The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume III Part 15

That scenic virtue forms the rising age, And truth displays her radiance from the stage.

The following are Mr. Betterton's dramatic works;

1. The Woman made a Justice; a Comedy.

2. The Unjust Judge, or Appius and Virginia; a Tragedy, written originally by Mr. John Webster, an old poet, who lived in the reign of James I. It was altered only by Mr. Betterton, who was so cautious, and reserved upon this head, that it was by accident the fact was known, at least with certainty.

3. The Amorous Widow, or the Wanton Wife, a Play, written on the plan of Moliere's George Dandin. The Amorous Widow has an under-plot interwoven, to accommodate the piece to the prevailing English taste. Is was acted with great applause, but Mr. Betterton, during his life, could never be induced to publish it; so that it came into the world as a posthumous performance.

The chief merit of this, and his other pieces, lies in the exact disposition of the scenes; their just length, great propriety, and natural connexions; and of how great consequence this is to the fate of either tragedy or comedy, may be learned from all Banks's plays, which, though they have nothing else to recommend them, yet never fail to move an audience, much more than some justly esteemed superior. Who ever saw Banks's earl of Ess.e.x represented without tears; how few bestow them upon the Cato of Addison.

Besides these pieces, Betterton wrote several occasional Poems, translations of Chaucer's Fables, and other little exercises. In a word, to sum up all that we have been saying, with regard to the character of this extraordinary person, as he was the most perfect model of dramatic action, so was he the most unblemished pattern of private and social qualities: Happy is it for that player who imitates him in the one, and still more happy that man who copies him in the other.[8]

[Footnote 1: Mr. Theophilus Cibber being about to publish, in a work entirely undertaken by himself the Lives and Characters of all our Eminent Actors and Actresses, from Shakespear to the present time; leaves to the other Gentlemen concerned in this collection, the accounts of some players who could not be omitted herein, as Poets.]

[Footnote 2: Cibber's apology.]

[Footnote 3: Biograph. Brittan. from the information of Southern.]

[Footnote 4: Cibber's Life.]

[Footnote 5: Cibber's Life.]

[Footnote 6: Memoirs of Vanbrugh's Life.]

[Footnote 7: History of the stage.]

[Footnote 8: We acknowledge a mistake, which we committed in the life of Mavloe, concerning Betterton. It was there observed that he formed himself upon Alleyn, the famous founder of Dulwich-Hospital, and copied his theatrical excellencies: which, upon a review of Betterton's life, we find could not possibly happen as Alleyn was dead several years before Betterton was born: The observation should have been made of Hart.]

JOHN BANKS.

This gentleman was bred a lawyer, and was a member of the society at New Inn. His genius led him to make several attempts in dramatic poetry, in which he had various success; but even when he met with the greatest encouragement, he was very sensible of his error, in quitting the profitable practice of the law, to pursue the entertainments of the stage, but he was fired with a thirst of fame which reconciled to his mind the many uneasy sensations, to which the precarious success of his plays, and the indigence of his profession naturally exposed him: Mr.

Banks no doubt has gained one part of his design by commencing poet, namely, that of being remembered after death, which Pope somewhere calls the poor estate of wits: For this gentleman has here a place amongst the poets, while nine tenths of the lawyers of his time, now sleep with their fathers secure in oblivion, and of whom we can only say, they lived, and died.

Mr. Banks's genius was wholly turned for tragedy; his language is certainly unpoetical, and his numbers unharmonious; but he seems not to have been ignorant of the dramatic art: For in all his plays he has very forcibly rouzed the pa.s.sions, kept the scene busy, and never suffered his characters to languish.

In the year 1684 Mr. Banks offered a tragedy to the stage called the Island Queens, or the Death of Mary Queen of Scots, which, it seems, was rejected, whether from its want of merit, or motives of a political kind, we cannot now determine, but Mr. Banks thought proper then to publish it. In the year 1706, he obtained the favour of Queen Anne to command it to be acted at the Theatre-Royal, which was done with success, for it is really a very moving tragedy. It has been often revived, and performed at the Theatres, with no inconsiderable applause.

