The Lord Chamberlain holds office only so long as the political party to which he is attached remains in power. He comes in and goes out with the ministry. Any peculiar fitness for the appointment is not required of him; it is simply a reward for his political services. Of course different Chamberlains have entertained different opinions of the duties to be performed in regard to the theatres; and, in such wise, much embarrassment has arisen. The Chamberlain's office is supported by a grant from the Civil List, which is settled upon the accession of the sovereign. In addition, fees are received for the licensing of theatres, and for the examination of plays.
The Examiner of Plays has long been recognised as a more permanent functionary than the Lord Chamberlain, although it would seem the precise nature of his appointment has never been clearly understood. "I believe," said Mr. Donne, the late Examiner, in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee of 1866, "that it is an appointment that expires with the sovereign (at least, I infer so from the evidence which Mr. Colman gave in the year 1833), but I cannot say that from my own knowledge: I believe it to be an appointment for life."
In truth, the Examiner is simply the employé of the Chamberlain, appointed by him, and holding the office only so long as the superior functionary shall deem fitting. There is no instance on record, however, of the displacement of an Examiner, or of the cancelling by one Chamberlain of the appointment made by his predecessor. Power of this kind, however, would seem to be vested in the Chamberlain for the time being. Colman's evidence, it may be noted, is of no present worth. He was appointed as a consequence of the old Licensing Act, repealed in 1843.
The first Licenser of Plays sworn in after the passing of the Licensing Act of 1737 was William Chetwynd, with a salary of £400 a-year. But this deputy of the Chamberlain was in his turn allowed a deputy, and one Thomas Odell was appointed assistant examiner, with a salary of £200 a-year. Strange to say, it was this Odell who had first opened a theatre in Goodman's Fields, which, upon the complaint of the civic authorities, who believed the drama to be a source of danger to the London apprentices of the period, he had been compelled forthwith to close. He applied to George II, for a royal license, but met with a peremptory refusal. In 1731 he sold his property to one Giffard, who rebuilt the theatre, and, dispensing with official permission, performed stage plays between the intervals of a concert, until producing Garrick, and obtaining extraordinary success by that measure, he roused the jealousy of the authorities, and was compelled to forego his undertaking.
The Licenser's power of prohibition was exercised very shortly after his appointment, in the case of two tragedies: "Gustavus Vasa," by Henry Brooke, and "Edward and Eleonora," by James Thomson. Political allusions of an offensive kind were supposed to lurk somewhere in these works. "Gustavus Vasa" was especially forbidden "on account of some strokes of liberty which breathed through several parts of it." On the Irish stage, however, over which the Chamberlain had no power, the play was performed as "The Patriot;" while, by the publication of "Gustavus Vasa," Mr. Brooke obtained £1000 or so from a public curious as to the improprieties it was alleged to contain, and anxious to protest against the oppressive conduct of the Licenser. In 1805, with the permission of the Chamberlain, the play was produced at Covent Garden, in order that Master Betty, the Young Roscius, might personate the hero. But the youthful actor failed in the part, and the tragedy, being found rather dull, was represented but once. At this time Mr. Brooke had been dead some years. In a preface to his play he had vouched for its purity, and denounced the conduct of the Licenser, as opposed to the intention of the Legislature, Dr. Johnson assisting his cause by the publication of an ironical pamphlet—"A Vindication of the Licenser from the malicious and scandalous aspersions of Mr. Brooke." Modern readers may well be excused for knowing little of the dramatist whose "Gustavus Vasa" had no great deal to recommend it, perhaps, beyond the fact of its performance having been prohibited. Yet some few years since, it may be noted, the late Charles Kingsley made endeavours, more strenuous than successful, to obtain applause for Brooke's novel, "The Fool of Quality;" but although a new and handsome edition of this work was published, it was received with some apathy by the romance-reading public.
The author of "The Seasons" hardly seems a writer likely to give offence designedly to a Chamberlain. But Thomson was a sort of Poet Laureate to Frederick, Prince of Wales, then carrying on fierce opposition to the court of his father, and the play of "Edward and Eleonora"—a dramatic setting of the old legend of Queen Eleanor sucking the poison from her husband's arm—certainly contained passages applicable to the differences existing between the king and his heir-apparent. In the first scene, one of the characters demands—
And King Edward apostrophises his dead sire—
In 1775, however, the play was produced at Covent Garden. George III. was king, and the allusions to the squabbles of his father and grandfather were not, perhaps, supposed to be any longer of the remotest concern or significance to anybody.
