Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/259

Rh the part of Maria, and Mrs. Butler that of Millwood. On the day before the production of the play many thousand copies had been sold of a specially printed edition of the old ballad on which it was based (it is to be found in Percy's ‘Reliques,’ 3rd ser. bk. iii. No. vi., and is there dated at least as early as the middle of the seventeenth century); and a clique of men about town brought a number of these with them to the playhouse with a view to mischief. But the success of the piece frustrated the cabal, and made those who had come to scoff ‘drop their ballads and pull out their handkerchiefs’ (‘,’ Life). Pope, who was present among other distinguished persons, warmly commended the piece, which achieved an extraordinary success. It was acted more than twenty times in the same summer to full houses, and, besides being produced at Goodman's Fields in the autumn, was frequently repeated at Drury Lane in the ensuing winter. It was patronised by the whole of the royal family, Queen Caroline being gratified in July 1731 with a sight of the manuscript at Hampton Court. But its warmest friends were the merchants of the city, several of whom bespoke it in turn. According to the author of ‘Cibber's Life of Lillo,’ it continued a stock play at Drury Lane till Theophilus Cibber left that house for Covent Garden, and was often acted in the Christmas and Easter holidays, being judged a proper entertainment for the apprentices. (This custom was probably of long endurance. At the Theatre Royal, Manchester, ‘George Barnwell’ used within a recent date to be annually performed on Shrove Tuesday.) ‘George Barnwell’ retained possession of the English stage for more than a century, and experienced some notable ‘revivals.’ Among these need only be mentioned that at Covent Garden on 28 Sept. 1796, when for the sake of her brother Charles Kemble, who appeared as the hero, Mrs. Siddons took the part of Millwood, and induced Miss Pope to act Lucy (, vii. 287–8). Its popularity is further attested by various treatments of the same theme in novel and burlesque, Thackeray's ‘George de Barnwell’ being conspicuous among the latter.

In 1735 Lillo assigned the copyright of his play to his friend the bookseller, John Gray (who, after being a dissenting minister, became a clergyman), for the sum of 105l. (the deed is printed ap., i. 42–3). In the fifth edition of his play Lillo first inserted, before the last scene, the very powerful one at the place of execution, which, though generally omitted in representation by the London theatres, was revived at Bath in 1817 (, iii. 295–6, viii. 631). From the date of the assignment it appears that Lillo was at the time a resident of Rotherhithe. In ‘Joseph Andrews’ (bk. iii. ch. x.) ‘the poet’ sneers at ‘a fellow in the City or Wapping, your Dillo or Lillo.’

Early in 1734, in reference to the approaching marriage of Anne, princess royal, to the Prince of Orange (William IV), Lillo, mindful perhaps of his own paternity, composed a patriotic but inane masque, printed in his works under the title of ‘Britannia and Batavia.’ It is probably identical with ‘Britannia, or the Royal Lovers,’ which was performed at Covent Garden on 11 Feb. 1734, and more than thirty times afterwards (cf., iii. 433). Like William Havard [q. v.] and Thomas Whincop [q. v.], Lillo based his next important dramatic venture on the story of Scanderbeg, the Albanian chieftain George Castriot. Havard's ‘Scanderbeg’ was produced in 1733 (ib. iii. 400). ‘The Christian Hero,’ by Lillo, was first acted at Drury Lane on 13 Jan. 1735, and was printed with a life of Scanderbeg, which there seems no sufficient reason for attributing to Lillo. It ran for four nights, but proved too ‘useful and solemn a representation’ for ‘the general taste of an English audience’ (, Memoir of the Life of Charles Macklin, 1779, i. 184; cf. Biographia Dramatica, ii. 100). The piece by Whincop (who died in 1730) was posthumously published in 1747. Havard and Lillo were both accused of having ‘stolen the hint’ of their plays from Whincop's, which they had seen in manuscript (cf., iv. 227).

Towards the middle or end of 1736 (, iii. 488–9, furnishes no precise date; in the ‘Life’ by ‘Cibber’ the play is said to have been ‘acted with success in 1737’) Lillo's ‘Fatal Curiosity’ was produced at the Haymarket. In full sympathy with the realistic element in Lillo's dramatic genius, Fielding, who was then managing the Haymarket, took upon himself the instruction of the actors, showed much civility to the author, warmly commended the play to his friends, wrote a prologue, and henceforth in his writings repeatedly testified to his appreciation of merits which the superfine thought it easy to sneer down. The story of the piece is taken from the contemporary narrative, first put forth in a pamphlet entitled ‘Newes from Perin in Cornwall,’ and afterwards retold in Frankland's ‘Annals,’ 1681, but more probably first known to Lillo through the medium of an old ballad, of a murder which had actually taken place at Bohelland Farm, near Penryn, in September 1618 (see and, Bibl. Cornub. i. 319). (As