USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 49
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VAUDEVILLE SALOON, Boylston Hall, over Boylston Market, south corner of Wash- ington and Boylston Streets .- Opened by Wyzeman Marshall, July 13, 1840. Season closed Aug. 28, 1840.
OLYMPIC SALOON, 253 Washington Street (old number), between Bromfield and Winter Streets. - Opened June 14, 1841, by William Lee, as Lee's Grand Saloon, for musical entertainments and dancing. Opened for dramatic performances March 14, 1842, by a portion of the company formerly at the Tremont Theatre. Season closed on or about June 22. Reopened for musical entertainments, etc., as Lee's Grand Saloon, July 14, 1842.
In addition to the theatres already enumerated, there have been several establishments devoted to variety entertainments, and at these light dramatic performances have sometimes been included as incidental features.
The events of recent interest in the dramatic record are still fresh in the public mind, and brief allusion only can be made to them. Mr. Edwin Booth made his first appearance on any stage at the Boston Museum, Sept. 10, 1849, when he performed the part of Tressell to his father's Richard III. He first came to Boston as a star at the Boston Theatre, opening April 20, 1857, where to many he developed a new dramatic revelation. Rachel's brief engagement at the Boston Theatre, which began Oct. 21, 1855, gave to. our citizens the first and only opportunity they enjoyed of witnessing the classical acting of the leading actress of France. Adelaide Ristori came Oct. 29, 1866, and Madame Janauschek followed April 2, * 1868, at the Olympic Theatre, as interpreters of their respective schools of acting. In later years Salvini, John McCullough, Clara Morris, Lawrence Barrett and Mlle. Bernhardt have delighted large audiences by their mas- terly display of histrionic genius, and the remembrance of Miss Neilson's charming performances of Shakespeare's heroines is mingled with regret at her early death. "The palmy days of the drama," so frequently spoken of
379
THE DRAMA IN BOSTON.
by lovers of dramatic representations, is a period which is without date in the calendar. Measured by a pecuniary standard, the present time is the most propitious era which the drama has ever witnessed in the United States. The stage was regarded fifty years ago as a school for culture, and the theatre was the resort of those who sought something more than mere amusement. To-day, ninety per cent of the patrons of the drama seek at the theatre not mental food, but relaxation from the routine cares of business. Even in our largest cities, where a floating population composed of strangers make up the night's changing audiences of the theatres, it would be impossible to make a season profitable to the management if the so-called legitimate drama were on the programme. The society comedy has taken the place of even the old English standard plays. Shakespearian revivals are not of long continuance, even when the leading parts are sustained by eminent actors. The star system, which has been regarded as so pernicious in times past, is still retained. There have been many instances in Boston where a single actor of eminence has received more for a week's performances than was left in the treasury to pay the expenses of the stock actors and the running ex- penses of the theatre. Attempts have been made to render the theatre self- · supporting, by depending upon a good corps of actors; but the thirst for novelty on the part of the public has rendered this effort futile.
Within a few years the stage has witnessed an innovation which threatens to revolutionize the drama in this country. In the early days of the drama in England travelling companies had their circuits, and with well-organized corps appeared from time to time in smaller places, where a week or two ex- hausted the patronage of the place. In some of our larger cities the regular dramatic season was supplemented by a summer season in some smaller city. The theatre and the drama were identified, for the manager of the theatre had his organized corps of actors, which possessed sufficient talent to pro- duce plays in the absence of stars. The theatre was an institution. The new departure threatens to take from the theatre the prestige it derived from its company, and to make its management entirely dependent upon what are known as travelling companies. Mr. Forrest and other eminent actors had their own pieces, and they carried with them one or two actors to support them. It was stipulated in Mr. Forrest's engagement at times that so much should be allowed for the salary of his leading lady or his leading support. The idea has expanded, and now not only the play is the property of the actor, but he brings his own company, properties, etc. The duration of the engagement is brief, rarely extending beyond two weeks. It is true that the play may be better performed, as practice makes perfect; but the managers of theatres must either keep their own companies on the road when their theatres are leased by these travelling corps, or they must dispense with stock companies and become mere dramatic landlords. It is certain, however, that the effect upon the stage of this modern idea of furnishing novelties to a novelty-seeking public must prove detrimental to the drama.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
There have been several very successful plays written by American authors, which have derived their chief claim to celebrity by the acting of the leading actor, who has secured the special right to these plays. No Boston author has as yet written a play which is likely to keep possession of the stage. It is only within a very few years that there has been any pecuniary incentive to induce authors to devote their talents to this branch of literature. A single play, written by a resident of Boston but recently, has, owing to its merits and the happy acting of the stars, netted the writer some ten thousand dollars. This, however, is quite exceptional. Boston has witnessed the production of many local pieces which have not been without merit, but not one is likely to hold more than a temporary place in dra- matic literature.
