Shakespeare's plays: a chapter of stage history. An essay on the Shakesperian drama

932.t

i-NRLF

27 3DD

o

SHAKESPEARE'S PLATS

CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY,

AN ESSAY ON THE SHAKESPERIAN DRAMA.

BY A. H.j P£GET.

LONDON:

JOHN AvILSON, 12, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND.

1875.

Price One Shilling.

SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY.

SHAKESPEARE'S PLATS:

CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY.

AN ESSAY ON THE SHAKESPEBIAN DRAMA.

BY A. H. PAGET.

LONDON:

JOHN WILSON, 12, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRANb.

1875.

Price One Shilling.

P/35

PREFACE.

THE following pages were originally prepared as a
paper to be read before the Leicester Literary and
Philosophical Society, early in the present year ; and,
at the time of its delivery, I had no intention of their
appearing in print. Since then, however, sugges-
tions kindly made by Mr. J. 0. Halliwell, Mr. C.
Roach Smith, and other gentlemen qualified to advise,
have led me to venture upon publication ; and I now
lay my essay, in a slightly enlarged form, before
such of the general public as take interest in tracing
the connection of Shakespeare's works with the
English stage.

A. II. P.
April, 1875.

M65591O

SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY.

THE title of this paper, I trust, fairly indicates
the subject proposed. It does not treat of Shake-
speare personally ; nor of his plays, described simply
with reference to himself. There is no attempt to
show how the plays became what they are ; I simply
take them as they stand, and try to show what has
been done with them since they came from the mind
of the poet. I want to tell something of the condi-
tions under which they have been presented during
a long series of years ; for although Shakespeare is
so much more to us than a mere writer of stage
plays, I dare assert that now, as in his own day, the
theatre is his proper and most natural home. He
may be studied and dearly prized in all places ; but to
know Shakespeare in his fulness, without the agency
of the stage, is, to my mind, as impossible as to
taste the magical charm of snowy peaks and glaciers
only from poring over books of science at home.

Our concern, then, is less with the great Original
than with those men through whom, for better or

SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

worse, lie has been made known ; the dramatists
who have handled his plays, and the actors who have
been the living embodiments of his creations. It is
a wide field of research, and a lecture can only point
out a few of its features. The temptation to pile
up great names, and say a little about everything,
must be resisted. And, so, looking to the real drift
of the matter, and trying to find for this paper the
most exact description, I have ventured to call it
'A Chapter of Stage History.'

It would seem best to begin with an account of
the Elizabethan theatres, in order to explain how
Shakespeare's plays were first acted, and that we
might call to mind under what outer conditions he
wrote as he did. But this of itself is ample subject
for a lecture, and, awaiting further instalments from
Mr. Halliwell of his ' Illustrations of the Life of
Shakespeare,7 the task would be somewhat hazar-
dous. The company of players to which the poet
belonged travelled about, performing in noblemen's
mansions, inn-yards, and civic halls; in our own
Townhall, Mr. Kelly has told us.* But they were
chiefly engaged at two theatres in London, the
Blackfriars, and a large circular or polygonal play-
house, the Globe, on the Bankside. The buildings
were simple in form; in the ^larger theatres only the
stage, the 'tiring rooms, and galleries were roofed
over, the central space, or yard, being open to the
sky. There must have been plenty of shouting and

* ' Notices illustrative of the Drama and other Amusements at
Leicester,' by William Kelly.

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HIST011Y. 9

bluster on the stage, and rough manners among the
audience. There was no scenery; the walls were
draped with tapestry or curtains, and other curtains
placed between the front of the stage and the back,
called traverses, increased or lessened the visible
area, according as they were drawn together or
thrown apart. There was then nothing of the stage
illusion that forms so large a part of modern thea-
trical displays. The actors were left on a naked
platform, to tell the poet's story by their own un-
aided efforts.

Now, we may well believe that there were real
advantages in this simplicity and freedom from the
restraints that the attempt to produce scenery would
have imposed. There was then nothing to distract
the mind : old tapestry and traverses suggest no
comparison with the outer world of real life. We
are not always so fortunate : for ill-painted land-
scapes and bad architecture do. And more than
that; when he desired, Shakespeare drew in his
own words the background of his plays. Had less
been asked of the imagination of others, Shakespeare
would have given fewer hints to guide their fancy,
and much exquisite description of nature might
never have been penned. In writing the History
of King Henry the Fifth, he seems to have keenly
felt this inability to do more than suggest, and he
boldly challenges the good-will of his audience
assembled at the Globe. Perhaps nowhere, in the
whole range of the drama, could be found so power-
ful an appeal of the kind, as the noble speech at the

10 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

opening of this play. The poet calls upon his
hearers to take their part in the illusion ; for without
their lively sympathy he can do nothing for them.

" O for a inuse of fire, that would ascend
The brighest heaven of invention !
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene !
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars ; and, at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment. But, pardon, gentles all, '
The flat, unraised spirit that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object : can this cockpit hold V
The vasty fields of France ? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt ?
O, pardon ! since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million ;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
, Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
/ Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts,
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance.
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth :
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass ; for the which supply,
Admit me, Chorus to this history ;
Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play."

On what, then, did Shakespeare rely, for the

A CHAPTEE OF STAGE HISTORY. 11

working out of his conceptions ? On good acting,
and that only. The age that produced great dra-
matists produced great actors also ; the two were
cast in the same mould, and, in several cases, the
same individual was at once actor and dramatist.
The mighty lines of the poet called forth the actor's
genius ; and the poet himself, hearing his words sent
back to him with the added force of impassioned
utterance, wrote in confidence that his thoughts
would be understood and realized. This held good
with every portion of a play ; for we read that
leading actors did not then disdain to undertake
small parts besides their chief character. And thus
servants and messengers were presented by men of
the highest stamp ; a thing not often seen on the
modern stage.

It is a common regret that it is so hard to judge
of actors of a former age. We wish to know how
actors whom we are used to see, would compare
with the great men of past days. We can read
descriptions of their playing, collect scraps of anec-
dote that prove their genius, study their portraits;
but we come away, after all, very little satisfied, and
with a mighty hunger for more exact information.
The further back we go, the greater this uncertainty
becomes : in the infancy of an art the standards of
comparison are indefinite, and the data for exact
analysis are wanting.

This applies in a high degree to our knowledge
of the original acting of Shakespeare's plays. We
have, indeed, the names of the chief performers of

12 SHAKESPEARE'S TLAYS :

the day; but we cannot do with them, as we miglit
with the painters of former times, set side by side
works by Raphael and Rembrandt, or of Holbein
and Gainsborough, and nicely weigh the manner of
each master. We cannot thus set the art of Bur-
bage by that of Betterton, nor' feel on sure ground
in balancing the merits of Garrick's tragedy and
Kean's.

