Richard Cumberland: "Defender of the Downtrodden"?

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Introduction

It is generally agreed that the eighteenth century was a period of great social
change. Some historians refer to it as the humanitarian age or the age of benevolence.
The humanitarian movement had its beginning even before the eighteenth century but
reached its peak after mid-century. Hospitals, homes for unwed mothers, charity schools,
Sunday schools, and orphan homes were all begun and sustained through private
contributions. Such notable individuals as Jonas Hanway, John Howard, James
Oglethorpe, Henry Fielding and John Fielding worked for needed reforms, and countless
acts of charity were administered by other but less famous benevolent men of the period.
Among these was the Bishop of Clonfert, Ireland, Denison Cumberland. Only his son, the
dramatist Richard Cumberland, recorded his activities. Certainly, though, his efforts were
useful to those of his bishopric, but more important probably was the effect of his actions
on his son. The son said of his father:

My father lived, as he had ever done, beloved by all around him; the same
benevolent and generous spirit, which had endeared him to his neighbors and
parishioners in England, now began to make the like impressions on the hearts of
a people as far different in character, as they were distant in place, from those
whom he had till now been concerned with. Without descending from the dignity
he had to support, and condescending to any of the paltry modes of courting
popularity, I instantly perceived how high he stood in their esteem.1
Justice and generosity were the instruments he employed, and I saw the
work of reformation so auspiciously begun, and so steadily pursued by him, as
convinced me that minds the most degenerate may be to a degree reclaimed by
actions, that come home to their feelings, and are evidently directed to the sole
purposes of amending their manners, and improving their condition.2
As for me, I was so delighted with contemplating a kind of new creation,
of which my father was the author, that I devoted the greatest portion of my time
to his works, and had full powers to prosecute his good intentions to whatever
extent I might find opportunities for carrying them. This commission was to me
most gratifying, nor have any hours in my past life been more truly satisfactory,
than those in which I was thus occupied as the administrator of his unbounded
benevolence to his dependent fellow creatures.3

His father’s influence and his ambition to be a true poet resulted in Cumberland’s
setting a high goal for himself:

A true poet knows that, unless he can produce works whose fame will
outlive him, he will outlive both his works and his fame; therefore, every comic
author who takes the mere clack of the day for his subject, and abandons all his
claims upon posterity, is no true poet; if he dabbles in personalities, he does
considerably worse. When I began, therefore, as at this time, to write for the
stage, my ambition was to aim at writing something that might be lasting and
outlive me; when temporary subjects were suggested to me, I declined them: I
formed to myself in idea what I conceived to be the character of a legitimate
comedy, and that alone was my object, and though I did not quite aspire to attain,
I was not altogether in despair of approaching it. I perceived that I had fallen upon
a time when great eccentricity of character was pretty nearly gone by, but still I
fancied there was an opening for some originality, and an opportunity for showing
at least my good-will to mankind, if I introduced the characters of persons who
had been usually exhibited on the stage, as the butts for ridicule and abuse, and
endeavored to present them in such lights as might tend to reconcile the world to
them, and them to the world. I thereupon looked into society for the purpose of
discovering such as were the victims of its national, professional, or religious
prejudices; in short, for those suffering characters which stood in need of an
advocate, and out of these I meditated to select and form heroes for my future
dramas, of which I would study to make such favorable and reconciliatory
delineations, as might incline the spectators to look upon them with pity, and
receive them into their good opinion and esteem.4

That Cumberland should choose such a high ambition is not surprising when one
considers his family and childhood.5 He was the great grandson of Richard Cumberland,
the bishop of Peterborough, author of the well-known philosophical treatise, De Legibus
Naturae (1672). His maternal grandfather was Richard Bentley, famous for his part in the
“Battle of the Books.” Cumberland was influenced by these illustrious ancestors and
throughout his life took his activities very seriously. As a young student he had great
success but felt keenly the necessity to do well, due to his grandfather Bentley’s
reputation as a scholar. Cumberland spent little time playing, laboring on his studies
almost to the point of illness. His mother encouraged him and entertained the budding
scholar by reading Shakespeare to him. As one result of the reading sessions, while only
twelve years old he wrote his first dramatic work:

The effect of these readings was exactly that which was naturally to be
foreseen. I began to try my strength in several slight attempts towards the drama,
and as Shakespeare was most upon my tongue and nearest to my heart, I fitted and
compiled a kind of cento, which I entitled “Shakespeare in the Shades,” and
formed into one act, selecting the characters of Hamlet and Ophelia, Romeo and
Juliet, Lear and Cordelia, as the persons of my drama, and giving to Shakespeare,
who is present throughout the piece, Ariel, as an attendant spirit, and taking for
the motto to my title page—Ast alii sex, Et plures, uno conclamant ore—6

