Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 1 of 3). Doran John
by acting female parts. Of the other early members of this troop, the first names of importance are those of Lacy, and little Major Mohun, the low comedian, and the high tragedian. Of those who precede them alphabetically, but little remains on record. We only know of Theophilus Bird, that he broke his leg when dancing in Suckling's "Aglaura," probably when the poet changed his tragedy, in which the characters killed each other, into a sort of comedy, in which they all survived. Cartwright, on the other hand, has left a lasting memorial. If you would see how the kind old fellow looked, go down to Dulwich College – that grand institution, for which actors have done so much and which has done so little for actors – and gaze on his portrait there. It is the picture of a man who bequeathed his books, pictures, and furniture to the College which Alleyn, another actor, had founded. In early life, Cartwright had been a bookseller, at the corner of Turnstile, Holborn; and in his second vocation his great character was Falstaff.
Lacy was a great Falstaff, too; and his portrait, a triple one, painted by Wright and etched by Hopkins, one of the Princess Elizabeth's pages, is familiarly known to Hampton Court visitors. Lacy had been first a dancing-master, then a lieutenant in the army, before he tried the stage. In his day he had no equal; and his admirers denied that the day to come would ever see his equal. Lacy was handsome, both in shape and feature, and is to be remembered as the original performer of Teague, in the "Committee;" a play of Howard's, subsequently cut down to the farce of "The Honest Thieves." And eight years later (1671), taught by Buckingham, and mimicking Dryden, he startled the town with that immortal Bayes, in the "Rehearsal;" a part so full of happy opportunities that it was coveted or essayed for many years, not only by every great actor, whatever his line, but by many an actress, too; and last of all by William Farren, in 1819.
There was nothing within the bounds of comedy that Lacy could not act well. Evelyn styles him "Roscius." Frenchman, or Scot, or Irishman, fine gentleman or fool, rogue or honest simpleton, Tartuffe or Drench, old man or loquacious woman, – in all, Lacy was the delight of the town for about a score of years. The King ejected the best players from parts, considered almost as their property, and assigned them to Lacy. His wardrobe was a spectacle of itself, and gentlemen of leisure and curiosity went to see it. He took a positive enjoyment in parts which enabled him to rail at the rascalities of courtiers. Sometimes this Aristophanic licence went too far. In Howard's "Silent Woman," the sarcasms reached the King, and moved his majesty to wrath, and to locking up Lacy himself in the Porter's Lodge. After a few days' detention, he was released; whereupon Howard, meeting him behind the scenes, congratulated him. Lacy, still ill in temper, abused the poet for the nonsense he had put into the part of Captain Otter, which was the cause of all the mischief. Lacy further told Howard he was "more a fool than a poet." Thereat the honourable Edward, raising his glove, smote Lacy smartly with it over the face. Jack Lacy retaliated by lifting his cane and letting it descend quite as smartly on the pate of a man who was cousin to an earl. Ordinary men marvelled that the honourable Edward did not run Jack through the body. On the contrary, without laying hand to hilt, Howard hastened to the King, lodged his complaint, and the house was thereupon ordered to be closed. Thus, many starved for the indiscretion of one; but the gentry rejoiced at the silencing of the company, as those clever fellows and their fair mates were growing, as that gentry thought, "too insolent."
Lacy, soon after, was said to be dying, and altogether so ill-disposed, as to have refused ghostly advice at the hands of "a bishop, an old acquaintance of his," says Pepys, "who went to see him." Who could this bishop have been who was the old acquaintance of the ex-dancing-master and lieutenant? Herbert Croft, or Seth Ward? – or, Isaac Barrow, of Sodor-and-Man, whose father, the mercer, had lived near the father of Betterton? But, whoever he may have been, the King's favour restored the actor to health; and he remained Charles's favourite comedian till his death, in 1681.
When Lacy's posthumous comedy, "Sir Hercules Buffoon," was produced in 1684, the man with the longest and crookedest nose, and the most wayward wit in England – Tom Durfey – furnished the prologue. In that piece he designated Lacy as the standard of true comedy. If the play does not take, said lively Tom —
"all that we can say on't
Is, we've his fiddle, but not his hands to play on't!"