But there is no doubt whatever that the greatest
actor of Shakespeare's day was Richard Burbage.
He played Shylock, Richard III., Prince Henry,
Romeo, Henry V., Brutus, Hamlet, Othello, Lear,
Macbeth, Pericles, and Coriolanus. Probably, in
every case too, Burbage was the original performer
of these parts ; and it is amazing to think of the
good fortune of an actor to whom it fell, to be the
creator on the stage of such a wondrous round of
characters.

Burbage lived long before the days of professional
critics ; and except from mention of his name in legal
documents relating to various theatres, and from a
few poems, we know but little about him. The list
of his characters is taken from a manuscript epitaph
in the British Museum, which, though not a brilliant
poem, has a few expressions that convey real ideas.

" Tyrant Macbeth, with unwasht, bloody hand,
We vainly now may hope to understand."

Without Burbage, the written character would
be an insoluble riddle.

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 13

" Thy stature small, but every thought and mood
Might throughly from thy face be understood;
And his whole action he could change with ease,
From ancient Lear to youthful Pericles."

Truly Burbage had taught this man something
worth knowing. Here is clear insight into the whole
art of acting; a piece of sound dramatic criticism
from one who had thought the matter out for him-
self, and had. received his impressions direct. This
was probably written soon after Burbage died, in
1619. Another poem, dated 1672, by Richard
Flecknoe, tells that, he " ne'er went off the stage
but with applause;" and, with a finer artistic dis-
cernment, that he was " beauty to the eye, and
music to the ear." But we must accept this eulogium
with caution. Fifty years had passed since Burbage
died, and the lines must have been, the embodiment
of tradition rather than, as in the last case, the
outcome of the writer's own vivid recollection.

Bishop Corbett in his " Iter Boreale," written
about 1620, gives trifling, but genuine, evidence of
the place this actor filled in the popular mind. He
tells that when an innkeeper at Bosworth was de-
scribing the fight there, he let slip the name
of Burbage for that of King Richard.

" And when he should have said, King Richard died,
And called — a horse ! a horse ! — he, Burbage, cried."

Touching and very brief is another well-known
epitaph — exit Burbage.

But Comedy bears equal rank with Tragedy in

SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

Shakespeare's plays. A race of professional jesters
had long existed ; and at this time the stage took
to itself these free wits, and their talents became
public property, instead of, as till then, the sole
possession of persons of rank. Tarleton died some-
what early in Shakespeare's career ; but his suc-
cessor, William Kempe, was the favourite low come-
dian of his day. He was the original Dogberry,
and probably played Launce, Launcelot Gobbo, the
Gravedigger, Touchstone, and Justice Shallow.
Shakespeare wrote his low-comedy parts more fully
than had been usual before that time, and as he
meant them to be played. He hated gag : — " Let
those that play your clowns speak no more than
is set down for them."

One broad distinction divides this period from
our own. There were then no women on the stage,
and women's parts were filled by boys or young
men. This usage, I fancy, has had its bearing upon
the plays themselves. In the induction to The
Taming of the Shrew, a page is dressed to perso-
nate the wife of the supposed lord, and the whole
thing seems perfectly natural. Coriolanus is said
to have gained an oaken chaplet, when " he might
act the woman in the scene ; " that is, " ere his
youth attained a beard." The performer of Kosa-
lind, in 'As you like it,' after allowing that it is "not
the fashion to see the lady the epilogue," goes on
with the words, " if I were a woman" Hamlet
'thus greets one of the players who come to Elsinore:
" What ! my young lady and mistress ! By'r lady,

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 15

your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw
you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God,
your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not
cracked within the ring." Surely, this is not the
language of the prince to a woman, but to a grow-
ing boy, whom he was used to see as a woman.
Now, it would seem that Shakespeare turned this
condition of his own times to a real, dramatic pur-
pose. How many of his heroines put on man's
attire ! Imogen wanders in Wales as a boy ; Julia
follows her faithless swain, and becomes his page ;
Viola, in the guise of Cesario, attracts the love of
the Countess Olivia; Rosalind carries on a mock
courtship with her lover in the forest ; Portia con-
ducts a case before the Doge of Venice. Shake-
speare knew that his boys were best as boys, and so
let his fancy run in this channel. The old custom
of actors of repute taking apprentices to study under
them, provided boys for these parts. Nathaniel
Field was one of the most famous of these " woman-
actors ; " he was a contemporary of Shakespeare's,
and may have played some of his heroines. At a
later date, Kynaston was noted in the same line :
both were fine tragedians in after life.*

The history of any subject will naturally divide
itself into sections, or groups of facts, according as

* In 1629 some French actresses appeared at several London
theatres in succession, but met with small encouragement. We may
hear more of women on the stage at an early date, but there is
abundant evidence that the commonly accepted view as to their
absence is, in the main, correct.

16 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS:

certain agencies come into play, are expended, and
give place to new. The foregoing depicts one por-
tion of our dramatic history, more clearly defined,
indeed, than any later period. When the Civil
Wars broke out the theatres were suppressed, and,
with the restoration of Charles the Second, begins
a fresh chapter of the history of the English stage.

The circumstances that produced the altered
aspect of this second dramatic epoch, and gave its
distinctive tone, were in part social, and in part
purely literary. In the days of Elizabeth the nation
was instinct with patriotism and lo_ye_££__liber.ty.
Those were the days of hjgtLJuopes and mighty
aspirations. Upon the vigorous stock of medie-
valism was engrafted the restless spirit of enter-
prise and inquiry ; and the result to letters was a
sudden meridian of poetry. But the day of romance
was soon gone : the best intellect of the land had
been absorbed in a fierce domestic struggle, and the
issue of twenty years of strife was such as to bring
feelings of doubt and shame to honest men of all
parties. And thus the keen spirit of the last age had
given place to a prosaic temperament, little apt to
produce a noble race of poets.

While, in our country, literature had been brought
almost to a stand by the Civil Wars, its develop-
ment had been rapid in France. The French
nature has more love for finish and exactness of
form in writing than the English, and an eagerness
for rules that shall fence off exuberant growth from
the pale of perfect refinement and propriety. In

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 17

1636 was founded the French Academy, and in 1659,
Corneille, having elaborated certain ideas, faintly
suggested by Aristotle, and, to some extent, carried
out in the practice of the Greek dramatists, pub-
lished his famous essay on the Unities of the
Drama; of time, namely, of place, and of action.
Here, then, was established a new code of dramatic
laws, and a memorable instance given of a man's
ingenuity misapplied.

Charles, and the immediate friends, who after-
wards formed his Court, and who set the fashion in
literary taste, from their residence abroad, were
acquainted with these new rules of writing; and
French modes soon prevailed in this country.

