Chapter 5
Whether therefore the gatherers of the publique or private Play-house stand to receive the afternoones rent, let our Gallant (having paid it) presently advance himselfe up to the Throne of the Stage. I meane not into the Lords roome (which is now but the Stages Suburbs): No, those boxes, by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of waiting-women and Gentlemen-Ushers, that there sweat together, and the covetousnes of Sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much new Satten is there dambd, by being smothred to death in darknesse. But on the very Rushes where the Comedy is to daunce, yea, and under the state of _Cambises_ himselfe must our fethered _Estridge_, like a piece of Ordnance, be planted valiantly (because impudently) beating downe the mewes and hisses of the opposed rascality.
For do but cast up a reckoning, what large cummings-in are pursd up by sitting on the Stage. First a conspicuous _Eminence_ is gotten; by which meanes, the best and most essenciall parts of a Gallant (good cloathes, a proportionable legge, white hand, the Persian lock, and a tollerable beard) are perfectly revealed.
By sitting on the stage, you have a signd patent to engrosse the whole commodity of Censure; may lawfully presume to be a Girder; and stand at the helme to steere the passage of _scaenes_; yet / no man shall once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent, overweening Coxcombe.
By sitting on the stage, you may (without travelling for it) at the very next doore aske whose play it is: and, by that _Quest_ of _Inquiry_, the law warrants you to avoid much mistaking: if you know not ye author, you may raile against him: and peradventure so behave your selfe, that you may enforce the Author to know you.
By sitting on the stage, if you be a Knight, you may happily get you a Mistress: if a mere _Fleet-street_ Gentleman, a wife: but assure yourselfe, by continuall residence, you are the first and principall man in election to begin the number of _We three_.
By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a Justice in examining of plaies, you shall put your selfe into such true _scaenical_ authority, that some Poet shall not dare to present his Muse rudely upon your eyes, without having first unmaskt her at a taverne, when you most knightly shal, for his paines, pay for both their suppers.
By sitting on the stage, you may (with small cost) purchase the deere acquaintance of the boys: have a good stoole for sixpence: at any time know what particular part any of the infants present: get your match lighted, examine the play-suits lace, and perhaps win wagers upon laying 'tis copper, &c. And to conclude, whether you be a foole or a Justice of peace, or a Capten, a Lord-Mayors sonne, or a dawcocke, a knave, or an under-Sherife; of what stamp soever you be, currant, or counterfet, the Stage, like time, will bring you to most perfect light and lay you open: neither are you to be hunted from thence, though the Scarecrows in the yard hoot at you, hisse at you, spit at you, yea, throw durt even in your teeth: 'tis most Gentlemanlike patience to endure all this, and to laugh at the silly Animals: but if the _Rabble_, with a full throat, crie, away with the foole, you were worse then a madman to tarry by it: for the Gentleman, and the foole should never sit on the Stage together.
Mary, let this observation go hand in hand with the rest: or rather, like a country-serving-man, some five yards before them. Present / not your selfe on the Stage (especially at a new play) untill the quaking prologue hath (by rubbing) got culor into his cheekes, and is ready to give the trumpets their Cue, that hees upon point to enter: for then it is time, as though you were one of the _properties_, or that you dropt out of ye _Hangings_, to creepe from behind the Arras, with your _Tripos_ or three-footed stoole in one hand, and a teston mounted betweene a forefinger and a thumbe in the other: for if you should bestow your person upon the vulgar, when the belly of the house is but halfe full, your apparell is quite eaten up, the fashion lost, and the proportion of your body in more danger to be devoured then if it were served up in the Counter amongst the Powltry: avoid that as you would the Bastome. It shall crowne you with rich commendation, to laugh alowd in the middest of the most serious and saddest scene of the terriblest Tragedy: and to let that clapper (your tongue) be tost so high, that all the house may ring of it: your Lords use it; your Knights are Apes to the Lords, and do so too: your Inne-a-court-man is Zany to the Knights, and (mary very scurvily) comes likewise limping after it: bee thou a beagle to them all, and never lin snuffing, till you have scented them: for by talking and laughing (like a Plough-man in a Morris) you heap _Pelion_ upon _Ossa_, glory upon glory: As first, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the Players, and onely follow you: the simplest dolt in the house snatches up your name, and when he meetes you in the streetes, or that you fall into his hands in the middle of a Watch, his word shall be taken for you: heele cry _Hees such a gallant_, and you passe. Secondly, you publish your temperance to the world, in that you seeme not to resort thither to taste vaine pleasures with a hungrie appetite: but onely as a Gentleman to spend a foolish houre or two, because you can doe nothing else: Thirdly, you mightily disrelish the Audience, and disgrace the Author: marry, you take up (though it be at the worst hand) a strong opinion of your owne judgement, and inforce the Poet to take pity of your weakenesse, and, by some dedicated sonnet, to bring you into a better paradice, onely to stop your mouth.
If you can (either for love or money) provide your selfe a lodging by the water-side: for, above the convenience it brings to / shun Shoulder-clapping, and to ship away your Cockatrice betimes in the morning, it addes a kind of-state unto you, to be carried from thence to the staires of your Play-house: hate a Sculler (remember that) worse then to be acquainted with one o' th' Scullery. No, your Oares are your onely Sea-crabs, boord them, and take heed you never go twice together with one paire: often shifting is a great credit to Gentlemen; and that dividing of your fare wil make the poore watersnaks be ready to pul you in peeces to enjoy your custome: No matter whether upon landing, you have money or no: you may swim in twentie of their boates over the river upon _Ticket_: marry, when silver comes in, remember to pay treble their fare, and it will make your Flounder-catchers to send more thankes after you, when you doe not draw, then when you doe; for they know, It will be their owne another daie.
Before the Play begins, fall to cardes: you may win or loose (as _Fencers_ doe in a prize) and beate one another by confederacie, yet share the money when you meete at supper: notwithstanding, to gul the _Raggamuffins_ that stand aloofe gaping at you, throw the cards (having first torne foure or five of them) round about the Stage, just upon the third sound, as though you had lost: it skils not if the foure knaves ly on their backs, and outface the Audience; theres none such fooles as dare take exceptions at them, because, ere the play go off, better knaves than they will fall into the company.
Now sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammed you, or hath had a flirt at your mistris, or hath brought either your feather, or your red beard, or your little legs &c. on the stage, you shall disgrace him worse then by tossing him in a blancket, or giving him the bastinado in a Taverne, if, in the middle of his play, (bee it Pastoral or Comedy, Morall or Tragedic) you rise with a screwd and discontented face from your stoole to be gone: no matter whether the Scenes be good or no; the better they are the worse do you distast them: and, beeing on your feet, sneake not away like a coward, but salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spred either on the rushes, or on stooles about you, and draw what troope you can from the stage after you: the _Mimicks_ are beholden to you, for allowing them elbow roome: their Poet cries, perhaps, a pox go with you, but care not for that, theres no musick without frets.
Mary, if either the company, or indisposition of the weather binde you to sit it out, my counsell is then that you turne plain Ape, take up a rush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants, to make other fooles fall a laughing: mewe at passionate speeches, blare at merrie, finde fault with the musicke, whew at the childrens Action, whistle at the songs: and above all, curse the sharers, that whereas the same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embrodered Felt and Feather, (Scotch-fashion) for your mistres in the Court, within two houres after, you encounter with the very same block on the stage, when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but that morning.
To conclude, hoard up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which your leane wit may most favourly feede, for want of other stuffe, when the _Arcadian_ and _Euphuized_ gentlewomen have their tongues sharpened to set upon you: that qualitie (next to your shuttlecocke) is the onely furniture to a Courtier thats but a new beginner, and is but in his A B C of complement. The next places that are filled, after the Play-houses bee emptied, are (or ought to be) Tavernes: into a Taverne then let us next march, where the braines of one Hogshead must be beaten out to make up another.
_Thomas Dekker._
OF MYSELF
It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ears to hear anything of praise from him. There is no danger from me of offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune, allow me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient, for my own contentment, that they have preserved me from being scandalous, or remarkable on the defective side. But besides that, I shall here speak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedent discourses, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt, than rise up to the estimation of most people. As far as my memory can return back into my past life, before I knew or was capable of guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul gave a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themselves, and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running about on holidays, and playing with my fellows, I was wont to steal from them, and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. I was then, too, so much an enemy to constraint, that my masters could never prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn, without book, the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensed with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the same mind as I am now--which, I confess, I wonder at myself--may appear at the latter end of an ode which I made when I was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed, with many other verses. The beginning of it is boyish; but of this part which I here set down, if a very little were corrected, I should hardly now be much ashamed.
This only grant me, that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high. Some honour I would have, Not from great deeds, but good alone; Th' unknown are better than ill-known. Rumour can ope the grave; Acquaintance I would have; but when 't depends Not on the number, but the choice of friends.
Books should, not business, entertain the light, And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night. My house a cottage, more Than palace, and should fitting be For all my use, no luxury. My garden painted o'er With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield, Horace might envy in his Sabine field.
Thus would I double my life's fading space, For he that runs it well, twice runs his race. And in this true delight, These unbought sports, that happy state, I would not fear nor wish my fate, But boldly say each night, To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day.
You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the poets, for the conclusion is taken out of Horace; and perhaps it was the immature and immoderate love of them which stamped first, or rather engraved, the characters in me. They were like letters cut in the bark of a young tree, which, with the tree, still grow proportionably. But how this love came to be produced in me so early, is a hard question: I believe I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such chimes of verse, as have never since left ringing there: for I remember when I began to read, and take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour--I know not by what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book but of devotion--but there was wont to lie Spenser's works; this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and monsters, and brave houses, which I found everywhere there--though my understanding had little to do with all this--and by degrees, with the tinkling of the rhyme, and dance of the numbers; so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old. With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the university; but was soon torn from thence by that public violent storm, which would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the princely cedars, to me, the hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as could have befallen me in such a tempest; for I was cast by it into the family of one of the best persons, and into the court of one of the best princesses in the world. Now, though I was here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of my life; that is, into much company, and no small business, and into a daily sight of greatness, both militant and triumphant--for that was the state then of the English and the French courts--yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; and that beauty which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw it was adulterate. I met with several great persons, whom I liked very well, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it. A storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my courage; though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found anywhere, though I was in business of great and honourable trust, though I eat at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present subsistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition, in banishment and public distresses; yet I could not abstain from renewing my old school-boy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same effect:
Well, then, I now do plainly see This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, &c.
And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from his majesty's happy restoration, but the getting into some moderately convenient retreat in the country, which I thought in that case I might easily have compassed, as well as some others, who, with no greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary fortunes. But I had before written a shrewd prophecy against myself, and I think Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in the elegance of it--
Thou neither great at court, nor in the war, Nor at the Exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar; Content thyself with the small barren praise Which thy neglected verse does raise, &c.
However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did not quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it a _corpus perditum_, without making capitulations, or taking counsel of fortune. But God laughs at man, who says to his soul, Take thy ease: I met presently not only with many little incumbrances and impediments, but with so much sickness--a new misfortune to me--as would have spoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neither repent nor alter my course; _Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum_.[3] Nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long, and have now at last married; though she neither has brought me a rich portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her.
[Footnote 3: I have not falsely sworn.]
_Nec vos dulcissima mundi Nomina, vos musae, libertas, otia, libri, Hortique, sylvaeque, anima remanente relinquam_.
Nor by me e'er shall you, You of all names the sweetest and the best, You muses, books, and liberty, and rest; You gardens, fields, and woods forsaken be, As long as life itself forsakes not me.
_Cowley._
THE GRAND ELIXIR
There is an oblique way of Reproof, which takes off from the Sharpness of it; and an Address in Flattery, which makes it agreeable though never so gross: But of all Flatterers, the most skilful is he who can do what you like, without saying any thing which argues you do it for his Sake; the most winning Circumstance in the World being the Conformity of Manners. I speak of this as a Practice necessary in gaining People of Sense, who are not yet given up to Self-Conceit; those who are far gone in admiration of themselves need not be treated with so much Delicacy. The following Letter puts this Matter in a pleasant and uncommon Light: The Author of it attacks this Vice with an Air of Compliance, and alarms us against it by exhorting us to it.
_To the GUARDIAN._
"Sir,
"As you profess to encourage all those who any way contribute to the Publick Good, I flatter my self I may claim your Countenance and Protection. I am by profession a Mad Doctor, but of a peculiar Kind, not of those whose Aim it is to remove Phrenzies, but one who makes it my Business to confer an agreeable Madness on my Fellow-Creatures, for their mutual Delight and Benefit. Since it is agreed by the Philosophers, that Happiness and Misery consist chiefly in the Imagination, nothing is more necessary to Mankind in general than this pleasing Delirium, which renders every one satisfied with himself, and persuades him that all others are equally so.
"I have for several Years, both at home and abroad, made this Science my particular Study, which I may venture to say I have improved in almost all the Courts of _Europe_; and have reduced it into so safe and easie a Method, as to practise it on both Sexes, of what Disposition, Age or Quality soever, with Success. What enables me to perform this great Work, is the Use of my _Obsequium Catholicon_, or the _Grand Elixir_, to support the Spirits of human Nature. This Remedy is of the most grateful Flavour in the World, and agrees with all Tastes whatever. 'Tis delicate to the Senses, delightful in the Operation, may be taken at all Hours without Confinement, and is as properly given at a Ball or Play-house as in a private Chamber. It restores and vivifies the most dejected Minds, corrects and extracts all that is painful in the Knowledge of a Man's self. One Dose of it will instantly disperse itself through the whole Animal System, dissipate the first Motions of Distrust so as never to return, and so exhilerate the Brain and rarifie the Gloom of Reflection, as to give the Patients a new flow of Spirits, a Vivacity of Behaviour, and a pleasing Dependence upon their own Capacities.
"Let a Person be never so far gone, I advise him not to despair; even though he has been troubled many Years with restless Reflections, which by long Neglect have hardened into settled Consideration. Those that have been stung with Satyr may here find a certain Antidote, which infallibly disperses all the Remains of Poison that has been left in the Understanding by bad Cures. It fortifies the Heart against the Rancour of Pamphlets, the Inveteracy of Epigrams, and the Mortification of Lampoons; as has been often experienced by several Persons of both Sexes, during the Seasons of _Tunbridge_ and the _Bath_.
"I could, as farther Instances of my Success, produce Certificates and Testimonials from the Favourites and Ghostly Fathers of the most eminent Princes of _Europe_; but shall content myself with the Mention of a few Cures, which I have performed by this my _Grand Universal Restorative_, during the Practice of one Month only since I came to this City."
_Cures in the Month of February_, 1713.
"_GEORGE SPONDEE_, Esq; Poet, and Inmate of the Parish of St. _Paul's Covent-Garden_, fell into violent Fits of the Spleen upon a thin Third Night. He had been frighted into a Vertigo by the Sound of Cat-calls on the First Day; and the frequent Hissings on the Second made him unable to endure the bare Pronunciation of the Letter S. I searched into the Causes of his Distemper; and by the Prescription of a Dose of my _Obsequium_, prepared _Secundum Artem_, recovered him to his Natural State of Madness. I cast in at proper Intervals the Words, _Ill Taste of the Town_, _Envy of Criticks_, _bad Performance of the Actors_, and the like. He is so perfectly cured that he has promised to bring another Play upon the Stage next Winter.
"A Lady of professed Virtue, of the Parish of St. _James's Westminster_, who hath desired her Name may be concealed, having taken Offence at a Phrase of double Meaning in Conversation, undiscovered by any other in the Company, suddenly fell into a cold Fit of Modesty. Upon a right Application of Praise of her Virtue, I threw the Lady into an agreeable waking Dream, settled the Fermentation of her Blood into a warm Charity, so as to make her look with Patience on the very Gentleman that offended.
"_HILARIA_, of the Parish of St. _Giles's in the Fields_, a Coquet of long Practice, was by the Reprimand of an old Maiden reduced to look grave in Company, and deny her self the Play of the Fan. In short, she was brought to such Melancholy Circumstances, that she would sometimes unawares fall into Devotion at Church. I advis'd her to take a few _innocent Freedoms with occasional Kisses_, prescribed her the _Exercise of the Eyes_, and immediately raised her to her former State of Life. She on a sudden recovered her Dimples, furled her Fan, threw round her Glances, and for these two _Sundays_ last past has not once been seen in an attentive Posture. This the Church-Wardens are ready to attest upon Oath.
"_ANDREW TERROR_, of the _Middle-Temple, Mohock_, was almost induced by an aged Bencher of the same House to leave off bright Conversation, and pore over _Cook upon Littleton_. He was so ill that his Hat began to flap, and he was seen one Day in the last Term at _Westminster-Hall_. This Patient had quite lost his Spirit of Contradiction; I, by the Distillation of a few of my vivifying Drops in his Ear, drew him from his Lethargy, and restored him to his usual vivacious Misunderstanding. He is at present very easie in his Condition.