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2006 Of Priests, Fiends, Fops, and Fools: John Bowman's Song Performances on the London Stage, 1677-1701 Matthew A. Roberson

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF MUSIC

OF PRIESTS, FIENDS, FOPS, AND FOOLS:

JOHN BOWMAN’S SONG PERFORMANCES ON THE LONDON STAGE,

1677-1701

MATTHEW A. ROBERSON

A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2006

The members of the Committee approve the dissertation of Matthew A. Roberson defended on 22 May 2006.

______Jeffery Kite-Powell Professor Directing Dissertation

______Larry Gerber Outside Committee Member

______Charles Brewer Committee Member

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are many library staff that have assisted me while I have been working on this project. The entire staff at the Warren D. Allen Music library at Florida State University has always been very helpful, particularly Olena Chorna, who took on a few extra projects for me. I am grateful to the staff in the Humanities Reading Room at the British Library, to David Lasocki at Indiana University, and to Peter Ward Jones at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. At Faulkner University, Ashleigh Wyrosdick has worked tirelessly entering my music examples in Finale, and I am thankful for her assistance. I would especially like to thank Anthony Rooley, who first suggested the topic to me several years ago. He has often offered invaluable advice and has shared his extensive library with me, as well as housed and fed me while I was in London. Additionally, Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson have graciously answered all my many questions along the way, and I have greatly benefited from their guidance. My dissertation director and friend, Jeffery Kite-Powell, has been fantastic throughout every step of the process, and I would not have been successful without his professional direction and kind encouragement. Charles Brewer and Larry Gerber, who also served on my dissertation committee, have always been collegial and helpful. Finally, my family has made innumerable sacrifices this past year to allow me the time to work on this project, and their support has been paramount to its fruition.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………...v List of Figures…………………………………………………………………...... vi Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………...viii

1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………...... 1

2. CONVENTIONS AND STYLE IN THE PERFORMANCE OF SONG ……………28

3. APPRENTICESHIP AND DUKE’S COMPANY ROLES………………………….70

4. UNITED COMPANY (1682-1694) PART I: THE COMEDIES AND SERIOUS DRAMAS………………………114

5. UNITED COMPANY (1682-1694)…………………………………………………154 PART II: THE OPERAS

6. LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS (1695-1705)……………………………………...... 177

APPENDIX A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF SONGS PERFORMED BY BOWMAN……..227

APPENDIX B SONGS PERFORMED FOR THE DUKE’S COMPANY…..………………...231

APPENDIX C SONGS PERFORMED FOR THE UNITED COMPANY...…………………..239

APPENDIX D SONGS PERFORMED AT LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS..……………………..246

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………301

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH…………………………………………………………...313

LIST OF TABLES

2.1. Vices and Virtues of the Voice……………………………………………………...43

2.2. “With this sacred charming Wand”………...………………………………………60

4.1. “Let the dreadful Engines,” Part I…………..……………………………………..143

4.2. “Let the dreadful Engines,” Part II…………...…………………………………....143

4.3. “Let the dreadful Engines,” Part III…………...…………………………………...144

5.1. Possible Distribution of Bass Roles in Albion and Albanius ……………………...157

5.2. Bass Solos, Duets, and Trios in Dioclesian’s Act V Masque……………………...164

LIST OF FIGURES

2.1. “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 1-5……………………………………… 61

2.2. “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 5-6 ……………………………………... 63

2.3. “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 7-10 …………………………………….65

2.4. “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 11-13 …………………………………....66

2.5. “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 12-14 ……………………………………67

2.6. “With this sacred charming Wand,” 15-19 …………………………………………68

3.1. “Prepare, the Rites begin,” mm. 1-17 ……………………………………………..110

3.2. “Hark! behold the heav’nly choir,” mm. 19-35 …………………………………...113

4.1. “O Love, that stronger art than Wine!,” mm. 44-48 ………………………………119

4.2. “Celia that I once was Blest” (melody only) ……………………………………...121

4.3. “GreatT Jove once made Love like a Bull,” mm. 28-36 ……………………………129

4.4. “Of noble Race was Shinking” ……………………………………………………133

4.5. Illustration of Peter Holland’s Reading of The Double-Dealer …………………...137

4.6. “Ancient Phillis has young Graces” ……………………………………………….139

5.1. “Let us Laugh,” mm. 81-94 ……………………………………………………….158

5.2. “The Royal Squadron marches,” mm. 33-45 ……………………………………...159

5.3. “Great Diocles,” mm. 20-22 ………………………………………………………162

5.4. “Ye Blust’ring Brethren” …………………………………………………………166

5.5. “When a cruel long Winter” ………………………………………………………173

vi 5.6. “Come let us leave” ……………………………………………………………….174

5.7. “Hush, no more” …………………………………………………………………..175

6.1. “Fair Belinda’s youthful charms” …………………………………………………183

6.2. “Rich Mines of hot Love” …………………………………………………………187

6.3. “At dead of night, while wrapped in Sleep” ………………………………………199

6.4. “Thou Plague of my Life,” mm. 36-45 ……………………………………………209

6.5. “My Mars, My Venus” ……………………………………………………………210

6.6. “Arm Brittians,” mm. 1-4 (Voice and Continuo)………………………………….214

6.7. “Arm Brittians,” mm. 4-8 (Trumpets)……………………………………………..214

6.8. “Arm Brittians,” mm. 25-29 (Voice and Continuo)……………………………….215

6.9. “Arm Brittians,”mm. 47-49 (Voice and Continuo)………………………………..215

6.10. “Ye mighty Pow’rs,” mm. 37-43 ………………………………………………...217

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ABSTRACT

Referred to as Henry Purcell’s “favorite baritone,” the actor-singer John Bowman (ca. 1655-1739) became the leading baritone on the London stage during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Centering on the career and song performances of Bowman, this dissertation provides a fresh perspective from which to view Restoration music theater, a reorientation that shifts the spotlight away from the works themselves—the plays and their music—and away from composers and playwrights, to one that focuses on performers and their concerns. The purpose of this work is to provide an account of the performance practice of Restoration theater song using Bowman as a case study. Bowman is an excellent subject for a case study for several reasons. He sang in Purcell’s first stage commission and went on to sing many more songs by Purcell, as well as music by other significant composers of the era, including John Blow and John Eccles. As an actor, Bowman performed roles written by virtually every playwright of the late seventeenth century in England and worked with such actors as Thomas Betterton and Anne Bracegirdle. A desired outcome of this project is that singers wishing to cultivate their adeptness in historically informed performance of Restoration song will find this a helpful resource. To this end, Chapter II focuses wholly on performance practice in Restoration theater, covering both vocal production and acting, and concludes with a very detailed application of these to a song Bowman performed. This chapter also includes a guide outlining a practical approach for historically informed performance of Restoration theater song. As this guide shows, the initial step in the process, after having located the music, is to determine how each song fit into the larger dramatic context. Subsequent chapters are thus devoted principally to uncovering and reproducing all extant, unpublished songs Bowman performed, and to describing Bowman’s characters and the contexts in which their song performances occurred.

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

In May 1694, the United Company mounted the first two parts of Durfey’s trilogy The Comical History of Don Quixote, its final musical extravaganzas before the Actors’ 1 Rebellion that brought about the Company’s disintegration early the following year.TP PT At the beginning of Act IV during the premiere of Don Quixote I, the veteran actor John Bowman, dressed in “Ragged Cloaths,” stood poised to enter the stage of the Dorset Garden Theater with perhaps 800 or more spectators in attendance, seated uncomfortably 2 on wooden, backless benches.TP PT As Bowman observed from the wings, Thomas Doggett (playing Sancho Pancha) and William Bowen (as Don Quixote) entertained the crowd with their witty repartee, which Bowman eventually interrupts by singing from offstage. Upon hearing Bowman, Doggett, in Sancho’s hilarious country dialect, responds by telling Quixote that there is “another Adventure coming, and I hope ‘twill end better than the last, because it begins Musically.” This is Bowman’s cue, and, assuming a “Wild Posture” befitting a bedlamite, he enters as Cardenio, a gentleman who had been 3 “treacherously depriv’d of Luscinda, his Betroth’d.”TP PT Cardenio, as Don Quixote and Sancho quickly notice, is mad, driven frantic by love.

1 TP PT The Actors’ Rebellion is covered in detail in Judith Milhous’s Thomas Betterton and the Management of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 1695-1708 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979), 51-79. Durfey’s name often appears as “D’Urfey” in primary sources.

2 TP PT Although there are no extant attendance records of the performances, the June 1694 issue of the Gentleman’s Journal indicated that Don Quixote I was well attended: “The first part of Mr Durfey’s Don Quixote was so well received, that we have a second Part of that Comical History acted lately, which doubtless must be thought as entertaining as the first; since in this hot season it could bring such a numerous audience.” In the Preface to the edition of 1694, Durfey states that both parts of Don Quixote had “good success.”

3 TP PT This, according to the Dramatis Personae and the stage directions in the playbook. Durfey, The Comical History of Don Quixote, (London, 1694), 40.

1 As the audience observed the bizarre mad scene, glowingly lit by the candle chandelier above them and by the gas lamps lining the stage, they could hear the sustained sound of the continuo organ located in front of the stage where some of the 4 front rows were sometimes removed to accommodate larger instrumental groups.TP PT Bowman now stood quite near them on the forestage, which protruded some twenty feet 5 in front of the proscenium.TP PT At this intimate distance not even the “minutest Motion of a Feature” was ever lost, and a “Voice scarce rais’d above the Tone of a Whisper, either in Tenderness, Resignation, innocent Distress, or Jealousy, suppress’d” could be plainly 6 heard by the most distant ear.TP PT Bowman’s first utterance, however, was vociferous; Cardenio is hot with rage as he sings “Let the dreadful Engines of eternal will, the Thunder Roar and crooked Lighting kill,” one of the longest lyrics set by Henry Purcell and one of his most celebrated theater songs. 7 Here, Purcell tailored a masterful engine for his “favourite baritone”TP PT to grandstand his skill as both an actor and singer. Its many extended melismas require a deft and accurate voice capable of negotiating sometimes awkward intervals, as well as the agility to maneuver briskly through all vocal registers and the ability to maintain a high tessitura. Bowman, who from childhood trained under the famed actor Thomas Betterton, would certainly have followed his mentor’s dictum to “fix the Tone and Accent of his Voice to every Passion,” for “every Passion or Emotion of the Mind has from Nature its proper and peculiar Countenance, Sound and Gesture.” In fact, the “whole Body of Man,” according to Betterton, “all his Looks, and every Sound of his Voice, like Strings on an Instrument, receive their Sounds from the various Impulse of 8 the Passions.”TP PT In his performance of “Let the dreadful Engines” Bowman assuredly strove to shade not only every dynamic level and subtle color of his tone to accord with the passion being expressed, but also the slightest movement of his body, gesture of his hands, and minutest facial expression. As Cardenio proceeded to rail against Luscinda, and all women who tease, vex, torment, scold, scratch, and bite, the audience must have relished the inside joke, for an extra layer of humor lay in the fact that Bowman’s real- life spouse, Elizabeth, played the part of Luscinda.

4 TP PT Curtis Price, Music in Restoration Theatre (UMI Research Press, 1979), 82.

5 TP PT According to Colley Cibber this was the “usual Station of the Actors, in almost every Scene….” An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber with an Historical View of the Stage During His Own Time, ed. B.R.S. Fone (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968), 225.

6 TP PT Ibid., 225.

7 TP PT Curtis Price, Henry Purcell and the London Stage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 299.

8 TP PT Charles Gildon, The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton (London, 1710; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1970), 113 and 43.

2 Bowman’s performance of “Let the dreadful Engines” during the run of Don Quixote must have been a tour de force that left an indelible impression, for he was called on to sing it at least two other times later in his career. Upon the visit of the Envoy Extraordinary from the King of Portugal, Don Luiz da Cunha, who attended The Villian at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields playhouse in June 1703, Bowman was requested to sing the “Mad Song in Don Quixote” as entr’acte entertainment, and he once again appeared as the disheveled and deranged Cardenio in May 1704 during a performance of The Spanish 9 Fryar.TP PT Although these are the only recorded instances of Bowman performing Cardenio’s mad song outside its original context of Don Quixote, there may well have been many more that took place in the theaters themselves or in concert series, but these were simply not advertised. Nevertheless, it is clear that Durfey, Purcell, and Bowman together had created a chef d'oeuvre that captivated the London theater audience for at least a decade after its premiere. It may strike one as peculiar that a performer has been placed on an equal plane with poet and composer, and it certainly runs counter to the traditional approaches which have privileged paragons (such as Durfey and Purcell in this instance), while leaving others in history’s tiring rooms. Regarding this, Lowerre observed that the “theaters of the period have generally been used by historians as a backdrop for the life and works of great men, such as Henry Purcell or Thomas Betterton, rather than as associations of musicians, singers, composers, playwrights, and managers with a complex and interesting 10 history of their own.”TP PT As a performing art, theater is a collaborative effort involving not only playwrights and composers, but also a host of others who are essential in bringing performance to fruition. In Restoration theater, performers themselves comprised an integral part of the creative process, so much so, in fact, that the roles they were given were considered their property until they either died or decided to relinquish them. Furthermore, by the late seventeenth century, performers’ names began to have selling power, and music publishers eagerly included their names in publications of theater songs. It was often the case that the audience, after attending a show, remembered not just the song, but a particular performance of the song by a stage star. Significantly, the first singer’s name to be printed in this manner was in Durfey’s A New 11 Collection of Songs and Poems in 1683; the singer was John Bowman.TP PT By placing the career and performances of John Bowman at the heart of this dissertation, I hope to provide a fresh perspective from which to view Restoration theater, a reorientation that shifts the focus away from the works themselves—the plays and their music—and away from composers and playwrights, to one that centers on performers and their concerns. The purpose of my research is to provide an account of the performance practice of Restoration theater song using John Bowman as a case study, focusing on his

9 TP PT The London Stage 1660-1800, Part 2, V.1, 1700-1729, ed. Emmet L. Avery (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965), 38 and 66.

10 TP PT Kathryn J. Lowerre, “Music in the Productions at London’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theater, 1695-1705” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1997), 14.

11 TP PT Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers” in Performing the Music of Henry Purcell, ed. Michael Burden (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 110-11.

3 roles that required acting and singing, as well as his less involved parts in which he 12 appeared on stage briefly, simply to perform a song or two.TP PT This is relatively unexplored territory, as virtually all of the scholarly activity in this area is provided by 13 the fastidious teamwork of Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson.TP PT With a concentration on the encyclopedic task of bringing to light the biographies of a host of late-Restoration singers, their approach has necessarily been broad; yet with it they have laid a solid foundation that will allow more narrowed research into the careers of individual performers. I first became interested in researching Bowman during the course of rehearsals for John Eccles’s opera, Semele, presented by Florida State University in late February 2003. The show’s director, Anthony Rooley, had cast me as Jupiter and indicated that Eccles had probably written the part for a certain John Bowman who was to play opposite 14 Anne Bracegirdle in the title role.TP PT When we started rehearsals, I knew little of Restoration gesture and expression, or of the subtle variations of vocal color that singers such as Bowman would have employed in performance. Using as guides John Bulwer’s Chirologia for gesture and Gildon’s The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton for vocal color and expression, I analyzed the role of Jupiter, taking note of the passions suggested by Eccles’s score and Congreve’s libretto, and attempted to act the role in a style that was in harmony with the suggestions set forth by Bulwer and Gildon. It was a steep learning curve, and the work was difficult and tedious. Inevitably, if I had my body correctly positioned, then my hands would be “all wrong,” or if my hands achieved the desired position, then my face contorted to the extent that, on one particular occasion, I “looked 15 like a horse” (as Rooley put it while mimicking my expression).TP PT Then, of course, I had

12 TP PT Bowman had many speaking parts that required no music whatever, and, although I may mention some of these in passing, I will not discuss any in detail, as my focus here is on the performance of music.

13 TP PT See “Purcell’s Stage Singers;” “Purcell’s Sopranos,” Musical Times 123 (September 1982): 602-9; “Purcell’s Countertenors,” Musical Opinion 89 (1966): 661-5; “Alfred Deller, John Freeman and Mr. Pate,” Music & Letters 50 (January 1969): 103-10;

“RichardT Leveridge, 1670–1758,” MusicalTT Times,TT 61 (1970): 592–4, 891–3, 988–90;T and a host of short biographies on Restoration singers (including John Bowman) in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition.

14 TP PT This claim is probably incorrect, however. As I mention in Chapter VI, it is likely that Richard Leveridge would have performed Jupiter, if Semele had made it to the stage.

15 TP PT Avoidance of facial distortion was certainly a concern in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Pier Francesco Tosi, in his Observations on the Florid Song, wrote that when a young singer “studies his Lesson at Home, let him sometimes sing before a Looking-glass, not to be enamoured with his own Person, but to avoid those convulsive Motions of the Body, or of the Face (for so I call the Grimaces of an affected Singer)…,” Tosi, Observations, trans. Galliard, (1743; reprint, Geneva: Minkoff, 1978), 88-9. Roger North indicated that “Weomen are fearfull of the distortion of the face”

4 to perform the movements and gestures while singing, making sure to give each word its proper color and emphasis. Regardless of how inadequate my proficiency was by the time we finished Semele, I nevertheless felt a special connection to the Lincoln’s Inn Fields circle in general and to Bowman in particular, and as a result became eager to learn more about the performance practice of this era. A desired outcome of this project is that other singers—particularly baritones— wishing to cultivate their adeptness in historically informed performance of Restoration song will find this a helpful resource. To this end, Chapter II focuses wholly on performance practice in Restoration theater, covering both vocal production and acting, and concludes with a very detailed application of these to a song Bowman performed. In the performance chapter, I have also prepared a guide outlining a practical approach for historically informed performance of Restoration theater song. As this guide shows, the initial step in the process, after having located the music (much of which is not readily available), is to determine how each song fits into the larger dramatic context. I have thus devoted subsequent chapters principally to uncovering and reproducing all extant, unpublished songs Bowman performed, and to describing Bowman’s characters and the contexts in which their song performances occurred. Several songs warrant further explanation extrinsic to their immediate dramatic context, as do, for example, those that Bowman sang during the politically and religiously charged years of the Popish Plot and 16 Exclusion Crisis.TP PT In this manner, Bowman’s song performances provide points of contact with not only with the London theater world, but also London society, religion, and politics. Each of these four chapters reflects a distinct phase in Bowman’s career, and since he performed the majority of his songs in the middle two periods, I naturally devote more attention to these. Each chapter is organized by dramatic genre (e.g., comedy, serious drama, and opera), with a chronological progression though each category. The dissertation is therefore laid out as follows:

Chapter II: Conventions and Style in the Performance of Song Chapter III: Apprenticeship and Duke’s Company Roles (ca.1670-1682) Chapter IV: United Company Roles (1682-1694), Part I: The Comedies and Serious Dramas Chapter V: United Company Roles, Part II: The Operas Chapter VI: Roles at Lincoln’s Inn Fields (1695-1705)

Bowman is an excellent subject for a case study for several reasons. First, his professional career spanned over half a century, beginning during the reign of Charles II in 1674 and ending in 1738, well into the reign of George II. He was thus involved in or witnessed first hand the major events that shaped theater history throughout the Restoration and continuing through the rise and fall of Italian opera seria in the 1710s and 1720s, and culminating in the rise of ballad opera in the 1720s and 1730s. He sang in Purcell’s first stage commission, Theodosius (1680), and went on to sing many more

when singing. See Roger North, Roger North on Music, ed. John Wilson (London: Novello, 1959), 215.

16 TP PT The Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis are discussed in Chapter III.

5 songs by Purcell, as well as music by other significant composers of the era, including Blow and Eccles. He performed roles written by virtually every playwright of the late seventeenth century (and earlier ones as well), including those by Shakespeare, Thomas Shadwell, Thomas Otway, Nathaniel Lee, John Dryden, Thomas Durfey, Nahum Tate, Aphra Behn, Elkanah Settle, and William Congreve. On stage he worked with such actors as Thomas Betterton, William Mountfort, Thomas Doggett, Colley Cibber, Elizabeth Barry, Charlotte Butler, and Anne Bracegirdle. He performed in most of London’s major theaters—Dorset Garden, Drury Lane, and Lincoln’s Inn Fields—under managers such as Betterton, John Vanbrugh, and Christopher Rich. In short, Bowman worked with most of the musicians, singers, composers, playwrights, and managers in the London theater world. By tracing Bowman’s song performances throughout his long career, the potential points of contact are vast. Bowman’s ability to act well and sing fabulously made him an uncommonly versatile performer. Typically, dramatists structured plays so that principal characters did not sing, this function being reserved for the so-called “professional singer” or “specialist singer” who played minor characters that do little else than sing during the course of the play. Many of Bowman’s roles were of this variety, and a great deal of his parts required no singing at all (and, for the purposes of my research, these non-singing roles will receive little commentary). Significantly, Bowman’s abilities made him an ideal choice for roles that required both singing and substantial spoken lines. In the secondary literature on music in English theater of this period, a few scholars use the term “actor- singer” or “singing actor” to distinguish this particular type of performer from the specialist singer and the non-singing actor. Regarding the actor-singer, Curtis Price writes in Henry Purcell and the London Stage, that in “the early nineties a new breed of actors found their way onto the London stage. Thomas Doggett, Charlotte Butler, Anne Bracegirdle, Mountfort, and others had respectable singing voices and frequently 17 delivered songs in character.”TP PT In Music in the Restoration Theatre he says “a few actors specialized in roles requiring them to sing art songs as well as to portray important speaking characters,” and he goes on to name Anne Bracegirdle, John Bowman, Thomas Doggett, and Letitia Cross as exceptional players who sang “in character” and who “seem 18 to have been capable of high levels of performance.”TP PT Although there had been roles since the beginning of the Restoration that required players to sing, most of the songs 19 written for them were not “musically sophisticated,”TP PT and even as late as the mid 1680s there is evidence that the available actors could not handle difficult music. Luis Grabu, in his 1684 dedication of Albion and Albanius, blamed the work’s failure on England’s lack of quality singers:

The only Displeasure which remains with me, is, that I neither was nor could possibly be furnish’d with variety of excellent Voices, to present it to Your

17 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 15.

18 TP PT Price, Music in the Restoration Theatre, (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1979), 68-9.

19 TP PT Price, Music in Restoration Theatre, 69.

6 Majesty in its full perfection. Notwithstanding which, You have been pleas’d to pardon this Defect, as not proceeding from any fault of mine, but only from the scarcity of Singers in this Island.

Perhaps Grabu simply needed to fabricate a scapegoat for the failure of his work, because he certainly could not publicly blame its actual cause: since the plot of Albion and Albanius is a thinly veiled allegory of the Restoration, its demise resulted from political 20 circumstances that coincided with its premiere.TP PT In spite of this, John Caldwell believes that Grabu’s complaint may have been justified, as “the tradition of great singing actors and actresses had not been established in England, the vocal parts in semi-operas being subsidiary to the main action. The effort of sustaining a full-scale opera may well have 21 been too much for the vocal talent then available.”TP PT Caldwell’s remark here is equivocal. Certainly, there must have been enough vocal talent in the whole of England, but there may well not have been a sufficient number of performers who could both sing challenging music and act convincingly in the highly conventionalized style of the era. 22 Because Bowman had been singing art songs in character as early as 1678,TP PT he may well have been influential not only in pioneering the style of this “new breed” of actor, but also an inspiration for playwrights to create more roles that required both acting and singing in character.

Conventions for Music in Restoration Drama

From today’s perspective, the concept of actors singing in character is completely axiomatic. In a twentieth-century musical, the audience does not give a second thought to Curley’s sudden shift from spoken monologue to singing “There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow” in Oklahoma!. The audience understands the convention and suspends disbelief accordingly. Occasionally, musicals today are sung throughout in the manner of opera, such as Alain Boublil’s and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Les Miserables and Martin Guerre; here, as in musicals and opera, actors also sing in character. In the late seventeenth century, however, theatrical music did not occur as in musicals today, nor within the context of opera—at least as opera would have been known on the continent at the time. Indeed, only three all-sung dramatic works in English were written in the

20 TP PT See Curtis Price: “Albion and Albanius,” Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 17 May 2004), http://www.grovemusic.com.

21 TP PT John Caldwell, The Oxford History of English Music, Vol. 1, From the Beginnings to c. 1715 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 575-6.

22 TP PT Bowman’s first documented song performance was in The Counterfeit Bridegroom in 1677, but this was a drinking song. In Friendship in Fashion (1678), he sang the more challenging “When Phillis watcht her harmless Sheep.”

7 seventeenth century: Blow’s Venus and Adonis (1682), Grabu’s Albion and Albanius (1685), and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (1689). In the early eighteenth century, “several persons of quality” made an attempt to stimulate interest in English opera by arranging a 23 competition and offering prize money for the one who could “compose the best.”TP PT In spring 1701 John Eccles, Daniel Purcell, Gottfried Finger, and John Weldon each submitted their settings of Congreve’s The Judgment of Paris, with Weldon winning first place. In spite of this, London theaters mounted only a few other all-sung dramatic works in English in the ensuing years, and the failure of Thomas Clayton’s Rosamond after only three nights in March 1707 “probably extinguished any idea of attempting 24 another all-sung English opera.”TP PT The regrettable consequence was that Eccles’s Semele (1707), a masterpiece that might have changed the ill-fated course of English opera, was shelved and went unperformed until the twentieth century. In contrast to the role of the theatrical singer on the continent, Restoration singers practiced their art in the context of spoken plays—the serious dramas and the comedies— as well as in what the English called “semi-opera” or “ambigue entertainment,” essentially plays with at least four extended episodes of singing, dancing, and elaborate 25 spectacle.TP PT Much has been written bemoaning England’s ultimate failure to produce an operatic tradition parallel to that of Italy, but as Price has explained, “the English felt no 26 compelling need to have it.”TP PT Actors and playwrights objected to the importation of 27 Italianate opera, because they knew it would not suit “rational” English taste.TP PT Roger North, an avid amateur musician and theatergoer, disliked all-sung opera, because the singers in the drama represented real human beings, who obviously would not go about 28 singing ceaselessly, and to have them do so would be markedly irrational.TP PT It would also be irrational for speaking characters to burst suddenly into song without cause. The English clearly preferred spoken drama with music inserted in appropriate places, and, as Luckett has shown with semi-opera, this type of entertainment was a truly national form 29 that was more proper to their “Genious.”TP PT

23 TP ThisPT was first advertised on 21 March 1700 in the London Gazette.

24 TP PT John Eccles, Semele: An Opera, ed. Richard Platt, in Musica Britannica, Vol. 76 (London: Stainer and Bell, 2000), xxv.

25 TP PT See Curtis Price and Louise K. Stein, “Semi-opera [dramatic opera, English opera, ambigue]” Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 17 May 2004), http://www.grovemusic.com.

26 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 4.

27 TP PT Price, “Semi-opera.”

28 TP PT North, Roger North on Music, 307.

29 TP PT Luckett, “Exotick but Rational Entertainments,” in English Drama: Forms and Development, ed. Marie Axton and Raymond Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 123-41. Shadwell noted that his Psyche (1675) was “mix’t

8 In order to appease the audience’s concern for this English variety of Baroque verisimilitude, playwrights contrived certain stock scenes in which they could rationally incorporate music. For the English “verisimilar” meant that music should occur in the play as it might in real-life situations, or, alternatively, in contexts not bound by human constraints (although there is not always a clear distinction between the two). In his treatise on Betterton, Gildon quotes from a letter railing against all-sung opera, in which the author explains that some dramatic contexts are appropriate for singing and some are not. Anything that “relates to Conversation, to the Intrigues and Affairs, to Counsel and Action” he says is “highly ridiculous” in the mouth of a singer, as this would be nothing short of a sin “against Probability, Decency and Reason.” It is, however, reasonable to sing “Vows, Prayers, Praises, Sacrifices, and generally all that relates to the Service of 30 the Gods,” as these have always been sung in all nations.TP PT The author is not proposing a new dramatic theory, but rather defending what Restoration audiences traditionally valued and what dramatists consistently put into practice. The conventions for music reflect these situations. 31 In the serious dramas,TP onePT of the chief conventions was the conjuration scene, which usually involved a necromancer who calls upon singing spirits to prophesy. An example of this type can be found in Dryden’s and Sir Robert Howard’s The Indian Queen (1695), in which Bowman was likely slated to perform the role of the conjurer, Ismeron. In Act III, Scene ii, Queen Zempoalla, troubled by an ominous dream, calls on Ismeron to charm the God of Dreams to offer an interpretation. Ismeron acquiesces and begins an incantation in recitative, “You twice ten hundred deities,” followed by the aria, “By the croaking of the toad,” both set by Purcell. Following this, the God of Dreams is roused, providing further supernatural justification for music, and he answers Ismeron’s plea with Purcell’s “Seek not to know.”

…with interlocutions as more proper to our Genious,” and Peter Motteux, in The Gentleman’s Journal for January 1692, stated that “…experience hath taught us that our English genius will not relish that perpetual Singing.” See Luckett, 131 and 133.

30 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 164. The letter was written by one Monsieur St. Evremont to the Duke of Buckingham.

31 TP PT Generic typology of Restoration plays is a thorny issue. Robert Hume, for example, in The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976) subdivides comedy and serious drama into eight varieties for each. I have chosen to adopt partially Price’s categorization in Henry Purcell and the London Stage, which takes musical conventions into account. His divisions are as follows: serious dramas and tragic extravaganzas (serious plays with more than the usual amount of music), comedies and comic extravaganzas, and operas (in which he includes semi-opera). Because this work deals with fewer plays than Price’s, I use only the rubrics “comedies,” “serious dramas,” and “operas.”

9 The split of the United Company in 1694 before its premiere prevented Bowman 32 from performing this role,TP PT but there is every indication that Purcell composed Ismeron’s recitative and aria with Bowman in mind. It must be remembered that The Indian Queen followed on the heels of Don Quixote’s success, and, like Cardenio’s aria, in which

Purcell had Bowman singing repeated G4B s,B Ismeron’s “You twice ten hundred deities” 33 also had a section with three G4B sB in quick succession.TP PT As Price has pointed out, Purcell had to rewrite this section when he learned that Richard Leveridge, whose comfortable 34 range apparently topped out at about E4B B at this time, would be taking the role.TP PT The b revised version does not exceed EP 4PB .B This serves as a reminder that Restoration composers did indeed tailor their songs to suit a particular performer, and Purcell intended the original version of Ismeron’s music to highlight Bowman’s talent for using his high register to achieve great dramatic effect. Another way to rationalize music in drama was to incorporate situations in which music was normatively used in non-theatrical contexts. Such scenes included temple rituals—Christian and pagan—or other ceremonial processions, such as weddings, and also occasions in which a main character calls upon serenading musicians for 35 entertainment or assuagement.TP PT In one of his earliest roles, Bowman played the priest Atticus in Theodosius, a part that required a significant amount of singing in temple rituals. The play opens with a temple ceremony to confer holy orders on the emperor Theodosius. As instruments play solemn music, Atticus enters in “rich Robes” accompanied by attendants, and after a chorus is heard in the distance, he sings Purcell’s “Prepare, the rites begin,” followed by a trio of priests that included Atticus as well. Acts III and V also have temple scenes in which Atticus sings. In the fifth act, Theodosius has music used for a serenade for Athenais, who is troubled because she must choose to marry either Varanes, whom she loves deeply, or Theodosius at her father’s request. She then asks her servant to “Go fetch thy Lute, and sing those lines I gave thee.” The servant returns and sings “Ah cruel bloody Fate” to comfort Athenais. Playwrights

32 TP PT Bowman, along with the other experienced members of the company—Barry, Bracegirdle, Doggett, and others—followed Betterton to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, but Purcell remained with Rich at Drury Lane, as did the rights to The Indian Queen.

33 TP PT All pitch indications are based on the system devised by the Acoustical Society of America and endorsed by the U.S.A. Standards Association:

34 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 128-9. Later, Leveridge must have extended his range, as he performed “Let the dreadful Engines” as early as 1702, when he was in his early thirties.

35 TP PT For as Gildon states, “the Irresolution and Doubts of a Soul toss’d by the several Emotions of that Passion, are the Subject for Stanzas, or Lyric Poetry, and so is that for Music,” Betterton, 164.

10 commonly employed uplifting songs in tragedies, a testament to their belief in music’s power to move the affections. Although this particular song takes place in Athenais’s private chamber, dramatists sometimes wrote extended musical scenes for entertainments or assuagement 36 that took place in the bucolic world of the grove.TP PT In pastoral grove scenes, shepherds and shepherdesses, or some other rural personages, often performed for assuagement or staged entertainments with singing and dancing. Set in Arcadia, the mythical land where swains and shepherdesses live, love, and (most importantly) sing and dance, the appeal of these to rational English taste is apparent. Purcell lavished much of his finest music on stock-in-trade Arcadiana, so much so, in fact, that his contemporaries thought it fitting to honor him with a pastoral epithet: upon his death in 1695, the Drury Lane Theater paid homage to the composer by performing Jeremiah Clarke’s newly-composed ode Come, Come Along for a Dance and a Song, a pastoral work featuring shepherds who lament the 37 passing of the “Glory of ye Arcadian Groves.”TP PT Purcell set a pastoral text in Dryden’s comedy Amphitryon (1690) for Bowman, who, in addition to performing the small speaking role of Phoebus in Act I, also sang as 38 an anonymous musician in Act III, and in the pastoral dialogue in Act IV.TP PT Purcell’s “Dialogue betwixt Thyrsis and Iris” in Act IV follows the conventional pattern: the concupiscent shepherd, Thrysis, makes his advances, and Iris (sung by Charlotte Butler), after coyly objecting, consents in the closing chorus on the condition that he tell no one of their amours. Here, as in many of the pastoral scenes, the events in the dialogues or songs are not completely incidental to the play, but instead either represent the feelings of speaking characters, presage events to come, or have a play-within-a-play effect, serving as an allegory of actual events in the plot. Since the dramatis personae in playbooks usually do not list the names of the musicians who performed such entertainments, it is difficult to pin down definitively who performed these parts. Unless song publishers appended the singers’ names to the pieces they sang or a manuscript listed the singers (as in this case), one often has to narrow the selection down to a few plausible singers. Because there are so many songs for which singers’ names are not known, it is impractical to make conjectures, without any corroborating evidence, as to whether Bowman performed many of these. However, because he almost certainly performed in the operatic works staged by the United Company, I have devoted much of Chapter V to 39 establishing his possible roles or songs in these.TP PT

36 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 29.

37 TP PT Baldwin and Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers,” 105.

38 TP PT Though the music was printed in the 1690 playbook, it does not supply any singers’ names. A complete manuscript score of the music survives (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum MS 683) which lists Bowman. See Curtis Price’s discussion of Amphitryon in Henry Purcell, 147-153.

39 TP PT These include Grabu’s Albion and Albanius (1685) and Purcell’s three semi- operas—Dioclesian (1690), King Arthur (1691), and The Fairy Queen (1692). Of these, King Arthur is the only one in which Bowman is known to have sung.

11 As in the serious plays, music in comedies was inserted for stock scenes such as serenades and entertainments, but because of the much stronger sense of dramatic verisimilitude in comedies—the plots usually having contemporary settings rather than historical or mythological subjects—it was more difficult to integrate music rationally 40 into the plot.TP PT For this reason, the singing spirits and shepherds of the serious plays are replaced by singing masters and local musicians in the comedies, though this is not always the case, as magic—either real or feigned—is sometimes used in comedies (as in Amphitryon and Don Quixote, for instance). Even though there are typically no extended pastoral scenes in the comedies, many of the songs were on pastoral topics. One such example of this occurs in Congreve’s The Old Bachelor (March 1693), in which Bowman 41 possibly played the part of Mr. Gavot,TP PT the singing master of Mrs. Araminta (played by Bracegirdle). In Act II, he is called upon to sing Purcell’s “Thus to a ripe consenting maid,” a pastoral song in which “an older and wiser shepherdess, who has been wronged in love, councils an inexperienced maid never to let a man discover too much about her, 42 for if he does he will find that ‘Every woman is the same.’”TP PT By far the most eccentric convention for singing in comedies was to have a character either feign insanity or become truly mad. In either case, because the character is inherently irrational, there is no need to contrive a rationale for their “mad” songs. Sung solely by actor-singers, mad songs were a special attraction to the theater, as one can infer from the advertisements listing Bowman’s entr’acte performances of “Let the dreadful Engines” and the furor Anne Bracegirdle caused with her performance of Eccles’s “I burn, I burn,” a mad song in Don Quixote II. According to Durfey, the latter was “so incomparably well sung, and acted by Mrs. Bracegirdle, that the most envious do allow as well as the most ingenious affirm, that ‘tis the best of that kind ever done before.” Of this, Price quipped that the “‘most envious’ might well have included Bowman and the ‘most ingenious’ Purcell,” suggesting a friendly, in-house mad song 43 rivalry.TP PT For audiences, the appeal of this genre must have been in watching their favorite actor or actress vivify bedlam, for in the mad song these irrational characters are given free reign to move through several passions in quick succession with sometimes mercurial mood shifts. Bowman’s performance of his famous mad song is covered at length in Chapter IV.

40 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 206.

41 TP PT Margaret Laurie, “Purcell’s Stage Works,” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1962), 193. The playbook does not indicate who played Mr. Gavot, but this is a type of role at which Bowman excelled.

42 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 183.

43 TP PT Ibid., 215.

12 Bowman and London Theater

The Patent Companies

The Duke’s company, the acting troupe that recruited Bowman in the early 1670s, was one of only two that were active between 1660 and 1682. Before these companies opened in 1660, Puritan leaders had banned all theaters from operating throughout the Civil War and Interregnum, a period spanning nearly two decades from 1642 to 1660. Once in power, the Puritans attempted to enforce their strict codes of morality on society as a whole, believing that if they had the power to suppress immorality, then they should 44 do so, in order to save society from the wrath of God’s judgment.TP PT In their view, theaters were bastions of immorality and scurrility, and their abolition would eliminate a significant source of sinfulness. After the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, died in 1658, the Protectorate soon collapsed, and in 1660, Charles Stuart, who had been in exile on the Continent since 1646, was invited back to head the restored monarchy as King Charles II. Upon his return he soon set about restoring the fortunes of those who had lost them to the Royalist cause. Among those were Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant, courtiers who knew Charles personally and shared the exile. In the years before the war, Davenant worked with Inigo Jones on lavish court masques and served as a playwright for the King’s Men. Having secured a theatrical patent from Charles I in 1639, he undoubtedly felt he should receive preferment at the restoration and in July 1660 requested permission from Charles II to establish a theatrical company. Killigrew, though a theater lover, benefited more from his close companionship with Charles during exile than from any substantial claim to theatrical distinction and considered theater an investment that would help restore his fortune. On 21 August 1660, Charles recompensed both men, issuing a 45 warrant that granted a joint monopoly over London theater.TP PT In April 1662 they consolidated their position when Charles granted them individual patents that were 46 hereditary, as they could be passed to their “heirs or assigns and none other.”TP PT These documents also named the companies; Killigrew’s was to be officially called the “King’s Company” and Davenant’s the “Duke of York’s Company.” There are several aspects of this arrangement that warrant comment, as they shaped the London theater world for years to come. From its outset, the theater was exclusive: it was run by two friends of the King, who knew and catered to his taste. Killigrew and Davenant thus commissioned men of social distinction who had direct

44 TP PT Donald P. Campbell, “Puritan Belief and Musical Practices in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries” (D.M.A. diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1994), 43.

45 TP PT This is transcribed in David Thomas and Arnold Hare, Restoration and Georgian England, 1660-1788, Theatre in Europe: A Documentary History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 11-12.

46 TP PT Ibid., 17.

13 access to the king—the Earl of Orrery, the Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Bristol, Sir Robert Howard, Sir George Etherege, and Sir Samuel Tuke—to write plays that reflected court interests. As John Loftis has noted, the Restoration court was characterized by immense self-confidence, resulting from the combination of youth, rank, and ability, a quality voiced by Dryden in the epilogue to the second part of The Conquest of Granada (1671) in which he exalts Restoration wit to the detriment of Renaissance drama:

Wit’s now arriv’d to a more high degree; Our native Language more refin’d and free. Our Ladies and our men now speak more wit 47 In conversation, than those Poets writ.TP PT

When Dryden was criticized for these lines, he responded by writing a Defence of the Epilogue, in which he maintains that, in contrast to earlier periods, Restoration drama is created by and for courtiers, and its greatest advantage is that it “proceeds from 48 conversation,” that is, the type of witty repartee to which courtiers aspired.TP PT Alexander Radcliffe, in fact, criticized Etheredge for his unimaginative depiction of fashionable society in Man of Mode, claiming that he had merely taken dictation of the conversations 49 that he heard and had added very little art.TP PT The court bias of the theater alienated many would-be theatergoers, citizens who 50 otherwise might have “flocked to the playhouses as in Elizabethan times.”TP PT “Courtiers,” wrote Nicoll, “made of the theatre a meeting-place of their own, so that those citizens 51 who still retained their Puritan convictions shunned the place like the plague.”TP PT Though Nicoll perhaps overstates this, there was much ado in the theater that could potentially offend the sensibilities of those not moving in court circles, as playwrights often satirized those who had supported the Parliamentarian cause during the war and were therefore 52 responsible for the Royalists’ misfortunes.TP PT Moreover, playwrights responded to the “increasing taste for bawdy in the aristocratic and elite circles,” creating, for example, characters such as Lady Laycock and Lovemore in The Amorous Widow (1667) and Lady

47 TP PT Quoted in John Loftis, The Revels History of Drama in English, V.5, 1660- 1750, 4.

48 TP PT Quoted in Ibid., 4.

49 TP PT Alexander Radcliffe, The Ramble: an anti-heroick poem (London, 1682), 5.

50 TP PT Allardyce Nicoll, A History of English Drama, V. I, Restoration Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), 7.

51 TP PT Ibid., 7.

52 TP PT For more information on this topic see John Loftis, “Political and Social Thought in the Drama,” in London Theatre World, 253-285.

14 Cockwood in She Would if She Could (1668), who are wholly motivated by their sex 53 drive.TP PT Critics looked on the well-known licentiousness of Charles’s court with a suspicious eye, leading one to complain that “fornication is no sin with them, and adultery is the least; they not considering in every such act, that they invade their 54 neighbour’s freehold.”TP PT Open about his adulterousness, Charles refused to believe that 55 “God would damn a man for taking a little pleasure by the way,”TP PT and on Sundays might be seen receiving communion with legitimate sons on one side of him and bastards on the other. In his poem On King Charles of 1673, the Earl of Rochester immortalized Charles’s restless womanizing in rhymed couplets: “Restless he rolls about from whore to whore, /A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.” Many courtiers and affluent men followed the merry monarch’s profligate example; Rochester, Buckingham, Charles Sedley, Samuel Pepys, Robert Hooke, Sir George Downing are among the well- 56 documented examples.TP PT It was a court guided by an ideology of self-indulgence, values that, when articulated in theater, suggest “a hardening of behavioural arteries, as if the known licentiousness of courtly life needed a theatrical mirror though which its jaded 57 sensibilities might be titillated anew.”TP PT Without the theatrical patents, court ideology would not have inundated theaters to the extent that it did, and the course of Restoration theater history would have been vastly different had the theaters been able to cater to a broader and more representative social base. In granting monopolies to the courtiers Davenant and Killigrew, Charles enforced the aristocratic bias of the theaters with legal 58 sanctions throughout his reign.TP PT Early in Charles’s reign, anyone publicizing anti- theatrical sentiments became targets of pro-stage propagandists, “who were adept at 59 associating anti-stage invective with insurrection and regicide.”TP PT The tide began to turn

53 TP PT Simon Trussler, The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 124.

54 TP PT Richard Graham Preston, Angliae speculum morale (London, 1670), 14-15.

55 TP PT John Morrill, “The Stuarts,” in Kenneth O. Morgan, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984, Reprint 1996), 333.

56 TP PT For an in-depth discussion of sex in the Restoration see John Spurr, England in the 1670s, Chapter 7, “Tyrannic Love: Sex, Marriage and Politics, 179-213. Incidentally, Charles Sedley and Bowman are both buried at St. Giles in the Fields.

57 TP PT Trussler, History of British Theatre, 124.

58 TP PT John Loftis, “Governmental Control of the Theatres,” in The Revels History of Drama in English, V.5, 1660-1750, 26.

59 TP PT Michael Cordner, “Playwright versus Priest: Profanity and the Wit of Restoration Comedy,” in Deborah Payne Fisk, ed., The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 209.

15 during the joint reign of William and Mary, whose initiative of moral reform emboldened critics of stage immorality during the 1690s to voice their dissent. After the publication of Jeremy Collier’s A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage 60 (1698), censorship forced playwrights to repent.TP PT

The Audience

Virtually every major history of the Restoration stage includes a section or chapter on the audience, usually covering such diverse topics as the audience’s social makeup, its behavior and dress, theater architecture and theater capacity, and audience size. All of these factors exerted a direct influence on acting and theatrical spectacle, and, when taken into account, a picture emerges of an audience, cast, and crew with vastly different expectations about theatrical entertainment than those of today’s audience. Mention has already been made of the narrow social composition of the audience, but the extent of the narrowness has been a source of debate among historians. Nicoll, referred to above, argued that “at least four-fifths of the entire audience” was made up of “courtiers and their satellites,” while Emmett Avery indicated that there were 61 also many administrators, doctors, lawyers, and even some merchants.TP PT More recently Harry William Pidicord has elaborated on Avery’s stance, citing many examples where evidence exists of a broader audience in Charles’s reign. He quotes Pepys, who, for instance, complained in 1662 that he was “not so well pleased with company at the house [Duke’s Theater] today, which was full of Citizens, there hardly being a gentleman or woman in the house but a couple of pretty ladies by us, that made sport at it, being jostled and crowded by prentices.” Again in 1667 Pepys wrote that he could not remember when 62 he saw so many “ordinary prentices and mean people in the pit.”TP PT That Pepys made these remarks points out that he at least thought that the attendance of so many “mean people” in an area of the theater normally occupied by the bonne vivant, was exceptional

60 TP PT Calhoun Winton writes that the “practical effect of the Collier controversy as far as the theatres were concerned was increased activity on the part of the censoring authorities,” and later he adds that the theater companies began “treading warily” and “censoring themselves.” See “Dramatic Censorship” in London Theatre World, 298-301.

61 TP PT Allardyce Nicoll, A History of English Drama, 8. Emmett Avery, “The Restoration Audience” Philological Quarterly 45, no. 1 (January 1966): 54-61. Others who argue for a coterie audience include K.M.P. Burton, Restoration Literature (London: Hutchinson, 1958); D.R.M. Wilkinson, The Comedy of Habit (Leiden: Universitaire Pers, 1964); and A.S. Bear, “Criticism and Social Change: the Case for Restoration Drama,” Komos, 2 no 1, 23-31. Others who have written about a more diverse audience include Harold Love, “Bear’s Case Laid Open; Or, A Timely Warning to Literary Sociologists,” Komos, 2 no. 2, 72-80; John Loftis, Comedy and Society from Congreve to Fielding (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959); and Robert D. Hume, The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).

62 TP PT Harry William Pedicord, “The Changing Audience,” in London Theatre World, 237-40.

16 at this time. Pedicord concludes that the audience changed throughout the Restoration; during Charles’s reign it was more or less homogeneous, but soon thereafter it became diversified. This seems to be the generally accepted view in the historiography, and recent debates have been concerned with defining when the change began to occur. No lasting changes in the audience demographic seem to have taken place before the 63 Glorious Revolution of 1688, however.TP PT When Styan stated in 1986 that “there is no need to re-open the issue of the composition of the audience,” he summed up the situation nicely and reconciled the opposing viewpoints:

It is sufficient that for a particular social group the playhouses were on a pleasure circuit that included the parks and the brothels, the gaming-houses and the bagnios. For if we accept Avery’s argument that the audience also contained a good number of professional men and their wives…Nicoll’s idea that the nobility and their ladies were at the centre of things is not exploded. Avery’s playgoers shared the same privileged background and by no means made the audience more representative of the people of London. In any case, there is no reason to doubt that the playwrights, like the actors, aimed their wit at the highest social level of the house, indeed, at the better-paying part of the audience….Everything points to this extraordinary fact about Restoration drama: that the social attitude of its 64 audience was the narrowest in the history of the public theatre.TP PT

Though Styan does not explicitly state that he is reacting to Peter Holland’s comments about audience composition, his word choice when defending Nicoll (whose idea he says “is not exploded”), reveals that Holland missed the mark in his view. Writing in praise of Avery’s scholarship, Holland says that “Only in recent years has the myth of the Restoration audience as a court coterie at last been exploded,” adding, “there is no excuse now for seeing the theatre audience as the extension of a debauched and immoral 65 court.”TP PT After having spent the next several pages arguing these points, Holland concludes, “The shift from evaluating the plays themselves to evaluating the right 66 relationship of play to spectator shows clearly that the theatre is accepted.”TP PT

63 TP PT Regarding the changing audience, John Loftis wrote that “Some broadening in the social range of the audience there may have been [in the early 1670s as a result of the Third Dutch War], but I can see no evidence of a major and lasting change until after the Revolution [that is, the Glorious Revolution of 1688].” “The Audience,” in The Revels History, V. 5, 17-18.

64 TP PT J.L. Styan, Restoration Comedy in Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 7.

65 TP PT Peter Holland, The Ornament of Action: Text and Performance in Restoration Comedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 4.

66 TP PT Ibid., 9.

17 Holland implies here, however, that before this “shift,” evaluating the plays themselves revealed an undeniable immorality onstage that was out of step with the Bible-based ethics of many. This would have held true whether one were a Puritan or not, such as in the case of John Evelyn, a friend of Charles, a court insider and devout high-church Anglican, who wrote after seeing an opera at the end of the Interregnum that “in a time of such a publique Consternation, such a Vanity should not be kept up or permitted.” Being with company, he could not “decently resist the going to see it,” but it 67 clearly troubled his conscience, as he wrote that his “heart smote him” for attending.TP PT Though Evelyn attended the theater occasionally, his relationship with it was uneasy. He wrote on 18 October 1666, that he attended the public theaters “very seldom at any time…now as they were abused, to an atheisticall liberty, fowle & undecent,” and when his daughter Mary died on 14 March 1685, he listed her many virtues, including her 68 aversion to the theater.TP PT Even Pepys tried to moderate his theatergoing, feeling 69 remorseful when he broke his resolution against frequent attendance.TP PT The source of theater immorality was, of course, the court culture from which the theater took its cues, but even at court, not everyone lived decadently. Evaluating the “right” relationship of play to spectator shows not that theater was accepted, as Holland states, but rather that audiences who went to the theater accepted, or at least tolerated, the representation of immortality onstage. The relationship between the play and the audience might better be expressed in terms of mediation theory, in which a cultural mediator, in this case the Restoration theater, communicates “a limited range of specific meanings which might 70 ideologically privilege particular interests.”TP PT Restoration theater clearly mediated the interests of court culture, and many in the audience agreed with its ideology and identified with it, while others did not. Either way, everyone went to the theater for entertainment in the broadest sense—whether to see the play, to network, or to be seen— and in the process playgoers undoubtedly had myriad responses to the ideology communicated: one might accept or reject it, ignore it, complain about it, laugh at it or laugh with it, or even live vicariously through it. This method of evaluating the relationship between play and audience accounts for the presence of audience members who may have objected to the theater and the content of plays in theory, but who still

67 TP PT John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E.S. de Beer (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 397. This entry was on 5 May 1659.

68 TP PT Ibid., 501 and 796.

69 TP InPT an article about Pepys’s medical infirmities, Dr. Judson Sykes Bury wrote that “Pepys often suffered remorse for breaking his vow against frequent attendance at the theatre, and tried to satisfy his conscience by ingenious sophistries, holding, for example, that his oath did not apply to the new Theatre Royal because at the time of swearing 'it was not then in being,' and also that his oath did not apply if he went to a theatre at a friend's expense.” “Samuel Pepys: His Diary and the World He Lived In,” Manchester Medical School Gazette 14 (May, 1933).

70 TP PT Keith Negus, Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1996), 69.

18 enjoyed attending nevertheless. Regardless of their level of involvement at court or their moral stance, all playgoers participated in court culture through the theater’s mediation. Another aspect of theater-going in the seventeenth century that differs from that of today has to do with expectations about audience behavior. Today, audiences are required to quiet down when the lights dim, and, with the exception of the appropriate responses to humor, surprise, and the like, they have to remain quiet until the ends of acts, when applause is de rigueur. By all accounts, Restoration audiences seem to have had no sense of decorum by today’s standards, as spectators regularly loitered on stage during performances and invited themselves into the tiring rooms afterwards. Chapter III of Summers’s The Restoration Theatre is replete with anecdotes about audience conduct, and it will be useful to recount a few of those here, as they illustrate the environment in 71 which Bowman worked.TP PT The audiences themselves shaped performances, playing such an integral role in a dramatic work that they might even be considered part of the cast. It is significant that Styan, in his work on performance in Restoration comedy, begins by introducing the reader to the audience, for “the activity of the audience,” as he points out, 72 “as much as that of the actors might hold the key to the play.” TP PT It was the social homogeneity, he maintains, that created an intimate atmosphere in the theater, much in the same way that, say, a private party among friends removes inhibitions and encourages 73 free expression.TP PT Audience, playwright, and cast, could therefore engage in in-house jokes, poking fun at themselves or disparaging outsiders in satire. This intimacy is perhaps at the root of the sometimes outrageous conduct of some members of the audience, who treated the theater and its workers as their play toy. Playwrights often make reference to this in the plays themselves, in scenes set in playhouses, as well as in prologues and epilogues, which address the audience directly. In Act III of The She-Gallants, Lansdowne satirized the audience and indicated the extremes to which their prattle, tussle, and kerfuffle could affect the outcome of the play:

They spread themselves in parties all over the house; some in the pit, some in the boxes, others in the galleries, but principally on the stage; they cough, sneeze, talk loud, and break silly jests; sometimes laughing, sometimes singing, sometimes whistling, till the house is in uproar; some laugh and clap; some hiss and are angry; swords are drawn, the actors interrupted, the scene broken off, and so the play’s sent to the devil.

From the many references to plays being damned by the audience’s raucous ridiculing, it is apparent that many plays met their demise due to hissing catcalls. The forthright and merciless Etherege believed that Durfey’s A Fool’s Preferment (1688) deserved such a fate, and “rejoiced to hear that it was so solemnly interred to the tune of catcalls,” 74 listening as the audience formed a sort of threnodic choir.TP PT Though Purcell composed

71 TP PT Montaque Summers, The Restoration Theatre (London: Macmillan, 1934).

72 TP PT Styan, Restoration Comedy in Performance, 2.

73 TP PT Ibid., 7-8.

19 several songs for the play (most for Mountfort’s character, Lyonel), Bowman, who 75 played the small role of Bewford, did not sing.TP PT This behavior could make for a menacing atmosphere for actors who might be distracted or drowned out by the commotion, or even derided offstage for mistakes. The latter happened to John Downes in a performance of The Siege of Rhodes at which the King and Duke of York were present and whose presence unnerved him to the extent that he forgot his lines and “was 76 so much out that he was hissed off the stage.”TP PT Unruly claques on another occasion victimized Durfey by shouting down his new play, The Banditti, compelling him to defend himself in a pamphlet against those whose “prejudice took vent even before the Play began,” clearly being offended that “the Actors were Disturb’d and cou’d not 77 perform.”TP PT The play does not list Bowman among speaking characters, but he may well have been among the many anonymous “Dancers and Musicians” whose “Songs and Musick” were “hoop’d and whistl’d at.” There are eyewitness accounts of actual brawls in the theater, indicating that Lansdowne’s jibes at such behavior were intended as satire. One such bystander was John Verney, who, in the letter to Sir Richard Verney in June 1679, stated that “Churchill, for beating an orange wench in the Duke’s playhouse, was challenged by Capt. Otway (the poet), and were both wounded, but Churchill most.” In another letter, Henry Ball wrote to Sir Joseph Williamson that he saw a “quarrell on Monday att the King’s Theatre” in which “Mr. Ravenscroft having half a yeare since received an affront from Sir George Hewitt in the playhouse, and having ever since studyed retalliation, came that day to the play, where finding him there, beate him with his cane and so went away.” Langbaine witnessed an incident on 28 August 1675 at a performance of Macbeth that resulted in the death of one of the combatants:

At the Acting of this Tragedy, on the Stage, I saw a real one acted in the Pit; I mean the Death of Mr. Scroop, who received his death’s wound from the late Sir Thomas Armstrong, and died presently after was remov’d to a House opposite to 78 the Theatre, in Dorset-Garden.TP PT

It is interesting to speculate whether or not Bowman witnessed this event or the 1679 brawl Verney described, as both occurred at Dorset Garden where Bowman was working.

74 TP PT Summers, Restoration Theatre, 76.

75 TP PT According to Curtis Price, recent critics have been appalled by Durfey’s “smutty language” and angered by his “shiny veneer of morality” in A Fool’s Preferment. Price believes it is “a brilliant play,” and that the effectiveness of its subtle design depends on the character of Lyonel and that “the crux of his character resides in Purcell’s songs,” Purcell, 160.

76 TP PT Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, 34.

77 TP PT Durfey, The Banditti (1686) in the letter to “Critick-Cat-call” in the play’s preface. 78 TP PT Summers, Restoration Theatre, 79-80.

20 The possibility of unexpected altercations such as this certainly lent an air of excitement to any performance, and actors, who were sometimes called on to remove disrupters, had to learn how to handle these instances decorously. Actors encountered less violent distractions against which they competed for the audience’s attention, such as the so-called “orange wenches” who sold concessions during the performance. Chapter V of The Young Gallant’s Academy (1674) instructs that the proper protocol for getting the attention of an orange girl was “to give a hum” in her direction. When she approached he should naturally “give her her own rate for her Oranges” as a gentleman should, rather than “stand haggling like a Citizen’s wife,” a sure 79 indicator of ill breeding and poor manners.TP PT As with most instructions against a certain behavior, this warning against haggling probably resulted from real-life precedents, which, if they occurred during the performance, created an atmosphere more like a ballgame than a play. To this bustle of humming and haggling we might add the sound of people peeling oranges, spitting seeds, rustling and fumbling for kerchiefs to wipe sticky fingers, and the occasional coughing and choking of those whose oranges went down the wrong pipe, which could sometimes disrupt the play as much as a fight. Pepys observed one such incident at a November 1667 performance of Henry IV, in which the chief orange-woman, known as Orange Moll, saved a poor gentleman who almost fell victim to his citrus delicacy:

…it was observable, how a gentleman of good habit, sitting just before us, eating of some fruit in the midst of the play, did drop down as dead being choked; but with much ado Orange Moll did thrust her finger down his throat, and brought 80 him to life again.TP PT

The orange girls were such a fixture in playhouses in the Restoration that Durfey likened them to cast members who need no introduction among dramatis personae, for everyone knows of “The Character of an Impudent Playhouse Orange Wench, being there every 81 day acted.”TP PT In addition to girls selling oranges, there was also an “abundance of Damsels that hunt for Prey” in the pit, the seating area in front of the stage where “Men of Quality, 82 particularly the younger Sort” preferred to congregate.TP PT Indeed, the pit was the location par excellence for the young bon vivant. “Large comings-in are pursed up sitting in the Pit,” advises the author of the Gallant’s Academy, for there a “conspicuous Eminence is gotten, by which means the best and most essential part of a Gentleman, as his fine Cloaths and Perruke, are perfectly revealed.” Furthermore, “By sitting in the Pit…you 83 may happily get you a Mistress.”TP PT The meaning of the word “mistress” here is

79 TP PT Samuel Vincent, The Young Gallant’s Academy (London, 1674), 56.

80 TP PT Quoted in ibid., 83.

81 TP PT Ibid., 82.

82 TP PT Henri de Valbourg Mission, translanted by Ozell (1719), 217-220.

21 ambiguous, as it might be used to refer to “a woman loved and courted by a man” (or his sweetheart), or, alternatively, it might identify a woman other than a spouse with whom a 84 man has a long-lasting sexual relationship.TP PT Whatever the case, it is clear that prostitutes prowled the pit looking for possible “keepers,” as men who kept mistresses were called. The thronging competition for the attention of the prostitutes in the pit was a regular feature of the theater until Jeremy Collier, a clergyman, led a reaction against the 85 “Immorality, and Profaneness” of the stage by writing a scathing attack in 1698.TP PT These prostitutes often wore “vizard” or “vizor” masks, but eventually Queen Anne prohibited wearing these in the playhouses altogether in January 1704, an order that seems to have 86 been strictly enforced.TP PT Interestingly, this order provided an occasion for Bowman to sing “The Misses’ Lamentation for want of their Vizard Masks at the Playhouse,” a song he performed on 1 June 1704 in Love for Love. All of this activity in the audience—the chatter, the buying and selling, and the fighting—could potentially fluster an actor, but the audience behavior that posed the most direct hazard was the common practice among beaux to sit or stand on the stage during a performance to display their modish habiliments. The French visitor to London, Misson, observed that beaux swarm “the playhouses, chocolate-houses, and parks in spring” and that “their whole business is to hunt after new fashions” which they seem to have been 87 fond of modeling on stage.TP PT This was often done in spite of warnings on playbills that read “No person to stand on the stage,” and led to legislation from Queen Anne in January, 1704, “that no person of what quality soever presume to go behind the scenes, or come upon the stage, either before or during the acting of any play.” Despite these measures, it continued to be a problem, as in the 7 April 1709 performance Love for Love, of which The Tattler said that “the [fore]Stage it self was covered with Gentlemen and Ladies, and when the Curtain was drawn, there appeared also a very splendid Audience.” Advertisements in The Spectator as late as 1712 still had to remind that “By her Majesty’s Command no Persons are to be admitted behind the Scenes,” and it was not 88 until 1763 that Garrick finally halted the practice.TP PT

83 TP PT Vincent, Young Gallant’s Academy, 56-7.

84 TP PT Oxford English Dictionary Online.

85 TP PT Jeremy Collier, A Short View of The Immorality, and Profaneness of The English Stage (London, 1698).

86 TP PT Summers, Restoration Theatre, 90-1.

87 TP PT Henri de Valbourg Misson, Memoirs in His Travels over England, with Some Account of Scotland and Ireland, trans. John Ozell (London, 1719), 16.

88 TP PT Summers, Restoration Theatre, 61.

22 The Theaters

Mention has already been made of the theaters’ interiors, but it should be noted that actually having an interior was a notable feature of Restoration playhouses. Elizabethan theaters such as the Swan or the Globe were partially open to the elements, as there was no roof covering a large part of the audience, and stages themselves utilized no movable scenery. From the warrant issued to Killigrew and Davenant, it is clear that they intended to make “such new decorations as have not been formerly used” an attraction to their playhouses, and that they were given authority to elevate ticket prices 89 to accommodate “the great expenses of scenes.”TP PT The warrant also states that they could lease, purchase, or build playhouses, and it is significant that both owners elected to move theater operation into newly renovated tennis courts rather than permanently reopening one of the surviving pre-commonwealth venues, though in the first few months after Charles returned, the Red Bull, Salisbury Court, and Cockpit theaters provided 90 temporary homes until renovations were complete.TP PT Perhaps motivated from the sense of urgency resulting from competition, neither Davenant nor Killigew opted to build new theaters at first, but chose to get operations up and running as quickly as possible. It must be remembered that London had not seen a public theater in nearly two decades, and as a result, both owners were probably cautious initially, as they were uncertain how their ventures would be received and thus did not want to sink vast sums of money into new construction. Killigrew opened his Vere Street Theater in November 1660, about eight months before Davenant opened his, and it is curious that he did not use scenery at first, as he had likely seen movable scenery at some of Europe’s most advanced theaters while he was in exile during the Interregnum. Langhans speculates that he might have been simply trying to begin performing as 91 quickly as possible and was unable to complete the necessary modifications in time.TP PT Davenant, on the other hand, opened his Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theater in June 1661, fully equipped to perform The Siege of Rhodes, an all-sung opera written for “Representation 92 by the Art of Prospective in Scenes.”TP PT The following month Pepys noted that

89 TP PT David Thomas and Arnold Hare, Restoration and Georgian England, 11-12.

90 TP PT Acting began in these theaters before Charles granted Killigew and Davenant their monopolies. The group that eventually became the King’s Company used the Red Bull, an open-air theater that was roughly circular like the Globe. Salisbury Court was used by various players, including some that joined the Duke’s company. Little is known of the layout of this theater, but scholars think that it resembled private indoor theaters of Elizabethan times: it was probably rectangular in shape and had benches in the pit. There was neither a proscenium arch that separated the audience from the stage nor movable scenery. Davenant also used the Cockpit for time, a theater converted from a sporting arena, and, based on Pepys’s account of a production there on 30 August 1661, it had some scenic capabilities. See Edward A. Langhans, “The Theatres” in London Theatre World, 35-6.

91 TP PT Ibid., 37.

23 Killigrew’s playhouse, which “used to be so thronged” before Davenant introduced scenery, was now much emptier, and as a result Killigrew soon moved to a location that 93 could support scenery as well.TP PT Davenant initiated the planning of a new theater that was nearly twice the size of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, equipped to accommodate the most fanciful scenic deigns directors could conjure. Davenant’s Dorset Garden Theater opened in 1671, but he had died three years before his vision came to fruition, leaving the company in the hands of Betterton and Harris. Betterton, who visited France in 1671 to research French opera and stage machinery, must have helped to fit Dorset Garden for the 94 staging of its first operatic spectaculars.TP PT The new building gave the Duke’s Company the advantage once again, but soon the King’s Company, too, built a new theater after the Bridges Street Theater burned in 1672. Designed by Christopher Wren, Drury Lane opened in March 1674, during the same season Bowman entered the Duke’s Company, according to Downes. Still, Dorset Garden cost nearly twice that of Drury Lane, presumably because the Duke’s company had designed it as a “machine house,” but 95 Drury Lane, it should be noted, also had machines.TP PT It was in the new, state-of-the-art Dorset Garden Theater that Bowman received his training and first professional stage experience, and it was the principal venue in which he acted until 1695. Like all players, Bowman had to tailor his acting to suit the theater in which he was working, and accordingly, the character and capabilities of Dorset Garden tangibly affected his acting style. The two theaters were perhaps about the same size (though estimates vary 96 significantly), both probably seating fewer than 1000 playgoers.TP PT After the two

92 TP PT This is on the title page of the 1656 edition. The Siege of Rhodes was first performed in Davenant’s private home, Rutland House, in 1656 during the last few years of the Interregnum. It was all-sung in order to avoid censorship.

93 TP PT Diary, 4 July 1661.

94 TP PT Such as Macbeth (1673), The Tempest (1674), Psyche (1675), and Circe (1677).

95 TP PT Robert Hume, “The Nature of the Dorset Garden Theatre,” Theatre Notebook 36, no. 3 (1982): 100 and Michael Burden, ed., Henry Purcell’s Operas: The Complete Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 6-7.

96 TP PT For estimates of Dorset Garden’s seating capacity and construction, see Mark A. Radice, “Theater Architecture at the Time of Purcell and Its Influence on His ‘Dramatick Operas’,” Musical Quarterly 74, no.1 (1990): 98-130, and John R. Spring, “Platforms and Picture Frames: A Conjectural Reconstruction of the Duke of York’s Theatre, Dorset Garden, 1669-1709,” Theatre Notebook 31, no.3 (1977): 6-19. Radice estimates the capacity to be 700 to 800 persons, while Spring believes that it seated as many as 1200. A capacity of 1200 was first proposed by Edward A. Langhans, “A Conjectural Reconstruction of the Dorset Garden Theatre,” Theater Survey 13, no. 2 (November 1972), 92. Robert D. Hume calculated the capacity at about 820 in “The Dorset Garden Theatre: A Review of the Facts and Problems,” Theatre Notebook 33, no.1

24 companies merged in 1682, the United Company used Dorset Garden mostly for the spectacle-heavy operas of the 1690s, and Drury Lane was the chief venue for spoken drama. Langhans suggests that Dorset Garden, with a capacity 1200 according to his estimate, may well have been larger than ideal for spoken drama, but if Hume’s calculation of 820 is correct (and Michael Burden believes that his is “the most cogent 97 calculation”) then this seems unlikely.TP PT Regardless of social class, playgoers could purchase tickets to sit in any area of theater they desired, though prices for the better seats might be prohibitive for some. It became customary, however, for the division of seating to be based on social status. As mentioned above, young men of high social status sat in the pit, along with “some Ladies 98 of Reputation and Vertue,” according to a Frenchman visiting London in the late 1690s.TP PT In the amphitheater, the area behind the pit and directly in front of the stage, he says sat “Persons of the best Quality, among whom are generally very few Men,” and in the upper two galleries were “ordinary People,” the type about which Pepys complained when they occupied the pit. In addition to the pit, amphitheater, and galleries, there were two rows of boxes on each side of the pit, the first row being at about stage level. Sources indicate 99 that ladies of quality occupied the first row of boxes.TP PT Actors sometimes aimed jibes at particular segments of the audience, particularly in prologues and epilogues, so it was critical for actors to know where to direct their lines. In Dorset Garden, as in all Restoration theaters, a large forestage protruded about twenty feet in front of the proscenium. Langhans estimates the distance from the edge of the forestage to the back of wall of the amphitheater at sixty to seventy feet at Dorset Garden, as opposed to half that at Drury Lane, but, again, if Hume’s calculation of Dorset Garden’s capacity is correct, then a discrepancy this large between the two seems dubious. The stage behind the proscenium was quite deep and was used for perspective scenery, created by several painted wings and shutters. A curtain divided the two areas, but after it was raised at the beginning of the play, it usually remained in that position throughout the performance. Various types of scenery could be depicted on the wings, of which there were three or more that lined each side of the stage parallel to the curtain and

(1979), 13. Langhans estimates Drury Lane as seating anywhere from 500-1000: see “The Theatres,” In London Theatre World, 62.

97 TP PT Burden, ed., Henry Purcell’s Operas, 7 and Langhans, “The Theatres,” 42. Hume’s calculation is based on likely box office receipts.

98 TP PT Henri de Valbourg Misson, English translation by Ozell (1719), 217-220.

99 TP PT John Macky wrote in 1714: “…the Parterre (commonly call’d the Pit) contains the Gentleman on Benches; and on the first Row of Boxes sit all Ladies of Quality; in the second, the Citizens Wives and Daughters; and in the third, the common People and Footmen…” John Macky, A Journey Through England…170. In A Tale of a Tub Jonathan Swift humorously describes the various segments of the audience, mentioning specifically the ladies in the boxes: “…the Boxes are built round, and raised to a Level with the Scene, in deference to the Ladies, because, That large Portion of Wit laid out in raising Pruriences and Protuberances, is observ’d to run much upon a Line, and ever in a Circle.”

25 were set in grooves in the stage floor. Sceneshifters drew these on and off using wing carriage machines located under the stage that connected to the wings through these 100 grooves.TP PT The wings were increasingly smaller the further upstage their location in order to create the illusion of depth. This, of course, created problems for actors, who would appear disproportionately large the closer they stood to these. Further upstage, shutters could be pushed onstage from either side to meet in the middle and likewise could be withdrawn to reveal the discovery area. This happens in King Arthur’s famous 101 Frost Scene in which Bowman probably sang the part of Cold Genius.TP PT After Genius has finished singing, Cupid (played by Charlotte Butler) “waves his Wand, upon which the Scene opens, and discovers a Prospect of Ice and Snow to the end of the Stage.” H. Neville Davies explains that “the shutters on which the ‘Prospect of Winter’ is represented are drawn apart to reveal, behind them, a perspective…of painted 102 shutters….”TP PT In cases in which the shutters open to reveal actors, the accompanying stage directions often instruct them to come forward, perhaps as a practical consideration, since such an upstage location would make speech difficult to hear in addition to the 103 proportion issues mentioned above.TP PT Much of our information regarding the technical capabilities of the theaters comes from stage directions in the plays themselves, as playwrights sometimes designed scenes to take best advantage of particular stage machines, settings, or trap doors. Most acting took place on the forestage, and thus the scenery behind functioned as a decorative background. Actors often entered onto the forestage using one of four doors in the proscenium walls, two of which were located on stage left and the other two directly across on the opposing wall. There were balconies above each of these doors that actors also utilized. These walls often represented the exterior or interior walls of a building or house, so actors would pass through as if entering or exiting. In many instances, an actor might pass through one door and immediately reemerge through the adjacent door, as if he had entered the house from outside. The scene would then be taken up again in the interior, requiring an imaginative leap on the audience’s part. Another feature of the theater were the traps in the stage floor through which spirits, ghosts, or gods arose after having received a cue, such as when someone above stomped loudly on the floor to summon them. Once the cue was given, the sceneshifters cranked the actor up using trap machines that were notorious for their excessive clangor. For this reason, thunder sound effects (produced by rolling a heavy ball down a wooden 104 trough) were sometimes used to mask the noise of the machinery.TP PT Bowman often had

100 TP PT Machines were in use as early as 1673 when Charles issued a proclamation that mentioned “those vast Engines (which move the Scenes and Machines).”

101 TP PT I argue this in Chapter V.

102 TP PT Davies, ed., “King Arthur” in Michael Burden, ed. Henry Purcell’s Operas, 313.

103 TP PT Colin Visser, “Scenery and Technical Design,” in London Theatre World, 73.

104 TP PT Visser, “Scenery and Technical Design,” 97 and 108.

26 occasion to utilize the trap door, as when he played the spirit Grimald in King Arthur (1691). In Act II, after vying against Philidel (Charlotte Butler) to gain Arthur’s trust, Grimbald admits defeat and “sinks with a Flash,” according to Dryden’s directions. If Bowman indeed played the part of Cold Genius in Act III, he would have arisen from below on a trap machine to sing one of Purcell’s most celebrated theater songs. Though the earlier London theaters contained machines for descents onto the stage, those at Dorset Garden “were of a complexity unsurpassed during the following 105 century.”TP PT The stage directions for Dioclesian (1690), the first of Purcell’s extravagant semi-opera productions of the 1690s (and one in which Bowman almost certainly would 106 have performedTP ),PT describe a massive machine behind the proscenium that had four 107 platforms which could be lowered to different levels.TP PT Additionally, these directions mention a chariot flying machine located behind the music room (a small room situated 108 above the stage where instrumental ensembles sometimes performed).TP PT Bowman probably sang from one of the Dorset Garden machines as Aeolus in King Arthur and Phoebus in The Fairy Queen (1692). Bowman also performed from Drury Lane’s flying machines, as in the first scene of Dryden’s Amphitryon, which requires three separate machines to fly in the gods Phoebus (Bowman), Mercury (Anthony Leigh) and Jupiter (Betterton), who then engage in a splendidly humorous exchange about Jupiter’s adulterousness. After the United Company split in 1695, the Dorset Garden Theater fell into disuse and was finally demolished in 1709. Bowman spent the decade from 1695 to 1705 performing in the much smaller Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theater, a portion of his career that is covered in Chapter VI. Before moving on to his years with the Duke’s Company and United Company, the subjects of Chapters III and IV-V respectively, I will first discuss the singing and acting style of Bowman and his contemporaries.

105 TP PT Visser, “Scenery and Technical Design,” 101.

106 TP PT The playbook provides no actors’ names, but the performance would have required the full resources of the theater.

107 TP PT For further detail and a diagram of the machines, see Julia and Frans Muller, “Purcell’s Dioclesian on the Dorset Garden Stage” in Performing the Music of Henry Purcell, 232-242; and Frans Muller, “Flying Dragons and Dancing Chairs at Dorset Garden: Staging Dioclesian,” Theatre Notebook 47, no.2 (1993): 80-95

108 TP PT Price believes that the instrumentalists would not have used the music room very often: “Clearly the music room had many uses in Restoration plays, and its fairly frequent employment for balcony scenes illustrates how awkward it would be to coordinate music performed in a proscenium music room with dialogue, singing, or th dancing on the part of the stage behind the proscenium arch. If any 17P -centuryP theatre had such a room, it must have been of little use and soon abandoned.” See Music in Restoration Theatre, 84.

CHAPTER II CONVENTIONS AND STYLE IN THE PERFORMANCE OF SONG

More than anything else, this dissertation is about performance practice in Restoration theater. John Bowman’s roles provide a window into this subject that has both limitations and advantages that will become clear in the course of this chapter. Anyone looking in through a window can only view a scene from one basic angle, one perspective. Through this window, one can make observations that are unique to that perspective, as they are able to view the scene as no one else can. Certain objects will naturally come to the fore, due to their immediacy, while others, further in the distance, are less noticeable or less distinct. Indeed, some objects might be visible only from that particular window. At the same time, there is overlap with other perspectives, as many of the same objects can still be seen from a variety of angles. Lingering at this window into Restoration performance practice allows a detailed look at how one particular actor experienced performance throughout his long career. Many of the observations, particularly in their generalities, will overlap with other performance-practice related studies of the era, while others are more specific and applicable to certain Restoration character types in which Bowman specialized. This chapter begins with a discussion of some general principles of Restoration acting and singing, which would have been the foundation of any theatrical career, and concludes with a narrowly-focused application of these to a specific Bowman role. Subsequent chapters will cover particular instances of Bowman performances. In this manner, this dissertation will provide one piece of the puzzle for a much larger inductive investigation into performance practice. Theatrical performance is an extraordinarily complex form of communication. Milhous and Hume address the question of whether or not theater is, in fact, a medium of communication, concluding that we “must not refuse to recognize…that a significant part of the meaning [of a play] is added in performance,” a point that they say is still 1 “surprisingly controversial.”TP PT A play can communicate a gamut of emotions and ideas, attitudes and moods, but the complexity lies in how the director, cast, and crew choose to convey them, and how the audience receives and decodes them. In the seemingly simple process of reading his lines, according to Milhous and Hume, an actor, guided by the

1 TP PT Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, Producible Interpretation: English Plays 1675-1707 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), 13.

2 director, at once has a thousand choices before him.TP PT How does he use the voice; i.e., what rhythm, tempo, accent, pitch range, tessitura, expressive color, and manner of diction will he use? These are considerations for every phrase of each of his lines. Other aspects of performance—such as facial expression, gesture, and posture—multiplied by the number of actors and their time on stage and added to the previously-mentioned considerations, and the sum equals a practically unlimited palate of expressive possibilities in a single performance. Adding music and song, of course, further enriches the palate. Examining performances of the distant past is especially tricky given that their conventional modes of expression are extinct; the only extant portions of Restoration performance—contemporary descriptions, treatises, musical scores, and the play texts— are, like paleontological artifacts, the bare bones around which we must reconstruct (with as much imagination as research), the object that once coursed with life. Though it is impractical to seek one authoritative reading of how Bowman performed certain songs or roles (the evidence is simply too meager to do so), the possibilities must nevertheless be narrowed down to a limited range of valid possibilities, based on what is known about performance in the era. By “valid,” I mean that all performance choices must be in 3 harmony with the “plain verbal sense of the text,”TP PT and with what is known about Restoration conventions in general and Bowman in particular. The performance of song involves two major components: the use of the voice, 4 and the use of the body.TP PT I will begin with vocal issues, after which I will discuss aspects of acting style. Following this, I will apply these principles in an analysis of a song that Bowman is known to have performed.

2 TP PT Ibid., 13-4.

3 TP PT Ibid., 17. In their discussion of producibility versus validity in play production, Milhous and Hume define a “producible interpretation” as “A critical reading that a director could communicate to an audience in performance,” ibid., 3. A “valid interpretation” is one which is “compatible with the plain verbal sense of the text” and is “in accord with known facts about the author and the original performance conditions,” ibid., 17. They say that not all producible interpretations are valid, but all valid interpretations should be producible. Although their scope is broader than that of this dissertation, encompassing production analyses of entire plays, their arguments regarding validity are applicable to the performance of select roles and songs within the larger context of a play.

4 TP PT In The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, Charles Gildon divides his discussion of performance into these two components under the rubric “Action and Utterance of the Stage, Bar, and Pulpit.”

The Vocal Technique of Bowman and His Contemporaries

There are only a couple of primary sources that provide insight into how singers were trained in England in the seventeenth century: John Playford’s A Brief Introduction to the Skill of Musick and the English translation of Pierfrancesco Tosi’s Opinioni de’ cantori antichi, e moderni (1723, translated in 1742). Both of these reveal an English reliance on seventeenth-century Italian singing technique, although this was synthesized 5 with indigenous English styles and methods.TP PT Beginning with his fourth edition of A Brief Introduction of 1664 and continuing to the twelfth edition of 1694, John Playford included “A Brief Discourse of, and Directions for Singing after the Italian manner,” an anonymous translation of Caccini’s preface to Le nuove Musiche. As London’s principal music publisher from the early years of the Interregnum until his retirement in 1684, Playford disseminated the styles 6 and repertoire of Charles I’s court to the Restoration music-consumer market.TP PT His Introduction, which explains the basics of music literacy and the singing technique appropriate for the performance of the repertoire he published, was the foremost teaching aid during the years in which Bowman would have received his musical training. His methods reflect the pedagogical techniques that must have been normative at this time. It is significant that in his commentary on the “Directions for Singing” Playford says that these methods “have been used here in England by most of the Gentlemen of His Majesties Chappel above this 40 years, and now is come to that Excellency and Perfection there, by the Skill and furtherance of that Orpheus of our time, Henry Cooke 7 Genttleman and Master of the Children of His Majesties Chappel….”TP PT In this position, Cooke taught some of the next generation’s most important figures of the London theater world, among them John Blow and Henry Purcell, both of whom were choristers under Cooke. In the Chapel Royal they would have heard and learned from the “best singer 8 after the Italian manner of any in England” as John Evelyn once referred to Cooke.TP PT The

5 TP PT Sally Sanford, “Solo Singing 1,” in A Performer’s Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music, Stewart Carter, ed., (New York: Schirmer, 1997), 20.

6 TP PT The Civil War and Interregnum (1642-1660) greatly disrupted London’s musical life, as Parliament closed theaters and banned elaborate church music throughout this period. The dissolution of the monarchy forced the disbandment of the royal music establishment, and as a result, many professional musicians were left jobless. It is not surprising that the London public turned to domestic music making in this environment. John Playford recognized the demand for music and music instruction, and he thus began a very successful music publishing business in 1650. Many of the dispossessed court composers turned to Playford to publish their works, and in this manner, the repertoire and styles of pre-war music at court were disseminated to the public.

7 TP PT Playford, Introduction to the Skill of Musick (London, 1664), 76.

8 TP PT John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn, Volume III, Kalendarium, 1650-1672, ed. E.S. De Beer (Oxford: Clarendon, 1955), 144. Evelyn recorded this in his diary on 28 October 1654 after hearing Cooke.

recently-discovered treatise of Pietro Reggio, The Art of Singing (1677), further suggests 9 that “in the last quarter of the century the English used an Italian singing technique,”TP PT a time span which encompasses Bowman’s apprenticeship years and continues through the apex of his singing career in the 1690s. Playford’s anonymous translator of Caccini discusses a style of singing that he had “often heard at Florence by the Actors in their Singing Oppera’s,” as “Talk in Harmony” that has “a certain noble neglect of the Song.” The premise, he explains, is to imitate the “Conceit of the Words”:

For to the good manner of Composing and Singing in this way, the understanding of the conceit and the humour of the words, as well as in passionate Cords as 10 passionate Expression in Singing, doth more avail than Descant….TP PT

The emphasis of this style is, like that of Italian monody, “to delight and move the affections of the mind,” the utmost endeavor of Baroque music. In other words, the 11 humor expressed in the text takes precedence over making beautiful melody, or descant.TP PT A clear declamation of the text dictated vocal production, so the vocal line must have been more articulated than legato or lyrical, and vibrato (though it is not mentioned here) must have been used only sparingly in order for the performance to sound like “Talk in Harmony.” Even though the singing in this period is speech-like, Caccini considered strict intonation to be the foundation of good style. According to Sanford this “speech mode,” as it is known today, “involved a laryngeal setup…in which the larynx is in a 12 neutral position, with a relaxed vocal tract and without support from extrinsic muscles.”TP PT With their generally narrow pitch ranges and speech-like rhythms, Italian monody and English continuo song abetted the speech-mode singing style. Caccini (and the translation that appeared in Playford’s Introduction) explicitly instructs singers not to choose songs with ranges extending beyond their “full and natural Voice.” The falsetto should not be used, for “from a feigned Voice can come no noble manner of singing, which proceeds from a natural voice, serving aptly for all Notes which man can mannage

9 TP PT Sanford, “Solo Singing,” 22. The compete title of Reggio’s treatise is TheT Art of Singing, or a Treatise wherein is Shewn How to Sing Well Any Song Whatsoever, and also How to Apply the Best Graces, with a Collection of Cadences Plain, and then

Graced TT (Oxford, 1677). Reggio (1632-85) resided in England from at least as early as July 1664 when Pepys mentioned him in his diary. He made a living composing, performing privately, and teaching; John Evelyn’s daughter was among his students. Scholars have long been aware of his treatise, as it was advertised in 1678, but it was lost until 1997, when a copy was discovered and promptly auctioned to a private owner.

Gloria Rose and Robert Spencer, “Reggio, Pietro” GroveT Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 11 January 2006).

10 TP PT Playford, Introduction, 59-60.

11 TP PT Ibid., 63.

12 TP Sanford,PT “Solo Singing,” 7.

13 according to his ability.”TP PT The natural voice and the feigned voice are the only two 14 registers that most Italian authors discussed in the seventeenth century.TP PT Playford also mentions that English composers are at somewhat of a disadvantage, because the Italian language is “more smooth and better vowell’d than the English,” but he adds that “of late years our language is much refined, and so is our Musick to a more smooth and delightful way and manner of singing after this new method by Trills, grups and Exclamations, and have wed to our English Ayres….” Sanford believes that this smooth quality to which Playford refers reflects the “Italianate 15 ‘singing on the vowel’,”TP PT but Playford seems to be saying that the ornaments themselves are instrumental in smoothing out the sound. Playford’s Caccini advises the use of techniques for bringing out the passion of the words through improvised embellishments, but before these are applied, one must 16 discern which words require them—namely words that express the humor of the text.TP PT First, he emphasizes the crucial role of gradual dynamic shading, “Encreasing and Abating the Voyce,” as well as more complex changes called “exclamations,” which involve not only a gradual dynamic change from loud to soft to loud again (> p As is well known, Caccini’s gruppo is what is now called a “trill,” and his examples show that it should be implemented on the penultimate note of cadences. The trillo is a repeated single-note embellishment executed by glottally re- striking a pitch. In his gloss, Playford explains the trill as “a beating in the Throat on the Vowell,” which is best learned by imitating others; alternatively some have attained the skill by “singing a plain Song of 6 Notes up, and 6 down” and shaking every note “with their finger upon their Throat, who by often Practice they came to do the same Notes

13 TP PT Playford, 75. H. Wiley Hitchcock’s translation of this portion of Caccini’s text reads, “…let him choose a key in which he can sing with a full, natural voice, avoiding falsetto, in which—or at least in a register where one must strain to sing—one must waste breath trying not to expose the tones too much (since for the most part they usually offend the ear).” Le nuove musiche (Madison: A-R Editions, 1970), 56.

14 TP PT Sanford, “Solo Singing,” 8.

15 TP PT Sanford, “Solo Singing,” 23.

16 TP PT Playford, Introduction, 61.

17 TP PT See Hitchcock’s footnote on the exclamation in Le nuove musiche, 50.

18 exactly without.”TP PT Sanford explains that this “beating in the Throat” was a throat- articulation technique “involving an intricate neuromuscular coordination of the glottis 19 which rapidly opens and closes while changing pitch or reiterating a sung pitch.”TP PT The trill should be used in cadences and closes, “and in other places, where by a Long Note an Exclamation or Passion is expressed, there the Trill is made in the latter part of any 20 such Note.”TP PT The trillo and gruppo were thus used in conjunction with dynamic shading. Both Caccini and Lodovico Zacconi, in his Prattica di musica of 1592, state that this type of articulation is the first step to being able to perform rapid passage work (passaggi). The next singing treatise available to English readers was Pierfrancesco Tosi’s Opinioni de’ cantori antichi, e moderni, first published in 1723 but not translated into English until 1742 as Observations on the Florid Song; or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers, by John Ernest Galliard. A prefatory note states that by “ancient” Tosi is referring to singers at around the turn of the century, but he in fact describes a singing style that crystallized in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Tosi was himself a singer, a castrato, and he taught singing lessons and gave concerts in London from 1693 to 1701. Bowman certainly would have known of him and may well have heard him sing. Because there are essentially no Italian treatises on singing in the last three-quarters 21 of the seventeenth century,TP PT Tosi’s work, which looks back to the singing style of the later part of the century, is an invaluable source. Tosi is also much more detailed than Playford, giving nearly 200 pages of singing instruction compared to Playford’s twenty- plus pages. The style of singing that Tosi advocates is more representative of what would have been heard on the London stage in the 1690s and early 1700s and probably better 22 reflects the technique Bowman would have used at this time.TP PT That Henry Playford (John’s son and successor) ceased printing Caccini’s preface in subsequent editions of Introduction after 1694 suggests that aspects of this style had gone out of fashion. Sanford proposes that “early Italian methods persisted in England until ca. 1680,” but perhaps by the 1690s these directions were outdated. By the 1680s the cavalier composers’ declamatory songs—those of Robert Johnson, Nicholas Lanier, John Wilson, Henry Lawes, and John Hilton —which Playford had made a living publishing during the Interregnum and early Restoration, were falling out of fashion, and the composers were

18 TP PT Playford, Introduction, 70.

19 TP PT Sanford, “Solo Singing 1,” 6. The application of this technique is covered in Joy Sherman and Laurence B. Brown, “Singing Passaggi: Modern Application for a Centuries-Old Technique,” Choral Journal 36, no.1 (August 1995): 27-36.

20 TP PT Playford, Introduction, 70.

21 TP PT Julianne Baird, “Solo Singing 2: The Bel canto Style” in A Performer’s Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music, Stewart Carter, ed., (New York: Schirmer, 1997), 30.

22 TP PT See Ian Spink, “Playford’s Directions for Singing After the Italian Manner,” Monthly Musical Record 89 (1959): 134.

23 long dead.TP PT The objective of the declamatory song was to respond to every nuance and delicate inflection of the poetry by using speech-like rhythms and subtle melodic contours, but there were other types of song as well: in examining pre-Restoration manuscripts, Ian Spink identified several categories of songs that would have been 24 performed in a variety of contexts and venues.TP PT Playford’s directions for singing, borrowed from Caccini, are clearly most applicable to the performance of what Spink termed “chamber ayres,” which would probably include both of Caldwell’s categories of 25 continuo song, the declamatory song and the “tuneful song.”TP PT Spink says, “What I have called ‘chamber ayres’ were songs designed primarily for private performance, though of 26 course they may often have been sung in public.”TP PT Masque songs, on the other hand, “called for a bolder style than that of the ‘chamber ayre,’ less subtle in verbal and harmonic implication,” and because of the performance context, these songs “had to be 27 louder and simpler.”TP PT The songs performed in public theaters were even more affected by “the need for simplicity and audibility” and accordingly were “generally simpler, 28 more tuneful, and less declamatory than chamber and masque songs.”TP PT If Spink is correct here, then the intricate ornaments produced by glottal articulation would have been used only sparingly at best in large public venues. It is possible then, that singers who performed in both chamber and theatrical contexts probably used slightly different styles of singing according to musical style and performance space. During Bowman’s formative years, before this repertoire had fallen out of fashion, he would have heard and been taught more than simply one style of singing.

23 TP PT John Caldwell distinguishes two types of continuo songs, both of which are represented in Playford’s publications: the declamatory song and the “tuneful” song. Caldwell, The Oxford History of English Music, Vol. I: From the Beginnings to c. 1715 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 523.

24 TP PT These include “chamber ayres; play-songs; masque songs; dialogues; laments or long recitatives; catches and other humorous, satirical or topical songs and ballads of convivial nature; motets, hymns and psalms.” Spink, “English Cavalier Songs, 1620- 1660,” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 86th Sess. (1959 - 1960): 66.

25 TP PT These are comparable to Caccini’s madrigals and airs in which he “always sought to imitate the ideas behind the words….” Hitchcock, Le nuove Musiche, 46.

26 TP PT Spink, “Playford’s Directions,” 66.

27 TP PT Spink, “Playford’s Directions,” 67-8. It is worth noting that Charles Gildon in his The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton (discussed in detail below) admonished actors to adjust their voices, “So that the Loudness or Lowness of the Voice is to be modell’d according to the Place of Speaking, and the Audience; that it be not too low, or too loud,” 85.

28 TP PT Spink, “Playford’s Directions,” 68-9.

In Italy, as musical style began to change after the first generation of opera composers, vocal technique had to change to accommodate new styles in music: These changes did not happen overnight and were no means complete by 1680, but were well established by musical developments in Rome and Venice. They involved greater divisions between recitative, arioso, and aria; greater pictorialization of ornamentation to depict or idealize particular words; changes in the shapes, ranges, and character of the vocal lines; and more generalized (and less nuanced) emotional states portrayed in the aria. In the process, speech gave way in the aria to lyricism and spectacle; subtlety gave some ground to 29 sonority….TP PT

Though occurring much later than in Italy, similar changes in style and performance setting can be observed in England from the 1660s to the 1690s. After the generation of Henry Lawes and his contemporaries, there is a trend toward rhythmic regularity (as opposed to the more flexible approach that Playford mentions) and lyricism. Increasingly composers chose to emphasize affective words by writing out melismas rather than allowing performers to create their own entirely, even though singers were expected to embellish. Vocal spectacle was not a foremost English aesthetic, especially in comparison to the castrato-dominated Italian opera seria. The larger theaters of the later part of the century also played a part in the decline of the glottal articulation technique:

Later in the Baroque, when singers had to fill large performing spaces such as opera houses, this style of articulation fell out of favor. Glottal articulation is quite effective in intimate performance venues, but is virtually inaudible in the far 30 reaches of a large hall.TP PT

London’s first indoor theaters of the 1660s, the Vere Street and Lincoln’s Inn Fields theaters, were remodeled tennis courts, and both were intimate venues which seated approximately 400 each. By the time Bowman entered the Duke’s Company in the 1673- 74 season, it had recently moved from Lincoln’s Inn and made its home in the newly constructed Dorset Garden Theater; the King’s Company built a new facility as well, the Drury Lane Theater, which opened in 1674. Though small in comparison to modern opera houses, these two theaters easily had twice the seating capacity of the converted tennis courts. As in Italy, London’s theatrical venues had grown to a size that necessitated a revised singing technique. By the time Tosi wrote his treatise, glottal articulation had not only become impractical in the theater, its use was out of fashion, sometimes even risible, in any venue. Tosi, when describing the many defects of the “shake,” says those that are 31 “beat…like the Quivering of a Goat makes one laugh; and that in the Throat is worst.”TP PT

29 TP PT Sanford, “Solo Singing 1,” 9-10.

30 TP PT Baird, “Solo Singing 2,” 31.

31 nd TP PT Tosi, Observations, 2P P ed., trans. Galliard, (London, 1743), 48.

Tosi’s English translation does propose two principal types of articulating divisions, 32 however: the “Mark’d” and the “Gliding” or the “slur.”TP PT Tosi says that the marked division is used more frequently than the gliding, the later being much more limited in its use, “confined within such few Notes ascending or descending, that it cannot go beyond a 33 fourth without displeasing.”TP PT In other words, singers should not slur melismas consisting of five or more separate pitches. He also adds that its use on descending 34 divisions is “more grateful to the ear” than those “in the contrary Motion.”TP PT Tosi describes the performance of the slur as follows:

…[the slur] is perform’d in such a Manner, that the first Note is a Guide to all that follow, closely united, gradual, and with such Evenness of Motion, than in Singing it imitates a certain Gliding…the Effect of which is truly agreeable when 35 used sparingly.TP PT

For further clarification, Galliard states in a footnote that the “Gliding notes are like several Notes in one Stroke of the Bow on the Violin.” The sparing use of all ornaments is fundamental to this style, as Tosi advocates a sort of Aristotelian Golden Mean 36 between excess and deficiency.TP PT A good teacher knows “that a Deficiency of Ornaments displeases as much as the too great Abundance of them; that a singer makes one languid 37 and dull with too little, and cloys one with too much.”TP PT To this end, Tosi recommends singing instructors to teach “the Manner of mixing…the Glidings or Slurs with the 38 Mark’d….”TP PT Regarding the execution of marked divisions, Tosi advises that a lighter timbre be used, which he calls “that light Motion of the Voice,” presumably for the sake of agility. Indeed, there is a fastidious emphasis on agility in the bel canto style, and practicing the divisions, according to Tosi, is an “effectual way to unbind the Voice, and bring it to a 39 Volubility.”TP PT Today, it seems, voice teachers use flexibility exercises, but rarely offer a strategy for singing extended melismas. In The Structure of Singing, for example, Richard Miller explains the need for agility, and then discusses some common pitfalls in

32 TP PT In the Italian these are battuto (detached) and scivolato (slurred).

33 TP PT Ibid., 53.

34 TP PT Ibid., 53.

35 TP PT Ibid., 53.

36 TP PT See Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, translated by J.A.K. Thomson, revised edition, (1976), 98-110.

37 TP PT Tosi, Observations, 161.

38 TP PT Ibid., 55.

39 TP PT Ibid., 54.

40 singing melismas.TP PT After this he offers several vocalises to achieve agility, beginning with very simple exercises and progressing to more difficult ones, but he never actually explains a strategy, i.e., how to go about executing the task or what to imagine or visualize. When I first had to sing a piece with quick melismas in an early music concert at Florida State University, I had enormous difficulty and asked a few doctoral voice students how to approach these. The advice I consistently received was something to the effect of “just start and keep going,” which, needless to say, was unhelpful. The reason why very few voice instructors are able to teach techniques for singing seventeenth- century divisions is simply because this music is not an essential part of today’s repertoire. Some time later Evelyn Tubb—a long-time member of the Consort of Musicke and voice professor at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis—suggested that I try using a slight, practically imperceptible, breathiness of tone. The resulting “light” feeling of this vocal production must have been what Tosi meant by the “light motion of the voice,” and this strategy proved helpful in attaining greater agility. In his annotated translation of Tosi’s Observations (1757), Johann Friedrich Agricola also offers advice on what singers might imagine when executing marked articulations:

To achieve this, one must, when practicing, imagine that the vowel sound of the division is gently repeated with each note; for example, one must pronounce as many a’s in rapid succession as there are notes in the division—just as with a stringed instrument, [where] a short bow stroke belongs to each note of the 41 division….TP PT

In doing this, however, one must be careful not to over-articulate, for “the Notes that constitute the Division” need to be “all articulate in equal Proportion, and moderately 42 distinct, that they be not too much join’d, nor too much mark’d.”TP PT In addition, using a sound that is too breathy might cause a singer to fall into one of Tosi’s “defects of the division,” viz., the aspirated articulation of each pitch of the division. Tosi chides those 43 who “mark them [divisions] above Measure,TP PT and with Force of Voice, thinking (for 44 Example) to make a Division upon ‘A,’ it appears as if they said ‘Ha, Ha, Ha’….”TP PT

40 TP PT Richard Miller, The Structure of Singing: System and Art in Vocal Technique (Schirmer: 1996), 40-47.

41 TP PT Johann Friedrich Agricola, Introduction to the Art of Singing, ed. and trans. Julianne C. Baird (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 151-2.

42 TP PT Tosi, Observations, 52.

43 TP PT “Above measure” simply means “more than is tasteful” or “too much” rather than having some sort of rhythmic implication.

44 TP PT Tosi, Observations,57. Interestingly, modern vocal pedagogy still considers this a faulty method. Miller states that the “amateur chorister may resort to interpolated

Another error students make when singing divisions is to mark them with the tongue, 45 chin, and grimaces of the head or body.TP PT Overall, the singer should sing standing with “a graceful Posture” and without any “Grimaces and Tricks of the Head, of the Body, and 46 particularly of the mouth.”TP PT This is in accord with instructions in many eighteenth- century acting treatises, which advocate graceful posture such as in sculpture and painting. In contrast to the flexible approach to tempo espoused in Playford’s work, Tosi, in this case referring to divisions, says that rhythmic regularity must be maintained: “Let the 47 Scholar not be suffered to sing Divisions with unevenness of Time or Motion….”TP PT In a later chapter, “Of Airs,” he reiterates this, stating that he “cannot sufficiently recommend to a Student the exact keeping of Time,” and he goes on to rant against modern singers who, when singing arias, neglect their “keeping of Time, which ought to be inviolable, and not sacrificed to their beloved Passages and Divisions.” These ill-advised singers “expect that an whole Orchestre should stop in the midst of a well-regulated Movement, 48 to wait for their ill-grounded Caprices….”TP PT From Tosi’s perspective, actions such as these must have had the effect of forfeiting sincerity of expression in favor of empty vocal acrobatics to please the philistines and of self-glorifying display to amplify singers’ egos. By the 1720s, Tosi must have sounded out of touch with the prevailing aesthetic of opera, one which privileged virtuosic singing above all else, allowing singers such as Farinelli to achieve a status not unlike today’s rock stars. For singers today, vibrato is probably the touchiest topic that arises when asked to use a seventeenth-century singing technique. Richard Miller, whose advice on this matter is representative of the typical pedagogic approach today, warns that it is undesirable to substitute straight-tone singing for vibrato “simply because the pitches move quickly.” 49 “Melismas,” he says, “must be sung with the same vibrancy as in sustained passages.”TP PT Tosi, however, advises young singers to “learn to hold out the Notes without a Shrillness like a Trumpet, or trembling” lest he get into a habit of “Flutt’ring in the Manner of all those that sing in a very bad Taste.” Of divisions Tosi says that the “worst Fault of all is singing them out of Tune,” and that “the sole and entire Beauty of the Division consists 50 in its being perfectly in Tune, mark’d, equal, distinct, and quick.”TP PT Achieving this

“ha-ha-ha-ha” syllables as a means for achieving clean moving passages, but the skilled singer may not, The Structure of Singing, 41.

45 TP PT Ibid., 56.

46 TP PT Ibid., 25-6.

47 TP PT Ibid., 56.

48 TP PT Ibid., 99-100.

49 TP PT Miller, 41. In the context of his discussion on agility, Miller’s use of “vibrancy” is a reference to vibrato.

50 TP PT Tosi, Observations, 57-8.

standard would be very difficult with the vibrato characteristic of modern operatic singing. Miller, of course, is not advocating singing fast passages out of tune, but it is important to realize that “the definition of ‘in tune’ has changed considerably” since the 51 advent of equal temperament.TP PT Regarding this, Sanford concludes:

The distinction between the major and minor semitone has strong implications for the amplitude of pitch-fluctuation vibrato. In order to preserve the distinction between the major and minor semitone, the total amplitude of pitch fluctuation could not have exceeded a quarter tone—substantially smaller than what we hear today. In comparison to modern operatic singing, this involves a completely different vocal aesthetic, a different technique, and a different way of conceiving 52 of vocal sound altogether.TP PT

Speaking of the Bel Canto singing technique, Julianne Baird writes:

Vibrato was considered an inseparable feature of the human voice in the seventeenth century. It is very difficult, for example, for a singer to execute a messa di voce or crescendo totally without vibrato…In the twentieth century a concept of singing as a string of “beautiful pearls” has developed. This is very different from the seventeenth-century aesthetic, in which the finest singers could alter their technique and their sound in order to adapt to the musical or dramatic context…There are certain situations in which a seventeenth-century singer would have sung without vibrato—perhaps on a dissonance, a leading tone, a tone approached by chromatic half step, or a particularly expressive interval such as a 53 tritone.TP PT

Tosi emphasizes the importance of tuning difficult intervals, stating that after learning conjunct divisions, singers must “learn to hit, with the greatest Readiness, all those that are of difficult Intervals, that, being in Tune and Time, they may with Justice deserve our 54 Attention.”TP PT Like Sanford, Baird also believes that seventeenth-century singers used a narrower vibrato than modern singers, and they also sang with less volume. This required less air pressure resulting in greater pitch control—especially in fast-moving 55 passages—as well as a narrower vibrato.TP PT Roger North stressed the importance of intonation when employing ornamental vibrato, or what he referred to as a “waived note.” North says the waived note sounds similar to that “such as trumpetts use, as if the instrument were a litle shaken with the

51 TP PT Sanford, “Solo Singing 1,” 12.

52 TP Ibid.,PT 12-13.

53 TP PT Baird, “Solo Singing 2,” 37-8.

54 TP PT Tosi, Observations, 54.

55 TP PT Sanford, “Solo Singing 1,” 13, and Baird, “Solo Singing 2,” 38.

wind of its owne sound, but not so as to vary the tone, which must be religiously held to 56 its place, like a pillar on its base, without the least loss of accord.”TP PT North included an illustration of this, comparing it to the “plaine note” (straight tone) and the “trillo note” (which is equivalent to Caccini’s gruppo). As his drawing shows, North’s concept of the “waived tone” clearly differs from the modern concept of vibrato, as its pitch fluctuation is very slight and occurs at a slower rate. Even though Tosi’s tutelage is more detailed than Playford’s, it is nevertheless rather broad, and the modern singer wishing to emulate this style has few specific guidelines. However, another treatise is helpful in this regard, though it does not deal specifically with singing per se. In The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, Charles Gildon conveys instructions for the “Action and Utterance of the Stage” for the betterment of actors, barristers, and divines alike. Published in 1710, just after Betterton’s death that year, Gildon puts his teaching in the mouth of the late eminent tragedian in order to imbue it with the authority that only Betterton could inspire. He explains this as follows:

To give our English Actor yet the Preheminence, I shall here by writing his Life make him convey to others such Instructions, that if they are perfectly understood, and justly practis’d, will add such Beauties to their Performances, as may render his Loss of less Consequence to the Stage. Plato and Xenophon introduce Socrates in their Discourses, to give the greater Authority to what they say, on those important Points which they would the more forcibly recommend to their Readers[.] I shall, therefore, make the same Use of Mr. Betterton, on a Subject in 57 which he may reasonably be thought a very competent Judge.TP PT

After what amounts to a sermon against the foibles of actors offstage—lewdness, drunkenness, debauchery, etc.—he proceeds to lay down some rules by which young beginners can improve their art onstage. Though Gildon’s interview with Betterton may have been fictional, his instructions are in accordance with those of other seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pedagogues and certainly would not have contradicted Betterton’s 58 acting style or teaching.TP PT More than any acting treatise, Gildon’s has the closest proximity to Bowman, both geographically and chronologically. Significantly, either Betterton or his contemporary Henry Harris, co-managers of the Duke’s Company when Bowman entered as an apprentice, likely taught Bowman from an early age. Indeed, Thomas Davies in his Dramatic miscellanies described Bowman, whom he had seen when the actor was nearly eighty years old, as “the last of the Bettertonian school,” adding that “By the remains of this man, the spectators might guess at the perfection to

56 TP PT North, Roger North on Music, 18.

57 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 2-3.

58 TP PT In the authoritative Art of Gesture (discussed below), Dene Barnett quotes Gildon numerous times. It is clear that Gildon’s techniques stemmed from a tradition that reached back into the seventeenth century or earlier and survived well into the nineteenth.

59 which the old masters in acting had arrived.”TP PT The rules laid down by Gildon thus represent the closest surviving account of what Bowman learned as an apprentice and practiced as an actor. Gildon addresses the two main duties of the actor: action (which includes gesture, posture, and facial expression) and speech, both of which proceed naturally from the manners and passions of the subject he represents. In the section on speech, he does not specifically indicate that his suggestions apply to the art of song; however, he does make several analogies between speech and music throughout the work. Here is an example:

The Operation of Speech is Strong, not only for the Reason of Wit therein contained, but by its Sound. For in all good Speech there is a sort of Music, with Respect to its Measure, Time and Tune….Nor are Words without their Tune or Notes even in common Talk, which together compose that Tune, which is proper to every Sentence, and may be prick’d down as well as any musical Tune: only in the Tunes of Speech the Notes have much less Variety, and have all a short 60 Time.TP PT

In Gildon’s view, speech and song are closely intertwined, and it is appropriate to apply his principles about speech to singing. Surely, London’s actor-singers such as Bowman applied these to song with very little modification. 61 Taking Julius Pollux’s Onomastics as a guide,TP PT Gildon first provides a long list of vices and virtues that occur naturally in the voice. These take the form of adjectives that refer to tone color, dynamics, and pitch. I have included a distillation of these in Table 2.1. Although many of these terms are subject to various interpretations, it is clear that a balanced resonance (not too bright or dark) is desirable, along with flexibility, audibility, and good breath support. Accurate pronunciation is also critical. With training, according to Betterton, one can improve virtuous voices to perfection. Vices, too, can be remedied, and he gives an example of how Demosthenes, who was “defective in Speaking” improved his art by reading aloud “so that his Organs gradually open’d and his Voice sensibly clearing, grew every day stronger….” He cured his shortness of breath by running up hills while reciting speeches he knew by heart. Gildon adds that one should not over train the voice. Some people, he suggests, have so many defects that they should not waste their time with this “uncertain labor;” there are employments fitter for them. Gildon goes on to discuss variation of the voice, by which he means variation of pitch—an actor should use five or six tones—and dynamics. He also addresses vocal color to some degree. The point that he often reiterates is that the passions must guide all

59 TP PT Thomas Davies, Dramatic miscellanies: consisting of critical observations on several plays of Shakespeare: …as represented by Mr. Garrick…, A new edition, Vol 2 (London, 1785), 100.

60 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 32-3.

61 TP PT Known for his beautiful voice, Pollux taught rhetoric at the Athenian Academy in the second century A.D. His Onomasticon was a Greek thesaurus in ten books.

aspects of speech: dynamics, tone color, pitch, duration, and tempo of delivery. An actor must first consider the nature of what he is going to say, internalize it, and then speak accordingly:

It is the same in Speaking as in Music, if violent Passion produce your Speech, that will produce a violent Pronunciation; but if it arise only from a tranquill and gentle Thought, the Force and Accent of the Delivery will be gentle and calm; so that the Speaker ought first to fix the Tone and Accent of his Voice to every Passion…. Thus will he best express Love by a gay, soft and charming Voice; his Hate, by a sharp, sullen, and severe one; his joy, by a full flowing and brisk 62 Voice; his Grief, by a sad, dull and languishing Tone….TP PT

If the passion and character call for it, then it is permissible to use sounds that would otherwise be vices, though these should retain a sense of artful decorum. Of particular interest are Gildon’s guidelines regarding the expressive performance of significant individual words in the text. Acting “by the word” was, in fact, a key principle of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century acting style, and it applied to both the use of the voice and to gesture. Speaking specifically of gesture, Dene Barnett introduces this as one of the first principles to remember when learning eighteenth- century acting style:

Because each of the basic gestures had an individual meaning and is of short duration, the action tended to be matched to the short phrase rather than to whole passages. One acted by the word rather than by the paragraph or by the pervading 63 emotion.TP PT

In his section titled “The Connection between Word and Gesture,” Barnett reiterates this:

Because each basic gesture had an individual and distinctive meaning, both the selection of the gestures and the style of their performance were determined, or at 64 least strongly influenced, by the meaning of the individual word.TP PT

Importantly, the gesture must always match the word, a point that many contemporary authors mention, including Gildon:

The Movement of Gestures of your Hands must always be agreeable to the Nature of the Words, that you speak; for when you say, “Come in” or “approach,” you

62 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 113.

63 TP PT Dene Barnett and Jeanette Massy-Westropp, The Art of Gesture: The Practices and Principles of 18th Century Acting, Bd. 64, Reihe Siegen; Anglistische Abteilung (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1987), 18.

64 TP PT Ibid., 162.

must not stretch out your Hand with a repulsive Gesture; nor, on the contrary, when you say, “Stand back,” must your Gesture be inviting…For all these Gestures would be so visibly against Nature, that you would be laugh’d at by all 65 that saw or heard you.TP PT

Gildon says that emphatic words (“certainly, assuredly, infallibly…absolutely,” etc.) should be said with force and distinction. Words of praise and honor (“admirable, incredible…glorious, glittering, pompous, triumphant, illustrious, heroic…adorable”) should be pronounced in a magnificent tone. A loud and passionate voice should be used for words expressing detestation (“cruel, heinous [sic], wicked…monstrous”). Plaintive and lamenting words (“…fatal, mournful, pitiful, deplorable, lamentable, sorrowful”) require a melancholic timbre and inflection. More stress must be used on words that denote quantity (“grand, high, sublime…large…eternal”), as well as words of universality (“…everywhere, always, never”). Finally, terms of lessening or contempt (“pitiful…little, low, mean, feeble”) must be pronounced with a quiet, abject-sounding 66 voice and a disdainful accent.TP PT

67 Table 2.1: Vices and Virtues of the VoiceTP PT

Vice Description black penetrates the ears with difficulty dusky or brown less obscure than the black voice, yet is very far from that brightness of pure tone of voice rough or unpleasant strong but not sweet small or weak pips like a chicken strait or slender slenderly melted through the narrow channel of the throat and is therefore difficult to hear dusucous hard to hear; troublesome to the ears subsurd or deafish sound is detained within confus’d not distinguished with full articulate sounds jarring untunable and unharmonious unmelodious without beauty or grace

65 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 75-6. Gildon uses italics rather than quotation marks.

66 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 136-37.

67 TP PT See Gildon, Betterton, 89-93. The original spellings of the vices and virtues have been retained, and the descriptions have been excerpted and largely paraphrased.

Table 2.1 (continued)

Vice Description rude uncouth, “untractable,” unmanageable unpersuasive perpetual identity of tone; monotonous rigid with difficulty admits variation hard or harsh offends the ears with a bouncing and cracking noise desultory or broken when discourse leaps and bounds; pitch is varied too much austere, sour, dismal unpleasant, like creaking wheels infirm or feeble no breath support; hoarse smallness brazen Like the vehement Clinking of Brass is perpetually assaulting our Ears sharp or acute shrill; too thin, too cutting, too great a clearness

Virtue Description high sent from good lungs and fills the ears lofty fully heard, and firm clear sprightly, not blurred with defects smooth, spreading No explanation is given. grave, bass, full the voice of most manly and robust singers, which mingled with sweetness is the most valuable voice candid and pure opposite of the black voice pure and simple refined from all vices and defects sweet delights with the Flower of a good grace alluring delicate modulating and harmonious warblings exquisite polished and rich round and simple most adapted to persuasion tractable easily rises to the highest and lowest note flexible without stiffness; obeys modulation voluble or swift as the best orators in a hot argument delicious beautiful in a kind of graceful softness

Table 2.1 (Continued)

Virtue Description

sounding or canorous fit to sing with musical instruments

full, perspicuous easy to hear

splendid and shining vibrant, yet possessing an agreeable softness

Significantly, contemporary composers painted the same or similar words in the song texts. This points out that the basic principles underlying speech and song are undeniably similar. When singing, then, the performer must act by the word in much the same fashion as if he were speaking the text. As will be shown below, several of Barnett’s categories of gestures, such as the indicative, imitative, and expressive gestures, have analogous musical equivalents or what might even be called “musical gestures.” Gildon’s guidelines for vocal color and dynamics are therefore clearly relevant for song performance, although for singers, composers have predetermined certain elements such as pitch, as well as duration of each syllable and tempo of delivery to some extent. The rhythm of the music should also dictate the speed and force of gestures. Because the rate of text flow is much slower in song than in speech (or recitative), the rate of movement is likewise slower. In late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century song performance, poets, composers, and singers utilized a system of conventions—long known to audiences—that skillfully integrated the meanings of words with appropriate utterance and action. Gildon can thus rightfully refer to his work as “a System of Acting, which 68 might be a Rule to future players.”TP PT This lucid system for conveying ideas and emotions is the pinnacle of Baroque rationalism.

The Acting Technique of Bowman and His Contemporaries

The late Dene Barnett was the leading authority on acting style in Bowman’s era. th His magnum opus, The Art of Gesture: The Practices and Principles of 18P P Century Acting, is the most comprehensive guide to the lost art of performing these very stylized gestures. Although the title indicates that Barnett’s work focuses on acting style in the eighteenth century, the techniques he describes are clearly part of a long, unbroken tradition that extended back well into the seventeenth century. Most of his sources are from the eighteenth century, but he often quotes from what few seventeenth-century sources there are on the subject, and he quotes extensively from Gildon. Regarding these wide-ranging sources, he writes:

68 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 17.

…their testimony was concurrent to a high degree, thus providing a high degree of corroboration, and a wide basis for the art of gesture. Every technique reported in this book was presented in its own time as a long-accepted part of the acting employed by all actors, and none was advanced as a new idea which the stage should adopt. None of the relevant basic techniques reported here was th 69 contradicted by other 18P P century writers….TP PT

Across Europe, from at least as early as the second half of the seventeenth century and 70 continuing into the nineteenth,TP PT there seems to have been a very homogeneous, pan- European style of gesture. The use of Gesture in a Lullian tragédie en musique, for example, was thus probably very similar to gesture in a Purcellian semi-opera at Dorset Garden. In her review of a recent production of Lully’s Persée by Toronto’s Opera Atelier (2000) for the Journal of Seventeenth Century Music, Antonia L. Banducci commented on the performers’ use of gesture:

All of the opera’s soloists used stylized gesture in conjunction with their singing. As our knowledge of Baroque gesture derives primarily from late eighteenth- century sources, we can only assume that such gestures, which came to be 71 codified into a type of sign language, are appropriate for Lully.TP PT

In a footnote to this statement, Banducci acknowledges Barnett as the authority on Baroque gesture. I point this out simply to show that professional performers of seventeenth-century music rely on Barnett’s work, even though it is principally centered in the following century. In English political history the period from approximately the second half of the seventeenth century to the fall of Napoleon in 1815 (and sometimes as late as the end of Hanoverian reign in the middle of the nineteenth century) is often referred to as the “long eighteenth century,” a designation that is also appropriate for 72 theater history because of its stylistic continuity.TP PT

69 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 9.

70 TP PT The source Barnett quotes perhaps most frequently is from the early nineteenth century. This is Gilbert Austin’s Chironomia, or, a Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery (1806), a work which Barnett says he has used as a text book in acting classes. See Barnett, Gesture, 30. Austin is far more detailed than Gildon, but there is a great deal of consensus between the two. The following example is typical of this: Regarding the depiction of grief Gildon wrote, “The Demission or hanging down of the Head is the Consequence of Grief or Sorrow,” Betterton, 43. On the same topic Austin wrote, “The hanging down of the head denotes shame or grief,” Chironomia, 482.

71 TP AntoniaPT L. Banducci, “The Opera Atelier Performance (Toronto, 2000): The Spirit of Lully on the Modern Stage” Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 10, no.1 (2005). http://www.sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v10/no1/banducci.html, accessed 27 December 2005. 72 TP SeePT for example Frank O’Gorman’s The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History 1688-1832 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). In

Barnett’s method in The Art of Gesture was to formulate a typology of gesture based on primary sources and under each heading to include quotes from these sources that corroborate the point. This book is thus not only an instruction manual of acting style but also a sourcebook. As Barnett arranges the quotes topically, the degree of corroboration between the sources to which he refers is apparent. My intent in the following pages is not simply to report on Barnett’s findings, but rather to summarize the conventions of the style in which Bowman acted and demonstrate how to apply them when reconstructing his performances. As stated above, I will use these principles of acting—including the use of the voice and body—to arrive at a historically valid interpretation of a song Bowman performed. The idea here is to demonstrate how research in Restoration performance practice can be applied to a specific performer, role, and individual song. Before attempting to recreate gestures in performance, it is important to understand the purposes for their use in the eighteenth century. Onstage today, actors often use gestures with no specific end in mind, but in Bowman’s day actors suited each action to a specific word or phrase; each gesture had a distinctive meaning, and good actors therefore never moved without reason. Gildon says, “that as much as possible every Gesture you use should express the Nature of the Words you utter, which would 73 sufficiently and beautifully employ your Hands.”TP PT Austin emphasizes what he calls “propriety of gesture” or “truth of gesture,” by which he means that only gestures which 74 are “best suited to illustrate or to express the sentiment” should be used.TP PT In putting this into practice today, an actor or singer must use as a fundamental technique “the selection of a gesture which has a meaning the same as, or strictly related to, the word, phrase or 75 idea which it is to accompany.”TP PT This involves reading the text critically, discerning which words or phrases are significant, and determining how they function in the context of the play. Only after this can the actor match gestures to words, because, like the words themselves, gestures too had a variety of functions. “The function of gestures” according to Barnett “was to indicate or to describe the objects, on stage or off, real or imaginary, which were referred to by the words; to express by face and hands and posture the passion which moved the character; to emphasize important words; to announce the beginning, and the ending of a passage or 76 speech, and to perform certain other similar specified functions.”TP PT These functions were the basis for Barnett’s organization of the basic gestures into the following eight

English literary history, the long eighteenth century typically begins with Milton and ends with Byron. An example of this in theater history is Ashgate’s forthcoming Stages “Adorn’d with ev’ry Grace”: Music, Dance, & Drama in London at the beginning of the long eighteenth century.

73 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 76.

74 TP PT Austin, Chironomia, 456.

75 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 167.

76 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 19.

categories: indicative gestures, imitative gestures, expressive gestures, gestures of address, gestures of emphasis, commencing gestures, terminating gestures, and complex gestures. Whenever the primary sources include illustrations of gestures, Barnett reproduces them. Most of these come either from Gilbert Austin’s Chironomia (1806) or from Theoretische lessen over de gesticulatie…(1827) by the Dutch tragedian Johannes 77 Jelgerhuis.TP PT As these basic gestures are the foundation of the period’s acting style, I will briefly explain each category and will include comments by Gildon and other contemporary English authors when fitting.

Indicative Gestures

Barnett defines an indicative gesture as “Pointing by means of a gesture or 78 posture to an object, a place, a person or an event.”TP PT Gildon tells us that the hands are most helpful in this regard: “Do they [the hands] not in shewing of Places and Persons, 79 supply the Place of Adverbs and Pronouns?”TP PT Barnett does not include quotes or illustrations from John Bulwer’s Chirologia…and…Chironomia (1644), but this source is useful, as it illustrates and describes specific gestures of the hands that can aid today’s 80 actor in depicting adverbs and pronouns with the hands, as indicated by Gildon.TP PT As in almost all hand gestures of the period, indicative gestures should be performed with the right hand; the left was used only as an accompaniment except when showing disparagement.

Imitative Gestures

An imitative gesture is “a movement or posture used to depict some feature such 81 as the size or speed of an object, person or event by imitating that feature.”TP PT Even though the Restoration theater notably employed scenery and props, many objects and events, such as battles or dragons for example, were described with colorful language rather than reproduced with special effects as they might be today. The descriptive words

77 TP PT Austin’s work is available in facsimile with a critical introduction: Gilbert Austin, Chironomia, or, A Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery, ed. Mary Margaret Robb and Lester Thonssen (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1966). Austin’s engravings of gesture illustrations are reproduced in plates 1-11, though I would recommend using Barnett’s, as the illustrations appear in his text alongside his descriptions and primary source quotes.

78 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 27.

79 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 47.

80 TP PT John Bulwer, Chirologia: or the Natural Language of the Hand and Chironomia: or the Art of Manual Rhetoric, ed. James W. Cleary (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1974).

81 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 33.

were thus combined with indicative and imitative gestures in order to “bring before the eyes” places, events, and meanings of words, as the “human mind responds more vividly 82 to the concrete rather than to the abstract.”TP PT An excellent example of a text that requires extensive use of gesture is Iris’s brilliant description of the fortifications of Jupiter’s palace in Congreve’s libretto for Semele. Just before Iris sings the following passage, jealous Juno bursts forth with the furious proclamation that she intends to destroy the curst adulteress Semele. Iris then attempts to convince her of the difficulties she would face:

Hear, mighty Queen, while I recount What Obstacles you must surmount; With Adamant the Gates are barr'd, Whose Entrance two fierce Dragons guard: At each approach they lash their forky Stings, And clap their brazen Wings: And as their scaly Horrours rise, They all at once disclose A thousand fiery Eyes, Which never know Repose.

Without actually depicting this with special effects, Iris has to utilize not only convincing vocal color on words such as “fierce Dragons,” “lash…forky Stings,” “clap brazen…Wings,” etc., but also a variety of indicative and imitative gestures to vivify the obstacles, to bring them before the eyes of the audience. To do this convincingly, Austin recommends that the actor should visualize the object he or she is depicting, as if the actor has a “picture placed before his eyes.” According to Austin, if this imaginary picture is “faulty in composition, confused, or ill grouped, his gestures will confound rather than illustrate,” but if it is clearly conceived, he will “give it the interests of life by his skillful gesture and recitation.” This will charm and enlighten the imagination of the hearer, “so that he will seem almost actually to contemplate all that the speaker 83 describes.”TP PT In the hands of an expert actor-singer, Iris’s speech could be fantastically entertaining, if she is able to accomplish all that Austin says is possible. Note that Austin mentions gesture and recitation together; vocal color in speech or song used to depict the meaning of certain words could rightly be considered an imitative vocal gesture. The musical equivalent of this type of gesture is word painting, which composers such as Purcell, Eccles, and others often employed to bring out the meaning of important words.

82 TP Ibid.,PT 34.

83 TP PT Austin, Chironomia, 522. Barnett says that in his own experience with actors and singers, this visualization technique has been quite effective, Gesture, 219.

Expressive Gestures

Expressive gestures—“movements used to represent a passion of the character being portrayed”—played a vital role in the performance of song, the objective of which was, as in all Baroque art, to move the passions. Expressive gestures were therefore used 84 by every actor in every country, as well as portrayed by painters and sculptors.TP PT In contrast to imitative and indicative gestures, which were most often portrayed with the hands, expressive gesture naturally relied mostly on facial expression. Barnett quotes many descriptions of how to form various facial expressions as well as includes 85 illustrations of these by Austin, Jelgerhuis, Le Brun (1702), and others.TP PT There were characteristic gestures and expressions for ten different passions: grief, surprise, terror, anger, contempt, jealousy, aversion or refusal, disparagement, shame, and welcome. These should be used in conjunction with accordant vocal color, dynamics, and tempo when speaking or singing. In song, composers often used harmony, rhythm, and melodic contour to represent various passions.

Gestures of Address

In some respects, the gesture of address is rather intuitive, as it is simply “an attitude or movement in which the eyes, face, hands, or body are directed towards another person in order to indicate that it is he who is being addressed.” Gildon explains that “To turn the whole face to any thing is a gesture of one, who attends and has a peculiar 86 Regard to that one thing.”TP PT Contemporary authors often mention the effectiveness of the eyes in expression, for an actor can communicate much with the eyes alone. They are essential in expressive gestures, because the “Soul is most visible in the Eyes, as being, 87 according to one, the perfect Images of the Mind….”TP PT In gestures of address, turning the eyes toward a person or object can clarify statements which might otherwise be ambiguous. Printed play texts often include bracketed comments that indicate to which character lines should be addressed (when several are onstage together) in order to avoid confusion. In performance, a simple turn of the head or glance of the eye serves the purpose. Gildon addresses this as follows:

No man is engag’d in Dispute, or an Argument of Moment, but his Eyes and all his Regard are fixt on the Person, he talks with; not but that there are times according to the Turn or Crisis of a Passion, where the Eyes may with great

84 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 36.

85 TP PT See ibid., 36-68. Le Brun’s The Character of the Passions appeared in an English translation by John Smith in 1701.

86 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 45.

87 TP PT Ibid., 44.

Beauty be turn’d from the Object we Address to several Ways, as in Appeals to 88 Heaven imploring Assistance, to join in your Addresses to any one, and the like.TP PT

The anonymous oratory treatise, Some Rules for Speaking and Action (1716), also comments on the gesture of address, saying those “who read, ought certainly to be at a little more Pains than for the most Part they are, to read True, to pronounce with an 89 Emphasis, to raise their Heads and to direct their Eyes to their Hearers.”TP PT In contrast to an orator who directs his speech to an audience in front of him, the actor often must speak to two audiences simultaneously, the theater audience and the character or characters onstage. If the actor “addresses the person he speaks to, without any regard to the point of view, with which he stands in respect to the audience, he would be apt to turn his back on them, and to place himself in such positions, as would be highly 90 ungraceful and disgusting.”TP PT When Roger North recalled Charlotte Butler’s performance of Cupid in the famous Frost Scene in King Arthur, he made a point to comment on her turning her back on the audience, something that was clearly exceptional:

I remember in Purcell’s excellent opera of King Arthur, when Mrs Butler, in the person of Cupid, was to call up Genius, she had the liberty to turne her face to the scean, and her back to the theater. She was in no concerne for her face, but sang a recitativo of calling towards the place where Genius was to rise, and performed it 91 admirably, even beyond any thing I ever heard upon the English stage.TP PT

Roger Savage discusses the staging of this scene in Performing the Music of Henry Purcell and concludes that this gesture of turning her back on the audience carried 92 significant meaning in the context of the play.TP PT Interestingly, it was probably Bowman who played Cold Genius (a point I argue in Chapter V), the character to whom Cupid addresses her recitative. Unconventional gestures of addresses such as the one described here were highly unusual. Generally, an actor addressed both audiences by turning the face and body to the theater, while directing the eyes and hands toward his onstage 93 interlocutor.TP PT

88 TP PT Ibid., 66.

89 TP PT Some Rules for Speaking and Action (London, 1716), 17.

90 TP PT John Walker, The Academic Speaker (Dublin, 1789), 10.

91 TP PT North, Roger North on Music, 217-18.

92 TP PT Roger Savage, “Calling Up Genius” in Performing the Music of Henry Purcell, Michael Burden ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 212-231.

93 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 435.

Gestures of Emphasis

A gesture of emphasis is “a movement made to emphasize an idea, a word, or a 94 syllable,”TP PT and it should be combined with an emphatic use of the voice. Used often, emphatic gestures could be accomplished with either small and incisive movements of the hand, or sometimes sweeping, forceful, or flashy movements of the arm and hand, depending on the mood of the text. A nod or inclination of the head, according to Austin, could also serve to emphasize a word. Austin not only includes several illustrations of gestures of emphasis, but also describes their use in detail. The purpose of “emphatical gestures” as he calls them, is to “mark with force words opposed to or compared with 95 each other, and more particularly the word which expresses the predominant idea.”TP PT Therefore the “stroke of the gesture,” that is, the movement that takes place when making that gesture, should be timed so that it happens simultaneously with the spoken word:

The stroke of the gesture is analogous to the impression of the voice, made on those words, which it would illustrate or enforce; it is used for the same purposes and should fall precisely on the same place, that is, on the accented syllable of the 96 emphatical words.TP PT

Walker, too, says that “we must be careful to let the stroke of the hand which marks force, or emphasis, keep exact time with the force of pronunciation; that is, the hand must 97 go down upon the emphatical word, and no other….”TP PT

Commencing and Terminating Gestures

Commencing and terminating gestures announce the beginning and ending of speeches or periods, the former consisting of a raising of the hand or eyes and the latter a 98 lowering of the hand or eyes.TP PT According to Austin, “Commencing gestures begin the discourse or division, by simply raising the hand from rest; and that in general not higher 99 than the downward or horizontal position of the arm.”TP PT Then when a speaker has “completely closed his sentiments on a particular part of his subject…both hands fall to rest in a manner suiting his own character, and the last expressions which he has 100 delivered.”TP PT Gildon simply states,“…you must end it [your action] when you have done

94 TP PT Ibid., 73.

95 TP PT Austin, Chironomia, 392.

96 TP PT Ibid., 377.

97 TP PT Walker, Elements of Elocution (London, 1781) II, 268.

98 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 79 and 81.