The primary concern of the stage of any period is,
of course, the plays written for it by its own authors ;
they deal most with the interests of the day, and re-
flect the passing tone of thought and feeling. We
have hitherto seen Shakespeare as a contemporary
writer, the master-mind of the existing school. But
the few years of the suppression had snapped the
thread of continuity, till then the sole tradition of
the stage. A fresh era had been ushered in, and
Shakespeare and his brother poets were now the men
of a bygone age, who were set in competition with
the new writers of the day.

But these elder poets still held their ground, and
it is noteworthy that Beaumont and Fletcher's plays
were more acted than Shakespeare's ; and it seems
to have been a debated point whether Shakespeare or
Fletcher was the greater dramatist. Langbaine, in

18 SHAKESPEAEE'S PLAYS :

his account of the English dramatic poets,* enume-
rates twenty-three plays by Beaumont and Fletcher,
from a total of fifty-two, as having been acted since
the re-opening of the theatres ; whereas only about
fifteen of Shakespeare's are distinctly mentioned in
a similar list. The four grandest tragedies— Mac-
beth, Hamlet, Lear, and Othello — were 'then, we
learn, stock plays ; the classic pieces were Julius
Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon, Troilus and
Cressida, and Coriolanus. From the English His-
tories were played Richard II., Henry IV., and
Henry VIII., and among the more purely imaginative
poems were Cymbeline and The Tempest. But the
statement that these plays were acted is only par-
tially true ; they were acted, but with a difference.

For we now enter upon a novel phase of our sub-
ject. ^According to the new French rules, the grand
poetic freedom of Shakespeare, his power of moving
about in time and space in defiance of the unities,
was licentious irregularity. He was, indeed, a strik-
ing writer, but he lived in a barbarous age, and sadly
wanted form. His plays, therefore, were taken in
hand by men who corrected their faults, and im-
proved them for those more critical and enlightened
times. Incidents and characters were struck out,

* "An Account of the English Dramatick Poets. Or some Obser-
vations and Remarks on the Lives and Writings, of all those that
have publish'd either Comedies, Tragedies, Tragi-Comedies, Pastorals,
Masques, Interludes, Farces, or Opera's in the English Tongue. B
Gerard Langbaine. Oxford. Printed by L. L. for George West an
Henry Clements. An. Dom. 1691." A scarce volume in the pos
session of the writer.

A CFIAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 19

and new were inserted ; the language was reformed ;
music and show were introduced ; and thus Shake-
speare's plays, as presented on the boards, took the
impress of the shallow and vicious tastes of that
day.

For example, what was called The Tempest, or The
Enchanted Island, was a piece arranged by Dryden
and Davenant, with music by Henry Purcell. The
Cymbeline was by Durfey, and was styled the In-
jured Princess, or The Fatal Wager, and, no doubt,
the change was more than skin-deep. Richard II.
was rechristened the Sicilian Usurper, and Coriolanus
The Ingratitude of a Commonwealth, both being the
work of Nahum Tate, one of the compilers of the
New Version of the Psalms. In King Lear, also,
Tate adopted a singularly bold treatment of the
text, introducing love-passages between Edgar and
Cordelia, giving the old King victory over his foes,
and a happy ending to the piece. Timon was an
alteration by Shadwell, afterwards poet-laureate.
Troilus and Cressida, or Truth found out too late, was
again by Dryden, and he, too, turned Antony and
Cleopatra into All for Love, or The World well lost.
Sir William Davenant, laureate to Charles I. and
Charles II., combined materials from Measure for
Measure and Much Ado into his Law against Lovers :
but Davenant' s masterpiece was Macbeth.

If all these productions had been merely ephemeral
little importance would attach to them, and they
would hardly be mentioned here. But this is not
the case. In some instances these and similar

20 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

adaptations held the stage for years and years, nay,
still hold it ; and one of my chief objects is to show
that what for generations was played and accepted
as Shakespeare was not Shakespeare, but some dilu-
tion of him prepared within the last two centuries.
Davenant's Macbeth is a case in point. This tragedy,
as we see it performed, contains a great deal more
than we can find in our books, and we wonder where
the supernumerary witches come from, and what is
the meaning of " Locke's celebrated music," paraded
in the bills. We notice that whereas Shakespeare
employs his witches most sparingly, just so far as
needed to pitch the key of the drama, and no more,
in the acted play the stage swarms with witches,
and witches of another species from the three weird
and ghastly beings for whom Shakespeare has
imagined a new dialect and a new nature scarce half
human. But the intellectual standpoint of Shake-
speare was above Davenant and those for whom he
catered. The Italian custom of blending music with
action had been naturalized in France, and came
over here with other French fashions. Accordingly
he turned Macbeth into a sort of 'melodrama, with
interpolated songs and choruses set by Matthew
Locke. After seventy years, indeed, Davenant's
version was laid aside ; but scarcely a manager has
yet ventured to present Macbeth without these
clumsy musical scenes, which cling like brambles to
the skirts of the tragedy, delay its progress, and
are utterly foreign to the true spirit of the poem.
Samuel Pepys, an inveterate play-goer, saw Mac-

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 21

beth more than once acted in this form, and no doubt
his words express the general opinion of his day
upon the merits of the piece. We must remember
that Pepys was no critic, and never troubled himself
as to whether dramas were original or adapted, and
probably knew very little of Shakespeare from books.

He enters as follows in his Diary under the date
of January 6th, 1666-7:— "To the Duke's house,
and saw 'Macbeth,' which, though I saw it lately,
yet appears a most excellent play in all respects, but
especially in divertissement, though it be a deep
tragedy ; which is a strange perfection in a tragedy,
it being most proper here, and suitable." In
November of the same year he witnessed another
of these adaptations. It was The Tempest, "an
old play of Shakespeare's." He says it was "the
most innocent play " that he ever saw, and describes
a curious trick in the music for managing an echo.
He considers that " the play has no great wit, but
yet (is) good above ordinary plays."

Some of Pepys's theatrical notes are too amusing
to be passed over, while considering the debased state
of the Shakesperian drama in his day. On March
1st, 1662, he saw Romeo and Juliet " the first time
it was ever acted, but it is a play of itself the worst
that ever I heard." The next year he went to see
King Henry VIII. at the Duke's theatre. He calls
it " made up of patches, nothing but show." " The
Merry Wives," he says, " did not please me at all
in no part of it." The Taming of the Shrew, in
spite of " some very good pieces in it," he considered

22 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

" but a mean play." It is clear that Pepys did not
much care for Shakespeare, at least as his dramas
were then presented. For one play his contempt was
without measure. He writes for September 29th,
1662, " To the King's Theatre, where we saw ' Mid-
summer Night's Dream,5 which I had never seen
before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid,
ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life."

