Let it also be recorded, that the season of 1806 produced a juvenile Theatre , which was well attended. But let us return to the Spouting-clubs, lest we pass them without due notice: that indeed they received in 1759, when these excellent lines appeared in the London Chronicle, to which I can add nothing new.
"THE SPOUTING CLUB.
A Poetical Dish newly cooked up
By Rigdum Funnidos, Esq.
Professor of Bombast and Blank Verse in the
University of Queerumania.
Conamur tenues grandia.
The reader will of course forgive the chasms in dates which he frequently meets with, by recollecting that most of the amusements of the people of London occur in succession annually: the Theatres, the Opera, concerts, exhibitions, Ranelagh, and Vauxhall, have always had their regular stated periods of opening; and when nothing remarkable took place at either, it is by no means necessary they should be mentioned under every year. The Vauxhall season of 1759 produced some unpleasant animadversions; and the proprietors were publicly called upon to prevent the infamous conduct of loose women and their male companions, whose yells have been described as issuing from the dark walks in sounds full as terrific as "the imagined horror of Cavalcanti's bloodhounds:" indeed the latter were charged with driving ladies from their friends into those recesses where dangerous terrors were wantonly inflicted.
Handel's Decease
Occurred on the 6th of April, 1759. As this eminent composer may justly be said to have formed a new æra of musick in England, and to have established the Opera, and the fame of his Oratorios perhaps for centuries to come; a sketch of his life from his arrival in this Island cannot be altogether unacceptable, particularly as it must contain a general history of those amusements with which he became connected. Handel was born at Hall in Upper Saxony February 24, 1684, but did not visit England till he had attained his 26th year, and when perfect master of his profession. The stranger, though only upon leave of absence from the Court of Hanover, where he received a pension of 1500 crowns per annum , and held the place of Master of the Elector's chapel, was presented to Queen Anne, and favourably received; thus honoured, Handel soon enjoyed the patronage of her courtiers, and immediately commenced his career by correcting the errors of the Italian Opera, if that could be so called which had been translated into the English language. As this celebrated composer found it, the most pathetic parts of the Italian musick frequently fell upon words expressive of anger, and vice versâ; he therefore composed Rossi's Rinaldo, written after an outline by Aaron Hill, who favoured the publick with an English version of it.
When Handel had remained here one year, the full term of his leave of absence, he returned to Hanover, but promised to re-visit the Queen at the first convenient opportunity: that occurred in 1712, and he composed his Te Deum and Jubilate after the signing of the peace of Utrecht. Queen Anne, highly gratified with his exertions, granted him a pension of 200l. for life, and added her commands to the solicitations of the Nobility, that he should assume the management of the Opera-house. This he complied with, and violated in consequence an engagement he was under to return to the Elector's Court. When that Prince ascended the British throne, Handel, conscious of his offence, dared not venture into his presence; and his friends even thought stratagem preferable to intercession in restoring him to favour. To accomplish this, Baron Kilmanseck and several of the English nobility engaged the King in a party of pleasure upon the Thames: at that hour of relaxation the King was surprized with those grand movements yet known as Handel's Water-piece, which were composed expressly for the occasion, and performed under his direction in a boat attendant on the Monarch. The scheme was successful beyond expectation; and from that hour the fortunate musician received both honours and rewards from George I. The Earl of Burlington and the Duke of Chandos were his warmest patrons and admirers: the latter indeed retained him at Canons as master of his splendid choral establishment for the offices of religion; and as Buononcini and Attilio were then composers for the Opera, he did not frequently interfere with their province.
