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 FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 
 BfiQUEATHED TO CORNELL' UNlVERSlTJj 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026069066 
 

ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 BY 
 
 THEODORE MARTIN. 
 
 " Playhouses are more necessary in a well-governed common- 
 wealth, than schools; for mm are better taught by example 
 than precept." — Sik T. Ovekbubt. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 
 
 1874. 
 
I\^p34'4- 
 
 CHI3W1CK PRBSS :— PRWTED BY WHITTINOHAM AND WILEINS, 
 TOOKS COURT, CH&NCERr LANE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CTING as One of the Fine Arts . 
 The Griadiator of Ravenna . 
 A Word About Our Theatres 
 Shakspeare and his latest Stage Inter 
 
 preters 
 Prometheus. 
 
 A Dramatic Fragment. By Goethe 
 
 Plays, Players, and Critics 
 A Plea for Players . 
 The Drama in London 
 Artists and Amateurs 
 The Theatres Bill, 1865 
 David Garrick 
 The Drama in England 
 
 Page 
 
 1 
 
 28 
 
 63 
 
 90 
 126 
 141 
 165 
 175 
 202 
 209 
 217 
 289 
 
ACTING AS ONE OP THE PINE ARTS. 
 
 (DnBLiN Universitt Magazine, Jult, 1846.) 
 
 HAT the taste for the drama has been de- 
 clining amongst ns for many years, and 
 is now at its lowest ebb, is a remark so 
 familiar, that its soundness is never ques- 
 tioned. The Syneretics'- tell ns that the mind is want- 
 ing to follow them in their illustrations of the higher 
 drama ; and the managers are in despair, because the 
 public will not reward with overflowing houses their 
 assiduous efforts to illustrate the lower. The former 
 never had, and never will have a public; the latter 
 have lost theirs, in just retribution for pandering to a 
 taste ephemeral in duration as it was coarse in its indul- 
 gence. The taste for such a drama as both are in the 
 habit of presenting has declined among all the intelli- 
 
 ' A name by which certain writers of this period were known, 
 who wrote ambitious, but wholly unactable plays, describing "high 
 actions and high passions " with more turgidity than force, and with 
 a prevailing disregard to nature and probability. 
 
 If>! 
 
2 ACTING AS ONE OF 
 
 gent supporters of the stage — or rather it never ex- 
 isted. But that the taste for the drama in itself — ^the 
 love of the dramatic art, whether in author or actor, 
 wherever it presents itself in a form worthy of the 
 name — the delight in scenic representation, either when 
 it is true to common nature, or when it transports us 
 into those regions of the ideal where we instinctively 
 recognize and bow before a higher truth — ^that these 
 have not declined, is manifest to any one who has care- 
 fully watched the audiences of our theatres. Nay, to 
 admit that they could by possibility have declined, 
 would be to admit that we were behind our ancestors 
 in our feeling for the earnest and the romantic in pas- 
 sion and emotion, and for the noble and beautiful in art 
 and poetry — a position which, despite the mephanical 
 tendency of the age, there seems to be no good ws^rrant 
 for admitting. 
 
 What the drama was to our forefathers, it is in a 
 peculiar degree to us — a refuge from the dust, and 
 drudgery, and comtmonplace of every-day life — where 
 we may forget, in the " high passions and high actions " 
 of the poet's world, how worn and weary, how petty 
 and personal we become in this ; and, catching new 
 inspiration from the refreshing breezes of that better 
 atmosphere, resume the routiae duties of working-day 
 existence with purer heart and higher purpose. For 
 on us the burden of life presses more heavily every 
 year as our civilization advances. Our faculties of 
 thought' and action are all tasked to the uttermost in 
 the practical details of life ; ajid we are swept along 
 with the torrent, unable to do more than to cast mere 
 
THE FINE ARTS. 3 
 
 momentaiy glances towards those regions of ideal 
 beauty which artists and poets — 
 
 " Serene creators of immortal things," 
 
 have conjured np for us, but towards which the spirit 
 turns with a yearning, passionate in proportion to the 
 obstacles to its gratification. We live too fast — we are 
 forced to live too fast, to find leisure for contemplation. 
 But the heart, the imagination, are immortal. Each 
 will make itself heard, each will demand its gratifica- 
 tion, let the world, with its practical strivings, absorb 
 us as it may. And where, in aU. the realms of litera- 
 ture or iiirt — ^where, amid the throng and turmoil of 
 modem life, may both be satisfied so well and so readily 
 as in a drama, rich like our own in all that can stimulate 
 the feeUngs and quicken and irradiate the intellect ? 
 Here the necessity of our nature to escape from the 
 real to the ideal finds an iadulgence which it can find 
 nowhere else. The drama is poetry in its highest, its 
 most suggestive, as well as its most compact form. It 
 places the joys, sorrows, passions, fears, straggles, 
 temptations, triumphs, that are the essence of poetry, 
 living before us, and makes every spectator as it were 
 a poet for the time, by inspiring him with vivid sym- 
 pathy for the passion or emotion of the scene. The 
 drama must, therefore, always exercise an iafluence over 
 an educated people, and never more than when they 
 have little leisure, or are too much over-wrought, to 
 pursue the calmer studies of the closet. 
 
 More peculiarly is this tnie as regards ourselves. 
 The nation that produced Shakespeare, that cherishes 
 
4 ACTING AS ONE OF 
 
 tim as the supreme of poets, can never be indifferent 
 to the acted drama. His plays were written for the 
 stage, not for the study. Not only is he the first of 
 poets, he is also first of dramatic artists, in skilful con- 
 struction, in power of situation, in interest of action. 
 Himself an actor, he loved and reverenced his art. He 
 knew the power that lies in an actor's hands ; and he 
 trusted to that power to fill up his outline, to inform 
 with the moviug spirit of life the beings of his fancy, 
 tiU they lived for other eyes and hearts truly and in- 
 tensely as for his own. Rare, indeed, has been, and 
 ever must be, the appearance of genius capable of fully 
 carrying out our great poet's conceptions. StUl, even 
 from the most indifferent representation, some fresh 
 ideas wiU be gathered — some clearer views of the 
 general structure of the play, or of the characters that 
 fill it. The public feel this, and they act upon 
 the feeling. We see them attracted by his plays, 
 even when these are put before them poorly, both as 
 regards performers and scenic appointments ; and 
 wherever something like justice is done to his concep- 
 tions, they are never slow to recognize and reward the 
 power. 
 
 Can any one who has watched the recent history of 
 the stage doubt, that, if the tragic drama were to be 
 placed before the public in worthy and suitable form, 
 there would no longer be left the shadow of pretext for 
 maintaining that the love of the drama had undergone 
 any decay ? Look, for example, at the success which 
 attended Mr. Macready's admirable revivals of Shak- 
 speare some years ago at Drury Lane. His manage- 
 
THE FINE ABTS. 5 
 
 ment was undertaken under serious disadvantages, both, 
 as regarded the circmnstanoes in which he found the 
 theatre, and in the materials for carrying out his pur- 
 pose which lay within his command. Tor the first, the 
 buffooneries, and indecencies, which had degraded what 
 should have been the temple of national literature and 
 of art into a haunt of folly and vice, had perverted the 
 taste of that large class of play-goers who seek the 
 theatre for mere excitement, whilst it had driven from 
 its walls those to whom the drama was a study and 
 intellectual recreation. The latter were to be won once 
 more into the habit of visiting the theatre — ^the former 
 were to be tanght to find pleasure in something higher 
 than the splendours of spectacle, or the meretricious 
 fascinations of the ballet. On the other hand, the old 
 companies of performers had all been broken up, and a 
 company was to be brougbt together new to each other 
 — in itself a drawback of a very serious kind — and for 
 the most part unaccustomed to that long course of 
 severe training which is necessary for the accomplish- 
 ment of a good actor. Over these difficulties, the 
 energy, intelligence, and predominating will of Mr. 
 Macready, in a great measure triumphed. Mind re- 
 sumed the place of " inexplicable dumb-show and, noise" 
 — spectacle was rendered subservient to the illustration 
 of the poet. The public hailed the change with rap- 
 ture, and seconded, most liberally, the eflforts to esta- 
 blish a pure taste, and to present the masterpieces of 
 dramatic art in a manner in some degree worthy of the 
 poet's conceptions. These efforts were discontinued 
 from causes, we believe, entirely private — public, at 
 
6 AOTINO A8 ONE OF 
 
 least, only in so far as the public were losers by the 
 result — certainly not from any lukewaminess on then- 
 part. Had they been continued, it may fairly be pre- 
 sumed that the cause of the drama would have been 
 materially benefited. There were, no doubt, many and 
 grave errors in Mr. Macready's management, which it 
 is foreign to our purpose to consider, but it must always 
 be regarded with grateful recoUection by many, who 
 then received higher and more vivid impressions of the 
 capabiUties of the stage than they had ever before 
 imagined.! 
 
 The difficulties that would attend the revival of a 
 similar enterprise are now infinitely augmented. Not 
 that pubHo support would be wanting — not that an 
 equal amount of presiding intelligence could not be 
 commanded. The resources of the antiquary, the ma- 
 chinist, and the scene-painter are equally ready now as 
 before. The whole dead machiaery of the stage, the 
 framework of the picture, is equally at command. But 
 where are the actors ? We neither have them now, 
 nor do we see much prospect of having them. It is 
 they, we maintain, who have declined ; not the taste for 
 the drama. Place a Kemble, a Siddons, a Kean upon 
 the stage, surround them with that cluster of able and 
 practised artists who vied with them in their great 
 delineations of character and passion, and see whether 
 the public would be less forward than before to do 
 
 ' A mistaken idea is prevalent that Mr. Macready lost money by 
 his management at Drury Lane. This was not the case. We had 
 the denial from his own lips. 
 
THE FINE ABT8. 7 
 
 homage to their genius ! So far is indifference to 
 excellence from being characteristic of the time, that it 
 seems to ns, there is only too great an eagerness to hail 
 even the semblance of power, and to crown it with the 
 fame and rewards that should be reserved only for 
 greatness. Some peculiarity of manner, some unusual 
 vehemence of style, some mere trick of art — anything, 
 in short, that is out of the usual run of commonplace, 
 passes current as evidence of genius. But the pre- 
 vailing curse of clever mediocrity has, with one or two 
 brilliant exceptions, settled upon the stage, as upon 
 literature and art, and we cast our eyes hopelessly 
 around for evidence of that high ambition and patient 
 striving towards greatness which made the stages of 
 Drnry Lane and Covent Garden illustrious during the 
 last generation. 
 
 It seems as if greatness then produced greatness — 
 genius fostered genius — as, indeed, we believe they 
 ever will. Sympathy and emulation stimulated facul- 
 ties, that had else lain dormant, to join in the glorious 
 struggle for distinction, 
 
 " Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate, 
 Noctes atque dies prsestanti niti labore." — 
 
 The skill, intelligence, and enthusiasm of every 
 labourer in the same noble field reacted favourably 
 upon his fellows, and all attained a higher excellence 
 than they could have reached, had each been left to 
 pursue his aspirations singly and alone. We see the 
 operation of this principle in the lyrical Italian opera 
 of Her Majesty's Theatre. There all the performers 
 are masters of the art, — all have risen to their position 
 
8 ACTING AS ONE OF 
 
 by the labour and science of years bestowed in tlie 
 cultivation of great original powers. Eacli individual 
 is distingnislied by some peculiar gifts. In combination 
 they produce effects of surpassing excellence. The 
 collision of the qualities of one performer with those of 
 another corrects faults, develops new ideas, suggests 
 new combinations. A school where even accomplished 
 artiste may learn is thus formed, and the public reap 
 the results in the improved musical taste which is 
 insensibly acquired under the influence of such con- 
 summate skill. 
 
 Let us imagine a national theatre with a company of 
 corresponding excellence, with genius for the tragic 
 drama equal to that of Grisi, Lablaohe and Mario in 
 the lyrical, and with the same predominating taste and 
 intelligence in all the details of the scene ! Can it be 
 doubted, that such a theatre would command the 
 warmest support of all cultivated people, of all those 
 sections of society who are at present repelled from our 
 theatres by bad plays and worse acting ? Unques- 
 tionably it would. But alas ! the hope of such a 
 theatre and of such actors is a remote one indeed. 
 
 Paradoxical as it may seem, it is nevertheless the 
 fact, that the increasing love for the drama has debased 
 its quality and lowered the standard of excellence in 
 the performers. The demand for the latter has outrun 
 the supply, and inferior talent is consequently elevated 
 to a position far above what it could formerly have 
 obtained. So long as dramatic performances were 
 limited to a few theatres, the leading actors were con- 
 centrated within their walls, and they were regarded 
 
THE FINE ARTS. 9 
 
 by the profession generally as the goal of honotirable 
 diBtinction for which it was their ambition to qualify 
 themselves. Within these theatres a system of rigid 
 discipliae was maiataiaed, and a high standard of ex- 
 cellence preserved. The ideas of the great performers 
 of former times were handed down, and the genins of 
 the actor availed itself of the conceptions and expe- 
 rience of his predecessors. The whole resources of art 
 were then brought in aid of the original powers of the 
 actors. In the provinces, again, the theatres of Edin- 
 burgh and other places were considered as schools for 
 the training of young actors. The same high standard 
 of excellence was there placed before them by the 
 managers, and maintained by the occasional visits of 
 the great actors, who kept alive within their younger 
 brethren the ambition of distinction, while they illus- 
 trated the means by which it was to be obtained. 
 Years on years were then not thought too much for 
 the practice of the subordinate parts of the profession, 
 years of severe application and study, in which habits 
 of observation were acquired and ripened, and practical 
 dexterity attained in an art where it is only to be 
 arrived at by patient and persevering zeal. The plays, 
 too, which then held possession of the stage were plays 
 of character and passion. To embody them, know- 
 ledge of life and of the heart were indispensable, and 
 the actor could not escape into that mere sparkle and 
 dash of manner, which carries most of our per- 
 formers successfully through the extravagance and 
 caricature of the staple pieces of the present day. 
 Under these circumstances, a class of performers grew 
 
10 ACTING AS ONE OF 
 
 up, — well studied in the theory and practice of their 
 art ; and there was no leading proviucial theatre which 
 could not show within its company more than one actor 
 of a higher stamp than will now be found in any except 
 the leading metropolitan theatres. 
 
 But we have changed all this. Actors, like other 
 people, live in a hurry now-a-days. The steps to great- 
 ness are forgot in the eagerness to achieve it. They 
 must run before they can walk, and, like Bottom, put 
 in for the topping parts without scruple. The patience 
 of genius, one of its essential qualities, is clean banished 
 from our theatres ; and, if an actor can but command a 
 trifle of applause in some miaor part, he takes it as a 
 sure sign that he has the stuflP of a Kean within him, 
 and that nature and his inborn greatness are wrongfully 
 depressed by the jealousy and ignorance of his manager; 
 Unfortunately, too, the demand for actors which the 
 increase of theatres, especially under the recent Licens- 
 ing Act, has created, gives only too much scope for the 
 indulgence of this vanity, for it holds out a premium to 
 any thing in the shape of talent, however raw, which 
 acquirement and long years of experience were formerly 
 unable to command. 
 
 In this way companies are perpetually changing — 
 habits of patient perseverance and mutual emulation 
 are lost. Acting ceases to be an art, and becomes the 
 mere assumption of dress and language, without an 
 attempt at impersonating character. Then, too, man- 
 agers find that they cannot get up the sterling plays and 
 comedies that fiUed their theatres of old, and seek a 
 fitter occupation for the abilities of their performers in 
 
TBB FINE ABT8. 11 
 
 melo-drama and burlesque. Matters grow worse and 
 worse. The better class of playgoers desert tbe 
 theatre ; attractions of coarser grain must be found for 
 those who remain. The powers of the actors them- 
 selves degenerate, because they have neither the ambi- 
 tion nor the scope to improve ; and thus the majority 
 of our provincial theatres threaten in the long run to 
 fall under the control of the galleries, which, as matters 
 now stand, have become their chief support. 
 
 How this state of things is to be reformed, and the 
 drama to be restored to a condition commensurate with 
 its own dignity and the intelligence of the time, it is 
 not easy to see. It is not from without, we apprehend, 
 that the remedy is to come. The public cannot supply 
 dramatic or any other power — ^they can only encourage 
 it, and encourage it they will, whenever it comes 
 before them. The fault is not theirs, if the theatres be 
 deserted, when they visit them only to be disappointed 
 — perhaps disgusted. They cannot be expected to 
 leave home, and home studies and enjoyments, and to 
 lay out money for the privilege of seeing incapable 
 actors and plays that minister neither amusement nor in- 
 struction. The evil is in this — ^that the stage, generally, 
 is below the average intelligence of the time, not above 
 it, as it should be. From itself, then, and from its 
 professors, the reformation of its defects must flow. 
 Let these rise to the level of the current taste amongst 
 the educated classes. Let actors learn to appreciate 
 the importance and dignity of their own art, and strive, 
 as of old, to guide and elevate the taste and intelligence 
 of their audience — let them remember that they may 
 
12 ACTING AS ONE OF 
 
 become the exponents of the noblest poetry in the 
 world, and exercise a sway over the hearts and minds 
 of thousands, snch as even great orators have it rarely 
 in their power to exert ; and they may then confer a 
 lasting benefit on the nation, and make their profession 
 at once lucrative and hononrable to themselves. 
 
 The first step towards this result will be the stead- 
 fast contemplation of their profession as a great and 
 ennobling art, the object of which is to ponrtray the 
 many-colonred forms of life and emotion in such a way 
 as to refine the feelings, to elevate the mind, to educate 
 the taste — an art that brings to bear on its exercise a 
 wide and searching knowledge of the human heart ; an 
 acquaintance with the perfect forms and groupings of 
 painting and sculpture ; a vivid apprehension of the 
 subtlest beauties of poetry in its highest form. In all 
 things the actor must learn to think of his art first, and 
 of himself as subordinate to it. Let him strive to raise 
 it, and he cannot fail to rise with it. Let it be his first 
 care that the work be presented to the spectator, lifelike 
 and complete, as it was moulded iu the poet's brain, 
 each part carefully finished in itself, and bearing its 
 due relation to those around. Desdemona is not to be 
 sacrificed to Othello, nor Jacques slurred over, because 
 Biosalind fills a more prominent place ia the eyes of the 
 audience. All are important, all worthy of a per- 
 former's best care in giving to them precisely that im- 
 portance in the scene which the poet had in view. 
 
 We know how little of this spirit prevails on our 
 stage now — ^how little of it has perhaps ever prevailed. 
 Performers judge of plays and of parts, with reference 
 
THE FINE ARTS. 13 
 
 solely to their own share in them. The treatment of 
 the subject of the drama, as a whole, never occupies 
 their thoughts. It would be well if they would take a 
 lesson in this from the continent. There a great actress 
 will not hesitate to assume a subordinate part, and to 
 throw her best powers into it, if need be ; as we have 
 known in the case of Schroder, who followed a majestic 
 performance of Lady Macbeth on one night by under- 
 taking Lady Goupulet the next. What her views on this 
 subject were may be gathered from her answer to a 
 friend, who expressed surprise at her undertaking so 
 insignificant a part. " Insignificant ! a character of 
 Shakspeare's insignificant ! " So, too, when an actor of 
 some eminence refused a minor part in one of Schiller's 
 plays, at the Weimar Theatre, Goethe, as Bokerman tells 
 us, answered him, " If you will not play it, I will play it 
 myself; " and he would have done it, too, had the re- 
 cusant not succumbed. Unfortunately, some of even 
 our greatest performers appear to have possessed little 
 of this spirit; they have felt a morbid dread of letting 
 themselves down, by playing anything but leading parts ; 
 and by always acting upon this fear, they have, perhaps, 
 made it well-gi?ounded. At all events, they have done 
 this prejudice to the cause of the drama, that they have 
 accustomed audiences to go to see this or that particular 
 performer, and not to see the play as a whole put 
 upon the stage in all respects in the best possible 
 siyle. 
 
 A reformation, such as we have pointed at, can only 
 come by slow degrees ; perhaps, only in another gene- 
 ration. It must be commenced by one or more of the 
 
14 ACTING A8 ONE OF 
 
 leading members of the profession, or by the efforts of 
 some actor of genius, sufficient to arrest and direct the 
 public taste, and to inspire a new feeling in the pro- 
 fession. There never was a time, we believe, more 
 favourable to the attempt than the present, if the stage 
 could but furnish the man or men to make it. The 
 want of a good theatre for the higher drama is deeply 
 felt in the metropolis, where both the great theatres have 
 been handed over to opera and ballet, and the only other 
 well appointed theatre, the Haymarket, is devoted 
 almost exclusively, and indeed, has a company only 
 adapted, to comedy. But strongly as it is felt, any im- 
 perfect attempt to establish a theatre to supply this 
 void would, in aU probability, fail ; because nothing 
 short of excellence will satisfy such an audience as it 
 must depend on for success. And we do not well see 
 how any attempt could, in the present state of things, 
 be otherwise than imperfect, seeing that such talent as 
 does exist could only be brought together at an expense 
 which no theatre of proper dimensions could warrant. 
 
 Small as the grounds for nourishing it may be, we 
 cannot surrender the hope, that a better race of perfor- 
 mers may yet arise, with higher ideas 5f their art, and 
 greater accomplishments, than are to be found in the 
 majority of those now upon the stage. The prejudice 
 against the dramatic profession has greatly diminished, 
 and it is the fault of its own members that it is not 
 already extinct in all quarters where its existence could 
 be regretted. It holds out great prizes to ambition, in 
 the shape both of fame and fortune. Excellence in it 
 is a passport to good society ; and it demands no more 
 
THE FINE ABT8. 15 
 
 labour in its study than is expended, too often thank- 
 lessly, in the education of the learned professions. That 
 it does not number more educated men within its ranks 
 is therefore surprising. Of course to be a great' actor, 
 as to be a great statesman or great lawyer, demands the 
 rare gift of genius. But why should we not have as 
 many highly accomplished actors, at least, as we have 
 statesmen and lawyers, created more by the force of 
 study ajid perseverance than by great natural powers ? 
 If our view of the art be correct, no scholar or gentleman 
 need to blush at the adoption of the profession ; nor will 
 he turn back from it, despite the many disturbances to 
 enthusiasm and self-respect which he may encounter 
 within it. No doubt he will need all his enthusiasm, all 
 the reliance on his own ideal of his art to sustain him 
 through the degradations and discomforts that beset it. 
 But no profession is entirely free from these, and the 
 theatrical profession is not without compensations for 
 its sorest trials. 
 
 For ourselves, it appears to us that there is almost no 
 position which supplies so many gratifications of those 
 tastes and motives which influence the best natures as 
 those of a great actor or actress. Their greatness pre- 
 supposes quick and keen sensibility, and sympathies 
 warm and comprehensive. Their studies lie among the 
 masterpieces of art, of learning, intellect, and poetry. 
 The painter or sculptor is not more free to indulge his 
 love for nature in its boundless variety of grandeur and 
 beauty, or to follow the sportings of imagination through 
 the bright world of dream, and poetry, and romance. 
 Like the painter, too, great actors are the stewards of 
 
16 ACTING AS ONE OF 
 
 the mysteries of nature, gifted to probe her most recon- 
 dite recesses, to apprehend the spirit of all forms smd 
 passions. The human heart, in all its phases of power 
 and weakness, is their kingdom. The pleasures and 
 pains of many lives are theirs. The beings begotten of 
 the poet's brain live again in them. They rise with 
 their greatness — ^bend with their mighty griefs — are 
 swayed by their passionate impulses — glow with their 
 intense joys, that rush along the blood, and " feel almost 
 like pain." They may shake off the trammels of vulgar 
 life, and move in the pure regions of the ideal. They 
 cure the Imogen or the Othello of the hour. With all 
 these internal and external resources, and incentives, 
 and supports, they wield, too, an influence over the 
 hearts of others — one hour of which many noble natures 
 would almost purchase with life ; an influence great as 
 that of the greatest poets and artists, and, in the direct 
 expression of the homage which it. commands, second 
 not even to that called forth by the highest oratory, in- 
 spiriag and illuminating with eye, and voice, and lan- 
 guage, and shaking, with its " oracular thunder," 
 
 " The listening soul in the suspended blood." 
 
 In the plenitude of inspiration, and armed with lan- 
 guage, the mere utterance of which is a potent spell, the 
 great actor feels and knows that the minds of the 
 listening thousands before him are within his grasp, and 
 that he may turn and wind them which way he will ; — 
 fascinate, subdue, exalt, alarm, distract. Their very 
 souls are his for the time. He sees his power in the 
 smiling eye, the rigid muscle, or the rush of tears. An 
 
THE FINE AB.T8. 17 
 
 impalpable sympathy convinces Mm of Lis trinmpli, and 
 he leaves the stage with the deafening plaudits in his ears 
 of men and women of all grades, and all degrees of men- 
 tal and moral culture, whose will and feelings have been 
 surrendered to his control for hours, pealing the assurance 
 that he has put his idea into living action, and inspired 
 his audience with the vivid image of some lofty chararcter, 
 that may affect their own being beneficially for life. 
 
 The actor may be above his audience ; but he can 
 always in some measure lift them towards himself — eye 
 speaking to eye, and tongue to ear, and motion to sense, 
 as we feel ourselves exalted in the presence of a nobler 
 nature. Not so is it with the philosopher or the poet. 
 They are in advance of their time. Their audience is to 
 seek. Not in the flushed cheek and kindling eye of 
 their fellow-men — not in outspoken plaudits or vivid 
 sympathy, must they expect solace and support amid 
 the doubts and depressions that beset genius, but in the 
 Hght of their own high endeavours and noble studies. 
 Calmly they abide their time, knowing the truth which 
 Anster has beautifully paraphrased from Goethe — 
 
 " The truly great, the genuine, the sublime. 
 Wins its slow way in silence, and the bard, 
 
 Unnoticed long, receives from after-time 
 The imperishable wreath, his best, his sole reward." 
 
 Yet who shall say, which is the more desirable 
 triumph — the actor's or the poet's — ^the assurance of 
 success of the one — the misgivings of the other ? And 
 the fame itself ! To how few is it more than a name ; 
 a name that leaves no stronger impression on the ear 
 than those of Polos, or CEagros, or Boscius, the great 
 
 c 
 
18 ACTING AS ONE OF 
 
 actors of antiquity, or Burbage, or Betterton, Garrick, 
 or Siddons ? Their s;pirits do not, it is true, "rule' us 
 from their tombs," as do those of Phidias, or Eaphael, 
 or Hoin€r, or MUton; But is not their' memory as 
 familiar to us, as suggestive to our thoughts, as the 
 great proportion of those iHustrions names'that do' 
 
 " On fame's eternal bederoU shine for aye ?" 
 
 And surely not unmeet it is, that, they should be so 
 remembered; when it is considered how great and salu- 
 tary their influence is upon the moral and intellectual 
 being of a people, by implanting or fosteiing elevated 
 and purifying sympathies, and by educating their-tastes 
 for the beautiful and noble in feeling and thought, in 
 expression and in motion. 
 
 A great actor or actress ! What qualities does this 
 pre-suppose ! A fine form, habitually graceful, and 
 capable of dignity and grandeur — features flexible for 
 the expression of the most miuute shades of feeling, as 
 of the strongest passion — a voice, full, clear, and re- 
 sonant from its lowest to its highest tones — an iastino- 
 tive knowledge of the outward expressions, in look, and 
 act, and gesture, of all varieties of emotion — an ear 
 refined to the most subtle cadences of verse — a heart 
 and mind that can grapple with and quicken within 
 themselves 
 
 ■ " All thoughts, all feelings, all delights — 
 ■Whatever stirs this mortal frame," — 
 
 a cultivated taste that rounds and refines all its motions 
 and gestures to the limits of what is beautiful or graceful 
 or grand. Such qualities, we apprehend, constitute ' a 
 
THE FINE ARTS. 19 
 
 great actor or actress ; and where such. qualitieB exist, who 
 shall estimate their wholesome and elevating influence 
 on the minds of an andience ? . To this influence we 
 would joyfully subject the plastic minds of pur children, 
 assured that they would reap a profit from it to their 
 tastes and whole moral being, similar, but higher in 
 degree, to that education of their eye for the beautiful 
 in form and colotir, which they would imbibe, if habit- 
 ually surrounded by the masterpieces of ancient art. 
 
 We know that there have been great actors and 
 actresses without many , of these qualities which we 
 have described. Genius, the lightning flame of mind, 
 has made physical defect a matter of iudifference. In 
 their mood of inspiration, " Pritohard was genteel, and 
 Grarrick six feet high." And so it wUl ever be. But 
 where these qualities are combined with genius, how 
 glorious the result ! In a greater or less degree, we 
 believcj they must have been possessed by the great 
 actors of former times. They shine conspicuously in 
 the great living ornament of the English stage — Miss 
 Helen Faucit, — a lady, whose recent performances in our 
 Dublin theatre, during an engagement of unusual dura- 
 tion, have left us, ia common with all who had the good 
 fortune to witness them, under a debt of gratitude which 
 we are proud to acknowledge. 
 
 Miss Helen Faucit is one of those rare creatures, 
 " with gifts and graces eminently adorned," whom we 
 feel it to be a privilege to have seen ; and, whom having 
 seen, we can afibrd to resign all regret at not having 
 known her great predecessors. Her genius is of a class 
 that, renders comparison impertinent. She is original 
 
20 AOTING AS ONE OF 
 
 in her greatness, and herself supplies the standard by 
 which alone she can be fitly jndged. It is not by refer- 
 ence to others who have gone before her that she is to 
 be estimated, but to what she is in herself. She is not 
 to be criticised, but studied, as we study the master- 
 pieces of some great sculptor or poet. And she is the 
 greatest poetess of our time, in the power, the variety, 
 the beauty of the images which she places before us, of 
 the sentiments which she awakens, of the memories to 
 endure with life itself implanted in us by her " so potent 
 art." Words, however powerful, produce no such im- 
 pression, do not so permeate and steal into the very 
 depths of our being, as the unwritten poetry of this 
 lady's acting. It is not alone our fancy, our imagina- 
 tion, or our intellect that is excited — ^but with these our 
 whole sentient nature is purified and refined. Her per- 
 formances not merely send us away filled with brighter 
 and higher conceptions of the creatures of the poet's 
 world, whom she has embodied, but better men, inspired 
 with something of the Ideal, the study of which has 
 made her the great mistress of her art which she is. 
 
 Miss Helen Faucit's impersonations are nature itself; 
 but they are nature as it appears to the poet's eye — 
 nature in its finest and most beautiful aspect. She pos- 
 sesses in an eminent degree the physical requisites for 
 her art — a person graceful and dignified, a voice su- 
 premely fascinating in its " most silver flow," yet equal 
 to the expression of the most commanding passion — a 
 face gifted peculiarly with that " best part of beauty, 
 which a picture cannot express — no, nor the first sight 
 of the life," — a face, wonderful indeed, in the magic 
 
THE FINE ABT8. 21 
 
 and variety of its expression. Along with these, she 
 possesses a complete command of all the resonrces 
 which intelligence gathers from experience, and an ob- 
 vions familiarity with the treasures of art, which has 
 strengthened and exalted strong natural perceptions of 
 the graceful and beautiful in form and motion. But 
 greater than all these is the spirit by which they are 
 vivified and swayed ; the lofty impulses, the command- 
 ing powers of thought and feeling, the inspired energy, 
 the pure taste, the exquisite ladyhood of nature which 
 are conspicuous in all Miss Faucit's personations. It 
 is such visions as she presents that bless the dreams of 
 poets ; and happy are we, who, in this dull mechanical 
 time, have seen with our wakiug eyes a reality fair as 
 imagination may picture. 
 
 The remembrance of these is fresh upon us as we 
 write. Juliet, Rosalind, the Lady Constance, Portia, 
 Lady Macbeth, "divine Imogen," Beatrice, all crowd 
 upon our fancy; and after them Pauline, a character 
 made more by Miss Faucit than by the author ; Julia, 
 Belvidera, Nina Sforza, and the Lady Mabel, that exqui- 
 site portraiture of all that can fascinate in womanly 
 grace, or move in womanly suffering. To have seen 
 Miss Faucit in these characters, is to have seen a whole 
 world of poetry revealed, of which the most enthusiastic 
 and intelligent study of their authors could have helped 
 us to no idea. Henceforth they live for us — live in the 
 most perfect form. Where the author has furnished 
 but a barren outline, she pours into it the strength and 
 radiance of her own spirit, and a noble picture glows 
 before us. Nov is this true only in the case of inferior 
 
22 ACTING' AS ONE OF 
 
 poets. In dealing with Shakspeare, this great actress 
 rises to the full measure of her strength. Her perform- 
 ances are revelations of the great' master-poet's subtlest 
 powers. When we have once seen them, there is a light 
 evermore upon his page, which, but for the magic of 
 this great commentator, would never have been there 
 for us. Arden has a deeper charm in the shade of its 
 "melancholy boughs;" for the smile of £.6salind, our 
 own " very, very Bosalind,'' gleams through it, and the 
 voice is near us,^ that wooed from Orlando, with its most 
 womanly coquetry, the little remnant of his heart which 
 he bore with him to the forest. We have stood beneath 
 Juliet's balcony ; we have heard the nightin^le singiug 
 on the neighbouring pomegranate tree, and our eyes 
 have trembled with Romeo's beneath the wonder of her 
 face. We have followed her, as she rises heroically 
 with every fresh disaster, and laid down our heart with 
 hers, when she escaped from a life now nothing worth 
 without the light of love. So, too, have we seen, as we 
 could never have hoped to see, Lady Macbeth in the 
 grandeur of her dauntless will, inflexible from its pur- 
 pose ; and when this was achieved, and the avenging 
 furies lay their grasp upon her, maintaining a Spartan 
 self-control, dying a daily death in the pangs of uncom- 
 municated remorse, isolated from her selfish lord, to 
 whom and to whose ambition she had sacrificed all. 
 Miss Faucit's conception of this character, original and 
 most powerful as it is, throws more light upon it than 
 the sagacity of all the commentators. In it we see a 
 wUl masculine in energy, a heart insensible to fear, — a 
 mind subtle, prompt, and resolute, without religion, 
 
" THR. FINE ABT8. 23 
 
 witliout pitifulness, withpnfc sentiment in any shape, — 
 and yet- a woman, claiming, some hbld on onr sym- 
 pathies, in' her wifely love,, her endurance,, and in the 
 "ine-vitable pangs of reitribiitiye com^fei^ce- ■ Here, as in 
 aU other characters, she seems to have trusted to the 
 instincts of her 'Own genius and womaa'a^ hearty and the 
 result has proved that the trust was not ■misplaced. It 
 is, we know, a bold thing to say;; yet belieyijiig, we must 
 say it, that the genius is akin to Shakspeate's, that can 
 so thoroughly realise his-; conceptions as Miss Helen 
 Paucitdoes, clothing with very, life the creatures, pf his 
 imaginationj and not one or .two of these i alone, but 
 many-^TT-aE various, and for the most part opposite in 
 kind. , , 
 
 But this, great actress's versatility is not confined to 
 the romantic drama alone* Her An1;i^on&. stands put in 
 the roll of her triumphs, simple and majestic, in severe 
 beauty — consummate in its kind, as her Imogen/. ov her 
 OowsfcKBce;! but. that kind how different ! ^ere, twenty- 
 three centuries after the poet, who conceived it has gone 
 to his rest, it is presented to us fresh. and beautiful, 
 like some magnificent statue dug up from the ruins of 
 Time, perfect as when it left the sculptor's hand. The 
 
 joy of the 
 
 " Watcher of the skies, 
 When some new planet swims into his ken," 
 
 as a type ef that, which every scholar and student of 
 Gtreek life and literature and art must have experienced, 
 when he first saw in the person of Miss Faucit the em- 
 bodiment of this the noblest heroine of the Grreek drama. 
 It was the opening of a new world, or, more truly per- 
 
24 ACTING AS ONE OF 
 
 haps to snoli a man, the vivifying of a dead bnt fami- 
 liar one, when she first, entered on the scene, " with 
 face resigned to bliss or bale," and declared her deter- 
 mination to obey the dictates of nature in defiance of 
 her uncle's decree. He saw before him the type of 
 those beautiful forms, which sculpture has made im- 
 mortal, in the majestic form, the simple drapery, the 
 serene and noble features of the actress. She looked 
 as one that had long been familiar to the sad thoughts 
 of the destiny that hung upon her race, and under 
 which her father had perished strangely before her eyes. 
 And when she spoke, her voice, in its earnest tender- 
 ness, made richer music than the flowing numbers of 
 the Grecian bard. Simple, noble, royal in her bravery 
 of heart, she proclaimed to the tyrant the supremacy of 
 the great law of Nature on which she had acted, in a 
 manner which gave to the sublime thoughts of the poet 
 all and more than all they lost in the feeble language 
 of the translators.' But it is in the concluding scene 
 that the powers of the actress rise to their height. The 
 sisterly love that had sustained her till now is absorbed 
 in the contemplation of the fearful doom that awaits 
 her. Here the fervent imagination and wonderful 
 power of Miss Faucit inspire her audience with a sym- 
 pathy for the Greek girl, lively and intense as for the 
 sufferings with which modern life is familiar. Dirce's 
 clear-flowing stream, its many-coloured meadows, the 
 rays of " golden Helios," aU rise before our eyes, and 
 we share the passionate ecstasy with which the young 
 
 ' We refer to the passage v. 450 — oi yap ri fioi ZtiiQ ^v. 
 
THE FINE ABT8. 25 
 
 girl in the fulness of her life gazes on them for the last 
 time. How shall we describe the tone, the gesture, 
 with which her whole heart vents itself in that excla- 
 mation, in which is expressed the remorseless inevit- 
 able doom, that pursued the race of Labdacus. 
 
 " Oh fate ! The curse that fell on the maternal bed, 
 That gave my father's mother's children birth. 
 Was theirs, is mine." 
 
 " Ariadne passioning," Mobe with her slaughtered off- 
 spring around her, Cassandra in her prophetic mood, 
 are the images that spring most readily to our mind. 
 A sculptor that could have fixed the attitude in marble, 
 though the deep pathos of the tremulous lip, and the 
 eye that seemed to look through Fate, must have 
 escaped him, would have earned lasting fame. The 
 Greek stage could boast of no such acting — ^from its 
 very character, such acting was impossible. But the 
 spirit of Sophocles, speaking the voice of Nature, 
 that was, and is, and ever shall be the same while the 
 world endures, has found a home in the heart of an 
 English girl, and thrills on English hearts with a force 
 greater than could ever have been contemplated by the 
 bard himself. Beautiful Antigone! — ^beautiful to us 
 now in form and feature, as thou hast ever been in thy 
 noble martyr spirit and great woman's heart ! 
 
 The effect of such a performance on the taste and 
 scholarship of a people cannot be over-estimated. The 
 eye accustomed to beauty of form and to grace of motion 
 so ideal, will shrink ever afterwards from the mean or the 
 ungraceful. The mind into which, the nobility of Anti- 
 gone's character has been impressed by such fascinating 
 
26 ACTING AS ONE OF 
 
 power, is permanently elevated. And for scliolai'sliip, it 
 receives an impetasj and a flood of light ifrom the living 
 passion infused into thei forms, .thati in the .study have 
 scarcely been associated with the idea of ilife, which no 
 teaching could conveyi It wai^ well don^ then, in the 
 most eminent amo;ng us, for, learning and science, and 
 the humanizing arts, to confess their gratitude as they 
 did last year to this distinguished lady in the address 
 which accompanied their, appropriate gift pf a classic 
 fibnla.^ And it was better still, and a sight gratifying 
 
 ' The address was in the following terms : — 
 
 " TO MISS HELEN lATICIT. , 
 
 " Madam — We beg to give expression to the unalloyed and 
 sustained satisfaction which we have derived from your late per- 
 formances at our national theatre. ' ' 
 
 " We have each and all endeavoured to promote -the- eultivation of 
 classic literature, and the study of ancient art, in this our city; and 
 we feel that your noble representation of ' Antigone ' has greatly 
 advanced these important objects, by creating a love and admiration 
 of the beality arid grandeur of ancient Greece. ' ' 
 
 " With the writings of the Grecian dramatists, it is true, we have 
 lopg been familiar; but their power and their beauty, have come 
 down to us through books alone. ' Mute and motionless ' that 
 drama has heretofore stood before us ; you, Madam, have given it 
 voice, gesture, life; you have realized the geniiis, and embodied the 
 inspirations, of the authors and of the artists of early Greece; and 
 have thus encouraged and instructed the youth of Ireland in fhe 
 study of their immortal works. 
 
 ' " We offer the accompanying testimonial to the virtues and 
 talents of one, whose tastes, education, attd surpassing powers have 
 justly placed her at the summit of her profession. .,. 
 
 " George Peteie, V.P.K.I. A., Chairman. 
 
 John Anster, LL. D., M. R. I. A. 
 Joi 
 ' Dublin, 1845 
 
 John Francis Waixer, M.E.I.A. J Secretaries. 
 
THE FINE ABT8. 27 
 
 to- all admirers of genius, to all who ■woxild wist to have 
 learning prosecuted in an ardent and generous spirit, 
 to see the youth of our university^the bud and pro- 
 mise of the mind of Ireland — crowding the theatre in a 
 body, to learn from a young and beautiful woman to 
 appreciate the genius of the Greek drama, and of one of 
 its noblest masters. 
 
 When such a sight is to be seen, let us not be told 
 that the taste for the drama is declining. Give us the 
 drama as it should be given, and the public will do 
 their part. Give us nature, and passion, and genuine 
 art, and it will be seen that the spirit to appreciate, and 
 the hand to reward them are not wanting^ 
 
 [De Quincey, who saw Miss Paucit perform Antigone. in Edin- 
 burgh, writes of it thus in his essay " On the Antigone of Sophocles " 
 (Wdrk^, vol. 14) : — " Suddenly ^oh ! heavens, what a revelation of 
 beauty !-^forth' stepped, walking in brightness, the most faultless of 
 Grecian marbles, Miss Helen Paucit as ' Antigone.' What perfec- 
 tion of Athenian sculpture ! the > noble figure, the lovely arms, the 
 fluent drapery ! What an unveiling of the ideal statuesque ! Is it 
 Hebe ? Is it Aurora ? Is it a goddess that moves before us ? Per- 
 fect she is in form ; perfect in attitude ; 
 
 ' Beautiful exceedingly, 
 
 Like a lady from a far countrie.' 
 
 It flattered one's patriotic feelings to see this noble young country- 
 woman realising so exquisitely, and restoring to our imaginations, 
 the noblest of Greek girls."] 
 
THE GLADIATOR OP RAVENNA.' 
 
 (Fkasee's Magazine, March, 1857.) 
 
 N the barrenness of onr present dramatic 
 literature, it is pleasant to find that else- 
 where in Europe there are authors to 
 write and companies to act plays of a 
 high class, like those contained in the edition of Fried- 
 rich Halm's works which has just been completed. One 
 of these, Der Sohn der Wildmiss, has been introduced 
 to our own stage under the title of Ingomar, but not 
 having fallen into the hands of capable actors, it has 
 not taken the place which its originality and great 
 dramatic beauty would otherwise have secured for it. 
 Halm's Griselda was also acted in England several 
 years ago with indifferent success ; and his fine dra- 
 matic sketch, Gomwens, has been endenizened in the 
 columns of Blackwood. Otherwise this author is little 
 known in this country, and will probably remain so un- 
 
 ' Fnedrieh Hahn's Werke. 
 te. 1856. 
 
 Vienna. London : Williains and Nor- 
 
THE GLADIATOR OF UAVENNA. 29 
 
 less some of the Quarterlies shall devote the necessary- 
 space to a detailed criticism of his works. Such a task 
 is qxiite beyond onr limits, and we shall therefore con- 
 fine ourselves to a notice of his last, and in some re- 
 spects finest, play, The Glad/iator of 'Bamemna. 
 
 This play was produced anonymously at the Bwrg 
 Theater of Vienna, in October, 1854, It was then, and 
 for a long time afterwards, ascribed to a certain Dr. 
 Lanbe, tiU suddenly the authorship was claimed by a 
 Bavarian schoolmaster, named Friedrich Bacherl, who 
 alleged that in. the play, which was then creating a 
 fwtore throughout Southern Germany, he recognised 
 the substance of a drama which he had some years 
 before submitted to the director of the Bwrg Theater, 
 and which had been returned by that gentleman as 
 unfit for the stage. Great was the ferment which en- 
 sued, and in Munich the production of the piece led to 
 something as like an 0. P. riot as, under the limitations 
 of Bavarian liberty, was possible. How the contro- 
 versy ended we never learned, and the volume before 
 us does not say, as the play quietly takes its place, 
 without one word of comment, among Halm's other 
 works. Possibly, as there were people to declare that 
 
 " Garth did not write his own Dispensary," 
 
 there are still believers in Laube and Bacherl. All we 
 can say is, that this play has a marvellous family 
 resemblance to its companions, and that as it is pub- 
 lished as Halm's, we believe it to be purely and simply 
 
 his. 
 
 The story has evidently been suggested by two sen- 
 
30 TEE GLADIATOR 
 
 tences of Tacitus. In his mentioB of tlie first defeat 
 inflicted npon the army of Arminius by Germanicxis, 
 when he entered Germany to avenge the signal over- 
 throw of Y&tuB in the Tentobnrger Forest by the great 
 German leader, that brilliant word-painter records that, 
 among the prisoners then taken,— 
 
 " Inerant fceminse nobiles ; infer quas uxor Annihii, eademque filia 
 Segestis, mariti magis quam parentis animo, heque victa in lacrimas, 
 neqne Toce supplex, compressis inter sinum manibus, gravidum 
 uterum intuens." — Ann. i. 57. 
 
 Armioius's wife, whose name was Thnsnelda, socxn 
 after being taken to Rome to swell the triumph of 
 Germanions, gave birth to a son, who, according to 
 Strabo, was called Thnmelicns, and of him Tacitus says, 
 " edncatns Ravennse pner, quo mox ludibrio conflictatns 
 sit, in tempore memorabo." The lost books of the 
 Annals no donbt .contained the fulfilment of the pro- 
 mise here given, but of this son nothing further is 
 known historically. Enough, however, is suggested in 
 the words just quoted for the purposes of the drama- 
 tist, who, availing himself of the facts that a woman of 
 the character indicated, the wife of the great German 
 hero, gave birth in captivity to a son, and that this son 
 was trained as a gladiator at the school of Ravenna, 
 and actually made his appearance in the arena, has con- 
 structed a play full of life and action and iaterest, de- 
 spite the remoteness of the period and the antagonism 
 of most of the characters to modem sympathies. 
 
 The play opens ia the gardens of Marc Antony in 
 Rome, with the arrival of what a Virginian would call 
 a " prime lot" of gladiators for the. approaching games. 
 
OF BA7ENNA. 31 
 
 They are Tuider the guidance of Glabrio, the master of 
 the Ravenna Sbhool, who is as prond of his troop, and 
 in niTich the same vein, as: a dog-fancier in, the present 
 day is of his "toy " dogs. The various characters of 
 his bncly ruffians and their mutual- jealousies are nicely 
 individualized^'! and developed with great dramatic 
 vivacity, . Foremost among them areKeyx and Thume- 
 licus ; the former an old hand; and king of the school ; 
 the latter the most promising pet of the fancy, and 
 described by Glahrioy to the disgust of the brawny 
 
 " itandsoiue as Phcebus, blooming as a rose." 
 
 Keys, it is plain, will not long hold his supremacy 
 nndisptited. Thumelicus is bent on reigning in his 
 stead, stimulated thereto partly by ambition, and more 
 strongly by tlie, bravados of .Keyx, that he is as intimate 
 as himself in the good graces of Lyeigca, a flower-girl 
 of whom Thumelicus is> enamoured. Prom words they 
 fall to blows, and are only parted by the vigorous whip 
 of their master Grlabrio. The rest being dismissed to 
 their quarters, Glabrio takes Thumelicus under his 
 especial charge, soothing him by assurances that Lycisca 
 is now, in Rome, and . true to him, and that she shall 
 visit him forthwith. It is all-important that his 
 favourite shall not get out of condition through fretting, 
 and Glabrio coaxes him with the coarse sugar-plums of 
 flattery and fawning.' The animalism and degraded 
 sensuousness of the whole party ar^ brought out with 
 great skill. 
 
 As Glabrio and Thumelicus retire, Thusnelda and 
 
32 THE GLADIATOB 
 
 her kinswoman Bamis, who have been prisoners at 
 large in the gardens of Antony since their first arrival 
 in Rome, enter in conversation, and from them the 
 andience learns the circximstances of Thnsnelda's cap- 
 tivity ; and that having meditated suicide rather than 
 attend the triumphal car of Gtermanicns, she had for- 
 borne on finding that she bore another life within her 
 own. Her boy has been torn from her in infancy, and 
 she knows not where or how he has been trained, or 
 indeed if he be alive. Grermany has not forgotten, how- 
 ever, either the captive queen or her son, and Merovig, 
 the brother-in-arms of Arminius, along with some other 
 German chiefs, has entered the Roman service, and 
 come to the capital for the purpose of efiecting the re- 
 lease of Thusnelda and Thumelicus, and setting up 
 the latter as their leader in a great scheme for libe- 
 rating Germany, and establishing the unity of the 
 kingdom. Merovig finds his way into the gardens, 
 developes his designs to Thusnelda, and has just in- 
 formed her that her son still lives, and that she will 
 soon see him, when voices are heard approaching, and 
 he is compelled to retreat before he can apprise her 
 where and what her son is, leaving in her hands the 
 sword of her dead husband. The act closes thus : — 
 
 " Thusitelda. — See him again I 
 But one word, Merovig ! See him again 1 
 Is 't dream ? Or truth ? No, no, it is no dream. 
 This is Arminius' sword, and shall I not 
 Within my son's hand place it, shall I not 
 Incite his spirit to a hero's deeds. 
 And set his father's image 'fore his eyes ? 
 I shall, I shall ! — Ye great, ye righteous gods, 
 
OF BAVENNA. 33 
 
 Oft in the silent night have I besought ye, 
 To lay within my hands, and on my soul, 
 Some mighty purpose, yet before I died, — 
 To entrust to me some mission high and grave. 
 That, undistraught by weakness or by hate, 
 I might unswervingly my task fulfil. 
 Might be Thusnelda still, Arminius' wifis. 
 And worthy of the German name I bear ! 
 This ye have done, ye have trusted to my hands 
 My country's might, her honour, and her future ; 
 And here I vow — clutch ye this hand I raise 
 In witness of my oath, and hold it fast — 
 I wiU fulfil the task ye have enjoined. 
 This I will do, and if my powers shall fail, 
 I'E break, as breaks the oak before the blast. 
 But bend I will not, ever, ever more! 
 
 Thumelious (entermff). — It is too hot within ! I cannot sleep! 
 And I can't get that Keyx from my sight ! 
 So ho ! What woman's this here with the sword ? 
 
 Bajuis {returning from assisting Mebovig to escape). — 
 He has escaped ! 
 
 Thus. Hush, hush ! Look there ! Ye gods ! 
 
 Kamis. What ails thee ? What's amiss ? 
 
 Thus. Dost thou not see ? 
 
 Or is it only to my eyes revealed ? 
 Look yonder, look ! 
 
 Eamis. By the gods' cloud-wrapt throne, 
 
 That is Arminius from crovra to sole ! 
 
 Thtm. Why do you stare at me, ye crackbrained crones ? 
 What want ye ? Speak ! 
 
 Thus. No, it is not the shade 
 
 Of my Arminius risen from the grave ! 
 No, thine eye flashes, and thy voice rings clear ; 
 Thou livest, thou art my son, and — hence, ye tears, 
 With your bedimming veils ! — and let these arms 
 Enfold thee, clasp thee to my mother's heart I 
 
 Thum. What want ye ? Let me — 
 
 Thus. Dost thou know me not ? 
 
 But I, I know thee well — the dimple here, 
 
 D 
 
34 THE GLADIATOR 
 
 And here the dark-brown mole. Sigmar, my son.. 
 Dost tbon disown the breast that suckled thee, 
 The anus that rocked thy infancy to sleep ? 
 
 Thdm. Sigmar ? I've heard that name before — 
 
 Tnns. Here, take 
 
 This sword ! 'Tis thine ! 'Tis thy inheritance. 
 Kow flames a brighter lustre from thine eyes. 
 Oh, look upon me, — longer, closer still ! 
 And let me steep and comfort my sick soul 
 In the deep liquid ocean of thine eye ! 
 
 Thcm. That look ! That voice ! Is my brain turned ? 
 
 Thus. Hush! hush ! 
 
 Music ! These are the melodies of home ! 
 How soft and sweet ! Is the night come so soon ? 
 I see thee not, yet do I hold thee fast. 
 We shall not part, my son — 
 
 Tbcm. She totters, sinks ; 
 
 Come hither ! Quick ! 
 
 Bahis. She faints. 
 
 Thus. My son, my son ! " 
 
 The second act passes in the Imperial Palace, where 
 the scene opens npon a circle of Caligula's courtiers, 
 who are discussing the most recent scandal and gossip 
 of the Court whilst waiting for the appearance of the 
 imperial tyrant. The period chosen is towards the 
 close of Caligula's career, whe;a his frantic excesses 
 have become intolerable, and- the conspiracy under 
 which he fell is on the point of being matured by his 
 favourite, Cassius Chaarea, the prefect of the PrsBtorian 
 Guard. This scene is throughout masterly in concep- 
 tion and details. It combines the charm of historical 
 and poetical truth, and must be most effective in per- 
 formance, full as it is of life, variety, and movement. 
 We are prepared for the entrance of Caligula by the 
 glimpses which we gather from the various speakers of 
 
OF BAVENNA. 35 
 
 his cmelties, his excesses, the vanity which made Viitn 
 even insist on being worshipped as a di-vinity, and those 
 other features of his character which are familiar to the 
 scholar. This part of the scene is managed with an 
 almost Shakspearian skUl, delightfully in contrast with 
 the prosy awkwardness of most German dramas. Let 
 us step aside from the crowd with Cornelius Sabiaus 
 and Cassius Ghserea, and listen to what the latter has 
 to say of the tyrant, in answer to the remark of Sabi- 
 nus, that the destinies of the world and of mankind are 
 at the mercy of a blaspheming madman : — 
 
 " Cassius. It almost seems so ! The plain truth is this ; 
 
 Caligula is sick ! He used to be. 
 
 Thou know'st, a man of brains and judgment, quick 
 
 To see and to decide, weighty in speech, 
 
 And loved the arts. — But for these last few weeks, — 
 
 In business or in conTerse, 'tis all one — 
 
 He drops by fits into a dream-like maze. 
 
 Stares right before him, then starts up anon, 
 
 Shouts, dances, leaps, then with a wofol sigh 
 
 Cries, ' He is poison'd, that his life's assail'd ! ' 
 
 Then reels and staggers, till, quite spent, he sinks 
 
 Xdke a dead man into a breathless swoon. 
 
 By night he wanders sleepless through the halls, 
 
 Sees phantoms as he goes in every nook, 
 
 Stalks up to them, and babbles to the vvalls. 
 Answering their ghostly gibberish, which is heard 
 By no one but himself. 
 
 CoBN. Crazed ! As long since 
 
 He lost all stint and bound in his desires. 
 So to his troubled spirit outward things 
 Have lost their substance and coherency ! 
 And this affrights thee ! What delivers him 
 Into thy hand, disturbs thee ? 
 
 Cas. Were he mad, 
 
 Quite mad, I should not care I But 'tis just this 
 
36 THE GLABIATOB 
 
 Half blindness, this unsteady feeble glance 
 
 Of the soal's eye, this same paralysis 
 
 Of mind which wakes up suddenly to nerve 
 
 Its tiger spring, whose aim none can foresee, 
 
 'Tis this which scares me ! The insane caprice 
 
 Which prompted him this morning to send out ' 
 
 Forty death-warrants, in some sudden fit 
 
 May on his tablets set my name. In brief, 
 
 I'll end this torture, and for ever I 
 
 Corn. How, 
 
 Thou wouldst, then — 
 
 Cass. He must hence, and quickly too ! 
 
 (Cassius then developes his plan for the assassination of the Emperor, 
 engages Sabinus to sound the Frsetorians, undertakes to ascer- 
 tain the views of the Senate himself; and continues :) 
 Hush! I see 
 The Caesar coming. (CaliguI/A appears with his mite, and advances 
 
 almiily.) 
 
 CoKN. Who are these with him f 
 
 Cass. That's Piso there, the same whose wife he stole 
 The other day, and Titus Marcins, 
 That idle prate-a-pace ; the rest a troop 
 Of creeping things, that fawn and quake for life ! 
 The old man with the bandage o'er his eye, 
 Who now adjusts the folds of Caesar's robe. 
 Is Flavius Arminius. — Him thou knowest ? 
 
 CoKN. Arminius' brother, who our Varus slew 
 In the Teutoberger Forest ? 
 
 Cass. Ay, the same ; 
 
 And he adjusts the folds of Ciesar's robe ! 
 
 CoBN. In his place I should blush — 
 
 Cass. Psha, man, he is 
 
 Just such a German, as we sons of Home ! 
 
 (Caligula, resting on the arm of Caius Piso, and attended hy Titcs 
 Makcius, Gallus Valekius, Flavius Arminius, and other 
 senators and equites, has meanwhile reached the centre of the 
 stage; in the background, slaves.) 
 
 Cass, {after saluting Caligula, to the slaves). The litter, ho ! 
 
 Caligula. You'd have me to the bath ? 
 
OF RAVENNA. 37 
 
 No, Cassius, no ! I'm thoroughly worn out, 
 So sick and weary, I feel like to drop. 
 Cas. Ho, slaves, a chair ! A chair there, for the Ceesar ! 
 Cai.16. As I was saying, Piso, the dread weight 
 Of empire lies too heavy on my soul ; 
 The duty of chastising irks my conscience. 
 The hom-ly claims on all my powers exhaust me. 
 Add, too, the perils, toils of the campaign 
 In Germany. 
 
 Piso. Yet such laurels followed them, 
 
 As even Germanicus, thy mighty father. 
 Did never win. 
 
 Cass, (aside, to Cornelius). He made some dozen slaves 
 Appear, disguised as Germans, in the scrub, 
 Whereon two legions presently must scour 
 The forest through, and set some trophies up. 
 That, friend, was his campaign in Germany ! 
 
 Calig. Yes, this campaign — thy hand, Arminius ! 
 
 {BuipporUA hy Akminius and Piso, letting himself down 
 wpan the chair.) 
 We achieved wonders, and our foemen fled — 
 Thou, Flavius, too, wert there. 
 Fla. I was, my liege. 
 
 Calio. And saw them run, these German churls ? 
 Fla. Oh, yes. 
 
 They ran, great Csesar ! 
 
 Calig. Ha, your colour mounts. 
 
 You are a Geiman— oh, I don't forget ! 
 
 Fla. If love for mighty Rome, and loyalty 
 In Csesar's service vritness'd, make a Soman, 
 Then I am one ! 
 
 Calio. Well said, ay, very well ! 
 
 Thanks, thanks ! {Pause.) 
 Cass, {ajpproaehing Caligula). Thou'rt not in spirits ; say, what 
 care 
 Despoils us of thy smile ? 
 
 Calig. Vertigo, friend, 
 
 Simple vertfgo ! Strange ! The old man stands 
 Before my eyes for ever. 
 
38 THE GLADIATOB 
 
 Cas8. What old man ? 
 
 Calig. Ill tell you. 
 
 {He makes a sign; the bystanders fall hack several paces, Piso 
 and Marcius, who are stationed behind his chair, and 
 CASsins, who stands before him, aUme remaining.) 
 Yesternight, when Livia 
 Had left my chamber, — hark you, in your ear, 
 That woman, Fiso, is a paragon. 
 
 Piso. You make me proud, my Caesar. 
 
 Calio. She had gone, 
 
 And I lay sleepless on my couch, when, lo ! 
 The curtain rustled, and comes gliding in 
 My uncle Dmsus, who took poison — then 
 Silanua, my wife's father, who, you know. 
 Cut his own throat in the bath, 'stead of his beard ; 
 And he held up the gory knife to me. 
 As though 'twas I had edged it for the fool ; 
 And lastly came Tiberius, my uncle, 
 Bearing a pUlow — ^yes, that very piUow 
 Which I, as those that love me not report. 
 Did smother him withal, and thereupon. 
 
 Grasping each others' hands, the three began — {laughing convulsively.) 
 I nearly died with laughing; 'twas, ye gods. 
 Too monstrous, too absurd — began to dance. 
 Slowly at first, then faster, faster still. 
 And stUl more close they span their circle round me. 
 And still approached me nearer as I lay. 
 
 {With a shout.) There, Cassius, look, look — there they are again ! 
 Avaunt ! Ye shall not— Hence, 
 
 Ye icy hands ! Back &om my brow, I say 
 
 (Sinks back in the chair in a frenzy.) 
 
 Piso (aside). Horrible ! 
 
 Maecius (aside). Fearful ! 
 
 Cass. My hair stands on end. 
 
 The life-blood curdles at my heart 1 (Aloud.) A doctor, 
 A doctor, straight ! 
 
 Calio. {starting wildly wp). A doctor ? I'll have none ! 
 As true as I am Caius Caesar, none ! 
 Off goes his head who babbles in surmise ! 
 
 (After apause recovers his com/poswe.) 
 
OF BAVBNNA. 39 
 
 How fares it, my good Cassius, with- my tawny 
 Hyrcanian whelps — the lions six, I mean, 
 Which Tubero sent me from Damascus^ — eh ? 
 
 Cabs. Now they have rested, they show fresh and fierce 
 As one could wish ; thou may'st at any time 
 Employ them in the circus. 
 
 Calig. That is well ! 
 
 Something you said of gladiators, too ? 
 
 Cass. Who from Kavenna have arrived to-day ;■ 
 This scroll contains their numbers and their names ! 
 
 Calig. (tefc op the paper anci rims his eye over it). 
 Here's fifty najmed^ and those from Capua, 
 From Nola — Good ! They'E make a holocaust, 
 Life's ruddy juice will flow in copious streams, 
 And steam in fragrant vapours ! Pah ! Even that, 
 
 {throws the scroll v/pon, the table near him) 
 How fla.vQurIess, how stale ! There's- no spice, none, 
 For a duU'd palate, no provocative 
 For unstrung nerves ! 
 
 Cass, (who meanwhile has retired wp the stage). 
 
 Boom ! Boom ! So please you, room 
 For the Augusta ! 
 
 C^SONIA {attended by several women, who remain at' the back, 
 enters through the centre door). Thanks to the gods that still 
 I find you here ; I almost feared that I 
 Should come too late. 
 
 Calig. Joy never comes too late ; 
 
 And Beauty's welcome, come whene'er she may. 
 
 Cos. And art thou well ? Thou look'st so pale, my Csesar. 
 
 Calig. But thou art bright as Aphrodite's self ! 
 This charming dress, that shows these noble limbs 
 More than it veils their symmetry ; this head. 
 That on this snow-wlute neck so proudly sways ! 
 And when I think that this most lovely head — 
 
 Cms. Well, that this head ? 
 
 Calig. That it must fall if I 
 
 Command, a twofold rapture thrills me through ! 
 But for the present— come, I'll rest me here ! 
 
 (CfiSOKiA conducts him to the chair.) 
 
40 TEI! GLABIATOB 
 
 But for the present let this lovely head 
 Devise how we shall make the day run by ! 
 C^s. You will not to the bath, then ? 
 Cai,ig. No, no bath ! 
 
 (Balf aside, and mysteriously.) It minds me of Silanus, who in the 
 bath- 
 ers. Why fret about the dead ? Compose yourself ! 
 With music fortify your listless nerves. 
 CuAQ. (as before). What ! Thou'dst have music, for the ghosts to 
 
 dance ? 
 Cms. {aside, to Casstds, whilst Cai,iqui.a lies back in the chair, 
 his head dropped, and staring wpon vacancy). 
 These fancies fright me. Mark, O Cassius, mark 
 How fixedly he stares ! How shall I stir 
 The stagnant waters of this flaccid soul ? 
 I seek in vain, where'er I turn mine eye. 
 
 Cas, (aside). Tet need there is, that something should be found I 
 This brooding makes him savage in the end. 
 And the sick tiger no caresses tame. t 
 
 Caj^ig. (starting i/p). Csesonia, where art thou ? Stay by me! 
 C^s. (advancing to him). Come, let us to the gardens, sweet, and 
 there 
 Amuse ourselves with tennis. 
 
 Caug, No— Yes— No— 
 
 I cannot yet resolve to be resolved ! 
 Let us, my goddess, first arrange the show 
 Of gladiators which I mean to give. 
 The rascals have arrived ! 
 
 ( Unfolding the scroll which lies wpon the table.) 
 See, what is this ? 
 Thumelicus — I seem to know that name ; 
 How should I know it ? H'm ! Thumelicus — 
 
 Mak. (comesforward). 'Tis very like, that from Thusnelda's prayer, 
 Which I presented yesterday, the name 
 Has rested in your memory — 
 Fla. Thusnelda ! 
 
 Calig. Thusnelda ? Was not that Arminius' wife, 
 Who on a time 'gainst Varus took the field ? 
 And was it not my sire, Germanicus, 
 
OF RAVENNA. 41 
 
 Who took her prisoner, when shortly after 
 
 His vengeajice svroop'd upon the German woods ? 
 
 Mab. 'Twas even so, and thy great sire, my liege, 
 Brought her to Bome. 
 
