A Book Of The Play Part 5

It should be added that Mrs. Baker had been a dancer in early life, and was long famed for the grace of her carriage and the elegance of her curtsey. Occasionally she ventured upon the stage dressed in the bonnet and shawl she had worn while receiving money and issuing tickets at the door, and in audible tones announced the performances arranged for future evenings, the audience enthusiastically welcoming her appearance. A measure of her manifold talents was shared by other members of her family. Her sister, Miss Wakelin, was princ.i.p.al comic dancer to the theatre, occasional actress, wardrobe keeper, and professed cook, being, rewarded for her various services by board and lodging, a salary of 1 11s. 6d. per week, and a benefit in every town Mrs. Baker visited, with other emoluments by way of perquisites. Two of Mrs. Baker's daughters were also members of her company, and divided between them the heroines of tragedy and comedy. One Miss Baker subsequently became the wife of Mr. Dowton, the actor.

A settled distrust of the Bank of England was one of Mrs. Baker's most marked peculiarities. At the close of the performance she resigned the position she had occupied for some five hours as money-taker for pit, boxes, and gallery, and retired to her chamber, carrying the receipts of the evening in a large front pocket. This money she added to a store contained in half-a-dozen large china punch-bowls, ranged upon the top shelf of an old bureau. For many years she carried her savings about with her from town to town, sometimes retaining upon her person gold in rouleaux to a large amount. She is even said to have kept in her pocket for seven years a note for 200. At length her wealth became a positive embarra.s.sment to her. She deposited sums in country banks and in the hands of respectable tradesmen, at three per cent., sometimes without receiving any interest whatever, but merely with a view to the safer custody of her resources. It was with exceeding difficulty that she was eventually persuaded to become a fundholder.

She handed over her store of gold to her stockbroker with extraordinary trepidation. It is satisfactory to be a.s.sured that at last she accorded perfect confidence to the Old Lady in Threadneedle Street, increased her investments from time to time, and learned to find pleasure in visiting London half-yearly to receive her dividends.

Altogether Mrs. Baker appears to have been a thoroughly estimable woman, cordially regarded by the considerate members of the theatrical profession with whom she had dealings. While recording her eccentricities, and conceding that occasionally her language was more forcible and idiomatic than tasteful or refined, Dibdin hastens to add that "she owned an excellent heart, with much of the appearance and manners of a gentlewoman." Grimaldi was not less prompt in expressing his complete satisfaction in regard to his engagements with "the manageress." Dibdin wrote the epitaph inscribed above her grave in the cathedral yard of Rochester. A few lines may be extracted, but it must be said that the composition is of inferior quality:

Alone, untaught, And self-a.s.sisted (save by Heaven), she sought To render each his own, and fairly save What might help others when she found a grave; By prudence taught life's troubled waves to stem, In death her memory shines, a rich, unpolished gem.

It is conceivable--so much may perhaps be added by way of concluding note--that Mrs. Baker unconsciously posed as a model, and lent a feature or two, when the portrait came to be painted of even a more distinguished "manageress," whose theatre was a caravan, however, whose company consisted of waxen effigies, and who bore the name of--Jarley.

CHAPTER VIII.

IN THE PIT.

There is something to be written about the rise and fall of the pit: its original humility, its possession for a while of great authority, and its forfeiture, of late years, of power in the theatre. We all know Shakespeare's opinion of "the groundlings," and how he held them to be, "for the most part, capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise." The great dramatist's contemporaries entertained similar views on this head. They are to be found speaking with supreme contempt of the audience occupying the _yard_; describing them as "fools," and "scarecrows," and "understanding, grounded men."

Our old theatres were of two cla.s.ses, public and private. The companies of the private theatres were more especially under the protection of some royal or n.o.ble personage. The audiences they attracted were usually of a superior cla.s.s, and certain of these were ent.i.tled to sit upon the stage during the representation. The buildings, although of smaller dimensions than the public theatres boasted, were arranged with more regard for the comfort of the spectators. The boxes were enclosed and locked. There were _pits_ furnished with seats, in place of the _yards_, as they were called, of the public theatres, in which the "groundlings" were compelled to stand throughout the performance. And the whole house was roofed in from the weather; whereas the public theatres were open to the sky, excepting over the stage and boxes. Moreover, the performances at the private theatres were presented by candle or torch light. Probably it was held that the effects of the stage were enhanced by their being artificially illuminated, for in these times, at both public and private theatres, the entertainments commenced early in the afternoon, and generally concluded before sunset, or, at any rate, before dark.

As patience and endurance are more easy to the man who sits than to the standing spectator, it came to be understood that a livelier kind of entertainment must be provided for the "groundlings" of the public theatres than there was need to present to the seated pit of the private playhouses. The "fools of the yard" were charged with requiring "the horrid noise of target-fight," "cutler's work," and vulgar and boisterous exhibitions generally. These early patrons of the more practical parts of the drama are ent.i.tled to be forbearingly judged, however. Their comfort was little studied, and it is not surprising, under the circ.u.mstances, that they should have favoured a brisk and vivacious cla.s.s of representations. The tedious playwright did not merely oppress their minds; he made them remember how weary were their legs.

But it is probable that the tastes thus generated were maintained long after the necessity for their existence had departed, and that, even when seats were permitted them, the "groundlings" still held by their old forms of amus.e.m.e.nt, demanding dramas of liveliness, incident, and action, and greatly preferring spectacle to speeches. From the philosophical point of view the pit had acquired a bad name, and couldn't or wouldn't get quit of it. Still it is by no means clear that the sentiments ascribed to the pit were not those of the audience generally.

Nevertheless the pit was improving in character. Gradually it boasted a strong critical leaven; it became the recognised resort of the more enlightened playgoers. Dryden in his prologues and epilogues often addresses the pit, as containing notably the judges of plays and the more learned of the audience. "The pit," says Swift, in the introduction to his "Tale of a Tub," "is sunk below the stage, that whatever of weighty matter shall be delivered thence, whether it be lead or gold, may fall plump into the jaws of certain critics, as I think they are called, which stand ready open to devour them." "Your bucks of the pit," says an old occasional address of later date, ascribed to Garrick, but on insufficient evidence:

Your bucks of the pit are miracles of learning, Who point out faults to show their own discerning; And critic-like bestriding martyred sense, Proclaim their genius and vast consequence.

There were now critics by profession, who duly printed and published their criticisms. The awful Churchill's favourite seat was in the front row of the pit, next the orchestra. "In this place he thought he could best discern the real workings of the pa.s.sions in the actors, or what they subst.i.tuted instead of them," says poor Tom Davies, whose dread of the critic was extreme. "During the run of 'Cymbeline,'" he wrote apologetically to Garrick, his manager, "I had the misfortune to disconcert you in one scene, for which I did immediately beg your pardon; and did attribute it to my accidentally seeing Mr. Churchill in the pit; with great truth, it rendered me confused and unmindful of my business." Garrick had himself felt oppressed by the gloomy presence of Churchill, and learnt to read discontent in the critic's lowering brows. "My love to Churchill," he writes to Colman; "his being sick of Richard was perceived about the house."

That Churchill was a critic of formidable aspect, the portrait he limned of himself in his "Independence" amply demonstrates:

Vast were his bones, his muscles twisted strong, His face was short, but broader than 'twas long; His features though by nature they were large, Contentment had contrived to overcharge And bury meaning, save that we might spy Sense low'ring on the pent-house of his eye; His arms were two twin oaks, his legs so stout That they might bear a mansion-house about; Nor were they--look but at his body there-- Designed by fate a much less weight to bear.

O'er a brown ca.s.sock which had once been black, Which hung in tatters on his brawny back, A sight most strange and awkward to behold, He threw a covering of blue and gold. &c. &c.

This was not the kind of man to be contemptuously regarded or indiscreetly attacked. Foote ventured to designate him "the clumsy curate of Clapham," but prudently suppressed a more elaborate lampoon he had prepared. Murphy launched an ode more vehement than decent in its terms. Churchill good-humouredly acknowledged the justice of the satire; he had said, perhaps, all he cared to say to the detriment of Murphy, and was content with this proof that his shafts had reached their mark. Murphy confirms Davies's account of Churchill's seat in the theatre:

No more your bard shall sit In foremost row before the astonished pit, And grin dislike, and kiss the spike, And twist his mouth and roll his head awry, The arch-absurd quick glancing from his eye.

Charles Lamb was a faithful patron of the pit. In his early days there had been such things as "pit orders." "Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who abolished them!" he exclaims. Hazlitt greatly preferred the pit to the boxes. Not simply because the fierceness of his democratic sentiments induced in him a scorn of the visitors to the boxes, as wrapped up in themselves, fortified against impressions, weaned from all superst.i.tious belief in dramatic illusions, taking so little interest in all that was interesting, disinclined to discompose their cravats or their muscles, "except when some gesticulation of Mr.

Kean, or some expression of an author two hundred years old, violated the decorum of fashionable indifference." These were good reasons for his objection to the boxes. But he preferred the pit, in truth, because he could there see and hear so very much better. "We saw Mr.

Kean's Sir Giles Overreach on Friday night from the boxes," he writes in 1816, "and are not surprised at the incredulity as to this great actor's powers entertained by those persons who have only seen him from that elevated sphere. We do not hesitate to say that those who have only seen him at that distance have not seen him at all. The expression of his face is quite lost, and only the harsh and grating tones of his voice produce their full effect on the ear. The same recurring sounds, by dint of repet.i.tion, fasten on the attention, while the varieties and finer modulations are lost in their pa.s.sage over the pit. All you discover is an abstraction of his defects, both of person, voice, and manner. He appears to be a little man in a great pa.s.sion," &c.

But the pit was not famous merely as the resort of critics. The "groundlings" had given place to people of fashion and social distinction. Mr. Leigh Hunt notes that the pit even of Charles II.'s time, although now and then the scene of violent scuffles and brawls, due in great part to the general wearing of swords, was wont to contain as good company as the pit of the Opera House five-and-twenty years ago. A reference to Pepys's "Diary" justifies this opinion.

"Among the rest here the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly sat in the pit," records Pepys, "and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sedley, and Etheridge the poet." Yet it would seem that already the visitors to the pit had declined somewhat in quality. Pepys, like John Gilpin's spouse, had a frugal mind, however bent on pleasure. He relates, in 1667, with some sense of injury, how once, there being no room in the pit, he was forced to pay four shillings and go into one of the upper boxes, "which is the first time I ever sat in a box in my life."

One does not now look to find members of the administration or cabinet ministers occupying seats in the pit. Yet the "Journals of the Right Honourable William Windham," some time Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and afterwards Colonial Secretary, tell of his frequent visits to the pit of Covent Garden. Nor does he "drop into"

the theatre, after dining at his club, as even a bachelor of fashion might do without exciting surprise. Playgoing is not an idle matter to him. And he is accompanied by ladies of distinction, his relatives and others. "Went about half-past five to the pit," he records; "sat by Miss Kemble, Steevens, Mrs. Burke, and Miss Palmer," the lady last named being the niece of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who afterwards married Lord Inchiquin. "Went in the evening to the pit with Mrs. Lukin" (the wife of his half-brother). "After the play, went with Miss Kemble to Mrs. Siddons's dressing-room: met Sheridan there, with whom I sat in the waiting room, and who pressed me to sup at his house with Fox and G. North." a.s.suredly "the play," not less than the pit, was more highly regarded in Windham's time than nowadays.

Though apart from our present topic, it is worth noting that Windham may claim to have antic.i.p.ated Monsieur Gambetta as a statesman voyaging in a balloon. Ballooning was a hobby of Windham's. He was a regular attendant of ascents, and inspected curiously the early aerial machines of Blanchard and Lunardi. Something surprised at his own temerity, he travelled the air himself, rose in a balloon--probably from Vauxhall--crossed the river at Tilbury, and descended in safety after losing his hat. He regretted that the wind had not been favourable for his crossing the Channel. "Certainly," he writes, "the experiences I have had on this occasion will warrant a degree of confidence more than I have ever hitherto indulged. I would not wish a degree of confidence more than I enjoyed at every moment of the time."

