The Works of William Harrison Ainsworth

by William Harrison Ainsworth

  THE THEATRE.

  Oph, Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

  Ham. We shall know by this fellow — the players cannot keep counsel; they’ll tell all.

  THE THEATRE.

  Pha. — Thinke what you will of it, I thinke ’tis done, and I thinke ’tis acting by this time. Harke, harke, what drummings yonder; I’ll lay my life they are comming to present the shew I spake of.

  Com. Sense. — It may be so; stay, wee’ll see what ’tis.

  LINGUA.

  I AM neither a disciple of Jeremy Collier, nor of the author of Histriomastrix; both of whom, with more zeal than discretion, have occupied themselves in railing against stage plays and playgoers. More especially, the latter author has contrived to steal sufficient time from the labours of his profession, to indite a goodly “quarto tractate” of some thousand and odd pages, in which he logically proves the immorality of the stage, by well arranged and subtle syllogisms; such as, Things derived from the devil are evil — stage plays are sprung from the devil — argal, stage plays are evil; which syllogism would, indubitably, be conclusive on the subject, were it not that it is unfortunately necessary to prove his major, which he attempts to do, by the testimony of divers fathers of the Primitive Church, and among others, Tertullian, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Ignatius, Lactantius, and many other long-named men, whom few of the present time know, nor, if they knew, would care for.

  Leaving, therefore, the reverend and learned gentlemen to slumber out their days in undisturbed forgetfulness, I confess that I am a play-goer, — a confession, which certainly demands no extraordinary share of resolution to make, as a thousand people do the same every day. But I persuade myself, that I enjoy many pleasures in my theatrical hours, which other people do not experience.

  I have not a greater number of senses than the rest of my species; but I possess, perhaps, in theatrical pleasures, a more lively power of association than the ‘oi polloi’ who throng the gallery, pit, and boxes around me. Very probably, there may appear in this a great degree of overweening egotism, but this I do not much regard. All people are egotists in their hearts; the only difference is between those who keep it pent up, and those who let it loose when occasion offers, without caring where it flies, or whose habits or prejudices it runs a tilt against. To proceed — the primary object with most frequenters of the theatre is, I presume, at least nominally,

  THE PLAY.

  No one goes, or at any rate acknowledges that he goes, to sit in a box or on a bench. But many make going to see a play an excuse for passing away a portion of time, which they would not otherwise know how to occupy. Some go to meet their friends, — others, for less laudable meetings with “fair mischiefs,” as that facete personage, Master Janus Weathercock hath it — some to clap — others to hiss — these go to applaud, and those to damn — some few, perhaps, go out of real love to dramatic entertainments; and a multitude, because they have nothing else to do.

  As for myself, I go out of many motives; there are a variety of circumstances which Conspire to furnish the satisfaction I experience. I am not cursed with that disposition to be displeased, which throws the darkest shade on every thing in life. I derive pleasure from that, which any body else may derive pleasure from, by using the same means; by resolutely banishing from the mind all inclination to cavil and find fault, by looking on the golden side of the shield, by encouraging that spirit of optimism, which softens down the harsh, and elevates, or brings into more distinct points of view, the mild and lovely features of what we see spread around us. I go to the theatre purposely as a recreation, and I determine, from the moment I enter the pit-door, or box-lobby, not to suffer any thing to divert me from my object. I remember, with great delight, the feelings I used to experience in my childhood, on a visit to the theatre; it was but seldom that I went, but it was a real treat, and I know scarce any thing that could equal my joy when I found myself fairly, seated. The portentous green curtain, on which I was wont to gaze with expecting wonderment, before me, while I waited with impatience for the moment that should reveal the hidden scenes. Then there was the multitude of company, the lights of the house, the painting, gilding, and other decorations, which, to my youthful eye, seemed gorgeous magnificence. Then, too, when the prompter’s bell sent forth its silver accents, and was immediately succeeded by the agitation of the dark curtain, as it folded itself up, as if by its own voluntary motion, disclosing the scene behind, I felt my heart bound within me at the sight of the varied scene, where castles, and rocks, and woods, and cataracts, and trees, spread forth in mimic beauty; the heroes and kings of gorgeous tragedy went sweeping by — I loved with Romeo — smile not, gentle reader, at a lover of twelve summers — I then but thought I loved, and my imagination was ever on the wing; with Juliet I wept for her sad mischance, and listened with mingled feelings to the “meaning in his madness” of the Denmark Prince. But it was in Lear, that my soul was then most strongly excited. There was pity for his misfortunes — hatred for the unnatural daughters to whom he had given his all — wonder and commiseration for the maniac whom the foul fiend torments — and pity, admiration, and esteem for her, who exposed her tender limbs and delicate frame to the “peltings of the pitiless storm,” to shield his head, and give solace to his misery, who had driven her from his home and from his heart.

