The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XI. The Period of the French Revolution.
§ 16. Cumberlands Jew
Cumberland, who had really been the first to influence the closing phase of this period of dramatic history, continued unceasingly to supply the theatre. His prolific industry produced nothing more noteworthy than The Jew (1794), a rehabilitation of that nation, in which Sheva, after a display of Hebrew frugality, suddenly shows Christian loving-kindness, and saves Sir Stephen Bertram’s family from disunion by an unexpected act of generosity.
Bad as all these playwrights are, it is surprising that their work was no poorer. Throughout the period, the men who wrote for the theatre were gradually finding themselves enslaved to the demoralising exigencies of stage-carpentry and scenic display. This influence, at once the effect and the cause of dramatic decadence, began to appear as early as 1656 in The Siege of Rhodes, and, when Jeremy Collier shamed the theatre out of its chief source of amusement, managers availed themselves of “foreign monsters,” such as French dancers and posture-makers, in order to retain the patronage of the old school. Henceforth, the stage never recovered its inspired simplicity. By the second half of the eighteenth century, spectacles were one of the chief attractions of the theatre. In 1761, Walpole describes how Garrick exhibited the coronation with a real bonfire and a real mob, while Rich was about to surpass this display by introducing a dinner for the knights of the Bath and for the barons of the Cinque ports. In 1772, the English Roscius was represented on the title-page of a pamphlet treading on the works of Shakespeare, with the subjoined motto: