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WHEN David Garrick and Samuel Johnson Came up to London In

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WHEN David Garrick and Samuel Johnson Came up to London In PREFACE WHEN David Garrick and Samuel Johnson came up to London in March, 1737, the metropolis was supporting no fewer than four and often five major legitimate theatres and a number of minor playhouses. In addition to the Theatres Royal in Drury Lane and Covent Garden, the major play- houses included Lincoln's Inn Fields (new theatre), Good- man's Fields in Ayliffe-street, and the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. To stage-struck young men from the provinces it must have seemed an era of unlimited opportunity and prosperity. But had they been invited behind scenes in the professional world of the theatres they would have found that all was in turmoil. Most of the gossip and speculation centered about Henry Fielding, manager of the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. His satiric attacks against the Government had become notorious, and it was momentarily expected that an irate ministry would retaliate. The extent of such disciplinary action was of vital concern to every member of the theatrical profession, transcending in importance the uncertain fate of Manager Fielding. Actually the existence of most major and all minor playhouses was in jeopardy. And three months after Garrick's arrival in London the blow fell. On June 21, 1737, the actors' worst fears were confirmed with the pas- sage in Parliament of a Licensing Act establishing the stage under the absolute control of the Lord Chamberlain, restrict- ing legitimate drama to the two Patent theatres in Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and investing the Lord Chamber- lain not only with power to license theatres but also with inclusive powers of censorship over all future dramatic productions. For a time after the passage of the Licensing Act man- viii PREFACE agers of outlawed playhouses used every possible strategy to evade the law and keep their theatres open. Lincoln's Inn Fields, the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, and Goodman's Fields all announced themselves as "the late theatres" and resorted to productions considered outside the strict reading of the law. Garrick himself made his London debut as Richard III (October 19, 1741) in a performance at Good- man's Fields which was given "gratis by persons for their diversions"; the play was inserted between two parts of a concert of music for which admission had been charged. By such devices the managers kept their houses going for a brief time, staging performances more and more sporadically each season. But it was already a lost cause, and by the time Garrick purchased his half of the Drury Lane patent these theatres had been effectively silenced and all legitimate activity was confined to Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres. The monopoly thus enjoyed by the patentees of the Theatres Royal remained unbroken throughout the years of Garrick's management, except for the unusual grant bestowed by the Crown upon Samuel Foote in 1766, whereby he was permitted to erect and operate a new Little Theatre on the site of the old one in the Haymarket. Here Foote was allowed to produce dramatic entertainments, but only in those months in which both Patent houses were closed for the season. When we speak, therefore, of "the theatrical public" we are centering attention solely upon the patrons of Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres, except in those instances in which it will be necessary to contrast this public with audi- ences of the earlier years before the Patent monopoly was established. When reference is made to so-called "minor theatres" during the period, it must be remembered that these were playhouses in which only productions of a non- dramatic nature were countenanced — musical entertain- ments, pantomimic spectacles, vaudeville, and animal acts PBEFACE ix — for the minor theatres as defined in the years before the Licensing Act did not achieve new life until the last decades of the eighteenth century. (For a list of the London theatres of this time see Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Late Eigh- teenth Century Drama 1750-1800, Cambridge, 1927.) All previous studies of London theatre audiences in the eighteenth century have been limited to brief sketches pro- viding the necessary background for discussion of the broader subjects of acting, stagecraft, and the literature of the theatre. In the main such sketches have interpreted the available evidence correctly as to the social categories, the behavior, and the taste of the theatrical public. They have, however, left unanswered such important questions as the size of the audiences, the economic aspects of eighteenth cen- tury playgoing, the quality of the spectators and that of the repertoire as measured in terms of popularity at the box office. While this study will not change the prevailing con- ception as to audiences of this period, it does attempt to answer these questions and to underscore by further evidence such impressions as we now possess. Most accounts stem from the spirited chapters on theatre audiences included by Dr. Doran in his Their Majesties' Servants: Annals of the English Stage (2 vols., London, i860). Later writers have accepted his contrasting of early and late eighteenth century audiences in matters of behavior and taste. They have added to his sketches pertinent materials drawn from the plays, from the prologues and epilogues, and other contemporary memorabilia. The most exhaustive and usable accounts to date have been those of Allardyce Nicoll in the two volumes of his history devoted to this period, and a critical study by James L. Lynch which appeared after this book had gone to press: Box, Pit, and Gallery; Stage and Society in Johnson's London (Univer- sity of California Press, 1953). Others who have considered the theatrical public in some detail are G. C. D. Odell (Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving, 2 vols., New York, X PREFACE 1920) and Alwin Thaler (From Shakespeare to Sheridan: a Book about the Theatre of Yesterday and Today, Cam- bridge, Mass., 1922). John A. Kelly's German Visitors to English Theaters in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton, 1936) provides a valuable commentary on the behavior and taste of English audiences as seen through the eyes of foreign travelers. For their courtesy in permitting me to quote from copy- righted works my acknowledgments are due to the Cam- bridge University Press for use of the text of The Chances, from The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, edited by Arnold Glover and A. R. Waller, for excerpts from Dr. Campbell's Diary of a Visit to England in 1775, edited by James L. Clifford, and for quotations from E. G. Dow- dell's A Hundred Years of Quarter Sessions and Allardyce Nicoll's two volumes devoted to the eighteenth century in A History of the English Drama 1660-1900; to Harvard University Press for quotations from Elizabeth Gilboy's Wages in Eighteenth Century England and R. G. Noyes's Ben Jonson on the English Stage 1660-1776; to the Hough- ton Mifflin Company for excerpts from Some Unpublished Correspondence of David Garrick, edited by George P. Baker; to Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for extensive excerpts from M. Dorothy George's London Life in the Eighteenth Century; to Dougald MacMillan and to the Oxford Univer- sity Press for permission to tabulate the repertoire and to quote from Drury Lane Calendar 1747-1776; to the North American Newspaper Alliance for an excerpt from a column of dramatic criticism by Mr. Lawrence Perry; to the Prince- ton University Press for extensive quotation from John Kelly's German Visitors to English Theaters in the Eigh- teenth Century; to the editors of Studies in Philology for excerpts from articles by George Winchester Stone, Jr.; and to Yale University Press for quotations from Fielding's Covent Garden Journal, edited by G. E. Jansen. Without the cooperation and kindness of librarians in PREFACE xi many cities in the United States and England this work would not have been possible. It is with pleasure that I acknowledge my indebtedness particularly to the librarians of the University of Pennsylvania, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the New York Public Library; to Mr. Edward Robertson, Librarian of the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester, England, for his kind per- mission to use Rylands English Ms. No. 1111 for statistical purposes; to the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D. C, its Director, Dr. Louis B. Wright, and especially to its Curator of Books and Manuscripts, Dr. Giles E. Dawson, for permission to quote extensively from the diaries of Wil- liam Hopkins and Richard Cross, prompters at Drury Lane Theatre during Garrick's management, from the account books of Drury Lane and Covent Garden Theatres, and from a Notebook of Clippings, 1770-1777. I am grateful to Professor Emmett L. Avery for his invaluable criticism of statistical methods employed in Chap- ter I, and I am also obliged to Professors W. Rex Crawford, Alfred B. Harbage, and Matthias Shaaber, for their reading of the manuscript and for much helpful criticism and advice. Dr. Harbage's own work Shakespeare's Audience (New York, 1941) has provided many hints as to investigation procedure. I wish to acknowledge also the courtesy of Mr. Maynard Morris of New York City in allowing me to verify certain facts from Garrick manuscripts in his possession, and the material assistance of the Reverend Harry E. Gardner, Vice-President of Waynesburg College. But I am under greatest obligation to Professor Arthur H. Scouten, friend and teacher, whose extensive knowledge of the period and genial understanding of my problem have followed my work and assisted in every way. HARRY WILLIAM PEDICORD Pittsburgh January, 1954 .
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