Pretty Polly

To Jonathon Swift, Efq.

The D. of Bolton I hear hath run away with Polly Peachum, having settled 400£ a year upon her during pleasure, & upon disagreement 200£ a year.

John Gay

The first actress to play Polly Peachum, innocent lover of highway-man Macheath in Gay's Beggar's Opera, was Lavinia Fenton.

The play - arguably the greatest hit of the 18th century stage - had been rejected by Colley Cibber for Drury Lane as being too expensive and too bizarre to be a success; though when it proved to be a hit he was later to stage it there.

It therefore received its first staging at Lincoln’s Inn Fields on 29 January 1728, where it was described as 'A Newgate Pastoral, among Whores and Thieves.'

The Duke of Bolton first attended the play in April, though he was to become a regular visitor, night after night, having been very taken by the young actress playing Polly. He even brought his wife to a performance. He only stopped attending on June 22, when Lavinia's name was removed from the playbill.

The reason for her disappearance from the cast was that the Duke had persuaded her to become his mistress, on the generous terms specified by Gay in the letter above. This she was happily for the next twenty-three years until, on the death of his wife, the Duke married her, making her his Duchess.

Cross-dressing

David Garrick, as Sir John Brute in Vanbrugh's Provoked Wife, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Johann Zoffany, 1763

The Actors' Dilemma

For tho’ we Actors, one and all, agree

Boldly to struggle for our -- vanity,

If want comes on, importance must retreat;

Our first great ruling passion is - to eat.

David Garrick, Occasional Prologue (1750, Drury Lane)

On the Bill

The Daily Courant trumpets a typical evening's theatrical entertainment for 1703:

At the Theatre in Dorset Gardens …will be presented a Farce call’d The Cheats of Scapin. And a Comedy of two acts only call’d The Comical Rivals, or the School Boy. With several Italian Sonatas by Signor Gasperini and others. And the Devonshire Girl, being now upon her return from the City of Exeter, will perform … several Dances, … and the Whip of Dunboyne by Mr. Claxton her Master, being the last time of their Performance till Winter. And at the desire of several persons of Quality (hearing that Mr. Pinkethman hath hired the two famous French Girls lately arriv’d from the Emperor’s Court) They will perform several dances upon the Rope upon the Stage being improv’d to that Degree far exceeding all others in that Art. And their Father presents you with the Newest Humours of Harlequin as perform’d by him before the Grand Signor at Constantinople. Also the famous Mr. Evans lately arrived from Vienna will show you wonders of another kind, Vaulting on the Manag’d Horse, being the greatest Master of that Kind in the World.

Dorset Gardens was managed by Christopher Rich and was the Thames-side sister house to Drury Lane. Rich was ever-hungry for spectacle: the 'Devonshire Girl' was put on the bill to try to pull the crowds from the Lincoln's Inn Fields play-house, who were showing the hugely popular 'Mademoiselle Sevigny,' a French dancer.

Rich also seriously considered purchasing an extraordinarily large elephant to use in their productions. According to Colley Cibber, he was only prevented by the jealousy of his dancers at the prospect of being so monstrously upstaged and the fear of his bricklayers that to make an entrance for the beast required moving so much of the wall that the theatre would collapse.

Thomas de Veil

Sir Thomas de Veil, JP, was a pioneer in the art of detecting crime.

An unpaid magistrate based - like Pullen - in the City of Westminster, from 1739 onwards he investigated the crimes brought before him for trial at his house in Bow Street, which he established as a magistrate's court.

He belonged to the same Masonic lodge (Jerusalem Lodge) as the artist William Hogarth, who mocks him in the engraving 'Night', set in the street outside the Vine Tavern, where they met. De Veil is depicted still wearing the collar and jewel that distinguish him as Master of the Lodge. As we see in the detail below, the drunk JP, shamefully soaked by the contents of a discarded chamber-pot, is helped home by the Lodge's Grand Tyler, Andrew Montgomery.

Hogarth is thought to be poking fun at Veil, who he had publicly argued with on more than one occasion. De Veil was notoriously strict on drunkards and was involved in the legislation banning the trade in gin, at the time as great a matter for public concern as heroin or crack today.

