Richard Cumberland

• Born: February 19, 1732
• Birthplace: Cambridge, England
• Died: May 7, 1811
• Place of death: Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England

Other Literary Forms

Richard Cumberland is remarkable for the volume and variety of his literary output. Experimenting in several different genres, he earned a reputation in his day as a distinguished man of letters. Most of his works, however, have not survived.

Cumberland had early ambitions as a poet, his first publication being an imitation of Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written on St. Mark’s Eve (1754). He was to publish Odes in 1776, and a volume entitled Miscellaneous Poems two years later. A religious epic, Calvary: Or, The Death of Christ (1792) sold well, which encouraged him to collaborate with Sir James Bland Burgess in The Exodiad (1807). Cumberland rendered some fifty psalms into English meter in A Poetical Version of Certain Psalms of David (1801) and reflected on his life in verse in Retrospection (1811).

Cumberland also won renown as an essayist for his multivolume work The Observer, which first appeared in 1785, with editions following in 1788 and in 1798. It featured a discussion of the early Greek drama with some original translations (notably Aristophanes’ Nephelai (423 b.c.e.; The Clouds, 1708). Cumberland wrote pamphlets—defending his grandfather’s reputation, among other causes—and a religious tract. He entered the realm of art history with his Anecdotes of Eminent Painters in Spain During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1782) and published the first catalog of the paintings housed in the royal palace at Madrid.

The pathetic scenes that mark Cumberland’s drama are also found in his fiction: Arundel (1789), an epistolary novel of the form popularized by Samuel Richardson, and Henry (1795), a conscious imitation of Henry Fielding. Cumberland’s active involvement in the theater resulted in numerous prologues and epilogues as well as an edition of The British Drama with biographical and critical comments, published posthumously in 1817. In 1809, Cumberland also founded The London Review, which invited signed articles from contributors; it appeared only twice. His Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, Written by Himself (1806-1807), perhaps the most lasting of his nondramatic productions, preserved for posterity the record of his long and productive career.

Achievements

Richard Cumberland is remarkable for his long and varied contribution to the theater. During his career, which spanned forty years, he wrote some fifty dramatic pieces, including musical comedies and operas, a masque, classical historical and domestic tragedies, translations and adaptations, farces, and occasional pieces. The genre in which he excelled was sentimental comedy, and for years he was the most successful writer in the field. His sentimental comedies held the stage against the masterpieces of Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. His very preeminence, however, made him vulnerable to attack, and unfortunately he has been handed down to posterity, through the eyes of his opponents, as “the Terence of England, the mender of hearts,” according to Goldsmith in “Retaliation” (1774).

Indeed, Cumberland is remembered primarily for his place in the debate between sentimental and laughing comedy . The issues were hotly contested: What is the primary purpose of the stage? Should comedy be realistic or idealistic? Should it ridicule vices and follies or present models worthy of imitation? Should playwrights appeal to the intellect or to the emotions? Should they aim to provoke superior laughter or sympathetic tears? Stated in these terms, the answers seem obvious, with the common verdict in favor of “true,” or laughing, comedy. One should not forget, however, the response of Cumberland’s contemporaries. In his day, he was enormously popular as well as influential. Many imitators followed Cumberland’s lead, ensuring the dominance of the sentimental school to the end of the century.

Cumberland was convinced of the moral utility of the drama and took his role seriously as reformer of the age. He created characters specifically to combat national prejudices, and he attacked fashionable vices. This was done both by means of admonitory examples (the ruined gambler in The Wheel of Fortune) and by direct statement. Aphorisms are to be found throughout Cumberland’s plays, and a useful lesson is often expounded at the end.

Cumberland was unusual as a “gentleman” playwright and was considered a credit to the profession. He was well educated in classical as well as English stage tradition and drew on his knowledge for his works. His writing was admired for its elegance and accurate portrayal of high life. The refined sensibility of his heroines and the tearful pathos they inspired were highly commended.

Cumberland was superior to other writers in this genre in that he was able to blend humor with sentiment. In almost all his plays, one finds “low” characters, included for comic relief, as well as sprightly ladies, amorous spinsters, and henpecked husbands. Strongly patriotic, he liked homegrown English characters and created some memorable types, such as the Irishman Major O’Flaherty. He could also employ local color to advantage, as he did in the seaside scenes in The Brothers.