His dramatic works are,

1. The Rival Kings, or the Loves of Oroondates and Statira, a Tragedy, acted at the Theatre-Royal 1677. This play is dedicated to the Lady Catherine Herbert, and is chiefly formed on the Romance of Ca.s.sandra.

2. The Destruction of Troy, a Tragedy, acted 1679. This play met with but indifferent success.

3. Virtue Betrayed, or Anna Bullen, a Tragedy, acted 1682. This play has been often acted with applause.

4. The Earl of Ess.e.x, or the Unhappy Favourite, acted 1682, with the most general applause. Mr. Dryden wrote the Prologue, and Epilogue. It will be naturally expected, that, having mentioned the earl of Ess.e.x by Banks, we should say something of a Tragedy which has appeared this year on the Theatre at Covent-Garden, of the same name. We cannot but acknowledge, that Mr. Jones has improved the story, and heightened the incident in the last act, which renders the whole more moving; after the scene of parting between Ess.e.x, and Southampton, which is very affecting, Rutland's distress upon the melancholy occasion of parting from her husband, is melting to the last degree. It is in this scene Mr.

Barry excells all his cotemporaries in tragedy; he there shews his power over our pa.s.sions, and bids the heart bleed, in every accent of anguish.

After Ess.e.x is carried out to execution, Mr. Jones introduces the queen at the tower, which has a very happy effect, and her manner of behaving on that occasion, makes her appear more amiable than ever she did in any play on the same subject. Mr. Jones in his language (in this piece) does not affect being very poetical;--nor is his verification always mellifluent, as in his other writings;--but it is well adapted for speaking: The design is well conducted, the story rises regularly, the business is not suspended, and the characters are well sustained.

5. The Island Queens, a Tragedy, of which we have already given some account; the name of it was afterwards changed to the Albion Queens.

6. The Innocent Usurper, or the Death of Lady Jane Gray, a Tragedy, printed 1694. It was prohibited the stage, on account of some groundless insinuations, that it reflected upon the government. This play, in Banks's own opinion, is inferior to none of his former. Mr. Rowe has written likewise a Tragedy on this subject, which is a stock play at both houses; it is as much superior to that of our author, as the genius of the former was greater than that of the latter.

7. Cyrus the Great, a Tragedy. This play was at first rejected, but it afterwards got upon the stage, and was acted with great success; the plot is taken from Scudery's Romance of the Grand Cyrus.

We cannot ascertain the year in which Banks died. He seems to have been a man of parts; his characteristic fault as a writer, was aiming at the sublime, which seldom failed to degenerate into the bombast; fire he had, but no judgment to manage it; he was negligent of his poetry, neither has he sufficiently marked, and distinguished his characters; he was generally happy in the choice of his fables, and he has found a way of drawing tears, which many a superior poet has tried in vain.

LADY CHUDLEIGH

Was born in the year 1656, and was daughter of Richard Lee of Winslade, in the county of Devon, esq; She had an education in which literature seemed but little regarded, being taught no other language than her native tongue; but her love of books, incessant industry in the reading of them, and her great capacity to improve by them, enabled her to make a very considerable figure in literature.

She was married to Sir George Chudleigh of Ashton in the county of Devon, Bart, by whom she had issue Eliza Maria, who died in the bloom of life, (much lamented by her mother, who poured out her griefs on that occasion, in a Poem ent.i.tled a Dialogue between Lucinda and Marissa) and George, who succeeded to the t.i.tle and estate, Thomas, and others.

She was a lady of great virtue, as well as understanding, and she made the latter of these subservient to the promotion of the former, which was much improved by study; but though she was enamoured of the charms of poetry, yet she dedicated some part of her time to the severer study of philosophy, as appears from her excellent essays, which discover an uncommon degree of piety, and knowledge, and a n.o.ble contempt of those vanities which the unthinking part of her s.e.x so much regard, and so eagerly pursue.

