The Case of Mrs. Clive written by Catherine Clive
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Catherine Clive >> The Case of Mrs. Clive
THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
CATHERINE CLIVE
THE CASE OF Mrs. _CLIVE_
(1744)
_Introduction by_
RICHARD C. FRUSHELL
To
H.T. Swedenberg, Junior
_founder, protector, friend_
_He that delights to_ Plant _and_ Set,
_Makes_ After-Ages _in his_ Debt.
Where could they find another formed so fit,
To poise, with solid sense, a sprightly wit?
Were these both wanting, as they both abound,
Where could so firm integrity be found?
The verse and emblem are from George Wither, _A Collection of Emblems,
Ancient and Modern_ (London, 1635), illustration xxxv, page 35.
The lines of poetry (123-126) are from "To My Honoured Kinsman John
Driden," in John Dryden, _The Works of John Dryden_, ed. Sir Walter
Scott, rev. and corr. George Saintsbury (Edinburgh: William Patterson,
1885), xi, 78.
* * * * *
GENERAL EDITORS
William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles
Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles
David S. Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles
ADVISORY EDITORS
Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan
James L. Clifford, Columbia University
Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia
Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles
Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
Louis A. Landa, Princeton University
Earl Miner, Princeton University
Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota
Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles
Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
James Sutherland, University College, London
H.T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles
Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Curt A. Zimansky, State University of Iowa
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Jean T. Shebanek, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Typography by Wm. M. Cheney
INTRODUCTION
Among other things, the licensing act of 1737 stipulated that Covent
Garden and Drury Lane exclusively were the patented and licensed
theaters (respectively) in London, a fact directly related to the revolt
of prestigious players six years later. Although there were sporadic
performances of "legitimate" drama in unlicensed playhouses between 1737
and 1743, full-time professional actors and actresses were in effect
locked into the approved theaters during the regular theatrical season.
Suspecting a cartel directed against them personally and professionally
by the "Bashas" Rich at Covent Garden and Fleetwood at Drury Lane,[1]
the players from Drury Lane in the summer of 1743 banded together and
refused to perform the next season until salaries and playing conditions
improved. Tardy and partial payment of salary was the surface sore
point, unprincipled and unwarranted manipulation by the managers the
underlying one. As the Macklin-Garrick quarrel attests,[2] the conflict
was not only between labor and management; but the latter confrontation
is central to the conflict in 1743 and the subject of _The Case of Mrs.
Clive Submitted to the Publick_, published in October, 1744, by which
time Catherine (Kitty) Clive had established herself as not only first
lady of comedy but also as somewhat of a patriot of the acting
profession and the Drury Lane company.
Coming to Drury Lane in 1728 while still in her teens, Kitty Rafter
(1711-1785) quickly became a favorite of the town by virtue of her
singing voice, vivacity, and gift for mimicry. Admired first as a
singing actress, Miss Rafter in 1731 gave unequivocal notice of her
considerable talent as a comic actress in the role of Nell in Coffey's
_The Devil to Pay_, one of several hundred she mastered. Her
specialties: Flora in _The Wonder_, Lady Bab in _High Life Below
Stairs_, Lappet in _The Miser_, Catherine in _Catherine and Petruchio_,
Mrs. Heidelberg in _The Clandestine Marriage_, and the Fine Lady in
_Lethe_. Mrs. Clive's (on 4 Oct. 1733, Miss Rafter married George Clive,
a barrister) popularity as comedienne and performer of prologues and
epilogues is indicated by the frequency of her performances and long
tenure at Drury Lane (she retired in 1769) and documented by the
panegyrics of Fielding, Murphy, Churchill, Garrick, Dr. Johnson, Horace
Walpole, Goldsmith, fellow players, contemporary memoir writers, and
audiences who admired her.[3] Dr. Johnson, I feel, gives the most
balanced, just contemporary appraisal of Mrs. Clive the actress: "What
Clive did best, she did better than Garrick; but could not do half so
many things well; she was a better romp than any I ever saw in
nature."[4] Part of the half she could not do well were tragedy roles,
attested to by Thomas Davies, who comments on her performances as
Ophelia in _Hamlet_ and Zara in _The Mourning Bride_: "Of Mrs. Clive's
Ophelia I shall only say, that I regret that the first comic actress in
the world should so far mistake her talents as to attempt it." And on
Zara, "for her own benefit, the comic Clive put on the royal robes of
Zara: she found them too heavy, and, very wisely, never wore them
afterwards."[5] Part of the half she could do well is noticed, once
again, by Davies: particularly adroit and distinguished in chambermaid
parts, Mrs. Clive
excelled also in characters of caprice and affectation, from the
high-bred Lady Fanciful to the vulgar Mrs. Heidelberg; in country
girls, romps, hoydens and dowdies, superannuated beauties, viragos
and humourists; she had an inimitable talent in ridiculing the
extravagant action and impertinent consequence of an
Opera-singer--of which she gave an excellent specimen in _Lethe_.
