Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 3
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter XXVIII: Drury Lane Theatre.
Chapter XXVIII: Drury Lane Theatre.
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In speaking of there arises a frequent source of confusion in the fact that it had no especial name till the middle of the eighteenth century; being in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, where the quality then resided, it was often styled Thus Pepys, writing under date : The late Mr. Richardson, of coffee-house celebrity, was in possession of a ticket inscribed, --nearly years before , properly so called, was opened. It was also styled and Killigrew and his company being while Davenant and his rival company were known by the name of
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Guest writes,
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It is worthy of note that, although there were other theatres in London at an earlier date, there was, according to Guest, in the time of Shakespeare at least outside the walls-namely, the Phoenix or Cockpit, on the eastern side of , the site of which is still defined by the name of Pitt Court--formerly Cockpit Alley. The company who acted there were styled In , when an act was passed for the suppression of stage plays, the Cockpit was converted from the error of its ways into a school-room, but, in spite of the supremacy of the Puritans, its existence as a seat of learning was brief; it backslided, and again became a place of profane amusement, until in , when the Puritan soldiers broke into the playhouse during a performance, routed the audience, and broke up the seats and stage. Nor was this all. Dr. Doran says that They had already experienced similar treatment in , in a popular outbreak, when their clothes and properties were torn up by the mob, for what cause is not apparent. | |
p.219 | |
Subsequently, after General Monk's arrival in London, the theatrical standard was raised again, and the drama commenced its new career at the Cockpit, with Rhodes for its --managers being not then known-and Betterton as his pupil and apprentice. | |
Pepys thus writes in his : It may be added that the original name of the in our theatres was the a word strongly corroborating the fact that our earliest places of such entertainment were used for lower sports before being applied to the purposes of the dramatic muse. | |
The principal actors at the Cockpit were Betterton and the beautiful youth, Edward Kynaston, who generally performed women's parts, before female actresses were permitted on the stage. Of Kynaston Pepys writes, :
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Pepys tells us that the old actors were in possession of the Cockpit in ; also that he saw acted there, ; but the theatre was small, and seems to have soon been superseded. At all events, nothing further is known of its history. There is a chance allusion to it in of Randolphe, wherein the following dialogue occurs:
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We hear very little of the other actors of the Cockpit, save that Allen became a major in Charles's army, and acted as quartermaster-general at Oxford; and that others, named Perkins and Sumner, finding their occupation gone,
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Soon after the Restoration Thomas Killigrew, Page of Honour, and subsequently Master of the Revels, to Charles I., purchased from the Earl of Bedford a lease for years of a piece of ground situated in the parishes of St. Martin'sin-the-Fields and , Covent Garden. On this site, until then known as the he erected, we are told, at a cost of , a theatre, the dimensions of which were feet by feet, and which was opened in . The following is a copy of the playbill issued:--
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This comedy (by Beaumont and Fletcher) is mentioned in Pepys' in the following terms :--
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Of Killigrew it is recorded by Pepys that It may here be remarked by way of parenthesis that the which stood at the end of , Clerkenwell, was, according to tradition, the playhouse before which Shakespeare held gentlemen's horses. | |
Dr. Doran writes:--
whispers Mr. Pepys to his neighbour, | |
p.220 [extra_illustrations.3.220.1] |
who answers only with a long-drawn
rejoins Pepys, in the complacent tone of qualified to judge,
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years after these early triumphs Mr. and Mrs. Betterton, having made their fortune as well as their fame, are living in , Covent Garden, in a well-appointed house. In , the former retired from the stage, fixing the as his benefit-night at the , then newly built. He died within fortyeight hours afterwards. | |
Actors were known as in , having been previously styled It may be mentioned here that as the actors were entitled to wear, and did wear, the royal livery of scarlet. The last actor who wore it was Baddeley, who gave the annual to the green-room of . He was, we believe, the original in portrait of Baddeley, in his red waistcoat, used to be seen in poor old Green's collection at At this period dramatic entertainments began at and terminated at o'clock in the afternoon. | |
