Shakespeare in the theatre

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Shakespeare in the Theatre

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SHAKESPEARE

IN THE THEATRE

BY

WILLIAM POEL

FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR OF THE ELIZABETHAN
STAGE SOCIETY

LONDON AND TORONTO

SIDGWICK AND JACKSON, LTD.

1913

All rights reserved.

NOTE

THESE papers are reprinted from the National
Review, the Westminster Review, the Era, and
the New Age, by kind permission of the owners
of the copyrights. The articles are collected
in one volume, in the hope that they may be of
use to those who are interested in the question
of stage reform, more especially where it con-
cerns the production of Shakespeare's plays.

W. P.

May, 1913.

ADDENDUM

An acknowledgement of permission to reprint should also have
been made to the Nation, in which several of the most im-
portant of these papers originally appeared.

W. P.
Sttakespeare in the Theatre

All rights reserved.

NOTE

THESE papers are reprinted from the National
Review, the Westminster Review, the Era, and
the New Age, by kind permission of the owners
of the copyrights. The articles are collected
in one volume, in the hope that they may be of
use to those who are interested in the question
of stage reform, more especially where it con-
cerns the production of Shakespeare's plays.

W. P.

May, 1913.

CONTENTS

I

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE

PAGE

The Elizabethan Playhouse— The Plays and the Players - 3

II

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE

Some Mistakes of the Editors— Some Mistakes of the Actors
—The Character of Lady Macbeth— Shakespeare's Jew
and Marlowe's Christians— The Authors of " King Henry
the Eighth"— "Troilus and Cressida" - 27

III
SOME STAGE VERSIONS

" The Merchant of Venice" — " Romeo and Juliet " — " Ham-

let "— " King Lear " ....... 119

IV

THE NATIONAL THEATRE

The Repertory Theatre— The Elizabethan Stage Society-
Shakespeare at Earl's Court— The Students' Theatre—
The Memorial Scheme ....... *93

INDEX - - - 241

vii

I

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE

THE ELIZABETHAN PLAYHOUSE
THE PLAYS AND THE PLAYERS

SHAKESPEARE IN THE
THEATRE

i

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE

THE ELIZABETHAN PLAYHOUSE.*

THE interdependence of Shakespeare's dramatic art
with the form of theatre for which Shakespeare
wrote his plays is seldom emphasized. The ordinary
reader and the everyday critic have no historic
knowledge of the Elizabethan playhouse ; and how-
ever full the Elizabethan dramas may be of allusions
to the contemporary stage, the bias of modern dra-
matic students is so opposed to any belief in the
superiority of past methods of acting Shakespeare
over modern ones, as to effectually bar any serious
inquiry. A few sceptics have recognized dimly that
a conjoint study of Shakespeare and the stage for
which he wrote is possible ; but they have not
conducted their researches either seriously or im-
partially, and their conclusions have proved dis-
putable and disappointing. With a very hazy
perception of the connection between Elizabethan
histrionic art and its literature, they have approached

* Part of a paper read before the Elizabethan Literary Society,
November i, 1893.

4 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

a comparison of the Elizabethan drama with the
Elizabethan stage as they would a Chinese puzzle.
They have read the plays in modern printed editions,
they have seen them acted on the picture-stage, they
have heard allusions made to old tapestry, rushes,
and boards, and at once they have concluded that the
dramatist found his theatre inadequate to his needs.

Now the first, and perhaps the strongest, evidence
which can be adduced to disfavour this theory is the
extreme difficulty — it might almost be said the im-
possibility— of discovering a single point of likeness
between the modern idea of an Elizabethan repre-
sentation of one of Shakespeare's plays, and the
actual light in which it presented itself before the
eyes of Elizabethan spectators. It is wasted labour
to try to account for the perversities of the human
intellect ; but displays of unblushing ignorance have
undoubtedly discouraged sober persons from pur-
suing an independent line of investigation, and have
led many to deny the possibility of satisfactorily
showing any intelligible connection between the
Elizabethan drama' and its contemporary exponents.
Nowhere has a little knowledge proved more dan-
gerous or more liable to misapplication, and no-
where has sure knowledge seemed more difficult
of acquisition; yet it is obvious that investigators
of the relations between the two subjects cannot
command success unless they allow their theories
to be formed by facts.

To those dilettante writers who believe that a
poet's greatness consists in his power of emanci-
pating himself from the limitations of time and
space, it must sound something like impiety to
describe Shakespeare's plays as in most cases com-

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 5

positions hastily written to fulfil the requirements
of the moment and adapted to the wants of his
theatre and the capabilities of his actors. But to
persons of Mr. Ruskin's opinion this modified aspect
should seem neither astonishing nor distressing;
for they know that " it is a constant law that the
greatest poets and historians live entirely in their
own age, and the greatest fruits of their work are
gathered out of their own age." Shakespeare
and his companions were inspired by the prolific
energies of their day. Their material was their
own and their neighbours' experiences, and their
plays were shaped to suit the theatre of the day
and no other. It is therefore reasonable for the
serious critic and historian to anticipate some in-
crease of knowledge from a thorough examination
of the Elizabethan theatre in close conjunction with
the Elizabethan drama. Students who reject this
method will always fail to realize the essential
characteristic of one of the greatest ages of English
dramatic poetry, while he who adopts it may con-
fidently expect revelations of interest, not only to
the playgoer, but to all who devote attention to
dramatic literature. Above all things should it be
borne in mind that the more the conditions of the
Elizabethan theatre are studied, the better will it be
perceived how workmanlike London's theatrical
representations then were, and that they had
nothing amateurish about them.

One of the chief fallacies in connection with the
modern notion of the Elizabethan stage is that of its
poverty in colour and setting through the absence
of scenery — a notion that is at variance with every
contemporary record of the theatre and of its puri-

6 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

tanical opponents, whose incessant taunts were,
" Behold the sumptuous theatre houses, a continual
monument of London's prodigality and folly." The
interior of an Elizabethan playhouse must have pre-
sented an unusually picturesque scene, with its mass
of colouring in the costume of the spectators ; while
the actors, moving, as it were, on the same plane as
the audience, and having attention so closely and
exclusively directed to them, were of necessity ap-
propriately and brilliantly attired. We hear much
from the superficial student about the " board being
hung up chalked with the words, ' This is a wood,'
when the action of the play took place in a forest,"
But this is an impression apparently founded upon
Sir Philip Sidney's words in his "Apology of
Poetry," written about 1583 : "What child is there
that, coming to a play and seeing Thebes written in
great letters on an old door, doth believe that it is
Thebes ?" And whether these words were " chalked "
upon the outside door of the building admitting
to the auditorium, or whether they appeared ex-
hibited to the eye of the audience on the stage-
door of the tiring-room is not made clear, but this
is certain, that there is no direct evidence yet forth-
coming to prove that boards were ever used in any
of Shakespeare's dramas or in those of Ben Jonson ;
and, with some other dramatists, there is evidence
of the name of the play and its locality being shown
in writing, either by the prologue, or hung up on
one of the posts of the auditorium. Shakespeare
himself considered it to be the business of the
dramatist to describe the scene, and to call the atten-
tion of the audience to each change in locality, and
moreover he does this so skilfully as to make his

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 7

scenic descriptions appear as part of the natural
dialogue of the play. The naked action was assisted
by the poetry; and much that now seems super-
fluous in the descriptive passages was needed to
excite imagination. With reference to this question,
Halliwell Phillipps very justly remarks : " There
can be no doubt that Shakespeare, in the composi-
tion of most of his plays, could not have contemplated
the introduction of scenic accessories. It is fortu-
nate that this should have been one of the condi-
tions of his work, for otherwise many a speech of
power and beauty, many an effective situation, would
have been lost. All kinds of elaborate attempts at
stage illusion tend, moreover, to divert a careful
observance of the acting, while they are of no real
service to the imagination of the spectator, unless
the author renders them necessary for the full elu-
cidation of his meaning. That Shakespeare himself
ridiculed the idea of a power to meet such a neces-
sity, when he was writing for theatres like the
Curtain or Globe, is apparent from the opening
chorus to 4 Henry V.' It is obvious that he wished
attention to be concentrated on the players and their
utterances, and that all surroundings, excepting
those which could be indicated by the rude prop-
erties of the day, should be idealistic." The dra-
matist's disregard of time and place was justified by
the conditions of the stage, which left all to the
intellect ; a complete intellectual representation
being, in fact, a necessity, in the absence of meretri-
cious support. " The mind," writes John Addington
Symonds, " can contemplate the furthest just as
easily as more familiar objects, nor need it dread to
traverse the longest tract of years, the widest ex-

8 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

panse of space, in following the sequence of an
action." In fact, the question of the advantage or dis-
advantage of scenery is well summed up by Collier,
whose words are all the more impressive when it
is borne in mind that his reasons are supported by
an indisputable fact in the history of our dramatic
literature. " Our old dramatists luxuriated in pas-
sages descriptive of natural or artificial beauty,
because they knew their auditors would have nothing
before their eyes to contradict the poetry ; the
hangings of the stage made little pretension to be
anything but covering for the walls, and the notion
of the plays represented was taken from whatrvvas
written by the poet, not from what was attempted
by the painter. We owe to the absence of painted
canvas many of the finest descriptive passages in
Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and immediate
followers. The introduction, we apprehend, gives
the date to the commencement of the decline of our
dramatic poetry," Shakespeare could not have failed
to recognize that by employing the existing con-
ventions of his stage he could the more readily
bring the public to his point of view, since its
thoughts were not being constantly diverted and
distracted by those outward decorations and subor-
dinate details which in our day so greatly obliterate
the main object of dramatic work.

As the absence of theatrical machinery helped
playwrights to be poets, so the capacity of actors
stimulated literary genius to the creation of charac-
ters which the authors knew beforehand would be
finely and intelligently rendered. Nor were the
audiences in Shakespeare's time uncritical of the
actor's art, and frequent allusions in the old plays

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 9

show that they understood what " a clean action and
good delivery " meant. To quote again from Mr.
Addington Symonds, "attention was concentrated
on the actors, with whose movements, boldly defined
against a simple background, nothing interfered.
The stage on which they played was narrow, pro-
jecting into the yard, surrounded on all sides by
spectators. Their action was thus brought into
prominent relief, placed close before the eye, de-
prived of all perspective. It acquired a special kind
of realism which the vast distances and manifold
artifices of our modern theatres have rendered un-
attainable. This was the realism of an actual event,
at which the audience assisted ; not the realism of a
scene in which the actor plays a somewhat sub-
ordinate part."

Noblemen used to maintain a musical establish-
ment for the service of their chapels, and to this
department of their household the actors belonged.
When not required by their masters, these players
strolled the country, calling themselves servants of
the magnate whose pay they took and whose badge
they wore. Thus Shakespeare's company first
became known as " Lord Leicester's Servants," then
as the Lord Chamberlain's, afterwards, in the reign
of King James, as " The King's Company." And we
can imagine the influence of the chapel upon the art
of the theatre when we consider that choristers, who
were taught to sing anthems and madrigals, would
receive an excellent training for that rhythmical
and musical modulation so indispensable to the
delivery of blank verse. With regard to the boys
who performed the female characters, it is specially
to be noted that they were paid more than the

io SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

ordinary actors, in consequence of the superior
physical and vocal qualifications which were needed.
That the boys were thoroughly successful in the
delineation of women's parts we learn from the
Puritans, and from the insistence that those boys
impressed for Queen Elizabeth's chapel should not
only be skilled in the art of minstrelsy, but also be
handsome and shapely, which seems to point to the
theatrical use that would be made of them. To this
end, power was given to the Queen's choirmaster
to impress boys from any chapel in the United
Kingdom, St. Paul's only excepted. A contemporary
play has the following allusion to a boy actor :
" Afore Heaven it is a sweet-faced child. Methinks
he would show well in woman's attire. I'll help thee
to three crowns a week for him, an she can act well."
Referring once more to the construction of the
theatres, it is important to note that they differed
most from modern playhouses in their size ; not so
much, perhaps, in the size of the stage as in the
dimensions of the auditorium. The building was so
made that the remotest spectator could hardly have
been distant more than a dozen yards, or thereabouts,
from the front of the stage. The whole auditory
were thus within a hearing distance that conveyed
the faintest modulation of the performer's voice, and
at the same time demanded no exaggerated effort in
the more sonorous utterances. Especially would
such a building be well adapted for the skilled and
rapid delivery for which Elizabethan players were
famous. Added to this, every lineament of the
actor's countenance would have been visible with-
out telescopic aid. It was for such a theatre that
Shakespeare wrote, says Mr. Halliwell Phillips,

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 11

" one wherein an actor of genius could satisfactorily
develop to every one of the audience not merely the
written, but the unwritten words of the drama, those
latter which are expressed by gesture or by the
subtle language of the face and eye. There is much
of the unrecorded belonging to the pages of Shake-
speare that requires to be elicited in action, and no
little of that much which can only be effectively
rendered under conditions similar to those which
prevailed at the opening of the Globe."

Suitable to the construction of the Elizabethan
theatre was the construction of the Elizabethan play,
the most noticeable feature of which was the absence
of division into scenes and acts. For even when a
new act arid scene are marked in the old quartos and
folios, they are probably only printer's divisions,
and we find the text often continuing the story as
though the characters had not left the stage. Not
that it is to be inferred that no pauses were made
during the representation of the play, especially at
the cheaper and more popular houses, where jigs
and musical interludes were among the staple
attractions. But judging from the following words
put into Burbage's mouth by Webster in his induction
to "The Malcontent" (a play that originally had
been written for the Fortune theatre), we may
gather that at the Globe it was not usual to have
musical intervals.

11 W. Sly : What are your additions ?

" D. Burb. : Sooth, not greatly needful, only as
your sallet to your great feast, to entertain a little
more time, and to abridge the not received custom
of music in our theatre."

Nor is it likely Shakespeare would have approved

12 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

of any interruptions to the dramatic movement of
his plays when once it had begun. He made very
sparing use of the chorus, and avoided both prologue
and epilogue when possible.

There is, in this same induction by Webster, some
dialogue that throws light also upon the estimation
in which Shakespeare and his fellow actors regarded
their calling and its duties and responsibilities, and
is worth quoting :

" W. Sly : And I say again, the play is bitter.

" D. Burb. : Sir, you are like a patron that,
presenting a poor scholar to a benifice, enjoins
him not to rail against anything that stands within
compass of his patron's folly. Why should we not
enjoy the antient freedom of poesy? Shall we
protest to the ladies that their painting makes them
angels ? or to my young gallant, that his expence in
the brothel shall gain him reputation? No, sir;
such vices as stand not accountable to law should
be cured as men heal tetters, by casting ink upon
them."

Above all things, may it be acknowledged that if
the Fortune theatre, the great rival playhouse to the
Globe, was the most successful and prosperous
financially, the Lord Chamberlain's troupe appealed,
through Shakespeare, to the highest faculties of the
audience, and showed in their performances a certain
unity of moral and artistic tone.

THE PLAYS AND THE PLAYERS.*

An Englishman visiting Venice about 1605 wrote
in a letter from that city : " I was at one of their

* The National Review, August, 1890.

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 13

playhouses where I saw a comedy acted. The
house is very beggarly and base in comparison
with our stately playhouses in England, neither can
the actors compare with us for apparel, shows, and
music." This opinion is confirmed by Busino, who
has left an account of his visit to the Fortune
playhouse in 1617, where he observed a crowd of
nobility " listening as silently and soberly as
possible." And Thomas Heywood the dramatist,
not later than 1612, affirms that the English stage is
" an ornament to the city which strangers of all
nations repairing hither report of in their countries,
beholding them here with some admiration, for
what variety of entertainment can there be in any
city of Christendom more than in London ?" In
fact, the English people at this time, like the Greeks
and Romans before them, were lovers of the theatre
and of tragic spectacles. Leonard Digges, who was
an eye-witness, has left on record the impression
made upon the spectators by a representation of
one of Shakespeare's tragedies :

" So have I seen when Caesar would appear,
And on the stage at half -sword parley were
Brutus and Cassius. Oh ! how the audience
Were ravished, with what wonder they went thence !"

But plays as perfect in design as "Julius Caesar,"
" Othello," and " Macbeth " were the exception, not
the rule, upon the Elizabethan stage. They were
the outcome of nearly twenty years' experiment in
play-writing, a period during which Shakespeare
mastered his art and schooled his audience to
appreciate the serious unmixed with the ludicrous.
When he first wrote for the stage, plays needed to

14 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

have in them all that the taste of the day demanded
in the way of comic interlude and music. A
dramatic representation was a continuous perform-
ance given without pause from beginning to end,
and the dramatists, in compliance with the custom,
used the double story, so often to be found in the
plays of the time, in order that the movement
should be continued uninterruptedly. The charac-
ters in each story appeared on the stage in alternate
scenes, with every now and then a full scene in
which all the characters appeared together. Ben
Jonson condemned this form of play. He ridiculed
the use of short scenes, and the bringing on to the
stage of the characters in pairs. Yet he himself
found it necessary to conform to the requirements
of the day, as is shown in his first two comedies,
written to be acted without pause from beginning
to end. Later on he adopted the Terentian method
of construction, that of dividing the plays into acts
and making each act a complete episode in itself;
and in his dedication prefixed to the play of " The
Fox," he claims to have laboured " to reduce not
only the ancient forms, but manners of the scene."
There can be no doubt, therefore, that Ben Jonson
disliked Shakespeare's tolerance of the hybrid
class of play then in vogue. Yet Shakespeare, if
he thought it was not possible to work to the
satisfaction of his audience according to the rules
and examples of the ancients, none the less strove
to put limits to the irregularities of his contem-
poraries. At the Universities scholars regarded
his plays as compositions that were written for the
public stage and therefore of no intrinsic value ;
while Londoners must have looked upon them as

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 15

representations of actual life when compared with
the formless dramas they were accustomed to see
He desired unity of fable with variety of movement,
and endeavoured to abolish the use of impromptu
dialogue by writing his own interludes and making
them part of the play. Shakespeare wished to
satisfy his audience and himself at the same time ;
and by the force of his dramatic genius he succeeded
where others failed, and wrote plays which, if un-
suitable for the modern stage, are still being acted.

About two-thirds of the plays which were acted
at the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatres are now
lost to us ; and this dramatic literature must have
been of unusual excellence, unless we are to
suppose that the law of the survival of the fittest may
be applied to the lives of plays. From the names
of extinct dramas, accessible to us in such places
as Henslowe's " Diary" or the Stationers' Registers,
it may be inferred that the groundwork of many of
them consisted either of political or purely social
and domestic topics. Domestic tragedy was one of
the most popular forms of the drama. In fact the
dramatists, in most instances, took the material for
their plays from their own and their neighbours'
experiences, and all that was uppermost in men's
minds was laid hold of by them, and brought upon
the stage with only a little transparent concealment.
The topical Elizabethan drama, in the plays which
have come down to us, viewed from a purely his-
torical standpoint, is a very accurate though not
very flattering embodiment of middle-class society
in London in the sixteenth century. From it we
learn the dangers incurred by the presence of a
large class of riotous idlers, discharged soldiers and

16 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

sailors, over whom the authorities exercised little
control ; we are given striking descriptions of the
London " roughs " ; of these " swagging, swearing,
drunken, desperate Dicks, that have the stab readier
in their hands than a penny in their purses." We
read, too, of the games that children played in the
streets ; of the assembling of the men of fashion and
business in St. Paul's ; and of the dense crowding
of the neighbouring streets at the dinner-hour, when
the throng left the cathedral. The conversation that
the characters indulge in, apart from the immediate
plot, invariably relates to current events. In a play
written about the time of the Irish rebellion, one of
the characters talks about Ireland in a way that might
apply to recent days :

" The land gives good increase
Of every blessing for the use of man,
And 'tis great pity the inhabitants
Will not be civil and live under law."

Uninteresting and unsavoury as some of the
details of the Elizabethan domestic tragedies are,
they were often used with an avowedly moral aim,
and they had, according to many contemporary
accounts, the most salutary effect on evil-doers.*
It was not more than forty years after Shakespeare's
death that Richard Flecknoe, in his " Discourse of
thcT English Stage," comments upon the altered
character of the drama :

" Now for the difference betwixt our Theatres and those of
former times ; they were but plain and simple, with no other
scenes nor decorations of the stage, but only old Tapestry, and the

* See " The Topical Side of the Elizabethan Drama " in the
Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, 1887.

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 17

Stage strewed with Rushes, whereas ours for cost and ornament
are arrived at the height of Magnificence, but that which makes
our Stage the better, makes our Playes the worse, perhaps through
striving now to make them more for sight than hearing, whence
that solid joy of the interior is lost, and that benefit which men
formerly received from Playes, from which they seldom or never
went away but far better and wiser than when they came."

The short space of time — two hours and a half —
in which an Elizabethan play was acted in Shake-
speare's time, has excited much discussion among
commentators. It can hardly be doubted that the
dialogue, which often exceeds two thousand lines,
was all spoken on the stage, for none of the
dramatists wrote with a view to publication, and
few of the plays were printed from the author's
manuscript. This fact points to the employment of
a skilled and rapid delivery on the part of the actor.
Artists of the French school, whose voices are
highly trained and capable of a varied and subtle
modulation, will run through a speech of fifty lines
with the utmost ease and rapidity ; and there is
good reason to suppose that the blank verse of the
Elizabethan dramatists was spoken " trippingly on
the tongue." And then only a few of the plays
which were written for the public stage were
divided into acts ; and even in the case of a five act
drama it was not thought necessary to mark each
division with an interval, since the jigs and inter-
ludes were reserved for the end of the play. So
with an efficient elocution and no "waits," the
Elizabethan actors would have got through one-
half of a play before our modern actors could
cover a third. Even Ben Jonson, while disliking
the form of the Elizabethan drama, recognized the
advantage to the dramatist of simplicity in the

2

i8 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

method of representation. He alludes, with not a
little contempt, to Inigo Jones's costly settings of
the masque at the court of King James.

" A wooden dagger is a dagger of wood,
Nor gold nor ivory haft can make it good . . .
Or to make boards to speak ! There is a task !
Painting and carpentry are the soul of masque.
Pack with your pedling poetry to the Stage.
This is the money-got mechanic age !"

If a theatre were established in this country for
the performance of Shakespeare's plays with the
simplicity and rapidity with which they were acted
in his time, it might limit the endless experiments,
mutilations, and profitless discussions that every
revival occasions. "To read a play," said Robert
Louis Stevenson, " is a knack, the fruit of much
knowledge and some imagination, comparable to
that of reading score "; the reader is apt to miss the
proper point of view. In omitting one-third of the
play every time Shakespeare is acted, the most
appropriate scenes for representation may not
always be chosen. But were the entire play acted
occasionally, the author's point of view could not
fail to declare itself. It is interesting to note that
Germany, always to the fore in Shakespearian
matters, has obtained in Baron Perfall, the director
of the Royal Court Theatre in Munich, an advocate
for the performance of Shakespeare's plays as they
were originally acted.

The Elizabethan dramatists, as a rule, deprecated
the printing of their plays. They regretted that
" scenes invented merely to be spoken should be
inforcively published to be read," Elocution was

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 19

to the playwrights an all-important consideration.
They acknowledge that the success of their labours
11 lay much in the actor's voice "; that he must speak
well, " though he understand not what," for if the
actor had not " a facility and natural dexterity in
his delivery, it must needs sound harsh to the
auditor, and procure his distaste and displeasure."
A good tragedy, in Ben Jonson's opinion, " must
have truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity
and height of elocution "; " words," he says, " should
be chosen that have their sound ample, the composi-
tion full, the absolution plenteous, and poured out
all grave, sinewy, and strong." And Thomas Hey-
wood, in 1612, thus writes in defence of the actor's
art : " Tully, in his booke, * Ad Caium Herennium,'
requires five things in an orator — invention, disposi-
tion, eloqution, memory, and pronuntiation ; yet all
are imperfect without the sixt, which is action : for
be his invention never so fluent and exquisite, his
disposition and order never so composed and formall,
his eloquence and elaborate phrases never so materiall
and pithy, his memory never so ferme and retentive,
his pronuntiation never so musical and plausive ;
yet without a comely and elegant gesture, a gratious
and a bewitching kinde of action, a natural and
familiar motion of the head, the hand, the body, and
a moderate and fit countenance suitable to all the
rest, I hold all the rest as nothing. A delivery and
sweet action is the glosse and beauty of any discourse
that belongs to a scholler ; and this is the action be-
hoovefull in any that professe this quality, not to use
any impudent or forced motion in any part of the
body, nor rough or other violent gesture, nor, on the
contrary, to stand like a stiffe starcht man, but to

20 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

qualifie everything according to the nature of the
person personated : for in overacting trickes, and
toyling too much in the anticke habit of humors,
men of the ripest desert, greatest opinions, and best
reputations may breake into the most violent absurd-
ities. I take not upon me to teach, but to advise ;
for it becomes my juniority rather to be pupil'd my
selfe than to instruct others."

Shakespeare, also, though not so great an actor as
he was a dramatist, knew as well what was needed
for the art of the one as of the other, and perhaps
thought even more about the acting because he had
the less genius for it. There are some descriptive
passages in his plays which show that he visualized
the characters he created and gave them gestures
which were appropriate to their personalities.

If the actors were fortunate in having poets such
as Shakespeare, Jonson, and Heywood, not only to
write for them, but also to instruct them, the poets
were no less fortunate in their actors. Of Burbage,
we are told that he had all the parts of an excellent
orator, animating his words with his speech, and his
speech with action, so that his auditors were " never
more delighted than when he spoke, nor more sorry
than when he held his peace ; yet even then he was
an excellent actor still, never failing in his part
when he had done speaking, but with his looks and
gesture maintaining it still unto the height." We
learn that he was small in stature ; that every thought
and mood could be understood from his face ; and
that because of his gifts he was " only worthy to
come on the stage," and because of his honesty " he
was more worthy than to come on." So great was
Burbage's popularity that London received the news

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 21

of his death, which occurred within a few days of
that of the Queen, King James's Consort, with
a greater manifestation of grief than they bestowed
on the lady. Perhaps Shakespeare was thinking of
Burbage's unusual ability when he wrote the follow-
ing lines :

" The eyes of men

After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious."

Dick Robinson was an actor of women's parts.
Ben Jonson has left on record that he could dress
better than forty women, and, in the disguise of a
lawyer's wife, he could convulse a supper party with
merriment. Acting so realistic as his stirred the
resentment of the Puritans. Stephen Gosson writes :
" Which way, I beseech you, shall they be excused
that put on, not the apparel only, but the gate, the
gestures, the voice, the passions of a woman."
Nathan Field was the son of a minister, who was
one of the earliest as well as one of the bitterest
enemies of theatrical performances. While one of
the Royal Chapel boys, Field distinguished himself
in Ben Jonson's comedy, " Cynthia's Revels," acted
entirely by children. Afterwards Field became a
member of Shakespeare's company, and, like him,
an author. When Burbage died, Field was his suc-
cessor in the part of the Moor. It is said that as he
was naturally of a jealous disposition, the character
suited him, and his impersonation of it became famed
as " the true Othello of the poet." Many particulars
have come down to us of the clown, Kemp. His
popularity with his audiences cannot be disputed.
" Clowns," writes a dramatic author in 1597, "have

22 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

been thrust into plays by the head and shoulders
ever since Kemp could make a scurvy face. ... If
thou canst but draw thy mouth awry, lay thy leg
over thy staff, saw a piece of cheese asunder with
thy dagger, lap up drink on the earth, I warrant
thee they'll all laugh mightily." It was by tricks
such as these that Kemp won the good opinion " of
the understanding gentlemen of the ground"; but
Shakespeare was not in favour of fooling. Kemp,
moreover, loved to extemporize, and Shakespeare
wished to abolish a custom fatal to dramatic unity.
He preferred to write the clown's part himself, and
desired that no more should be spoken than was set
down by the author. The interference with the
clown's privilege, openly advocated by Shakespeare
in a well-known passage of " Hamlet," probably led
to Kemp's temporary retirement from the company.
Kemp loved notoriety and money. His morris
dance to Norwich and journeys to France and
Italy were but gambling speculations, he under-
taking to be back in a certain time, and laying
wagers with large odds in his favour to that
effect.

The prosperity of the actor caused many to adopt
the calling. His vocation, we are told, was the most
excellent one in the world for money, and therefore
players grew as plentifully "as spawn of frogs in
March." It was open to the actor to buy shares in
his theatre, and he could, by becoming a shareholder,
attain the position of owner, and would, in Shake-
speare's theatre, as one of the King's players, be
provided from the royal wardrobe " with a cloak of
bastard - scarlet and crimson velvet for the cape."
He could also term himself "gentleman," a rank he

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 23

was allowed to assume, and which he was very glad
to adopt in defiance of the enemies of theatrical per-
formances, who constantly taunted him, in the words
of the old statute, with being " a rogue and a vaga-
bond." The popularity of the stage as a profession
excited the envy of scholars and lawyers. They
taunted the actor with his vanity in believing that
his fame would descend to posterity. They blamed
the public for affording these "glorious vagabonds "
means to ride through the " gazing streets " in satin
clothes attended by their pages, and for enabling
those who had done no more than "mouth words
that better wits had framed" to purchase lands and
possess country houses. The actor retaliated by
deriding the scholar's poverty and ridiculing the
lawyer's use of bad Latin. They contended that
it was better "to make a fool of the world than
to be fooled of the world as you scholars are."
There is an anecdote related of Nathan Field
which shows that actors did not underrate their
own importance.

" Nathan Field, the player, being in company with
a certain nobleman who was distantly related to
him, the latter asked the reason why they spelt
their names differently, the nobleman's family spel-
ing it ' Feild,' and the player spelling it ' Field '? 'I
cannot tell,' answered the player, ' except it be that
my branch of the family were the first that knew to
spell.'" It would hardly have been agreeable to
this tragedian to learn that he and his fellows,
Shakespeare and Burbage, were " writ down " by
the Master of His Majesty's Revels as "players,
jugglers, and such kind of creatures"; nor would
Ben Jonson have felt flattered by the candid con-

24 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

fession of an admirer who "could not understand
how a poet could have so much principle."

Most of the leading actors in Shakespeare's
theatre had their apprentices. A stage aspirant
was often called upon to appear before the leading
members of the company, and to give some proof
of his talent. No little importance was attached
to the youth's appearance, to his command of facial
expression, and to the sufficiency of his voice. If
the young man's talent lay in the direction of
comedy, Kemp might address him after this manner :
"Methinks you should belong to my tuition, and
your face, methinks, would be good for a foolish
mayor, or a foolish justice of peace." Not seldom
the efforts of novices to copy nature excited the
derision of experts. Kemp, as a character in a play —
"The Return from Parnassus "acted about 1601 — says
to Burbage : " It is a good sport in a part to see
them never speak but at the end of the stage, just
as though, in walking with a fellow, we should
never speak but at a stile, a gate, or a ditch, where
a man can go no further." Besides having a good
memory, an actor needed the gift of studying quickly.
It is not generally known that the expression " to
sleep on a part," still in use among actors, was
current in Shakespeare's day; but we read in an
old play of an actor, whose memory had failed him
while acting his part, blaming the negligence of
the man in charge of the stage : " It is all along
of you. I could not get my part a night or two
before to sleep upon it." The prompter, or "book-
holder," as he was more often called, was not an
unnecessary person on a "new day," the first per-
formance of a new play. He would have received

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 25

many a warning to " hold the book well, that we
be not non plus in the latter end of the play." And
Ben Jonson has given an amusing description of an
additional supervision on the part of the author that
was not of the actor's seeking, " to have his presence
in the tiring-house, to prompt us aloud, stamp at the
bookholder, swear for our properties, curse the poor
tireman, rail the music out of tune, and sweat for
every venal trespass we commit." The members
of a theatrical company being limited in number,
it was often necessary for the impersonators of
kings and heroes to represent very inferior char-
acters in the same play, a circumstance to the ad-
vantage of the dramatist, who could thus obtain
capable exponents for the parts of messengers and
attendants, and was able, therefore, to "write up"
these parts without fear of the author's lines being
mangled by incompetence, or made ridiculous by
false pretension. Actors who doubled their parts
wore the double cloak — a cloak that might be worn
on either side. A turned cloak, with a false beard
and a black or yellow peruke, supplied a ready, if
not effectual, disguise.

Although the theatres were prosperous, their
existence was often imperilled by the action of the
city magnates, who forbad the acting of plays within
their own jurisdiction. They viewed with annoy-
ance the crowds that came from north and south to
bring money to the playhouses, and they disliked
the inducements these afforded to their sons and
apprentices to neglect their occupations. No oppor-
tunity was lost by the Corporation of urging the
Sovereign to abolish the theatres. The Puritans,
also, if not influential at Court, were still potent in

26 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

affecting public opinion against stage-plays, in the
pulpit and by means of the Press ; while play-
wrights were even more violently attacked by them
than were the actors. The sonorous and majestic
verse of the Elizabethan poets, that has become the
pride of our country, appeared in the eyes of the
"godly" but as an invention of Satan to entice the
unwary into his " chapel"

" Because the sweete numbers of Poetrie flowing in verse do
woderfully tickle the hearers eares, the devill hath tyed this to
most of our playes, that whatsoever he would have sticke fast to
our soules might slippe down in sugar by this intisement ; for that
which delighteth never troubleth our swallow. Thus when any
matter of love is interlarded, though the thinge it selfe bee able
to allure us, yet it is so sette out with sweetnes of wordes fitness
of Epithites, with Metaphors, Alegories, Hyperboles, Amphi-
bologies, Similitudes : with Phrases so pickt, so pure, so proper ;
with action so smothe, so lively, so wanto, that the poyson creeping
on secretly without grief e chookes us at last and hurleth us downe
in a dead sleepe."

This vigorous opposition to the stage had its
advantage. It kept managers alive to their re-
ponsibilities, and obliged them to maintain a high
standard of work. The poets were called upon to
justify the existence of playhouses, and to defend
their own reputations, and in this they were
triumphant. They showed that playwrights had
followed the advice of Cicero, and could create a
drama which was " the schoolmistress of life, the
looking-glass of manners, and the image of truth."
They contended that in the theatre men were
shown, as in a mirror, "their faults though ne'er
so small." Of Shakespeare's comedies it was said,
they are " so framed to the life, that they serve for
the most common commentaries of all the actions of

THE STAGE OF SHAKESPEARE 27

our lives, and all such dull and heavy-witted world-
ings, as were never capable of the wit of a comedy,
coming by report of them to his representations
have found that wit there that they never found in
themselves, and have parted better-witted than they
came." Thomas Heywood contended that plays had
made "the ignorant more apprehensive, taught the
unlearned the knowledge of many famous histories,
instructed such as cannot read in the discovery of
all our English Chronicles, and what man have you
now of that weak capacity that cannot discourse of
any notable thing recorded, even from William the
Conqueror ; nay, from the landing of Brute until this
day." Perhaps it was well for the public of Shake-
speare's day that it attached an educational value
to the theatre, and consciously adopted an attitude
of diffidence towards the labours of the dramatist.
He was left free to teach as well as to amuse. If
the amusement consisted in putting into the mouths
of the clowns "unsavoury morsels of unseemly
sentences," the teaching consisted in making folly
appear ridiculous and vice odious. So long as the
dramatists were not hampered by demands from the
audience to have its social, political, or aesthetic
fancies humoured, and from the actor to have his
egotism flattered, the drama flourished as an art as
well as a business. Butwhen managers began to con-
sider the whims of their patrons, when the King's
Players petitioned the People's Parliament for leave
to continue their vocation because " they will not
entertain any comedian that shall speak his part in a
tone as if he did it in derision of some of the pious,"
then the theatre ceased to be a looking-glass that
could image life truthfully. Indeed, it cannot be

28 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

doubted that if ever the drama shall again enlist the
best talent of the time in its service it will be when
the nation becomes conscious of the power of the
stage, which is capable, as Bacon says, " of no small
influence, both of discipline and corruption."

II

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE

SOME MISTAKES OF THE EDITORS.

SOME MISTAKES OF THE ACTORS.
THE CHARACTER OF LADY MACBETH.
SHAKESPEARE'S JEW AND MARLOWE'S

CHRISTIANS.
E AUTHORS (
EIGHTH."
"TROILUS AND CRESSIDA."

II

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE*

NEITHER in the theatre nor on the printed page can
it be said that Shakespeare's dramas to-day reflect
the form of his art or the thought of his age. The
versions acted on the stage are unlike those read in
the study, and all are dissimilar to the "authentic
copies." In order to understand the cause of these
discrepancies it is necessary to trace their origin and
history.

SOME MISTAKES OF THE EDITORS

A number of Shakespeare's plays were published
during his lifetime, the first, "The Comedy of
Errors," appearing in 1595, and the last one,
" Pericles," in 1609. Some of these plays went
through several editions, and the text of four of
them, in their first edition, was extremely faulty,
but the second editions of " Romeo and Juliet " and
of " Hamlet " were probably printed direct from the
author's manuscripts.

The special features of these early quartos are :
i. The title-pages, which indicate what in Shake-
speare's time were the popular incidents and
characters in each play.

* The first three articles of this chapter appeared in The Nation,
March, 1912.

31

32 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

2. The unbroken continuity of the story, the plays
having no divisions to suggest where pauses were
made, if any, during the representation.

3. Some descriptive stage-directions which do not
reappear in subsequent editions, and which in all
probability are authentic evidence of the action as
it was then seen on the stage.

These quartos are the only playbooks existing to-
day which can show Shakespeare's constructive art
as a dramatist, and it will be necessary to refer to
them from time to time.

Seven years after his death, Shakespeare's fellow-
actors, Heminge and Condell, collected all his dramas,
and, with the help of some booksellers, published
them in one volume in what is known as the first
folio (1623). These "trifles," as the editors called
them, were dedicated to two noblemen in the con-
fidence that this tribute would help to keep the
author's memory alive, and the reader is invited to
purchase the book because the plays had found favour
on the stage where they were first tried and "stood
out all appeales." There is, besides, some anxiety
shown by the editors lest the publication of the
volume should detract from the author's fame as a
dramatist, for the reader is urged to read the plays
"againe and againe," if he does not like them, or in
other words, if he does not understand them. Now, in
this first folio, Heminge and Condell began marking
divisions for intervals in the plays. This was an
innovation, probably suggested to them by the book-
sellers at the instigation of Ben Jonson. Fortun-
ately, the editors left their task unfinished, finding,
perhaps, that these divisions were unsuitable
interpolations.

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 33

In 1709 there came a new phase in the history of
Shakespearian Bibliography when Rowe, the poet-
dramatist, at the suggestion of his bookseller, who
believed that "none but a poet should presume to
meddle with a poet," undertook to present to the
world a new edition of Shakespeare's plays, in which
the player-dramatist was for the first time to be
brought within the fraternity of academicians. His
works were to be edited on similar lines to those of
the poets of Rowe's time, with the appendage of a
life and a recommendatory preface. The contrast
between this preface and that of Heminge and
Condell is characteristic. To Rowe it is "a great
wonder" that Shakespeare should have advanced
dramatic poetry as far as he did ; and, since he wrote
" under a mere light of nature," and was never
acquainted with Aristotle's precepts, it would be
hard to "judge him by a law he knew nothing of."
With Rowe, also, the " fable " comes first for criticism,
because even if it is not the most difficult or beautiful
part of the play, it is the most important ; yet he
contends that in this art Shakespeare has "no
mastery or strength." In accordance with academic
notions, Rowe completes the work begun by Heminge
and Condell, and divides all the plays into acts and
scenes ; cutting up the text, as it is said, on " rational
principles."* But Rowe's divisions are both mis-
placed and unauthorized ; and even his text is faulty
through being printed from the fourth edition of the
first folio, the latest one and the least accurate.

Pope follows Rowe as editor in 1723, and upholds
the authority of the early copies, which, as he says
with truth, " hold the place of the originals, and are

* Sir Sidney Lee, " Dictionary of National Biography."

3

34 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

the only materials left to repair the deficiencies, or
restore the corrupted sense of the author." Pope's
study of the " originals," however, confirms him in
Rowe's opinion that Heminge and Condell were
ignorant men, both as editors and actors. It was —

" Ben Jonson, getting possession of the stage, brought critical
learning into vogue : and that this was not done without difficulty
may appear from those frequent lessons (and indeed almost
declamations) which he was forced to prefix to his first plays, and
put into the mouth of his actors. . . . Till then, our authors had
no thoughts of writing on the model of the ancients : their
tragedies were only histories in dialogue : and their comedies
followed the thread of any novel as they found it no less implicitly
than if it had been true history."

Pope also remarks that " players have ever had a
standard to themselves upon other principles than
those of Aristotle," and Shakespeare's "wrong judg-
ment as a poet" must be ascribed to his "right
judgment as a player." It is evident, then, that
Pope, like Rowe, had nothing favourable to say
about Shakespeare's art in the management of his
" fable," and if Heminge and Condell put in some act
and scene divisions, " often where there is no pause
in the action," Pope marks a change of scene at
every removal of place, " which is more necessary in
this author than in any other, because he shifts them
more frequently."

It was said of Pope's edition that he had rejected
whatever he disliked, and thought more of amputa-
tion than cure. In the controversy which followed,
Pope found his match in Theobald. This critic
points out in his preface (1726) that an editor should
be well versed in the history and manners of his
author's age, "if he aim at doing him service." But
Theobald, like Rowe, fails to understand Shake-

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 35

speare's dramatic art, and compares him with a
"corrupt classic " for whom classical remedies are
necessary. Fortunately, Theobald confines his at-
tention entirely to textual emendations, and, unlike
Pope, he does not tamper with the text in order to
make Shakespeare " speak better than the old copies
have done." Johnson, in spite of his censure,
honoured Theobald by borrowing largely from his
labours in his own edition.

Warburton (1747) defends Pope, and shrewdly
remarks that Shakespeare's works " when they
escaped the players did not fall into much better
hands when they came amongst printers and book-
sellers," adding, " the truth is Shakespeare's condi-
tion was yet but ill-understood." But Warburton
is wanting in historical knowledge when he writes,
" The stubborn nonsense, with which he was in-
crusted, occasioned his lying long neglected amongst
the common lumber of the stage." In fact, Warbur-
ton abuses Rowe's editing, yet none the less adopts
his tone in disparaging "those impurities," the
original copies.

