Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2

by Henry Fielding

  CHAPTER X.

  _A discourse between the poet and the player; of no other use in thishistory but to divert the reader._

  Before we proceed any farther in this tragedy we shall leave Mr Josephand Mr Adams to themselves, and imitate the wise conductors of thestage, who in the midst of a grave action entertain you with someexcellent piece of satire or humour called a dance. Which piece, indeed,is therefore danced, and not spoke, as it is delivered to the audienceby persons whose thinking faculty is by most people held to lie in theirheels; and to whom, as well as heroes, who think with their hands,Nature hath only given heads for the sake of conformity, and as they areof use in dancing, to hang their hats on.

  The poet, addressing the player, proceeded thus, "As I was saying" (forthey had been at this discourse all the time of the engagementabove-stairs), "the reason you have no good new plays is evident; it isfrom your discouragement of authors. Gentlemen will not write, sir, theywill not write, without the expectation of fame or profit, or perhapsboth. Plays are like trees, which will not grow without nourishment; butlike mushrooms, they shoot up spontaneously, as it were, in a rich soil.The muses, like vines, may be pruned, but not with a hatchet. The town,like a peevish child, knows not what it desires, and is always bestpleased with a rattle. A farce-writer hath indeed some chance forsuccess: but they have lost all taste for the sublime. Though I believeone reason of their depravity is the badness of the actors. If a manwrites like an angel, sir, those fellows know not how to give asentiment utterance."--"Not so fast," says the player: "the modernactors are as good at least as their authors, nay, they come nearertheir illustrious predecessors; and I expect a Booth on the stage again,sooner than a Shakespear or an Otway; and indeed I may turn yourobservation against you, and with truth say, that the reason no authorsare encouraged is because we have no good new plays."--"I have notaffirmed the contrary," said the poet; "but I am surprized you grow sowarm; you cannot imagine yourself interested in this dispute; I hope youhave a better opinion of my taste than to apprehend I squinted atyourself. No, sir, if we had six such actors as you, we should soonrival the Bettertons and Sandfords of former times; for, without acompliment to you, I think it impossible for any one to have excelledyou in most of your parts. Nay, it is solemn truth, and I have heardmany, and all great judges, express as much; and, you will pardon me ifI tell you, I think every time I have seen you lately you haveconstantly acquired some new excellence, like a snowball. You havedeceived me in my estimation of perfection, and have outdone what Ithought inimitable."--"You are as little interested," answered theplayer, "in what I have said of other poets; for d--n me if there arenot many strokes, ay, whole scenes, in your last tragedy, which at leastequal Shakespear. There is a delicacy of sentiment, a dignity ofexpression in it, which I will own many of our gentlemen did not doadequate justice to. To confess the truth, they are bad enough, and Ipity an author who is present at the murder of his works."--"Nay, it isbut seldom that it can happen," returned the poet; "the works of mostmodern authors, like dead-born children, cannot be murdered. It is suchwretched half-begotten, half-writ, lifeless, spiritless, low, grovellingstuff, that I almost pity the actor who is obliged to get it by heart,which must be almost as difficult to remember as words in a language youdon't understand."--"I am sure," said the player, "if the sentences havelittle meaning when they are writ, when they are spoken they have less.I know scarce one who ever lays an emphasis right, and much less adaptshis action to his character. I have seen a tender lover in an attitudeof fighting with his mistress, and a brave hero suing to his enemy withhis sword in his hand. I don't care to abuse my profession, but rot meif in my heart I am not inclined to the poet's side."--"It is rathergenerous in you than just," said the poet; "and, though I hate to speakill of any person's production--nay, I never do it, nor will--but yet,to do justice to the actors, what could Booth or Betterton have made ofsuch horrible stuff as Fenton's Mariamne, Frowd's Philotas, or Mallet'sEurydice; or those low, dirty, last-dying-speeches, which a fellow inthe city of Wapping, your Dillo or Lillo, what was his name, calledtragedies?"--"Very well," says the player; "and pray what do you thinkof such fellows as Quin and Delane, or that face-making puppy youngCibber, that ill-looked dog Macklin, or that saucy slut Mrs Clive? Whatwork would they make with your Shakespears, Otways, and Lees? How wouldthose harmonious lines of the last come from their tongues?--

  "'--No more; for I disdain All pomp when thou art by: far be the noise Of kings and crowns from us, whose gentle souls Our kinder fates have steer'd another way. Free as the forest birds we'll pair together, Without rememb'ring who our fathers were: Fly to the arbors, grots, and flow'ry meads; There in soft murmurs interchange our souls; Together drink the crystal of the stream, Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields, And, when the golden evening calls us home, Wing to our downy nests, and sleep till morn.'

  "Or how would this disdain of Otway--

  "'Who'd be that foolish sordid thing call'd man?'"

  "Hold! hold! hold!" said the poet: "Do repeat that tender speech in thethird act of my play which you made such a figure in."--"I wouldwillingly," said the player, "but I have forgot it."--"Ay, you was notquite perfect in it when you played it," cries the poet, "or you wouldhave had such an applause as was never given on the stage; an applause Iwas extremely concerned for your losing."--"Sure," says the player, "ifI remember, that was hissed more than any passage in the wholeplay."--"Ay, your speaking it was hissed," said the poet.--"My speakingit!" said the player.--"I mean your not speaking it," said the poet."You was out, and then they hissed."--"They hissed, and then I was out,if I remember," answered the player; "and I must say this for myself,that the whole audience allowed I did your part justice; so don't laythe damnation of your play to my account."--"I don't know what you meanby damnation," replied the poet.--"Why, you know it was acted but onenight," cried the player.--"No," said the poet, "you and the whole townwere enemies; the pit were all my enemies, fellows that would cut mythroat, if the fear of hanging did not restrain them. All taylors, sir,all taylors."--"Why should the taylors be so angry with you?" cries theplayer. "I suppose you don't employ so many in making your clothes."--"Iadmit your jest," answered the poet; "but you remember the affair aswell as myself; you know there was a party in the pit and upper gallerythat would not suffer it to be given out again; though much, ayinfinitely, the majority, all the boxes in particular, were desirous ofit; nay, most of the ladies swore they never would come to the housetill it was acted again. Indeed, I must own their policy was good in notletting it be given out a second time: for the rascals knew if it hadgone a second night it would have run fifty; for if ever there wasdistress in a tragedy--I am not fond of my own performance; but if Ishould tell you what the best judges said of it--Nor was it entirelyowing to my enemies neither that it did not succeed on the stage as wellas it hath since among the polite readers; for you can't say it hadjustice done it by the performers."--"I think," answered the player,"the performers did the distress of it justice; for I am sure we were indistress enough, who were pelted with oranges all the last act: we allimagined it would have been the last act of our lives."

  The poet, whose fury was now raised, had just attempted to answer whenthey were interrupted, and an end put to their discourse, by anaccident, which if the reader is impatient to know, he must skip overthe next chapter, which is a sort of counterpart to this, and containssome of the best and gravest matters in the whole book, being adiscourse between parson Abraham Adams and Mr Joseph Andrews.