In , as we see by the playbill before quoted, fashion had altered the hour of commencement to m.; in it had crept on to o'clock, until by degrees the evening came to be recognised as the most appropriate time for such amusements. Mohun and Hart had both held commissions in the army, and excelled in tragic and heroic parts. The former was a boon companion and favourite of Rochester. is frequently mentioned by Pepys, and always with praise, as also is Mrs. Knipp, of whom Killigrew told him,
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Time and space alike, however, would be wanting to enumerate all the dramatic celebrities who have immortalised themselves upon the boards of their name is As they pass in review before our imagination we can only briefly particularise a few of the most remarkable. | |
Here Thomas Betterton, who, as we have seen, served his apprenticeship at the Cockpit, and was long the chief attraction of the theatre in , took a farewell benefit in , preliminary to the before mentioned, being then in his year. As admirable in his private as in his professional character; a devoted husband to a wife who, an actress, was as virtuous as she was beautiful; generous and charitable to excess to his poorer the son of the cook of Charles I. fairly earned the universal esteem in which he was held, and which procured him a royal funeral in . Here Mrs. Bracegirdle, equally celebrated for her beauty and her coldness, drove troops of scented fops to distraction. | |
There seems little doubt of her attachment to the unfortunate Mountford, who acted to her and who was murdered by Captain Hill, of her many rejected suitors. Hill and Lord Mohun having made an abortive attempt to carry off Mrs. Bracegirdle, the former (as we have seen) vowed vengeance upon Mountford, whom he regarded as the cause of the lady's coldness. He accordingly laid wait for the actor in the street, and struck him. Mountford demanded upon which (according to the dying man's deposition) Hill drew his sword and ran it through the actor's body. | |
At flourished the lovely Oldfield, who quitted the bar of the for the stage, and whose notorious intimacy with General Churchill, cousin of the great Duke of Marlborough, obtained for her a grave in . Persons of rank and distinction contended for the honour of bearing her pall, and her remains lay in state for days in the Jerusalem Chamber! | |
Here, too, Barton Booth stimulated the rival parties of Whigs and Tories in Addison's famous tragedy of . Of this piece Johnson remarks, in his
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Is not also intimately associated with the name of Colley Cibber, successful manager and dramatist, and for years Poet Laureate? His annual birthday and New Year odes, all religiously preserved in the , are so invariably bad that his friends asserted that he wrote them as so many jokes. The for contains the following epigram:-- | |
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at this time exhibited a perfect constellation of talent. Quin, Macklin, Garrick, Mrs. Clive, and Mrs. Pritchard, with others of subordinate merit, formed a company which has rarely been equalled. It must have been a cruel blow to Quin, long the favourite tragedian of the town, to see himself rivalled by Macklin, and subsequently surpssed by Garrick. In spite of the contempt with which he affected to regard the latter, he expressed his own secret misgivings in his burst of indignation at the rapid succes of the rising actor:--
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From to owned the sway of David Garrick, the English Roscius, of whom Horace Walpole says: This, however, was not the opinion of the cynical Horace, although Alexander Pope's , verdict on Garrick was, And Dr. Johnson awarded him a still higher meed of praise in saying:
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made the fortune of the ugly, witty, and most popular comic actres, Kitty Clive, thus celebrated by Horace Walpole- To which Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot), who was a devoted admirer of Mrs. Jordan, retorted-
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Here the silver-toned Mrs. Billington appeared in the opera of . Haydn the composer, who admired this lady greatly, observed of Sir Joshua Reynolds' celebrated picture of her-where she is represented as listening to the heavenly choir-
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Old Drury witnessed the farewell performance of Miss Farren (Countess of Derby) in , just before she exchanged the buskin for a coronet; witnessed, too, the appearance of Harriet Mellon, in , and her last, in -for in the previous month she had wedded Mr. Coutts, the banker. In , Mrs. Coutts having been then years a widow, married the Duke of St. Albans, at that time in his year. saw the rise of the long and devoted attachment of the Duke of Clarence to [extra_illustrations.3.221.2] , and the short-lived passion of George, Prince of Wales, for the lovely Mrs. Robinson, better known as the character in which she appeared on the evening when she captivated her royal admirer. | |
Here, in the present century, Edmund Kean ran his brilliant but erratic career, and his more estimable, although less highly gifted, son Charles made his as Here, in , Joe Grimaldi, prince of clowns and of good fellows, took his farewell of the stage, where, the following year, Mrs. Nisbet (subsequently Lady Boothby), made her curtsey to a London audience; and there for several years the imperious [extra_illustrations.3.221.3] rode roughshod over supers, brother-actors, and managers, until, after a personal assault upon the lessee, he transferred his services to the rival house. Neither must the name of Madame Celeste be omitted from the list; for, although it was not to which she owed her reputation as an actress, it was nevertheless there that she made her appearance in London, in the ballad of in . This lady may fairly be ranked among the wonders of her age, for in we find her performing the part of the Indian huntress in with all the vigour and pathos and much of the freshness of her youth. During those -and- years generations of great actresses have arisen, shone as stars for a score of years, and passed away into oblivion, marriage, or death; but Celeste still survives, still flourishes-- years after her --bidding defiance alike to old Time and new fashions, as if warranted, like Tennyson's to
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The operas of Michael Balfe-The and produced at in -. The gifted and ill-fated Madame Malibran sustained the principal part in a few months before her premature death. In Bunn's we are told an amusing anecdote of the famous vocalist in this character. She was supposed in the last act to be perishing with thirst in the desert; the scene was long and exhausting, the lady in delicate health. She therefore proposed to Bunn that he should somehow convey a pint of porter to her in the desert, promising him in that case an to the finale. says Bunn, Bunn having paid Malibran for each o performances in month, she, after mud persuasion, consented to sing for him throughou the next month for the sum of , but added
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The name of Balfe, pre-eminent among our English composers, is intimately, associated with , from the time of the young Irishman's unassuming in the orchestra to his subse- | |
| quent triumphs as a successful composer of English, French, and Italian opera. The works of Michael Balfe are appreciated not only in England, but in France, Germany, and Italy. The statue lately erected to his honour in the vestibule of this temple, where so many of his triumphs have been achieved --a memorial to which numbers of the most distinguished patrons and professors of music, literature, and the drama, both native and foreign, have added their quota--will be a lasting proof of the estimation in which he has been held both at home and abroad. | |
It is worth while to notice how the salaries of actors have been steadily rising during the last centuries. We have Pepys' authority that Mrs. | |
p.223 p.224 | Knipp, had her salary increased a year. A century later Garrick, as head of his company, drew the highest salary-i.e., a week. Yet years, and Miss Farren, is receiving a week, while scarcely a decade afterwards we find Edmund Kean drawing double that sum nightly. |
It was remarked about years ago by a wellknown writer
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viewed simply as a building, has experienced many changes and vicissitudes. In it was burnt to the ground, and the company migrated to the theatre in , until the completion of a new building, designed by Sir Christopher Wren. | |
The new theatre was opened in , with a prologue and epilogue by Dryden, who, as shown by Mr. R. P. Collier, in Vol. IV. of the Shakespeare Society's Papers, was joined with Killigrew, Mohun, &c., in the speculation of what was then colloquially termed
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In this theatre, of which Christopher Rich was then the patentee, was temporarily closed, by order of the Lord Chamberlain, in consequence of the violent quarrels between the proprietors and the actors. It subsequently passed into the hands of Willer, Dogget, Cibber, and Booth. In a life patent was granted to Sir R. Steele, which years afterwards was revoked. In , when Lacy and Garrick entered into partnership, the latter revived here the performance of Shakespeare's plays; the prologue on that occasion being written, as every Englishman knows, by Dr. Johnson. | |
In , during the Gordon Riots, a mob got up a row in the theatre, to which they did considerable damage. The objects of their fury were whom Garrick had engaged to dance in a grand spectacular piece entitled . His Majesty George III., who happened to be present the night of the riot, seemed, it is said, rather amused than otherwise! | |
In the afterwards famous [extra_illustrations.3.224.1] , then in her year, made her appearance at , in the character of in . She seems to have excited but little notice at this time, and retired to the provinces the following year. It was not until , when her performance at the Bath Theatre had excited general admiration, that she obtained a re-engagement at Drury Lane--which she used often to call --and where her brother, John Kemble, made his as Hamlet, in . In , when Garrick retired from the profession, Messrs. Sheridan, Linley, and Ford became the proprietors of the theatre which he had rendered so justly celebrated. It was pulled down in , and rebuilt, the company meanwhile performing at the . In the [extra_illustrations.3.224.2] -which was designed by Mr. Holland, and is said to have been a model of elegance and beauty-opened, with every prospect of a long and brilliant career. For some years subsequently the gifted Kemble family- John and Charles, with their unapproachable sister, Mrs. Siddons--were the principal attraction at , and the fortunes of the theatre were seriously affected by their withdrawal, in . | |
We are told in the of Sheridan that his translation of , under the title of , brought him in in weeks. The mentions a curious instance of Sheridan's inveterate habit of procrastination:--
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In was again destroyed by fire. Sheridan, at the time of the conflagration, was at the , which voted an immediate adjournment when the disastrous news arrived; though Sheridan himself protested against such an interruption of public business on account of his own or any other private interests. He went thither, however, in all haste, and whilst seeing his own property in flames, sat down with his friend Barry in a coffee-house opposite to a bottle of port, coolly remarking, in answer to some friendly expostulation, that it was
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The fire which burnt down [extra_illustrations.3.225.1] was | |
p.225 | not altogether profitless to the world of poetry, though so heavy a blow to the dramatic muse, for it proved the immediate cause of the appearance of the --the joint production of Horace and James Smith- of the most popular contributions to modern light literature. The history of the book was as follows:--In the month of , there appeared in the daily newspapers an advertisement to the effect that the committee for rebuilding were anxious to promote a for an address to be spoken upon the re-opening of the theatre on the ensuing, and that they had therefore announced to the public that they would be glad to receive such compositions, addressed to their secretary. Some compositions were sent in-good, bad, and indifferent; and the Smiths, seizing on the occasion, put together and published in a small volume such imaginary addresses or prologues, imitating in the most delicate and graceful manner the styles of the chief writers of the day. The book, as soon as published, sold like wild-fire, and ran through very many editions before the end of the year, and soon established itself as an English classic. Among those writers who were thus travestied were Lord Byron, Scott, Crabbe, Wordsworth, Thomas Moore, Dr. Johnson, Lewis, Fitzgerald, William Cobbett, and Samuel T. Coleridge. Of all the imitations, however, that of Sir Walter was universally pronounced the best; and as it contains a vivid description of the scene of conflagration, though in mock-heroic style, we may be pardoned for drawing upon it here rather largely. |
we have a picturesque description of London in darkness; next, we are thus introduced to the outbreak of the fire in the early morning-by a poetical licence, of course, since it happened, in fact, in the evening:
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Then follows the description of the arrival of the fire-engines, quite in the style of Sir Walter Scott in or --
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And then we have the fire itself brought before us in all its sensational details:--
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Last follows a picture, too often seen in other and lesser conflagrations, of the death of a gallant fireman, told with a mock-heroic power which never certainly has been surpassed. [extra_illustrations.3.225.2] | |
p.226 [extra_illustrations.3.226.1] [extra_illustrations.3.226.2] [extra_illustrations.3.226.3] | |
Of the brothers Smith, the authors of these charming parodies, we have already spoken in our description of , Strand. It will be therefore enough to add here the fact that, having shone as wits in London society for more than a quarter of a century, they died, James in , and Horace years later. [extra_illustrations.3.226.4] himself, in spite of being of the authors so pleasantly satirised in the volume, called the by far the best thing of the kind since the Slight and small as was the volume, it was reviewed at considerable length by Lord Jeffrey in the , while the criticised it in company with of the which had really been on the occasion, pronouncing it a model of It maybe of interest, and an encouragement to young authors, to learn that the copyright, which in the instance Murray refused to buy for , was sold by the brothers for upwards of a ! The book has been republished in America, and is read with delight wherever the English language is known. The imitations of Wordsworth ( ), Cobbett ( ), Southey ( ), Coleridge ( ), Crabbe ( ), Lord Byron (the stanzas of ), the songs entitled and (imitations of the then editor of the ), and the travesties of , and , were all written by James Smith; the rest, including the parody ot Sir Walter Scott, by Horace. | |
The present edifice--the erected on the site-modelled upon the plan of the great theatre at Bordeaux, by Mr. Wyatt, the architect, was opened in , with a prologue written by Lord Byron. In the Doric portico in , and the colonnade in , were added to the structure. It is not a little singular that the necessity of such a colonnade had been thus humorously brought under the notice of the Building Committee as far back as the year , in of the in the following lines, in imitation of S. T. Coleridge:--
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The new building was pronounced by the imitators of Mr. Cobbett, in the
--a The theatre, in , was under a committee of noblemen and gentlemen, among whom were Lord Yarmouth (afterwards Marquis of Hertford) and Lord Byron, the latter of whom, however, soon after being appointed, left England, never to return. | |
For many years after that date the great national theatre ran an erratic and, for the most part, disastrous career, having been not inaptly compared to a syren luring adventurous lessees to ruin and bankruptcy. In the agony of desperation it has worn caught eagerly at every attraction, and been- a monster concert-hall, a French hippodrome, and even an arena for the sports of Van Amburgh and his wild beasts, with spasmodic intervals of pantomime and legitimate drama. Sad to relate; we have it on the authority of Mr. Bunn, the lessee, that Van Amburgh was a greater success, in a pecuniary point of view, than Mr. Macready. | |
For several seasons it was the home of English opera, a class of entertainment which has never been appreciated as it deserves among our countrymen, though frequent attempts have been made to give it a position equal to that enjoyed by Italian opera. It may be observed here that Clara Novello, now the Countess Gugliucci, made a brilliant at , in , as
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Since the destruction by fire of Her Majesty's Theatre, in , has risen greatly in the social scale, having been advanced to the dignity of the opposition opera-house to Covent Garden. This, which was supposed to have been only a temporary arrangement until the new operahouse should be built, now appears likely to be a permanent , in consequence of circumstances to be hereafter mentioned in connection with Her Majesty's Theatre; and the great playhouses of Covent Garden and are once more rivals--as in former times, in the days of Garrick and Rich. | |
Apart from the interest attaching to the theatre as a place of dramatic entertainment, some details of the present building may be placed on record here. | |
The general form of the edifice is that of a | |
p.227 | parallelogram; its extent from north to south, being feet, and from east to west feet, independently of the painting and scene-rooms, which are partially detached, extending feet further eastvard. The chief entrance is approached by a flight of steps, protected by a porch. The entrancehall communicates, eastward, with the rotunda and the staircases to the boxes; on the north and south, with the pit-lobbies; and from the latter, by circuitous passages, with the pit itself. The rotunda and grand staircase form very beautiful portions of the theatre. The rotunda, feet in diameter, is surrounded by a circular gallery, and crowned by an elegant dome. Here, among other statues of famous poets and actors, is the bust of Balfe already alluded to. |
The auditory has a most imposing effect, and is built nearly in the form of a horse-shoe; it is feet wide at the stage, feet across the centre of the pit, and feet from the front of the stage to the centre of the dress-circle. The height from the floor of the pit to the ceiling is feet. There are tiers of boxes, and an upper and lower gallery; and the house is calculated to accommodate upwards of persons. | |
The proscenium, being as it were the portico of the stage, has less of imitative art in its decoration than the other parts of the house. On each side are demi-columns of the Corinthian order, supporting a rich entablature, a coved ceiling, and, spanning the stage, an elliptical arch, the whole richly gilt, upon a white ground. Down to about the year , when the theatre underwent extensive renovation, the proscenium bore above it the royal arms, together with the well-known classical motto In its original state the interior of the theatre was circular, but it was altered to its present form during the management of Mr. Elliston, at a cost of about . The whole of the interior has undergone renovation at different periods; it is very effectively decorated, gold being extensively used in the embellishment. | |
The stage is of great extent, being feet from the orchestra to the back wall, and upwards of feet in width from wall to wall. The manager's room, actress' dressing-rooms, and various other apartments, are on the north side of the stage; and on the south are the green-rooms, the prompter'sroom, the actors' dressing-rooms, and a range of stabling for horses. Above the auditory are the carpenters' shops and store-rooms; whilst the gas-fitters' and property-rooms are in the immediate vicinity of the stage. The painting-room is over the eastern extremity of the stage, and measures nearly feet in length by in height and width. An opening has been made through the original back wall of the stage, whereby the space below the painting-room can be made available for scenic effects, thus giving to the stage an entire depth of feet, the largest of any stage in Europe. | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.3.220.1] Mr. King and Mrs. Baddeley in char. of Lord Agliby adn Fannie Sterling [extra_illustrations.3.221.1] Balfe Tablet, Westminster [extra_illustrations.3.221.2] Mrs. Jordan [extra_illustrations.3.221.3] Macready [extra_illustrations.3.224.1] Mrs. Siddons [extra_illustrations.3.224.2] new theatre [extra_illustrations.3.225.1] Old Drury [extra_illustrations.3.225.2] Print- Drury Lane Theatre- Mock Dr. and The Old Batchelor [extra_illustrations.3.226.1] Theatre Royal [extra_illustrations.3.226.2] Design for Byron Statue- Piccadilly [extra_illustrations.3.226.3] Lord Byron's Room in the Palazzo Moncenigo [extra_illustrations.3.226.4] Lord Byron |