  Amongst the advantages and disadvantages of increasing years, may be reckoned as one of the latter, that familiarity with the scenes and pleasures of our youth, which takes away their sweetest bloom. The prompter’s bell is no longer delightful to me — it is no more the “sweetest achromatic,” ——

  — the rarest and most exquisite,

  Most spherical, divine, angelical.

  The mystery of the green curtain has faded away — the scenes are familiar to me — and the multitude of company (for I cannot bear to stay to look on empty benches), with the lights and music and bustle, fail so powerfully to excite me. But still I am fond of occasionally taking my accustomed seat on the fourth bench of the pit. ’Tis to me like frequenting Will’s coffee-house, the metropolitan academy of Queen Anne’s time; where Pope, and Addison, and Wycherley, and Steele, and their fellow wits, enjoyed the feast of each other’s converse, and laughed at the puny critics, the Dennises of the day. They are gone; but at the theatre, and some other favourite haunts of mine — the old Hummums in Covent Garden is one — I can sometimes meet with a circle of men, whose conversation is not inferior, I imagine, to that of the author of the Dunciad, or the writers of the Spectator. There is my friend, proud am I to call him my friend, Charles Lamb, that sportive child of fancy, quern qui non prorsus amet, ilium omnes et virtutes et veneres odere. With his endless fund of anecdote, derived from his acquaintance with the old fellows, his various reading, his skill in using his resources, and his free and open nature; who has ever read his Essays, and not rejoiced in their strong and energetic application the full, ancient, lovely quaintness of his style; and then turned, with disgust, from the mawkish, vapid, flat, medium insipidity of writers like me and my brethren?

  Then there are my friends C. and Scarlett, two excellent fellows, and I know none that I prefer to them, or that have more good qualities. C. is such a man as one would wish to call a friend. Warm-hearted and cool-headed, the impetuosities of his genius are held in due subjection by the clearness of his judgment. Though somewhat reserved in company, it is only needful to overcome his backwardness, to be delighted and surprised by his conversation. To a fund of good sense and correct ideas, called into constant exertion by acute and diligent observation, he adds a facility and aptness of allusion which is astonishing; the fruit of a deep acquaintance with, and recollection of the beauties of the best writers in every department of literature. Among our early authors in particular (that wide, and, till late, neglected field of research and pleasure), he is, in the most literal sense of the phrase, “at home;” familiar with their times, their manners, their acquisitions in learning and science, he enters into their feelings w
ith a fellowship and congeniality of sentiment, unknown to a mere modern man. The result of his studies and acquirements is, that whatever subject he handles, he is always himself; having always his treasures at command, he can convert them to any use he pleases, and clothes his thoughts in colours, which set off their native beauties to still greater advantage. Over whatever he writes is spread a bright gleam of intelligence, penetrating, with acuteness resembling intuition, into the causes of events and phenomena, and seizing with inconceivable rapidity on the links of a chain of reasoning, which astonishes while it convinces. His writings are the conclusions of frequent examination and deep research, and every where show the masterly and delicate hand of a scholar and a gentleman.

