The Gamester | Page 3

Extravagance,_, but we might perhaps note briefly certain aspects of the two plays which reflect changes in the intellectual background. In both plays theological ideas are involved in the treatment of the fall of the hero, partially in Moore's play, completely In Hill's. Not recognizing ideas common to early eighteenth century sermons, the modern reader may perhaps puzzle over the steadily increasing moral paralysis and despondency in Moore's hero, Beverly. Vice, preached the divines, beclouds the reason, leaving it progressively incapable of controlling the passions:
Follies, if uncontroul'd, of every kind, Grow into passions, and subdue the mind. (V, 4)
Further each commission of sin causes progressive loss of grace, without which man cannot act rightly. In prison Beverly is incapable of prayer ("I cannot pray--Despair has laid his iron hand upon me, and seal'd me for perdition..."). However, a benevolent deity touches him with the finger of grace, enabling him to repent ("I wish'd for ease, a moment's ease, that cool repentance and contrition might soften vengeance"). He can now pray for mercy and in his dying moments is vouchsafed assurance of forgiveness ("Yet Heaven is gracious--I ask'd for hope, as the bright presage of forgiveness, and like a light, blazing thro' darkness, it came and chear'd me...").
In this aspect Moore is working along the lines laid down by Hill, but there is a significant difference, attributable perhaps to the weakening of orthodox theology and the spreading influence of the Shaftesburian school of ethical theorists. In the older theology, man's progressive loss of grace correspondingly releases his natural propensity for evil, and working in these concepts neither Hill nor Lillo hesitated to show his hero descending to murder. Moore, influenced perhaps by the ethical sentiments of the day, compromised his theological concepts and permitted his hero no really evil act (excluding of course his suicide), and stressed instead Beverly's mistaken trust in Stukely, who is, as Elton has pointed out, a "Mandevillian man" (_Survey of English Literature: 1730-1760_, I, 329-30).
There is another significant difference between the two plays which reflects the development of religious thought in the first half of the eighteenth century. Commenting on the too-late arrival of the news of the uncle's death, Elton remarks that "this _too-lateness_... which is in the nature of an accident, is a common and mechanical device of Georgian tragedy" (I, 330). Hill employed the device, the good news coming as a complete surprise, but he made it part of a carefully ordered plot designed to reveal the direct intervention and mysterious workings of a particular Providence, making characterization and action consistent, and giving his play a precise theological significance. In Moore's day, however, under the impact of deism and the developing rationalism, the concept of a particular Providence in orthodox theology had become so subtilized that the older idea of direct and striking intervention in human affairs all but disappeared. By mid-eighteenth century, deity, as Leslie Stephen points out, "appears under the colourless shape of Providence--a word which may be taken to imply a remote divine superintendence, without admitting an actual divine interference" (History of English Thought In the Eighteenth Century, II, 336). The references to Providence in Moore's play are of this type, pious labels on prudential morality. Moore carefully avoids the various devices employed by Hill to indicate direct divine intervention; consequently the late arrival of the news of the uncle's death (which was expected throughout the play) is without special meaning, and serves only as a theatrical device intended to heighten the emotional effect. The Gamester, then, is a clear reflection of the state of English thought in the middle of the eighteenth century, in which a declining theology becomes suffused with the ideas and sentiments of the moralists of the age.
Despite the popularity of their plays, neither Lillo nor Moore inspired any significant followers in England. On the Continent, however, their influence was considerable. In his introduction to his edition of The London Merchant, A.W. Ward traces Lillo's influence on the Continent, and Caskey gives a detailed account of Moore's (119-134). The Gamester was translated into German, French, Dutch, Spanish, and Italian. It was first acted at Breslau in 1754 and retained its stage popularity for more than two decades. A German translation appeared in 1754, and for more than twenty years numerous editions and translations continued to appear. In France, Diderot admired the play and translated it in 1760 (not published until 1819); Saurin's translation and adaptation (1767) proved popular on the French stage (he later provided an alternate happy ending which was frequently played).
The Gamester is reproduced, with permission, from a copy owned by the University of Michigan.
Charles H. Peake
University of Michigan

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The first edition of Moore's The Gamester appeared in 1753 shortly after the opening of Garrick's performance of the play on February 7. This edition