Her mirth was so genuine that whether it was restrained to the arch
sneer, and suppressed half-laugh, or extended to the downright
honest burst of loud laughter, the audience was sure to accompany
her [my punctuation].[6]
Mrs. Clive's stature as a comic actress would, then, seemingly make her
a prize for Rich or Fleetwood, but they did their best to thwart her
career and happiness at their theaters.
I suspect that their motivation in so doing was fear that her temper,
her influence with other actors and her audiences, and her strong
loyalty to her profession would hinder their legislated power to control
absolutely London theaters, players, and audiences in 1743. Not much
investigation is required to see Mrs. Clive at her clamoring best, at
various times head to head with Susannah Cibber, Peg Woffington,
Woodward, Shuter, or Garrick. Her letters to Garrick show that as late
as the sixties she was quite capable of vitriol when she felt that she
or her friends were unjustly treated. Tate Wilkinson was surely correct
in describing her as "a mixture of combustibles; she was passionate,
cross, and vulgar," often simultaneously.[7] If this were the case in
mere greenroom tiffs or casual correspondence, how the ire of "the
Clive" must have been excited by the cartelists, who did their utmost to
keep her out of joint and almost out of sight.
In 1733, Fielding, who furthered Mrs. Clive's career by writing and
editing parts of his plays for her and publicly praising her as a woman
and as an actress, wrote the following encomium on her professional
integrity in his "Epistle to Mrs. Clive," prefatory to _The Intriguing
Chambermaid_:
The part you have maintained in the present dispute between the
players and the patentees, is so full of honour, that had it been
in higher life, it would have given you the reputation of the
greatest heroine of the age. You looked on the cases of Mr.
Highmore and Mrs. Wilks with compassion, nor could any promises or
views of interest sway you to desert them; nor have you scrupled
any fatigue ... to support the cause of those whom you imagine
injured and distressed; and for this you have been so far from
endeavouring to exact an exorbitant reward from persons little able
to afford it, that I have known you to offer to act for nothing,
rather than the patentees should be injured by the dismission of
the audience.[8]
Fielding is, of course, referring to the 1733 dispute in which Mrs.
Clive (and Macklin) among the principal players stayed with the
ineffective proprietor of Drury Lane, John Highmore. Jealous that
Highmore and not he gained control of Drury Lane after former
shareholders either died or sold out, Theophilus Cibber demanded, among
other things, that Highmore share profits with his players rather than
pay fixed salaries. He then led the Drury Lane players in revolt in the
autumn of 1733 to the New Haymarket where they played without a license
until March of the 1733-1734 season, at which time they returned to
Drury Lane under the new management of Fleetwood. The actors at least
partially won this battle, and although Highmore tried to have the
vagrant act enforced, the players returned to Drury Lane unscathed. With
Highmore gone, a period of uneasy peace obtained. The players, however,
were not to win so easily the next dispute, the one that took place
after the passage of the licensing act.[9]
Mrs. Clive's decision to stay with Highmore rather than defect was
probably made because "two women--Mrs. Wilks, the widow of her [Kitty's]
old theatrical idol, and Mrs. Booth--were in he direction of the
theater.[10] But in light of Fielding's words and her actions and
statements in regard to the welfare of Drury Lane and its actors
throughout her career, I believe that Mrs. Clive, although not pleased
with aspects of Highmore's reign, also refused to defect because she
felt that the manager was basically in the right, that her fellow
players would be destitute or at least open to hardship without
employment there, and that the audiences would take offense at such
unprofessional and selfish behavior from their "servants." The "Town,"
as her own play _The Rehearsal_ (I.i. 159-170) shows, was always her
judge in matters professional.
Fielding's prologue to his revised _Author's Farce_ (1734), spoken by
Mrs. Clive, compares the settled, prosperous former days at Drury Lane
with those of 1734, when "... _alas! how alter'd is our Case!/ I view
with Tears this poor deserted Place_."[11] With few exceptions, the
"place" continued strangely in decline even with a competent company and
often with a full house. The falling-off continued until the advent of
Garrick, who with Lacy in 1747 co-managed the theater into a new era.