  Will Scarlett is a different, not opposite character: younger than C., and without so great a command over himself, his inclinations not seldom get the upper hand of his discretion. More formed for society, he possesses far more general attraction than his friend. Naturally gay, he brings mirth and cheerfulness with him, and is therefore every where a welcome visitor. But this is merely the outward ornament that covers the nobler stuff within; for his intellectual powers make him no less admired among his studious associates, than his handsome person (of which by the way, I imagine, Will is by no means insensible) and conversational talents among the ladies, and his lighter acquaintances:

  I dwell with peculiar delight upon the recollection of the dinner I had with C. It was the first time I had been quietly seated in conversation with him; and I had for some time previous enjoyed the anticipation of the feast. C., Scarlett, and myself, formed the whole of the company; and with those two I enjoyed ten times the pleasure which I have ever felt in large and formal parties. The room was an old fashioned apartment, with carved oak wainscotting, blackened with age; a blazing fire roared up the chimney, forming a pleasant contrast to the howling of the wind without (for it was a dull November night). What real comfortable pleasure it was, after dinner, to sit by the hearth, and while we discoursed, to sip our host’s, while the rich rough flavour of the Falemian was seasoned by the genuine attic of C.’s conversation! It was impossible not to think of the dissolve frigus of Horace. These are the delightful hours, that, like good wine, charm not only in present enjoyment, but leave a flavour behind them; hours that we recur to again and again, with unalloyed pleasure. It is in reminiscences like these that we feel the full force of the poet’s words:

  —— Hoc est

  Vivere his, vita posse priore frui.

  Over the chimney-piece hung a portrait of old Izaak Walton;

  (I am fond of portraits of men who have made themselves worthy of remembrance. These lines of Rogers’, I always read with peculiar pleasure, and they may he well introduced here: —

  Ah! most that art my grateful rapture calls

  Which breathes a soul into the silent walls;

  Which gathers round the wise of every tongue,

  All, on whose words departed nations hung;

  Still prompt to charm with many a converse sweet,

  Guides in the world, companions in retreat.)

  and it does one good to contemplate his countenance, and compare the free, open-hearted, hospitable character of the frank old angler, with the precise, cold-blooded generation of every-day beings that swarm around us; mere motes in the sunshine — fruges consumere nati. — Let wits talk as they like about a rod, with a fish at one end, and a fool at the other; the idea that a man like this thought such an amusement not unworthy of devoting his leisure to, ought, at least, to establish a title to respect for all anglers, and for an art itself, which, however men’s taste may differ, has been the occasion of a work that every one, to whom the expression of goodness of feeling, and generosity of disposition, and purity and chastity of style, are sources of pleasure, will read with delight and advantage to himself, and feelings of admiration and esteem towards the author.

  But the play hour approaches, and I must give up my ideal visionings, in order to enjoy the realities of the scene. I hope to God there will be a full house; I abominate empty benches; to sit alone on a whole bench, whose very vacuity increases its infernal extent; the house like a desert; the musicians scraping away their rosined bows with careless hands, creating harsh discords; actors staring about them, kicking their heels, and looking with a most sleepy and insolent indifference on the rari nantes, discernible in the house, with here and there a stray wanderer like myself, lolling at full length, or wandering in discontented, solitariness from one side to the other; and in the boxes, the expected bright circle of splendour, to spy occasionally a gloomy face looking abroad, or, perhaps, a group of a dozen, — forming a half, probably, of the whole set, — gathered together in one box, to have something like the appearance of close neighbourhood. I would rather see the face of a printer’s devil, importuning for his damned proof sheet, or unfinished article. — Rap, rap, rap! — Zounds! Speak of the devil, and he’s at your elbow— ’tis he, by all the gods! And so, kind and fair readers, and you, readers, who are neither fair nor kind, GOOD NIGHT.