It may or may not be true that the verdict of a Boston audience is more highly valued by artists than that of any other city; but Boston may be justly credited with a public possessing an appreciative sense of dramatic talent. Not a few of the most popular stars have received their earliest in- centive to exertion from the encouragement of a Boston audience, while the most eminent foreign actors have found their warmest welcome in this city. The leading theatres in Boston are to-day under the management of those . who fully understand that excellence can alone command permanent suc- cess. Of late years we have witnessed, both in the scenic illusions and the minor accessories, a great advance upon the crude representations of thirty years ago. Criticism, kindly but just, may be credited with a potent influ- ence in securing these improvements, and thereby elevating the tone of the drama.
The theatre, within the remembrance of the patrons of the drama of the present day, has yielded to a healthy public sentiment and has become puri- fied. There is no longer a portion of the house set apart by custom for the abandoned and profligate of both sexes, and the sale of intoxicating liquors is prohibited in the saloons attached to theatres. There are many who hope to see the theatre take a position so elevated as " a school of morals and of manners, of dress and deportment," that it shall become "the ally of the church, an adjunct of the school-room and the college, and a succursal to the public library, picture gallery, and museum of every large and populous city." Every lover of the drama will cordially accept this standard. Its realization, however, depends upon the public.
The story of the drama in Boston, since it can be said to have been fairly planted, differs in no essential point from the record it has made in every other city where the English language is spoken. The same vicissitudes have marked the stage everywhere. The drama flourishes, declines, revives, only to decline and revive again, as the years roll on. The theatre has be- come one of the necessities of a large city. It may instruct at times, but this element is not vital to its success. Its influence as a teacher has not kept pace with its importance as one of the institutions of a great metropolis. Without any Government subsidy or protection as an æsthetic institution,
38 1
THE DRAMA IN BOSTON.
it maintains itself by its inherent claims to consideration ; and while it is thus made self-dependent it must seek to please the popular taste of the period, in order to secure an existence.
EMINENT ACTORS. - The following is a list of several of the prominent actors who have appeared in Boston. The date preceding their names is the year when they first appeared in Boston, and the other dates represent the year of their birth and death :
1795, John Hodgkinson ; 1765-1805. 1796, Mrs. Elizabeth Kemble Whitlock; 1761- 1836.
1796, James A. Dickson ; 1774-1853.
1793, Thomas A. Cooper ; 1776-1849.
1806, James Fennel ; 1766-1816.
1809, John Howard Payne; 1792-1852.
1811, George Frederick Cooke ; 1756-1812.
1818, James W. Wallack; 1795-1864.
1821, Edmund Kean; 1787-1833. 1822, Junius Brutus Booth ; 1796-1852.
1822, Henry J. Finn ; 1785-1840.
1822, Charles Matthews ; 1776-1835.
1824, William A. Conway ; 1789-1828.
1826, William C. Macready ; 1793-1873.
1827, James H. Hackett ; 1800-1871.
1827, Edwin Forrest ; 1806-1872.
1828, John Gibbs Gilbert ; 1810.
1830, Charles John Kean; 1811-1868.
1830, Master Burke; 1818.
1833, Thomas Barry ; 1798-1876.
1833, Fanny Kemble; 1809.
1833, Charles H. Eaton ; 1813-1843.
1833, Tyrone Power; 1797-1841.
1833, Charles Kemble; 1775-1854.
1834, J. Sheridan Knowles; 1784-1862.
1835, Charlotte Cushman ; 1816-1876.
1836, Mr. and Mrs. Keeley. Mr. Keeley; 1793- 1 869.
1836, Josephine Clifton (Mrs. Robert Place) ; 1813-1847. 1836, James E. Murdoch ; 1811.
1837, Miss Ellen Tree (Mrs. Kean); 1805- 1880.
1837, John Vandenhoff ; 1790-1861.
1838, Miss Jean Margaret Davenport (Mrs. General Lander); 1827.
1839, Mrs. Fitzwilliam; 1802-1854. 1839, E. L. Davenport ; 1816-1877. 1840, William Creswick ; 1813.
1840, J. B. Buckstone ; 1802-1879.
1842, George Vandenhoff ; 1820.
1843, John Brougham ; 1810-1880.
1845, Anna Cora Mowatt; 1818-1870.
1846, Julia Dean ; 1830-1868.
1846, William Warren ; 1812.
