VANBRUGH, S ir John, a very eminent dramatic writer, descended from a family originally of Ghent in Flanders. The persecution of the protestants by the duke of Alva drove his grandfather to London, where he established himself as a merchant. His son Giles went to reside in the city of Chester; and there it is supposed that he carried on the business of a sugar-baker. He is mentioned as one of those worthy citizens of Chester, who, although in communion with the church of England, attended the week-day lectures of Matthew Henry, “and always treated him with great and sincere respect.”^[1. Tong’s Account of the Life and Death of Mr. Matthew Henry, p. 63. ] Whatever was his trade, he became rich by it, and married the youngest daughter of Sir Dudley Carleton. By that lady he had eight sons, of whom John was the second. The precise period of his birth, though it probably happened soon after the Restoration, is not known; and we are also left to conjecture what may have been the variety and extent of his early studies. His father’s wealth, and the evidence of his own writings, would lead us to suppose that his education was not neglected. At an early age, he served as an ensign in the army, but after a short trial abandoned the military profession. What led to this precipitate retirement does not appear; but it is easy to imagine a thousand causes of disgust to a service, in which “preferment goes by letter and affection.” Vanbrugh was a younger brother; and being in all likelihood attracted to the profession of arms by no higher motives than a juvenile fondness for feathers and scarlet cloth, which soon become objects of indifference to the silliest person that wears them, he resolved to pursue some mode of life which might be favourably contrasted with the glittering penury of a subaltern.

In the absence of other resources, he thought of writing for the stage; an occupation usually productive of more vexation than emolument. In those days, however, dramatic writing, if the most precarious, was also the most profitable species of literary labour. And the dramatist has this advantage over every other man of letters, that he is either greeted by sudden applause, or relieved from the horrors of suspense by immediate condemnation. In some provincial town where his regiment was stationed, Vanbrugh formed the acquaintance of Sir Thomas Skipwith, from whom, Cibber, in his Apology for his Life, states that “he happened to receive a particular obligation,” of what nature he does not explain. By way of showing his gratitude to Sir Thomas, who had some share in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, he wrote for that house the comedy of the Relapse, or Virtue in Danger. This play, which is a sequel to Cibber’s Love’s Last Shift, was acted in 1697, with complete success. The Relapse was a very seasonable acquisition to the company, whose affairs were in great disorder, owing to the secession of Betterton and the principal comedians, who had been provoked by the tyranny of the patentees to erect an independent standard in Lincoln’s [7:21:550]Inn-Fields. Soon after this comedy had been performed, Lord Halifax, who was a great admirer of Betterton, requested Vanbrugh to finish the Provoked Wife, which had been shown to his lordship in an imperfect state, and give it to the other house. This solicitation he was unable to resist; nor did his compliance give any offence to Sir Thomas Skipwith. The Provoked Wife was performed in 1697, and was received with as much applause as the Relapse. In the preface to that comedy he says, “there is not one woman of real reputation in town, but, when she has read it impartially over in her closet, will find it so innocent, she’ll think it no affront to her prayer-book to lay it upon the same shelf.” This reminds us of Smollett, who flattered himself that in his novel of Peregrine Pickle there would not be found a single “adventure, phrase, or insinuation, that could be construed by the most delicate reader into a trespass upon the rules of decorum!” Of the tendency of Vanbrugh’s writings, a very different opinion was formed by the arch-enemy of the theatre, Jeremy Collier, who, in his celebrated View of the Immorality of the Stage, assigned him a conspicuous place among the offenders against religion and decency. Vanbrugh replied in “A Short Vindication of the Relapse and the Provok'd Wife from Immorality and Prophaneness.” Lond. 1698, 8vo. This tract contains more wit than argument; and the grave charge brought against him, Sir John Vanbrugh rebuts too much in the manner of Sir John Fa1staff, another ingenious sophist of equestrian rank. Although petulant enough, however, he was not angry, like some of the other antagonists of Collier. The world acknowledged that he had not written foolishly, and it gave him very little concern that, in the opinion of one rigid censor, he had written wickedly. Lefebvre-Cauchy has said in a few words all that can be urged in extenuation of his offence: “Malheureusement la plus grande licence régnait alors sur la scène Anglaise, et l’on ne devait pas attendre qu’un jeune militaire cherchât à en épurer la morale."^[2. Biographie Universelle, tom. xlvii. p. 418. ]

