Theophilus Cibber - The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753)

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In the reign of Charles I, dramatic entertainments were accompanied
with rich scenery, curious machines, and other elegant embellishments,
chiefly condufted by the wonderful dexterity of that celebrated
English, architect Inigo Jones. But these were employed only in
masques at court, and were too expensive for the little theatres in
which plays were then acted. In them there was nothing more than a
ouftain of very coarse stuff, upon the drawing up of which, the stage
appeared either with bare walls on the sides, coarsly matted, or
covered with tapestry; so that for the place originally represented,
and all the successive changes in which the poets of those times
freely indulged themselves, there was nothing to help the spectator's
understanding, or to assist the actor's performance, but bare
imagination. In Shakespear's time so undecorated were the theatres,
that a blanket supplied the place of a curtain; and it was a good
observation of the ingenious Mr. Chitty, a gentleman of acknowledged
taste in dramatic excellence, that the circumstance of the blanket,
suggested to Shakespear that noble image in Macbeth, where the
murderer invokes

Thick night to veil itself in the dunnest smoke of Hell,
Nor Heaven peep thro' the blanket of the dark
To cry hold, hold.

It is true, that while things continued in this situation, there were
a great many play-houses, sometimes six or seven open at once. Of
these some were large, and in part open, where they acted by day
light; others smaller, but better fitted up, where they made use of
candles. The plainness of the theatre made the prices small, and drew
abundance of company; yet upon the whole it is doubtful, whether the
spectactors in all these houses were really superior in number, to
those who have frequented the theatres in later times. If the spirit
and judgment of the actors supplied all deficiencies, and made as some
would insinuate, plays more intelligible without scenes, than they
afterwards were with them, it must be very astonishing; neither is it
difficult to assign another cause, why those who were concerned in
play-houses, were angry at the introduction of scenes and decorations,
which was, that notwithstanding the advanced prices, their profits
from that time were continually sinking; and an author, of high
authority in this case, assures us, in an historical account of the
stage, that the whole sharers in Mr. Hart's company divided a thousand
pounds a year a-piece, before the expensive decorations became
fashionable. Sir William Davehant considered things in another light:
he was well acquainted with the alterations which the French theatre
had received, under the auspice of cardinal Rich[e]lieu, who had an
excellent taste; and he remembered the noble contrivances of Inigo
Jones, which were not at all inferior to the designs of the best
French masters. Sir William was likewise sensible that the monarch he
served was an excellent judge of every thing of this kind; and these
considerations excited in him a passion for the advancement of the
theatre, to which the great figure it has since made is chiefly owing.
Mr. Dryden has acknowledged his admirable talents in this way, and
gratefully remembers the pains taken by our poet, to set a work of his
in the fairest light possible, and to which, he ingenuously ascribes
the success with which it was received. This is the hislory of the
life and progress of scenery on our stage; which, without doubt, gives
greater life to the entertainment of a play; but as the best purposes
may be prostituted, so there is some reason to believe that the
excessive fondness for decorations, which now prevails, has hurt the
true dramatic taste. Scenes are to be considered as secondary in a
play, the means of setting it off with lustre, and ought to engross
but little attention; as it is more important to hear what a character
speaks, than to observe the place where he stands; but now the case is
altered. The scenes in a Harlequin Sorcerer, and other unmeaning
pantomimes, unknown to our more elegant and judging fore-fathers,
procure crowded houses, while the noblest strokes of Dryden, the
delicate touches of Otway and Rowe, the wild majesty of Shakespear,
and the heart-felt language of Lee, pass neglected, when put in
competition with those gewgaws of the stage, these feasts of the eye;
which as they can communicate no ideas, so they can neither warm nor
reform the heart, nor answer one moral purpose in nature.

We ought not to omit a cirrumstance much in favour of Sir William
Davenant, which proves him to have been as good a man as a poet. When
at the Restoration, those who had been active in disturbing the late
reign, and secluding their sovereign from the throne, became obnoxious
to the royal party, Milton was likely to feel the vengeance of the
court, Davenant actuated by a noble principle of gratitude, interposed
all his influence, and saved the greatest ornament of the world from
the stroke of an executioner. Ten years before that, Davenant had been
rescued by Milton, and he remembered the favour; an instance, this,
that generosity, gratitude, and nobleness of nature is confined to no
particular party; but the heart of a good man will still discover
itself in acts of munificence and kindness, however mistaken he may be
in his opinion, however warm in state factions. The particulars of
this extraordinary affair are related in the life of Milton.