The works which this lady produced, are,

The Ladies Defence, or the Bride-Woman's Counsellor answered, a Poem; in a Dialogue between Sir John Brute, Sir William Loveall, Melissa, and a Parson. This piece has been several times printed; the writing it was occasioned by an angry sermon preached against the fair s.e.x, of which her ladys.h.i.+p gives the following account; 'Mr. Lintot, says she, some time since, intending to reprint my poems, desired me to permit him to add to them a Dialogue I had written in the year 1700, on a Sermon preached by Mr. Sprint, a Nonconformist, at Sherbourne in Dorsets.h.i.+re; I refusing, for several reasons, to grant his request, he, without my knowledge, bought the copy of the Bookseller who formerly printed it, and, without my consent, or once acquainting me with his resolution, added to it the second edition of my poems; and that which makes the injury the greater, is, his having omitted the Epistle Dedicatory, and the Preface, by which means he has left the reader wholly in the dark, and exposed me to censure. When it was first printed I had reason to complain, but not so much as now: Then the Dedication was left entire as I had written it, but the Preface so mangled, altered, and considerably shortened, that I hardly knew it to be my own; but being then published without a name, I was the less concerned, but since, notwithstanding the great care I took to conceal it, it is known to be mine; I think myself obliged, in my own defence, to take some notice of it[1].' The omission of this Preface, which contained an answer to part of the sermon, and gave her reasons for writing the poem, had occasioned some people to make ill-natured reflexions on it: this put her ladys.h.i.+p on justifying herself, and a.s.suring her readers, that there are no reflexions in it levelled at any particular persons, besides the author of the Sermon; him (says she) I only blame for being too angry, for his not telling us our duty in a softer more engaging way: address, and good manners render reproofs a kindness; but where they are wanting, admonitions are always taken ill: as truths of this sort ought never to be concealed from us, so they ought never to be told us with an indecent warmth; a respectful tenderness would be more becoming a messenger of peace, the disciple of an humble, patient, meek, commiserating Saviour.'

Besides this lady's poems, of which we shall give some account when we quote a specimen; she wrote Essays upon several subjects, in prose and verse, printed in 8vo. 1710. These Essays are upon Knowledge, Pride, Humility, Life, Death, Fear, Grief, Riches, Self-love, Justice, Anger, Calumny, Friends.h.i.+p, Love, Avarice, Solitude, and are much admired for the delicacy of the stile, there being not the least appearance of false wit, or affected expression, the too common blemishes of this sort of writing: they are not so much the excursions of a lively imagination, which can often expatiate on the pa.s.sions, and actions of men, with small experience of either, as the deliberate result of observations on the world, improved with reading, regulated with judgment, softened by good manners, and heightened with sublime thoughts, and elevated piety.

This treatise is dedicated to her Royal Highness the Princess Sophia, Electress, and d.u.c.h.ess Dowager of Brunswick, on which occasion that Princess, then in her 80th year, honoured her with the following epistle, written by the Electress in French, but which we shall here present to the reader in English.

Hanover June 25, 1710.

LADY CHUDLEIGH,

You have done me a very great pleasure in letting me know by your agreeable book, that there is such a one as you in England, and who has so well improved herself, that she can, in a fine manner, communicate her sentiments to all the world.

As for me I do not pretend to deserve the commendations you give me, but by the esteem which I have of your merit, and of your good sense, I will be always entirely

Your affectionate friend

to serve you,

SOPHIA ELECTRICE.

At the end of the second volume of the duke of Wharton's poems, are five letters from lady Chudleigh, to the revd. Mr. Norris of Bemmerton, and Mrs. Eliz. Thomas, the celebrated Corinna of Dryden.

She wrote several other things, which, though not printed, are carefully preserved in the family, viz. two Tragedies, two Operas, a Masque, some of Lucian's Dialogues, translated into Verse, Satirical Reflexions on Saqualio, in imitation of one of Lucian's Dialogues, with several small Poems on various Occasions.

She had long laboured under the pains of a rheumatism, which had confined her to her chamber a considerable time before her death, which happened at Ashton in Devons.h.i.+re, December 15, 1710, in the 55th year of her age, and lies buried there without either monument or inscription.