1847, J. R. Anderson ; 1819.
1849, Edwin Booth ; 1833. 1849, Barney Williams ; 1824-1876.
1852, G. V. Brooke ; 1819-1866.
1852, Mrs. Julia Bennett Barrow; 1824.
1852, E. A. Sothern ; 1826-1881.
1853, Eliza Logan (Mrs. Wood) ; 1830-1872.
1853, Joseph Jefferson ; 1829.
I8 53, Maggie Mitchell ; 1837.
1854, Miss Agnes Robertson (Mrs. Boucicault) ; 1833. 1854, Dion Boucicault ; 1822.
1855, Rachel ; 1820-1858.
1855, F. B. Conway ; 1819-1874.
1857, Charles James Mathews; 1803-1879.
1858, Lawrence P. Barrett ; 1836.
1860, John McCullough ; 1837.
1861, Charles Dillon; 1819. 1866, Adelaide Ristori ; 1821.
1868, Fanny Janauschek; 1830.
1870, Isabel Glyn (Mrs. E. S. Dallas) ; 1823.
1870, Charles Fechter ; 1825-1879.
1873, Salvini ; 1829.
1873, Lilian Adelaide Neilson ; 1850-1880.
1877, Clara Morris; 1850.
1877, Mary Anderson ; 1859.
1878, Modjeska; 1844.
1880, Sarah Bernhardt ; 1844.
THE THEATRES AND PLACES OF AMUSEMENT. - The following list shows the order in which the various theatres and places of amusement in Boston have been opened :
1792, New Exhibition Room, or Board-Alley Theatre. 1794, Boston Theatre. 1796, The Haymarket. 1823, City Theatre, Washington Gardens. 1827, Tremont Theatre.
1832, Warren (later National) Theatre. 1836, Lion Theatre. 1840, Vaudeville Saloon. 1841, Boston Museum (old establishment).
1841, Olympic Saloon.
1842, Eagle Theatre.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
1845, Howard Athenæum.
1846, Boston Museum (new establishment).
1846, Boston Theatre, Federal Street (recon- structed).
1847, Boston Adelphi.
1848, Lyceum (later Odeon, Eagle, American, and again Eagle Theatre).
1848, Dramatic Museum (later American and Beach-Street Museums and Olympic). 1852, Ordway Hall (later Ordway's Varieties, Morris Brothers, Pell & Trowbridge's Opera House, etc.).
1854, Boston Theatre (later Academy of Music, and again Boston Theatre).
1858, School-Street Opera House.
1859, New School-Street Opera House (later Boudoir Theatre).
1860, Aquarial Gardens (later Théâtre Com- ique and New Adelphi).
1863, New Tremont Theatre. 1863, Buckley's Minstrel Hall.
1866, Continental (later Olympic and St. James) Theatre.
1867, Selwyn's (later Globe) Theatre.
1874, Burnell's (later Boylston) Museum.
1876, Germania Theatre.
1878, Gaiety Theatre.
1878, Palais Royal.
1878, Gray's Opera House.
1878, Alhambra.
1879, Park Theatre.
1879, Forest Garden.
1879, Oakland Garden.
1879, Park Garden.
1879, Dudley-Street Opera House.
1879, Siege of Paris Opera House.
1879, Union's Opera House.
1879, Novelty (later Hooley's, and again Nov- elty) Theatre.
1880, Ocean Garden.
1880, Halleck's Alhambra.
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CHAPTER VI.
THE FINE ARTS IN BOSTON.
BY ARTHUR DEXTER.
A PURITAN society was not favorable to art. Men believing in a literal interpretation of the Scriptures frowned on everything like graven images, and set themselves grimly to the work of ruling and strengthen- ing the community they had founded for conscience' sake, in a moral atmosphere too cold to cherish any of the softer graces. Not until a hun- dred years after its foundation do we find any traces of art in Boston. By that time the severe race of Puritans had passed away; the young col- ony had prospered, and drawn over from England many who held less sad views of life, who saw no harm in fine clothes, and hung on the walls of their houses a few good pictures brought from their old homes. Portrait painting is usually the first branch of art which springs up naturally in a young country ; and while the sober and serious minded were glad to have the features of their favorite minister handed down for the veneration of fu- ture church members, more worldly citizens got their own portraits painted in the bravery of dress which marked its wearer as one of the gentry, or at least as a prosperous merchant.