 Cauo. Tiberius, my uncle, 
 
 When she refused to attend the victor's car, 
 In the triumph of Grermanicus, did he not 
 Command them tear the infant from her breast 
 She to Arminius bore in prison here, 
 And threaten — 
 
 Mar. Yes, he threatened her to slay 
 
 The child, unless in silence she obey'd 
 His every "best, my liege 5 and she obey'd! 
 
 Calig. (aside). Ay, he had brains, tiie old man with the pillow ! 
 (Aloud). And what does this Thnsnelda want &om me ? 
 What prays she for ? 
 
 Mar. a fovour she implores, 
 
 As oft refused already as besought. 
 That, after many years, she once, but once, 
 May be permitted to behold her son. 
 Who by Tiberius' order has been train'd 
 Far from his mother at Bavenna's school. 
 
 CAI.IG. What say'st thou ? Is it possible ? In Bavenna, 
 Thumelicus — Thumel — 
 
 Mar. That is her son ! 
 
 Calig. Thumelicus, Arminius', Thusnelda's son ' 
 
 Fljl. (aside). Arminius' son, my nephew ? 
 
 Calig. See now, see ! 
 
 How things combine ! She longs to see her son, 
 And he is here. Arminius' son 1 Oh rare ! 
 
 (Bending hack to C^sonla.) 
 What do you think, love ! Can we not devise 
 Something from this, of taste most exquisite ? 
 A sport to charm and kindle, — a delight 
 To stir not merely sense, but spirit too, — 
 A sight more stimulating than the spices 
 Of Taproban and India, eh ? 
 
 CiES. What sight. 
 
 What sport, my Caesar ? 
 
42 THE GLABIATOB 
 
 Camg. How ! What sport ? 
 
 A combat, my sweet innocence ! Just think, 
 A youth, that there before his mother's eyes 
 Fights, bleeds, and falls ! Such sport was never known. 
 Since first the Circus' sand was drench'd in blood ! {Springing «p.) 
 
 TPuL. (aside). Oh shame and grief I Oh horror and dismay t" 
 
 The project is scarcely conceived by Caligula, how- 
 ever, when it loses its attraction for his feeble will. 
 The son of Arminins is, after all, only a gladiator, and 
 what trinmph can ensne from his death ? To Gsssonia 
 and Cassins, however, it is equally of importance to 
 keep the imperial monster amused, and the former 
 suggests to him that the execution of his plan will be 
 the greatest of all triumphs, because it will demon- 
 strate to the world that the race of the dl«aded Armi- 
 nius has ceased to be formidable, and that Germiany has 
 now for the first time been subdued, when her noblest 
 children are not vanquished in the field, but treated as 
 the jest and pastime of a Boman holiday. Kindling at 
 the images thus suggested, Caligula exclaims : — 
 
 " CixiG. Tes, thou art right ! That gives a meaning, yes, 
 A background, to the pastime, sharp and keen !' 
 Now the whole picture stands before my soul : 
 Thusnelda, with the oak-wreath in her hair ; 
 Her son, as German weapon'd and attired, 
 Stretch'd 'neath the blade of his antagonist. 
 Who bears my weapons, wears my purple too. 
 AU this shall, loud as Jove's own thunder, speak 
 Caligula's triumph and Germania's fall i 
 
 C^s. (aside, to C^soiOA.). Now we are safe I 
 
 Fla. (aside). Help, rescue, Dye Gods !' 
 
 Calio. Wine, bring me wine, and let the music sound ! 
 (To C^somA..) Come to my arms, divine enchantress, come ! 
 This thou, thou a mere woman, couldst devise ? 
 
OF BAVENNA. 4,3 
 
 Come to my arms ! for now I am at ease ; 
 A wish, an aim once more before me stands, 
 I still can will, and therefore stUI I live ! 
 
 Cas. (aside). Ay ! but not longf, else Sylla's stars do lie ! 
 
 Calig. Wine, ho! Henceforth a festal day shall be 
 This day, which 6ung a new excitement's pearl 
 Upon my life's forlorn and arid strand ! 
 
 (Music heard withovi, which oonimues to the end of the scene.) 
 Thou, Cassius, straightway shalt before me bring 
 These gladiators of Barenna ; thou, 
 Fiso, away, and in my name salute 
 The Senate ; tell the fathers I invite them 
 To Caius Caesar's triumph, every man. 
 Why do you pause ? Away ! 
 
 (Exit Fiso. Enter slaves with golden goblets and c)tps.) 
 
 C^s. (seizing a cup). Here, here is wine ! 
 
 Calig. (seizing a goblet, pours for C^soioa), 
 Thanks, Hebe, thanks ! This goblet to the fair 
 And happy issue of this sport of mine ! 
 
 Cass. To whom dost thou confide the sedile's charge. 
 To see that all things needful are prepared 
 Beforehand at the circus ? 
 
 Caug. (looking rotmd the circle.) The sedile's charge ? 
 To whom confide it ? (After a pause.) Flavius Arminius, 
 Approach ! — To thee, who on the Weser once 
 Closed to thy brother's prayer thine ear and heart ; 
 Thou, that aU Boman art, German no more. 
 To thee do I confide the aedile's charge ! 
 
 Fi^A. To me, my liege, to me — 
 
 Calig. Hence to Thusnelda, 
 
 And to her take with you her long-lost son I 
 Let him be hers until the games begin ; 
 Then he shall fight before his mother's eyes, 
 And she shall see him stricken by his doom ! 
 This is my will, so bear it unto her, 
 And mark it to the letter be fulfill'd ; 
 For should it prove that thou art more a German, 
 And less a Boman than thou late didst vaunt. 
 Then, hypocrite, by Kronion's thunderbolts, 
 
 (Hurls the goblet to his feet.) 
 
44 THE GLADIATOB 
 
 Then shall thy head, even as this goblet, roll ! 
 
 {Mide to CiEBONiA.) What say'st thou, dovelet ? Now I have them 
 
 aU, 
 The whole stock of Armmius, in my net. 
 (JImid.) And now away ! Let the flutes shrilly sound. 
 Awake the paean, let the goblets ring ! 
 Till to Olympus high our revel mount. 
 And down to Oreus' depths its echoes clang ! 
 I live again ! To live is to enjoy. 
 So, rapture, let thy sparkling foimtains flow, 
 And sweep us onwards in thy surging waves ! " 
 
 (Exit, leading C^sonia ; the rest crowd tumidtiiousli/ after them.) 
 
 The gladiators soon learn ihe illustrious parentage 
 of their companion, and make his position more un- 
 pleasant than before by their gibes and sneers at the 
 Wild Man of the Woods, the Bear-Prince, and Beggkr- 
 King. Glabrio is driven to his wits'-end to keep him 
 in good humour, and above all, to get him to consent to 
 wear the dress and arms, the bearskin and the winged 
 helmet of the Germans at the approaching games. In 
 this strait he calls Lycisca, the flower-girl, to his aid, 
 and the third act opens with a dialogue, in which she 
 undertakes to coax her lover into compliance. To en- 
 sure the success of his design, Caligula has resolved 
 that Thumelicus shall have for his antagonist the most 
 expert gladiator of the time, Dioddrus the Cappadocian. 
 His death is therefore certain, and there is something 
 frightful in the reckless wilfulness with which Lycisca, 
 DalUah-like, lures her lover to his doom. Life has lost 
 its relish for herself, and she almost envies the fate she 
 sees awaiting him. This character is managed with 
 great subtlety in the scene with Thumelicus which 
 follows. She tells him his antagonist is to be his rival 
 
OF RAVENNA. 45 
 
 Keyx. Upon this his disgust at the German accoutre- 
 ments, which the mockery of his companions has in- 
 spired, vanishes, and he is all impatience for the hour 
 that is to place his rival foot to foot before him. The 
 clouds pass from his brow, and he is struggling with 
 Lycisca for a kiss, when his mother enters : — 
 
 " Thdsnelda. Who is that woman, boy ? 
 
 Ltcisca. Is this thy mother ? 
 
 Thcsn. And thou, who art thou ? Speak ! 
 
 Ltc. Why, like thyself, 
 
 A woman, only younger by a trifle, 
 Kot high-bom, but good-looking, smart and trim ; 
 No princess truly, but a Boman ; I 
 Am like the roses 'tis my trade to sell — 
 I have a bloom, and sundry prickles too ! 
 Now, German princess, art content ? 
 {Throwing Thumelicus a kiss.) To-night ! {Exit.) 
 
 Thusn. I know, my son, misfortune to base souls 
 Is but a mark for scoffii^; and for scorn ; 
 Nor do I marvel that this creature, like 
 Her fellows, was most insolent and rude ; 
 I marvel thou canst find her worthy thee, 
 And that thy love — attempt not to gainsay it — 
 Thou lovest her — 
 
 Thum. I? Well, yes! I like the girl. 
 
 She's pretty, very pretty, and beguiles 
 The dull hours — 
 
 Thusn. Do I hear aright ? She is 
 
 Only the plaything of thy idle hours ? 
 Thou lovest her not, scarce feel'st respect for her ? 
 In Germany, my son, they honour woman ; 
 In each and all the rudest warrior prizes 
 The mother who has borne him on her breast, 
 And in full faith expects prophetic words 
 From bashful maids' undesecrated lips ! 
 
 Thum. Oh yes, in Germany, but we're in Rome." 
 
46 THE GLADIATOR 
 
 Small prospect here of sympathy between mother 
 and son; and from this point the antagonism be- 
 tween them, in which the future interest of the play 
 centres, may be said to commence. Rome has done her 
 work of vengeance surely ; the moral sense is stifled in 
 the child of her formidable foe, — ^his nature, " like the 
 dyer's hand, subdued to what it works in." This, how- 
 ever, Thusnelda has yet to learn. Thumelicus has not 
 told her what he is, and she is about to question him, 
 when they are interrupted by the entrance of her bro- 
 ther-in-law, Mavius Arminius. Traitor though he had 
 been to Arminius and his country, he comes with pity 
 iu his heart to communicate the dreadful project of the 
 Emperor. His presence rouses all the slumbering in- 
 dignation of Thusnelda, who launches the thunderbolts 
 of her scorn at the recreant and traitor. Stung by her 
 words, he dashes forth Caligula's command that she 
 shall appear in the circus to-morrow, in her royal ap- 
 parel, and with an oak-wreath in her hair, to see her 
 son make his first pubUo display of his craft. Her 
 horror at the discovery that Thumelicus is a gladiator, 
 gives way to dismay as, penetrating the purpose of 
 Caligula, she sees that it is her country's shame he has 
 in view in the indignity to which her son and herself 
 are to be exposed. She declares her resolution to defy 
 his order. To this Mavius replies : — 
 
 " Woman, thou'rt crazed ! When Caesar has said 'Ay,' 
 Who ever ventured to gainsay him ? 
 
 Thusn. I ! 
 
 Go tell thy lord, Thusnelda never shall, 
 Bobed for a holiday, stand forth to see 
 
OF BAVENNA. 47 
 
 Her child's dishonour and her country's shame I 
 And never shall this youth, Arminius' son, 
 Equipped, in mockery, with his Other's arms. 
 Do battle in the circus for his life ! 
 Never, I tell thee, never ! He is my son, 
 And shall not fight — 
 
 Thum. Howl I not fight 1 Not fight I 
 
 Wilt drive me frantic ? 
 
 Tbusn. Oh ye eternal gods ! 
 
 Thuu. I not to fight, when Csesar in his grace 
 Has given me Keyx for my antagonist ? 
 
 Not fight ? I craven-like to skulk at home. 
 
 Whilst my companions in the circus give 
 
 The death-salute triumphantly to Csesar ? 
 
 Shall Keyx, Keyx point at me in scorn, 
 
 And flout me as a faintheart and poltroon ? 
 
 Not fight, not fight, indeed ? I'd sooner die ! 
 Fla. (aside). Oh, happy youth ! He does not feel his shame ! 
 Thusn. Sigmar, 
 
 'Tis meet that men be brave, and thou art brave. 
 
 And thou shalt prove thy valour too, I vow. 
 
 On this proud Borne, right gloriously and soon ; 
 
 Only not now ; thou shalt not waste thy might 
 
 And bravery on base juggling shows like these ! 
 Thum. What names are these ? Base juggling shows ! ye gods ! 
 
 When Borne puts on her festal bravery — 
 
 When Csesar, senate, all the Boman knights. 
 
 In solemn order to the circus wend. 
 
 Within whose vast expanse a surging sea 
 
 Of forms and voices has since sunrise roar'd — 
 
 When now at Csesar's nod the lists are flimg 
 
 Wide open to the combatants, and all 
 
 Grows hush'd, hush'd low as tongue had never spoke, 
 
 And now the signal shrills, the blows fall thick — 
 
 One presses on, the other with a jerk 
 
 Clips bis opponent's helmet in his net. 
 
 Who struggles free, and is enmeshed again — 
 
 Then striking now, now stricken, bleeds and reels, 
 
 And striking bares his bosom to the foe, 
 
48 TEE GLADIATOR 
 
 Receives his stroke, and makes an end ; and when, 
 As suddenly as bursts a storm-charged cloud, 
 Cheers, pealing thunder, shaking all the earth, 
 Ee-echo round the victor's giddy head, 
 And here rain roses down, and laurels there — 
 The Csesar nods applause, and " Victor, hail !" 
 Kings from a thousand tongues through all the air. 
 And this is but a base, a juggling show ? 
 'Tis victory, woman, victory, glory, life 1 
 
 THnSN. Thou dream'st of victory, deluded boy j 
 Thou see'st not, they but mean to murder thee, 
 To avenge the father's victory on the son. 
 And thou — thou couldst — 
 
 Thhm. I am resolved to fight ! 
 
 Thusn. And Germany, which thou dost load with shame. 
 Thy father's name, which thou dost desecrate — 
 Thy mother's hopes, which thou dost turn to tears, — 
 Are these all nought ? Art thou a gladiator 
 Because Borne caU'd thee such, and such has train'd thee ? 
 Thou art Arminius' son, thou art a German, 
 And thou art ours ! 
 
 Thum. What's German, Boman — Psha ! 
 
 I'm a gladiator ; fighting is 
 My trade ; and if on Germany's account 
 Thou art ashamed of my vocation, know. 
 No less ashamed am I of my German name, 
 Of being a barbarian ; there ! know that ! 
 And here I now, once and for all, renounce 
 The name and kinship of my German race ! 
 In Some, Borne I was bom, Bome brought me up ; 
 I am — 
 
 Thtisn. No more, unhappy boy, no more ! 
 
 Thum. I am a Boman, Boman will remain ! 
 And therefore get thee hence, and tell thy lord. 
 Thou Caesar's messenger, that I will fight 
 To-morrow in the circus, as he bids — 
 To conquer, if the gods vouchsafe success ; 
 To fall, if on my head their doom has pass'd ! " {Exit.) 
 
OF BAVENNA. 49 
 
 Flavius quits the stage, overcome with, pity for 
 Thusnelda, on whom the whole tragedy dawns, which 
 has ensued from what she deems her weakness in 
 sparing her own life for the sake of her son's. The act 
 closes upon the following soliloquy : — 
 
 " I knew it well ! Shame is the fruit of weakness ! 
 I should have died ! If now my son will tfim, 
 Renouncing his own people, to the foe, 
 And recklessly disgrace his father's name, 
 Mine is the guilt ! Yet have no fear, Arminius, 
 Thy name shall never know the blur of shame ; 
 Not thus, not thus thy son shall end his days ! " 
 
 The conflict thus opened is continued throughout the 
 fourth act. Merovig, who has learned from Ramis the 
 incidents of the previous scene, has almost abandoned 
 his hope of raising Thumelicus into a fit successor to 
 his father. Thusnelda struggles against his arguments ; 
 but in the midst of an eloquent defence of her son, his 
 voice is heard from within, mingling in Bacchanalian 
 revelry with Lycisca in this wise : — 
 
 " Burning kisses, spicy wine! 
 Now the grape's red blood to sip, 
 Now the purple of thy lip ! 
 Burning kisses, spicy wine. 
 Make a mortal all divine, 
 lo, Bacchus, lo ! Fill high, Lycisca ! " 
 
 Time presses. A decision must be taken, and Thume- 
 licus is summoned by Ramis to his mother's presence. 
 Flushed with his revel, and angry at the interruption, 
 he bids them make short work of what they have to 
 say. To the promise of a kingdom — of all the nations 
 between the Danube and the Rhine united under his 
 
50 THE GLADIATOB 
 
 banner — he turns a scomfnl ear. He is eqnally insen- 
 sible to the call to avenge his own and his country's 
 wrongs by the destruction of Eome : — 
 
 " And wherefore Rome ? What ill has Eome e'er done 
 To me, or Germany what good, that I 
 For Germany shonld fall to feud with Rome ? 
 What's Germany to me 7 
 
 Thusn. How, boy ! the land 
 
 For which thy father bled— the land in which 
 Thou'rt bom to empire, a Cheruscan prince ! 
 Dost thou renounce thy birthright ? 
 
 Meb. Can it be ? 
 
 How ! Shut thine eyes when thy home beckons thee ; 
 Close up thine ears when she, thy mother, calls ! 
 Thou canst, thou wilt not 
 
 Thum. Wherefore can I not ? 
 
 If Germany, my mother, as you call her, 
 Through twenty years took neither thought of me, 
 Nor of her there, that was Arminius' wife. 
 Why, in the name of all the gods, should I 
 Not turn my back upon this raven mother ? 
 What's Germany to me, I ask again ? 
 I am no German, no Cheruscan prince ; 
 I was, and am, and ever will remain, 
 Thnmelicus, the gladiator of Bavenna." 
 
 Not deterred even by this outburst of passion, Mero- 
 vig essays once more to tempt him by the offer of an 
 army of power sufB.oient even to secure for him the 
 purple of the OsBsars. For a moment a flash of ambi- 
 tion passes through the young man's braia. To-morrow 
 he will talk further of their plans. To-morrow, replies 
 Merovig, will be too late ; to-morrow Thumelicus fights 
 in the circus, and should he even survive, Germany will 
 never place itself under a leader who has disgraced 
 
OF BAVENNA. 51 
 
 himself by wearing the wreath fltmg by the pbplllace of 
 Rome to the victorious gladiator. Inforiated by this 
 contemptuous allusion to what has hitherto been the 
 highest aim of his ambition, Thumelicus declares that 
 he never will be the leader of the Germans thongh it 
 were to secure the universe. . Although all Germany 
 lay imploring at his feet, he is going on to say, when 
 Thusnelda interrupts him thus :— 
 
 " Stay ! Germany never did, nor ever shall, 
 
 Lie at the foot of any he that lives, 
 
 To beg 6f him to be her lord afldi chief ! 
 
 'No, Germany will ne'er entreat ! But I, 
 
 Thy mother, I beseech thee, oh, my son, , 
 
 I, that in sorrow brought thee forth, in grief 
 
 Did suckle thee, and in despair's dark hour 
 
 Lost thee— I, I, my son, implore thee now. 
 
 Make not the day that gave thed back to me 
 
 More bitter than the day that saw my loss 1 
 
 Betray me not, my dearest, fondest hope ; 
 
 Spare me the l^t, the deadliest of all pangs ! 
 
 Oh, let toe not survive toy only child ! 
 
 For, fight to-morrow, fall away from us. 
 
 And froto that hour tbou in my heart art dead 1 
 
 Far soMler would I see thee cold and stdTk, 
 
 A gashed and mangled corpse, than that &y hesid, 
 
 At once dishonoured and with victory crovmed^ 
 
 Should bear aloft the gladiator's wreath 1 
 
 {After a pause, approaches Thumelicus, who 
 stalids leith hisfae^ averted.) 
 Thou'rt vrrotb, toy son ! Thon sbouldest not be wroth 
 With me I I lived for thee, ay, liyed when death 
 Offered me fame and freedom j then live now 
 For me ! Kepay the sacrifice I made ! 
 Thou wear'st thy father's lineaments, helie 
 Them not ! Fair art thou, be in soul als fair t 
 Be thou a man, no gladiator churl ; 
 
52 THE GLADIATOR 
 
 And as thy birth proclaims thee for our own. 
 Be ours indeed ! Come! {Seizing his hand.) ^ 
 
 'Twas denied to me 
 To lead the feeble footsteps of the boy, 
 Now let me be the guide unto the man ! 
 Come, Sigmar, come ! 
 
 Thum. (spuming her hand). No, no, I tell thee, no ! 
 
 Thtisn. Go, then ! 
 
 Thdm. I will I Call me not back again, 
 
 Nor hope to make me change, no, not one jot, 
 For what I've said, I've said for good and all I" 
 
 Merovig now tries to persuade Tlmsnelda to escape 
 alone with him. She refuses, dismissing him in lan- 
 guage which no doubt has awakened a deep echo in the 
 hearts of many a German audience : 
 
 " I stay. Return thou home. Yet, there returned. 
 
 Tell them, whilst they in council sat, and paused 
 
 And pondered, a most noble spirit here 
 
 In slavery's stress and thraldom dire was wrecked 1 
 
 TeU them, they came to a resolve too late, 
 
 And warn them, lest this same ' Too late, too late ! ' 
 
 Prove not our country's curse throughout all time." 
 
 Merovig retires, and the sound of Lycisca's voice in 
 the orgy to which Thumelicus has returned, suggests 
 to his mother the hope that he may yet be saved 
 through love. She resolves to subdue her pride, and, 
 Lycisca soon afterwards appearing, appeals to her to 
 use her influence with Thumelicus to persuade him to 
 fly from Rome. To Lycisca she promises that she shall 
 share the royal honours of her lover. Lycisca re- 
 plies : — 
 
 " Thy hope is but a dream, thy prayer 
 
 Impossibility. No. Nor for me, 
 
 Nor for thy son is rescue possible ! 
 
OF RAVENNA. 53 
 
 Thusn. No rescue possible ! When even now 
 All's ready for our flight, true frielids at hand 
 To bear us home ? No, no, I do not dream ; 
 ' "Rs but thy fear. Nothing's impossible 
 To woman's love, or to a man's resolve ! 
 
 Ltc. Ay, there, deluded one, the mischief lies ! 
 I am no woman, a poor flower-girl I. 
 We love not, neither are we loved ! And he. 
 He is a gladiator : not a man ; 
 The scourge instructed him ; he can obey. 
 But not resolve. Whatever destiny 
 His home may ofTer, glorious and pure, 
 He lacks the glance that sees the right at once, 
 The soul that presses forward, the staunch heart 
 That never flags till it achieves its taskj 
 And I — enough of words ! This learn, that she 
 Who has sunk like me, can only — go on sinking I 
 
 THtJSN. Art stung with shame ?• Well, then, revenge thyself. 
 Is thy life fleck'd with spots ? then wash them off 
 With Koman blood 1 The weapons are prepared, 
 And hosts stand ready to obey thy nod ! 
 Come, follow us ; save — save my son, and Borne 
 Shall pay thee for the wrongs which thou hast borne. 
 
 Ltc. Say, can revenge give back what I have lost ? 
 And you barbarians, would you scorn me less 
 Than do the sons of Bome ? No, no. If e'er 
 It be decreed by Fate that I shall rule, 
 'Tis here in Bome, not in your forest shades ; 
 And if shame be my lot, at least Bome proflers 
 The bitter potion in a golden bowl. 
 
 Thusn. And he — my son! — who, who shall save my son ? 
 Of all that live on earth, thou only canst. 
 Look on my sorrow, let a mother's prayers 
 Subdue thee — else I must — Ay, ay, I must ! 
 (Falls at her feet.) Behold me here a suppliant at thy feet ! 
 Have pity on me I Pity 1 Do not leave 
 The last shoot of a noble stem distraught. 
 To perish in the circus like a beast. 
 
 Ltc. Stand up 1 Kneel not to me ! It nor beseems 
 
54 TEE GIADIATOB 
 
 Thyself, nor touches me 1 Be not alarmed. 
 
 No word shall 'scape my lips of what thou'at said. 
 
 Nay more ! Secure his freedom, if thou canst, 
 
 And lead him home ; but hope no aid from me. 
 
 If Fate with ruthjesa hainds shall seize on thee, 
 
 And drag thee down into the mire of woe. 
 
 As though, like us, thou hadst been bom in it, 
 
 I will not aid, yet will I not prevent I 
 
 Eren misery yearns for fellowship, and if 
 
 To sink must be my doom, drown thpu as well ! " [Exit. 
 
 Every hope is now at an end, and in the passion of 
 her grief, Thusnelda prays for power to roll back the 
 wheels of time to the hour when she stood before 
 Grermanicus, and first felt the stirring of a second life 
 within her breast. At this point Ramis enters with the 
 pnrple robe and oak-wreath which Caligula has sent 
 for Thnsnelda to wear in the circus on the morrow, 
 with intent that all shall see in her the personification 
 of her country. The aqt closes as follows :— • 
 
 " Thcsn. I am to be Germania! 
 
 Kakis. So he said. 
 
 Thusn. that, in sooth, I were Germania ! 
 With all Germania's courage in my soul. 
 With all Germania's anger in mine eye, 
 And all her giant vigour in my arm ! 
 Then, craven-hearted Rome, then shouldst thou quake 
 Deep as the marrow of the earth that bears thee 1 
 
 Then Hark ! Who speaks ? What voice rings in mine ears ? 
 
 Or does it speak within me ? ' Up ! accept 
 
 Germania's wreath, and do what she would do 
 
 To keep its noble leaves unstain'd and pure. 
 
 The wheels of time thou backwards fain wouldst roll ? 
 
 'Tis well, we give that day to thee again. 
 
 And see thou use it better than at first ! ' 
 
 (Puts owt her hand to take the wreath.) 
 I will be Germany ! Give me the wreath ! 
 
OF BAVENNA. 55 
 
 (BeeoUs.) Not Hence! The leaves are bloody. Hence! 
 
 RaMIS. It 13 
 
 The reflex of the purple cloak, Thusnelda! 
 What aUs thee ? Cahn thyself! 
 
 Thtisn. Be still, my heart, 
 
 And gather all thy strength, my weary soul ! 
 How ran the row which to the gods I made, 
 So they, before I died, a mission grave 
 And mighty purpose in my hands should lay ? 
 ' I will fulfil your task ' — these were my words — 
 ' This I will do, and if my powers shall fail, 
 I'll break, as breaks the oak before the blast. 
 But bend I vrill not, ever, ever more!' 
 
 (Sdsmg the wreath, and pressing it on her head.) 
 Come, then, Germania's wreath, and rustle here, 
 A Tentoburger Forest round my brows I 
 
 Kamis. What is thy purpose ? Speak ! 
 
 TntrsN. To keep my word ! " 
 
 The fifth act opens on the morning of the games. 
 Thtimelicus has qnitted the bath, and is nrged by 
 Glabrio to repose for awhile, nntil the emperor shall 
 arrive to condnct him to the circus in state. Anxiety 
 that his pnpU. shall do him credit is the only idea in 
 Glabrio's head, and his parting words are a direction to 
 Thumelicns to receive the death-stroke in a graceful 
 attitude, if the chances mn against him. Left to him- 
 self, Thnmelicns runs over the crowded events of the 
 last few hours, and some promptings of remorse for his 
 rongh demeanour to his mother at their last meeting 
 find their way to his lips : — 
 
 " My head is all 
 A-spin I And that is why I was so harsh. 
 So savage to my mother ! Oh, I do 
 So long to get some rest ; the day is sultry, 
 And thinking makes one di-owsy — 
 
66 TEE GLADIATOB 
 
 {Observes Thdsnelda, who appears at the side door, in a white robe, 
 with a purple mantle, and an oak-wreath in her hair; he springs 
 vp, and advances to her.) 
 
 Ha, see there 1 
 'Tis thou ! I did not hear thee come, but thou 
 Art come, I think, to herald my success, 
 For, as the song says, Joy comes light of foot. 
 And Bliss is wing'd with air! 
 
 Thusn. 'Tis wing'd indeed ! 
 
 Thum. How beautiful thou art ! How stately shows 
 Thy wreath j how brilliantly the purple flames ! 
 These trappings are well timed, for Csesar's self 
 Intends to lead us to the games in state. 
 .^ We must not shame him, must we ? 
 
 Thbsn. Nor ourselves. 
 
 Thbm. These are the weapons, see, I am to wear I 
 
 Thusn. Oh, speak not of the future as 'twere past ; 
 The future to the gods pertains ! 
 
 Thum. One word, 
 
 I am, so Glabrio says, to keep quite quiet. 
 But first all must be clear between us. Ton 
 Are wroth with me, I see, for yesterday ; 
 Tou're wroth, because we foUow different roads, 
 Because what I have been I must remain 1 
 Nay, be not so ! Thy counsel may be wise. 
 Thy road the better one ; but can I therefore 
 Walk in it ? can I be what I am not ? 
 Were I the man for these great schemes of yours. 
 No doubt I'd feel the impulse for them too. 
 I don't ! A gladiator I will be. 
 The foremost of my peers, and of the time. 
 Worthy of thee, I'll prove myself as such ; 
 And, let him try his utmost, can a man 
 Be better or more perfect than he Is ? 
 So pardon, not what yesterday I said. 
 But how I said it ; that which I've resolved, 
 I cannot help, so therefore hate me not ! 
 
 TausN. Hate thee ! This heart can wither in its woe, 
 It can despair, can nourish murderous thoughts — 
 
OF RAVENNA. 57 
 
 But hate thee — hate my child! Eternal gods, 
 Te witness if I hate him ! 
 
 Thum. That's all right, 
 
 So let my fortune find me my own way ; 
 The thing that is, it is ; the gods so will it. 
 
 Thusn. Can nothing, nothing turn or hold thee back ? 
 Is, then, thy purpose fixed to fight to-day ? 
 
 Thum. How often must I tell you ? I will fight ! 
 
 Thusn. The future to the gods pertains ! Proceed ! 
 
 Thum. Besign j'ourself to the inevitable. 
 And be no longer wroth ! Give me your hand, 
 Let us not part in anger. 
 
 Thusn. Part! No, noj 
 
 We go the selfsame road. Not in farewell. 
 But as thy guide I give my hand to thee. 
 As thy companion kiss thee, to my heart 
 Enfold thee, and if e'er a blessing lay 
 In tears, such blessing overflows thee now. 
 Why was I doom'd, ye gods, to lose him ? Why, 
 Lost for so long, to find him thus again ? {Pushing him from her.) 
 Enough ! Away ! 
 
 Thcm. I understand you not, 
 And never shall, I fancy ! But the time 
 Is slipping by, and I must rest ! I need it ! 
 
 {Flings himself upon the couch.) 
 Oh, yet there's something I Keep my sword for me ! 
 
 Thusn. Arminius' sword ? Thou givest it me thyself ? 
 
 Thum. You'll keep it for me, eh ! for Glabrio vows 
 It's quite unfit for the arena ! 
 
 Thubn. For 
 
 The arena — truly 'tis for that unfit. 
 
 Thum. {pointing to the sword iipon the couch). Here 'tis, and mind 
 you take good care of it. 
 And now, Tve nothing more to say. (Letting his head drop.) 
 
 Sleep, sleep, 
 Now take me hence I 
 
 Thusn. {twming away). — Ay, sleep, sleep ! 
 
 Thum. Going ? How I 
 
 No, stay, you don't disturb me ! Stay, and if 
 
58 THE GLADIATOR 
 
 Tou know a song, a pretty one, you may 
 
 Sing me to sleep. 
 Thusn. I know no songs ! 
 
 Thum. Have you 
 
 Forgotten them ? You knew some well of old ! 
 
 Upon my eyelids hangs a weight of lead. 
 
 How ran that song, Lycisca, yesterday ? — 
 Burning kisses — spicy wine — 
 Juice of grape — and mingling kisses — 
 Burning kisses — all divine — (Falls asleep.) 
 
 Thusn. (after a pause, returns to the side of the couch). The 
 hour's at hand, and what is to be done 
 
 Must be done now ! He sleeps ! How sweet, how still I 
 
 How often has he lain on this same spot, 
 
 A rosy infant on my breast, whilst I 
 
 Have lull'd his sleep, and covered up his face 
 
 When the chill night-winds swept along these halls, 
 
 And if a fly came I have brushed it oif, 
 
 And waked him if ill dreams disturbed his sleep ! 
 
 And now I stand beside him threatening ill. 
 
 My hand uplifted, and my purpose steel'd 
 
 To cut him off in his youth's perfect bloom, 
 
 Even as a wither'd bough from the tree of life I 
 
 The wild beast of the woods fights for her young. 
 
 The snake stings if you pluck the rose away, 
 
 And I — Yes, I will kill the innocent sleep ; 
 
 I, I, a mother, murder my own child ! 
 
 (Rushes to the front of the stage.) 
 
 No, no, ye righteous gods ! Give back my vow — 
 
 I cannot pay it — give it me again ! 
 
 I cannot, where I gave life, take it away. 
 
 Nor murder, murder, where I'm bound to love ! 
 
 (After a pause, returns to the couch.) 
 
 Whither, perturb&d spirit, dost thou stray ? 
 
 AiVhat would I now, but as in that old time 
 
 To shield thee from the winter frost of life, 
 
 To wake thee irom existence' troublous dream. 
 
 To guard thee from the ily-swarm of the passions. 
 
 Which come to all men, even the happiest ? 
 
OF BAVBNNA. 59 
 
 What but to shield thee from the deathblow, dealt 
 
 By a vile butcher's mercenary hands ? 
 
 No, Sigmar, no ! — If that this trembling hand 
 
 {Seizes the sword, which is lying on the cottch.) 
 Strikes to thy heart, it is not hatred ; no, 
 'Tis lore, ay, love, that little recks to ask 
 How bitter is the potion, so it save. 
 And therefore — 
 
 {Raises the sword to strike, hut recoils, and lets it fall.) 
 'So ! I cannot ! 
 {Drops on her knees, while mwsic is heard at a distance of a gay 
 Festival March, mhich gradiuAVy ootms nearer.) 
 Ye eternal gods 1 
 If for my country's weal ye claim his life, 
 Then take it! Let the atmosphere he breathes 
 Be turned to poison ; bid the earth to quake, 
 That these walls toppling may entonib us both j- 
 Blast us to ashes with your hghtning's fires ! 
 The power is yours ! Accomplish your high wills ! 
 But in my hands place not his destiny. 
 Demand not from the mother her son's blood ! 
 
 {lAstenSji and theia starts tip.) 
 Hark ! what was that ? If mine ear cheats me not, 
 'Tis music ! 'Tis — it is Caligula. 
 They come to fetch him. The thronged cirons heavefs 
 And roars! Borne claims her gladiator, but 
 I will not give him up. I am a woman, 
 Helpless and weak, but will not give him up. 
 See, who shall tear him from me f (Snatches iip thk sword,) 
 
 If, ye gods 
 That dwell on high, ye will not launch your bolts, 
 So be it, then I wUl guard my country's honour ! 
 Sport on, sport on in revelry and mirth ! 
 Around my brows the oaken chaplet stirs, 
 I am Arminius' wife — a German, I, — 
 And these I was before I was a matber. 
 You claim Thumelicns, the gladiator ? 
 Sigmar, my son is called, mine, mine he is. 
 And mine he shall remain unto the last. 
 
60 THE GLADIATOB 
 
 Here with this blow I strike his fetters off ! (Stabs him.) 
 
 Thdm. Woe's me !— that KSyx— Mother— (Falls back and dies.) 
 Thusn. Oh my child I " 
 
 ( Veils her face in her mantle with her left hand; her right 
 drops, holding the sword.) 
 
 Here the main interest of the play ends ; but the 
 scene is continued by the entrance of Caligula, who is 
 compelled to listen to a somewhat tedious invective 
 which Thusnelda winds up by stabbing herself. Cheated 
 of the two chief morsels of his vengeance, Caligula 
 gives orders for Flavins Arminius to be thrown to the 
 lions in the circus ; but here too he is baffled, that wor- 
 thy having, in a spasm of remorse, fallen upon his 
 sword in true Roman fashion. Caligula goes off with 
 a flourish of trumpets, leaving on the scene Caesius and 
 Cornelius, who intimate that the morrow shall see the 
 close of the tyrant's career. The reader is disappointed 
 that the play does not include Caligula's fall ; and after 
 the prominence given in the second act to the conspi- 
 racy against his life, this omission is a decided flaw in 
 the construction of the piece. There is somewhat too 
 much also of Thusnelda, in the latter acts ; but with 
 powerful acting, and with the element of a strong na- 
 tional interest, this is perhaps not felt in Germany as 
 any drawback. In this country, where the stimulus of 
 nationality must be wanting, the play would probably, 
 after aU possible curtailment, be found unsuited to the 
 English taste. If, however, we have done anything 
 like justice to it in our rapid survey, its great merits, 
 both dramatic and literary, must be apparent to every 
 reader. 
 
OF BAYENNA. 61 
 
 This play, like most of Halm's, is dedicated to the 
 performer who sustaias the principal part. In this 
 case Julia Rettich, the impersonator of Thusnelda, re- 
 ceives the tribute in the following graceful sonnet : — 
 
 " Aims that are noble fate doth still befriend, 
 
 As worn and mazed in trackless wilds and drear, 
 
 The traveller sees some friendly soul appear, 
 
 Comfort and help at sorest need to lend. 
 
 So I beheld thee on my path descend. 
 
 Nurse my first shoots of song, and when in fear 
 
 I gave them to the crowd, thou didst ensphere 
 
 My dream in form, and with thy being blend. 
 
 I gave the words ; thou didst with life complete, 
 
 With grace's witchery, and the 'glow of truth ; 
 
 And as I lay in homage at thy feet 
 
 My work, great Artist, 'tis my thought that then 
 
 I pay no votive tribute, but in sooth 
 
 Give only back thy gift to thee again." 
 
 This generous recognition of the power of a great 
 actress to give to the poet's conception a fnller and 
 higher life than it had within his brain, is the more 
 honourable, that the poet in the present case has sup- 
 plied no meagre outline, but a firmly-limned and amply- 
 developed character. English writers for the stage, of 
 immeasurably inferior powers, are wont to talk con- 
 temptuously of actors, as if not only did they give 
 nothing to the poet, but at their best could not rise to 
 the measure of his conceptions. To this conclusion of 
 a shallow vanity the public do not subscribe, for they 
 know how much a great actor can give even to Shake- 
 speare, and how entirely some of our most popular 
 plays have been beholden for their success to the power 
 which created a character where the author had sketched 
 
62 TEE GLADIATOR OF BAVENNA. 
 
 a watery outline. In Gfermany and France, where 
 authors and actors are alike artists, co-operating on 
 eqnal terms, and mutually instructing, this truth is 
 frankly recognized ; but we do not remember to have 
 seen it more cordially and gracefully acknowledged 
 than in the dedicatory verses prefixed by Halm to his 
 plays in their collective form. In the history of our 
 own modern drama we are aware of no parallel in- 
 stance. 
 
A WORD ABOUT OUR THEATRES. 
 
 (Fbabeb's MxaxzuTE, Febbuakt, 1858.) 
 
 STRANGER in London after dark is not 
 a man to be envied. Should he wish to 
 escape from the bad air of aa nnventilated 
 hotel, or the miseries of a dismal lodging, 
 where is he to tnm for recreation? If, indeed, his 
 tastes be grovelling, there is no lack of temptations for 
 their indnlgence ; if coarse, the Cider Cellars and the 
 Casinos will not be without their charm ; if vulgar, he 
 is pretty sure to have them grajtified to the full at one 
 or other of the theatres. But if, on the other hand, he 
 shrinks, at once by education and instinct, from such 
 delights as we have iadicated, he is sure to find himself 
 after the first day or two, anticipating the closing-in of 
 night with dread. How many must find themselves 
 daily in this position ! It is calculated that upwards of 
 a million of strangers enter Loudon every month.. Of 
 these, many thousands must nightly be thrown adrift 
 for amusement ; and surely it is of some consequence to 
 ua socially, as well as for our credit in the estimation 
 
64 A WOBD ABOUT 
 
 of foreigners, that the amusements within their reach 
 should be of the best and highest kind which intelli- 
 gence can devise. Place the same stranger in any con- 
 tinental city : he is at no loss for the means of winding- 
 up his day of sight-seeing or business in some way that 
 is delightful for the time, and will bear to be looked 
 back upon with pleasure. In the concert-room or the 
 theatre — ^more especially the latter — he is sure to find 
 an unfailing source. At an easy price, he sees a fine 
 play acted with intelligence and conscientious care. 
 His imaginative sympathies are agreeably roused ; his 
 heart and brain are both touched with beneficial excite- 
 ment. He returns to his hotel satisfied with himself 
 and aU. the world ; and the worst of his dreams, if he 
 be very susceptible, is a vision of the fair representa- 
 tive of Emilia Galotti or Thekla, or of some Angelique 
 or GeUmene, whose sparkling graces may have made 
 him forget for a moment the more retiring charms to 
 which he is devoted at home. Who does not remember 
 his pleasant evenings at Paris, Vienna, Munich, Dres- 
 den, or Berlin, where for a few shillings a whole world 
 of poetry in action has been placed at his command ? 
 
 Nor was it always different among ourselves. Time 
 was when the visitor to town was pretty sure, if his 
 evening hung heavily on his hajids, that he had but to 
 go to the Haymarket, or one or other of the great 
 theatres, to have his enmd dispelled. We will not speak 
 of the great artists who were there to minister to his 
 delight. Time has done its work with them, and if 
 they have left no successors, we must be content to 
 wait until a fresh constellation of actors equally gifted 
 
OUB THEATBE8. 65 
 
 shall appear^ Great genitLS comes in no regular bug- 
 cessioiid We may lament its absence ; to complain of 
 it would be absurd. But it was not only the presence 
 of unquestionable genius wbicli in those day's iUumi^ 
 nated our theatres. • They were under the guidance of 
 men who had a pride in the national drama, and tipheld 
 it with a vigorous hand. The actors might liot aU. be 
 good^ but they all looked up to certain standards in 
 their art, and worked to the full measure of their ability, 
 to make, the representation as complete as possibler. To 
 occupy a place in one of these theatres was a distinction 
 to which the hard'-wiorking country actor looked forward 
 as the brightest aim of his ambition ; but it was at the 
 same time one at which the most ^ted was careful not 
 to grasp uxitil he felt assured he conld maintain it. A 
 London, audience in those, days was not to be trifled 
 with. Forward incapacity found no mercy at' the hands 
 of the pit. Pretentioua weakness was certain of detec- 
 tion. Actors and audience thus acted and reacted upon 
 each other. A high standard of ilspiration in the one, 
 and of judgment in the other, produced the finest de- 
 velopment of histrionic art which England has ever 
 seen. The metropolitan stage gave the law in language 
 and in department. It was trodden by men and women 
 of great culture and refinement, indefatigable in theit 
 art, and emulous of each lother'si excelletice* We had 
 then, in short, what Berlin and Vienna have now, a 
 stage directed by intelligence and citlture, and filled 
 with patient and highly-ftrained artists. 
 
 How entirely we have lost thisis.but too well know^a. 
 The enthusiasts who shouted for and obtained free-ttade 
 
66 A WOBD ABOUT 
 
 in theatres must, we think, have long since mourned 
 over their own success. What can their chief pioneer. 
 Sir B. B. Lytton, say to the present state of things, 
 when it is almost impossible to get one of his own playa 
 acted respectably in London ? He can scarcely fail to 
 look back with some regret upon the condition of the 
 metropolitan stage before the abolition in 1833 of the 
 patent rights of the two great theatres, at which the 
 traditions of the Shakspearian drama were still treasured, 
 and a straggle made to maintain a high standard of 
 art against the encroachments of ignorance and conceit. 
 It may be that the great increase of the population and 
 of theatres in the metropolis, had made a change neces- 
 sary in the law which confined the performance of the 
 higher drama to the patent theatres. But the effect of 
 destroying their monopoly, and with it the ambition of 
 the actor to be admitted into their companies, was fatal 
 to the actor's art, as Charles Kemble and others had 
 predicted it must be. Every theatre began to compete 
 with its neighbour for one or other of the performers 
 who had occupied a leading position in the great 
 theatres. The temptations of money and vanity were 
 irresistible. The companies were broken up, and the 
 starring system, as it was called, came into full play. 
 The country theatres, which had formerly been the 
 training schools of actors, soon felt the pernicious effects 
 of the change. Every Horatio forthwith became a 
 Hamlet; every Macdufi* grew a moustache and impe- 
 rial, and usurped the sceptre of Macbeth. By degrees 
 the great representatives of the artist school of actors 
 died out. There were no longer models to emulate, 
 
OUB THEATRES. 67 
 
 traditions to preserve ; or, if any yet remained, the 
 ready-made actor of modern days was superior to what 
 either conld teach. He despised education, study, and 
 the patient practice of an art, for which of all others 
 these are especially necessary. He was himself his own 
 great exemplar ; and so from bad to worse the vocation 
 of the player has sunk, with a few conspicuous excep- 
 tions, as low as at no very distant period it was high. 
 
 The present degradation of our theatres, like all 
 great changes, is owing doubtless to a variety of con- 
 current circumstances. But of these the injurious in- 
 fluence of the Act of 1833 is undoubtedly one of the 
 most considerable. The altered habits of society, the 
 increase of cheap books, the late hours of dining, the 
 great distances from the theatres to which it is now the 
 fashion for all classes to remove, have all combined in 
 some measure towards the same result. . Not a little, 
 too, of the change may be owing to the tendency to 
 individual and domestic isolation, which is one of the 
 least healthy of our social symptoms. All these causes, 
 by withdrawing from our theatres the better part of 
 the audience, and leaving them almost exclusively to 
 the idle and the frivolous, have aided in bringing down 
 the character of the performances to a level suited to 
 those who are their chief support. At the same time, it 
 is from no want of public encouragement that our drama 
 has declined. Never was more money spent upon theatres 
 than now. There are in London some seven-and-twenty 
 of them, all more or less flourishing ; and the crowds, 
 on all occasions where a sufficient attraction is pre- 
 sented, demonstrate very clearly that the blame lies 
 
68 A WOBD ABOUT 
 
 with the managers and iftctors thetnselV'es, more than 
 with' the public, if theatres have degenerated so far that 
 people of intelligence and culture can no longer count 
 upon them as the means of a delightful and instructive 
 recreation, but are ia fact driven away from them hj 
 the ■ wretched style of entertainmeiit, and the incompe- 
 tence and careless conceit of the performers. 
 
 Let any one, for example, who has undergone the 
 penance — and it is no slight one — of going to see the 
 bm-tesqueSj which, i either alone or as introduction to 
 pantomimes, are now filliag the West-end theatres, ask 
 hJMself if they are exhibitions Which he can with pro- 
 priety take any woman or child to witness. The sick- 
 eniug vulgarity of the jokes, the slang allusions, the 
 use of words and phrases unknown in the vocabulary 
 of ladies and geatlemeuj the ridicule of associations 
 which are all but sacred, the outrageous caricatures of 
 grave passionsi ' the e:diibitioki of crowds of girls in 
 costumes only suitable for the poses plasUqu6s' of 
 Leicester Square, above all, the way in which young 
 actresses are made to say and do things which muist 
 destroy every shred of modesty and feminine grace in 
 theni, make these burlesques pernicious alike to per- 
 formers and audience. Whea, too, as we generally 
 find, they are bteed upon some drama or poem that is 
 hallowed by every association with which genius and 
 art can invest it, the Contempt and disgust which they 
 provoke in all educated men inevitably recoil upon the 
 theatre where they are presented. How should it be 
 otherwise ? If the Stage has A purpose at all, it is to 
 elevate, not to debase ; to lift the real towards the ideal, 
 
OVB THEATBES. 69 
 
 not to drag down the ideal into the yeyy mire of a 
 sordid reality. It is meant to educate, not to pervert ; 
 ajid if the character of the audience declines where such 
 fare is presented, who can he surprised? 
 
 What wonder either if, with such pieces to represent, 
 even actors of ahility degenerate. ; The actor, who can 
 pprtrfiy character with genuine truth to nature, may 
 at times disport himself in an extravaganza without in^ 
 jury to his style, Leonardo da Vinci was great in 
 caricature J so, too, was our own Hogarth. But the 
 st^iple of both was human character, delineated in the 
 one case in its highest aspects, in the other, with careful 
 fidelity to every-day truth. They could ^afford to un- 
 bend in occasional absurdities. But the constant or 
 even frequent practice of mere grotesque and caricature 
 is destructive of the actor. He must' exaggerate; he 
 must distort ; he must strike false tones ; he must make 
 serious things Itidicrous, and noble things absurd. In 
 so doing he loses the enthusiasm, the faith in genuine 
 emotion, the nicety of outline in his delineation of oha^ 
 racter, and the delicacy of finish in expression, which 
 distinguish the artist from the puppet. But where 
 actors begin, as they so often do now-a-days, at ijhe 
 wrong end, embodying only caricatures, and never 
 characters, their case is indeed hopeless. They become 
 confimied in a light, flippant, exaggerated manner ; and 
 when by any chance they are required to impersonate 
 a part for which some knowledge of human nature and 
 some strength and mastery of expression are indispen-! 
 sable, the breakdown is painful to contemplate. 
 
 The truth gf these remarks seems to us to be strongly 
 
70 A WOBD ABOUT 
 
 borne out by the case of Mr. Bobson, — an actor who 
 has attracted mnch attention, and been praised qnite to 
 the measure of his deserts, but who unquestionably 
 possesses powers which, under a different handling, 
 might become most valuable on the stage. That he is, 
 or ever can be, the great actor some critics have 
 alleged — a possible Kean, who has only to make the 
 attempt in order to electrify the world as Shylock or 
 Overreach 1 — is a proposition we should be sorry to en- 
 dorse. The capability of real and sustained passion, 
 the dignity of conception, the mastery of voice, features, 
 and gesture, the continuous development of character, 
 which are necessary for the tragic drama, are something 
 very different from those fitful bursts of intensily and 
 vehemence in Mr. Kobson, which are mistaken by many 
 for a high order of histrionic power. The absence in 
 this performer of good taste, of the instinct which knows 
 where to stop, has always made us distrustfal of his 
 power to rise to any great eminence even as a come- 
 dian ; and the constant tendency in serious parts to 
 exaggerated vehemence in his expression of emotion 
 makes us doubt, whether he has not permanently 
 injured himself by the habit of caricaturing feel- 
 ing and passion in those miserable travesties which 
 have generally kept him before the public. His faults 
 do not disappear with time, but rather increase ; and it 
 is to be feared, unless this promising artist turns a deaf 
 ear to his flatterers, and devotes himself to a careful 
 study of life and character, he may sink into a manner- 
 
 ' Vide Essat/e on the Drama. By W. Bodham Bonne. — ^p. 151. 
 
OUB THEATBE8. 71 
 
 ist, who will go on reiterating his " eflfeots " long after 
 the public have grown caUons to them. If he is to do 
 any good, he mnst give np bnrlesqne and mere farce, at 
 least for a time, and try to get himself fitted with cha- 
 racters which will test his capabilities, and task them 
 to the uttermost. 
 
 Our space forbids us to refer to other actors and 
 actresses of some promise on the London stage, who are 
 suflfering by the habit of performing in burlesque ; but 
 all the disadvantages which afiect an actor of Mr. 
 Bobson's power must necessarily afiect them in a still 
 greater degree. Most especiaUy is it injurious to our 
 young actresses. Mere saucy fiippancy titillates so 
 many fools in every audience, that a smile or round of 
 applause is often obtained by what makes those who 
 think well of their sex shrink almost with a feeling of 
 shame. This is a species of success which they should 
 especially dread if they have any ambition in their 
 art. It is of all others at once the most ephemeral, 
 and, if aimed at, the most fatal to their ever impressing 
 an audience with any of the higher and sweeter graces 
 of womanhood. There is scarcely a theatre in London 
 which does not afford painful illustrations of this truth, 
 and in none is it more conspicuous than in the theatres 
 at the West-end. 
 
 Among the infiuences from which the drama has 
 sufiiered of late years, none, we believe, have operated 
 so strongly as the resort to splendour of spectacle as 
 the great source of attraction. The question, how far 
 scenic illustration and care in costume may be carried, 
 is one of vital consequence to the drama, and to which, 
 
72 A WO^Ti ABOUT 
 
 in these times, so little reflection is given, ttat in deal- 
 ing ynth. it we are forced to call attention to the werest 
 truisms in pritieism, and to ask our readers to consider 
 for a moment, what the drama really is. 
 
 The higher drama, then, is poetry in action ; the 
 lower drama is a delineation of life in its every-day 
 lagpects, ■gnder certain conditions of emotion or excite- 
 ment, which raise it above the level of conjmonplaioe. 
 In both cases what we have to deal with are hnman 
 beings, in theif, various moods and humours,. — ^human 
 sufferings, sorrows, perplexities, joys, or eccentricities. 
 Men and women are the primary bbjeots of interest. 
 So true is it that landscapes, architecture, furniture, 
 and dresses are the mere adjuncts, that the finest dramas 
 in the world, those of Shakespeare, were produced for 
 a stage ■where the scenic appointments were of the most 
 meagre kind. To make these picturesque, and to keep 
 them from offending by incongruity or unsightliness, is 
 the first consideration. If they can also be made beau- 
 tifal, without obtruding too much on the attention, 
 then, it seems to us, every, object is gained. The 
 moment they go beyond this pointj the moment we ape 
 made to think more of the scenery, dresses, groupings, 
 and processions, than of the aotors and the develop^ 
 ment of the human interest, the fundamental law of the 
 drama is violated, and the play degenerates into the 
 spectacle. 
 
 As if in prophetic anticipation of the abuses of the 
 last fifteen years, Sir Walter Scott, in his delightful 
 review of Boaden's Lif? of KemUe, stated the principle 
 by which these things should be governed in words 
 which cannot be too often repeated : — 
 
" The muBe of painting should be on the stage the band-maid, not 
 the rival, of her sister of the drama. Each art should retain its due 
 preponderance within its own proper region. Let the scenery be as 
 well painted, and made as impressive as a moderate-siised stage will 
 afford ; but when the roof is raised to give the scene-painter room to 
 pile Pelion upon Osaa ; when the stage is widened that his forests 
 may be extended, or deepened that his oceans may flow in space 
 apparently interminable, the manager who commands these decora- 
 tions is leaving his proper duty, and altering entirely the poi^se of 
 the stage," 
 
 Further on, while Sir Walter admits that the use of 
 " dresses snited to the time and conntry, and of land- 
 scape and architeetnre equally coherent" must be 
 advantageous, he does so only under the qualification, 
 " that this part of theatrical business be kept in due 
 subordination to that which is strictly dramatic." 
 
 " Processions and decorations, he adds, belong to the same province 
 as scenes and dresses, and should be heedf uUy attended to, but at the 
 sani^ time kept under, that they may relieve the action oj' the scene, 
 instead ofshtmldering aside the dramatic interest." 
 
 All lovers of the drania remember how Mr. Maoready 
 carried scenic illustration to the very verge of what 
 wag legitiniate, Even under his management it was 
 upon occasion somewhat in excess ; but still the acting 
 and acto^-s were of primary accpunt. Mr. Macready 
 was not the man to allow the dramatic interest to be 
 wholly " shouldered aside " for the sake of picturesque 
 grouping, or antiquarian niceties. If a scene of peculiar 
 beauty was introduced, this was generally done " to re- 
 lieve the action," or where, as in the Acis and Galatea, 
 there was no call upon the intellectual sympathies of 
 the audience. How far Mr. Macready might have beeq 
 carried, bad he remained at Dniry Lane, by the popular 
 
?4 A WORD ABOUT 
 
 love of display whicli he stimulated, it is hard to say. 
 Like another Frankenstein he might have become the 
 slave of the demon he had evoked. Bnt we have lived 
 to see a very different order of things from what pre- 
 vailed nnder his management not only established at 
 one of the most popular theatres in London, but even 
 extolled ad ncniseam by the press as an act of honour 
 and worthy homage to the genius of Shakspeare. 
 What is more serious still, we have seen actors grow 
 worse and worse under the influence of the system, to 
 which this bad and successful example has given counte- 
 nance, and audiences and critics becoming less and less 
 sensitive to what our Shakspearian acted drama ought 
 to be. 
 
 Of Mr. Kean's merits as an actor, it is not our pur- 
 pose to speak at large. We do not admire him ; but 
 that is perhaps a whim of taste. In melodrama he is 
 effective, and he turns his knowledge of the stage to 
 excellent account. To our notions, however, of what 
 the Shaksperian drama demands, powers both natural 
 and acquired of a kind very different from those of 
 Mr. Kean. appear to be indispensable. He has been 
 painstaking, industrious, and we doubt not well-inten- 
 tioned. Fortunately for him, he has for many years 
 been without competitors. Measured against himself, 
 and always before a good-natured public as a zealous 
 manager, it is no wonder he has become widely popular. 
 But when his injudicious friends arrogate for Tn'm the 
 praise of being the great upholder of the Shaksperian 
 drama, unless they will allow the phrase upholder its 
 colloquial meaning of "upholsterer," they must not 
 
OUB THEATRES. 75 
 
 expect his claiims to pass unchallenged. Surely to 
 uphold the drama of Shakspeare is, not to use it as a 
 peg on which to hang the results of antiquarian re- 
 search, or as a pretext for showing how large a number 
 of expensively-dressed puppets can be put in motion 
 before well painted scenes, or under the unnatural glare 
 of the Bude light; but to take care that the best 
 available actors are got together to (dothe his poetry 
 and passion with life and motion, and that these actors 
 are made to do their very best to send home the poet's 
 intentions to the hearts and brains of the audience. 
 
 It is on the stage alone, although we are well aware of 
 the often cited opinion of Charles Lamb to the con- 
 trary, that Shakespeare can be studied thoroughly, and 
 thoroughly appreciated. That no writer ever left so 
 much for the actor to do as Shakspeare, is not less 
 true, than that none ever gave the actor such fine 
 things to speak. He knew, as no man ever did, how 
 much all good plays must depend upon the filling up 
 of the actor ; and we can regard only as afiectation the 
 remark so constantly repeated, that Shakspeare can 
 only be really studied in the closet. The poet himself 
 furnishes conclusive evidence against this theory. Why 
 should he not have entrusted his works to the press 
 rather than to the stage, were it not that he believed 
 the stage to be the true medium for preserving them 
 for after times, and securing for them their only 
 thorough appreciation ? 
 
 A greater than Lamb — ^we mean Coleridge — took a 
 view of this subject very differeht from his friend. He 
 looked to the stage " for sending a large portion of the 
 
76 A WOED ABOUT 
 
 inde:toite all wliich is contajned in Shakspeare, into 
 the heads and hearts, mto the very soxils of the mass of 
 mankind, towhom, except by this Jiving comment and 
 interpretation, it lonst remain for ever a sealed volnme, 
 a> deep well . Tnthont a wheel and windlass." And if 
 Coleridge so thought, it was hecanse he knew well the 
 jnagioal power which a great actor exercises upon the 
 Bonis of his andienoe : — 
 
 " What would appear mad or ludicrous in a book (he says), when 
 presented to the senses under the form of reality, and with the truth 
 of nature, supplies a species of actnal experience. This is indeed 
 the special privilege cjf f, great actor over a great poet. No part was 
 ever played in perfection but nature justified herself in the hearts of 
 all her children, in whatever state they were, short of absolute 
 moral exhaustion or downright stupidity. There is no time given to 
 ask questions or pass judgments ; we are taken by storm ; and 
 thfiUgh, in the histrionic art, many a pl\unsy. counterfeit, by a carica,- 
 ture of one or two features, may gain applause as a fine likeness, yet 
 never were the very thing rejected as a counterfeit." 
 
 What, then, has Mr. Kean done towards that " living 
 comment and interpretation " which must be the great 
 aim as well as pleasant duty of all truly great actors ? 
 To us it seems he has not only done nothing, but worse 
 thajj nothing, for he has deliberately and with tre- 
 mendous energy of pui-pose, " shouldered aside " the 
 poet for the sake of mere soeuio effects, Of Mr, Kean's 
 own acting in his so-called revivals of Shakspeare we 
 had rather not speak. It presents nothing for criticism 
 to illustrate, much as it offers for reprobation. But we 
 ask in what single instance in all his reyivals has he pre- 
 sented to the public either actor or actress capable of 
 filling the characters entmsted to their care ? Who of 
 
OJJB THE AT BE B. 77 
 
 them all is remembered in any one part as having 
 thrown light npou Shakspeare's intentions, or sent his 
 poetry home to the soul with the tinerring force' of 
 genuine sympathy ? "Who of the many thousands who 
 have floQked to these revivals remembers anything of 
 the acting, and does not remember the glare and glitter, 
 the strut and fanfare of the pageantry ? Who that 
 was familiar with Shakspeare, ever carried away a 
 valuable idea from the Princess's ? Who; that knew 
 him not was ever led to peruse him by- the exhibitioiis 
 there, even though the study of the text was smoothed 
 and brought down to the shallowest Capacity by the re- 
 cension and commentary of Mr. Charles Kean'e editions 
 of the plays ? ' LoOk over the glorious list of dramas 
 
 ' Mrs Kean's editions df his feviVfed plays are among the curiosi- 
 ties of literature. Here are a few of his notes to The Tjempest.—^ 
 " Full poor oM — i.e,, a. cell in a great degree of poverty/' "So drv 
 he was for sway — i. e., so thirsty." ^' My guakit Ariel — quaint means 
 bfisk, spmce, dexterous, froitn the JVeneh cointn." "As'wioSed dew— 
 vjicked, having baneful qualities." " For aye— for ever." " Gaberdine 
 —the coarse frock or outward garment of a peasant." Indeed! 
 " Sea-meUe — a species qf sea-gulls." " Ban, Ban, Ca — Caliban, hoe a 
 new fnasteir — (xet a neai man, — in allusion to !Prospero, yiho must now 
 find a new servant, as he (Caliban) is about to serve a new master." 
 " Wezand — i. «., throat." " Art thou afeord f — to afear is an obsolete 
 verb." Where did Mr. Kean make this discovery ? " Our frustrate 
 search — frustrate, frustrated." " Presently ? — now ? , at once ? " 
 " Faded — ^^vanished." " Pard — ^leopard." "- Ye elves — fairies and 
 elves are frequently in the jioets mentioned together." " GdrOgio! — 
 an exclamation of encouragement." For what order of intelligence 
 does Mr. Kean dole out such crumbs of knowledge 1 ■ He must either 
 have marvellously small learning himself, or a very low opinion of 
 that of his audience. The more ambitious notes are even more pre- 
 posterous. 
 
78 A WOBD ABOUT 
 
 on which he has laid his hand, — King John, Macbeth, 
 Winter's Tale, Midsummer's Night's Dream, The Tempest, 
 Bichn/rd the Second. Surely out of all these there was 
 some scene noticeable for the display of the power of 
 moving tears or pily, passion or imaginative sympathy, 
 which might be recorded in the fleeting annals of 
 histrionic success. We rack our memory in vain to 
 find one, while instances " without number numberless " 
 throng upon us of violence done to the pOet by sup- 
 pression, by misrepresentation, and by acting such as 
 fifteen years ago would have been impossible in a metro- 
 politan theatre of any pretensions. 
 
 But, indeed, of what matter can it be how a play is 
 acted, if it is to be overwhelmed by the mere accessories 
 according to Mr. Kean's system ? If Gtarriok himself 
 were to reappear with the Siddons by his side, their 
 genius would be thrown away amid such surroundings. 
 Tou may have a fine show, or you may have fine acting, 
 but you cannot have both together. Where the eye is 
 distracted at every turn by elaborate architectural details, 
 by novelty of costume and splendour of pageantry, the 
 mind is in no state to work in sympathy with either poet 
 or player. With a stage thronged to excess with javelin- 
 men and ladies in silk tights, even an Edmund Kean 
 would have felt his spirit " quite o'ercrowed." The 
 actor must have space and quiet, if he is to hold his 
 faculties at command, and he must, at the same time, 
 have the assurance that his audience are giving him their 
 attention. People, however, go to the Princess's to see 
 a show, and the actors there are no doubt conscious that 
 this, and this only, is the attraction. What they have 
 
OTIB THEATBE8. 79 
 
 to say is cut down to the narrowest shreds, consistent 
 with the progress of the scene. How they say it is of 
 very little momentj because people's minds are intent 
 upon other matters. Let them wear fine dresses, fit 
 well into the processions and groups, and the manager's 
 aim is achieved. How destructive such a state of things 
 must be to an actor's ambition, how fatal to his power of 
 moving an audience, needs no argument to demonstrate. 
 Those who have watched the decline of the company at 
 the Princess's have the best possible illustration of its 
 baneful effects. Those who, like ourselves, sometimes 
 drop into the theatres of our chief towns out of London 
 can see the same influence at work there. Country 
 managers have followed in Mr. Kean's footsteps. They 
 spare no expense upon spectacles ; they take no pains to 
 get good actors, or to make those they have do their best. 
 
 Not are Mr, Kean's sing against the Shaksperian 
 drama those of omission merely. Those of commission 
 are of a deeper die. He has never scrupled to crush 
 the poet, in order to introduce a gorgeous procession or 
 other show, or even to utilize a popular actress. What 
 were his Florizel and PerMa, his Ferdincmd and 
 Miranda ? With what regard to poetic truth has he 
 presented the " dainty Ariel ? " How has he banished 
 from The Temvpest all the gorgeous hues in which Shaks- 
 peare's imagination has steeped the enchanted island, 
 by the intrusion of clumsy mechanism and the lumbering 
 efforts of the hundred and forty supernumeraries by 
 whom, his bills inform us, it is worked ! 
 
 Or let us take a still more flagrant instance, not only 
 of the absence of poetic feeling, but of the spirit of vulgar 
 
80 A WOBB ABOUT 
 
 display, by which these revivals have been regulated. 
 On the stage there is, perhaps, no scene more quietly 
 beatitiftd, in reverential hands, than the last scene of 
 the WwiUr's Tale. Sixteen years are supposed to have 
 elapsed since \vej with Leontes, beheld Hermione, Then 
 she waa borne off to die, as it was "thought, xinder the 
 Wrong inflicted by the wilful jealousy of her husbands 
 All that " wide gap of time " has been passed by him in 
 profound remoi'siei—^leSs Would not have sufficed to purge 
 away the stains of a fault so great'--and, touched by 
 his affliction, Paulina consents to sdlabe it in a degree by 
 exhibiting to him the " dead likeness " of her whom he 
 so deeply mourned^ She yields this boon reluctantly ; 
 and so carefdl has Shakspeare been to invest the situa* 
 tion with a solemnity almost sacred, that he calls the 
 apartment in which it takes place a "chapeli" Stillness, 
 solitude, and trembling reverence are the proper accom- 
 paniments of such' a scene; and none but privileged 
 eyes might behold a reunion so touching in its pathos 
 as that of the lady, sanctified by these long years of 
 suffering and seclusion, with him who had done her the 
 heaviest, wrong possible for man to inflict upon a noble 
 woman. Shakspeare has been at pbculiar pains to 
 indicate all this in the most unmistakeable waiy ; making 
 even Hermione silent, except at the close of the scene, 
 when she speaks only to invoke a blessing on her 
 daughter. So all other managers have felt and repre- 
 sented it ; and many an audience hag been quickened 
 to the feeling of its unrivalled beauty by the simple 
 arrangements which usually accompany its represen- 
 tation. 
 
OTTB THEATBES. 81 
 
 It was left for Mr. Kean to drag down this exquisite 
 conception to the level of a noisy pageant, — ^to crowd 
 the stage with drums, trumpets, torches, and a confused 
 mass of fantastically dressed supernumeraries, and to 
 bring Hermione from her pedestal under the Hvid glare 
 of a Bude light, amid the shouts and gesticulations of a 
 mob, to receive an exaggerated embrace from a spas- 
 modic Leontes, and to close the play with a few iaarticu- 
 late words. 
 
 Such is one of the many feats for which the press call 
 upon us to admire Mr. Charles Kean as a great actor 
 and illustrator of Shakspeare ! With those who can so 
 deem of a man who could be guilty of such an act of 
 poetical sacrilege, it would be idle to argue. The good 
 sense and good taste of all who love Shakspeare, and 
 who think of what his plays, represented conscientiously 
 and with intelligence, might be, have long since recorded 
 a very diflferent verdict. This verdict Mr. Kean may 
 afford to despise, so long as he fills his theatre ; but let 
 bim not think he has established a title to our gratitude 
 as a benefactor to dramatic art, or to the memory of 
 Shakspeare. That he has coupled his name inseparably 
 with Shakspeare's is an undeniable fact ; but whether 
 with lasting honour, " Time, the old justice, who 
 examines all such offenders," will prove. 
 
 Whatever his other claims to direct the Shaksperian 
 tragedy at the recent festival performances* may have 
 
 ' Given at Her Majesty's Theatre on the occasion of the marriage 
 of the Princess RoyaJ to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, Jan. 
 1858. 
 
82 A WOBD ABOUT 
 
 been, it was very unwise to rest them on his services to the 
 drama of Shakspeare. On this ground Mr. Phelps was 
 certainly far better entitled to the distinction, for he 
 has stood alone in the metropolis, since Mr. Macready left 
 Drury Lane, in endeavonringtoUlnstrate Shakspeare by 
 careful acting and thereby to make him familiar to the 
 hearts and lips of the public in a theatre on which an 
 outer darkness as to Shakspeare and a healthy drama 
 had previously rested. At Sadler's Wells the play and 
 the actors are not sacrificed to the costumier. All need- 
 ful care is bestowed upon the scenic accessories ; but the 
 hearts and souls of the audiences are aimed at, as well 
 as their eyes and ears. No pains seem to be spared to 
 make the performance as complete as the actors under 
 Mr. Phelps' command can make it. Each does his best, 
 and a good intention may always be descried, even where 
 the execution is imperfect. It has done Mr. Phelps 
 little good, we fear, as an actor, to have been so long 
 away from collision with performers and audiences of 
 the first class, and his performance of Macbeth on the 
 occasion we have mentioned was not what his well- 
 wishers would have desired. Still it was a comfort to 
 get rid, if only for a night, of the rubbish of antiquarian- 
 ism, and the preponderance of dresses and decorations 
 over the dramatic interest ; and to show in the Lady 
 Macbeth of Miss Helen Faucit, that we still possess an 
 actress almost without a rival in Europe. Here is a lady 
 who rises to the measure of Shakspeare's finest creations, 
 both iu comedy and tragedy, with a sweep of power, we 
 believe, beyond what has won the reputation of Bachel 
 and Ristori in the inferior drama of Baciue and Alfieri ; 
 
UB THE A TBE8. 83 
 
 and yet such is the state of our London theatres, that 
 there is apparently not one at which this power can be 
 made available. How great the loss is to the public 
 all must have felt who witnessed her impersonation of 
 Lady Macbeth, where not even indifferent acting around 
 her and a divided interest in the house were able to dull 
 the fire of her genius or to impair her hold upon the 
 audience. 
 
 Give us performers who prosecute their art, we do not 
 say with the same powers, but with the same high ideal 
 constantly before them, as Miss Faucit, and even now 
 we should not be afraid of bringing back the multitude 
 from cumbrous pageantry and show to nature and 
 Shakspeare. At the same time, it is idle to disguise 
 that this achievement, if ever effected, will be effected 
 against heavy odds. The palate which has been ruined 
 by stimulants, will turn for a time with sickly indiffer- 
 ence from wholesome fare. So thoroughly imbued has 
 a large section of the public become with the appetite 
 for costly scenic effects, that it is all but impossible, 
 even if the actors were at hand, that the plays of Shaks- 
 peare or any other great dramatist could now be properly 
 represented. Ability and knowledge must be highly 
 paid on the stage as elsewhere, and no manager can pay 
 for these, and also sustain the nightly charges of a costly 
 spectacle. If he prefers to have the good actors, he 
 must, therefore, be prepared to run a great risk, if not 
 to sustain a serious loss, at the outset of his specu- 
 lation. 
 
 Who is to venture on so perilous a task with a public 
 depraved in its tastes looking coldly on his efforts, and 
 
84 A WORD ABOUT 
 
 a press ready to cry up the dramatic " upholsterer," and 
 to denounce Shakspeare as slow without the relief of 
 dances, Bade lights, processions, and costumes for each 
 of which a voucher can be produced ? To these guides 
 of public opinion, we doubt not the display of Titama's 
 graces as a ballet-dancer is much more congenial than 
 all the poetry in the world. With that kind of know- 
 ledge of the actor's art which is picked up by lounging 
 at side wings and discussing small green-room scandal 
 with the Belvawneys and Folairs of second-rate theatres, 
 they can appreciate any strong effect, or exaggerated 
 piece of declamation ; but of the art, as practised by the 
 race of accomplished actors, the last of whom are fast 
 disappearing, or of the literature of the real drama, 
 they know nothing. To these, Shakspeare, Goldsmith, 
 or Sheridan, is slow, as Bacon, Milton, or Jeremy 
 Taylor is slow. They adapt farces from the French, 
 and call themselves dramatic authors. They have 
 managers to conciliate, and even where their better 
 judgment must condemn, personal interest ties up their 
 tongues. 
 
 The editors of our leading journals obviously think it 
 of no moment how questions of art are dealt with, and 
 we have become the laughing-stock of Europe for the 
 ignorant, and not rarely dishonest, trash to which they 
 give currency as criticism. In no department is this 
 discreditable feature more conspicuous than in that of 
 dramatic criticism. The press, which should be the 
 great check upon the abuses of the stage, has for long 
 contributed to foment them. While it is loud enough 
 in its moans over the decay of the drama, it rarely lifts 
 
OUB THEATRES. 85 
 
 its voice against the causes of this decay. Bad pieces 
 and worse acting are praised; good pieces and good 
 acting are as often as not passed over in silence. The 
 vicions management of onr leading theatres is not de- 
 nounced. At one of these, for example, we may see a 
 Lady Teazle with the airs of a lorette, and a Charles 
 Surface with the manners of a clown, but the papers of 
 next morning will probably extol the refined grace of 
 the one, and the gentlemanly ease of the other. Again 
 and again within the last few years have we been called 
 upon to admire actresses whose talent for costliness of 
 wardrobe was supreme, but who could neither speak, 
 walk, nor look like ladies ; nay, who were continually 
 violaiSng, with an unconsciousness truly astounding, the 
 simplest rules of Walker and Lindley Murray. 
 
 What else, indeed, could be expected from the un- 
 educated pretenders who have latterly filled the places 
 which, until the last change in the management of our 
 leading Comedy Theatre, were occupied by gentlewomen 
 of culture and experience, who respected themselves and 
 their vocation ? An honest press would have made it 
 impossible for a manager to insult the understanding 
 and good feeling of the public by thrusting such vulgar 
 incapacity upon them. It would have told those 
 " Cynthias of the minute," who did not know the rudi- 
 ments of grammar, much less the rudiments of the 
 dramatic art, to find another sphere for the display of 
 their fine dresses and tawdry manners. It would have 
 compelled managers to see that their actors did not 
 trifle with their parts, and made actors feel that they 
 could not do so with impunity. But this it has not 
 
86 A WOBD ABOUT 
 
 done ; and we can hope for no improTement until the 
 criticism of the stage is in the hands of men who are 
 not only competent to judge, and have nothing to 
 hope for from managers, but who also keep them- 
 selves entirely aloof from all personal association with 
 actors. 
 
 We press this point urgently, because we feel assured 
 that if our stage is ever to rise again, the momentum in 
 a great degree must be given by the press. Performers 
 still adorn it of high powers and accomplishments, more 
 especially in comedy, and it must be that in so numerous 
 a profession there are many yet unknown to fame who, 
 under fair encouragement and judicious criticism, would 
 do honour to the stage. Let the press do its duty. ° Let 
 it speak out honestly what it thinks of the pretenders, 
 and give a helping hand to the modest and laborious 
 artist. It could soon crush that crop of noisy declaim- 
 ers each of whom advertises himself as " the greatest 
 tragedian of the day." It could soon convince the 
 flaunting Fotheringays, that something more than 
 diamonds and satin are requisite for a leading actress, 
 and that these, however magnificent, will not disguise 
 ignorance and want of breeding. It could drive buffoon- 
 ery at all events from our leading theatres, and teach 
 managers to look as much for success to good pieces, 
 and the finish which can only be achieved by careful 
 rehearsals and harmonious action, as to comediettas in 
 which no phase of any actual society is depicted, or to 
 coarse extravaganzas and a redundant display of feminine 
 symmetry. It could force actors to hold the public and 
 their own art in some degree of reverence, and to culti- 
 
OUB THEATRES. 87 
 
 Tate by the study of men and books those qualities which 
 used to make the actor respected as a gentleman, not 
 less than he was admired as an artist. Let the Times, 
 the Post, and the other leading journals deal with plays 
 and players from a point of view as exalted and inde- 
 pendent as that from which they handle social questions, 
 and so surely will a marked change speedily come over 
 the spirit of the scene. 
 
 But while the press may do much, the regeneration 
 of the drama must, we believe, come mainly from actors 
 themselves. As a body, they are behind the time. 
 They have not kept pace with its culture, and they do 
 not seem to be at any pains to make up the leeway they 
 have lost. Their ranks have not of late years been re- 
 cruited from the better educated classes, and it may be 
 that there is little encouragement for ladies and gentle- 
 men to join a profession where doubtful virtue in the 
 one and forward pretension in the other seem for the 
 time to carry off the prizes, and where the class of plays 
 in vogue offers so little to dignify the actor's art. But 
 it is impossible that, possessing as we do the noblest 
 drama in the world, and with the great love of the 
 stage inherent in the people, this state of things should 
 go on much longer. The want of a better stage is felt 
 by all thinking men to have become intolerable. As an 
 engine of popular education, especially of that instruc- 
 tion of the heart which in these times is too much 
 neglected for that of the head, it is invaluable. As an 
 amusement, the world has never devised one that can 
 compete with it. We waste our money on opera, but 
 the drama is our natural element. An Englishman 
 
88 A WOBD ABOUT 
 
 cannot go on for ever " laying down his -understanding 
 at the door," as Lord Chesterfield said he must do, 
 when he enters the opera-honse. 
 
 At no time were good theatres more longed for. 
 People begin to find out that they may read too much, 
 that they may be too much alone ; — that to be trans- 
 ported out of the round of their own persecuting and 
 petty cares into sympathy with the creatures of the 
 dramatist's fancy, and to be moved to tears or laughter 
 in company with their fellow-men, is better than to 
 have a smattering of all the ologies. Most cordially, 
 we believe, would the men who are the moving spirits 
 of our time, second the efforts of any manager who 
 should rest his claims to popularity on good plays and 
 thoroughly trained actors. Men of ability would then 
 write plays, who are now deterred from doing so, be- 
 cause they know they cannot be acted, and we might 
 hope to see a drama arise which would be at once a 
 reflex and a monitor to the times. An intelligent 
 audience before the curtain would operate beneficially 
 behind it, and in time a new cluster of artists would 
 spring up to rival the Kembles, Mundens, Glovers, and 
 Farrens of recent times, or those great delineators of 
 character and manners of a former period, with whom 
 the pictorial record at the Garrick Club has made us 
 familiar. We can only give a voice to the dissatisfac- 
 tion with the prevailing abuses of our theatres, which 
 we know to be widely felt, and to the longing, not less 
 widely felt, for a better order of things. We have done 
 so frankly, and without fear or favour. Whence or 
 
OUB THEATRES. 
 
 89 
 
 when the reformation is to come, it is impossible to 
 foresee. But the time is ripe for it, and those who 
 bring it will assuredly not be left to sink as martyrs in 
 a thankless cause. 
 
SHAKSPBARB, AND HIS LATEST STAGB 
 
 INTBEPRBTERS. 
 
 (Fraseb's Magazine, Becembeb, 1861.) 
 
 HATEVBR the state of the drama may be, 
 there can be no doubt as to the flonrish- 
 ing condition of our theatres. Never 
 were so many open, never so many well 
 filled, A few good actors, and a few good pieces, snch 
 as reasonable and educated men might feel they were 
 not abusing their time by going to see, might not be 
 amiss. Some flashes of intelligence and talent here and 
 there scarcely suffice to irradiate the BcBotian atmo- 
 sphere, which too generally pervades our theatres. 
 Were it not that the public are only too tolerant of in- 
 capacity, too ready to be pleased, most of them must 
 long siQce have closed their doors. But in this London 
 of ours, there is snch a vast multitude of over-worked 
 and over-idle people, eager for amusement upon any 
 terms, that an actor of fair abilities, or a drama with 
 even a tolerable amount of interest, is sure of success. 
 
8HAE8PEABE. 91 
 
 Were this not bo, how could the /wrore be explained 
 which has been excited by such a drama as The Golleen 
 Bourn ? With no merit, except neat constniction, one 
 scene of novel eflPect, which works strongly upon the 
 sensations of the audience, and respectable acting in 
 two or three of the parts, it has had a run and pro- 
 duced a profit to the theatre quite unprecedented in the 
 annals of the stage. Moreover, every provincial town 
 in the kingdom has rushed to see Myles-na-Coppaleen's 
 " tremendous header," and all Paris is at this moment 
 agape at this astounding achievement of histrionic 
 genius. Thirty-six thousand pounds, says rumour, is 
 the harvest already reaped from this one source by Mr. 
 Dion Boucicault. A drama which can boast of such 
 results, obviously transcends criticism. As Jules Jania 
 exclaims, criticising in the Bebats the reproduction of 
 the piece at the Ambigu, " Neuf cent mille francs ! 
 Nous n'avons rien de mieux a dire ; il n'y a p£is d'elo- 
 qnence, il n'y a pas de critique, il n'y a pas de femlle- 
 ton au-dela de ces neuf cent mille &ancs ! " Before 
 the genius of success, the genius of critic or of poet 
 must in these days both bow ; and that success Mr. 
 Boucicault possesses in a pre-eminent degree. He has 
 seen that our modem audiences must be attracted 
 through the eyes ; through their sensations rather than 
 their emotions. Give them sufficiency of action, a story, 
 suspense, excitement, thrill their nerves with some 
 strong effect, just short of absolute horror, please their 
 senses with fine scenery, and they are content. Poetry, 
 passion, elevation of character or thought, are of little 
 or no account. Infuse, if you will, a dash of these, or 
 
92 8HAKSPEABE, AND HIS 
 
 of sometijing that looks like them, just to give your 
 piece an air of literary respectability. Touch, the hearts 
 of your audience, if you can, but by aU means gratify 
 their senses, and work them up into a fever of physical 
 excitement. On this principle Mr. Boucicault has 
 wrought, and being a master in the technical requisites 
 of his craft, his piece has proved a very gold mine to 
 him. 
 
 There was a time when this sort of thing was re- 
 served for the minor theatres. Unhappily the same 
 spirit has for a considerable period pervaded all the 
 houses. Nor is this state of things peculiar to England. 
 In France and Germany the stage has undergone a 
 similar degradation ; and the wail of those who mourn 
 over the decay of our own poetical drama has its 
 counterpart in the lamentations of the critics of Paris, 
 Vienna, and Eerlin. Love of spectacle, over-attention 
 to mise-en-scene, has brought its own retribution there 
 as here. The art of acting has declined, while archaeo- 
 logy and pictorial skill have been usurping its place ; 
 and if plays of a high class were now to be written, 
 they could not have justice done to them on a foreign 
 stage any more than upon our own, for want of actors 
 capable of grappling with character and passion in their 
 higher forms. 
 
 It was left for England, however, to turn the plays 
 of Shakspeare iato mere vehicles for scenic effects. 
 Neither in France nor Germany have they as yet been 
 handed over to the upholsterer and dress-maker to deal 
 with after their ideal. That species of " revival " was 
 reserved for the region of Oxford Street and the fine 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEBS. 93 
 
 imagination of Mr. Charles Kean. Propitious was the 
 honr for the London stage when that gentleman, after 
 having done his best to reduce every tragedy of Shaks- 
 peare which he " revived" to a show, and every comedy 
 to a farce, retired from the administration of the 
 Princess's Theatre, and fell back upon his native 
 powers, unaided by the splendours of spectacle, and 
 unenforced by the " divinity " which somehow or other 
 seems always to hedge a managerial king. Like other 
 shows, Mr. Kean's revivals were speedily forgotten. 
 Who thinks of all their glare and glitter now ? But 
 the mischief was done. His example, applauded as it 
 was by reckless critics and a credulous public, had 
 spread through every provincial theatre. Good acting 
 was at a discount. The player was elbowed out of 
 sight by the scene-shifter. The art of declamation was 
 being rapidly lost, and the consequences were miser- 
 ably apparent whenever an attempt was made to repre- 
 sent a Shakspearian play on a London stage. The 
 merest pretenders, who at no very remote period would 
 not have been admitted, even as subordinates, to any of 
 the principal theatres, rushed into the leading places. 
 The old standards of excellence were forgotten, and no 
 new ones had arisen. Any actor or actress, however 
 illiterate or unschooled, might make a dash at the most 
 difficult parts. So accordingly, for example, have we 
 seen at a leading theatre a Beatrice or a Rosalind whose 
 treatment of the aspirate was enough to raise Lindley 
 Murray from the tomb, and who showed in exquifiite 
 combination the pronunciation and manners of a bar- 
 maid. Of the Benedicks and Orlandos, it is enough to 
 
94 8HAKSPEABE, AND EI 8 
 
 say that they formed appropriate pendants to bticIi a 
 principal. Elsewhere matters were not mnch better. 
 
 But never, perhaps, was a more pitiable spectacle 
 presented to a Dmry Lane audience than the plays 
 produced there last winter during the performances of 
 Mr. Charles Kean. It was not alone that the scenery 
 and costume were beyond measure contemptible. In 
 the presence of careful stage arrangements and good 
 acting these might have been overlooked. But both 
 the stage arrangement and the acting were bad beyond 
 belief. The miserable declamation and utterly unreal 
 and affected style, which had in some measure escaped 
 notice on a crowded stage and in the midst of pageantry, 
 stood out in ghastly prominence. Mr. Kean's satellites, 
 whom he has schooled into all the vices of his own 
 manner, showed themselves in all their native weak- 
 ness ; and Mr. Kean himself, in the exaggeration which 
 was there perceptible of all the defects which had dis- 
 tinguished the performances of his earlier career, proved 
 how much he had become the victim of ^hat vicious 
 system of which he had long been the master-spirit, 
 and under which he had sacrificed nature and poetry to 
 false glitter and melodramatic effect. 
 
 Of this his Hamlet was a signal example. Apparently 
 regarded by Mr. Kean himself as one of his best parts, 
 the critics during a long series of years have told us 
 that it was a performance not only unrivalled, but per- 
 fect. They told us so again last season, when Mr, 
 Kean re-emerged to " the upturned wondering eyes " of 
 his admirers upon the stage of Drury Lane. The 
 Hamlet of Mr, Kean's early days was a showy per- 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEBS. 95 
 
 formance : the action was showy, the declamation 
 showy. It had all the cleverness which a natnral 
 aptitude for stage effect gives to all this gentleman's 
 performances ; but it was entirely without poetry or 
 truth. Mr. Kean's Hamlet in 1861 has all the vices of 
 his youthful performance indurated and engrained in 
 such a degree that, in the absence of the youthful as- 
 pect, it seems altogether of a coarser fibre. It is a hard, 
 commonplace, stagey reading of the part, very attractive 
 possibly to those who think the best acting is that 
 which is the farthest &om nature, but as unlike the 
 young Lord Hamlet of Shakspeare's imagination as it 
 is possible to conceive. A young prince sulking about 
 the Court of Denmark, as he depicts him, would have 
 been a nuisance so intolerable that every one must have 
 been anxious to get him out of the way. Hosenkrantz 
 would have cut him ; Horatio declined the discomfort 
 of his acquaintance ; and most assuredly Claudius, a 
 gentleman not accustomed to stand on trifles, and who 
 in this case would have been sure of strong backing, 
 would have felt it necessary to get rid of him on any 
 terms. Mr. Kean labours undoubtedly under great 
 disadvantages. He is not "the mould of form," and 
 his deportment, either from want of that natural grace 
 for which his father was conspicuous, or from bad stage 
 habits, is more that of " the harlotry player," than the 
 high-bred and sensitive prince. The repose of the 
 gentleman is never indicated ; he thrusts himself into 
 prominence when he should be retiring ; he attitudinizes, 
 he distorts his features in the most meaningless and 
 unpleasant way, dropping his jaw, and gazing vacantly 
 
96 8HAESPEABE, AND HIS 
 
 into vacancy, whenever he wishes to express mental 
 abstraction ; he shouts with superflnons energy, he deals 
 in the most redundant gestures, does everything, in 
 short, which a man of Hamlet's temperament and 
 culture would not do. The performance is an in- 
 harmonious tissue of shreds and patches, full of clap- 
 trap effects and showy emphasis ; but presenting no 
 development of the man Hamlet under the novel and 
 trying circumstances which pass before our eyes. 
 
 Everything is set and artificial, glaring and unreal. 
 His first entrance on the scene is made with a demon- 
 strativeness unbecoming to the situation. King, queen, 
 and court are sent on before ; and when they are all 
 ranged along one side of the stage, Mr. Kean stalks on 
 and takes up his position in the centre of the scene, as 
 if he, and not Claudius, occupied the throne of Den- 
 mark. Hamlet's very first speech in reply to his 
 mother's remonstrance, is spoken with a tone and 
 emphasis utterly foreign to the situation. Here, as 
 indeed throughout, Mr. Kean's sole aim seems to be to 
 send home what he thinks the strong speeches of the 
 part with a kind of sledge-hammer force, without con- 
 sidering whether, under the circumstances, this is con- 
 sistent with probability or not. There is no gradation, 
 no ebb and flow of emotion, no reserve ; and therefore, 
 when passion is called for, it is so mere an echo of 
 ill-judged vehemence, previously squandered on what 
 should have been calmly handled, that it loses all its 
 effect. The miserable ambition of making " points " to 
 catch applause — that vice of the incapable actor trying 
 to imitate the grand and intuitive culminations of 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEBB. 97 
 
 passion by which true genius elecbrifies its audience — 
 besets the whole conception. Even in the presence 
 of the ghost, it betrays Mr. Kean into absurdities of 
 action and delivery. He cannot talk of " the ponderous 
 and marble jaws " of the monument from which the 
 restless spirit has escaped, without drawling, forth the 
 words, as if the whole weight of the cenotaph hung upon 
 each particular syllable. Again, the declaration that 
 the ghost cannot harm his soul, that " being a thing 
 immortal as itself," is given with the old stage start 
 and stmt, which may be very effective with the upper 
 galleries, but is quite unseemly in the presence of so 
 awful a manifestation. An actor capable of interpreting 
 Shakspeare could not fall into absurdities like these. 
 It is not that he would merely scorn such cheap effects ; 
 they would be for him simply impossible. 
 
 The only source of greatness in acting — entire sym- 
 pathy with the nature to be portrayed — is wanting 
 throughout Mr. Kean's whole performance. We see 
 merely the actor ; we catch no glimpse of the true 
 prince of Denmark. Mr. Kean is thinking of his effects, 
 when he should be leaving them to find an outlet for 
 themselves. Thus it is that we miss in him all those 
 natural transitions from feeling to feeling, which are so 
 subtly modulated in the Hamlet of Shakspeare, and 
 which were left by him to be wrought by the performer 
 into perfect expression by play of feature, inflection of 
 the voice, and by action. Of this nicety of touch we 
 find nothing in Mr. Kean. His lights are glare ; his 
 shadows, gloom ; his tenderness is unmanly ; his pathos, 
 maudlin ; his passion, rant. 
 
 H 
 
98 8HAK8PEABE, AND HIS 
 
 Such being the Hamlet which has for many years 
 held the leading place npon onr stage, Mr. Fechter did 
 wisely in selecting this part as his assay piece, when he 
 invited the English public to appraise his laudable 
 ambition of becoming an interpreter of their great poet. 
 They were familiar with what a merely conventional 
 treatment had made of the play. Mr. Fechter, hampered 
 by no traditions, and looking at the character with the 
 eye of a student of human nature, educated by long and 
 assiduous familiarity with the resources of the histrionic 
 art', seems to have foreseen with what eagerness a fresh 
 and truly sympathetic rendering of the part would be 
 hailed by a public like ours, which, however tolerant it 
 may be of bad acting, is quick to appreciate good. In 
 this play, too, everything turns upon Hamlet, himself, 
 and the actor is less dependent than in any other play 
 of Shakspeare's on those around him. As the company 
 of the Princess's Theatre were not to be relied on in any 
 more hazardous venture, this consideration was probably 
 not without its effect upon Mr. Fechter's decision. The 
 public, ingratiated by the grace, and spirit, and finish 
 which he had displayed in Bvy Bias and other romantic 
 parts, were predisposed in his favour. He made his 
 venture,' and a verdict all but unanimous pronounced it 
 a great success. Kothing so fresh and stimulating had 
 for many a day been seen upon our stage. The ancient 
 dreary routine had been abandoned in the whole arrange- 
 ments of the scene. So skilfully, too, had Mr. Fechter 
 contrived to arrange their work for the very inefficient 
 performers who surrounded him, that their shortcomings 
 were less conspicuous than they must otherwise have 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEB8. 99 
 
 been. The scenery and costames illastrated, and 
 did not overwliebn the action. Each character was 
 brought into due subordination to the rest. Hamlet 
 himself fell into his place as one of the court. His first 
 appearance was conspicnons, not by his making his 
 entrance alone, bat by the mere force of the interest 
 excited by his look and bearing. The spectator's eye 
 had to seek him out, bat having once found him it was 
 fixed for the rest of the scene. In the same spirit the 
 whole performance was conceived. The character g^ew 
 and expanded before our eyes, swayed to and &o, now 
 alive with energy, anon dreaming into irresolution and 
 apathy, modulating itself to the incidents of the scene 
 and the personages with which it was in collision, 
 passionate, tender, courteous, sarcastic, brilliant, medita- 
 tive, as the occasion demanded. Whatever Mr, Fechter 
 did seemed to be true to the situation, and done without 
 regard to effect, even when the effect was greatest. 
 Whatsoever he said was said so as to bring out the 
 author's meaning with foil but not exaggerated emphasis. 
 Picturesque and graceful without apparent effort, Mr. 
 Fechter pleased the eye and stimulated the imagination 
 by such insensible degrees, that the audience soon forgot 
 — as the action of the play proceeded, and they became 
 lost in a sense of its reality — the strangeness of the 
 foreign accent, which for the first few minutes had dis- 
 turbed their enjoyment. The freshness of originaliiy 
 gave new force and significance to the old situations, 
 and to language which from mere familiarity had lost 
 some of its impressiveness. It was manifest that the 
 actor had taken a strong and comprehensive grasp of 
 
100 8HAK8PEABE, AND HIS 
 
 the part. He had plninbed its depths, he had " plucked 
 out the heart of its mystery." It had mirrored itself 
 sharply and clearly within his mind, and he contrived 
 with rare skill to body forth to his audience the image 
 which he had created for himself. 
 
 And yet, admirable as this impersonation was, and 
 great as were its claims upon our gratitude for having 
 emancipated our stage, as it did, at one stroke, from the 
 wretched conventionalisms under which the play had 
 been so long smothered, it did not leave upon the mind 
 a feeling of entire satisfaction. It was not merely that 
 the ear missed the fine rhythmical cadences of the verse, 
 which perhaps no ear but an English ear can thoroughly 
 feel, and no4ionguebut an English tongue do justice to. 
 That Mr. Eechter failed here could scarcely be charged 
 as a fault to him, wlien.we remember what difficulties 
 he must have overcome to speak our lang^ge as he 
 does. But it is & flaw, nevertheless, and one the full 
 efiect of which it is hard to estimate. Who shall say 
 how much of our impression of any character in its 
 moods of excitement or of passion is dependent on the 
 due inflections of the language in which these clothe 
 themselves ? The accentuation of a few words, nay, even 
 of a syllable, may make the difierence between common- 
 place and poetical suggestiveness. In passages of high 
 passion, more particularly, a clear and resonant utter- 
 ance is all-important. If these be not given with 
 vibrant tones and a fall and rhjrthmical cadence, the 
 soul from which they issue will never seem to be other- 
 wise tjiaa shallow and small. 
 
 Judged by his Hamlet alone, we should say that Mr. 
 
LATEST ^STAOE INTBBPBJSTEBS. 101 
 
 Feohter is not penetrated by the subtle melodies of 
 Sbakspeare's langnage, either ia their tenderer or their 
 grander tones. The scene at Ophelia's grave showed 
 that he has not strength of voice for, even if he felt, the 
 latter ; and in the calmer soliloquies we never found 
 him lingering upon and evolving the richness or sweet- 
 ness of the former. Besides the natural inaptitude of the 
 foreigner to appreciate the subtler beauties of the verse, 
 something of this defect might; we feared, be due to a 
 latent hardness in bis own nature. His intelligence 
 seemed to be more active than his imagination, his 
 feelings to be quick rather than profound. So it was, 
 that while he evolved a perfectly well defined and con- 
 sistent conception in his Hamlet, it appeared, even to 
 those who admired it most, to want that undefinable 
 something which constitutes ideality, that subtle per- 
 vading essence which escapes the grasp of analysis, but 
 which we demand, and have in our own days found, in 
 the impersonators of the characters of our poetical drama. 
 Here and there an excess of familiarity might be per- 
 ceived. The tone was too colloquial ; Hamlet was on too 
 easy terms with his friends and fellow-students. There 
 was a little too much resting on the arm of one, of 
 hanging on the shoulder of another, which dragged the 
 play somewhat too much down into common life, and 
 took from the dignity of the young prince. In passing 
 from the extreme of formality with which the part had 
 been so long treated on our stage, it seemed as if Mr. 
 Fechter had somewhat overstepped the rules of art in 
 an opposite direction. However, in the general satis- 
 faction inspired by so fresh and brilliant an embodiment 
 
102 83AK8PI1ABE, AND 318 
 
 of the character, all misgivings were forgotten 5 and it 
 was welcomed with enthusiasm, not only, by the general 
 public, but even by those severer jndges who had not 
 forgotten the great actors of a former time, and with 
 whom Shakspeare had been a life-long study. Men 
 who had forsworn theatres in disgust for many a day, 
 returned and found in Mr. Fechter one who could make 
 "the ancient founts of iuspiration well within their 
 spirits " with much of their ancient vigour. Once more 
 were refined and educated audiences made to feel that 
 for the thorough understanding of Shakspeare the 
 theatre is the only place ; and that it is only when their 
 imaginations are roused by witnessing the progress of 
 the action, and they are under the spell of an actor 
 penetrated by the genius of the poet, and kindling with 
 the iuspiration of the scene, that the length and breadth 
 of the poet's purpose can be fully estimated, or the 
 deeper beauties of his delineation be thoroughly felt. 
 
 It was therefore with no common interest that the 
 public looked forward to the next appearance of Mr. 
 Fechter in a Shakspearian character. And when that 
 character was understood to be Othello, and it was 
 rumoured that Mr. Fechter intended to prove by his 
 arrangement of the piece how mistaken our ideas had 
 hitherto been of the way it ought to be represented, 
 curiosity -was still further stimulated. Simultaneously 
 with his appearance in the part, an edition of the play, 
 called " Charles Fechter's Acting Edition," was pub- 
 lished, in which so much of the text is given as he con- 
 siders essential for scenic purposes, accompanied by 
 minute instructions as to what is technically called the 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEBS. 103 
 
 business of the scene. In oiher acting editions these 
 directions ore confined to certEun cabalistic indications 
 as to exits and entrances, and snch-like matters, which 
 actors of course understand, but nobody else does, or 
 need care to do. This is not Mr. Fechter's notion, 
 however, of an acting edition. If a character has to 
 speak, the peculiar expression is indicated which is to 
 be given to what he says. Thus Desdemona is told to 
 exclaim, " Nor I ! " " with a sad resignation," and lago 
 cheers CaBsio " with deceitful friendliness." The move- 
 ments and gestures of the performers are all reg^ulated 
 in the same way. lago " takes Cassio by the arm with 
 great show of frankness and confidence," and claps 
 Boderigo on the shoulder " with an air of patronizing 
 pride." The whole play is studded with directions of 
 this kind.i Thus, although Mr. Fechter in a prefatory 
 
 > Mr, Fechter must rate very low the inteUigence both of his 
 readers and of his " comrades in art," otherwise he would scarcely 
 ventm-e to tell them in this way how every passage is to be spoken 
 and acted. An actor fit to play any one of the leading parts of this 
 play will, of com«e, find all these things out for himself. What, for 
 example, can be more absurd or more superfluous than such a pas- 
 sage as this in the last scene ? 
 " 0th. I think shp stirs again. No ; [Trying to colleet hu ihouffhts.'} 
 What's the best ? 
 If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife : — 
 
 {^Bepeatittg his own worde as if anothxr had spoien them,'} 
 My wife ! my wife I what wife ? 
 
 [WUh heartrending accent ofgri^.] 
 I have no wife ! 
 Oh insupportable ! oh heavy hour ! 
 
 [Crossing his hands over his head, as if to defend himself 
 from the wrath of heaven.'] " 
 
104 8HAKSPEABE, AND EI8 
 
 dedication takes credit for not having given " a single 
 annotation to sweU the number of those myriad com- 
 ments which already encumber the different texts of 
 Shakspeaj-e," he does in fact give more than most 
 editors in the way of commentary as to what Shak- 
 speare intended to be understood from the action, or 
 meant to convey as to the nature of his various per- 
 
 Tbe man who cannot learn from his own soul how to express this 
 passage, will never learn it from such schoolboy tntorings as these. 
 Mr. Fechter is probably not aware that this grotesque style of stage 
 direction, which in former days prevailed in Germ&ny, and for a 
 brief period in England, when German plays like 7%e Stranger and 
 The Bobbers were first brought over, was exploded by the ridicule 
 of Canning in I%e Eovers of Quedlinbwff, published in 77ie Anti- 
 Jacobin. It would not be difficult to extract from Mr. Fechter's book 
 passages of which the following, from that admirable burlesque, is 
 scarcely a caricature : — 
 
 " Waitbb. Sirj here is a person who desires to speak with you. 
 
 Besfinqton. [Goes to the door, and returns with a letter which he 
 opens. On perusing it his countenance becomes illuminated, and ex- 
 pands prodigioush/.] Hah, my friend, what joyl [Tuminff to 
 Puddinfffield.] 
 
 PcDDiNGPiBLD. Whatl tell me— let your Puddingfield partake It. 
 
 Beef. See here 1 [Prodticinff a printed paper.] 
 
 Pddd. What? [With impatieilce.'] 
 
 Beef. [In a significant tone.] A newspaper I 
 
 FcDD. Hah ! what say'st thou ? a newspaper I 
 
 Beef. Yes, Puddingfield, and see here [shows it partialkf], from 
 England. 
 
 Pux>D. [With extreme earnestness.] Its name ? 
 
 Beef. The Daih/ Advertiser. 
 
 FuDi). Oh, ecstasy ! 
 
 Beef. [IVHh a dignified severitt/,] Puddingfield, calm yourself— 
 repress these transports — remember that you are a man. 
 
 PcDD. [After a pause, with suppressed emotion.'] Well, I will be 
 — I am calm ! " 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEB8. 105 
 
 sonages. Accordingly, without seeing Mr. Fechter's 
 Othello, a man may readily gather &om this book what 
 it is likely to be, and how far his interpretation of the 
 whole play is in accordance with the text of Shak- 
 speare. And viewing it in connection with the actual 
 performance, we can be in no doubt about Mr. Fechter's 
 conception not merely of the character of Othello, but 
 also of the principles on which the representation of 
 this and other Shakspearian dramas should be con- 
 ducted. If Mr. Fechter be right in his views as em- 
 bodied in this first of his series of an acting edition of 
 Shakspeare, the rest of the world has hitherto been 
 greatly wrong, and it is at all events of some conse- 
 quence to see where we stand, before a further advance 
 is made in this reformation of our stage. 
 Mr. Fechter in his introduction says : — 
 
 " Here is simply an Acting Edition, entirely to the purport, and for 
 the use of the stage ; free from all pretence to compete with the 
 elaborate publications intended for the library. Shakspeare's plays 
 were certainly written to be acted, not recited. I therefore offer to 
 the public, who have so kindly and effectively supported me in my 
 bold attempt, and to my comrades in art, who are willing to accom- 
 pany me along the path I follow, the fruit of nearly twenty years' 
 unceasing ' labour of lore ' for the scenic representation of the 
 Great Master ! Too happy if they find it easy of digestion, yielding 
 some food for the intellect and profit for the future. 
 
 It is now for others to press forward, to sap the foundations of 
 that worm-eaten and unwholesome prison, where dramatic art lan- 
 guishes in fetters, and which is called ' Ji'adition.''" 
 
 Modestly as this seems to be couched, and modestly 
 as we doubt not Mr. Fechter meant it, it had much 
 better, we think, have been left unsaid. If he be correct 
 in saying that Shakspeare's plays were written to be 
 
106 SHAKBPEABE, AND HIS 
 
 aetedinot recited, he onght to have seen that a text so 
 crammed with practical commentary as his, if accepted 
 and acted on by himself and his "comrades in art," 
 does not only compete with " the elaborate publications 
 intended only for the library," but does so with snch 
 enormous odds in its favotir, that it is of the last con- 
 sequence to the interests of literature that it should be 
 sotmd in its readings, and " well digested in its scenes." 
 Mistakes in such matters are of serious moment. False 
 impressions conveyed fi:x)m the stage as to Othello, 
 Macbeth, Lear, and Benedick, and of the plays in which 
 they appear, injure the taste of the public in the most 
 vital point. Of such false impressions we have already 
 had too many. Mr. Fechter would have done well to 
 have tested his conceptions a little more thoroughly 
 before committing them with so much confidence to a 
 record which he obviously trusts wiU become perma- 
 nent. 
 
 Again, that " Shakspeare's plays were written to be 
 acted, not recited," ia a mere truism in words, but it 
 involves a fallacy in the idea which Mr. Feohter mani- 
 festly seeks to convey. The first part of the proposition 
 is one that can never be too strongly dwelt upon. 
 Shakspeare wrote for the stage, and the full worth of 
 what he wrote can never be sent home to the heart and 
 soul except from the stage. The ablest and most 
 imaginative reader cannot depict to others — nay, he 
 cannot realize to himself — one half of what even an in- 
 different performance, conducted in an earnest spirit, 
 will show him, either directly or by suggestion. Acted, 
 then, these plays should be ; and so far Mr. Fechter is 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEBS. 107 
 
 unquestionably right. But aoHon is not all, or anything 
 like aU. The action of these plays is, no doubt, for the 
 most port masterly. The story is interesting, the plots 
 admirably developed, the contrast of character, the con- 
 flict of interest and of passion, unrivalled ; but if this 
 were all, they would not have risen above the region of 
 melodrama. What the characters are in semblance and 
 in bearings what they say, and how they say it, is not 
 less important than what they do. Strong emotion or 
 roused passion expresses itself in language elevated and 
 full of rhythm. The actor cannot illustrate the poet who 
 has not at command the voice and skiU to bring out into 
 full relief the rise and fall, the undulating play and 
 swell, the pauses, the onward stress, the culminating 
 bursts of passionate speech. Emotion and passion take 
 many shapes. It is not alone in short broken spasms 
 of utterance that they find a vent. Quite as often they 
 express themselves in the " long resounding march and 
 energy divine " of sustained and resonant eloquence. 
 A tragic actor, therefore, who cannot " recite," or, more 
 properly, " declaim," will never reach the summit of his 
 art. Wanting this power, he will be likely, like Mr. 
 Fechter himself in Othello, to act too much — that is, to 
 fritter away his effects, and to distract his audience by 
 too much action, too abrupt and trivial varieties of 
 gesture, too much dependence on the mere accessories 
 of the scene. When we find Mr. Fechter cutting out 
 from Othello large sections of the noblest passages of 
 poetic utterance — ^passages, too, which are essential 
 either to the due development of the scene or of some 
 leading character, we feel the more bound to protest 
 
108 8HAK8PEABE, AND HIS 
 
 agajnst his proposition. We have seen this creed 
 already too long and too fatally acted npon by Mr. Kean, 
 who in his " revivals " cut down everything in the shape 
 of declamation to the scantiest limits, leaving little more 
 of the dialogue than was sufficient to carry on the story, 
 and so vulgarizing tragedy into mere melodrama. It 
 is because the working of the same principle, applied, 
 it is true, with a more delicate hand, peeps out in 
 Othello as represented by Mr. Peohter, that we dread 
 its further extension to what he calls " the scenic repre- 
 sentation of the great master." 
 
 The praise which was given to Mr. Fechter's Hamlet 
 for its freedom &om convention, has apparently en- 
 couraged him to believe that whatever is " traditional " 
 is wrong. It is not because our stage has been given 
 over for many years, in so far as the poetical drama is 
 concerned, to mere incapables — echoes of echoes, whose 
 frothy declamation and clumsy artifices were the mere 
 burlesques of better men — that we are to assent to his 
 sweeping abuse of tradition. In every art there are 
 traditions ; for traditions are nothing more than the 
 methods which genius has discovered, and experience 
 approved. The painter, the sculptor, the poet, all prize 
 the traditions of their art. Nor are they less precious 
 to the actor. It is not because it is over-ridden by 
 " traditions," but because it has in a great measure lost 
 them, that our stage has suffered. Is it to be thought 
 that an art graced by so much ability, and energy, and 
 skill, whose professors were well read in men and books ; 
 an art transmitted down from Shakspeare's time 
 through an unbroken series of able men, should have 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEB8. 109 
 
 failed to accumulate traditions as to tlie rendering of the 
 masterrpieces of the stage, which no performer, however 
 gifted, should despise, and on which he certainly could 
 not improve ? Assuredly it was not left for an actor of 
 these days — and that actor not an Englishman — ^to dis- 
 cover for the first time how " the scenic representation 
 of the great master " is to be handled. Not does an 
 innovator who denounces all tradition ingratiate our 
 sympathy, when we find that, in sweeping away what 
 he calls tradition, he sweeps away with it considerable 
 portions of Shakspeare himself. 8ta/re twp&r vias omti- 
 quobs is a sound maxim, when dxdy qualified, in axt as 
 in politics ; and Mr. Fechter will find, if, indeed, he has 
 not already found, that the farther he deviates from the 
 track of his great predecessors in all essential points, 
 the more likely is he to go astray. 
 
 With them it was the tradition, that the development 
 of character is the primary purpose of a tragic actor's 
 art. Nature, truth, and probability, were always to be 
 kept in view, but trivial action and commonplace 
 truthfolness were most carefully to be avoided. Not 
 everything which might be looked or done by the per- 
 sonages they represented was to be given. In the 
 actor's, as in all other arts, the principle must prevail of 
 selecting whatever is best and fittest to produce what 
 ought to be the dominant impression. The eye is not 
 to be too much distracted, and the feelings too much dis- 
 turbed, by unimportant accessories. We are to be shown 
 men and women, as far as possible, to use the laureate's 
 words, at their " best and greatest," and not to be too 
 constantly reminded, in the midst of great scenes of 
 
110 8HAK8PEABE, AND HIS 
 
 passion or tenderness, of the things that snrronnd ns in 
 the common goings-on of life. All that tends to convey 
 an idea of elevation shonld be turned to account; aU 
 that has an opposite tendency should be kept as much 
 as possible in the background. 
 
 It would, of course, have been most easy for a Garrick 
 or an Edmund Kean to elaborate his stage arrange- 
 ments as Mr. Fechter has done ; to dispose chairs, and 
 tables, and couches, on which to lean and sit about, and 
 so to give an air of so-called reality to the scene. But 
 they knew well that to use these accessories so freely 
 would have been to violate an important principle of art; 
 and not merely this, but also to run counter to nature, 
 with which all art worthy of the name is ever in unison. 
 Eor when men are under strong emotion, they do not 
 loU or sit. They stand, that their voice may better 
 speak out their emotion, and their gestures have fuller 
 play. It is not natural, for example, for Othello to 
 speak, sitting, the speech 
 
 " Oh, now, farewell the tranquil mmd, &c," 
 
 Neither is it consonant with art to do so, the sitting 
 posture being fatal both to the expression which face 
 and figure should lend to the language, and to the unim- 
 peded use of the voice in sending home the language 
 to the spectator's heart. Mr. Fechter sits while he 
 speaks this passage, and the opportunity for creating a 
 great impression on his audience is utterly thrown 
 away. 
 
 Again, in this constant effort to be what is most 
 wrongly called natural, such realists as Mr. Fechter, 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEB8. Ill 
 
 like tkeir counterparts of the modem pre-Kaphaelite 
 scliool, are continually doing what is most annatnral. 
 We might Ulustrate this proposition from nearly every 
 scene of OtheUo. Take, for example, that of Desde- 
 mona's landing ia Cyprus. She enters on her way to 
 the citadel, and hitherto she has always on the stage 
 retained the standing posture throughout. A skilful 
 actress can never be at a loss to engage the attention of 
 her audience during the somewhat lengthened dialogue 
 that ensues. Indeed the scene is important, as affording 
 an opportunity, while she is prominently in the eye of 
 the audience, for impressing them with that attractive- 
 ness and dignified simplicity of character which had 
 subdued the stem soldier in Othello. Mr. Fechter has 
 no thought of this. He places the scene upon a quay ; 
 and Desdemona and Emilia, in their robes of satin and 
 velvet, are made to sit down upon dirty bales, to listen 
 to the sarcasms of lago. Their position, too, is so 
 arranged, far back upon the stage, that they are vir- 
 tually lost to the spectators, whose whole attention is 
 concentrated on lago, as he leans on his elbows over a 
 capstan between the ladies, jerking out his sentences, 
 now at the one, now at the other, with an air of coarse 
 impertinence which must have made Shakspeare's Des- 
 demona recoil from him in disgust. Yet has this been 
 applauded as a most skilful and natural arrangement of 
 the scene ! 
 
 But an innovation which is, if possible, more unjusti- 
 fiable, has been introduced in the opening of the third 
 act, with the view of giving a greater air of vrwisem- 
 Ua/iice to the scene. We do not enter upon the ques- 
 
112 8HAKSPEABE, AND HIS 
 
 tion of Mr. Fechta-'s general division and scenic 
 arrangements of this act. These are foil of incongrnity, 
 and directly contrary to the express indications of 
 Shakspeare's text, from which it is clear that the 
 greater part of the action can only take place, not in a 
 chamber of the castle, bnt in the open air. But the 
 consideration of this question wonld carry ns into too 
 wide a field. Cassio has been dismissed, and has 
 thrown himself in the way of Desdemona to solicit her 
 intervention with Othello for his pardon and re-instate- 
 ment. Abashed at his own folly, and dismayed at its 
 consequences, he is sunk in profound dejection, while 
 she is full of tender sympathy for one whom she has 
 had the best reason for knowing to be the valued friend 
 and companion of her husband. Yet how does Mr. 
 Fechter deal with this situation ? During the whole 
 dialogue between Cassio and Desdemona, she is seated, 
 "winding off silk, which EmiUa holds to her," while 
 Cassio stands over her, leaning his hand upon her chair ! 
 To say nothing of the utter improbability of Cassio 
 being in Dcsdemona's boudoir while in disgrace with 
 Othello, what are we to think of an innovation which 
 so outrages all probability ? What lady, while listening 
 to even the least important suit, would, in common 
 courtesy, wound the feelings of her suitor by going on 
 with any occupation, much less with one so trivial P 
 And when the suit was one like Cassio's, and when the 
 man who made it, and she to whom it was addressed, 
 were what they are depicted by the poet, is not this 
 pitiful aiming at reality an insult to our understandings, 
 and a great wrong to the intentions of Shakspeare ? 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEB8. 113 
 
 The same scene contains another gross violation both 
 of Shakspeare and tradition, and, what is not a little 
 strange, most of the critics have applauded it as a great 
 discovery. It is the scene, as our readers remember, 
 where lago first sets in motion his plans for ronsing 
 Othello's jealonsy. At the close of the previous scene, 
 he has told us how he is to open his attack. 
 
 " My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress, 
 I'll set her on ! 
 
 Myself the while to draw the Moor apart, 
 And bring him jnmp where he may Cassio find 
 Soliciting his wife." 
 
 Plainly this was only to be effected when the Moor 
 was at leisure; at some moment, at least, when his 
 attention was not absorbed in business. At no other 
 time was he to be " drawn apart " and " brought " 
 where lago wished him. Shakspeare, who placed the 
 scene in the open air, knew well how to keep his action 
 consonant with probability. He so shaped it, therefore, 
 that we might presume the scene to be the garden or 
 terrace of the citadel, where Cassio mighb naturally 
 hope to come across Desdemona's path, and where 
 Othello might easily be led by lago, now his lieutenant, 
 when the business which had employed them was over. 
 But this would not have allowed sufficient scope for 
 that kind of action which finds favour with Mr. Pechter. 
 Accordingly, he introduces Othello "opening despatches 
 and petitions," and during the first half of his dialogue 
 with lago, divides his attention between these and his 
 tempter's inuendoes. Thus while lago is levelling his 
 
 I 
 
114 8HAK8PEABE, AND HIS 
 
 poisoned shafts at him, he is stilL "busy with his 
 
 papers." As he utters the words — 
 
 " By heaven, he echoes me, 
 
 As if there were some monster in his thoughts, 
 
 Too hideotis to be shown;" 
 
 words which show as clearly as words can show any- 
 thing, that his attention is not only folly roused, but 
 that he is already seriously uneasy, and has a vague 
 divination of lago's drift, Othello merely "holes wp at Mm, 
 playvng with his pen as lie speaks." This mode of treat- 
 ment is very showy. It affords room for a great deal 
 of movement, and picturesque arrangement. But how 
 dearly is all this purchased ! Shakspeare and proba- 
 bility are outraged ; and what is not the least evil, the 
 opportunity is lost, which all this portion of the dia- 
 logue affordts, of showing the gradual progress from 
 roused attention to uneasiness, doubt, and miserable 
 distrust. 
 
 But of all Mr. Fechter's innovations, none is perhaps 
 worse than one little incident in the last scene of the 
 play. Desdemona is discovered asleep, "with a small 
 toilette-glass fallen from her hand, lying on the bed." Of 
 the most mistaken purpose for which this is introduced, 
 we shall hereafter have occasion to speak. That con- 
 cerns Mr. Fechter's conceiption of Othello. It is with 
 his view of Desdemona we have at present to do. Fol- 
 lowing " tradition " in this respect, he has omitted from 
 his arrangement of the play the scene, unmatched for 
 pathetic beauty, at the close of the fourth act, in which 
 Shakspeare shows us Desdemona preparing for what is 
 so soon to prove her death-bed. If omitted on the stage. 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEB8. 115 
 
 tluB scene cannot, however, be dismissed from our 
 memory. In it Desdemona seems to have some dim 
 foreboding of impending calaimitj. She has ordered 
 Emilia to lay her bridal-sheets upon her bed. She is 
 hannted by the dirge-like cadences of the song of 
 " Willow." Othello has commanded her to go to bed, 
 with a stem calmness the more impressive from the 
 whirlwind of passion that preceded it ; and we may well 
 conceive how sad and solemn must be the thoughts 
 which possessed her when, stunned with grief, she sank 
 into the slumber from which she was to be so fearfully 
 wakened. Was this a time, then, for her to be think- 
 ing of her looks, or dallying with a toilet-glass^ like a 
 sUly girl ? The heart must be strangely dead to alL 
 that is finest in these closing scenes, which could, for 
 any cause whatever, introduce an incident so trivial in 
 itself, so fatally untrue to the character of Desdemona. 
 When, too, the motive for its introduction becomes 
 apparent, we are driven to surmise that its author 
 understands the character of Othello quite as little as 
 that of Desdemona. Mr. Fechter, having advanced to 
 the bed, takes up the glass, and, seeing his bronzed face 
 in it, exclaims, "with bitter despadr" — 
 
 " It is the cause ! It is the cause, my soul ! " 
 
 as if his Moorish visage were the cause of Desdemona's 
 unchastity — and then hurls the glass out of the window ! 
 How pitiful is this ! How far wide of the feeling with 
 which Othello is possessed ! He has rushed into Des- 
 demona's chamber from the spot where, as he thinks, 
 vengeance has overtaken her paramour ; but face to 
 
116 8HAK8PEABE, AND EI8 
 
 face with that " cunning'st pattern of excelling nature," 
 his purpose begins to falter. Is it a murder or a sacri- 
 fice which he is about to execute ? He has to persuade 
 himself anew that it is the latter. " She must die, or 
 she'll betray more men ! " and he that loves her more 
 than life, is to bring down the "sword of Justice" 
 upon her guilty head. It is a renewal of the conflict 
 which we have witnessed in the previous scene between 
 his absolute love and his fierce sense of wrong. •' This 
 soiTOw's heavenly," as he says a little further on in the 
 same soliloquy. " It strikes where it doth love," — 
 words of rare beauty, which Mr. Fechter omits. To 
 nerve his hand, he has to summon up before his imagi- 
 nation the enormity of her sin, and to persuade himself 
 that it, and it only, " is the cause " of his deadly resolu- 
 tion. Of any want of physical attractiveness in him- 
 self, Othello has long ceased to think. Had there been 
 fifty mirrors in the room at such a moment, he would 
 have had no eyes to see his visage in them. 
 
 This is but one of a series of monstrous perversions 
 introduced by Mr, Fechter into this scene. According 
 to his book, for example, Desdemona springs out of 
 bed, and makes repeated attempts to escape. Othello 
 " whirls his sword over her head, cmd she falls to the grov/nd 
 as if struck hy the lightning of his blade." Again she 
 makes for the door, " but he stops her passage, ea/rries 
 her to the bed, on which he throws lier ; then stifles her 
 cries with the pillow," &c. These stage directions make 
 one think rather of the murder of Nancy by Bill Sikes, 
 than of OtheUo and Desdemona. Had Mr. Fechter put 
 his own convictions to the proof, had this portion of 
 
LATEST STAGE 'INTEBPBETEB8. 117 
 
 " the fruit of nearly twenty years' unceasing labour for 
 the scenic representation of the great master " been 
 actually carried out before an English audience, the 
 days of his Othello would have been indeed few and 
 stormy. Still, this is his deliberate view of how the 
 scene should be presented, and so, we must assume, he 
 would have represented it, could he have had his will. 
 By this view, therefore, he must be content to be judged 
 as an interpreter of Shakspeare. That all this outrageous 
 extravagance is suppressed in the performance, is pro- 
 bably due to the intervention of others. But even now 
 there is too much violence. Why should Desdemona 
 spring out of bed, to be brutally thrust back into it ? 
 Why drag into prominence the physical parts of the 
 tragedy? Why divest it of the vague horror which 
 always attends a deed of death, suggested rather than 
 seen? This is not tragedy. It is melodrama, and 
 melodrama of the coarsest kind. "Tradition" was 
 right in placing Desdemona's couch at a remote part of 
 the stage : Mr. Fechter is wrong in bringing it so far 
 forward that every detail is thrust painfully on our 
 senses. " Tradition " was right in confining Desdemona 
 to her couch : Mr. Fechter is wrong in hazarding the 
 ludicrous effects of the opposite course. It is true, that 
 to act this part of the scene in the old way demands the 
 highest powers in actor and actress. Can it be that the 
 innovations of Mr. Fechter, here and elsewhere, are 
 merely artifices to conceal his want of these in the 
 tumult of violent action ? 
 
 False in his treatment of this scene throughout, Mr. 
 Fechter closes it with another new reading, which is 
 
118 8EAKSPEABE, AND EI8 
 
 false to the character of Othello, and contrary to common 
 sense. At the line, 
 
 " And say, besides, that in Aleppo once," &c, 
 
 he draws his poniard, and seizing lago, forces him, 
 " still iornid, hut srmlmg with hold effrontery, to hneel 
 before Besdemona;" then, haying stabbed himself, he 
 " throws the dagger at the feet of lago, who shrinJcs in 
 terror, as if struck on the face hy the hlood of Othello." 
 So Mr. Fechter's book, and so we saw him act it, 
 regardless of the obvious argument that Othello, who 
 has jnst been deprived of his sword and arrested, would 
 never have been allowed by Lodovico and the guards to 
 do this. We have heard that this is now changed, and 
 that they interfere to stop Othello ; but if so, what 
 becomes of this fruit of twenty years' study and of Mr. 
 Fechter's contempt for tradition ? But judged from the 
 higher ground of art, and truth to Shakspeare, how 
 does this innovation jar with the poet's purpose ! When 
 lago is first brought in a prisoner, Othello yields to the 
 momentary impulse of revenge, and strikes at hitn with 
 the words, 
 
 ". I look down towards his feet, but that's a fable. 
 If that thou be'st a devil I cannot kill thee. 
 
 IWotmds lago, Lod. wrenches Ms sword from him, 
 
 Iaoo. I bleed, sir ; but not kiU'd. 
 
 0th. I am not sorry neither : I'd have thee live ; 
 For in my sense 'tis happiness to die. 
 
 IiOD. Oh, thou, Othello, that wert once so good, 
 Fall'n in the practice of a damnfed slave, 
 What shall be said to thee ? 
 
 Oth. Why, anything : 
 
 An honourable murderer, if you will, 
 For nought I did in hate, but all im, honour." 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEB8. 119 
 
 All tliis, so vital to the true tinderstaiiding of tlie cha- 
 racter of Othello, is omitted by Mr. Fechter. We see 
 in these words that Othello's resolve is taken. Life has 
 lost its hold on him. To lago he will not even speak 
 again; and ia the very next sentence he says to 
 Lodovico, 
 
 " Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil. 
 Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body ?" 
 
 Was he likely after this to defile his touch with finger- 
 ing the " pernicious caitiff"," and this, too, at the moment 
 when he is to strike the stealthy Wow which is to lay 
 Tii-m by the side of Desdemona ? What is lago to him ? 
 His thoughts are already with his "ill-starred" bride. 
 Her forgiving spirit stands ready to receive him. He 
 flings himself down beside her. 
 
 " I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee : no way but this, 
 Killing myself, to die upon a kiss. [IHes. 
 
 Cas. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon, 
 For he was great of heart" 
 
 Words which prove beyond all question that Mr. Fech- 
 ter's mode of winding np the play is directly in the 
 teeth of the original text. "Tradition" made no 
 snch mistake. It felt, with Shakspeare, that at the 
 climax of this most awful of tragedies, lago was rather 
 to be kept ont of view than dragged into prominence ; 
 that the terrible discords which had gone before were 
 to be resolved into harmony; that we were to be left 
 with the final impression of the rennion of the noble 
 Moor with her whom he " had loved not wisely but too 
 well ;" and that as we "look'd on the tragic loading of 
 that bed," we should think of a beyond, where these 
 
120 SHAKSPJJIABII, AND HIS 
 
 rare creatures, so fitly matcted as they were in sonl, 
 should knoilif each other as they truly were, and be for 
 evermore as one. 
 
 Of Mr. F^Dhter's general conception of the character 
 of Othello y^ must speak very briefly. An artist of 
 such unquestionable ability cannot fail to present many 
 points of excellence in whatever he undertakes. In 
 look, in c^tume, he is of course all that could be wished, 
 vjfc^the skilful working out of details in such of the 
 scenes as he esteems of importance, — in picturesque 
 vigour, in occasional bursts of passion, in individual 
 strokes of feeling, such as his " Not a jot ! not a jot ! " 
 he is admirable. Looked at from his point of view, his 
 Othello is most logically worked out. But without 
 entering into such an analysis as would be necessary to 
 do justice to his conception, and to show fully wherein 
 we think he is mistaken, let us say at once that it 
 appears to us to have two capital defects. It fails to 
 impress us with the sustained dignity and self-centered 
 strength of the Moorish general of royal blood, to whom 
 "the flinty and steel couch of war" has been a "thrice- 
 driven bed of down," — the somewhat stem and rugged 
 soldier, to whom even the magnificoes of Venice bow 
 with respect, unskilled in courtly observances, but 
 swayed by the natural courtesy of a noble nature, who 
 for the first time has felt the charm of being loved, yet 
 who is so enamoured of his warrior's life, that, as he 
 says himself, 
 
 " But that he loves the gentle Desdemona, 
 He would not his unhoused free condition 
 Put into circumscription and confine 
 For the sea's worth." 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEBS. 121 
 
 Again, Mr. Fechter equally fails, in our opinion, to 
 show how utterly and absolutely this love has penetrated 
 Othello's whole being. Weak in these two points, the 
 full grandeur of Othello's passion, on the one hand, when 
 it breaks the barriers of self-control, into which years 
 of hard service and responsibility have schooled it, is 
 not brought out; whilst, on the other, the essential 
 tragic element of the play, which consists in the torture 
 of love struggling with disgust and rage, and in the 
 overthrow of two natures so excellent and so devoted 
 to each other, by the machinations of a heartless " demi- 
 devil," escapes from his hands. We are not moved 
 with terror or pity, as we ought to be, because we are 
 not made to feel how noble is the nature whose wreck 
 we are called upon to witness ; how deep, how all- 
 pervading the love which is worked on to its ruin. 
 Never have we seen so few tearful eyes in an audience 
 at the close of any performance of Othello, as of Mr. 
 Fechter's. This fact seemed to us the best of all 
 criticisms. 
 
 There are probably many reasons why Mr. Fechter 
 fails in the points we have noticed. His bearing, for 
 example, lacks dignity. He does not keep sufficiently 
 aloof, like a man accustomed to trust to himself. He 
 leans now on lago's arm, now on Cassio's shoulder. He 
 allows himself to be easily chafed, whereas Shakspeare 
 most studiously makes us feel that even under great 
 provocation, Othello is self-possessed and calm, and 
 shows not a trace of a hasty or splenetic nature. Mr. 
 Fechter's inability to render in their majestic simplicity 
 the exquisite speeches of Othello when before the 
 
122 8HAKSPEABE, AND HIS 
 
 Council also detracts from the general elevation of the 
 character ; and this is aggravated by a misinterpreta- 
 tion of the -words " Rude am I in speech," as if Othello 
 meant, not that he was nnskilled in speech, but so 
 plain-spoken as to be apt to give offence. He is tetchy 
 and irritable when roused by Cassio's brawl. The same 
 characteristic shows itself through all the great scenes 
 of the fourth act, where the passion is that of a fiery, 
 splenetic, tiger-like nature, rather than the successive 
 convulsions of a noble heart goaded to madness, and a 
 mind, too ingenuous for suspicion, swept hither and 
 thither by the storms of angry passion. 
 
