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The Evolution of the Stage Irishman.
By W. J. Lawrence, Belfast.
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ALTHOUGH several crude attempts had been made as early as the days of Dekker and Ben Jonson to create laughter at the expense of the wild Irish, Paddy's prominence on the stage as a persona grata to the dramatist dates no farther back than the year 1665, when Sir Robert Howard's play, "The Committee," first saw the light.
When we take into consideration the abiding influence the character of Teague in this piece had upon subsequent delineators of Milesian idiosyncrasy, it is interesting to note that the honest, simple-minded fellow was a study from the life.
When we take into consideration the abiding influence the character of Teague in this piece had upon subsequent delineators of Milesian idiosyncrasy, it is interesting to note that the honest, simple-minded fellow was a study from the life.
In the Duke of Norfolk's "Anecdotes of the Howard Family," we learn that "when Sir Robert was in Ireland his son was imprisoned here by the Parliament for some offence committed against them. As soon as Sir Robert heard of it he sent one of his domestics (an Irishman) to England with despatches to his friends, in order to procure the enlargement of his son.
He waited with great impatience for the return of this messenger, and when he at length appeared with the agreeable news that his son was at liberty, Sir Robert, finding that he had then been several days in Dublin, asked him the reason of his not coming to him before. The honest Hibernian answered him with great exultation that he had been all the time spreading the news, and getting drunk for joy among his friends. He, in fact, executed his business with uncommon fidelity and despatch; but the extraordinary effect which the happy issue of his embassy had on poor Paddy was too great to suffer him to think with any degree of prudence of anything else.
The excess of his joy was such that he forgot the impatience and anxiety of a tender parent, and until he gave his own delight sufficient vent among all his intimates, he never thought of imparting the news where it was most wanted and desired. From this, Sir Robert took the first hint of that odd composition of fidelity and blunders which he has so humorously worked up in the character of Teague."
So much vitality was there in the characterization that the humors of Teague—admirably rendered by a long line of clever players from Lacy, Estcourt and Tony Aston, to Macklin, Joe Miller and Jack Johnstone—preserved the comedy on the acting list at the patent theatres down to the end of the eighteenth century. Even the germ of the play expanded into new life through being transplanted by Knight, the actor (in 1797), into a farce called "The Honest Thieves," in which the
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MR. JACK JOHNSTONE.
From an Engraving by Martyn in Hibernian Magazine.
good-humored, blundering Celt became the moving spirit.
Passing over Thomas Shadwell's malignant portraiture of the Irish priesthood In his two political plays, "The Lancashire Witches" and "The Amorous Bigot," as aspersions which played their part in sowing the seeds of dissension between the sister countries, we find ourselves landed, oddly enough, at Bartholomew Fair, where, at Saffry's booth, In the year 1682, was enacted an incomparable entertainment called "The Royal Voyage; or the Irish Expedition," in which the momentous struggle between England and the last of the Stuarts had vigorous if not somewhat flippant treatment. The play is full of "alarms and excursions," and much fun is made of the cowardice and indifferent soldiering of several suppositious Milesians.
Occasionally we note a feeble striving after local color, as in the scene of the Irish camp, wherein a funeral is represented with "tapers, crones and dirges and two fat friars singing and praying for his soul." Round the grave gather the friends of the departed one, tearing their hair, throwing up dirt, and indulging in a lyrical lament after the following manner:
"Ah, Brother Teague, why didst thou
go?
Whililla, lilla, lilla, lilla, lilla. lilla,
loo!
And leave thy friends in grief and woe,
Aboo, aboo, aboo, aboo, aboo, aboo,
aboo!
Hadst thou not store of household
stuff?
Potatoes and usquebagh enough,
Aboo, aboo, aboo, aboo, aboo, aboo,
aboo!"
So little respect did the author of this production pay to the Unity of Place, that the ghost of Aristotle must have haunted him forever after. In truth, "The Royal Voyage" is perplexingly panoramic in construction, the scene shifting rapidly from Enniskillen to Londonderry, and thence to Dundalk, Newry, Belfast, Carrickfergus and Bangor Bay.
