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  HUMANISTIC STUDIES
  OF
  THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

  VOLUME I

  LAWRENCE, KANSAS
  PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY
  1915

COMMITTEE ON HUMANISTIC STUDIES

  FRANK HEYWOOD HODDER
  FRANK WILSON BLACKMAR
  EDWIN MORTIMER HOPKINS
  ARTHUR TAPPAN WALKER
  SELDEN LINCOLN WHITCOMB, Editor

CONTENTS

    I. STUDIES IN THE WORK OF COLLEY CIBBER.
         _By De Witt C. Croissant, Ph. D._

   II. STUDIES IN BERGSON’S PHILOSOPHY.
         _By Arthur Mitchell, Ph. D._

  III. BROWNING AND ITALIAN ART AND ARTISTS.
         _By Pearl Hogrefe, A. M._

   IV. THE SEMANTICS OF -MENTUM, -BULUM, AND -CULUM.
         _By Edmund D. Cressman, Ph. D._

  BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
  HUMANISTIC STUDIES

  _Vol. I_          _October 1, 1912_          _No. 1_

  STUDIES IN THE WORK OF
  COLLEY CIBBER

  BY

  DE WITT C. CROISSANT, PH. D.
  _Assistant Professor of English Language in the University of Kansas_

  LAWRENCE, OCTOBER, 1912
  PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY

CONTENTS

  Notes on Cibber’s Plays

  II

  Cibber and the Development of Sentimental Comedy

  Bibliography

PREFACE

The following studies are extracts from a longer paper on the life
and work of Cibber. No extended investigation concerning the life or
the literary activity of Cibber has recently appeared, and certain
misconceptions concerning his personal character, as well as his
importance in the development of English literature and the literary
merit of his plays, have been becoming more and more firmly fixed in
the minds of students. Cibber was neither so much of a fool nor so
great a knave as is generally supposed. The estimate and the judgment
of two of his contemporaries, Pope and Dennis, have been far too widely
accepted. The only one of the above topics that this paper deals with,
otherwise than incidentally, is his place in the development of a
literary mode.

While Cibber was the most prominent and influential of the innovators
among the writers of comedy of his time, he was not the only one who
indicated the change toward sentimental comedy in his work. This
subject, too, needs fuller investigation. I hope, at some future time,
to continue my studies in this field.

This work was suggested as a subject for a doctor’s thesis, by
Professor John Matthews Manly, while I was a graduate student at the
University of Chicago a number of years ago, and was continued later
under the direction of Professor Thomas Marc Parrott at Princeton.
I wish to thank both of these scholars, as well as Professor Myra
Reynolds, who first stimulated my interest in Restoration comedy.
The libraries of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia have been very generous
in supplying books which would otherwise have been inaccessible; but
especial gratitude is due to the Library of Congress, and to Mr. Joseph
Plass, who called my attention to material in the Library of Congress,
which would have escaped my notice but for his interest. I wish to
express my gratitude to Professor R. D. O’Leary, of the University of
Kansas, who has read these pages in manuscript and in proof, and has
offered many valuable suggestions.

                              D. C. C.

  University of Kansas,
      October, 1912.

STUDIES IN THE WORK OF COLLEY CIBBER

De Witt C. Croissant

NOTES ON CIBBER’S PLAYS

Colley Cibber’s activity was not confined to writing plays. Besides
being a leader in the development of comedy and a skilful adapter in
tragedy, he was the greatest actor of his day in comic rôles; was the
dominant personality in the triumvirate of managers of the playhouse,
so that the healthy theatrical conditions of his time were largely due
to him; was a writer of poetry, some of which is fairly good; was the
author of some of the most amusing and clever controversial pamphlets
of the time; and was the author of a most interesting autobiography.
Today he is thought of by many merely as the hero of Pope’s _Dunciad_.
In some respects he deserved Pope’s satire, but the things he did well
entitle him to more consideration than he has received.

It is the purpose of these _Notes_ to discuss merely his plays; and to
treat these principally from the point of view of what may be called
external relations, with some discussion of dramatic technique. Under
the heading of external relations I have considered the dates of the
various plays, the circumstances of their presentation, their sources,
and their relation to the various types of the drama of the time. I
have discussed the plays in chronological order within the various
classes.

1. FARCES.

Of the farces ascribed to Cibber, only two, _The Rival Queans_ and
_Bulls and Bears_, are unquestionably his, and these two are not
accessible. _The Rival Queans_, acted at the Haymarket, June 29,
1710, printed in Dublin in 1729, is without doubt by Cibber. But in
the collected edition of his plays, published in 1777, the editors
substituted a farce of the same name, which, however, deals with a
different subject and is by another writer. Cibber’s farce was a
burlesque of Lee’s _Rival Queens_; the piece that was substituted deals
with the operatic situation in England.

An adaptation of Doggett’s _Country Wake_ (1696), called _Hob, or The
Country Wake_ (1715), has been ascribed to Cibber, but Genest[1] doubts
his authorship because it was brought out while Doggett was still on
the stage.

_Bulls and Bears_, Cibber’s second undisputed farce, was acted at Drury
Lane, December 2, 1715, but was apparently not printed.

_Chuck_ (1736) seems to have been ascribed to him by either the author
or the publisher without grounds, for in a list of plays “wrote by
anonymous authors in the 17th century,” appended to the fourth edition
of the _Apology_ (1756), there is a note on this play to the effect
that “the author or printer has set the name of Mr. Cibber to this
piece.” This is not proof positive that Cibber did not write the play,
for _Cinna’s Conspiracy_, which is unquestionably by him, appears in
the same list. In _The New Theatrical Dictionary_ (1742), it is stated
that “this piece [_Chuck_] is extremely puerile, yet the author has
thought proper to put Mr. Cibber’s name to it.” This again is not
necessarily convincing argument against Cibber’s authorship, for he was
capable of poor work, as his poems and some of his plays show.

On the whole, it seems probable that _Hob_ and _Chuck_ are not by
Cibber. In any case, they are entirely without value, and it is
therefore a matter of no importance to literary history whether their
authorship is ever determined or not.

Coffey’s _The Devil to Pay_ (1736) is stated in the catalogue of the
British Museum to have been “revised by Colley Cibber.” But the work
of revision was done by Theophilus Cibber, his son, and Cibber himself
contributed only one song.[2]

2. OPERAS.

In common with many of his contemporaries, Cibber attempted operatic
pieces. His undisputed operas are _Venus and Adonis_ (1715), _Myrtillo_
(1716), _Love in a Riddle_ (1729), and _Damon and Phillida_ (1729),
the last being merely the sub-plot of _Love in a Riddle_ acted
separately.[3] Two other operatic pieces, _The Temple of Dullness_
(1745) and _Capochio and Dorinna_, have been ascribed to him.

_Love in a Riddle_ (1729) seems to have been the cause of some
unpleasantness. In the _Life of Quin_ (1766) the following account of
it is given:[4]

  “This uncommon reception of _The Beggar’s Opera_ induced Colley
  Cibber to attempt something the same kind the next year, under the
  title of _Love in a Riddle_, but how different was its reception from
  Gay’s production; it was damned to the lowest regions of infamy the
  very first night, which so mortified Cibber, that it threw him into
  a fever; and from this moment he resolved as soon as he conveniently
  could to leave the stage, and no longer submit himself and his
  talents to the capricious taste of the town.

  “It was generally thought that his jealousy of Gay, and the high
  opinion he entertained of his own piece had operated so strongly as
  to make him set every engine in motion to get the sequel of _The
  Beggar’s Opera_, called _Polly_, suppressed in order to engross the
  town entirely to _Love in a Riddle_. Whether Cibber did or did not
  bestir himself in this affair, it is certain that Gay and Rich had
  the mortification to see all their hopes of a succeeding harvest
  blasted by the Lord Chamberlain’s absolute prohibition of it, after
  it had been rehearsed and was just ready to bring out.”

In this same volume[5] it is stated that the failure of the piece was
one of the potent causes of the dissolution of the Drury Lane company,
though this seems an exaggeration, as does also the effect on Cibber
that is ascribed to the failure.

Cibber denies[6] that he had anything to do with the suppression of
the second part of _The Beggar’s Opera_, and gives as his reason
for writing that he thought something written in the same form, but
recommending virtue and innocence instead of vice and wickedness,
“might not have a less pretence to favor.”

_The Temple of Dullness_ (1745), which _The Biographia Dramatica_[7]
states had been ascribed to Cibber, is in two acts of two scenes each,
the second scene of each act being the comic “interlude” of Theobald’s
_Happy Captive_ (1741). These two scenes have as their principal
characters, Signor Capochio and Signora Dorinna.[8] The other two
scenes, which give the principal title to the piece, are based, as is
stated in the preface, on the fact that Pope in _The Dunciad_ makes the
Goddess of Dullness preside over Italian operas. It is inconceivable
that either Cibber or Theobald would have based anything of the sort on
a hint from _The Dunciad_ and complacently given the credit to Pope,
after the way they had both been handled in _The Dunciad_. There is
nothing on the title page to indicate that Cibber had anything to do
with the piece. The ascription of the authorship of _The Temple of
Dullness_ to Cibber seems to be without foundation, and the probability
is that this piece was composed by a third person soon after Theobald’s
death, which occurred about four months before it was acted.[9]

Concerning _Capochio and Dorinna_, _The Biographia Dramatica_ has the
following note: “A piece with this title, but without a date, is, in
Mr. Barker’s catalogue, ascribed to Colley Cibber. It was probably an
abridgment from _The Temple of Dullness_.” This statement concerning
the source of _Capochio and Dorinna_ would seem plausible from the
supplementary title of _The Temple of Dullness_,--_With the Humours
of Signor Capochio and Signora Dorinna_. _Capochio and Dorinna_ is no
doubt the two scenes from Theobald’s _The Happy Captive_ which had been
used in _The Temple of Dullness_, as is stated above.

Cibber’s operatic writings belong chiefly to the English type of
pastoral drama, rather than to the type of Italian opera. In fact, they
are not operas either in the Italian or in the modern sense, but are
rather plays interspersed with songs appropriate to the characters who
sing them. They show the common characteristics of the pastoral drama
of the time.[10] They possess the court element, have the same plot
devices, and their characters belong to the same general types. It is
noticeable that Cibber here, as well as in his comedies, arrays himself
with the moralists, as is seen in his introduction of a moral purpose
in _Love in a Riddle_. These pieces are in verse of varying meters. In
_Venus and Adonis_ and _Myrtillo_ there is apparent imitation of the
versification of Dryden’s _Alexander’s Feast_; in _Love in a Riddle_
and _Damon and Phillida_ the dialogue is in blank verse, but in neither
case is the verse inspired.

His operas are neither intrinsically nor historically important; they
are merely representative of a vogue which was popular but which left
no permanent impress on the English drama.

3. TRAGEDIES.

Cibber’s seven tragedies appeared in the following order: _Xerxes_,
1699; his adaptation of Shakspere’s _Richard III_, 1700; _Perolla and
Izadora_, 1705; the three translations of Corneille, _Ximena_, acted
1712, but not published until 1719, _Cinna’s Conspiracy_, 1713, and
_Caesar in Egypt_, 1725; and finally _Papal Tyranny_, an adaptation of
Shakspere’s _King John_, 1745. The best stage play is _Richard III_,
but those that make the most agreeable reading are the alterations of
Corneille.

_Xerxes_ (1699), which was a failure, belongs to the type of the
tragedies of the last decade of the century, in which the material of
the heroic play is handled in blank verse, in which there is no comedy,
and in which there is in general a following of French models.[11] In
its presentation of a story of distressed womanhood, it allies itself
with the sentimental tragedy of the school of Southerne and Otway. In
its use of the supernatural, in its puerile use of claptrap, and in the
bombast and extravagance of emotion, it follows the general usage of
the tragedies of the time.

When it was written Cibber was one of the company at Drury Lane,
but the play was refused there, and was accepted at Lincoln’s Inn
Fields only when Cibber guaranteed the expenses of the production.
Notwithstanding the fact that two such great actors as Betterton and
Mrs. Barry were in the cast, the play was a failure.[12]

The common supposition that it was acted only once, is based on
Addison’s inventory of Rich’s theatrical paraphernalia, in which are
mentioned “the imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once.”[13] The
play had been acted ten years previously, and Addison is speaking of
an entirely different playhouse and manager so that this testimony, if
it does apply to this play, is probably not to be given much weight.
While the play may have been withdrawn from the stage after only one
performance, Addison’s evidence does not establish the matter one way
or the other.

Cibber’s next venture in tragedy was more successful, for while his
adaptation of Shakspere’s _Richard III_ has not received critical
commendation, it was for over a century practically the only version
presented on the stage and is still used by many actors.

When Cibber’s _Richard III_ was originally acted at Drury Lane in 1700,
Charles Killigrew, Master of the Revels, forbade the first act, because
the distress of Henry, introduced from Shakspere’s _Henry VI_, might
bring the exiled King James to the mind of the people; so that only
four acts could be given. The play was a comparative failure at first,
owing no doubt to the omission of so important and necessary a part of
the revision, so that Cibber’s profits from the third night, as author,
came to less than five pounds.[14] Later, when this act was restored,
the piece became a success. As has been pointed out by Dohse[15] and
Wood[16], Cibber may in making this adaptation have used the chronicles
of Hall and others, and probably was influenced by _The Mirror for
Magistrates_ and Caryl’s _English Princess_ (1667).