The number of theatres in London was far less at
this time than formerly. It is not easy to give an
exact list of the houses open at any one date, but
there must have been a dozen or fifteen in existence
in the reign of James I. A few are lost sight of
before the suppression ; and on the re-establishment
of the stage two grand companies were licensed by
the King, one styled His Majesty's Servants, and the
other taking their title from the Duke of York, after-
wards James II. The King's Servants were soon
settled in Drury Lane under a patent granted
to Thomas Killigrew. The Duke's Company had
several removals, sometimes acting in theatres in or
about Lincoln's Inn Fields, and sometimes in Dorset
Gardens, below Fleet Street, and were under the
direction of Sir William Davenant. The lists of
standard plays to be acted by these two companies
were fixed by the Court and their own alternate
choice; the dramas of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and
Jonson were divided between them, and neither was
suffered to invade the repertory of the other. In
1684, owing to the decay of some of the elder actors,
it was found mutually advantageous to unite the

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 23

companies, and for ten years the King's House was
the one theatre open, with Betterton as the leading
tragedian.

Among actors, Thomas Betterton is the central
figure of this era, as Burbage was of the last. He
began his career just before the Restoration, and
continued on the stage till his death, in 1710. He
was the greatest actor of the day in Shakespeare's
tragedies, and we know him by the descriptions of
Pepys, Steele, Aston, and best of all, as judged by
a fellow player, Colley Gibber. Pepys enters the
following in his Dairy for August 24, 1661 :

" To the Opera (that is, Davenant's Theatre,)
and there saw { Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,' done
with scenes, very well, but, above all, Betterton
did the Prince's part beyond imagination." Seven
years later, after seeing the same play, he writes
that he was " mightily pleased with it, but, above
all, with Betterton, the best part, I believe, that
ever man acted."

Steele saw him buried in Westminster Cloisters,
and, with a full heart, writes of his excellencies, and
tells in what high estimation a nation should hold
such an artist.*

These are sincere and valuable testimonies to
the greatness of Betterton : but Gibber's practical
knowledge of the art of acting gives special value
to his evidence.

" Betterton was an actor," he writes, " as Shake-

* ' Tatler,' May 4th, 1710.

24 SHAKESPEAHE'S PLAYS:

spear was an author, both without competitors !
formed for the mutual assistance and illustration
of each other's genius ! "

" Could how Betterton spoke be as easily known
as what he spoke, then might you see the Muse of
Shakespear in her triumph, with all her beauties
in their best array, rising into real life, and charm-
ing her beholders. But, alas ! since all this is so far
out of the reach of description, how shall I show
you Betterton ? Should I therefore tell you that
all the Othellos, Hamlets, Hotspurs, Mackbeths, and
Brutus's whom you may have seen since his time,
have fallen far short of him ; this still should give
you no idea of his particular excellence. Let us
see, then, what a particular comparison may do,
whether that may yet draw him nearer to you."

He then describes his Hamlet, in the first scene
with the Ghost. He began, he says, " with a pause
of mute amazement ; then, rising slowly to a solemn
trembling voice, he made the Ghost equally terrible
to the spectator as to himself." Betterton had a
fine sense of individuality in the portrayal of cha-
racter. The wild starts and flashing fire of Hot-
spur were distinct from the occasional irritation of
Brutus. To the alternation of rage and tenderness
in Othello he gave a force and beauty long remem-
bered. His style seems to have combined the
boundless freedom and variety of nature, with the
highest dignity of an ideal school of acting; the
latter an element inherited by immediate followers,
while the former essential was almost lost sight of,

A CHAPTEE OF STAGE HISTORY. 25

until revived by Garrick. In person lie had little
natural grace : for his figure was thick- set and rather
clumsy, nor had his voice much sweetness or beauty
of tone. But, in spite of all defects, Betterton's
aspect was majestic and venerable, and when he en-
tered the scene the eyes of all were fixed upon him.

Of his sound understanding and correct ear,
Gibber writes, — "I never heard a line from Betterton
in tragedy, wherein my judgment, my ear, and my
imagination were not fully satisfied." He heard this
great actor say " that he never thought any kind
of (applause) equal to an attentive silence : that
there were many ways of deceiving an audience
into a loud one, but to keep them husht and quiet
was an applause that only truth and merit could
arrive at." These words show the true artist :
would that others had power to hold their hearers
like Betterton, and wisdom to know where their
strength should lie !

Colley Gibber, here mentioned as a critic, was an
important man in his day ; he was actor, play- writer,
manager, adapter of Shakespeare, and afterwards
poet-laureate. Gibber's version of Richard III. is
still the Richard of the stage ; and from the mere
fact of its vitality, apart from its obvious merits, his
play demands notice almost above any similar pro-
duction. The purport of this adaptation is to con-
centrate attention on Richard, by still further black-
ening his portrait, and by withdrawing lateral inter-
ests : by striking off the wings of the story. Gibber
produced a work excellently fitted for the stage,

26 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS:

but at the loss of much that is grand in the original.
Gibber's is an effective, but a coarse, play.

As Shakespeare wrote it, this is one of a series of
historical dramas : closely connected with it are the
three plays bearing the name of King Henry VI., in
the last of which the future King Richard bears an
important part. Now, as these were not then acting
plays, Gibber took from them some fine speeches, in
which Richard's character is carefully drawn, and
the scene in which he murders the King in the
Tower. That is utilization of waste material, and
pardonable where the principle of wide deviation
from an acknowledged work of art is once allowed.
So, also, the total omission of the Duke of Clarence,
with his famous dream, is well judged. For stage
effect his part is not only over- weighted, considering
the small figure he makes in this portion of the
story, but, by its elaboration, is actually detrimental
to a more important scene in the drama.

But the inherent vulgarity of the play, as revised,
is shown by an interpolated passage, in which Richard
deliberately sets himself to kill his wife by neglect
and cruelty. Equally commonplace and morbid is a
scene in which we are brought to the very threshold
of the chamber where the children are smothered,
and there see Richard prowling about and moralizing
on his wickedness. The language of the piece is a
compound of Shakespeare and Gibber, curiously
interlaced ; for, besides the omissions and interpo-
lations, he habitually debases the poetry to his own
standard of dulness. Impassioned ejaculations of

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 27

grief and horror seemed profane when the stage had
become a mere amusement, and were set aside. The
glorious blank verse of the Elizabethan writers was
then out of date ; its rhythm was not understood.
The accented ed, for instance, in the verb and parti-
ciple jarred on Gibber's sensitive ear, and he would
always change a line to avoid it. Thus, when Norfolk
gives the King the paper, found in his tent : —

" Jockey of Norfolk, be not too bold,
For Dickon thy master is bought and sold,"

Richard boldly declares it —

"A thing devised by the enemy."

