Part 4 (1/2)
[5] _Voyage to Lisbon_.
CHAPTER IV
POLITICAL PLAYS
”Whoever attempteth to introduce corruption into any community, doth much the same thing, and ought to be treated in much the same manner with him who poisoneth a fountain.”
--Dedication of the _Historical Register_.
A prolonged retirement into Dorsets.h.i.+re, however pleasant were the banks of Stour with a beautiful young wife, and a sufficient estate, could scarce be expected of Fielding's restless genius. He was now thirty-five; his splendid physique was as yet unimpaired by the gout that was so soon to attack him; his powers were still hardly revealed; and, as far as we can discover, he was, at the moment, under no pressure for money. Still, the hunting choruses of the Squire Westerns of Dorsets.h.i.+re can hardly have long sufficed for one whom Lyttelton declared to have had ”more wit than any man I ever knew”; and the social and political conditions of the country were increasingly calculated to inflame into practical activity that ”enthusiasm for righteousness,” which Mr Gosse has so well detected in Fielding. [1] The distracted state of the London stage, divided by the factions of players and managers, afforded moreover an excellent opportunity for a dramatist of some means to essay an independent venture.
And accordingly, at the beginning of 1736, we find the Harry Fielding of the green-room and the poet's garret, the Henry Fielding Esqre of East Stour, suddenly throwing the full force of his energies into political life, as the manager of, and writer for, a theatre with indisputable political aims. For the next eight years of his short life Fielding was largely occupied in the lively turmoil of eighteenth-century politics; and here, first by means of the stage, and later as journalist, he played a part which has perhaps been somewhat unduly overshadowed by the surpa.s.sing achievements of his genius as father of the English novel. But if we would perceive the full figure of the man this time of boisterous political warfare is of no mean account. In the dedication of his first party play, the amazingly successful _Pasquin_, Fielding subscribes himself as ”the most devoted Servant of the public”; and no more appropriate keyword could be found for the energies which he threw into those envenomed political struggles of 1736-41.
At the date of his first plunge into these struggles England stood sorely in need of a pen as biting, as witty and as fearless, as that of Henry Fielding. For over ten years the country had been ruled by one of those ”peace at any price” Ministers who have at times so successfully inflamed the baser commercial instincts of Englishmen. Sir Robert Walpole, the reputed organiser of an unrivalled system of bribery and corruption, the Minister of whom a recent apologist frankly declares that to young members of Parliament who spoke of public virtue and patriotism he would reply ”you will soon come off that and grow wiser,” the autocrat enamoured of power who could brook no colleague within measurable distance, the man of coa.r.s.e habits and illiterate tastes, above all the man who induced his countrymen to place money before honour, and whose administration even an admirer describes as one of unparalleled stagnation--such a man must have roused intense antagonism in Fielding's generous and ardent nature. For, from the days of his first boyish satires to the last energetic acts of his life as a London magistrate, for Fielding to see an abuse was to set about reforming it. To his just sense of the true worth of money, the wholesale corruption of English political life accredited to Walpole, the poisoning, to adopt his own simile, of the body politic, must have seemed the vilest national crime. There could never have been the least sympathy between the mercenary and apathetic methods of Walpole and the open-hearted genius of Fielding. And, added to such fundamental opposition of character, the influence of Fielding's old school friend, George Lyttelton, would, at this juncture especially, draw him into the active ranks of the Opposition.
Lyttelton was then rising into celebrity as a ready parliamentary speaker; a celebrity as yet not wholly eclipsed by the youthful oratory of William Pitt, the young cornet of the horse, who also had lately taken his seat on the Opposition benches. It was the burning patriotism, the lofty character and the towering genius of Pitt, the fluency and personal integrity of Lyttelton, that led the younger members of the Opposition in the House of Commons; while in the Lords another friend from whom Fielding was to receive ”princely benefactions,” the young Duke of Bedford, a man of ”inflexible honesty and goodwill to his country,” attacked Walpole's alleged corrupt practices in the election of Scottish peers. With leaders such as William Pitt and Lyttelton on the one hand, and the corrupt figure of Walpole on the other, there is no wonder that Fielding flung all his generous force into the effort to free England from so degrading a domination. Accordingly, in 1736, when the young Pitt's impa.s.sioned eloquence was soon to alarm the _Great Man_--”we must muzzle that terrible Cornet of the Horse,” Sir Robert said--and when fierce and riotous hostility to the government had broken out in the country over an attempted Excise Bill, Fielding appears as a frankly political manager of the ”New Theatre” in the Haymarket. This small theatre stood precisely adjoining the present Palladian structure, as may be seen from a print of 1820, showing the demolition of the old building and the adjacent facade of the modern ”Haymarket.” According to Tom Davies, who, as an actor in Fielding's company and as an author of some pretensions should be reliable, Fielding was a managing partner of this ”New Theatre,” in company with James Ralph, ”about the year 1735.” [2] And apparently early in 1736 [3] his political, theatrical, and social satire of _Pasquin_ appeared on the little stage, and immediately captured the town.