Genest, a critic not very hard to please, says that Lacy's friends should have "buried his fiddle with him."
Michael Mohun is the pleasantest and, perhaps, the greatest name on the roll of the King's Company. When the players offended the King, Mohun was the peacemaker.
One cannot look on Mohun's portrait, at Knowle, without a certain mingling of pleasure and respect. That long-haired young fellow wears so frank an aspect, and the hand rests on the sword so delicately yet so firmly! He is the very man who might "rage like Cethegus, or like Cassius die." Lee could never willingly write a play without a part for Mohun, who, with Hart, was accounted among the good actors that procured profitable "third days" for authors. No Maximin could defy the gods as he did; and there has been no franker Clytus since the day he originally represented the character in "Alexander the Great." In some parts he contested the palm with Betterton, whose versatility he rivalled, creating one year Abdelmelich, in another Dapperwit, in a third Pinchwife, and then a succession of classical heroes and modern rakes or simpletons. Such an actor had many imitators, but, in his peculiar line, few could rival a man who was said to speak as Shakspeare wrote, and whom nature had formed for a nation's delight. The author of the Epilogue to "Love in the Dark" (that bustling piece of Sir Francis Fane's, from the Scrutinio,27 in which, played by Lacy, Mrs. Centlivre derived her Marplot), illustrates the success of Mohun's imitators by an allusion to the gout from which he suffered:
"Those Blades indeed, but cripples in their art, —
Mimic his foot, but not his speaking part."
Of his modesty, I know no better trait than what passed when Nat. Lee had read to him a part which Mohun was to fill in one of Lee's tragedies. The Major put aside the manuscript, in a sort of despair – "Unless I could play the character as beautifully as you read it," said he, "it were vain to try it at all!"
Such is the brief record of a great actor, one who before our civil jars was a young player, during the civil wars was a good soldier, and in the last years of Charles II. was an old and a great actor still. Of the other original members of the Theatre Royal, there is not much to be said. Wintershell, who died in 1679, merits, however, a word. He was distinguished, whether wearing the sock or the buskin, majestic in loftily-toned kings, and absurd in sillily-amorous knights. Downes has praised him as superior to Nokes, in at least one part, and his Slender has won eulogy from so stern a critic as Dennis.
Among the men who subsequently joined the Theatre Royal, there were some good actors, and a few great rogues. Of these, the best actor and the greatest rogue was Cardell Goodman, or Scum Goodman, as he was designated by his enemies. His career on the stage lasted from 1677, as Polyperchon, in Lee's "Rival Queens," to 1688. His most popular parts were Julius Cæsar and Alexander. He came to the theatre hot from a fray at Cambridge University, whence he had been expelled for cutting and slashing the portrait of that exemplary Chancellor, the Duke of Monmouth.
This rogue's salary must have been small, for he and Griffin shared the same bed in their modest lodging, and having but one shirt between them, wore it each in his turn. The only dissension which ever occurred between them was caused by Goodman, who, having to pay a visit to a lady, clapped on the shirt when it was clean, and Griffin's day for wearing it!
For restricted means, however, every gentleman of spirit, in those days, had a resource, if he chose to avail himself of it. The resource was the road, and Cardell Goodman took to it with alacrity. But he came to grief, and found himself with gyves on in Newgate; yet he escaped the cart, the rope, and Tyburn. King James gave "his Majesty's servant" his life, and Cardell returned to the stage – a hero.
A middle-aged duchess, fond of heroes, adopted him as a lover, and Cardell Goodman had fine quarters, rich feeding, and a dainty wardrobe, all at the cost of his mistress, the ex-favourite of a king, Barbara, the Duchess of Cleveland. Scum Goodman was proud of his splendid degradation, and paid such homage to "my duchess," as the impudent fellow called her, that when he expected her presence in the theatre, he would not go on the stage,
Should be Intrigo, which Lacy really played.