That would not do for Gibber ; he wrote —

" A weak invention of the enemy."

Again, recurring words in a line were inartistic.
After that awful night on Bosworth Field, with the
shades of his victims : (and here Gibber has been at
the pains to re-write the vision, and has cut out the
agony of remorse and the frenzied self-examination
at its close :) when aroused to arms, Richard
exclaims —

" O B/atcliff ! I have dreamed a fearful dream/'

Gibber has it :—

" O Catesby, I have had such horrid dreams."

Notice, too, that the crack rants in the part of
Richard are Gibber's own invention.

28 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

Such are —

" Off with his head ! So much for Buckingham. ''

A tremendous hit on the stage. So again —

" Richmond, I say, come forth and singly face ine,
Richard is hoarse with daring thee to arms."

And, lastly — -

" Hence babbling dreams, you threaten here in vain;
Conscience, avaunt ! R/ichard's himself again."

Perhaps these time-honoured points tell as much
in favour of Gibber's version as its general practi-
cability.

Immediately after the Restoration, women began
to appear on the English stage, and it is pleasant to
remember that Mrs. Better ton was the best actress
in Shakespeare's plays. We have Gibber's word
for this, and Pepys also sounds her praise. Mrs.
Betterton first appeared as " Ian the," in a play by
Davenant, and Pepys habitually calls her by this
name. One day he saw the Duchess of Malfi " well
performed, but Betterton and lanthe to admira-
tion." Another time it was the Bondman, and he
writes, " Betterton and my poor lanthe outdo all
the world."

After Betterton came Barton Booth, a man of the
highest culture, and of the most imposing dignity
and grace of manner ; but who was apt to become
dull, being without the highest inspiration of his
master.

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 29

Booth is remembered as the Cato of Addison's
tragedy, and his best Shakesperian part was
Othello. His contemporary Wilks was a fine
Shakesperian actor, and played Hamlet well. By
nature he must have been alight comedian ; his was
an easier, more natural style than Booth's ; but in
tragedy at times he wanted repose and weight.
Gibber, the partner of these two men in the manage-
ment of Drury Lane, in spite of grave defects of
voice and person, acted a few of Shakespere's
tragic parts ; giving them, no doubt, strongly marked
individuality, or, as we might say, playing them as
11 character " rather than as tragedy. He acted his
own Richard, lago, and also Cardinal Wolsey. This
last is interesting. Till that time the leading part in
Henry VIII. had been the King himself. In Shake-
speare's day the stage treatment of Henry was a
delicate matter ; it would not do to assign this part
to an inferior actor, and set the King at a disadvan-
tage beside the Cardinal. Hence arose a tradition :
Booth played King Henry, and thus it was that an
actor who allowed himself to be scarcely fit for
tragedy, ventured to enact a character out of which
Kemble afterwards made a striking stage-figure, if
not an accurately historical portrait.

It is here convenient to pass over a few years, and
come at once to the time when Shakespeare's plays,
after a dull epoch, again held the foremost place on
the stage. In 1741, David Garrick, an unknown
man, played Richard III. at an out-of-the-way theatre
in London, and at once sprang into fame. In 1747

30 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS:

he became joint patentee of Drury Lane, and set
about the renovation of the Shakesperian drama.
Now begins, though in an uncertain, tentative
fashion, the restoration of the genuine text of the
plays. Garrick announced Macbeth to be performed
" as written by Shakespeare." What could this
mean ? The age was uncritical, and had long accepted
a spurious Shakespeare in perfect good faith. The
great actor, Quin, knew no more than the public. He
was startled at the vigorous, uncouth words of the
original, and asked Garrick where on earth he had got
such strange language. Locke's music, I believe,
he retained; no doubt, it lightens the play, and
helps to make it go. But Garrick relied on his
acting ; he carefully taught Mrs. Pritchard, his best
actress, and by them the parts of Macbeth and the
Lady were created anew. Garrick got together a
grand company of players, and trained them in the
study of Shakespeare; and during nearly thirty years
of management he placed a considerable number of
Shakespeare's plays upon his stage. But in speaking
of Garrick as a reformer, and he was one in many
ways, we must remember the general taste of his
day. The bearing of modern poetical thought is
towards ideality ; it strives to reach above and below
the visible, and to deal with subtleties and the inner
significance of things. But this depth and refine-
ment of fancy lay beyond the concerns of the
shrewd, bustling manager, eager to draw the town
by an effective representation. Garrick cast aside
base traditions, but he fashioned new.

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 31

That the plays should be acted literally " as written
by Shakespeare " was then, as it now is, out of the
question ; but as one who took unwarrantable liber-
ties with the plots, characters and language, Garrick,
like Falstaff, might count himself " little better than
one of the wicked." Probably every play he brought
out was disfigured, more or less, by interpolations
and injurious omissions. But his adaptation of
Hamlet is a curiosity of bad taste, and he candidly
confessed that his producing this play with altera-
tions, was " the most impudent thing he ever did."
In Hamlet the story advances steadily to a certain
point ; but, in the latter scenes, the action is slow.
The King is so very delicate in suggesting that
Laertes should assassinate his nephew ; Hamlet has
so much to explain to Horatio about what has hap-
pened since they parted, and Osric is so very profuse,
that we are a long time in getting over the ground.
And in the fifth act of a tragedy it is a bold thing to
bring on fresh characters to make us laugh while
waiting for the funeral of a gentle girl. Hamlet's
death is not glorious, it is simply very sad ; and the
close of the play is singularly melancholy, and, in a
way, un theatrical. To write a showy drama was the
last thing in Shakespeare's mind ; events fall out in
Hamlet just as they might in real life. But a play
that is without ostentatious poetic justice is apt to
seem tame and unsatisfactory to minds trained to
look for it at every turn. Garrick felt these diffi-
culties with growing force ; and at last he declared
that he would not leave the stage till he had

32 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

11 rescued this noble play from the rubbish of the
fifth act." Very near the end of his career, he
prepared a stage version without the gravediggers ;
he made the King, when attacked, defend himself
manfully, and brought down the curtain with plenty
of bustle and effect. This arrangement of the plot
served the remainder of Garrick' s time ; but, soon
after his death, was happily laid by and forgotten.

