putation that Cartwright gained among his contemporaries for extraordinary ability. There are four plays of which the ‘Ordinary’ is the best; and the rest of the volume chiefly consists of complimentary epistles, love-verses, and translations. The ‘Royal Slave, a Tragi-Comedy,’ which had been printed separately in 1639 and 1640, was performed before the king and queen by the students of Christ Church on 30 Aug. 1636. Henry Lawes wrote the music to the songs, and among the actors was Richard Busby, who ‘approv'd himself a second Roscius.’ The play was mounted at considerable cost (the actors appearing in Persian costume), and gave such satisfaction that the court ‘unanimously acknowledg'd that it did exceed all things of that nature which they had ever seen.’ The queen was so charmed with the ‘Royal Slave’ that in the following November the king's company was ordered to represent it at Hampton Court; but the performance of the professional players was judged far inferior to that of the amateurs. The ‘Ordinary,’ which had been included in all the editions of Dodsley's old plays, is a lively comedy of intrigue, containing some amusing satire on the puritans. The other plays are: ‘The Lady-Errant, a Tragi-Comedy,’ and ‘The Siege, or Love's Convert, a Tragi-Comedy.’ Among the poems are an elegy on Ben Jonson, that had previously appeared in ‘Jonsonus Virbius,’ 1638; two copies of commendatory verses on Fletcher, which had been prefixed to the 1647 folio of Beaumont and Fletcher, and commendatory verses on two plays of Thomas Killigrew, ‘Claricilla’ and ‘The Prisoners.’ In one of the verse-addresses to Fletcher, Cartwright writes:—
Shakespeare to thee was dull, whose best wit lies
I' th' ladies' questions and the fools' replies.
In most copies there are blanks at pp. 301, 302, 305, where the lines are too royalist in sentiment for the times. Cartwright's other works are: 1. ‘An Offspring of Mercy issuing out of the Womb of Cruelty, or a Passion Sermon preached in Christ Church,’ 1652, 8vo. 2. ‘November, or Signal Dayes observed in that Month in relation to the Crown and Royal Family,’ 4to, written in 1643, but not published until 1671. At the end of Dr. John Collop's ‘Poesis Rediviva,’ 1656, Humphrey Moseley announced for speedy publication a volume of ‘Poemata Græca et Latina’ by Cartwright, but the promise was not fulfilled. A portrait of Cartwright by Lombart is prefixed to the collected edition of his plays and poems, 1651.
[Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iii. 69–72; Fasti, i. 468, 478, ii. 56; Lloyd's Memoirs, ed. 1668, pp. 422–5; Langbaine's Dramatick Poets, with Oldys's MS. annotations; Welsh's Alumni Westmonasterienses, ed. 1852, pp. 100–1; Evelyn's Diary, ed. 1850, i. 421; Corser's Collectanea.]
CARTWRIGHT, WILLIAM (d. 1687), actor and bookseller, was presumably the son of William Cartwright, also an actor, who flourished at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, is mentioned under the date 1598 in the diary of Philip Henslowe, and had a close intimacy with Edward Alleyn, from whom, 31 Oct. 1618, together with Edward Jubye, William Bird, and others, he leased the Fortune Theatre. Cartwright the younger was a member of Prince Charles's company acting at the private house in Salisbury Court, otherwise known as the Whitefriars Theatre, the second of that name. Of his early performances no record exists. During the civil war and the Commonwealth he became a bookseller at the end of Turnstile Alley, and published, under the title of ‘The Actor's Vindication,’ London, 4to (? 1658), a reprint of Thomas Heywood's ‘Apology for Actors.’ After the Restoration he resumed his old profession, joining the company of Thomas Killigrew, known as the king's company. His first recorded performance took place in the Theatre Royal built in 1663 in Drury Lane. He played about 1663 Corbaccio in the ‘Fox’ of Ben Jonson, and subsequently Morose in the ‘Silent Woman,’ and Sir Epicure Mammon in the ‘Alchemist’ of the same author. Lygones in ‘A King and No King,’ Brabantio in the ‘Moor of Venice’ (‘Othello’), and Falstaff in ‘King Henry IV’ followed. Other characters in which he was seen were the Priest in Dryden's ‘Indian Emperor,’ Major Oldfox in the ‘Plain Dealer,’ Apollonius in ‘Tyrannick Love,’ Mario in the ‘Assignation,’ and Harmogenes in ‘Marriage à la Mode.’ With Mohun he heads, in the ‘Roscius Anglicanus,’ the list of the members of the king's company who joined the duke's company in the famous union brought about by Betterton [q. v.] in 1682. His name only once appears in stage records after this date, though, according to Genest, it stands opposite the character of Baldwin in an edition of ‘Rollo,’ as the ‘Bloody Brother’ of Fletcher was re-named, printed in 1686. In the ‘Rehearsal’ (Theatre Royal, 7 Dec. 1671) Cartwright, who played Thunder, is addressed by name by Bayes, ‘Mr. Cartwright, pr'ythee speak that a little louder, and with a hoarse voice.’ It is probable that Cartwright, who was a man of