Dr. Johnson (1765) brings vigour and common sense
to bear upon his editorial labours, without, however,
betraying special sympathy with the poet's achieve-
ments, or any subtle comprehension of his art as a
dramatist. But Johnson never forgets that Shake-
speare wrote plays and not poems, and that he sold
them to actors and not printers. His criticisms are
those of a playgoer writing of plays, as if he had
seen them acted at the theatre. At the same time
he follows Rowe's lead in saying that Shakespeare's
plots are so loosely constructed that not one play
would now "be heard to the conclusion," and

36 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

similarly with Rowe, he generalizes as to the text
being vitiated " by the blunders of the penman, or
changed by the affectation of the players." About
the division into acts and scenes, he writes :

" I have preserved the common distribution of the plays into
acts, though I believe it to be in almost all the plays void of
authority. Some of those which are divided in the later editions
have no division in the first folio, and some that are divided in
the folio have no division in the preceding copies. The settled
mode of the theatre requires four intervals in the play, but few if
any of our author's compositions can be properly distributed in
that manner. An act is so much of the drama as passes without
intervention of time or change of place. A pause makes a new
act. In every real and therefore in every imitative action, the
intervals may be more or fewer, the restriction of five acts being
accidental and arbitrary. This Shakespeare knew, and this he
practised ; his plays were written, and at first printed in one un-
broken continuity, and ought now to be exhibited with short
pauses, interposed as often as the scene is changed, or any con-
siderable time is required to pass. This method would at once
quell a thousand absurdities."

Something must be said later on about the " short
pauses." There is wisdom as well as humour in
Johnson's observation : " Let him who desires to
feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give
read every play from the first scene to the last with
utter negligence of all his commentators."

To Steevens belongs the credit of being the first
to collect and reprint (1766) in one volume the
original quartos, of which a revised and completed
edition is much needed. " Many of the quartos,"
he writes, "as our own printers assure me, were
far from being unskilfully executed, and some of
them were much more correctly printed than the
folio." With regard to Shakespeare's text, he
observes : " To make his meaning intelligible to

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 37

his audience seems to have been his only care, and
with the ease of conversation he has adopted its
incorrectness." In fact, Steevens thinks that Shake-
speare, of all the writers of his day, was the most
ungrammatical.

Capell (1768) is perhaps the least dogmatic of all
the eighteenth-century editors, and the most cautious
in his judgment, when he remarks : " Generally
speaking, the more distant a new edition is from
its original, the more it abounds in faults which is
done by destroying all marks of peculiarity and
notes of time." And in another passage: "That
division of scenes which Jonson seems to have
attempted, and upon which the French stage prides
itself, Shakespeare does not appear to have any
idea of." In a note he adds : " The current editions
are divided in such a manner that nothing like a
rule can be collected from any of them." Un-
fortunately, like all the other editors, Capell believes
it necessary to divide Shakespeare's plays into acts
and scenes.

With Malone (1790) Shakespearian criticism enters
upon a new phase — the historical one — when re-
search and evidence take precedence of conjecture.
What he says of the first editors of his century
remains as true to-day as it was when written —
" that the men never looked behind them, but con-
sidered their own era and their own phraseology as
the standard of perfection."

Malone, moreover, observes that the two chief
duties of an editor are to show the genuine text
of an author and to explain his obscurities. This,
it must be admitted, is the view taken by all his
contemporaries ; and yet dramas are not poems any

38 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

more than words are deeds. And while Malone
spares no pains to amend a corrupt text in the
hope of arriving at verbal accuracy, he has little
scruple about marring Shakespeare's scheme of
action. " All the stage-directions," he writes,
" throughout this work I have considered as wholly
in my power, and have regulated them in the best
manner I could." To do this is to run counter
to an editor's province and duty; for a dramatist
to know that his text is correct affords him small
consolation if his story has been misunderstood and
mutilated. It is doubtful whether scholars who
insist on editing Shakespeare's plays as if they
were anything or everything but drama have any
just appreciation of the work they undertake. When
Dr. Johnson contends that Shakespeare was "read,
admired, and imitated while he was yet deformed," he
is indirectly praising deformity. All the eighteenth-
century editors blame Shakespeare for the manage-
ment of his " fable," and attribute it to his ignorance,
while many modern editors altogether overlook his
art of making a play. The late Dr. Furnivall's
introduction to the " Leopold Shakespeare," which
has been deservedly and universally praised, has
yet one vital defect as dramatic criticism — his com-
ments apply to the art of a novelist, not to that of a
playwright.

The arguments brought forward in the Bacon-
Shakespeare controversy are a striking illustration
of this imperfect knowledge. While the Baconians
pride themselves on discovering a similarity in the
phraseology or philosophical sentiments of the two
writers, they forget that Shakespeare was pre-
eminent in the writing of drama — an art which is as

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 39

difficult to master as that of a painter or a musician,
and in which the hand of an amateur can be as easily
detected ; an art for which Bacon showed no
aptitude, and for which he had had no training. A
novelist who describes characters vividly was once
asked why she seldom made them talk. Her answer
was : " I have little talent for writing dialogue ;
when my characters speak they often cease to be
the same people." Undoubtedly Bacon would have
given a similar answer to anyone attributing to him
the plays of Shakespeare. Moreover, there is a wide
difference between the art of writing dialogue for
a novel and for a play. The novelist has in-
numerable means of escape from difficulties which
beset the dramatist. The skill required for success-
fully conducting the story of a play by means limited
to the use of dialogue makes the dramatist's art one
of the most difficult to succeed in, and puts it outside
the reach of all but the few and the specially gifted.
To illustrate Shakespeare's constructive art it is
only necessary to look at the old play of " King
John," on which his own play is based. Then, to take
an instance from a later play — " Twelfth Night" —
Viola, when first seen on the stage, is a castawayf
rescued by sailors. After an interval of one short
scene she reappears as Cesario, the Duke's favourite
page. How can the gap be most naturally bridged
over? Many dramatists would add dialogue de-
tached from the story, but Shakespeare gives the
necessary information in three words, which flash a
picture upon the spectator's mind. Valentine says
to Viola as they both enter the stage together : " If
the Duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario,
you are like to be much advanced," etc. In scheming

40 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

the sequence of incidents, and in suppressing ex-
planatory narrative, lies the art of the dramatist.
This result is not obtained without a good deal of
practice. Even Shakespeare could not have written
a play so compact as " Twelfth Night " at a period
when he was writing "The Two Gentlemen of
Verona."

In his young days Shakespeare must certainly
have read "Gorboduc," with its five acts, its five
dumb shows, and its chorus ; he may, perhaps, have
seen it revived at Greenwich Palace, or elsewhere,
and have seen other plays of the kind which were
written in five acts by academicians — amateurs who
were anxious to air their learning before Queen Bess
at the Universities or at the Inns of Court. Then
there was Ben Jonson at hand to instruct his elder
rival on the superiority of Latin comedy. Chapman,
too, who was highly esteemed by clergy and scholars,
was within call to point out to "artless Will" the
merits of Senecan tragedy. In fact, the Bard of
Avon had good reason to know why his playhouse
dramas were despised by the learned, who, however,
were not justified in presuming that he was ignorant
of classical conventions simply because he chose to
ignore them.

No doubt it was possible in Shakespeare's time to
write plays in five acts for the public stage. We
know that at the Rose and Fortune theatres the
action of the play was often suspended to allow of
dancing and singing, though whether these intervals
for interludes came after the termination of each act
it is difficult to decide.

But if the four choruses in "Henry V." were
intended by Shakespeare to denote act divisions,

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 41

they are not so marked in the first folio ; while
" The Tempest," which may have been divided into
acts by Shakespeare, has stage-directions which
suggest that it was not written originally for repre-
sentation in the public theatre, but for the Court.

It must also be remembered that of the plays
wholly written by Shakespeare, with the one
exception of " The Tempest," all are so constructed
that characters who leave the stage at the end of an
episode are never the first to reappear, a reappear-
ance which would involve a short pause and an
empty stage ; nor, even, does a character who ends
one of the acts marked in the folio ever begin the
one that follows, as Ben Jonson directs shall be done
in his tragedy of " Sejanus " (1616). Can we reason-
ably suppose, then, that a method so consistently
carried out by Shakespeare throughout all his plays
respecting the exit and the re-entrance of characters
was due to mere accident, and not to deliberate
intention on the part of the dramatist ? And in acted
drama the exact position where a pause comes in
the movement of the story is a matter of importance
to the proper understanding of the play. Yet, in
the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays
the divisions made are so irrelevant to the story
that Heminge and Condell may have considered
them as merely ornamental. It may never have
occurred to them that the divisions would some
day be used as an authority for actors as well as for
readers. The result has been disastrous to both.
A slavish adherence by the actor to these unfortunate
divisions for over two hundred years, has caused
the representation of Shakespeare's plays on the
stage to be in most cases unintelligent, if not almost

42 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

unintelligible ; while, on the other hand, it has for
an equally long period been the means of misleading
scholars as to Shakespeare's method of dramatic
construction. Until editors ignore the acts and
scenes in the folio edition of 1623 and take the form
of the play as it appears in the quartos — that is,
without divisions — no progress can be made with
the study of Shakespeare's dramatic art. It is now
more generally recognized, especially by American
scholars, that the folio divisions are a real stumbling-
block and must go overboard. In some of the early
comedies, perhaps, pauses can be made where the
acts are marked, in the folio, without serious injury
to the representation, but the comedies were written
to be acted without break, and gain immensely when
so given. Besides, the lengths of the present divisions
are absurdly unequal. The last act of " Love's
Labour's Lost " is more than twice the length of the
first act, and nearly four times the length of the
second and third acts. In a theatre, it should be
the shortest act. Then, the " Comedy of Errors"
was acted as an after-supper interlude at Gray's
Inn. Time there would not allow of its having
four intervals. Throughout Shakespeare's early
and middle periods his plays in their dramatic form
of construction provide no opportunity for regular
intervals, nor should they ever have been divided
into five acts. To put more than one break into
" Romeo and Juliet," " The Merchant of Venice,"
"Macbeth," "King Lear," "Hamlet" (acting version)
injures the drama. Shakespeare rarely cares to
draw breath until he has reached the crisis, nor
should the reader be expected to do so. And to
halt for talk and refreshments on the eve of a crisis

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 43

is to play havoc with the story. The crisis comes
in the " Merchant of Venice " at that part of the play
marked in the folio, Act III. Scene i. But it is
almost impossible for an actor to be animated in a
scene following an entr'acte. The story of Macready
and the ladder is a well known instance. The
pause, if any, should come after the scene and not
before it.

It cannot be urged too often that Shakespeare
invented his dramatic construction to suit his own
particular stage. And but for the special conditions
of his playhouse, Shakespearian drama could never
have come into being ; for Shakespeare's genius was
not adapted to writing plays with intervals for
music, as was done at Court. Unity of design was
his aim. " Scene individable" is his motto. The
internal evidence of the plays themselves proves
this.

Dr. Johnson, then, was right to contend that
Shakespeare wrote his plays as they were first
printed "in one unbroken continuity," but to infer
that "they ought now to be exhibited with short
pauses interposed as often as the scene is changed,
or any considerable time is required to pass," shows
that he failed to grasp the real object for which
Shakespeare adopted the continuous movement. An
Elizabethan audience was absorbed by the story of
the play, and thought little about lapse of time
or change of place. There was only one locality
recognized, and that one was the platform, which
projected to the centre of the auditorium, where the
story was recited. There was, besides, only one
period, and that was "now," meaning the moment
at which the events were being talked about or

44 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

acted. All inconsistencies, then, that are apparent
in the text, arising from change of place or break in
the time, should be ignored in representing the play.
It is no advantage to rearrange the order of the
scenes, or to lower the curtain, or to make a pause
in the progress of the story in order to call attention
to change of place or interval of time. Whatever
information Shakespeare wished the audience to
have on these matters, he put into the mouths of
his characters, and he expected the audience to
accept it without any questioning or further illustra-
tion by actual presentation. Elizabethan folk-songs
are sung without pausing between the verses; in
this way attention is fixed on the story, and Shake-
speare obtains the same result by dispensing with
the empty stage.

Capell long ago pointed out the real difficulty,
when he wrote in his preface : " Neither can the
representation be managed nor the order and thread
of the fable be properly conceived by the reader till
the question of acts and scenes be adjusted." Un-
fortunately, Capell could prescribe no remedy. To
this day these irregular divisions continue, and all
our modern editions need reprinting and re-editing.
One of the debts we owe to Shakespeare is to present
his plays in their authentic form. This is due to
him for what he was and for what he has done for us,
as our greatest national poet and dramatist.

SOME MISTAKES OF THE ACTORS.

In Shakespeare's time the relations existing
between the author and his actors were often
strained. Those who interpreted the characters
were blamed for more faults than their own, while

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 45

the author, who was out of sight, had his reputation
depending upon the skill of his interpreters. The
actors, besides, were the author's paymasters, and
often gave less for a new play than they paid for a
silk doublet, while at the same time they were the
absolute owners of all the dramas they produced.
It was natural, then, for authors to taunt the actors
with being men who thrived by speaking words
which " better wits had framed."

The hired player, however, fared no better than
the authors, and it was only those actors who had
the right to pool the theatre takings who became
rich. Before Shakespeare was forty years of age,
he was earning a competent income out of his shares
in two playhouses. No other dramatist of his time
occupied so fortunate a position, nor probably one
more isolated. As a tradesman's son, brought up at
a grammar school only, he would have no standing
among scholars, and as a writer of plays he was the
" upstart crow," taking the bread out of the mouths
of those who had paid for a college education. Then
the historical dramas which brought the Globe
fame and fortune were not calculated to please at
Court, because neither the Queen nor the nobility
cared to see their ancestors walking the public
stages, unmasked, showing authority robbed of its
sincerity and of its sanctity. Across the Thames
stood the Blackfriars, where the children of the
Chapel Royal, backed by royal favour, were rapidly
becoming the attraction among the leaders of fashion
and culture. These patrons upheld a class of enter-
tainment with which Shakespeare had no sympathy.
So the master spirit of the Elizabethan drama, like
Beethoven, withdrew from the crowd to work out

46 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

his own destiny, and to perfect himself in an art that
fascinated him, and for which his practical life in the
theatre, and his independence, gave him exceptional
opportunity for experiment. During his last ten
years in London he wrote some dozen or more plays,
all of them of supreme merit. That they were
dramas far in advance of the requirements of the
day is probable, since few of them were printed
during the poet's lifetime. Some of them, perhaps,
were acted "not above once." He had outgrown,
indeed, the theatrical taste of the day, and now only
cared for plays which were "well digested in the
scenes," meaning well constructed. But this was
an achievement which no dramatist of his time
attempted, unless it was Ben Jonson, who wrote
artificial comedy after the classical models. Shake-
speare, however, wanted the art of the theatre to
imitate Nature, and he contrived to make speech
and stpry appear natural ; and, indeed, his con-
temporaries mistook this art for Nature, and thought
it the work of an untutored mind and an unskilled
hand. Even to-day many actors are under the
impression that Shakespeare would have sanctioned
as improvements the liberties now taken on the
stage with his plays. Perhaps, also, his own fellow-
actors failed to interpret his dramas entirely in
accordance with his wishes; and yet his art is so
vital and so vividly impressed on the printed page
of the " authentic copies " that there is little justifica-
tion for misrepresenting it. There is an anecdote
about Mrs. Siddons, to the effect that when again
reading over the part of Lady Macbeth, after her
retirement from the stage, she was amazed to find
some new points in the character "which had never

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 47

struck her before "! A confession which would seem
incredible were it not known how apt English actors
are to base the study of their parts not on the text,
but on stage traditions, which often are valueless,
because unauthorized. Yet no actor should defend
a conception of character which is shown to be at
variance with the author's words.

The only copies of Shakespeare's plays which can
with any authority be called acting-versions are the
quartos, published during the poet's lifetime, and
these are not acting-versions in the modern sense of
the term, because, with the exception of textual
errors, or abbreviations of dialogue, there is no
shortening of the play by the omission of entire
scenes or characters. The early quartos, with the
notable exceptions of the 1599 "Romeo and Juliet,"
the 1604 "Hamlet," and the 1609 "Troilus and
Cressida," have the appearance of being made up
from actors' parts, or taken down by shorthand
writers during performances. In consequence, they
are less esteemed by the literary expert than are
the plays as they appear printed in the first folio ;
yet to the actors they provide information which
cannot be found elsewhere. That in some of these
quartos the text is corrupt may be explained by the
difficulty of taking down dialogue spoken rapidly
from the stage, but at the same time it is unlikely
that the note-takers went out of their way to de-
scribe any movement which they did not actually
see carried out by the actors. From the title-page
of " The Merchant of Venice " it is evident that the
copyist saw the play acted differently from the way
it is now acted. Take, for instance, the headline
which is worded : " The comicall Historic of the

48 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Merchant of Venice " ; and the title-page, which sets
forth the " extreme crueltie of Shylocke the Jewe
towards the sayd Merchant, in cutting a just pound
of his flesh, and the obtayning of Portia by the
choyse of three chests." These two stories, which
are continued in alternate scenes throughout most
of the play, were to the Elizabethans regarded as
of equal importance. To-day the title-page would
have to be rewritten, and might run thus : " The
tragicall Historic of the Jewe of Venice, with the
extreme injustice of Portia towards the sayd Jewe
in denying him the right to cut a just pound of the
Merchant's flesh, together with the obtayning of the
rich heiress by the prodigal Bassanio." Over the
Shylock controversy enough ink has been wasted
without adding more, but the shortening of all the
Portia scenes, and the omission of the Prince of
Aragon, one of the three suitors, and one who
provides excellent comedy, are indefensible muti-
lations.

The title-page of the 1600 quarto of " Henry V."
mentions Henry's " battell fought at Agin Court, in
France, togither with Auntient Pistoll." " Swagger-
ing Pistoll," like Falstaff, had become a delight to
the town. The play is, in fact, not a " chronicle
history," but a slice out of history, and not of well-
made history either, since the evils of Henry's un-
just wars are not touched upon. Then Shakespeare's
King is an endless talker, while in reality he was
the most silent of men. It was ostensibly a "Jingo "
play, written to open the Globe playhouse with a
patriotic flourish of trumpets. Its object, besides,
was to please those Londoners who had not for-
gotten 1588, when Englishmen faced a similar ordeal

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 49

to that at Agincourt, and came out victorious, not
because they had the means but the men. The
interest of this drama, to the Elizabethan playgoer,
depended on the knowledge that a handful of starved
and ragged soldiers had won a decisive battle over
an army which was its superior in numbers and
equipment, and contained all the pride and chivalry
of the French nation. And the stage-direction in the
folio indicates the contrast thus : " Enter the King
and his poore Souldiersr On the modern stage,
however, this direction is ignored, though perhaps
it has never been noticed. The whole evening is
taken up by the evolutions of a handsome young
prince, gorgeously dressed, and spotlessly clean,
newly come from his military tailor, together
with a large number of equally well-dressed and
well-fed soldiers, who tramp after him on and off
the stage, not a penny the worse for all the hard-
ships they are supposed to have encountered ! Of
the French episodes two are omitted and the rest
mutilated, while no prominence is given to them,
nor is the numerical superiority of the French
indicated. Nothing is seen of its army beyond the
leaders and their one or two attendants, who are
thrust into the contracted space of a front scene.
This seems rather an upside down way to act the
play!

Among the early quartos, the two most interesting
to the actor are the first and second editions of
" Romeo and Juliet," because they show how Shake-
speare adapted his art to the stage of his time. From
them it may be inferred that characters on the stage
did not always retire from view when they had
finished speaking their lines. This, perhaps, was a

4

So SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

necessity due to the presence of spectators on the
platform, who made, as it were, an outer ring round
the forefront or acting part of the stage. Romeo
therefore did not leave the stage in the balcony
episode, where Juliet is made to call him back again.
He merely retired to the side of the platform, among
the gallants. When Romeo hears of his banishment,
the direction to the Nurse is "Enter and Knocke"
which means that she comes in at the door of the
tiring-house and remains at one side of the stage,
probably knocking the floor with her crutch. After
three knocks there is again the direction "Enter?
when, on hearing her cue, she moves from the side
into the centre of the stage to join in the dialogue.
In this same quarto she and not the Friar is directed
to snatch the dagger from Romeo, an evidence that
this so-called " traditional-business," still in use, is
not of Shakespeare's time. Another stage-direction
shows how characters denoted change of locality
merely by walking round the inner stage. No doubt
this " business " was done to keep the spectators
on the stage from chattering, which might easily
happen whenever the actors left the forefront of the
platform.

With regard to the first quarto of " Hamlet," and
its probable history, something will be said later on.
But it might be well here to call attention to the
three stage-directions in this quarto, which have
dropped out of all the subsequent editions, and which
elucidate the context. Ophelia, in her " mad " scene,
did not bring in flowers, but had a lute in her
hands. There would be no need for the Queen
so minutely to describe Ophelia's flowers at the
time of her death if she had been previously seen

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 51

with the garlands. The ghost, when in the Queen's
chamber, wore a dressing-gown, not armour, prob-
ably the same gown he wore at the time of his
death ; Hamlet is overwhelmed with horror at this
pitiful sight of his father. And Ophelia's body
was followed to the grave by villagers and a
solitary priest, who took no further part in the
ceremony.

Elizabethan players had an advantage over modern
actors in that they could more readily appreciate
the construction of Shakespeare's plays. They
knew that the dramatist's characters mutually
supported each other within a definite dramatic
structure, and that it was the business of the actor
to preserve the author's framework. This attitude
towards the play grew naturally out of the condi-
tions belonging to their theatre, for unless the plot
were adhered to, confusion would have arisen in the
matter of entrances and exits, causing the continuity
of the movement to be interrupted.

After the Restoration, when the public theatres
were reopened, the " fable" ceased to have the
same importance attached to it by the actors, and
attention became more and more centred on those
characters which were good acting parts. In 1773
appeared a collected edition of Shakespeare's plays,
" As they are now performed at the Theatres Royal,
Regulated from the Prompt Books of each House."
The volumes were dedicated to Garrick, whom
Bell, the compiler, pronounced to be " the best
illustrator of, and the best living comment on,
Shakespeare that ever has appeared or possibly
ever will grace the British stage"; a statement

52 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

which is qualified by the remark of Capell that
" Garrick spoke many speeches of Shakespeare as if
he did not understand them." Garrick, however,
expresses his fear lest —

"the prunings, transpositions, or other alterations which in his
province as a manager he had often found necessary to make or
adopt with regard to the text, for the convenience of representa-
tion or accommodation to the powers and capacities of his
performers, might be misconstrued into a critical presumption
of offering to the literati a reformed and more correct edition of
our author's works ; this being by no means his intention."

The reader need only examine one of the plays in
Bell's " Companion to the Theatre " to understand
Garrick's modesty as to his " prunings." Take the
actor's stage-version of " Macbeth " — one of Bell's
notes states, " This play, even amidst the fine senti-
ments it contains, would shrink before criticism did
not Macbeth and his lady afford such uncommon
scope for acting merit. Upon the whole, it is a fine
drama with some gross blemishes." Apparently
the " blemishes" are only found in those scenes
where Macbeth or his wife do not appear, for Bell
continues :

" The part of the porter is properly omitted. . . ."

"The flat, uninteresting scene, between Lenox and another
useless Lord, is properly omitted. . . ."

" Here Shakespeare, as if the vigorous exertion of his faculties
in the preceding scene required relaxation, has given us a most
trifling, superfluous dialogue between Lady Macduff, Rosse, and
her son, merely that another murder may be committed on the
stage. We heartily concur in and approve of striking out the
greater part of it. ..."

" There are about eighty lines of this scene (Macduff' s) omitted,
which, retained, would render it painfully tedious, and, indeed, we
think them as little deserving of the closet as of the stage," etc.

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 53

It does not seem to have struck Garrick that the
scenes he " pruned " might have some significance
in the scheme of the author's drama independently
of their individual characteristics.

To take another instance. In Garrick's version
of " Romeo and Juliet," reprinted in Dolby's "British
Theatre" (1823), the following paragraph is inserted
underneath the list of characters :

" The scenery in ' Romeo and Juliet ' at Covent Garden this
season (1823) is very grand. That of the ' Funeral of Juliet ' is
truly solemn and impressive. The architectural arrangement of
the interior of the church is most chaste and appropriate : the
slow approach of the funeral procession, the tolling of the bell,
and the heart-saddening tones of the choristers, swelling in all
the sublime richness of the minor key, make an impression on the
feelings of the auditory which can never be forgotten."

Here, then, are illustrations, in two plays, of
methods adopted by actors — methods still in use —
which are a direct interference with the poet's
dramatic intentions. They are methods, moreover,
which Elizabethan actors would have regarded as
unintelligent, because they turned good drama into
bad drama, and created inconsistencies between
character and situation. The earliest acting-ver-
sion of "Romeo and Juliet" (1597) has some eight
hundred lines less than the unshortened play (1599),
and yet there is no entire scene omitted, nor any of
the characters; and those scenes which have dropped
out of the play, on the modern stage, are those least
curtailed in the 1597 version. In the first acting-
version of " Hamlet," published in 1603, there is
still more striking evidence of the Elizabethan
actor's skill in compressing a play of Shakespeare's
when it was necessary. Not only was the play

54 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

considerably shortened, without the omission of
scenes and characters, but it was slightly recon-
structed. Herr Emile Devrient, the greatest ex-
ponent of the part of Hamlet in Germany, contended
that this first quarto was a better constructed play
than either the 1604 version or that of the folio.
In fact, with the faulty dialogue amended from the
perfect text, this 1603 actor's copy, which has 1,757
fewer lines than in the full play, and 557 lines
less than in the modern acting edition, would be
the best model from which to shorten the play so
as to bring it within the limit of a two hours' repre-
sentation. That Shakespeare sanctioned either the
compression or the reconstruction for use in the
Globe is not likely. But that he tolerated the
alterations is possible, since he would recognize
that his own less regular plot, though more artistic-
ally suited as the framework for Hamlet's irregular
mind, was too subtle and elaborate to be effective
on the public stage.

With regard to acting-versions, therefore, it may
be contended that the interests of the author are
more often than not opposed to those of the modern
actor in so far as the latter considers the author's
drama to be tedious whenever it fails to enhance
the acting merits of some particular character or
characters in the play. Thus it is questionable
whether, in the absence of the author, the actors
are the persons best qualified to make stage-versions
of his dramas. Their point of view is rarely the
same as that of the author, and if it is necessary to
shorten a play they can hardly be expected to under-
take the work entirely to the satisfaction of the
author, nor yet in the interests of the public, since

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 55

the value of the fable may or may not be a matter
of moment to an actor. If, then, Shakespeare's plays
are a valuable asset to the artistic wealth of the
nation, the amount of "pruning" they require for
the stage should be determined by competent ex-
perts. Unfortunately, actors believe that a scholar
is not qualified to advise on the matter, owing to
his lack of what they call " a sense of the theatre."
This " sense " would no doubt be differently inter-
preted by different actors. Broadly speaking, it
may be taken to mean the ability to forecast what
degree of emotion or sympathy certain incidents can
arouse in an audience when they are seen repre-
sented on the stage. Pope rejected the Gonzalo
dialogue in the second act of " The Tempest,"
asserting that it was not Shakespeare's because
courtiers who had been just shipwrecked on a desert
island would not indulge in idle gossip ! Here
Pope missed the theatre point of view. The audience
see in the first act an old man who once had been a
King, but who was cruelly and unjustly thrust out of
his kingdom, and exposed with his baby daughter in
a frail and rotten bark to the mercy of the perilous
ocean. Moreover, it hears that the very men who
did this wrong are now themselves shipwrecked on
this enchanted isknd, where Prospero is living.
What the audience is curious to see, then, in the
second act, is not noblemen who are suffering from
shipwreck, but ignoble men, who merit the contempt
of those who look upon them, and who deserve the
just rebuke they receive from the man who is once
more restored to his rights. The question as to
what these noblemen have themselves suffered in
the course of being shipwrecked, Shakespeare

56 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

rightly judged was not one that an audience, under
the circumstances, could be interested in. Then,
again, to take a textual illustration from " King
Lear" quoted by Steevens, the commentator. He
writes in his "Advertisement to the Reader" :

" The dialogue might, indeed, sometimes be lengthened by yet
other insertions than have been made (from the quartos), without
advantage either to its spirit or beauty, as in the following
instance :

"'LEAR. NO.

"'KENT. Yes.

" ' LEAR. No, I say.

" ' KENT. I say, yea.'

"Here the quartos add :

" ' LEAR. No, no ; they would not

" l KENT. Yes ; they have.1

" By the admission of the negation and affirmation, would any
new idea be gained ?"

The answer given by the actor is, " Certainly ! The
added words from the quartos give the idea of
reality and character." It is inconceivable that
Shakespeare, himself an actor, omitted the additional
lines. Without this reiteration, the expression of
Lear's amazement at the indignity put upon his
servant cannot be adequately tuned by the actor,
nor yet be consistent with his character. This,
then, is the dilemma with regard to stage-versions ;
scholars are hampered in their judgment by want
of knowledge of the art of the theatre ; and actors
by their bias for good acting parts, or, in other words,
for parts which are always in view of the audience.
As to elocution, it may be well to recall what an
Antwerp merchant who had for many years resided

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 57

in London said of the English people, about the
year 1588. He then observed that "they do not
speak from the chest like the Germans, but prattle
only with the tongue." The word " prattle" is used
in the same sense by Shakespeare in his play of
"Richard the Second."* In the "Stage Player's
Complaint," we find an actor making use of the
expression, "Oh, the times when my tongue hath
ranne as fast upon the Sceane as a Windebanke's
pen over the ocean." Added to this, there is the
celebrated speech to the players, in which Hamlet
directs the actors to speak " trippingly on the
tongue." There can be no doubt, therefore, that
Shakespeare's verse was spoken on the stage of the
Globe easily and rapidly. And the actor had the
advantage of standing well within the building in a
position now occupied by the stalls, nor were
audiences then stowed away under deep projecting
galleries. But unless English actors can recover
the art of speaking Shakespeare's verse, his plays
will never again enjoy the favour they once had.
Poetry may require a greater elevation of style in its
elocution than prose, but in either case the funda-
mental condition is that of representing life, and as
George Lewes ably puts it, " all obvious violations
of the truths of life are errors in art." In the
delivery of verse, therefore, on the stage, the
audience should never be made to feel that the tones
are unusual. They should still follow the laws of
speaking, and not those of singing. But our actors,
who excel in modern plays by the truth and force of
their presentation of life, when they appear in Shake-
speare make use of an elocution that no human being
* See quotation on p. 21.

58 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

was ever known to indulge in. They employ, besides,
a redundancy of emphasis which destroys all meaning
of the words and all resemblance to natural speech.
It is necessary to bear in mind that, when dramatic
dialogue is written in verse, there are more words
put into a sentence than are needed to convey the
actual thought that is uppermost in the speaker's
mind ; in order, therefore, to give his delivery an
appearance of spontaneity, the actor should arrest
the attention of the listener by the accentuation of
those words which convey the central idea or
thought of the speech he is uttering, and should
keep in the background, by means of modulation and
deflection of voice, the words with which that
thought is ornamented. Macbeth should say :

" That but this BLOW
Might be the be-all and the end-all HERE,
But HERE, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to COME.— But in these cases
We still have judgment HERE ; that we but teach
BLOODY instructions, which, being taught, RETURN
To plague the INVENTOR."

If the emphasis fall upon the words marked, then
these and no others should be the words inflected ;
but modern actors, if they inflect the right words,
inflect the wrong ones too, until it becomes impos-
sible for the listener to identify the sense by the
sound. This artificial way of speaking verse seems
traditional to the eighteenth century. David Garrick
and Edmund Kean no doubt used a more natural
delivery, and also Mrs. Siddons, though some of her
exaggerations of emphasis probably were never
heard at the Globe. Shakespeare would hardly
have endorsed her reading of Lady Macbeth's

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 59

words, " Give ME the daggers !" There was nobody
else to whom Macbeth could give them. At moments
of tension, speech is always direct. A lady, tete a tete
with her husband at the breakfast-table, enjoying an
altercation over the contents of the newspaper,
would surely indicate the natural emphasis by ex-
claiming, " GIVE me the newspaper!" words that
can, in this way, be spoken in half the time that
Mrs. Siddons took to speak hers. The two and a
half hours in which a play in Shakespeare's time
was often acted would not be possible to-day, even
without delays for acts and scenes, with the methods
of elocution now in vogue. It is legitimate for
Romeo to exclaim in his farewell to Juliet :

" EYES, look your last !
ARMS, take your last embrace !"

or he may say :

" Eyes, look your LAST !
Arms, take your last EMBRACE !"

but it is not correct to say :

" EYES, look your LAST !
ARMS, take your last EMBRACE !"

which every Romeo persists in saying to-day ; and
this method of duplicating emphasis, being used by
all the actors throughout the whole play, the time
taken up in speaking it is at once doubled. Hence
the need for excessive " prunings."

To sum up the arguments : Shakespeare's dramatic
art, which is unique of its kind, cannot to-day be
properly understood or appreciated on the stage for
the following reasons: (i) Because editors print the

60 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

plays as if they were five-act dramas, which they are
not; (2) because actors, in their stage versions,
mutilate the " fable," and interpolate pictorial effects
where none are intended ; (3) because, also, actors
use a faulty and artificial elocution, unsuited to the
poet's verse. These causes, combined, oust Shake-
speare's original plays from the theatre, and impose
in their place pseudo-classical dramas which are not
of his making, nor of his time. To remedy this evil
it is necessary to insist that the early quartos alone
represent Shakespeare's form of construction and
his method of representation, and that for the purpose
of determining the text these same quartos should
be collated with the first folio, with occasional
reference to modern editions. Cheap facsimiles
of the quartos as well as the folio should be acces-
sible to actors, and from these an attempt should
be made to standardize stage-versions of Shake-
speare's most popular plays, and these stage-versions
should be the joint work of scholars and actors.

Perhaps what is important for the general public
to recognize is that the acting-versions of Shake-
speare's plays, the interpretation given to his
characters, and the actor's " readings " have altered
but little during the last two hundred years, so
that the performances given on the stage to-day
are chiefly founded upon traditions which never
came into touch with Elizabethan times. More
and more, therefore, must it be realized that if an
actor wishes to interpret the plays intelligently,
he must shut his eyes to all that has taken
place on the stage since the poet's time, turning
to Shakespeare's text and trusting to that alone for
inspiration.

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 61

THE CHARACTER OF LADY MACBETH.

/ should never think, for instance, of contesting an actress's right to
represent Lady Macbeth as a charming, insinuating woman, if she
really sees the figure that way. I may be surprised at such a vision ;
but so far from being scandalized, I am positively thankful for the ex-
tension of knowledge, of pleasure, that she is able to open to me. —
HENRY JAMES.

The introduction of women players led to one of
the evils connected with the star system. So long
as boys acted the women's parts there was no danger
of any woman's character being made over-prominent
to the extent of unbalancing the play. But when
Mrs. Siddons became famous by her impersonation
of Lady Macbeth, it may be contended, without
prejudice to the talent of the actress, that the
character ceased to represent Shakespeare's point of
view. This is the more to be regretted in view of
Mrs. Siddons' confession that her personality was not
suited to the part. There was, besides, another draw-
back unfortunately in that, during the eighteenth
century, the part of Lady MacdufF dropped out of the
playbill, thus removing from the play the one person
in it whose presence was necessary for the proper
understanding of Lady Macbeth's character. The
appearance of Lady Macduff on the stage affords
opportunity for the reflection that Duncan's murder
would never have taken place had she been Mac-
beth's wife. Yet she, too, has shortcomings to
which she falls a victim, for when the assassins are
at her door she exclaims :

"Whither should I fly?
I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world, where to do harm
Is often laudable ; to do good, sometime,

62 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Accounted dangerous folly : why then, alas !
Do I put up that womanly defence,
To say, I have done no harm ?"

Now, admirable as this reflection is from an ethical
standpoint, it is not appropriate to the moment,
and in Lady Macbeth's eyes it would have been
" dangerous folly " to talk moral platitudes at such a
time. In fact, if the mistress of Inverness Castle
had been placed in Lady Macduff s cruel position, it
is more than likely she would have had the courage
and the energy to save her own life and those of her
children from the fury of Macbeth. Nor is it incon-
ceivable that if Lady Macbeth had married a man of
stronger moral fibre than her husband, she might
have lived a useful life, loved and respected by all
who knew her. And yet, unhappily for both women,
neither Macbeth nor Macduff were fine types of
manhood.

Another idea which needs to be cleared out of the
way is that of the unusual enormity of Lady Mac-
beth's crime in contriving the death of a man who
was her guest. Shakespeare's audience knew that a
sovereign was never immune from assassination.
Queen Elizabeth's life became the mark for assassin
after assassin. Moreover, the Catholics contended
that " good Queen Bess," by beheading Mary Stuart,
had murdered a woman who was her guest and who
had come into her kingdom assured of protection.
There was something childish about Duncan's
credulity in face of the treachery he had already
experienced from the first Thane of Cawdor. In a
monarch whose position was open to attack from the
jealousy of his nobles, Duncan's conduct showed an
almost incredible want of caution. In fact, it was

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 63

his unguarded confidence which brought about his
death. No onlooker in the Globe playhouse ever
thought the murder of this King at Inverness to be
an improbable or unusual occurrence. And this
inference suggests another of even more importance,
namely, the period in which Shakespeare's tragedy
is placed. When the poet-dramatist demanded that
his actors should hold the mirror up to Nature, it
was not the nature of the Greeks, nor of the Romans,
nor of the early Britons that he meant. The spirit
of the Italian Renaissance, with its humanism and
intellectuality, had taken too strong a hold upon the
imagination of Englishmen to allow of their playgoers
being interested in the puppets of a bygone age.
Shakespeare had no need to look beyond his own
time to find his Lady Macbeth. There were many
women still existing who were uninfluenced by the
didactic teaching of the Puritans and their love of
moral introspection. Queen Elizabeth herself was
an instance. As the historian Green points out, we
track her through her tortuous maze of lying and
intrigue until we find that she revelled in byways
and crooked ways, and yet was adored by her
subjects for a womanliness she, in reality, never
possessed. And this love of shuffling and lack of
all genuine religious emotion failed utterly to blur
the brightness of the national ideal. Or, to take her
rival, Mary Stuart. The rough Scottish nobles
owned that there was in her some enchantment
whereby men were bewitched. " Her beauty,"
writes Green, " her exquisite grace of manner, her
generosity of temper and warmth of affection, her
frankness of speech, her sensibility, her gaiety, her
womanly tearsf her manlike courage, the play and

64 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

freedom of her nature . . . flung a spell over friend
or foe which has only deepened with the lapse of
years." And yet this piece of feminine fascination
visited her sick husband, Darnley, in his lonely
house nearHolyrood Palace, in which he was lodged
by her order, kissed him, bade him farewell, and
rode gaily back to a dance within two hours of the
terrible explosion which deprived him of his life, a
murder that was attributed to Bothwell, and at
which Mary herself may easily have connived.

And so it was with Lady Macbeth. Murder, to
those who were not injured by it, was no crime in
her opinion, and excited neither terror nor remorse.
She was to the last unconscious of being criminal
or sinful. Her life was the playing of a red-handed
game by one who thought herself innocent. For
this reason she could walk placidly through any
evil she contemplated. She knew that her persua-
sive power over men lay in her womanliness, and
that in this there was nothing compromising. Un-
like her husband, her face betrayed no moral con-
flict. The Puritan spirit had never penetrated her
own nature. Whatever her outward religion might
be, she was at heart a materialist, not from convic-
tion, but from shallowness, due to the absence of all
the higher powers of reflection and imagination.
Banquo is dead, and therefore she knows that it is
impossible for him to come out of his grave to
torment his murderer. It is only necessary to wash
the blood from her hands, and that will clear away
the consequences. Even the " spirits," to which her
husband has alluded ; those which she mockingly
invokes to her feminine aid, have no reality to
her, because they have no material whereabouts.

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 65

So that her husband's talk about conscience and
retribution is unintelligible to her. She knows that
what he would do " wrongly " he would like to do
" holily," because she has heard about the Ten Com-
mandments ; but these things have no meaning for
her, they do not come within her experience. With
her limited outlook, the beginning and end of every-
thing necessary for her husband's success in life is
that he should be practical, inventive, and never
appear embarrassed.

The most marked feature, then, in Lady Macbeth's
character is her femininity, and Shakespeare dwells
upon this trait throughout her career. In the first
place, no one at Inverness Castle suspects that she
is accessory to the terrible crime. Macduff is dis-
tressed at the mere thought of telling her what has
happened. The woman who would have been
trampled under foot in the courtyard on that event-
ful night, if the truth about her had been known,
becomes the centre of immediate anxiety when she
faints, or feigns to faint, to rescue her husband from
a perilous position. Duncan could not find words
to express his delight at her charm as a hostess.
The guests at the royal coronation banquet grieve
that she should be exposed to a trying ordeal through
her husband's extraordinary behaviour. The doctor
who overhears her dying confessions is " mated "
and " amazed " and incredulous at the thought of
her self-implications. One voice speaks of her with
harshness, and it is that of the son of the murdered
King, and then only at the close of the play. If,
again, we turn to her own reflections, it is always
her woman's weakness which she dreads may defeat
her purpose. Murder is something foreign to her

5

66 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

temperament; the details are ugly and revolting;
the sight of blood may unnerve her. She can do
the crime herself if she can accomplish it without
seeing the wound the dagger will make ; but she
evidently imagines that her husband, who has killed
men in battle, can do it better, and this conviction
becomes a moral certainty when she is confronted
with the pathetic figure of that trusting, white face,
with its whiter hair, so like her own father's. When
the fatal moment arrives she cannot meet her
husband in her normal mood, but has recourse to
the wine-cup, not because she shrinks from the
notion of murder, but from dislike for the details of
the operation. She has, besides, all the little par-
tialities of a woman who delights in the beauty of the
innocent flower and in perfumes of Arabia. Then
the thought of being a Queen and wearing a real
crown is an intense delight to her. Macbeth knew
of her weakness for finery when he sought her ap-
proval of the deed ; it was his bribe for her help.
And women of Lady Macbeth's temperament do not
care to be disappointed of their pleasures. To break
promise in these matters, she tells her husband, is
as cruel as it would be for her to kill her own child,
that being a crime of which she is incapable, for she is
a devoted mother.