In his alteration Cibber has cut down the play to a little more than
half its original length, and of this remainder only a little over a
third is found in Shakspere’s _Richard III_, while the rest is from
a number of Shakspere’s plays or is made up of original additions by
Cibber.[17] The alterations vary from the change of single words,[18]
to the addition of scenes entirely by Cibber. The omissions, such as
Anne’s spitting at Gloster, I, ii, 146, are generally happy; the
lines he has substituted are generally easier to understand, if less
aesthetically pleasing, than those of the original; and the additions
throughout are such as add clearness and theatric effectiveness.

Richard is made the central figure, so that the play revolves more
closely about him than in Shakspere. A love story, more slightly
developed than usual in the adaptations of this period, is introduced
at the end of the play in accordance with contemporary usage. The women
are made less prominent, the lyric chorus effect of the various scenes
in which these women foretell and bewail is omitted, and the whole
action is made more simple and direct. Shakspere’s _Richard III_ is
full of this lyric element which Cibber has excised.

With this curtailment of plot comes likewise a less highly presented
delineation of character. Not only is the number of characters
diminished, but modifications are made in those that remain. Richard
becomes less the unfeeling hypocrite, by use of asides his motives and
character are made more clear, and he is influenced more by love; his
victims are not so vividly presented, and though their weakness of
will and character is not less than in the original, the reader does
not feel it so much. Cibber’s _Richard III_, like his _King John_, is
more play than poem; in it Cibber has attempted to make everything
subservient to dramatic effectiveness.

_Perolla and Izadora_ was acted at Drury Lane on December 3, 1705,
and published the next year. Lintot had bought the copyright November
14, 1705, a few weeks before its presentation, for thirty-six pounds,
eleven shillings, next to the largest amount that he paid Cibber for
any of his plays. Cibber explains that he omitted _Woman’s Wit_ from
the 1721 edition of his plays because it was so inferior a drama, which
was no doubt his reason for omitting _Xerxes_; but why he should not
have included _Perolla and Izadora_, which brought him a good third
and sixth day at the theatre, though it does not appear to have been
presented afterwards, is not clear, unless, as is probable, he included
in this edition only such plays as had gained a more or less permanent
place on the stage.

Cibber shows unusual modesty in his dedication of this play, which
he founded on a part of the story of Perolla and Izadora from _The
Romance of Parthenissa_[19] (1654) by Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery. He
“saw so many incidents in the fable, such natural and noble sentiments
in the characters, and so just a distress in the passions, that he had
little more than the trouble of blank verse to make it fit for the
theatre.”[20] Cibber has followed the events in _Parthenissa_ very
closely, making few changes or additions. However, he has Perolla and
Izadora in love before the action begins, whereas they do not meet
in the romance until after Perolla has saved the life of Blacius in
what makes the end of Cibber’s second act; and at the close of the
play he unites the lovers, while the story goes on indefinitely in
_Parthenissa_. The characters display about the same qualities; Blacius
is made perhaps a trifle more reasonable and Poluvius a little less so.
The play is much better as a play than the original is as a story.

The play in general conforms to the French classical type; the unities
are observed, the characters are few and noble, it is written in blank
verse, and there are no humorous touches. Only in the two deaths and
the one fight on the stage does the play violate the French tradition.
In the death of the wicked, the reward of the virtuous, and the general
nature of the action, it groups itself with the heroic plays of the
preceding century, but of course it does not conform to that type in
versification. Cibber was here probably writing under the influence of
Corneille.

_Ximena, or The Heroic Daughter_, an alteration of Corneille’s _Cid_,
was acted at Drury Lane, November 28, 1712, when it had a run of about
eight performances;[21] but it was not printed until 1719, when it
appeared in octavo after it had been revived at Drury Lane, November
1, 1718. Cibber explains that he thus delayed publishing the play
because “most of his plays had a better reception from the public when
his interest was no longer concerned in them.”[22] The dedication of
_Ximena_ brought a storm of criticism on Cibber[23] because in it he
spoke of Addison as a wren being carried by Steele as an eagle, which
figure he later applied, in his odes, to himself and the king. He had
the judgment to omit this dedication from the collected edition of his
plays.

As in the case of _Richard III_, he added a first act to the _Cid_ in
order that the audience might understand the situation of the various
characters at the outset; a most important and necessary thing if the
audience is not familiar with the story and the situation beforehand.
In his alterations of Shakspere he followed the English method and
presented this information to his audience by action; in his alteration
of Corneille he followed the French method by having his characters
tell each other about it for the benefit of the audience.

Cibber has discussed at length the changes he has made in the _Cid_,
and his reasons for them, in the prefatory “examen.” The main reason
seems to have been his desire to make the play less “romantic” and
the action more probable and reasonable from the point of view of the
eighteenth century Englishman, whose ideals of honor and whose general
characteristics were very different from those of the seventeenth
century Frenchman. Indeed, Cibber explains in relation to one of these
changes: “Here they seem too declamatory and romantic, which I have
endeavored to avoid, by giving a more spirited tone to the passions,
and reducing them nearer to common life.”

_Ximena_, because of its source, would naturally have the general
characteristics of French tragedy, in which almost everything happens
off the stage, and in which the characters appear before the audience
only to tell it what they think or what has been done. It violates the
French canons by having a sub-action, though this sub-action is not
sufficiently important to distract the attention materially from the
main action, and is bound very closely to it. The blow which Don Gormaz
gives Alvarez constitutes the nearest approach to violent action; but
this blow, however, appears in the original play.

Besides the anonymity of _Cinna’s Conspiracy_, the closeness with which
it follows Corneille’s _Cinna_ and the difference in its tone from
the rest of Cibber’s work have led to doubt as to his authorship.[24]
To see that Cibber was not always sprightly and inconsequential,
however, as he is usually supposed to be, one has but to read his
_Cicero_ and his poems. The play was presented less than three months
after _Ximena_, and to bring out another French tragedy translated
by the same hand in so short a time might have subjected Cibber to
the charge of hasty work. Though _Ximena_ apparently had a run of
eight nights, it did not receive critical approbation, and _Cinna’s
Conspiracy_, if known to be by Cibber, was likely to bring further
critical disapproval, so that Cibber may have thought it would have
better chance of success if his authorship were not known. Cibber was
ambitious to be thought wise and serious, as his prefaces and _Cicero_
show, and the lack of success of the play together with its nearness to
_Ximena_ in time of presentation would sufficiently explain his failure
to claim the authorship.

But there is external proof which would seem to be convincing in
support of his authorship. Defoe, according to the _Biographia
Dramatica_,[25] in a pamphlet written about 1713 ascribed the play
to Cibber; and Nichols, in _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth
Century_,[26] gives an extract from a memorandum book of Lintot,
entitled _Copies when purchased_, according to which Cibber, on March
16, 1712 (O.S.), was paid thirteen pounds for _Cinna’s Conspiracy_. The
play was first acted at Drury Lane, February 19, 1713, about a month
before the purchase by Lintot. The fact that Cibber was paid for the
play so short a time after its presentation would seem to be sufficient
proof that it is by Cibber, even though he apparently made no public
claim to its authorship.

In the alteration of Corneille’s _Cinna_, Cibber has made remarkably
few changes. There is only one of any moment, the account of the
meeting of the conspirators in the second scene of the first act.
Corneille has had Cinna give an account of this meeting to Emilie,
while Cibber presents the meeting itself. This involves the omission
of some narration and the creation of some new characters who have a
few short speeches. Cibber throughout his adaptation seeks to gain
vividness and clearness, and his handling of this incident is probably
the best example of his method in this respect. The other changes
consist merely in the omission and shortening of speeches. On the whole
_Cinna’s Conspiracy_ is almost a literal translation, though a little
free here and there.

The testimony of the critics concerning the source of _Caesar in
Egypt_, acted at Drury Lane,[27] December 9, 1724, published in 1725,
is somewhat confusing. The _Biographia Dramatica_ finds its source in
Beaumont and Fletcher’s _The False One_; Genest[28] says: “The plan
of this tragedy is chiefly borrowed from _The False One_--that part
of it which concerns Cornelia is said to be taken from Corneille’s
_Pompée_.” Stoye,[29] while apparently oblivious of Corneille’s play,
mentions Lucan’s _Pharsalia_ in addition to _The False One_; and
Miss Canfield says:[30] “Taking Beaumont and Fletcher’s _False One_,
Corneille’s _Pompée_, and one or two ideas of his own, he stirred them
all together with such vigor, and so disguised them with his wonderful
versification, that it is an almost impossible task to distinguish the
different elements in the dish.... The general plan and construction
of the play are undoubtedly Corneille’s, many of the best speeches
are literally translated, especially some of the famous ones between
Cornelia and Caesar; and the description of Pompey’s death is taken
verbatim from the French.” This last statement of Miss Canfield’s
comes nearest to the truth, but it leaves out of account the slight
indebtedness to Lucan.[31]

An examination of these three plays shows, in fact, how little Cibber
used _The False One_ in the construction of _Caesar in Egypt_. He was
no doubt familiar with the Beaumont and Fletcher play and used some
things from it, though very little in comparison with what he has
used from _Pompée_. He used it for hints in some particulars[32] just
as he did the _Pharsalia_, from which he apparently took the idea of
having one scene occur before the tomb of Alexander, and from which he
obtained the burning of Pharos.

One incident, the display of Pompey’s head, well illustrates the change
that had come since the days of Beaumont and Fletcher. In _The False
One_, the head was actually brought on the stage; but in neither Cibber
nor Corneille was the head actually displayed. The actual appearance
of the head would probably have been almost as distasteful to Cibber’s
audience as to Corneille’s.

His method of adaptation here is more like that in his alteration
of Shakspere than his method in _Ximena_ or _Cinna’s Conspiracy_.
He has crowded the incidents, has expanded the action and increased
its liveliness, has enhanced the value of the piece as a stage play,
without, however, improving its literary quality. He has a good deal
happen in one day, but manages to satisfy the technical demands of the
unity of time.

He increases the probability by the alteration of certain passages. For
instance, whereas both the _Pharsalia_, as completed by Rowe,[33] and
_The False One_, from one of which he took the incident, have Caesar
swimming from the island of Pharos with drawn sword in one hand and
documents in the other, Cibber has him swim with only the documents.

While this play is essentially an adaptation of Corneille, the general
atmosphere and effect are not those of French tragedy, but are rather
those of the minor Elizabethan tragicomedy. Its beginning and end have
a historical rather than a dramatic interest, so that the play produces
the effect of a love story with an impersonal enveloping action, which
is again more English than French.

_Papal Tyranny_ was acted at Covent Garden, February 15, 1745, when
it had a run of ten nights, and was published in the same year.
Shakspere’s _King John_, which had been played in 1737 and 1738, after
Cibber’s alteration had been talked of and withdrawn, was again revived
on February 20, 1745,[34] with Garrick as King John and Mrs. Theophilus
Cibber, then at the height of her popularity, as Constance. This was no
doubt done both to profit by the publicity Cibber’s work had brought
about, and to take as much credit as possible from Cibber, by showing
the lack of originality in his work.[35] According to Victor,[36]
Cibber’s profits from _Papal Tyranny_ amounted to four hundred pounds,
which probably includes what he received from acting Pandulph as well
as his author’s profits.

The play had been written some years before it was finally acted,
the parts had been distributed, and everything was practically ready
for the presentation in public during the season 1736-7. But so much
criticism was leveled at Cibber for daring again to alter Shakspere
that one day he quietly walked into the theatre, removed the copy of
the play from the prompter’s desk, and went away with it without a word
to any one.[37] It was finally presented, as already stated, in 1745,
when there was a threatened invasion by the Young Pretender, which made
the political and anti-Catholic elements of the play timely.

Cibber says in the dedication that he had two reasons for altering the
play: antagonism to Catholicism, and a desire to adjust the play to
contemporary stage requirements--“to make it more like a play than he
found it in Shakspere.” His additions to the anti-Catholic elements of
the play are inconsistent with the rest of the action, and the changes
in structure have increased rather than diminished the epic quality.
He has, without being conscious that he was doing so, gone back of
Shakspere’s time in introducing the anti-popish element; a quality
of Shakspere’s source which Shakspere had omitted, but which Cibber
reintroduced to the detriment of his play as drama.

The entire first act of Shakspere’s play is omitted, besides which
there are other shorter omissions. The point of view, too, is very
different; for in Cibber’s play Pandulph is the central figure, instead
of King John, as is indicated by the change of title from _The Life
and Death of King John_ to _Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John_.
Various short scenes entirely by Cibber are introduced, the most
noticeable being one in the last act in which Constance attends the
funeral of Arthur at Swinestead, where King John has been brought to
die.

The characters are more changed than the plot; all those which appear
only in the first act are omitted, besides such characters as Peter
of Pomfret, Elinor, Austria, and Chatillon. The part of the bastard
Faulconbridge is very much cut down and softened, for as Shakspere
conceived him he was too “low” and comic for a dignified tragedy
according to the views of the eighteenth century. The rôle of
Constance is much enlarged as well as that of Pandulph.