 Mr. Pechter treats the whole of the two first acts too 
 lightly, forgetting, apparently, how essential they are 
 to the effect of those which follow. He throws away 
 his opportunities of enlisting our sympathies for the 
 Moor, and most especially of making us feel his love 
 for Desdemona. His demeanour to her is full of 
 gallantry, the thing which of all others Shakspeare's 
 Othello was incapable of; but we miss the profound 
 devotion which speaks in the eye, and trembles on the 
 voice. He shows towards her the small attentions of a 
 carpet knight, but not the deep, watchful, yearning 
 tenderness of the large-hearted man of mature age. 
 The exquisite scene of the meeting with Desdemona at 
 Cyprus is hurried through, as if it were of no moment, 
 whUe, in fact, no pains should be spared to send home 
 to the eyes and hearts of the spectators every word that 
 is written, and every emotion that is indicated by the 
 text. It is the culminating point of happiness, from 
 which lago's victims are to be dragged down to misery 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEB8. 123 
 
 and death. That we may appreciate the fall, we miist 
 be made to see the paradise. Othello, fresh from the 
 perils of a storm, more awful to hi-m because he had 
 every reason to fear his Desdemona might fall a victim 
 to its fury, finds her, to his surprise, awaiting his arrival, 
 although she had sailed from Venice a day later than 
 himself. Every reader of Shakspeare can recal the 
 exquisite dialogue that ensues. Othello's ecstasy vi- 
 brates through every word. He is overborne by his 
 emotion — 
 
 " If it were now to die, 
 'Twere now to be most happy ; for 1 fear 
 My soul hath her content so absolute, 
 That not another comfort like to this 
 Succeeds in unknown fate." 
 
 Prophetic words, every syllable of which should be 
 made to sink into the hearts of the audience. Mr. 
 Macready's fine performance of this scene is still fresh 
 in the memory of playgoers. His eager advance to 
 Desdemona, the utterance trembling with emotion, the 
 long deep gaze of ecstasy, the passionate embrace, the 
 turning ever and anon from the magnates of Cyprus 
 to gaze on his bride, the rapturous distraction — 
 
 " Oh, my sweet, 
 I prattle out of fashion, and I dote 
 In mine own comforts ; " 
 
 these were all masterly touches, and formed a fine pre- 
 lude to the jealousy and despair of the succeeding acts. 
 Nothing of this is given by Mr. Fechter. He comes in 
 followed by a crowd of attendants who distribute them- 
 selves closely around Desdemona and himself. They 
 
124 SEAESPEABII, AND EI8 
 
 are tlms confounded with the multitnde, and the dia- 
 logue is scrambled through, as thongh Othello and his 
 bride had been parted only for an hour. We cannot 
 think that if Mr. Pechter had a true conception of the 
 main purpose of the play, he would deal in this slovenly 
 manner with a scene of such paramount importance. 
 
 We are the more impressed with this conviction, 
 from the fact that he does not in the succeeding scenes 
 come up to the measure of Shakspeare in depicting the 
 fluctuations of Othello between his still recurring love 
 for, and faith in Desdemona^ and the wild frenzy of 
 jealous rage. Surely it is in this that the great interest 
 of the character centres. The jealousy of Mr. Fechter's 
 Othello, once kindled, has no recurring access of tender- 
 ness or admiration until the last scene. When restoring 
 portions of the first scene of the fourth act — a wise 
 restoration, for which we are his debtor — we regret 
 that he did not also restore this passage, where the 
 tossing to and fro of Othello's mind is so grandly 
 shown : — 
 
 " 0th. Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night; for she 
 shall not live : no, my heart is turned to stone ; I strike it, and it 
 hurts my hand. 0, the world hath not a sweeter creature : she 
 might lie by an emperor's side and command him tasks. 
 
 Iago. Nay, that's not your way. 
 
 0th. Hang her ! I do but say what she is : so delicate with her 
 needle ! An admirable musician ! O she will sing the savageness out 
 of a bear ! — Of so high and plenteous wit and invention ! 
 
 Iago. She's the worse for all this. 
 
 Oth. O, a thousand, thousand times : — and then, of so gentle a 
 condition ! 
 
 Iago. Ay, too gentle ! 
 
 Oth. Nay, that's certain : But yet the pity of it, Iago ! O, Iago, 
 the pity of it, Iago!" 
 
LATEST STAGE INTEBPBETEBS. 125 
 
 This complexity of emotion Mr. Pechter makes no 
 attempt to portray. His Othello is a creature of much 
 simpler elements. Once roused, he rushes madly on — 
 fierce, cruel, relentless — a picturesque and impressive 
 impersonation, but not, to our thinking, the Othello of 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 That we have dwelt so long on this theme, is the best 
 evidence that, however far short we may think Mr. 
 Fechter has fallen of his great original, his performance 
 is worthy of deliberate study. It is because we fear his 
 power for evil on the one hand, and entertain a sincere 
 admiration for his ability and great artistic skill on the 
 other, that we have thought it necessary to protest thus 
 early against some of the principles by which he seems 
 to think the representation of our great poet's master- 
 pieces should be regulated. If we have not said all in 
 his praise we could have wished to say, it is because 
 space has failed us. Others have said it, moreover, and 
 said it well. It is of greater moment, and truer service, 
 to him and to the public, to point out the errors of one 
 who has so firm and well-grounded a hold upon popular 
 favoxir. 
 
PEOMETHBTJS. 
 
 A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT. 
 
 BY GOETHE. 
 
 (Dublin Univeksitt Magazine, Novembbb, 1850.) 
 
 HIS fine fragment is written by Goethe in 
 the irregnlar, unrhyined metre, which the 
 genius of the German language enabled 
 him to adopt with remarkable success in 
 this and other poems, but to echo which, in our less 
 plastic language, is nearly, if not altogether, impossible. 
 In the following version every effort has been made to 
 follow Goethe's rhythm, where it was possible, and to 
 present the best equivalent where it was not, preserving, 
 at the same time, the simplicity and concise energy of 
 the original, which has all the ■ effect of exquisitely 
 chiselled sculpture standing against a crisp, clear sky. 
 The state of mind in which the poem took its rise is 
 thus described by Goethe himself in his Autobiography 
 {Dichtimg vmd Walwlieit, B. 15) ; — " The common bur- 
 den of humanity, which we have all to bear, more or 
 
A DBAMATIG FEAGMENT. 127 
 
 less, must be heaviest on those whose mental powers 
 are the earliest and most widely unfolded. We may 
 grow up under the sheltering care of parents and of 
 Idndred ; we may lean on brethren and friends ; we 
 may be amused by acquaiatances ; we may be made 
 happy by those we love ; yet to this conclusion do we 
 come at last — that man is turned back upon himself. 
 And it appears as if even the Divinity had chosen to 
 place himself in such a relation to man, that he cannot 
 always respond to man's reverence, confidence, and love 
 — at least, not in the moments of the greatest urgency. 
 Often enough in my youth I have experienced that, in 
 the moments of my uttermost need, a voice cried aloud 
 to us, ' Physician, cure thyself ! ' And how often was 
 I not forced in bitterness of heart to sigh, ' I must 
 tread the wine-press alone ! ' When I looked around 
 for some support to my self-dependence, I found that 
 the securest foundation for it was my productive talent. 
 For some years this never deserted me for an instant. 
 What met my waking senses frequently recurred to me 
 by night in regular, connected dreams ; and as soon as 
 I opened my eyes, either a new wondrous whole, or a 
 part of what had already appeared, presented itself to 
 them. I wanted nothing but an occasion that had 
 some character in it, and I was ready. And now, when 
 I thought over this gift of nature, and found that it 
 belonged to me as a quite peculiar profession, and could 
 neither be helped nor hindered by any foreign influence, 
 I willingly sought to make it the ground or basis of my 
 whole existence. This notion transformed itself into 
 an image ; and I bethought me of the old mythological 
 
128 PBOMEFHEUS. 
 
 figure of Prometheus, who, severed from the gods, 
 peopled a world from his workshop. I felt most dis- 
 tinctly that nothing considerable could be produced 
 without self-isolation. Those things of mine, which had 
 gained such applause, were children of loneliness. . . . 
 The fable of Prometheus had a living existence in me. 
 I cut down the old Titanic garment to my own stature, 
 and, without farther reflection, began to write a poem, 
 in which is depicted the incongruous relation in which 
 Prometheus stood to the new gods, inasmuch as he had 
 formed men with his own hand, had animated them, 
 with the aid of Minerva, and had founded a third 
 
 dynasty In this strange composition appears, as 
 
 Monologue, that poem which is become important in 
 German poetry, as having furnished the occasion which 
 led Lessing to declare his opposition to Jacobi on some 
 weighty points of thought and feeling. But though, as 
 it thus appeared, this poem may be made the subject 
 of moral and religious discussion, yet does it properly 
 
 belong to the province of poetry alone Milton's 
 
 * Satan ' has always the advantage of a subaltern posi- 
 tion, inasmuch as his whole efforts are directed towards 
 the destruction of the magnificent creatures of a higher 
 being. Prometheus, on the contrary, stands on a 
 vantage-ground, from having the power to create and 
 to model, in defiance of higher beings. It is a beautiful 
 thought, too, and most consonant with poetry, to trace 
 the creation of man, not to the highest rulers of the 
 world, but to an intermediate being, who, however, as 
 descendant of the elder dynasty, is majestic and im- 
 portant enough for such a work. And, indeed, the 
 
A DBAMATIO FBAGMENT. 129 
 
 Gfreek mythology affords exhaustless riches of divine 
 and human symbols. The Titanic, gigantic, heaven- 
 storming character, however, afforded no material for 
 my veia of poetry. Rather did it snit me to depict that 
 peaoefnl, plastic, and ever-patient resistance, which owns 
 a superior power, but seeks to equal it." 
 
 FIRST ACT. 
 
 PBOMBIHEnS — MeECUET. 
 
 Peometheus. Tell them, I will not ! 
 Once and for all, I will not ! Their will 'gainst mine ! 
 One against one, methinks, is equal match. 
 
 Mbecoet. This message to thy father Jove ? thy mother ? 
 
 Peg. What father— mother? 
 Canst tell me whence thou comest ? 
 I stood, when first I noted consciously 
 My feet did stand — those hands of mine held out. 
 When first I knew that I had hands to feel. 
 And found my footsteps tended, watch'd by those 
 Whom thou call'st father, mother. 
 
 Meb. Found, too, all 
 The needful aids of infancy to thee 
 Were minister'd by them. 
 
 Peg. And therefore had they 
 My infancy's obedience — free to turn 
 And twist the puny twig, now here, now there. 
 With every shifting gust of their caprice. 
 
 Mee. They shielded thee. 
 
 Peg. From what ? 
 Prom perils which they feared. 
 But did they guard the heart 
 From serpent fangs that gnaw'd it inwardly ? 
 Steel'd they this breast, to bid 
 Defiance to the Titans ? 
 Hath not almighty Time, my lord and yours, 
 Welded and forged me to the man I am ? ' 
 
 K 
 
130 PBOMETHEUS. 
 
 Meh. Oh, miserable man ! This to thy gods, 
 The Infinite ? 
 
 Pko, My gods ? No god am I, 
 Yet can my spirit soar as high as theirs. 
 Yon infinite ? almighty ? 
 What can you do f Can you into my hand 
 Toss me the huge expanse of earth and sky ? 
 Have you the power to part me from myself ? 
 Have you the power to make my soul dilate. 
 And stretch its compass out into a world ? 
 
 Mbb. Remember Fate ! 
 
 Pro. Dost thou its power acknowledge ? So do I. 
 Away, I serve not vassals ! [Exit MEKCnRT. 
 
 [Turning to his statues, which are distributed up and down 
 
 A moment squander'd, ne'er to be retrieved ! 
 
 Torn, and by fools, from your society, 
 
 My children ! 
 
 Whate'er it be that stirs within your breast, ^ 
 
 [Turning to the figure of a girl. 
 That breast should bound and leap to meet with mine I 
 The eye speaks even now I 
 Oh, speak, dear lips — ^be voluble to me I 
 Oh, to inspire you with the conscious sense 
 Of what ye are ! [Eater Epimetheus. 
 
 Epimethetis. Hermes has been complaining bitterly. 
 
 Pko. If thou hadst had no ear for his complaint. 
 Without complaint had he gone trooping back. 
 
 Epi. My brother, just is just 1 
 This time the gods did proffer fair, methiuks. 
 They are content to leave Olympus' heights, 
 For thee to fix thy habitation there, 
 And thence to rule the world ! 
 
 Pro. To be their sentinel, and ward their heaven ? 
 More fairly, much more fairly, proffer I. 
 They wish to share with me, and I opine. 
 That I have nothing I can share with them. 
 That which I have, they cannot wrest from me. 
 And what they have, that let themselves uphold. 
 
A DBAMATIO FBAGMENT. 131 
 
 Here mine, here thine ; and so we stand apart. 
 
 Efi. How much is thine, then ? 
 
 Peo. The sphere my energies have power to fill — 
 Nought less, and nothing more ! 
 What right of sway have yonder stars o'er me, 
 That they do gape at me ? 
 
 Epi. Thou stand'st alone ! 
 Thy wayward spirit will not let thee know 
 The bliss must needs ensue, if thou, thy gods, 
 Thy kindred, earth, and' universal heaven. 
 Were link'd in one close-knit and conscious whole. 
 
 Pro. All that I know ! 
 I prithee, brother dear, pursue thy bent. 
 
 And leave me to myself. ' [Exit Epimetheus. 
 
 Here is my world, my all 1 
 Here do I feel myself ! My every wish 
 Clothes itself here in a corporeal form. 
 My soul imparted to a thousand shapes, 
 
 And centred wholly in my children dear. [Enter Minekva. 
 
 Thou venturest, dear goddess ? Venturest 
 To visit thus thy father's enemy ? 
 
 MnrEEVA. My father I revere ; 
 Prometheus, I love thefe ! 
 
 Pro. And to my soul thou art 
 What he is to bijaself. Yea, from the first. 
 Thy words have been celestial light to tae ! 
 Still while thou fed'st mine ear with thy discourse,' 
 'Twas as my soul held commune with herself. 
 As though she found a tongue, and harmonies, 
 Awaking to the magic of thy voice. 
 Bang forth response in golden cadences ; 
 Yea, 'twas as though a deity discoursed, • 
 The while I dream'd 'twas only I that spake — 
 And, dreaming 'twas a deity that spake, ' 
 Lo, 'twas myself discoursed ! And thus with thee 
 And me, so one, so blended soul with soul, 
 My love for thee bums everlastingly ! 
 
 MiN. And I am everlastingly with thee. 
 
 Pro. As doth the mellow roseate shine 
 
132 PBOMETHEUS. 
 
 Of the departed sun 
 
 Stream up behind yon dusky Caucasus, 
 
 Steeping my spirit in delightful calm, 
 
 Though absent, with me everlastingly ; 
 
 So have my powers gain'd strength with ev'ry breath 
 
 That I inhaled of thy celestial air. 
 
 And they presume. 
 
 These haughty dwellers on Olympus, they, 
 
 To school and lord it o'er my powers at will ? 
 
 No ; they are mine, and mine shall be their use. 
 
 Not one step will I move, this way or that. 
 
 No, though the chief of all the gods command I 
 
 Mnf. These are the phantasies of power. 
 
 Feo. I, goddess, too, have phantasies. 
 And power, as well as they 1 
 Besides, hast thou not seen me oft and oft 
 In self-elected bondage, bear the load 
 They laid in solemn earnest on my back ? 
 Day after day did I not moil and drudge. 
 Doing the letter of their stem command ? 
 And why ? Because I thought 
 They saw the Past, the Future, in the Present ; 
 Because I deem'd their guidance, their behest. 
 Was pure, primeval, and unselfish wisdom. 
 
 MiN. Thou wert content to serve, in order tljus 
 To make thee worthy of thy liberty. 
 
 Pro. Nor would I barter that 
 To be the bird of thunder, 
 And haughtily in servile talons clutch 
 My master's levin bolts. 
 
 Mm. Thy hate's unjust 1 
 Unto the gods, as lot, Dm-ation fell, 
 And Might, and Love, and Wisdom. 
 
 Pbo. All these they have. 
 Yes, but not they alone. I, too, endure 
 As well as they. We are immortal all I 
 Of my beginning memory have I none, 
 No impulse or desire have I to end. 
 Nor do I see the end. 
 
A DBAMATIO FRAGMENT. 133 
 
 Therefore am I immortal, for I am I 
 
 And Wisdom — [Leading Minehva romid among the statites. 
 
 Look on these brows ! 
 
 Hath not my finger stamp'd and moulded them ? 
 
 And the strong heart within this bosom swells, 
 
 To grapple with the dangers that besiege 
 
 The children of my hand on every side. [Stops before the statiie of a 
 
 And thou. Pandora, woman. 
 
 Sacred receptacle of every gift 
 
 That is to be desired 
 
 Beneath the spacious heaven, 
 
 Upon the boundless earth. 
 
 All that of throbbing joy e'er gladden'd me, 
 
 Or in cool umbrage e'er 
 
 With freshness laved my soul, — 
 
 Type of all soft and delicate desires. 
 
 Which love for the bright sun, spring's rapturous flush. 
 
 The low, soft music of the murmuring sea. 
 
 Have fed, and fann'd, and foster'd in my breast, 
 
 Befiex of all that ever I have sknown 
 
 Of pure celestial radiance, and the calm 
 
 Delighted trances of a soul at peace — 
 
 The all — all — my Pandora I 
 
 Mnt. Jove hath engaged to clothe them all with life. 
 So tbou accept the tenders that he makes. 
 
 Pro. 'Twas this alone that made me hesitate. 
 
 But ^I should be a vassal — and, like all. 
 
 Avow the sway of yonder Thunderer ! 
 
 No ! By their lifelessness though fettered now, 
 
 Yet are they free, and I — ^I feel their freedom I 
 
 Mnr. And they shall live I 
 To Fate, not to the gods, doth it belong 
 To give the gift of life, or take away. 
 Come, I will lead thee to the source of life. 
 From which not Jove himself can bar us back. 
 They shall live, and through thee ! 
 
 Pbo. Through thee, my goddess ! 
 To live, to feel that they are free, to live ! 
 Thy thanks shaU be their boundless happiness ! 
 
134 PBOMETEEUS. 
 
 SECOND ACT. 
 
 nPON OLYMPUS. 
 
 Jupiter — Meroukt. 
 
 MEECnRT. Oh, monstrous, Father Jupiter ! High treason ! 
 Minerva, Sire, thy daughter, 
 Aids and abets the rebel ! 
 The fount of life hath she 
 Unseal'd and shown to him, 
 And round him hath his court of loam. 
 His world of potter's clay. 
 With animation fired. 
 Iiike us they move, ay, every one ; 
 And round about him sport, and cry, 
 As round about them we. 
 Thy thunderbolts, oh Jove 1 
 
 JtTPiTEK. They are I And, being, shall be ! 
 And it is meet they should. 
 O'er everything that is * 
 
 Beneath the spacious heaven. 
 Upon the boundless earth, 
 My sovereignty extends. 
 This race of worms augments 
 The number of my servants. Well for them, 
 So they be led by my paternal hand ; 
 Woe to them, should they thwart my royal arm ! 
 
 Meb. Father of aU ! Thou fountain of all goodness, 
 That dost forgive to sinners their misdeeds. 
 Be love to thee, and praise 
 From all the earth and sky ! 
 Oh, send me to proclaim 
 To this poor earth-bom race, 
 Thee, father, thee, thy goodness and thy power ! 
 
 Jup. Not yet ! 
 In the first glow and new-felt flush of youth. 
 Their souls conceit themselves as peers for gods. 
 They will not hearken unto thee, till they 
 Have need of thee. So leave them to their life ! 
 
A DBAMATIG FBAGMENT. 135 
 
 Meb. As Trise as gracious ! 
 
 {Scene changes to a vallet/ at the foot of Olym/pus.) 
 
 Pro. Look downwards, Jove, 
 Upon my world ! It lives ! 
 In mine own image have I moulded it — 
 A race that may be like unto myself, 
 To suffer, weep, enjoy, and to rejoice ; 
 And, like myself, unheeding all of ttee ! 
 
 [ The hwman race are seen scattered wp and down the valley. 
 Some are climbing trees and picking fruit, some 
 bathing in the river, some rwnmmg races in the mea- 
 dows; girls gather flowers and twine chaplets. 
 Enter to Pkomethetts a man beaHng a yonmg tree, which 
 he has pulled wp by the roots. 
 
 Mah. Here is the tree, as you desired. 
 
 Peo. How got'st it from the ground ? 
 
 Man. With this sharp stone I sever'd it 
 Close by the roots. 
 
 Peo. Off with the branches first ! 
 Now thrust it down aslant into the ground. 
 Then place this portion here across it — so ! 
 Now bind them at the top ! Now other two 
 Behind these, and then one across the top. 
 Next bring the branches downwards from above. 
 Until they reach the ground ; entwine them close. 
 Then turf all round, and branches over these, 
 And pile them thickly, until neither sun, 
 Nor rain, nor wind, can penetrate within. 
 Thou hast, my son, a shelter and a hut. 
 
 Man. Thanks, father, thanks^a thousand thanks ! But say. 
 Are aU my brethren to have right to live 
 Within my hut ? 
 
 Peg. No ! Thou hast buUt it, and it is thine own. 
 Share it thou may'st with whomsoe'er thou wilt. 
 Who would have huts must build them for themselves. \Exit. 
 
 [Enter two men. 
 
 \st Man. Thou shalt not have a morsel of my goats, 
 They are all mine ? 
 
 2nd Man. How so ? 
 
136 PBOMETEEUS. 
 
 1st Man. All yester day 
 And night I scrambled o'er the mountain side, 
 Caught them alive by dint of toil and sweat, 
 Watch'd them till dawn, and here have penn'd them up 
 With stones and branches. 
 
 2nd Man. Give me only one IJ 
 I caught one yesterday, and made it ready 
 Upon the fire, and ate it with my brethren. 
 To-day thou need'st but one ; 
 We shall catch more to-morrow. 
 
 1st Man. Back from my goats, I say ! 
 2nd Man. Not I ! 
 
 [First man tries to thrust him tack. The second man knoolcs 
 him down, seizes one of the goats, and encit. 
 1st Man. Outrage I Ah me, ah me ! 
 Pko. (entering). What is the matter ? 
 Mak. He's stolen my goat ! Blood trickles from my head. 
 He dash'd me down against this stone. 
 
 Fbo. Take some of yonder lichen from the tree, 
 And lay it on the wound ! 
 Mah. So, father dear ! 
 The pain is gone already. 
 Pro. Go, wash thee 1 
 MjlN. And my goat 7 
 Pbo. Leave him alone ! 
 If his hand be, my son, 'gainst every man, 
 The hand of every man will be 'gainst him ! 
 
 [Exit man, and enter Fxndoba, 
 Pko. What aileth thee, my daughter ? Why thus moved ? 
 Paksoka. My father ! Ah, what I beheld, my father ! 
 What I have felt ! 
 Pro. Say on ! 
 Pan. Oh, my poor Mira ! 
 Pro. What has befaUen her ? 
 Pan. Oh, feelings without name ! 
 I saw her go into the forest brake, 
 Wliere we are wont to pluck our garland flowers j 
 I followed her, and, oh ! 
 As from the hill I came, 
 
A BBAMATIO FBAGMENT. 137 
 
 I saw her in the vale beneath 
 
 Lie stretch'd along the ground. 
 
 It chanced, Arbar was in the wood. 
 
 He clasp'd her close within his arms, 
 
 He raised her from the dewy grass. 
 
 And with her sank adown. 
 
 Her lovely head fell back, 
 
 He kiss'd it o'er and o'er, 
 
 And hung upon her lips, as though 
 
 He'd breathe his soul through hers. 
 
 Grief fill'd my heart, and I 
 
 Sprang forward with a scream. 
 
 My scream brought life into her limbs 5 
 
 Arbar withdrew ; she started to her feet, 
 
 And ah ! with eyes that seem'd to melt. 
 
 She fell upon my neck. 
 
 Her bosom beat as it would burst — 
 
 Her cheeks were all on fire, 
 
 Her lips were parch'd and dry. 
 
 Her tears in torrents flow'd. 
 
 I felt her knees give way again — 
 
 She would have fallen ; I held 
 
 Her up, oh ! father dear ! 
 
 She clasp'd me, and her kisses' glow 
 
 Along my veins diffused 
 
 A thrill so strange, unknown till then. 
 
 That all confused, in trouble and in tears, 
 
 At last I left her, left the wood and field, 
 
 To come to thee, my father ! 
 
 Tell me, I pray, 
 
 What is all this that shook her so, and me ? 
 
 Peo. Death! 
 
 Pan. What is that? 
 
 Pbo. My daughter, thou hast tasted many joys. 
 
 Fan. Yea, thousands ! And to thee I owe them all ! 
 
 Pbo. Pandora, child, thy breast 
 Hath throbb'd to hail the onward-pacing sun, 
 And silver footing of the wandering moon ; 
 And in the kisses of thy playmates thou 
 
138 PB0METHEU8. 
 
 Hast felt the purest joy. 
 
 Fan. a joy unspeakable. 
 
 Pro. What lifted in the dance 
 Thy body lightly from the ground ? 
 
 Pan. 'Twas joy ! 
 As every limb, thrili'd through by song and lute, 
 In undulation moved, I seem'd to float 
 Dissolved upon the tide of melody. 
 
 Pro. And all at last dissolves itself in sleep, — 
 All — joy as well as sorrow. 
 Thou haat felt the scorching sun, 
 The parching pang of thirst, 
 The wearied knee's distress. 
 Hast wept a lamb that from thy flock hath stray'd, 
 And how didst moan and tremble, wh6n 
 A thorn in yonder forest pierced thy heel. 
 Before I cured thee ! 
 
 Pan. Life's joy and grief, my father, well I know, 
 Have many shapes ! 
 
 Pko. And in thy heart thou feelest, 
 That there be many joys. 
 And sorrows many thou hast never known. 
 
 Pan. Oh yes ! This heart 
 Yeameth full oft, alas ! with vague desires. 
 As though it long'd to enclasp the universe. 
 
 Pko. There is a moment that makes pei-fect all^ 
 All we have dream'd, hoped, panted for, and fear'd. 
 Pandora, that is death. 
 
 Pan. Death? 
 
 Pso. When shaken to thy spirit's iumost depths, 
 Thou feelest in one paroxysni all 
 That joy or sorrow ever brought thy soul, 
 When thy heart heaves, an ocean tempest-toss'd. 
 And seeks to find a wild relief in tears. 
 Whenever hotlier bums its glow, and all 
 Heverberates against it, quakes and reels, 
 And to thyself thou seem'st to swoon away. 
 And sinkest down, and everything around 
 Fades and evanishes in night, and thou. 
 
A DBAMATIG FBAQMENT. 139 
 
 In one keen throe of wilderM ecstasy, 
 
 Dost hold an universe within thine arms, 
 
 Then dies the merely human. ' ' 
 
 Pau. {clamping him round the neck). Oh, father, let us die ! 
 
 Pko. Not yet, not yet ! 
 
 Pan. And after death ? 
 
 Pro. When all — desire, and joy, and pain — hath been 
 Dissolved in stormy rapture, and awhile 
 Sleeps, to awake refresh'd, a joyful sleep. 
 Then in immortal youth thou livest again, 
 Anew to fear, to hope, and to desire ! 
 
 THIRD ACT. 
 
 Prometheus (ire his worhshop). 
 
 Curtain thy heavens, thou Jove, with clouds and mist, 
 And, like a boy that mowetli thistles dovm, 
 Unloose thy spleen on oaks and mountain-tops ; 
 Yet canst thou not deprive me of my earth. 
 Nor of my hut, the which thou didst not build. 
 Nor of my hearth, whose little cheerful flame 
 Thou enviest me ! 
 
 I know not aught within the universe 
 
 More slight, more pitiful than you, ye gnds ! 
 
 Who nurse your majesty with scant supplies 
 
 Of offerings wrung from fear, and mutter'd pray'rs. 
 
 And needs must starve, were't not that babes and beggars 
 
 Are hope-besotted fools I 
 
 When I was yet a child, and knew not whence 
 My being came, nor where to turn its powers. 
 Up to the sun I bent my wilder'd eye, 
 As though above, within its glorious orb. 
 There dwelt an ear to listen to my plaint, 
 A heart, like mine, to pity the oppress'd. 
 
 Who gave me succour 
 
 Against the Titans, insolent and fierce ? 
 
140 PROMETHEUS. 
 
 Who rescued me from death — from slavery ? 
 Thou, thou, my soul, burning with haUow'd fire. 
 Thou hast thyself alone achieTed it all ! 
 Tet didst thou, in thy young simplicity, 
 Glow with misguided thankfulness to him. 
 That slumbers on in idlesse there above ! 
 
 I reverence thee ? 
 
 Wherefore ? Hast thou ever 
 
 Idghten'd the sorrows of the heavy laden ? 
 
 2%ou ever stretch'd thy hand to still the tears 
 
 Of the perplex'd in spirit ? 
 
 Was it not 
 
 Almighty Time, and ever-during Fate, 
 
 My lords and thine, that shaped and fashion'd me 
 
 Into the MAi; I am ? 
 
 Belike it was thy dream. 
 That I should hate life — ^fly to woods and wilds. 
 For that the blossoms of my brooding thought 
 Did not all ripen into goodly flowers ! 
 
 Here do I sit, and mould 
 
 Men after mine own image, — 
 
 A race that may be like unto myself. 
 
 To suffer, weep, to enjoy, and to rejoice. 
 
 And, like myself, unheeding all of thee I 
 
PLAYS, PLAYERS, AND CRITICS. 
 
 (Fbaseb's Magazine, December, 1863.) 
 
 F the evidence of crowded houses and of 
 newspaper critics might be believed, these 
 are indeed the palmy days of the British 
 drama ; and fine actors are as plentiful as 
 blackberries. Never had London so many theatres as 
 now, and all prosperous ; never before were so many 
 " great conceptions grandly embodied " to be seen upon 
 its stages. The language of hyperbole is racked to 
 describe everything and everbody connected with our 
 theatres. Every house has its man or woman of genius, 
 electrifying the audience in their " great characters " of 
 Leah, or Bel Demonic, as the case may be. Every 
 leading character, in fact, is " great ; " melodramatic 
 effects are " grand conceptions ; " scenery is of nothing 
 less than " ideal beauty ; " and processions or dances, in 
 which the largest number of female legs can be intro- 
 duced with effect, are " strokes of genius." So the 
 critics tell us ; so the playbills, echoing the critics, tell 
 
142 PLATS, PLAYERS, 
 
 us ; and the plaudits of the crowds that nightly throng 
 all the West End theatres enforce the same conclusion. 
 In the midst of this jubilee of admiration, here and 
 there voices may be heard of occasional dissent. Not 
 yet have all been driven from the theatres, who remem- 
 ber the days when more was done for the glory of the 
 drama, and less was talked about it; when the art 
 was foremost, and after it, in his own thoughts, as 
 well as those of the public, came the artist ; when, to en- 
 noble the impulses, to expand the heart, to rouse the 
 whole nature through imaginative sympathy to its 
 highest states of tension, was no small part of what our 
 best English actors aimed at, and not seldom achieved ; 
 when the language of poetry found apt and musical ut- 
 terance on the stage ; when the pursuit of a noble art 
 gave dignity and grace to its professors ; when the 
 triumph of mind over mind, not of mere display over 
 the senses, was the ambition of the true actor ; and 
 when success and position were achieved by merit, and 
 not by those vulgalr arts of puffery which have for some 
 years past made theatres and actors contemptible and 
 ridiculous. Not yet, we say, have those who remem- 
 bered these days been driven from the theatres. It is 
 hard for theta to forego a recreation endeared by so 
 many associations, and capable of such admirable in- 
 fluences. Through all the chaos into which theatrical 
 affairs have fallen, they discern here and there symptoms, 
 not unhopeful, of a return to a better state of things. 
 Above all, they see an eagerness on the part of the 
 audiences to recognize genuine merit wherever it has a 
 chance of being heard — an eagerness which in its haste 
 
AND 0BITI08. 143 
 
 often mistakes for genius what is no more than talent 
 and accomplishment of a secondapy kind. When it 
 confonnds a Biistoii with a Rachel, or a Stella Colas 
 with an O'Neill, we may regret the delusion ; bnt watch 
 that crowd I giving its heart up in its simplicity to the 
 false prophetess, and yon feel sure that it would answer 
 with unerring instinct and profound emotion to the 
 inspiration of genius. Deluded by shams it may be, 
 bnt it will never fail to recognize the true thing. 
 Therefore is it that the lovers of the higher drama 
 never despair ; but in these its dark days are content to 
 lift up their voice where they may, in protest against 
 the false systems and the false idols of the present 
 hour,' believing' that the minds are not few in which their 
 protest finds an echo. > 
 
 Such a ppoitest it has been our duty more than once 
 to make in these pages. When nearly all the world 
 were bowing do-wn to worship Mr. Charles Kean for his 
 so-called " revivals " of Shakspeare, we were at pains 
 to point out, not so much the desecration of the poet — 
 for that was self-evident to all who knew and reverenced 
 his works — but the 'violation of true art, the abiding 
 injury alike to actor and to audience, which must ensue 
 from making- impersonation subservient to upholstery, 
 and what was essential subordinate to the merest acces- 
 sories. It was easy to foresee that the system which 
 trusted to interesting the audience through the eye, 
 while ruthlessly " shouldering aside the dramatic 
 interest," must sooner or later result in weariness to 
 the spectator and failure to the manager. Neither actor 
 nor manager, however brilliant, ever debauched the 
 
144 FLAY 8, PLATERS, 
 
 public taste withimptinity ; and Mr. Kean, while lie left 
 himself without actors to sustain the poetical drama, 
 created a false appetite for spectacle and display, which 
 all his powers and influence were unable to gratify- 
 without ruin to himself. So the managerial sceptre 
 passed from his grasp, and others have become the 
 favourites of the hour, who carry spectacular display to 
 a higher pitch, and infuse into it the zest of a melodra- 
 matic dash, from which even Mr. Kean's taste reooUed. 
 Keenly as we have suffered at the Princess's Theatre 
 in the days of that gentleman's dynasty, where season 
 by season he laid his hand upon some one of Shak- 
 speare's noblest works, and crushed the poetry out of 
 it under the heel of scene-painter and costmrder, we 
 have since seen cause to know that in that "lowest 
 depth " of suffering a still lower was to be reached ; for 
 have we not within the same walls witnessed Mr. 
 Pechter's Othello and Miss Stella Oolas's Juliet? Of 
 the former this magazine has said its say,' and the 
 public has long since ratified its damnatory verdict. 
 The "brilliant Frenchman's " Othello is dead and buried. 
 
 " Let it sleep in the shade, 
 Where cold and unhonour'd its relics are laid." 
 
 Indeed, our gratitude to Mr. Fechter for leaving 
 Shakspeare for the more congenial society of Paul Feval 
 is such that we would not for the world evoke one re- 
 collection of his travesty of the noble Moor. But we 
 are threatened not only with a return of Miss Colas to 
 
 ' See Paper on " Shakspeare and his latest Stage Interpreters," 
 ante. 
 
AND ORITIOS. 146 
 
 OTir stage, but another French Juliet is talked of as 
 at hand, in the person of Madame Dnverger from the 
 Odeon ; and as all the journals, the Exa/mmer alone 
 excepted, have told ns that the London pubUo of this 
 age have now for the first time seen ia a Frenchwoman 
 the Juliet of Shakspeare, it may not be amiss to say what 
 is thought of French acting of Shakspeare in general, 
 and especially of Miss Colas's Juliet, by those who, like 
 ourselves, profess such knowledge of Shakspeare and 
 of English acting as may be gathered by the study and 
 wakeful observation of many years. 
 
 That a French play will be best acted by Frenchmen, 
 a German by Germans, a Spanish by Spaniards, is a 
 proposition so obvious, that the boldest lover of paradox 
 will scarcely venture to dispute it. Had we performers 
 on our stage equal to the greatest that ever adorned it, 
 who will venture to assert that they could do the same 
 justice to a play of Moliere's as the ordinary trcni^e of the 
 Theatre Fran5ais, or to a tragedy of Goethe's or Schil- 
 ler's as the performers of the Burg Theater of Vienna ? 
 There is in all national literature a something indige- 
 nous, which can never be thoroughly felt, and therefore 
 can never be thoroughly expressed, but by a native — a 
 something which is due to the national character and 
 life, and which no readiness of sympathy or quickness 
 of apprehension in a stranger can supply. We feel it 
 vividly upon occasions in the subtleties of a phrase, in 
 a turn of sentiment or thought, nay, in the rhythmic 
 involutions of a verse ; but, like life itself, it pervades 
 and gives expression to the whole work, yet defies the 
 finest analysis to seize or to define. 
 
146 PLATS, PLAYERS, 
 
 If this be true, as unquestionably it is, even of the 
 minor dramatists,, with how much more force must the 
 principle apply to Shakspeare ? Admirably as his plays 
 are dieted in some of the great theatres of Germany, 
 even in the best there is a want of vital force and indi- 
 viduality in the representation, which idemands from an 
 Englishman the most liberal allowance. How hard it 
 is for one nation thoroughly to appreciate the dramatic 
 trathfnliMss of another We have often felt, when we 
 have beheld a Berlin audience convulsed with laughter 
 by a Falstaff, destitute to our appr^ehsion of one ray 
 of natural hamour, or mbvdd to tears by a Desdemona, 
 whose' milfc-and- water insipidity was ■chiefly remarkable 
 from its contrast to the robust vigour of her person. 
 •Andyet theGterinans may allnost be said tchave been 
 suckled tipon English literature, and Shakspeaxe fills' a 
 much larger space upon their stage than he does upon 
 our own; Bui «implyibeoause he is English, and they 
 are Germans, th«y never can tharonghly fathom himiia 
 ■aU his breadth and depth. . 
 
 That they are the greatest icritics of Shakspeaije is one 
 of 'the many stupid cants about the great master, which 
 are propagated without thought from mouth to month, 
 ■upon the strength of the names of Goethe, Schlegel, 
 ■Horn,' Gervinus, and vothers. A few incisive sentences 
 ofitheOtfleridges,- father and son, and of many other 
 Engliskmffli who might be named, flash more light upon 
 the nature of Shakspeare's. characters, or the puipose of 
 his'plays, than pages of themisty twaddle of Ulrici, <» 
 the dry prosing of Gervinus. It is not in the studio' of 
 a German professor, or in the narrow arena of 'German 
 
^JVJD 0BITIG8. 147 
 
 life, that Shakspeare is to be mastered. To commeat 
 fitly upon him, a man must have English blood in his 
 veins, must have grown up in an English home, have lived 
 the broad, free, energetic life of a well-trained English- 
 man ; and above all, must have learned in Englisb maids 
 and matrons to appreciate arid to love the qualities which 
 make " Shaikspeare's women" stand alone and apart, 
 as the ideal of all that is tenderest and purest, most 
 fascinating and most exalted iaa womanhood. And if 
 this be true of a critical •commentator, it is true in a 
 tenfold degree of that best of all expositors, the actor «r 
 actress, who are to supply the living commentary of 
 breathing passion and moving grace on which the dra- 
 matist relied for the full 'development of his meaning. ' 
 So little characteristic of !Prenoh female nature are 
 simplicity aaid quiet strength, that it would indeed be 
 marvellous, were a Frenchwoman, however gifted, so to 
 identify herself witti any of Shakspeare's characters as 
 to make us feel that in her we had the poet's conception 
 placed living before us. But if this character were 
 Juliet, the wonder would become a miracle. Mrs. Gibber, 
 one of our greatest English actresses— herself the most 
 celebrated Juliet of her day — used to :say that "no 
 woman knew how to play Juliet till she was too old to 
 do so" — a forcible mode of expressing wbat all experi- 
 ence proves, that of aU the characters of Shakspeare 
 this tasks most severely the genius and resources of the 
 actress. Why this is bo would demand more spaee to 
 show than we can afford ; but la/t the very threshold of 
 the inquiry one reason strikes us, and it is this — that 
 Juliet has to run through' the whole gamut of the 
 
148 PLATS, PLATEB8, 
 
 passions, from the deepest joy to the most frenzied de- 
 spair. The girl has to expand before our eyes into the 
 loving, suffering, self-centred, heroic woman, great in 
 brain as in heart, in will as in devotion. We see the 
 rosebud burst into the perfect flower, and then swept 
 into destruction, while the dews of morning still linger 
 upon it, and every petal still exhales the most delicate 
 perfume. Rarely endowed in mind and body, then, 
 must she be in whom the "wonder of Verona" shall be 
 truly incarnate. Not lightly, therefore, should the 
 character be approached by any actress; not lightly 
 should any attempt to embody it, before a London 
 audience at least, be dealt with by the critic ; and yet 
 when Miss Stella Colas — a young lady incapable of 
 pronouncing one line of English with a pure cadence or 
 a true accent — ^made a dash at the most difficult part in 
 our drama, we were informed by the papers, in every 
 form that panegyric could adopt, not only that nothing 
 so good had been seen on our stage, but that in her was 
 embodied the true, the ideal Juliet. 
 
 The value of such opinions would suffer a heavy 
 check could we only know how many of the writers had 
 ever seen a good English Juliet, or what was their 
 abstract idea of what Juliet should be. Sorely as our 
 performers have degenerated — thanks to the system that 
 makes scenery and effects the all in all, and allows 
 neither scope nor encouragement to good acting — ^there 
 are yet, we trust and believe, to be found on our stages 
 actresses who as far eclipse Miss Stella Colas in real 
 power, as she is herself eclipsed on the French stage 
 by many who are nevertheless not intrusted there with 
 
AND GBITI08. 149 
 
 more than subordinate parts. But then, unhappily for 
 them, they can speak English as their native speech; 
 they think that coquettish artifice is scarcely in accord- 
 ance with the love by which Juliet's whole being is 
 possessed ; and they know too much of real passion to 
 let it overflow into the noisy vehemence which our news- 
 paper Aristarchs so constantly mistake for power. 
 
 In the reading of this lady, Capulet's daughter loses 
 every charm which distinguishes her from a mere way- 
 ward girl — at first impatient for a toy, and then borne 
 away by peevish passion when she is bereft of it. Her 
 love is without tenderness, her sorrow without pathos, 
 her despair without grandeur. That in Juliet, Shak- 
 speare shows us the rapid onward development of a 
 noble nature under the pressure of great and sudden 
 trials, is an idea which never seems to have suggested 
 itself to the actress. She treats the play as a medium 
 for displaying the attractions of youth, a pretty face, the 
 coquetry of the French vngewue, and the rodomontade of 
 a Boulevard theatre. The result is a patchwork of 
 tawdry prettiness and unmaidenly vehemence, happily 
 so wide of all that we associate with the idea of Shak- 
 speare's Juliet, that it can never enter the mind in con- 
 nection with it. That the actress is clever no one will 
 deny ; but where Shakspeare is iuvolved, cleverness 
 will carry a performer but a little way. 
 
 Well might the Parisian public, who are familiar 
 with Miss Colas as a third-rate actress of the Theatre 
 Pranjais, be amazed to find her all at once recognized 
 by our critics as a great interpreter of " the divine 
 Williams." They felt as we should feel were we to 
 
150 PLATS, FLAY BBS, 
 
 hear of Miss Louisa Keeley or Miss Woolgar taking 
 Paris by storm as Phedre or Camille. How the jour- 
 nalists of Paris — Edonard Thierry, Jules Janin, or 
 Theophile Gautier — would have dealt with such an 
 attempt ! And how fit th^ are for their duty as public 
 guides the Parisians well know. But they do not know 
 that among the art critics of the London press the 
 counterparts of these writers are not to be found, and 
 liat the London public has no protection in its journals 
 against incapacity, however great, or presumption, how- 
 ever daring. They were thus left to one of two con- 
 clusions—either that they had failed to recognize a 
 pearl qf price, when it was brfbre their eye% or that 
 paste passes current for gems on this side of the Channel. 
 Which of these conclusions their self-esteem was certain 
 to adopt it is needless to say; and hence the placid 
 stolidity of John Bull is likely to provoke an inroad of 
 fair foreigners, all ready to teach us in broken English 
 how to read and interpret our national poet. Miss 
 Colas is promised to us as soon as St. Petersburg can 
 spare her ; and Madame Duverger, as we have said, 
 with her fine eyes and finer diamonds, quits " the cold 
 shade" of the Odeon for the smiles and plaudits which 
 may be assumed to await her here in sunny Albion.' 
 
 It is time, however, that this sort of thing should 
 have an end. If our stage is to be overrun with a con- 
 fusion of tongues, let them find employment on meaner 
 matter than the poetry of Shakspeare. Were there a 
 
 ' This lady, fortunately for us and for herself, on further con- 
 sideration abandoned the design. 
 
ANB GBITI08. 161 
 
 hope of any stranger giving us glimpses, :lioweTeiiJ im- 
 perfect, of the sonl of any of his characters, we might 
 bear ttie mangling of the. verse; bnt that which Talma 
 and Bachel £eared to do, that which Ristori has inot 
 feared to do, bnt has signally failed in doings -no Oolases 
 or Duvergersi should be permitted to attempt. • If our 
 critics knew their du<y, and led the public taste by 
 speaking what is thought and felt and spoken about 
 such performances, in all circles where art and poetry 
 are studied and understood, such pretenders would be 
 swept from our stage, or at least, kept in the subordinate 
 position which alone they are competent to fill. 
 
 It is iudeed time to make a protest, against the-utter- 
 ance of English poetry being intrusted .to strangers, 
 when not only is every species of barbarism in proniisn- 
 ciation tolerated, buf the very power of ; delivering a 
 blank verse line is all but extinct. Who has not ex- 
 perienced the delight of merely listening to the French 
 tongue as it is spoken at the Com^die IPran^aise? 
 There a pure standard is still preserved, as in past days 
 the standard utterance of our own speech was preserved 
 at Drury Lane and Covent Grarden. Now all is chaos, 
 and the chances are that, whatever the play, we shall 
 hear, before the second act, every variety of accent and 
 utterance, from the broken English of the foreigner, 
 the nasal drawl and harsh vowel sounds of the American, 
 down to the kitchen English of that large class of 
 actresses who have been promoted of late years, upon 
 the strength of a shapely ankle or a pretty face, from 
 the ballet into speaking parts. Is this sort of thing to 
 go on for ever unrebuked ? 
 
152 PLATS, PLAYERS, 
 
 Tliis wellnigh universal carelessness in speaking is 
 but one of the many evils which have resulted from the 
 system of substituting fine dresses and sensation scenes 
 for good acting and the delineation of character. The 
 actor has felt himself thrust aside by the scene-painter. 
 How he played his part or spoke his speeches was of 
 little moment, where he was used merely to stop a gap 
 while the scene-shifter and ballet-master arranged their 
 effects. Under this malign influence actors of promise 
 have sunk into hopeless mannerists, without power to 
 conceive or skill to execute ; and our stages have by 
 degrees become overrun by a tribe of uneducated and 
 brainless puppets, who, happily for our ears, are for 
 the most part inarticulate, whenever they have a sen- 
 tence to speak of more than half a dozen words. ? There 
 is obviously no authority now iu aliy of our theatres to 
 enforce at rehearsal the simplest laws of Walker, not to 
 speak of the elementary rules of delivery ; and there 
 are no critics conscientious enough to tell these illiterate 
 blunderers of faults which would bring disgrace upon a 
 national school. Chief among the offenders in this di- 
 rection are those — actresses we cannot call them but — 
 overdressed puppets, who, to the shame of many of our 
 managers, on the strength of influences which will not 
 bear to be spoken of, usurp the places which were ere- 
 while filled by intelligence and virtue. What boots it to 
 have driven the social evil from the saloon of the theatre, 
 if it is allowed to proclaim itself in silks and diamonds 
 from the stage ? The theatre will probably under any 
 circumstances have its Woffingtons, its Oldfields, and 
 its Abingtons ; but the women we have ^.amed were 
 
AND OBITIGS. 153 
 
 gfreater than their vices, and their brilliant talents threw 
 their immoralities into the shade. They could act, and 
 they -won their way to public favour by wit, or tact, 
 or manners — in short, by force of ability and hard work. 
 Their successors have no one of these qualities to justify 
 their pretensions ; yet managers put them prominently 
 forward, and the critics of our journals assign to them 
 every excellence which can adorn the stage. 
 
 Indeed, it would be ludicrous, were it not pitiable, to 
 note with what recklessness of anything like moderation 
 or a guiding standard the praises of the press are 
 lavished in these days upon both performers and on 
 pieces. Let either be barely tolerable, and epithet is 
 pUed upon epithet to secure the admiration of a public, 
 too eager to be amused to care much about the means. 
 Of this the play of Leah, now performing at the Adelphi, 
 is a signal example. What it may be in its original 
 German we have no means of knowing ; but under the 
 double manipulation which it has undergone, first for 
 America, and afterwards for this country, any literary 
 merit it may ever have had has evaporated. The lan- 
 guage is inflated yet feeble, rhapsodical yet cold, and 
 the situations, where not commonplace, are simply im- 
 possible. Two of these admit, however, of powerful 
 treatment, and in any hands could scarcely fail of pro- 
 ducing an effect. The heroine is a Jewess, who having 
 in the fourth act imprecated upon a Christian lover, by 
 whom she has been deserted, a curse nearly as compre- 
 hensive as that in Holy Willie's Prayer, is moved by 
 womanly pity at the sight of his child and happy home 
 to pray for its removal in the fifth. In these two scenes 
 
154 PLAYS, FLAYERS, 
 
 lies the sole interest of the piece. All that precedes is 
 inspfferably tedious, and made even more .tedious by the 
 passionless and nnartistic representation of Miss Bate- 
 man, a lady who comes heralded to ns as the greatest 
 tragic actress of the day. So many of these have already 
 come to ns across the Atlantic, that the initiated know 
 pretty well what snoh a designation portends; nor, 
 despite the noisy enlogies of Miss Bateman which salute 
 ns on every side, do we find in her any great superiority 
 over her predecessors fiom the land of the West. She 
 is neither more nor less than a thoroughly trained 
 actress, of fair abilities, without any great natural gifts 
 of voice or person, and without one spark of genius. 
 Ton never can lose sight of the actress in her Leah, and 
 for the simple reason that she never loses herself in the 
 part. A great actress becomes for the time the being 
 she represents, feels with her heart, thinks with her 
 soul, loses her own identity in the creature she has 
 imagined. Miss Bateman is always Miss Bateman. 
 Whether she is telling her lover how she adores l^m, 
 or levelling- her curse at his head, the audience is ever 
 visibly prominent to her thoughts. She is neither 
 absorbed in her lover in the one case— indeed, through- 
 out a long passionate address to him, her eye rests on 
 the audience, and is not once turned to him— npFiis she 
 absorbed in her fury in the other. The very curse does 
 not leap from her lips with the passionate vehemence 
 bearing down all before it, and with it the moral con- 
 sciousness of the speaker, in the eclipse of which alone 
 it could have had its birth, and which alone could make 
 it endurable, but is delivered with a measured monotony 
 
AND GBITIGS. 155 
 
 that revolts, but does not appal. Give Eachel suck a curse 
 to deliver, and we should not have been surprised to see 
 her faithless lover lie blasted at her feet. Even Kistori 
 is terrible in this scene. That Miss Bateman is eflfective 
 is the utmost that can be said. There is a strong natural 
 pathos iQ the situation of the dying and relenting 
 woman in the last scene, which no acting can spoil, and 
 which good acting can scarcely enhance. People are 
 moved by it, and give to the actress much of the credit 
 which is due to the situation. 
 
 The play, in short, is a very fair piece of melodrama, 
 and the performance such as twenty years ago would 
 have been considered respectable for the Adelphi or the 
 Surrey. Nothing can more surely demonstrate to how 
 lew an ebb the taste both of critics and the public has 
 fallen, than that the former should make such a parade 
 about it as they have done, and that the latter should 
 have been cajoled into believing their report. Contrast 
 it, for example, with Knowles's HimeJibaclc as a piece of 
 writing, and the demands which it makes upon the 
 actress with what is required from the Julia of that 
 play. Call up to mind what Fanny Kemble, or in later 
 days Helen Faucit, were in the last two acts of that 
 play, and then say if Miss Bateman is worthy to be 
 named in the same breath with either ? And yet who 
 would have dreamt of loading their performances with 
 the eulogies for which language is ransacked to speak 
 the praises of Miss Bateman ? 
 
 In the same spirit of extravagance the journals have 
 vied with each other in extolling the doings of Mr. 
 Fechter at the Lyceum. If this gentleman's head is not 
 
156 PLAYS, PLAYEB8, 
 
 ttirned by all the fine things that have been said about 
 him, it must be proof against the intoxication of flattery. 
 A few mechanical improvements on the • stage, in the 
 chief of which he is only following the example of other 
 managers, are trumpeted as great public benefactions. 
 Superlatives of every shade of intensity have been 
 applied to his " scenery, machinery, dresses, and decora- 
 tions ; " to his new piece Bel Demonio, and to his own 
 acting in it. The public rush to his theatre, but if the 
 groans of impatience around us, when we saw it, had 
 any meaning, the great majority of his audience have 
 recorded a very different verdict as to the merits of what 
 they see. Better scenery has often been presented in 
 London. Its chief characteristic seems to be the intro- 
 duction of staircases at every turn, up and down which 
 the actors are eternally moving, to the discomfort of 
 their own limbs and the bewilderment of the spectators' 
 brains. Indeed, the torture to which a venerable car- 
 dinal is put in this way is carried to a pitch which, 
 coupled with the actor's unfitness for the part, reduces 
 the successful candidate for the papal chair to the 
 rickety imbecility of a pantaloon. Moreover, the pauses 
 between the acts, occasioned, we presume, by the adjust- 
 ment of these dreary staircases, are utterly insufferable. 
 They occupy almost as much time as the action of the 
 play. On the night we saw it, a pause of twenty-five 
 minutes was followed by an act which occupied scarcely 
 ten. No degree of scenic beauty justifies such an abuse 
 of an audience's patience ; and if it cannot be arrived 
 at otherwise, the sooner Mr, Fechter abandons built-up 
 scenes, which are no more like the true thing than the 
 
AND OEITIGS. 157 
 
 less ambitious canvas and lath of the ordinary stage, and 
 gives his admirers good pieces and good acting instead, 
 the happier for them and the better for his own eventual 
 interests. 
 
 Whatever flatterers may say, Bel Bemonio is utter trash ; 
 an incomprehensible farrago of trumpery surprises and 
 effects, without any binding chain of interest, or true 
 dramatic development. Neither does the acting carry 
 off its defects. Mr. Fechter himself has never been seen 
 to less advantage. His Bel Demonic is a very sketchy 
 piece of work, feeble in outline, and made out in none 
 of its details — a sorry contrast to the artistic portraiture 
 of his Don Csesar de Bazan or his Ruy Bias. We have 
 too sincere an admiration for his fine powers to accept 
 such slovenly commonplace at his hands, or to believe 
 that he will be content with filling his theatre without 
 regard to the intrinsic merit of his pieces. It is no fault 
 of his if such dreary stuff as The Duke's Motto crammed 
 his house for nine months; but the masterly imper- 
 sonator of Hamlet might surely use his command of 
 popular favour for higher purposes than the production 
 of flashy melodramas. We wiU not believe that he 
 means to write over the treasury of the Lyceum the creed 
 of the manager ia the Prologue to Goethe's Fomst : — 
 
 " Put then, whatever else you may, 
 
 Enough of incident into your play. 
 
 Plenty to look at, that's what people like ; 
 
 'Tis what they come for ; tickle, then, their eyes 
 
 With bustle, plot, spectacle, things that strike 
 
 The multitude with open-mouth'd surprise ; 
 
 ' What breadth ! what force ! ' they cry. ' Superb ! 
 
 sublime ! ' 
 And you become the lion of the time." 
 
158 PLAYS, PLATERS, 
 
 Mr. Pechter is just now the " lion of the time ; " people 
 are sure to go to see whatever he produces ; but, if he 
 wishes to retain a lasting hold on public favour, he 
 must be true to his own powers, and strike at higher 
 game than the Duke's Motto or Eel Bemomo. 
 
 It is pleasant to turn from the highly- varnished 
 vulgarity of the latter to Mamfred, as presented at Dfcury 
 Lane. Despite Byron's determination to make his poem 
 unactable, he has certainly not succeeded. The first atft, 
 no doubt, is aU in that way that he could have wished ; 
 butin.the second and third a weird interest in the crime 
 and. lonely defiant suEFering of Manfred is developed, 
 which takes hold upon the spectator with a strange 
 fascination, and nightly keeps in breathless suspense 
 the crowded area of our one fine theatre. The spectacle 
 is Undoubtedly not without its efiect in drawing these 
 crowds; indeed, a scenic illusion more poeticEdly sug- 
 gestive has rarely been seen than the apparition of the 
 Witch of the Alps. But it is obvious to any one who 
 watches the audience, that it is the grandeur of the 
 author's conception, and the splendour of his verse, not 
 unfamiliar manifestly to a large proportion of those 
 present, which forms the dominant attraction. Would 
 that managers 9,nd actors would profit by the indication, 
 and trust for success to moving the brains and hearts of 
 audiences rather than to dazzling their eyes or stunning 
 their senses ! Mr. Phelps is ndt much at home in 
 Manfred, but the declamation of blank verse with in- 
 telligence and a just appreciation of its rhylimi, is so 
 rare a quality that, when we meet with it as in the 
 present instance, we are fain to overlook other short- 
 
ANB 0BITI08. 159 
 
 comings. One word, too, of praise is due to the Astarte 
 of Miss Rose Leclercq. Her utterance of the -vrord 
 " Manfred," in answer to his passionate adjuration to say 
 if she still loves him, is a thing not soon to be forgotten. 
 Its chaxm lies not alone in the wailing sweetness of the 
 tones, that come upon the ear like some far-off wind- 
 swept echo, but in an accent so finely struck: .that it 
 suggests at once the devest tenderness and the nrost 
 agonized rebuke. Whether this is due to deliberate 
 intention or to happy accident it is impossible to argue 
 from anything this lady has formeriy done. We gladly 
 Construe it in the handsomest sense. 
 
 No better piece of its class has been produced for 
 many a day than Mr. Tom Taylor's Tiohet-of-Lewoe Man, 
 a very thorough piece of dramatic workmanship, and 
 acted with eonspicuous ability in all its parts. • It is 
 worth a thousand Leaks and Bel Demomos ; and, though 
 probably far less "triumphantly successful," it has met 
 a cordial recognitiouj and raised the various performers 
 in it very considerably in public favour — and most 
 deservedly, for every character is a study, well indi- 
 vidualized and eompletdy made out; The piece is a 
 cheering evidence that we have, still actors among us 
 who know something of their art^ and will spare no 
 pains "to hold: the, mirror up to Nature," if only the 
 dramatist will give them an outline to fill, and a sub- 
 stantial human interest to illustrate. The same praise 
 may be given, in a modified degree, as regards' the 
 author, to a little piece called Miriam' sOrime, now being 
 acted at the Strand Theatre. 
 
 Such pieces as these are very well, and we are thank- 
 
160 PLAYS, PLATEBS, 
 
 ful for them, as we are in a sister art for the pictures of 
 Wilkie, or the sketches of John Leech. But just as we 
 require a Prancia, or Raphael, or Delaroche to satisfy 
 our higher aspirations in painting, we long to see " high 
 actions and high passions" embodied in the poetical 
 drama. Why should we not have Henry Taylor as an 
 acted dramatist as well as Tom Taylor? Browning, 
 Troughton, Marston, as well as Craven, Oxenford, and 
 Stirling Coyne ? Why, at least, should we have no 
 theatre in which Shakspeare might always be presented 
 in a manner for which his countrymen need not blush ? 
 Not surely because an audience fit, and not few, could 
 not always be found to reward the good taste and enter- 
 prise to which such an altered state of matters would 
 be owing. 
 
 At no time has the want of such a theatre been more 
 deeply felt, at no time could its influence upon public 
 taste have been more salutary. But where are the 
 actors ? Gone from the stage, or scattered through the 
 provinces, subduing their natures to work in the hope- 
 less journey-work of sensation pieces, in despair of ever 
 realizing their dream of filling an honourable position 
 on a metropolitan stage. And even the good actors left 
 in London are being rapidly unfitted for taking any 
 part in the poetical drama. The very prosperity of the 
 theatres has been their ruin. When pieces which do 
 not tax their energies run for six, ten, or sixteen months, 
 the hopeless reiteration of the same pointless dialogue 
 and trivial action works like a narcotic on their sensi- 
 bUities, and reduces to tedious mechanism what should 
 be always the vivid expression of a strong conception. 
 
AND GBITIGS. 161 
 
 A fine actor would not submit to such drudgery; an 
 ordinary one withers under it. Thus it is that we 
 everywhere see such a dead level of indifference and 
 commonplace upon the stage, and fair actors spoiled, who, 
 under better auspices, might have become valuable sup- 
 porters of a higher drama. 
 
 Then, too, the critics of the journals, themselves, un- 
 happily, for the most part manufacturers of farces and 
 flimsy comediettas, have for years found it for their 
 interest to denounce as " slow" every dramatist who set 
 up for himself higher aims than their own. They have 
 had their triumph. They have banished poetry from our 
 stage, and with it the aspiration after any high order of 
 excellence among the professors of the histrionic art. 
 And yet mark the consistency of these public instructors ! 
 In one m.oment they tell us that the poetical drama is not 
 for the stage, but for the closet ; and in the nezt write 
 eloquent paragraphs about Shakspeare, and the necessity 
 of some great national monument in his honour. 
 
 The poetical drama not for the stage! Did Shak- 
 speare know his business ? Did the greatest dramatist 
 of any age write what he believed could never be 
 adequately shown upon the stage ? This is another of 
 the many cants in which the criticasters, who talk more 
 about Shakspeare than they study him, are so apt to 
 indulge. It was not so that Coleridge, his finest critic, 
 thought or wrote. Again and again has he expressed 
 the opinion that the full worth of Shakspeare can never 
 be brought home to the souls of his countrymen, except 
 through the medium of the stage — a truth which cannot 
 be too often enforced, when we find even able men (too 
 
 M 
 
162 PLAYS, PLAYERS, 
 
 yoting probably to have much, practical experience of 
 the stage) speaMng of the theatre merely as a place of 
 amngement, and acting as a pastime, made np of tinsel 
 show, and respectable declamation. " Who," says the 
 writer of an able essay on " Shakspearian Studies " in a 
 recent article in the Times, " who expects a clever actor 
 to throw new light upon the plays, or to show us much 
 more than we can all find for ourselves ? It is enough 
 if he will place vividly before us some one of Shak- 
 speare's characters, so that we can see it vital on the 
 stage as we have seen it many times already. If he 
 does this with ability, we thank him for a good evening's 
 amusement." 
 
 Betterton, Garrick, Pritchard, Siddons — we forbear 
 to speak of names within our own time — how was their 
 reputation won, if such a theory be true ? A great actor, 
 by temperament, by constitution, by study, by living 
 instinct roused through strong imagination, and by the 
 revelations which the very action of the scene flashes 
 upon him, is raised to the level of his author in a way 
 that no student can ever be ; and his " roused soul " 
 kindles the souls of his audience into an intensity of in- 
 sight that but for him they would never have known. It 
 is because Shakspeare, himself an actor, knew this better 
 than any other man, and, knowing it, deliberately and 
 of purpose left the actor to bring out what his words 
 could often only suggest, that his plays have been at 
 once the triumph of fine actors, and have received, and 
 do always receive more vital colouring and force from 
 great, or even merely good acting, than the plays of 
 any other writer. 
 
AND OBITIOS. 163 
 
 Had he thought the poetic drama unfit for the stage, 
 what hindered that he should not have written tragedies 
 of common life, or, like many of his compeers, strung 
 together mere extravaganzas of passion and action, much 
 akin to the sensation pieces of our own day ? But he 
 knew the human heart and his own countrymen better. 
 They wanted then, and they want still, something more 
 than to be merely amused by the theatre. They want 
 to be lifted above the petty personalities and absorbing 
 interests of everyday life into " the ampler ether and 
 diviner air," in which his Imogens, Juliets, Hamlets, 
 and Othellos moved. 
 
 Monuments to Shakspeare ! Have we forgotten 
 Milton's noble lines ? 
 
 " What needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones 
 The labor of an age in pil^d stones ? 
 Or that his dusty relics should be hid 
 Beneath a starry-pointed pyramid 1 " 
 
 He needs no other monument than that living one which 
 he has reared in our " wonder and astonishment." But 
 let us show that we know how to value him by en- 
 couraging his poetic art. If all England i&to be asked 
 for contributions to a Shakspeare monument, why should 
 these not be used to found and endow a Shakspeare 
 Theatre, to which the honourable ambition of actors 
 might look forward, as the arena to show that they too, 
 like him, have seen visions of humanity in its noblest 
 aspects, and the mere admission to whose stage should 
 be a diploma of honour ? By such a theatre, aloof from 
 the intrigues or sordid aims that seem at present to 
 beset the theatrical profession, and managed, as it might 
 
164 FLAYS, PLAYERS, CBITIOS. 
 
 be, by ihose who had no object but that of maintaining 
 the histrionic art at its highest level, and doing all that 
 could be done with such resources as might be available 
 for giving the fullest expression to dramas of the highest 
 class, "we should indeed erect a monument, and the only 
 fitting monument, to Shakspeare. 
 
 More precious by far than Brompton Museums and 
 shows of art treasures ; more wholesome, more pervading 
 in good influences, would such a theatre be. Long and 
 arduous, no doubt, would be the task to organize it, and 
 work it up to a point worthy of its name and object. 
 But, once organized, it would not soon be destroyed, 
 and would make memorable in England the tercentenary 
 of Shakspeare's birth. 
 
A PLEA FOR PLAYERS. 
 
 (Saturdat Eeview, December 5, 1865.) 
 
