University of Virginia Library

Two Scenes by Addison in Steele's Tender Husband
by
Shirley Strum Kenny

By late March or early April, 1705,[1] Captain Richard Steele, well-known for his sober treatise The Christian Hero and two comedies, The Funeral and The Lying Lover, finished his third play, The City Nymph; or, The Accomplish'd Fools. It opened at the Drury Lane on 23 April 1705 with a new title, The Tender Husband; or, The Accomplish'd Fools, and it was published 9 May.

On 6 December 1712, in the Spectator, No. 555, Steele, now a powerful literary figure, wrote:

Since Steele's acknowledgement of his debt to Addison, the first instance of collaboration in the most famous of English literary partnerships, critics have not ceased to speculate about which strokes may be attributed to Addison. Thomas Tickell, in the Preface to Addison's Works in 1721, enlarged upon Steele's statement, asserting that Steele "owed some of the most taking scenes of it to Mr. Addison." Later critics have varied their estimates from "a number of corrections and suggestions"[2] to entire subplots, basing their conclusions usually on style, characterization, parallels to other works of Addison, or on their own literary prejudices and preferences.

Despite the amount of speculation on the subject, no one has ever attempted to distinguish Addison's work from Steele's through bibliographical techniques. An examination of the physical evidence of the first edition, however, gives strong cause for assigning parts of Act III, Scene i, and Act V, Scene i, to Addison. This paper will attempt to prove that these two sections of the play are his, indicate the exact extent of his work in each scene, show that his additions were written very shortly before the play opened, and give reasons for believing other specific scenes of the play to be Steele's.

Briefly stated, evidence for believing III.i and V.i are Addison's includes (1) compositorial variations in speech prefixes, derived from the underlying manuscripts; (2) discrepancies in details, resulting from Addison's unfamiliarity with the play; and (3) the late change of title to suit the new emphasis his scenes gave the play.

The first edition of The Tender Husband was a quarto printed for Tonson in 1705:

It has the collational formula π2 A-I4.

Sig. D3r appears in two settings, which may be distinguished by the following characteristics:

                   

		State A	State B
l.	1	Ladies	Ladies,
l.	4	those who	those, who
l.	8-9	Pa- |ladin.	Pala- |din.
l.	12	Hu.	Au.
l.	12	Niece,	Neice,
l.	15	Opportunities	opportunities
l.	25	Grey-Goose,	Grey-Goose,,
l.	31	me)	me.)
l.	35	Cleri	Cler.

There are two states of gathering H, pages 50, 51, and 54 incorrectly numbered 58, 59, and 62 in the first state.

Examination of this edition shows that two compositors worked on the manuscript, Compositor A setting gatherings B-E and Compositor B setting F-I. No definite assignment of preliminary gatherings π and A can be made.[3] Compositor B's half of the play begins approximately halfway

through III.i at the line "C. Cl. I'll shew you, Madam," (see quoted passage below). The pages set by Compositor A are, as a rule, several lines longer than those set by Compositor B. Also there are other consistent differences in the work of the two compositors:              

Compositor A	Compositor B
Neice [two exceptions]	Niece [one exception]
Mrs., Mr., Sir [in speech prefixes]	Mrs., Mr., Sir
[Large type for act headings]	[Small type]
(The) End of the --- Act	[Omitted]
[Long dashes]	[Short dashes]
[Stage directions usually enclosed in parentheses, not square brackets]	[Square brackets always used]

Each compositor was reasonably consistent in the names and abbreviations used for speech prefixes. Compositor A used "Cle. S.," "Cl. S.," or once "Cler." as abbreviations for Clerimont Senior. Compositor B consistently used "Cler.," once abbreviating to "Cl." But in two scenes, one set by Compositor A and one by Compositor B, the same character is given the speech prefix "Mr. Clerimont."[4]

The compositors cannot be held responsible for the change. Compositor A introduces "Mr." after having throughly established his system of speech prefixes and uses it only for one short appearance of the character. Compositor B sets "Cler." on Sigs. G4v-H1v and uses "Clerimont" in the stage direction in the first line of H2r before abruptly changing to "Mr. Cl." for every speech prefix on Sigs. H2r-3r. His procedure, whether it was seriatim setting or setting by formes, cannot account for the new speech prefix. Therefore, "Mr." must have been present in the printer's copy in these two passages.

