Except in one particular Rowe has been
perfectly historical in this play.
Jane Shore was, as he has represented,
accused of witchcraft; and proof of her guilt, in that instance, having failed, she
was next charged with the crime of adultery; an accusation it was in vain to deny;
and by sentence of the ecclesiastical court, she was made to perform penance in St.
Paul's church, and then to walk barefooted through some of the adjoining
streets.2
But Jane Shore, perishing for hunger, is
the fiction of an old ballad, and no intelligence from history; or, if she did expire
for want of food, it was not in consequence of any judgment passed upon her, as she
lived to an advanced age before the event took place:3 for Sir Thomas More
assures his readers, that, in the reign of Henry VIII. forty years after
her humiliating punishment was inflicted, he has frequently seen her gathering herbs,
in a field near the city, for her nightly repast.—She was now, he adds,
"extremely old and shrivelled; without one trace of her former beauty."4
Rowe has produced, from the incidents of
her singular life this favourite play.—The wife of a goldsmith of Lombard
Street,5 has drawn tears from the
b
2[Page 4] rich and the poor, for these hundred years past; and
will never cease having power over the hearts of an audience, whilst an actress can
be found to represent her, and her sorrows, with apparent truth.
Of the other characters of this tragedy, little can be said in praise, except of
Alicia6 —and
it is curious to observe, how widely two learned critics have differed in their
opinion respecting the merit of this part.— Dr. Johnson says, "Alicia is a character
of empty noise, with no resemblance to real sorrow, or natural madness."7
Whilst Dr. Warton has said, "The
interview between Jane Shore and Alicia, in
the fifth act, is very affecting, where the madness of Alicia is well
painted."8
To reconcile these two opposite criticisms, it may be supposed—that those great
critics spoke as spectators, not as readers: and the one had seen a good, and the
other a bad actress, perform the part.
Alicia can surely be rendered as pathetic as Jane
Shore, provided the character is acted with equal skill: for, though Jane has the advantage of her friend, in
being the personage whom the auditors have come purposely to see, and of whom they
have heard speak from their childhood, yet Alicia's calamities are far more heavy
than those of the famished Shore.—The
former is tortured by the most poignant remorse that human nature can
sustain—her conscience is loaded with a fellow-creature's death—nor has
she the enjoyment of malice, to diminish her[Page 5] sense of guilt; as she became
a murderer through the wild extravagance of love, not hate.
The parting scene between her and the condemned Hastings, where he forgives her as the
cause of his immediate execution, has something more
affecting, than the last scene of the drama, where Shore forgives his dying
wife.
The husband's pardon comes, after time has softened, and penitence mitigated, his
wrongs—the lover forgives a more fatal injury, and its consequences that moment
impending.9
b 3
1. "Remarks." Jane Shore; A Tragedy, In Five Acts; By Nicholas Rowe, Esq. As
Performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. 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. X. Tamerlane. Fair Penitent. Jane
Shore. Lady Jane Grey.
Siege of Damascus. 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
February 2nd, 1714. Bernadette D. Woodburn, Laura
DeWitt, and Mary A. Waters edited this essay for The Criticism Archive. Back
2. In addition to conspiracy, King Richard III, then the
Protector of the throne, accused Shore
of Witchcraft and Sorcery, alleging that she plotted with King Edward IV's wife to waste
and wither his body. When Richard could not prove his accusation of Shore's sorcery, her charges were reduced
to being a harlot, for which the Bishop of London sentenced her to public penance.
This public penance called for Shore to
walk the sharp stone streets of London barefoot in her chemise with a taper in her
hands. Back
3. It is estimated that Shore was around 82 at the time of her
death. Back
4. A
reference to Sir Thomas More's 1543 The History of Richard
III. This is an interpretative rephrasing of the lines
"Whose jugement semet me somwhat like as though men should gesse the bewty of one
longe before departed, by her scalpe taken out of the charnel house; for now is
she old, lene, withered, and dried vp, nothing left but ryuilde skin and hard
bone. And yet being euen such, whoso wel aduise her visage, might gesse and deuise
which partes how filled wold make it a faire face" (p. 54 of the 1883
edition). Back
5. Lombard Street has been a hotspot for London's mercantile and banking
industries since medieval times. Shore's
first husband, William Shore, was a goldsmith and banker who was friends of the
Lamberts (Shore's family of origin).
Shore's father arranged the marriage
when she was rather young, but Shore was
able to have the marriage annulled on the grounds of her husband's impotency in
1476. Back
6. Alicia is the mistress of Hastings, a powerful baron who forcibly takes Shore as a mistress following the death of
King Edward IV. Although
the two had previously been best friends, Alicia becomes fiercely jealous of Shore and betrays her to Richard as the cause of Hastings' support for the young Edward V as successor. In turn,
Richard executes Hastings and turns Shore out to the streets. Back
7. From
Samuel Johnson's The Lives of the English Poets; and a Criticism on
their Works (1781, vol. II, p. 172). Back
8. From Warton's An essay on the writings and genius of Pope (1756, p.
267). Back
9. In Act IV, scene i, Alicia visits the
imprisoned Hastings and confesses
her treachery. Hastings forgives
her and begs her to offer assistance to Shore, but by the time Shore
comes to Alicia's doorstep, Alicia has gone mad and refuses to grant Shore any help. In Act V, scene i, Jane Shore
is reunited with her husband, with whom she has been separated since the beginning
of her affair with Edward
IV. Her husband grants his forgiveness just before he is seized by Richard's soldiers. Back