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"K^'
NOTES, CRITICISMS, AND COREESPONDENCE
SHAKESPEARE'S PLATS k^J) ACTORS,
'^'"'^Waj^Z. 7/y/>v;™*i^*'?'^"
NOTES, CRITICISMS, AND CORRESPONDENCE
UPON
"SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS AND ACTORS.
JAMES HENRY HACKETT.
NEW YORK:
Carkton, Fi/hh'shcr^ 413 Brmdivay.
(late RiDP & Carlkton.)
M DCCC LXIII.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S63, by
JAMES II. IIACKETT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of tlie United States for the Soiilhorn
District of New York.
R. CRAIGHEAD,
['n liter, Su-ieoiyper, aii(t Klioiruiyper,
Cnitou Biiiltiing,
SI, 83, aiui »j Cadre Street.
New York, MarcJi, 31««, 18G3,
JAMES H. HACKETT, Esq.
My Dear Sir —
I have many thanks to render you for the high compUment you
have paid me in inscribing to me your very interesting and valuable
volume on Shakespeare and his characters and critics.
Your criticisms on the text and views of the characters of the great
bard are of very great value and originality. On several of them I
might be tempted to expand if I could write with more facility, but
the return of an old sprain in the hand makes writing very laborious
to myself as well as the handwriting obscure to others. The sjorain
is better to-day, — but as you see, not well. I can only make a single
remark on Falstafl".
I have never read Maurice Morgann's Essay on the question of the
Knight's courage or cowardice ; but your remarks recall to me an ob-
servation of Col. Burr — a sagacious observer of men — that there were
two quite distinct kinds of courage, the one purely physical, the other
arising from moral or intellectual causes. Where the two are com-
bined, the man is so far a hero. "Where the purely physical or animal
firmness or insensibility to danger is wanting, the deficiency may be
supplied by moral or intellectual causes — sometimes of a high order,
often not so, but still not physical. The sense of duty, patriotism, the
feeling of personal honour, hate, revenge, party, fanaticism, may give
courage.
Now, your and Shakespeare's Knight seems to me a cool man, but
he has no moral courage high or low. Duty, patriotism, loyalty, are
of course out of the question, and he scoffs at the sense of personal
honour. Not troubled with any nervous trepidation, but utterly sel-
fish, he skulks from danger nearly as coolly as a brave man would
meet it.
In this view Morgann or your own thoughts may have anticipated
me.
Again thanking you for the honour you have done me,
I am yours truly,
G. C. VERPLANCK.
1^^ Printed for ;pric ate distribniion only.
>1 0
®l)i5 tlolumc
IS PwESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
TO THE
HON. GULIAN C. YERPLANCK,
IN
GRATEFUL TESTIMONY
OF
THE MxVNY SEKVICES HE HAS EENDEEED TO THE PUBLIC;
AND
PARTICULARLY FOR HIS DEVOTION AS AN EDITOR
TO
The Shakesperean Drama,
AND HIS
ENLIGHTENED INTEREST IN EVERT HONEST EFFORT FOE ITS
PROMOTION IN UTERATHEE, OE ON THE STAGE.
rm r^ jT^^^^^^d '6^'%
PREFACE
The sketches and essays wliicli occupy tlie follow-
ing pages, necessarily partaking more or less of a
personal character — the author so often speaking of
his own experience or observations — there would
seem to be required no further preface at his hands.
He cannot, however, neglect to avail himself of the
time-honored privilege of saying a word to the reader,
were it only to exchange the customary form of salu-
tation when meeting. For he would have his book
regarded not as an elaborate attempt at authorship —
to which he makes no pretensions — but in the spirit
of a familiar and friendly, yet earnest conversation,
when one is listened to with partiality, as he discourses
upon topics of admitted interest, or revises the traits
of those whom the world has been accustomed to
admire.
These papers have been written at intervals in the
course of many and now by-gone years, as the respec-
Vlll PREFACE.
tive occasions prompted. In bringing tlicm together
at the present time, the writer would acknowledge
his obligations to his accomplished friend, Mr.
Edward S. Gould, whose judgment he has consulted
in the general arrangement of the volume, and to
whose friendly assistance he has been indebted in see-
ing these pages through the press, during their writer's
own unavoidable absence from the city.
James H. Hackett.
New York, JDecemher, 1862.
CONTENTS
PART I.
PAGE
H.vmlet's Soliloquy on Suicide, 13
PART II.
Hamlet, .... 63
PART III.
King Lear, 93
PART ly.
Actors of Hamlet — CoorER, "Wallace, Conway, Ham-
BLix, Edmund Kean, Young, Macready, Charles
Kemble, Booth, J. Yandenhoff, Charles Kean,
G-. Yandenhoff, E. Forrest, 118
PART Y.
Correspondence on Shakespearean Subjects with John
Quincy Adams, Washington Irving, James and
Horace Smith, authors of the " Rejected Addresses,"
X CONTENTS.
PAQB
Chas. a. Murray, Sir Thomas Noon Talfofrd, Earl
OF Carlisle, John Payne Collier — " Misconceptions
OF Shakespeare on the Stage, Personations of the
Characters of Shakespeare, The Character of
Desdemona," by J. Q. Adams — Yerplanck's Edition
OF Hamlet, Shakespearean Verbal Niceties, Har-
vey AND Shakespeare, Iago, 191
PART VI.
Falstaff, 313
Sketch of Jas. H. Hackett, 329
PART I.
HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY ON SUICIDE.
HAMLETS SOLILOQUY 0I( SUICIDE.
The classical Dr. Goldsmitli commences his " Six-
teenth Essay " thus : — Of all the implements of
poetry, the metaphor is the most generally and suc-
cessfully "Used, and indeed may be termed the Muse's
caduceus, by the power of which she enchants all
nature Over and above an excess of
figures, a young author is apt to run into a confusion
of mixed metaphors, which leave the sense disjointed,
and distract the imagination. Shakespeare himself is
often guilty of these irregularities. The soliloquy in
Hamlet^ which we have often heard extolled in terms
of admiration, is, in our opinion, a heap of absurdi-
ties, whether we consider the situation, the sentiment,
the argumentation, or the poetry. Hamlet is informed
by the Ghost that his father was murdered, and there-
fore he is tempted to murder himself, even after he
had promised to take vengeance on the usurper, and
expressed the utmost eagerness to achieve this enter-
prise. It does not appear that he had the least reason
to wish for death ; but every motive which may be
14 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
supposed to influence the mind of a young prince,
concurred to render life desirable — revenge toward
the usurper ; love for the fair Ophelia^ and the ambi
tion of reigning. Besides, when he had an oppor-
tunity of dying without being accessory to his own
death ; when he had nothing to do but, in obedience
to his uncle's command, to allow himself to be con-
veyed quietly to England, where he was sure of suffer-
ing death — instead of amusing himself with medita-
tions on mortality, he yqvj wisely consulted the means
of self-preservation, turned the tables upon his attend-
ants, and returned to Denmark. But granting him
to have been reduced to the lowest state of despond-
ence, surrounded with nothing but horror and de-
spair, sick of this life, and eager to tempt futurity,
we shall see how far he argues like a philosopher.
In order to support this general charge against an
author so universally held in veneration, whose very
errors have helped to sanctify his character among
the multitude, we will descend to particulars, and
analyze this famous soliloquy.
Hamlet^ having assumed the disguise of madness,
as a cloak under wdiich he might the more effectu-
ally revenge his father's death upon the murderer
and usurper, appears alone upon the stage in a pen-
sive and melancholy attitude, and communes with
himself in these words :
" To be, or not to be ? That is the question.
Wliethcr 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The shngs and arrows of outrageous fortune,
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 15
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end tliem ? — To die — to sleep —
No more ! and by a sleep, to say, we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to ; — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be -wished. — To die — to sleep —
To sleep 1 perchance to dream ; ay, there's the rub ;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled ofif this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. — There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time !
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud* man's contumely,
The pangs of despisedt love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin ? Who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a wearj'^ life,
But that the dread of something after death
(That undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns) puzzles the will —
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sickUed o'er with the pale cast of thought ;
And enterprises of great pith and moment.
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action."
* The Folio reads — '• the poor man's contumely ;" the contumely
which the poor man is obliged to endure. — Malone.
\ The Folio reads — "pangs of disprized love;" meanmg a love
which is found to be unvaliced or disre<?arded. — J. H. Hackeit.
16 HAMLET S SOLILOQUY ON SUICIDE.
We have already observed that there is not any
apparent circumstance in the fate or situation of
Hamlet^ that should prompt him to harbor one
thought of self-murder ; and therefore these expres-
sions of despair imply an impropriety in point of
character. But supposing his condition was truly
desperate, and he saw no possibility of repose but
in the uncertain harbor of death, let us see in what
manner he argues on that subject. The question is,
" To be, or not to be ;" to die by my own hand, or
live and suffer the miseries of life. He proceeds to
explain the alternative in these terms, " Whether
'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, or endure the frowns
of fortune, or to take arms, and, by opposing, end
them." Here he deviates from his first proposition,
and death is no longer the question. The only
doubt is, whether he will stoop to misfortune, or
exert his faculties in order to surmount it. This,
surely, is the obvious meaning, and indeed the
only meaning that can be implied in these words,
" Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings
and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take up arms
against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, end
them." He now drops this idea, and reverts to his
reasoning on death, in the course of which he owns
himself deterred from suicide by the tliought of
what may follow death ; " the dread of something
after death (that undiscovered country, from wliose
bourne no traveller returns.") This might be a good
argument in a heathen or pagan, and such indeed
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 17
Hamlet really was ; but Shakespeare has already
represented him as a good Catholic, who must have
been acquainted with the truths of revealed religion,
and says expressly in this very play — " Had not the
Everlasting fixed his canon 'gainst self-murder V
Moreover, he has just been conversing with his
father's spirit, piping hot from purgatory, which
we presume is not within the hoicrne of this world.
The dread of what may happen after death (says he)
" Makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Hian fly to others that we know not of,"
This declaration at least implies some knowledge of
the other w^orld, and expressly asserts, that there
must be ills in that world, though w^hat kind of ills
they afe we do not know. The argument, there-
fore, may be reduced to this lemma : " This world
abounds with ills which I feel ; the other world
abounds with ills the nature of which I do not
know ; therefore, I will rather bear those ills I have,
" than fly to others which I know^ not of ;" a deduc-
tion amounting to a certainty, with respect to the
only circumstance that could create a doubt, mainlj,
whether in death he should rest from his misery ;
and if he was certain there were evils in the next
world, as well as in this, he had no room to reason
at all about the matter. AYhat alone could justify
his thinking on this subject, would have been the
hope of flying from the ills of this world, without
18 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
encountering any others in the next. Nor is Ilamlet
more accurate in the following reflection :
" Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."
A bad conscience will make us cowards, but a good
conscience will make us brave. It does not appear
that anything lay heavy on his conscience : and
from the premises we cannot help inferring that
conscience, in this case, was entirely out of the ques-
tion. Hamlet was deterred from suicide by a full
conviction that in flying from one sea of troubles
which he did know, he should ftill into aiwther which
he did not know.
His whole chain of reasoning, therefore, seems
inconsistent and incongruous. " I am doubtful
whether I should live, or do violence upon fny own
life ; for, I know not whether 'tis more honorable to
bear misfortune patiently, than to exert myself 'iw
opposing misfortune, and by opposing, end it." 'Let
us throw it into the form of a syllogism ; it will
stand thus : " I am oppressed with ills ; I know
not whether 'tis more honorable to bear those ills
patiently, or to end them by taking arms against
them ; ergo^ I am doubtful whether I should slay
myself, or live. To die, is no more than to sleep ; and
to say that by a sleep we end the heart-ache," etc.,
^' is a consummation devoutly to be wish'd."
Now, to say it was of no consequence, unless it
had been true. " I am afraid of the dreams that
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 19
may liappen in that sleep of cleatli ; and I clioose
rather to bear those ills I have in this life, than fly
to otJier ills in that undiscovered country from whose
bourne no traveller ever returns. I have ills that
are almost insupportable in this life. I know not
what is in the next,- because it is an undiscovered
country ; ergo^ I'd rather bear those ills I have than
fly to others which I know not of." Here the con-
clusion is by no means warranted by the premises.
" I am sore aiiiicted in this life ; but I will rather
bear the afflictions of this life, than plunge myself
in the afflictions of another life ; ergo^ conscience
makes cowards of ns all." But this conclusion
w^ould justify the logician in saying, negatur conse-
qioens / for it is entirely detached both from the
major and the minor proposition.
The soliloquy is not less exceptionable in the
propriety of expression than in the chain of argu-
mentation. " To die — to sleep — no more," contains
an ambiguity, which all the art of pimctuation can-
not remove ; for it may signify that " to die," is to
sleep no more ; or the expression "no more" may bo
considered as an abrupt apostrophe in thinking, as
if he meant to say, " no more of that reflection."
"Ay, there's the rub" — is a vulgarism beneath
the dignity of Hamlet^s character, and the words
that follow leave the sense imperfect :
" For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause."
20 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
ISTot the dreams that might come, but the fear of
^vhat dreams might come, occasioned the pause or
hesitation. IiesjKct in the same line may be allowed
to pass for consideration ; but
" Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud* man's contumely,"
according to tlie invariable acceptation of the words
wrong and contumely^ can signify nothing but the
wrong sustained by the oppressor, and the con-
tumely or abuse thrown upon the proud* man ;
though it is plain that Shakespeare used them in a
diflerent sense ; neither is the word spurn\ a sub-
stantive ; yet as such he has inserted it in these
lines :
" The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes."
If we consider the metaphors of the soliloquy, we
shall find them jumbled together in a strange con-
fusion.
If the metaphors were reduced to painting, we
should find it a very diflicult task, if not altogether
impracticable, to represent with any proj^riety out-
rageous fortune, with her slings and arrows, between
which, indeed, there is no sort of analogy in nature.
Neither can any figure be more ridiculously absurd
than that of a man taking arms against the sea, ex-
* The first folio reads ^^poor man's."
f Also, ngain " gives my soul the greatest spurn."
[^I'Uus Andron., Act 3, Scene 1.
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 21
elusive of the incongruous medley of slings, arrows,
and seas, jostled within the compass of one reflec-
tion. What follows is a strange rhapsody of broken
images, of sleeping, dreaming, and shifting off a
coil^ which last conveys no idea that can be
represented on canvas. A man may be exhibited
sliuffliiig off his garments or his chains ; but how
he should shuffle off a coil^"^ wliich is another term
£pr noise and tumult, we cannot comprehend. Then
we have " long-liv'd calamity," and " time armed
with whips and scorns," and patient " merit spurned
by unworthiness," and " misery with a bare bodkin
going to make his own quietus^^ which at best is but
a mean metaphor. These are followed by figures
" sweating under fardels of burdens," " puzzled with
doubts," " shaking with fears," and " flyiug from
evils." Finally, we see "resolution sicklied o'er with
pale thought," a conception like that of representing
health by sickness; and a " current of pitli turned
away, so as to lose the name of action," which is
both an error in fancy and a solecism in sense. In
a word, this soliloquy may be compared to the
jEgri somnia and the Tabula citjus vanw fiiigoitur
species.\
* A coil, in Shakespeare, means a tumult, hubbub, etc. ; shuffle off
this mortal coil, rid one's self of this mortal strife and confusion.
^ ^^ Ay, ihe7-e's the ruli^ — (Dr. Goldsmith remarks) — " is a vulgarism
beneath the dignity of Hdmlefs character." It might have been tlms
conventionally considered in Dr. Goldsmith's, but not in Shakespeare's
day ; and for the reason that besides, in numerous other instances of
22 haj^ilet's soliloquy on suicide.
Highly as I have been prepossessed in favor of
Dr. Goldsmith's taste and purity of style in compo-
sition,! cannot nnscrupnlonsly swallow such a dose
of sweeping condemnation, which seems to me
hypercritical, despite his deprecation at the com-
mencement of a shock to our sensibilities, founded
upon a bias toward " an author so universally held
in veneration, and whose very errors have helped to
sanctify his character among the multitude." •
Let us first inquire whether some, at least, of his
premises are not false — whether some of the errors
imputed to Shakespeare are not the critic's own
errors of perception. The reasoning, as well as
some of the metaphors, have proved stumbling-
blocks to other learned critics.
its use in rhythmical measure, the word nib is put into the mouths of,
namely :
" To leave no rubs nor botches in tlio work." — Macbeth.
" Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little r?i&,
Out of the path," etc.
^Cardinal Pandulph, {in King John?)
" 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs.
And that my fortune runs against the bias."
l^The Queo7i, {in Bioha-rd Second.)
•' Every rub is smoothed in our way." — King Ile/nry V.
" What r«&, or what impediment, there is."
\_I)uke of Burgimdy.
" perceive
The least rub in your fortunes."
\_Duke of Buckingham, {Ilenry VIIl.)
■ "nor has Coriolanus
Deserved this so dishonored rub, laid falsely."
[Gomhdm, the Roman Oenerdk
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 23
Dr. Jolmson remarks : — " Of this celebrated solilo-
quy, -which, bursting from a man distracted with a
contrariety of desires, and overwhelmed with the
magnitude of his own purposes, is connected rather
in the speaker's mind than on his tongue, I shall
endeavor to discover the train, and to show how one
sentiment produces another.
" Hamlet^ knowing himself injured in the most
enormous and atrocious degree, and seeing no means
of redress but such as must expose him to extremity
of hazard, meditates on his situation in this manner :
Before I can form any rational scheme of action
under this pressure of distress^ it is necessary to
decide, whether, after our present state^ we are to
be, or not to be. That is the question which, as it
shall be answered, will determine whether His nohler^
and more suitable to the dignity of reason, to suffer
the outrages of fortune patiently, or take arms
against thcm^ and by opposing, end them, tlicnigh^
perhaps^ with the loss of life. If to die, were to
slec])^ no niore^ and hy a sleep to end the miseries of
our nature, such a sleep were devoutly to le icishedj
but if to sleep in death be to dream^ to retain our
powers of sensibility, we vcivi^i pause to consider, in
that sleep of death what dreams may come. This
consideration makes calamity so long endured ; for
who would hear the vexations of life, which might
be ended hy a hare hodJdn^ but that he is afraid of
something in unknown futurity ? This fear it is that
gives efficacy to conscience, which, by turning the
24: hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
mind iij3on this regard^ chills tlie ardor of resolution^
checks the vigor of enterprise^ and makes the cur-
rent of desire stagnant in inactivity. -
" "We may suppose that he would have aj)plied
these general observations to his own case, but that
he discovered Oplielia^^ — Johnson.
Mr. Malone, in his edition of Shakespeare, quotes
the foregoing, and then adds : — " Dr. Johnson's
explication of the first five lines of this passage is
surely wrong. Hamlet is not deliberating whether
after our present state we are to exist or not, but
■whether he should continue to live, or put an end to
his life — as is pointed out by the second and the
three following lines, which are manifestly a para-
phrase on the first : — ' Whether 'tis nobler in the
mind to sufi'er,' etc., ' or to take arms.' The ques-
tion concerning our existence in a future state is not
considered till the tenth line : — ' To sleep ! perchance
to dream^ etc. The train of Ilarnlefs reasoning
from the middle of the fifth line, 'If to die, were to
sleep,' etc.. Dr. Johnson has marked out with his
usual accuracy. In our poet^s ' Rape of Lucrece'
we find the same question stated, which is proposed
in the beginning of the present soliloquy :
' With herself she is in mutiny,
To live or die, which of the twain were better.' " — Malone.
A precedent for the figure — " arroios of out-
rageous fortune^^ — Mr. Steevens finds in one of
Cicero's Epistles : Fam. v. 16.
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 25
Mr. Theobald remarks : — " A sea of troubles,
among the Greeks, grew into a proverbial usage.
So that the expression figm-atively means the
troubles of human life, which flow in upon us, and
encompass us round like a sea."
Dr. Johnson observes : — " Mr. Pope proposed
seige. I know not whj there should be so much
solicitude about this metaphor. Shakespeare breaks
his metaphors often, and in this desultory speech
there was less need of preserving them."
Mr. Steevens sajs : — " A similar phrase occurs
in Rjharde Morjsine's translation of ' Ludovicus
Yives's Introduction to Wjsedome,' 154^ : ' how
great a sea of evills every day over-runneth,' etc."
And Mr. Malone concludes his notes with — " One
cannot but wonder that the smallest doubt should
be entertained concerning an expression which is so
much in Shakespeare's manner ; yet to preserve the
integrity of the metaphor. Dr. AYarburton reads
assail of troubles. Shakespeare might have found
the very phrase that he has employed, in the tragedy
of Queen Cordila, 'Mirrour of Magistrates,' 1575,
which he undoubtedly had read :
' For lacke of frendes to tell my seas of giltlesse sinarV "
" Shuffled off this mortal coil — i.e., turmoil, bus-
tle."— War burton.
'' A most intelligent Shakespearian critic, Thomas
Caldecott, remarks upon the word coil: — ' Coil is
here used in each of its senses — that of turmoil or
26 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
bustle, and tliat which entwines or wraps round.'
' This muddy vesture of decay.' Those folds of mor-
tality that encircle and entangle us. Snakes gene-
rally lie in folds like the coils of ropes ; and it is
conceivable that an allusion is here had to the
struofirle which that animal is obliged to make in
casting his slough, or extricating himself from the
skin that forms the exterior of this coil, and which
he throws off annually.' " — J. H. H.
" There's the respect — ^.<?., the consideration. See
Troilus and Cressida, Act 2, sc. 2." — Malone.
" The whijps and scorns of Time. — The evils here
complained of are not the product of time or dura-
tion simply, but of a corrupt age or manners. We
may be sure, then, that Shakesj^eare wrote :
' the whips and scorns of th' time.'
And the description of the evils of a corrupt age,
which followed, confirms this emendation." — War-
hurton.
" It may be remarked, that Hamlet, in his enume-
ration of miseries, forgets, whether properly or not,
that he is a prince, and mentions many evils to
which inferior stations only are exposed." — Johnson,
I think we might venture to read : — " The whips
and scorns o' the times''^ — i.e., times satirical as the
age of Shakespeare, which probably furnished him
with the idea, etc., etc.
Whips and scorns are surely as inseparable com-
panions as public punishment and infamy.
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 27
Quips, the word which Dr. Johnson wonkl intro-
duce, is derived, by ail etymologists, from whips.
Hamlet is introduced as reasoning on a question
of general concernment. lie therefore takes in all
such evils as could befall mankind in general, with-
out considering himself at present as a prince, or
wishing to avail himself of the few exceptions
which one in high place might have claimed.
In part of " King James I.'s Entertainment, pass-
ing to his Coronation," by Ben Jonson and Decker,
is the following line, and note on that line : —
" And first account of years, of months, of time.
By time we understand the present."
^' This explanation aftbrds the sense for which I
have contended, and without change." — Steevens.
Time.) for the times ^ is used by Jonson in " Every
Man Out of His Humour :"
" Oh, how I hate the monstrousness of timeP
So, in Basse's " Sword and Buckler," 1602 :
" If I should touch particularly all
Wherein the moodie spleene of captious Time
Doth tax our functions "
So, also, to give a prose instance, in '^ Cardanus
Comfort," translated by Thomas Bedingfield, 1576,
we have a description of the miseries of life, strongly
resembling that in the text : — " Hunger, thurste,
sleape not so plentiful or quiet as deade men have,
28 ilvmlet's soliloquy on suicide.
lieate in soiuiner, colJc iu winter, disorder of tyrtie^
tcrroure of warres, controlenient of parentes, cares
of wedlock, studye for children, sloutlie of servants,
contention of sutes^ and that (whiche is moste of all)
the condicion of tyme wherein Jwnestye is disdaynd^
and folje and crafte is honoui'ed as wisdome." —
Bosnoell.
The word whips is used by Marston in his
" Satires," 1599, in the sense required here :
" Ingenious Melancholy, —
Inthrone thee in my blood ; let me intreat,
Stay his quick jocund skips, and force him run
A sad-pac'd course, untill my whips be done." — Malone.
^' The PKOUD niarCs contumely. — Thus the quarto.
The folio reads ' the poor man's contumely ;' the con-
tumely which the poor man is obliged to endure :
" NH hahet infelix paupertas durius in se,
Quam quod ridiculos homines facit^ — Malone.
" Of despis'd love. — The folio reads, of dispri^d
love. So too, ' Great deal disprizing the knight op-
posed.' (Troilus and Cressida, Act 4.)" — Steevens.
Dispriz'd, the word found in the first folio (1623),
has seemed to me the most suitable adjective in
such connection ; for the reason that as Love begets
Love, and Hate his kind, so Love that finds itself
despised^ instead of returned, by its object, soon
leaves the heart, and its place is not unapt to be
filled ])y rank hatred; but, the pangs of disprized
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 29
love are those of one whose spirit sinks and writhes
under the pride-stung consciousness that the being
towards whom their own heart yearns disprizes their
irresistible affection. It is this species of love which
dispHzed (unvalued, or unrequited, or- entertained
with indifference) cannot be diverted or superseded,
or, as if despised^ find a relief in hatred — but brood-
ing over its own subtile mortification, produces that
poignant melancholy, which, rankling within a
proud soul, may stimulate to suicide. (See my
quotation from this in my Correspondence with
Hon. John Quincy Adams, 1839.)
" Might his quietus make
With a hare bodkin." — The first expression proba-
bly alluded to the writ of discharge, which was
formerly granted to those barons and knights who
personally attended the king on any foreign expedi-
tion. This discharge was called a quietus.
It is at this time the term for the acquittance
which every sheriff receives on settling his accounts
at the Exchequer.
The word is used for the discharge of an account,
by Webster, in his " Duchess of Malfy," 1623 :
" And 'cause you shall not come to me in debt,
(Being now my steward) here upon your lips
I sign your quietus est.^^
Again :
30 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
" You had the trick in audit time to be sick,
Till I had sign'd your (juieius."
A hodkin was tlic ancient term ioY fx small dagger.
So, in tlie second j^art of the " Mirrour for Kniglit-
hood,'' quarto, 1598 : — " Not having any more
weapons but a poor poynado, which usually he did
bear about him, and taking it in his hand, delivered
these speeches nnto it. Thou, silly hodhin^ shalt
finish the piece of work," etc.
In the margin of " Stowe's Chronicle," edit.
1614, it is said, that Csesar was slain with 'bodkins ;
and in " The Muses' Looking-Glass," by Eandolph,
1638 :
" A^iho. — A rapier's but a hodhin.
Deil. — And a hodkin
Is a most dang'rous weapon ; since I read
Of Julius Cresar's death, I durst not venture
Into a taylor's shop, for fear of hodkinsy
Again, in "The Custom of the Country," by Beau-
mont and Eletcher :
" out with your hodkin^
Your pocket-dagger, your stiletto."
Again, in " Saplio and Phao," 1591 : " There will be
a desperate fray between two, made at all weapons,
from the brown bill to the lodhm.''^ Again, in
Chaucer, as he is quoted at the end of a pamphlet,
called " The Serpent of Division," etc., whereunto
is annexed the " Tragedy of Gorboduc," etc., 1591 :
HAMLET S SOLILOQUY ON SUICIDE. 31
" With bodkins was Caesar Julius
Murdered at Rome of Brutus Crassus." — Steevens.
Bj " a hare bodkin," does not perhaps mean, " by
so little an instrument as a dagger," but " by an
unslieathed dagger."
" 111 the account which ]\Ir. Steevens has given
of the original meaning of the term quietus^ after
the words, ' who personally attended the king on
any foreign expedition,' should have been added,
' and were therefore exempted from the claims of
scutage, or a tax on every knight's fee.' " — Malone.
" To GRUNT and sweat. — Thus the old copies. It
is, undoubtedly, the true reading, but can scarcely
be borne by modern ears." — Johnson,
Stanyhurst, in his translation of Yirgil, 1582, for
suj^vewjum congemuit^ gives us, '^ for sighing it
gruntsP Again, in Trubervile's tra,nslation of
Ovid's E^nstle from Canace to Macareus :
" "What might I wiser do ? greefe forst me grunts
Again, in the same translator's Hypermnestra to
Lynceus :
" round about I heard
Of dying men the grunts."
The change made by the editors [to groan'] is, how-
ever, supported by the following line in " Julius
Csesar," Act. 4, sc. 1 :
" He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold ;
To groan and sweat under the business,
Either led or driven, as we point the way."
82 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
I ai>prclicn(l that it is the duty of an eclltor to
exhibit wluit his author wrote, and not to substitute
what may appear to the present age preferable ; and
Dr. Johnson was of the same opinion. See his note
on the word Irngger^miigger^ Act 4, so. 5. I have,
therefore, tliougli with some reluctance, adhered to
the old copies, liowever unpleasing this word may
be to the ear. On the stage, without doubt, an
actor is at liberty to substitute a less offensive word.
To the cai*s of our ancestors it probably conveyed
no unpleasing sound ; tor we find it used by Chaucer
and others :
" But never groni he at n« stroke, but on/' etc., etc.
The MonJce's Tale.
Again, in " "Wily Beguiled," written before 1596 :
" She's never well, but grunting in a corner." — Mdlone.
" The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
N'o TRAVELLER returns^ — This has been cavilled at
\>y Lord Orrery and others, but without reason.
The idea of a traveller in Shakespeare's time was,
of a person who gave an account of his adventures.
Every voyage was a discovery. John Taylor has
'' A Discovery by Sea from London to Salisbury." —
Farmer.
Again, Marston's ^' Insatiate Countess," 1G03 :
" Wrestled with death.
From whose stern cave none tracks a backward path."
" Qui nunc it per iter tenehricosum^
I Hue unde negant redire quemquam.'^ — Catullus.
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 83
Again, in Sandford's translation of " Cornelius
Agrippa," etc., 1569 (once a book of uncommon
popularity) : " The count7'ie of the dead is irreme-
able, that they cannot retoxirne.^ Again, in " Cym-
beline," says the Gaoler to Posthunms : " How you
shall speed in your journey's end [after execution],
I think you'll neve7' return to tell one.^'' — Steevens.
This passage has been objected to by others on a
ground which, at first view of it, seems more plausi-
ble. Hamlet himself, it is objected, has had ocular
demonstration that travellers do sometimes return
from this strange country. I formerly thought this
an inconsistency. But this objection is also founded
on a mistake. Our poet, without doubt, in the pas-
sage before us, intended to say, that from the
unknoion regions of the dead no traveller returns
with all his corporeal poioers, such as he who goes
on a voyage of discovery brings back when he
returns to the port from which he sailed. The tra-
veller whom Hamlet had seen, though he appeared
in the same habit which he had worn in his lifetime,
was nothing but a shadow : " invulnerable as the
air," and consequently incorporeal. If, says the
objector, the traveller has reached this coast, it is
not an undiscovered country. But by undiscovered^
Shakespeare meant, not undiscovered by departed
spirits, but undiscovered, or unknown to " such fel-
lows as we who crawl between earth and heaven ;"
superis incognita tellus. In this sense every coun-
try, of which the traveller does not return alive to
2^^
84 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
give an account^ may be said to be ^undiscovered.
The GJiost ]ias given ns no account of the region
from whence lie came, being, a8 he himself informed
lis, '' fur])id to tell the secrets of his prison-house."
Marlowe, before our poet, had compared death to
a journey to an undiscovered country:
" weep not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world, and, as a traveller^
Goes to discover countries yet unknown.
— King Edward 11. 1598, {written lefore 1593)' " — Malone.
Perhaps this is another instance of Shakespeare's
acquaintance with the Bible : " Afore I goe thither,
from vjJience I shall not turne agcdne^ even to the
land of darknesse and shadowe of deathe ; yea, into
that darke, cloudie lande and deadlye shadowe
wdierein is no order, but terrible feare as in the
darknesse." (Job, ch. x.)
" ' The way that I must goe is at hande, but
whence I shall 7iot turne againe.'' (Job, ch. xvi.) I
quote Cramner's Bible." — Douce.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
*' I'll not meddle with it ; it maJces a man a coward."
[Rich. III. : Act 1, so. 4.
" 0 coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me."
[Ibid: Act 5, sc. 3." — Blaheway.
" Great pith."— Thus the folio. Tlie quartos read,
" of <^rQiit jntcL^^—Steevens.
" l*itch seems to be the better reading. The allu-
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 35
sion is to i\\Q pitching or tJirowiiig the har / a manly
exercise, usual in country villages." — Hitson.
IS'ot to speak it profanely, Mr. Ritson's idea \^far
fetched. Pith (as per folio) was tlie word, and
used in a similar sense, as in —
"that's my pitJi of business." — Measfor Meas.
"marked not what's the pith of all."
[^Taming of the Shrew,
" the pith and marrow of our attribute." — Hamlet.
" let it feed even on the pith of life." — Ihid.
" arms of mine had seven years ^lYA." — Othello.
Then awey. — Thus the quartos. The folio, " turn
away.^'' The same printer's error occurs in the old
copy of "Antony and Cleopatra," where we find,
"your crown's away^^ instead of "your crown's
awry.^^ — Steeve7i8.
Thus have I quoted the most erudite and eminent
of Shakespeare's commentators upon such words
and metaphors as are comprised in Hmnlet^s solilo-
qxty on suicide^ and the meaning or propriety of
which has suggested their doubts or questions. But,
as in the early part of this nineteenth century, there
was discovered, in the library of the Duke of Devon-
shire, a single edition of " ITamlet," 1603, (the only
known copy of the play as originally written by
Shakespeare, and the same which he afterward
altered and enlarged to that which appears in the
folio of 1623,) containing many of Shakespeare's ori-
ginal crude or undigested thoughts, which he after-
36 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
^vard worked over or elaborated, and among others,
his previous sketch or draft of this famous soliloquy,
a reference to it may assist to elucidate some point
that has been involved in doubt, and also gratify the
curiosity of any one inclined to discover where
Shakespeare thought fit to turn critic and improve
upon his own earlier compositions.
It should be premised, however, perhaps, to a
modern reader, that, besides standing as a numeral
for one^ the ninth letter of the alphabet, /, which in
later times became confined to signify the pronoun
of the first person^ was in Shakespeare's day written
also to express ay or yes. Wherever Shakespeare
wrote aye^ the word means ever or always.
Ham. — '' To be, or not to be, I there's the point,
To die, to sleepe, is that all ? I all :
No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes,
For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,
And borne before an everlasting Judge,
From whence no passenger ever returned,
The undiscovered country, at whose sight,
The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd.
But for this, the joyful hope of this,
Whoe'd beare the scornes and flattery of the world.
Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore.
The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong'd,
The taste of hunger, or a tirant's raigne.
And thousand more calamities besides,
To grunt and sweat under this weary life,
When that he may his full quietus make,
With a bare bodkin, who would this indure,
But for a liope of something after death?
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 37
Which piisles the braine, and doth confound the sence,
Which makes vs rather beare those evilles we have,
Than flie to others that we know not of.
I that, 0 this conscience makes cowards of vs all,
Lady in thy orizons, be aU my sinnes remembered."
Tlie soliloquy here consists of twenty-two lines
only ; in the folio of 1623 it fills thirty-three lines.
Shakespeare found occasion in that to introduce
new or different suhject-matter for reflection. He
also strengthened many of his original expressions,
and, indeed, seems to have almost entirely reformed,
by diifusion and compression alternately, the links
in the chain of the self-argument.
In the edition of 1603, preserving the first half of
the opening line — " To be, or not to be " — the
author struck out " ay, there's the point," and sub-
stituted " that is the question." Then he introduces :
" Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them ?"
At this point he falls back upon his second original
line:
" To die, to sleep, is that all ? ay, all :"
and resolves \\,for the contimiity :
'' To die ?— to sleep !—
No more."
There Shakespeare stopped to reconnoitre Hamlefs
88 hamlet's soliloquy ox suicide.
postulate and the natural consequences, and pursu-
ing his self-inqairj, added :
" and, by a sleep, to say, we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd."
Here he again returns, and resumes his self-debate
from the third line of the original soliloquy :
" No, to sleepc, to dreame, ay mary there it goes,"
first reiterating,
" To die— to sleep—"
and then suggesting the likelihood of a dream :
" To sleep ! perchance to dream ; ay, there's the rub,"
he specifies the respective considerations which
should restrain his impulses or compel him to hesi-
tate. He changes the expression from dream to
" sleep of death ;" and substitutes for
" when we awake
And borne before an everlasting Judge,"
" what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coiL"
Possibly Shakespeare may have considered that
his own ideas were not quite clear in their inception,
and had been rather conglomerated in their original
expression ; as he continued to separate and to arrange
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 39
tliem in a more logical and intelligible order : for
example, in place of liis first hypothesis of being
"in a dream of death, and awakened and borne
before an everlasting Judge, from whence no j^cis-
senger ever returned," and also, of the opening to
'' sight an undiscovered country " which should have
the effect to make " the happy smile, and the
accursed (feel) damn'd," we find the author has
changed the idea to one suggestive of ''^ sleejy of
death," (which knows no waking,) together with
that dread — ^^ what'''' (possibly horrid) "dreams" in
the eternal sleep a suicide might discover as his fate,
who, aware that the Everlasting had " fixed his
canon 'gainst self-slaughter," had thus defiantly
attempted to rid himself of life's turmoils, and had
hastily " shuffled off this mortal coil," and those
ill fortunes which Destiny had seen fit to deal out,
as his lot in this world.
Keferring to the immediate antecedent —
" The undiscovered country, at whose sight
The happy smile," etc.,
the line —
" But for this, the joyful hope of this "
is omitted, and, instead of retaining entire,
" But for the hope of something after death,"
the author thought fit to alter " hope " to " dreads
40 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
"But that the dread of something after death
(That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns) puzzles the will " —
(not "puzzles the h^aine,^^ as previously written,)
and, after apostrophizing "conscience" in a line,
add^^ finally :
" And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought ;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
"With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."
Tlie idea connected with the words ^'shuffled off''''
may be discovered in its concordance in another
play :
" Often good turns
Are shufled off with such uncurrent pay ;
But, were my worth, as is my conscience, firm,
You should find better dealing^
[Twelfth Night, Act 3, sc. 3.
In conchision, with reference to the matter con-
tained in this soliloquy as it appeared in the earlier
edition, (1603,) it is highly interesting to imagine
what thoughts might have originated in the brain of
such a mighty genius, and what his motives were
for each change of word, or sentence, or order in
expression ; but, with what a nice regard to a com-
bination of poetry with philosophy and human
nature, Shakespeare has condensed the spirit of his
first ideas and leas digested reflections in the latest
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 41
edition of this soliloquy, only such as may have the
taste, time and patience to investigate for them-
selves can thoroughly appreciate.
In March, 1828, happening, when engaged in dis-
cursive reading, to pick up a volume of " The Bri-
tish Classics," containing Goldsmith's Essays, I
quoted the preceding matter, and wrote the previous
comments and the following remarks upon that jDor-
tion of Goldsmith's XYIth Essay which relates to
" Hamlet's Soliloquy on Suicide :" —
In reference to the first charge preferred against
Shakespeare, that he has given Hamlet not "the least
reason to wish for death," it should be recollected,
that Hcunlefs mind was, upon our first introduction
to him, strongly operated upon by the recent and
sudden death of a parent whom he had dearly loved,
and whose memory he reverenced — that, whilst in
the full and unabated indulgence of his grief, his
mother, forgetful of his father's recent decease, and
in defiance of common decency, had been actually
won, within a month after that fatal event, to the
incestuous bed of his paternal uncle.
Perhaps a touch of disappointed ambition, but
more apparently the continual recurrence of these
facts to his sensitive mind, at times disgusted him
with life ; and, to add to his mortification, his suc-
cession had been hindered, and the throne usurped,
by one whose very dethronement, since his marriage
with his mother, would tend more deeply to dis-
grace the royal family of Denmark, which, as
42 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
appears by the catastroplie, consisted of these three
only.
In the midst of these afflictions, lie is informed
tliat the ghost of his father has been seen "two
nights together " upon the platform before the cas-
tle, where,
" With martial stalk, hath he gone by our watch;"
has sought and had an interview aj^^art with, the
apparition, learned that murder has been joined to
the crime of incest in obtaining the crown, his own
by right ; but, though Hmnlet is expected to
revenge upon his beastly uncle his father's "foul,
strange and unnatural " murder, his pursuit of it is
embarrassed by the Ghosfs injunction:
" Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught ; leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her."
As soon as Hamlet recovers from the appalling
effect of that horrid revelation, sufficient of itself to
overwhelm and prostrate his faculties, without the
superadded and preternatural agency of his father's
disembodied spirit to render it still more terrific and
impressive, he resolves that the preliminary step of
his policy shall be the semblance of madness ;
because, such a reputed state of mind will at once
exempt him from being an object of further machi-
nations from his murderous uncle, whose security in
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 43
the throne would be greatly enhanced by Hamlets
incapability ; and, also, whilst evident insanity
would protect his life and neutralize any apprehen-
sion in his uncle's mind of Hamlet^ s attempt to vin-
dicate his own rights, would afford Hamlet more
opportunity to reconnoitre his uncle's unguarded
licentiousness.
In order that the story of the Ghost may not get
currency, and thereby discover any clue to his stra-
tagem and assumed madness, Hamlet has prayed of
the only three others who have seen the apparition —
" If you have hitherto concealed this sight,
Let it be tenable* in your silence still " —
and, of the two officers of the watch, particularly,
and under their oath, not to divulo^e anvthino^ con-
cerning him, should he " think meet to put an antick
disposition on."
One of the most signal traits of Hamlets idiosyn-
crasy is his fickleness of purpose or irresolution.
Of that morbid fertility is his imagination, that
often before he is able to realize to himself an idea
it has started, another dispels or displaces it, and his
utterance, incapable of keeping pace with their flow,
and blending their expression, becomes confused
and unintelligible without scrutiny.
* The folio of 1623 reads, " let it be irtbU in your silence still," and,
although Steevens thinks "tenable" in the quarto "right," I doubt it;
as the meaning of treble (or triple) may be, "the sight remain known
to you tliree only," namely, Horatio, Marcellus and Bernardo.
44 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
Dr. Johnson says : — " Of the feigned madness of
Hamlti tliere appears no adequate cause, for he does
nothing he might not have done with the reputation
of sanity." Granted, that he accomplishes little or
nothing in any of his plans or objects; but he
repeatedly purposed to do a great deal ; and it is
the differing shades of his discrepancy between the
understandings and moral habits and actions of
mankind which constitute our peculiarities of cha-
racter. Hamlet was of an impulsive temperament,
and very dissimilar to such as are naturally phleg-
matic, and who resolve, after mature and delib^*ate
reflection, and steadily execute their purposes.
Hamlet'' s nature is like the flint-struck steel, which
" shows a hasty spark, and straight is cold again."
All his resolutions must be formed out of some
excitement of the blood. "When the Ghost first inti-
mates, and calls upon him to revenge, his murder.^
he impatiently interjects :
" Haste me to know it ; that I, with wings as swift
As meditation, or the thoughts of love,
May sweej) to my revenge " —
and could he hnmediately have encountered his
murderer, whilst his blood was inflamed, would
unhesitatingly have fulfilled his vow of vengeance
then, as he did, upon an after-occasion, in " his
brainish apprehension," kill Polonius. The moment
his blood cools, he relapses into the philosopher.
Hardly does one incentive to action present itself to
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 45
Ills mind, before it is blasted in the bud, or neutral-
ized by some paralyzing obstacle. His inconsist-
ency of conduct has in some instances been unde-
servedly complained of through ignorance of Haiii-
lefs motives. Once, particularly, he summons all
his resolution, and fully bent on sacrifice, seeks his
uncle, whom he then chances to find at prayer : —
his heart, which revolted even at retributive slaugh-
ter in cold blood, failed him, and suggested to his
judgment a parley before procedure, and the
sophism that it would be "hire and salary — not
revenge,"
" To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and seasoned for his passa^,"
who had killed his brother
" With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;"
and, under the alleged pretext that slaying his uncle
then " would be scaun'd " and be regarded as an
encouraging example to a murderer, Hamlet deter-
mines with himself that it is inexpedient at that
juncture to kill King Claudius^ and prefers to
await some opportunity when his uncle may be
" about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't :
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven :
And that his soul may be as damn'd, and black,
As hell, whereto it goes."
46 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
This obvious subterfuge for bis own irresolntion
has been harbaronsly misconstrued by some igno-
rant or superficial critics, who impute to Hamlet the
possession of a demoniacal spirit of revenge, unsa-
tisfied with the killing of the body only, and desir-
ous of extending its gluttonous malignancy to the
soul after its separation : whereas, the real motive
which underlies the sophistry ought to be transpa-
rent to any one reading carefully Hamlet^s conduct
and character, either before or after. Take, for one
of the many examples, his own acknowledgment of
his instability of purpose and self-reproof :
" How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge ;" etc.
Dr. Johnson continues : — " Hamlet plays the mad-
man most when he treats Ophelia with so much
rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton
cruelty." With regard to its uselessness^ I would
suggest a reference to the fact, that Hamlet^ having,
immediately after the Ghost^s revelation, thought fit
to put an antic disposition on, sought a subject and
a medium for circulating through the Court a report
of his insanity / some strange freak of conduct was
necessary as a preliminary, and Avhat sort of mental
derangement so likely to be esteemed harmless to
all, and aflPord perfect security to the suspicious
mind of the guilty usurper, as the madness proceed-
ing from unrequited love ? The notoriety of his ten-
der j)assion for Ophelia, and the fact that she had
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 47
recently, by the command of her father, returned his
letters and rejected his visits, afforded a promising
opportunity to establish such a starting-point with-
out exciting anyone's suspicion.
However strongly the current of Hamlefs passion
for Ophelia had been set previously, it had been
checked by his then mourning his father's recent
and sudden death, and, now particularly that he had
Yowed to remember his perturbed spirit, and
" Thy commandment aU alone shall hve
Within the book and volume of my brain,"
his thoughts had been diverted from a course of l(yoe
and bound in another Q\\2imiQ\^ filial duty.
K an origination of the report of Hamlefs mad-
ness, and its apparent cause from the least suspicious
source (and Hamlefs object was to secure such
report's ready access to tlie King and Queen), could
he have selected a more fit, inoffensive, and sure
course, than through Ojphelia^ who would naturally,
and dutifully, and forthwith communicate Hamlefs
behavior to her father, whose propensity would lead
to its immediate promulgation to the King and the
Court ? I think the means Hamlet adopted were
exceedingly well calculated to produce the impres-
sion he wished to make, and that up to this stage of
his proceeding, there is no evidence of his rriadnesa
being other than etsstimccl. His " rudeness," then,
was not — if it could be so considered at all — " use-
less and wanton cruelty." But was Hamlet either
48 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
rude or cruel to Oj)heUaf To judge from her de-
scription of Hamlefs beliavior, when she had " been
affrigided^ as she was sewing in her closet," Ophelia
did not reorard it as either rude or cruel, but
''' jpiteous^^'' in its effect upon her ; and, in reference
to his conversation with her, when her father and
the King had conspired to send for Hamlet, when
he might, as 'twere by accident, meet Ophelia,
whilst they, so bestowed as to be unseen by him,
could thus covertly see and hear what should pass
between them, and to which esjnonage she has lent
herself by loalking in Hamlefs w^ay and seeming to
read a hook, as instructed, it should be premised
that the text furnishes a reasonable inference that
Hamlet has acquired, either by a personal glimpse
of his sp)ies, or other incident of the scene, some
idea of Ophelia^s duplicity and unfair, not to say
unfaithful or ungenerous, position with respect to
him, when he commences to interrogate, and she to
equivocate — he to animadvert and she at last to
answer his direct question, "Where's your father?"
with "At home!" which Hamlet may have known
to be 2i^ palpable, as she did it was an absolute, y(:^Z^<3-
hood. Hamlet^ s language, however, though earnest
and pungent, was neither rude, nor wanton, nor
cruel ; nor were his sentiments, as it seems, in any
way offensive. The effect was to impress her, by
the sudden change, from his habitually mild and
gentle language and manners to strong and uugallant
invective, with a belief that he was hopelessly mad.
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 49
Keaii (Edmuud), as Hamlet^ after concluding his
words to Ojjhdta — "To a nuniieiy, go!" and de-
parting abruptly out of sight of his audience, used
to come on the stage again and approach slowly the
amazed Oi)lielia still remaining in the centre ; take
her hand gently, and, after gazing steadily and
earnestly in her face for a few seconds, and with a
marked expression of tenderness in his own counte-
nance, appeared to be choked in his efforts to say
something, smothered her hand with passionate
kisses, and rushed wildly and finally from her pre-
sence. The conception was clearly indicated and
neatly executed in each point, whether justified by
the circumstances of the interview or not. A more
effective bit of serious pantomime by way of episode
that master of his art never exhibited upon any
stage. It was a whole history in little !
Reverting to the situation of Ilaml-et immediately
preceding the soliloquy on suicide. He had no
sooner put on the guise of insanity than he dis-'
covered that the king had sent for and made spies
of his two friends, ItosenGrantz and Guildenstern,
whom he had found bent upon plucking out the very
heart of his own mysterious behavior, and resolved
to scrutinize his every movement. It is now that
the consciousness of the wrongs he has suffered —
the perplexity he finds in steering the course he has
adopted — the delicacy of his situation with respect
to his mother — the uncertainty of the stratagem
for making his uncle's " occulted guilt" " itself
3
50 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
unlvenneV by the effect of tlie play — then the
melanchuly and bitter satisfaction its success at best
must afford him, together with its reflections upon
liis own infirmity of purpose when compared with
the ability of the player to assume upon an imagin-
ary occasion — these all conspire to predispose his
mind to philosopliize concerning the value or worth-
lessness of human existence, and particularly under
his own embarrassing circumstances. It is in such
a frame of thought, that Hamlet enters just before
the mock-play and commences the soliloquy — " To
be, or not to be," etc.