Many years before, Garrick had produced Romeo
and Juliet, re- written by himself, and, sad to say,
his version still holds the stage. It is the same
story over again as Gibber's Richard, and every old
adaptation of Shakespeare ; all must be plain, and
lie on the surface. The poem, as it stands, was
complicated, he thought, wanting in clearness and
point. "What business had Romeo with a previous
suit ? The answer is that in this lies half the
meaning and beauty of the story. In Romeo,
Shakespeare shows an unreal, sentimental affection
shrivelled up to nothing before the fire of true love.
But Garrick failed to see this ; at one stroke his
early passion is swept away, and Juliet's name is
brought prematurely forward, to hold the place of
that of the scornful Rosaline. Again, in the last act :
how weak, he thought, for the lovers to die, and not
exchange a word, when so much might be made of
the scene ! And so, by a happy thought, he lets
Juliet wake in her tomb, before the poison which
Romeo has drunk has taken effect, and there was a
fine situation ! He carries her in his arms down to
the footlights, and the two talk pure Garrick verse,

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTOEY. 33

till the potion does its work, and Romeo expires in
torture before the eyes of Juliet. All this is excel-
lent good sense, and has been much admired as a
capital sermon preached by Shakespeare. But what
has become of the poem ? Whenever this play,
still called Shakespeare's tragedy, is acted, we have
before us, not the " pair of star-crossed lovers,"
the enthronement of ideal devotion and purity amid
bitter surroundings, but a dismal warning against
imprudent attachments and the follies of youth.

But we cannot understand what Garrick did for
Shakespeare, unless we know what he was as an
actor. When he appeared, Quin was the foremost
man on the stage ; he was a sterling comedian, but
in his hands tragedy had moved far away from
nature, and was little more than stiff, conventional
declamation. We read of Quin's pomposity, his
" sawing " and "grinding " delivery, his "pumping "
and "paving" gestures. Tragedy was then spoken
in a monotonous chanting tone, without pause or
variety. Garrick was of a quick and fervid nature,
and this made his acting what it was. He broke up
the measured declamation by startling pauses and
striking gestures ; he was all spirit and life ; his
voice was animated, his figure graceful, and his
brilliant eyes darted fire in all directions. Quin and
his colleagues of the formal, solemn school felt their
empire vanish like smoke before the daring in-
novator. " If this young fellow is right," he said,
"then we have all been wrong."^ Pedants alleged
that Garrick played in defiance of the rules of

3

34 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

grammar ; that lie paused when he ought to go on,
and went on when he ought to pause : that his
acting was affectation — mere clap-trap. But the
world knew better, and the public verdict followed
the summing-up of the author of the Rosciad :

" When in the features all the soul's portray'd,
And passions, such as Garrick 's. are displayed,
To me they seem from quickest feelings caught ;
Each start is nature, and each pause is thought."

Garrick' s most formidable rival was Barry, the
finest stage lover of the day. He was tall, which
Garrick was not, and had a voice of the utmost tender-
ness and beauty. One season the town was thrown
into excitement by these two tragedians playing
Romeo against each other ; and though superiority
in specific scenes was claimed for each, we may well
believe that Barry's rare personal gifts gave him the
advantage. But when, some years later, Garrick
and Barry were acting tear at the same time, the
public voice was less divided. We may picture
Garrick as the graceful, dashing hero of high
comedy, and the clever actor of eccentric character ;
but we can clearly see that beyond and above all
this were heights of poetic inspiration, and the
simple pathos of nature.

" The town has found out different ways
To praise the different Lears ;
To Barry they give loud huzzas ;
To Garrick only tears."

And again,

.A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 35

" A king, nay, every inch a king,
Such as Barry doth appear ;
But Garrick's quite a different thing,
He's every inch King Lear."

Before leaving this part of the subject, it would
be unfair to pass over the name of Charles Macklin.
He is chiefly remembered now as the writer of The
Man of the World ; but, in his day, he did good
Shakesperian work, and, in respect of two plays,
the Merchant of Venice and Macbeth, he deserves
to rank high as a reformer. In their early days,
Macklin and Garrick were close friends : they dearly
loved their profession, and were bent on breaking
down the false style of acting then in vogue. And
in this, Macklin got the start. A few months
before Garrick came to the front, he acted Shylock
in a new fashion. At that time the received play
was a modification of Shakespeare's, by Lord Lans-
downe, and the Jew was a ludicrous character played
by low comedians. Macklin changed all that: he went
to the true text, and gave to Shylock his proper
dignity and passion and pathos. When quite an old
man, Macklin made an equally startling innovation
in playing Macbeth in kilt and tartan. Garrick
never ventured on this ; he feared the ridicule of the
public ; for they were used to see stage personages
either dressed as ordinary ladies and gentlemen, or
in wonderful garments, meant to be correct, but
revealing a strong undercurrent of the attire of that
day. No doubt, Macklin' s Macbeth was a very
incomplete portrait, and would seem now, as, for

36 SHAKESPEAEE'S PLAYS :

reasons directly opposite, it seemed a century ago,
little better than a snuff -shop Scotchman. But as
a bold onward step towards the reproduction of
historical costume for stage purposes, Macklin's
experiment should be gratefully recorded.

I have dealt rather largely, and severely too, with
the debased stage versions of Shakespeare's plays ;
and it might naturally be supposed that I would
have the plays acted precisely after the stage direc-
tions given in the ordinary text. But it is time^to
take up the other side, and show this to be an im-
possibility. There are such things in dramatic
workmanship as neatness of construction and skill
in developing a plot. It is easier to put down several
short scenes, as many as may be wanted, each dealing
with a single group of characters, than so to marshal
events that a few comprehensive scenes shall advance
the story in various departments with smoothness
and regard to probability. But how different the
pleasure of an audience in the two cases ! Consider
the fulness and harmony and sense of delusion in
such a scene as the fourth of the second act of King
Henry IV., Part I. In a single picture we have
Prince Henry's jest with Francis, FalstafFs account
of the adventure on Gadshill, which is truly mar-
vellous every way ; and after all that is done, we get
the acted interview between the king and his son,
and wind up with the visitation of the sheriff, and
the searching of FalstafFs pockets as he lies asleep
behind the arras. A grander comic scene was never
imagined ; and our being enabled to see so much of

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 37

the characters at one view gives an air of reality to
the whole that cannot be overrated.

As a contrast to this, compare the last act of
Macbeth. How broken up and fidgetty it is ! What
harassing recollections we have of pieces of painted
woods and fortifications clapping together and sliding
apart; of little stage armies marching across, with
drums and trumpets sounding from behind; of a few
words being spoken, and then — a fresh scene ! A
room in the castle at Dunsinane, the country near
Dunsinane, another room in the castle, the open
country again, a place within the castle, a plain
before it, and another part of the same plain, pass
before the eye during this one act. Now, I am not
a stage-manager, and do not propose how this is to
be remedied ; but I do say that no one would dare
to write in this fashion now. The writer would so
arrange his materials as to carry on the story with-
out these rapid and wearisome changes of scene,
which require a constant agility of mind to follow
their movements, and never let us forget that we
are in a theatre.