99 TP PT Austin, Chironomia, 390.

101 speaking….”TP PT Again, the operative rule is to use action only when there is reason to do so, otherwise the body remains silent.

Complex Gestures

Barnett includes this category because even the most basic gestures often communicate two or more ideas or serve multiple functions simultaneously. Since actors acted by the word, virtually all gestures fell on important words, so that in effect “all gestures, whether indicative, imitative or expressive, were often also gestures of 102 emphasis.”TP PT Again, to use Iris’s speech from Semele, when Iris says “they lash their forky Stings, And clap their brazen Wings” she should employ swift imitative gestures on “lash” and “clap” to bring the dragon’s actions to life. In doing so, she is not only addressing Juno, but also emphasizing these verbs and attempting to make Juno (and the audience) fearful. In this case, one gesture, addressed to a particular character, could be imitative, emphatic, and expressive. Actors must always be aware of the potential of gesture to communicate multiple meanings and prepare their roles accordingly.

Style in the Performance of Gesture

One might argue that in today’s acting style, there are gestures that serve the same function as those that Barnett explains. This, of course, is true; however, the style with which actors performed gestures in the long eighteenth century are largely unfamiliar to us today. For one thing, these actors self-consciously applied the instructions of ancient authors such as Cicero and Quintilian, envisioning their manner of performance as a renaissance of ancient style. Even Gilbert Austin, writing as late as the nineteenth century, continuously buttressed his instructions with the authority of the ancients (and copiously footnoted in Latin and Greek). On the first page of his Introduction to Chironomia he writes the following:

By the ancients the external part of oratory was called pronunciation or action; the former name derived from the voice, the latter from gesture. Cicero, in one place, says action is, as it were, the language of the body….The above enumeration of the external parts of oratory appears to be sanctioned by Quintilian….We have 103 also his authority…for calling the art of gesture…by the name Chironomia.TP PT

100 TP PT Ibid., 425-6.

101 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 75.

102 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 86.

103 TP PT Austin, Chironomia, 1-2. The twelve books of Marcus Fabius Quintilianus’s Institutio Oratoria (first century A.D.) were often used as the authoritative source on gesture during the long eighteenth century.

He goes on to mention Demosthenes, Plutarch, Eunomius, Pericles, Satyrus, Euripedes, and Sophocles in the Introduction, presenting his work as a scholarly expounding of and improvement upon ancient forms of oratorical performance. Other eighteenth-century authors do the same, and we thus see ancient instructions repeated almost verbatim. Above I mentioned that in the eighteenth century actors used the right hand primarily for gestures. Regarding this Gildon writes, “If an Action comes to be used by only one Hand, that must be the Right, it being indecent to make a Gesture with the left alone,” a precept repeated in treatises throughout Europe in this period, but one that, significantly, comes from Quintilian who wrote, “The left hand is never correct in making a gesture on 104 its own; it does adapt itself frequently to the right.”TP PT Restoration audiences were aware of this tradition, as most would not only have read the plays of the ancients, but also studied oratory, elocution, and classical rhetoric in schools and universities. They would have been familiar with ancient myth and history—so often recounted in Restoration drama—and been sensitive to and aware of the intricacies of acting style and its rules. Gesture could communicate specific meaning because the audience was “in the know,” and movements and expressions that today’s audiences might consider too formal or overdone, were then seen as nature made beautiful, decorous, and artistic. Another significant difference between modern acting style and that of Bowman’s time was the latter’s emphasis on elegantly sculpted posture in the performance of gesture. Pictorial beauty in posture and gesture was exceedingly valued, so much so that teachers often advocated the study of painting and sculpture, which they believed provided excellent models for actors. Gildon writes that

…studying History-Painting would be very useful…because the knowledge of the Figure and Lineaments of the Represented (and in History-Pieces almost all, who are represented are to be found) will teach the Actor to vary and change his 105 Figure….TP PT

He also says that this can help the actor “carry off the beautiful Passions and Positions of 106 the Figures, or the particular appearance of any one Passion.”TP PT Study of visual arts was one way in which performers could learn to assume the graceful curves and elegant contrasts and asymmetries between parts of the body that were valued on the Restoration stage. The desired result was for every action to achieve a studied beauty that 107 transcended nature.TP PT In his conclusion, Gildon reveals this as the actor’s goal:

I have thus run through the whole Art of Acting and Speaking…and…I have in short, laid down such Rules, as if thoroughly consider’d, and reduc’d judiciously

104 TP PT Quoted in Barnett, Gesture, 22.

105 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 63.

106 TP PT Ibid., 56.

107 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 89.

to Practice, will form the Gesture with that Beauty, as to strike the eye with 108 Wonder and Pleasure….TP PT

In order to gesticulate in a stylistically appropriate manner when performing Restoration song, singers today must mind the guidelines written by authors such as Gildon and collected by Barnett to attain this transcendent beauty. The extent to which performers were required to attend to even the minutest detail is astonishing, and the list of rules is so vast that it must have taken years to become proficient and a lifetime to achieve excellence in this style. Jelgerhuis, who himself was a master actor, explains how demanding the standards were for the profession:

Let us never be deluded, my young Friends, that these preoccupations with postures of hands and fingers descend into hair-splitting; no, it belongs to perfection, it is good and necessary, like the entire working out of a role, a character…to seek out the completeness and to present that, that is the goal and must remain so; it must be finished, in position and posture, in moving, standing, and sitting, in Gesticulation and in facial features, in posture of hands and fingers, placing of the feet, tone and modulation of the voice, clear declamation in poetry, clear speech in prose; in short, in all which the art demands in order to be natural and fine.—Years, yes a lifetime is necessary to arrive at that completeness, I 109 know that, but it must still be the goal.TP PT

Judging from Jelgerhuis’s remarks, it sounds as if he may well have observed many bewildered students who objected to this seeming hairsplitting. Considering the demands of the acting style and the much shorter rehearsal times than we are accustomed to today, the expediency of the “line” (or character stereotype) must have proven invaluable for 110 Bowman.TP PT New plays were allotted about four weeks rehearsal time before opening night (while simultaneously playing other works), and after having learned a role, an actor might be called on to perform it at short notice. An actor’s schedule was grueling: he rehearsed in the morning, performed in the afternoon, and memorized new lines in the 111 evening.TP PT The line was thus “necessary if the actor was to survive in the system,” as it assured that he essentially had to master only a couple of general characters which had 112 their own particular acting conventions.TP PT

108 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 137.

109 TP PT Translated in Barnett, Gesture, 102-3.

110 TP PT “Line” casting is further discussed in Chapter III in the context of Bowman’s character types.

111 TP PT Philip H. Highfill Jr., “Performers and Performing,” in London Theatre World, 176-77.

112 TP PT Holland, The Ornament of Action, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 77.

It is not within this scope of this dissertation to cover all the details of Restoration gesture—Barnett has already done so—but I include the following example to illustrate the meticulousness that teachers such as Jelgerhuis required. Jelgerhuis explains that in holding a goblet the wrist had to be arched slightly so as not to form a straight line between the forearm and the hand, and the fingers had to be stylishly curved around the stem with the middle two fingers bent more than the outer fingers. Jelgerhuis illustrates this and a few other ways of gripping a chalice, followed by an explanation of each: one is an example to avoid, which he describes as “ungainly holding,” but the others he recommends actors study and emulate. The ungainly one, he says, is that of “the farmer,” the next, “the man of fashion,” and the third, the one which I described above, he calls “the most polite.” In addition to these details of the hand, the actor had to make sure not to raise the hands above the eyes, nor lower them below the waist. Furthermore, the arms 113 should always maintain a distance of about six inches from the torso.TP PT Not only should the wrist be curved to contrast the hand and the forearm, but the elbow also should be comfortably bent for a similar contour between the upper and lower arm. Since this is performed with the right hand, the left foot should be forward, because it was considered ugly to advance the same hand and foot. The feet should be set in one of the dance positions, with the toes turned out, because it was thought to be “an abomination for the 114 left and right to match each other in direction.”TP PT Today, the average audience member would scarcely notice details such as these, and the “ungainly,” farmer-like grasping of objects (which looks the most natural from a modern perspective) is normative. In Bowman’s day, audiences prized these nuances. The depiction of social rank is another aspect of Restoration acting that fell out of use in the twentieth century, but one that Bowman and his contemporaries certainly would not have overlooked. In England and throughout Europe, one’s rank in society was of utmost importance, and decorum mandated that status should be recognized and honored. There were thus strict codes that regulated behavior, especially when making formal salutations (or making honors as it was called), and these were rather like an art form in themselves. Regarding these Nancy Henshaw writes,

Like formal conversation or dancing, the making and returning of honours was one of the arts of aristocratic living. It also provided a veritable index of breeding

113 TP PT Numerous authors, including Gildon, state these precepts. According to Gildon, “In the lifting up the Hands to preserve the Grace, you ought not to raise them above the Eyes; to stretch them farther might disorder and distort the Body; nor must it be very little lower, because that Position gives a Beauty to the Figure,” Betterton,76. On the distance between the arms and the torso he writes, “Your arms you should not stretch out sideways, above half a Foot from the Trunk of your Body, you will otherwise throw your Gesture quite out of your Sight, unless you turn your Head also aside to pursue it, which would be very ridiculous,” ibid., 77. This is repeated in Some Rules for Speaking and Action: “The Arms should not stretch out Sideways above Half a Foot from the Trunk of the Body,” 28.

114 TP PT Jean Lucas, Actio oratoris seu de gestu et voce (Paris, 1675), 19. Translated in Barnett, Gesture, 115.

by means of which persons of quality recognized and communicated with each other. By the nice regulation of these studied gestures, they courted superiors, 115 acknowledged inferiors and accepted equals.TP PT

One of the universal rules in books on civility was that a person of rank should be given the right-hand position, regardless of whether they were standing or sitting, walking or riding. Because of this imperative, and because rank was often of significant dramatic consequence, blocking in extant stage directions from the period consistently positions characters according to rank; the higher their rank the further toward stage-right they are placed, or, alternatively, the characters might be arranged in a semi-circle with the 116 character of superior rank in the center and slightly upstage of the others.TP PT The significant characters in virtually all plays of the era were members of the nobility of various ranks. Actors should address other characters in an appropriate manner— depending on whether they are superiors or subordinates—and directors should block 117 scenes so that social hierarchy is clear.TP PT Before moving on to the performance analysis of a particular song, I have included an outline showing a systematic method for applying the above-discussed principles. Although I have outlined the method as a sequential, step-by-step process, the actual application is much less linearly oriented than it is recursive. The two chief components entail examining the song’s context in the play and analyzing the poetry and its relation to the music. The ensuing discussion of Bowman’s song generally follows the Practical Guide, but the recursiveness of the process will also be evident.

A Practical Guide: Performing Songs in Restoration Theater

Read the Play: After having located the music, read the play in which the song was performed, taking note of the following questions:

115 TP PT Nancy Henshaw, “Graphic Sources for a Modern Approach to the Acting of Restoration Comedy” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1967), 115-16.

116 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 387-97.

117 TP PT In England the ranks were as follows: “…the king…the princes of the blood…then the great officers of the church and crown, viz. the archbishop of Canterbury; then the lord chancellor…the archbishop of York…dukes…marquises, dukes’ eldest sons, earls, marquises’ eldest sons, dukes’ younger sons, viscounts, earls’ eldest sons, marquises’ younger sons, bishops, barons…privy counsellors…barons’ younger sons…baronets…The ladies take place, or precedency, according to the degree of quality of their husbands…women, before marriage, have precedency by their father…the same precedency is due to all the daughters that belongs to the eldest…The wife of the eldest son of any degree takes place of the daughters of the same degree.” See Chambers’s Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1786).

*Genre: Is the play a serious drama or comedy?

*Character: What is the character type? (i.e., a fop, non-foppish beau, country bumpkin, musician, etc. in comedy; or in serious drama: a cleric, magic man, spirit, shepherd, deity, etc.)

*Context in the Play: What is the occasion for or context of the song in the play, and how does the song function dramatically? To whom is the song directed?

Performance analysis of the song *Text: First, analyze the song text, remembering that in Restoration theater actors would have acted by the word. Look for significant words or phrases and group them into categories according to their function (there may be overlap between categories).

Indicative words: Words that direct one’s attention to a place or object.

Descriptive words: Words that describe a person, place, or object, and words which can be imitated or described though gesture, speech, or music: Words that reference size, direction, speed, number, space, size, or actions of something being described.

Emphatic words: Adverbs, which, according to Gildon, should be said with force (certainly, assuredly, infallibly, absolutely, and the like). Also, words which convey authority, such as a command or order.

Expressive words: Words that represent the passion of the character or text.

*Text and Vocal Color: Use Gildon’s guidelines for vocal color and apply them to significant words. The table of Vices and Virtues of the voice may be helpful. Read the text aloud several times, practicing vocal color. Determine the appropriate tempi, dynamics, and inflections for the text, phrase by phrase.

*Text and Music: Analyze the relationship between the text and the music. The musical style often reveals which words the composer thought were the most significant. In songs by Henry and Daniel Purcell, Eccles, Weldon, and their contemporaries, important words are often repeated or given melismas or both. Sometimes a word is emphasized with colorful harmony. Consider what tempi and dynamic levels are suitable for the musical style and mood of the important words and phrases. Because variety was valued in singing and acting, words which are repeated

several times need to be varied; changes in dynamics, vocal color, and adding ornaments would be appropriate.

*Text, Music, and Gesture: Using the principles outlined by Barnett, formulate appropriate gestures, postures, and facial expression. Additionally, Bulwer’s very specific hand gestures may be helpful. Adjust gestures to fit the tempo of the music and connect them fluidly. If there are long instrumental introductions or interludes, consider whether or not action is required. Striking a picturesque posture is sometimes appropriate.

Performing “With this Sacred Charming Wand” from Don Quixote I

In the first chapter, I began with a narrative of Bowman’s performance of “Let the dreadful Engines” from Don Quixote I, and since I have already introduced Cardenio briefly, it will be expedient to use another song by this character to illustrate the principles discussed above. In addition to “Let the dreadful Engines,” Bowman also sang in Merlin’s masque in Act V of Don Quixote, and “With this Sacred Charming Wand” is the text that begins the masque. Printed play texts often included brief descriptions of the characters in the dramatis personae, and that of Don Quixote lists Cardenio as “A Gentleman, that being treacherously depriv’d of Luscinda his betroth’d Mistress, fell mad.” Based on Cervantes’s novel, Durfey’s Don Quixote is a comedy, of course, though one with an extraordinary amount of music. Several of the characters go temporarily mad in the course of the trilogy, and the idiosyncratic (or perhaps idiotic) Don Quixote is perpetually crazy. In Part I, Bowman must have spent most of his time in the tiring rooms, as Cardenio does not make his first entrance until Act IV, when he sings his mad 118 song and exits thereafter.TP PT In Act III we learn the cause of Cardenio’s madness. His companion Don Fernando has jilted Dorothea in order to pursue Luscinda, Cardenio’s beloved, and Fernando forges a letter in the hand of Luscinda telling Cardenio that she no longer loves him. Cardenio is neither savvy of the sham nor aware that Luscinda has joined a nunnery in order to escape Fernando. Still thinking Luscinda is in love with him, Fernando steals her away from the convent, professes his love, and asks her to marry him. To this she replies, “No, kill me rather, and wed me to the Grave, I’ll dye a thousand deaths, rather than falsify one Sacred Vow, or the least Particle of plighted Faith to my beloved Cardenio.” When Luscinda begins weeping, Fernando becomes aware of his blunder, realizing that he is “a squeamish Whoremaster,” as he put it. At this point Dorothea propitiously appears and in the span of a few minutes convinces him, in a scene of unmatched sentimentality, to love her instead. Fernando vows to make amends with Cardenio, who is now living as a hermit in the mountains. After having received treatment, Cardenio recovers from his madness and reenters in Act V “new dress’d” to reconcile with Fernando and Luscinda. Perez and Nicholas

118 TP PT Bowman’s performance of “Let the dreadful Engines” is discussed in depth in Chapter IV.

then enter and explain that “there’s a Matter working within” (at the inn) that will give them diversion, referring to an elaborate jest that they are planning to pull on Don Quixote and Sancho. Perez explains that they intend to make the two believe that “all things are governed by Inchantment” and that the innkeeper “has provided half a dozen merry Fellow, with Magicians and Devils Vizards, such as are used in Carnaval time, with other rare Anticks.” Carndenio is so delighted with the idea that he wants “to help forward with the Jest” by acting the part of an enchanter and singing with the others. When Sancho and Quixote arrive at the inn, Perez tells them that Merlin has brought about “several Transformations” that have caused confusion inside: “My Hostess within Mews like a Cat, and Maritornes answers like a Screech Owl; two bawling Carriers are turn’d into He-Asses, and Bray incessantly.” After Merlin speaks, the two enchantresses, Urganda and Melissa, enter, along with the enchanter Montesmo, played by Cardenio. These three then sing Purcell’s masque, the dramatic function of which is to reveal their magical powers to Quixote and Sancho and thus trick them into ceasing their adventures. At the end of the masque, Montesmo calls in the furies who enter bearing a great, ominous-looking cage. Frightened, Sancho tries to escape, but the enchantresses conjure up spirits to perform an “Antick Dance” that drives him into the cage. Quixote believes the cage to be a knightly chariot, but confesses that “Knights of old that suffer’d on these occasions, were carried through the Air in some strange Cloud…but perhaps the Method’s chang’d.” After more magic and dancing Quixote and Sancho are carried away, this being the only way to get them home and to end their numb-skulled adventures. Durfey uses Bowman’s character almost entirely for singing, so it is a minor role with few spoken lines. Aside from his madness, Cardenio is a rather nondescript nobleman who is seemingly easygoing and lighthearted, and, at the request of his comrades joins in the jest, assuming the disguise of an enchanter in the masque. In its entirety, the sung portion of the masque probably lasted just under ten minutes, but only Montesmo’s opening evocation is discussed here. Crafted to be set to music, Durfey’s text provided Purcell and Bowman many creative opportunities:

With this sacred charming Wand, I can Heav’n and Earth Command, Hush, all the Winds that curle the angry Sea, And make the rowling Waves Obey.

There are several words that deserve particular attention, and I have categorized these in the Table 2.2. Naturally, some words serve multiple functions simultaneously, and for this reason I have placed a couple of these in more than one category.

Table 2.2: “With this sacred charming Wand” Indicative Descriptive Emphatic Expressive this sacred Command charming Heav’n and Earth charming Hush Hush Winds that curle Obey angry Sea rowling Waves

The first word uttered by Montesmo, “this,” draws everyone’s attention—both the audience’s and the other characters’—to his enchanting wand, clearly referring to a hand- held prop. Given that Montemso is attempting to awe and astound Quixote and Sancho, his tone should be grave and authoritative from the beginning of his speech. Because “this” is an indicative word, a very slight pause afterwards could be effective, as it would give the audience a fraction of a second to focus on the wand. Always sensitive to the text, Purcell provides a one-beat pause with a quarter rest following “this,” probably for just this reason (Figure 2.1). Dynamically, “With this” could be performed moderately loudly to capture everyone’s attention; “this” should also receive a dynamic accent for emphasis. Rhythmically, Purcell set the phrase “With this” syllabically with an anacrusis eighth on “With” followed by a quarter note on “this” on the downbeat of the fifth measure. This strong rhythmic placement emphasizes “this” and guides the actor in the performance of the accompanying indicative gesture.

119 Figure 2.1: “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 1-5TP PT

The motion of raising the wand should begin just slightly before the actor begins singing (with the eyes turning to the wand before the movement of the hand), and the 120 stroke of the gesture should fall on the downbeat.TP PT Hand and arm posture while

119 TP PT Facsimile examples from The Songs to the New Play of Don Quixote: Part the First (London, 1694), 28-9.

120 TP PT An acting technique which was often mentioned in treatises—one of the most frequently stated rules, in fact—was to perform action and speech in sequence. The order of precedence was eyes, gesture, then voice. This sequence should happen quickly, according to Austin who wrote, “the interval between each [eyes, countenance, gesture, language, in that order] is extremely limited,” Chironomia, 381-2. See Barnett’s discussion of this in Gesture, 368. The lifting of the wand is analogous to the gesture Bulwer calls Praeclara aggredior (“I attempt to perform great deeds”). He explains,

presenting the wand deserves considerable attention from the actor in order to achieve the sculpture-like pictorial beauty that this style demands. Jelgerhuis’s illustrations showing how to grasp objects provide excellent models to imitate. As in the performance of all indicative passages, the body, face, eyes, and hands should all be facing the object to 121 which attention is being drawn (in this case the wand).TP PT By repeating “this” in his musical setting, Purcell accentuates the word further, and he increases the tension by repeating the word a step higher, creating a dissonant ninth between the singer and continuo (which holds a G pedal point). The actor should likewise increase his intensity by performing another gesture—perhaps motioning toward the wand with the left hand, or advancing the wand forward (or both)—and by altering the use of the voice (a dynamic increase would be appropriate). Throughout the phrase, the feet should be about shoulder-width apart and pointed slightly outward, with the left foot forward and his weight resting on one foot. In the following portion of the phase, Montesmo stresses the significance of the wand to Quixote and Sancho, describing it as both “sacred,” set apart for religious ritual and sanctioned by deities, and “charming,” having some sort of mysterious power to cast spells. On “sacred” Gildon’s “pure and simple” or “rounded” tones would lend it a worshipful air, and on “charming” an “alluring” tone color could be used to convey its hypnotic power. “Sacred” could be said with an austere softness and a moderate crescendo to connect it smoothly to “charming” and to give the line a sense of forward motion. This would reinforce the rhythmic forward motion in the music that results from “charming” falling on the downbeat. Importantly, “charming” receives the first melismatic treatment in the song and, being set apart as the most important word thus far, becomes the climax of the first phrase. Purcell conjoins this melisma with dissonant harmonies to convey the mesmerizing power of the wand, using a striking diminished supertonic triad (which is diatonic in G minor) over the sustained G in the continuo (Figure 2.2; for key signature and line clefs see Figure 2.1). On the second beat, the voice’s descending sixteenth-note figure arrives on the F-sharp quarter note on the strong third beat, creating a grating dissonance between the voice, continuo, and the first and b second violins (on EP 5PB B and A4B ).B Because Purcell’s stunning word painting hinges on these dissonances, this melisma is most effective if sung devoid of vibrato, especially on # the FP .P Tosi’s slurred articulation on the melisma would add allure to the “alluring” tone color. A gesture analogous to this musical figure would be appropriate; with the wand already raised, the actor could perform a simple flourish, moving it in time with the

“To exalt or lift up the stretched out hand is the habit of attempting to do and take some famous exploit in hand and is a natural posture of an exalted and victorious power.” Bulwer, Chirologia, 61.

121 TP PT Gildon says that “…the Head ought always to be turn’d on the same side, to which the actions of the rest of the Body are directed, except when they are employ’d to express our aversion to Things, we refuse; or on Things we detest or abhor” Betterton, 59. This is also stated in Some Rules for Speaking: “The Head should be on the same Side with the actions of the Body, except when he expresses an aversion to any Thing…,” 27. See Barnett, Gesture, 377.

melisma and imitating its melodic contour. An ornamented, curved motion should be used rather than a straight line, as this would lend the actions not only grace and beauty, 122 but also a befitting sense of ceremony or ritual.TP PT

Figure 2.2: “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 5-6

“Heav’n and earth” is another indicative phrase, redirecting the attention away from the wand itself to the temporal range of its powers. The phrase is also comparable to the figure of speech known as thesis and antithesis, in which two opposing ideas are conjoined and contrasted. Actors illustrated this figure with both hands, the right 123 indicating thesis and the left the opposing idea;TP PT in this instance the right points upwards (though not raising above the head) and the left gestures toward the ground in front (though not being lowered below the waist) and perhaps toward Quixote and Sancho, since he is asserting his power over them. The analogous vocal gesture is to imitate these opposing directions with pitch and timbre. When speaking the text, one might inflect “Heaven” at a higher pitch than the preceding words (remembering that Gildon advocated a pitch variation of six tones in the actor’s voice) with a light, floating timbre. “Earth” obviously requires a lower pitch inflection when reciting the text and a heavier timbre to illustrate firmament. Purcell chose to have Bowman repeat this portion b of the phrase, and on the first statement, the voice rises a major third from BP P up to D (Figure 2.3). This becomes a point of reference, so that when the line rises even higher on the repetition and sustains an F4B forB just over two beats, the word painting is clear. The following melisma on “and” might seem inappropriate given that this is an unimportant word in this context, but I believe that it is evidence that Purcell, in visualizing the song’s performance, used this melisma on the word "and" to imitate with music a specific gesture that he expected Bowman to perform. Rather than using the thesis-antithesis gesture, Bowman may well have pointed upward with the wand on

122 TP PT See Barnett’s instructions on Ornament, Beauty, and Ceremony in Gesture, 153-7.

123 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 282-3.

“Heav’n” and connected it to “Earth” by moving the wand downward in the curving motion suggested by the music on the simple word "and"! Purcell was certainly an experienced enough composer to know that it would be nonsensical to apply word painting or expressive elaboration to the word “and,” so a more significant meaning in his compositional process must be taken into consideration. Above, I quoted Milhous’s and Hume’s statement that “a significant part of the meaning [of a play] is added in performance.” This clearly holds true for song performance as well, and it points out that Restoration theater song demands the use of gesture for it to “work” successfully as a medium of communication. Here, the melismatic “and” also supports the notion that song composition and song performance were truly collaborative ventures. At the same time of the melisma in the voice, the continuo moves for the first time, beginning a modulation to B-flat major (the relative major) that comes to fruition on the authentic cadence in the middle of measure nine. The new tonic arrives simultaneously with that statement of “command,” the first syllable falling on the dominant triad and the second syllable on the tonic. All the aural information needed to reorient the ear to a new tonal center is thus contained within the statement of “command.” Clearly, Purcell placed this word in such a harmonically demonstrative position to symbolize Montesmo’s authority. The following four-fold repetition of “command,” traversing up and down the new tonic triad, reinforces the new tonal center musically and his power symbolically. Undoubtedly, Bowman would have sung “command” more loudly and emphatically than the previous portion of the phrase, with plosive consonants at the beginning and ending of the word. Additional flourishes of the wand here must be precise and equally emphatic. Before beginning the next phrase, terminating the gesture with a strong contrapposto posture on the last statement of “command” and holding it through the half note in measure ten could be strikingly effective. Barnett has found that a basic acting technique was “to link gestures until they formed a coherent unit with a definite ending, like the sentence or period of words, with a 124 terminating gesture serving as a full-stop.”TP PT In song, sentences or periods are often clearly delineated by phrasing and by cadences, such as in this instance. Because the action advances much more slowly in song than in speech or recitative, there are more opportunities to strike graceful postures, especially at cadences. Montesmo’s actual command follows his proclamation of power when he tells the winds to “hush.” After having established his authority, Montesmo does not need to sing “hush” loudly or emphatically, but rather should let the onomatopoeic beauty, which is so prevalent in the English language, come though by emphasizing the almost tactile softness of the breathy “h” and the fricative “sh,” and by contrasting the forte of “command” with a piano here. Texturally, the continuo and first violins play on the strong beats of measure eleven, while the second violins play simultaneously with the first two statements of “hush” on beats two and four (Figure 2.4; see Figure 2.3 for line clefs).

124 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 321.

Figure 2.3: “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 7-10

Purcell’s weak rhythmic placement and reduced scoring of the two statements of “hush” suggest quietness, though the second statement should perhaps be more intense to reflect the increased harmonic tension resulting from the tritone between the voice and second violin. When Montesmo sings “hush” for the third and final time, again on a weak beat, the instruments are silent. Once again his authority is reflected in musical obedience. With no accompaniment on the final “hush,” Montesmo could sing sotto voce, practically at a whisper. The rhythmic displacement of the instruments and voice provides the actor an opportunity to exaggerate the sequence of his gesture, with the stroke of the hand gesture on the strong beats followed by the voice on the weak beats. To demand silence, Bulwer says to beck with a raised, open hand, but Montesmo would have to modify this, 125 given that he is holding a wand.TP PT On the downbeat of measure eleven he would break his “command posture,” advancing the wand in Bulwer’s “Silentium postulo” gesture and lowering the left hand to a position of repose. After making the first statement of “hush” on the next beat, he could then intensify the upcoming second statement of the command

125 TP PT Bulwer, Chirologia 45 and 115.

by raising the left hand on beat three using Bulwer’s hand posture, keeping it lower and 126 closer to the body so as to maintain right-hand prominence.TP PT

Figure 2.4: “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 11-13

When speaking the next portion of the phrase, “Winds that curle the angry Sea,” the actor could increase the tempo of delivery while at the same time increasing the volume so that the voice is loudest and most intense on “angry.” A corresponding angry (and slightly ugly) vocal color is called for on this expressive word, for as Gildon states, “in Anger” the voice should be “vehement and sharp, or acute.” Later he elaborates:

Nor can his Auditors be more justly struck with a Sense of his Anger, than by a Voice or Tone, that is sharp, violent and impetuous, interrupted with a frequent 127 taking of the Breath, and short Speaking.TP PT

It should be pointed out that Montesmo himself is not angry, but rather the sea about which he is speaking: Should Montesmo act as if he is angry in this case? “Angry sea” is an example of the figure of speech called “prosopopoeia” in Bowman’s day, or more commonly today, “personification.” Gildon says, “When you speak in a Prosopopoeia, a Figure by which you introduce any (thing or) Person speaking, you must be sure to use such Actions only, as are proper of the Character, that you speak for.” Barnett concludes,

126 TP PT In his section on techniques that intensify gesture, Barnett writes, “A powerful and elegant technique for increasing the intensity of a gesture was to bring up the left hand, which normally played a subservient role, to make almost the same gesture as the right.” A few pages later he says, “In general, as the passion became stronger the left hand could imitate or make a smaller version of the gesture made by the right, until at the height of the passion, the left hand made almost the same gesture,” Gesture, 341 and 343.

127 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 114.

In Personification, or Prosopopoeia, an object or absent person is represented as speaking or acting. Both the voice and the gestures should be those of the person 128 or object impersonated.TP PT

When Montesmo sings of curling winds and rolling waves using imitative musical gestures, he is clearly employing personification. On “angry” he therefore must purvey tangibly the turbulent torrent he is impersonating by using a sharp voice and a severe countenance. This tone color can be accomplished by widening the vowel toward an “eh” on the first syllable of “angry” and by using a great deal of penetrating nasal resonance, though not so much that the sound is unabashedly repugnant (as this context does not call for the purveyance of extreme emotional distress). If speaking this text, a higher pitch inflection is also appropriate; Austin writes, the “highest notes of the voice 129 must, in the vehement parts of the discourse be frequently touched.”TP PT After speaking the text, this vocal color can easily be adapted to the performance of the song, and Purcell, of course, has determined the pitch, placing it fittingly in the upper part of the baritone’s “natural” voice (Figure 2.5; see Figure 2.3 for line clefs). The falling sixteenth-note melisma on “angry” should be sung with extremely marked articulation so that it hints at the vehement huffing and puffing to which Gildon refers. Since the chief tool for conveying expressive words is the face, an angry facial expression formed by pulling the eyebrows together and downward at the bridge of the nose and upward at their extremities and by flaring the nostrils and lowering the corners of the mouth, could elucidate the anger of the sea (which Montesmo is about to calm with his power) and 130 frighten Sancho and Quixote.TP PT

Figure 2.5: “With this sacred charming Wand,” mm. 12-14

128 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 78 and Barnett, Gesture, 300.

129 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 96 and 114, and Austin, Chironomia, 59.

130 TP PT See Barnett, Gesture, 52-4, for illustrations and descriptions of anger.

For the composer, both “Curle” and “rowling” (in the next phrase) beg for word painting (and Purcell naturally employs melismas that imitate curling and rolling motions) but it is difficult to imitate these actions in speech; still, when pronouncing these words the lips and tongue make a curling motion that can be subtly accentuated. This can be implemented in song as well. The gestures when singing “curle the angry sea” need to emulate the image he is attempting to bring before the audience’s eyes, while at the same time reinforcing his intention, which is to make nature obey his command. With his wand still extended in the right hand, he could slowly curl the wrist, as if he is beginning to wield control of the wind, and could leave his left hand in the same posture (and still demanding silence). As he increases intensity of emotion and volume, the motion should mirror this intensification, and by “angry” the body could begin to move as well, its movement increasing through the long melisma on “rowling” (Figure 2.6). On “waves” in the penultimate measure, a trill could represent a last flare- up of the angry sea, while providing a clear point of reference for the contrasting straight tone on “obey,” reflecting the sea’s sudden acquiescence. Audiences expected trills at final cadences anyway, so here it would serve double duty: fulfilling the audience’s musical expectations on the one hand, and expressing the text on the other. A final gesture illustrating the placid waters followed by a finishing pose would make and effective conclusion.

Figure 2.6: “With this sacred charming Wand,” 15-19

By the time of his 1694 performance as Cardenio in Don Quixote, Bowman had been a professional actor on the London stage for some twenty years. When the United Company broke apart the following year, Bowman remained loyal to Thomas Betterton, who became the manager of a new company at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It comes as no surprise that Bowman followed Betterton, as the two had worked together since Bowman’s earliest days on the stage with the Duke’s Company. This portion of Bowman’s career is the subject of the following chapter.

CHAPTER III APPRENTICESHIP AND DUKE’S COMPANY ROLES (CA. 1670-1682)

In 1708, the former prompter for the Duke’s Company, John Downes, wrote the first history of the London stage and in it, indicated when Bowman first began his acting career. Speaking of the 1673-74 season, he says that at “About this time” the Company, having recently lost several actors, went on a recruiting campaign to fill the vacancies:

In their Rooms came in Mr. Anthony Lee, Mr. Gillo, Mr. Jevon, Mr. Percival, Mr. Williams, who came in a Boy, and serv’d Mr. Harris, Mr. Boman a Boy likewise: 1 Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Currer, Mrs. Butler, Mrs. Slaughter, Mrs. Knapper, Mrs. Twiford.TP PT

By this time, Betterton was heavily involved with the training of young actors and may 2 well have coached Bowman from an early age, though there is no direct evidence of this.TP PT Just how old Bowman was when he entered the Company is uncertain, as all the sources that refer to his age are either too vague to deduce an exact age or conflict with other accounts. Apparently, Bowman was unforthcoming about his age during his later years, so the contradictory accounts probably resulted from this in part. Garrick’s contemporary biographer, Thomas Davies, wrote in his annotated edition of Downes’s Roscius Anglicanus, that Bowman

1 TP PT John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, ed. Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1987), 35.

2 TP PT Betterton became co-manager of acting when Sir William Davenant died in April 1668. Betterton collected an extra 20s per week for training young actors. The other manager was Henry Harris. Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans, A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800, V.2 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press), 78.

was supposed to be near ninety years old when he died; no Coquette was never more careful to conceal her age than this actor: to those who asked him his age, 3 his constant reply was, “Sir, I am very well.”TP PT

Downes himself is largely reliable for information about casts and productions, but his history is nevertheless rife with chronological errors, a fact that brings into question 4 whether or not Bowman actually entered the Duke’s Company in 1673.TP PT Of the eleven players Downes lists as having ended their careers in or before 1673, eight of them made their last documented stage appearances approximately a decade earlier, and another, a 5 certain Mr. Gibbons, has no roles listed in any extant documents of the period.TP PT John Cogan and Mrs. Jennings are the only two in Downes’s list who quit at this time, in 1672 and 1671 respectively. Curiously, Downes failed to include Mr. Cademan, who no longer performed with the Company, as Harris had maimed him with a foil during a performance of The Man’s the Master in August, 1673. Most of the vacancies to which Downes refers were not new in 1673, so one has to wonder if Downes is correct about the incoming actors, and, if so, why the Duke’s Company would suddenly have hired so many at this time. Only one of the twelve new actors, Thomas Gillow, played his first role in 1673. Anthony Leigh, Thomas Percivil, and Mrs. Slaughter were all acting in the Company during the 1671-72 season, and the earliest that any of the others was recorded as having performed his or her first role was in 1675. Even though the latest recorded first role with the Duke’s Company of these performers was as late as 1680, it does not necessarily mean that these players began their employment after the 1673-74 season, as 6 Downes says.TP PT Playbooks did not often disclose who played small roles, and many simply did not list any actors’ names. Nevertheless, it appears as if the 1673-74 season was an approximation on Downes’s part, given that a few of these performers were onstage

3 TP PT John Downs, Roscius Anglicanus…With additions, by the late Mr. Thomas Davies (London, 1789), 45. Davies uses italics instead of quotation marks.

4 TP PT Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, ed. Milhous and Hume, v. In her Introduction to the 1928 edition of Roscius Anglicanus, Montague Summers wrote that the “chronology of John Downes must be regarded as utterly unreliable and uncertain. If this one proviso be kept in mind all other statements in the ‘Roscius Anglicanus’ may be accepted, unless indeed we have positive evidence to the contrary from strictly contemporary sources of weight and recognized repute” (quoted by Milhous and Hume, iv).

5 TP JosephPT Price disappears from the records in 1665, Thomas Lovell in 1663, Mr. Lilleston in 1664-65, Robert Nokes in 1664, John Mesely in 1661, and Mr. Floyd in 1664. Hester Davenport and Mrs. Davis left to pursue love interests, the former being wooed away by the Earl of Oxford in 1661 or 1662, and the latter becoming Charles II’s mistress in 1668.

6 TP PT Miss Currer’s, Miss Barry’s, and Thomas Jevon’s names first appear in playbooks in 1675, Mrs. Knapper’s and Mrs. Twiford’s in 1676, Joseph Williams’s and Bowman’s in 1677, and Charlotte Butler’s in 1680. For biographies of these actors, see Philip H. Highfill et al., Biographical Dictionary..

before the date he provides. Even so, there clearly was a substantial influx of actors at about this time; indeed, Downes says, “About this time the Company was very much Recruited.” There is not sufficient reason to doubt his assertion that Bowman entered the Company during this turnover of actors, nor that Bowman was a boy when the Company recruited him, but the date he gives cannot be relied upon with certainty. The motivation for hiring the new personnel stemmed from the nascent competitiveness of the King’s Company, which had fallen on hard times after the Bridges Street Theater Burned on 25 January 1672. Having lost all their costumes, sets, and other properties, their patronage began to dwindle. Though they remained active in a temporary home, they were at a competitive disadvantage to the Duke’s Company, which operated out of its splendid new theater in Dorset Garden. In 1674, however, the King’s Company opened their new Drury Lane Theater. The Duke’s Company countered by mounting large-scale works with ample music and spectacle—The Empress of Morocco (1673), The Tempest (1674), and Psyche (1675)—and thus need a larger troupe. For these works, they must have needed singers among their new recruits, and they probably chose Bowman for this reason. In the History of the English Stage (1741), Edmund Curll, who was active as a bookseller in London from 1706 until his death in 1747, indicated that Bowman was a fine singer when he entered the Company, and based on information said to have been provided by Bowman himself, stated he was only seven years old at the time:

We shall now proceed to some brief Notices, communicated to us by Mr. Boman, of Himself and Contemporaries…. John Boman, Son of John Boman, of King-street, Westminster, was born at Pillerton in Warwickshire (in the same House, Chamber and Bed wherein his th mother was Born on the 27P P of December, St. John’s Day, 1664.) 7 He was brought into the Duke’s Theatre to Sing at Seven Years old.TP PT

Here, the dates provided by Downes and Curll unfortunately disagree, for if Bowman were born in 1664 he would have been eight or nine when he entered the Duke’s Company in 1673, and not seven as Curll states. Curll’s History, however, is notorious for errors; as the authors of the Biographical Dictionary of Actors frankly put it, Curll’s 8 “trustworthiness as to facts varies almost from page to page.”TP PT Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson have given further incredulity to Curll’s biographical entry on Bowman, as they were unable to locate a possible “John Bowman” in the baptismal records at Pillerton, 9 Bowman’s birthplace according to Curll.TP PT In his A general history of the stage (1749), W.R. Chetwood wrote that Bowman was born in 1666, but it is possible that he confused

7 TP PT Thomas Betterton, The History of the English Stage, from the restauration to the present time…By Mr. Thomas Betterton (London, 1741), 31. Betterton is listed as the author on the title page, but Curll published the work and probably authored it as well. See Highfill et al, Biographical Dictionary, V.2, 73.

8 TP PT Highfill et al., Biographical Dictionary, V.2, 73.

9 TP PT Baldwin and Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers,” 105n.

Bowman’s birth date with that of William Bowen, whom he also says was born that 10 year.TP PT At any rate, birth dates ranging from 1664 to 1666 are inconsistent with other details of his career, which suggest an earlier date. Surmising from his early roles, such as Saunter, an eighteen-year-old fop in Thomas Otway’s Friendship in Fashion (1678), 11 Baldwin and Wilson suggest that he was born sometime around 1660.TP PT There are a few other references indicating Bowman was born even earlier than 1660, but some of these are also problematic. John Hoadley (1711-1776), a poet and 12 playwright, remembered seeing Bowman, acting "with Passion & Propriety at past 80,”TP PT and Bowman’s obituary, which appeared in the 26 March 1739 edition of the London Daily Post and General Advertiser stated that he was in his late eighties when he died:

th Last week died, in the 88P P Year of his Age, Mr Boman, belonging to Drury-Lane Theatre, who had the Honour to perform several times before King Charles II. It is remarkable of him, that he was the oldest Player, the oldest Singer, and the 13 oldest Ringer in England.TP PT

This, of course, creates an even wider discrepancy with the other dates, placing his year th of birth at around 1651 or 1652, depending on how one interprets the phrase “in the 88P P year of his Age.” The entry for Bowman in the Biographical Dictionary of Actors dates his birth at ca. 1651 based on the obituary and evidence that “other details of his career fit with this date,” stating that for “Michaelmas 1675 the Lord Chamberlain’s accounts show a livery payment to a John Bowman . . . and indicate that he was a replacement for John 14 Harding in the King’s Musick,” rendering a birth date as late as 1664 all but impossible.TP PT Bowman did not replace Harding until 1684 (when Harding died), however; the authors of the Biographical Dictionary simply misread the page in the Lord Chamberlain’s records that named Bowman as his replacement, a confusing entry that has a list of musicians, including Harding, who were paid “at the Feast of St. Andrew” in 1674. Nearly a decade later this list was altered, and a number of musicians, including 15 Bowman, were inserted as replacements.TP PT In their edition of Roscius Anglicanus, Milhous and Hume also suggest a birth date of ca. 1651, but they believe he must have started his training in ca. 1670 or earlier, if he joined as a “Boy” and if he were born at 16 such an early date.TP PT

10 TP PT W.R. Chetwood, A general history of the stage (London, 1749), 143n.

11 TP PT Baldwin and Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers,” 106.

12 TP PT Quoted in Highfill et al., Biographical Dictionary, V.2, 200.

13 TP PT Bowman died on 23 March 1739. See ibid., V.2, 201.

14 TP PT Ibid.,198.

15 TP PT See Henry Cart De Lafontaine, The King’s Musick: A Transcript of Records Relating to Music and Musicians (1460-1700) (London: Novello, 1909), 282.

16 TP Downes,PT Roscius Anglicanus, Milhous and Hume, eds., 116.

Thomas Davies, who remembered seeing the elderly Bowman act Caius Ligarius in Julius Caesar with “great vigour and a truly Roman spirit,” believed Bowman was in his eighties at the time:

Bowman, who had acted this part of Ligarius more than fifty years, was advanced above the age of fourscore when I saw him perform it; he assumed great vigour and a truly Roman spirit. The applause which he obtained, and justly merited, was not relished by Quin, who neglected to pay that attention to the character 17 which he ought.TP PT

Davies most likely attended one of the showings of Julius Caesar at Drury Lane in the 1734-35 season, as this is when Quin appeared as Brutus in the same cast as Bowman. Bowman first performed Ligarius in 1684, so clearly Davies’s memory of seeing Bowman as a fifty-year veteran in the role was accurate, and this lends credibility to his statement about Bowman’s approximate age. Other witnesses certainly attested to Bowman’s elderliness in the twilight of his career. Though unfortunately not mentioning Bowman’s age, John Hill related this anecdote about Bowman’s old age in The Actor (1755): The oldest actors we have seen were Johnson and Bowman; the first, at one time of his life a very considerable player, the other never above the middle rank. Necessity compelled both these to continue in their profession; and the one was applauded [he is referring to Bowman here], the other tolerated to the end. Nay, there were passages in which the toothless Bowman had the art of commanding 18 attention.TP PT

Biographia Britannica alluded to Bowman as “the oldest actor of our time,” and Colley 19 Cibber remembered him as “old solemn Bowman.”TP PT In 1743 Patrick Fitz-Crambo recalled how Bowman, “even in his old age,” top’d the Parts of Decius in Cato, and the 20 Lord Chief Justice in Henry the Fourth.”TP PT In The plays of William Shakspeare, Samuel 21 Johnson and George Steevens called him “Old Mr. Bowman.”TP PT Solemn and toothless by the 1730s, Bowman was widely reputed to be an ancient actor, and this seems to have sparked the curiosity of playgoers, especially on his fiftieth

17 TP PT Thomas Davies, Dramatic miscellanies: consisting of critical observations on several plays of Shakespeare…By Thomas Davies, Vol. 2 (Dublin, 1784), 138.

18 TP PT John Hill, The actor; or, a treatise on the art of playing (London, 1755), 170.

19 TP PT Biographia Britannica: or, the lives of the most eminent persons who have flourished in Great Britain and Ireland…V. 1 (London, 1747), 118n; and Colley Cibber, Apology, 317.

20 TP PT Patrick Fitz-Crambo, Tyranny triumphant! And liberty lost (London, 1743), 12.

21 TP PT The plays of William Shakepeare, V.1 (London, 1785, revised Third Edition), 210.

anniversary of playing Ligarius when Davies saw him perform. At this time, many must have inquired of his age, and Bowman’s furtive and evasive responses probably added to their curiosity. Also during these years several stage historians interviewed Bowman, the “contemporary of Betterton” and a “Stage Chronicle,” who related many anecdotes about 22 a bygone era.TP PT Baldwin and Wilson believe that his reputation for being so old and his solemn demeanor caused people to think he was older than he actually was. The birth date they provide puts him in his mid-seventies when Davies saw him in the 1734-35 season (rather than in his eighties as Davies states) and only in his late seventies when he 23 died.TP PT With a handful of contemporary sources corroborating that Bowman was in his 24 eighties,TP PT it is probable that Bowman was indeed in his eighties during his last few years on the stage. A date of birth in the mid 1650s is therefore likely; if he were born at this time, he could have been considered still a “boy” when he entered the Duke’s Company in the turnover of actors in the late 1660s and early 1670s, but would have been old enough to debut in a fairly substantial role by 1677 when he played Peter Santloe in The Counterfeit Bridegroom. It is unclear how the teenaged Bowman first came to the attention of Duke’s Company, but there were only a few ways that theaters recruited new personnel at this time. Perhaps the easiest inroad to a professional acting career was to be born into a theatrical family and thereby receive training from an early age, as well as preferential 25 treatment.TP PT The occupation of Bowman’s parents is unknown, but they almost certainly were not directly involved either with managing or acting in London’s theaters, as their names do not appear in cast lists or theater documents. If Curll can be believed when he states that Bowman’s father resided in “King-street, Westminster” then John Bowman, Sr. may well have had connections to or been employed at court, as King Street is in 26 close proximity to Whitehall Palace.TP PT Interestingly, when Pepys attended Fletcher’s The Humorous Lieutenant at the Cockpitt in Whitehall on 20 April 1661, he was allowed admission “by the favour of one Mr Bowman,” who could have been a close relative of

22 TP PT See Davies, Dramatic miscellanies, Vol. 1, 286 and Chetwood, A general history, 253.

23 TP PT Baldwin and Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers,” 106.

24 TP PT These include Hoadley’s remark, the obituary, and Davies comments (in both Dramatic miscellanies and his edition of Roscius Anglicanus), as well as Davies’s accuracy regarding Bowman’s longevity in Julius Caesar.

25 TP PT For recruiting practices see Philip H. Highfill, Jr., “Performers and Performing,” in Robert D. Hume, ed., The London Theatre World: 1660-1800 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), 153-162.

26 TP InPT addition to the many taverns on King Street (which Pepys frequented), King Street also had a number of tradesmen. On 20 September 1662 Pepys wrote, “To-night my barber sent me his man to trim me, who did live in King Street in Westminster lately, and tells me that three or four that I knew in that street, tradesmen, are lately fallen mad….”

27 John Bowman, perhaps even his father.TP PT If this is the case, Bowman probably was introduced to the theater authorities though his family’s court connections. Curll also mentioned that the Duke’s Company brought Bowman into the theater as a singer, which, if true, indicates that Bowman had probably received musical training from an early age. This he could have received privately (if his family were musically inclined or wealthy enough to afford a tutor), or at court, though he is not listed in the Chapel Royal records as a chorister. Alternatively, the church instructed boys in music and was known to have 28 fed recruits to the theater companies.TP PT When Bowman entered the Duke’s Company, he was undoubtedly a talented singer who had probably received some measure of vocal and musical training. For the next few years, before he appeared in his first known role in 1677, he would have immersed himself in life at the theater, watching plays in order to absorb the acting style of the Company’s experienced players as well as receiving formal training, perhaps from Betterton himself, who, along with his wife, Mary, lived on site in the theater. It is unclear to what extent the Duke’s Company utilized some sort of apprenticeship system for the training of young players, but we do know that some of the principal actors did take apprentices. Henry Harris, for example, trained Joseph Williams, who entered the 29 Company at the same time as Bowman, according to Downes.TP PT Milhous and Hume believe that Downes’s remark about Williams is “evidence that the Company was still 30 using, at least in part, the traditional apprenticeship system of recruitment and training.”TP PT Many of the “boys” who entered into their service must have received systematic instruction in their vocation in a manner not unlike those who apprenticed in other trades. The apprenticeship system that provided young people a vocational education was legislated under Queen Elizabeth, and from that time on, children commonly began their apprenticeship into a trade guild as early as age eleven, and training continued for at least seven years, or until the master believed that they were proficient. When beginning an apprenticeship, candidates left their parents’ home to reside with their teacher, a master 31 craftsman, and they were not allowed leave except on select public holidays.TP PT The aim of trade guilds was to control local markets by training apprentices, insuring the quality 32 of work, and limiting the number of members.TP PT As an example, John Playford, the

27 TP PT Samuel Pepys, Diary, 20 April 1661. Perhaps this was Christopher Bowman, who opened the first coffee house in London in 1652 (in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill) along with Pasqua Rosee. Pepys visited this coffee house on Monday, 10 December 1660, there finding “much pleasure in it, through the diversity of company and discourse.”

28 TP PT Highfill, “Performers and Performing,” 150.

29 TP PT W. Van Lennep with a critical intro. by E. L. Avery, The London Stage, Part I (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960-68), xcix.

30 TP PT Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, ed. Milhous and Hume, 74.

31 TP PT Liza Picard, Restoration London (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 173-75.

premiere music publisher of the Interregnum and early Restoration, first had to learn his trade as an apprentice. This he began in 1640 under John Benson and continued for seven years, at which point he was admitted as a Yeoman of the Stationers’ Company, 33 the printing guild. Only then was he entitled to work independently as a publisher.TP PT Because the theatrical patents limited competition to only two companies, the acting trade did not have to worry about having to limit the number of members as did the trade guilds, but they obviously were concerned with insuring the quality of work by providing training. It is reasonable to believe that the basic principles of their instructional system—to give training from an early age, to have students reside with their instructors, and to have training continue for several years—was similar to the apprenticeship system they witnessed around them daily in London. Though little is known regarding the apprenticeship of actors, it is likely (given what is known of apprenticeship in general) that if Bowman entered as a “boy” apprentice and trained for the traditional seven years before his first role in 1677, then he probably entered the Duke’s Company in ca. 1670. Part of one’s apprenticeship entailed acting in the theaters for paying audiences. According to Pepys, the “young people of the [Duke’s] house” revived John Ford’s The 34 Lady’s Trial and The Coxcomb for their own profit in the 1668-69 season.TP PT Although theaters were usually closed on Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent, young actors were sometimes allowed to have benefits on those days. The theaters also held benefits for novices during the summer when attendance was low and performances irregular, as in 35 the summer of 1694 when young performers acted for their benefit on thirty days.TP PT The companies usually admitted apprentices on a probationary status, not including them in 36 the payroll for three to six months after their hire.TP PT In his Apology, Cibber mentioned that the patentees “seem’d to make it a Rule that no young Persons, desirous to be Actors, 37 should be admitted into Pay under, at least, half a Year’s Probation….”TP PT It is unclear

32 TP PT For more information on music and guilds see, Leeman L. Perkins, Music in the Age of the Renaissance (New York, W.W. Norton, 1999), 149-73.

33 TP PT Margaret Dean-Smith, ed., Playford’s English Dancing Master (London: Schott & Co., 1957), xi-xiv, and Dean-Smith and Nicholas Temperley, “John Playford” in Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 19 February 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com.

34 TP PT Philip H. Gray, Jr. believes that the apprentice actors of the Nursery were not the “young people” to which Pepys refers, but simply “hirelings rather than actor- sharers.” See “Lenten Casts and the Nursery: Evidence for the Dating of Certain Restoration Plays,” Transactions and Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America 53, no.3 (September, 1938): 781-94.

35 TP PT Nicoll, Restoration Drama, 274.

36 TP PT London Stage, Part I, xcviii.

37 TP PT Colley Cibber, AnT apology for the life of Mr. Colley Cibber, comedian, and late patentee of the Theatre-Royal (London,TT 1740),T 105.

what role the so-called “nurseries” played in the training of actors, as information regarding them is sparse; but there were two active at this time, and in the fall of 1671, Lady Davenant initiated construction of a new playhouse for one of the nurseries in 38 Barbican.TP PT Pepys had attended two performances of a nursery in the spring of 1668, but 39 their acting displeased him, and he vowed to “see them no more.”TP PT There is no record of Bowman having performed in off-season productions or at the nurseries, but these were certainly possibilities for any young actor. Whatever the case, the Company’s managers probably discovered which “lines” suited Bowman’s talents best during his training.

Bowman’s Line in Comedy: The Fop

In Restoration comedy, there were various standard character types, or “lines,” which were so ubiquitous that it became “commonplace that plots and characters of Restoration comedy largely repeated themselves from play to play for some forty 40 years….”TP PT Rather than having to play a wide range of characters, “every significant actor in the Restoration had some clearly defined role in comedy and another in tragedy at each 41 stage of his career.”TP PT In comedy, these stock characters would have been familiar to the audience insofar as they mimicked, though in an exaggerated and rigidly structured fashion, the follies and virtues of real-life examples in contemporary society. According to Restoration dramatic theory, each character type, or the “humour” of the character— traits that overshadow, or dominate the personality—had to be clearly identifiable in order for drama to achieve the desired function. A play, according to Dryden, is “A just and lively image of human nature representing its passions and humours and the change 42 of fortune to which it is subject, to the delight and instruction of mankind.”TP PT In Dryden’s view, the purpose of drama was twofold, to be both pleasurable and didactic. Drawing on Hobbes’s and Dryden’s theories of humor, Andrew P. Williams stresses that both men “approached laughter from perspectives which certainly emphasized its ability to provide 43 social commentary.”TP PT Williams adds that comedy’s effectiveness at instruction is “contingent upon its manifestation of the ridiculous within identifiable character types 44 who set laughable examples of behavior that are to be avoided or censured.”TP PT Shadwell

38 TP PT London Stage, Part I, 185-86.

39 TP PT Pepys, Diary, 25 February 1668.

40 TP PT J.L. Styan, Restoration Comedy in Performance, 1.

41 TP PT Peter Holland, The Ornament of Action, 81.

42 TP PT Quoted in Andrew P. Williams, The Restoration Fop (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995), 20.

43 TP PT Williams, Fop, 5.

believed that comedy’s paramount function was to instruct by depicting the “Figures of Vice and Folly so ugly and detestable to make People hate and despise them, not only in 45 others, but (if it be possible) in their dear selves.”TP PT Because of their vices, these characters inevitably face unpleasant consequences, and therein lies the moral: behave in this manner and you too will suffer the same fate. Williams also points out that in representing human nature, playwrights were not necessarily attempting to mirror society, but rather to exaggerate “the theatrical nature of everyday social institutions and intercourse,” borrowing from and interpreting social activity. They presented an “other” society on stage, “contextually familiar to the 46 audience so it would ‘get the joke,’ but still be essentially detached.”TP PT Prologues and epilogues reinforced this detachment by addressing the audience as spectator, as did the plethora of aptronyms—Rakehell, Foppington, Brainless, Beauford, and the like—which demonstrate “a conscious effort on the part of the playwrights to imbue their theatrical 47 creations with distinctively allegorical overtones.”TP PT These types of names served as guides for the audience so that a particular character’s humor—and thus the specific folly being exemplified—would be unambiguous from the beginning of the play, something 48 essential for the play to fulfill its didactic purpose.TP PT The audience therefore expected a character to display a humor consistent with his or her aptronym, an implicit understanding between playwright and audience throughout the Restoration. The audience would expect a character such as “Rakehell” to be witty and profligate, and one named “Foppington” to be vain, effeminate, and foolish. Creating rather rigidly defined and clearly delineated types “limited the emotional and psychological range of individual 49 characters and further added to the image of a one dimensional, comic ‘other’ society.”TP PT In most instances each “new” fop, rake, country cousin, heiress, and so forth, was merely a variation on a theme. Though the details of a given character type may vary from one play to the next, it would still operate within its conventional, narrowly defined parameters. For Bowman, as well as other actors of the Restoration, the limited psychological range of the character types in which he specialized must have eased the burden of an otherwise demanding occupation. Because of this, the Restoration actor, according to Styan, “actually embraced the puppet-like qualities of his character with gratitude and 50 enthusiasm.”TP PT Though Bowman had to memorize fresh lines for each new play, he could

44 TP PT Ibid., 9.

45 TP PT From the preface to The Humorist. Quoted in Williams, Fop, 31.

46 TP PT Williams, Fop, 24-5.

47 TP PT Ibid., 29.

48 TP PT Ibid., 31.

49 TP PT Ibid., 29.

50 TP PT Styan, Restoration Comedy in Performance, 84-86.

call on a repertoire of appropriate stock gestures and expressions for a given character type that he must have learned very early on and utilized throughout his career. Because of these conventions, actors were not expected to create such highly individualized characters as film actors today (though we have our conventions as well). For each new fop he played, for example, Bowman would not have had to spend a great deal of time analyzing his character’s motivations or creating a unique personality. Inventing a highly idiosyncratic character would be antithetical to Restoration dramatic theory, as it would obscure the follies of such characters and hinder their didactic intent. Moreover, significant deviation from these conventions met with disapproval and affected the 51 theater’s financial bottom line.TP PT Within these conventions, the audience, seeing these character types repeatedly, recognized and generally appreciated subtle variations, however. Bowman never played the gallant or rake, the leading man of the play who is witty, socially at ease, and successful with women of quality. Rather, Betterton and Harris very early on recognized that Bowman had a special penchant for characters that are vain, affected, and empty-headed, the first of which was Saunter in Otway’s Friendship in Fashion in 1678. In fact, many of his comic roles from the 1670s through the first decade of the eighteenth century were variations of this character type known generally as the “fop,” a term that is now virtually obsolete but one that was common in the seventeenth century. The closest equivalent in modern parlance is probably “metrosexual,” a term coined in the early nineties to describe an “urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and 52 lifestyle.”TP PT In her 2003 Washington Post article, “Vanity, Thy Name is Metrosexual,” Alexa Hackbarth, described a metrosexual as “a straight man who styles his hair using three different products (and actually calls them "products"), loves clothes and the very act of shopping for them, and describes himself as sensitive and romantic. In other words, 53 he is a man who seems stereotypically gay except when it comes to sexual orientation.”TP PT Note the similarities between this and the fop, which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “one who is foolishly attentive to and vain of his appearance, dress, or manners” sometimes being “a conceited person, a pretender to wit, wisdom, or accomplishments.” It should be noted that the terms “beau” and “coxcomb” were sometimes used virtually synonymously with “fop,” though modifiers could be added to denote a particular variation of this character type. Lord Froth, Bowman’s character in Congeve’s The Double-Dealer (1693), for example, is described as a “solemn coxcomb,” as Froth self-consciously attempts to suppress flamboyant foppery (but is always somewhat unsuccessful in doing so). The description of Sir Nicholas Dainty in The

51 TP PT Ibid., 29. In the preface to The Humorists, Shadwell wrote that an unrecognizable humors character “…would not be understood by the Audience, but would be thought (for the singularity of it) wholly unnatural, and would be no jest to them neither.”

52 TP PT www.wordspy.com

53 TP PT Alexa Hackbarth, "Vanity, Thy Name Is Metrosexual," The Washington Post, 17 November 2003.

Volunteers, a part Bowman played in 1692, briefly sketches out the traits of a typical fop and includes both “beau” and “coxcomb”: Sir Dainty is “A most Fantastick, Conceited Beau, of Dolling, Affected Speech; a very Coxcomb, but stout; a most luxurious effeminate Volunteer.” Effeminacy and affected speech were emblematic traits of most fops, utilized in their attempts to seem stylish and accomplished, but, as will be discussed below, this putting on of airs was merely a transparent façade built to conceal their lack of wit. Contemporary portrayals of fops were both humorous and ruthlessly unkind. In The London Spy, Ned Ward wrote that a fop is brainless, indecent, foolish, and, rather than being in love with his woman, “he is a Narcissus that is fallen in love with himself 54 and his own shadow.”TP PT A fop’s greatest “friend” seems to have been a large mirror in which he could ardently admire his ravishing beauty as he displayed his newest French suit by Barroy, his Le Gras garniture, his Piccar shoes, his Chedreux periwig—“more exactly curled than a lady’s head newly dressed for a ball”—and his gloves up to his 55 elbows, the latest design by Orangerie.TP PT When speaking, he might intermix with his own language (which he has not mastered), “bombast Latin, and scraps of French, that the 56 ladies may take him for a man of parts, a true linguist.”TP PT Thinking that everyone admires his gallantry, his desire is to have all eyes fixed on him as he flutters about, but in reality 57 he is entirely ignorant of their ridicule as they mock his “great acquired follies.”TP PT In imitation of the French nobility he might have an affected lisp, but however effeminate he may seem, he is not homosexual. Rather, his desire is to accrue amorous conquests with the other sex, about which he can discourse or “Tattle,” as the aptronymn of Bowman’s character in Love for Love (1695) suggests. Unfortunately for the fop, his amours were all too often humorously unsuccessful. “Fop” was clearly a pejorative term and was commonly used to describe men both on- and offstage, bestowed on those whose folly was not to be emulated by society. Shadwell referred to fops’ foolishness as “Artificial folly,” which he explains results from the vanities that some men “take pains to acquire.” In contrast, natural imperfections such as lameness, stupidity, and stuttering cannot be used as negative 58 behavioral examples to avoid, as these lie outside one’s ability to control.TP PT Since fops purposefully cultivate their affectations, Shadwell considered them appropriate targets for 59 comic satire because their behavior caused “defection in Manners and Morality.”TP PT Referring to Shadwell’s principles concerning the artificial folly of fops, Williams writes:

54 TP PT Edward TWard, TheTT London-spy compleat, V.1T (London, 1709, Fourth Edition), 389.

55 TP PT In Etherege’s Man of Mode, Sir Fopling Flutter enters wearing an ostentatious outfit and proudly lists each component along with its prestigious brand name.