Through his long acquaintance with the theater, Cumberland developed a good sense of what would work onstage. It was often remarked that his plays performed better than they read. He was able to use all the resources at his disposal (scenery, costumes, and so on) to enhance his plays. He also knew the abilities of the performers and could write parts that would exploit their talents. Some of these roles—Penruddock or Belcour, for example—were favorite acting parts. Famous in his own time, Cumberland was the last and the best of the sentimental dramatists. Of his many plays, The West Indian survives as a classic.

Biography

Richard Cumberland was born on February 19, 1732, in the Master’s Lodge at Trinity College, Cambridge, into a family of clergymen and scholars of whom he was justly proud. His father, Denison Cumberland, later bishop of Clonfert and Kilmore, was descended from the bishop of Peterborough, who wrote an influential treatise in refutation of Thomas Hobbes, De Legibus Naturae, Disquisito Philosophica (1672). Cumberland’s mother, Joanna, was the daughter of the famous classics scholar Richard Bentley. Cumberland cherished fond memories of this learned man and upheld Bentley’s reputation all his life.

At the age of six, Cumberland was sent to school at Bury St. Edmunds, where, encouraged by headmaster Arthur Kinsman, he stood first in his class. In 1744, he entered Westminster School contemporaneously with Warren Hastings, George Colman, and William Cowper. In Cumberland’s school days, an interest in the drama was awakened by his mother’s reading of William Shakespeare; on an early trip to the theater, he was much impressed by the innovative acting of the young David Garrick.

In 1747, Cumberland was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he enjoyed the quiet life of study and intellectual exertion. He took his bachelor of arts degree in 1751 with high honors and was elected to a fellowship two years later. He felt drawn to an academic or clerical career and relinquished his calling with some regret when more worldly prospects presented themselves.

The great Whig Sir George Montagu Dunk, second earl of Halifax, out of gratitude to Cumberland’s father, offered to take Cumberland as his private secretary. Cumberland moved to London to take up the post, which gave him the opportunity to move in political circles. In 1759, he married Elizabeth Ridge, with whom he was to have four sons and three daughters. Fortunately for his growing family, he was appointed the Crown Agent for Nova Scotia and Provost Marshal of South Carolina, which added to his income.

Cumberland accompanied Lord Halifax to Ireland in 1761 as Ulster secretary. This experience was later to bear fruit in Cumberland’s drama, when he brought original Irish characters to the stage. The relationship with his patron cooled on Cumberland’s refusal of a baronetcy, and when Halifax became secretary of state in 1762, he appointed a rival as under secretary. Cumberland was forced to accept a minor position as clerk of reports on the Board of Trade.

With little to do and in need of money, Cumberland began in earnest his career as a dramatist. His first play, The Banishment of Cicero, was refused, but in 1765, The Summer’s Tale was produced, a musical comedy imitative of Isaac Bickerstaffe. This provoked a charge from which Cumberland was often to suffer, that of plagiarism, and he turned his efforts to a genre more conducive to his talents, that of sentimental comedy. In 1769, The Brothers played at Covent Garden to great applause.

An unexpected compliment to Garrick in the epilogue won Garrick’s friendship and led to a very productive association between the two. As actor-manager of Drury Lane Theatre until 1776, Garrick produced several of Cumberland’s plays, which benefited from Garrick’s expert knowledge of stagecraft. Their first effort was also the most successful: The West Indian, which appeared in 1771, enjoyed an extraordinary first run of twenty-eight nights, was frequently revived and held the stage to the end of the century. When his third comedy, The Fashionable Lover, also won favor, in 1772, Cumberland was established as the leading dramatist of the sentimental school.

Cumberland’s preeminence in the theater won for him his entrée into the leading social and literary circles of the time. At the British Coffee House, he met Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, and Samuel Foote. He patronized the painter George Romney. He dined at Elizabeth Montagu’s (“Queen of the Blues”); he knew Hester Thrale and irritated Horace Walpole. As to the latter, although Cumberland moved in society with ease, proud of his dignified position as “gentleman playwright,” he had a temperament that provoked as much enmity as friendship.

