Vanbrugh, SIR JOHN

Vanbrugh, SIR JOHN, dramatist and architect, was the grandson of a Protestant refugee of Ghent, and the son of a Cheshire sugar-baker. He was christened in London, 24th January 1664. He was educated in France, and hardly had he returned than his wit, his handsome figure, and his geniality won for him a footing in society. In 1695 he was made one of the commissioners for finishing the palace at Greenwich for the purposes of a hospital. His first plays were the Relapse, or Virtue in Danger, brought out at Drury Lane with great success in 1697, and the Provoked Wife, produced at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He then in partnership with Congreve started an unsuccessful theatre in the Haymarket, and there brought out the Confederacy. In 1702 he built Castle Howard in Yorkshire for the Earl of Carlisle, and such was now his reputation that he was commissioned to erect Blenheim House. The queen supplied from her private purse the money required, and Marlborough left a fund to meet the architect's claims, but the imperious duchess not only refused to pay Vanbrugh his salary, but dismissed him from his office. Finally he got nearly all the money that was due to him, but naturally ever after was the sworn foe of the Duchess of Marlborough. In 1714 he was made comptroller of royal works, was knighted at the accession of George I., acted as Clarendon king-at-arms from 1705 to 1725, and died at Whitehall, March 20, 1726, leaving his Provoked Husband unfinished. Vanbrugh's plays lack the polish and refinement of Congreve's, but are free from his artificiality and laboured brilliancy. The interest is well sustained throughout; the characters are real, natural, and racy, the situations striking, and the dialogue bright and vigorous. But he is grossly indecent beyond all the allowable bounds of humour, and his grossness seems in grain. He failed pitifully in his attempt to repel the onslaught of Jeremy Collier. His architectural works are massive and pictorial; and if they gave rise to the witticisms of Swift and Pope, they gained the praises of Sir J. Reynolds. See the edition by W. C. Ward (1893), and select plays by Swaen (1896).