The assertion that " Hamlet deviates, after the
first line, from the proposition — to die by his ow^n
hand, or to live and suffer the miseries of life" —
when he follows up with, " Whether 'tis nobler in
the mind to suffer," etc. — is a different construction
of the metaphor it contains from that w^hich I under-
stand the passage to convey. Instead of supposing
him to be debating with himself, " whether he will
stoop to misfortune, or exert his faculties in order to
surmount it," thereby (as the critic observes) " giv-
ing over his reasoning on death, which, he alleges,
is no longer the question," though he admits that
" Hamlet instantly reverts to it," I will endeavor to
show it to be thus far one unbroken continuation of
the same chain of ideas. The fact is, Hamlet never
alludes to the alternative of ending his difficulties
by raising an army or claiming his rights by force
of arms ; the arm to which he contem}>hitcs the
hamlet's soliloquy ox suicide. 51
effect of a recourse is no other than the unsheathed
dagger — (particularized afterward in the course of
his reasoning as " a hare hodhin'''') — and hy opjposing
(it to his heart — the fountain of existence, and com-
paring it, in its then agitated condition, to '^ a sea
of trouhles^^) end them. That is the kind of arm,
and such the sea^ the poet intended to prefigure in
Ilctmlefs hypothesis. The analogy between the sea^
with the ebbing and flowing of its tides, as they are
propelled and returned back and forth through vari-
ous branching rivers, channels, and tributary creeks,
and other passages, and the heart, by whose im-
pulses the hlood is constantly forced and courses
through the veins and arteries of the body until it
returns to its source and is again emitted, must be
obvious to every one upon reflection ; thus, instead
of "a ridiculously absurd figure," is the idea beau-
tifully poetic. Among Shakespeare's numerous
figures in reference to the heart, he thus associates
with the sea
" a Tieartj
As full of troubles as a sea — of sands."
\_Two Gent, of Verona.
Othello, too, in allusion to his heart, calls it —
'' The fountain from the which my current runs
Or else dries up."
Hamlet, in his self -debate on suicide, hy " sea of
troubles," had only and special reference to his
heart and its physical functions — namely —
52 hamlet's soliloquy ox suicide.
" The tide of blood in me
^ Halli 2>ro\i(llii flowed in vanity till noiv,
Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea."
[^Second Part of King Henry IV.
That the word ^' sea," in this context^ is iised as
figurative or suggestive of the heart, is undeniable ;
heeause the *' blood" can " turii and ebb back^'' to no
other " 56'(X."
Dr. Goldsmith's classical taste discerns and com-
plains that " Shakespeare himself is often guilty of
an excess of figures and of running into mixed meta-
phors, which leave the sense disjointed and distract
the imagination." As " from tlie fulness of the
heart the mouth speaketh," so it may be natural to
a richly endowed poetical genius to be apt to in-
dulge in a profusion even unto a redundancy, occa-
sionally, and the breaking unavoidably, sometimes,
or a mixing of metaphors. It is an evidence of a
meagre mind when its figures are too continuousi|y
pursued and attenuated.
As to there being " nothing analogous in nature
to Fortune with her slings and arrows,^'' I do not per-
ceive any special " disjointure of the sense^'' if there
be any particular transgression of poetical license.
Among " the thousand natural shocks that flesh is
heir to," what is there so very absurd or poetically
unnatural in representing " outrageous Fortune" —
that blind, and fickle, and inexorable goddess — with
a sling^ hurling stones and stunning the sense of
some unlucky victim ? or in her shooting an arroio
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 53
and lacerating the kind lieart of another unde-
servedly, and in her wantonness ? Have not slin(/s
and arrows been primitive instruments of human
torture, and may they not be used with equal pro-
priety as symljols of suffering^ as the poisoned bowl
and the ruthless dagger are 2,^ figurative of death f
With respect to the flat contradiction chai'ged in
making Hamlet speak of " ' the undiscovered coun-
try from whose bourn no traveller returns,' when
the ghost of his father, piping hot from purgatory
(a place not within the bourn [or limit] of this
world), had just been conversing with him," it has
been freely and ingeniously canvassed by discerning
commentators, whom I have quoted copiously in a
former paper. I may add, in the way of remark,
that Hamlet is constantly wavering in his mind, and
betwixt the supernatural revelation from the ghost,
and the irreconcilability of the source of the infor-
mation with his philosophy, he seems at times to
doubt even the evidence of his senses, and to
imagine that his faculty of eyes and ears has been
fooled by his other senses, and to impute the decep-
tion to the effect of an overheated imagination : —
'' The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy^
(As he is very potent with suc4i spirits),
Abuses me to damn me : I'll have grounds
More relative than this : the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."
54 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
The coniinnation his mind receives from the inci-
dent at the phiv, and the emotion that so conclu-
sively, to him, betrayed his uncle's guilt, seems to
be again superseded when the Ghost appears and
talks to him, yet is invisible and inaudible to his
mother at the same time. The Ghost^ too, in the
closet, thus seen only by himself, appears clad in his
father's habit as he lived^ whilst that which visited
the glimpses of the moon upon the platform, in
figure like his father, appeared in armiOT^ was seen
at the same time by Hamlet'' s three companions, and
might have been heard, too, had the Ghost not
beckoned him to a more removed ground ; as
though the apparition some impartment did desire
to Hamlet alone.
Shakespeare may have, however, designed by this
difference to indicate the turning-point of Hamlets
brain, where his madness is no longer assumed, but
has become real and constitutional, and ready to
burst into paroxysms upon any occasional excite-
ment, and again to subside and leave to reason an
interval of temporary sway. Such a self-conviction
may, in some measure, account for his neglect there-
after to pursue actively his revenge, and for the fact
of his seldom alluding to it in subsequent conversa-
tion. The shock inflicted upon his nervous system
when mistaking and killing Polonius^ seems to have
jDroduced a climax touching the subject whereon his
melancholy had been sitting on brood, and abso-
lutely deranged his intellect.
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 55
AVhen Shakespeare needed a gliost to come from
the grave in order to tell Hamlet what his proplietic
soul had previously suggested to his imagination, he
was, I presume, not supposed to be restricted from
investing each, according to circumstances, with any
quality requisite for the occasion. Finally, when
poets have need of the influence of departed spirits
upon the affairs of this world, and find it expedient
to their purposes to recall their apparitions to
scenes familiar in their lives, what may be their
righteous limits, license, faculties of communicating
what they know or desire, of perceiving what occurs
upon this earth, or of rendering themselves only
visible to certain persons, and at particular hours of
the night most favorable to the imagination of such
as they would be noticed by, I have never studied ;
but have ever yielded the utmost latitude to the
erratic fancy of an author — never attempting to
reconcile to my natural jjhiloso^phy a consistency
^\\\i jpretematural agencies and influences ; because
such things have strong imagination, and a poet's
eye, in a fine phrensy rolling, requires space and
scope for any utility.
The mystery complained of, contained in the
lines —
" But that the dread of something after death
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;"
66 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
may be removed at once by admitting Harnlefs
creed to be, that " there (ire ' ills ' in the next world,
and I would fly to them, hut that I fear such as
might be measured out to me as a suicide^ and the
severity of which ' I know not of,' may be greater
than the miseries I bear here ; and therefore I am
deterred from rushing into those of the world to
come, in order to escape these which I endure in
ihis life."
" Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."
" The logician might be j nstified in saying of such
a conclusion, negatur consequens^^^ if the significa-
tion of the word " consciences'^ was confined to this
critic's understanding of its sense, and had not a
legitimate latitude of which he does not appear
aware. The meaning of " conscience " in this con-
text is, an internal sense of riglit or wrong ^ and
which modern lexicographers distinguish by tJie
word (not expressed in Shakespeare's vocabulary,
though frequejitly implied) consciousness^ (the know-
ledge of what passes in the mind) whilst they have
defined conscience to signify — " The faculty within
us w^hich decides upon the lawfulness or unlawful-
ness of our actions."
In Shakespeare's comprehensive use of the word,
a conscience may be good or bad, according to its
owner's hnowledge of what passes in his mind, and
not necessarily implying that he is conscientious or
scrupulous in obeying its dictates. Conscience, as a
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 57
synonyme of conscioitsness^ is also used by Bacon,
Hooker, Pope and other writers. I take Hamlcfs
meaning to be, as we would with our modern dis-
tinction of terms express it, " It is the consciousness
tliat we would merit the ills or condign punishment
that may be reserved by the Everlasting for such as
may commit forbidden acts, which " makes cowards
of us all."
Then, after recapitulating the points of his pre-
vious objections. Goldsmith asserts that
" ' Ay, there's tlie rub '
is a vulgarism beneath the dignity of Hamlefs
character." If the vulgarism consists in the use of
the word " rub," (a hindrance or obstacle,) it is put
by Shakespeare repeatedly into the mouths of
several of his kings and queens and other dignified
personages ; had its particular quantity for the
metre of his versification been the cause of its use in
this context, we should not find the word rulj so
often elsewhere ; besides, from its frequent use by
Dryden, Davenant, Swift and others, its conven-
tional degradation in the vocabulary becomes very
doubtful ; but how " it leaves the sense imperfect,"
according to the critic's own showing, I am unable
to comprehend.
The sense and propriety of " the oppressor's wrong,
the proud man's contumely," as governed in the
possessive case by the preceding verb " bear," to me
are obvious. The objection to the use of the word
3*
58 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
" spurn " as a substantive is also hypercritical, if
Milton be allowed as authority. ""What defence
can properly be used in so desj)erate an encounter as
this, but either the slap or the sjyurnP — Colasterion.
Finally, it seems to me that " the strange rhap-
sody of broken images," of which the critic com-
plains, is perfectly characteristic of Hamlefs idio-
syncrasy in his peculiar predicament ; indeed, such
unprecedented and unrivalled individuality has
Shakespeare shown in drawing and sustaining each
of his characters throughout, and so peculiarly
adapted to the respective situations is their language,
that any attempt to transpose it, or to change the
medium of its use, or to disconnect sentences and
examine certain ideas separately or from an abstract
point of consideration, must be foreign to the spirit
and purpose of the bard of Avon.
Dr. Goldsmith's essay, at least so far as concerns
the sense of the soliloquy on suicide, I consider weak
and abortive. It is a proof that a critic may have
a refined taste, be learned and classical, and yet not
qualified to fathom the more profound meanings of
sucli an author as Shakespeare.
It is a singular fact that, of all the critics I have
read, Schlegel and Goethe^ with whom Shakespeare's
was not their vernacular, should seem, by their
general remark, to have the more clearly penetrated
his designs.
Goethe, particularly, has given a key to the cha-
racter of Hamlet. He says : —
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 59
" It is clear to me that Shakespeare's intention
was to exhibit the effects of a great action, imposed
as a duty upon a mind too feeble for its accomplish-
ment. In this sense I find the character consistent
throughout. Here is an oak-tree planted in a china
vase, proper only to receive the most delicate flow-
ers. The roots strike out and the vessel flies to
pieces. A pure, noble, highly moral disposition, but
without that energy of soul which constitutes the
hero, sinks under a load which it can neither bear,
nor resolve to abandon altogether. All his obliga-
tions are sacred to him. Observe how he turns,
shifts, hesitates, advances, and recedes ! ITow he is
continually reminded and reminding himself of his
great commission, which he, nevertheless, in the
end, seems almost entirely to lose sight of, and this
without even recovering his former tranquillity." —
WilJiehn Meister's Apprenticeshvp,
PART II.
HAMLET.
EXTRACTS
FROM MY JOURNAL OF CORRESPONDENCE, RESPECTING
HAMLET.
In Jamiaiy, 1839, 1 spent a few weeks socially at
Washington^ D.C. — a city wliicli I have very seldom
visited professionally — and met the Hon. and Ex-
President John Quincy Adams occasionally.
In a conversation with him respecting the drama
in general, and Shakespeare's especially — of which
he was notoriously a constant reader — I observed to
him that from boyhood I had read Hamlet with
great attention, and had interleaved my copy of the
play, and interspersed copiously annexations, which
had been regarded by several of our literary friends
as involvino^ some new and sino'ular ideas of the
character. I reminded Mr. Adams of the delight
he had once afforded me as well as a number of his
friends, by his remarTcs upon that same character,
after dinner at the table of Mr. Hone (Ex-Mayor
Philip), of Kew York, and I proposed to send him
64 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
my MS. notes for 'perusal^ wliicli he politely inti-
mated lie would '' gladly give them."
When Mr. Adams returned my noted-co'pj of
Hamlet^ it was accompanied by a very charming
and instructive letter, dated, " Washington, 19 Feb.,
1839," commencing : — " I return herewith your
tragedy of Hamlet^ with many thanks for the peru-
sal of your manuscript notes, which indicate how
thoroughly you have delved into the bottomless
mine of Shakespeare's genius. I well remember
the conversation, more than seven years by-gone, at
Mr. Philip Hone's hospitable table, where at the
casual introduction of Hamlet the Dane, my enthusi-
astic admiration of the inspired (Muse-inspired)
Bard of Avon, commenced in childhood, before the
down had darkened my lip, and continued through
five of the seven ages of the drama of life, gaining
upon the judgment as it loses to the imagination,
seduced me to expatiate at a most intellectual and
lovely convivial board, upon my views of the
character of Hamlet^ until I came away ashamed
of having engrossed an undue proportion of the con-
versation to myself. I look upon the tragedy of
Hamlet as the master-piece of Shakespeare — I had
almost said the master-piece of the human mind.
But I have never committed to writing the analysis
of the considerations upon which this deliberate
judgment has been formed. At the table of Mr.
Hone I could give nothing but outlines and etchings.
I can give no more now — snatching, as I do from
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 65
the morning lamp to commnne with a lover and
worthy representative of Shakespeare npon tlie
glories of tlie immortal bard."
In reference to Mr. Adams' " morning lamj) " of
February)^ it should be observed that, at his date,
it was his custom to rise at four o'clock, in order to
dispatch all his private affairs, that they miglit not
interfere with his duties of the day in the House of
Representatives, where he sat as a member from
Massachusetts. As Mr. Adams complimentarily
calls me " a lover and worthy representative of
Shakespeare," I ought, in justice to his judgment, to
observe also, that he had reference particularly to
my Falstaff of King Henry IV. and in The Merry
'Wives of Windsor j because, before loaning him
my notes upon Hamlet for his perusal, I had men-
tioned that, " I had never acted^ nor had thought of
acting that character ; and for the reason that, I
should probably, owing to the comic department of
the Drama which I professed, be either neglected or
laughed at by the puUic, for any attempt to emljody
my own conception in my own person ; and had,
therefore, not only noted my own peculiar under-
standing of various texts., but had elaborately de-
scrihed how I thought my particular views might be
illustrated and made jpercejptible upon the stage by a
good actor of Hamlet. ^"^
Mr. Adams' letter continues — ""What is tragedy ?"
— of which he wrote a classical analysis as a pre-
face, and then a concise one which lie calls — " a
66 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
liasty outline of his own view of the character of
Hamlet y" and conchides his four autographic pages
of letter-sheet, closely w^ritten, with —
" I regret that time w411 not allow nie to fill the
canvas with lights ^nd shades borrowed from the
incidents and dialogues of the play. Eut after be-
stowing so much of my own tediousness upon you,
I can only repeat my thanks for the perusal of your
own very ingenious comments upon this incompara-
ble tragedy, and add the assurance of my best
wishes for your health and happiness, and of my
cordial sympathies with your devotion to the
memory of the immortal bard."
(Signed) John QumcY Adams.
See this ejjyistle in full ^ on a subsequent ^age.
Though I considered Mr. Adams' personal com-
pliments to emanate more from his benevolence and
acquaintanceship with me than from his unbiassed
judgment of my pretensions, yet, if an earnest
desire from my youth to become familiar with
Shakespeare's dramas — beginning at twelve years
of age with Macbeth^ which inspired me to peruse
the others, when I had yet never seen one acted — if
to explore the vast intellectual magazine which the
Bard of Avon has bequeathed to posterity — to try
to penetrate his moral and dramatic designs — dis-
cover and elucidate even a few of the many poetic
gems which he has set, and diffused amid his copi-
ous, and admirable, and unequalled diction — and to
HAMLET S SOLILOQUY ON SUICIDE. 67
have become by sncli study enamored, and ambi-
tions of performing some of his many matchless
characters upon the stage (for which all were ex-
pressly designed), and overcoming my constitutional
and habitual love of ease and my aversion to close
study or any prolonged physical labor — to have
attained to be or have been accounted by the puhlio
gencvally " a good actor " of at least one of his
greatest characters — if, I repeat, this allowance to
me of such particular elements may constitute and
reflect any merit or claim in my favor for even a
IMSsing notice in this wonder-working age, I can't
conscientiously deny that I am not insensible to, but
grateful for its public acknowledgment, expressed or
implied.
When the first letter from Mr. Adams (out of
which I have quoted) reached my hand at New
York, I was just embarking for England, whither I
carried it before I had time to reply. It was
esteemed so very interesting by several literary
friends of mine in London, and became so eagerly
and frequently sought, for the purpose of being
copied, that at last, to rescue it from further mutila-
tion, I caused it to be lithographed in fac-siinile^
together with my reply ^ and a few hundred of such
copies presented to certain friends and literary insti-
tutions there ; also, I sent some of the copies of that
correspondence to several friends in i^ew York, and
prior to my return from England (March, 1840), it
had been obtained by the Neio Yorh Mirror (a
68 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
weekly), and pnblislied, without regard to the notice
thereupon — " lithograjyJied far private distrihution
onlyP The consequence was, Mr. Adams' letter
and my reply were copied extensively by news-
papers throughout the United States. After my
return, and upon visiting Washington, when I met
Mr. Adams, I mentioned that I had been ver^^ much
vexed for his sake when I heard of the liberty which
had been taken in publishing our letters in my
absence, and without my knowledge or his consent,
and that I had written Mr. Clay soliciting that gen-
tleman's explanation of the facts in advance of my
coming. Mr. Adams laughed, and observed — " I
told Mr. Clay, when, at your instance, he referred
to the circumstance and entered your disclaimer,
that it not only did not offend — it did not surprise
me — I expected it would be published one day or
other. Indeed, I never write upon any subject, the
publication of which at some time or other is unex-
pected or might prove disagreeable."
Ml passant^ Mr. Adams writes — " I look upon the
tragedy of Hamlet as the master-piece of the drama
— the master-piece of Shakespeare — I had almost
said the master-piece of the human mind." That
distinguished litterateur, the present Earl of CajrUsle^
whom, as " Lord Morpetli^^ I was accustomed to
meet occasionally when he visited the United States
about 1842-43, and to whom in England, in 1844, 1
carried a special letter of introduction from our
eminent statesman, the Hon. Henry Clay, and was
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 69
tliere entertained bj him, and subsequently liave
enjoyed bis corresjpondence^ in one of his letters,
referring to that point, observes — ''I sec none of
your criticisms are addressed to the play of Mac-
Idh : in my mind the very highest, in order, of all
the few which seem to me indisputably higher than
all the rest — Macbeth^ Hamlet^ Othello^ Lear.
When I say this, however, I never could quarrel
with a pei*son who puts Hamlet even above Mac-
hethr — 8ee letter^ on a sitbsequent page.
Horatio Smith — the hrother of my witty and
familiar London acquaintance at the Garrick Club,
James, and the younger of those two — (called " the
handsomest men in England," and who became
renowned for their surprising imitations of the dif-
ferent styles of their various contemporary poets, in
the little volume entitled " Hejected Addresses,''^
which required some tioenty editions to satisfy the
demand of the reading world), in a letter to me,
dated at Brighton, where he resided, upon the sub-
ject of Harnl-et^ coincides with Mr. Adams in the
rank he allowed that in the order of Shakespeare's
plays ; and, witli characteristic discernment, refers
to Goethe\ practically-beautiful comparison of
Haralet^s character. ("An oak tree planted in a
china vase, proper only to receive the most delicate
flowers. Tlie roots strike out, and the vessel flies to
pieces." — See Wilhehn Meister^s Ajpprenticeship^ B.
iv. Ch. 13.)
By the way, I wonder if Mr. Adams ever heard
70 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
our gentle and amiable friend, and universally
admired writer and revered countryman, Mr. Wash-
ington Irving, mention what in his latest letter to
me, he remarked, referring to his many singular
and particular reminiscences of the stage, within
the current century — "I have seen the Ballet of
Hamlet gravely danced at Yienna." Had 3fr,
Adams happened to see such a desecration, when
*' a looker on in Yienna," it would have recalled —
if it did not realize to him — the reflections of Ham-
let in the grave-yard. " To what base uses we may
return, Horatio. Why may not imagination trace
the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping
a bung-hole V' — because then and there w^as one of
the most exquisite poetic gems, ever germinated by
dramatic genius in the brain of the Intellectual
Minerva and devoted to the special service of Mel-
pomene, debased, perverted, and sacrificed to sub-
serve the mazy and meretricious '■'poetry of motion /"
a province peculiar to tlie fantastic Terpsichore.
I should perhaps in this connexion note that the
particular letter of Mr. Irving, from which the fore-
going sentence is extracted, is dated "I^ew York,
April IT, 181:8 ;" — for the reason that, this eminent
author had done me the favor to open a correspond-
ence with me, " Jan. 3, 1837," in special reference
to his " Kniclcerhoclt^r'^ s History of J^eio Yor'k,^''
when I, in a private and friendly way, had sought
his opinion of its susceptibility of dramatic effect.
In 18tl:7 I had mentioned to Mr. Irving socially and
hamlet's soliloquy ox suicide. 71
incidentally, that I had been in the practice of
carefully noting and recording in a manuscript vo-
lume kept for that special pui'pose, the performance
and apparent conception of every actor of distinc-
tion whom I had seen in the character of Hartilet^
both in our country and in England, from 1816 to
184:5 ; which our venerable friend Mr. Adams had
borrowed for perusal, and, when returning it, had
written me anotJier and particularly interesting and
instructive letter ; first thanking me for what he had
the indulgence to call ''Hhe ^privilege of perusing"
such notes, and then, " asking my acceptance of a
few scattered leaves, containing his own remarks
upon Othello^ Romeo and Juliet^ and Lear^ which
had been originally written to a friend who thought
them worthy oi ijiibliGation with his consent, &c.,"
and at same time communicating to me in that
letter, his own first impressions of the London^ and
the eiiect of an incident he witnessed on the Paris
stage, in the time of Louis XYlth.
Mr. Irving, too, complimented me by soliciting my
^^ J^otes upon the Actors of HamleV^ for perusal. I
sent him the volume during the autumn of 1847, and
he did not return it until the following spring,
(April 17,) when he premised in his letter —
" I have detained your manuscript notes an
unconscionable time, but I could not help it. I
wished to read them attentively, for they are
remarkably suggestive, and not to be read in a
hurry," &c., &c. — See letter^ on a siibsequent jpage.
72 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
Upon exaniiiiiiig tliercaftcr my returned manu-
script, I discovered that, as another eminent literary-
friend, Mr. James Fenimore Cooper, had done, Mr.
Irving, when struck by my graphic record of the
personal peculiarities of some well-remembered
Actor, had stopped occasionally, and upon the mar-
gin, favored me, by adding his own autographic
annotations, in " lead-pencillings by the way."
About the middle of October, 1841, the late
Edmund Simpson, then Manager of the Park theatre,
jSTew York, referring to the prevailing interest taken
by the play-going community in my novel conceits,
as manifested respecting the character of Hamlet in
my then recently transpired correspondence with
the Hon. John Quincy Adams, and which being
transcribed and published throughout the land, was
attracting great attention from critical admirers of
Sliakespeare, suggested, urged, and finally per-
suaded me to impersonate my own conception and
as soon as six days thereafter^ when my benefit was
appointed, assuring me that " my performance under
the circumstances could not fail to attract greatly."
The celebrated singer Mrs. Wood (ci-devant Miss
Paton, the renowned prima donna of Covent Garden
and Drury Lane, London) then an immense favorite
at Kew York, as an inducement and encouragement
to me, generously voluiiteered to act Oj)h£lia^ a part
she had repeatedly played when Edmund Kean
acted Hamlet at Drury Lane.
So far as Shakespeara's text went, I felt sure I
hAxMlet's soliloquy on suicide. 73
could become perfect in it; but, when I reflected
that having never before thought of acting Hamlet,
there was no time to acquire by practice, which
alone makes perfect on the stage, the requisite ease
of a gentleman, the dignity of a prince, appropriate
action and flexibility of voice, in order to give pro-
per variety to the vehement passions, weight to the
declamatory and poignancy to the spirited and sati-
rical portions ; I became frightfully nervous at the
responsibility I had undertaken, and was vexed with
my own want of forethought and circumsj)ection.
For
" Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
It is true that I had within a month or two pre-
viously been performing King Lear (some dozen
times in Philadelphia and ]N"ew York) and had
acquired a certain confidence in the power and com-
pass of my voice, and in the accompaniment of natu-
ral and expressive action and attitude in the 2^(^^-
si.onate scenes ; but then the physical training for
Lear included little or nothing towards the adaption
of my person for representing Hamlet : —
" Our strange garments cleave not to their mould,
But with the aid of wse,"
Consequently I passed six days of continuous ner-
vous excitement, which made my system restless at
night and my faculties sleepless the greater portion
of each, and until that of my performance, when in
1
74 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
tlic presence of my audience, I endured too a con-
stant and violent palpitation of the lieart. JSTever-
tlieless I said I would go on for Hainlet —
" What ! a soldier, and afeard ?"
and I felt ashamed afterward to say, " I am afraid !"
John Kemble, the greatest Hcmilet of his day, is
reported to have declared that he studied Hamlet
seven years before he acted it ; and, though he
had then played it more than thirty years, every
time lie rejpeated it^ something neio iii it struck Tiim.
I remembered that I felt alarmed for my own
temerity, but was resolved to do my best at such
short notice of requirement, and deprecate public
exactness. I headed the play-bill of the day with a
short apology for my attempt to impersonate Ham-
let, because, though my sock was not, my buskin
was new, and my habitual study of characters had
been very systematic and conscientious. At that
time, I was unsophisticated enough to presume that
every one who might go to see me act Hamlet would
be a competent critic, and, that such at least as had
curiosity excited by reading my letter to Mr. Adams,
would expect of me some good acting, as well as
novelty, nicety, and undeniable correctness of per-
ception of the poet, p]iiloso])her, and dramatist, to
whose tragedies I generally had riveted my most
serious attention, and whose Hamlet especially,
though I had analysed it, I now approached a repre-
sentation of with a profound awe and reverence,
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 75
and particularly with apprelicusion before that
maiij-headed monster, the jpicbUc^ whom I then
dreaded. To do justice on the stage to my own
conception in my closet, it was indispensably neces-
sary that I should revise it minutely, dissect the com-
ponent parts of the character, and where the text
seemed unintelligible or ambiguous, and might have
been corrupted by an editor or printer of the folio
of 1623, to collate the various editions since, and, if
a sentence then did not clearly indicate to me a con-
sistent signification, to find a recourse in the poet
Koscommon's suggestion —
" When tilings appear unnatural and hard,
Consult your author with himself compar'd."
To avail myself of which, it was necessary to take
each imjportant wmxl in the sentence, search every
line in each of Shakespeare's plays where such word
was incorporated, for the reason that the same
author would seldom be found to use the same loorcl
in very different senses, and try to detect a concord-
ance of sentiment in some one of that word's various
connexions, settle fully w^ith myself every verbal
meaning and special point, as well as contexts hav-
ing a general bearing upon the character ; all which
seemed to me necessary, prior to re-uniting the dis-
sected articles or resolved particles into a compen-
dious, and harmonious, and completely-compounded
concej^tion^ for the actor to Ijeijin his own peculiar
76 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
art with reference thereto : " then^ in regular course
of study, has arrived the time for an artist to apply
his rhetorical powers to the elucidation of his con-
ception, and ascertain, to his own satisfaction at
least, by untiring practice in his chamher^ how far
nature has qualified him or denied him the requi-
sites for 2^]jerfect personation of his ow^n ideal, in
order to make the most of any natural fitness, and
by art to overcome any physical drawbacks. Such
I considered for Hamlet requisite in advance of any
^{iigQ-rehea7'sal ; and then, very essential to the
effects before an audience^ that such rehear sals
should be carefully conducted, and frequent enough
to assure the actor of his own ease, and that the
others who should support him, might thoroughly
understand his intentions or objects, and not,
thi'ough ignorance, defeat them at night. It is a
mistake to imagine that even a soliloquy can be per-
fectly studied and delivered without practice on the
STAGE ; where only, conld I ever acquire the neces-
sary abstraction and the faculty of identifying
myself wdth my character assumed, as also the pro-
per regulation of my voice, and of the action suita-
ble to a passion according to situation. These
reflections, after my hasty consent to undertake a
performance of Hamlet wdth only six days of prepa-
ration, a novice too in the tragic department of the
* Refer here to my noted opinion of the habitual difference in this
respect (study) between Kean and Moxreachj, 1844.
h^vmlet's soliloquy on suicide. 77
art, and the responsibility, I began to realize were
the cause of that ajpologij npon the play-bill, of
which the folio win 2: is an extract : —
PAEK THEATEE.
Mk. Hackett's Benefit,
on "which occasion the Distinguished Favorite
Mrs. Wood
has^ in the Tcindest inanner^ tendered her aid^ as
OPHELIA.
With the Original Music.
Mk. Barry
has Tcindly volunteered his services j and will also
appear.
Mr. Hackett respectfully informs his friends and
the public that, encouraged by the gratifying
approbation bestowed upon each of his persona-
tions of King Lear., he will attempt, for the first
time, to embody his own conception of Shake-
speare's Hamlet^ Prince of DenntarJc, well assured
that in his native city he can depend upon every
reasonable allowance for such deficiency of mecha-
nical manner as can be supplied only by longer
and more frequent practice in the loftier depart-
ments of the Drama, than he has yet had opportu-
nity to acquire.
78 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide.
Wednesday Evening, Oct. 21, 1840.
HAMLET.
Ha^ilet (for the first time on any
stage), Mr. Hackett.
Ghost of Haimlet's Eathek, . Mr. Barry.
Ophelia (for tlie first time in this
country), Mrs. Wood.
CLAucros, King of Denmark, . 3fr. Gann.
HoKATio, Mr. Hield.
Laertes, Mr. Wheatly.
PoLONirs, Mr. CMj^pendale.
OsEicK, Mr. Fisher.
Geeteude, Queen of Denmark, . Mrs, Barry,
To which will he added the Ludicrous Scene of
A MILITIA TEAMING.
Hateful W. Paekins (an Inde-
pendent Disorderly), .... 31r. Niclcinsoii.
The Yankee Majoe, .... Mr. JlacJcett.
The Militia, by an awhioard squad.
The Entertainmerd to Conclude with the First Act of
THE KENTUCKIAlSr.
Col. Nevieod Wildfiee, .... 3fr. HachetL
The theatre was full, and I was warmly greeted
on appearance — all my soliloquies were surprisingly
hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 79
well received, and more or less interrupted by
applause in their course of delivery — my scenes
generally were marked either by mute applause or
eloquent approbation, whilst my impassioned utter-
ance of Hamlet's ^^Z/'-condemnation after witnessing
what the ])laycr could do " in a dream of passion,"
was applauded to the echo, which, after I had left
the stage, called me back to acknowledge the com-
pliment of my audience ; also, the earnestness
which I manifested in the course of Hamlet's con-
trivance to detect the " occulted guilt," and the
happy attitude which I happened to strike, as the
usurper, at its climax, rushed away conscience-
stricken, were honored by such loud vociferation
and thunders of applause as required a long sus-
pension of the progressive scene. Such portions of
the play and certain points in the closet-scene (after
which I was again called before the curtain), proved
the most effective of any which I attempted to
mark.
In my youth I had read the work called Wilhel-
meister'^s Ajpiyrenticesliij^^ and been struck with and
remembered Goethe! s idea of causing, in represen-
tation, Hamlet's description and comparison of his
father's and his uncle's respective persons to be
painted as full length portraits, and suspended in
the Queen's closet, and, with the aid of Mr. Thomas
Barry (a most capital stage-director as well as good
and sound actor), I determined to try such an effect
on the occasion. Mr. Barry, who acted the GJiost^
80 HAMLET.
consented to change the costume {armoicr) worn
when it was seen upon the plaifonn^ and which, as
it would seem, was designed to suggest surprise and
increase Hamlet's wonder — (" My father's spirit —
in av'ins ! all is not well ! ") — and to adopt one
similar to tlmt worn by " My father in his hahit as
he lived^'' ?a\^ painted for the portrait. The canvas
was so constructed — by Mr. Barry's direction — and
split, but backed with a spring made from whale-
bone, which rendered its practicability unperceived
by the audience, that it enabled him at the proj^er
juncture, as the ghost behind, to step apparently
out of it upon the stage ; the rent through wliich
the figure had passed was closed up again, and the
canvas, with a light behind it, then looked hlanh
and illuminated ; but, the instant after the departure
of the sj)irit from sight of the audience, the light
was removed, and the painting appeared as before.
The whole effect proved wonderful and surprising,
and was vehemently applauded. The audience, at
the close of the tragedy, as a matter of course,
called me once more before the curtain, and I
thanked them cordially for their manifestations of
satisfaction ; though, in my heart, I attributed their
apparent enthusiasm more to their own perception
of what I was earnestly trying to do than to my
own accomplishments upon the stage ; for I was
anything but 5<?Z/'-satisfied with my performance. I
knew — what they did not, or were too kind to seem
to perceive — my deficiency in that ease and smooth-
HAMLET. 81
ness wliicli is only acquirable by mucli practice.
Next day, however, I was warmly congratulated by
numerous personal friends, and received, through
the Box-office of the Park Theatre, some verses in
a female hand, signed " Mbiei^a^'' so complimen-
tary that I suspected them as designed for a prac-
tical cjxiiz. Such causes might, and perhaps ougld^
to have stimulated me to exert myself and make a
complete study of the art necessary to act, to my
own satisfaction, my conceptimi of Hamlet^ as I had
been, eight years previous, to undertake that of the
Fahtaf of King Hciiry IV., after I had so far suc-
ceeded as to be tolerated by an audience in my first
and very crude attempt to personate that character;
but I lacked an equally strong motive for Hamlet
that I had had to elaborate my performance of
Falstaff. My first representation of the Falstaff of
Henry I Y. attracted only a moderate audience — not
equal to the Manager's expenses — whilst my local
characters, for which I was then and oidy famed,
produced more than double to the theatre's treasury.
The Press — such as noticed my delut at all — con-
demned not only my acting, but my concejption
and even my readings of the text, and denied me
both the mind to grasp, and the physical elements
(for training) to represent the character of Falstaff
respectably. Of my natural qualifications or im-
pediments for a " respectable" ^performance I could
not judge, but, considering that I had on my first
night succeeded in keeping my audience in good
82 HAMLET.
liumor tliroiigliont, I was determined to persevere,
and endeavor to make mj toleration a sort of enter-
ing-wedge with public opinion, for riving and pros-
trating wliat I looked upon as a traditionary and
time-honored but erroneous conventionalism^ and for
introducing and establishing instead, if not a better,
at least an original conception of that masterly
compound of wit and philosophy with vice and
sensuality. Therefore, when the Manager inquired
of me (his Star) what I would " act the next night"
(I was playing alternately with another Star), I
rejilied — 'Til re'peat Falstaff P^ "Any of your
other characters would draw hetter P'' observed he,
and left me evidently vexed. The second night the
receijyts improved upon the first a little, but still
were under the expenses^ though the audience
seemed more attentive and liberal of applause at
certain points. The next day, however, when the
Manager feared 1 might persist in again repeating
Falstaff^ he prevailed upon a certain newspaper
editor with whom he was intimate and I esteemed
*' a friend" of mine, to be at the Box Office when I
should come there (as usual about 10 o'clock a.m.),
and to suggest the inexpediency of my persistence in
any further repetition at present of Falstaff. The
gentleman (and he was a benevolent one, and often
good-hum oredly afterwards alluded to the conversa-
tion) intimated that " though the public acknow-
ledged me to possess wonderful powers of imitation^
precedent had proved that no great imitator had
HAMLET. 83
ever become even a cjood original actor." I asked
liim if lie was familiar with David Garrick's hegin-
ning^ as well as liis establisliment of himself as a
great actor ? and if he was aware that he started by
playing characters " after the ino/nner of a Mr.
SmitN^ — then a great favorite in London — and that
he did not discontinue his imitation until he had
secured the notice of the town, and extracted their
acknowledgment of his (Garrick's) original abilities.
" Well !" added my expostulator, " our public have
been accustomed, since you adopted the stage a few
years ago, to see you only in imitat/ions of Kean,*
and Macready, and Barnes, and Hilson, and per-
form a Yankee {Solomon Swop), and a Dutchman
{liij) Van Winkle), or a Kentuckian {Kimrod
Wildfire), and a Frenchman {lionsieur Morhleit),
which are (what are technically called) ' character-
parts ;' but you cannot persuade them now — if ever
— that you are able to play Fai^staff." Such dis-
paragement of my ability aroused my indignation,
and I observed with some warmth — " Look you !
Mr. , the Manager has instigated you to put mo
out of conceit of myself in this part, in order that I
may fall back — as he prefers — upon my local and
hackneyed characters to-morrow night, and which
he thinks would be more attractive. I will play
nothing hut Falstoff again to-onorro^o night ! With
reference to your prediction, that I may ' never be
* In 1826, in my novitiate, I acted Richard III. in imitation of
Kean repeatedly at New York, and in London in 1827, with applausa
84 HAMLET.
able,' I say, and mark you my words, lohen I have
Lad a reasonable time by stage-practice — say tliree
years — to ripen my acting and become mellowed in
the part like a second-nature, if then I can't con-
vince the public generally that I can act it — not
only to their satisfaction but ^nore so than will any
rival— I'll forswear my adopted profession, and
never appear again upon the stage." The third per-
formance, however, proved an agreeable surprise to
the Manager, Mr. Simpson, who played the Prince,
of Wales. When he and myself in our respective
characters met at " Gadshill," and unavoidably
noticed the croivd in the pit and boxes, I muttered
to him in an undertone, " Which of us was right
about to-night's bill?" He very pleasantly whis-
pered back — " You ! you understand the monster
better than I this time !" Often as I repeated the
part after that, during a series of years, I seldom if
ever acted it to less than expenses anywhere.
But times and circumstances (which alter cases)
were different when I first appeared as Hamlet, In
1832 I was comparatively young as an actor, and
ambitious^ and my energies were aroused to coml)at
prejudice and opposition, and to acquire fame and a
moderate independence ; besides supporting my
family and educating three sons, who, after my
bankruptcy as a merchant of ISTew York, had no
resources or expectations other than what miglit be
obtained through my own exertions. In 1840, I
had acquired an extensive credit for Protean ability
HAMLET. 85
and a surfeit of tlicatric honors^ which no longer
fired my ambition. Tlie country had not yet reco-
vered from the eflects of the monetary revulsion of
1837, and theatricals generally were at a very low
ebb, and tragedy especially neglected. I had begun
to consider the expediency of then loithdrawing
myself from — as I had in 1826 of adopting — the
stage, and of returning and resuming some branch
of mercantile business after that season ; and also,
only how to make the acting of my most popular of
established parts most available to my purse. I
reflected upon the years of practice I had devoted
to Falstaff^ before I could make it tolerable in my
own or quite acceptable in general opinion, and I
apprehended a greater and a longer task to obtain
the like for Hamlet^ together with a difliculty of
inspiring in advance various and unfamiliar audi-
ences (throughout the lands where I might wander
as a star) with confidence in a candidate for their
tragic instruction and delight, who had never before
been heard of by them but as an " irregular come-
dian," and in order to command an attendance of
numbers equal to those attracted by my local parts.
The occasion of my debut in Hamlet being for my
" benefit and last night of engagement" for some
time in New York (owing to an interval of some
months to be occupied with other stars engaged at
the Park), precluded me from iinraedlately following
up my comparative success, by frequent repetitions
of Hamlet upon the stage where I had obtained it,
86 HAMLET.
and of striking the public-iron whilst hot, and clench-
ing as well as diffusing and circulating throughout
the community any strong impression I had made
in that part.
ISTot many weeks prior to my first a]3pearance in
Hamlet at New York, I had been persuaded to per-
form King Lear at Philadelphia, by Mr. Manager
Burton (1840), with new scenic appointments which
he got up with care and liberality. It filled his
theatre for a weelc^ and gave me a strong foothold
for tragic promise in that city ; whereupon the ITew
York Park theatre had imitated Burton's example,
and incurred considerable expense forthwith to get
up Lear for me. I played it three nights with great
applause from the audience and unprecedented
commendation from the press ; but it did not attract
expenses either nighty and I then refused ever to jplay
it at the Parle again, and have kept my word j but
the town did not go into mourning. That w^as one
reason I had urged against the policy of trying to
act Hamlet, but which Manager Simpson overcame,
by his assurance of a peculiar prestige, viz. : " the
popularity of my conception as evolved in my
widely-circulated correspondence with Mr. Adams,
and also by reason of the play's more general
favoritism, and consequently greater attraction of
the masses towards the character of Hamlet than
that of Lear^^ a fact which he intimated could be
proved by reference to the latter's smaller treasury-
receipts of the theatre, and the comparatively few
HAMLET. 87
rej^etitions King Lear would bear, even when repre-
sented bj sucli famous actors as George Frederick
Cooke and Edmund Kean.
Nevertheless, I allowed my own first and favora-
ble impression and upon a single audience as Ham-
let^ to fade out of its memory by neglect and delay ;
whereas, by immediate and frequent repetition I
should have endeavored to " bite it in," as engra-
vers do thei7' work, with aquafortis^ and have tried to
thoroughly establish it : hence, my glory in it was
transient, and with the occasion the achievement
soon passed away from my own mind. My habitual
love of ease, aversion to extraordinaiy physical or
mental exertion, together with a consciousness and
dread of painful effects upon my sensitive nervous
system, and, from its ready excitability, how much
and how often it would surely be wrought upon by
my efforts to push on to fame as an actor of Hamlet^
'' Some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought, which, quartered hath but one part wisdom.
And ever three parts cowardj'^
combined to discourage my ambition in such pur-
suit. I resolved rather to continue to act easily and
quietly and with moderate profit, my former though
limited number of jpapidar parts, than to embark in
a struggle at that time against popular prejudice or
stage-precedent of an acknowledged comedian try-
ing to make his Hamlet attractive and add that to
his repertoire.
88 HAMLET
Not long after I liacl thus neglected to take at
" young Hood " the indicated tide of extended poj)u-
lar favor, for, —
" There is a tide in the afifairs of men,
Whichj taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries,"
my old friend William E. Burton, the manager at
Philadelphia, sought and chid me for " keeping the
noiseless tenor of my way," and especially for my
impolitic and censurable inertness in my profession
when Fortune had opened to me an opportunity.
Mr. Burton proposed, and I accepted an engage-
ment to act at his New National Theatre^ Philadel-
phia^ in the March following, assuring me that he
could do with that public what was necessary to
draw its attention to my pretensions which he pro-
nounced " extraordinary and constituted unmistaka-
bly good material." When I visited Philadelphia,
accordingly, I found indeed that Mr. Burton had not
forgotten his managerial designs thus intimated, and
that Philadelphia was pretty generally placarded,
and all his playbills headed with a pulf-announce-
ment as follows : —
New National Theatre,
W. E. BuETON, Sole Proprietor.
P. PicniNGS, Stage Manager.
It^^TuE Manager takes pride in respectfully
soliciting the attention of the American Public
HAMLET. 89
generally, to the following rare impersonations of a
variety of Shakespeare's heroes, and of dissimilar
American Originals (all of which are to be per-
formed at this theatre This Week) by one of their
own distinguished Native actors, viz. :
MK. HACKETT
who has always been a ])articular favorite in Phila-
delphia, and is now universally acknowledged to
combine a higher degree of excellence with versa-
tility than has been recorded in the annals of the
Stage of any individual since the days of Garrick.
Mr. Hackett will appear
Tuesday — as Falstaff^ in the Merry Wives of Wind-
sor.
Monday — as King Lear, and also in The Kentuck-
ian.
Thursday — as Falstcuff^ in King Henry IV. Part
1st.
Friday — as Hamlet, and also as the Yankee, /Solo-
mon Swop.
Saturday — as jRip Van WinJcle, and Horse Shoe
Robinson.
Monday — as Falstaff, in The Second Part of King
Henry IV.
Though I was well received in each of these charac-
ters by the notoriously cold and reserved audiences
of Philadelphia, Mr. Burton did not succeed in
90 ^ HAMLET.
making my j^erformanco of Hamlet and of King
Lear nearly as attractive as most of my comic cha-
racters proved, and without vexation or regret I
struck them both from my repertoire, and soon
thereafter studied and produced Sir Pertinax Mac-
Sycojphant in Macklin's Man of the World, and also
C Gallaglian^ in Bernard's farce of His Last Legs ;
in both which parts I have been a favorite with
every public in either hemisphere.
PART III.
NOTES UPON KING LEAR.
GENIUS AND TASTE.
" Genius all sunbeams where he throws a smile,
Impregnates Nature faster than the Nile ; ^
Wild and impetuous, high as Heaven aspires,
All science animates, all virtue fires.
Creates ideal worlds and there convenes
Aerial forms and visionary scenes.
But Tasie^ corrects by one therial touch,
What seems too little and what seems too much ; >
Marks the fine point, where each consenting part
Slides into beauty with the ease of art ;
This bids to rise, and That with grace to fall.
And rounds, unites, refines, and heightens all."
Cawthorn.
NOTES UPON KING LEAR.
" Ta]^e pains the genuine meaning to explore ;
There sweat, there strain ; tug the laborious oar ;
Search every comment that your care can find ;
Some here, some there, may hit the poet's mind :
When things appear unnatural and hard.
Consult your author with himself compar'd."
Roscommon.
King Leak is not a popular play with the million ;
because the young ^ who constitute the great majority
of play-goers, are too inexperienced to comprehend
the dotage of the aged and tender father, and to
sympathize with his consequent afflictions ; — regard-
ing Lear^ as they generally do, merely as an old
despot, and his sorrows and sufferings as measurably
deserved by his own folly and tyranny ; nor can
youth have acquired knowledge enough of mankind
to detect and appreciate Shakespeare's exquisite art
and profound philosophy in the drawing of Learns
madness, its origin, progress, and climax ; nor his
frightfully faithful portraiture towards the fatal
denouement of nature's last and abortive struggle
94 NOTES UPON KING LEAR.
with extreme old age and bodily iniirmitj to restore
JLear'^s mental balance, and to re-establish his reason :
therefore, this play is better adapted to the under-
standing of the sage and philosopher, and the mad
scenes, especially, to the appreciation of experienced
and scientific physicians, who have been accustomed
professionally to witness and contemplate the subtle
workings of tlie maniac's mind.
" The proper study of mankind is man." — Pope.
Coleridge, in his Table Talh^ says : — ^^Lear is the
most tremendous effort of Shakespeare as a poet,
Hamlet as a philosopher and meditator, and Othello
is the union of the two. There is something gigan-
tic and unformed in the former two ; but in the
latter {Otkello\ everything assumes its due place
and proportion, and the whole mature j)Owers of his
mind are displayed in admirable equilibrium."
My opinion is, that the difference noticed does
not arise so much from an inequality in Shake-
speare's genius for drawing perfectly these three
distinctive characters, but in the critic's taste for the
different subjects they respectively comprehend, and
their several moral spheres of action.
A critic, in the Edhiburgh Review for July,
1840, (Article, " Recent ShaTiesjperian Literatures^)
asserts : —
" Tlic whole circle of Literature, ancient and
modern, possesses nothing comparable to that world
NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 95
of thoughts, feeliiigSj and images which is disphiyed
ill the live great tragedies of Shakespeare." ^'^ ^ ^ ^
Comparing them with each other the same writer
remarks : —
^'Zearis, at once more original in invention, more
active in imagination, more softly pathetic in feel-
ing ; Homeo and Juliet has more pm*e feeling ;
Macleth a closer amalgamation of tragic action
with thoughts purely ethical ; and Samlet traverses
a world of thought in which all other existing
dramas linger at the frontier : but Othello^ above
every other drama, unites vehemence and nature iu
tragic emotion, with truth and vigor in the delinea-
tion of character. Tliis play, above all others, har-
monizes those two elements, and makes each the
counterpart, the supplement, the condition of the
existence of the other."
The poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, regarded Lear
as a drama " universal, ideal, sublime ; and the
most perfect specimen of dramatic art in existence."
Philadeljyhia^ December 1, 1840. I saw Mr.
Forrest as Lear last night, at the Chestnut Street
Theatre. He and myself often and materially
differ in our conceptions as well as in our tastes in
personifying them upon the stage. He exhibits too
much nerve and too little flexibility of voice and
countenance generally ; his physical impetuosity in
the curse, beginning " Hear, ]^ature ! Hear ! " and
in Learns rage, wheresoever it occurs, seems to me
96 NOTES UPON KING LEAR.
overstniiiied and unnatural, whilst his patlios is
whining and wants intensity, and seems to spring
more from a cool head than a warm heart. He
evidently aims to make sternness and the mortified
pride of the pagan despot Learns strongest charac-
teristics ; whilst I think they should show only as
sudden and transient flashes of a consuming heart,
but most clearly alternate and secondary to the
philanthropy which pervades the nature of the sen-
sitive old father. Lear'^s occasional bursts of anger
certainly require of an actor earnest and forcible
expression, in order to realize fully to an audience
Lear''s outraged sensibility ; but anger which can
find words should, at the same time, acquire a com-
parative temperance, to give it smoothness ; and
though a passion torn to tatters may obtain more
noisy applause from the barren spectators, it is tlie
innate benevolence of the man, as is seen in his
calm and reasoning intervals, which afi*ords oppor-
tunity in acting for those tender strokes of art which
wake the souls of the reflecting and judicious, and
stamp the deepest and most enduring impression,
upon their hearts.
Mr. Forrest seems to " come tardy off" in all
Lear's gushes of tenderness, as though his own
nature was too rough or unrefined to receive the
im2:)ress, and too sterile to cherish such delicate
impulses ; the apostrophes, too, he uttered in the
speculative tone of a stoic and without a touch of
that plaintiveness which should characterize the
NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 97
sententioiisness of a soul overcliarged witli its own
accumulated wrongs. The gentler emotions of an
aiHicted bosom beget deeper sympathy in the
beholder than the most startling paroxysms of rage ;
for, anger^ duly considered, is one of the lowest
order of the passions, and just in proportion that any
man allows it to rise and obtain the mastery does it
dispel his reason and reduce his nature to that mere
instinct which is common to the fiercest of the Irute
creation ; it is a relic of barbarism which social
refinement has abolished by crowning mildness and
equanimity with its good graces, and by stigmatiz-
ing a loss of temper as rudeness and ill-breeding.