In _Pasquin_ a perfectly outspoken attack on Walpole's corrupt methods is united with a comprehensive onslaught on abuses in the stage, law, divinity, physic, society, and on the odes of Colley Cibber, sufficient one might suppose to satisfy even Fielding's zeal. In an exuberant newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nt of the 5th of March Mr Pasquin is announced as intending to ”lay about him with great impartiality,” and throughout the play Fielding's splendid figure may be felt, swinging his satiric club with a boisterous enjoyment. The immediate success achieved by the piece was certainly not due to any great dramatic excellence; and that so loosely knit a medley as _PASQUIN, a Dramatic Satire on the Times: Being the Rehearsal of Two Plays, viz. A Comedy call'd THE ELECTION and a Tragedy, call'd The Life and Death of COMMON-SENSE_ should have achieved almost as long a run as the _Beggars Opera_, shows that the public heartily sympathised with the satirist. _Pasquin_ begins with the rehearsal of a comedy, called _The Election_, consisting of a series of broadly humorous scenes in which the open and diverse bribery at elections, the equally open immorality of fas.h.i.+onable town life, the connivance of country dames, and the inanity of the beau monde, are satirised. The country Mayor, the Ministerial candidates and the Opposition squire drink, bribe and are bribed with complete impartiality.
A scene devoted to the political young lady of the day affords opportunity for a hit at the sickly and effeminate Lord 'f.a.n.n.y' Hervey, that politician whom Pope described as a ”mere white curd of a.s.se's milk,” and of whom Lady Mary Wortley Montagu observed that ”the world consisted of men, women, and Herveys.” Pope had stigmatised Hervey as _Lord f.a.n.n.y_, and Fielding obviously plays on the nickname by references to the value attached by certain young ladies to their fans. ”Faith,” says his comic author, ”this incident of the fan struck me so strongly that I was once going to call this comedy by the name of the Fan.” The comedy ends with the successful cooking of the election returns by Mr Mayor in favour of the Ministerial candidates, for which ”return” he is promised a ”very good turn very soon”; and by the precipitate marriage of one of the said candidates to the Mayor's daughter ”to strengthen his interest with the returning officer.”
Having settled the business of the corrupt and corrupting Ministry in his comedy, Mr Pasquin proceeds to exhibit the rehearsal of his tragedy, _The Life and Death of Common Sense_. Here the satirist, leaving politics, applies his cudgel mainly to the prevailing taste for pantomime, a form of entertainment introduced it was said some thirty years previously by one Weaver, a country dancing master, and already lashed by Sir Richard Steele in his couplet:
”Weaver, corrupter of the present age, Who first taught silent sins upon the stage.”
That the Covent Garden manager, John Rich, [4] could engage four French dancers, and a German with two dogs, taught to dance the _Louvre_ and the _Minuet_, at ten pounds a night, and clear thereby ”above 20 good houses,”
while the Oth.e.l.lo of Booth and the Wildair of Wilkes were neglected, was sufficient to rouse the indignation alike of moralists, dramatists and playgoers. Fielding in turn took the matter up with all his natural warmth; and in _Pasquin_ he represents the kingdom of the Queen of Common Sense as invaded by a vast army of ”singers, fidlers, tumblers, and ropedancers,” who moreover fix their standard in Covent Garden, the headquarters of Rich.
Not content with a.s.sailing this public folly, the 'Tragedy' of _Pasquin_ strikes a higher note by ranging among the foes of Common Sense three unworthy professors of Law, Medicine, and Religion; callings, as Fielding is careful to point out,
”in themselves designed To shower the greatest blessings on Mankind.”
Queen Common Sense seemingly receives her deathblow; but her ghost finally rises victorious, and so justifies the author's contention that his ”is almost the only play where she has got the better lately.” The vigour with which Mr Pasquin here 'laid about him,' in such matters as the legal abuses relating to imprisonment for debt, may be inferred from the following pa.s.sage. Queen Common Sense is speaking to the representative of _bad_ Law, and tells him she has heard that men
”unable to discharge their debts At a short warning, being sued for them, Have, with both power and will their debts to pay, Lain all their lives in prison, for their costs.
_Law_. That may perhaps be some poor person's case Too mean to entertain your royal ear.
_Q.C.S_. My Lord, while I am Queen I shall not think One man too mean, or poor, to be redress'd.”
So too, the great genius of Fielding, when in long after years harnessed to the drudgery of a London magistrate, held no porter's brawl or beggar's quarrel too mean ”to be redress'd.”
The immediate success of _Pasquin_ attests, as we have said, the readiness of London audiences in 1736 to applaud an honest and humorous presentation of wicked Ministers, corrupt clergy, lawyers, and doctors, inane Laureates, and degrading public entertainments. Mrs Delany, gathering London news for Dean Swift, writes on April 22, ”When I went out of Town last Autumn, the reigning madness was Farinelli; I find it now turned on _Pasquin_, a dramatic satire on the times. It has had almost as long a run as the Beggar's Opera; but in my opinion not with equal merit, though it has humour.” [5] We are told how the piece drew numerous enthusiastic audiences ”from _Grosvenor_, _Cavendish_, _Hanover_, and all the other fas.h.i.+onable Squares, as also from _Pall Mall_ and the _Inns of Court_” And on the 26th of May a benefit performance for the author was announced as the ”60th. Day.” The vogue of the satire even demanded a key, as may be seen in an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _London Daily Post_ for May 17: _This Day is published, Price Four-Pence. A Key to Pasquin, address'd to Henry Fielding Esqre._
Mr Pasquin's own advertis.e.m.e.nts for his little theatre are not without the zest with which our beef-eating ancestors attacked politics, social abuses and one another. The announcement for March 5, ran as follows:--
”_By the_ Great Mogul's _Company of_ English _Comedians, Newly Imported_. At the New Theatre in the Haymarket, this Day, March 5, will be presented
PASQUIN,
A Dramatick SATYR on the times.
Being a Rehearsal of two PLAYS, viz. a Comedy call'd The ELECTION; and a Tragedy, call'd The Life and Death of COMMON SENSE....