1755

====//The following letters, acquired recently by a private collector, document the epistolary exchange between Frederick Cunningham and his sister, Clara, while Frederick spent several months holidaying with a school friend in London//. //The Cunninghams were a landed family from around Sussex//, //south of London.// – //Ed.//====

- - -

====I do hope all goes well with you and our dear parents at home! I do miss Polly’s cooking, even if I have found Town to be positively bursting with culinary delights, the likes of which I have never quite seen before: It seems as though each night Hartwick and I are supping at some new spot or club or some other, before wiling away a few hours at the theater. It certainly is an easy way for a gentleman to pass his days, Clara! Though my heart aches for our seaside home, taking in the shipping industry here has proved more than enlightening. I wonder if I should ever return home, or just take up with Hartwick and his merry band of wits.====

====Oh, and what amazing things this city has! Why, earlier this month, reading the //London Evening Post//, which publishes every few days (how unlike our own town newsletter, eh, Clara?), my eyes did glance over the notice of a new dictionary, bound and all, for just 3 shillings. Hartwick and I grabbed one from a bookshop – how wondrous was this tome! Far from being some large, cumbersome book, fit only to gather dust on a scholar’s shelf, this book is but small enough to fit right into my pants or jacket pocket. A pocket dictionary! The full breadth of our tongue nestled in the seams of our garments! If the playwrights of old could see us now, eh, sister!====

====But, perusing the papers while wandering Town’s busy streets, I do wonder what our noble ancestors might, indeed, think of us and our morals. It is a debate around Town: News has spread that the Lord Mayor of Dublin of late conducted a search of print shops, destroying “all indecent and obscene figures he found, to the infinite satisfaction of all sober, honest, well-bred people,” according to the //Post//. Many cry out for such a raid to be repeated here in London: If the Irish should do it, why shouldn’t we? And indeed, I have noticed, hanging in countless print shops, pictures that would curl the hair on our mother’s already-coiffed head. And Hartwick tells me that those who know passwords and other clandestine codes can go into these shops and gain access to even lewder images and prints. Reform is on the minds of many, dear Clara. I know not quite how I feel on the matter – other than shock, I suppose – but many are adamant, insisting that we “cannot think of suppressing brothels, or effecting any Reformation of manners, while so many invectives to lewdness are daily exposed,” as was writ in the //Post//.====

====And reform is bubbling up elsewhere, dear sister: In another issue of that same paper, I did spare more than a passing glance on a most heart-wrenching editorial on the matter of social welfare for the poor. The author, using a poetry of language I have not seen since, perhaps, the unveiling of our own village’s new well, made the case that we must provide for the poor in “Some way or other.” Indeed, as he made me see, the loss of their labour – due to malnourishment or spiritual decay – is a loss in the productivity of our whole nation, a blow to the commonwealth and a burden on men of industry, such as our good father. As that author did convince me, we must look at the poor as fellow Statesmen deserving of our care and attention, however “importune” it may be at present to us “men of Fashion.” Charity and compassion are the words of the moment, and our commonwealth, I feel, is on the brink of a great period of unity, at home, at least, if not abroad.====

====Well, that is all for now good sister. Hartwick comes to drag me out and into some revelry or another. Be safe, particularly as you and mother travel to visit our gorgon-ish aunt in the coming days: I hear tell of many highwaymen, doing their best Macheath, robbing gentlemen and ladies of watches, jewelry, and money, particularly out near her home in Kingston. Some are being put into new gaols, such as that one in Southwark, but we must not be unvigilant. Be well, and do send me notice of your safe passage to and from that Medusa’s lair.====

Frederick
- - -

====Your last letter touched me deeply. It is good to know that, even as I stay here in Town, life continues apace at our old home! Send my regards to our mother and please tell father not to work too hard – he may worsen the gout even further with too much stress, I fear.====

====And, on the subject of stress, what a time it is to be in the city! I revel in being here, in the heart of the commonwealth in this time of looming turmoil, and, it seems, conflict for the empire! It seems that all talk these days is of the colonies and the threat posed to them by our continental rivals, particularly those cheese-guzzling French: As I read in the //London Evening Post//, my source for all opinion and news, some four million of our nation’s revenue is at present coming from our colonies and their plantations – a loss of this income and industry to our rivals would, indeed, be most dreadful for our dear England.====

