VANBRUGH, SIR JOHN (1664-1726), British dramatist and architect, was born in the parish of St. Nicolas Acons in the City of London, and christened on Jan. 24, 1664. His father was a sugar baker, and his grandfather, Gillis van Brugg, came to England from Ghent in James I.'s reign. The Vanbrughs left London during the Plague and went to Chester. After a few years at the King's School, Chester, John at nineteen was sent to France to study the arts; after two years' absence he returned to take up a commission in the regiment soon to be known as the 13th Foot. In the early autumn of 1690 Vanbrugh was arrested at Calais on a charge of espionage, on the information of a lady. He was imprisoned at Vincennes, but on Feb. 1, 1692, by a lettre de cachet, he was removed to the Bastille. His enforced leisure was responsible for the first draft of the Provok'd Wife. For a time after his return he resumed his commission.
The production of Cibber's Love's Last Shift at the Theatre Royal in January 1696 kindled afresh his attachment to the comic muse. He thought it would be interesting to develop the situation upon which Cibber had rung down the curtain, and the result was The Relapse, "got, conceived and born in six weeks' space." It was given on Boxing Day 1696, with Cibber as Foppington, one of the three parts borrowed from the preceding comedy. The Sir Novelty Fashion of Cibber was developed in this play into Lord Foppington, who has been pronounced "the best fop ever brought upon the stage." Foppington, Tunbelly Clumsy and Miss Hoyden are as fine a trio of comic characters as any play can show. Aesop at Drury Lane followed. This ran for a week only, but the success of The Relapse was so triumphant that Mon tague, afterwards Lord Halifax, asked at once for the Provok'd Wife for the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and it was produced at that theatre in May 1697. Sir John Brute, the husband, is Van brugh's masterpiece, and as usual the servants' characters are well drawn. The play was a complete triumph, and Brute was one of Garrick's great parts. Vanbrugh was fiercely attacked by Jeremy Collier for immorality in 1698, and wrote nothing more for the stage until 1700, when an adaptation of the Pilgrim of Beaumont and Fletcher was produced at Drury Lane. In this play, in the part of Alinda, Anne Oldfield scored her first success. Two years later appeared The False Friend, a version of Le Sage's Traitre puni. Other adaptations from the French were A Country House, from Dancourt's Maison de campagne; Con federacy (1705), from the same author's Bourgeoises a la mode; Squire Trelooby (1704), a version of Moliere's Monsieur de Pourceaugnac; and The Mistake (1705), from Moliere's petit amoureux. As a dramatist Vanbrugh is less polished than Con
greve, and less remorseless than Wycherley. He was not primarily a man of letters, and, as Cibber said, his dialogue is "common conversation committed to paper." No one would trouble to defend his dramatic morality, but his worst efforts are less re pulsive than Wycherley, because there is less ruthless realism and more fun in his attitude. His plays are farce, very often, rather than strict comedy, and warmed with humour.
Collier's attack and the resulting movement must have been responsible in part for "Van" turning his attention to architec ture. The demand for splendid country seats in the new Palla dian style was steadily increasing, and his reputation as a modern wit was an introduction in itself. In 1702 he was entered as comptroller of the Royal Works (now the Board of Works, where several of his designs may still be seen). In 1703 he wrote to ask his friend Jacob Tonson to procure him a "Palladio," and in the same year he was a commissioner at Greenwich. In the meantime, Vanbrugh had been appointed architect to the earl of Carlisle, and the result, completed in 1714, was the Corinthian mansion of Castle Howard. The work is an extension of the Palladian plan introduced by Inigo Jones, with the addition of immense corridors in segmental colonnades leading from the main entrance to the wing blocks. From a scenic artist's point of view, it is a magnificent (and certainly his best) piece of work. The earl procured for Vanbrugh a high place in the College of Arms. In March 1704 he was actually promoted Clarenceux, though he not only knew nothing of heraldry but had openly ridiculed that grave science in Aesop. His next work was to pre pare designs for Kneller Hall near Hounslow. But the success of Castle Howard now caused him to entertain the rash project of building a theatre in the Haymarket, from his own design, for the acting of his own plays. Congreve joined in the venture. The magnitude of Vanbrugh's architectural ideas grew as the work went on, and with the ideas the structure grew till a theatre meant for the delicate bijouterie work of polite comedy seemed growing to the proportions of the Roman Colosseum. When at length the time came to test the acoustics of the pile, it was found to be sadly defective. What changes were made to rectify the errors of structure does not appear. The theatre was opened to the public with an Italian opera, which was followed by three of Moliere's comedies, and these by the Confederacy, Vanbrugh's masterpiece.