SHADOWS OF THESTAGE

BYWILLIAM WINTER

 _"The best in this kind are but shadows"_

SHAKESPEARE

NEW YORKMACMILLAN AND COMPANYAND LONDON1893

COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY MACMILLAN & CO. 

Set up and electrotyped May, 1892. Large Paper Edition printed May. Ordinary Edition reprinted June, August, November, 1892; January, June, October, November, 1893. 

Norwood Press:J. S. Cushing & Co. --Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass. , U. S. A. 

TO

Henry Irving

IN MEMORY AND IN HONOUROF ALL THAT HE HAS DONETO DIGNIFY AND ADORN THE STAGEAND TO ENNOBLE SOCIETYTHIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED

 _"Cui laurus æternos honores Delmatico peperit triumpho"_

PREFACE. 

_The papers contained in this volume, chosen out of hundreds that theauthor has written on dramatic subjects, are assembled with the hopethat they may be accepted, in their present form, as a part of thepermanent record of our theatrical times. For at least thirty years ithas been a considerable part of the constant occupation of the author toobserve and to record the life of the contemporary stage. Since 1860 hehas written intermittently in various periodicals, and since the summerof 1865 he has written continuously in the New York Tribune, upon actorsand their art; and in that way he has accumulated a great mass ofhistorical commentary upon the drama. In preparing this book he has beenpermitted to draw from his contributions to the Tribune, and also fromhis writings in Harper's Magazine and Weekly, in the London Theatre, andin Augustin Daly's Portfolio of Players. The choice of these papers hasbeen determined partly by consideration of space and partly with thedesign of supplementing the author's earlier dramatic books, namely:Edwin Booth in Twelve Dramatic Characters; The Jeffersons; Henry Irving;The Stage Life of Mary Anderson; Brief Chronicles, containing eighty-sixdramatic biographies; In Memory of McCullough; The Life of John Gilbert;The Life and Works of John Brougham; The Press and the Stage; The Actorand Other Speeches; and A Daughter of Comedy, being the life of AdaRehan. The impulse of all those writings, and of the present volume, iscommemorative. Let us save what we can. _

 _"Sed omnes una manet nox, Et calcanda semel via leti. "_

W. W. APRIL 18, 1892. 

CONTENTS. 

 CHAP. PAGE

 I. THE GOOD OLD TIMES 13

 II. IRVING IN FAUST 30

 III. ADELAIDE NEILSON 47

 IV. EDWIN BOOTH 63

 V. MARY ANDERSON 90

 VI. OLIVIA 119

 VII. ON JEFFERSON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 130

 VIII. ON JEFFERSON'S ACTING 151

 IX. JEFFERSON AND FLORENCE 159

 X. ON THE DEATH OF FLORENCE 169

 XI. SHYLOCK AND PORTIA 178

 XII. JOHN McCULLOUGH 185

 XIII. CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN 206

 XIV. LAWRENCE BARRETT 215

 XV. IRVING IN RAVENSWOOD 226

 XVI. MERRY WIVES AND FALSTAFF 243

 XVII. ADA REHAN 258

 XVIII. TENNYSON'S FORESTERS 269

 XIX. ELLEN TERRY: MERCHANT OF VENICE 286

 XX. RICHARD MANSFIELD 301

 XXI. GENEVIEVE WARD 315

 XXII. EDWARD S. WILLARD 322

 XXIII. SALVINI 339

 XXIV. IRVING AS EUGENE ARAM 348

 XXV. CHARLES FISHER 367

 XXVI. MRS. GILBERT 374

 XXVII. JAMES LEWIS 379

XXVIII. A LEAF FROM MY JOURNAL 383

 _"--It so fell out that certain players We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him; And there did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it. "_

HAMLET. 

 _"Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world--though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst--the cant of criticism is the most tormenting. I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth riding on, to kiss the hand of that man who will give up the reins of his imagination into his author's hands, --be pleased he knows not why and cares not wherefore. "_

TRISTRAM SHANDY. 

SHADOWS OF THE STAGE. 

I. 

THE GOOD OLD TIMES. 

It is recorded of John Lowin, an actor contemporary with Shakespeare andassociated with several of Shakespeare's greater characters (his rangewas so wide, indeed, that it included Falstaff, Henry the Eighth, andHamlet), that, having survived the halcyon days of "Eliza and our James"and lingered into the drab and russet period of the Puritans, when allthe theatres in the British islands were suppressed, he became poor andpresently kept a tavern, at Brentford, called The Three Pigeons. Lowinwas born in 1576 and he died in 1654--his grave being in London, in thechurchyard of St. Martin-in-the-Fields--so that, obviously, he was oneof the veterans of the stage. He was in his seventy-eighth year when hepassed away--wherefore in his last days he must have been "a mine ofmemories. " He could talk of the stirring times of Leicester, Drake, Essex, and Raleigh. He could remember, as an event of his boyhood, theexecution of Queen Mary Stuart, and possibly he could describe, as aneye-witness, the splendid funeral procession of Sir Philip Sidney. Hecould recall the death of Queen Elizabeth; the advent of Scottish James;the ruffling, brilliant, dissolute, audacious Duke of Buckingham; theimpeachment and disgrace of Francis Bacon; the production of the greatplays of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson; the meetings of the wits and poetsat the Apollo and the Mermaid. He might have personally known RobertHerrick--that loveliest of the wild song-birds of that golden age. Hemight have been present at the burial of Edmund Spenser, in WestminsterAbbey--when the poet brothers of the author of _The Faerie Queene_ castinto his grave their manuscript elegies and the pens with which thoselaments had been written. He had acted Hamlet, --perhaps in the author'spresence. He had seen the burning of the old Globe Theatre. He had been, in the early days of Charles the First, the chief and distinguishedFalstaff of the time. He had lived under the rule of three successiveprinces; had deplored the sanguinary fate of the martyr-king (for theactors were almost always royalists); had seen the rise of theParliament and the downfall of the theatre; and now, under theProtectorate of Oliver Cromwell, he had become the keeper of an humblewayside inn. It is easy to fancy the old actor sitting in his chair ofstate, the monarch of his tap-room, with a flagon of beer, and achurch-warden pipe of tobacco, and holding forth, to a select circle ofcronies, upon the vanished glories of the Elizabethan stage--upon thedays when there were persons in existence really worthy to be calledactors. He could talk of Richard Burbage, the first Romeo; of Armin, famous in Shakespeare's clowns and fools; of Heminge and Condell, whoedited the First Folio of Shakespeare, which possibly he himselfpurchased, fresh from the press; of Joseph Taylor, whom it is saidShakespeare personally instructed how to play Hamlet, and therecollection of whose performance enabled Sir William Davenant to impartto Betterton the example and tradition established by the author--amodel that has lasted to the present day; of Kempe, the originalDogberry, and of the exuberant, merry Richard Tarleton, after whom thatcomic genius had fashioned his artistic method; of Alleyne, who kept thebear-garden, and who founded the College and Home at Dulwich--where theystill flourish; of Gabriel Spencer, and his duel with Ben Jonson, wherein he lost his life at the hands of that burly antagonist; ofMarlowe "of the mighty line, " and his awful and lamentabledeath--stabbed at Deptford by a drunken drawer in a tavern brawl. Veryrich and fine, there can be no doubt, were that veteran actor'sremembrances of "the good old times, " and most explicit and downright, it may surely be believed, was his opinion, freely communicated to thegossips of The Three Pigeons, that--in the felicitous satirical phraseof Joseph Jefferson--all the good actors are dead. 

It was ever thus. Each successive epoch of theatrical history presentsthe same picturesque image of storied regret--memory incarnated in theveteran, ruefully vaunting the vanished glories of the past. There hasalways been a time when the stage was finer than it is now. Cibber andMacklin, surviving in the best days of Garrick, Peg Woffington, andKitty Clive, were always praising the better days of Wilks, Betterton, and Elizabeth Barry. Aged play-goers of the period of Edmund Kean andJohn Philip Kemble were firmly persuaded that the drama had been buried, never to rise again, with the dust of Garrick and Henderson, beneath thepavement of Westminster Abbey. Less than fifty years ago an Americanhistorian of the stage (James Rees, 1845) described it as a wreck, overwhelmed with "gloom and eternal night, " above which the genius ofthe drama was mournfully presiding, in the likeness of an owl. The NewYork veteran of to-day, although his sad gaze may not penetrate backwardquite to the effulgent splendours of the old Park, will sigh forBurton's and the Olympic, and the luminous period of Mrs. Richardson, Mary Taylor, and Tom Hamblin. The Philadelphia veteran gazes back to thegolden era of the old Chestnut Street theatre, the epoch of tie-wigs andshoe-buckles, the illustrious times of Wood and Warren, when Fennell, Cooke, Cooper, Wallack, and J. B. Booth were shining names in tragedy, and Jefferson and William Twaits were great comedians, and the beautifulAnne Brunton was the queen of the stage. The Boston veteran speaksproudly of the old Federal and the old Tremont, of Mary Duff, JuliaPelby, Charles Eaton, and Clara Fisher, and is even beginning to gildwith reminiscent splendour the first days of the Boston Theatre, whenThomas Barry was manager and Julia Bennett Barrow and Mrs. John Woodcontended for the public favour. In a word, the age that has seenRachel, Seebach, Ristori, Charlotte Cushman, and Adelaide Neilson, theage that sees Ellen Terry, Mary Anderson, Edwin Booth, Joseph Jefferson, Henry Irving, Salvini, Coquelin, Lawrence Barrett, John Gilbert, John S. Clarke, Ada Rehan, James Lewis, Clara Morris, and Richard Mansfield, isa comparatively sterile period--"Too long shut in strait and few, thinlydieted on dew"--which ought to have felt the spell of Cooper and MaryBuff, and known what acting was when Cooke's long forefinger pointed theway, and Dunlap bore the banner, and pretty Mrs. Marshall bewitched thefather of his country, and Dowton raised the laugh, and lovely Mrs. Barrett melted the heart, and the roses were "bright by the calmBendemeer. " The present writer, who began theatre-going in earnest overthirty years ago, finds himself full often musing over a dramatic timethat still seems brighter than this--when he could exult in the fairysplendour and comic humour of _Aladdin_ and weep over the sorrows of_The Drunkard_, when he was thrilled and frightened by J. B. Booth in_The Apostate_, and could find an ecstasy of pleasure in the loves ofAlonzo and Cora and the sublime self-sacrifice of Rolla. Thoughts ofsuch actors as Henry Wallack, George Jordan, John Brougham, John E. Owens, Mary Carr, Mrs. Barrow, and Charlotte Thompson, together in thesame theatre, are thoughts of brilliant people and of more than commonlyhappy displays of talent and beauty. The figures that used to be seen onWallack's stage, at the house he established upon the wreck of JohnBrougham's Lyceum, often rise in memory, crowned with a peculiar light. Lester Wallack, in his peerless elegance; Laura Keene, in her spiritualbeauty; the quaint, eccentric Walcot; the richly humorous Blake, sonoble in his dignity, so firm and fine and easy in his method, socopious in his natural humour; Mary Gannon, sweet, playful, bewitching, irresistible; Mrs. Vernon, as full of character as the tulip is ofcolour or the hyacinth of grace, and as delicate and refined as anexquisite bit of old china--those actors made a group, the like ofwhich it would be hard to find now. Shall we ever see again such anOthello as Edwin Forrest, or such a Lord Duberly and Cap'n Cuttle asBurton, or such a Dazzle as John Brougham, or such an Affable Hawk asCharles Mathews? Certainly there was a superiority of manner, a tinge ofintellectual character, a tone of grace and romance about the oldactors, such as is not common in the present; and, making all needfulallowance for the illusive glamour that memory casts over the distantand the dim, it yet remains true that the veterans of our day have acertain measure of right upon their side of the question. 

In the earlier periods of our theatrical history the strength of thestage was concentrated in a few theatres. The old Park, for example, wascalled simply The Theatre, and when the New York playgoer spoke of goingto the play he meant that he was going there. One theatre, or perhapstwo, might flourish, in a considerable town, during a part of the year, but the field was limited, and therefore the actors were broughttogether in two or three groups. The star system, at least till the timeof Cooper, seems to have been innocuous. Garrick's prodigious successin London, more than a hundred years ago, had enabled him to engross thecontrol of the stage in that centre, where he was but little opposed, and practically to exile many players of the first ability, whose lustrehe dimmed or whose services he did not require; and those playersdispersed themselves to distant places--to York, Dublin, Edinburgh, etc. --or crossed the sea to America. With that beginning the way wasopened for the growth of superb stock-companies, in the early days ofthe American theatre. The English, next to the Italians, were the firstamong modern peoples to create a dramatic literature and to establishthe acted drama, and they have always led in this field--antedating, historically, and surpassing in essential things the French stage whichnowadays it is fashionable to extol. English influence, at all timesstern and exacting, stamped the character of our early theatre. The toneof society, alike in the mother country, in the colonies, and in thefirst years of our Republic, was, as to these matters, formal andsevere. Success upon the stage was exceedingly difficult to obtain, andit could not be obtained without substantial merit. The youths whosought it were often persons of liberal education. In Philadelphia, NewYork, and Boston the stock-companies were composed of select andthoroughly trained actors, many of whom were well-grounded classicalscholars. Furthermore, the epoch was one of far greater leisure andrepose than are possible now--- when the civilised world is at thesummit of sixty years of scientific development such as it had notexperienced in all its recorded centuries of previous progress. Naturally enough the dramatic art of our ancestors was marked byscholar-like and thorough elaboration, mellow richness of colour, absolute simplicity of character, and great solidity of merit. Suchactors as Wignell, Hodgkinson, Jefferson, Francis, and Blissett offeredno work that was not perfect of its kind. The tradition had beenestablished and accepted, and it was transmitted and preserved. Everything was concentrated, and the public grew to be entirely familiarwith it. Men, accordingly, who obtained their ideas of acting at a timewhen they were under influences surviving from those ancient days areconfused, bewildered, and distressed by much that is offered in thetheatres now. I have listened to the talk of an aged Americanacquaintance (Thurlow Weed), who had seen and known Edmund Kean, andwho said that all modern tragedians were insignificant in comparisonwith him. I have listened to the talk of an aged English acquaintance(Fladgate), who had seen and known John Philip Kemble, and who said thathis equal has never since been revealed. The present day knows what theold school was, [1] when it sees William Warren, Joseph Jefferson, Charles Fisher, Mrs. John Drew, John Gilbert, J. H. Stoddart, Mrs. G. H. Gilbert, William Davidge, and Lester Wallack--the results and theremains of it. The old touch survives in them and is under theircontrol, and no one, seeing their ripe and finished art, can feelsurprise that the veteran moralist should be wedded to his idols of thepast, and should often be heard sadly to declare that all the goodactors--except these--are dead. He forgets that scores of theatres nowexist where once there were but two or three; that the population of theUnited States has been increased by about fifty millions within ninetyyears; that the field has been enormously broadened; that the characterof, the audience has become one of illimitable diversity; that theprodigious growth of the star-system, together with all sorts ofexperimental catch-penny theatrical management, is one of the inevitablenecessities of the changed condition of civilisation; that the feverishtone of this great struggling and seething mass of humanity isnecessarily reflected in the state of the theatre; and that the forcesof the stage have become very widely diffused. Such a moralist wouldnecessarily be shocked by the changes that have come upon our theatrewithin even the last twenty-five years--by the advent of "the sensationdrama, " invented and named by Dion Boucicault; by the resuscitation ofthe spectacle play, with its lavish tinsel and calcium glare and itsmultitudinous nymphs; by the opera bouffe, with its frequent licentiousribaldry; by the music-hall comedian, with his vulgar realism; and bythe idiotic burlesque; with its futile babble and its big-limbed, half-naked girls. Nevertheless there are just as good actors now livingas have ever lived, and there is just as fine a sense of dramatic art inthe community as ever existed in any of "the palmy days"; only, what wasformerly concentrated is now scattered. 

The stage is keeping step with the progress of human thought in everydirection, and it will continue to advance. Evil influences impressedupon it there certainly are, in liberal abundance--not the least ofthese being that of the speculative shop-keeper, whose nature it is toseize any means of turning a penny, and who deals in dramatic artprecisely as he would deal in groceries: but when we speak of "ourstage" we do not mean an aggregation of shows or of the schemes ofshowmen. The stage is an institution that has grown out of a necessityin human nature. It was as inevitable that man should evolve the theatreas it was that he should evolve the church, the judiciary tribunal, theparliament, or any other essential component of the State. Almost allhuman beings possess the dramatic perception; a few possess the dramaticfaculty. These few are born for the stage, and each and every generationcontributes its number to the service of this art. The problem is one ofselection and embarkation. Of the true actor it may be said, as BenJonson says of the true poet, that he is made as well as born. Thefinest natural faculties have never yet been known to avail withouttraining and culture. But this is a problem which, in a great measure, takes care of itself and in time works out and submits its own solution. The anomaly, every day presented, of the young person who, knowingnothing, feeling nothing, and having nothing to communicate except thedesire of communication, nevertheless rushes upon the stage, is felt tobe absurd. Where the faculty as well as the instinct exists, however, impulse soon recognises the curb of common sense, and the aspirant findshis level. In this way the dramatic profession is recruited. In this waythe several types of dramatic artist--each type being distinct and eachbeing expressive of a sequence from mental and spiritual ancestry--aremaintained. It is not too much to say that a natural law operatessilently and surely behind each seemingly capricious chance, in thisfield of the conduct of life. A thoroughly adequate dramaticstock-company may almost be said to be a thing of natural accretion. Itis made up, like every other group, of the old, the middle-aged, and theyoung; but, unlike every other group, it must contain the capacity topresent, in a concrete image, each elemental type of human nature, andto reproduce, with the delicate exaggeration essential to dramatic art, every species of person; in order that all human life--whether of thestreet, the dwelling, the court, the camp, man in his common joys andsorrows, his vices, crimes, miseries, his loftiest aspirations and mostideal state--may be so copied that the picture will express all itsbeauty and sweetness, all its happiness and mirth, all its dignity, andall its moral admonition and significance, for the benefit of the world. Such a dramatic stock-company, for example (and this is but one of thecommendable products of the modern stage), has grown up and crystallisedinto a form of refined power and symmetry, for the purpose to which itis devoted, under the management of Augustin Daly. That purpose is theacting of comedy. Mr. Daly began management in 1869, and he has remainedin it, almost continually, from that time to this. Many players, firstand last, have served under his direction. His company has knownvicissitudes. But the organisation has not lost its comprehensive form, its competent force, and its attractive quality of essential grace. Nothoughtful observer of its career can have failed to perceive how promptthe manager has been to profit by every lesson of experience; what keenperception he has shown as to the essential constituents of a theatricaltroop; with what fine judgment he has used the forces at his disposal;with what intrepid resolution and expeditious energy he has animatedtheir spirit and guided their art; and how naturally those players haveglided into their several stations and assimilated in one artisticfamily. How well balanced, how finely equipped, how distinctively ablethat company is, and what resources of poetry, thought, taste, character, humour, and general capacity it contains, may not, perhaps, be fully appreciated in the passing hour. "_Non, si male nunc, et olimsic erit. _" Fifty years from now, when perchance some veteran, stillbright and cheery "in the chimney-nook of age, " shall sit in hisarmchair and prose about the past, with what complacent exultation willhe speak of the beautiful Ada Rehan, so bewitching as Peggy in _TheCountry Girl_, so radiant, vehement, and stormily passionate asKatherine; of manly John Drew, with his nonchalant ease, incisive tone, and crisp and graceful method; of noble Charles Fisher, and sprightlyand sparkling James Lewis, and genial, piquant, quaint Mrs. Gilbert! Imark the gentle triumph in that aged reminiscent voice, and can respectan old man's kindly and natural sympathy with the glories and delightsof his vanished youth. But I think it is not necessary to wait till youare old before you begin to praise anything, and then to praise only thedead. Let us recognise what is good in our own time, and honour andadmire it with grateful hearts. 

 * * * * *

NOTE. --At the Garrick club, London, June 26, 1885, it was my fortune tomeet Mr. Fladgate, "father of the Garrick, " who was then aged 86. Theveteran displayed astonishing resources of memory and talked mostinstructively about the actors of the Kemble period. He declared JohnPhilip Kemble to have been the greatest of actors, and said that hisbest impersonations were Penruddock, Zanga, and Coriolanus. Mrs. Siddons, he said, was incomparable, and the elder Mathews a greatgenius, --the precursor of Dickens. For Edmund Kean he had no enthusiasm. Kean, he said, was at his best in Sir Edward Mortimer, and after that inShylock. Miss O'Neill he remembered as the perfect Juliet: a beautiful, blue-eyed woman, who could easily weep, and who retained her beauty tothe last, dying at 85, as Lady Wrixon Becher. 

[Footnote 1: This paper was written in 1888, and now, in 1892, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Stoddart, Mrs. Drew, and Mrs. Gilbert are the onlysurvivors of that noble group. ]

II. 

HENRY IRVING AND ELLEN TERRY IN FAUST. 

It is not surprising that the votaries of Goethe's colossal poem--a workwhich, although somewhat deformed and degraded with the pettiness ofprovincialism, is yet a grand and immortal creation of genius--shouldfind themselves dissatisfied with theatrical expositions of it. Althoughdramatic in form the poem is not continuously, directly, and compactlydramatic in movement. It cannot be converted into a play without beingradically changed in structure and in the form of its diction. Moredisastrous still, in the eyes of those votaries, it cannot be and itnever has been converted into a play without a considerable sacrifice ofits contents, its comprehensive scope, its poetry, and its ethicalsignificance. In the poem it is the Man who predominates; it is not theFiend. Mephistopheles, indeed, might, for the purpose of philosophicalapprehension, be viewed as an embodied projection of the mind of Faust;for the power of the one is dependent absolutely upon the weakness andsurrender of the other. The object of the poem was the portrayal ofuniversal humanity in a typical form at its highest point of developmentand in its representative spiritual experience. Faust, an aged scholar, the epitome of human faculties and virtues, grand, venerable, beneficent, blameless, is passing miserably into the evening of life. Hehas done no outward and visible wrong, and yet he is wretched. The utteremptiness of his life--its lack of fulfilment, its lack ofsensation--wearies, annoys, disgusts, and torments him. He is dividedbetween an apathy, which heavily weighs him down into the dust, and apassionate, spiritual longing, intense, unsatisfied, insatiable, whichalmost drives him to frenzy. Once, at sunset, standing on a hillside, and looking down upon a peaceful valley, he utters, in a poetic strainof exquisite tenderness and beauty, the final wish of his forlorn andweary soul. It is no longer now the god-like aspiration and imperiousdesire of his prime, but it is the sufficient alternative. All he asksnow is that he may see the world always as in that sunset vision, inthe perfection of happy rest; that he may be permitted, soaring on thewings of the spirit, to follow the sun in its setting ("The day beforeme and the night behind"), and thus to circle forever round and roundthis globe, the ecstatic spectator of happiness and peace. He has hadenough and more than enough of study, of struggle, of unfulfilledaspiration. Lonely dignity, arid renown, satiety, sorrow, knowledgewithout hope, and age without comfort, --these are his present portion;and a little way onward, waiting for him, is death. Too old to play withpassion, too young not to feel desire, he has endured a long strugglebetween the two souls in his breast--one longing for heaven and theother for the world; but he is beaten at last, and in the abjectsurrender of despair he determines to die by his own act. A childlikefeeling, responsive in his heart to the divine prompting of sacredmusic, saves him from self-murder; but in a subsequent bitter revulsionhe utters a curse upon everything in the state of man, and most of allupon that celestial attribute of patience whereby man is able to endureand to advance in the eternal process of evolution from darkness intolight. And now it is, when the soul of the human being, utterly baffledby the mystery of creation, crushed by its own hopeless sorrow, andenraged by the everlasting command to renounce and refrain, has becomeone delirium of revolt against God and destiny, that the spirit ofperpetual denial, incarnated in Mephistopheles, steps forth to profferguidance and help. It is as if his rejection and defiance had suddenlybecome embodied, to aid him in his ruin. More in recklessness than intrust, with no fear, almost with scorn and contempt, he yet agrees toaccept this assistance. If happiness be really possible, if the trueway, after all, should lie in the life of the senses, and not inknowledge and reason; if, under the ministrations of this fiend, onehour of life, even one moment of it, shall ever (which is an idle andfutile supposition) be so sweet that his heart shall desire it tolinger, then, indeed, he will surrender himself eternally to this atpresent preposterous Mephistopheles, whom his mood, his magic, and therevulsion of his moral nature have evoked:--

 "Then let the death-bell chime the token! Then art thou from thy service free! The clock may stop, the hand be broken, And time be finished unto me. "

Such an hour, it is destined, shall arrive, after many long andmiserable years, when, aware of the beneficence of living for others andin the imagined prospect of leading, guiding, and guarding a free peopleupon a free land, Faust shall be willing to say to the moment: "Stay, thou art so fair"; and Mephistopheles shall harshly cry out: "The clockstands still"; and the graybeard shall sink in the dust; and the holyangels shall fly away with his soul, leaving the Fiend baffled andmorose, to gibe at himself over the failure of all his infernal arts. But, meanwhile, it remains true of the man that no pleasure satisfieshim and no happiness contents, and "death is desired, and life a thingunblest. "

The man who puts out his eyes must become blind. The sin of Faust is aspiritual sin, and the meaning of all his subsequent terrible experienceis that spiritual sin must be--and will be--expiated. No human soul canever be lost. In every human soul the contest between good and evil mustcontinue until the good has conquered and the evil is defeated anderadicated. Then, when the man's spirit is adjusted to its environmentin the spiritual world, it will be at peace--and not till then. And ifthis conflict is not waged and completed now and here, it must be and itwill be fought out and finished hereafter and somewhere else. It is thegreatest of all delusions to suppose that you can escape from yourself. Judgment and retribution proceed within the soul and not from sourcesoutside of it. That is the philosophic drift of the poet's thoughtexpressed and implied in his poem. It was Man, in his mortal ordeal--themotive, cause, and necessity of which remain a mystery--whom he desiredand aimed to portray; it was not merely the triumph of a mocking devil, temporarily victorious through ministration to animal lust andintellectual revolt, over the weakness of the carnal creature and theembittered bewilderment of the baffled mind. Mr. Irving may well say, ashe is reported to have said, that he will consider himself to haveaccomplished a good work if his production of Faust should have theeffect of invigorating popular interest in Goethe's immortal poem andbringing closer home to the mind of his public a true sense of itssublime and far-reaching signification. 

The full metaphysical drift of thought and meaning in Goethe's poem, however, can be but faintly indicated in a play. It is more distinctlyindicated in Mr. Wills's play, which is used by Mr. Irving, than in anyother play upon this subject that has been presented. This result, anapproximate fidelity to the original, is due in part to the preservationof the witch scenes, in part to Mr. Irving's subtle and significantimpersonation of Mephistopheles, and in part to a weird investiture ofspiritual mystery with which he has artfully environed the wholeproduction. The substance of the piece is the love story of Faust andMargaret, yet beyond this is a background of infinity, and over andaround this is a poetic atmosphere charged with suggestiveness ofsupernatural agency in the fate of man. If the gaze of the observer beconcentrated upon the mere structure of the piece, the love story iswhat he will find; and that is all he will find. Faust makes his compactwith the Fiend. He is rejuvenated and he begins a new life. In "theWitch's Kitchen" his passions are intensified, and then they areignited, so that he may be made the slave of desire and afterward ifpossible imbruted by sensuality. He is artfully brought into contactwith Margaret, whom he instantly loves, who presently loves him, whomhe wins, and upon whom, since she becomes a mother out of wedlock, hisinordinate and reckless love imposes the burden of pious contrition andworldly shame. Then, through the puissant wickedness and treachery ofMephistopheles, he is made to predominate over her vengeful brother, Valentine, whom he kills in a street fray. Thus his desire to experiencein his own person the most exquisite bliss that humanity can enjoy andequally the most exquisite torture that it can suffer, becomesfulfilled. He is now the agonised victim of love and of remorse. Orestespursued by the Furies was long ago selected as the typical image ofsupreme anguish and immitigable suffering; but Orestes is less alamentable figure than Faust--fortified though he is, and because he is, with the awful but malign, treacherous, and now impotent sovereignty ofhell. To deaden his sensibility, destroy his conscience, and harden himin evil the Fiend leads him into a mad revel of boundless profligacy andbestial riot--denoted by the beautiful and terrible scene upon theBrocken--and poor Margaret is abandoned to her shame, her wandering, herdespair, her frenzy, her crime, and her punishment. This desertion, though, is procured by a stratagem of the Fiend and does not proceedfrom the design of her lover. The expedient of Mephistopheles, to lullhis prey by dissipations, is a failure. Faust finds them "tasteless, "and he must return to Margaret. He finds her in prison, crazed anddying, and he strives in vain to set her free. There is a climax, whereat, while her soul is borne upward by angels he--whose destiny mustyet be fulfilled--is summoned by the terrible voice of Satan. This isthe substance of what is shown; but if the gaze of the observer piercesbeyond this, if he is able to comprehend that terrific but woeful imageof the fallen angel, if he perceives what is by no means obscurelyintimated, that Margaret, redeemed and beatified, cannot be happy unlessher lover also is saved, and that the soul of Faust can only be lostthrough the impossible contingency of being converted into the likenessof the Fiend, he will understand that a spectacle has been set beforehim more august, momentous, and sublime than any episode of tragicalhuman love could ever be. 

Henry Irving, in his embodiment of Mephistopheles, fulfilled theconception of the poet in one essential respect and transcended it inanother. His performance, superb in ideal and perfect in execution, wasa great work--and precisely here was the greatness of it. Mephistophelesas delineated by Goethe is magnificently intellectual and sardonic, butnowhere does he convey even a faint suggestion of the god-head of gloryfrom which he has lapsed. His own frank and clear avowal of himselfleaves no room for doubt as to the limitation intended to be establishedfor him by the poet. I am, he declares, the spirit that perpetuallydenies. I am a part of that part which once was all--a part of thatdarkness out of which came the light. I repudiate all things--becauseeverything that has been made is unworthy to exist and ought to bedestroyed, and therefore it is better that nothing should ever have beenmade. God dwells in splendour, alone and eternal, but his spirits hethrusts into darkness, and man, a poor creature fashioned to poke hisnose into filth, he sportively dowers with day and night. My province isevil; my existence is mockery; my pleasure and my purpose aredestruction. In a word, this Fiend, towering to the loftiest summit ofcold intellect, is the embodiment of cruelty, malice, and scorn, pervaded and interfused with grim humour. That ideal Mr. Irving madeactual. The omniscient craft and deadly malignity of his impersonation, swathed in a most specious humour at some moments (as, for example, inMargaret's bedroom, in the garden scene with Martha, and in the duelscene with Valentine) made the blood creep and curdle with horror, evenwhile they impressed the sense of intellectual power and stirred thesprings of laughter. But if you rightly saw his face, in the fantastic, symbolical scene of the Witch's Kitchen; in that lurid moment of sunsetover the quaint gables and haunted spires of Nuremburg, when thesinister presence of the arch-fiend deepened the red glare of thesetting sun and seemed to bathe this world in the ominous splendour ofhell; and, above all, if you perceived the soul that shone through hiseyes in that supremely awful moment of his predominance over the hellishrevel upon the Brocken, when all the hideous malignities of nature andall those baleful "spirits which tend on mortal consequence" are loosedinto the aerial abyss, and only this imperial horror can curb and subduethem, you knew that this Mephistopheles was a sufferer not less than amocker; that his colossal malignity was the delirium of an angelicspirit thwarted, baffled, shattered, yet defiant; never to bevanquished; never through all eternity to be at peace with itself. Theinfinite sadness of that face, the pathos, beyond words, of thatisolated and lonely figure--those are the qualities that irradiated allits diversified attributes of mind, humour, duplicity, sarcasm, force, horror, and infernal beauty, and invested it with the authentic qualityof greatness. There is no warrant for this treatment of the part to bederived from Goethe's poem. There is every warrant for it in theapprehension of this tremendous subject by the imagination of a greatactor. You cannot mount above the earth, you cannot transcend theordinary line of the commonplace, as a mere sardonic image ofself-satisfied, chuckling obliquity. Mr. Irving embodied Mephistophelesnot as a man but as a spirit, with all that the word implies, and indoing that he not only heeded the fine instinct of the true actor butthe splendid teaching of the highest poetry--the ray of supernal lightthat flashes from the old Hebrew Bible; the blaze that streams from the_Paradise Lost_; the awful glory through which, in the pages of Byron, the typical figure of agonised but unconquerable revolt towers over arealm of ruin:--

 "On his brow The thunder-scars are graven; from his eye Glares forth the immortality of hell. "

Ellen Terry, in her assumption of Margaret, once more displayed thatprofound, comprehensive, and particular knowledge of human love--thatknowledge of it through the soul and not simply the mind--which is thesource of her exceptional and irresistible power. This Margaret was awoman who essentially loves, who exists only for love, who has thecourage of her love, who gives all for love--not knowing that it is asacrifice--and whose love, at last, triumphant over death, is not onlyher own salvation but that also of her lover. The point of strictconformity to the conception of the poet, in physique and in spiritualstate, may be waived. Goethe's Margaret is a handsome, hardy girl, ofhumble rank, who sometimes uses bad grammar and who reveals no essentialmind. She is just a delicious woman, and there is nothing about hereither metaphysical or mysterious. The wise Fiend, who knows that withsuch a man as Faust the love of such a woman must outweigh all theworld, wisely tempts him with her, and infernally lures him to theaccomplishment of her ruin. But it will be observed that, aside from theinfraction of the law of man, the loves of Faust and Margaret are notonly innocent but sacred. This sanctity Mephistopheles can neitherpollute nor control, and through this he loses his victims. EllenTerry's Margaret was a delicious woman, and not metaphysical normysterious; but it was Margaret imbued with the temperament of EllenTerry, --who, if ever an exceptional creature lived, is exceptional inevery particular. In her embodiment she transfigured the character: shemaintained it in an ideal world, and she was the living epitome of allthat is fascinating in essential womanhood--glorified by genius. It didnot seem like acting but like the revelation of a hallowed personalexperience upon which no chill worldly gaze should venture to intrude. 

In that suggestive book in which Lady Pollock records her recollectionsof Macready it is said that once, after his retirement, on reading aLondon newspaper account of the production of a Shakespearean play, heremarked that "evidently the accessories swallow up the poetry and theaction": and he proceeded, in a reminiscent and regretful mood, to speakas follows: "In my endeavour to give to Shakespeare all his attributes, to enrich his poetry with scenes worthy of its interpretation, to giveto his tragedies their due magnificence and to his comedies their entirebrilliancy, I have set an example which is accompanied with great peril, for the public is willing to have the magnificence without the tragedy, and the poet is swallowed up in display. " Mr. Irving is the legitimatesuccessor to Macready and he has encountered that same peril. There arepersons--many of them--who think that it is a sign of weakness to praisecordially and to utter admiration with a free heart. They are mistaken, but no doubt they are sincere. Shakespeare, the wisest of monitors, isnever so eloquent and splendid as when he makes one of his peopleexpress praise of another. Look at those speeches in _Coriolanus_. Suchniggardly persons, in their detraction of Henry Irving, are prompt todeclare that he is a capital stage manager but not a great actor. Thishas an impartial air and a sapient sound, but it is gross folly andinjustice. Henry Irving is one of the greatest actors that have everlived, and he has shown it over and over again. His acting is all themore effective because associated with unmatched ability to insist andinsure that every play shall be perfectly well set, in every particular, and that every part in it shall be competently acted. But his genius andhis ability are no more discredited than those of Macready were by hisattention to technical detail and his insistence upon total excellenceof result. It should be observed, however, that he has carried stagegarniture to an extreme limit. His investiture of _Faust_ was somagnificent that possibly it may have tended in the minds of manyspectators, to obscure and overwhelm the fine intellectual force, thebeautiful delicacy, and the consummate art with which he embodiedMephistopheles. It ought not to have produced that effect--because, infact, the spectacle presented was, actually and truly, that of asupernatural being, predominant by force of inherent strength and charmover the broad expanse of the populous and teeming world; but it mighthave produced it: and, for the practical good of the art of acting, progress in that direction has gone far enough. The supreme beauty ofthe production was the poetic atmosphere of it--the irradiation of thatstrange sensation of being haunted which sometimes will come upon you, even at noon-day, in lonely places, on vacant hillside, beneath the darkboughs of great trees, in the presence of the grim and silent rocks, andby the solitary margin of the sea. The feeling was that of Goethe's ownweird and suggestive scene of the Open Field, the black horses, and theraven-stone; or that of the shuddering lines of Coleridge:--

 "As one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And, having once turned round, walks on And turns no more his head, Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. "

III. 

ADELAIDE NEILSON AS IMOGEN AND JULIET. 

Shakespeare's drama of _Cymbeline_ seems not at any time in the historyof the stage to have been a favourite with theatrical audiences. In NewYork it has had but five revivals in more than a hundred years, andthose occurred at long intervals and were of brief continuance. Thenames of Thomas Barry, Mrs. Shaw-Hamblin (Eliza Marian Trewar), andJulia Bennett Barrow are best remembered in association with it on theAmerican stage. It had slept for more than a generation when, in theautumn of 1876, Adelaide Neilson revived it at Philadelphia; but sincethen it has been reproduced by several of her imitators. She firstoffered it on the New York stage in May 1877, and it was then seen thather impersonation of Imogen was one of the best of her works. If it bethe justification of the stage as an institution of public benefit andsocial advancement, that it elevates humanity by presenting nobleideals of human nature and making them exemplars and guides, thatjustification was practically accomplished by that beautifulperformance. 

The poetry of _Cymbeline_ is eloquent and lovely. The imagination of itsappreciative reader, gliding lightly over its more sinister incidents, finds its story romantic, its accessories--both of the court and thewilderness--picturesque, its historic atmosphere novel and exciting, andthe spirit of it tender and noble. Such a reader, likewise, fashions itscharacters into an ideal form which cannot be despoiled by comparisonwith a visible standard of reality. It is not, however, an entirelypleasant play to witness. The acting version, indeed, is considerablycondensed from the original, by the excision of various scenesexplanatory of the conduct of the story, and by the omission of thecumbersome vision of Leonatus; and the gain of brevity thereby madehelps to commend the work to a more gracious acceptance than it would belikely to obtain if acted exactly according to Shakespeare. Its movementalso is imbued with additional alacrity by a rearrangement of itsdivisions. It is customarily presented in six acts. Yet, notwithstanding the cutting and editing to which it has been subjected, _Cymbeline_ remains somewhat inharmonious alike with the needs of thestage and the apprehension of the public. 

For this there are several causes. One perhaps is its mixed character, its vague, elusive purpose, and its unreality of effect. From the natureof his story--a tale of stern facts and airy inventions, respectingBritain and Rome, two thousand years ago--the poet seems to have beencompelled to make a picture of human life too literal to be viewedwholly as an ideal, and too romantic to be viewed wholly as literal. Inthe unequivocally great plays of Shakespeare the action moves like themighty flow of some resistless river. In this one it advances with thediffusive and straggling movement of a summer cloud. The drift andmeaning of the piece, accordingly, do not stand boldly out. That astutethinker, Ulrici, for instance, after much brooding upon it, ties hismental legs in a hard knot and says that Shakespeare intended, in thispiece, to illustrate that man is not the master of his own destiny. There must be liberal scope for conjecture when a philosopher can makesuch a landing as that. 

The persons in _Cymbeline_, moreover--aside from the exceptionalcharacter of Imogen--do not come home to a spectator's realisation, whether of sympathy or repugnance. It is like the flower that thrivesbest under glass but shivers and wilts in the open air. Its poetry seemsmarred by the rude touch of the actual. Its delicious mountain sceneslose their woodland fragrance. Its motive, bluntly disclosed in thewager scene, seems coarse, unnatural, and offensive. Its plot, reallysimple, moves heavily and perplexes attention. It is a piece that lackspervasive concentration and enthralling point. It might be defined as_Othello_ with a difference--the difference being in favour of_Othello_. Jealousy is the pivot of both: but in _Othello_ jealousy istreated with profound and searching truth, with terrible intensity offeeling, and with irresistible momentum of action. A spectator willhonour and pity Othello, and hate and execrate Iago--with some infusion, perhaps of impatience toward the one and of admiration for theother--but he is likely to view both Leonatus and Iachimo withconsiderable indifference; he will casually recognise the infrequentCymbeline as an ill-tempered, sonorous old donkey; he will give apassing smile of scornful disgust to Cloten--that vague hybrid ofRoderigo and Oswald; and of the proceedings of the Queen and thefortunes of the royal family--whether as affected by the chemicalexperiments of Doctor Cornelius or the bellicose attitude of AugustusCæsar, in reaching for his British tribute--he will be practicallyunconscious. This result comes of commingling stern fact and pastoralfancy in such a way that an auditor of the composition is dubiouswhether to fix his senses steadfastly on the one or yield up his spiritto poetic reverie on the other. 

