The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir — A Closer Reading

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The Augustan Reprint Society

_THE COVENT GARDEN_ _THEATRE,_

OR _Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir_

_INTRODUCTION_ by JEAN B. KERN

Publication Number 116 WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY University of California, Los Angeles 1965

Earl R. Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Lawrence Clark Powell, _Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_ John Butt, _University of Edinburgh_ James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_ Ralph Cohen, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_ Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_ Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_ Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_ James Sutherland, _University College, London_ H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

Edna C. Davis, _Clark Memorial Library_

Although of considerable interest in itself, this hitherto unpublished manuscript play is reprinted in facsimile in response to requests by members of the Society for a manuscript facsimile of use in graduate seminars.

The Larpent collection of the Huntington Library contains the manuscript copy of Charles Macklin's COVENT GARDEN THEATRE, OR PASQUIN TURN'D DRAWCANSIR in two acts (Larpent 96) which is here reproduced in facsimile.[1] It is an interesting example of that mid-eighteenth-century phenomenon, the afterpiece, from a period when not only Shakespearean stock productions but new plays as well were accompanied by such farcical appendages.[2] This particular afterpiece is worth reproducing not only for its catalogue of the social foibles of the age, but as an illustration of satirical writing for the stage at a time when dramatic taste often wavered toward the sentimental. It appears that it has not been previously printed.

As an actor Charles Macklin is remembered for his Scottish dress in the role of Macbeth, for his realistic portrayal of Shylock, for his quarrel with Garrick in 1743, and for his private lectures on acting at the Piazza in Covent Garden. He is less well known than he deserves as a dramatist although there has been a recent revival of interest in his plays stimulated by a biography by William W. Appleton, _Charles Macklin: An Actor's Life_ (Harvard University Press, 1960) and evidenced in "A Critical Study of the Extant Plays of Charles Macklin" by Robert R. Findlay (PhD. Thesis at the State University of Iowa, 1963). Appleton mentions that Macklin lost books and manuscripts in a shipwreck in 1771 (p. 150) and that play manuscripts may also have disappeared in the sale of his books and papers at the end of his long life at the turn of the eighteenth century. It is possible that more of Macklin's work may come to light, like _The Fortune Hunters_ which appeared in the National Library in Dublin. Until a complete critical edition of Macklin's plays appears, making possible better assessment of his merit, such farces as THE COVENT GARDEN THEATRE will have to stand as an example of one genre of eighteenth-century theatrical productions.