Mr. Forrest recites the text as though it were all
prose, and not occasionally written in poetic mea-
sure ; whereas, blank verse can, and always should
be distinguishable from prose by proper modulations
of the voice which a listener with a nice ear and a
cultivated taste could not mistake, nor if confounded
detect in their respective recitals : else Milton, as
well as Shakespeare, has toiled to little purpose in.
the best proportioned numbers.
Mr. Forrest's countenance, as made up for Lear, is
inflexible, stern, and forbidding : he has, too, a favorite
grim scowl : his eyebrows arc made so shaggy and
willowy, they hide the eyes too much : and his
beard, though long and picturesque, covers some
useful and important muscles of the face, making it
rigid and incapable of depicting efi*ectively the alter-
nate lights and shades of benevolence and irascibility
r-
o
98 NOTES UPON KING LEAR.
as tliey fluctuate in Learns agitated mind ; nor, do
I fancy Mr. Forrest's tread of the stage with his toes
inclined somewhat inward like that of an Indian ;
for the reason that it renders Lear's personal car-
riage undignified : there is a want of keeping too in
the paralytic action of his head and limbs, which at
times exhibit too firm a repose for a man " fourscore
and upwards," and then at others a shaking so vio-
lent and overdone as to verge closely upon carica-
ture.
At the close of the following dialogue, namely —
" Lear. Dost tliou know me, fellow ?
Kent. No, Sir! but you have that in your countenance
which I would fain call master.
Lear. What's that?
Kent. Authority I"
Mr. Forrest paused here some seconds, wagged
his head about and smiled very significantly as
though Learns vanity was particularly pleased that
his features had indicated to a poor-service-beggar,
an autocratio rule — one to which Lear (be it remem-
bered !) had been born, ever been used, and then
had never yet had disputed.
In the last scene of the first act Mr. Forrest
adhered to ITahum Tate's injudicious omission of the
bit of pathos with which Shakespeare has interposed
before the curse-direct.
'-'■Lear. What, fifty of my followers at a clap! — within a
fortnight ?
KOTES UPON KING LEAR. 99
ATbany. What's the matter, sir ?
Lear. I'll tell thee I (Therij with falling tears and cJioJdng
utterarLce^ turned to Goneril.) Life and death ! I am asham'd
That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus ;
That these hot tears which break from me perforce,
Should make thee worth them. — Blasts and fogs upon thee !
The untented woundings of a father's curse
Pierce every sense about thee ! &c."
Though it may be judicious to transpose some of
this matter, as Tate has done — making it antecedent
instead of subsequent to that terrific invocation which
begins " Hear, N^ature, hear !" and at tlie end
whereof, according to Shakespeare, Leai' "rushes
out " for a few moments and " returns " exclaiming
as above (quoted in parenthesis), I decidedly disap-
prove of Tate's rejection of the pathetic portion, and
have restored it; because, first, it bespeaks the
sympathy of the audience, breaks the continuity of
cursing, mitigates the shock and averts its abhorrent
quality when Lear vents the bitterness of his burst-
ing heart ; and secondly, because it discovers that
malevolence, though provokable, is neither upper-
most, nor wanton, nor gratuitous, nor unremitted in
Learh nature.
In the curse, after falling upon his knees, Mr. For-
rest exhibited Learns nervous system so relaxed, that
from the commencement to the climax he shook con-
stantly and from head to toe ; not unlike some poor
fitful victim of what is called St. Yitus's Dance —
whereas, according to my observation of Nature,
100 NOTES UPON KING LEAK.
old and ordiiuirily nervous men, during a fit of exces-
sive anger, become comparatively firm and strong
in their bodily faculties, wliicb sink again as the
temporary excitement subsides into a proportion-
ately lower state of debility ; that Shakespeare him-
self thus regarded man's physique in old age, be it
remembered that he has made Lea'i\ just before
breathing his last, recover strength enough to "kill
the slave that was hanging Cordelia;" — having
" seen the time he could have make them skip ;" — a
circumstance not impossible for such an old man,
but which however Shakespeare's good taste pre-
ferred Lear'* 8 description^ but which Tate has under-
taken to bring into effective action upon the stage,
where I have always seen it fail : indeed, it seemed
so ludicrous to the spectators that many have
laughed outright whenever a representation of that
conceivable feat was attempted.
" Kent. (In the stocJxS.) Hail, noble master !
Lear. How I Mak'st thou this shame thy pastime ?"
It struck me here that Mr. Forrest descried
Kenfs condition from his own distance too readily
for the " dull sight " of which Lear complains after-
wards ; nor did Mr. Forrest attempt, when Lear dis-
covered Kenfs disgraceful pastime, to make mani-
fest through his features and manner the surprise
an^ indignation occasioned by such a palpable
insult as he esteems it according to his expressions
of resentment.
NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 101
Mr. Forrest made no point, nor seemed to attach
any characteristic value to the line,
" The KI]^a would speak with CornwaU! "
of which it is susceptible. It can be made to tell
with an audience, particularly by Lear'^s making a
short pause before uttering the sentence, gradually
straighten himself up to his full height, and, with
majestic pride and bearing, dwell, with deep
intonation and powerful emphasis, upon the word
In the menace which Lear orders Gloster to con-
vey—
"bid them come forth and hear me,
Or, at their chamber door I'll beat the drum,
'Tin it cry sleep, to death ! "
The actor of Lear should remain prominently
forward, near the footlights, as Gloster brings the
excuses of the Duke and his wife for not deio^nino-
to s^ealv with him, and, at the climax of Lear'^s
threat, let Cornwall and Regan come hastily for-
ward, and appear suddenly at Learns right hand
{Gloster being on his left side), when, with mingled
surprise and mock courtesy, and in a loud ironical
tone, his gibe can be made most effectively : —
" Oh ! Are you come ! "
but Mr. Forrest, having finished the threat which
he had commanded Gloster to convey to his reluc-
102 NOTES UPON Kixa LEAR.
tant son-in-law and delinquent daughter, instead of
awaiting the eflect of his message, walked 112? the
stage and met them in their gateway ; a situation
which precluded Lear the opportunity for a strong
point — afforded by Tate's arrangement of the break
and exclamation.
Mr. Forrest, in articulating the letter " O " in
" 'bones^'' allowed so little quantity that it sounded
like " hmw I " also, the double " O " in '''-food " was
given short, as in '-^ footP
There was no pungency in Mr. Forrest's tone or
manner when he taunted Goneril, —
" I will not trouble thee, mj child ; farewell 1 "
nor in the rebuke, —
" But, I'll not chide thee;
*****! can stay with Regan,
I and my hundred knights."
[N'ow, be it observed, that the more boastfully
Zear is made to utter this last line of his invective,
the greater must be his confusion, the deeper his
mortification, and the more intolerable his sense of
disaj^pointment and degradation, when Regan ab-
ruptly checks his confident expectations, with —
" Not altogether so, sir;
I looked not for you yet, nor am provided
For your fit welcome : Give ear to my sister," etc.
NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 103
Lear, then, with a spirit quite subdued, inter-
jects-^
"Is this well spoken, twxv f "
also, when Itegan concludes,
" If you wiU come to me,
(For now I spy a danger) I entreat you
To bring but live-and-twenty * to no more
Will I give place or notice,"
it makes Lear's distress and utter helplessness the
more apparent, and his heart-breaking recollection
and expression —
" /gave you ALL 1 " —
the more natural and sympathy-winning to an
audience. Lear^ now humbled and embarrassed
bj his reduced condition and forlorn situation,
implores Regan to reconsider her edict, and, at the
same time, deprecates a confirmation of her de-
grading decree — thus —
" What, must I come to you
With five-and-twenty, Regan ? Said you so ? "
Began answers : —
" And speak it again, my lord ; no more with me I
Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favor' d,
When others are more wicked ; not being the worst,
Stands in some rank of praise : I'll go with thee.
[Turning to QoneriV
104 NOTES UPON KING LEAR.
Mr. Forrest liere went unhesitatingly and put liis
hand iipon Goneril rather affectionately^ which I
thi.nk morally impossible with such a nature and
under the circumstances, for Lear to persuade him-
self to do ; because, though he says to Goneril —
" Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty,
And tliou art twice her love — "
his is only a choice of two evils, and an alternatiye
forced by his necessity ; in fact, so poor is the qua-
lity of GoneriVs love, though " twice " that of
Hegan^ it could not renew his affection, nor even
paternal regard for Goneril most particular!}^,
having cursed her most bitterly, and so recently,
and on three several occasions ; for this reason,
instead of saying readily or cordially —
"rUgowith^Aee/'*
as Mr. Forrest does to Goneril^ I prefer that Lear
should hesitate a little — as if self-debating his own
extremity — and then, only half-turning his person
towards Goneril^ utter the line (" I'll go with
thes P\ constrainedly and in a tone of painful
repuguance; because, after all, Lear^ though shorn
of his autocratic sway and pride of power, in his
heart cared less about the number of his retinue
than these insulting proofs of his two daughters'
grudging and ungrateful spirit, in thus reducing his
individual consequence, and an appearance becom-
ing—
NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 105
" the name alone of Kinff,"
07
wliicli only remained to liim after partitioning Lis
kinirdom.
o
" Goneril. Hear me, my lord !
"What need you five and twenty, ten or five,
To follow in a house where twice so many
Have a command to tend you ?
Regan. What need one ?
Lear. [0, reason not the need : our basest beggars
Are, in the poorest thing, superfluous :
Allow not Nature more than Xature needs.
Man's life is cheap as beast's : thou art a lady :
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why Nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need,
You Heavens! give me patience f that, Iiieedf]
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age ; wretched in both,
&c., &c., &c. Oh, fool, I shall go mad!"
The portion of Zear^s words, quoted above and
written within my brackets, contains so mncli of
poetry, philosophy, and character, that in studying
the part of Zear, I determined to restore what Tate
had omitted, and render it on the stage in the hope
that it might please some lover of Sliakespeare in
his integrity. Apropos, what can be more graphic,
and at the same time more beautifully poetic, than
the following description given by the " Gentle-
man," met by JTent upon the heath and inquired of
by him when searching for Zea?' amid the storm.
I esteem it an exquisite morceau —
5*
106 NOTES UPON KING LEAR.
" Kent "Where's the king ?
Gentlemayi. Contending with the fretful elements.
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,
That things might change or cease : tears his white hair :
"Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage,
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of :
Strives in his little world of man to outscorn
The to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take alV*
According to my idea, in the defiance of the
storm,
"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks !"
Mr. Forrest seemed deficient in that wild energy
implied by the text and demanded by the circum-
stances ; also, Mr. Forrest addressed to JS^e7it the
passage —
" "What, so kind a father — ay, there's the point," &c.,
which, I think, should be uttered dbstractedly. In-
stead of the original text —
" The tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeUng else
Save what beats i/iere,"
Mr. Forrest substituted the word liere (for Shake-
speare's " there''') and pointed to his hearty whereas,
NOTES UPON KING LEAK. 107
I take it, Leav refers to Lis hrain^ an organ wliicli
beats as sensibly as the heart under violent mental
excitement, and mentions elsewhere — " lest my
h'ain tnrn" — " I am cut to the hrain.^'^ Characters
in other plays of Shakespeare speak of a " troubled
brain," and " perturbation of the brain," and of the
" brain fuming."
Mr. Forrest gave with a smile of idiotic pleasure,
" The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see — they bark at me,"
whereas, I understand Lear to be annoyed by some
disagreeable fancy, w^hich would cause him to start
and shrink back from the imaginary objects named.
The context convinces me that Shakespeare intended
Lear to exhibit great uneasiness just then; because,
it is Lear's answer to Kenfs question when animad-
verting upon Lear's ravings —
(" Kent. 0 pity ! — Sir, where is the patience^ now,
That you so oft have boasted to retain ?")
besides that, Edgar evidently understands Lear to
be troubled by such imagined harking of those
dogs ; else he would not have taken such pains to
humor Lear's deranged fancy, and to scare the dogs
away ; thus —
" Edgar. Tom will throw his head at them :
Avaunt, you curs ! &c., &c.
Lear. Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar ?
Gloster. Ay, Sir !
Lear. And the man ran from the cur .^"
108 ^ NOTES UPON KING LEAR.
Mr. Forrest, instead of articulating as antitheses
" onan " and "• cur,^'' laid the strongest possible
emphasis npon the ^preposition " from."
When Lea7\ in a paroxysm, attempts to tear off
his clothes, saying —
" Off, off, you lendings : — Come uiibutton here 1"
Mr. Forrest tore open his dress from his neck to his
chest and discovered a naked body, without any
sign of there being or having been a shirt worn
between, which I consider an unreasonable omis-
sion ; because, whatever the proper costume of those
rude times wherein the action of the play is laid
may have been, and even supposing that history
could establish a shirt to be a more onodern refine-
ment, Shakespeare makes the absence of a shirt
upon Lear an inconsistency ; forasmuch as, Edgar,
a son of one of Learns dukes and his subject, boasts
of having formerly rejoiced in half a dozen among
his wardrobe, viz. —
" Edgar. Poor Tom, &c., who hath had three suits to his
back, six shirts to his hocly^ horse to ride," &c.
In Learns dying speech over the dead Cordelia^
" And my poor fool is hang'd ! No, no, no Hfe :
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all ? 0, thou wilt come no more.
Never, never, never, never, never !
Pray you, undo this button : thank you. Sir.
Do you see this? Look on her — look — her lips —
Look there^ look there ! — (Dies.)
NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 109
Mr. Forrest, instead of uttering —
" And my poor fool is liang'd !"
By way of an apostrophe to GordelicCs fate, turned
from the conteniphition of the lifeless object of his
all-absorbing solicitude and spoke the line interroga-
tively to Kent, as though Lear could abstract his
thoughts then from Cordelia to inquire about the
fate of his professional "fool" or jester, whereas, I
am confirmed by a careful re-consideration of my
original conception that by ''^ ])oor fooV in this
place Lear refers to his C(yrdelia, whom lie in his
madness just before has refused to believe dead,
and whom until that moment he has been trying to
arouse, by saying in the ear of her corpse —
" I kill'd the slave that was a hanging thee."
But, at this juncture, having exhausted his ingenuity
in efforts to discover a sign of life in her, con-
cludes—
" And my poor fool is hang'd !"
or in other words — ' After all, I find that my poor
innocent is indeed strangled to death. There is " no
life " in her !' For my part, I cannot imagine how
any careful student or judicious reader of Shake-
speare's context here (and elsewhere in connexion
with the epithet) can doubt that Lear, by "poor
fool " refers to his unwise in her beginning and
unfortunate in her ending-daughter, Cordelia, or
110 NOTES UPON KING LEAR.
how, if any candid mind had doubted at first, but
had read and reflected upon the strong and hicid
arguments of Steevens and of Malone, in opposition
to the fanciful, but solitarj-thoughted, Sir Joshua
Reynolds upon this very point, a conviction could
be avoided that Steevens and Malone were in the
right; Sir Joshua w^as evidently a clearer-sighted
genius in the art of painting, than in his penetration
into the mind's eye of Shakespeare in drawing his
pictures of humanity.
"When LeaT in the storm, uses the same words in
speaking to "his poor" shivering Jester^ he adds
another epithet which characterizes his vocation,
viz. :
" My poor fool and hnave /" «
N.B. — The foregoing is copied from my original
M.S. ]!!Totes upon Mr. Forrest^ s performance of Lear
in Philadelphia^ Dec. 1, 1840.
Mem. New Yorh, Oct. 26, I860.— I saw Mr. For-
rest again in this character at ISTiblo's theatre. I
noticed no material diiference except that he was in
his physical eftorts comparatively a little less vigor-
ous.
MACREADT.
By the way, apropos of Lear'^s " fool," when Mr.
Macready and myself chanced to sojourn together at
New Orleans, in 1844, and were taking a walk for
NOTES UPON KING LEAR. Ill
exercise oae day, that eminent artist observed to
me —
" Mr. Hackett, a common friend (David Cadwa-
lader Golden of JSTew York), lias intimated to me that
you have been a particular student of Lear^ and I
should like you much to sec ony Lear j in order to
have your judgment upon my taste in adapting the
original to the stage, and most especially upon my
idea of causing the fool to be personated by a
woman.) who can look like a hoy of eighteen and also
siiig to the king upon the heath and during his mad-
ness those occasional couplets which Shakespeare
has put into the FooVs mouth, to divert Lear in his
misery."
I did seize the first opportunity to see his perform-
ance ; one occurred only a few nights afterwards.
When Mr. Macready and myself met next, he
inquired how I liked his idea of having Lear'^s Fool
thus represented.
I replied —
" It is a pretty and ingenious conceit, and not
ineffective at times ; but, L have imagined that this
Fool was introduced by Shakespeare, not only in
conformity with the usages of primitive times as an
attendant of a king, but, in this play and occasion^ as
a sort of practical cynic / in order that such Fool
might extract and point the moral of the passing
scene to the understandings of the audiences of
Shakespeare's day, composed as they must have
been mostly of the uneducated populace of an
112 KOTES UPON KING LEAE.
unlettered and unrefined Age — sucli scraps of moral
caustic as a king's " fool and knave " was privileged
to interject at intervals must reasonably be supposed
to have originated in tlie fool's mind natiircdly^ and
to have been the result of an acute observation,
with previous opportunities and much experience of
the world I but, Mr. Macreadj, it seems to me that
such wisdom in thought, and aptitude in expression
and of apj)lwation to passing events, from the mouth
of ' a 1)01) of eighteen^ would be more than prodi-
gious: to the reflecting and judicious of the
audience such wisdom and satire would seem j^reter-
natural, or to have been derived from nothing short
of Inspiration.'^'^
Mr. Macready listened to me very attentively,
and without the least interruption ; and, when I had
concluded, uttered not a word in defence or support
or justification of his innovation.
Mr. Macready's King Lear was in conception very
generally in accordance with my own, and his per-
formance scholarly and highly artistic ; the main
defects, which I detected in his attempt to personate
Lear and which frequently destroyed the illusion,
arose from his too-often forgetting, in the carriage
of his body, and by the quickness and the vigor of
his movements and action, as well as the occasional
strength of his lungs, that Lear was " fourscore and
upwards and a weak and infirm old nianP
I saw the King Lear of Edmund Kean repeatedly
when in Ameriba, in 1826. His performance of the
NOTES UPON KING LEAE. 113
character was very uneven. lie seemed to have
contented himself with searching for points suscep-
tible of brilliant eflect in each of Learns scenes, and
in making their splendor great enough to either
blind the mass of his audience towards, or make
them forgetful of his intervening^ ojid frequent^ and
pal])cd)le deficiencies. Mr. Kean evidently possessed
the ability, but had not had, originally, either the
will or the industry necessary, in both study and
practice, to make his impersonation of Lectr — like
his Othello — as a lohole^ transcendent.
The history and traditions of the stage, to this
day, point to David Garrick as the greatest actor of
Lecir that has ever lived. Murphy, his biographer,
has preserved to us a remarkably full description of
that performance, and records — ^^ King Lear was
Garrick's most perfect effort ; — in this part he has
remained without equal or rival. He was trans-
formed into a feeble old man, still, however, retain-
ing an air of royalty. He had no sudden starts, no
violent gesticulations ; his movements were slow
and languid ; misery was depicted in every feature
of his face ; he moved his head in the most delibe-
rate manner ; his eyes were fixed, or, if they turned
to any one near him, he made a pause, and fixed
his look on the person after much delay, \i\^ features
at the same time expressing lohat he icas going to
say hefore he utt-ered a wordP Then Mr. Garrick
did not think it necessary — " as many of our play-
ers do " — to cover up with thick white hair his fea-
11-i NOTES UPON KING LEAR.
tares : tliey may tlius be made picturesque, but
rigid and incapable of expressing occasional alter-
nations of the countenance. The late Charles
Young, of Covent Garden, London, for such rea-
sons wore for Lear a thin and scattered beard upon
his cheeks, and proportionately short from the chin.
PART IV.
ACTORS OF HAMLET.
ACTORS OF HAMLET.
Hamlet may justly be called one of those beings
wlio " resolves and re-resolves, yet dies the same."
Some analytical and instructive notices of the
character may be found in the following literary
works, viz. ; —
Schlegel's Lectures.
Goethe's Wilhelmeister^ s Apprenticeship.
Davies' Life of Garriclc.
Boaden's Life of John P. Kemhle.
I have become fully convinced of the truth of
what Schlegel says of the character of Hamlet^ viz.
'' Many of his traits are too nice and too delicate
for the stage, and can only be seized by a great
actor and understood by an acute audience."
A critic, contemporary with Garrick, remarks : —
" Among the requisites for a perfect delineation of
this difficult character are — the ease of a gentleman,
the dignity of a prince, symmetry of features,
118 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
expression of countenance, and flexibility of voice
— to give proper variety to the vehement passions,
weight to the declamation, and poignancy to the
spirited and satirical parts — -joined with originality
and sound judgment."
Among the various performers of any pretension
to eminence in the character of Hamlet^ whom I
remember in my youth, the earliest was
Thomas A. Cooper,
From 1816 to 1818, at the ParTc Theatre^ New
York,
Mr. Cooper was noted, at that time, for a hand-
some face and a commanding and an Apollo-like
figure, and his Hamlet was a favorite and particu-
larly attractive with the public ; — indeed, he was
generally popular in many if not most of the cha-
racters wherein John Philip Kemble had become
famous upon the London stage, and Mr. Cooper was
said to have modelled his own after the style of that
great actor, with which he had become familiar in
his youth, and prior to his first visit, his early mar-
riage into one of the first families at ]^ew York,
and his subsequent life-long residence in the United
States.* After the death of George Frederick
* Mr. Cooper married Miss Mary Fairlie, a daughter of Major
Fairlie, of the American Revolution ; and Mr. Cooper's daughter
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 119
Cooke, in 1812, and until the first advent of l\[r.
Wallack, in 1818, and of Edmund Kean, in 1820,
Mr. Cooper was tlie only theatrical star in our
Western hemisphere, and ^ew York had — and
continued to have until 1824 — only the Parli The-
atre.
I was too young when I first saw Mr. Cooper's
Samlet and had too vague a conception of the cha-
racter to criticise that performance ; though I well
remember that his voice was full and of consider-
able compass, and his articulation was very distinct ;
his eyes, which were of a pale blue, and habitually
— perhaps owing to near-siglitedness — somewhat
contracted, were not effective in his art, and his
countenance had little flexibility ; his gestures were
usually formal and sometimes stiff, and the carriage
of his body was generally heavy and sluggish, and
occasionally, in action or movement, clumsy and
ungraceful ; his style was cold and declamatory, and
sometimes turgid or bombastic ; yet, in some other
parts, and particularly in Shakespeare's Mark An-
tony^ and as Brutus^ in J. Howard Payne's adap-
tation of TTie Fall of Tarquin^ and also in Sheridan
Knowles's Yirginiiis, and his Damon, when Mr.
Cooper first performed the latter characters, and
yet retained enough of his natural impulse to break
Priscilla, -who had been favorably received by the pubhc as an actress,
left the stage to become the wife of Mr. Robert Tyler, a son of
ex-President John Tyler.
120 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
away from tlie trammels of his m'iginal schooling^
lie exhibited some very touching and highly effec-
tive hits of acting.
Note. — When Mr. Washington Irving, to whom I had
loaned for perusal, in 1848, my manuscript volume respecting
my own reminiscences of by-gone actors of Hamlet^ returned
it, I found that he had done me the favor to note in pencil
upon the margin as follows : —
" At this time Cooper had lost the fire and fiesibihty of his
earlier style of acting. He grew cold, formal, and declamatory
as he j)assed liis meridian."
W. I.
ja:mes w. wallack.
mw Yorh, 1818-19.
Me. Wallack then seemed not more than twenty-
five years of age, came directly from Drmy Lane,
London, where he had already attained a high rank
in a profession then graced by many eminent
artists ; and the season of 1818 was Mr. Wallack's
first in America. His figure and personal bearing
on or off the stage were very distingue • his eye was
sparkling ; his hair dark, curly, and luxuriant ; his
facial features finely chiselled ; and together with
the natural conformation of his head, throat, and
chest, Mr. Wallack presented a remarkable speci-
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 121
men of manly beauty. lie at once became, and
continued to be, during visits which were repeated,
occasionally protracted, and were seldom separated
bv intervals lonsrer than a theatrical season or two
each, and for a term of more than twenty years, one
of the greatest and most invariably attractive
favorites furnished the American by the British
stage.
"With particular reference to Mr. Wallack's Ham-
let^ which as it has happened I have not had an
opportunity to witness since my youth^ when my
ideas of the character were crude and superficial,
and which, therefore, it would be unjust in me now
to criticise retrospectively, I did then very well note
that Mr. Wallack's action was easy and graceful ;
his voice and articulation were clear and distinct ;
and though from the impression it made, and which
I still retain of that early-seen performance, it
might according to my later and more matured
ideal have lacked a sufficiency of vjeigJit in the
philosophical portions, and also of depth and in-
tensity of meditation in the soliloquies, it was then
unanimously approved and a special favorite with
the I^ew York public.
Mr. Wallack, besides being popular in a number
of leading tragic parts, was esteemed without an
equal as Don Felix in the comedy of The Wonder^
and throughout the range of genteel and high-
spirited comedy generally, as also in a number of
melodramatic characters. His Martin Heywood in
6
122 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
The Rent Danj^ Massaroni in The Brigand^ and Lis
Don Gtvsar de Bazan in later years, manifested a
high and exquisite order of art ; whilst those who
in Mr. Wallack's early days saw his RoUoj in the
play of Pizarro can never forget that it was unap-
proached by any other performer, and the most
remarkably picturesque, fascinating, and continu-
ally attractive performance then known to the
American stage. In versatility of talent, probably
the stage has never had any other actor capable of
satisfying the public in such a variety of prominent
characters : his costumes, too, were remarkably
characteristic, and always in admirable taste, and
Mr. Wallack, in every respect, has proved himself
a complete master of the histrionic art.
WILLIAJSI AUGUSTUS CONWAY.
mw TorJc, 1825.
3fr. Comoay came from England to America
during the season of 1823. He had been a great
favorite whilst Miss CNeil shone at Covent Gar-
den, London, as a tragic star of the first magnitude ;
he having supported that famous actress in the prin-
cipal male characters of the dramas wherein she
appeared. It was reported that ^' Mrs. Siddons had
pronounced him superior in several respects to any
actor of that day ;" and it was also said and gene-
ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 123
rally believed, too, that "the popularity he was fast
acquiring had raised up against him a host of ene-
mies in his own profession, and that the celebrated
critic Hazlitt by a course of persistent ridicule had
successfully conspired with them to drive him from
his position soon after Miss 0'jN"eil had left the
stage." Mr. Conway being of a retiring and very
sensitive nature suddenly and spontaneously resigned
in disgust his situation as an actm' with a good salary
upon the London stage, and accepted that of a
pi'omjpter at the Hay market theatre, until he
resolved to withdraw altogether from the turmoil
and cabala of the London theatres, and come over
professionally to the United States. Mr. Conway
was well received in ^ew York, and also in Phila-
delphia and Boston, and for a season or two was
respectably without being at any time greatly
attractive. His most approved parts were Hamlet,
Coriolanus, Cato, Jaffier in Venice Prese'i'^ed and
Lord Townly in The Provoked Husband.
Mr. Conway was a very tall man, stooped a little
in the shoulders and had a large foot, the heel of
which, being habitually put first to the ground in
stepping, made his tread of the stage rather un-
seemly ; otherwise his proportions, though inclined
to the colossal, were good ; he was remarkably clas-
sic in his style and read Hamlet with nicety and
strict propriety, and evidently had a good idea of
the character ; its melancholy and morbid sensitive-
ness were rendered very prominent, but he lacked
124 ACTOES OF UAMLET.
the occasional liglitness and gaiety recpired by tlie
satire and also the warmth necessary for the spirited
parts ; his chief defect conseqnently was a heavi-
ness, with occasional monotony. His Cato and
Goriolanics I liked best of all his performances seen
by me in onr country.
About the year 1820, Mr. Conway resolved to
cpit the stage and study Divinity ; and about three
years thereafter, meeting with some j)ersonal oppo-
sition from the then Bishop (Ilobart) of Kew York,
'^froin the fact of his having heen an actor^'^ and
whilst on his voyage to Savannah for the purpose of
obtaining of Bishop White there, leave to "take
orders in the church," in a sudden fit of despondency
of a fine afternoon when his fellow passengers were
below at dinner, Mr. Conway jumped from the deck
of the ship into the sea ofi' Charleston Bar, and,
refusing to avail himself of the means thrown over-
board to save him, was drowned.
THOMAS S. IIAMBLIK.
New York, 1825.
Me. Hamblin was in height above the ordinary
stature of men, and his frame was more bony than
fleshy ; his head was remarkable for its covering by
a shock of thick and curly dark-brown hair ; his nose
was high and thick, and long like his visage ; his
ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 125
voice husky ; his breathing asthmatic ; his manner
stiff and formal ; his eyes were of a dark hazel,
small, sunken, and set very close to each other and
not either penetrating or effective, and his other
facial features were more rigid than plaatic.
Mr. Ilamblin was announced " from Drury Lane,
London," where he had held for a season or two a
respectable but subordinate situation in that Com-
pany. Rumor, however, said that " upon some
recent occasion he had obtained an opportunity to
act Hamlet at the Haymarket, ■s\here the audience
received his performance with great favor, and re-
garded it as a very respectable copy of John Kem-
hlii'^^from lohicJi it a^ppeared to have leen studiecV
Mr. Hamblin's ideas of the character were strictly
conventional. lie was always noisy without pas-
sion, and always seemed to me not unlike a piece of
animated machinery — incapable of any spontaneous
impulse. Mr. Hamblin, however, had made him-
self familiar with all the mechanism of tragic art in
the Kemble school ; and with his tall figure, which
he costumed to much advantage, as Shakespeare's
Brutus and Goriolanus^ and adapted to such artifi-
cial bearing as has become consonant with our
modern ideas of the manner of those ancient
Komans, Mr. Hamblin acquired and maintained
many years a respectable stand among the trage-
dians of the city of l^&w York.
126 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
EDMUND KEAN.
New Yo7% 1826 — the year of his second and last
advent to the United States of America.
Of all the attempts to act Hamlet whicli I have
seen, Mr. Keau's pleased me most. He was a little
below the middle stature, and not as near the ideal
" glass of fashion and the mould of form" in person
as some of his competitors, though he had rather a
compact and not disproportioned nor ill-formed
figure ; but his face beamed with intelligence, and
its muscles were plastic and suggestive of the pas-
sions ; his eyes were black, large, brilliant, and
penetrating, and remarkable for the shortness of
their upper lid, which discovered a clearly-defined
line of white above the ball, rendering their effect
when fixed upon an object very searching ; his
action and " gesticulation, though ever easy and
natural, were generally quick and energetic, and
very earnest-like ; his style in colloquy was " fami-
liar but by no means vulgar :" it conformed to the
dignity of the occasion, and was most signally con-
served in the last scene of John Howard Payne's
play, where, as Lucius Junius Brutus^ the Tribune^
he struggles w^ith the nature of the father and con-
demns his son, and himself gives the signal for the
axe of the executioner ; his manner, indeed, tlirough-
out the character, indicated the soul of the patri-
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 127
ciaii unalloyed by that of the plebeian ; his voice,
when raised or strained, was harsh and dissonant,
but in level sj^eaking, and especially in poetic mea-
sure, its undertones were charming, musical, and
undulating ; verily, the ensemble of Kean's physical
features was well adapted to depict the
" flash and outbreak of a fiery mind."
In Hamlefs advice • to the players and in the
strictly declamatory portions of the character, Mr.
Kean did not particularly excel, but he seemed to
me to have inspired and more ably to illustrate the
soul of Hamlet than any actor whom I have seen in
the part ; its intellectuality and sensitiveness were
wrought into transparent prominency ; every parti-
cle of its satire was given with extraordinary pun-
gency ; its sentiment was upon each occasion very
impressively uttered, and the melancholy was plain-
tively-toned and sympathy- winning ; the action was
free and natural and never ungraceful, the passion
heart-stirring, and the poetry was read with correct
emphasis and a nice ear to rhythmical measure :
yet, Kean's Hmnlet, which surprised and enraptured
me, I discovered, to my surprise, chagrin, and vexa-
tion, was not j^articulaTly appreciated by the most
intelligent of our JSTew York audiences. Mr. Kean's
most popular and invariably-attractive j^^i't was
Richard the Third ; but his Othello was a far more
exquisite and intellectual, as also meritorious per-
formance ; his Sir Giles Over-reach a more terribly-
128 ACTOES OF HAMLET.
energetic, and his ShylocJc his most unexceptionably-
perfect character.
One of Kean's most enthusiastic admirers was
Lord Byron. He pronounced " Kean's third act of
Othello the perfection of tragic art," and said that
" acting could go no farther." His Lordship, too,
is said to have remarked that he " pitied those who
were not near enouo^h — as he had made it a rule to
be (seated in the third row of the pit) — to see the
constant alteriiations and hye-play of Kean^s counte-
nance'^'' during the dialogue.
After Lord Byron had left England, and reached
Italy, he sent Kean a snuif-box, with the following
lines :
'' Thou art the Sun's bright cliikl I
The genius that irradiates thy mind
Caught all its purity and light from Heaven.
Thine is the task with mastery most perfect
To bind the passions caj)tive in thy train.
Each crystal tear that slumbers in the depth
Of feeling's fountain, doth obey thy call.
There's not a joy or sorrow mortals prove
A feeling to humanity allied
But tribute of allegiance owes to thee.
The shrine thou worshippest is Nature's self,
The only altar Genius deigns to seek :
Thine offering — a bold and burning mind,
Whose impulse guides thee to the realms of fame,
Where crown'd with well earn'd laurels all thine own,
I herald thee to Immortality."
I happened to be in London and was in the stage
box of Covent Garden Theatre the evenins: of the
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 129
25tli of March, 1S33. The phaj was OtMlo. Mr.
Kean, who was announced to act The Moor^ had been
so advertised recently, and having proved too unwell
to appear, fearing another disappointment, compara-
tively few of the admirers of this " the greatest thea-
trical genius of the Age," had confidence enough in
the rej)ort of his convalescence and ability to act
again, to attend the theatre on this occasion, though
it offered them an extraordinary inducement, viz.
" his son, Mr. Charles Kean, would for the first time
in London appear with him on the stage and sustain
the character of lago to his father's Othello P The
curtain rose to an evidently intelligent but only
about a half-filled auditorium.
When Kean the father and Charles Kean his son,
as Othello and lago — entered upon the second scene
of the tragedy, they were greeted with vociferous
manifestations of w^elcome which continued until
each had reached his respective stage-position, right
and left centre, and had turned and faced and bowed
once to the audience, whereupon the Pit and Boxes
rose simultaneously ; the gentlemen cheering and
clapping their hands, and the ladies waving their
handkerchiefs ; Mr. Kean, who was on the left side
of the centre, seemed to appreciate highly the com-
pliments, and grasping his son's left within his own
right hand advanced firmly to the footlights and
gracefully presented his son Charles, by a gentle
wave of the other hand, and then a grateful smile,
and their united and modest obeisance. The whole
6*
180 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
audience seemed wild with delight at this little inci-
dent, and doubly redoubled their significant expres-
sions of enthusiasm at the occurrence, and the father
and son were for an uncommonly long interval com-
l^elled to bow their acknowledgments accordingly
before they were allowed to return to their relative
stage-])ositions, and resume their respective charac-
ters and open the dialogue of the scene.
Mr. Kean appeared physically feeble and indis-
posed to make any special efforts even where he had
long been wont in the first and second acts, and I
inferred therefrom that he had not confidence in the
extent of his recovered strength, and was reserving
that which he thought he could command for the
first exigency in the third act.
The same feebleness, however, continued manifest
to every one until he uttered that famous apostro-
phe. Act 5, Sg. 1, " Now for ever farewell," &c.
I had often heard him deliver this favorite apo-
stroj^he, and seldom receive less than three or four
rounds of aj)23lause. On this occasion the applause
was prolonged and renewed, and seemed to occupy
at least a minute's time by the watch. I never
before had heard him utter the words with half the
intense and heart-rending efloct, and I remarked to
my companion in the stage box : — " Poor fellow ! I
fear that a consciousness of the applicability to his
own individual self of ' Othello^ s occupation's goneP
has unnerved him. I now realize the great critic
Ilazlitt's observation that ' this apostrophe and its
ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 13 i
termination' — as Kcan delivered it in Lis earlier
days — ' lingered npon the ear like an eclio of tlie
last sounds of departing Hope.' "
During this long protracted applause, Mr. Kean
stood motionless, his eyes closed, and his chin rest-
ing upon his chest. "When it had quite subsided,
and some fifteen or twenty seconds of time had
elapsed, and Mr. Kean still remained motionless and
statue-like, loud whisperings prevailed among the
spectators — " 'Why don't he proceed ? He must be
ill again ? "What can be the matter with him ?"
The very silence around him seemed suddenly to
arouse him to a sense of his own condition. He
raise'd his head languidly, blinked repeatedly, and
turning feebly towards lago on his right, instead of
that articulate vehemency usual with the words,
Mr. Kean tottered visibly and muttered indistinctly
— and inaudibly heyond the orcliestro. — " Villain —
be — sure you — prove — " here he hesitated in his
approach towards lago^ but stretched out both hands
and ejaculated, " Oh, God ! I'm dying ! Speak to
them, Charles !" Whereupon his son sprang for-
ward and cauQ;ht him in his arms. Several voices
from the auditorium cried, " Oh, take him off !
Send for a surgeon !" &c. Some one from the stage
entrance on Mr. Kean's left came and assisted, and
with either arm resting upon those two persons, Mr.
Kean partly stepped or was borne out of sight of
the audience whilst bowing his head feebly in token
of his sense of their kind indulgence.
182 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
The curtain was dro2)j)ed, and after a few mo-
ments Mr. Bartley, the stage-manager, came for-
ward and observed that though Mr. Kean was faint,
he lioped he might be restored by a surgeon who
had been sent for, and be able to finish his part, and
craved their indulgence accordingly for fifteen
minutes. When the time had expired, Mr. Bartley
re-appeared, and regretted to inform the audience
that the surgeon had pronounced Mr. Kean utterly
incapable of resuming his part, which Afr. Warde
would undertake with the consent of the audience
to finish in Mr. Kean's stead, and the play was con-
tinued to its conclusion without further interruption.
Mr. Kean was carried to the nearest hotel, and
after a few days removed to his home at Kichmond,
where he lingered about three wrecks, and expired
15 April, 1833.
CHARLES MAYNE YOUNG.
Covent Garden Theatre^ London^ 1827.
It was impossible not to be pleased with Mr.
Young's Hamlet^ as a whole. He had a full, com-
pact, and a well-proportioned figure, a little above
the medium height, an intellectual cast of counte-
nance, with straight, dark hair. His features were
not remarkable, unless for a Roman nose, which,
though well formed, was in length a little beyond
its pro]3ortion, and contributed to make the face
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 133
rather fixed and inflexible ; but his voice was full
and of great compass, and he seemed to be aware
and proud of it, inasmncli as he would frequently
seize occasion to practise it in a sort of clianting
when delivering poetry ; his articulation and decla-
mation were good, though a slight lisp could occa-
sionally be detected in his speech ; his action was
easy and graceful, indeed very gentleman-like ; his
readings were sensible, and generally accorded with
my taste, and his conception of the character of
Hamlet seemed pretty just in the main — though I
am bound to take particular exception to Mr.
Young's marked hauteur in receiving the players,
and to his dictatorial bearing whilst conversing with
them ; his utterance especially of, " Com'st thou to
beard me in Denmark ?" was characterized by a
tone of rebuke instead of that of a jocose and con-
descending familiarity, such as Hamlet would be
likely to use in welcoming " the tragedians of the
city in whom he was wont to take such delight, and
who had come expressly to oflTer him their service."
Mr. Young's general demeanor in the part, how-
ever, might be said to conform more to the conven-
tional idea of what is termed '^ princely^'' than did
Mr. Kean's, but it did not indicate as open a nature
nor as innate a nobility of soul as Kean's manner
conveyed, and notwithstanding that Mr. Young had
greater advantage in personal appearance, and was
more classic in his style, the impulse of Mr. Kean's
genius gained for him, in my esteem and com-
134 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
parison, the transcendency in the performance of
JJamlet.
Mr. Young, however, was generally a most admi-
rable tragic-artist. I saw with unmixed pleasure
and satisfaction his King John^ Brutus (in Julius
C(Bsar\ and his Mr. Beverly in the tragedy of Tlie
Gamester. His Icigo (1827) was very highly esti-
mated by the London public, and its rendering was
indeed very artistio / but, though I could not but
admire Mr. Toung's talent in filling his particularly
gay, bold faced, and broadly conceived outline, my
judgment resisted the conviction of the justness of
his peculiar notions of the character. 'Tis true,
his jollity of manner created much laughter, and
was greeted with loud and frequent applause, and
he capitally worked up his points to his theory, and
artfully hid its unsoundness ; and applatcse is the
meed, the goal, the capital every aspiring and un-
scrupulous actor seeks : because it is generally con-
sidered the test of merit, and whoever has been
able to obtain repeatedly and continuously the
greatest quantity in any j)opular character, has
seldom failed to become its most attractive and con-
sequently best remunerated representative. An
actor, however, may occasionally succeed in sur-
prising the senses, suspending the judgment of the
few who thi7iJc in a theatre, or in confounding their
faculties, whilst he secures the ready applause of
the excited many who do not stop to consider the
premises or might discover that the actor was
ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 135
sbamefallj pen^erting his author's most obvious
design ; but the actor in the meantime lias become
assured of his bootj, and revels in a demonstration
in his favor which will not be restrained and cannot
be recalled, and also in the consoling conclusion
that should any of his victims detect the actor's dis-
Jionesty in acquiring his own inconsiderate approba-
tion, such an one would surely lose any vexatious
sense of his robbery, in admiration of the advoii/riess
of such moral thief.
Mr. Young made lago seem constitutionally gay
and lightsome, and too heartily joyous in certain por-
tions of his dialogue, and not apparently wretched
enough in particular soliloquies, where he expresses
pent up grievances, the cause real and imaginary of
his secret but malignant hatred to the Moor — for one
complaining of hating that " which like a poisonous
mineral gnawed his inwards," and of course had
cankered all joy in his soul or any sincere inclina-
tion for gaiety and merriment. lago should indeed
assume a blunt but cynical humor; certainly not
provocative in the acting of as much mirth among
the audience as it would be if rendered in a jolly
manner, though much more consistent with the
nature and the circumstances of the character ; but
these nice and delicate distinctions are very difficult
for an actor to signalize intelligibly or render trans-
parent to an audience, yet are worthy of an artist's
studious efforts. lago'^s manner should naturally
differ when alone with either Othello^ or Cassia^ or
136 ACTOES OF HAMLET.
Moderigo^ or in liis general intercourse with those
around him, and appear assumed accordingly ; but,
in his soliloquies^ the actor should portray his real
and absolute misery and sufferings without disguise ;
they constitute the key which unlocks and exposes
to the audience the secret motives of his envious,
jealous, cruel, wretched, and revengeful nature, and
of his mean, base, dishonorable, hypocritical, and
detestable actions. Mr. Young neglected to disj^lay
in strong colors the rancor at heart and its original
complex causes, leaving his villany to seem too gra-
tuitous and his humor too easy and spontaneous
instead of forced and unnatural.
A few days after I had seen Mr. Young perform
Brutus in Jtdius Cmsar^ I met that gentleman at
dinner and took occasion to express to him the
effect his acting that part had had upon me. I
observed that his manner, after the quarrel with
Gassms had been ended and when Cassius said — " I
did not think you could have been so angry !" — of
slowly turning and facing Cassius and in a melan-
choly tone uttering — " Oh, Cassius^ I am sick of
many griefs!" and then slowly approaching him,
taking one hand within his own and resting the
other on Gassius^s shoulder and pausing a little and
fixing his gaze upon the face of Cassius^ and then
with a faltering voice, and a suffused eye and chok-
ing utterance, which seemed to me to indicate that
he was nerving himself in order to impart without
emotion a heart-rending fact to one whose sympa-
ACTOES OF HAMLET. 137
tliies would be strongly moved and his shock would
else re-act upon himself and shake his own fortitude
before he added — ^'Portia — is — deadP'^ and closed
his eves, had so overcome my sensibilities, as his audi-
tor and spectator in the stage-box of Covent Garden,
that I involuntarily fell backwards among those
behind me — my heart seeming to heave into my
throat and stop my breath, and, sobbing audibly, I
became for a few moments quite a spectacle to those
immediately about me, and had felt quite ashamed
of my own weakness afterwards.
Mr. Young thanked me for the compliment I had
paid to his own a7% but modestly remarked that
"he deserved no credit for its original conception^
inasmuch as he had taken it from the late Mr. Kem-
ble's performance of Brutus^ whilst he himself had
frequently acted Cassius with him."
WILLIAM CHAELES MACEEADT
ds Hamlet^ Neio Yo'rlc^ 1826 and 1843.
Mr. Macready, in propria persona, minutely sur-
veyed, is above the middle height ; his port rather
stiffly erect ; his figure, not stout but very straight,
and at the hips quite the reverse of en l)on point /
his ordinary or natural gait is not dignified ; he steps
short and quick with a sj^ringy action of the knee
joints, which sometimes trundling his stiff bust — as
in a rush from the centre to a corner of the stage —
138 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
reminds one of the recoil of a cannon npon its car-
riage ; in his slow and measured tread of the stage,
he seems somewhat affected : he sags his body alter-
nately on either leg, whilst his head waves from side
to side to balance it : his head, however, is not nn-
proportioned, and his hair is of a dark brown ; his
face, though occasionally lighted up by a pleasing
smile, can hardly have beauty predicated of it : his
forehead is good, but his 'brow does not —
^'like to a title leaf
Foretell the nature of a tragic volume ;"
being rather high, vacant, and irregularly arched
though not inflexible ; his eyes are blue, of good
size, widely set and tolerably effective in his acting ;
though he has a trick of turning them upward rather
too frequently and dropping his chin upon his breast;
half covering the eye-balls with the upper lids and
leaving the whites below well-defined, looks too
much aghast when he would express reverential
awe ; his nose is of ordinary length, rather low and
straight from his forehead down to beneath its
bridge, where it abruptly rises ; his mouth is not
remarkable and his chin is prominent ; his voice is
tolerably strong, but without volume or much com-
pass ; when sunk it is sometimes monotonous, and
when raised often becomes quite reedy ; it rarely
breaks by accident, but does for effect occasionally
by intention in the course of his Richelieu and also
in the utterance of Lear's curse ; his articulation is
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 139
generally distinct and Lis enunciation clear and
pure, excepting some rare specimens of what seem
the remains of an early or slight L'ish brogue ; his
legs are rather long and thin by nature^ but being
straight are proportioned on the stage by his art^ and
his arms are more bony than brawny ; his actions
are generally formal and sometimes more angular
than graceful ; many of his attitudes are good, but
he has a habit of sinking his body by bending both
knees, as though his breast was o'erfraught with a
heavy weight of matter which he was impatient to
discharge or utter loudly ; a favorite station of his is
formed by reclining his weight upon one leg whilst
his body is steadied by the other leg dragging
extendedly behind and resting upon its toes: one
posture of his is particularly uneasy and ungraceful,
not to say ]3ainful, to behold : in his gladiatorial
combats, when preparing to give or receive a blow,
he throws his head and chest so far backward as to
make himself appear in danger of losing his equili-
brium : but, with all Mr. Macready's personal dis-
advantages, his discerning mind and untiring indus-
try have so disciplined his physique, that, " take
him for all in all," I consider him by far the most
intellectual and generally eflective actor of the
time ; indeed, I doubt whether stage-history can
furnish another instance of such a signal triumph of
Mind over the impediments involved in a very
imperfect physical material. He seems, when form-
ing his style of acting, to have taken as models and
140 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
compounded the classical dignity of John Kemble
with the intense earnestness and colloquial fami-
liarity of Edmund Kean.
The difference between Kean and Macready
struck me to be this : — Kean seemed to have far
greater genius for the stage than Macready, and
having once fully imbibed the spirit and carefully
committed to memory the words of his author,
appeared not to have bestowed much forethouglit in
his closet upon the precise way in which he would
act it ; but, aware of his usual power of self-abandon-
ment, risked the event before his audience, trusting
mainly to his ready imjpulse to inspire him with all
the other requisites to produce effect. Kean's early
and irregular life, too, favors the conjecture that in
such manner, when, amidst poverty and obscurity,
after performing his characters in the English Pro-
vinces, his genius was sometimes quickened by his
natural ardor, and at others by the bowl of Bacchus,
and he oi*iginated and accumulated on such occa-
sions, many of those bold, novel, and splendid points
which afterwards w^ere transplanted in the metropo-
lis and electrified the London public. Macready^ by
his acting, impressed me with the idea of one who
had begun secimdum artem^ by reading and ponder-
ing well his author, formed his corporate conception
of the entire character he would j^lay, dissected and
elaborated its points, and then had recourse to his
utmost art to re-unite and incorporate the several
particles into a unique, complete, and harmonious
ACTORS OF HAMLET. Ml
impersonation, but never permitted himself to appear
in a part before an audience until it had been long
practised in his closet and sufficiently rehearsed
upon the stage to become almost second-nature to
him ; upon sucli an hypothesis, his pictorial and
mechanical portions having been duly considered by
himself and thoroughly understood by the corps of
performers employed to support his scenes in the
play, his art^ not impulse, his reliance, and the degree
of earnestness only left to his nature to acquire
whilst acting, Macready could differ little in the
quality of his performance of the same character
though frequently repeated : whilst Kean^ who
depended more upon the excitability of his nature
and the inspiration of the occasion to arouse his
impulses and to aid him before an audience, being
consequently ever more or less in the vein, was
sometimes dull, flat, or uneven, but at others was
gay, energetic, or impetuous, and then his genius
often became highly inflamed and burst like a
meteor ; its sparks seeming to ignite the sympathe-
tic bosom of every spectator, until pit, boxes, and
gallery reflected one grand blaze of enthusiasm.
It was in reference to one of these occasions,
namely, the closing scene of his first performance of
Bit Giles Over-reach (in A New Way to Pay Old
DeUs,) at Drury Lane (181^,)
" When all were fir'd— "
that upon returning home immediately afterwards
14:2 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
in his carriage, and without waiting to change his
stage-costume as Sir Giles^ Kean proudly related to
his impatient and expectant wife the victory just
obtained over a whole theatre, crammed, as it was
that night, with literati, nobility, and gentry, and
among which, of course, figured his new but
charmed friend, enthusiastic professional admirer,
and most zealous and distinguished patron, the Earl
of Essex — the foremost of the several nobles con-
spicuous then for their desire to cultivate a social
intimacy with " the brightest genius " of the stage.
Mrs. Kean seemed still unsatisfied, because her hus-
band had neglected even to mention the name of
an acquaintance of which she was most proud, and
restlessly interjected : —
" But, Ned, dear ! what did Lord Essex say ? "
Kean^s abrupt and emphatic, but very significant
response was —
" Oh, d n Lord Essex ! — The Pit rose at
me ! ! "
Macready's Bichelieu I regard, as a whole, his
most artistical assumption of character : his Werner^
in his own adaptation of Byron's, is truly sui generis^
a masterpiece of that class of tragedy ; but, though
it may be termed " comparatively faultless," it
reflects less credit upon him as an artist ; because,
the manner demanded by the character assimilates
so closely to his own natural style, that it requires
but little if any degree of assumption in that respect.
Mr. Macready being '' elder and abler " than myself,
* ACTORS OF HAMLET. 143
gr^at deference is due from me to his discernment
and judgment or conclusions ; therefore, I have
reconsidered my own conception of Hamlet^ and,
finding that I cannot overcome my original objec-
tions to many portions of that representation, I will
venture to record the following reasons.
Mr. Macready continues, after Ilamlefs opening
scene, to weep and whine too much, and resorts to
his handkerchief too often ; it is true that the
memory of his father, then " not two months dead,"
may keep open " the fruitful river in the eye,"
amongst other " forms, modes, shows of grief,"
which he describes, but Hainlet claims to "have
that within which passeth show ;" therefore an
actor should observe a nice discretion in his weep-
ing : because, tears are a rare relief in nature to
one who has
" something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood ; "
besides, with dejected patients in real life weeping
is an end and an attaimnent studiously sought by
their physicians ; because, if it can be superinduced
copioiosly^ it is known to relieve the o'erfraught
heart, and to furnish the readiest antidote to " the
poison of deep grief."
Mr. Macready moves about the stage too often
and too briskl}^, and in too clerklike a gait for one
of a princely education, leisurely habits, and a con-
templative turn of mind ; his manner, also, is gene-
144 ACTOKS OF HAMLET.
rally too luirried and restless, and lie imparts to tlic
features -of liis countenance a spasmodic expression
in many of their variations ; indeed, sometimes
their transitions are as sudden and their contractions
as violent as though the muscles of his face were
acted upon by a galvanic battery ; his limbs, too,
seem incapable of any just medium between mode-
rate exercise and a paroxysm of action ; — these vio-
lent contractions and expansions occasionally may
serve to indicate a very nervous temperament, but,
if too frequently practised, destroy a chance to
depict neatly the variety of delicate lights and
shades which belong to a mind naturally sensitive
and meditative ; in speaking he seldom used his
left arm, but kept it under his cloak ; in short, his
manner generally wanted ease, was seldom graceful,
and never exhibited the repose characteristic of a
philosoiDhic mind.
His arrangement of the scenes wherein Hamlet
appears denoted generally much forethought and a
nice taste ; but amongst the exceptions I would
instance his mode of rendering —
" Arm'd, say you ? " —
which, following next in the order of the text to the
answer given to Hamlets previous inquiry, " Hold
you the watch to-night ? " was given in such a
pauseless manner as at least to confuse the auditor's
understanding that Hamlefs thoughts had reverted
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 145
to and had special reference to the peculiar appear-
ance of the GJhost —
" armed at point, exactly cap-a-pi^ ; "
for example ; after Horatio had finished his descrip-
tion of the apparition and attendant circumstances,
and added : —
" And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know it : "
Mr. Macready darted up the stage, turned suddenly
and rushed down to his starting place, and uttered
" Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me ; "
then, standing between Horatio^ on his left hand,
and Marcellus and Bernardo on his right, he inquired
of those two officers —
" Hold you the watch to-night ? "
who reply —
" We do, my lord."
At this juncture Mr. Macready, without turning his
face or changing his attitude, tone of voice, or
expression of countenance, or waiting a single
second of time, proceeded rapidly —
" Arm'd, say you ?
AU. Arm'd, my lord !
Ham. From top to toe ?
AU. From head to foot.
Ham. Then saw you not his face ?"
7
146 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
"Up to this period, tliese questions and answers were
pronounced with the utmost rapidity consistent
with distinct articuhition, and their more immediate
antecedent having been " Hold you the watch to-
niglit?" an auditor, though well acquainted with
the text, might be in the hurried interim misled by
such a manner of delivery to suppose that by the
following interrogatory — " Arm'd say you ?" — Ham-
let meant to inquire connectedly whether those who
should hold the watch would be arm^d^ until the
closing part of the context —
" Then saw you not his face ?"
brings the listener's thoughts necessarily back to
the Ghost, to whose appearance " in arms" the in-
quiry refers : whereas, if, instead of the manner Mr.
Macready adopted, after addressing the two soldiers
then on his right hand with — " Hold you the watch
to-night V he had made a short jpmise^ and with the
fixed eye of abstract and profound consideration
turned his face from them towards Horatio standing
at his left, and sinking his voice into a musing and
an under tone inquired of Horatio particularly,
"Arm'd say you?" the most uninformed auditor
could not have been for a moment misled from this
special reference to the Ghost.
In the Fii'st Folio and in the early Quarto edi-
tions, the ansioers to HamleCs particular inquiries
are printed differently ; being in one copy ascribed
to " hotli^'' and in another to " all y" but, whether
ACTORS OF IIAMLET. 147
•
tliese answers properly belong to the tioo officers
only or to all three wJio were witnesses is quite
immaterial ; because, in the acting of the scene it is
right and proper to use the most obvious method to
convey to an audience and the spectators the dra-
matist's meaning, and to remove as far as possible
any obstacle to their ready and perfect comprehen-
sion, when it may be involved in some obscurity by
an author's style. In this case, however, there can
arise no just cause of any confusion in a spectator's
understanding if the actor of Hamlet will only con-
fine his questions concerning the Ghost to Horatio^
as he ought to do for the reasons that Horatio is
Hamlefs confidential friend who has sought him for
the express purpose of communicating these par-
ticulars, and has already premised that " tliese gen-
tlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo^^ had stood dumb
from fear and spoke not to the apparition ; the last
fact being in itself a sufiicient motive with Hamlet
for not seeking out nice particulars from thein whose
"fear-surprised eyes" might render their report
subject to his suspicion of exaggeration ; though it
would be quite natural that those soldiers should
join Horatio in his answers to questions specially
directed to him by Hamlet : because they had be-
come privileged, having been eye-witnesses too of
the " dreaded sight," and also because they would
naturally be ambitious of an opportunity to confirm
such important information to one of so high rank
as Prince Hamlet.
148 ACTORS OF hamlj:t.
" His beard was grizzled ? IsTo ?"
Mr. Macready after "grizzled" allowed the wit-
nesses not a moment for reflection, but impatiently
and rather comically stammered, " W — n' — no ?"
Instead of the nsual entrance of the Ghost with
Samlet following, Mr. Macready's arrangement for
their discovery in relative positions was new, effec-
tive, and picturesque.
" Polonius. Will you walk out of the air, my lord ?
Hamlet. Into my grave !"
Mr. Macready uttered Hcvml&Cs reply interroga-
tively^ which was new to my ear upon the stage ;
but, though it is the punctuation of the Folio of
1623, I would prefer that it should be given as an
exclamation.
Mr. Macready's style wanted the philosophic sen-
tentiousness requisite for an harmonious delivery of
the analysis of " Man ;" besides which he adopted
the late John Kemble's omission of the indefinite
article "<2" before ^'^ man f' an omission not war-
ranted by any of the original and authentic editions:
the true text is when Hamlet would analyse God's
animated machine,
" What a piece of work is a man ?"
The article "a" prefixed to the word "man" is
essential here, because Hamlet descants particularly
upon the male sex and their attributes as constitut-
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 149
ing the '' paragon of animals" and in contra-distinc-
tion to tlie female portion of human kind enumerates
the peculiar and highest order of men's intellectual
gifts combined with a perfection of personal forma-
tion, and when he has summed them all up, he
adds —
" Man delights not me I"
The courtier then smiles, and he rebukes him with —
" Nor ivoman neither," &c.
IN'ow had Hamlet begun with "What a piece of
work is Tnan f " such a general term — man — in his
premises would have signified the genus homo^ and
been understood by the courtier as comprehending
woman also, and thus the point of Hamlefs rebuke
at this imagined impertinence been lost.
Like every other actor of Hamlet whom I have
seen, Mr. Macready's emphasis and intonation of
the word '^ Southerly " — " 1 am but mad JsTorth,
ITorthwest ; — when the wind is Southerly I know a
hawk from a handsaw" — were such as to imply to a
listener that when the wind may be from the South
the atmosphere is clearer than when from the I^orth,
Northwest ; whereas the very reverse according to
Shakespeare elsewhere is the fact ; for example, see
" As You ZiJve It;' Act 3, So. 5.
'' You foolish shepherd, "wherefore do you follow her,
Jjike foggy South, pufTing with wind and rain."
150 ACTOES OF HAMLET.
Hamlet^ as I understand the passage, means to
reflect gently upon the conceited cleverness of those
clumsy spies, Ttosencrantz and Guildenstcrn, whose
ill-concealed designs are transparent to him, by
intimating to them that their employers are de-
ceived in respect to the point or direction of his
madness ; that, figuratively, his brain is disordered
only upon one of the clearest points of the compass,
to wit, IN'orth, [N'orthwest ; but that even when the
wind is Soutlierly^ and his intellectual atmosphere
in consequence most befogged and impenetrable,
his observation is not so mad or erratic as to be
unable to distinguish between two such dissimilar
objects — for example — as ^' a haivh and a hand-
saw.'''' Whether the form of a handsaw in Shake-
speare's time may have including its teeth borne
some remote resemblance to that of a hawk when
his wings were extended, and the ends of the long
feathers of his tail also apparently notched^ and sug-
gested the comparison, may seem a far-fetched as
well as absurd idea ; but if Shakespeare wrote
^^ hernshaw''' — as has been suggested — this would
have been the only occasion of his use of that word
throughout his works, whereas he has once else-
where introduced handsaw — " My sword hack'd
like a handsaw P
In the soliloquy on suicide, Mr. Macready lacked
that semblance of profound abstraction and of deep
meditation — that absence of action and motion —
I may say that almost statue-like station which is
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 151
natural to a mind absorbed in philosopliical and
metaph3^sical self-debate, whilst the general physique
of the man seems in a state of complete repose,
all of which outward shewing appears to me indis-
pensably necessary to give the language intensity in
its delivery upon the stage. It was very inferior in
effect to the manner of Edmund Kean or of Charles
Young,
In the sentence —
" To die ? — to sleep,
No more!"
Mr. Macready, to my surprise but not satisfaction,
punctuated by his tone of voice the words — '' IS^o
more," (?) as an interrogatory and as though they
involved iliQ continuity of a question, instead of that
denoting an emphatic and responsive exclamation (!)
of a conclusive reflection upon his own preceding
answer to his self-inquiry : in common prose, I
understand the course of Hamlet's reasoning to be
thus : — " To live or to die is now the question with
me ! which of the two is the more noble ? To put
up with the stunning slings and heart-piercing
arrows of that blind and fickle goddess, outrageous
Fortune^ or to take arms against myself and end
them by suicide ? "What is death f It is merely a
sleej) : nothing more ! Admitting then, that, by
thus terminating my existence I could put an end to
an aching heart and the thousand natural shocks to
which humanity is subject, would not such a termi-
152 ACTOKS OF HAMLET.
nation of oar accumulated miseries be a most
devoutlj^-desirable attainment? Stay, let me pause
and reconsider this hypothesis ! Granted, that to
die is merely to sleep ; pursuing the analogy it may
be to dreain also, which is often incidental to a
sleep, or the steeping of our natural senses in tempo-
rary oblivion and a suspension of the faculties ! Ah,
in that view of the subject a restraining cause is pre-
sented ; for, in that everlasting sleep, when all hope
of awaking — as in the body — and the possibility of
retracing our rash and suicidal experiment are lost
in fate, what Mnd of dreams may absorb ns —
whether happy or miserable ones — must make us
hesitate ; that nncertainty it is which reconciles us
to endure the rather a long continuance of calamity :
otherwise, who would bear a load of heart-sickeniug
griefs and unmerited annoyances oft-recurring or
protracted, when it is in his own power to silence
and to rid himself quickly of them all, by taking the
most handy of arms^ " a hare hodMn " (the un-
sheathed dagger) and plunging it into his heart, the
fountain of life ?
Observe Shakespeare's sublime and beautiful con-
cordance in the sentiments expressed in his play of
Measure for Measure, Act 3, So. 3.
" Claudio. Oh, Isabel!
Isabella. "What says my brother ?
Claudio. Death is a fearful thing.
Isabella. And shamed life, a hateful.
Claudio. Aye, but to die and go we know not where;
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 153
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ;
This sensible warm motion* to become
A kneaded clod *******
****** >i[q iqq horrible !
The weariest and most loathed worldly hfe,
That age, ache, penury or imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death."
Mr. Macread J, therefore, by uttering " ISTo more !'
not with the natural cadence of a response to his
own inquiry but as a further interrogatory — destroys
the harmony of Hamlet's course of reflection, and
prematurely supersedes the enumeration of the many
consummated conquests promised himself until the
link in his chain of reasoning is arrested whilst he
returns to and reconsiders and analyses his crude
and incipient ideas of suicide.
With special reference to this soliloquy and to
that portion of Dr, GoldsmW s XVIth Essay ^ ani-
madverting upon it as a composition, I remember
having in 1828 examined the whole subject and dis-
sected its component parts, and forming my own
conclusion, that this British Classic's objections were
hypercritical and founded in a singular misconcep-
tion of Shakespeare's intention. — Seejp. 58.
That which Goldsmith complained of as an ^' in-
congruous metaphor " and proved a stumbling-block
to Pope and to some other noted critics, viz. :
* The heart.
154: ACTORS OF UAMLET.
" To take arms against a sea of troubles,"
I understand thus : — the " arms " which Hamlet pro-
poses to take and end his troubles withal are the
common implements of suicide ; of which he after-
wards specifies the Mnd in his disquisition of the sub-
ject to be "(X hai'e 'bodkin^'' a bodkin being the
ancient name for a dagger / the " sea of troubles "
referred to, is figurative of his own hearths swelling
and unceasing commotion. The integrity of the
metaphor consists in the particular arm which he
thought of " opjposing^^ in order thus " to end the
heart-ache " being no other than " a bare bodkin "
(unsheathed dagger) wherewith he " might " put an
end to this life's troubles. Upon searching Shake-
sjDeare's works I find the word '' Sea^^ often used
as figurative of a vast quantity ; for examples, " a
sea of blood — of air — of glory — of j oys — of sorrows ;"
and, in The Two Gentlemen of Yerona^ in immediate
connexion with the hearty thus :
'' a heart
As fuU of sorrows as a sea " (is) '' of sands."
In Othello the Moor refers to the heart as —
" The fountain from the which my current runs
Or else dries up."
In the Second Part of King Henry IV. —
" The tide of blood in me
Hath proudly flowed in vanity till now,
Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea."
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 155
That the word " sea " in this sentence specially
alludes to the heart is indisputable ; because the
*' blood " can " turn and ebb back " to no other
" sea."
The analogy between the functions of the heart
and the sea is obvious. The action of the heart
continually propels the blood, and receives it again
through the '' channels " (or arteries) and the veins
of the body, as in like manner does the commotive
power of the sea^ the flux and reflux of its tides,
through its estuaries, its rivers, and smaller tribu-
taries. A more direct and poetic aptitude to me
seems inconceivable. My theory removes the occa-
sion for Pope's substitute of siege^ and of Warbur-
ton's suggestion of the word assail for " sea^^^ and
permits the whole of Haralefs reasoning faculties
to flow in a regular and unbroken and undeviating
course, from the beginning to the end of this incom-
parable soliloquy.*
Respecting the propriety of Mr. Macready's con-
ception of causing both the King and Poloniiis^
after their hiding themselves behind the arras, to
reappear for a moment, and by their sudden retreat
to their covert be supposed to make some noise or
momentary exposure of their persons, in order to
afford Haralet a pretext for his evident suspicion
that Oj^helia is in a plot against him, which his sud-
den chano^e of manner and his severe invective
* See Comments on Dr. GoldsmiWs XVI. JSssay^ pp. 14-59.
156 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
seem to imply,* it strikes me tliat it miglit be expe-
dient, for the sake of stage-illustration, that Polo-
nius only should show liimself, stealthily and for an
instant ; because his so doing would be quite in
keeping with his obsequiousness to the King^ and
his characteristic officiousness ; but the juncture of
his affording Hamlet such a glimpse would seem
more opportune just when Ophelia is tendering to
Hamlet his "gifts again," and for the reason that it
is immediately thereafter that Hamlet changes his
tone and language from delicate tenderness to bitter
irony and personal animadversion ; whereas, Mr.
Macready selects a time when Hamlet has half
finished his severity upon Ophelia and her sex
generally, and has arrived at the point of asking his
pungent question —
" Where's your father ? "
Admitting, however, that Mr. Macready's selection
of the particular time for Hamlet to catch a sight
of Polonius might be the most fitting, would it not
be unreasonable that the King should show himself
at all ? Would he not be too cautious to risk Ham.-
lefs discovery of his espionage, and whilst, too, he
could, without even peeping, hear through the arras
every syllable of their conference ? But, above all,
it was very inconsistent in Mr. Macready to make
Hamlet^ who has been striving in various ways to
* See my letter to Mr. Adams.
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 157
divert tlie King from any suspicion that he was
watching his proceedings, walk up close to the
King^s place of concealment, and there vociferate
his parting speech ; — one evidently intended to be
but j)artly heard even by Ophelia — the threat
respecting the King^ contained in the natural pai'en-
thesis, being to realize to Jiiinself what dramatic
soliloquists are designed to share with an audience,
a secret thought^ namely —
" I say, we will liave no more marriages : those that are
married already {oil hut one) shall live ; the rest shall keep as
they are. To a nunnery go.
[ExiC
Mr. Macready, in the advice to the players.^ wanted
the familiarity of courteous condescension ; it was
not easy and graceful, but stiff and formal. The
piquant sentence —
" If his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,"
was not pronounced with the particular ana requi-
site emphasis upon the words which imply that it is
some speech which Hamlet has interpolated where
the blank verse had been made to " halt for it," or
one wherein he had expected to " catch the con-
science of the KingP
" Hamlet. They are coming to the play ; I must be idle :
Get you a place."
158 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
By " idle " I understand Hamlet to signify to Hora-
tio that lie himself must seem to have no fixed
object by or during the performance; his policy
dictating that he should appear listless and unoccu-
pied, in order that the King might disregard his
presence, confine his attention closely to the play,
and thus become entrapped into some exhibition of
compunction or remorse. Mr. Macready, however,
construes the word " idle " very difi'erently ; inas-
much as he immediately assumed the manner of an
idiot, or of a silly and active and impertinent booby,
by tossing his head right and left, and walking
rapidly across the stage five or six times before the
foot-lights and switching his handkerchief — held by
a corner — over his right and left shoulder alter-
nately, until the whole court have had time to
parade and be seated, and Hamlet finds himself
addressed. Such behavior was ill-calculated to
indicate an " idle " spectator.
" Hamlet. It was a brute part of him, — to kill so capital a
calf there ! "
Instead of availing Hamlet of the privilege of
his assumed madness, as a screen behind which to
insult the old courtier and lord cliamherlain in pre-
sence of the courts would it not have been in better
taste if Mr. Macready had spoken the latter part of
the sentence (aside) as though muttered to himself?
" Eamlet. Oh, they do but /es^,— POISON in jest ! No
offence in the world 1"
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 159
Mr. Macread}", nuder a comic guise, bronglit out
tliat interjection with great pungency and admirable
effect.
" G^uildensiern. The King, Sir, is in his retirement, marvel-
lously distempered ;
Mamkt. With di-ink, Sir ?"
Mr. Macread J instead of as an interrogation uttered
the words rapidly and in a tone of exclamation
denoting an unquestionahle conclusion. It was good
and not objectionable for the reason that the sneer
at the habits of " the bloat king " is practically con-
veyed to the listener by either punctuation.
Like every other actor of Hamlet seen by me, Mr.
Macready infused no petulancy and seemed to attach
no special importance to the eepetition of the irrita-
ble answer when he is interrupted by Polonius's
unwelcome entrance and abrupt delivery of his
mother's message. Hamlefs situation at the junc-
ture is suggestive.
Whilst suffering already from the intrusion of the
courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whom he
rebukes with — " Call me what instrument you will,
though you raaj fret me, you cannot ^?«?/ upon me !"
he is subjected to another infliction by the unex-
pected and equally unwelcome approach of Polo-
nius, whom he salutes with ironical courtesy —
" God bless you, Sir I
Polonius. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
presently.
160 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
Hamlet Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in the shape
of a camel ?
Polonins. By the mass, and His like a camel, indeed!
Hamlet. Methinks, it's like a weasel.
Polonius. It is hacTied like a weasel.
Hamlet. Or like a whale ?
Polonius. Very like a whale !
Hamlet. Then I will come to my mother by and by. They
fool me to the top of my bent ! — I will come by and by !
Polonius. I will say so. {^ExU Polonius.
Hamlet. (As Polonius is departing.) By and by is easily
said ! (Then turning to the Courtiers he dismisses them with
marked irony.) Leave me, friends I"
My idea of the proper stage-rmmwOiY of Hamlet^
wlien giving Polonius his answer, is derived from
the fact that Ilamlet is particiilarlj nettled, as his
words imply ; lie thinks Polonius " a foolish, prating
knave," and when pestered at this unseasonable time
by his officious entrance and offensive self-import-
ance, abruptly assumes to be busily engaged in
reconnoitring some object aloft, which he describes
and asks Polonius whether he, too, sees it ; Polo-
nius readily veers about with the wind of what he
supposes Hamlefs diseased imagination, and humors
his crafty whims in three distinct appearances of the
same impalpable object ; Hamlet, upon finding that
Polonius will agree to every thing he suggests,
reciprocates the courtesy and dismisses him with, —
" Then, I will come to my mother by and by 1"
and turning away from him, and walking towards
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 161
the other side of the stage, soliloquizes respecting
his own vexation —
" They fool me to the top of my bent;"
and naturally supposing that Polonius^ to whom he
had already given an answer, had gone with it in
haste to his mother, Hamlet is about to resume his
invective agalTist the Courtier when he turns and
perceives Polonius still standing just where he was
when he had given him his answer, and also still
gaping at him in stupid amazement ; whereupon, as
I conceive, Hamlet ought to approach Polonius and
repeat loudly^ Siud jpeevishly and syllahicallj-distinct,
the words : —
''I win C0:ME hy and BY 1"
in order that Polonius, now no longer unable to
comprehend Hanilefs desire for his departure, may
withdraw, as he does presently, saying — " I will say
so !" upon which Hamlet abruptly remarks — " By
and by is easily said !" in a tone and with a brus-
querie, denoting in plain prose, —
" If you understood my answer, which is so simple and easily
carried, why do you continue here instead of dispatching it ?"
Finally, as respects these delicate traits of Harrv-
lets character, which I have described as I under-
stand them, I reiterate that Mr. Macready's negli-
gent manner in pronouncing — " I will come by and
by !" w-anted motive. He delivered the next sen-
162 ACTOKS OF HAMLET.
tence — '' Tliej fool me to the top of my bent !" with-
out walking away, or even turning his face enough
from Poloniics, to realize to the audience the abstrac-
tion due an " aside " s^^eech, and then hurriedly full-
facing him again, rejpeated — " I will come by and
by !" not only without a point but with a listlessness
which he carried into the subsequent remark, viz. —
" ^j and by is easily said !'' as though he was quite
unconcerned whether his words were emphatical, or
even heard by Polonius whom he is rebuking.
'Tis true, that very few individuals among even a
large assemblage might recognise such nice distinc-
tions in an actor's performance ; but a great artist
owes it to his own pretensions to study closely,
discern and try to penetrate, and to develo]) with
fidelity in his jpoHraiture^ the most delicate recesses
in Hamlefs mind. No word or line of the lano^ua^fe
put by Shakespeare in the mouths of any of his lead-
ing characters is unworthy of the best actor's care-
ful consideration, or of his art to utter effectively.
A most thoughtless but outrageous license with
Shakespeare seems to have become invariable with
the actors of Hamlet in the application of the lines —
" I must be cruel only to be kind,
Thus bad begins and worse remains beliind."
This couplet in every stage-Qdiiiion of the play is
arranged to conclude the closet-scene, and every
actor of Hamlet whom I have seen, has more or less
perverted the bard's true meaning and more in
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 163
ignorance than cunning, as I hope, joined in casting
a moral blot upon the character of Hamlet^ totally
unwarranted by the text or context ; the atrocity
consists in the reigning fashion of rendering this
couplet upon the stage^ which is as follows : — After
the termination of the dialogue between Hamlet and
his mother, as it is abridged and arranged for repre-
sentation, when Hamlet utters the words —
" So again, good night I"
the Queen is required to approach Hamlet and to
offer a parting emhrace^ at which Hamlet seems
shocked, and shudders, and shrinks back with
averted palms, and pharisee-like refuses to allow
her I the Queen then seems convulsed, bursts into
tears, and rushes off one way whilst Hamlet goes in
the opposite direction, expressing first as an appa-
rent excuse for such unrelenting hard-heartedness
the couplet —
" I must be cruel only to be kind :
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind."
"WTiereas, if we carefully examine the original scene
and the order of Shakespeare's language we find
that this same couplet does not come in next after
the last time of Hamlefs saying — " Good night,
mother !" but, in the m.idst of his advice, reflec-
tions, and varied expostulations with his mother,
and when the Ghost of his father — conjured to his
imaginative vision by the heat of his distemper, in
164 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
" the very witching time of night" — had been dis-
pelled by some sprinkling of cool patience, and his
reasoning fticulties had again resumed their sway.
In the tJdrd line of the speech wherein this couplet
occurs — after which he utters some fifty more lines
before he separates from her — he has interjected,
" Good night !" as if for the purpose of hurrying
her away, and with the object of securing a chance
to secrete the body of Polonius / then adding
some dozen lines of sentiment about " Yirtue," &c.,
says —
" Again good night I"
and — as an inducement for a mother to become
virtuous, and be in a condition to bless her son with
a good grace — remarks in substance —
" When you by a reformation evince an anxiety to deserve
a blessing of Heaven, I will beg a blessing of you !"
He then alludes to the fate of Polonius —
" For this same lord,
I do repent : but Heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this, and this Avith me.
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So again, good night !
I must be cruel only to be kind,
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
But one word more, good lady.
Queen. "What shall I do ?
Hamlet. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do :
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed,
&c., &c., &c., &c., &;c."
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 165
From the foregoing context, tlien, the obvious
meaning of
" I must be cruel only to be kind,"
is, "I must 'wring your heart,' as I premised to you
at the opening of this interview would be necessary
when I peremptorily bade you so ' let me,' and
added —
" Come, come, and sit you down ; you shall not budge ;
You go not, till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you ;"
" this seeming cruelty of mine, in ripping up and
exposing to your own censure your conduct, must
be committed in order to prove to you by its effect
the essential kindness of my ulterior object, which is
your reformation y when I began and put it to you
roundly you became alarmed, and cried out for
' Help !' and I — mistaking the voice behind the
arras for that of another person — slew Polonius
imintentionally :" " Thus bad begins and worse
remains behind," id est^ " Thus, you should per-
ceive, your own bad or wicked beginning, in being
won to the shameful lust of your husband's brother,
my uncle, ended in worse consequences, to wit : my
uncle's murder of my father." (To wliicli murder
Hamlet must at least have suspected her to have
been accessory when in reference to her calling his
killing of Polonius " a rash and bloody deed !"
Hamlet remarks —
166 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
" Almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king aud marry with his brother,")
'' and now here is another conseqnence following
that, to wit, my own unhappy mistake here in my
homicide of PoloniusP
In reply to the Queen's inquiry
" What shaU I do ?"
Haralet ironically puts her upon her guard against
the probable attempts of his uncle to disclose —
" That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft ; 'twere good you let him know," &c.
The Queen thereupon assures Hamlet^ on her life,
that she will not 'breathe what he has said to her.
He then reminds her of what she " had forgot,"
namely, that it has been concluded by a resolve of
the King that " Hamlet must be sent to England ;"
acquaints her with the plot against himself in which
his two schoolfellows conspire, &c., and of his de-
sign to outwit them ; that this fate of Polonius will
necessarily precipitate his departure ; again he
says,
" Mother, good night I"
as he commences to drag the corpse of Polonius
into an adjoining room, and moralizes upon his
character^ and then goes off the scene one way
hauling the dead body after him, and reiterating —
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 167
" Good iiiglit, mother !" whilst the Queen departs
simultaueoiisly m another direction.
Therefore, I contend for the absolute correctness
of my interpretation of the aforesaid couplet —
" I must be cruel only to be kind,
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind ;"
— and to whom and to loJiat the words refer ; and
furthermore that they have not only no connexion
with any imaginary refusal on the part of Hamlet
to permit his mother to embrace him, but, that, after
a minute examination of every link in the entire
chain of the colloquy, there can be discerned no
loarranty lohatever anywhere for the Queen's offer
to emhrace Hamlet, either expressed or implied by
the words or the several situations : but, supposing
for argument's sake that the Queen, couscience-
stricken and seeking her son's counsel, would offer
to embrace Hamlet, would it be consistent with his
previous character, his frequent acknowledgment
of his own imperfections, his pre-determination
when sent for and obediently going to his mother — •
" Let me be cruel, not unnatural,"
and now especially, having just slain by mistake, in
his rash haste, the unlucky Polonms, to refuse an
embrace to his unhappy mother at parting and upon
the Pharisee's pretext ? " Stand off, I am holier
than thou!" whenever I have seen this atrocity
168 ACTOBS OF HAMLET.
committed npou the stage, I have invoked the shade
of Shakespeare to forgive the i(jnoranc6 of the actor
who could not be aware of what he was doing, when
thus constructively libelling Hainlefs nature,
" That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once ;"
Mr. Macready, like every other actor seen by me,
by his emphasis rendered " tongue " and " sing "
antithetical, which fails to point to the listener the
TTwral intended. Hmnlet begins moralizing to Hora-
tio as they enter the grave-yard, upon the grave-dig-
ger's habit of singing whilst engaged in so melan-
choly an employment ; when they have approached
him more nearly the grave-digger sings a second
verse, and with his spade at the same time throws
up a slciill I Hamlet then remarks — "That skull
had a tongue in it and could sing once !" to convey
the idea that the skull now so mute and knocked
about by the rude clowm, once had a tongue in it
and could do that which he (the grave-digger) is
then doing, namely, singing ; this raoral-^omimg of
Hamlets reflection can be most clearly conveyed to
an auditor's comprehension by special emphasis
and intonation, rendering the words, " skull " and
^'' once^'' strongly emphatical as antitheses^ thus —
" That SKULL — had a tongue in it and could sing
ONCE ;" but as pronounced by Mr. Macready and
others, the point of the sentiment is not prominent
enough, and Hamlet might with equal effect have refer-
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 169
red to either of the other faculties once possessed by
that now speechless skull in common with tlie grave-dig-
ger's, as, " that it had an eye and could see once, or
an ear and could hear once, &c. ;" however, Mr.
Macready's voice, or his ear, seems not very well
suited to intonate some of Shakespeare's jprose with
the most appropriate effect, and evidently is incapa-
ble of regulating the utterance of his poetry with
harmonious variety ; his voice seems least disquali-
fied where his subject affords scope for strong physi-
cal excitement, or discordant fury ; his taste or his
ear must be bad, because he frequently destroys the
rhythm of the line ; sometimes by omitting neces-
sary syllables, and at others by adding to a word
what is not in the text.
In conclusion, to leave Mr. Macready's persona-
tion, and to treat of the character of Hamlet only, it
recurs to my mind that much irrelevant learning has
been displayed, as also abstract and unnecessary
argument indulged by eminent critics, in attempts
to prove whether Shakespeare intended that Hamlet
should be really mad, or throughout only affecting
insanity. A mature digestion of his text is quite
sufficient to furnish me abundant and conclusive
evidence upon that point, and I was very much
gratified, after our correspondence respecting the
character, to hear my honorable and learned friend,
Mr. x\dams, express his coincidence in my opinion.
After Hamlefs first interview with the aj^parition,
that \iQ feigns madness — to conceal his secret design
8
170 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
— cannot be disputed; because, lie adjures his com-
panions who shared the sight, that —
" How strange or odd soe'r I bear myself,
As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on ,"
thej never shall in any way intimate or signify to
another that they " knoio aught " of him. That
Hamlet^ however, actually becomes after the play-
scene the victim of temporary aberration of mind, I
think a very reasonable inference ; because, his
violent excitement in the closet-scene with his
mother — his short soliloquy prior to proceeding
thither and including —
" Now could I drink hot blood
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on ;"
his rash slaughter of Polonius^ there, and the conju-
ration of his father's spirit through the medium of
his heated imagination, indicate a gradual tendency
towards and the reaching of a climax of deliriuin.
During Hamlefs short cruise his senses seem to
have been tranquillized, and his ingenuity precipi-
tated ; but when he was landed stealthily and walks
casually into the grave-yard he moralizes to Hora-
tio sensibly enough until the incidental news of the
death and his presence at the actual obsequies of
Ophelia shock his sensitive and susceptible nature,
put a period to his reasoning interval, and produce a
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 171
fresh outbreak of madness ; a predisposition to which
is accelerated by the ravings and frantic conduct of
Laertes before he joins him by leaping into Ophelia's
grave : for, Hamlet says calmly afterwards in con-
versation with Horatio in reference to Laertes and
the occasion —
" But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion."
After Hamlefs phrensy in that scene had reached
the height of verbal and practical extravagance, his
mother interjects —
" This is mere madness,
And thus awhile the fit will work on him ;
Anon, as patient as the female dove
When that her golden couplets are disclos'd,
His silence will sit drooping."
Hamlefs wild and indecorous behavior, during
Ophelia^ s obsequies, I regard as stronger and more
intrinsic proof of his absolute derangement than
even his own admission; because, it might be
argued against tJiat^ that he has still an object in
keeping the fact unknown of his then or upon any
occasion feigned madness ; and it also might be
consistently urged that his mother's having then
pronounced him " mad " was but in virtue of the
promise he exacted of her in her closet, to keep
his secret : but, in the denouement, when his mad-
ness is not doubted by any one and he can have no
172 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
motive for deception, when the king puts the hand
of Laertes into that of Hamlet after sajing —
" Come, Hamlet^ come, and take this hand from me,"
if Hamlet is not honest in his vohmtarj apology
and gratuitous explanation to Laertes^ and does not
really believe himself "punished with a sore dis-
traction," such meanness, cowardice, insincerity,
and inconsistency, should furnish conclusive evi-
dence that he must be m.ad without heing aware
of it. Mark his words to Laertes —
" Grive me your pardon. Sir, I have done you wrong,
But, pardon it, as you are a gentleman.
This Presence knows, and you must needs have heard,
How I am punish'd with a sore distraction.
What I have done.
That might your nature, honor, and exception,
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes ? Never, Hamlet ;
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And, WHEN he's not himself, does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not ; Hamlet denies it.
Who does it then ? His madness : if 't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd ;
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy."
Hamlet then appeals to the feelings of Laertes, who
hypocritically professes to be " satisfied."
" Sir, in this audience.
Let my disclaiming, from a purpose evil.
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot my ariow o'er the house.
And luirt my brother.'''
ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 173
From tliese premises, then, one of two conclnsions
I deem unavoidably to be drawn by every candid
and strict investi2:ator of the character, namelv :
either that Sliakespeare intended to depict in Ham-
let an unhappy and distracted but honorable gentle-
man, or a base, degenerate, and contemptible prince.
Note. — Only three or four nights prior to Mr. Macready's
final performance and retirement from the stage, he played
Cassius in Julius Ccesar^ at the Hay market, London, the sea-
son of 1851-52. Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd was seated by
my side in a stall during the play, and afterwards we walked
thence together to the Garrick Club. Sir Thomas was a great
admirer of Macready, and seemed very much gratified when I
observed to him that " I had been surprised and delighted at
witnessing his personification of Cassius^ which I considered
to be perfectly ShaJcespearean, and that acting could not more
completely represent such a character."
CHARLES KEMBLE.
Park Theatre, New Yorh, 1832.
His style of reading Hamlet, though artistical,
was prosy and measured ; his action and gestures
were graceful, but never seemed impulsive, and his
manner — wherein " ars est celare arter)i)^ appeared
throughout — studied and mechanical ; his voice was
tenor-like, and never descended into any profundity
of tone, and whenever elevated was thin and reedy,
and sometimes became quite shrill ; and notwith-
standing a characteristic wig, his features denoted
174 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
Ills age to be far in advance of tlie " thirty years"
whicli the grave-digger reports Hamlet to have
attained, at the time when iliQJifth ^ct of the tra-
gedy has commenced.
Mr. Kemble was tall, and had rather a good hnt
fixed and elongated visage, and prominent features,
and his profile j^articularly partook mostly of the
Grecian order ; his figure was fine and command-
ing, and the carriage of his person remarkable
for ease, grace, dignity, and for elegance in high-
comedy and characters like Lord Townly in The
Provoked Husband^ which I saw him personate at
Covent Garden in 1827 (during my first visit to
England), to the Lady Townly of the celebrated
and beautiful Miss Foote^ who became afterwards
Countess of Harrington. Briefly, I can conceive
of no more refined and admirable personations than
Mr. C. Kemble gave, in those days, of Benedick in
Much Ado about Nothing^ Charles Surface in The
School for Scandal^ Don Felix in The Wonder^
Doricourt in The Beliefs Stratagem., and of each of
the other characters in elegant-comedy wherein
Miss Foote was then the great feature of the British
stage.
I had often heard Mr. Charles Kemble's Cassio
highly commended by Londoners, but never had an
opportunity of seeing him in that part. I saw him
play Othello once to Charles Young's Lago, but it
seemed to me passionless, and too stately and courtly
for the Moor, who deprecates his own deficiencies
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 175
in social and refined education and manners, by
observing that lie has not " those soft parts of speech
that cliamberers have," and that —
'' Since these arms of mine had seven years' pith
Till now some nine moons wasted they've used
Their dearest action in the tented field."
Mr, C. Kemble's Romeo was a very acceptable
performance, and his Mercntio gay, spirited, and
thoroughly Shakespearean ; his Falstaff of King
Henry IV. (First Part) was chaste and sensible, but
showed no mellowness, nor unctuosity, or rich
humor — it was very dry and hard ; his Jfark An-
tony in Julius CcGsar was popular, effective, and
excellent ; but, of all the characters of the Bard
of Avon, his personation of Falconbvidge {The Bas-
tard in King John) was the greatest, most perfect,
and admirable.
JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH.
Chestnut Street Theatre^ Philadelphia^ 1831.
Mr. Booth read Hamlet with a good degree of
understanding, and he had a fine intellectual eye
and cast of countenance ; but his voice was nasal,
the action of his arms awkward — they seemed as
though they were pinioned at the elbows ; he was
below the medium stature and had very bandy legs,
and his gait and bearing were not susceptible of
176 ACTOES OF HAMLET.
depicting any personal dignity ; indeed sucli vreve
Mr. Bootirs natural impediments, that no human
genius could surmount or blind an intelligent spec-
tator, or cause him to forget them, and esteem his
personation of Ha7)ilet satisfactory — or tolerable.
As Richard the Thirds however, Mr. Booth was
generally popular ; and had been originally brought
to Covent Garden Theatre, London, from the pro-
vinces, and pitted as a rival to Edmund Kean, after
the latter had made a stand and proved so attractive
in that character at Drury Lane. By many of the
critics of London Mr. Booth, whose conception and
manner of representing IticJiard seemed very simi-
lar to Ivean's, was regarded as an imitator of that
then new and popular actor, and not allowed the
credit of that original genius which he appeared to
me at intervals subsequently to display clearly.
Some, however, considered his performance of
Ricliard quite as meritorious as Kean's, and Mr.
Booth's tent-scene, jpaHicularly ^ was pronounced
" superior ;" and when I had had an opportunity,
years afterwards, at E"ew York, to see both and
compare them, despite my decided preference for
Kean's general performance, I was bound to esteem
Booth's tent-scene the most startling and effective :
but, upon research and reflection in after years, I
found I had^ike a large portion of play-goers —
derived my first impression and general conception
of King Richard the Third — not from received
history^ nor from Shalcesj>eare' s genuine dra-
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 177
matte portrait^ but that I had canglit it from that
popular actor's peculiar aucl fascinating style in
rendering Oiljber^s stage- adaptation of the play ; and,
much as I admired Edmund Kean, and closely as I
had studied his manner when I first adopted the
stage, and applauded as I had been both in London
and New York, in the year 1827, for my avowed
hnitation of him throughout that arduous part, sub-
sequent examination and comparison of reports and
imitations by contemporaries of the departed but
famous Cooke's style, convinced me that, though Mr.
Kean's genius and tact had enabled him to with-
draw my consideration from many of Richard^ s
proper and authentic characteristics, and surprise
and charm me with his own substituted peculiarities,
yet the late George Frederick Cookers performance
of that part — at xTew York as late as ISIO — must
have been much nearer Shakespeare's intention.
JOHN YANDENHOFF. •
New Tori, 1838.
Mr. Yandenhoff was not gifted by nature with a
fine face, its features were so hard as to be incapable
of any variety of expression ; his figure was indiffe-
rent ; his action not remarkable for grace, and his
step tardy and gait heavy ; his blood seemed to be
too cold and temperate, and his occasional enthu-
8"
178 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
siasm too palpably artificial ; his delivery of the
text of Hamlet^ though indicating sound sense and
careful study, was generally prosaic and monoto-
nous, and sometimes smacked strongly of the con-
venticle ; he had also a catarrh-like and seemingly-
organic impediment in his speech, and looked alto-
gether too old to represent the character.
In the play-scene, whilst Lucianus was reciting
his last speech and preparing to poison i\\Q player-
hing^ Mr. Yandenhoif, who had made Hamlet con-
spicuous enough by his behavior to withdraw the
eyes of the whole court from the play, and to fix
them upon himself — notwithstanding that Hamlet
had just previously and confidentially observed to
his friend Horatio that his policy in this play-scene
dictated his own seeming to be " idle^^ or listless
and inattentive to the performance, that he might,
unnoticed^ watch and rivet his own eyes upon his
U7icle's face — began to creep, cat-like, across the
stage, and, thus approaching the footstool of his
U7icle-Hng, just as the actor-murderer had finished
pronouncing his infernal invocation, and commenced
pouring the poison into his victim's ear, struck Cla^l'
dius a smart blow upon his knee with Ophelia''s fan,
and, rising simultaneously, with violent gesticula-
tions vociferates —
" He poisons him in the garden for his estate," etc.
which sent the JTmg j)acking — as well it might.
Yet how so discerning and judicious a student as
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 179
Mr. Yaudenhoff could feel himself justified in inno-
vating such an ^'' ad captcindiLinvulgus^^ display, by
makincr Hamlet at this staije of the character assault
with such gross and personal rudeness the reigning
majesty of Denmark, whilst he was seated quietly
at a play which had been ostensibly gotten up to
divert him, and in the midst of his courts I am quite
puzzled to imagine. Hamlet^ prior to the approach
of the King and his courts privately communicates
to Horatio his object in reference to " one action"
of the play to be represented, and begs his " heedful
note" of its effect upon his imcle j remarking tliat
if his hidden guilt may not betray and expose ^^5^?/^,
particularly when the player shall utter " one
speech," — alluding of course to those '' lines " which
Hamlet himself had arranged to " insert " in the
play — he would conclude that it must have been —
*' a damned Ghost that we have seen, and my ima-
ginations are as foul as Vulcan's stithy : " wliereas,
by such practical rudeness as Mr. Yandenhoff made
Hamfdet exhibit, the Klng'^s evident surprise and
abrupt departure might not unreasonably have been
imputed rather to the offence Ill's) jyerson had taken,
than his " conscience had caught;" besides being
highly exceptionable. That Harnlefs manners coidd
not have been so absolutely outrageous on the occa-
sion may fairly be inferred from his dialogue with
Horatio afterwards, when they compared notes, and
*'both their judgments joined in censure of the
King^s seeming."
180 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
" Didst perceive, — upon the talk of the poisoning ? "
Bnt I regret, for the sake of mj estimate hitherto
of the taste and intelligence of a large audience in
my native city, to record that Mr. Yandenhoff,
instead of meeting with that silence which liis own
intelligence would liave interpreted into their gentle
rebuke for his temerity, was " most tyrannically
clapp'd " for this unaccountable innovation.
Mr. Yandenhoff, however, in Cato, Brutus,
Coriolanus, and some other characters, was excel-
lent, and proved himself to be a highly-accom-
plished tragedian.
CHAELES JOHN KEAN.
Theatre, Haymarhet, London, 1839.
Charles Kean evidently possesses remarkable
talent and considerable genins, though of an order
quite secondary wdien compared witli that of his
late father, Edmund Kean, and is also inferior in tlie
capabilities of the face, and in the lower tones of the
voice to those of his progenitor ; his hair is as dark
but straighter and less luxuriant than was his
father's; his forehead broader; his eyes, though
black and full, and effective upon the stage, not near
so piercing and brilliant ; in no otlier respect do I
perceive any physical resemblance between him
and his famous and departed sire. Charles has a
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 181
face wliicli is iiniisiially wide across the eyes but
tapers down to a narrow chin ; his mouth is wide,
and he has very white teeth irregularly set forward
in the lower jaw and which impart a sibillatiug
sound to his enunciation ; his nose is low at its
bridge, and rather pouty and broad at the end ; his
figure is less compact, and his height a little greater
than were those of his father, and his brows are
thicker and not so flexible : the Elder Kean had a
straight and well-proportioned nose, and mouth
which was regular and with lips which were often
remarkable for their close muscular compression and
strong expression whenever great firmness or deter-
mination of purpose were to be indicated. Charles
Kean's general manner is easy and graceful ; his
gait, owing to his legs being longer and not so
straight, but bending slightly outward, and to his
frame not being so well knit together as was his
father's, is not so firin^ but the style of his most
acceptable points, made in either of the characters
wherein I have seen his father, makes it plainly
apparent that, by Art or Xature, he follows, as far
as he is able, in the still well-remembered footsteps
of his deservedly illustrious predecessor.
Charles Ivean's Ilainlet^ I regret to record, disco-
vers various proofs of a defective ear, by sundry
false emphases, bad cadences, and misplaced pauses ;
his personation was remarkable also for clap-trap
efi'ects with which it superabounds ; in short, it was
a tissue of bustle, rant, and posturing; his person
182 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
underwent unceasing locomotion, and was not in
repose even during the profoundest meditation of the
inetaplujsical soliloquies ; lie lias evidently discovered
that which pleased best the demonstrative ground-
lings and truckles to it accordingly, and successfully ;
he seems less bent on trying to inform and convince
their understandings, than to " amaze their very
faculty of eyes and ears ;" his philosophy evidently
teaches him to seek plenty of applause, not by the
rugged path of patient merit, but by a recourse to
surprises and slippery tricks in questionable shapes
and places, and which he may eventually find to be
as quicksands where he would establish the base of
his fame as a classic artist, though they may seem
evidence of growing popularity and be of temporary
advantage.
One of his most admired and applauded points
was, his manner of rendering, ^'' Is it the KingV
which eifect was produced by Mr. C. Kean by mak-
ing Hamlet^ after he had thrust violently through
the arras in 2nd stage entrance left, slide ten or
twelve feet upon the floor-cloth down to the right-
centre of the stage, and then and there utter those
words, " Is it the king V w^ith his loudest possible
shout of exultation. His tone and manner denoted
unmistakably an undisguised intention^ and betrayed
his would-he-secret and concealed jpurjpose^ and was
utterly at variance with the pretext he had the
instant before adopted to mislead his mother in
respect to the person he presumed to be listening
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 183
behind the arras, when, whipping out his rapier and
thrusting through them, he had " killed the unseen
good old man," crying out simultaneously —
'' How now ! a rat ?
Dead, for a ducat, dead I"
Of course, when Hcnnlet searches and finds after-
wards that he has slain Polonius^ and apostro-
phizes—
" Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool !
I took thee for thy better,"
he admits to himself that he thought Polonius to be
the king ; but then in order to preserve his consist-
ency previously, his remark and question —
" I know not. Is it the king ?"
and that the horror-stricken queen may still be kept
in ignorance of his sinister purpose, should be
uttered with a tone of surprise, natural to a sense of
one's commission of some incidental and uninten-
tional mischief; the inquiry of Hamlet should seem
to his mother to have been caused bv her sudden
and apparent anguish, as though the idea but then
had suggested itself, that it might be the Jdncj^
whom he had killed by accident, but who could have
had no honorable motive for hiding there.
But I have heretofore had ample evidence that
any strong effect produced upon the stage will be
certain to be greeted with loud applause by the
184 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
"barren spectators" who constitute the great major-
ity of any audience, and who are ever read}^ for
excitement and never stop to reflect whether the
acting, however good in itself^ is not inappHcable,
misplaced, and quite inconsistent under the circum-
stances with the character to be represented.
GEOKGE VANDENHOFF.
Parh Theatre, New Yorh, 1842.