Coleridge--whose intuitions as to such matters were usually as good asrecorded truth--thought that Shakespeare wrote _Cymbeline_ in hisyouthful period. He certainly does not manifest in it the cogent andglittering dramatic force that is felt in _Othello_ and _Macbeth_. Theprobability is that he wrought upon the old legend of Holinshed in amood of intellectual caprice, inclining towards sensuous and fancifuldalliance with a remote and somewhat intangible subject. Those personswho explain the immense fecundity of his creative genius by allegingthat he must steadily have kept in view the needs of the contemporarytheatre seem to forget that he went much further in his plays than therewas any need for him to go, in the satisfaction of such a purpose, andthat those plays are, in general, too great for any stage that hasexisted. Shakespeare, it is certain, could not have been an exception tothe law that every author must be conscious of a feeling, apart fromintellectual purpose, that carries him onward in his art. The feelingthat shines through _Cymbeline_ is a loving delight in the character ofImogen. 

The nature of that feeling and the quality of that character, had theybeen obscure, would have been made clear by Adelaide Neilson'sembodiment. The personality that she presented was typical and unusual. It embodied virtue, neither hardened by austerity nor vapid with excessof goodness, and it embodied seductive womanhood, without one touch ofwantonness or guile. It presented a woman innately good and radiantlylovely, who amid severest trials spontaneously and unconsciously actedwith the ingenuous grace of childhood, the grandest generosity, the mostconstant spirit. The essence of Imogen's nature is fidelity. Faithful tolove, even till death, she is yet more faithful to honour. Her scorn offalsehood is overwhelming; but she resents no injury, harbours noresentment, feels no spite, murmurs at no misfortune. From every blow ofevil she recovers with a gentle patience that is infinitely pathetic. Passionate and acutely sensitive, she yet seems never to think ofantagonising her affliction or to falter in her unconscious fortitude. She has no reproach--but only a grieved submission--for the husband whohas wronged her by his suspicions and has doomed her to death. Shethinks only of him, not of herself, when she beholds him, as shesupposes, dead at her side; but even then she will submit andendure--she will but "weep and sigh" and say twice o'er "a century ofprayers. " She is only sorry for the woman who was her deadly enemy andwho hated her for her goodness--so often the incitement of mortalhatred. She loses without a pang the heirship to a kingdom. An idealthus poised in goodness and radiant in beauty might well havesustained--as undoubtedly it did sustain--the inspiration ofShakespeare. 

Adelaide Neilson, with her uncommon graces of person, found it easy tomake the chamber scene and the cave scenes pictorial and charming. Heringenuous trepidation and her pretty wiles, as Fidele, in the cave, were finely harmonious with the character and arose from it like odourfrom a flower. The innocence, the glee, the feminine desire to please, the pensive grace, the fear, the weakness, and the artless simplicitymade up a state of gracious fascination. It was, however, in the revoltagainst Iachimo's perfidy, in the fall before Pisanio's fataldisclosure, and in the frenzy over the supposed death of Leonatus thatthe actress put forth electrical power and showed how strong emotion, acting through the imagination, can transfigure the being and give tolove or sorrow a monumental semblance and an everlasting voice. Thepower was harmonious with the individuality and did not mar its grace. There was a perfect preservation of sustained identity, and this wasexpressed with such a sweet elocution and such an airy freedom ofmovement and naturalness of gesture that the observer almost forgot tonotice the method of the mechanism and quite forgot that he was lookingupon a fiction and a shadow. That her personation of Imogen, though moreexalted in its nature than any of her works, excepting Isabella, wouldrival in public acceptance her Juliet, Viola, or Rosalind, was not tobe expected: it was too much a passive condition--delicate andelusive--and too little an active effort. She woke into life thesleeping spirit of a rather repellant drama, and was "alone the Arabianbird. "

Shakespeare's Juliet, the beautiful, ill-fated heroine of his consummatepoem of love and sorrow, was the most effective, if not the highest ofAdelaide Neilson's tragic assumptions. It carried to every eye and toevery heart the convincing and thrilling sense equally of her beauty andher power. The exuberant womanhood, the celestial affection, thesteadfast nobility, and the lovely, childlike innocence of Imogen--shownthrough the constrained medium of a diffusive romance--were not to allminds appreciable on the instant. The gentle sadness of Viola, playingaround her gleeful animation and absorbing it as the cup of the whitelily swallows the sunshine, might well be, for the more blunt senses ofthe average auditor, dim, fitful, evanescent, and ineffective. Idealheroism and dream-like fragrance--the colours of Murillo or the poems ofHeine--are truly known but to exceptional natures or in exceptionalmoods. The reckless, passionate idolatry of Juliet, on thecontrary, --with its attendant sacrifice, its climax of disaster, and itssequel of anguish and death, --stands forth as clearly as the white lineof the lightning on a black midnight sky, and no observer can possiblymiss its meaning. All that Juliet is, all that she acts and all that shesuffers, is elemental. It springs directly from the heart and it movesstraight onward like a shaft of light. Othello, the perfection ofsimplicity, is not simpler than Juliet. In him are embodied passion andjealousy, swayed by an awful instinct of rude justice. In her isembodied unmixed and immitigable passion, without law, limit, reason, patience, or restraint. She is love personified and therefore a fatalityto herself. Presented in that way--and in that way she was presented byAdelaide Neilson--her nature and her experience come home to thefeelings as well as the imagination, and all that we know, as well asall that we dream, of beauty and of anguish are centred in one image. Inthis we may see all the terrors of the moving hand of fate. In this wemay almost hear a warning voice out of heaven, saying that nowhereexcept in duty shall the human heart find refuge and peace--or, if notpeace, submission. 

The question whether Shakespeare's Juliet be correctly interpreted isnot one of public importance. It might be ever so correctly interpretedwithout producing the right effect. There have been many Juliets. Therehas, in our time, been no Juliet so completely fascinating andirresistible as that of Adelaide Neilson. Through the medium of thatShakespearean character the actress poured forth that strange, thrilling, indescribable power which more than anything else in theworld vindicates by its existence the spiritual grandeur and destiny ofthe human soul. Neither the accuracy of her ideals nor the fineness ofher execution would have accomplished the result that attended herlabours and crowned her fame. There was an influence back of these--aspark of the divine fire--a consecration of the individual life--aseloquent to inform as it was potent to move. Adelaide Neilson was one ofthose strange, exceptional natures that, often building better than theyknow, not only interpret "the poet's dream" but give to it an addedemphasis and a higher symbolism. Each element of her personality wasrich and rare. The eyes--now glittering with a mischievous glee thatseemed never to have seen a cloud or felt a sorrow, now steady, frank, and sweet, with innocence and trust, --could, in one moment, flash withthe wild fire of defiance or the glittering light of imperious command, or, equally in one moment, could soften with mournful thought and sadremembrance, or darken with the far-off look of one who hears the wavingwings of angels and talks with the spirits of the dead. The face, justsufficiently unsymmetrical to be brimful of character, whether piquantor pensive; the carriage of body, --easy yet quaint in its artless grace, like that of a pretty child in the unconscious fascination of infancy;the restless, unceasing play of mood, and the instantaneous and perfectresponse of expression and gesture, --all these were the denotements ofgenius; and, above all these, and not to be mistaken in its irradiationof the interior spirit of that extraordinary creature, was a voice ofperfect music--rich, sonorous, flexible, vibrant, copious in volume, yetdelicate as a silver thread--a voice

 "Like the whisper of the woods In prime of even, when the stars are few. "

It did not surprise that such a woman should truly act Juliet. Muchthough there be in a personality that is assumed, there is much more inthe personality that assumes it. Golden fire in a porcelain vase wouldnot be more luminous than was the soul of that actress as it shonethrough her ideal of Juliet. The performance did not stop short at theinterpretation of a poetic fancy. It was amply and completely that--butit was more than that, being also a living experience. The subtlety ofit was only equalled by its intensity, and neither was surpassed exceptby its reality. The moment she came upon the scene all eyes followedher, and every imaginative mind was vaguely conscious of somethingstrange and sad--a feeling of perilous suspense--a dark presentiment ofimpending sorrow. In that was felt at once the presence of a nature towhich the experience of Juliet would be possible; and thus the conquestof human sympathy was effected at the outset--by a condition, andwithout the exercise of a single effort. Fate no less than artparticipated in the result. Though it was the music of Shakespeare thatflowed from the harp, it was the hand of living genius that smote thestrings; it was the soul of a great woman that bore its vital testimonyto the power of the universal passion. 

Never was poet truer to the highest truth of spiritual life thanShakespeare is when he invests with ineffable mournfulness--shadowy astwilight, vague as the remembrance of a dream--those creatures of hisfancy who are preordained to suffering and a miserable death. Never wasthere sounded a truer note of poetry than that which thrills inOthello's, "If it were now to die, " or sobs in Juliet's "Too early seenunknown, and known too late. " It was the exquisite felicity of AdelaideNeilson's acting of Juliet that she glided into harmony with thattragical undertone, and, with seemingly a perfect unconsciousness ofit--whether prattling to the old nurse, or moving, sweetly grave andsoftly demure, through the stately figures of the minuet--was alreadymarked off from among the living, already overshadowed by a terriblefate, already alone in the bleak loneliness of the broken heart. Striking the keynote thus, the rest followed in easy sequence. Theecstasy of the wooing scene, the agony of the final parting from Romeo, the forlorn tremor and passionate frenzy of the terrible night beforethe burial, the fearful awakening, the desperation, the paroxysm, thedeath-blow that then is mercy and kindness, --all these were in unisonwith the spirit at first denoted, and through these was naturallyaccomplished its prefigured doom. If clearly to possess a high purpose, to follow it directly, to accomplish it thoroughly, to adorn it withevery grace, to conceal every vestige of its art, and to cast over theart that glamour of poetry which ennobles while it charms, and while itdazzles also endears, --if this is greatness in acting, then was AdelaideNeilson's Juliet a great embodiment. It never will be forgotten. Itssoft romance of tone, its splendour of passion, its sustained energy, its beauty of speech, and its poetic fragrance are such as fancy mustalways cherish and memory cannot lose. Placing this embodiment besideImogen and Viola, it was easy to understand the secret of herextraordinary success. She satisfied for all kinds of persons the senseof the ideal. To youthful fancy she was the radiant vision of love andpleasure; to grave manhood, the image of all that chivalry should honourand strength protect; to woman, the type of noble goodness and constantaffection; to the scholar, a relief from thought and care; to themoralist, a spring of tender pity--that loveliness, however exquisite, must fade and vanish. Childhood, mindful of her kindness and her frolic, scattered flowers at her feet; and age, that knows the thorny pathwaysof the world, whispered its silent prayer and laid its trembling handsin blessing on her head. She sleeps beneath a white marble cross inBrompton cemetery, and all her triumphs and glories have dwindled to ahandful of dust. 

 * * * * *

NOTE ON CYMBELINE. --Genest records productions of Shakespeare's_Cymbeline_, in London, as follows: Haymarket, November 8, 1744; CoventGarden, April 7, 1746; Drury Lane, November 28, 1761; Covent Garden, December 28, 1767; Drury Lane, December 1, 1770; Haymarket, August 9, 1782; Covent Garden, October 18, 1784; Drury Lane, November 21, 1785, and January 29 and March 20, 1787; Covent Garden, May 13, 1800, January18, 1806, June 3, 1812, May 29, 1816, and June 2, 1825; and Drury Lane, February 9, 1829; Imogen was represented, successively, by Mrs. Pritchard, Miss Bride, Mrs. Yates, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Bulkley, MissYounge, Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Pope, Miss Smith, Mrs. H. Johnston Miss Stephens, Miss Foote, and Miss Phillips. Laterrepresentatives of it were Sally Booth, Helen Faucit, and LauraAddison. 

IV. 

EDWIN BOOTH. 

There was a great shower of meteors on the night of November 13, 1833, and on that night, near Baltimore, Maryland, was born the most famoustragic actor of America in this generation, Edwin Booth. No otherAmerican actor of this century has had a rise so rapid or a career soearly and continuously brilliant as that of Edwin Booth. His father, therenowned Junius Brutus Booth, had hallowed the family name withdistinction and romantic interest. If ever there was a genius upon thestage the elder Booth was a genius. His wonderful eyes, his tremendousvitality, his electrical action, his power to thrill the feelings andeasily and inevitably to awaken pity and terror, --all these made him aunique being and obtained for him a reputation with old-time audiencesdistinct from that of all other men. He was followed as a marvel, andeven now the mention of his name stirs, among those who remember him, an enthusiasm such as no other theatrical memory can evoke. His suddendeath (alone, aboard a Mississippi river steamboat, November 30, 1852)was pathetic, and the public thought concerning him thenceforwardcommingled tenderness with passionate admiration. When his son Edwinbegan to rise as an actor the people everywhere rejoiced and gave him aneager welcome. With such a prestige he had no difficulty in makinghimself heard, and when it was found that he possessed the same strangepower with which his father had conquered and fascinated the dramaticworld the popular exultation was unbounded. 

Edwin Booth went on the stage in 1849 and accompanied his father toCalifornia in 1852, and between 1852 and 1856 he gained his firstbrilliant success. The early part of his California life was marked byhardship and all of it by vicissitude, but his authentic genius speedilyflamed out, and long before he returned to the Atlantic seaboard thenews of his fine exploits had cleared the way for his conquest of allhearts. He came back in 1856-57, and from that time onward his famecontinually increased. He early identified himself with two of the mostfascinating characters in the drama--the sublime and pathetic Hamlet andthe majestic, romantic, picturesque, tender, and grimly humorousRichelieu. He first acted Hamlet in 1854; he adopted Richelieu in 1856;and such was his success with the latter character that for many yearsafterward he made it a rule (acting on the sagacious advice of theveteran New Orleans manager, James H. Caldwell), always to introducehimself in that part before any new community. The popular sentimenttoward him early took a romantic turn and the growth of that sentimenthas been accelerated and strengthened by every important occurrence ofhis private life. In July 1860 he was married to a lovely andinteresting woman, Miss Mary Devlin, of Troy, and in February 1863 shedied. In 1867 he lost the Winter Garden theatre, which was burnt down onthe night of March 22, that year, after a performance of John HowardPayne's _Brutus_. He had accomplished beautiful revivals of _Hamlet_, _Othello_, _The Merchant of Venice_, and other plays at the WinterGarden, and had obtained for that theatre an honourable eminence; butwhen in 1869 he built and opened Booth's Theatre in New York, heproceeded to eclipse all his previous efforts and triumphs. Theproductions of _Romeo and Juliet_, _Othello_, _Richelieu_, _Hamlet_, _AWinter's Tale_, and _Julius Cæsar_ were marked by ample scholarship andmagnificence. When the enterprise failed and the theatre passed out ofEdwin Booth's hands (1874) the play-going public endured a calamity. Butthe failure of the actor's noble endeavour to establish a great theatrein the first city of America, like every other conspicuous event in hiscareer, served but to deepen the public interest in his welfare. He hasmore than retrieved his losses since then, and has made more than onetriumphal march throughout the length and breadth of the Republic, besides acting in London and other cities of Great Britain, and gainingextraordinary success upon the stage of Germany. To think of Edwin Boothis immediately to be reminded of those leading events in his career, while to review them, even in a cursory glance, is to perceive that, notwithstanding calamities and sorrows, notwithstanding a bitterexperience of personal bereavement and of the persecution of envy andmalice, Edwin Booth has ever been a favourite of fortune. 

The bust of Booth as Brutus and that of John Gilbert as Sir Peter, standing side by side in the Players' Club, stir many memories andprompt many reflections. Gilbert was a young man of twenty-three, andhad been six years on the stage, before Edwin Booth was born; and when, at the age of sixteen, Booth made his first appearance (September 10, 1849, at the Boston Museum, as Tressil to his father's Richard), Gilberthad become a famous actor. The younger man, however, speedily rose tothe higher level of the best dramatic ability as well as the besttheatrical culture of his time; and it is significant of the splendidtriumph of tragic genius, and of the advantage it possesses over that ofcomedy in its immediate effect upon mankind, that when the fine andexceptional combination was made (May 21, 1888, at the MetropolitanOpera House, New York), for a performance of _Hamlet_ for the benefit ofLester Wallack, Edwin Booth acted Hamlet, with John Gilbert forPolonius, and Joseph Jefferson for the first Grave-digger. Booth has hadhis artistic growth in a peculiar period in the history of dramatic artin America. Just before his time the tragic sceptre was in the hands ofEdwin Forrest, who never succeeded in winning the intellectual part ofthe public, but was constantly compelled to dominate a multitude thatnever heard any sound short of thunder and never felt anything till itwas hit with a club. The bulk of Forrest's great fortune was gained byhim with _Metamora_, which is rant and fustian. He himself despised itand deeply despised and energetically cursed the public that forced himto act in it. Forrest's best powers, indeed, were never reallyappreciated by the average mind of his fervent admirers. He lived in arough period and he had to use a hard method to subdue and please it. Edwin Booth was fortunate in coming later, when the culture of thepeople had somewhat increased, and when the old sledge-hammer style wasgoing out, so that he gained almost without an effort the refined andfastidious classes. As long ago as 1857, with all his natural grace, refinement, romantic charm, and fine bearing, his impetuosity was suchthat even the dullest sensibilities were aroused and thrilled andastonished by him, --and so it happened that he also gained themultitude. To think of these things is to realise the steady advance ofthe stage in the esteem of the best people, and to feel grateful that wedo not live in "the palmy days"--those raw times that John Broughamused to call the days of light houses and heavy gas bills. 

Mrs. Asia Booth Clarke, wife of the distinguished and excellent comedianJohn S. Clarke, wrote a life of her father, Junius Brutus Booth, inwhich she has recounted interesting passages in his career, andchronicled significant and amusing anecdotes of his peculiarities. Hewas on the stage from 1813 to 1852, in which latter year he died, agedfifty-six. In his youth he served for a while in the British navy, showed some talent for painting, learned the printer's trade, wrote alittle, and dabbled in sculpture--all before he turned actor. Thepowerful hostility of Edmund Kean and his adherents drove him from theLondon stage, though not till after he had gained honours there, and hecame to America in 1821, and bought a farm near Baltimore, where hesettled, and where his son Edwin (the seventh of ten children) was born. That farm remained in the family till 1880, when for the first time itchanged hands. There is a certain old cherry-tree growing uponit--remarkable among cherry-trees for being large, tall, straight, clean, and handsome--amid the boughs of which the youthful Edwin mightoften have been found in his juvenile days. It is a coincidence thatEdwin L. Davenport and John McCullough, also honoured names in Americanstage history, were born on the same day in the same month with EdwinBooth, though in different years. 

From an early age Edwin Booth was associated with his father in all thewanderings and strange and often sad adventures of that wayward man ofgenius, and no doubt the many sorrowful experiences of his youthdeepened the gloom of his inherited temperament. Those who know him wellare aware that he has great tenderness of heart and abundant playfulhumour; that his mind is one of extraordinary liveliness, and that hesympathises keenly and cordially with the joys and sorrows of others;and yet that he seems saturated with sadness, isolated fromcompanionship, lonely and alone. It is this temperament, combined with asombre and melancholy aspect of countenance, that has helped to make himso admirable in the character of Hamlet. Of his fitness for that parthis father was the first to speak, when on a night many years ago, inSacramento, they had dressed for Pierre and Jaffier, in _VenicePreserved_. Edwin, as Jaffier, had put on a close-fitting robe of blackvelvet. "You look like Hamlet, " the father said. The time was destinedto come when Edwin Booth would be accepted all over America as thegreatest Hamlet of the day. In the season of 1864-65, at the WinterGarden theatre, New York, he acted that part for a hundred nights insuccession, accomplishing a feat then unprecedented in theatricalannals. Since then Henry Irving, in London, has acted Hamlet two hundredconsecutive times in one season; but this latter achievement, in thepresent day and in the capital city of the world, was less difficultthan Edwin Booth's exploit, performed in turbulent New York in theclosing months of the terrible civil war. 

The elder Booth was a short, spare, muscular man, with a splendid chest, a symmetrical Greek head, a pale countenance, a voice of wonderfulcompass and thrilling power, dark hair, and blue eyes. His son'sresemblance to him is chiefly obvious in the shape of the head and face, the arch and curve of the heavy eyebrows, the radiant and constantlyshifting light of expression that animates the countenance, the naturalgrace of carriage, and the celerity of movement. Booth's eyes are darkbrown, and seem to turn black in moments of excitement, and they arecapable of conveying, with electrical effect, the most diversemeanings--the solemnity of lofty thought, the tenderness of affection, the piteousness of forlorn sorrow, the awful sense of spiritualsurroundings, the woful weariness of despair, the mocking glee of wickedsarcasm, the vindictive menace of sinister purpose, and the lightningglare of baleful wrath. In range of facial expressiveness hiscountenance is thus fully equal to that of his father. The presentwriter saw the elder Booth but once, and then in a comparativelyinferior part--Pescara, in Shiel's ferocious tragedy of _The Apostate_. He was a terrible presence. He was the incarnation of smooth, specious, malignant, hellish rapacity. His exultant malice seemed to buoy himabove the ground. He floated rather than walked. His glance was deadly. His clear, high, cutting, measured tone was the exasperating note ofhideous cruelty. He was acting a fiend then, and making the monster notonly possible but actual. He certainly gave a greater impression ofoverwhelming power than is given by Edwin Booth, and seemed a moreformidable and tremendous man. But his face was not more brilliant thanthat of his renowned son; and in fact it was, if anything, somewhat lesssplendid in power of the eye. There is a book about him, called _TheTragedian_, written by Thomas R. Gould, who also made a noble bust ofhim in marble; and those who never saw him can obtain a good idea ofwhat sort of an actor he was by reading that book. It conveys the imageof a greater actor, but not a more brilliant one, than Edwin Booth. Onlyone man of our time has equalled Edwin Booth in this singular splendourof countenance--the great New England orator Rufus Choate. Had Choatebeen an actor upon the stage--as he was before a jury--with thoseterrible eyes of his, and that passionate Arab face, he must havetowered fully to the height of the tradition of George Frederick Cooke. 

The lurid flashes of passion and the vehement outbursts in the acting ofEdwin Booth are no doubt the points that most persons who have seen himwill most clearly remember. Through these a spectator naturally discernsthe essential nature of an actor. The image of George Frederick Cooke, pointing with his long, lean forefinger and uttering Sir Giles'simprecation upon Marrall, never fades out of theatrical history. Garrick's awful frenzy in the storm scene of King Lear, Kean's colossalagony in the farewell speech of Othello, Macready's heartrending yell in_Werner_, Junius Booth's terrific utterance of Richard's "What do theyi' the north?" Forrest's hyena snarl when, as Jack Cade, he met Lord Sayin the thicket, or his volumed cry of tempestuous fury when, as LuciusBrutus, he turned upon Tarquin under the black midnight sky--those arethings never to be forgotten. Edwin Booth has provided many such greatmoments in acting, and the traditions of the stage will not let themdie. To these no doubt we must look for illuminative manifestations ofhereditary genius. Garrick, Henderson, Cooke, Edmund Kean, Junius Booth, and Edwin Booth are names that make a natural sequence in oneintellectual family. Could we but see them together, we shouldundoubtedly find them, in many particulars, kindred. Hendersonflourished in the school of nature that Garrick had created--to thediscomfiture of Quin and all the classics. Cooke had seen Hendersonact, and was thought to resemble him. Edmund Kean worshipped the memoryof Cooke and repeated many of the elder tragedian's ways. So far, indeed, did he carry his homage that when he was in New York in 1824 hecaused Cooke's remains to be taken from the vault beneath St. Paul'schurch and buried in the church-yard, where a monument, set up by Keanand restored by his son Charles, by Sothern, and by Edwin Booth, stillmarks their place of sepulture. That was the occasion when, as Dr. Francis records, in his book on old New York, Kean took the index fingerof Cooke's right hand, and he, the doctor, took his skull, as relics. "Ihave got Cooke's style in acting, " Kean once said, "but the public willnever know it, I am so much smaller. " It was not the imitation of acopyist; it was the spontaneous devotion and direction of a kindredsoul. The elder Booth saw Kean act, and although injured by a rivalrythat Kean did not hesitate to make malicious, admired him with honestfervour. "I will yield Othello to him, " he said, "but neither Richardnor Sir Giles. " Forrest thought Edmund Kean the greatest actor of theage, and copied him, especially in Othello. Pathos, with all that itimplies, seems to have been Kean's special excellence. Terror was theelder Booth's. Edwin Booth may be less than either, but he unitesattributes of both. 

In the earlier part of his career Edwin Booth was accustomed to act SirGiles Overreach, Sir Edward Mortimer, Pescara, and a number of otherparts of the terrific order, that he has since discarded. He was fine inevery one of them. The first sound of his voice when, as Sir EdwardMortimer, he was heard speaking off the scene, was eloquent of deepsuffering, concentrated will, and a strange, sombre, formidablecharacter. The sweet, exquisite, icy, infernal joy with which, asPescara, he told his rival that there should be "music" was almostcomical in its effect of terror: it drove the listener across the lineof tragical tension and made him hysterical with the grimness of adeadly humour. His swift defiance to Lord Lovell, as Sir Giles, andindeed the whole mighty and terrible action with which he carried thatscene--from "What, are you pale?" down to the grisly and horrid viperpretence and reptile spasm of death--were simply tremendous. This was inthe days when his acting yet retained the exuberance of a youthfulspirit, before "the philosophic mind" had checked the headlong currentsof the blood or curbed imagination in its lawless flight. And thoseparts not only admitted of bold colour and extravagant action butdemanded them. Even his Hamlet was touched with that elemental fire. Notalone in the great junctures of the tragedy--the encounters with theghost, the parting with Ophelia, the climax of the play-scene, theslaughter of poor old Polonius in delirious mistake for the king, andthe avouchment to Laertes in the graveyard--was he brilliant andimpetuous; but in almost everything that quality of temperament showeditself, and here, of course, it was in excess. He no longer hurls thepipe into the flies when saying "Though you may fret me, you can notplay upon me"; but he used to do so then, and the rest of theperformance was kindred with that part of it. He needed, in that periodof his development, the more terrible passions to express. Pathos andspirituality and the mountain air of great thought were yet to be. HisHamlet was only dazzling--the glorious possibility of what it has sincebecome. But his Sir Giles was a consummate work of genius--as good thenas it ever afterward became, and better than any other that has beenseen since, not excepting that of E. L. Davenport. And in all kindredcharacters he showed himself a man of genius. His success was great. Theadmiration that he inspired partook of zeal that almost amounted tocraziness. When he walked in the streets of Boston in 1857 his shiningface, his compact figure, and his elastic step drew every eye, andpeople would pause and turn in groups to look at him. 

The actor is born but the artist must be made, and the actor who is notan artist only half fulfils his powers. Edwin Booth had not been longupon the stage before he showed himself to be an actor. During his firstseason he played Cassio in _Othello_, Wilford in _The Iron Chest_, andTitus in _The Fall of Tarquin_, and he played them all auspiciouslywell. But his father, not less wise than kind, knew that the youth mustbe left to himself to acquire experience, if he was ever to become anartist, and so left him in California, "to rough it, " and there, and inthe Sandwich Islands and Australia, he had four years of the most severetraining that hardship, discipline, labour, sorrow, and stern realitycan furnish. When he came east again, in the autumn of 1856, he was nolonger a novice but an educated, artistic tragedian, still crude in somethings, though on the right road, and in the fresh, exultant vigour, ifnot yet the full maturity, of extraordinary powers. He appeared first atBaltimore, and after that made a tour of the south, and during theensuing four years he was seen in many cities all over the country. Inthe summer of 1860 he went to England, and acted in London, Liverpool, and Manchester, but he was back again in New York in 1862, and fromSeptember 21, 1863 to March 23, 1867 he managed what was known as theWinter Garden theatre, and incidentally devoted himself to theaccomplishment of some of the stateliest revivals of standard plays thathave ever been made in America. On February 3, 1869 he opened Booth'sTheatre and that he managed for five years. In 1876 he made a tour ofthe south, which, so great was the enthusiasm his presence aroused, wasnothing less than a triumphal progress. In San Francisco, where hefilled an engagement of eight weeks, the receipts exceeded $96, 000, aresult at that time unprecedented on the dramatic stage. 

The circumstances of the stage and of the lives of actors have greatlychanged since the generation went out to which such men as Junius Boothand Augustus A. Addams belonged. No tragedian would now be so mad as toput himself in pawn for drink, as Cooke is said to have done, nor befound scraping the ham from the sandwiches provided for his luncheon, asJunius Booth was, before going on to play Shylock. Our theatre has nolonger a Richardson to light up a pan of red fire, as that old showmanonce did, to signalise the fall of the screen in _The School forScandal_. The eccentrics and the taste for them have passed away. Itseems really once to have been thought that the actor who did not oftenmake a maniac of himself with drink could not be possessed of the divinefire. That demonstration of genius is not expected now, nor does thepresent age exact from its favourite players the performance of allsorts and varieties of parts. Forrest was the first of the prominentactors to break away from the old usage in this latter particular. During the most prosperous years of his life, from 1837 to 1850, heacted only about a dozen parts, and most of them were old. The only newparts that he studied were Claude Melnotte, Richelieu, Jack Cade, andMordaunt, the latter in the play of _The Patrician's Daughter_, and he"recovered" Marc Antony, which he particularly liked. Edwin Booth, whohad inherited from his father the insanity of intemperance, conqueredthat utterly, many years ago, and nobly and grandly trod it beneath hisfeet; and as he matured in his career, through acting every kind ofpart, from a dandy negro up to Hamlet, he at last made choice of thecharacters that afford scope for his powers and his aspirations, and sosettled upon a definite, restricted repertory. His characters wereHamlet, Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Iago, Richard the Second, Richard theThird, Shylock, Cardinal Wolsey, Benedick, Petruchio, Richelieu, LuciusBrutus, Bertuccio, Ruy Blas, and Don Cæsar de Bazan. These he acted incustomary usage, and to these he occasionally added Marcus Brutus, Antony, Cassius, Claude Melnotte, and the Stranger. The range thusindicated is extraordinary; but more extraordinary still was theevenness of the actor's average excellence throughout the breadth ofthat range. 

Booth's tragedy is better than his elegant comedy. There are otheractors who equal or surpass him in Benedick or Don Cæsar. The comedy inwhich he excels is that of silvery speciousness and bitter sarcasm, asin portions of Iago and Richard the Third and the simulated madness ofLucius Brutus, and the comedy of grim drollery, as in portions ofRichelieu--his expression of those veins being wonderfully perfect. Butno other actor who has trod the American stage in our day has equalledhim in certain attributes of tragedy that are essentially poetic. He isnot at his best, indeed, in all the tragic parts that he acts; and, likehis father, he is an uneven actor in the parts to which he is bestsuited. No person can be said to know Edwin Booth's acting who has notseen him play the same part several times. His artistic treatment willgenerally be found adequate, but his mood or spirit will continuallyvary. He cannot at will command it, and when it is absent hisperformance seems cold. This characteristic is, perhaps, inseparablefrom the poetic temperament. Each ideal that he presents is poetic; andthe suitable and adequate presentation of it, therefore, needs poeticwarmth and glamour. Booth never goes behind his poet's text to find aprose image in the pages of historic fact. The spectator who takes thetrouble to look into his art will find it, indeed, invariably accurateas to historic basis, and will find that all essential points andquestions of scholarship have been considered by the actor. But this isnot the secret of its power upon the soul. That power resides in itscharm, and that charm consists in its poetry. Standing on the lonelyramparts of Elsinore, and with awe-stricken, preoccupied, involuntaryglances questioning the star-lit midnight air, while he talks with hisattendant friends, Edwin Booth's Hamlet is the simple, absoluterealisation of Shakespeare's haunted prince, and raises no question, andleaves no room for inquiry, whether the Danes in the Middle Ages worevelvet robes or had long flaxen hair. It is dark, mysterious, melancholy, beautiful--a vision of dignity and of grace, made sublime bysuffering, made weird and awful by "thoughts beyond the reaches of oursouls. " Sorrow never looked more wofully and ineffably lovely than hissorrow looks in the parting scene with Ophelia, and frenzy never spokewith a wilder glee of horrid joy and fearful exultation than is heardin his tempestuous cry of delirium, "Nay, I know not: is it the king?"

An actor who is fine only at points is not, of course, a perfect actor. The remark of Coleridge about the acting of Edmund Kean, that it waslike "reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning, " has misled manypersons as to Kean's art. Macready bears a similar testimony. But theweight of evidence will satisfy the reader that Kean was, in fact, acareful student and that he never neglected any detail of his art. Thisis certainly true of Edwin Booth. In the level plains that lie betweenthe mountain-peaks of expression he walks with as sure a footstep and asfirm a tread as on the summit of the loftiest crag or the verge of thesteepest abyss. In 1877-78, in association with the present writer, heprepared for the press an edition of fifteen of the plays in which heacts, and these were published for the use of actors. There is not aline in either of those plays that he has not studiously and thoroughlyconsidered; not a vexed point that he has not scanned; not aquestionable reading that he has not, for his own purposes in acting, satisfactorily settled. His Shakespearean scholarship is extensive andsound, and it is no less minute than ample. His stage business has beenarranged, as stage business ought to be, with scientific precision. If, as king Richard the Third, he is seen to be abstractedly toying with aring upon one of his fingers, or unsheathing and sheathing his dagger, those apparently capricious actions would be found to be done becausethey were illustrative parts of that monarch's personality, warranted bythe text and context. Many years ago an accidental impulse led him, asHamlet, to hold out his sword, hilt foremost, toward the recedingspectre, as a protective cross--the symbol of that religion to whichHamlet so frequently recurs. The expedient was found to justify itselfand he made it a custom. In the graveyard scene of this tragedy hedirects that one of the skulls thrown up by the first clown shall have atattered and mouldy fool's-cap adhering to it, so that it may attractattention, and be singled out from the others, as "Yorick's skull, theking's jester. " These are little things; but it is of a thousand littlethings that a dramatic performance is composed, and without this carefor detail--which must be precise, logical, profound, vigilant, unerring, and at the same time always unobtrusive and seeminglyinvoluntary--there can be neither cohesion, nor symmetry, nor anillusory image consistently maintained; and all great effects wouldbecome tricks of mechanism and detached exploits of theatrical force. 

The absence of this thoroughness in such acting as that of Edwin Boothwould instantly be felt; its presence is seldom adequately appreciated. We feel the perfect charm of the illusion in the great fourth act of_Richelieu_--one of the most thrilling situations, as Booth fills it, that ever were created upon the stage; but we should not feel this hadnot the foreground of character, incident, and experience been preparedwith consummate thoroughness. The character of Richelieu is one that theelder Booth could never act. He tried it once, upon urgent solicitation, but he had not proceeded far before he caught Joseph around the waist, and with that astonished friar in his arms proceeded to dash into awaltz, over which the curtain was dropped. He had no sympathy with themoonlight mistiness and lace-like complexity of that weird andmany-fibred nature. It lacked for him the reality of the imagination, the trumpet blare and tempest rush of active passion. But Edwin Booth, coming after Forrest, who was its original in America, has madeRichelieu so entirely his own that no actor living can stand acomparison with him in the character. Macready was the firstrepresentative of the part, as everybody knows, and his performance ofit was deemed magnificent; but when Edwin Booth acted it in London in1880, old John Ryder, the friend and advocate of Macready, who hadparticipated with him in all his plays, said to the American tragedian, with a broken voice and with tears in his eyes, "You have thrown down myidol. " Two at least of those great moments in acting that everybodyremembers were furnished by Booth in this character--the defiance of themasked assailant, at Rouel, and the threat of excommunication deliveredupon Barradas. No spectator possessed of imagination and sensibilityever saw, without utter forgetfulness of the stage, the imperialentrance of that Richelieu into the gardens of the Louvre and into thesullen presence of hostile majesty. The same spell of genius is felt inkindred moments of his greater impersonations. His Iago, standing in thedark street, with sword in hand, above the prostrate bodies of Cassioand Roderigo, and as the sudden impulse to murder them strikes hisbrain, breathing out in a blood-curdling whisper, "How silent is thistown!" his Bertuccio, begging at the door of the banquet-hall, andbreaking down in hysterics of affected glee and maddening agony; hisLear, at that supreme moment of intolerable torture when he parts awayfrom Goneril and Regan, with his wild scream of revenges that shall bethe terrors of the earth; his Richard the Third, with the giganticeffrontery of his "Call him again, " and with his whole matchless andwonderful utterance of the awful remorse speech with which the kingawakens from his last earthly sleep--those, among many others, rank withthe best dramatic images that ever were chronicled, and may well becited to illustrate Booth's invincible and splendid adequacy at thegreat moments of his art. 

Edwin Booth has been tried by some of the most terrible afflictions thatever tested the fortitude of a human soul. Over his youth, plainlyvisible, impended the lowering cloud of insanity. While he was yet aboy, and when literally struggling for life in the semi-barbarous wildsof old California, he lost his beloved father, under circumstances ofsingular misery. In early manhood he laid in her grave the woman of hisfirst love--the wife who had died in absence from him, herself scarcelypast the threshold of youth, lovely as an angel and to all that knew herprecious beyond expression. A little later his heart was well-nighbroken and his life was well-nigh blasted by the crime of a lunaticbrother that for a moment seemed to darken the hope of the world. Recovering from that blow, he threw all his resources and powers intothe establishment of the grandest theatre in the metropolis of America, and he saw his fortune of more than a million dollars, together with thetoil of some of the best years of his life, frittered away. Under alltrials he has borne bravely up, and kept the even, steadfast tenor ofhis course; strong, patient, gentle, neither elated by public homage norimbittered by private grief. Such a use of high powers in the dramaticart, and the development and maintenance of such a character behindthem, entitle him to the affection of his countrymen, proud equally ofhis goodness and his renown. 

V. 

MARY ANDERSON: HERMIONE: PERDITA. 

On November 25, 1875 an audience was assembled in one of the theatres ofLouisville, Kentucky, to see "the first appearance upon any stage" of "ayoung lady of Louisville, " who was announced to play Shakespeare'sJuliet. That young lady was in fact a girl, in her sixteenth year, whohad never received any practical stage training, whose education hadbeen comprised in five years of ordinary schooling, whose observation oflife had never extended beyond the narrow limits of a provincial city, who was undeveloped, unheralded, unknown, and poor, and whose onlyqualifications for the task she had set herself to accomplish were theimpulse of genius and the force of commanding character. She dashed atthe work with all the vigour of abounding and enthusiastic youth, andwith all the audacity of complete inexperience. A rougher performance ofJuliet probably was never seen, but through all the disproportion andturbulence of that effort the authentic charm of a beautiful nature wasdistinctly revealed. The sweetness, the sincerity, the force, theexceptional superiority and singular charm of that nature could not bemistaken. The uncommon stature and sumptuous physical beauty of the girlwere obvious. Above all, her magnificent voice--copious, melodious, penetrating, loud and clear, yet soft and gentle--delighted every earand touched every heart. The impersonation of Juliet was not highlyesteemed by judicious hearers; but some persons who saw that performancefelt and said that a new actress had risen and that a great career hadbegun. Those prophetic voices were right. That "young lady ofLouisville" was Mary Anderson. 

It is seldom in stage history that the biographer comes upon such acharacter as that of Mary Anderson, or is privileged to muse over thestory of such a career as she has had. In many cases the narrative ofthe life of an actress is a narrative of talents perverted, ofopportunity misused, of failure, misfortune, and suffering. For onestory like that of Mrs. Siddons there are many like that of Mrs. Robinson. For one name like that of Charlotte Cushman or that of HelenFaucit there are many like that of Lucille Western or that of MatildaHeron--daughters of sorrow and victims of trouble. The mind lingers, accordingly, impressed and pleased with a sense of sweet personal worthas well as of genius and beauty upon the record of a representativeAmerican actress, as noble as she was brilliant, and as lovely in herdomestic life as she was beautiful, fortunate, and renowned in herpublic pursuits. The exposition of her nature, as apprehended throughher acting, constitutes the principal part of her biography. 