From the mid-thirties until 1743, Mrs. Clive appears in roles she had
made famous as well as those newly written with her particular talents
in mind. Fielding, turning more and more to political satire and soon to
another literary form, had little need of her services;[12] but others
did, and the years between the licensing act and 1743 find Mrs. Clive in
demand as the affected lady of quality, speaker of humorous epilogues,
performer in Dublin, and singer of such favorites as "Ellen-a-Roon,"
"The Cuckoo," and "The Life of a Beau." This period is also marked by
Mrs. Clive's first professional venture with David Garrick, in his
_Lethe_, the beginning of a relationship to become one of the most
tempestuous and fruitful in all theater history.
As I intimated at the outset, the licensing act mainly troubled the
London players because of the power of monopoly it invested in Fleetwood
and Rich. Not only were the forums for dramatic presentation now
restricted, but so was professional freedom. The problem, therefore, was
as much philosophical as it was geographical. From the sixteenth century
to 1737, English players had some freedom (albeit limited) to rebel from
intolerable authority and to form their own company.[13] This freedom,
this choice, as Lord Chesterfield pointed out in his speech against the
act, was severely attenuated in 1737, and was to remain so in varying
degrees until the monopoly the act allowed was legislated dead in 1843.
But it was a cartel between the managers that the players most feared,
and there is evidence in the pamphlets growing out of the struggle of
1743 that such a fear was well-founded.
The playing conditions at Drury Lane in the early forties were not good,
a situation directly attributable to the ineptitude and highhandedness
of Fleetwood (and his treasurer Pierson) and his refusal to pay salaries
in full and on time. The manager's accommodating side-show performers in
his company did not help. Macklin, as Fleetwood's lieutenant, had to try
to pacify actors, workmen, creditors; as actor he commiserated with the
players. With the coming of Garrick from Goodman's Fields to Drury Lane
late in the 1741-1742 season and with a progressively disgruntled Clive
all the principals in the revolt are under one--leaky--roof.
In light of the number and variety of the published commentary which
accompanied the revolt, perhaps a highlighting of Clive's _Case_ would
be the most efficient way to elucidate some of the major difficulties
involved. After addressing herself to "the Favour of the Publick," with
encouragement from her friends,[14] Mrs. Clive strikes the key note of
her essay: injustice and oppression, specifically seen in the cartel's
threat to "Custom," an iterative word throughout the essay. Mrs. Clive
first speaks of salary, a matter obviously important to her "Liberty and
Livelihood."[15] One writer on the dispute, in a quasi-satirical tract,
denounces the managers in this regard and in so doing echoes Mrs. Clive:
"When there are but two Theatres allowed of, shall the Masters of those
two Houses league together, and oblige the Actors either to take what
Salary or Treatment they graciously vouchsafe to offer them, and to be
parcelled out and confined to this House or t'other, just as they in
their Wisdoms think meet; or else to be banished the Kingdom for a
Livelihood? This is Tyranny with a Vengeance--but perhaps these generous
noble-spirited Masters may intend their Performers a Compliment in it,
and by thus fixing them to one Place, effectually wipe off that odious
Appellation of Vagabonds, which has been sometimes given them."[16] The
licensing act, subsequent cartel, and mistreatment of players were then
not only in the mind of Mrs. Clive. Treated in most of the arguments for
or against the players was salary, but it was only a cover hiding an
underlying malaise.
Implying that the managers set out to ruin certain performers, including
herself, Mrs. Clive accuses them of putting on "a better Face to the
Town" by publishing (inaccurate) salary figures--a ploy to get public
sanction for lower salaries. Mrs. Clive alludes to salaries published
ostensibly by Fleetwood in the papers (e.g., _Gentleman's Magazine_,
XIII, October 1743, 553), where the pay of such lights as Garrick,
Macklin, Pritchard, and Clive in the 1742-1743 season is made to seem
higher than the salaries of such worthies as Wilks, Betterton, Cibber,
and Oldfield in the 1708-1709 season. The actors, in presenting their
case (_Gentleman's Magazine_, XIII, November 1743, 609), hit at
Fleetwood for citing 1708-1709 salaries, for "the Stage [then] both of
_Drury-Lane_ and the _Hay-market_, were in so wretched a Condition ...
as not to be worth any body's Acceptance." The players use instead
salaries of the 1729 players "to place the salaries of the present
Actors in a true light," since the stage in that year flourished. In
1729, Wilks, the highest paid actor, earned more than his later equal,
Garrick. All other principals' salaries were comparable.