At this time and long afterwards, the Licenser regarded it as his chief duty to protect the court against all possibility of attack from the stage. With the morality of plays he did not meddle much; but he still clung to the old superstition that the British drama had only a right to exist as the pastime of royalty; plays and players were still to be subservient to the pleasure of the sovereign. The British public, who, after all, really supported the stage, he declined to consider in the matter; conceding, however, that they were at liberty to be amused at the theatre, provided they could achieve that end in strict accordance with the prescription of the court and its Chamberlain. In George III.'s time King Lear was prohibited, because it was judged inexpedient that royal insanity should be exhibited upon the stage. In 1808 a play, called "The Wanderer," adapted from Kotzebue, was forbidden at Covent Garden, in that it dealt with the adventures of Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender. Even after the accession of Queen Victoria, a license was refused to an English version of Victor Hugo's "Ruy Blas," lest playgoers should perceive in it allusions to the matrimonial choice her Majesty was then about to make.
The Licenser's keenness in scenting a political allusion oftentimes, indeed, entailed upon him much and richly-merited ridicule. The production, some fifty years ago, of a tragedy called "Alasco" furnishes a notable instance of the absurdity of his conduct in this respect. "Alasco" was written by Mr. Shee, a harmless gentleman enough, if at that time a less fully-developed courtier than he appeared when, as Sir Martin Archer Shee, he occupied the presidential chair of the Royal Academy. Possibly some suspicion attached to the dramatist by reason of his being an Irishman and a Roman Catholic. In any case, the Licenser found much to object to in "Alasco." The play was in rehearsal at Covent Garden; but so many alterations and suppressions were insisted on, that its representation became impracticable. We may note a few of the lines expunged by the Licenser:
The words in italics were to be expunged from the following passages:
It is difficult now to discover what offence was contained in these lines, and many more such as these, which were also denounced by the Licenser. Shee expostulated—for he was not a meek sort of man by any means, and he knew the advantages of a stir to one aiming at publicity—appealed from the subordinate to the superior, from the Examiner to the Chamberlain, then the Duke of Montrose, and wrote to the newspapers; but all in vain. The tragedy could not be performed. That the stage lost much it would be rash to assert. "Alasco" was published, and those who read it—they were not many—found it certainly harmless; but not less certainly pompous and wearisome. However, that Shee was furnished with a legitimate grievance was generally agreed, although in "Blackwood's Magazine," then very intense in its Toryism, it was hinted that the dramatist, his religion and his nationality being considered, might be in league with the author of "Captain Rock," and engaged in seditious designs against the peace and Protestantism of Ireland! Some five years later, it may be noted, "Alasco" was played at the Surrey Theatre, without the slightest regard for the opinion of the Examiner of Plays, or with any change in the passages he had ordered to be expunged. Westminster was not then very well informed as to what happened in Lambeth, and probably it was not generally known that "Alasco," with all its supposed seditious utterances unsilenced, could be witnessed upon the Surrey stage. Nor is there any record that anybody was at all the worse, or the treasury of the theatre any the better, for the representation of the forbidden tragedy.
The Examiner of Plays at this time was George Colman the younger, who was appointed to the office, less on account of the distinction he enjoyed as a dramatist, than because he was a favourite and a sort of boon companion of George IV. Colman had succeeded a Mr. Larpent, who had filled the post for some twenty years, and who, notwithstanding that, as a strict Methodist, he scarcely seemed a very fit person to pronounce judgment upon stage plays, had exercised the powers entrusted to him with moderation. It was generally agreed that he was a considerate and benignant ruler, and that his career as Examiner offered few occasions for remark, although upon its close some surprise was excited at the exposure for sale by public auction of the many manuscripts of plays, &c., which were found in his possession, and which should certainly have been preserved among the archives of the Chamberlain's office. Colman, however, proved a very tyrant—a consummate Jack-in-office. As a gentleman of rather unbridled habits of life, and the author of "Broad Grins" and other works certainly paying small heed to the respectabilities, it had been hoped that he would deal leniently with his brother playwrights. But he carried to fanatic extravagance his devotion to the purity of the stage. Warned by earlier example, few dramas which could possibly be considered of a political complexion were now submitted for examination. Still the diction of the stage demanded a measure of liberty. But Mr. Colman would not allow a lover to describe his mistress as "an angel." He avowed that "an angel was a character in Scripture, and not to be profaned on the stage by being applied to a woman!" The exclamation, "Oh, Providence!" was not permitted. The words "heaven" and "hell" he uniformly expunged. "Oh, lud!" and "Oh, la!" were condemned for irreverence. Oaths and all violent expletives were strictly prohibited.
