdown's Jew of Venice kept poffeffion of the ftage from the time of its first exhibition in 1701, to the year 1741. Dryden's All for Love, from 1678 to 1759, was performed instead of our author's Antony and Cleopatra; and D'Avenant's alteration of Macbeth in like manner was preferred to our author's tragedy, from its first exhibition in 1663, for near eighty years. In the year 1700 Cibber produced his alteration. of King Richard III. I do not find that this play, which was fo popular in Shakspeare's time, was performed from the time of the Reftoration to the end of the last century. The play with Cibber's alterations was once performed at Drury Lane in 9 King Richard II. and King Lear were produced by Tate in 1681, before the union of the two companies; and Coriolanus, under the title of The Ingratitude of a Common wealth, in 1682. In the fame year appeared Durfey's alteration of Cymbeline, under the title of The Injured Princefs. |