During the same year, 1697, Vanbrugh, who was again at liberty to oblige his friend Sir Thomas Skipwith, brought out Esop, a comedy in two parts, at Drury Lane. This comedy, which was a translation, with the addition of some new characters, from the French of Boursault, met with a much more moderate share of success than its predecessors. Pope is said to have complimented Vanbrugh by saying, that the fables in his Esop were written in the true style of La Fontaine, very much to the surprise of the dramatist, who knew nothing of La Fontaine or his productions. Esop was followed in 1700 by the Pilgrim, and in 1702 by the False Friend. About this period was finished a theatre in the Haymarket, for which Vanbrugh had sufficient interest to procure thirty subscriptions at one hundred pounds each. On the foundation-stone of this structure were inscribed the words “Little Whig,” in compliment to Lady Sunderland, the second daughter of the duke of Marlborough. The management of the house was conducted by Congreve and Vanbrugh, in whose company the names of Betterton and his principal adherents were enrolled. That great tragedian and his associates had not found their account in deserting the patentees, and now hoped that a succession of new pieces from the chief favourites of the town would speedily retrieve their affairs. They were however disappointed in their expectations. The house was badly adapted for the conveyance of sound; and although Vanbrugh wrote with great despatch, Congreve was too jealous of his fame to suffer any thing to come from his hands that had not been polished to the most dazzling brilliancy. About this time the Italian opera, though yet in an embryo form, had found favour in England; and to humour the prevailing taste, the new managers opened their theatre with a piece set to Italian music, called the Triumph of Love, which brought nothing into the treasury. In 1705 Vanbrugh produced the Confederacy, founded on the “Bourgeois à la mode” of Dancour. This piece was also coldly received; and Congreve quitted with some precipitation what he considered to be a falling house. Vanbrugh was now left to his own resources, and in the year 1706 produced the Cuckold in Conceit, Squire Treelooby, and the Mistake, from the “Cocu Imaginaire,” the “Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,” and the “Depit Amoreux” of Moliere. The terse antithesis and epigrammatic point of the French comedian were little to the taste of an English audience; and Vanbrugh, now thoroughly disgusted with theatrical management, assigned his house and properties to Mr. Owen Swiney, upon condition of receiving five pounds for every acting night, or an income not exceeding two hundred per annum. But if he had no dexterity in managing a theatre, he possessed to a wonderful degree the more important art of endearing himself to powerful friends. A lively writer is often a very sombre companion; but Vanbrugh’s most “entertaining scenes,” says Cibber, who knew him well, “seemed to be no more than his common conversation committed to paper.” Great men are not always in haste to provide for the needy companions of their pleasures, who seldom acquire any thing by such exalted intercourse, but a taste for enjoyments which they can rarely secure. Such helpless withngs it is often impossible to rescue from the miseries of dependence, which seems to be their natural element. But Vanbrugh was a man of true genius, whom it was reputable to befriend, and a man of energy, who was never plunged in disreputable indigence, and who was perfectly able to befriend himself. Dignity and wealth now flowed fast upon him. At Greenwich in 1714 he received the honour of knighthood; in 1715 he was appointed comptroller of the royal works; and in the ensuing year, surveyor of the works at Greenwich Hospital. Some years before, he had been made Clarencieux king-at-arms, an office for which he had no qualifications. His appointment created such an outcry in the College of Heralds, that he had the modesty to resign. His successor however had recourse to more palatable arguments than abuse. In 1715 he produced a farce called the Country House.