Most unsatisfactory were his relationships with fellow dramatists, for Cumberland was reputed to be envious of all merit but his own. His discomfiture at the success of Sheridan’s The School for Scandal (pr. 1777) was widely reported. As the most popular exponent of sentimental comedy, Cumberland was vulnerable to attack by those who preferred laughing comedy, and when Goldsmith’s famous essay on the subject, “An Essay on the Theatre,” appeared in 1773, Cumberland took it as a personal affront. He replied in a vitriolic preface to his (appropriately entitled) play The Choleric Man. Proud of his accomplishments though professing humility and sensitive to criticism though pretending to lofty indifference, he exasperated even Garrick, who called him a “man without a skin.” Cumberland was identified by contemporaries as the original of Sheridan’s caricature in The Critic (pr. 1779) and was known as Sir Fretful Plagiary.

Cumberland’s literary career was interrupted in 1780 by involvement in political affairs. He had been appointed Secretary to the Board of Trade in 1775 through the interest of his patron and friend Lord George Germain. For this nobleman, then colonial secretary, Cumberland undertook a secret mission to Spain to arrange a separate peace treaty. When negotiations failed in 1781, Cumberland was recalled and was treated ungratefully by the government, which refused to reimburse him for his expenses. Moreover, he lost his post when the Board of Trade was abolished in 1782. Disappointed and in need of money, Cumberland retired to Tunbridge Wells, where he tried through unceasing literary activity to recoup his fortunes.

The first work produced after Cumberland’s return, The Walloons, a play with a strong Spanish flavor, failed to please, but he had more success with a domestic tragedy, The Mysterious Husband, in 1783. The Carmelite, staged in 1784 with an impressive gothic setting, displayed the extraordinary talents of actress Sarah Siddons as the heroine. Cumberland won little approval for his next few ventures, and it was not until 1794 that he again found his audience.

The Box-Lobby Challenge, produced early that year, was amusing fare, and a few months later The Jew was widely acclaimed. For the title role of the latter, Cumberland created a sympathetic character whose apparent avarice cloaked benevolent actions. Another powerful figure animated The Wheel of Fortune in 1795, giving actor John Philip Kemble one of his favorite roles. First Love, in the old vein of sentimental comedy, also won favor. These plays briefly restored Cumberland to his former popularity, but in the years to come, he was unable to match their success. He continued to write prolifically up to his death but for the most part failed to suit the taste of the audience and complained of the degeneracy of the stage.

Perhaps for this reason, Cumberland turned to other channels, and the years of his retirement saw a tremendous outpouring of fiction, poetry, and prose. This unremitting literary activity was at least partly a result of financial pressure. Toward the end of his life, his unfortunate situation attracted notice as one unworthy of a venerable man of letters.

By 1800, Cumberland had outlived his own generation and was viewed by his younger contemporaries as a figure from another era. He enjoyed his position as elder statesman and was accorded respect for his age and accomplishments. He liked to encourage young writers of talent, entertaining them with anecdotes of his own younger days. Always staunchly patriotic, he raised a corps of volunteers to meet the threat of a Napoleonic invasion; two of his sons died serving their country. At his death, at the age of seventy-nine, Cumberland left a modest estate to his youngest daughter. He lies buried in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Analysis

Richard Cumberland took seriously his role as moralist and reformer and set himself a novel didactic task: “I thereupon looked into society for the purpose of discovering such as were the victims of its national, professional or religious prejudices; . . . and out of these I meditated to select and form heroes for my future dramas.”

The West Indian

In his popular play The West Indian, he defends the character of a Creole. The basic plot is a familiar testing device, set up in the opening scene. Stockwell awaits the arrival from Jamaica of his unacknowledged son; he decides to defer acknowledgment of their relationship until he has had an opportunity to evaluate the young man’s behavior. Should his son, Belcour, satisfy this scrutiny, Stockwell will reward him with legitimacy, a fortune, and a place in English society.

Interest in Belcour is awakened before his entrance and increased by the parade of black porters. Nor is he likely to disappoint expectations; he enters breezily, complaining of the rapacious mob at the waterside. As a stranger to English society, he is able to view it objectively and provide satiric commentary. Moreover, as a “child of nature,” his viewpoint should be a healthy corrective. Generous and honorable himself, he does not suspect duplicity in others; while this makes him an easy dupe of the scheming Fulmers, it redounds to his credit as a proof of his innocence.