====And the threat looms high, I fear: the //Post// reports that the French are already beginning to press their luck in the Americas, and the Indians – such as the Cherokee and Iroquois – are, as ever, mobile and restless. I do believe that, perhaps even within the span of the year, there may be some theatre of war opened on North America, some sort of dreadful French and Indian War, perhaps (and if that name were to be used as a historical marker, please, Clara, note that I would like the credit).====

//French Attack St. John's Newfoundland, 1762//.

====The real debate, then, is whether we should simply allow the colonies to defend themselves and wish for the best, or to send the support of our military. Once more, my readings allow me to see both sides of the debate: On the one hand, I do understand those who fear that Britain is “clogg’d and encumbered with debts, so as not to be in a Condition to war with France” (as was writ in the //Post//). On the other, I feel that it is our duty to aid our fellow countrymen for nationalist and economic reasons, and that we do have a certain naval supremacy over those damned French (which is why reports of their plans to make land in Scotland do not fill me with any sort of fear – I agree with the //Post// that, should the French attempt to make landfall in England, it would be a suicidal sacrifice of farcical proportions).====

====Alas, I do fear the expansion of the French into Nova Scotia and our farms of the New World, and I trust the might of our navy, but I do find reports about its size and character to be conflicting. Though some editorialists write that “numbers of able-bodied and experienced Seamen enter themselves daily as Volunteers, and are desirous of nothing more than to come to Engagement with” the French, I do hear tell, too, of press gangs rounding up men and forcing them into conscription against their will. How awful is that, dear sister! And in these press gangs come to a head many of the great debates and philosophical issues of our fraught time: That of city versus country (as one writer noted in the //Post//, gangs are rounding up men from the country, where they feel less encumbered by decorum, decency, and the rule of law than they do here in Town, where magistrates keep a closer eye on goings on), and of rank and class (since the conscription of servants does so greatly disadvantage their masters).====

====Indeed, good sister, this age of colonialism is fraught with tensions unlike any we have seen in recent memory: We fight for supremacy of the seas and control over a virgin continent and all its bounty, but we also fight each other over the debt, over our ability to go to war, and over the morality of all of it. I miss you and our home, but I would not miss this excitement for all the world!====

Frederick
- - -

====Greetings once again from Town! This letter comes at a time of great personal excitement for me – do not tell this to our parents, for I fear their irrational and cruelly judgmental response, but I have taken up with a lady! Though she has no money to her name, I do love her – she is a wondrous conversationalist, and draws the eye of every man at balls and galas. I feel that our marriage, since it certainly would not be one of convenience, may well be that most glorious and novel thing: A union of friends and partners. But enough on that, there is other news to be told!====

====All talk in the press is still, in one or another, of our conflicts with France. The effort is being made to expand our armed forces: Notices go out in the news that, say, “The Town of Whitehaven… As a Testimony of their zeal for the Royal Family… at this critical juncture, has offered two Guineas to every Sailor who enters himself into his majesty’s service” (as was writ in my most handy ally in city life, the ever-reliable //London Evening// //Post//). Patriotism runs high, even as conflicts run hot: There is tell, for instance, of tensions in Minorca between our ambassadors, the Dutch, and those hot-headed Algerians. Indeed, it seems that Algeria has in fact declared war against the Dutch. What an age, eh, sweet Clara?!====

====And this talk of war across Europe and the colonies has spawned, as I once predicted so optimistically, a great wave of patriotic fervor and rhetoric: I refer to sweeping sermons that have cropped up, exhorting us as a nation to “lay aside all distinctions of High and Low, Whig and Tory, Old and New Interest, or any other the like Expression, as they are only excitements to Animosities, Feuds, Quarrels, and Dissentions” (as was writ in the //Post//). Amongst all of this talk of unity and brotherhood amongst countrymen is that ever-present seed of Christian doctrine, of “Brotherly Love and Affection towards one another.”====

====Pray allow me to play philosopher for a few moments, good sister, but does this not sound like the same sort of Levelling that once tore our beloved England apart? And now it is being invoked in the name of nationalist fervor! My, how things change! We fight for the Puritans – and their land, their ships, their resources – we cast out to a new continent, where once they fought against us here at home! Economy is all, sister; a common enemy unites Britain in a way I never thought possible. But how long can this brotherhood – village fighting for village, homeland for colony – last? I do wish the best for our brethren and the nation we call home, but I do, as always, fear the very worst for our future, one that, to now, seems inevitably and eternally plagued and pocked with conflict and bloody strife.====

====Oh, and another note, tell our dear father that, should he feel the need to go into the hunting grounds where those wild dogs run loose – despite his still gout-ridden appendages – there has been a remarkable scientific advance in treating bites from mad [//Ed. note: rabid//] dogs, as reported in the //Post//: A new medicine, containing “Grey ground liverwort,” “Black Hellebore Root,” amongst other ingredients, to be taken with white wine or water the morning after a dog bite, promises to help treat infected bites. Indeed, it is said to not only “resist and correct, but Soon expel the poison.” I would certainly hate to see our father, already pain-stricken and limping, go into the next world raving mad and foaming at the mouth: I have attached the clipping for his perusal.====

Frederick
- - -

====I realize that, in all this most exciting political strife, I have failed to catch you up on what is still my chief pastime with Hartwick and the other Fashionable men and women of the Town: The theatre! Good sister, it seems that not an evening goes by without some entertainment or other at one of the theatres, the principal of which we frequent are at Drury Lane (the company of which is under the management of that most wonderful actor and writer, David Garrick), Covent Garden (under the management of Mr. John Rich), and the Opera (often at King’s).====

====What a delight getting to observe this theatrical world has been, sister! To start, this season saw the odd decision by Charles Macklin, that most natural actor, to withdraw from the stage in favor of opening a tavern and starting a lecture series (he has been roundly attacked in the papers by Foote and Smart for his folly). But more than just the odd actor, this season has given rise to theatre quite unlike anything the nation has seen before, or so Hartwick tells me: As is written in the //Reports of the Historical MSS Commission// [//cited by Winchester Stone in// The London Stage //– Ed.]// “Great are the disputes at present between the rival theatres, vieing with each other in different characters which afford unusual entertainments to all frequenting the stage” (435). More than ever, theatres are using greater amounts of singing and music and are bringing to our national stage troupes of players and musicians from abroad (Winchester Stone 435). The plays of the season are a treasure trove of delights old and new – this mix of contemporary and ancient, domestic and foreign is reflected in the costuming of the present. Actors must be comfortable, it seems, in both modern dress and toga, for that is increasingly what we audiences demand.====

//David Garrick (1717-1779) in// Hamlet

====As for the theatres themselves, Rich’s Covent Garden has thus far led the charge in mixing old and new entertainments, presenting a wide variety of plays, including 21 revivals (such as //The Non Juror// and //Cato//), as well 17 plays only performed once or twice (Winchester Stone 436). Garrick and Drury Lane, meanwhile, have staged //Barbarossa// (in December of 1754, but it is, thankfully, still running); //Proteus; or Harlequin in China// (Jan 4); as well as //The Schemers, or the City-Match// (April 15), William Bromfield’s wonderful alteration of a 1639 play (//The City Match//) by Jasper Mayne (Winchester Stone 436).====

====//The Schemers,// which I recently took in with Hartwick,featured Woodward as Timothy, Palmer as Plotwell, and Mrs. Pritchard as Dorcas and the Epilogue. Oh, sister, what a delight this production was! Pray, allow me to tell you about it at some length here. The drama opens with two merchants, Warehouse and Seathrift, devising a plot to test their intended heirs, the mischievous Plotwell (Warehouse’s nephew) and the blandly stupid Timothy (son to Seathrift). After ordering his man, Cypher, to keep watch over the two, Warehouse tells Plotwell that he is going abroad, and leaving his vast fortune in the care of his nephew (Plotwell’s father, a disgraced merchant, is never seen – he is in Ireland, which tells you, dear sister, all you need to know). At once, Plotwell meets up with his rakish friends – Bright and Newcut – along with Timothy, who wishes to become a rake. Plotwell, for his sake, has a scheme of his own: He intends to marry off Timothy to his sister, Aurelia, in order to ensure her financial future. In exchange (for Aurelia, who is incredibly witty and sharp-tongued, does not wish to marry the dull Timothy), Plotwell promises to train Timothy to become a wit.====