To return to the pit for a concluding note or two. Audiences had come to agree with Hazlitt, that "it was unpleasant to see a play from the boxes," that the pit was far preferable. Gradually the managers--sound sleepers as a rule--awakened to this view of the situation, and proceeded accordingly. They seized upon the best seats in the pit, and converted them into stalls, charging for admission to these a higher price than they had ever levied in regard to the boxes. Stalls were first introduced at the Opera House in the Haymarket in the year 1829.

Dissatisfaction was openly expressed, but although the overture was hissed--the opera being Rossini's "La Donna del Lago"--no serious disturbance arose. There had been a decline in the public spirit of playgoers. The generation that delighted in the great O.P. riot had pretty well pa.s.sed away. Such another excitement was not possible; energy and enthusiasm on such a subject seemed to have been exhausted for ever by that supreme effort. So the audience paid the increased price or stayed away from the theatre--for staying away from the theatre could now be calmly viewed as a reasonable alternative. "The play" was no more what once it had been, a sort of necessary of life.

The example of the Opera manager was presently followed by all other theatrical establishments, and high-priced stalls became the rule everywhere. The pit lost its old influence--was, so to say, disfranchised. It was as one of the old Cinque Ports which the departing sea and the ever indrifting sand have left high and dry, unapproachable by water, a port only in name. It was divided and conquered. The most applauded toast at the public banquet of the O.P.

rioters--"The ancient and indisputable rights of the pit"--will never more be proposed.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FOOTMEN'S GALLERY.

Of old the proprietors of theatres acted towards their patrons upon the principle of "first come, first served." If you desired a good place at the playhouse it was indispensably necessary to go early and to be in time: to secure your seat by bodily occupation of it.

Box-offices, at which places might be engaged a fortnight in advance of the performance, were as yet unknown. The only way, therefore, by which people of quality and fashion could obtain seats without the trouble of attending at the opening of the doors for that purpose, was by sending on their servants beforehand to occupy places until such time as it should be convenient for the masters and mistresses to present themselves at the theatre. When Garrick took his benefit at Drury Lane in 1744, the play--"Hamlet"--was to begin at six o'clock, and in the bills of the day ladies were requested _to send their servants by three o'clock._ It was further announced that by particular desire five rows of the pit would be railed into boxes, and that servants would be permitted to keep places on the stage, which, for the better accommodation of the ladies, would be railed into boxes.

The custom of sending servants early to the theatre to secure seats in this way was, no doubt, a very old one; and, of course, at the conclusion of the entertainment they were compelled to be again in attendance with the carriages and chairs of their employers.

Meanwhile, they a.s.sembled in the lobbies and precincts of the playhouse in great numbers, and considerable noise and confusion thus ensued. In the prologue to Carlell's tragi-comedy of "Arviragus,"

1672, Dryden writes, begging the public to support rather the English than the French performers who were visiting London:

And therefore, Messieurs, if you'll do us grace.

Send lacqueys early to preserve your place;

and in one of his epilogues he makes mention of the nuisance occasioned by the noisy crowd of servants disturbing the performance:

Then for your lacqueys and your train beside, By whate'er name or t.i.tle dignified, They roar so loud, you'd think behind the stairs, Tom Dove and all the brotherhood of bears; They've grown a nuisance beyond all disasters, We've none so great but their unpaying masters.

We beg you, sirs, to beg your men that they Would please to give us leave to hear the play.

"Tom Dove," it may be noted, was a "bear-ward," or proprietor of bears, of some fame; his name is frequently mentioned in the light literature of the period.

At this time the servants were admitted gratis to the upper gallery of the theatre on the conclusion of the fourth act of the play of the evening. In 1697, however, Rich, the manager of the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, placed his gallery at their disposal, without charge, during the whole of the evening. Cibber speaks of this proceeding on the part of Rich as the lowest expedient to ingratiate his company in public favour. Alarmed by the preference evinced by the town for the rival theatre in Drury Lane, Rich conceived that this new privilege would incline the servants to give his house "a good word in the respective families they belonged to," and, further, that it would greatly increase the applause awarded to his performances. In this respect his plan seems to have succeeded very well.