 N the December " Comhill " Mrs. Fanny 
 Kemble has given ns what we may assume 
 to be the final result of her experience and 
 meditations " On the Stage." The utter- 
 ances of a Kemble on such a subject are sure to carry 
 weight ; and it is solely for this cause, and not for their 
 intrinsic value, that we are tempted to examine the 
 merits of this lady's essay. It professes to deal not so 
 much with the drama as with the actor's art — a subject 
 on which, in these days, when we look round in vain for 
 any practical standard of excellence, it is not undesirable 
 that some clear ideas should be arrived at. Some help 
 towards these might have been expected from one who 
 combines no small literary practice with the actual ex- 
 perience of a histrionic career. But, unhappily, the lady 
 seems not to have very clear ideas on the subject herself, 
 and is so constantly upsetting in one paragraph the pro- 
 positions of another, that it is very hard to make out 
 what she would have us think about the qualities that 
 
166 A PLEA FOB PLAYERS. 
 
 go to the making of a great actor, or the rank lie holds 
 among other artists. 
 
 In one breath, she claims for him the highest qualities 
 of mind and person, original and acquired ; and, in the 
 next, she tells us that his " art requires no study worthy 
 of the name ; it creates nothing, it perpetuates nothing." 
 " His labour consists ia exciting momentary emotion." 
 " His most perserering efforts can only benefit, by a 
 passionate pleasure of at most a few years' duration, the 
 playgoiug public of his own immediate day." These are 
 sayings hard enough to reconcile ; but yet one can un- 
 derstand how even a Kemble, not gifted with imagina- 
 tion, should disparage an art that leaves no results which 
 the hands can touch or the eye can rest on. But it is 
 indeed hard to understand how any Kemble — ^most of 
 all one who owes her position, and what little celebrity 
 she may have achieved, solely to the name she bears — 
 should have summed up her conclusions as to the fol- 
 lowers of the art which ennobled that name in the 
 words, " They are fitly recompensed with money and 
 applause, to whom may not justly belong the rapture of 
 creation, the glory of patient and protracted toil, and 
 the love and honour of grateful posterity." 
 
 If spirits could be evoked, the indignant manes of 
 Mrs. Kemble's ancestors might be expected to rise in 
 vehement protest against a doctrine so dishonouring to 
 themselves and to their art. Had their aims been no 
 higher than money and applause, their names would 
 never have risen above the common herd. Had money 
 and applause been their fit and only recompense, Mrs. 
 Fanny Kemble would never have emerged from the 
 
A PLEA FOB PLATE B8. 167 
 
 obscurity which, attaches to very ordinary literary 
 ability. But they had higher aims, and therefore they 
 are remembered ; and posterity, with an instinct of un- 
 conscious reverence, has rated beyond their value the 
 powers of the only member of the family who is now 
 prominently before them. Had the conclusion to which 
 Mrs. Kemble brings us been as just as we hope to show 
 it to be unjust, surely it was not for her, of all people 
 in the world, to draw it. If she had nothing better to 
 say of the stage and its professors, she would have done 
 well to have mistrusted her own judgment, and held 
 her peace. Never, moreover, was any doctrine more 
 thoroughly ill-timed ; for never was it of greater moment 
 than now, when everybody seems to fancy that neither 
 peculiar natural gifts nor special study are necessary for 
 the stage, that some authoritative voice should speak in 
 warning to the shallow pretenders who seek it &om the 
 vnlgarest motives, and of encouragement to those who 
 are led to it from higher aims, but find only too many 
 discouragements in a state of things which has given 
 over our theatres to scene-painters and sensation 
 dramas. 
 
 Mrs. Kemble says rightly, that "the combination of 
 the power of representing passion and emotion with 
 that of imagining or conceiving it is essential to make 
 a good actor ; their combination in the highest possible 
 degree alone makes a great one." This is only saying, 
 in other words, that a good actor must not only have 
 the poet's vivid sympathy with the passions and emotions 
 of natures other than and different from his own, but 
 must possess the art of presenting lifelike and consistent 
 
168 A PLEA FOB PLAYERS. 
 
 portraitures of ideal personages Tiiider the influence of 
 these passions and emotions, in such a manner that all 
 shaU recognise their truth to nature, however much 
 aloof from ordinary experience. What the poet indi- 
 cates, from the very nature of the case, imperfectly in 
 words, the actor has to complete by voice, and action, 
 and deportment. It is manifest that a power of this 
 order can no more be common than a kindred power 
 in painting, sculpture, or poetry. The imagination to 
 conceive and the skill to execute in perfection meet only 
 in the few, whose names escape the oblivion that awaits 
 aU artists, however gifted, in whom they are not com- 
 bined. But the power, even in a modified degree, is, 
 by the mere statement of what it has to do and can do, 
 one of a very high order. It implies deep sensibility ; 
 strong, yet tempered imagination ; an almost intuitive 
 faculty of observation ; and a sense of fitness which 
 subordinates its conceptions to the laws of good taste, 
 and keeps a firm mastery over passion in its very 
 " tempest and whirlwind." 
 
 But, while Mrs. Kemble implicitly admits this, she 
 denies all originality to the actor. " The most original 
 process," she says, " of the actor's art — that is, the con- 
 ception of the character to be represented — is a mere 
 reception of the creation of another's mind." And is 
 this, looking at it from the lowest point of view, so 
 simple a matter ? Men of great gifts have won a name 
 by attempts, more or less successful, to develope, by way 
 of critical commentary, a just conception of our great 
 dramatist's characters. Hours and years of study are 
 given by many of us to working out similar conceptions 
 
A PLEA FOB FLAYERS. 169 
 
 most imperfectly for ourselves. But the actor must do 
 more than this. It is not enough that he shall receive 
 the creation of another's mind into his own. He must 
 create it anew for himself. He must throw himself, as 
 it were, into the nature of the man he is to represent ; 
 he must feel with him, think with him, act with him, as 
 that man would have thought, felt, and acted under the 
 given circumstances of the drama. He must, by strong 
 imagination, identify himself with, and be, in fact, the 
 creature of the poet's brain. Unless he can do this, he 
 will never be more than a clever declaimer. Do this, 
 and he becomes a Betterton, a Garrick, a Talma, or a 
 Kean. 
 
 Set an actor or actress of this stamp before us, and 
 what floods of light do they flash upon the poet's page. 
 What was Racine's Phed/re, for example, to us of this 
 age, tni Rachel made her live before us ? How unde- 
 fined, how colourless even the " divine Imogen " and 
 " heavenly Rosalind," till they were made realities for 
 us by our own Helen Faucit ? It may be said of either 
 painter or sculptor, with equal truth, that he does not 
 create, but merely receives what has been created by 
 the eternal mind. Sky, mountain, and sea, and 
 
 " Sun, and moon, and stars, throughout the year, 
 And man and woman," 
 
 are far more glorious than anything that brush or chisel 
 ever portrayed. But do we deny originality to Claude 
 or Turner, to Phidias or to Gibson, because they have 
 received into their own minds some of nature's grandeur 
 or beauty, and given it forth again on canvas or in 
 stone ? Just as their work bears on it the stamp of 
 
170 A PLEA FOB PLATERS. 
 
 their own individuality, so is a great actor's impersona- 
 tion of a poet's conception pervaded by his own distinc- 
 tive genius. In the abstract it may be tme, as Mrs. 
 Kemble says, that " the character of ' Lady Macbeth ' is 
 as majestic, awfal, and poetical, whether it be worthily 
 filled by its pre-eminent representative Mrs. Siddons, or 
 ■unworthily by the most incompetent of ignorant pro- 
 vincial tragedy qneens ; " just as it is true that Pales- 
 trina or the Lake of Ifemi remains perennially beautiful, 
 whether painted by a Turner or by the feeblest of Dick 
 Tintos. But even as Turner fixed for us on canvas that 
 beauty which he alone of all men saw in these scenes, so, 
 for those who saw Mrs. Siddons, Lady Macbeth was in- 
 finitely more majestic, awful, and poetical than she was 
 in the poet's pages. The ablest men and women of her 
 time admitted this, and were grateful to the genius that 
 brought them by the force of its conception to a truer 
 comprehension of the poet's purpose. 
 
 And let it not be forgotten that the sister arts of 
 sculpture and painting have never accomplished a similar 
 result. Innumerable painters of unquestionable genius 
 have striven to embody on canvas their conceptions of 
 some one mood or aspect of Shakspeare's men and 
 women. Which of them has ever succeeded ? And 
 yet actors and actresses have presented us with full and 
 living embodiments which left us nothing to wish for 
 but this — that some medium could have been found to 
 give them perpetuity. And if actors have done this 
 for Shakspeare, what have they not done for inferior 
 dramatists ? Every playgoer's memory must supply 
 him with instances where the actor has, in the strictest 
 
A PLEA FOB PLAYEB8. 171 
 
 sense, created the part which has made the fortunes of 
 the poet's play. Search his pages ; yon may find the 
 action and the situations, it is true, but of the man or 
 woman whose image has been most deeply impressed on 
 your remembrance by the performer's skill, you will 
 discover but the faintest trace. This has been true at 
 all periods of the stage. In mercy to the sensibilities 
 of stai living dramatists, we forbear from illustrations 
 from our own time, otherwise it would not bo difficult 
 to show that the great actor does not merely " receive 
 the creation of another mind," but himself originates 
 the conception which he embodies. 
 
 When Mrs. Kemble tells us that the art which can do 
 this " requires no study worthy of the name," we are 
 indeed amazed. If this were true, for no art can heaven- 
 born genius be so essential ; in no art can success be so 
 entirely due to pure inspiration : — 
 
 " It requires," says Mrs. Kemble "in its professors the imagina- 
 tion of the poet, the ear of the musician, the eye of the painter and 
 sculptor, and, over and above these, a faculty peculiar to itself, inas- 
 much as the actor personally fulfils and embodies his conception; 
 his own voice is his cunningly modulated instrument; his own face 
 the canvas whereon he portrays the various expressions of his pas- 
 sion ; his own frame the mould in which he casts the images of beauty 
 and majesty that fill his brain ; and whereas the painter and sculptor 
 may select, of all possible attitudes, occupations, and expressions, the 
 most favourable to the beautiful effect they desire to produce, and 
 fix, and bid it so remain fixed for ever, the actor must live and move 
 through a temporary existence of poetry and passion, and preserve 
 throughout its duration that ideal grace and dignity, of which the 
 canvas and the marble give but a silent and motionless image." 
 
 Mrs. Kemble might have added, that while poet, 
 painter, or sculptor may select their times and seasons. 
 
172 A PLEA FOB PLATEBS. 
 
 may try and try again nntil the effect they aim at is 
 achieved, the actor must attack his task, whatever his 
 mood, and must hit his aim at once, with a hundred 
 unsympathetic eyes and ears bent in judgment on each 
 change of feature, and awake to catch every inflection 
 of his tones. His failures must not be seen ; " the marks 
 of his brush " — to borrow a painter's phrase — must not 
 be permitted to catch the eye. And yet this art " re- 
 quires no study worthy of the name ! " What does 
 Mrs. Kemble mean by study worthy of the name ? To 
 enlighten and strengthen the moral nature, to enrich the 
 memory and the imagination with all that is best in the 
 history of our race, to familiarize the eye and the 
 thoughts with all that is fairest in nature and in art, so 
 that he should be 
 
 " Complete in feature and in mind, 
 
 With all good grace to grace a gentleman," 
 
 would seem to be the studies natural, and indeed 
 essential, to any man, however gifted, who aspired to 
 be what Mrs. Kemble has said a good actor must be. 
 And had Mrs. Kemble taken pains to study the history 
 of the dramatic art, she would have learned that such 
 were the studies of the best actors of the paet, 
 
 Mrs. Kemble says that their art has "neither fixed 
 rules, specific principles, indispensable rudiments, nor 
 fundamental laws." Of this outsiders like ourselves 
 have perhaps no right to speak. But if this be so, it is 
 certainly strange that even great actors rarely attain to 
 excellence save after much practice and long and labori- 
 ous exercise of their vocation. Mrs. Siddons herself 
 failed when she first appeared m London, and this even 
 
A PLEA FOB PLATE B8. 173 
 
 after she had been long upon the stage. What she had 
 become by study and practice in the interval between that 
 failure and her next appearance made success certain. 
 One cannot but surmise that, before she had reached 
 this point, she had mastered certain " specific principles 
 and fundamental laws." All artists must begin with 
 learning the use of their tools. Biaffaelle went through 
 many studies, and grew familiar with many common 
 rules, before he produced the Madonna di San Sisto. 
 Mario had to get rid of much, and to learn much, before 
 he had all the resources -of the actor's art so thoroughly 
 at command as to enable him to delight Europe with his 
 fine impersonation of Baoul. 
 
 That other authorities as competent as Mrs. Kemble 
 do consider the actor's art to be goyemed by funda- 
 mental laws we gather from the remark, which she 
 mentions as having been made of herself, towards the 
 close of her theatrical career, " by one of the masters of 
 the stage of the present day " — that she was " ignorant 
 of the first rudiments of her profession." However 
 this may be, it is certain that she failed signally as an 
 actress, though ushered to the stage with every advan- 
 tage of education, and under such kindliness of en- 
 couragement from the public as no one perhaps ever 
 enjoyed. Had it been possible for so self-assured a 
 person to be troubled by any of those misgivings which 
 beset true power, it might ere now have occurred to 
 Mrs. Kemble that this failure was probably due to her 
 neglect of the understood rules of the actor's art, not 
 less than to that ever present consciousness of self so 
 conspicuous in her books, which is fatal to excellence in 
 
174 A PLEA FOB FLAYERS. 
 
 all creative art, and in none more than that which she 
 so nnwisely disparages. 
 
 Readers of Mrs. Fanny Butler's Americam, Jov/mal 
 have not forgotten the contemptuous spirit in which she 
 spoke there of the actor's vocation, at a time when she 
 was actively engaged in it. She could never forget the 
 glare of the footlights. The property-man and the 
 scene-shifter put her out. The boarding and canvas of 
 Juliet's balcony upset her " vivid and versatile organi- 
 zation." Why was all this ? Simply because she lacked 
 the primary requisite of a great actress — the strong 
 imagination which can live in its own conceptions, which 
 can, with Juliet, hear the nightingale " nightly sing in 
 yon pomegranate tree," and look beyond the most in- 
 capable of stage Bomeos to the very Borneo of Juliet's 
 love. Therefore was it that Mrs. Fanny Kemble was, 
 among the actresses of her time, one of what she would 
 call the most " theatrical," but what is better described 
 as the most stagey. She was never in earnest, never 
 genuine. She had neither the intuitions of genius nor 
 its patient striving after perfection. She thought her- 
 self above her art — it was "repugnant to her" — when 
 she was, in fact, far beneath it. To her, no doubt, did 
 not belong " the rapture of creation, the glory of patient 
 and protracted toil ;" but not, therefore, have these been 
 unknown to the great ornaments of the stage, whose 
 names carry mth them "the love and honour of grateful 
 posterity," which never denies this tribute to those who 
 added lustre to their own generation, and whom its sires 
 and grandsires delighted to honour and to love. 
 
THE DRAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 (Fraser's Magazine, January, 1865.) 
 
 OOH ! Punch, has no feelings ! " said John- 
 son, in one of his snrly fits, speaking of his 
 friend Garrick — ^the affectionate, generous, 
 sensitiTe Garrick, whose delicate health 
 and early death told a very different tale. Johnson 
 knew he was wrong, and felt he was brutal — doubly so, 
 as the remark was made to Gfarrick himself in answer 
 to a remonstrance with Johnson for putting him out in 
 King Lewr by talking too loud at the side of the scenes. 
 But much as the great critic liked "little Davie," he 
 could never quite forgive him his success, or regard his 
 art with any sympathy; so, like all sayers of good things, 
 he sacrificed truth to a pithy sarcasm. When his friend's 
 death made him look the truth straight in the face, he 
 made him splendid amends. But somehow the phrase has 
 stuck ; and, as people generally write and speak of the 
 actor and his art, it is plain that in their hearts they are 
 quite of the opiaion — " Punch has no feelings .' " Painters, 
 
176 THE DRAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 sculptors, novelists, poets, orators — all workers by the 
 
 imagination — may feel, nay, if the world is to care about 
 
 them, they must feel. But the actor, of whom, above 
 
 all others, it is true, 
 
 " Si vis me flere, dolendum est 
 Primum ipsi tibi," 
 
 gets no credit for his emotions. The wear and tear of 
 sensibility and passion are nothing to him. It is only 
 acting. " Pooh ! Punch has no feelings ! " 
 
 It is quite true that actors in general live long — a 
 circumstance which may at first seem incompatible with 
 great sensibility. Some of the most eminent have done 
 so, as, for example, Betterton, Quin, Macklin, Mrs. 
 Siddons, Mdlle. Mars. But as there never was a great 
 actor yet, who did not start with an exceptionnUy fine 
 constitution, and maintain it by temperaite habits, this 
 is not remarkable. Quite as many actors of distinction 
 have died comparatively young — Burbage, Bracegirdle, 
 WoflBngton, Lekain, Lecouvreur, Garrick, and Hachel. 
 In dealing with a question of this kind, one can, of 
 course, only look to the case of the leading ornaments 
 of the stage — ^the spirits which were "finely touched, 
 and to fine issues," — the true artists, whose work was 
 all, more or less, vivified by the fire of genius. In the 
 actor's, just as in the painter's, or any other artistic 
 vocation, the rank and file are at best but mechanics, all 
 tolerably well versed in the technical part of their pro- 
 fession, and doing their work with varying degrees of 
 respectability, but not possessed by " the shaping spirit 
 of imagination," or troubled by too keen sensibilities. 
 The amount of nervous force which they exhaust can 
 
TEE BEAM A IN LONDON. 177 
 
 never be very great. But Gairick never played Le(M; 
 or Sachel PMd/re, without giving a good part of their 
 lives to the inspiration of the hour ; and no actor, even 
 of greatly inferior mark, can do his work conscientiously 
 without drawing much more largely on his vital forces 
 than is done in the every-day work of most of those 
 professions which are classed as artistic. The strain on 
 their nervous system is necessarily sudden and intense. 
 It is only the finest organizations that can prosecute 
 the histrionic art in its higher walks, and not break 
 down early. An actor of genius, without commensurate 
 physical force, drops as surely into an early grave as a 
 Raphael or a Keats. 
 
 The truth of this position has lately received an 
 illustration in the early death of an actor, who, of late 
 years, ministered more perhaps than any other to the 
 amusement of the public. It is but as yesterday since 
 Mr. Hobson took the town by storm. Many saw, or 
 thought they saw, in him the possibilities of an order of 
 tragic power almost equal to the elder Kean's ; and even 
 those who knew too much of the actor's art to share in 
 such an estimate, recognized in him that faculty of im- 
 personation — rough and unmodulated, it is true, but 
 genuine — ^which in the main justified his popularity. In 
 the long dearth of true histrionic genius he was naturally 
 hailed with enthusiasm. But while the crowds that 
 flocked to see him at the Olympic Theatre were amused 
 with the quaintness of his humour, or startled by his 
 electric bursts of passion, or surprised into tears by the 
 touches of his pathos, they little dreamed that what 
 yielded them so much pleasure was rapidly undermining 
 
 N 
 
178 THE BE AM A IN LONDON. 
 
 the poor little fellow's constitution, and destroying all 
 hope of Hs ripening into a really great actor. Mr. 
 Robson had not that fine balance of mental and physical 
 resonrces, without which the highest powers can never 
 be developed. His brain was too large, his capacity of 
 emotion too intense, for his frame. When success came, 
 and with it an undue strain upon his strength, he was 
 not enough of an artist to know how and when to 
 economise his resources ; for that is a knowledge which 
 must either be learned from such wise teaching as Mr. 
 Robson never had, or by the thoughtful observation 
 which probably was awakened within him only when it 
 was too late. 
 
 Thus it was that he squandered his vital forces in 
 fierce sallies of passion and pathos, or iu the» reckless 
 humours and extravagance of burlesque, where one- 
 half of the same energy, well managed, would have told 
 with even greater effect. 
 
 He never made any reserve of his power on the 
 stage, and he was never off it. The public would see 
 him. Unhappily for himself, he was the sole stay of 
 the theatre to which he belonged, and had apparently 
 no choice but to conform to that monstrous practice of 
 the modem stage of playing the same piece for long 
 '* runs," no matter at what peril to the actor's art, or 
 even to his health. Week after week, month after 
 month, year after year, he went on doing bis heavy 
 taskwork without intermission. Had he been a mere 
 machine, common prudence would have counselled more 
 economy in his use. But, endowed as he was with a 
 quick conceiving brain, and a sensibility which once set 
 
THE DBAMA IN LONDON. 179 
 
 in motion manifestly slipped beyond his control, what 
 marvel that his physical powers gave way, and that, 
 after mocking the stage for a time with the pale spectre 
 of his former self — ^the voice and frame refusing to fulfil 
 the conceptions of the busy brain — ^he sank into a pre- 
 mature grave, and is even now wellnigh forgotten ! 
 
 But the public must be amused — the exchequer of 
 the theatre filled. What matter if we kill our favour- 
 ites by insisting on seeing them too often ? Talk not 
 of an actor's overtasked brain, or overwrought feelings. 
 " Pooh ! Punch has no feelings ! " 
 
 We have killed in Eobson one actor of genius by 
 forcing too much work out of him ; and we should kill 
 more if we had them. For the system of working every 
 success to death, which destroyed him, continues to rule 
 the hour. In our theatres, as elsewhere, to make 
 money, on any terms, is now the dominant rule ; and 
 the miiscMef is aggravated immensely by the vast ex- 
 penditure on scenic appointments, which can only be 
 reimbursed by running a piece for a very lengthened 
 period. Paradoxical as it may at first sight seem, it is 
 strictly true, that a great success is most detrimental to 
 the growth of good acting. Heaven help the players, 
 indeed, at any theatre where a piece makes a hit I 
 However the managers may court such an event, it 
 must, we should thiok, be contemplated with dismay by 
 every actor or actress above the level of the veriest 
 drudge. 
 
 Night after night, for one, two, three, or even four 
 hundred nights, to go on repeating the same parts, in 
 pieces for which they must often find it diflScult, even 
 
180 TEB DBAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 at the outset, to feel much interest, must reduce the 
 most elastic spirit, and the most lively imagination, to 
 a state of sullen torpor. All zest in his part must be 
 crushed out of the performer ; and without pleasure to 
 himself, no actor can give pleasure to his audience. 
 He may try to bear up against it. If he has real histri- 
 onic power, he may even preserve his freshness for a 
 time ; but the end with all must be fatal monotony and 
 dead indifiference. The life, the variety, the impulsive- 
 ness, which form the soul of good acting, are impossible 
 under such conditions. Gtjod actors are spoiled by it ; 
 indifferent ones made worse ; and those who might have 
 become good, degenerate into hopeless mannerists. 
 They are not, in the literal sense, " done to death," like 
 poor Bobson ; but they are so, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, as artists. 
 
 It would be easy to illustrate this by numerous 
 striking examples from every class. Indeed, which of 
 our theatres does not furnish one or more ? But, as we 
 regard the actors in this particular not as delinquents, 
 but as the victims of a vicious system, for which the 
 public are not without their share of blame, we forbear 
 all mention of names. In the days of great actors the 
 profession was never subjected to so crud an ordeal. 
 Indeed, in any state of things, in which acting and not 
 scenic effect is the paramount attraction, the system 
 could not exist, for the simple reason that no constitu- 
 tion could stand it. Had we two or three great actors 
 now, we might hope to see the system broken down, at 
 least at some of our theatres. But, as it is, managers 
 have it aU their own way. AU pride in acting as an art 
 is foreign to them. Actors seem to be regarded as so 
 
THE DBAMA IN LONDON. 181 
 
 many machiaes, grinding out so much dialogue, with 
 appropriate gesture and action, at so much, a head per 
 night. Intelligence, culture, ambition, art, are out of 
 the calculation, so that the public be only got to fill the 
 house. The scene-painter and costumier must indeed 
 be deferred to ; for on them " the run " of the piece 
 depends. The actor may protest, as Garrick did to 
 Johnson — " You destroy all my feelings." The answer 
 is ready : " Pooh ! Punch has no feelings ! " 
 
 The system has destroyed good acting throughout 
 Europe. Paris and Berlin' are as loud in their com- 
 plaints upon the subject as London. The same causes 
 are at work there as here, and this, although both 
 Prance and Germany have a current dramatic literature 
 of some vitality, which we have not, and have organised 
 establishments for securing something like an adequate 
 representation of the higher drama. But if we look at 
 the history of our metropolitan stage for the last ten or 
 a dozen years, can we wonder that our actors have 
 become, what for the most part they are, little better 
 than monotonous mannerists, or mechanical drudges ? 
 If Shakspeare has been presented, acting has been 
 shouldered aside to make way for scenery, masses of 
 supernumeraries, effects of Bude-lights, and the vanity of 
 some individual performer. And in the plays which 
 have commanded the greatest success — ^those of which 
 The Colleen Bawn, The Duke's Motto, and The Tieket-of- 
 Leave Man may be taken as the types — ^what scope has 
 been afforded for the actor to delineate actual life and 
 manners, or to put into practice what he should be 
 learning by daily study and observation of the ways 
 and workings of the human heart ? 
 
182 TEE DBAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 A man' cannot be always at work among trifles and 
 unrealities without becoiuing as trivial and unreal as Hs 
 work. Excellence in acting, as in everything else, can 
 only be attained by constant practice on good materials, 
 coupled with, constant aspiration. Where neither mo- 
 tive nor opportunity for either exist, the actor must 
 degenerate into a commonplace worker for mere subsist- 
 ence, without enthusiasm or pride in his vocation. 
 
 The first essential for keeping aHve good acting is 
 the existence of good plays — ^plays that deal with 
 human nature, and with probable situations — iu which 
 true character can be shown and genuine emotion be 
 elicited — ia which the imagination is roused, and the 
 affections healthfully " refined by pity or terror." Have 
 we had such plays of late years ? Have those which 
 have formed our principal fare been of a kind to 
 stimulate the ambition of any educated man or woman 
 to adopt the stage as a profession ? Can we point to 
 one that has taken a permanent place in literature ? Is 
 there one in which a great actor or actress would have 
 found scope for the exercise of their power, and added 
 to our stock of iadelible remembrances ? Flashy 
 dramas — brilliant successes ia their day — we have had 
 in abundance, in which strong situations and exagge- 
 rated passions abounded. But these have only had the 
 effect of injuring the style of actors, and vitiating the 
 public taste. And if by any chance an old play has been 
 revived, or a new play produced, which demanded and 
 gave room for fine acting, as a natural consequence it 
 has invariably found our theatres without actors equal 
 to the work. Those who under a better system might 
 
TKE BBAMA IN LONDON. 183 
 
 have been so, were found to have fallen back, and to be 
 incapable of rising to the level which their natural 
 powers under proper culture would have made it easy 
 to attain, while the youngest members of the profession 
 acquitted themselves like amateurs, alike ignorant of 
 and indifferent to the first rules of histrionic art. 
 
 'Nov is the public free from blame in this matter. 
 Actors influence public taste, but public taste quite as 
 certainly influences actors. The public have been far 
 too tolerant, not only of bad pieces, but also of bad 
 acting. Had they shown due intelligence and inde- 
 pendence in their judgment, our stage and the dramatic 
 profession would have been in a much healthier condi- 
 tion. But they have allowed themselves to be cajoled 
 by every species of puffery into accepting both pieces 
 and actors, not because they liked them or felt them to 
 be good, but because they were either too indifferent or 
 distrustful of themselves to act upon their own dim 
 convictions in the face of the loud panegyrics, of which 
 a stock somehow or other seems always to be procurable 
 to order. 
 
 There was a time when a London audience was to 
 be feared. A bad piece was remorselessly extinguished, 
 so that no manager dared insult the public by putting 
 it again before them. A slovenly actor was equally 
 certain of reprobation. If he did not respect himself 
 and his vocation, he speedily learnt that he must at 
 least respect his public. Good work, it is true, though 
 always appreciated, could not always be secured ; but 
 good endeavour was at least required. The applause of 
 audiences of this stamp was worthy of an actor's ambi- 
 
184 TEE BBAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 tion. They judged for themselves, and they did not 
 scruple to express their judgments. No manager or 
 actor would have ventured in those days to dictate from 
 his playbills, as we now see done every day, what the 
 "■public were to think of their pieces or their acting. It 
 was their duty to supply the best which they could 
 command of both, and to leave these to make their way 
 with the public without note or comment of any kind. 
 A little firmness on the part of the press, and a few 
 vigorous symptoms of disapprobation from the audience, 
 might speedily restore matters to their pristine health- 
 ful state in these respects, and teach managers and 
 actors that the resources of Bamumism, in which they 
 are now so fertile, would no longer avail them in foist- 
 ing wretched pieces and villainous acting upon a public 
 that has been tried by both beyond the limits of en- 
 durance. 
 
 The practice of recalling actors at the close of a scene 
 or act is one of the most pernicious features of the 
 System by which spurious reputations are manufac- 
 lured, and which the public have done wrong in sub- 
 mitting to so long. Actors of a certain class seem to 
 make this the aim and end of their existence. Their 
 ambition is not to do their worii thoroughly and well, 
 but to secure a caU. So far does this go, that an adver- 
 tisement in The Times, by one of the most successful 
 actors of the day, has recently informed the public that 
 he has been recalled in Liverpool at the end of each act 
 of what all theatrical London knows to be a bad piece, 
 badly acted, as if that single fact set the seal npon his 
 greatness. 
 
THE DBAMA IN LONDON. 185 
 
 Under no circumstances whatever, even where the 
 call is an honest outburst of enthusiasm, is the practice 
 of calling for an actor before the end of the play to be 
 justified; for it is fatal to that illusion in both actor 
 and spectator which is the basis of all enjoyment in the 
 theatre. Acting does not consist in wearing the dress 
 of a certain character, and uttering a certain number of 
 words. It is the impersonation of a human being, 
 marked by distinct peculiarities, governed for the time 
 by certain humours, passions, or emotions. The audience 
 is for the time content to "make-believe " in the reality 
 of the action and the personages. But the actor must 
 go further if he is to do any good ; and, by his own 
 absorption in the character, give to this "make-belief" 
 something like a feeling of reality. He must, therefore, 
 for the time, be more or less, according to his power of 
 imagination, the being he represents. The proper state 
 of abstraction once gained, nothing should be allowed 
 to break its continuity. 
 
 If this principle be true, and it will hardly be dis- 
 puted, what can be more outrageous than for a person 
 who has just left the stage in a transport of grief to re- 
 appear before the curtain bowing and smiling like a 
 guest at a wedding-breakfast ? Or, more preposterous 
 stUl, for two personages to re-appear hand in hand, and 
 arrayed in smiles, who have a few seconds before been 
 separated by some cruel turn of fate, which has to be 
 resolved in succeeding acts, or by some conflict of pas- 
 sion, which has put an impassable abyss between them P 
 At the opera, where, as Horace Walpole said, one 
 leaves his common sense at the door, this is bad enough. 
 
186 TEE DBAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 But in a theatre, into wHch we may still hope to carry 
 onr brains with us, we are entitled to ast, what, under 
 such circumstances, must become of the actor's own 
 belief in what he is engaged in, or of that of the 
 audience in the quasi-reality of the play? "We are 
 thinking of Juliet, or Othello, in their agonies, and 
 have no wish to be reminded, at least until the play is 
 over, of Miss Foihermgwy or Mr. Crummies. 
 
 The practice is one which must be odious to all true 
 artists ; and we observe that, as might have been ex- 
 pected, it has been resolutely resisted by our one great 
 actress during her recent performances at Drury Lane. 
 It is of purely foreign growth, and a sorry substitute 
 for the hearty, spontaneous, irrepressible acclaim, good 
 for audience and actor both, which used to greet a per- 
 former when the play was over, and the public wished 
 to thank Tiim for the hours of imaginative pleasure 
 he had given them. The sooner it is put down the 
 better. Nothing can be simpler, if the intelligent, inde- 
 pendent portion of the audience do their duty, and, in- 
 stead of suffering a few noisy fools or injudicious friends 
 to have things all their own way, will raise a decided 
 protest, and let the actor, who appears in defiance of it, 
 know unmistakably that his presence is not desired. 
 The majority of all audiences has long seen through 
 the farce of the whole thing. Why should they go on 
 submitting with a silent shrug of the shoulders to its 
 being played off to their discomfort, merely that a mis- 
 chievous stimulus may be ministered to the vanity of 
 indifferent performers ? Let us, if we wish to keep 
 them up to their work on the stage, keep our own wits 
 
TEE DBAMA IN LONDON. 187 
 
 at work, and, if need be, speak our minds freely, before 
 it. Amuse us, ladies and gentlemen, with your humours ; 
 delight us with your well-graced speech and bearing ; 
 thrill our hearts with pathos or passion, and you wiU 
 find us sympathetic and grateftil. But a truce to all 
 this fooling of recalls and preconcerted bouquets ! Ea^m 
 applause honestly, and you shall have it to your hearts' 
 content ; but don't fancy you have been working won- 
 ders, because a stupid few — ^how composed, you know 
 very well, it will not always do to inquire — insist on 
 your coming forward to be cheered, and pelted with 
 flowers, wherever you have availed yourself to the 
 uttermost of some opportunity to " tear a passion to 
 tatters." 
 
 It is satisfactory to observe that the daily and weekly 
 press have latterly begun to show, by their notices of 
 the theatres, that they have teeth, and can bite. They 
 have much to answer for ia not having long since 
 trodden down, as they might so easily have done, the 
 Barnumisms which had become rampant in theatrical 
 matters, and for not having spoken out their minds 
 frankly about plays and players generally. Our audi- 
 ences have been so long unused to testify disapproval, 
 that they have grown timid. But if the press will only 
 speak out boldly, call a bad piece bad, charge pretenders 
 with presumption, assign those who usurp front ranks 
 their places in the third and fourth, and above all, 
 never hesitate to tell an actor or actress where they are 
 either wrong or trifle with their parts, audiences would 
 soon recover their independence, and the condition of 
 our theatres would be infinitely more satisfactory. 
 
188 THE BEAM A IN LONDON. 
 
 Punch has feelings, and we respect them; but if he 
 cannot bear the strong trath of honest and intelligent 
 criticism, let him retire into private life. Why should 
 he be fed on comfits, like a parrot, unless, indeed, he be 
 but a parrot, while the rest of manicind are forced to 
 take the sours of their vocation with its sweets ? 
 
 However unpalatable for the time, no artist, what- 
 ever his excellence, but is the better for being frankly 
 told how the people who are hardest to please are im- 
 pressed with his work. And of all artists, the actor 
 especially needs the counsel of wise criticism to point 
 out his shortcomings, and to encourage him where he is 
 right. "We say " wise criticism," because a man is not a 
 judge of good acting, more than of good pictures or 
 good poetry, by the mere light of nature. Combined 
 with a natural instinct, and a knowledge of life and 
 manners, he must have culture, experience, and taste. 
 Such critics can never be very numerous, but their ad- 
 vice would be indeed precious, both behind and before 
 the curtain. The quick intelligence of the actor will 
 profit by their teachings, but not more rapidly than the 
 public. For in the main the public instinct is right ; it 
 only wants guidance. Of course there will always be 
 a section who will prefer bad acting to good, just as the 
 sprawling extravagance of Bernini is more admired by 
 the ignorant than the delicate truthfulness of Phidias. 
 But in the end Bernini goes to the wall even with the 
 mass, and a Macready will always carry the day against 
 an N. T. Hicks. " No part," says Coleridge {Lit Bern., 
 vol. 2, p. 61), " was ever played in perfection, but Na- 
 ture justified herself in the hearts of all her children, 
 
THE BBAMA IN LONDON. 189 
 
 in what state soever they were, short of absolute moral 
 exhaustion or downright stupidity. There is no time 
 given to ask questions or to pass judgments ; we are 
 taken by storm ; and though in the histrionic art many 
 a clumsy counterfeit, by caricature of one or two fea- 
 tures, may gain applause as a fine likeness, yet never 
 was the very thing rejected as a counterfeit." 
 
 The experience of the last fifteen years has amply 
 verified this truth. We have seen many counterfeits 
 accepted for true men, — many false reputations manu- 
 factured. But what has become of them all P One 
 after another they have dropped into oblivion. The 
 public, dazzled for a time, has found them out. The 
 imagined genius has turned out to be a very common- 
 place monster after all. As with actors, so with pieces. 
 A course of Shakspearian revivals, and a few years of 
 sensation pieces, have so palled upon the public taste, 
 that we are now beginning to vote the latter a bore, and 
 are becoming anxious to have our Shakspeare dressed 
 up for us in a simpler fashion. 
 
 It is not well to speak ill even of dead dramajs, and 
 we shall not therefore do more than allude to some of 
 the most conspicuous failures of the last year. But it 
 is impossible not to note the fact that mere scenery and 
 splendid appointments are no longer able to command 
 success. This has just been conspicuously shown in 
 the case of The King's Butterfly, at the Lyceum. No- 
 thing more beautiful has been seen upon any stage than 
 some of the scenes in this drama. They were marvels 
 of excellence in their kind, and as a background to a 
 noble or interesting plot, would have been most com- 
 
190 THE DRAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 mendable ; but the pictorial were painfully dispropor- 
 tionate to tte literary merits of the piece. And yet the 
 piece was no worse, on the contrary, it was in some 
 particulars better, than either The Duke's Motto or Bel 
 Demonio, and certainly it was not worse acted than 
 either. StiU it failed, while they succeeded ; and failed, 
 as might have been predicted, because people weary of 
 nothing so soon as mere excitement of the senses. 
 London audiences have been glutted with pretty pic- 
 tures, fine dresses, and rapid action ; and not all the 
 sparkle of Mr. Fechter's Fan-fan could lure them to his 
 theatre. It is to be hoped this gentleman will take 
 the hint to heart, and trust for the future to plays with 
 a substantial human interest in them, and to better 
 acting than he is likely to get out of his present 
 company. 
 
 The new managers of the Olympic will certainly not 
 establish their undertaking on a sound basis, if we are 
 to take The Ridden Scmd, on which they have thrown 
 their strength, as a sample of the plays to be expected 
 at this theatre. Here again the scene-painter and 
 stage-carpenter have done their work admirably, ia 
 some respects, we should say, almost too well, because 
 they distract the attention of the audience too much 
 from the actors. But why should all this wealth of 
 scenic decoration be lavished on a piece which, without 
 it, would certainly not be endured ? It is utterly base 
 and vicious to the core — French, and in the worst 
 French manner. The plot turns on the suspicion of 
 two detestable crimes, • which attaches to a neglected 
 wife : the one of being unfaithful to her husband 
 
TEE DBAMA IN LONDON. 191 
 
 (which, in truth, she is in. heart, if not in act), and the 
 other of poisoning her own child, presumably because 
 that child is betrothed to the man she loves. No dra- 
 matic or histrionic skill can make such incidents other- 
 wise than revolting to any one whose moral sense ia not 
 hopelessly obtuse. Things are not only hinted at, but 
 broadly discussed on the stage, from which all delicate 
 feeling recoils. And yet this is the sort of thing which 
 is ofiTered for the recreation of English ladies and gentle- 
 men. Who would knowingly permit any young girl to 
 witness such a piece ? 
 
 If the state of the house on the night we saw it be any 
 criterion, the wholesome instincts of pit and gallery had 
 recoiled from it, for they were but scantily filled. The 
 more numerous occupants of the boxes and stalls were 
 probably too torpid or too hlases to be conscious of the 
 moral taint ; but such languid enjoyment as the piece 
 seemed to afford to them was no great compliment to 
 the very good acting of the principal performers. Such 
 a heroine as we have described is scarcely what one 
 could wish to see the promising abilities of Miss Kate 
 Terry employed upon ; neither is it calculated to be 
 beneficial to her in the practice of her art. It is too 
 unreal and spasmodic, and affords little scope for < that 
 gradual evolution of character, which makes the plays 
 of all great dramatists, and especially of our greatest, at 
 once the touchstone of power and the school for training 
 it to its highest development. It is not the successful 
 treatment of one or two strong situations which proves 
 the genuiue excellence of an actor. To this Miss Terry 
 shows herself quite equal ; but the extreme praise 
 
192 THE DRAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 which has been lavished on her in this part mnst be 
 justified by something of a much higher order, if she is 
 to take a leading place in her profession. In two of the 
 other actors in the same piece, the mischievous effects 
 of having to play for four hundred nights or so in The 
 Tidket-of-Lewve Man are painfully conspicuous. The 
 Tom Bri&rly of the latter crops out at every pore of 
 Mr. Neville's Lord Pena/rvon ; and the style which made 
 Mr. Vincent's Melter Moss excellent, thrusts itself per- 
 force into his Modoc Goeh, to its destruction. If these 
 actors are not permanently injured as artists, it will say 
 much for their capacity and address. 
 
 Of The Streets of London, another Trench piece, 
 adapted by that prince of conveyancers, Mr. Bouoicault, 
 there is nothing to be said. As a drama, and as acted, 
 it is worthless. To this the manager is probably indif- 
 ferent. The play draws, as such plays always will 
 draw, houses of the class of persons who go to theatres 
 only to see, and to be excited, no matter how. Its suc- 
 cess has apparently provoked Mr. Webster into trying 
 whether a piece of a similar character, and with similar 
 strong scenic effects, would tell as well in the Strand as 
 in Oxford-street. Instead, however, of adapting the 
 French dish to the English palate, he has transferred it 
 pure and simple — ^mere excision apart. But the atmo- 
 sphere of the Boulffuard Montma/rtre cannot, unluckily for 
 him, be transferred with the piece. The twang of ex- 
 travagance which one expects and relishes at the Porte 
 8t.-MaHin jars painfully in the more prosaic region of 
 the Adelphi. Our audiences are happily not yet quite 
 up to the high-fever mark, which is the normal register 
 
TEH DRAMA IN LONDON. 193 
 
 there. The exquisite imbroglio of vice and virtue, of 
 sublime sentiment and degraded action, which our French 
 neighbours dress up with such admirable skill, and 
 savour with such infinite relish, to our colder and more 
 analytic natures looks but a raw-head-and-bloody-bones 
 business at the best. Englishmen are a little squeamish 
 on certain matters, and heartily concur in the Horatian 
 maxim that there are incidents which are better trans- 
 acted off the stage than on it. We cannot get up sym- 
 pathy for suicide, and until now no West-end stage, at 
 least, has seen a jeune premier recommended to our 
 sympathies for breaking an engagement with one young 
 lady who is desperately in love with him, because he 
 resolves rather late in the day to make an honest wo- 
 man of another whom he has seduced. The tangle is 
 not a pretty one, especially as the respective mothers of 
 the gentleman and the frail fair one take an active part 
 in its nnravelment. This is a species of dirty linen 
 which we English do not like to see washed in public 
 for the amusement of our wives and daughters. Neither 
 will such moral obliquity be compensated by the dreary 
 didactics against drunkenness into which the authors 
 of this piece have thrown all their force. 
 
 Mr. Webster himself plays admirably one of those 
 cool, grey-headed, amiable-looking, old, wealthy scoun- 
 drels, — ^men of " one virtue and a thousand crimes," — 
 with which the stage is familiar ; but his fine powers 
 are thrown away in trying to give vitality to a piece 
 which is not worth the trouble. The same may be said 
 of Mrs. Stirling as the outraged mother, who throws 
 away a great deal of that intensity which ought to be 
 
194 TEE DBAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 employed upon -worthier materials. The rivals for the 
 hand of the jetme premder are doubtless very charming, 
 as played in Paris, -where the spasm-and-gasp style of 
 performance is refined almost to an art ; but here it is no 
 discredit to Miss Woolgar and Miss Sims to say, that, 
 being English-women, they aggravate the agony of their 
 sorrows to a point -which, to say the least of it, oversteps 
 the boundaries of the sublime. 
 
 Strange to relate, t-wo pieces of purely native gro-wth 
 have recently been produced in London, better than 
 anything of French origin -which has been lately seen 
 here. These are the Milky White of Mr. Craven, at the 
 Strand, and the Byhilla, of Mr. Palgrave Simpson at the 
 St. James's. 
 
 The former is as admirably, as the latter is indiffer- 
 ently, acted. Indeed, so little justice is done to Mr. 
 Simpson's piece that it is difficult to estimate its merits. 
 The character of SybUla, in which a certain grave in- 
 tensity lies beneath the outward semblances of a coquette, 
 is quite beyond the grasp of Mrs. Charles Mathews; 
 and as the other performers, — Mr. Prank Mathews ex- 
 cepted, whose humour is somewhat of the dreariest, — 
 ob-viously think their parts beneath them, it is no wonder 
 that they convey the impression of being considerably 
 beneath their parts. 
 
 It is not so -with Mr. Craven's piece, ia which all 
 concerned act with care, and produce a satisfactory im- 
 pression of truth and nature. The character of Milky 
 White, a surly, deaf old man, suspicious and litigious, 
 who is humanized by sorrow and the sympathy of people 
 he had mistrnisted, \s. no new conception ; but it has been 
 
TEE DBAMA IN LONDON. 195 
 
 well worked out by Mr. Craven, who, in this case, is 
 both author and actor. It is no discredit to him that 
 he makes us think at times how much more would have 
 been made of the part by Mr. Robson, for whom it was 
 written, and whom it would have fitted to a nicety. In 
 the early and more marked situations of the piece the 
 difference is less perceptible than in the latter portions, 
 where the stubborn heart of the man is broken down, 
 and where there is less to say, but much to be done, by 
 those fine touches of expression in look, in tone, and 
 action, — those little seemingly unconscious strokes of 
 nature, — in which Farren excelled, and ia which Bobson 
 was his not unskilful follower. These are just the 
 things which distinguish the artist from the ordinary 
 actor. They are not to be acquired by mere practice ; 
 but high excellence in them cannot be attained without 
 a larger experience than Mr. Craven has had. 
 
 Foreign artists have apparently not yet learned that 
 although our dramatists are only too ready to take their 
 plays, the English public are not so ready to take their 
 actors from the French, otherwise why should we have 
 had another Parisian actress trying to take a position 
 by acting in a language she cannot speak, which she 
 was unable to gain by acting in one which she could. 
 Mademoiselle Beatrice, on whom the Haymarket Theatre 
 has for the last two months depended for its attraction, 
 never offends, and occasionally even pleases. Her chief 
 merit, however, lies in the fact that she bears herself 
 like a lady — a merit, unhappily, too rare of late years 
 on the Haymarket stage : for she has obviously neither 
 the mental nor physical requisites for an actress of a 
 
196 THE DRAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 high class. Her figure is handsome, but wants flexi- 
 bility and grace ; her voice is sweet, but without the 
 power or penetrating quality demanded for the display 
 of passion or varied emotion. In none of the three 
 characters, moreover, in which she has appeared — and 
 they were quite sufficient to test her powers — has she 
 shown either originality of conception or vigour of treat- 
 ment. Actresses of this stamp are not so rare that we 
 need go out of England for them ; and unless this lady 
 is content to forego all claim to pre-eminence, and to 
 take her place among ordinary working companies, she 
 had better seek reputation elsewhere. The infinite bad 
 taste of Mr. Buckstone in proclaiming her in his play- 
 bills as the only worthy successor of Mrs. Siddons and 
 Miss O'Neill, in the part of Mrs. Haller, while doing 
 Mademoiselle Beatrice great disservice, has shown what 
 liberties successful managers think they may take with 
 the public unrebuked. The public showed their sense 
 of the impertinence by leaving the lady to perform the 
 part — which she did very sweetly and feebly — ^to nearly 
 empty benches. 
 
 A great efibrt has been made by the lessees of Drury 
 Lane to meet the growing desire to see the higher ' 
 drama restored to our stage. With this view they have 
 got together a company, not certainly good, but probably 
 as good as under present circumstances was within their 
 reach. Hitherto, with the exception of some farces, 
 bad almost beyond belief, they have confined their 
 operations to the reproduction of Shakspeare. The 
 First and Second Parts of Henry the Fov/rth, and Othello, 
 were respectably put on the stage ; but, except in the 
 
TEE DBAMA IN LONDON. 197 
 
 case of Mr. Phelps's Justice Shallow — the best since 
 Farren's, but oh ! how far behind his — ^presented in the 
 acting no features of salient interest. Stall they met 
 with a measure of success, which showed how ready the 
 public are to second any well-directed Endeavour to 
 raise the character of theatrical entertainments. 
 
 This became still more conspicuous when the engage- 
 ment of Miss Helen Faucit enabled the managers to 
 place Oymbelme and Macbeth upon the stage with the 
 certainty that full justice would be done to two of 
 Shakspeare's noblest conceptions. Those who remember 
 Miss Helen Faucit ia her noviciate, under Mr. Macready's 
 reign, at Dinry Lane, and iu her occasional appearances, 
 whenever a poetical drama was produced, such as 
 Browning's Golombe's Birthday, or Marston's Movie da 
 Meranie, have found all the charm of their recollections 
 brought back with tenfold force, while the younger 
 generation have seen for the first time what true acting 
 is, and may form an idea of its value in developing and 
 sending home to the hearts of the audience the concep- 
 tions of the dramatist's brain. No one, however familiar 
 beforehand with the characters of Imogen and Lady Mac- 
 beth, can have seen them impersonated by Miss Helen 
 Faucit without feeling that they have derived a higher 
 and clearer idea of the poet's intention than they could 
 possibly have done without such living illustration. No 
 critic, with the utmost fulness of comment, could do for 
 the elucidation of the poet what is done swiftly and 
 surely by an actress whose conceptions are so pure and 
 delicate, yet well defined, and who is gifted with such 
 rare natural qualities of voice and expression, and is 
 
198 TEE DRAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 "in. form and moving so express and admirable." After 
 a few honrs of exqnisite enjoyment one feels that not 
 only has he made a priceless addition to his pleasures 
 of memory, bnt that his insight into Shakspeare has 
 been greatl/ quickened, his imagination permanently 
 raised. 
 
 This is especially true of Miss Helen Fancit's Imogen, 
 a character so difficult to portray, from the fine quali- 
 ties of person as well as the great variety of refined 
 power which it demands, that it has generally been 
 avoided even by actresses of great name. OymieKne, 
 though lavish ia the display of poetical power, fails in 
 closeness and concentration as a drama; but Imogen 
 has always been the ideal of womanly sweetness, dig- 
 nity, and devotion ; and Shakspeare's genius was never 
 put forth more strongly than in her creation. She is 
 clothed with nearly every womanly grace ; she is sub- 
 jected to nearly every trial which can test a woman's 
 worth. ; and she passes through them all triumphantly. 
 Royal in blood, refined in culture, so rich in all the 
 graces of person and mind, that she touches with some- 
 thing Uke reverence even the unhallowed thoughts of 
 that most "super-subtle"' of sensualists, lachimo, and 
 impresses all with whom she comes into contact with 
 loving admiration, — ^impassioned as Juliet, with all 
 Juliet's resolute will, but with a finer judgment, and 
 rarer powers of self-denial, — playful, yet dignified — in 
 her deepest sorrow most thoughtfal for others, and 
 bearing up against despair only in the hope to find 
 some reason for the perversion of her husband's faith, — 
 it is no wonder, that Imogen has rarely found an ade- 
 
THE BEAM A IN LONDON. 199 
 
 quate representative. This, indeed, could only be ex- 
 pected in an artist of the highest class, so penetrated 
 by the subtle b^raty of the character that she may be 
 said to have absorbed it into her own. Such an artist 
 is Miss Helen Fancit ; and it speaks well for the taste 
 of onr audiences, that the play, on the revival of which 
 no care had been expended, and which, certainly, was 
 most inadequately acted in some of its principal parts, 
 has been much more cordially received than when pro- 
 duced by Mr. Macready, with himself as lachimo, Mr. 
 Anderson as Posthumus, Mr. Phelps as Belarius, and 
 Mr. Elton as Pisanio, and with every scenic accessory 
 which scholarship and good taste could supply. 
 
 The same may be said of the Macbeth ; for although 
 Mr. Beverley's skill had done all that the painter's art 
 could do to illustrate, without overlaying, the author, 
 and although considerable pains had in other respects 
 been taken in putting the play on the stage, there was 
 no particular evidence in any of the scenic arrangements 
 of originality or artistic skill. Indeed there was much 
 that was clumsy and commonplace ; as, for example, in 
 the whole arrangement of the banquet scene. Who 
 ever before saw a dais erected across the centre of a 
 hall; or what could be more fatal to all richness of 
 efPect than placing the banqueting tables in lines 
 parallel to the proscenium, instead of carrying them dia- 
 gonally across the stage ? Or who, that had any appre- 
 ciation of the text, would in this scene have placed 
 Lady Macbeth at the side of the stage, when the action 
 of the scene requires her to dominate it from the centre ? 
 
 Macbeth is a character beyond the reach of any but 
 
200 TEE DBAMA IN LONDON. 
 
 the greatest actors ; and it is assuredly not one of Mr. 
 Phelps's successfnl efforts. It recalls the Macbeth of 
 Mr. Macready, but only by the absence of all that was 
 fine in that gentleman's performance. Whatever Mr. 
 Phelps's conception may be, the picture which he pre- 
 sents is that of a man without even physical courage, 
 ignoble in demeanour and in thinking, unmannerly, 
 loud, and by no means the person to inspire either fear 
 or respect. Such a man could never have moved Lady 
 Macbeth to love him, nor won the confidence of the 
 gracious Duncan. And why will Mr. Phelps play such 
 tricks with his voice ? He speaks as no man ever spoke 
 in real life. • His gestures, too, are far too redundant, 
 and carry the licence of the stage to the utmost limits 
 of improbability. If any general were to strut and 
 shoui as his Macbeth does in the last act, not only 
 would " the thanes fly from him," but the veriest kern 
 would decline to act for one hour under his orders. 
 How very different is all this extravagance of bluster 
 from the fitful and wayward, but intense and headlong, 
 passion which Shakspeare has painted ! 
 
 In marked contrast to the stagey unreality of her 
 lord was the Lady Macbeth of Miss Helen Faucit, who 
 has cast aside all stage traditions of the part, and sought 
 its true reading iu Shakspeare's own " unvalued book." 
 In her Lady Macbeth we see a will masculine in energy; 
 a heart insensible to fear ; an iron self-control ; a mind 
 subtle, prompt, and resolute ; without religious feeliag, 
 but yet a woman, eager, impulsive, unselfish, claiming 
 a hold on our sympathies, by her love for her husband, 
 by her silent endurance, and by the terrible tortures of 
 retributive conscience. Her ambition is for her hus- 
 
THE DRAMA IN LONDON. 201 
 
 band. To secure that on which, his heart has long 
 been set, she for a time nnsexes herself. That aim 
 once gained, she is no partner in his cowardly and 
 bloody assassinations. Very soon she finds her mistake 
 in thinking of him as too full of the milk of hnman 
 kindness. The man she had believed to be too full of 
 scmples proves, to her dismay, to be wholly without 
 pitifnlness or mercy — a man for whose ideas of his own 
 good " all causes must give way." Her very hold on 
 him is lost. She finds him selfishly indifferent to what 
 she is suffering. The horrible dreams of the past which 
 are shaking her slumbers nightly find no sympathy in 
 her husband, whose sleep, if broken, is only broken by 
 miserable fears of future danger. Absolute isolation of 
 heart and life is the only fruit of her great crime. The 
 pitiable breakdown of her hopes, affections, energies, 
 culminating in the " slumbery agitation " of the sleep- 
 walking scene, ia which she is doomed for ever and 
 ever, like a spirit in bale, to rehearse the horrors of 
 which she had, in order to dispel her husband's terror, 
 formerly made so light, is a representation which fulfils 
 in perfection the great object of tragedy, as defined by 
 Aristotle — "the purification of the soul by pity and 
 terror." 
 
 In the interests of that art of which Miss Helen 
 Fauoit is so distinguished an ornament, and which she 
 presents in its most ennobling aspect, as well as in the 
 interests of the public, for whose taste such performances 
 are the best education, let us hope that she may before 
 very long be persuaded to present us with fresh embodi- 
 ments of Shakspeare's women, as nobly beautiful as 
 those which we have recently seen. 
 
ARTISTS AND AMATEURS. 
 
 To THE Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette." 
 
 IE, — I have just read the paper in your 
 number of yesterday on " Amateurs and 
 Artists." The writer is obviously an 
 amateur, and, with all his endeavoxirs to 
 hold the scales evenly, cannot divest himself of his 
 amateurish sympathies. Amateurs have this great pull 
 against us artists, that they or their friends are always 
 pleading their own cause with the public, and giving 
 their views not only about themselves, but also about 
 us. We, on the other hand, are generally content to 
 let our work speak for itself, and, if we are misrepre- 
 sented, as very often we are, it is only our own imme- 
 diate circle whom we torture with our wrongs. Thus 
 it is that a good many vulgar errors about us have taken 
 strong root, one or two of which crop out conspicuously 
 in the paper in question. Audi alteram pmtem. Bear 
 with me while I venture to call attention to one or two 
 of its propositions. 
 
 " Amateurs," says the writer, " were never regarded 
 by artists with very friendly feelings." If by this it is 
 
ARTISTS AND AM ATE UBS. 203 
 
 implied that the artist does not regard with friendly- 
 feelings the lover of his art, who shows an intelligent 
 sympathy with its higher aims and understanding of how 
 these are to be reached, the statement is no more tme 
 than if one should say of Tennyson, that he regards 
 those who appreciate good poetry with no very friendly 
 feelings. But if, on the other hand, it be meant, that 
 the artist regards with no particular respect those who 
 set themselves up to do his work, and call upon the 
 public to admire them, without either the natural apti- 
 tude or the earnest study which is essential for the 
 practice of any art worthy of the name, then why should 
 this be imputed to him as a matter of blame ? Is rash 
 pretence less culpable ia art than in literature, law, or 
 physic ? Does Tennyson reverence Tupper ? Should we 
 marvel at an ebullition of sarcasm from the meek and 
 forbearing Westbury, if an amateur jurist were to offer 
 to set him right upon a point of law? or wonder if Sir 
 James Clark regarded with no very friendly feelings an 
 amateur hygeist, who interfered with his anxious efforts 
 to persuade the damaged liver of some worthy peer to 
 do its duty? Were an amateur to tell Stanfield or 
 Cooke how to paint a sea — and amateurs sometimes do 
 things quite as outrageous — surely these artists might, 
 without any imputation of jealousy, retort that he did 
 not know what he was talking about. 
 
 Why, then, should the actor be less at liberty to think 
 of amateur actors, as Tennyson, Westbury, Clark, Stan- 
 field and Cooke, thiak of amateur poets, lawyers, 
 doctors, and painters — that so long as they gratify their 
 own tastes by dabbling in verses, in law, physic, or 
 
204 ABTI8T8 AND AMATHUB8. 
 
 painting, they may be not merely not blameable, but 
 praiseworthy ; but that the moment they choose to conrt 
 publicity, they must submit to the rules of criticism, 
 and, if they cannot do what they profess to do, be sent 
 to the same limbo with the pseudo poet, jurist, doctor, 
 or painter ? In the domain of art, which they choose 
 to inyade, there is and should be no respect of persons, 
 no toleration of intruders, any more than in any of the 
 other professions. 
 
 If actors look coldly upon amateurs it is because 
 actors know that their art is a most difficult one, even 
 in its subordinate branches, and therefore dislike to see 
 it trifled with, and treated as a thing for which neither 
 special gifts nor special training are required. Tour 
 writer is pleased to call this jealousy. Jealbusy of 
 what ? Where was ever the amateur of whom an actor 
 of any position had cause to be jealous ? But the ap- 
 plause, it is suggested, which amateurs receive, is "ex- 
 asperating " to actors. How little knowledge of actors 
 does this argue ! No actor ever willingly witnesses an 
 amateur performance, nor for that matter any judge of 
 acting either, and, not hearing the applause, his withers 
 are not likely to be wrung by it. But grant he does 
 hear it, what of that ? In these days he is too much 
 accustomed to hear applause bestowed on brother-actors, 
 and on himself too, when he knows both he and they 
 least deserve it, for any natural bitterness of feeling on 
 this score to be augmented by the plaudits, however 
 loud, bestowed upon amateurs, either by foolish friends 
 or by an uncritical press. 
 
 A word about this jealousy which your writer, iu 
 
ARTISTS AND AMATEURS. 205 
 
 common witli so many, attribntes to artists. Are 
 artists really more jealous than other people whose 
 interests bring them iijto riyalry with one another? 
 Are doctors never jealous? Is there no envy and 
 grudging among lawyers ? Do clergymen never mur- 
 mur and look askance at the good fortune or the gifts 
 of some more favoured defender of the faith ? Do 
 engineers, cotton-spinners, or ironmasters all rejoice in 
 the prosperity of their rivals ? Is Manchester Arcadia? 
 Is a cathedral close exempt frara. emulation and heart- 
 burnings ? Human nature is human nature everywhere. 
 It maybe true that as artists are thrown more together, 
 and have less secretiveness than other people, one hears 
 more of their bickerings and jealousies through those 
 busybodies who live on the propagation of gossip about 
 persons who are in any way before the world. People 
 who live only to shake hands with themselves upon 
 their own merits, and to whom popular applause is as 
 the breath of their nostrils, will always be jealous of 
 rivals, be they poets, historians, statesmen, lawyers, 
 philosophers, or actors. But a true artist, to whom the 
 thing to be done or aimed at is always greater than the 
 doer of it, even though that doer be himself, is never 
 jealous of kindred power. On the contrary, he rejoices 
 in it, takes strength from conflict with it. 
 
 Small greenroom jealousies are but the jealousies of 
 small people. Of course their number is greater than 
 that of the big people. But why stigmatize a profession 
 for the defects of its feebler followers ? There are 
 Dodsons and Foggs among lawyers, and Vincent 
 Crummelses among actors, but these are but types of 
 
206 ABTI8T8 AND AMATEURS. 
 
 a very small class in either profession. An actor is natur- 
 ally jealous of his position, jealous of encroachment, 
 jealous of incapacity being advanced over his head, not 
 for merit, but for private considerations. But who in 
 any walk of life is not ? Any man who has to live by 
 his position must, if he have any self-respect, be jealous 
 to maintain it. 
 
 We actors are said not to be over-modest. But 
 surely we are modesty itself as compared with amateurs 
 — and for this good reason, that the public, tolerant as 
 it is, keeps our vanities somewhat in check, to say 
 nothing of the fact, that we have daily to measure our- 
 selves against men of skill in our vocation, and therefore 
 very speedily find our level. Playing is no play to us, 
 but hard, serious earnest, and to those of us who Bspire 
 to eminence, it is a ceaseless struggle to reach a still 
 receding ideal. We therefore may be forgiven if we 
 smile at the suggestion of your writer, that the spread 
 of amateur theatricals is likely to be beneficial to dra- 
 matic art. Artists may teach amateurs, but amateurs 
 can never teach artists ; and it is one of the many signs 
 that the actor's art is at this moment at a low ebb, that 
 amateurs venture to make such frequent displays in 
 public as they do. We do not find they did so when the 
 metropolis was strong in great actors. Then they kept 
 themselves to garrison towns and country houses, where 
 any relief from the prevalent Boeotian dulness was de- 
 lightful. A man mzist have formed a very circum- 
 scribed notion of the stuff a good actor is made of who 
 thinks that any professional actor of ability is likely to 
 profit by those "back drawing-room" performances. 
 
ARTISTS AND AMATEURS. 207 
 
 wMoh are the bugbear of your true play-goer, and have 
 added a new terror to the "At Home." 
 
 Nine-tenths of the best amateurs placed upon a stage 
 with professional actors chosen at random will deport 
 themselves with less ease, look less like gentlemen, be 
 altogether more stagey. I don't pretend to explain why 
 this is so ; probably it is, because they are more con- 
 scions, think more of themselves, are less in their parts, 
 than the men who treat their work as work and not as 
 pastime. And then think of the kind of pieces which 
 amateurs generally, and wisely, perform, — ^the lightest 
 comediettas, the flimsiest burlesques ! Who tries to 
 grapple with a great part, or trying, does not make most 
 woful shipwreck ? 
 
 It is not upon such models that actors are to be 
 formed. It is not by any number of such performances 
 that a true taste is to be instilled into the pubUc. If the 
 art is low, it is from causes which these cannot reach. 
 In all arts there are periods of ebb and flow. This is 
 the period of ebb in the dramatic art. The great 
 standards are gone ; new ones have not yet arisen. 
 There is no want of patronage, but you cannot manu- 
 facture fine actors to order. And unluckily the public, 
 though it recognizes good acting when it sees it, is 
 quite as apt to be captivated by bad. The management 
 of theatres is conducted at present upon the lowest 
 tradesman principles. Get money, no matter how, is 
 the rule. No care is shown in the choice, nor discipline 
 in the working, of the companies. The press, moreover, 
 does not do its duty either by actor or audience. It is 
 too tolerant of slovenly or absolutely bad work. It 
 
208 ABTI8T8 AND AMATEURS. 
 
 lends itself too much to the puffing of mediocrity. It is 
 not quick to encourage true and conscientious merit. 
 The public instincts, which are in the main right, in- 
 stead of being well guided by the press, are just as often 
 misled by it. And so it will be, until critics are edu- 
 cated, before they pretend to teach. 
 
 Anybody thinks he is fit to criticise acting. As well 
 might a man, on the strength of the light of nature, set 
 up for a critic of sculpture — nay sooner, for there is no 
 art more complex in its requirements than that of the 
 actor in its higher branches. Good acting, like all good 
 art, is based on deep and, true feeling and accurate ob- 
 servation. Without these, excellence is impossible, 
 however great the technical skill or the mastery of 
 " stage traditions." A life of study and practice is not 
 too much for it, and until people both on and off the 
 stage recognize this fact, we need hope for no revival of 
 dramatic art. But when that day comes, actor-amateurs 
 will find themselves, like dilettomti in other arts, ex- 
 actly nowhere ! — I remaio, Sir, very obediently yours. 
 
