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INTERIOR OF THE DUKE'S THEATRE. From Settle's "Empress of Morocco." (See page 195.)

of £20, had the profit of the culprits' labour. For bedding the prisoners had fresh straw given them once a month. It was the only London prison where either straw or bedding was allowed. No out-door exercise was permitted. In the year 1782 there had been confined in Bridewell 659 prisoners. In 1790, Pennant describes Bridewell as still having arches and octagonal towers of the old

place, there was not a single male prisoner, but about twenty females. They were confined on a ground floor, and employed on the beating of hemp. When the door was opened by the keeper, they ran towards it like so many hounds in kennel, and presented a most moving sight. About twenty young creatures, the eldest not exceeding sixteen, many of them with angelic faces divested of every

angelic expression, featured with impudence, im- the degradation of the more hardened offenders. penitency, and profligacy, and clothed in the The cells in the old part of the prison are greatly silken tatters of squalid finery. A magisterial-a superior to those in the adjoining building, which national-opprobrium! What a disadvantageous is of comparatively recent erection, but the whole of the arrangements are exceedingly defective. It is quite lamentable to see such an injudicious and unprofitable expenditure as that which was incurred in the erection of this part of the prison.""

contrast to the Spinhaus, in Amsterdam, where the confined sit under the eye of a matron, spinning or sewing, in plain and neat dresses provided by the public! No traces of their former lives appear in their countenances; a thorough reformation seems to have been effected, equally to the emolument and the honour of the republic. This is also the place of confinement for disobedient and idle apprentices. They are kept separate, in airy cells, and have an allotted task to be performed in a certain time. They, the men and women, are employed in beating hemp, picking oakum, and packing of goods, and are said to earn their maintenance."

Latterly Bridewell was used as a receptacle for vagrants, and as a temporary lodging for paupers on their way to their respective parishes. The prisoners sentenced to hard labour were put on a treadmill which ground corn. The other prisoners picked junk. The women cleaned the prison, picked junk, and mended the linen. In 1829 there was built adjoining Bedlam a House of Occupation for young prisoners. It was decided that from the revenue of the Bridewell hospital (£12,000) reformatory schools were to be built. The annual number of contumacious apprentices sent to Bridewell rarely exceeded twenty-five, and when Mr. Timbs visited the prison in 1863 he says he found only one lad out of the three thousand appren. tices of the City.

There are now in the new court-room, erected in 1863, fine full-lengths of swarthy Charles II. by Lely, James II. when Duke of York, and George III. and Queen Charlotte after Reynolds. There are also portraits of past presidents, including an equestrian portrait of Sir William Withers (1708).

A writer in "Knight's London" (1843) gives a very bad account of Bridewell. "Bridewell, another place of confinement in the City of London, is under the jurisdiction of the governors of Bridewell and Bethlehem Hospitals, but it is supported out of the funds of the hospital. The entrance is in Bridge Street, Blackfriars. The prisoners confined here are persons summarily convicted by the Lord Mayor and aldermen, and are, for the most part, petty pilferers, misdemeanants, vagrants, and refractory apprentices, sentenced to solitary confinement; which term need not terrify the said refractory offenders, for the persons condemned to A great change passed upon Bridewell Prison solitude," says the writer, "can with ease keep up and Charity after the year 1860, when a Scheme a conversation with each other from morning to for the management of Bridewell Hospital was night. The total number of persons confined here approved by the Master of the Rolls. in 1842 was 1,324, of whom 233 were under seven-scheme the governors were required to continue teen, and 466 were known or reputed thieves. In 1818 no employment was furnished to the prisoners. The men sauntered about from hour to hour in those chambers where the worn blocks still stood and exhibited the marks of the toil of those who are represented in Hogarth's prints.

the use of the House of Occupations in St. George's Fields as a training-school for girls, and to erect a new House of Occupations for boys. The Lord Mayor and aldermen were to commit prisoners to Holloway Prison, but they were reserved certain powers of admission of boys and "The treadmill has been now introduced, and girls "under temptation to commit crime" to the more than five-sixths of the prisoners are sen- Houses of Occupations, which are now termed tenced to hard labour, the 'mill' being employed "King Edward's Schools." The Bridewell Prison in grinding corn for Bridewell, Bethlehem, and the was accordingly pulled down in 1863, leaving only House of Occupation. The 'Seventh Report of the hall, treasurer's house, and offices, also a the Inspectors of Prisons on the City Bridewell' is as follows:-'The establishment answers no one object of imprisonment except that of safe custody. It does not correct, deter, nor reform; but we are convinced that the association to which all but the City apprentices are subjected proves highly injurious, counteracts any efforts that can be made for the moral and religious improvement of the prisoners, corrupts the less criminal, and confirms

common room and cells for the apprentices : of these very few are now committed, as imprisonment for mere disorderly or refractory conduct is seldom resorted to until remonstrance has failed.

The House of Occupations in St. George's Fields has accommodation for 240 girls, who are trained for domestic service; that for boys has been erected at Witley, in Surrey, where an equal number of boys are industrially trained. A clergyman of that

Whitefriars.]

DAVENANT'S THEATRE.

195

parish, who has written a paper on the Charity, ob- The Whitefriars Theatre (erected originally in the serves: "It would seem that Bridewell Hospital precincts of the monastery, to be out of the juriswas the first Workhouse, the first House of Correc-diction of the Lord Mayor) seems to have become tion, and the first Reformatory School established disreputable in 1609, and ruinous in 1619, when it in England, and this explains why so many places is mentioned that "the rain hath made its way in, of confinement have been called 'Bridewells.”” and if it be not repaired it must soon be plucked Bridewell Dock, now covered by Tudor and down, or it will fall." The Salisbury Court Theatre,. William Streets, was long noted for its taverns, which took its place, was erected about 1629, and the and was a favourite landing-place for the Thames Earl of Dorset somewhat illegally let it for a term of sixty-one years and £950 down, Dorset House being afterwards sold for £4,000. The theatre was destroyed by the Puritan soldiers in 1649, and not rebuilt till the Restoration.

watermen.

The " George" Tavern, in Whitefriars, before mentioned (see p. 188), figures in Mrs. Behn's "Lucky Chance" (1687); it was afterwards the printing-office of William Bowyer, whom Nichols commemorates in his "Literary Anecdotes;" it was next occupied by Thomas Davison, a wellknown printer in his time, and latterly became the printing establishment of Messrs. Bradbury and Co. Another old and well-known tavern in this locality, but one that has remained to this day, in name, at least, is the "Black Lion," on the west side of Whitefriars Street. The old house, a quaint and picturesque edifice, of which we give a view on p. 186, was pulled down in 1877, and a large tavern, more in conformity with modern tastes, has been erected in its place.

The gas-works of Whitefriars, established in 1814, were removed about 1870 to Barking, in Essex. In 1807 Mr. Winsor, a German, first lit a part of London (Pall Mall) with gas, and în 1809 he applied for a charter. Yet, even as late as 1813, the inquest-men prosecuted two persons, named Sturt and Knight, for endangering the health of the inhabitants by the "making of gas-light; " but the latter, nevertheless, in the next year (1814) started a company and built gas-works on the bank of the river at Whitefriars. On a part of this site the governors of the City of London School have erected a magnificent new school, and other parts are occupied by the new library of Sion College and the Royal College of Music.

The first theatre in Whitefriars seems to have been built in the hall of the old Whitefriars Monastery. Mr. J. P. Collier gives the duration of this theatre as from 1586 to 1613. A memorandum from the manuscript-book of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels to King Charles I., notes that "I committed Cromes, a broker in Long Lane, the 16th of February, 1634, to the Marshalsey, for lending a Church robe, with the name of Jesus upon it, to the players in Salisbury Court, to represent a flamen, a priest of the heathens. Upon his petition of submission and acknowledgment of his fault, I released him the 17th February, 1634."

At the outbreak of pleasure and vice, after the Restoration, the actors, long starved and crestfallen, brushed up their plumes and burnished their tinsel. Killigrew, that clever buffoon of the Court, opened a new theatre in Drury Lane in 1663, with a play of Beaumont and Fletcher's; and Davenant (supposed to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son) opened the little theatre, long disused, in Salisbury Court, the rebuilding of which was commenced in 1660, on the site of the granary of Salisbury House. In time Davenant migrated to the old Tennis Court, in Portugal Street, on the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and when the Great Fire came it erased the Granary Theatre. In 1671, on Davenant's death, the company (nominally managed by his widow) returned to the new theatre in Salisbury Court, designed by Wren, and decorated, it is said, by Grinling Gibbons. It opened with Dryden's Sir Martin Marall, which had already had a run, having been first played in 1668. On Killigrew's death, the King's and Duke's Servants united, and removed to Drury Lane in 1682; so that the Dorset Gardens Theatre flourished for only eleven years in all. It was subsequently let to wrestlers, fencers, and other brawny and wiry performers. The engraving on page 193, taken from Settle's "Empress of Morocco" (1678), represents the stage of the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Wren's new theatre in Dorset Gardens, an engraving of which is given on page 138, fronted the river, and had public stairs for the convenience of those who came by water. There was also an open place before the theatre for the coaches of the "quality." In 1698 it was used for the drawing of a penny lottery; but in 1703, when it threatened to re-open, Queen Anne finally closed it. It was standing, however, in 1720, when Strype drew up the continuation of Stow, but it was shortly after turned into a timber-yard. The New River Company next had their offices there, and in 1814 water was ousted by fire, and the City Gas Works were established in this quarter, with

a dismal front to the bright and pleasant Embankment.

Pepys, the indefatigable, was a frequent visitor to the Whitefriars Theatre. A few of his quaint remarks will not be uninteresting:

"1660. By water to Salsbury Court Playhouse, where, not liking to sit, we went out again, and by coach to the theatre, &c.-To the playhouse, and there saw The Changeling, the first time it hath been acted these twenty years, and it takes exceedingly. Besides, I see the gallants do begin to be tyred with the vanity and pride of the theatre actors, who are indeed grown very proud and rich.

"1661.-To White-fryars, and saw The Bondman acted; an excellent play, and well done; but above all that I ever saw, Betterton do the Bondman the best.

"1661. After dinner I went to the theatre, where I found so few people (which is strange, and the reason I do not know) that I went out again, and so to Salisbury Court, where the house as full as could be; and it seems it was a new play, The Queen's Maske, wherein there are some good humours; among others, a good jeer to the old story of the siege of Troy, making it to be a common country tale. But above all it was strange to see so little a boy as that was to act Cupid, which is one of the greatest parts in it.

"Creed and I to Salisbury Court, and there saw Love's Quarrell acted the first time, but I do not like the design or words. . . . . To Salsbury Court Playhouse, where was acted the first time a simple play, and ill acted, only it was my fortune to sit by a most pretty and most ingenuous lady, which pleased me much."

Dryden, in his prologues, makes frequent mention of the Dorset Gardens Theatre, more especially in the address on the opening of the new Drury Lane, March, 1674. The Whitefriars house, under

show.

"You who each day can theatres behold,
Like Nero's palace, shining all in gold,
Our mean, ungilded stage will scorn, we fear,
And for the homely room disdain the cheer."

Then he brings in the dictum of the king:-
"Yet if some pride with want may be allowed,
We in our plainness may be justly proud :
Our royal master willed it should be so;
Whate'er he's pleased to own can need no show.
That sacred name gives ornament and grace,
And, like his stamp, makes basest metal pass.
'Twere folly now a stately pile to raise,

To build a playhouse, while you throw down plays.
While scenes, machines, and empty operas reign,
And for the pencil you the pen disdain :
While troops of famished Frenchmen hither drive,
And laugh at those upon whose alms they live,
Old English authors vanish, and give place

To these new conquerors of the Norman race."
And when, in 1671, the burnt-out Drury Lane com-
pany had removed to the Portugal Street Theatre,
Dryden wrote, in the same strain,—

"So we expect the lovers, braves, and wits;

The gaudy house with scenes will serve for cits." In another epilogue Dryden alludes sarcastically to the death of Mr. Scroop, a young rake of fortune,

who had just been run through by Sir Thomas Armstrong, a sworn friend of the Duke of Monmouth, in a quarrel at the Dorset Gardens Theatre, and died soon after. This fatal affray took place during the representation of Davenant's adaptation of Macbeth.

From Dryden's various prologues and epilogues we cull many sharply-outlined and brightcoloured pictures of the wild and riotous audiences of those evil days. We see again the "hot Burgundians" in the upper boxes wooing the masked beauties, crying "bon" to the French dancers and

beating cadence to the music that had stirred even the stately Court of Versailles. Again we see the scornful critics, bunched with glistening ribbons, shaking back their cascades of blonde hair, lolling contemptuously on the foremost benches, and “looking big through their curls." There from "Fop's Corner" rises the tipsy laugh, the prattle, and the chatter, as the dukes and lords, the wits and cour

tiers, practise what Dryden calls "the diving bow,"

Davenant, had been the first to introduce regular Davenant, had been the first to introduce regular scenery, and it prided itself on stage pomp and The year before, in Shadwell's opera of The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island, the machinery was very costly; and one scène, in which the spirits flew away with the wicked duke's table and viands just as the company was sitting down, had excited or "the toss and the new French wallow"-the the town to enthusiasm. Psyche, another opera by diving bow being especially admired, because it— Shadwell, perhaps adapted from Molière's Court spectacle, had succeeded the Tempest. St. André and his French dancers were probably engaged in Shadwell's piece. The king, whose taste and good sense the poet praises, had recommended simplicity of dress and frugality of ornament. This Dryden took care to well remember. He says :

:

"With a shug casts all the hair before,

Till he, with full decorum, brings it back, And rises with a water-spaniel's shake." Nor does the poet fail to recall the affrays in the upper boxes, when some quarrelsome rake was often pinned to the wainscot by the sword of his insulted rival. Below, at the door, the Flemish horses and

Whitefriars.]

THE DORSET GARDENS THEATRE.

the heavy gilded coach, lighted by flambeaux, are waiting for the noisy gallant, and will take back only his corpse.

Of Dryden's coldly licentious comedies and ranting bombastic tragedies a few only seem to have been produced at the Dorset Gardens Theatre. Among these we may mention Limberham, Edipus, Troilus and Cressida, and The Spanish Friar. Limberham was acted at the Duke's Theatre, in Dorset Gardens; because, being a satire upon a Court vice, it was deemed peculiarly calculated for that playhouse. The concourse of the citizens thither is alluded to in the prologue to Marriage à la Mode. Ravenscroft, also, in his epilogue to the play of Citizen Turned Gentleman, which was acted at the same theatre, takes occasion to disown the patronage of the more dissolute courtiers, in all probability because they formed the minor part of his audience. The citizens were his great patrons.

In the Postman, December 8, 1679, there is the following notice, quoted by Smith:-"At the request of several persons of quality, on Saturday next, being the 9th instant, at the theatre in Dorset Gardens, the famous Kentish men, Wm. and Rich. Joy, design to show to the town before they leave it the same tryals of strength, both of them, that Wm. had the honour of showing before his majesty and their royal highnesses, with several other persons of quality, for which he received a considerable gratuity. The lifting a weight of two thousand two hundred and forty pounds. His holding an extraordinary large cart-horse; and breaking a rope which will bear three thousand five hundred weight. Beginning exactly at two, and ending at four. The boxes, 4s.; the pit, 2s. 6d. ; first gallery, 25.; upper gallery, is. Whereas several scandalous persons have given out that they can do as much as any of the brothers, we do offer to such persons £100 reward, if he can perform the said matters of strength as they do, provided the pretender will forfeit £20 if he doth not. The day it is performed will be affixed a signal-flag on the theatre. No money to be returned after once paid."

197

the Duchess, in Shirley's Cardinal. In Charles's time he played Othello, by the king's command, and rivalled Betterton's Hamlet at the other house. He created the part of Alexander, was excellent as Brutus, and terribly and vigorously wicked as Ben Jonson's Catiline. Rymer, says Dr. Doran, styled Hart and Mohun the Æsopus and Roscius of their time. As Amintor and Melanthus, in The Maid's Tragedy, they were incomparable. Pepys is loud too in his praises of Hart. His salary, was, however, at the most, £3 a week, though he realised £1,000 yearly after he became a shareholder of the theatre. Hart died in 1683, within a year of his being bought off.

Kynaston, in his way, was also a celebrity. As a handsome boy he had been renowned for playing heroines, and he afterwards acquired celebrity by his dignified impersonation of kings and tyrants. Betterton, the greatest of all the Charles II. actors, also played occasionally at Dorset Gardens. Pope knew him; Dryden was his friend; Kneller painted him. He was probably the greatest Hamlet that ever appeared; and Cibber sums up all eulogy of him when he says, "I never heard a line in tragedy come from Betterton wherein my judgment, my ear, and my imagination were not fully satisfied, which since his time I cannot equally say of any one actor whatsoever." The enchantment of his voice was such, adds the same excellent dramatic critic, that the multitude no more cared for sense in the words he spoke, "than our musical connoisseurs think it essential in the celebrated airs of an Italian opera."

Even when Whitefriars was at its grandest, and plumes moved about its narrow river-side streets, Dorset House was its central and most stately mansion. It was originally a mansion with gardens, belonging to a Bishop of Winchester; but about the year 1217 (Henry III.) a lease was granted by William, Abbot of Westminster, to Richard, Bishop of Sarum, at the yearly rent of twenty shillings, the Abbot retaining the advowson of St. Bride's Church, and promising to impart to the said bishop any needful ecclesiastical advice. It afterwards fell into the hands of the Sackvilles, held at first by a long lease from the see, but was eventually alienated by Bishop Jewel. In 1611 a grant from James I. confirmed the manor of Salisbury Court to Richard, Earl of Dorset.

In 1681 Dr. Davenant seems, by rather unfair tactics, to have bought off and pensioned both Hart and Kynaston from the King's Company, and so to have greatly weakened his rivals. Of these two actors some short notice may not be uninteresting. Hart had been a Cavalier captain during the Civil Wars, and was a pupil of Robinson, This Earl of Dorset, to whom Bishop Jewel the actor, who was shot down at the taking of alienated the Whitefriars House, was the father of Basing House. Hart was a tragedian who excelled the poet, Thomas Sackville, Lord High Treasurer in parts that required a certain heroic and chivalrous to Queen Elizabeth. The bishop received in dignity. As a youth, before the Restoration, when exchange for the famous old house a piece boys played female parts, Hart was successful as of land near Cricklade, in Wiltshire. The poet

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