Now it was rather an imprecatory age. Men swore in those days, not meaning much harm, or particularly conscious of what they were doing, but as a matter of bad habit, in pursuance of a custom certainly odious enough, but which they had not originated, and could hardly be expected immediately to overcome. In this way malediction formed part of the manners of the time. How could these be depicted upon the stage in the face of Mr. Colman's new ordinance? There was great consternation among actors and authors. Plays came back from the Examiner's office so slashed with red ink that they seemed to be bleeding from numerous wounds; line after line had been prohibited; and by Colman of all people! Critics amused themselves by searching through his own dramatic writings, and cataloguing the bad language they contained. The list was very formidable. There were comminations and anathemas in almost every scene. The matter was pointed out to him, but he treated it with indifference. He was a writer of plays then; but now he was Examiner of Plays. His point of view was changed, that was all. It was no fault of his if there had been neglect of duty on the part of previous examiners. Mr. Arnold, the proprietor and manager of the Lyceum Theatre, expostulated with him on the subject. In a play by John Banim, one of the authors of the "Tales of the O'Hara Family," Colman had forbidden certain lines to be chanted by monks and nuns in a scene of a foreign cathedral. It was too profane. What about the singing of "God save the King" upon the stage? That had been sanctioned by custom, Colman maintained; but he could not regard it as a precedent. Was he prepared to mutilate Portia's great speech in the "Merchant of Venice?" Certainly he was; but then custom had sanctioned it, and playgoers were not prepared for any meddling with the text of Shakespeare. He admitted, however, that he did not trouble himself to ascertain whether his excisions were carried into effect when the plays came to be represented. "My duty," he said, "is simply to object to everything immoral or politically dangerous. When I have marked my objections the play is licensed, subject to the omission of the passages objected to; beyond this I have nothing to do, or an examiner would become a spy as well as a censor on the theatre." Any breach of the law was therefore left to be remedied by the action of the "common informer" of the period.
As evidence of Colman's lack of conscientiousness in this matter, a letter he wrote to Mr. Frederick Yates, in 1829, may be cited. A dramatic author, the friend both of Colman and Yates, had bitterly complained of the retrenchments made by the Examiner in a certain play, or, to follow Colman's own words, had stated "that his comedy would be sure to be damned by the public, owing to the removal of some devilish good jokes by the Examiner." "Cannot you, my dear Fred, instruct him better?" wrote Colman. "The play, you know, must be printed in strict accordance with my obliterations; but if the parts be previously given out, it will be difficult to induce the actors to preach from my text!" No doubt upon this hint the actors spake. Only, in that case, of what good was the Examiner, regarded as a public servant?
It was questioned at the time whether the Chamberlain, by his deputy, was not exercising more authority than he was really clothed with, under virtue of the Licensing Act. He was entitled to prohibit the performance of any play; but could he make terms with the managers, and cut and carve their manuscripts, forcing upon them his capricious alterations? Further, it was asked by what right he delegated his power to another? The Act made no mention of his deputy or of such an officer as an Examiner of Plays. And then, as to the question of fees. What right had he to exact fees? There was no mention of fees in the Act. No doubt the managers had long been in the habit of paying fees—£2 2s. for every piece, song, &c. But it was urged that this was simply to secure expedition in the examination of their plays, which they were bound to submit to the Chamberlain fourteen days at least before representation, and not in pursuance of any legal enactment. The Examiner of Plays received a salary from the Chamberlain for the labour he performed; why should he levy a tax upon managers and authors, and so be paid twice over for the same work?