 An Actoe. 
 
 March 4, 1865. 
 
THE THBATEES BILL. 
 
 [Mat 17, 1865.] 
 
 To THE Editor op the Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 f IE, — ^Ton have shown so much, interest in 
 the welfare of the drama, that yon may 
 perhaps find a place in your paper for a 
 few remarks on the Theatres Bill of Mr. 
 Locke from one who has some practical knowledge of 
 the stage. In so far as the bill aims at improving the 
 comfort and safety of theatres, all must join in approving 
 it. In these respects most of our theatres are as bad 
 as can be, and by their form or situation scarcely admit 
 of being made better. Nothing short of pulling down 
 and rebuilding them will be of any use. But that, un- 
 fortunately, is an operation too costly to be hoped for, 
 unless forced upon their owners by their being burned 
 down — a doom which, in the interests of public health, 
 cannot too soon overtake them. We might then hope 
 for houses in which we could see and hear, without 
 being crammed and caged like travellers in a diligence, 
 with blasts of cold air intermitting with sufi'ocating heat, 
 to distract us during the performance, and the certainty 
 
 p 
 
210 THE THE AT BE 8 BILL. 
 
 impending over us of headache at least, if not of 
 neuralgia, upon the morrow. But till then Mr. Locke's 
 bill will be of little use in mending matters before the 
 curtain. 
 
 Will it mend matters behind it ? That is the -vital 
 question. Whether managers will suffer by it, or not, 
 is a point on which little concern can be felt. Such 
 managers as London has known for many years have no 
 just claim upon our sympathy. They have gone about 
 making money their own way, and that way, as the 
 results prove, has done no good to dramatic literature 
 or histrionic art. If they and their ventures were " in 
 the broad sea sunk," we should not be one jot poorer 
 in what alone can make the theatre a valuable instru- 
 ment of either instruction or enjoyment. But there is a 
 larger question involved in this bill than the interests 
 either of managers of theatres or of those who hope 
 through its instrumentality to turn their singing saloons 
 into theatres — and that is the operation of the proposed 
 law on histrionic art, and upon the drama itself. Both 
 have sunk low enough already. Will this bill sink 
 them lower ? 
 
 It is asked, as if that ended the whole question, 
 " Why should we not have free-trade in the drama as 
 well as in other things P" Practically, we have free- 
 trade in the drama. Anybody may turn actor that 
 likes, and if people choose to build theatres, what pre- 
 vents them ? Nothing but the usual commercial con- 
 sideration. Will they pay, or will they not ? In this re- 
 spect Mr. Locke's bill will leave things where they are 
 at present. Of theatres, pure and simple, we shall in 
 
THE THEATBES BILL. 211 
 
 all likelihood have neither more nor fewer than we 
 should have had without it. The cost of building a 
 theatre in a good situation in London will not be less 
 then than now ; and none of the existing theatres yield 
 such magnificent returns as to make new theatres a 
 very tempting speculation. Theatres such as we should 
 wish to see, skilfully constructed, spacious, and well 
 ventilated, would have sprung up before now had there 
 been room for them. But there is not, and for this, 
 among many reasons, that' if the theatres had been 
 built, there were no actors to put into them, whom the 
 public would go to see. 
 
 Free- trade has nothing to do with art, whether on the 
 stage or elsewhere. Demand will not be followed by 
 supply where art is the commodity wanted. Free-trade 
 win stimulate and develop industry, skill, mechanical 
 resource. It never has developed, and never will de- 
 velop art. It will never make a Palissy or a Flaxman, 
 though it may multiply imitations of the works of the 
 one, and make the designs of the other familiar at every 
 tea-table. Free-trade heightens general culture un- 
 doubtedly, but it breeds no artists. Its only effect as 
 regards art is to make men follow it for gain who ought 
 never to have set foot within the domain of art. This 
 has been its effect already upon the actor's profession, 
 with what miserable results we all know. 
 
 According to the supporters of Mr. Locke's bill, free- 
 trade in the drama seems to mean freedom to give 
 theatrical representations in any house or garden fit for 
 the accommodation of the public, with this one restric- 
 tion, that the pieces presented are to be subject to the 
 
212 THB TEEATBUS BILL. 
 
 supervision of the Lord Chamberlain. Let ns suppose 
 the act in full operation. What ensues ? Every sing- 
 ing-saloon proprietor, who thinks that by some kind of 
 acting he can draw more people to his house to drink 
 the liquors, to which he looks for his profits, imme- 
 diately converts his platform into a stage. Actors must 
 be had, and for these he can only look to the existing 
 theatres. Actors, good actors especially, are not so 
 numerous that they can be draughted from these with- 
 out disadvantage ; but draughted they will be, because 
 the manager of a theatre is sure to be outbidden by the 
 liquor seller. The manager has only his receipts for 
 admission to look to, while these form the smallest item 
 of his rival's revenues. One by one, therefore, his com- 
 pany will be tempted away from him, and then what is 
 to become of his theatre ? And what are we to do who 
 wish to go to theatres, but will under no conditions 
 enter a singing saloon ? This is the problem which the 
 supporters of the bill will find it hard to solve. 
 
 Will fresh actors arise to fill the gaps thus created ? 
 They know little of what acting is who think that even 
 a moderately good actor's place can easily be filled. 
 Why is it that the drama, in aU that makes the drama 
 attractive, is now at so low a point ? Never were actors 
 so well paid as they are now, and have been for several 
 years. And yet what theatre in the kingdom can show a 
 company which can be said to be even respectable? 
 And this simply because good actors cannot be made to 
 order, be trade in the drama as free as legislators can 
 make it ; and therefore no manager can afford to bring 
 together into his company the few good actors that are 
 
THE THE AT BE 8 BILL. 213 
 
 left, when so many rivals are in the field to raise their 
 price. 
 
 Multiply theatres as you •will, you cannot multiply 
 good actors. Tears of study and practice are indispen- 
 sable for that. Tet now, when we have already too 
 many theatres in proportion to those who deserve the 
 name of actors, we are going to make the balance still 
 more uneven by increasing our theatres, and increasing 
 them, too, in the very worst way. Is it not the fact 
 that if a fine play were to be offered at this moment to 
 any of our metropolitan theatres, it could not be pre- 
 sented in a way to bring out its excellence ? All ques- 
 tions of first-class power apart — ^for of that we have 
 none in any of the companies — what pitiable work 
 would certainly be made of the secondary parts ! The 
 universal outcry is, that no attention is paid to the 
 ensemble, that the leading actor or actress maybe excel- 
 lent, but the rest are puppets. Is this state of things 
 likely to be amended, when actors are bribed by high 
 salaries to go to such stages as Mr. Locke's bill is cer- 
 tain to create ? The very dearth of ability has for 
 many years operated to raise third and fourth rate 
 actors into the front rank. Increase still farther the 
 demand for actors, scatter still farther those who have 
 at least some experience of their craft, and what hope 
 will be left of our seeing good plays well performed in 
 any of our theatres ? 
 
 Consider the effect of this state of things upon actors 
 themselves. The stage is at present too much recruited 
 from a class utterly unfit by birth or education for the 
 exercise of any art, much less one which demands a 
 
214 THE THEATRES BILL. 
 
 combination of many fine qualities. Actors of the pre- 
 sent day are without high aims. A comfortable income 
 and plenty of applause are aU they care for. These 
 they will get henceforth even more easily than they do 
 now, and every vestige of self-respect or ambition to 
 excel is certain to vanish very quickly in the face of an 
 audience which mixes its sympathies with scenic woe 
 with goes of brandy and water, and heightens its relish 
 of comedy or farce by " devilled kidneys " and " small 
 steaks." The profession, already sufficiently lowered, 
 will speedily become one which no educated man, and 
 still more no gentlewoman can possibly pursue. Hitherto 
 it has not yet sunk quite to this level. If it maintains 
 itself above it, after the introduction of entire free-trade 
 in the drama, it must be by some singular combination 
 of circumstances which it is impossible to foresee. 
 
 Of course there are many members of the profession 
 whom no temptation of money will attract to a theatre 
 where they must perform in the midst of all that goes 
 on at singing saloons, and is their chief allurement. 
 But these can be but few at the best, and they cannot 
 keep theatres going, even if it were conceivable that 
 these could otherwise be carried on. But this they 
 cannot be. Managers wiU have to pay more to their 
 actors than they do at present, and they will get them 
 of worse quality. Little attractive now, theatres will 
 become less and less so to the boxes, stalls, and pit, 
 while the frequenters of the galleries will be only too 
 apt to go where they can drink and smoke during the 
 play or between the acts. The end must be, that either 
 theatres shall follow the example of the saloons, or be- 
 
THE THEATBES BILL. 215 
 
 come deserted. It is idle to think that any will remain 
 for the performance of the higher drama. The old 
 actors will have gone elsewhere, and where arg new 
 ones to be got ? In such a state of things^ how can we 
 look for new Garricks or Siddonses, new Keans or 
 Farrens to arise, when there is no arena left on which 
 they can hope or desire to win a Worthy fame? 
 
 This is no idle fear. The same principle has been at 
 work ever since the act was passed which destroyed 
 the monopoly of the patent theatres. Since then the 
 demand for actors has been far in excess of the supply, 
 and it has become impossible, to get a really good com- 
 pany together. Extend the principle still further, and 
 we shall soon search the theatres in vain for even one 
 good actor. 
 
 We cry out, and justly, against the wretched style 
 of most of our actors. Shall we mend it by sending 
 them to such audiences as are to be found at saloons ? 
 We deplore, and justly, the degraded taste of audiences. 
 Shall we refine them by such actors as the performers 
 in such an atmosphere are likely to become ? 
 
 One great misconception lies at the root of all that 
 is written ia favour of this so-called free-trade in the 
 drama, and it is this — that people regard theatres as 
 mere places of amusement, and acting as the simplest 
 of pastimes. It is, no doubt, a first essential that 
 theatres should amuse, but amusement is of many 
 kinds. It may be wholesome or it may be vicious. 
 That amusement which is to be interwoven with the 
 gross and perilous attractions of liquor and tobacco- 
 smoke is, to say the least, little likely to be wholesome. 
 
216 TEE THEATBE8 BILL. 
 
 One leading merit of theatres is that they supply an 
 amnsement which makes the mass independent of such 
 grosser stimulants. Take this virtue from them, and it 
 is not difficult to foresee to what an ignoble level their 
 entertaimnents must fall, 
 
 ' Again, as to actors ; it can never be too often re- 
 peated, that the actor's art is one for which even great 
 natural gifts are alone quite insufficient. Voice, figure, 
 features, ought all to be fitted more or less by nature 
 for the vocation. But the art of using these is one 
 which the ablest take long to learn ; and when that art 
 is learned, unless there be both brains to g^iide and 
 heart to impel, the actor will never be other than the 
 veriest of mechanics. How then can we hope ever to 
 see, even under the most favourable conditions, more 
 than a very few good actors ? Even when the metro- 
 politan theatres were few, and the distinction of belong- 
 ing to one of them was deemed by actors an ample re- 
 ward for years of patient provincial toil, it was difficult 
 to concentrate in any one theatre so many as were 
 necessary to do justice to a fine play. Increase the 
 number of places for theatrical representation, as it is 
 now proposed to do, and what hope will remain of 
 seeing the drama revive ? We shall have theatres, of 
 course, for the love of the drama can never die out, but 
 we shall have no theatres worthy of the land of Shak- 
 speare and Sheridan, no theatres to cheer us with harm- 
 less mirth, or to lift us into ideal worlds of suffering 
 and heroism, out of the humdrum and personal pursuits 
 of our daily life. An Old Stager. 
 
DAVID GAREICK. 
 
 (Fkom the " Qltarteely Eeview," July, 1868.) 
 
 AYID GARRICK was born at the Angel 
 Inn, Hereford, on the 19tli February, 
 1716. He was French by descent. His 
 paternal grandfather, Dayid Grarric, or 
 Giarrique, a French Protestant of good family, had 
 escaped to England after the revocation of the Edict 
 of iNantes, reaching London on the 5th of October, 1685. 
 There he was joined in the following December by his 
 wife, who had taken a month to make the passage from 
 Bordeaux in a wretched bark of fonrteen tons, " with 
 strong tempests, and at great peril of being lost." Such 
 was the inveteracy of their persecutors, that, in effecting 
 their own escape, these poor people had to leave behind 
 them their only child, a boy called Peter, who was out 
 at nurse at Bastide, near Bordeaux. It was not till 
 May, 1687, that little Peter was restored to them by 
 his nurse, Mary Mougnier, who came over to London 
 with him. By this time a daughter had been bom, and 
 other sons and daughters followed ; but of a numerous 
 
218 DAVID GABBIOK. 
 
 family three alone survived — Peter, Jane, and David. 
 David settled at Lisbon as a wine merchant, and Peter 
 entered the army in 1706. His regiment was quartered 
 at Lichfield ; and some eighteen months after he received 
 his commission he married Arabella, the daughter of the 
 Rev. Mr. Clongh, Vicar Choral of the cathedral there. 
 There was no fortune on either side, but much affection. 
 The usual result followed. Ten children were bom in 
 rapid succession, of whom seven survived. Of these 
 the third was David, who made his appearance some- 
 what inopportunely, while his father, then a lieutenant 
 of dragoons, was at Hereford on recruiting service.* 
 
 Lichfield was the home of the family. There was 
 good blood on both sides of it, and they were admitted 
 into the best society of the place, and held in deserved 
 respect. David was a clever, bright boy; of quick 
 observation ; apt at mimicry, and of an engaging temper. 
 Such learning as the grammar-school of the town could 
 give he obtained ; and his training here, and at Edial 
 some years afterwards under his townsman Samnel 
 Johnson, produced more of the fruits of a liberal educa- 
 tion than commonly results even from schooling of a 
 more elaborate and costly kind. The occasional visits 
 of a strolUng troop of players gave the future Roscius 
 his first taste of the fascinations of the drama. To see 
 was to resolve to emulate, and before he was eleven 
 
 ' The same city claims the doubtful honour of having given birth, 
 sixty-six years before (2nd Feb. ] 650), to another histrionic cele- 
 brity — Nell Gwyn. One of her grandsons was a Bishop of Here- 
 ford. 
 
BAYIB GABBIOE. 219 
 
 years old lie disting^nislied himself in the part of Serjeant 
 Kite, in a performance of Farquhar's " Recruiting 
 OflBcer," organized for the amusement of their friends 
 by his companions and himself. 
 
 Meanwhile the cares of a numerous family were 
 growing upon his parents. To meet its expenses, his 
 father exchanged &om the dragoons into a marching 
 regiment, and went upon half-pay, Peter, the eldest 
 boy, had gone into the navy ; and upon the invitation 
 of the uncle, whose name he bore, young David, then 
 only eleven, was sent to Lisbon, apparently with the 
 expectation that a provision for life would be made for 
 him in his uncle's business. But either his uncle had 
 no such intention, or the boy found the occupation 
 distasteful, for his stay in Portugal did not extend over 
 many months. Short as it was, he succeeded in making 
 himself popular there by his vivacity and talents. After 
 dinner he would be set upon the table to recite to the 
 guests passages from the plays they were familiar with 
 at home. A very pleasant inmate he must have been 
 in the house of his well-to-do bachelor uncle. No doubt 
 he was sent home with something handsome in his 
 pocket; and when a few years afterwards the uncle 
 came back to England to die, he left his nephew £1,000, 
 twice as much as he gave to any others of the family. 
 
 Garriok's father, who had for some years been making 
 an ineffectual struggle to keep his head above water 
 upon his half-pay, found he could do so no longer, and 
 in 1731 he joined his regiment, which had been sent out 
 to garrison Gibraltar, leaving behind him his wife, 
 broken in health, to face single-handed the debts and 
 
220 vAviD gabbigk: 
 
 duns, the worries and anxieties of a large family. In 
 her son David she found the best support ; his heart and 
 head were ever at work to soften her trials, and his gfay 
 spirit doubtless brightened with many a smile the sad 
 wistfulness of her anxious face. The fare in her home 
 was meagre, and the dresses of its inmates scanty and 
 well worn; still there were loving hearts in it which 
 were drawn closer together by their very privations. 
 But the poor lady's heart was away with the father. 
 
 " I must tell my dear life and soul," she writes to him in a letter 
 which reads like a bit of Thackeray or Sterne, " that I am not able 
 to live any longer without him ; for I grow very jealous. But in the 
 midst of all this I do not blame my dear, I have very sad dreams 
 for you .... but I have the pleasure when I am up, to think, were 
 I with you, how tender .... my dear would be to me ; nay was, 
 when I was with you last. O ! that I had you in my arms.' I would 
 tell my dear life how much I am his. — A. G." 
 
 Her husband had then been only two years gone. Three 
 more weary years were to pass before she was to see 
 him again ; this was in 1736, and he returned, shattered 
 in health and spirits, to die within little more than a 
 year. One year more, and she, too, the sad faithful 
 mother, whose " dear life " was restored to her arms 
 only to be taken from them by a sterner parting, was 
 herself at rest. 
 
 During his father's absence Grarrick had not been idle. 
 His busy braia and restless fancy had been laying up 
 stores of observation for future use. He was a general 
 favourite in the Lichfield circle — ^amusing the old, and 
 heading the sports of the young — winning the hearts 
 of all. Gilbert Walmsley, Registrar of the Ecclesi- 
 astical Court, a good and wise friend, who had known 
 
DAVID GAEBIGK. 221 
 
 and loved him from childhood, took him under Ms 
 special care. On his suggestion, possibly by his help, 
 David and his brother George were sent as pupils to 
 Johnson's academy at Edial, to complete their studies 
 in Latin and French. Grarrick and Johnson had been 
 friends before, and there was indeed but seven years' 
 difference in their ages. Bat Johnson even then im- 
 pressed his pupU. with a sense of superiority, which 
 never afterwards left him; while Grarrick established 
 an equally lasting hold upon the somewhat capricious 
 heart of his ungainly master. !From time to time he 
 was taken by friends to London, where, in the theatres 
 that were to be the scenes of his future triumphs, he 
 had opportunities of studying some of the leading per- 
 formers, whom he was afterwards to eclipse. Even in 
 these early days the dream of coping with these favour- 
 ites of the town had taken possession of him ; but he 
 kept it to himself, well knowing the shock he would 
 have inflicted on the kind hearts at home, had he 
 suggested to them the possibility of such a career for 
 himself. 
 
 By the time his father returned from Gibraltar Gar- 
 rick was nineteen. A profession must be chosen, and 
 the law appears to have been thought the fittest for a 
 youth of so much readiness and address, and with an 
 obviously unusual faculty of speech. Some further pre- 
 liminary studies were, however, indispensable. He could 
 not afford to go to either university, and in this strait his 
 friend Walmsley bethought him of a " dear old friend " 
 at Eochester, the Eev. Mr. Oolson, afterward Lucasian 
 Professor at Cambridge, a man of eminence in science, 
 
222 DAVID GABBIGK. 
 
 as a person most likely to give yoimg Garrick the ia- 
 
 stmction in "mathematics, philosophy, and hnmane 
 
 learning " which was deemed requisite to complete his 
 
 education. To him, therefore, a letter was despatched, 
 
 asking him to undertake the charge, from which we get 
 
 an authentic and agreeable picture of the young fellow's 
 
 character : 
 
 " He is a very sensible fellow, and a, good scholar, nineteen, of 
 sober and good dispositions, and is es ingenious and promising a 
 young man as ever I knew in my life. Few instructions on your 
 side will do, and in the intervals of study he will be an agreeable 
 companion for you. This young gentleman has been much with me, 
 ever since he was a child, and I have taken much pleasure in in- 
 ' structing him, and have a great affection and esteem for him. " 
 
 Mr. Colson accepted the proposal ; but by the time 
 the terms had been arranged, another young native of 
 Lichfield, in whom Walmsley felt no slight interest, had 
 determined to move southward to try his fortunes, and 
 was also to be brought under Mr. Colson's notice. This 
 was Samuel Johnson, whose Edial Academy had by this 
 time been starved out, but for whom London, the last 
 hope of ambitious scholars, was still open. He had 
 written his tragedy of " Irene," and it had found pro- 
 vincial admirers, Walmsley among the number, who 
 thought a tragedy in verse the open sescmie to fame and 
 fortune. For London, therefore, Johnson and Grarrick 
 started together — Johnson, as he used afterwards to say, 
 with two-pence-halQ)enny in his pocket, and Glarrick 
 with three halfpence in his ; a mocking exaggeration 
 not very wide, however, of the truth, Walmsley an- 
 nounced their departure to Mr. Colson on the 2nd 
 March, 1737, in the often quoted words: — 
 
DAVID OABBIOK. 223 
 
 " He (Garridj:) and another neighbour of mine, one Mr. Johnson,' 
 set out this morning for Iiondon together ; Davy Garrick to be with 
 you early next week ; and Mr. Johnson to try his fiite with a tra- 
 gedy, and to see to get himself employed with some translation, 
 either from the Latin or the !EVench. Johnson is a very good scholar 
 and poet, and I have great hopes will turn out a fine tragedy writer," 
 
 For some reason not now known Garrick did not go 
 to Mr. Golson in a week. On reaching town, lie lost no 
 time in getting himself admitted to the Honourable 
 Society of Lincoln's Inn (19th March, 1737), by pay- 
 ment of the admission fee of £3 3s. Asd., the only act of 
 membership which he appears ever to have performed. 
 He stayed in London with Johnson for some time, and 
 their finances fell so low that they had to borrow £6 on 
 their joint note from one Wilcox, a bookseller and ac- 
 quaintance of Grarrick's, who afterwards proved one of 
 Johnson's best friends. Most probably Giarrick's plans 
 of study under Mr, Colson were disconcerted by the 
 illness of his father, who died within a month after Gar- 
 rick had started from Lichfield. 27or was it until the 
 death soon afterwards of the Lisbon uncle, and the 
 opening to Garrick of his £1,000 legacy, that he found 
 himself in a condition to incur that expense. 
 
 Late in 1737 he went to Rochester, and remained 
 
 ' In 1769, when Garrick was one of the most notable men in 
 England, the letters of Walmsley to Colson were published by Mrs, 
 Kewling, Colson's daughter. She sent the originals at the same 
 time to Garrick's friend, Mr. Sharp, to be forwarded to the great 
 actor. In the very charming letter to Garrick which accompanied 
 them, Mr. Sharp says, "If I had called, as I sometimes do, oi| 
 Dr. Johnson, and showed him one of them where he is mentioned 
 as one Johnson, I should have risked perhaps the sneer of one of his 
 ghastly smiles," — (^Oarrieh Correspondence, vol, 1, p. 334.) 
 
224 DAVID GABBIGK. 
 
 with Mr. Colson for some montlis, but with what advan- 
 tage can be only matter of conjecture. Colson, like the 
 Est. Josiah Cargill, as described by Meg Dods, was 
 "just dung donnart wi' learning," — ^a man too much 
 absorbed in abstruse scientific studies to be the fittest 
 of tutors for a youth of the mercurial temperament and 
 social habits of Garrick. But there was so much of 
 honest ambition and natural goodness of disposition in 
 his pupil, that it may safely be assumed he did not fail 
 to profit by the learning of the man, of whose peculi- 
 arities he must have been quite aware before he placed 
 himself under his charge.. Whatever his progress in 
 the litercB hwmcmiores, Rochester was as good a field as 
 any for such a student of character and manners. He 
 certainly made himself liked in the family ; and Colson's 
 daughter, Mrs. Newling, recalling herself to Gtarrick's 
 notice twenty years afterwards, speaks of the great 
 pleasure with which she reflects "upon the happy 
 minutes his vivacity caused" during his stay with 
 them. 
 
 Early in 1738 Gfarrick returned to Lichfield. By 
 this time his brother Peter had left the navy, and re- 
 turned home. There were five brothers and sisters to 
 be provided for, so Peter and he clubbed their little for- 
 tunes, and set up in business as wine merchants in 
 Lichfield and London. David, by this time tolerably 
 familiar with the ways of town, and not unknown at 
 the coffee-houses where his wines might be in demand, 
 took charge of the London business. Vaults were 
 taken in Durham Yard, between the Strand and the 
 river, where the Adelphi Terrace now stands ; and here 
 
HAVID GABBIOK. 22§ 
 
 Foote, in his usual vein of grotesque exaggeration, nsed 
 to say, lie had known the great actor " with three quarts 
 of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine mer- 
 chant." 
 
 Of Garrick at this period we get a vivid glimpse from 
 Macklin, an established actor, who was then Garrick's 
 inseparable friend, but was afterwards to prove a con- 
 stant thorn in his side through life, and his most malig- 
 nant detractor after death. Garrick "was then," as 
 Macklin told his own biographer Cooke, " a very 
 sprightly young man, neatly made, of an expressive 
 coxmtfenance, and most agreeable manners." Mr. 
 Cooke adds^npon the same authority — 
 
 " The stage possessed him wholly ; he could talk or think of 
 nothing but the theatre ; and as they often dined together in select 
 parties, Garrick rendered himself the idbl of the meeting by his 
 mimicry, anecdotes, &c. With other funds of information, he pos- 
 sessed a number of good travelling stories (with which his youthfiil 
 voyage to Lisbon had apparently supplied him), which he narrated, 
 Sir (added the veteran), in such a vein of pleasantry and rich 
 humour, as I have seldom seen equalled." — Cooke's Life of Maoklin, 
 p. 96. 
 
 There could be only one conclusion to such a state of 
 things. The wine business languished — ^that it was 
 not wholly ruined, and Garrick with it, shows that with 
 all his love of society he was able to exercise great pru- 
 dence and self-restraint. "Though on pleasure bent, 
 he had a frugal mind." Early habits of self-denial, 
 and the thought of the young brothers and sisters at 
 Lichfield, were enough to check everything like extra- 
 vagance, though they could not control the passioa 
 which was hourly feeding itself upon the study of plays 
 
 Q 
 
226 DAVID GABBIGE. 
 
 and intercourse -witli players, and bearing him onwards 
 to the inevitable goal. Their society, and that of the 
 wits and critics about town, were the natural element 
 for talents such as his. He could even then turn an 
 epigram or copy of verses, for which his friend Johnson 
 would secure a place in the " Gentleman's Magazine." 
 Paragraphs of dramatic criticism frequently exercised 
 his pen. He had a farce, " Lethe," accepted at Drury 
 Lane, and another, " The Lying Valet," ready for the 
 stage. Actors and managers were among his intimates. 
 He had the entree behind the scenes at the two great 
 houses, Drury Lane and Oovent Garden; and his his- 
 trionic powers were so well recognized, that one even- 
 ing, in 1740, when Woodward was too ill to go on as 
 harlequin at the little theatre at Goodman's Fields, 
 Garrick was allowed to take his place for the early 
 scenes, and got through them so well that the substitu- 
 tion was not surmised by the audience. 
 
 Nor had his been a mere lounger's delight in the 
 pleasures of the theatre. The axiom that the stage is 
 nought, which does not " hold the mirror up to nature," 
 had taken deep hold upon his mind. But from the 
 actual stage he found that nature, especially in the 
 poetical drama, had all but vanished, and in its place 
 had come a purely conventional and monotonous style 
 of declamation, with a stereotyped system of action no 
 less formal and unreal. There was a noble opening for 
 any one who should have the courage and the gifts to 
 return to nature and to truth, and Garrick felt that it 
 was " in him " to effect the desired revolution. That 
 the public were prepared to welcome a reform had been 
 
DAVID GABBIOK. 227 
 
 demonstrated by the success, in Febmary, 1741, of his 
 friend Macklin at Dmry Lane, in the part of Shylook, 
 which the public had np to that time been accnstomed 
 to see treated on the stage as a comic part.^ Reading 
 his Shakspeare by the light of his vigorous intellect, 
 Macklin saw the immense scope the character afforded 
 for the display of varied passion and emotion. Nature 
 had given him the Shylock look, and in his heart he 
 had "the inexorable hate and study of revenge," of 
 which the character is so grand an expression. In the 
 early scenes, he riveted the audience by the hard cutting 
 force of his manner and utterance. The third act came, 
 and here he says : 
 
 " ' I knew I should have the pull, and reserved myself accord- 
 ingly. At this period I threw out all my fire ; and, as the contrasted 
 passions of joy for the merchant's losses and grief for the elopement 
 of Jessica, open a fine field for an actor's powers, I had the good 
 fortune to please beyond my warmest expectations. The whole 
 house was in an uproar of applause, and I was obliged to pause 
 between the speeches, to give it vent so as to be heard.' 
 
 " ' No money, no title,' added the veteran, as he recited his 
 triumph, ' could purchase what I felt. And let no man tell me after 
 this what fame wUl not inspire a man to do, and how far the attain- 
 ment of it will not remunerate his greatest labours. By G — d, Sir, 
 though I was not worth fifty pounds in the world at this time, yet, 
 let me tell you, I was Charles the Great for that night,' " — CooMe 
 lAfe ofMaehUn, p. 93. 
 
 Macklin's powers were of an exceptional kind. He 
 wanted variety and flexibility, and those graces of per- 
 son and manner which are indispensable to a great 
 
 ' " I cannot but think the character was tragically designed," is 
 the hesitating suggestion of a Shakspearian editor, himself a poet — 
 Nathaniel Bowe. 
 
228 MAVIB GABBIGE. 
 
 aetor. His success was, therefore, only momentaiy; 
 and it was left to his yoong friend and companion to 
 complete the reform, of which his own treatment of 
 Shylock was the first indication. 
 
 Nor was that reform far distant.. The very neatt 
 summer was to decide Garriok's career. His breedings 
 were now to take actual shape. But before hazarding 
 an appearance in London he wisely resolved to test his 
 powers in the country ; and with this view he went 
 down to Ipswich with the company of Giffard, the 
 Manager of the Goodman's Fields' Theatre, and made 
 his appearance under the name of Lyddal as Aboan in 
 Southern's tragedy of " Oreeneke."* This he followed 
 up by several other characters, both tragic and comic, 
 none of them of first importance, but sufficient to give 
 him ease on the stage, and at the same time enable him 
 to ascertain wherein his strength lay. His success was 
 unquestionable, and decided him on appealing to a 
 Xiondon audience. 
 
 The quality in which Garrick then and throughout 
 his career surpassed all his contemporaries was the 
 power of kindling with the exigencies of the scene. 
 He lost himself in his part. ' It spoke through hi-m ; 
 and the greater the play it demanded of emotion aa.d 
 passion, the more diversified the expression and action 
 for which it gave scope, the more brilliantly did his 
 genius assert itself. His face answered to his feelings, 
 and its workings gave warning of his words before he 
 
 ' On 21 July, 1741, he played at the same theatre 
 Dwetete in " The Inconstant," and Caim on the 28th. 
 
DAVID GABBIOK. 229 
 
 littered them ; his voice, melodious and full of tone, 
 though far from strong, had the penetrating quality 
 hard to define, but which is never wanting either in iMe 
 gfeat orator or the great actor ; and his figure, light, 
 graceful, and well balanced, though under the average 
 size, was equal to every demand which his impulsive 
 nature made upon it. We can see all this in the por- 
 traits of him even at this early period. Only in those 
 of a later date do we get some idea of the commanding 
 power of his eyes, which not only held his audience 
 like a spell, but controlled, with a power almost 
 beyond endurance, his fellow performers in the scene. 
 But from the first the power must have been there. 
 He had noted well that all was good in the professor^ 
 of the art he was destined to revolutionize ; and he had 
 learned, even from their very defects, as only men of 
 ability do learn, in what direction true excellence was to 
 be sought for. Long afterwards he used to say that 
 his own chief successes in " Richard the Third " were 
 due to what he had learned through watching Ryan, a 
 very indifferent actor, in the same part. Richard was 
 the character he chose for his first London trial ; a 
 choice made with a wise estimate of his own powers, 
 for the display of which it was eminently fitted. At 
 this time the part was in the possession of Quin, whose 
 " manner of heaving up his words, and laboured 
 action," as described by Davies, were the best of foils 
 to the fiery energy and subtle varieties of expressiem 
 with which Qarrick was soon to make the public 
 familiar. 
 
 He was announced, by the venial fiction usual on 
 
230 DAVID GABBIOK. 
 
 such, occasions, as a " gentleman who had never appeared 
 on any stage." The house was not a great one ; still 
 the audience was nnmerous enough to make the actor 
 feel his triumph, and to spread the report of it widely. 
 They were taken by surprise at first by a style at once 
 so new and so consonant to nature. 
 
 " ' To the just modulation of the words,' says Davies, ' and con- 
 curring expressions of the features, from the genuine workings of 
 nature, they bad been strangers, at least for some time. But after 
 Mr. Gariick had gone through a rariety of scenes, in which he gave 
 evident proofs of consummate art, and perfect knowledge of cha- 
 racter, their doubts were turned into surprise and astonishment, from 
 which they relieved themselves in loud and reiterated applause." 
 
 Macklin, of course, was there, and often spoke of the 
 pleasure that night's performance gave him. 
 
 " It was amazing how, without any example, but on the contrary, 
 with great prejudices against him, he could throw such spirit and 
 novelty into the part, as to convince every impartial person, on the 
 very first impression, that he was right. In short. Sir, he at once 
 decided the public taste; and though the players formed a cabal 
 against him, with Quin at their head, it was a puff to thunder ; the 
 «ast and west end of the town made head against them ; and the 
 little fellow, in this and about half a dozen other characters, secured 
 iis own immortality." — Cooke's lAfe of Macklin, p. 99. 
 
 The "Daily Post" announced his reception next day, 
 in terms which, however little they would be worthy of 
 belief in any journal of the present day, at that time 
 were enough to arrest attention, as " the most extra- 
 ordinary and great that was ever known on such an 
 occasion" as a first appearance. Another critic in 
 " The Champion," who obviously was equal to his 
 work, a phenomenon at no time common in newspaper 
 critics of the stage, called attention to his nice proper- 
 
DAVID GABBIGK. 231 
 
 tions, his clear and penetrating voice, sweet and har- 
 monions, without monotony, drawling, or affectation ; 
 "neither whining, bellowing, or grumbling," — ^trage- 
 dians of those days must have been mai^ellously like 
 our own,—" but perfectly easy in its transitions, natural 
 in its cadence, and beautiful in its elocution." 
 
 " He is not less happy in his mien and gait, in which he is neither 
 strutting nor mincing, neither stiff nor slouching. When three or 
 four are on the stage with him he is attentive to whatever is spoke, 
 and never drops his character when he has finished a speech, by 
 either looking contemptuously on an inferior performer, unnecessary 
 spitting, or suffering his eyes to wander through the whole circle of 
 spectators. His action is never superfluous, awkward, or too fre- 
 quently repeated, but graceful, decent, and becoming." 
 
 This is invaluable, both as showing what Garrick 
 was, and what the actors of that time — ^in this also, 
 unhappily, too like the actors of our own — were not. 
 He was " terribly in earnest." He did not play with 
 his work. He had transported himself into the ideal 
 Richard, and his strong conception spoke in every flash 
 of his eyes, every change of his features, every motion 
 of his body. It is characteristic of the fervour with 
 which he threw himself into the part, that before the 
 fourth act was over he had all but run out of voice, 
 and was indebted to the seasonable relief of a Seville 
 orange from a chance loiterer behind the scenes for 
 getting articulately to the end of the play. This 
 failure of the voice often happened to him afterwards, 
 and from the same cause. It is one of the characteristics 
 of a sensitive organization, and did not arise in him 
 from any undue vehemence, but evidently from the 
 intensity which he threw into his delivery. 
 
232 DAVID GABBIGK. 
 
 A power like this was sttre of rapid recognition in 
 those dajB, when theatres formed a sort of fourth 
 estate. Garrick's first appearance was on the 19th of 
 October, 1741. He repeated the character the two 
 following nights, then changed it for "Aboan," his 
 first part of the Ipswich series. The audiences were 
 still moderate, and his salary, a guinea a night, mode- 
 rate in proportion. But fame had carried the report of 
 the new wonder from the obscure corner of the city, 
 near the Minories, in which his friend GliSard's theatre 
 was situated, to the wits and fashionable people in the 
 West-end. Richard was restored to the bills. " Goodi 
 man's Fields," says Davies, " was full of the splendours 
 of St. James's and Grosvenor Square ; the coaches of 
 the nobility filled up the space from Temple' Bar to 
 Whitechapel." What Garrick valued more than all 
 this concourse of fashionables, men of high character 
 and undoubted taste flocked to hear him ; and on the 
 2nd of November, Pope, ill and failing, who had come 
 out early in the year to see Macklin's " Shylock," 
 and had recognized its excellence, was again tempted 
 from his easy chair at Twickenham by the rumour of a 
 Worthy successor having arisen to the Betterton and 
 Booth of his early admiration^ 
 
 " ' I saw,' said Garrick, describing the eveiit long afterwards to 
 the somewhat magniloquent Fer6ival Stockdale, ' our little poetical 
 hero, dressed in black, seated in a side-bo:: near the stage, and 
 viewing me with a serious and earnest attention. His look shot and 
 thrilled like lightning through my frame, and I had some hesitation 
 in 'proceeding from anxiety and from joy. As Bichard gradually 
 blazed forth, the house was in a roar of applause, and the conspiring 
 hand of Pope showered me with laurels." — StocMMs Memoirs, vol. 
 ii. p. 152. 
 
DAVID GABBIGK. 233 
 
 Pope returned to see him twice; and his verdict, 
 which reached Garrick through Lord Orrery, shows 
 how deeply he was impressed by Garrick's fresh and 
 forcible style, and the genuine inspiration which ani- 
 mated his performance. " That young man never had 
 his equal as an actor, and he will never have a rival." 
 Pope dreaded that success would spoil him ; but 
 Garrick's genius was not of the ungenuine kind, which 
 is spoiled by success. He knew only too well how far 
 his best achievements fell short of what his imagina- 
 tion conceived. Others might think his delineations 
 could not be improved. Not so he ; for act as long as 
 he might, there was no great part, in Shakspeare 
 especially, which would not constantly present new 
 details to elaborate, or suggest shades of significance 
 or contrast which had previously escaped him. 
 
 The praise of old Mrs. Porter, herself the greatest 
 tragedian of her time, who had come up to town to see 
 him from her retirement in the coxmtry, must have 
 spoken more eloquently to him than even Pope's broad 
 eulogium, and in it, too, there was the prophecy of the 
 " All hail, hereafter." " He is bom an actor, and does 
 more at his first appearance than ever anybody did 
 with twenty years' practice ; and, good God, what wiU 
 he be in time!"* The Duke of Argyle and Lord 
 Cobham, great authorities in stage matters, pronounced 
 >iiTTi superior to Betterton. The very conflicts of 
 
 * This speech was conveyed to Garrick in a letter, 26th April, 
 1742, from his friend the Eev. T. Newton. — Garrick Correspondmoe, 
 vol. i. p. 8. 
 
234 DAVID GABBIGK. 
 
 opinion to which such high commendations gave rise 
 were the best of fame for the young artist. They 
 drew crowds to the theatre ; and even before the end of 
 1741, it was often far too small to accommodate the 
 nnmbers that flocked for admittance. The hnmble 
 salary of a guinea a night was clearly no adequate 
 return for sach merits. Giffard offered him a share in 
 the management upon equal terms ; and within the 
 next few months the foundation of the actor's ultimate 
 great fortune was laid. 
 
 Such success could not fail to provoke the jealousy 
 of those performers who had hitherto occupied the 
 foremost ranks. It was a virtual condemnation of all 
 they had trained themselves to think true acting. " If 
 this young fellow is right, then we have aU been 
 wrong," said one, as if in that statement were included 
 a final verdict against him. " This," remarked the 
 sententious Quin, " is the wonder of a day ; Garrick is 
 a new religion; the people follow him as another 
 Whitefleld ; but they will soon return to church again." ^ 
 Return, however, they did not. A new era had begun ; 
 and Garrick, whose ready pen did not always do him 
 such good service, was able to retort the sarcasm in a 
 smart epigram, of which these two lines have kept 
 their place in literature : 
 
 " When doctrines meet with general approbation, 
 It is not heresy but Heformation." 
 
 ' Quin and Garrick became excellent friends. Leaving a coffee- 
 house one night together, only one sedan chair was to be had. " Put 
 Davie in the lantern," said Quin, stepping into it. " Happy to give 
 Mr. Quin light in anything," was Garrick's rejoinder. 
 
DAVID GABBIOK. 235 
 
 When dukes by the dozen, great Parliament men, 
 Mr. Pitt and others, and even Cabinet Ministers, were 
 to be seen in the front boxes applsniding, and were known 
 to court the young actor's acquaintance, the adverse 
 whispers of the few, who are always too wise to believe 
 in what all the rest of mankind believe in, were of small 
 account. Gray might pooh-pooh the new genius, and 
 Walpole insinuate that he " saw nothing wonderful in 
 him " — when did he ever recognize anything truly great ? 
 — but they felt themselves to be the heretics, and power- 
 less against the overwhelming tide of popularity which 
 had set in. Even CoUey Gibber, whose adaptation of 
 " Richard the Third " was Garrick's assay piece, and 
 whose preconceived notions of the character must have 
 received a rude shock from the new soul put into it by 
 the young actor, was reluctantly driven to admit to 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle, " Gadso, Bracey, the little fellow is 
 clever." The praise of so good a critic and so experi- 
 enced an actor were indeed valuable, and in recounting 
 his successes to his brother Peter, Garrick writes with 
 obvious pride (22nd December, 1741), " Old Gibber has 
 spoken with the greatest commendation of my acting." 
 
 While people were still in admiration at the tragic 
 force of his Richard, he surprised them by the display 
 of comic powers, scarcely less remarkable, in Olodio in 
 the " Fop's Fortune," Fondlewife in Oongreve's " Old 
 Bachelor," and other characters ; thus early demonstra- 
 ting his own doctrine that " there must be comedy in 
 the perfect actor of tragedy," of which he was after- 
 wards to furnish so brilliant an example. His lively 
 farce of " The Lying Valet " (produced in December, 
 
236 DAVID GABBIOK. 
 
 1741), establislied his reputation as a ■writer, at the same 
 time that it gave him in Sharp a field for the airy viva- 
 city, the ever-bnbbling gaiety of tone, the talent of 
 making witty things donbly witty by the way of saying 
 them, for which he was afterwards so famous. Some 
 of his friends (his townsman Newton, the future Bishop, 
 then tutor to Lord Carpenter's son, among the number) 
 thought his appearance in such parts a mistake. " Ton, 
 who are equal to the greatest parts, strangely demean 
 yourself in acting anything that is low or little," he 
 wrote, 18th January, 1742. " There are abundance of 
 people who hit off low humour and succeed in the cox- 
 comb and the buffoon very well ; but there is scarce one 
 in an age who is capable of acting the hero in tragedy 
 and the fine gentleman in comedy. Though you per- 
 form these parts never so well, yet there is not half the 
 merit in excelling in them as in others." Sound enough 
 advice in the main and to actors of limited scope, and 
 most politic as a warning, by which Garrick profited, 
 not to let himself down by playing merely farce parts* 
 But there is no good reason why an actor of the requisite 
 genius should not play Touchstone as well as Othello, 
 Sir Toby Belch as well as Coriolanus, with no more loss 
 of caste than Shakspeare for having written them. But 
 then there must be the requisite genius to justify the 
 attempt. This Garrick had, as was soon afterwards 
 proved, when he passed from King Lear to Abel Drugger, 
 in " The Alchemist," from Hamlet to Bayes in " The 
 Rehearsal," and left his severest critics in doubt in which 
 he was most to be admired. 
 
 Indeed it was just this wide range of power, this 
 
VAVID GABEICK. 237 
 
 Shaksperian mBltifopmity of conception, wMch was the 
 secret of Garrick's greatness, and, after Ms death, made 
 even the cynical Walpole confess that he was " the 
 greatest actor that ever lived, both in comedy and 
 tragedy." Newton himself was struck by this a few 
 months later. He had just seen Garrick's Lear, and 
 after giving him the opinion of certain friends that he 
 far exceeded Booth in that character, and even equalled 
 Betterton, he goes on to say : — 
 
 " The thing that stFikes me above all others is that variety in 
 your acting, and your being so totally a different man in Lear from 
 what you are in Bichard. There is a sameness in every other actor. 
 Gibber is something of a coxcomb in everything ; and Wolsey, 
 Syphax, and lago, all smell strong of the essence of Lord Fopping- 
 ton. Booth was a philosopher in Cato, and was a philosopher in 
 everything else ! His passion in Hotspur I hear was much of the 
 same nature, whereas yours was an old man's passion, and an old 
 man's voice and action ; and, in the four parts wherein I have seen 
 you, Richard, Chamont, Bayes, and Lear, I never saw four actors 
 more different from one another, than you are from yourself."^- 
 GarricJc Correa^pondeaee, vol. i. p. 7. 
 
 His Lear, like his Richard, seems from the first to 
 have been superb. Cooke, indeed, in his " Memoir of 
 Macklin," says the first and second performances of the 
 part disappointed that severe critic. It did not suffici- 
 ently indicate the infirmities of the man " fourscore and 
 upwards " — ^the curse did not break down, as it should 
 have done, in the impotence of senile rage — there was a 
 lack of dignity in the prison scene, and so forth. Garrick 
 took notes of Macklin's criticisms on all these points, 
 withdrew the play for sis weeks, and restudied the char- 
 acter in the interval. Of the result of his next appear- 
 ance Macklin always spoke with rapture. The curse in 
 
238 DAVID GABBIGK. 
 
 particTilar exceeded all he could have imagined; it 
 seemed to electrify the audience with horror. The 
 words " kill — ^kill — kill," echoed aU the revenge of a 
 frantic king, " whilst his pathos on discovering his 
 daughter Cordelia drew tears of commiseration from the 
 whole house. In short, sir, the little dog made it a 
 ehef-d'cen/ore, and a chef-d'cewvre it continued to the end 
 of Hs life." 
 
 While the town was ringing with his triumphs, and 
 his brain was still on fire with the fulfilment of his 
 cherished dreams, Garrick did not forget his sober 
 partner in business nor the other good folks at Lichfield, 
 to whose genteel notions his becoming a stage player, 
 he knew, would be a terrible shock. The Ipswich per- 
 formances had escaped their notice ; and brother Peter, 
 when in town soon afterwards, found him out of health 
 and spirits. It was the miserable interim "between 
 the acting of a dreadfal thing and the first motion" of 
 it. Garrick, though he had quite made up his mind to 
 go on the stage, was afraid to break the news to his 
 family. But he did so the day after his deb^t at Good- 
 man's Fields, whUe the plaudits of his audience were 
 yet sounding in his ears, in a letter to his brother and 
 partner, deprecating his censure with an unassuming 
 earnestness which speaks volumes for the modesty of 
 the artist, and the simple and loving nature of the 
 man: — 
 
 " ' My mind,' he writes, ' (as you must know) has been always 
 inclined to the stage, nay, so strongly so that all my illness and 
 lowness of spirits was owing to my want of resolution to tell you my 
 thoughts when here. Finding at last both my inclination and in- 
 terest required some new way of life, I have chose the most agreeable 
 
DAVID GABBIOK. 239 
 
 to myself, and though I know you will be much displeased at me, 
 yet I hope when you shall find that I may have the genius of an 
 actor, without the vices, you will think the less severely of me, and 
 not be ashamed to own me for a brother. .... Last night I play'd 
 Richard the Third to the surprise of everybody, and as I shall make 
 very near £300 per annum by it, and as it is really what I doat 
 upon, I am resolved to pursue it." 
 
 The wine business at Durham Yard, he explained, had 
 not prospered — £400 of Gfarrick's small capital had been 
 lost — and he saw no prospect of retrieving it. He was 
 prepared to make every reasonable arrangement with 
 his brother abont their partnership, and in his new 
 career better fortune awaited him, of which his family 
 should share the fruits. But the news spread dismay 
 in the old home at Lichfield ; their respectability was 
 compromised by one of their blood becoming " a harlotry 
 player," and getting mixed up with the loose morals and 
 shifty ways of the theatrical fraternity. 
 
 Before Peter's reply reached him, Garrick must have 
 known that his fame was secure. But the tone of his 
 rejoinder is still modest, though firm. Writing again 
 on the 27th, he assures his brother that even his friends, 
 " who were at first surprised at my intent, by seeing me 
 on the stage, are now well convinced it was impossible 
 to keep me ofi"." As to company, "the best in town " 
 were desirous of his, and he had received more civilities 
 since he came on the stage than he ever did in all his 
 life before. Leonidas Glover has been to see him every 
 night and goes about saying he had not seen acting for 
 ten years before. 
 
 " In short, were I to tell you what they say about me, 'twould be 
 too vain, though I am now writing to a brother I am sorry 
 
24Q DAY IB GABBIOK. 
 
 my sisters are under such uneasiness, and, as I reajjjy love both then^ 
 an,d you, will ever make it my study to appear your affectionate 
 brother, D. Garrick." 
 
 A less modest or more selfish man would have thrown 
 off with some impatience the weak scrnples of his 
 family about loss of caste. How could he be doing 
 wrong in following the irresistible bent of a genius for 
 what he knew to be one of the most difficult as weU as 
 noblest of the arts, however it might have been disore-! 
 dited by the foUy or vice of some of its followers, or 
 disparaged as an " idle trade " in the opinion of the un-t 
 reflecting ? But Garrick's heart and no less excellent 
 temper determined him to pursue a conciliatory course^ 
 He reminded his brother, therefore, " how handsomely 
 and how reputably some have lived, as Booth, Mills, 
 "WUks, Gibber, &o., admitted into and admired by the 
 best companies." He told him (10th November, 1741), 
 that " Mr. Pitt, who is reckoned the greatest orator in 
 the House of Commons, said I was the best actor the 
 English stage had produced, and he sent a gentleman to 
 let me know he and the other gentleman would be glad 
 to see me. The Prince has heard so great a character 
 of me, that we are in daily expectation of his coming 
 to see me." 
 
 This sort of thing was calculated to impress the 
 rather duU brain of Peter and the timid souls of the 
 sisters, which would have been impervious to any appeal 
 on the score of the intrinsic nobility of the actor's art. 
 Garrick could feel within himself, and might have told 
 them, that he had his vocation as clearly as ever poet or 
 painter had his, and that it no more rested with himself 
 
DAVID GABBIGK. 241 
 
 what "he should do or what refuse," than with a Milton 
 to write, or with a Raphael to design. But to have 
 written to the good people at Lichfield of these things 
 would have been to talk to stone walls. He therefore 
 keeps steadily before their eyes the numbers of great 
 folks who are pressing for his acquaintance — " the great 
 Mr. Murray, counsellor," Pope, Mr. Littleton, the 
 Prince's favourite, with all of whom he has supped, and 
 who have all treated him " with the highest civility and 
 •complaisance." He has dined with Lords Halifax, 
 Sandwich, and Chesterfield. " In short, I believe no- 
 body (as an actor) was ever more caressed, and my 
 character as a private man makes 'em more desirous of 
 my company."^ 
 
 When they found their brother making his way in 
 the highest quarters, and becoming well to do at the 
 same time, the views of his family underwent a change. 
 It was not, however, till the 2nd of December, 1741, 
 that Garrick threw off the mask and performed under 
 his own name. By this time even they must have 
 laegan to doubt whether honour was not more likely to 
 accrue to them than discredit from the step which he 
 had taken. But it must have been no small pain to him 
 to have the vulgar estimate of his profession thrown so 
 remorselessly in his teeth by his own kindred; and 
 that even in the first excitement of his success he had 
 misgivings as to what would be his social position, and 
 had eiEpressed them to his friend Newton, may be 
 
 ' For the details of this part of Garrick's correspondence, see 
 book iii. cap. ii. of " Goldsmith's Life " by Mr. Forster. 
 
 E 
 
242 DAVID GAEBIGK. 
 
 inferred from a letter of that wise and liberal-minded 
 man: — 
 
 " You need make no apology," he writes to Garrick, December 
 7, 1741 , " for your profession, at least to me. I always thought that 
 you were bom an actor, if ever any man was so ; and it will be your 
 own indiscretion (and I hope and believe you will hardly be guilty 
 of such indiscretion), if coming upon the stage hurts your reputation, 
 and does not make your fortune. As great talents are required for 
 acting weU, as for almost anything ; and an excellent actor, if at the 
 same time he is an honest worthy man, is a fit companion for any- 
 body. You know Eoscius was familiar with Cicero, and the greatest 
 men of his time ; and Betterton used frequently to visit Bishops Sprat 
 and Atterbury, and other divines, as well as the best of the nobility 
 and gentry, not as a mimic and buffoon, to make diversion for the 
 company, but as an agreeable friend and companion." 
 
 This was encouragement of a very commonplace kind 
 to a man who respected his art and himself. But still 
 it was encouragement, and encouragement not to be 
 despised. I"or it was not alone the many-headed vnlgar 
 who thought themselves entitled to look with a kind of 
 scorn upon a player, but the so-called men of letters, 
 with Johnson at their head, who above all others should 
 have been superior to such prejudice, lost no opportunity 
 of letting Garrick feel that they regarded the actor as 
 of an inferior order to themselves. It was only men of 
 the highest gifts, Kke Burke, Warburton, Camden, or 
 Reynolds, or of the highest social position, like the 
 Dukes of Devonshire or Portland, or the Spencers, who 
 never wounded his self-respect by airs of superiority or 
 condescension. 
 
 Garrick paid the actor's accustomed penalty for suc- 
 cess by being overworked. Between his first appear- 
 ance in October, 1741, and the following May, when the 
 
DAVID GABBIOK. 243 
 
 Goodman's Fields Theatre closed, he played no less 
 than one hundred and thirty-eight times, and for the 
 most part in characters of the greatest weight and im.- 
 portance in both tragedy and comedy. Among the 
 former were Eichard, Lear, Pierre ; among the latter, 
 Lord Poppington, in Gibber's " Careless Husband," 
 Fondlewife, and Bayes. The range of character and 
 passion which these parts covered was immense. To 
 have played them at all, new as he was to the stage, 
 was no common feat of industry, but only genius of 
 the most remarkable kind could have carried him through 
 them, not only without injury but with positive increase 
 to the high reputation his first performances had created. 
 
 In Bayes he was nearly as popular as in Richard and 
 Lear ; and he made the part subservient to his purpose 
 of exposing the false and unnatural style into which 
 actors had fallen, by making Bayes speak his turgid 
 heroics in imitation of some of the leading performers. 
 But when he found how the men whose faults he 
 burlesqued — good, worthy men in their way — were 
 made wretched by seeing themselves and what they 
 did in all seriousness held up to derision, his naturally 
 kind heart and good taste made him drop these imita- 
 tions. Gtarrick's true vocation was to teach his brethren 
 a purer style by his own example, not to dishearten 
 them by ridicule. Mimicry, besides, as he well knew, 
 is the lowest form of the actor's art, and no mere mimic 
 can be a great actor, for sincerity, not simulation, is at 
 the root of all greatness on the stage. 
 
 The success of Garrick at Goodman's Fields emptied 
 the patent houses at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, 
 
244 DAVID 6ABBI0K. 
 
 and the patentees had recotirse to the law to compel 
 Giffard to close his theatre. Garriok was secnred for 
 the next season at Dmry Lane. But as that house did 
 not open till September, and the people of Dublin were 
 impatient to see him, he started off for that city early 
 in JtHie, and remained there playing a round of his 
 leading parts till the middle of August. An epidemic 
 which raged during the greater part of this time, caused 
 by distress among the poor and by the great heat, got 
 the name of the Garrick Fever. But the epidemic 
 which he really caused was not among the poor, but 
 among the wits and fine ladies of that then fashionable 
 and lively city, who were not likely to be behind his 
 English admirers in enthusiasm. He was berhymed 
 and feted on all hands, and from them he got the title 
 of Roscius, which to this hour is coupled with his name. 
 During this engagement he added Hamlet to his list 
 of characters. Like his B<ichard and his Lear it was 
 treated in a manner quite his own, and like them it 
 was from the first a success, but was, of course, much 
 elaborated and modified in future years. 
 
 At Dmry Lane Gurrick found himself associated with 
 his old friend Macklin, who was deputy manager, and 
 with that " dallying and dangerous beauty " Peg Wof- 
 fington, under whose spell he appears to have fallen as 
 early as 1740. As an actress Woffington was admirable 
 for the life, the nature, and the grace which she threw 
 into all she did, set off by a fine person and a face which, 
 as her portraits show, though habitually pensive in its 
 expression, was capable of kindling into passion, or 
 beaming with the sudden and fitful lights of feeling and 
 
DAVID GABBIOE. 24& 
 
 fonjCy. She had been literally picked out of the streete 
 of Dublin as a child crying "halfpenny salads," i and 
 trained by a rope-dancer, Madame Violante, as one of 
 a Lilliputian company, in which she figured in such 
 parts as Captain Macheath. Like B>achel and many 
 other celebrated women, she contrived, it is hard to say 
 how, to educate herself, so that she could hold her own 
 in conversation in any society ; and such was her natural 
 grace, that she excelled in characters like MUlamant 
 and Lady Townley, in which the well-bred air of good 
 society was essential, Frank, kindly and impulsive, 
 she had also wit at will, to give piquancy to the ex- 
 pressions of a very independent turn of mind. She 
 never scrupled to avow that she preferred the company 
 of men to that of women, who " talked," she said, " of 
 nothing but silks and scandal." The men returned 
 the compliment by being very fond of her company. 
 " Forgive her one female error," says Murphy, " and 
 it might fairly be said of her that she was adorned with 
 every virtue," — a truly modest plea, when it is con- 
 sidered that Peg was not more chaste, and certainly 
 not less mercenary, than Horace's Barine, to whom 
 indeed she was Ukened in some pointed but very heart- 
 less verses by one of her many lovers. Sir Hanbury 
 WUliams. " By Jove," she exclaimed, as she ran into 
 
 < " I have met with more than one in Dublin who assured me that 
 they remember to have seen the lovely Peggy vrith a little dish on 
 her head, and without shoes to cover her delicate feet, crying through 
 College Green, X)ame Street, and other parts of that end of the 
 town, ' All this fine young salad for a halfpenny — all for a halfpenny 
 — all for a halfpenny, here ! ' " — Memoirs of Charles Lee Lewis, vol. ij. 
 p. 16. 
 
246 DAVID GABBIOK. 
 
 the green-room one night from the stage, when she had 
 left the house cheering her exit as Sir Harry WUdair, 
 "they are in such delight, I believe one half of them 
 fancy I am a man." " Madam," rejoined Quin, " the 
 other half, then, has the best reason for knowing to the 
 contrary." 
 
 But when Garrick first feU under her fascination, 
 these frailties had not been developed. She was then 
 in the bloom of her beauty, — and how charming that 
 was we can see from Hogarth's exquisite portrait (in 
 the Marquis of Lansdowne's Collection), — and though 
 suitors of wealth and rank surrounded her, genius and 
 youth had probably more charms for her than gold and 
 fine living. Garrick was deeply smitten by her, and 
 he seems for a time to have thought her worthy of an 
 honourable love. For one season he kept house together 
 with her and MackUn, and they were visited by his 
 friends, Johnson and Dr. Hoadley among the number. It 
 was thought he would marry her ; but Peg's aberrations 
 — her " one female error '' — grew too serious. She was 
 in truth an incurable coquette. It was the old story 
 of Lesbia and Catullus. Garrick's heart was touched, 
 hers was not. It cost him a good many struggles to 
 break his chains, but he broke them at last, and left her 
 finally ia 1745 to the rakes and fools who were out- 
 bidding each other for her favours. 
 
 He was worthy of a better mate, and he was to find 
 one before very long ; for in March of the following year 
 (1746) the lady came to England who was to replace 
 his feverish passion for the wayward WoflSng^on, by a 
 devotion which grew stronger and deeper with every 
 
DAVID GABBIOK. 247 
 
 year of his life. TMs was the fair Eva Maria Veigel, 
 which latter name she had changed for its French 
 equivalent, Violette. She was then twenty-one, a 
 dancer, and had come from Vienna with recommen- 
 dations from the Empress Theresa, who was said to 
 have found her too beautiful to be allowed to remain 
 within reach of the Emperor Francis. Jupiter Carlyle, 
 returning &om his studies at Leyden, found himself in 
 the same packet with her, crossing from Helvoet to 
 Harwich. She was disguised in male attire, and this 
 although travelling under the protection of a person 
 who called himself her father, and two other foreigners. 
 Carlyle took the seeming youth for " a Hanoverian 
 baron coming to Britain to pay his court at St. James's." 
 But the lady becoming alarmed by a storm during the 
 passage, her voice, no less than her fears, at once be- 
 trayed her to Carlyle. This led to an avowal of her 
 profession, and of the object of her journey, and the 
 young handsome Scotchman took care not to leave 
 London without seeing his fair fellow-traveller on the 
 Opera stage, where he found her dancing to be 
 " exquisite." ' 
 
 Such was the general verdict. The dancing of those 
 days was not a thing in which every womanly feeling, 
 every refined grace, was violated. It aspired to delight 
 
 ' " Autobiography of Carlyle," pp. 183 and 127. Twelve years 
 afterwards Dr. Carlyle dined with the lady and her husband at their 
 villa at Hampton Court. " She did not seem at all to recognize me," 
 he says, " which was no wonder at the end of twelve years, having 
 thrown away my bag-wig and sword, and appearing in my own 
 grisly hairs, and in parson's clothes.'' 
 
248 JDAVID GABBIGK. 
 
 by the poetry of motion, not to amaze by complexities 
 of distortioiij or startling marvels of muscular force. 
 Beautiful, modest, aecomplislied, the Violette not only 
 charmed on the stage, but soon found her way into 
 fashionable society. So early as June, 1746, Horace 
 Walpole writes to his friend Montague : — " The fame 
 of the Violette increases daily. The sister Countesses 
 of Burlington and Talbot exert all their stores of sullen 
 partiality and competition for her." The Countess of 
 Burlington took her to live with her, and was in the 
 habit of attending her to the theatre, and waiting at 
 the side-wings to throw a shawl over her as she left the 
 stage. 
 
 These attentions, due solely to the charm of the young 
 lady, and the enthusiasm of her patroness, were quite 
 enough to set in motion the tongues of the Mrs. Can- 
 dours and Sir Benjamin Backbites of society. The 
 Violette, they began to whisper, was a daughter of Lord 
 Burlington, by a Florentine of rank ; and when, upon 
 her marriage with Garrick in 1749, she received a hand- 
 some marriage portion from the Countess, this was con- 
 sidered conclusive evidence of the scandal. It was not, 
 however, from the Earl, but from the Countess that the 
 dowry came. It consisted of a sum of £5,bbO, secured 
 on one of her ladyship's Lincolnshire estates ; Garrick 
 on his part settling £10,000 on his bride, with £70 
 a year of pin-money.' It is quite possible that the 
 
 ' The evidence of this is before us in a copy of the Marriage 
 Articles, to which the Countess is a party. They are dated 20th 
 June, 1747, two days before the marriage, and disprove all that is 
 said on the subject both by Mr. Boaden and by Garrick's last biogra- 
 grapher, Mr. Fitzgerald. 
 
DAVID OABBIOK. 249 
 
 security for £5,000, granted by the Countess, was 
 simply an equivalent for some suoh sum previously 
 handed over to her by the young lady. But the parties 
 kept their own counsel ia their arrangements, and so 
 left the busy-bodies at fault. " The chapter of this his- 
 tory is a little obscure and uncertain as to the protect- 
 ing Countess, and whether she .gives her a fortune or 
 not," Horace Walpole wrote out to a friend in Florence 
 a few days after the marriage, and speculation has since 
 gone on mystifying what was in itself a very simple 
 affair. 
 
 The Countess, it is said, looked higher for her young 
 friend than the great player, as a Countess with so cele- 
 brated a beauty in hand was likely to do ; and it was 
 not without difficulty that Garrick won what proved to 
 be the great prize of his life. He had on one occasion 
 to disguise himself as a woman, in order to convey a 
 letter to his mistress. But the fact of her receiving it 
 bespeaks the foregone conclusion that he had won her 
 heart ; and, that fact once ascertained, the Countess was 
 probably too wise to oppose further resistance. How 
 attractive in person the young dancer was her portraits 
 survive to tell us. What her lover thought of her ap- 
 .pears from some verses which he wrote in the first 
 happiness of what we cannot call his honeymoon, for 
 their whole married life was one honeymoon — 
 
 " 'Tis not, my firiend, her speaking face, 
 Her shape, her youth, her winning grace, 
 Have reached my heart j the fair one's mind, 
 Quick as her eyes, yet soft and kind — 
 A gaiety with innocence, 
 A soft address, with manly sense ; 
 
260 DAVID GABBIOE. 
 
 SaTishing manners, void of art, 
 A cheerful, firm, yet feeling heart, 
 Beauty that charms aU public gaze, 
 And humble, amid pomp and praise." 
 