But Steele did not put it there. One can reasonably assume he began writing "Clerimont Senior" and perhaps abbreviated to "Cler." as he proceeded, distinguishing this character from his younger brother by always using "Captain Clerimont" or "Captain" for the latter. It is entirely improbable that in only two of Clerimont Senior's three scenes with his wife the author would have capriciously substituted "Mr. Clerimont." Certainly he would not have written "Clerimont Senior" for the first half of V.i and then suddenly switched to "Mr. Clerimont" for the second half. Nor would a transcriber, had there been one, have introduced it, particularly in the middle of a scene. The source is obvious — a second manuscript in a second hand included with Steele's as printer's copy — the manuscript of Addison.

Discrepancies in names and details of plot further separate these two scenes from the rest of the play. In the climactic scene of the play, V.i, for example, one character, Lucy Ragou, alias Fainlove, is called by the name

of another, the maid Jenny. The error occurs when Clerimont Senior and his mistress Fainlove, working together, have trapped Mrs. Clerimont in a compromising position. Clerimont Senior say to Fainlove, "Well, Jenny, you topp'd your part, indeed —." When Mrs. Clerimont rushes vindictively at her rival, he cries, "Run, run Jenny," and accordingly "Jenny" exits. It is possible that the man who wrote "Lucy" in the first act and showed Mrs. Clerimont with her maid Jenny in the third might call one character by the other's name in the fifth, but calling her by the wrong name three times seems unusually absent-minded. It is far more likely that Addison made the error. Compositor B, working from Addison's manuscript and having set no copy involving either Jenny or Lucy, followed copy and innocently retained the error.

An error in plot and the unnecessary repetition of a line occur in Addison's part of III.i. First, Fainlove introduces Humphry Gubbin to Mrs. Clerimont; very soon after this introduction — only forty-nine printed lines later — in the part of the scene written by Addison, Mrs. Clerimont tells the Captain that his brother (i.e. Clerimont Senior) brought Humphry. The error is even more striking since the Captain was present when the introduction took place and needs no explanation whatever. Clearly one dramatist did not write the entire scene. Further, in the same scene, Mrs. Clerimont first tells the Captain, "Oh! Capt. Clerimont, I have a Quarrel with you," and sixteen lines later repeats, "But Capt. I have a quarrel to you." The repetition serves no dramatic purpose. The simplest explanation for it is that Addison reintroduced Steele's line at a more appropriate point in the scene, but neither man remembered to remove Steele's original line.

The play was offered to Christopher Rich at the Drury Lane, about a month before it was first performed, as The City Nymph, the title referring to Biddy Tipkin, whose romance with the Captain forms a second plot line. It was advertised under this title as late as 21 April 1705, two days before its opening: "And on Monday next being the 23d of April, will be presented a new Comedy never acted before, call'd, The City Nymph; Or, The Accomplish'd Fools."[5] Not until the day of performance was the title changed in the advertisement to The Tender Husband.

The last-minute revision of the play's title must have caused some confusion, unnecessary trouble, and perhaps expense as far as advertisement and playbills were concerned. Neither Steele nor Rich, certainly, would have changed it without good reason. Intrinsically, the new title had little to offer. Only a shift of emphasis from one plot line to another can satisfactorily explain the late change. Addison's new scenes, which emphasized Clerimont Senior's reformation of his wife, effected this shift.

Further, the lateness of the change of title indicates the lateness of Addison's revisions of the play. Approximately a month had passed since

Steele had brought his play to Rich; the actors had rehearsed and were ready to perform before the new title was published. Addison's scenes, then, must have been added well after the body of the play was completed. There can be little wonder that details in his manuscript were never closely checked for consistency. Corrections were made in the theatrical copy, assuredly, but the foul papers were never similarly treated.

The two authors' papers must have gone to the printer sometime after the theatrical copy was made from them despite the fact that they remained uncorrected. Consequently the discrepancies discussed above, as well as others, appeared in the printed text. An example of the carelessness with which the printer's copy was prepared is the treatment of Steele's song celebrating the Battle of Blehheim. The song itself was excised from Act IV, since it was not sung in performance, and was printed instead in the prelims. However, lines at the end of Act II referring to it remained in the printer's copy although they no longer were appropriate to the action of the play:

Carelessness in preparation of printer's copy was not unusual at the time; certainly it was not unusual for Steele. Corrections such as the change of the name "Jenny" in V.i to "Lucy" were probably made in the prompt copy without his knowledge; at any rate, they never reached the print shop. Instead the errors were printed, and reprinted in every subsequent edition.

The point at which Addison began writing in V.i is obvious. The scene opens with Clerimont Senior and Fainlove discussing their plot against Mrs. Clerimont. Clerimont Senior hides, and his wife falls into their trap. Compositor B, as usual, uses the speech prefix "Cler." and uses "Clerimont" in stage directions until the point at which Clerimont Senior rises from his hiding place to confront Mrs. Clerimont with her perfidy. From that exact point, in the middle of the scene, the speech prefixes are consistently "Mr. Cl." Within this last part of the scene is the "Jenny" error. Addison's three pages extend from Clerimont Senior's "discovery" of his wife to his forgiving her; within the scene is an extraordinary amount of old-fashioned stage swordplay. Even without bibliographical evidence to the contrary, Steele's authorship of such a scene would have been surprising, because he detested duelling — the previous year he had ruined The Lying Lover by his zeal in preaching against it, and some years later he claimed he wrote The Conscious Lovers for the sake of the scene in which Bevil Junior evades a duel with his friend Myrtle.

The limits of Addison's contribution in III.i are not as obvious. The scene opens on Mrs. Clerimont, Fainlove, and the maid Jenny. The first three pages exploit Mrs. Clerimont's French affectations, as described by her husband in I.i. Her spinet-master arrives with a song, and, in a manner characteristic of Steele, the song is read, then performed twice. The scene continues:

The bulk of evidence supports the theory that Steele wrote the first part of this scene, and Addison began writing at the point at which Clerimont Senior is introduced (1. 16) or arrives (l. 22)[6] and continued writing through line 55. This short passage includes all Compositor A's prefixes reading "Mr. Cl.," the repetition of the line about Mrs. Clerimont's quarrel with the Captain (ll. 30-31), and the misinformation about Clerimont Senior introducing Humphry (ll. 53-54).

If Addison did indeed write this passage, he did not display the least familiarity with any of Steele's manuscript beyond the few lines preceding his work. In fact, one must assume he was not familiar with Humphry's introduction (ll. 8-9), which preceded his work by only six lines, or with the passage in I.ii in which Fainlove offers to introduce him to Mrs. Clerimont. Further, he did not realize that Clerimont Senior had never even met Humphry at this point in the play. If Addison was familiar with the fact that Fainlove had introduced Humphry, he must have believed that the Captain was the brother of Fainlove rather than of Clerimont Senior. Indeed, he had written all of Clerimont Senior's lines in this scene

and should have realized that this character did not introduce Humphry. Addison's misconception about the Captain would explain two curious things: the factually inaccurate line about the introduction, and Mrs. Clerimont's coquetry with the Captain, who, as Fainlove's brother, might have been another of her sparks. Whichever error Addison made, he clearly did not remember the introduction itself as he wrote his lines, or he would never have claimed that the Captain's brother left Humphry "to be diverted here till he calls for him." Addison wrote no lines for Fainlove in this scene; he may not have realized she was on stage. Therefore, this inaccurate line (ll. 53-54) could have referred, in his mind, to her as well as to Clerimont Senior, who had actually left the stage.

There is a sharp contrast between the complete ignorance of preceding scenes which is demonstrated in this short passage and the keen awareness obvious in the lines immediately following. For example, two references to action in I.ii, the scene totally unknown to Addison, occur within the next seven lines. First, in the three lines following Addison's passage Humphry complains as he dances that his money jingles confoundedly and says he will never carry more than one pocketful again. This money was given to him by Pounce, Fainlove's actual brother, in I.ii, and distributed, a few coins in each pocket, for safekeeping. Second, mention of Humphry's marrying Fainlove's sister, i.e. Fainlove out of her male disguise, first occurs in I.ii, and this romance is pursued in the latter part of III.i. Steele, then, must have written these lines.