Cibber’s tragedies are imitative; he showed no creative ability in this
field. That his _Richard III_ has held the stage until the present
is an indication that it is at least a good stage play. The other
tragedies, except _Xerxes_ and _Papal Tyranny_, do not possess any very
positive virtues or defects; they are of average merit as compared with
the work done by Cibber’s contemporaries.

They are alterations of Shakspere or Corneille, except _Xerxes_
and _Perolla and Izadora_. In his alterations of the French he has
anglicized some of the ideas, has had a tendency to present rather
than relate incidents, and generally has tried to make the productions
conform to English ideas. Turning them into English has not made them
romantic or altered in any essential degree their neo-classical quality.

His alterations of Shakspere have not changed the essential
qualities; they are still characteristically English, and display the
characteristics of the originals. He has not altered Shakspere because
Shakspere is too “Gothic,” or too romantic and extravagant, for Cibber
complains that _King John_ is too restrained.

In relation to these alterations of Shakspere one naturally thinks of
the flood of plays about this time which had Shakspere as a basis.[38]
Cibber does not, in _Richard III_ at least, follow the example of Tate
and his kind, but adheres more closely than they to the originals.
It is for this reason, principally, that Cibber’s _Richard III_ was
successful. In this he has not attempted to follow contemporary
practice in adhering to the unities, in the observance of poetic
justice, in the making of the hero virtuous, or in adding the element
of show and pageantry. His addition of a scene of violence[39] is for
the purpose of helping the spectator to understand the play. Even
his borrowing of lines from other plays by Shakspere has saved him
partially from the incongruous or weak mixture of two styles which mars
the work of other adapters. He has told the same story as Shakspere,
and has not done violence to his original either in character, plot,
or, for the most part, in language.

His adaptation of _King John_ is handled differently. This play,
even more than Shakspere’s _King John_, is unfitted for the modern
stage; its plot is not dramatic, and its persons are not modern in
their qualities. Such a play must depend for its appeal on its poetic
qualities, and Cibber was personally incapable of altering the play and
retaining its poetic qualities.

Although Cibber is not unaffected by the sentimental type of tragedy,
as _Xerxes_ and _Perolla and Izadora_ show, he does not seem influenced
by it to any great extent. This is remarkable in one who was in the
very forefront of the movement toward sentimental comedy; though it
is to be remarked that the two tragedies which do show traces of this
sentimental note are the only two which are not based on previous plays.

As Thorndike[40] has pointed out, during this period two influences
are at work--the influence of the Elizabethan romantic drama, and the
influence of the French classical drama; and Cibber rather fairly
represents both of these. _Xerxes_ shows some French influence in the
construction, though it is probably more Elizabethan in the handling
of the material; but _Perolla and Izadora_ and the three plays from
Corneille conform to French usage almost entirely in material as well
as in method. The restraint in _Richard III_--for notwithstanding
Hazlitt, this play is not as brutal as Shakspere’s--is due to the
change brought about through the imitation of French tragedy.

In accordance with contemporary usage, all these tragedies are in blank
verse; but the verse is of no great merit. Cibber’s verse for the most
part is not musical nor subtle, but it has few mannerisms. He sometimes
uses alliteration, but not to an objectionable or excessive degree, and
although his style has been called alliterative, his use of this device
in his verse is so infrequent as to make the term a misnomer.

Cibber conforms to the custom of the time in respect to rime.
Occasionally he introduces a couplet in the midst of a scene, but
this is seldom and for no apparent reason. The exits, except those of
minor importance, are marked by rime. This device, descended from the
Elizabethan drama, where it was probably used to mark more strongly
the ends of scenes because of the lack of a curtain which concealed
the whole stage, is continued during and after the Restoration period
without any valid reason and becomes for the most part a mere
convention, which is not confined to tragedy but appears in comedy
and even in farce. Cibber shows a tendency to increase the number
of couplets with the increased importance of the exits,[41] and in
_Ximena_ and _Caesar in Egypt_ we find several scenes closing with as
many as three.

It has perhaps been made sufficiently evident that Cibber was not a
great writer of tragedy. He lacked any deep philosophy of life, tragic
consciousness, and deep poetic feeling. He was not without power of
thought, but his thought concerned itself with the obvious and the
external, and had an element of friskiness, so that when he turned to
tragedy his work became labored and even commonplace.

Nor does he show originality in his themes. The story of _Xerxes_
is apparently derived from history,[42] and aside from _Perolla and
Izadora_, whose story is taken from a romance, is the only one of his
tragedies which is not based on the work of greater men than himself.
Although _Richard III_ is a better stage play than its source, the
other adaptations are inferior to the originals both as acting versions
and as pure literature.

4. COMEDIES.

_Love’s Last Shift_, Cibber’s first play, was acted at Drury Lane in
January, 1696, and was published the same year, when he was a little
more than twenty-four years old. The comedy was accepted by the
managers through the good offices of Southerne, for Cibber’s standing
with the patentees was such that they were not disposed to recognize
ability in him.

So little had been expected of the piece, and so great was its success,
that Cibber was immediately charged with plagiarism,[43] a charge which
he entirely denies in the dedication. He claims that “the fable is
entirely his own, nor is there a line or thought throughout the whole,
for which he is wittingly obliged either to the dead or the living.”
There are, however, some striking similarities in the situations and
the characters in the sub-action of _Love’s Last Shift_ and Carlile’s
_Fortune Hunters_ (1689). Carlile’s Elder Wealthy and Young Wealthy are
closely paralleled by Elder Worthy and Young Worthy, as are likewise
the young women with whom they are in love, and Carlile’s Shamtown
belongs to the same family as Sir Novelty Fashion, though he is much
more crudely portrayed. So too, the jealousy of Elder Worthy in regard
to Hillaria and Sir Novelty is very much like that of Elder Wealthy
in regard to Sophia and Shamtown. So great is the similarity that,
notwithstanding his denial, one must believe that Cibber deliberately
used the situation and characters as a basis for his own, though he did
not copy the language, and has made an entirely new and original thing
out of his source.

So great was the failure of his second play that Cibber refuses to
mention it in his _Apology_ and omitted it from the collected edition
of his plays in 1721. _Woman’s Wit, or The Lady in Fashion_ was acted
at Drury Lane in 1697, but met with a most unfavorable reception,
though in management of the plot it is not inferior to a great many
plays whose success was much greater.

Carlile’s _Fortune Hunters_ (1689) and Mountford’s _Greenwich Park_
(1691) have been suggested as the sources of that part of the plot in
which Young Rakish and Major Rakish appear, but this is only partially
true. In _The Fortune Hunters_ the father and son are rivals for a
young woman, in _Woman’s Wit_ she is an elderly widow; in both, the son
has obtained five hundred pounds from the father. But notwithstanding
the fact that these situations are superficially similar the characters
and the details of the action are so different that it does not seem
possible that there can be any connection between the two plays. There
does seem to be a more valid reason for affirming the influence of
_Greenwich Park_ in the play. The likeness of Sir Thomas Reveller and
Young Reveller to Old Rakish and Young Rakish is so great that Cibber
must have had them in mind, but the differences both of character
and action are such that it seems probable that he was attempting to
portray two characters of the same type rather than trying to copy
them. In _Greenwich Park_ there is not even a superficial similarity
of situation to _Woman’s Wit_.[44] The sub-action of _Woman’s Wit_ was
separated and acted successfully at Drury Lane in 1707 as _The School
Boy_.

_Love Makes a Man_ was acted at Drury Lane in 1701, and was published
the same year. It continued to be played until 1828. It is made from
Beaumont and Fletcher’s _The Elder Brother_ and _The Custom of the
Country_, and is an attempt on the part of Cibber merely to provide
amusement. Ost[45] points out that this play, though it has no original
literary worth, helped continue the literary tradition, and notices
it in connection with the healthful influence of Cibber’s work in the
moralizing tendency of the drama. He adds that Cibber’s plays have more
value in relation to “kulturgeschichte” than in aesthetic interest.
That is entirely true so far as this play is concerned; various parts
have a purely contemporary interest, or are an indication to us of the
state of dramatic taste, and the aesthetic value is certainly often
inconsiderable. When Cibber introduces such references as “hatchet
face” of Clodio, a term which had been applied to Cibber himself, who
played the part, and more particularly in the farcical discussion of
the two playhouses in the fourth act, he is not even attempting to
write anything but horseplay.

By the omission and transposition of scenes, and the introduction of
some lines of his own, mainly for the purpose of gaining probability,
as Ost has pointed out, Cibber has condensed _The Elder Brother_ so
that it forms practically the first two acts, and _The Custom of the
Country_ so that it forms the last three. In the main, the plays, so
much of them as is used, are followed with very few changes, and the
whole makes a sprightly and amusing, if not particularly literary
comedy.

The change of place and the introduction of an entirely new set of
characters with fresh plot developments are dramatically faulty; but
for the purpose for which the play was written these faults are not
particularly great. To join the plots of two separate plays end on
end without breaking the continuity of the story, and to adjust the
characters so that there is no glaring inconsistency, is surely no
slight feat.

In the characterization Cibber has made some changes. These changes
appear particularly in Eustace, who becomes Clodio, Miramont, who
becomes Don Lewis, and Elvira, who is the sister instead of the mother
of Don Duart. It is difficult to understand how this play could have
been other than a theatrical success with Bullock to interpret the
farcical obstinacy of Antonio, Penkethman to portray the humorously
choleric Don Lewis, and Cibber as the “pert coxcomb,” Clodio. But it is
farce rather than pure comedy.

Cibber has changed these plays from verse to prose, except in the first
scene between Carlos and Angelina, in which the romantic seriousness of
the situation leads him to write blank verse, which is however printed
as prose.

_She Would and She Would Not_, considered by Genest as “perhaps his
best play,” was acted at Drury Lane, November 26, 1702, and continued
to be acted frequently as late as 1825.[46] The striking similarity of
the two plays has caused the suggestion that Cibber’s play is based on
Leanerd’s _The Counterfeits_ (1678). The similarity indicates a common
source, rather than that Cibber drew from _The Counterfeits_. The
source of Cibber’s play was no doubt _The Trepanner Trepanned_, which
is the third story of John Davies’s _La Picara, or The Triumphs of
Female Subtilty_, published in London in 1665.[47]

This play is amusing, is well constructed, and while it is not of
serious import, is such as might be presented today with success.

Cibber commenced to write _The Careless Husband_ in the summer of 1703,
but laid it aside because he despaired of finding any one to take the
part of Lady Betty Modish. In 1704 he again took up the writing of the
play, and in that year it was acted at Drury Lane on December 7; and
it was published in 1705. It was one of the best and most successful
plays of the period.[48] It was charged that Cibber received direct
assistance in writing the play, but he denied the charge, and as no
proof was offered, Cibber is no doubt to be believed. It seems to have
no literary source; but one incident, that in which the wife finds
the husband and her maid asleep in easy chairs, is said to have been
suggested to Cibber by Mrs. Brett, the reputed mother of the poet
Savage, from her own experience.[49]

This is Cibber’s best play of the sentimental type. Its plot is
consistent, has dramatic probability, and is serious enough in interest
to have real reason for being. The characters are well conceived and
well portrayed. In style, too, Cibber is here at his best and the
dialogue approaches the finest of the period.

The Haymarket opened the season 1706-7 under Swiney, and in order to
encourage the new venture, Lord Halifax headed a subscription for
the revival of three plays: Shakspere’s _Julius Caesar_, Beaumont
and Fletcher’s _King and No King_, and the comic scenes of Dryden’s
_Marriage à la Mode_ and _A Maiden Queen_. The last took the form of an
adaptation called _The Comical Lovers_, the adaptation being the work
of Cibber. It was acted February 4, 1707, and was published the same
year. The alteration was the result of only six days’ labor,[50] and
Cibber claims no originality in it. It met with slight success.

_The Comical Lovers_ is another such adaptation as _Love Makes a Man_.
Cibber has merely taken the two comic threads from their serious
settings and interwoven them, first a scene from one and then a scene
from the other, with only the changes necessary to join them, and has
followed his sources almost word for word. Cibber was not under the
necessity of changing verse into prose, as he had done in _Love Makes a
Man_, for the comic sections of Dryden are in prose, according to the
changed convention of his time; and in the scene between Melantha and
her maid, Cibber has not even taken the trouble to alter a single one
of the French words, many of which must have acquired a place in the
language and been in good use by Cibber’s time. So far as Cibber’s part
is concerned, this is the least important of his plays.

_The Double Gallant_ was acted at the Haymarket, November 1, 1707, but
was apparently not successful at its first performance. _The Biographia
Dramatica_[51] says:

  “In a letter from Booth to A. Hill we learn that the play, at
  its first appearance was, as he expressed it, hounded in a most
  outrageous manner. Two years after, it was revived, met with most
  extravagant success, and has continued a stock play ever since.”

Cibber says nothing about any hounding of the play, but ascribes the
failure of the piece to the fact that the Haymarket was too big for
plays; a fact that he thinks caused the lack of success of other plays
as well as his own.

In regard to the authorship, Cibber says:[52]

  “It was made up of what was tolerable, in two, or three others, that
  had no Success, and were laid aside, as so much Poetical Lumber;
  but by collecting and adapting the best Parts of them all, into one
  Play, the _Double Gallant_ has had a Place, every Winter, amongst
  the Publick Entertainments, these Thirty Years. As I was only the
  Compiler of this Piece, I did not publish it in my own Name.”