 That this charmiag piottire owed little or nothing to 
 the exaggeration of the lover is confirmed by the nni- 
 form testimony of all who knew her. Wilkes, no mean 
 judge, called her " the first," and OhnrchUl " the most 
 agreeable woman in England." "Her temper," says 
 Stockdale, " was amiable and festive ; ber understand- 
 ing discriminating and vigorous ; her humour and her 
 wit were easy and brilliant." Sterne, writing to Gar- 
 rick from Paris in 1752 under the immediate influence 
 of the beauties who thronged the Tuileries Gardens, said 
 she " could annihilate them all in a single turn." " To 
 David Hume," as Madame Eiccoboni tells us, " elle 
 ra^elait au sowvewk oes illusires dwmes romcdnes dont on 
 se forme wne idee si majestuev^e." Beaumarchais speaks 
 of her "sowrires fim et pleins d^ expression." To her 
 husband Gibbon writes, " May I beg to be remembered 
 to Mrs. Gtirrick ? By this time she has probably dis- 
 covered the philosopher's stone. She has long pos- 
 sessed a more valuable secret — that of gaining the hearts 
 of all who have the happiness of knowing her.'' Horace 
 Walpole drops his cynicism in speaking of her, " I like 
 her," he says, " exceedingly ; her behaviour is all sense, 
 and all sweetness too." 
 
 Of this "best of women and wives," as Garrick called 
 her, he proved himself worthy by a loverlike wakeful- 
 ness of affection which no familiarity ever dulled. Dur- 
 ing the twenty-eight years of their married life they 
 
DAVID GABBIGK. 261 
 
 were never one day apart. His friends were hers ; 
 where he went she went, and by the grace of her pre- 
 sence made his doubly welcome. The becmte-esprUs of 
 Paris were only restrained from throwing themselves at 
 her feet by the nnnsaal spectacle of a lover husband, 
 " I'hewreux mem," as Madame Riccoboni calls him, " dont 
 les rega/rds hd dasent scms cesse, I love you ! " Even 
 7oote, brutal in his contempt of constancy and the home 
 virtues, was touched by the beautiful oneness of their 
 lives. In February, 1766, when he was recovering 
 from his terrible accident, and, face to face with pain 
 and sorrow, could listen to the dictates of his better 
 nature, he wrote to Grarrick : " It has been my misfor- 
 tune not to know Mrs. Garrick ; but from what I have 
 seen, and all I have heard, you will have more to regret, 
 when either she or you die, than any man in the king- 
 dom." Seven years later, and when he had enjoyed the 
 privilege of knowing her better, the same reckless wit, 
 who spared no Mend however kind, respected no na- 
 ture however noble, and from whom, as the event 
 proved, a thousand wrongs were unable to alienate 
 Glarrick's forgiving nature, wrote of the lady to her 
 husband in these terms : — " She has the merit of mak- 
 ing me constant and uniform in perhaps the only part 
 of my life — ^my esteem and veneration for her." 
 
 Singularly enough the finest portrait of this charm- 
 ing woman is associated with Foote. It was painted 
 by Hogarth for Garrick, and is now in Her Majesty's 
 possession. It presents Garrick in the act of, composi- 
 tion, his eyes rapt in thought, and his wife stealing 
 behind him and about to snatch the pen from his up- 
 
252 DA7II) GABBIOK. 
 
 raised hand. He is in the act of writing, so says the 
 catalogae of his sale, his prologue to Foote's farce of 
 "Taste." This supplies the date, "Taste" having ap- 
 peared in 1752, jnst two years after their marriage. 
 The picture is the very poetry of portraiture. The 
 character as well as the lineaments of both are there ; 
 and it needs no stretch of fancy to imagine Garrick on 
 the point of illustrating the virtuoso's passion for the 
 antique by the line — 
 
 " His Venus must be old, and want a nose," 
 
 when his reverie is broken by the saucy challenge of as 
 pretty a mouth and sweet a pair of eyes as ever made a 
 husband's heart happy. 
 
 What Garrick owed to the happy circumstances of 
 his marriage can scarcely be stated too highly. In his 
 home he found all the solace which grace, refinement, 
 fine intelligence, and entire sympathy could give. As 
 artist, these were invaluable to him ; as manager, a man 
 of his sensibilities must have broken down without 
 them. In 1747, two years before his mairiage, he had, 
 along with Mr. Lacy, become patentee of Drury Lane 
 theatre, to which his performance had been confined, 
 with the exception of a second visit to Dublin ia 1745-6, 
 and a short engagement at Oovent Garden in 1746-7. 
 So well had he husbanded his means since his debut at 
 the end of 1741, that he was able, with some help from 
 friends, to find £8,000 of the £12,000 which were re- 
 quired for the enterprise. Lacy took charge of the 
 business details, wMle all that related to the perform- 
 ances devolved upon Garrick. He got together the very 
 
DAVID GABBIOK. 253 
 
 best company that could be had, for, , to use his own 
 words, he " thought it the interest of the beat actors to 
 be together," knowing well that, apart from the great 
 gain in general effect, this combination brings out all 
 that is best in the actors themselves. 
 
 On the stage, as elsewhere, power kindles by contact 
 with power ; and to the great actor it is especially im- 
 portant to secure himself, as far as he can, against 
 being dragged down by the imbecility of those who 
 share the stage with him. Sham genius naturally goes 
 upon the principle of "mafenvme et emq pov^ees ;" real 
 inspiration, on the contrary, delights in measuring its 
 strength against kindred power. This was Grarrick's 
 feeling. At starting, therefore, he drew around him 
 Mrs. Gibber, Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Olive, Mrs. Wofflng- 
 ton, among the women, — ^Barry, Macklin, Delane, 
 Havard, Sparks, Shuter, among the men. Later on he 
 secured Quin and Woodward, and when he could he 
 drew into his company whatever ability was in the mar- 
 ket. He determined to bring back the public taste, if 
 possible, from pantomime and farce to performances of 
 a more intellectaal stamp. Johnson wrote his fine 
 " Prologue," to announce the principles on which the 
 theatre was to be conducted, and threw upon the public, 
 and with justice, the responsibility, should these mis- 
 carry, by the well-known lines, — 
 
 " The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, 
 For those, who live to please, must please to live." 
 
 The public, as usual, fell back after a time upon its love 
 for "inexplicable dumb show and noise," and Garrick 
 
264 DAVID GABBIOE. 
 
 had no choice but to indulge its taste. But in these 
 early days the array of varied ability which his company 
 presented, backed by his own genius, filled, as it well 
 might, the theatre nightly .^ 
 
 Garriok piirchased his success, however, by an 
 amount of personal labour, for which only his own 
 passionate enthusiasm for his art could have repaid 
 him. To keep such forces in order was no common 
 task ; to reconcile their jealousies, to conciliate their 
 vanity, to get their best work out of them, demanded 
 rare temper, rare firmness, and extraordinary tact. 
 Even with all these, which Garrick certainly pos- 
 sessed, his best efForts frequently provoked the spleen 
 and shallow irritability of those about him. Nor was 
 it only the airs of his tragic queens that upset his 
 plans and put his chivalry to sore trial. Woffington 
 and Olive — one the fine lady of Comedy, the other the 
 liveliest of Abigails — kept him in continual hot water. 
 But his honhommie was not to be shaken ; and when 
 Olive had written him a more scolding letter than 
 usual, he took it as a symptom of better health, and 
 his salutation to her when they next met would be, — 
 " I am very glad, madam, you are come to your usual 
 spirits." Even the fiery Kitty could not resist such 
 invincible good humour. 
 
 ' We have before ns an extract from the books of the theatre, 
 from which it appears that the nett profits of the two first years of 
 Garriok's management were £16,000. The nightly receipts, which 
 varied from £100 to £150 when he did not play, invariably ex- 
 ceeded £200 when he did. Besides his share of the profits Garrick 
 received £500 a year for acting, £500 for managing, and £200 for 
 extras. 
 
DAVID GARBIGE. 255 
 
 Of course malicious stories in abundance were pro- 
 pagated against him, many of them due, beyond all 
 question, to his very virtues as a manager. He worked 
 from too high a point of view to be understood by 
 many of the people who surrounded him. Excellence 
 was his aim, and he allowed no one to trifle with the 
 work he assigned them. Strict and elaborate rehear- 
 sals, under his own direction, were insisted on, much 
 to the annoyance of some of the older actors, who had 
 grown habitually careless as to the words of their 
 parts. His own presiding mind arranged the business 
 of the scene, and ensured ensemble and completeness. 
 He took infinite pains to put his own ideas into the 
 heads of performers who had no ideas of their own, so 
 that his actors often made great hits, which were 
 mainly due to the soul he had contrived to infuse into 
 them at rehearsal. 
 
 " Wonderful Sir," Kitty Clive wrote to him (23rd January, 
 1774), "you have for these thirty years been contradicting the old 
 proverb that you cannot make bricks without straw, by doing what 
 is infinitely more difficult, making actors and actresses without 
 genius." 
 
 Again, on 23rd January, 1776, when the stage was 
 about to lose him, she writes from CUeveden (Olive's 
 Den, as her friend Walpole calls it) with her usual de- 
 lightful heartiness : — 
 
 " I have seen you with your magical hammer in your hand endea- 
 vouring to beat your ideas into the heads of creatures who had none 
 of their own. I have seen you, with lamb-like patience, endeavouring 
 to make them comprehend you ; and when that could not be done, I 
 have seen your lamb turned into a lion. By this, your great labour 
 and pains, the public were entertained; the^ thought they all acted 
 
256 DAVID OABBIGE. 
 
 very Jme — ^they did not see you pull the wires. There are people 
 now on the stage to whom you gave their consequence ; they think 
 themselves very great : now let them go on in their new parts, with- 
 out their leading-strings, and they will soon convince the world what 
 their genius is. I have always said this to everybody, even when 
 your horses and mine were in their highest prancing. While I was 
 under your control, I did not say half the fine things I thought of 
 you, because it looked like flattery ; and you know your Pivy ' was 
 always proud ; besides, I thought you did not like me then ; but now 
 I am sure you do, which makes me send yoa this letter." — GarricJc 
 Correspondence, ii. 128. 
 
 It was only hnman nature, and not actors' nature 
 especially, that Grarrick should be ptdled to pieces by 
 the very members of his company to whom he had 
 been most serviceable. Obsequiously servile to his 
 face, behind his back they persecuted him with the 
 shafts of slander. " I have not always," as he wrote 
 ia 1764, " met with gratitude in a playhouse." These 
 were the people that whispered about that he was not 
 thjB great actor the world supposed, but that he main- 
 tained his pre-eminence by stifling the gifts of other 
 people, and letting nobody have a chance of popularity 
 but himself. This was sing^arly untrue. All other 
 considerations apart, Gkirrick was too good a man of 
 business not to make the very best use he could of the 
 abilities of his company. An opposite course meant 
 empty houses, and a failing exchequer, besides double 
 work to himself as an actor. As he wrote to Mrs. 
 Pritchard's husband (July 11, 1747), in answer to 
 
 * A friendly nickname, which appears to have been given to her 
 ■by Garrick. 
 
DAVID GABBICK. 257 
 
 some querulous suspixsions that she was to be sacrificed 
 to Mrs. Gibber : — 
 
 " It is my interest (putting friendship out of the ease) that your 
 wife should maintain her character upon the stage ; if she does not, 
 shaJl not the managers be great losers ? .... I have a great stake, 
 and must secure my property and my friends to the best of my 
 judgment." 
 
 But Garrick was also governed by higher motives. 
 He had a true artist's delight in excellence, and a kind- 
 hearted man's sympathy with well merited success. 
 His whole relations to his actors prove this. Nor has 
 a word of blame on this score been left on record 
 against him by any of his really great compeers, such 
 as Mrs. Gibber, Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Woffington, Quin, 
 Barry, Sheridan, King, Smith, or Weston. The charge 
 rests upon the insinuations of the smaller fry of players, 
 egotists like Mrs. Bellamy or Tate Wilkinson, who 
 charged him with the meanness which was congenial to 
 their own instincts. 
 
 Horace Walpole, delighting as usual iu detraction, 
 echoed their complaints] of Garrick's " envy and jeal- 
 ousy ;" and Mrs. Siddons very unwisely encouraged 
 the charge, by insinuating that her comparative failure 
 during her first engagement ia London, in 1775-6, was 
 due to this cause. After she had become the rage of 
 the town in 1782, three years after Garrick's death, 
 her answer, when questioned as to her relations with 
 him, according to Walpole, was to the effect, that " he 
 did nothing but put her out; that he told her she moved 
 her right hand, when it should have been her left. In 
 short, I found I must not shade the tip of his nose." 
 
 s 
 
268 DAVID GABBIGK. 
 
 This was an ingenions way of accounting for that being 
 so indifferent ia 1776, which the town was raving about 
 in 1782. But what are the facts ? In that first en- 
 gagement Mrs. Siddons, recently a mother, was weak 
 and much out of health ; most certainly she gave no 
 evidence of the remarkable powers which she after- 
 wards developed. Tet she was so especially favoured 
 by the manager, that she got the name of Gurrick's 
 Venus. At that time he had in his theatre two first- 
 class actresses, Mrs. Tates and Miss Tounge, both ex- 
 tremely popular ; yet he put Mrs. Siddons into several 
 of their parts, and selected her to act with ^lim re- 
 peatedly in his farewell performances, — a distinction of 
 infinite value to so young an actress. Garrick obviously 
 liked and took pains with her, and his suggestions could 
 not have been otherwise than beneficial to a performer, 
 whose Lady Anne, in " Richard III.," was pronounced 
 by the London Magazine of the day to be "lamentable." 
 And no doubt she did profit by them, although she had 
 not the generosity to own it. Well might Garrick say, 
 " I have not always met with gratitude in a play- 
 house." 
 
 But, in truth, Garrick never had any real cause to be 
 either envious or jealous of any one. The success of his 
 rivals, Quin, Barry, Sheridan, Mossop, never dimmed 
 the splendour of his own for one hour. His only 
 dangerous rival as to popularity at any time was Powell, 
 and this popularity, as the event proved, was chiefly due 
 to the fact that Garrick was out of England for the time. 
 " A substitute shines brightly as a king until a king be 
 by." Worn out with the fatigues of his profession, 
 
DAVID OABBIOK. 259 
 
 Garrick had gone abroad in September, 1763, to make 
 the grand tonr. The previous summer he had come 
 across Powell, then a merchant's clerk in the city, and 
 had taken great pains to instract him. Such was his 
 promise, that Garrick engaged him to play the juvenile 
 tragedy parts in his absence. Powell had a good voice 
 and figure, and considerable power of tragic expression, 
 and he became a great favourite, filling Drnry Lane, 
 and enabling Lacy to write abroad to his brother 
 manager, that they were doing so well he need be in no 
 hurry to return. Garrick would have been more than 
 mortal had such tidings been altogether welcome. No 
 one likes to think he is not missed in the circle where 
 he has been the " observed of all observers ; " least of 
 all an actor, ever too conscious of the fickleness of 
 popular favour, and naturally loth to resign his hold 
 upon the public. But we find no trace of either jeal- 
 ousy or chagrin on Garrick's part. On the contrary, 
 he was annoyed at Powell for endangering his reputa- 
 tion by playing mere fustian : — 
 
 " I am very angry with Powell," he writes to Colman, " for play- 
 ing that detestable part of Alexander ; every genius must despise 
 such fustian. If a man can act it well, I mean, to please the people, 
 he has something in him that a good actor should not have. He might 
 have served Pritchard and himself too, in some good natural cha- 
 racter. I hate your roarers. Damn the part. I fear it wiU hurt 
 him." 
 
 To Powell himself he wrote from Paris (12th Decem- 
 ber, 1764) in terms, the generous warmth of which it is 
 impossible to mistake, that the news of his great success 
 had given him " a very sensible pleasure." The ingra- 
 titude which Powell had expressed for "what little 
 
260 DAVID GABBIOK. 
 
 service " he had done him by his instructions last sum- 
 mer "has attached me to you as a man who shall 
 always have my best wishes for his welfare, and my 
 best endeavours to promote it." He warns him agfainst 
 playing too many parts, and the dangers of haste : — 
 
 " Give to study, and an accurate consideration of your characters, 
 those hours which young men too generally give to their friends and 
 flatterers .... When the public has marked you for a favourite 
 (and their favom* must be purchased with sweat and labour), ^/otl 
 may choose what company you please, and none hut the best can be of 
 service to you." 
 
 The admirable words with which he concludes this 
 letter cannot be too often quoted : — 
 
 " The famous Baron of France used to say that an actor ' should 
 be nursed in the lap of guee/ns^ by which he means that the best 
 accomplishments were necessary to form a great actor. &udy hard, 
 my friend, for seven years, and you may play the rest of you/r life, 
 .... Ifever let your Shakspeare be out of your hands ; keep him 
 about you as a charm ; the more you read him, the more you will 
 
 like him, and the better you will act him Guard against 
 
 splitting the ears of the groundlings — do not sacrifice your taste and 
 feelings to the applause of the multitude ; a true genius will convert 
 an audience to his manner, rather than be converted by them to what 
 is false and unnatural." — Q-arrick Correspondence, i. 177. 
 
 Powell was not " a true genius." There is weakness 
 in every line of his comely face, as we see it in the fine 
 mezzotint by Dixon after Laurenson, and he did not 
 profit by these golden precepts. He had sensibility, 
 which ran over into the extreme of lachrymose weak- 
 ness on the one hand, and of furious rant on the other. 
 Intellectual culture, which alone might have cured this 
 defect, he made no effort to obtain, and growing too 
 well satisfied with himself to serve in the ranks, he 
 
DAVID QABBIOK. 261 
 
 deserted to OoTcnt Garden, to Garrick'a great vexation, 
 and died soon afterwards at Bath (3rd July, 1769), of 
 a raging fever, at the age of thirty-two. 
 
 Much as Garrick was worried by his actors, the fra- 
 ternity of authors caused him even greater disgust. 
 Every scribbler who had put together something he 
 chose to call a play, thought himself entitled to regard 
 the refusal of his rubbish as a personal wrong, dictated 
 by the meanest motives. Garrick's weak dread of the 
 power of this class of persons to injure him by attacks 
 in the press constantly led him to act in defiance of 
 his sounder judgment. Men like Murphy avowedly 
 traded on this weakness. " That gentleman," says 
 Tate Wilkinson, with his wonted elegancei, "could 
 tease his soul and gall his gizzard, whenever he judged 
 himself wronged," his means being, in Murphy's own 
 words, a "fierce campaign" in the papers. 
 
 Garrick was moreover too sensitive himself not to be 
 tender to the sensitiveness of an author. Often, there- 
 fore, when his answer should have been a simple 
 refusal, he would give a qualified denial, which was 
 used to justify further importunity, or a complaint of 
 injustice when the decided negative came, as it often 
 did come at last. The insolence of tone assumed by 
 these writers towards Garrick is indeed incredible. It 
 constantly implied the question, what right had a mere 
 player to sit in judgment upon their literary skill ? 
 The gifted creature who had compiled five acts of 
 dreary morality or fiery fustian was not to be amenable 
 to the puppet to whom he offered the honour of 
 mouthing it. If a refusal came, although accompanied 
 
262 DAVID GABBIGK. 
 
 as it generally was by a letter of criticism, admirable 
 for literary acumen and rich with, the experience of 
 years of practical study of the stage, it was set down 
 to jealousy, or private dislike, or some other contemp- 
 tible motive. Horace "Walpole was only echoing the 
 complaints of this class of persons when, in writing to 
 his friend Montague about his own impossible play of 
 "The Mysterious Mother," he said (15th April, 
 1768) :— 
 
 " Nor am 1 disposed to expose myself to the impertinences of that 
 jackanapes Garrick,' who lets nothimg appear hut his own wretched 
 stuff, or that of oreatwres still duller, who suffer Mm to alter their 
 pieces as he pleases." 
 
 By passages such as these much wrong has been 
 done to Garrick's reputation for fairness. His assailants 
 and detractors, it must be remembered, have always 
 had the command of the press, and much of their 
 abuse, by sheer dint of repetition, has stuck to his 
 name. Garrick's real mistake was in putting on the 
 Btage and wasting his own and his actors' powers upon 
 too many bad pieces. Did he refase any that have 
 lived? Not one, except "The Good-natured Man" 
 of Goldsmith. He offered to play " She Stoops to 
 Conquer;" and, although these pieces are now clas- 
 sical, let it not be forgotten, so contrary were they to 
 ihe prevailing taste, that on their first production they 
 aiarrowly escaped being damned. " ' She Stoops to 
 
 ' Yet did Walpole in 1775 present the great player with a beauti- 
 fully chased gold repeater, which was lately in the possession of Mr. 
 Toovey, of 177, Piccadilly, inscribed "Horace Walpole to his esteemed 
 friend David Qarriek, 1775." 
 
DAVID GABBIOK. 263 
 
 Conquer,' a comedy ! " says Walpole ; " no, it is the 
 lowest of farces ! " 
 
 One instance will suffice to show how unfairly 
 Garrick was treated in matters of this sort. He refused 
 Home's " Tragedy of Douglas " " as totally unfit for 
 the stage." Home's Edinburgh Mends were indignant, 
 and went into absurd raptures about the piece, when it 
 was soon afterwards produced on their local boards. 
 Even Sir Walter Scott, writing seventy years after- 
 wards, cannot deal with the subject without insinuating 
 that Garrick refused the piece because there was no 
 part in it in which he could appear with advantage ! ' 
 And Jupiter Carlyle, alluding to Garriok's subsequent 
 kindness to Home, chooses to find the explanation of it 
 in the fact that " he had observed what a hold Home 
 had got of Lord Bute, and, by his means, of the Prince 
 of Wales." But Carlyle suppresses what he must 
 have known, that Home altered his play materially to 
 cure the defects Garrick had pointed out, and that 
 all Lord Bute's influence, if he had any, was brought to 
 bear on Garrick before he rejected the play. It was 
 through Lord Bute the play was sent to him, and the 
 following portions of a letter from Garrick to his 
 Lordship, now published for the first time from the 
 original in our possession, establish conclusively that, 
 whether right or wrong in his decision, Garrick came 
 to it solely on the literary merits of the piece : — 
 
 " Mt Lord, " July ye 10th, 1756. 
 
 " It is with the greatest uneasiness that I trouble your Lordship 
 
 ' Misc. Works, vol. xix. p. 309. 
 
264 BAY I J) GABBIGK. 
 
 with my sentiment of Mr. Hume's tragedy. The little Knowledge I 
 had of him gave me the warmest inclination to serve him, which I 
 should have done most sincerely had the means been put into my 
 hands ; but upon my word and credit it is not in my power to intro- 
 duce Douglas upon the stage with the least advantage" to the author 
 and the managers. 
 
 • •*•»♦ 
 
 " I am obliged, my lord, to be free in the delivery of my opinion 
 upon this subject, as I think both Mr. Hume's and my reputation 
 coneerti'd in it : I should have had the highest pleasure in forward- 
 ing any performance which yr. Lordship should please to recom- 
 mend ; but nobody knows so well as you do that all the endeavours 
 of a patron and the skill of a manager will avail nothing, if the 
 dramatic requisites and tragic force Are wanting. 
 
 • '#«#« 
 
 " The story is radically defective and most improbable in those 
 circumstances which produce the dramatic action — for instance. 
 Lady Bamet^ continuing seven years together in the melancholy, 
 miserable state just as if it happen'd the vveek before, vrithout dis- 
 covering the real cause ; and on a sudden opening the whole affair to 
 Jnna without any stronger reason than what might have happen'd 
 at any other time since the day of her misfortunes. This, I think, 
 which is the foundation of the whole, weak and unaccountable. The 
 two first acts pass in tedious narratives, without anything of moment 
 being plann'd or done. The introducing Douglas is the chief circum- 
 stance ; and yet, as it is manag'd, it has no effect. It is romantic for 
 want of those probable strokes of art which the first poets make use 
 oi to reconcile strange events to the minds of an audience. Lady 
 Bamed speaking to Glmalvon immediately in behalf of BandolfJi, 
 forgetting her own indelible sorrows, and Glenahon's suspicions and 
 jealousy upon it (without saying anything of his violent love for the 
 lady, who cannot be of a love-inspiring age), are premature and un- 
 natural. But these and many oiher defects, which I will not trouble 
 yr. Lordp. with, might be palliated and alter'd perhaps ; but the 
 unaffecting conduct of the whole, and which will always be the case 
 when the story is rather told than represented ; when the characters 
 do not talk or behave suitably to the passions imputed to them, and 
 
 ' Afterwards changed by Home to Zady Eandolph. 
 
DAVID GABBIGK. 265 
 
 the situation in which they axe placed ; when the events are such as 
 cannot naturally be suppos'd to rise ; and the language is too often 
 below the most familiar dialogue; these are the insurmountable 
 objections which, in my opinion, will ever make Dovfflas unfit for the 
 stage. In short, there is no one character or passion which is 
 strongly interesting and supported through the five acts. Glenahon 
 is a villain without plan or force. He raises our expectations in a 
 soliloquy at first, but sinks ever after. Lord Bamet is unaccount- 
 ably worked upon by Glenalvon, and the youth is unaficountably 
 attacked by Lord Bamet, and loses his life for a suppos'd injury 
 which he has done to him, whose life he had just before preserv'd. 
 And what is this injury ? Why, love for a lady who is old enough 
 to be his mother, whom he has scarcely seen, and with whom it was 
 impossible to indulge any passion, there not being time, from his 
 entrance to his death, ev'n to conceive one. 
 
 " I have coDsider'd the performance by myself; and I have read 
 it to a friend or two with all the energy and spirit I was master of, 
 but without the wished for effect. The scenes are long, without 
 action. The characters want strength and pathos, and the cata- 
 strophe is brought about without the necessary and interesting pre- 
 parations for so great an event. 
 
 ****** 
 " I have undertaken this office of critic and manager with great 
 
 reluctance If I am so happy to agree with Lord Bute in 
 
 opinion, it would be a less grievance to Mr. Hume to find my senti- 
 ments of his play not contradicted by so-well known a judge of 
 theatrical compositions, 
 
 " I am, my Lord, yr. Lordship's most humble and most obedt. ser- 
 vant, "D. Gabrick." 
 
 The verdict of these days, at least, will be with 
 Garrick ; for although the play had a great success in 
 Scotland, partly from local feeling and more from the 
 fact that the author was driven by the bigots out of the 
 Church for having written it ; and although the genius 
 of Mrs. Siddons kept it for many years upon the stagej 
 it has long since disappeared, beyond the powers of 
 
266 DAVID OABBIGK. 
 
 any actress to recal. In London it never had a great 
 sncoess, and even -when first prodnced at Oovent 
 Grarden, with its northern fame fresh npon it, and sup- 
 ported by Barry and Mrs. Woffington, Tate Wilkinson 
 tells us " the play pleased, but no more." 
 
 In general Garrick's tact in divining what would or 
 would not go down with the public was unerring. Dr. 
 Brown, the author of "Barbarossa" and " Athelstan," 
 two successful plays, told Stockdale that, before they 
 were acted : 
 
 " Mr. Garrick distinguished to him all the passages that would 
 meet with peculiar and wanu approbation ; to the respective pas- 
 sages he even assigned their different degrees of applause. The 
 success exactly corresponded with the predictions. " 
 
 No wonder, therefore, if authors eagerly, availed 
 themselves of this invaluable faculty, which Garrick 
 was always ready to place at their disposal. These 
 were, however, in the complacent Walpole's esticaation, 
 " creatures still duller than himself, who suffer him to 
 alter their pieces as he pleases," and the whole tribe 
 of "the unactable" were ready to catch up and repeat 
 the strain. 
 
 Had Garrick's alterations been confined to the works 
 of the Browns, the Francklins, the Hills, and the like, 
 it would have been better for his fame. But he took 
 to altering Shakspeare with what we, who are better 
 able to estimate the workmanship of the great dra- 
 matist, can only regard as sacrilegious audacity. We 
 must not, however, forget that if he mutilated he also 
 restored ; and, in making the alterations he did, he 
 probably secured a warmer verdict for the whole piece, 
 
DAVID GAB BIO K. 267 
 
 in the then state of the puhKc taste, than if he had played 
 Shakspeare pure and simple. "The Winter's Tale," 
 for example, was cut down by him into three acts. 
 Bat the play had wholly vanished from the stage. To 
 hare played it as Shakspeare wrote it, Garrick knew 
 very well would never do. But it was worth an effort 
 to get people's attention recalled to its most important 
 parts — to bring Hermione, that purest, and holiest, and 
 most wronged of Shakspeare's women, in living form 
 before their eyes, and to elevate their taste by that 
 most exquisite of pastorals in which the loves of 
 Florizel and Perdita are set. That he acted on this 
 principle is clear from the concluding lines of his 
 prologue to the altered piece : — 
 
 " The five long acts from which our three are taken, 
 Stretch'd out to sixteen years, lay by forsaken. 
 Lest, then, this precious hquor run to waste, 
 'Tis now confined and bottled to your taste. 
 'Tis my chief wish, my joy, my only plan, 
 To lose no drop of that immortal man I " 
 
 No man in Garrick's position would now venture to 
 write additions to Shakspeare. But are our own 
 managers and actors less culpable, when they elbow him 
 out of his own pieces by overdone scenic splendour, and 
 by readings of his characters false to the spirit in which 
 they were conceived ? There may be worse things on 
 the stage, where Shakspeare is concerned, than a garbled 
 text. To Garrick, at all events, it is mainly due that 
 the genuine text was restored to the stage. He knew 
 his Shakspeare, not from acting editions, like Quin, 
 Barry, Pritchard, and others, but from the original 
 folios and quartos. With true literary enthusiasm he 
 
268 DAVID GABBICK. 
 
 made a fine collection of first editions of all the great 
 early dramatists, which now forms one of the treasures 
 of the British Museum. Thomas Warton and George 
 Steevens used it largely, and it was Johnson's own 
 fault that it was not equally available to him for his 
 " Shakspeare." 
 
 Garrick's sympathies with literature and literary 
 men were very great. He formed a fine library, and 
 not only formed but used it.^ He was well versed in 
 the literature of Europe, especially of Italy and France. 
 He wrote well himself. His prologues and vers de 
 societe are even now pleasant reading. He would turn 
 oflF one of his prologues or epilogues in two hours. As 
 a rule, an epigram — such as his famous one on Gold- 
 smith — took him five minutes. There was no man of 
 literary eminence in England with whom he was not on 
 a friendly footing. " It has been the business, and ever 
 will be, of my life," he wrote to Goldsmith (25th July, 
 1757), "to live on the best terms with men of genius." 
 When such men wanted money, his purse was always 
 at their command and in the handsomest way. 
 
 Sterne, Churchill, Johnson, Goldsmith, Murphy, 
 Foote, had many proofs of this helpful sympathy, not 
 to speak of men of lesser note. And yet the two last 
 were constantly denouncing his avarice and meanness. 
 Happily, Murphy's own letters survive to convict him 
 of injustice. To quote one of many : " I am convinced," 
 
 ' The motto on his book-plate from the Mmagiana will be appre- 
 ciated by all who love their books. " La premiere chose qu'on doit 
 faire quand on a emprunt^ un livre, c'est de le lire afin de pouvoir le 
 rendre plut6t." 
 
DAVID GAB ft 10 K. 269 
 
 he wrote to Garriok (20tli September, 1770), "that you 
 look upon the loan of two or three hundred pounds to 
 a Mend as a small favour : and I am further persuaded 
 that I am welcome to be in your debt as long as I please. 
 Having said this, I said it from conyiotion," &c. This 
 letter was a^opos of a sum of £200, which Garrick had 
 lent him without acknowledgment of p/iiy kind. And yet 
 this was the man who, from Garrick's death down to 
 his own, went ahout saying, " Off the stage, sir, he was 
 a little sneaking rascal ; but on the stage, oh, my great 
 God !" It is pitiful to think a good man's name should 
 be at the mercy of such a creature.* 
 
 Poote's sarcasms on Garrick's parsimony are pre- 
 served by the anecdote-mongers. " Stingy hound ! " if 
 we are to believe Tate WUkinson, was Foote's favourite 
 epithet for him. ButFoote was constantly appealing to 
 Garrick for money in considerable sums, and people do 
 not go to " mean " men for these. What is more, there 
 is no instance of their having ever been refused; although 
 
 ' Equally characteristic is the following letter from Murphy to 
 Garrick (6 March, 1777): — " I began in friendship with you, and I 
 am happy to feel that I end my career in the same sentiments. 
 Jealousies have intervened, but I hope they are vanished from both 
 our minds. From mine they certainly are, and it is with the greatest 
 cordiality I thank you for your extreme politeness upon the last 
 occasion that I shall present myself to the theatrical world. Believe 
 me to be, dear Sir, your admirer, friend, and most obliged humble ser- 
 vant, Arthtte Mdkpht." Garrick wrote the prologue to '■' The 
 Apprentice," one of Murphy's earliest pieces, and the epilogue to 
 " know Yoiir Otim Mind," his last, and one of his best. No man had 
 more reasons for subscribing himself Garrick's " vwst obliged ser- 
 -vant." 
 
270 DAVID GABBIOK. 
 
 no man had better reason to torn his back upon another, 
 " Ton mnst know — to my credit be it spoken — fhat 
 Foote hates me," he -writes to Mrs. Montagne nnder the 
 provocation of a charge of meanness made at the table 
 of a common friend. Yet, when Foote most needed 
 help, all his manifold offences were forgotten, and 
 Gtirrick stood by him with the most loyal devotion. 
 " There was not a step," says Mr. Torster, " in the pre- 
 paration of his defence" against the infamous charge 
 trumped up agaiast him by the Duchess of Kingston, 
 " which was not solicitously watched by Grarrick." And 
 to Grairick himself Foote wrote about this time : — 
 
 " My dear kind friend, ten thousand thanks for your note ! . . . 
 May nothing but halcyon days and nights crown the rest of your 
 life! is the sincere prayer of S. Foote." 
 
 The iteration of this charge of meanness as to money, 
 in the face of the clearest evidence to the contrary, has 
 influenced even Mr. Forster into lending his countenance 
 to it. In a note to his Essay on Churchill he prints 
 extracts from two letters by Garrjck to his brother 
 George, written from Paris immediately after hearing 
 of the poet's death, telling him to put in a claim for 
 money lent to Churchill. "Mr. Wilkes," he writes, 
 " teUs me there is money enough for all his debts, cmd 
 m^oney besides for his wife. Miss Oamr whom he lived with," 
 &o. " Tou'U do what is proper ; but put in your claim." 
 " I think," he says, in a subsequent letter, " and am 
 almost sure that Churchill gave me his bond. I ashed 
 Mm for nothing ; lie was in distress, amd I assisted hirni." 
 It is not easy to see why Mr. Forster should say, as he 
 does, that he " must sorrowfully confess " these letters 
 
DAY IB OABBIOK. 271 
 
 "bear out Foote's favourite jokes about Ms (Garrick's) 
 remarkably strong box, and his very keen regard for its 
 contents." What would he have had Garrick do ? Say 
 nothing about his debt at all ? Why so, when there 
 was money enough, according to the statement of 
 ChurchiU's bosom friend Wilkes, to pay everybody, and 
 also to provide for those who were dependent upon 
 Churchill ? Perhaps, however, he should have waited 
 for a few weeks in seemly grief for Churchill's death. 
 But why ? Giarrick had no special cause to mourn for 
 Churchill as a man. He had proved his admiration for 
 his genius by very substantial loans of money on more 
 occasions than one ; and it is surely the merest senti- 
 mentalism to charge to an undue love of money the fact 
 of his telling his man of business to look after a debt. 
 In matters of business why are poets, or the executors 
 of poets, to be dealt with differently from other people ? 
 Johnson, by some of his hasty sayings, lent counte- 
 nance to this imputation of parsimony. But at other 
 times he did Garrick justice on this point, and that in 
 very emphatic terms. " Sir, I know that Garrick has 
 given away more money than any man that I am ac- 
 quainted with, and that not from ostentatious views." 
 Again, " He began the world with a great hunger for 
 money ; the son of a half-pay officer, bred in a family 
 whose study was to make fourpence do as much as 
 others made fourpence halfpenny do. But when he had 
 got money he was very liberal." Here we get the 
 truth. The well-judged economy of the man, who has 
 his own fortune to make and is resolved to achieve inde- 
 pendence, will make him avoid idle expenses in a way 
 
272 DAVID GABBIGK. 
 
 which, is odious to the very men who are apt to draw 
 upon his purse when he has filled it by a life of prudsut 
 self-denial. " To Foote and such scoundrels," as 
 Beynolds wrote, " who circulated these reports, and to 
 such profligate spendthrifts, prudence is meanness and 
 economy is avarice." 
 
 Johnson was not always so just to Garrick in other 
 tilings. He liked the man, and would suffer no one else 
 to speak ill of him ; but he never quite forgave him his 
 success. He was himself still struggling for bare sub- 
 sistence, long after Garrick had not only become rich 
 and a favourite in the first society in Loudon, but was 
 enjoying an European fame. Johnson was not above 
 being sore at this, and the soreness showed itself in 
 many an explosion of sententious petulance. ^ When, 
 for example, Garrick ventured to suggest some alteration 
 upon the " Irene," which would have given a little more 
 of that life and movement to the scene in which it is so 
 much needed, " Sir," said Johnson, " the fellow wants 
 me to make Mahomet run mad, that he may have an 
 opportunity of tossing his head and kicking his heels." 
 It was not to be borne that an actor should know better 
 
 ' " Johnson, with all his genius, had no taste for Garrick's acting ; 
 and, with all his virtues, was envious of his riches. This led him 
 very unjustly to say very severe things, which Garrick not unfre- 
 
 quently retorted I perfectly recollect the candid answer 
 
 Garrick once made to my inquiry, why Johnson was so often harsh 
 and unkind in his speeches both to and of him. ' Why, Nine,' he 
 replied, ' it is very natural ; is it not to be expected he should be 
 angry, that I, who have so much less merit than he, should have had 
 so much greater success ? ' " — Hannah More to her Sister. " Memoirs," 
 i. 338. 
 
DAVID GABBIOK. 273 
 
 than, an author how people were to be interested or 
 moved. " A fellow, sir, who claps a hump on his back 
 and a lump on his leg, and cries, ' I am Bichard the 
 Third ! ' " 
 
 Johnson had the lowest idea of the actor's art. He 
 was too shortsighted to see the varying shades of ex- 
 pression on the face, or even to judge of the beauty or 
 fitness of scenic action. He regarded it, therefore, as a 
 mere compound of mimicry and declamation. " I never 
 could conceive," writes Walpole, in his accustomed 
 strain of sublime puppyism, " the marvellous merit of 
 repeating the words of others in one's own language 
 with propriety, however well delivered." Johnson held 
 the same opinion, and was not therefore likely to feel, 
 what is nevertheless true, that higher faculties were re- 
 quired for playing " Lear " or " Eichard " as Garrick 
 played them, than for writing plays like " Irene." 
 
 " A great actor," as Madame de Stael said of Talma, 
 " becomes the second author of his parts by his accents 
 and his physiognomy.'' For this a kindred gift of 
 imagination is obviously necessary. It is not enough 
 that he shall be master of the arts of expression in voice, 
 feature, and action. He must also be penetrated by the 
 living fire of a vigorous conception. The words to be 
 spoken are the least paa-t of his performance. He must 
 have lived into the being of the person he has to portray 
 — ^have realised the very nature of the man, modified as 
 it would be by the circumstances of his life. Only then 
 is he in a condition to give that completeness to the 
 dramatist's work which words alone cannot convey, — 
 that crowning grace of breathing life which makes the 
 
 T 
 
274 DAVID GABBIGK. 
 
 creatures of the poet's imagination stand out before the 
 common spectator with all the vivid force in which they 
 primarily presented themselves to the poet's mind. A 
 great actor's impersonation is therefore a living poem, 
 harmonions from first to last, rounded and well defined 
 as a piece of sculpture, as finely balanced as a noble 
 strain of music, and it leaves upon the mind the same 
 exquisite impression of completeness. Its details will all 
 be fine. Silence will be more eloquent than speech, — 
 what is acted more impressive than what is said — "Each 
 start be nature and each pause be thought." 
 
 It was this power of becomiag the man he had to 
 play, this rare faculty of imaginative sympathy, which 
 was the secret of GUrrick's greatness. It was this 
 which made Madame Necker, no inapt judge,' say, in 
 speaking of Shakspeare to her friends in Paris, after 
 she had seen Garrick act — " Yom n'woee cupergu que son 
 cada/ore, mais je Vow, vu, moi, qucmd son o/me (mi/mcdt son 
 corps." It was the same quality in PrevUle which 
 made Garrick say of him, " his genius never appears to 
 more advantage tJioM when the mithor lemies him, to shift 
 for himself; it is thus Preville supplies the poet's defi- 
 ciencies, omd will throw a truth cmd brilUcmcy into his 
 cha/raoter which the cmthor never imagined." It wa? this 
 power which enabled Gaarrick to move the hearts of 
 thousands in parts which, but for his genius, must have 
 sent an audience to sleep, and which explains Gold- 
 
 > Ciderot, in his admirable Paradoxe sv/r le Comidien, speaks of 
 her as " une femme qui poss^de tout ce que la puret^ d'une ^e 
 angelique ajoute a la finesse du go^t." 
 
DAVID GABBIGK. 275 
 
 smith's meaning when he says that there were poets 
 who " owed their best fame to his skill," — a line, the 
 truth and fitness of which those who have seen fine 
 acting will at once recognise. But the actor who can 
 do this does not owe his triumph to study and the 
 accomplishment of art alone. These are, no doubt, in- 
 dispensable ; but he has his inspirations like the poet, 
 — splendid moments, when he becomes the unconscious 
 organ of a power greater than himself. On this sub- 
 ject Garrick himself has spoken : — 
 
 " Madame Clairon is so conscious and certain of what she can do, 
 that she never, I believe, had the feelings of the instant come upon 
 her unexpectedly ! but I pronounce that the greatest strokes of genius 
 have been unlmawn to the actor himself, till circumstances, the warmth 
 of the scene has sprung the mine, as it were, as much to his own sur- 
 prise as that of his audience. Thus I make a great difference be- 
 tween a great genius and a good actor. The first will always 
 realise the feelings of his character, and be transported beyond him- 
 self; while the other, vrith great powers and good sense, will give 
 great pleasure to an audience, but never 
 
 ^ ' pectus inaniter angit, 
 
 Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, 
 Ut magus.' " Garrick Correspondence, i. 359. 
 
 At the root of the genius of great actors, no less than 
 of great poets, lies intense sensibility. Things which 
 other men take coldly will send thrills of exquisite pain 
 or pleasure along their nerves, and the strain on their 
 emotions leaves traces of exhaustion little less than 
 would be caused by real troubles. But this is the very 
 condition of their excellence. " If it was not for the 
 stage," wrote Mrs. Gibber, that great mistress of pathos, 
 to Garrick, a few months before her death, " I could 
 wish, with Lady Townshend, that my nerves were made 
 
276 DA7ID GABBIOK. 
 
 of cart-ropes." So, when we read of what Garrick was 
 upon the stage,— of the colour that visibly came and 
 went upon his cheek with the shifting passions of the 
 scene — of the features that in every line became the 
 reflex of the inward emotion — of the voice, whose very 
 character would change to fit the part he was playing, — 
 we may be sure that such qualities implied great phy- 
 sical exhaustion, and great inroads upon health. Accord- 
 ingly, throughout his life, and even very early in his 
 career, he was so often made ill by his work as to occa- 
 sion serious anxiety to his friends. 
 
 " Hark you, my friend," Warburton writes to him (25tli January, 
 1757), "do not your frequent indispositions say (whatever your 
 doctors may think) IvMsti satis ?....! heartily wish you the re- 
 establishment of your health, but you do not act by it with a con- 
 science. When you enter into those passions which most tear and 
 shatter the human frame, you forget you have a body j your soul 
 comes out, and it is always dagger out of' sheath with you." — 
 Garrick Corre^ondence, i. 78. 
 
 But it was just Garrick's " conscience " which pre- 
 vented him from taking his work easy. Whatever wear 
 and tear of body it cost him, " he gave the people of his 
 best " always. Once upon the stage, he resigned him- 
 self to the sway of his inspiration, and his whole facul- 
 ties were at its disposal. To Garrick acting was enjoy- 
 ment, but no pastime. He told Stockdale that he was 
 never free from trepidation and anxiety before coming 
 on the stage. He had all the modesty and patience of 
 genius, and took as much pains in preparation the last 
 year of his performances as the first. He saw no one on 
 the days he performed, spending them in meditation on 
 the play of the evening ; and during the performance 
 
DAVID QABEIGK. 277 
 
 he kept himself aloof from the other actors, still intent 
 on the meditation of his part, and so that the feeling of 
 it might not be disturbed. 
 
 Knowing what we now know of the man, and his 
 high estimate of his art, it is impossible to revert with- 
 out disgust to an incident recorded by Murphy in his 
 " Memoir of Johnson." One night, when Garrick was 
 playing " King Lear," Johnson and Murphy kept up an 
 animated conversation at the sidewing during one of 
 his most important scenes. When Garrick came off the 
 stage he said, " You two talk so loud you destroy all 
 my feelings." "Prithee," replied Johnson, "do not 
 talk of feelings. Punch has no feelings." Of the 
 many recorded outrages of which the great literary 
 bear was guilty none is more inexcusable than this. 
 
 " The animated graces of the player," Colley Gibber 
 has well said, " can live no longer than the instant 
 breath and motion that present them, or at best can 
 but faintly glimmer through the memory or imperfect 
 attestation of a few surviving spectators." There are 
 many descriptions, and good ones, of Garrick's acting; 
 but the most vivid pen can sketch but faintly even the 
 outlines of an actor's work, and all the finest touches of 
 his art necessarily perish with the moment. Of Garrick, 
 however, we get some glimpses of a very life-like kind, 
 from the letters of Lichtenberg, the celebrated Ho- 
 garthian critic, to his friend Boie.' Lichtenberg saw 
 Garrick in the autumn of 1775, when he was about to 
 leave the stage, in Abel Drugger, in Archer in the 
 
 ' licbtenberg's " Venuiscbte Schriften." Gottingen, 1844, vol. iii. 
 
278 DA7ID GABBIOK. 
 
 " Beaux Stratagem," in Sir John Brute in the " Pro- 
 voked Wife," in Hamlet, in Lusignan in Aaron Hill's 
 version of " Zaire," and in Don Leon in Beaumont and 
 Fletcher's " Rnle a Wife and Have a Wife." He 
 brought to the task of chronicler powers of observation 
 and a critical faculty scarcely second to Lessing's. 
 Every word of what he says has value, but we must be 
 content with translating only a few passages. 
 
 " What is it," be writes, " which gives to this man his great 
 superiority ? The causes, my friend, are numerous, and rery, very 
 
 much is due to his peculiarly happy organization In his entire 
 
 figure, movements, and bearing, Mr. Garrick has a something which 
 I have seen twice in a modified degree among the few Frenchmen I 
 have known, but which I have never met with among the many 
 Englishmen who have come under my notice. In saying this I mean 
 Frenchmen of middle age, and in good society, of course. If, for 
 example, he turns towards any one with an inclination of the person, 
 it is not the head, not the shoulders, not the feet and arms alone, 
 that are employed, but each combines harmoniously to produce a 
 result that is most agreeable and apt to the situation. When he 
 steps upon the stage, though not moved by fear, hope, jealousy, or 
 other emotion, at once you see him and him alone. He walks and 
 bears himself among the other performers like a man among mario- 
 nettes. From what I have said, no one will form any idea of Mr. 
 Garrick's deportment, unless he has at some time had his attention 
 arrested by the demeanour of such a well-bred Frenchman as I have 
 
 indicated, in which case this hint would be the best description 
 
 His stature inclines rather to the under than the middle size, and 
 his figiu-e is thickset. His limbs are charmingly proportioned, and 
 the whole man is put together in the neatest way. The most prac- 
 tised eye cannot detect a flaw about him, either in details, or in 
 ensemble, or in movement. In the latter one is charmed to observe 
 a rich reserve of power, which, as you are aware, when well indi- 
 cated, is more agreeable than a profuse expenditure of it. There is 
 nothing flurried, or flaccid, or languid about him, and where other 
 actors in the motion of their arms and legs allow themselves a space 
 
DAVID QABBIGK. 279 
 
 of six or more inches on either side of what is graceful, he hits the 
 right thing to a hair, with admirable firmness and certainty. His 
 manner of walking, of shrugging his shoulders, of tucking in his 
 arms, of putting on his hat, at one time pressing it over his eyes, at 
 another pushing it sideways off his forehead, all done with an airy 
 motion of the limbs, as though he were all right hand, is conse- 
 quently refreshing to witness. One feels one's self vigorous and 
 elastic as one sees the vigour and precision of his movements, and 
 how perfectly at ease he seems to be in every muscle of his body. 
 If I mistake not, his compact fig^e contributes not a little to this 
 effect. His symmetrically formed limbs taper downward from a 
 robust thigh, closing in the neatest foot you can imagine ; and in 
 like manner bis muscular arm tapers off into a small hand. What 
 
 effect this must produce you can easily imagine In the scene 
 
 in ' The Alchemist,' where he has to box, he skips and bounds from 
 one of these well-knit limbs to the other with an agility so amazing, 
 one might say, he moved on air. In the dance, too, in ' Much Ado 
 About Nothing,' he distinguishes himself from all the rest by the 
 elasticity of his movements. When I saw him in this, the audience 
 were so delighted, that they had the bad taste to encore their 
 Boscius in it. In his face every one can descry without much phy- 
 siognomical discernment the bright graceful mind upon the radiant 
 forehead, and the keen observer and man of wit in the quick, spark- 
 ling, and frequently roguish eye. There is a significance and vivacity 
 in his very looks which are catching. When he looks grave, so do 
 we, when he wrinkles his brows, we do so too ; in his quiet chuckle, 
 and in the friendly air, with which in his asides he seems to make 
 confidants of his audience, there is something so engaging that we 
 rush forward with our whole souls to meet him." 
 
 A description like this, aided by the many admirable 
 portraits which exist, enables ns to see the very man, 
 not merely as he appeared on the stage, but also as he 
 moved in the brilliant social circle, which he quick- 
 ened by the vivacity, the drollery, the gallant tender- 
 ness to women, and the kindly wit, which made him, 
 in Goldsmith's happy phrase, " the abridgment of all 
 that is pleasant in man." When Lichtenberg saw 
 
280 DAVID GABBIOK. 
 
 Garrick he was fifty-nine. But with such a man, as 
 Kitty Olive had said of herself and him some years 
 before, "What signifies fifty-nine? The public had 
 rather see the Garrick and the Clive at a hundred 
 and four than any of the modems." His was a spirit 
 of the kiad that keeps at bay the signs of age. " Gout, 
 stone, and sore throat," as he wrote about this period ; 
 " yet I am in spirits." To the two first of these he 
 had long been a martyr, and sometimes suffered hor- 
 ribly from the exertion of acting. When he had to play 
 Richard, he told Cradock, " I dread the fight and the 
 fall ; I am afterwards in agonies." But the audience 
 saw nothing of this, nor in the heat of the performance 
 was he conscious of it himself. 
 
 It is obvious that Lichtenberg at least saw no trace 
 in him of failing power, or of the bodily weakness which 
 had for some time been warning him to retire. He had 
 meditated this for several years ; but at last, in 1776, 
 his resolution was taken. His illnesses were growing 
 more frequent and more severe. People were beginning 
 to discuss his age in the papers, and, with execrable 
 taste, a public appeal was made to him by Governor 
 Penn to decide a bet which had been made that he was 
 sixty. " As you have so kindly pulled ofi' my mask," 
 he replied, " it is time for me to make my exit." He 
 had accumulated a large fortune. The actors and 
 actresses with whom his greatest triumphs were asso- 
 ciated were either dead or in retirement. Their suc- 
 cessors, inferior iu all ways, were little to his taste. 
 The worries of management, the ceaseless wrangling 
 with actors and authors which it involved, fretted him 
 
DAVID GABBIOE, 281 
 
 more than ever. He had lived enough for fame, and 
 yearned for freedom and rest. At the end of 1775 he 
 disposed of his interest in Drary Lane to Sheridan, 
 Linley, and Ford. " Now," he wrote, " I shall shake 
 off my chains, and no culprit in a jail-delivery will be 
 happibr.'' 
 
 When his resolution to leave the stage was known to 
 be finally taken, there was a rush from all parts, not of 
 England only, but of Europe, to see his last performances. 
 Such were the crowds, that foreigners who had come 
 to England for the purpose were unable to gain ad- 
 mission. While all sorts of grand people were going on 
 their knees to him for a box, with characteristic kind- 
 ness, he did not forget his humbler friends. An instance 
 of this is before us in the following delightful letter, 
 hitherto unpublished, from Mrs. Olive : — 
 
 " Twickenham, June ye 10, 1776. 
 " A thousand and a thousand and ten thousand thanks to my dear 
 Mr. Garrick for his goodness and attention to his Pivy — for the care 
 he took in making her friends happy I Happy I That word is not 
 high enough ; felicity I think will do much better to express their 
 joy when they were to see the Garrick — whom they had never seen 
 before. And yet I must tell you, your dear busy head had like to 
 have ruined your good designs, for you dated your note Monday 
 four o'clock, and to-morrow, you said, was to be the play. And 
 pray, who do you think set it to rights ? Why, your blunder-headed 
 Jemy. I did not receive your letter till Wednesday morning ; so 
 they was to set out for the play on Thursday ; but Jemy pouring 
 over your epistle found out the mistake, and away he flew to Mr. 
 Shirley's with your letter, and the newspaper from the coffee-house, 
 to let the ladies see the play was that day. This was between one 
 and two, and Shirlajy ordered the horses to the coach that moment, 
 and bid the Misses fly up and dress, for they must go without 
 dinner. Dinner I Lord, they did not want dinner — and away they 
 
282 DAVID GABBIGE. 
 
 went to take up their party, which was Governor Tryon, Lady and 
 daughter. Everything happened right. They got their places with- 
 out the least trouble or difficulty, and liked everything they saw 
 except the Garrick. They didn't see much in him. You may reverse 
 it if you please, and assure yourself they liked nothing else. They 
 think themselves under such obligations to me for my goodness to 
 them, that we are all invited to dine there to-day, when I shijl give 
 you for my toast. 
 
 " I hope my dear Mrs. Garrick is weU. I will not say anything 
 about you, for they say you are in such spirits that you intend play- 
 ing till next September, Adieu, my dear Sir, be assured I am ever 
 yours, "Pitt CtrvB." 
 
 Before this letter had reached Garrick's hands — ^it is 
 endorsed by Viim as received 12th of June — he had 
 bidden adieu to the stage. On the 10th, the very day 
 his old comrade was proposing Tiirn as her " toast," he 
 had gone through that trying ordeal, which, had she 
 been aware of it, would have made her voice choke with 
 emotion. The piece selected was " The Wonder ; " i and 
 it was announced, with Garrick's usual good taste, 
 simply as a performance for " the benefit of the The- 
 atrical Fund." No gigantic posters, no newspaper 
 puffs clamorously invoked the public interest. The 
 town knew only too well what it was going to lose, and 
 every comer of the theatre was crammed. In his zeal 
 for the charity of which he was the founder, and to 
 which this "mean" man contributed over £5,000, 
 Gurriok had written an occasional Prologue, to bespeak 
 the goodwill of his audience in its favour. It has all 
 his wonted vivacity and point, and one line — 
 
 • Seven years before (24 April, 1769,) Mrs. Clive had bidden adieu 
 to the stage in the same play — Garrick was the Don Felix and Mrs. 
 Clive Flora. 
 
DAVID GABBIGK. 283 
 
 " A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind" — 
 
 has passed into a household phrase. This he spoke as 
 only he could speak such things. He had entire com- 
 mand of his spirits, and he eren thought that he never 
 played Don Felix to more advantage. So, at least, he 
 wrote to Madame Necker eight days afterwards ; but 
 when it came to taking the last farewell, he adds, — 
 
 " I not only lost the use of my voice, but of my limbs, too ; it was 
 indeed, as I said, a most awful moment. Tou would not have thought 
 an English audience void of feeling, if you had then seen and heard 
 them. After I had left the stage, and was dead to them, they would 
 not suffer the petite jdice to go on ; nor would the actors perform, 
 they were so affected ; in short, the public was very generous, and I 
 am most grateful." — Garrick Correspondence, ii. 161. 
 
 To do consciously for the last time what has been the 
 work and the delight of a life would agitate the stoutest 
 heart ; but to do it in the face of those whose sympathy 
 has been your best reward, one would suppose almost 
 too much for endurance. That Grarrick felt this is 
 plain. His parting words were full of feeling and 
 solemnity : — 
 
 " It has been customary," he said, " for persons in my situation to 
 address you in a farewell epilogue. I had the same intention, and 
 turned my thoughts that way ; but I found myself then as incapable 
 of vniting such an epilogue, as I should be now of speaking it. 
 
 " The jingle of rhyme and the language of fiction would but ill 
 suit my present feelings. 
 
 " This is to me a very awful moment ; it is no less than parting 
 for ever with those from whom I have received the greatest kind- 
 ness, and upon the spot where that kindness and your favour was 
 enjoyed. (Here his voice failed him; and he paused, till relieved 6y 
 tears.) 
 
 " Whatever may be the changes of my future life, the deepest 
 
284 DAVID GABBIOK. 
 
 impression of your kindness will always remain here — here, in my 
 heart, fixed and unutterable. 
 
 " I will very readily agree to my successors having more skill and 
 ability for their station, than I have had ; but I defy them all to 
 take more uninterrupted pains for your favour, or to be more truly 
 sensible of it, than is your grateful humble servant." 
 
 On this " he retired slowly up — np the stage ; his 
 eyes fixed upon them with a lingering longing. Then 
 stopped. The shouts of applause from that brilliant 
 amphitheatre were broken by sobs and tears. To his 
 ears were borne from many quarters, ' Farewell ! Fare- 
 well ! Farewell ! ' The wonderful eyes, still brilliant, 
 were turned wistfully again and again to that sea of 
 sympathetic faces, and at last, with an effort, he tore 
 himself from their view." ^ 
 
 And so without fuss or flourish — true genius and 
 gentleman as he was — passed from the stage the greatest 
 actor of modem times. In the short period that was 
 left to him he was as happy as " honour, love, obedi- 
 ence, troops of friends," and his own keen relish for 
 social enjoyment could make him. He was courted 
 and caressed by the best, the ablest, the highest in the 
 land. At coiirt he had always been a favourite, and 
 there was a talk of knighting him ; this distinction, 
 however, he declined. 
 
 " I should never have supposed it to have been of your own seek- 
 ing," writes Mrs. Pye {15th April, 1777), " for it has ever been 
 remarked to your honour, that you never employed your ample 
 fortune to excite envy and make fools stare, but in the rational and 
 sober enjoyment of life. However, I will not allow you the whole 
 merit of this neither ; most men's follies are owing to their wives ; 
 
 ' Fitzgerald's " Life of Garrick," ii. 397. 
 
DAVID G ABB I OK. 285 
 
 and you have a wife whose judgment is as near infallible as ever fell 
 to the lot of a mortal." 
 
 Another of the couiitless testimonies to Mrs. Garrick's 
 worth. 
 
 One of Johnson's many stupid sayings about Ganick 
 was, " Garrick, sir, has many Mends, but no friend." 
 The man who was blest with such a wife wanted no 
 other friend. As the charming Countess Spencer wrote 
 to bim (19th December, 1776), " Yon, I am sure, can 
 neither hear, see, nor understand without her." With 
 such a counsellor and companion by his side, Damon 
 seeks no Pythias. Of friends, in the more restricted 
 sense, no man had more. He seems never to have lost 
 one who was worth the keeping. Pitt and Lyttleton, of 
 whose praise he was so proud in 1741, were strongly 
 attached to liim to the end of their days. Lord Chat- 
 ham, from his retirement at Mount Edgecumbe, in 
 some scholarly lines, invited him to visit 
 
 " A statesman without pow'r and without gall, 
 Hating no courtiers, happier than them all ;" 
 
 and Lord Lyttleton (12th October, 1771) wrote to 
 him : — 
 
 " I think I love you more than one of my age ought to do, for at 
 a certain time of life the heart should lose something of its sensi- 
 bility ; but you have called back all mine, and I feel for you as I 
 did for the dearest of my friends in the first warmth of my youth." 
 
 So it was with Bishops Newton and Warburton, with 
 Lord Camden, with Burke — to whom he was always 
 " dear David " or " dearest Garrick " — with Hogarth, 
 with Reynolds, and with hosts of others. And indeed 
 a nature so kindly, so sympathetic, so little exacting, 
 
286 BA7IB GABBIGK. 
 
 might well endear him to his friends. His very foibles, 
 of which so much has been made, his over-eagemess to 
 please, his little arts of finesse to secure the admiration, 
 which would have been his without effort, that acting 
 off the stage of him who was "natural, simple, and 
 affecting " upon it, were those of a loveable man. They 
 speak of over-quick sensibility ; and, balanced as they 
 were by the finer qualities of generosity, constancy, 
 tact, active goodness, by his wit and unfailing cheerful- 
 ness, they must even have helped to make up the charm 
 of his character to those who knew him best. 
 
 " Ah," says Cumberland (Memoirs, i. 333), " I could 
 wish the world to believe that they take but a very 
 short and partial estimate of that departed character, 
 who only appreciate him as the best actor in the world. 
 He was more and better than that excellence alone could 
 make him by a thousand estimable qualities ; and, much 
 as I enjoyed his company, I have been more gratified 
 by the emanations of his heart than by the sallies of his 
 fancy and imagination." 
 
 And then, as Johnson said, " he was the first man in 
 the world for sprightly conversation." "I thought 
 him less to be envied on the stage than at the head of a 
 table." " His conversation is gay and grotesque. It 
 is a dish of all sorts, and all good things : " a view which 
 Burke incidentally confirms in a letter sending Garriok 
 the present of a turtle, as " a dish fit for one who repre- 
 sents all the solidity of flesh, the volatility of fowl, and 
 the oddness of fish." He shone as a talker, even in 
 Paris, beside D'Holbach, Diderot, Grimm, Marmontel, 
 Helv^tius, Beaumarchais, and the rest of that brilliant 
 
BAVID GABBIOK. 287 
 
 circle. Twelve years after Garrick's last visit there 
 Gibbon heard people constantly exclaiming in the best 
 society, with characteristic but pardonable vanity, " Ge 
 M. GcMrrich eta/it fait fowr wmre pairim nous ; " and they 
 claimed a share in his renown by reason of the French 
 blood in his veins. 
 
 Garrick did not enjoy his retirement long. While on 
 his wonted Christmas visit to the Spencers at Althorp, 
 in 1778, he was attacked by his old ailment. He hnr- 
 ried back to his honse in the Adelphi, and, after some 
 days of great pain and prostration, died npon the 20th 
 of January following. His death was a national event. 
 His body lay in state for two days ; and so great was 
 the crowd, that a military gnard was necessary to keep 
 order. His funeral was npon an imposing scale. The 
 line of carriages extended from Charing Cross to West- 
 minster Abbey, and the conconrse of people of all ranks 
 along the line of the procession was greater, say the 
 papers of the day, " than ever was remembered on any 
 occasion." Among the pallbearers were Lord Camden, 
 the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Spencer, Viscount 
 Palmerston, and Sir W. W. Wynne ; and the members 
 of the Literary Club attended in a body, eager to pay 
 the last honours, not less to the friend than to the 
 great actor, who, in Warburton's phrase, had "lent 
 dignity to his art." 
 
 There were many sad hearts and many tearful eyes 
 around the grave where " the cheerfulest man in Eng- 
 land " was to be laid to his rest. One who had done 
 him much wrong by many an ungracious speech we 
 will believe did penance in that solemn hour. " I saw 
 
288 DAVID GABBIOK. 
 
 old Samnel Johnson," says Cumberland, " standing beside 
 his grave, at the foot of Shakspeare's monnment, and 
 bathed in tears." Johnson wrote of his death after- 
 wards as an event that had eclipsed the gaiety of nations. 
 He even offered to write his old pupil's life, if Mrs. 
 Grarrick would ask him. But, remembering the many 
 savage slights he had shown to him that was gone, she 
 was not likely to make such a request. It might have 
 been wiser, however, to have done so, than to leave his 
 good name at the mercy of such little-honest chroniclers 
 as Murphy and Davies, whose misrepresentations she 
 despised too much to think them even worthy of her 
 notice.i 
 
 In October, 1822, at the extreme age of ninety-eight, 
 Mrs. Gtirrick was found dead in her chair, havinglived 
 in full possession of her faculties to the last.' For thirty 
 years she would not suffer the room to be opened in 
 which her husband had died. Tears wrought no chill 
 in her devotion to his memory. " He never was a hus- 
 band to me," she said, in her old age, to a friend ; " dur- 
 ing the thirty years of our marriage he was always my 
 lover!" 
 
 She was buried, in her wedding sheets, at the base of 
 Shakspeare's statue, in the same grave which forty-three 
 years before had closed over her " dear Davie." 
 
 I " We stopped," says Boswell, speaking of Johnson and himself, 
 " a little while by the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, 
 and I said to him with some emotion that I was now thinking of two 
 friends we had lost, who once lived in the buildings behind us, 
 Topham Beauclerk and Garrick." "Ay, Sir," said he tenderly, 
 " and two such friends as cannot be supplied," 
 
THE DEAMA IN ENGLAND.^ 
 
 (Fbom the Qfaeteslt Ebvibw, Jaxuabt, 1872.) 
 
 HE Lives of the Kembles by Boaden and 
 Campbell are -andoTibtedly poor Bpecimens 
 of biography. This may, as the author of 
 these volumes says, be a very good reason 
 why a fresh work on the subject should be written; 
 but, for the same reason, it especially behoves the 
 writer who avails himself of the plea to prove his right 
 to do so by the excellence of his own work. Boaden 
 and Campbell had at least the advantage — a great one 
 in the writers of all biographies, and a paramount one 
 where actors are concerned — of having not merely 
 known both John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons intimately 
 in. private life, but studied their performances, and also 
 the performances of a race of high-class actors during 
 a long series of years. Their books, therefore, although 
 overloaded and tedious, are fall of authentic iaforma- 
 
 ' The Kembles: an Account of the Kemble Family; inclvding the 
 lives of Mrs. Siddons and her brother, John Philip Kemble. By 
 Percy Fitzgerald, M. A., F. S. A., Author of " The Life of Garrick.' 
 2 vols. London, 1871. 
 