Mk. G. Yandenhoff (son of Mr. John Yanden-
hoff, the tragedian) made his deJjut in America as
Hamlet. Plis complexion is fair, his eyes blue, and
his natural countenance is pleasing, but not capable
of much variety of expression, and he had a habit,
whenever he would appear grave, earnest, or severe,
of arching and contracting his brows into a sort of
lacrymose frown, that seems quite artificial, and as
though it might have been studied before a looking-
glass. His person is a little above the middle height,
rather lightly but neatly and proportionately framed,
and his whole appearance prepossessing ; his voice
w\ns pure, sonorous, and indicated considerable
depth, but was too monotoned in level speaking ;
his gestui'es were easy and rather redundant, though
they never seemed to mark particularly the senti-
ment ; and many of his attitudes were graceful and
somewhat picturesque, as though they had been
carefully studied and much practised ; his emphasis
ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 185
and readings denoted intelligence and a nice articu-
lation, but his qualities generally seemed more
suited to the highest order of sentimental comedy ;
his manner wanted weight and dignity on occasion,
and he uttered Hamlefs philosophic sentences not
as though they were spontaneous expressions of
thoughts originating in his own meditative mind,
but tlie sentiments of another which he had learned
and conned by rote, and scanned in his head rhetori-
cally, but wherein his own heart did not participate,
nor could his own judgment adopt and assume.
The declamatory portions of the character were
acceptably recited, but as a whole, whilst it secured
general and patient attention and occasional appro-
bation from the audience, it pretended no neio and
original idea, but proved at all points thoroiigKly
conventional.
I saw Mr. G. Yandenhofl* a few years later per-
form 2farh Antony in Julius Ccesar very credita-
bly throughout ; whilst the oration over the dead
body of Csesar particularly was pronounced in the
master-like sj)irit of one evidently confident of his
own abilities, but nevertheless a truly accomplished
elocutionist.
EDWrN" FOKEEST.
Boioery Theatre^ Neio York^ 1829.
I was present at Mr. Forrest's original debut as
Hamlet^ but he seemed out of his element ; his
186 ACTORS OF HAMLET.
spirit seemed incapable of being subdued to the
normal quality and meditative propensity of Ham-
lefs pliilosopbic mind ; his iron nerve and powerful
physique appeared to pant continually for oppor-
tunity or pretexts to display themselves ; his evident
uneasiness suggested to me such as I would con-
ceive natural to a young but full-grown and newly-
caged lion : indeed, it struck me that could Mr.
Forrest's Hamlet have been, through some accident,
allowed to ventilate his own impulses for a few
moments, as soon as his father's ghost had bidden
him — " Adieu ! Adieu ! Kemember me !" he would
have bounded unceremoniously into the presence of
his uncle Claudius^ and with the impetuosity of an
enraged and sinewy athlete have driven his rapier
tlii'ough and through his heart, and by such fore-
closure have ended the tragedy with his first act :
in fact, Mr. Forrest's performance of Samlet^ though
it obtained the applause of the large majority of the
audience, was very unsatisfactory to me.
Mr. Forrest's own propria fades is what may be
classed in its enserrible '' handsome," though the nose
is a little too small, crooked, and short, to be sym-
metrical ; Nature has given him pleasing black
eyes, too, which, however, he seems not to have
acquired the art to make specially effective on the
stage — possibly because his inflexible brows, which
arch low and near the bridge of the nose, impart
when pursed together a grim severity to his counte-
nance, thus seemingly rendering it incapable of
ACTORS OF HAMLET. 187
mncli variety, or of sudden alternations, or of light-
ness of expression ; his person generally, with his
ample chest, long body, short and Herculean-pro-
portioned arms and legs, does not conform to
the ideal of an Apollo; nor is his ease, or grace
of action, or carriage of body, remarkable or con-
ventionally well-adapted to represent " the glass of
fLXshion and the mould of form." Mr. Forrest's
voice is strong, but appears not susceptible of much
modulation, though his articulation is good, and his
general physique denotes extraordinary animal
strength.
Though Mr. Forrest's and my own notions of the
character of Hamlet differ widely, I have, since the
date of his original debut therein, repeatedly seen
portions of his performance of Othello with great
satisfaction. I rank it as a whole, and excepting
the late Edmund Keari's, the best I have ever seen
in either hemisphere. Mr. Forrest may even be
said to be more "terribly in earnest" in giving effect
to t\iQ fiercer passions, but is Xean's inferior in por-
traying the tender qualities of the Moor's nature.
Mr. Forrest inspires more terror than pity ; though
I remember on one occasion particularly, at the
Park Theatre, noticing to a friend that " Mr. Forrest
had infused into his last act of Othello a degree of
manly tenderness, refined sensibility, and touching
melancholy, so true to l^ature and Art, that his per-
formance therein afforded me exquisite and unal-
loyed gratification."
PART V.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
COKRESPONDENCE
UPON SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
From the Hon. John Quincy Adams, of the House of Repre"
sentatives, and an ex- President of the United States.
HAMLET.
Washington, Feb. 19, 1839.
To James H. Hackett^ Esq.^ Ne%o Yorh : —
Dear Sir : — I return herewith your tragedy of
Hamlet^ with many thanks for .the perusal of your
manuscript notes, which indicate how thoroughly
you have delved into the bottomless mine of Shake-
speare's genius. I well remember the conversation,
more than seven years by-gone, at Mr. Philip Hone's
hospitable table, where, at the casual introduction
of the name of Hamlet the Dane^ my enthusiastic
admiration of the inspired (muse inspired) Bard of
Avon, commenced in childhood, before the down
liad darkened my lip, and continued, through live
of the seven ages of the drama of life, gaining upon
192 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
the judgment as it loses to the imagination, seduced
me to expatiate, at a most intellectual and lovely
convivial board, upon my views of the character of
Hamlet, until I came away ashamed of having en-
grossed an undue proportion of the conversation to
myself. That my involuntary effusions and diffu-
sions of mind on that occasion wxre indulgently
viewed by Mr. Hone, so as to have remained with
kindness upon his memory to this day, is a source
of much gratification to me, and still more pleasing
is it to me that he should have thought any of the
observations which fell from me at that time worthy
of being mentioned to you.
I look upon the tragedy of Hamlet as the master-
piece of the drama — the master-piece of Shakespeare
— I had almost said, the master-piece of the human
mind. But I have never committed to writing the
analysis of the considerations upon which this deli-
berate judgment has been formed. At the table of
Mr. Hone I could give nothing but outlines and
etcliings. I can give no more now — snatching, as I
do, from the ^morning lamp, to commune with a
lover and worthy representative of Shakespeare
upon the glories of the immortal bard.*
What is tragedy ? It is an imitative representa-
tion of human action and passion, to picrify the
heart of the spectator through the instrumentality
* It was Mr. Adams's custom to rise at 4 a.m., and dispatch all his
private affairs, tliat they might not interfere with his duties of the day
in the House of Representatives. J. H. H.
SILA.KESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 193
of terror SLudpit/j. Tliis, in substance, is tlie defi-
nition of Aristotle ; and Pope's most beautiful lines,
in the prologue to Oato, are but an expansion of the
same idea.
Hamlet is the personification of a tnan^ in the
prime of life, with a mind cultivated by the learning
acquirable at an university, combining intelligence
and sensibility in their highest degrees, within a
step of the highest distinction attainable on earth,
crushed to extinction by the pressure of calamities
inflicted, not by nature, but against nature — not by
physical, but by moral evil. Hamlet is the heart
and soul of man, in all their perfection and all their
frailty, in agonizing conflict with human crime, also
in its highest pre-eminence of guilt. Hamlet is all
heart and soul. His ruling passions are, filial afi'ec-
tion — youthful love — manly ambition. His com-
manding principles are, filial duty — generous friend-
ship— love disappointed and subdued — ambition and
life sacrificed to avenge his father.
Hamlefs right to the throne has been violated,
and his darkest suspicions roused by the marriage
of his mother with his uncle so speedily succeeding
his father's death. His love is first trammelled by
the confiicting pride of his birth and station operat-
ing upon his ambition, and although he has ^' made
many tenders of his aff'ection" to Ophelia^ and
"hath importun''d her with love in honorable
fashion," yet he has made no proposal of marriage
to her — he has promised her nothing but love, and,
9
194 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
cautioned both bj her brother and her father, slie
meets the advances of Hamlet with repulsion. In-
stead of attributing this to its true cause, he thinks
she spurns his tenderness. In his enumeration
of the sufferings which stimulate him to suicide, ho
names " the pangs of despised love," and his first
experiment of assumed madness is made upon her.
He treats her with a revolting mixture of ardent
passion, of gross indelicacy, and of rudeness little
short of brutality — at one moment he is worshipping
at her feet — at the next, insulting her with coarse
indecency — at the third, taunting her with sneering
and sarcastic advice to go to a nunnery. And is
this the language of splendid intellect in alliance
with acute feeling ? Aye — under the unsupportable
pressure of despised love, combined with a throne
lost by usurpation, and a father murdered by a
mother and an uncle, an incestuous marriage
between the criminals, and the apparition, from
the eternal world, of his father's spirit, commanding
him to avenge the deed.
The revelation from the ghost caps the climax of
calamity. It unsettles that ardent and meditative
mind — you see it in the tone of levity instantly
assumed upon the departure of the " perturbed spirit "
— you see it in the very determination to " put on an
antic disposition." It is the expedient of a deadly,
but irresohde purpose. He w411 execute the com-
mand of his father, but he will premeditate the time,
the place, the occasion, and to fore-arrange the most
SHAKESPEKEAN SUBJECTS. 195
convenient 0})portunitj, will feign occasional mad-
ness with intervals of clear and steady rational con-
versation. And thus it is that " the native hue of
resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of
thought."
This perpetual action and reaction between the
mind and the heart ; the feeling spurring him on,
and the reflection holding him back, constitute that
most admirable portrait of human nature, in its
highest estate little lower than angels, little above
the Hottentots of the African cape, which pervades
every part of the character of Hamlet. The habi-
tual turn of his mind is to profound meditation. He
reflects upon life, upon death, upon the nature of
man, upon the physical composition of the universe.
He indulges in minute criticism upon the perform-
ance of the players ; he reads and comments upon a
satire of Juvenal ; he quibbles with a quibbling
grave-digger ; commemorates the convivial attrac-
tions of an old jovial table companion, whose bones
the good man Delver turns up in digging the grave
for Oj)helia^ and philosophizes upon the dust of
imperial Csesar, metamorphosed into the bung of a
beer barrel. During all this time he is charged
with the command of his father, rising from the
dead, to take the life of his murderer, to execute
divine justice, in the punishment of his crime. He
is firmly resolved to execute this command — has
frequent opportunities for the execution of it,
w^hich he suffers to escape him, and is constantly
196 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
reproacliiiig himself for his ddays. He shrewdly
detects and ingeniously disconcerts the practices of
the murderers against his life ; discloses to his
mother his knowledge of her guilt. Kills Polonius
most ra^^Ay ^ ^pretending to kill a rat, and intending
to kill the king, whom he supposes to be the person
behind the arras, and to have been there listening
and overhearing his terrible expostulations with his
mother. When he discovers that the person he has
killed was not the king, but Polonius^ instead of
compunction and remorse, he begins by a cruel joke
upon the dead body, and finishes by an apologetic
burst of indignation at the wretched, rash, intruding
fool, who had hidden himself behind the arras to
overhear the interview with his mother. Yet the
man whom he has killed is the father of Oj)helia^
whom he loves to distraction, and w^hose madness
and death are immediate consequences of this mur-
der of her father. Shakespeare has taken care not
to bi-ing Ramlet and Ophelia into the presence of
each other after this event. He takes no notice at
the grave-digging scene, that the grave over which
he so pathetically and humorously disserts upon tlie
bones of Yorick, the king's jester, was about to
receive the corpse of Ophelia.* Afterwards, at the
funeral scene, he treats Laertes as roughly, but
finally apologizes to him, and desires him to attri-
bute his violence and unkind treatment to his mad-
* Hamlet did not tlieu know of it. — J. H. H.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 197
ness. Tlie reasoning faculty of Hamlet is at once
sportive, sorrowful, indignant, and melanchol3\ His
reflections always take tlie tinge of the passion
under which he is laboring, but his conduct is
always governed by the iTnjpulse of the moment.
Hence his madness, as you have remarked, is some-
times feigned, and sometimes real. His feigned
madness, Polonius^ w^ithout seeing through it, per-
ceives has method in it. His real madness is toioer-
ing passion^ transient — momentary — the furo?' hrevis
which was the ancient definition of anger. It over-
wdielms at once the brightest genius, the soundest
reason, and the kindliest heart that was ever
exhibited in combination upon the stage. It
is man in the ideal perfection of his intellectual
and moral nature, struggling with calamity beyond
his power to bear, inflicted by the crime of his
fellow man — struggling w^ith agonizing energy
against it — sinking under it to extinction. What
can be more terrific ? What can be more
piteous ?
This is the hasty outline of my view of the charac-
ter of Hamlet. I regret that time will not allow me
to fill the canvas with lights and shades borrowed
from the incidents and dialogue of the play. But
after bestowing so much of my own tediousness
upon you, I can only repeat my thanks for the peru-
sal of your own very ingenious comments upon this
incomparable tragedy, and add the assurance of my
best wishes for your health and happiness, and of
198 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
my cordial sympatliies with your devotion to the
memory of the immortal bard.
.Tr^HN QuiNCY AdA3IS.
iT. B. AVhen the foregoing reached my hand, I
was preparing to embark for England.
Immediately npon receipt of Mr. Adams's letter
I sent it to Mr. Philip Hone (ex-Mayor of E'ew
York), and received from him the following : —
Thursday, 7th March, 1839.
Dear Sir : — I herewith return to yon the delight-
ful letter of Mr. Adams, of which (anticipating
your consent) I have kept a copy. I am fortunate
in having been, incidentally, the means of furnish-
ing you with such a treasure. What an astonishing
man this is ! Engaged in all important public mea-
sures— never out of his seat in Congress — working
more laboriouslj" in anything he undertakes than
any other person I ever knew, acquainted with all
subjects, and thoroughly with most; and trilling
like a youthful poet when he first begins to " lisp in
numbers " with subjects that other wise men disdain
to stoop to ; such are the pursuits of this truly great
man. It is like the lordly eagle coming down from
his '' pride of place " to sip with the humming-bird
the sweets of every flower. But such subjects as
this treated of in your letter constitute the relaxa-
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 199
tion of Mr. Adams's mind. I wisli he would frive
us more of Hamlet and " such like things ! " •
Your friend and servant,
Philip Hone.
James H. Hackett, Esq.
Mr. Hadceti to Mr. Adams.
22 Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, )
London, 24th July, 1839. )
To the Hon. John Quincy Adams, Boston : •
Dear Sir — I have at length an opportunity to
acknowledge jour obliging favor of 19th Feb. last,
which was duly received by me at Kew York, prior
to my sailing thence for this coimtry. That you
should have esteemed me worthy of such pains will
remain graven on my memory as one of the most
gratifying incidents of my life, and your autograph
document shall be treasured in my archives.
The elements of which that matchless character,
Sliakespeare's Hamlet, is compounded, are generally
as justly analyzed by you, as they are throughout
beautifully described ; but there are some causes
you impute as contributing essentially to his mad-
ness, about which I beg leave to differ, and quote
here and there a sentence of yours, the better to
refresh your memory. '''Love disappointed and
svhdued^ ]^ow I have always considered filial
piety, in both Hamlet and Ophelia, the most promi-
nently developed trait of character ; a father's fate,
200 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
in botli cases, operates so powerfully on their sensi-
tive natures, as finally to overthrow the seat of
reason ; their love for each other was quite second-
ary ; in pursuance of his voluntary oath to the Ghost,
that " thy remembrance all alone shall live," &c.,
"unmixed with baser matter, Hajnlefs first scheme is
to feign madness, and he begins " to put an antic
disposition on" in the presence of Ophelia, for
whom he was reputed to entertain a tender afi:ec-
tion, in order, as it seems to me, that she may (as
she^oes) tell her father, and that Poloniiis's garrulity
may advertise the whole court of his beiijg mad for
her love — a cause and efi'ect calculated to mislead
and calm the apprehensions of the guilty iisurjier,
and better enable Hamlet to scrutinize his unguarded
behavior thereafter.
Had Oj^helia^s love for HaMet been strong, she
would naturally not have yielded so readily to be-
come the medium of assisting the espionage of her
parasitical father and the complotting king, when it
is proposed, in her presence, to "let her loose to
Hamlet^^ whilst they watch them behind the arras ;
and here let me remark upon your sentence — " he
treats her with a revolting mixture of ardent passion,
of gross indelicacy, and of rudeness little short of
hriitaUty " — that from his previous conduct " when
she .was sewicg in her chamber," he knows she
esteems him 7nad, and will not feel wounded at any-
thing lie may say. For example, when he is most
censorious of her ftither, she prays, " Oh, help him,
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 201
you sweet heavens !" Further extenuation may be
found in another, and not unreasonable sttpposition^
that, at tlie thne^ Hamlet had some hirking sus-
picion of her unfair position ; else, why change his
tone so suddenly from the incipient complimentary
supplication, " Kymph in thy orisons be all my sins
remembered !" to such pointed rebuke. When
asked — " Are you honest .^" she evades a categorical
answer by " My lord !" then he follows — " Are you
fair .^" and explains to her why, if she is both, and
would preserve her honesty from the contaminating
influences of beauty, she should not admit them to
any discourse with each other, " because the power
of heauty will sooner transform honesty from what
it is into a [corrupt] bawd, than the force of honesty
will translate beauty into his [honesty's] likeness,
now the time gives proof." (As here is she herself,
for instance, allowing the effect of her heauty upon
him to be used by her father for a sinister purpose,
and at the expense of her honesty.) He " did love
her once," but upon consideration " loved her not,"
finding that she has inherited so much of her " old
stock" (viz. her father's courtier-like insincerity), as
to render her nature incapable of thorough honesty ;
"for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but
we shall relish of it." " We are arrant knaves
all !" The aptitude of his epigrammatic sentiments,
whether from accident or design, evidently embar-
rasses and betrays her into an absolute falsehood ;
for when questioned, " Where is your father ?" she
9*
202 SHAKESPERE.AJS" SUBJECTS.
answers, ^'At liome !" knowing Polonius to be a
covert listener to them at that moment ; and, by
the way, be it remembered of thi-s scene, that the
Mng^ who witnessed it, and was a keen observer,
remarks — " Love ! — his aftections do not that way
tend !" and also of her when mad, he says, " This is
the poison of deep grief; it springs all from the
father's death." In short, Ophelia never in her
madness alludes to Hamlet^ nor does he but once,
subsequently, refer to his love for her^ and then only
when chance informed him of her death, and had
brought him to her burial, where, in a fit of tempo-
rary derangement, he lets the bravery of Laertes^
grief " put him into a towering passion," which he
afterwards, by way of apology to him, " proclaims
— was madness."
Permit me to quote you further : —
" His love is first trammelled hy the confiicting
pride of his hirth and station operating ivpon his
airibitiony
As regards Hanilefs ambition— in the course of
what he stigmatizes to the courtiers " as their trade"
with him, he certainly pretends to them his cause
of madness is, " I lack advancement ! " but this he
says after he has discovered the necessity of having
an eye of them, and a determination to "trust
them " only as he would "adders that have fangs ; "
for in hi^ first interview on their arrival, and before
he inquires whether they have not been " sent for,"
he welcomes his old schoolfellows with " Excellent
SHAKESPEREAX SUBJECTS. 203
good friends ! " and nnreservedl j scouts tlicir notions
of liis being ambitious because he esteems Denmark
a prison ; and wlien they suggest, " it is too narrow
for your mind," adds — " oh, God ! I could be
bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of
iniinite space, but that I have had bad dreams " —
in fact, had he not had '' bad dreams " concerning
his father's fate, I doubt if disappointed ambition
had ever caused him to express regret, much less
urged him to any active measures about his deferred
succession to the throne of Denmark. You continue
— ''' and although he has made i/iany tenders of his
affection to Ojyhelia^ and hath iynjportuned her vnth
love^ in honorahle fashion^ yet he has made no pro-
posal of marriage to her — he horS proinised her
nothing hut loveP
To the consummation of his love by marriage^
his queen mother refers when scattering flowers
during OpItelkt'S obsequies —
" I hop'd thou should' st have been my Hamlet's luife^
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid !
And not have strew' d thy grave ; "
the inference is, that the only reason for a truce to
his love pursuit was its interference with a para-
mount consideration — the performance of his vow
to his father^ s unrevenged ^ndi perturbed spirit. —
But you say, " cautioned hoth hy her hrother and
her father^ she meets tJie advances of Hamlet with
repidsion.'^''
204 SnAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
Her brother's caution arose, not from a suspicion
that Hamlefs ambitious pride of " birth and sta-
tion" would hinder their marriage, but that the
" state " on which it depended might not confirm
his choice, and adds,
'' Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain,
If with too credent ear you hst his songs ;
Or lose your heart ; or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd importunity."
Her father's command, as he afterwards confesses,
sprang from his " fear that Hamlet did but trifle,
and meant to wreck thee," therefore his '^ love in
honorable fashion and countenanced with all the
holy vows of heaven," Polonius calls " springes to
catch woodcocks," and charges her, " Do not believe
his vows," to which she replies, " I shall obey, my
lord," and so she does — making it evident that hoth
their loves were subservient to filial duty / but the
nicest search cannot detect a line indicating that
his heart contained a scrupulous thought that
Ojphelia was beneath his station, nor that the
repulsion of his letters, or denial of his access, or
attempted return of his gifts, was a source of any
serious disappointment to him, or, as you think,
"o/* acute feeling — imder the insupportable pressure
of despised love j'''' inasmuch as he never subse-
quently refers to either circumstance ; — you also
say, " instead of attrihuting his repulsion to its true
cause, he thinks she spurns his tenderness j in his
SHAKESrEREAN SUBJECTS. 205
enumeration of the sufferings whieh stimulate to
suicide^ he names the pangs of desj)ised loveP
" The pangs of despised love," in my humble
opinion^ have no more immediate reference to his
own case than " the law's delay, the insolence of
office," and the spurns and other vexations to which
all " flesh is heir ; " and one fact that particularly
weakens his self-application of this line is, that the
folio edition of 1623 (now received as the best
authenticated) reads, not " despised,^'' but " disprized
love : " a distinction, to my thinking, not without a
difference, though corrupters of the text since have
not even deigned an excnse for their license ; — for
as love begets love, and hate, his kind, so love that
finds itself despised instead of returned by its object
soon flies the human breast, and its void hecoraes
supplied by rank hatred / but the pangs of disprized
love are those of one whose spirit sinks and writhes
under the pride-stung consciousness that the being
towards whom their own heart yearns, disprizes
their strong affection ; — it is this species of love
which, unvalued or entertained with indifference,
cannot be diverted or superseded, or, as if despised^
find a relief in hatred — but brooding over its own
subtile mortification, produces that poignant melan-
choly which, rankling in a proud soul, may stimu-
late to suicide.
A marked characteristic from the outset in Ham-
let^ is, self-dissatisfaction —
206 SIIAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
" The time is out of joint — 0 cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right."
He is a creature of impulse ; lie cannot take the
life of the Regicide when in his power ; his hea,rt
revolts at so cold-hlooded a deed, thongh just ; he
puts np his sword, and tries to find an excuse to
himself in the refined notion that it would be " hire
and salary, not revenge," to kill his uncle whilst
" praying and purging his soul," who took his
father's, unprepared, " with all his crimes broad-
blown ;" without excitement, his nature is prone to
meditation, and all his philosophical reasoning is
upon his wrongs and their villanous causer. The
player, whose whole function readily yielded to his
conceits — the equanimity of Horatio^ in whose
nature the "blood and judgment" are so enviably
" co-mingled" — all contrasts serve but to paralyze
his own energies, and almost blunt his very purpose,
instead of arousing him to indignant action. Thus
" conscience makes a coward" of Hamlet^ who pos-
sesses the moral principle of a hero, but is deficient
in physical nerve requisite to avenge coolly and
resolutely his father's murder — an attainment he
seems to despair of, after discovering his fatal mis-
take in killing Polonius / and it is after that event^
that the tumult created in his sensitive soul reaches
its climax ; and the mind, which though hitherto
predisposed has exhibited but counterfeit frenzy^
breaks forth at intervals of sxibsequent excitement^
into paroxysms of decided madness.
SIIAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 207
But the only excuse I can offer to yon, for permit
ting my love of the snbject to render me so diffuse ^
is, that I, too, " from boyhood," have been " enthusi-
astic" in relation to this character, and have habitu-
ated myself for years to ponder over its merits — as
a miser would over his gold — collating the earliest
editions of this play, and searching the accurimlated
annotations of its numerous critics — many of whom,
in attempting to explain, have often only mystified
the meaning of a clear original text, by alterations,
omissions, and substitutions, and shown themselves
"ignorant as vain," and as wide of the author's
design, and as vexations to every true lover of the
bard, as rriiist be some of the actors of our time,
who exhibit to audiences, seemingly " capable of
nothing but inexplicable dumb show and noise," a
sort of coiwentional^ stage-leau-ideal of Hamlet,
overflowing with hustle^ starts, and rant, and entirely
destitute of that oneditative and jyhilosophic rejpose,
which Shahes^eare has made the leading feature of
the character.
Hoping at no distant day to have the pleasure of
a " large discourse" with, you, in person, about
Samlet, and that your useful life, with continued
health of body and vigor of mind, may be pro-
longed for many years,
I remain, honored sir,
Your humble servant, ever,
Jas. H. Hackett.
208 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
I was in the habit of meeting daily at the Gar-
rick Club, London, Mr. James Smith, one of
the brothers who were authors of the celebrated
'''Rejected Addresses^ I submitted to his perusal
Mr. Adams's letter, dated 19th February, 1839,
together with my reply, dated 24tli July ensuing,
which he returned with a note of which what fol-
lows is a copy.
27 Craven Street, )
Thursday, 15th August, 1839. \
Many thanks, my dear sir, for the Lithographic
Correspondence between yourself and the ex-Presi-
dent, Mr, Adams, upon the subject of Hamlet.
That gentleman's notion of the character is inge-
nious : but yours is (to quote the words of Osric)
" a palpable hit."
Yours very truly,
James Smith.
Mr. Smith intimated his desire that I should for-
ward to his brother Horatio at Brighton^ where he
resided, copies also of the same correspondence,
which I did accordingly, and received from him the
folio win 2: letter :
'O
12 Cavendish Place, 26 September, 1839.
Dear Sir — ^I feel much flattered by your obliging
letter and its very interesting inclosures, wdiich w^ill
be preserved with care as a valuable addition to the
SHxVKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 209
contents of my portfolio. How inexlianstible are
tlie j^leasures afforded by our Immortal Bard, since
the most attractive portions of our current literature
are the endless study of his characters, and the ex-
pansion of his illimitable ideas. You must have
bestowed much thought indeed upon the character
of Hamlet^ and I incline to side with you, wherever
you are opposed to the views of the enlightened
and venerable Mr. Adams. Schlegel's critique upon
Hamlet is perhaps the most original and conclusive
that has yet been published, and how happy is his
image of the delicate vase being shattered by the
expansion of the plant committed to it !
As an ardent admirer of America and its noble
institutions, I am ever proud to make acquaintance
with your countrymen, and I much regret that my
absence from Brighton prevented my paying my
respects to Mr. Willis during his visit.
Pray command my services here if they can be
made available, and believe me with many thanks,
Your obliged and obedient servant,
HoEATio Smith.
James H. Hackett, Esq.
I was indebted to my friend Mr. James Fenimore
Cooper, in 18tt4, for an introduction (by letter from
INew York) to the Hon. Charles Augustus Murray^
then Master of the Queen's household. Mr. Murray
had visited America whilst I was abroad, and by
his intelligence and very agreeable social manners
210 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
liad made many strong personal friends in the
United States. He made a tour through the "West-
ern States, and afterwards wrote his " Prairie
Bird:'
He is a younger son of the Earl of Dunmore. I
loaned him for perusal my notes and comments
upon Hamlet and Lear^ and upon some of their
stage-representatives, which he returned with a let-
ter, of which the following is a copy.
Buckingham Palace, January 30, 1845.
My deak Sm : — I beg to return you your notes
on Lear and Hamlet with many thanks : it would
be impertinent in me to pretend to any opinion on
the professional peculiarities of most of the parties
referred to, as I have had few if any opportunities
of seeing them on the stage ; but I can truly say
that many of the thoughts and reflections on the
intention and conception of the Great Dramatist
seem to me extremely just, discriminating, and well
defined : I only regret that my early departure*
will prevent my having the pleasure of seeing them
embodied in the person of their author next month
on the boards of Covent Garden.
Believe me, my dear sir,
Yery truly yours,
Chas. a. Muerat.
* Mr. Murray bad just been appointed by the Queen Her Britannic
Majesty's Consul to Egypt, and had resigned his position as Eqiierry
to Prince Albert.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 211
I originally made the personal acquaintance of
Serge-ant (afterwards Sir Thomas Noon) Talfourd
at the Garrick Club, London, where we used to
meet often and chat familiarly, and whence we
occasionally proceeded together to one or other of
the theatres to witness any extraordinary perfor
mance. He had frequently referred to my cor-
respondence with ex-President Adams respecting
Hamlet, and I loaned him my volume of notes,
comments, and criticisms uj^on the actors, which, as
I knew his engrossing professional occupation, I
requested him to retain and look through at his
entire convenience and intervals of leisure. Upon
its return it was accompanied by a note, whereof
the following is a copy.
Sergeant's Inx, 23cl June, 1845.
My dear Sir : — I return your manuscript with
my best thanks. I regret that the very anxious
trials in which I am engaged at this season has not
permitted me to contemplate with the attention the
subject deserves your delightful recollections; but
I have seen enough of them to feel that they are
among the most intellectual the stage can give a
nation.
Believe me I remain, my dear sir,
Yery truly yours,
T. :^r. Talfoued.
J. H. Hackett, Esq.
212 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
ORIGINAL IN MY PORTFOLIO.
Copy of the last Letter received from the Honorable John Quincy
Adams, Ex-President of the United States.
Quincy, 4 Nov. 1845.
To James H. Hackett^ JEsq.
Tkemont House, Boston.
My Dear Sir — I return herewith the very inte-
resting vohime of your manuscript notes upon
Shakespeare, and upon the representation of several
of the persons of his Drama by sundry eminent per-
formers of our cotemporaries.
I thank you for the privilege of perusing these
notes and for your letter, and, in conformity with
your request, I inclose herewith and ask your ac-
ceptance of a few scattered leaves, containing
remarks of mine upon Othello^ Romeo and Juliet^
and Lear.^ They were written in letters to a friend
who thouglit them worthy of publication with my
consent, although by many of their readers they
have been deemed paradoxical, perhaps heretical.
The remarks upon the character of Desdemona have
been thought by many of her admirers, unreasona-
bly severe, and perhaps the opposition they have
encountered may have tended to confirm me in my
own opinions. Mrs. Inchbald's almost adoration of
* Since hound hereinafter. — J. H. H.
SHAKESPEKEAN SUBJECTS. 213
the cuuniiig ^ that's "married to Oiltello^'*
and Dr. Johnson's grave admiration of the artless
simplicity of the " super-subtle Yenetian," are
strangely at variance with my estimation of the
sound canons of criticism. The same Dr. Johnson,
in his life of Dryden^ says, that when hard pressed
by the critics of his time, upon the immorality of his
comedies, as a last resort he turned upon his accusers
and denied that a comic poet was under any obliga-
tion to preach morality. Pope, however, is not of
the same opinion, with regard to tragedy.
'* To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius and to mend the heart.
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene and be what they behold.
For this, the Tragic Muse first had the stage,
Commanding tears to stream thro' every age.
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wondered why they wept."
Tragedy, then, is, in its nature, pre-eminently
devoted to Morals ; but when, in one of the inclosed
papers, I said that in the days of manhood I had
studied Shakespeare chiefly as a teacher of morals, I
was answered, after the manner of Dryden, that this
was degrading Shakespeare to the level of Esop.
In France, the theatre is sometimes made the
school of Politics, and in England it would have
* A word which his daughter could not be expected to write — thero
fore omitted.
214 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
been made so, but for the counter-check of the Lord
Chamberlain's license. In the month, I think, of
April, 1TS5, I was present in the Cathedral church
of Notre Dame, and witnessed a solemn procession
of Louis the Sixteenth, then called " Louis le bien
faisant," with all his Court to return thanks to
Almighty God in His Holy Temple for the birth of
the Duke of E^ormandy, his second son, who, not
long afterwards, by the decease of his elder brother,
became the Dauphin of France, and was the hapless
child, who, a few years later, perished an apprentice
to a shoemaker, under the discipline of Kevolu-
tionary France. The Bourbon family and their ad-
herents call him " Louis the Seventeenth," and his
fate, in the vicissitudes of human life, closely resem-
bles that of the person called " Edward the Fifth,"
in the History of England. The solemn procession
of the absolute monarch of France to the Te Deum
of that day, made a deep impression upon my mind.
More than six years before I had witnessed the most
splendid illumination of Paris that my eyes ever
beheld, upon the birth of the first child of the same
Louis the Sixteenth, the Duchess of Angouleme.
On both these occasions it seemed as if there was
one universal burst of jo}^ throughout the whole
kingdom of France. But, not many days after the
Te Deum at the Cathedral church of ISTotre Dame, I
saw performed at the Theatre Frangais, the tragedy
of Rhadamisthe et Zenobie, by the elder Crtibillon.
In that tragedy, the principal character, being him-
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 215
self kiiiior otWrmenia, appears as an ambassador from
Home at the Court of liis own father, King of Iberia,
and, after complaining, in the name of the Koman
Republic, of certain preparations for war on the part
of the King of Armenia," which had excited the
jealousy of the Roman Republic, he says in a tone
of insolent menace —
" Rome, de tant d'apprets qui s'indigne et se lasse,
N'a point accoutumer les Reds h. tant d'audace."t
[CrehillorLS Tragedy of Rhadamisthe et Zenohie.
N"ever in the course of my attendance upon the-
atrical performances throughout my life, did I hear
a more deafening and universal shout of applause,
than upon the delivery of these two lines, marked
by the peculiar emphasis with which the actor
dwelt upon the words " les Rois.^^ I shall never
forget the eflect of this incident upon my reflections
at the time. Louis the Sixteenth was yet an abso-
lute king — he seemed still seated in the affections
of his people, who still boasted of their attachment
beyond all other nations to the persons of their
sovereigns. His reign had been successful and
glorious ! How often since the Te Deum for the
birth of the Duke of ISTormandy and the perform-
* iberia, I think Mr. Adams intended, and dictated to his daughter,
who at that date was his social amanuensis. — J. H. H.
f Rome, outraged and weary of such preparations,
Has never accustomed Kings to such audacity. — J. H. H.
216 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
ance of Crebillon's tragedy — occurring so nearly at
the same time — have those two incidents reminded
me of the lines of Gray's bard —
" Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the Zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes ;
Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm ;
Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway,
That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey."
Let me return to Shakespeare. As a teacher of
morals, you will perceive that, in the inclosed
papers, I have expressed the opinion that he was
not sufficiently so considered by the performers
of his j)ersonages upon the stage. I excepted Mrs.
Siddons, whose —
" I say, take heed, my lord !'*
I shall never forget. When these remarks were
written, I had never seen you upon the boards, and
had not the pleasure of your acquaintance. I hope
that, upon the character of Desdemona — upon the
absurdity of restoring Lear to his Crown, and upon
the age of Juliet^ I shall not find myself so wide
from the coincidence of your judgment as I have
from that of many other admirers of the Swan of
Avon.
Not intending to try your temper with a sermon
in return for the pleasure which I have received
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 217
from your manuscript, I will close with the assur-
ance of my grateful and respectful esteem.
(Signed) John Qulncy Adams.
Note. — Mr. Adams was born July 11, 1767. Died in the
Capitol at Washington, Feb. 23, 1848.
MISCONCEPTIONS OF SHAKESPEAEE,
UPON THE STAGE.
BY J. Q. ADAMS.
My admiration of Shakespeare, as a profound
delineator of human nature and a sublime poet, is
but little short of idolatry. I think he is often mis-
understood, as performed on the stage.
The character of Juliet, for example, is travestied
almost into burlesque, by the alteration of the text
in the scene where the nurse, with so much pre-
cision, fixes her age {Act 1, Scene 3). The nurse
declares she knows it to an hour, and that next Lam-
mas eve (which Lady Capulet says will be in a fort-
night and odd days) she will be fourteen. Upon
this precise age, the character of Juliet,, her dis-
course, her passion, and the deep pathos of the
interest that we take in her fate, very largely repose.
Born under Italian skies, she is at the very moment
of transition from the child to the woman. Her
10
218 SHAKESPEKEAN SUBJECTS.
love is the pure impuke of intelligent, sensitive
nature — -first love — unconscious and undissembled
nature, childliood expanding into maturity, physical
and intellectual — all innocence, all ardor, all ecstasy.
How irresistibly are our sympathies moved at seeing
the blossom blasted at the very moment while it is
opening to the sun ! As the play is performed on
the stage, the nurse, instead of saying that Juliet^ at
the next Lammas eve, will be fourteen, says she will
be nineteen. Nineteen ! In what country of the
world was a young lady of nineteen ever constantly
attended by a nurse ? Between the ages of thir-
teen and fourteen, a nurse, in a noble Italian family
of the middle ages, was not yet^an unnatural com-
panion. On the verge of nineteen, the nurse is not
only supernumerary, but very much out of place.
Take away the age of Juliet, and you take away
from her all her individuality, all the consistency
of her character, all that childish simplicity, which,
blended with the fervor of her passion, constitutes
her greatest charm. In what but in that, and in
everythmg which she does and says, congenial to
that age, does she differ from Yiola^ from Miranda,
from Ophelia, and indeed from all the lovely daugh-
ters of Shakespeare's muse ? They are all in love,
but you can never mistake one of them for another.
The peculiarities of Juliet all have reference to her
age ; and that which in her mouth is enchanting,
would seem but frothy nonsense from a woman five
years older. Juliet says —
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 219
" And when Romeo dies,
Take him and cut him up in Httle stans,
And he shall make the face of Heaven so fine,
That all the world shall grow in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun."
In the incomparable beauty of this passage, as
spoken by a girl under fourteen, there is something
too childish for a woman of nineteen, however
desperately in love. One, who has been accustomed
to personate Juliet as a young woman of nineteen,
may see no incongruity with that age in her cha-
racter ; yet that one, who has herself passed through
both those stages of life, should not understand the
difference of maturitv between the as^es of fourteen
and of nineteen in the female sex, is scarcely con-
ceivable. Tliat Shakespeare should have con-
founded them, is impossible. That he intended to
make the a<je of Juliet an exposition of her character,
is evident from the special care he has taken to
make the nurse announce it. If the meanest of dra-
matists were to undertake to write a tragedy, and
to draw the character and to repeat the discourse of
a girl of fourteen, attended throughout the play by
a nurse, can we imagine that he would change the
age to nineteen and yet retain the nurse, and give
to the full-formed woman the same character and
the same tone of dialogue which he would to
the ripening child of fourteen ? Such a writer
would prove himself as poor a proficient in the
220 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
scliool of human nature as in tliat of Shakes-
peare."^
In that ever memorable delineation of the Life of
man, and its division into " seven ages," by Jaques,
in the comedy of " As you Like it," the meditative
moralist says that each man in his turn plays many
parts. He says, too, that all the men and women
are merely players. In coming to the details, he
exhibits only the seven ages of the Tnan j but there
was certainly in the mind of the poet a correspond-
ing division in the ages of the woman / and Juliet,
at any age short of fourteen, and yet under the care
of a nurse, partakes at once, in the relation of her
sex, of the school-boy with his satchel and shining
morning face, creeping like a snail unwillingly to
school, and of the lover sighing like a furnace, with
a woful ballad made to his mistress's eyebrow.
Shakespeare was not the observer and painter of
* Th6 history and traditions of the stage do not furnish a single
instance of an actress who by Nature or Art seemed not more than
nineteen years of age, and yet was able to perform with adequate
effect the latter portion of the character of Juliet. The most famous
representatives have attained to an age of twenty-five or thirty years
prior to an acquirement of the prerequisites of mind, art, and experi-
ence upon tlie stage. It has been generally in an actress asking quite
indulgence enough of an audience to suppose her age not more than
^^ nineteen;" whereas, had any called it ^^ fourteen,'''' instead of a pass-
ing wink of silent consent, she would have been very apt to cause a
general titter, and among the rude spectators some derisive lauglitcr.
.The alteration of " fourteen " to nineteen, is one of the absolute necessi-
ties of stage representation. Mrs. Siddons is said to have continued
acceptable as JuUdvfhQn over forty-three years of age. — J. H. Uackeit.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 221
nature, to confound them togetlier. If lie had exhi-
bited in action a school-boy of between thirteen and
fourteen, think you that he would have given him
the features, or inspired him with the language and
ideas of a lover at nineteen ? Our youth at fourteen
are yet under the age of passing from the school to
the university ; at nineteen, many of them have
already closed their career at the university and
passed into the busy scenes of active life. The
female mind and person hastens also to maturity in
advance of the male ; and a woman at nineteen is
generally more completely formed than a man at
twenty-one.
Shakespeare, with his intuitive sagacity, has also
marked the characteristics of the change between
these two of his " seven ages." In the " Merchant
of Yenice," when Portia proposes to Kerissa that
they should assume male attire and go to Yenice,
she says —
" I'll hold thee any wager,
When we are both apparell'd like young men,
I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
And speak between the change of man and hoy
With a reed voice ; and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride ; and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth ; and tell quaint lyes
How honorable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died.
I could not do withal : then I'll repent,
And wish, for all that, that I had not kill'd them —
222 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
And twenty of these puny lyes I'll tell,
That men shall swear I've discontinued school
Above a twelvemonth^*
Tragedy, according to the admirable definition of
Aristotle, is a poem imitative of human life, and the
object of which is to purify the soul of the spectator
by the agency of terror and pity. The terror is
excited by the incidents of the story and the suffer-
ings of the person represented ; the pity, by the
interest of sympathy with their characters. Terror
and pity are moved by the mere aspect of human
sufferings ; but the sympathy is strong or weak, in
proportion to the interest that we take in the charac-
ter of the sufferer. With this definition of tragedy,
" Romeo and Juliet " is a drama of the highest
order. The incidents of terror and the sufferings of
the principal persons of the drama arouse every
sympathy of the soul, and the interest of sympathy
with Juliet. She unites all the interest of ecstatic
love, of unexampled calamity, and of the peculiar
tenderness which the heart feels for innocence in
childhood. Most truly, then, says the Prince of Ve-
rona, at the conclusion of the play —
" For never was a story of more wo
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
Tlie age of Juliet seems to be the key to her cha-
racter throughout the play, an essential ingredient
* Act 3, Scene 5.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 223
in tlie intense sympathy wliicli slie inspires ; and
Shakespeare has marked it, not only in her dis-
course, but even in her name, the diminutive of ten-
der affections applied only to childhood. If Shake-
speare had exhibited upon the stage a woman of
nineteen, he would have dismissed her nurse and
called her Julia. She might still have been a very
interesting character, but the whole color and com-
plexion of the play must have been changed. An
intelligent, virtuous woman, in love with a youth of
assorted age and congenial character, is always a
person of deep interest in the drama. But that
interest is heightened and redoubled when, to the
sympathy with the lover, you add all the kind affec-
tions with which you share in the joys and sorrows
of the child. There is childishness in the discourse
of Juliet, and the poet has shown us why ; because
she had scarcely ceased to be a child. There is non-
sense in the alteration of Shakespeare's text upon
the stage.
There are several of the most admired plays of
Shakespeare which give much more pleasure to read
than to see performed upon the stage. For instance,
Othello and Lear ; both of which abound in beautv
of detail, in poetical passages, in highly-wrought and
consistently preserved characters. But, the pleasure
that we take in witnessing a performance upon the
stage, depends much upon the sympathy that we
feel with the sufferings and enjoyments of the good
characters represented, and upon the punishment of
224 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
the bad. We never can sympathize much with
Desdemona or with Leay\ because we never can
separate them from the estimate that the lady
is little less than a wanton, and the old king nothing
less than a dotard. "Who can sympathize with the
love of Desdemona f — the daughter of a Venetian
nobleman, born and educated to a splendid and
lofty station in the community. She falls in love
and makes a runaway match with a blackamoor, for
no better reason than that he has told her a brag-
gart story of his hair-breadth escapes in war. For
this, she not only violates her duties to her father,
her family, her sex, and her country, but she makes
the first advances. She tells Othello she wished
Heaven had made her such a man, and informs him
how any friend of his may win her by telling her
again his story. On that hint, says he, I spoke ;
and well he might. The blood must circulate
briskly in the veins of a young woman, so fascinated,
and so coming to the tale of a rude, unbleached
African soldier.
The great moral lesson of the tragedy of Othello
is, that black and white blood cannot be inter-
mingled in marriage without a gross outrage upon
the law of !N"ature ; and that, in such violations, ITa-
ture will vindicate her laws. The moral of Othello
is not to beware of jealousy, for jealousy is well
founded in the character and conduct of his wife,
though not in the fact of her infidelity with Cassio.
Desdemona is not false to her husband, but she has
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 225
been false to the purity and delicacy of lier sex ai^d
condition when she married him ; and the last words
spoken by her father on parting from them, after he
has forgiven her and acquiesced in the marriage,
are —
" Look to her, Moor; have a quick eye to see:
She has deceived her father, and may thee."
And this very idea is that by which the crafty villain
lago works up into madness the jealousy of Othello.
Whatever sympathy we feel for the sufferings of
Desdemona flows from the consideration that she is
innocent of the particular crime imputed to her, and
that she is the victim of a treacherous and artful
intriguer. But, while compassionating her melan-
choly fate, we cannot forget the vice of her charac-
ter. Upon the stage, her fondling with Othello is
disgusting. Who, in real life, would have her for a
sister, daughter, or wife ? She is not guilty of infi-
delity to her husband, but she forfeits all the affec-
tion of her father and all her own filial affection for
him. When the duke proposes, on the departure of
Othello for the war, that she should return during
his absence to her father's house, the father, the
daughter and the husband all say " ^o !" She pre-
fers following Othello, to be besieged by the Turks
in the island of Cyprus.
The character of Desdemona is admirably drawn
and faithfully preserved throughout the play. It is
always deficient in delicacy. Her conversations with
10*
226 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
Mniliamdicsite unsettled principles, even with regard
to the obligations of the nuptial tie, and she allows
Jago, almost unrebuked, to banter with her very
coarsely upon women. This character takes from
us so much of the sympathetic interest in her sufler-
incrs, that when Othello smothers her in bed, the ter-
TOY and the pity subside immediately into the senti-
ment that she has her deserts.*
We feel a similar want of interest in the character
and fortunes oVLear^ as represented upon the stage.
The story of Lear^ as those of Othello and Romeo
and Juliet^ was ready-made to the hand of Shake-
speare. They were not of his invention. King
Lear and his three daughters form a part of the
fabulous history of England. The dotage of an abso-
* I must differ materially with Mr, Adams in his estimate of the
character of Desdemona. She had frequently seen Othello when invited
by her father to his domicile — she was struck by his valiant parts, and
became so infatuated that she saw Othello's visage only in his mind,
and eventually resolved to consecrate to him her life and fortunes as
his wife.
I agree with Mr. Adams respecting the moral which Shakespeare
designed to convey so far as it involves a caution to fathers that they
should " never introduce to their domestic hearths where they have a
daughter, young, warm-hearted, and very susceptible of impression,
any man, who, from his nature or his conditions in life, might, if such
daughter happened to fancy him, prove an unsuitable husband for
her." Because, there is no accounting for differences of taste, and
often the obstinacy of some women's natures will induce them to
entertain a man's professions of love and admiration, and yield to his
fascinations, the more readily from h&m^put upon their guard against
him as "an improper suitor;" especially certain young girls, with
whom passion is often stronger than reason. — J. H. ffacJcett.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 227
lute monarch may be a suitable subject of tragedy ;
and Shakespeare has made a deep tragedy of it.
But, as exhibited upon the stage, it is turned into a
comedy. Lea;i\ the dotard and the madman, is
restored, to his throne, and Cordelia finishes with a
wedding. "What can be more absurd !
Dotage and madness, in the j^erson of a king, pos-
sessed of the power to give away his kingdom at
his pleasure, afford melancholy contemplations of
human nature. They are not fit subjects for comedy.
Lear is no more fit to be restored to his kincrdom
than Christopher Sly is to be metamorphosed into
a lord."^ Lear is a dotard and a madman from the
first scene in the play, and his insanity commences
with such revolting injustice to his only affectionate
daughter, that we feel but little compassion for
whatever may afterwards befall him. The interest-
ing character of the play is Cordelia / and what a
lovely character it is ! But the restoration of a
dotard from old age to his senses is as much out of
* After seeing Edmund Kean perform Lear at New York in 1826,
I expressed to him my surprise at his choice of Nahum Tate's altera-
tion to the great OriginaVs conclusion of the tragedy. Mr, Keau
observed: — '"I do not prefer it, but I first studied Tate's alteration
and acted accordingly, because it was popular. Afterwards I restored
Shakespeare's text and conclusion, and acted that ; but, when I had
ascertained that a large majority of the public — whom we live to
please, and must please to be popular — liked Tate better than Shake-
speare, I fell back upon his corruption ; though in my soul I was
ashamed of the prevaihng taste, and of my professional condition that
required me to minister unto it."
228 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
nature as the restoration to his throne is prepos-
terous. Lea)\ as Shakespeare painted him, is the
wreck of a mighty mind and proud spirit, sunk
from despotic power into dotage, and maddened
by the calamitous consequences of his own imbeci-
lity. His madness, with hicid flashes of intellect, is
incurable. It is terrible ! it is piteous ! But it is
its effect on the fortunes and fate of Cordelia that
constitutes the chief interest of the spectator ; and
Lear himself, from his first appearance, loses all
title to compassion.^
The chief import of these objections to the man-
ner in which Shakespeare's plays are represented
upon the stage, is to vindicate the great " master of
the drama" from the liberties taken by stage-
managers with his text. In Romeo and Juliet^ the
alteration of a single word — the substitution of nine-
teen for fourteen — changes the whole character of
the play — makes that, which is a perfect imitation of
nature, incongruous absurdity, and takes from one of
the loveliest creations of Shakespeare half her charm.