Cibber relates that "it often thundered from the full gallery above, while the thin pit and boxes below were in the utmost serenity." He proceeds to add, however, that the privilege, which from custom ripened into right, became the most disgraceful nuisance that ever depreciated the theatre. "How often," he exclaims, "have the most polite audiences in the most affecting scenes of the best plays been disturbed and insulted by the noise and clamour of these savage spectators!"

The example set by Rich seems to have been soon followed by other managers. For many years the right of the footmen to occupy the upper gallery without payment was unchallenged. In 1737, however, Mr.

Fleetwood, manager of Drury Lane Theatre, announced his determination to put an end to a privilege which it was generally felt had grown into a serious nuisance. A threatening letter was sent to him, which he answered by offering a reward of fifty guineas for the discovery of its author or authors. The letter is given in full in Malcolm's "Anecdotes of London," 1810:

"SIR,--We are willing to admonish you before we attempt our design; and, provided you will use us civil and admit us into your gallery, which is our property according to Formalities; and if you think proper to come to a composition this way, you'll hear no further; and if not, our intention is to join a body _incognito_, and reduce the playhouse to the ground.--We are, INDEMNIFIED."

A riot of an alarming nature followed. The footmen, denied admission to their own gallery, as they regarded it, a.s.sembled in a body of three hundred, and, armed with offensive weapons, broke into the theatre, and, taking forcible possession of the stage, wounded some twenty-five persons who had opposed their entrance. Great confusion prevailed. The Prince and Princess of Wales and other members of the Royal Family were in the theatre at the time. Colonel Deveil, justice of the peace, who was also present, after attempting in vain to read the Riot Act ("he might as well have read Caesar's 'Commentaries,'"

observed a facetious critic), caused some of the ringleaders to be arrested, and thirty of them were sent to Newgate. While in prison, they were supported by the subscriptions of their sympathising brethren. Meanwhile, anonymous letters were thrown down the areas of people of fashion, denouncing vengeance against all who attempted to deprive the footmen of their liberty and property. A further attack upon the theatre was expected. For several nights a detachment of fifty soldiers protected the building and its approaches; but the public peace was not further disturbed. The footmen were compelled to acknowledge themselves defeated. They were admitted _gratis_ to the upper gallery no more.

Arnot's "History of Edinburgh," 1789, contains an account of a servants' riot in the theatre of that city on the occasion of the second performance of the Rev. Mr. Townley's farce of "High Life Below Stairs," originally played at Drury Lane in 1759. The footmen, highly offended at the representation of a farce reflecting on their fraternity, resolved to prevent its repet.i.tion. In Edinburgh the footmen's gallery still existed. "That servants might not be kept waiting in the cold, nor induced to tipple in the adjacent ale-houses while they waited for their masters, the humanity of the gentry had provided that the upper gallery should afford gratis admission to the servants of such persons as were attending the theatre." On the second night of the performance of the farce, Mr. Love, one of the managers of the theatre, came upon the stage, and read a letter he had received, containing the most violent threatenings both against the actors and the house, in case "High Life Below Stairs" should be represented, and declaring "that above seventy people had agreed to sacrifice fame, honour, and profit to prevent it." In spite of this menace, however, the managers ordered that the performance should proceed. Immediately a storm of disapprobation arose in the footmen's gallery. The noise continued, notwithstanding the urgent orders addressed to the servants to be quiet. Many of the gentlemen recognised among this unruly crew their individual servants. When these would not submit to authority, their masters, a.s.sisted by others in the house, went up to the gallery; but it was not until after a battle, in which the servants were fairly overpowered and thrust out of the house, that quietness was restored.

After this disturbance, the servants were not only deprived of the freedom of the playhouse, but the custom of giving them "vails," which had theretofore universally prevailed in Scotland, was abolished.

"Nothing," writes Mr. Arnot, "can tend more to make servants rapacious, insolent, and ungrateful, than allowing them to display their address in extracting money from the visitors of their lord."