Now, on the subject of fees Colman was certainly most rapacious. He spared no effort to increase, in this way, the emoluments of his office. Did an actor on a benefit night advertise any new songs, glees, or other musical performance—Colman was prompt to demand a fee of £2 2s. for every separate production. Occasional addresses, prologues, and epilogues, were all rated as distinct stage plays, and the customary fees insisted upon. One actor, long famous as "Little Knight," so far defeated this systematic extortion that he strung together a long list of songs, recitations, imitations, &c., which he wished to have performed at his benefit with any nonsense of dialogue that came into his head, and so sent them to be licensed as one piece. They were licensed accordingly; the dialogue was all omitted, and the ingenious actor aided his benefit by saving £8 8s. or £10 10s., which would otherwise have found their way into the pocket of the Examiner. When the French plays were performed in London, in 1829, Colman insisted that a fee must be paid for every vaudeville or other light piece of that class produced. As some three or four of such works were presented every night—the same plays being rarely repeated—it was computed that the Examiner's fees amounted upon an average to £6 6s. a night. During an interval, however, the Duke of Devonshire succeeding the Duke of Montrose as Chamberlain, this demand was not enforced; eventually a compromise was agreed upon, and a reduced fee of £1 1s. was levied upon each vaudeville, &c. Colman even succeeded in rating as a stage play, an astronomical lecture, delivered at the Lyceum. The "At Homes" of Mathews were of course taxed, a "slight sketch and title" being submitted to the Examiner, the actor professing to speak without any precise text, but simply from "heads and hints before him to refer to should his memory falter." In an attempt to levy a fee on account of an oratorio performed at Covent Garden, Colman failed, however; it was proved that the libretto was entirely composed of passages from the Scriptures. After great discussion it was ultimately decided that the Bible did not need the license of the Lord Chamberlain.
Colman died in 1836, and was succeeded as Examiner of Plays by Mr. Charles Kemble, who, strange to say, while holding that appointment returned to the stage for a short season and performed certain of his most celebrated characters. He resigned the office in 1840, and his son John Mitchell Kemble then held it in his stead. On the death of John Mitchell Kemble, in 1857, Mr. William Bodham Donne, the late Examiner, received the appointment. Mr. Donne, however, had in truth performed the duties of the office as the deputy of the Chamberlain's deputy since the year 1849. As he informed the Parliamentary committee of 1866, he had received a salary of £320, subject to deduction on account of income-tax. Further, the Examiner receives fees for every play examined. Two guineas are paid for every play of three acts or more; under three acts the fee is £1 1s. For every song sung in a theatre a fee of 5s. is paid. As Mr. Donne explained to the committee, he had examined between 1857 and 1866 about 1800 plays.
It is to be noted that in 1843 the Act for Regulating Theatres, commonly known as Sir James Graham's Act, became law. By this measure the powers of the Lord Chamberlain were enlarged and more firmly established; he was empowered to charge such fees as he might deem fit in regard to every play, prologue, epilogue, or part thereof, intended to be produced or acted in Great Britain, although no fee was in any case to exceed £2 2s. in amount. Further, it was made lawful for him, whenever he should be of opinion that it was fitting for the preservation of good manners, decorum, or of the public peace so to do, to forbid the performance of any stage play, or any act, scene or part thereof, or any prologue or epilogue or any part thereof, anywhere in Great Britain or in any such theatre as he should specify, and either absolutely or for such time as he should think fit. It was enacted, moreover, that the term "stage play" should be taken to include "every tragedy, comedy, farce, opera, burletta, interlude, melodrama, pantomime, or other entertainment of the stage."
The Act provides for no appeal against the decision of the Chamberlain. His government was to be quite absolute. If he chose to prohibit the performance of Shakespeare's plays, for instance, no one could question his right to take that strong measure; only another Act of Parliament could, under such circumstances, restore Shakespeare, to the stage. Of the Examiner of Plays the Act made no mention: that office continued to be the creation simply of the Lord Chamberlain, and without any sort of legal status. The old Licensing Act of 1737 was absolutely repealed; yet, unaccountably enough, Mr. Donne's appointment, bearing date 1857, and signed by the Marquis of Breadalbane, then Lord Chamberlain, began: "Whereas in consequence of an Act of Parliament, made in the tenth year of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Second," &c. &c.
The intensity of George Colman's regard for "good manners and decorum" has no doubt furnished a precedent to later Examiners. For some time little effort was made again to apply the stage to the purposes of political satire. Mr. Buckstone informed the Parliamentary Committee that an attempt made about 1846, to represent the House of Commons upon the stage of the Adelphi—Mr. Buckstone was to have personated the Lord John Russell of that date—had been promptly forbidden; and the late Mr. Shirley Brooks stated that a project of dramatising Mr. Disraeli's novel of "Coningsby" had also, in regard to its political bearing, been interdicted by the Chamberlain. Few other essays in this direction appear worth noting, until we come to a few seasons back, when certain members of the administration were caricatured upon the stage of the Court Theatre, after a fashion that speedily brought down the rebuke of the Chamberlain, and the exhibition was prohibited within his jurisdiction. But the question of "good manners and decorum" has induced much controversy. For where, indeed, is discoverable an acceptable standard of "good manners and decorum"? In such matters there is always growth and change of opinion. Sir Walter Scott makes mention of an elderly lady, who, reading over again certain books she had deemed in her youth to be of a most harmless kind, was shocked at their exceeding grossness. She had unconsciously moved on with the civilising and refining influences of her time. And the question of morality in relation to the drama is confessedly very difficult to deal with. "It must be something almost of a scandalous character to warrant interference," says Mr. Donne. "If you sift the matter to the very dross, two-thirds of the plays of any period in the history of the stage must be condemned. Where there is an obvious intention, or a very strong suspicion of an intention to make wrong appear right or right appear wrong, those are the cases in which I interfere, or those in which there is any open scandal, or any inducement to do wrong is offered; but stage morality is—the morality of the stage, and generally, quite as good as the morality of the literature of fiction." This does not define the Examiner's principle of action very clearly. As instances of his procedure, it may be stated that upon religious grounds he has forbidden such operas as the "Nabuco" of Verdi and the "Mosé in Egitto" of Rossini, allowing them to be presented, however, when their names were changed to "Nino" and "Zora" or "Pietro l'Eremita" respectively. On the other hand, while prohibiting "La Dame aux Camélias"1 of M. Alexandre Dumas fils, he has sanctioned its performance as the opera "La Traviata." "I think," explained Mr. Donne, "that if there is a musical version of a piece it makes a difference, for the story is then subsidiary to the music and singing." Prohibiting "Jack Sheppard" he yet licensed for representation an adaptation of a French version of the same piece. Madame Ristori was not allowed to appear in the tragedy of "Myrrha," and the dramas which French companies of players visiting this country from time to time have designed to produce, have been severely dealt with, the Examiner forgetting, apparently, that such works should rather be judged by a foreign than a native standard of "good manners and decorum." As a result, we have the strange fact of the Examiner stepping between the English public and what have been judged to be the masterpieces of the French stage.
The Chamberlain has also held it to be a part of his duty to interfere in regard to certain of the costumes of the theatre, when these seemed to be more scanty than seemliness required, and from time to time he has addressed expostulations to the managers upon the subject. It must not be concluded, however, that from his action in the matter, much change or amendment has ensued.
In America there is no Lord Chamberlain, Examiner of Plays, or any corresponding functionary. The stage may be no better for the absence of such an officer, but it does not seem to be any the worse.
In 1832, the late Lord Lytton (then Mr. Bulwer), addressing the House of Commons on the laws affecting dramatic literature, said of the authority vested in the Lord Chamberlain: "I am at a loss to know what advantages we have gained by the grant of this almost unconstitutional power. Certainly, with regard to a censor, a censor upon plays seems to me as idle and unnecessary as a censor upon books.... The public taste, backed by the vigilant admonition of the public press, may, perhaps, be more safely trusted for the preservation of theatrical decorum, than any ignorant and bungling censor who (however well the office may be now fulfilled) might be appointed hereafter; who, while he might strain at gnats and cavil at straws, would be without any other real power than that of preventing men of genius from submitting to the caprice of his opinions."
Are there, nowadays, any collectors of playbills? In the catalogues of secondhand booksellers are occasionally to be found such entries as: "Playbills of the Theatre Royal, Bath, 1807 to 1812;" or "Hull Theatre Royal—various bills of performances between 1815 and 1850;" or "Covent Garden Theatre—variety of old bills of the last century pasted in a volume;" yet these evidences of the care and diligence of past collectors would not seem to obtain much appreciation in the present. The old treasures can generally be purchased at a very moderate outlay. Still, if scarceness is an element of value, these things should be precious. It is in the nature of such ephemera of the printing-press to live their short hour, and disappear with exceeding suddenness. They may be originally issued in hundreds or even in thousands; but once gone they are gone for ever. Relative to such matters there is an energy of destruction that keeps pace with the industry of production. The demands of "waste" must be met: fires must be lighted. So away go the loose papers, sheets and pamphlets of the minute. They have served their turn, and there is an end of them. Hence the difficulty of obtaining, when needed, a copy of a newspaper of old date, or the guide-book or programme of a departed entertainment, or the catalogue of a past auction of books or pictures. It has been noted that, notwithstanding the enormous circulation it enjoyed, the catalogue of our Great Exhibition of a score of years ago is already a somewhat rare volume. Complete sets of the catalogues of the Royal Academy's century of exhibitions are possessed by very few. And of playbills of the English stage from the Restoration down to the present time, although the British Museum can certainly boast a rich collection, yet this is disfigured here and there by gaps and deficiencies which cannot now possibly be supplied.