At length the period arrived destined to rouse the powers of Handel as a composer and a tyrant. Several persons of distinction had determined to found an Academy of Musick in the Haymarket, in order to insure a constant supply of Operas from the pen of the unrivalled Saxon, which they intended should be performed under his direction. The subscription for this purpose amounted to 50,000l.; and they procured the King's name for 1000l. to grace the head of the list. Thus authorised and enabled, Handel went to Dresden for performers of celebrity, and engaged Senesino and Duristanti, with whom he returned to England, when they acted his Opera of Radamisto to a most crowded audience, which honoured him with the loudest plaudits. From that day the powerful partizans of Buononcini, and those of Handel, became irreconcileable enemies; though their enmity was so far controuled as to permit an agreement between them, that the rival masters should alternately compose the acts of Mutius Scævola, and thus afford a criterion by which their superiority was to be determined. Handel conquered; and, his reputation firmly established, he reigned sole monarch of the Academy for nine years. At the close of that period Senesino accused Handel of oppression, and Handel treated Senesino as a rebel against his authority; the publick immediately divided on this important question; and, to complete their vexation, Faustina and Cuzzoni quarrelled. Harmony ceased in every point of view, and the Academy was dissolved; but Handel maintained his post at the Haymarket, where he soon discovered that with Senesino he had dismissed the majority of his audiences. In this dilemma he entered into an agreement with the celebrated Heidegger to perform Operas on their own account; they accordingly engaged several new performers; but the Nobility, exasperated at the Saxon's tyrannical conduct, entered into a subscription, with which they opened the Theatre in Lincoln's-inn-fields, countermatching his Italians with the incomparable Farinelli. The contest was continued three years in conjunction with Heidegger; and Handel persisted one year after his partner retired: he then left the Haymarket to his rivals.
Chagrined and disappointed, he endeavoured to establish himself at Lincoln's-inn-fields, and afterwards became a partner with Mr. Rich at Covent-garden Theatre, where he found, to his great mortification, that his musick, however sublime, was not a match for Farinelli's voice; yet he persisted till he had almost ruined his fortune, and actually deranged his faculties, besides causing a paralytic stroke, which deprived him of the use of his right arm: he was however recovered from the latter calamities by using the baths of Aix-la-chapelle about the year 1736.
Fortunately for Handel the publick were pleased with the performance of his Alexander's Feast at Covent-garden Theatre soon after his return; and, to add to his good fortune, he was solicited to compose two Italian Operas for Lord Middlesex, who had been compelled to take the direction of this difficult concern upon himself, to preserve it from total ruin. His success on this occasion operated powerfully with the multitude; and a benefit produced him 1500l. in the year 1738. An opportunity thus offered to effect a complete reconciliation with his former employers; but that asperity of temper and impatience of controul which always marked his character induced him to reject every proposal connected with subscriptions. After several unsuccessful attempts to establish the Opera at Covent-garden Theatre, he turned his attention to the composition of Oratorios, which he intended should have been acted and sung; but the popular opinion, that such representations from Scripture would be a profanation of religion, deterred him from the design; and he caused them to be sung only as they are at present.
Similar to most human inventions, the Oratorio was of little service to the Author : posterity, according to custom, has had the honour of rewarding Handel's memory ; and if an Angel composed new ones, they would certainly not succeed, till he had fled from the earth half a century, and till Handel has had his day.
The Irish nation received our great musician and his oratorios with complacency; and as he gave the produce of the first performance of his Messiah in Dublin to the City prison, he soon secured their patronage. After considerably improving his circumstances, he returned to England, where his oratorios recovered from their previous depression, and received that approbation which a dread of having lost them probably excited. Handel gave the profits of an annual performance of the Messiah to the Foundling Hospital; and attended their oratorios regularly long after he had lost his sight by a gutta serena, and till within eight days of his death.
His present Majesty is passionately fond of Handel's musick; and that the publick are not less so, may be inferred by the eternal repetition of his Oratorios during the season of Lent; by which means, I shall be excused in observing, modern musical genius is depressed, and the pockets of conductors more readily filled. Hence the tiresome selections upon festivals and at concerts, where, if the audience is surprised by a new movement, they exclaim, "Ah! this is not like Handel's strains:"—True, but may they not be equally delightful?
The first description of an Opera which I have met with is in the eleventh number of the Theatre, for November 18, 1758. As the writer appears to have entered into the subject with more than usual spirit, its insertion may possibly prove acceptable to the reader; but he will immediately discover that even our Theatres for pantomime now rival the antient Opera.