Mary Anderson, a native of California, was born at Sacramento, July 28, 1859. Her father, Charles Joseph Anderson, who died in 1863, agedtwenty-nine, and was buried in Magnolia cemetery, Mobile, Alabama, wasan officer in the service of the Southern Confederacy at the time of hisdeath, and he is said to have been a handsome and dashing young man. Hermother, Marie Antoinette Leugers, was a native of Philadelphia. Herearlier years were passed in Louisville, whither she was taken in 1860, and she was there taught in a Roman Catholic school and reared in theRoman Catholic faith under the guidance of a Franciscan priest, AnthonyMiller, her mother's uncle. She left school before she was fourteenyears old and she went upon the stage before she was sixteen. She hadwhile a child seen various theatrical performances, notably those givenby Edwin Booth, and her mind had been strongly drawn toward the stageunder the influence of those sights. The dramatic characters that shefirst studied were male characters--those of Hamlet, Wolsey, Richelieu, and Richard III. --and to those she added Schiller's Joan of Arc. Shestudied those parts privately, and she knew them all and knew them well. Professor Noble Butler, of Louisville, gave her instruction in Englishliterature and elocution, and in 1874, at Cincinnati, Charlotte Cushmansaid a few encouraging words to her, and told her to persevere infollowing the stage, and to "begin at the top. " George Vandenhoff gaveher a few lessons before she came out, and then followed her début asJuliet, leading to her first regular engagement, which began at BarneyMacaulay's Theatre, Louisville, January 20, 1876. From that time onwardfor thirteen years she was an actress, --never in a stock company butalways as a star, --and her name became famous in Great Britain as wellas America. She had eight seasons of steadily increasing prosperity onthe American stage before she went abroad to act, and she became afavourite all over the United States. She filled three seasons at theLyceum Theatre, London (from September 1, 1883, to April 5, 1884; fromNovember 1, 1884, to April 25, 1885; and from September 10, 1887, toMarch 24, 1888), and her success there surpassed, in profit, that of anyAmerican actor who had appeared in England. She revived _Romeo andJuliet_ with much splendour at the London Lyceum on November 1, 1884, and she restored _A Winter's Tale_ to the stage, bringing forward thatcomedy on September 10, 1887, and carrying it through the season. Shemade several prosperous tours of the English provincial theatres, andestablished herself as a favourite actress in fastidious Edinburgh, critical Manchester, and impulsive but exacting Dublin. The repertorywith which she gained fame and fortune included Juliet, Hermione, Perdita, Rosalind, Lady Macbeth, Julia, Bianca, Evadne, Parthenia, Pauline, The Countess, Galatea, Clarice, Ion, Meg Merrilies, Berthe, and the Duchess de Torrenueva. She incidentally acted a few other parts, Desdemona being one of them. Her distinctive achievements were inShakespearean drama. She adopted into her repertory two plays byTennyson, _The Cup_ and _The Falcon_, but never produced them. Thisrecord signifies the resources of mind, the personal charm, the exaltedspirit, and the patient, wisely directed and strenuous zeal thatsustained her achievements and justified her success. 

Aspirants in the field of art are continually coming to the surface. Inpoetry, painting, sculpture, music, and in acting--which involves andutilises those other arts--the line of beginners is endless. Constantly, as the seasons roll by, these essayists emerge, and as constantly, aftera little time, they disappear. The process is sequent upon an obviouslaw of spiritual life, --that all minds which are conscious of the artimpulse must at least make an effort toward expression, but that no mindcan succeed in the effort unless, in addition to the art impulse, itpossesses also the art faculty. For expression is the predominantnecessity of human nature. Out of this proceed forms and influences ofbeauty. These react upon mankind, pleasing an instinct for thebeautiful, and developing the faculty of taste. Other and finer formsand influences of beauty ensue, civilisation is advanced, and thusfinally the way is opened toward that condition of immortal spiritualhappiness which this process of experience prefigures and prophesies. But the art faculty is of rare occurrence. At long intervals there is abreak in the usual experience of stage failure, and some person hithertounknown not only takes the field but keeps it. When Garrick came out, asthe Duke of Gloster, in the autumn of 1741, in London, he had never beenheard of, but within a brief time he was famous. "He at once decided thepublic taste, " said Macklin; and Pope summed up the victory in thewell-known sentence, "That young man never had an equal, and will neverhave a rival. " Tennyson's line furnishes the apt and comprehensivecomment--"The many fail, the one succeeds. " Mary Anderson in her dayfurnished the most conspicuous and striking example, aside from that ofAdelaide Neilson, to which it is possible to refer of this exceptionalexperience. And yet, even after years of trial and test, it is doubtfulwhether the excellence of that remarkable actress was entirelycomprehended in her own country. The provincial custom of waiting forforeign authorities to discover our royal minds is one from which manyinhabitants of America have not yet escaped. As an actress, indeed, MaryAnderson was, probably, more popular than any player on the Americanstage excepting Edwin Booth or Joseph Jefferson; but there is adifference between popularity and just and comprehensive intellectualrecognition. Many actors get the one; few get the other. 

Much of the contemporary criticism that is lavished upon actors in thisexigent period--so bountifully supplied with critical observations, sopoorly furnished with creative art--touches only upon the surface. Acting is measured with a tape and the chief demand seems to be forform. This is right, and indeed is imperative, whenever it is certainthat the actor at his best is one who never can rise above thehigh-water mark of correct mechanism. There are cases that need a deepermethod of inquiry and a more searching glance. A wise critic, when thisemergency comes, is something more than an expert who gives an opinionupon a professional exploit. The special piece of work may containtechnical flaws, and yet there may be within it a soul worth all the"icily regular and splendidly null" achievements that ever were possibleto proficient mediocrity. That soul is visible only to the observer whocan look through the art into the interior spirit of the artist, andthus can estimate a piece of acting according to its inspirational driftand the enthralling and ennobling personality out of which it springs. The acting of Mary Anderson, from the first moment of her career, was ofthe kind that needs that deep insight and broad judgment, --aiming torecognise and rightly estimate its worth. Yet few performers of the daywere so liberally favoured with the monitions of dullness and theponderous patronage of self-complacent folly. 

Conventional judgment as to Mary Anderson's acting expressed itself inone statement--"she is cold. " There could not be a greater error. Thatquality in Mary Anderson's acting--a reflex from her spiritualnature--which produced upon the conventional mind the effect of coldnesswas in fact distinction, the attribute of being exceptional. Thejudgment that she was cold was a resentful judgment, and was given in aspirit of detraction. It proceeded from an order of mind that can neverbe content with the existence of anything above its own level. "Hehath, " said Iago, speaking of Cassio, "a daily beauty in his life thatmakes me ugly. " Those detractors did not understand themselves as wellas the wily Italian understood himself, and they did not state theirattitude with such precision; in fact, they did not state it at all, forit was unconscious with them and involuntary. They saw a being unlikethemselves, they vaguely apprehended the presence of a superior nature, and that they resented. The favourite popular notion is that all men areborn free and equal; which is false. Free and equal they all are, undoubtedly, in the eye of the law. But every man is born subject toheredity and circumstance, and whoever will investigate his life willperceive that he never has been able to stray beyond the compelling andconstraining force of his character--which is his fate. All men, moreover, are unequal. To one human being is given genius; to another, beauty; to another, strength; to another, exceptional judgment; toanother, exceptional memory; to another, grace and charm; to stillanother, physical ugliness and spiritual obliquity, moral taint, andevery sort of disabling weakness. To the majority of persons Natureimparts mediocrity, and it is from mediocrity that the derogatory denialemanates as to the superior men and women of our race. A woman of theaverage kind is not difficult to comprehend. There is nothingdistinctive about her. She is fond of admiration; rather readilycensorious of other women; charitable toward male rakes; and partial tofine attire. The poet Wordsworth's formula, "Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles, " comprises all that is essential for herexistence, and that bard has himself precisely described her, in agrandfatherly and excruciating couplet, as

 "A creature not too bright and good For human nature's daily food. "

Women of that sort are not called "cold. " The standard is ordinary andit is understood. But when a woman appears in art whose life is notruled by the love of admiration, whose nature is devoid of vanity, wholooks with indifference upon adulation, whose head is not turned byrenown, whose composure is not disturbed by flattery, whose simplicityis not marred by wealth, who does not go into theatrical hysterics andoffer that condition of artificial delirium as the mood of genius inacting, who above all makes it apparent in her personality and herachievements that the soul can be sufficient to itself and can existwithout taking on a burden of the fever or dulness of other lives, thereis a flutter of vague discontent among the mystified and bothered rankand file, and we are apprised that she is "cold. " That is what happenedin the case of Mary Anderson. 

What are the faculties and attributes essential to great success inacting? A sumptuous and supple figure that can realise the ideals ofstatuary; a mobile countenance that can strongly and unerringly expressthe feelings of the heart and the workings of the mind; eyes that canawe with the majesty or startle with the terror or thrill with thetenderness of their soul-subduing gaze; a voice, deep, clear, resonant, flexible, that can range over the wide compass of emotion and carry itsmeaning in varying music to every ear and every heart; intellect toshape the purposes and control the means of mimetic art; deep knowledgeof human nature; delicate intuitions; the skill to listen as well asthe art to speak; imagination to grasp the ideal of a character in allits conditions of experience; the instinct of the sculptor to give itform, of the painter to give it colour, and of the poet to give itmovement; and, back of all, the temperament of genius--the genialisednervous system--to impart to the whole artistic structure the thrill ofspiritual vitality. Mary Anderson's acting revealed those faculties andattributes, and those observers who realised the poetic spirit, themoral majesty, and the isolation of mind that she continually suggestedfelt that she was an extraordinary woman. Such moments in her acting asthat of Galatea's mute supplication at the last of earthly life, that ofJuliet's desolation after the final midnight parting with the last humancreature whom she may ever behold, and that of Hermione's despair whenshe covers her face and falls as if stricken dead, were the eloquentdenotements of power, and in those and such as those--with which her artabounded--was the fulfilment of every hope that her acting inspired andthe vindication of every encomium that it received. 

Early in her professional career, when considering her acting, thepresent essayist quoted as applicable to her those lovely lines byWordsworth:--

 "The stars of midnight shall be dear To her, and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face. "

In the direction of development thus indicated she steadily advanced. Her affiliations were with grandeur, purity, and loveliness. An inherentand passionate tendency toward classic stateliness increased in her moreand more. Characters of the statuesque order attracted herimagination--Ion, Galatea, Hermione--but she did not leave themsoulless. In the interpretation of passion and the presentation of itsresults she revealed the striking truth that her perceptions coulddiscern those consequences that are recorded in the soul and incomparison with which the dramatic entanglements of visible life arepuny and evanescent. Though living in the rapid stream of the socialworld she dwelt aloof from it. She thought deeply, and in mentaldirection she took the pathway of intellectual power. It is notsurprising that the true worth of such a nature was not accuratelyapprehended. Minds that are self-poised, stately, irresponsive to humanweakness, unconventional and self-liberated from allegiance to thecommonplace are not fully and instantly discernible, and may wellperplex the smiling glance of frivolity; but they are permanent forcesin the education of the human race. Mary Anderson retired from thestage, under the pressure of extreme fatigue, in the beginning of 1889and entered upon a matrimonial life on June 17, 1890. It is believedthat her retirement is permanent. The historical interest attaching toher dramatic career justifies the preservation of this commemorativeessay. 

There is so much beauty in the comedy of _A Winter's Tale_--so muchthought, character, humour, philosophy, sweetly serene feeling andloveliness of poetic language--that the public ought to feel obliged toany one who successfully restores it to the stage, from which it usuallyis banished. The piece was written in the maturity of Shakespeare'smarvellous powers, and indeed some of the Shakespearean scholars believeit to be the last work that fell from his hand. Human life, as depictedin _A Winter's Tale_, shows itself like what it always seems to be inthe eyes of patient, tolerant, magnanimous experience--the eyes "thathave kept watch o'er man's mortality"--for it is a scene of inexplicablecontrasts and vicissitudes, seemingly the chaos of caprice and chance, yet always, in fact, beneficently overruled and guided to good ends. Human beings are shown in it as full of weakness; often as the puppetsof laws that they do not understand and of universal propensities andimpulses into which they never pause to inquire; almost always asobjects of benignant pity. The woful tangle of human existence is hereviewed with half-cheerful, half-sad tolerance, yet with the hope andbelief that all will come right at last. The mood of the comedy ispensive but radically sweet. The poet is like the forest in Emerson'ssubtle vision of the inherent exultation of nature:--

 "Sober, on a fund of joy, The woods at heart are glad. "

Mary Anderson doubled the characters of Hermione and Perdita. This hadnot been conspicuously done until it was done by her, and herinnovation, in that respect, was met with grave disapproval. The momentthe subject is examined, however, objection to that method of procedureis dispelled. Hermione, as a dramatic person, disappears in the middleof the third act of Shakespeare's comedy and comes no more until the endof the piece, when she emerges as a statue. Her character has beenentirely expressed and her part in the action of the drama has beensubstantially fulfilled before she disappears. There is no intermediatepassion to be wrought to a climax, nor is there any intermediate mood, dramatically speaking, to be sustained. The dramatic environment, thedramatic necessities, are vastly unlike, for example, those of LadyMacbeth--one of the hardest of all parts to play well, because exhibitedintermittently, at long intervals, yet steadily constrained by thenecessity of cumulative excitement. The representative of Lady Macbethmust be identified with that character, whether on the stage or off, from the beginning of it to the end. Hermione, on the contrary, is atrest from the moment when she faints upon receiving information of thedeath of her boy. A lapse of sixteen years is assumed, and then, standing forth as a statue, she personifies majestic virtue andvictorious fortitude. When she descends from the pedestal she silentlyembraces Leontes, speaks a few pious, maternal and tranquil lines (thereare precisely seven of them in the original, but Mary Anderson addedtwo, from "All's Well"), and embraces Perdita, whom she has not seensince the girl's earliest infancy. This is their only meeting, andlittle is sacrificed by the use of a substitute for the daughter in thatscene. Perdita's brief apostrophe to the statue has to be cut, but it isnot missed in the representation. The resemblance between mother anddaughter heightens the effect of illusion, in its impress equally uponfancy and vision; and a more thorough elucidation is given than could beprovided in any other way of the spirit of the comedy. It was ajudicious and felicitous choice that the actress made when she selectedthose two characters, and the fact that her impersonation of themcarried a practically disused Shakespearean comedy through a season ofone hundred and fifty nights at the Lyceum Theatre in London furnishesan indorsement alike of her wisdom and her ability. She played in astage version of the piece, in five acts, containing thirteen scenes, arranged by herself. 

While Mary Anderson was acting those two parts in London the sum ofcritical opinion seemed to be that her performance of Perdita was betterthan her performance of Hermione; but beneath that judgment there was, apparently, the impression that Hermione is a character fraught withsuperlatively great passions, powers, and qualities, such as are only tobe apprehended by gigantic sagacity and conveyed by herculean talentsand skill. Those vast attributes were not specified, but there was amysterious intimation of their existence--as of something vague, formidable, and mostly elusive. But in truth Hermione, although astronger part than Perdita, is neither complex, dubious, norinaccessible; and Mary Anderson, although more fascinating in Perdita, could and did rise, in Hermione, to a noble height of tragic power--anexcellence not possible for her, nor for anybody, in the more juvenileand slender character. 

Hermione has usually been represented as an elderly woman and by such anactress as is technically called "heavy. " She ought to be represented asabout thirty years of age at the beginning of the piece, and forty-sixat the end of it. Leontes is not more than thirty-four at the opening, and he would be fifty at the close. He speaks, in his first scene, ofhis boyhood as only twenty-three years gone, when his dagger was worn"muzzled, lest it should bite its master"--at which time he may havebeen ten years old; certainly not more, probably less. His words, towardthe end of act third, "so sure as this beard's gray, " refer to the beardof Antigonus, not to his own. He is a young man when the play begins, and Polixenes is about the same age, and Hermione is a young woman. Antigonus and Paulina are middle-aged persons in the earlier scenes andPaulina is an elderly woman in the statue scene--almost an old woman, though not too old to be given in marriage to old Camillo, theever-faithful friend. In Mary Anderson's presentation of _A Winter'sTale_ those details received thoughtful consideration and correcttreatment. 

In Hermione is seen a type of the celestial nature in woman--infinitelove, infinite charity, infinite patience. Such a nature is rare; but itis possible, it exists, and Shakespeare, who depicted everything, didnot omit to portray that. To comprehend Hermione the observer mustseparate her, absolutely and finally, from association with thepassions. Mrs. Jameson acutely and justly describes her character asexhibiting "dignity without pride, love without passion, and tendernesswithout weakness. " That is exactly true. Hermione was not easily won, and the best thing known about Leontes is that at last she came to lovehim and that her love for him survived his cruel and wicked treatment, chastened him, reinstated him, and ultimately blessed him. Hermionesuffers the utmost affliction that a good woman can suffer. Her boydies, heart-broken, at the news of his mother's alleged disgrace. Herinfant daughter is torn from her breast and cast forth to perish. Herhusband becomes her enemy and persecutor. Her chastity is assailed andvilified. She is subjected to the bitter indignity of a public trial. Itis no wonder that at last her brain reels and she falls as if strickendead. The apparent anomaly is her survival for sixteen years, in lonelyseclusion, and her emergence, after that, as anything but a forlornshadow of her former self. The poet Shelley has recorded the truth thatall great emotions either kill themselves or kill those who feel them. It is here, however, that the exceptional temperament of Hermionesupplies an explanatory and needed qualification. Her emotions are neverof a passionate kind. Her mind predominates. Her life is in theaffections and therefore it is one of thought. She sees clearly thefacts of her experience and condition, and she knows exactly how thosefacts look in the eyes of others. She is one of those persons whopossess a keen and just prescience of events, who can look far into thefuture and discern those resultant consequences of the present which, under the operation of inexorable moral law, must inevitably ensue. Self-poised in the right and free from the disturbing force of impulseand desire, she can await the justice of time, she can live, and she canlive in the tranquil patience of resignation. True majesty of the personis dependent on repose of the soul, and there can be no repose of thesoul without moral rectitude and a far-reaching, comprehensive, wisevision of events. Mary Anderson embodied Hermione in accordance withthat ideal. By the expression of her face and the tones of her voice, ina single speech, the actress placed beyond question her grasp of thecharacter:--

 "Good my lords, I am not prone to weeping, as our sex Commonly are--the want of which vain dew Perchance shall dry your pities--but I have That honourable grief lodged here, which burns Worse than tears drown. "

The conspicuous, predominant, convincing artistic beauty in MaryAnderson's impersonation of Hermione was her realisation of the part, infigure, face, presence, demeanour, and temperament. She did not afflicther auditor with the painful sense of a person struggling upward towardan unattainable identity. She made you conscious of the presence of aqueen. This, obviously, is the main thing--that the individuality shallbe imperial, not merely wearing royal attire but being invested with theroyal authenticity of divine endowment and consecration. Much emphasishas been placed by Shakespeare upon that attribute of innate grandeur. Leontes, at the opening of the trial scene, describes his accused wifeas "the daughter of a king, " and in the same scene her father ismentioned as the Emperor of Russia. The gentleman who, in act fifth, recounts to Autolycus the meeting between Leontes and his daughterPerdita especially notes "the majesty of the creature, in resemblance ofthe mother. " Hermione herself, in the course of hervindication--expressed in one of the most noble and pathetic strains ofpoetical eloquence in our language--names herself "a great king'sdaughter, " therein recalling those august and piteous words ofShakespeare's Katharine:--

 "We are a Queen, or long have thought so, certain The daughter of a king. "

Poor old Antigonus, in his final soliloquy, recounting the vision ofHermione that had come upon him in the night, declares her to be a womanroyal and grand not by descent only but by nature:--

 "I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, So filled and so becoming. In pure white robes, Like very sanctity, she did approach. "

That image Mary Anderson embodied, and therefore the ideal ofShakespeare was made a living thing--that glorious ideal, in shapingwhich the great poet "from all that are took something good, to make aperfect woman. " Toward Polixenes, in the first scene, her manner waswholly gracious, delicately playful, innocently kind, and purely frail. Her quiet archness at the question, "Will you go yet?" struck exactlythe right key of Hermione's mood. With the baby prince Mamillius herfrolic and banter, affectionate, free, and gay, were in a happy vein offeeling and humour. Her simple dignity, restraining both resentment andgrief, in face of the injurious reproaches of Leontes, was entirelynoble and right, and the pathetic words, "I never wished to see yousorry, now I trust I shall, " could not have been spoken with more depthand intensity of grieved affection than were felt in her composed yettremulous voice. The entrance, at the trial scene, was made with thestateliness natural to a queenly woman, and yet with a touch ofpathos--the cold patience of despair. The delivery of Hermione'sdefensive speeches was profoundly earnest and touching. The simple cryof the mother's breaking heart, and the action of veiling her face andfalling like one dead, upon the announcement of the prince's death, wereperfect denotements of the collapse of a grief-stricken woman. The skillwith which the actress, in the monument scene--which is all repose andno movement--contrived nevertheless to invest Hermione with steadyvitality of action, and to imbue the crisis with a feverish air ofsuspense, was in a high degree significant of the personality of genius. For such a performance of Hermione Shakespeare himself has provided thesufficient summary and encomium:--

 "Women will love her, that she is a woman More worth than any man; men that she is The rarest of all women. "

It is one thing to say that Mary Anderson was better in Perdita than inHermione, and another thing to say that the performance of Perdita waspreferred. Everybody preferred it--even those who knew that it was notthe better of the two; for everybody loves the sunshine more than theshade. Hermione means grief and endurance. Perdita means beautiful youthand happy love. It does not take long for an observer to choose betweenthem. Suffering is not companionable. By her impersonation of Hermionethe actress revealed her knowledge of the stern truth of life, itstrials, its calamities, and the possible heroism of character under itssorrowful discipline. Into that identity she passed by the force of herimagination. The embodiment was majestic, tender, pitiable, transcendent, but its colour was the sombre colour of pensive melancholyand sad experience. That performance was the higher and more significantof the two. But the higher form of art is not always the mostalluring--never the most alluring when youthful beauty smiles and rosypleasure beckons another way. All hearts respond to happiness. By herpresentment of Perdita the actress became the glittering image andincarnation of glorious youthful womanhood and fascinating joy. Noexercise of the imagination was needful to her in that. There was aninstantaneous correspondence between the part and the player. Theembodiment was as natural as a sunbeam. Shakespeare has left no doubtabout his meaning in Perdita. The speeches of all around her continuallydepict her fresh and piquant loveliness, her innate superiority, hersuperlative charm; while her behaviour and language as constantly showforth her nobility of soul. One of the subtlest side lights thrown uponthe character is in the description of the manner in which Perdita heardthe story of her mother's death--when "attentiveness wounded" her"till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did bleed tears. " And ofthe fibre of her nature there is perhaps no finer indication than may befelt in her comment on old Camillo's worldly view of prosperity as avital essential to the permanence of love:--

 "I think affliction may subdue the cheek, But not take in the mind. "

In the thirty-seven plays of Shakespeare there is no strain of thepoetry of sentiment and grace essentially sweeter than that which he hasput into the mouth of Perdita; and poetry could not be more sweetlyspoken than it was by Mary Anderson in that delicious scene of thedistribution of the flowers. The actress evinced comprehension of thecharacter in every fibre of its being, and she embodied it with theaffluent vitality of splendid health and buoyant temperament--presentinga creature radiant with goodness and happiness, exquisite in naturalrefinement, piquant with archness, soft, innocent, and tender inconfiding artlessness, and, while gleeful and triumphant in beautifulyouth, gently touched with an intuitive pitying sense of the thornyaspects of this troubled world. The giving of the flowers completelybewitched her auditors. The startled yet proud endurance of the king'sanger was in an equal degree captivating. Seldom has the stage displayedthat rarest of all combinations, the passionate heart of a woman withthe lovely simplicity of a child. Nothing could be more beautiful thanshe was to the eyes that followed her lithe figure through the merrymazes of her rustic dance--an achievement sharply in contrast with herusually statuesque manner. It "makes old hearts fresh" to see aspectacle of grace and joy, and that spectacle they saw then and willnot forget. The value of those impersonations of Hermione and Perdita, viewing them as embodied interpretations of poetry was great, but theypossessed a greater value and a higher significance as denotements ofthe guiding light, the cheering strength, the elevating loveliness of anoble human soul. They embodied the conception of the poet, but at thesame time they illumined an actual incarnation of the divine spirit. They were like windows to a sacred temple, and through them you couldlook into the soul of a true woman--always a realm where thoughts aregliding angels, and feelings are the faces of seraphs, and sounds arethe music of the harps of heaven. 

VI. 

HENRY IRVING AND ELLEN TERRY IN OLIVIA. 

It has sometimes been thought that the acting of Henry Irving is seen atits best in those impersonations of his that derive their vitality fromthe grim, ghastly, and morbid attributes of human nature. That he is aunique actor, and distinctively a great actor, in Hamlet, Mathias, Eugene Aram, Louis XI. , Lesurque, and Dubosc, few judges will deny. Hisperformances of those parts have shown him to be a man of weirdimagination, and they have shown that his characteristics, mental andspiritual, are sombre. Accordingly, when it was announced that he wouldplay Dr. Primrose--Goldsmith's simple, virtuous, homely, undramaticvillage-preacher, the _Vicar of Wakefield_, --a doubt was felt as to hissuitability for the part and as to the success of his endeavour. Heplayed Dr. Primrose, and he gained in that character some of thebrightest laurels of his professional career. The doubt provedunwarranted. More than one competent observer of that remarkableperformance has granted it an equal rank with the best of Henry Irving'sachievements; and now, more clearly than before, it is perceived thatthe current of his inspiration flows as freely from the silver spring ofgoodness as from the dark and troubled fountain of human misery. 

On the first night of _Olivia_, at the Lyceum Theatre (it was May 27, 1885, when the present writer happened to be in London), Henry Irving'sperformance of Dr. Primrose was fettered by a curb of constraint. Theactor's nerves had been strained to a high pitch of excitement and hewas obviously anxious. His spirit, accordingly, was not fully liberatedinto the character. He advanced with cautious care and he executed eachdetail of his design with precise accuracy. To various auditors, forthat reason, the work seemed a little Methodistical; and drab is acolour at which the voice of the scoffer is apt to scoff. But theimpersonation of Dr. Primrose soon became equally a triumph ofexpression and of ideal; not only flowing out of goodness, but flowingsmoothly and producing the effect of nature. It was not absolutely andidentically the Vicar that Goldsmith has drawn, for its personality wasunmarked by either rusticity or strong humour; but it was a kindred andhigher type of the simple truth, the pastoral sweetness, the benignity, and the human tenderness of that delightful original. To invest goodnesswith charm, to make virtue piquant, and to turn common events ofdomestic life to exquisite pathos and noble exaltation was the actor'spurpose. It was accomplished; and Dr. Primrose, thitherto an idyllicfigure, existent only in the chambers of fancy, is henceforth as much adenizen of the stage as Luke Fielding or Jesse Rural; a man not merelyto be read of, as one reads of Uncle Toby and Parson Adams, but to beknown, remembered, and loved. 

Wills's drama of _Olivia_, based upon an episode in Goldsmith's story, is one of extreme simplicity. It may be described as a series ofpictures displaying the consequences of action rather than actionitself. It contains an abundance of incident, but the incident is mostlydevoid of inherent dramatic force and therefore is such as must deriveits chief effect from the manner in which it is treated by the actorswho represent the piece. Nevertheless, the piece was found to be, during its first three acts, an expressive, coherent, interesting play. It tells its story clearly and entirely, not by narrative but by thedisplay of characters in their relations to each other. Its language, flavoured here and there with the phraseology of the novel, isconsistently appropriate. The fourth and last act is feeble. Nobody cansympathise with "the late remorse of love" in a nature so trivial asthat of Thornhill, and the incident of the reconciliation between Oliviaand her husband, therefore, goes for nothing. It is the beautifulrelation between the father and his daughter that animates the play. Itis paternal love that thrills its structure with light, warmth, colour, sincerity, moral force, and human significance. Opinion may differ as tothe degree of skill with which Wills selected and employed the materialsof Goldsmith's story; but nobody can justly deny that he wrought for thestage a practical dramatic exposition of the beauty and sanctity of theholiest relation that is possible in human life; and to have done thatis to have done a noble thing. 

Many persons appear to think that criticism falls short of its dutyunless it wounds and hurts. Goldsmith himself observed that fact. Itwas in the story of _The Vicar of Wakefield_ that he made his playfulsuggestion that a critic should always take care to say that the picturewould have been better if the painter had taken more pains. Willsprobably heard more than enough for his spiritual welfare about thefaults of his piece; yet there is really nothing weak in the play exceptthe conclusion. It is not easy to suggest, however, in what way thefourth act could be strengthened, unless it were by a recasting andrenovation of the character of Squire Thornhill. But the victory wasgained, in spite of a feeble climax. Many persons also appear to thinkthat it is a sort of sacrilege to lay hands upon the sacred ark of aclassic creation. Dion Boucicault, perceiving this when he made a playabout _Clarissa Harlowe_, felt moved to deprecate anticipated publicresentment of the liberties that he had taken with Richardson's novel. Yet it is difficult to see why the abundant details of that excellentthough protracted narrative should not be curtailed, in order tocircumscribe its substance within the limits of a practical drama. Jefferson was blamed for condensing and slightly changing the comedy of_The Rivals_. Yet the author, who probably knew something about hiswork, deemed it a wretchedly defective piece, and expressed theliveliest regret for having written it. Wills did not reproduceGoldsmith's Vicar upon the stage: in some particulars he widely divergedfrom it--and his work, accordingly, may be censured. Yet _The Vicar ofWakefield_ is far from being a faultless production, such as a divinityshould be supposed to hedge. Critical students are aware of this. It isnot worth while to traverse the old ground. The reader who will take thetrouble--and pleasure--to refer to that excellent chapter on Goldsmithin Dr. Craik's _History of English Literature_ will find the structuraldefects of the novel specifically enumerated. If the dramatist hasignored many details he has at least extracted from the narrative thesalient points of a consistent, harmonious story. The spectator canenjoy the play, whether he has read the original or not. At the end ofits first act he knows the Vicar and his family, their home, their wayof life, their neighbours, the two suitors for the two girls, themotives of each and every character, and the relations of each to all;and he sees, what is always touching in the spectacle of actual humanlife, the contrasted states of circumstance and experience surroundingand enmeshing all. After this preparation the story is developed withfew and rapid strokes. Two of the pictures were poems. At the end of actfirst the Vicar, who has been apprised of the loss of his property, imparts this sad news to his family. The time is the gloaming. Thechimes are sounding in the church-tower. It is the hour of eveningprayer. The gray-haired pastor calls his loved ones around him, in hisgarden, and simply and reverently tells them of their misfortune, whichis to be accepted submissively, as Heaven's will. The deep religiousfeeling of that scene, the grouping, the use of sunset lights andshadows, the melody of the chimes, the stricken look in the faces of thewomen and children, the sweet gravity of the Vicar--instinct with thenobleness of a sorrow not yet become corrosive and lachrymose, as is thetendency of settled grief--and, over all, the sense of blightedhappiness and an uncertain future, made up a dramatic as well as apictorial effect of impressive poetic significance. In act second--whichis pictorial almost without intermission--there was a companionpicture, when the Vicar reads, at his fireside, a letter announcing therestitution of his estate; while his wife and children and Mr. Burchellare assembled around the spinet singing an old song. The repose withwhich Henry Irving made that scene tremulous, almost painful, in itssuspense, was observed as one of the happiest strokes of his art. Theface and demeanour of Dr. Primrose, changing from the composure ofresignation to a startled surprise, and then to almost an hystericalgladness, presented a study not less instructive than affecting of theresources of acting. Only two contemporary actors have presentedanything kindred with Mr. Irving's acting in that situation andthroughout the scene that is sequent on the discovery of Olivia'sflight--Jefferson in America and Got in France. 

Evil is restless and irresistibly prone to action. Goodness is usuallynegative and inert. Dr. Primrose is a type of goodness. In order toinvest him with piquancy and dramatic vigour Henry Irving gave himpassion, and therewithal various attributes of charming eccentricity. The clergyman thus presented is the fruition of a long life of virtue. He has the complete repose of innocence, the sweet candour of absolutepurity, the mild demeanour of spontaneous, habitual benevolence, thesupreme grace of unconscious simplicity. But he is human and passionate;he shows--in his surroundings, in his quick sympathy with naturalbeauty, and in his indicated rather than directly stated ideals ofconduct--that he has lived an imaginative and not a prosaic life; he isvaguely and pathetically superstitious; and while essentially grand inhis religious magnanimity he is both fascinating and morally formidableas a man. Those denotements point at Henry Irving's ideal. For hismethod it is less easy to find the right description. His mechanicalreiteration of the words that are said to him by Sophia, in the momentwhen the fond father knows that his idolised Olivia has fled with herlover; his collapse, when the harmless pistols are taken from hisnerveless hands; his despairing cry, "If she had but died!"; hisabortive effort to rebuke his darling child in the hour of herabandonment and misery, and the sudden tempest of passionate affectionwith which the great tender heart sweeps away that inadequate and paltrythough eminently appropriate morality, and takes its idol to itself asonly true love can do--those were instances of high dramatic achievementfor which epithets are inadequate, but which the memory of the heartwill always treasure. 

It was said by the poet Aaron Hill, in allusion to Barton Booth, thatthe blind might have seen him in his voice and the deaf might have heardhim in his visage. Such a statement made concerning an actor now wouldbe deemed extravagant. But, turning from the Vicar to his cherisheddaughter, that felicitous image comes naturally into the mind. To thinkof Ellen Terry as Olivia will always be to recall one especial andremarkable moment of beauty and tenderness. It is not her distributionof the farewell gifts, on the eve of Olivia's flight--full although thatwas of the emotion of a good heart torn and tortured by the conflictbetween love and duty--and it is not the desperate resentment with whichOlivia beats back her treacherous betrayer, when, at the climax of hisbaseness, he adds insult to heartless perfidy. Those, indeed, were madegreat situations by the profound sincerity and the rich, woman-likepassion of the actress. But there was one instant, in the second act ofthe play, when the woman's heart has at length yielded to her lover'swill, and he himself, momentarily dismayed by his own conquest, strivesto turn back, that Ellen Terry made pathetic beyond description. Thewords she spoke are simply these, "But I said I would come!" Whatlanguage could do justice to the voice, to the manner, to the sweet, confiding, absolute abandonment of the whole nature to the human love bywhich it had been conquered? The whole of that performance wasastonishing, was thrilling, with knowledge of the passion of love. Thatespecial moment was the supreme beauty of it. At such times human natureis irradiated with a divine fire, and art fulfils its purpose. 

VII. 

ON JEFFERSON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

Joseph Jefferson has led a life of noble endeavour and has had a careerof ample prosperity, culminating in honourable renown and abundanthappiness. He was born in Philadelphia, February 20, 1829. He went onthe stage when he was four years old and he has been on the stage eversince. His achievements as an actor have been recognised and acceptedwith admiration in various parts of the world; in Australia and NewZealand and in England, Scotland, and Ireland, as well as in the UnitedStates. Among English-speaking actors he is the foremost livingrepresentative of the art of eccentric comedy. He has not, of lateyears, played a wide range of parts, but, restricting himself to a fewcharacters, and those of a representative kind, the manner in which hehas acted them is a perfect manner--and it is this that has gained forhim his distinctive eminence. Jefferson, however, is not simply andexclusively an actor. His mind is many sided. He has painted landscapepictures of a high order of merit, --pictures in which elusive moods andsubtle sentiments of nature are grasped with imaginative insight anddenoted and interpreted with a free, delicate, and luminous touch. Hehas also addressed the public as an author. He has written an easy, colloquial account of his own life, and that breezy, off-hand, expeditious work, --after passing it as a serial through their CenturyMagazine, --the Century Company has published in a beautiful volume. Itis a work that, for the sake of the writer, will be welcomed everywhere, and, for its own sake as well as his, will everywhere be preserved. 

Beginning a theatrical career nearly sixty years ago (1833), roving upand down the earth ever since, and seldom continuing in one place, Jefferson has had uncommon opportunities of noting the development ofthe United States and of observing, in both hemispheres, the changefulaspect of one of the most eventful periods in the history of the world. Actors, as a class, know nothing but the stage and see nothing but thepursuit in which they are occupied. Whoever has lived much among themknows that fact, from personal observation. Whoever has read the variousand numerous memoirs that have from time to time been published byelderly members of that profession must have been amused to perceivethat, while they conventionally agree that "all the world's a stage, "they are enthusiastically convinced that the stage is all the world. Jefferson's book, although it contains much about the theatre, shows himto be an exception in this respect, even as he is in many others. He hasseen many countries and many kinds of men and things, and he has longlooked upon life with the thoughtful gaze of a philosopher as well asthe wise smile of a humourist. He can, if he likes, talk of somethingbesides the shop. His account of his life "lacks form a little, " and hisindifference to "accurate statistics"--which he declares to be "somewhattedious"--is now and then felt to be an embarrassment. One would like toknow, for instance, while reading about the primitive theatrical times, when actors sailed the western rivers in flatboats, and shot beasts andbirds on the bank, precisely the extent and limits of that period. Noris this the only queer aspect of the dramatic past that might beillumined. The total environment of a man's life is almost equallyimportant with the life itself--being, indeed, the scenery amid whichthe action passes--and a good method for the writing of a biography isthat which sharply defines the successive periods of childhood, youth, manhood, and age, and, while depicting the development of the individualfrom point to point, depicts also the entire field through which hemoves, and the mutations, affecting his life, that occur in the historicand social fabric around him. Jefferson, while he has painted vigorouslyand often happily, on a large canvas, has left many spaces empty andothers but thinly filled. The reader who accompanies him may, nevertheless, with a little care, piece out the story so as to perceiveit as a sequent, distinct, harmonious, and rounded narrative. Meanwhilethe companionship of this heedless historian is delightful--for whetheras actor, painter, or writer, Jefferson steadily exerts the charm of agenial personality. You are as one walking along a country road, on agolden autumn day, with a kind, merry companion, who knows all aboutthe trees that fringe your track and the birds that flit through theirbranches, and who beguiles the way with many a humorous tale and many apleasant remembrance, now impressing your mind by the sagacity of hisreflections, now touching your heart by some sudden trait of sentimentor pathos, and always pleasing and satisfying you with the consciousnessof a sweet, human, broad, charitable, piquant nature. Although anautobiographer Jefferson is not egotistical, and although a moralist heis not a bore. There is a tinge of the Horatian mood in him--for hisreader often becomes aware of that composed, sagacious, half-droll, quizzical mind that indicates, with grave gentleness, the folly ofambition, the vanity of riches, the value of the present hour, theidleness of borrowing trouble, the blessing of the golden medium infortune, the absurdity of flatterers, and the comfort of keeping asteadfast spirit amid the inevitable vicissitudes of this mortal state. 