 V 
 
290 THE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tion. They have the interest and value of contem- 
 porary records, and a tolerably vivid picture can be 
 formed from them of the professional qualities, good 
 and bad, of these great artists, as well as of their 
 personal history and character. Neither are their 
 books destitute of passages distinguished by the graces 
 of good writing, by graphic force, and picturesqueness 
 of style, which it will be wise in no one to overlook 
 who may hereafter have occasion to deal with the same 
 subject. Mr. Fitzgerald, on the other hand, never saw 
 any of the Kemble family, nay, to all appearance never 
 even saw any really great English actor of the higher 
 drama. A man in this position could only hope, there- 
 fore, to interest by a broad grasp of his subject, and an 
 unusually vivid power of presenting it. Having no 
 experience of his own to offer, he was bound to justify 
 the intrusion on the public of a fresh book upon the 
 Kembles by literary skill in presenting a compact and 
 brilliant monograph of all the essential facts and cha- 
 racteristic features, which could be gathered from 
 Boaden or Campbell, and the many other sources of 
 information which they either neglected or had not at 
 command. In place of this, Mr. Fitzgerald's work is 
 destitute of every literary merit. It is a jumble of 
 clumsy patchwork, to which paste and scissors have 
 contributed more than deliberate study and workman- 
 like skill. Whatever new matter has been added is 
 either absolutely worthless, or, as in the case of some 
 hitherto unpublished letters from Mrs. Siddons to Lord 
 and Lady Harcourt, of the most insignificant kind. 
 The book swarms with blunders. Indeed, so habitually 
 
THE DRAMA IN ENGLAND. 291 
 
 careless is Mr. Fitzgerald, that lie is inaccurate eyen in 
 correcting in the preface the blunders of his text.' So 
 little conscions is he, too, of the vitreous character of 
 his own residence, that he throws stones vigorously at 
 others where he is himself most vulnerable. Thus the 
 style of Campbell and Boaden is condemned in his 
 preface with overcharged severity, and this by a writer 
 who, even in his Dedication, sees no absurdity in in- 
 scribing to Mr. Sothem this " history of the two great 
 lights of the English stage, both as a token of personal 
 regard, and as a cordial admirer of Mr. Sothern's many 
 talents." A gentleman who describes his own "his- 
 tory" of "lights," as at once "a token" of regard, 
 and an " admirer " of talent, scarcely surprises us by 
 an ignorance of the commonplaces of Shakspeare, but 
 in a champion of the poetical drama like Mr. Fitzgerald 
 such ignorance takes one a little aback. And yet he 
 deliberately quotes the phrase, " sound the very bass- 
 string of humility "as an expression of Campbell's, 
 illustrative of the inflation and grotesqueness of his 
 diction ! While doing so, moreover, he commits the 
 double blunder of charging upon Campbell the use of 
 these words as his own, which Campbell amowedhj cites 
 as a qnotation used by Boaden, and of ignoring the 
 
 ' Mr. Ktzgerald has only two blunders to correct. It would be 
 easy to swell his errata by scores. One of the two which he admits 
 is the use of the name of Hr. Tom Taylor instead of that of Mr. 
 John Taylor, from whose " Records of my Life," published in 1823, 
 he has borrowed most extensively without acknowledgment; and 
 the other, the omission of an important date, which he says should be 
 1776, when in fact it was 1775, 
 
292 THE BEAM A IN ENGLAND. 
 
 fact, that tte words drop from Prince Hal in probably 
 the best known of all the scenes in which that " mad 
 wag " figures. (1 Henry IV., Act ii. s. 4.) The same 
 vices of style, and the same nntrustworthiness of state- 
 ment and quotation pervade the whole work, and it 
 will certainly never supplant the volumes of Boaden 
 and Campbell, which it aims at superseding. Instead, 
 however, of pursuing the immediate subject of these 
 volumes, which we reserve for some more worthy 
 occasion, we shall take the opportunity, which they 
 suggest, of presenting some considerations as to the 
 actor's art, and its present state and prospects in 
 England, that may not be without interest or out of 
 place at the present moment. 
 
 In the histrionic, as in other arts, there are epochs 
 crowded with great names, and epochs distinguished 
 by few or none ; periods of ebb, when genius and skill 
 seem dormant or dead, and periods of flow, when they 
 carry their triumphs to the highest point, and infect the 
 public with their own enthusiasm. It would be strange 
 indeed were it otherwise. We do not marvel that 
 there is no perpetual succession of Van Eycks, Leo- 
 nardos, Titians, Eafiaelles, or Michael Angelos, or that 
 the age of Marlowe, Shakspeare, Chapman, Massinger, 
 Jonson, Ford, and all the noble brotherhood of dramatic 
 writers remains without rival in our literary history. 
 Why, then, should we expect that genius of the highest 
 order in an art which, perhaps more than any other, 
 demands an unusual combination of qualities of body as 
 well as of mind, should show itself otherwise than at 
 
THE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 293 
 
 rare intervals ? Genius in any art can never be other- 
 wise than rare ; and how rare it has been in the actor's 
 art is at once apparent from the comparatiTely few, 
 whose renown has survived themselves. Polos and 
 ^agros on the Grecian stage, j^sopns and Roscius on 
 the Bioman, are almost the only names that have 
 escaped oblivion ; and brief indeed is the catalogue of 
 those who have achieved pre-eminence on the modern 
 European stage. 
 
 Yet in none of the arts is the influence of individual 
 genius upon the public taste, and also upon the followers 
 of the art itself, at once so necessary and so intimate, 
 as in that of the actor. Literature, sculpture, painting, 
 music, all leave their records. None of these can be 
 without models to emulate, or standards to appeal to, 
 so long as any of their great masterpieces, which have 
 outlived the shock of time, continue to survive. By 
 these it is possible to learn wherein excellence consists, 
 and he who has mastered, however imperfectly, the 
 secret of the charm by which they are pervaded, is in 
 a position to appraise the worth of every fresh eflfort in 
 the same field. If an age, therefore, were barren in 
 these arts, the love for them might still be kept ^live 
 and the public taste be preserved at a high level. But 
 it is not so with the stage. Without the actual pre- 
 sence of genius upon it, the art must languish and the 
 public taste decline. Nor is the reason far to seek. 
 The actor's noblest successes perish with the hour that 
 sees them, with the eyes and hearts on which their 
 spell has been impressed. However vivid the chronicle 
 of his triumphs, — although a pen, dipped in the very 
 
294 TEH DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 hues of life, should be found to do for each, what 
 Gibber has done for Betterton, Montfort, and Brace- 
 girdle, the impression conveyed can only be vague and 
 phantasmal at the best. Neither pen nor pencil can 
 ever set Betterton or Grarrick, Siddons or Kean before 
 us, "in form and moving, express and admirable" — 
 with all that magic of presence, voice, and gesture, of 
 dignity, tenderness, vivacity, and passion, which kindled 
 a soul within the most torpid, or charmed the imagina- 
 tion of the most accomplished of their contemporaries. 
 " To conceive the pleasures," as Gibber has truly said, 
 "arising from such harmony, you must have been 
 present at it — 'tis not to be told you." Nor is this all ; 
 for not only can we form no satisfactory picture of 
 what these great artists were, but unless we have 
 actually seen great actors, we can form no adequate 
 conception of what their art is capable. Were it other- 
 wise, we should not so often find the highest praise 
 bestowed even by people of culture and intelligence 
 upon acting, which in a better condition of the stage 
 would be barely tolerated. As a " sprawling Verrio " 
 seems to an untutored eye more admirable than a 
 Francia steeped in the beauty of profound but tempered 
 feeling, and in colours of luminous purity, so the 
 showy effects of a style radically false and artificial 
 often meet, for a time at least, with greater success 
 upon the stage than the quiet truth of real gifts and 
 self-respecting artistic power. This must always be 
 expected, for it requires training and exact observation 
 to discriminate between the true and false in all art, 
 and in none more than in that in which the complex 
 
THE BBAMA IN ENGLAND. 295 
 
 elements of character and emotion are so largely con- 
 cerned. And how mnoh more must it prevail if there 
 be no living models of excellence by which the judg- 
 ment of the public may be steadily disciplined ? ' 
 
 Nor does the loss to public taste end here; for 
 ■without "the living comment and interpretation" of 
 fine acting, dramatic literature in its highest forms 
 must be in a great degree a sealed booli to us. We 
 may, indeed, think that -we see all the significance of a 
 great conception. "We may imagine, as so many people 
 obviously do, that actual impersonation will never make 
 us better acquB/inted with Imogen, Rosalind, Portia, 
 Othello, Macbeth, or Coriolanus, than our own unaided 
 study has done. There can be no greater mistake. 
 Plays are written, not to be read, but to be seen and 
 heard. No reader, be his imagination ever so active, 
 can therefore thoroughly understand a finely conceived 
 character, or a great play, until he has seen them on 
 the stage. The dramatic poet himself may be inde- 
 pendent of what it is the ofla.ce of the stage to perform 
 in giving completeness to his conception, but no one 
 else can be. He knows that words can never paint the 
 passions of the soul, whether in sunshine or ia storm, 
 can never suggest the infinitely subtle phases of emo- 
 tion, like an accent, a gesture, or a look. By the very 
 nature of his genius he feels intuitively where silence 
 is most eloquent, where the passion-charged utterance 
 of the simplest phrase can do more than torrents of 
 imagery ; and, as he writes, he fills up the pauses and 
 breaks of emotion with the appropriate look, and tones, 
 and action of his ideal forms. Therefore does he leave 
 
296 TME BBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 mnch for the actor to do ; knowing well that if he did 
 not, however his dialogues might sparkle, or his 
 periods glow, his work would not be one to move an 
 audience. 
 
 Of all dramatists this is true, but it is pre-eminently 
 true of Shakspeare. And herein lies the secret of the 
 unquestionable fact that his plays are, more than all 
 others, the crucial test of an actor's power. None 
 suffer more by bad acting, and none gain more by good. 
 A clever declaimer, or practised player, may produce an 
 impersonation not disagreeable ; but kindred genius can 
 alone seize and turn to account the opportunities fur- 
 nished by the poet to the performer for filling in the 
 tints and shadows which are essential to complete the 
 picture. Such, to all appearance, was the genius of Bet- 
 terton. What Steele has said of his OtheUo (" Tatler," 
 No. 167) happily illustrates at once the genius of the 
 actor and the dramatist in the particulars just indi- 
 cated. 
 
 " The wonderful agony which he appeared in when he examined 
 the circumstance of the handlcerchief in Othello ; the mixture of love 
 that intruded upon his mind, upon the innocent answers Desdemona 
 makes, betrayed in his gesture such a variety and vicissitude of pas- 
 sions, as would admonish a man to be afraid of his own heart, and 
 perfectly convince him that it is to stab it, to admit that worst of 
 •daggers — jealousy. Whoever reads m his closet this admirable scene 
 wUl find, that he cannot, except he has as warm an imagination as 
 ShaJcspeare himself, find any hut dry, incoherent, and broken sen- 
 tences ; but a reader thai has seen Betterton act observes, there could 
 not be a word added; that longer speeches had been, wnnaiwral, nay, 
 smpossible, in Othello's circiimstamces." 
 
 Here we see the actor's gift acting as the complement 
 of the poet's genius. A kindred intuition of human 
 
THE DRAMA IN ENGLAND. 297 
 
 passion and its nKtdes of expression is at the root of the 
 excellence of each. " What knowledge of the human 
 heart does Talma display ! " says Madame de Stael, 
 speaking of the life thrown by that great actor into his 
 parts. " He becomes their second author by his accents 
 and his physiognomy." It is only when a great drama 
 is dealt with by an actor or actress of whom this can be 
 truly said, that the full meaning of the poet is revealed, 
 And indeed the poet himself will probably be the fore- 
 most to admit, that even he had scarcely known the fuU 
 significance of his work — it being, as all the best work 
 is, spontaneous and unconscious — until it has been pre- 
 sented to him in action. "What is this ? " said Murphy, 
 the jSrst time he saw Mrs. Siddons in Ewphrasia, in his 
 own play of " The Grecian Daughter " — "What is this? 
 I never Trrote that scene. It has been added." So 
 hard was it for him to believe that it was only the 
 exquisite life thrown into it by the great actress, which 
 had wrought the delusion. Nor is this an exceptional 
 case merely. " Est-ce bien moi qui ai fait cela ? " 
 Voltaire had exclaimed, not many years before, in sur- 
 prise at the undreamt-of power developed in one of his 
 own scenes by the deep sensibility and splendid decla- 
 mation of Madame Olairon. The " Vous pleurez, Zaire ! " 
 of Le Kain was no less a revelation to him of a pathos 
 which the words, as they dropped from his pen, had not 
 suggested to himself. And it is no exaggeration to 
 suppose that Shakspeare might have felt in the same 
 way, had he heard the " Prithee, undo this button ! " of 
 Garrick in " Lear," or the " Fool, fool, fool ! " of the 
 elder Kean's Othello, His best critics at least have 
 
298 TEI! BBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 been most ready to abfenowledge the light cast iipon his 
 pages by the actor's genius. Thus, for example, George 
 Steeveiis writes to Garriek (27th December, 1765) : > — 
 
 " I am contented with the spirit of the author you first taught me 
 to admire ; and when I found you could do so much for him, I was 
 naturally curious to know the materials he had supplied you with ; 
 and often when I have taken the pen in my hand to try to illustrate 
 a passage, I hare thrown it down again with discontent, when I re- 
 membered how able you were to clear that difficult^/ with a single looh, 
 or particular modulation of voice, which a lonff and Idbowed para- 
 phrase was insufficient to explain so well." * 
 
 'Eov is what we have said true ia the case of single 
 phrases, single scenes, or single characters merely. It 
 is perhaps even more true with reference to the com- 
 prehension of a great play as a whole. Without the 
 aid of actual representation this is possible only to a 
 vigorous imagination, and a mind trained to continuous 
 and sustained exertion, and even to these only after 
 repeated perusal and elaborate study. But three hours 
 
 ' " Garriek Correspondence," vol. i. p. 217. 
 
 ' What Cibber says of Mrs. Montfort has been no less true of many 
 of her successors. " Nothing, though ever so barren, if vrilhin the 
 boimds of nature, could be flat in her hands. She gave many heighten- 
 ing touches to characters but coldly written, and oftm, made an author 
 vain of his vjork, that in itself had but little merit." In these cases 
 the actor is more than the second author. He is the only real one. 
 Mrs. Jordan, who had often in this way to create " a soul imder the 
 ribs of death," once remarked, " Many a character one has to per- 
 form is in itself insipid, it all depends upon what you can put into it." 
 This recalls Madame Schwetzine's remark on life, " What you find 
 in life depends on what you bring into it." So a " Merchant of 
 Venice " grows out of a dull Italian tale, and Garrick's " Abel 
 Drugger" convulses an audience with laughter, the possibility of 
 which could never be surmised from reading Jonson's text. 
 
THE DRAMA IN' ENGLAND. 299 
 
 in a theatre, before a company of " well-graoed a6tors," 
 will raise the most xuilettered of spectators, and the most 
 nnpractiBed of thinkers, if only he be possessed of ordi- 
 nary intelligence and sensibility, quite np to the level 
 of the most laborious critic ; nay, more, will teach the 
 critic what, if left to himself, he wotdd never have dis- 
 covered. The pages of a book can never afiPect the 
 mind so powerfully as a direct appeal by voice and 
 motion to "the very facultie3 of eyes and ears." What- 
 ever is so presented with tibe truth of nature supplies, 
 as Coleridge has said, " a species of actual experience." 
 Brain and heart are both moved, and, being so, the 
 spectator is in the mood to meet the poet more than 
 half way. His imagination is aroused, so that the 
 appropriate thought or emotion wiU be there before 
 the poet's words are spoken ; and thus the truth of 
 character and of feeling, and the fitness or beauty of 
 the language, will come home to him as they never can 
 do in the calm and often languid silence of the study. 
 Borne along upon a tide of living sympathy, he follows 
 the development of the plot without an effort, and 
 carries away with him a deep impression of the whole 
 bearing and compass of the poet's design, as of some 
 actual event in which he has himself borne a part. 
 
 To infuse this life into the poet's creations by quicken- 
 ing the hearts and imaginations of the multitude is the 
 great actor's vocation. A poet himself in breadth of 
 sympathy, in range and accuracy of observation,' and 
 
 ' " My ever dear friend Garrick," says Burke (" Letters on a 
 Regicide Peace ") " was the first of actors, because he was the most 
 acute observer of nature I ever saw." 
 
300 THE DBAMA.IN ENGLAND. 
 
 in intensity of feeling, he converts his audience into 
 poets for the time, waking them out of their habitual 
 lethargy, and kindling those sympathies, aspirations, 
 and passions which slumber, often unsurmised by our- 
 selves, beneath the crust of our daily life. Humanity 
 in all its forms is " the haunt and main region " of his 
 working. His business is to find living embodiment 
 and expression for 
 
 " All thoughts, all feelings, all delights, 
 Whatever stirs this mortal frame ; " 
 
 and to do this in forms stamped with the truth of 
 nature, but modulated at the same time by the subtle 
 graces of art. He must delight, not here and there 
 only by some fine burst of passion, by the power or 
 pathos of some particular speech, by the exquisite 
 finish of some separate scene. If these things fall 
 naturally into his conception, good and well ; but he 
 will not go out of his way to catch unintelligent 
 applause by what are technically called "points." These 
 are the cheap triumphs of inferior artists — the "purple 
 patches " of a vicious style. Whatever disturbs the 
 truth and consistency of character or the harmony and 
 proportion of the scenic picture is inexorably rejected 
 by the actor of genius. His aim is not to win applause, 
 dear as that may be to him, but to teach, refine, in- 
 struct, and to let men see, if he may, what his own 
 imagination has bodied forth as the ideal of the human 
 being whom he is called upon to represent. Thus the 
 great Grerman actor Schroder could not bear to have it 
 said that he played well at such or such a moment, or 
 spoke well such or such a speech. " Have I played the 
 
TEE BBAMA IN ENGLAND. 301 
 
 part well?" he would say. "Have I been the very 
 person I represented?" And what was Garrick's 
 view ? Writing to a French correspondent, he says, 
 " I'art d'nn grand actenr est de se faire onblier jnsqn'a 
 son nom, qnand il parait snr la scene." And of all the 
 tributes to the excellence of Mrs. Siddons, the highest 
 is that paid to her by a brother actor, Charles Tonng : — 
 
 " Whatever she touched she ennobled. She never sought by un- 
 worthy means to entrap her audience. She disdained to apply to 
 any of the petty resources of trickish minds in order to startle and 
 surprise her hearers. There was no habituaJ abruptness, no harsh- 
 ness about her. Ton never caught her slumbering through some 
 scenes in order to produce by contrast an exaggerated effect in 
 others. She neglected nothing. From the first moment to the last 
 she was, according to theatric parlance, ' in the cAaracter.' " 
 
 Where this is the meastire of excellence to be reached, 
 great actors, it is obvions, must of necessity be few. 
 
 " The painter," says Sir J. Reynolds, " first makes 
 himself master of the subject he is to represent, by 
 reading or otherwise, then works his imagination np to 
 a kind of enthnsiasm, till he in a degree perceives the 
 whole event, as it were, before his eyes, when, as quick 
 as lightning, he gives his rough sketch on paper or 
 canvas. By this means his work has the air of genius 
 stamped upon it." The actor goes to work in the same 
 way ; but his pictures are produced under much severer 
 conditions. Painter, sculptor, or poet may wait for 
 their moments of inspiration. If their sketch fails, 
 they may alter, efface, recast it at wiU. Not so the 
 actor. His " inevitable hour " comes with the promp- 
 ter's bell. The stage waits and, ill or well, in the vein 
 or not in the vein, he must begin his work, and this, 
 
302 TEE DRAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 too, before inquisitive and critical eyes. His picture 
 must be made to grow before them, touch by touch, 
 finished in its detail, clear in its outline, broad in its 
 general effect. There is no retrieying a false tone or 
 inapt gesture, no recovering an opportunity for expres- 
 sion once missed. Of all these he must be thoroughly 
 master, and yet the very well-spring of his excellence 
 is a sensitive and passionate nature, not easily held in 
 check, and apt to impel him beyond the limits of that 
 reserve which is essential for all artistic work,^ Tact 
 and taste must go hand in hand with passion. Neither 
 is it from within only that disturbances may come. The 
 finest actor is at the mercy of the blunders or the stupid 
 or vulgar incompetence of those with whom he may find 
 himself on the scene. But not only must he not suffer 
 himself to be put out by these, but he must manage to 
 make his audience forget them also. And how is this 
 to be done, unless, on the one hand, being " of imagina- 
 tion all compact," he can keep his own ideal unfail- 
 ingly before him, and " be the thing that he foresaw," 
 and unless, on the other hand, the repose of conscious 
 strength have become habitual with him, and the art of 
 gradation intuitive, so that he is able to adapt himself 
 to all contingencies by modifying or varying the details 
 of his impersonation without injury to its general 
 effect? 
 
 ' " Acting," said Talma, " is a complete paradox ; we must possess 
 the power of strong feeling, or we could never command and carry 
 with us the sympathy of a mixed audience in a crowded theatre ; but 
 we must, at the same time, control our sensations on the stage, for 
 their indulgence would enfeeble execution." 
 
TEE DRAMA IN ENOLAND. 303 
 
 If, then, there be truth in Milton's aphorism, that " he 
 who would write heroic poems must make his whole life 
 a heroic poem," it can be no less true that the actor who 
 is to reach the summit of his art must feed his thoughts 
 with " fancies chaste and noble," and Uve iu an atmo- 
 sphere of culture and refinement. "If I am only a 
 vulgar and ordinary woman," says Clairon, " during 
 twenty of the four-and-twenty hours of the day, whatever 
 effort I may make, I shall be only an ordinary or vulgar 
 woman in Agrippina or Semiramis during the remaining 
 four," How imperative, then, is it that the Portia or 
 Imogen, the Juliet or Desdemona of the stage should 
 bear within herself the reflexof the qualities which diffuse 
 an ideal charm around these pre-eminently attractive 
 among Shakspeare's women ! Intrinsic worth and 
 nobleness, a reverent culture to higher than selfish ends 
 of the " gifts that God gives," can alone flower on the 
 stage, as elsewhere, into the perfections of the consum- 
 naate artist. Given such a combination, with the re- 
 quisite graces of person, and the result is what Cicero 
 describes Boscius to have been, a man to be looked up 
 to with the highest regard, and as an actor matchless.^ 
 
 The degrees of this excellence must, of necessity, be 
 manifold ; but something of it, we may be sure, has 
 always existed in every actor or actress of eminence. 
 They, like the poet, must have been " of imagination 
 all compact." The details of their every-day life may 
 — 1 
 
 * " Quum artifex ejusmodi sit, ut solus dignns videatur esse qui in 
 sceni spectetur ; turn tit ejusmodi est, ut solus dignus videatur qui eo 
 non accedat. . • . Propter excellentem artem et Tenustatem vide- 
 batur omnino mori non debuisse." — Oratiopro Qumtio, c. 25. 
 
304 TBI! BBAMA IN ENOLANB. 
 
 have been prosaic and commonplace enougli, or even 
 equivocal — ^may not as much be said of inmmierable 
 great poets, painters, and musicians ? — but when they 
 stepped npon the stage their meaner self slipped from 
 them, and the better something, "the deep poetic 
 voice " within them, which mnst otherwise have died 
 ■unheard within their breasts, fonnd a vent in the em- 
 bodiment of characters in which wit, grace, refinement, 
 vivacity, tenderness, hnmonr, passion, dignity, or pathos 
 were called into play. Of this view of actors and their 
 vocation very little is heard in books, but much of the 
 vanities, the vices, and the Bohemian habits, for which 
 the contemptuous treatment of the art audits followers 
 by the Church and by society during several centuries 
 is, in a great measure, responsible. Scarron and Le 
 Sage have made every one familiar with the seamy side 
 of the actor's life of a former day. The terrible vigour 
 of Churchill, of Hogarth, and of Crabbe have stamped 
 in indelible colours the sordid incidents of the Stroller's 
 life in days not far removed from our own. And even 
 while modern opinion on this subject has become juster 
 and more kindly, literary men have generally been more 
 ready to seize on the grotesque or vulgar aspects of the 
 actor's vocation than to portray the inner life and pur- 
 pose of those by whom the stage has been conscien- 
 tiously adopted as an art. For this no ordinary power 
 of artistic sympathy would be required ; while it is 
 comparatively easy to dash in the amusing but coarse 
 outlines of a Fotheringay or a Snivellici, a Crummies or 
 a Polair. We recognize the truth of these sketches, 
 just as we acknowledge the truth of Scott's Dick Tinto, 
 
TRM BBAMA IN ENGLAND. 305 
 
 or his Claude Halcro, as excellent examples of the ragged 
 followers who hang on to the skirts of every gentle 
 craft. Bnt the same people who would never dream of 
 accepting these as types of the painter or musician, will 
 yet take their notions of what actors are from the cari- 
 catures of Thackeray and Dickens, without pausing to 
 consider that Miss Bunion is not more unlike Mrs. 
 Browning, or Poseidon Hicks more unlike the Laureate, 
 than the players of " Pendennis " and " Mcholas 
 Nickleby " must be unlike an Ifflaad or a Seydelmann, 
 a Talma or a Miacready, a Ristori or a Helen Faucit. 
 Artists who, like these, have worked under a deep sense 
 of the respouisihility entailed upon them by their gifts, 
 who have "moved through the vulgar and prosaic 
 accompaniments of their behind-the-scenes existence," 
 as Mrs. Jameson eloquently said of Adelaide Kemble, 
 " without allowing it to trench on the poetry of their 
 conceptions, and thrown themselves upon the sympathy 
 of an excited and admiring public, without being the 
 slave of its caprices," have yet to find their adequate 
 representatives in English works of fiction. 
 
 It is, as we have said, one of the difficulties of the 
 great actor, that he is much at the mercy of his fellow- 
 players. If these be stupid or vulgar, though they 
 cannot drag him down to their level, still they can thwart 
 and embarrass him at every turn, and make it difficult, 
 if not impossible, for him to work out his intentions with 
 complete efilBct. Actors of spurious celebrity may like 
 to surround themselves with foils, in whose ignorance 
 their "skill may stick fiery off indeed." " Ma/emme 
 -et cmq powpees " has indeed been avowed to be the ideal 
 
 X 
 
306 THE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of a company, and the principle is a favonrite one both, 
 with bad actors and hand-to-mouth managers. But the 
 genuine artist is never happier than when he is sur-' 
 ronnded by ability. He rejoices in emulation with' 
 kindred genius ; for, although as Bacon has said, " he 
 that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a 
 great task," nothing draws forth true power like collision 
 with power equal or even greater. It was no more than 
 natural for an ill-regulated genius like Edmund Kean, 
 hungry only of applause and of money, to refuse to play 
 side by side with Charles Young, feeling himself over- 
 shadowed by that accomplished actor's majestic deport- 
 ment and sonorous utterance, and, perhaps, more than 
 all, by his thorough finish. But a tnie artist, with 
 whom his art was paramount and self but a subordin- 
 ate consideration, would rather have courted the op- 
 portunity to vie with him in honourable rivalry, as he 
 would certainly have come out of the struggle with re- 
 doubled honour. Mind would have kindled with mind, 
 and flashed out fresh beauties in the play of reciprocal 
 emotion, while the audience would have been swept 
 along in a current of twofold force. It was so, we 
 know, when, in the same play, Mrs. Siddons, her 
 brothers John and Charles Kemble, and Charles Young 
 were seen together. 
 
 One fine actor upon the stage amid a crowd of imbe- 
 ciles is like an admirably painted figure in a group of 
 da.ubs. Nay, his case is even worse. We may fix our 
 eyes on the single figure, and shut them to the daubs. 
 But we cannot do this in the theatre. For what is the 
 divinest Juliet, if the Bomeo under her balcony be a 
 
THE BE AM A IN ENGLAND. 307 
 
 boor ? or what the most chivalrous Othello, if Desde- 
 mona be a dowdy ? The greater the contrast, the more 
 painfully is our attention called at every turning to 
 their defects — the more surely is our imagination 
 dragged down from the elevation which it would other- 
 wise have kept. But if it be hard for us, the spectators, 
 to believe in the illusion of the scene, when Romeo and 
 Desdemona belie what is said of them by every look and 
 movement and intonation, how much harder must it be, 
 although people never think of this, for the Juliet or 
 Othello of the hour, with such counterparts before them, 
 to infuse the glow of imaginative passion into their im- 
 personations ? In truth, we can never see an actor or 
 actress at their best, unless we see them well acted up 
 to, and the whole characters of the play worked out in 
 just harmony and due proportion. Imagine for the 
 moment Mrs. Siddons, with her grand manner, her noble 
 voice and presence, by the side of any Macbeth of our 
 present stage ; or the distinction, the force, the exquisite 
 finish of the elder Farren beside the slipshod feebleness 
 of the new school ! The broad emphatic style of these 
 great artists will seem as much too highly pitched as 
 that of the others will be unquestionably too low ; and 
 instead of a well balanced picture, we shall get one that 
 is out of drawing, and harsh and. dissonant in colour. 
 
 A general without soldiers, or soldiers without a 
 general, are not, indeed, more helpless than a great actor 
 unsupported by efficient subordinates, or the rank and 
 file of actors without first-class ability at their head. 
 Accordingly, we find that great actors have, as a rxdo, 
 been the nucleus of a cluster of able performers. Thus> 
 
308 THE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Bnrbage's company, in Shakspeare's day, was a strong 
 one. Betterton, again, was only the foremost in a com- 
 pany, which included, among others of note, his own 
 wife, Mr. and Mrs. Montfort, Kynaston, Sandford, Mrs. 
 Barry, and the charming Anne Bracegirdle ; all of them, 
 according to Gibber, " original masters in their different 
 style, and not mere auricular imitators of one another, 
 which commonly is the highest merit of the middle 
 rank." It may well be doubted whether such a combi- 
 nation of talent has ever since been brought together 
 in an English theatre. Nevertheless, Booth, Gteriok, 
 Henderson, the Kembles, Kean, Macready, wore all 
 fortunate in having around them a body of thoroughly 
 trained actors, proud of their art, well versed in its 
 traditions, and more or less accustomed to work to- 
 gether. 
 
 This was a state of things which very soon became 
 impossible when the principles of free-trade were applied 
 to the drama, and the privileges of the patent theatres 
 were withdrawn. Abolish these, said the reformers, 
 with that irrepressible logic which the facts of human 
 nature so constantly belie, and you will raise the public 
 taste ; for then, instead of the sulphurous melodramas 
 on which their audiences are now fed, the minor theatres 
 will devote themselves to plays of a higher class. 
 Abolish them, said the most distinguished veterans of 
 the drama, and you will, before long, make the acting 
 of tragedy and comedy impossible.' The actors were 
 
 ' See " Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons 
 on Dramatic Literature," presided over by Lord Lytton, then Mr. 
 Edward Lytton-Bulwer, ordered to be printed 2nd August, 1832, 
 
THE DBAMA IN IINGLANJD. 30& 
 
 right, for of what arail was it to multiply theatres, and 
 give them the right to perform the higher drama, imless 
 you could also provide actors to keep pace with their 
 demands ? These are a commodity not to be turned out 
 in any quantity to order. No amount of demand will 
 produce a corresponding supply. Natural gifts and 
 years of training must go to their production — and the 
 only real training school is a theatre of good actors 
 working together with a pride in their art, and under a 
 system of intelligent discipline. But the change of 
 system made the existence of such schools impossible ; 
 for how could such actors of ability and experience as 
 then existed be kept together, when they were being 
 oontiaually bribed away by offers of increased salary 
 and higher rank to the host of competitive theatres 
 which soon afterwards sprang, into existence ? Com- 
 panies became of necessity broken up, actors, who by 
 time and practice might have been tutored into excel- 
 lence, were ruined by being lifted into positions far 
 beyond their powers, every player became a law to him- 
 self, the traditions of the art were lost, the discipline 
 
 where Charles Kemble, the elder Matthfsws, Bartley, and others, wiU 
 be found in their evidence before the Committee to have predicted, 
 with what events have since shovra to be absolute accuracy, the de- 
 cline of the character of dramatic representations certain to ensue 
 from carrying out the abolition of the patent privileges which was 
 then proposed. Such a step, says Mathews (p. 166), "will in the 
 (jourse of a very short time brutalize the regular drama." " It is not 
 increase of theatres," says Charles Kemble (p. 55), " that will give 
 you an increase of fine actors. The qualifications of a fine actor are 
 a gift that God gives, and they are not to be multiplied as theatres 
 may be." 
 
310 TEE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 whicli distinguished the old theatres was broken down, 
 and the performance of a comedy of character, or of a 
 poetical play, as these used to be presented, became, as 
 the elders of the craft had foretold, simply impossible. 
 
 It was natural that in this state of things scenic 
 splendour should, as it did, take the place of careful 
 acting, for the former can always be bought in the 
 market to any extent, Shakspearian revivals, iu which 
 poet as well as actor were subordinated to the anti- 
 quary, and the costumier helped still further to debauch 
 the public taste, and to drive to despair such actors as 
 retained a lingering pride in their vocation ; for they 
 knew well that these revivals were aimed at the eyes 
 and not at the souls of the audience, and that superior 
 acting was neither desired by the manager, nor looked 
 for by the public. But what could such devotees to 
 their vocation do ? There was no standard to which 
 they could rally, no theatre in which taste, discipline, 
 and a feeling for excellence reigned, and to a place in 
 which they might aspire as the honourable reward of a 
 laborious career. As a necessary consequence, there 
 ceased, after a time, to be even a public to whom they 
 could appeal; for people of culture would no longer 
 attend the theatre, which, to them, had been a place of 
 intellectual enjoyment, when it was given over either to 
 mere spectacle, to imbecility raised by every device of 
 puffing into an ephemeral distinction, or to buffoonery 
 and the attractions of female forms, undraped with 
 an eye to meretricious effect beyond the power even of 
 a Lord Chamberlain to control. Thus it is, that the 
 dramatic profession has become a body without leaders, 
 
THE DBAMA IN ENOLANB. 311 
 
 without coherence, without purpose, living from hand 
 to mouth, drifting from stage to stage, at the mercy of 
 scrambling adventurers in management, declining day 
 by day in tone and status, and vitiating and being 
 vitiated by the coarse tastes of a vast pnbHc, intent 
 only on being excited or amused for the moment upon 
 any terms. Thus it is, too, that while Art in all other 
 departments has flourished, and culture spread, we 
 alone of the European nations are without that most 
 important agent of civilization, — a theatre, in which 
 the glories of our older drama, or any new drama 
 worthy of the name, can be adequately presented. 
 The stages of the metropolitan theatres — and the game 
 is tme of the provinces — ^are, with only tiie rarest ex- 
 ceptions, igiven over to melodramas, in which the 
 leading feature is some feat of apparently break-neck 
 gymnastics ; burlesques, in which poetry is dragged in 
 the mire ; and dramas of so-called real life, which are 
 unconscious burlesques of a more amusing kind, but 
 amusing only by their absurd defiance of every proba- 
 bility. 
 
 Dramatic art among us : has, in this way, . fallen for 
 the time to the lowest ebb. But is it therefore true, what 
 is so often said, that we have no good actors, or that 
 the public taste for the higher drama is dead ? As- 
 suredly not. Actors of the highest class we may not 
 have. These are no more to be invoked at will than 
 are " spirits from the vasty deep." But we have 
 many of such ability as, under favourable conditions of 
 ■discipline and co-operation, might grace a first-class 
 theatre. And why are we to assume that there is no 
 
312 THE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 pnblic for a refined drama ? Is the love of the other 
 arts less now than it has ever been ? Has poetry a 
 smaller or less sensitive public now than ever ? Is the 
 critical appreciation of genius less acute — the delight 
 in its manifestations less intense or less widely dif- 
 fused ? Who will answer these qnestions in the 
 aflSrmative ? If this be so, why should we not believe 
 that a good drama Well acted w6uld kneet with an 
 ea^er recognition lite everything else that- is good in 
 art ? Look at the plays pretending to poeti'cal ' merit, 
 which delighted our ancestors within the laist century. 
 Would these endure theordeal of a tiieatre 'filled with 
 weU-educated men and women of the present day ? Or 
 would they hot at once be doomed to the oblivion into 
 which they have justly Mien, false as they were to nature 
 in their characters and plots, and feeble and flaccid in 
 their diction ? But put before the same people a truly 
 fine piece of dramatic workmanship, true to life and 
 character, with a well-developed plot, with the weight 
 of Sir Henry Taylor's thonght in its verse, and the 
 subtly dramatic suggestiveness of Browning in the 
 framework of its dialogue ; then let all this be brought 
 out by intelligent acting, and it would be certain to 
 meet with a response as sensitive as ever greeted a fine 
 play at any period of our history. 
 
 But the actors are wanting that could attract such an 
 audience ; and until we get' the actors, we shall not get 
 the plays. For what writer capable of constructing a 
 high-class play, more especially of a poetical cast, 
 would entrust its fate to any of our metropolitan 
 theatres ? And if this be, as we know it to be, the 
 
TEE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 313 
 
 feeling of men from whom snch dramas might be 
 hoped, can we wonder that the theatres are deserted by 
 the very class to whom good plays well acted would be 
 of all others the most acceptable — ^the men and women 
 of high culture, for whom the intellectual recreation, 
 which is nowhere to-be found in such perfection as in 
 a well-ordered theatre, would be of priceless yalue ? 
 That clS/SS was never so numerous as in the present 
 day ; and if such a theatre should arise, it would be 
 against all experience of hilman nature to doubt that a 
 public would be found to fill it, and to fill it more fnUy 
 and more steadily than any similar theatre ever was 
 filled before. There is now a public for good art as 
 well as for bad ; a smaller ptiblic, but still a large one. 
 Unhappily, bad art is in the ascendent in our theatres, 
 and the best class of audiences has, as might have been 
 expected, receded from them. Those who alone go 
 there get what they want in that " inexplicable dumb 
 show and noise " which always attracts the multitude ; 
 and the careful acting, which " holds the mirror up to 
 nature," is for the moment at a discount. The croakers 
 have therefore the best of it for the time ; but those 
 who know anything of the history of the stage will 
 not therefore lose " the grave cheerfulness of a circum- 
 spect hope" that better things may be in store for us. 
 
 In the drama, as in politics, we are in one of those 
 epochs of transition which are characteristic of a people 
 that has made a vast and rapid development in numbers 
 and in wealth, and among whom the old habits and 
 relations of society are in the course of being broken 
 up. But in point of taste and relish for what is good 
 
314 TEE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and refined, we are no whit behind those who have 
 
 gone before ns. Only good sense and good taste are, 
 
 as they always must be, in a minority, and in one that 
 
 is of course obscured by the surgrag and noisy majority, 
 
 never bigger or louder than now, of the half-educated 
 
 and the fools. Fiue actiag and fine plays were no 
 
 strangers to the Roman stage in the days of Augustus, 
 
 yet Horace had the same tale to tell of the popular 
 
 taste: — ,•:■.' 
 
 "J\Jigravit ab aure voluptas 
 Nunc omnia ad incertos oculos, et gaudia vana." 
 
 A troop of infant phenomena, " an eyrie of young 
 eyases," iu Shakspeare's days bore away the bell from 
 such practised players as Burbage, Taylor, Lowin, and 
 their' fellows, just as in 1804 a pretty spouting school- 
 boy, ia the person of Master Betty, drew larger houses, 
 and created a wilder enthusiasm, than the genius and 
 artistic skill of John Kemble and his distinguished 
 eister ever did. On the English stage from D'Ave- 
 nant's time till now, pantomime, ballet, and spectacle 
 have always filled the manager's exchequer better and 
 longer than the best actors, and they always will draw 
 larger audiences than a company of even ideal excel- 
 lence. They did so when our stage was at its best. 
 They do so now, when they have it nearly aU to them- 
 selves. Brains, with the multitude, have no chance 
 against legs, nor the subtle gradations of a fine imper- 
 sonation against the gorgeous splendours of processions 
 -and transformation scenes. 
 
 But if the multitude whom such things please be 
 ■greater now than at any former time, so also is the 
 
THE DRAMA IN ENGLAND. 315 
 
 ntimber greater of those who possess literary cnlture 
 and the love of what is best in art. Keeping this fact 
 in view, it is well to remember, that there have been 
 fcnes before now when the prospects of the stage looked 
 quite as unpromising. To demonstrate this fully would 
 carry us too far; but one Ulnstration may be given. 
 In the second quarter of the last century, just before 
 the period of our stage's greatest glory, a shrewd 
 observer, whose conclusions are thoroughly borne out 
 by facts, had only such things to say of it as the 
 following. Thus, of the plays ^ — 
 
 " All our tragedies are filled with the flagrant crimes of Grecian, 
 Roman, or Turkish tyrants, and oiu: comedies very decently deck'd 
 out with our own bold-face follies and nasty vices." 
 
 The tragedians, moreover, he tells us, trusted to tire- 
 some narration rather than to the force of action, or as 
 Johnson expressed it a few years later, " Declamation 
 roar'd whilst passion slept ;" and Mrs. Behn, who 
 " fairly puts all characters to bed," was, it could easily 
 be shown, very far from being the only one of the 
 comic writers, who made free use of such strong expe- 
 dients for mirth. 
 
 The managers, of course, come in for a liberal dressing 
 of sarcasm : — 
 
 " They don't consider a play as to its merits, the reputation it 
 would bring to their art, or the pleasure or instruction it would give 
 the town. , . . They are less solicitous about this true use of the 
 stage to the world, and the dignity of their profession, than they are 
 
 > See " The Taste of the Town, or a Guide to all Publick Diver- 
 sions," London, 1731, a scarce and amusing volume, invaluable for 
 the light it throws upon the taste and manners of the time. 
 
316 TEE BBAMA IN ENOLANB. 
 
 about filling their pockets in order to enable tbem to xake, and drink, 
 and gamble, as - if they had as much right to those vices as the first 
 men of quaJity in the kingdom." 
 
 Our forefathers were clearly rather worse off in this 
 respect than onrselres ; and if the scenic shows of those 
 days were what we should call poor and mean, it was 
 from no lack of will to give them prominence : — 
 
 " When the stage is crowded, the greatness of the show casts a 
 mist, as it were, over the eyes of the spectators, aid makes the thin- 
 nest plot appear full of business. Keep the stage filled thus, you'll 
 instil life and spirit into the dullest play ; the passions will never 
 flag, nor the action cool. I have known a tragedy succeed by the 
 irresistible force of a squadron of Turkish turbans and scimetars, and 
 another owe the whole of its merit to the graceful procession of a 
 Mufti and a tribe of priests. A poet who fights cunning wiU judi- 
 ciously throw into every act a triiunph, a wedding, a funeral, a 
 christening, a feast, or some such spectacle, which must be managed 
 by a multitude. Thus, by a well-disposed succession of crowds in 
 every scene he lies, as it were, safe under cover from all criticism." 
 
 The complaint of our author against the actors is, 
 that having too great a variety of characters to play^ 
 they cannot play them well. " In acting to perfection, 
 as well as in 'Writing," he says, " a genius is required, 
 and it is impossible for one person truly to form himself 
 in so many different parts." And we can scarcely 
 wonder at his conclusion when the state of the metro- 
 politan companies was such, that the Alexander or 
 Drawcansir of to-night was the Bomeo, or Sir Fopling 
 Flutter, or Justice Shallow of to-morrow ; or when Lady 
 Macbeth laid down her dagger and crown, to become 
 the next night " the pert jUtiag chambermaid " of one 
 of Farquhar's comedies. No such complaint can be 
 alleged against our actors in these days. If they fail 
 
THE DRAMA IN ENGLAND. 317 
 
 it is not from the too great variety, but from the abso- 
 lute want of variety," in the parts for which they are 
 cast. When a play runs, as plays are now made to do, 
 for two or three hundred nights on end, the monotony 
 of his work must either drive an actor of any sensibility 
 mad, or sink him into irretrievable mannerism. The 
 latter, whether happily or not may be doubted, is appa- 
 rently the more common result. 
 
 The work we have cited was published in 1731, and 
 only ten years later appeared David Grarrick, to give 
 pt aotical disproof of the doctrine, that " the genius for 
 acting to perfection " is limited in its scope ; — his very 
 earliest performances having made it clear that a truly 
 great actor of tragedy may, and probably will, be a 
 great actor of comedy, even as Shakspeare had demon- 
 strated the theoiy of Socrates to be true, that "the 
 genius of comedy is the same as that of tragedy, and 
 that the writer of tragedy ought to be a writer of 
 comedy also."' But he did what was of infinitely 
 more importance; for by personal example, and by 
 his skill and energy as manager of Drury Lane Theatre, 
 he raised the dramatic art, and the ambition and status 
 of its professors, to a level previously unknown. He 
 had himself, immense as was his popularity from the 
 first, sofiered from the shifty and precarious Ufe, which 
 was inevitable where the metropolitan theatres were in 
 
 ' It will be remembered how the last thing remembered by Aristo- 
 demns, the narrator of the "Symposium," was Socrates insisting 
 on this proposition to Aristophanes and Agathon, the rest of the 
 party having been for some time, thanks to Agathon's wine, beyond 
 the reach of argument. 
 
318 THE DRAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the hands of men who cared nothing for art, and had 
 no principle or purpose in management, but that of 
 making money on any terms. For this state of thiogs 
 there was no cure but the practical one of a theatre con- 
 ducted on a definite plan, and in which the best actors 
 could be sure of a permanent home. " It is for the in- 
 terests of the best actors to be together," wrote Garriok 
 to Mrs. Pritchard's husband in 1747, when he entered 
 upon his lesseeship of Drury Lane ; neither was it from 
 any fault of his, if they were not kept together down to 
 the close of his lesseeship in 1776. He omitted no 
 opportunity of securing for his theatre whatever, either 
 in plays or actors, could best enable him to keep up the 
 relish in the public for a vigorous iutellectual drama. 
 The better the play, the more certain was it of being 
 worthily presented ; for with such performers as Mrs. 
 Gibber, Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Tates, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. 
 Olive, Miss Pope, Miss Tounge, Mrs. Abington, Barry, 
 Mossop, Sheridan, Woodward, King, Smith, Shuter, 
 and Weston, not to mention a host of others of inferior 
 ability, character, passion, pathos, poetry, humour or 
 wit, were more likely to gain than suffer in the render- 
 ing. What a scope was here for emulation of the best 
 kind behind the curtain ! What a school for taste to 
 the audiences before it! Held together as these admir- 
 able artists were, moreover, by a man like Garrick, no 
 Jess conspicuous for practical sense and a fine critical 
 faculty than for genius as an actor, all that was best in 
 them was brought out as it could never otherwise have 
 been. In his own person he set before them the example 
 of unwearied study in preparation, and scrupulous care 
 
THE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 31» 
 
 in performance ; and the same discipline wMch. he im- 
 posed upon himself he enforced npon his company, by 
 careful rehearsals and unwearied efforts to infuse into 
 them the suggestions of his own intelligence and expe- 
 rience. Even performers of great name owed more of 
 their success thaji their vanity admitted to what was 
 done for them in this way by Garrick. As plain- 
 speaking Kitty Clive wrote to him in 1776 : — 
 
 " I hare seen you with your magical hammer in your hand endea- 
 Tooring to beat your ideas into the heads of creatures who had none 
 of their own. . . . There are people now on the stage to whom you 
 gave their consequence ; they think themselves very great ; now let 
 them go on in their new parts, and they will soon convince the world 
 what their genius is." 
 
 However this might be, the public at least were the 
 gainers. The system struck root. Care in study, care 
 in performance, acute and active intelligence brought to 
 bear on the whole business of the scene, the contrast of 
 varied styles of excellence, the constant endeavour to 
 bring out by the best considered experiments in what is 
 technically known as " stage business " all the strength 
 of good dramatic situations, begot a standard of excel- 
 lence upon the stage of Garrick's theatre, which re-acted 
 upon the public taste, and diffused its influence even to 
 remote provincial stages. Nor was his personal cha- 
 racter and intimate relations with the best society 
 without a salutary influence upon the status of actors 
 generally. Junius with hia accustomed brutality might 
 denounce him as a "vagabond." But public opinion no 
 longer recognized the force of the epithet. The per- 
 sonal friend of Chatham, Camden, and the Archbishop 
 
320 TEE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of Canterbury might still by statute be a vagabond, 
 but be was not therefore the less a geatlemaa. He had 
 beaten down by the excellence of his private life, no 
 less thaji by his genius, the narrow prejudice which 
 had dealt with actors as people beyond the pale of good 
 society ; and what he began was made secure by many 
 followers of the art, in whom were found moral worth, 
 well regulated lives, and "all good grace to grace a 
 gentleman." In none were these more conspicuous 
 than in the Kemble famUy, who so soon after Giarrick's 
 departure renewed, under a different phase, the splen- 
 dours of the actor's art; and continued, in the person of 
 John Kemble, during his management first of Drury 
 Lane and afterwards of Covent Garden, the system of 
 discipline and the standard of prevailing excellence 
 which Garrick had established. 
 
 Admirable as John Kemble was in his enthusiasm 
 for his art, he committed, or more probably was forced 
 by the undue size of Covent Garden Theatre into, the 
 mistake of initiating those gorgeous scenic displays, 
 which were immediately copied in a spirit of rivaby at 
 Drury Lane, and which have done so much to degrade 
 the stage as the home of art. So long as scenery and 
 carefully dressed supernumeraries merely illustrate and 
 relieve the action of the scene, it is fit and proper that 
 they should be of the best kind ; but when these are 
 carried to the point of " shouldering aside the dramatic 
 interest" — ^to use Sir W. Scott's happy phrase — the 
 effect is disastrous. Disastrous in all ways, — disastrous 
 to actors, disastrous to public taste, and, as ample ex- 
 perience has proved, disastrous to theatres themselves. 
 
TEE DRAMA IN ENGLAND. 321 
 
 Disastrous to actors, because they feel that they are 
 little better than puppets in the spectacle, — disastrous 
 to the taste of the public, because their eyes and senses, 
 not their brains and hearts, are appealed to ; and disas- 
 trous to theatres, because the outlay involved can never 
 be compensated. Sooner or later comes the inevitable 
 failure, for " the many-headed beast," though gratified 
 by ever increasing splendour of scenery, and ever multi- 
 plying masses of richly attired processionists, gets sated 
 in the end, and turns in disgust from the weary show. 
 We seem to be nearing this stage at the present moment. 
 Even those who formerly applauded what were mis- 
 takenly called Shakspearian revivals, have begun to 
 think that it would be better if the carpenter and 
 scene-painter were put into the background, and theatres 
 were forced to rely for attraction upon the development 
 of character and passion ; while the much more numer- 
 ous class, who look to the theatre for intellectual 
 stimulus and refreshment, for wit, character, incident, 
 and poetry, are crying aloud for the establishment of 
 some theatre in the metropolis, where their desire may 
 be gratified, and the languid hours that succeed to a day 
 of hard work may be brightened by the combination of 
 good literature with good acting. 
 
 The cry is a natural one — ^but how to meet it is a 
 problem of no ordinary difficulty. What excellence 
 existed in our theatres in bygone days was, as we have 
 indicated, the slow growth of many years, and of cir- 
 cumstances abnormally happy in the fact of the great 
 presiding minds at the head of the two great metro- 
 politan theatres. It was more easy to dislocate an4 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE DBAMA IN ENQLANB. 
 
 ■ultimately destroy the system under which that excel- 
 lence flourished, than it can ever be to restore an equi- 
 valent for it. The schools for dramatic art are extinct, 
 the traditions of the stage lost, and as these traditions 
 were the results of the observation and experience of 
 the ablest actors throngh many generations, this is a 
 loss not lightly to be estimated, where the great dramas 
 of OUT older literature are concerned.^ Actors, more- 
 over, are united by no common bond. There is no 
 centre to which they can rally, no leader whom they 
 would be content to follow and obey. A theatre is a 
 venture too costly to be risked, upon the mere chance 
 of finding a public sufficiently pq.tient to bear with the 
 shortcomings of such actors as might in the first in- 
 stance be avedlable for a higher class of drama, for the 
 sake of the good intention shown in the plstn on which 
 it was conducted, and until the actors could be got into 
 such excellent working order as might satisfy an edu- 
 cated and fastidious taste. Whoever enters, therefore, 
 upon an enterprise of this sort, must be both content and 
 able to wait. He must be of a spirit, moreover, not 
 easily daunted, for his discouragements from within, 
 as well as from without, wiU be neither few nor slight. 
 Actors, even in the days of discipline and subordination, 
 
 ' It is well known, for example, that Betterton used to acknow- 
 ledge his obligations to Taylor of the Blackfriars Company, and to 
 the elder Lowin ; the former of whom was instrncted in the character 
 of Hamlet, and the latter in that of Henry VHI. by Shakspeare 
 himself. What Betterton thus learned was transmitted through an 
 unbroken chain to Garrick and Barry, and helped to form their 
 excellence and that of their successors. 
 
TEE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 323 
 
 were never teasy to manage. Like other artists they are 
 apt to be, by temperament, irritable, jealous, and capri- 
 cious ; and, as Sir W. Scott has well said ia a letter to 
 his friend Telry (« Lockliart's Life," vol. vii. p. 371), 
 " Jealousy among them is signally active, because their 
 very persons are brought into direct comparison, and 
 from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot they 
 are pitted by the public in express rivalry against each 
 other." So racked and tormented was Grarrick by their 
 jealousies and caprice, supplemented as they were, and 
 always will be, by the unreason and caprice of audi- 
 ences, that he said, "the plagues of management for 
 one year are sufficient to expiate a whole life of sin." 
 These difficulties are not likely to be lighter now, when 
 the internal discipliae of theatres has all but disap- 
 peared; when, moreover, there is absolutely no stan- 
 dard of excellence to appeal to, and every third and 
 fourth-rate declaimer, or buffoon, is struggling for a 
 front place, and sees no reason why he should not have 
 it. . Position and prominence on the stage, as else- 
 where, means money value, and in these days when 
 even art amoing artists becomes subordinate to lust of 
 gain, the theatre is not likely to be exempt from the 
 prevailing vice. 
 
 And yet, if we are not to continue calmly under the 
 shame of being without a theatre commensurate with 
 the culture of the age, some effort must be made to 
 overcome these and the other practical difficulties which 
 crowd upon the mind of whosoever is conversant with 
 the condition of the theatrical world. What the other 
 countries of Europe have done surely we can accomplish 
 
324 THE BBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 in England also. It is true, no donbt, that the snperior 
 tone and finish which prevail in the best theatres of 
 France and Germany, are due in a great measnre to the 
 fact that being, by reason of the State subventions, less 
 dependent on the caprices of the public taste, they can 
 afford to appeal to a higher culture than theatres which, 
 like ours, must come to a stand-still unless they can 
 attract the general public. Government assistance for 
 any theatre in this country is hopeless ; neither is it to 
 be desired, for it would be an injustice to the other 
 theatres from which it was withheld. Some equivalent 
 for it must, however, be found ; and for this we may 
 fairly look to that public spirit and private wealth by 
 which so many admirable results are achieved among 
 us. In a country so rich as ours the sum required 
 would be a mere trifle, and it could undoubtedly be 
 found without difficulty. But it is not desirable it 
 should be found, unless the organization of such a 
 theatre as we point at were in other respects complete. 
 The money would most probably be wanted, not in hard 
 cash, but in the shape of a guarantee similar in prin- 
 ciple to that under which our two great Exhibitions 
 were constructed. And, on the supposition already 
 put, this guarantee would in all likelihood no more 
 require to be drawn upon in the one case than in the 
 others. 
 
 The more perplexing problem, however, is the internal 
 organization; and first as to the actors. Scattered about 
 among the theatres in the metropolis and provinces there 
 are actors and actresses of experience and artistic feel- 
 ing, who, for the chance of finding a home in a high- 
 
TKE BBAMA IN ENGLAND. 326 
 
 class mefa-opolitan theatre — where they were sure of 
 being treated with the courtesy and consideration due 
 to the members of a liberal profession — would, no 
 doubt, be content to make present sacrifices both in 
 income and in nominal position. If these were brought 
 together for the purpose of playing pure drama, where 
 they could be assured of a permanent position as the 
 result of proved ability and conscientious industry, and 
 subjected to a distinct code of rules as to precedence, 
 and to a stringent discipline as to rehearsals and perform- 
 ance, similar to those which prevail in the Oomedie 
 FranQaise, the foundation would, at all events, be laid 
 for that system of co-operation on which, much more 
 than actual genius in the actors themselves, the charm 
 rests of the performances at that theatre. We should 
 get rid, under this state of things, of the ignorance, the 
 slovenliness, the vulgarity, the want of harmony and 
 proportion, with which our stage is too familiar. Each 
 would do his best, not only for himself, but for the 
 general effect. Care and thought would be felt through- 
 out, and a general level of excellence be achieved, which 
 would sustain the illusion and gratify the taste. In 
 time, doubtless, higher merits would be developed. 
 Genius would arise, and be of necessity attracted to 
 a theatre of this stamp. Acting would be dealt with 
 as an art by its professors, an art for the study of 
 which, as Barton Booth said, the longest life is too 
 short: and in the end audiences would also learn to 
 appreciate this truth, and bring the force of intelligent 
 criticism to bear upon the performers. The theatre 
 would then become to the spectators, as it ought to be. 
 
326 TEE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 not merely the pastime of an idle hour, but a place of 
 study, a whetstone of the imagination and the sympa- 
 thies, a revealer of the secret springs of character and 
 emotion, and of the subtler beauties of our finest poetry. 
 They would learn at the same time to appreciate the 
 niceties and the difficulties of histrionic art, and by 
 their knowledge be enabled to stimulate merit, and 
 rebuke defect or carelessness, instead of. encouraging, 
 as audiences too often do at present, whatever is most 
 false in conception, and meretricious in style. Good 
 actors will not exist without intelligent andiences ; and 
 if things are bad upon the stage it is quite as often the 
 audience as the actors who are to blame. i 
 
 But assuming, as may fairly, be done, that a theatre 
 and actors such as we have indicated may both be 
 found, still they will be found to no purpose, unless at 
 the same time some presiding spirit can be ^found to 
 take the command of both, and to exercise it with fore- 
 thought and firmness. Herein, as it seems to us, lies 
 the crucial difficulty; for it is obvious that,. for the 
 manager of such an establishment, a combination is 
 required of such qualities as must at all times be hard 
 to find. An actor he must not be, nor allied to actors, 
 for he must be neither liable to the temptations of per- 
 sonal vanity, nor open to the suspicion , of partiality. 
 With a Garrick, a Kemble, or a Macready in the. field 
 this requisite might be dispensed with, but, even in their, 
 case the fact that they were actors was a positive 
 drawback to them as managers. With any actor of 
 less pre-eminent power, the condition should be abso- 
 lute. But, though not an actor he must be a good 
 
TEE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 327 
 
 judge of acting, for on him the Belection and discipline 
 of the troops with which he has to conduct his cam- 
 paign mnst rest. A man of broad and catholic literary, 
 taste he mnst also be, — Jiot wedded to one form of this 
 drama, but open to recognize the real merits of . all 
 which deal with actual life and character, as well as 
 with the higher spiritual life and reality of poetical 
 conception. He must be able to cater for all tastes, so 
 that only they are pure and healthy. Artistic feeling 
 for beauty, symmetry, and proportion should be instinc- 
 tive with him, to enable him to decide on just that 
 amount of scenic iHustration, . and fulness of mise en 
 scene, which should set ofiF, but not encroach upon, the 
 actor's work. He should also be conspicuous for 
 scmovr-fcme, and force of character, for he has to govern 
 men and women, sensitive in temperament, and jealous 
 of their position, who will never surrender their own 
 whims and vanities except to a determined will, wise- 
 timed tact, and acknowledged purity of. intention. 
 Practical business habits will be no less essential to 
 establish the completeness of organization, and to con- 
 trol the ever-recurring proclivity to waste, always pre- 
 dominant enough in every sphere, but never more so 
 than in a theatre. 
 
 For these and other minor qualities, on which it is 
 unnecessary to dilate, it would be idle to seek among 
 any theatrical managers of the present day. Of them 
 it may be said, as a race, that their only aim is to. fill 
 their theatre at the smallest cost, without regard to the 
 quality of the attraction. They will follow any vicious 
 public taste, but have no ambition to correct or elevate' 
 
328 THE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 it. As to any settled policy — either as to the actors 
 they enlist, or the class of pieces they produce, this, 
 except in the rarest instances, is never dreamed of. 
 Where a different system has prevailed, and good 
 pieces, carefully acted and placed upon the stage, have 
 been the rule, as in the case of the Prinoe of Wales's 
 Theatre, the best results have foUo-wed. Actors, 
 audience, and manager have all gained, and this to an 
 extent which justifies the warmest hopes for any 
 theatre, where the same rule shall be applied upon a 
 wider scale, and with a higher aim. There, the effort 
 has been proportioned to the available means. The 
 plays are good of their kind, the actors equal to the 
 arena they have to work in, and the tasks committed 
 to their care ; and the harmonious and agreeable effect 
 which results delights a not too exacting audience, and 
 fills the manager's exchequer. Apply the same 
 methods on a higher scale, and there can be no ques- 
 tion that similar results wUl ensue. Act Shakspeare, 
 for example, ia such a way that the audience shall, as 
 Shakspeare expected them to do, "work their thoughts" 
 to eke out the iuevitable imperfections of all scenic 
 representation : — do not make the poet's work a mere 
 vehicle for the scene-painter's and costumier's art, and 
 drown all imaginative sympathy in the confusion and 
 noise of elaborate scenery and awkward supernume- 
 raries — let iatellect and imagination have full play, and 
 keep mere physical stimulus in the back-ground, and 
 even Shakspeare wUl.not " spell ruin," which managers, 
 who have no idea of Shakspeare or of any other writer 
 above the level of a Boiicicault or a Halliday, are so 
 
TEE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 329 
 
 fond of telling the world that lie does. Presented as 
 they present him, how should he spell anything bnt 
 min ? Without one actor or actress who knows the 
 value of a blank verse line, not to speak of their in- 
 ability to form the feeblest conception of a Prospero, or 
 a Miranda, a Constance, or a King John — what but 
 failure must ensue on an attempt to embody in the 
 grossest material forms, and with the clumsiest em- 
 phasis, the subtle spirit of the finest poetry ? 
 
 Such a manager as we aim at will follow no such 
 impracticable course. He will proportion his ends to 
 his means, and never commit the absurdity of pro- 
 ducing the plays of Shakspeare or of any other first- 
 class dramatist, until he is sure of artists equal to the 
 task, or at least in thorough sympathy with it. Below 
 this line a whole world of excellent dramas exists, or 
 may be created, for which the necessary gifts in actor 
 or actress either exist, or may very readily be cul- 
 tivated. Higher work will come in time ; if the con- 
 ditions for its development can only be established and 
 permanently maintained. The dramatic instinct will 
 not die out of men, as long as the race survives. The 
 dignity of the actor's art was never more sure of a 
 recogpaition &om the public, than it is at this moment. 
 Make it in its practical exercise — and this is now 
 merely a question of the internal arrangement of 
 theatres, and of theatrical management — a vocation 
 which men and women of education and pure habits 
 can pursue without forfeiture of self-respect, and the 
 ranks of the profession will speedily be recruited by 
 persons of ability and character, who would in time 
 
330 TEIE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 
 
 drive into their fitting obscurity the incapacity and un- 
 seemly impudence ■which disgrace so many of our 
 stages. But there is, we are assured, only one way of 
 doiilg this, and it is by giving our ai-tists a fit arena 
 for the exercise of their art ia a theatre where the 
 artistic spirit reigns, and where intelligence and high 
 principle are at the head of afiairs. Let such a theatre 
 be once firmly established, and there need be no fear 
 that England will yet be as famous for her acted, as 
 she is for her written drama. 
 
 But everything, as we have said, will and must 
 depend on the governing mind which shall undertake 
 the office of controlling and directing such a theatre 
 as we have indicated. To find it must be difficult; 
 impossible, we cannot believe. The first step towards 
 supplying a want is to recognize it. Let this be fairly 
 seen and understood, and we feel confident that those, 
 who are now agitating to remove from us the reproach 
 of a degraded stage, will find some one who may com- 
 bine, if noi' all, at least most of the essential qua;lities 
 for the tast. But there must be no division of respon- 
 sibility, no limitation of his power, no interference by 
 coiumittees of consultation or of any other kind. These 
 can lead only to jobbing, to confasion, to vacUlation 
 and ultimate failure. ' The principle of a limited 
 monarchy is as inapplicable to the administration of a 
 theatre as that of a republic. It is like a great family, 
 or a great army, t^here the central authority must be 
 absolute, and the only safeguard is the decisive action 
 of an intelligent despot. Without such a head the 
 
THE DBAMA IN ENGLAND. 331 
 
 complicated machine will inevitably fall out of gear. 
 But invest the leader with full powers, and he will be 
 unfit indeed for his place if he cannot select wisely his 
 own staff for either counsel or action. 
 
 THE EOT). 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS :— PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 
 
■ la m f ff lllilt^fDHUtOlf- 
 
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