Nor must the marked contrast between her atti-
tude before and after the crime be overlooked. At
its inception, murder is a mere means to an end,
which creates no misgivings in her mind. She sees
" the future in the instant," a future which gives her
"the golden round," and bestows on her husband
" sovereign sway and masterdom." But no sooner
is the crime committed than her optimism fails her,

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 67

for her husband seems no nearer to " masterdom "
than he was before. After the coronation there
comes her tragic reflection that the murder was a
mistake. Unfortunately for her, it was worse than
a mistake ; it was a blunder for which her husband
deposes her authority. No longer does he listen to
her counsels, and although she has not lost any of
her charm or her womanliness, her spell over him
has gone for ever. Never again can she say,
" From this time such I account thy love," but
merely ejaculates, " Did you send to him, sir ?" No
such cruel awakening was in store for her husband.
He knew from the first that his crime must bring
retribution and arouse the anger of the gods ; but
she, for her part, foresaw no harm and no conse-
quences. It is the shock of her failure which
paralyzes her power for further action. She is not
repentant, because she is unconscious of having
sinned, and to the last she is at a loss to understand
why murdering an old man in his bed has divorced
her husband's affection from her, and turned him
into a bloodthirsty tyrant. Her brain is not big
enough to take in what all these things mean, and
under strain of anxiety and disappointment her
mind gives way. This, then, is the Lady Macbeth
that Mrs. Siddons identifies as " a character which,
I believe, is generally allowed to be most captivating
to the other sex, fair, feminine, nay, perhaps even
fragile. Such a combination only, respectable in
energy and strength of mind and captivating in
feminine loveliness, could have composed a charm
of such potency as to fascinate the mind of a hero so
dauntless as Macbeth."

There is no portrait in Shakespeare's gallery of

68 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

women more generally misunderstood than this
one, the reason, perhaps, being that the poet has
not been credited with the desire or experience to
draw a type of woman so obviously disingenuous.
But no one can read Shakespeare aright who thinks
that the men and women who live in our age do
not resemble those who lived in his time. Not until
we read the Lady Macduff scene carefully can we
grasp the kind of woman Shakespeare had in his
mind. Then it will be evident that the real criminal
in the play is Macbeth, whose conscience warns him
that " unnatural deeds beget unnatural troubles,"
and who, against his better judgment, allows him-
self to be influenced, out of connubial love, into
an action of which he knows his wife to be in-
capable of foreseeing the consequences. When
disaster follows, we can set up that " womanly
defence " for her and say, " she meant no harm."
There is no such appeal possible for her husband,
who is condemned from the first out of his own
mouth.

Shakespeare, it must be remembered, wrote the
play of " Macbeth" probably about 1605, when the
Globe actors were still competing with the chil-
dren at Blackfriars, who, with their fine music,
gorgeous costumes, and " candlelight," attracted the
well-to-do people of the town. In this tragedy,
therefore, Shakespeare revives interest in the
Faustus legend, once so popular at a rival house.
The notion that man could set himself up in opposi-
tion to the Deity was due to the teaching of the
Reformation. If man could defy the supremacy of
the Pope, might he not challenge also Omniscience
Itself? Having once tasted of the Tree of Know-

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 69

ledge, Faustus will not rest until he can know all,
can do all, and dare all :

" Till swoln with cunning of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
And, melting, heavens conspir'd his overthrow."

And Hecate prophesies of Macbeth that —

" He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear ;
And you all know security
Is mortals' chiefest enemy."

To playgoers at the Globe, then, the interest in the
play of " Macbeth " lay in the man's daring attempt
to defeat the supernatural. The scheme of drama
requires that Macbeth, like Faustus, shall be the
pivot of the play. Of necessity, then, it is an error
of judgment for a stage-manager to allow the part
of Lady Macbeth to be overacted. Apart from the
witches, there are only two women in the play,
neither of whom are of more than common mould.
They are alike in this, that both are by nature
domestic, and appreciate family ties ; while in other
respects the}' are finely contrasted, and repre-
sent the old and the new type of character which
must have so interested dramatists in Shakespeare's
time — that of the Renaissance or Italian type, up-
holding the doctrine of expediency ; and that of the
Reformation, demanding obedience to conscience.

SHAKESPEARE'S JEW AND MARLOWE'S CHRISTIANS.*

In the opinion of Heinrich Heine, Shylock, as a
typical study of Judaism, was merely a caricature.
If this is a correct estimate of the character, then

* The Westminster Review, January, 1909.

70 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Shakespeare's Jew is the Elizabethan Christian's
notion of an infidel in much the same way as the
modern stage Paddy is the Englishman's idea of an
Irishman. Shakespeare, in fact, thrusts the con-
ventional usurer of the old Latin comedy into a
play of love and chance and money-bags in order
to serve the purpose of a stage villain, and calls him
a Jew. Shylock is an isolated figure, unsociable,
parsimonious, and relentless, who tries to inflict
harm on those who envy him his wealth and hate
him for his avarice.

Perhaps it is this marked isolation in which the
dramatist has placed Shylock that tempts the
modern actor to represent him as a victim of re-
ligious persecution, and therefore as one who does
not merit the misfortune that falls upon him. In
this way the figure becomes tragic, and, contrary
to the dramatist's intention, is made the leading
part ; so that when the Jew finally leaves the stage,
the interest of the audience goes with him. But if
Shakespeare intended his comedy to produce this im-
pression, he was at fault in writing a last act in which
every character that appears is evidently not aware
that Shylock's defeat was undeserved ; nor is there
any evidence to show that Shakespeare designed his
comedy as a satire on the inhumanity of Christians.
How then has it been brought about that, while
the exigencies of the drama require Shylock to be
the wrongdoer, he now appears on the stage as the
one who is wronged ?

In the first place, a change of opinion in a nation's
religion or politics causes a change in the theatre.
New plays are written to give expression to the
new sentiment, and the old plays, when revived,

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 71

must be modified or readjusted to bring them in
touch with the new opinions. To meet this marked
change in public taste managers and actors are
forced to abandon convention. It is useless at such
a time to quote authorities. Public opinion is arbi-
trary, and the genius of a Macklin or a Kean would
fail to arouse interest if it were out of sympathy with
the newly awakened conscience. A popular actor
is tempted, therefore, to show the old figure in the
light of the new sentiment, and his impersonation is
then set up as a model to which every contemporary
candidate for favour is expected to conform.

It must be conceded, also, that our playgoers are
rarely familiar with the text of Shakespeare's plays,
and thus increased opportunity is given to the actor
to overrule the author. Yet this does not explain
why an interpretation, quite unjustified by the text,
should find favour with many dramatic critics. If
a sound judgment and true taste are to prevail
among playgoers, criticism should dissociate history
from sentiment and discriminate between old con-
ventions and modern innovations. Few critics,
however, care to separate themselves from the
opinions of their day; in fact, so far as Shake-
speare's plays are concerned, newspaper criticism
is often limited to the business of reporting. Other-
wise it is difficult to explain the chorus of unanimous
approval with which the Press, as well as the public,
hailed the new Shylock in the picturesque and
sympathetic rendering given at the Lyceum in the
early eighties.

Even if it be admitted that the terms of oppro-
brium with which Shylock is accosted by all the
Christians in Shakespeare's comedy are unneces-

72 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

sarily harsh, even if it be granted that to Gratiano,
Solanio, and Salarino he is the " dog Jew," meaning
a creature outside the pale of heaven, yet if we
read between the lines it is evident that religious
differences are not the chief grievance. Shylock
is a Jew, therefore a moneylender ; a moneylender,
therefore rich ; rich, yet a miser, and therefore of
little value to the community, which remains un-
benefited by his usurious loans. This, in the eyes
of the Christian merchants, is the real significance
of the word Jew. The Catholic Church, by for-
bidding Christians to take interest, had unintention-
ally given the Jews a monopoly of the money-market,
but with it that odium which attaches to the usurer.
This point of view can be specially illustrated by
Marlowe's Barabas, in " The Jew of Malta," the pre-
cursor of Shylock. Barabas makes no secret as to
the unpopularity of his profession :

" I have been zealous in the Jewish faith,
Hard-hearted to the poor, a covetous wretch,
That would for lucre's sake have sold my soul.
A hundred for a hundred I have ta'en ;
And now for store of wealth may I compare
With all the Jews in Malta."

His riches are blessings reserved exclusively for
his race :

" And thus are we on every side enriched :
These are the blessings promised to the Jews."

*****
" Rather had I a Jew be hated thus,
Than pitied in a Christian poverty :"

*****
" Aye, wealthier far than any Christian."

*****
"What more may Heaven do for earthly man
Than thus to pour out plenty in their laps."

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 73

This, then, was the Christian notion of the Jew in
Shakespeare's time, and while we have no reason
for supposing that it was Shakespeare's also, there
is enough evidence to show that for the purpose of
his story the dramatist adopted the prevalent opinion
that the Jew was a man who lived solely for his
wealth. In the face of this knowledge it is difficult to
understand the opinion of some commentators that
Shylock was intended as a protest against Marlowe's
" mere monster." The similarity between Shylock
and Barabas has been pointed out by Dr. Ward.
Both love money, both hoard their wealth, both
starve their servants to save expense, both defend
their religion as well as their usury, both love to
despoil the Christians and taunt them with their
lack of fairness. Of course, every good critic admits
that there are two sides to an argument. Even Sir
Walter Scott, when reviewing a book, confesses to
his son-in-law that his criticism might have been
very different were the mandate dechirer. And
those who want to defame Shylock's character will
not find it a difficult thing to do. The following
illustration of the character is given after the manner
of a schoolboy's paraphrase :

Shylock thinks it folly to lend money without
interest. Jacob was blessed for thriving, even if he
prospered by cunning means, and to thrive by any
means short of stealing is to deserve God's blessing.
Shylock can make money as quickly as ewes and
rams can breed. He will show how generous he
can be towards Christians by lending Antonio
money without asking a farthing of interest, pro-
vided Antonio consents, by way of a joke, to lose a
pound of his flesh if he should fail to repay the
money on a special day ; and this pound to be taken

74 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

from any part of his body which Shylock may
choose, meaning, no doubt, nearest to the heart,
so as to ensure death. Yet Bassanio need have
no anxiety about the safety of his friend's life,
because human flesh is not a marketable commodity
like mutton or beef.

Shylock has a servant who eats too much, and is
so lazy that the Jew is glad to part with him to the
impecunious Bassanio, in the hope that Launcelot
will help to squander his new master's " borrowed
purse." For a similar reason he will himself go to
Bassanio's feast, although his religion forbids him
to eat with Christians. His daughter is not to have
any pleasure from the masque, but to shut herself
up in the house so that no sound of Christian
masquerading may reach her ears. His last words
to her are in praise of thrift.

The Jew's first exclamation on hearing that
Jessica cannot be found is that he has lost a
diamond worth 2,000 ducats. He would like to
see his daughter dead at his feet if only he can
have again the jewels that are in her ears, and find
the ducats in her coffin. It is heartrending to think
how Jessica has been squandering his treasures,
and of the additional loss to him in having to pay
Tubal for trying to find the girl ; yet it is gratify-
ing to hear of Antonio's misfortunes ; and since the
merchant is likely to become bankrupt it will be
well to fee an officer in readiness to arrest him the
moment the time of the bond expires. If only
Antonio can be got out of the way, Shylock will be
able to make as much money as ever he likes. With
this thought to console him he goes to the synagogue
to say his prayers.

When Antonio is arrested, Shylock demands the
utmost penalty of the law because of a " lodged hate
and a certain loathing" he bears the bankrupt. No
amount of money will tempt him to forgo his rights,
and the letter of the law must be observed in every
detail ; not even a surgeon must be allowed on the

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 75

spot in the hope of saving this lend-you-money-for-
nothing merchant's life. When Portia frustrates his
purpose and he finds the law against him, he can
still ask that the loan be repaid " thrice " (Portia and
Bassanio thought "twice a sufficiently tempting
offer). And when Portia points out that, as an alien,
who has deliberately plotted to take the life of a
Christian, Shylock's own life is forfeited, as well as
the whole of his wealth, he still demands the return
of his principal.

Now if we go back to the Latin Comedies and
consider the origin of the moneylender, we find a
type of character similar to that of Shylock. Moliere's
Harpagon, who is modelled on the miser of Plautus,
has a strong resemblance to Barabas and to
Shylock, although Shylock is undoubtedly the
most human. Reference has already been made to
the likeness between Barabas and Shylock, and it
needs but a few illustrations to show the resemblance
between the English and French miser. Both are
moneylenders, who when asked for a loan declare
that it is necessary for them to borrow the sum
required from a friend. Sheridan makes little Moses
do the same. Harpagon exclaims to his servant :
"Ah, wretch, you are eating up all my wealth," and
Shylock says the same thing to Launcelot.
Harpagon's, " It is out of Christian charity that
he covets my money," is not unlike the reproach
of Shylock, " He was wont to lend out money for a
Christian courtesy !" And "justice, impudent rascal,
will soon give me satisfaction !" is with Shylock
"the Duke shall grant me justice!" While if we
compare the words which Moliere puts into the
mouths of those who revile the miser, they suggest
the taunts thrown at Shylock. " I tell you frankly

76 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

that you are the laughing-stock of everybody, and
that nothing delights people more than to make game
of you "; has its equivalent in the speech " Why, all
the boys in Venice follow him," etc. And "never
does anyone mention you, but under the name of
Jew and usurer," tallies with Launcelot's " My master
is a very Jew." Other instances might be quoted.

Of course it cannot be overlooked that Shakespeare
has given Shylock one speech of undoubted power
which silences all his opponents. For while the
Christians are unconscious of any wrongdoing on
their side towards the Jew, Shylock complains loudly
and bitterly of the indignities thrust upon him by
the Christians, and in that often-quoted speech
beginning " Hath not a Jew eyes " he complains with
an insistence which certainly claims consideration.
Now in so far as Shylock resents the want of toler-
ance shown him by the Christians, he is in the right
and Shakespeare is with him ; but when he tries to
justify his method of retaliation and schemes to take
Antonio's life, not simply in order to revenge the
indignities thrust upon him, but also that he may
put more money into his purse, Shylock is in the
wrong and Shakespeare is against him. For it is
obvious that Shylock does not seek the lives of
Gratiano, Solanio, or Salarino, the men who called
him the "dog Jew," or the life of the man who ran
away with his daughter, but of the merchant who
lends out money gratis, who helps the unfortunate
debtors, and who exercises generosity and charity.
Whatever blame attaches to the Christians on the
score of intolerance, Antonio is t!he least offender,
except in so far as it touches Shylock's pocket. And
when Shylock the usurer asserts that a Christian is

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 77

no better than a Jew, he forgets that Christianity, in
its original conception and purpose, forbade the
individual to prey on his fellow-creatures ; and this
is the Christianity which Antonio practises.

Finally it is the intention of the comedy, as Shake-
speare has designed it, to illustrate the consequence
of a too rigid adherence to the letter of the law.
The terms of the bond to which Shylock clings so
tenaciously, and for which he demands unquestioning
obedience, ultimately endanger his own life and with
it the whole of his property. Shylock falls a victim
to his own plot in the same way that Barabas tumbles
into his own burning caldron ; but the Christians
spare the Jew's life and half his wealth is restored
to him, and restored to him by Antonio " the bank-
rupt," who is still himself greatly in need of money.
That Shylock must in return for this mercy deny
his faith is not in the eyes of the Christian a punish-
ment or even an act of malice, but a means of sal-
vation.

The basis, then, of Shakespeare's comedy, it is
contended, is a romantic story of love and adven-
ture. It shows us a lovable and high-minded
heroine, her adventurous and fervent lover, and his
unselfish friend, together with their merry com-
panions and sweethearts. And into this happy
throng, for the purpose of having a villain, the
dramatist thrusts the morose and malicious usurer,
who is intended to be laughed at and defeated, not
primarily because he is a Jew, but because he is a
curmudgeon ; thus the prodigal defeats the miser.

If we look more closely into the two plays of
Marlowe and Shakespeare, and compare not only

78 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Barabas with Shylock, but also Marlowe's Christians
with those of Shakespeare, we find a dissimilarity in
the portraiture of the Christians so marked that it
is impossible to ignore the idea that Shakespeare,
perhaps, wished to protest not against Marlowe's
" inhuman Jew," but against his pagan Christians.
The variance, in fact, is too striking to be accidental,
as the following table will show :

THE FAMOUS TRAGEDY OF THE
RICH JEW OF MALTA.

The play is named after the
Jew who owns the argosies.

The Christians take forcible
possession of all the Jew's
wealth.

The Jew upbraids the Chris-
tians for quoting Scripture to
defend their roguery.

The Christians break faith
with the Turks, and also with
the Jew.

The Jew's daughter Abigail
rescues her father's money
from the Christians.

The Jew's servant helps his
master to cheat the Christians.

Two Christians try to cajole
the Jew of his daughter, and die
victims to his treachery.

Abigail becomes a Christian
and is poisoned by her father.

The Jew is the means of
saving the Christians from the
Turks.

The Christians are accessory
to the Jew's death, which is an
act of treachery on their part.

THE MOST EXCELLENT

HISTORY OF THE MERCHANT

OF VENICE.

The play is named after the
Christian who owns the
argosies.

The Christians ask a loan of
the Jew on business terms.

The Christian upbraids the
Jew for quoting Scripture to
defend his roguery.

A Christian Court upholds
the Jew's claim to his bond.

Jessica gives away her father's
money to the Christians.

Launcelot leaves his master
to join the Christians.

Lorenzo elopes with Jessica,
and finally inherits the Jew's
wealth.

Jessica becomes a Christian
and is happy ever after.

Portia saves the Christian
from the Jew.

The Christians spare the
Jew's life, which is an act of
mercy on their part.

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 79

It might be objected that the interval of seven
years between the production of the two plays
renders it improbable that Shakespeare would have
intentionally contrasted his play with Marlowe's.
But the popularity of " The Jew of Malta " exceeded
that of any other contemporary play. Although it
was not printed till 1604, it was produced in 1588,
and references to it in contemporary plays continue
to be found until 1609. Owing, besides, to Alleyne's
extraordinary success as Barabas, the play continued
to be acted at intervals until 1594, between which
date and 1598 Shakespeare had written his own
comedy. The setting-off, too, of play against play
was a common practice, especially among the early
Elizabethan dramatists, and Greene did not hesitate
to avail himself of the success of Marlowe's " Doctor
Faustus " to write his " Friar Bacon and Friar
Bungay."

Now in so far as " The Jew of Malta " makes fun
of friars and nuns, it would be considered legitimate
amusement by a Protestant audience. We have a
similar record on the French stage of revolutionary
times when as M. Fleury remarks : " All the con-
vents in France were shown up at the theatres, and
the surest mode of drawing money to the treasury
was to raise a laugh at the expense of the Veil."
But Marlowe goes further than this. He attacks
Christianity wantonly and aggressively, not only by
portraying Barabas's contempt for the Christians,
but by making the Christians contemptible in them-
selves, and wanting in all those virtues which were
upheld in the newly accessible Gospels. They are
without honour and chivalry or any sense of justice
or loyalty. They are false and treacherous to

8o SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Jew and Turk alike, and Barabas can well say of

them : „ For l can see no fruits in all their faith>

But malice, falsehood, and excessive pride,
Which methinks fits not their profession."

Further, the Christians take by force the Jew's
money to pay the city's tribute to the Turks, which
after all is not paid, the Christians keeping the
money for themselves. It is but the bare truth that
Barabas states when he mutters :

" Who, of mere charity and Christian truth,
To bring me to religious purity,
And as it were in catechising sort,
To make me mindful of my mortal sins,
Against my will, and whether I would or no,
Seized all I had, and thrust me out o' doors."

And Marlowe also makes Barabas say, indignant at
the Christians' hypocrisy :

" Is theft the ground of your religion ?

•#*•***
What, bring you scripture to confirm your wrongs ?
Preach me not out of my possessions."

Scepticism is rampant throughout " The Jew of
Malta," and Marlowe flaunts his opinions before a
theatre full of Christians. Not that it is contended
that Marlowe was himself an atheist, but in " The
Jew of Malta" he seems, perhaps out of a spirit of
retaliation for the wanton attacks made upon him, to
be bent on exposing to ridicule the upholders of the
orthodox faith. In Marlowe's " Faustus " the good
angel, the aged pilgrim, and the final repentance
satisfy the religious conscience, but his later play
has no such compensations. The boast of Barabas
that, "some Jews are wicked as all Christians are,"
passes unchallenged.

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 81

Now it is unlikely that any member of Elizabeth's
Court, any Protestant nobleman who was respon-
sible for upholding the reformed faith, much less
that any Catholic, could have been present at the
performance of this play without protesting against
the poet's attitude towards Christianity. Nor is it
probable that the Lord Chamberlain's servants would
overlook Marlowe's taunts at the national religion
spoken from the citizens' playhouse. So that the
poet-player whose sonnets were being circulated in
the houses of the nobility, whose patron was the
Earl of Southampton, the friend of Essex, and who
had begun to be talked about at Court, might with
advantage to himself expose the other side of the
picture, and defend the abused Christians.

It remained then for Shakespeare to show that
Christians, if they hated the infidel, were not in
themselves contemptible. In addition to her many
fascinations of mind and person, Portia possesses in
an eminent degree a sense of honour and a love of
mercy. The obligations imposed upon her by her
father are religiously observed. Even when her
lover is choosing the caskets, and a glance would
have put him out of his misery, her attitude towards
him is uncompromising. Later on she upholds the
Jew's plea for justice, while at the same time she
urges the more divine attribute of mercy.

Where Shakespeare, however, differs from Mar-
lowe most strikingly is in the character of the
Merchant after whom the comedy is named.
Barabas has boasted that —

" he from whom my most advantage comes
Shall be my friend.
This is the life we Jews are used to lead."

6

&2 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE
Then he naively adds :

" And reason, too, for Christians do the like."

Now the dearest object of affection in the world for
Antonio is Bassanio, and it is the knowledge that
his beloved friend has a rival for his love in Portia,
which causes Antonio's sadness ; yet he not only
gives up his companion ungrudgingly to the enjoy-
ment of greater happiness, but provides him with
the necessary means ; and for this purpose he signs
a perilous bond with his bitterest foe. Of necessity
he dislikes Shylock, whose debtors he has so often
saved from ruin. With Jessica's flight he had
nothing to do. He certainly never sanctioned
it. Moreover, when misfortune comes upon him
he has no desire to escape from the penalty of the
bond, and when he himself is in poverty he saves
from a similar calamity a man who hates him. In
face of these facts it is difficult to understand why
Heine should consider Antonio unworthy to tie
Shylock's shoelaces !

Again, Bassanio is often called a fortune-hunter,
but without justification. He knew that he enjoyed
the esteem and affection of Portia while her father
was yet alive. The " speechless messages " of her
eyes invited his return to Belmont. On his arrival
he finds that she can no longer dispose of herself,
and yet, unlike most of the other suitors, he does
not on that account withdraw : he wins her because
he loves her and knows that love is worth more
than gold or silver. When he hears of Antonio's
danger he rushes to his friend's side to offer his own
life to save him. It is to be noticed also that
Portia's esteem for Antonio's openly proclaimed

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 83

virtues is drawn from a comparison with those of
Bassanio. They are by no means contemptible.

Jessica, again, who must be counted among the
Christians, finds life at home too hopelessly rigid
to be longer endured. There is not a word in the
text to justify the belief that her father loves her,
apart from his own needs. She is expected to guard
his gold and silver and to listen to his discussions
with Tubal and Chus about the hated Antonio
and his bond. So the girl must look after herself
if she is to enjoy happiness in the future. Lorenzo
knows that to allow Jessica to forsake her father and
to rob him is a sin towards Heaven. He prays for
punishment to be withheld because she has married
a Christian, and, to his credit, it must be acknow-
ledged that he is unconscious of any hypocrisy.
As for the " braggart " Gratiano and the remaining
Christians, we tolerate them because they love
Antonio, the man who of all others most deserves
our respect. Perhaps as Christians they insist too
much on their moral superiority, but this is natural
after Marlowe's play had been seen on the stage.

Of course, there are critics who will hold that
Marlowe's Christians, in some respects, are more
life - like than Shakespeare's. Perhaps if " The
Merchant of Venice " had been written while
Marlowe was alive, he would have challenged
Shakespeare to uphold that in matters of conduct
where money interests were involved there was
any marked distinction between the morals of the
believer and the unbeliever. Marlowe might have
contended that out of one hundred Christians ninety-
nine would act as his Governor of Malta had done,
though he was a Knight of St. John. It might not be

84 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

impossible for a Christian to persuade himself that
money taken forcibly from the infidel Jew, as a
tribute, could justly be withheld from the infidel
Turk to whom it was due, and that it was folly to
hesitate in cutting the cord that would let the infidel
Jew into the burning cauldron, instead of the infidel
Turk for whom it was designed, especially when one
hundred thousand pounds of the citizens' money
would in that way be saved. As a mere worldly
truism the words that Barabas utters, when his
daughter changes her faith, have a deeper signifi-
cance than the " noble platitudes " of Lorenzo and
Jessica:

" She that varies from me in belief,
Gives great presumption that she loves me not ;
Or loving, does mislike of something done."

Shakespeare, probably, would have answered
Marlowe's objection with the assurance that there
still remained the odd Christian out of every hundred
to be reckoned with, and that he himself was more
interested in showing the world what men ought
to be like than what they actually were. But if
Shakespeare preferred to live outside the walls of
reality, he did so only in imagination, for he must
have had a very practical knowledge of men's
dealings with each other. No doubt our great
dramatist was not eager to break with conventions
or to imitate Marlowe by saying unpalatable truths
about the Christians at a time when he himself was
still seeking the favour of Elizabeth's Court.

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 85

THE AUTHORS OF " KING HENRY THE EIGHTH."*

The play of " Henry VIII." first appeared in print
in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death. It
was published in the first collected edition of the
poet's dramas, and so became known to the world
as his play. For two centuries the genuineness of
the drama was not called in question. The earliest
commentators never expressed misgivings on the
subject, nor is there evidence to show that Shake-
speare's contemporaries disputed the authorship.
Choice extracts from the play have appeared in
collections of poetry, which compare favourably
with selections from " Hamlet " or " Macbeth."
Wolsey's famous soliloquy is universally thought
to be Shakespeare's reflections on the vicissitudes
of life. At the British Museum will be found
versions of the play in French, German, Italian, and
even one in Greek. The drama, moreover, is familiar
to the playgoer, while eminent actors and actresses,
with no intention of impersonating the creations of
an inferior dramatist, have won distinction in the
characters of the Cardinal and of Queen Katharine.
Yet, in the face of evidence that is apparently con-
vincing, it may be safely assumed that " Henry VIII."
is not Shakespeare's play in the sense in which we
speak of " Hamlet " or " Macbeth " as being his.
Indeed, the statement has been put forth that not
one line of the play was written by its reputed author.

Now it is always an ungrateful task to defend an
argument which no one cares to accept, and the
admirers of those scenes which have made actors
and actresses famous, and of those speeches which

* The New Age, September 15, 1910.

86 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

adorn our books of extracts, are still too numerous
and too enthusiastic to desire any other dramatist
than Shakespeare to be the author of them. Posses-
sion is nine points of the law, and while tradition
has the prior claim, public opinion will not readily
endorse the verdict of a handful of literary sceptics.
On the other hand, it must be conceded that even
to challenge the genuineness of a play attributed to
the world's greatest dramatist does involve, to some
extent, a censure upon that play. The doubt im-
plies that the play, as a whole, does not average the
work of Shakespeare's later dramas, that it does
not bear comparison with the " Winter's Tale,"
" Cymbeline," and the " Tempest," plays which, in
the date of their composition, are contemporary with
" Henry VIII.," and which were written at a time
when the poet had obtained complete mastery over
the resources of his art. If there are precedents of
poets living till their once-glowing imaginations
become cold, there is no record of a dramatist
losing technical skill which has been acquired by
the experience of a lifetime. It was but natural, then,
that there should exist a feeling of uneasiness in the
minds of impartial inquirers in regard to the author-
ship of this play, and it may be worth while to
consider the history of the controversy.

The earliest known mention of the play is by a
contemporary, Thomas Lorkin, in a letter of the
last day of June, 1613. He writes that the day
before, while Burbage and his company were playing
11 Henry VIII." in the Globe Theatre, the building
was burnt down through a discharge of "chambers,"
that is to say of small pieces of cannon. Early in
the month following Sir Henry Wotton writes to

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 87

his nephew giving particulars of the fire, and de-
scribing the pageantry, which was evidently an
important feature of the play :

" The King's players had a new play called ' All is True/ repre-
senting some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth,
which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of
pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage ; the Knights
of the Order with their Georges and Garter, the guards with their
embroidered coats, and the like ; sufficient in truth, within a while,
to make greatness very familiar if not ridiculous."

Now, if Sir Henry Wotton is correct in his asser-
tion that the play was a new one in 1613, it was
probably the last play written by Shakespeare :
although some commentators contend that there is
internal evidence to show that the play was written
during Elizabeth's reign, and that after her death it
was amended by the insertion of speeches compli-
mentary to the new sovereign, King James. In
1623 the play appears in print inserted in the first
collected edition of Shakespeare's dramas, by
Heminge and Condell, who were the poet's fellow-
actors, and who claim to have printed all the plays
from the author's manuscripts. If, then, this state-
ment were trustworthy, there could be no reason
to doubt the genuineness of the drama. But the
copies in the hands of Heminge and Condell were
evidently in some cases very imperfect, either in
consequence of the burning of the Globe Theatre,
or by the necessary wear and tear of years. And it
is certain that, in several instances, the editors re-
printed the plays from the earlier quarto impressions
with but few changes, sometimes for the better, and
sometimes for the worse. It has also been ascertained
that at least four of the plays in the folio were only

88 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

partially written by Shakespeare, while no mention
is made of his possible share in " Pericles," the play
having been omitted altogether. So that it is pre-
sumed that if " Henry VIII.," in its present form,
was a play rewritten by theatre-hacks to replace a
similar play by Shakespeare that was destroyed in
the fire, the editors would not be unlikely to insert
it in the folio instead of the original.

So long as Shakespeare's authorship was not
doubted there seems to have been no desire on the
part of commentators to call attention to faults which
are obvious to every careful reader of the play.
Most of the early criticisms are confined to remarks
on single scenes or speeches irrespective of the
general character of the drama and its personages.
Comments such as the following of Dr. Drake fairly
represent those of most writers until the middle of
the last century. He writes in 1817 : "The entire
interest of the tragedy turns upon the characters of
Queen Katherine and Cardinal Wolsey, the former
being the finest picture of suffering and defenceless
virtue, and the latter of disappointed ambition, that
poet ever drew." Dr. Johnson, who ranks the play
as second class among the historical works, had
previously asserted " that the genius of Shakespeare
comes in and goes out with Katherine. Every
other part may be easily conceived and easily
written."

When, however, the play is judged as a work of
art in its complete form, the difficulty of writing
favourably of its dramatic qualities becomes evident
by the apologetic piodes of expression used. Schlegel
remarks that " Henry VIII." has somewhat "of a

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 89

prosaic appearance, for Shakespeare, artist -like,
adapted himself to the quality of his materials.
While others of his works, both in elevation of
fancy, ana in energy of pathos and character tower
far above \his, we have here, on the other hand,
occasion to admire his nice powers of discrimination
and his perfect knowledge of courts and the world."
Coleridge is content to define the play as that of
" a sort of historical masque or show play "; and
Victor Hugo observes that Shakespeare is so far
English as to attempt to extenuate the failings of
Henry VIII., adding, "it is true that the eye of
Elizabeth is fixed upon him !"

In an interesting little volume containing the
journal of Emily Shore, who made some valuable
contributions to natural history, are to be found
some remarks upon the play written in the year
1836. The criticism is the more noteworthy since
Miss Shore was only in her sixteenth year when she
wrote it, and she then showed no slight appreciation
of literature, especially of Shakespeare :

"This evening my uncle finished reading 'King Henry VIII.'
I must say I was mightily disappointed in it. Whether it is that I
am not capable of understanding Shakespeare and cannot dis-
tinguish his beauties, I do not know. There is no effort in Shake-
speare's works ; he takes so little pains that what is interesting or
noble or sublime or finely exhibiting the features of the mind,
seems to drop from his pen by chance. One cannot help thinking
that every play is executed with slovenly neglect, that he has done
himself injustice and that if he pleased he might have given to the
world works which would throw into the shade all that he has
actually written. To be sure this gives one a very exalted idea of
his intellect, for even if the mere unavoidable overflowings of his
genius excel the depths of other men's minds, how magnificent
must have been the fountain of that genius whose very bubbles
sparkle so beautifully ! But to speak of ' Henry VIII.' in particular.

90 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Henry himself, Katherine and Wolsey, though they display a
degree of character, are not half so vigorously draws as I had
expected, or as I would methinks have done myself. The char-
acter of Cranmer exists more in Henry's language atout him than
in his own actions."

To come now to the opinion of the German com-
mentators. Gervinus observes :

" No one in this short explanation of the main character of
'Henry VIII.' will mistake the certain hand of the poet. It is
otherwise when we approach closer to the development of the
action and attentively consider the poetic diction. The impression
on the whole becomes then at once strange and unrefreshing ;
the mere external threads seem to be lacking which ought to link
the actions to each other ; the interest of the feelings becomes
strangely divided, it is continually drawn into new directions and
is nowhere satisfied. At first it clings to Buckingham, and his
designs against Wolsey, but with the second act he leaves the
stage ; then Wolsey attracts our attention in an increased degree,
and he, too, disappears in the third act ; in the meanwhile our
sympathies are more and more strongly drawn to Katherine, who
then likewise leaves the stage in the fourth act ; and after we
have been thus shattered through four acts by circumstances of a
purely tragic character, the fifth act closes with a merry festivity
for which we are in no wise prepared, crowning the King's loose
passion with victory in which we could take no warm interest."

Ulrici is even more severe in his remarks upon
the play :

"The drama of 'Henry VIII.' is poetically untrue, devoid of
real life, defective in symmetry and composition, because wanting
in internal organic construction, i.e., in ethical vitality."

So also is Professor Hertzberg :

" A chronicle history with three and a half catastrophes varied
by a marriage and a coronation pageant, ending abruptly with the
baptism of a child in which are combined the elements of a
satirical drama with a prophetic ecstasy, and all this loosely con-
nected by the nominal hero whom no poet in heaven or earth
could ever have formed into a tragic character."

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 91

And Dr. Elze, who is a warm supporter of Shake-
speare's authorship, admits that the play —

" measured by the standard of the historical drama is inferior to
the other histories and wants both a grand historical substance
and the unity of strictly denned dramatic structure."

But it is not only with the general design of the
play and its feeble characterization that fault is
found, but also with the versification. The earliest
criticism on the peculiarity of the metre of the play
appeared about 1757. It consists of some remarks,
published by Mr. Thomas Edwards, which were made
by Mr. Roderick on Warburton's edition of Shake-
speare. Mr. Roderick, after pointing out that there
are in the play many more lines than in any other
which end with a redundant syllable, continues :

"This Fact (whatever Shakespeare's design was in it) is un-
doubtedly true, and may be demonstrated to Reason, and proved
to sense ; the first by comparing any number of lines in this Play,
with an equal number in any other Play, by which it will appear
that this Play has very near two redundant verses to one in any
other Play. And to prove it to sense, let anyone read aloud an
hundred lines in any other Play, and an hundred in this ; and if
he perceives not the tone and cadence of his own voice to be
involuntarily altered in the latter case from what it was in the
former, I would never advise him to give much credit to the
information of his ears."

Later on we find that Emerson is also struck with
the peculiarity of the metre, and in his lecture on
" Representative Men," observes :

" In ' Henry VIII.' I think I see plainly the cropping out of the
original rock on which his (Shakespeare's) own finer structure
was laid. The first play was written by a superior thoughtful
man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines and know well their
cadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy, and the following scene with
Cromwell, where, instead of the metre of Shakespeare, whose
secret is that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading for

92 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

the sense will best bring out the rhythm ; here the lines are con-
structed on a given tune ; and the verse has even a trace of pulpit
eloquence."

Now these quotations, it may be urged, were
picked out with a view to prejudice a favourable
opinion of the play. But disparagements are, none
the less, important links in a question of authorship.
In fact it was because Shakespearian critics, of un-
disputed authority, declared that " Henry VIII."
was not a play worthy of the poet's genius that a
few advanced scholars were encouraged to come
forward and pronounce that no part of the play had
been written by Shakespeare.

In the autumn of 1850 Mr. Spedding, the able editor
of Bacon's works, published a paper in the Gentle-
man's Magazine in which he stated it to be his belief
that a great portion of the play of " Henry VIII."
was written by Fletcher ; a conjecture that indeed
had been anticipated and was at once confirmed
by other writers. Tennyson, on Mr. Spedding's
authority, had pointed out many years previously
the resemblance of the style in some parts of the
play to Fletcher's. In fact, the conclusion arrived
at by the advanced critics was that the play has two
totally different metres which are the work of two
different authors. On this point Mr. Spedding
wrote :

"A distinction so broad and so uniform running through so
large a portion of the same piece cannot have been accidental,
and the more closely it is examined, the more clearly will it
appear that the metre in these two sets of scenes is managed
upon entirely different principles and bears evidence of different
workmen."

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 93

This conclusion, however, was not endorsed by all
commentators. It was acknowledged that metrical
evidence must not be neglected, and that " there is
no play of Shakespeare's in which eleven syllable
lines are so frequent as they are in " Henry VIII." ;
and even Swinburne, whose faith in Shakespeare's
authorship was unwavering, asserted " that if not
the partial work it may certainly be taken as the
general model of Fletcher, in some not unimportant
passages." It was contended besides that the
poet's hand was hampered by a difficulty inherent
in the subject, since of all Shakespeare's plays,
"Henry VIII." is the nearest in its story to the
poet's own time, and that the elliptical construction
and the licence of versification, which are peculiar
to this play, are necessary in order to bring the
dialogue closer to the language of common life. In
fact, Mr. Spedding's opponents, while admitting an
anonymous hand in the prologue and epilogue,
rejected the theory as to the manner in which the
collaboration was carried out, and asserted that the
structure of the play, the development of the action
and the characters showed it to be the work of one
hand, and that Shakespeare's.

Another challenger of the metre was Mr. Robert
Boyle, who endeavoured to show, from a careful and
elaborate study of Elizabethan blank verse, that
Shakespeare had no share whatever in the com-
position of the play, and that whoever was the
author who collaborated with Fletcher (in Mr.
Boyle's opinion it was Massinger) he certainly did
not write before 1612, for the metrical peculiarities
of the verse are those of the later dramatic style,
of which the earliest characteristics did not make

94 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

themselves felt in the work of any poet till about
1607. It was after reading this paper that Robert
Browning, then the president of the New Shakspere
Society, wrote his final judgment on the play which
was published in the Society's " Transactions."

"As you desired I have read once again ' Henry the Eighth ' ;
my opinion about the scanty portion of Shakespeare's authorship
in it was formed about fifty years ago, while ignorant of any
evidence external to the text itself. I have little doubt now that
Mr. Boyle's judgment is right altogether ; that the original play,
presumably Shakespeare's, was burnt along with the Globe
Theatre ; that the present work is a substitution for it, probably
with certain reminiscences of ' All is true.' In spite of such huff-
ancl-bullying as Charles Knight's for example, I see little that
transcends the power of Massinger and Fletcher to execute. It
is very well to talk of the tediousness of the Chronicles, which
have furnished pretty well whatever is admirable in the characters
of Wolsey and Katherine ; as wisely should we depreciate the
bone which holds the marrow we enjoy on a toast. The versifica-
tion is nowhere Shakespeare's. But I have said my little say for
what it is worth."

There is yet another peculiarity that is special to
this play, and it is one which seems to have escaped
the notice of the critics. The stage-directions in it
are unlike those of any other play published in
the first folio. In no other play are they so full,
and so carefully detailed. With the exception of
" Henry VIII.," the stage-directions in the folio
are so few in number and so abbreviated that they
appear to have been written solely for the author's
convenience. It is very rare that any reference is
made to movement, more than to indicate the
entrance or exit of characters, or to note that they
fight or that they die. Sometimes the characters
are not so much as named, and the direction is
simply, " Enter the French Power and the English

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 95

Lords"; at other times the directions are so concise
as to be almost incomprehensible to the modern
reader, for example, " Enter Hermione (like a
statue)," " Enter Imogene (in her bed)"! The
legitimate inference, therefore, is that Shakespeare
considered it to be no part of his business to be
explicit in these matters. It is startling, then, to
find, in the play of "Henry VIII.," a stage-direction
so elaborate as the following: "The Queen makes
no answer, rises out of her chair, goes about the
Court, comes to the King, and kneels at his feet,
then speaks." No doubt in Elizabeth's time all
stage movement was of the simplest kind, and of a
conventional order, so as to be applicable to a great
variety of plays, and what was special to any
particular play in the way of movement would, in
Shakespeare's dramas, be explained at rehearsal by
the author. So that the detailed and minute stage-
directions that in the first folio are special to
"Henry VIII." would seem to suggest that the play
was written at a time when the author was absent
from the theatre. To the actor, however, who is
experienced in the technicalities of the stage, these
elaborate directions show that the author was not
only very familiar with what in theatrical parlance
is known as stage "business," but that he regarded
the minute description of the actors' movements as
forming an essential part of the dramatist's duty.
In fact, the story of the play is made subservient
to the " business " or to pageant throughout. A
dramatic incident, then a procession, another
dramatic incident, and then another procession.
This seems to be the sort of effect aimed at. Towards
the year 1610 the taste for spectacle created by the

96 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

genius of Inigo Jones spread from the Court to the
public theatre. Perhaps this may account for
Shakespeare's early retirement. He wrote plays
and not masques, and his genius lay in portraying
the drama of human life. Unlike Ben Jonson, he
never devoted his talents to the service of the stage
carpenter. Seeing the altered condition of the
public taste, there would be nothing unnatural in
his yielding his place silently and without bitterness
to others who were willing to supply the theatrical
market with the desired commodity. Had Shake-
speare wanted money it would perhaps be difficult
to deny that he would have adapted his work to
the requirement of the times. But by 1610 he was
very well able to live in retirement upon a com-
petent income, and it is difficult to believe that one
who had attained his wonderful balance of intellect
and heart, of reason and imagination, would have
condescended to elaborate the details of baptismal
and coronation festivities.

