The Gamester | Page 2

first of
stage-reformers"
(_To the Author of Fatal Friendship, a Tragedy_), an unquestionably
domestic tragedy inculcating a theological "lesson". To this play, which
was acted with "great applause" (Biographica Dramatica, 107), Aaron
Hill was, I am convinced, considerably indebted for his Fatal
Extravagance, which is, in turn, one of the sources of The Gamester.
In the early eighteenth century, then, there is clearly discernible a
two-fold tendency toward middle-class tragedy which reaches its fullest
expression in Lillo: the desire to lower the social level of the characters
in order to make the tragedy more moving; and the desire to defend the
stage by demonstrating its religious and moral utility. In his prologue to
The Fair Penitent (l703), Rowe gave expression to the first: the "fate of
kings and empires", he argues, is too remote to engage our feelings, for
"we ne'er can pity that we ne'er can share"; therefore he offers "a
melancholy tale of private woes". In his prologue, Lillo repeats this
idea, but in his dedication he shows himself primarily concerned with
the second tendency. Specifically challenging those "who deny the
lawfulness of the stage", he argues that "the more extensively useful the
moral of any tragedy is, the more excellent that piece must be of its
kind"; the generality of mankind is more liable to vice than are kings;
therefore "plays founded on moral tales in private life may be of
admirable use... by stifling vice in its first principles". Dramatists who
were concerned only or primarily with the first of these tendencies (the
emotional effect), produced domestic or pseudo-domestic tragedies in
the manner of Otway and Rowe. But those who stressed the second
(moral and religious utility), seeking practical themes of widespread

applicability, quite logically moved toward genuine middle-class
tragedy. Thus Hill's Fatal Extravagance is concerned with the "vice" of
gambling; while Charles Johnson's _Caelia, or The Perjur'd Lover_
(1732) attacks fashionable libertinism of the day, telling the story
which Richardson was later to retell in seven ponderous volumes. In
Caelia the religious rationalization of the tragic action is subdued,
Johnson apparently preferring to stress the social and moral aspects of
his subject, and to this end he resolutely refused to expunge or modify
the boldly realistic brothel scenes, against which a fastidious audience
had protested.
A comparison of The Gamester with its predecessor, Fatal
Extravagance, reflects certain developments in the intellectual
background of the first half of the eighteenth century. Hill anticipated
Lillo in repeating Rowe's argument for lowering the social level of
tragedy and in stating vigorously his desire to defend the stage by
demonstrating its religious and moral utility. An admirer of Dennis's
critical writings, Hill repeats Dennis's argument that the stage can
affect those whom the pulpit falls to reach, and he offers his play as
proof that "sound and useful instruction may be drawn from the
_Theatre_", challenging the enemies of the stage to test his play "by the
rules of religion and virtue" (Preface). Taking a "hint", as he says, from
A Yorkshire Tragedy, Hill endeavored to show the "private sorrows"
that result from gaming.
At the opening of the play, the hero, having gambled away his fortune,
faces poverty. His friend who signed his bond is in jail and a kindly
uncle has failed to secure the needed relief. In a fit of passion growing
out of despair, the hero kills the villainous creditor, and decides to
poison his (the hero's) wife and children, and then stab himself. In his
dying moments he learns that the uncle has substituted a harmless
cordial for the poison and that a long-lost brother has died leaving him
a fortune. This bare outline gives no indication of Hill's careful
theological rationalization of character and plot which he promised in
his preface. Hill incorporated in his play the teachings of orthodox
divines; there is nothing 'revolutionary' in his analytical presentation of
human nature. The theological significance of Hill's play has not, to my

knowledge, been recognized; thematic passages tend to be dismissed as
tiresome and gratuitous moralizing and the plot is often regarded as
empty melodrama or the representation of some ambiguous 'fate'. It is
in this deliberate theological rationalization of his materials that Hill
owes most to Mrs. Trotter's domestic tragedy and that he differs
significantly from Moore.
As with Hill and Lillo, Moore's desire to write a play with an
extensively useful 'moral' led him to middle-class realism and prose. To
attack the widespread fashion of gaming which he regarded as a "vice",
Moore attempted to present "a natural picture" in language adapted "to
the capacities and feelings of every part of the audience" (Preface,
1756). That he should have treated this social problem tragically is to
be explained, perhaps, by his sources and by his religious background.
He justified the "horror of its