The title would lead one to suppose that it is taken directly from
Corneille’s _Le Galant Double_, but it is a weaving together of Mrs.
Centlivre’s _Love at a Venture_, which is an adaptation of Corneille,
Burnaby’s _Ladies Visiting Day_, and the Lady Dainty action from
Burnaby’s _Reformed Wife_. In consolidating such parts of these three
plays as are used, the crudities of the first two are polished off,
and certain additions are made to the last. These additions consist in
sections of the dialogue, in the changing of Lady Dainty’s lover into
a more impetuous wooer, and in the addition of the lover’s disguise as
a Russian, by which subterfuge he wins her. The introductory scene,
taken from _Love at a Venture_, is much more lively and entertaining in
Cibber’s play than in the original, and Cibber likewise handles more
adroitly the subterfuge of the hero’s arrest, taken from the same play,
using the same device of decoy letters that he uses in _Woman’s Wit_.
In the working over of Burnaby’s adaptation of the Horner episode,
which he had taken from Wycherley’s _Country Wife_, Cibber has entirely
eliminated the unpleasant features.

This play is the same sort of an adaptation as his working over of
other earlier plays. He has taken such scenes as he wished, changed the
names of the characters, and introduced sufficient lines of his own to
give continuity and connection to the various actions, but has made no
material additions whatever. In this case he has made an extremely
diverting play, very superior to his originals.

_The Lady’s Last Stake_, which seems to be entirely original, was
produced at the Haymarket, December 13, 1707, when it was acted five
times; and it was published probably early in the next year. It
continued on the London stage until 1786, and was last performed at
Bath, in 1813. It is only a fair comedy, lacking the qualities of
style, the originality in the conception of the characters, and the
skilful working out of the plot that had characterized Cibber’s two
earlier plays of the sentimental type. But in whatever way the plot as
a whole may be lacking, the last act has plenty of liveliness; there
complication follows complication and humorous incidents follow serious
with great rapidity.

_The Rival Fools_, published in quarto in 1709 and played at Drury
Lane, January 11, 1709, is an alteration of Beaumont and Fletcher’s
_Wit at Several Weapons_, and was not successful. At its first
presentation it was acted five times, and was revived only once, in
1712, when it was acted twice. _The Biographia Dramatica_[53] relates
the following incident of the first performance, the events of which
may be compared with the reception accorded Thomson’s _Sophonisba_:

  “It met, however, with bad success. There happened to be a
  circumstance in it, which, being in itself rather ridiculous, gave a
  part of the audience an opportunity of venting their spleen on the
  author; viz: a man in one of the earlier scenes on the stage, with
  a long angling rod in his hand, going to fish for Miller’s Thumbs;
  on which account some of the spectators took occasion whenever
  Mr. Cibber appeared, who himself played the character, to cry out
  continually, ‘Miller’s Thumbs.’”

Cibber has followed the original quite closely so far as the plot is
concerned, much more closely than would be inferred from the first
lines of the prologue:

    “From sprightly Fletcher’s loose confed’rat muse,
     Th’ unfinish’d Hints of these light Scenes we chuse,
     For with such careless haste his Play was writ,
     So unpersued each thought of started Wit;
     Each Weapon of his Wit so lamely fought
     That ’twou’d as scanty on our Stage be thought,
     As for a modern Belle my Grannum’s Petticoat.
     So that from th’ old we may with Justice say,
     We scarce could cull the Trimming of a play.”

In spite of this statement by Cibber himself, he adds practically
nothing to the plot, and in the dialogue adds merely a touch here and
there.

As was customary in altering these old comedies written in verse, the
verse of the original is changed into prose, and as is also customary
in all of Cibber’s alterations, the long speeches are broken into
dialogue.

The character of Pompey Doodle is somewhat enlarged in its
transformation into Samuel Simple, and is one of the most amusing
elements in the play. The treatment is distinctly Jacobean in its
exaggeration of character, and the reception by the audience must be
attributed either to the alteration of taste on the part of the public,
or to the personal unpopularity of Cibber, for the rôle is well written
and Cibber was particularly well fitted to act the part, both by
temperament and by physical qualities.

_The Non-Juror_ was acted at Drury Lane on December 6, 1717, with a
prologue by Nicholas Rowe, poet laureate, and was published in 1718. At
the time of its first presentation it had the comparatively long run
of twenty-three performances, and was revived at Drury Lane and Covent
Garden in 1745, when its political meaning was again pertinent.

The play came at a time of great political stress, so that it was but
natural that its strong Whig and anti-Catholic sentiments should arouse
the greatest antagonism.[54] This antagonism was not only voiced in the
many pamphlets issued at the time, but no doubt affected the general
attitude toward Cibber in his later life. Cibber, in his first letter
to Pope, states that one of his enemies went so far as to write a
pamphlet whose purport was that _The Non-Juror_ constituted a subtle
Jacobite libel against the government. He dedicated the play to the
king when it was published, and for this he received a gift of two
hundred pounds. Cibber was not burdened in mind because he had offended
the losing party, and any inconvenience he may have felt was amply
repaid by the pension and laureateship which later came as his reward.

_The Non-Juror_ is based directly on Molière’s _Tartuffe_, though two
plays on the same theme had previously appeared in English: Crowne’s
_English Friar_ (1689), and Medbourne’s _Tartuffe_ (1670), the latter
a direct adaptation of Molière’s play. This _Tartuffe_ was revived
during the summer season of 1718 at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and was
published while Cibber’s play was still running, with an advertisement
that in it “may be seen the plot, characters, and most part of the
language of _The Non-Juror_.” This statement is true only in that the
two plays by Medbourne and Cibber are based on Molière, and was made to
discredit Cibber’s claim to originality in the adaptation.

Cibber was no doubt familiar with Medbourne’s play, but he used
Molière as a basis, and owed practically nothing to any play other
than the _Tartuffe_ of Molière. Cibber may have derived the suggestion
of the reformation of Charles from the corresponding character in
Medbourne’s play, but his manner of carrying out this reformation and
the difference in the qualities of the characters in the two plays make
this part an original creation.

In the edition of Crowne in the series of _The Dramatists of the
Restoration_, the editors maintain Cibber’s greater indebtedness to
Crowne than to Molière, in a way that makes one doubt whether they had
ever read either Molière or Cibber. So far as plot is concerned there
is absolutely no resemblance, except that in both a priest attempts
to seduce a decent woman. The characters, style, and management are
both different and inferior in Crowne, although some slight similarity
may be discovered in the attempt of Finical and Dr. Wolf to allay the
consciences of the respective objects of their attentions. As suggested
by Van Laun, Father Finical, like Dr. Wolf, is based on Tartuffe.

Cibber has handled his sources very freely, and in some particulars
has improved both the plot and the characters. That is not to say that
_The Non-Juror_ is a greater play than Molière’s _Tartuffe_, for as a
whole it is not. The parts of Dorine, who in _Tartuffe_ is the life and
source of the humor, of Cléante, and of Madame Pernelle, are omitted,
but the part of Mariane is enlivened into one of the best coquettes
of the stage. The other characters and incidents correspond in _The
Non-Juror_ and Molière’s _Tartuffe_, though the dénouement is more
artistically handled in Cibber.

_The Refusal_, an adaptation of Molière’s _Les Femmes Savantes_,
published in 1721, was acted at Drury Lane, February 14, 1721, and
had a run of six performances. Molière’s play had been adapted by
Wright as _The Female Virtuosoes_ in 1693, and this play was revived at
Lincoln’s Inn Fields on January 10, 1721, to anticipate _The Refusal_.
In like manner with the effort to discredit Cibber’s hand in _The
Non-Juror_, though in this case after the run of Cibber’s play was
over, Curll published, with a dedication to Cibber, “the second edition
of _No Fools Like Wits_,[55] as it was acted at Lincoln’s Inn Fields or
_The Refusal_, as it was acted at Drury Lane.”

In his adaptation Cibber has made more changes than is usual with him,
both in plot and in character; and in the dialogue he has anglicized
the idiom to an extent not found in his adaptations of tragedies from
the French.

Molière’s comedy is a satire on false learning in men as well as in
women, while Cibber has added some satire on business trickery, in
the same way that he added political satire in his adaptation of
_Tartuffe_. Cibber has supplied the elder daughter with a successful
suitor, and the dénouement is brought about by different, more
complicated, and more characteristically English means. In the incident
in Molière’s play in which Bélise takes the love of Clitandre to
herself, Cibber substitutes the mother for Bélise, omits the maid,
along with her impertinences, and adds some slight original incidents.

Trissotin, the poet, becomes one of the typical would-be wits of
English comedy, and Chrysale is changed to a typical promoter. In
Molière, Chrysale is a purely humorous character, whose vacillation
and lack of force were no doubt very laughable on the stage; Sir
Gilbert, his equivalent in Cibber’s play, on the other hand, is in no
way a weakling and is in no way admirable or a source of laughter, but
embodies a satire on contemporary business practices.

The directness and simplicity of Molière’s play, the unity of tone and
plot, give way in Cibber to complication of plot and character, in
which the whole piece loses the delightful quality of the humor of the
original.

_The Provoked Husband_ was presented at Drury Lane, January 10, 1728,
and had a run of twenty-eight nights. There was an unsuccessful attempt
on the part of Cibber’s enemies to damn the play on the first night;
the interruptions were so great that during the fourth act the actors
were compelled to stand still until it was quiet enough for them to
be heard. On January 31, Cibber published Vanbrugh’s unfinished play
and his own completion of it. The critics, who had condemned the play
unmercifully, especially the supposed additions of Cibber, found, when
the plays were published, that it was not Cibber but Vanbrugh they had
been condemning. According to Cibber,[56] on the twenty-eighth night
the play took in one hundred and forty pounds, a greater amount than
had been taken in at the last night of any play for fifty years.

Vanbrugh’s _Journey to London_ consists of four acts, the first two
practically complete, but the last two apparently unfinished. Cibber
has used practically all that Vanbrugh left, omitting the trip to the
theatre in the last part of Act II, and adding much of his own to the
whole play. He has interspersed his additions between the parts of
Vanbrugh’s play, and has changed very little of the Vanbrugh part,
except to “water it down” where it had been too strong for the changed
taste of the theatre goers.

Cibber’s additions to Steele’s _Conscious Lovers_ are mentioned on a
later page of these _Studies_.

Several of Cibber’s comedies were translated into foreign tongues: in
German _The Double Gallant_ appeared as _Der doppellte Liebhaber_,
translated by Johann Friedrich Jünger and published in Leipzig in
1786, _The Careless Husband_ as _Der sorglose Ehemann_, published in
Göttingen in 1750, and _The Provoked Husband_ as _Der erzürnte Ehemann
und der Landjunker_, published in Frankfurt in 1753; in French _The
Provoked Husband_ appeared as _Le Mari poussé à bout, ou le voyage à
Londres_, published in London, 1761.

The adaptations, except _The Non-Juror_ and _The Refusal_, seem to have
been produced merely to furnish amusement which should be in accordance
with changed stage conditions and changed taste. They show little
originality, being merely the stringing together of scenes without
alteration, though Cibber in the prologue to _The Double Gallant_ says:

    “Nay, even alter’d Plays, like old houses mended,
     Cost little less than new, before they’re ended;
     At least, our author finds the experience true.”

His method seems to have been to take two plays of an older author,
often plays which contained both a serious and a comic action, to
select such scenes as suited his purpose, and to join them into a
play, either alternating the scenes of the separate plays with link
characters, or putting the two plays end on end, as in the case of
_Love Makes a Man_. This latter method entailed much greater labor, as
many of the characters were made by consolidating two characters from
different plays.

Cibber’s comedies, which constitute his best and most important
work, may be divided into two general classes: comedies of manners
and intrigue, and sentimental comedies. The first class includes two
adaptations from Beaumont and Fletcher which are not strictly comedies
of manners but are more closely allied to the “comedy of humours,”
namely, _Love Makes a Man_ and _The Rival Fools_; one adaptation made
out of two plays by Dryden, _The Comical Lovers_; two from Molière,
_The Non-Juror_ and _The Refusal_, into both of which he introduced
contemporary social and political interest; and three other plays,
_Woman’s Wit_, _She Would and She Would Not_, and _The Double Gallant_,
the last of which takes its title, if not its plot, from Corneille’s
_Le Galant Double_. The sentimental comedies, in which form Cibber was
one of the very first to write, are _Love’s Last Shift_, _The Careless
Husband_, _The Lady’s Last Stake_, and _The Provoked Husband_, the
last being a completion of Vanbrugh’s _Journey to London_. The first
class consists almost altogether of adaptations; the second class is
essentially original.

II

CIBBER AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY

1. CIBBER, NOT STEELE, THE IMPORTANT FIGURE IN ITS EARLY DEVELOPMENT.

The fully developed form of sentimental comedy may be said to begin
with Steele’s _Conscious Lovers_ (1772) and to end with the attack
upon it made by Goldsmith, Foote, and their followers. Goldsmith
was “strongly prepossessed in favour of the poets of the last age
and strove to imitate them,”[57] and by his reintroduction of humor
into comedy he exerted a strong influence toward the downfall of the
sentimental type. The end of this vogue is generally well understood,
but the beginning of it has not been investigated with the same
thoroughness. Steele is generally given the credit of being the
innovator who reformed the stage,[58] although Ward and others give
some credit to the work of Cibber. The importance of Cibber in the
development of this form and in the moral reformation of comedy,
the effect of social conditions, and the gradual change from the
Restoration type, have not been fully studied. Colley Cibber was the
most important writer of comedy in preparing the way for the new form,
and practically every element of the later sentimental comedy is found
in his work. But Cibber was not a reformer calling on his age to
repent; he was rather answering a general demand of his time.

Three stages may be discerned in the development of sentimental
comedy: first, that in which the morals of comedy were purified and
the new sentimental material was intermixed with the old humorous
material, represented by the work of Cibber; second, that in which the
sentimental theme is presented with very little comic entertainment,
represented by _The Conscious Lovers_; and third, that in which the
comedy of this second stage degenerates and in which the work becomes
artificial and lifeless, represented by the plays of Holcroft and his
school.

Sentimental comedy as seen in its second phase may be briefly described
as comedy of manners in which the main action tends to inculcate a
moral lesson, in which the incidents no longer deal with illicit
intrigues, and in which the action is complicated by distressingly
pathetic situations. The chief characters are generally serious and
supersensitive in regard to such matters as filial duty, honor, and
the like; and while these persons are in no need of being reformed,
their exaggerated conceptions of honor have caused them to act so
that they are placed in an equivocal position and they appear to the
other characters as vicious. The language is chaste, there is constant
introduction of extremely stilted moralizing, and there is a notable
absence of humor.

Cibber’s work in other lines was conventional and commonplace. It is
true that his _Apology_ is lively and interesting, and his pamphlets in
reply to Pope’s attacks are keen and humorous though vulgar, but the
rest of his prose is extremely conventional. His poetry, except a few
songs, is inexpressibly poor. Aside from one opera in which he takes
the same stand in regard to virtue that he does in his comedies, his
operas are merely the commonplace following of a vogue. His tragedies
are generally imitative; with two exceptions they are adaptations of
Corneille or Shakspere. His farces are about equal in merit to his
poetry, and are devoid of originality.

Nor does Cibber’s life indicate the qualities that appear in his
sentimental comedies. The moral standard he displays in his pamphlets
in reply to Pope is far from high, and from the testimony of his
contemporaries concerning his personal character it would seem that
he was far from being the sort of man who would set about reforming
anything. And in all probability he would not have done so if there had
not been a general public movement in that direction.

2. SENTIMENTAL COMEDY A PRODUCT OF VARIOUS FORCES.

But sentimental comedy did not spring full grown from the brain of a
single man. Nor was it the result of a single revolutionary force.
Sentimental comedy resulted from gradual modifications of the drama
of the time, developing from the prevalent type little by little
until it finally appeared as an independent form. The reform of the
stage was not an isolated phenomenon, nor was it directly the result
of the attacks made by Collier and others. Rather are all these the
result of a changed public conscience, which was manifested not merely
in literature and on the stage, but in the Revolution of 1688 and a
subsequent social reformation as well.

Immediately after the Restoration there may be discovered two elements
in the life of the nation which had an influence both on the form and
on the content of literature. On the one side was the court, whose
standards affected both the form and content in the direction of
foreign models. Through the long period of exile on the continent,
Charles and his followers had become foreign in their literary taste
and they had great influence in the direction of a French type as
regards form; and because of the low and vicious standards of living
prevalent at court their influence stimulated the sympathetic handling
of low and vicious subjects.

On the other hand, there were the people, strictly native in their
preference, who influenced the drama in the direction of native
standards in form, and Puritan standards in content. As to the form
of comedy, there was nothing essentially antagonistic in these two
influences; the one could easily combine with the other so that a new
thing, congruous and consistent, might result; but in the material
presented antagonism was bound to arise and soon did arise. In the
development of sentimental comedy from the type which predominated
during and after the Restoration, there was not at first any
modification in structural elements; the comedy of manners was adopted,
so far as form was concerned; the change, which was gradual and was a
direct response to changed social and moral conditions, was at first
entirely in the matter of content. This change first appears in the
sincere reformation of the hero at the end of the play; then in the
attitude towards cuckoldom, which Restoration comedy had treated as a
humorous fact; and then in the character of the language, which was
altered in the direction of moral decency.

Under Charles II and James II the court, on which the theatre depended
for its right to live and also for its patronage, was vicious and
depraved. Its one grace was wit, and that it had in a superlative
degree.

3. PROGRESS IN ENGLISH SOCIETY.

The people in general, except the court and those more or less
fashionable classes of society which would naturally follow it,
were not affected by this mode. They learned to despise Charles II
personally because of his lack of honor and morals, and hated his
followers as well as their mode of life. In the city the Puritan
element, which was “at once the most substantial and sober” part of the
community, began to exercise some of the same control of manners and
morals that it had practised under the commonwealth, and checked the
constant disregard of its moral principles by the court.

But even during this corrupt time there were manifestations of activity
on the part of other elements of society, which looked toward the
betterment of conditions. In the life of the state there were events
which made for general progress and a more moral life among all the
people. With special reference to the regulation and restraint of the
theatre, certain elements in Parliament attempted, in 1669, to tax
the playhouses, which were situated in the disreputable part of town
and had become centers of prostitution; but the ministers of the king
intervened and the attempt to compel some restraint was unsuccessful.

In the reigns of William and Mary and of Anne a reaction is seen in the
life of the court, and there appears a still greater progress in all
classes of society.

The expulsion of the Stuarts brought about certain very positive
results which made for progress in all directions. So too the principle
of natural action and reaction was operating; but, considering the
historical circumstances, it was only to be expected that the reaction
toward a more moral and saner view of life should be less marked and
less rapid than the preceding reaction from Puritanism.

Until after the downfall of the Stuarts, the Protestants in England had
never been united; but after that event even Presbyterians joined with
ecclesiastics of the Church of England in public ceremonies on terms of
friendship. Now that the question of political and religious supremacy
was permanently settled, the Protestants were free to turn to some of
the questions which are popularly supposed to be the real objects of
religious organizations--worship and the encouragement of right living.
However far it may have failed to measure up to modern ideas in these
respects, the church now began to be a greater moral force.

The court became a very different sort of place. However far William
might fall short of middle class standards of today, he was a very
different sort of man from Charles or James, and had a very different
influence. As opposed to the Catholicism of the Stuarts, he was a
Presbyterian. Instead of haunting the theatre, where Charles found
more than one mistress among the actresses, William never even showed
himself at the theatre. Because of William’s prolonged absences on
the continent, during which Mary reigned in her own right, the person
of the queen became more important than in former reigns. Mary “had
been educated only to work embroidery, to play on the spinnet, and to
read the Bible and the _Whole Duty of Man_.”[59] “Her character was
unimpeachable, and by the influence of the king and queen the whole
court became most proper, even if it was somewhat dull.” But unlike
her husband, she went frequently to the theatre, where she showed
special favor for Shadwell and where she ordered such plays as _The
Old Bachelor_, _The Double Dealer_, and _The Committee_. It must be
admitted that Mary’s taste in regard to plays did not show great
literary or moral discrimination.

Both under William and Mary and under Anne the court took positive
grounds on moral questions. In Evelyn’s _Diary_ for February 19, 1690,
we read:

  “The impudence of both sexes was now become so greate and so
  universal, persons of all ranks keeping their courtesans publicly,
  that the King had lately directed a letter to the Bishops to order
  their Cleargy to preach against that sin, swearing, &c. and to put
  the Ecclesiastical Laws in execution without any indulgence.”

Mary, on July 9, 1691, wrote to the justices of the peace directing
that they execute all laws against the profanation of the Sabbath, and
even went so far as to have constables stationed on street corners to
capture pies and puddings that were being taken to the bakers to be
cooked on that day. In 1697 and 1698 King William issued two orders
concerning the acting of anything contrary to good morals or manners.
Queen Anne, who never went to the public theatre, made frequent
proclamations against immoral plays, masked women, and the admittance
of spectators behind the scenes, and in 1703 she issued a proclamation
against vice in general.

Altogether, the forces of the court and of the government were
acting in accord to suppress the abuses which their predecessors had
countenanced both by favor and by participation.

But however potent may have been the influence of the court, the real
movement for social reform came from the people, whose will the court
was really carrying out. The movement on the part of the people was
forwarded by the rise of various societies which were established for
moral, philanthropic, and religious purposes.[60]

The Society for the Reformation of Manners, inaugurated by a small
number of gentlemen in 1692, was probably the most influential and
best known of these organizations. It was organized primarily for the
purpose of informing on evildoers, and that there might be no criticism
concerning their sincerity, the fines were paid over to charity. In
addition to carrying on this work of informing, the society established
quarterly lectures on moral subjects, secured the preaching of sermons
on its objects, and in 1699 it claimed to have secured thousands of
convictions.[61] The church was brought into the movement by Archbishop
Tenison’s circular to the clergy encouraging them to cooperate with the
laity in the movement. This movement went farther than the prosecution
of overt acts against morality, for in 1701-2 the players at Lincoln’s
Inn Fields were prosecuted for uttering impious, lewd, and immoral
expressions.[62]

4. COLLIER.

Collier’s attack on the stage, published in 1698, was no doubt a potent
influence in crystallizing public opinion in regard to the drama, but
it does not stand alone; it is merely a sign of a movement which the
stage had begun to notice and profit by several years previously.
During the year 1698 not less than sixteen books and pamphlets were
published in the controversy. Collier’s book had great influence in
furthering the work of reformation; but, low as was the tone of the
drama at the time, one must confess that in some particulars Collier is
radical and far-fetched in his arguments and conclusions.

Cibber, though he had two years previously written a play with a
distinct reformatory and moral purpose, did not much relish Collier’s
attack or agree with it. In the prologue to _Xerxes_ he intimates that
Collier might prove a good index for those who desired to read immoral
literature:

    “Thus ev’n sage Collier too might be accus’d,
     If what h’as writ, thro’ ignorance, abus’d:
     Girls may read him, not for the truth, he says,
     But to be pointed to the bawdy plays.”

In _The Careless Husband_ we find Lord Morelove saying:

  “Plays now, indeed, one need not be so much afraid of; for since the
  late short-sighted view of them, vice may go on and prosper; the
  stage dares hardly show a vicious person speaking like himself, for
  fear of being call’d prophane for exposing him.”

To this Lady Easy replies that,

  “’Tis hard, indeed, when people won’t distinguish between what’s
  meant for contempt, and what for example.”

Perhaps Cibber’s most interesting contribution to the controversy is
contained in his dedication of _Love Makes a Man_, published in the
first edition, but omitted in the collected edition of his plays:

  “But suppose the stage may have taken too loose a liberty? Is there
  nothing to be said for it? Have not all sciences been guilty? Was
  it to be expected in a reign of pleasure, peace and madness, that
  the poets should not be merry? Did not the court then lead up the
  dance? And did not the whole nation join in it? Was it not mere Joan
  Sanderson,[63] and did not the lawn-sleeves, cuffs, and cassocks
  fill up the measure? But since those dancing days are over, I hope
  our enemies will give us leave to grow wise, and sober, as well as
  the rest of our neighbors: Why shall we not have the liberty to
  reform, as well as the clergy, and lawyers? I believe upon a fair
  examination we may find, that prophaneness, cruelty, and passive
  obedience, are now less than ever the business of the stage, the
  bench or the pulpit; and I doubt not, but we can produce examples of
  new plays, lawyers, and pastors that have met with success without
  being obliged to immorality, bribery, or politics ...

  “Now if the stage must needs down, because ’tis possible it may
  seduce, as instruct; the same rule of policy might forbid the use of
  physic, because not only their patients, but physicians themselves
  die of common diseases; or call in the milled crowns, because they
  are but so many patterns for coiners to counterfeit by, or might
  as well suppress the Courts of Judicature, because some persons
  have suffered for what a succeeding reign has made a new law, that
  makes that law that sentenced them illegal: The same conclusion
  might discountenance our religion, because we sometimes find pride,
  hypocricy, avarice, and ignorance in its teachers: So that if our
  zealous reformers do not stick fairly to their method we may in time
  hope to see our nation flourish without either wit, health, money,
  law, conscience, or religion....

  “But this sort of reformation I hope will never be thoroughly
  wrought, while the king, and the Established Church have any friends:
  The stage I am sure was never heartily oppressed but by the enemies
  of both.”

Though Cibber thought Collier extreme and unjust in his criticism,
his own attitude concerning the abuses of the stage was hardly less
censorious than Collier’s, but he blames the audiences for the low
moral standards of the entertainments:

  “However gravely we may assert, that Profit ought always to be
  inseparable from the Delight of the Theatre; nay, admitting that
  the Pleasure would be heighten’d by the uniting them; yet, while
  Instruction is so little the Concern of the Auditor, how can we hope
  that so choice a Commodity will come to a Market where there is so
  seldom a Demand for it?

  “It is not to the Actor therefore, but to the vitiated and low Taste
  of the Spectator, that the Corruptions of the Stage (of what kind
  soever) have been owing.”[64]

His own attitude, which he held from the first of his career as a
dramatist, may be illustrated what he says in the _Apology_:[65]

  “Yet such Plays (entirely my own) were not wanting at least, in what
  our most admired Writers seem’d to neglect, and without which, I
  cannot allow the most taking Play, to be intrinsically good, or
  to be a Work, upon which a Man of Sense and Probity should value
  himself: I mean when they do not, as well _prodesse_, as _delectare_,
  give Profit with Delight! The _Utile Dolci_ was, of old, equally
  the Point; and has always been my Aim, however wide of the Mark, I
  may have shot my Arrow. It has often given me Amazement, that our
  best Authors of that time, could think the Wit, and Spirit of their
  Scenes, could be an Excuse for making the Looseness of them publick.
  The many Instances of their Talents so abused, are too glaring, to
  need a closer Comment, and are sometimes too gross to be recited.
  If then to have avoided this Imputation, or rather to have had the
  Interest, and Honour of Virtue always in view, can give Merit to
  a Play; I am contented that my Readers should think such Merit,
  the All, that mine have to boast of.--Libertines of mere Wit, and
  Pleasure, may laugh at these grave Laws, that would limit a lively
  Genius: But every sensible honest Man, conscious of their Truth,
  and Use, will give these Ralliers Smile for Smile, and shew a due
  Contempt for their Merriment.”

Davies tells us:[66]

  “So well did Cibber, though a professed libertine through life,
  understand the dignity of virtue, that no comic author has drawn more
  delightful and striking pictures of it. Mrs. Porter, on reading a
  part, in which Cibber had painted virtue in the strongest and most
  lively colors, asked him how it came to pass, that a man, who could
  draw such admirable portraits of goodness, should yet live as if he
  were a stranger to it?--‘Madam,’ said Colley, ‘the one is absolutely
  necessary, the other is not.’”

Possibly this inconsistency in personal conduct and public confession
explains why comedies which aimed to teach lessons of virtue were
sentimental and did not ring true. The men who wrote them wrote from
the head and not from the heart, influenced by a growing public demand
and without real sincerity or conviction.

5. CHARACTERISTICS OF RESTORATION COMEDY.

Restoration comedy up to about 1696, while it was essentially a native
development, was influenced both in technique and in content by the
drama to which the court had been accustomed in its exile in France.
The Jonsonian comedy was developing both in the period immediately
preceding the Commonwealth and during the Restoration into the same
sort of thing that we have here, and Shadwell, poet laureate and
especial favorite of Queen Mary, definitely took the work of Jonson
as his model. The Jonsonian satire had thrown emphasis on fundamental
traits of human nature, but in this later type satire is centered
on manners, dress, the non-essential elements of life, though the
characters continue to be embodiments of single traits. Molière, whose
earliest effective follower in England was Etherege, taught the English
writers of the comedy of manners to aim at polish, refinement of style
and dialogue, and his influence confirmed the tendency of English
comedy to follow the unities as they were then understood. Restoration
comedy, then, is native Jonsonian comedy, influenced by the comedy of
Molière.[67] The chief literary sources of its plots are the comedies
of Beaumont and Fletcher, of Molière, of Corneille, and Spanish
comedies and novels.

Though the late Elizabethans had been gross in word, there had always
been in their work a tendency to punish vice and reward virtue, or at
least to make vice ridiculous. But in the Restoration this grossness
becomes grossness of word, character, and idea, and it is not the
violator of virtue that is made ridiculous, but his victim. The
Elizabethan gaiety, spontaneity, healthy overflow of spirits, become a
cynicism which is absurd in its artificiality and deliberate pose. The
Jonsonian reaction from earlier Elizabethan romanticism continues its
advance toward realism.

The Restoration dramatist lacks the power to construct effective
plots. He is able to handle his separate incidents with skill, but
when it comes to sustaining an action through five acts, he fails. His
chief fault lies in too great intricacy, excessive elaboration, and
complexity, which are due to his endeavor to tell too many stories.
In the construction of his plays he commonly takes two, and sometimes
three, plays from Molière, or Beaumont and Fletcher, to form one play
of his own. Hence there is in the handling of the plot a lack of unity.
Furthermore, in his extreme elaboration of single situations, which
one must admit have qualities to make them lively and interesting
on the stage, the dramatist fails in the great essential quality of
probability; if one regards the unity of time, he makes his stories
impossible. Lack of sequence is caused by the constant interruption of
conversation, which is brilliant and entertaining in itself, but has
nothing to do with the story.

The dramatist tends to the elaboration of stock themes, dealing with
the pursuit of illicit pleasure, assignations, and love intrigues. The
typical story might be stated as follows: a young man is entangled with
one or more women, a widow, the wife of an elderly or foolish husband,
or a mistress whom he is keeping or who is keeping him, and while he
is carrying on these intrigues he falls in love with the virtuous
young woman he eventually wins. Sometimes his mistresses object to his
marrying some one else, sometimes they do not, and in the latter case
the opposing force is centered in a rapacious guardian or some other
complicating person or circumstance. There are usually many minor
love affairs, sometimes legitimate, sometimes not, and usually so
complicated that it is difficult to keep the various threads separate.
Collier did no injustice when he said that “the stage poets make their
principal persons vicious and reward them at the end of the play.”

The love is mere sensuality. There is tacit acknowledgment that the men
will be untrue to their wives and a fear on the part of the husbands
that their wives will cuckold them.[68] This fear is not because of any
moral scruples, but is merely because of the ridicule that cuckoldom
brought on the husband. The treatment is frankly gross, licentious,
cynical.

In a sense this treatment is highly realistic; to this extent, that it
is a general reflection of the standards and manners of the life of the
court. The fashions are contemporary, the manners and morals are those
of the upper classes. The playwrights confine themselves to a limited
section of but a part of the people. Social and religious institutions
are treated so as to make them ridiculous and contemptible.

That any other treatment would have been difficult is seen by
considering the relationship existing between the theatre and the
court. The theatre had its authority for existence directly from the
court, one theatre receiving its license from the King, the other
from the Duke of York, while the companies of actors were known as
the King’s or the Duke’s servants.[69] These licenses were moreover
revocable at the pleasure of those who gave them. Controversies and
differences within the theatre were often settled personally by the
King or Duke, and Charles is said to have suggested subjects to the
dramatists in many instances. With so direct and personal a relation,
anything other than compliance with the taste of the court could result
in nothing but the downfall of the theatre. The theatre’s very life
depended on its selection and presentation of themes that would satisfy
and reflect the taste of the most morally degraded court that England
has ever had.

The characterization in these plays is conventional and often vague.
For example, it may be laid down as an almost invariable rule that a
widow is never virtuous. In the embodiment of a single trait there
is the continued tendency to exaggeration seen in the “humourous”
characterization of Jonson, with the same use of descriptive
names--Courtall, Mrs. Frail, Lady Wishfort, Justice Clodpate--to save
the labor of characterization. The characters are likewise lacking in
complexity and development.

There is the tendency to Jonsonian division of characters into dupes
and dupers,[70] but this division is not so clear as in Jonson, nor is
the division based on the essential qualities of human nature, but is
rather on the basis of wit and power in repartee. The heroes are all
witty, usually wealthy, popular, and their life work is the pursuit of
women. The women are all witty, beautiful, and all rakes, except the
heroine, and even the heroines bid fair to become so in a few months
after marriage. The hero or heroine of one play might be the hero or
heroine of any other play so far as any distinctive characterization is
concerned.

There is the pretended wit, a simpleton who apes the men of wit
and fashion, who thinks himself most clever, and who is perfectly
unconscious of the fact that he is being made a butt for the wit of
the sensible characters. Such are the Dapperwits, the Witwouds, and
the Tattles. Somewhat similar is the fop who imitates the French,
thinks only of his dress, his appearance, and the figure he makes. He
is all ostentation, is entirely self-centered and simple in his mental
processes, but is really not such a fool as one imagines at first.
Etherege’s Sir Fopling Flutter, and Cibber’s Sir Novelty Fashion--the
Lord Foppingtons of _The Relapse_ and _The Careless Husband_--are two
well drawn presentations of this character. An interesting female type
is the Miss Hoyden-Prue-Hippolyta young woman, who has been kept in
secluded ignorance of the world, but who shows a sudden ingenuity,
knowledge of the world, and desire for the sensual joys of life. There
are, of course, the elderly cuckolds, dominated and fooled by their
wives, and the wives who profess virtue but do not practise it.

That the view here given is not prejudiced by modern standards may
be seen by a description of the characters by one of the dramatists
themselves. Shadwell in the preface to _The Sullen Lovers_ expresses
himself, not without vigor:

  “But in the Plays, which have been wrote of late, there is no such
  thing as perfect Character, but the two chief Persons are commonly
  a Swearing, Drinking, Whoring, Ruffian for a Lover, and an impudent
  ill-bred _Tomrig_ for a Mistress, and these are the fine People of
  the play; and ... almost any thing is proper for them to say; but
  their chief Subject is Bawdy, and Profaneness, which they call _Brisk
  Writing_, when the most dissolute of Men, that relish those things
  well enough in Private, are shock’d at ’em in Publick.”

The dialogue, which often interrupts the movement of the plot, and
often surpasses in interest the more solid quality of representation
of life, is usually marked by the most brilliant and biting wit, by
keenly satiric repartee, and by epigrammatic polish. The dialogue has
often nothing to do with the story, but is merely the exhibition of
the author’s ability in the cynical treatment of contemporary manners.
The attitude is one of satire and raillery against all established
institutions, against marriage, the manners of society, the Puritans,
the newly developing sciences, the court, dueling, the country and
its inhabitants, the opera, the new songs and novels, the affectation
of foreign airs, the adoption of foreign words, poetry and dilettante
writing, polite literary conversation, legal abuses, and almost
everything that one can conceive.

The locality in which the plays are set is extremely narrow at
first, being confined to the town; for most of the plays are set in
London, in localities familiar to the audiences. Within the class
and localities to which the comedy restricts itself, it is a most
interesting social document; but it must always be remembered that it
is no sense representative of the whole people. Sometimes we are taken
to Spain or Italy, but it is Spain or Italy only in name, the people
and the customs are all English. The scene may sometimes be one of the
fashionable watering places in England; but it is never in the despised
country.

Whether one agrees with it or not it is well to keep in mind Lamb’s
defense in his essay _On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century_:

  “We have been spoiled with ... the ... drama of common life; where
  the moral point is everything; where, instead of the fictitious
  half-believed personages of the stage (the phantoms of old comedy)
  we recognize ourselves, our brothers, aunts, kinsfolk, allies,
  patrons, enemies,--the same as in life.... “I do not know how it is
  with others, but I feel the better always for the perusal of one of
  Congreve’s--nay, why should I not add even of Wycherley’s--comedies.
  I am the gayer at least for it; and I could never connect those
  sports of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be drawn
  from them to imitation in real life. They are a world of themselves
  almost as much as fairyland.... But in its own world do we feel
  the creature is so very bad?--The Fainalls and the Mirabels, the
  Dorimants and the Lady Touchwoods, in their own sphere, do not offend
  my moral sense; in fact they do not appeal to it at all. They seem
  engaged in their proper element. They break through no laws, or
  conscientious restraints. They know of none. They have got out of
  Christendom into the land--what shall I call it?--of cuckoldry--the
  Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, and the manners perfect
  freedom. It is altogether a speculative scene of things, which has no
  reference whatever to the world that is.... He [Congreve] has spread
  a privation of moral light ... over his creations; and his shadows
  flit before you without distinction or preference. Had he introduced
  a good character, a single gush of moral feeling, a revulsion of the
  judgment to actual life and actual duties, the impertinent Goshen
  would have only lighted to the discovery of deformities, which now
  are none, because we think them none.... “... When we are among
  them [the characters of Congreve and Wycherley], we are amongst a
  chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our usages. No reverend
  institutions are insulted by their proceedings,--for they have none
  among them. No peace of families is violated,--for no family ties
  exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is stained,--for
  none is supposed to have a being.... There is neither right nor
  wrong,--gratitude or its opposite,--claim or duty,--paternity or
  sonship....

  “The whole is a passing pageant.... But, like Don Quixote, we take
  part against the puppets, and quite as impertinently.... We would
  indict our very dreams.”

6. BEGINNINGS OF THE CHANGE IN THE DRAMA.

Such had been the conditions surrounding the drama and in the drama
itself before the reformation began. When one comes to look at the
stage and the audiences, one finds very little indication of change
at first. In 1682 there seems to have been objection to _London
Cuckolds_ on the ground of indecency, and Ravenscroft in the prologue
to _Dame Dobson_ (1682) claims to have complied with the objections
which had been raised by making his own play dull and civil. In 1684
appeared Southerne’s first comedy, _The Disappointment_, which he calls
a “play,” and in this we have the serious treatment of the marriage
relations and the preservation of a wife’s chastity. Throughout,
Southerne’s tendency was towards morality.

In 1696 there begins a real and easily discernible movement towards the
moral treatment of dramatic themes. _The She Gallants_ (1696) was so
offensive to the ladies that it had to be withdrawn; in _She Ventures
and He Wins_ (1696) the man who would carry on an amour with a married
woman is exposed and tricked and made the butt; and in Mrs. Manley’s
_The Lost Lover_ (1696) there is the noticeable introduction of a
virtuous wife.

In 1697, the epilogue to _Boadicea_, a tragedy, tells us that

    “Once only smutty jests could please the town,
     But now (Heav’n help our trade) they’ll not go down.”