Of course we must take into account the altered
condition of the stage in a period of three centuries.
In Shakespeare's day, as before stated, the appoint-
ments of the London playhouses were very simple.
In King Henry VIII. some unusual pageantry is in-
dicated by the stage directions. The Queen's trial
at Blackfriars, the coronation procession of Anne
Boleyn, the vision of the spirits and the christening
of the Princess Elizabeth, were clearly meant as

38 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

gorgeous spectacles. The stage must have been
crowded with splendid figures, attired and arranged
with the greatest care ; but there is no correspond-
ing description of scenery ; and the records of that
time show that only the rudest attempts were made
to realize the localities of the various parts of the
plays.

In this, at all events, we have improved since the
sixteenth century ; and it stands to reason that the
noblest works should be presented with all possible
aids to comprehension and enjoyment, that they
may not be at a disadvantage compared with pieces
written for the stage as it now is. In producing
Shakespeare's plays, therefore, regard must be had
to the effective management of the scenery. It is

always an evil to shift the scenes before the eyes

«/ i/

of the spectators, that is, during the progress of an
act; consequently, other things being equal, the
fewer the (dramatic) scenes are in number in excess
of the number of acts, the smoother and more
delightful will be the performance. And more than
that; the fewer (painted) scenes there are to pro-
vide, the more care and expense can be bestowed on
each. And thus we have ample motives for striking
out superfluous matter, for occasionally altering the
sequence of incidents as told, and even for joining
together different passages in the same play, where
the fusion tends to true dramatic effect. Of course,
manipulation of this sort may be done well or ill :
to do it well requires both tact and poetic feeling,
as well as strict reverence for the meaning of the

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 39

writer. But treatment such as this is very different
from the method of the old adapters ; they retained
just so much of the original as suited their purpose,
and then seasoned what was left, according to taste,
with whatever they chose to consider wanting to
make their dish complete.

Again, the change in social manners since the days
of Elizabeth and James the First furnishes another
reason for departing from literal exactness. We do
not now, either in real life or in our literature,
tolerate the grossness of ideas and language that
is so common with the old dramatists. This free-
dom of speech is matter of historic interest to
avowed students ; but the mass of those who go
to see plays are neither students nor philosophers,
but simply an abstract of the world at large. A
heavy responsibility rests with those who, except
for grave and unanswerable reasons, suggest base
thoughts to audiences composed of men and women
of all ages, ranks and degrees of culture, or ac-
custom them to associate debasing sights and coarse
words with the pleasures of the theatre. I am
aware that this trenches upon the whole question
of the action of the stage upon public morals, — a
topic I have no wish to handle. But, writing as a
regular play-goer, one who has faith in the stage,
and would willingly do it a service, I fairly say that
I sometimes wonder at what seems to me a profes-
sional blindness to impropriety. It is, no doubt,
the result of tradition, and a survival of former
times. But we must look to it; for this is the bar

40 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

that shuts out from our theatres many who should
be there to lend their influence in raising an institu-
tion that has in it the elements of the highest good,
and that no amount of censure can ever destroy ;
but which must be a blessing, or a public curse, in
proportion as it finds its chief support among persons
of character or the dregs of society.

But, to return to purely artistic questions. Many
of the plays are too long to be acted as they stand,
if judged by our modern ways of life ; and it is easy
to find passages, just a few lines here and there, or
even whole scenes, that may well be excused upon
the stage. Till lately, audiences in London lived
within a comparatively short distance of the
theatres. Now it is far otherwise. Many persons
travel a long way to reach their homes ; some must
catch the last omnibuses or local trains, or the
night trains into the country. This makes them
impatient of anything like prosiness, for they are
afraid of not getting away in time. It is sad to see
half the spectators rising to their feet and moving
off, while the players are still speaking on the stage;
but managers learn to accept this discourtesy, and
cut short the endings of plays as far as can be done.
And, after all, taste in certain matters will differ
from one age to another. We fancy we have a
nicer sense of the value of time than our fathers,
and in everything study condensation and brevity.
In imaginative writing a line of thought may be
worked out or simply be indicated. Much modern
poetry aims at suggestion rather than elaboration;

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 41

many things are left to inference, which we must
trace for ourselves. Judged from our present stand-
point, Shakespeare is apt to be wordy in closing his
tragedies. Take E/omeo and Juliet : the lovers are
dead ; the tale is told, and we know what we ought
to think about it. How wearisome would all that
follows be, if played to the end ! The watch enter
the churchyard, and are active in the discharge of
their duties ; the prince and the heads of the rival
houses are summoned, and grieve for what has
happened ; and Friar Laurence, while disclaiming all
desire to be tedious, recapitulates most of the action
of the story. We should not be interested to see
Montague and Capulet shake hands, nor care much
for the quaint tag set down for the prince.

For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

There is undoubted pleasure in feeling that some-
thing is withheld from our eyes and ears, which the
poet entrusts to our inner sense ; and I more than
half believe that this formal closing of an account
is best omitted. The effect of the last scene in
Hamlet would be less striking were the curtain not
lowered as the prince dies in the arms of Horatio.
Or in Othello, if anything were said after the Moor,
first throwing off their guard, with the cunning of a
suicide, those standing by, has stabbed himself and
fallen dead. So, too, in Macbeth, if instead of the
death of the tyrant upon the stage, and the final rush

42 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

and cheer of the soldiers ; his head were brought in
stuck on a pole, and the play ended with a speech
from the new King, in which he promises promo-
tion to all his friends, and invites them to see him
crowned at Scone. It is, I believe, most impressive
and dramatic to bring down the curtain close upon
the catastrophe, and, at all risk, to avoid an anti-
climax. Nothing tends to destroy effect like hang-
ing fire at the last. Modern writers know this well,
and, in the words of Benvolio,

" The date is out of such prolixity."