* Shakespeare has pointed the moral the more strongly by letting
Cordelia find suffering in life and eventually share death with her
father ; when the doting and imbecile Octogenarian despot was in the
act of dividing his kingdom, and coveted, and expected, and exacted
of each of his daughters their warmest expressions of filial affection,
Cordelia, instead of gently and innocently humoring her weak but
loving and partial father, showed the slight but only fault in lier cha-
racter, by obstinacy and reserve. To her truth and coldness, and her
father's rashness and folly, then may be traced the primary causes of
the sad catastrophe. — J. H. Hackeit.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 229
PEKSO:N'ATIO:NrS OF THE CHAEACTEES OF
SHAKESPEAEE.
(extracts FEOM the MS. LBTTEES OF A CELEBRATED
PERSONAGE.)
I HAVE been, man and boy, a reader of Shakespeare
at least three score years. A pocket edition of him
was among the books of my mother's nursery-library,
and at ten years of age I was as familiarly acquainted
with his lovers and his clowns, as with Eobinson
Crusoe, the Pilgrim's Progress, and the Bible. In
later years I have left Eobinson and the Pilgrim to
the perusal of the children ; but have continued to
read the Bible and Sliakespeare, always recognising
the precedence of veneration due to the holy Scrip-
tures.
I have read Shakespeare as a teacher of morals —
as a student of human nature — as a painter of life
and manners — as an anatomical dissecter of the
passions — as an artificer of imaginary worlds — as
at once the sublimest and most philosophic of
poets.
"When I say that my admiration of Shakespeare is
little short of idolatry, I mean to be understood that
it is not idolatry — that I hold him amenable to the
common laws of criticism, and feel at liberty to cen-
sure in him, as well the vices of his age, which
280 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
abound in all Lis plays, as his own faults, from
wliicli lie is bv no means exempt. Yet, admiring
him as I do, with all his blemishes, I take no plea-
sure in dwelling upon them. My remarks were con-
lined to the different impressions made upon me by
the true Shakespeare in my closet, and by the spuri-
ous Shakespeare often exhibited upon the stage.
I had been more than seven years a reader of
Shakespeare before I saw any of his plays performed.
Fifty-two years have passed away since I first saw
John Kemble, in the vigor of early manhood, per-
sonate, upon the boards of Drury Lane, the charac-
ter of Hamlet. It was the first play that I ever saw
performed in England — the first of Shakespeare's
plays that I had seen performed anywhere — and I
was disappointed. I had been much accustomed to
the theatres of France — far advanced beyond those
of England in the art of dramatic representation —
and although John Kemble was then in his prime,
and Hamlet was one of his favorite parts, in the
comparison wdiich crowded upon my mind, between
Drury Lane and the Theatre Fran9ais at Paris, and
between the Hamlet of John Kemble and the Ham-
let whicli I had by heart from Shakespeare, the
Prince of Denmark himself, the most admirable of
all Shakespeare's jportraits of man^ became to me a
weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable personage. Such
was the impression left upon me by the first exhibi-
tion that I ever witnessed of Shakespeare upon the
stage ; and that impression, after the lapse of more
SnAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 231
than half a centniy, remains iineifacedj and, while
meraoiy holds her seat, unefFaceable from my mind.
I have since then seen almost all the plays of
Shakespeare that are ever exhibited upon the stage
— Mrs. Siddons, in the character of Isabella^ of
Queen Catharine^ of Hamlefs Mother^ and of Lady
Macbeth / Mrs. Jordan in the characters of Yiola
and of Ophelia / Miss Wallace and Miss O'Neil in
that of Juliet / Mrs. Abington in that of Beatrice /
Miss Foote in that of Imogen • and the parts of
Hamlet, Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Richard
Sd, Falstaff, Mercutio, Benedich, Shyloch, lago,
Romeo, and Petruchio by John Kemble, Palmer,
Kean, Cooper, Fawcett, Lewis, Mackliu, and Booth ;
besides the parts of Hamlet and Cardinal Wolsey
by Henderson, and the grave-diggers and clowns by
Parsons, Quick, Munden, and Liston. There was
scarcely an eminent performer at Drury Lane or
Co vent Garden, for the space of thirty -five years,
from 1783 to 1817, but I have seen grapple with
some of the persons of Shakespeare's drama. The
female parts I have thought generally well per-
formed, though that of Jidiet was always disfigured
by the substitution of that age of nineteen for the
original fourteen. The consequence of which has
been that the enchanting mixture of childish frailty
and innocence, with her burning and hopeless love,
which constitute the profound pathos of the tragedy,
is entirely lost. Of all the performers that I have
ever seen presuming to speak the language, and to
232 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
convey the thoughts of Shakespeare, Mrs. Siddons
has appeared to me to understand them best. Hen-
derson's Hamlet and ^Yolsey^ Macklin's Shyloch^
Lea Lewis's Mercutio^ John Kemble's Lear and
Macbeth^ Kean's Richard^ Parsons's Grave-Digger^
Liston's Launcelot Gobbo^ Mrs. Jordan's Viola, and
Mrs. Abington's Beatrice, have been among the
most renowned of personations of Shakespeare's
parts since the days of Garrick. But in my, per-
haps eccentric, judgment, no person can deliver the
words and ideas of Shakespeare who has not been
accustomed to study them as a teacher of morals —
ih^ first of the capacities in which I have looked up
to him since, in my career of life, I have passed the
third of his seven ages. As a school-boy, I de-
lighted in him as a teller of tales and a joker of
jokes. As a lover, I gazed with ecstasy upon the
splendors of his imagination, and the heart-cheering,
heart-rending joys and sorrows of his lovers. J^ever
as a soldier ; but in the age of active manhood,
which he allots to that profession, I have resorted
to him as a pilgrim to the shrine of a saint, for
moral, ay, and for religious instruction. I have
found in the story of most of his plays, in the cha-
racters of most of his personages, in the incidents
of his fables, in the sentences of unparalleled solem-
nity and magnificence, delivered as part of the dia-
logue of his speakers, nay, in the very conceits and
quibbles of his clowns, lessons of the most elevated
and comprehensive morality. Some of them have
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 233
at times almost tempted me to believe in tliem as
of more than poetical inspiration. But, excei3ting
John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, I never met with a
player who appeared to me to have thought of
Shakespeare as a moralist at all, or to have inquired
what were the morals that he taught ; and, as I
have said, John Kemble did not appear to me to
understand the character of Hamlet.^ Garrick
himself attempted to strike out the grave-digger
scene from the tragedy of Hamlet^ and the very
rabble of London, the gods of the galleries, forced
him to restore it. There is not, in the compass
of the drama, a scene of deeper and more philo-
sophical morality.
* Oh, how I would that Mr. Adams had expressed his reasons !
John Kemble died at Lausanne, in Switzerland, some six years prior
to my first visit to England, and therefore having never had an oppor-
tunity of seeing him, I can only form an idea of his claims to pre-
eminence in personating Hamlet from tradition or through his con-
temporary critics ; but, I can more readily impute to Mr, Adams
hypercriticism or an eccentric taste, than I can believe that John
Kemble could have been so popular for forty years, and yet not had
at least a generally good understanding of Hamlet^ s character. — J. H. H.
234 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
THE CHAEACTEE OF DESDEMOITA.
BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Theke are critics who cannot bear to see the vir-
tue and delicacy of Shakespeare's Desdemona called
in question ; who defend her on the ground that
Othello is not an Ethiopian, but a Moor ; that he is
not black, but only tawny ; and they protest against
the sable mask of Othello upon the stage, and
against the pictures of him in which he is always
painted black. They say that prejudices have been
taken against Desdemona from the slanders of lago^
from the railings of Roderigo^ from the disappointed
paternal rancor of Brahantio^ and from the despond-
ing concessions of Othello himself.
I have said, that since I entered upon the third
of Shakespeare's seven ages, the first and chief
capacity in which I have read and studied him is as
\ka teacher of morals ; and that I had scarcely ever
seen a player of his parts who regarded him as a
moralist at all. I further said, that in my judgment
no man could understand him who did not study
him pre-eminently as a teacher of morals. These
critics say they do not incline to put Shakespeare
on a level with ^sop ! Sure enough they do not
study Sliakespeare as a teacher of morals. To tliein^
therefore, Desdemona is a perfect character ; and
her love for Othello is not unnatural, because he is
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 235
not a Congo negro but only a sooty Moor, and lias
royal blood in liis veins.
My objections to the cliaracter of Desdemona
arise not from what lago^ or lioderigo^ or Brabantio^
or Othello says of lier ; but from what she herself
does. She absconds from her father's house, in the
dead of night, to marry a blackamoor. She breaks
a father's heart, and covers his noble house with
shame, to gratify — what ? Pure love, like that of
Juliet or Miranda f No ! unnatural passion ; it
cannot be named with delicacy. Her admirers now
say this is criticism of 1835 ; that the color of
Othello has nothing to do with the passion of Des-
demona. ISTo ? Why, if Othello had been white,
what need would there have been for her running
away with him ? She could have made no better
match. Her father could have made no reasonable
objection to it ; and there could have been no
tragedy. If the color of Othello is not as vital i^-
the whole tragedy as the age of Juliet is to her
character and destiny, then have I read Shakespeare
in vain. The father of Desdemona charges Othello
with magic arts in obtaining the affections of his
daughter. Why, but because her passion for him
is unnatural / and why is it unnatural, but because
of his color? In the very first scene, in the dia-
logue between Roderigo and lago^ before they ronse
Brahantio to inform him of his daughter's elope-
ment, Icoderigo contemptuously calls Othello *' the
thick lips." I cannot in decency quote here — bnt
236 SHAKESrEREAN SUBJECTS.
turn to the book, and see in what language lago
announces to her father his daughter's shameful
misconduct. The language of Roderigo is more
supportable. He is a Yenetian gentleman, himself
a rejected suitor of Desdetnona ^ and who has been
forbidden by her father access to his house. E-oused
from his repose at the dead of night by the loud
cries of these two men, Brdbantio spurns, with in-
dignation and scorn, the insulting and beastly lan-
guage of lago ^ and sharply chides Roderigo^ whom
he supposes to be hovering about his house in defi-
ance of his prohibitions and in a state of intoxica-
tion. He threatens him with punishment. Ro-
derigo replies —
" Rod. Sir, I will answer any thing. But I beseech you,
If t be your pleasure, and most wise consent,
(As partly, I find, it is), that your fair daughter
At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,
Transported — with no worse nor better guard,
But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier, —
To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor, —
If this be known to you, and your allowance,
We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs ;
But if you know not this, my manners tell me,
"We have your w^rong rebuke. Do not believe,
That, from the sense of all civility,
I thus would play and trifle with your reverence :
Your daughter — if you have not given her leave, —
I say again, hath made a gross revolt ;
Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes.
To an extravagant and wheeling stranger.
Of here and every where : Straight satisfy yourself:
SnAKESPEREA:^ SUBJECTS. 237
If she be in her chamber, or your house,
Let loose on me the justice of the state,
For thus deluding you."
Struck by this speech as by a clap of thunder,
Brabantio calls up his people, remembers a porten-
tous dream, calls for light, goes and searches with
his servants, and comes back saying —
" It is too true an evil : gone she is :
And what's to come of my despised time,
Is nought but bitterness."
The father's heart is broken ; life is no longer of
any value to him ; he repeats this sentiment time
after time whenever he appears in the scene ; and
in the last scene of the play, where Desdemona lies
dead, her uncle Gratiano says —
" Poor Desdemona ! I am glad thy father's dead,
Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief
Shore his old thread in twain."
Indeed ! indeed ! I must Iook at Shakespeare in
this, as in all his pictures of human life, in the capa-
city of a teacher of morals. I must believe that, in
exhibiting a daughter of a Venetian nobleman of
the highest rank eloping in the dead of the night to
marry a thick-lipped wool-headed Moor, opening a
train of consequences which lead to her own de-
struction by her husband's hands, and to that of her
father by a broken heart, he did not intend to pre-
sent her as an example of the perfection of female
238 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
virtue. I must look first at the action, then at the
motive, then at the consequences, before I inquire
in what light it is received and represented by the
other persons of the drama. The first action of
Desdeinona discards all female delicacy, all filial
duty, all sense of ingenuous shame. So I consider
it — and so it is considered by her own father. Her
ofi'ence is not a mere elopement from her father's
house for a clandestine marriage. I hope it requires
no unreasonable rigor of morality to consider even
that as suited to raise a prepossession rather unfavor-
able to the character of a young woman of refined
sensibility and elevated education. But an elope-
ment for a clandestine marriage with a blackamoor !
That is the measure of my estimation of the cha-
racter of Desdeinona from the beginning ; and when
I have passed my judgment upon it, and find in the
play that from the first moment of her father's
knowledge of the act it made him loathe his life,
and that it finally broke his heart, I am then in time
to inquire, what was the deadly venom which in-
flicted the immedicable wound : — and what is it,
but the color of Othello f
"ISTow, Eoderigo,
Where did'st thou see her ? — Oh, unhappy girl ! —
With the Moor, say'st thou ? — Who would be a father ?"
These are the disjointed lamentations of the
wretched parent when the first disclosure of his
daughter's shame is made known to him. This
SHAKESrEEEAN SUBJECTS. 239
scene is one of tlie iuimitable pictures of liuman
passion in the hands of Shakespeare, and that half
line
" With the Moor, say'st thou ?"
comes from the deepest recesses of the soul.
Again, when Brahaiitio first meets Othello^ he
breaks out :
" 0, tliou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?
Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her :
For I'll refer me to all things of sense,
If she, in chains of magic were not bound,
Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,
So opposite to marriage that she shunn'd
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation.
Would ever have to incur our general mock.
Run from her guardage to the sooty hosom
Of such a thing as thou ; to fear, not to delight."
Several of the English commentators have puz-
zled themselves with the inquiry why the epithet
" curled" is here applied to the wealthy darlings of
the nation ; and Dr. Johnson thinks it has no refer-
ence to the hair ; but it evidently has. The curled
hair is in antithetic contrast to the sooty bosom, the
thick lips, and the woolly head.^ The contrast of
* " Wealthy cttrled darUngs."^
The negro's hair curled like wool naturally ; the Yenetians' locks of
hair were curled artificially, and betrayed vanity and effeminacy in
their desire to become the " darlings" of the ladies, whose curls adorn
their countenance, and in many of the sex are not produced by nature^
but also by the art of the toilette. — J. H. H.
240 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
color is the very hinge upon which Bralantio founds
his charge of magic, counteracting the impulse of
nature.
At the close of the same scene (the second of the
first act), Brdbantio^ hearing that the duke is in
council upon public business of the State, deter-
mines to carry Othello before him for trial upon the
charge of magic. " Mine," says he,
" Mine's not a middle cause ; the duke himself
Or any of my brothers of the State
Cannot but feel the wrong, as 'twere their own :
For if such actions may have passage free,
Bond slaves and Pagans shall our statesmen be."
And Steevens, in his note on this passage, says, " He
alludes to the common condition of all blacks who
come from their own country, both slaves and
pagans I and uses the word in contempt of Othello
and his complexion. If this Moor is now suffered
to escape with impunity, it will be such an encou-
ragement to his black countrymen, that we may
expect to see all the first ofiices of our state filled
up by the Pagans and bond-slaves of Africa."
Othello himself in his narrative says that he had
been taken by the insolent foe and sold to slavery.
He had heen a slave.
Once more — When Desdemona pleads to the
Duke and the Council for permission to go with
Othello to Cyprus, she says.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 241
" That I did love the Moor, to Uve with him,
My downright violence and storm of fortune
May trumpet to the world ; my heart's subdued,
Even to the very quality of my lord;
I saw Othello's visage in his mind ;
And to his honours and his valiant parts
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate."
In commenting upon this passage, Mr. Henley
says, " That qicality here signifies the Moorish com-
jylexioii of Othello, and not his military profession
(as Malone had supposed), is obvious from what
immediately follows : ' I saw Othello's visage in his
mind ;' and also from what the Duke says to Bror
hantio —
" If virtue no dehghted beauty lack
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black."
The characters of Othello and lago in this play
are evidently intended as contrasted pictures of
human nature, each setting off the other. They ara ,
national portraits of man — the Italiak and the
MooK. The Italian is vMte^ crafty^ and cruel '^ a
consummate villain ; yet, as often happens in the
realities of that description whom we occasionally
meet in the intercourse of life, so vain of his own
artifices that he betrays himself by boasting of them
and their success. Accordingly, in the very first
scene he reveals to Roderigo the treachery of his
own character :
11
242 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
" For when my outward action cloth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In comphment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at : I am not what I am."
There is a seeming inconsistency in the fact that a
clonble- dealer should disclose his own secret, which
must necessarily put others upon their guard against
him ; but the inconsistency is in human nature, and
not in the poet.
The double-dealing Italian is a very intelligent
man, a keen and penetrating, observer, and full of
ingenuity to devise and contrive base expedients.
His language is coarse, rude, and obscene : his
humor is caustic and bitter. Conscious of no honest
principle in himself, he believes not in the existence
of honesty in others. He is jealous and suspicious ;
quick to note every trifle light as air, and to draw
from it inferences of evil as confirmed circumstances.
In his dealings with the Moor, while he is even
harping upon his honesty, he oflfers to commit any
murder from extreme attachment to his person and
interests. In all that lago says of others, and espe-
cially of Desde7)iona^ there is a mixture of truth
and falsehood, blended together, in which the truth
itself serves to accredit the lie ; and such is the ordi-
nary character of malicious slanders. Doctor John-
son speaks of " the soft simplicity," the " innocence,"
the " artlessness " of Desdemona. lago speaks of
her as a supersiibtle Yenetiau ; and. when kindling
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 243
tlie sparks of jealousy in tlie soul of Othello^ lie
says,
" She did deceive her father, marrying you :
And when she seemed to shake and fear your looks,
She loved them most."
" And so she did," answers Othello. This charge,
then, was true ; and Ia(jo replies :
" Why, go to, then ;
She that so young could give out such a seeming
To seal her father's eyes up, close as oak. —
He thought 'twas witchcraft."
It was not witchcraft ; but surely as little was it
simplicity, innocence, artlessness. The eflect of this
suggestion upon Othello is terrible only because he
knows it is true. Brcibantio^ on parting from him,
had just given him the same warning, to which he
had not then paid the slightest heed. But soon his
suspicions are roused — he tries to repel them ; they
are fermenting in his brain : he appears vehemently
moved and yet unwilling to acknowledge it. lago^
with fiend-like sagacity, seizes upon the paroxysm
of emotion, and then comes the following dia-
loirue : —
'O
" lago. My lord, I see you are mov'd.
OtheUo. No, not much mov'd : —
I do not think but Desdemona's honest,
lago. Long live she so ! and long live you to think so f
OtheUo. And yet, how nature erring from itself, —
244: SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
lago. Ay, there's the point : — As, — to be bold with you, —
Not to affect many proposed matches,
Of her own chme, complexion, or degree ;
Whereto, we see, in all things nature tends :
Foh ! one may smell, in such, a w411 most rank
Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural" —
The deadly venom of these imputations, worKmg
up to frenzy the suspicions of the Moor, consist not
in their falsehood but in their truth.
I have said the character of Desdemona was defi-
cient in delicacy. Besides the instances to which I
referred in proof of this charge, observe what she
says in pleading for the restoration of Cassio to his
office, from which he had been cashiered by Othello
for beastly drunkenness and a consequent night-
brawl, in which he had stabbed Montano — the pre-
decessor of Othello as Governor of Cyprus — and
nearly killed him ; yet in urging Othello to restore
Cassio to his office and to favor, Desdemona says —
" — in faith, he's penitent ;
And yet his trespass, in our common reason,
(Save that, they say, the wars must make examples
Out of their best,) is not almost a fault
To incur a private check."
]S"ow, to palliate the two crimes of Cassio — his
drunken fit and his stabbing of Montano — the reader
knows that he has been inveigled to the commission
of them by the accursed artifices of lago / but Des-
demona knows nothiug of this ; she has no excuse
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 245
for Cassio — nothing to plead for him but his pbni-
tence. And is this the character for a woman of
delicate sentiment to give of such a complicated and
heinous offence as that of which Cassio had been
guilty, even when pleading for his pardon ? No ! it
is not for female delicacy to extenuate the crimes of
drunkenness and bloodshed, even when performing
the appropriate office of raising the soul-subduing
voice for mercy.
Afterwards, in the same speech, she says —
" What ! Michael Cassio,
That came a-wooing with you; and many a time,
When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,
Hath ta'en your part; to have so much to do
To bring him in !"
I will not inquire how far this avowal that she had
been in the frequent habit of speaking dispraisingly
of Othello at the very time when she was so deej^ly
enamored with his honors and his valiant parts,
was consistent with sincerity. Young ladies must
be allowed a little concealment and a little disguise,
even for passions of which they have no need to be
ashamed. It is the rosy pudency — the irresistible
charm of the sex ; but the exercise of it in satirical
censure upon the very object of their most ardent
affections is certainly no indication of innocence,
simplicity, or artlessness.
I still retain, tlien, the opinion —
\' First. That the passion of Desdcmona for Othello
246 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
is Mnnatural^ solely and exclusively because of liis
color.
'M Second. That lier elopement to him, and secret
marriage with him, indicate a personal character not
only very deficient in delicacy, but totally regard-
less of filial duty, of female modesty, and of ingenu-
ous shame.
XiThird. That her deficiency in delicacy is discerni-
ble in her conduct and discourse throughout the
play.
I perceive and acknowledge, indeed, the admira-
ble address with wdiich the part has been contrived
to inspire and to warm the breast of the spectator
with a deep interest in her fate ; and I am well
aware that my ow^n comparative insensibility to it is
not in unison with the general impression which it
produces upon the stage. I shrink from the thought
of slandering even a creature of the imagination.
When the spectator or reader follows, on the stage
or in the closet, the infernal thread of duplicity and
of execrable devices with which lacjo entangles his
victims, it is the purpose of the dramatist to merge
all the faults and vices of the sufi'erers in the over-
whelming flood of their calamities, and in the
nnmingled detestation of the inhuman devil, their
betrayer and destroyer. And in all this, 1 see not
only the skill of the artist, but the power of the
moral operator, the purifier of the spectator's heart
by the agency of terror and pity.
The characters of Othello and Desdemona^ like all
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 247
tlie characters of men and women in real life, are of
" miDgled yarn," with qualities of good and bad —
of virtues and vices in proportion diii'erentlj com-
posed. Icujo^ with a high order of intellect, is, in
moral principle, the very si^irit of evil. I have said
the moral of the tragedy is, that the intermarriage
of black and white blood is a violation of the law^ of
nature. That is the lesson to be learned from the
play. To exhibit all the natural consequences of
their act, the poet is compelled to make the marriage
secret. It must commence by an elopement, and
by an outrage upon the decorum of social inter-
course. He must therefore assume, for the perform-
ance of this act, persons of moral character suffi-
ciently frail and imperfect to be capable of perform-
ing it, but in other respects endowed with pleasing
and estimable qualities. Thus, the Moor is repre-
sented as of a free, and open, and generous nature ;
as a Christian ; as a distinguished military com-
mander in the service of the republic of Venice ; —
as having rendered important service to the State,
and as being in the enjoyment of a splendid reputa-
tion as a warrior. The other party to the marriage
is a maiden, fair, gentle, and accomplished; born
and educated in the proudest rank of Yenetian
nobility.
Othello^ setting aside his color, has every quality
to fascinate and charm the female heart. Desde-
QiKnia^ apart from the grossness of her fault
in being accessible to such a passion for such an
248 SHAKESPEEEAN SUBJECTS.
object, is amiable and lovelj ; among the most
attractive of lier sex and condition. Tlie faults of
their characters are never brought into action
excepting as they illustrate the moral principle of
the whole story. Othello is not jealous by nature.
On the contrary, with a strong natural understand-
ing, and all the vigilance essential to an experienced
commander, he is of a disposition so unsuspicious
and confiding, that he believes in the exceeding
honesty of lago long after he has ample cause to
suspect and distrust him. Desdertwna^ sujyersid^tle
as she is in the management of her amour with
Othello ^ deeply as she dissembles to deceive her
father ; and forward as she is in inviting the court-
ship of the Moor ; discovers neither artifice nor
duplicity from the moment that she is Othello's wife.
Her innocence, in all her relations with him, is pure
and spotless ; her kindness for Cassio is mere un-
tainted benevolence ; and, though unguarded in her
personal deportment towards him, it is far from the
slightest soil of culpable impropriety. Guiltless of
all conscious reproach in this part of her conduct,
she never uses any of the artifices to which she had
resorted to accomplish her marriage with Othello.
Always feeling that she has given him no cause of
suspicion, her endurance of his cruel treatment and
brutal abuse of her through all its stages of violence,
till he murders her in bed, is always marked with
the most affecting sweetness of temper, the most
perfect artlessness, and the most endeai'ing resigna-
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 249
tion. The defects of her cliaracter have here no
room for development, and the poet carefully keeps
them out of sight. Hence it is that the general
reader and spectator, with Dr. Johnson, give lier
imqualified credit for soft simplicity, artlessness, and
innocence — forgetful of the qualities of a different
and opposite character, stamped upon the transac-
tions by which she effected her marriage with the
Moor. The marriage, however, is the source of all
her calamities ; it is the primitive cause of all the
tragic incidents of the play, and of its terrible cata-
strophe. That the moral lesson to be learned from it
is of no practical utility in England, where there are
no valiant Moors to steal the affections of fair and
high-born dames, may be true ; the lesson, however,
is not the less, couched under the form of an admi-
rable drama ; nor needs it any laborious effort of the
imagination to extend the moral precept resulting
from the story to a salutary admonition against all
ill-assorted, clandestine, and unnatural mari*iages.
J. Q. A.
From Mr. Washington Irving.
New York, April 17, 1848.
My Dear Sir : — I have detained your manuscript
notes an unconscionable time, but I could not help
it. I wished to read them attentively, for they are
remarkably suggestive, and not to be read in a
11^
260 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
huiTj ; "but for the last two or tliree months spent
among my friends and relatives in my native city
after an absence of several years, I have been kept
in such a round of engagements, and such constant
excitement, that I have only now and then been
able to command a little leisure and quiet for read-
ing and reflection. At such moments I have perused
your manuscripts by piecemeal, and now return you
my many thanks for the great pleasure they have
afforded me. I will not pretend to enter at j^resent
into any discussion of the topics they embrace, for I
have not sufficient faith in my critical acumen to
commit my thoughts to paper, but when I have the
pleasure of meeting with you personally, we will
talk over these matters as largely as you please. I
have seen all the leading characters of Shakespeare
played by the best actors in America and England
during the present century ; some of them too,
admirably performed in Germany : I have heard
some of them chanted in the Italian Opera, and I
have seen the Ballet of Hamlet gravely danced at
Yienna. Yet with all this experience, I feel that I
am an amateur rather than a connoisseur ; prone to
receive great pleasure without nicely analysing the
source, and sometimes apt to clap my hands when
grave critics shake their heads.
Excuse this scrawl, written in a hurried moment,
and believe me, wdth great respect and regard.
Your obliged friend and servant,
Washington Irving.
James H. Hackett, Esq.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 251
Mr. IIaclie.it to the Earl of CtLrlisle.
43 St, jAiiEs's Place, Loxdox, i
December 26, 1851. (
My Loed : — In compliance with your compliinen-
taiy request, and in tlie hope of furnishing a little
discursive and desultory entertainment, I submit
herewith to your lordship's convenient perusal
copies of my correspondence respecting Hcmilet and
other Shakespearean subjects, together with com-
ments thereupon by certain literati.
The " manuscript volume " of mine referred to in
the letter of Mr. Washington Irving, and also in
the later of the two letters of the late Hon. John
Quincy Adams, I would hesitate — had I it with me
— to obtrude upon your time and notice ; as — though
copiously mingled with explanations of points
mootable by a professed Shakespearean student and
critic — much of the matter involved having special
reference to the different stvles of renderino: the
text by certain actors whom I have seen (and noted)
witliin the last thirty years represent Hamlet and
King Lear^ it might prove too didactic to be inte-
resting to the general and unprofessional reader.
The latest intelligence from Washington respect-
ing our venerated friend, Mr. Clay^ announces a fear-
fully rapid and visible decline of health in that per-
sonally beloved and nationally respected statesman.
Your lordship's obliged and obedient servant,
(Signed)
Jas. H. Hackett.
R. H. the Earl of Carlisle.
252 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
Lord Carlisle's Reply,
Grosvenor Place, February 9, 1852.
My deae Mr. Hackett : — I am afraid I have kept
your volume longer than I ought to have done, as I
had not leisure for some time to render justice to
its contents, but I have now perused them with
great pleasure and interest.
The meanings and characters of Shakespeare
supply matter for reflexion that can never be ex-
hausted. I must be allowed to think that upon the
points in controversy between you and Mr. Adams
on the character of Hamlet I am disposed to side
entirely with you. I know the great respect and
deference which are due to a person so really emi-
nent as Mr. Adams. I think him probably quite in
the right about Juliet^ but you must excuse me for
observing, with respect to his views upon Othello^
that I feel assured there is not a single man in
Europe who would coincide in his views of what
the chief moral is, that is to be deduced from that
surpassing tragedy. I see none of your criticisms
are addressed to the play of Macbeth^ in my mind
the very highest in order of all the^ few which seem
to me indisjDutably higher than all the rest — Macbeth^
Hamlet^ Othello^ Lear. When I say this, however,
I never could quarrel with a person who puts Hain-
let even above Macbeth.
SnAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 253
Again tlianking you for the perusal of this very
interesting vohime,
Believe me, dear sir,
Your very faithful servant,
Carlisle.
' 44 St. James Place, July 1, 1845.
To John Payne Collier^ JEsq.^
My Dear Slr — As you expressed a desire not
only to read my ]S^ote-Book, but to see a specimen
of our American edition of Shakespeare, I send
you herewith " Ko. 4," an odd part, but the only
one which I happened to have with me in your
country. It contains some scenes of Hamlet ^\\i\\
original and selected notes by our American editor,
Mr. Yerplanck, to wdiich have been added by my-
self some very cursory and detached marginal scrib-
blings of my own ideas, as I glanced over the w^ork.
* Mr. Collier had been often met by me at the Garrick Club, of
which he was an original, and I whenever visiting England elected an
honorary member. He was distinguished at that time as an anti-
quarian of great research, and has since published an edition of Shake-
speare, and subsequently a volume of " Notes and Emendations to the
Text of Shakespeare's Plays."' — J. II. H.^ 1854.
254 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
FUGITIVE NOTES UrON VERPLANCk's EDITION OF HAMLET.
" In the dead ivast and middle of the night" — Folio 1623.
" " waist '" " — Malone's edit.
" * waste " " — VerplancJc's"
I think, " The dead waist of the night," is simj)ly
what we term " the dead of night," viz. midnight ;
tliat part of the night which the poet refers to in
another place —
" Thus twice before and jump at this dead hour,"
because, then —
" O'er the one half world
Nature seems dead,"
the w^ord " dead," prefixed to the w^ord '* waist " in
the above quotation, therefore, means, the exact
waist and middle of the night ; the use of the word
" waist " is figurative ; I^ight, in various places, by
poetic license, being invested with human shape, for
examples —
" Beshrew the witch ! with venomous wights she stays."
[^Troil. a7id Cressida.
" Blackbrow'd Night." — Mids. NigMs Dream.
" Night, whose black contagious breath." — King John.
"' whose pitchy mantle over- veiled the earth."
[1 K. Henry VI.
Respecting tlie ancient orthography of the word
which we now write " waist,^'' Shakespeare, in the
SnAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 255
Folio 1G23, spells it " wast " and '' 'waste^^ promiscu-
ously ; but his context admits of no question as to
his meaning ; for examples —
*'His neck will come to your wast; a cord, Sir."
[J/eas. f6r Meas.
" Then you live about her waste or in the middle of her
favours." — Ham.
In another play he puns upon wast and waste^ thus —
" Indeed, I am in the luaste two yards about, but now I am
about no waste, I am about thrift." — Merry Wives of Windsor.
That Shakespeare confounded, in his spelling,
" vast^'' with what he means where he writes " wast "
or " waste^'' I cannot admit ; wherever I have found
them in the Folio^ these words are used in distinct
senses, and never seem intended as synonymous. It
is true, as Mr. Yerplanck remarks, that " "oast " is
" taken in its primitive Latin sense, for desolate,
void," which might pass for a synonyme of the
modern word, " waste^'' but certainly not for waist '^
for examples —
" urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee." — Tempest, Act 1, Sc. 1.
which sentence, I take it, means that these tormen-
tors (the urchins) shall, for that open or vacant S2yace
during the night time wherein they are, by witch-
craft, privileged to be mischievous, practise alto-
gether upon Caliban.
256 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
Ao:ain —
'-&•
" Though absent, shook hands as over a vast, and embraced,
&c."— Wintei^'s Tale, Act I, Sc. 1.
Again —
" I can call spirits from the vasty deep." — Henry IV.
the adjective " vasty " partaking of the same quality
as Vastwm^ its Latin radix — " In gurgite Vasto " —
Virgil.
It seems to me, therefore, that vast, and luast or
waste, could not reasonably have been written by
Shakespeare to express one and the same idea;
besides, to call any part of the night time, between
the hours of twelve and one, a " dead waste," or
iiseless superfluity, or barren desert, as Mr. Yer-
planck seems to understand it, is a far-fetched figure
Ynjpoetry whilst it is an absurdity vn fact 'j because,
in the economy of Nature, the darkest hour of the
niglit is no more a Ijarren loaste than the lightest one
of the day I inasmuch as Time proceeds at the same
pace in each alternation, and, whether night or day,
one is the sequence of the other, and both together
consummate the natural day.
" I boarded the king's ship : now on tlie beak,
Now in the waste, the deck, in every cabin." — Tempest.
Yet notwithstanding this and the numerous other
instances of the signification obviously attached to
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 257
Shakespeare, when he spelled the word " wade^''
Mr. Yerplanck says —
" To suppose that the poet meant waistj for middle, as seve-
ral editors have maintained, and many printed the text, seems
ludicrously absurd." — See Yerplanck' s Hamlet.
whereas, I must contend for its strict propriety in
this particular line, whetlier considered in its simple
and ordinary, or its lateral and figurative sense ; if
it be argued against waist^ that the addition (" and
Qniddle''^) makes palpable tautology, let it be ob-
served that these pleonasms, or doitble expressions
of a single idea, are not uncommon to Shakespeare's
style, and more deeply impress and powerfully
enforce a sentiment ; for examples —
" Or given my heart a working, mute and diimhy — Hamlet.
" Many a time and oft." — Mercliant of Venice.
" Time and the hour run through the roughest day." — Macb.
" Then you live about the vmist or in the middle of her fa-
vours."— Hamlet.
The same gain of strength in expression, may be
imputed, however ungrammatical to modern taste, to
Shakespeare's double comparatives, as —
*' Your wisdom would shew itself more riclierU'' — Hamlet,
" 0, throw away the worser part of it." — Hamlet.
" The unkindest beast more Jcinder than mankind."
[Ti7non of Athens.
" Polonius. Do you know me, my lord ?
Hamlet. Excellent well ! you are a fishmonger."
258 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
'■'You are sent to fisli out this secret. That is Hamlet's
meaning." — Coleridge.
With due reference to Coleridge, and to Mr. Yer-
planck's taste in adopting his idea, I beg leave to
diifer ; because, if such hadhQQn Hartilefs meaning,
Sliakespeare would have selected the word, fisher^
or fisherinan j the former he nses in his Comedy of
Errors^ and in Romeo and Juliet / and the latter in
King Lear / a fisTitnonger is a dealer in fish ; one
who buys to sell again, and Hamlet calls Polonius
" a fishmonger," not because he thinks he is " sent
to fish out this secret," but because of his habitual
importunity to procure a stock of news and then to
hasten to the king, his ready customer, and deal it
out to him before the commodity, fish-like^ can
become stale on his hands ; the same pregnancy of
reply is discernible afterwards when Samlet com-
pares Kozencrantz to a sponge^
" that soaks up the king's countenance,
His rewards, his authorities."
'' I know a hawk from a handsaw."
See my comment on this passage, in l^otice of
Macreadi/s Hamlet.
" The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge."
Mr. Yerplanck says —
" It resembles the poet's own strong figure elsewhere.'''
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 259
Of course, the figure referred to elsewhere, can be
no other than —
" the raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements."
Tliere may be some analogy in the sentiment, but
not the least in the occasion / the figure in Macbeth
has special reference to the inessenger —
" Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message,"
and who is therefore compared by Ladj Macbeth to
a raven^ because he could only croalc out his news.
" jSTow could I drink hot blood,
And do such hitter business as the day
Would quake to look on."
I fully concur with Mr. Yerplanck in his prefer-
ence to this reading, which is that of the Folio^
because, the meaning of " bitter " is obvious, when
applied to " business," which it qualifies in concord-
ance with —
" the bloody book of law
You shall yourself read in the hitter letter." — Othelh.
a2:am-
" My spirit and my place have in them power
To make this hitter to thee." — Ihiclem.
260 SHAEESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
Reply from J. Payne CoUier, F.S.A.
Victoria Road, Kensington, 10 Jul}', 1845.
My Dear Sir — I return your E'otes with my best
thanks. Of course you do not expect any man to
go all lengths with you, but I have been much grati-
fied by the novelty^ ingenuity, and acuteness, of
some of your views, even when I did not agree in
them.
I return you also the number of the American
Shakespeare with your MS. notes thereupon. I
perceive that you do not always accord with Mr.
Yerj)lanck, and I am of your mind in several
instances.
I remain, my dear sir.
Yours very sincerely and much obliged,
J. Patne Collier.
James H. Hackett, Esq.
SHAIvESPEEEAl^ YEEBAL NICETIES.
Some of my fellow-members of the Union Club,
having had a very nice discussion, and been unable
to agree, sought the favor of my written opinion on
the subject.
The point to be settled was : which of two words
— difiering widely in their sense, though slightly in
their orthography — was intended by Shakespeare, in
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 261
that line oiMacbetJu ^vliich, in t\\Q first edition of his
plays, is printed,
" Sleep — that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,"
but by modern editors has had the word " sleav6 "
substituted for that of " sleeve " in the original.
I replied to the foregoing inquiry, thus :
" When tilings appear unnatural and hard,
Consult your author with himself compar'd."
Moscommon.
In order to satisfy one's self of Shakespeare's
meaning in the line,
" Sleep — that knits up the raveU'd sleeve of care,"
it is expedient to examine minutely every context,
in his range of plays, wherein either of the following
words are used by him — viz. sleeve^ sleejp^ hiit up,
ravel, and care; because, connected with one or
other of these w^ords, some concordance may be
detected which would render clear the poet's inten-
tion.
Ifrs. Gowden Clarhe^s comjplete Yerbal Index to
Shakespeare, furnishes a very ready medium for
reference to every context of each of the above
words. She gives the word " sleave " but once as a
noun, throughout Shakespeare's works, and that in
the passage quoted above — being so spelled in
Knight's (modern) " Pictorial Edition," to which her
262 SHAKESPEEEAN SUBJECTS.
compilation expressly refers ; slie finds however the
word " sleeve" in some twenty-live other places and
where its s^pecial reference to " a covering for the
human arm " is palpable and indisputable. ITow,
though many of the modern editions have printed in
this text, " sleave," the Fii'st Folio^ commonly
called " The Players' edition," has no such orthogra-
23hy of the word as " sleave " — being in this passage,
as in all others,, " sleeve ;" however, that, ^er se^ is
not conclusive evidence that a distinct meaning may
not have been designed ; forasmuch as, in that
same old edition, published in 1623, wast^ waste, and
waist, are printed indiscriminately for the human
waist ; but, as it is unusual for any author to use the
same word to express two such very distinct and
dissimilar things as " a knitted covering for the arm,"
and a " skein of unwrought silk," and, as Shake-
speare in no othej' place out of twenty-five examples,
uses " sleeve " or " sleave," where it can possibly
be intended to mean skein, it seems singular that if
he so intended he should not have written " skein"
instead ; being a word used by him elsewhere in his
writings. The metre of the line too would have
stood the same, and the sense of the reader, and es-
pecially the andience — for which he specially wrote
— would not then have been so naturally confounded.
The only approximation throughout Shakespeare to
any form of the word " sleave," (" a skein or knot of
silk,") may be seen in a line of "Troilus and
Cressida," which (in the folio of 1623) reads thus,
SHAKESPERPZAN SUBJECTS. 203
-thou immaterial shein of sleyed silk j
and again in " Pericles,"
"weaved the sleided silk."
These references to nnwroiiglit silk, are so clear and
distinct, that it seems very incongrnous that the
nonn " sleave " should have been made a solitary
nse of, in the whole course of his works, to indicate
" skein or knot of silk," though it is proved satisfac-
torily by lexicography that such a word as " sleave,"
and in such sense, was used by other writers of
Shakespeare's time — see TodcFs Jolinsori^s Diction-
ary^ 3 "cols. 4:to.^ London^ 1827, for definition of, and
authorities for " sleeve " and " sleave ;" also, the
" litotes " of various commentators upon this passage,
in Malone's edition of Shakespeare, 21 vols. 8vo.,
London, 1821."
* Extracts from Commentators' notes upon Macbeth. Malone's edi-
tion, 21 vols. 8vo.. London, 1821.
" the ravell'd sleave of care."
Sleave signifies the " ravelled knotty part of the silk, which gives
great trouble and embarrassment to the knitter or weaver." — Heath.
Dayton, a Poet of Shakespeare's age, has likewise alluded to
"sleaved" or "ravelled" silk, in his Quest of Cynthia:
" At length I on a fountain light,
Whose brim with pinks was platted.
The banks with daffodillies dight
With grass, like sleave was matted/' — Langton.
Sleave is properly silk which has not been twisted. It is mentioned
264 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
After a patient search tlirouglioiit Shakespeare
for, and a deliberate consideration of, every word
elsewhere, which relates to either in the line —
" Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,"
I am inclined to the opinion that the metaphor it
contains specially refers to some ancient, and now
perhaps by-gone use, or possibly manufacture, of
the covering for the human arm, called a " sleeve,"
of which history may not have conserved to us any
precise description : consequently, the figure may
seem somewhat obscure when first presented to the
mind ; and hence, the proposed emendation of
" sleeve " into " sleave," but too readily commends
in Hollinshed's History of England, p. 835 : " Eight wild men all ap-
parelled in green moss made with skved silk."
Again, in Muse's Elizine by Drayton,
" thrumVd ■with grass
As soft as sleave or sarcenet ever was."
Again Ibid.
"That in the handling feels as soft as any sleave." — Steevens.
Sleave appears to have signified coarse, soft, unwrought sUk, Seta
grassolana, Ital. See also Elorio's Italian Dictionary, 1598 : " Sjilazza,
any kind of ravelled stufie, or skave silk." " Capitone, a kind of coarse
silk, called sleave silV^ Cotgrave, in his Dictionary, 1612, renders
soyeflosche '^sleave siUc.^^ See also. Ibid: " Cadarce, pour faire capi-
ton. The tow or coarsest part of silke, whereof sleave is made." In
Troilus and Cressida we have —
"Thou idle immaterial skein oi sleave^ silk."— Malone.
1 Sle'v'd silk. Folio.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 265
itself to our adoption, and involves the idea that —
Sleep knits up the skein of care^ the fibres of which
had heen ravelled in the weaving / a solution very
plausible, if not satisfactory.
It seems, however, from various references to the
fact in Shakespeare, that it was customary, when
any object was near any one's heart, to " pin it
upon his sleeve," where it would be sure to be con-
stantly under his eye ; as —
" The gallant pins the wenches on his sleeved
Love's Labour's Lost.
Also, to hang out or expose his secret motives, lago
says,
'• I'll wear my heart upon my sleeve." — Othello.
Further, among Shakespeare's poetic figures of care
are these —
" Golden care
That kcep'st the ports of slumber open wide."
Henry the Fourth, Part Secotid.
" Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where ca7'e lodge&j. sleep will never lie."
Romeo and Juliet.
In connection, too, with the though tfuln ess of care,
the following quotation is not irrelevant :
" Then your hose should be ungarter'd, your bonnet un-
handed, your sleeve unhuttoned, your shoe untied, and every-
thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation."
As You Like It Act 3.
12
266 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
E'ow, if Care's " sleeve " was a " skein of silk,"
he was unworthy of his name to let it become
" ravell'd " at all. In conclusion, I would submit
whether the following is a far-fetched or an incon-
gruous comprehension of the line in question :
" Gare^'' who is called " husy^^^ and whose sleeve
from habitual use has 'been '^ ravelV d,^'' finds it
restored hy sleejp : the ravelled meshes of his " sleeve^"^
having heen " hnit uj> " whilst husy Care's senses
were steeped in forgetfulness^ and afforded the requi-
site ojpportunity. J. H. H.
Ravelled means entangled. So, in the Two Gen-
tlemen of Verona^ Thurio says to Proteus., speaking
of Sylvia,
" Therefore as you unwived her love from him,
Lest it should ravel^ and be good to none,
You must provide to bottom it on me." — M, Mason.
Among other significations confirmed by quota-
tions from standard authors in Todd's edition of
Johnson's Dictionary, 3 vols. 4:to. London, 1827,
are found the following, under the word
" Sleeve, — In some provinces signifies a knot, or
skein of silk, which is by some very probably sup-
posed to be its meaning in the following passage,
" Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care." — Macbeth.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 267
Under the caption of Sleaye, Dr. Johnson says :
" Of this word I know not well the meaning
sleave-silh is explained by GoxMui^in Jiocmcs serious
— a lock of silk ; and the women still say, ' sleave
the silk ' for untwist it. Ainsworth calls a weaver's
shuttle or reed, a slaie^ or sley. To sley is to part a
twist into single fibres."
Yarious other authorities are also quoted. See
TodcVs Johnson,
A ruGrriYE Is^ote.
"Nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, or Norman^
Folio, 1623. Hamlet.
Modern editors have altered " or Gorman " to
" nor man," by striking out the conjunction and
dividing the word.
Irajprimis. — As Christians and Pagans^ too, were
men, the change is pointless and nonsensical : — and
I would submit whether Shakespeare did not write
u ^y, Norman f " When one takes the pains to
search, and discover, and reflect upon the follovtdng
reference to " a JS'orman .*" —
" King. Two months since,
Here was a gentleman from Normandy, —
I have seen myself, and serv'd against the French,
And they ran ^e\\ on horseback : but this gallant
Had witchcraft in't ;* he grew into his seat ;
* Mr. Sieevens says : — "This is from Sidney's Arcadia, book 2. As
if) Ceutaur-Hke, the rider had been one piece with his horse."
268 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
And to such wondrous doing brought his Jiorse,
As he had been incorps'd and demi-natured
With the brave beast :* so far he passed my thought,
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.
Laertes. A Norman, was't?
King. A Norman." Samlet, Ad 4, Sc. 7.
I furnislied the Editor of the JS^ew York Evening
Post certain matter respecting Harvey and Shalce-
sjpeare^s Jcnoidedge of the circulation of the hlood^
and what follows appeared in the columns of that
public journal, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 1861.
HAEYEY AND SHAKESPEAEE.
HAD SHAKESPEAEE A KNOWLEDGE OF THE CIKCULATION
OF THE BLOOD?
Two papers on the " Medical Knowledge of Shake-
speare," from the pen of Mr. James H. Hackett, the
actor, have been handed us for publication. In the
first of these papers, which is given below, Mr.
* Witchcraft inH: that is, in his movement on ^^ horseback.''^ Is it
not reasonable that Shakespeare, in characterizing an unnatural gait,
could find neither among Christianized nor pagan man, nor even in
the half-horse Norman, such a gait as certain players had when "they
strutted and bellowed," and that it caused him to conclude that,
" Nature's journeymen had made such men ; " because they imitated
humanity so abominably? — See Amer. edit. (Redfield, N. T.), 1853,
p. 452.
SHAKE3PEREAN SUBJECTS. 269
Ilackett takes issue witli the biographers of Dr.
Harvey, who claim for him the honor of the dis-
covery of the circuLation of the blood, and makes
numerous citations from Shakespeare's plays in
order to prove that the bard knew the secret before
the physician. Mr. Ilackett's speculations are cer-
tainly curious. Our readers will judge for them-
selves whether he has established his case.
shakespeaee's knowledge of the circulation of
the blood.
Bellevue Mound, Carlisle, Illinois, Sept., 1859.
- During the last summer I noticed in the London
newspapers a paragraph referring to " a recent
exhumation of the corporal remains of "William
Harvey, the hnmortal discoverer of the circulation
of the hloodr My recollections of Shakespeare's
writings suggested doubts whether Harvey could be
truly and exclusively entitled to the distinction, for
the reason that I had been early in life deeply im-
pressed with the idea that at least a knowledge of
the circulation of the blood had been conceded to
Shakespeare by his readers, and that most if not all
his plays had been written either prior to Harvey's
birth, or to the period when he might have grown
into contemporary manhood, or become profession-
ally— like Shakespeare — known to fame.
By reference to chronology I ascertain that Shake-
speare was born (1564) fourteen years prior to Har-
270 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
vey ; and tliat when he began to write his plays
(1589) Harvey, who was born in 1578, could have
been only about eleven years of age, and that the
majority of them were completed during Harvey's
adolescence, and the residue wdiile he was still a
young man. Shakespeare died in 1616, and had
retired some years from dramatic composition and
all connection with a theatre, and had resided at
'New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon. His plays, how-
ever, or most of them, had been printed and pub-
lished, singly and severally, soon after they were
respectively written and performed upon the stage,
and may have been seen by Harvey, and have sug-
gested a motive for his professional study and de-
monstration of such theory.
Four years after Shakespeare's death, viz. in 1620,
Harvey (then about forty-two years of age), " from
his chair as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in
London, announced to the College his conviction of
the fact of the circulation of the blood ; and, as is
also recorded, then began to investigate the subject
minutely" — and (as I have been informed), " dis-
covered and commenced his work to demonstrate
the valves which prevented the return of the blood
to the heart through the same channel whence it
had issued and been propelled into the arteries."
Harvey finished and published his book in 1628.
Hence, it is obvious that if Shakespeare had any
idea of the circulation of the blood he could not
reasonably have obtained it from Harvey.
SI-TAKESPEllEAN SUBJECTS. 271
Without intending to detract in the slightest de-
gree from the merit and scientific value of any of
Harvey's investigations and elucidation of a subject
so important to the practice of surgery and medi-
cine, I must contend for the internal evidence fur-
nished in Shakespeare's writings of his having, prior
to Harvey's imputed discovery and laborious in-
vestigations, a clear conception of the propulsory
action of the heart in forcing its
'■'■ courses tlirough
The natural gates and alleys of the body."
It should be premised and ever remembered, in
one's search into Shakespeare's writings for any
intrinsic evidence of his theory upon any scientific
subject, that it was not his^;rc/'^55^(?7l to teach that
of anatomy or surgeiy, but to dramatize humanity ;
and that only in so far as the moral action of man's
heart, or its influence upon his passions, became
necessary to his purpose of blending, truly and con-
sistently with nature, his philosophic ideas with
dramatic poetry, did he refer to that conservative
fountain of life.
Among the great variety of references to the
hloocl — named within more than five hundred of
Shakespeare's sentences — I have selected the follow-
ing, as indicating to me most clearly his under-
standing of the tact that the blood circulated. His
choice, too, of the word " gate " (" gates and alleys
of the body ") would seem to involve his idea of the
272 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
valves and their use in stopping the blood; else,
why use such word? — a gate being a mechanical
contrivance for opening or closing to any thing
inclined to pass, according to occasion.
" The leperous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the hody.^'
[Hamlet, Act 1.
" This does make some obstruction in the blood — this cross-
gartering." — Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 4.
" As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart." — Julius Ccesar, Act 2.
" Lord Angelo scarce confesses
That his blood floivs — a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth ; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense."
[Afeasure for Measure, Act 1.
" The resolute acting of your bloods
" Why docs my blood thus miunter to my heart?"
[Ibid, Act 2.
" Ruv^ not this speech like iron through your blood ?"
[Mti/ih Ado About Nothing, Act 5.
"All the conduits of m3r blood froze up."
[Comedy of Errors, (1592.)
" make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse." — Macbeth.
" The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopp'd — the very source of it is stopp'd." — Ibid,
SHAKESPEREAlSr SUBJECTS. 273
if that surly spirit, melancholy,
Had baked my hhocl and made it heavy, thick,
(Which else runs tickling up and down the veins')
[King John^ Act 2.
" The tide of blood in me
Hath proudly flowed in vanity, till now —
Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea."
\2d Part Henrij IV., Act 5.
" Where 1 have garner'd up my heart;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up." — Othello, Act 4.
" A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it," &c.
'•' The second property of your excellent sherry is — the warm-
ing of the blood, which before cold and settled, left the liver
white and pale," &c. ; " but the sherris warms it, and makes it
course from the inwards to the parts extreme," &c., &c. : " and
then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all
to their captain, the heart," &c. — 2cZ Part Henry IV., Act 4,
Scene 4,
Further quotations seem to me needless to con-
vince him who reflects that Shakespeare must at
least have theoreticall}^ conceived, if lie had not heen
informed or learned, that the blood circulated ; but
let him who doubts inspect his entire works, wherein
may be found in various connections, the word heart,
mentioned more than a thousand times ; and in many
passages combining concordant confirmation of such
a conclusion, Whether the word circulation (which
is compounded of the Latin preposition circum and
[Fero, Ferre, Tuli] latnm, and signifies carried
12*
274 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
around^ was not in Shakespeare's time yet adopted in
the vernacular, or not considered suitable for his
rhythm or to express his prose sentiments, I am not
philologist enough to decide ; but as I can find neither
of the words circulate^ circulated^ or circulation any-
where in his language, I infer that they had not then
been included in his already copious vocabulary ; else
he would probably have chosen, if deemed more ex-
pressive, circulation (for " the course^^^ and circulates
(instead of " courses''^) in some one or other of the
numerous references to the movements of the blood.
His text, however, seems to me quite sufficient for
conveying the idea of the circulation,
James H. Hackett.
P.S. — An intelligent friend in l^ew York, to
whom I applied for chronological records of Harvey
(not among my limited biblical collection here) has
furnished some which tend to confirm my opinion
that William Harvey could not have imparted to
Shakespeare what the latter knew concerning the
action or movements of the venous and arterial
blood, and referred to in his plays.
" William Harvey did not return from Italy
(where he studied) to England until 1602." (He
was then aged twenty -four, and Shakespeare had
already written twenty of his thirty-four dramas.)
Kor " was he appointed Professor in the Royal Col-
lege of Physicians until 1615,'' (several years after
the retirement of Shakespeare, and only one prior
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 275
to the poet's death.) Also, " about or between the
years 1616 and 1619 Harvey first publicly announced
his discovery, which met with universal ridicule —
nor did he print his work until 1628," (twelve years
after Shakespeare's death.) It was entitled " Exer-
citatio Anatoviia cle tnotu cordis et sanguinis circu-
lationey
Hence, as Harvey could not have taught him,
may not Shakespeare have received his impressions
intuitively, perhaps when reading Hunter's theory
respecting the blood, which, I think, without refer-
ence to chronology, had appeared prior to Shake-
speare's commencement as a dramatist ? My intel-
ligent New York friend writes : " From the few
passages in Shakespeare's plays which I can now
recall, and which bear upon this subject [the circu-
lation of the blood,] I incline to think that if they
had been written by Shakespeare as prose observa-
tions, and not as poetic illustrations, we should
resolve that he had, without anatomical knowledge,
reached a conclusion which Harvey afterwards so
carefully and triumphantly demonstrated."
The fact that Hume and Hallam, the historians,
as well as all modern medical writers, with very
few exceptions, yield Harvey the credit of the dis-
cove'i'y claimed for him, weighs little in the scale of
my opinions. Historiographers referring to events
which have transpired long before their own time,
are not apt to question or to hesitate to record the
then undisputed iiuthorities of a former age, and
276 SHAKESrEREAN SUBJECTS.
more especially upon subjects not within their own
province to investigate and compare ; and with
regard to modern medical writers, they would
hardly consider their time profitably occupied in
sifting and analyzing the poetry of a dramatist of
the Elizabethan age, to find what elements of the
healing art may have been amalgamated even by
the genius of a Shakespeare.
J. H. H.
A Reply to Mr. Hackett.
October 30, 1861.
To the Editors of The Evening Post :
I was somewhat surprised by reading in your
issue of the 19th instant a paper w^ritten by Mr.
Hackett, endeavoring to render to Shakespeare the
honor which for two centuries has been conceded to
the immortal Harvey, viz. the discovery of the cir-
culation of the blood. Had Mr. Hackett been as
well acquainted with the literature of the profession
to wdiicli Harvey belonged as with the numbers of
the bard, he would have probably hesitated ere he
endeavored to pluck from the great physician's brow
a single leaf of his undying crown.
It is very natural in one treating a subject which
is "not within his own province to investigate and
compare," whose inquiries must be necessarily crude
and superficial, and who probably has never read
Harvey's elaborate treatise, entitled "Z^<? Motu San-
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 277
gui?us,^^ and devoted as little attention to similar
works written before and since that author's time —
it is very natural that such an investigator should be
led into errors which even those more conversant
with the subject might scarcely have avoided. "A
little knowledge is a dangerous thing," appears to
be well exemplified in the article to which I am
replying. With all due deference to Mr. Hackett's
superior attainments in other respects, and particu-
larly in regard to Shakesperean lore, in whose inter-
pretation he is certainly entitled to the highest
consideration, allow me to suggest that his argu-
ments in favor of Shakespeare as a medical disco-
verer are far from being proved by the passages
which he quotes, or, in fact, by any others of a
similar significance occurring in that poet's produc-
tions.
Shakespeare undoubtedly did possess, more than
any other man who has bequeathed to us his own
record of intellectual capacity, a most intimate
acquaintance with all the motives of human action.
As a student of human nature, his province was the
anatomy of the mind and the soul — and with a most
careful and delicate hand did he dissect apart the
elementary tissues of those complex existences. As
regards, however, his study and knowledge of the
more material constituents of the human organism,
we may be pardoned in entertaining great doubt,
his works affording us but little enlightenment on
the subject. In fact, where he displays a strange
278 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
familiarity with many of the other sciences, it seems
curious that there should be wanting, almost com-
pletely, any, except mere figurative commonplace
allusions, to that of anatomy and physiology. It is
related in his biography that he served for a short
period of his youth in the office of a country attor-
ney, and, as a consequence, we find introduced into
his writings many technical phrases then employed
only by those of the legal profession, many of whom
figure quite conspicuously in his plays.
With the medical profession, however, he meddles
but little ; a doctor is occasionally introduced, but
is either as vulgar and devoid of dignity as Dr.
Caius, or so obscure, even when occupying the posi-
tion of physician to the king, as to attract no special
attention. Might we not suppose that had the poet
been at all conversant with medical science he would
have employed his knowledge to greater advantage ?
And certainly, had even superficial inquiries into
the art led him to so important a discovery as the
circulation (allowing it to have been unknown
before), was he a person to have concealed his
familiarity with such a fact, or merely to have
thrown out obscure hints here and there ?
But, letting rest the arguments for or against
Shakespeare's acquaintance with anatomy or phy-
siology, it is certain that we need impute to him no
extraordinary knowledge in that respect, whereby
to explain the meaning of the passages quoted by
Mr. Hackett. They only prove that he was cogni-
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 279
zant of a few simple facts wliich had been recog-
nised and commented upon ages before, and an
ignorance of whicli would have been impossible in
a person of so comprehensive a mind. Thej sug-
gest— 1st : That the blood exists in conduits or ves-
sels of some sort. 2d : That it moves through these
vessels from one part of the body to another, though
without undertaking to explain how or why. 3d :
That it starts at the heart ; and 4:th (though the
application seems to me very far fetched) : That
there are valves through wliich it passes, and whicli
prevent its reflux.
l^ow all of these suggestions undoubtedly origi-
nated in a few facts whicli had been first promul-
gated many centuries before by the great Galen,
who was the first to form any correct idea of the
circulating system. His writings faithfully describe
the blood as pursuing its course from the heart into
the arteries, and as being prevented from returning
by a system of valves, to which he contents himself
with a mere allusion. Although his ideas upon the
subject were indefinite, still his observations contain
enough of plausibility to have produced a deep
impression upon a reflective and philosophic mind,
such as Harvey's, and to have led him to those
investigations which were so prolific in great results.
Indeed, Harvey even acknowledges these hints in
referring to the statements of Galen, which he
quotes as those of ^'vii'i divini patris medicorum.''^
From the period of Galen down to that of Harvey,
280 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
the subject remained to a certain degree dormant ;
tliougli it is said, I know not how truly, that the
Italian physiologists had demonstrated, many years
previous to Harvey's time, what is termed " the
lesser circulation," i. e. from the heart through the
lungs, and back again to the heart. Such theories
and facts, therefore, as had previously been enun-
ciated, we may admit that Shakesj^eare knew and
hinted at, without any necessity of our considering
him tlie discoverer of the circulation.
But now it may be asked : How can Harvey,
then, ho so regai'ded exclusively, if such and such
things had been known ages before his birth ? The
answer is, that if we comprehend by the word " cir-
culation" merely the movement of the blood through
the heart and vessels, he is not entitled to the honor
wdiich posterity has bestowed upon him. But let
us remember that he took up the subject in the pri-
mitive condition in which Galen had left it (whose
suggestions, though given to the world so many
centuries before, had yet been, curiously enough,
the foundation of few inquiries) ; that he pursued it
for years, by means of the most laborious dissections
and experiments; that he unravelled the com-
plex construction of the great propelling organ, the
heart ; that he traced the arteries from their very
root in the great aorta onward through their gradu-
ally decreasing ramifications, until he arrived at
their most minute divisions ; tliat he thence watched
the course of the blood through various and com-
SHAKESPEREAX SUBJECTS. 281
plicated tissues, throngli an intricate network of
capillaries, until, re-collected into the veins, it re-
turned to its original starting-place. And not only
this, but he analyzed the mysterious causes of this
circuit, the powers which start the fluid upon its
round, and serve to propel it and assist it in its con-
tinual course. And what was the consequence of
his herculean labors ? A result, constructed step
by step upon determined facts and logical conclu-
sions, grand and comprehensive, the very foundation
of modern medical science, and remaining almost a
type of perfection even at the present period, when
such tremendous strides are being taken in all scien-
tific research.
Harvey, therefore, seems to me to bear the same
relation to Galen that Morse did to Franklin. At
all events, he was the first to demonstrate the entire
circxdation y and, therefore, is he not entitled to be
considered its discoverer ? C. P. R.
Orchard Place, Yonkers, Nov. 29, 1861.
To the Editors of the Evening Post :
Having just returned after some six weeks' busi-
ness upon my landed estate in Illinois, I have been
shown in vour issue of October 30 an article
capped " Harvey and Shakes23eare — A Reply to
Mr. Hackett ;" wherein the author, signing C. P.
R., in reference to my own article " ITo. 1 " upon
that subject, published in your issue of October 19,
charges me with " endeavoring to render to Shake-
282 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
speare tlie honor which for two centuries has been
conceded to the immortal Harvey, viz. the discovery
of the circulation of the hloody
C. P. E. is wrong in his premises. I did not
claim for Shakespeare the discovery^ but only that
by analogy he understood the theory, and could not
have been ignorant of the fact before Harvey began
to write. The words in my article were : " I must
contend for the internal evidence furnislied in
Shakespeare's writings of his having, prior to Har-
vey's imputed discovery and laborious investiga-
tions, a clear conception of the propulsory action of
the heart in forcing its
' courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body.' "
My article referred to — jN'o. 1 — was written in
1859, and was intended rather as prefatory to my
observations — " No. 2" — made a year after upon a
book published in London, in 1860, entitled "Shake-
speare's Medical Knowledge, by John Charles
Bucknill, M.D. ;" but only so far as its contents
related to Shakesjyeare' s knowledge of the circulation
of the hlood. Whenever it may suit the convenience
of your press to publish said " JS^o. 2," and that of
your correspondent to peruse it, I would jyrefer to
be spared further animadversion, and to learn his
objections to the orthodoxy of my arguments, and
to refer him to the profound and elaborate medical
researches in that work of the erudite Dr. Bucknill,
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 283
who, alluding to the late Lord Chancellor Camp-
bell's interesting work on Shakespeare's legal attain-
ments, observes that it " convinced him that the
knowledge of the great dramatist was, in each de-
partment, so extensive and exact that it required
the skilled observation of a professional mind fully
and fairly to appreciate and set it forth."
Doctor Bucknill, in his preface, continues :
" Although the author desires explicitly to disavow
the intention to put forward in behalf of his own
profession any rival claims for the honor of having
occupied the unaccounted-for jperiod of Shake-
sj)eare's early manhood, he must confess that it
would be gratifying to professional self-esteem if he
were able to show that the immortal dramatist, who
bears, as Hallam says, ' the greatest name in all
literature,' paid an amount of attention to subjects
of medical interest scarcely if at all inferior to that
which has served as the basis of the learned and
ingenious argument, that this intellectual king of
men had devoted seven good years of his life to the
practice of laxo. For the honor of tnedicine it would
be difficult to point to any great author, not himself
a physician, in whose works the healing art is re-
ferred to more frequently and more respectfully
than in those of Shakespeare. The motive, how-
ever, for writing, and the excuse for publishing the
following pages, is not to exalt the medical profes-
sion, by citing in its glorification the favorable
opinion and special knowledge of the great bard,
284 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
but to contribute to the elucidation of bis universal
genius, and to prove tliat, among otbers, ' tbe myriad
mind ' bad paid close attention to tbis most impor-
tant and personally interesting subject of study."
I would reiterate my conviction tbat William
Harvey, tbougb be investigated and practically
demonstrated, was not tbe original " discoverer of
tbe circulation of tbe blood."
James H. IIackett.
Mr. Hackett's 'No. 2 we sball publisb as soon as
we can find room for it. — [Eds. Evening Post.
J/r. Hachett's Second Letter.
[Tbe following is Mr. Hackett's second letter on
Sbakespeare and Harvey. — Eds.]
December 12, 1861.
To the Editors of the Evening Post :
As I expected tbat Dr. Jobn Cbarles Bucknill's
work, entitled " Medical Knowledge of 8hakes])eare^'^
publisbed in London, would necessarily involve, in
a general disquisition of its subject, certain points
deducible from some of tbe passages wbicb I bad
quoted in order to prove tbat Sbakespeare could not
bave been ignorant of tbe fact of tbe circulation of
tbe blood, tbe discovery of wbicb, after Sbake-
speare's deatb, bad been claimed for Harvey, I
eagerly sougbt and obtained a copy of Dr. Bucknill's
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 285
book, and was much entertained and often instructed
tlirougli the scope of its contents. However, as I,
from ignorance of the science of surgery or ana-
tomy, and its origin and progressive advancement,
am not qualified for its general review, I will con-
fine mj extracts and comments to such portions as
may seem to bear upon the specialty of Harvey's
originality in discovering the circulation of the
blood.
Page 10. — " The world saw nothing of the circulation of the
blood in Servetus, Columbus, Caesalpinus, or Shakespeare,
until after William Harvey had taught and written."
Hallam's Literary History of Europe^ though not
questioning Harvey's discovery of the dual circula-
tion, and conceding that the lesser circulation w^as
known to the ancients, observes : " It may, indeed,
be thought wonderful that Servetus, Columbus, and
Csesalpinus should not have more distinctly appre-
hended the consequences of what they maintained,
since it seems difiicult to conceive the lesser circu-
lation without the greater ; but the defectiveness of
their views is not to be alleged as a counterbalance
to the more steady sagacity of Harvey ; " and as
Dr. Bucknill has chosen to add Shakespeare to Hal-
lam's catalogue, I will proceed with quotations from
the poet, and leave my readers to judge whether he
did not comprehend this duality and inter-depen-
dence of the circulation ; but, previously, let me
anticipate, for my readers' advantage, what Dj-.
286 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
Euckulll lias reserved in his arrangement ot matter
until page 201.
" The flow of blood to the heart was a fact well known and
recognised in Shakespeare's time. It was the flow of blood
from the heart, that is, the circulation of the blood, wliich was
not known to Shakespeare, or to any other person, before
Harvey's immortal discovery."
" I send it through the rivers of your blood.
Even to the court, the heart — to the seat o' the brain ;
And through the cranks and ofl&ces of man."
— CoriolanuSj Act 1, Sc. 1.
Dr. Bucknill, after first referring to the body's
nutriment being sent " through rivers of blood to
the court, the heart," — " a fact well known in
Shakespeare's time," — continues : " The flow of the
blood ' through the cranks and ofiices of man ' is a
singular expression. ' Ofiices ' appear to mean func-
tions, put for their organs, and ' cranks ' mean bend-
ings or turnings, and, no doubt, refer to the elbows
or turns in the blood-vessels." I regard the prepo-
sition " through " as very significant, but, firstly, I
would suggest whether Shakespeare's choice of the
word " visit " (by Bridus in his Julius C(Bsar\ and
which signifies " to go and come," does not imply in
that connection the flux and reflux of the blood ?
" As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart." — Act 2.
— and also, how the propulsory action of the heart
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 287
can be denied, after reading and digesting the fol-
lowing direct expression of it, independent of many
lateral ones :
" My heart,
Where eitner I must live or bear no life ;
The fountain from the ivhich my current 7'uns,
Or else dries up," &c. — Othello, Act 4, Sc. 2.
Page 12. " — instances appear, and amount not merely to
evidence, but to proof, that Shakespeare had read widely in
medical hterature."
Pages 35, 36. " Shakespeare's eldest daughter, Susanna,
married Dr. John Hall, a physician of great provincial emi-
nence, practising at Stratford upon Avon. The registration
of his marriage stands thus :
" ' 1607, June 5. John Hall, gentleman, and Susanna Shake-
speare.' It will be an interesting subject of inquiry whether
such of the dramas as were written after their author entered
into terms of intimate relationship with a physician well edu-
cated in the professional knowledge of his time, bear any
impression of the mental conduct ; since it is scarcely possible
but that some influence should have been exercised upon the
impressible mind of the poet by the husband of his favorite
daughter — hving with him in the same house."
It seems reasonable, certainly, between " the
instances in proof that Shakespeare had read widely
in medical literature," and the circumstances of an
eminent physician, his son-in-law, residing, after
1607, in the same house, and with whom he may
have been intimate long previous to the marriage,
that Shakespeare should have made himself ac-
quainted clearly with every important fact or theory
288 SHAKESPEREAK SUBJECTS.
relating to such a subject, wliicli had transpired ;
and, indeed, out of his owu intuitive and compre-
hensive genius might have originated others, or new
ones, which 'neither his leisure nor his avocations
allowed him to explore, prove, or demonstrate, even
for his own satisfaction.
Page 74
" ' Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
Making both it unable for itself,
And dispossessing all my other parts
Of necessary fitness?'
Measure for Measure, Ad 2, Sc. 4.
" This mustering of the blood to the heart is referred to by
Warwick, in describing the death of John of Gaunt; it is
perfectly in accordance with modern physiological science, and
when it is remembered that in Shakespeare's time the cir-
culation of the blood, and even the relation of the heart to
the blood, was yet undiscovered, the passage is in every way
remarkable."
If Dr. BucknilFs premises are true, the passage is
indeed not only "in every way remarkable," but
unaccountable, not to say miraculous.
Page 82. " Shakespeare may, with the intuition of genius,
have guessed very near the truth respecting the circulation of
the blood, &c., &c. See also Falstaff's reflections on Prince
John, part 2 ; King Henry IV., act iv., scene 3."
Page 123. " The absence of blood in the liver was the sup-
posed property of a coward. ' The liver white and pale ' is
Falstaff's pathological badge of pusillanimity and cowardice.
Fear is called ' pale-hearted ' in Macbeth. Also, Lucio, in Mea-
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 289
sure for Measure (act 4, scene 3), says : ' I am pale at mine
heart,' &c. : and was not that too (the absence of blood there)
the supposed property of a coward, according to the old theory
of the circulation of the blood which (Dr. Bucknill writes) gave
rise to this opinion ?"
Page 133. " The expression in King John, act 3, scene 3,
that ' the blood runs trickling* up and down the veins/ seems to
point to the thought that there is a flux and reflux of the current."
Pages 157-158. "Shakespeare follows Hippocrates, &c., &;c.,
and has reference to another theory of Hippocrates, namely,
that the veins, which were thought the only blood-vessels, had
their origin in the hver. The Father of Medicine maintained
that they come from the liver, the arteries from the heart. It
appears, however, that in different parts of his works he
expressed different opinions on the relation existing between
the veins and the heart," &c.
Dr. Backnill follows up by extracting a lengtliy
passage from the Sydenham Society's edition of The
Works of Harvey^ and also quotes " Rabelais, who
was both a practising physician and a medical
author," and his translation of the works of both
Hippocrates and Galen ; and adds, " Rabelais ex-
presses the doctrine of the function of the liver which
is implied in Falstaff's disquisition," namely, "that
the liver conveys blood through the veins for the
good of the whole body." Indeed, Dr. Bucknill
continues through several pages afterward to refer to
" the old opinions," and compares, in an apparently
* Trickling is Shakespeare's word, alluding to an occasioual sense
of the motion of the blood in the veins. " To trickle " signifies to " drop
gently." Shakespeare has only used trickling once, and then as a
synonyme of tricky, "trickling tears are vain." — Henry IV., Fart 1.
13
290 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
learned manner, tlie theories wliicli existed among
the medical professors prior to Harvey, respecting
the functions of the liver and of the heart.
" and let my live?' rather heat with wine
Than my heai^t cool with mortifying groans."
\Aferchant of Venice.
Shakespeare, who was neither a medical author
nor a practising physician, was not bound to ascer-
tain, and may have confounded the respective func-
tions of the heart and the liver, and the causes ; but
at the same time have distinctly understood the fact
of the circulation of the blood, whicli is simply that
for which I have thus far contended and been trying
to convince my readers.
Page 213 :
" You are my true and honorable wife,
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart." — Julius Ccesar.
" ' On these three lines,' (writes Dr. Bucknill) ' a short essay,
the only one bearing upon Shakespeare's physiological opinions
I have anywhere been able to find, has been written by Mr.
Thomas Nimmo, and has been published in a second volume of
the Shakespeare Society Papers. Mr. Nimmo considers that
this passage (quoted) — ' containing what I cannot view other-
wise than a distinct reference to the circulation of the hlood,
which was not announced to the world, as is generally sup-
posed, until some years after the death of Shakespeare.' "
Dr. Bucknill remarks : " Assuming the truth of this, Mr,
Nimmo argues either that the play was not written so early as
1603 — the date fixed by Mr. Collier — or that ' Shakespeare had
been made acquainted by Harvey himself with his first notions
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 291
on the subject.' Mr. JSTimmo afterwards speculates thus : ' Is
it, then, impossible that Harvey, a young medical practitioner,
may have become acquainted with Shakespeare — may have
become intimate with him, and may have acquainted liim with
those great ideas by which also he hoped to become famous?' "
Dr. Bucknill resumes : " In some comments on the article
Mr. T. J. Pettigrew satisfactorily disposes of Mr. Nimmo's sug-
gestion, observing: 'There is no evidence that Shakespeare
knew Harvey ; and as Shakespeare died in 1G16, when the first
ideas of Harvey upon the subject were promulgated at the col-
lege, he could not, through that medium, have been acquainted
with it ; but if the date of 1603, as given by Mr. Collier as the
period at which the play of " Juhus Caesar " was written, be
the correct one, it is quite clear that Shakespeare could not
have then known Harvey, because he (Harvey) must at that
time have been abroad (in Italy), and, whatever may have been
his reflections upon the discovery of the existence of valves in
the veins, there are no traces in any of his writings to show
that he had then entertained any particular views upon the
nature of the circulation.' "
With regard to my own sentiments concerning
tlie probability whether Shakespeare was indebted
to Harvey or Harvey to Shakespeare for their re-
spective and original ideas of " the circulation," I
must ask my reader, if he cares to consider them, to
refer to their expression, in the course of my post-
script to letter dated 15th September, 1859.
Dr. Bucknill goes on :
" Shakespeare might indeed have known Harvey, as he no
doubt was intimate w^th many of the leading minds of the
age ; but, in addition to the fact that Harvey's first notice of
his discovery was made in the year of Shakespeare's decease,
292 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
Mr. Nimmo's suggestion is easily refuted from the other
writings of the poet, with which it seems probable that Mr.
Nimmo had not made himself acquainted. There are several
passages in the plays in which the presence of blood in the
heart is quite as distinctly referred to as in this speech of Bru-
tus ; but the passages quoted in these pages from ' Love's
Labor Lost,' and from the ' Second Part of Henry IV.,' dis-
tinctly prove that Shakespeare entertained the Galenical doc-
trine universally prevalent before Harvey's discovery ; that,
although the right side of the heart was visited by the blood,
the function of the heart and its proper vessels, the arteries,
was the distribution of the vital spirits, or, as Byron calls
them, ' the nimble spirits in the arteries.' Shakespeare be-
lieved, indeed, in the flow of the blood, ' the rivers of your
blood' which went eA'en to the court, the heart ;' but he con-
sidered that it was the liver, and not the heart, which was the
cause of the flow. There is not, in my opinion, in Shake-
speare, a trace of any knowledge of the circulation of the
blood. Surely the temple of his fame needs not to be enriched
by the spoils of any other reputation."
Certainly not, good Dr. Bucknill ; nor, as I liope,
does the temple of Harvey's fame wliich the medi-
cal profession have constructed need any su2)port to
be obtained by denying Shakesj^eare his obvious
intelligence j^rior to " Harvey's discovery." May
not an effect, like the circulation of the blood, be
obvious, whilst its cause may be hidden and ob-
scured, or confounded by one's imputing to the liver
the distinct propulsory action of the heart ?
Finally, recommending my readers to ascertain
precisely Dr. Bucknill's definition of the word cir-
culation, and to remember that it is not to be found
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 293
ill Sliakespeare, and to satisfy himself whether or
not the word " course," as used by Shakespeare
when referring to the blood, is synonymous with
circulation, I take my leave of the subject ; and
though I differ with him in many of his interpreta-
tions of Sliakespeare's text, I have derived much
pleasure from -his book, and would commend it to
the attentive perusal of every one who may be
gratified by perceiving that the immortal dramatist,
who bears, as Hallam says, " the greatest name in
all literature," paid an amount of attention to sub-
jects of medical interest scarcely if at all inferior
to that which has served as the basis of the learned
and ingenious argument, that the intellectual king
of men had devoted seven good years of his life to
the practice of the law.
Jas. H. Hackett.
P. S. — After a deliberate reconsideration of the
mooted question, whether William Harvey can be
justly entitled to the fame and honor of having
been " the immortal discoverer of the circulation
of the blood," it seems to me that the point of the
argument after all resolves itself into what may be
the direct, or lateral, or longitudinal signification of
the word discover, which literally means — to find
out, to expose to view, to make known that which
was unknown before. Kestricted to this sense,
Columbus w^as unquestionably the first discoverer
of this Western Continent. Its very existence was
conceived bv his genius, and ascertained only
29-i SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
tliroiigli his practical faith, energy, and enterprise,
having been previously unknown, at least to civil-
ized Europe ; yet, Americns Yespucius, by reason
of his secondary efforts, and progressive discern-
ment in the premises, was enabled to build and to
perpetuate his own name, and to eclipse, if not
almost supersede, the fame of Columbus, its original
discoverer.
Sir Isaac E^ewton, born in 1642, is generally re-
garded by his enthusiastic eulogists at this day as
the discoverer of the attraction of gravitation ;
whereas, absolutely, he only investigated and ex-
plained the laws which regulate the solar system.
The solar system of the ancients was that of
Ptolemy, and is poetically referred to by Shake-
speare in his play of " Troilus and Cressida,"
(written some fifty years before Sir Isaac was born),
thus :
" Ulysses. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre.
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in a line of order.
And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol,
In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd
Amidst the other." — Act 1, Scene 3.
But, on special reference to the attraction of gra-
vitation— the discovery of which has been imputed
to Newton — can any reader of common understand-
ing doubt Shakespeare's knowledge of that fact
when perusing the following sentence put into the
mouth of his heroine ? —
SHAKESPEREAN" SUBJECTS. 295
" Cressida. * * * * Time, force and death,
Do to this body what extremes you can ^
But the strong base and building of my love
Is as the very centre of the Earth
Drawing all things to itT — Act 4, Scene 2.
J. H. H.
lAGO.
In the year 1828, soon after I had adopted the
stage as a profession, I studied and attempted to act
Shakespeare's lago, but although I was received
encouragingly at the Park Theatre, ]^ew York, a
few times, and favorably reported by the Press, I
found it not attractive ; and though the result con-
firmed me in the correctness of the conception I had
formed after an elaborate study, I was by no means
satisfied with my own personation, and for that rea-
son, and also because the Xew York public had
seemed to identify my stage-abilities only with Yan-
kee and other American Originals, and some dialect
and eccentric characters, and with imitations of
popular actors, and also inasmuch as I had then
never attempted any other serious performance with
the exception oUtichard the Thirds and that in direct
and avowed imitation oi Edmund Kean, I regarded'
my lago but as an experiment, and at once resolved
that it was inexpedient for me in my novitiate to per-
sist in trying to represent such a very difficult cha-
racter, and hence abandoned further attempts
accordingly.
296 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
Mr. John Inman, then noted for his literary and
critical discernment and who afterwards became
associate editor of the Commercial Advertiser, wit-
nessed my first effort to personate lago^ and reported
it for the ]^ew York Evening Post. For the reason
that Mr. Inman gave a rather minute and careful
description of what seemed to him to be my under-
standing of certain points which I had not yet
acquired art enough to strike out effectively in my act-
ing^ I will reprint his report herewith as a record of
my peculiar notions of this character.
MR. HACKETt's IAGO.
Park, Thursday, April 10, 1828.
The character of lago has, in our opinion, been
almost universally mistaken, both by plaj^ers and
critics. /Actors in general have been struck only
with the wickedness of the character, and have
represented him as a monster, a fiend, revelling in
malevolence and mischief — devoting his time, his
talents, and his life to the perpetration of gratuitous
villanies, and actuated by no other motive than the
lucre love of wickedness/ This is an unnatural con-
ception; and Shakespeare, who was quite as good a
pliilosopher as he was a poet, never intended to
exhibit such a picture. The same error has been
fallen into even by the first critics in England —
Hazlitt says, " The general groundwork of the cha-
racter of lago^ as it appears to us, is not absolute
malignity but a want of moral principle, or an indif-
SnAKESPEREAJ^ SUBJECTS. 297
ference to the real consequences of the actions, which
tlie perversity of his disposition and love of immedi-
ate excitement lead him to commit. He is an ama-
teur of tragedy in real life. The character is a com-
plete abstraction of the intellectual from the moral
being ; or in other words, consists in an absorption
of every common feeling in the virulence of his
understanding, the deliberate wilfulness of his pur-
poses, and in his restless^ untameable love of 'inis-
chievous co'iitrivances.^^ Kow it appears to us that
tlie motives of lacjo's conduct are so plainly described
even in the very first scene, as to render it almost
impossible to mistake them. They are, jealousy anav
disappointed ambition. When Hoderigo adverts to
the hatred which lago had expressed towards the
Moor, what is his reply ?
" Despise me if I do not — Three great ones of the city
In personal suit to make me his heutenant,
Oft capped to him ; and by the faith of man,
I know my price — I'm worth no less a place ;
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance, &c."
And immediately after, having spoken disparag-
ingly of the abilities of Cassio, he goes on — ,
" He, sir, had the election,
And I, (of whom his eye had seen the proof
At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds,
Christian and Heathen) must be be-leed and calmed
By deljtor and by creditor ; this counter-caster,
13^
298 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I, (Heaven bless the mark) his Moorship's ancient—"*
This is the origin of lagcPs hatred, and for this
insult, he determines to be revenged. In the third
scene, we iind that there is another barbed arrow
rankling in his heart. He says —
" I hate the Moor ;
And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets
He has done my office."
To which, referring again, in the first scene of the
second act, he displays an intensity of feeling, wdiicli
we consider as the strongest confirmation of our idea
of his character.
" For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leaped into my seat ; the thought whereof
Doth, like a jpoisonous mineral, giiaw my inwards /
And nothing can, or shall content my soul
Till I am even with him — "
But his jealousy is not confined to Othello — He
"fears Cassio with his night-cap too;"
and it is for this, that he selects Mm,, to be the
instrument wherewith to work his vengeance upon
* Mr, Hackett has (very wisely) restored this passage, beginning
" But he, sir, had the election," which has been heretofore most inju-
diciously omitted ; it has such a direct and palpable bearing upon the
character, that we cannot but wonder why it should ever have been
left out.
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 299
Othello. These passages, if rightly considered, we
cannot help looking upon as affording redeeming
points in the character of lago — as tending cona-
pletelj to do away the imputation of gratuitous villa-
ny, which has been so generally affixed to it.
It is from Mr. Ilackett's performance, that we
have chieHy derived this idea of lago. This we are
confident is his conception, and for it, we consider
Mr. Hackett entitled to all praise, although his exe-
cution was by no means perfect. We have once
before said, that " with time and practice, Mr.
Hackett would become a good tragedian," and in.
that opinion we are confirmed rather than shaken by
his performance of lago. He has faults, but they
are such as practice will remove. He wants
acquaintance with " stage trick " as it is called ; that
is, with the crossings, the pauses, the minutiae of
stage business which are so necessary to give the
greatest effect to an actor's readings — his utterance
and his action are altogether too quick : and he has
a habit of keeping his head and his limbs in con-
tinual motion, which he miost avoid. The intention
of his lago was evident and excellent, and gave
proof of the close attention and deep study which,
we are confident, he has bestowed uj)on the charac-
ter. He makes lago assume three distinct charac-.
ters ; to Othello^ that of a frank, blunt, honest-hearted \
friend, but withal a close observer, betrayed invo-
luntarily by his attachment to his general, into the
revelation of what leads to his destruction — Othello
300 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
often calls him '' honest." " This /^<9n^,925 creature "
■ — " this fellow's oi. exceeding honesty f^ and here we
cannot help noticing the strange error into which
Hazlitt's view of layds character has betrayed him ;
he says, "He {lagd) is repeatedly called 'honest
lago^ wdiich looks as if there were something suspi-
cious in his appearance, which admitted a different
construction." [N'ow we imagine that Othello calls
him honest, because he thinks he actually is so. K
lago w^erc the open nndisguised villain, Hazlitt
thinks him, Othello must have been a fool, an egre-
gious blockhead, to be so duped b}^ him.
\i To Roderigo Mr. Hackett makes lago assume the
bearing of a light-hearted philosopher (capable,
however, like all Yenetians, of strono^ feelino^s\ who
has been deeply injured by Othello^ and good-
natured enough to take npon him the furtherance
of his comrade's wishes, while he is w^orkina: his
M own purpose upon his enemy ; to Cassio he aj^pears
merely an honest, faithful soldier, and his friend.
Mr. Hackett's well known versatility is of the most
essential service to him in the assumption of these
different cliaracteristics, and still more in the solilo-
quies, where his feelings and the w^orkings of his
active mind are exhibited w^ithout diso:uise. Throng-h-
out the wdiole five acts his scenes w-ith Othello were
given with very great tact and effect ; but there
was one ^vhich we do not hesitate to pronounce
masterly. The first of the third act, from the
moment in which lago first begins to work upon the
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 301
susceptible nature of tlie Moo7' with his artful insi-
nuations, to the fine hypocritical burst of indigiuition
with which he breaks out,
" Oh grace ! Oh Heaven defend me I
Are you a man ? Have you a soul or sense ?
Heaven be Avith you — take mine office — Oh wretched fool,
That Uv'st to make thine honesty a vice," etc.
And the half sullen air of honest friendship with
which he sajs,
" I should be wise, for honesty's a fool
And loses that it works for — "
The whole scene was sustained throughout with
admirable force and spirit. But our purpose in
writing this article is not merely to praise Mr.
Hackett, but rather to point out those particulars
wherein he has succeeded in presenting something
original in his performance of a character which
has been so often and so variously played that
noyelty would almost seem to be impossible. We
noticed, then, a point which we haye not seen made
before — in the second scene, wliere lagd's merry
conyersation with Cassia is interrupted by the sud-
den entrance of Othello :
^^ lago. Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land-carack ;
If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever.
Cassio. I do not understand.
lago. He's married.
Cassio. To whom ?
lago. Marry to — "
302 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
Here lie stops abruptly in his jesting, and seeing
Othello^ snddenly exclaims, " Come, captain, will
you go ? " and, in an instant, changes his sneering
tone and manner to an appearance of the utmost
cordiality and devotion. This is happily conceived,
for it is by such touches as these that the Machia-
velism of lago is most strikingly exemplified.
Another good idea is the significant look to Hode-
rigo with which Mr. Ilackett singles him out as his
opponent in the subsequent scuffle — intimating that
they two understand each other. Mr. H. makes
another fine point in the second act, when, after
making malicious remarks upon the grace of Cassio^s
manner in saluting Desdemona^ he suddenly bursts
out, on hearing the trumpet of the Mooi\ with an
assumption of exultation at his safe arrival. We
observed a new reading, also, in the first scene of
this act —
" I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip ;
Abuse him to the Moor in the riglit garb,"
which we have always before heard read '''' ranh
garl).^'' Mr. H. probably has some authority for
his correction, and it certainly appears just: the
" right garb " would signify that very way, which,
wdiile it seems a palliation, shall, in reality, be an
aggravation — ranh garb we do not understand at
all. We think Mr. Ilackett correct, also, in making
* The Folio of 1623 reads '■'■riglit garb;" all the later editions sub-
stitute the word ''■ranlH'' for "right." When logo says —
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 303
larjo pretend to be somewhat affected by the liquor
lie lias drunk in the next scene, where he beguiles
Ckissio with intoxication. Unless he does this, his
design upon Cassia is too evident ; and lago is too
craftj to risk the failure of his contrivance by the
detection of so clumsy an artifice. The finest point,
however, that we noticed (and it is new to us), was
the air of earnest and interested attention with which
he leaned forward to catch the words of Othello, in
the second scene, and the involuntary and suddenly
suppressed start of joy which he gives when he hears
him pronounce the sentence — " Cassio, I love thee,
but never more be officer of mine." In the first
scene of the third act Mr. H. introduces a reading,
which is certainly new, but which we do not approve.
" I'll abuse him to the Moor in the right garb,"
he means — " I will assume the right kind of covering to hide any
nakedness of my sinister purpose, I'll seem at first reluctant when
ask'd to give Othello my evidence —
" Othello. Honest lago, that look'st dead with grieving,
Speak, who began this ? On thy love I charge thee,
" and then I'll so color my narrative of the brawl, and seem so exceed-
ingly anxious to excuse Cassia's behavior, as to have forgotten my-
self and become too hasty and voluble in expressions, and by inter-
jecting apparently conscientious stops and reflective breaks in my
specious story, (as, 'Yet surely Cassio — I believe — received,' &c.), I
shall the more thoroughly criminate Cassio, in proportion to my seem-
ing earnestness of eftbrt to excuse him to the understanding of Oilidloy
That such was the '•'■right garb" or cloak to cover his design is proved
by the succeeding remarks of Othello —
" Othello. I know, lago,
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
Making it light to Cassio."
J. H. H.
80-i SHAKESFEREAN SUBJECTS.
'■'■ Othello. I do not think but Desdemona's honest.
lago. Long hvc she so — and long hve you to think so.
Othello. But yet, how nature, erring from itself —
lago. Ay, there's the point, as (to be bold with you)
Not to aflfect," etc.
Mr. Hackett gives quite a different signification to
the words in the parenthesis and reads tliem thus,
" as, to be bold, with yoio " — as if he were referring
in his own mind to a former observation of her
father, who says of her, " a maiden never boki,"
and now applied the epithet to her conduct, height-
ening its force by making it refer particularly to
Othello. To be bold, with Azm, of all men, whose
difference of age and complexion should naturally
have made him an object of dislike or fear to her.
This reading may be correct enough, but the other
is quite as good, and has the sanction of long esta-
blished custom to justify it.
But it is time to put an end to this notice, which,
when w^e began it, we had no thought of extending
to such an unreasonable length. We will therefore
only mention one more touch in Mr. Hackett's per-
formance, with which we were much pleased, and
then conchide with a few words of advice to him —
which lie will adopt or disregard at his pleasure.
Tlie point that we like is the manner of his exit
when Cassia declares that he had found the hand-
kerchief in his chamber, where it had been dropped
by Tago. He meets the inquiring eyes of Othello
(naturally directed to him for confirmation), with a
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 805
significant look and action, expressive of his con-
tempt for the credulity and weakness of his dnpe ;
then gazes fixedly and with a look of exultation
upon Othello and the latal bed, and seems to be
absorbed in self-gratulating meditation upon the
successful issue of his villany, from which he is
roused by a touch upon the shoulder from one of
the guards, turns, and goes out rapidly and cheer-
fully, as if content to endure whatever might be in
store for him.
The advice we have to give Mr. Hackett is, to
play lago again as soon as possible, and to turn his
attention, as much as may be, exclusively to tra-
gedy. Q.
These notices were written by Mr. John Inman
for the N. Y. Even{7ig Post^ where they may be
found in its files for April, 1828. I did not take his
advice — " to turn my attention as much as may be
to tragedy '' — because it did not draio^ as did my
comedy ^ besides, it demanded continued study and
constant practice, and brought me, who was a
novice^ in continual comparison with old stagers
of stereotyped conventionalities, and before au-
diences containing scarcely one educated critic
among them, or capable of discerning and indi-
cating by applauding or condemning my innova-
tions of conception and nice subtleties in collating
the text, however crude my acting might be.
J. H. H.
306 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
lago has been classified by its players as " a very
uphill part ;" the reason is obvious. Icujd's vices and
villany are so fl.agrant that when discovered his
very presence becomes hideous and repulsive.
Othello^ on the contrary, displays many ennobliug
traits of character which enlist and carry along with
him the sympathies of an audience, and his actor'' s
pretensions to public favor are promoted accord-
ingly ; whereas, the 2)layer of lago has not only no
aid towards winning their partiality by its goodness^
but is in some measure bound to partake of the
demoralizing effect of their indignation at his cha-
racter's baseness.
An instance of such effect is said to have occurred
when King George the Third witnessed the perform-
ance oi lago by the famous George Frederick Cooke ;
that simple-minded sovereign remarked, " Cooke
must be a very bad man at hearty because if he were
not, he~ could not so well j^erform such a heartless
villain."
When Junius Brutus Booth, who had been
brought from the Provinces to the British Metropolis
by the Co vent Garden Manager, for the special pur-
pose of disputing Edmund Kean's superiority as
Riehard the Third at Drury Lane, had afforded
the London public sufficient opportunities for insti-
tuting comparisons of their respective pretensions in
the part, and concerning the merits of which the
great majority appeared in favor of Kean, though
Booth had many ardent admirers in the same roll,
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 307
Elliston, the Drurv Lane Miuiager, wlio was a wily
politician in theatricals, tempted Booth to " come
over from Covent Garden for a night and play lacjo
to Kean's Othello^'' his most favorite part, and pro-
nounced by Lord Byron and all the critics '' Kean's
most intellectual and artistical performance." Booth
was persuaded, and pitted against Kean, who had
become thoroughly established in London as " the
Othello of the age," whilst Booth was comparatively
a stranger in London. The result was, that many,
who had previously contended that their style and
personal peculiarities were very similar and their
genius equal, upon seeing the two act together,
agreed there was ^'' no comparisons'' that "Booth
could not stand by the side of Kean," and the critics
reported that "Kean had floored Booth and walked
over him completely." Mr. Booth never recovered
any position afterward in London, and in reference
to that event, in conversation with me at Kew York
some years afterward. Booth said — " Kean's Othello
smothered Desdemona and my lago too." Edmund
Kean returned from his second visit to America to
Drury Lane, where he appeared in January, 1827.
After performing his established parts repeatedly
there was great desire expressed to see him play
lago^ which he had not acted for a number of years,
his Othello having become his favorite and esta-
blished as such with the public. Li order to gnitify
the curious, Mr. James Wallack, then the leading
tragedian of that theatre, was cast Othello^ and Mr.
308 SIlAKESrEREAX SUBJECTS.
Kean reappeared on the occasioji as lago. Mr.
"Wallack's Othello^ though accepted by the great
majority of the audience, especially under the exi-
gency, was not satisfactory to a few who expressed
disapprobation at his delivery of certain of Kean's
points, ungenerously comparing him with Kean's
standard, when Mr. Wallack had had no ambition,
and indeed had unwlllmgly consented to play
Othello with him ; nevertheless Mr. Kean made no
feature then of his lago^ and I believe never per-
formed it again.
During the winter of 1832-33 Captain Polhill, the
lessee, through Alfred Bunn, his acting-manager,
engaged Macready to play lago to Kean's Othello^
with the understanding that Kean, after a few per-
formances of Othello^ would appear as lago alter-
nately to Macready's Othello. Macready's lago was
generally commended by critics, and seemed to me a
very creditable performance of his own conception,
but it was not generally admired as much as Charles
Young's. Macready, however, could not obtain an
opportunity to perform Othello wdth Kean, who,
though urged again and again by the manager, posi-
tively and repeatedly refused.
/ The fact is, the conventional idea was then and
I generally still obtains among the theatrical public
I that lago should be acted in a black wig and with
heavy black eyebrows, and betray in his counte-
vnance throughout, and in all his outward semblance,
^he characteristics of a barefaced ruffian, whereas
\j
SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 309
Xatiire furiiislies black-hearted villains of all com-
plexions, and the records of crime have shown
more of light than of a dark complexion ; besides, if
lagd's villany is mad'e so apparent Vo all around him,
and not confined as it should be to his soliloquies^
and where only by his self-communion the audience
are let into his secrets as he exposes his subtlet}-,
Othello could not have been so deceived by him as
to remark, " this fellow's of exceeding honesty and ^,
know^s all qualities with a learned spirit of human
dealings " and repeatedly calling him '^honest, hon-
est lagoP Though Shakespeare intended lago to
dupe that silly young gallant Roderigo^ he surely
never designed that he should make easily and
readily a fool of Othello / though he apostrophizes
to himself as such after the denouement, " Oh ! fool,
fool, fool !"
The character of Iccgo is composed of such peculiar
traits, some of his very words in soliloquy have such
particular significance, and require such marked
emphasis to make them the more intelligible to his
audience, his subtlety and hypocrisy, his direct and
his sinister motives and purposes are so skilfully
blended, and carefully or more or less artfully con-
cealed according to his respective objects and the
difi'erent penetration or circumstances of each one
with whom he has any intercourse, that the part
requires to be diligently and patiently studied in all
its bearings before even the most comprehensive
genius can clearly perceive the immortal dramatist's
810 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS.
design ; and then, none but some actor of great talent
in portraying dissimulation, and of sound judgment
and long experience, may reasonably hope to pro-
duce such eflects upon an ordinary audience as will
prove satisfactory to them generally and to himself
as an artist particularly.
lago may indeed be regarded by professional
actors as one of the most uncertain " and least profita-
ble of great parts which can be attempted within the
whole range of Shakespeare's dramas," and if an
actor would become poj)ular in that character, he
must, for the sake of efl'ect upon the uninstructed and
impracticable majority of play-goers, submit to their
false but settled notions respecting lago^ and sacrifice
as a condition his own trite judgment and an ortho-
dox consistency with the poet's words and his
obvious meaning.
PART VI.
FALSI AFF.
NOTES, CRITICISMS, AND REMARKS RESPECTING
FALSTAFF,
IN THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV.
Late in the month of May, 1831, whilst Charles
Kean and myself were starring upon alternate nights
at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, and were
fellow-guests in Head's Mansion House — then the
most favorite hotel of that city — we strolled about
the town together.