Waterhouse[71] finds traces of sentimentality in Vanbrugh’s _Aesop_,
which appeared the same year. Then in 1698 matters were brought to a
head by Collier, and we find Congreve’s _Double Dealer_ advertised to
be acted “with several expressions omitted,” while in _The Way of the
World_ (1700) his muse is somewhat more chaste. _The Provoked Wife_
was altered, probably in 1706, so that the clergy might not seem to be
attacked.

From this time on the changed attitude was increasingly manifest in the
new plays, though the old were still acted with little or no change.

In _The State of the Case Restated_[72] it is contended that the royal
patent to the Drury Lane Theatre was given to Sir Richard Steele for
the purpose of correcting the abuses of the theatre, but that Sir
Richard had not done this; in fact that

  “The same lewd plays were acted and reviewed without any material
  alteration, which gave occasion for that universal complaint against
  the English stage, of lewdness and debauchery, from all the sober and
  religious part of the nation; the whole business of comedy continuing
  all this time to be the criminal intrigues of fornication and
  adultery, ridiculing of marriage, virtue, and integrity, and giving
  a favorable turn to vicious characters, and instructing loose people
  how to carry on their lewd designs with plausibility and success:
  thus among other plays they have revived _The Country Wife_, _Sir
  Fopling Flutter_, _The Rover_, _The Libertine Destroyer_, and several
  others, and it is remarkable, that the knight, or coadjutors, had
  condemned _Sir Fopling Flutter_, as one of the most execrable and
  vicious plays that ever was performed in public.”

The change that was occurring may be fairly illustrated by quotations
from plays by Etherege and Steele, which are characteristic of the
alterations not only as to morals but as to moralizing. In speaking of
marriage Etherege says, “your nephew ought to conceal it [his marriage]
for a time, madam, since marriage has lost its good name; prudent men
seldom expose their own reputations, till ’tis convenient to justify
their wives;”[73] while Steele’s sentiment is that “wedlock is hell if
at least one side does not love, as it would be Heaven if both did.”[74]

7. CIBBER’S COMEDIES.

Cibber at the very outset of his career as a dramatist, in _Love’s Last
Shift_ (1696), deliberately attempted to reform the stage, and that
the audience was ready for the innovation is shown by the way it was
received, for we are told that “never were spectators more happy in
easing their minds by uncommon and repeated plaudits. The honest tears,
shed by the audience, conveyed a strong reproach to our licentious
poets, and was to Cibber the highest mark of honor.”[75] Davies further
gives Cibber the credit of being the first in reforming the English
stage, and of founding English sentimental comedy. “The first comedy,
acted since the Restoration, in which were preserved purity of manners
and decency of language, with a due respect to the honor of the
marriage-bed, was Colley Cibber’s _Love’s Last Shift, or The Fool in
Fashion_.”[76] Cibber himself makes no claim to decency of language,
nor is it found to any greater extent in this play than in the other
plays of the period. Certainly there can be nothing bolder than the
first act, or the epilogue, which reads as follows:

    “Now, gallants, for the author. First, to you
     Kind city gentlemen o’ th’ middle row;
     He hopes you nothing to his charge can lay,
     There’s not a cuckold made in all his play.
     Nay, you must own, if you believe your eyes,
     He draws his pen against your enemies:
     For he declares, today, he merely strives
     To maul the beaux--because they maul your wives.
     Nor, sirs, to you whose sole religion’s drinking,
     Whoring, roaring, without the pain of thinking,
     He fears he’s made a fault you’ll ne’er forgive,
     A crime beyond the hopes of a reprieve:
     An honest rake forego the joys of life,
     His whores and wine, t’ embrace a dull chaste wife!
     Such out-of-fashion stuff! but then again,
     He’s lewd for above four acts, gentlemen.

     Four acts for your coarse palates were design’d,
     But then the ladies taste is more refin’d,
     They, for Amanda’s sake, will sure be kind.”

The main action, that which deals with the reformation of the wandering
husband, seems to be original with Cibber in every respect. It deals
with the reformation of a husband who eight or ten years before has
deserted his young wife for a dissolute life on the continent, and who
returns to England still more degenerate in mind and morals than when
he left, and so entirely depleted in purse that he has not money enough
to buy a meal or pay for a night’s lodging for himself and his servant.
The husband is finally led to return to his wife, whose appearance has
so changed that he does not recognize her, by her pretense of being a
new mistress. This subterfuge is more or less remotely suggestive of
Shakspere’s _All’s Well that Ends Well_ and Shirley’s _Gamester_, both
of which have been suggested as its source; but it owes nothing to them
in the working out of the situation.

The theme is practically that of _The Careless Husband_: the
reformation of a husband not entirely spoiled at heart. The moral
teaching is that there is the same pleasure in legitimate enjoyment as
in the baser and illicit sort.

The innovation consists in the very moral ending of the piece,
particularly in the definite decision of the hero to reform, a
determination which he expresses as follows:

  “By my example taught, let every man, whose fate has bound him to
  a marry’d life, beware of letting loose his wild desires: for if
  experience may be allow’d to judge, I must proclaim the folly of a
  wandering passion. The greatest happiness we can hope on earth,

    And sure the nearest to the joys above,
    Is the chaste rapture of a virtuous love.”

It is to be noticed that the illicit affair of Sir Novelty Fashion and
Mrs. Flareit is made ridiculous and not happy at the end, nor does Sir
Novelty acquire a mistress or a wife who has previously been chaste.
Likewise there is no husband who is made ridiculous by being cuckolded,
and the only amour, if it can be called an amour, that which Amanda’s
maid unwillingly has with Snap, is made right the next morning by the
marriage of the two.

On the other hand, the play, aside from these particulars, exhibits
the technique and the material of the typical Restoration comedy.
The chief incident deals in most frank style with the sex relations
of the hero and heroine, treated essentially in the Restoration way,
with the exception that the audience knows they are man and wife while
the characters do not. The cellar incident is as frank and gross as
anything of the sort in the earlier drama, though in this case the
final outcome is a wedding. There is the same succession of lively and
disconnected incidents, incidents which would go well on the stage, and
which make up five separate threads of story. The substitution of the
name of one person for another in the marriage bond is the same sort of
thing that occurs over and over again in the earlier comedy.[77]

The characters represent the same more or less stiff drawing of
conventional figures. Sir Novelty Fashion is of the same family as Sir
Fopling Flutter; Lovelace and Young Worthy are the same drunken rakes
as those who make the principal characters in the unreformed drama,
with the exception that here they are not presented to us as carrying
on their amours. Snap is the witty servingman who is invariably paired
with the maid of the heroine in Restoration comedy. There is the same
presentation of local scenes, particularly that in the park; there is
the same coarse speech; and there is the same interruption of the story
by raillery.

But the play as already suggested is a very distinct step in advance in
its treatment of fundamental morality, and marks a conscious beginning
of a new mode; not an inconsiderable achievement for the first play of
an author twenty-four years old.

The two plots of _Woman’s Wit_ (1697) are entirely dissimilar in tone
and dramatic handling, and, moreover, have no essential connection with
each other. The main plot, which gives the name to the piece, is in the
Restoration manner, while the sub-plot, which deals with the Rakishes,
is in the mould of the minor late Elizabethans. In its portrayal of
manners it belongs to the type represented by the plays of Brome,
marked by coarseness rather than finish, and implying about the same
standard of morals.

The main plot consists of a series of complications caused by the
efforts of Longeville to unmask Leonora’s unfaithfulness to Lovemore,
to whom she is engaged. She convinces Lovemore that Longeville’s
efforts are the result of a plot, the purpose of which is to alienate
Lovemore and Leonora so that Longeville may have her to himself; and
there then follows one complication after another, until the characters
are at last gathered together and Leonora is made to confess her
duplicity.

The situation on which the main action is based is original and highly
dramatic, but in order to maintain the intrigue Cibber has had to use
incidents which are marked by improbability and dramatic blindness
to such an extent that the action becomes wearisome. Cibber seems to
be groping for something different from the conventional Restoration
intrigue. His conception is worthy of more success than he attained,
but he lacked the dramatic skill and experience to carry it out.

Some of the character drawing is good. Longeville and Lovemore are
rather decent young men, but are no doubt too sentimental for success
on the stage at this time. The Rakishes are overdrawn and farcical. The
women, with the exception of Leonora, are lacking in the spontaneity
and wit demanded of seventeenth and early eighteenth century heroines,
and like the men are possibly too sentimental. Leonora is the intriguer
and is the best drawn and most important personage in the play. Her
downfall is the result of her own character and conduct, and in the
disapproval of her character and actions Cibber has repeated, to some
extent, views he expressed in his first play.

The vulgar sub-plot which deals with Old Rakish and Young Rakish, when
separated from _Woman’s Wit_ and acted in 1707 as _The School Boy_, was
a greater success than the original play. With the exception of the
change in the names of some of the personages, minor alterations of the
dialogue, the omission of parts of the incidents, and the addition of
such incidents as are necessary to make it stand by itself, the play is
verbatim as it appeared when a part of _Woman’s Wit_.

From the point of view of the reformation of the stage it must be
confessed that _Woman’s Wit_ was not of great importance. The moral
tone of the main action is high; at least virtue is rewarded and vice
disgraced, and there are no amours carried on. But the sub-action,
which was later transformed into _The School Boy_, is entirely opposed
to both good taste and good morals, and after a series of low comedy
scenes, ends with the promise of Young Rakish to Master Johnny that he
will take Johnny to the playhouse, where the latter may satisfy his
disappointment in the failure to marry his mother’s woman. Although
notable progress in the morality of the drama had been made, as we
have seen, the fact that this sub-action was successfully presented by
itself shows that the taste of the theatre-going public was not yet
entirely regenerate.

_Love Makes a Man_ (1701) is a rather close adaptation of two of
Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays,[78] in which Cibber does not pretend
to any serious purpose. “For masks, we’ve scandal, and for beaus,
French airs.” And yet his moralizing and sentimental tendency cannot
be entirely restrained, for when Carlos, the hero of the play, does
turn from his books to love, he speaks in a most heightened and
sentimental strain. So too the efforts of Louisa to seduce him are met
with sentiments of lofty morality which are actuated by his sincere
love for Angelina. The Restoration lover would not have hesitated
in the slightest degree to enjoy all that Louisa offered and his
wife-to-be would have taken it as a matter of course, probably would
have joked with her confidante, if not with the hero, on the subject.
But with Cibber not only is the attitude concerning this sort of thing
changed, but in his alteration he has omitted one incident[79] that
would have been a source of great delight to a Restoration audience,
and has softened the language throughout, so that the coarseness
which marks his original has largely disappeared. No one undergoes
a moral reformation, for Louisa has not been evil in her life, and
this one unsuccessful effort at seduction cures her. But the play has
two characteristics of the sentimental type; it is perfectly moral in
action, and it has some expression of sentimental philosophy.

_She Would and She Would Not_ (1702) is probably more in accordance
with modern taste than any other play Cibber wrote. In this regard for
good taste as well as good morals it is significant of the change in
English comedy, and though it is not sentimental, it indicates Cibber’s
readiness to adopt and lead the new mode. In its technique it reminds
us of the Spanish intrigue plays of Dryden; but it is perfectly moral,
and the two lovers do not employ their time, when away from the main
business of winning their wives, in carrying on intrigues with other
women.

_The Careless Husband_ (acted 1704) is Cibber’s masterpiece in
sentimental comedy. In it he has reached greater excellence than in his
former plays in plot and in character presentation, and in the ability
to make his plot and moral purpose work out consistently and logically.
The reformation of Loveless in _Love’s Last Shift_ strikes one as
not in keeping with his character; one feels that his relapse[80] is
quite the natural thing to happen. In this play, however, the hero’s
character is presented from the first in a way that prepares one for
the final reformation. In this particular Cibber rises above his
contemporaries in comedy.

In _The Careless Husband_ Cibber lays claim to deliberate and
serious moral purpose and deals, as he did in his first play, with
the reclaiming of a licentious husband by a virtuous wife. Dibdin
extravagantly says of it that “it was a school for elegant manners, and
an example for honorable actions.” Cibber expresses himself in regard
to his purpose, in the dedication, as follows:

  “The best criticks have long and justly complain’d, that the
  coarseness of most characters in our late Comedies, have been unfit
  entertainments for People of Quality, especially the ladies: and
  therfore I was long in hopes that some able pen (whose expectation
  did not hang upon the profits of success) wou’d generously attempt
  to reform the Town into a better taste than the World generally
  allows ’em: but nothing of that kind having lately appear’d, that
  would give me the opportunity of being wise at another’s expence, I
  found it impossible any longer to resist the secret temptation of my
  vanity, and so e’en struck the first blow myself: and the event has
  now convinc’d me, that whoever sticks closely to Nature, can’t easily
  write above the understandings of the Galleries, tho’ at the same
  time he may possibly deserve applause of the Boxes.”

But in _The Careless Husband_, in contrast with what he had previously
written in this field, the tone of the entire play is moral, not merely
that of the fifth act, the play is worked out consistently, and the
offensive effect of an incongruous mixture of standards is lacking.
It belongs distinctly to the sentimental type, and is the best of the
early school.