It is not my plan to give more than a brief outline
of the course of the Shakesperian drama onwards
to our own day. Much has been written upon the
great players since Garrick ; and what they did may
easily be learned from books. When Garrick died,
Henderson was the first Shakesperian actor ; he
was short-lived, but in spite of great personal dis-
advantages, made his mark both in tragedy and
comedy. Then came Mrs. Siddons, whose celebrity
has almost blinded us to the fame of Mrs. Gibber,
Mrs. Pritchard, and the tragedy-queens of the last
century. With the Kembles, with John Philip
Kemble especially, a more studied elocution came
into vogue ; perhaps in the grandeur of his person
and the dignity of his style, this actor more resembled
Barton Booth than any one else before or since his
time. Then, once more, came the reaction. Cooke
appeared, who was the Shylock, lago, and Richard
of his day. It has been said that he represented

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 43

" the slang and bravura of tragedy," and he
declared that he would " make Black Jack (i. e.
Kemble) tremble in his shoes." The daring nature
of Cooke's acting reached a still higher development
in the hands of the elder Kean, who professed a
great admiration for Cooke. Kean had many points
of resemblance to Garrick. Both were small and
elastic in figure, were rapid and graceful in motion,
had marvellously piercing eyes, and took their time
with the words of a part in defiance of established
rules. They were both men of quick and nervous
temperament, and both destroyed and created schools
of acting. Kean had not great versatility ; he did
little in comedy, was not a writer, nor even a
manager, and never influenced public opinion except
through one channel. But as a tragedian we
are tempted to believe that he surpassed Garrick ;
that is, where bursts of overwhelming fury and
deadly hate could avail. His Macbeth and Hamlet
and Romeo were good only in parts ; his Eichard
III. must have equalled Garrick's, and his Othello
was grander beyond all comparison, for Garrick
could make nothing of the character. Edmund
Kean's is not a happy name in dramatic records ;
the story of his life is very melancholy. But,
viewing him simply as a tragic artist, we can only
wonder at his mighty genius.

Kemble' s management was marked by the in-
creased attention given to the Roman plays. Such
characters as Brutus and Coriolanus specially suited
his distinguished appearance and manner ; and as

44 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

the plays were then getting to be acted with rather
more correctness of costume and scenery than
before, these pictures of classical life became very
popular. Kean seems to have troubled himself
little about the text of the plays, and generally
acted them as they came to hand. An adaptation
of Richard II., after the old fashion, was written
for him, but it soon fell into disuse. One reform
we do owe to Kean : he restored the proper ending
to King Lear. Macready was a wise and energetic
manager, as well as a powerful actor, and worked
hard and successfully to make the public appreciate
Shakespeare. Under him the plays were produced
in greater purity of form, and with a higher degree
of artistic completeness, than ever before. We may
expect to learn much of interest from the ' Remi-
niscences of Macready,' as edited by Sir Frederick
Pollock.

Since Macready' s time there have been two notable
managements in London in which Shakespeare's
plays have been the chief feature ; — that of Charles
Kean at the Princess's Theatre, and that of Mr.
Phelps, at Sadler's Wells. At the Princess's a long
series of plays were ably presented, all put on with
the strictest regard to correctness of scenery, cos-
tumes, and accessories. Mr. Kean was an excellent
antiquary, and spared no pains nor expense to make
these " revivals" perfect lessons in archaeology. He
assumed the position of a public teacher more than
any other manager.

Mr. Phelps's course was singularly honourable.

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 45

He took a small outlying theatre, then at the very
lowest ebb of disrepute. He first set himself to
establish decorum in his house, and then, gradually
gaining power over the humble audiences of Clerken-
well and Islington, he trained a public to enjoy and
understand the poetical drama when truthfully and
intelligently set before them. Mr. Phelps enlarged
the Shakesperian repertory to an extent altogether
beyond precedent ; and has himself, probably, played
more of Shakespeare's characters, and succeeded in
parts of more widely different types, than any actor
on record. One example of his tact must suffice.
No drama has been more tampered with and dis-
torted in various attempts to fit it for the stage
than * A Midsummer Night's Dream.' What Pepys
thought of it when acted has been already shown,
and, till lately, no one imagined that it could be
performed as written. In dealing with this play,
Mr. Phelps, as usual with him, stuck to the original
text, and made of it a delightful entertainment,
while maintaining throughout the spirit of the poem.
And more than that : it has been left to Mr. Phelps
to show that the character of Bottom the Weaver is
a really fine part for an actor.

A few years ago, Mr. Fechter, then lessee of the
Lyceum Theatre, drew considerable attention to the
tragedies of Hamlet and Othello, from some novel-
ties in the mode of presentation. His position as a
London manager puts him on a different footing
from that of several eminent foreign players, who
have, from time to time, acted Shakespeare in this

46 SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS :

country, and whose names are omitted from this
sketch. Since then, Mr. Calvert has conducted a
series of Shakesperian performances at the Prince's
Theatre, Manchester. His method most nearly re-
sembles that of Charles Kean ; and, like him, Mr.
Calvert sometimes interpolates scenes, purely for
the sake of scenic effect. In this particular, I think
the judgment of both has been at fault ; but differ-
ence of opinion as to matters of detail must not
blind us to the good work done.

Lastly, we must look forwards, as well as back on
the past. During several years an actor has been
preparing himself for the highest walks of his pro-
fession ; and training us, at the same time, to follow
an artist who can display for us the depths of a
man's heart. History repeats itself: the interest
excited by Mr. Irving is such as that awakened when
Garrick, and afterwards Kean, brought new life and
fresh individualities to bear on an old theme. After
a single attempt in the drama of Shakespeare, we
cannot pretend to tell what career may lie before
Mr. Irving, nor say to what renown he may attain.
But if any should desire to settle his place now in
the roll of players, I would turn to the old regret
that it is so hard to compare actors of past and
present times. How can we set in the same scale
the evidence of our own senses and those of other
people ? To persons who are simply aghast at Mr.
Irving' s yells and the glare of his eye, I would say
that they little know this artist. Let them watch
him from his first entry upon the scene till his

A CHAPTER OF STAGE HISTORY. 47

departure, and note the grace, the subtlety, the
breadth and the repose; the shifting lines of thought
mirrored in that wondrous face ; the wealth of atti-
tude and gesture, that form an endless series of
pictures and suggestions of infinite delight ; and
their powers of appreciation and sympathy for art
will grow by what they feed on. If to rush along
on the whirlwind of passion, like Kean, to fascinate
by marvellous strokes of nature, like Garrick, to
appal by the horrors of a stricken conscience, like
no one but himself, and to be, like Burbage, " beauty
to the eye, and music to the ear;" — if to succeed
in all this is to be a great actor, then, most assu-
redly, such an one is Irving.

But it will be said that I am romancing, and
deluding myself with words. I trust not ; but my
field of vision is limited, and what we see and hear
for ourselves goes for more than description at
second-hand. I write only as I feel ; that Mr. Irving
is one who may show us the glories of the Shake-
sperian drama, so dear to our forefathers, even in a
degraded state. And I further believe that, through
men such as he, and by the faithful setting forth of
Shakespeare's designs, adorned by every worthy
means a,t our command, we may gradually attain to
a fuller knowledge and a deeper understanding of
the soul of poetry.

PK1NTKD BY J. E. ADLAKP, BAIiTliOIOMEW CIOSE.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
BERKELEY

Return to desk from which borrowed.
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

2Uan'58FC
O <..

REC'D LD

APR

R£C'U

MAR 10. 1958

LD 21-95m-ll,'50(2877sl6)476