And now in conclusion, what is there to be said
for or against the genuineness of the play ? The
supporters of the Shakespearian authorship dwell
upon the beauty of particular passages, and on the
general similarity, in many scenes, to Shakespeare's
verse in his later plays ; the sceptics contend that
it is a mistake to leave entirely out of view the
most important part of every drama — viz., its action
and its characterization ; and unreasonable, more-
over, to suppose that Shakespeare had no imitators
at the close of his successful career. But, say the
admirers, this kind of reasoning is no evidence that
Shakespeare was not the author of all that is most
liked in the play. Here, however, we are met with

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 97

the argument that the popular scenes of all others
in the play, are those the most easily to be identified
with the metre peculiar to Fletcher. Then, again, it
is hardly possible to accept the opinion of Charles
Knight, Professor Delius, and Dr. Elze that all the
shortcomings of the play, both in the structure and
versification, are due to the fact that the poet was
hampered by a " difficulty inherent in the subject."
Is genius ever hampered by its subject ? Does not
history prove the contrary ? Have not the shackles
put upon musicians, poets, painters, and sculptors
by their patrons, instead of checking their genius,
elicited the most exquisite products of their imagina-
tion ? The conscientious inquirer, therefore, who
wades through a mass of literary criticism in the
hope of obtaining some elucidation of the question,
seems only doomed to experience disappointment.
Nothing is gained but an unsettling of all pre-
conceived ideas. If expectations of a possible
solution are aroused they are not fulfilled because
the unprejudiced mind refuses to accept conjectural
criticism and to believe more than it is possible to
know. Still, it must be admitted that in re-reading
the play in the light of all the more modern criticism
upon it, the dissatisfaction with the inferior portions
becomes more acute, while the finer scenes shine
with a lessened glory. It is not only dramatic
perception in the development of character that is
wanting, but the power which gives words form
and meaning is also lacking; the closely packed
expression, the lifelike reality and freshness, the
rapid and abrupt turnings of thought, so quick
that language can hardly follow fast enough ; the
impatient audacity of intellect and fancy with which

7

98 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

we are familiar in Shakespeare's later plays are not
to be found in " Henry VIII." We miss even the
objections raised by modern grammarians, the idle
conceits, the play upon words, the puns, the im-
probability, the extravagance, the absurdity, the
obscenity, the puerility, the bombast, the emphasis,
the exaggeration. Therefore it must be admitted
that in order to uphold " Henry VIII." as a late play
of Shakespeare's, it becomes necessary for his
sincere admirers to invent all sorts of apologies for
its faults, and to overlook the consistent develop-
ment of the poet's genius from the close of the great
tragedies to the play of the " Tempest," " where we
see him shining to the last in a steady, mild, un-
changing glory."

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA*

The mystery in which the history of this play is
shrouded bewilders students, for the information
available is scanty. The play was entered on the
Stationers' Register on February 7, 1603, as "The
Booke of Troilus and Cresseda," but it was not to
be printed until the publisher had got the necessary
permission from its owners ; and it was also the
same book, " as it is acted by my Lord Chamberlen's
men," and a play of Shakespeare's had never before
been entered on the Register as one that was being
acted at the time of its publication, plays being
seldom printed in those days until they had become,
to some extent, obsolete on the stage. Then Mr.
A. W. Pollard points out that the Globe managers
often got some publisher to enter a play on the

* The New Age, November 28, 1912.

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 99

Stationers' Register in order to protect their play-
house copies from pirates, and for this or some
other reason not yet fully explained, the play did
not get printed. But on January 28, 1609, another
firm of publishers entered on the Register a book
with a similar name, which soon afterwards was
published, with the following words on its title-page :
" The Historic of Troylus and Cresseda. As it was
acted by the Kings Majesties servants at the 'Globe.'"
Shortly afterwards this title-page was suppressed,
being torn out of the book, and another one inserted
to allow of the following qualification : " The Famous
Historic of Troylus and Cresseid. Excellently ex-
pressing the beginning of their loves, with the
conceited wooing of Pandarus, Prince of Licia." On
both title-pages Shakespeare is announced as the
author, and apparently the object of the second title-
page was to contradict the former statement that
the play had been acted at the Globe, or, in other
words, was the property of the Globe managers ;
and also to suggest by the title " Prince of Licia" that
the book was not the same play as the one the actors
of the theatre owned. In addition to the altered
title there appeared on the back of the new leaf a
preface, and this was another unusual proceeding,
since there had not appeared before one attached to a
Shakespeare play. No further editions were issued
until 1623, when Heminge and Condell published
their player's copy, with additions and corrections
taken from the 1609 quarto. It was inserted in the
first folio in a position between the Histories and
Tragedies, where it appears unpaged after having
been removed from its original position among the
Tragedies. No mention is made of it in the contents

ioo SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

of the volume. In the folio the play is called a
tragedy, which, if a correct title, is not the one given
to it in the 1609 preface.

Now, in the Epilogue to " Henry IV., Part Two,"
we have this allusion to a recently acted play
by Shakespeare, which had not been well received by
the audience, " Be it known to you, as it is very
well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing
play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you a
better. I meant, indeed, to pay you with this." And
in 1903 Mr. Arthur Acheson, of Chicago, in his book
on "Shakespeare and the Rival Poet," advanced the
theory (i) that this " displeasing play," was " Troilus
and Cressida "; (2) that it was written at some time
between the autumn of 1598 and the spring of 1599;
(3) that it preceded and did not follow Ben Jonson's
" Poetaster," and therefore had nothing to do with
the " War of the Theatres "; (4) that it was written
to ridicule Chapman's fulsome praise of Homer and
his Greek heroes — praise which was displayed in
his prefaces to the seven books of the Iliad issued
in that year. On this point Mr. Acheson says,
forcibly :

"Chapman claims supremacy for Homer, not only as a poet,
but as a moralist, and extends his claims for moral altitude to
include the heroes of his epics. Shakespeare divests the Greek
heroes of the glowing, but misty, nimbus of legend and mythology,
and presents them to us in the light of common day, and as men
in a world of men. In a modern Elizabethan setting he pictures
these Greeks and Trojans, almost exactly as they appear in the
sources from which he works. He does not stretch the truth of
what he finds, nor draw wilfully distorted pictures, and yet, the
Achilles, the Ulysses, the Ajax, etc., which we find in the play,
have lost their demigodlike pose. How does he do it ? The
masterly realistic and satirical effect he produces comes wholly
from a changed point of view. He displays pagan Greek and

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 101

Trojan life in action — with its low ideals of religion, womanhood,
and honour, with its bloodiness and sensuality — upon a back-
ground from which he has eliminated historical perspective."

Nor is this explanation inapplicable when we realize
how exaggerated are Chapman's eulogies on Homer.
To take as an instance the following passage :

" Soldiers shall never spende their idle howres more profitablie
then with his studious and industrious perusell ; in whose honors
his deserts are infinite. Counsellors have never better oracles
then his lines ; fathers have no morales so profitable for their
children as his counsailes ; nor shal they ever give them more
honord injunctions then to learne Homer without book, that being
continually conversant in him his height may descend to their
capacities, and his substance prove their worthiest riches.
Husbands, wives, lovers, friends, and allies, having in him mirrors
for all their duties ; all sortes of which concourse and societie, in
other more happy ages, have in steed of sonnets and lascivious
ballades, sung his Iliades."

Now, Mr. Acheson may be right as to the date in
which " Troilus and Cressida " was written, because
neither in its dramatic construction nor in its verse
and characterization can the play consistently be
called a later composition, so that it is possible to
contend that the whole of the play, with the excep-
tion, perhaps, of the prologue, was written before
"Henry IV., Part Two." It can be urged, also,
that Ben Jonson's "Poetaster," which was acted
in 1601, contains allusions to Shakespeare's play,
and to its having been unfavourably received ; then
that certain incidents in the life of Essex come into
the play, and that these would not have been
mentioned had the play been written later than the
spring of 1 599, when Essex had left for Ireland.

With regard to the " Poetaster," it is now generally
admitted that there is no evidence to support the
assertion that, at the time this satirical play was

102 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

written, its author was on bad terms with Shake-
speare. In it Jonson announced his next production
to be a tragedy, and in 1603 " Sejanus " followed at the
Globe; Shakespeare was in the cast, and may have
been also a collaborator. But the failure of this
tragedy to please the patrons of the Globe may
have led to a temporary estrangement from that
theatre, for Jonson did not undervalue himself or
forget that Chapman, as Mr. Acheson has clearly
shown, was always a bitter opponent of Shake-
speare, while it was characteristic of Jonson him-
self to be equally ready to defend or to quarrel
with friends. Now in the " Poetaster " Jonson refers
to Chapman and to his "divine" Homer, as, for
instance, when he makes the father of Ovid say:
"Ay, your god of poets there, whom all of you
admire and reverence so much, Homer, he whose
worm-eaten statue must not be spewed against but
with hallowed lips and grovelling adoration, what
was he ? What was he ? . . . You'll tell me his
name shall live ; and that, now being dead, his works
have eternized him and made him divine " (Act I.,
Scene i.) Again, the incident of the gods' banquet,
although it is modelled by Ben Jonson upon the
synod of the Iliad, is obviously a satire upon Chap-
man's ecstatic admiration for Homer's heroes. It
may also refer to Shakespeare's " Troilus and
Cressida," for if this comedy was acted in 1598 it
might well have been suppressed after its first per-
formance, since to the groundlings it must have
been "caviare," and to Chapman's allies, the scholars,
a malicious piece of " ignorance and impiety," while
the Court would have been sure to take offence
at the Essex incidents. Besides Jonson, in the

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 103

" Poetaster," seems to be defending someone from
attacks who has dared to laugh at Chapman's
idol. This appears in such witty expressions as
" Gods may grow impudent in iniquity, and they
must not be told of it " . . . " So now we may play
the fool by authority " . . . " What, shall the king of
gods turn the king of good fellows, and have no
fellow in wickedness? This makes our poets that
know our profaneness live as profane as we " (Act
IV., Scene 3.) Continually in this play is Jonson
attacking Chapman for the same reason that Shake-
speare did, and, more than this, Jonson proclaims
that the poet Virgil is as much entitled to be regarded
"divine" as Homer, while the word "divine" is
seized hold of for further satire in the remark, " Well
said, my divine deft Horace."

Jonson says he wrote his "Poetaster" to ridicule
Marston, the dramatist, who previously had libelled
him on the stage. In addition to Marston, Jonson
appeared himself in the play as Horace, together with
Dekker and other men in the theatre. It was but
natural, then, for commentators to centre their atten-
tion on those parts of the play where Marston and
Horace were prominent. But there is an underplot
to which very little attention hitherto has been given,
and it is hardly likely, if Jonson was writing a comedy
in order to satirize living persons and contemporary
events, that his underplot would be altogether free
from topical allusions. It may be well, then, to
relate the story of the underplot, and, if possible, to
try to show its significance. Julia, who is Caesar's
daughter, lives at Court, and she invites to the
palace her lover, Ovid, a merchant's son, and some
tradesmen of the town, with their wives; then she

104 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

contrives, unknown to her father, for these plebeians
to counterfeit the gods at a banquet prepared for
them. An actor of the Globe reports to one of
Caesar's spies that Julia has sent to the playhouse
to borrow suitable properties for this " divine "
masquerade, so that while the sham gods are in the
midst of their licentious convivialities Caesar
suddenly appears, led there by his spy, and is
horrified at the daring act of profanity perpetrated
by his daughter. " Be they the gods !" he exclaims,

" Oh impious sight ! . . . <*
Profaning thus their dignities in their forms,
And making them like you but counterfeits."

Then he goes on to say :

" If you think gods but feigned and virtue painted,
Know we sustain our actual residence,
And with the title of our emperor
Retain his spirit and imperial power."

And then, with correct imperial conventionality,
he proceeds to punish the offenders, locking up his
daughter behind "iron doors" and exiling her lover.
Now, Horace — that is to say, Jonson — is supposed
by the revellers to be responsible for having betrayed
the inspirer of these antics. But this implication
Jonson indignantly repudiates in a scene between
Horace, the spy, and the Globe player, in which
Horace severely upbraids them for their malice :

" To prey upon the life of innocent mirth
And harmless pleasures bred of noble wit,"

a rebuke that found expression in almost similar
words in the 1609 preface to Shakespeare's "Troilus

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 105

and Cressida": "For it is a birth of (that) brain that
never undertook anything comical vainly : and were
but the vain names of comedies changed for titles of
commodities or of plays for pleas, you should see all
those grand censors that now style them such vanities
flock to them for the main grace of their gravities."
Now Jonson, if he, indeed, intended to defend the
attacks made on his friend Shakespeare's play, has
shown considerable adroitness in the delicate task he
undertook, for since the " Poetaster " was written
to be acted at the Blackfriars, a theatre under
Court patronage, Jonson could not there abuse "the
grand censors," and this he avoids doing by making
Caesar justly incensed at the impudence of the
citizens in daring to counterfeit the divine gods,
while Horace, out of reach of Caesar's ear, soundly
rates the police spy and the actor for mistaking the
shadow for the substance and regarding playacting
as if it were political conspiracy. But what, it may
be contended, connects the underplot in the
" Poetaster " directly with Shakespeare's play is the
speech of citizen Mercury and its satirical insistence
that immorality may be tolerated by the gods :

" The great god Jupiter, of his licentious goodness, willing to
make this feast no fast from any manner of pleasure, nor to bind
any god or goddess to be anything the more god or goddess for
their names, he gives them all free licence to speak no wiser than
persons of baser titles ; and to be nothing better than common
men or women. And, therefore, no god shall need to keep him-
self more strictly to his goddess than any man does to his wife ;
nor any goddess shall need to keep herself more strictly to her
god than any woman does to her husband. But since it is no
part of wisdom in these days to come into bonds, it should be
lawful for every lover to break loving oaths, to change their lovers,
and make love to others, as the heat of everyone's blood and the
spirit of our nectar shall inspire. And Jupiter save Jupiter !"

106 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Now this speech, it may be contended, is but a
good-natured parody of Shakespeare's travesty of
the Iliad story, as he wrote it in answer to Chap-
man's absurd claim for the sanctity of Homer's
characters. Shakespeare's consciousness of power
might naturally have incited him to place himself
immediately by the side of Homer, but it is more
likely that he was interested in the ethical than in
the personal point of view. Unlike most of his plays,
as Dr. Ward has pointed out, this comedy follows
no single original source accurately, because the
author's satire was more topical than anything he
had previously attempted, except, perhaps, in
"Love's Labour's Lost." But Shakespeare for
once had miscalculated not his own powers, but the
powers of the " grand censors," who could suppress
plays which reflected upon the morality or politics
of those who moved in high places; nor had he
sufficiently allowed for the hostility of the " sinners
who lived in the suburbs." Shakespeare, indeed,
found one of the most striking compositions of his
genius disliked and condemned not from its lack of
merit, but for reasons that Jonson so forcibly points
out in words put into the mouth of Virgil :

" 'Tis not the wholesome sharp morality,
Or modest anger of a satiric spirit,
That hurts or wounds the body of the state ;
But the sinister application
Of the malicious, ignorant, and base
Interpreter, who will distort and strain
The general scope and purpose of an author
To his particular and private spleen."

The stigma that rested on Shakespeare in his
lifetime for having written this play rests on him

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 107

still, for some unintelligible reason, since no man
ever sat down to put his thoughts on paper with a
loftier motive. But so it is ! Then, as now, when-
ever a dramatist attempts to be teacher and preacher,
all the other teachers and preachers in the world
hold up their hands in horror and exclaim : " What
impiety ! What stupendous ignorance !"

Gervinus, in his criticism of this play, compares
the satire of the Elizabethen poet with that of
Aristophanes, and points out that the Greek drama-
tist directed his sallies against the living. This,
he contends, should ever be the object of satire,
because a man must not war against the defenceless
and dead. Yet Shakespeare's instincts as a drama-
tist were too unerring for him to be unconscious
of this fundamental principle of his art. The stage
in his time supplied the place now occupied by the
Press, and political discussions were carried on
in public through the mouth of the actor, of which
few indications can now be traced on the printed
page, owing to the difficulty of fitting the date of
composition with that of the performance. Hey-
wood, the dramatist, in his answer to the Puritan's
abuse of the theatre, alludes to the stage as the
great political schoolmaster of the people. And
yet until recent years the labours of commentators
have been chiefly confined to making literary com-
parisons, to discovering sources of plots, and the
origin of expressions, so that there still remains much
investigation needed to discover Shakespeare's
political, philosophical, and religious affinities as
they appear reflected in his plays. Mr. Richard

io8 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Simpson, the brilliant Shakespearian scholar, many
years ago pointed out the necessity for a new
departure in criticism, and added that it was still
thought derogatory to Shakespeare " to make him
an upholder of any principles worth assertion," or
to admit that, as a reasoner, he took any decided
part in the affairs which influenced the highest
minds of his day. Now, in regard to politics,
government by factions was then the prevailing
feature ; factions consisting of individuals who
centred round some nobleman, whom the Queen
favoured and made, or weakened, according to her
judgment or caprice. In the autumn of 1597 Essex's
influence over the Queen was waning, and after
a sharp rebuke received from her at the Privy
Council table, he abruptly left the Court and sullenly
withdrew to his estate at Wanstead, where he
remained so long in retirement that his friends
remonstrated with him against his continued
absence. One of them, who signed himself " Thy
true servant not daring to subscribe," urged him
to attend every Council and to let nothing be settled
either at home or abroad without his knowledge.
He should stay in the Court, and perform all his
duties there, where he can make a greater show of
discontent than he possibly could being absent ;
there is nothing, adds this writer, that his enemies
so much wish, enjoy, and rejoice in as his absence.
He is advised not to sue any more, " because necessity
will entreat for him." All he need do now is to
dissemble like a courtier, and showhimself outwardly
unwilling of that which he has inwardly resolved.
For by retiring he is playing his enemies' game,
since " the greatest subject that ever is or was

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 109

greatest, in the prince's favour, in his absence is
not missed." In"Troilus and Cressida " we have
a similar situation, and we hear similar advice given.
Achilles, like Essex, has withdrawn unbidden and
discontentedly to his tent, refusing to come again to
his general's council table. For doing so Ulysses
remonstrates with him in almost the same words
as the writer of the anonymous letter.

"The present eye praises the present object.
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax ;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive,
And case thy reputation in thy tent ;
Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves
And drave great Mars to faction."

Then Achilles replies :

" Of this my privacy I have strong reasons."

And Ulysses continues :

" But 'gainst your privacy
The reasons are more potent and heroical,
'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love
With one of Priam's daughters."

ACHILLES : Ha ! known ?

ULYSSES : Is that a wonder ?

*****
All the commerce that you have had with Troy
As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord ;
And better would it fit Achilles much
To throw down Hector than Polyxena."

If, again, we turn to the life and letters of Essex,
we find there that upon the nth of February, 1598,

no SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

" it is spied out by some that my Lord of Essex is
again fallen in love with his fairest B. : it cannot
chance but come to her Majesty's ears, and then he
is undone." The lady in question was Mary Brydges,
a maid-of-honour and celebrated beauty. Again,
in the same month Essex writes to the Queen, " I
was never proud till your Majesty sought to make
me too base." And Achilles is blamed by Agamemnon
for his pride in a remarkably fine passage. Then
after news had come of the disaster to the Queen's
troops in Ireland, in the summer of 1598, Essex
reminds the Queen that, " I posted up and first
offered my attendance after my poor advice to your
Maj. But your Maj. rejected both me and my letter :
the cause, as I hear, was that I refused to give
counsel when I was last called to my Lord Keeper."
A similar situation is found in the play. Agamemnon
sends for Achilles to attend the Council and he
refuses to come, and later on, when he desires a
reconciliation, the Council pass him by unnoticed.
It is almost impossible to read the third act of this
play without being reminded of these and other
incidents in Essex's life. Nor would Shakespeare
forget the stir that had been created in London when
in 1591 it was known at Court that Essex, at the
siege of Rouen, had sent a personal challenge to the
governor of the town couched in the following
words : " Si vous voulez combattre vous-meme a
cheval ou a pied je maintiendrai que la querelle du
rois est plus juste que celle de la ligue, et que ma
Maitresse est plus belle que la votre." And ^Eneas,
the Trojan, brings a challenge in almost identical
words from Hector to the Greeks. It is true that
this incident is in the Iliad together with the incidents

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE in

connected with the withdrawal of Achilles, but
Shakespeare selected his material from many
sources and appears to have chosen what was most
likely to appeal to his audience. Now it is not
presumed that Achilles is Essex, nor that Ajax is
Raleigh, nor Agamemnon Elizabeth, or that Shake-
speare's audience for a moment supposed that they
were ; although it is to be noticed that the Achilles
who comes into Shakespeare's play is not the same
man at the beginning and end of the play as he is in
the third act, where, in conversation with Ulysses
he suddenly becomes an intelligent being and not
simply a prize-fighter. To the injury of his drama,
Shakespeare here runs away from his Trojan story,
and does so for reasons that must have been
special to the occasion for which the play was
written. For about this time, the Privy Council
wrote to some Justices of the Peace in Middlesex,
complaining that certain players at the Curtain
were reported to be representing upon the stage
" the persons of some gentlemen of good descent
and quality that are yet alive," and that the actors
were impersonating these aristocrats ""under obscure
manner, but yet in such sorte as all the hearers
may take notice of the matter and the persons that
are meant thereby. This being a thing very unfit and
offensive." The protest seems almost to suggest that
the Achilles's scenes in Shakespeare's play express,
" under obscure manner," reflections upon contem-
porary politicians. But, indeed, the growing political
unrest which marked the last few years of Elizabeth's
reign could not fail to find expression on the stage.

It must be remembered, besides, that the years
1597 t° 1S99 were marked by a group of dramas

ii2 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

which may be called plays of political adventure.
Nash had got into trouble over a performance of
"The Isle of Dogs" at the Rose in 1597. In the
same year complaints were made against Shake-
speare for putting Sir John Oldcastle on the stage
in the character of Falstaff. Also at the same period
Shakespeare's " Richard the Second " was published,
but not without exciting suspicions at Court, for
the play had a political significance in the eyes of
Catholics: Queen Mary of Scotland told her
English judges that " she remembered they had
done the same to King Richard, whom they had
degraded from all honour and dignity." Then on
the authority of Mr. H. C. Hart we are told that
Ben Jonson brought Sir Walter Raleigh, the best
hated man in England, on to the stage in the play
of "Every Man Out of His Humour," in 1599, and,
as a consequence, in the summer of the same year
it was decided by the Privy Council that restrictions
should be placed on satires, epigrams, and English
histories, and that " noe plays be printed except
they be allowed by such as have an authoritie."
Dramatists, therefore, had to be much more circum-
spect in their political allusions after 1599 than they
were before.

There are two new conjectures therefore put
forward in this article : (i) That the underplot in the
"Poetaster" contains allusions to Shakespeare's
play, and (2) that the withdrawal of Achilles is a
reflection on the withdrawal of Essex from Eliza-
beth's Court. Presuming that further evidence may
one day be found to support these suppositions, it
is worth while to consider them in relation to the
history of the play.

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 113

And first to clear away the myth in connection
with the idea that this is one of Shakespeare's late
plays, or that it was only partly written by the poet,
or written at different periods of his life. It may be
confidently asserted that Shakespeare allowed no
second hand to meddle with a work so personal to
himself as this one, nor was he accustomed to seek
the help of any collaborator in a play that he himself
initiated. We know, besides, that he wrote with
facility and rapidly. As to the date of the play, the
evidence of the loose dramatic construction, and the
preference for dialogue where there should be drama,
place it during the period when Shakespeare was
writing his histories. The grip that he ultimately
obtained over the stage handling of a story so as to
produce a culminating and overpowering impression
on his audience is wanting in " Troilus and Cressida."
In fact, it is impossible to believe that this play was
written after "Julius Caesar," "Much Ado," or
" Twelfth Night." Nor is there evidence of revision
in the play, since there are no topical allusions to be
found in it which point to a later date than 1598
except perhaps in the prologue, which could hardly
have been written before 1601, and did not appear
in print before 1623. Again, it is contended that
there is too much wisdom crammed into the play to
allow of its being an early composition. But the
false ethics underlying the Troy story, which
Shakespeare meant to satirize in " Troilus and
Cressida," had been previously exposed in his poem
of " Lucrece " :

" Show me the strumpet that began this stir,
That with my nails her beauty I may tear.
Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur

8

ii4 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

This load of wrath that burning Troy did bear :
Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here ;
And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye
The sire, the son, the dame, and daughter die.

" Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the public plague of many moe ?
Let sin, alone committed, light alone
Upon his head that hath transgressed so ;
Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe :

For one's offence why should so many fall,

To plague a private sin in general.

" Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,
Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds,
Here friend by friend in bloody charnel lies,
And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds,
And one man's lust these many lives confounds ;
Had doting Priam check'd his son's desire,
Troy had been bright with fame, and not with fire."

The difficulty with commentators is the know-
ledge that the play might have been written yester-
day, while the treatment of the subject, in its
modernity, is as far removed from " The Tempest "
as it is from " Henry V." Now, if the drama be
recognized as a satire written under provoca-
tion and with extraordinary mental energy, the date
of the composition can be as well fixed for 1598,
when Shakespeare was thirty-four years old, as for
the year 1609. There is, besides, something to be
said with regard to its vocabulary, as Mr. Richard
Simpson has shown, which is peculiar to this play
alone. Shakespeare introduces into it a large
number of new words which he had never used
before and never employed afterwards. The list is
a long one. There are 126 latinized words that are
coined or used only for this play, words such as
propugnation, protractive, Ptisick, publication, cog-

THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 115

nition, commixture, commodious, community, com-
plimental. And in addition to all the latinized
words there are 124 commoner words simple and
compound, not elsewhere to be found in the poet's
plays, showing an unwonted search after verbal
novelty.

We will now, with the help of the new information,
attempt to unravel the mystery as to the history of
the play. The creation of the character of Falstaff
in " Henry IV." (Part I.) brought Shakespeare's
popularity, as a dramatist, to its zenith, and he
seized the opportunity to reply to the attacks made
upon himself, as a poet, by his rival poet, Chapman,
and wrote a play giving a modern interpretation to
the story of Troy, and working into the underplot
some political allusion to Essex and the Court. The
play may have been acted at the Curtain late in
1598, or at the Globe in the spring of 1599, or,
perhaps, privately at some nobleman's mansion,
who might have been one of Essex's faction. It was
not liked, and Shakespeare experienced his first and
most serious reverse on the stage. But he quickly
retrieved his position by producing another Falstaff
play, " Henry IV." (Part II.), in the summer of 1599,
followed by " Henry V." in the same autumn, when
Essex's triumphs in Ireland are predicted. Shake-
speare, none the less, must have felt both grieved
and annoyed by the treatment his satirical comedy
had received from the hands of the "grand censors."
So at Christmas, 1601, when Ben Jonson produced
his "Poetaster" at Blackfriars, the younger
dramatist defended his friend from the silly objec-
tions which had been made to the Trojan comedy.
Then early in 1603 a revival of " Troilus and

ii6 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Cressida" may have been contemplated at the
Globe, and also its publication, but the death of
Essex was still too near to the memory of Londoners
to make this possible, and the suggestion may have
been dropped on the eve of its fulfilment; Shake-
speare, meanwhile, had written a prologue, to be
spoken by an actor in armour, in imitation of
Jonson's prologue, with a view to protect his play
from further hostility. In 1609 Shakespeare was
preparing to give up his connection with the stage,
and may have handed his copy of the play to some
publishers, for a consideration, and the book was
then printed. The Globe players, however, demurred
and claimed the property as theirs. The publishers
then removed their first title page and inserted
another one to give the appearance to the reader of
the play being new. They also wrote a preface
to show that the publication, if unauthorized, was
warranted, since the play had not been acted on
the public stage. The real object of the preface,
however, was to defend the play from the attacks of
the " grand censors," who thought that the comedy
had some deep political significance, and was not
merely intended to amuse and instruct. It also
shows the writer's resentment at the high-handed
action of the ''grand possessors," the Globe players,
who were unwilling either to act the play them-
selves or yet to allow it to be published.

Ill

SOME STAGE VERSIONS

" THE MERCHANT OF VENICE."
"ROMEO AND JULIET."
" HAMLET."

Ill

SOME STAGE VERSIONS

A CRITICAL and genuine appreciation of the poet's
work imposes a reverence for the constructive plan
as well as for the text. Why should a Shakespeare,
whose cunning hand divined the dramatic sequence
of his story, have it improved by a modern play-
wright or actor-manager ? The answer will be :
Because the modern experts are familiar with
theatrical effects of a kind Shakespeare never lived
to see. But if a modern rearrangement of Shake-
speare's plays is necessary to suit these theatrical
effects, the question may well be discussed as to
whether rearrangements with all their modern
advantages are of more dramatic value than the
perfect work of the master.

Among all innovations on the stage, perhaps the
most far-reaching in its effect on dramatic construc-
tion was the act-drop. Elizabethan dramatists had
to round off a scene to a conclusion, for there was no
kindly curtain to cover retreat from a deadlock. The
art of modern play-writing is to arrest the action
suddenly upon a thrilling situation, and leave the
characters between the horns of a dilemma. At a
critical moment the act-drop comes down ; and after
the necessary interval goes up again, showing that
the characters have in the meantime somehow got

119

120 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

out of the difficulty. This leaves much to the fancy,
but does not feed the imagination. This leading up
to a terminal climax, a " curtain," is but the appetite
for the feast, and not the food itself. It assumes
that the palate of the audience is depraved in its
taste, and that it is one for which the best work is
perhaps not best suited ; but it is a form of art, and
plays can be written after this form, and well written.
Apart, however, from the question as to the
theatrical gain of such a crude device as a "curtain,"
Shakespeare wrote with consummate art to show
the tide of human affairs, its flow and its ebb, and
his constructive plan is particularly unsuited to the
act-drop. Upon one of Shakespeare's plays the
curtain falls like the knife of a guillotine, and the
effect is similar to ending a piece of music abruptly
at its highest note, simply for the sake of creating
some startling impression.

The way in which some modern managers, both
here and in America, set about producing a play of
Shakespeare's seems to be as follows : Choose your
play, and be sure to note carefully in what country
the incidents take place. Having done this, send
artists to the locality to make sketches of the country,
of its streets, its houses, its landscape, of its people,
and of their costumes. Tell your artists that they
must accurately reproduce the colouring of the sky,
of the foliage, of the evening shadows, of the moon-
light, of the men's hair and the women's eyes ; for
all these details are important to the proper under-
standing of Shakespeare's play. Send, moreover,
your leading actor and actress to spend some weeks
in the neighbourhood that they may become
acquainted with the manners, the gestures, the

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 121

emotions of the residents, for these things also
are necessary to the proper understanding of the
play. Then, when you have collected, at vast
expense, labour, and research, this interesting
information about a country of which Shakespeare
was possibly entirely ignorant, thrust all this
extraneous knowledge into your representation,
whether it fit the context or not ; let it justify the
rearrangement of your play, the crowding of your
stage with supernumeraries, the addition of inci-
dental songs and glees, to say nothing of inappro-
priateness of costume and misconception of character,
until the play, if it does not cease to be intelligible
or consistent, thrives only by virtue of its imperish-
able vitality, or by its strength of characterization,
and by its brilliancy of dialogue.

These are but a few of the inconsistencies con-
sequent upon the rage for foisting foreign local
colour into a Shakespearian play. But if the
same amount of industry bestowed in ascertaining
the manners and customs of foreign countries
had been spent in acquiring a knowledge of
Elizabethan playing, and in forming some notion of
what was uppermost in Shakespeare's mind when he
wrote his plays, we should have had representations
which, if possibly less pictorially successful, would
have been more dramatic, more human, and more
consistent.

To use a homely image, the question of the stage
representation of Shakespeare's plays is just the
question of the foot and the shoe. Must we cut off
a toe here, and slice off a little from the heel there ;
or stretch the shoe upon the last, and, if need be,
even buy a new pair of shoes ? It is not enough to

122 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

say that modern audiences demand "curtain" and
scenery for Shakespeare's plays. No public demands
what is not offered to it. Before demand can create
supply, a sample of the new ware must be shown.
Most modern playgoers are unaware of the methods
of Elizabethan stage - playing, and therefore can-
not condemn them as unsatisfactory. They may
have heard something about old tapestry, rushes,
and boards, but they have no reason to infer that
our greatest dramatists were " thoroughly handi-
capped by the methods of representation then in
vogue."

It is indeed to be regretted that no scholar nor
actor has thought it necessary to study the art of
Shakespeare's dramatic construction from the
original copies. Some of our University men have
written intelligently about Shakespeare's characters
and his philosophy, and one of them has done some-
thing more than this. But it is doubtful if any
serious attention has been given yet to the way
Shakespeare conducts his story and brings his char-
acters on and off the stage, a matter of the highest
moment, since the very life of the play depends
upon the skill with which this is done. And how
many realize that the art of Shakespeare's dramatic
construction differs fundamentally from that of the
modern dramatist ? In fact, a Pinero would no
more know how to set about writing a play for the
Elizabethan stage, in which the characters appear
in the course of the story in twenty-six different
localities during twenty-six years, than Shakespeare
would know how to make twenty-six persons live
their lives through a whole play in one room or on
one day.

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 123

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.*

The story of this play is as follows. In the
opening scene, the words of Antonio to Bassanio —

" Well, tell me now, what lady is the same
To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promised to tell me of ?"

And Lorenzo's apology for withdrawing —

" My lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio
We two will leave you :"

and that of Salarino —

" We'll make our leisures to attend on yours " —

lead us to suppose that Bassanio has come by
appointment to meet Antonio, and that Antonio
should be represented on his entrance as some-
what anxiously expecting his friend, and we may
further presume from Solanio's words to Salarino
in Act II., Scene 8 —

" I think he only loves the world for him " —

that there is a special cause for Antonio's sadness,
beyond what he chooses to admit to his companions,
and that is the knowledge that he is about to lose
Bassanio's society.

With regard to Bassanio, we learn, in this first
scene, that he is already indebted to Antonio, that
he desires to borrow more money from his friend,
to free himself from debt, before seeking the hand
of Portia, a rich heiress, and that Portia has herself
encouraged him to woo her. In fact, we are at once
deterred from associating purely sordid motives

* Part of a paper read before the New Shakspere Society in
June, 1887.

i24 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

with Bassanio's courtship by his glowing descrip-
tion of her virtues and beauty, as also by Antonio's
high opinion of Bassanio's character.

Antonio, however, has not the money at hand, and
it is arranged that Bassanio is to borrow the required
sum on Antonio's security. The entrance of Gratiano
is skilfully timed to dispel the feeling of depression
that Antonio's sadness would otherwise leave upon
the audience, and to give the proper comedy tone to
the opening scene of a play of comedy.

In Scene 2 we are introduced to the heroine and
her attendant, and learn, what probably Bassanio
did not know, that Portia by her father's will is
powerless to bestow her hand on the man of her
choice, the stratagem, as Nerissa supposes, being
devised to insure Portia's obtaining " one that shall
rightly love." This we may call the first or casket-
complication. Portia's strong sense of humour is
revealed to us in her description of the suitors " that
are already come," and her moral beauty in her
determination to respect her father's wishes. " If
I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as
Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my
father's will." The action of the play is not, how-
ever, continued till Nerissa questions Portia about
Bassanio, in a passage that links this scene to the
last, and confirms, in the minds of the audience, the
truth of the lover's statement —

" Sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages."

A servant enters to announce the leave-taking of
four of the suitors, who care not to submit to the
conditions of the will, and to herald the arrival of
a fifth, the Prince of Morocco.

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 125

We now come to the third scene of the play.
Bassanio enters conversing with one, of whom no
previous mention has been made but whose first
utterance tells us he is the man of whom the required
loan is demanded, and before the scene has ended,
we discover further that he is to be the chief agent
in bringing about the second, or pound -of- flesh-
complication. There are no indications given us of
Shylock's personal appearance, except that he has
been dubbed "old Shylock," which is, perhaps, more
an expression of contempt than of age, for he is
never spoken of as old man, or old Jew, and is
chiefly addressed simply as Shylock or Jew; but
the epithet is one recognized widely enough for
Shylock himself to quote—

" Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy judge,
The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio :"

as also does the Duke —

" Antonio and old Shylock both stand forth."

So was it with Silas Marner. George Eliot
writes : " He was so withered and yellow that
though he was not yet forty the children always
called him 'old master Marner.'" However, the
language that Shakespeare has put into the mouth
of Shylock does not impress us as being that of a man
whose physical and mental faculties are in the least
impaired by age ; so vigorous is it at times that
Shylock might be pictured as being an Edmund
Kean-like figure, with piercing black eyes and an
elastic step. From Shylock's expression, "the
ancient grudge I bear him," and Antonio's abrupt
manner towards Shylock, we may conclude that the

126 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

two men are avowed enemies, and have been so
for some time previous to the opening of the play.
This fact should, from the very first, be made
evident to the audience by the emphasis Shylock
gives to Antonio's name, an emphasis that is
repeated every time the name occurs till he has
made sure there is no doubt about who the man is
that shall become bound.

The dramatic purpose of this scene is to show us
Shylock directly plotting to take the life of Antonio,
and the means he employs to this end are contrived
with much skill. Shylock, in his opening soliloquy,
discloses his intention to the audience, and at once
deprives himself of its sympathy by admitting that
his motives are guided more by personal considera-
tions than by religious convictions —

" I hate him for he is a Christian,
But more for that in low simplicity
He lends out money gratis and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice."

The three first scenes should be so acted on the
stage as to accentuate in the minds of the audience

(1) that Bassanio is the very dear friend of Antonio;

(2) that Portia and Bassanio are in love with each
other; (3) that Antonio and Shylock are avowed
enemies; (4) that Shylock conspires against Antonio's
life with full intent to take it should the bond become
forfeit.

We are again at Belmont and witness the entrance
of the Prince of Morocco, and the whole scene has
a poetic dignity and repose which form a striking
contrast to the preceding one. We get in the
character of the Prince of Morocco a preliminary
sketch of Shakespeare's Othello, and certainly the

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 127

actor, to do justice to the part, should have the
voice and presence of a Salvini. The second scene
shows us the Jew's man about to leave his rich
master to become the follower of Bassanio, and the
latter, now possessed of Shylock's money, prepar-
ing his outfit for the journey to Belmont, whither
Gratiano also is bent on going. There is, besides,
some talk of merrymaking at night-time, which fitly
leads up to our introduction to Jessica in the next
scene, and prepares us to hear of her intrigue with
Lorenzo. Jessica is the third female character in
the play, and the dramatist intends her to appear,
in contrast to Portia and Nerissa, as a tragic figure,
dark, pale, melancholy, demure, yet chaste in thought
and in action, and with a heart susceptible of tender
and devoted love. She plans her elopement with
the same fixedness of purpose as the father pursues
his revenge. In Scene 4 the elopement incident
is advanced a step by Lorenzo receiving Jessica's
directions " how to take her from her father's house,"
and a little further in the next scene, by Shylock
being got out of the way, when we hear Jessica's
final adieu. It is worth noting in this scene that,
at a moment when we are ready to sympathize with
Shylock, who is about to lose his daughter, the
dramatist denies us that privilege by further illus-
trating the malignancy of the man's character. He
has had an unlucky dream ; he anticipates trouble
falling upon his house ; he is warned by Launcelot
that there are to be masques at night; he admits
that he is not invited to Bassanio's feast out of love,
but out of flattery, and still he can say—

" But yet I'll go In hate, to feed upon
The prodigal Christian."

128 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

No personal inconvenience must hinder the
acceleration of Antonio's downfall.

In Scene 6 the elopement takes place, but is
almost prevented by the entrance of Antonio, whose
solemn voice ringing clear on the stillness of the
night is a fine dramatic contrast to the whispering
of the lovers.

Shakespeare now thinks it time to return to
Belmont, and we are shown the Prince of Morocco
making his choice of the caskets, and we learn his
fate. But he bears his disappointment like a hero,
and his dignified retreat moves Portia to exclaim :
" A gentle riddance !"

Scene 8 is one of narration only, but the
speakers are in an excited frame of mind. The
opening lines are intended to show that Antonio
was not concerned in the flight of Jessica, and our
interest in his character is further strengthened by
the touching description of his farewell to Bassanio.

Scene 9 disposes of the second of Portia's re-
maining suitors, and, being comic in character, is
inserted with good effect between two tragic scenes.
The keynote to its action is to be found in Portia's
words : " O, these deliberate fools !" The Prince of
Morocco was a warrior, heroic to the tips of his
fingers ; the Prince of Arragon is a fop, an affected
ass, a man " full of wise saws and modern instances,"
and the audience should be prepared for a highly
amusing scene by the liveliness with which Nerissa
announces his approach. His mannerism is indi-
cated to us in such expressions as " Ha ! let me see,"
and "Well, but to my choice." He should walk
deliberately, speak deliberately, pause deliberately,
and when he becomes sentimental, " pose." Highly

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 129

conscious of his own superiority, and unwilling to
"jump with common spirits" and "rank me with
the barbarous multitudes," he assumes superiority,
and gets his reward in the shape of a portrait of
a blinking idiot. In fact, the whims of this Malvolio
are intended to put everyone on and off the stage
into high spirits, and even Portia is carried away
by the fun as she mimics the retiring suitor in her
exclamation to the servant. The scene ends with
the announcement that Bassanio, " Lord Love," is on
his way to Belmont, and we go on at once to Act III.,
Scene i, which, I take it, is a continuation of
Act II., Scene 8, and which, therefore, should not
form part of another act.

