Chapter i.

A comparison between the world and the stage.

The world hath been 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 Drury-lane.

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 Shakespear--

--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[*] 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 parts 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!_

[*] The Deity.

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, &c., 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 to-morrow. 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.