Jefferson has memories of a boyhood that was passed in Washington, Baltimore, and New York. He went to Chicago in 1838, when that place wasscarcely more than a village--making the journey from New York toBuffalo in a canal-boat, and sailing thence, aboard a steamer, throughthe lakes of Erie, Huron, and Michigan. He travelled with his parents, and they gave dramatic performances, in which he assisted, in westerntowns. It was a time of poverty and hardship, but those ills were bornecheerfully--the brighter side of a hard life being kept steadily inview, and every comic incident of it being seen and appreciated. Hisfather was a gentleman of the Mark Tapley temperament, who came outstrong amid adverse circumstances, and the early disappearance from thebook of that delightful person (who died in 1842, of yellow fever, atMobile), is a positive sorrow. His mother, a refined and gentle lady, ofsteadfast character and of uncommon musical and dramatic talents andaccomplishments, survived till 1849, and her ashes rest in Ronaldson'scemetery, in Philadelphia. Jefferson might have said much more about hisparents, and especially about his famous grandfather, without risk ofbecoming tedious--for they were remarkably interesting people; but hewas writing his own life and not theirs, and he has explained that helikes not to dwell much upon domestic matters. The story of his longancestry of actors, which reaches back to the days of Garrick (for therehave been five generations of the Jeffersons upon the stage), he has notmentioned; and the story of his own young days is hurried rapidly to aconclusion. He was brought on the stage, when a child, at the theatre inWashington, D. C. , by the negro comedian Thomas D. Rice, who emptied himout of a bag; and thereupon, being dressed as "a nigger dancer, " inimitation of Rice, he performed the antics of Jim Crow. He adverts tohis first appearance in New York and remembers his stage combat withMaster Titus; and he thinks that Master Titus must remember italso, --since one of that boy's big toes was nearly cut off in the fray. That combat occurred at the Franklin theatre, September 30, 1837--auseful fact that the autobiographer cares not to mention. He speedilybecomes a young man, as the reader follows him through the first threechapters of his narrative, --of which there are seventeen, --and he isfound to be acting, as a stock player, in support of James W. Wallack, Junius Brutus Booth, W. C. Macready, and Mr. And Mrs. J. W. Wallack, Jr. Upon the powers and peculiarities of those actors, and upon the traitsof many others who, like them, are dead and gone (for there is scarcelya word in the book about any of his living contemporaries), he commentsfreely and instructively. He was "barn-storming" in Texas when theMexican war began, and he followed in the track of the American army, and acted in the old Spanish theatre in Matamoras, in the spring of1846; and, subsequently, finding that this did no good, he opened astall there for the sale of coffee and other refreshments, in the cornerof a gambling hell. He calls to mind the way of domestic life and theevery-day aspect of houses, gardens, people, and manners in Matamoras, and those he describes with especial skill--deftly introducing theportraiture of a dusky, black-eyed, volatile Mexican girl, to whom helost, temporarily, the light heart of youth, and whom he thinks that hemight have married had he not deemed it prudent to journey northwardtoward a cooler clime. In New Orleans, at about that time, he first sawthe then young comedian John E. Owens: and he records the fact that hisambition to excel as an actor was awakened by the spectacle of thatrival's success. Owens has had his career since then, --and a brilliantone it was, --and now he sleeps in peace. 

After that experience Jefferson repaired to Philadelphia, and during thenext ten years, from 1846 to 1856, he wrought in that city and in NewYork, Baltimore, Richmond, and other places, sometimes as a stock actor, sometimes as a star, and sometimes as a manager. He encountered variousdifficulties. He took a few serious steps and many comic ones. He wasbrought into contact with some individuals that were eminent and withsome that were ludicrous. He crossed the Allegheny mountains inmid-winter, from Wheeling to Cumberland, in a cold stage-coach, andalmost perished. He was a member of Burton's company at the Arch Streettheatre, Philadelphia, and was one of the chorus in that great actor'srevival of _Antigone_--which there is little doubt that the chorusextinguished. He was the low comedian in Joseph Foster's amphitheatre, where he sang _Captain Kidd_ to fill up the "carpenter scenes, " andwhere he sported amid the turbulent rhetorical billows of _Timour theTartar_ and _The Terror of the Road_. He acted in New York at theFranklin theatre and also at the Chatham. He managed theatres in Maconand Savannah, where he brought out the blithe Sir William Don; and oneof the sprightliest episodes of his memoir is the chapter in which hedescribes that tall, elegant, nonchalant adventurer. Don was aScotchman, born in 1826, who made his first appearance in America inNovember 1850 at the Broadway theatre, New York, and afterward driftedaimlessly through the provincial theatres. Don was married in 1857 toMiss Emily Sanders, and he died at Tasmania, March 19, 1862, and wasburied at Hobartstown. Jefferson saw the dawn of promise in the careerof Julia Dean, --when that beautiful girl was acting with him, in thestock--and afterwards he saw the noonday splendour of her prosperity;and he might have recalled, but that sad touches are excluded from hisbiography, her mournful decline. In 1853 he was stage manager of theBaltimore museum, for Henry C. Jarrett, and in 1854 he was manager ofthe Richmond theatre, for John T. Ford. Among the players whom he met, and who deeply influenced him, were James E. Murdoch, Henry Placide, Edwin Forrest, Edwin Adams, and Agnes Robertson. But the actor who mostaffected the youth of Joseph Jefferson, whose influence sank deepestinto his heart and has remained longest in his memory and upon hisstyle, was his half-brother, Charles Burke: and certainly, as aserio-comic actor, it may be doubted whether Charles Burke ever wassurpassed. That comedian was born March 27, 1822, in Philadelphia, andhe died in New York, November 10, 1854. Jefferson's mother, CorneliaFrances Thomás, born in New York, October 1, 1796, the daughter ofFrench parents, was married in her girlhood to the Irish comedian ThomasBurke, who died in 1824; and she contracted her second marriage, withJefferson's father, in 1826. Jefferson writes at his best in thedescription of scenery, in the analysis of character, and in thestatement of artistic principles. His portraiture of Murdoch, as acomedian, is particularly clear and fine. His account of Julia Dean'shit, as Lady Priory, is excellent and will often be cited. His portrayalof the reciprocal action of Burton and Charles Burke, when they wereassociated in the same piece, conveys a valuable lesson. His anecdotesof Edwin Forrest present that grim figure as yet again the involuntarycause of mirth. It often was so. Jefferson, however, draws a veil ofgentle charity over those misused powers, that perverse will, thatwasted life. The most striking dramatic portraiture in the book is thatbestowed on Charles Burke, William Warren, George Holland, Tom Glessing, and Edwin Adams. Those were men who lived in Jefferson's affections, andwhen he wrote about them he wrote from the heart. The sketch ofGlessing, whom everybody loved that ever knew him, is in a touchingstrain of tender remembrance. 

Jefferson visited England and France in 1856, but not to act. At thattime he saw the famous English comedians Compton, Buckstone, Robson, andWright, and that extraordinary actor, fine alike in tragedy and comedy, the versatile Samuel Phelps. In 1857 he was associated with Laura Keeneat her theatre in New York; and from that date onward his career hasbeen upon a high and sunlit path, visible to the world. His first partat Laura Keene's theatre was Dr. Pangloss. Then came _Our AmericanCousin_, in which he gained a memorable success as Asa Trenchard, and inwhich Edward A. Sothern laid the basis of that fantastic structure ofwhim and grotesque humour that afterward became famous as LordDundreary. Sothern, Laura Keene, and William Rufus Blake, of course, gained much of Jefferson's attention at that time, and he has notomitted to describe them. His account of Blake, however, does not impartan adequate idea of the excellence of that comedian. In 1858 he went tothe Winter Garden theatre, and was associated with the late DionBoucicault. His characters then were Newman Hoggs, Caleb Plummer, andSalem Scudder--in _Nicholas Nickleby_, _The Cricket on the Hearth_, and_The Octoroon_. Mr. Boucicault told him not to make Caleb Plummer asolemn character at the beginning--a deliverance that Jefferson seems tohave cherished as one of colossal wisdom. He made a brilliant hit inSalem Scudder, and it was then that he determined finally to assume theposition of a star. "Art has always been my sweetheart, " exclaimsJefferson, "and I have loved her for herself alone. " No observer candoubt that who has followed his career. It was in 1859 that he revertedto the subject of Rip Van Winkle, as the right theme for his dramaticpurpose. He had seen Charles Burke as Rip, and he knew the severalversions of Washington Irving's story that had been made for the theatreby Burke, Hackett, and Yates. The first Rip Van Winkle upon the stage, of whom there is any record in theatrical annals, was Thomas Flynn(1804-1849). That comedian, the friend of the elder Booth, acted thepart for the first time on May 24, 1828, at Albany. Charles B. Parsons, who afterward acted in many theatres as Rip, and ultimately became apreacher, was, on that night, the performer of Derrick. Jefferson'spredecessors as Rip Van Winkle were remarkably clever men--Flynn, Parsons, Burke, Chapman, Hackett, Yates, and William Isherwood. But itremained for Jefferson to do with that character what no one else hadever thought of doing--to lift it above the level of the tipsy rusticand make it the poetical type of the drifting and dreamingvagrant--half-haunted, half-inspired, a child of the trees and theclouds. Jefferson records that he was lying on the hay in a barn inParadise Valley, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1859, taking advantageof a rainy day to read Washington Irving's _Life and Letters_, when thatplan came to him. It proved an inspiration of happiness to thousands ofpeople all over the world. The comedian made a play for himself, on thebasis of Charles Burke's play, but with one vital improvement--hearranged the text and business of the supernatural scene so that Riponly should speak, while the ghosts should remain silent. That stroke ofgenius accomplished his object. The man capable of that exploit indramatic art could not fail to win the world, because he would at oncefascinate its imagination while touching its heart. 

In 1861 Jefferson went to California and thence to Australia, and in thelatter country he remained four years. He has written a fine descriptionof the entrance to the harbour at Sydney. His accounts of "the skeletondance, " as he saw it performed by the black natives of that land; of hismeeting with the haunted hermit in the woods; of the convict audience atTasmania, for whom he acted in _The Ticket-of-Leave Man_; and of theentertainment furnished in a Chinese theatre, are compositions thatwould impart to any book the interest of adventure and the zest ofnovelty. Such pictures as those have a broad background; they are notcircumscribed within the proscenium frame. The man is seen in thosepassages as well as the actor; and he plays his part well, amidpicturesque surroundings of evil and peril, of tragedy and of pathos. InAustralia Jefferson met Charles Kean and his wife (Ellen Tree), of whomhis sketches are boldly drawn and his memories are pleasant. Mr. AndMrs. Kean afterward made their farewell visit to the United States, beginning, when they reached New York (from San Francisco, in April1865), with _Henry VIII. _, and closing with _The Jealous Wife_. In 1865Jefferson went from Australia to South America and passed some time inLima, where he saw much tropical luxury and many beautiful ladies--aninspiriting spectacle, fittingly described by him in some of the mostfelicitous of his fervent words. In June 1865 he reached London, andpresently he came forth, at the Adelphi, as Rip Van Winkle, --havingcaused the piece to be rewritten by Mr. Boucicault, who introduced thecolloquy of the children, paraphrased for it the recognition scenebetween King Lear and Cordelia, and kept Gretchen alive to be married toDerrick. Mr. Boucicault, however, had no faith in the piece or theactor's plan, and down to the last moment prophesied failure. Jefferson's success was unequivocal. Friends surrounded him and in thegentle and genial record that he has made of those auspicious days someof the brightest names of modern English literature sparkle on his page. Benjamin Webster, Paul Bedford, John Billington, John Brougham, andMarie Wilton were among the actors who were glad to be his associates. Robertson, the dramatist, was his constant companion--one of the mostintellectual and one of the wittiest of men. Planché, aged yet heartyand genial (and no man had more in his nature of the sweet spirit of thecomrade), speedily sought him. Charles Reade and Anthony Trollope becamehis cronies; and poor Artemas Ward arrived and joined the party just asJefferson was leaving it--as bright a spirit, as kind a heart, and asfine and quaint a humourist as ever cheered this age--from which hevanished too soon for the happiness of his friends and for the fruitionof his fame. "I was much impressed, " says the comedian, "with Ward'sgenial manner; he was not in good health, and I advised him to becareful lest the kindness of London should kill him. " That advice wasnot heeded, and the kindness of London speedily ended Ward's days. 

Jefferson came home in 1866 and passed ten years in America--years offame and fortune, whereof the record is smooth prosperity. Its mostimportant personal incident was his second marriage, on December 20, 1867, at Chicago, to Miss Sarah Warren. In July 1873 he made a voyage toEurope, with his wife and William Warren, the comedian, and remainedthere till autumn. From November 1, 1875 to April 29, 1876 and fromEaster 1877 until midsummer he was again acting in London, where heredoubled his former success. In October 1877 he returned home, andsince then he has remained in America. The chronicle that he has writtenglides lightly over these latter years, only now and then touching ontheir golden summits. The manifest wish of the writer has been to peoplehis pages as much as possible with the men and women of his artisticcircle and knowledge who would be likely to interest the reader. RobertBrowning, Charles Kingsley, and George Augustus Sala come into thepicture, and there is a pleasing story of Browning and Longfellowwalking arm in arm in London streets till driven into a cab by a summershower, when Longfellow insisted on passing his umbrella through thehole in the roof, for the protection of the cab-driver. Jefferson livedfor one summer in an old mansion at Morningside, Edinburgh, and hedwells with natural delight on his recollections of that majestic city. He had many a talk, at odd times, with the glittering farceur CharlesMathews, about dramatic art, and some of this is recorded in piquantanecdotes. "By many, " says the amiable annalist, "he was thought to becold and selfish; I do not think he was so. " There is a kind word forCharles Fechter, whose imitations of Frederick Lemaitre, in _Belphegor, the Mountebank_, live in Jefferson's remembrance as wonderfully graphic. There are glimpses of James Wallack, Walter Montgomery, Peter Richings, E. A. Sothern, Laura Keene, James G. Burnett, John Gilbert, Tyrone Power, Lester Wallack, John McCullough, John T. Raymond, Mr. And Mrs. BarneyWilliams, John Drew (the elder), F. S. Chanfrau, Charlotte Cushman, Mrs. Drake, and many others; and the record incorporates two letters, notbefore published, from John Howard Payne, the author of _Home, SweetHome_--a melody that is the natural accompaniment of Jefferson's life. There is a pretty picture of that ancient supper-room at No. 2 BulfinchPlace, Boston--Miss Fisher's kitchen--as it appeared when William Warrensat behind the mound of lobsters, at the head of the table, while thepolished pewters reflected the cheerful light, and wit and railleryenlivened the happy throng, and many a face was wreathed with smilesthat now is dark and still forever. In one chapter Jefferson sets forthhis views upon the art of acting; and seldom within so brief a compasswill so many sensible reflections be found so simply and terselyexpressed. The book closes with words of gratitude for many blessings, and with an emblematic picture of a spirit resigned to whatevervicissitudes of fortune may yet be decreed. 

Jefferson's memoir is a simple message to simple minds. It will find itsway to thousands of readers to whom a paper by Addison or an essay byHume would have no meaning. It will point for them the moral of a goodlife. It will impress them with the spectacle of a noble actor, profoundly and passionately true to the high art by which he lives, bearing eloquent testimony to its beauty and its worth, and to the finepowers and sterling virtues of the good men and women with whom he hasbeen associated in its pursuit. It will display to them--and to allothers who may chance to read it--a type of that absolute humility ofspirit which yet is perfectly compatible with a just pride of intellect. It will help to preserve interesting traits of famous actors of anearlier time, together with bright stories that illumine the drychronicle of our theatrical history. And, in its simple record of themotives by which he has been impelled, and the artistic purposes that hehas sought to accomplish, it will remain an eloquent, vital, indestructible memorial to the art and the character of a greatcomedian, when the present reality of his exquisite acting shall havechanged to a dim tradition and a fading memory of the past. 

VIII. 

ON JEFFERSON'S ACTING. 

Fifty years from now the historian of the American stage, if he shouldbe asked to name the actor of this period who was most beloved by thepeople of this generation, will answer that it was Joseph Jefferson. Other actors of our time are famous, and they possess in various degreesthe affection of the public. Jefferson is not only renowned butuniversally beloved. To state the cause of this effect is at once toexplain his acting and to do it the honour to which it is entitled. Thatcause can be stated in a single sentence. Jefferson is at once a poeticand a human actor, and he is thus able to charm all minds and to win allhearts. His success, therefore, is especially important not to himselfalone but to the people. 

Public taste is twofold. It has a surface liking, and it has a deep, instinctive, natural preference. The former is alert, capricious, incessant, and continually passes from fancy to fancy. It scarcely knowswhat it wants, except that it wants excitement and change. Those personsin the dramatic world who make a point to address it are experimentalspeculators, whose one and only object is personal gain, and who arewilling and ready to furnish any sort of entertainment that they thinkwill please a passing caprice, and thereby will turn a penny forthemselves. To judge the public entirely by this surface liking is tofind the public what Tennyson once called it--a many-headed beast. Withthat animal every paltry and noxious thing can be made, for a time, toflourish; and that fact leads observers who do not carefully lookbeneath the surface to conclude that the public is always wrong. But thedeep preference of the public comes into the question, and observers whoare able to see and to consider that fact presently perceive that theartist, whether actor or otherwise, who gives to the public, not what itsays it wants but what it ought to have, is in the long run the victor. The deep preference is for the good thing, the real thing, the right. Itis not intelligent. It does not go with thinking and reasoning. It doesnot pretend to have grounds of belief. It simply responds. But upon thestage the actor who is able to reach it is omnipotent. Jeffersonconspicuously is an actor who appeals to the deep, instinctive, naturalpreference of humanity, and who reaches it, arouses it, and satisfiesit. Throughout the whole of his mature career he has addressed thenobler soul of humanity and given to the people what they ought to have;and the actor who is really able to do that naturally conquerseverything. It is not a matter of artifice and simulation; it is amatter of being genuine and not a sham. 

Still further, Jefferson has aroused and touched and satisfied thefeelings of the people, not by attempting to interpret literature but bybeing an actor. An actor is a man who acts. He may be an uneducated man, deficient in learning and in mental discipline, and yet a fine actor. The people care not at all for literature. They do not read it, and theyknow nothing about it until it is brought home to their hearts by somegreat interpreter of it. What they do know is action. They can see andthey can feel, and the actor who makes them see and feel can doanything with them that he pleases. It is his privilege and hisresponsibility. Jefferson is one of those artists (and they are few) whodepend for their effects not upon what authors have written but uponimpersonation. He takes liberties with the text. It would not perhaps besaying too much to say that he does not primarily heed the text at all. He is an actor; and speaking with reference to him and to others likehim it would perhaps be well if those persons who write criticisms uponthe stage would come to a definite conclusion upon this point andfinally understand that an actor must produce his effects on the instantby something that he does and is, and not by rhetoric and elocution, andtherefore that he should not be expected to repeat every word of everypart, or to be a translator of somebody else, but that he must behimself. If we want the full, literal text of Shakespeare we can stop athome and read it. What we want of the actor is that he should givehimself; and the true actor does give himself. The play is the medium. Aman who acts Romeo must embody, impersonate, express, convey, and makeevident what he knows and feels about love. He need not trouble himselfabout Shakespeare. That great poet will survive; while if Romeo, beingever so correct, bores the house, Romeo will be damned. Jefferson is anactor who invariably produces effect, and he produces it byimpersonation, and by impersonation that is poetic and human. 

Jefferson's performance of Acres conspicuously exemplifies theprinciples that have been stated here. He has not hesitated to alter thecomedy of _The Rivals_, and in his alteration of it he has improved it. Acres has been made a better part for an actor, and a more significantand sympathetic part for an audience. You could not care particularlyfor Acres if he were played exactly as he is written. You might laugh athim, and probably would, but he would not touch your feelings. Jeffersonembodies him in such a way that he often makes you feel like laughingand crying at the same moment, and you end with loving the character, and storing it in your memory with such cherished comrades of the fancyas Mark Tapley and Uncle Toby. There is but little human nature in Acresas Sheridan has drawn him, and what there is of human nature is coarse;but as embodied by Jefferson, while he never ceases to be comicallyabsurd, he becomes fine and sweet, and wins sympathy and inspiresaffection, and every spectator is glad to have seen him and to rememberhim. It is not possible to take that sort of liberty with every author. You can do it but seldom with Shakespeare; never in any but his juvenileplays. But there are authors who can be improved by that process, andSheridan--in _The Rivals_, not in _The School for Scandal_--is one ofthem. And anyway, since it ought to be felt, known, understood, andpractically admitted that an actor is something more than a telegraphwire, that his personal faculty and testimony enter into the matter ofembodiment and expression, Jefferson's rare excellence and great successas Acres should teach a valuable lesson, correcting that pernicioushabit of the critical mind which measures an actor by the printed textof a play-book and by the hide-bound traditions of custom on the stage. Jefferson has had a royal plenitude of success as an actor, chiefly withthe part of Rip Van Winkle, but also with the characters of CalebPlummer, Bob Brierly, Dr. Pangloss, Dr. Ollapod, Mr. Golightly, and Hughde Brass. The reason of that success cannot be found in conventionaladherence to stage customs and critical standards. 

Jefferson has gained his great power over the people--of which his greatfame is the shadow--- by giving himself in his art--his own rich andsplendid nature and the crystallised conclusions of his experience. Asan artist, when it comes to execution, he leaves nothing to chance. Themost seemingly artless of his proceedings is absolutely defined inadvance, and never is what heedless observers call impulsive andspontaneous. But his temperament is free, fluent, opulent, andinfinitely tender; and when the whole man is aroused, this flows intothe moulds of literary and dramatic art and glorifies them. When you arelooking at Jefferson as Acres in the duel scene in _The Rivals_, youlaugh at him, but almost you laugh through your tears. When you seeJefferson as Rip Van Winkle confronting the ghosts on the lonelymountain-top at midnight, you see a display of imaginative personalityquite as high as that of Hamlet in tremulous sensibility to supernaturalinfluence, although wholly apart from Hamlet in altitude of intellectand in anguish of experience. The poetry of the impersonation, though, is entirely consonant with Hamlet, and that is the secret of Jefferson'sexceptional hold upon the heart and the imagination of his time. Thepublic taste does not ask Jefferson to trifle with his art. Its deep, spontaneous, natural preference feels that he is a true actor, and soyields to his power, and enjoys his charm, and is all the time improvedand made fitter to enjoy it. He has reached as great a height as it ispossible to reach in his profession. He could if he chose play greaterparts than he has ever attempted; he could not give a betterexemplification than he gives, in his chose and customary achievement, of all that is distinctive, beautiful, and beneficent in the art of theactor. 

IX. 

JEFFERSON AND FLORENCE IN OLD COMEDY. 

A revival of _The Heir at Law_ was accomplished in the New York seasonof 1890, with Joseph Jefferson in the character of Dr. Pangloss andWilliam James Florence in that of Zekiel Homespun. That play dates backto 1797, a period in which a sedulous deference to conventionalityprevailed in the British theatre, as to the treatment of domesticsubjects; and, although the younger Colman wrote in a more flexiblestyle than was possessed by any other dramatist of the time, exceptingSheridan, he was influenced to this extent by contemporary usage, thatoften when he became serious he also became artificial and stilted. Thesentimental part of _The Heir at Law_ is trite in plan and hard inexpression. Furthermore that portion of it which, in the character ofDr. Pangloss, satirises the indigent, mercenary, disreputable privatetutors who constituted a distinct and pernicious class of socialhumbugs in Colman's day, has lost its direct point for the present age, through the disappearance of the peculiar type of imposture againstwhich its irony was directed. Dr. Pangloss, nevertheless, remainsabstractly a humorous personage; and when he is embodied by an actorlike Jefferson, who can elucidate his buoyant animal spirits, his gayaudacity, his inveterate good-nature, his nimble craft, his jocularsportiveness, his shrewd knowledge of character and of society, and hisscholar-like quaintness, he becomes a delightful presence; for hismendacity disappears in the sunshine of his humour; his faults seemvenial; and we entertain him much as we do the infinitely greater andmore disreputable character of Falstaff, --knowing him to be a vagabond, but finding him a charming companion, for all that. This is one greatrelief to the hollow and metallic sentimentality of the piece. Personslike Henry Moreland, Caroline Dormer, and Mr. Steadfast would betiresome in actual life; they belong, with Julia and Falkland andPeregrine and Glenroy, to the noble army of the bores, and they areinsipid on the stage; but the association of the sprightly and jocosePangloss with those drab-tinted and preachy people irradiates even theirconstitutional platitude with a sparkle of mirth. They shine, in spiteof themselves. 

Colman's humour is infectious and penetrating. In that quality he wasoriginal and affluent. As we look along the line of the Britishdramatists for the last hundred years we shall find no parallel to hisfelicity in the use of comic inversion and equivoke, till we come toGilbert. Though he was tedious while he deferred to that theatricalsentimentality which was the fashion of his day (and against whichGoldsmith, in _She Stoops to Conquer_, was the first to strike), hecould sometimes escape from it; and when he did escape he was brilliant. In _The Heir at Law_ he has not only illumined it by the contrast of Dr. Pangloss but by the unctuous humour and irresistible comic force of thecharacter of Daniel Dowlas, Lord Duberly. Situations in a play, in orderto be invested with the enduring quality of humour, must result fromsuch conduct as is the natural and spontaneous expression of comiccharacter. The idea of the comic parvenue is ancient. It did notoriginate with Colman. His application of it, however, was novel and histreatment of it--taking fast hold of the elemental springs of mirth--isas fresh to-day as it was a hundred years ago. French minds, indeed, andsuch as subscribe to French notions, would object that the meansemployed to elicit character and awaken mirth are not scientifically andphotographically correct, and that they are violent. Circumstances, theywould say, do not so fall out that a tallow-chandler is made a lord. TheChristopher Sly expedient, they would add, is a forced expedient. Perhaps it is. But English art sees with the eyes of the imagination andin dramatic matters it likes to use colour and emphasis. Daniel Dowlas, as Lord Duberly, is all the droller for being a retired tallow-chandler, ignorant, greasy, conventional, blunt, a sturdy, honest, ridiculousperson, who thinks he has observed how lords act and who intends to puthis gained knowledge into practical use. We shall never again see himacted as he was acted by Burton, or by that fine actor William RufusBlake, or even by John Gilbert--who was of rather too choleric atemperament and too fine a texture for such an oily and stupidlycomplacent personage. But whenever and however he is acted he will berecognised as an elemental type of absurd human nature made ludicrous bycomic circumstances; and he will give rich and deep amusement. 

It is to be observed, in the analysis of this comedy, that according toColman's intention the essential persons in it are all, at heart, human. The pervasive spirit of the piece is kindly. Old Dowlas, restricted tohis proper place in life, is a worthy man. Dick Dowlas, intoxicated byvanity and prosperity, has no harm in him, and he turns out well atlast. Even Dr. Pangloss--although of the species of rogue that subsistsby artfully playing upon the weakness of human vanity--is genial andamiable; he is a laughing philosopher; he gives good counsel; he hurtsnobody; he is but a mild type of sinner--and the satirical censure thatis bestowed upon him is neither merciless nor bitter. Pangloss, in MilkAlley, spinning his brains for a subsistence, might be expected to proveunscrupulous; but the moraliser can imagine Pangloss, if he were onlymade secure by permanent good fortune, leading a life of blamelessindolence and piquant eccentricity. From that point of view Jeffersonformed his ideal of the character; and, indeed, his treatment of thewhole piece denoted an active practical sympathy with that gentle viewof the subject. He placed before his audience a truthful picture of oldEnglish manners; telling them, in rapid and cheery action, Colman'squaint story--in which there is no malice and no bitterness, but inwhich simple virtue proves superior to temptation, and integrity isstrong amid vicissitudes--and leaving in their minds, at the last, anamused conviction that indeed "Nature hath framed strange fellows in hertime. " His own performance was full of nervous vitality and mentalsparkle, and of a humour deliciously quaint and droll. Dr. Panglass, asembodied by Jefferson, is a man who always sees the comical aspect ofthings and can make you see it with him, and all the while can becompletely self-possessed and grave without ever once becoming slow orheavy. There was an air of candour, of ingenuous simplicity, of demurepropriety, about the embodiment, that made it inexpressibly funny. Therewas no effort and no distortion. The structure of the impersonationtingled with life, and the expression of it--in demeanour, movement, facial play, intonation and business--was clear and crisp, with thatabsolute precision and beautiful finish for which the acting ofJefferson has always been distinguished. He is probably the onlyAmerican comedian now left, excepting John S. Clarke, who knows all thetraditional embellishments that have gone to the making of this partupon the stage--embellishments fitly typified by the bank-note businesswith Zekiel Homespun; a device, however, that perhaps suggests a greaterdegree of moral obliquity in Dr. Pangloss than was intended by theauthor. It was exceedingly comical, though, and it served its purpose. Jefferson has had the character of Pangloss in his repertory for almostforty years. He first acted it in New York as long ago as 1857, at LauraKeene's theatre, when that beautiful woman played Cicely and whenDuberly was represented by the lamented James G. Burnett. It takes theplaygoer a long way back, to be thinking about this old piece and thecasts that it has had upon the American stage. _The Heir at Law_ was agreat favourite in Boston thirty years ago and more, when William Warrenwas in his prime and could play Dr. Pangloss with the best of them, andwhen Julia Bennett Barrow was living and acting, who could play Cicelyin a way that no later actress has excelled. John E. Owens as Panglosswill never be forgotten. It was a favourite part with John Brougham. Andthe grotesque fun of John S. Clarke in that droll character has beenrecognised on both sides of the Atlantic. 

In Jefferson's impersonation of Dr. Pangloss the predominant beauty wasspontaneous and perfectly graceful identification with the part. Thefelicity of the apt quotations seemed to be accidental. The manner wasbuoyant, but the alacrity of the mind was more nimble than the celerityof the body, and those wise and witty comments that Pangloss makes uponlife, character, and manners flowed naturally from a brain that was inthe vigour and repose of intense animation. The actor was completelymerged in the character, which nevertheless his judgment dominated andhis will directed. No other representative of Pangloss has quiteequalled Jefferson in the element of authoritative and convincingsincerity. His demure sapience was of the most intense order and itarose out of great mental excitement. No other actor of the part hasequalled him in softness and winning charm of humour. His embodiment ofDr. Pangloss has left in the memory of his time an image of eccentriccharacter not less lovable than ludicrous. 

With Zekiel Homespun, an actor who is true to the author's plan willproduce the impression of an affectionate heart, virtuous principles, and absolute honesty of purpose, combined with rustic simplicity. Florence easily reached that result. His preservation of a dialect wasadmirably exact. The soul of the part is fraternal love, and when Zekielfinds that his trusted friend has repulsed him and would wrong hissister, there is a fine flash of noble anger in the pride and scorn withwhich he confronts this falsehood and dishonour. Florence in days whenhe used to act the Irish Emigrant proved himself the consummate masterof simple pathos. He struck that familiar note again in the lovelymanner of Zekiel toward his sister Cicely, and his denotement of thestruggle between affection and resentment in the heart of the brotherwhen wounded by the depravity of his friend was not less beautiful inthe grace of art than impressive in simple dignity and touching inpassionate fervour. In point of natural feeling Zekiel Homespun is astronger part than Dr. Pangloss, although not nearly so complex nor sodifficult to act. The sentiments by which it is animated awaken instantsympathy and the principles that impel command universal respect. Noactor who has attempted Zekiel Homespun in this generation on theAmerican stage has approached the performance that was given byFlorence, in conviction, in artless sweetness, in truth of passion, andin the heartfelt expression of the heart. 

Purists customarily insist that the old comedies are sacred; that no oneof their celestial commas or holy hyphens can be omitted without sin;and that the alteration of a sentence in them is sacrilege. The truthstands, however, without regard to hysterics: and it is a truth that theold comedies owe their vitality mostly to the actors who now and thenresuscitate them. No play of the past is ever acted with scrupulousfidelity to the original text. The public that saw the _Heir-at-Law_ andthe _Rivals_, when Jefferson and Florence acted in them, saw condensedversions, animated by a living soul of to-day, and therefore it wasimpressed. The one thing indispensable on the stage is the art of theactor. 

X. 

ON THE DEATH OF FLORENCE. 

The melancholy tidings of the death of Florence came suddenly (he diedin Philadelphia, after a brief illness, November 19, 1891), and struckthe hearts of his friends not simply with affliction but with dismay. Florence was a man of such vigorous and affluent health that the idea ofillness and death was never associated with him. Whoever else might go, he at least would remain, and for many cheerful years he would pleaseour fancy and brighten our lives. His spirit was so buoyant andbrilliant that it seemed not possible it could ever be dimmed. Yet now, in a moment, his light was quenched and there was darkness on his mirth. We shall hear his pleasant voice no more and see no more the sunshine ofa face that was never seen without joy and can never be rememberedwithout sorrow. The loss to the public was great. Few actors within thelast forty years have stood upon a level with Florence in versatilityand charm. His gentleness, his simplicity, his modesty, his affectionatefidelity, his ready sympathy, his inexhaustibly patience, his finetalents--all those attributes united with his spontaneous drollery toenshrine him in tender affection. 

William James Florence, whose family name was Conlin, was born inAlbany, July 26, 1831. When a youth he joined the Murdoch DramaticAssociation, and he early gave evidence of extraordinary dramatictalent. On December 9, 1849 he made his first appearance on the regularstage, at the Marshall theatre in Richmond, Virginia, where heimpersonated Tobias, in _The Stranger_. After that he met with the usualvicissitudes of a young player. He was a member of various stockcompanies--notably that of W. C. Forbes, of the Providence museum, andthat of the once-popular John Nickinson, of Toronto and Quebec--thefamous Havresack of his period. Later he joined the company at Niblo'stheatre, New York, under the management of Chippendale and John Sefton, appearing there on May 8, 1850. He also acted at the Broadway, underMarshall's management, and in 1852 he was a member of the company atBrougham's Lyceum. On January 1, 1853 he married Malvina Pray, sister ofthe wife of Barney Williams; and in that way those two Irish comedianscame to be domestically associated. 

At that time Florence wrote several plays, upon Irish and Yankeesubjects, then very popular, and he began to figure as a star--his wifestanding beside him. They appeared at Purdy's National theatre, June 8, 1853, and then, and for a long time afterward, they had much popularityand success. Florence had composed many songs of a sprightly character(one of them, called _Bobbing Around_, had a sale of more than 100, 000copies), and those songs were sung by his wife, to the delight of thepublic. The Irish drama served his purpose for many years, but he variedthat form of art by occasional resort to burlesque and by incursionsinto the realm of melodrama. One of his best performances was that ofO'Bryan, in John Brougham's play of _Temptation, or the Irish Emigrant_, with which he often graced the stage of the Winter Garden. In that hetouched the extremes of gentle humour and melting pathos. He wasdelightfully humorous, also, in Handy Andy, and in all that long line ofIrish characters that came to our stage with Tyrone Power and the elderJohn Drew. He had exceptional talent for burlesque, and that was oftenmanifested in his early days. _Fra Diavolo_, _Beppo_, _Lallah Rookh_, _The Lady of the Lions_, and _The Colleen Bawn_, were among theburlesques that he produced, and with those he was the pioneer. 

Engagements were filled by Mr. And Mrs. Florence, at the outset of theirstarring tour, in many cities of the republic, and everywhere they metwith kindness and honour. Among the plays written by Florence were _TheIrish Princess_, _O'Neil the Great_, _The Sicilian Bride_, _Woman'sWrongs_, _Eva_, and _The Drunkard's Doom_. On April 2, 1856 Mr. And Mrs. Florence sailed for England, and presently they appeared at Drury Lanetheatre, where they at once stepped into favour. The performance of the_Yankee Gal_ by Mrs. Florence aroused positive enthusiasm--for it wasnew, and Mrs. Florence was the first American comic actress that hadappeared upon the English stage. More than two hundred representationsof it were given at that time. Florence used to relate that hisfortunes were greatly benefited by his success in London, and hehabitually spoke with earnest gratitude of the kindness that he receivedthere. From that time onward he enjoyed almost incessant prosperity. Atour of the English provincial cities followed his London season. Heacted at Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, and Dublin, and both his wife and himself became favourites--so that their songswere sung and whistled in the streets, wherever they went. 

Returning to the United States Mr. And Mrs. Florence renewed theirtriumphs, all over the land. In 1861 Florence played some of Burton'scharacters in Wallack's theatre--among them being Toodle and Cuttle. Ata later period he made it a custom to lease Wallack's theatre during thesummer, and there he produced many burlesques. In 1863, at the WinterGarden, he offered _The Ticket-of-Leave Man_ and acted Bob Brierly, which was one of the best exploits of his life. In 1867 Wallack's oldtheatre being then called the Broadway and managed by Barney Williams, he brought to that house the comedy of _Caste_ and presented it with adistribution of the parts that has not been equalled. The actors wereMrs. Chanfrau, Mrs. Gilbert, Mrs. Florence, William Davidge, OwenMarlowe, Edward Lamb, and Florence--who played George D'Alroy. In 1868he presented _No Thoroughfare_ and enacted Obenreizer, --a performancethat established his rank among the leading actors of the time. In 1876he made a remarkable hit as the Hon. Bardwell Slote in the play of _TheMighty Dollar_, by Benjamin E. Woolff. That was the last important newplay that he produced. During the last fifteen years of his life heoffered selections from his accepted repertory. For a time he wasassociated with Jefferson--to whom he brought a strength that was deeplyvalued and appreciated, equally by that famous actor and by thepublic--acting Sir Lucius O'Trigger in _The Rivals_ and Zekiel Homespunin _The Heir-at-Law_. 

The power of Florence was that of impersonation. He was imaginative andsympathetic; his style was flexible; and he had an unerring instinct ofeffect. The secret of his success lay in his profound feeling, guided byperfect taste and perfect self-control. He was an actor of humanity, andhe diffused an irresistible charm of truth and gentleness. His placewas his own and it can never be filled. 

 * * * * *

An Epitaph. 

_Here Rest the Ashes of_WILLIAM JAMES FLORENCE, _Comedian_. 

_His Copious and Varied Dramatic Powers, together with the AbundantGraces of his Person, combined with Ample Professional Equipment and aTemperament of Peculiar Sensibility and Charm, made him one of the Bestand Most Successful Actors of his Time, alike in Comedy and in SeriousDrama. He ranged easily from Handy Andy to Bob Brierly, and from Cuttleto Obenreizer. In Authorship, alike of Plays, Stories, Music, and Song, he was Inventive, Versatile, Facile, and Graceful. In Art Admirable; inLife Gentle; he was widely known, and he was known only to be loved. _

HE WAS BORN IN ALBANY, N. Y. , JULY 26, 1831. HE DIED IN PHILADELPHIA PENN. , NOVEMBER 19, 1891. 

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 By Virtue cherished, by Affection mourned, By Honour hallowed and by Fame adorned, Here FLORENCE sleeps, and o'er his sacred rest Each word is tender and each thought is blest. Long, for his loss, shall pensive Mem'ry show, Through Humour's mask, the visage of her woe, Day breathe a darkness that no sun dispels, And Night be full of whispers and farewells; While patient Kindness, shadow-like and dim, Droops in its loneliness, bereft of him, Feels its sad doom and sure decadence nigh, -- For how should Kindness live, when he could die!

 The eager heart, that felt for every grief, The bounteous hand, that loved to give relief, The honest smile, that blessed where'er it lit, The dew of pathos and the sheen of wit, The sweet, blue eyes, the voice of melting tone, That made all hearts as gentle as his own, The Actor's charm, supreme in royal thrall, That ranged through every field and shone in all-- For these must Sorrow make perpetual moan, Bereaved, benighted, hopeless, and alone? Ah, no; for Nature does no act amiss, And Heaven were lonely but for souls like this. 

XI. 

HENRY IRVING AND ELLEN TERRY IN THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

In his beautiful production of _The Merchant of Venice_ Henry Irvingrestored the fifth act, the jailer scene, and the casket scenes in full, and the piece was acted with strict fidelity to Shakespeare. With EllenTerry for Portia that achievement became feasible. With an ordinaryactress in that character the comedy might be tedious--notwithstandingits bold and fine contrasts of character, its fertility of piquantincident, and its lovely poetry. Radiant with her fine spirit andbeautiful presence, and animated and controlled in every fibre by hissubtle and authoritative intellect, judiciously cast and correctlydressed and mounted, Henry Irving's revival of _The Merchant of Venice_captured the public fancy; and in every quarter it was sincerely feltand freely proclaimed that here, at last, was the perfection of stagedisplay. That success has never faded. The performance was round, symmetrical, and thorough--every detail being kept subordinate tointelligent general effect, and no effort being made toward overweeningindividual display. 