The scene opens with Salarino and Solanio
hurrying on the stage anxiously questioning each
other about Antonio's rumoured loss at sea. Shy-
lock follows almost immediately, to whom they at
once turn in the hope of hearing news. It is usual
on the stage to omit the entrance of Antonio's man,
but apart from the dramatic effect produced by a
follower of Antonio coming on to the stage at that
moment, his appearance puts an end to the con-
troversy, which otherwise would probably continue.
Salarino and Solanio leave the stage awed almost
to breathlessness, and Tubal enters. Then follows
a piteous scene as we see Shylock's outbursts of
grief, rage, and despair over the loss of his gold ;
yet is his anguish aggravated by the one from whom
of all others he had a right to expect sympathy.
But Shylock, after Tubal's words, " But Antonio
is certainly undone," mutters, "Nay, that's true,
that's very true," and takes from his purse a coin,
and with a countenance and gesture expressive of

9

130 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

indomitable purpose, continues : " Go, Tubal, fee
me an officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I
will have the heart of him if he forfeit. . . . Go,
Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue. Go, good
Tubal ; at our synagogue, Tubal."

Shylock's misfortunes in this scene would arouse
sympathy were it not for the damning confession to
Tubal of his motive for hating Antonio " for were
he out of Venice I can make what merchandise I
will." Words that Jessica's lines prove are not
idle ones.

" When I was with him I have heard him swear

To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,
That he would rather have Antonio's flesh
Than twenty times the value of the sum
That he did owe him."

Act III., Scene 2, brings us to the last stage of
the casket complication, and here Shakespeare, to
avoid sameness, directs that a song shall be sung
while Bassanio is occupied in deciding his fate ; so
that his long speech is spoken after the choice has
been made, the leaden casket being then in his
hands, and his words merely used to justify his
decision. That Bassanio must win Portia is realized
from the first. Moreover, his success, after Shy-
lock's threats in the last scene, has become a dramatic
necessity, and is thus saved from an appearance of
unreality, so that his love adventure develops
naturally. His good fortune is Gratiano's ; then
news is brought of Antonio's bankruptcy and
Bassanio is sent to his friend's relief. Scene 3
does no more than show in action what was pre-
viously narrated by Solanio in the preceding one,

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 131

for the Elizabethan dramatists, differing in their
methods from the Greeks, rarely allowed narration
to take the place of action on the stage. Perhaps
this was on account of the mixed character of
the audience, the "groundlings" being too busy
cracking nuts to take in an important situation
merely from its narration. To them Antonio's
danger would not become a fact till they actually
saw the man in irons and the jailor by his side.
In the fourth scene we go back to Belmont to hear
that Portia and Nerissa are to be present at the
trial, though with what object we are not told. We
hear, also, of Portia's admiration for Antonio, whose
character she compares with that of her husband.
Scene 5 being comic, well serves its purpose as a
contrast to the tragic intensity displayed in the
scene which follows. Here, too, Portia and Bassanio
win golden opinions from Jessica :

" It is very meet,
The Lord Bassanio live an upright life ;

For having such a blessing in his lady,
He finds the joys of heaven here on earth ; . . .

Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,
And on the wager lay two earthly women,

And Portia one, there must be something else
Pawn'd with the other, for the poor rude world

Hath not her fellow."

The trial scene is so well known that I shall not
dwell upon it except to mention that I think the
dramatist intended the scene to be acted with
more vigour and earnestness on the part of
all the characters than is represented on the
modern stage, and with more vehemence on the
part of Shylock. Conscious of his lawful right,

132 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

he defies the duke and council in language not at
all respectful,

" What if my house be troubled with a rat,

And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats
To have it baned ?"

When Shylock is worsted the traditional business
is for him to leave the stage with the air of a martyr
going to his execution, and thus produce a tragic
climax where none is wanted. We seem to get an
indication of what should be Shylock's behaviour in
his hour of adversity by reading the Italian version
of the story, with which Shakespeare was familiar.
44 Everyone present was greatly pleased and deriding
the Jew said : ' He wrho laid traps for others, is caught
himself.' The Jew seeing he could gain nothing,
tore in pieces the bond in a great rage." Indeed,
Shylock's words,

" Why, then the devil give him good of it !
I'll stay no longer question,"

are exactly suited to the action of tearing up the
bond. Certain it is that only by Shylock being " in
a great rage," as he rushes off the stage, can the
audience be greatly pleased, and in a fit humour to
be interested in the further doings of Portia. Scene 2
of this act is generally omitted on the stage,
though it seems to me necessary in order to show
how Nerissa gets possession of Gratiano's ring ; it
also affords an opportunity for some excellent busi-
ness on the part of Nerissa, who walks off arm in
arm with her husband, unknown to him.

The last act is the shortest fifth act in the Globe
edition, and if deficient in action Shakespeare gives
it another interest by the wealth and music of its
poetry, a device more than once made use of by him

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 133

to strengthen undramatic material. Shakespeare's
knowledge of the value of sound, in dramatic effect,
is shown by Launcelot interrupting the whispering
of the lovers, and profaning the stillness of the night
with his halloas, which have a similar effect to the
nurse's calls in the balcony scene of Romeo and
Juliet; it is also shown by the music, and in the
tucket sound ; while the picture brought to the
imagination, by allusion to the light burning in
Portia's hall, gives reality to the scene.

ROMEO AND JULIET.*

The argument that Arthur Brooke affixes to his
poem, " Romeus and luliet," runs as follows :

" Loue hath inflamed twayne by sodayn sight,
And both do graunt the thing that both desyre :
They wed in shrift, by counsell of a frier.
Yong Romeus clymes fayre luliets bower by night,
Three monthes he doth enjoy his cheefe delight.
By Tybalts rage, prouoked unto yre,
He payeth death to Tybalt for his hyre.
A banisht man, he scapes by secret flight,
New mariage is off red to his wyfe.
She drinkes a drinke that seemes to reue her breath,
They bury her, that sleping yet hath lyf e.
Her husband heares the tydinges of her death :
He drinkes his bane. And she with Romeus knyfe,
When she awakes, her selfe (alas) she sleath."

And the title of the same story in William Painter's
" Palace of Pleasure," is on the same lines :

" The goodly Hystory of the true, and constant Loue betweene
Rhomeo and lulietta, the one of whom died of Poyson, and the

* Read at the meeting of the New Shakspcre Society, Friday,
April 12, 1889.

134 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

other of sorrow, and heuinesse : wherein be comprysed many
aduentures of Loue, and other deuises touchinge the same."

Here is Shakespeare's Prologue to his adaptation
of the story for the stage :

" Two housholds, both alike in dignitie,
In faire Verona, where we lay our Scene,
From auncient grude breake to new mutinie
Where ciuill bloud makes ciuill hands uncleane.
From forth the fatall loynes of these two foes
A paire of starre-crost louers take their life ;
Whose misaduentur'd pittious overthrowes
Doth, with their death, burie their Parents strife.
The fearfull passage of their death-markt loue,
And the continuance of their Parents rage,
Which, but their childrens end, nought could remoue,
Is now the two houres trafficque of our Stage ;
The which, if you with patient eares attend,
What here shall misse, our toyle shall striue to mend."

Why the dramatist thought fit to choose a different
motive for his tragedy to the one shown in the poem
and the novel, we shall never know. He may have
found the hatred of the two houses accentuated in
an older play on this subject, and his unerring
dramatic instinct would prompt him to use the
parents' strife as a lurid background on which to
portray with greater vividness the ''fearfull passage "
of the "starre-crost louers"; or the modification
may have been due to his reflections upon the
political and religious strife of his day; or to his
irritation at Brooke's short-sightedness in upholding,
as more deserving of censure, the passion of im-
provident love than the evil of ready-made hatred.
Whatever be the reason, the fact remains that Shake-
speare, who was not partial to Prologues, has in this
instance made use of one to indicate the lines that
guide the action of his play, and it is upon these

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 135

lines that I propose to-night to discuss the stage
representation.

I divide the characters into three groups. Those
who belong to the House of Capulet, the House of
Montague, and those who, as partisans of neither of
the houses, we may call the neutrals. These include
Escalus, Mercutio, Paris, Friar Laurence, Friar John,
an apothecary, and all the citizens of any position
and standing, the Italian municipalities being ever
anxious to repress the feuds of nobles.

The play opens with a renewal of hostilities
between the two houses, which serves not only as
a striking opening, but brings on to the stage many
of the chief actors without unnecessary delay. In
less than thirty lines we are introduced to seven
persons, all of whom indicate their character by the
attitude they assume towards the quarrel. We are
shown the peace-loving Benvolio, the fiery Tybalt,
the imperious and vigorous Capulet, calling for his
two-handed sword —

"What noyse is this ? giue me my long sword, hoe !" —

his characterless wife, feebly echoing her husband's
moodiness —

" A crowch, a crowch, why call you for a sword ?"
and the calm dignity of Romeo's mother —
" Thou shalt not stir one foote to seeke a foe."

We are also shown the citizens hastily arming
themselves to part the two houses, and hear for the
first time their ominous shout :

" Downe with the Capulets, downe with the Mountagues."

It is heard on two subsequent occasions during the
play, and is the death-knell of the lovers. The

136 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

quarrel is abruptly terminated by the entrance of
the Prince, who speaks with a precision and de-
cision which throws every other character on the
stage into insignificance, and stamps him at once in
our eyes as a central figure. After the belligerents
disperse, admonished by the Prince that death awaits
the next offender against the peace, a scene follows
to prepare us for Romeo's entrance, Shakespeare
having wisely kept him out of the quarrel, that the
audience may see him indifferent to every other
passion but the one of love. Romeo, until he had
been shot with Cupid's arrow, seems to have
passed for a pleasant companion, as we learn from
Mercutio's words, spoken to him in the third act :

" Why is not this better now, than groning for loue ; now art
thou sociable, now art thou Romeo : now art thou what thou art,
by art as well as by nature."

Romeo's romantic temperament naturally leads
him into a love affair of a sufficiently compromising
character to need being kept from the knowledge of
his parents. Brooke narrates Rosaline's reception
of Romeo's passion :

" But she that from her youth was fostred euermore,
With vertues foode, and taught in schole of wisdomes

skillful lore :

By aunswere did cutte of th' affections of his loue,
That he no more occasion had so vayne a sute to moue."

And Shakespeare gives to Romeo almost similar
words :

" And in strong proofe of chastitie well armd,
From loues weak childish bow she Hues uncharmd ;
Shee will not stay the siege of louing tearmes,
Nor bide th' incounter of assailing eies,
Nor ope her lap to sainct seducing gold."

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 137

A note in the Irving stage-version, referring to
Mercutio's words, ustabd with a white wenches
blacke eye," states that " a pale woman with
black eyes" is suggestive of a wanton nature. Is
this Rosaline's character ? If we are to accept
seriously Mercutio's words as being the poet's
description of Rosaline's personal appearance, we
may also give a literal interpretation to the follow-
ing lines :

" I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead, and her Scarlet lip."

In Charlotte Bronte's opinion, a high forehead was
an indication of conscientiousness ; she could get on,
she would say, with anyone " who had a lump at the
top of the head." The reproaches of the Friar are,
in my opinion, levelled against Romeo, and not
Rosaline. Romeo says :

" Thou chidst me oft for louing Rosaline."
And the Friar replies :

" For doting, not for louing, pupill mine."

Romeo could not openly woo one who was of the
House of Capulet, and Rosaline would not tolerate
a clandestine courtship.

In Scene 2 allusion is made for the second time to
the quarrel of the two houses. We also hear of
Juliet for the first time, and are shown Paris, no less
a person than the Prince's kinsman, as a suitor for
her hand. The assumed dignity and good breeding
of Capulet in this scene are to be noted. The
Irving acting-version leaves out the whole of the
servant's very amusing speech about the shoemaker

138 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

and his "yard." Why are virtuous tragedians
always anxious to rob the low comedians of their
cakes and ale ?

In Scene 3 we are introduced to our principal
comic character, the Nurse, brought into the play
no doubt to supply "those unsavoury morsels of
unseemly sentences, which doth so content the
hungry humours of the rude multitude." We are
shown Juliet, and hear again of Paris, whose high
rank and fine clothes have won the simple mother's
heart, but Juliet's independence of character is
indicated in the line:

" He looke to like, if looking liking moue."

And a touch of subtlety is revealed to us in the
words :

" But no more deepe will I endart mine eye,
Than your consent giues strength to make (it) flie."

In Scene 4 Mercutio is brought on to the stage ; a
character that figures in many Elizabethan plays,
and in the theatrical parlance of the poet's time was
known as the " braggart " soldier, and yet the part
had never received such brilliant treatment till
Shakespeare took it in hand. Scene 5 is the hall
in Capulet's house, where Romeo and Juliet see each
other for the first time, the audience now being fully
aware of the conditions under which the two meet.
It has seen the hatred of the houses; the purse-
proud Capulet contracting a fashionable marriage
for his daughter ; Romeo's melancholy ; his longing
for the love and sympathy of woman; and Juliet's
loneliness amid conventional and uncongenial sur-
roundings. The sight of a Montague within

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 139

Capulet's house gives warning for a fresh outbreak

of hostilities —

" but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, conuert to bittrest gall " —

and Romeo's cry,

" Is she a Capulet ?
O deare account ! my life is my foes debt" —

and Juliet's exclamation,

" Prodigious birth of loue it is to mee,
That I must loue a loathed enemie !"

foreshadow the doom prophesied by Romeo as about
to begin " with this night's reuels."

In the rebuke of Tybalt we get an indication of
Capulet's character. A note in the Irving- version
states that Capulet is a meddlesome mollycoddle
not unlike Polonius. But the fussiness of Polonius
proceeds from his vanity, from his mental and
physical impotence. Capulet's activity is the out-
come of a love for domineering that springs from
his pride of birth, and his consciousness of physical
superiority. Tybalt, who is no child, sinks into
insignificance at the thunder of this man's voice :

" He shall be endured.
What goodman boy, I say he shall, go too.
Am I the master here, or you ? go too,
Youle not endure him, god shall mend my soule, . . .
You will set cock a hoope, youle be the man . . .
You must contrarie me."

Capulet, I fear, would have annihilated the bloodless
and decorous Polonius with the breath of his nostrils.
Women who marry men of this overbearing character
often lose their own individuality, and become mere

140 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

ciphers. So does Lady Capulet. She dare not call
her soul her own ; she cannot be mistress even
in the kitchen. It is Capulet's indignation at his
nephew's interference with his affairs that prepares
us for his outburst of passion, in the fourth act,
when his daughter threatens opposition to his will.

At the close of Scene 5 Shakespeare thinks it
necessary to bring the Chorus on to the stage in
order to make known to the audience the direction
in which the future action of the play will turn, and
to account for the suppression of Rosaline, of whom,
until the entrance of Juliet, so much has been said.
That the words were not printed in the first quarto,
a piratical version published from notes taken at
a performance of the play, seems to suggest that
after the first representation the Chorus did not
appear on the stage, for the speech was found to
be an unnecessary interruption.

Presuming, therefore, that there is no delay in the
progress of the action, Romeo returns from the ball,
and, giving his companions the slip, hides himself in
Capulet's orchard, where he hears their taunts about
his Rosaline. The value, to the poet, of the Rosaline
episode is thus further shown by the use he makes
of it to conceal from Romeo's inquisitive companions
this second love intrigue, so fraught with danger.
That David Garrick, in his acting-version, should
allow Mercutio to make open fun of Romeo's love
for the daughter and heiress of old Capulet proves
how rarely the actor is able to replace the author.

It is incomprehensible to me why our stage Juliets,
in the " Balcony Scene," go through their billing-and-
cooing as deliberately as they do their toilets, never
for a moment thinking that the " place is death " to

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 141

Romeo, and that "loves sweet bait must be stolen
from fearful hookes." In Shakespeare's time this
scene was acted in broad daylight, and the dramatist
is careful to stimulate the imagination of his audience
with appropriate imagery. The word "night"
occurs ten times, and I suppose the actor would be
instructed to give a special emphasis to it. There
are, besides, several allusions to the moon and the
stars, including that descriptive couplet :

" Lady, by yonder blessed Moone I vow,
That tips with siluer all these frute tree tops."

When Shakespeare could give us in words so
vivid a picture of moonlight, Ben Jonson could well
afford to have a fling at Inigo Jones's mechanical
scenery, and say :

" What poesy e'er was painted on a wall ?"

Romeo goes direct from Capulet's orchard to
Friar Lawrence's cell to make confession of his
14 deare hap." He loves now in earnest, and love
teaches him to brave all dangers, and even to face
matrimony ; and his virtuous mood wins for him
the good-will of the Friar, who sees in the alliance
of the two houses their reconciliation. In the poem
and novel both the lovers avow a similar disinterested
motive to justify their union, but the mind of reason
never enters the heart of love, and Shakespeare, in
their case, wisely omits this bit of sophistry. The
advance of the love episode must move side by side
with the quarrel episode, so in the next scene we
hear of Romeo receiving a challenge from Tybalt.
The Irving-version omits most of the good-natured
banter between Romeo and Mercutio, which is all
telling comedy if spoken lightly and quickly. The

142 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Nurse enters, and Mercutio and Benvolio set off for
Montague's house, where they propose dining. The
incident that follows must have been very irri-
tating to the Elizabethan Puritans, who complained
of the corruption of morals begot in " the chapel of
Satan " by witnessing the carrying and recarrying
of letters by laundresses " to beguile fathers of their
children." Here more excellent comedy is omitted
in the Irving-version, including the Nurse's allusion
to Paris as being " the properer man " of the two,
and her nai've question, " Doth not Rosemarie and
Romeo begin both with a letter ?" The Nurse had
overheard Juliet talk about " Rosemarie and Romeo."
Later on we see rosemary strewed over the body of
the apparently dead Juliet.

The scene in which Romeo and Juliet meet to be
married at the Friar's Cell ends on the stage the
second act. But to drop the curtain here interrupts
the dramatic movement just as it is about to reach
a climax in the death of Tybalt, followed by the
banishment of Romeo. These incidents require
action that is all hurry and excitement, and are
therefore out of place at the beginning of an act,
unless it be the opening act of a play. Besides,
they are immediately connected with the scene in
which allusion is made to Tybalt having challenged
Romeo. We are shown Mercutio and Benvolio re-
turning from Montague's house, where they proposed
dining. And Mercutio has, apparently, indulged
too freely in his host's wine, for the prudent Benvolio
is anxious to get his friend out of the public streets
as quickly as possible. Benvolio's worst fears are
realized by the entrance of the quarrelsome Tybalt,
whom Mercutio, as is the way with fuddled people,

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 143

at once offers to fight. But Tybalt hesitates to cross
swords with a relative of the Prince, and is glad of
the excuse of Romeo's appearance to transfer the
quarrel to him. Romeo will not draw sword upon
his wife's cousin, and Mercutio, exasperated, takes
up the challenge, is stabbed by Tybalt under
Romeo's arm, and dies cursing the two houses.
This tragedy rouses Romeo to action ; he will now
defend his own honour since he was Mercutio's
dear friend. Tybalt is challenged and killed. The
citizens " are up," and for the second time we hear
their ominous shout :

" Downe with the Capulets, downe with the Montagues !"

They enter, followed by the Prince, with the heads
of the two houses and their wives. The Capulets
call for Romeo's death. The Montagues protest
that Romeo in killing a man whose life was already
forfeited has but taken the law into his own hands.
For that offence he is exiled by the Prince.

" I haue an interest in your hates proceeding :
My bloud for your rude brawles doth lie a bleeding.
But ile amerce you with so strong a fine,
That you shall all repent the losse of mine.
I will be deafe to pleading and excuses,
Nor teares, nor prayers, shall purchase out abuses.
Therefore use none, let Romeo hence in hast,
Else when he is found, that houre is his last."

The whole of the latter part of this scene is brilliant
in the variety and rapidity of its action, and should
not, I consider, be omitted in representation as
is directed to be done in the Irving-version. To
take out the second renewal of hostilities between
the two houses; not to show, in action on the
stage, the rage of the Capulets at the death of

144 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Tybalt, and the grief of the Montagues at the
banishment of Romeo, is to weaken the tragic
significance of the scenes that follow. Without
it the audience cannot vividly realize that the
hatred of the two houses has reached its acutest
stage, and that all hope of reconciliation is at an end.
Mercutio at the commencement of this scene says
to Benvolio : " Thou wilt quarell with a man for
cracking nuts, having no other reason but because
thou hast hazel eyes." Did Shakespeare, who,
according to tradition had hazel eyes, act the part
of Benvolio ? I think he did. It is the only part
in the play I can fancy him able to act. A study of
both the bust and the Droeshout portrait of the
poet-dramatist leads me to believe that he would
not have been able to disguise easily his identity
on the stage. His flexibility was essentially of a
mental and not of a physical nature. The face is
entirely wanting in mobility, and the head is so
large that no wig could hide its unusual size.
Shakespeare, moreover, became bald probably
early in life. The Droeshout portrait shows un-
doubtedly the likeness of a youngish man, about
thirty-five years old, while his baldness would still
justify the epithet of " grandsire " with which
Mercutio dubs Benvolio ; and " grandsire " may
have been a nickname of Shakespeare's suggested
by his baldness. " Come hither, goodman bald-
pate " — words spoken by Lucio in " Measure for
Measure " — have been quoted as a reason for
presuming that Shakespeare played the Duke in
that comedy. Sir William Davenant, who liked to
be thought a natural son of the poet, in an adaption
of this play altered the words to, "She has been

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 145

advised by a bald dramatic poet of the next cloister."
If the audience recognized their " gentle Will " in
the part of the peace-loving Benvolio, we may
imagine the laughter that would arise at Mercutio's
words : " Thy head is as full of quarelles, as an egg
is full of meate " — Shakespeare's head being egg-
shaped. If my supposition be correct, we may
honour the self-abnegation, the entire absence of
personal vanity that enabled Shakespeare, like
Moliere, to direct laughter against himself. The
scattered references to him which we find in the
writings of his contemporaries show us, says
Professor Dowden, " the poet concealed and some-
times forgotten in the man, and make it clear that
he moved among his fellows with no assuming of
the bard or prophet, no air of authority as of one
divinely commissioned ; that, on the contrary, he
appeared as a pleasant comrade, genial, gentle, full
of civility in the large meaning of the word, upright
in dealing, ready and bright in wit, quick and
sportive in conversation." How aptly does this
description fit the character of Benvolio! One
quality was especially common to the two men-
tact. It was the possession of tact that made
Shakespeare so invaluable to his fellow - actors
as a manager. Benvolio's tact is shown in his
conversation with Romeo's parents, with Romeo
himself, with Mercutio when hot-headed, and with
the Prince, Mercutio's relative. It is true that
Benvolio attributes Mercutio's death to Tybalt's
interference, while in reality it was due to Mer-
cutio's indiscretion ; but we have no pity for Tybalt,
who, as Brooke says, thirsting after the death of
others, lost his life.

10

146 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Romeo's banishment brings us to the middle and
" busy " part of the play, where the Elizabethan
actors were expected to thunder their loudest
to split the ears of the groundlings; and Shake-
speare, not yet sufficiently independent as a dramatist
to dispense with the conventions of his stage, follows
suit on the same fiddle to the same tune ; and after
all the ranting eloquence on the part of Romeo and
Juliet, we are just where we were before with
regard to any advance made with the story. Act III.,
Scene 2, is often entirely omitted in representation,
but the Irving-version retains most of it. It is not
till the middle of Act III., Scene 3, that the action
advances again. But this, and the previous scenes,
if acted with animation and rapidly spoken by
all the characters concerned, would not take up
much time, and could be declaimed with effect.
The stage fashion of making the Friar stolidly
indifferent to the unexpected complication that has
arisen through Tybalt's death is not only undramatic,
but inconsistent with the text. A heavy respon-
sibility lies on him, and his position is full of
difficulty and danger. The scene that follows shows
us Capulet fixing a day for the marriage of Juliet
with Paris, and the father's words —

" I thinke she will be rulde
In all respects by me : nay, more, I doubt it not,"

have a significance, and render the parting of the
lovers in the next scene highly dramatic. In the
poem and novel, Juliet, before parting with Romeo,
proposes to accompany him disguised as his servant;
about the best thing she could do. After a good
deal of arguing on both sides the idea is abandoned

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 147

as impracticable. Shakespeare prefers his lovers to
discourse about the nightingale. Romeo being gone,
the mother enters to announce to the wife her
betrothal to Paris, and the early day of marriage.
The news is sprung upon her with terrible abrupt-
ness, though the audience have been in the secret
from the first, and Juliet has hardly time to protest
against "this sudden day of joy" before the father
enters to complete her discomfiture by his torrents
of abuse. Capulet's varnish of good manners entirely
disappears in this scene, and his coarse nature
is exposed in all its ugliness. But in the emer-
gency of this tragic moment, as Professor Dowden
points out, does Juliet leap into womanhood, and
realize her position and responsibilities as a wife,
and in the following lines Shakespeare touches the
first note of highest tragedy in the play : that of the
mind's suffering as opposed to the mere tragedy of
incident —

" O God, 6 Nurse, how shall this be preuented ?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heauen ;
How shall that faith returne againe to earth,
Unlesse that husband send it me from heauen
By leauing earth ? comfort me, counsaile me."

I am curious to learn on what grounds these thrill-
ing words are omitted in the Irving-version. To
me they are the climax of the scene and of the play
so far as it has progressed. They mark the turning-
point in Juliet's moral nature. They enable us to
forgive her any indiscretions of which she may pre-
viously have been guilty. From this point onwards
all is calm in Juliet's breast, because there is no
infirmity of purpose,

" If all else faile, my self have power to die."

148 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

As the shadows fall across the path of the lovers,
so do they over that of the Friar.

" O luliet, I already know thy greefe,
It straines me past the compasse of my wits,"

is his greeting in the next scene. A " desperate
preventive " to shame or death is decided upon, and
then follows what is perhaps the most dramatic
episode in the whole play. We are shown Capulet's
household busy with the preparations for the mar-
riage-feast, and the father, now bent on having a
" great ado," hastily summoning " twenty cunning
Cookes " — the consequence possibly of Juliet's
threatened opposition to his wishes. Juliet enters
to feign submission and beg forgiveness, which
enables the father to indulge in another despotic
freak by hastening the day of marriage, heedless of
all the inconvenience it may cause. Juliet retires
to her chamber, and Capulet goes to prepare Paris
against to-morrow. Then comes Juliet's terrible
ordeal, the undertaking "of a thing like death,"
which is all the more terrible because it must be
done alone. This scene is often overacted on the
stage. Our Juliets do far too much "stumping and
frumping " about. I once saw the " potion-scene "
acted with dramatic intelligence by an actress quite
unknown to fame. When Juliet lays her dagger on
the table, the actress took up the vial, and, standing
motionless in the centre of the stage, spoke the lines
in a hurried, low whisper, conveying the impression
of reflection as well as the need for discretion. At
the words,

" O looke, me thinks I see my Cozins Ghost,"

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 149

she sank on one knee, and, raising the right arm
with a quick movement, pointed into space, the eye
following the hand, a very simple but telling gesture.
The words, " Stay, Tybalt, stay !" were not given
with a scream, but in a tone of alarm and entreaty,
followed immediately by the drinking of the potion,
as if to suggest Juliet's desire to come to Romeo's
rescue. The whole scene was acted in less than
two minutes. The vision of Tybalt's ghost pursuing
Romeo for vengeance, an incident not to be found
in the originals, shows the touch of the master
dramatist. We feel the need of some immediate in-
centive to nerve Juliet to raise the vial to her lips;
and what more effectual than that of her overwrought
imagination picturing to herself the husband in
danger.

While the poor child lies prostrate upon her bed
in the likeness of death, we are shown the dawn of
the morning, the rousing and bustle of the house-
hold ; we hear the bridal march in the distance, the
sound coming nearer every moment ; the Nurse
knocking at Juliet's chamber-door; her awful dis-
covery ; the entrance of the parents ; the filling of
the stage by the bridal party, led by the Friar ; the
wailing, and wringing of the hands as the first
quarto directs; the changing of the sound of instru-
ments to that of melancholy bells, of solemn hymns
to sullen dirges, of bridal flowers to funeral wreaths.
All this is thrilling in conception, and yet the episode
as conceived by Shakespeare is never represented
on the stage. Why are the Capulet scenes omitted,
those which are dovetailed to the " potion scene,"
and make it by contrast so terribly tragic? The
accentuation here of Capulet's tyranny, of his

ISO SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

sensuality, his brutal frankness, his indifference to
every one's convenience but his own, his delight in
exacting a cringing obedience from all about him,
are designed by the dramatist to move us with
deep pity for Juliet's sufferings, and by emphasizing
its necessity to save the "potion scene" from the
danger of appearing grotesque. But Shakespeare's
method of dramatic composition, that of uniting a
series of short scenes with each other in one
dramatic movement, will not bear the elaboration
of heavy stage sets, and with the demand for
carpentry comes the inducement for mutilation.
At the Shakespeare Reading Society's recital of this
play, given recently under my direction at the
London Institution, these scenes were spoken
without delay or interruption, and with but one
scene announced, and the interest and breathless
attention they aroused among the audience con-
vinced me that my conception as to the dramatic
treatment of them was the right one. Until these
scenes are restored to the acting version, Shake-
speare's tragedy will not be seen on the stage as
he conceived it; and when they are restored,
their dramatic power will electrify the house, and
twentieth-century dilettantism will lose its influence
among playgoers. The comic scene between Peter
and the Musicians should also be restored. It comes
in as a welcome relief after the intensity of the
previous scenes, and is, besides, a connecting link
with the comedy in the earlier part of the play.

The last act can be briefly dealt with. We
anticipate the final catastrophe, though we do not
know by what means it will be brought about. It
is carried out, as it should be, effectively but simply.

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 151

The children have loved and suffered, let them die
easily and quickly. Romeo's costume in exile is
described in the poem as that of a merchant venturer,
which is certainly a more appropriate dress than
the conventional black velvet of the stage. After
hearing the fatal news, which provokes the boy
to mutter, " Is it even so ?" in the Lyceum version
is inserted the stage-direction, " He pauses, overcome
with grief" But as there is no similar stage-direction
in the originals, the actor may, without violation to
the author's intentions, pause before the words are
spoken. The blow is too sudden, too cruel, too
overwhelming to allow of any immediate response in
words. The colour would fly from Romeo's face, his
teeth grip his under lip, his eyes gleam with a look
of frenzy, looks that " import some misadventure,"
but there is no action and no sound for a while,
and afterwards only a muttering. The stillness of
Romeo's desperation is very dramatic. There is
nothing, in my opinion, unnatural in Romeo's de-
scription of the Apothecary's shop. All sorts of
petty details float before our mental vision when
the nerves are over-wrought, but the actor should
be careful not to accentuate the description in
any way ; it is but introductory to the dominant
words of the speech,

" And if a man did need a poyson now."

As Juliet's openly acknowledged lover, Paris
occupies too prominent a place in the play to be
lightly dismissed, and so he is involved in the final
catastrophe. In Brooke's poem, Romeo, before dying,
prays to Heaven for mercy and forgiveness, and
the picture of the boy kneeling by his wife's

152 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

side, with her hand clasped in his, pleading to his
Redeemer to —

" Take pity on my sinnefull and my poore afflicted mynde !"

would, on the stage, have been a supremely pathetic
situation. But Shakespeare's stern love of dramatic
truth rejects it. In Romeo's character he strikes
but one note, love — and love as a passion. Love is
Romeo's divinity, physical beauty his deity. The
assertion that —

" In nature there's no blemish but the mind,
None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind,"

would have sounded in Romeo's ears profanation.
When he first sees Juliet he will by touching hers
make blessed his rude hand, and when he dies he will
seal the doors of breath " with a righteous kiss." To
the Friar he cries :

" Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then loue-deuouring death do what he dare.
It is inough I may but call her mine.'"

And "love-devouring death" accepts the challenge,
but the agony of death does not "countervail the
exchange of joy " that one short minute gives him in
her presence. Here Shakespeares's treatment of the
love-episode differs from that of Brooke's in his
tolerance for the children's love, though it be carried
out in defiance of the parents' wishes, and in his
recognition that love, so long as it be strong as death,
has an ennobling and not a debasing influence on
character : we are made to feel that it is better for
Romeo to have loved and lost than never to have
loved at all. For the hatred of the two houses

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 153

Shakespeare shows no tolerance. Juliet's death is
carried out with the greatest simplicity, and within
a few moments of her awakening. There is neither
time for reflection nor lamentation ; the watch has
been roused, and is heard approaching. She has
hardly kissed the poison from her dead husband's
lips before they enter the churchyard, and nothing
but the darkness of the night screens from them the
sight of the steel that Juliet plunges into her breast.
It is the presence of the watch, almost within touch
of her, that goads her to lift the knife, just as it is the
vision of Tybalt's ghost pursuing Romeo that nerves
her to drink the potion. The dramatist's intention
is clearly indicated in the stage-directions of the
two quartos and the folio, but the Irving-version
retains in this last scene the modern stage-directions.
Professor Dowden is of opinion "that it were
presumptuous to say that had Shakespeare been
acquainted with the earlier form of the story (in
which Juliet wakes before Romeo dies), he would
not have altered his ending." But an ending of this
kind is inartistic. It is bringing the axe down twice
instead of once. It is introducing a new complica-
tion and a new movement at a moment when none
is wanted. The catastrophe should be and always
is, by Shakespeare, carried out with simplicity and
directness. After Juliet's death other watchmen
enter with the Friar in custody, while from afar we
hear for the third and last time the cries of the
citizens :

" Downe with the Capulets, downe with the Mountagues !"

the only child of each of the two rival houses lying
dead before the spectators. Nature had done her

154 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

best to effect a reconciliation, but man thwarted her
in her purpose. Then the Prince and the heads of
the two houses enter and learn for the first time that

" Romeo there dead, was husband to that luliet,
And she there dead, that's Romeo's faithfull wife."

Well may the Prince say—

" Capulet, Montague,

See what a scourge is laide upon your hate
That heauen finds means to kill your joyes with loue."

All this last scene is full of animation, and presents
a fine opportunity for the regisseur. I am obliged
to use the French word, for we have no similar
functionary in this country. Our public is sufficiently
indifferent to the welfare of dramatic art to allow its
leading actors to be their own stage-managers and
often their own authors. As a consequence the
public gets no English plays worthy of being called
plays, and no guarantee that a dead author's intentions
shall be respected. Human nature has its prejudices,
and the actor is seldom to be found who can look at
a play from any other point of view than in relation
to the prominence of his own part in it. It is owing
to the despotism of the actor on the English stage,
and consequently to the star system, that I attribute
the mutilation of Shakespeare's plays in their repre-
sentation. The closing scene of this play might be
made very effective in action. The crowd hurrying
with " bated breath " to the spot ; its horror at the
sight of the dead children, who for all it knows are
murdered ; its amazement at finding they are man
and wife ; the Prince's stern rebuke ; the bowed grief
and shame of Montague and Capulet; the recon-
ciliation of the bereaved parents, and joining of hands

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 155

across the dead bodies. The Irving-version omits
all but the entrance of the citizens with Montague,
Capulet, and the Prince, who at once ends the play
with the couplet—

" For neuer was a Storie of more wo
Than this of luliet and her Romeo."

But if the Prince hears no story, he and those who
enter with him cannot be aware that Romeo and
Juliet are man and wife, or that they died by their
own hands, and are not victims to an act of treachery.
Then why open your play with the quarrel of the
two houses if you do not intend to show them recon-
ciled ? Why not follow the Cumberland acting-
version, and take out the crowd scenes altogether ?
It is a more intelligible proceeding than this com-
promise of the Irving-version.

Criticized as classical tragedy, the play of " Romeo
and Juliet " is a veritable hotch-potch. It seems to
defy the laws of criticism. The characters at one
moment talk in the highest poetical language, and
at another in the most commonplace colloquy.
Nothing can well seem more inconsistent than to
put into the mouth of Capulet these words —

" Death lies on her like an untimely frost,
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field."

Bombast goes side by side with poetry ; passion
with pantomime. Yet, as Lessing says, " Plays
which do not observe the classical rules, must yet
observe rules of some kind if they are to please ;"
and Shakespeare sought to establish rules in accord-
ance with the national taste, his first aim being
the combination of the serious and the ludicrous.
Vigorous characterization, a vital and varied move-

156 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

ment, and the skilful handling of scenes well calcu-
lated to stir the emotions of an audience, make
" Romeo and Juliet " an acting play of enduring
interest.

In conclusion, I hold that no stage-version of
" Romeo and Juliet" is consistent with Shake-
speare's intentions which does not give prominence
to the hatred of the two houses and retain intact
the three " crowd scenes " — the one at the opening of
the play, the second in the middle, and the third at
the end. To represent only the love episode is to
make that episode far less tragic, and therefore less
dramatic.

" HAMLET."*

In comparing the acting-edition of " Hamlet" with
the authorized text of the Globe edition, I find that
it is shorter by 1,191 lines, and omits the characters
of Voltemand, Cornelius, Reynaldo, a gentleman, and
Fortinbras. Such a modification should, perhaps,
exclude the acting-editions from being classed as the
same play with either the folio or second quarto. It
is a question whether 1,200 lines can be taken out of
any Shakespearian play without defeating the poet's
dramatic intentions; but if it is necessary to shorten
a play to this extent in order to make it suitable for
the stage, so important an alteration should not,
surely, be left entirely to the discretion of the actor,
but should be the work of Shakespearian scholars,
assisted by the advice of the dramatic profession.
One would think that Shakespeare's world-famed
greatness as a dramatist should make all his plays

* Read before the New Shakspere Society, June 10, 1881 ; pub-
lished in the Era, July 2, 1881.

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 157

so valued by his countrymen that any alteration
in their stage representation which had not been
sanctioned by the highest authorities would be
repudiated. But, unfortunately, it is not so. That
the omission of some of the characters in the acting-
edition of " Hamlet " has not impaired Shakespeare's
dramatic conception of the play is at least a matter
of doubt. In the second quarto we have a play
constructed for the purpose of showing us types of
character contrasted one with the other. Strong
men, weak men, old men, fond women, all living and
moving under the influence of a destiny that is not
of their own seeking. We have also a Danish court
in which a terrible crime has been committed, and
over which an avenging angel is hovering with
drawn sword waiting to descend on the head of the
guilty one ; and, because the influence of good in
this court is too weak to conquer the evil, the sword
falls on the good as well as on the evil, on the weak
as well as on the strong. Something is rotten in
the State of Denmark ; no one there is worthy to
rule ; the kingdom must be taken away and given to
a stranger. It is the play as an epitome of life
which is interesting the mind of Shakespeare, and
not the career of one individual, even though the
whole play be influenced by the actions of that
individual. Look at the first quarto and we find a
proof of this. Mutilated as that version is, care has
been taken to avoid confusing the story of the play.
Everything relating to Fortinbras is kept in the
quarto, because Fortinbras has to appear like
Richmond in "Richard III.," as the hero who
will restore peace and order to the distracted
kingdom. This much-abused quarto has 557 lines

158 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

less than the modern acting edition, of which 254 are
not in that edition, although they are in the second
quarto (or rather have a meaning equivalent to lines
in the second quarto), showing clearly that it is
possible to shorten the text in more ways than one.
The first quarto comes nearer to Shakespeare's
dramatic conception of the play than the modern
stage version, because the latter, by omitting some
of the persons represented, and also many of the
lines which reveal the weaker side of Hamlet's
character, have altered the story of the play, and
placed the part of Hamlet in a different aspect to the
one conceived by the author.

I will now compare French's acting-edition of
" Hamlet," scene by scene, with the Globe edition.
The Globe edition contains all the lines of the
second quarto and the folio. It adheres to the
text, but not to the stage-directions. For reading
purposes, perhaps, the alterations which have been
made in the latter may be justified to some extent
as a necessity, yet for the acting-edition it would have
been better to copy the originals. There are altera-
tions made to the stage-directions in the first scene.
Horatio, Marcellus, and the Ghost are shown to enter
a line later in the Globe edition than is marked
in the quarto or folio. But the attention of an
audience is better sustained if the entrances of
characters, especially of the Ghost, is not antici-
pated, and also if the dialogue is not interrupted by
pauses for entrances and exits.

In comparing the text, I find that lines 69 to 125
of the Globe edition are omitted in the acting-
edition. But these lines explain to the audience
why Marcellus, Bernardo, and Horatio are engaged

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 159

in this same " strict and most observant watch."
Marcellus and Bernardo are not common sentries.
They are gentlemen and scholars, who are on duty
as soldiers for this particular occasion. Lines 140
to 142 I should also like to see inserted, because
they are needed to explain the words which follow —

" We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it this show of violence."

On the stage these words are spoken, but no violence
is shown towards the Ghost. Besides, the business
of striking at the Ghost is a fine invention of the
author to assist the imagination to realize it is
a spirit. I am sorry lines 157 to 165 are omitted,
because not only are they beautiful in themselves,
but also appropriate, for they help to give solemnity
to the scene. The omission of the last four lines of
the scene leaves it unfinished. Altogether seventy-
one lines have been cut out of the first scene, but
the first quarto retains most of them.

The stage-directions at the head of the second
scene, both in the Globe edition and folio, place
Hamlet's name after the Queen's, to indicate the
order to be observed by the 'actors when they come
on to the stage. In the second quarto, however,
Hamlet's name comes last. As he has an antipathy
to the King, and is displeased with his mother, it
is not likely he would be much in the company of
either, not even on State occasions, for Hamlet
regards the King as a usurper. I would venture to
suggest, then, that Hamlet should enter last of all,
from another doorway to that used by the King
and his train, having his hat and cloak in his hand,
as if he had come to take leave of the Court before
starting for Wittenberg.