  RECOLLECTIONS.

  Bards of passion and of mirth,

  Ye have left your souls on earth!

  Have ye souls in heaven too,

  Double lived in regions new?

  Thus ye live on high, and then

  On the earth ye live again;

  And the souls you left behind you

  Teach us, here, the way to find you.

  KEATS

  RECOLLECTIONS.

  The impartiallest Satyre that ever was seen,

  That speaks truth without fear, or flattery or spleen;

  Read as you list, commend it, or come mend it,

  The man that penned it, did with finis end it.

  TAYLOR.

  PERHAPS some of the most agreeable moments in the mind of a scholar, are those spent in the retrospection of early studies, in recalling the hours which first opened upon him the treasures of learning, in tracing back his acquaintance with a book to its first commencement in his youth and in seeking in associations of thought for the causes of that endeared and superadded value, with which a volume is frequently enhanced from the soft and infused light of other days. For myself, I can only say, that when seated at home in my library, and in a contemplative humour, it is in such speculations that I most delight, — it is then

  A thousand pleasures do me bless,

  And crown my soul with happiness,

  as I fly back to that period when, uncramped by the restraint of any particular study, and unrestrained by the fetters of academical regimen, the mind was left to traverse the wide domain of literature, and seek amusement in perpetual variety: dipping into the driest and welcoming the most unpromising topics. With what renewed gusto did I range over the contents of a well fed library, from Rabelais to the Fathers, and from Coryate’s Crudities, to the sums of Aquinas, and the theological works of Boethius! With what keenness of antiquarianism did I turn over the dusty volumes of Holinshed and Stowe, or linger over the uncouth cuts, and thrilling details of Fox’s and Clarke’s Martyrology! How I delighted to immerse myself in “all such reading as was never read,” and neglect the more common and customary paths of every-day study for the huge folios and quartos, (which the sons of this degenerate age can hardly lift) for the miracles of industry which our forefathers have achieved! How happy was I, when only a boy of fifteen, if I could get into a corner with Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, or Sir Walter Raleigh’s History, and pounce upon the contents, as a kite pounces upon a sparrow! The writers of the Augustan age I left to the perusal of others, for they were read by every body; solacing myself, instead, with the poetry of Claudian, Ausonius, Sidonius, Apollinaris, and Prudentius; and the prose of Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, and Ammianus Marcellinus. To me the productions of declining Rome were more valuable than the glories of her zenith. How refreshing to my view were those bulky and endless tomes of commentaries, which the era of the Scaligers and Casaubons poured forth! The text of a writer, without its due m
odicum of annotation, was to me as arid and ungrateful as a plain without a tree. The Fathers were my boon companions; through them I ranged from Hermes to Saxon Bede, passing ever and anon from the pure Latinity of Sulpitius Severua to the sharp and caustic epistles of St. Isidore, and the hard and embrowned quaintness of Tertullian. How light of heart was I, if at some of those dinners which my father used to give to the reverend sons of the church, I could amaze them, by edgings in some quotation from the Cassandra of Lycophron, or the Dyonisiaca of Nonnus, and procure the appellation of the learned boy! What delightful visions of young hope then presented themselves; never, alas! to be realized!

  Quas premit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo.

  One subject which at one time formed the principal part of my study, and for which I still feel a partiality, which only grows stronger by a lapse of time, was the Old English Drama. At that time, the productions of our early dramatists did not excite as much attention as they do at present; and Mr. Lamb’s Specimens had not been the means of introducing them to public notice: I therefore feel some degree of pride in having, as I may truly say, been one of the first to discover the inexhaustible mine of literary riches, which was concealed in their truly exquisite compositions. The first circumstance which drew my attention to this class of writers, I well remember, and if my readers will excuse the egotism which occurs in such frequent reference to myself, I will simply state it.