Shakespeare's conception of Shylock has long been in controversy. Burbage, who acted the part in Shakespeare's presence, wore a red wigand was frightful in form and aspect. The red wig gives a hint of lowcomedy, and it may be that the great actor made use of low comedyexpedients to cloak Shylock's inveterate malignity and sinister purpose. Dogget, who played the part in Lord Lansdowne's alteration ofShakespeare's piece, turned Shylock into farce. Macklin, when herestored the original play to the stage--at Drury Lane, February 14, 1741--- wore a red hat, a peaked beard, and a loose black gown, playingShylock as a serious, almost a tragic part, and laying great emphasisupon a display of revengeful passion and hateful malignity. So terriblewas he, indeed, that persons who saw him on the stage in that characternot infrequently drew the inference and kept the belief that he waspersonally a monster. His look was iron-visaged; the cast of hismanners was relentless and savage. Quin said that his face contained notlines but cordage. In portraying the contrasted passions of joy forAntonio's losses and grief for Jessica's elopement he poured forth allhis fire. When he whetted his knife, in the trial scene, he was silent, grisly, ominous, and fatal. No human touch, no hint of race-majesty orof religious fanaticism, tempered the implacable wickedness of thathateful ideal. Pope, who saw that Shylock, hailed it as "the Jew thatShakespeare drew"--and Pope, among other things, was one of the editorsof Shakespeare. Cooke, who had seen Macklin's Shylock, and also those ofHenderson, King, Kemble, and Yates, adopted, maintained, and transmittedthe legend of Macklin. Edmund Kean, who worshipped Cooke, wasunquestionably his imitator in Shylock; but it seems to have been EdmundKean who, for the first time, gave prominence to the Hebraic majesty andfanatical self-consecration of that hateful but colossal character. Jerrold said that Kean's Shylock was like a chapter of Genesis. Macready--whose utterance of "Nearest his heart" was the blood-curdlingkeynote of his whole infernal ideal--declared the part to be "composedof harshness, " and he saw no humanity in the lament for the loss ofLeah's ring, but only a lacerated sense of the value of that jewel. Brooke, a great Shylock, concurred with Kean's ideal and made the Jeworientally royal, the avenger of his race, having "an oath in heaven, "and standing on the law of "an eye for an eye. " Edwin Forrest, the elderWallack, E. L. Davenport, Edwin Booth, Bogumil Davison, and Charles Keansteadily kept Shylock upon the stage, --some walking in the religioustrack and some leaving it. But the weight of opinion and the spirit anddrift of the text would justify a presentment of the Jew as theincarnation not alone of avarice and hate, but of the stern, terribleMosaic law of justice. That is the high view of the part, and instudying Shakespeare it is safe to prefer the high view. 

There must be imagination, or pathos, or weirdness, or some form ofhumour, or a personal charm in the character that awakens the soul ofHenry Irving and calls forth his best and finest powers. There is littleof that quality in Shylock. But Henry Irving took the high view of him. This Jew "feeds fat the ancient grudge" against Antonio--until the lawof Portia, more subtle than equitable, interferes to thwart him; butalso he avenges the wrongs that his "sacred nation" has suffered. Hisideal was right, his grasp of it firm, his execution of it flexible withskill and affluent with intellectual power. If memory carries away ashuddering thought of his baleful gaze upon the doomed Antonio and ofhis horrid cry of the summons "Come, prepare!" it also retains the imageof a father convulsed with grief--momentarily, but sincerely--and of aman who at least can remember that he once loved. It was a most austereShylock, inveterate of purpose, vindictive, malignant, cruel, ruthless;and yet it was human. No creature was ever more logical and consistentin his own justification. By purity, sincerity, decorum, fanaticism, theideal was aptly suggestive of such men as Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes, and John Felton--persons who, with prayer on their lips, werenevertheless capable of hideous cruelty. The street scene demandsutterance, not repression. The Jew raves there, and no violence wouldseem excessive. Macklin, Kean, Cooke, and the elder Booth, each musthave been terrific at that point. Henry Irving's method was that of theintense passion that can hardly speak--the passion that Kean is said tohave used so grandly in giving the curse of Junius Brutus upon Tarquin. But, there was just as much of Shylock's nature in Henry Irving'sperformance as in any performance that is recorded. The lack wasoverwhelming physical power--not mentality and not art. At "No tears butof my shedding" Henry Irving's Shylock took a strong clutch upon theemotions and created an effect that will never be forgotten. 

Ellen Terry's Portia long ago became a precious memory. The part makesno appeal to the tragic depths of her nature, but it awakens her finesensibility, stimulates the nimble play of her intellect, and cordiallypromotes that royal exultation in the affluence of physical vitality andof spiritual freedom that so often seems to lift her above the commonearth. There have been moments when it seemed not amiss to applyShakespeare's own beautiful simile to the image of queen-likerefinement, soft womanhood, and spiritualised intellect that thiswonderful actress presented--"as if an angel dropped down from theclouds. " Her Portia was stately, yet fascinating; a woman to inspire aweand yet to captivate every heart. Nearer to Shakespeare's meaning thanthat no actress can ever go. The large, rich, superb manner neverinvalidated the gentle blandishments of her sex. The repressed ardour, the glowing suspense, the beautiful modesty and candour with which sheawaited the decision of the casket scene, showed her to be indeed allwoman, and worthy of a true man's love. Here was no paltering of a punynature with great feelings and a great experience. And never in our dayhas the poetry of Shakespeare fallen from human lips in a strain of suchmelody--with such teeming freedom of felicitous delivery and such dulcetpurity of diction. 

XII. 

JOHN McCULLOUGH IN SEVERAL CHARACTERS. 

There is no greater gratification to the intellect than the sense ofpower and completeness in itself or the perception of power andcompleteness in others. Those attributes were in John McCullough'sacting and were at the heart of its charm. His repertory consisted ofthirty characters, but probably the most imposing and affecting of hisembodiments was Virginius. The massive grandeur of adequacy in thatperformance was a great excellence. The rugged, weather-beaten plainnessof it was full of authority and did not in the least detract from itspoetic purity and ideal grace. The simplicity of it was like the lovelyinnocence that shines through the ingenuous eyes of childhood, while itsmajesty was like the sheen of white marble in the sunlight. It was avery high, serious, noble work; yet, --although, to his immeasurablecredit, the actor never tried to apply a "natural" treatment toartificial conditions or to speak blank verse in a colloquialmanner, --it was made sweetly human by a delicate play of humour in theearlier scenes, and by a deep glow of paternal tenderness that suffusedevery part of it and created an almost painful sense of sincerity. Common life was not made commonplace life by McCullough, nor blank versedepressed to the level of prose. The intention to be real--the intentionto love, suffer, feel, act, defend, and avenge, as a man of actual lifewould do--was obvious enough, through its harmonious fulfilment; yet therealism was shorn of all triteness, all animal excess, all of thoseordinary attributes which are right in nature, and wrong becauseobstructive in the art that is nature's interpretation. 

Just as the true landscape is the harmonious blending of selectednatural effects, so the true dramatic embodiment is the crystallizationof selected attributes in any given type of human nature, shown inselected phases of natural condition. McCullough did not presentVirginius brushing his hair or paying Virginia's school-bills; yet hesuggested him, clearly and beautifully, in the sweet domestic reposeand paternal benignity of his usual life--making thus a background ofloveliness, on which to throw, in lines of living light, the terribleimage of his agonising sacrifice. And when the inevitable moment camefor his dread act of righteous slaughter it was the moral grandeur, theheart-breaking paternal agony, and the overwhelming pathos of the deedthat his art diffused--not the "gashed stab, " the blood, the physicalconvulsion, the revolting animal shock. Neither was there druling, ordirt, or physical immodesty, or any other attribute of that class of thenatural concomitants of insanity, in the subsequent delirium. 

A perfect and holy love is, in one aspect of it, a sadder thing to seethan the profoundest grief. Misery, at its worst, is at least final: andfor that there is the relief of death. But love, in its sacredexaltation, --the love of the parent for the child, --is so fair a markfor affliction that one can hardly view it without a shudder ofapprehensive dread. That sort of love was personified in McCullough'sembodiment of Virginius, and that same nameless thrill of fear wasimparted by its presence, --even before the tragedian, with an exquisiteintuition of art, made Virginius convey his vague presentiment, notadmitted but quickly thrust aside, of some unknown doom of peril andagony. There was, in fact, more heart in that single piece of actingthan in any hundred of the most pathetic performances of the "natural"school; and all the time it was maintained at the lofty level of classicgrace. It would be impossible to overstate the excellence of all thatMcCullough did and said, in the forum scene--the noble severity of thepoise, the grace of the outlines, the terrible intensity of the mood, the heartrending play of the emotions, the overwhelming delirium of theclimax. Throughout the subsequent most difficult portraiture ofshattered reason the actor never, for an instant, lost his steadfastgrasp upon sympathy and inspiration. Every heart knew the presence of anature that could feel all that Virginius felt and suffer and act allthat Virginius suffered and acted; and, beyond this, in his wonderfulinvestiture of the mad scenes with the alternate vacancy and lamentableand forlorn anguish of a special kind of insanity, every judge of thedramatic art recognised the governing touch of a splendid intellect, imperial over all its resources and instruments of art. 

Virginius as embodied by McCullough was a man of noble and refinednature; lovely in life; cruelly driven into madness; victorious overdishonour, by a deed of terrible heroism; triumphant over crime, even inforlorn and pitiable dethronement and ruin; and, finally, released bythe celestial mercy of death. And this was shown by a poetic method soabsolute that Virginius, while made an actual man to every human heart, was kept a hero to the universal imagination, whether of scholar orpeasant, and a white ideal of manly purity and grace to that greatfaculty of taste which is the umpire and arbiter of the human mind. 

The sustained poetic exaltation of that embodiment, its unity as a grandand sympathetic personage, and its exquisite simplicity were thequalities that gave it vitality in popular interest, and through thoseit will have permanence in theatrical history. There were many subtlebeauties in it. The illimitable tenderness, back of the sweet dignity, in the betrothal of Virginia to Icilius; the dim, transitory, evanescenttouch of presentiment, in the forecasting of the festival joys that areto succeed the war; the self-abnegation and simple homeliness of grieffor the dead Dentatus; the alternate shock of freezing terror and cry ofjoy, in the camp scene--closing with that potent repression andthrilling outburst, "Prudence, but no patience!"--a situation and wordsthat call at once for splendid manliness of self-command and an ominousand savage vehemence; the glad, saving, comforting cry to Virginia, "Isshe here?"--that cry which never failed to precipitate a gush of joyoustears; the rapt preoccupation and the exquisite music of voice withwhich he said, "I never saw thee look so like thy mother, in all mylife"; the majesty of his demeanour in the forum; the look that saw theknife; the mute parting glance at Servia; the accents of broken reason, but unbroken and everlasting love, that called upon the name of the poormurdered Virginia; and then the last low wail of the dying father, conscious and happy in the great boon of death--those, as McCulloughgave them, were points of impressive beauty, invested with theever-varying light and shadow of a delicate artistic treatment, and allthe while animated with passionate sincerity. The perfect finish of theperformance, indeed, was little less than marvellous, when viewed withreference to the ever-increasing volume of power and the evident realityof afflicting emotion with which the part was carried. If acting evercould do good the acting of McCullough did. If ever dramatic artconcerns the public welfare it is when such an ideal of manliness andheroism is presented in such an image of nobility. 

In Lear and in Othello, --as in Virginius, --the predominant quality ofMcCullough's acting was a profound and beautiful sincerity. Hissplendidly self-poised nature--a solid rock of truth, which enabled him, through years of patient toil, to hold a steadfast course over all theobstacles that oppose and amid all the chatter that assails a man who istrying to accomplish anything grand and noble in art--bore him bravelyup in those great characters, and made him, in each of them, a statelytype of the nobility of the human soul. As the Moor, his performance waswell-nigh perfect. There was something a little fantastic, indeed, inthe facial style that he used; and that blemish was enhanced by thedisplay of a wild beast's head on the back of one of Othello's robes. The tendency of that sort of ornamentation--however consonant it may bedeemed with the barbaric element in the Moor--is to suggest him asheedful of appearances, and thus to distract regard from his experienceto his accessories. But the spirit was true. Simplicity, urged almost tothe extreme of barrenness, would not be out of place in Othello, andMcCullough, in his treatment of the part, testified to his practicalappreciation of that truth. His ideal of Othello combined manlytenderness, spontaneous magnanimity, and trusting devotion, yet withal avolcanic ground-swell of passion, that early and clearly displayeditself as capable of delirium and ungovernable tempest. His method hadthe calm movement of a summer cloud, in every act and word by which thiswas shown. For intensity and for immediate, adequate, large, andoverwhelming response of action to emotion, that performance has notbeen surpassed. There were points in it, though, at which the massiveserenity of the actor's temperament now and then deadened the glow offeeling and depressed him to undue calmness; he sometimes recovered toosuddenly and fully from a tempest of emotion--as at the agonising appealto Iago, "Give me a living reason she's disloyal"; and he was notenough delirious in the speech about the sybil and the handkerchief. Onthe other hand, once yielded to the spell of desecrated feeling, hismood and his expression of it were immeasurably pathetic and noble. Those two great ebullitions of despair, "O, now forever, " and "Had itpleased heaven, " could not be spoken in a manner more absolutelyheart-broken or more beautifully simple than the manner that was used byhim. In his obvious though silent suffering at the disgrace anddismissal of Cassio; in the dazed, forlorn agony that blended with hismore active passion throughout the scene of Iago's wicked conquest ofhis credulity; in his occasional quick relapses into blind and sweetfidelity to the old belief in Desdemona; in his unquenchable tendernessfor her, through the delirium and the sacrifice; and in the tone ofsoft, romantic affection--always spiritualised, never sensual--that hisdeep and loving sincerity diffused throughout the work, was shown thegrand unity of the embodiment; a unity based on the simple passion oflove. To hear that actor say the one supreme line to Iago, "I am boundto thee forever, " was to know that he understood and felt the meaningof the character, to its minutest fibre and its profoundest depth. 

There were touches of fresh and aptly illustrative "business" in theencounter of Othello and Iago, in the great scene of the third act. Thegasping struggles of Iago heightened the effect of the Moor's fury, andthe quickly suppressed impulse and yell of rage with which he finallybounded away made an admirable effect of nature. In the last sceneMcCullough rounded his performance with a solemn act of sacrifice. Therewas nothing animal, nothing barbaric, nothing insane, in the slaughterof Desdemona. It was done in an ecstasy of justice, and the atmospherethat surrounded the deed was that of awe and not of horror. 

For the character of King Lear McCullough possessed the imposingstature, the natural majesty, the great reach of voice, and the humantenderness that are its basis and equipment. No actor of Lear can eversatisfy a sympathetic lover of the part unless he possesses a greatlyaffectionate heart, a fiery spirit, and, --albeit the intellect must beshown in ruins, --a regal mind. Within that grand and lamentable image ofshattered royalty the man must be noble and lovable. Nothing that ispuny or artificial can ever wear the investiture of that colossalsorrow. McCullough embodied Lear as, from the first, stricken inmind--already the unconscious victim of incipient decay and dissolution;not mad but ready to become so. There is a subtle apprehensiveness allabout the presence of the king, in all the earlier scenes. He diffusesdisquietude and vaguely presages disaster, and the observer looks on himwith solicitude and pain. He is not yet decrepit but he will soon break;and the spectator loves him and is sorry for him and would avert thedestiny of woe that is darkly foreshadowed in his condition. McCulloughgave the invectives--as they ought to be given--with the impetuous rushand wild fury of the avalanche; and yet they were felt to come out ofagony as well as out of passion. The pathos of those tremendous passagesis in their chaotic disproportion; in their lawlessness and lack ofgovernment; in the evident helplessness of the poor old man who hurlsthem forth from a breaking heart and a distracted mind. He loves, and heloathes himself for loving: every fibre of his nature is in horrifiedrevolt against such lack of reverence, gratitude, and affection towardsuch a monarch and such a father as he knows himself to have been. Thefeeling that McCullough poured through those moments of splendid yetpitiable frenzy was overwhelming in its intense glow and in its toweringand incessant volume. There was remarkable subtlety, also, in the mannerin which that feeling was tempered. In Lear's meeting with Goneril afterthe curse you saw at once the broken condition of an aged, infirm, andmentally disordered man, who had already forgotten his own terriblewords. "We'll no more meet, no more see one another" is a line to whichMcCullough gave its full eloquence of abject mournfulness and forlorndesolation. Other denotements of subtlety were seen in his sadpreoccupation with memories of the lost Cordelia, while talking with theFool. "I did her wrong" was never more tenderly spoken than by him. Theyare only four little words; but they carry the crushing weight ofeternal and hopeless remorse. It was in this region of delicate, imaginative touch that McCullough's dramatic art was especiallypuissant. He was the first actor of Lear to discriminate between theagony of a man while going mad and the careless, volatile, fantasticcondition--afflicting to witness, but no longer agonising to the lunatichimself--of a man who has actually lapsed into madness. EdwinForrest--whose Lear is much extolled, often by persons who, evidently, never saw it--much as he did with the part, never even faintly suggestedsuch a discrimination as that. 

To one altitude of Lear's condition it is probably impossible fordramatic art to rise--the mood of divine philosophy, warmed with humantenderness, in which the dazed but semi-conscious vicegerent of heavenmoralises over human life. There is a grandeur in that conception sovast that nothing short of the rarest inspiration of genius can rise toit. The deficiences of McCullough's Lear were found in the analysis ofthat part of the performance. He had the heart of Lear, the royalty, thebreadth; but not all of either the exalted intellect, the sorrow-ladenexperience, or the imagination--so gorgeous in its disorder, soinfinitely pathetic in its misery. 

His performance of Lear signally exemplified, through every phase ofpassion, that temperance which should give it smoothness. The treatmentof the curse scene, in particular, was extraordinarily beautiful for thelow, sweet, and tender melody of the voice, broken only now andthen--and rightly broken--with the harsh accents of wrath. Gentlenessnever accomplished more, as to taste and pathos, than in McCullough'sutterance of "I gave you all, " and "I'll go with you. " The rallying ofthe broken spirit after that, and the terrific outburst, "I'll notweep, " had an appalling effect. The recognition of Cordelia was simplytender, and the death scene lovely in pathos and solemn and affecting intragic climax. 

Throughout _Othello_ and _King Lear_ McCullough's powers were seen to becurbed and guided, not by a cold and formal design but by a grave andsweet gentleness of mind, always a part of his nature, but more and moredeveloped by the stress of experience, by the reactionary subduinginfluence of noble success, and by the definite consciousness of power. He found no difficulty in portraying the misery of Othello and of Lear, because this is a form of misery that flows out of laceration of theheart, and not from the more subtle wounds that are inflicted upon thespirit through the imagination. There was no brooding over the awfulmysteries of the universe, nor any of that corroding, haunted gloom thatcomes of an over-spiritualised state of suffering, longing, questioning, doubting humanity. Above all things else Othello and Lear are human; andthe human heart, above all things else, was the domain of that actor. 

The character of Coriolanus, though high and noble, is quite as likelyto inspire resentment as to awaken sympathy. It contains many elementsand all of them are good; but chiefly it typifies the pride ofintellect. This, in itself a natural feeling and a virtuous quality, practically becomes a vice when it is not tempered with charity forignorance, weakness, and the lower orders of mind. In the character ofCoriolanus it is not so tempered, and therefore it vitiates hisgreatness and leads to his destruction. Much, of course, can be urged inhis defence. He is a man of spotless honour, unswerving integrity, dauntless courage, simple mind, straightforward conduct, and magnanimousdisposition. He is always ready to brave the perils of battle for theservice of his country. He constantly does great deeds--and wouldcontinue constantly to do them--for their own sake and in a spirit oftotal indifference alike to praises and rewards. He exists in theconsciousness of being great and has no life in the opinions of otherpersons. He dwells in "the cedar's top" and "dallies with the wind andscorns the sun. " He knows and he despises with active and immitigablecontempt the shallowness and fickleness of the multitude. He is of anicy purity, physical as well as mental, and his nerves tingle withdisgust of the personal uncleanliness of the mob. "Bid them wash theirfaces, " he says--when urged to ask the suffrages of the people--"andkeep their teeth clean. " "He rewards his deeds with doing them, " sayshis fellow-soldier Cominius, "and looks upon things precious as thecommon muck of the world. " His aristocracy does not sit in a corner, deedless and meritless, brooding over a transmitted name and sucking theorange of empty self-conceit: it is the aristocracy of achievement andof nature--the solid superiority of having done the brightest and bestdeeds that could be done in his time and of being the greatest man ofhis generation. It is as if a Washington, having made and saved anation, were to spurn it from him with his foot, in lofty and by nomeans groundless contempt for the ignorance, pettiness, meanness, andfilth of mankind. The story of Coriolanus, as it occurs in Plutarch, isthought to be fabulous, but it is very far from being fabulous as itstands transfigured in the stately, eloquent tragedy of Shakespeare. Thecharacter and the experience are indubitably representative. It was somemodified form of the condition thus shown that resulted in the treasonand subsequent ruin of Benedict Arnold. Pride of intellect largelydominated the career of Aaron Burr. More than one great thinker hassplit on that rock, and gone to pieces in the surges of popularresentment. "No man, " said Dr. Chapin, in his discourse over the coffinof Horace Greeley, "can lift himself above himself. " He who repudiatesthe humanity of which he is a part will inevitably come to sorrow andruin. It is perfectly true that no intellectual person should in theleast depend upon the opinions of others--which, in the nature ofthings, exist in all stages of immaturity, mutability, and error--butshould aim to do the greatest deeds and should find reward in doingthem: yet always the right mood toward humanity is gentleness and notscorn. "Thou, my father, " said Matthew Arnold, in his tribute to one ofthe best men of the century, "wouldst not be saved alone. " To enlightenthe ignorant, to raise the weak, to pity the frail, to disregard themeanness, ingratitude, misapprehension, dulness, and petty malice of thelower orders of humanity--that is the wisdom of the wise; and that isaccordant with the moral law of the universe, from the operation ofwhich no man escapes. To study, in Shakespeare, the story of Coriolanusis to observe the violation of that law and the consequent retribution. 

 "Battles, and the breath Of stormy war and violent death"

fill up the first part of the tragedy as it stands in Shakespeare, andthat portion is also much diversified with abrupt changes of scene; sothat it has been found expedient to alter the piece, with a view to itsmore practical adaptation to the stage. While however it is not acted instrict accordance with Shakespeare its essential parts are retained andrepresented. Many new lines, though, occur toward the close. McCulloughused the version that was used by Forrest, who followed in the footstepsof Cooper, the elder Vandenhoff, and James R. Anderson. There is, perhaps, an excess of foreground--a superfluity of fights andprocessions--by way of preparing for the ordeal through which thecharacter of Coriolanus is to be displayed. Yet when Hecuba at last isreached the interest of the situation makes itself felt with force. Themassive presence and stalwart declamation of Edwin Forrest made himsuperb in this character; but the embodiment of Coriolanus byMcCullough, while equal to its predecessor in physical majesty, wassuperior to it in intellectual haughtiness and in refinement. An actor'streatment of the character must, unavoidably, follow the large, broadstyle of the historical painter. There is scant opportunity afforded inany of the scenes allotted to Coriolanus for fine touches and delicateshading. During much of the action the spectator is aware only of animperial figure that moves with a mountainous grace through the fleetingrabble of Roman plebeians and Volscians, dreadful in war, loftily calmin peace, irradiating the conscious superiority of power, dignity, worth, and honourable renown. McCullough filled that aspect of the partas if he had been born for it. His movements had the splendid reposenot merely of great strength but of intellectual poise and native mentalsupremacy. The "I must be found" air of Othello was again displayed, inripe perfection, through the Roman toga. His declamation was as fluentand as massively graceful as his demeanour. If this actor had not thesonorous, clarion voice of John Kemble, he yet certainly suggested thetradition of the stately port and dominating step of that great masterof the dramatic art. He looked Coriolanus, to the life. More of poeticfreedom might have been wished, in the decorative treatment of theperson--a touch of wildness in the hair, a tinge of imaginativeexaltation in the countenance, an air of mischance in the gashes ofcombat. Still the embodiment was correct in its superficialconventionality; and it certainly possessed affecting grandeur. Wheneverthere was opportunity for fine treatment, moreover, the actor seized andfilled it, with the easy grace of unerring intuition and spontaneity. The delicacy of vocalism, the movement, the tone of sentiment, and themanliness of condition--the royal fibre of a great mind--in the act ofwithdrawal from the senate, was right and beautiful. It is difficult notto over-emphasise the physical symbols of mental condition, in thestreet scene with "the voices"; but there again the actor denoted a finespiritual instinct. To a situation like that of the banishment he provedeasily equal: indeed, he gave that magnificent outburst of scorn withtremendous power: but it was in the pathetic scene with Volumnia andVirgilia that he reached the summit of the Shakespearean conception. Thedeep heart as well as the imperial intellect of Coriolanus must thenspeak. It is, for the distracted son, a moment of agonised and patheticconflict: for McCullough it was a moment of perfect adequacy andconsummate success. The stormy utterance of revolted pride and furiousdisgust, in the denial of Volumnia's request--the tempestuous outburst, "I will not do it"--made as wild, fiery, and fine a moment in tragicacting as could be imagined; but the climax was attained in the patheticcry--

 "The gods look down, and this unnatural scene They laugh at. "

XIII. 

CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 

Making, one summer day, a pilgrimage to the grave of Charlotte Cushman, I was guided to the place of her rest by one of the labourers employedabout the cemetery, who incidentally pronounced upon the deceased acomprehensive and remarkable eulogium. "She was, " he said, "considerableof a woman, for a play-actress. " Well--she was. The place of hersepulture is on the east slope of the principal hill in Mount Auburn. Hard by, upon the summit of the hill, stands the gray tower thatoverlooks the surrounding region and constantly symbolises, to eyes bothfar and near, the perpetual peace of which it is at once guardian andimage. All around the spot tall trees give shade and music, as the sunstreams on their branches and the wind murmurs in their leaves. At alittle distance, visible across green meadows and the riverCharles, --full and calm between its verdant banks, --rise the "dreamingspires" of Cambridge. Further away, crowned with her golden dome, towersold Boston, the storied city that Charlotte Cushman loved. Upon the spotwhere her ashes now rest the great actress stood, and, looking towardthe city of her home and heart, chose that to be the place of her grave;and there she sleeps, in peace, after many a conflict with her stormynature and after many sorrows and pains. What terrific ideals of theimagination she made to be realities of life! What burning eloquence ofpoesy she made to blaze! What moments of pathos she lived! What moods ofholy self-abnegation and of exalted power she brought to many asympathetic soul! Standing by her grave, on which the myrtle grows denseand dark, and over which the small birds swirl and twitter in the breezysilence, remembrance of the busy scenes of brilliant life wherein sheused to move--the pictured stage, the crowded theatre, the wild plauditsof a delighted multitude--came strongly on the mind, and asked, inperplexity and sadness, what was the good of it all. To her but little. Fame and wealth were her cold rewards, after much privation and labour;but she found neither love nor happiness, and the fullest years of herlife were blighted with the shadow of fatal disease and impending death. To the world, however, her career was of great and enduring benefit. Shewas a noble interpreter of the noble minds of the past, and thus shehelped to educate the men and women of her time--to ennoble them inmood, to strengthen them in duty, to lift them up in hope ofimmortality. She did not live in vain. It is not likely that theAmerican people will ever suffer her name to drift quite out of theirremembrance: it is a name that never can be erased from the rolls ofhonourable renown. 

Charlotte Cushman was born on July 23, 1816, and she died on February12, 1876. Boston was the place of her birth and of her death. She livedtill her sixtieth year and she was for forty years an actress. Her youthwas one of poverty and the early years of her professional career werefull of labour, trouble, heart-ache, and conflict. The name of Cushmansignifies "cross-bearer, " and certainly Charlotte Cushman did indeedbear the cross, long before and long after, she wore the crown. At firstshe was a vocalist, but, having broken her voice by misusing it, shewas compelled to quit the lyric and adopt the dramatic stage, and whennineteen years old she came out, at New Orleans, as Lady Macbeth. Afterthat she removed to New York and for the next seven years she battledwith adverse fortune in the theatres of that city and of Albany andPhiladelphia. From 1837 to 1840 she was under engagement at the old Parkas walking lady and for general utility business. "I became aware, " shewrote, "that one could never sail a ship by entering at the cabinwindows; he must serve and learn his trade before the mast. This was theway that I would henceforth learn mine. "

Her first remarkable hits were made in Emilia, Meg Merrilies, andNancy--the latter in _Oliver Twist_. But it was not till she met withMacready that the day of her deliverance from drudgery really dawned. They acted together in New York in 1842 and 1843, and in Boston in 1844, and in the autumn of the latter year Miss Cushman went to England, where, after much effort, she obtained an opening in London, at thePrincess's, and in 1845 made her memorable success as Bianca. "Since thefirst appearance of Edmund Kean, in 1814, " said a London journal ofthat time, "never has there been such a _début_ on the stage of anEnglish theatre. " Her engagement lasted eighty-four nights (it was anengagement to act with Edwin Forrest), and she recorded its result in aletter to her mother, saying: "All my successes put together since Ihave been upon the stage would not come near my success in London, and Ionly wanted some one of you here to enjoy it with me, to make itcomplete. " She acted Bianca, Emilia, Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Haller, andRosalind. A prosperous provincial tour followed, and then, in December, 1845, she came out at the Haymarket, as Romeo, her sister Susanappearing as Juliet. Her stay abroad lasted till the end of the summerof 1849, and to that period belongs her great achievement as QueenKatharine. 

From the fall of 1849 till the spring of 1852 Miss Cushman was inAmerica, and she was everywhere received with acclamation, gatheringwith ease both laurels and riches. When she first reappeared, October 8, 1849, at the old Broadway theatre, New York--as Mrs. Haller--sheintroduced Charles W. Couldock to our stage, on which he has ever sincemaintained his rank as a powerful and versatile actor. He acted theStranger and subsequently was seen in the other leading charactersopposite to her own. Miss Cushman's repertory then included LadyMacbeth, Queen Katharine, Meg Merrilies, Beatrice, Rosalind, Bianca, Julia, Mariana, Katharine, the Countess, Pauline, Juliana, Lady GaySpanker, and Mrs. Simpson. Her principal male characters then, or later, were Romeo, Wolsey, Hamlet, and Claude Melnotte. In 1852 she announcedher intention of retiring from the stage, and from that time till theend of her days she wavered between retirement and professionaloccupation. The explanation of this is readily divined, in hercondition. There never was a time, during all those years, when she wasnot haunted by dread of the disease that ultimately destroyed her life. From 1852 to 1857 she lived in England, and in the course of that periodshe acted many times, in different cities. In December 1854, when diningwith the Duke of Devonshire, at Brighton, she read _Henry VIII. _ to theDuke and his guests, and in that way began her experience as a reader. In the autumn of 1857 she acted at Burton's theatre, New York, and wasseen as Cardinal Wolsey, and in the early summer of 1858 she gave aseries of "farewell" performances at Niblo's Garden--after which sheagain crossed the Atlantic and established her residence in Rome. InJune 1860 the great actress came home again and passed a year inAmerica. _Oliver Twist_ was given at the Winter Garden in the spring of1861, when Miss Cushman acted Nancy, and J. W. Wallack, Jr. , J. B. Studley, William Davidge, and Owen Marlowe were in the company. In 1863, having come from Rome for that purpose, Miss Cushman acted in fourcities, for the benefit of the United States Sanitary Commission, andearned for it $8267. The seven ensuing years were passed by her inEurope, but in October 1870 she returned home for the last time, and thebrief remainder of her life was devoted to public readings, occasionaldramatic performances, and the society of friends. She built a villa atNewport, which still bears her name. She gave final farewellperformances, in the season of 1874-1875, in New York, Philadelphia, andBoston. Her final public appearance was made on June 2, 1875, at Easton, Pennsylvania, where she gave a reading. Her death occurred at the ParkerHouse, in Boston, February 18, 1876, and she was buried from King'schapel. 

There is a mournful pleasure in recalling the details of Miss Cushman'slife and meditating upon her energetic, resolute, patient, creativenature. She was faithful, throughout her career, to high principles ofart and a high standard of duty. Nature gave her great powers butfettered her also with great impediments. She conquered by the spell ofa strange, weird genius and by hard, persistent labour. In this latterparticular she is an example to every member of the dramatic profession, present or future. In what she was as a woman she could not beimitated--for her colossal individuality dwelt apart, in its loneliness, as well of suffering that no one could share as of an imaginative lifethat no one could fathom. Without the stage she would still have been agreat woman, although perhaps she might have lacked an entirely suitablevehicle for the display of her powers. With the stage she gave a body tothe soul of some of Shakespeare's greatest conceptions, and she gavesoul and body both to many works of inferior origin. There is nolikelihood that we shall ever see again such a creation as her MegMerrilies. Her genius could embody the sublime, the beautiful, theterrible, and with all this the humorous; and it was saturated withgoodness. If the love of beauty was intensified by the influence of herart, virtue was also strengthened by the force of her example and theinherent dignity of her nature. 

XIV. 

ON THE DEATH OF LAWRENCE BARRETT. 

[Obiit March 20, 1891. ]

The death of Lawrence Barrett was the disappearance of one of thenoblest figures of the modern stage. During the whole of his career, ina public life of thirty-five years, he was steadily and continuouslyimpelled by a pure and fine ambition and the objects that he sought toaccomplish were always the worthiest and the best. His devotion to thedramatic art was a passionate devotion, and in an equal degree he wasdevoted to a high ideal of personal conduct. Doctrines of expediencynever influenced him and indeed were never considered by him. He hadearly fixed his eyes on the dramatic sceptre. He knew that it nevercould be gained except by the greatest and brightest of artisticachievements, and to them accordingly he consecrated his life. Wheneverand wherever he appeared the community was impressed with a sense ofintellectual character, moral worth, and individual dignity. Many otherdramatic efforts might be trivial. Those of Lawrence Barrett were alwaysfelt to be important. Most of the plays with which his name isidentified are among the greatest plays in our language, and the spiritin which he treated them was that of exalted scholarship, austerereverence, and perfect refinement. He was profoundly true to all that isnoble and beautiful, and because he was true the world of art everywhererecognised him as the image of fidelity and gave to him the high tributeof its unwavering homage. His coming was always a signal to arouse themind. His mental vitality, which was very great, impressed evenunsympathetic beholders with a sense of fiery thought struggling in itsfetters of mortality and almost shattering and consuming the frailtemple of its human life. His stately head, silvered with graying hair, his dark eyes deeply sunken and glowing with intense light, his thinvisage pallid with study and pain, his form of grace and his voice ofsonorous eloquence and solemn music (in compass, variety, and sweetnessone of the few great voices of the current dramatic generation), histremendous earnestness, his superb bearing, and his invariable authorityand distinction--all those attributes united to announce a ruler andleader in the realm of the intellect. The exceeding tumult of his spiritenhanced the effect of this mordant personality. The same sleeplessenergy that inspired Loyola and Lanfranc burned in the bosom of thismodern actor; and it was entirely in keeping with the drift of hischaracter and the tenor of his life that the last subject that occupiedhis thoughts should have been the story of Becket, the greatprelate--whom he intended to represent, and to whom in mental qualitieshe was nearly allied. In losing Lawrence Barrett the American stage lostthe one man who served it with an apostle's zeal because he loved itwith an apostle's love. 

The essential attributes that Lawrence Barrett did not possess wereenchantment for the public and adequate and philosophic patience forhimself. He gained, indeed, a great amount of public favour, and, --withreference to an indisputable lack of universal sympathy andenthusiasm, --he was learning to regard that as a natural consequence ofhis character which formerly he had resented as the injustice of theworld. Men and women of austere mind do not fascinate theirfellow-creatures. They impress by their strangeness. They awe by theirmajesty. They predominate by their power. But they do not involuntarilyentice. Lawrence Barrett, --although full of kindness and gentleness, and, to those who knew him well, one of the most affectionate andlovable of men, --was essentially a man of austere intellect; and hisexperience was according to his nature. To some persons the world giveseverything, without being asked to give at all. To others it gives onlywhat it must, and that with a kind of icy reluctance that often makesthe gift a bitter one. Lawrence Barrett, who rose from an obscure andhumble position, --without fortune, without friends, without favouringcircumstances, without education, without help save that of his talentsand his will, --was for a long time met with indifference, or frigidobstruction, or impatient disparagement. He gained nothing withoutbattle. He had to make his way by his strength. His progress involvedcontinual effort and his course was attended with continual controversyand strife. When at last it had to be conceded that he was a greatactor, the concession was, in many quarters, grudgingly made. Even thendetraction steadily followed him, and its voice--though impotent andimmeasurably trivial--has not yet died away. There came a time when hisworth was widely recognised, and from that moment onward he had muchprosperity, and his nature expanded and grew calmer, sweeter, andbrighter under its influence. But the habit of warfare had got into hisacting, and more or less it remained there to the last. The assertivequality, indeed, had long since begun to die away. The volume ofneedless emphasis was growing less and less. Few performances on thecontemporary stage are commensurate with his embodiments of Harebell andGringoire, in softness, simplicity, poetic charm, and the gentletranquillity that is the repose of a self-centred soul. But his deep andburning desire to be understood, his anxiety lest his effects should notbe appreciated, his inveterate purpose of conquest, --that overwhelmingsolicitude of ambition often led him to insist upon his points, toover-elaborate and enforce them, and in that way his art to some extentdefeated itself by the excess of its eager zeal. The spirit of beautythat the human race pursues is the spirit that is typified in Emerson'spoem of _Forerunners_--the elusive spirit that all men feel and no manunderstands. This truth, undiscerned by him at first, had become theconviction of his riper years; and if his life had been prolonged theautumn of his professional career would have been gentle, serene, andfull of tranquil loveliness. 

The achievement of Lawrence Barrett as an actor was great, but hisinfluence upon the stage was greater than his achievement. Among theShakespearian parts that he played were Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, Iago, Shylock, Leontes, Cassius, Wolsey, Richard III. , Romeo, and Benedick. Outside of Shakespeare (to mention only a few of hisimpersonations) he acted Richelieu, Evelyn, Aranza, Garrick, ClaudeMelnotte, Rienzi, Dan'l Druce, Lanciotto, Hernani, King Arthur, andGanelon. The parts in which he was superlatively fine, --and in somerespects incomparable, --are Cassius, Harebell, Yorick, Gringoire, KingArthur, Ganelon, and James V. , King of the Commons. In his time he hadplayed hundreds of parts, ranging over the whole field of the drama, butas the years passed and the liberty of choice came more and more withinhis reach, he concentrated his powers upon a few works and upon aspecific line of expression. The aspect of human nature and humanexperience that especially aroused his sympathy was the loneliness ofbeneficent intellectual grandeur, isolated by its supremacy and patheticin its isolation. He loved the character of Richelieu, and if he hadacted Becket, as he purposed to do, in Tennyson's tragedy, he would havepresented another and a different type of that same ideal--lonely, austere, passionate age, defiant of profane authority and protective ofinnocent weakness against wicked and cruel strength. His embodiment ofCassius, with all its intensity of repressed spleen and causticmalevolence, was softly touched and sweetly ennobled with the majesty ofvenerable loneliness, --the bleak light of pathetic sequestration fromhuman ties, without the forfeiture of human love, --that is the naturaladjunct of intellectual greatness. He loved also the character ofHarebell, because in that he could express his devotion to thebeautiful, the honest impulses of his affectionate heart, and his idealof a friendship that is too pure and simple even to dream that such athing as guile can exist anywhere in the world. Toward the expression, under dramatic conditions, of natures such as those, the development ofhis acting was steadily directed; and, even if he fell short, in anydegree, of accomplishing all that he purposed, it is certain that hisspirit and his conduct dignified the theatrical profession, strengthenedthe stage in the esteem of good men, and cheered the heart and fired theenergy of every sincere artist that came within the reach of hisexample. For his own best personal success he required a part in which, after long repression, the torrent of passion can break loose in atumult of frenzy and a wild strain of eloquent words. The terribleexultation of Cassius, after the fall of Cæsar, the ecstasy of Lanciottowhen he first believes himself to be loved by Francesca, the delirium ofYorick when he can no longer restrain the doubts that madden his jealousand wounded soul, the rapture of King James over the vindication of hisfriend Seyton, whom his suspicions have wronged--those were among hisdistinctively great moments, and his image as he was in such moments isworthy to live among the storied traditions and the bright memories ofthe stage. 

Censure seems to be easy to most people, and few men are rated at theirfull value while they are yet alive. Just as mountains seem more sublimein the vague and hazy distance, so a noble mind looms grandly throughthe dusk of death. So it will be with him. Lawrence Barrett was a man ofhigh principle and perfect integrity. He never spoke a false word norknowingly harmed a human being, in all his life. Although sometimes heseemed to be harsh and imperious, he was at heart kind and humble. Strife with the world, and in past times uncertainty as to his position, caused in him the assumption of a stern and frigid manner, but beneaththat haughty reserve there was a great longing for human affection and asincere humility of spirit. He never nurtured hostility. He had nomemory for injuries; but a kindness he never forgot. His good deeds wereas numerous as his days--for no day rolled over his head without its actof benevolence in one direction or another. He was as impulsive as achild. He had much of the woman in his nature, and therefore his viewswere impetuous, strong, and often strongly stated; but his sense ofhumour kept pace with his sensibility and so maintained the equilibriumof his mind. In temperament he was sad, pensive, introspective, almostgloomy; but he opposed to that tendency an incessant mental activity andthe force of a tremendous will. In his lighter moods he was not onlyappreciative of mirth but was the cause of it. His humour was elementaland whatever aspect of life he saw in a comic light he could set in thatlight before the eyes of others. He had been a studious reader for manyyears and his mind was stored with ample, exact, and diversifiedinformation. He had a scholar's knowledge of Roman history and hisfamiliar acquaintance with the character and career of the firstNapoleon was extraordinary. In acting he was largely influenced by hisstudies of Edmund Kean and by his association with Charlotte Cushman. For a few years after 1864 his art was especially affected by that ofEdwin Booth; but the style to which he finally gravitated was his own. He was not so much an impersonator as he was an interpreter ofcharacter, and the elocutionary part of acting was made more conspicuousand important by him than by any other tragedian since the days ofForrest and Brooke. 