160 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Passing on now to the fourth scene, I notice that
in the acting-edition the last five lines of the scene
have been cut out, including that expressive one —

" Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

I do not myself sympathize with this cutting out the
end of scenes, as is done so persistently in every
acted play of Shakespeare's. It is inartistic, because
it is done to allow the principal actor to leave the
stage with applause. Besides, it creates a habit,
with actors, of trying to make points at the end of
scenes, whether it is necessary or not, and this
distorts the play and delays its progress.
In the fifth scene the line —

" O horrible, horrible, most horrible "—

spoken by the Ghost, is marked in the acting-edition
to be spoken by Hamlet. Such an alteration is
unwarranted by the text. The first quarto, by
making Hamlet exclaim "O God" after the Ghost
has said "O horrible," gives indication that the words
" O horrible " were spoken on the Elizabethan stage
by the Ghost.

An alteration has also been made in the Ghost's
last line, which to some may appear a trivial matter.
The folio attaches the word " Hamlet" to the " Adieu,"
and puts a colon between it and the words
" Remember me," showing thereby that a slight
pause should be made before these two last words
are spoken, in order to make them more impressive ;
and the first quarto gives the same reading. French's
acting-version, however, tacks the name on to the
" Remember me." Cumberland's version gives the

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 161

reading of the second quarto, which I think the

best—

" Adieu, adieu, adieu, Remember me."

The omission in all the stage-versions of Hamlet's
lines addressed to the Ghost, beginning " Ha, ha,
boy!" "Hie et ubique ?" "Well said, old Mole !" is,
I think, not judicious, because it causes some actors
to misconceive Shakespeare's intention in this scene.
One can hardly read the authorized text without
feeling that Hamlet is here shown as a young man,
or, perhaps, a "boy," as his mother calls him, in the
first quarto, thrown into the intensest excitement.
His delicate, nervous temperament has undergone a
terrible shock from the interview with the Ghost,
yet, owing to the absence of these lines, our Hamlets
on the stage finish this scene with the most dignified
composure. From the first act 217 lines have been
omitted in French's acting-edition.

In the beginning of the second act the scene
between Polonius and Reynaldo is left out in all the
acting-versions. It is a very amusing scene, and in
my opinion gives a better insight into the character
of Polonius than any of the others. If it were inserted
I believe it would become popular with the audience,
and we find it retained in the first quarto. The
second scene is called "A Room in the Castle" both
in the Globe and acting editions. Might it not be an
exterior scene? It is true that Polonius remarks
"Here in the lobby," but the line next to this in
the first quarto suggests that he is pointing to some
place off the scene, for he adds "There let Ophelia
walk," and Ophelia is on the stage. An exterior
scene would, in my opinion, give more meaning to
the words " Will you walk out of the air, my lord ?"

ii

162 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

and to Hamlet's speech, "This most excellent canopy
the air," etc. The scene of a palace garden or
cloister could be well introduced in a play so full of
interiors. It would add to the interest of the scene
if Hamlet took advantage of the early entrance
in the quarto and in the folio. For Hamlet to
catch sight of Polonius hurrying the King and Queen
off the scene would account for his suspicions and
explain his rudeness to Polonius. Lines 374 to 378,
Globe edition, are omitted in the acting-edition, but
should surely be inserted, because they are needed to
explain why Hamlet's reception of Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern when they first enter, differs from
that of the Players. I have always thought that the
Hamlets of our stage, not being familiar with the
context, mistake Shakespeare's intention. I gather
from the omitted lines that Hamlet should warmly
welcome the players, and take them by the hand.

At line 381, in the Globe edition, Polonius is
marked to enter and speak on the stage the line
" Well be with you, gentlemen." In the acting-edition
he is marked to speak this "without" (to whom?
certainly not to the players ; Polonius would not
have addressed them in such terms), and to enter at
a cue lower down the page. The alteration is an
instance of what I consider the wrong principle
adopted in making stage-versions. The actors have
preferred thinking Shakespeare wrong to using a
little ingenuity to meet his stage-directions. They
have said : " It will never do to have Polonius stand
still saying nothing while Hamlet is making fun of
him to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, so he must
speak his line off the stage." Would it not have
shown more consideration for the author's text to

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 163

make Polonius enter where directed, and then
find something for him to do after he is on the
stage ? For instance, he might enter from a side
entrance, as if summoned by the sound of the
trumpet, move hastily towards the back of the stage,
where the new-comers would arrive, and greet
Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, as he passes
them, with the words, " Well be with you, gentle-
men."

The wording in the acting-version of the stage-
direction, "Enter four or Jive Players and two
Actresses," is questionable. Perhaps it is not a
matter of great consequence, unless the period
chosen for representation be the Elizabethan one,
and I would suggest that this is the most appropri-
ate period for the play, because to adopt an early
Danish period is contradictory to the text, and
overloads the piece with material foreign to the
author's intentions. Shakespeare's thoughts were
not in Denmark when he wrote this play.

Hamlet's recitation of Priam's slaughter in the
acting-version has been cut down from thirteen to
three lines, and I venture to think unwisely.
Hamlet has chosen these lines because they express
in biting words his contempt for the King, his uncle,
and the audience should become aware of this by
the marked emphasis Hamlet lays on each epithet
applied to Pyrrhus.

I am sorry that Hamlet's line to the Player, " He's
for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or else he sleeps," has
been cut out. Besides being a fine hit at Polonius,
it is an instructive piece of sarcasm. Playgoers in
the twentieth century need as much to be told the
truth as those in the sixteenth.

1 64 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

In Cumberland's acting version the editor has
inserted the stage-direction — "pointing to Hamlet"
—before Polonius speaks his line, " Look whether
he hath not changed colour," etc. I believe this
is the right reading, although it is not the one
usually adopted on the stage. If Polonius had
been speaking the words to Hamlet with reference
to the player he surely would have inserted the
words "my lord." Besides, these manifestations
of grief are more likely to arouse sympathy in
Polonius coming from the " mad " Hamlet than from
the actor, whose business it was to simulate emotion.
By the way, the skill of this play-actor seems to
have been underrated on our stage. Actors are
always considered at liberty to rant the part, but
from Hamlet's description of his performance he
should be an executant of considerable ability. It
is curious that in Oxberry's acting-edition the first
half of Hamlet's closing soliloquy is omitted, and
he begins at the line, " I have heard that guilty
creatures," etc. ; showing that even a great actor
such as Edmund Kean could take some unpardon-
able liberties with his author. Two hundred and
thirty-eight lines have been omitted from the second
act of the stage-version.

The first scene in the third act is called in French's
acting-edition, "A Room in the Castle as prepared
for the Play" and in Cumberland's, " A Hall in the
Palace, Theatre in the Background" But the inter-
view between Ophelia and Hamlet should take
place in the lobby spoken of by Polonius, the
play being acted later in the day. It would add
to the interest of the scene if the actor imper-
sonating Hamlet availed himself of the position

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 165

marked in the second quarto for his entrance, and
actually saw the King and Polonius concealing
themselves. Was not this Shakespeare's intention ?

I notice, in Hamlet's soliloquy, that the folio has
the expression, " the poor man's contumely." As the
Globe edition, and, indeed, all the modern editions,
retain the expression "proud," used in the second
quarto, I suppose that the " poor man's contumely "
is not considered a legitimate expression. It is
curious, however, that the first quarto has an
expression somewhat similar in meaning, " The rich
man cursed of the poor." In " Twelfth Night," also,
a play written not long before "Hamlet," Olivia
says : " O world, how apt the poor are to be proud !"

In the scene with Ophelia and Hamlet, both in
French's and Cumberland's acting-version, Hamlet
is marked to exit after the word " Farewell," and to
re-enter again directly afterwards, thus conveying
the impression that he returns in order to give more
force to his reproaches. These stage-directions are
not to be found in either of the quartos or yet in
the folio, and I can find no foundation for them in
the text. They seem to me to be an unnecessary
interruption in a solemn scene, and to interfere with
its impressiveness. Hamlet is dismissing Ophelia
to a nunnery, and the word " Farewell " is addled to
impress her with the necessity of her going. She
must leave him, not he her. It is, indeed, a subtle
touch of Shakespeare's that Ophelia here should
think Hamlet's intense feeling and earnestness
was madness, for the Prince was " hoist with his
own petard," having previously assumed madness
for the purpose of breaking off his engagement
with her, "made in honourable fashion, with almost

i66 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

all the holy vows of heaven." After the exit of
Polonius and the King, the stage-direction in the
acting version is : "Enter Hamlet and First Player."
The Globe edition makes this the beginning of
another scene, and where changes of scene take
place in a theatre it would be correct to make an
alteration, for the scene in the text is a banqueting
hall and the time night. The stage-direction of
the second quarto gives, "Enter Hamlet and three
of the Players," and that of the folio, "Enter Hamlet
and two or three of the Players." Hamlet, therefore,
should not enter, as he does now, with only one
player.

I should like to make a remark in passing on
Hamlet's expression, " trippingly on the tongue."
If Burbage's company spoke Shakespeare's lines in
this way, I believe the longer plays could be acted
in three hours. The late Mr. Brandram's recitals
showed how much more effective Shakespeare's
lines can be made when spoken " trippingly on the
tongue," and that the enjoyment of the public
depends more upon the appropriate rendering of
the text than upon the scenic accessories.

The stage-direction in the folio for the entrance
of the court to see the play reads : " Enter King, etc.,
with his guard carrying torches." It is a pity, I think,
that these directions are not inserted in our acting
versions. It would make a pretty picture for the
stage to be darkened, and to have the mimic play
acted by torchlight.

The " dumb-show " is omitted in all the stage-
versions, and is not represented on the stage, but
I think the play-scene is imperfectly realized by
leaving it out. The Queen's reply to Hamlet's

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 167

question, "Madame, how like you the play?" and
the King's inquiry, " Have you heard the argument ?
Is there no offence in it ?" would have a deeper
significance with it represented ; for evidently the
poisoning in the "dumb show" has made no impres-
sion on the Queen, but a very marked one on the
King, and Hamlet's reply, " poison in jest," assumes
quite a different meaning. Besides, Hamlet's words,
"The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge,"
shows that he already has become convinced of the
King's guilt before the appearance of Lucianus — and
how, except by means of the" dumb show"? I believe,
too, that if it were represented, then the mistake many
actors fall into of making a climax at the lines, " He
poisons him in the garden," etc., and speaking them
to the King, and not to his courtiers, would be
corrected. There seems no justification for Hamlet
making a climax of these lines. It is anticipating
the King's exit, which is the last thing Hamlet would
wish for. He tells the court that it shall see "anon "
how the murderer will marry the wife of Gonzago,
and the King defeats his nephew's purpose by stop-
ping the play. Hamlet's most dramatic line in this
scene, one at which a point might be legitimately
made, is cut out in the acting-version. Ophelia
says, "The King rises." Then Hamlet exclaims,
11 What ! frighted with false fire !" Also the Queen's
remark to her husband, " How fares my lord ?" has
been omitted. The words have some value as
evidence of the Queen's ignorance of the King's
crime. If she knew of it the question was
unnecessary.

"Exit Horatio" is the stage-direction in the acting-
edition, after Hamlet's words, " Come, some music ;"

i68 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

but there is no similar stage-direction in either the
second quarto or folio. Later on, in the acting-
edition, comes the direction: "Enter Horatio with
Recorders." In the second quarto it is, "Enter the
Players with recorders" and in the folio, "Enter one
with a recorder" It seems just possible that Hamlet's
lines —

" Ah ! ha ! come, some music ; come, the recorders.
For if the King like not the tragedy,
Why, then, belike he likes it not, perdy " —

may not be said to Horatio at all, but to one of the
players who may be hanging about the stage waiting
for instructions after the sudden interruption of the
performance. He would then retire, and send some
of his fellows with recorders. In French's acting-
edition the words, " To withdraw with you," are
altered to " So withdraw with you," after which
comes the rather curious stage-direction, " Exeunt
Horatio and Recorders." There are no such direc-
tions in the quartos or folio. A recorder is not a
person, but a musical instrument. From indications
in the first quarto, Horatio should remain on the
stage until the end of the scene, for Hamlet says,
"Good-night, Horatio," to which Horatio replies,
" Good-night unto your lordship."

The third scene in the Globe edition is the second
scene in the acting-version. French's edition con-
tains the King's long soliloquy, and omits Hamlet's
entrance. Cumberland's edition omits both. I
think that to omit Hamlet's entrance in this scene
is to interfere with Shakespeare's dramatic con-
struction. Its omission breaks an important link
between the closet scene and the play scene, and
prevents the audience fully realizing the conse-

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 169

quences of Hamlet's clemency. Shakespeare shows
us Hamlet wishing to take the King's life at three
different periods during the play, but the King's
craft and Hamlet's conscience stand in the way ;
for the Ghost's word must first be challenged ; then
the mother's wishes must be respected ; while the
King's prayers must not be interrupted ; and when
the next opportunity occurs the wrong man is
killed. This is the sequence of the story, and it
should not be broken; even the compiler of the
first quarto knew this, for all three incidents are
made prominent in his text. But our stage Hamlets
try to tone down the inconsistencies and imper-
fections of the character ; they exploit his senti-
ments, but do not show his inclinations. Hamlet
wants to kill the King, notwithstanding that his
sensitive nature instinctively rebels against the
deed. A student, a controversialist, and a moralist,
what has he to do with revenge or murder? But
Hamlet, regardless of his own temperament, thinks
only of his duty to his father.

Passing now to the third scene, which is the fourth
in the Globe edition, I find that after the exit of the
Ghost no less than 52 lines have been cut out, and
their omission has caused actors to introduce stage-
business which is contradictory to the text. Many
Hamlets show an emotional tenderness towards the
Queen which would be quite out of place if all the
text were spoken. Look at the fierce satire expressed
in lines 190 onwards ! Hamlet in his self-constituted
office " as scourge and minister " cannot caress his
mother or hold her in his arms as is now done by
actors. However much she may solicit his sym-
pathy, his reply is : " I must be cruel only to be kind."

1 70 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

I should like to see inserted in the acting-edition
the fine lines of Hamlet to the Queen —

" Forgive me this my virtue,
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good."

From the third act 216 lines have been omitted.

The fourth act on the stage sometimes begins
with the fifth scene, Globe edition, but very often
the first and the third scenes are acted. These
scenes seem to belong to the third act. They take
place the same night, and are a continuation of the
closet scene, for in the first quarto and folio the
Queen is not marked to go off, but the King to enter
after Hamlet's exit. Between the fourth and fifth
scenes a pause can well take place to allow of
Laertes' return from France. This addition to the
third act would make it very long, unless the
Hamlet and Ophelia scene were made part of the
second act, bringing down the curtain on the words,
"Madness in great ones must not un watched go."
Two objections to this suggestion, however, can
be urged owing to the lapse of a day between the
second and third acts, and the bringing together
of Hamlet's two long soliloquies. But an interval
is only needed to show that time has been allowed
to prepare the play, and, therefore, can come as well
after the scene with Ophelia as before; and a good
actor would surmount the difficulty of the two
soliloquies by varying the delivery of each. This
revision of act-intervals would make the construc-
tion of the play resemble more that of the first
quarto, which, for acting purposes, is certainly the
better version of the two. Moreover, in the folio

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 171

there appear no divisions beyond the second act,
nor any indications in the text to show where
Shakespeare may have wished another pause to
come in the representation.

In the first scene of the fourth act, Globe edition,
the Queen, speaking of Hamlet, says :

" To draw apart the body he hath killed,
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure ; he weeps for what is done."

These lines are omitted in the acting-versions.
Perhaps, if they were inserted, many actors might
consider it necessary to show more concern for the
death of Polonius than has hitherto been the stage
practice.

The fifth scene, Globe edition, is the second scene
in French's, and the fourth in Cumberland's. I think
it would add to the dignity of Horatio's character
if, as directed in the second quarto, the Queen and
Horatio entered with "a gentleman," who brings
news of Ophelia's mental derangement. Horatio
is not a servant, nor even a gentleman-in-waiting ;
but a visitor from Wittenberg. The Queen, having
lost her son, would naturally seek the society of
his bosom friend. The stage-direction in the first
quarto for Ophelia's entrance should be noticed ;
I should like to see it inserted in the acting-edition :
" Enter Ophelia playing on a lute, with her hair hang-
ing down, singing" This, no doubt, is how she
appeared on Burbage's stage. I can imagine
Ophelia entering as if she were wandering about
the corridors of the palace singing and muttering to
herself unconscious of what she was saying, where
she was going, or to whom she was speaking ; the

i;2 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

imbecility of a pretty young girl who had been,
at one time, fond of her songs as of her sewing.
In the acting-edition the stage -direction for the
second entrance describes her as being "fantasti-
cally dressed with straws and flowers" but there is no
similar direction in the quartos or folio. Ophelia
has very little time allowed her to go anywhere,
and certainly not beyond the palace precincts,
where she might not find straws or daisies.
Shakespeare may have intended the flowers to be
imaginary ones to which she refers that the audience
may anticipate her ramble beyond the palace to
make garlands in the meadows. Songs were rarely
sung on the stage unaccompanied, and it must be
remembered that Ophelia was a court lady, more
accustomed to handle the lute than to pick wild-
flowers. The third scene of the fourth act, being
the fifth scene in the Globe edition, I have never
seen acted on the stage. The omission is, perhaps,
not important, except that the spectators are left
ignorant as to the cause of Hamlet's return. From
the fourth act 303 lines have been omitted in the
acting-version.

Coming now to the fifth act, the stage-direction
for Ophelia's burial, both in the Globe and acting-
editions, is as follows: " Enter Priests, etc., in Pro-
cession^ the corpse of Ophelia, Laertes, and Mourners
following, King, Queen, their Trains, etc'' This
direction is hardly consistent with Hamlet's de-
scription, "Such maimed rites." I should prefer
the direction in the first quarto: "Enter King and
Queen, Laertes and other Lords, with a Priest after
the coffin'' The absence of religious ceremony
should attract the attention of the audience as

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 173

much as it does Hamlet's. I should like to see only
one Priest present, and the coffin borne by soldiers
or villagers, not by monks or nuns. It is often the
stage practice for the Priest to stand over the grave
with a book in his hand and intone his lines (replies
to Laertes' questions) as if they were part of the
burial service. A rather erroneous conception of
Shakespeare's churlish Priest, who objects to the
funeral taking place on sacred ground, and refuses
even to approach the grave.

In the first quarto, at the words " What's he that
conjures so," is written the stage-direction, " Hamlet
leaps in after Laertes, "and I find that Oxberry's edition
has the same direction, only inserted a little lower
down. I presume, therefore, that the elder Kean did
actually leap into the grave. Our modern Hamlets
would object to this business as undignified, and
perhaps it is ; but, at the same time, Hamlet's public
apology to Laertes in the last scene requires some
marked movement of his in this scene. He owns
himself that he was in a towering passion. Laertes
may handle Hamlet roughly, but not till Hamlet has
interfered with him.

None of our stage Hamlets appear in the church-
yard in any change of costume. From the familiar
way in which the clown talks to Hamlet, and
Hamlet's declaration, "Behold, 'tis I, Hamlet, the
Dane," I imagine that Shakespeare intended Hamlet
to be dressed in some disguise in this scene. When
Hamlet, writing to the King, says, "Naked and
alone," he may not only mean unarmed, but stripped
of his fine clothes, so that it would not be inappro-
priate for him to appear at the grave in some
common sailor's dress. In the second scene in this

1/4 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

act Hamlet says, " With my sea-gown scarf 'd about
me," a line that also would furnish some excuse for
change of costume. Both in the first quarto and the
folio the lines, "This is mere madness," etc., are
spoken by the King. The acting-edition follows
the second quarto, and gives the lines to the Queen.
The King had good reason to impress upon others
the belief that Hamlet is mad ; and when the
villagers hear the taunt they should shun the
lunatic.

The second scene is divided in the stage-version ;
and now that it has become the custom to lower the
curtain for each change of scene, I would suggest
that the churchyard-scene be changed at once to the
hall where the duel takes place. The forcing of this
duel upon Hamlet by the King would be better
shown by the King and all the court coming down
to Hamlet than Hamlet's going to them. It is the
difference between his going to meet death and
death coming to him.

In this second scene of the acting-edition there is
a line of the King's omitted, which, perhaps, if it were
inserted, would cause an alteration in the stage-
business connected with it. The King says : " Give
me the cups," showing that more than one cup is
brought to the King, one of them, probably, con-
taining the poison. In this cup the King places his
jewel, to insure Hamlet's drinking out of it. On the
stage it is the common practice to use only one cup,
and to imagine that the pearl contains the poison.

I have before expressed my regret that the play
should end at Hamlet's death. Shakespeare would
have considered the play unfinished, and even the
partisans of stage effect would lose nothing by

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 175

the introduction of Fortinbras. The distant sound
of the drum, the tramp of soldiers, the gradual
filling of the stage with them, the shouts of the
crowd outside, the chieftain's entrance fresh from his
victories, and the tender, melancholy young prince,
dead in the arms of his beloved friend, are material
for a fine picture, a strong dramatic contrast. Life
in the midst of death ! Was not this Shakespeare's
conception? From the last act 219 lines have been
omitted.

The acting-editions of Shakespeare's plays are
worth examining by students in order to ascertain
how far they are consistent with the author's in-
tention. Since the chronological order of the plays
has been fixed with more or less certainty, the study
of Shakespeare has become much easier, and his
dramatic and poetical conceptions are more accur-
ately realized than they ever were before. The
time has now come when our acting-editions could
be profitably revised. Eminent actors may prefer,
perhaps, arranging versions from their own study
of the text, but there must always exist a standard
version for general use in the profession. I should
like to see existing a playbook of " Hamlet " which
has been altered and shortened by a joint board
of actors and scholars. It should have a carefully
written introduction describing minutely the play
as it is believed the author conceived it. There
should also be a short sketch of the persons repre-
sented, with hints to the actor where to look in
omitted passages for glimpses of character ; besides
notes on obscure passages, unfamiliar expressions,
and different readings ; and a description of cos-

1 76 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

tume and scenery most appropriate to the play.
Such a book might be the beginning of a new era
for the Shakespearian drama on our stage, and, by
stimulating actors to study their parts from an
artistic point of view, and less from a theatrical one,
it would enable the public to appreciate Shake-
speare in the only place where he can be properly
understood, and that is the theatre.

"KING LEAR."*

When I opened the newspapers to read the
criticisms on a recent performance of " King Lear,"
and found that the first comments made were in
praise of the costumes, the scenery, and the music,
then I knew that once more Shakespeare and
tragedy had failed to assert themselves in the
English Theatre. Charlotte Bronte, the novelist, who
was educated in Brussels, and saw Rachel in one
of her greatest impersonations, once astounded a
London dinner-party by saying that the English
knew nothing about tragedy. In her diary she
writes : " I have twice seen Macready act, once in
' Macbeth ' and once in ' Othello.' It is the fashion
to rave about his splendid acting ; anything more
false and artificial, less genuinely impressive than
his whole style, I could scarcely have imagined.
The fact is the stage system is altogether hollow
nonsense. They act farces well enough ; the actors
comprehend their parts and do justice to them.
They comprehend nothing about tragedy or Shake-
speare, and it is a failure. I said so, and by so

* The New Age, September, 1909.

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 177

saying produced a blank silence, a mute consterna-
tion." Unfortunately, Charlotte Bronte's reproach
still remains true. Perhaps, had she continued to
protest, the public would then have recognized the
truth of her remarks. As it was, she never again
referred to the subject. Like most of our literary
men and women, then and now, she preferred to
remain discreetly silent upon all matters connected
with Shakespeare and the stage.

Last night, in a London theatre, Charlotte Bronte's
words were forcibly brought back to my mind.
I have once seen a great rendering of the part
of Lear, but it was given by an Italian, Signor
Rossi. I have seen the whole play correctly
rendered, with every character a vivid realization
of the poet's conception, but this was at a perform-
ance in the Court Theatre at Munich. For thirty
years I have been a constant playgoer, and seen the
best art this country can produce, but never can I
say that I have seen English tragedy on the English
stage. The cause is not far to seek. We have actors
in abundance, and some of them creative artists ;
yet we have no tragic actors, because we have no
school in which to develop them. Until we can set
apart a theatre for the exclusive use of classical
drama and its interpreters, we cannot hope to have
tragedy finely acted. A tragedy in verse is the
severest test of the artist's powers, of his physical
flexibility in voice and face, of his training and
sensibility. When, therefore, I heard who was
going to essay the greatest tragic role that has ever
been written, the result was a foregone conclusion :
exit Shakespeare and enter the Producer.

Yes ! He is the hero of the moment, as all our

155

1 78 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

newspapers have told us, only it is unfortunate, in
the interests of art, that to the praise there should
have been added no discernment. Macaulay has
said that the sure sign of the general decline of
an art is the frequent occurrence, not of deformity,
but of misplaced beauty, and whatever beauty has
been put into the production is undoubtedly mis-
placed. We can accept accuracy in scenery and
costume when the play itself is historically accurate
— that is to say, when it has been written to show
the difference between two periods as that of British
and Norman, or when it defines some distinctive
characteristic of race relating to its morals or
manners. But what is there in " King Lear " that
suggests such a remote period as 800 B.C. ? We
are told in the programme that Shakespeare pur-
posely removes the story from Christian times to
give the tragedy its proper setting in "a remote
age of barbarism, when man in wanton violence
was at war with Nature." The story, however,
belongs to one of the popular fables of European
literature. Like " Cinderella," it was in all prob-
ability transplanted into our country from a foreign
source. In its application it is universal, and
marks no special epoch or nationality, nor is there
in the story or its characters anything out of
keeping with a Christian age. Have there been
no ungrateful daughters, no adulterers, no bastards,
no tyrants, no jealous lovers since the years B.C. ?
The motive for crime remains pretty much the same
to-day as it did before the Christian era, and will
continue to remain the same until the economic
conditions of human existence are readjusted. It is
contrary to history and experience to suppose that

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 179

in Shakespeare's time dramatists deliberately aimed
at illustrating not only the customs but also the
morals of a barbaric age. If we do not to-day tear
out the eyes of our enemy, it is because we have
discovered some less clumsy way of revenging our
injuries. But because our manners are more refined,
it does not follow that our morals are purer. The
story of " King Lear," as Shakespeare has set it
forth, is one that may happen to-day in any kingdom
and any home. This is what the producer has failed
to grasp, and why his scenes and costumes do not
illustrate his play.

Throughout the performance the spectators' eyes
are at variance with the spoken words. Did the
early Britons have stocks ? Were there such
persons as marshals, heralds, knights, drums, and
colours ? Did beldames walk the villages, and
were there wakes and fairs in market-towns ? Why
was fish eaten on Fridays ? Had " Bessy " crossed
the bourn ? How did the ballads become known
a thousand years before they were written ? Need-
lessly is the attention distracted by these anachron-
isms which upset the spectator's equanimity in a
play that is pulsating with ever-living human emo-
tion. Then, again, costume is an essential adjunct
in drama, as an indication of character. We know
at a glance a man's rank, his wealth, and his taste,
by the aid of his clothes, provided always that we
are familiar with the period in which the apparel was
worn. But put the men into bath-sheets or into
night-shirts, and we cannot tell the master from the
servant. As a fact the producer has put all his char-
acters into dressing-gowns — showy ones, doubtless
— while the hair of the men is as long as that of the

i8o SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

women. In vain do we seek among these sexless
creatures for our familiar characters, to know who is
who. Where is the king, the earl, the peasant, the
knave, the soldier, the civilian ? There are slight
distinctions in the costumes worn by these char-
acters, but to the uninitiated they are meaningless.
Infinite variety in character and situation is created
by the author, and none shown by the producer
owing to the choice of an archaic period. How the
spectator longs for sight of the fool's cap, bells and
bauble, of the herald's tabard, and the knight's
armour ; to see a girl as a girl, and a man as a man,
and to know which is the lady and which the queen !

A country squire, whose hobby was horses, once
told me that although at twenty he thought himself
a good judge of a thoroughbred, after fifty more years
of experience he hesitated a longwhile in determining
a nag's good points. It is the same with the student
of Shakespeare ; the oftener he has read one of the
poet's plays, and the more study he has given to it,
the longer he hesitates to criticize. The art of the
dramatist is too thorough and too subtle to be
lightly discussed. To all stage-managers who wish
to mend or improve Shakespeare I say : " Hands
off! Produce this play as it is written or leave it
alone. Don't take liberties with it; the man who
does that does not understand his own limitations!"
Let us uphold that there is but one rule to be followed
when it becomes necessary to shorten one of the
poet's plays ; and that is to omit lines, but never an
entire scene. Shakespeare, of all his contemporaries,
unless it be Ford, gave to his dramas — especially to

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 181

his later ones — unity of design; so that each scene
has a relation to the whole play. But in the pre-
paration of this stage-version of " King Lear " it
must be admitted that no rule, no method, no
love, nor respect has been shown ; and, what is
the least pardonable fault, no knowledge is apparent.
Scenes and passages have been torn out of the
play, just as children might tear up bank-notes,
regardless of the value of the parts to the whole.
No matter if the story to modern minds is un-
intelligible, the characters incoherent, and the ethics
of the play unconvincing, the management pre-
sumes that, as everything in " King Lear " took
place among the early Britons, eight hundred years
before Christ, only the costumes and scenery of the
producer can be expected to elucidate the barbarities
of the play or its people.

Stowed away in an odd corner of the drama,
Shakespeare generally introduces some words to
indicate his point of view, and, in regard to " King
Lear," his view is thus expressed :

" EDMUND : This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune [often the surfeit of our own beha-
viour], we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and
stars ; as if we were villains by necessity ; fools by heavenly com-
pulsion . . . and all that we are evil in, by divine thrusting on "
(Act I., Scene 2).

And Shakespeare repeats the warning in " Corio-
lanus":

" The gods be good unto us ! ... No, in such a case the gods
will not be good unto us," etc. (Act V., Scene 4).

Now, unfortunately, Edmund's speech is omitted
from the stage-version, so that the playgoer who does
not know his Shakespeare misses the irony of the

i82 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

terrible tragedy he is called upon to witness. The
poet wishes us to understand that if a community
leaves to the care of the gods man's responsibility
to his fellow-men, instead of taking that responsi-
bility upon itself, then life will go on to-day — and
does go on — just as it did in the age of Elizabeth.
All through the play Shakespeare denies omnipo-
tence to man's self-made gods. Edmund has good
looks, intelligence, and good intentions (Act I.,
Scene 2). The community, however, in which he
lives decides that because he is an illegitimate child
these gifts shall not be profitably employed for the
good of the State or for the benefit of the individual
who possesses them. Edmund therefore becomes
embittered, and revenges himself upon that com-
munity. Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall, being
vicious in mind and self-seeking, make use of
Edmund's abilities to serve their own ends, by
which means the catastrophe in the death of Cor-
delia and Lear is brought about, together with the
deaths of the plotters. But Kent, Albany, Gloucester,
and Edgar believe that all their misfortunes are
brought about by the gods. Well, perhaps they
are, if we admit that by the gods is meant society's
instinct for self-preservation, which compels it to
rebel against bad laws and bad conventions. Un-
fortunately, however, history shows that a com-
munity can live too much in awe of its self-imposed
gods, who overrule natural instinct, and encourage
ignorance and folly, when a nation soon perishes,
and is wiped out of existence.

It has been said that the putting out of Gloucester's
eyes is an artistic mistake on Shakespeare's part. I
hold that it is a necessary incident in the play, and

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 183

that the dramatist has shown the reason for it.
Cordelia has set foot in the country with her French
soldiers, determined to regain the kingdom for her
father, and Gloucester, whom Cornwall regards as
belonging to his own faction, is conniving with
Cordelia. Now had Gloucester been a common
soldier, Cornwall could have put him to death as
a traitor (Act III., Scene 7); but the offender
being an earl, Cornwall dare not do this, so he
puts out the old man's eyes to prevent him reading
Cordelia's despatches. He is blinded, moreover, in
sight of the audience, that Cornwall may be seen
receiving his death-wound. And even the fact that
Regan and Goneril were capable of acting so in-
humanly towards Gloucester makes Lear's plight
more desperate, and therefore more pathetic. Yet
Shakespeare never makes his characters suffer
without giving them compensations, and the meet-
ing and reconciliation between the blind Gloucester
and his son is one of the most touching incidents in
the play. That this reconciliation was omitted in
representation suggests that the ugly incident of
putting out Gloucester's eyes was retained merely
as a piece of sensationalism, and, if so, it merits
severe condemnation.

Shakespeare has often been blamed for being
intolerant to democracy, and this is in part a well-
founded reproach, but it was a fault of the age and
not of the man. Still, in " King Lear" the dramatist
abundantly proves his sympathy with the hard lot
of the poor. For this reason the play preaches no
pessimism. Lear, Gloucester, and Edgar are the
happier for the troubles they experience. Such hard-
ships as they endure are brought upon themselves

1 84 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

by their own shortcomings ; but these hardships are
mitigated by the gain to their moral natures of a
fellow-sympathy for the sufferings of those who
have done no wrong, and by an appreciation of the
injustice done towards those whose miseries are
created through the selfishness of the rich. Lean
who has ruled a country as a despot for half a
century, discovers for the first time in his life that —

" Through tattered clothes small vices do appear ; Robes and
furred gowns hide all."

Having exposed himself to feel what wretches feel,
he knows, as he has never known before, how the
heart of a desolate father can crave for the love of a
gentle daughter. To prison he can cheerfully go
with her,

" To pray and sing and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butter-
flies,"

because now he is no longer himself in the wrong,
but the one who is wronged. And the blind
Gloucester, also, is happy in his misery, because
for the first time he can say :

" Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man ; —

that will not see

Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly ;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough."

This is Shakespeare's message to the aristocracy to-
day, and yet all this is cut out by the actor-manager
who seems to imagine that these sentiments are
barbaric, and only represent the opinions of men
who lived some three thousand years ago.

The omissions in this stage-version are in a great
measure due to carelessness in the study of the play

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 185

The right point of view from which to present this
colossal tragedy on the stage has been missed, and
the stage-manager having allowed his actors to take
up half the evening in drawling out the words of the
first two acts, the blue pencil has been used for the
remaining three with a freedom and ignorance which
never should have been sanctioned.

11 Matinees every Wednesday and Saturday."
These words appear on all printed bills announcing
the performance of " King Lear." They go far to ex-
plain why the play fails to represent tragedy either
in its emotion or terror, and why it sends play-
goers back to their homes as cold and indifferent
to human suffering as it left them. What is offered
to the public is a kinematograph show ; walking
figures who gesticulate and utter human sounds ;
puppets who mechanically move through their parts
conscious that the business must be done all over
again within a few hours. Does an actor honestly
think that he can impersonate Lear's hysterical
passion, madness, and death, twice in a day, and
day by day, and that he can do this efficiently
together with all his other duties of management ?
That he may wish to do so is intelligible, but that
the public should sanction it and the critics tolerate
it is strange indeed. That the exigencies of modern
theatrical management impose these conditions is
beside the question. A less exacting play might
have been chosen instead of distorting one of Shake-
speare's masterpieces. Salvini, whose reputation as
a tragedian is universally acknowledged, refused to
act Othello more than three times in a week, and

1 86 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

never on two consecutive days ; and those who saw
his moving performance must admit that it was a
physical impossibility for him to do otherwise. A
man does not suffer the tortures of jealousy without
physical and mental prostration ; and the actor
endures a very heavy strain when he seeks to
simulate an emotion which has not been aroused
in a natural way.

The actor, however, not only fails to reproduce
the emotions of Lear, he never even shows us the
outside of the man. We look in vain about the
stage to find the King ; instead we see a decrepit,
commonplace old man, though Lear is neither the
one nor the other. He should resemble an English
hunting "squarson," a man overflowing with vitality,
who is as hale and active at eighty as he was at
forty ; a large-hearted, good-natured giant, with a
face as red as a lobster. He is one of the spoilt
children of nature, spoilt by reason of his favoured
position in life. Responsible to no one, he thinks
himself omnipotent. No one but Lear must be
" fiery," no one but him unreasonable or contrary.
In the crushing of this strong, unyielding, but lovable
personality lies the drama of the play : this is what
an Elizabethan audience went to the Globe Play-
house to see. But how can the story be told when a
Lear comes on the stage, who at hisftrst appearance
is broken-down and half-witted ? Where is the pur-
pose or the art in showing us such a helpless creature
being ill-treated by his own kindred ? Yet Lear
boasts of his physical strength ; and how skilfully
the dramatist has planned the entrance, so as to
accentuate the virility of the man ! The play opens
with prose, and the first line of verse is spoken by

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 187

the King, so that the change of rhythm may the
better call attention to his entrance. Those who
saw Signor Rossi, in the part, dart on to the stage,
and with a voice of commanding authority utter the
words —

" Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloster " —

recognized the Lear of Shakespeare. This single
line, as by a flash of lightning, revealed the im-
petuosity and imperious disposition of the King,
and prepared us for the volcanic disturbance that
followed the thwarting of his will. Another thing,
overlooked by all our English actors, is the necessity
for Lear to come on the stage with Cordelia. On
her first appearance she should be seen with her
father in affectionate companionship, so as to balance
with the last scene, where she is carried on in his
devoted arms. Lear's division of his kingdom among
his three daughters is not so eccentric a proceeding
as the critics would make out. The King needs an
excuse for giving the largest portion to his youngest
child, and he thinks the most plausible reason is a
public acknowledgment of the bond of affection
between them. But Cordelia's sense of modesty
and self-respect have not been taken into account,
and Lear, who never tolerates a rebuff, in a moment
of temper upsets all his pre-arranged plans, with
disastrous consequence to himself and others. All
this animated drama is omitted in the present per-
formance, because Lear, on his first entrance, fails
to give the keynote to the character or to the tragedy.
Lear, in fact, is never seen on the stage, but only
a Piccadilly actor who assumes the part, divested
of frock coat and top hat.
The title-role, unfortunately, is not the only part

i88 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

which has been wrongly cast. With the exception
of Goneril and Regan, every character has been
falsified and distorted. This is not due to want of
ability in the actors, but to their physical limitations
and to deficiency in training. Their reputations
have been won in modern plays, and they seem
quite unable to give expression to character when
the medium of speech is verse. To those who think
more about the actor than about the character he
represents this is perhaps not a matter of much
moment, but it is one of considerable importance to
the play, since with all great dramatists the incidents
are evolved by the characters ; and if the men and
women we see on the stage are not those that
Shakespeare drew, his incidents are apt to appear
ill-timed and ridiculous. After the title-role the
most serious misconception of character is in the
part of Edmund, the man whose wits control the
movement of the drama. He is an offspring of the
Italian Renaissance, a portrait of Machiavel's Prince,
whose merit consists in his mental and physical
fitness. He should be the handsomest man in the
play, the most alert, the most able ; he is a victim
neither to sentimentality nor to self-deception, and he
is fully capable of turning the weakness of others to
his own advantage. It is impossible to hate the
well-bred young schemer, because he is too clever,
and his dupes are too silly. Unfortunately, the
actor who is cast for this important part is quite
unsuited for it. Another brilliant part which has
suffered badly at the hands of its interpreter is
Edgar, a character in which the Elizabethans
delighted, because of its variety and the scope it
allows for effective character-impersonation. The

SOME STAGE VERSIONS 189

actor has to assume four parts — Edgar, an imbecile
beggar, a peasant, and a knight-errant, and each of
these characters should be a distinct creation ; but
the actor gave us nothing but a modern young
man making himself unintelligibly ridiculous. Even
more disastrous was the casting of the part of the
fool, that gentle, frail lad who perishes from exposure
to the storm, a child with the wisdom of a child,
which is often the profoundest wisdom. Then a lady
with a majestic figure cannot represent the little
Cordelia, and she should not have been given the
part. Of course the obvious retort to this kind of
criticism is that the play must be cast from a company
selected for repertory work, most of which, perhaps,
will be modern. London managers, also, impose
actors on the public because they have a London
reputation, and this creates a monopoly which be-
comes a tyranny upon art. Whether the artist is
suited or not for the part, he must be put into it,
for box-office considerations.

To sum up. For the first time in the history of
our stage the theatre is put under the management
of a literary director, presumably with a view to
bringing scholarly intelligence to bear upon the ex-
ponents of drama ; but the result to the public, in
so far as " King Lear " is concerned, is that it gets
quite the most chaotic interpretation of the poet's
work that it has ever been my misfortune to see
represented on the stage. What is the reason ?
Has the director, like the fly, walked into the
spider's parlour, or, in other words, into the net-
work of theatrical commercialism, to find his artistic
soul silenced and himselfj bound ? Time perhaps
will show us !

IV

THE NATIONAL THEATRE

THE REPERTORY THEATRE.

THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE SOCIETY,
SHAKESPEARE AT EARL'S COURT.
THE STUDENTS' THEATRE.
THE MEMORIAL SCHEME.

IV

A NATIONAL THEATRE

THE REPERTORY THEATRE.*

THE anxiety of dramatic critics to explain "the
scant success " of Mr. Frohman's Repertory Theatre
has created a large amount of paper argument, of
more or less doubtful value, and now Mr. William
Archer has added his view to that of others, and
concludes his remarks with some practical advice to
those who, in his opinion, are entitled to be re-
garded as "some of our ablest dramatists." The
nature of this advice, however, is not only curious,
but startling, when we recall the reception that was
given to Ibsen's plays on their first appearance in
this country, and remember that Mr. Archer was
their warmest defender. Regardless of this defence,
he now contends that " it is a grave misfortune
for any writer, but it is a disaster for the dramatist,
to get into the habit of despising popular taste and
thinking that he has only himself to please in his
writings."! But those who take their dramatic art
seriously, and who wish their plays to have more
than an ephemeral existence, cannot possibly accept
this advice. They will recognize that the highest

* The New Age, November, 1910.

t Fortnightly Review, October, 1910, " The Theatrical Situation,"
by William Archer.

