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—
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.
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.