"King's Theatre. On Saturday the 18th instant was performed a new Opera called Attalo, with new decorations and dances. I have already thrown out a few loose hints with regard to the abovementioned performance; and as in this place I propose speaking of it a little more at large, I shall begin with observing, that an Opera has in one particular a manifest advantage over almost every theatrical entertainment, by admitting of that kind of shew and decoration, which if not absolutely rejected by the other daughters of the Drama, is at least, generally speaking, forced upon them: that is to say, though we sometimes see triumphs and processions in a few of our tragedies and comedies, yet the best judges have always looked on them as childish and ridiculous: whereas, the only design of an Opera being to delight, that gay finery which looks so unbecoming and out of character upon her two elder sisters, is a necessary part of her dress; and as nobody understands the method of placing those ornaments better than Mr. Vaneschi, so in the present case I think he has taken all the care imaginable to set off Attalo to the best advantage.
"But a dry and circumstantial description of these matters would not only fall very short of what is meant to give an idea of, but also be tedious to the readers: for this reason therefore I shall hardly attempt to do any thing more in the present essay than to assure them that the finest scenes, the finest pantomime hitherto invented, even by that father of pantomimes himself, the manager of Covent-garden playhouse, are considerably inferior to those in the Opera of Attalo; but particularly, in the first act, where Semiramis enters in a triumphal car, supported by Medean and Bactrian slaves, and surrounded by a number of Assyrian soldiers who carry the spoils and trophies of an enemy which she is supposed lately to have conquered, we are presented with the scene of a square; not a dead piece of painted canvass, but one in which the prospective is executed in so masterly a manner, that one would almost swear it was something more than a mere deceptio visûs; to which, by the way, a pedestrian statue, which is elevated in the centre of the buildings, does not a little contribute.
"Scenes of this kind are seldom if ever to be seen in a common Theatre, where the other charges are so large and numerous, as well as the price so confined, that the profits of such a pompous apparatus would by no means answer the expence: the place in our English plays also is too often varied to allow of it; besides, the business of these stages is, properly speaking, to provide the understanding with substantial food, not to treat it with conserves and sweatmeats; and from this reason it proceeds that dances, which at the playhouses are only made use of as a garnish, are at the Opera (which may not unaptly be compared to a dessert or a collation) one of the principal parts of the entertainment.
"I should be extremely glad were it in my power to oblige the readers even with a faint idea of these: they all know, I believe, that Signior Galini is universally allowed to be one of the finest dancers in Europe; but at the King's Theatre, where he at present performs, he not only gives us the strongest proofs of his executive powers, but also of his skill in designing, by having composed three of the prettiest ballets I ever saw; and for plot, movement, humour, and, if I may make use of the expression, gesticulated wit, they are equal, I believe, to any, even of those which Lewis the Fourteenth himself was so fond of.
"In the first dance, the scene of which, by the way, may more properly be called an emulation than a copy of nature, being that of a forest half cut down, where the trees are represented in the liveliest manner, and the prospect of clouds and blue mountains extended to an amazing distance; Forti and Bononi, in the characters of a woodman and his wife, carry the grotesque to a most entertaining degree of extravagance. Bononi is allowed to excel in this way every one who has gone before her; for Galini, as his genius is very different, so it is greatly preferable to this. His dancing indeed may be considered as a kind of dumb musick, since there is hardly a note which he does not express by some significant gesture. Carlini, his partner, is pretty much in the same mode, and when they appear after the second act in a very extensive plain, interspersed with villages, there cannot perhaps be imagined two more agreeable figures. But the third and last ballet, in which the four principal dancers come out together, surpasses all the rest. The prospect is that of a rock, which being open in two or three different places, discovers a wide river, and, in appearance, at least half a mile long, the transparency of the water is so well imitated, that we see the shadows of several flags and bullrushes, which grow upon it; nor is a distant village, which appears at one side, a small addition to the beauty of the view: down this rock come the figure dancers, who are met at the door of a cottage by Signior Galini and his friends; it is a kind of rural feast, and the music is so antic and lively, that that alone would be sufficient, I should think, to put an audience into a good humour.