In the prologue Cibber gives a summary of the kind of characters that
should illustrate the moral the comedy writer has as his theme:

    “Of all the various Vices of the Age,
     And shoals of fools expos’d upon the Stage,
     How few are lasht that call for Satire’s rage!
     What can you think to see our Plays so full
     Of Madmen, Coxcombs, and the drivelling Fool?
     Of Cits, of Sharpers, Rakes, and roaring Bullies,
     Of Cheats, of Cuckolds, Aldermen and Cullies?
     Wou’d not one swear, ’twere taken for a rule,
     That Satire’s rod in the Dramatick School,
     Was only meant for the incorrigible Fool?
     As if too Vice and Folly were confined
     To the vile scum alone of human kind,
     Creatures a Muse should scorn; such abject trash
     Deserves not Satire’s but the Hangman’s lash.

     We rather think the persons fit for Plays,
     Are those whose birth and education says
     They’ve every help that shou’d improve mankind,
     Yet still live slaves to a vile tainted mind.”

In this play Cibber continues the general practice of basing dramatic
technique upon that of the Restoration drama. We find the same
multiplicity of plots, though there is here a material reduction in
their number. But here the various plots are more consistently bound
together and more logically worked out. The hero is a somewhat refined
Restoration character; he has more gentleness and goodness in him, but
the course he pursues is typical of the earlier plays in that he is
carrying on two amours during the play and at the end he abandons those
intrigues; with this difference, however, that the reformation of the
hero of _The Careless Husband_ is felt to be permanent.

The love story of Lord Morelove and Lady Betty, which forms the
sub-action, is in the best style of the comedy of manners. It, as well
as the main action, reminds one in its finished workmanship of the best
plays written during the latter part of the preceding century.

There is a distinct effort to teach the advantage of moral living, in
the unhappy outcome of the illicit affairs and in the happy outcome
of the legitimate. The situation in which Edging and Sir Charles are
discovered asleep, which proved too gross for Cibber’s audience, is
nevertheless handled in a manner to show disapproval; the Restoration
dramatist would have been salacious and humorous. Sir Charles’s feeling
of guilt after this scene, however, is an entirely new note.

Some of the characters are stock figures. Lady Betty is the usual
coquette, is a Millamant type, but is altogether more human and modern;
Lord Foppington is the continuation of Sir Novelty Fashion, whom we
recognize as a type which appears in Etherege and Crowne; and Sir
Charles, until his reformation, is, in his conduct, the Restoration
rake, with, however, distinctly more humanity. His whole-heartedness
and inherent honor make one forgive his lapse in conduct.

Other characters indicate a new mode. Lady Easy is a modest, virtuous,
capable wife, full of moderation and tact, with the gentleness of
the modern ideal woman. She belongs to the patient Griselda type,
and her situation, which contains not a little pathos, is handled
in a way to gain the sympathy of the audience. This is a new and
noteworthy contribution in the direction of the fully developed type
of sentimental comedy. Even in spite of Sir Charles’s defection in
conduct, we recognize an inherent goodness in his nature. Lord Morelove
is the preaching, sentimentalizing type, serious minded and upright,
the sort of character that Cibber has presented in Lord Lovemore in
_Woman’s Wit_ and Elder Worthy in _Love’s Last Shift_; a character
who seldom appears in the Restoration period, or, if he does appear,
is ridiculed. In this presentation of a successful lover, lacking in
wit and inconstancy, Cibber was not following the convention of the
preceding drama, which usually made its heroes witty scamps.

While we still have light banter and raillery, they are primarily
used to display character or further the plot, functions which they
disregard in the Restoration plays. The theme and its working out
not only deal with the reformation of the loose character, but also
endeavor to present an admirable example of womanhood who shows a
proper fidelity to her husband in spite of all his delinquencies. In
the presentation of this high type of character Cibber has again become
an innovator and has made a positive contribution to the drama of the
period.

In his adaptation of the plays by Dryden[81] in _The Comical Lovers_
(1707) Cibber has not attempted any changes, and the play is of no
importance in the development of comedy. It was regarded merely as a
revival of Dryden’s work, and was acted along with other old plays
during the same season, largely because of an antiquarian interest.

The two plays from which this is made go well together and present
something of the best that Dryden did in the line of satiric comedy,
and no doubt the social satire was almost as pertinent in Cibber’s time
as it had been forty or fifty years earlier.

But the moral standard, which is almost always present, even if in the
background, in Cibber’s own plays, is almost entirely lacking here.
Celadon expects to be cuckolded, but would rather be cuckolded by
Florimel (who reminds one very strongly of Congreve’s Millamant even
in the stipulations before their agreement of marriage), than by any
one else. So too in the complications in the second story in the play,
the moral defections are humorous merely because they are immoral, and
there is no disapproval expressed or implied. In Cibber’s own work he
may retain his disapproval until the last act, but the moral standard
always appears in some way or other, so that this play is essentially
uncharacteristic of Cibber’s work.

_The Double Gallant_ (1707) is an adaption of the same sort as _The
Comical Lovers_, derived from Restoration plays,[82] but it does have
more significance. It is marked by the same general tone of moral
irresponsibility and lightness, but without the actual culmination of
delinquencies; there is the same raillery, somewhat curtailed, and the
hero, as in those plays, involves himself in intrigue with several
women at once. There is more respect for morals in the general conduct
of the piece. The change is indicated in the handling of the source.
Burnaby[83] has made use of what is probably the most notorious and
grossest incident in Restoration comedy, Horner’s subterfuge in _The
Country Wife_, but has modified some of the elements of the intrigue.
Cibber has prevented the successful outcome of the intrigue, and has
entirely omitted the unpleasant features.

_The Lady’s Last Stake_ (1707), in the handling of a serious theme,
seems the most modern of Cibber’s comedies; it represents almost an
approach to the modern problem play in the Lord and Lady Wronglove
story and in the theme of the Lord George and Lady Gentle story. It
is a fully developed comedy of the sentimental type of this period,
with its four acts of intrigue, its reconciliation at the end, and its
extremely moral teaching. Cibber makes two statements of his theme,
first in the dedication, and then in the prologue. His statement in the
dedication is as follows:

  “A Play, without a just Moral, is a poor and trivial Undertaking;
  and ’tis from the Success of such Pieces, that Mr. Collier was
  furnish’d with an advantageous Pretence of laying his unmerciful
  Axe to the Root of the Stage. Gaming is a Vice that has undone more
  innocent Principles than any one Folly that’s in Fashion; therefore
  I chose to expose it to the Fair Sex in its most hideous Form, by
  reducing a Woman of honour to stand the presumptuous Addresses of a
  Man, whom neither her Virtue nor Inclination would let her have the
  least Taste to. Now ’tis not impossible but some Man of Fortune, who
  has a handsome Lady, and a great deal of Money to throw away, may,
  from this startling hint, think it worth his while to find his Wife
  some less hazardous Diversion. If that should ever happen, my end of
  writing this Play is answer’d.”

The plot centers around a most lively intrigue, but shows a departure
from the Restoration type. Cibber seems to have devised his own plot
from observation rather than to have taken it from the work of some one
else, though in his characters he shows some imitation of characters
in older plays. Miss Notable is a Miss Prue type, but the action of
the play preserves her virtue and indicates disapproval of the effort
to seduce her. There is a wide difference between this and the course
of Congreve’s character who rushes eagerly to her bedroom followed by
Tattle.[84] So too in the relations of Lady Wronglove with her husband
there enters a new note. Not only does Cibber show her a virtuous
woman, but he recognizes the infidelity of the husband as grave enough
to merit not only condemnation but punishment; and though he does
not carry his story so far as to inflict on him his just deserts, he
recognizes the right of the wife to resent Lord Wronglove’s action,
although he clearly feels her resentment is unwise. Sir Friendly
Moral, who reconciles the various couples, furnishes the somewhat
sentimental moralizings, and seems to be the mouthpiece of the author.

One does not waste much sympathy on either Lord or Lady Wronglove in
their bickerings, and their reconciliation at the end through the good
offices of Sir Friendly is decidedly lacking in probability, in view of
the way in which they have been previously presented. This dénouement
is brought about by a typical _deus ex machina_ device, in which Sir
Friendly, by supplying money to one of the characters, and by using
his exceeding wisdom and knowledge with another set of characters,
brings about the happy ending. Cibber was not unlike the other late
seventeenth and early eighteenth century writers in his inability to
bring his plays to a logical and probable conclusion. He was hampered
by his theory that the element of surprise should enter into the happy
ending, and hence he often seems to feel compelled to introduce a new
force very late in the play.

The characters in the main action are somewhat serious and lacking
in attractiveness. But those in the comic action, Lord George, Mrs.
Conquest, and Miss Notable, are much more lively sources of interest.
Miss Notable, as already stated, is a Miss Prue type, though she is
probably not to be described as a “silly, awkward country girl.” She is
essentially a sophisticated city miss, but her desires and ambitions,
as well as some of her ingenuous characteristics, are similar to those
of the Miss Prue type. She starts a flirtation with each new man she
meets in order to pique the last new man, who in like manner had his
turn. The discomfiture of Lord George when Miss Notable avows her love
for Mrs. Conquest, who is in the disguise of a man, is very clever.

It is hard to believe that an honorable gentleman, as Sir George is
described as being, would cheat at cards even for the purpose of
seducing another man’s wife. It is in just such conceptions as this
that Cibber’s superficiality is shown, a superficiality which prevented
him from writing great drama notwithstanding his knowledge of technical
requirements.

In the situations of Lady Gentle and Mrs. Conquest, especially in that
of the latter, there is a distinct element of pathos, similar to that
in _The Careless Husband_. As in _The Careless Husband_, this pathos
is due not merely to the situation, but depends likewise on the nature
of the persons presented. In this respect it is superior to the later
sentimental comedy, in which the pathos depends more largely on the
situation alone.

In its serious elements _The Lady’s Last Stake_ attacks what are
without doubt notable human failings, and the dialogue at its best
reminds us of some of the best Congrevian sort. But Cibber’s practice
as to the happy outcome and his theory that there must be a surprise at
the end of a play, have prevented what might have been, in the hands of
a more serious and larger minded dramatist, a most important handling
of a new theme in a new way.

When he wrote _The Rival Fools_ (1709), Cibber seemed, if one may judge
from the prologue, to feel that his efforts for reform were not meeting
with sufficient response and appreciation, and therefore tells the
audience that

    “All sorts of Men and Manners may
     From these last Scenes go unreprov’d away.
     From late Experience taught, we slight th’ old Rule
     Of Profit with Delight: This Play’s--All Fool.”

But though this comedy is not didactic in its purpose, it is morally
clean in its action.

In _The Non-Juror_ (1717), a play written with an avowedly political
purpose, he cannot avoid moralizing and sentimentality, qualities which
appear slightly in the story of Charles, and in the relations of Dr.
Wolf to Lady Woodvil and Maria. It cannot be claimed that the play has
any important bearing on sentimental comedy, however.

_The Refusal_ (1721) might be called a purified Restoration comedy,
without any positive bearing on the sentimentalizing tendency except
that it shows the tendency to make the drama more moral.

_The Provoked Husband_ (1728), Cibber’s completion of Vanbrugh’s _A
Journey to London_, is typically sentimental in treatment, with the
happy ending, the reformation of the vicious, and the true but dull
expression of moral sentiments by the serious characters. In it Cibber
has departed from Vanbrugh’s original intention by reforming the wife,
whom he has preserved as perfectly true to her husband, though unduly
given to gambling. In the love affair of Mr. Manly and Lord Townley’s
sister we likewise have sentimental treatment, and in the expression of
pious thoughts no one could be more prolific than Mr. Manly. In this
play Cibber does not strike any note he has not used before; it is
merely significant of the permanence of the changed manner of writing
in English comedy generally.

In the first plot Cibber has somewhat softened the characters of
Vanbrugh’s Lord and Lady Loverule in Lord and Lady Townley, giving to
the husband a much less dictatorial and more sentimental and uxorious
character. Lady Townley, though she does not show any signs of softer
qualities, is made to see the error of her course of late hours and
gambling, and undergoes a somewhat improbable but characteristic
conversion. Cibber tells us[85] that it had been Vanbrugh’s intention
to turn the lady out of doors, as would have been natural and logical,
giving to the play a serious interest which it lacks under Cibber’s
management.

The characters are shorn of their rough virility in Cibber’s
version. Squire Richard is a sort of rough study of the Tony Lumpkin
type,--without his wit, however,--but the credit of the portrayal is
due to Vanbrugh rather than to Cibber.

While the play is far from lacking in interest and power to amuse,
there is a very decided inferiority to Vanbrugh’s play, even in its
unfinished and imperfect state. Cibber’s play is a typical sentimental
comedy, with its undeserved happy ending, reformation of the vicious,
and commonplace expression of sentiment and morals on the part of the
serious characters.

Although it does not exhibit any startling new qualities, in its theme
attacking the evils of gambling which Cibber has previously attacked,
the play is a good example of eighteenth century comedy; fully as good,
indeed, as the work of the other dramatists of the time, but suffering
in comparison with Cibber’s own best work.

It may be interesting to note that Cibber is said to have added the
parts of Tom and Phillis to Steele’s _Conscious Lovers_.[86] When
Steele submitted this play to him, Cibber felt that it would not
satisfy the desire of an audience to laugh at a comedy. According
to the account in _The Lives of the Poets_, Steele gladly accepted