Johnson gets the Giggles

Johnson could not stop his merriment, but continued it all the way till he got without the Temple-gate. He then burst into such a fit of laughter, that he appeared to be almost in a convulsion; and, in order to support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot pavement, and sent forth peals so loud, that in the silence of the night his voice seemed to resound from Temple-bar to Fleet-ditch.

(1773, when Johnson was 64)
James Boswell, Life of Johnson

Wanted: Room in Shared House

Dr. Sam Johnson's heart was, it seems, as "approaching to the gigantick" as every other part of him.

Even before the death of his wife, he opened his doors to a great variety of needy friends - a reformed prostitute, an alcoholic doctor of the poor, his wife's former companion, a blind poetess, and a young black boy who he treated as an adopted son.

Like the 'Big Brother' house, this random assortment of beings failed to find social cohesion, and rather than providing their benefactor with a harmonious household spent all their time bickering and quarreling. As Johnson laments in a letter of 1778:

We have tolerable Concord at Home, but no Love. Williams hates Everybody; Levet hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of these.

On Sunday Morning...

... a well-dressed Woman came into the George Alehouse by St. George's Church and called for a Pint of Ale; and while a Servant was gone to draw it, she snatched up a Knife, stept backwards and cut her Throat therewith; but her Motions being seen by the Servant, a Surgeon was presently called in to her Assistance, who sewed up the Wound; but it's supposed she cannot live.

Lancashire Journal - September 18, 1738

Marriage a la Mode

[My Husband] John doe thynk he bee such a grett Man, butt Lord hee be juste a grete bigge Sillie.

Anne Hughes, Housewife
Diary 1796

On Dissection

"... Though possessed of an interest in the subject you may perhaps be deterred by natural repugnance, or if this does not restrain you then perhaps by the fear of passing the night in the company of these corpses, quartered and flayed, and horrible to behold."

Leonardo da Vinci

The College of Barber Surgeons' Hall

9 April 1730

The Anatomical Theatre at Surgeon’s hall, built by Inigo Jones about an hundred years ago, and esteemed the most commodious structure in Europe for the purpose, being out of repair, after several estimates given in by builders, who from the peculiarity of the structure very much differ’d about the manner and expence of repairing it, the Earl of Burlington was last week requested to survey it, who not only directed the only proper way of repairing it, and that at a much less expence than by any of the other estimates, but also out of his regard to that great English Architect, and to the generous encouragement he is always ready to afford to maintain the memory and productions of the Artists in every profession, ordeed it to be forthwith repaired by one of his own builders at his own expence.

The Grub-street Journal

A London Day for Pepys

Friday 18 January 1660

The Captains went with me to the post-house about 9 o’clock, and after a morning draft I took horse and guide for London; and through some rain, and a great wind in my face, I got to London at eleven o’clock.

At home found all well, but the monkey loose, which did anger me, and so I did strike her till she was almost dead, that they might make her fast again, which did still trouble me more.

In the afternoon we met at the office and sat till night, and then I to see my father who I found well, and took him to Standing’s to drink a cup of ale. He told me my aunt at Brampton is yet alive and my mother well there.

In comes Will Joyce to us drunk, and in a talking vapouring humour of his state, and I know not what, which did vex me cruelly. After him Mr. Hollier had learned at my father’s that I was here (where I had appointed to meet him) and so he did give me some things to take for prevention. Will Joyce not letting us talk as I wanted, I left my father and him and took Mr. Hollier to the Greyhound, where he did advise me above all things, both as to the stone and the decay of my memory (of which I now complain to him), to avoid drinking often, which I am resolved, if I can, to leave off.

Hence home, and took home with me from the bookseller’s Ogilby’s AEsop, which he had bound for me, and indeed I am very much pleased with the book. Home and to bed.

The Canter's Serenade

Ye Morts and ye Dells
Come out of your Cells,
And charm all the Palliards about ye ;
Here Birds of all Feathers,
Through deep Roads and all Weathers,
Are gathered together to toute ye.

With Faces of Wallnut,
And Bladder and Smallgut,
We're come scraping and singing to rouse ye;
Rise, shake off your Straw,
And prepare you each Maw
To kiss, eat, and drink till you're bouzy.

1725

Racing Times 2

24 September 1726 -- The British Gazetteer

Gloucester, Sept. 17: On Tuesday last arrived here, from Worcester, Mr. Rice, in his Chair drawn by four Dogs; and, tho’ the Roads were rendered very bad for Travelling, by reason of the great Rains, yet he came to this City about two o’clock the same Afternoon.

And, we hear, he intends to stay at our Castle a short time, in order to gratify those who are lovers of Curiosity; whither Abundance of Gentlemen and Ladies daily resort to see this new Method of Carriage; which is very wonderful.

The Racing Times

Mist's Weekly Journal -- 6 November 1725

Gloucester, Nov. 1: We had very good Diversion this day upon Snow-Hill-Course, between two in that Neighbourhood; the one of which rode a Bullock, which was to trot, the other a Mare, to pace a Mile, for ten Guineas.

Neither of them had either Bridle, Saddle, or Whip; all jockeying was allowed; the Concourse was very great, and the Entertainment answer’d Expectation.

In the Cockpit

William Hogarth, The Cockpit (1759)

This engraving shows the cockpit at Birdcage walk, though numerous other pits existed in London and Westminster, including ones in Drury Lane and Jewin Street. The Royal pit at Whitehall - the same visited by James Boswell - was presided over by the King's Cock-master.

A Grand Day Out

Wednesday 15 December 1762

The enemies of the people of England who would have them considered in the worst light represent them as selfish, beef-eaters, and cruel. In this view I resolved today to be a true-born Old Englishman. I went to the City to Dolly's Steak-house in Paternoster Row and swallowed my dinner by myself to fulfill the charge of selfishness; I had a large fat beefsteak to fulfil the charge of beef-eating; and I went at five o'clock to the Royal Cockpit in St. James' Park and saw cock-fighting for about five hours to fulfill the charge of cruelty.

A beefsteak-house is a most excellent place to dine at. You come in there to a warm, comfortable room, where a number of people are sitting at table. You take whatever place you find empty; call for what you like, which you get well and cleverly dressed. You may either chat or not as you like. Nobody minds you and you pay very reasonably. My dinner (beef, bread and beer and [a penny for the] waiter) was only a shilling. The waiters make a great deal of money by these pennies...

At five I filled my pockets with gingerbread and apples (quite the method), put on my old clothes and laced hat, laid by my watch, purse and pocket-book, and with oaken stick in my hand sallied to the pit. I was too soon there. So I went to a low inn, sat down amongst a parcel of arrant blackguards, and drank some beer. The sentry near the house had been very civil in showing me the way. It was very cold. I bethought myself of the poor fellow, so I carried out a pint of beer myself to him. He was very thankful, and drank my health cordially. He told me his name was Hobard, that he was a watch-maker but in distress for debt, and enlisted that his creditors might not touch him.

I then went to the Cockpit, which is a circular room in the middle of which the cocks fight. It is seated with rows gradually rising. The pit and the seats are all covered with mat. The cocks, nicely cut and dressed and armed with silver heels [spurs], are set down and fight with amazing bitterness and resolution. Some of them were quickly dispatched. One pair fought three quarters of an hour. The uproar and noise of betting is prodigious. A great deal of money made a very quick circulation from hand to hand.

There was a number of professed gamblers there. An old cunning dog whose face I had seen at Newmarket sat by me a while. I told him I knew nothing of the matter. "Sir," said he, "you have as good a chance as anybody." He thought I would be a good subject for him. I was young-like. But he found himself balked.

I was shocked to see the distraction and anxiety of the betters. I was sorry for the poor cocks. I looked round to see if any of the spectators pitied them when mangled and torn in a most cruel manner, but I could not observe the smallest relenting sign in any countenance. I was therefore not ill-pleased to see them endure mental torment.

Thus did I complete my true English day, and came home pretty much fatigued and pretty much confounded at the strange turn of this people.

James Boswell

(A Scot)

The Votaries of Covent Garden

Wandering over Covent Garden Piazza at any time of day - Hogarth's engraving above is entitled 'morning' - you'd be likely to encounter a fair number of young ladies at a loose end: as James Boswell described them in his London journals "the civil nymph... who will resign her engaging person to your honour for a pint of wine and a shilling."

Then as now, the profession was divided into grades of respectability and was priced accordingly, from the 'tuppeny uprights' against the wall offered by gin-sodden trulls to the guineas charged by those who worked from home, and whose addresses were numbered in Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies.

'Harris's List' was born when an impoverished hack named Sam Derrick paid Jack Harris, self-styled 'Pimp-General-of-All-England', for the use of his name. Under this pseudonym Derrick compiled a guidebook to London's baser pleasures between 1757 and 1795. Like all the best stocking-fillers or toilet books, it was released annually each Christmas.

A representative entry from the 1793 volume includes:

Mifs B--lford, Titchfield-street

The British fair to manly hearts inclin'd,

Their passions open and their souls unbind,

'Tis nature prompts, what harm can be in this,

To give and take from each the balmy kiss.

This child of love looks very well when drest. She is rather subject to fits, alias counterfeits, very partial to a Pantomime Player at Covent Garden Theatre. She may be about nineteen, very genteel, with a beautiful neck and chest, and most elegantly moulded breasts, her eyes are wonderfully piercing and expressive. She is always lively, merry, and cheerful, and will give you such convincing proofs of her attachment to love's game, that if you leave one guinea behind, you will certainly be tempted to renew your visits.

First Cut is the Deepest

In researching a novel that's all about perspective, it's good to look for murder weapons that might not resemble conventional weaponry - although, in the C18th, any doctor might do you more harm than good.

FLEAM: a sharp lancet for bloodletting.

SCALPEL: a knife used in surgical dissection.

LANCET: a surgical knife with a short, wide, two-edged blade.

Poetry in Motion

Worry not, Mr. Motion: in the 18th century as now, the post of Poet Laureate did not require filling by a skilled versifier.

In 1736, Henry Fielding staged his play Pasquin at the New Theatre, also known as the Little Haymarket.

To cast the play to its fullest satirical potential, it was crucial that Fielding poach Charlotte Charke from Drury Lane. He had written a particular part with her in mind: that of Lord Place.

Dressed in a vast curled wig, gaudy embroidered breeches and coat, and as much lace as can be fixed to a body, Charlotte minced and pranced across the stage, parodying the vain twits (such as Lord Foppington in both Love's Last Shift and The Relapse) her father was famous for playing.

Not content with deflating Colley's prowess onstage, Fielding and Charlotte also failed to spare his vanity with regard to his poetical skills as Poet Laureat (a matter of public derision among Britain's writers and poets).

SECOND VOTER: My Lord, I should like a place at Court too; I don't much care what it is, provided I wear fine clothes and have something to do in the kitchen or the cellar; I own I should like the cellar, for I am a devilish lover of sack.

LORD PLACE: Sack, say you? Odso, you shall be poet-laureat.

SECOND VOTER: Poet! no, my Lord, I am no poet, I can't make verses.

LORD PLACE: No matter for that - you'll be able to make odes.

SECOND VOTER: Odes, my Lord! what are those?

LORD PLACE: Faith, sir, I can't tell well what they are; but I know you may be qualified for the place without being a poet.

Higgins the Contortionist:

'turns himself into such a Variety of Shapes and Figures, that the Particulars would be incredible to all Persons who have not seen him.'

On stage at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane 1709-10

Beneath the Mask

A man who has pass'd above forty years of his life upon a theatre, where he has never appear'd to be himself, may have naturally excited the curiosity of his spectators to know what he really was, when in no body's shape but his own.

Colley Cibber

The Authoress at Home

In 1754, Charlotte was visited by the printer, Samuel Whyte, and a bookseller friend, presumably H. Slater, junior, who were interested in publishing her novel, Henry Dumont. By this stage she had descended into extreme poverty.

The visit made a deep enough impression on Whyte that he wrote it up in an article for The Monthly Review, 1760:

The first object that presented itself was a dresser - clean, it must be confessed, and furnished with three or four coarse delft plates, two brown platters and underneath an earthen pipkin, and a black pitcher with a snip out of it.

To the right we perceived and bowed to the mistress of the mansion, sitting on a maimed chair under the mantelpiece, by a fire merely sufficient to put us in mind of starving. On one hob sat a monkey, which by way of welcome chattered at our going in. On the other a tabby cat of melancholy aspect. At our author’s feet, on the flounce of her dingy petticoat, reclined a dog, almost a skeleton! He raised his shagged head and eagerly staring with his bleared eyes, saluted us with a snarl.

"Have done, Fidele, these are friends!" The tone of her voice was not harsh, it had something in it humbled and disconsolate; a mingled effort of authority and pleasure. Poor soul! Few were her visitors of that description. No wonder the creature barked!

A magpie perched on the top ring of her chair, not an uncomely ornament, and on her lap was placed a mutilated pair of bellows - the pipe was gone, an advantage in their present office. They served as a succedaneum for a writing desk, on which lay displaced her hopes and treasure, the manuscript of her novel Henry Dumont. Her inkstand was a broken teacup, the pen worn to a stump - she had but one! A rough deal board, with three hobbling supporters, was brought for our convenience, on which, without further ceremony, we contrived to sit down and enter upon business.

The work was read, remarks made, alterations agreed to, and thirty guineas demanded for the copy.

To Mrs. C. Charke

Charlotte's decision to live publicly as a man led to being disowned by her father and siblings. She sustained herself through many careers with variable success, but increasingly found it hard to support herself and her 'wife,' 'Mrs. Brown.' Swallowing her pride she wrote to her Colley, but he rebuffed her:

21 September

Madam,

The Strange Career which you have run for some years (a Career not always unmarked by Evil) debars my affording you the Succour which otherwise would naturally have been extended to you as my Daughter.

I must refuse therefore—with this Advice—try Theophilus.

Yours in Sorrow,
Colley Cibber

A Proper Charlie

Charlotte Charke, daughter of theatre impresario Colley Cibber, lived a notorious life. Among her occupations she numbered grocer, puppeteer, valet, sausage maker and seller, publican, waiter, gardener, pastry-cook, hog merchant, playwright, novellist and proof reader. But it was as an actress that she was most famous.

Charlotte was known for taking 'travesty parts' - fully male characters, such as Macheath in Gray's Beggar's Opera, as opposed to 'breeches parts,' where women-play-women-pretending-to-be-men; the kind of feisty lady-boy that Shakespeare delighted in creating.

In later life, Charlotte lived openly as a man, Charles Brown; but she first developed her passion for transvesticisim at the age of four. Her autobiography describes how she stole downstairs early one morning before the house was awake and put on her brother’s waistcoat and "an enormous bushy Tie-Wig of my Father’s, which entirely enclos’d my Head and Body"— using "the Help of a long Broom" to get them off their pegs.

To this she added "a monstrous Belt and large Silver-hilted Sword, that I could scarce drag along" and "one of my Father’s large Beaver-hats, laden with Lace, as thick and as broad as a Brickbat".

All dressed up, she left the house and paraded the street near her home, "bowing to all who came by me", until discovered by her family. Though aware that to the onlookers she was a curiosity, Charlotte thoroughly enjoyed the attention: "the Oddity of my Appearance soon assembled a Croud about me; which yielded me no small Joy." She "walk’d myself into a Fever, in the happy Thought of being taken for the 'Squire.'"

An Actor's Life

I think going a Strolling is engaging in a little, dirty kind of War, in which I have been obliged to fight so many Battles, I have resolutely determined to throw down my Commission.

And to say Truth, I am not only sick, but heartily ashamed of it, as I have had nine Years Experience of its being a very contemptible Life; render'd so, through the impudent and ignorant Behaviour of the Generality of those who pursue it; and I think it would be more reputable to earn a Groat a Day in Cinder-sifting at Tottenham-Court, than to be concerned with them.

Charlotte Cibber Charke

A Narrative of her Life

An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber

You know, sir, I have often told you, that one time or other I should give the publick some memoirs of my own life; at which you have never fail'd to laugh, like a friend, without saying a word to dissuade me of it; concluding, I suppose, that such a wild thought could not possibly require a serious answer.

But you see I was in earnest. And now you will say, the world will find me, under my own hand, a weaker man than perhaps I may have pass'd for, even among my enemies. --

With all my heart! my enemies will then read me with pleasure, and you, perhaps, with envy, when you find that follies, without the reproach of guilt upon them, are not inconsistent with happiness.

-- But why make my follies publick? Why not? I have pass'd my time very pleasantly with them, and I don't recollect that they have ever been hurtful to any other man living.

Colley Cibber
actor; playwright;
manager of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane;
and Poet Laureate.

Novemb. 6, 1739