The main complaint of Fleetwood's company, then, was not only base
salary but the "Fallacy" of the manager's account and his "setting down
besides the Manager's Charges, every benefit Night, what is got by the
Actor's own private Interests in Money and Tickets, as also the Article
of 50L for Cloaths, added to the Actresses Account, which is absolutely
an Advantage to the Manager, as they always lay out considerably more."
This evidence, if not in itself damning to Fleetwood's designs toward
his actors, at least indicates the internecine breach at Drury Lane.
(The inter-theater conflict, important for its effect on repertory and
morale, is adequately examined in theater histories and lies outside my
interests in this essay.)
Mrs. Clive admits, however, that reduced, unpaid, or "handled" salaries
were not the first fear of the actors; it was instead, she says, the
fear of what "would happen from an Agreement supposed to be concluded
betwixt the two Managers, which made 'em apprehend, that if they
submitted to act under such Agreements, they must be absolutely in the
Managers Power." As the writer of _The Case Between the Managers_ (p.
11) presents it, a conversation between a personified Covent Garden and
Drury Lane would have gone like this: "Well, but, Brother _Drury_, we
can manage that matter [how to keep audiences]--Suppose you and I make a
Cartel; for instance, agree for every other Theatre, and oblige
ourselves by this Cartel to reduce by near one half the Salaries of our
principal Performers--I'gad, we may cramp 'em rarely this way--they must
serve us at any rate we tax their Merit at, for they'll then have no
where else to go to." Drury Lane responds, "D--n me, if that is not
divinely thought--my dear Friend, give me a Kiss."
Late in the summer of 1743, several months before the salary figures
described above, Garrick, Macklin, Clive, and Mrs. Pritchard among the
principal players attempted to obtain another license to set up their
own company in the Haymarket: shades of 1733. They applied to the
Chamberlain Grafton--who denied it, in part perhaps because put out that
Garrick commanded over L500 a year. There was no chance, therefore, to
sidestep the monopoly effected by the licensing act. Leading the
secession, Garrick agreed with his colleagues to stay out until redress
was forthcoming. Redress did not come, the defectors lost, Fleetwood
won. He starved them in not out, Garrick was persuaded to return to
Drury Lane (which he does in early December, 1743) by the entreaties of
several of the destitute seceded players who asked him to accede to
Fleetwood's terms. As Garrick explains to Macklin (see note 2), he did
so because he had the economic welfare of his fellow actors at heart.
Macklin infuriated with him and Clive disappointed in him, both refused
to accept Garrick's decision, and hence became renegade. Macklin,
uninvited back by Fleetwood, admired Olive's decision to have no part in
signing a petition presented to her by her fellow defectors who
understood that the refusal of a separate license dissolved their bond.
Macklin writes in his Reply to _Mr. Garrick's Answer_ (p. 27) that "it
ought to be known that when this Letter was carried to Mrs. Clive, and
her Name to it desired, she had the Honour and Spirit to refuse, upon
any Consideration, to be made so ridiculous a Tool to so base a
Purpose."
Others were not so generous as Macklin. The author of _The Disputes
between the Director of D----y, and the Pit Potentates,_ one "B.Y.,"
champions the cause of the non-principal players against such as Mrs.
Clive, "for the low-salary'd Players are always at the labouring Oar,
and at constant Expence, while the rest are serv'd up once or twice in a
Week each, as very fine Dishes," one of whom, he says, is Mrs. Clive, an
"avaritious" person whom he is confident "has found, and feels, her
Error by this Time."[17] The writer then details the particular
hardships of Mrs. Roberts, Mrs. Horton, and Mr. Mills, hardships caused
by such greedy principals as Clive. B.Y. obviously chose to ignore the
compassion of Mrs. Clive for the low-salaried players expressed in her
Case.
Evidence that Mrs. Clive was in no position to be avaricious and that a
debilitating cartel in fact existed is found in her own essay. When the
defected players returned to Drury Lane (except Macklin, whom Fleetwood
considered the cause of the theater's troubles) late in 1743, Fleetwood
offered Mrs. Clive a salary incompatible with her talent and lower than
his previous "agreements" with her. Clive says, "They were such as I was
advis'd not to accept, because it was known they were proposed for no
reason but to insult me, and make me seek for better at the other
Theatre; for I knew it had been settled, by some dark Agreement, that
Part of the Actors were to go to Covent-Garden Theatre, and others to
Drury-Lane."
