The next night that the comedy was played for the author’s benefit, it did not clear the expenses of the house; and Mr Harris then said, that unless it was commanded by the king, he should not think of playing it any more; but, at the same time, desired Mr Holcroft to draw on the theatre for a hundred pounds. This sum, with the price which he got for it from the booksellers, was all that he cleared by this his first comedy. It was shortly after published with a very well written preface.
Mr Harris appears to have behaved in a liberal and friendly manner on this occasion. Mr Holcroft afterwards called on him, and he proposed that the play should be laid by for a time, till he had a strong afterpiece to play with it. This set Mr Holcroft’s imagination at work again, and he conceived the idea of writing a pastoral, and laying the scene in Ireland, so as to have an opportunity of introducing all the good Irish music. I do not know whether he ever executed this idea.
After the appearance of Duplicity, Mr Holcroft wrote to Mr Linley to decline singing in the choruses and oratorios. His salary had been raised by Mr Sheridan to two pounds a week, but still Mr Holcroft seems to have been dissatisfied with not being brought forward in considerable parts; and he entertained thoughts of going to Ireland as an actor, unless a more respectable class of characters was assigned him at the theatre. He seems to have thought it inconsistent, not only with his dignity, but with his interest, as an author, to appear only in the lowest and most insignificant parts. I ought to have mentioned above, that when his own play of Duplicity was acted at the other house, Mr Wewitzer being taken ill, he had played the part of Vandervelt at an hour’s notice, which he continued to do afterwards. He also tried to procure an engagement with Mr Colman this year at the Haymarket, but I believe ineffectually.
A project, which about this time engaged a good deal of Mr Holcroft’s attention, and excited very sanguine hopes in him, was the pretended discovery of the polygraphic art. The person who set this plan on foot, as we have before noticed, was Booth, the manager of one of the theatrical companies to which Mr Holcroft had belonged. He undertook, by some mechanical process, to produce copies of the old masters, such as Titian and Rubens, which, both in colour and execution, should not be distinguishable from the originals, and which were to be sold as cheap, or cheaper, than a common coloured print. This certainly was promising great things, if the performance had been answerable. Mr Holcroft was so full of this scheme, and of the golden advantages it held out, that Booth having applied to him to assist him in it, and become a partner in the profits, he wrote to Mr Greville, informing him of his sudden good fortune; and indeed offering him a share in so lucrative an undertaking. Mr Greville, however, seems to have thought the success not so certain; and it was not long before Mr Holcroft began to incline to his opinion. In his next letter to this gentleman, he confesses that he entertained some doubts on the subject, especially since he had heard that the same scheme had been tried before, and had failed; and farther, that there were not half a dozen artists in the kingdom, _who could copy the best pictures well enough to make it an object_. In fact, this last observation betrayed the real secret: after an imperfect outline, or rude sketch, had been struck off by a mechanical operation, any bungling artist, who could be found to do it cheap enough, was employed to finish the picture. So that, after all, this new mode of superseding the necessity of copying the old masters, was nothing more than an attempt to set up a cheap wholesale manufactory of bad copies of good pictures.—Mr Holcroft, however, though his ardour very soon cooled, was willing to wait till he had seen the specimens which Mr Booth was busy in making of some famous picture, but which he was very backward in producing. The subsequent fate of this polygraphic scheme is well known to the public. To excuse Mr Holcroft’s credulity on this occasion, it may be remarked, that it was long before he had paid any particular attention to the subject of painting; that he was really and truly a novice in the art; and, probably, would not have been much struck himself with the difference between one of these polygraphic imitations and a real Titian or Rubens.