In the course of our promenade, Charles Kean
asked me if I had " ever thought of acting Fal-
staffT^ I replied that "with such object I had par-
tially studied the character." He observed, " I
have a strong desire to play Hotsjpiir, and if you
will undertake to be ready within a week to make
a first appearance in Falstaff^ I will essay Hotspur
on the occasion for the first time also." We per-
formed accordingly, and both were favorably re-
ceived. May 31, 1832. The weather that evening
was very warm, and the costume I wore covering a
14
814 FALSTAFF.
heavy piiclding or stuffing of curled hair — to give
the requisite rotundity to Fat Jack^s large propor-
tions— together with my anxiety and nervousness
about the result, caused me to perspire very pro-
fusely. Towards the conclusion of the play, tlie
manager, Mr. Duffy, came behind tlie scenes, and
repeated some complimentary remarks whicli he
said certain critics among the audience had made to
him, and inquired, " How do you feel now ?" I
replied, "Severely punished by the heat of the
weather, intensified as it is by confined space, the gas-
lights, and the breath of the audience." "Psha!"
rejoined Mr. Duffy, "you don't suffer at all when
compared with Coojper'^ {Thomas -4.), "just such a
night as this about a year ago. After Falstaff''s
running away and roaring for ' Mercy,' when sur-
prised and chased from Gad's Hill by the Prince and
Poins, Cooper insisted upon having the large double-
doOrs at the back of the stage — constructed in order
to admit elephants, horses and cars, on occasion —
thrown wide open ; and, regardless of the rear being
upon a public alley, ordered his servant to bring a
chair, which he placed in that opening and sat him-
self there, to pant and try to cool himself. Every
time thereafter, as he came off the stage, he threw
himself into the chair, and commenced by crying
aloud to his servant — 'Where's that brandy and
water ?' * Here, sir !' Having swigged it down,
Cooper next ordered him, ' Bring here a looking-
glass !' After reconnoitring his features in the
FALSTAFF. 315
mirror — ' There's that bloody-red nose of mine, and
more characteristic than Bardolph's ; get some chalk
and whiten it !' Ilis servant had hardly time to
effect it, when Cooper was called to the stage.
Upon returning, as before, he called first for ' brandy
and water !' then for the looking-glass, and, again
surveying his face, he rebuked his servant — ' Didn't
I tell you, sirrah, to chalk my nose ?' Ilis man
replied, ^ I did, sir, but you sweat so much the chalk
won't stay on it !' ' TTell, then, take a towel and
wipe my nose dry^ first, and then rub Qnore chalk
over it.' He was interrupted by the call-hoy — ' Mr.
Cooper, the stage is waiting for you !' ' Is it ? I'll
pray to be d d if ever I undertake to act this
infernal old vas-abond ao^ain !' "
With respect to my own and peculiar concej^tiou
and rendition upon the stage of the character of
Falstaff^ and concerning which I may be expected
to write something, I would premise, that, as it is
seldom given to us to see ourselves as others see us,
perhaps I cannot convey to such as never have and
never may see my performance of the part an idea
of it better than by transcribing some of the most
graphic reports of various critics for the press in
Great Britain and America, beo-innina: in 184:0.
316 FALSTAFF.
FALSTAFF ;
A SHAKESPEKEAN TRACT.
As a curious native American, my attention lias
been occasionally arrested by the labored attempts
of certain London theatrical critics at what is termed
" tine writing ;" and as my own debut in Falstaff^
at Drury Lane theatre, elicited a critique of this
species " in the leading journal of Europe," I will
merely take up and review the writer's J9r<?m^^^^,
which relate solely to the character itself, in order
that, as its actor^ I may escape any imputation of an
unbecoming captiousness towards a professional
censor about what follows and treats specially of my
stage readings.
A critic of the "Times" ^Newspaper of 2d No-
vember inst., in reporting the representation of the
''^ First Part of Henry the Fourth^^ advances the
following characteristics, as constituting his " ideal"
of Falstaff^ which, by sentences, I will here reca-
pitulate in italics^ and then attempt, link by link, to
unravel his concejptions^ coiled with such seeming
subtlety. After capping his notice with tlie title
of the play, and some general remarks, he com-
mences thus : —
" What an accurate halancing, a nice adjustment
of qualities^ is necessanj to 2^ortray Falstaff^
that he may he the j^roper raixticre of dehaiir
FALSTAFF. 317
cMe^ coward^ hully, wit^ and courtier^ loithout
heing one to the exclusion of the rest^ or an
unfortunate^ disjointed succession of cdl /"
Such a problem, I should imagine, would be
unavoidably solved if the actor justly and accu-
rately delivers Shakespeare's own ingredients,
accompanied by such action as may be natural
to one of his bulk and breeding, in his relative
situations.
" What richness in every word that is to he ut-
tered T
Yocal " richness" depends upon each listener's
own ideas of what is the quality of voice peculiar
to ohesity / my own observation of human nature
has determined me that fat men generally have
either thin voices, or such as are constantly alternat-
ing between a bass and a falsetto, as if escaping a
throat partially clogged with a surplus of flesh.
" What uyictuosity of tongue as well as jperson •
what an assumption of maudlin uneasiness
that ever pinches Falstaffinto a sort of repentr
ance .^"
7" cannot imagine any, inasmuch as he never exhi-
bits the slightest proof of a sincere disposition to
repent of anything. Once, indeed, being " troubled
by him with vanity," he affectedly threatens the
Prince with his own amendment, by " giving over
this life ;" and in almost the same breath, being
tempted, yields, and relapses " from praying to
purse-taking." At another time, when apostrophiz-
318 FALSTAFF.
ing his loss of flesh — his fear of becoming " out of
heart shortly " — his forgetfiilness of " what the inside
of a church is made of," and the spoHatory eifects
of " villanous company," Bardolph insinuates he is
" so fretful, he cannot live long ;" whereupon,
instead of any sign of repentance^ he calls for " a
bawdy song, to make him merry."
" What rajndity in the discharge of the apt epi-
thets whichhegetone another with such astound-
ing fertility^ "
Doubtless as much rapidity in articulation as is
consistent with his physical short-windedness, and a
zealous desire to return promptly the personalities
heaped upon him, at one time, by the Prince with
such exemplary volubility, mutually unrestrained
(as they are) by any well-bred consideration of the
presence of their low companions.
" what courtesy to the heir apparent are
necessary^ hefore even the m.ost careless peruser
of Shahespewre can see the Falstaff of his
imagination^
What courtesy f Indeed, very little of any sort
can reasonably be expected from " an impudent,
embossed rascal," who, w^henever annoyed, is hardly
restrained by intimidation from pursuing his scur-
rility towards a prince, not only habituated to his
familiarities, called "rascalliest," and told to "hang
himself in his own heir-apparent garters," but such
an one as, to indulge his " inordinate and low
desires, barren pleasures — rude society," invites
FALSTAFF. 319
general disrespect, by descending (as himself de-
scribes) to " sonnd tlie very base-string of humility,
and to become sworn brother to a leash of drawers,
calling them Tom, Dick, and Francis," and proficient
enongh to drink " with any tinker, in his own lan-
guage, the rest of his life."
Such lold shew of " courtesy " as is compatible
with his venturing a familiar, if not impertinent,
joke on AYorcester's defection in the presence of
Majesty itself; for example when the King animad-
verts thereon, he interjects — "Rebellion lay in his
way, and he found it !"
Such respectful " courtesy^'' under the most trying
circumstances, as may merit the rebuke of the
Prince in the heat of the battle, when refused his
sword, and misled by the offer of his "pistol," he
(\vQi^^Falstaff''s sach-hottle^ and rushes away angrily,
exclaiming — " Is it a time to jest and dally now ?"
" ^Yith all the hold outline and full-facedness of
a coarsely ])ainted Dutch clocT^^ he has cdl the
delicate organization of a Geneva vjatch / and
hard is it for the actor to avoid marring sorne
jpart of the fine machinery P
This clock-and- watch figure may be striTcing to
others^ but to discover the most remote analogy
between such mechanism and Falstaff^s bodily
exterior, with its soul's motive shining clearly
through every action, puzzles me as much as I think
it would have done the Prince to compare the
minutes of that " long hour by Shrewsbury clock,"
820 FALSTAFF.
wherein the dead Percy and the prostrate and
death-counterfeiting FaUtaff^ " both rose at the
same instant and fought" so valiantly.
Indulgent British reader ! Accustomed as we
AmericanshdiWQ been to reverence the chastening rod
of London criticism, — once the fiat of each new
Shakespearean actor's fate, and liallowed, as in by-
gone days, for its stimulating and restraining influ-
ence upon many, whose genius then illumined, and
whose memories still reflect a glimmering glory on
the British stage, how unavoidably must our esteem
decline at such specimens of degeneracy ! — and
when, also, such a journal as the " Morning Chroni-
cle," (in reference to the same occasion,) after pre-
mising that " Mr. Hackett is indisputably a good
comedian," — ^liis " Falstaff about as good as any
now on the stage," &c., sagely remarks, " there was
a good deal of jollity about him, but withal, coarse :
THOUGH Falstaff is a humorist, he is a gentleman.""^
Falstaff a gentleman ! ! ! I should like to learn
in what one respect beyond the ideal quality asso-
ciated with a hnigJdhood, The Prince sketches to
him the following picture of himself, — viz. " a devil
in the likeness of a fat old man — a tun of man — a
trunk of humors — a l)olthig Jmtch of heasiliness — a
swoln parcel of dropsies — a huge bombard of sack —
a reverend vice — grey iniquity, father-rufiian, vanity
in years — neat and cleanly only in carving a capon
* Mad Tarn, in King Lear, says " The Prince of darkness is a gen-
ileinan:'—J. H. H.
FALSTAFF. 321
and eating it — villanous in all things, and worthy in
nothing." Are any of these innate characteristics
of a gentleman ? Even what prepossessing j9(?r5(9?i«/
apjpeojrance does Fahtaff^s own vanity claim ? " A
good portly man — of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye,
and a most noble carriao^e !" and admits withal
that he is " old and merry." What is his conduct f
Is he not mean, coAvardly, and selfish ? — addicted to
" incomprehensible lying ?" — lawfully due to the
gallows for highway robbery ? — guilty of " abusing
the king's press damnably," by a fraudulent ex-
change of soldiery, and of cruelty in leading his
" ragamufiins where they are so well peppered that
not three out of a hundred and fifty are left alive?"
Is he not ovei'bearing to his hnmble dependents ?
Is not the poor hostess, who has trusted him a long
score for " his diet and by-drinkings, and bought
him a dozen shirts to his back, and lent him twenty
pounds besides," slandered most wantonly and
grossly by him, whom she may well call ''a foul-
mouthed man ?" If so, the sentiments and feeline^s
of a gentleman cannot be predicated of his words or
his actions / nor can any actor who delivers certain
of his language, and that the least objectionable to
modern ears polite, as, ''"you lie^ hostess^^^ &c., avoid
being identified with vulgarity and coarseness. As
for Falstaff^s disposition to cultivate a dignified and
court manner^ his ambition in that particular may
be inferred from his own words, that " to become a
rare hangman^ jumps with his humor as well as
822 FALSTAFF.
waiting in the court;" in fact, except for a few
moments wlien meeting Westmoreland, there is no
situation in the acting-play where Faldaff would
not consider an assumed rejineinent of ina7inei\ use-
less affectation.
In conclusion, Shakespeare has invested that phi-
losophic compound of vice and sensuality, with no
amiable or tolerable quality to gloss or cover his
moral deformity, except a surpassingly-brilliant and
charming wit, and a spontaneous and irresistible flow
of humor. Tliat the character was designed for
stage effect is evident from his many practically-
dramatic situations, and the idea that it is beyond
the reach of histrionic art to represent him properly
can only originate in a hypercritical and fantastic
imagination ; one of that sickly cast, which, like
unto a peevish child, would not rest satisfied even if
humored with its own fancies ; therefore, the ends
of criticism would be far more beneficially gained
by the public and the performer, if censors for the
press would occasionally analyze, where they differ
about prominent traits of character, and particular-
ize any new candidate's defects, whether of judg-
ment, art, or physical qualifications ; then could
every reader judge for himself, instead of being, as
now, obliged to yield his premises to the ijpse dixit
of some Sir Oracle, who may confound the faculties
of his cursory observer, by a sweeping ad-cajptan-
dwn-vulgus display of pseudo-intelligence, and
impose also upon the player, who, having made a
FALSTAFF. 323
study of cliaracter the business of his life, may pos-
sibly have forgotten more than such a mere occa-
sional peruser ever knew of the subject-matter.
James H. Hackett.
22 Charlotte Street, Bedford )
Square, London, Nov. 5, 1839. )
Extract from the London Times, Feb. 7, 1845.
" 3f/\ Hackett^ the American comedian, has re-
appeared at Covent Garden as Falstaff in the First
Part of Henry lY., a character on which, we have
heard, he has bestowed great study ; and his per-
formance bears tlie mark of study. There is proba-
bly not a gesture, look, or motion, on the part of
Mr. Hackett, which has not in his mind its meaning
and significance. This is in itself a commendation.
It is something now-a-days to find an actor desiring
earnestly to give a view of a character, when it is
so ordinjtry a plan to learn by rote a few convention-
alities, and conceive nothing. As for the view
itself, that is another matter. We should say that
Mr. Hackett looks upon Falstaff as a slower and
more deliberate person than he is usually con-
sidered— less rejoicing in the play of his own fancy,
more premeditative with his jokes, more seriously
irascible. The exterior of the character, as he gives
it, is touchy, fretful, even serious ; it is only on occa-
sions that the mirth breaks out, and then, by the
intensity of the laugh, he marks a strong contrast
324: FALSTAFF
with the usual deportment. ^ * If we rightly
interpret Mr. Ilackett's meaning, as displayed in his
acting, it is this : that JFalstaff is a man of cynical
temperament, with the infirmity of age already
weighing upon him — that he has a kind of mental
as well as bodily obesity, and that though the inter-
nal humor of the man is unquestionable, it does not
readily rise to the top. To this view of the cha-
racter Mr. Hackett seems to have worked up most
conscientiously. Two isolated speeches we heard
with unmingled satisfaction. Falstaff'^s description
of his ragged regiment was given with a real sense
of enjoyment at the ridiculous. The " fun" was
allowed free play — the laugh at the exit was capital.
The other sj^eech was that on the futility of honor —
good for a different reason. The deliberate qualities
of the actor were well placed in this soliloquy,
which, though comic, is deeply reflective, and in-
volves the destruction of the whole life of the mid-
dle ages."
Memarks upon the Foregoing.
London, Feb. 7, 1845.
After many years of stage-practice in the Falstaff
of toth parts of Kimrj Henry /F., and also in that
of The Merry Wives of Windsor, I think there was
not a phase of the character — either as exhibited in
his own words, or as relatively indicated by their
context — wliich has escaped my minute observation
and very careful consideration before I resorted to
FALSTAFF. 325
liistrioiiic art to embody and represent it to an audi-
ence ; still, as I claim no infallibility of judgment, 1
bold my senses ever open to conviction, and am
pleased ratlier tban offended wbenever a critic will
take any reasonable exception to my own under-
standing^ or will specify bis objections to mj per-
so7iation of Falstaff. By a critic, I mean one wbo
at least remembers eacb of tbe plays wberein Sbake-
speare bas introduced Falstaff. I bave made tbe
cbaracter a practical study tbe greater portion of
my professional life, and feel ready to maintain my
conception witb tbe poet's text and its most obvious
interpretation.
Every trait of my representation, described by
"Tbe Times," I contend for, and I am gratified in
discovering tbat I succeeded in depicting each so
clearly. . Tbe specific cbaracter oi Falstaff ^s bumor
cbanges witb tbe circitmstances. Wlien Poins bas
bidden Falstaff^ s borse bebind tbe bedge, and by
sucb practical joke bas compelled old Fat Jach
to clamber Gadsbill owfoot^ Falstaff \^ said to ''^fret
nice a giimmed velvet /" be also fumes out a long
soliloquy of splenetic invective, ending witb — " I
bate it !"
Tbe "Times" critic cbarges tbat I look upon Fal-
staff as " more seriously irascible tban be is usually
considered." I would submit wbetber Falstaff
would not be in earnest w^ben Poins confesses tbe
trick be bad put upon liim, and sbelters bimself be-
hind tbe Prince to escape punisbment, in saying — ■
826 FALSTAFF.
" Now^ can not I strike him if I were to be hanged ;"
and also, whether it was not Poins's agility or the
Princess personal interference, or the nrgency of
their predatory expedition, \n\\\^ jyrevented Falstaff
from " striking JihiiP
In Falstaff ''s abuse of the hostess, and when back-
biting the Prince^ he inteijects —
" The Prince I He is a Jack ! a sneak-cup ! and if he were
here and were to say so, I'd cudgel him like a dog IJ
In fact, the Second Part of Henry lY., and the
Merry Wives of Windsor, too, furnish many in-
stances of Falstaff ^s habitual recourse to his " cud-
gel," and of the indulgence of his " irascible "
humors. Is not Falstaff' " touchy f " Mark ! When
BardolpTi^ encouraged to become familiar with him,
ventures a jest confirming Falstaff'' s own report
of his condition — " I^ow, I live out of all order,, and
out of all compass," and remarks, "Why, Sir John,
you are so fat you must needs be out of all com-
pass!" Falstaff proves himself " touchy f^ because
PardoVph finds cause to qualify his observation
immediately by adding, " out of all reasonable com-
pass ;" yet, it does not restrain an immediate display
of Falstaff ''s " cynical temperament,^'' for which
Bardol^Ns face and appearance furnish a subject.
I contend that there should be " marked, a strong
contrast between" the heartiness of Falstaff^ s mirth
according to circumstances • for example, when he
is cornered into his wit's end, to escape detection in
FALSTAFF. 327
tlie lies which he has just told the PrinGe and
Poins^ and swears —
" I hnew ye, as well as he that made ye I"
the exigency of the occasion (to " hide himself from
the open and apparent shame") and 2i forced mirth
ought to be discernible in the acting — in order to
characterize it distinctly from the unctuous kind,
and wherever it is the spontaneous and the irresisti-
ble ebullition of his own exuberant fancy ; as, for
example, when he is surveying in soliloquy and
luxuriating upon the features of his own ragged
regiment.
That Falstaff feels " the infirmity of age already
weighing upon him," may be proved from various
expressions of his at different times ; says he —
'' There live not three good men unhanged in Eng-
land, and one of them is fat and grows old !" thus
insinuating that there exist but tivo / one of course
being his hing^ and the other himself that king's
loyal subject.
Respecting Falstaff'' s ^' mental as well as bodily
obesity," which the " Times" critic also discovers in
my rendering on the stage, the Prince tells him,
when Falstaff inquires the " time of tlie day^ " Thou
art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack," &c., &c.
Extract from The Times^ London^ June 27, 1851.
" Mr. Ilackett^ the American comedian, who
828 FALSTAFF.
favors US with visits at very long intervals, comes
back to us with precisely the same qualities which
he displayed years ago. There is probably not a
more conscientious actor on the stage. He has
evidently studied the speeches of the fat knight,
whether uttered in Henry IV. or The Merry Wives
of Windsor^ w^ith a carefulness worthy of a com-
mentator on Sophocles. He has a definite manner
of giving every phrase, and of introducing every
jest. The finest mosaic work could not be more
carefully laid down. And there is not only care,
but considerable intelligence evinced in the render-
ing. The mind of an acute artist has evidently
been devoted to a character, with the view of dig-
ging everything out of its hidden recesses, and
making of it the completest thing in the world.
And yet there is one deficiency, which prevents the
Falstaff from producing its full effect on the audi-
ence. (fThis is, the want of the ars celare arte^n j
you approve of the result at which the artist has
arrived, but you always see the pains he takes to
reach it.'/
Memarh.
If this critic, in the subtlety of his penetration,
could find but " one deficiency" in my making my
Falstaff " the com/pletest thing in the world^^ and
that deficiency, too, such a one as none but the
most unsophisticated of spectators could fail to
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT. 829
detect to be, after all, no more than acting^ or stage-
ai% and intended^ by " an acute artist," to only
represent naturally an imaginary character, under
the particular circumstances of his varying scenes,
I can't ask nor expect more from " The Times" news-
paper— ever notorious for its parsimony of praise
and its liberality of censure : the rule of that press
being never to compliment any body or action with-
out a '' hut^'^ or some qualifying reservation. The
dignity of its policy on every subject and in every
department forbids that its editor can be fallible in
judgment, or ever surprised or instructed on any
occasion.
James H. Hackett.
. SKETCH OF JAMES II. HACKETT.
BY CHARLES J. FOSTER.
Chief Justice. What's he that goes there ?
Attendant. Falstaff, an't please your lordship.
It has often been said that though the triumphs
of the actor are immediate, they are not lasting.
The fruition of his efforts is quickly gathered ; he
hears the thunder of applauding multitudes while
he is yet upon the stage, but it is as brief as it is
boisterous and intoxicatino^. It confers no endurino:
fame like that which, ripening slowly, rewards the
authoi*, the painter, the sculptor, and the statesman.
830 SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
and lives for ever. Shakespeare himself may have
been of this opinion, for he likens life to the " poor
player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
and then is heard no more." With all due defer-
ence to the great authorities who have propounded
this idea, it may well be questioned. The fame of
the really great actor is not as evanescent as has
been supposed. His profession is one of the polite
arts ; and he who elevates and adorns it does not
merely revel in exquisite applause while upon the
stage, to sink into oblivion when the curtain falls
upon this mortal scene. He is the companion of
those whose pencils write their names upon the
pedestal of fame, and whose chisels carve out immor-
tality in indestructible marble. He is the friend of
the poet and biographer, whose pens illustrate and
embalm the men and manners of their time for all
succeeding ages. His fame is but little more evanes-
cent than their own, than that of most of those who
win glory in command of armies, or shape the fate
of nations in the deliberations of senates. Roscius
is not forgotten. We know as much of Betterton
as of Bradshaw, the regicide. Garrick's fame will
survive the memory of the monarch who fed mutton
npon his own turnips at Kew, and philosophising
over the baked dumpling, asked, how got the apple
in? Kean and Kemble will have a name among
polished nations after the vagaries of "the finest
gentleman in Europe " are no more remembered ;
and Talma will go down to later ages in company
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT. 831
with the " Man of Destiny " and Talleyrand. It is
very true that the actor leaves nothing of his own
behind him, by which after generations can revise
the verdict of his contemporaries, nor is it necessaiy
to his fame. His finest efforts instantly are "melted
into air — into thin air ! " but this is nearly so with
those of the great orator as well. From the neces-
sities of the case, we accept the judgment of those
who saw and heard them, as the unquestionable
guarantee of that genius which commands the admi-
ration of everv veneration of men. The fame of
poets, painters, and sculptors does not rest upon the
judgments of the mass of mankind upon their
works. How many men in this age have seen a
fragment from the hand of Phidias ? How many of
those who hold Raphael to have been the greatest
of painters have looked at one of his pictures ?
How many of those who believe in Homer have
read him, except through the ground and polished
spectacles of Alexander Pope? I grant that the
notoriety which some actors mistake for fame is as
short-lived as, to any man of genius and sensibility,
it would be unendurable ; but this is also true of
daubers who think they are artists, of scribblers who
believe themselves authors, and of charlatans who
pretend to be statesmen. It scarcely needs the
investigations of future ages to detect the impos-
ture. The foolish of Dryden's time thought Settle
a poet — the wise knew him to be a dunce. Pen-
sioners and parasites, in all ages, proclaim the minis-
832 SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
ter who pays them " a heaven-born statesman ;" but
the bokl and honest leave it upon record that he is
a wretched jobber. Everybody knows the brazen-
faced and brazen-throated mountebanks who pur-
chase venal praise with little cash and many bibu-
lous gratuities ; everybody knows the versatile sons
of genius, for whom no tragedy is too high, no farce
too low ; everybody knows the admirable men who
are equally excellent in presenting the almost divine
creations of Shakespeare, and the delirious concep-
tions of any fustian rascal who will murder the
English language, and massacre his characters ex-
pressly and solely for their use and behoof. For a
brief sj^ace, and among the green ones (but not in
the green-room), the fame of such persons seems
almost to equal, and sometimes to surpass, that of
the really great actor. While his greatest excel-
lence is rarely seen in more than two or three cha-
racters, these fellows are declared by their puffers
to be line in all. The real difference in kind, how-
ever, is fully as great as the apparent difference in
degree. It is a cat's-eye diamond to a ton of coal.
Both have carbon for a base, but one is constituted
brilliant, to endure for ever; the other will be dust
and ashes long before its lucky owner is. In every
polished age vast numbers of people, and those not
the least informed, have taken much interest in the
reminiscences and memoirs of truly great actors.
They enter into the spirit of their early struggles,
sympathise with their disappointments, dwell upon
SKETCH OF JAMES II. HACKETT. 333
their triuniplis, and devour the gossip of tne stage
and its antechambers with avidity. Something of
one of these great actors I am about briefly to
sketch. It is a hibor of love, for I believe that
could Shakespeare see liis plays, as they are per-
formed in our day, he would esteem Hackett as the
best exponent of one of the most delightful and
difiicult of his characters that has trod the stage
since his bones were laid by Avon side. Nor will
this actor's fame be evanescent, in my opinion.
From the very nature and degree of it, he is with-
out a rival living, he will never be without admirers
dead. When he, and you, and I, and sixty years
have gone, old gentlemen will say to the play-goer
of the day, " I saw Hackett in Falstaff^ sir. He
was the finest ' Sir John ' that ever enacted the
character !" And when sixty times sixty years have
elapsed, I have little doubt but the dramatic critic
and antiquary will declare, " the real Falstaff died
with Hackett ; and one of Shakespeare's master-
pieces is, as yet, no more !"
James H. Hackett was born in New York, in the
year 1800. He came of good stock, and is now the
oldest male lineal descendant of Ilaket^ a Norman
knight, who crossed the Channel with the Conqueror,
and whose descendants were, no doubt, men of mark
among the Hackems and Slashems who followed
Strongbow to Ireland, and Eichard to the Holy
Land. The actor is heir to the title long held by the
* •' .Uackdt, of Hackett's-towrij County Carlow, and Sbelton Abbey,
334 SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
Barons Hackett, of Ilackett's Court in Ireland.
Some of our cotemporary journals have put forth a
good deal of nonsense about his reasons for not
asserting his right to the peerage. The story goes,
that he does not claim the title because being a
recognized gentleman, the equal of any, in America,
a British Barony, the third degree in the peerage,
would degrade him, and make his rank relatively
below what it is at present. Then follows the old
formula about " good breeding," " worth makes the
man," "honor and shame from no condition rise,"
&c. Stuff like this could scarcely have emanated
from Mr. Hackett ; and it is quite certain that Sir
John Falstaff would have treated it with sovereign
contempt. Those who tell the story are not even
consistent in their nonsense. They begin by prais-
ing Mr. Hackett for not claiming certain rank, and
then assert that he does not claim it because it will
lower the rank and consideration he already enjoys.
But the absurdity does not stop here. 'No man of
sense really believes that the descendant of a long
County Wicklow, derived from Dominus Paganus de Hackett, who
himself descended from one of the great Norman Barons under the
Conqueror at Hastings, whose name appears on the Roll of Battle
Abbey. Paganus, in more than a century afterwards, accompanied
Henry II. into Ireland, and acquired broad lands and Seignories there ;
and his descendants, generation after generation, were subsequently
parliamentary barons and potent magnates in Ireland." — Burke's
Armorie of England, Scotland, and Ireland. London, 4do. 1844.
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT. 335
line of valiant and honorable men would be de-
graded below other gentlemen, anywhere, by reason
of his succession to the title they bore for centuries.
Is it any worse for a gentleman to be a baron than
to be an actor ? Grant that the descendants of i^ell
G Wynne, and the Duchess of Portsmouth, will have
precedence of him at Court on certain State occa-
sions— they have 7iow^ if he goes there. They have
it over the American Minister, but who declines the
embassy on that account ? Again, if dukes, mar-
quises and earls, rank above the Barons Hackett in
Dod's Peerage and the book of the Court Chamber-
lain, they do not in the estimation of the English
people. The baron of ancient degree does not owe
his patent to the compliances of wantons, or the ser-
vices of chamberers. The names of his kin are in
Doomesday Book, and on the roll of Battle Abbey !
His ancestors were among those " barons " who
wrested the Great Charter from John, at Punny-
mede, after having spilt their martial blood under
his valiant brother, beneath the walls of Ascalon.
" The knights are dust — •
Their swords are rust,
Their souls with the saints I trust ;
And honor their names we must."
The man of fine genius and rare intelligence,
never talked as this idle tale supposes. It smacks
836 SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
of tlie demagogue, who, believing the people to be
as foolish as he really is himself, endeavors to impose
upon them by clap-trap as wretched as that shouted
to clowns in country theatres by buffoons barely fit
to grin through a horse's collar. Hackett declined
to claim the title he might have had, because he had
achieved fame by his own efforts, and because he is
of a nation which has wisely discarded titles in its
economy of place and honor. This was sensible, a
proper respect for principle, which everybody can
understand ; whereas, nobody can understand how
the taking of the title could have been degrading in
any sense of the word.^
* The basis of this newspaper-story was constructed out of an
after-dinner and incidental conversation in England in the autumn of
1839 ; and Mr. Ilackett was reported, by an American correspondent
who happened to be a guest also, to have rephed — when asked,
" Why, possessing an attested pedigree,* he had not claimed the iiile
of a Baron ?" — " Because, it is now only an lionorary one. It was
derived originally from a descendant of Haket (whose name is still
visible upon the Pillar at Battle Abbey near Hastings, as one of the
Norman nobles and Generals of William the First, that shared richly
with him in his Conquest of England) who attended Henry the Second
into Ireland, and obtained large landed estates there, but has become
extinct, and is now only recognised as having, through many centu-
ries, lastl}'- and properly belonged to the Peerage of a by-gone and
since disintegrated Irish Parliament, Hence the title is now only the
shadow of a departed dignity, and such as could offer no temptation
to a native and an unostentatious American to parade anywhere as
an appendage to his family-name." J.
* Issued in 1834, by the Ulster King at Arms, to the late Edmond — the last
of the Barons— iZacl'e^^, who died when visiting New Orleans in 1889.
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT. 337
In 1815, after tlie turbulent star of Talma's friend,
jN^apoleon, had set in a sea of fire and blood, young
Hackett was entered at Columbia College. His
poor health, however, prevented a close and long
devotion to classical studies. A severe attack of
sickness compelled him to leave the college, and
after his recovery he began the study of the law.
But even thus early, the works of our great drama-
tists had for him an irresistible charm, and much
time that might have been devoted to Coke upon
Lyttletou, and the Commentaries of Mr. Justice
Blackstone, was given to Shakespeare's plays. He
began to lay the foundation of that large and accu-
rate knowledge of these works, which has since
guided him to truthful conceptions in the closet, and
borne such splendid fruit upon the stage. He did
not pursue the study of legal principles and practice
long, but I dare say he mastered enough of them to
appreciate the almost marvellous wisdom which
built up the structure of the Common Law, and then
devised the maxims and rules of equity to assuage
the sometime harshness of its strict application. In
1819 Mr. Hackett was married to Miss Catharine
Lee Sugg, a young actress of much ability, fine vocal
talent, and many charms of mind as well as person.
The young couple settled at Utica, in this State,
where he embarked in mercantile pursuits. In
Utica they remained six years, at the end of which
time, desiring to extend his business operations, Mr.
15
338 SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
Hackett removed to New York. The change was
unfortunate for tlie merchant, but happy for the
man. He failed in business, and his wife returned
to the stage, where she received the welcome emi-
nently due to her talents and virtues. On the first
of March, 1826, at the Park Theatre, Mr. Hackett
made his debut in public, as Justice Woodcock, in
Love in a Village, his wife playing Rosetta. He
was not successful, for his efforts were frustrated by
extreme nervousness. Perhaps his supposed failure
on this occasion w^as not an unfavorable omen as to
his future career. There is an order of mind in
which high powers are joined to a self-possession not
to be shaken, but it is very rare. There are also
two or three other things which may enable a man
to stand such an ordeal without emotion. One is
stolid insensibility, but he who is preserved from
nervousness on his first night by that, had better
quit the stage at once and go to rail-splitting. In
that case he may, in time, come to be President,
whereas he can never, under any circumstances,
become a good actor. Another is a flippant self-
conceit which keeps its possessor in blissful igno-
rance of the fact that he is making a fool of himself.
The first efibrt of such a man is apt to be as good as
his last, and that is not saying much for either of
them.
IsTine days after Mr. Hackett's first appearance, he
availed himself of the opportunity ajfforded by his
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT. 339
wife's benefit to go before the audience of the Park
Theatre again. He plajecl Sylvester Daggerwood,,
witli imitations of Matthews, Kean, Hilson, and
Barnes. His ejfforts on this occasion were so highly-
applauded, that his resokition to adopt the profes-
sion of an actor was confirmed. He soon made
another " hit," as the bills have it, as Dromio^ in the
Comedy of Errors^ Barnes playing the other bro-
ther. Hackett gave such a capital imitation of the
voice, manner, and peculiarities of Mr. Barnes, that
the audience were confused as to their identity, and
convulsed with laughter all through the play. In
the spring of the following year Mr. Hackett visited
England. I can imagine the bounding spirit and
emotion with which such a man treads for the first
time the boards of Covent Garden and Old Drury,
and becomes familiar with the haunts of Shake-
speare and rare Ben Jonson. He first appeared in
London, at Covent Garden, in Syl'vester Daggerwood^
with imitations of Kean and Macready, and stories
of American life and manners. The latter, no
doubt, of the old Knickerbocker folk, and of West-
ern characters, such as those in the Ai'kansaw Tra-
veller, were vastly amusing ; the imitations of Kean
were so good, that Jones induced Mr. Hackett to
play a whole scene from Richard in the style of the
great tragedian. Hackett, however, soon returned
to this country, where his excellent performances of
Dro7nio^ Solomon Swaj)-) Nhnrod Wildfire^ Rip
Van Winkle^ Monsieur Mallet^ cJ&c, procured him
340 SKETCn OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
many friends and hosts of admirers. At this time
he was interested in the management of the old
Chatham and Bowery Theatres, hut did not find the
treasury of either establishment a Californian placer.
In the fall of 1832 he again went to England.
During this sojourn in London he played at Covent
Garden, Drury Lane, and the Haymarket, conclud-
ing his engagements by playing Falstaff^ in which
part he had appeared once before in America. In
this great and subtle creation of Shakespeare, the
fame of Hackett w^as mainly won. He may have
played other characters very well, but they had not
for him the scope and significance of this. We do
not see the stars when the sun is shining. Nobody
cares about Dromio or Solojnon Swap when sweet
Sir John^ portly, rollicking, full-to-the-brim-and-
running-over Falstaff^ with his fiashing, many-sided,
diamond-cutting wit, is in question. This is quite
natural. Washington may have been an excellent
surveyor, Jenner may have had a capital salve for
a cut finger, James Watt may have improved cook-
ing stoves or candlesticks, but, inasmuch as the first
wrought the deliverance of America, the second
discovered vaccination, and the third invented the
condensing engine, nobody thinks of tlieir minor
achievements. Hackett's name has become identi-
fied with the personality of Sir John Falstaff wher-
ever our language is spoken. To play the part as
he plays it is to do what no other man, certainly no
other of this age, has ever done. Falstaff^ one of
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT. 341
the most glorious creations of our great dramatist,
was lost to the stage for want of a competent inter-
preter, and with him sank the lesser lights who
revolve around him in three plays. Why was
this ? Fat men were plenty enougli, as models, and
roguery and wine-bibbing have always been extant.
Thinking that these are the essentials of the part,
every low comedy man is persuaded that he could
play it. The manager, however, who, according to
said comedian, was once hissed in it himself,
refuses, out of sheer envy, to let the favorite of the
gallery appear as Sir John. The judicious are very
glad of it, for in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
we should have all the grossness of Jach Paunch
and none of the wit of Sir John Falstaff. The
subtle, mercurial essence which informs the charac-
ter would escape to no purpose in hands like these.
Corporeally, Sit John is heavy ; intellectually, he
is lightsome and nimble as the " tricksy spirit " who
ministered to Prosjpero^ when he
" be-dimmed
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the gr
Set roarinsr war."
And 'twixt the green sea and the azure vault
Hackett is as near perfection as can well be con-
ceived in this character. It is one of the most diffi-
cult of those we owe to the immortal author, whose
genius created it ; and it must have been a favorite
with him. The marvellous readiness, the rich fancy,
342 SKETCH OF JAMES H. ITACKETT.
tlie exuberant wit, the imperturbable self-possession
in circumstances which would confound a hundred
others, the manners of the gentleman never departed
from in the most ludicrous situations, the real good-
nature which underlies the disposition of the great,
roguish rojsterer, and, above all, the luscious, unctu-
ous humor with which Falstaff really " lards the
lean earth as he walks along," are all admirably
preserved by Hackett. Sir John^ mark you, drinks
much sack, but he is never reeling ripe, like Sii'
Toby and Sw Andrew^ in Twelfth ISTight. " If sack
and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked !" He
goes out to commit highway robbery, but he is no
thief. He offers Bardolpli as security to Master
Dumhleton^ for a new doublet and slops, but he is
no swindler. He borrows a thousand pounds of
Justice Shallow^ but says to him, when he hears that
the young King has come to the throne, " Choose
what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine !" He
runs away at Gadshill, but he is not a poltroon.
" ]^ot John of Gaunt, your grandfather, but yet no
coward, Hal." The real highwayman ran away too.
Each took his fellow for an officer. It is true that
the " instinct " and epicurean pliilosophy of the
knight, induce him to keep his person out of harm's
way as mucli as possible, but he had more of it to
care for than other men. The common notion is,
that the knight is without courage ; but this is a
mistake. I will go to the death for it that Sir John
was no coward. Let us look at the circumstances
SKETCH OF JAMES H. ^ACKETT. 34,3
of the time, and what was happening. England
was streaked tlirough and through with the turl)n-
lent passions which marked the era of " the roses
red and white." Tlie fourth prince of the house of
Tudor had mounted the throne bj violence, and the
second Kichard had been murdered in his prison, in
Pontefract Castle, after having stretched four or
five of his assassins dead at his feet with a pole-axe,
wrested from one of their number. The Percys,
JS'evilles, and Douglases, with other of the barons
who enabled Henry to seize upon the crown, are
now in arms against him. The dynasty of the
Tudors is menaced. Hotsjyur rages in the north,
and marches south to Shrewsbury. The commotion
about the court of the old king j)enetrates the haunt
of the Prince and Falstaff in Eastcheap, and young
Henry ^ taking arms himself, procures a charge of
foot for Sir John. He must have known whether
he was fit for it or not. At that time, battles were
decided at sword point and lance's thrust, and every-
thing depended upon the conduct and example of
the leaders. Later than that, Richard of Gloucester
and the Earl of Warwick won great victories by
their personal daring and courage. The Tudors,
father and son, had everything at stake. The
Prince^ afterwards a great captain, procured a com-
mand for Falstaff. It is incredible that Shake-
speare would have permitted young Henry to do
this, if Sir John had been a poltroon. The latter
would have disgraced him in the field. Falstaff
344 SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
was a captain of his making — the chief of those
boon companions with whom he " daffed the workl
aside to let it pass !" It is true the Prince calls him
a coward ; but Sir John calls him a coward, and
Poins another. " An' the Prince and Poins be not
two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring !
there's no more valor in that Poins than in a wild
duck." Yet Falstaff \w<^\n better. All the epithets
they applied to each other were but parts of the
great joke their lives then were. But here is irre-
fragable testimony, under Shakespeare's own hand,
that Jack Falstaff was, in real action, a brave and
doughty soldier. What does he make him say upon
the field, where there was " no scoring but upon the
pate ?" " I have led my ragamuffins where they
are peppered. There's but three of my hundred
and fifty left alive ; and they are for the town's end,
to beg during life !" He has led them into the
very heat of the fray — the current of the heady
fight ; and now, " hot as molten lead, and as heavy,
too," he breathes awhile, and jests upon the dangei'S
and incidents of the fight. Is this the conduct of a
coward ? would such a one have led the ragamuffins
where they got peppered 'I Would he not have
been pale and silent, instead of hot and cracking
jokes upon the stricken field ? Again, see how
Palstaff draws upon Pistol and drives him out,
when the latter vapors and flourishes his sword at
the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, where the Knight is
carousing with Doll and Quickly. And then again,
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT. 345
in the Merry Wives of Windsor, lie puts Pistol and
Nym down by that authority of courage which they
know he has, and they have not :
" Rogues, hence avaunt ! vanish hke hailstones — go
Trudge, plod away o' the hoof; seek shelter, pack!
Falstaff will learn the humor of this age,
French thrift, you rogues ; myself and skirted page."
Friends ! I beseech you, for tlie credit of Shake-
speare and the hero of Agincourt, as well as for
that of the knight himself, never think of sweet
Jack Falstaff as a coward again.
At his end, w^e see that the great poet loved him.
In his last moments he " played with flow- ers," and
when " his nose was as sharp as a pen, 'a babbled of
green fields !" Memento mori ! His dependants,
too, scamps as they were, loved the man, as appears
in King Henry the Fifth.
Pistol. for Falstaff he is dead.
And we must yearn therefore.
Bardolph. "Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is,
either in heaven, or in hell !
Kym. They say, he cried out of sack.
QuicJcIy. Ay, that 'a did.
BardolpJi. And of women.
Quickly. Nay, that 'a did not.
Boy. Yes, that 'a did, and said they were devils incarnate.
QuicMy. 'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a color he
never hked.
Boy. 'A said once the devil would have him about women.
15^
346 SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
Isone of tliese "base companions" had an end
like that the poet gave Fcdstaf\ unless it were the
Boy. Bardolpli is hanged for pix of little price.
Quicldy is " dead i' th' 'spital of malady of France."
Pistol, soundly cudgelled, goes home to follow a
wretched and infamous calling. These contrasts are
thrown in to mark the superior nature of Sir John.
The rebuke administered to him in such harsh terms
by the young King, would have better become the
lips of Chief Justice Gascoigne. Harry had shared
his dissolute way of life, and I regard this sermon to
Sir John, as a sort of vicarious atonement, very con-
venient, but not very creditable to the King. Some
think Shakespeare inserted it as a homage to virtue.
I think it was a homage to that resolute and imperi-
ous woman, Elizabeth Tudor. For her he made
Itichard Plantagenet a humj^-backed fiend ; for her
he made Harry Tudor a saint on his coronation day.
The Merry Wives, in which Sir John is made a dupe
and butt, w^as written at her request. Even in this
play, Falstaf rises superior to w^hat would over-
whelm another man. Besides, look at the charms
of the females, Ford and Page, employed to compass
his undoing. Seductiveness and treachery have
been the downfall of many a man since Jack gravi-
tated to the bottom of the Thames, like a whale
sounding in the shallows of the Antarctic Seas.
Mr. Hackett, in 1839, had a very interesting cor-
respondence with John Qnincy Adams, respecting
the character of Hamlet, and his letters establish his
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT. 347
critical acumen. lu 1840, lie visited England again,
and repeatedly performed FaUtaff at Drury Lane,
with great success. On bis return to this country,
he played King Lear^ at the Park Theatre, and also
at Philadelphia and Boston. Two years afterwards
he appeared as Hamlet at the Park Theatre. His
success in these characters led him to undertake
Pichard. In 1845, Mr. Hackett lost his wife, and
his engagements on the stage became fitful and
irregular after the sad bereavement. In the winter
of that year we find him again in London, playing
Falstaff and Hip Van Winkle^ at Covent Garden.
He also appeared at the Haymarket, and there, by
desire of the Queen, enacted Monsieur Mallet^ to the
great amusement of her Majesty and Prince Albert.
His experience as a manager, like his walk as an
actor, has been large. The Howard Athenaeum, at
Boston, was built for hi^n ; and he was lessee of the
Astor Place Opera House in 1849, when the
Macready riots occurred. The circumstances of that
affair, and those which grew out of it, disgusted him
so much that he threw up his lease. In 1851, he
made another visit to England, more for pleasure
than with a view to acting. He played Sir John,
however, in Merry ^Yives of Windsor, at the Hay-
market, and the comedy had a great run.
Even the brief sketch that has here been given
will suffice to show how varied, as well as great, are
the powers of Hackett. Sir John Falstaf^ is all
his own. Another actor of reputation would be
348 SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
insane to afford the opportunity for comparison by
attempting it. Falstaff^s belt has become like
Shakespeare's magic — " within that circle none
durst walk but he !" Hackett is one of the most
natural actors that ever trod the stage. He affects
no rant. He " mouths no sentence, as dogs mouth
a bone." Too many of our players imagine that
swiftness of utterance is vehemence, and that volume
of sound is power. In no character did Hackett
ever make these mistakes. He is not as rapid as a
mock auctioneer, nor as loud as the town bell-man,
and yet he moves his audiences as those who rave
prodigiously can never do. His engagement at
Niblo's has shown the hold he has upon the taste
and affections of the public. May it not be his last!
Mr. Hackett resides in the vicinity of I^ew York.
With a generous competency, the reward of his own
exertions, appreciated and cherished for his know-
ledge and learning, and having but just crowned
and passed the heights whicli decline gently into the
vale of years on the farther side, his life must needs
be happy and dignified ; and when his steps pass
down, near the clods in the valley, where the long
shadows, betokening that the sun is about to set,
still point towards its place of rising for a longer
and more glorious day, " all that should accompany
old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,"
this man may look to have. — Wilkes's Spirit of the
Times, Feh. 1862.
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETf. 849
REMARKS.
As may be perceived by reference to my " Shahe-
spcrean Tvact^'' P^g® 316, my opinion of Falstaff's
moral claims to our respect is in direct antagonism
to that of Mr. Foster, the author of the forefiroins:
slcetch.
In the latter part of the last century Maurice Mor-
gann^ Esq.^ the same who had filled the office of
Under-Secretary of State to the Marquis of Lans-
down during his first administration, and who
became afterwards Secretary to the Embassy for
ratifying the peace with the U. S. of America in
1783, wrote, as he professes in his Preface, " origi-
nally to amuse his friends, though he subsequently
consented to its publication," " An Essay upon the
DramatiG Character of Sir John FalstaffP Mr.
Morgann seems to have been so charmed by
Falstaff that he became blinded to the enormity of
his immoralities^ and undertook, like some profes-
sional advocate, to maintain, contrary to the general
opinion, and apparently against his own conviction,
" the worse to be the better reason," and that " the
character was not intended to be shown as a
coward?'' Though his arguments were palpably
sophistical, and utterly failed to vindicate Falstaff^s
courage, I could not but admire the talent he dis-
played in the effort, and I remember his '' Essay "^"^
as one of the most amusing and ingenious which I
850 SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
had ever perused. As an actor of tlie character I
am far from thinking it necessary to dignify it or to
hide or excuse its moral deformity in order to elevate
any merit in its personation, or to furnish an audience
an apology to themselves for being attracted and
amused whilst instructed by such an old reprobate
as Sir John Falstaff.
Shakespeare has been censured, and unjustly, for
making the Prince, after he became Henry F., dis-
solve his former intimacy with Falsta-ff^ who had
been the misleader of his youth, and banish him
some miles distant from his person ; for had he con-
tinued him in favor and allowed him near his Court,
Falstaff would have become a constant cause of
annoyance, if not an absolute nuisance to him.
Besides such personal reasons of the King^ Shake-
speare evidently had a onoral to inculcate. To
crown Falstaff with Henry the Fifth) s favor would
have been to reward vice and immorality instead of
punishing them. According to the history of
Shakespeare's time, when he wrote " The First Part
of King Henry lY.^^ the character now known as
Falstaf was first named Oldcastle^ for which
ofi*ence, as Sir John Oldcastle had been histori-
cally a valorous knight and an honorable gentleman,
the great dramatist was censured, and he therefore
coined for the character a new and an appropriate
or indicative name. /The staff upon which Fat Jack
relied to support him through life was composed of
his wit and humor and self-assurance, but it proved
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT. 351
in the end a false staff ; lie died, after the " King
had Mlled his heart,^^ disgraced and neglected by
Court friend?, and in the tavern at Eastcheap,
where he was surrounded only by his hostess, and
his former lewd and licentious companions or his
humble dependents. The idea entertained by some
critics that Shakespeare had, in so changing the
na7ne, been again unfortunate in selecting that of
Sir John Fastolf who historically, like Sii' John
Oldcastle^ had been also a hrave man, is absurd ; he
intended, when he explained that " Oldcastle died a
martyr, and this is not the man," to avoid the possi-
bility of such another personal imputation, and, by
the new name, to point the moral whilst the character
should adorn his historical play ; such suggestive
name^ too, requiring the omission of only two letters
in its orthography, superfluous to its sound upon the
ear, whilst its significancy^ when pronounced^ was
fully preserved — Fal(se)staff.
Fcdstaff was one of such as had " put their trust
in princes." The staffs upon which this huge and
extraordinary mental and physical compound de-
pended to procure him a secure and prominent posi-
tion about the Court ^ and to sustain him during his
latter days in Royal favor ; and indeed, to render
his own presence near his future king's person so
indispensable, as a source of continuous pleasure to
his new majesty, that, after hearing of the death of
the father, he flattered himself "the young king
would be sich until he should see him " at his coro-
352 SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT.
nation, consisted of certain ingredients ; such staff
had been formed by himself out of his natural
gifts and his artful accomplishments ; a rare wit
and of an ever-amusing quality, whether pro-
ceeding from his good or his ill humors ; the culti-
vation of a social and familiar intercourse, boon
companionship with the heir apparent^ a common
fellowship among " barren pleasures and rude so-
ciety ;" a ready participation even in absolute high-
way robbery, which had been suggested by Poins,
and consented to by the Prince as a frolicsome jest^
and the basis of a practical joke against Falstaff^
and involving some personal danger to him cer-
tainly ; but all seemingly consistent with his selfish
policy, and well calculated to establish his special
favoritism with, and his influence over a wild young
prince thereafter. Out of such materials was Fat
Jack's staff constructed, with which he hoped and
expected to continue to live licentiously, and to defy
the good ordering of society, but at last he found it
to be as false as a jack-o'-lantern.
The great and always moralizing dramatist, Shake-
speare^ whose immortal mind has made its stores of
reflections as treasurable to us as they will be
imperishable throughout all time, teaches, by the
career of Falstaff^ to Youth the danger of becoming
corrupted by intimacy with old and vicious com-
pany, who may have a high order of intellect, yet
pervert it to base uses ; and also furnishes Courtiers
a popular example and an instructive caution to
SKETCH OF JAMES H. HACKETT. 353
beware of placing any reliance upon liopes founded
upon ministering to the vices of great patrons, lest
tliey too, like Falstaff, be left to die in despair.
James Henry Hackett.
New York, April 23, 1862.
THE END.
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