Bishop Berkeley, then Dean Berkeley, came to America in 1728, with the benevolent design of establishing a college for heathen children. Two years later he returned to England, disappointed and mortified. So far as the infant heathen were concerned, the scheme had proved an utter failure ; but the Dean left behind him a verse, -
" Westward the course of empire takes its way,"
and the first portrait painter of any skill whom Boston had known. Whether there had been any such here previously is not certain, - per- haps Pelham, of whom we shall hear later, may have already done a few heads in order to engrave them; 1 but certainly our earliest artist worthy
1 [There is a surmise that one Tom Child, See also some notes on presumably earlier por- who died in Boston in 1706, was a still earlier trait painters in Mass. His. Soc. Proc., Sept., 1867, limner of features. See Sewall Papers, ii, 170. P. 47 .- ED.]
384
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of the name was John Smybert. He was ours only by adoption; for he was born. in Edinburgh, about 1684, and went to London as a coach John Smiler painter. He attracted the notice of some picture dealers, who employed him to make copies; so that he soon found himself rich enough to carry out the wish of his heart, and to visit Italy. There he worked hard for three years, copying the old masters, and was employed by the Grand Duke to take the portraits of some Siberian Tartars, presented to the Duke by the Tsar. When Smybert afterward landed in Narragansett Bay, " he instantly recognized the Indians to be the same people as the Tartars,"- thus counting himself among those who have traced an Asiatic origin for the red man. On his return from Italy to London he obtained a good deal of business, but gave it up to accept the post of Professor of Drawing, Painting, and Architecture, in the college which Berkeley destined to civilize the American barbarians.
When the scheme was abandoned by its founder, Smybert moved from Rhode Island to Boston. He married a daughter of Nathaniel Williams, who was the Latin schoolmaster of the town for fifty years, and had two children, - one of whom, Nathaniel, was already showing promise as an artist when he died, still young. Smybert had been well recommended to the quality of the Province. Chief-Justice Lynde entertained him as his guest ; and his host's portrait is one of the best of his pictures which have come down to us. Though not a great painter, Smybert had a dry sincerity of style which makes his portraits interesting and valuable as memorials. Peter Faneuil,1 the Chief-Justices Lynde 2 (father and son), Sewall 3 and Oliver, Judge Edmund Quincy, and many other leading men of the day, their wives and daughters, still look out more or less grimly from his canvases.4.
Smybert died in 1751. A year before, there had come to Boston - some say from Connecticut, where his father had travelled about painting por- traits - one Jonathan B. Blackburn, who succeeded Smybert as the painter of the quality. His style was much like Smybert's, generally rather harder and dryer, yet on the whole so similar that it is often impossible to be sure to which of the two a picture should be attributed, unless the date of it decides. More than fifty portraits by Blackburn are now known, most of them in or near Boston. They were all painted within fifteen years ; then he suddenly left the town. The reason why he did so is not known; but Mr. Perkins, in his Memoir of Copley, hazards the guess that
1 [See Vol. II. p. 260, -if by Smybert. - ED].
2 [Ibid., p. 558. - En.]
3 [Ibid., p. 148,-if by Smybert. Copies of engravings after Smybert's likenesses of Ben- jamin Colman and William Cooper are given in Vol. II. p. 212. A copy of Pelham's engraving of Smybert's portrait of Joseph Sewall is given in Vol. II. p. 241 .- ED.]
4 Mr. A. T. Perkins, in his notice of Smy- bert, enumerates more than thirty of his por- traits still existing here. [Smybert lived on Court Street, between Cornhill and Brattle Street; and his painting room was afterward occupied by Trumbull when he retired from the army. In later years Allston had a studio on the same spot .- ED.]
385
THE FINE ARTS IN BOSTON.
this young painter's increasing success may account for Blackburn's de- parture. If this was his reason, it was perhaps a wise step. Copley was then painting at least as well as his older rival, with every promise of paint- ing better before long; his social position naturally made him the favorite with the upper classes, who were the chief patrons of art, -and there was hardly room for two portrait painters in Boston. So it was good policy to move on to some untrodden ground, and leave this field to the rising young artist who threatened to seize it for himself; and Blackburn left the town in 1765.
