Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/143

Rh In the first act, which is a sort of introduction to the rest, we have depicted the distress of the players in vacation time, compelling them to let their theatre. Several applicants come forward, offering to take the building for various purposes, and among the rest a Frenchman proposes to hire it for the performance of a farce by his troop of French actors. The second act constitutes the farce which is the "Sganarelle," of Molière, translated into broken English. The third act gives the history of Sir Francis Drake, put together as a sort of comic opera; and the serious opera follows in the fourth act, which depicts the cruelties of the Spaniards in Peru. The fifth act is a burlesque, written in the heroic measure, upon Antony's passion for Cleopatra, which was so popular that it was frequently acted afterwards as a separate piece. The amiable and pious Evelyn attended the representation, and thus mentions the fact in his diary:

"5 May, 1659.—I went to visit my brother in London, and next day to see a new opera, after the Italian way, in recitative music and sceanes, much inferior to the Italian composure and magnificence; but it was prodigious that in a time of such publiq consternation such a vanity should be kept up or permitted. I being engaged with company, could not decently resist the going to see it, though my heart smote me for it."

With success Davenant grew bolder, and soon ventured to bring on the stage several new plays, which were well received. He imperceptibly introduced a style novel both in the language and the acting; he studied smoothness of diction, and what a succeeding age would have termed greater correctness in the structure of his compositions. The circumstances, too, under which he was compelled to produce his pieces, forced him to appeal to the eye and the ear more than to the imagination, and he was the first that exchanged the rude hanging for the illusory scene. K