193 13

194 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

aim of a dramatist is to create a work valuable for
all time, and that the most intimate knowledge of
the moods and vagaries of playgoers cannot out-
weigh the smallest fault in the art of dramatic con-
struction or character drawing. The conscientious
artist repudiates the interference of public opinion
with the expression of his art ; he does not try to
follow popular taste, but seeks to control and direct
it. " The public," says George Sand, "is no artist ;
I will not tell you that we must please it, but we
must win it. It winces, but gets over it." This
is the advice Mr. Archer should have tendered to
English playwrights, and let us hope it is the advice
he meant to tender them. Nature has nowhere
resigned her prerogative to the demands of popular
taste, nor should the artist abandon his privileges.
There is no record of a poet or musician having
created a masterpiece through pandering to the
" groundlings." Mozart, on completing an opera,
would say : " I shall gain but little by this, but I
have pleased myself, and that, must be my recom-
pense." It was Schiller who wrote : " My sub-
mission to the public convenience does not extend
so far that I can allow any holes in my work and
mutilate the characters of men." And Goethe
exclaimed : " Nothing is more abhorrent to a reason-
able man than an appeal to the majority." Lessing
has said : " I have no objection to criticism con-
demning an artist, but it must not contaminate him.
He must continue his work knowing that he is
happier than his detractors." And Lessing points
the moral in adding : " Genius is condemned to
utter only absurdities when it is unfaithful to its
mission." Bernard Shaw and Granville Barker,

A NATIONAL THEATRE 195

two of the able dramatists to whom Mr. Archer
tenders his advice, have won "the ear of their
contemporaries" equally with the more popular
writers, Barrie and Maugham, and this they have
done by the production of one or two plays which
did not reach their hundredth performance. Euri-
pides was none the less famous, as a dramatist,
because the Athenian playgoers disliked his opinions
and banished him from their midst. In fact, a
dramatist is only great when he is able to dispense
with the requirements of popular taste ; nor will he
be satisfied with the knowledge that his play leaves
some definite impression upon an audience unless
it be that particular impression which belongs to
tragedy, or comedy, or history, or pastoral drama,
or conversational comedy.

Let it be, then, frankly admitted that a dramatist
cannot both live in advance of the opinions of his
audience and also reflect them. It is very well for
Mr. Archer to talk about the vessel which does not
float, but his illustration is surely less obvious than
he imagines. A Noah's Ark will float on the ocean
to-day as easily as it did in the days of the Flood,
but no modern shipbuilder now would risk his
reputation in constructing such a boat on the plea
that it remains above water. Will the vessel
weather the storms ? Will it outlive its com-
petitors ? These are the vital questions in the art
of both shipbuilding and playwriting.

Mr. Archer seems to forget that there is a pre-
judice among audiences as well as among in-
dividuals, and that every period of life has its own
peculiar notions. Sometimes playgoers will receive
an author's brightest comedy with coldness. The

196 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

burden of Charles Lamb's reflections was — that the
audience of his day came to the theatre to be com-
plimented on its goodness. "The Stranger," "The
Castle Spectre," and "George Barnwell," are speci-
mens of the dramatic bill of fare which then found
favour. On the other hand, the comic dramatists
tried to disparage purity in men and women, and the
sparkle of their comedies is unwholesome. In the
opinion of many sober minds the dramatic literature
of the Restoration is a blot upon our national history,
while the gloomy productions that delighted the
sentimental contemporaries of Charles Lamb are
offences against dramatic art. At neither period
was the drama national, in so far as it was repre-
sentative of the tastes of all classes. Congreve and
Wycherly wrote for the fashionable, while the
admirers of Lillo's and Lewis's moral dramas were
chiefly respectable shopkeepers. It was in Shake-
speare's day that the nobility and groundlings
together resorted to the playhouse, constituting
themselves at once the patrons and pupils of the
drama. The Elizabethan playgoer had no desire to
bias the judgment of the dramatist. It left him free
to represent life vividly and truly. It even en-
couraged him to be studious of the playgoer's profit
as well as of his pleasure. But the playgoers of the
Restoration, and of the period that immediately
succeeded it, were intolerant of all views but their
own. They regarded with disfavour plays which
did not uphold their notions of amusement and
morality. They called upon the dramatist to accept
the opinion of his public, in these matters, as being
superior to his own. As a consequence, the drama
suffered in the attempt made to reconcile principles

A NATIONAL THEATRE 197

that are in themselves inconsistent, and the judgment
of the audience was in no sense a criterion of merit
in a play. This explains why some good plays
have been coldly received on their first appearance.
" She Stoops to Conquer " would have failed but
for the presence in the theatre of Dr. Johnson and
his friends ; Sheridan's " Rivals," an even more
brilliant comedy, did not secure a fair hearing on
its first performance. Of Diderot's comedy, the
" Pere de Famille," its author gives us the following
information :

" And why did this piece, which nowadays fills the house before
half-past four, and which the players always put up when they
want a thousand crowns, have so lukewarm a welcome at first ?"

" ... If I did not succeed at first it was because the style was
new to the audience and actors ; because there was a strong
prejudice, still existing, against what people call tearful comedy ;
because I had a crowd of enemies at court, in town, among
magistrates, among Churchmen, among men of letters."

" And how did you incur so much enmity ?"

" Upon my word, I don't know, for I have not written satires
on great or small, and I have crossed no man on the path of
fortune and dignities. It is true that I was one of the people
called Philosophers, who were then viewed as dangerous citizens,
and on whom the Government let loose two or three subalterns
without virtue, without insight, and, what is worse, without
talent. . . .

" To say nothing of the fact that these philosophers had made
things more difficult for poets and men of letters in general, and
that it was no longer possible to make oneself distinguished by
knowing how to turn out a madrigal or a nasty couplet." *

This argument applies as forcibly to what goes on
in the theatre in London to-day as it did in Paris
nearly two hundred years ago. Perhaps, however,
enough has been said to discount the suggestion

* "The Paradox of Acting," translated by Walter Herries
Pollock.

198 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

that popular opinion is in any way responsible for
the making of a good play.

M. Claretie once expressed a doubt if Englishmen
quite understood the limitations of the French
National Theatre ; because when the Comedie
Francaise visited London in 1893, the Press (includ-
ing Mr. Archer) ridiculed the intention of the
director to give a more classical programme than
English taste demanded, presumably forgetting that
the selection of plays should be judged by an
academic standard. The Comedie Francaise visited
the Metropolis with a repertory apparently designed
to illustrate the whole range of French dramatic
literature, and yet, at the bidding of an exacting and
ignorant public, it was called upon, without a protest
from the critics, to withdraw the masterpieces of
Moliere and Racine in favour of the modern drama;
nor was it to the dignity of the Theatre Francaise
that its members consented to humour the caprices
of playgoers, and condescended to bid for popularity
when popularity meant bad taste and a craving for
" stars." But the director, having entered into an
arrangement with commercial gentlemen for com-
mercial purposes, unexpectedly found himself com-
pelled to forfeit his academic position, and to place
his theatre on a level with a commercial playhouse.
Fortunately the surrender did not serve its purpose.
General dissatisfaction was expressed with the visit
of the Comedie Francaise. The speculator lost his
money, the playgoer did not see his " star," and the
student heard no masterpieces.

Now, presumably, there is this difference between
a National Theatre and a Repertory Theatre, that
the object of the former is to keep before the public

A NATIONAL THEATRE 199

the best plays of the country, and those of other
countries, and to give occasional performances of
new plays of rare excellence and dignity. The
Repertory Theatre, on the other hand, as we under-
stand it in England, has for its task the exploiting
of the new school of dramatists ; of those men who
have advanced ideas about their art and of the
purpose it should serve. It is essentially, there-
fore, a theatre of experiment. If this is the case,
and a manager such as Mr. Frohman cares to
finance the undertaking, he can hardly be credited
with considering the scheme in the light of a busi-
ness speculation, nor would those dramatists who
were invited to provide plays for this Repertory
Theatre be expected to supply Mr. Frohman with
the same class of work that they would submit to
the ordinary theatrical manager. Here, evidently,
is the opportunity, and the only opportunity a
dramatist can get in this country, of providing a
bill of fare capable of nourishing the weak intellects
and the weaker susceptibilities of an audience.
Looked at from this standpoint, it may be contended
that no new play was produced under the Frohman
Repertory management which did not advance the
cause of dramatic art by adding to the knowledge
of its author, to the experience of its actors, and to
the education of the audience. " Misalliance " was
a brilliant satire on modern society, one of the
ripest conversational plays that Mr. Shaw's genius
has yet produced ; one in which the dramatist's
observation probes deeper, and his wisdom and
philosophy, as revealed in the play of character,
are as subtle and less personal than anything Mr.
Shaw, perhaps, has achieved hitherto in domestic

200 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

drama. Why, then, are we now told that this play
failed to attract, and with whom does the fault
rest — is it with the author or his public ? There
was no insufficiency of " go," of wit, of raillery,
of originality, or novelty ; but there was, none the
less, one thing wanting that to a modern audience
is an unpardonable omission, and that is flattery.
Society, as it lives to-day, under the maternal wing
of the old lady in Stable Yard, expects to be
humoured at the theatre, and to be complimented,
not on its goodness, but on its vices. " Paint us as
black as the devil," it says to the dramatist, " but
don't dare to admit that we are a penny the worse
because we are black !" And this menace is equiva-
lent to demanding that an author shall take men
and women at their own valuation, and ignore the
hidden motives and forces which control human con-
duct. A very few strokes of the pen, a little falsifi-
cation in character - drawing, and "Misalliance"
could have been made an acceptable play ; but
there was a writer holding the pen who was in-
exorable. Mr. Shaw drew life as he saw it, and left
the public to approve or not as it liked. But if
London rejected " Misalliance," this did not kill the
play ; it is no more dead than Mozart's " Le Nozze
di Figaro " is dead because on its first appearance
Vienna sneered at the work of one whose talent
outshone that of its own musicians. The Vien-
nese winced and got over their dislike ; in the same
way Londoners will come to think well of " Mis-
alliance." It is true that we are indebted to its
author for at least one popular success, which future
historians of the stage will declare was an epoch-
making play, being the first of its kind to arrest the

A NATIONAL THEATRE 201

attention of the man-in-the-street, and bring him
into the theatre to listen to nothing more exciting
than a " talk." But the success of "John Bull's
Other Island," so far as the public was concerned,
had less to do with the merits of the play than the
demerits of the audience. The City man woke up
one morning to find himself famous, as he thought,
and hugely enjoyed his notoriety. What did it
matter if a company promoter was silly and cunning
so long as he was always amusing and successful !
This, as they thought, was the profound wisdom
that Mr. Shaw meant to preach to the world !
What a strange instance of egotistical vanity ! And
when the same play was performed in Dublin, the
enjoyment of the audience was no less marked, but
with this difference — that the laughter was all against
Broadbent and not with him. Whether the Eng-
lishman was successful or not, he was a " fathead,"
because no Irishman was silly enough to put his
pocket before his politics or to prefer his neighbour's
omniscience to his own. Yet this play is not the less
virile and wholesome because company-promoters
think themselves flattered by it. It is not Mr.
Shaw pandering to his audience, but vanity looking
at itself in the looking-glass.

Of that other "failure," "The Madras House,"
Mr. Archer admits that he found a good deal in the
play to interest him, and it is difficult to believe that
the author of "The Voysey Inheritance" had not
something fresh and inspiring to tell his audience.
There are some subjects which do not admit of
being treated in drama in a way to enlist general
favour. No thinker would argue that " Troilus
and Cressida " was written by Shakespeare with a

202 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

view to its surpassing the popularity of " Hamlet."
It is sufficient if the author has treated his subject
in a way consistent with the laws of nature and
probability. For the critics to assume, as they do,
that the author is not conscious of the dramatic
limitations imposed upon him by the choice of his
subject is an impertinence. As Voltaire once said
in defence of a play : " We cannot do all that our
friends advise. There are such things as necessary
faults. To cure a humpbacked man of his hump we
should have to take his life. My child is hump-
backed, but otherwise it is quite well." Indeed,
Mr. Barker's time will be better employed in edu-
cating his critics than in re-writing his play. Nor
must it be forgotten that Mr. Barker was hardly out
of his teens when he wrote " The Marrying of Ann
Leete," a comedy that has not yet received the
attention it deserves. Fortunately it has been
printed and published, and will undoubtedly again
be seen on the stage; for the play has unusual
possibilities for a stage-manager with constructive
imagination and poetic sensibility, and there is not
now wanting in London an audience capable of
appreciating a work of the kind in the spirit in
which it is conceived. This comedy was un-
doubtedly inspired by the art of Maeterlinck at
the time when the Belgian dramatist was writing
such plays as " The Interlude." But where Maeter-
linck fails Mr. Barker succeeds. With the poet the
disjointed dialogue and constant repetition of the
monosyllable becomes a mannerism, and is never
convincing. Mr. Barker's method is a nearer ap-
proach to reality. He has chosen his characters
with more care to give point to their abrupt method

A NATIONAL THEATRE 203

of speech, and with no little art. In a country house
remote from the world, among people who are well
bred if not well read, who give more time to sport
and cards than to books, and who have little power
to express themselves except in unfinished sentences,
is unfolded a domestic tragedy of wonderful power
and sadness. And in this lies the weirdness and
fascination of the play — that no word of the story
is related by the characters, and only from fragments
of conversation, apparently trivial and unimportant,
does the spectator gradually bit by bit piece together
and arrange for himself the puzzle of these people's
existence. This comedy, then, is an experiment to
try and show the inner life of a family exactly as
it might be learnt by a neighbour who was not
personally known to any of its members, and it is
a very remarkable achievement.

To sum up. Let us be honest with ourselves and
to others over this question of the Repertory Theatre,
and drop the business side of the matter, which is
not the vital one. Let us admit that we can easier
spare from the ranks of our dramatists men like
Barrie and Maugham than Shaw and Barker; for
while the former seek to amuse us (for which we
are grateful), the latter hold forth a hand to help
us out of the ditch. Nor is it better for us to laugh
with Messrs. Barrie and Maugham than to accept
the proffered hand, leap out, and walk forward with
the preachers.

THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE SOCIETY.

The Elizabethan Stage Society was founded with
the object of reviving the masterpieces of the Eliza-
bethan drama upon the stage for which they were

204 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

written, so as to represent them as nearly as possible
under the conditions existing at the time of their
first production — that is to say, with only those
stage appliances and accessories which were usually
employed during the Elizabethan period. " Every-
thing," said Sir Walter Scott, "beyond correct
costume and theatrical decorum" is foreign to the
"legitimate purposes of the drama," and it is on
this principle that the work of the Society is based.

Although the actual life of the Elizabethan Stage
Society began in 1895 it may be said to have had
its origin as far back as 1881, when a performance
of the first quarto of "Hamlet" was given in St.
George's Hall, London, in Elizabethan costume,
and without scenery. The play was acted continu-
ously, and lasted two hours. Here, then, probably
for the first time since Shakespeare's day, was
reality given to Shakespeare's words : " The two
hours' traffic of our stage." The success of this
performance fully justified the experiment. It was
generally admitted by those present that the
absence of scenery did not lessen the interest,
and that with undivided attention being given to
the play and to the acting, a fuller appreciation
and keener enjoyment of Shakespeare's tragedy
became possible.

This performance was followed by others of a
similar nature, and with the same results, and the
advantage of representing the Elizabethan drama
under the conditions it was written to fulfil being
thus demonstrated, the idea was suggested of
building a stage after the Elizabethan model, yet
it was not until 1893 that this long cherished scheme
was carried into effect. In the autumn of that year

A NATIONAL THEATRE 205

the interior of the Royalty Theatre, Soho, was
converted into as near a resemblance of the old
Fortune Playhouse as was possible in a roofed
theatre. The play acted was " Measure for Measure,"
and in commenting upon this revival the Times
said : " The experiment proved at least that scenic
accessories are by no means as indispensable to the
enjoyment of a play as the manager supposes "; and
a professor of literature at one of our London
colleges wrote : " I don't think I was ever more
interested — nay, fascinated — by a play upon the
stage, and now I shall ever think the cutting up
into scenes and acts a useless cruelty and an utter
spoiling of the story." A regularly constituted
society was now formed, and among the first to
subscribe were Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Gosse,
Sir Walter Besant, Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, Com.
Walter Crane, Professor Israel Gollancz, Professor
Hales, Sir Sidney Lee, W. H. Thornycroft, Esq.,
R. A., Miss Swanwick, the Hon. Lionel 8Tollemache,
and Lady Ritchie. At the performance of "Twelfth
Night" at the Middle Temple in 1897 His Majesty
King Edward, then Prince of Wales, was present
as a Bencher of the Inn.

At the annual meeting of the Society in 1899,
Sir Sidney Lee, the Chairman, said : " Speaking as
one who has studied the works of Shakespeare and
his contemporaries with some attention, both on
and off the stage, I have never witnessed the simple,
unpretentious representation of a great play by this
Society without realizing more of the dramatic spirit
and intention than I found it possible to realize
when reading it in the study."

Of the Society's more recent revivals, the interest

2o6 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

aroused by the old morality play, " Everyman," both
in London and in many towns throughout the
country, and in America, was very marked. The
last play given by the Society under the present
direction was " Troilus and Cressida."

LIST OF THE SOCIETY'S PERFORMANCES.

1893. " Measure for Measure "

1895. " Twelfth Night "

„ " Comedy of Errors " -

1896. Marlowe's " Doctor Faustus"
„ " Two Gentlemen of Verona "

1897. "Twelfth Night"

„ Scenes from " Arden of
Feyersham " and " Ed-
ward III."

„ "Tempest"

1898. Beaumont and Fletcher's

"Coxcomb" -

„ Middleton and Rowley's
" Spanish Gipsy "

„ Ford's " Broken Heart "

„ Ben Jonson's " Sad Shep-
herd "

„ " Merchant of Venice "

1899. Ben Jonson's " Alchemyst" -
„ Swinburne's " Locrine "

„ Calderon's " Life's a Dream"
(Edward Fitzgerald's trans-
lation)

„ Kalidasa's " Sakuntala"

(Translated from the San-
scrit)
" Richard II." -

Royalty Theatre, London.
Burlington Hall.
Gray's Inn Hall.
St. George's Hall.
Merchant Taylors' Hall.
Middle Temple Hall.

St. George's Hall.
Egyptian Hall, Mansion

House.
Goldsmiths' Hall.

Inner Temple Hall.

St. George's Hall.
St. George's Hall.

Courtyard, Fulham Palace.
St. George's Hall.
Apothecaries' Hall.
St. George's Hall.
St. George's Hall.

- Botanical Gardens.

Lecture Theatre, University

of London.
Lincoln's Inn Hall.

1900. Moliere's " Don Juan "

(Acted in English)
" Hamlet " (First Quarto) - Carpenters' Hall.

A NATIONAL THEATRE

207

1900. Milton's " Samson Agonistes "

„ Schiller's " Wallenstein " -

(Coleridge's translation)
Scott's " Marmion "

1901,

1902.
1903.

1904.

1905.

»

1906.
1907.

»
1908.

1909.
1910.

it
1911.

1912,

Morality Play " Everyman "
" Henry V."

Ben Jonson's " Alchemyst " -
"Twelfth Night"

Marlowe's " Edward II." -
" Much Ado about Nothing "

" The First Franciscans " -
" Romeo and Juliet " -
" The Good Natur'd Man " -
" The Temptation of Agnes "
"The Merchant of Venice"
" Measure for Measure"

>j »

" The Bacchag of Euripides "
(Gilbert Murray's trans-
lation)

" Samson Agonistes " -
(Milton Tercentenary Cele-
bration)

Ditto

"Macbeth" -

" Two Gentlemen of Verona "

» »

" Jacob and Esau," and
Scenes from " Edward III."
Schiller's " Wallenstein "
" The Alcestes of Euripides
(Francis Hubback's trans-
lation)

Kalidasa's " Sakuntala "
" Troilus and Cressida "

Lecture Theatre, Victoria
and Albert Museum.

Lecture Theatre, University
of London.

Lecture Theatre, University
of London.

The Charterhouse, London.

Lecture Theatre, University
of London.

Cambridge Summer Meeting.

Lecture Theatre, University
of London.

Oxford Summer Meeting.

London School Board Even-
ing Schools.

St. George's Hall.

Royalty Theatre, London.

Cambridge SummerMeeting.

Coronet Theatre, London.

Fulham Theatre,

Gaiety Theatre, Manchester.

Stratford-on-Avon Festival.

Court Theatre, London.

Lecture Theatre, Burlington
Gardens.

Owen's College, Manchester.
Fulham Theatre, London.
His Majesty's Theatre.
Gaiety Theatre, Manchester.

Little Theatre, London.
Oxford Summer Meeting.
Imperial Institute.

Cambridge Summer Meeting*
The King's Hall, Covent

Garden.
Stratford-on-Avon Festival.

208 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

SHAKESPEARE AT EARL'S COURT.*

The obsolete but picturesque phrase " Ye Olde "
has perhaps something fascinating in it to the
modern aesthetic temperament, but it would be just
as well if those responsible for educating public
opinion at Earl's Court about matters relating to
the Elizabethan stage did not misapply the words.
To the Elizabethan the Globe was a new building ;
there was nothing "olde" about it. What, then,
the authorities mean is the Old Globe Playhouse,
a definition that can mislead no one. There are
some merits attached to the design, but also several
errors, notably, on the stage, in the position of the
traverse, in that of the staircases, and in the use
made of the side boxes as approaches to the stage.
These are details which are not of interest to the
general public, and it is not necessary now to dwell
upon them, though exception might be taken to the
movement of the costumed figures who are sup-
posed to impersonate the " groundlings."

The programme tells us that the vagaries of the
groundlings are drawn from Dekker's "The Guls
Horn - Booke," a satirical pamphlet published in
Shakespeare's time, which can no more be seriously
accepted as criticism than can a description in
Punch of a modern theatrical performance. The
evidence of foreigners visiting London in the seven-
teenth century gives a very different impression to
that which Dekker chose to admit ; and we are told
of the staid and decorous attitude of those play-
goers frequenting the Fortune, and of the stately
dignity of the representations given at the Black-

* The New Age, August 22, 1912.

A NATIONAL THEATRE 209

friars. The handling of these incidents in the
auditorium at Earl's Court have the appearance of
being planned by one who is only superficially
acquainted with the period and not in sympathy
with the conditions of theatrical representation then
in vogue — a circumstance to be regretted at an
exhibition which was ostensibly organized to raise
funds for a memorial to Shakespeare. Apparently
it is forgotten that between 1590 and 1610 the finest
dramatic literature which the world perhaps ever
has known was being written in London, a co-
incidence which is inconceivable were the staging
so crude and unintelligent as that which is shown
us at Earl's Court. Everything there appears to
have been done on the assumption that 300 years
ago there was a less amount of brain power existing
among dramatists, actors, and audience than there
is found among them to-day, while the reverse
argument is nearer to the truth, for a Shakespearian
performance at the Globe on Bankside was then a
far more stimulating and intellectual achievement
than it is on the modern stage to-day.

To illustrate this point it is only necessary to
witness one of the " excerpts" presented at Earl's
Court, the one called " The Tricking of Malvolio."
Now, we may presume that attention is invited to
the talents of the chief actor by the publicity given
to his name, for on one small printed page it is
" starred " five times in capital letters against the
parts he impersonates. We can find no record of
a similar keenness for publicity in any Elizabethan
actor. But unfortunately this is the least remark-
able illustration of modesty at Earl's Court, and it
is impossible to suppose that so many mistakes could

14

210 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

have been crammed into a single scene of "Twelfth
Night " by anyone who had carefully read the play.
Of Shakespeare's plays it was said, in his own day,
that they erred from being too life-like, and that in
consequence they lacked art ; that is to say, there
was nothing theatrical about them. The persons
he put on the stage, in their speech, costume, and
manner, so exactly resembled those the audience
recognized in the town that it was difficult to
believe that the characters had not been transferred
from the street to the stage. Now, in "Twelfth
Night " the central figure in the story, and the one
round which all the other characters revolve, is Olivia,
a young lady who is plunged in the deepest grief
by the loss, first of her father, and then of her only
brother, and we are told that because of this grief —

" The element itself, till seven years heat,
Shall not behold her face at ample view ;
But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine."

We may presume, therefore, that, as in the custom
of Elizabethan times, Olivia is dressed in the
deepest mourning, and wears a black veil to hide
her sorrowing face. Next in social importance, in
Olivia's house, comes her uncle, Sir Toby, who, as
a blood relation — for Olivia's father may have been
his brother — also wears black, and, being a knight,
should wear velvet or silk, and a gold order. He is
out of humour with his niece for the way she parades
her grief and shuts herself away from all company.
To relieve the monotony of his existence he brings
a fellow-knight into the house, calls back the clown
who had run away out of sheer boredom, and gives

A NATIONAL THEATRE 211

himself up to eating, drinking, and singing. Maria,
who marries Sir Toby at the end of the play, is
a lady by birth and breeding, attending on the
Countess, and, therefore, as one of the household,
is dressed in black, and so also are the servants,
including Fabian and Malvolio. These latter would
all wear black cloth liveries, and Malvolio, in
addition, a braided steward's gown, not unlike that
worn by a beadle, with a badge on his arm
showing his mistress's coat of arms, and a plated
neck -chain, as a symbol of his office. It will
be seen at once what a shock it would be to
Olivia's sense of propriety, in view of her recent
bereavement, for her steward to turn up unex-
pectedly in coloured stockings, especially when
she had reason to believe that he had more regard
and compassion for her sorrow than anyone else
in the house, because of his staid and solemn
demeanour. It is not unlikely, besides, that Mal-
volio, in anticipation of his certain promotion to the
ranks of the aristocracy by his marriage with Olivia,
had donned, in addition to yellow stockings, some
rich costume, put on in imitation of those fashion-
able young noblemen at court who wore silk scarves
crossed above and below the knee, since without
the costume his own cross-gartering would not have
been in keeping. And indeed in anticipation of his
social advancement he alluded to this change of
costume in his soliloquy, " sitting in my state . . .
in my branched velvet gown." Here, then, was
Malvolio appearing before the Countess in a "get
up " that was not so much comic as audacious in its
daring imitation of the only man suitable in rank to
marry a rich countess — that is, an earl.

212 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

The environment, then, of the play is this : a
house of mourning against which all its inmates are
in rebellion with the exception of the Countess and
Malvolio ; the latter, who is a time-server, seizing
his opportunity to ingratiate himself with his mis-
tress by his pious and correct behaviour and the
sternness with which he suppresses mirth within the
house. All this information Shakespeare gives us
in the text of the play, and yet how does the actor
avail himself of this knowledge ? Malvolio, the
Countess's head flunkey, so to speak, appears not in
the costume of a servant, but as if he were the best
dressed person in the house. Had he been a peer of
the realm and the Lord High Treasurer, his apparel,
with one exception, could not have been more
correct. Like Prince Hamlet, he is in black velvet,
doublet, and trunks, and wears a magnificent black
velvet gown reaching to his ankles, a gold chain
and a gold order ! Incongruous and impossible as
this costume is for the character who has to wear
it, an element of burlesque is added to it by the
conical hat, a yard high, which never could have
rested on any human head outside of a Drury Lane
pantomime ! Of course, when this initial error is
made in the costume of the character impersonated
by the leading actor, it is not surprising to find other
mistakes made in regard to the costumes of those
who appear on the scene. Sir Toby is not in black,
nor does he wear his order of knighthood, but
appears in a leather jerkin and stuffed breeches, as
if he were an innkeeper ! Not only is Maria not in
black, but she is not even attired as one who is by
birth a lady, attending on the Countess, since she
wears the dress of a kitchen-maid; nor yet is

A NATIONAL THEATRE 213

Fabian in black ; while the Countess herself appears
in a yellow dress, that being a colour Maria tells us
"she abhors," and without a veil, her face beaming
with smiles, as if she were the happiest creature in
the comedy ! What would any modern author say
if such liberties were taken with his play ? But
equally unintelligent is the reading of the text. For
Malvolio to say that when he is Olivia's husband
he will ask for his kinsman "Toby," is to miss
the humour of the situation. It is the pleasure of
being able to call Sir Toby a "kinsman" that is
flattering to Malvolio's vanity; while in the same
scene the one word in Olivia's letter (of Maria's
composition) which is captivating and convincing
to Malvolio's credulity is unnoticed by the actor.
Malvolio's doubts as to whom the letter is written
are entirely set at rest when he comes to the words,
" let me see thee a steward still." From the moment
he gets sight of the word " steward," everything be-
comes as clear as daylight to him, so that when he
appears in his velvet suit before Olivia, and cross-
gartered — which does not mean the cross-gartering
of the brigand in Italian Opera, as the impersonator
imagines — his assurance carries everything before
him, and makes him turn every remark of the
Countess to his own advantage, and this self-
deception is kept up with unflagging animation,
until he flings his final words at his tormentors :
" Go, hang yourselves all ! You are idle, shallow
things : / am not of your element ; you shall know
more hereafter." But this rendering of the scene
entirely misses fire at Earl's Court.

It would be ungracious and invidious, under the
circumstances, to indulge in criticism of this kind

2i4 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

without examining into the origin of the errors we
have tried to point out. They are nearly all tra-
ditional. The actor is not the real culprit. If one
appealed to him for an explanation, his answer
would be, " What is good enough for Sir Herbert
Tree is good enough for me," and Sir Herbert Tree
might say, " What was good enough for Macready
satisfies me." In the production of Shakespeare
on the modern stage our actor -managers show
originality and novelty. In the interpretation of
Shakespeare's characters, and in the intelligent
reading of his text, there seems to be no progress
made and no individuality shown. In these matters
we are still in the middle of the eighteenth century,
the most artificial age in the history of Shakespearian
drama. As a consequence, Shakespeare's plays are
not taken seriously by actors of to-day. To them
his characters are theatrical types which are not
supposed to conform to the conditions that govern
human beings in everyday life. They do not
recognize that Shakespeare's art and his characters
were as true to the life of his day as is the art of
Shaw or Galsworthy to our own. Yet because the
construction of his play is unsuited to the modern
stage, therefore it is contended that Shakespeare is
a bad constructor of plays, and any liberties may be
taken in the matter of reconstruction that are con-
venient to the producer. And because his plays
are written in verse, a medium we do not now use
in modern drama, therefore it may be spoken in
a way no human being ever did or could speak his
thoughts. So it comes that there is always an
apology on the actor's lips for " Shakespeare's
shortcomings" whenever the actor wants to take

A NATIONAL THEATRE 215

liberties with this author. It is Shakespeare who
is always in the wrong, and never the actor. Ask
the actress who impersonates Olivia why she is not
wearing a black dress, and she replies without a
moment's hesitation that black is not becoming to
her, as if it were an impertinence on Shakespeare's
part to expect her to wear black. The havoc that
is made with the characterization and story is of
no consequence. " Oh, hang Shakespeare !" was
what a popular Shakespearian actor once said to
the present writer. That is the normal feeling of
many actors towards Shakespeare's plays, and one
which will continue unless public opinion can be
roused to a sense of its responsibilities and insists
that a more reverent and loyal treatment shall be
bestowed on the work of the world's greatest poet
and dramatist.

Unpleasant and ungracious as these remarks may
appear to those who look to the Earl's Court
Exhibition as a means for raising money for a
national theatre, they are not unnecessary. From
all parts of the country visitors, comprising many
teachers and their scholars, come to this exhibition
expecting to receive a correct impression of
Shakespeare's playhouse and of the Elizabethan
method of staging plays. But what they see cannot
inspire them with confidence or belief that dramatic
art at that time, both in its composition and expres-
sion, was at its high-water mark. This is because
the spirit and the intellect of Elizabethan times are
wanting. These qualities do not appear in modern
actors nor in their productions. There is nothing
to be seen but the restlessness of our own stage-
methods, which no more fit the Elizabethan stage

SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

than would the Elizabethan methods fit the modern
stage. In another of the excerpts given at Earl's
Court, which is entitled the " Enchantment of
Titania," the costumes, business, and action of the
proscenium stage are wholly reproduced on the open
platform. In Shakespeare's time the actors did not
scamper all over the stage and in and out of the
private boxes while they were saying their lines,
nor was music played during their speeches. Then,
again, the stage-management of the scenes from
" The Merchant of Venice " in the poverty and
meanness of their appointments and costumes is a
libel on the old Globe representation. It is only
necessary to consult the stage-directions in the
first folio to recognize the fact. Bassanio then
came on to the stage dressed like one of the Queen's
noblemen, with three or four servants. At Earl's
Court he comes on unattended in a pair of patched
leather boots and worn suit, looking more like a
bandit than a nobleman. There is no indication
given of his superior rank to which so much im-
portance was attached in Shakespeare's time.
Indeed, those who are anxious to revive an interest
in Elizabethan staging, and who urge its claim for
recognition, are justified in making their protest
against this travesty of Shakespearian drama.

A STUDENTS' THEATRE.*

i. Miss Rosina Filippi's Project.

This project, advocated by one who is herself an
able exponent of dramatic art, both as an actress
and a teacher, is worthy of careful consideration,

* The Nation, August, 1912.

A NATIONAL THEATRE 217

nor can Miss Filippi's strictures on actors and
managers be read with indifference or passed over
in silence. It is asserted that acting is no longer
a profession, but a business, and that it will continue
to be a business until the actors themselves take the
necessary steps to give their calling the status of a
profession. This is true, because even if the public
can be roused to demand that acting shall be treated
as an art, it cannot manufacture artists, nor control
the choice of the talent which is submitted to
its judgment. Miss Filippi believes, moreover, that
the thinking portion of the British playgoer is be-
ginning to learn that English theatres need " some-
thing " before they can rank in reputation with those
on the Continent, an assumption which cannot be
denied ; although Miss Filippi will hardly expect
that all well-wishers of the drama will agree with
her as to what that " something" should be. In
this, indeed, lies the difficulty, for the divergence
of opinion among actors on questions connected
with dramatic art is so bewildering that both the
public and the profession become indifferent to the
controversy from mere weariness.

The question for consideration at the moment is
the " Students' Theatre," and whether Miss Filippi's
project is one more practical and more promising
than the many rival suggestions now claiming at-
tention and support from the public; and here, at
least, there is room for criticism. In the first place,
it may be doubted how far the public would support
the theatre by buying stalls, even at the reduced
price of 45., in order to see students act plays which
can be seen acted elsewhere under more favourable
conditions. Let a novice be ever so well coached,

2i8 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

yet the ordeal of facing a theatre full of human
beings who all stare at him from the auditory de-
prives him of the power to control and move that
audience. This is a drawback which can only be
removed by long practice. Then, as a rule, youth
possesses too eager and confident a temperament to
appreciate the meaning of restraint. Students must
wonder what chances they get by acting in a theatre
where no reputations are allowed to be made, no
personal ambition can be gratified, and no names may
be inserted in the programme ! And after reading
about these severe impositions, which are to give
artistic stability to the "Students' Theatre," it is
a comfort to be told by Miss Filippi that it is not
her intention " to serve the interests of any particular
set of faddists, but to present good plays by a picked
company of young actors." Let us hope, then, that
Miss Filippi does not intend to limit her players to
those who are students in the ordinary sense of the
word. And, indeed, might not the co-operation be
obtained of those artists who, being temporarily
out of an engagement, would be willing to join
Miss Filippi's enterprise in support of the cause
she advocates, which is, in effect, a devotion to art
for art's sake, and the still more praiseworthy desire
to obtain for the art of acting some public recogni-
tion of what constitutes the standard of excellence ?
Such a combination of forces, under artistic control,
would have far-reaching results.

And, after all, it should be possible for those actors
who claim to take their art seriously to agree upon
a certain standard of qualification which should be
considered indispensable to everyone wishing to
become an actor. The late Sir Henry Irving in a

A NATIONAL THEATRE 219

speech once said : " I think there is but one way to
act, and that is by impersonation. We hear the
expression * character-acting.' I maintain that all
acting is character-acting — at any rate, it ought to
be." But we live in an age when personality is
valued by the public at 50 per cent, more than is
the talent of impersonation. As a consequence, it
becomes more and more the practice among man-
agers and dramatic authors to select actors for parts
for which they are naturally fitted by age, face, voice,
and temperament, with the result that the character
is played by one who succeeds tolerably well, and
even may excel in certain scenes, in the only part
in which he is ever likely to excel. Yet such a one
is not an actor at all in the legitimate sense of the
word, and if he is -without vocal or physical flexi-
bility, he is limited to the business of impersonating
his own personality. Then if he happens to appear in
a play which becomes a success, he may hope to
continue acting his own personality throughout the
English-speaking towns of the two hemispheres for
a run of four, or even seven, years, after which he
will have the pleasure of " resting " until another
part can be found for him as much like himself
as was the last one. And while this method of
casting plays has the advantage of distributing
more equally the chances of an engagement in a
profession which has always a larger supply of
actors than is required, it has the distinct disad-
vantage of depriving the character actor of the
opportunity of learning his art.

Now, it is evident that Miss Filippi's object in
forming her " Students' Theatre " comes very near
in its aim to the one the character-actors should

220 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

have in view, that of removing the attention of
playgoers from personality, and concentrating it on
the art of impersonation. And this is an art which no
novice can hope to excel in. The training for this
kind of art requires a long apprenticeship, and the
actor cannot hope to reach the topmost height as an
impersonator until he has had many years of experi-
ence on the boards. In fact, he will have passed
into the meridian of life before he can become a fine
character-actor. May it not, then, be put forth as a
practical proposition that Miss Filippi and her
youthful enthusiasts should join forces with the
charactor-actors, and try to run a theatre with some
small public endowment for a common cause ? In
this way there would be a possibility of the public
being attracted, and willing to pay for its seats,
having the assurance that both talent and experi-
ence would be seen at the " Students' Theatre."

The initial difficulty in such a scheme would, of
course, be the admission of candidates, whether
students or actors. And while it would be essential
to ask for the willing co-operation of those actors
who already possessed undoubted reputations as
character-actors, a test qualification would have to
be found which would inspire confidence both in
the public and in the profession, that those who
were elected members had in them the necessary
material for the art of impersonating character. In
fact, the reputation of the theatre should be built
upon the knowledge that only those who had passed
the test qualification were admitted to the rights of
membership. The following kind of test might be
tried, perhaps, to ascertain the ability of the candidate
as an impersonator. He might appear before twelve

A NATIONAL THEATRE 221

of the members, and during the space of half an
hour, without leaving the platform, impersonate
three different characters all of the same type. If
the candidate wishes to qualify for juvenile parts,
then he must satisfy his judges that he is able to
impersonate three young men who may have some
resemblance to each other in appearance, but who
are all different in character, in voice, and in de-
portment, or he may decide to be judged by his
impersonation of middle-aged city clerks, bumpkins,
or pedants; but in every case he should be able to
satisfy his judges that he can show three distinct
characters of the same type. In this way mere
vocal dexterity, mimicry, and " make-up," would
not insure election. The best character-acting is,
of necessity, limited in its extent. The " light "
comedian cannot and should not appear as the
" heavy " father, nor the lean beggar as the fat boy.
Some actors can include a larger range of parts in
their repertory than others. But the real test of
character-acting is in having the ability to reproduce
subtle shades of characterization in certain recog-
nized types.

In putting forth this plea for an enlargement of
the scope of the proposed " Students' Theatre " it is
hoped that, by some such suggestion, the difficulties
in raising the necessary funds for the endowment
which Miss Filippi at present experiences, may dis-
appear. There is no doubt that the money would
be forthcoming as soon as the public had a scheme
presented to it which was the " something" needed.
And the profession, on its side, should remember
that, while it has established many associations to
protect its business interests, it has not yet thought it

222 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

worth while to devote either time or money to the by
no means unnecessary part of a professional career,
which shall provide actors with the opportunity of
perfecting themselves in the study of their art.

2. Mr. Gordon Craig's Sketches.

Shakespeare has long since failed to hold his own
against modern staging, and the possibility of
bringing more taste, skill, and naturalness into the
art of the scene-painter does not remove the difficulty,
but rather increases it. When a dramatist is not on
the spot to rewrite his play to suit the altered con-
ditions of mounting, the question then arises as to
whether the play or the scenery is the thing of most
value. Mr. Sargent does not ask leave to repaint
Raphael's canvas because the draperies in which the
Italian artist has clothed his divine figures are con-
ventional ones. The advocates for modernism
demand that new wine shall be put into old bottles.
No doubt there are some old stone jars that will
bear the strain, in the same way as there are some
old plays which will stand a good deal of decoration ;
but the business of the producer is to know what
kind of decoration is becoming to the art of the
dramatist, and what is derogatory to it. Mr. Craig's
art may help us to derive additional pleasure from
the theatre, but will it help us to understand Shake-
speare's tragedies ? If not, let him make his experi-
ments on the plays of some less gifted dramatist.
The inappropriateness of scenery for Shakespeare
lies, mainly, in its unreality, and Mr. Craig tries to
make it still more unreal. Such properties, or scenes,
as were in use in the poet's lifetime were suggestive
of immediate, and not remote, objects, because what

A NATIONAL THEATRE 223

is distant in place and time has less actuality than
what is near at hand. To see in an Elizabethan
playhouse built-up doors, windows, caverns, arbours,
ramparts, ladders, prepared the minds of the audience
for action, and brought the actors into closer touch
with life.

Now, Mr. Craig's art resembles that of Turner.
He has a sense of beauty and restraint, with a poet's
insight into the meaning of landscape and atmosphere
which stamps him as an artist, and distinguishes
him at once from the scene-painter of Globe Alley.
With him, as with Turner, it is the sun that is the
centre of the universe. His passion is for airy
landscape, unsullied by the presence of the concrete;
and Turner's palaces, boats, and men seem shadowy
things beside the splendour of Turner's sunshine.
But the central interest of drama is human, and it is
necessary that the figures on the stage should appear
larger than the background, or let the readers of
Shakespeare remain at home. To see Mr. Craig's
" rectangular masses illuminated by a diagonal light"
while the poet's characters walk in a darkened fore-
ground, is not, I venture to think, to enjoy the " art
of the theatre." There must be some sane playgoers
who still wish to see in the playhouse Juliet smile
upon Romeo, and Othello frown on lago. " What
a piece of work is man !" says the poet ; but there is
no room for man in Mr. Craig's world.

It is because Mr. Craig's art exposes to view a back-
ground which is effective and suggestive apart from
the needs of drama, that it fails in its purpose. Had he
studied the methods of Rembrandt, instead of those
of Turner, something practical for the stage might
have been forthcoming. With Rembrandt, whether

224 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

it is a windmill, a temple, or a man, it is always
the object, not the landscape, that arrests attention.
The light coming from the front, and not from the
side, first illuminates the objects before reaching the
background. The spectator, as it were, turns on a
bull's-eye lantern, and is thus able to see the story
written on the men's faces. Then the artist contrives
that the mind shall pass by an easy transition from
the faces to the more sombre background. But
unless this transition is gradual and the background
is sombre, interest in figures is proportionally
weakened.

