CHAPTER VIII. I. THE stage, too, had taken notice of the change. We have seen how artificial was Addison's "Cato," yet it set a literary fashion. If even Addison, whose taste was so much above that of his contemporaries, could write that cold tragedy, need we wonder that Thomson, who drew inspirations for his poems from Milton and Spenser, should have written a severely classical tragedy? One line of it ran, "Oh! Sophonisba; Sophonisba, oh!" which some one in the pit turned to ridicule by shouting out, "Oh! Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, oh!" and which Fielding again laughed at in his "Tragedy of Tragedies; or, the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great" (1730-31), in the line, "Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!" This burlesque of Fielding's is not unamusing. It is prefaced with a long essay, with mock references to Aristotle and Horace, and there are notes containing extracts from the tragedians who are most frequently parodied, and caricatures of the pompous critics. Thus, "Act i. sc. i., the Palace; Doodle, Noodle: "Doodle. Sure such a day as this was never seen! "NOTE.-Corneille recommends some very remarkable day wherein to fix the action of a tragedy. This the best of our tragical writers have understood to mean a day remarkable for the serenity of the sky, or what we generally call a fine summer's day: so that, according to this exposition, the same months are proper for tragedy which are proper for pastoral. Most of our celebrated English tragedies, as Cato, Mariamne, Tamerlane, etc., begin with these observations on the morning. Lee seems to have come the nearest to this beautiful description of our author's." And then he quotes from Lee's tragedies some of his passages of this sort : "The sun, too, seems As conscious of my joy, with broader eye To look abroad the world, and all things smile Like Sophonisba." Noodle replies : "This day, O Mr. Doodle, is a day, Indeed! A day we never saw before, The mighty Thomas Thumb victorious comes; "NOTE. Dr. B-y reads, The mighty Tall-mast Thumb. Mr. D-s, The mighty Thumbing Thumb. Mr. T-d reads, Thundering. I think Thomas more agreeable to the great simplicity so apparent in our author." SCENE II. "King. Let nothing but a face of joy appear; And in a note on this last line we find : "Repentance frowns on thy contracted brow."-Soph. "Hung on his clouded brow, I mark'd despair."-Ibid. "A sullen gloom Scowls on his brow."-Busiris. Here again is a parody of a sufficiently common fault of the tragedians. The ghost of Tom Thumb's father appears to King Arthur, and says: "Oh! then prepare to hear-what but to hear Thy subjects up in arms, by Grizzle led, So have I seen the leaves in autumn fall, So have I seen the fruits in summer smile, So have I seen the snow in winter frown. "King. Damn all thou hast seen! Dost thou beneath the shape Of Gaffer Thumb, come hither to abuse me With similes, to keep me on the rack? "Ghost. Arthur, beware! I must this moment hence, To-morrow all thy care will come too late." And when Noodle comes to announce that Tom Thumb has been swallowed by "a cow, of larger than the usual size," he enters the scene with these words: "Oh! monstrous, dreadful, terrible, oh! oh! Howl, wolves; grunt, bears; hiss, snakes; shriek all ye ghosts! "NOTE. These beautiful phrases are all to be found in one single speech of King Arthur, or the British Worthy. "Chrononhotonthologos," produced in 1734, is another mock tragedy, by Henry Carey, author of "Sally in Our Alley." This "most Tragical Tragedy that ever was Tragedized by any Company of Tragedians" begins in an antechamber of the palace, where Rigdum Funidos learns that the King is asleep. The King, on awakening, threatens to banish Somnus from his dominions. There is to be eternal pantomime to keep mankind from sleep. In the midst of the pantomime a guard cries : "To arms! to arms! great Chrononhotonthologos! The world is too incopious to contain 'em." Chrononhotonthologos takes the King of the Antipodes, who walks with his head where his feet should be. The King is invited to take some wine in the tent of his general, Bombardinion; he assents, and expresses a desire for something to eat. Bombardinion to the cook: "See that the table constantly be spread With all that Art and Nature can produce. The king shall eat tho' all mankind be starved." A quarrel arises. The King kills the cook and strikes his general: "Bombardinion. A blow! Shall Bombardinion take a blow? For Bombardinion has received a blow, And Chrononhotonthologos shall die." And he kills him. A physician is brought, who says: "My lord, he's far beyond the power of physic; His soul has left his body and this world. "Bombardinion. Then go to 'tother world and fetch it back. And if I find thou triflest with me there, I'll chase thy shade thro' myriads of orbs, And drive thee far beyond the verge of nature, [Kills him. Ha! call'st thou, Chrononhotonthologos? [Kills himself. These two pieces were the destructive part of the new feeling, and this found further expression in George Lillo's (1693-1739) tragedy, "The London Merchant, or the History of George Barnwell," which was brought out in 1731, ten years before Richardson's "Pamela" was published. It marks in the history of the stage the same change which Richardson introduced into the novel. Yet the comparison must not be carried too far; they agree in the most devoted respect for morality, but in art poor Lillo is the merest bungler, and by the side of Richardson he makes but a poor show. The play itself was what the Germans call epoch-making; first, because it was written in prose, and secondly, because of the plot, which was taken from an old ballad,* that "of 'George Barnwell,' an apprentice of London, who thrice robbed his master, and murdered his uncle in Lud.low," thus bringing a citizen on the stage as hero. The plot is, briefly, the story of the young apprentice, who gets into bad company, and to stealing money, and murder, so that the last scene is the place of execution, "The gallows and ladders at the further end of the stage." To us this seems a sufficiently common plot, yet, at the time it * " A Yorkshire Tragedy" (1608) is sometimes mentioned as an early play with the modern spirit, but it must be remembered that it was written long before the heroic drama existed. Not even in France were there rules at that time. It was a dramatization of a story told in a ballad. John Home's "Douglas" (1756) was founded on the ballad of "Gil Morrice." The play keeps close to the unities. Of Lillo's other plays, "Fatal Curiosity" (1737) observes the unities; "Arden of Feversham" does not. |