CHAPTER XXXIII. THE LATER DRAMA.
The Progress of the Drama. Garrick. Foote. Cumberland. Sheridan. George
Colman. George Colman, the Younger. Other Dramatists and Humorists.
Other Writers on Various Subjects.
THE PROGRESS OF THE DRAMA.
The latter half of the eighteenth century, so marked, as we have seen, for manifold literary activity, is, in one phase of its history, distinctly represented by the drama. It was a very peculiar epoch in English annals. The accession of George III., in 1760, gave promise, from the character of the king and of his consort, of an exemplary reign. George III. was the first monarch of the house of Hanover who may be justly called an English king in interest and taste. He and his queen were virtuous and honest; and their influence was at once felt by a people in whom virtue and honesty are inherent, and whose consciences and tastes had been violated by the evil examples of the former reigns.
In 1762 George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, was born; and as soon as he approached manhood, he displayed the worst features of his ancestral house: he was extravagant and debauched; he threw himself into a violent opposition to his father: with this view he was at first a Whig, but afterwards became a Tory. He had also peculiar opportunities for exerting authority during the temporary fits of insanity which attacked the king in 1764, in 1788, and in 1804. At last, in 1810, the king was so disabled from attending to his duties that the prince became regent, and assumed the reins of government, not to resign them again during his life.
In speaking of the drama of this period, we should hardly, therefore, be wrong in calling it the Drama of the Regency. It held, however, by historic links, following the order of historic events, to the earlier drama. Shakspeare and his contemporaries had established the dramatic art on a firm basis. The frown of puritanism, in the polemic period, had checked its progress: with the restoration of Charles II, it had returned to rival the French stage in wicked plots and prurient scenes. With the better morals of the Revolution, and the popular progress which was made at the accession of the house of Hanover, the drama was modified: the older plays were revived in their original freshness; a new and better taste was to be catered to; and what of immorality remained was chiefly due to the influence of the Prince of Wales. Actors, so long despised, rose to importance as great artists. Garrick and Foote, and, later, Kemble, Kean, and Mrs. Siddons, were social personages in England. Peers married actresses, and enduring reputation was won by those who could display the passions and the affections to the life, giving flesh and blood and mind and heart to the inimitable creations of Shakspeare.
It must be allowed that this power of presentment marks the age more powerfully than any claims of dramatic authorship. The new play-writers did not approach Shakspeare; but they represented their age, and repudiated the vices, in part at least, of their immediate predecessors. In them, too, is to be observed the change from the artificial to the romantic and natural, The scenes and persons in their plays are taken from the life around them, and appealed to the very models from which they were drawn.
DAVID GARRICK.—First among these purifiers of the drama is David Garrick, who was born in Lichfield, in 1716. He was a pupil of Dr. Johnson, and came up with that distinguished man to London, in 1735. The son of a captain in the Royal army, but thrown upon his own exertions, he first tried to gain a livelihood as a wine merchant; but his fondness for the stage led him to become an actor, and in taking this step he found his true position. A man of respectable parts and scholarship, he wrote many agreeable pieces for the stage; which, however, owed their success more to his accurate knowledge of the mise en scene, and to his own representation of the principal characters, than to their intrinsic merits. His mimetic powers were great: he acted splendidly in all casts, excelling, perhaps, in tragedy; and he, more than any actor before or since, has made the world thoroughly acquainted with Shakspeare. Dramatic authors courted him; for his appearance in any new piece was almost an assurance of its success.
Besides many graceful prologues, epigrams, and songs, he wrote, or altered, forty plays. Among these the following have the greatest merit: The Lying Valet, a farce founded on an old English comedy; The Clandestine Marriage, in which he was aided by the elder Colman; (the character of Lord Ogleby he wrote for himself to personate;) Miss in her Teens, a very clever and amusing farce. He was charmingly natural in his acting; but he was accused of being theatrical when off the stage. In the words of Goldsmith:
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that when he was off, he was acting.
Garrick married a dancer, who made him an excellent wife. By his own exertions he won a highly respectable social position, and an easy fortune of L140,000, upon which he retired from the stage. He died in London in 1779.