Belcour’s lack of guile is an endearing trait: The candor with which he acknowledges his faults to Stockwell disarms reproof, and his ingenuous confession to Charlotte of the loss of her jewels wins an easy forgiveness. This West Indian shows the human heart in its natural state—impulsive, mercurial, and uncontrolled. He himself bemoans the violence of his passions, blaming them on his tropical constitution. He is driven by his powerful urges. Inflamed by the beauty of Louisa Dudley, he sacrifices every other tie to possess her. Plunging headlong into error, he is chastened by the mischief that ensues. Like so many other libertines, Belcour is reclaimed by a virtuous woman. Kneeling at her feet, he pledges his love, grounded now on principle. In their union, the ideal of a feeling heart tempered with reason will be achieved.

Belcour is valued above all for his benevolence. A creature of instinct, his first impulse on hearing of distress is to relieve it. His follies and virtues proceed from the same source—a warm heart. He reflects the fundamental belief of sentimental drama in the natural goodness of people and contradicts the orthodox Christian view of human beings’ sinfulness. Sympathy with one’s fellow creatures is the moral touchstone for all the characters in the play—a quality conspicuously lacking in Lady Rusport, who represents the Puritan position. She was taught never to laugh; she abhors the playhouses; and she upholds the letter of the law over the spirit of charity. She is rightfully excluded from the happy ending.

Cumberland’s fallible but generous hero, who would not be out of place in a laughing comedy, resembles Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones and Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s Charles Surface. The play abounds with high spirits; besides the amusing peccadilloes of Belcour, there is a subplot involving the lively Charlotte Rusport. She is unexpectedly forthright, avowing her love for Charles although uncertain of its return. This reversal of roles, in which a lady takes the active part in the wooing, is frequently seen in Cumberland’s plays. Charlotte’s witty repartee, directed even at the sentimental heroine, prevents Louisa’s distresses from appearing too pathetic.

A similar defusing of sentiment is accomplished by Major O’Flaherty. He is a stage Irishman with a difference; while retaining some national traits, he has many admirable qualities, showing courage, loyalty, and generosity. It is he, after all, who discovers and delivers the will that brings about the happy reversal of fortune. His joyful exuberance animates this otherwise tearful scene. He punctures the Dudleys’ formal rhetoric with irreverent comments, undercuts Lady Rusport’s tirade, and interrupts the highly emotional father-son reunion.

In The West Indian, Cumberland skillfully blends comic and sentimental elements. It is unique in this regard; more often, his plays are thoroughly imbued with sentiment. The Fashionable Lover, for example, shows more clearly what is meant by the “tearful Muse.”

The Fashionable Lover

The opening of The Fashionable Lover is reminiscent of a comedy of humors, in which each character appears onstage to exhibit his or her particular foible. A Scotsman complains of extravagance to a foppish French valet; a railing misanthrope irritates a dissolute aristocrat; and a musty Welsh antiquary squares off with a vulgar merchant. The tone is one of satire until the introduction of the sentimental plot. This involves a poor orphan, surprised by the rakish lord into a compromising situation. Wherever Miss Augusta Aubrey turns in her hapless state, tears are sure to follow.

Cumberland aims to inspire pity through the picture of virtue in distress. He presents characters in a middle walk of life, with whose problems the audience can identify. The appeal to the heart is beneficial and instructive; it enlarges one’s sympathies and strengthens one’s affections. To evoke this response, Augusta is cast on the world bemoaning her hard lot. Nor is she likely to minimize her sorrows: “I have no house, no home, no father, friend, or refuge, in this world.” The smallest problems are magnified in her eyes; the awesome prospect of independence overwhelms her. Preoccupied as she is with her troubles, it is difficult to rouse her from self-pity. Even when informed of her good fortune, Augusta weeps, reflecting how unaccustomed she is to happiness.

Just as Augusta is unlikely to show stoic fortitude, she is also incapable of acting spiritedly on her own behalf. Her most likely resource at this critical pass would be her fiancé, but rather than appeal for his aid, she advises him to forget her. When he demands an explanation, she replies ambiguously that she accepts her fate. It is not surprising that Mr. Tyrrel concludes that she is guilty, for she makes no effort to deny it.

The heroine’s extraordinary passivity is the result of her extreme sensibility; she is tremblingly alive to every sensation and fearful of aggression. Ushered into the presence of a man who eyes her keenly, Augusta complains, “his eyes oppress me.” She is delicate of body as well as of spirit, and the least exertion exhausts her. Reunited with her long-lost father, she weeps, faints, and has to be carried away. Her feminine frailty endears her to the hero because she so evidently depends on his protection.

Such a pathetic heroine requires a rescuer. A conventional figure is an elderly gentleman somewhat removed from the action who wanders through the play doing good. He appears at propitious moments to solve difficulties, remove obstacles, and shower benefits on the needy. In The Fashionable Lover, there are at least three rescuers. Colin MacLeod is the most colorful of these and the linchpin of the plot. He is on hand at every critical juncture: He meets Augusta in the street and later saves her from rape, and he intercepts her father on his return and masterminds the final discovery. An attractive character with his homely, forceful dialect and blunt humor, he was intended by Cumberland to combat prejudice against the Scots. It is clear that Colin is economical on principle and not parsimonious. He disapproves of wasteful expenditure and lives frugally that he may be the more generous to others. He is the mouthpiece for several moral maxims that serve the playwright’s didactic purpose.

Colin’s confederate is a stock type, not quite so original. Like Tobias Smollett’s Matthew Bramble, Mortimer cloaks his charitable deeds under an affected cynicism. Extremely susceptible to human suffering, he hides his soft heart within a crusty shell. He succors the afflicted, expecting no reward but his own gratification. He proves that one acts benevolently for purely selfish reasons and calls himself a voluptuary in virtue. Besides protecting Augusta, he is determined to extricate Lord Abberville from the snares of evil. The return of the prodigal is a familiar motif in Cumberland. He frequently attacks fashionable vice in his plays: Dueling is discussed in The West Indian and condemned as ignoble murder. Gambling is another favorite topic and is treated as a serious crime; typically, it leads to other follies. Lord Abberville, for example, comes to realize that “gaming has made a monster of me”; grateful for his reprieve on the brink of ruin, he promises to reform.

The ending is conventional: The dishonest are chastised, the wicked repent, and the chaste lovers, blissfully united, are lavishly endowed with fortune. This is the “tin money” of which Goldsmith complained; the conclusion demonstrates the sentimentalist’s rather simplistic view of poetic justice. Virtue need not wait for the hereafter; Cumberland himself takes on the role of Providence, distributing appropriate rewards and punishments before the curtain falls.

The Wheel of Fortune

Romantic love is often at the center of Cumberland’s plots, which typically revolve around a young couple who encounter difficulties in bringing their attachment to fruition. The obstacles they face recur: parental opposition, difference of class or fortune, misleading appearances, or the waywardness of one of the parties. A conventional pair of star-crossed lovers appears in The Wheel of Fortune. What is surprising is that their affair is secondary, significant only for its effect on the protagonist.

Roderick Penruddock is an unusual hero for a Cumberland play in that he is well past the age of courtship. In his youth, he was cruelly betrayed by his friend and robbed of his beloved. Bitter and disillusioned, he has withdrawn into gloomy seclusion. The play opens on his inheritance of a vast estate, to which the property of his enemy has been mortgaged. His accession to wealth gives him the power to destroy his foe and rouses in him long-suppressed emotion. The conflict of the play is internal, as he is tempted by, contends with, and eventually vanquishes the spirit of revenge.

In this brooding figure, the play shows signs of the taste for melodrama that was to dominate the English stage in the nineteenth century. There are also certain Romantic tendencies that link it to a later era. Immediately striking is the setting; the first scene takes place in a wild and remote landscape, extremely picturesque. The character of the misanthrope is well adapted to his environment: Penruddock is not only an isolated but also an alienated man. Deeply passionate, he has never forgiven his injuries. Inexorable in anger, he is equally tenacious in love. Though rejected and forgotten by his betrothed, he retains her image fresh in his mind and is haunted by her voice. The anguish of his loss has driven him close to madness.

The turbulence of Penruddock’s mind is shown by the intemperance of his language. He rails at the beguiling world that entices only to destroy: “Away with all such snares! There’s whore upon the face of them.” At home in a stormy wasteland, he is out of place in London. In a gaily festooned ballroom, he looks “like a gloomy nightpiece in a gilded frame.” In the streets, the beggars shrink away from his grim visage, which bears the “mark of Cain.” He is almost Byronic in his role as a man set apart by a fateful destiny.

Penruddock also shows the Romantic need to escape the corrupting influence of society. He is more content in a simple cottage than in the splendid mansions of the city. He is loath to leave his humble abode and anxious to return. When he has won his battle of conscience, he looks forward to the solace of a self-approving conscience in his rural retreat.

This is a familiar notion in a sentimental play, that good deeds are also pleasurable. One finds an increasingly greater emphasis as the century progresses on sensual gratification, on luxuriating in emotions for their own sake. Penruddock shows signs of this preoccupation; he is completely engrossed by his own subjective experience. Wandering the streets of London, he considers the tumult outside as a reflection of his own state of mind. At every stage of the action, he feels his own mental pulse. Moreover, he deliberately seeks out potentially stimulating situations. He rereads Mrs. Woodville’s letter for the tender melancholy it produces, which he indulges to the full. His self-consciousness is characteristically Romantic.

Despite these innovative features, Penruddock is contained within the structure of a sentimental play, and in the end he is reclaimed. The change begins in the third act, when he abandons his aloof and ironic pose to defend his actions. He sympathizes strongly with Henry and is finally able to forgive his debtor. Consonant with Cumberland’s philosophy, the spirit of vengeance has been a brief aberration in an otherwise benevolent soul. Apparently, Penruddock’s former state of alienation has also been a distortion of his true nature, to which he is now restored. By the end of the play, he has grown remarkably sociable. He compares his heart, overflowing with sympathy, to a river flooding its banks. The bonds have been reestablished, and Penruddock has been accepted back into society.

In The Wheel of Fortune, enormously popular in its day, Cumberland demonstrated his ability to adapt to the latest literary trends; however, later he fell back on his old recipes for success, despite the fact that these outmoded forms failed to please. In his last years, he complained of the deterioration of standards, to which he would not accommodate himself, and pleaded for tolerance. Cumberland’s influence on the theater effectively ended in 1795.

Bibliography

Bevis, Richard. The Laughing Tradition. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980. Focusing on the varieties of comic theater in the age of actor David Garrick, Bevis investigates the traditional critical dichotomy between an entrenched, uninspired sentimental mode and an upstart, imaginative laughing mode. He discusses Cumberland’s major comedies as a response to audience demands for “clean fun” and morally uplifting themes.

Campbell, Thomas J. “Richard Cumberland’s The Wheel of Fortune: An Unpublished Scene.” Nineteenth Century Theatre Research 11 (1983): 1-11. This article demonstrates what can happen to a play as it passes from text to performance. The omitted scene was probably cut by John Kemble, who played the comic lead of Penruddock in the first performance.

Detish, Robert. “The Synthesis of Laughing and Sentimental Comedy.” Educational Theatre Journal 20 (1970): 291-300. Detish argues that a proper reading of Cumberland’s most important play, The West Indian, requires a recognition of the tension between laughing comedy aggressively espoused by Oliver Goldsmith in the 1770’s and sentimental comedy dominant since the days of Richard Steele.

Dircks, Richard J. Richard Cumberland. Boston: Twayne, 1976. This full-length critical study of Cumberland’s life and works evaluates Cumberland’s little remembered novels and poems, as well as the more important plays, to present a complete picture of a writer who produced literature popular with contemporary audiences but uninspiring to, and not influential on, the next generation of authors.

Traugott, John. “Heart and Mask and Genre in Sentimental Comedy.” Eighteenth Century Life 10 (1986): 122-144. The author considers Cumberland’s The Jew among the worst sentimental comedies of the eighteenth century for its “genteel vulgarity.” In contrast to the plays of Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Cumberland’s work coyly courts a sense of worldliness that it affects to scorn. Traugott offers on thematic grounds an explanation for the lack of reputation of Cumberland’s later plays.