Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/113

 Let’ was probably among the pieces given at this period, but no record of its performance can be traced. Not until 1664 was ‘The Rivals,’ 4to, 1668, performed. It was licensed for printing, not performance, 19 Sept. 1668. This is an alteration of ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen.’ This play D'Avenant never claimed. It is an indifferent production, introducing several songs and dances. One of these, ‘My Lodging is on the Cold Ground,’ was sung in a manner that obtained for the singer, Mrs. Davies [q. v.], promotion to royal favour. On 7 Nov. 1667, according to Pepys, ‘The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island,’ 4to, 1670, written by Dryden and D'Avenant in conjunction, was played for the first time. The play is not included in the folio collection of D'Avenant. ‘Macbeth, a Tragedy; with all the Alterations, Amendments, Additions, and New Songs,’ &c., 4to, 1673, 1687, and 1710, is assigned expressly to D'Avenant by Downes, who speaks of its being in the nature of an opera and of the singing and dancing in it, ‘The first compos'd by Mr. Lock, the other by Mr. Channell and Mr. Joseph Preist.’ There is no exact evidence when it was performed. Pepys saw a ‘Macbeth’ 5 Nov. 1664, ‘a pretty good play,’ again 28 Dec. 1666, and once more 7 Jan. 1667, when he especially admired the divertissement, which he held ‘a strange perfection in a tragedy.’ Genest ascribes to 1672, when it was given at Dorset Garden, the first performance of this play, and holds, doubtless in error, that the ‘Macbeth’ given at Lincoln's Inn Fields was Shakespeare's. To this notion Pepys's mention of the divertissement seems fatal. The alterations in a wretched version of ‘Julius Cæsar,’ printed 12mo, 1719, are said to be by Dryden and D'Avenant. This reproach may, however, be spared both writers. The ‘Man's the Master,’ a comedy, 4to, 1669, 8vo, 1775, was acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields immediately before the death of D'Avenant and printed after his death. It is an excellent comedy and was revived in 1726 and again, with some alterations supposed to be due to Woodward, in 1775, being the only play of D'Avenant's that was performed at anything approaching to so late a date. In addition to these works there are included in the folio edition, but not otherwise known to be printed, ‘News from Plymouth,’ ‘The Fair Favourite,’ ‘The Distresses’ (believed to be the same as is elsewhere called ‘The Spanish Lovers’), and ‘The Siege.’ ‘These plays are supposed to have been acted in the time of Oliver and Richard, first printed in 4to, and afterwards revised and inserted in the author's works’ (Biographia Britannica). As none of the quartos survive, the latter portion of the statement seems very doubtful. With these may be associated as also appearing for the first time in the folio collection the ‘Law against Lovers’ and the ‘Playhouse to be Let.’ Of these the ‘News from Plymouth’ was licensed by Sir Harry Herbert 1 Aug. 1635, ‘The Fair Favourite’ 17 Nov. 1638, and ‘The Spanish Lovers’ 30 Nov. 1639. D'Avenant had lodgings at the playhouse in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he died 7 April 1668, and was buried on the 9th in Westminster Abbey, in the grave vacated by May, his former rival for the laureateship. Langbaine and Wood both noted that the laureate wreath, ‘which by the law of heraldry appertained to him,’ was wanting from his coffin, which Sir John Denham says was the handsomest he ever saw. On his grave is written, in imitation of that of Ben Jonson, ‘O rare Sir William D'Avenant.’ Pepys, who wrote, 7 April 1668, ‘I hear Sir William D'Avenant is just now dead,’ saw the corpse carried to Westminster. He says, 9 April 1668: ‘There were many coaches and six horses, and many hacknies, that made it look, methought, as if it were the buriall of a poor poet. He seemed to have many children, by five or six in the first mourning coach, all boys.’ D'Avenant left no will. His sons Charles and William are separately noticed. His widow, Maria or Mary (d. February 1690–1, buried in St. Bride's, Fleet Street, 24 Feb.), in 1668 administered to his effects. His first wife, Anne, described as of Castell Yard, subsequently Castle Street, Holborn, now Furnival Street, was buried 5 March 1654–5, in the churchyard of St. Andrew, Holborn. D'Avenant is described as of the parish of St. Clement Danes. At the time of his death a new theatre for his company had been begun in Dorset Garden. He married twice, having by his first wife a son, whom Aubrey describes as ‘very beautiful and ingenious,’ and by the second, Charles D'Avenant [q. v.] and several other children. D'Avenant was a man of courage, spirit, industry, and resource. To a certain extent he had the vices of his time. His work after his earliest production is manly, and for the age exceptionally decorous and moral. In his best work he rises to the level of Shirley; ordinarily he is on a level with Randolph and Brome. The scheme of ‘Gondibert,’ which was to be as a play ‘proportioning five books to five acts and cantos to scenes,’ was singularly unhappy, and the religious aim which in his long letter to Hobbes he avows did much to expose his book to the gibes of the courtiers. ‘Gondibert’ has obtained the praise of good judges. It is, however, a book to be praised rather than read,