The playbill is an ancient thing. Mr. Payne Collier states that the practice of printing information as to the time, place, and nature of the performances to be presented by the players was certainly common prior to the year 1563. John Northbrooke, in his treatise against theatrical performers, published about 1579, says: "They used to set up their bills upon posts some certain days before, to admonish people to make resort to their theatres." The old plays make frequent reference to this posting of the playbills. Thus, in the Induction to "A Warning for Fair Women," 1599, Tragedy whips Comedy from the stage, crying:
Taylor, the water-poet, in his "Wit and Mirth," records the story of Field the actor's riding rapidly up Fleet Street, and being stopped by a gentleman with an inquiry as to the play that was to be played that night. Field, "being angry to be stayed upon so frivolous a demand, answered, that he might see what play was to be played upon every post. 'I cry you mercy,' said the gentleman. 'I took you for a post, you rode so fast.'"
It is strange to find that the right of printing playbills was originally monopolised by the Stationers' Company. At a later period, however, the privilege was assumed and exercised by the Crown. In 1620, James I. granted a patent to Roger Wood and Thomas Symcock for the sole printing, among other things, of "all bills for playes, pastimes, showes, challenges, prizes, or sportes whatsoever." It was not until after the Restoration that the playbills contained a list of the dramatis personæ, or of the names of the actors. But it had been usual, apparently, with the title of the drama, to supply the name of its author, and its description as a tragedy or comedy. Shirley, in the prologue to his "Cardinal," apologises for calling it only a "play" in the bill:
From a later passage in the same prologue Mr. Collier judges that the titles of tragedies were usually printed, for the sake of distinction, in red ink:
But this may be a reference to the colour of a cardinal's robes. There is probably no playbill extant of an earlier date than 1663. About this time, in the case of a new play, it was usual to state in the bill that it had been "never acted before."
In the earliest days of the stage, before the invention of printing, the announcement that theatrical performances were about to be exhibited was made by sound of trumpet, much after the manner of modern strollers and showmen at fairs and street-corners. Indeed, long after playbills had become common, this musical advertisement was still requisite for the due information of the unlettered patrons of the stage. In certain towns the musicians were long looked upon as the indispensable heralds of the actors. Tate Wilkinson, writing in 1790, records that a custom obtained at Norwich, "and if abolished it has not been many years," of proclaiming in every street with drum and trumpet the performances to be presented at the theatre in the evening. A like practice also prevailed at Grantham. To the Lincolnshire company of players, however, this musical preface to their efforts seemed objectionable and derogatory, and they determined, on one of their visits to the town, to dispense with the old-established sounds. But the reform resulted in empty benches. Thereupon the "revered, well-remembered, and beloved Marquis of Granby" sent for the manager of the troop and thus addressed him: "Mr. Manager, I like a play; I like a player; and I shall be glad to serve you. But, my good friend, why are you all so offended at and averse to the noble sound of a drum? I like it, and all the inhabitants like it. Put my name on your playbill, provided you drum, but not otherwise. Try the effect on to-morrow night; if then you are as thinly attended as you have lately been, shut up your playhouse at once; but if it succeeds, drum away!" The players withdrew their opposition and followed the counsel of the marquis. The musical prelude was again heard in the streets of Grantham, and crowded houses were obtained. The company enjoyed a prosperous season, and left the town in great credit. "And I am told," adds Wilkinson, "the custom is continued at Grantham to this day."
An early instance of the explanatory address, signed by the dramatist or manager, which so frequently accompanies the modern playbill, is to be found in the fly-sheet issued by Dryden in 1665. The poet thought it expedient in this way to inform the audience that his tragedy of "The Indian Emperor" was to be regarded as a sequel to a former work, "The Indian Queen," which he had written in conjunction with his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Howard. The handbill excited some amusement, by reason of its novelty, for in itself it was but a simple and useful intimation. In ridicule of this proceeding, Bayes, the hero of the Duke of Buckingham's burlesque, "The Rehearsal," is made to say: "I have printed above a hundred sheets of paper to insinuate the plot into the boxes."