Led to believe that she would find comfort and acceptance at Covent
Garden based on previous encouragement by Rich to have her join his
company,[18] Mrs. Clive realized that the dark agreement was a fact, for
"When I apply'd to him, he offered me exactly the same which I had
refused at the other Theatre." She managed a bit more salary, however,
and out of necessity agreed to play. More rankling to Mrs. Clive than
basic salary was her being forced to pay for her benefit. The extant
Clive-Garrick correspondence points to the pride she took in not only a
"clear" benefit but one held during that part of the month she dictated.
As is the case with salary, the basis for this complaint was
unreasonable manipulation by the managers, loss of freedom, and an
unjustified break with tradition: "I had had one [a benefit] clear of
all Expence for Nine Years before; an Advantage the first Performers had
been thought to merit for near Thirty Years, and had grown into a
Custom."
Mrs. Clive did not regularly play for Rich until December 1743, from
which time she "determined to stay there," doing all in her power to
please her audiences and him. Yet she "found, by his Behaviour to me, it
was designed I should not continue with him." Clive's specific
exposition of Rich's mistreatment of her is a portrait of an actress
aware of her worth and of a manager at his worst. Fired from Covent
Garden--against custom and justice--at the end of the season without
being told, Mrs. Clive could not arrange to play in Ireland, where she
was a great favorite,[19] for Rich's cheat did not become clear to her
until summer was too far advanced. Clive says it all when she observes
"it is unlawful to act any where but with them." Fleetwood was the only
alternative for the next season, and he still owed her L160. 12s. At the
time of Clive's Case (October, 1744) Fleetwood had not yet contacted her
for engagement at Drury Lane even though he could not "but know I am
disengag'd from the other Theatre." Nor could have Clive expected much
of a salary from him even if he did call on her since the last season he
offered her "not near half as much as he afterwards agreed to give
another Performer, and less than he then gave to some others in his
Company." Mrs. Clive could not but conclude that the managers were in
league to distress her.[20] In the final third of her essay, Mrs. Clive
presents a rather touching account of the personal costs of a piece of
legislation which was itself manipulated and "interpreted in the narrow
sense of forming the legal safeguard to the patent monopoly."[21]
The "Ladies" who had promised their protection to Mrs. Clive obviously
were influential in convincing Rich to re-hire her, for less than one
month after the appearance of Clive's Case the Prince of Wales and his
Princess sponsored at the Haymarket a concert for her benefit,[22] and
her name is regularly listed in the Covent Garden playbills soon after.
The absence of publicity from Mrs. Clive, or about her, suggests that
her second short year at Covent Garden was fairly acceptable to all
concerned, although Portia in _The Merchant of Venice_ was hardly her
forte.
The next season finds her back at Drury Lane, where she reigns
uncontested queen of comedy for more than twenty years. In addition to
the return of Clive, the 1745-1746 season (one poor in attendance and
new plays) at Drury Lane is noteworthy because of a reinstated Macklin,
a de-throned Fleetwood, a new manager (Lacy), a well-balanced company
soon to be augmented by player-manager Garrick, prospects for a bright
future--and a theatrical monopoly stronger than ever.[23] In the latter
regard Mrs. Clive's case is revealing in that it gives a new emphasis to
the epithet His Majesties' Servants.[24]
Indiana State University
Terre Haute
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
[1] _The Dramatic Congress_ (London, 1743). Throughout I use short
titles.
[2] Three major documents concerning this quarrel are published under
the title _Mr. Macklin's Reply to Mr. Garrick's Answer_ (London, 1743).
[3] Mrs. Clive's four afterpieces, with their allusions to her
personality and career, are equally revealing. I treat this subject in
"An Edition of the Afterpieces of Kitty Clive," Diss. Duquesne Univ.
1968, and "The Textual Relationship and Biographical Significance of Two
Petite Pieces by Mrs. Catherine (Kitty) Clive," RECTR, 9 (May 1970),
51-58, and "Kitty Clive as Dramatist," _DUJ_, N.S., 32 No. 2 (March
1971), 125-132.
[4] James Boswell, _Boswell's Life of Johnson_, ed. George Birkbeck
Hill, rev. L.F. Powell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934-1950), IV, 243.