Thomas Doggett deceased Author:Theodore Andrea Cook Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Drury Lane Tartaream intendit vocem, qua protinus .minis Contremuit domus . . . THERE is, somewhat naturally, almost as much uncertainty wi... more »th regard to Doggett's first appearance as about his last; but it is likely that he faced the public of the Theatre Royal as " Lory " in The Relapse, an arch, familiar valet, whose pertness would be especially appropriate to the Irishman's native talent. In 1691 he was on the same boards as " Nincompoop" in D'Urfey's Love for Money, or the Boarding School, and in the next year he created " Solon " in the same author's Marriage-Hater Matched, a part which seems to have confirmed his London reputation. But it was in 1693 that a friendship with Congreve, which does infinite credit to the intelligence of Doggett, began to bear fruit in a manner which must have been equally agreeable to them both. This intimacy, and the well-known affection which the brilliant young society dramatist felt for the actor, are worth considering in any estimate that may be made of Doggett's character. One result of it may have been that the actor himself, as we have seen, once tried his hand at authorship with very considerable success. But it is the cause that will interest us most. We may begin by taking a very considerable discount off the end of Tony Aston's estimate of Doggett: "a lively, spract man, of very good sense, but illiterate." This can scarcely be true of Congreve's friend. There were few men then living but might have suffered in the light of so brilliant a comparison ; yet we may at leastsurmise that if there was one person the witty and eloquent writer would not have honoured with his friendship, it would have been an " illiterate " actor. However that may be, it is at least certain that as " Fondlewife," in The Old Batchelo...« less