Chetwood, who had been twenty years prompter at Drury Lane, and in 1749 published a "History of the Stage," describes a difficulty that had arisen in regard to printing the playbills. Of old the list of characters had been set forth according to the books of the plays, without regard to the merits of the performers. "As, for example, in 'Macbeth,' Duncan, King of Scotland, appeared first in the bill, though acted by an insignificant person, and so every other actor appeared according to his dramatic dignity, all of the same-sized letter. But latterly, I can assure my readers, I have found it a difficult task to please some ladies as well as gentlemen, because I could not find letters large enough to please them; and some were so fond of elbow room that they would have shoved everybody out but themselves, as if one person was to do all and have the merit of all, like generals of an army." Garrick seems to have been the first actor honoured by capital letters of extra size in the playbills. "The Connoisseur," in 1754, says: "The writer of the playbills deals out his capitals in so just a proportion that you may tell the salary of each actor by the size of the letter in which his name is printed. When the present manager of Drury Lane first came on the stage, a new set of types, two inches long, were cast on purpose to do honour to his extraordinary merit." These distinctions in the matter of printing occasioned endless jealousies among the actors. Macklin made it an express charge against his manager, Sheridan, the actor, that he was accustomed to print his own name in larger type than was permitted the other performers. Kean threatened to throw up his engagement at Drury Lane on account of his name having been printed in capitals of a smaller size than usual. His engagement of 1818 contained a condition, "and also that his name shall be continued in the bills of performance in the same manner as it is at present," viz., large letters. On the other hand, Dowton, the comedian, greatly objected to having his name thus particularised, and expostulated with Elliston, his manager, on the subject. "I am sorry you have done this," he wrote. "You know well what I mean. This cursed quackery. These big letters. There is a want of respectability about it, or rather a notoriety, which gives one the feeling of an absconded felon, against whom a hue-and-cry is made public. Or if there be really any advantage in it, why should I, or any single individual, take it over the rest of our brethren? But it has a nasty disreputable look, and I have fancied the whole day the finger of the town pointed at me, as much as to say, 'That is he! Now for the reward!' Leave this expedient to the police officers, or to those who have a taste for it. I have none."
Macready, under date of 28th September, 1840, enters in his journal: "Spoke to Webster on the subject of next year's engagement. He said that he understood I had said that while I was comfortable at the Haymarket I would stay. I mentioned the position of my name on the playbills; that it should not, on any occasion be put under any other person's, as it had been; that I should have the right to a private box when they were not let," &c.
O'Keeffe relates that once when an itinerant showman brought over to Dublin a trained monkey of great acquirements, Mossop engaged the animal at a large salary to appear for a limited number of nights at his theatre. Mossop's name in the playbill was always in a type nearly two inches long, the rest of the performers' names being in very small letters. But to the monkey were devoted capitals of equal size to Mossop's; so that, greatly to the amusement of the public, on the playbills pasted about the town, nothing could be distinguished but the words, MOSSOP, MONKEY. Under John Kemble's management, "for his greater ease and the quiet of the theatre," letters of unreasonable size were abandoned, and the playbills were printed after an amended and more modest pattern.
With the rise and growth of the press came the expediency of advertising the performances of the theatres in the columns of the newspapers. To the modern manager advertisements are a very formidable expense. The methods he is compelled to resort to in order to bring his plays and players well under the notice of the public, involve a serious charge upon his receipts. But of old the case was precisely the reverse. The theatres were strong, the newspapers were weak. So far from the manager paying money for the insertion of his advertisements in the journals, he absolutely received profits on this account. The press then suffered under severe restrictions, and was most jealously regarded by the governing powers; leading articles were as yet unknown; the printing of parliamentary debates was strictly prohibited; foreign intelligence was scarcely obtainable; of home news there was little stirring that could with safety be promulgated. So that the proceedings of the theatres became of real importance to the newspaper proprietor, and it was worth his while to pay considerable sums for early information in this respect. Moreover, in those days, not merely by reason of its own merits, but because of the absence of competing attractions and other sources of entertainment, the stage was much more than at present an object of general regard. In Andrew's "History of British Journalism" it is recorded on the authority of the ledger of Henry Woodfall, the publisher of the Public Advertiser: "The theatres are a great expense to the papers. Amongst the items of payment are: Playhouses, £100. Drury Lane advertisements, £64 8s. 6d.; Covent Garden ditto, £66 11s. The papers paid £200 a-year to each theatre for the accounts of new plays, and would reward the messenger with a shilling or half-a-crown who brought them the first copy of a playbill." In 1721, the following announcement appeared in the Daily Post: "The managers of Drury Lane think it proper to give notice that advertisements of their plays, by their authority, are published only in this paper and the Daily Courant, and that the publishers of all other papers who insert advertisements of the same plays, can do it only by some surreptitious intelligence or hearsay, which frequently leads them to commit gross errors, as, mentioning one play for another, falsely representing the parts, &c., to the misinformation of the town, and the great detriment of the said theatre." And the Public Advertiser of January 1st, 1765, contains a notice: "To prevent any mistake in future in advertising the plays and entertainments of Drury Lane Theatre, the managers think it proper to declare that the playbills are inserted by their direction in this paper only." It is clear that the science of advertising was but dimly understood at this date. Even the shopkeepers then paid for the privilege of exhibiting bills in their windows, whereas now they require to be rewarded for all exertions of this kind, by, at any rate, free admissions to the entertainments advertised, if not by a specific payment of money. The exact date when the managers began to pay instead of receive on the score of their advertisements, is hardly to be ascertained. Genest, in his laborious "History of the Stage," says obscurely of the year 1745: "At this time the plays were advertised at three shillings and sixpence each night or advertisement in the General Advertiser." It may be that the adverse systems went on together for some time. The managers may have paid certain journals for the regular insertion of advertisements, and received payment from less favoured or less influential newspapers for theatrical news or information.
One of Charles Lamb's most pleasant papers arose from "the casual sight of an old playbill which I picked up the other day; I know not by what chance it was preserved so long." It was but two-and-thirty years old, however, and presented the cast of parts in "Twelfth Night" at Old Drury Lane Theatre, destroyed by fire in 1809. Lamb's delight in the stage needs not to be again referred to. "There is something very touching in these old remembrances," he writes. "They make us think how we once used to read a playbill, not as now, peradventure singling out a favourite performer and casting a negligent eye over the rest; but spelling out every name down to the very mutes and servants of the scene; when it was a matter of no small moment to us whether Whitfield or Packer took the part of Fabian; when Benson, and Burton, and Phillimore—names of small account—had an importance beyond what we can be content to attribute now to the time's best actors." The fond industry with which a youthful devotee of the theatre studies the playbills could hardly be more happily indicated than in this extract.
Mention of Old Drury Lane and its burning bring us naturally to the admirable "story of the flying playbill," contained in the parody of Crabbe, perhaps the most perfect specimen in that unique collection of parodies, "Rejected Addresses." The verses by the pseudo-Crabbe include the following lines:
"The story of the flying playbill," says the mock-preface, "is calculated to expose a practice, much too common, of pinning playbills to the cushions insecurely, and frequently, I fear, not pinning them at all. If these lines save one playbill only from the fate I have recorded, I shall not deem my labour ill employed."
Modern playbills may be described as of two classes, indoor and out-of-door. The latter are known also as "posters," and may thus manifest their connection with the early method of "setting up playbills upon posts." Shakespeare's audiences were not supplied with handbills as our present playgoers are; such of them as could read were probably content to derive all the information they needed from the notices affixed to the doors of the theatre, or otherwise publicly exhibited. Of late years the vendors of playbills, who were wont urgently to pursue every vehicle that seemed to them bound to the theatre, in the hope of disposing of their wares, have greatly diminished in numbers, if they have not wholly disappeared. Many managers have forbidden altogether the sale of bills outside the doors of their establishments. The indoor programmes are again divided into two kinds. To the lower-priced portions of the house an inferior bill is devoted; a folio sheet of thin paper, heavily laden and strongly odorous with printers' ink. Visitors to the more expensive seats are now supplied with a scented bill of octavo size, which is generally, in addition, the means of advertising the goods and inventions of an individual perfumer. Attempts to follow Parisian example, and to make the playbill at once a vehicle for general advertisements and a source of amusing information upon theatrical subjects, have been ventured here occasionally, but without decided success. From time to time papers started with this object under such titles as the "Opera Glass," the "Curtain," the "Drop Scene," &c., have appeared, but they have failed to secure a sufficiency of patronage. The playgoer's openness to receive impressions or information of any kind by way of employment during the intervals of representation, has not been unperceived by the advertisers, however, and now and then, as a result, a monstrosity called an "advertising curtain" has disfigured the stage. Some new development of the playbill in this direction may be in store for us in the future. The difficulty lies, perhaps, in the gilding of the pill. Advertisements by themselves are not very attractive reading, and a mixed audience cannot safely be credited with a ruling appetite merely for dramatic intelligence.