1. CHAPTER I.
A comparison between the world and the stage
The world hath often compared to the theatre; and many grave
writers, as well as the poets, have considered human life as a great
drama, resembling, in almost every particular, those scenical
representations which Thespis is first reported to have invented,
and which have been since received with so much approbation and
delight in all polite countries.
This thought hath been carried so far, and is become so general,
that some words proper to the theatre, and which were at first
metaphorically applied to the world, are now indiscriminately and
literally spoken of both; thus stage and scene are by common use grown
as familiar to us, when we speak of life in general as, when we
confine ourselves to dramatic performances: and when transactions
behind the curtain are mentioned, St. James's is more likely to
occur to our thoughts than Drurylane.
It may seem easy enough to account for all this, by reflecting
that the theatrical stage is nothing more than a representation, or,
as Aristotle calls it, an imitation of what really exists; and
hence, perhaps, we might fairly pay a very high compliment to those
who by their writings or actions have been so capable of imitating
life, as to have their pictures in a manner confounded with, or
mistaken for, the originals.
But, in reality, we are not so fond of paying compliments to these
people, whom we use as children frequently do the instruments of their
amusement; and have much more pleasure in hissing and buffeting
them, than in admiring their excellence. There are many other
reasons which have induced us to see this analogy between the world
and the stage.
Some have considered the larger part of mankind in the light of
actors, as personating characters no more their own, and to which in
fact they have no better title, than the player hath to be in
earnest thought the king or emperor whom he represents. Thus the
hypocrite may be said to be a player; and indeed the Greeks called
them both by one and the same name.
The brevity of life hath likewise given occasion to this comparison.
So the immortal Shakespeare-
----Life's a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
For which hackneyed quotation I will make the reader amends by a
very noble one, which few, I believe, have read. It is taken from a
poem called the Deity, published about nine years ago, and long
since buried in oblivion; a proof that good books, no more than good
men, do always survive the bad.
From Thee
[7]all human actions take their springs,
The rise of empires and the fall of kings!
See the vast Theatre of Time display'd,
While o'er the scene succeeding heroes tread!
With pomp the shining images succeed,
What leaders triumph, and what monarchs bleed!
Perform the party thy providence assign'd,
Their pride, their passions, to thy ends inclin'd:
Awhile they glitter in the face of day,
Then at thy nod the phantoms pass away;
No traces left of all the busy scene,
But that remembrance says-
The things have been!
In all these, however, and in every other similitude of life to
the theatre, the resemblance hath been always taken from the stage
only. None, as I remember, have at all considered the audience at this
great drama.
But as Nature often exhibits some of her best performances to a very
full house, so will the behaviour of her spectators no less admit
the above-mentioned comparison than that of her actors. In this vast
theatre of time are seated the friend and the critic; here are claps
and shouts, hisses and groans; in short, everything which was ever
seen or heard at the Theatre-Royal.
Let us examine this in one example; for instance, in the behaviour
of the great audience on that scene which Nature was pleased to
exhibit in the twelfth chapter of the preceding book, where she
introduced Black George running away with the £500 from his friend and
benefactor.
Those who sat in the world's upper gallery treated that incident,
I am well convinced, with their usual vociferation; and every term
of scurrilous reproach was most probably vented on that occasion.
If we had descended to the next order of spectators, we should
have found an equal degree of abhorrence, though less of noise and
scurrility; yet here the good women gave Black George to the devil,
and many of them expected every minute that the cloven-footed
gentleman would fetch his own.
The pit, as usual, was no doubt divided; those who delight in heroic
virtue and perfect character objected to the producing such
instances of villany, without punishing them very severely for the
sake of example. Some of the author's friends cryed, "Look'e,
gentlemen, the man is a villain, but it is nature for all that." And
all the young critics of the age, the clerks, apprentices, etc., called
it low, and fell a groaning.
As for the boxes, they behaved with their accustomed politeness.
Most of them were attending to something else. Some of those few who
regarded the scene at all, declared he was a bad kind of man; while
others refused to give their opinion, till they had heard that of
the best judges.
Now we, who are admitted behind the scenes of this great theatre
of Nature (and no author ought to write anything besides
dictionaries and spelling-books who hath not this privilege), can
censure the action, without conceiving any absolute detestation of the
person, whom perhaps Nature may not have designed to act an ill part
in all her dramas; for in this instance life most exactly resembles
the stage, since it is often the same person who represents the
villain and the heroe; and he who engages your admiration to-day
will probably attract your contempt tomorrow. As Garrick, whom I
regard in tragedy to be the greatest genius the world hath ever
produced, sometimes condescends to play the fool; so did Scipio the
Great, and Laelius the Wise, according to Horace, many years ago; nay,
Cicero reports them to have been "incredibly childish." These, it is
true, played the fool, like my friend Garrick, in jest only; but
several eminent characters have, in numberless instances of their
lives, played the fool egregiously in earnest; so far as to render
it a matter of some doubt whether their wisdom or folly was
predominant; or whether they were better intitled to the applause or
censure, the admiration or contempt, the love or hatred, of mankind.
Those persons, indeed, who have passed any time behind the scenes of
this great theatre, and are thoroughly acquainted not only with the
several disguises which are there put on, but also with the
fantastic and capricious behaviour of the Passions, who are the
managers and directors of this theatre (for as to Reason, the
patentee, he is known to be a very idle fellow and seldom to exert
himself), may most probably have learned to understand the famous
nil admirari of Horace, or in the English phrase, to stare at nothing.
A single bad act no more constitutes a villain in life, than a
single bad part on the stage. The passions, like the managers of a
playhouse, often force men upon parts without consulting their
judgment, and sometimes without any regard to their talents. Thus
the man, as well as the player, may condemn what he himself acts; nay,
it is common to see vice sit as awkwardly on some men, as the
character of Iago would on the honest face of Mr. William Mills.
Upon the whole, then, the man of candour and of true understanding
is never hasty to condemn. He can censure an imperfection, or even a
vice, without rage against the guilty party. In a word, they are the
same folly, the same childishness, the same ill-breeding, and the same
ill-nature, which raise all the clamours and uproars both in life
and on the stage. The worst of men generally have the words rogue
and villain most in their mouths, as the lowest of all wretches are
the aptest to cry out low in the pit.