It was a beautiful life prematurely ended. It was a brave, strongspirit suddenly called out of the world. To the dramatic profession theloss is irreparable. In the condition of the contemporary theatre thereare not many hopeful signs. No doubt there will be bright days in thefuture, as there have been in the past. They go and they return. Thestage declines and the stage advances. At present its estate is low. Fewmen like Lawrence Barrett remain for it to lose. Its main hope is in theabiding influence of such examples as he has left. The old theatricalperiod is fast passing away. The new age rushes on the scene, withyouthful vigour and impetuous tumult. But to some of us, --who perhapshave not long to stay, and to whom, whatever be their fortune, thistumult is unsympathetic and insignificant, --the way grows darker andlonelier as we lay our garlands of eternal farewell upon the coffin ofLawrence Barrett. 

XV. 

HENRY IRVING AND ELLEN TERRY IN RAVENSWOOD. 

Merivale's play of _Ravenswood_, written in four acts, was acted in six. The first act consists of a single scene--an exterior, showing theenvironment of the chapel which is the burial place of the House ofRavenswood. A rockbound coast is visible, at some distance, togetherwith the ruinous tower of Wolf's Crag--which is Ravenswood's soleremaining possession. This act presents the interrupted funeral of AlanRavenswood, the father of Edgar, --introducing ten of the seventeencharacters that are implicated in the piece, and skilfully laying thebasis of the action by exhibiting the essential personalities of thestory in strong contrast, and denoting their relations to each other. Each character is clearly and boldly drawn and with a light touch. Thesecond act consists of three scenes--an antique library in the ancientmanor-house of Ravenswood, a room in a roadside ale-house, and a room inthe dilapidated tower of Wolf's Crag. This act rapidly develops thewell-known story, depicting the climax of antagonism between the LordKeeper Ashton and Edgar of Ravenswood and their subsequentreconciliation. The third act passes in a lovely, romantic, rural scene, which is called "the Mermaiden's Well, "--a fairy-like place in thegrounds of Ravenswood, --and in this scene Edgar and Lucy Ashton, whohave become lovers, are plighted by themselves and parted by Lucy'smother, Lady Ashton. The fourth and last act shows a room at Ravenswood, wherein is portrayed the betrothal of Lucy to Bucklaw, culminating inEdgar's sudden irruption; and finally, it shows the desolate seasideplace of the quicksand in which, after he has slain Bucklaw, Edgar ofRavenswood is engulfed. The house that Scott, when he wrote the novel, had in his mind as that of Sir William Ashton is the house of Winston, which still is standing, not many miles from Edinburgh. The tower ofWolf's Crag was probably suggested to him by Fast Castle, the ruin ofwhich still lures the traveller's eye, upon the iron-ribbed and gloomycoast of the North Sea, a few miles southeast of Dunbar--a place, however, that Scott never visited, and never saw except from the ocean. There is a beach upon that coast, just above Cockburnspath, that mightwell have suggested to him the quicksand and the final catastrophe. Isaw it when the morning sun was shining upon it and upon the placidwaters just rippling on its verge; and even in the glad glow of a summerday it was grim with silent menace and mysterious with an air ofsinister secrecy. In the preparation of this piece for the stage all thesources and associations of the subject were considered; and thepictorial setting, framed upon the right artistic principle--thatimagination should transfigure truth and thus produce the essentialresult of poetic effect--was elaborate and magnificent. And the play isthe best one that ever has been made upon this subject. 

The basis of fact upon which Sir Walter Scott built his novel of the_Bride of Lammermoor_ is given in the introduction that he wrote for itin 1829. Janet Dalrymple, daughter of the first Lord Stair and of hiswife Margaret Ross, had privately plighted herself to Lord Rutherford. Those lovers had broken a piece of gold together, and had boundthemselves by vows the most solemn and fervent that passion couldprompt. But Lord Rutherford was objectionable to Miss Dalrymple'sparents, who liked not either his family or his politics. Lady Stair, furthermore, had selected a husband for her daughter, in the person ofDavid Dunbar, of Baldoon; and Lady Stair was a woman of formidablecharacter, set upon having her own way and accustomed to prevail. Assoon as she heard of Janet's private engagement to Lord Rutherford shedeclared the vow to be undutiful and unlawful and she commanded that itshould be broken. Lord Rutherford, a man of energy and of spirit, thereupon insisted that he would take his dismissal only from the lipsof Miss Dalrymple herself, and he demanded and obtained an interviewwith her. Lady Stair was present, and such was her ascendency over herdaughter's mind that the young lady remained motionless and mute, permitting her betrothal to Lord Rutherford to be broken, and, upon hermother's command, giving back to him the piece of gold that was thetoken of her promise. Lord Rutherford was deeply moved, so that heuttered curses upon Lady Stair, and at the last reproached Janet inthese words: "For you, madam, you will be a world's wonder. " After thissad end of his hopes the unfortunate gentleman went abroad and died inexile. Janet Dalrymple and David Dunbar meanwhile were married--the lady"being absolutely passive in everything her mother commanded oradvised. " As soon, however, as the wedded pair had retired from thebridal feast hideous shrieks were heard to resound through the house, proceeding from the nuptial chamber. The door was thereupon burst openand persons entering saw the bridegroom stretched upon the floor, wounded and bleeding, while the bride, dishevelled and stained withblood, was grinning in a paroxysm of insanity. All she said was, "Takeup your bonny bridegroom. " About two weeks later she died. The year ofthose events was 1669. The wedding took place on August 24. Janet diedon September 12. Dunbar recovered, but he would never tell what occurredin that chamber of horror, nor indeed would he permit any allusion tothe subject. He did not long survive the tragic event, --having beenfatally injured, by a fall from his horse, when riding between Leithand Holyrood. He died on March 28, 1682. The death of Lord Rutherfordis assigned to the year 1685. Such is the melancholy story as it may begathered from Scott's preface. In writing his novel that great master ofthe art of fiction, --never yet displaced from his throne or deprived ofhis sceptre, --adopted fictitious names, invented fresh circumstances, amplified and elevated the characters, judiciously veiled thelocalities, and advanced the period of those tragical incidents to aboutthe beginning of the eighteenth century. The delicate taste with whichhe used his materials has only been surpassed, in that beautifulcomposition, by the affluent genius with which he vitalised every partof his narrative. In no other of his many books has he shown a deeperknowledge than is revealed in that one of the terrible passion of loveand of the dark and sinuous ways of political and personal craft. When_The Bride of Lammermoor_ was first published no mention was made in itof the true story upon which remotely it had been based; but by the timeScott came to write the preface of 1829 other writers had been lessreticent, and some account of the Dalrymple tragedy had got into print, so that no reason existed for further silence on that subject. 

Sir Robert H. D. Elphinstone, writing in 1829, gave the tradition asfollows: "When, after the noise and violent screaming in the bridalchamber comparative stillness succeeded and the door was forced, thewindow was found open, and it was supposed by many that the lover, LordRutherford, had, by the connivance of some of the servants, found means, during the bustle of the marriage feast, to secrete himself within theapartment, and that soon after the entry of the married pair, or atleast as soon as the parents and others retreated and the door was madefast, he had come out from his concealment, attacked and desperatelywounded the bridegroom, and then made his escape, by the window, throughthe garden. As the unfortunate bride never spoke after having utteredthe words mentioned by Sir Walter, no light could be thrown on thematter by them. But it was thought that Dunbar's obstinate silence onthe subject favoured the supposition of the chastisement having beeninflicted by his rival. It is but fair to give the unhappy victim (whowas, by all accounts, a most gentle and feminine creature) the benefitof an explanation on a doubtful point. "

Merivale, in dealing with this story, gave a conspicuous illustrationof the essential dramatic faculty. The first act is the adroit expansionof a few paragraphs, in the second chapter of the novel, which aredescriptive of the bleak, misty November morning when Alan Ravenswoodwas borne to the grave; but by the introduction of the Lord Keeper andof the village crones into that funeral scene he opened the wholesubject, indicated all the essential antecedents of the story, andplaced his characters in a posture of lively action. That the tone issombre must be conceded, and people who think that the chief end of manis to grin might condemn the piece for that reason; but _Ravenswood_ isa tragedy and not a farce, and persons who wish that their feelings maynot be affected should avoid tragedies. 

In the second act Ravenswood seeks Ashton at Ravenswood manor, intendingto kill him in a duel, but his hand is stayed when he catches sight ofLucy Ashton's portrait. The incident of Edgar's rescue of Lucy is usedin this scene. In a later scene Sir William Ashton and his daughter takerefuge in Wolf's Crag, and the bewitchment of Ravenswood isaccomplished. The quarrel between Edgar and Bucklaw is then given, as abasis for the ensuing rivalry and deadly conflict between them. In thethird act there is a beautiful love-scene between Edgar and Lucy, thedialogue being especially felicitous in tenderness and grace and fraughtwith that reverential quality, that condition of commingled ecstasy andnobleness, which is always characteristic of the experience of thispassion in pure natures. Lady Ashton's interruption of their happinessand the subsequent parting have a vigorous dramatic effect. Thecharacter of Lucy has been much strengthened, so that it differs fromthat of the original precisely as Desdemona differs from Ophelia; andthe change is an improvement. The fourth act opens with "a song ofchoristers heard outside. " The letters of Lucy and Edgar have beenintercepted. The lady has been told that her lover is false. The suit ofBucklaw has been urged. The authority of the stern mother has prevailedover her daughter's will. It is the old story. "The absent are alwayswrong"--and Ravenswood is absent. Lucy Ashton yields to her fate. Themarriage contract between Lucy and Bucklaw has just been signed whenRavenswood bursts into the group. From that point the action isanimated equally with celerity and passion. The misery of Ravenswoodutters itself in a swift stream of burning words. The grief of Lucy endstragically in a broken heart and sudden death. The fight between Bucklawand Ravenswood clashes for a moment but is abruptly finished on themoonlit sands, and Edgar is seen to leap down from a rock and rush awaytoward the manor, where, as his dying foe has told him, the faithful andinnocent Lucy lies dead. He disappears and comes no more; but his oldservant takes up from the beach a single black plume--the feather of araven--which the tide has washed ashore, and which is the last relic andemblem of the vanished master of Ravenswood. 

The tragedy is kindred, as to its spirit, with _Romeo and Juliet_, andlike that representative poem of love and death it is intenselypassionate, sombre, and lamentable. The first and second acts of it passin almost unrelieved shadow. It begins with a funeral; it incorporatesthe ingredients of misery, madness, and death; it culminates in a fatalduel; and it ends in a picture of mortal desolation, qualified only by amute suggestion of spiritual happiness conveyed by the pictorial emblemof the promise of immortality. It is a poetical tragedy, conceived inthe spirit and written in the manner of the old masters of the poeticart. The treatment of Scott's novel is marked by scrupulous fidelity, not indeed to every detail of that noble book, but to its essentialquality and tone. The structure of the play reproduces in actionsubstantially the structure of the original story. The scene in whichEdgar and Lucy avow their love and pledge themselves to each other iswritten with exquisite grace and profound tenderness. The picturepresented upon the stage when the lovers are parted was one ofastonishing animation. The scene of the interrupted wedding and of LucyAshton's agony, distraction, and death was one of intense power anddramatic effect. The duel of Ravenswood and Bucklaw upon the desolate, moon-lit sands was invested with the excitement of suspense and withweird horror. And the final exposition of dramatic contrast, --when uponthe wide, bleak beach, with the waste of vacant sea beyond and theeastern heaven lit with the first splendour of sunrise, the old manstooped to take up the raven's feather, the last relic ofRavenswood--was so entirely beautiful that the best of words can butpoorly indicate its loveliness. For an audience able to look seriouslyat a serious subject, and not impatient of the foreground of gloom inwhich, necessarily, the story is enveloped at its beginning, this was aperfect work. The student of drama must go back many years to find aparallel to it, in interest of subject, in balance, in symmetry, and insympathetic interpretation of character. 

There is a quality of Hamlet in the character of Ravenswood. He is bynature a man of a sad mind, and under the pressure of afflictingcircumstances his sadness has become embittered. He takes lifethoughtfully and with passionate earnestness. He is a noble person, finely sensitive and absolutely sincere, full of kindness at heart, buttouched with gloom; and his aspect and demeanour are those of pride, trouble, self-conflict--of an individuality isolated and constrained bydark thoughts and painful experience. That is the mood in which HenryIrving conceived and portrayed him. You saw a picturesque figure, dark, strange, romantic--the gravity engendered by thought and sorrow not yetmarring the bronzed face and the elastic movement of youth--and thispersonality, in itself fascinating, was made all the more pictorial byan investiture of romance, alike in the scenery and the incidentsthrough which it moved. Around such a figure funereal banners well mightwave, and under dark and lowering skies the chill wind of the sea mightmoan through monastic ruins and crumbling battlements. Edgar ofRavenswood, standing by his lonely hearth, beneath the groined arches ofhis seaside tower, revealed by the flickering firelight, looked theideal of romantic manhood; the incarnation of poetic fancy and ofpredestinate disaster. Above the story of _Ravenswood_ there is steadilyand continuously impending, and ever growing darker and coming nearer, the vague menace of terrible calamity. This element of mystery and dreadwas wrought into the structural fibre of Henry Irving's performance ofthe part, and consistently coloured it. The face of Edgar was made towear that haunted look which, --as in the countenance of Charles theFirst, in Vandyke's portraits, --may be supposed, and often has beensupposed, to foreshadow a violent and dreadful death. His sudden tremor, when at the first kiss of Lucy Ashton the thunder is heard to breakabove his ruined home, was a fine denotement of that subtle quality; andeven through the happiness of the betrothal scene there was a hint ofthis black presentiment--just as sometimes on a day of perfect sunshinethere is a chill in the wind that tells of approaching storm. All thisis warranted by the prophetic rhymes which are several times spoken, beginning--"When the last lord of Ravenswood to Ravenswood shall ride. "A crone, Ailsie Gourlay by name, embodied with grim and grisly vigour byAlice Marriott, --whose ample voice and exact elocution, together withher formidable stature and her faculty of identification with thecharacter that she assumes and with the spirit of the story, made her ofgreat value to this play--hovered around Ravenswood, and aided to keepthis presage of evil doom fitfully present in the consciousness of itsvictim. Henry Irving gave to the part its perfectly distinctindividuality, and in that respect made as fine a showing as he has evermade of his authority as an actor. There was never the least doubt as towhat Ravenswood is and what he means. The peculiar elocution of HenryIrving, when he is under the influence of great excitement, is noteffective upon all persons; but those who like it consider it far moretouching than a more level, more sonorous, and more accurate delivery. He wrought a great effect in the scene of the marriage-contract. Indeed, so powerful, sincere, and true was the acting upon all sides, at thispoint, that not until the curtain began to descend was it rememberedthat we were looking upon a fiction and not upon a fact. This points tothe peculiar power that Henry Irving and Ellen Terry conspicuouslypossess--of creating and maintaining a perfect illusion. 

During the earlier scenes the character of Lucy Ashton is chiefly markedby the qualities of sweetness and of glee. No one acquainted with theacting of Ellen Terry would need to be told how well and with whatcharming grace those qualities were expressed by her. In the scene ofthe wooing, at the Mermaiden's Well, Lucy Ashton was not a cold womantrying to make herself loved, --which is what most actresses habituallyproffer upon the stage, --but a loving woman, radiant with theconsciousness of the love that she feels and has inspired. Nothing couldbe imagined more delicate, more delicious, more enchanting than thehigh-bred distinction and soft womanlike tone of that performance. Thecharacter, at the climax of this scene, is made to manifest decision, firmness, and force; and the superb manner in which she set thematernal authority at naught and stood by her lover might seem to denotea nature that no tyranny could subdue. Subdued, however, she is, andforced to believe ill of her absent lover, and so the fatal marriagecontract is signed and the crash follows. When Ellen Terry came on forthat scene the glee had all vanished; the face was as white as thegarments that enswathed her; and you saw a creature whom the hand ofdeath had visibly touched. The stage has not at any time heard from anylips but her own such tones of pathos as those in which she said thesimple words:--

 "May God forgive you, then, and pity me-- If God can pity more than mothers do. "

It is not a long scene, and happily not, --for the strain upon theemotion of the actress was intense. The momentary wild merriment, theagony of the breaking heart, the sudden delirium and collapse, were notfor an instant exaggerated. All was nature--or rather the simplicity, fidelity, and grace of art that make the effect of nature. 

Beautiful scenery, painted by Craven, framed the piece with appropriatemagnificence. The several seaside pictures were admirablyrepresentative of the grandeur, the gaunt loneliness, and the gloriouscolour for which Scotland is so much loved. 

The public gain in that production was a revival of interest in one ofthe most famous novels in the language; the possession of a scenicalpageant that filled the eye with beauty and strongly moved theimagination; a play that is successful in the domain of romantic poetry;a touching exemplification of the great art of acting; and once againthe presentment of that vast subject, --the relation of heart to heart, under the dominion of love, in human society, --that more absorbs theattention, affects the character, and controls the destiny of the humanrace than anything else that is beneath the sun. 

XVI. 

THE MERRY WIVES AND FALSTAFF. 

Shakespeare wrote _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ in 1601, and during theChristmas holidays of that year it was presented upon the stage, beforeQueen Elizabeth and her court, at Windsor Castle. In 1602 it waspublished in London in quarto form, and in 1619 a reprint of that quartowas published there. The version that appears in the two quartos isconsidered by Shakespeare scholars to be spurious. The authentic text, no doubt, is that of the comedy as it stands in the first folio (1623). Shakespeare had written _Henry IV. _--both parts of it--and also _HenryV. _, when this comedy was acted, and therefore he had completed hisportrait of Falstaff, whose life is displayed in the former piece andwhose death is described in the latter. _Henry IV. _ was first printed in1598 (we know not when it was first acted), and it passed through fivequarto editions prior to the publication of it in the folio of 1623. Inthe epilogue to the second part of that play a promise is made that thestory shall be continued, "with Sir John in it, " but it is gravelydoubted whether that epilogue was written by Shakespeare. Thecontinuation of the story occurs in _Henry V. _, in which Falstaff doesnot figure, although he is mentioned in it. Various efforts have beenmade to show a continuity between the several plays in which Falstaff isimplicated, but the attempt always fails. The histories contain the realFalstaff. The Falstaff of the comedy is another and less important man. If there really were a sequence of story and of time in the portraitureof this character plays would stand in the following order: 1, _HenryIV. , Part First_; 2, _The Merry Wives of Windsor_; 3, _Henry IV. , PartSecond_; 4, _Henry V. _ As no such sequence exists, or apparently wasintended, the comedy should be viewed by itself. Its texture isradically different from that of the histories. One of the bestShakespeare editors, Charles Knight, ventures the conjecture that _TheMerry Wives of Windsor_ was written first. Shakespeare invented thechief part of the plot, taking, however, a few things from Tarlton's_Newes out of Purgatorie_, which in turn was founded on a story calledThe _Lovers of Pisa_. It is possible also that he may have derivedsuggestions from a German play by Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick--acontemporary, who died in 1611--to which _The Merry Wives of Windsor_bears some resemblance, and of which he may have received an accountfrom English actors who had visited Germany, as the actors of his timeoccasionally did. 

Tradition declares that he wrote this comedy at the command of QueenElizabeth, who had expressed a wish to see Falstaff in love. This wasfirst stated by John Dennis, in the preface to an alteration of _TheMerry Wives of Windsor_ which was made by him, under the name of _TheComical Gallant, or the Amours of Sir John Falstaff_, and wassuccessfully acted at Drury Lane theatre. That piece, which is paltryand superfluous, appeared in 1702. No authority was given by Dennis forhis statement about Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare's play. Thetradition rests exclusively on his word. Rowe, Pope, Theobald, and otherShakespeare editors, have transmitted it to the present day, but itrests on nothing but supposition and it is dubious. Those scholars whoaccept the story of Dennis, and believe that Shakespeare wrote the piece"to order" and within a few days, usually fortify their belief by theallegation that the comedy falls short of Shakespeare's poeticalstandard, being written mostly in prose; that it degrades his greatcreation of Falstaff; that it is, for him, a trivial production; andthat it must have been written in haste and without spontaneous impulse. If judgment were to be given on the quarto version of _The Merry Wives_, that reasoning would commend itself as at least plausible; but it isfoolish as applied to the version in the folio, where the piece is foundto be remarkable for nimbleness of invention, strength and variety ofnatural character, affluent prodigality of animal spirits, deliciousquaintness, exhilarating merriment, a lovely pastoral tone, and manytouches of the transcendent poetry of Shakespeare. Dennis probablyrepeated a piece of idle gossip that he had heard, the same sort ofchatter that in the present day constantly follows the doings oftheatrical people, --and is not accurate more than once in a thousandtimes. _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ is a brilliant and delightfulcomedy, quite worthy of its great author (though not in his mostexalted mood), who probably wrote it because his mind was naturallyimpelled to write it, and no doubt laboured over it exactly as he didover his other writings: for we know, upon the testimony of Ben Jonson, who personally knew him and was acquainted with his custom as a writer, that he was not content with the first draught of anything, but wrote ita second time, and a third time, before he became satisfied with it. Dr. Johnson, who had studied Shakespeare as carefully as any man everstudied him, speaking of _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, says that "itsgeneral power--that power by which all works of genius should finally betried--is such that perhaps it never yet had reader or spectator who didnot think it too soon at an end. " A comedy that deserves such praise asthis--which assuredly is not misplaced--need not be dismissed as apot-boiler. 

Knight's conjecture that _The Merry Wives_ was written before thehistories were written is a plausible conjecture, and perhaps worthy ofsome consideration. It is not easy to believe that Shakespeare, after hehad created Falstaff and thoroughly drawn him, was capable of lesseningthe character and making it almost despicable with paltriness--ascertainly it becomes in _The Merry Wives_. That is not the natural wayof an artistic mind. But it is easier to credit the idea that theFalstaff of _The Merry Wives_ was the first study of the character, although not first shown, which subsequently expanded into themagnificent humorous creation of the histories. Falstaff in the comedyis a fat man with absurd amorous propensities, who is befooled, victimised, and made a laughing-stock by a couple of frolicsome women, who are so much amused by his preposterous folly that they scarcelybestow the serious consideration of contempt and scorn upon hissensuality and insolence. No creature was ever set in a more ludicrouslight or made more contemptible, --in a kindly, good-humoured way. Thehysterical note of offended virtue is never sounded, nor is anywhereseen the averted face of shocked propriety. The two wives are bent on afrolic, and they will merrily punish this presumptuous sensualist--thissilly, conceited, gross fellow, "old, cold, withered, and of intolerableentrails. " If we knew no more of Falstaff than the comedy tells us ofhim we should by no means treasure him as we do now; but it is throughthe histories that we learn to know and appreciate him, and it is of theman portrayed there that we always unconsciously think when, in hishumiliating discomfiture, we hear him declare that "wit may be made aJack-a-lent when 'tis upon ill employment. " For the Falstaff of thehistories is a man of intellect, wisdom, and humour, thoroughlyexperienced in the ways of the world, fascinating in his drollery, human, companionable, infinitely amusing, and capable of turning alllife to the favour of enjoyment and laughter--a man who is passionate inthe sentiment of comradeship, and who, with all his faults (and perhapsbecause of some of them, for faultless persons are too good for thisworld), inspires affection. "Would I were with him, " cries the wretchedBardolph, "wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell. " It is notBardolph only whose heart has a warm corner for the memory of the poorold jovial sinner, wounded to death by the falling off offriendship--the implacable hardness of new-born virtue in theregenerated royal mind. 

A comprehensive view of Falstaff--a view that includes the afflictingcircumstances of his humiliation and of his forlorn and pathetic deathnot less than the roistering frolics and jocund mendacity of his lifeand character--is essential to a right appreciation of the meaning ofhim. Shakespeare is never a prosy moralist, but he constantly teachesyou, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, that the moral law of theuniverse, working continually for goodness and not for evil, operates inan inexorable manner. Yet it is not of any moral consideration that thespectator of Falstaff upon the stage ever pauses to think. It is thehumour of the fat knight that is perceived, and that alone. Thethoughtful friends of Falstaff, however, see more in him than this, andespecially they like not to think of him in a deplorable predicament. The Falstaff of _The Merry Wives_ is a man to laugh at; but he is not aman to inspire the comrade feeling, and still less is he a man toimpress the intellect with the sense of a stalwart character and ofillimitable jocund humour. Falstaff's friends--whose hearts are full ofkindness for the old reprobate--have sat with him "in my Dolphinchamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, " and "have heard thechimes at midnight" in his society, and they know what a jovialcompanion he is--how abundant in knowledge of the world; how radiantwith animal spirits; how completely inexhaustible in cheerfulness; howcopious in comic invective; how incessantly nimble and ludicrous in witand in waggery; how strange a compound of mind and sensuality, shrewdness and folly, fidelity and roguery, brazen mendacity, and comicselfishness! They do not like to think of him as merely a fat old fool, bamboozled by a pair of sprightly, not over-delicate women, far inferiorto him in mental calibre, and made a laughing-stock for Fenton and sweetAnne Page, and the lads and lassies of Windsor, and the chattering Welshparson. "Have I lived, " cried Falstaff, in the moment of hisdiscomfiture, "to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters ofEnglish?" He is a hard case, an inveterate sinner, as worthless as anyman well could be, in the eyes of decorum and respectability; but thosewho know him well grow to be fond of him, even if they feel that theyought to be ashamed of it, and they do not quite forgive the poet formaking him contemptible. 

You can find many other figures that will make you laugh, but you canfind no other figure that makes you laugh with such good reason. Itseems incredible that Shakespeare, with his all-embracing mind and hisperfect instinct of art, should deliberately have chosen to lessen hisown masterpiece of humour. For Shakespeare rejoiced in Falstaff, evenwhile he respected and recorded the inexorable justice of the moral lawthat decrees and eventually accomplishes his destruction. There is noone of his characters whose history he has traced with such minuteelaboration. The conception is singularly ample. You may see Falstaff, as Shallow saw him, when he was a boy and page to Thomas Mowbray, Dukeof Norfolk; you may see him all along the current of his mature years;his highway robberies on Gadshill; his bragging narrative to PrinceHenry; his frolicsome, paternal, self-defensive lecture to the prince;his serio-comic association with the ragamuffin recruits at Coventry;his adroit escape from the sword of Hotspur; his mendaciousself-glorification over the body of Harry Percy; his mishaps as asuitor to Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page; his wonderfully humorous interviewswith the Chief-Justice and with Prince John of Lancaster; his junketingswith Justice Shallow in Gloucestershire, and his rebuff andconsternation at his first and last meeting with King Henry V. ; andfinally you may see him, as Mrs. Quickly saw him, on his death-bed, when"'a cried out God! God! God! three or four times, " and when "his nosewas as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled o' green fields. "

A good and faithful study of _King Henry IV. _, and especially of thesecond part of that play, is essential for a right appreciation ofFalstaff. Those scenes with the Chief-Justice are unmatched inliterature. The knight stands royally forth in them, clothed with hisentire panoply of agile intellect, robust humour, and boundless comiceffrontery. But the arrogant and expeditious Falstaff of _The MerryWives_--so richly freighted with rubicund sensuality, so abundant incomic loquacity, and so ludicrous in his sorry plights--is a much lesscomplex person, and therefore he stands more level than the realFalstaff does with the average comprehension of mankind. The Americanstage, accordingly, by which more than by the printed book he hasbecome known to our people, has usually given its preference to theFalstaff of the comedy. _The Merry Wives_ was first acted in New York onOctober 5, 1788 at the John Street theatre, with Harper as Falstaff. OnApril 1, 1807 it was produced at the old Park, and the Falstaff then wasJohn E. Harwood. The same stage offered it again on January 16, 1829, with Hilson as Falstaff. A little later, about 1832, James H. Hacketttook up the character of Falstaff, and from that time onwardperformances of _The Merry Wives_ occurred more frequently in differentcities of America. Nor was the historical play neglected. On August 7, 1848 a remarkably fine production of the comedy was accomplished at theAstor Place Operahouse, New York, with Hackett as Falstaff, who never inhis time was equalled in that character, and has not been equalledsince. Another Falstaff, however, and a remarkably good one, appeared atBurton's theatre on August 24, 1850, in the person of Charles Bass. OnMarch 14, 1853 _The Merry Wives_ was again given at Burton's theatre, and Burton himself played Falstaff, with characteristic humour; butBurton never acted the part as it stands in _Henry IV. _ Hackett, whoused both the history (Part I. ) and the comedy, continued to actFalstaff almost to the end of his life and Hackett did not die till1871. A distinguished representative of Falstaff in the early days ofthe American theatre--the days of the renowned Chestnut inPhiladelphia--was William Warren (1767-1832), who came from England in1796. In recent years the part has been acted by Benedict De Bar and byJohn Jack. The latest Falstaff in America was that embodied by CharlesFisher, who first assumed the character on November 19, 1872, at Daly'stheatre, and whose performance was picturesque and humorous. 

On the English stage the historical play of _Henry IV. _ was exceedinglypopular in Shakespeare's time. The first Falstaff, according to Malone, whom everybody has followed as to this point, was John Heminge(1555-1630). After him came John Lowin (1572-1654), who is thought tohave acted the part in the presence of Charles I. His successor seems tohave been Lacy, who died in 1681. Next came Cartwright, and in 1699 or1700 the great Betterton (1635-1710) assumed the fat knight, acting himin both parts of the history and in the comedy. Genest recordstwenty-two revivals of the first part of _Henry IV. _ upon the Londonstage, at five different theatres, between 1667 and 1826; fifteenrevivals of the second part between 1720 and 1821; and sixteen revivalsof _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ between 1667 and 1811. Many Englishactors have played Falstaff since Betterton's time, an incomplete thoughsufficiently ample list of them comprising Estcourt, 1704; F. Bullock, 1713; J. Evans and J. Hall, 1715; Mills, 1716; Quin, "dignity anddeclamation, " 1738; Berry, 1747; Love (whose true name was James Dance), 1762; Shuter, 1774; John Henderson, one of the greatest actors that everlived, 1774; Mrs. Webb (once only), 1776; Ryder, 1786; Palmer, 1788;King, 1792; Fawcett, 1795; Stephen Kemble, who was so fat that he couldplay it without stuffing or bladder, 1802; Blissett, 1803; GeorgeFrederick Cooke, 1804; Bartley, 1812; Charles Kemble, 1824; Dowton, 1824; Elliston, 1826; and Samuel Phelps, 1846. The latest representativeof Falstaff in England was H. Beerbohm-Tree, who, although a man ofslender figure, contrived to simulate corpulence, and who manifested inhis acting a fine instinct as to the meaning of the character andconsiderable resources of art in its expression, although thepredominant individuality and the copious luxuriance of Falstaff's rosyand juicy humour were not within his reach. Upon the American stage thepart is practically disused; and this is a pity, seeing that a source ofgreat enjoyment and one of the most suggestive and fruitful topics thatexist in association with the study of human nature are thus in a greatdegree sequestered from the public mind. Still it is better to have noFalstaff on the stage than to have it encumbered with a bad one; andcertainly for the peculiar and exacting play of _Henry IV. _ there arenow no actors left: at least they are not visible in America. 

XVII. 

ADA REHAN. 

In browsing over the fragrant evergreen pages of Cibber's delightfulbook about the stage, and especially in reflecting upon the beautifuland brilliant women who, drawn by his magic pencil, dwell there, perpetual, in life, colour, and charm, the reflective reader may perhapsbe prompted to remember that the royal line of stage beauties is notextinct, and that stage heroines exist in the present day who are quiteas well worthy of commemoration as any that graced the period of Charlesthe Second or of good Queen Anne. Our age, indeed, has no Cibber todescribe their loveliness and celebrate their achievements; but surelyif he were living at this hour that courtly, characteristic, andsensuous writer--who saw so clearly and could portray so well thepeculiarities of the feminine nature--would not deem the period of EllenTerry and Marie Wilton, of Ada Rehan and Sarah Bernhardt and GenevieveWard, of Clara Morris and Jane Hading, unworthy of his pen. As often asfancy ranges over those bright names and others that are kindred withthem--a glittering sisterhood of charms and talents--the regret mustarise that no literary artist with just the gallant spirit, thechivalry, the sensuous appreciation, the fine insight, and the pictorialtouch of old Cibber is extant to perpetuate their glory. The hand thatsketched Elizabeth Barry so as to make her live forever in a few brieflines, the hand that drew the fascinating and memorable portrait ofSusanna Mountfort ("Down goes her dainty diving body to the ground, asif she were sinking under the conscious load of her ownattractions")--what might it not have done to preserve for the knowledgeof future generations the queens of the theatre who are crowned andregnant to-day! Cibber could have caught and reflected the elusive charmof such an actress as Ada Rehan. No touch less adroit and felicitousthan his can accomplish more than the suggestion of her peculiarallurement, her originality, and her fascinating because sympathetic andpiquant mental and physical characteristics. 

Ada Rehan, born at Limerick, Ireland, on April 22, 1860, was brought toAmerica when five years old, and at that time she lived and went toschool in Brooklyn. No one of her progenitors was ever upon the stage, nor does it appear that she was predisposed to that vocation by earlyreading or training. Her elder sisters had adopted that pursuit, andperhaps she was impelled toward it by the force of example and domesticassociation, readily affecting her innate latent faculty for thedramatic art. Her first appearance on the stage was made at Newark, NewJersey, in 1873, in a play entitled _Across the Continent_, in which sheacted a small part, named Clara, for one night only, to fill the placeof a performer who had been suddenly disabled by illness. Her readinessand her positive talent were clearly revealed in that effort, and it wasthereupon determined in a family council that she should proceed; so shewas soon regularly embarked upon the life of an actress. Her firstappearance on the New York stage was made a little later, in 1873, atWood's museum (it became Daly's theatre in 1879), when she played asmall part in a piece called _Thorough-bred_. During the seasons of1873-74-75 she was associated with the Arch Street theatre, Philadelphia, --that being her first regular professional engagement. (John Drew, with whom, professionally, Ada Rehan has been longassociated, made his first appearance in the same season, at the samehouse. ) She then went to Macaulay's theatre, Louisville, where she actedfor one season. From Louisville she went to Albany, as a member of JohnW. Albaugh's company, and with that manager she remained two seasons, acting sometimes in Albany and sometimes in Baltimore. After that shewas for a few months with Fanny Davenport. The earlier part of hercareer involved professional endeavours in company with the wanderingstars, and she acted in a variety of plays with Edwin Booth, AdelaideNeilson, John McCullough, Mrs. Bowers, Lawrence Barrett, John Brougham, Edwin Adams, Mrs. Lander, and John T. Raymond. From the first she wasdevotedly fond of Shakespeare, and all the Shakespearian charactersallotted to her were studied and acted by her with eager interest andsympathy. While thus employed in the provincial stock she enactedOphelia, Cordelia, Desdemona, Celia, Olivia, and Lady Anne, and in eachof those parts she was conspicuously good. The attention of AugustinDaly was first attracted to her in December 1877, when she was acting atAlbaugh's theatre in Albany, the play being _Katharine and Petruchio_(Garrick's version of the _Taming of the Shrew_), and Ada Rehanappearing as Bianca; and subsequently Daly again observed her as anactress of auspicious distinction and marked promise at the Grand OperaHouse, New York, in April 1879. Fanny Davenport was then acting in thattheatre in Daly's strong American play of _Pique_--one of the few dramasof American origin that aptly reflect the character of American domesticlife--and Ada Rehan appeared in the part of Mary Standish. She wasimmediately engaged under Daly's management, and in May 1879 she cameforth at the Olympic theatre, New York, as Big Clemence in that author'sversion of _L'Assommoir_. On September 17, 1879, Daly's theatre (whichhad been suspended for about two years) was opened upon its presentsite, the southwest corner of Thirtieth Street and Broadway, and AdaRehan made her first appearance there, enacting the part of Nelly Beersin a play called _Love's Young Dream_. The opening bill on thatoccasion comprised that piece, together with a comedy by Olive Logan, entitled _Newport_. On September 30 a revival of _Divorce_, one ofDaly's most fortunate plays, was effected, and Ada Rehan impersonatedMiss Lu Ten Eyck--a part originally acted (1873) by Fanny Davenport. From that time to this (1892) Ada Rehan has remained the leading lady atDaly's theatre; and there she has become one of the most admired figuresupon the contemporary stage. In five professional visits to Europe, acting in London, Paris, Edinburgh, Dublin, Berlin, and other cities, she pleased judicious audiences and augmented her renown. Daly took hiscompany of comedians to London for the first time in 1884, where theyfulfilled an engagement of six weeks at Toole's theatre, beginning July19. The second visit to London was made two seasons later, when theyacted for nine weeks at the Strand theatre, beginning May 27, 1886. Atthat time they also played in the English provinces, and they visitedGermany--acting at Hamburg and at Berlin, where they were much liked andcommended. They likewise made a trip to Paris. Their third season abroadbegan at the Lyceum theatre, London, May 3, 1888, and it includedanother expedition to the French capital, which was well rewarded. AdaRehan at that time impersonated Shakespeare's Shrew. It was in thatseason also that she appeared at Stratford-upon-Avon, where Daly gave aperformance (August 3, 1888) in the Shakespeare Memorial theatre, forthe benefit of that institution. The fourth season of Daly's comediansin London began on June 10, 1890, at the Lyceum theatre, and lasted tenweeks; and this was signalised by Ada Rehan's impersonation of Rosalind. The fifth London season extended from September 9 to November 13, 1891. 

This is an outline of her professional story; but how little of the reallife of an actor can be imparted in a record of the surface facts of apublic career! Most expressive, as a comment upon the inadequacy ofbiographical details, is the exclamation of Dumas, about Aimée Desclée:"Une femme comme celle-là n'a pas de biographie! Elle nous a émus, etelle en est morte. Voilà toute son historie!" Ada Rehan, while she hasoften and deeply moved the audience of her riper time, is happily veryfar from having died of it. There is deep feeling beneath the luminousand sparkling surface of her art; but it is chiefly with mirth that shehas touched the public heart and affected the public experience. Equallyof her, however, as of her pathetic sister artist of the French stage, it may be said that such a woman has no history. In a civilisation andat a period wherein persons are customarily accepted for what theypretend to be, instead of being seen and understood for what they are, she has been content to take an unpretentious course, to be original andsimple, and thus to allow her faculties to ripen and her character todevelop in their natural manner. She has not assumed the position of astar, and perhaps the American community, although favourable andfriendly toward her, may have been somewhat slow to understand herunique personality and her superlative worth. The moment a thoughtfulobserver's attention is called to the fact, however, he perceives howlarge a place Ada Rehan fills in the public mind, how conspicuous afigure she is upon the contemporary stage, and how difficult it is toexplain and classify her whether as an artist or a woman. That blendingof complexity with transparency always imparts to individual life atinge of piquant interest, because it is one denotement of thetemperament of genius. 