"I had forgot to mention a scene in this Opera which is remarkably beautiful; I am told it was painted by the celebrated Salvandoni, and is the representation of a magnificent hall, adorned with arms and trophies. There was a full house; and the spectators expressed their approbation by unanimous applause."
The Oratorio of Judas Maccabæus was performed on the 18th of January 1760 at the Music-room in Dean-street, Soho, which was the first night of subscription. The pit seats were 10s. 6d. and the gallery 5s.; the performers Signora Passerini, Miss Frederick, Mr. Hudson, and Mr. Champness; and the chorus contained the best singers of the Chapel Royal and St. Paul's. The music-room is now Christie's Auction-room for furniture, and seems in a state of ruin.
WHITE CONDUIT HOUSE[224:A].
One of the entertainments of 1760 was the performance on goblets containing water at different heights, which, rubbed on the rims by a wet finger, produces very sweet sounds, and when rapidly combined will make complete musick. Mr. Puckeridge was celebrated for performances of this description, which were much admired for some time, but are now nearly out of fashion.
One of the characteristicks of our various Theatres is the benefits, or, more properly speaking, the plays which are acted at the close of each season for the individual profit of the several performers. When an actor takes a benefit, he pays all the expences of the evening, and incurs the risk of great charges and small profits. Under the dread of losing, he exerts every nerve to fill the Theatre, and frequently lays heavy contributions on tradesmen, who, through some existing circumstances, think themselves bound to take tickets, and dispose of them as they can to their friends: and he solicits the wealthy without risking the imputation of mendicacy, because they know the actor has from 10l. to 20l. per week salary. The benefit-night at length arrives, and the doors are besieged at an early hour by crowds determined not to lose the entertainment they have unwillingly paid for; in due time they rush forward, clamour prevails, and the quiet casual spectator is entirely deprived of hearing the play[227:A]. Mrs. Clive, the justly celebrated comic actress, has enabled me to illustrate this subject by the following spirited letter, addressed to "the Author of the Daily Gazetteer," concerning her benefit, and printed in April 1761. If the reader should wish still further illustrations, I beg leave to refer him to the various apologies for theatrical lives which have been published by Cibber, Bellamy, Wilkinson, &c. &c.
"Sir, As I never read your paper, I did not hear of the malicious letter you had published against my benefit, till the very day, when it was too late to endeavour to prevent the mischief it might do me, as it was most artfully put in your paper the day before, as well as the day of my play. It is dated from George's Coffee-house; but your correspondent must excuse me for not believing it came from thence, as I have always heard that Coffee-house was frequented by gentlemen, not one of whom, I am confident, would have done me an undeserved mischief. I could not possibly suppose Mr. Shuter was capable of asking any body to write such a letter for him, as I never did him, or any performer, the least injury; on the contrary, I have had the greatest pleasure when it has been in my power to serve them in their benefits, from the highest class of actors down to the very lowest. But though he was not concerned in the writing of it (as he has declared he was not), it is too palpable to admit of the least doubt, that it must be wrote by some of his acquaintance, in order to serve his benefit by destroying mine.—That indeed was not quite in their power, as I had the honour to have a most noble and splendid appearance of persons of the first distinction that night at my play; who have been constant in their goodness and favour to me, and who were not to be influenced by a wretched Letter-writer. The loss I most certainly sustained by it I should have submitted to in silence, as it is with the utmost diffidence and reluctance I appear before the public in this light: but there is a most malicious and wicked insinuation in his letter, which I think myself under an absolute necessity to reply to.
"The Letter-writer, with great ease, desires the Publick not to go to my benefit, notwithstanding I had taken infinite pains to endeavour to entertain them the whole season through; his reason for that extraordinary request is, that I was to have a French farce, wrote by a poor wretched author, translated into English, and called The Island of Slaves:—and then, with great art and malice, he jumbles together some popular words, as, French Farce , English Liberty , Island of Slaves ! 'What can Englishmen have to do in the Island of Slaves?' Poor wretched insinuation! Is it possible for any body to suppose, if there had been one syllable in the piece that had the least tendency to sneer at, or affront, the liberties of this country, that the managers would have suffered it to have been acted; or that the Lord Chamberlain would have given his sanction; or that I could have been such a fool as to dare to affront the publick with such a performance on my own benefit-night? I hope I may be indulged (though a woman) to say I have always despised the French Politicks; but I never yet heard that we were at war with their Wit.