In spite of this early attempt at dramatic composition, Cumberland planned to
follow his father into the Anglican ministry. But Lord Halifax, as a favor to
Cumberland’s father, invited young Richard to become his private secretary. Cumberland
was ill fitted for such a public post and after eleven years left that service hardly
wealthier than when he had begun, but he then had a wife and three children to support.
Having missed his opportunity for a scholarship to work toward a Master’s Degree at
Cambridge, Cumberland decided to write for the stage. He met little success with his first
comedy, The Summer’s Tale (1765), a comic opera. Following that production,
Cumberland visited his father, then Bishop of Clonfert in Ireland. This according to his
statement in his Memoirs, was the moment of his decision to champion the cause of the
downtrodden. In addition to his father’s influence, Cumberland’s decision to write plays
attacking intolerance is founded on his belief that the purpose of drama is to teach. In his
preface to The Walloons, he says “No Britons you our moral scenes despise, /Still from
the Stage does true instruction rise.”7 In his prologue to False Impressions he begins: “Oh
might our efforts gain their wished for end, The gay to amuse, the faulty to amend, Make
fiction rule her thoughts by nature’s laws, And wit exert her powers in virtue’s cause,
Then and then only might we claim applause.”8 Similarly, he begins The School for
Widows: “To pluck those weeds that soil the field of Fame/ Hath been our author’s
earliest aim.”9 Almost every play starts with such a prologue. Cumberland again revealed
his belief in the moral efficacy of drama in defending John Home from attacks by
Scottish clergymen who opposed the presentation of Douglas because they considered it
unseemly for a clergyman to write for the stage. Cumberland blamed the Scots for “not
conceiving that tragedy, in which are inculcated the principles of virtue, of morality, of
filial duty, of patriotic zeal and reverence for an over-ruling power, could be inconsistent
with the profession of a religion in which all of these are in the strongest manner
enjoined.”10 Cumberland shared his desire to make people better through drama with
more authors than Home. He sought to show examples on stage of proper behavior , to
show the good man. Non-sentimental authors normally would use another means to
improve man; they would satirize man’s follies and vices. For example, Congreve
asserted:

Men are to be laughed out of their vices in comedy . . . as vicious people
are made ashamed of their follies or faults by seeing them exposed in a ridiculous
manner; so are good people at once both warned and diverted at their expense.11

Cumberland is certainly aware of this method. In analyzing John Gay’s Beggar’s
Opera, Cumberland defends it by asserting: “Men may be laughed or lashed out of their
vices by : the ridicule and severity of the comic muse.’’12 Earlier he had defended the
play against the charge that all of the characters were low: “But they are such as they
should be according to the strictest laws of the drama whose province is to ‘hold the
mirror up to nature,’ to represent characters as they are not as they ought to be.”13 Of
George Colman’s The Jealous Wife, Cumberland said, “Yet they contain strong
characters and are aimed at ridiculing of fashionable and prevailing follies, which ought
to be made essential points of consideration in every production of the sock.”14 Even
though he could see the value of showing men’s follies and vices, he could not fully
endorse many restoration comedies:

Congreve, Farquhar and others have made vice and villainy so playful and
amusing that either they could not find it in their hearts to punish them, or not
caring how wicked they were, so long as they were witty, paid no attention to
what became of them: Shadwell’s comedy is little better than a brothel.15

In general he hedged in talking of these Restoration playwrights. He applauded
their wit, style, vivacity. He said of Congreve’s Way of the World: “I am humbly of the
opinion . . . Congreve has in this, and his other comedies, left the best model of dramatic
style.”16 He condemned their morals. He regarded Beaux Stratagem as having a “positive
defect in point of moral.”17 And of City Wive’s Confederacy, he says, “Neither does the
muse of Vanbrugh wear a very cleanly sock on this occasion.”18 Sometimes heopenly
condemned the play. He found The Constant Couple completely “destitute of merit.”19
His more general approach was to approve of the restoration comedy, even though he
believed it defective in morality: “In short, the daring and unmodified representation of
libertinism, which are held up in almost every scene of this comedy and still continue to
attract and please, form a striking instance how successfully a florid painter may conceal
deformities, and by brilliant execution recommend a bad design.”20 Even though he gave
grudging approval of this technique of remedying man’s way, he definitely preferred to
move men by their pity for wronged innocents. Probably the most explicit statement of
this is in the Prologue to The Widow’s Only Son:

We know it is our duty to impart
A moral pleasure to the feeling heart,
To risque no jest, that mocks at common sense,
To raise no laugh at modesty’s expense ,
Lightly to sketch deformity and pride.
But give our strength to Nature’s fairer side.21

Another statement of this preference for presenting man’s better side comes in
Cumberland’s criticism of Henry Fielding’s works. Cumberland disliked Fielding’s
plays. He called them excessive , harsh, coarse, and caustic , thinking Fielding’s “genius
led him to what was grotesque and coarse, rather than to the minuteness of amiable and
polished urbanity.”22 But he thought all of the characters in Tom Jones were drawn with
truth and humor: “Many situations and sentiments are touched with a delicate hand: and
throughout the work he seems to feel as much delight in describing the amiable part of
human nature, as in his early days he had in exaggerating the strong and harsh features of
turpitude and deformity.”23

Since he believed the British were improving steadily in point of morals and
manners, Cumberland held that the satirist’s technique of pointing out deformity and
foolish conduct was more proper during an earlier time before the improvement. Of
Cibber’s statement of purpose for writing The Careless Husband, Cumberland says:
“And he states his object to have been that of a most laudable ‘attempt to reform the town
into a better taste.’ We cannot hesitate to acknowledge how much that taste needed
reformation at the period when this play appeared. It is to the honour of the age that
Cibber’s attempt succeeded.”24 In The Observer (1785), Cumberland dedicated an entire
essay to arguing that England, during this time, had attained an all-time high in point of
manners and morals. Since Cumberland believed that England had reached a new stage of
enlightenment and that the stage should reflect nature, he asserts that the awakened
audiences will demand more moral characters.

And if amidst a people brave and free Enlightened times succeed--and such we
see; When jests obscene are hooted from the stage’ And decency’s the fashion of the age, Then’ then with cleanly sock and sober mien The muse steps forth on the moral scene;
Aw’d by the eye of Modesty, no more She courts the Theatre’s licentious roar;25

His fullest statement of this dramatic credo comes later in his Memoirs:

As the writer for the stage is a writer to the passions, I hold it matter of
conscience and duty in the dramatic poet to reserve his brightest colouring for the
best characters to give no false attractions to vice and immorality, but to
endeavor, as far as it is consistent with that contrast, which is the very essence of
his art, to turn the fairer side of human nature to the public, and, as much as in
him lies, to contrive so as to put men in good humour with one another.26

Cumberland sought to influence his audience to good conduct by depicting scenes
where good men suffer and pity others for their suffering. Cumberland calls on his
audiences to share with his upright characters these uplifting sentiments. This
presentation of virtuous behavior to be emulated is characteristic of Sentimental comedy
in contrast to Laughing comedy which shows man’s vice and follies which are to be
avoided. This dramatic credo is much like that of the sentimental comedy as a whole, as it
is described by Ernest Bernbaum, author of the fullest study of the type. Bernbaum
described it according to its view of human nature:

It implied that human nature, when not, as in some cases, already perfect, was
perfectible by an appeal to the emotions. It refused to assume that virtuous persons must be sought in a romantic realm apart from the everyday world. It wished to show that beings who were good at heart were found in the ordinary walks of life. It so represented their conduct as to arouse admiration for their virtues and pity for their sufferings. In sentimental comedy, it showed them contending against distresses but finally rewarded by morally deserved happiness.27

Bernbaum sees Cumberland’s attempt to defend the victims of prejudice as an
extension of the sentimental:

Though a sedulous observer of conventions in vogue, Cumberland was not
destitute of originality and enterprise. He perceived that the sentimental
dramatists had not carried their idealization of life far enough. He thought the
goodness of human nature should henceforth be illustrated, not only by those
types of characters which had been repeatedly exalted but also by those which had
been disregarded or treated in comic or disdainful fashion.28

Bernbaum then quoted Cumberland’s statement of purpose and concluded, “The
purpose thus undertaken resulted in an important forward step in sentimental comedy,
and gave Cumberland his securest claim to remembrance.”29 In response to Bernbaum’s
statement and Cumberland’s own claims, I have studied Cumberland’s comedies to
discover the extent of his advocacy of these victims of prejudice.

1 Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, I (London, 1807), 257-258.
2 Memoirs 259.
3 Memoirs 262-3.
4 Memoirs 273-4.
5 Cumberland’s Memoirs and S. T. Williams’ biography, Richard
Cumberland: His Life and Dramatic Works are the best sources of
information about his life. William Mudford’s account, Richard
Cumberland, written shortly after the author’s death, adds very little to the
Memoirs.
6 Memoirs 56.
7 The Walloons in The Posthumous Dramatic Works of the Late Richard
Cumberland, Esq., I (London, 1813), [75].
8 False Impressions (London, 1797), P. [Agr],
9 The School for Widows (Larpent Manuscript #828), p. [ iii ] .
10 “Life of John Home” in British Drama, XII, cvi.
11 Quoted by Ernest Bernbaum in The Drama of Sensibility (Gloucester,
Mass., 1958), p. 9.
12 “Critique on The Beggar’s Opera” in British Drama, VIII, x.
13 Ibid., p. ix.
14 “Life of George Colman” ini, VII, vi.
15 Memoirs I 252.
16 “Critique on The Way of the World” in British Drama, III, vi.
17 “Critique on The Beaux Stratagem” in British Drama, IV, iv.
18 “Critique on City Wives’ Confederacy in British Drama, II [iii].
19 “Critique on The Constant Couple” in British Drama, IV iv.
20 “Critique on The Beaux Stratagem” in British Drama, IV, viii.
21 The Widow’s Only Son (Larpent Manuscript #1626), p. [vi].
22 “Critique on The Miser” in British Drama, V, xix.
Ibid., p. xii.
23 Ibid., p. xii.
“Critique on The Careless Husband” in British Drama, XIV, xiv.
24 “Critique on The Careless Husband” in British Drama, XIV, xiv.
25 The School for Widows, p. [iii].
26 Memoirs, I, 272.
27 Bernbaum, p. 10.
28 Bernbaum 238.
29 Bernbaum 238.