The poets of the world pour themselves through all subjects by the useof their own words. In what manner they are affected by the forces ofnature--its influences of gentleness and peace or its vast pageants ofbeauty and terror--those words denote; and also those words indicate theaction, upon their responsive spirits, of the passions that agitate thehuman heart. The actors, on the other hand, assuming to be theinterpreters of the poets, must pour themselves through all subjects bythe use of their own personality. They are to be estimated accordinglyby whatever the competent observer is able to perceive of the nature andthe faculties they reveal under the stress of emotion, whether tragic orcomic. Perhaps it is not possible--mind being limited in itsfunction--for any person to form a full, true, and definite summary ofanother human creature. To view a dramatic performance with aconsciousness of the necessity of forming a judicial opinion of it isoften to see one's own thought about it rather than the thing itself. Yet, when all allowance is made for difficulty of theme and forinfirmity of judgment, the observer of Ada Rehan may surely concludethat she has a rich, tender, and sparkling nature, in which thedream-like quality of sentiment and the discursive faculty ofimagination, intimately blended with deep, broad, and accurateperceptions of the actual, and with a fund of keen and sagacious sense, are reinforced with strong individuality and with affluent andextraordinary vital force. Ada Rehan has followed no traditions. Shewent to the stage not because of vanity but because of spontaneousimpulse; and for the expression of every part that she has played shehas gone to nature and not to precept and precedent. The stamp of herpersonality is upon everything that she has done; yet the thinker wholooks back upon her numerous and various impersonations is astonished attheir diversity. The romance, the misery, and the fortitude of KateVerity, the impetuous passion of Katharine, the brilliant raillery ofHippolyta, the enchanting womanhood of Rosalind--how clear-cut, howdistinct, how absolutely dramatic was each one of thosepersonifications! and yet how completely characteristic each one was ofthis individual actress! Our works of art may be subject to theapplication of our knowledge and skill, but we ourselves are under thedominance of laws which operate out of the inaccessible and indefinabledepths of the spirit. Alongside of most players of this period Ada Rehanis a prodigy of original force. Her influence, accordingly, has beenfelt more than it has been understood, and, being elusive and strange, has prompted wide differences of opinion. The sense that she diffuses ofa simple, unselfish, patient nature, and of impulsive tenderness ofheart, however, cannot have been missed by anybody with eyes to see. Andshe crowns all by speaking the English language with a beauty that hasseldom been equalled. 

XVIII. 

TENNYSON'S COMEDY OF THE FORESTERS. 

"Besides, the King's name is a tower of strength. " Thousands of peopleall over the world honour, and ought to honour, every word that fallsfrom the pen of Alfred Tennyson. He is a very great man. No poet sincethe best time of Byron has written the English language so well--that isto say, with such affluent splendour of imagination; such passionatevigour; such nobility of thought; such tenderness of pathos; suchpervasive grace, and so much of that distinctive variety, flexibility, and copious and felicitous amplitude which are the characteristics of anoriginal style. No poet of the last fifty years has done so much tostimulate endurance in the human soul and to clarify spiritual vision inthe human mind. It does not signify that now, at more than fourscore, his hand sometimes trembles a little on the harp-strings, and his touchfalters, and his music dies away. It is still the same harp and thesame hand. This fanciful, kindly, visionary, drifting, and altogetherromantic comedy of _Robin Hood_ is not to be tried by the standard thatis author reared when he wrote _Ulysses_ and _Tithonus_ and _The Passingof Arthur_--that imperial, unapproachable standard that no other poethas satisfied. 

 "Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day. "

But though the passion be subdued and the splendour faded, the deepcurrent of feeling flows on and the strong and tender voice can stilltouch the heart and charm the ear. That tide of emotion and that tone ofmelody blend in this play and make it beautiful. The passion is nolonger that of _Enone_ and _Lucretius_ and _Guinevere_ and _LocksleyHall_ and _Maud_ and _The Vision of Sin_. The thought is no longer thatof _In Memoriam_, with its solemn majesty and infinite pathos. The musicis no longer that of _The May Queen_ and the _Talking Oak_ and _IdleTears_. But why should these be expected? He who struck those notesstrikes now another; and as we listen our wonder grows, and cannot helpbut grow, that a bard of fourscore and upward should write in suchabsolute sympathy with youth, love, hope, happiness, and all that isfree and wandering and martial and active in the vicissitudes ofadventure, the exploits of chivalry, and the vagabondish spirit of gypsyfrolic. The fact that he does write in that mood points to the oneilluminative truth now essential to be remembered. The voice to which weare privileged to listen, perhaps for the last time, is the voice of agreat poet--by which is meant a poet who is able, not through the mediumof intellect but through the medium of emotion, to make the totalexperience of mankind his own experience, and to express it not only inthe form of art but with the fire of nature. The element of power, inall the expressions of such a mind, will fluctuate; but every one of itsexpressions will be sincere and in a greater or less degree will bevital with a universal and permanent significance. That virtue is inAlfred Tennyson's comedy of _Robin Hood_, and that virtue will insurefor it an abiding endurance in affectionate public esteem. 

The realm into which this play allures its auditor is the realm of_Ivanhoe_--the far-off, romantic region of Sherwood forest, in theancient days of stout king Richard the First. The poet has gone to theold legends of Robin Hood and to the ballads that have been made uponthem, and out of those materials--using them freely, according to hisfancy--he has chosen his scene and his characters and has made hisstory. It is not the England of the mine and the workshop that herepresents, and neither is it the England of the trim villa and theformal landscape; it is the England of the feudal times--of gray castletowers, and armoured knights, and fat priests, and wandering minstrels, and crusades and tournaments; England in rush-strewn bowers and undergreen boughs; the England in which Wamba jested and Blondel sung. Toenter into that realm is to leave the barren world of prose; to feelagain the cool, sweet winds of summer upon the brow of youth; to catch, in fitful glimpses, the shimmer of the Lincoln green in the sunlit, golden glades of the forest, and to hear the merry note of the huntsmancommingled, far away, with "horns of Elfland faintly blowing. " Theappeal is made to the primitive, elemental, poetical instinct ofmankind; and no detail of realism is obtruded, no question ofprobability considered, no agony of the sin-tortured spirit subjected toanalysis, no controversy promoted and no moral lesson enforced. For oncethe public is favoured with a serious poetical play, which aims simplyto diffuse happiness by arousing sympathy with pleasurable scenes andpicturesque persons, with virtue that is piquant and humour that isrefined, with the cheerful fortitude that takes adversity with a smile, and with that final fortunate triumph of good over evil which is neitherensanguined with gore nor saddened with tears, nor made acrid withbitterness. The play is pastoral comedy, written partly in blank verseand partly in prose, and cast almost wholly out of doors--in the openair and under the greenwood tree--and, in order to stamp its characterbeyond doubt or question, one scene of it is frankly devoted to aconvocation of fairies around Titania, their queen. 

The impulse that underlies this piece is the old, incessant, undyingaspiration, that men and women of the best order feel, for some avenueof escape, some relief, some refuge, from the sickening tyranny ofconvention and the commonplace, and from the overwhelming mystery withwhich all human life is haunted and oppressed. A man who walks about ina forest is not necessarily free. He may be as great a slave as anybody. But the exalted imagination dwells upon his way of life as emancipated, breezy, natural, and right. That way, to the tired thinker, lie peaceand joy. There, if anywhere--as he fancies--he might escape from all thewrongs of the world, all the problems of society, all the dull businessof recording, and analysing, and ticketing mankind, all the clash ofselfish systems that people call history, and all the babble that theycall literature. In that retreat he would feel the rain upon his face, and smell the grass and the flowers, and hear the sighing and whisperingof the wind in the green boughs; and there would be no need to troublehimself any more, whether about the past or the future. Every greatintellect of the world has felt that wild longing, and has recordedit--the impulse to revert to the vast heart of Nature, that knows nodoubt, and harbours no fear, and keeps no regret, and feels no sorrow, and troubles itself not at all. Matthew Arnold dreamily and perhapsausterely expressed it in _The Scholar Gypsy_. Byron more humanlyuttered it in four well-remembered lines, of _Childe Harold_:

 "Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating nothing, love but only her. "

_Robin Hood_, as technical drama, is frail. Its movement, indeed, is notmore indolent than that of its lovely prototypes in Shakespeare, _As YouLike It_ and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. With all the pastorals Timeambles. But, on the other hand, Tennyson's piece is not a match foreither of those Shakespearean works, in massiveness of dramaticsignification or in the element of opportunity for the art of acting. Character, poetry, philosophy, humour, and suggestion it contains; butit contains no single scene in which its persons can amply put forththeir full histrionic powers with essentially positive dramatic effect. Its charm resides more in being than in doing, and therefore it is morea poem than a play, and perhaps more a picture than a poem. It is notone of those works that arouse, agitate, and impel. It aims only tocreate and sustain a pleased condition; and that aim it hasaccomplished. No spectator will be deeply moved by it, but no spectatorwill look at it without delight. While, however, _Robin Hood_ as a dramais frail, it is not destitute of the dramatic element. It depicts acentral character in action, and it tells a representative love story--astory in which the oppressive persecutor of impoverished age is foiledand discomfited, in which faithful affection survives the test of trial, and in which days of danger end at last in days of blissful peace. Traces of the influence of Shakespeare--exerted by his pastoral comediesand by the _Merry Wives of Windsor_--are obvious in it. There is noimitation; there is only kinship. The sources that Scott explored forsome of the material used in _Ivanhoe_ also announce themselves. Manystories could be derived from the old Robin Hood ballads. The poet hasonly chosen and rearranged such of their incidents as would suit hispurpose--using those old ballads with perfect freedom, but also usingthem with faultless taste. 

Robin Hood was born at Locksley, in the county of Nottingham, about1160, when Henry the Second was king. His true name was RobertFitzooth--a name that popular mispronunciation converted into RobinHood--and he was of noble lineage. Old records declare him to have beenthe Earl of Huntingdon. He was extravagant and adventurous, and forreasons that are unknown he preferred to live in the woods. His hauntswere chiefly Sherwood Forest, in Nottinghamshire, and Barnsdale, inYorkshire. Among his associates were William Scadlock, commonly calledScarlet; Much, a miller's son; Friar Tuck, a vagabond monk; and LittleJohn, whose name was Nailor. Robin Hood and his band were kind to thepoor; but they robbed the rich and they were specially hard on theclergy. There is a tradition that a woman named Maid Marian went withRobin into the forest, but nothing is known about her. Robin lived tillthe age of eighty-seven, and he might have lived longer but that atreacherous relative, the prioress of Kirkley--to whose care he hadentrusted himself in order that he might be bled--allowed him to bleedto death. At the time indicated in Tennyson's comedy--the year 1194, which was the year of King Richard's return from captivity inGermany--he was thirty-four years old. It is the year of _Ivanhoe_, andin the play as in the novel, the evil agent is the usurper Prince John. 

Fifteen characters take part in this comedy. Act first is called "TheBond and the Outlawry. " The action begins in a garden before Sir RichardLea's castle--or rather the dialogue begins there, by which the basis ofthe action is revealed. Maid Marian is Marian Lea, the daughter of SirRichard. Walter Lea, the son of Sir Richard, has been captured by theMoors, and in order to pay the boy's ransom Sir Richard has borrowed alarge sum of money from the Abbot of York. That debt must presently bepaid; but Sir Richard does not see his way clear to its payment, and ifhe does not pay it he must forfeit his land. The Sheriff of Nottingham, a wealthy suitor for the hand of Marian, is willing to pay that debt, incase the girl will favour his suit. But Marian loves the Earl ofHuntingdon and is by him beloved; and all would go well with thoselovers, and with Sir Richard, but that the Earl of Huntingdon is poor. Poor though he be, however, he makes a feast, to celebrate his birthday, and to that festival Sir Richard and his daughter are bidden. Act firstdisplays the joyous proceedings of that good meeting and the posture ofthose characters toward each other. The Sheriff of Nottingham intrudeshimself upon the scene, accompanied by Prince John, who is disguised asa friar. The Prince has cast a covetous eye upon Marian, and, althoughhe outwardly favours the wish of the Sheriff, he is secretly determinedto seize her for himself. The revellers at Huntingdon's feast, unawareof the Prince's presence, execrate his name, and at length he retires, in a silent fury. Robin gives to Marian a remarkable ring that he hasinherited from his mother. Later a herald enters and reads aproclamation from Prince John, declaring the Earl of Huntingdon to be afelon, and commanding his banishment. Robin cannot forcibly oppose thatmandate, and he therefore determines to cast in his lot with Scarlet andFriar Tuck and other "minions of the moon, " and thenceforward to live afree and merry life under the green boughs of Sherwood Forest. A year issupposed to pass. Act second, called "The Flight of Marian, " begins witha song of the Foresters, in the deep wood--"There is no land likeEngland. " That is a scene of much gentle beauty, enhanced by RobinHood's delivery of some of the finest poetry in the play, and also bythe delicious music of Sir Arthur Sullivan. Robin descants uponfreedom, and upon the advantage of dwelling beneath the sky rather thanbeneath a groined roof that shuts out all the meaning of heaven. Thereis a colloquy between Little John, who is one of Robin's men, and Kate, who is Marian's maid. Those two are lovers who quarrel and make it upagain, as lovers will. Kate has come to the forest, bringing word of theflight of her mistress. Prince John has tried to seize Marian, and thatbrave girl has repulsed and struck him; and she and her father havefled--intending to make for France, in which land the old knight expectsto find a friend who will pay his debt and save his estate. While Robinis considering these things he perceives the approach of Prince John andthe Sheriff of Nottingham, and, thereupon, he takes refuge in the hut ofan old witch and disguises himself in some of her garments. Prince Johnand the Sheriff, who are in pursuit of Sir Richard and Marian, findRobin in this disguise, and for a time they are deceived by him; butsoon they penetrate his masquerade and assail him--whereupon some of hispeople come to his assistance, and he is reinforced by Sir Richard Lea. Prince John and his party are beaten and driven away. Sir Richard isexhausted, and Robin commits him to the care of the Foresters. Marian, arrayed as a boy, and pretending to be her brother Walter, has beenpresent at this combat, as a spectator, and a sparkling scene ofequivoke, mischief, and sentiment ensues between Marian and Robin. Thatscene Tennyson wrote and inserted for Ada Rehan, to whose vivacioustemperament it is fitted, and whose action in it expressed with equalfelicity the teasing temper of the coquette and the propitious fondnessof the lover. Robin discovers Marian's identity by means of the ringthat he gave her, and, after due explanation, it is agreed that she andher father will remain under his protection. Act third is called "TheCrowning of Marian, " and is devoted to pictures, colloquies, andincidents, now serious and now comical, showing the life of theForesters and the humorous yet discriminative justice of their gypsychief. Sir Richard Lea is ill and he cannot be moved. The outlaws crownMarian, with an oaken chaplet, and declare her to be their queen. RobinHood vindicates his vocation, and in a noble speech onfreedom--deriving his similes from the giant oak tree, as Tennyson hasever loved to do--declares himself the friend of the poor and theservant of the king; the absent Richard of the Lion Heart, for whosereturn all good men are eager. Various beggars, friars, and othertravellers are halted on the road, in practical illustration of Robin'sdoctrine; comic incidents from the old ballads are reproduced; and sothe episode ends merrily of these frolics in the wood. At that point adelicious fairy pageant is introduced, presenting Queen Titania and herelves and illustrating at once the grievance of the fairies against themen whose heavy feet have crushed their toads and bats and flowers andmystic rings, and Marian's dream of love. Sir Arthur Sullivan's music ishere again used, and again it is felt to be characteristic, melodious, and uncommonly sweet and tender. Act fourth begins in a forest bower atsunrise. Marian and Robin meet there and talk of Sir Richard and of hisbond to the Abbot of York--soon to fall due and seemingly to remainunpaid. Robin has summoned the Abbot and his justiciary to come into theforest and to bring the bond. King Richard, unrecognised, now arrives, and in submission to certain laws of the woodland he engages in anencounter of buffets, and prevails over all his adversaries. At theapproach of the Abbot, however, fearing premature recognition, themonarch will flit away; but his gypsy friends compel him to accept abugle, upon which he is to blow a blast when in danger. The Abbot andhis followers arrive, and Robin Hood offers the money to redeem SirRichard's bond; but, upon a legal quibble, the Abbot declines to receiveit--preferring to seize the forfeited land. Prince John and the Sheriffof Nottingham appear, and Robin and his Foresters form an ambuscade. SirRichard Lea has been brought in, upon his litter, and Marian staysbeside him. Prince John attempts to seize her, but this time he isfrustrated by the sudden advent of King Richard--from whose presence heslinks away. The myrmidons of John, however, attack the King, who wouldoppose them single-handed; but Friar Tuck snatches the King's bugle andblows a blast of summons--whereupon the Foresters swarm into the fieldand possess it. John's faction is dispersed, Marian is saved, the absentWalter Lea reappears, Sir Richard is assured of his estate, the Abbotand the Sheriff are punished, and Robin Hood and Maid Marian maywed--for now the good King Richard has come again to his own. 

The lyrics in the piece possess the charm of fluent and unaffectedsweetness, and of original, inventive, and felicitous fancy, and some ofthem are tenderly freighted with that indescribable but deeply affectingundertone of pathetic sentiment which is a characteristic attribute ofTennyson's poetry. 

The characters in the comedy were creatures of flesh and blood to theauthor, and they come out boldly, therefore, on the stage. Marian Lea isa woman of the Rosalind order--handsome, noble, magnanimous, unconventional, passionate in nature, but sufficient unto herself, humorous, playful, and radiant with animal spirits. Ada Rehan embodiedher according to that ideal. The chief exaction of the part issimplicity--which yet must not be allowed to degenerate into tameness. The sweet affection of a daughter for her father, the coyness yet theallurement of a girl for her lover, the refinement of high birth, theblithe bearing and free demeanour of a child of the woods, and thepredominant dignity of purity and honour--those are the salientattributes of the part. Ada Rehan struck the true note at theoutset--the note of buoyant health, rosy frolic, and sprightlyadventure--and she sustained it evenly and firmly to the last. Every eyewas pleased with the frank, careless, cheerful beauty of her presence, and every ear was soothed and charmed with her fluent and expressivedelivery of the verse. In this, as in all of the importantrepresentations that Ada Rehan has given, the delightful woman-qualitywas conspicuously present. She can readily impersonate a boy. No actresssince Adelaide Neilson has done that so well. But the crowningexcellence of her art was its expression of essential womanhood. Heracting was never trivial and it never obtruded the tedious element ofdry intellect. It refreshed--and the spectator was happier for havingseen her. Many pleasant thoughts were scattered in many minds by herperformance of Maid Marian, and no one who saw it will ever part withthe remembrance of it. 

XIX. 

ELLEN TERRY: THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

It was perhaps an auspicious portent, it certainly is an interestingfact, that the first play that was ever acted in America at a regulartheatre and by a regular theatrical company was Shakespeare's comedy of_The Merchant of Venice_. Such at least is the record made by WilliamDunlap, the first historian of the American theatre, who namesWilliamsburg, Virginia, as the place and September 5, 1752 as the dateof that production. It ought to be noted, however (so difficult is it tosettle upon any fact in this uncertain world), that the learnedantiquarian Judge C. P. Daly, fortified likewise by the scrupulouslyaccurate Ireland, dissents from Dunlap's statement and declares thatCibber's alteration of Shakespeare's _Richard the Third_ was acted by aregular company in a large room in Nassau Street, New York, at anearlier date, namely, on March 5, 1750. All the same, it appears tohave been Shakespeare's mind that started the dramatic movement inAmerica. The American stage has undergone great changes since that time, but both _The Merchant of Venice_ and _Richard the Third_ are stillacted, and in the _Merchant_, if not in _Richard_, the public interestis still vital. In New York, under Edwin Booth's management, at theWinter Garden theatre, January 28, 1867, and subsequently at Booth'stheatre, and in London, under Henry Irving's management, at the Lyceumtheatre, November 1, 1879, sumptuous productions of the _Merchant_ havebrilliantly marked the dramatic chronicle of our times. Discussion ofthe great character of Shylock steadily proceeds and seems never toweary either the disputants or the audience. The sentiment, the fancy, and the ingenuity of artists are often expended not only upon theaustere, picturesque, and terrible figure of the vindictive Jew, butupon the chief related characters in the comedy--upon Bassanio andPortia, Gratiano and Nerissa, Lorenzo and Jessica, the princely andpensive Antonio, the august Duke and his stately senators, and theshrewd and humorous Gobbo. More than one painting has depicted theardent Lorenzo and his fugitive infidel as they might have looked onthat delicious summer night at Belmont when they saw "how the floor ofheaven is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold, " and when theblissful lover, radiant with happiness and exalted by the sublime, illimitable, unfathomable spectacle of the star-strewn firmament, murmured, in such heaven-like cadence, of the authentic music of heaven. 

It is not to be denied that lovely words are spoken to Jessica, and thatalmost equally lovely words are spoken by her. Essayists upon the_Merchant_ have generally accepted her without a protest--so much doyouth and beauty in a woman count in the scale when weighed against dutyand integrity. There is no indication that Shylock was ever unjust orunkind to Jessica. Whatever he may have been to others he seems alwaysto have been good to her; and she was the child of that lost Leah of hisyouthful devotion whom he passionately loved and whom he mourned to thelast. Yet Jessica not only abandoned her father and his religion, butrobbed him of money and jewels (including the betrothal ring, theturquoise, that her mother had given to him), when she fled with theyoung Christian who had won her heart. It was a basely cruel act; butprobably some of the vilest and cruelest actions that are done in thisworld are done by persons who are infatuated by the passion of love. Mrs. Jameson, who in her beautiful essay on Portia extenuates theconduct of Jessica, would have us believe that Shylock valued hisdaughter far beneath his wealth, and therefore deserved to be desertedand plundered by her; and she is so illogical as to derive hissentiments on this subject from his delirious outcries of lamentationafter he learned of her predatory and ignominious flight. The argumentis not a good one. Fine phrases do not make wrong deeds right. It werewiser to take Jessica for the handsome and voluptuous girl thatcertainly she is, and to leave her rectitude out of the question. Shakespeare in his drawing of her was true to nature, as he always is;but the student who wants to know where Shakespeare's heart was placedwhen he drew women must look upon creatures very different from Jessica. The women that Shakespeare seems peculiarly to have loved are Imogen, Cordelia, Isabella, Rosalind, and Portia--Rosalind, perhaps, most ofall; for although Portia is finer than Rosalind, it is extremelyprobable that Shakespeare resembled his fellow-men sufficiently to havefelt the preference that Tom Moore long afterward expressed:

 "Be an angel, my love, in the morning, But, oh! be a woman to-night. "

When Ellen Terry embodied Portia--in Henry Irving's magnificent revivalof _The Merchant of Venice_--the essential womanhood of that characterwas for the first time in the modern theatre adequately interpreted andconveyed. Upon many play-going observers indeed the wonderful wealth ofbeauty that is in the part--its winsome grace, its incessant sparkle, its alluring because piquant as well as luscious sweetness, itsimpetuous ardour, its enchantment of physical equally with emotionalcondition, its august morality, its perfect candour, and its noblepassion--came like a surprise. Did the great actress find thoseattributes in the part (they asked themselves), or did she infuse theminto it? Previous representatives of Portia had placed the emphasischiefly, if not exclusively, upon morals and mind. The stage Portia ofthe past has usually been a didactic lady, self-contained, formal, conventional, and oratorical. Ellen Terry came, and Portia was figuredexactly as she lives in the pages of Shakespeare--an imperial and yet anenchanting woman, dazzling in her beauty, royal in her dignity, asardent in temperament as she is fine in brain and various and splendidin personal peculiarities and feminine charm. After seeing thatmatchless impersonation it seemed strange that Portia should ever havebeen represented in any other light, and it was furthermore felt thatthe inferior, mechanical, utilitarian semblance of her could not againbe endured. Ellen Terry's achievement was a complete vindication of thehigh view that Shakespearean study has almost always taken of thatcharacter, and it finally discredited the old stage notion that Portiais a type of decorum and declamation. 

Aside from Hazlitt, who thought that Portia is affected and pedantic, and who did not like her because he did not happen to appreciate her, the best analytical thinkers about Shakespeare's works have taken thehigh view of that character. Shakespeare himself certainly took it; foraside from her own charming behaviour and delightful words it is to beobserved that everybody in the play who speaks of her at all speaks herpraise. It is only upon the stage that she has been made artificial, prim, and preachy. That misrepresentation of her has, perhaps, beencaused, in part, by the practice long prevalent in our theatre ofcutting and compressing the play so as to make Shylock the chief figurein it. In that way Portia is shorn of much of her splendour and hermeaning. The old theatrical records dwell almost exclusively uponShylock, and say little if anything about Portia. In Shakespeare's time, no doubt, _The Merchant of Venice_ was acted as it is written, thefemale persons in it being played by boys, or by men who could "speaksmall. " Alexander Cooke (1588-1614) played the light heroines ofShakespeare while the poet was alive. All students of the subject areaware that Burbage was the first Shylock, and that when he played thepart he wore a red wig, a red beard, and a long false nose. No recordexists as to the first Portia. The men who were acting female charactersupon the London stage when that institution was revived immediatelyafter the Restoration were Kynaston, James Nokes, Angel, WilliamBetterton, Mosely, and Floid. Kynaston, it is said, could act a woman sowell that when at length women themselves began to appear as actors itwas for some time doubted whether any one of them could equal him. Theaccount of his life, however, does not mention Portia as one of hischaracters. 

Indeed the play of _The Merchant of Venice_, after it languished out ofsight in that decadence of the stage which ensued upon the growth of thePuritan movement in England, did not again come into use until it wasrevived in Lord Landsdowne's alteration of it produced at the theatre inLincoln's Inn Fields in 1701, and even then it was grossly perverted. Forty years later, however, on St. Valentine's Day 1741, at Drury Lane, when Macklin regenerated the character of Shylock, the original piecewas restored to the theatre. Women in the meantime had come upon thestage. The garrulous and delightful Pepys, who had seen Kynaston play afemale part, records in his marvellous Diary that he first saw women asactors on January 3, 1661. Those were members of Killigrew's company, which preceded that of Davenant by several months, if not by a year; andtherefore the common statement in theatrical books that the first womanthat ever appeared on the English stage was Mrs. Sanderson, ofDavenant's company, at Lincoln's Inn Fields, is erroneous: and indeedthe name of the first English actress is as much unknown as the name ofthe first Portia. When Macklin restored Shakespeare's _Merchant ofVenice_ to the stage it is not likely that the character of Portia wasdwarfed, for its representative then was Kitty Clive, and that actresswas a person of strong will. With Clive the long list begins of thePortias of the stage. She was thirty years old when she played the partwith Macklin, and it is probable that she played it with dignity andcertain that she played it with sparkling animation and piquant grace. The German Ulrici, whose descriptive epithets for Portia are "roguishand intellectual, " would doubtless have found his ideal of the partfulfilled in Clive. The Nerissa that night was Mrs. Pritchard, then alsothirty years old, but not so famous as she afterward became. 

The greatest actress on the British stage in the eighteenth centuryundoubtedly was Margaret Woffington (1719-1760). Sarah Siddons, to whomthe sceptre passed, was only five years old when Woffington died. Boththose brilliant names are associated with Portia. Augustin Daly's _Lifeof Woffington_--the best life of her that has been written, and one ofthe most sumptuous books that have been made--contains this reference toher performance of that part: "All her critics agree that herdeclamation was accurate and her gesture grace and nature combined; butin tragic or even dramatic speeches her voice probably had its limits, and in such scenes, being overtaxed, told against her. As Portia sheappeared to great advantage; but when Lorenzo says, 'This is the voice, or I am much deceived, of Portia, ' and Portia replies, 'He knows me, asthe blind man knows the cuckoo, by the bad voice, ' the audience laughedoutright, and Woffington, conscious of her deficiency, with greatgood-humour joined with them in their merriment. " The incident ismentioned in the _Table Talk_ (1825) of Richard Ryan, to which book Dalyrefers. Mrs. Siddons made her first appearance on the London stage asPortia December 29, 1775, and conspicuously failed in the part on thatoccasion, but she became distinguished in it afterward; yet it isprobable that Mrs. Siddons expressed its nobility more than itstenderness, and much more than its buoyant and glittering glee, whichwas so entirely and beautifully given by Ellen Terry. After PegWoffington and before Mrs. Siddons the most conspicuous Portia was Mrs. Dancer, whom Hugh Kelley, in his satirical composition of _Thespis_, calls a "moon-eyed idiot, "--from which barbarous bludgeon phrase thereader derives a hint as to her aspect. Some of the tones of Mrs. Dancer's voice were so tender that no one could resist them. SprangerBarry could not, for he married her, and after his death she became Mrs. Crawford. Miss Maria Macklin, daughter of the first true Shylock of thestage, acted Portia, April 13, 1776, with her father. She is recorded asan accomplished woman but destitute of genius--in which predicament sheprobably was not lonesome. On June 11, 1777 Portia was acted at theHaymarket by Miss Barsanti, afterward Mrs. Lister, an actress who, sinceshe excelled in such parts as were customarily taken by Fanny Abington(the distinct opposite of Portia-like characters), must have beenunsuited for it. The names of Miss Younge, Miss Farren, Miss E. Kemble, Miss Ryder, Mrs. Pope, Miss De Camp, and Miss Murray are in the recordof the stage Portias that comes down to 1800. Probably the best of allthose Portias was Mrs. Pope. 

The beautiful Mrs. Glover played Portia in 1809 at the Haymarkettheatre. Mrs. Ogilvie played it, with Macready as Shylock (his firstappearance in that part), on May 13, 1823. Those figures passed and leftno shadow. Two English actresses of great fame are especially associatedwith Portia--Ellen Tree, afterward Mrs. Charles Kean, and Helen Faucit, now Lady Martin; and no doubt their assumptions of the part should bemarked as exceptions from the hard, didactic, declamatory, perfunctorymethod that has customarily characterised the Portia of the stage. LadyMartin's written analysis of Portia is noble in thought and subtle andtender in penetration and sympathy. Charlotte Cushman read the textsuperbly, but she was much too formidable ever to venture on assumingthe character. Portia is a woman who deeply loves and deeply rejoicesand exults in her love, and she is never ashamed of her passion or ofher exultation in it; and she says the finest things about love that aresaid by any of Shakespeare's women; the finest because, while supremelypassionate, the feeling in them is perfectly sane. It is as a lover thatEllen Terry embodied her, and while she made her a perfect woman, in allthe attributes that fascinate, she failed not, in the wonderful trialscene, to invest her with that fine light of celestial anger--thatmomentary thrill of moral austerity--which properly appertains to thecharacter at the climax of a solemn and almost tragical situation. 

On the American stage there have been many notable representatives ofthe chief characters in _The Merchant of Venice_. In New York, when thecomedy was done at the old John Street theatre in 1773, Hallam wasShylock and Mrs. Morris Portia. Twenty years afterward, at the samehouse, Shylock was played by John Henry, and Portia by Mrs. Henry, whilethe brilliant Hodgkinson appeared as Gratiano. Cooper, whose life hasbeen so well written by that ripe theatrical scholar Joseph N. Ireland, in one of the books of the Dunlap Society, assumed Shylock in 1797 atthe theatre just then opened in Greenwich Street. The famous MissBrunton (then Mrs. Merry), was the Portia, and the cast included Moretonas Bassanio, Warren as Antonio, Bernard as Gratiano, and Blissett asTubal. How far away and how completely lost and forgotten those oncedistinguished and admired persons are! Yet Cooper in his day wasidolised: he had a fame as high, if not as widely spread, as that ofHenry Irving or Edwin Booth at present. William Creswick--lately dead atan advanced age in London--was seen upon the New York stage as Shylockin 1840; Macready in 1841; Charles Kean in 1845. With the latter, EllenTree played Portia. Charles W. Couldock enacted Shylock on September 6, 1852, at the Castle Garden theatre, in a performance given tocommemorate the alleged centenary of the introduction of the drama intoAmerica. The elder Wallack, the elder Booth, Edwin Forrest, G. V. Brooke, George Vandenhoff, Wyzeman Marshall, and E. L. Davenport are among theold local representatives of the Jew. Madam Ponisi used to play Portia, and so did Mrs. Hoey. 

In December 1858, when _The Merchant of Venice_ was finely revived atWallack's theatre, with the elder Wallack as Shylock, the cast includedLester Wallack as Bassanio, John Brougham as Gratiano, A. W. Young--aquaintly comic actor, too soon cut off--as Launcelot Gobbo, MaryGannon--the fascinating, the irresistible--as Nerissa, and handsome Mrs. Sloan as Jessica. The eminent German actor Davison played Shylock, inNew York, in his own language; and many German actors, no one of themcomparable with him, have been seen in it since. Lawrence Barrett oftenplayed it, and with remarkable force and feeling. The triumphs won in itby Edwin Booth are within the remembrance of many playgoers of thisgeneration. When he last acted the Jew Helena Modjeska was associatedwith him as Portia. Booth customarily ended the piece with the trialscene, omitting the last act; and indeed that was long the stage custom;but with the true Portia of Ellen Terry and a good cast in general thelast act went blithely and with superb effect. The comedy was notwritten for Shylock alone. He is a tremendous identity, but he is notthe chief subject. The central theme is Portia and her love. That themetakes up a large part of the play, --which is like a broad summerlandscape strewn with many-coloured flowers that flash and glitter inthe sun, while slowly a muttering thunder-storm gathers and lowers, andpresently sweeps overhead, casting one black shadow as it passes, andleaving the fragrant and glistening plain all the brighter and sweeterfor the contrast with its defeated menace and vanishing gloom. 

XX. 

RICHARD MANSFIELD AS RICHARD THE THIRD. 

The ideal of Richard that was expressed by this actor did not materiallydiffer from that which has been manifested by great tragic actors fromGarrick to Booth. He embodied a demoniac scoffer who, nevertheless, is ahuman being. The infernal wickedness of Richard was shown to be impelledby tremendous intellect but slowly enervated and ultimately thwarted andruined by the cumulative operation of remorse--corroding at the heartand finally blasting the man with desolation and frenzy. That, undoubtedly, was Shakespeare's design. But Richard Mansfield'sexpression of that ideal differed from the expression to which the stagehas generally been accustomed, and in this respect his impersonation wasdistinctive and original. 

The old custom of playing Richard was to take the exaggerated statementsof the opening soliloquy in a literal sense, to provide him with a bighump, a lame leg, and a fell of straight black hair, and to make himwalk in, scowling, with his lower lip protruded, and declare withsnarling vehemence and guttural vociferation his amiable purpose ofspecious duplicity and miscellaneous slaughter. The opening speech, which is in Shakespeare's juvenile manner--an orotund, verbose manner, which perhaps he had caught from Marlowe, and which he outgrew andabandoned--was thus utilised for displaying the character in a massedaspect, as that of a loathsome hypocrite and sanguinary villain; and, that being done, he was made to advance through about two-thirds of thetragedy, airily yet ferociously slaying everybody who came in his way, until at some convenient point, definable at the option of the actor, hewas suddenly smitten with a sufficient remorse to account for histrepidation before and during the tent-scene; and thereafter he waslaunched into combat like a meteoric butcher, all frenzy and all gore, and killed, amid general acclamation, when he had fenced himself out ofbreath. 

That treatment of the character was, doubtless, in part a necessaryconsequence of Shakespeare's perfunctory adoption of the Tudor doctrinethat Richard was a blood-boltered monster; but in a larger degree it wasthe result of Cibber's vulgar distortion of the original piece. Theactual character of the king, --who seems to have been one of the ablestand wisest monarchs that ever reigned in England--has never recovered, and it never will recover, from the odium that was heaped upon it by theTudor historians and accepted and ratified by the great genius ofShakespeare. The stage character of the king has been almost aseffectually damned by the ingenious theatrical claptrap with whichCibber misrepresented and vulgarised Shakespeare's conception, assistedby the efforts of a long line of blood-and-thunder tragedians, only toowell pleased to depict a gory, blathering, mugging miscreant, such astheir limited intelligence enabled them to comprehend. The stageRichard, however, may possibly be redeemed. In Cibber he is everythingthat Queen Margaret calls him, and worse than a brute. In Shakespeare, although a miscreant, he is a man. The return to Shakespeare, accordingly, is a step in the right direction. That step was taken sometime ago, although not maintained, first by Macready, then by SamuelPhelps, then by Edwin Booth, and then by Henry Irving. Their goodexample was followed by Richard Mansfield. He used a version of thetragedy, made by himself, --a piece indicative of thoughtful study of thesubject as well as a keen intuitive grasp of it. He did not stop shortat being a commentator. Aiming to impersonate a character he treatedShakespeare's prolix play in such a manner as to make it a practicableliving picture of a past age. The version was in five acts, preservingthe text of the original, much condensed, and introducing a few linesfrom Cibber. It began with a bright processional scene before the Towerof London, in which Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV. , was conspicuous, andagainst that background of "glorious summer" it placed the dangerousfigure of the Duke of Gloster. It comprised the murder of Henry VI. , thewooing of Lady Anne, --not in a London street, but in a rural place, onthe road to Chertsey; the lamentation for King Edward IV. ; the episodeof the boy princes; the condemnation of Hastings, --a scene thatbrilliantly denotes the mingled artifice and savagery of Shakespeare'sGloster; the Buckingham plot; the priest and mayor scene; thetemptation of Tyrrel; the fall of Buckingham; the march to battle; theepisode of the spectres; and the fatal catastrophe on Bosworth Field. Enough of the story was thus related to satisfy the Shakespeare scholar. 

The notable peculiarity was the assumption that there are considerablelapses of time at intervals during the continuance of the story. Theeffort to reconcile poetry with history produced little if anyappreciable practical result upon the stage, --seeing that an audiencewould not think of lapses of time unless those lapses were mentioned inthe play-bill. An incessant continuity of action, a ceaseless rush andwhirl of events, is the essential life of the play. No auditor can feelthat Richard has waited twelve years before making any movement orstriking any blow, after his aspiration that heaven will take KingEdward and leave the world for him "to bustle in. " That word "bustle" isa favourite word with Richard. And furthermore there is no developmentof his character in Shakespeare's play: there is simply the presentationof it, complete and rounded at the outset, and remaining invariably andinflexibly the same to the close. 

Mansfield, however, deduced this effect from his consideration of theflight of time: a contrast between Richard at nineteen and Richard atthirty-three, a contrast strongly expressive of the reactionaryinfluence that an experience of evil deeds has produced upon a man whoat first was only a man of evil thoughts and evil will. This importedinto the performance a diversity of delineation without, however, affecting the formidable weight of the figure of Richard, or itsbrilliancy, or its final significance. The embodiment was splendid withit, and would be just as splendid without it. The presence of heart andconscience in that demoniac human creature is denoted by Shakespeare andmust be shown by the actor. Precisely at what point his heaven-defyingwill should begin to waver is not defined. Mansfield chose to indicatethe operation of remorse and terror in Richard's soul as early as thethrone scene and before yet the king has heard that the royal boys havebeen murdered. The effect of his action, equally with the method of it, was magnificent. You presently saw him possessed of the throne for whichhe had so terribly toiled and sinned, and alone upon it, bathed inblood-red light, the pitiable personification of gorgeous but hauntedevil, marked off from among mankind and henceforth desolate. Throughoutthat fine scene Mansfield's portrayal of the fearful struggle betweenwicked will and human weakness was in a noble vein of imagination, profound in its sincerity, affecting in its pathos, and pictorial in itstreatment. In the earlier scenes his mood and his demeanour had beensuffused with a cool, gay, mockery of elegant cynicism. He killed KingHenry with a smile, in a scene of gloomy mystery that might have comefrom the pencil of Gustave Dore. He looked upon the mourning Lady Annewith cheerful irony and he wooed her with all the fervour that passionand pathos can engender in the behaviour of a hypocrite. Hisdissimulation with the princes and with the mayor and the nobles was tothe last degree specious. One of his finest points was the temptation ofBuckingham to murder the princes. There, and indeed at all points, wasobserved the absence of even the faintest reminiscence of the ranting, mouthing, flannel-jawed king of clubs who has so generally strutted andbellowed as Shakespeare's Gloster. All was bold and telling in themanner, and yet the manner was reticent with nature and fine withwell-bred continence. 

With the throne scene began the spiritual conflict. At least it thenbegan to be disclosed; and from that moment onward the state of Richardwas seen to be that of Orestes pursued by the furies. But Mansfield wasright, and was consistent, in making the monarch faithful in hisdevotion to evil. Richard's presentiments, pangs, and tremors areintermittent. In the great, empty, darkening throne-room, with itsshadowy nooks and dim corners, shapeless and nameless spectres maymomentarily come upon him and shake his strong spirit with the sinistermenace of hell. Along the dark plains, on the fateful night before thebattle, the sad ghosts may drift and wander, moaning and wailing in theghastly gloom; and in that hour of haunted desolation the doomed kingmay feel that, after all, he is but mortal man, and that his pre-ordereddestruction is close at hand and not to be averted; but Richard neverdeceives himself; never palters with the goodness that he has scorned. He dies as he has lived, defiant and terrible. 