In the sister art of copper-plate engraving some progress, not much, had been made in the young colony. Peter Pelham may be considered its founder here. He may indeed be reckoned our earliest painter, too; for although none of his paintings exist, he certainly did use the brush occa- sionally, though only in order to provide subjects for his graver.1 Were it not for his distinguished step-son, however, his name would be of little interest, - of no more than those of Francis Dewing,2 who engraved Captain Bonner's Map of Boston in 1722, or of Nathaniel Hurd,3 who was born here in 1730 and was a pupil of Pelham, or of a dozen others whose names have been discovered and set down by earnest searchers of colonial records, and of whom no more is known than that they lived and engraved. The art was in a rude state at best ; and Paul Revere's name is familiar to our ears through the memory of a certain ride he took, on a spring evening in 1775, rather than because his patriotism found a vent in prints of political cari- catures and of the " Boston Massacre," or because he engraved the plates, made the press, and printed the bills of the paper-money ordered by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, in session at Watertown.4
In Limerick, Ireland, one Mr. Richard Copley had married Squire Singleton's daughter, and emigrated with his young bride to America; and on July 3, 1737, John Singleton Copley was born in Boston. About the same time Richard Copley died in the West Indies. Some time before the future artist was eleven years old, the widow married Peter Pelham, already spoken of, - surveyor, painter, and engraver. "The household of Peter Pelham was perhaps the only place in New England where painting and engraving were the prominent pursuits," says Mr. Perkins in his Memoir. Young Copley was born with a love of art; and family tradition speaks of
1 [Copies of engravings after Pelham's like- nesses of John Moorhead and Timothy Cutler are given in Vol. II. p. 214; and Pelham's engrav- ·ing of Greenwood's portrait of Thomas Prince, in Vol. II. p. 222. The knowledge we have of Pelham and of some of his contemporaries is contained in W. H. Whitmore's Notes Concern- ing Peter Pelham and his Successors, prior to the Revolution, Cambridge, 1867, which had previous- ly appeared in a less perfect state in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1866-67. See also Heraldic Journal, iv. 177. Mr. Whitmore reported what he sup- posed to be an early work by Copley, and a VOL. IV. - 49.
portrait of Pelham in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., February, 1878, p. 37 .- ED.]
2 [See Vol. II. p. liii. - ED.]
3 [Copley painted his friend Hurd once or twice, and an engraving of him is preserved in the New England Magazine. See Perkins's Life and Paintings of Copley, p. 76. - ED.]
4 [Some specimens of Revere's work will be found in his views of Boston, given in Vol. II. pp. 411, 532 ; and his portrait of Hancock, in Vol. III. chapter i. See references to other engrav- ings of his, in Vol. II. pp. 130, 438. His portrait is given in another chapter. - ED].
386
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
his sketches on the walls of his nursery and in his school-books. It is hard to believe, therefore, that his son, Lord Lyndhurst, was quite correct in writing that he "was entirely self-taught, and never saw a decent picture, with the exception of his own, until he was nearly thirty years of age." There were Smyberts and Blackburns in plenty in Boston, besides a few good pictures which had come from Europe with the richer settlers, and now hung on their walls; and during the three or four years of Pelham's married life he, something of an artist as he was, must surely have pleased himself by pointing out their merits to his step-son, and giving all the help he could to the young artist's first attempts.
Pelham died in 1751, and the widow and her sons were left to live in a small house near the Quaker meeting-house, in Lindall Row. In the next year Copley painted a portrait of his step-brother, Charles Pelham, and a year later he painted and engraved a head of the Rev. William Wel- steed,1 of Boston. Major George Washington, visiting Boston in 1755, sat to him for a miniature;2 and the portrait of General Brattle, in the uni- form of a British officer, dates from the year following. Little is known of him in the next few years, except that he painted diligently, steadily im- proving. His style gained breadth; and his portraits had an air of high breeding so superior to those of Blackburn, that it is likely enough that the elder artist saw the prudence of retiring before his young rival. In 1769 Copley married Miss Susan Clarke, daughter of Mr. Richard Clarke, a distinguished merchant. At that time he moved in the best society, where his courtly manner and genial disposition made him a general favorite.
·
His pictures show us the faces and forms of the aristocrats of Boston, of the time when there were aristocrats here. Winthrop, Boylston,3 Quincy,4 Langdon, Hubbard,5 Adams,6 Hutchinson,7 Hancock,8 Pepperell, - almost every great name of the day is found in the list of his sitters; so that some one has said that one of these ancestral pictures is a Bostonian's best title of nobility. Their air is worthy of the subjects. Smybert's and Black- burn's people often look like bourgeois; Copley's are all gentle-folk, - fine ladies and courtly gentlemen, who thought well of themselves and of their place in the world. This unconscious seizing and embodying the peculiarities of his age are characteristic of Copley. Like Sir Peter Lely he was a born court-painter: and, like him, he often went too far, and elegance became affectation and even awkwardness. He was not a good painter of flesh, which he left hard and dry; though his hands were always well shaped and delicately moulded. But his draperies were admirable. The costume of the time gave him full opportunity to indulge his taste and skill.9 Silks, satins, and all rich stuffs, elaborately dressed heads or wigs,
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