Remarks on Tancred and Sigismunda, Elizabeth Inchbald

introduction / essay / literary criticism / book part /
Orig. pub.

Elizabeth InchbaldREMARKS [on Tancred and Sigismunda].¹
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This beautiful poem, in dialogue, called a drama, has but few attractions in representation, although it is the work of the celebrated author of "The Seasons."²

Thomson was born in 1700, in Roxburgh, a shire in Scotland, the son of the minister of the parish of Ednam.³ He received his early education at Jedburgh, and was afterwards admitted to the university of Edinburgh. He was designed for the church, but the Muses presided over his inclination, and allured him from sacred study and his native land, to seek reputation, and other reward, in the capital of England.⁴

His first pursuit was attained as soon as he published his "Winter,"—which appeared before the other Seasons—but more solid renumeration came both slowly and precariously—for, like most poets, Thomson was often in necessitous circumstances.⁵ Yet he was favoured with the friendship of Pope, and protected by the Lord Chancellor Talbot, with whose son he made the b 2[Page 4]tour of Europe:—but, by the death of that son, soon after his return, and the decease of the Chancellor immediately succeeding, the poet was reduced from a degree of affluence to poverty; as he merely held a lucrative place under his patron, which fell with him.⁶

The present tragedy was first acted in 1744.—Garrick was the original Tancred, and Mrs. Cibber the renowned Sigismunda.—The story is taken from "Gil Blas," and, as the author added little more than poetry to the fable, it is devoid of all that incident by which every act should be diversified, to established the just title of a dramatic work.⁷

The soft flowing love of Tancred and Sigismunda may find admirers by the fireside, on a long winter's evening; but can with difficulty obtain listeners in a brilliant theatre, where a thousand objects divert the attention which is not seized at once by some bold occurrence on the stage, and fastened to the subject of its concern by perpetual variety.

The interest, which the town has taken of late in seeing a child represent a man, has recalled this tragedy from the library once more to the theatre. But this is no proof against the dulness of the production. The taste, which is irregular, will combine irregularities; and why should not exquisite verses be taken for a play, whilst an exquisite little boy is received as an actor?⁸

Mrs. H. Siddons wants nothing to make the part of Sigismunda impressive, but a Tancred of her own height.

[Page 5]

The author of this work died in the forty-ninth year of his age, of a fever caught by imprudently taking a boat from Hammersmith to Kew, when he was previously heated by a hasty walk from London.⁹ He died at his house in Richmond, a pensioner of Frederick, Prince of Wales, our present King's father; and has a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey.¹⁰

Thomson appears, from all accounts received of him, to have been a man of mild and modest manners, and of depressed spirits. Dr. Johnson says, he was fat, and accuses him of indolence—here is another irregularity—for Thomson was born on the other side of the Tweed.¹¹

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Notes

1. "Remarks." Tancred and Sigismunda; A Tragedy, In Five Acts; By James Thomson. As Performed at the Theatres Royal, Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Printed Under the Authority of the Managers From the Prompt Book. With Remarks by Mrs. Inchbald. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster Row, pp. 3-5. The British Theatre; or, A Collection of Plays, Which Are Acted At the Theatres Royal, Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and Haymarket. Printed Under the Authority of the Managers from the Prompt Books. With Biographical and Critical Remarks, by Mrs. Inchbald. In Twenty-Five Volumes. Vol. XIII. Love for Love. Mourning Bride. Mahomet. Tancred and Sigismunda. Suspicious Husband. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster Row. 1808. The first performance of this play was staged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on March 18th, 1745. Laura DeWitt and Mary A. Waters edited this essay for The Criticism Archive. Back

2. James Thomson's nature and landscape poem The Seasons (1730) was much revered by his contemporaries and influenced Romantic period poetic depictions of nature. Back

3. Thomson was born in Ednam, a small village in Roxburghshire, a historic county in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. Thomson's father was the Presbyterian minister of Ednam at the time of Thomson's birth. Back

4. Thomson attended the Jedburgh Grammar School in 1712, where he was an apparently unremarkable student. In 1715, Thomson entered the College of Edinburgh with aspirations to enter the Presbyterian ministry. While in Edinburgh, Thomson joined the literary Grotesque Club, where he met his lifelong friend David Mallet. After getting a few of his poems published in The Edinburgh Miscellany, Thomson followed Mallet to London in 1725 in hopes of furthering his career as a poet. Back

5. "Winter," what would become the first poem in Thomson's The Seasons, was first published in 1726. Back

6. In 1730, Thomson became the tutor and travelling companion of Charles Talbot's eldest son for the duration of his tour of the Continent. The young Talbot died in 1733, at which point the elder Talbot, newly made Lord High Chancellor, provided Thomson with the sinecure position of secretary of briefs. Thomson lost the post in 1737 upon Lord Talbot's death. Back

7. This play was first acted on March 18th, 1745. David Garrick and Susannah Cibber debuted the roles of the eponymous young lovers. Gil Blas (in French, Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane) is a 1715 picaresque novel by Alain-René Lesage. It appears that Inchbald is mistaken, however, as scholars believe this play to be inspired by "The Tale of Ghismonda and Guiscardo" from the first novella of Day Four of Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron (c. 1348-1353). Back

8. Child actors, particularly males, became an integral part of the early nineteenth-century English stage, reinvigorating public interest in theatre. The production of Tancred and Sigismunda that Inchbald attended, likely in 1803 or 1804, featured Master Betty as Tancred, at which point he would have been 12 or 13. Back

9. Thomson died of a fever on August 27th, 1748, at the age of 47. Inchbald draws the notion of Thomson's death resulting from a boat ride from Samuel Johnson's The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets; with Critical Observations on their Works (1781, vol. IV, pp. 264-265). Back

10. Thomson died at his home in Richmond upon Thames, a town in south-west London. Thomson has a memorial beside William Shakespeare's in the Poet's Corner of the famous Westminster Abbey graveyard in London. Prince Frederick had granted Thomson a pension of £100 per year starting in 1740, when Thomson collaborated with Mallet on the masque Alfred to be performed at a gala for Frederick's daughter's birthday. Back

11. In his The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets; with Critical Observations on their Works, Johnson writes of Thomson: "Thomson was of stature above the middle size, and more fat than bard beseems, of a dull countenance, and a gross, unanimated, uninviting appearance" (1781, vol. IV, p. 265). Thomson's birthplace of Ednam, Scotland, is a few miles north of the River Tweed, which marks the Scottish-English border, a region that was known for its poor inhabitants who eked out meagre livings. Back