====Once the two men of business catch wind of what their heirs are up to (e.g., running around town with a group of bawdy conmen and sailors), they expose their plot: As punishment, Seathrift vows to give his fortune away to Timothy’s sister, while Warehouse decides to marry, so that he may sign away his property to his wife, just to spite his ward. Plotwell, however, lives up to his namesake, and devises another, even grander scheme: With the help of a matchmaker, he and Aurelia pass off Aurelia’s girl, the lovely Dorcas, as a perfect match for the elderly, prudish Warehouse. After their marriage, however (actually conducted by one of Plotwell’s buddies in disguise), Dorcas begins to behave like a bawd, saying that she would take men right under her new husband’s nose while frittering away all of his money. Broken and defeated, Warehouse expresses his regrets that he has not left his money to Plotwell, just in time for the young man to publicly reveal his scheme (and, in so doing, set everything right). The lovers, at play’s end, dance thusly: Plotwell and Dorcas, Timothy and Aurelia – all of whom are now promised endowments from their wealthy parents and benefactors.====

====Such a wonder was this production! Allow me, sister, to play critic and provide a few points of analysis, if I may, for I have been turning the drama over and over in my head for several nights now. First, it strikes me once again just how much the colonial question is on all of our minds at the present moment: Issues of trade and conquest not only dominate our news, but our drama, as well. Where these issues did, indeed, color some earlier works (//The Conscious Lovers//, with its ascendant merchant characters and reliance on characters and images of the Indies, springs to mind), the worldwide scope of our commonwealth is now, it seems, an inescapable fact of life – sailors, merchants, and tradesmen will be the new stars of our stage, to the point where they become as commonplace as their non-theatrical counterparts, I feel.====



====Similarly, I could not help but notice the lack of emphasis that this playwright puts on rank: Commerce and wealth are the order of the day in //The Schemers//, rather than inherent nobility. In our post-Restoration England, what you have, not what you are, is what truly matters. While on the subject of the Restoration, //The Schemers// struck me with the way it handled its more rakish characters: Plotwell, Bright, and Newcut (dubbed “Inns of Court men” by Aurelia) are, unlike the Horners and Dorimants of old, very consciously trying to be bad. They are performing rakishness, rather than embodying it: Just as //The Schemers// is remaking //The City Match//, so too are its characters seemingly remaking Restoration values.====

====And it should be noted that //The Schemers’// women – namely Aurelia – are just as profane, witty, and calculating as their male counterparts; in a fascinating inversion of well-trod tropes, Aurelia is the one deliberately marrying for money, echoing libertines like Dorimant and Horner, while her brother, the otherwise archetypal rake, marries for love. This work’s reflection on old Restoration values further extends, then, to the play’s morality, and the ways in which it both embraces and rejects the sentimentalist comedy of //The Conscious Lovers// or //Love’s Last Shift//: On the one hand, it seemingly highlights the same kind of devil-may-care attitude toward relationships favored by Wycherley, Behn, and their ilk. On the other, the marriages of //The Schemers// seem like they will be faithful and enduring. It is, thus, a bit lost between sentimentalism and roguery, though it certainly seems Bromfield aims to deliberately reject the sentimental bent that categorized some of the libertine plays you and I enjoyed in our youths.====

====But enough of my long-winded bloviating, eh, Clara? I will spare you any further attempts at theatre criticism and simply wish you and the family well. Do tell our father that I wish him the very best as they amputate his legs in the coming weeks. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here in Town, though I do desperately miss the sight of you and our little bit of property. I shall see you and our mother and our hobbling father soon, good sister!====

Works Cited