"It is imputed to me , by the author of the letter, as a crime, that I should have a piece taken from the French for my benefit; when at the same time I believe one part in three of the Comedies and little pieces, that are now acting at both the Theatres, are acknowledged to be taken from the French; besides those that both antient and modern authors have sneaked into the Theatres without confessing from whence they came. I shall take the liberty to mention two that are known translations: The Confederacy, by Sir John Vanbrugh, one of our best Comedies, revived about two years ago, and acted to crowded houses with great applause; The Guardian, another French piece, brought on about the same time, and received with the highest approbation: both these performances acted at a time when we were at war with France, as we are now. 'Ay,' but says the good-natured Letter-writer, 'The Island of Slaves (tremendous title!)' I think I have made his malice appear pretty plain; I shall not have the least difficulty in making his ignorance full as conspicuous. It does not seem, by the style of his letter, that he is very intimately acquainted with his own language, but it is evident he knows nothing of the French; for if he had been capable of reading Mons. Marivaux's Isle des Esclaves, he could not have been quite so clumsy a critick, as to say he is a poor paltry author, when he is acknowledged by all people of taste and judgment to be one of the very best writers the French have. Then, as to his malicious insinuation, The Island of Slaves is so very far from being a satire upon English liberty, that there is the highest compliment paid to it: the people of that island having quitted their native country (Athens) because 'they would not be Slaves,' and established themselves in an island, where, when their passions have subsided, and they begin to forget the injuries they received in their own country, they make the most noble, humane, sensible laws. I cannot pretend to give an account of the whole piece in this letter; but I may with great truth say, there was not any thing in it that was exceptionable; great spirit and humour in two of the characters, and fine sentiments throughout the whole; some part, perhaps, too grave for what is generally expected in pieces after a play. I shall beg leave to insert a few lines (not a translation) which concluded the piece: after Philo (one of the Islanders) has convinced the Athenians, who are then in his power, of their follies, he promises to provide them ships to send them into their own country; Cleanthe (one of the characters) says:
'We are all equally obliged to you, most amiable Philo, for your goodness to us; and if we should be so fortunate to arrive safe at Athens, I hope we shall have influence enough to prevail with them, when we recount our adventures, to imitate the incomparable laws of this ever happy Island.'
"I have done with your Correspondent: now, Mr. Gazetteer, I must say two or three words to you. I desire you would let me know who was the author of that letter; or it is possible I may convince you, I am so truly an English woman, and so little inclined to be a slave , as not to suffer any one to do me an injury with impunity.
"I am informed, you have more than once drawn yourself into scrapes, by the delicacy of your paper. If you comply with this request, in giving up your author, I shall think you intend to reform your manners; and in that case you will stand a chance of being read by your humble servant,
"Henrietta-street, Covent-garden,
April 3, 1761.
"P.S. If I can have leave from the person who did me the honour to translate The Island of Slaves for me, I shall print it; when every one that pleases may see how extremely ill I have been treated."
Benefits more congenial to the benevolent mind are, much to the credit of the proprietors of our places of public amusement, frequently given to Charitable Institutions: a short bill dated in May 1761 will explain those as they were and are now announced:
"Ranelagh-house, Tuesday the 9th of June, will be an Assembly for the benefit of the Middlesex Hospital. The doors will be open, and the concert begin, at the usual time. At ten o'clock a magnificent fire-work will be played off on the canal in the garden; and to conclude with a ball.
"N. B. There will be no collection made for the Charity. Tickets half a guinea each, &c."
I have in another place recommended the reader to visit Smithfield at eleven o'clock at night, in order to obtain a perfect knowledge of the amusements substituted for a Fair. The facetious George Alexander Steevens wrote the following ludicrous but strictly just description of it about 1762: