conversely, was a fine ‘low’ actor, ‘the prince of low comedians’.4 He was a diminutive man who breathed life into the roles of clowns, rustics and servants before he became famous with his performance of Tony Lumpkin. Unsurpassed in playing old men, he was George III’s favourite actor.5 Hazlitt records that he ‘made an excellent self-important, busy, strutting, money-getting citizen; or a crusty old guardian, in a brown suit and a bob-wig’.6
By the 1790s Lewis and Quick were among the highest-paid actors in the Covent Garden Company.7 Austen’s reference to this comic duo reveals her knowledge of the contemporary stars of the London stage, and suggests the young girl’s eagerness to be included in the theatre-loving clan of her brothers and her cousin Eliza de Feuillide, to whom Love and Freindship was dedicated (MW, p. 76). The joke is more than merely a glancing and amusing allusion to an immensely popular pair of eighteenth-century comedians: it also reveals a striking and specific interest in the nuanced world of high and low comedy in the late Georgian theatre. This interest was to have a strong influence on Austen’s comic vision. As will be demonstrated, her sense of the interplay between genteel characters and low ones was an important part of her awareness of how comedy works.
The first reference to the professional theatre in Austen’s letters is a mention of Astley’s Theatre in London, in August 1796: ‘We are to be at Astley’s tonight, which I am glad of’ (Letters, p. 5). The history of this theatre, and its importance in the growth of the illegitimate stage, has been overlooked by Austen scholars.
Astley’s Amphitheatre was an equestrian theatre built on the south side of the river in Lambeth by Philip Astley in 1770.8 When first opened it was merely an open-air circus ring with covered seats. By 1780 Astley had roofed over the whole of his ring, which was now called the Amphitheatre Riding House. It was renamed the Royal Grove in 1784, when Astley obtained a royal patent, and in 1787, he added ‘burletta’ to his amphitheatre licence.9 It was popular not only for equestrian events, but for acrobatics, swordsmanship, musical interludes, songs and dancing. In 1794 the amphitheatre was burnt to the ground. It was rebuilt in the following year with the new name, the Amphitheatre of Arts.10 In 1796, when the Austens visited Astley’s, the entertainment was more elaborate than ever before. Thirty-five new acts were advertised, and, as a special attraction, two Catawba Indian chiefs performed dances and tomahawk exercises.11 Astley’s Amphitheatre survived two fires and lasted until 1841.
As with many of the minor, unpatented London theatres, Astley’s circumvented the licensing laws by exploiting the ambiguity of the term ‘burletta’ and slipping in straight plays among the main entertainments.12 The Licensing Act of 1737 confined legitimate theatrical performances to two patent playhouses in London, Drury Lane and Covent Garden. The Act prohibited the performances of plays elsewhere for ‘hire, gain or reward’ and gave the Lord Chamberlain statutory powers to examine all plays.13 The monopoly of the patents was broken in 1740, however, by Henry Giffard who re-established his theatre in Goodman’s Fields and avoided the ‘hire, gain or reward’ clause by claiming to charge only for the music and giving the play free. The authorities tolerated Giffard’s theatre until David Garrick joined the company in 1741. The unprecedented success of Giffard’s new actor ensured that both he and Garrick were offered engagements at Drury Lane, and Goodman’s Fields was closed once more.
Giffard had demonstrated that the law could be circumvented. Other theatre managers followed suit and found ways of evading the £50 fine and the threat of the loss of their licence. Samuel Foote sold tickets inviting the public to ‘drink a dish of chocolate with him’ at noon, and provided entertainments free of charge, thereby inventing the matinee. This led to his obtaining a summer patent for his Little Theatre in the Haymarket in 1766.14
Foote’s patent was followed by a number of patents for provincial theatres. In London, by the early nineteenth century, the proliferation of illegitimate theatres posed a formidable challenge to the patents. By 1800 there were seven minor theatres offering regular entertainment: Sadler’s Wells, Astley’s, the Royal Circus, the Royalty in east London, Dibdin’s Sans Souci, the King’s, Pantheon and the first Lyceum.15 In 1826 Edward Brayley included eleven minor theatres in his Historic and Descriptive Accounts of the Theatres of London, and F. G. Tomlins, in A Brief View of the English Stage (1832), listed thirteen minor theatres operating in London.16
Astley’s was not only visited by Jane Austen. It was also chosen by her as the location for a major turning point in Emma.17 It is Astley’s Theatre where Robert Martin meets Harriet and rekindles the love affair between them, thus clearing the way for Emma and Mr Knightley to be united. Scholars have assumed that Austen was referring to the equestrian amphitheatre by Westminster Bridge in Lambeth. But following the success of his amphitheatre, which only operated on a summer licence, Astley opened a new theatre on Wych Street in the Strand in 1806.18 He called his new theatre the Olympic Pavilion, but it was also known as Astley’s Pavilion, the Pavilion Theatre, the Olympic Saloon, and sometimes simply Astley’s.19 The theatre specialised in equestrian events, but Astley also obtained a licence, through the influence of Queen Charlotte, for music and dancing.20
According to the testimony of one nineteenth-century theatre historian, though Astley conducted several other establishments, the new Olympic theatre was ‘par excellence, “Astley’s” – a name which has become historic’.21 It was an especially popular place to take children. Astley had built his new theatre from the remains of some old naval prizes that he had bought. The deck of the ship was used for the stage and the floors.22 The new theatre was built like a playhouse, with a stage, orchestra, side-boxes, galleries and a pit surrounding the ring. It was the largest of London’s minor theatres and accommodated three thousand people.23 In writing about Astley’s in his A Brief View of the English Stage, Tomlins notes that it was ‘a name at which the youthful heart bounds, and the olden one revives. Jeremy Bentham pronounced it to be the genuine English theatre, where John Bull, whatever superior tastes he might ape, was most sincerely at home’.24
Jane Austen was not absolutely precise about dates in Emma: the theatre visit takes place some time in late summer and Harriet marries Martin shortly afterwards, in late September. This opens up the possibility of the Astley’s reference being to either the summer amphitheatre in Lambeth or the winter Olympic house off Drury Lane. Strictly speaking, the summer season commenced on Easter Monday and closed about the end of September or the beginning of October.25 Given that the Austens patronised the Lambeth Amphitheatre, Jane may well have intended the same theatre. On the other hand, the genteel John Knightleys visit Astley’s as a treat for their young boys, and Harriet, on quitting their box, is made uneasy by the size of the crowds. This suggests the superior Olympic Pavilion.26 The Lambeth Amphitheatre also had its own separate entrance for the boxes and the pit, with the gallery entrance fifty yards down the road, so it would be more likely that Harriet encountered
