[William Parsons, Actor]

The impetus for this print of the comic actor, William Parsons (1736-1795), was likely the revival of the Richard Brinsley Sheridan play The Critic, or A Tragedy Refearsed in which Parsons played the hyper-sensitive playwright Sir Fretful Plagiary who pretends to be indifferent to criticism but reacts defensively at the slightest hint of it. Parsons played hundreds of small roles in the course of his long career and was the original Sir Fretful in the debut performance of The Critic in 1779. And now in April and May 1782, he was reprising the role to an appreciative audience at Sheridan's Theater in Drury Lane.

According to Public Advertiser, April 20, 1782

A Correspondent observes, that it is not easy to determine whether the Character of Sir Fretful Plagiary in Mr. Sheridan's Critic is more happily written or performed. When we behold this miserable Creature writhing like a tortured Worm, round the Hook of Satire silently wiping away the Tear which Agony has wrung from his Eye, and yet striving to make his Looks correspond with his declarations of being pleased with Mr Sneer's narrative we must allow that the Poet and the Actor are for once on a Level with each other. (p.3)

As both a theater owner and playwright, Sheridan left no stone unturned in promoting his work, so advertisements for the play appeared in several newspapers including the Public Advertiser, the General Advertiser and Morning Intelligencer, and the Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser. It was paired in some performances with the revival of another Sheridan play, The School for Scandal in which Parsons played the gossip Crabtree.

Gillray was a enthusiastic theatre-goer so the portrait of Parsons is almost certainly taken from life. The character of Sir Fretful, one of the major targets of Sheridan's satire in The Critic, was based upon the sentimental playwright, Richard Cumberland, an enthusiastic taker of snuff. So it is likely that Parsons incorporated the habit in his performance. Although not specifically included in the printed stage directions for the play, Parson's use of the snuff box seems to have become part of theatrical tradition for the role. It appears, for instance, in an engraving of Mr Terry as Sir Fretful Plagiary as late as 1821.

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on [William Parsons].
• "William Parsons (actor)," Wikipedia
• "Richard Brinsley Sheridan," Wikipedia
• "The Critic (play)," Wikipedia
• Thomas Wright and Joseph Grego, The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist; With the History of His Life and Times, p. 35.