Only one evidence of familiarity with previous scenes occurs in Addison's portion of III.i, and Steele was doubtless responsible for it too. One stage direction, interpolated in one of Mrs. Clerimont's speeches, reads "Here Fain. looking thro' a Perspective, bows to Cler. Senior." Fainlove had mentioned perspectives to Clerimont Senior in I.i as one affectation of pert young fellows of the kind she impersonates. Her display of one here, as she bows to him, is a secret greeting.

Steele's authorship of the stage direction, indicated by the knowing reference to the line about perspectives in I.i, is proved by the use of "Clerimont Senior" in Addison's scene. Since Addison wrote his passages late, this stage direction must have been written even later. In fact, the printing schedule suggests that Steele may have added it in the print shop. He entered the print shop late during printing, after I(i) was printed but before A(o) was on the press. At this time he corrected, in an erratum on A4v, the penultimate line of the play, printed on I3v, changing it from "Children and Wives obey whom they revere," to "Wives to Obey must Love, Children revere." If E(o) was, like A(o), printed late, he very possibly inserted the stage direction on E4v at the same time as the erratum. The factual error about Humphry's introduction, on the other hand, had been printed on F1 earlier in the run and was probably never even copyread by Steele.

If Addison's contributions extended beyond III.i, V.i, and the prologue which bears his byline, they cannot be readily detected or conclusively proved. Of course, the fact that Addison wrote parts of two scenes does not preclude the possibility that he also made other corrections and additions, although it weakens the probability that he wrote other major portions. Further examination of the text of the first edition, however, rules out the possibility that he wrote a number of the remaining scenes or corrected them. He did not, first of all, carefully correct Steele's manuscript. If he had, at least some of the numerous inaccuracies and undeveloped strands of plot would have been corrected or deleted; further, Addison would not have made so many factual errors in his own scenes. Addison's errors also rule out the possibility of his having written — or even carefully read — I.i, I.ii, and the early part of III.i, the scenes containing information about Humphry's introduction to Mrs. Clerimont, Lucy's name, and Jenny's identity. Further, those scenes in which the speech prefix "Clerimont Senior" or "Clerimont" occurs — I.i, the first part of III.i, and V.ii — are demonstrably not his.

Steele wrote at least most and probably all of the scenes of Biddy's romance (I.i, III.i, IV.i, and IV.ii). Originally this was his main plot, for which the play was titled before Addison's scenes changed the emphasis. The plot is introduced in I.i, which is Steele's, as has been shown above. The printing scene, IV.ii, is freely adapted from Molière's Le Sicilien, a task for which Steele would not need his friend's help. Further, the consistency in speech prefixes referring to Biddy is a strong argument for a single author for her scenes. In the playbills of the time and in all contemporary references, this character is called "Biddy." Yet in the printed version of the play, her speech prefixes are without exception "Niece."[7] Had Addison added to these scenes, writing after the play was in rehearsal, one might certainly have expected to read "Biddy" for speech prefixes, since the character must have been known in the theatre by that name, as the playbills indicate. If the use of "Niece" is peculiar to Steele, we may add to his scenes III.ii, in which Biddy and Humphry meet and discuss their aversion to marrying each other as their guardians have planned.

The humorous scenes between Sir Harry Gubbin and Tipkin, I.ii and V.ii, have often been attributed to Addison on grounds such as the "heightened humour" of the scenes[8] and Sir Harry's similarities to Addison's Tory Foxhunter in The Free-holder eleven years later.[9] The Tory Foxhunter may be modelled on Sir Harry, but this is no proof of authorship of the original; indeed, Fielding's Squire Western more closely resembles Sir Harry. In V.ii, the scene in which Sir Harry and Tipkin haggle over the

marriage settlement, there is a close imitation of a passage in another of Molière's plays, L'Avare.[10] These two scenes are yoked in content to I.i and V.ii, both written by Steele, and they contain his stylistic idiosyncrasies such as the frequent use of parentheses within speeches.

From the evidence cited above, several conclusions may be drawn about this first collaboration between Addison and Steele: First, Addison rather than Steele is responsible for the serious marital plot and the conventional sword-drawing. Addison's scenes were added late, shortly before the play opened, and were never carefully integrated with those parts of the play written earlier by Steele. His papers went with Steele's to the print shop, and the inaccuracies and inconsistencies resulting from the mixed printer's copy were not corrected by Steele in later editions.

Notes