Sir William Davenant continued at the head of his company of actors,
and at last transferred them to a new and magnificent theatre built in
Dorset-Gardens, where some of his old plays were revived with very
singular circumstances of royal kindness, and a new one when brought
upon the stage met with great applause.

The last labour of his pen was in altering a play of Shakespear's,
called the Tempest, so as to render it agreeable to that age, or
rather susceptible of those theatrical improvements he had brought
into fashion. The great successor to his laurel, in a preface to this
play, in which he was concerned with Davenant, 'says, that he was a
man of quick and piercing imagination, and soon found that somewhat
might be added to the design of Shakespear, of which neither Fletcher
nor Suckling had ever thought; and therefore to put the last hand to
it, he designed the counterpart to Shakespear's plot, namely, that of
a man who had never seen a woman, that by this means, these two
characters of innocence and love might the more illustrate and commend
each other. This excellent contrivance he was pleased to communicate
to me, and to defire my assistance in it. I confess that from the
first moment it so pleased me, that I never wrote any thing with so
much delight. I might likewise do him that justice to acknowledge that
my writing received daily amendments, and that is the reason why it is
not so faulty, as the rest that I have done, without the help or
correction of so judicious a friend. The comical parts of the sailors
were also of his invention and Writing, as may easily be discovered
from the stile.'

This great man died at his house in little Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, April
17, 1668, aged 63, and two days afterwards was interred in
Westminster-Abbey. On his gravestone is inscribed, in imitation of Ben
Johnson's short epitaph,

O RARE SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT!

It may not be amiss to observe, that his remains rest very near the
place out of which those of Mr. Thomas May, who had been formerly his
rival for the bays, and the Parliament's historian, were removed, by
order of the ministry. As to the family our author left behind him,
some account of it will be given in the life of his son Dr. Charles
Davenant, who succeeded him as manager of the theatre. Sir William's
works entire were published by his widow 1673, and dedicated to James
Duke of York.

After many storms of adversity, our author spent the evening of his
days in ease and serenity. He had the happiness of being loved by
people of all denominations, and died lamented by every worthy good
man. As a poet, unnumbered evidences may be produced in his favour.
Amongst these Mr. Dryden is the foremost, for when his testimony can
be given in support of poetical merit, we reckon all other evidence
superfluous, and without his, all other evidences deficient. In his
words then we shall sum up Davenant's character as a poet, and a man
of genius.

'I found him, (says he) in his preface to the Tempest, of so quick a
fancy, that nothing was proposed to him on which he could not quickly
produce a thought extreamly pleasant and surprizing, and these first
thoughts of his, contrary to the old Latin proverb, were not always
the least happy, and as his fancy was quick, so likewise were the
products of it remote and new. He borrowed not of any other, and his
imaginations were such as could not easily enter into any other man.
His corrections were sober and judicious, and he corrected his own
writings much more severely than those of another man, bestowing twice
the labour and pain in polishing which he used in invention.'

Before we enumerate the dramatic works of Sir William Davenant, it
will be but justice to his merit, to insert some animadversions on his
Gondibert; a poem which has been the subject of controversy almost a
hundred years; that is, from its first appearance to the present time.
Perhaps the dispute had been long ago decided, if the author's leisure
had permitted him to finish it. At present we see it to great
disadvantage; and if notwithstanding this it has any beauties, we may
fairly conclude it would have come much nearer perfection, if the
story, begun with so much spirit, had been brought to an end upon the
author's plan.