Now, Mr. Roger Fry's sympathetic appreciation
of Mr. Gordon Craig's designs for " Macbeth " may
predispose his readers to believe that they form
a suitable background for a representation of Shake-
speare's tragedy. Some years ago I saw Mr. Craig's
production of "Acis and Galatea," followed by a
masque. It was a stagery of great beauty, and
seemed to initiate new possibilities. But then both
were musical entertainments which gained ap-
preciably by a picturesque background. The action
never clashed with the quaint setting. Unlike the
demands of tragedy, the representation made no
direct appeal to the reason, and no obvious attempt
to purify the emotions. Its main business was to
delight the eye.

Mr. Craig, in his foreword to the printed catalogue
of his exhibition at the Leicester Galleries, remarks
that the designs and models " speak for themselves."
This admission is a merit if the designs are intended
for book illustrations. A picture which arrests the
attention and stirs the imagination gives a pleasurable

A NATIONAL THEATRE 225

and legitimate emotion when it does not clash with
the emotions aroused by the poet or the actor.
Mr. Fry tries to answer this criticism, but not
altogether successfully, since it must be remembered
that Shakespeare, in his day, had no other way of
approaching his audience except through the actors,
and so he was obliged to construct his plays with
this means in view. It is only necessary to quote
from Mr. Craig's notes to his sketches to show that
the poet and the designer do not always pull together,
and that it is doubtful if Mr. Craig's scenery is more
appropriate than any other kind of scenery when it is
used as a background for a Shakespearian play.

" No. 2. — The aim of the designer has been to conceive some
background which would not offend whilst these lines were being
spoken."

But eight lines further on Macbeth says : " Liar and
slave !" This arouses quite another kind of emotion
from that of " To-morrow and to-morrow," etc., and
one for which Mr. Craig's scene is not suitable.

" No. 3. — ... So I conducted the lady to her bedroom, which
is hung with red, and altogether a mysterious room, the only fresh
thing being the sunlight which comes in. . . ."

There are three movements in this scene which
stir varying emotions. The entrance of the lady
with the letter, the return of the husband, the
arriving of Duncan. The last two incidents are
more dramatic than the first one ; but Mr. Craig
never allows the spectator to forget the bed, the
window, the light, and the letter. By the way, is it
not moonlight which comes in at the window ?

" No. ii.— This is known as the ' Murder Scene.' I hope it is
vast enough. . . ."

'5

226 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

It is not the vastness of the scene, nor the huge
door leading to the little room where Duncan lies
murdered, which can show the terror in Macbeth's
soul at the thought of what he has done, and this
terror is the central idea of the scene.

" No. 16. — ... As it is there is great need for scenery, and
therefore the better the scenery the better for the play. . . ."

These words might be interpreted thus : " The
more of Gordon Craig's scenery the better, because
Shakespeare and his actors are very little good
without it." But this is not at all what a producer
should say.

"... Her progress is a curve ; she seems to come from the
past into the present and go away into the future. ..."

Shakespeare makes Lady Macbeth come from her
bedroom to speak a soliloquy about past events,
and then sends her back to her bedroom. But
Mr. Craig seeks to impose another idea upon the
attention of the audience, which is not Shakespeare's
idea at all.

" No. 17. — ... As the sleeping woman descends the stairway
with her lamp, she feels her way with her right hand, touching
each figure, lighting them as she passes . . . and when she has
gone from the scene all life has gone from the figures — once more
they have become cold history. ..."

A pretty idea, but absolutely at variance with the
text. Shakespeare restates in this scene what led
to the undoing of this unhappy but fascinating
woman. Before the murder it was the material
side of things only that appealed to Lady Macbeth.
She thought it was as impossible for a murdered
man to come out of his grave to torment his
murderers as it was for a man who died a natural

A NATIONAL THEATRE 227

death. The dim consciousness that somehow she
was mistaken begins to prove too great a strain for
her energetic little brain. It was also her misfortune,
because not her fault, that she was without imagi-
nation. She was a devoted wife, and possessed
sweet and gracious manners; and Shakespeare, in
this last scene, in which she appears before the
spectators, asks them to pity her because of all that
she is now suffering. But what has this throbbing
emotion, aroused by the author, to do with these
" dead kings and queens " in the cold statuary which
has been superimposed by the artist ?

Mr. Gordon Craig seems to think that Shake-
spearian representation at the present moment
is unsatisfactory, because of our miserable theatres,
with their low proscenium and unimaginative
scenery, which cannot suggest immensity ! Shake-
speare would tell us that the fault lies in our big
scenic stages and our voiceless, dreary acting ;
and two men with such different ideas about the
theatre are not likely to prove successful in col-
laboration.

THE MEMORIAL SCHEME.*

" Doesn't that only prove how little important we regard the drama
as being, and how little seriously we take it, if we won't even trouble
ourselves to bring about decent civil conditions for its existence." —
HENRY JAMES.

Does the present scheme appeal to the nation ?
Will it supply the higher needs of the nation's
drama ? These are questions on which light should
be thrown. Personally I should like to see every
theatre in the country a national one, only the claims

* The New Age, June, 1911.

228 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

of the actor-manager and the syndicates stand in the
way. Certain it is that the imagination of the public
has not yet been touched by this Whitehall scheme;
but then the executive committee has not made the
best of its opportunity. It is two years and three
months now since the first appeal for funds was
made, and so far the response has not been en-
couraging. In March, 1909, the scheme was launched
and priced at half a million of sovereigns ; we are
now within five years of April, 1916, and the total
amount of money raised for the project is about
;£ 1 0,000, excluding the gift of ^"70,000 given by
Sir Carl Meyer, and the amount raised by entertain-
ments. Unfortunately, the cost of collecting this
;£ 10,000 has been very considerable, although it is
not possible to quote the exact amount, because no
accounts have been published during the three years
the executive has been in office. In fact, the attitude
adopted by the executive towards the general com-
mittee is what most calls for explanation.

HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT.

The movement began so far back as the year 1900.
It was then proposed by myself to present to the
London County Council a petition for the grant of a
site for the erection of a memorial in the form of the
old Globe Playhouse, so as to perpetuate for the
benefit of posterity the kind of stage with which
Shakespeare was so long and intimately associated.
The outcome of this proposal, which remained in
abeyance during the anxious period of the war, was
a meeting organized by T. Fairman Ordish, F.S.A.,
and held in the hall of Clifford's Inn on "Shake-
speare Day," 1902. The chair was taken by Mr.

A NATIONAL THEATRE 229

Frederic Harrison, and two resolutions were passed
by the meeting, one establishing the London Shake-
speare Commemoration League, the other recom-
mending that the proposed memorial of the model
Globe Playhouse should be considered by the com-
mittee of the League. It was ultimately found,
however, that a structure of the kind could not be
erected in a central position in London owing to
the County Council's building restrictions. In the
following year an interesting development arose in
connection with the League in the formation of a
provisional committee for a London Shakespeare
Memorial. The movement was made possible by
the generous gift of Mr. Richard Badger to the
London County Council of the sum of £2,500 to form
the nucleus of a fund for the erection of a statue, and
the Council offered a site, if sufficient funds could be
collected to insure a worthy memorial. The League
then formed a provisional committee composed of a
number of influential people, among whom were
eight members of their own council, including the
President, the late Dr. Furnivall. But the idea
of a statue was not the only scheme offered for
the provisional committee's deliberations. Some
were in favour of a " Shakespeare Temple " to
11 serve the purposes of humane learning, much in
the same way as Burlington House has served those
of natural science." This suggestion, however,
called forth a protest, and on February 27, 1905, a
letter appeared in the Times in which it was stated
that " any museum which could be formed in London
would be a rubbish heap of trivialities." The letter
was signed by J. M. Barrie, Professor A. C. Bradley,
Lord Carlisle, Sir W. S. Gilbert, Mr. Edmund Gosse,

23o SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

Mr. Maurice Hewlett, the Earl of Lytton, Dr. Gil-
bert Murray, Lord Onslow, Sir A. W. Pinero, Sir
Frederick Pollock, Mr. A. B. Walkley, and Professor
W. Aldis Wright. On the next day was held a
public meeting at the Mansion House, with the Lord
Mayor presiding. No special mention of a statue
was made, nor of a " Shakespeare Temple," while
Mr. Bram Stoker pointed out the difficulties and
expense of a National Theatre. On the proposition
of Dr. Furnivall, seconded by Sir H. Beerbohm
Tree, the following resolution was passed :

" That the meeting approves of the proposal
for a Shakespeare Memorial in London, and
appoints a general committee, to be further
added to, for the purpose of organizing the
movement and determining the form of a
memorial."

On this general committee I was asked to serve and
was duly elected.

On Thursday, July 6, 1905, the general committee
was summoned to the Mansion House to receive
the report of the special committee appointed to
consider the various proposals. This committee,
which was elected by the general committee, was as
follows : Lord Alverstone, Lord Avebury, Lord
Reay, Sir Henry Irving, Sir R. C. Jebb, Sir E.
Maunde Thompson, Mr. F. R. Benson, Mr. S. H.
Butcher, Mr. W. L. Courtney, Mr. Walter Crane,
Dr. F. J. Furnivall, Sir G. L. Gomme, Mr. Anthony
Hope Hawkins, Mr. Bram Stoker, Dr. A. W. Ward.

The recommendation made by this committee,
which was unanimously adopted, was that "the
form of the memorial be that of an architectural
monument including a statue." But it was also

A NATIONAL THEATRE 231

recommended, if funds permitted, as a possible sub-
sidiary project, " the erection of a building in which
Shakespeare's plays could be acted without scenery."
This part of the scheme met with strong opposition
from some members of the general committee, and
Sir Herbert Tree, as representing the dramatic
profession, declared that he could not, and would
not, countenance it.

Finally, by the narrow majority of one vote (that
of the chairman, Lord Reay) it was decided that
this part of the report should be dropped, as well
as the proposal to use, as a site, a space near the new
London County Hall, recommended for its proximity
to the locality of the old Globe playhouse.

On March 5, 1908, the general committee were
again summoned to the Mansion House to receive
the further recommendations of the executive
committee after their consultation with an advisory
committee consisting of seven persons, five of whom
were members of the Royal Academy. The meeting
confirmed the recommendation that a statue be
erected in Park Crescent, Portland Place, at a cost
of not less than £100,000, and an additional £100,000,
if collected, " to be administered by an international
committee for the furtherance of Shakespearian
aims." What was remarkable to me about this meet-
ing was the small attendance. There could not have
been more than two dozen persons present. I
believe I was the only one there to raise a debate
on the report, and, my objections being ignored,
letters from me appeared the next day in the Times
and the Daily News attacking the constitution of the
committee selected to approve of the design. Among
those chosen there was not one Shakespearian

232 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

scholar, no poet, and no dramatist. What, then,
would be the effect upon the designers of having to
submit their models to a committee of this kind ?
Instead of the artists giving their faculties full play
to produce some original and great piece of sculp-
ture worthy of Shakespeare's genius, they would be
striving to design something specially suited to meet
the limited and, perhaps, prejudiced ideas of their
judges (the professional experts), while the general
committee, responsible to the public for the National
Memorial, would be handing over its duties to an
academy which had never shown any special appre-
ciation of the poet and his plays ; for, so far as my
experience goes, there never has been a Shake-
spearian picture exhibited on the walls of the Royal
Academy which was not, as to costume and in idea,
a burlesque of the dramatist's intentions, always
excepting those painted by Seymour Lucas, R.A.,
who, strange to say, was not one of the judges
selected.

But it soon became evident from correspondence
in the newspapers that the project of a statue in
Portland Place did not satisfy the wishes of a very
large number of influential men, and of a very im-
portant section of the public. Accordingly, a public
meeting took place at the Lyceum Theatre, under
the presidency of Lord Lytton, on Tuesday
May 19, 1908, when a resolution was carried in
favour of a National Theatre as a memorial to
Shakespeare. Steps were then taken to amalga-
mate the existing Shakespeare Memorial Com-
mittee with the National Theatre Committee. A
new executive was nominated, and again, for the
third time, the general committee was summoned

A NATIONAL THEATRE 233

on March 23, 1909, to receive and sanction the
report, which recommended the raising by sub-
scription of £500,000 to build and endow a theatre
in which Shakespeare's plays should be acted for at
least one day in each week.

This, then, is the history of the movement, we
may almost call it of the conflict, which for seven
years centred round the great event that is to
happen in 1916. And, alas! this scheme, like all the
others, is now found to be impracticable, because the
amount of money asked for is far more than the
country is able to give. The executive did not
grasp the fact that there is so large a demand
made upon the public's purse to fight political
battles and to fill the Government treasury, that
half a million of money cannot now be raised both
to build and endow a theatre. The executive is
obsessed with the notion that you cannot have a
National Theatre without building a new theatre,
while as a fact you cannot have it without an
endowment. It is by protecting the art of the actor,
so that the poet's words and characters may be
finely interpreted, that the memory of Shakespeare
can be best honoured.

THE EXECUTIVE'S REPORT.

We now have to consider what seems to me to be
the chief flaw in the National Theatre scheme as it
is at present initiated, and that is the report which
was brought before the general committee on
March 23, 1909, and which was accepted by them,
but not without protest — at least, from myself.
The Lord Mayor's " parlour " was crowded with
at least a hundred men and women, consisting of

234 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

the general and provisional committees of the two
rival schemes, now amalgamated, all of whom were
meeting together for the first time ; and it was
evident to me that with the exception of the execu-
tive, those present had little idea of what they were
called upon to do, or were aware that they were
conferring powers upon the executive as to the
management of our National Theatre which, when
once granted, made it impossible for the general
committee to reopen any point, to revise their de-
cisions, or to alter them. It is true that the executive
stated in their report " that the time had not arrived
for framing statutes in a form which could be con-
sidered final," but so far as the general committee
was concerned what they once sanctioned they
could not withdraw. On the other hand, what
modifications or additions the executive afterwards
made in the report should naturally have come
again before the general committee for its approval,
a point overlooked or ignored by the executive, as
will appear later on. But the fact is that the report
is a mistake, and should never have been passed by
the general committee, for it either states too much
or too little, and can please nobody. Since the
executive had decided that they must purchase a
site and build a new theatre (an altogether un-
necessary proceeding, in my opinion), it would have
been better to report on this part of the scheme
first, and to leave the question of management
for future discussion ; for the financial question
alone might well have received more careful con-
sideration. As the report now stands, subscribers
are not protected in any way. The executive may
begin building whenever they choose, and incur

A NATIONAL THEATRE 235

debts, and mortgage both land and building as soon
as they possess either. They can spend on bricks
and mortar all the money they receive to the extent
of £250,000, without putting by a penny towards
the endowment fund. In fact, no precautions have
been taken to avoid a repetition of the disaster that
befell the building of the English Opera House,
which soon afterwards became the Palace Music-
Hall.

But more inexplicable still are the clauses referring
to the management of the theatre, to which, unfortu-
nately, the general committee have pledged them-
selves. We have decided that "the supreme
controlling authority of the theatre " shall be a
body of governors who will number about forty,
but apparently their " supreme control " is limited
to nominating seven of their number as a standing
committee, some of whom, and under certain
eventualities all of whom, may be elected for life.
This standing committee, however, is to hand over
all that is vital in the management of a theatre to
a director over whom it has no control beyond
either confirming all he does or dismissing him, so
that the National Theatre in reality becomes a one-
man's hobby. So long as the director is clever
enough to humour four out of the seven members
of the standing committee, he can run the theatre for
the amusement of himself and his friends. He may
choose the plays, arrange the programmes, engage
and dismiss the artistes, and can even produce all
the plays himself; the only thing he cannot do is to
act in them ; and yet so little have the framers of
the report grasped the realities of the situation that,
in their other clauses, they refer to the governors

236 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

dispensing pensions and honorary distinctions on
the actors, forgetting that the unfortunate players
are the servants of their servant the director, who
can dismiss them three days before the honours and
pensions become due, so that even in dispensing
favours the voice of the director is supreme. As
the report stands at present confirmed there is no
elasticity allowed to the standing committee to give
permanency to those parts of the director's manage-
ment which are evidently successful and efficient,
and to restrict and finally abolish what is unsatis-
factory. There is no choice between dismissing the
director, or tolerating his defects for the sake of
what he does well. But the director should be the
chairman of the standing committee ; he should
have power to engage the producers of the plays,
because more than one is wanted; and each producer
should be given sole control over the cast and the
staging of the play for which he is specially engaged.
Then in the case of failure there would be always
a remedy. Producers, authors, and actors who showed
that they were unskilful in the work they were called
upon to do would not be again invited to help in the
performances of the National Theatre ; but in regard
to those who had shown exceptional talent, steps
would be taken to gradually add them to the per-
manent staff, while the fact that the director was
chairman of the standing committee would add to
the dignity and importance of the artistes' engage-
ments, and would insure respect and fair treatment
for their labours. As the position is now, no talent
can come into the theatre except at the will of one
person, who would occupy no higher post there
than that of a salaried official. This means that
outside talent, however admirable of its kind, would

A NATIONAL THEATRE 237

never be seen in our National Theatre if it is not to
the liking of the director ; and it may be taken for
granted, as the clause now stands, that no artist
would accept dismissal from the director without
appealing to the standing committee, hoping to pre-
judice the director in its eyes, and thus to create fric-
tion between the standing committee and its director.

Now, in regard to the choice of new plays. Here
the standing committee apparently has the final
word, which, as a fact, has no real value attached to
it, because all new plays have first to be reported
upon (that is, recommended) by the director and
the literary manager, and if a new play is chosen
against the wishes of the director, its fate is none
the less sealed, since he has sole control over the
casting of the play and its production. But before
a new play can be produced at the National Theatre
it ought to be submitted to the opinion of the three
parties interested in its production. Experts know
that a dramatic success depends upon (i) the quality
of the play, (2) the ability of the actors who interpret
the play, (3) the intelligence or taste of the audience ;
therefore the play, to be fairly judged, should be
read before a tribunal consisting of the director,
two dramatists (who have contributed plays to the
repertory), two of the theatre's leading actors, and
two members of the standing committee. Authors
would then know that their work would be judged
by experts representing every department of the
theatre.

Then there is the question of what plays, other
than new ones, should be included in the repertory.
Here, again, the choice rests with the director, and
if his taste is not catholic, what confusion he will
make of it ! For instance, are such plays classical

238 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

as " Still Waters Run Deep," "The Road to
Ruin," and " Black- Eyed Susan"? In one sense I
think they are, because they represent the best
examples of types of English plays at a certain
period. But some men might not think so. It is
too large a question for one man to handle.

The fault, then, of the constitution of the National
Theatre, as it is at present framed, is that all the
direction of what is vital to the dignity and
permanency of the institution is put under the
control of one man, when no single person can pos-
sibly have the knowledge and experience to cover
so large a variety of work. Discrimination has not
been shown between what is required of a Reper-
tory Theatre and a National Theatre. The former
is purely an experimental theatre, where courage
and freedom is an advantage in a director. We look
upon him as the pioneer to revolutionize existing
conventions which have had their day and lost their
use. He is an innovator, and we forgive his failures
for the sake of his successes. Far different is the
position of the National Theatre. Its mission is not
to make experiments, but to assimilate the talent
which has already been tried and found deserving,
and to rescue from oblivion good plays for the
permanent use of the community. Besides, its pro-
ceedings must be carried on with decorum. It has
State functions and duties to consider; it has all
shades of political and religious differences to take
into consideration. One mistake might alienate
the support of Royalty or of the Government ; of
Parliament, of the Clergy, or of the Democracy.
Surely the direction of such an institution can be
more efficiently carried on by a committee than by
an individual I

A NATIONAL THEATRE 239

Now, I sympathize with a National Theatre as
a memorial to Shakespeare, because I think the
highest honour that can be rendered to our poet-
dramatist is to provide English actors — and Shake-
speare was himself an actor — with a permanent home
where dramatic art as an art can be recognized and
encouraged ; and a National Theatre can give dignity
to the dramatic profession and inspire emulation
among its members by conferring upon them honours
and rewards, provided always that the actors are the
servants of the institution and not of a salaried
official in that institution. Personally, I do not care
to see Shakespeare acted in a modern theatre, and I%
do not think his plays can ever have justice done to
them in such a building. But, none the less, I look
upon a National Theatre as an imperative need if
the drama is to flourish, and I believe, if Shakespeare
were living to-day, he would say so too. The
executive of the present Memorial, to my mind,
made a false start by concentrating public attention
on the building as the primary object, instead of on
the institution, and then by ignoring the claims of
the dramatic profession to recognition. The labour,
the anxiety, the expense of providing the public with
plays in this country has been hitherto, and is still,
borne by our actor-managers. They at present are
the people's favourites, and all have individually a
large public following. It was but just to these men
to ask them to come into the scheme as honorary
members of the institution, in the hope that they
would associate themselves with those parts and
plays of more than ordinary merit which undoubtedly
have a claim to be admitted into the repertory of a
National Theatre, and with which they individually
were specially identified. But while I appreciate

24o SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

the wisdom and justice of inviting those gentlemen
who have hitherto borne the burden of theatrical
management to contribute the best of their talent to
the stage of a National Theatre, I fail to see the
advantage of their help on the executive. However
eminent as an expert a man may be, his use on the
executive entirely depends on the confidence he
inspires among his fellow-councillors, and it is only
necessary to read the names of those who constitute
the executive to realize that there is no possibility
of any one personality dominating the council. As
a consequence, the committee breaks up into groups
whose aims are more political than practical. The
second urgent matter for consideration by the execu-
tive was the provincial Repertory Theatre. Where is
the advantage of a National Theatre in London unless
there are existing at least six Repertory Theatres
in the provinces which may serve as training
grounds for actors and for the experiments of
dramatists? Every encouragement, then, should
have been given to our leading municipalities to
interest themselves in raising money to endow local
Repertory Theatres, and the executive of the London
Memorial would be doing more good to the cause of
drama by spending the interest of its capital in
helping these local theatres to come into existence
than by wasting their money in the way they are
doing at the present time. Indeed, it seems as if
the only hope of a National Theatre becoming a
reality will consist in the assurance that the capital
already raised shall be set apart for the endowment
fund, and that only the interest of this capital
shall be available for expenditure by the executive
committee.

INDEX

ACHESON, MR. ARTHUR, on "Troi-
lus and Cressida," 100

Act-drop, the, 119

Acting and stage illusion, 7 ; rapid
delivery, 17 ; Hey wood on, 19 ;
as a business, 217 ; character
acting, 219 et seq.

Actors: Elizabethan, 8, 9, 20, 21 ;
prosperity and position of, 22 ;
apprentices, 24 ; qualities of,
24 ; in double parts, 25 ; re-
lations between authors and, 44 ;
hired players, 45 ; Elizabethan,
and the construction of Shake-
speare's plays, 51, 53; elocu-
tion of, 56

Actors, English : and English
tragedy, 177; personality of,
219

Agincourt, representation of, 48

"All is True," 87

Alleyne, Edward, 79

Apprentices, actors', 24

Archer, Mr. William, and popular
taste in drama, 193 et seq.

Bacon and the writing of drama,

39
Bacon-Shakespeare controversy,

38

Badger, Mr. Richard, 229
Barker, Mr. Granville, 194, 202
Barrie, Mr. J. M. , 195
Bell's edition of Shakespeare, 51,

58
Blackfriars Theatre, 45, 68, 115,

208

Boy actors in women's parts, 9
Boyle, Robert, and « Henry VIII.,"

93

Brandram, Samuel, 166

Bronte, Charlotte : and a high

forehead, 137 ; and English

tragedy, 176

Brooke, Arthur, 133, 151
Browning, Robert, on " Henry

VIII.," 93
Brydges, Mary, no
Burbage, Richard, as actor, 20,

86, 1 66
Busino's visit to the Fortune

Playhouse, 13

Capell, Edward, as Shakespeare

editor, 37, 44

"Castle Spectre, The," 196
"Cesario," 39
Chapel Royal, children of the,

45
Chapman, George : and " Troilus

and Cressida," 100 et seq.;

opponent of Shakespeare, 102
Character-acting, 219 et seq.
Chorus, the, 12

Christians, Marlowe's, and Shake-
speare's Jew, 69 et seq.
Claretie, M., 198
Clowns, 21
Coleridge, S. T., on " Henry VIII.,"

89
Collier, J. P., on the effect of

theatrical absence of scenery

on dramatic poetry, 8
Comedie Fran9aise," the, visit to

London, 198

" Comedy of Errors," 31, 42
Congreve, William, 196
Craig, Mr. Gordon : sketches, 222 ;

inappropriateness of his scenery

for Shakespeare, 222 ; com-

241

16

242 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

parison with Turner, 223 ; criti-
cism of his art, 223 ; designs
for "Macbeth," 224-227; his
" Acis and Galatea," 224
" Curtain " in theatres, 120
Curtain Theatre, 7, in, 115
" Cynthia's Revels," 21

Davenant, Sir William, 144

Dekker, Thomas : as player, 103 ;
"Gul's Horn-Booke," 208

Diderot's " Pere de Famille,"
197

Digges, Leonard, on a Shake-
peare performance, 13

Dolby's "British Theatre," 53

Dowden, Edward, 145, 147, 153

Drake, Dr., on " Henry VIII.,"
88

Dramatists and the public, 194
et seq.

Dramatists : the Elizabethan, and
the contemporary theatre, 5,
10 ; topical plays, 15 ; moral
aim, 1 6 ; and the printing of
plays, 1 8 ; supervision of acting,
25 ; Puritans and, 26 ; relations
between, and actors, 44

Duncan (in " Macbeth "), 62

Earl's Court: Shakespeare at,
208; staging at, 209; "The
Tricking of Malvolio," 209 ;
star actor, 209 ; " Twelfth
Night," 210 ; performances
misleading, 215 ; " Enchant-
ment of Titania," 216; "The
Merchant of Venice," 216; a
travesty of Shakesperian drama,
216

Edwards, Thomas, 91

Elizabeth, Queen, 62, 63 ; Lord
Essex and, 108-112

Elizabeth's, Queen, Chapel, boys
for, 10

Elizabethan Stage Society, the,
203 ; its origin, 204 ; " Measure
for Measure," 205; "Twelfth
Night, ' ' 205 ; list of plays per-
formed (1893-1913), 206-207

Elocution : of Elizabethan actors,
19,56 ; 'modern, in Shakespeare
acting, 57, 58, 59

Elze, Dr. Karl, on "Henry VIII.,"

9i

Emerson, R. W., on "Henry
VIII. ,"91

Emphasis, faulty, in rendering

Shakespeare, 59
English Opera House (now Palace

Music Hall), 235
Essex, Earl of, 101 ; in " Troilus

and Cressida," 108-112
Euripides, 195
' ' Everyman, ' ' 206

Falstaff: Sir John Oldcastle as,

112 ; effect of character of, on

Shakespeare's position, 115
Faustus legend, 68
Field, Nathan, 21 ; anecdote of,

23
Filippi's, Miss Rosina, project for

a students' theatre, 216
Flecknoe, Richard, on the drama

after Shakespeare's death, 16
Fletcher, John, and authorship of

"Henry VIII.," 92
Fleury, M., 79
Folk-songs, Elizabethan, 44
Ford, John, 180
Fortune Theatre, n, 12, 13, 40,

205, 208
Frohman's, Mr., Repertory

Theatre, 193, 199
Fry's, Mr. Roger, appreciation of

Mr. Gordon Craig, 224
Furnivall, Dr. F. J., 38, 229

Garrick, David: as exponent of

Shakespeare, 5 ; version of

" Romeo and Juliet," 140
" George Barnwell," 196
Gervinus, G. G.: on " Henry VIII.,"

90 ; on " Troilus and Cressida, ' '

107
Globe players' rights in "Troilus

and Cressida," 116
Globe Playhouse, memorial in

form of, 228, 231
Globe Theatre, 7, n, 45, 48, 54,

57, 58, 68, 86, 98, 102, 104, 115,

116, 180
Globe Theatre at Earl's Court,

208
Goethe, 194

INDEX

243

Gonzalo dialogue in "The Tem-

pest," 55
" Gorbuduc," 40
Gosson, Stephen, 21
Gray's Inn, 42
Green, J. R., on Queen Elizabeth

and Mary Stuart, 63
Greene, Robert, "Friar Bacon

and Friar Bungay, ' ' 79
Greenwich Palace, 40

Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O., on the
Shakespearian theatre, 7, n

"Hamlet": clown referred to,
22; early quartos, 31, 47 ; breaks
in, 42 ; stage directions in first
quarto, 50, 53, 54; alterations,
54, 160 ; acting edition and
Globe edition, 156 ; omissions,
156, 157, 161-175 5 Fortinbras,
157 ; French's acting edition
and Globe edition compared,

158 et seq. ; stage directions,

159 ; entrance of Hamlet, 159 ;
Cumberland's version, 160, 163,
164, 168, 171 ; the period of the
play, 163 ; Oxberry's edition,
164 ; the Dumb Show, 166 ;
the exit of the King, 167 ;
changes suggested, 170; Ophelia
and flowers, 172; her burial,
173 ; the poison cups, 174 ; the
conclusion, 175 ; suggestions for
an authoritative acting version,
175; performance of first quarto,
204

Hart, H. C., 112

Heine, Heinrich, on Shylock, 69

Heminge and Condell : and the
first folio, 32 ; and divisions
in the plays, 41; and "Henry
VIII.," 87; and "Troilus and
Cressida," 99

"Henry IV.," 115 ; epilogue to
Part II.. 101

"Henry V.": choruses, 7, 40;
the early quarto, 48 ; produced,

"5

"Henry VIII.": the authorship
of, 85 et seq. ; earliest mention
of, 86 ; criticisms, 88 et seq. ;
stage directions, 94 ; summary
of the arguments as to its
genuineness, 96

Henslowe's " Diary," 15

Hertzberg, Professor, on " Henry
VIII.," 90

Heywood, Thomas : on the Eng-
lish siage, 13 ; in defence of
acting, 19 ; of plays, 27 ; reply
to the Puritans, 107

Historical dramas disapproved, 45

Homer, Chapman and Shake-
speare renderings, 100

Hugo, Victor, on " Henry VIII.,"

Impersonation in acting, 219
Ireland in Elizabethan drama,

16
Irving, Sir Henry : as Shylock,

71 ; on acting, 219

Jew: Shakespeare's, 70; Christian
ideas of, 73. See also Shylock

«' Jew of Malta, The, ' ' Marlowe's,
72, 80

" John Bull's Other Island," 200

Johnson, Dr. : on Shakespeare,
36, 38 ; and continuous per-
formance, 43 ; on " Henry VIII.,"
88 ; and " She Stoops to Con-
quer," 197

Jones, Inigo, 18, 96, 141

Jonson, Ben : and double story
in plays, 14 ; and simplicity of
representation, 17 ; and a good
tragedy, 19; a " poet with prin-
ciple," 23; and Latin comedy,
40; and "Sejanus," 41, 102;
"Poetaster," allusion to Shake-
speare in, 100 et seq. ; relations
with Shakespeare, 102 ; "Every
Man Out of His Humour," 112 ;
and Inigo Jones's scenery, 141

"Julius Caesar," 13

Kean, Edmund : delivery of, 58 ;
and Hamlet, 164

Kemp the clown, 21, 22, 24

"King John," 39

"King Lear": breaks in, 41;
Steevens's comment on dia-
logue, 56; Rossi's rendering,
177 ; its period, 178 ; its modern
production, 179 ; anachronisms

244 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

and costumes, 179 ; excisions,
181, 184; Edmund's speech,
181 ; the putting out of Glou-
cester's eyes, 182 ; sympathy
with poor, 183 ; its modern
dramatic presentation, 185-189 ;
misrepresentation of Lear, 186 ;
and of Edmund, 188

" King's Company, The," 9, 27

Knight, Charles, 94

Lady Macduff, 61

Lamb, Charles, 196

Lee, Sir Sidney, 205

"Leicester's, Lord, Servants," 9

Lessing, G. E., 155, 194

Lewis, L. D., 196

Lillo, George, 196

London Corporation and theatres,

25
London County Council and

Shakespeare Memorial, 228,

229
London life in Elizabethan drama,

15

London Shakespeare Commemor-
ation League, 229

London theatres, seventeenth
century, 13

Lord Chamberlain's company, 9,
12

Lorkin, Thomas, 86

" Love's Labour's Lost," 42

Lucas, Mr. Seymour, R.A., 232

" Lucrece, " 113

Lyceum Theatre, 71

"Macbeth": perfect in design,
13 ; breaks in, 41 ; Bell's criti-
cism of, 52 ; Garrick's version
of, 52 ; when written, 68 ; Mr.
Gordon Craig's designs for,
224-227

Macbeth, Lady: the character of,
61 et seq. ; Mrs. Siddons as, 61 ;
her femininity, 65; the char-
acter misunderstood, 68 ; part
overacted, 69

Macready, W. C, and the ladder,
43 ; Charlotte Bronte on his
acting, 176

" Madras House, The," 201

Maeterlinck, M., 202

Malone, Edmund, as Shakespeare
editor, 37

Marlowe, Christopher : " Bar-
abas," 72, 80, 84; Jews and
Christians in "Rich Jew of
Malta" and "Merchant of
Venice," 78; " Faustus," 80;
and Christianity, 79-81

" Marrying of Ann Leete, The,"
202

Marston, John, 103

Mary Stuart, 62, 63

Massinger, Philip, 93

Maugham, W. S. , 195

1 ' Measure for Measure, ' ' revival
of, 205

' ' Merchant of Venice ' ' : breaks
in, 42, 43 ; the early quarto, 47 ;
story of the play, 123-133 ; the
Prince of Morocco, 126; the
Prince of Arragon, 128 ; the trial
scene as now acted, 131. See
also Shylock

" Misalliance," Shaw's, 199

Moneylenders in plays, 75

Mozart, W. A., 194, 200

Munich, Court Theatre, 177

Music in the Elizabethan theatre,
ii

Nash, Thomas, " The Isle of

Dogs," 112

National theatre, a, 198
New Shakespeare Society, 94
Noblemen and the maintenance

of actors, 9

Oldcastle, Sir John, 112
Opinion, change of, effect on

plays, 70

Ordish, Mr. T. Fairman, 228
" Othello," 13
Othello, Nathan Field as, 21

Painter, William, 133
Perfall, Baron, 18
"Pericles," 31
Personality in acting, 219
Playgoers, intolerant, 196
Plays, Elizabethan: not divided

into acts, n ; lost, 15
Pollard, Mr. A. W., 98

INDEX

245

Pope, Alexander : as Shakespeare
editor, 33 ; and " The Tempest,"

55

Popular taste in drama, 194
Portia, 8 1
Portland Place for Shakespeare

Memorial, 231, 232
" Prattle," 57
Prompters, 24
Puritans, the : and actors, 21 ;

and theatres, 25

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 112

Reformation, the, 68, 69

Renaissance, the, 69

Repertory theatre, the, 193 ; and
a national theatre, 198

Restoration, the, drama, 196

"Richard II.," political signifi-
cance of, 112

Robinson, Dick, 21

Roderick, Richard, on " Henry
VIII.," 91

"Romeo and Juliet": second
edition of, 31 ; breaks in, 41 ;
early quarto, 47, 49; Garrick's
version, 53 ; earliest acting ver-
sion, 53 ; Shakespeare's pro-
logue and change in the motive,
134 ; stage representation, 135 ;
story of the play, 135-155 ; hos-
tilities between the two houses,
X35. 156 ; Rosaline's character,
137; Irving acting version, 137,
141, 146, 147, 151, 153, 155;
Mercutio, 138 ; Capulet's char-
acter, 139 ; Garrick's version,
140; "balcony scene," 140;
Shakespeare as Benvolio, 144 ;
the Friar, 146; Juliet as wife,
147 ; her part overdone on
stage, 148 ; scenes omitted, 149 ;
" potion scene," 150; the catas-
trophe, 153 ; Cumberland ver-
sion, 155 ; mixed nature of the
play, 155

Rose Theatre, 40, 112

Rossi, Signor, as King Lear, 177,

187
Rowe's, Nicholas, edition of

Shakespeare, 33
Royalty Theatre, Soho, 205
Ruskin, John, on poets and their
courage, 5

Salvini as Othello, 127, 185
Sand, George, on popular taste,

194

Scenery : disadvantages of, 7 ;
Mr. Gordon Craig's designs,
222-227

Schiller, J. C. F. von, 194
Schlegel on " Henry VIII.," 88
" Sejanus," 41, 102
Shakespeare : and contemporary
representation, 3 ; effect of
absence of theatrical scenery,
8 ; avoids interruptions in his
plays, 12 ; and double story in
plays, 14 ; interludes, 15 ; re-
presentations of to-day, 18 ;
and acting, 20 ; and extempori-
zation, 22 ; opinion of his
comedies, 26 ; dramas to-day
and discrepancies, 31 ; mistakes
of editors, 31 ; plays published
in his lifetime, 31 ; the early
quartos, 31 ; the first folio,
32 ; divisions in the plays, 32,
41-44 ; Rowe's edition, 33 ;
Pope's edition, 34 ; Steevens's
edition, 36; Capell1 sedition, 37;
Malone's edition, 37 ; Shake-
speare as dramatic writer, 39 ;
arrangement of characters, 41 ;
plays without intervals, 43 ;
need of re-editing without divi-
sions, 44; his income, 45, 96;
dramas ahead of his day, 46 ;
interpretation of his plays, 46 ;
acting versions (the quartos),
47 ; Bell's edition of 1773, 51 ;
interference with his dramatic
intentions, 53 ; shortening of
plays, 54; faulty elocution in
modern rendering, 57 ; causes
of present-day want of appre-
ciation, 59 ; need to edit the
early quartos for acting, 60 ;
actors interpret to suit change
of opinions, 71 ; writes of
plays and not of masques,
96 ; satire, 107 ; his affinities
as reflected in his plays, 107 ;
political allusions, 112 ; inno-
vations of the stage, 119 ; how
modern representations are pro-
duced, 120 ; contrast between
Shakespeare and modern drama,

246 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THEATRE

122 ; and prologues, 134 ; his
tact, 145 ; the star actor and
mutilation of the plays, 154 ;
acting editions and the author's
intentions, 175 ; authoritative
acting versions suggested, 175 ;
should be produced as written,
1 80 ; Shakespeare and demo-
cracy, 183 ; as revised at Earl's
Court, 208-216 ; as rendered
to-day, 214. See also under the
names of the separate plays

Shakespeare Memorial Scheme :
raising of funds, 227, 228 ; his-
tory of the movement, 228-233 ;
the executive's report, 233-240

Shakespeare statue, projected, 231

" Shakespeare Temple," 229

Shaw, Mr. G. Bernard, 194 ; his
" Misalliance," 199 ; " John
Bull's Other Island," 200

Sheridan's " The Rivals," 197

Shore, Emily, on •• Henry VIII.,"
89

" Shylock " : controversy, 48 ;
Heine on, 69 ; the character
of, 70 et seq. ; as usurer, 72, 75 ;
paraphrase of the character, 73 ;
as an old man, 125 ; the worst-
ing of, 132

Siddons, Mrs. : and Lady Mac-
beth, 46, 6 1 ; and rendering of
Shakespeare, 58

Sidney, Sir Philip, and scenery
of plays, 6

"Silas Marner," George Eliot's,
125

Simpson, Richard, 108, 114

Spedding, James, on " Henry
VIII.," 92

Stage : the Elizabethan, and its
contemporary dramatists, 3 ;
ignorance concerning the rela-
tions between the theatre and
the dramatists, 14 ; quality of
the performances, 5 ; colour, 6 ;
scenes, 6 ; disadvantages of
scenery, 7 ; construction of
theatres, 10 ; quality of the
plays, 13 ; performance con-
tinuous, 14, 43 ; Flecknoe on
changes after Shakespeare, 16 ;
length of performance, 17 ;
opposition, 25 ; educational

value, 27; "business" on, 50;
movement on, 95. See also
Theatre

Stage: the modern, and Shake-
speare, 119 ; how plays are now
produced, 120

" Stage Player's Complaint," 57

Stationers' Register, the, 15, 98

Steevens, George : as Shakespeare
editor, 36; comment on " King
Lear," 56

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 18

"Stranger, The," 196

Students' theatre, a, 216

Swinburne, A. C., on "Henry
VIII.," 93

Symonds, J. A., on the Eliza-
bethan theatre, 7, 9

"Tempest, The," 41; the Gon-
zalo dialogue, 55

Tennyson, Lord, on the author-
ship of " Henry VIII.," 92

Theatre, National : as Shake-
speare Memorial, 230, 232-240;
its proposed management, 235-
240

Theatre, the repertory, 193 ; and
a national theatre, 198 ; a
students' theatre, 216

Theatres: Elizabethan, construc-
tion and small size of, 10 ;
musical interludes, n, 40 ;
length of performance, 17 ; the
City Corporation and, 25 ; the
Puritans and, 25. See also Stage

Theatres, English and Continental,
217

Tragedy, English, and the English
stage, 176, 177

Tree Sir Herbert, 214, 231

"Troilus and Cressida " : early
quarto, 47 ; the mystery of, 98,
115, 116; in the first folio,
99 ; Jonson and, 100 et seq. ;
Chapman and, TOO et seq. ; dis-
like of the play, 106 ; its satire,
107 ; and the Earl of Essex,
108-112 ; when written, 113,
114; Troy story in, 113; the
word used in, 114 ; Globe
players' rights in, 115

Troy story in " Troilus and Cres-
sida," and in " Lucrece," 113

INDEX

247

"Twelfth Night": constructive
art in, 39 ; revival of, 205 ;
mistakes in, at Earl's Court,
210-213 ; traditional errors, 214

"Two Gentlemen of Verona," 40

Ulrici on " Henry VIII.," 90

Valentine, 39

Venetian theatre in 1605, 12

Viola, 39

" Voysey Inheritance, The," 201

Ward, Dr. A. W., 73, 106

Webster, John, n

Women players, effect of their

introduction, 61

Women's parts, boy actors for, 9
Wotton, Sir Henry, 86
Wycherley, William, 196

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