56 TP PT The Character of the Beaux (London, 1696), 18.

57 TP PT Etherege, Man of Mode, Act 3, Scene 2.

58 TP PT Williams, Fop, 32.

Manifested in identifiable humors, these social defects challenged the rigidity of existing cultural precepts that determined “correct” social behavior, and needed to be curtailed for the good of a cultivated society. Humors characters magnified the artifice of social and moral imperfection against the prevailing standards of conduct, and presented images of generalized ideals that when taken to extremes 60 were universally condemned.TP PT

What about the fop’s behavior did Restoration society consider immoral? Though many in the courtly crowd seem not to have been concerned with living a life in harmony with Biblical precepts, it is nevertheless undeniable that Biblical teachings were part of the fabric of Western culture in general. Partially because of this, many had an aversion to male effeminacy, something that is explicitly condemned in the King James, or Authorized, Version of the Bible, the translation most widely available during that period. In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul excludes the practitioners of a variety of sins from the kingdom of God:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, 61 nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.TP PT

Whether most audience members were familiar with this scripture or not, there was undeniably a cultural tradition of restricting effeminate men to society’s fringes, a tradition which was linked to Christian morality. It is worth noting that some of the other character types, namely rake-heroes, whose unquenchable sexual appetites led to fornication and adultery in many comic plots, did not receive the same censure as fops. The representation of such vice dismayed some of the more righteous members of society, such as Jeremy Collier, who in 1698 attacked theatrical displays of libertinism in his A Short View of the Profaneness of the English Stage. Collier complained that the theatrical model of a “fine Gentleman, is a fine 62 Whoring, Swearing, Smutty, Athiestical Man.”TP PT Dramatists’ principal defense of such vitriol was, of course, that their characters justly represented the passions inherent in human nature. Furthermore, a rake’s character usually underwent a metamorphosis, and by the fifth act, he was transformed “from a wanton lover into a satisfied husband.” In spite of his sins, the “efficacy of traditional notions of order” is reasserted through the 63 institution of marriage.TP PT The audience could thus enjoy the rake’s libertinism as well as

59 TP PT Shadwell, preface to The Virtuoso.

60 TP PT Williams, Fop, 32.

61 TP PT I Corinthians 6:9-10.

62 TP PT Collier, Short View, 143.

receive instruction by seeing him suppress his sinful desire when he chooses fidelity to one woman. Playwrights believed they could have it both ways—to depict the seamier side of human nature and to instruct—while reformers such as Collier did not. Another reason why more socially successful characters shunned fops was because of the dishonest personas they projected in public. Characteristic of the fop was his notable lack of wit, something he tried to cloak behind a façade of external affectations. Many fops had similar sexual aspirations as their rake counterparts, but whereas the rake possessed wit, an endowment “paramount for social and sexual success” 64 in comic plots, fops had none.TP PT As a result, fops desperately wanted to project a witty persona, and in this endeavor they would rehearse their discourse, making sure to include “fashionable” conceits or perhaps throw in a Latin or French phrase with the intent of sounding learned. Unfortunately, since fops are never competent with these languages, they often misuse these phrases. The wittier characters, of course, recognize the fop’s language deficiencies and are aware that his clichéd conceits are scripted. The fop’s attempts at hiding his shortcomings under this veneer are invariably transparent to all the wittier characters. Rather than impressing his comrades, which is his intention, the fop unknowingly reveals more social ineptitude than he hides, and his failed attempts at 65 creating a socially adept persona only serve to draw more attention to his inadequacies.TP PT Because he is unaware that his arduous efforts at sophistication and urbanity have failed, he becomes an easy target for mockery as well as the subject of ridiculing asides and much behind-the-back laughter. Asides, which characters often addressed to the audience as if letting them in on a private joke, invite the entire theater to participate in the laugher and ridicule. The hilarity results from both the representation of overt socially problematic behavior itself 66 and from the fops’ inability to “align themselves with what society demands.”TP PT Laughter is vital to the didactic function of such representations, because “it is the business of 67 laughter to repress any separatist tendency;”TP PT it teaches one how not to behave if one desires to be accepted. Because the fop was a satirical agent, the audience’s derision and laughter were simultaneously directed inward, or at least at those in the audience who exhibited foppish behavior. In order for satire to be effective, it “must always have an object to satirize and hence exists in direct critical relationship with the society which 68 produces it.”TP PT Thus, central to the fop’s success as a satirical agent “was the audience’s

63 TP PT Harold Weber, The Restoration Rake-Hero (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), 6.

64 TP PT Williams, Fop, 34.

65 TP PT Ibid., 68.

66 TP PT Ibid., 12.

67 TP PT Henri Bergson, “Laughter” in Comedy, ed. Wylie Sypher (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956,) 174.

69 recognition of the similarities between the fop’s exaggerated behavior and its own.”TP PT A result of this satire was that it encouraged the audience to take a “comic and serious view of an object at the same time” creating a censorious laughter that criticized the fopperies 70 of Restoration society.TP PT In acting fop roles, Bowman had to walk a fine line between the potentially offensive and the funny, given that audience reaction to satire was at times unpredictable. As Williams points out, “the acknowledgement of specific foppish similarities between the stage fop and society could generate tension, hostility, or even 71 indifference from the audience.”TP PT The severity of the criticism, as well as the audience’s mood, affected the reception of the satire, according to Williams. The manner in which the actor handled such satirical representations undoubtedly played a substantial role in shaping the degree of its severity, the audience’s mood, and subsequently, the play’s reception. It should be noted that J.L. Styan believes “it is possible to ridicule individual behaviour and social convention without suggesting that they are wrong and should be 72 changed.” In other words, the spirit of comic ridicule does not have to be satirical.TP PT The actor largely determined the spirit of the performance; the more ridiculous an actor made his fop, the less his character would resemble the fopperies of real-life examples. Thus, the more exaggerated the fop, the less satirical (and more farcical) the character would have come across. It would be a mistake to think of Restoration fops simply as clowns that can be mocked and easily dismissed. In comic plots they are usually gentlemen of quality with sizeable estates, which, in many plays, makes them viable suitors to beautiful heroines (the type so often played by Anne Bracegirdle). Obviously, these witty women disdain foppery, but in the view of their financially-minded fathers or guardians, a fop’s fortune singled him out as the preferable choice over the rake-hero, who usually desires the heroine, but finds himself at a financial disadvantage. Because of this, the fop, as well as the guardian who promotes him as suitor, is an antagonistic character who stands as an obstacle that the protagonists must surmount if they wish to be together. In this type of plot, which is the most common manifestation of the dramatic conflict between the fop and fashionable society, the fop’s rejection and punishment is justified not only because of his folly, but also because he is “a major blocking figure to the wants and desires of the fashionable wits.” In the eyes of society, he should not be rewarded with the hand of a beautiful heiress both because of his social inadequacy and the unhappy idea that his success would “reinforce the culturally supported prerogative that denies natural love and allows a father to choose a mate for his daughter based on his own economic self-

68 TP PT David Nokes, Raillery and Rage: A Study of Eighteenth Century Satire (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), 2.

69 TP PT Williams, Fop, 64.

70 TP PT Leon Guilhamet, Satire and the Transformation of Genre (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1987), 9.

71 TP PT Williams, Fop, 66.

72 TP PT Styan, Restoration Comedy in Performance, 214.

73 interests.”TP PT As a result, the protagonists often tricked the fop into marrying a woman who, like himself, is outside the privileged circle of fashionable society. This sham marriage usually takes place in a masquerade wedding in the fifth act, and the fop, thinking he is marrying the heroine, exchanges vows with someone of lower social class, such as a maid or prostitute. Only after the masques have been removed does he learn his misfortune—not only that has married someone undesirable, but also that the heroine has married the rake—as all the other characters laugh at his deserved fate. His punishment was thus severe and public, something that broadcasted to the audience the clear message 74 “that eccentric behavior would result in social censure.”TP PT In the end, “marriage for the fashionable wits marks the creation of a successful union and a new social order, while marriage for the fop reinforces his alien social nature and inability to ingratiate himself 75 with society.”TP PT Some plays have minor fop roles that are too small to be antagonistic in the sense that they stand in opposition to the protagonist. Added for comic spice, these fops often receive less severe punishments than those who play more prominent roles in the plot. Saunter, Bowman’s fop mentioned above, is more an annoyance than a real threat to the other characters, and in the end is publicly shamed for his incessant singing by being gagged and made an example of by the protagonist, Goodvile, played by Betterton. In his monograph on the Restoration fop, Williams includes a chapter on “tolerated” fops, who “because of their general good nature, friendships with other characters, or developed and humanized characterization…enjoyed a certain level of social toleration in spite of their 76 comic ridiculum.”TP PT Bowman’s character in Durfey’s The Marriage-Hater Match’d, Brainless, is an example of a fop whose folly is so entertaining that he is tolerated. Brainless is described in the dramatis personae as a “Pert, Noisy, Impertinent Boy, always thrusting himself into the Ladies Company and receiv’d for this Treats, and the Diverison his Folly give.” Though he is not punished by any of the characters, fate seems to have it in for him: He is a great admirer of La Pupsy whom he believes has a substantial estate, and for this reason he is courting her. After marrying her, he is dismayed to discover that she is penniless; his destiny befits his folly. In the 1690s and early part of the eighteenth century, the tolerated fop became more common. Colly Cibber was instrumental in developing more acceptable fops, such as Sir Novelty Fashion and Lord Fopington, whose “social self-awareness…encourages society to tolerate their eccentric presence.” Such fops are not easily mocked because they are aware of their 77 eccentric behavior, and they actually enjoy being fops.TP PT Rather than being limited strictly to the conventional fop humor, this type of fop exhibits a broader range of natural behavior, which dissuades the other characters from castigating him. These fops have a

73 TP PT Ibid., 107.

74 TP PT Ibid., 95.

75 TP PT Ibid.,105.

76 TP PT Ibid., 154.

77 TP PT Ibid., 159.

more three-dimensional quality insofar as they exhibit behavior that is much more similar to that of actual people who simply have foppish personality traits, but can still be of value to society. Playwrights such as Cibber created fops who, rather than hindering the desires of the protagonists, actually help them achieve a satisfactory resolution of the 78 conflict.TP PT In addition to Cibber, Congreve also utilized this type of fop, most notably in The Way of the World in which the two fops, one of which was played by Bowman, are 79 instrumental in bringing about the play’s happy ending.TP PT When performing a fop role, or simply a song performed by a fop character, the actor must take into account whether or not his character is one whose behavior is entirely dominated by folly, or one whose fopperies are more subtle and do not prevent him from social acceptance. In accordance with contemporary dramatic theory, fops whose sole purpose is to illustrate inadvisable behavior should be played so that their artificiality, and thus their humor, is clearly identifiable. This is contingent on understanding the parameters of what Restoration high society considered normative or natural behavior—that which should be illustrated by the witty characters, serving as models for emulation—and playing those social roles with blatant histrionic excess. This type of fop is the most “theatrical” of all characters in Restoration theaters, as he purposefully creates a character whose “performances” take place in the context of the ordinary rituals of contemporary Restoration society. Playwrights frequently used the modes of courtship and polite conversation as the fop’s “stage” because these were “codified social rituals…which required attention to social roles” and for this reason 80 “were more conducive to the exhibition of artificial behavior than others.”TP PT Fops would thus try to imitate the acceptable codes of behavior in these situations, but rather than performing them naturally, they not only overplayed their roles, but through a variety of strategies, also tried to garner the spotlight on themselves and their social performances. Among these strategies was ostentatious clothing, rehearsed conversation with a sprinkling of foreign terms, and making themselves the topic of conversation. Williams states that a fop reinforces his social presence through conversation more so than by any other means, and that he attracts attention through song and dance 81 only occasionally.TP PT Since Bowman was a notable singer, however, playwrights utilized his skill by writing many fop parts that required singing: the singing fop thus became Bowman’s niche in Restoration theater. Already displaying histrionic excess in their social performances, fops who sing—that is, actually perform—must go to even greater excess, and they usually do so in an attempt to gain the spotlight and display their self- proclaimed “talent.” Now, not only is the parlor their stage, but they have taken the idea of social performance and increased its ridiculum by making it musical theater, a rehearsed production with singing and sometimes dancing as well. In song, the fop momentarily reaches his goals by gaining everyone’s wrapt attention, and as long is he is

78 TP PT Ibid., 171.

79 TP PT Ibid., 154.

80 TP PT Ibid., 71.

81 TP PT Ibid., 77.

singing, no one else—including other suitors—can speak. When the fop gets attention, 82 this “threatens the wit characters’ controls of the social space,”TP PT so fops’ song performances serve the dramatic function of heightening tension in the plot. One reason I was intrigued by Bowman was his penchant for playing the fop, and 83 I have contemplated the prospect that he might have been somewhat of a VainthroatTP PT in real life as well, or at least have had a personality that valued good looks, fashionable clothing, and high culture. That he was assigned these many of these roles in the first half of his career certainly suggests that he was a convincing beau onstage. He must have been rather a good-looking man, but not ruggedly so, and, as Balwin and Wilson have suggested, he may well have had a voice of a rather light timbre that lent it a certain 84 “dainty” quality in these roles when exaggerated and combined with a foppish lisp.TP PT Because of the more casual relationships between audience and actors typical of Restoration theater, many audience members undoubtedly knew Bowman personally, and if he were a real-life beau, they would surely have enjoyed his self-satire in fop roles. In his monograph, Williams goes to great length discussing the dramatic theory of the fop, but never deals with performing techniques. Before moving on to Bowman’s roles with the Duke’s Company, then, I will briefly discuss this issue. In comedy, actors generally employed a more naturalistic, less idealized style than in tragedy. John Hill, in his treatise The Actor (1750), wrote,

It is a general, and, allowing only for a very few exceptions, an indispensable rule, that the actor, in comedy, is to recite as naturally as possible: he is to deliver what he has to say, in the very same manner that he would have spoken it off the stage, if he had been in the same circumstances in real life that the person he represents 85 is plac’d in.TP PT

Nearly half a decade earlier, Gildon indicated that acting style in the two genres differed, apologizing for not having addressed the art of acting in comedy:

The Comedians, I fear, may take it amiss, that I have had little or no Regard to them in this Discourse…Besides, as some have observ’d, that Comedy is less 86 difficult in the Writing; so I am apt to believe, it is much easier in the Acting….TP PT

Styan posits that Gildon did not need to comment on comedic style, “because the rules of social behaviour imposed upon the Restoration gentleman in public were themselves

82 TP PT Ibid., 79.

83 TP PT A character he played in The Pretenders (1698).

84 TP PT Note that one of Bowman’s fop roles was Sir Nicholas Dainty in The Volunteers (1692).

85 TP PT John Hill, The Actor, 187.

86 TP PT Gildon, Betterton, 80.

87 quasi-histrionic to begin with.”TP PT In The Ornament of Action, Holland elaborates on the histrionics of Restoration high society:

The evidence for the style of acting in comedy in the Restoration is limited. There is a long history of caricatured acting that modern productions think appropriate to Restoration comedy; their style is based on a misunderstanding of the problem of balance between natural acting and the forms of social artifice. The hundreds of seventeenth-century books describing the correct manner of comporting oneself in society, many translated from the French, point to a 88 codification of social behaviour into consciously defined patterns of conduct.TP PT

These patterns became so normative among the elite, that they viewed them as “natural,” and only outsiders (including modern actors) would have needed to study and practice 89 them.TP PT Disappointingly, Barnett does not sufficiently address the differences in style between tragedy and comedy, but he mentions in passing that in “the elevated world represented in tragedy and serious opera, the characters were idealized types,” and adds that in “gesture and action…idealization was achieved by avoiding an imitation of nature 90 which was too realistic.”TP PT Whereas the comic style would seem unnatural to us today, the magnitude and intensity of tragic acting would be simply shocking, as it was “more 91 intense and passionate than anything seen on stage today.”TP PT Tragedians had to match the force of their action and utterance to the elevated verse and powerful passions of the text, an intensity that would have been quite out of place in the contemporary settings of comic plots. The types of gesture and expression that were discussed in Chapter II apply to both comedic and tragic acting, however, as several of these principles were staples of instruction in elocution, rhetoric, and manners throughout the period. In The Art of Dancing (1735), Kellom Tomlinson, before discussing dance, explains how one should “enter upon the stage of life”:

Let us imagine ourselves, as so many living pictures drawn by the most excellent masters, exquisitely designed to afford the utmost pleasure to beholders: and, indeed, we ought to set our bodies in such a disposition, when we stand in conversation, that, were our actions or postures delineated, they might bear the 92 strictest examination of the most critical judges.TP PT

87 TP PT Styan, Restoration Comedy in Performance, 65.

88 TP PT Holland, The Ornament of Action, 57.

89 TP PT Ibid., 58.

90 TP PT Barnett, Gesture, 139.

91 TP PT Ibid., 91.

92 TP PT Quoted in Styan, Restoration Comedy in Performance, 66-7.

Though not as extreme and stylized as on the tragic stage, Restoration notions of “natural” comportment parallel instructions on acting style, which emphasize pictorial beauty. In order to improve their acting during recitatives, Tosi recommends instructors teach their pupils a “certain natural imitation, which cannot be beautiful if it is not presented with such propriety as that with which Princes speak, or those who speak to 93 Princes.”TP PT Significantly, Tosi believed that the natural demeanor of the nobility provided appropriate modes for tragic acting in opera seria. Intensity and magnitude excepted, there was not a gaping disconnect between acting styles in comedy and tragedy. In contrast to the wittier characters, the acting style for fools—fops, country bumpkins, and cits—was distinctly unnatural when measured against the standards of stylish comportment. The behavior of country characters was risible because they demonstrated in their actions no familiarity with fashionable society and for this reason, could easily be identified as outsiders. Most fops, on the other hand, were reared as urban elite and were thus “in the know,” but their mania for modeling modish manners and attire catalyzed melodramatic performances of social forms to such an extent that these were highly affected and unnatural. The actors playing wit characters had to appear “natural” in performance, and to achieve this onstage (at a distance from the audience), they must have exaggerated their actions slightly in comparison to how they might have acted in real-life situations. Fops, however, had to appear to be performing within the performance, so in order to bring this across to the theater audience, the actors playing them must have gesticulated with a magnitude not unlike that of the tragic stage, though without the passionate extremes required in tragic plots. Whereas proper acting technique mandated decorum, elegant lines, and contrapposto postures, the fop overdid these. The desired moderate curve of the wrist, for example, became exaggerated and limp-wristed in the hands of the fop. Instead of employing temperance when embellishing gestures, the fop ornamented his actions with unreserved flamboyancy, a propensity that undoubtedly extended to song performance as well. Though Bowman’s fop songs sometimes look rather uninteresting on the page, they must have been raucously entertaining when performed in their original dramatic context.

Duke’s Company Roles:

During the years Bowman was with the Duke’s Company, only fifteen roles can be ascribed to him with certainty. The first play in which Bowman’s name appears in the cast list was The Counterfeit Bridegroom, in which he played the part of Peter Santloe. It is not known exactly when the play premiered, but it was perhaps as early as the 1676-77 season, as it was licensed for printing on 4 October 1677, making September 94 of that year the latest probable month in which it could have been produced.TP PT It can be assumed, however, that he would have appeared onstage before this, as this was

93 TP PT Tosi, Observations, 41.

94 TP PT London Stage, Part I, 263.

potentially as many as seven years after he entered the Company, well beyond the six- month probationary period allotted to apprentices. If he began his official training as a boy, perhaps the Company simply did not allow him a large enough role to include him in the named portion of any cast before a full seven-year apprenticeship. Bowman’s absence in earlier records certainly does not prove that he was not acting for the Company before 1677, as few of the plays at Dorset Garden during the early 1670s were published with cast lists. In the years between Bowman’s alleged first season (1673-74) and his performance of Peter Santloe in 1677, plays were only sporadically printed with casts. Furthermore, the names of actors who played minor characters, such as those Bowman would have played at this time, are not often included. It is possible that the Company used Bowman primarily as a singer until The Counterfeit Bridegroom. If Curll can be believed when he states that Bowman “was brought into the Duke’s Theatre to Sing,” then it is likely he appeared onstage, possibly several times, among the anonymous groups of musicians for whom so many plays call. Indeed, Bowman first seems to have been known as a singer rather than an actor. In his Apology, Colley Cibber related an anecdote of a performance by Bowman in the presence of King Charles:

This Theatrical Anecdote, however, puts me in mind of one of a more private nature, which I had from old solemn Boman, the late Actor of venerable Memory. Boman, then a Youth, and fam’d for his Voice, was appointed to sing some Part, in a Concert of Musick at the private Lodgings of Mrs. Gwin; at which were only present, the King, the Duke of York, and one, or two more, who were usually admitted upon those detached Parties of Pleasure. When the Performance was ended, the King express’d himself highly pleas’d, and gave it extraordinary Commendations: Then, Sir, said the Lady, to shew you don’t speak like a Courtier, I hope you will make the Performers a handsom Present: The King said, he had no Mony about him, and ask’d the Duke if he had any? To which the Duke reply’d, I believe, Sir, not above a Guinea, or two. Upon which the laughing Lady, turning to the People about her, and making bold with the King’s common 95 Expression, cry’d, “Od’s Fish! What Company am I got into.”TP PT

Unfortunately, Cibber does not say when this event took place, but it probably happened some time in the 1670s. Nell Gwyn was the actress who herself was famed for being 96 Charles’s mistress, a relationship that began at least by the summer of 1669.TP PT Judging from her witty jibe at Charles and his presence at her lodgings, probably at the house he bought for her in Pall Mall, she was clearly his mistress at the time of the concert in which Bowman performed. By the early 1670s she rarely appeared on stage, and she seems to have passed her time attending plays at the King’s expense, beginning about the 97 time Bowman entered the Company.TP PT Over the two-year period from 1674 to 1676, she

95 TP PT Cibber, Apology, 317. Cibber uses italics rather than quotation marks.

96 TP PT Highfill et al., Biographical Dictionary, V.6, 461.

visited the theater at least 55 times, and if Bowman were singing onstage at that time, she had ample opportunity to see him perform and thus invite him to sing in private concert. In his biography of Nell Gwyn, Roy MacGregor-Hastie places the event in 1675, but, disconcertingly, says the “star of the evening was Henry Bowman from the House 98 [referring to the King’s Company].”TP PT How he could confuse John Bowman of the Duke’s Company with Henry Bowman, the Oxford composer, is perplexing and certainly does not instill confidence in his conclusions regarding Bowman. MacGregor-Hastie does claim to have consulted “the largest collection of [Gwyn] memorabilia” which “is kept locked in a safe in Pall Mall,” and perhaps he discovered a reference to this concert 99 there (but he gives no indication that this is the case).TP PT If Bowman’s performance occurred in 1675, it may be evidence that he was singing in the theater by this time. Interestingly, Gwyn attended Psyche at Dorset Garden on 27 February 1674, 25 September and 8 October 1675, and Bowman may well have first impressed her during one of these. If he were singing for the Company at this time, he probably would have performed in Psyche that fall, and he certainly must have sung in later revivals of Psyche, Circe and The Tempest, all three of which the Duke’s Company performed as 100 late as the 1681-82 season, well after his first known role.TP PT There is no evidence linking Bowman to any of these works, however, so any attempt to establish which roles he might have sung would be entirely speculation.

Roles in Comedy

The Counterfeit Bridegroom 101 Edition Consulted: 1677TP PT

Though the music no longer survives, Bowman’s first documented song performance occurred in Act V of The Counterfeit Bridegroom, which has been variously attributed to either Aphra Behn or Thomas Betterton. Bowman played the part of Peter

97 TP PT See William Van Lennep, “Nell Gwyn’s Playgoing at the King’s Expense,” Harvard Library Bulletin, IV (1950), 405-8.

98 TP PT Roy MacGregor-Hastie, Nell Gwyn (London: Robert Hale, 1987), 120. He states that Bowman (again Henry) sang at her house during the fall of 1684 and at a party on 1 February 1685 at which the King and John Evelyn were present. King Charles fell ill that night and died on the following Thursday. Evelyn mentions hearing a “french boy singing love songs” but does not mention Bowman.

99 TP PT Ibid., 14 and 120. MacGregor-Hastie does not provide a source for this date, however.

100 TP PT The casts of these are not known.

101 TP PT The Counterfeit Bridegroom (London, 1677) (Wing / M1983).

Santloe, an example of his other prominent line in comedy, a character type that the authors of A Biographical Dictionary of Actors call the “kindly friend,” which is oddly 102 different from the fop.TP PT At the beginning of the play, Santloe, had recently fallen in love with and secretly married Clarina (played by Mrs. Gibbs), a “little Gypsie” whom he met at an inn in Antwerp. Sir Oliver Santloe (Anthony Leigh) financed this European expedition, sending his son, Peter, and his servant, Sam (Mr. Richards), to retrieve his long-lost daughter. Sir Oliver had recently received news that the daughter was still alive after having been kidnapped years ago while on a trip to Flanders, where her mother, Lady Santloe (Mrs. Norris), intended to “coop the Young Chick…in a Nunnery.” Peter’s sister and mother were not heard of again “till about Three Months since” when “News came of all had past, in a Letter from the Mother, who was then but in an ill condition at Cologne.” Peter’s nascent love interest distracted him from his purpose, however, and instead of retrieving his sister, he returned with a new wife but told Sir Oliver that it was his sister. Unaware of the scam, Sir Oliver devises a union between Peter and Eugenia (Mrs. Legrand), the mistress of Peter’s boon companion, Mr. Sanders (Mr. Gilloe). To Peter’s dismay, Sir Oliver begins courting suitors for his spurious daughter. Sam then concocts a plan to resolve the quandary, and petitions Sir Oliver to marry her to Mr. Sanders, whom he says is “as impotent as an Eunuch” and who has a “great Estate” that will come to the family upon his death. Sam tells Peter that he could then marry Eugenia, and since both couples will live in Sir Oliver’s house, they could “dally and print a kiss on the wrong Lip” in the daytime “to please the Old Man,” but at night “let each know his own business.” In Act III, Lady Santloe unexpectedly returns, and after Clarina relates the story of how she had indeed been kidnapped on the way to a nunnery, she joyously proclaims that Clarina is her daughter. The prospect of being in an incestuous relationship slightly unnerves Peter, but he remains unconvinced of Lady Santloe’s assertion, thinking there must be “some damn’d riddle in’t, which we cannot at present expound.” In the meantime, Eugenia’s aunt, the Widow Landwell (Mrs. Osborne), has several suitors vying for her land, which her late husband had extorted from the aptly named Mr. and Mrs. Hadland (Mr. Williams and Mrs. Currar). With the help of her husband and brother, Mr. Noble (Mr. Crosby), Mrs. Hadland devises a scheme to regain the land. She dresses as a man in order to court the concupiscent widow, who easily succumbs to Mrs. Hadland’s advances and accepts her marriage proposal. After the wedding, the newlyweds retire to a private chamber, while the others celebrate, “Drinking at a Table.” Having been tantalized with the possibility of a forthcoming homoerotic encounter, the audience is given a moment of repose while Peter sings a drinking song (with the others joining on the choruses):

103 Come troul it away,TP PT We’ll drink up the day, Let none from his standing retire, We’l Laugh, Drink, and Sing,

102 TP PT Highfill, et al., Biographical Dictionary, V. 2, 198.

103 TP PT Troul: trawl; i.e., to dredge their glasses in “Baccus’s spring.”

And Bacchus’s Spring We’l drain, and our prowess admire. Cho[rus] We’l Laugh, &c.

Old Age we despise Whilst Wine we can prize, And briskly can take off our Glasses; Wine, life does repair, And banishes Care, But Temp’rance wou’d make us all Asses. Cho. Wine, life, &c.

Let the Pollitick fool Live dully by Rule, While our Wits we refine in our Liquor, My Soul’s in that Wine Which puts the Divine 104 To a Nonplus, and turns up the Viccar.TP PT Cho. My Soul’s, &c.

Bowman probably sang this a capella and maybe a bit raucously, given the context. Because the tune was likely quite simple, the music probably was never written. After this and another song by Sir Oliver, the widow shrieks from within, and the revelers decide to investigate. The scene then changes to the widow’s chamber, where Mr. Noble, who is deeply in love with the widow, has snuck in (as part of Mrs. Hadland’s plan) and is trying to seduce her. Mrs. Hadland, still cross-dressed, enters “ready to perform the Rites of Love,” but discovering Noble, accuses the widow of infidelity. Mrs. Hadland threatens to discard her and ruin her reputation unless the widow relinquishes the estate and marries Noble. By this time the men are at the door, forcing the widow to make a hasty decision, and she sadly acquiesces. Mrs. Hadland then reveals the scheme, and the widow is relieved when she learns that Noble will be a loving husband, stating, “my fortune’s better than I could have expected.” The widow, however, has a secret of her own to reveal. Her sister, who had nursed Clarina as a baby, also had a girl of the same age. Because her sister’s fortunes were decaying, she gave her child, Eugenia, to the Santloes and kept Clarina for herself. It was thus the widow’s niece, Eugenia, whom they sent to a nunnery and whom Peter had married. Relieved, Peter happily says “Nature was not so dull to let me languish for a Sister.”

104 TP PT …Divine to a Nonplus, and turns up the Viccar: The vicar, who usually has much to say, is silenced.

Friendship in Fashion 105 Editions Consulted: 1678 and 1736TP PT

The first of many fop roles for Bowman was Saunter in Otway’s Friendship in Fashion (1678), a gay young man who perpetually attempts to garner attention by singing. Otway paired him with another fop, Caper (Mr. Jevon) who, as his name indicates, cannot resist dancing and capering about foolishly whenever he hears music or when someone mentions dancing. Both of these fools are acquaintances of Malagene (Mr. Leigh), an impudent, troublesome annoyance, who hypocritically refers to them as “loathsome Company,” describing them as “a brace of silly talking, dancing, singing Rascals.” Saunter and Caper vie for the attention of the affected, amorous, and somewhat old coquet, Lady Squeamish (Mrs. Gywn), who excessively admires accomplishments and good breeding and who “loves young Fellows more than an old Kite does young 106 Chickens.”TP PT In Saunter’s first scene in the play, which occurs in the first act, he is discoursing with Malagene and Caper about Victoria, the “Delicat’st Creature” and “one of the finest Women in the world,” as Caper adoringly describes her. The mere intimation that Caper may be in love puts Saunter in a mind to sing: “He in love with her, poor Soul!—I shall beg his pardon there as I take it—;” Here, as in other similar instances in the play, the stage directions read “Sings,” though no text is given. After having just walked “up and down with an affected Motion” earlier in the scene, his foppishness becomes evident to the audience very quickly. Moments after Saunter sings, Lady Squeamish enters and proclaims, “Oh dear Mr. Saunter! a thousand thanks to you for my Song,” which he had apparently taught her. Always eager to perform a song, Saunter replies, “Your Ladiship does your Servant too much honour,” and he begins singing “As Cloe full of, &c.” 107 according to the stage directions, but Otway does not include any additional text.TP PT Presumably, Saunter continued to sing during Caper’s lines that follow: “I should have waited on your Ladiship, but was so tired at the Masquerade at my Lords Flutters t’other Night” at which point he “Dances and capers,” perhaps to the accompaniment of Saunter’s singing. Indeed, these two make a tiresome pair of coxcombs. Later in the same scene Lady Squeamish brags on Saunters singing, especially his French accent:

Lady Squeam. I swear, Mr. Saunter, you have the most court-like Way of expressing your self—

Saun. Oh Lord, Madam! [Bows and cringes]

105 TP PT Thomas Owtay, Friendship in Fashion (London, 1678) (Wing / O548), and Friendship in Fashion (London, 1736).

106 TP PT Kite: a bird of prey

107 TP PT Since Otway included this incipit, he may have been referring to a specific song, but no such song was published during the last half of the seventeenth century.

Lady Squeam. Mr. Malagene, these are both my intimate Acquaintance, and I’ll swear I am proud of ‘em. Here is Mr. Saunter sings the French manner better than ever I heard any English Gentleman in my Life: Besides he pronounces his English singing with a French kind of a Tone or Accent that gives it a strange Beauty—Sweet Sir, do me the Favour of the last new Song. Predictably, Saunter responds enthusiastically: Saun. Let me die; your Ladyship obliges me beyond expression—Malagene, thou shalt hear me.

Here Saunter “Sings a Song in a French Tone,” but, regrettably, Otway provides no text. The humorous nature of the situation is revealed in Malagene’s reaction to Saunter’s absurd, unintelligible singing: “What a Devil was this, I understand not a word on’t.” Certainly, the audience must have had similar difficulty, and Malagene’s aside not only validates this for the audience but also invites them to ridicule Saunter with laughter. Fishing for approbation, Saunter and Lady Squeamish ask Malagene his opinion, and he obligingly replies that he has never heard anything so fine, probably delivering the line with a sarcastic glance at the audience (who was now in on the joke). Lady Squeamish then dotes on Saunter’s plain and distinct pronunciation, to which Malagene feignedly agrees as he “Makes mouths aside,” again encouraging the audience and probably instigating much laughter. In Act II, all the characters attend a banquet at Goodvile’s (a rakish adulterer played by Betterton), whose wife (Barry) has arranged for the “Fiddles” to provide music. A portion of these musicians accompanied Saunter’s song at the gathering, “When Phyllis watcht her harmless sheep.” Except in the large-scale musical works, such as Don Quixote, singers were typically accompanied by the so-called “fiddlers” who proliferated on the Restoration stage. In Bowman’s day, this term was used much more broadly than today, as it could refer to any stage musician, singer, or instrumentalist, and 108 not just specifically to violinists.TP PT A guitarist would have accompanied most of Bowman’s songs, which are typically scored for voice and continuo, as is Saunter’s song in Act II. As most considered the lute to be “the musical instrument of antiquity,” it was rarely employed in comedy, and though used in serious drama, it gradually began to fall out of fashion. In addition to the guitar, the fiddlers often played a bass viol or 109 violoncello to reinforce the bass line of the accompaniment.TP PT When the fiddles arrive at the banquet, Caper panics because his servant forgot his dancing shoes, and after chastising him mightily for it, he sends him home to fetch them. While they are waiting, Mrs. Goodvile invites the ladies, Caper, and Saunter to “withdraw and leave the Gentlemen to themselves.” Lady Squeamish then asks Saunter to “oblige us with a Song,” and, as may be expected, Saunter is elated at the invitation to take center stage: “O Madam, ten thousand, ten thousand if you please! I’ll swear I believe I could sing all Day and all Night, and never be weary.” Otway only provides the

108 TP PT Price, Music in Restoration Theatre, 74.

109 TP PT Ibid, 78-9.

first line of text, probably because he did not write it himself, but rather excerpted it from an earlier play, The Comical Revenge (1664) by Etherege.

When Phillis watcht her harmless Sheep, Not one poor Lamb was made a Prey; Yet she had cause enough to weep, Her silly Heart did go astray: Then flying to the neighb’ring Grove, She left the tender Flock to rove, And to the Winds did breath her Love.

She sought in vain To ease her Pain, The heedless Winds did fan her Fire; Venting her Grief Gave no relief, But rather did encrease desire. Then sitting with her Arms across, Her Sorrows streaming from each Eye; She fixt her thoughts upon her Loss, And in Despair resolv’d to dye.

Etherege’s text suits the melancholic mood of Letitia and Aurelia in The Comical Revenge, when in Act II they retire to a shady bower to repeat the saddest tales they ever learned of love, as they join their mournful voices to sing “this Song in Parts.” An anonymous setting of this text for solo voice was published in the fourth book of Choice 110 Ayres in 1683, and this is likely the song Bowman performed (see Appendix B).TP PT The text seems far too weighty for Saunter’s drawing room performance, and its serious 111 setting in G minor, the key often associated with death during the Restoration,TP PT certainly does not suggest a comical performance, but it certainly must have been. Thinking himself an expert singer, Saunter surely performed this with a wholly serious demeanor, unleashing a repertoire of unimaginably affected gestures to accompany his stylish French accent. To his approving onstage audience, he was the epitome of sophistication, but to the theater audience, his attempts at exemplifying good breeding were laughable. The seriousness of the song juxtaposed against the lightheartedness of the dramatic context accentuated this and factored into the audience’s reaction as well. A jocular song simply would not have provided Bowman the opportunity to demonstrate Saunter’s social incompetence as effectively.

110 TP PT It is not clear in the playbook whether Bowman performed the entire song or simply sang an excerpt as he had done earlier. Since Saunter is asked to perform a song, and since a song with this title was published in close relative proximity to Friendship in Fashion, the evidence suggests that Bowman probably sang the song in its entirety.

111 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 22.

At the end of the play, Goodvile punishes Caper and Saunter for continually disturbing everyone. Caper is brought “with one Leg ty’d up, and Saunter Gagg’d,” as Goodvile makes the moral clear: “Now you paultry Vermin, you Rats that run squeaking from House to House, up and down the Town; that no man can eat his Bread in quiet for you. Take warning of what you feel, and come not near these Doors again on peril of hanging.” The fops thus receive their just punishment.

The Virtuous Wife 112 Edition Consulted: 1680TP PT

113 Bowman’s next role in a comedy was as the singing master, Crotchett,TP PT in 114 Durfey’s The Virtuous Wife, which premiered in September or October, 1679.TP PT Crotchett’s only appearance is in the play’s exposition in Act I, in a scene that introduces two foolish characters, Sir Frolick Whimsey (Jevon), and his nephew and ward, Sir Lubberly Widgeon (Lee). Although Crotchett sings and exits shortly thereafter, his role is not merely contrived to insert a song performance into the play, but rather to expose the ineptitude and incorrigibility of Sir Lubberly, setting the stage for his further follies. Impatient with his nephew, Sir Frolick explains that the only reason he tolerates him is that his brother, when on his deathbed, implored him to look after Sir Lubberly and to breed him up well. In this era, part of good “breeding,” involved instruction in music, and for this reason, many well-to-do families hired singing masters to instruct their children. Crotchett’s lesson of the day was solfeggio singing, but Sir Lubberly found this difficult and protested greatly:

Sing-M. Come Sir, Pray be rul’d, and sing your Notes—Sol, la, come Sir, sol, la, me—Come.

Sir Frol. Oh give me patience! Not yet—Sir, do not provoke me. Do not I say— s’bud sing, and quickly, or by this hand.

Sir L. Widg. Well come what is’t? What is’t? s’bud must I be made a fool thus?—Well come’tis all one, what is’t?

Sing-M. Sol, sol.

112 TP PT Thomas Durfey, The Virtuous Wife (London, 1680) (Wing / D2790).

113 TP PT A “crotchet” is, of course, a durational symbol in music and thus a fitting name for a singing master, but since Crotchett’s song is on a political topic, Durfey could be alluding to crotchet-mongering as well. A crotchet-monger is one who obtrusively advocates a crotchet, or a notion on some point, which is usually political in nature.

114 TP PT London Stage, Part I, 281.

Sir. L. Widg. Sol, sol—look now—What the devil has he to do with my soul! Oh Lord! Must I be thus us’d? sirrah! You are a Canting Rascal, and sing worse than the Vinegar-man, or Clark of Pankridge! Sirrah, you are—oh gods bud, must I be thus us’d?

Sing M. Ay ‘tis no matter, ‘tis no matter Sir, I must bear with ye: Come sing your Note Come, Sol, la, me—

Crotchet finally persuades Sir Lubberly to sing, but his sol-faing is out of tune:

L. Widg. Sol, sol—la me—pox I shal never do’t—no no, I shall never—why this is worse than learning the Catechism, and saying it at Church without book.—

Sing M. Well—I must have patience—This is common with beginners, I must bear with ye.

Sir Frol. Bear with him! Hang him! A Dunce! A Cockoo! No time, no tune, no ear—ah—hadst thou but known me a young man, I would have made thee asham’d of this Sir, believe me, I had the prettiest way of singing.

Sing-M. Sings very well Sir Frollick, and very well in Tune.

L. Widg. Ah very well, ha, ha, you lying Son of a whore! Very well quotha, profoundly, he sings worse than the prisoners at New-gate (To buy us bread) ah that’s heavenly to’t.

Sir Lubberly vexes Sir Frolick to such an extent that Crotchet offers a song to divert him:

Sir. Frol. Sir Lubberlly, you are a foolish fellow, and must, God mend me, be taught more manners! Give me patience! Is it fit for you to descant on a person of my age and experience? Go to—ah, Mr. Crotchet, I am the most unfortunate person! I am grown old o’th’ sudden, as ‘twere, I know not how, all my good parts lost, quite lost as god save me. I am a Cipher now—good for nothing.

Sing M. Oh think not so Sir, you are a lusty man. Now Sir, to divert you, I’ll sing you a merry Song. ‘Tis not customary with us Professors—but to oblige you Sir—

Sir Frol. Thank you good Mr. Crotchet.

Next follows Crotchet’s song, “Let the Traitors plot on,” the text of which bears no relevance to plot, but instead references the drama taking place in English politics at that time.

Aptly timed, the song attempts to capitalize on the unabated popular animosity against all traitors involved in the “Popish Plot” to murder King Charles and put his 115 Catholic brother James, Duke of York, on the throne.TP PT Nearly a year earlier, in August 1678, Christopher Kirkby first told Charles of the murderous plot, claiming that Jesuit assassins were planning to attack him as he strolled through St James’s Park. Charles dismissed the charges, continued on his walk as planned, and was unharmed. Later that evening, a certain Dr. Isreal Tonge brought a written narrative of the plot to Charles, who entrusted his chief minister, the Earl of Danby, to investigate, but he did not gain much headway until September, when Tonge named Titus Oates as the source of the story. Oates gave a coherent account, naming several conspirators who were promptly arrested, including Edward Coleman, secretary to the Duchess of York, whose papers were seized and contained incriminating letters that disparaged Charles and alluded to plans to promote Catholicism. In October, Oates testified in Parliament, resulting in the arrest of five Catholic peers, and both houses passed a measure to purge all Catholics from Parliament altogether. The fallout continued on a downward spiral as more and more people believed that popish recusants were hoping to depose Charles and Protestantism, and when Oates published A True Narrative of the Horrid Plot on 15 April 1679, anti- Catholic hysteria reached a fevered pitch. The fear was that James, once on the throne, would not only grant toleration for Catholics, but also would establish an absolutist monarchy and rule arbitrarily with “punishment contrary to law, taxation without 116 consent, the abolition or subjugation of parliament” and “rule by a standing army.”TP PT Throughout the summer before the performance of The Virtuous Wife, fear of popery remained high and continued at the center of public attention throughout the fall, encouraged by the many “pamphleteers, propagandists, satirists and newsmongers” who, 117 according to Spurr, “had a field day.”TP PT On 21 May, Parliament passed a bill that would exclude James from succeeding to the throne, and as a result, Charles, devout in his belief in divine right, exercised his prerogative to prorogue parliament. This parliament was dissolved in July, and the announcement was made that a new one would meet in October. General elections for the new parliament were held in August, in the midst of which Charles became so ill that James, who was hiding in Brussels, rushed back in disguise to take the throne should his brother die. Though Charles recovered from his fever, in the minds of many throughout the Kingdom, the succession issue had to be resolved post-haste. These events in August heaped more fuel on the heating political fire just prior to the performance of The Virtuous Wife. In the midst of the political tumult, Bowman’s performance reached beyond the fictional world of The Virtuous Wife and resonated with the current concerns of the audience. In effect, Durfey halted the play’s progress by disengaging the audience from

115 TP PT For a detailed account of the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis, see John Spurr, England in the 1670s, 260-300.

116 TP PT John Miller, “Politics in Restoration Britain,” in Barry Coward, ed. A Companion to Stuart Britain (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 406.

117 TP PT Spurr, England in the 1670s, 283.

the story and redirecting their attention to current events, and for the few minutes while Bowman sang, the playhouse transformed to a political rally for loyalists:

Let the Traitors plot on, till at last they’r undone, By hurting their Brains to decoy us; We whose hearts are at rest in our Loyalties Blest, What Demon or Power can annoy us? Ambition like Wine, does the Senses confound, And Treason’s a damnable thing. Then let him that thinks well, see his Brimmer go round, And pray for the Safety, and Life of the King.

Chorus: Let Caesar live long, let Caesar live long, For ever be happy, and ever be young: And he that dares hope to change a King for a Pope, Let him die, let him die, while Caesar lives long.

How Happy are we! When our thoughts are all free, And blest in our forced Obedience; Whilst the politick fool that’s Ambitions to Rule, Still bauks at the oath of Allegiance: He trembles and flies from his numerous foes, Like a Deer that the Hunters surround; While we that hate all, that would Monarchs depose, Make the joyes of our hearts, like our Glasses abound.

Perhaps Durfey was referencing the recently finished statue by Grinling Gibbons of Charles dressed in Caesar’s ancient Roman attire when he wrote the chorus of this 118 song.TP PT As the statue stood in Whitehall Palace, many in the audience would have recalled this image as Bowman sang. The audience also would have understood the line about the traitor who “bauks at the oath of Allegiance,” as a reference to the Test Act of 1673, “An act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants,” which in 1678 was extended to include members of the House of Lords. The Act required public and church officials to take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy in which one swore allegiance to the monarch as the “only supreme governor of this realm, and of all other his Highness's dominions and countries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes.” Further, the Act specified that one had to denounce the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and resolve to take communion according to Anglican rites. The purpose of the Test Act was to prevent Catholics from taking public and church offices. The traitors about whom Crotchet sings are the papists involved in the supposed plot, those who would baulk at the oath.

118 TP PT Gibbons completed the statue, and, since 1692, it has stood in the Figure Court of the Royal Hospital Chelsea.

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In his recent book, Thomas Durfey and Restoration Drama (2000), John 119 McVeagh refers to “Let the Traitors Plot On” as an “anti-Whig song.”TP PT At the time of the Virtuous Wife, Durfey was becoming a vocal Tory, “fired up” by the Popish Plot and 120 the Exclusion Crisis, and throwing himself into the political controversies of the day.TP PT England’s first political parties formed as a response to the Exclusion Bill Crisis, the Whigs favoring exclusion and the Tories opposing the bill. Throughout the crisis, which spanned three years from 1679 to 1681, the newly formed Whigs, in order to exclude James, “produced a mass of propaganda, organized petitions and demonstrations, and co- 121 ordinated campaigns in three successive general elections….”TP PT The opposing Tory party, which had a majority in the House of Lords, defeated each of these. Though a Tory, Durfey was not making an anti-Whig statement with Crotchet’s song, as it contains no overtly anti-Whig sentiments as McVeagh states. Rather, the song expresses the general anti-papist stance held not only by both parties, but also by the public at large. It is also worth noting that this is the first of many song texts Durfey wrote for Bowman, the next two of which came only two years later in The Royalist (1682). As virtually all of Durfey’s plays for Bowman’s troupe after this have at least one song for each of his characters, Bowman must have performed Crotchet impeccably and made a first-rate impression on Durfey. It was Durfey, it will be recalled, who wrote the text of Bowman’s hallmark song, “Let the dreadful Engines,” which was a great success in 1694. Thomas Farmer set the text of “Let the Traitors plot on,” and the song was printed in the third book of Choice Ayres in 1681 (see Appendix B). As a violinist, Farmer played in the 24 Violins at court beginning in September 1675, and in November, a month after the premiere of The Virtuous Wife, he became a member of the King’s 122 Private Musick.TP PT Farmer was one of several composers employed by the Duke’s Company, but of his 42 known songs, this is the only one he composed specifically for one of Bowman’s characters. The setting is predominately syllabic, and on the whole, the rhythm follows the dance-like dactylic meter of Durfey’s poetry, and the musical form, like that of the poetry is strophic with a refrain. It is simple to sing, well within the limits of any trained male in his mid twenties, as was Bowman at the time. The range is

an octave and a half, stretching from C3B B to F4B ,B but most of it lies well in the middle of the baritone range. After Crotchet sings, Lord Frolick responds rather indifferently to the song, stating “Ay, this is something” (such seeming apathy for this serious topic would have been humorous), then addresses Crotchet, saying, “Well—you have notable skill on my word Sirrah.” As a singing master, Crotchet was of a lower social class than Sir Frolick,

119 TP PT John McVeagh, Thomas Durfey and Restoration Drama: The Work of a Forgotten Writer (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2000), 77.

120 TP PT McVeagh, Durfey, 4.

121 TP PT John Morrill, “The Stuarts” in Kenneth O. Morgan, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of Britian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 334-35.

122 TP PT Peter Holman, “Thomas Farmer,” Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 16 May 2005), http://www.grovemusic.com.

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a fact reinforced when he addresses Crotchet as “Sirrah,” which, as the OED explains, is “a term of address used to men or boys, expressing contempt, reprimand, or assumption of authority on the part of the speaker.” “Sirrah” is often used in Restoration comedies to address servants, as it must have been in real life as well, and it is significant to note that as a servant, Crotchet would have worn a plainer costume and gesticulated more naturally than if he were playing a fop, whose characters were from the nobility. Not long after this, Crotchet exits and does not return for the remainder of the play. By and large, Bowman’s roles in the comedies of his Duke’s Theater period are quite small; it was a time when he was learning the trade and establishing himself in the London theater world. He is listed in the Dramatis Personae in only three other comedies during this period. In January 1682 he played Rabsheka Sly in Mr. Turbulent, a very small role as a Cabal of Mr. Turbulent, “a private Sinner, and Railer against the Times,” and Dresswell, another role as a beau, in Behn’s The City Heiress, which premiered in April 1682. Neither of these has songs.

The Royalist 123 Edition Consulted: 1682TP PT

In Durfey’s The Royalist, which premiered in January 1682, Bowman performed two songs, “The great Augustus, like the glorious Sun” and “Now, now the Tories all must droop,” both of which have explicit political content. As the title suggests, the entire play itself is laden with political propaganda, which, as in The Virtuous Wife, was occasioned by the Exclusion Crisis. Durfey is never subtle with his political designs in The Royalist. As McVeagh has pointed out, Dufey “offers a hero-worshipping portrait of a loyal monarchist,” creating a protagonist that is “a lifeless…plaster cast of loyalty facing opponents equally two-dimensional.” Because his political propaganda dominates 124 the play’s content, the drama fails to work as it should, according to McVeagh.TP PT In the first lines of the Prologue, Durfey indicates his surprise to see a full house at a “Loyal Play,” and he goes on to praise the Tories (with which he affiliates himself) at the expense of the Whigs. He makes sure to goad the Whigs by highlighting the political reality of early 1682, that the Tories were winning:

But know, ye Criticks of unequal'd Pride, The Dice now give kind chances on our side; Tories are upmost, and the Whigs defy'd.

He then points out the virtues of the Tory, describing him as one “who loves his Prince and Countrey at his Heart” and who “to all Mankind is civil.” Though a Tory is “Perfect in Honour” and “constant to his Friend,” his one fault, says Durfey, is that “he’s wondrous kind.” Set at the end of the Interregnum at the time of Oliver Cromwell’s death in 1658, the play opens with Sir Charles Kinglove (Mr. Smith), the flawless Royalist Colonel,

123 TP PT Thomas Durfey, The Royalist (London, 1682) (Wing / D2770).

124 TP PT McVeagh, Durfey, 87-8.

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“worshipping” with his friend Heartall (Mr. Williams) and others at the Royal Oak in Boscobel, the tree in which young Prince Charles hid from Oliver Cromwell during the Civil War. There they drink to “Caesar’s Health,” a notion that confuses Slouch (Mr. Bright), who asks if they could drink “the Kings Health now we have had Mr. Caesars.” Sir Charles forcefully corrects the idiot: “Caesar is the King, Sirra! you have had it already.” After more drinking and expository dialogue, Heartall sings a snippet of a song, which puts Sir Charles in them mood to hear another, a song that he says was given to him that morning.

Heart. There's nothing tries an unsound Intellect like Wine; for if you observe, your Rogue of Interest then will certainly betray himself.

Sir Char. I have observ'd it.

Heart. (Sings) 'Tis not the Silver nor gold for it self, That makes men adore it, but 'tis for its Power.

Sir Char. Thy singing has put me in mind of a Song was given me this morning, a thing very well humour'd, and most excellently set; and here I think comes the Lieutenant opportunely to sing it.

Bowman played the part of Sir Charles’s lieutenant, Broome, who makes his first appearance of the play here. Broome did not trek to the Royal Oak to provide amusement, however, but to deliver Sir Charles the alarming news that the Roundheads have seized his property. Kinglove refuses to listen to Broome’s message until after the song, creating a rather humorous situation by the insertion of a song on the flimsiest of pretexts. Durfey seems to be mocking the convention and possibly Bowman as well, who has begun to establish himself as one who “opportunely” arrives onstage when someone mentions a song. When Bowman entered, perhaps he gave a nod to the audience to acknowledge this before engaging in the following dialogue:

Broom. Oh Collonel! Y'are undone!

Sir Charl. No matter, Sir, sing me that Song I gave you lately

Broom. Lord Sir sing! why I have the saddest news to tell you—

Sir Charl. No matter I say. Let me have the song, for nothing will I hear till that be ended.

Broom. Death how d'e think, I can have the heart to sing when—

Sir Charl. Do't or by heav'n I'le spoil thy tuning hereafter—Come on—

Broom. Was ever such a humour. I must obey him.

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Broome then performed “The great Augustus,” a song that derides that Roundheads for their treachery:

The great Augustus, like the glorious Sun, Long on the Rabble Weeds with Splendor Shon; Yet all the fruits of his bright influence Was an Il Odour, Nauseous to the sence; Long flighted they his grace and Love, His mercy made them Rebells prove; Nor would they be kept under, Like the rude Antients, that affronted Jove, Because they never felt his lightning or his Thunder.

Chorus: Then let 'em be Confounded, Confounded, Confounded; And so may every Roundhead That stands not up for King and Laws; And so may every Roundhead be wretched and Confounded, That dares, that dares defend the good old Cause.

Published in A New Collection of Songs and Poems (1683), Blow’s D-minor and often- dissonant setting poignantly captures the solemn mood of the verse, indicating that Durfey and Blow wanted the audience to reflect seriously on the regicide of Charles I (see Appendix B). After receiving a few laughs upon his entrance and in the dialogue leading up to the song, Bowman had the difficult task of modulating the audience’s mood during the song’s performance. He thus had to convey a reverent, grave attitude while singing, until the jaunty chorus wherein the whole company joins in and pronounces their curse on the Roundheads. The change of key to G major and Blow’s clever word painting on “confounded,” achieved by creating unpredictable rhythmic accents in the continuo, change the mood from somber to playful. The performers, of course, had to follow Blow’s musical cues here and alter their disposition accordingly. After the song, Broome relates the bad news, and shortly thereafter Sir Oliver Oldcut (Mr. Lee) and company arrive, seizing Sir Charles after a brief skirmish. This ends Act I, and Lieutenant Broome does not enter again until Act IV, again singing in his brief appearance. The scene is a coffeehouse where the Roundheads Olcut and Jonas (Mr. Persival) are sitting at a table disputing a matter of politics, while several other men, including Eitherside (Mr. Jevan), are sitting at another table smoking. The coffeehouse, it should be noted, became the primary locus of public discussion during the Restoration, or what Jürgen Habermas has termed a “public sphere,” a space created for the “people’s 125 public use of their reason.”TP PT In addition to drinking coffee and smoking tobacco, coffeehouse patrons loitered for hours, reading pamphlets and newspapers, gathering intelligence and gossip, and, most of all, debating political ideas. Particularly during the

125 TP PT Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989), 27.

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Exclusion Crisis, “each political move that was made and some that were not, was 126 revealed, debated, celebrated, and vilified in the coffeehouses.”TP PT Though Steve Pincus has convincingly argued that coffeehouses were not politically exclusive, he also pointed out that, in the minds of Anglican Royalists, they were closely associated with puritan 127 culture and the seditious ideas that brought about the Civil War.TP PT Additionally, because coffee was thought to stifle the male sex drive, the ale-drinking Royalists accused those who drank coffee, namely the Roundheads, of effeminacy. Cavaliers considered ale a masculine beverage, because it seemed to go hand in hand with wenching. Drinking ale “proved the ultimate litmus test for Royalists,” and drinking the king’s health during the 128 Restoration was a distinguishing mark of loyalty.TP PT It is significant that both of Bowman’s song performances in The Royalist took place in these two disparate drinking contexts. Durfey clearly utilized the social activity of drinking to delineate the identities of his characters. In the second scene of Act IV, Broome enters the coffeehouse with a merchant, both of whom are immediately met by a Coffee-Boy asking if they prefer coffee or tea. Broome then surveys the scene, calling the coffee house “the Epitome of Hell, where all sorts of male-contented Friends are in office,” and he goes on to disparage the “stigmatiz’d Crew” gathered there. He and the merchant sit down to observe, as the focus shifts to Oldcut, who is reading the news aloud. After a few minutes, Broome interrupts Oldcut and stimulates a discussion among all the coffee house patrons about a supposed plot involving five or six hundred Jesuits—monks, secular priests, and others— who were planning to dig a tunnel under the Thames to White-Hall. Oldcut calls it another “Powder-Plot,” the first being the infamous Guy Fawkes incident in 1605, a topic that would have resonated with the audience because of the recent Popish Plot. As the scene continues, it becomes increasingly clearer that Durfey is paralleling the Popish Plot. Jonas takes out a paper naming the witnesses to the conspiracy, all of whom he says are “worthy Persons…all good men and true,” but the incongruity of this statement with their aptronyms—Jeremy Rakehell, Sir John Bullyrock, John Greasy, and Sawny Scrubham—suggests otherwise, revealing the true nature of these rogues. Durfey must have expected the audience to associate these with the real-life, false witnesses of the Popish Plot, and in doing so, implies that informants of hoax are as guilty of treason as those who were responsible for the death of Charles I. The scene continues as the Roundheads get into a heated debate that escalates into a brawl, which Broome breaks off long enough to perform a song:

Broome Hold, Valiant Knight and Tailer, cool your Choller: No bloodshed, I beseech you: I’m come to qualifie the business and divert you: I’ll shew you a new Satyr.

126 TP PT Steve Pincus, “Coffee Politicians Does Create”: Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture,” The Journal of Modern History 67, no.4 (December, 1995): 821.

127 TP Ibid.,PT 826.

128 TP PT Ibid., 825.

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Eitherside A Lowzy shred, an empty Pin-cushion and affront me: ‘Gad I’d have eaten the Rogue up, but that I was afraid his Thimble and Sheers wou’d stick in’s Throat.

Broome No more, Sir, I beseech you: he’s penitent; and pray have patience and hear this: ‘tis a new Song, was given me this morning—I’ll sing it you—

Oldcut Well, come, prithee let’s hear it.—

The song that follows has five stanzas, the first four of which seem to be eulogizing the Parliamentarian cause, much to the delight of the patrons of coffeehouse, brimming with its Roundhead constituency. Durfey’s text contrasts Tories with Whigs in every stanza, each ending with the tag line, “And Hey then up go We,” seemingly referring to the ascendancy of the Parliamentarians. Only in the last stanza does the coffeehouse audience learn the true meaning of this line: they will be defeated and be hanged on the 129 gallows.TP PT The humor lies in the fact that throughout the song, Broome is mocking the Roundheads, but they are too unintelligent to realize it. Durfey uses the terms “Whig” and “Tory” anachronistically here, purposefully associating the exclusionist Whigs with the regicidal roundheads of the Civil War. This song was printed under the title of “The Whigs Exaltation” in 1694 in the Fourth Edition of A Collection of Loyal Songs with additional stanzas, and, in some instances, the texts of the stanzas that correlate with the play text have been altered. Only the melody is given in the collection, “an old Tune of Forty One,” as it is called in the publication.

Now, now the Tories all must droop, Religion and the Laws, And Whiggs of Commonwealth get up To Tap the Good Old Cause: 130 Tantivy-Boys must all go down,TP PT And haughty Monarchy; The Leather Cap must brave the Crown, And Hey then up go We.

The Name of Lord shall be Abhorr'd, For every Man's a Brother; What Reason then in Church or State One Man should Rule another? When we have Pill'd and Plunder'd all, And Levell'd each Degree, Wee'l make their plump young Daughters fall, And Hey then up go We.

129 TP PT The penalty of treason was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

130 TP PT Tantivy-Boys: A nickname for High-Churchmen and Tories

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Wee'l down with all the Versities, Where Learning is profest, Because they Practise and Maintain The Language of the Best: Wee'l Exercise within the Groves, And Teach beneath a Tree; Wee'l make a Pulpit of a Cask, And Hey then up go We.

What tho the King and Parliament Do not accord together, We have most cause to be content; This is our Sun-shine weather: For if good Reason should take place, And they should once agree, 'Dzowns who'd be in a Round-head's Case, For Hey then up go We.

Wee'l break the Windows which the Whore 131 Of Babylon has Painted;TP PT And when the Bishops are run down, Our Deacons shall be Sainted. Thus having quite Enslav'd the Town, Pretending 'tis too free; At last the Gallows claims her own, And Hey then up go We.

After singing, Broome tauntingly asks, “Ha, what think you?” to the outraged audience, to which Jonas retorts, “that you shall be beaten abundantly: Down with him friends.” Act IV concludes as all draw swords and fight their way off stage. Bowman makes two entrances in the play after this, but both are brief, and he does not sing again.

Serious Dramas

Bowman is listed among the casts of nine new tragedies between 1678 and 1682. Early on Bowman’s talent seems to have been for comedy, and accordingly the Duke’s 132 Company managers cast him in only the smallest roles in serious dramas.TP PT His youthful

131 TP PT Whore of Babylon: The Roman Catholic Church (a reference to idolatry)

132 TP PT These include Dephilus in Shadwell’s The History of Timon of Athens (1678), Pyracmon in Dryden and Lee’s Oedipus (1678), Patroclus in both Bank’s The Destruction of Troy (1678) and Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida (1679), Pisander in Tate’s

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characters in the tragedies of the late 1670s, such as Achilles’s impulsive nephew Patroclus in both John Bank’s The Destruction of Troy (1678) and Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida (1679)—were appropriate for Bowman, as he was only in his early twenties at the time. By the early 1680s, however, it seems that he was able to convey a more mature image, as he played the senator and father Priuli in Otway’s enduring masterpiece Venice Preserv’d (1682), and as early as 1680 acted the chief priest Atticus with austerity in Lee’s Theodosius. Significantly, Atticus was Bowman’s only singing role in a tragedy while he was with the Duke’s Company. Several other tragedies have songs or more lengthy masques, such as Shadwell’s The History of Timon of Athens (1678) for example, 133 in which Bowman played Dephilus, a servant of Timon, acted by Betterton.TP PT Act II has a masque of shepherds and nymphs to entertain Timon and his guests at a banquet, with music composed by Luis Grabu. Because these small roles required little stage time of Bowman, (Dephilus, for example, has only a few lines) it is almost certain that management would have utilized his singing skills in some of these songs and other musical entertainments such as this, but attempting to assign particular parts to Bowman would be entirely conjectural.

Theodosius 134 Edition Consulted: 1680TP PT

Though a historical drama, Lee’s Theodosius contains “almost nothing from 135 actual history”TP PT and is thus a fictional account that centers on the Roman emperor Theodosius II, the great grandson of the emperor who converted to Christianity and made it the official religion of the empire in 380. At the center of the drama is the love triangle between Theodosius (Williams) and his lifelong friend Varanes (Betterton), both of whom fall in love with Athenais (Barry), charmed by her incomparable world of beauty. In the end, Athenais is forced to choose between Theodosius, whom she has agreed to marry, having acquiesced to her father’s will, and Varanes, whom she truly loves. Ultimately, the decision drives her to poison herself, and as she dies, her maid sings Purcell’s “Ah cruel bloody fate.” It is interesting to note that the “several Entertainments of Singing; Compos’d by the the Famous Master Mr. Henry Purcell was “the first he e’er 136 Compos’d for the Stage.”TP PT This is also the first occasion that Purcell composed for

The Loyal General (1679), George, Duke of Clarence in Crowne’s The Misery of Civil- War, Atticus in Lee’s Theodosius (1680), Albany in Tate’s The History of King Lear (1681), and Priuli in Otway’s Venice Preserv’d (1682).

133 TP PT There is no cast list in the 1679 quarto; however, the 1688 printing included the names of the Duke’s Company cast.

134 TP PT Nathaniel Lee, Theodosius (London, 1680) (Wing / L877).

135 TP PT Nathaniel Lee, The Works of Nathaniel Lee, ed. Thomas B. Stroup and Arthur L. Cooke (Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Reprint Corporation, 1968), II, 232.

136 TP PT Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, ed. Milhous and Hume, 38.

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Bowman, who sang for Purcell until the end of 1694, the beginning of a fourteen-year working relationship that proved to be the longest Purcell had with any of his singers in 137 the theater.TP PT Act I of Theodosius opens in to reveal “a stately Temple” of the growing Christian faith in Constantinople, with elaborate side scenes that “shew the horrid Tortures with which the Roman Tyrants persecuted the Church,” and a flat scene depicting Constantine kneeling before an altar with his commanders gathered around him. Attendants and ministers at the service are walking around busily, according to the 138 directions, until Atticus “the chief of all the Priests, and successor of St. Chrysostom”TP PT comes forward, adorned in “rich Robes.” All bow when Atticus enters, and the playbook indicates that a chorus is heard in the distance singing an invocation, initiating a ceremony in which Theodosius plans to take holy orders, along with Marina and Flavilla (actresses not known), two young virgins of the royal family:

Prepare, prepare, the Rites begin, Let none unhallow’d enter in; The Temple with new Glory shines, Adorn the Altars, wash the Shrines, And purge the place from Sin.

Contrary to the directions in the playbook, Purcell set the entire text for Atticus to sing with continuo (Figure 3.1). Afterwards, two priests join Atticus in a trio, singing the same text to the accompaniment of continuo and two flutes. While the attendants begin their preparations after the song, Atticus and Leontine (Leitherfull) discuss the ceremony, expressing their surprise that Theodosius “Leaves all the Pleasures that the Earth can yield . . . To undergo the Penance of a Cloyster,” and that the two beautiful, noble virgins plan to do the same. When Theodosius enters, however, he confesses that just before he left the Persian court, he observed a gorgeous woman bathing in a stream and was smitten. Atticus rebukes him for discussing this in the temple, but Theodosius asks his forgiveness and proceeds to praise her well-shaped form, mentioning specifically her legs, arms, hands, neck, and breasts. Justifiably, Atticus declares him “not enough prepar’d to leave the World.” By this time, the pagan Varanes has arrived, telling Theodosius that “There will be time enough / For Prayer and Fasting, and Religious Vows,” and he encourages him to enjoy the pleasures of life while he is still young. After having already rebuked Theodosius and Varanes for their profane language, Atticus again reproaches the two for their disruptive and irreverent conversation:

Silence and Reverence are the Temple’s dues: Therefore, while we pursue the Sacred Rites,

137 TP PT Balwin and Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers,” 105.

138 TP Atticus,PT the Patriarch of Constantinople (406-425), was a zealous promoter of orthodoxy and for this reason was called "a true successor of St. Chrysostom" by Pope Celestine I.

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Be these observ’d, or quit this awful place. . . .

Atticus then turns to Marina and Flavilla, asking them to sing the religious rites he has taught them:

Imperial Sisters, now twin-stars of Heaven, Answer the Successor of Chrysostom; Without least Reservation answer me; By those harmonious Rules I charg’d ye learn.

139 Figure 3.1: “Prepare, the Rites begin,” mm. 1-17TP PT

139 TP PT Henry Purcell, The Works of Henry Purcell, V. 21 (London: Novello, Ewer & Co., 1917), 115.

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The ceremony continues after Theodosius’s and Varanes’s disruption, with 140 Atticus presiding and the two priests assisting.TP PT The rites are sung throughout, beginning with “Can’st thou, Marina,” in which Atticus and the two other priests question the girls, testing their commitment:

Atticus: Can’st thou, Marina, leave the World, The World that is Devotion’s bane; Where Crowns are tost, and Scepters hurld, Where Lust and proud Ambition Reign?

2 Priest: Can you your costly Robes forbear, To live with us in poor Attire? Can you from Courts to Cells repair, To sing at midnight in our Quire?

3 Priest: Can you forget your golden Beds, Where you might sleep beyond the mourn, On Mats to lay your Royal Heads, And have your beauteous Tresses shorn?

Atticus: Can you resolve to fast all Day, And weep and groan to be forgiv’n? Can you in broken slumbers pray, And by affliction merit Heav’n?

After this, the entire assemblage of priests and attendants sings a chorus asking Marina and Flavilla if they can do all this, and the girls sing a duet confirming their resolve. Atticus then responds with the brief aria “Hark! behold the heav’nly choir” (Figure 3.2). Atticus does not appear again until the second scene of Act III, which is another ritual scene, occasioned this time by Athenais’s confirmation after her baptism. The stage directions indicate that Atticus and votaries lead Athenais in a procession, along with Theodosius’s sister and regent, Pulcheria, and Athenais’s father, Leontine. As in Act I, Atticus invokes the ceremony by singing:

O, Chrysostom! look down and see, An Off’ring worthy Heav’n and thee! So rich the Victim, bright and fair, That she on Earth appears a Star:

The chorus then gives Athenais her Christian name:

140 TP PT The music is in Oxford, Bodleian MS Mus. C.27, fols. 33-6. The Purcell Society published all the extant music in The Works of Henry Purcell, V. 21 (1917), 115- 126.

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Eudosia is the Virgin’s Name, And after-times shall sing her Fame.

Atticus then sings another brief solo, directed to the votaries:

Lead her, Votaries, lead her in, Her holy Birth does now begin.

Next follows two solos sung by the votaries and a final chorus that speaks of heaven, where she will spend the afterlife after having completed the ceremony. The music for 141 this scene does not survive.TP PT In the final scene of Act V, all gather at the temple for the wedding of Theodosius and Athenais, over which Atticus presides. Varanes is conspicuously absent, having committed suicide upon hearing the news that Athenais has chosen Theodosius, unaware that Athenais really loves him. The ceremony begins as Atticus joins the couple’s hands and apparently recites the wedding vows in rhymed couplets, as there is no indication he 142 is to sing and no surviving musical setting of this text.TP PT Immediately after Atticus finishes speaking, Aranthes (actor not known) arrives with the body of Varanes. Having already taken the slow-acting poison, Athenais has time enough to profess her love for Varanes, and she asks Theodosius’s pardon to lie on Varanes’s “cold bloody Breast” as she dies. Atticus’s vows, which spoke of the marriage “knot” that even “Deaths strong Arm” cannot divide and love that transcends death, becomes especially poignant in retrospect. Purcell was primarily a court composer from 1680 and 1685, and his music for Theodosius was his only substantial work for theater after the Glorious Revolution in 143 1688.TP PT That year Purcell composed eight songs for Durfey’s A Fool’s Preferment, and though Bowman acted in the comedy, he was not given any songs. Bowman’s next known stage song by Purcell was “Thy genius lo” in another of Lee’s tragedies, The Massacre of Paris, produced by the United Company in 1689. Because of the failing financial health of the King’s Company in the early eighties, the two Patent Companies merged in 1682, creating the United Company, which monopolized London theater until 1695, the year of Purcell’s death. Bowman’s roles for the United Company are the subject of the following two chapters.

141 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 31n.

142 TP PT In the playbook, the vows, like the earlier songs texts, are set apart in italics, but those in Acts I and III have directions stating, “Atticus sings.” In English Song- Books, Day and Murrie list it as a song, however (entry 2215).

143 TP PT Peter Holman and Robert Thompson, “Henry Purcell (ii),” in Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 20 April 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com.

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144 Figure 3.2: “Hark! behold the heav’nly choir,” mm. 19-35TP PT

144 TP PT Purcell, Works, V. 21, 125.

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CHAPTER IV UNITED COMPANY (1682-1694) PART I: THE COMEDIES AND SERIOUS DRAMAS

As manager of the Duke’s Company from 1668 to 1682, Betterton ran a profitable 1 business and led a troupe of actors that seem to have gotten along with each other well.TP PT By contrast, the King’s Company was not nearly as successful, and its history in the seventies, as Milhous put it, “is an object lesson in how not to operate a theatre 2 company.”TP PT It had fallen on hard times when the Bridges Street Theater burned in 1672, just months after the Duke’s had opened its state of the art theater in Dorset Garden. Even though the King’s Company was able to work temporarily out of the theater in Lincoln’s Inn Fields until the Drury Lane Theater was ready in 1674, it provided little competition for its rival, the Duke’s Company. In the following years, there were a series of disagreements between actors and Killigrew’s management, the effect of which, when combined with the slackening attendance during the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis, 3 caused the theater to seek help from the more stable Duke’s Company.TP PT In May 1682, Killigrew signed documents, making the union of the two companies official, an agreement that the Duke’s found amenable, since it would eliminate all competition. The lack of competition allowed the managers to rely on plays that had proven successful, rather than risking failure with new works. Compared to the mid-seventies, when the two companies together premiered eighteen to twenty-four plays each season, the United 4 Company produced no more than four new plays each season during its first five years.TP PT Though the managers tried to accommodate the surplus of performers, attrition 5 was rapid, and several of the principals of the King’s Company chose to retire.TP PT In

1 TP PT Judith Milhous, Thomas Betterton and the Management of Lincoln’s Inn Fields: 1695-1708 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 1979), 26-31.

2 TP PT Ibid., 31.

3 TP PT See ibid., 31-7, for a summary of the disagreements in the King’s Company.

4 TP PT Ibid., 37-42.

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unsettling times, Bowman’s status as a young actor in the dominant troupe assured him a secure position in the United Company, and by the 1692-93 season, he had improved his position enough to become a sharer in the company. During the United Company years, Bowman created a number of memorable singing fops for Durfey and Congreve, as well as performed some of Purcell’s finest music for the stage, including Cardenio’s songs in Don Quixote in 1694. In addition to King Arthur, in which he played the acting/singing part of Grimbald, he almost certainly performed in all the other major musical productions mounted by the Company, namely Albion and Albanius of 1685 (the all- sung, Lullian opera by Grabu), The Prophetess 1690 (usually referred to as Dioclesian in musical circles), and The Fairy Queen (1693). These are discussed in Chapter V. Outside the theater, Bowman gained employment at court as a singer in the Private Musick, sworn in on 26 November 1684 in place of John Harding and again on 22 October 1685 after the accession of James II. He continued to perform at court during the reign of William and Mary, and for Queen Anne’s coronation on 23 April 1702, he was issued a livery, indicating that she probably retained him during her reign. As a member of the Private Musick, Bowman sang in court odes, including Purcell’s Sound the trumpet, beat the drum (11 October 1687), Hail, bright Cecilia (on St. Cecilia’s Day, 22 November 1692), and Celebrate this festival for the Queen’s birthday on 30 April 1693. Bowman undoubtedly performed in many other concerts at court, such as on 18 June 1688 when the Private Musick performed an “exercise of musick, vocall and 6 instrumental” on a “great barge” on the Thames outside Whitehall.TP PT On a more personal note, Bowman married Elizabeth Watson during the United Company years, on 6 August 1692 at St. Marylebone. That year she also joined the ranks of the United Company as a singing actress, playing Sylvia in Congreve’s The Old Batchelor in her first stage appearance. Other notable roles included Lucinda in Don Quixote, Cardenio’s love interest, and Pallas in Eccles’s Judgment of Paris. Elizabeth was the daughter of Sir Francis Watson who, along with Betterton, had lost a fortune in an East India investment when the French intercepted and confiscated their shipment. Sir Francis died shortly thereafter, and the Bettertons took Elizabeth in, raising her and training her as an actress, as they had their other adopted daughter, Anne Bracegirdle. Curll says that Elizabeth was born in 1677, which, if true, means she was only about fifteen years old when she married Bowman, who would have been about thirty-seven at the time. At about the time of the United Company’s division in 1695, the Bowmans had 7 a son who also became an actor.TP PT

5 TP PT Cibber wrote in his Apology that the patentees of each company “united their Interests and both Companies into one, exclusive of all others, in the Year 1682. This Union was, however, so much in favour of the Duke’s Company, that Hart left the Stage upon it, and Mohun survived not long after,” 95-6. See also Milhous, Betterton, 41.

6 TP PT Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs, from September 1678 to April 1714, V.I, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1857), 445.

7 TP PT See Highfill, et al., Biographical Dictionary of Actors, 196-97 for Bowman junior and 201-2 for Elizabeth.

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Comedies

In addition to the United Company’s initial timidity about producing new plays, events later in the decade kept it on this tack. Charles’s death on 6 February 1685 closed theaters for about ten weeks, until 27 April. During James II’s brief reign, the Company played regularly at court, but the Glorious Revolution of 1688 paralyzed London theater. According to the London Stage, “there are few seasons between 1660 and 1700 when so little is known concerning the daily operations of the playhouses, and almost nothing is 8 known concerning new or revived plays in the autumn or winter.”TP PT The principal sources for play casts are the printed editions, which were typically issued for new productions but occasionally for revivals as well. Because the Company produced so few new plays throughout the turbulent eighties, Bowman’s activities during this decade are not well documented. From the few extant sources, it appears that he continued in his fop line, playing non-singing roles such as Mr. Littlegad in The Fortune-Hunters (1689) and Bewford in A Fool’s Preferment (1688), a very musical play in which Purcell’s songs showcase the abilities of the tenor actor-singer, William Mountfort. In addition to the dearth of new playbooks, published song collections of the eighties rarely included singers’ names. Thus, only one of Bowman’s song performances in a comedy between 1682 and 1691 is documented, John Blow’s “O Love, that stronger art than Wine” in 9 Behn’s The Luckey Chance of 1686.TP PT When the political climate stabilized after William and Mary secured the throne, the Company rebounded, producing more original plays than in previous seasons and, as 10 a result, printed more playbooks.TP PT Increasingly, song collections provided singer’s names, and Bowman’s activities in the early nineties are thus less obscured. In 1691, he played the French dancing master, Monsieur Copee, in Durfey’s Love for Money, in which he teaches Miss Jenny (Mrs. Knight) to dance the minuet. In this scene, he sings the pedagogical song, “Make you Honours Misse, tholl, loll loll, Now to me Childe, tholl loll loll,” (no music survives), indicating he must have had some skill in dancing. He played the large role of Gayman in Southerne’s The Maid’s Last Prayer in 1693, and was onstage for the musical scene in Act IV when Mrs. Ayliff and Mrs. Hodgson sang one of Purcell’s greatest duets, “No, Resistance is but vain.” During this period, Bowman must have sung in many comedies, but only eight can be ascribed with certainty.

8 TP PT London Stage, V.I, 367.

9 TP PT According to The Banquet of Music, V, Bowman and Butler sang Purcell’s “Why my Daphne” (Z 525) in 1691, but the play in which their performance occurred is unknown.

10 TP PT Ibid., 373.

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The Luckey Chance 11 Edition Consulted: 1687TP PT

Bowman’s first recorded song performance for the United Company in a comedy was in Behn’s The Luckey Chance, which debuted in April 1686 at Drury Lane. He played Bredwel, a rather bland character in comparison to many of the fop roles for which he was best known. Bredwel is the apprentice of Sir Cautious Fulbank, a miserly old banker of the town who allows himself to be cuckolded by Gayman (Betterton) for a large sum of money. Gayman had lost his fortune, but Lady Fulbank (Barry), Sir Cautious’s wife, loves Gayman and steals money from Sir Cautious, giving it to Gayman. Gayman then uses greedy Sir Cautious’s money to pay for the cuckolding. In the first scene of Act I, Bredwel, dressed like a devil for mischievousness’s sake, delivers the money at Lady Fulbank’s request to Gayman but does not tell him from whence it came. Gayman inquires about repayment, and Bredwel tells him “all the Pay is Secresie,” but indicates that this is not all that is required: Gayman must follow him to the “Shades below” where he will conduct Gayman to the “Banks of Bliss.” The event finally occurs in Act III, in which Bredwel, again disguised as a devil and carrying a “Dark-lanthorn,” leads Gayman to the spot where he is supposed to meet the mystery benefactor. Bredwel brings him to an old woman, who is actually Lady Fulbank’s servant, Pert, in disguise, (no performer’s name is given for her) and then exits, leaving the two alone in the dark. Pert bids Gayman to follower her, promising “Fortune and Love” if he is brave enough to come with her. After he follows her offstage, the scene changes to a chamber in the apartment of Lady Fulbank, and Gayman and the old woman reenter as “Soft Musick plays.” Gayman is mystified about these curious goings-on, but later the audience learns that the masque is but a “Frollick,” an “innocent Intrigue” arranged by Lady Fulbank to seduce him. Pert leaves him there in the dark, and, probably unseen by Gayman, Bredwel sings “O Love, that stronger art than Wine” to set the mood. The playbook does not name the performer, but it is ascribed to Bowman in the Theater of Music, Fourth Book (1687). The text expresses the bewitching power of love to transform anyone, an appropriate topic for the occasion:

O Love, that stronger art than Wine! Pleasing Delusion, Witchery divine; Wont to be priz'd above all Wealth, Disease that has more Joys than Health: Tho’ we blaspheme thee in our Pain, And of thy Tyranny complain, We all are better'd by thy Reign.

What Reason never can bestow, We to this useful Passion owe. Love wakes the Dull from sluggish Ease, And learns a Clown the Art to please; Humbles the Vain, kindles the Cold,

11 TP PT Aphra Behn, The Luckey Chance (London, 1687) (Wing / B1744).

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Makes Misers free, and Cowards bold: 'Tis he reforms the Sot from Drink, And teaches airy Fops to think.

When full brute Appetite is fed, And choak'd the Glutton lyes, and dead; Thou new Spirit dost dispence, And fine, the gross delights of Sence; Virtue’s unconqu’rable Aid, That against Nature can perswade; And makes a Roving Mind retire, Within the Bounds of just Desire; Chearer of Age, Youth’s kind unrest, And half the Heav’n of the blest.

Blow’s setting is challenging to sing, with its expansive range of just over two octaves # (from E2B B to FP 4PB ),B its sections of relatively high tessitura, and its fast-moving passages (notably the long melisma on “Roving”), indicating that Bowman was a mature baritone by this time (Figure 4.1; See also Appendix C for a transcription of the complete song). After the song, Gayman remarks, “Ah Julia, Julia! If this soft Preparation / Were but to bring me to thy dear Embraces; / What different Motions wou’d surround my Soul, / From what perplex it now.” Blow’s music and Bredwel’s charming performance seem to have persuaded Gayman already, but Lady Fullbank has planned more seductive music-making. At that point nymphs and shepherds enter and begin to dance, and eventually only two are left dancing (about which Gayman remarks, “If these be Divels, they are obliging ones”). All go out but Pert and a shepherd who alternate singing, and as Pert sings, she puts a ring on Gayman’s finger, asking him to vow that his “Passion constant and profound…be fixt to one alone.” After this the dancers reenter and “all dance about him, while those same two sing,” encouraging Gayman to “taste, and sigh no more in vain, / The Joy of love without the Pain.” The music to this masque does not survive, but Bowman likely played the shepherd who sings with Pert, as the two were partners in the scheme. Bowman would have had time to change into the shepherd’s costume before his entrance to sing “O Love,” and his directions to exit after leading Gayman to Pert in the previous scene point to this. After this, all exit but Gayman who, still perplexed by the elaborate ceremony, endeavors to be “civil,” because whoever arranged this entertainment, “Woman or Devil,” had paid him. The scene then changes to a “flat Scene of the Hall” in the same house, and Bredwel enters “in his masking Habit, with his Vizard in one Hand and a Light in t’other in haste.” There is a knocking at the gate, and Bredwel answers to find Sir Feeble who, seeing his masking habit, asks, “What makes you in this showing Equipage Sir?” Bredwel says that he has been “dancing among some of my Friends,” another clue that he was the singer in the masque.

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Figure 4.1: “O Love, that stronger art than Wine!,” mm. 44-48

Amphitryon 12 Edition Consulted: 1691TP PT

On Tuesday, 21 October 1690, Bowman played the small role of Phoebus in the debut of Dryden’s Amphitryon at Drury Lane. The United Company commissioned Purcell to write the act tunes, dances, and music for Dryden’s three song texts for Amphitryon, two of which Bowman performed, though neither was in character. Judging from Dryden’s own remarks in the Epistle Dedicatory, in which he praised Purcell for his contribution, the last of these songs—“A Dialogue betwixt Thrsis and Iris” in Act IV— had particular success:

But what has been wanting on my Part, has been abundantly supplyed by the Excellent Composition of Mr. Purcell; in whose Person we have at length found an English-man, equal with the best abroad. At least my Opinion of him has been such…and the Experience I have had of him, in setting my Three Songs for this Amphitryon: To all which, and particularly to the Composition of the Pastoral Dialogue, the numerous Quire of Fair Ladies gave so just an Applause on the Third Day.

No doubt, Bowman’s and Mrs. Butler’s fantastic stage chemistry contributed to its success. Purcell went on to compose at least two other dialogues for the “Butler- Bowman partnership” (Balwin’s and Wilson’s epithet) and paired them as the singing spirits Philidel and Grimbald in King Arthur the year after Amphitryon.

12 TP PT John Dryden, Amphitryon (London, 1691) (Wing / D2234).

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Before Bowman’s first song in Amphitryon, which occurs in Act III, he first appeared in a speaking role as the sun god Phoebus in the first scene. Dryden’s comedy is based on the ancient myth of Jupiter’s amours with Alcmena (Barry), the wife of the Theban general, Amphitryon (Williams), who had just conquered his country’s foes and killed their leader in a duel. Amphitryon is returning home from his long absence, “wing’d with impetuous Love” eager to “review his beauteous Wife,” but before he returns, Jupiter wants a long night to enjoy her company in bed. The play begins with a discourse between Phoebus and Mercury (Lee), who “descend in several Machines,” (Phoebus is in a chariot) regarding Jupiter’s purpose for summoning them. Jupiter (Betterton) then descends and reveals his plan to “enjoy Amphitryon’s wife,” and after being humorously chided by Mercury and Phoebus for this adulterousness, justifies his actions by stating that “this night I shall beget a future Hercules / Who shall redress the Wrongs of indur’d Mortals.” In other words, his sin is for the greater good of mankind. He commands Mercury to take the form of Amphitryon’s old and ugly servant, Sosia, in order to prevent the genuine Sosia from interrupting his passionate night with news of the real Amphitryon’s return. He then bids Phoebus not to rise tomorrow to light the world so he can have a “long luxurious Night, fit for a God / To quench and empty his immortal Heat.” Phoebus complies, and though he does not return for the remainder of the play, Bowman returned onstage, redressed as a Theban musician to sing in Act III. After having had his night with Alcmena, Jupiter left the palace, and the real Amphitryon returned to discover that an imposter had defiled his marriage bed. Amphitryon accuses Alcmena of adultery and exits in a huff. Soon thereafter, Jupiter, again disguised as Amphitryon, returns to the confused Alcmena, bringing in musicians to woo her with singing and dancing. Despite Purcell’s delightfully charming song, Jupiter’s efforts are unsuccessful, and Alcmena, rather than joining the fake Amphitryon in bed once more, “withdraws frowning” after Bowman’s performance (according to the stage directions), hardly the response Jupiter was seeking. Neither the playbook nor the music that was included therein gives any indication who sang “Celia, that I once was blest,” but Bowman was listed as the singer in The Joyful Cuckoldom of 1695, an engraved song collection that included not only this song, but also the first song of the fourth act, “For Iris I sigh,” listing Mrs. Butler as the singer. If performed in the key in the printed collection, the tessitura of “Celia” would seem to be well suited to a low tenor voice rather than a true baritone, at least in the modern operatic usage of the term. Much of the melody sits in the zona di passaggio and frequently 13 oscillates up and down across the secondo passaggio (Figure 4.2).TP PT The text of the song coupled with its purpose in the play—to seduce Alcmena—calls for light, effortless movement across the passaggio in performance, rather than the heavier and more covered sound we might expect of a baritone in the opera house today. When I first examined the song, I was skeptical as to whether Bowman could have sung it, and it is interesting to speculate if Purcell wrote the song specifically for Bowman or if he was assigned the song simply because he happened to be on hand and capable of singing it. Curtis Price maintains that the three songs must have been “worked into the already completed play

13 TP PT See Miller, The Structure of Singing, 116. The area between the primo passaggio (the first register transition) and the secondo passaggio, roughly B3B B to E4B B for a lyric baritone, is called the zona di passaggio (passage zone).

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even after it had been cast” because of the play’s several missed opportunities for music; the “many magical transformations and gods in machines” certainly would seem to call 14 for singing.TP PT He also points out that “For Iris I sigh” in the playbook is called “Mercury’s Song to Phaedra” and was thus supposed to be sung by Mercury, but Anthony Leigh, who played the part, was not a singer. “From Purcell’s point of view,” according to Price, “Bowman would have made a better Mercury than the non-singing Leigh. A surrogate singer here suggests that the songs were introduced at the last moment, leaving Dryden no time to make the alterations necessary to exploit the actor’s 15 special abilities.”TP PT Perhaps though, since Sosia and Mercury should look alike in the 16 play, Bowman simply did not resemble the actor Nokes who played Sosia.TP PT

Figure 4.2: “Celia that I once was Blest” (melody only)

Even if Purcell had to compose for Amphitryon at the last minute, he surely must have known that Bowman would have been available to sing “Celia” and composed it with him in mind. Baldwin and Wilson suggest that he sang it at a lower pitch since it was not published in the bass clef, but if it were transposed up for the publication, one 17 has to wonder what the original key would have been.TP PT Given Purcell’s penchant for

14 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 148.

15 TP PT Ibid., 149.

16 TP PT Ibid., 150.

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consistently employing certain keys to express specific affections, there are no probable # alternatives. FP P minor was not much in use at the time and the semitone difference between it and G minor is not significant enough to warrant transposition. F minor is also an unlikely key for “Celia,” as theorists of the period often noted its particularly dark 18 qualities, and Purcell reserved this key for “horror, witches, and the like.”TP PT Price refers to E minor as Purcell’s “key of fate” and later adds that it is a key he “rarely used in his 19 theatre music,” so it too is a doubtful candidate.TP PT Finally, D minor, a perfect fourth below the printed key, seems too low; it would require singing an A2B B several times, and though not out of Bowman’s range, it would make for a muddled melodic line. Further, Purcell expressed “lust and persistent denial” with D minor, which is not quite fitting for “Celia.” Notably, Price discussed “Celia” as an example of the type of lyric Purcell set in G minor:

None of the mad songs, the ill-tempered dialogues between husband and wife, the drinking songs, or those dealing merely with innocent love are in A or D minor, while those sung by characters who have recently gained sexual gratification, 20 such as “Celia, that I once was blest” in Amphitryon, are usually in G minor.TP PT

Since Bowman probably sang “Celia” in G minor, this song offers considerable insight into the nature of his voice. Clearly, Bowman could easily and smoothly manage the secondo passaggio in a manner not unlike a tenor, but he could also sing isolated low notes, which he was often required to do at cadences. As a lyric baritone, his vocal quality may well have sounded more akin to his bass colleagues than to the tenors, however, and he might not have been able to maintain the high tessitura required of tenors. Here, as in other songs, Purcell utilized Bowman’s rare capabilities. It should also be noted that the pitch standard was somewhat lower than that of today, perhaps a # semitone or more lower than A = 440, so Bowman only had to sing an F4B B or FP 4PB B at 21 today’s pitch.TP PT

17 TP PT Baldwin and Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers,” 281n.

18 TP PT Price discusses the meanings of keys in Purcell’s theater music in Henry Purcell, 21-26. Mark Lindley writes regarding minor keys in irregular temperaments, that “the effects were more intricate [than in major keys], E minor for instance having a sharper leading note but a less harsh tonic triad than F minor, a key often remarked on (e.g., by M. A. Charpentier, c1692; Mattheson, 1713; Rousseau, 1768; Gervasoni, 1800) for its dark qualities.” See “Temperaments,” Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 13 March 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu.

19 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 22 and 216.

20 TP PT Ibid., 146.

21 TP PT Bruce Haynes indicates that Consort-pitch (approximately A = 400) was “probably used in places where instrumental pitch was decisive, such as operas and semi-

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In Act IV Mercury, disguised as Sosia tries to seduce Phaedra, who resists his advances until Mercury impresses her with his special powers, stomping on the ground to produce dancers who magically “come from underground…and others from the sides of the stage” to perform “A song, and a fantastick Dance.” The song is Mercury’s song to Phaedra, “Fair Iris I love,” which was sung by Mrs. Butler, who, after singing, had to make a hasty exit during the following dance and scuttle downstairs to the substage area where Bowman was waiting on the machine that would lift them up from below. After the dance, Mercury and Phaedra have a short dialogue in which Mercury grants her the power to summon up singers of her own. She stamps, and as Bowman and Butler are cranked up, she says, “Come up, Gentle-folks, from below; and sing me a Pastoral Dialogue, where the Woman may have the better of the Man; as we always have in Love Matters.” They sing Purcell’s dialogue, “Fair Iris and her Swain,” in which the shepherd, 22 Thrysis,TP PT had long sought in vain the “happy hour” when Iris would make him blest. Iris offers the obligatory resistance to his advances, but his persistence pays off, and she finally consents on the condition that he does not “kiss and tell.” Price’s reaction to the piece is lukewarm at best, referring to it as “not an especially inspired essay in the dialogue form.” He points out that the final chorus is unique, however, insofar as it eschews the convention of having “the singers join their voices near the end to symbolize agreement or mutual gratification.” Instead, Purcell “avoids the anodyne of warbling 23 thirds and sixths, never quite letting the voices come together.”TP PT Perhaps Purcell was hinting at the outcome of Mercury’s seduction attempt, as Phaedra leaves him unfulfilled. I suspect that in Bowman’s and Butler’s performance, the dialogue was far more engaging than Price’s analysis suggests, and that “the numerous Quire of Fair Ladies” delighted in seeing Thyrsis burning with passion for a woman so firmly in control of his sexual fate.

operas, incidental music to plays, and chamber music.” See Haynes, A History of

Performing Pitch: The Story of “A” (Oxford: Scarecrow Press, 2002), 128.P P

22 TP PT Thyrsis was a name long-used in the pastoral repertoire; Virgil’s Eclogue VII, for example, has a dialogue between Thyrsis and Corydon. Notably, Virgil’s Eclogues were the primary inspiration for pastoral themes in music from the late fifteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. In Le seconde musiche (1602), D.M. Melli published the earliest “recitative-dialogues” in the new continuo-accompanied style. One of the two he published—“Cara e vezzosa Filli”—involved an amorous exchange between two pastoral th characters, Thyrsis and Phyllis. See John Whenham, “Dialogue: 4. Secular: 17P P Century,” Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 14 March 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com, and Owen Jander and Geoffrey Chew, “Pastoral: 3. Secular Vocal Forms,” Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 14 March 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com.

23 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 150.

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Sir Anthony Love 24 Edition Consulted: 1691TP PT

In addition to songs and dances in Restoration plays, there was a variety of incidental music, that was performed outside the dramatic context, either before the play began or between the acts. Typically, the orchestra played three or four pieces before the first act, the so-called first and second music occurring before the prologue and the overture afterwards. Musical sources and playbooks used the terms “overture” and “curtain tune” interchangeably, but these were not necessarily synonymous, as the former referred to a specific musical type (the French overture) and the later to the music’s 25 function, viz., to accompany the curtain’s ascent.TP PT An overture often served this function, but binary-form dances did as well, and some plays had an overture after the prologue and a separate curtain tune that followed it. In addition to the preliminary music, the orchestra also performed act tunes between each of the five acts. Occasionally, act songs replaced the act tunes, though rarely before 1700, but this seems to be the case with Purcell’s dialogue “No, more, sir, no more” (Z 588/3) which Bowman 26 and Butler sang during Thomas Southerne’s Sir Anthony Love in October 1690.TP PT In the 1691 playbook, the printer placed the song texts after the play—usually these occur within the play—making it difficult to ascertain where the songs belong. The playbook indicates that “Pursuing Beauty, Men descry” (Z 588/2) belongs in the second act, but there are no clues in Act II that a song should be sung. Since, as Price put it, “there is no place in that act where it could be inserted without doing more harm than good,” he argues that it was sung in the second scene of Act IV, as it is “by far the most appropriate accompaniment for Sir Anthony’s unmasking.” Sir Anthony (Mrs. Mountfort), who is actually Lucia in disguise, reveals her identity to Valentine (Mr. Mountfort) in that scene. If “Pursuing Beauty” were performed in the fourth act, then Bowman’s and Butler’s dialogue, which the playbook lists as “A Song in Dialogue, in the 27 Fourth Act,” probably served as entr’acte entertainment.TP PT The text follows the dialogue convention, with the man desiring sex and the woman wanting commitment:

Woman: No more, Sir, no more, I’le e’ne give it o’re, I see it is all but a Cheat, Your soft wishing Eyes, your Vows, and your lyes, Which thus you so often repeat;

Man:

24 TP PT Thomas Southerne, Sir Anthony Love (London, 1691) (Wing / S4766).

25 TP PT Price, Music in Restoration Theatre, 55-6.

26 TP PT Ibid., 61 and Price, Henry Purcell, 172.

27 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 169-72.

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‘Tis you are too blame, who foolishly claim 28 So silly a lean Sacrifice,TP PT But Lovers who Pray, must always obey, 29 And bring down their Knees, and their Eyes,TP PT

Woman: 30 Of late ye have made devotion a TradeTP PT In Loving as well as Religion, But you cannot prove, through the Ages of Love 31 Any Worship was offer’d but one,TP PT

Man: 32 That one let it be, in which we agree,TP PT 33 Leave Forms to the Maids who are younger,TP PT We’r both of a mind, make hast, and be kind, And continue a Goddess no longer.

Both: We’re both of a mind, That one let it be, In which we agree, We’re both of a mind, Make hast and be kind.

Perhaps the reason Price calls Purcell’s setting of the dialogue “a forgettable piece,” is that the meaning of the text, with its religious imagery, is obscure in places, and Purcell’s music adds little to clarify it. The dance-like tune is pleasant enough, but it seems that Purcell did not attempt to express the text musically, with the notable exception of the melismatic word painting on “down” and “haste.” There is no evidence indicating how

28 TP PT So silly a lean Sacrifice: In other words, sex is no sacrifice because it is remunerative and to make such a claim is simply silly. Since “lean” can mean both “unremunerative” and “lacking excess of flesh,” this may be a subtle pun as well.

29 TP PT But Lovers who Pray…bring down their…Eyes: After referring to sacrifice, he continues the religious imagery, insisting they should be steadfast in their devotion by continually “sacrificing.”

30 TP PT Trade: an expedient or a way of attaining an end.

31 TP PT Worship…but one: that is, commitment or faithfulness.

32 TP PT One…in which we agree: he purposefully misunderstands her; he, of course, means sex.

33 TP PT Forms: outward ceremony or formality.

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well the audience received the dialogue, but its reception would seem to have been largely dependant Bowman’s and Butler’s performance. Perhaps Purcell realized a simple musical setting would provide Bowman and Butler more freedom to express and clarify the text through their acting. This seems to be a case of composer deferring to the performers.

The Marriage-Hater Match’d 34 Edition Consulted: 1692TP PT

Premiering in January 1692 at Drury Lane, Durfey’s The Marriage-Hater Match’d is filled with music and packed with lively characters, the most notable of which is the singing fool, Solon. Doggett so successfully acted this role that he seems to have gained “Solon” as a nickname. Bowman also played one of Durfey’s fools, Lord Brainless, whom Durfey describes as a “Pert, Noisy, Impertinent Boy, always thrusting himself into the Ladies Company and receiv’d for his Treats, and the Diversion his Folly give.” In other words, the ladies find his endearing foppishness diverting in its ridiculousness. Charles Gildon wrote a long letter that was printed in the prefatory material of the play providing some insight as to how the premiere was received, and he indicates that the actors may have not had a smooth opening night.

If there be any fault in this Play, 'tis that which few are guilty of; that is, there are too many good Characters, too full of Humour, a very pardonable failing, which only proceeds from Variety, the life of Pleasure and Wit, tho' that gave it the disadvantage of seeming too long the first days Acting, tho' the Stage's being throng'd with Spectators, did not a little contribute to the imperfect Acting of it, which accidental Misfortunes concurring with the Endeavours of an opposite Faction, must needs have damn'd it, had it not by the Force and Vigour of its own Worth, rais'd it self the second day with the general Applause of all that saw it.

It is also interesting to note that the actors had to work around all the spectators on the stage that evening. Brainless’s first scene in the play occurs in the second act, in which he has a hilarious dialogue with La Pupsey, Charlotte Butler’s last new comic role before leaving 35 London to act in Dublin.TP PT Wearing mismatched stockings—one yellow and the other pink—Brainless’s first entrance must have been accompanied with abundant hooting and laughter as the audience first experiences his diverting folly. Being the fop, his stockings are naturally the subject of the ensuing dialogue. Finding his affected French manner vein, she humors him for her enjoyment, showering him with complements to add fuel to his self-admiring fire:

34 TP PT Thomas Durfey, The Marriage-Hater Match’d (London, 1692) (Wing / D2749).

35 TP PT Holland, The Ornament of Action, 151. Holland discusses the casting of The Marriage-Hater Match’d and its effect on the drama on pages 148-51.

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Your Lordship is the Original of all good breeding, your bel ayr is incomparable, and your Address has something in it so soveraignly graceful, that it surprizes extreamly; the Cadance of your speech too is soft and symphonical, but above all,

your Lordship's dress is always so àT Droite Novelle & à propos,T that as you are

the delight of the BeauT Monde,T you are certainly the envy of the BeauxT Esprits.

After commenting to the audience in an aside that she is humoring him, she continues with the hollow complements, saying that she is extravagantly pleased with the “particularity in his stockings.” Brainless explains that the reason he is wearing the yellow stocking is because he was heeding the advice of Mrs. Berenice, who thought that yellow became his legs the best (being so concerned with his appearance he had asked her what color flattered his legs most). Then he reminds La Pupsey that he had already asked her opinion and that she had recommended pink in “pursuance of the French Gallantry.” Hoping to please both ladies, Brainless says he is resolved “to honour your judgments, and wear both,” but he is worried that others will plagiarize his fashionable attire. Since the look is “very particular and new,” he says, “the young Fellows of the Town will get into the fashion too soon; for I'm sure it will take prodigiously.” The scene continues as La Pupsey dotes disgustingly on her dog, Adonis, (kissing him excessively), and when she says that “Dony” can speak French with the proper expression and tone and that he can sing a minuet, it makes Brainless increasingly jealous of the dog. La Pupsey “encourages” Dony to sing by pinching it (clearly the United Company had no animal- rights activists to worry about), but when the dog can only howl, she offers the excuse that he has a cold. Brainless then attempts to best the dog with his singing, and he treats her to an unspecified “Italian Air.” In modern performance, one of the 24 Italian Songs and Arias could be quite humorous here, as many in the audience would probably be familiar with most of the tunes. Brainless’s next appearance is in the second scene of Act III, when he arrives at Lady Bumfiddle’s lodgings with “Singers, Musick, and Dancers,” to present La Pupsey with a song of his own composition. He calls it “Celadon's Complaint against Monsieur 36 Le Chien,”TP PT wherein, as he put it, “I envy the joys of that happy Creature, your Dog, and passionately bemoan my own Infidelity.” He adds that he was “extreamly Melancholly” when he wrote it, and in his text, he says that Adonis is none other than Jupiter who has come in the form of a dog to seduce La Pupsey:

Great Jove once made Love like a Bull; With Leda a Swan was in vogue, And to persevere in that Rule, 37 He now does descend like a Dog:TP PT

36 TP PT “Chien” is French for “dog.” Celadon was a pastoral character in Honoré d’Urfé’s L’Astrée (1627). Durfey claimed he was descended from Honoré d’Urfé.

37 TP PT In Greek myth, Zeus (Jove) appeared before Europa as a bull and later changed into an eagle to rape her. In another myth, Zeus loved Leda, the daughter of the King Thestius. Zeus appeared as a swan to seduce Leda and from the union conceived the beautiful Helen, who would later leave Menelaus for Paris.

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For when I to Celia would speak, Or on her Breast sigh what I mean; My Heart strings are ready to break, For there I find Monsieur Le Chien.

For Knowledge of Modish Intrigues, Or managing well an Amour, I defie any one with two Legs, But here I am Rival'd by four: Distracted all night with my Wrongs, I cry, Cruel Gods! what d'ye mean! That what to my Merit belongs, You bestow upon Monsieur Le Chien.

For Feature, or Niceness in Dress, Compare with him surely I can; Nor vainly my self should express, To say I am much more a Man: To th’ Government firm too, as he, The former I cunningly mean, And if he Religious can be, I'm as much sure as Monsieur Le Chien.

But what need I publish my Parts, Or idly my Passion relate; Since Fancy that Captivates Hearts Resolves not to alter my Fate: I may Sing, Caper, Ogle, and Speak, 38 And make a long Court Ausi bien,TP PT And yet with one Passionate Lick, I'm out-rivall'd by Monsieur Le Chien.

Though Purcell composed other songs for the play, “Great Jove” is by the actor-singer William Mountfort who played Sir Philip Freewit, the marriage hater. The pathetic A- minor setting, printed in the sixth book of The Banquet of Musick (1692), is well suited to Brainless’s melancholy humor. The repetitions of “Monsieur Le Chein” at the end of each stanza must have been sidesplitting in performance (Figure 4.3; See also Appendix C for the complete song). The quarter rests between repetitions would have given Bowman the opportunity to “ham up” Brainless’s plaintiveness. As it turns out, Brainless finally gets the girl, but this ends in disappointment. His primary motivation for courting La Pupsey was because of her fortune, but after their marriage in Act V, he discovers that she was really a poor actress.

38 TP PT Aussi bien: as well

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Figure 4.3: “Great Jove once made Love like a Bull,” mm. 28-36

The Richmond Heiress 39 Edition Consulted: 1693TP PT

Durfey created many memorable characters for The Richmond Heiress, among them Bowman’s role as Rice ap Shinken, “a young, whimsical, welsh Fop,” which Bowman performed at Drury Lane in April 1693. Rice accompanies his cousin Tom Romance, who is vain, lying, and perpetually intriguing, and whose father, Sir Charles Romance, is contriving to marry him to the Richmond Heiress, Fulvia (Bracegirdle). Notably, this is the first play in which Bowman and his new wife, Elizabeth, both had roles, Mrs. Bowman playing the part of Mrs. Stockjobb, described as a “trim, gay Coquette” recently moving to England from France. It is also worth mentioning that Bowman is talked about by a character in the play. This occurs in a funny scene in Act I, when Sir Quibble Quere (Mr. Bright), who is “perpetually asking Questions about the Play-House,” asks Quickwit (Dogget) about several of the actors in the United Company, including Bowman. He even inquires about Mr. Dogget and Mr. Bright, a funny little prank given that these were the two actors carrying on the conversation. In his heavy Welsh accent, Rice always speaks about himself using the third person, but unfortunately, he only seems to know one personal pronoun, “her,” which he constantly misuses. In his first scene, for example, he describes the effect a beautiful woman (and all the various parts of her body) has on his heart:

The Shinkins was peare as crete Lovers to the pretty Omans, that is fery true; the plack Eyes, with the plack Eyebrows, was goot; and when her [he] sees the Red

39 TP PT Thomas Durfey, The Richmond Heiress (London, 1693) (Wing / D2769).

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Lip, the White Skin, and the soft Pubby, then Shinkin’s Heart was peat, peat, peat, like a Drum, by Cadwallader.

The quarrelsome Hotspur banters him for this impertinent use of English:

Peat, peat, peat! What a Plague can any one above the Degree of a Kitchin, love a Fellow that makes Fritters of English, as Falstaffe says? A Welsh Beau, with a Head as barren as the Mountains in his own Country.

Rice says there is a “young, sweet, sharming, pretty Daughter to a crete Shudge yonder, that is in love with Shinkin for his leg, look you; here is the Symetry, here is the Shape, here is the Calf, look you, and here is the Small, fery goot.” Hotspur responds, saying “Leg! ‘Oons, I have seen a handsomer upon a Gate for High Treason, after it has stuck parching in the Sun above Twelvemonth.” It is becoming apparent that Bowman must have had bird legs; this is the second play when his character shows off laughable legs. After the prologue there are a few song texts printed in the playbook, one of which, “Shinken’s song to the Harp in the Fourth Act,” was sung by Bowman. In the dedication of the Richmond Heiress, Dufey apologizes for the unusually long running time of the play, lengthened by the many songs and dances, but he adds that these contributed to its great applause:

The entertainment of Songs and Dances in it, as they gave more diversion than is usually seen in Comedy's, so they were perform'd with general Applause, and I think my Enemies have cause to say with greater than is ordinary; and though this had its Inconvenience by lenghtning the whole Piece a little beyond the common time of Action, which at this time o'th Year I am sensible is a very great Fault….

The extended mad scene in Act II comprised the chief musical attraction of the play, a scene in which the Richmond Heiress, Fulvia (Bracegirdle), and Quickwit (Dogget) feign madness in order to repel her impertinent suitors. Judging from Dryden’s remarks that the play “sufferd but foure dayes” and that all but the musical diversion in the second act was “woefull stuff, & concluded with Catcalls” this is only portion of the play that received any applause whatever, contrary to Durfey’s remarks in the dedication. It is doubtful that Bowman’s silly song received much attention, since it had to compete with Eccles’s and Purcell’s notable mad music earlier in the play. The Heiress’ guardian, Sir Charles Romance, has entrusted her treatment to a certain Dr. Guiacum who professes to cure lunatics. Guiacum tells Sir Charles that during her mad fits she vents upon imaginary persons, particularly four men of contrasting social status: a courtier, an alderman, a politician, and a divine. For her treatment, he has ordered four people to stand ready to represent them, and when she enters, she imagines Bowman’s character to be the courtier. From the beginning, the audience is aware that the madness they are about to witness is intended to be humorous, a fact revealed by Guiacum who says of Fulvia, “‘twill make ye laugh heartily to see what Freaks she’ll perform.” The music in the scene is part of her therapy, because, according to Guiacum, “she inclines to Musick, and will often sing very sensibly.” He brings in a new madman, Quickwit disguised as Lord de la Fool, whom the Doctor

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believes is “possessed with a Frenzy” and whose company will “very much assist her.” Guiacum brings in two “Lunaticks” to “indulge the Humour” who sing a song as Fulvia and Lord de la Fool look on. The song is the sprawling dialogue, “Behold the man that with gigantic might” composed by Purcell and sung by Reading and Mrs. Ayliff. Soon thereafter, Fulvia and Lord de la Fool sing a mad dialogue of their own, Eccles’s “By those pigneyes” in which they not only sing, but also dance with the two mad men. Because Shinkin’s song (with text only) appears in the back of the playbook, it is unclear when exactly in the course of the fourth act Bowman performed it. Price has suggested that it was “probably after being pummeled in a fight,” and incident that occurs in the fourth scene. Sir Quibble mistakenly believes he is to marry Fulvia, but everyone laughs at him for being so credulous. He and his brother Fredrick, whom Fulvia really wants to marry, fight, Fredrick threatening to run his sword into Quibble’s heart if he does not drop the matter. At this point a fight breaks out and Shinkin gets “his Head broke,” humorously complaining, “A Plague take your Confounded English Customs…that you cannot get your Wives and your Marriages, but a Shentleman must have his Pate and his Prains peaten out about it?” He then explains marriages customs in Wales:

When any Prittain pargains for his Spouse; He prings so many Seep, so many Cows: The Pridegroom tells the Pride his Loves intent, And She kind Fool as quickly gives Consent. No Swords, Cads plutt, no Cudgells there prevails; But kiss and Couple, thats the Way in Wales.

These are the closing couplets of the fourth act and the cue for the music to play the act tune. Perhaps Shinkin sang before the rhymed couplets that closed out the act as Price indicates, but a more likely place for his song is in the first scene of Act IV, shortly after several singers perform a “Catch in three Parts” in “praise of Punch,” honoring the beverage they had just brought in. Earlier in the scene, Mrs. Stockjobb and Lady Squeamish were conversing about intrigues and gentlemen, and Mrs. Stockjobb suggests to her that the Welch gentleman, who is a “ver fine person,” has “de extream inclination to have de Intreague vid you,” mocking Rice’s pronunciation. At first, this repulses Lady Squeamish, who thinks Shinkin is the “veriest Fop in Nature” but soon changes her tone when she hears that he is worth a fortune. Soon thereafter Shinkin and company enter with the punch, and in the midst of a verbal row between Romance, Stockjobb and Hotspur over Mrs. Stockjobb (both Hotspur and Romance are intrigued with her), Shinkin turns to Lady Squeamish and confesses what she has done to his heart.

40 When her is in Wales, look you, her could drink very goot MetheglinsTP PT with her 41 Cousin Cadwallader, at the Three Red Herrings and Green Leeks in MonmouthTP ;PT

40 TP PT Metheglins: mead; an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey and water.

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but now since her saw you, her Heart has done nothing but thump, thump, and then her does sigh so sadly, Hey hoh, so that if her is obdurates and cruels, and will not love shinkin, why then, alas, there is no way for her, look you, but Hey ho!

At this point the stage directions read, “Hotspur teizes Mrs. Stockjobb, she rises, and calls out her Husband.” This action is likely occurring as Rice sings his song, the words of which relate directly to his comments about Lady Squeamish. He sings of how he was of noble race, and how he was good at Football and cricket, but his renown is gone now that love has pursued him. The fourth and fifth stanzas refer to his drinking Metheglins at the Welsh pub he had just mentioned:

IV But now all joy’s are flying, All pale and wan her [his] Cheeks too; Her [his] heart so akes, her [he] quite forsakes, Her [his] Herrings, and her [his] Leeks too.

V No more must dear Metheglin, Be top’d at good Mongomery; And if Love sore, smart one week more, Adieu Cream-Cheese and Flomery.

That Shinkin’s last line here bemoans the sweets he might have to boycott if love continues to plague him, suggests that the song would fit nicely here. Lady Squeamish responds to his complaints in the song about love in her aside that follows: “Love, Oh horrid! the very word is enough to fright me into Apoplexy, would he would marry me, tho—as I’m a Virgin.” A few moments later, Hotspur, annoyed with Shinkin, says, “Thou art a fery ass, Pox on thee for a crack’d Welch Harp, Hold your jarring…,” a comment that surely indicates that Shinkin had just sung. Shinkin’s song was printed with continuo accompaniment in first book of Thesaurus Musicus in 1693 under the title, “A Song in the Richmond Heirest; or a Woman once in the Right.” It indicates that each of the five stanzas has a two-measure harp solo that imitates the vocal melody immediately preceding it (Figure 4.4). Curiously, the text of the song in the playbook and that in Thesaurus Musicus differ, the former having many more nonsense syllables which, presumably, are supposed to imitate the sound of a harp. The first stanza in Playbook has it as follows:

Of noble Race was Shinken, trum tery, tery, tery; trum trum, The Line of Owen Tudor, trum, trum, trum; But her Renown was fled and gone, Since Cruel Love pursu’d hur: trum, trum, &c.

41 TP PT A derogatory name for a pub, which is meant to sound unsophisticated and thus, from a Londoner’s perspective, fitting for such an establishment in Wales.

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And Thesaurus Musicus has the following:

Of noble Race was Shinking, [Harp interlude] The Line of Omon Tudor, thum, thum, thum, But her renown is fled and gone, Since cruel Love persu’d her.

McVeagh wrote about this song and its harp accompaniment that Durfey added an “amusing-looking imitation of the plink-plonk of the instrument but without the music we 42 cannot tell what effect it had,” an unfortunate oversight on McVeagh’s part.TP PT Comparing the play text with that of the song, it seems that the anonymous composer altered the nonsense syllables from Durfey’s original design to represent the beating of Shinkin’s ailing heart about which he complained before he sang.

Figure 4.4: “Of noble Race was Shinking”

42 TP PT McVeagh, Thomas Durfey, 116.

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The Female Vertuoso’s 43 Edition Consulted: 1693TP PT

Premiering in May 1693 at Dorset Garden, Thomas Wright’s The Female Vertuoso’s has only two songs in the play text, and the music of the first, the one Bowman sang in the third act, does not survive. Having been composed by Bowman’s character, Sir Maggot Jingle, a “parasitical Knight, pretending to Poetry,” the text itself is purposefully dilettantish, and presumably, the music’s quality must have suited that of the text. Sir Jingle and his verse are loved by the witless women in the play—Catchat (Mrs. Mountfort), who, though unattractive, believes every man to be in love with her, and Lady Meanwell (Mrs. Hodgson), a “great Pretender to Wit.” Upon Jingle’s first entrance in the play at the end of Act II, Catchat praises Jingle’s poetic prowess, bidding everyone to “make room for the Virgil of our Age,” while Sir Maurice Meanwell (Cave Underhill), who is hosting the dinner party, grumbles about Jingle’s annoying presence:

Must that starving parasitical Knight be always rhiming and bawling at my Table. Curse on him! One may know by his Visits, better than by the Clock, when ‘tis Dinner-time at my House.

Lady Meanwell, however, esteems Jingle as a “Darling of the Muses” and a “younger Brother of Apollo,” and the two ladies keep encouraging him until he finally pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket and reads them his latest composition, “To the Countess of Squeezingham, upon her Ague,” hardly a subject on which Virgil would versify. Next follows a ridiculous row of wits after Jingle takes offense at the criticism of Wittless, a not-so-brilliant Cambridge scholar, played by Doggett. Their get-together is continued in Act III, and Lady Lovewitt (Mrs. Knight), who is also in awe of Jingle, requests him to sing the song he has just composed, to which he responds, “To tell you the truth, I am a little proud of this Piece; look upon it as a very lucky Hitt of my Muse towards Preferment—Here it is— Should King Lewis with all his might, Thus say to me, by chance, Resign thy Peggy for one Night, And I’ll make thee a Peer of France. To the Monsieur, I’d reply, As I love a Christmas-Pye, Her Flesh thy Royal Paw shan’t handle. 44 Keep thy Honour and thy Pelf,TP PT And I’ll keep Peggy to my self, Who shines as bright as any Candle.

43 TP PT Thomas Wright, The Female Vertuoso’s (London, 1693) (Wing / W3711).

44 TP PT Pelf: money

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For comical effect, it would not be surprising if Bowman’s performance of the song matched the quality of the lyrics, and though not musically gratifying, it certainly would have been humorous.

The Double-Dealer 45 Edition Consulted: 1694TP PT

Congreve’s The Double-Dealer, which premiered at Drury Lane in autumn 1693, only has two songs, one sung in the second act by an anonymous musician for Mellefont (Williams) and Cynthia (Bracegirdle), and the other by Bowman as Lord Froth, “a Solemn Coxcomb.” This character is an entertaining variation of the fop; rather than being overtly silly and over-affected as a typical fop, Lord Froth very consciously attempts to be reserved and to cultivate his pomposity to such an extent that he is set against laughing. As Lord Forth puts it in Act I,

…there is nothing more unbecoming a Man of Quality, than to Laugh; Jesu, ’tis such a Vulgar Expression of the Passion! every body can Laugh. Then especially to Laugh at the Jest of an Inferiour Person, or when any body else of the same Quality does not Laugh with him. Ridiculous! To be pleased with what pleases the Croud! Now when I Laugh, I always Laugh alone.

When the play’s other fop, Brisk, humorously responds to these remarks, “I suppose that’s because you Laugh at your own Jests,” Lord Froth cannot forbear laughing, and he immediately exposes himself as a hypocrite. Unfazed, Lord Froth goes on to say that he watches comedies at the theater not to laugh, but rather to distinguish himself from the “Commonality” and to “mortify the Poets” with his unsympathetic air. As his name suggests, what makes Lord Froth’s character so humorous is that his pretense is merely froth; there is no substance to it, for while he earnestly protests against laughter, his chuckles constantly bubble to the surface at the slightest jest, and he can never keep a straight face. Congreve seemingly provides Lord Froth and his ridiculous wife, Lady Froth (Mrs. Mountfort), primarily for comic relief, but Peter Holland argues that the “audience which views their antics as inconsequential additions to the main plot fails to understand 46 the singleness of the plot that Congreve emphasised in the dedication.”TP PT Congreve wrote,

I design’d the Moral first, and to that Moral I invented the Fable, and do not know that I have borrow’d one hint of it any where. I made the Plot as strong as I could, because it was single, and I made it single, because I would avoid confusion….”

45 TP PT William Congreve, The Double-Dealer (London, 1694) (Wing / C5847).

46 TP PT Holland, The Ornament of Action, 216.

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Holland says that by “confusion” Congreve “means a confusion of purpose by dividing the audience’s attention between various plots.” He believes, however, that the audience was “still confused by the conflict between prediction and result in the events of the play,” and in his chapter on Congreve’s comedies, he therefore explores the “tension between the predictions founded on the casting and the action of the plays as seen in the 47 scenic structure.”TP PT In the case of the Double-Dealer, the tension to which Holland refers in no way results from Bowman being cast as Lord Froth, as this is a character type in which he would normatively appear. In at least two prominent cases, however, Congreve’s casting thwarted audience expectations. Congreve wrote the part of the cuckold, Lord Touchwood, for Edward Kynaston, who “had an august reputation for noble and dignified parts,” and of his known parts, this is the only cuckold he acted in a 48 comedy.TP PT It is the foolish characters who are typically cuckolded in comedy, but in this case, largely because of the expectations resulting from the casting, Lord Touchwood is “something totally new,” a cuckold “with stature and dignity who believes the lies of the 49 villain because of Maskwell’s cunning, not his own stupidity.”TP PT Strongly associated with rake-hero roles, George Powell as the fop, Brisk, would also have caused tension between audience expectations and the character’s actions. As more of a degraded rake-hero than 50 a fop,TP PT Brisk’s seductive prowess greatly impacts the Froths, as he makes Lady Froth an adulteress and Lord Froth a cuckold. Congreve’s plot can be summarized succinctly. The sinister villain, Maskwell (Betterton), devises several stratagems in order to replace the virtuous Mellefont as heir to Lord Touchwood and fiancé to Cynthia. With the exceptions of Mellefont, Cynthia, and Lord Touchwood, all the characters are either overtly evil or foolish. Lady Touchwood is a ranting liar and adulteress (with Maskwell), who desires an incestuous relationship with her nephew, Mellefont. Lady Plyant constantly professes sexual purity to the extent that she will not have sex with her husband (who calls her “impenetrable” in Act II), but she is “easie to any Pretender” and commits adultery with Careless. Lady Froth dotes on her husband, but Brisk easily seduces her. Lord Froth and Sir Paul are both fools, the former in love with himself and the latter with a much younger wife—and both are too blind to notice that they are being cuckolded. Holland has pointed out that the characters

. . . are arranged in a series of comparable triangles of adultery. At the top are the Touchwoods and Maskwell; next come the Plyants and Careless and finally the Froths and Brisk. Mellefont and Cynthia alone stand apart from this pattern. The triangles are closely parallel and the design of the play weaves them together. They constitute a hierarchical structure of dramatic form, from evil and tragic- melodramatic mode at the top to the near-farce of the Froths….The structure

47 TP PT Ibid., 206.

48 TP PT Ibid., 218.

49 TP PT Ibid., 219.

50 TP PT Ibid., 216.

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encourages the audience to connect different characters in a moral pattern. Brisk as a cuckolder is thus linked to Careless and Maskwell, Lady Froth to Lady Plyant 51 and Lady Touchwood.TP PT

Lord Touchwood, Sir Paul Plyant, and Lord Froth are also linked as cuckolds (see Figure 4.5 for a diagram of these relationships). The effect is that the initial arrangement of characters is “drastically altered as the juxtapositions and parallels of the design become 52 clear: a cuckold can be respected; a rake and a fop can become closely identified.”TP PT Congreve’s highly moral plot creates a comedy with an unmistakably serious tone, especially at the tragic-melodramatic level of the Maskwell-Touchwood triangle. Perhaps paradoxically, Congreve’s comedy required comic relief, a task that fell principally to the characters at the near farcical level, namely the Froths and Brisk, but also to the Plyants to some extent.

Triangles of Adultery Maskwell Tragic-Melodramatic Mellefont Mode and Cynthia

Lord Touchwood Lady Touchwood

Careless

Cuckolds Adulteresses Sir Paul Plyant Lady Plyant

Brisk

Near Farcical Mode Lord Froth Lady Froth

Figure 4.5: Illustration of Peter Holland’s Reading of The Double-Dealer

51 TP PT Ibid., 215-16.

52 TP PT Ibid., 220.

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Lord and Lady Froth’s nauseous doting on one another provides not only a considerable comic element to the play, but, significantly, becomes the impetus for the song in Act II. Cynthia is promised to Mellefont, but after observing Lord and Lady Froth, Cynthia expresses her concern that marriage always turns people into fools. With impeccable timing, a group of musicians wanders by, having just learned the new song that Lord Touchwood “has promised the Company,” and Mellefont asks them to practice it for Cynthia’s benefit. The song, “Cynthia frowns when e’re I Woo her,” was presumably written by Mellefont to convince Cynthia that she should marry him soon, before “Age and Wrinckles” overtake her and her desire for him comes too late for fruition. Lord Froth’s song in Act III, “Ancient Phillis, has young Graces,” mocks the infirmities of an “Old fat Fool that Paints so exorbitantly,” applying layer upon layer of makeup. Throughout much of the scene, Brisk and Lord and Lady Froth make jests about others, such as Mr. Sneer, a “fulsamick Fop” who took great pains to match the lining of his coach to his complexion, and Lady Toothless, a “mortifying Spectacle” who is always “chewing the Cud like an old Yew.” Finally, their jesting climaxes with the “strapping Lady” whose beard bristles through her makeup after she “lays it on with a Trowel,” a practice that inspired Brisk to write the song that he and Cynthia ask Lord Froth to sing. Before Froth sings, however, Brisk explains that it is not really a song, but rather “a sort of an Epigram, or rather an Epigrammatick Sonnet; I don’t know what to call it, but it’s Satyr.”

Ancient Phillis has young Graces, ‘Tis a strange thing, but a true one; Shall I tell you how She her self shalt make her own Facis [faces], And each Morning, still wear’s a new one; Where’s the Wonder now?

It is interesting to note that this song may be mocking someone with whom many in the audience might be familiar, as Brisk and Lady Froth both remark that they cannot remember her name (though they had no trouble recalling others’ names). The tone of the writing in this context sounds curiously like they are hinting at a real-life target of the jest, as if the characters cannot remember the woman’s name, but the actors themselves certainly can:

Lady F. Then that t’other great strapping Lady—I can’t hit of her Name; the old fat Fool that Paints so exorbitantly.

Brisk. I know whom you mean—But Deuce take me, I can’t hit of her Name neither—Paints de’e say?

According to the second book of Thesaurus Musicus (1694) in which the song was printed, Bowman himself composed the tune, but it provides no accompaniment. Bowman set the appropriate words to melismas, viz. “Graces” and “Wonder,” and provided himself several opportunities to employ gesture, expression, and vocal color to

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humorous ends, especially on the octave leaps on “Wonder now” and the multiple repetitions of “now” (Figure 4.6).

Figure 4.6: “Ancient Phillis has young Graces”

The Comical History of Don Quixote, Part I 53 Edition Consulted: 1694TP PT

As mentioned earlier, Bowman performed the role of Cardenio in the first two parts of Durfey’s trilogy The Comical History of Don Quixote in May 1694 at Dorset

53 TP PT Thomas Durfey, The Comical History of Don Quixote (London, 1694) (Wing / D2712).

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Garden, the third part appearing after Bowman joined Betterton’s new troupe at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Dubbed a “comic extravaganza” by Price, Don Quixote has an enormous amount of music, consisting of both single songs and more extended sections of continuous music that incorporate singing and dancing. Literary critics have tended to be dismissive of this “Restoration comedy that ate hallucinatory mushrooms,” but according to Price, its “queer tone is best explained by viewing the plays as a revolving show-case 54 for the composers.”TP PT Durfey expert John McVeagh thinks that Price “over-corrects” here, as “Durfey at no stage surrenders to the composers,” but in his discussion that follows (which, tellingly, focuses largely on the music) he admits that “Durfey pillages 55 Cervantes for scenes lending themselves to dance, song and spectacle.”TP PT Price is essentially correct, though we might add that in Don Quixote, Durfey showcases not only the composers, but also the incredible talents of the actor-singers Bracegirdle, Bowman, and Dogget. The mad songs for which Bracegirdle and Bowman are best remembered— Purcell’s “Let the dreadful Engines” for Bowman and Eccles’s sensational setting of “I burn, I burn” for Bracegirdle—were sung in character in parts I and II respectively. Cardenio does not sing in Part II. In addition to “Let the dreadful Engines,” Bowman also sang in Merlin’s masque in Act V (see Chapter II), and earlier in the play there a couple of duets in which he also could have sung. The first of these was the “Song in Praise of Arms and Souldiery,” sung at Don Quixote’s feigned knighting ceremony in which he is invested as “The Knight of the Ill-favour’d Face.” Purcell set the lyric, “Sing all ye Muses,” for bass and tenor, but disconcertingly, no singers’ names were provided in The Songs to the New Play of Don Quixote, in which the song was printed. The other duet, again without singers listed, is the dirge “Sleep poor Youth” by Eccles, sung by a shepherd and shepherdess at the funeral of Chrysostom, a youth who died because of unrequited love for Marcella (Bracegirdle). As Bowman does not enter until the fourth act, he may well have performed one or both of these, but it is more likely that John Reading was the singer. Reading is named as the singer, along with Mrs. Alyiff, for Purcell’s dialogue “Since Times are so bad” in Part II, so it is reasonable to believe he was involved in the first part as well, and the two duets, with their lower tessitura, would seem to suit his voice nicely. When Cardenio enters (see Chapter II for a brief explanation of the plot), Quixote and Sancho, who had just been pummeled by several prisoners whom they had liberated, are still complaining about their aches when they hear Cardenio singing in the distance. Sancho remarks to Quixote, “you know well enough that I’m no Schollard, I believe here’s another Adventure coming, and I hope t’will end better than the last, because it begins Musically.” Looking very wild, Cardenio then enters, sings the madsong, and exits, leaving the two adventurers to ponder his madness. It is significant that Quixote, as a character in the play, recognizes that Cardenio was actually singing, and it is apparent that, at least in Durfey’s imagination, one naturally vents frenzy through song. Cardenio later admits (in Act V) that he cannot even remember meeting Quixote, as if he were unconscious or possessed during his mad fit, a sure clue as to how he acted the song. He enters in a wild posture, leaping from rock to rock like an animal, suggesting that in order

54 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 206.

55 TP PT McVeagh, Thomas Durfey, 117.

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to depict madness, he jettisoned all notions of decorum and elegance in his gesture and expression. Durfey’s text is extraordinarily sensual, appealing to the audience’s senses of sight, touch, smell, and hearing, using evocative imagery. To excite the mind’s eye and ear, he provides bright lightening, flames galore, and roaring thunder. Warm winds appeal to the nose with their flowery fragrance, and nature oscillates between the extremes of hot and cold, metaphorically transforming Cardenio’s vacillating emotional state into tactility and thereby vivifying it for the audience. These mercurial mood shifts typify madness in the “mad songs” of Restoration drama, and in the first stanza of “Let the dreadful Engines,” Cardenio abruptly shifts from hot rage to cold despair:

Let the dreadful Engines of eternal will, The Thunder Roar, and crooked Lighting kill, My Rage is hot, as theirs as fatal too, And dares as horrid execution do: Or let the Frozen North its rancour show, Within my Breast far greater Tempests grow; Despaire’s more cold than all the winds can blow.

In the second stanza, the metaphor of heat assumes a different meaning: Lucinda’s eyes can bring him out of despair and perhaps warm him sexually as well:

Can nothing, nothing warm me? Yes, Lucinda’s Eyes; There Etna, there, there, Vesuvio lyes, To furnish Hell with flames, That mounting reach the Skyes;

Following this, Cardenio seems to be at his deepest level of craziness when he addresses unseen, magical powers and, in an exaggerated analogy, says his heat is more intense than when Phaeton nearly destroyed earth. This is a reference to the Greek myth in which the sun god Helios (or Sol) allowed his son, Phaeton, to drive his sun chariot across the sky. When the horses careened out of control, bringing the sun too close to earth, Zeus destroyed Phaeton:

Ye pow’rs I did but use her name, And see how all the Meteors Flame, Blew lightning flashes round the Court of Sol, And now the Globe more feircely burns Than once at Phaeton’s fall.

After this, Cardenio becomes melancholy (which Purcell turns into deep sadness) when he remembers the good times with Lucinda:

Ah! Where are now those Flow’ry Groves, Where Zephir’s fragrant winds did play?

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Where guarded by a Troop of Loves, The fair Lucinda sleeping lay, There Sung the Nightingale, and Lark, Around us all was sweet and gay; We ne’er grew sad till it grew dark, Nor nothing fear’d but shortning day.

These memories rekindle his angry fire, and his rage changes to scorn against all women whom he believes greedily pursue marriage to gain wealth:

I Glow, I glow, but ‘tis with hate, Why must I burn for this ingrate? Coole, coole it then, and raile, Since nothing will prevaile. When a Woman Love pretends, ‘tis but till she gains her ends, And for better, and for Worse, is for Marrow of the Purse, Where she Jilts you o’er and o’er, Proves a Slattern or a Whore;

This hour will teize and vex, And will Cuckold ye the next; They were all contriv’d in spight, To torment us, not delight, But to scold, and scratch, and bite, And not one of them proves right, But all are Witches by this light; And so I fairly bid e’m, and the World good night.

Durfey provided an extraordinary text that captured Cardenio’s madness and introduced his character in the play. The poetry must have stirred Purcell’s muse, as he set it masterfully to music. The musical form of the song is tripartite, defined by tonality and melodic style, 56 which Purcell uses to portray Cardenio’s various moods.TP PT It is, therefore, important for the performer to be aware of and sensitive to these contrasts and Purcell’s techniques for depicting them. Generally, Purcell employs F major for Cardenio’s fuming, hot temper, and F minor for cold and despair. Part I thus includes the first two stanzas, which itself has three distinct sections (Table 4.1). In the first two sections of Part I, the vocal line is in a style that Price calls “graced recitative,” in which the text is set rather melismatically over sustained chords, allowing the performer considerable rhythmic freedom. In Section 3, Purcell provided a much more tuneful melodic style that Price calls “ballad” style.

56 TP PT I have adapted and expanded Price’s diagram of the form. See Henry Purcell, 211.

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Table 4.1: “Let the dreadful Engines,” Part I

Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Text “Let the dreadful Engines” “Or let the Frozen North” “Can nothing warm me?” Key F major F minor F major Style Graced recitative Graced recitative “Ballad” or song-like Mood Hot rage Cold despair Arousal / Anger

Part II has two sections, the first in C major when Cardenio seems to be at his craziest and the second in C minor when he remembers past happiness (Table 4.2). Contrasting melodic styles also distinguish the two sections, the first in syllabic recitative (which Price calls secco recitative) and the second in the “pathetic air” idiom. Section 2 is harmonically unsettled and has three distinct subsections, beginning in C minor, moving through several keys, and finally concluding in C minor. The first subsection is notable for its use of lamento bass, stated twice in C minor and again in G minor. This indicates that Purcell envisioned Cardenio at his saddest here. After cadencing in G b minor, Purcell immediately shifts to EP P major, a striking modulation that represents another mood change and marks the beginning of the second subsection. Now Cardenio seems to be lost in past pleasantness and is experiencing a sort of vicarious happiness. b Purcell goes on to modulate to BP P major and then to F major, imbuing Cardenio’s seeming happiness with an underlying sense of unsettledness, and when he returns to C minor at the beginning of the next subsection, he makes in clear that Cardenio’s happiness was only fleeting. Part III has three sections in the same tonal sequence as Part I, and each employs the same melodic style and a similar mood as their respective sections in Part I.

Table 4.2: “Let the dreadful Engines,” Part II:

Section 1 Section 2a Section 2b Section 2c Text “Ye pow’rs” “Ah! Where are now” “Where Zephir’s “…sad till it fragrant winds” grew dark” b b Key C major C minor to G minor EP P major – BP P C minor major - F major Style Syllabic Pathetic air Pathetic air Pathetic air recitative (cont.) (cont.) Mood Irrational, crazy Deepest sadness Vicarious Return of happiness sadness

Understanding these moods shifts is, of course, vital for an affective performance of the song, and the singer should heed Purcell’s cues to guide his use of vocal color, gesture, and expression. The singer should also be attuned to Purcell’s depiction of specific affective words, such as his melismatic treatment of “thunder” and “lightening,”

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for example. These are obviously musical representations of natural events and should be made to sound as loud and stormy as possible, but one should remember that these also represent Cardenio’s rage.

Table 4.3: “Let the dreadful Engines,” Part III

Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Text “I Glow, but ‘tis with hate” “Coole it then, and raile” “When a Woman Love pretends” Key F major F minor F major Style Graced recitative Graced recitative Ballad or song-like Mood Hot rage Cold despair Bitterness

The multiple repetitions of “yes” in the second stanza are reminiscent of the utterances of one who is actually mentally ill, and, though this is not something likely to be mocked today for comic purposes, I believe that in seventeenth-century English culture, it certainly would have been. It is well known, in fact, that Londoners observed patients at Bedlam for their amusement, and the asylum seems to have been a tourist attraction as well. In Act III of Dilke’s The Lover’s Luck (1695), the country bumpkin, Sapless has just been given a tour of the city by Eager, a “Sharper of the town, that lives by Pimping and Cheating.” Eager has his sword drawn and is threatening to cudgel Sapless because he has not yet received payment for the tour:

Eager: Hark ye, Squire Sapless, Did not you promise me Twenty pounds upon the Word of a Gentleman, before sufficient Witness?

Sapless: Troth I can’t deny that.

Eager: And han’t I laid by all business, to saunter along with you? Show’d you the Lions at the Tower, New Bedlam, and the Tombs at Westminster?

Sapless: Nea, I’m hugeny beholding to yo, that’s truth on’t.

Clearly, Bedlam was as much a sightseeing destination as was the Tower and Westminster Abbey. Reactions to such spectacle must have been multifaceted, varying from laughter, to pity, to fear, and probably many others. An affective performance of this piece should also elicit an array of responses, but it should be remembered that the overarching context is comedy. The audience must have found parts of Bowman’s performance of “Let the dreadful Engines,” humorous, such as this section and especially the conclusion in which he maligns women and bids them goodnight before exiting. The “pathetic air” section, however, should be sincere and should evoke sadness and pity in the audience.

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Serious Dramas

With the exception of Alphonso in Alphonso King of Naples (1690), Bowman continued in small roles in serious dramas. Because non-speaking characters, whose names are often omitted in the playbooks, performed many of the songs in serious dramas, singers usually remain anonymous in the records unless printed song collections or manuscripts provide their names. As a result, it is likely that several of Bowman’s song performances went undocumented. Eccles’s music for a revival of Macbeth, which might have occurred before the split of the United Company, indicates that Bowman sang as one of the witches. The Company probably also revived Dryden’s Tyrannick Love shortly before its division, with Bowman singing as the spirit, Nakar. Additionally, the 1690 edition of Nathaniel Lee’s The Massacre of Paris lists Bowman as Genius, whose lines Purcell set to music.

The Massacre of Paris 57 Edition Consulted: 1690TP PT

Lee probably wrote The Massacre of Paris during the Popish Plot—Stroup and Cooke conjecturally suggest the spring of 1679—and according to Dryden in The Vindication of the Duke of Guise, it was suppressed at the request of the French 58 ambassador to prevent stirring up hatred against French Catholics residing in London.TP PT After the accession of William and Mary, the United Company produced the play in 1689 at Drury Lane, and it became “the stock offering of the London stage in times of anti- 59 Protestant unrest.”TP PT At that time, England was embroiled against Catholic France in the Nine Years War (1688-97). The massacre depicted in the Lee’s bloody tragedy is the slaughter of French Huguenots by Charles IX beginning in Paris on St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572 and spreading to other cities, eventually claiming nearly 100,000 lives. The playbook does not indicate that there was any singing, but Purcell set Genius’s rhymed-couplet speech in Act V—his only appearance in the play—for Bowman, who played this small role in 1689. Act V begins as the king rises from his couch at the daybreak, commenting on the cheerfulness of the sunrise and how the birds are saluting daybreak with joyful song. This he contrasts with his own distressed mood, as he prays that God will slake his wrath against him for consenting to the massacre:

But Charles, still wrapt in Shades, like Night appears, His sighs the Vapors, and the Dews his Tears. Yet, O Just Power, with pity, O behold The wretch, whose fault is in your Book inroll’d: Behold these streams, with which his Soul aspires

57 TP PT Nathaniel Lee, The Massacre of Paris (London, 1690) (Wing / L853).

58 TP Lee,PT The Works of Nathaniel Lee, V. II, 3.

59 TP PT Ibid., 3.

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To slake your wrath, and quench you angry fires.

Genius then appears to inform Charles that his sins can be pardoned, for “A true Repentance never comes too late,” but before the apparition departs, he warns the king, “dally not with Heav’n, / For after this no Pardon shall be giv’n.” In this context, a “genius” is a “tutelary god or attendant spirit allotted to every person at his birth, to govern his fortunes and determine his character, and finally to conduct him out of the 60 world.”TP PT The supernatural Genius probably arose from the trap door in the stage as did Cold Genius in King Arthur, but unfortunately, the directions only indicate when he is to enter. The text begins with a salutation, in which Genius introduces himself and states his purpose: to stop the king’s fate. Genius then describes the journey his penitent prayers will make to heaven, followed by his stiff warning.

61 Thy Genius, lo! from his sweet Bed of rest,TP PT 62 Adorn’d with Jassimin, and with Roses drest;TP PT The Pow’rs Divine has rais’d to stop thy Fate, A true Repentance never comes too late: So soon as Born, she made her self a Shrowd, The fleecy Mantle of a weeping Cloud, And swift as thought her Airy Journey took; Her Hand Heav’ns Azure Gate with trembling struck; The Stars did with amazement on her look; She told thy Story in so sad a Tone, The Angels start from Bliss and gave a groan. But Charles beware, Oh! dally not with Heav’n; For after this no Pardon shall be giv’n.

After singing, the spirit exits, at which point the Queen Mother, the instigator of the plot, enters with Anjou, Alberto Gondi, and the Cardinal of Lorrain. Charles then explains why he is prostrate on the earth, telling them that he was “warn’d from Heav’n . . . not to let the Massacre go forward.” The Queen Mother tries to reassure him, saying that the plot is “meritorious” and “far from Sin,” and that the church will bless their violence as “a blow from Heav’n.” The Cardinal adds that though the spirit was veiled “in an Angel’s form,” the message was in fact “a suggestion of the Devil.” In spite of Genius’s warning and the king’s protestations, the massacre is ultimately carried out, leaving the king horrified. The song begins in recitative in C major for the salutation and modulates to A minor for Genius’s description of the heavenward journey. Beginning on “and swift as thought,” the style changes to a “virtuoso aria” with quickly paced melismas over a

60 TP PT Oxford English Dictionary Online, (accessed 24 March 2006).

61 TP PT Lo: look

62 TP PT Bowman must have been wearing a rather flowery and colorful costume.

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63 ground bass.TP PT After a brief F-minor recitative, Genius delivers the warning in a triple- meter air in C minor that begins with a descending tetrachord in the bass. According to Price, the tonal structure is significant; given Purcell’s favorite key associations, the outcome of the play can be predicted from the song itself. He states that one might “glance at ‘Thy genius, lo!’ with the smugness of hindsight and declare that Purcell presages the horror with F minor and the royal torment with the C minor tetrachord, but 64 not the king’s death, since this piece completely avoids G minor.”TP PT Perhaps, though, the avoidance of G minor predicts the king’s eternal fate rather than his physical destiny. Though Charles tried unsuccessfully to stop the killings, his attempts to do so exonerated him from heaven’s judgment.

Tyrannick Love 65 Edition Consulted: 1694TP PT

Perhaps most famous for Nell Gwyn’s epilogue, which Maximillian E. Novak says is “the most amusing ever written,” Dryden’s Tyrannick Love premiered on 24 June 66 1669.TP PT Bowman was too young to have sung in the premiere, but the United Company commissioned Purcell to compose new music for revivals of Dryden’s heroic dramas— The Indian Emperour, Tyrannick Love, The Conquest of Granada, and Aureng-Zebe— in the 1690s. For the revival of Tyrannick Love (probably in 1694), Bowman performed the part of the spirit, Nakar, singing Purcell’s duet, “Hark, my Damilcar” (Z 613/1) with Mrs. 67 Ayliff.TP PT Dryden based his plot on the early fourth-century martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, who, according to legend, visited the Roman Emperor (either Maximinus II or Maxentius, but Maximinus in Dryden’s version) when she was only eighteen years old, hoping to convince him to halt his persecution of Christians. She converted many

63 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 60.

64 TP PT Ibid., 60-1.

65 TP PT John Dryden, Tyrannick Love (London, 1694) (Wing / D2396A).

66 TP PT Maximillian E. Novak, ed., The Works of John Dryden, V.X, 380.

67 TP PT The London Stage assigns the revival to 1694, Part I, 441. The playbook was printed in 1694 with the 1669 cast, but the first book of Deliciae Musicae, in which the duet was printed, indicates that Ayliff sang as Damilcar and Bowman as Nakar. Dryden coined the term “heroic drama” in the preface to The Conquest of Grenada (1670), but the first examples of the genre were the work of Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, in the early 1660s. Patterned after epic poetry, the heroic drama is characterized by iambic pentameter couplets, extravagant rhetoric, and distant and exotic locals. Plots explore the “vicissitudes of the nobility” set against “a background of war and presented in a heightened style,” and the heroes are powerful and decisive. See John Loftis, Richard Southern, Marion Jones, and A.H. Scouten, The Revels History of Drama in English, V.5, 1660-1750 (London: Methuen, 1976), 256-59.

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pagans, including the empress, but did not persuade the emperor, who condemned her to an agonizing death on the breaking wheel. Because of this, she became the patron saint of wheelwrights and those who work with wheels (eg., potters, spinners). When she touched the wheel, however, it broke, and the emperor beheaded her instead. In Dryden’s plot, she prays that God will save her from the wheel, not wanting her naked body to be “Expos’d to lawless Eyes,” and the angel Amariel descends with a flaming sword, striking the wheel and breaking it to pieces. Bowman’s only appearance is in the first scene of Act IV, in which Maximin’s conjurer, Nigrinus, calls in the merry spirits, Nakar and Damilcar, to tempt St. Catherine into acquiescing to the emperor’s wishes. In Act I, the audience first experiences Maximin’s tyrannical temperament, when, after his son was slain in battle, he orders the executions of centurions from every legion. Soon thereafter, the steadfast empress, Bernice, reveals that Maximin murdered her brother to seize the throne. With his heir dead, Maximin appoints Porphyrius as his successor, making Placidius (an officer) jealous. Just then, a messenger enters, bringing news that the Christian princess, Catherine, has made fifty of Maximin’s “learn’d Philosophers” captive to her reason. This angers the emperor, who orders that she be brought to his tent for “speedy punishment.” When Maximin first sees her, however, he falls in love and tries to buy her affection by offering her Bernice’s crown. Catherine resolves to become a martyr rather than bow to Maximin’s lust. After all attempts have failed to move Catherine’s heart, Maximin sends Placidius and Nigrinus to seek spiritual assistance. Once in the “Indian Cave” where the conjuration will take place, Nigrinus says he will call Nakar and Damilcar, “the Spirits which in Love have pow’r.” After he performs the incantation, Nakar and Damilcar descend in clouds and sing:

Nakar: 68 Hark my Damilcar! we’re cal’d below;TP PT

69 Both:TP PT Let us goe, let us goe; Goe to relieve the care, Of longing Lovers in dispair; Merry, Merry, Merry, we Sayle from the East; 70 Half tippl’d at the Rainbow Feast;TP PT In the bright Moonshine whilst the Winds Whistle loud; 71 Tivy, tivy, tivy, we mount and we fly,TP PT

68 TP PT In Deliciae Musicae it reads “Doridcar” rather than “Damilcar.”

69 TP PT Dryden intersperses this portion of text between the two spirits in dialogue, but Purcell set it as a duet.

70 TP PT Half tippl’d: half drunk

71 TP PT Tivy: with great speed; to gallop. Earlier, Nigrinus explained that Nakar and Damilcar ride together in “Aery Chariots.”

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72 All racking along, in a dawny white Cloud,TP PT And least [sic., lest] our leap from the Sky shou’d prove too farr, We’ll slide on the back of a new falling Star, And drop from above, in a gelly of Love.

Nakar: But now the Suns down, and the Element’s Red, The Spirits of Fire against us make Head; They muster, they muster like gnats in the Air: Alas I must leave thee my Fair, 73 And to my light Horsemen repair.TP PT

Damilcar: Oh stay! For you need not to fear ‘em to Night, The Wind is for us and blows full in their sight, And o’re the wide Ocean we fight, Like Leaves in the Autumn our Foes will fall down And hiss in the Water and down:

Nakar: But their Men lye securely intrench’d in a Cloud, And a Trumpetter Hornet to Battle sounds loud; No mortals that spye How we Tilt in the Sky, With wonder will gaze And fear such events as will ne’re come to pass, Stay you to perform what the Man wou’d have done.

Damilcar: Then call me again when the Battle is won.

Both: So ready and quick is a Spirit of Air, To pity the Lover, and succour the Fair; 74 That silent and swift the little soft God,TP PT Is here with a wish, and is gone with a Nod.

After this, Nigrinus tell Damilcar to show Catherine the pleasures of love, and Damilcar stomps on the floor, causing Catherine to rise from below, asleep on a bed. Damilcar makes Catherine dream “of Love and sweet delight,” but Catherine’s guardian angel,

72 TP PT Racking: galloping

73 TP PT Nakar commands eighty legions of spirits.

74 TP PT Soft God: Cupid

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Amariel, descends, wielding a flaming sword, to stop Damilcar from tempting her further.

Macbeth 75 Edition Consulted: 1695TP PT

Not long before its split, the United Company possibly mounted William Davenant’s revised version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth with music by John Eccles. Though evidence is meager, it is likely that a 1694 revival occasioned the 1695 reprint of the play, the title page of which states that it has alterations, additions, and new songs. This, however, is misleading, as the printer simply copied the wording from the 1674 title page. Eccles’s holograph score (GB-Lbl Add. MS 12219) lists several singers, including Bowman, but the notable absence of the tenors Freeman and Church, who remained at the Patent Company after the split, may suggest a Lincoln’s Inn Field premiere of Eccles’s music. Lincoln’s Inn Fields probably mounted a production in the 1696-97 season, but 76 whether this was the debut of Eccles’s music is inconclusive.TP PT By the time of Macbeth, Eccles had already made a name for himself, having composed the successful dialogue for Doggett and Bracegirdle in the Richmond Heiress (1693). At about the same time as Macbeth, Eccles composed approximately half of the music for the first two parts of Don Quixote, and his mad song for Bracegirdle, “I burn, I burn” captivated audiences. When Betterton founded the Lincoln’s Inn Troupe, Eccles became his leading composer. Casting Bowman as the arch-witch, Hecate, a female character, might come as a surprise, but in seventeenth-century English practice, men often appeared in witch’s roles. This tradition began in the early part of the century when men played such parts instead of boys, who typically acted women’s roles. As Eubanks-Winkler notes, Samuel Sandford sang Hecate’s part in 1673 (with music possibly by Matthew Locke), Bowman sang the role in Eccles’s setting, and both Marcellus Laroon and Richard Leveridge 77 performed the role in Leveridge’s version of ca. 1702.TP PT In addition to Hecate, Eccles’s score requires two other bass witches, as well as a SATB witches’ chorus with other soloists. Hecate sings only in the last scene of Act III and in the first scene of Act IV, and in both instances, the texts Eccles set were additions borrowed from Thomas Middleton’s The Witch (1615-16). Included in the first folio of Macbeth in 1623, the only authoritative source of the text, these songs must have been interpolated in Jacobean performances, establishing a tradition that continued into the eighteenth century. The plot of Macbeth is too familiar to summarize in detail here, but I will briefly describe the events leading up the song performances. Act I begins with three witches, who, without the permission of Hecate, their queen, connive to mettle in Macbeth’s affairs. After Macbeth leads the Scots successfully in battle, King Duncan vows to invest

75 TP PT William Davenant, Macbeth (London, 1695) (Wing / S2935).

76 TP PT See Amanda Eubanks-Winkler’s explanation in her Introduction to Music for Macbeth in Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, V.133 (Madison: A-R Editions, 2004), viii.

77 TP PT Eubanks-Winkler, Macbeth, ix.

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him as the Thane of Cawdor, but before Macbeth hears the news, the witches prognosticate that he will receive the title and that he will one day be king. At first, this sparks Macbeth’s curiosity and then ambition’s fire, initiating a series of sinister murders that Macbeth feels necessary to fulfill the prophecy. By the time of Hecate’s appearance in Act III, Macbeth has already slain Duncan (and several others) to usurp and secure the throne. When Hecate and the three witches enter, Hecate angrily chides them for acting without his permission and commands them to prepare for Macbeth’s arrival in the morning, for “Thither he / Will come to know his Destiny.” When he comes, they will conjure an apparition who will “draw Macbeth to his Confusion.” Eccles’s music begins after these lines, as the first witch, a bass, sings from offstage, presumably in the machine that descends at this point, according to the directions in the playbook. She sings, “Hecate! Oh, come away,” biding the queen to accompany the fiends, and afterwards the other witches join in, singing the same text to the accompaniment of strings and continuo. Hecate answers with the arietta, “I come, I come” which includes choral responses from the witches:

Hecate: I come, I come with all the speed I may, Where’s Stradling?

Chorus: Here.

Hecate: Where’s Puckle?

Chorus: Here, And Helway too, and Hopper too, But we want you: Come, come away, make up the count.

78 Hecate: I will but ‘noint, and then I’ll mount.TP PT

78 TP PT According the then-popular conception of witches, they had to anoint themselves or an object such as a broomstick in order to fly: “…at their meeting and departing they pay their accustomed reverence to Lucifer, and perform all worship to him, and by anointing themselves with certain oyntment, compounded at the command of the Devil, they are carried in Spirit through the Air, hither or thither, by one mean, or other….” John Bell, Witch-Craft (Glasgow, 1697), 5. This is idea may have been taken from the Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches Hammer, 1486), which was popular throughout Europe during the early modern era. Part II, Question 1, Chapter III, says, “Now the following is their method of being transported. They take the unguent which, as we have said, they make at the devil's instruction from the limbs of children, particularly of those whom they have killed before baptism, and anoint with it a chair or a broomstick; whereupon they are immediately carried up into the air, either by day or by night, and either visibly or, if they wish, invisibly….” Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum, translated by Montague Summers (New York: Dover, 1971), 107.

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After this, Hecate is silent for nine measures, and though there are no stage directions, it appears that she either exits to perform the anointing or mimes it onstage. Witch 2 describes her actions:

Witch 2: Here comes one down to fetch his due, A kiss, A cull, a sip of blood. And why thou stay’st so long, I muse. Since that the air’s so sweet and good.

Hecate reenters here, judging from the first witch’s next remark:

Witch 1: Oh, art thou come! What news?

Hecate: All goes fair for our delight.

Witch 4: Either come, or else refuse,

Hecate: Now I’m furnished for the flight.

Chorus: Come, come away.

Act III concludes as the witches fly “through the foggy Air,” traveling to the cave to prepare their “dire Charms” for Macbeth. Act IV begins in the cave with the witches concocting an enchanted brew in a cauldron, casting in a variety of exotic ingredients, not the least of which is the “liver of blaspheming Jew.” Hecate and the other witches arrive, and all the witches begin to sing about the magical cookery.

Chorus: Black spirits and white, Red spirits and gray, Mingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may.

Witch 1: Tiffin, Tiffin, keep it stiff in,

Witch 7: Fire drake, Pucky, make it lucky:

Hecate: Liar, Robin, you must bob in.

Chorus: Around, around, about, about, All ill, all ill come running in, Keep out, all good, all good keep out.

Hecate: Here’s the blood of a bat!

Witch 3: Oh, put in that, put in that.

Witch 1: Here’s lizard’s brain,

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Hecate: Put in a grain.

Witch 5: Here’s juice of toad, here’s oil of adder, That will make your charm grow madder. Put in all these, ‘twill raise a stench;

Hecate: Nay, here’s three ounces of a red-hair’d wench.

After the singing, Macbeth enters as predicted, and Hecate warns him to avoid Macduff, but to be confident because he “shalt be harm’d by none of Woman born.” He goes on to say that Macbeth “shall like a lucky Monarch Reign, / Till Birnam Wood shall come to Dunsenain.” Later Macbeth learns the meaning of Hecate’s riddles: Macduff amasses a formable army with England’s assistance, and they cut branches of trees in Birmam wood to camouflage themselves during their approach to Dunsenain castle. When Macbeth faces Macduff, he learns that Macduff was delivered by caesarian section (and thus not born of a woman). Macduff kills the villain and restores the monarchy to Duncan’s line, Malcolm taking the throne. Speaking in riddles and rhymed couplets, the witches come across as somewhat ridiculous characters. Since witches are allied with the devil, they are unredeemably evil, but it is unclear whether the witches in Macbeth simply predict the future or encourage Macbeth to carry out his crimes. Whatever the case, their antics provide respites of comedy and wonder in an especially bloody tragedy. Although this work contains a great deal of music, the United Company mounted four operatic spectaculars for which they would have required Bowman’s excellent baritone voice. These works are the subject of the following chapter.

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CHAPTER V UNITED COMPANY (1682-1694) PART II: THE OPERAS

Between 1682 and 1694, the United Company premiered four large-scale musical dramas, beginning in 1685 with the opera Albion and Albanius by Luis Grabu. All-sung works such as this were the exception in English theater, and as mentioned in the Introduction, these never gained the support of the theatergoing public. When the Company next gambled on an expensive musical work, it revived the genre Betterton pioneered in the 1670s, what has been called variously “semi-opera,” “dramatic opera,” 1 “English opera,” and “ambigue.”TP PT Semi-operas are spoken dramas that have much more than the usual amount of music, usually incorporating extended episodes of singing and dancing, ornamented with lavish costumes, scenery, and special effects. Robert Hume has pointed out that the seventeenth-century English notion of opera was “generically jumbled” in its day, and that the title pages of these four works, regardless of whether they were sung throughout, labeled them operas or, in the case of King Arthur, 2 “Dramatick Opera.”TP PT The term “semi-opera” is nevertheless useful inasmuch as it distinguishes this unique genre from all-sung opera. Grabu’s opera and Purcell’s three semi-operas—Dioclesian, King Arthur, and The Fairy Queen—required all of the Company’s personnel and much of its financial resources to mount. Unfortunately, the casts of these are unknown, with the exception of King Arthur. A few of Purcell’s songs were published separately with named singers, but Bowman’s name does not appear in any of these. The songs for Grimbald in King Arthur are thus the only operatic performances recorded for Bowman’s United Company years, but as the Company’s leading baritone, he undoubtedly would have sung in all the other

1 TP PT Curtis Price, “Semi-opera,” in Grove Music Online (Accessed 31 March 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com.

2 TP PT Robert D. Hume, “The Politics of Opera in Late Seventeenth-Century London,” Cambridge Opera Journal, 10, no.1 (March, 1998): 16-17. King Authur’s title page says “Dramatick Opera.”

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works. This chapter thus concentrates on establishing Bowman’s possible repertoire in these four musical dramas. During this period, Bowman also sang the small role of Jupiter in Peter Motteux’s and John Eccles’s masque, The Rape of Europa by Jupiter, 3 which was probably performed alongside Fletcher’s Valentinian in February, 1694.TP PT No settings of Jupiter’s lines survive. One should note that Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas both debuted during this period, but not with United Company casts. Betterton’s company at Lincoln’s Inn Fields interpolated Dido and Aeneas in between the acts of Charles Gildon’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure in February 1700, and the prospect of Bowman playing Aeneas is therefore discussed in the following chapter.

Albion and Albanius Editions Consulted: Dryden’s Librettos of 1685 and 1691 4 Grabu’s score of 1687TP PT

By 1683, very early in the United Company’s history, King Charles wished to “carry over the Opera” from France, and he sent Betterton to Paris that autumn to fulfill this task. For whatever reasons, Betterton did not transplant French opera to London, but he did return with the composer Luis Grabu, whom he commissioned, along with Dryden, 5 to produce “something at least like an Opera in England for his Majesty’s diversion.”TP PT Grabu had been in Paris since 1679, but had formerly served the English court as Master of the King’s Music from 1666 to 1673. Just before Betterton arrived, the French court 6 had passed Grabu over for a position, and he accepted Betterton’s offer.TP PT The result was Albion and Albanius, an all-sung, three-act tragédie lyrique in English that premiered at Dorset Garden on 3 June 1685. Though Charles died a few months before the debut, he saw the opera before it came to “publick View,” according to Grabu’s dedication of the 1687 edition of the full score. Grabu wished the king could have seen it “in greater Splendour, and with more advantages of Ornament,” referring to the performances’s elaborate sets described throughout the libretto. Dryden indicated in the Preface to the 1691 libretto that Betterton had “spar’d neither for Industry, nor Cost, to make this

3 TP PT Lucyle Hook, ed., The Rape of Europa by Jupiter (1694) and Acis and Galatea (1701) (Los Angeles: The Augustan Reprint Society, 1981), vi. This version of Valentinian was the Earl of Rochester’s revision.

4 TP PT John Dryden, Albion and Albanius (London, 1685) (Wing / D2224) and Albion and Albanius (London, 1691) (Wing / D2227); Luis Grabu, Albion and Albanius (London, 1687) (Wing / D2225).

5 TP PT Letter from Lord Preston to the Duke of York on 22 September 1683, quoted in Price, Henry Purcell, 289.

6 TP PT Peter Holman, “Luis Grabu” in Grove Music Online (accessed 28 March 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com. See also Curtis Price, “Albion and Albanius,” Grove Music Online (accessed 28 March 2006).

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Entertainment perfect, nor for Invention of the Ornaments to beautifie it,” so Grabu’s seeming disappointment was certainly justifiable. Grabu had far more about which to be disappointed, however. The timing of Charles’s death and the ensuing battle for accession between James and the Duke of Monmouth, Charles’s illegitimate son, precluded the success of the opera, which ran for 7 only six nights, according to Downes.TP PT Dryden’s plot is a thinly veiled allegory of the Restoration and Charles’s reign that blasts the Good Old Cause and worships “Godlike Albion” (representing Charles) who is restored to the throne. In Act II, enemies of the crown invent a “false” plot, a clear reference to the Popish Plot, but Proteus prophesies in Act III that Albion “shall be restor’d agen” because he is still “the care of Heav’n.” Meanwhile, these troubles had forced Albanius, James’s allegorical counterpart, into exile, “a guiltless Victim of a guilty State.” When the heavens intervene, saving Albion, Venus delivers Albanius safely back in a Scallop-shell drawn by dolphins. In the conclusion, rewritten after Charles’s death, Apollo descends and takes Albion to heaven, where “The People of the Sky” make room for their “new Deity.” On earth, Albanius receives Venus’s endorsement as successor:

Albanius Lord of Land and Main, Shall with fraternal virtues Reign; And add his own, To fill the Throne; Ador’d and fear’d, and lov’d no less….

The problem with the allegory was that at the time of the performance, James’s succession was not a foregone conclusion. Immediate concerns of Monmouth’s rebellion overshadowed the historical events of the Restoration and Popish Plot; had the opera debuted just a few years earlier, the explicit Tory sentiments expressed therein certainly would have found a receptive audience. In 1685, however, the endeavor failed, costing 8 the United Company a fortune.TP PT Because of this, it did not risk mounting another expensive opera until The Prophetess in 1690. In the 1690s, the Company realized they needed to expand their covens for the production of Purcell’s semi-operas and recruited a number of singers accordingly, perhaps a lesson learned from Albion and Albanius. In his dedication, Grabu complained about the dissatisfying paucity of singers available in 1685:

7 TP PT Downes, Roscius Anglicnus, ed. Milhous and Hume, 84. Downes blamed its failure on Monmouth’s invasion, the opera being “on a very Unlucky Day, being the Day the Duke of Monmouth, Landed in the West.” Roger North said that the opera “proved the ruin of the poor man, for the King’s death supplanted all his hopes, and so it dyed” (Wilson, ed., Roger North on Music, 311).

8 TP PT Downes indicates that it did not cover half the production costs, and it therefore “Involv’d the Company very much in Debt.” Roscius Anglicanus, ed., Milhous and Hume, 84.

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The only Displeasure which remains with me, is, that I neither was nor could possibly be furnishd’d with variety of excellent Voices, to present it to Your Majesty in its full perfection. Notwithstanding which, You have been pleas’d to pardon this Defect, as not proceeding from any fault of mine, but only from the scarcity of Singers in this Island.

Grabu does not indicate that he lacked excellent singers entirely, but rather that there was not a variety of voices to cover the twenty roles in the opera. A viable recourse was for the Company’s accomplished singers to play multiple roles, thus compromising Grabu’s vision of the production. Double casting certainly would have diminished the opera’s dramatic integrity and spectacle. Neither the libretto nor the score indicates who sang any of the roles, but the large number of characters suggests that all of the Company’s singers were involved, including, of course, Bowman. There are three principal roles for bass (or baritone)— Thamesis, Albion, and, to a lesser extent, Pluto—and four supporting bass roles of various size: Archon, Alecto, Neptune, and Tyranny. A minimum of three singers is required to cover all these parts, as there are never more than three of these characters onstage simultaneously, but since the opera’s many choruses required additional basses, it is possible that some of the more capable among them sang these smaller roles. Singers’s names in song collections are rare at this time, but other than Bowman, there are several known basses active who could have participated in Albion and Albanius. Very little is known of John Reading in the eighties, but his name appears in song collections in 1684 and 1686, and he was in James II’s Catholic chapel during his brief reign, so he certainly was singing professionally by the time of Albion and Albanius. By 1693 when he sang Purcell’s “Behold the man” in The Richmond Heiress, Reading

commanded a range from F2B toB G4B ,B and, even if he had not yet developed his upper range by 1685, he would seem to match up well to the parts of Pluto and Tyranny (See Table 5.1).

Table 5.1: Possible Distribution of Bass Roles in Albion and Albanius Baritone 1 Baritone 2 Bass b Albion (G2B -EB 4B )B Thamesis (G2B -FB 4B )B Pluto (F2B -EB P 4PB )B b Alecto (A2B -EB P 4PB )B Neptune (G2B -EB 4B )B

Archon (G2B -DB 4B )B

Tyranny (F2B -EB 4B )B

Born in 1647, James Hart entered the Chapel Royal in 1670 and later sang in James II’s coronation on 23 April 1685. He is probably the Mr. Hart who sang in Tempest and Calisto in the 1670s, but he took holy orders, which might have prevented him from performing in the theaters. Admitted as a Gentleman of the Chapel on 26 April 1671, Richard Hart sang in James II’s coronation in 1685 and probably would have been available for the production of Albion and Albanius. Thomas Edwards (1659-1730) joined the Chapel Royal in 1700, but may have been the Mr. Edwards who sang in Purcell’s odes in 1692 and 1693 and in Bonduca in 1695. Edward’s duet with John

Freeman in Bonduca, “To arms your ensigns” by Purcell, spans a range from G2B B to E4B .B

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Although there is no record of Thomas Edwards until the 1690s, he would have been in his mid twenties in 1685, and, probably having had little stage experience, could have taken one of the smaller parts. Two of the basses named in the manuscript for Eccles’s Macbeth, Curco (Courco or Curcaw) and Sherburn (or Sherborn) were in James II’s Catholic chapel in December 1687 and might have been on hand as early as 1685, but little is known of them in the eighties. Curco would later sing at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 9 performing Eccles’s duet “Let us revel and roar” with Reading.TP PT Pluto is for a bass (as Figure 5.1 clearly illustrates), but the ranges and tessiture of Albion and Thamesis, which are very similar, would have been appropriate for a Bowman; however, these two characters appear together briefly at the end of Act I, so he could not have sung both. With the exception of Pluto and the fury, Alecto, Albion is onstage with all the remaining basses at one time or another. Since Albion is the allegorical counterpart of King Charles, whom the drama honored, it would have been confusing and inadvisable to double-cast this baritone as either of these evil hellions (and Albion’s voice would probably be unsuitable for Pluto at any rate). The baritone who performed Albion thus sang only one role. Thamesis, who represents the River Thames and who is paired with Augusta (representing London), requires an accomplished singer who can manage the part’s many florid passages, as in the Act I duet, “The Royal Squadron marches, with the soprano Augusta (Figure 5.2), and who can command a range that spans nearly two octaves, from G2B B to FB4.B If this baritone sang other roles, the only possibilities (because of staging logistics), are Alecto and Tyranny, but the later is unlikely, as it is for a robust bass with a strong low F2B .B The bass who sang Pluto would have been available for Neptune, Archon, or Tyranny. Table 5.1 represents a scenario in which the Company could have covered all the parts with three singers, but, as mentioned above, others could have been involved. Given the Company’s alternatives, Bowman, as the most experienced actor-singer, must have taken one of the major roles—either Albion or Thamesis—and as the table illustrates, he could have sung no more than two roles.

Figure 5.1: “Let us Laugh,” mm. 81-94

9 TP PT I would like to thank Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson for bringing these singers to my attention. See also Andrew Ashbee and David Lasocki, A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians, 2 Vols., (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998).

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In Albion and Albanius, the Company’s singers experienced a genre unlike anything in which they had performed before. As Roger North later noted, it was “the first full opera that was made and prepared for the stage,” and though it was in English, it 10 was “of a French genius.”TP PT Modeled on the tragédies lyrique of Lully, it employs a five- part division of strings with one violin and cello part and three viola lines. Like Lully’s recitatives, Grabu freely shifts meter, a technique that no other English composer found 11 necessaryTP PT and one with which the singers undoubtedly required extra time to familiarize themselves. Bowman would have been about thirty years old at the time, mature enough to sing a major role, but if he sang Thamesis or especially Albion, this would have been his largest singing role to date and certainly a significant learning experience that would have prepared him for Purcell’s semi-operas of the 1690s.

Figure 5.2: “The Royal Squadron marches,” mm. 33-45

10 TP PT Wilson, ed., Roger North on Music, 311.

11 TP PT Price, “Albion and Albanius,” in Grove Music Online.

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12 The Prophetess: or, The History of DioclesianTP PT

Though Betterton had invented semi-opera in the seventies, London audiences saw no new semi-operas after Circe (1677) until Dioclesian premiered in May 1690 at 13 Dorset Garden.TP PT Adapted from Fletcher’s and Massinger’s The Prophetess of 1622, Dioclesian was Purcell’s first semi-opera, and his Act V masque, a pastoral extravaganza with about forty-five minutes of uninterrupted music, became one of his most popular 14 stage works in the early eighteenth century.TP PT Unlike Purcell’s ensuing semi-opera, King Arthur (1691), in which two of the speaking characters also sing, the acting and singing roles in Dioclesian are entirely exclusive. Price has noted that the song performances occur in masques that are awkwardly forced into a plot that “does not lend itself well to 15 inserted masques,”TP PT and this probably precluded the integration of acting/singing roles. The play requires a dozen named characters, plus a number of soldiers, suitors, and rural folk, but no actors’ names are listed in the playbook. As in Albion and Albanius, a large production such as this would have required the full resources of the Company, and with no fewer than four bass soloists required in the Act V masque, Bowman certainly would have sung and may well have played a minor speaking role as well. Though the plot may have been ill suited for conversion into semi-opera, Betterton probably chose The Prophetess because it was a “ready-made reply to Albion and Albanius and an uncanny satire on the decadent and badly mismanaged final years of 16 the reign of Charles II.”TP PT Fletcher and Massinger based their story on the eventful reign of the Emperor Diocletian (r.284-305), whose reforms saved the Roman Empire—or at least prolonged its existence—after the calamitous third century. The play begins with a discourse between the prophetess, Delphia, and her niece, Drusilla, regarding the latter’s affections for Diocles. Delphia retells her prophesy that Diocles will become emperor after killing “a mighty Boar.” Delphia explains that because of this prognostication, Diocles has spent much of his life hunting, but though he has killed many hideous and

12 TP PT Though Dioclesian was published in full score in 1691, it is available in a Purcell Society critical edition, V.9. The play text is also available in critical edition. See Julia Muller, ed., “The Prophetess: or, The History of Dioclesian” in Henry Purcell’s Operas, Michael Burden, ed., 173-251.

13 TP PT After the 1701 production of Gottfried Finger’s The Virgin Prophetess, Purcell’s opera was increasingly referred to as Dioclesian, as it is today.

14 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 282. In this context, the term “masque” refers to “a self- contained, opera-like entertainment found in late 17th- and early 18th-century English plays, either included within the acts themselves or performed as a separate afterpiece to the play.” See Peter Holman and Curtis Price, “Masque,” in Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 19 April 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com. The masque in Act V of Dioclesian was later performed as a separate entertainment.

15 TP Price,PT Henry Purcell, 272.

16 TP PT Ibid., 270.

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fierce Boars with this own hands, he has not “lighted on the fatal one” that will give him the empire. In Act II, Diocles learns that “boar” was a metaphor for the murderous Aper who had slain Emperor Numerianus. Accompanied by his nephew, Maximinian, Diocles avenges Numerianus’s death, and he is rewarded with the hand of Aurelia, the sister of Emperor Charinus, as well as the throne to rule as co-emperor. After assuming the imperial robes and titles, Diocles also clothes himself in unreserved pomposity, changing his name from Diocles to the more noble-sounding Dioclesianus and adopting a haughty demeanor. Delphia, however, prevents him from marrying Aurelia, because she had promised Drusilla that Diocles would marry her instead. In the third act, Maximinian seethes with jealousy over Diocles’s ascent to power, and, with Delphia’s assistance, he courts Aurelia. At the end of Act III, when Aurelia asks Diocles’s forgiveness for her lapse of faithfulness, he receives her enthusiastically, still refusing Delphia’s requests to marry Drusilla. Consequently (in Act IV), Delphia embarrasses Diocles by handing Charinus, Maximinian, and Aurelia over to the Persians. This compels Diocles to seek Delphia’s aid, and after he repents, she tells him that his mightiest enemies are at his disposal, but after his success, he must remain humble. After routing the Persians and emancipating the Romans, Diocles offers Aurelia and the throne to Maximinian and retires to his country estate, where he is welcomed by dancing countrymen and women (in Act V). Meanwhile, Maximinian and Aurelia have plotted to kill Diocles in order to secure their claim to the throne (even though Diocles had generously given it to them). They arrive with soldiers, but a hand grasping a flaming bolt appears over their heads, indicating that heaven is against their deplorable intensions. The dénouement is abrupt: Maximinian apologizes, and Dioclesian forgives him. To entertain them all, Delphia conjures up a grandiose masque over which Cupid presides. Price argues that Diocles’s and Maximinian’s struggle for power is analogous to James’s and Monmouth’s fight for accession during the last years of Charles II’s reign. As the legitimate heir, Diocles thus represents James II according to this interpretation, and Maximinian’s shaky claim to the throne is similar to Monmouth’s. Taking no action to resolve the matter, Emperor Charinus watched with detachment just as Charles had done. The late Emperor Numerianus, who had been murdered by Aper, is Charles I in 17 Price’s reading, and Aper probably represented Cromwell.TP PT Julia Muller, on the other hand, believes that the theme of “the soldier-hero rising from the ranks to become emperor” is close enough to “the situation in which William III and Mary II were 18 crowned in 1689” to make The Prophetess an attractive choice for Betterton.TP PT Price, however, thinks “Diocles is so offensive that to represent William without affront his 19 character would have had to be extensively reconstructed.”TP PT Further, since the historical Diocletian executed the most severe persecution of Christians in the history of Rome, associating William with the emperor would have been a disastrous miscalculation. Betterton knew better, of course, and it seems that in representing James as Diocletian, he

17 TP PT For further details see ibid., 270-72.

18 TP PT Julia Muller, “Introduction to The Prophetess: or, The History of Dioclesian,” in Henry Purcell’s Operas, 174.

19 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 272n.

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is hinting that James, who wanted to convert England to Roman Catholicism, was an enemy of the faith. The first masque of Dioclesian (in Act II) is a celebration of Diocles having killed Aper, which Delphia invokes by commanding music to strike “from the Spheres.” All the heavenly musicians are unseen by the characters onstage; the directions indicate that on Delphia’s command “A Symphony of Music in the Air” plays. After the concert, Geta, Diocles’s cowardly servant remarks, “My Master is an Emperor, and I feel / A Senators Itch upon me. Would I could hire / These fine invisible Fidlers to play to me / At my Instalment.” All of the music, then, must have been performed from the music room, the gallery near the proscenium, or in one of the balconies above the entrances to the forestage. The first air of the masque, “Great Diocles the Boar has kill’d,” is for

baritone with a range from D3B B to F4B .B The duet “Let all Mankind the Pleasure share,” for soprano and bass, with its syllabic setting and lower tessitura for the bass, is much simpler to sing; indeed, with pitch somewhere between A415 and A392 during this period

and the song’s range of G2B B to C4B ,B the soloist would not have to negotiate any register changes. The trio “To Mars let ‘em raise” for bass, tenor, and countertenor has a similar

range for the bass part, from G2B B to D4B .B There is no evidence that points definitively to Bowman as the singer of one or more of these, but the melsima on “rapture” in “Great Diocles” (Figure 5.3) is characteristic of Purcell’s other writing for Bowman, and though other singers cannot be ruled out, Bowman is at least a leading candidate for this piece.

Figure 5.3: “Great Diocles,” mm. 20-22

As previously mentioned, there were a few other basses whom the United Company could have hired. Richard Hart died in February 1690, but James Hart, Thomas Edwards, and John Reading were probably available. Though the later-famous bass, Richard Leveridge, is not known to have sung professionally until 1695 when he performed Ismeron in The Indian Queen, he may well have been singing for the United Company by this time. He would have been quite young at Dioclesian’s premiere, however, just shy of twenty years old, so he probably would not have been given the more substantial singing parts. The basses listed as singers for Eccles’s Macbeth, Curco and Sherburn, were singing professionally by that time, as I have already mentioned. Spalding (or Spaulding) and Wiltshire, basses who are also named in the manuscript and who sang at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, are possibilities, though there is no record of them as early as Dioclesian. Purcell wrote solos for the Chapel Royal basses Daniel Williams (c.1668-1720) and Leonard Woodeson (or Woodson; 1659-1717) in two of his odes, Hail, Bright Cecilia (1692) and Celebrate this Festival (1693), but they are not known to

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20 have performed in the theaters.TP PT Williams would have been rather young for Dioclesian’s premiere. After Act II, the next solo bass passages do not take place until the masque in Act V (see Table 5.2 for a summary of these). Because of the staging logistics, the eight different bass parts required at least four singers for the performance. The first is a duet between a Bacchanalian and a Silvan, which occurs after Cupid calls in the nymphs, naides, Flora, Comus, Bacchus and “his merry Fellows,” Silvanus, and several others, all of whom respond to Cupid’s call from offstage. When Cupid concludes, the Bacchanalian and Silvan enter to sing their duet, “Come, come away.” Following their song, a massive machine descends, “so large, it fills all the Space, from the Frontispiece of the Stage, to the farther end of the House,” and on it are “Four several Stages, representing the Pallaces of two Gods, and two Goddesses.” At the same time several scenic props arise from under that stage, and the masqueraders—soloists, chorus, and dancers—enter. Two of Bacchus’s followers, one of whom could have sung in the previous bass duet, eventually sing the boisterous duet, “Make room, make room.” Bacchus, a bass, then enters to sing the trio “I am here with my Jolly Crew” with another bass and a tenor. Presumably, this took place on the third stage of the machine, on which the palace of Bacchus was represented, though this is not entirely clear in the stage directions. After a chorus, a song by one of Cupid’s followers, and an entry on the Second Stage, there is the dialogue between a shepherd and shepherdess, “Tell me why,” for soprano and bass. As a bass who often sang raucous or less-dignified roles, Reading matches up # well to the part of Bacchus, which requires passages in a low tessitura (including an FP 2PB )B with the relatively heavy scoring of two oboes, a continuo group that included a cello and bassoon, and a men’s trio. With two bass instruments doubling Bacchus’s line during this passage, it is clear that the role required a solid and weighty bass voice to project though the dense texture. Of all the songs in the masque, it seems most likely that Bowman performed as a shepherd in the dialogue, which resembles the three other dialogues Purcell is known to have composed for Bowman and Butler (“No more sir” in Sir Anthony Love, “Fair Iris and her Swain” in Amphitryon, and “Why my Daphne” in an 21 unnamed play of 1691).TP PT Baldwin and Wilson have noted that this dialogue, along with that in Act V of King Arthur, “bear their stamp,” and they add that these “can feel strangely flat in modern performance, and need to be sung with panache, as the final and 22 eagerly anticipated appearance of the audience’s favourites.”TP PT Since both were experienced actor-singers who seemed to have performed other dialogues together with success, they certainly could have pulled these off fantastically.

20 TP PT Woodeson also sang in Purcell’s Who Can from Joy Refrain? (1695). The Purcell Society edition of Hail Bright Cecilia states that Williams performed in King Arthur, but, according to Baldwin and Wilson, the authors confused him with the actor Joseph Williams, who played Oswald.

21 TP PT Bowman and Butler are named as the singers of “Why my Daphne” in Book V of the Banquet of Music.

22 TP PT Baldwin and Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers,” 110.

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It is possible that Bowman also could have sung in one of the other bass duets, as there is ample time to sneak offstage for a costume change between these and the dialogue. If Bacchus and company performed from the masque machine, it is unlikely that Bowman could have participated in those pieces and in the dialogue, but since the duet between the Bacchanalian and Silvan occurs before the machine is lowered, he very easily could have performed in it. Because silvans and shepherds are both rural personages, a costume change before the dialogue—if one singer performed both roles— probably would not have been necessary. It would thus have been expedient to have Bowman sing in both “Come, come Away” and the dialogue that occurs much later. The bass that sang as the Bacchanalian in the duet could have joined another bass to sing “Make Room,” and a fourth bass (probably Reading) would have been needed for Bacchus.

Table 5.2: Bass Solos, Duets, and Trios in Dioclesian’s Act V Masque

Song Masque Characters Range

“Come, come Away” Bacchanalian and Bass 1: C3B -EB 4B B

(Duet for basses) Silvan Bass 2: G2B -DB 4B B

“Make room, make room” Two of Bacchus’s Bass 1: A2B -DB 4B B

(Duet for basses) Followers Bass 2: A2B -DB 4B B # “I Am here with my Jolly Crew” Bacchus and Bacchus: FP 2PB -EB 4B B

(Trio for two basses and tenor) Two Bacchanalians Bass: A2B -EB 4B B b “Tell me why” Shepherd and Shepherd: BP 2PB -EB 4B B (Duet for soprano and bass) Shepherdess

“Triumph victorious Love” Unspecified Bass: G2B -EB 4B B (Trio for Countertenor, tenor, and bass)

23 King ArthurTP PT

In the debut of Dryden’s and Purcell’s King Arthur (possibly in May, 1691) at Dorset Garden, Bowman played the speaking role of Grimbald, the “fierce earthy Spirit” whom Dryden pairs with the contrasting Airy Spirit, Philidel, acted by Charlotte Butler. These two are the only speaking characters who also sing. Grimbald takes part in the heathen temple scene in Act I, and according to Tenbury MS 785 he sang as the Second Priest in the ceremony, a tenor part requiring a few brief solos. Grimbald also sings in Act II, when he enters disguised as a shepherd and performs “Let not a Moon-born Elf mislead ye,” a strophic song with ritornellos.

23 TP PT See John Dryden, “King Arthur; or, The British Worthy,” ed. H. Neville Davies in Michael Burden, ed., Henry Purcell’s Operas, 253-333, for the most recent critical edition of the text. The Purcell Society has published a revised critical edition of the score in volume 26 of The Works of Henry Purcell.

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Due to its allegorical designs, Dryden’s play is only loosely based on the traditional legend of King Arthur, and for the same reason, the adulterous character Guinevere, the usual object of chivalrous love in the story, is replaced by the chaste 24 Emmeline, who probably represented Mary II.TP PT In Dryden’s version, the Christian King Arthur (Betterton) is in love and betrothed to Emmeline (Bracegirdle), who is at first blind, but later Philidel restores her sight. Early in Act I, the conflict that propels that plot is revealed: the heathen Saxon king, Oswald (Williams), had formerly courted Emmeline, but she rejected him. “For that Defeat in Love,” he raised a war against the Britons, jealous because “Royal Arthur Reign’d within her Heart.” The Saxons lose the battle, which occurs offstage in Act I, so Oswald kidnaps Emmeline, and Arthur’s attempts to rescue her occupy the remainder of the play. Magic plays a significant part in the plot: the virtuous Merlin (Kynaston) and his sidekick, Philidel, aid Arthur, and Oswald calls on the powers of the sinister Osmond (Sandford), whom Grimbald assists with his powers. Because Philidel and Grimbald are spirits, they are able to sing without sacrificing dramatic verisimilitude, and the two roles were thus well suited for the actor- singers Butler and Bowman. Grimbald first sings in a pagan religious ceremony in which Oswald seeks to gain the favor of the gods Woden, Thor, and Freya in order to win the battle against the Britons. As the ceremony is in preparation, Grimbald arises (though a trap door in the stage) to update Osmond on his and Philidel’s assignment to sabotage the Britons. Grimbald informs him that Philidel, who was supposed to breathe a “blue pestiferous Cloud” on the Christians, failed to do so, not wanting to “add to his damnation.” Philidel later deserts the Saxons and joins the Briton’s cause. After his report, Grimbald leads in six Saxons who are to be sacrificed in the ceremony. Grimbald’s only other singing follows immediately in Act II, when he enters disguised as a shepherd to fool Arthur and lead him into a trap. Philidel and her spirits intervene, however, singing “Hither this way,” encouraging Arthur not to follow the “Malicious Fiend,” Grimbald. Grimbald responds by singing “Let not a Moon-born Elf mislead ye,” but in an aside predicts that he will have trouble convincing Arthur, because “Sulph’rous Steams Had damp’d” his voice “to a hoarseness.” He eventually loses to Philidel’s silky tones, and just before he 25 “sinks with a Flash,” he grumbles, “Curse on her Voice.”TP PT

24 TP PT See Price, Henry Purcell, 290-295, for a summary of the possible allegorical interpretations.

25 TP PT Twice in this scene, Grimbald refers to Philidel as a woman. The complete line supports this: “Curse on her Voice, I must my Prey forego; / Thou, Philidel, shalt answer this, below.” This statement occurs just after the stage directions, “They all incline to Philidel.” Interestingly, the other instance in which Philidel is mentioned as being female refers to him singing. Earlier in the scene Grimbald says, “By Hell she sings ‘em back, in my despight.” H. Neville Davies suggests in a footnote in his edition of the King Arthur, that Grimbald may instead be referring to one of Philidel’s spirits, as the character is male although performed by a woman. In the same note he also quotes J.A. Winn’s “When Beauty Fires the Blood”: Love and the Arts in the Age of Dryden (Ann Arbor, 1992), in which Winn argues that Philidel is “ambiguous in gender,” 278 and 284. Perhaps, more

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There are several other bass solos or duets, for which no singers’ names are given in any of the sources, and Bowman certainly could have performed some of these. In the temple scene referred to above, for example, a bass priest has a few brief solos, so there was at least one other bass soloist on hand. Since the thrifty strategy of doubling up on parts was common—indeed even in King Arthur Mrs. Butler also sang as Cupid in the famous Frost Scene—the play might well have required only two principal bass soloists, but there are other possibilities. In addition to Bowman, the most likely candidate for the other is John Reading, who sang “Now the maids” as Corydon in The Fairy Queen the following year, according to Orpheus Britannicus. The other bass solos in King Arthur are as follows: Cold Genius’s “What Power art thou” and “Great Love” in Act III; the duet in Act IV for bass and soprano, “For love every creature;” and the trio in the same scene, “Then use the sweet blessing.” The musical hodge-podge finale in Act V has several parts for bass: Aeolus’s “Ye Blust’ring Brethren of the Skies;” the Duet with a 26 Nereid and Pan;TP PT the trio “For folded flocks;” and the duet “You say ‘tis Love.” Additionally the rustic trio “Your Hay it is Mow’d” requires a tenor and two basses, but it is simple to sing and chorus members may well have performed this. There is very little in any of these songs that points specifically to Bowman as

performer, with the exception of Aeolus’s “Ye Blust’ring Brethren,” whose range of G2B B

to G4B wouldB seem most appropriate for Bowman (Figure 5.4). None of the other songs for bass has passages of high tessitura, Bowman’s trademark, and since there are no songs specifically for a low bass, none can be eliminated because of range or tessitura. Furthermore, none interferes with Bowman’s spoken role, Grimbald, so ascribing them is doubly problematic. However, in addition to Aeolus, I believe a reasonable argument can be made for Bowman as the performer of Cold Genius in the famous Frost Scene that occurs in Act III.

Figure 5.4: “Ye Blust’ring Brethren,” mm. 23-32

than anything else, Dryden is paying homage to the actress, Charlotte Butler, who sang the part. Davies, “King Arthur” in Henry Purcell’s Operas: The Complete Texts, 292-3.

26 TP InPT ancient myth, Nereids are the fifty daughters of Nereus who live in the sea and entertain and aid sailors.

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After Oswald seizes Emmeline and Matilda, Arthur’s troops attempt to attack the castle where Oswald has imprisoned them. Finding a hill from which to make their assault, the Britons march on but are frightened away by an enchanted forest where they encounter bellowing winds, grunting bears, hissing snakes, and eerie shrieks. Arthur pronounces that the grove is under Osmond’s spell, and Merlin employs Philidel to prepare his way to Emmeline while he views “the Magick Wood, / To learn wheron depends its force.” On his way, Philidel draws spells in the wood “So that if any Fiend, abhorring Hean’n, / There sets his Foot, it roots him to the Ground.” The trap having been set, Grimbald enters and seizes Philidel for deserting Osmond, binding him in chains before dragging him off. As soon as Grimbald exits, the spell ensnares him, and he is stuck there until Osmond frees him at the beginning of Act IV. He calls for Philidel’s help, but instead of releasing him, Philidel causes Grimbald to become “Dumb for one half Hour,” and then Philidel escapes from the fetters in which he was bound. After this, Philidel restores Emmeline’s sight with Merlin’s magic potion and summons airy spirits who sing to “Congratulate” her “new-born Eyes. Soon afterward, Osmond enters and makes advances on Emmeline, for with her sight restored “Her Eyes dart Lightning now,” and he resolves that she must be his. Seeing him for the first time, Emmeline winces at his “Odious face” and “griezly look.” Matilda remarks that “he strikes a horrour through my Blood,” to which Emmeline responds, “I Freeze, as if his impious Art had fix’d My Feet to Earth.” Osmond reassures her, saying, “Love shall thaw ye,” and with his magic wand conjures up “Yzeland, and the farthest Thule’s Frost” to show Cupid’s power over the frory clime. Striking the ground with his wand (no doubt a cue for the personnel under the stage), the scene changes, and Cupid descends to call up Genius:

What ho, thou Genius of the Clime, what ho! Ly’st thou asleep beneath those Hills of Snow? Stretch out thy Lazy Limbs; Awake, awake, And Winter from thy Furry Mantle shake.

Cupid was none other than Charlotte Butler, the actress playing Philidel. Seeing Butler recirculated, would it not seem reasonable for the audience to expect Bowman to appear as Cold Genius, given that the two had been paired throughout the play? Furthermore, just as Grimbald and Philidel are at odds with one another, Cupid and Cold Genius are also opposed: in the Frost Scene, Cupid’s irresistible warmth must overcome frost and frozen hearts, which he does handily. With Butler as Cupid and Bowman as Cold Genius then, the Frost Scene foreshadows the outcome of the conflict between their other characters. In Act IV, Arthur is making his way through the grove’s gauntlet. After having resisted the temptation of the two sirens who sing the seductive “Two Daughters of this Aged Stream,” he strikes a tree with his sword, thinking it to be the “Queen of all the Grove.” When he does, Emmeline shrieks from within the tree, causing him to believe that he had injured her. This, however, is a trap set by Grimbald, who, in the form of Emmeline, emerges from the tree, begging Arthur to take him into his arms. Arthur is deceived, and just as he is about to embrace the false Emmeline, Philidel runs in and transforms Grimbald back into his own grizzly shape. Philidel then binds Grimbald

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and drags him out. Both of Butler’s characters are far less physically imposing than Bowman’s are, yet their power is stronger. When speaking about the “Butler-Bowman” partnership, Baldwin and Wilson propose that since Butler sang Cupid in the Frost Scene (in addition to playing Philidel), it “is possible that Bowman also sang the Cold Genius whom she calls up. There is no evidence for this, but it is perhaps significant that Grimbald calls out from off-stage 27 shortly after the Frost Scene, but does not enter.”TP PT As Bowman performed these lines within a minute of the Frost Scene’s conclusion, perhaps he spoke from within because there simply was not enough time to change costumes and reenter as Grimbald. One should recall that Philidel had earlier ensnared him in that position, but doing this offstage might have been a matter of convenience, thereby allowing Bowman to appear in the Frost Scene. The Frost Scene virtually concludes the third act, and since Grimbald’s next entrance is at the beginning of Act IV, he would have made a quick costume change during the act tune, which lasts about a minute or less. This might have been cutting it close if Genius’s costume were elaborate, but it may well have consisted of only a heavy fur coat, which Bowman could have slipped on over his other costume. When Cupid calls Genius, he provides diagetic evidence that Genius wore a fur coat, commanding him to “Awake…And winter from thy furry mantle shake.” In a letter to Horace Walpole, Thomas Gray described the Frost Scene in a revival production he attended on 2 January 1736 and mentions Genius’s costume:

…the first Scene of it is only a Cascade, that seems frozen: with the Genius of Winter asleep & wrapt in furs, who upon the approach of Cupid, after much 28 quivering, & shaking sings the finest song in the Play….TP PT

Gray also noted that the singers and dancers wore “fur gowns & worsted gloves in abundance.” This production might not have reused the original costumes, as the revival was advertised as having “new Scenes, Machines, and other Decorations,” but the costumes may well have been similar to those in the 1692 debut. It is notable that the originals were certainly still in the Company’s possession on 30 June 1705 when Richard Leveridge appeared as Cold Genius in the Frost Scene “with the proper Scenes and 29 Habits belonging to it.”TP PT Though this production occurred about thirty years before the revival Gray attended, a staging and costuming tradition could have been retained.

27 TP PT Baldwin and Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers,” 110.

28 TP QuotedPT in The London Stage, Part 3 (1729-1747), Vol.1, 541.

29 TP PT The music for King Arthur remained with the Patent Company, which employed Leveridge. Bowman was at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which precluded him from taking the part. It is worth noting that £300 Costumes were stolen from Dorset Garden in June 1695. Apparently many were recovered, and perhaps Genius’s mantle was among them. See Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, A Register of English Theatrical Documents, 1660-1737, V.I, 312-13.

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Leveridge’s first known role on the London stage was as Ismeron in The Indian Queen in 1695, but he could have sung in King Arthur as well. Interestingly, it will be recalled that Purcell probably composed Ismeron with Bowman in mind, but had to rewrite it to suit Leveridge’s lower tessitura when Bowman defected to join the Lincoln’s Inn Fields troop in 1695. If Bowman sang Genius at the premiere, Leveridge’s appearance in the Frost Scene in 1705 was not the first time he performed songs first made famous by Bowman: in 1702 he sang “Let the dreadful engines,” which seems to have been the beginning of a rivalry between the two singers. Persons of Quality requested Bowman to sing it in 1703, and both Leveridge and Bowman performed it publicly in 1704. One wonders, then, if Leveridge’s appearance as Cold Genius the following year was a continuation of this apparent ongoing contest. For the Act V finale, Merlin conjures a masque in honor of Arthur having expelled the foreign forces, showing “the Wealth, the Loves, the Glories” of the Britain that the “Rouling Ages shall produce.” When Merlin waves his wand, the scene transforms to “the British Ocean in a Storm,” and Aeolus, the god of the winds, descends in a cloud to sing “Ye Blust’ring Brethren.” In the vociferous first lines of the song, Aeolus commands the winds to “Retire, and let Britannia Rise, / In Triumph o’er the Main.” When the storm subsides, an “Island arises” and afterwards Pan, who resides over the countryside, and a Nereid sing “Round thy Coasts, Fair Nymph of Britain” in admiration of Britannia. Price thinks that the range of “Ye Blust’ring Brethren” suggests

Bowman as the singer, since it has a phrase that begins on B3B B and ascends by step, rising 30 to G4B (FigureB 5.4).TP PT One should note that Reading was capable of singing G4B B also, as

Purcell later gave him a G4B B in the dialogue “Since times are so bad” in Part II of Don Quixote. Reading, however, would make a better match for Pan’s song that occurs on the heels of Aeolus’s, since it has a lower tessitura. After singing in the dangling cloud, Bowman could then have made a costume change in well enough time to perform the amorous dialogue, “You say, ‘Tis Love Creates the Pain,” before the grand final chorus. As I have already mentioned, this is among the dialogues that Baldwin and Wilson 31 suspect Butler and Bowman might have sung.TP PT Its range of G2B B to F4B B points to Bowman as the bass singer, and because a central theme of the drama is reconciliation, it would be fitting to have the couple’s former differences as Grimbald and Philidel (and possibly as Cold Genius and Cupid) reconciled in the final chorus of the dialogue.

32 The Fairy QueenTP PT

First performed in May 1692 at Dorset Garden, The Fairy Queen is an anonymous adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Various authors have been

30 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 313n.

31 TP PT Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers,” 110.

32 TP PT See Roger Savage, ed., “The Fairy Queen: an opera” in Henry Purcell’s Operas, for a critical edition of the text. The critical edition of the score is V.12 of The Works of Henry Purcell.

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33 proposed—Dryden, Settle, and Betterton among themTP —butPT Roger Savage’s recent suggestion that rather than having a single adaptor, there was possibly a team of as many as three (which may have included or been directed by Betterton) is perhaps the most viable. According to Savage, one was needed to modify Shakespeare’s text, another to devise the machine effects, and third to write the scenarios for the five masques, one of 34 which occurs in each act.TP PT The result was a work that modern literary critics have frowned on, but one that seems to have drawn considerable crowds to the theater in the 1690s. Like Peter Motteux, who advertised that the “Music and Decorations are extraordinary,” it seems that many must have gone to the show expecting song, dance, 35 special effects, and overall spectacle.TP PT When comparing the Fairy Queen to The Prophetess and King Arthur, John Downes focused on these aspects as well, recalling that “in Ornaments” the Fairy Queen “was Superior to the other Two; especially in Cloaths, for all the Singers and Dancers, Scenes, Machines and Decorations, all most 36 profusely set off….”TP PT He goes on to say that “Court and Town were wonderfully satisfy’d with it,” but he adds that because the “Expences in setting it out” were so great, “the Company got very little by it.” The adaptors streamlined the plot, omitting parts of its Renaissance predecessor in order to accommodate several extended musical episodes, but if one has read Shakespeare’s comedy, The Fairy Queen’s story is familiar. Titania, the Fairy Queen, has kidnapped a lovely boy from an Indian king to keep as her attendant, but Oberon, king of the fairies, wants to raise the boy himself, causing a quarrel between the two. Oberon instructs the sprite Robin Goodfellow, or Puck, to pick the magic flower called “Love in Idleness” and to sprinkle its juice on Titania’s eyes as she sleeps. Because the flower grew from a misfired, but still potent, arrow shot by Cupid, this will cause her to fall in love with the first person (or animal) she sees. This turns out to be Bottom the Weaver, who, along with other tradesmen, is planning to present a play for the Duke, occasioned by the marriage of his son, Lysander. While they are in the woods rehearsing, Puck replaces Bottom’s head with that of an ass, and, humorously, it is while he is in this transformed state that Titania sees him first, becoming impetuous with desire for a donkey. She steals him away to her bower, “strew’d o’er with Violets” and other

33 TP PT W. Carew Hazlitt proposed Dryden simply because his works are advertised in the first edition, and Settle’s biographer F.C. Brown, believed Settle was the author. See nd Bibliographical Collections and Notes on Early English Literature, 2P P series (London: B. Quaritch, 1882), 185 and Elkanah Settle: His Life and Works (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1910), 96. In Henry Purcell, 321-2, Curtis Price suggests Betterton as a likely adaptor, and he refutes the arguments of Hazlitt and Brown.

34 TP PT Roger Savage, ed., “The Fairy Queen: an opera” in Henry Purcell’s Operas, 340.

35 TP PT Peter Motteux, The Gentleman’s Journal, May 1692. At this point Motteux had apparently not seen the show, as he wrote that “I have heard the Dances commended, and without doubt the whole is very entertaining.”

36 TP PT Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, 42-3.

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flowers, where she plans to “Sport away the remnant of the Night,” ironically bragging in the closing line of Act IV, “all the World shall envy my Delight.” While all this business is going on in fairyland, Oberon is also concerned with the entangled relationships of the royal family. When he sees how Demetrius, who is betrothed to Helen, unjustly returns her sincere love with scorn, he decides to intervene, telling Puck to streak Demetrius’s eyes with the flower’s juice while he is sleeping and to make sure that the first person he sees is Helen. The source of Demetrius’s disdain is his own passion for Hermia, who is in love with Lysander. Oberon anticipates Helen’s future joy of seeing Demetrius’s former hatred turned to love, but his plan backfires when Puck mistakes Lysander and Hermia for Demetrius and Helen, who are also in the forest. While Helen is chasing after Demetrius and having difficulty keeping up, she comes across the sleeping Lysander and wakes him. He, of course, immediately falls in love with her because of the magic juice, renouncing his former juvenile feelings for Hermia. She, however, thinks he is just cruelly mocking her misfortune. Discovering Puck’s error, Oberon squeezes some of the juice on Demetrius’ eyes, and when Lysander and Helen wander by, Demetrius awakes and becomes “Love’s Convert” to Helen. Oberon instructs Puck to lead Demetrius and Lysander apart to keep them from fighting, and after Lysander tires and falls asleep, he is to crush a magic herb into his eye that will “bring his Eye-Balls to their own true sight.” Meanwhile, he steals the Indian boy from Titania and releases her from the spell, at which point she awakes, asking “What Visions have I seen? / Methought I was enamour’d of an Ass.” The mortals—Puck, Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, and Helen—awake, and though all is well, they wonder if all that had transpired was real or just a midsummer night’s dream. There were two distinct issues of the playbook, one in 1692 and another in 1693 “With Alterations, Additions, and several new Songs.” The latter omits the first scene of the play to make room for an additional masque at the end of Act I. It is a matter of debate whether this masque first appeared in a 1693 revival, or if the 1693 issue corresponds to the first public performances. Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock have argued that Jacob Tonson printed the 1692 issue to sell at the debut and that it represents a semi-final rehearsal text. They maintain that the 1693 version represents the 1692 37 production.TP PT Whether the Act I masque first appeared in 1692 or in 1693, Bowman is a likely candidate for the drunken poet, the main character in the masque. Each of the play’s five masques is an entertainment for one of the speaking characters: the fairies present the first two for Titania’s enjoyment; Titania arranges the Act III masque to seduce Bottom in the bower; the fourth is for Titania and Oberon “to welcome up the rising Sun”; and the final grand masque of Act V is for the Duke and the betrothed couples. Disappointingly, The Fairy Queen was never published with a cast list, and with no other extant references to casting, we do not know who played any of the fifteen-odd speaking parts. Of the numerous songs, the performers of only ten of these are known, nine of the attributions being made in the 1692 publication, Some Select Songs as they are Sung in The Fairy Queen. From this we know that Mrs. Aliff, Mary Dyer, John

37 TP PT Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock, “The Fairy-Queen: A Fresh Look at the Issues,” Early Music 21 (1993): 59-61.

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Freeman, and John Pate were principal soloists who appeared in the various masques (and hence in various singing characters) incorporated into the story. Additionally, a song sheet and Orpheus Britannicus, Volume I, lists John Reading as singing the bass part in the comical dialogue “Now the maids and the men,” by Corydon and Mopsa in 38 Act III.TP PT This extravagant show requires such an enormous cast—fifteen actors, no fewer than five soloists, a four-part chorus, perhaps thirty or more dancers, and a large orchestra that, in addition to continuo and strings, includes kettle drums and two trumpets and hautboys—it must have required the participation from virtually all of the United 39 Company’s personnel.TP PT Bowman may well have acted a small role, perhaps one of the 40 “comedians,” but he certainly would have been needed as a soloist.TP PT In the masque of the seasons in Act IV, it becomes immediately apparent that another male soloist other than the three mentioned above is needed, as there are two bass or baritone solos: Phoebus’s “When a cruel long winter” and Winter’s “Next Winter comes slowly.” Shakespeare’s fourth act has a royal dance occasioned by the reconciliation of Oberon and Titania, but in The Fairy Queen, the adaptors replaced it with a much longer musical scene in which Phoebus is praised for his life-giving power, demonstrated in the change of the seasons. Here nature’s cycle of death and rebirth (through Phoebus’s power) becomes a metaphor for Oberon curing the queen’s ardor for 41 the boy.TP PT Price has suggested that the masque “may have been designed to some extent as a replacement for Titania’s foul-weather speech,” and Roger Savage adds that when Oberon and Titania are reconciled under the benediction of the rational and enlightening Phoebus, the seasons have their true liveries restored them and the world’s perplexities

38 TP OrpheusPT Britannicus lists Mrs. Ayliff as Mopsa, whereas the song sheet indicates that Mr. Pate played Mopsa, presumably in drag. In this case, the choice of singer affected the nature of the comedy: it is funny when a beautiful girl repeatedly says “no” to kissing Corydon, but perhaps even funnier—though in a lower comedic style— when a homely girl with a manly voice does the same. Understandably, Purcell published the more dignified version in Orpheus Britannicus, but the song sheet attests to the other’s popularity. It seems likely that Pate replaced Ayliff in the role. Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock discuss the dialogue in “The Fairy Queen: A Fresh Look at the Issues,” Early Music, 21 (1993), 45-62.

39 TP PT The masque in Act V has a dance for “24 Chineses” and another for six monkeys.

40 TP PT Bowman would not have been cast as Bottom, but one of the other characters listed as “comedians” in the playbook (Quince, Snug, Flute, Snout, or Starveling) is a possibility After King Arthur, one might suspect that Bowman played Robin Goodfellow, a character that is similar to Grimbald in some respects (though he does not sing). Goodfellow, however, is onstage during the masque in which Phoebus sings.

41 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 327.

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42 are soothed.”TP PT The masque begins at Oberon’s command, initiating a spectacular scenic transformation to a “Garden of Fountains” while a brilliant symphony plays. While the scene changes, the sun is seen rising, chasing away the night, achieved by the special effect known as the “glory.” Each of the four seasons enters with their attendants, one of whom announces the entrance of Phoebus, saying “Now the Night is chac’d away, / All salute the rising Sun.” As a symphony plays, a “Machine appears, the Clouds break from before it, and Phoebus appears in a Chariot drawn by four Horses” to sing the angular, “When a cruel long Winter.” After this, each season has a solo, and from Select Songs we know that Butler sang Spring’s “Thus the ever grateful Spring” and that Pate appeared as Summer to sing “Here’s the Summer.” Autumn’s “See, see my many colour’d fields” would suit Freeman’s tenor voice well, and Winter’s solo that follows, with its range of

A2B toB E4B ,B could have been handled by any of the available basses. Of these songs, # Phoebus’s is for a high baritone, though written in tenor clef, and its range (DP 3PB toB G4B )B and higher tessitura seem perfectly suited for Bowman’s voice. In this case, Bowman would have been unavailable for Winter, as Phoebus dangles brightly above the stage in his machine throughout the masque. Like Aeolus’s song in King Arthur, Phoebus’s also has a phrase that begins on B3B B and rises to a climax on G4B (FigureB 5.5). The change from A minor on the previous phrase to C major here is, according to Price, “one of the warmest 43 moments in all of Purcell.”TP PT There may have also been a strictly practical reason why Bowman was cast as Phoebus: the United Company probably still possessed a Phoebus costume tailored to Bowman’s dimensions, as only about seven months prior to The Fairy Queen he appeared as the sun god in Dryden’s Amphityron. Of course, many in the audience would have remembered Bowman’s earlier performance and might have anticipated that he would appear again as this character.

Figure 5.5: “When a cruel long Winter,” mm. 32-37

Baldwin and Wilson also believe that Bowman sang in The Fairy Queen and surmise what he might have sung:

John Bowman, too, seems to have been neglected in The Fairy-Queen, but this neglect may be more apparent that real, since none of the bass pieces from the opera appeared in Select Songs. Bowman, with his expertise in fop roles, would

42 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 351. The original speech alluded to real weather events in 1594. Roger Savage, “The Shakespeare-Purcell Fairy Queen,” 213.

43 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 349.

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seem more suited to the roles of the drunken poet and the god Hymen than he would have been to the rustic clown Corydon. Indeed, the opera’s bass solos divide nicely between Reading and Bowman. The solos for Sleep and Winter are, like Corydon’s part in the dialogue, for a bass, whereas the tessitura is higher for 44 Hymen and the poet.TP PT

Both of the scenes to which they refer require two bass soloists. Just before the drunken poet’s entrance for the Act I masque, a soprano and bass sing the duet “Come let us leave,” the bass part of which requires substantial mobility in the lower part of the vocal range (Figure 5.6). The low pitches required in Bowman’s known songs are predominantly isolated notes at cadences, indicating he might not have been able to sustain a low tessitura. As soon as this duet concludes, three fairies lead in three drunken

poets, one of whom is blindfolded and sings “Fill up the Bowl.” With its several F4B s,B 45 Purcell probably wrote this with Bowman in mind.TP PT

Figure 5.6: “Come let us leave,” mm. 47-51

The blind poet’s song occurs soon after the play is underway. After Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starvling have established which roles they are going to perform in the play for the Duke, Titiania, the Fairy Queen, enters with her attendants. She tells the fairies that if any mortal approach the fairy ground, that they should blindfold him and pinch him until he confesses his sins. This happens after a duet by the “Fairy Coire” that describes the happiness “which Lovers only in retirement find.” Apparently, the three poets had wandered onto the hallowed ground, so the fairies do as commanded and blindfold one of them. Not only is the poet drunk, as he later confesses

44 TP PT Baldwin and Wilson, “Purcell’s Stage Singers,” 120-22.

45 TP PT One should note that In Love’s a Jest, mounted at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1696, Reading sings a drinking song with “a Bottle in his hand” and “seemingly drunk.” Bowman later sang as a drunken gentleman in The Masque of Wine and Love in The Mad Lover (discussed in Chapter VI).

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after being pinched, but he also has a pronounced stammer in Purcell’s setting of the 46 text.TP PT The next masque occurs at the end of Act II, when Titania magically changes the moonlit wood to “Fairy-land,” a garden delight with grottos, arbors, and charming walks. The change of scenery being made, she tells the fairies to begin their revels in which “some shall Dance, and some shall Sing.” The masque that follows is in two parts. In the first, the fairies carry on their revels, and in addition to choruses and dance music, Purcell provides two solos—the evocation, “Come all ye Songsters” for tenor and “Sing, sing while we trip it” sung by Mrs. Aliff. There is also a trio for two tenors and bass, “May the God of Wit inspire” which, depending on how it was staged, may have required three sets of singers to perform the echo effects that Purcell used to set the phrase, “While Eccho shall in sounds remote, / Repeat each Note, each Note, each Note.” In the score, “Whilst Eccho” and “each Note” are sung three times each, and the dynamic instructions read “loud” for the first statement, “soft” for the next, and “softer” for the last, indicating an echo effect in performance. There is no evidence as to how this was achieved, but Mark Radice has proposed that the shutter system was probably used for this, one set being employed in the middle stage area and another in the inner stage. The singers performing the roles stood on the forestage, and for the echoes, other singers stood behind shutters, the first repetition sung at mid-stage and the second by those in the 47 back.TP PT In any case, Bowman is a likely candidate for the bass singer of the onstage trio, with Pate probably taking the first tenor part. Since Freeman sings the part of Secresy in the second part of the masque and is led onstage soon after the trio, he might not have been available for the second tenor part. Sleep’s low bass solo (Figure 5.7) could have been taken by Reading, or perhaps even Leveridge, who may well have been coming into his own as a soloist by 1692. Like Freeman, Sleep’s singer probably would not have been available for the preceding trio, but could have sung one of the echoes before entering. In another scenario, Bowman could have taken the middle line in the trio, which does not exceed F4B B but sustains a high tessitura, with either Reading or Leveridge taking the bottom line. The remaining bass would have been available for Sleep.

Figure 5.7: “Hush, no more,” mm. 18-22

46 TP PT Wood and Pinnock suggest that the stammering poet may be a caricature of Thomas Durfey, and they conjecture that he may have even acted in the scene. See “The Fairy Queen: A fresh Look at the Issues,” 49.

47 TP PT Mark A. Radice, “Sites for Music in Purcell’s Dorset Garden Theatre,” Musical Quarterly 81, no.3 (Fall, 1997): 444.

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If Bowman had a solo in the Act V masque, it would have been as Hymen, the god of marriage, as this is the only song that would fit his range (Hymen’s part spans G2B B to F4B ).B Indeed, one particular passage of this song, on the text “His rising” looks particularly Bowmanesque. The fairy royals arrange this masque for the Duke, who, after hearing the “Antick Fables” of the lovers, is in disbelief. Oberon tells him that “All was true the Lovers told” and that the strange music he is hearing was sent by the Fairy King himself to cure the Duke’s “Incredulity.” Up until this point, as Price points out, The Fairy Queen is still essentially A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but in this masque the Restoration collaborators exercised their fancy:

Another facet of their underlying design now emerges. The masques have been an entertainment for Titania, Bottom, and Oberon, in that order. The culminating show draws the mortals, not fully conscious, into the fantasy world, a coup de theatre that resurrects the heart of the Stuart masque: the revels, during which masquers and audience met in a phantasmagoric dance, a fusion of the real and the representational…The protagonists are no longer mere observers; they have 48 themselves become a part of the dream.TP PT

Titania directs the Duke’s eyes upward to see Juno descending in a “Machine drawn by Peacocks” as a symphony plays. After the machine moves forward, Juno sings, blessing the lovers’ nuptial bed. In the Chinese garden scene that follows, the themes of love and marriage seem to have been forgotten in this exotic local, until two women sing an invocation to Hymen, who is reluctant to appear because, as he says when he finally enters, “I hate / on loose dissembled Vows to wait.” Eventually, they persuade Hymen to light his torch and to bless the lovers’ wedding. After its initial run, which went into June 1692, the Company revived the Fairy Queen in spring, 1693. Some time between 1693 and Purcell’s death in 1695, the Company lost the score and placed an ad in the London Gazette in October 1701 hoping to recover it, perhaps for another revival. By that time, Bowman had been performing at Lincoln’s Inn Fields for six years and was nearing the end of his singing career. When the United Company split in 1695, Purcell stayed with the Patent Company, which performed his last major stage work, The Indian Queen. For this, Purcell created a fine aria for Bowman, “You twice ten hundred deities,” but when the Lord Chamberlain announced the establishment of Betterton’s company on 25 March, he soon learned that 49 his favorite baritone was leaving and had to rewrite the solo to suit Leveridge’s voice.TP PT John Eccles became the chief composer for Betterton’s new troupe and composed much of the music Bowman performed at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a period of his career covered in the following chapter.

48 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 327.

49 TP PT Ibid., 127-30.

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CHAPTER VI LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS (1695-1705)

During the 1694 season, the United Company began to experience disagreements 1 over shareholding, leaving Thomas Skipwith and Christopher Rich as managers.TP PT Among the actors’ many grievances against management, were Rich’s pinchpenny accounting practices and his attempts to force the senior actors—namely Barry and Betterton—into retirement. Bowman followed Betterton’s lead, signing a petition of their grievances, which was presented to the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Dorset, who had authority over the theaters. Fortunately for Bowman and the others who sided with 2 Betterton, Dorset was a friend of BettertonTP PT and supported their cause, issuing a license for a new troupe of actors on 25 March 1695:

In pursuance of His Majesties Pleasure and Command, given unto mee herein, I doe hereby give and grant full power Licence and Authority unto Thomas Betterton, Elizabeth Barry Anne Bracegirdle John Bowman, Joseph Williams, Cave Underhill, Thomas Doggett, William Bowen, Susan Verbruggen, Elianor Leigh, George Bright, His Majesties sworne servants and Comoedians in Ordinary, and the major Part of them, their Agents and Servants, from time to time, in any convenient Place or Places, to Act & represent, all and all manner of Comedyes & Tragedyes, Playes Interludes, & Opera’s, and to perform all other Theatricall and musicall Entertaynments of what 3 kind soever. . . .TP PT

1 TP PT The details of the “Actors’ Rebellion” are covered by Judith Milhous in Thomas Betterton and the Management of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 1695-1708, 51-79.

2 TP PT According to Nell Gwyn, Dorset (then Lord Buckhurst) spent a considerable amount of time at Dorset Garden during the late seventies, becoming friends with Harris, who was co-manager along with Betterton. See ibid., 30.

3 TP PT P.R.O. LC 7/3, transcribed by Milhous in Thomas Betterton, 67. One should note that this was a license and not a patent, as the rival company had.

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Most of the experienced actors, actor-singers (Bracegirdle and the Bowmans) and singers (including Mrs. Ayliff, Mrs. Hodgson, Mr. Pate, and Mr. Reading) followed Betterton, and because of this, the new company’s first season was far more successful than that of their rival, which was left reeling in the wake of the split. As only the unproven actors remained with Rich, Betterton and company probably expected the remnants of the 4 Patent Company to collapse and invite them to return, but this did not happen.TP PT The rift between the two companies was deep and bitter, and Rich was determined that his company would survive—which it did. Though having a personnel advantage, the new company left all its scenes and costumes behind, moving to the decidedly smaller and less technically capable Lincoln’s 5 Inn Fields Theater, from which it operated until 1705.TP PT As a renovated tennis court, the 6 “New Theatre,” as it was called, had a capacity of perhaps 400 playgoers or fewer.TP PT This, combined with its “comparatively primitive staging” capability, “cramped Betteron’s 7 style and hurt the company in the long run.”TP PT By 1698, when they mounted the semi- opera Rinaldo and Armida, the New Theatre must have been fitted with some machines, but these seem to have been basic in comparison to those at Dorset Garden. With renewed competition, both theaters sought ways to attract an audience, and music figured prominently in their strategies. The new company employed John Eccles as its chief composer, whose music was supplemented by that of Thomas Tollett, John Lenton, and Gottfried Finger. After Henry Purcell’s death in the fall of 1695, his brother, Daniel, moved to London from Oxford, becoming the house composer at the rival theater. Additionally, Jeremiah Clarke and Richard Leveridge provided music for Rich’s company. As part of its competitive strategy, Lincoln’s Inn Fields developed the double or triple bill, which combined drama with musical concerts and dancing. Rich introduced animal acts and circus performers to theater audiences, competition that Lincoln’s Inn Fields had to meet. This reflects the audience demographic at the end of the century, which by then encompassed many from London’s business community, including not just 8 its leading members, but also “the petty traders, the shopkeepers, and the apprentices.”TP PT To appeal to this audience, managers began adding dances and songs between the acts, but later they expanded the additions to include short masques. As Milhous put it, the “multitude of nontheatrical or semitheatrical attractions after 1700—singers, dancers, animals, masques, double bills, variety shows, medleys of favorite scenes—is eloquent testimony that the theatres had to seek out customers who would not attend just to see a

4 TP PT Milhous, Thomas Betterton, 82.

5 TP PT Ibid., 71.

6 TP PT Edward A. Langhans, “The Theatres,” in Robert D. Hume, ed., The London Theatre World, 1660-1800, 64.

7 TP PT Milhous, Thomas Betterton, 71.

8 TP JohnPT Loftis, Comedy and Society from Congreve to Fielding (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), 15.

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9 play.”TP PT An advertisement for a performance of Wycherley’s The Country Wife at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in December 1702, for example, lists a variety of extra entertainments:

The Mad-Man’s Dance. A new Dance perform’d by 16 Persons in Grotesque Habits, in which a Black will perform Variety of Postures to Admiration. Roger a Coverly, by Weaver, as it was done Originally after the Yorkshire manner. The chimney Sweeper’s Dialogue. A Trumpet Song never sung but twice on the Stage. Also by Mrs Hodgson and Mrs Willis. The Turkey-Cock Music. An Entertainment performed before the Doge and Senate of Venice at the last 10 Carnival.TP PT

A mere decade earlier, a motley assortment such as this would have been unheard of. On a more personal note, Alexander Smith recorded an interesting anecdote from Bowman’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields years, regarding his run-in with the rogue bailiff, William Browne:

[Mr Browne] … having a Writ against Mr. Bowman the Player, when he belong’d to the Playhouse in Lincolns-Inn-Fields Playhouse [sic], in Mr. Betterton’s Time. This Adventure being very great to undertake, by reason Mr. Bowman, was that complaisant, good natur’d, free, affable Gentleman, that there was no Player from the highest to the lower, as well as the Servants, but what would venture to rescue him: Browne went with a Posse comitatus of Rogues like himself to arrest him, and coming to an Engagement, a bloody Fight ensu’d, which held for near an Hour, insomuch that a deal of Blood was spilt on both sides, and in the Fray one Matthews a Door-keeper, receiv’d a Wound, by a Sword, in his Breast, which could never be perfectly cur’d, for he was oblig’d to have a Tent, and let it run to his dying Day, which was some Years after; however, Mr. Bowman, whom they could not take this Time, was so generous to the wounded Person, because he was hurt in his Quarrel, as to allow him a weekly Pension besides the Income of his 11 Place, so long as he liv’d.TP PT

Unfortunately, Smith does not reveal what Browne’s writ against Bowman regarded, but judging from his army of defenders, it may well have been unjustified.

9 TP PT Milhous, Thomas Betterton, 78.

10 TP PT London Stage, Part II, V.I, 30.

11 TP PT Smith,T Alexander. The comical and tragical history of the lives and adventures of the most noted bayliffs in and about London and Westminster (London, 1723), 45-6. By “tent,” he means a roll of absorbent material used to distend the wound. I would like

to thank Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson for bringing this to my attention. T

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Comedies

During this period, Bowman continued in his fop line, playing two non-singing fops for Congreve, viz. Tattle in the very successful Love for Love (1695) and Petulant in what is now Congreve’s most famous play, The Way of the World (1700). He also played a number of singing fops, including Goosandelo in Dilke’s The Lover’s Luck and two for Mary Pix—Count Insulls in The Deceiver Deceived and Sir John Roverhead in The Beau Defeated. Durfey created another entertaining singing role for Bowman in The Intrigues at Versailles, in which his character is cross-dressed throughout much of the play. Unless Macbeth (discussed in Chapter IV) was performed by the new troupe rather than by the United Company, all of Bowman’s documented song performances were in comedies (with the exception of the semi-opera Rinaldo and Armida, discussed below), though he did have speaking roles in several serious dramas.

She Ventures and He Wins 12 Edition Consulted: 1696TP PT

After opening with the smashing success of Love for Love in April 1695, Lincoln’s Inn Fields began the 1695-96 season with She Ventures and He Wins, which 13 “failed so completely that the company stopped playing temporarily.TP PT This is one of the few Restoration comedies in which all the central characters are virtuous on the whole, as the anonymous author creates neither rake, fop, wanton woman, or lecherous beau as part 14 of the main plot.TP PT Bracegirdle played Charlot, the lead, another gorgeous, rich heiress seeking a husband, and Elizabeth Bowman took on the role of Juliana, another confidant part that paired her with Bracegirdle’s character. Another atypical aspect of the play is that Bracegirdle’s character has only one suitor, so jealousy and evil deceit are absent 15 from the plot.TP PT Furthermore, instead of having spurned lovers, everyone’s love is reciprocated, so the ending, which depicts the happy marriages of three couples, is uncommonly pleasant. Bowman’s character, Sir Charles Frankford, is the brother of Charlot and is in love with Juliana, whom he eventually marries in Act V. Since Bowman usually plays the fop, he, of course, rarely acted roles in which he is successful as a suitor, so this

12 TP PT Ariadne, She Ventures and He Wins (London, 1696) (Wing / S3054).

13 TP PT Milhous, Thomas Betterton, 101.

14 TP PT In the preface she states that she is writing under the name “Ariadne.”

15 TP PT With the exception of the minor, low-comedy character Squire Wouldbe (Dogget), who throughout the play tries to have an affair with Urania (Barry), wife to Freeman (Freeman). He is thwarted in his attempts by Urania who “sets him up,” and his buffoonery is exposed for all to see. Charlot briefly deceives Lovewell, but this for good purpose: to make certain that his love is true.

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aspect of the character may well have been refreshing. As Charlot’s guardian, Sir Charles’s willingness to allow his sister free reign to choose her husband solely on the merit of his character, regardless of whether he held a vast estate, may have been shocking to the audience. In most other comedies, guardians present their favorite to the heiress for her consent, but in this work, Sir Charles is almost entirely passive. He, in fact, says “I dare trust the Honour of our Family in the Hands [of Charlot],” and it is she who, in effect, acts as her own guardian, choosing her suitor, testing his character, and deciding his fate. In doing so, she takes on a traditional male role, something that is reinforced in the first scene of the play, in which she and Juliana enter disguised as men (see below). In She Ventures and He Wins, we see a reversal of sexual stereotypes—with 16 transvestite heroines and passive men TP —somethingPT that was probably disconcerting for some and may well have contributed to the play’s short run. Of Bowman’s character, Lowerre notes that though he is passive most of the time, he is active in music, and in the end, the gender roles are switched back to normal:

An interesting point not mentioned by earlier commentators on the play is that Sir Charles (John Bowman) is active only in music—in the serenade and the dance at the end. This further accentuates his character’s unusual passivity, and his diametric opposition to Charlot, who controls in everything else, but rejects or ignores all music until the final act. In the final lines, Charlot follows Sir Charles’s lead (for the first time) and is meekly incorporated into the inevitable dance. Afterwards, she does not speak, and Lovewell gets to pronounce the final words of the play. The traditional balance of power has reasserted itself as Lovewell, the hero “feminized” by his waiting, his imprisonment, his passivity, 17 muses on his good fortune.TP PT

Though Sir Charles is not foppish in appearance, his “feminization” in the plot makes the character somewhat like a fop, and, significantly, he is active mostly through music and show. Bowman may initially seem to be an odd choice for this character, but seen in this light, his experience playing fops and the audience’s association of Bowman with fops, make him an appropriate choice. Charlot has her sights set on Lovewell, a person of quality, but one with a small inheritance, being a younger brother. Because of this, Charlot devises a number of trials to test his love and to insure that he is not simply after her fortune. Charlot and Juliana dress in men’s clothes, going undercover in their quest. By getting to know Lovewell in this manner, they can discover his true character rather than the false façade men sometimes present when courting. They seek out Lovewell, telling him that a certain very rich heiress is in love with him. He is, of course, suspicious, having never met the two gentlemen, but he eventually agrees to meet Charlot at Rosamond’s Pond in St. James Park the following morning. Wearing visor masks, the two girls arrive at the park, and Charlot confesses to Juliana that she is passionately in love with him and that she

16 TP PT See Jacqueline Pearson, The Prostituted Muse: Images of Women and Women Dramatists, 1642-1737 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988), 139-40.

17 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 116.

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plans to marry him if he has “Courage enough to venture on me,” as she puts it. Lovewell eventually convinces Charlot to unmask, and seeing her beauty, he virtually erupts with joy. His response is funny simply because of its sheer excess:

By Heavens, an Angel! Dear charming Creature, dispose of your happy Slave forever; I am now no more the cautious ill-natur’d Fellow, I have been all this time; I am all o’er Love and Rapture, come lovely Creature, lets away to Church, were I may make you mine without danger of ever losing you.

This is coming from a man who at the beginning of the play, after being asked if he were married, quipped “Heavens forbid, ‘tis the only happiness I can boast.” Lovewell’s sudden conversion here, points out that Anne Bracegirdle must have been irresistibly attractive. Otherwise such an extreme change of heart when she unmasked herself would have been nothing but farcical. Other than the possible flaw of falling so ridiculously in love at first sight, Lovewell’s moral fiber proves virtually unblemished, and as Charlot puts him through a series of tests to prove his love, he never falters, always choosing love over money. With its several songs and dances, She Ventures and he Wins has more than the usual amount of music. Sir Charles has the first song, Eccles’s “Fair Belinda’s youthful Charms” which occurs in the second scene of Act II. Set in Sir Charles’s garden, he and his friend, Sir Roger Marwood (Mr. Scudamore), enter with a band of musicians to perform a song for Charlot and Julia that Sir Charles says is “pretty” and is thus appropriate for the occasion, as it “may properly be applied to any of the fair sex.” In the context of the dialogue leading up to the song, however, it is seems that it is probably Juliana’s youthful charms that he is praising. Before singing, Sir Charles had revealed his love for Juliana to Sir Roger, but before he makes his feelings known to her, he first wants to see his sister “dispos’d of.” Sir Roger then says, “come, let’s have that Song” but first asks Charles if he is sure they are together. Charles responds, “They seldom part so soon, you know. Come, Gentlemen, let’s have the song.” Here, the musicians play a short introduction, Eccles’s “symphony” in G minor in trio texture with its duet of violins and continuo. This survives in Lbm Add. MS 29378, as does Eccles’s setting of the text 18 that follows.TP PT After the introduction the violins drop out, as Sir Charles sings (see Figure 6.1). In binary dance form, Eccles’s G-minor song is simple, with little word repetition and a largely syllabic setting, but it is very charming and certainly “pretty” (as Sir Charles says). A particularly pleasant moment is the cadence in the second half of measure eight on “surrender,” which comes earlier than expected—one expects the new tonic on a downbeat rather than on beat four—and this subtly and effectively expresses the idea of surrendering to Belinda’s charms. As Lowerre has pointed out, the singer finally reaches the climatic G4B B on the repetition of “Love” (the only portion of text that is repeated), thereby “completing the ascending line begun in the first setting of the

18 TP PT Both have been transcribed by Lowerre in “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 103-6. The song itself was also printed on a single song sheet, which gives Bowman’s name as the singer.

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19 phrase.”TP PT Though the play was a failure, this song justifiably became popular enough to appear in print.

20 Figure 6.1: “Fair Belinda’s youthful Charms”TP PT

19 TP PT Ibid., 104-5.

20 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 105-6.

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The Lover’s Luck 21 Edition Consulted: 1696TP PT

Though no performances are recorded at Lincoln’s Inn Fields between the failure of She Ventures and He Wins in September and Dilke’s The Lover’s Luck in December, the new company may well have revived a proven success during the intervening 22 months.TP PT At any rate, Lincoln’s Inn probably opened The Lover’s Luck on the heels of hard times and needed to score a success with this production. Luckily, the play was reasonably well received and had a respectable eight-day run. Thomas Tollet composed the overture and act tunes, while Eccles set the lyrics. Bowman performed one of these, 23 “Rich Mines of Hot Love” in Act II, his only song in the play.TP PT In The Lover’s Luck, Bowman played Goosandelo, yet another dimwitted, self- admiring fop. Goosandelo, along with Bellair (Betterton), a colonel recently returned from battle, and Breviat (Freeman), a lawyer of the Temple, is courting Mrs. Purflew, a wealthy, witty, and attractive heiress, played by Bracegirdle. Her two uncles, Sir Nicholas Purflew (Bright) and Alderman Whim (Underhill) have joint guardianship of the heiress, the latter having designs to marry her to Breviat. Soon after the play begins, we see that Breviat and Goosandelo are not serious contenders in Purflew’s view, and much of the humor of the play results from observing their failures. Thus dramatic tension does not occur as the result of three men competing, as the audience suspects very early on that Colonel Bellair will ultimately marry the heiress, but rather from the anticipation of how Bellair will overcome the obstacle of his past reputation as a rake and 24 soothe her suspicions.TP PT It is Breviat who gets the first opportunity to win her approval, but he is not so confident in the business of love, resolving to “keep to general Topicks” in their discourse. Purflew’s confidant, Mrs. Plyant (Mrs. Bowman), warns her to prepare herself, for he undoubtedly advances “big with an amorous Speech.” Purflew sets out to belittle Breviat, befuddling him each time he uses a courting cliché. Especially cutting is her rejoinder to his trite statement, “‘Tis you alone, I must, and will adore” to which she

21 TP PT Thomas Dilke, The Lover’s Luck (London, 1696) (Wing / D1476).

22 TP PT See Maximilian Novak, “The Closing of Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in 1695,” Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research 14 (1975): 51-2 and Milhous, Thomas Betterton, 100-101. Milhous states that the new company probably mounted Troilus and Cressida and Tyrannick Love. Curtis Price, however, believes that Tyrannick Love, in which Bowman sang as Nakar, was performed before the split of the United Company, Henry Purcell, 47n.

23 TP PT Tollet’s music is in Lbm. Add MS 24889 and “Rich Mines of hot Love” was printed in Deliciae Musicae, First Book, Second Volume (1696), naming Bowman as the singer.

24 TP PT Their disparity of age probably played into this as well. Bracegirdle’s character was just turning sixteen, and though no age is given for Bellair, Betterton was in his early sixties at the time.

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responds, “What love Madrigal are you obliged to for that whining Expression? Can’t you remember the next Line, and so Court me with Couplets?” She thus silences Breviat with her biting wit, and he can do nothing other than stand there dumb, awkwardly staring at her in amazement. Goosandelo had been introduced in the scene immediately preceding Breviat’s blundering courtship attempt, and when he enters to try his hand at wooing, the audience must have eagerly anticipated how Purflew might dispense with him as well. In contrast to Breviat, however, Goosandelo is confident that his “Shape, Mien, Wit, and pleasing Air” will win the day, and he even brags to Sir Nicholas, who is backing his candidacy, that he “need not say a word” to the lady about his rank or anything else for that matter, though he adds that he has “a happy Talent in Polite Oratory” if there were occasion to speak. Astonished, or perhaps amused by Goosandelo’s “notable odd way of Courtship,” Sir Nicholas asks, “But, good Sir, will you make love without speaking?” Goodandelo’s response is the embodiment of Restoration foppery:

I’ll undertake to thaw a Womans heart, that’s as cold as Ice, with my bare Appearance [here he would have taken a moment to strike a pose], and insensibly riggle into her Affections with my pretty taking Movements, as thus [he demonstrates]. So I come into a Room, and erect my self at a distance, thus [another demonstration]; observe my Eyes now [makes eye movements]. Then I jut a little on, twisting my self thus [a pause for him to perform the movements]. Now look how I set my Feet [he poses]. Then I gracefully handle my Snuff-box thus [demonstrates]; pray mind my Hand [etc.] Now the Smiles [an affected 25 expression],TP PT I spring forwards [he springs], open my Arms [demonstrates], and she poor Soul drops into my Bosom like a shooting Star, and there dissolves to Jelly.

As Goosandelo is making his entrance to court Purflew, she predicts that he will be even worse than Mr. Breviat, and when she comments on Goosandelo’s “shallow Conceits, windy Noise, and insufferable Self-applause,” she makes it clear to the audience that Goosandelo, like Breviat, does not have a hope of winning her affection. What is worse, though she is not yet aware it, she will have to listen to Goosandelo perform a song of his own composition, the merits of which, much like his looks and charm, exist only in his imagination. As the scene begins, Lady Plyant, who is always at Purflew’s side, remarks that she had been Goosandelo’s partner at a recent dance, at which he had gotten swollen legs and had to have leeches “suck ‘em down” for a month “to give them their true Air and Shape again.” This so disturbed him that he would rather give up dancing entirely rather than suffer the consequences: it would simply be insufferable for him, such a well-shaped gentleman, to have to “move upon huge Porterly Pillars” and thus wear “sad-colour’d” stockings all the days of his life. Plyant then apologizes that both she and Purflew have come without their “knotting” (knitting), which makes Goosandelo “violently concern’d,” that they are without their “Huswifry,”

25 TP PT Later Mrs. Purflew says of Goosandelo that the “last time I was at the Play with my Aunt, I saw him making antick Grimaces.” Perhaps he demonstrated these grimaces to Sir Nicholas at this point.

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as it will interrupt his planned discourse (he had prepared several “pretty” phrases, punning on knitting). He then asks the girls what shape he should take for his love making, setting up the delivery of another shallow conceit, but Plyant tells him that he has access to her in his own shape, which is “more monstrous” than any other he could imagine. Like so many foppish characters who are wholly unaware when they are being insulted, Goosandelo sloughs off the remark as if she made it only in flirtatious jest, and he asks Plyant to inform Purflew of the “killing work” his “Shape has made in the world.” Unaffected by the affront, he continues with the lines he clearly has prepared beforehand and is determined to use, saying that he designs to make love in the “nature of a Porcupine” so he can ruffle his habiliments, and “dart forth a Poinant Quill” that will “strike her dead.” Purflew confesses that his “Complicated Perfumes” and “Cashified Breath” have indeed discomposed her, and she asks if he can “make love at a farther 26 distance,” an insult that has no effect on him.TP PT He goes on to boast about his poetic genius and offers to sing them a song of his own composition that he had just had the pleasure of teaching to a “Lady of no small Rank” in her closet. Of course, he thinks highly of the song, and in another moment of self congratulation asks them to “observe the Sweetness of its Air, and the Delicacy of its Turn and Cadence” (Figure 6.2). When he mentions “knotting” in the first line of the next stanza, it becomes clear that Goosandelo had planned to sing the song from the beginning, having organized his entire courting discourse on the topic of knitting.

She laid by her Knotting with wond’rous hast, And took me about my well shap’d Waste: I envy’d not Jove his Celestial Throne, Nor all the Gods above while Kisses came on, And something was done, Which I know, which I know best.

I agree with Lowerre’s reassessment of Goosandelo, that rather than a “rough and ready 27 rake” as Stoddard Lincoln describes him, he is simply a harmless boob.TP PT The other characters (with the exception of Plyant and Sir Nicholas) certainly regard him as such, and Purflew’s interactions with him highlight this. What makes the character humorous is that everyone, including the audience, is aware that he is a complete failure as a rake, and although he may boast of his conquests, it is common knowledge that his rakishness exists only in his imagination. His song about his “Rich Mines of hot Love” is intended

26 TP PT In the third scene of Act III, Goosandelo reveals his love for pungent perfumes. Sir Nicholas mentions an “odoriferous Arabian Balm” that if opened with the proper wind conditions, someone could smell across town. Goosandelo responds enthusiastically: “For Heavens sake, good Sir Nicholas, engage me some of it; I would give the Universe for such a Perfume, that I might by its Effluviums at a distance give the Ladies notice of my approaching, and they dispose themselves into a regular Order for my Reception.”

27 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 37 and Stoddard Lincoln, “John Eccles: The Last of a Tradition” (Ph.D. diss., Oxford, 1963), 188-92.

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to be sexy, but predictably falls flat, an impotent attempt at seduction. After singing, Purflew, in fact, remarks, “Was there ever any thing so ridiculous?” To justify this response from Purflew (and probably the audience as well), Bowman would have to have performed the song in a manner fitting the character, that is, ridiculously.

28 Figure 6.2: “Rich Mines of hot Love”TP PT

28 TP PT Deliciae Musicae, I.II (London, 1696).

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Though there are no stage directions in the printed music or in the playbook, a hilarious and appropriate approach to performing the song in the context of this scene would be to have the accompanist play through it in its entirety, creating a long introduction. While the music is playing, Goosandelo, thinking himself irresistible, could begin to act out all the postures, expressions, and movements which he had just described to Sir Nicholas, in exactly the same order, but this time, of course, he would omit the narration. The song also provides several opportunities for gesture and expression, and one can only image how Bowman acted out the multiple repetitions of “oh! you know,” which must have been quite amusing.

Love’s a Jest 29 Edition Consulted: 1696TP PT

The new company scored its biggest success of the 1695-96 season with Motteux’s Love’s a Jest in June, 1696. This experimental work is remarkable in that it includes much more music than the average comedy of the period, incorporating several 30 musical episodes into each act.TP PT Lowerre notes that the play is “particularly interesting not only for the variety of the music…but also for the way the musical events are 31 integrated and balanced within the production as a whole.”TP PT Also notable are the several inside jokes that satirize various members of the Lincoln’s Inn establishment, as Motteux at times blurs the distinction between the characters and the actors playing them. From the beginning of the play, he makes it clear that the illusion he has created on the stage is not too far removed from the real world. When Gaymood (Bowen) enters singing in the first scene, stopping to remark on his voice and saying, “E’gad I’ve as good a voice as most Composers,” the audience must have understood this as a jibe at one of the house 32 composers, perhaps even Eccles.TP PT Bowman seems to be the target of a joke when in Act I his character, Airy, comments that women are “fond of Beaux.” Gaymood turns and asks him, “Pray, what do you properly call a Beau, Mr Airy?” Just as Airy is preparing his response, Gaymood interrupts and gives him the definitive definition of Beauhood:

Why a Beau is a kind of a two-legg’d thing, that talks, and walks, and dances, and sings, and dresses, and looks like something between a Man and a Woman, that seldom keeps a secret better than the latter, and strives to outdo ‘em in taking care of the outside, conscious there’s little within. It rises to go to Bed, is two hours at the Toilette a dressing . . . and spoiling gilt paper to dispatch it as Billets Doux, sometimes to its sweet self, and all day making Love to its dear Carcass and sweeter Cloths.

29 TP PT Peter Motteux, Love’s a Jest (London, 1696) (Wing / M2953).

30 TP Lowerre,PT “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 117.

31 TP PT Ibid., 117.

32 TP PT Ibid., 118.

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Whether or not Bowman was a fop in real life is beside the point; this was his stage persona, and it was the Bowman that the audience knew best, having seen him play fop after fop on stage. Here, Motteux’s humor has multiple layers: At the surface level, Gaymood’s elucidation of the ridiculousness of beaux is a dig at Airy in the context of the plot. In the context of the performance in general, though, we might read it as Motteux poking fun at not only the Beaux on the stage and in the pit (as so often happened in plays of the era), but also at Bowman, or at least his stage persona. When Motteux targets Bowman for his jest by emphasizing the theatricality of being a beau— how he applies makeup at his toilette before the performance and afterwards talks, dances, and sings as if the world were a stage and everyone in it his audience—he is creating an ironic sort of humor. It hits hard on Bowman because this is how he makes a living on a daily basis; Bowman is a beau by profession. Later in the play, in Act IV, Airy (and perhaps Bowman) indulges in a little self-satire when he tells Christina, “I’m only afraid you’re fallen in love with some starch’d Fop, in Love with no Body but himself…Demme, I hate a Fop.” In performance today, these slights would not have nearly the impact as they would have then, when actors were so closely associated with the personas they conveyed onstage. Motteux’s success with Love’s a Jest must have rested on its in-house joking and 33 Eccles’s fine music (a debt Motteux acknowledges in this prefaceTP ),PT as the plot is rather slow to develop and the characters somewhat bland. Bowman’s character is a disappointment, insipid in comparison to the more colorful fops he had played in other comedies, such as Goosandelo most recently. Airy’s scene with Christina (Bracegirdle) in Act IV, the focal point of which is Eccles’s dialogue, “Hark you Madam, can’t I move you,” is marvelously entertaining, however, and to an extent must have redeemed the character from Bowman’s perspective. The scene gave Bowman an opportunity to send up beaux and rakes by attempting to play both at once. Here he plays a fop who attempts to court Christina, not as himself, but as a “first-rate Spark, between a Rake and a Beau; a pleasant modern Medly like Punch,” as Airy puts it. The scene itself is somewhat of a “play within a play,” setup by Gaymood as compensation to Airy for having shut him out of the conversation with Christina. The three were on a walk together, but Gaymood had been dominating the conversation until Airy complained about it. Gaymood, acknowledges that Airy had not had “his share of Talk, this one Time,” so he suggests that Airy “box about a little amorous Non-sense” with Christina, who playfully asks Gaymood, “would you have me be a Courting- Stock?,” to which Airy responds that she need not be if she is “willing to be in earnest.” Christina then says that would not be fair, for “Love itself is a Jest,” a remark that gives Airy the idea of extending the jest, proposing that he will act out a scene of courtship in which he will take the part of the first-rate spark mentioned above, and Christina agrees to join in. Gaymood will be the audience, but he indicates that he will stay on the stage,

33 TP PT After a great deal of railing against envious impotent poetasters and a certain “scribbling wou’d-be-quack,” Motteux wrote, “Let me leave this ungrateful Subject to acknowledge my obligations to Mr. John Eccles, who not only set my three Dialogues to most charming Notes, but humour’d the Words to Admiration; we need not fear Music shou’d decline, while we have so fine a Genius to support and raise it.”

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as he is a beau. Airy forbids this, as it would be in disobedience the playbill’s instruction, “No person to stand on the Stage.” One imagines that as Bowman said this, he must have given a well-timed glance at any audience members sitting onstage that evening. The scene that follows is full of one-liners and rejoinders, a few seemingly referring either to previous characters played by Bowman and Bracegirdle, or to the actors themselves. When Christina asks Airy, “Hark you Spark, are you still as mad as you us’d to be?,” and he replies with “I was just going to ask you the same Question” we are reminded of their previous triumphs in Durfey’s mad songs in Don Quixote, performed two years earlier. Just before they sing, it is even more ambiguous whether the actors are still playing their parts or being themselves. After listening to Airy hum snatches of songs throughout the scene, she asks, “What, I suppose you’ve a Mind I should ask you to Sing?” Airy then asks, “Why the Devil don’t you then? Gad, I fancy you are as fond of being ask’d as I. Why, you sing almost as well as I do.” He then adds, probably after a pause for laughter, “Come, let’s sing the last Dialogue our Master set.” Everyone knew, of course, that Eccles, who composed the song, was Bracegirdle’s music master, and perhaps in performance they gave a gesture acknowledging this, something that no doubt would have instigated a little laughter as well. Motteux’s lyric, “Hark you Madam, can’t I move you” continues the “jest,” with Airy pursuing Christina rakishly while she coyishly refuses, and there are plenty of 34 opportunities for humor in the performance of the song.TP PT Eventually Airy tries to pull her to the bedroom, grabbing her hand and singing, “Come, to Bed! I long t’embrace,” but she again refuses, jerking back and singing “Leave my Hand!” This does not daunt the rake, who continues, “Then lend your Face! / First the Hand, and then the Face,/ Then the Breast, / And then the rest, /…and then—.” Here she interrupts him with “The Face,” as she “Gives him a slap ‘o the Face.” After the song Airy complains about the slap, noting that the song went “Pretty well…all but that damn’d Slap on the Face.” In their spoken dialogue that follows, he tries to embrace her again, but she calls for the help of her one-man audience, Gaymood. To her dismay, their jest had lulled him to sleep, and she has to wake him (perhaps another dig at Bowman and Bracegirdle). One wonders if their self-parody was a response to the Patent Company’s tactics during the 1695-96 season. With the inexperienced actors, Rich’s troupe burlesqued the personal styles of the senior, rebel actors—Betterton and Barry were the usual targets— giving the young actors a “chance to show off in their own persons, as well as a chance to 35 distort and exaggerate their rivals’ habits.”TP PT The Lincoln’s Inn Field troupe did not reply in kind, according to Milhous, because “not only did the young rivals offer fewer objects to satirize, but to make fun of them would have given them more attention than the New Theatre cared to bestow.” Their response seems to have been to ignore the Patent 36 Company’s existence.TP PT Making fun of themselves allowed the audience to get reacquainted with the senior actors—to show off their own persons.

34 TP PT The dialogue was published in Deliciae Musicae and also appears in Lbm Add. MS 29378.

35 TP PT Milhous, Thomas Betterton, 90.

36 TP PT Ibid., 91.

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The Provok’d Wife 37 Edition Consulted: 1697TP PT

In April 1697, Bowman played the small role of the singing master, Mr. Treble, in Sir John Vanbrugh’s The Provok’d Wife, a funny play with ample fast-paced repartee. Treble’s only scene in the play occurs in Act II, appearing briefly to sing the duet, “Ah Lovely Nymph, the world’s on Fire,” with an unnamed singing partner. The playbook simply calls it “A Song to be Sung between a Man and a Woman,” but Lowerre has suggested that, for greater comic effect, Bowman might have sung both parts, using 38 falsetto for the woman’s lines.TP PT Bowman would later do this in the dialogue, “Delia tired Strephon with her Flame,” in Mary Pix’s comedy, The Beau Defeated, and he probably also sang in falsetto for the dialogue in The Intrigues of Versailles, as his character, Tonnere, is disguised as a woman for the song performance. Unfortunately, the music does not survive for Treble’s duet in the Provok’d Wife, but if it were available, it might well reveal that both characters sing simultaneously as in many duets. The most conventional solution would be to assign the woman’s lines to the character Pipe (actress 39 unnamed), who also sings in the same scene and elsewhere in the play.TP PT Either option is certainly plausible, but I believe that Pipe likely took the woman’s part, as I will explain below. Lady Fancyfull (Mrs. Bowman) is a vain and affected, female version of the fop, and the song text, which she herself penned, spotlights her great acquired folly. In her previous scene, Lady Fancyfull ventured to the park after receiving an anonymous letter requesting her presence there. Too curious to refuse, she arrived there to find Heartfree (Mr. Hudson), who arranged the meeting in order to tell her plainly about her faults, hoping to reform her. After returning home, she complains to Mademoiselle (Mrs. Willis), her French confidant, about the encounter and says that Heartfree lacks good breeding and is an insolent fellow. She confesses, though, that he is the only man on whom she could resolve to dispense her favors, but before she can do so, he needs to learn to comport himself like a fine gentleman. At this point, a servant enters announcing Mr. Treble’s arrival and that he has brought the verses Lady Fancyfull gave him to set. When she asks to hear the composition, he obliges:

Man: Ah Lovely Nymph, the world’s on Fire: Veil, Veil those cruel Eyes.

Woman: The World may then in Flames expire,

37 TP PT John Vanbrugh, The Provok’d Wife (London, 1697) (Wing / V55).

38 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 182.

39 TP PT In this scene, she sings “Not an Angel dwells above,” to which the music is also lost. James L. Smith has suggested that Pipe sang in the duet. John Vanbrugh, The Provoked Wife, ed., James L. Smith (London: Ernest Benn, 1974), 32n.

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And boast that so it Dies.

Man: But when all Mortals are destroy’d, Who then shall Sing your Praise?

Woman: Those who are fit to be employed: The Gods shall Altars raise.

After the song, Lady Fancyfull explains how a recent dream about the moon inspired the text:

I dreamt, that by an unanimous Vote, I was chosen Queen of that Pale World. And that the first time I appear’d upon my Throne,--all my Subjects fell in Love with me. Just then I wak’d: and seeing Pen, Ink and Paper lie idle upon the Table, I slid into my Morning Gown, and writ this in promptu.

Treble politely asks if she intended the duet as a conversation between her majesty, the queen of the moon, and her First Minister of State. She affirms this and adds, “he as Minister advises me to trouble my head about the welfare of my subjects; which I as Soveraign, find a very impertinent proposal,” explaining the last, unsympathetic lines of the poem. It is clear that Lady Fancyfull has hired Treble as her singing master. However humorous it would be for Treble to sing the woman’s part in falsetto, it would seem unlikely that she would welcome this sort of merriment from her employee. Men impersonating women are funny simply because they make awkward, ungainly women. She earnestly believes herself the envy of all women because men cannot resist her beauty and sophisticated charms. Though Lady Fancyfull remains unaware that others mock her folly, she is not so brainless as to let Treble get away with overtly mocking her (if he performed it derisively). If Treble were to perform it in earnest, without a hint of satire in his tone or actions, she would still not approve, because she is far too vain to allow a man to depict her. Either way, I do not believe a one-man performance works well in the scene. Having her other singing servant, Pipe, take the woman’s lines would make her fulsome approbation after the song much more believable.

The Intrigues at Versailles 40 Edition Consulted: 1697TP PT

About the scholarly work on The Intrigues at Versailles, Durfey expert John McVeagh has expressed his shock that only one other literary critic, Derek Hughes, has mentioned the rampant cross-dressing in the play, given that it is such “an astonishing

40 TP PT Thomas Durfey, The Intrigues at Versailles (London, 1697) (Wing / D2736).

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41 feature,” as he puts it.TP PT I should think that if we were able to ask Bowman, though, the cross-dressing would probably be the first thing he would mention about the play. From his perspective, it must have been its most salient facet, considering that he played his rather large role, the young and extravagant Count de Tonnere, almost entirely in drag. And he is not the only cross-dresser that Durfey required of the Lincoln’s Inn troupe, as Elizabeth Bowman spends most of her time on stage wearing breeches, and the distinguished tragedian, Thomas Betterton, dawns a woman’s nightgown while playing the jealous Duke de Sanserre. With all this cross-dressing, Durfey provides “intrigues” in every sense of the word. The sexual ambiguity and resulting “dangerous” social situations it creates must have greatly intrigued the audience; this begins in the first scene of the play when Bowman enters in a dress, laughing at having just been serenaded by an amorous old man. There are multiple covert sexual intrigues, sometimes with the secrecy being maintained via cross-dressing disguises. A couple of underhanded schemes, or intrigues, are devised to catch couples in their sexual intrigues. The humor in “sex” comedy often lies in the troublesome situations in which the characters find 42 themselves when they are engaged in multiple love affairs,TP PT but in Intrigues Durfey took these entanglements (and the resulting humor) to unprecedented heights. Cross-dressing is central to this design. Bowman’s role is different from the more common type of drag role that men play in Restoration comedy, the so-called “dame part” in which a male actor dresses as a woman to play a woman’s character, usually an older woman. This is a technique of low comedy, the humor arising from the simple fact that men make awkward and uncommonly ugly women. Tonnere, however, is not a dame part, as the cross-dressing occurs diagetically, in the context of the plot: The role of Tonnere requires that a male actor play a male character who, because of the circumstances in which he finds himself, has to dress as a woman in order to remain incognito. Tonnere’s close acquaintances are aware that it is he in disguise. Though dressed as a woman, when he is alone with them he can “be himself;” he can move like a man, speak in his normal pitch range, and discourse from a man’s perspective. In the presence of others, though, he at least had to attempt to be a convincing young woman of quality, presumably speaking in falsetto or with and altered tone and presenting himself like a woman of high social status. In acting Tonnere, Bowman—or perhaps the director—had to make a choice that would affect the interpretation of the text that is communicated to the audience: whether to “ham it up” by acting the part as if Tonnere is having considerable difficulty in his attempt to be a woman, or to play it with sprezzatura, a certain nonchalance that comes from something being easy and natural. The former Tonnere is one who is unconfident in his feigned womanhood and anxious in public. His fumbling, near-failures and his uneasiness about being found out would be the primary source of humor for the role. On the other hand, creating a Tonnere who can be an effortless woman would create a subtler sort of humor. The effects of this choice reach beyond Bowman’s character, affecting how the other characters are played as well.

41 TP PT McVeagh, Thomas Durfey, 124. See also Derek Hughes, English Drama, 402- 404 for his reading of the play.

42 TP PT McVeagh, Thomas Durfey, 124.

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In the first scene of Act I, we learn why Count de Tonnere is dressed as a woman. He has been having an affair with Countess de Brissac (Mrs. Bowman), whose husband does not suspect her infidelity, as he is the finest stock nature has produced to “Graft Cuckoldom upon,” as Tonnere explains to Count de Fiesque. Tonnere had been visiting the countess disguised as a pilgrim, something that she encourages, for it seems that after meeting the pilgrim she would have “a Strong Fit of Devotion” everyday “to be Closetted up at Prayers with the Holy Pilgrim” or she would often “Puke, and be Sick, that the Pilgrim might be sent for.” Unfortunately for Tonnere, the countess’s brother discovered 43 the charade and challenged Tonnere to a duel in which her brother was wounded.TP PT Since then, Tonnere has been hiding in woman’s clothes and apparently is somewhat attractive, as he had just been serenaded that night by Countess de Brisac’s husband, no less. When the count saw Tonnere in his disguise, he was so smitten with him that he followed Tonnere to Versailles, “as Hot and Eager upon the Scent, as the youngest Hound in a Pack.” If Bowman created a Tonnere that is awkward as a woman, it makes Count de Brisac look far more foolish than if Tonnere were a convincing woman, therefore impacting how that character is perceived by the audience and how the actor plays the part. Late in Act I, Madam de Vandosine (Barry), in an ill humor, calls on the amorous Fiesque (Mr. Hudson). Tonnere, who had been in the garden, rushes in and interrupts their conversation, reporting that one of Fiesque’s enemies had been let in by the thoughtless page. Fiesque leaves the room to take care of the matter, leaving Vandosine and Tonnere alone. Vandosine’s mood suddenly becomes very pleasant, and Tonnere thinks Fiesque, who had earlier been complaining of her mood swings, has misjudged her. Tonnere is taken with her and asks her to meet him that night at the palace of Duke de Sanserre, who is having a party. Fiesque returns to the room and becomes suspicious, seeing that her disposition has changed, but he does not let on to Tonnere that he suspects an intrigue. In the second act, Sanserre learns that his wife (Bracegirdle) has been having an intrigue with an attractive young English Lord, Guillamour (Verbruggen). He decides to catch him in the act by dressing up in his wife’s nightgown (he is armed with a pistol), but he fails and is terribly embarrassed when the whole company sees him dressed as he is. Meanwhile, Lady Brisac has snuck away and come to Versailles “ready for the Plays, the Musick, the Walks” and to enjoy another assignation with Tonnere. She brags that she is doing all this under her husband’s nose, while he thinks she is “at home looking after the Rose-cakes” or otherwise occupied happily with some domestic duty. Humorously, she is disguised as a man so he will not recognize her, hence when she

43 TP PT McVeagh wrongly says that Tonnere fought a duel with Count de Brissac (see p. 124). In Act I.i, Tonnere explains what happened: “The truth is, never was Intreague better manag’d for some time—for Nature certainly did never produce a better Stock to Graft Cuckoldom upon, than Old Brissac, for he has so great a Fondness for himself, and is always so blindly partial to his own Abilities—that his heart is still at Ease about his Wife, nor would he ever have suspected us, had not Cavoys, that prying Coxcomb her Brother, discovering, done us the Mischief, upon which follow’d the Duel, in which he was Wounded, and I made shift to get hither in this Disguise.”

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meets Tonnere, they are both cross-dressed, and when they arrive at the banquet that evening they sing a dialogue together. Disappointingly, the music does not survive, but one would expect that Bowman must have sung Tonnere’s part in falsetto, and likewise Elizabeth’s part must have been in a lower than normal range for her.

Lady Brisac: The Word is full of hurry; Our Heroe’s hunt for Glory, To swell our future Story With Deeds of high Renown.

Tonnere: Religion and Ambition Make us in poor Condition, Till for our sad Division 44 A General Peace Attone.TP PT

2. Lady Brisac: Then Brawling War forsaking, In Love new Tryalis making; Instead of Cittys Taking I’ll Storm your Heart alone.

Tonnere: When to Enjoyment hasting, Let Youth be slowly wasting, And Beauty long be Tasting; I’ll wish no Monarch’s Crown.

3. Lady Brisac: When first the World and Matter Were form’d by the Creator,

Tonnere: Three onely Things in Nature Were Worth a Mortal’s Care.

Lady Brisac: First Wit in Bounteous Measure,

44 TP PT In May 1697, when the play was performed, England was at war with France (discussed in more detail below). A peace treaty was signed in September 1697, ending the war.

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Then Women for our Pleasure,

Tonnere: And Moderate Store of Treasure; To Entertaine the Fair.

After singing, Tonnere exits and changes into his regular attire in order to keep his appointment with Vandosine, but by this time she has become infatuated with the Englishman and will have nothing do to with Tonnere. He then realizes that she is the “exactest Jilt” he ever met with, and when he tries to prevent her from meeting Guillamour, she has a nasty change of humor and threatens to stab him with a knife.

The Innocent Mistress 45 Edition Consulted: 1697TP PT

For Mary Pix’s The Innocent Mistress, which debuted in the summer of 1697, Bowman attempted an unfamiliar line, playing Spendall, a greedy sharper. As noted earlier, audiences who regularly attended the theater became familiar with the actors and their respective character types. Thus, when actors were cast contrary to their normal lines, it thwarted the audience’s expectations, providing for a startlingly different playgoing experience than had the casting remained conventional. At first, Spendall appears to be just an annoying hanger-on to Sir Charles Beauclair (Betterton), who treats Spendall with great generosity; but when he first reveals his stratagem, it must have shocked the audience. This transpires in Act I, when Sir Charles asks Spendall to lie to Lady Beauclair (Mrs. Lee), Sir Charles’s ill-bred wife, regarding his whereabouts, as he will be at dinner at a certain Mrs. Bantum’s and does not want his bothersome wife to accompany him. Sir Charles cannot decide exactly what he wants Spendall to tell her, so he leaves it to his discretion, asking him to “say any thing the Devil puts into your Head.” Given Bowman’s normal line as a fop or a kindly friend, imagine the audience’s reaction to Spendall’s response after Sir Charles exits:

Yes, I shall say what the Devil puts into my Head, but not what you expect: Am I not then ungrateful? Has he not for several monthes fed, cloath’d and supported me? But what for, to be a meer Letter-carrier, an honourable Pimp for Platonick Love? He shall find I can employ my Parts better; he trusts me for his pleasure, and I’ll betray him for mine. Like Sir Charles, the audience must have trusted Spendall, suspecting nothing until these lines. Spendall then employs Lyewell as an accomplice, asking him to deliver a letter to Lady Beauclair to inform her that “Sir Charles will be to day at Mrs Bantums with a Whore, between three and four [o’clock].” Spendall knows that Sir Charles’s true love, Bellinda (Barry), will be there, and though Bellinda is virtuous (the innocent mistress of the play’s title), Spendall anticipates that Lady Beauclair will rush to Bantum’s house in her fury to confront Bellinda. He hopes this will sever Sir Charles’s and Lady

45 TP PT Mary Pix, The Innocent Mistress (London, 1697) (Wing / P2330).

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Beauclair’s marriage, thus freeing Peggy, Lady Beauclair’s equally ill-bred and binge- drinking daughter, from his guardianship. Spendall will then trick Lady Beauclair into believing he has a fortune (which is far from the truth), so she will consent to a marriage between Spendall and her daughter, who will receive a substantial portion of her deceased father’s estate. Everything works out as Spendall had planned until Lady Beauclair’s former husband, whom she thought had died overseas, is discovered living and keeping a mistress. When he resurfaces, Sir Charles is more than happy to relinquish Lady Beauclair back to him, freeing him to marry Bellinda. Now that Peggy’s father has returned, her mother is no longer in command of the estate, leaving Spendall with a poor, troublesome wife. Spendall performs his only song, “At dead of Night,” for Lady Beauclair and Peggy in Act II. When he arrives, Spendall takes the liberty of kissing Peggy on the lips, astonishing Lady Beauclair, who explains that high society holds Peggy in better esteem than the rude Spendall:

Lord, Mr. Spendall, what d’ye do?—well, I wonder Peg endures it.—I’ll vow and swear, Mr. Spendall, Knights presume no farther than to kiss the tip of my Daughters little Finger, and you make nothing of her Lips. Spendall responds that he was only using them as “Nature design’d,” and when Peg refuses to kiss him again, he adlibs a rhymed couplet appropriate for the situation, singing “Oh give you sweet Temptations o’er, / I’ll taste those dangerous Lips no more.” This puts Lady Beauclair in the mood for a song, and Peggy, cleary flattered by his seductive tone, requests that he fashion a song that continues in this vein. He obliges her by performing a narrative song in which a young lover seduces a shepherdess who, by the last stanza, is “panting” and “dying with Delight.”

At dead of Night, when wrap’d in Sleep The Peacefull Cottage, lay, Pastora left her folded Sheep, Her Garland, Crook, and needless Scrip, Love Led the Nymph astray.

Loose and Undrest she takes her flight To a near Myrtle-shade: The conscious Moon gave splendid light, To Bless the Ravisht Lover’s sight, And gain the Loving Maid.

His eager Arms the Nymph Embrace, And, to asswage the Pain, His restless Passion he obeys: At such an hour, in such a place, What Lover cou’d contain?

In vain she call’d the conscious Moon, The Moon no succour gave;

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The cruel Stars, unmov’d, look’d on, And seem’d to wink at what was done, Nor wou’d her humour save.

Vanquish’d at last by powerful Love, The Nymph expiring lay; No more she sigh’d, no more she strove, Since no kind Stars were found above, She blush’d, and dy’d away.

Yet Blest the Grove, her happy Flight, And Youth that did betray And panting, dying with Delight, She Blest the kind transporting Night, And Curst approaching Day.

According to the stage directions, “the Mother and Daughter imitate his Gestures” while he sings. Presumably, they are not mocking him, but rather attempting to comport themselves as they imagine a cultivated audience should. To the real audience in the theater, well acquainted with concert etiquette, Lady Beauclair and Peggy must have looked remarkably ridiculous. Spendall, of course, knows they are fools, easy targets for his plot, and that they yearn for acceptance in high society. It would have been very humorous, then, if Spendall, after seeing they are aping him, intentionally performed his 46 gestures badly, leading them astray for his amusement (and the audience’s).TP PT The more they attempt to imitate him, the more exaggerated his inappropriate gestures could become. After Spendall sings, the ladies both agree that his performance was “very fine,” a line that Lowerre has interpreted as an expression of their “uncomprehending approval.” She believes they are not perceptive enough to comprehend the “pastoral allusions,” but 47 approve because “they know they ought to appreciate poetry and music.”TP PT Though Lady Beauclair and Peggy might not be familiar with pastoral conventions or concert etiquette, the effectiveness of the scene depends on their comprehension of Spendall’s song. From the moment Spendall kisses her and sings of her lips’s “sweet Temptations,” she is aware that he is coming on to her. She confirms this when she requests him to sing a song that continues on the theme of temptation. She is expecting something sexy, he fulfills her request, and she likes it. Bowman must have used indicative gestures in abundance to depict the seduction narrative, so the movements they emulated could have been a bit racy, especially if Spendall was toying with them to make them look foolish. Imitating a narrator of a seduction tale shows them to be crude; they understand the story and their actions and expressions reveal it, but in doing so, they breach social decorum. The effect

46 TP PT Lowerre refers to their gestures as a “visual representation of their places in polite society” and explains that they “are imitating what they do not understand (and consequently doing it badly).” “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 217.

47 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 217.

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is that they look more foolish than had they been simply too innocent to realize that the song was about sex.

48 Figure 6.3: “At dead of night, while wrapped in Sleep”TP PT

48 TP PT Transcribed in Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 218-19.

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Lowerre has located two settings of the song, one too late for Bowman to have sung, and the other in MS 363 in the library at Christchurch College, Oxford, which 49 contains a collection of songs with a date of 1703 on the flyleaf.TP PT Bowman may well have sung this version, but it would have been in a lower key, as the D-major setting in the manuscript requires an A4B B and maintains a tessitura that is more appropriate for a tenor (Figure 6.3). The anonymous composer, perhaps an amateur according to Lowerre, had a gift for melody, and though it is not difficult to sing, it is engaging. It is essentially a dance, in binary form with a modulation to the dominant at the end of the first half and a resolution in the second. One wonders if the nature of the song inspired dance-like movement from Bowman that the ladies imitated.

The Deceiver Deceived 50 Edition Consulted: 1698TP PT

In Mary Pix’s second comedy for Lincoln’s Inn Fields, The Deceiver Deceived, Bowman played the rather two-dimensional French fop, Count Insulls. Pix treats the fop in stereotypical fashion, as an obstacle that the two Venetian lovers, Fidelio (Verbruggen) and Ariana (Bracegirdle), must surmount to marry. As a rich merchant’s son, Insulls owns a great estate, and because of this, Ariana’s greedy father, Melito Bondi (Betterton), prefers him over Fidelio, whose family had lost its fortune. In Ariana’s eyes, Insulls is too air headed and vain to merit consideration as a prospective husband. When Bondi proclaims she must marry Insulls that evening before the end of the ball, threatening to turn her “loose into the wide Streets of Venice, Stript of all Means” if she does not consent, the servant, Gervatio (Bowen), devises a plan. Appealing to Insulls’s vanity, Gervatio praises his writing ability and asks if he is the author of recent libel, The Present State of Venice, an “exquisite, elaborate, most ingenious piece,” according to Gervatio. Unaware that the tract is seditious, Insulls feigningly agrees, at which point two “Informers,” (hired by Gervatio) who were hiding behind the hangings, arrest him and drag him off to jail. They threaten his life, but Insulls frets only that they might soil his “Ball-clothes” and that their pistols will get his peruke “quite out of curl.” This delays the wedding long enough for Lady Temptyouth (Lee) to carry out another aspect of the plan, to marry Lucinda (Prince), a poor but lovely young girl, to Insulls, telling him she is the Duke’s niece. When Temptyouth and Lucina visit Insulls in jail, he denounces his courtship of Ariana and declares his steadfast commitment to Lucinda. Meanwhile, Bondi had been feigning blindness to avoid becoming president of Dalmatia, a position that would obligate him financially to the government and could potentially impoverish him. Gervatio tricks him into believing that the authorities have discovered his deceit and that the senate plans to seize his estate. Gervatio advises him to sign his bonds and mortgages over to Ariana before they can do so. With a vast sum in her power and with Insulls disposed of, Ariana and Fidelio wed. This upsets Bondi when he discovers they are married, but when Gervatio tells him that the Senate knows nothing

49 TP PT Ibid., 217.

50 TP PT Mary Pix, The Deceiver Deceived (London, 1698) (Wing / P2327).

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of his deceit, he is so relieved that he forgives all. Insulls is also happy, as he is too dimwitted to realize that he had been shamed out of a fortune. Insulls’s only song in the play, a dialogue with Ariana in Act IV, occurs at the beginning of the ball at which Bondi intends to marry off Ariana. Though Pix penned the play, Durfey was commissioned to write the song text, and Eccles set it to music. This scene is perhaps the most significant for Insulls: in the song, he learns that Ariana does not care for beaux such has himself, and after the song, he first experiences Lucinda’s charms when he dances with her, becoming love’s convert to her. Durfey uses the pastoral names Stella and Strephon for the characters in the dialogue, but these clearly represent Ariana and Insulls, allowing the couple to express their feelings with the security of playacting their courtship. Though the song’s placement—at a musical gathering—is highly conventional, it advances the plot to such an extent that it breaks with verisimilitude. Durfey wrote Insulls’s part in dialect, evidence that Bowman spoke in a heavy French accent throughout the play, but there is no indication of this in Pix’s text. Durfey must have planned to publish the text separately from the playbook and thought the dialect would have been needed outside the context of the play. Indeed, he later published the song (text only) in volume two of Wit and Mirth (1719) under the title “A Dialogue between a French Beau, and a Coquett de Angletere,” and with his many phrases in French, the Beau’s lines are much more entertaining with the accent. Unfortunately, Eccles’s music does not survive.

The Pretenders 51 Edition Consulted: 1698TP PT

As in The Lover’s Luck and The City Lady, Dilke again capitalized on the musical talents of John and Elizabeth Bowman in The Pretenders, which debuted in March, 1698. Elizabeth played Ophelia, the virtuous and witty daughter of Sir Wealthy Plainder (Underhill), described as “A rich close Curmugeon, pretending to be wholly decay’d in his Fortunes” to evade taxation. She is pursued by both the fop, Lord Courtspell (Thurmond), “A vain empty-skull’d Lord, pretending himself to be highly interested at Court,” and by Sir Bellamour Blunt, so named because he plainly (and often rudely) speaks his mind. Bowman played Vainthroat, “A loose talkative Gentleman of the Town,” who is well-versed on the latest gossip and spreads it freely. Vainthroat, Sir Bellamour, and Ophelia, are the only characters in the play who do not pretend to have something they do not have or assume a false identity. Vainthroat is called on to sing twice, the first song in Act II and the second in Act III. He also sings an impromptu ditty in Act IV, presumably unaccompanied and consisting of only two rhymed couplets. No settings of these songs are known, but Ophelia’s song in the fourth act, “All things seem deaf to my complaints,” survives in Eccles’s A Collection of Songs (1704). The plot revolves around the courtships of Ophelia and Widow Thoroshift (Mrs. More), the former desirable because of her wit and beauty and the latter because of her vast fortune (which she pretends to have). The bankrupt merchant, Broakage, who pretends to be very wealthy, seeks the widow’s hand, as does Bownceby, who pretends to

51 TP PT Thomas Dilke, The Pretenders (London, 1698) (Wing / D1478).

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be a navy captain. Sir Wealthy wants to marry off his daughter, Ophelia, to Lord Courtspell, because he covets the mistress whom Courtspell is keeping. This is his motive for refusing Sir Bellamour’s petitions for Ophelia. The widow’s maid, Nibs (Mrs. Lawson), and Nickycrack (Bowen) investigate Broakage and Captain Bownceby for the widow. While they are working on this, the widow decides to pursue Sir Bellamour, because he is honest and “of a known value.” When Sir Bellamour turns her down in his typical forthright fashion, she resolves to make him smart under the lash of her vengeance. After she swears revenge, Nibs runs in yelling “we’re all undone, undone; yonders the Mob up in the City, ravishing at such a rate, you never heard the like on’t.” Hearing her alarm, Lord Courtspell enters, saying he will fix the matter by employing his talent in oratory to persuade the mob to desist. After he leaves, Nibs reveals to a friend that this is really a trick to give Bellamour “the greater freedom to prosecute his Amour with Ophelia.” When Sir Wealthy Plainder hears of “the damn’d ravenous Mob,” he stores his treasure in a small trunk, hides it under a bench in the arbor, and exits. Nibs had promised Sir Bellamour that she would bring Ophelia to the arbor, and as Sir Bellamour is waiting for their arrival, he observes Sir Wealthy hide his treasure. When Ophelia arrives, he tells her that he wants to show her something in the arbor, but she coyly refuses to follow him in. While he is retrieving it, she sneaks away, and upon returning, he finds a letter instructing him to meet her later. After Ophelia had exited, however, the widow dropped the letter from a second-floor window as part of her revenge plot. Sir Bellamour leaves with the treasure, and when Sir Wealthy returns, he goes mad because of his loss. When Sir Bellamour goes to meet Ophelia, he finds a masked woman whom he later discovers is the widow, but assuming she is Ophelia, he runs and embraces her. The Captain and Broakage, however, have absconded at the widow’s request, and they leap out, draw swords, and challenge Sir Bellamour. The two coxcombs argue over who will fight him, and the widow’s plot comes to nothing. The play concludes conventionally, with several marriages: the widow marries Broakage, but the couple soon learns they are both in great debt; Nibs marries the captain, but is dismayed to discover that he is “blustering Subaltern Officer that was casheer’d for Cowardice”; and Sir Bellamour and Ophelia obtain her father’s consent after returning the treasure to him. Sir Wealthy then generously bestows the treasure upon Sir Bellamour to “make the bitter dose of woman go down the better.” All the pretenders are justly deceived in the end, and the virtuous couple is rewarded for its plain dealing. Throughout the play, Vainthroat comments cynically about the goings-on, and his honesty seems to be rewarded with bachelorhood, the avoidance of a sham marriage. Vainthroat performs his Act II song for Ophelia and Sweetny, a Boarding Landlady (Mrs. Lee), after a conversation in which he derides women. When he says he wants to divert himself with some “old hearty Bottle friends, Sweetny asks if he could divert himself with “us that are Women.” This sparks the conversation that follows:

Vain. Faith, Madam, not easily; for generally you that are Women, either affectation makes you troublesome, pride makes you imperious, or an over easiness makes you nauseous.

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Oph. Such tempers are often assum’d, Sir, when at so cheap a rate a woman can free herself from some of your impertinent and coxcombly addresses.

Sweet. I thought Mr Vainthroat had been better bred, than to express himself in general terms, before particular Company, especially before a Lady ever way so deserving, as Madam Ophelia here.

Understanding Dilke’s humor in Vainthroat’s following response depends on an awareness that Bowman was playing Vainthroat and Elizabeth was Ophelia:

Vain. O Lord, Madam, I am sufficiently acquainted with the bright Ophelia’s perfections, to except her from the whole Sex.

After a bit more sparring, Sweetny says to Vainthroat, “you shall attone for your Fault by giving us a Song.” He agrees to do so, hoping not to commit a greater fault, but interestingly, his song continues on the topic:

The Riddle of Nature, Is a Female Creature; She’s graciously proud, Maliciously good, And her business is to be idle. The mysterious Toy, If she weeps ‘tis for joy, And when she beguiles, ‘Tis done with her smiles, 52 He’s mad then that bites of the Bridle.TP PT

Afterwards, Sweetny scolds him in jest and calls him “a sad man,” before changing the topic. Vainthroat’s Act III song is simply a drinking song to cheer up Sir Bellamour who has taken on a “moody amorous temper” after having spoken with Sir Wealthy regarding his love for Ophelia. Sir Wealthy told him that she will wed Lord Courtspell, and Sir Bellamour is seeking Vainthroat’s opinion of his rival. After laughing at him for having been “stung with that pestiferous Viper Jealousie,” Vainthroat says Courtspell is “a dangerous Rival” because “Folly and Profuseness are taking qualities among the Ladies.” Though Bellamour is confident that Ophelia “has Discretion enough to laugh at his Folly,” Vainthroat offers to entertain him “with a Song and Dance”:

1. Let never dull sorrow our joys invade, 53 But for ever let’s follow the toping trade:TP PT

52 TP PT Bites of the Bridle: suffers [this] hardship

53 TP PT Toping [or topping] trade: excellent or very fine trade

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Let a merry merry Song Drive the Current of Time along; He’s a Prince of a Man That doubles his Span, And makes it a Cubit long.

2. Call Harry to fetch us more Bottles in, Don’t tarry, since to Revel we thus begin: 54 Let’s tipple tipple on,TP PT Till the Moon and Stars are gone; ‘Tis a meeting divine, When our faces so shine, That they Rival the Rising Sun.

After dancing, Vainthroat offers to take Bellamour to “range the Town,” drinking and wenching.

The Beau Defeated 55 Edition Consulted: 1700TP PT

In March 1700, Bowman acted the large role of Sir John Roverhead, the defeated beau of Pix’s title. Pix included a song for Sir John in Act II, “Delia tir’d Strephon with her flame,” set by Eccles and published in Wit and Mirth, V. 4 (1706) with 56 the melody only.TP PT An engraved song sheet of “Delia tir’d Strephon” (by Thomas Cross) is preserved in the Bodleian Library, and it contains the continuo part as well. It is also notable that Bowman spoke the prologue. It seems as though Sir John has only the typical follies of the fop, but at the play’s end, everyone learns that he is also a conman, a servant of the real Sir John Roverhead. He assumed the false identity of this knight, acquiring the “Modes and Manners” of a beau and going to London to make his fortune by defrauding a rich woman into marrying him. He alights on Mrs. Rich (Barry), the vain and affected widow of a wealthy city banker, who desperately wants to become a countess, duchess, or some other rank of titled nobility. Sir John thus pursues her because of her wealth, and she wants him because of his title. Mrs. Rich apes the dress and manners of the nobility, and she attempts to disassociate herself from the commonality by estranging her brother-in-law, Mr. Rich (actor not known) and, to some extent, from his pretty, young daughter, Lucinda (actress not known). Fearing that Lucinda’s beauty will detract from her own, she becomes jealous of her niece, and it is therefore very humorous when Lucinda falls in

54 TP PT Tipple: drink freely; a tippler is a retailer of ale.

55 TP PT Mary Pix, The Beau Defeated (London, 1700) (Wing / P2326).

56 TP PT The microfilm of this edition of Wit and Mirth omits these pages, but it appeared again in the 1709 edition, 342-43.

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love with Sir John, who is courting her under another assumed name, Lord Fourbine. When Mrs. Rich learns that Lucinda plans to sneak away and marry Lord Fourbine, she agrees to help Lucinda, simply to vex Mr. Rich. Mrs. Rich, of course, is unaware that Fourbine is Sir John. In the meantime, Mrs. Rich had met the elder Clerimont brother (Mr. Trout), a rough-talking country squire who loves hunting and brings his hounds along with him wherever he goes. This sort of person would normally disgust Mrs. Rich, but Mrs. Clerimont (Mrs. Bowman), his cousin, has told Mrs. Rich that he is a very wealthy and cultivated beau who, because his mistress chose his rival “only for having his Wigg better powder’d,” swore to act the part of a bumpkin until “some other Lady makes him amends.” Mrs. Clerimont’s story is not entirely fabricated; the elder Clerimont had recently received a large settlement upon the sudden death of his father, leaving the younger brother (Verbruggen) penniless, as the will had not yet been written. The father, however, had verbally promised the younger virtuous brother a great deal of the estate. When the older Clerimont falls in love with Mrs. Rich and wants to marry her, he asks Mrs. Clerimont if she will assist him in the endeavor, agreeing to resign the portion of the estate that the father had intended the younger brother to receive. Mrs. Rich agrees to marry the elder Clerimont, but after the exchange of vows, she learns that he is really a country squire and is horrified. Having been dejected throughout most of the play because of his lost fortune and his seemingly unrequited love for Lady Landsworth (Bracegirdle), the younger Clerimont is delighted when his estate is restored and when he learns Lady Landworth has loved him all along, but had only been testing him. Sir John is defeated in all his pursuits: Mrs. Rich marries another; Mr. Rich discovers Sir John is secretly courting Lucinda and breaks off their relationship; and everyone finally learns Sir John is an imposter. Before Mrs. Rich meets the elder Clerimont, Sir John performs “Delia tir’d Strephon” to entertain her and two of her friends who are instructing her on courtly comportment. When her maid, Betty, announces his arrival, she exclaims, “Oh Heavens! That Master of Accomplishments!” and asks them how to receive him. Sir John enters, railing about the world and its “continual round of nauseous repetition,” because he is feeling insulted that an old woman recently sent him a love letter. After his diatribe, Mrs. Rich comments, “Why, you are in a mortifying way, Sir John,” and the old woman becomes the subject of the conversation and the song itself:

Sir John. Indeed Scarce fit to appear before your Ladyship: I have had a Billet- doux from a Woman of Sixty, which has given me the Spleen to that degree, I could out-rail a Hypocritical Fanatick.

Mrs. Rich. Sixty! Pleasant, I protest.

Sir John. She’s a walking Memento mori; I have suffer’d some time under the persecution, and in bitterness and Gall, instead of Ink, have wrote a Stanza, to shew how awkardly [sic] an old Woman makes advances.

Mrs. Rich. Oh, dear Sir John, let us have it.

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La. Basset. We are all Petitioners.

Sir John. You shall Command me, Ladies.

The text is a dialogue between Delia—the old coquet—and Strephon (representing Sir John), but Sir John sings both characters’s lines, hilariously mimicking the old woman. Pix includes eight brief stanzas in the playbook, but Eccles set only four:

Delia tir’d Strephon with her Flame, While languishing she view’d him, The well dress’d Youth despis’d the Dame, 57 But still the old Fool pursu’d him.TP PT

Mimicks and Old Woman: Some pity on a Wretch bestow, That lyes at your Devotion;

Sings as himself: Perhaps near fifty Years ago, I might have lik’d the Motion.

She: If you, proud Youth, my flame despise, I’ll hang me in my Garters;

He: Why then make hast to win the Prize, Among loves foolish Martyrs.

She: Can you see Delia brought so low, And make her no Requitals?

He: Delia may to the Devil go 58 For Strephon, stop my Vitals.TP PT

In Eccles’s setting, the old woman’s part reaches A4B ,B so Bowman must have sung her 59 lines in falsetto or perhaps awkwardly breaking in and out of falsetto.TP PT Of the dialogue,

57 TP PT In the playbook this line reads, “But still old Puss pursu’d him.

58 TP PT stop my Vitals: an idiomatic asseverative statement.

59 TP PT The music is written in treble clef, but he presumably sang the entire piece an octave lower.

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Lowerre wrote, “Presumably the enjoyment was in Bowman’s bravura performance, as 60 musically (and poetically) it is not very engaging.”TP PT I concur with this, as it must have been rather funny seeing a fop act as an amorous old woman. After the song, Mrs. Rich remarks that his performance was “wonderful pretty,” but he corrects her, saying it was “harsh, and untunable, like the Subject.” If this is any indication as to how he sounded, he must have really hammed it up.

Operas and Masques

The Loves of Mars & Venus (in The Anatomist) Edition Consulted: Printed Libretto of 1696 Printed Collection of Songs (Single Songs and Dialogues in the Musical Play of 61 Mars & Venus, 1697)TP PT

From its inception, the Lincoln’s Inn Fields troupe competed intensely and sometimes bitterly with the Patent Company. As mentioned above, one of the early competitive devices it developed was the double bill, represented by the very successful combination of the masque, The Loves of Mars & Venus by Peter Motteux, with Edward 62 Ravenscroft’s The Anatomist, presented in November 1696.TP PT Eccles and Gottfried Finger collaborated on the music for the three-act masque, which they interpolated between the acts of The Anatomist, and Bowman and Bracegirdle sang the title roles. Apparently, The Loves of Mars & Venus, was an all-sung work, but the full score (and thus the recitatives) does not survive. In 1697, Finger and Eccles published select songs from the work, but, unfortunately, these are set, for the most part, only with basso continuo accompaniment, though Motteux’s libretto indicates there was an orchestra with trumpets, timpani, strings, oboes, and flutes. In Europe’s Revels for the Peace (1697), the score of which survives in manuscript, Eccles followed Motteux’s instructions for instrumentation, and this may well have been the case for The Loves of Mars & Venus. The songs for Bowman that appeared in the collection, all duets or dialogues with Bracegirdle, were “My Mars, My Venus” and “How sweet, how lovely,” performed in the second act and set by Eccles, and “Yield My dear” in third act with music by Finger. The masque is set in the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theater, and consists of a prologue and three acts, the last of which ended the evening’s entertainment. Composed by Finger, the prologue compares love and war, and sets the stage for the affair between the

60 TP PT Lowerre, “Music in the Productions at London’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theater,” 450.

61 TP PT Peter Motteux, The Loves of Mars & Venus (London, 1696) (Wing / M2954) and John Eccles Gottfried Finger, Single Songs and Dialogues in the Musical Play of Mars & Venus (London, 1697) (Wing / M2961).

62 TP PT Milhous, Thomas Betterton, 91.

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two seemingly incompatible personalities of Venus and Mars, the goddess of love and the god of war. Sung by three muses, Erato ( Mrs. Hodgson), Thalia (Mrs. Perrin), Terpsichore (Mrs. Ayliff), and their followers, the prologue reveals that love and war are strikingly similar:

Love, like War, has noble Care: War sheds Blood, and Love sheds Tears. War has Swords, and Love has Darts; War takes Towns, and Love Hearts. Love, like War, the bold requires: Love, like War, has Flames and Fires. Love, like War, does Art admit; Love, like War, for Youth is fit.

At that time, England was involved in the Nine Years War (briefly discussed below), so the topic of war was especially meaningful. Behind the masque’s comedy, there are subtle expressions of regret, as in Venus’s lines in Act I, when, after Cupid informs her that she is worshipped in Britain, she says, “Happy Isle! And happier far, / If thou knew’st no other War!” In Act I, Venus is waiting for her lover, Mars, to return from war, but before his arrival, her husband, Vulcan (Reading), the rough and cragged god of the forge, unexpectedly comes home. Their bickering dialogue, “Thou Plague of my Life,” must have been hilarious in performance, especially when Vulcan sings, “I’ll make the World know what a Strumpet you are,” and Venus responds, “You’ll make the World know what a Cuckold you are.” Their fight begins to escalate as they sing these lines together, “Scolding” each other, according to the directions in the song collection. Act I concludes with both of them cursing their marriage (see Figure 6.4). In the second act, Mars tells his pimp, Gallus (played by Mr. Lee, but “design’d for Mr. Dogget,” whom the Patent Company had recently lured away), to bring Venus to him, and after Gallus complains about the dangers in doing so, he exits, leaving Mars alone to sing, “Oh! Rival! you must happy be.” The song consists of four quatrains in which Mars expresses his longing for Venus and imagines how happy Vulcan must be to see her daily:

Oh! Rival! you must happy be; You ev’ry day my Goddess see. Perhaps in vain you sigh and sue; But you, at least, my Goddess view.

For such a dear bewitching sight, Who would not gaze away the Light? Oh! tho I see her ev’ry where, I too too little see the Fair.

In vain to shun her sight I strove: Here, in my Heart ‘tis fixt by Love.

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None can the Charming Image blot, I see her, when I see her not.

And who can from her Chains be free’d? She looks; and Gods themselves adore. She smiles; then I’m a God indeed. She’s in my Arms; Oh then I’m more!

Regrettably, Eccles’s setting did not appear in a song publication.

Figure 6.4: “Thou Plague of my Life,” mm. 36-45

Immediately after this, Venus, Cupid and his train, and Gallus enter, and Venus runs into Mars’s arms. In their embrace, they sing Eccles’s brief duet, “My Mars, My Venus,” the music of which survives (see Figure 6.5). The directions in the libretto here indicate that cupid sings “while dumb Courtship passes between Mars & Venus.”

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Eccles’s set the text for the boy soprano Jemmy Laroche with trumpet obbligato. Mars’s and Venus’s duet, “How sweet, how lovely,” follows this, and though the song collection prints this as a separate song, it appears as if it would have been connected with the previous song with continuous music in the performance. Eccles’s G minor setting is charming (see Appendix).

Mars and Venus: How sweet, how lovely, when return’d, Is the dear object whom we mourn’d; Recruited fires more fiercely warm, And absence heightens ev’ry Charm, The Blessing that a while was lost, When ‘tis regain’d is valu’d most.

Both: My dear, my Life, my Joy, my Soul, my Heav’n, my Love, Oh! my dearest Mars (Love).

Figure 6.5 “My Mars, My Venus”

While Venus is singing her last “Oh!,” Vulcan enters and “offers to knock ‘em down with his Hammer, but is hinder’d by Gallus,” who concocts a story to cover for the illicit situation. He tells Vuclan that Mars was simply giving Venus instructions to deliver to Vulcan regarding new armor that Mars wanted. After a protracted situation that is uncomfortable for the characters and humorous to the audience, Vulcan seems to accept their explanation, but he remains suspicious.

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In Finger’s third act, jealously gets the better of Vulcan, who sets a trap to ensnare Mars and Venus. While Vulcan is off plotting his revenge, Mars and Venus sing a rather conventional dialogue, in which he presses for pleasure and she resists:

Mars: Yield, my dear, let full possessing Crown my Love and Charm my Sense;

Venus: No, I must oppose your pressing With as gallant a defense,

Mars: When Love’s Harvest shou’d be reaping, Will you wast the time, in Doubt;

Venus: Ev’ry Town that’s worth the keeping, Keeps a while th’invader out; Cheap Embraces quickly cloy, Easy Conquest seems a toy, But denying, Struggling, flying, Wanton playing, Wise delaying, Raise us to a Sense of Joy.

Mars and Venus: Love’s a Hawk and stoops apace: We all hurry For the Quarry, Tho’ the Sport ends with the Chace.

After they sing and exit, Gallus and the grace, Euphrosyne (Mrs. Ayliff), reenact a similar scenario in lower comic style. Here, Doggett’s comic acting and singing talents would have been invaluable. Vulcan then enters, lays a net by the couch, and exits. Mars and Venus reenter, and, with Mars’s ardor stoked to a burning fire, he sings “very Amourously,” according to the directions:

How my Passion is encreas’d With imperfect Pleasure toying! I’ll no more starve at a Feast, Nor enjoy without enjoying.

Having achieved her purpose, Venus acquiesces, “running into his Arms” and singing,

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Thus for ever let me lye! In thy Arms I ravish’d fall, Tranc’d in melting Joys I dye. Neither the setting of these lines, nor the following “Wild Musick” that interrupts their amours, survives. During the wild music, the lovers get ensnared in the trap, and Jupiter, Juno, and other deities are seen above, musing at the discovery. Cupid enters and exerts his power to “Make Vulcan kind, and Venus true,” and Mars’s followers urge him to return to war. The masque concludes with a chorus praising the gods of love and war and a dance by Cupid’s and Mars’s followers.

Europe’s Revels for the Peace Edition Consulted: 63 Printed Libretto of 1697TP PT Manuscript score (in Lbm Add. MS 29378)

Before William came to the throne, the policy of the Stuarts had been largely pro- 64 French and anti-Dutch.TP PT Louis XIV, who had supported the accession of James II, was William’s longtime enemy, and after James fled to France, Louis backed Jacobite attempts to put James back on the English throne. When Louis invaded the Palatinate in 1688, beginning the conflict known at the Nine Years War, the League of Augsburg—an alliance of several German states begun in 1686 to defend against French expansionism—gained new allies, including Spain and England. In May 1689, this new Grand Alliance declared war on France, which ended with the Peace of Ryswick on 20 September 1697 with Louis agreeing to cease his support of James II and to recognize William as England’s king. William’s return to England sparked a number of festivities, as well panegyric poems and at least three celebratory musical works: an ode by John Weldon (performed at Oxford), a masque by Thomas Morgan (performed at Drury Lane), and Europe’s Revels for the Peace, written by Motteux, set by Eccles, and performed at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The title page of the published libretto of Europe’s Revels describes the work as a “Musical Interlude,” suggesting that it was double billed with a play, probably a tragedy “to balance the evening and because the comic actors were all needed in Europe’s 65 Revels.”TP PT The libretto lists Bowman as “An English Officer” and Mrs. Hodgson as the

63 TP PT Peter Motteux, Europe’s Revels for the Peace (London, 1697) (Wing / M2948).

64 TP PT Paul Langford discusses the Glorious Revolution in “The Eighteenth Century (1688-1789)” in Kenneth O. Morgan, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Reprint, 1996), 352-62.

65 TP PT Lowere, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 303. In English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 8, Roger Fiske incorrectly lists Europe’s Revels as full-length opera, but Lowerre points out that it “is definitely not an opera, either in the late seventeenth century or the modern scholarly sense,” as it is too short, contains little dialogue, and has not plot, 301-2.

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“Messenger of Peace,” the two most musically significant roles. Elizabeth Bowman played “An English Lady” and according to the libretto was to sing a dialogue with Bowman’s character, but these lines (along with several others) were cut to reduce the 66 show’s running time.TP PT In addition to these characters, there was a variety of others representing national stereotypes from the countries of the Grand Alliance: a Dutch boor, a French officer, an Irish raparee, a Savoyard (with a raree show), Spanish dancers with castanets, soldiers, and rural folk. The performances opened with a “Warlike Symphony,” scored for first and second trumpets, timpani, strings, and continuo in D major. After the symphony, Bowman enters as the English officer and sings Eccles’s sprawling martial aria, “Arm, Brittians!,” set in the same key as the preceding symphony and employing the same scoring. The aria depicts the warfare before the treaty:

Arm, Brittians! hark! how from afar Alarming Drums and Trumpets call to War. See how all the Brave assemble! How they hurry All to Glory! William Thunders, Armies tremble. Death or Conquest is the Cry. Now we sally, Now they fly; Now they rally, Charge, and dye. Cannons roaring, Squadrons pouring; Shouting, Routing, We pursue ‘em, We subdue ‘em. Rage and Horror, Groans and Fear, 67 Blood and Slaughter ev’ry where.TP PT

Motteux’s text provides many opportunities for text painting, and Eccles takes full advantage of these in his exhilarating and raucous setting. The vocal line on the text “Arm, Brittians” imitates a rallying trumpet call, which is followed by an actual trumpet fanfare before the next section of text (see Figures 6.6 and 6.7). Eccles employs melismas extensively, most notably on “hurry,” “thunders,” “roaring,” and “pouring” (see Figures 6.8 and 6.9). After Bowman’s solo, a four-part chorus sings the same text,

66 TP PT All of the lines were printed in the libretto, but those that were cut from the musical setting are clearly marked.

67 TP PT There are a number of lines in the libretto that I have not quoted, as these were not set by Eccles.

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beginning with “See how all the Brave assemble.” Bowman did not sing another solo after “Arm, Brittians,” but he presumably participated in the following chorus and in the closing chorus, “Rejoyce, rejoyce.”

Figure 6.6: “Arm Brittians,” mm. 1-4 (Voice and Continuo)

Figure 6.7: “Arm Brittians,” mm. 4-8 (Trumpets)

At the close of the “Arm, Brittians” chorus, a messenger of peace enters, and “at her first Word,” according to the directions, “the Martial Musick immediately changes…into softer Notes, with accompaniments of Flutes.” She calmly commands “Peace!,” bidding “War and Discord” to cease, and in her closing lines, invites the “happy Nations” to sing, revel, and dance in praise of William. After its serious beginning, Europe’s Revels transforms into a jocular party with much dancing, wooing, and clowning, and it must have made for a thoroughly entertaining evening at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Unfortunately, the peace that was so extravagantly celebrated that evening only lasted a few years, as Britain became embroiled in another Continental war, the War of Spanish Succession, beginning in 1702. The effects were felt in the theater world, as the playhouses had difficulties attracting audiences who were distracted by the “tense 68 international situation and political turmoil.”TP PT During the intervening peace, however, Betterton’s company mounted Eccles’s semi-opera, Rinaldo and Armida, which is preserved in the same manuscript as Europe’s Revels. They also performed Eccles’s masques Ixion (1697), Acis and Galatea (1700), and Peleus and Thetis (1701), of which only a few songs from Acis and Galatea survive, and they also revived Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Bowman’s involvement in these is discussed below.

68 TP PT Milhous, Thomas Betterton, 146.

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Figure 6.8: “Arm Brittians,” mm. 25-29 (Voice and Continuo)

Figure 6.9: “Arm Brittians,” mm. 47-49 (Voice and Continuo)

Rinaldo and Armida 69 Edition Consulted: 1699TP PT Manuscript score (in Lbm Add. MS 29378)

In November, 1698, Lincoln’s Inn Fields mounted John Dennis’s and Eccles’s Rinaldo and Armida, a semi-opera with extended musical scenes in each of its five acts. The playbook lists the speaking cast, with Betterton and Barry taking the title roles and Elizabeth Bowman playing the muse, Urania. Bowman’s and Bracegirdle’s absence from the list indicates they were likely in the musical cast, but the manuscript score does not provide singers’ names. The work’s only “hit” song was “The Jolly Breeze” (sung by a shepherd in Act I), appearing in print in Twelve New Songs (1699) and several editions of Pills to Purge Melancholy. Even though the song is for a high baritone, with its range of # D3B B to FP 4PB ,B the 1699 song publication lists Mr. Gouge as the singer rather than Bowman.

69 TP PT John Dennis, Rinaldo and Armida (London, 1699) (Wing / D1042).

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Presumably, Gouge also sang the other Act I baritone solos for the shepherd. Act II has several baritone solos for the Ghost of Bertoldo, requiring a range of D3B B to F4B ,B but because Bertoldo is Rinaldo’s father, Bowman would probably have looked too young in the role, considering that Betterton was about 63 at the time, twenty years older than Bowman. I agree with Lowerre’s assessment that Bowman likely sang the brief arioso for the spirit in Act I, and again appeared as a spirit in Act IV to sing “Ye Spirits that 70 dwell in Earth,” which has several solo sections interspersed with choruses.TP PT Dennis based his plot on a portion of Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberate (Jerusalem Delivered, 1580), set during the First Crusade (1099). Undoubtedly popular among librettists and composers because of its exotic location, its heavy dose of the supernatural, and the agonizing conflict between love and duty, the story of Armida’s love for Rinaldo became the subject of almost 100 operas or ballets from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, including settings by Lully, Handel, Gluck, Haydn, 71 Salieri, and Rossini.TP PT In the preface, Dennis emphasizes that his version of the tragedy is not dominated by spectacle (as operas are), and that the “spectacular effects involved 72 were only those ‘required’ by the grandeur of the narrative.”TP PT He also mentions that there are many new “objects” in the production, by which he means new sets, props, and 73 costumes.TP PT Though he attempts to justify the lack of grand spectacle, the limitations of Lincoln’s Inn Fields may have made it impractical to produce such lavish productions as Purcell’s semi-operas at Dorset Garden, and this may well have contributed to Rinaldo and Armida’s lack of success, given the audience’s previous experience with the genre. As Lowerre has pointed out, Dennis “took great care to construct an integrated work, a truly musical drama, in which Eccles’s music is always clearly linked to the 74 action of the scene in which it is heard.”TP PT In Act I, Urania informs the crusaders Ubaldo (Thurman) and Carlo (Scudamore) that Armida, with her “Magick pow’r,” has stolen Rinaldo away to an enchanted palace, where he “passes all his days, / And his Luxurious Nights in Wanton Joys” in the “Embraces of his young Enchantress.” She urges them to rescue Rinaldo, because the conquest of Jerusalem depends on his “Conquering Sword,” but she warns that they will encounter dangers that could “shake the Constancy of Martyrs.” Just after her admonition, a palace rises as music plays, and a spirit in the air (probably Bowman) sings an arioso with string accompaniment, proclaiming Armida’s power (see the excerpt in Figure 6.10). After Ubaldo, Carlo, and Urania palaver about the event, spirits appear “in the Shapes of Shepherds and Nymphs” to tempt the crusaders, and with “soft Sounds” seduce their “Souls to Pleasure.” A shepherd (Gouge)

70 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 376-77. The manuscript implies that one baritone spirit sings all these in the fourth act.

71 TP PT See Tim Carter, “Armida,” in Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 28 April 2006), http://www.grovemusic.com.

72 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 370.

73 TP PT Ibid., 370.

74 TP PT Ibid., 365

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and a nymph sing alternating stanzas, interspersed with choruses, to entice the two, the musical highlight of which was the alluring song, “The Jolly Breeze.” Despite much tempting music, the crusaders pass the test and continue in the quest to free Rinaldo.

Figure 6.10: “Ye mighty Pow’rs,” mm. 37-43

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Bowman’s next probable appearance occurred at the beginning Act IV. In the third act, Rinaldo chose duty and honor over love, and when Armida receives the news, she unleashes her fury (with rumbling music and roaring from under the stage), terrifying Ubaldo and Carlo. Rinaldo calmly announces, in a rhymed couplet that brings the act to a close, “I fear the fair Armida’s softness more / Than all these ghastly shapes, and all this dreadful Roar.” After additional scary music between the acts, a grisly spirit ascends near the beginning of Act IV, who commands “Millions of Immortal Spirits” to take vengeance on Rinaldo for betraying Armida. The spirit’s character is somewhat reminiscent of the evil spirit, Grimald, in King Arthur, but with its authority to command 75 subordinate supernatural beings, it is very similar to the sinister Hecate in Macbeth.TP PT With thunder and lightening, the spirit comes forward and sings, frenetically repeating the command to “hither hurry,” which the spirits obey:

Ye Spirits that dwell in Earth, Fire, and Air, Hither, Hither, Hither, Hither, hurrying repair: Behold your great Mistress, Armida’s betray’d, Hither, hither, hither, Hurry all to her Aid.

The spirit goes on to call in the “Fiends that are lurking in the Graves,” the “Pow’rs who govern the Air,” and the “Furies who Reign in Unquenchable Fires.” Armida confronts Rinaldo, warning that there are “Ten thousand Raging Fiends” waiting to devour him, but he says all her tactics are merely “Impotent Attempts, / To fright me from departure,” a brave statement after such convincingly scary music. After all her threats, Armida does not harm Rinaldo, and when she believes he is gone forever, she impales herself.

Dido and Aeneas (in Measure for Measure)

Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas is the composer’s best-known work, and one that has received an abundance of scholarly attention because of the mysteries surrounding its first performances and the comparatively deplorable state of its surviving 76 sources.TP PT After the split of the United Company in 1695, Purcell’s semi-operas and other major works remained the property of the Patent Company, though, as mentioned in Chapter V, The Fairy Queen’s score was lost. Dido and Aeneas, however, did not debut on the professional stage until February 1700 at Lincoln’s Inn Fields when Gildon revised Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure to accommodate the work, indicating that 77 Rich’s company did not possess the score.TP PT Lincoln’s Inn Fields mounted Dido again in

75 TP PT Lowerre writes, “Bowman . . . almost certainly sang the solo lines in the entertainment for the fourth act, “Ye Spirits that dwell in Earth, Fire, and Air,” in ibid., 377n.

76 TP PT The earliest surviving score dates from no earlier than 1750 and differs significantly from Nahum Tate’s libretto of 1689. See Curtis Price’s discussion of its sources in Henry Purcell, 239-45.

77 TP PT Ibid., 234.

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January 1704 in a triple bill with The Anatomist and The Loves of Mars & Venus, and 78 again in April with The Man of Mode.TP PT Price and Lowerre comment extensively on the 79 performance of Dido with Measure for Measure,TP soPT I will only briefly discuss the possibility of Bowman’s involvement (which Lowerre has also covered). In all other operatic musical productions at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, such as The Loves of Mars & Venus, Rinaldo and Armida, and Acis and Galatea (discussed below), 80 there was a complete separation of the speaking and singing casts.TP PT Again in Measure for Measure, Bowman is absent from the speaking cast (which is known), indicating with reasonable certainty that he sang in Dido. We know from a published song sheet that the bass Wiltshire sang “Come away, fellow sailors,” but the singers for all the other bass or baritone solos are unknown. Curtis Price and Irena Cholij have suggested that Wiltshire 81 also sang as the Sorceress.TP PT As in Macbeth, it is likely that some of the other witches were performed by men, and it is possible that Sherburn and Cook, who also sang for the 82 company, could have been involved.TP PT Because Bowman was cast in leading singing roles in The Loves of Mars & Venus and Acis and Galatea, as Lowerre has noted, it thus seems very likely that the he would have performed Aeneas, a high baritone role. Although no music survives for the final entertainment, Lowerre has concluded that Bowman may well have played Mars, as he had recently been cast as the singing Mars just four years earlier. This makes good sense, but without the music no firm conclusions can be 83 made.TP PT

The Mad Lover (not extant) Edition Consulted: The Masque of Acis and Galatea, with the rest of the Musical Entertainments in a New Opera Call’d The Mad Lover (1701)

Lincoln’s Inn Fields’s next operatic work was a revival of Fletcher’s The Mad Lover in late 1700, with new music by Eccles. Motteux’s version of the play, which he must have revised heavily according to Lowerre, is not extant, but texts of Motteux’s three musical entertainments survive in a single copy in the University Library, Cambridge and were reproduced in a facsimile copy with an introduction by Lucyle

78 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 505.

79 TP PT Price, Henry Purcell, 234-38 and Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 504-12.

80 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 510.

81 TP PT Curtis Price and Irena Cholij, “Dido’s Bass Sorceress,” Musical Times 127 (1986): 615-18.

82 TP PT Lowere, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 511.

83 TP PT Ibid., 511.

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84 Hook in 1981.TP PT Eccles’s score does not survive, although several of the songs were printed, appearing in Eccles’s A Collection of Songs (1704) and various issues of Mercurius Musicus (1701). Long enough to be performed independent of The Mad Lover, the Act V entertainment, known as The Masque of Acis and Galatea, became a 85 lasting success for the Company, which often used it as an afterpiece.TP PT Bowman appeared as a drunken gentleman to sing a comical dialogue with Doggett in the Masque 86 of Wine and Love in the third act and again as Polyphemus in Acis and Galatea.TP PT Bowman sang the act-three dialogue at least four times outside its original context, and it 87 seems to have become a favorite.TP PT The Masque of Wine and Love starred Bracegirdle as Cupid, John Wiltshire as his opponent, Bacchus, Bowman as a “Gentleman,” and Doggett dressed in drag and singing in falsetto as “a Woman of the Town.” After a programmatic symphony “expressing the reeling of Drunkards,” a chorus of bacchanals sings in praise to their god, and afterwards Bacchus extols wine over love. Cupid then enters to defend love, singing “Cease of Cupid to complain.” Cupid calls in “jolly Lovers, to cooe laugh and toy,” and Bacchus responds with this own invitation to “jolly Topers to Drink, laugh and toy,” texts which Eccles set as a duet. The following scene between Bowman and Doggett makes neither love nor drinking seem very appealing, as in his drunkenness, the gentleman chooses what must have been an extraordinarily uncomely woman to woo. Both Bowman’s solo, “Proud Women, I scorn you,” and the dialogue were printed in the March-April issue of Mercurius Musicus and in Eccles’s Collection. In Mercurius Musicus, there was an error in the printing and a great deal of the dialogue was omitted, so thankfully this hilarious gem was printed in two sources!

Proud Women I scorn you, brisk Wine’s my delight, I Laugh all the Day, and I Revell all Night, As great as a Monarch, the Minutes I pass, The Bottle my Globe, my Scepter the Glass; The Table my Throne, the Tavern my Court, 88 The Drawers my Subjects, and Drinking my Sport.TP PT Here’s the Spring of all Joy, Here’s a Mistress ne’re Coy. Dear Cure of all Sorrow, Lifes Blood of my Bliss,

84 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 513, and Lucyle Hook, ed., The Rape of Europa by Jupiter (1694) and Acis and Galatea (1701) (Los Angeles: Augustan Reprint Society, 1981).

85 TP PT Lowerre, “Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” 512.

86 TP PT Hook states the “Mr. Cook was the threatening giant Polyphemus,” an obvious muddle, as the playbook clearly assigns the part to Bowman.

87 TP PT The recorded performances took place on 24 June 1701 and 27 July 1704 (with Dogget), and on 1 August 1704 and in January 1705 (with Pack). 88 TP PT Drawer: one who draws liquor or beer at a tavern

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I’m a King when I Grasp thee, and more when wee Kiss. [takes a drink]

At this point Eccles provides a three-and-a-half measure interlude, during which the woman enters. Seeing her, the gentleman sings,

He: Proud Beauty now see, How Careless I stand, and defye Love and thee,

She: Dull Drunkard now see, How Careless I pass and defy Love and thee,

During their several repetitions of this, the gentleman seems to lose his resolve to defy love, and he asks her to stay, offering her a glass to sooth the pain of their parting:

Stay, since we must part, Here Comfort thy Heart,

She faintly refuses, but after first forcing her to drink, she does so voluntarily:

She: No, no, no, Thyrsis [he forces her to drink according to the directions]

He: Once more to great Bacchus, who sets us all Free, 89 I,O, great Bacchus, who sets us all Free,TP PT

She: No, no, no, no, no, Thyrsis [she drinks]

He: Ah what Magick’s in Wine, My Senses it warms, 90 And it doubles thy Charmes,TP PT Yet I Scorn now to Whine, Like my Bottle I’le force thee to Melt in my Armes,

She: Oh! Thyris forbear, I dare not Stay here, Be Civill nay Hold,

89 TP PT Io: an exultant shout or an exclamation of joy in Greek and Latin.

90 TP PT This sizable understatement must have been quite funny.

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You once were too Bashful, but now you’re too Bold. What will you Ravish me?

He: Ay, ay, with content

She: No, no I’le not be Ravish’d without my Consent,

He: I’le make you comply I’le try you.

She: I’le cry out I Swear,

He: I don’t care.

She: I’le not do it so low but somebody shall hear,

He: You’ll do it so low that nobody will hear, She: But will you Marry me?

He: Ay, ay.

She: But will you Marry me?

He: Never fear, nay never fear Come kiss me my dear,

She: Oh!, but you’re so wild, What shou’d I do, shou’d you get me with Child?

He: What shou’d I do, shou’d you not be with Child? You’ll do like your Mother Get that, then another, And then

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91 Without such a pother, you’ll venture’t again,TP PT

Chorus: She: 92 Go, go, go, your [sic; you’re] AddleTP PT

He: No, no, no you’r Idle.

She: Come, come let me go.

He: Come, come let us go.

She: Go to Bed.

He: Come to Bed. She: No, no, no Thyrsis.

He: So, so, so, so.

After he drags her off, there is a dance of four drunkards and four women “to whom they make Love,” followed by a grand chorus that provides the moral: “Thus Live without Sorrow, learn ever to joyn / The Raptures of Love, and the Pleasures of Wine. Eccles’s dialogue is simple and syllabic, allowing Doggett and Bowman to combine ample action with their singing as the text suggests. With the right casting, this piece would undoubtedly be every bit as funny and successful in performance today as it seems to have been in 1700. The Act V entertainment, Acis and Galatea, featured Bracegirdle as the shepherd, Acis (a breeches role), Elizabeth Bowman as Galatea, and Bowman as Polyphemus. Doggett and Mrs. Willis appreared as the clownish country couple to provide a respite of comedy in an otherwise serious plot. The story is based on the myth, recorded by Ovid in Metamorphoses XIII and in two poems by Theocritus, of the love affair between the Sicilian youth, Acis, and the Nereid, Galatea. The Cyclops, Polyphemus, who also loved Galatea, discovers them together, and in a jealous rage, he crushes Acis with a boulder. One should recall the Polyphemus is the same Cyclops who captures Odysseus and his crew in the Odyssey, but Odysseus is able to escape when he blinds Polyphemus after

91 TP PT Pother: fuss or display of grief

92 TP PT Addle: confused or crazy

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getting him drunk. Most, if not all, of Polyphemus’s lines were probably set in recitative, and this is likely the reason why the songs did not appear in print. Several of the songs for Acis and Galatea survive, including their dialogue, “Oh! my Cruel perjur’d Fair,” erroneously printed with the caption “Sung by Mrs. Bracegirdle, and Mr. Bowman.”

Conclusion

After a flourishing singing career during Lincoln’s Inn Fields’s first five seasons,

Bowman virtually stopped performing songs in new plays after the 1700-01 season.TP The principal printed source for new theater songs during the first decade of the century is John Walsh’s The Monthly Mask of Vocal Music, a periodical publication that ran from 1702 to 1711. Of the 37 songs for bass or baritone during its run, all of which list the 93 singer’s name, none is for Bowman.P P After examining the playbooks for Bowman’s new roles from the 1700-01 season to the 1738-39 season, his last on the stage, the only printed song text for any of his characters was in Wonders in the Sun in 1706. There are a few other isolated instances of Bowman singing between the acts, but these are mostly performances of established favorites, such as the mad song in Don Quixote, which he sang in June 1703 during The Villain and again in April 1704 during The Spanish Fryar. As mentioned above, Bowman and Pack performed the dialogue from The Mad Lover as late as January 1705. Only three new songs for Bowman after the 1700-01 season are recorded, all of which are comical in nature. For a revival of Love for Love on 1 June 1704 he sang “The Misses’ Lamentation for want of their Vizard Masks at the Playhouse” occasioned by Queen Anne’s prohibition of masks. In the spring of 1706, Bowman sang “Down from the towring Rock” and the following comical duet with Pack in Act I of Durfey’s unsuccessful Wonders in the Sun, which they also sang between the acts of The True and Antient History of King Lear in April of the same year. These are Bowman’s last recorded performances of new songs on the London stage. The reasons for the sudden decline of his singing career are unknown, but there are several possible contributing factors. At the end of the 1699-1700 season, Lincoln’s Inn Fields “was in a terrible state” and on the “brink of disaster” due to discipline and 94 morale problems.P P The new troupe had begun as a cooperative, but the company’s chaos in the summer of 1700 obliged the Lord Chamberlain to restore order in June, giving 95 Betterton authority to insist on discipline.P P During the first season after the reorganization, the company mounted no new plays until mid-November, about the time of The Mad Lover. In the following season, it produced only four new plays, so there

93 TP PT Twenty were for Leveridge, ten for Cook, five for Ramondon, and two for Laroon. Baldwin and Wilson, who wrote the introduction for the forthcoming facsimile of The Monthly Mask for Ashgate Publishing, graciously provided this information.

94 TP PT Milhous, Thomas Betterton, 144.

95 TP PT Ibid., 115-16.

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96 were simply fewer opportunities for Bowman to sing during these crises.P P At about this time, according to Downes, “Mr. Betterton to gratify the desires and Fancies of the Nobility and Gentry; procur’d from Abroad the best Dances [sic] and Singers,” indicating that continental stars were beginning to impinge on the musical life of the theater. Still, it is puzzling that in the so-called “Prize Musick” competition in the spring of 1701, in which London’s most prominent composers set Congreve’s libretto The Judgment of Paris, Bowman apparently was not given a major role. The Lincoln’s Inn Fields troupe performed Eccles’s version, but neither of the two male leads (Mercury and Paris) is for baritone or bass. After the company moved into Vanbrugh’s new Haymarket Theater in 1705, Bowman played the enchanter Arcalaus, a non-singing role, in Eccles’s and Corbett’s semi-opera The British Enchanters (1706) and Vain Promise in Wonders in the Sun shortly thereafter. The evidence suggests that Bowman’s abilities as a singer may well have been in decline by 1701, however, so perhaps he could not compete with the new local talent used in the plays and the expensive Italians who were increasingly in demand between the acts. After the 1705-06 season, the Lord Chamberlain ordered a massive reorganization of the theaters, transferring all of Rich’s principal actors to the Haymarket where Bowman worked and restricting that company to spoken drama only. Because the order forbade musical episodes and dancing at the Haymarket, Rich’s troupe thus had a monopoly on operas and other musical entertainment (although they could also stage spoken drama), and he obtained all the significant musicians and singers for his troupe. Interestingly, Congreve and Eccles came to an agreement with Rich to have Semele produced at Drury Lane during the 1706-07 season and not at the Haymarket as some 97 scholars have assumed.P P It is very likely, then, that Leveridge (who worked for Rich) would have performed Jupiter, if Semele had made it to the stage. As one might image, the rearrangement of the theaters caused substantial problems, and to alleviate these, the Lord Chamberlain sent all the actors back to Drury Lane, where he allowed Rich to produce plays only, and all the singers went to the Haymarket, where they could stage only operas. Taking effect on 10 January 1708, this order substantially impacted Bowman’s career, as only one role for this season after the reorganization is recorded, a performance of Sophonisba given for his benefit on 17 July. Evidence suggests that the disruptions in the theater world were affecting him before this, however, as his last recorded role in London before Sophonisba was in June of the previous summer. During the interim, he appears to have tried his luck at the Smock Alley Theater in Dublin, where a John Bowman is recorded in a small role in The Spanish Wives, and he returned to 98 Dublin for the 1708-9 season.P P Elizabeth Bowman disappears from the theatrical record after 1707, and she probably died at this time, as there was an Elizabeth Bowman buried

96 TP PT Ibid., 146.

97 TP PT Price, Music in Restoration Theatre, 123. Price indicates that the article in The Muses Mercury (January 1707), which reports that Semele was ready for rehearsal at Drury Lane, and a document in the Vice Chamberlain’s papers, point to a Drury Lane performance in spite of the fact that Rich was their former rival.

98 TP PT Highfill, et al., Biographical Dictionary of Actors, V.2, 200.

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99 at St Giles on 12 January 1707 and another at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 21 April 1707.P P Bowman’s flight to Dublin may well have been to escape his simultaneous professional and personal crises. When he returned to London for the 1709-10 season, the Italian operas of Handel and Giovanni Bononcini captivated audiences and dominated music theater in London. As I hope this dissertation has shown, Bowman played a vital role in what was one of the most fruitful periods in the history of English musical theater, performing in Purcell’s and Eccles’s most famous works for the stage and creating roles for all the chief playwrights of his day. Tracing his career has shown how remarkably varied his song performances were, from the utterly silly and simple, to rousing and virtuosic, and how equally diverse the characters were who sang them—priests, fiends, fops, and fools.

99 TP PT Ibid., 202.

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APPENDIX A:

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF SONGS PERFORMED BY BOWMAN ON THE LONDON STAGE

1 Solo Song and Duets (+Singer) Play and year of song Character Composer ScoresP P / modern editions performance Come troul it away The Counterfeit Bridegroom Peter Santloe Anon. Lost (1677) When Phillis watcht her harmless sheep Friendship in Fashion (1678) Saunter Anon. Choice Ayres, IV (1683) (DM 3783) Let the Traitors plot on (DM 2005) The Virtuous Wife (1679) Crotchett Farmer Choice Ayres, III (1681) Prepare the rites begin (Z 606/1) Theodosius (1680) Atticus H. Purcell Works, V.21 (1917) Can’st thou, Marina (Z 606/2) “ ” “ ” “ ” “ ” Hark, behold (Z606/4) “ ” “ ” “ ” “ ” The Great Augustus like the glorious sun The Royalist (1682) Broome Blow A New Collection of Songs (1683) (DM 1194) Now the Tories all must droop (DM 2425) “ ” “ ” Anon. A Choice Collection of 180 Loyal Songs, 3rd ed. (1685) O Love, that stronger art than Wine!” (DM The Luckey Chance (1686) Bredwel Blow The Theater of Music, IV (1687) 2501) Thy genius lo (Z604A) (DM 3361) Massacre of Paris (1689) Genius H. Purcell A Collection of Songs…by Purcell and…Eccles (?1696) Orpheus Britannicus (1698) Works, V. 20 (1916) No more sir (Z588/3) (DM 2339) (+Butler) Sir Anthony Love (1690) None “ ” Vinculum Societatis III, (1691) Works, V. 21 (1917)

1 TP PT For songs that were printed in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, I have provided only the earliest printed source, unless later publications are more complete. For additional primary sources, see Day’s and Murrie’s English Song-Books, 1651-1702 (I have provided the DM number for each of Bowman’s songs that are indexed in this work).

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Solo Song and Duets (+Singer) Play and year of song Character Composer Scores / modern editions performance Celia that I once was blest (Z572/9) (DM Amphitryon (1690) None H. Purcell Amphitryon (1690) 515) Works, V.16 (1906) Fair Iris and her Swain (Z572/11) (DM “ ” None “ ” “ ” 936) (+Butler) Let not a moon-born elf (Z628/13) King Arthur (1691) Grimbald “ ” Works, V.26 (rev. 1971) Why my Daphne (Z525) (DM 3936) Unknown play (1691) Unknown “ ” The Banquet of Musick, V (1691) (+Butler) Works, V.22 (1922) Great Jove once made Love like a Bull The Marriage-Hater Match’d Lord Mountfort Banquet of Musick,VI (1692) (DM 1201) (1692) Brainless Of noble Race was Shinking (DM 2579) The Richmond Heiress (1693) Rice ap Anon. Thesaurus Musicus, I (1693) Shinken Should King Lewis The Female Vertuosos (1693) Sir Maggot Anon. Lost Jingle Ancient Phillis has young Graces (DM The Double-Dealer (1693) Lord Froth Bowman Thesaurus Musicus, II (1694) 166) (All music for Jupiter) The Rape of Europa by Jupiter Jupiter J. Eccles Lost (1694) Let the dreadful engines (Z578/3) (DM Don Quixote, Part I (1694) Cardenio H. Purcell The Songs to…Don Quixote 1998) (1694) Works, V.16 (1906) With this sacred charming wand (Z578/4) “ ” Cardenio as “ ” “ ” (DM 4003) Montesmo Hark my Damilcar (Z613/1) (DM 1261) Tyrannick Love (?1694) Nakar “ ” Deliciae Musicae, I (1695) (+Ayliff) Works, V.21 I come with all the speed I may Macbeth (?1694) Hecate J. Eccles Eubanks-Winkler, Music for Macbeth in Recent Researches, V.133 (2004). Fair Belinda’s youthful Charms (DM 931) She Ventures and He Wins Sir Charles “ ” Lbm. Add. MS 29378 (1695) Frankford Cross song sheet (Gresham College, ca. 1700) Deliciae Musicae, I.III (1696)

228

Solo Song and Duets (+Singer) Play and year of song Character Composer Scores / modern editions performance Rich Mines of Hot Love (DM 2810) The Lover’s Luck (1695) Goosandelo J. Eccles Deliciae Musicae, II.I (1696) Hark you Madam, can’t I move you (DM Love’s a Jest (1696) Airy “ ” Deliciae Musicae, II.II (1696) 1271) (+Bracegirdle) My mars, My Venus (DM 2266) The Loves of Mars and Venus Mars “ ” Single Songs and Dialogues (+Bracegirdle) (1697) in…Mars & Venus (1697)

How Sweet, how lovely, when return’d The Loves of Mars and Venus Mars “ ” Single Songs and Dialogues (DM 1463) (+Bracegirdle) (1697) in…Mars & Venus Yield my dear (DM 2247) (+Bracegirdle) “ ” “ ” “ ” “ ” How my Passion is encreas’d “ ” “ ” “ ” Lost Ah, Lovely Nymph (+E. Bowman) The Provok’d Wife (1697) Mr. Treble Anon. Lost The world is full of Hurry The Intrigues at Versailles Count de Anon. Lost (1697) Tonnere At dead of Night The Innocent Mistress (1697) Spendall Anon. OCH MS 363

Arm Brittians Europe’s Revels for the Peace English J. Eccles Lbm Add. MS 29378 (1697) Officer When vill Stella kind and tender (DM Deceiver Deceived (1697) Count Insulls “ ” Lost 3822) (+Bracegirdle) The Riddle of Nature The Pretenders (1698) Vainthroat Anon. Lost Let never dull sorrow “ ” “ ” Anon. Lost Delia tir’d Strephon (DM 835) The Beau Defeated (1700) Sir John J. Eccles Cross song sheet (ca. 1700) Roverhead When first I saw her charming face (DM The Surpriz’d Lovers (Lost, ? “ ” Cross song sheet (ca. 1700) 3728) ca.1700) Wit and Mirth, IV, 2nd ed.(1709) Proud Women I scorn you, brisk Wine’s The Masque of Wine and Love A Gentleman “ ” Mercurius Musicus (March-April, my delight (DM 2441) (+Doggett) (in The Mad Lover, 1700) 1701) but see Eccles, Collection of 2 Songs (1704)P P

2 TP PT Mercurius Musicus omits a portion of the dialogue.

229

Solo Song and Duets (+Singer) Play and year of song Character Composer Scores / modern editions performance (All music for Polyphemus) Acis and Galatea (in The Mad Polyphemus “ ” Lost Lover) The Misses’ Lamentation for want of their Love for Love (1704) None Anon. Lost Vizard Masks in the Play-house Down from the towring Rock Wonders in the Sun (1706) Vain Promise Anon. Songs in…Wonders in the sun (1706) 3 Great, Noble, Gracious, Brave (+Pack)P P “ ” “ ” “ ” Lost

3 TP PT This dialogue was advertised as entr’acte entertainment on 30 April 1706: “Comical Songs and Dialogues from Wonders in the Sun, particularly a Song by Mrs Willis representing one of Queen Elizabeth’s Dames of Honour; and a Comical Dialogue perform’d by Pack and Bowman, representing a vain promising Courtier and a Sycophant…,” London Stage, Part II, V.I, 124.

230

APPENDIX B:

SONGS PERFORMED FOR THE DUKE’S COMPANY

231

When Phillis watcht her harmless Sheep Choice Ayres, IV (1683)

232

233

Let the Traytors Plot on Choice Ayres, III (1681)

234

235

The Great Augustus like the glorious sun A New Collection of Songs (1683)

236

237

238

APPENDIX C:

SONGS PERFORMED FOR THE UNITED COMPANY

239

O Love, that stronger art than Wine! The Theater of Music, IV (1687)

240

241

242

243

Great Jove once made Love like a Bull Banquet of Musick, VI (1692)

244

245

APPENDIX D:

SONGS PERFORMED AT LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS

246

Hark you Madam, can’t I move you Deliciae Musicae, II.II (1696)

247

248

249

250

251

252

253

254

How Sweet, how lovely, when return’d Single Songs and Dialogues in…Mars & Venus (1697)

255

256

257

Yield My dear Single Songs and Dialogues in…Mars & Venus (1697)

258

259

260

261

Arm Brittians Lbm. Add. MS 29378

262

263

264

265

266

267

268

269

270

271

272

273

274

275

276

277

278

279

280

281

282

Delia tir’d Strephon Cross song sheet (ca. 1700)

283

284

285

Proud Women I scorn you, brisk Wine’s my delight Eccles’s Collection of Songs (1704)

286

287

288

289

290

291

292

293

294

295

296

297

298

299

300

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Born in 1975 in Little Rock, Arkansas, Matthew A. Roberson attended Harding University from 1993 to 1997, graduating summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in music. In 1998, he matriculated at Florida State University, after receiving a research assistantship, and in the summer of 2000, he graduated with the Master of Music in musicology. The following fall semester he entered Florida State University’s Ph.D. program in musicology. As a doctoral student, Roberson performed the role of Jupiter in John Eccles’s Semele under the direction of Anthony Rooley in 2003, and the following year Regis Records issued the “World Premiere Recording” of Semele with Roberson as Jupiter. In the summer of 2003, Roberson became the first graduate music student to teach at Florida State University’s study-abroad program in London, a position that allowed him to conduct a portion of his dissertation research at the British Library. The following fall, Roberson became Assistant Professor of Humanities at Tallahassee Community College. In the spring of 2005, Roberson played a significant role in the organization of the first international conference centering on John Eccles and his contemporaries. His article, “The ‘Prize Musick’ of 1701: A Reinvestigation of the Staging Issue” will appear in Ashgate’s forthcoming Stages “Adorn’d with ev’ry Grace”: Music, Dance, & Drama in London at the beginning of the long eighteenth century. Currently, Professor Roberson teaches at Faulkner University and lives in Montgomery, Alabama, with his wife, Shea Lea, and their three children, Braeden, Brooklynn, and Barrett.

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