Mr. Hobbes, the famous philosopher of Malmsbury, in a letter printed
in his works, affirms, 'that he never yet saw a poem that had so much
shape of art, health of morality and vigour, and beauty of expression,
as this of our author; and in an epistle to the honourable Edward
Howard, author of the British Princes, he thus speaks. My judgment in
poetry has been once already censured by very good wits for commending
Gondibert; but yet have they not disabled my testimony. For what
authority is there in wit? a jester may have it; a man in drink may
have it, and be fluent over night, and wise and dry in the morning:
What is it? and who can tell whether it be better to have it or no? I
will take the liberty to praise what I like as well as they, and
reprehend what they like.'--Mr. Rymer in his preface to his
translation of Rapin's Reflexions on Aristototle's [sic] Treatise of
Poetry, observes, that our author's wit is well known, and in the
preface to that poem, there appears some strokes of an extraordinary
judgment; that he is for unbeaten tracts, and new ways of thinking,
but certainly in the untried seas he is no great discoverer. One
design of the Epic poets before him was to adorn their own country,
there finding their heroes and patterns of virtue, where example, as
they thought, would have the greater influence and power over
posterity; "but this poet, says Rymer, steers a different course; his
heroes are all foreigners; he cultivates a country that is nothing
a-kin to him, and Lombardy reaps the honour of all. Other poets chose
some action or hero so illustrious, that the name of the poem prepared
the reader, and made way for its reception; but in this poem none can
divine what great action he intended to celebrate, nor is the reader
obliged to know whether the hero be Turk or Christian; nor do the
first lines give any light or prospect into the design. Altho' a poet
should know all arts and sciences, yet ought he discreetly to manage
his knowledge. He must have a judgment to select what is noble and
beautiful, and proper for the occasion. He must by a particular
chemistry, extract the essence of things; without soiling his wit with
dross or trumpery. The sort of verse Davenant makes choice of in his
Gondibert might contribute much to the vitiating his stile; for
thereby he obliges himself to stretch every period to the end of four
lines: Thus the sense is broken perpetually with parentheses, the
words jumbled in confusion, and darkness spread over all; but it must
be acknowledged, that Davenant had a particular talent for the
manners; his thoughts are great, and there appears something roughly
noble thro' the whole." This is the substance of Rymer's observations
on Gondibert. Rymer was certainly a scholar, and a man of discernment;
and tho' in some parts of the criticisms he is undoubtedly right, yet
in other parts he is demonstrably wrong. He complains that Davenant
has laid the scene of action in Lombardy, which Rymer calls neglecting
his own country; but the critic should have considered, that however
well it might have pleased the poet's countrymen, yet as an epic poem
is supposed to be read in every nation enlightened by science, there
can no objections arise from that quarter by any but those who were of
the same country with the author. His not making choice of a pompous
name, and introducing his poem with an exordium, is rather a beauty
than a fault; for by these means he leaves room for surprize, which is
the first excellency in any poem, and to strike out beauties where
they are not expected, has a happy influence upon the reader. Who
would think from Milton's introduction, that so stupendous a work
would ensue, and simple dignity is certainly more noble, than all the
efforts and colourings which art and labour can bestow.

The ingenious and learned Mr. Blackwall, Professor of Greek in the
university of Aberdeen, in his enquiry into the life and writings of
Homer, censures the structure of the poem; but, at the same time pays
a compliment to the abilities of the author. "It was indeed (says he)
a very extraordinary project of our ingenious countryman, to write an
epic poem without mixing allegory, or allowing the smallest fiction
throughout the composure. It was like lopping off a man's limb, and
then putting him upon running races; tho' it must be owned that the
performance shews, with what ability he could have acquitted himself,
had he been sound and entire."

Such the animadversions which critics of great name have made on
Gondibert, and the result is, that if Davenant had not power to begin
and consummate an epic poem, yet by what he has done, he has a right
to rank in the first class of poets, especially when it is considered
that we owe to him the great perfection of the theatre, and putting it
upon a level with that of France and Italy; and as the theatrical are
the most rational of all amusements, the latest posterity should hold
his name in veneration, who did so much for the advancement of
innocent pleasures, and blending instruction and gaiety together.

The dramatic works of our author are,

1. Albovine King of the Lombards, a tragedy. This play is commended by
eight copies of verses. The story of it is related at large, in a
novel, by Bandello, and is translated by Belleforest[3].

2. Cruel Brother, a tragedy.

3. Distresses, a tragi-comedy, printed in folio, Lond. 1673.

4. First Day's Entertainment at Rutland-House, by declamation and
music, after the manner of the ancients. Of this we have already given
some account.

5. The Fair Favourite, a tragi-comedy, printed in folio, 1673.

6. The Just Italian, a tragi-comedy.

7. Law against Lovers, a tragi-comedy, made up of two plays by
Shakespear, viz. Measure for Measure, and Much Ado about Nothing.

8. Love and Honour, a tragi-comedy; which succeeded beyond any other
of our author's plays, both on the theatre at Lincoln's-Inn, and
Dorset-Garden.

9. Man's the Master, a tragi-comedy, acted upon the Duke of York's
theatre.

10. Platonic Lovers, a tragi-comedy.

11. Play House to be Let. It is difficult to say, under what species
this play should be placed, as it consists of pieces of different
kinds blended together, several of which the author wrote in Oliver's
time, that were acted separately by stealth.--The History of Sir
Francis Drake, expressed by instrumental and vocal music, and by art
of perspective scenes, and the cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, were
first printed in 4to. and make the third and fourth acts of this play.
The second act consists of a French farce, translated from
Mollier[e]'s Ganarelle, ou le Cocu Imaginaire, and purposely by our
author put into a sort of jargon, common to Frenchmen newly come over.
The fifth act consists of tragedy travestie; or the actions of Caesar,
Anthony and Cleopatra in burlesque verse.

12. Siege of Rhodes in two parts. These plays, during the civil war,
were acted in Stilo Recitativo, but afterwards enlarged, and acted
with applause at the Duke's theatre. Solyman the second took this
famous city in the year 1522, which is circumstantially related by
Knolles in his History of the Turks, from whence our author took the
story.

13. Siege, a tragi-comedy.

14. News from Plymouth, a comedy.

15. Temple of Love, presented by Queen Henrietta, wife to King Charles
I and her ladies at Whitehall, viz. The Marchioness of Hamilton; Lady
Mary Herbert; Countess of Oxford; Berkshire; Carnarvon: The noble
Persian Youths were represented by the Duke of Lenox, and the Earls of
Newport and Desmond.

16. Triumphs of the Prince d'Amour, presented by his Highness the
Prince Elector, brother-in-law to Charles I. at his palace in the
Middle Temple. This masque, at the request of this honourable society,
was devised and written by the author in three days, and was presented
by the members thereof as an entertainment to his Highness. A list of
the Masquers names, as they were ranked according to their antiquity,
is subjoined to the Masque.

17. Wits, a comedy; first acted at Black-Fryars, and afterwards at the
Duke of York's theatre. This piece appeared on the stage with
remarkable applause.

These pieces have in general been received with applause on the stage,
and have been read with pleasure by people of the best taste: The
greatest part of them were published in the author's life-time in 4to.
and all since his death, collected into one volume with his other
works, printed in folio, Lond. 1673; and dedicated by his widow to the
late King James, as has been before observed.

Footnotes:
1. Gond. b. iii. cant. 3. stanz. 31.
2. Athen. Oxon. vol. ii, col. 412.
3. Histories Tragiques, Tom. IV. No. XIX.

* * * * *

HENRY KING, Bishop of Chichester,

The eldest son of Dr. John King lord bishop of London, whom Winstanley
calls a person well fraught with episcopal qualities, was born at
Wornal in Bucks, in the month of January 1591. He was educated partly
in grammar learning in the free school at Thame in Oxfordshire, and
partly in the College school at Westminster, from which last he was
elected a student in Christ Church 1608[1], being then under the
tuition of a noted tutor. Afterwards he took the degrees in arts, and
entered into holy orders, and soon became a florid preacher, and
successively chaplain to King James I. archdeacon of Colchester,
residentiary of St. Paul's cathedral, canon and dean of Rochester, in
which dignity he was installed the 6th of February 1638. In 1641, says
Mr. Wood, he was made bishop of Chichester, being one of those persons
of unblemished reputation, that his Majesty, tho' late, promoted to
that honourable office; which he possessed without any removal, save
that by the members of the Long Parliament, to the time of his death.

When he was young he delighted much in the study of music and poetry,
which with his wit and fancy made his conversation very agreeable, and
when he was more advanced in years he applied himself to oratory,
philosophy, and divinity, in which he became eminent.

It happened that this bishop attending divine service in a church at
Langley in Bucks, and hearing there a psalm sung, whose wretched
expression, far from conveying the meaning of the Royal Psalmist, not
only marred devotion, but turned what was excellent in the original
into downright burlesque; he tried that evening if he could not
easily, and with plainness suitable to the lowest understanding,
deliver it from that garb which rendered it ridiculous. He finished
one psalm, and then another, and found the work so agreeable and
pleasing, that all the psalms were in a short time compleated; and
having shewn the version to some friends of whose judgment he had a
high opinion, he could not resist their importunity (says Wood) of
putting it to the press, or rather he was glad their sollicitations
coincided with his desire to be thought a poet.

He was the more discouraged, says the antiquary, as Mr. George
Sandys's version and another by a reformer had failed in two different
extremes; the first too elegant for the vulgar use, changing both
metre and tunes, wherewith they had been long acquainted; the other as
flat and poor, and as lamely executed as the old one. He therefore
ventured in a middle way, as he himself in one of his letters
expresses it, without affectation of words, and endeavouring to leave
them not disfigured in the sense. This version soon after was
published with this title;

The Psalms of David from the New Translation of the Bible, turned into
Metre, to be sung after the old tunes used in churches, Lond. 1651, in
12mo.

There is nothing more ridiculous than this notion of the vulgar of not
parting with their old versions of the psalms, as if there were a
merit in singing hymns of nonsense. Tate and Brady's version is by far
the most elegant, and best calculated to inspire devotion, because the
language and poetry are sometimes elevated and sublime; and yet for
one church which uses this version, twenty are content with that of
Sternhold and Hopkins, the language and poetry of which, as Pope says
of Ogilvy's Virgil, are beneath criticism.--

After episcopacy was silenced by the Long Parliament, he resided in
the house of Sir Richard Hobbart (who had married his sister) at
Langley in Bucks. He was reinstated in his See by King Charles II. and
was much esteemed by the virtuous part of his neighbours, and had the
blessings of the poor and distressed, a character which reflects the
highest honour upon him.

Whether from a desire of extending his beneficence, or instigated by
the restless ambition peculiar to the priesthood, he sollicited, but
in vain, a higher preferment, and suffered his resentment to betray
him into measures not consistent with his episcopal character. He died
on the first day of October 1669[2], and was buried on the south side
of the choir, near the communion table, belonging to the cathedral
church in Chichester. Soon after there was a monument put over his
grave, with an inscription, in which it is said he was,

Antiqua, eaque regia Saxonium apud Danmonios in agro Devoniensi,
prosapia oriundus,

That he was,

Natalium Splendore illustris, pietate, Doctrina, et virtutibus
illustrior, &c.

This monument was erected at the charge of his widow, Anne daughter of
Sir William Russel of Strensham in Worcestershire, knight and baronet.

Our author's works, besides the version of the Psalms already
mentioned, are as follows;

A Deep Groan fetched at the Funeral of the incomparable and glorious
Monarch King Charles I. printed 1649.

Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, Sonnets, &c. Lond. 1657.

Several Letters, among which are extant, one or more to the famous
archbishop Usher, Primate of Ireland, and another to Isaac Walton,
concerning the three imperfect books of Richard Hooker's
Ecclesiastical Polity, dated the 13th of November 1664, printed at
London 1665.

He has composed several Anthems, one of which is for the time of Lent.
Several Latin and Greek Poems, scattered in several Books.

He has likewise published several Sermons,

1. Sermon preached at Paul's Cross 25th of November 1621, upon
occasion of a report, touching the supposed apostasy of Dr. John
King--late bishop of London, on John xv. 20, Lond. 1621; to which is
also added the examination of Thomas Preston, taken before the
Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth 20th of December 1621, concerning
his being the author of the said Report.

2. David's Enlargement, Morning Sermon on Psalm xxxii. 5. Oxon. 1625.
4to.

3. Sermon of Deliverance, at the Spittal on Easter Monday, Psalm xc.
3. printed 1626, 4to.

4. Two Sermons at Whitehall on Lent, Eccles. xii. 1, and Psalm lv. 6.
printed 1627, in 4to.

5. Sermon at St. Paul's on his Majesty's Inauguration and Birth, on
Ezekiel xxi. 27. Lond. 1661. 4to.

6. Sermon on the Funeral of Bryan Bishop of Winchester, at the Abbey
Church of Westminster, April 24, 1662, on Psalm cxvi. 15. Lond. 1662.
4to.

7. Visitation Sermon at Lewis, October 1662. on Titus ii. 1. Lond.
1663. 4to.

8. Sermon preached the 30th of January, 1664, at Whitehall, being the
Day of the late King's Martyrdom, on 2. Chron. xxxv. 24, 25. Lond.
1665, 4to.

To these Sermons he has added an Exposition of the Lord's Prayer,
delivered in certain Sermons, on Matth. vi. 9. &c. Lond. 1628. 4to.

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