At one period of his life, Vanbrugh paid a visit to France, where he met with a remarkable adventure. When surveying some fortifications with minute attention, he attracted the notice of an engineer, upon whose information he was handed over to the civil authorities, and conveyed to the Bastile. Upon the news of this extraordinary incarceration, he was visited by some of the French nobility, whose language he spoke with perfect fluency and elegance, and who were so much charmed by his wit and vivacity, that they exerted themselves strenuously in his behalf, and he was speedily restored to liberty. In that gloomy edifice, which bad often re-echoed to the groans of despair, Vanbrugh passed some of the most pleasant hours of his life. It is singular enough that a similar incident occurred to Hogarth, who was taken into custody when sketching the gate of Calais. But that morose and irritable humourist had no distinguished visitors to cheer the gloom of his confinement, and commemorated this disagreeable event of his history in the print entitled, “O, the Roast Beef of Old England !”

Although he had retired from the bustle of theatrical management, Vanbrugh still continued his dramatic labours, and was engaged in writing the Provoked Husband, when his hand was arrested by the stroke of death. This event [7:21:551]took place at his house in Whitehall, on the 26th of March 1726. His widow survived till the year 1776, when she died at the age of ninety. Their only son, an ensign in the second regiment of foot guards, died in 1745 of the wounds which he had received in a battle fought near Tournay.

The Provoked Husband was admirably finished by Cibber, and is still a favourite piece; every comic actress of any eminence including Lady Townly in her list of parts. Upon the revival of the Provoked Wife, Vanbrugh had already exhibited some regard to decency, by divesting Sir John Brute of his clerical costume in a scene of the fourth act, and providing him with the habiliments of a fashionable demirep. In his prologue to the Provoked Husband, Cibber informs us that the departed dramatist designed, if his life had been prolonged, to have made still more important sacrifices at the shrine of decorum.

As an architect, Sir John Vanbrugh is accused by Swift of stealing his plans from the edifices erected by children with cards or mud; and after he had built St. John’s Church in Westminster, some Pasquin of the time suggested the following retaliation:

Lie heavy on him, eartb, for he

Laid many a heavy load on thee.

When Pope remonstrated with Swift upon his speaking with such unmeasured contempt of one of the most remarkable men of his time, the dean said that Vanbrugh was a puppy and a coxcomb, although he knew nothing of him but that he was neither a Tory nor a high-churchman. At last he became ashamed of his injustice; and in the preface to the Miscellanies, collected by Pope and himself, an ample apology is made for his unseasonable merriment at the expense of “a man of wit and honour.”

Vanbrugh is now to be viewed in the character of a dramatic writer. In assimilating remote ideas, which is the proper province of wit, he is only inferior to Congreve, who was so prodigal in his use of this faculty, that Pope is induced to inquire “if Congreve’s fools are fools indeed.” The personages of Congreve’s scenes are reproductions of the obsolete characters of the old comedy, and his dialogue is a perpetual blaze of wit. The wit of the fine gentleman, and that of his lackey, are no doubt discriminated with great nicety; but both utter such brilliant things, every time they have occasion to speak, as perhaps no man but Congreve himself could have devised. If this is a fault. It is one which modern dramatists, Sheridan alone excepted, have avoided with singular success. Although Vanbrugh is less liberal than Congreve in his expenditure of wit, he was a more faithful painter of the manners of the age in which he lived; his characters are the men and women of the time, and appropriate language is put in the mouth of each. And if he is deficient in refinement, he is never deficient in wit and vivacity. “There is something so catching to the ear,” says Cibber, “so “easy to the memory in all he wrote, that it has been observed by all the actors of my time, that the style of no author whatsoever gave their memory less trouble than that of Sir John Vanbrugh; which I myself, who have been charged with several of his strongest characters, can confirm by a pleasing experience.” Had Vanbrugh lived a few years longer, he would probably have enriched the stage with scenes of equal purity and elegance, and his easy and harmonious lines, which are too often but a captivating garb for maxims of depravity, might have been a graceful vehicle for sentiments of virtue, and instructed the understanding, while they improved the heart.