Mansfield's treatment of the ghost scenes at Bosworth was novel, original, and poetic, and his death scene was not only a display ofpersonal prowess but a reproduction of historical fact. With a detaillike this the truth of history becomes useful, but in general the actorcannot safely go back of the Shakespearean scheme. To present Richard ashe probably was would be to present a man of some virtue as well asgreat ability. Mansfield's acting revealed an amiable desire to infuseas much goodness as possible into the Shakespearean conception, but heobtained his chief success by acting the part substantially according toShakespeare and by setting and dressing the play with exceptional if notaltogether exact fidelity to the time, the places, and the persons thatare implicated in the story. 

Shakespeare's Richard is a type of colossal will and of restless, inordinate, terrific activity. The objects of his desire and his effortare those objects which are incident to supreme power; but his chiefobject is that assertion of himself which is irresistibly incited andsteadfastly compelled by the overwhelming, seething, acrid energy of hisfeverish soul, burning and raging in his fiery body. He can no more helpprojecting himself upon the affairs of the world than the malignantcobra can help darting upon its prey. He is a vital, elemental force, grisly, hectic, terrible, impelled by volcanic heat and electrified andmade lurid and deadly by the infernal purpose of restless wickedness. Noactor can impersonate Richard in an adequate manner who does not possesstranscendent force of will, combined with ambitious, incessant, andrestless mental activity. Mansfield in those respects is qualified forthe character, and out of his professional resources he was able tosupply the other elements that are requisite to its constitution andfulfilment. He presented as Richard a sardonic, scoffing demon, whonevertheless, somewhere in his complex nature, retains an element ofhumanity. He embodied a character that is tragic in its ultimate effect, but his method was that of the comedian. His portrayal of Richard, except at those moments when it is veiled with craft and dissimulation, or at those other and grander moments, infrequent but awful andagonising, when it is convulsed with terror or with the anguish ofremorse, stood forth boldly in the sunshine, a crystallised and deadlysarcasm, equally trenchant upon itself and all the world, equallyscornful of things human and things divine. That deadly assumption ofkeen and mordant mockery, that cool, glittering, malignant lightness ofmanner, was consistently sustained throughout the performance, while thetexture of it was made continuously entertaining by diversity of colourand inflection, sequent on changing moods; so that Richard was shown asa creature of the possible world of mankind and not as a fiction of thestage. 

The part was acted by him: it was not declaimed. He made, indeed, askilful use of his uncommon voice--keeping its tones light, sweet, andsuperficial during the earlier scenes (while yet, in accordance with histheory of development, Gloster is the personification of evil purposeonly beginning to ripen into evil deed), and then permitting them tobecome deeper and more significant and thrilling as the man grows old incrime and haggard and convulsed in self-conflict and misery. But it wasless with vocal excellence that the auditor was impressed than with theactor's identification with the part and his revelation of the soul ofit. When first presented Gloster was a mocking devil. The murder ofKing Henry was done with malice, but the malice was enwrapped with glee. In the wooing of Lady Anne there was both heart and passion, but themood was that of lightsome duplicity. It is not until years of schemingand of evil acts, engendering, promoting, and sustaining a condition ofmental horror and torture, have ravaged his person and set their sealupon him, in sunken cheek and hollow eye, in shattered nerves and deepand thrilling voice, surcharged at once with inveterate purpose and withincessant agony, that this light manner vanishes, and the demeanour andaction of the wicked monarch becomes ruthless, direct, and terrible. Whether, upon the basis of a play so discursive, so episodical, soirresolutely defined as Shakespeare's _Richard the Third_, that theoryof the development of its central character is logically tenable is adubious question. In Shakespeare the character is presented full-grownat the start, and then, through a confused tangle of historical events, is launched into action. Nevertheless in his practical application of itMansfield made his theory effective by a novel, powerful, interestingperformance. You could not help perceiving in Mansfield's embodimentthat Gloster was passing through phases of experience--that the manchanged, as men do change in life, the integral character remaining thesame in its original fibre, but the condition varying, in accordancewith the reaction of conduct upon temperament and conscience. 

Mansfield deeply moved his audience in the repulse of Buckingham, in themoody menace of the absent Stanley, in the denunciation of Hastings, andin the awakening from the dream on the night before the battle. Playgoers have seldom seen a dramatic climax so thrilling as hishysterical recognition of Catesby, after the moment of doubt whetherthis be not also a phantom of his terrific dream. It was not so much bystartling theatrical effects, however, as by subtle denotements, now ofthe tempest and now of the brooding horror in the king's heart, that theactor gained his victory. The embodiment lacked incessant fieryexpedition--the explosive, meteoric quality that astounds and dazzles. Chief among the beauties was imagination. The attitude of the monarchtoward his throne--the infernal triumph, and yet the remorseful agonyand withering fear--in the moment of ghastly loneliness when he knowsthat the innocent princes have been murdered and that his imperialpathway is clear, made up one of the finest spectacles of dramaticillumination that the stage has afforded. You saw the murderer's hideousexultation, and then, in an instant, as the single ray of red light fromthe setting sun streamed through the Gothic window and fell upon hisevil head, you saw him shrink in abject fear, cowering in the shadow ofhis throne; and the dusky room was seemingly peopled with glidingspectres. That treatment was theatrical, but in no derogatory sensetheatrical--for it comports with the great speech on conscience; not thefustian of Cibber, about mutton and short-lived pleasure, but the speechthat Shakespeare has put into Richard's mouth; the speech that inspiredMansfield's impersonation--the brilliant embodiment of an intellectualman, predisposed to evil, who yields to that inherent impulse, andthereafter, although intermittently convulsed with remorse, fights withtremendous energy against the goodness that he scorns and defies, tillat last he dashes himself to pieces against the adamant of eternal law. 

XXI. 

GENEVIEVE WARD: FORGET ME NOT. 

In the season of 1880-81 Genevieve Ward made a remarkably brilliant hitwith her embodiment of Stephanie De Mohrivart, in the play of _Forget MeNot_, by Herman Merivale, and since then she has acted that partliterally all round the world. It was an extraordinaryperformance--potent with intellectual character, beautiful withrefinement, nervous and steel-like with indomitable purpose and icyglitter, intense with passion, painfully true to an afflicting ideal ofreality, and at last splendidly tragic: and it was a shining example ofductile and various art. Such a work ought surely to be recorded as oneof the great achievements of the stage. Genevieve Ward showed herself topossess in copious abundance peculiar qualities of power and beauty uponwhich mainly the part of Stephanie is reared. The points of assimilationbetween the actress and the part were seen to consist in an imperialforce of character, intellectual brilliancy, audacity of mind, ironwill, perfect elegance of manners, a profound self-knowledge, andunerring intuitions as to the relation of motive and conduct in thatvast network of circumstance which is the social fabric. Stephaniepossesses all those attributes; and all those attributes Genevieve Wardsupplied, with the luxuriant adequacy and grace of nature. But Stephaniesuperadds to those attributes a bitter, mocking cynicism, thinly veiledby artificial suavity and logically irradiant from natural hardness ofheart, coupled with an insensibility that has been engendered by cruelexperience of human selfishness. This, together with a certain mysticaltouch of the animal freedom, whether in joy or wrath, that goes with abeing having neither soul nor conscience, the actress had to supply--anddid supply--by her art. As interpreted by Genevieve Ward the characterwas reared, not upon a basis of unchastity but upon a basis ofintellectual perversion. Stephanie has followed--at first withself-contempt, afterward with sullen indifference, finally with the boldand brilliant hardihood of reckless defiance--a life of crime. She isaudacious, unscrupulous, cruel; a consummate tactician; almost sexless, yet a siren in knowledge and capacity to use the arts of her sex;capable of any wickedness to accomplish an end, yet trivial enough tohave no higher end in view than the reinvestiture of herself with socialrecognition; cold as snow; implacable as the grave; remorseless; wicked;but, beneath all this depravity, capable of self-pity, capable ofmomentary regret, capable of a little human tenderness, aware of theglory of the innocence she has lost, and thus not altogether beyond thepale of compassion. And she is, in externals, --in everything visible andaudible, --the ideal of grace and melody. 

In the presence of an admirable work of art the observer wishes that itwere entirely worthy of being performed and that it were entirely clearand sound as to its applicability--in a moral sense, or even in anintellectual sense--to human life. Art does not go far when it stopsshort at the revelation of the felicitous powers of the artist; and itis not altogether right when it tends to beguile sympathy with anunworthy object and perplex a spectator's perceptions as to good andevil. Genevieve Ward's performance of Stephanie, brilliant though itwas, did not redeem the character from its bleak exile from humansympathy. The actress managed, by a scheme of treatment exclusively herown, to make Stephanie, for two or three moments, piteous and forlorn;and her expression of that evanescent anguish--occurring in the appealto Sir Horace Welby, her friendly foe, in the strong scene of the secondact--was wonderfully subtle. That appeal, as Genevieve Ward made it, began in artifice, became profoundly sincere, and then was stunned andstartled into a recoil of resentment by a harsh rebuff, whereupon itsubsided through hysterical levity into frigid and brittle sarcasm andgay defiance. For a while, accordingly, the feelings of the observerwere deeply moved. Yet this did not make the character of Stephanie lessdetestable. The blight remains upon it--and always must remain--that itrepels the interest of the heart. The added blight likewise rests uponit (though this is of less consequence to a spectator), that it isburdened with moral sophistry. Vicious conduct in a woman, according toStephanie's logic, is not more culpable or disastrous than viciousconduct in a man: the woman, equally with the man, should have a sociallicense to sow the juvenile wild oats and effect the middle-agedreformation; and it is only because there are gay young men who indulgein profligacy that women sometimes become adventurers and moralmonsters. All this is launched forth in speeches of singular terseness, eloquence, and vigour; but all this is specious and mischievousperversion of the truth--however admirably in character from Stephanie'slips. Every observer who has looked carefully upon the world is awarethat the consequences of wrongdoing by a woman are vastly morepernicious than those of wrongdoing by a man; that society could notexist in decency, if to its already inconvenient coterie of reformedrakes it were to add a legion of reformed wantons; and that it is innatewickedness and evil propensity that makes such women as Stephanie, andnot the mere existence of the wild young men who are willing to becometheir comrades--and who generally end by being their dupes and victims. It is natural, however, that this adventurer--who has kept agambling-hell and ruined many a man, soul and body, and who now wishesto reinstate herself in a virtuous social position--should thus striveto palliate her past proceedings. Self-justification is one of thefirst laws of life. Even Iago, who never deceives himself, yet announcesone adequate motive for his fearful crimes. Even Bulwer's Margrave--thatprodigy of evil, that cardinal type of infernal, joyous, animaldepravity--can yet paint himself in the light of harmless loveliness andinnocent gayety. 

_Forget Me Not_ tells a thin story, but its story has been made to yieldexcellent dramatic pictures, splendid moments of intellectual combat, and affecting contrasts of character. The dialogue, particularly in thesecond act, is as strong and as brilliant as polished steel. In thatcombat of words Genevieve Ward's acting was delicious with trenchantskill and fascinating variety. The easy, good-natured, bantering airwith which the strife began, the liquid purity of the tones, thedelicate glow of the arch satire, the icy glitter of the thought andpurpose beneath the words, the transition into pathos and back againinto gay indifference and deadly hostility, the sudden and terrible moodof menace, when at length the crisis had passed and the evil genius hadwon its temporary victory--all those were in perfect taste andconsummate harmony. Seeing that brilliant, supple, relentless, formidable figure, and hearing that incisive, bell-like voice, thespectator was repelled and attracted at the same instant, and thoroughlybewildered with the sense of a power and beauty as hateful as they werepuissant. Not since Ristori acted Lucretia Borgia has the stageexhibited such an image of imperial will, made radiant with beauty andelectric with flashes of passion. The leopard and the serpent are fatal, terrible, and loathsome; yet they scarcely have a peer among nature'ssupreme symbols of power and grace. Into the last scene of _Forget MeNot_, --when at length Stephanie is crushed by physical fear, throughbeholding, unseen by him, the man who would kill her as a malignant anddangerous reptile, --Genevieve Ward introduced such illustrative"business, " not provided by the piece, as greatly enhanced the finaleffect. The backward rush from the door, on seeing the Corsican avengeron the staircase, and therewithal the incidental, involuntary cry ofterror, was the invention of the actress: and from that moment to thefinal exit she was the incarnation of abject fear. The situation is oneof the strongest that dramatic ingenuity has invented: the actressinvested it with a colouring of pathetic and awful truth. 

XXII. 

EDWARD S. WILLARD IN THE MIDDLEMAN AND JUDAH. 

E. S. Willard accomplished his first appearance upon the American stage(at Palmer's theatre, November 10, 1890), in the powerful play of _TheMiddleman_, by Henry Arthur Jones. A representative audience welcomedthe modest and gentle stranger and the greeting that hailed him was thatof earnest respect. Willard had long been known and esteemed in New Yorkby the dramatic profession and by those persons who habitually observethe changeful aspects of the contemporary stage on both sides of theocean; but to the American public his name had been comparativelystrange. The sentiment of kindness with which he was received deepenedinto admiration as the night wore on, and before the last curtain fellupon his performance of Cyrus Blenkarn he had gained an unequivocal andauspicious victory. In no case has the first appearance of a new actorbeen accompanied with a more brilliant exemplification of simple worth;and in no case has its conquest of the public enthusiasm been moredecisive. Not the least impressive feature of the night was the steadilyincreasing surprise of the audience as the performance proceeded. It wasthe actor's way to build slowly, and at the opening of the piece thepoor inventor's blind ignorance of the calamity that is impending ischiefly trusted to create essential sympathy. Through those moments ofapproaching sorrow the sweet unconsciousness of the loving father wasexpressed by Willard with touching truth. In this he astonished even asmuch as he pleased his auditors; for they were not expecting it. 

One of the most exquisite enjoyments provided by the stage is the adventof a new actor who is not only new but good. It is the pleasure ofdiscovery. It is the pleasure of contact with a rich mind hithertounexplored. The personal appearance, the power of the eye, the varietyof the facial expression, the tones of the voice, the carriage of theperson, the salient attributes of the individual character, the altitudeof the intellectual development, the quality of the spirit, the extentand the nature of those artistic faculties and resources that constitutethe professional equipment, --all those things become the subject firstof interested inquiry and next of pleased recognition. Willard isneither of the stately, the weird, the mysterious, nor the ferociousorder of actor. There is nothing in him of either Werner, Manfred, orSir Giles Overreach. He belongs not to either the tradition of JohnKemble or of Edmund Kean. His personality, nevertheless, is of adistinctive and interesting kind. He has the self-poise and the exaltedcalm of immense reserve power and of tender and tremulous sensibilityperfectly controlled. His acting is conspicuously marked by two of theloveliest attributes of art--simplicity and sincerity. He concealsneither the face nor the heart. His figure is fine and his demeanour isthat of vigorous mental authority informed by moral purity and by theself-respect of a manly spirit. Goodness, although a quality seldomtaken into the critical estimate, nevertheless has its part in spiritualconstitution and in consequent effect. It was, for instance, an elementof artistic potentiality in the late John McCullough. It operatedspontaneously; and just so it does in the acting of Willard, who, firstof all, gives the satisfying impression of being genuine. A direct andthorough method of expression naturally accompanies that order of mindand that quality of temperament. Every movement that Willard makes uponthe stage is clear, free, open, firm, and of an obvious significance. Every tone of his rich and resonant voice is distinctly intended and isdistinctly heard. There are no "flaws and starts. " He has formed aprecise ideal. He knows exactly how to embody and to utter it, and hemakes the manifestation of it sharp, defined, positive, and cogent. Hismeaning cannot be missed. He has an unerring sense of proportion andsymmetry. The character that he represents is shown, indeed, all atonce, as a unique identity; but it is not all at once developed, themanifestation of it being made gradually to proceed under the stress ofexperience and of emotion. He rises with the occasion. His feelings aredeep, and he is possessed of extraordinary power for the utterance ofthem--not simply vocal power, although that, in his case, isexceptional, but the rare faculty of becoming convulsed, inspired, transfigured, by passion, and of being swept along by it, and ofsweeping along his hearers. His manner covers, without concealing, greatintensity. This is such a combination of traits as must have existed--ifthe old records are read aright--in that fine and famous actor, JohnHenderson, and which certainly existed in the late Benjamin Webster. Ithas, however, always been rare upon the stage, and, like all rarejewels, it is precious. The actor who, from an habitual mood of sweetgravity and patient gentleness, can rise to the height of deliriouspassion, and there sustain himself at a poise of tempestuousconcentration which is the fulfilment of nature, and never once seemeither ludicrous or extravagant, is an actor of splendid power andextraordinary self-discipline. Such an actor is Willard. The blue eyes, the slightly olive complexion, the compact person, the picturesqueappearance, the melodious voice, the flexibility of natural action, andthe gradual and easy ascent from the calm level of domestic peace to thestormy summit of passionate ecstasy recall personal peculiarities andartistic methods long passed away. The best days of Edwin L. Davenportand the younger James Wallack are brought to mind by them. 

In the drama of _The Middleman_ Willard had to impersonate an inventor, of the absorbed, enthusiastic, self-regardless, fanatical kind. CyrusBlenkarn is a potter. His genius and his toil have enriched two personsnamed Chandler, father and son, who own and conduct a porcelain factoryin an English town of the present day. Blenkarn has two daughters, andone of them is taken from him by the younger Chandler. The circumstancesof that deprivation point at disgrace, and the inventor conceiveshimself to have suffered an odious ignominy and irreparable wrong. YoungChandler has departed and so has Mary Blenkarn, and they are eventuallyto return as husband and wife; but Cyrus Blenkarn has been aroused fromhis reveries over the crucible and furnace, --wherein he is striving todiscover a lost secret in the potter's art that will make him both richand famous, --and he utters a prayer for vengeance upon these Chandlers, and he parts from them. A time of destitution and of pitiful strugglewith dire necessity, sleepless grief, and the maddening impulse ofvengeance now comes upon him, so that he is wasted almost to death. Hewill not, however, abandon his quest for the secret of his art. He maydie of hunger and wretchedness; he will not yield. At the last momentof his trial and his misery--alone--at night--in the alternate luridblaze and murky gloom of his firing-house--success is conquered: thesecret is found. This climax, to which the preliminaries gradually andartfully lead, affords a great opportunity to an actor; and Willardgreatly filled it. The old inventor has been bowed down almost todespair. Grief and destitution, the sight of his remaining daughter'spoverty, and the conflict of many feelings have made him a wreck. Buthis will remains firm. It is not, however, until his last hope has beenabandoned that his success suddenly comes--and the result of this is adelirium. That situation, one of the best in modern drama, has beentreated by the author in such a manner as to sustain for a long time thefeeling of suspense and to put an enormous strain upon the emotion andthe resources of an actor. Willard's presentment of the gaunt, attenuated figure of Cyrus Blenkarn--hollow-eyed, half-frantic, hysterical with grief and joy--was the complete incarnation of adramatic frensy; and this, being sympathetic, and moving to goodness andnot to evil, captured the heart. It was a magnificent exhibition, notalone of the physical force that sometimes is so essential in acting butof that fervour of the soul without which acting is a mockery. 

The skill with which Willard reserved his power, so that theimpersonation might gradually increase in strength, was one of the bestmerits of his art. Blenkarn's prayer might readily be converted into theclimax of the piece, and it might readily be spoken in such a way thatno effect would be left for the culmination in the furnace-room. Thoseerrors were avoided, and during three out of the four acts the movementof the piece was fluent, continuous, and cumulative. In this respectboth the drama and the performance were instructive. Henry Arthur Joneshas diversified his serious scenes with passages of sportive humour andhe has freighted the piece with conventional didacticism as to thewell-worn question of capital and labour. The humour is good: thepolitical economy need not detain attention. The value of the play doesnot reside in its teaching but in its dramatic presentation of strongcharacter, individual experience, and significant story. The effectproduced by _The Middleman_ is that of moral elevation. Its auditor istouched and ennobled by a spectacle of stern trial, pitiable suffering, and stoical endurance. In the purpose that presides over humandestiny--if one may accept the testimony equally of history and offiction--it appears to be necessary first to create strong charactersand then to break them; and the manner in which they are broken usuallyinvolves the elements alike of dramatic effect and of pathos. Thatsingular fact in mortal experience may have been noticed by this author. His drama is a forcible exposition of it. _The Middleman_ was set uponPalmer's stage in such a way as to strengthen the dramatic illusion bythe fidelity of scenery. The firing-house, with its furnaces inoperation, was a copy of what may be seen at Worcester. The picture ofEnglish life was excellent. 

When Willard played the part of Judah Llewellyn for the first time inAmerica (December 29, 1890), he gained from a sympathetic and judiciousaudience a verdict of emphatic admiration. Judah Llewellyn is a goodpart in one of the most striking plays of the period--a play that tellsan interesting and significant story by expressive, felicitous, andincessant action; affects the feelings by situations that are vitalwith dramatic power; inspires useful thought upon a theme ofpsychological importance; cheers the mind with a fresh breeze ofsatirical humour; and delights the instinct of taste by its crisp andpungent style. Alike by his choice of a comparatively original subjectand his deft method in the treatment of it Henry Arthur Jones has showna fine dramatic instinct; and equally in the evolution of character andthe expression of experience and emotion he has wrought with feeling andvigour. Most of the plays that are written, in any given period, passaway with the period to which they appertain. _Judah_ is one of theexceptions; for its brilliantly treated theme is one of perennialinterest, and there seems reason to believe, of a work so vital, thatlong after the present generation has vanished it still will keep itsplace in the theatre, and sometimes be acted, not as a quaint relic butas a living lesson. 

That theme is the psychic force in human organism. The author does notobtrude it; does not play the pedant with it; does not lecture upon it;and above all does not bore with it. He only uses it; and he has been sotrue to his province as a dramatist and not an advocate that he neveronce assumes to decide upon any question of doctrine that may beinvolved in the assertion of it. His heroine is a young woman who thinksherself to be possessed of a certain inherent restorative power ofcuring the sick. This power is of psychic origin and it operates throughthe medium of personal influence. This girl, Vashti Dethick, has exertedher power with some success. Other persons, having felt its good effect, have admitted its existence. The father of Vashti, an enterprisingscamp, has thereupon compelled the girl to trade upon her peculiarfaculty; little by little to assume miraculous powers; and finally topretend that her celestial talent is refreshed and strengthened byabstinence from food, and that her cures are wrought only after she hasfasted for many days. He has thus converted her into an impostor; yet, as her heart is pure and her moral principle naturally sound, she is illat ease in this false position, and her mental distress has suddenlybecome aggravated, almost to the pitch of desperation, by the arrival oflove. She has lost her heart to a young clergyman, Judah Llewellyn, thepurity of whose spirit and the beauty of whose life are a bitter andburning rebuke to her enforced deceitfulness of conduct. Here is a womaninnocently guilty, suddenly aroused by love, made sensitive and noble(as that passion commonly makes those persons who really feel it), andprojected into a condition of aggrieved excitement. In this posture ofromantic and pathetic circumstances the crisis of two lives is suddenlyprecipitated in action. 

Judah Llewellyn also is possessed of spiritual sensibility and psychicforce. In boyhood a shepherd, he has dwelt among the mountains of hisnative Wales, and his imagination has heard the voices that are in rocksand trees, in the silence of lonely places, in the desolation of thebleak hills, and in the cold light of distant stars. He is now apreacher, infatuated with his mission, inspired in his eloquence, invincible in his tremendous sincerity. He sees Vashti and he loves her. It is the first thrill of mortal passion that ever has mingled with hisdevotion to his Master's work. The attraction between these creatures ishuman; and yet it is more of heaven than of earth. It is a tie ofspiritual kindred that binds them. They are beings of a different orderfrom the common order--and, as happens in such cases, they will betried by exceptional troubles and passed through a fire of mortalanguish. For what reason experience should take the direction of miserywith fine natures in human life no philosopher has yet been able toascertain; but that it does take that direction all competentobservation proves. To Vashti and Judah the time speedily comes whentheir love is acknowledged, upon both sides--the preacher speakingplainly; the girl, conscious of turpitude, shrinking from a spokenavowal which yet her whole personality proclaims. Yielding to herfather's malign will she has consented to make one more manifestation ofcurative power, to go through once more, --and for the last time, --themockery of a pretended fast. The scene is Lord Asgarby's house; thepatient is Lord Asgarby's daughter--an only child, cursed withconstitutional debility, the foredoomed victim of premature decline. This frail creature has heard of Vashti and believes in her, and desiresand obtains her society. To Professor Dethick this is, in every sense, agolden opportunity, and he insists that the starvation test shall bethoroughly made. Lord Asgarby, willing to do anything for his idoliseddaughter, assents to the plan, and his scientific friend, cynicalProfessor Jopp, agrees, with the assistance of his erudite daughter, tosupervise the experiment. Vashti will fast for several days, and theheir of Asgarby will then be healed by her purified and exaltedinfluence. 

The principal scene of the play shows the exterior of an ancient, unusedtower of Asgarby House, in which Vashti is detained during the fast. Thegirl is supposed to be starving. Her scampish father will endeavour torelieve her. Miss Jopp is vigilant to prevent fraud. The patient isconfident. Judah, wishful to be near to the object of his adoration, hasclimbed the outer wall and is watching, beneath the window, unseen, inthe warder's seat. The time is summer, the hour midnight, and theirrevocable vow of love has been spoken. At that supreme instant, andunder conditions so natural that the picture seems one of actual life, the sin of Vashti is revealed and the man who had adored her as an angelknows her for a cheat. With a difference of circumstances thatsituation--in the fibre of it--is not new. Many a lover, male andfemale, has learned that every idol has its flaw. But the situation isnew in its dramatic structure. For Judah the discovery is a terribleone, and the resultant agony is convulsive and lamentable. He takes, however, the only course he could be expected to take: he must vindicatethe integrity of the woman whom he loves, and he commits the crime ofperjury in order to shield her reputation from disgrace. 

What will a man do for the woman whom he loves? The attributes ofindividual character are always to be considered as forces likely tomodify passion and to affect conduct. But in general the answer to thatquestion may be given in three words--anything and everything! Thehistory of nations, as of individuals, is never rightly read until it isread in the light of knowledge of the influence that has been exertedover them by women. Cleopatra, in ancient Egypt, changed the history ofRome by the ruin of Marc Antony. Another heroine recently toppledIreland down the fire-escape into the back-yard. So goes the world. InJudah, however, the crime that is done for love is pursued to itsconsequence of ever-accumulative suffering, until at length, when it hasbeen expiated by remorse and repentance, it is rectified by confessionand obliterated by pardon. No play ever taught a lesson of truth withmore cogent dramatic force. The cynical, humorous scenes aredelightful. 

Willard's representation of Cyrus Blenkarn stamped him as one of thebest actors of the age. His representation of Judah Llewellyn deepenedthat impression and reinforced it with a conviction of markedversatility. In his utterance of passion Willard showed that he hasadvanced far beyond the Romeo stage. The love that he expressed was thatof a man--intellectual, spiritual, noble, a moral being and oneessentially true. Man's love, when it is real, adores its object;hallows it; invests it with celestial attributes; and beholds it as apart of heaven. That quality of reverence was distinctly conveyed by theactor, and therefore to observers who conceive passion to be deliriousabandonment (of which any animal is capable), his ardour may have seemeddry and cold. It was nevertheless true. He made the tempestuous torrentof Judah's avowal the more overwhelming by his preliminaryself-repression and his thoughtful gentleness of reserve; for thus thehunger of desire was beautiful with devotion and tenderness; and whilethe actor's feelings seemed borne away upon a whirling tide ofirresistible impulse his exquisite art kept a perfect control of face, voice, person, demeanour, and delivery, and not once permitted a lapseinto extravagance. The character thus embodied will long be rememberedas an image of dignity, sweetness, moral enthusiasm, passionate fervour, and intellectual power; but, also, viewed as an effort in the art ofacting, it will be remembered as a type of consummate grace in theembodiment of a beautiful ideal clearly conceived. The effect ofspiritual suffering, as conveyed in the pallid countenance and ravagedfigure, in the last act, was that of noble pathos. The delivery of allthe speeches of the broken, humiliated, haunted minister was deeplytouching, not alone in music of voice but in denotement of knowledge ofhuman nature and human suffering and endurance. The actor who can playsuch a part in such a manner is not an experimental artist. Rather lethim be called--in the expressive words of one of his country's poets--

 "Sacred historian of the heart And moral nature's lord. "

XXIII. 

SALVINI AS KING SAUL AND KING LEAR. 

Salvini was grander and finer in King Saul than in any other embodimentthat he presented. He seized the idea wholly, and he executed it withaffluent power. He brought to the part every attribute necessary to itsgrandeur of form and its afflicting sympathy of spirit. His toweringphysique presented, with impressive accuracy, the Hebrew monarch, chosenof God, who was "lifted a head and shoulders above the people. " Histremulous sensibility, his knowledge of suffering, his skill indepicting it, his great resources of voice, his vigour and fineness ofaction, his exceptional commingling of largeness and gentleness--allthese attributes combined in that performance, to give magnificentreality to one of the most sublime conceptions in literature. By hispersonation of Saul Salvini added a new and an immortal figure to thestage pantheon of kings and heroes. 

Alfieri's tragedy of _Saul_ was written in 1782-83, when the haughty, impetuous, and passionate poet was thirty-four years old, and at thesuggestion of the Countess of Albany, whom he loved. He had suffered abereavement at the time, and he was in deep grief. The Countess tried toconsole him by reading the Bible, and when they came upon the narrativeof Saul the idea of the tragedy was struck out between them. The workwas written with vigorous impulse and the author has left, in hisautobiography, the remark that none of his tragedies cost him so littlelabour. _Saul_ is in five acts and it contains 1567 lines--of thatItalian _versi sciolti_ which inadequately corresponds to the blankverse of the English language. The scene is laid in the camp of Saul'sarmy. Six persons are introduced, namely, Saul, Jonathan, David, Michel, Abner, and Achimelech. The time supposed to be occupied by theaction--or rather, by the suffering--of the piece is a single day, thelast in the king's life. Act first is devoted to explanation, conveyedin warnings to David, by Jonathan, his friend, and Michel, his wife. Actsecond presents the distracted monarch, who knows that God has forsakenhim and that death is at hand. In a speech of terrible intensity herelates to Abner the story of the apparition of Samuel and the doom thatthe ghost has spoken. His children humour and soothe the broken old man, and finally succeed in softening his mind toward David--whom he at onceloves, dreads, and hates, as the appointed instrument of his destructionand the successor to his crown. Act third shows David playing upon theharp before Saul, and chanting Saul's deeds in the service and defenceof Israel--so that he calms the agonised delirium of the haunted kingand wins his blessing; but at last a boastful word makes discord in themusic's charm, and Saul is suddenly roused into a ghastly fury. Actsfourth and fifth deal with the wild caprices and maddening agonies ofthe frenzied father; the ever-varying phenomena of his mental disease;the onslaught of the Philistines; the killing of his sons; the frequentrecurrence, before his mind's eye, of the shade of the dead prophet; andfinally his suicidal death. It is, in form, a classical tragedy, massive, grand, and majestically simple; and it blazes from end to endwith the fire of a sublime imagination. 

Ardent lovers of Italian literature are fond of ranking _Saul_ with_Lear_. The claim is natural but it is not valid. In _Lear_--not tospeak of its profound revelations of universal human nature and its vastphilosophy of human life--there is a tremendous scope of action, throughwhich mental condition and experience are dramatically revealed; andthere is the deepest deep of pathos, because the highest height ofafflicted goodness. In _Saul_ there is simply--upon a limited canvas, without adjuncts, without the suggestion of resources, without therelief of even mournful humour, and with a narrative rather than adramatic background--the portraiture of a condition; and, because theman displayed is neither so noble nor so human, the pathos surchargingthe work is neither so harrowing nor so tender. Yet the two works areakin in majesty of ideal, in the terrible topic of mental disease thatshatters a king, and in the atmosphere of desolation that trails afterthem like a funeral pall; and it is not a wonder that Alfieri's Saulshould be deemed the greatest tragedy ever originated in the Italianlanguage. It attains a superb height, for it keeps an equal pace withthe severe simplicity of the Bible narrative on which it is founded. Itdepicts the condition of an imaginative mind, a stately and robustcharacter, an arrogant, fiery spirit, a kind heart, and a royal andregally poised nature, that have first been undermined by sin and theconsciousness of sin, and then crazed by contact with the spirit worldand by a nameless dread of the impending anger of an offended God. Itwould be difficult to conceive of a more distracting and piteous state. Awe and terror surround that august sufferer, and make him both holy anddreadful. In his person and his condition, as those are visible to theimaginative mind, he combined elements that irresistibly impress andthrill. He is of vast physical stature, that time has not bent, and ofgreat beauty of face, that griefs have ravaged but not destroyed. He isa valiant and sanguinary warrior, and danger seems to radiate from hispresence. He is a magnanimous king and a loving father, and he softensby generosity and wins by gentleness. He is a maniac, haunted byspectres and scourged with a whip of scorpions, and his red-eyed furymakes all space a hell and shatters silence with the shrieks of thedamned. He is a human soul, burdened with the frightful consciousnessof Divine wrath and poised in torment on the precipice that overhangsthe dark, storm-beaten ocean of eternity. His human weakness is frightedby ghastly visions and indefinite horrors, against which his vainstruggle only makes his forlorn feebleness more piteous and drear. Thegleams of calm that fall upon his tortured heart only light up an abyssof misery--a vault of darkness peopled by demons. He is already cut offfrom among the living, by the doom of inevitable fate, and while we pityhim we fear him. His coming seems attended with monstrous shapes; hediffuses dissonance; his voice is a cry of anguish or a wail ofdesolation; his existence is a tempest; there can be no relief for himsave death, and the death that ends him comes like the blessing of tearsto the scorched eyelids of consuming misery. That is the Saul of theBible and of Alfieri's tragedy; and that is the Saul whom Salviniembodied. It was a colossal monument of human suffering that the actorpresented, and no one could look upon it without being awed andchastened. 

Salvini's embodiment of King Lear was a remarkable manifestation ofphysical resources and of professional skill. The lofty stature, theample and resonant voice, the copious animal excitement, the fluentelocution and the vigorous, picturesque, and often melodramaticmovements, gestures, and poses of Salvini united to animate andembellish a personality such as would naturally absorb attention anddiffuse excitement. Every artist, however, moves within certain specificand positive limitations--spiritual, mental, and physical. No actor hasproved equal to every kind of character. Salvini, when he acted Hamlet, was unspiritual--giving no effect to the haunted tone of that part or toits weird surroundings; and when he acted Macbeth he was unimaginative, obscure, common, and therefore inadequate. The only Shakespeareancharacter that he excelled in is Othello, and even in that his idealdisplayed neither the magnanimity nor the tenderness that are inShakespeare's conception. The chief attributes of the Moor that heinterpreted were physical; the loftiest heights that he reached wereterror and distracted grief; but he worked with a pictorial method and amagnetic vigour that enthralled the feelings even when they did notcommand the judgment. 

His performance of King Lear gave new evidence of his limitations. During the first two acts he made the king a merely restless, choleric, disagreeable old man, deficient in dignity, destitute of grandeur, andespecially destitute of inherent personal fascination--of thesuggestiveness of ever having been a great man. Lear is a ruin--but hehas been a Titan; the delight of all hearts no less than the monarch ofall minds. The actor who does not invest him with that inherent, overwhelming personal fascination does not attain to his altitude. Thecruel afflictions that occur in the tragedy do not of themselvessignify: the pity is only that they should occur to him. That is thespring of all the pathos. In Salvini's Lear there were beautiful momentsand magnificent bits of action. "I gave you all" and "I'm cold myself"were exquisite points. He missed altogether, however, the more subtlesignificance of the reminiscent reference to Cordelia--as in "No more ofthat, I have noted it well"--and he gave, at the beginning, nointimation of impending madness. In fact he introduced no element oflunacy till he reached the lines about "red-hot spits" in Edgar's firstmad scene. 

Much of Salvini's mechanism in Lear was crude. He put the king behind atable, in the first scene--which had the effect of preparation for alecture; and it pleased him to speak the storm speech away back at theupper entrance, with his body almost wholly concealed behind paintedcrags. With all its moments of power and of tenderness the embodimentwas neither royal, lovable, nor great. It might be a good Italian Lear:it was not the Lear of Shakespeare. Salvini was particularly out of thecharacter in the curse scene and in the frantic parting from the twodaughters, because there the quality of the man, behind the action, seemed especially common. The action, though, was theatrical and had itsdue effect. 

XXIV. 

HENRY IRVING AS EUGENE ARAM. 

Henry Irving's impersonation of Eugene Aram--given in a vein that isdistinctly unique--was one of strange and melancholy grace and also ofweird poetical and pathetic power. 

More than fifty years ago, just after Bulwer's novel on the subject ofEugene Aram was published, that character first came upon the stage, andits first introduction to the American theatre occurred at the Bowery, where it was represented by John R. Scott. Aram languished, however, asa dramatic person, and soon disappeared. He did not thrive in England, neither, till, in 1873, Henry Irving, who had achieved great success in_The Bells_, prompted W. G. Wills to effect his resuscitation in a newplay, and acted him in a new manner. The part then found an actor whocould play it, --investing psychological subtlety with tender humanfeeling and romantic grace, and making an imaginary experience ofsuffering vital and heartrending in its awful reality. The performanceranks with the best that Henry Irving has given--with _Mathias_, _Lesurques_, _Dubosc_, _Louis XI. _, and _Hamlet_; those studies of thenight-side of human nature in which his imagination and intellect andhis sombre feeling have been revealed and best exemplified. 

Eugene Aram was born at Ramsgill, in Nidderdale, Yorkshire, in 1704. Hisfather, Peter Aram, was a man of good family but becoming reduced incircumstances he took service as a gardener on the estate of Sir EdwardBlackett, of Newby Hall. In 1710 Peter Aram and his family were livingat Bondgate, near Ripon, and there Eugene went to school and learned toread the New Testament. At a considerably later period he wasinstructed, during one month, by the Rev. Mr. Alcock, of Burndall. Thiswas the extent of the tuition that he ever received from others. For therest he was self-taught. He had a natural passion for knowledge and hedisplayed wonderful industry in its acquisition. When sixteen years oldhe knew something of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and later he made himselfacquainted with Chaldaic and Arabic. His occupation, up to this time, was that of assistant to his father, the gardener; but about 1720 he wasemployed in London as a clerk to a merchant, Mr. Christopher Blackett, arelative to his father's patron, Sir Edward. He did not remain therelong. A serious illness prostrated him, and on recovering he returned toNidderdale, with which romantic region his fate was to be foreverassociated. He now became a tutor, and not long after he was employed assuch at a manor-house, near Ramsgill, called Gowthwaite Hall, aresidence built early in the seventeenth century by Sir John Yorke, andlong inhabited by his descendants. While living there he met and courtedAnna Spance, the daughter of a farmer, at the lonely village ofLofthouse, and in 1731 he married her. The Middlesmoor registry containsthe record of this marriage, and of the baptism and death of their firstchild. In 1734 Eugene Aram removed to Knaresborough, where he kept aschool. He had, all this while, sedulously pursued his studies, and henow was a scholar of extraordinary acquirements, not only in thelanguages but in botany, heraldry, and many other branches of learning. His life seemed fair and his future bright: but a change was at hand. He had not resided long at Knaresborough before he became acquaintedwith three persons most unlike himself in every way. These men wereHenry Terry, Richard Houseman, and Daniel Clarke. Houseman was aflax-dresser. Clarke was a travelling jeweller. All of them wereintemperate; and it is supposed that the beginning of Eugene Aram'sdownfall was the appetite for drink. The confederacy that he formed withthese men is not easily explicable, and probably it never has beenrightly explained. The accepted statement is that it was a confederacyfor fraud and theft. Clarke was reported to be the heir presumptive to alarge fortune. He purchased goods, was punctual in his payments, andestablished his credit. He was supposed to be making purchases for amerchant in London. He dealt largely in gold and silver plate and inwatches, and soon he made a liberal use of his credit to accumulatevaluable objects. In 1744 he disappeared, and he never was seen or heardof again. His frauds became known, and the houses of Aram and Houseman, suspected as his associates, were searched, but nothing was found toimplicate either of them. 

Soon after this event Aram left Knaresborough--deserting his wife--andproceeded to London, where for two years he had employment as a teacherof Latin. He was subsequently an usher at the boarding school of theRev. Anthony Hinton, at Hayes, in Middlesex, and there it was observedthat he displayed an extraordinary and scrupulous tenderness andsolicitude as to the life and safety of even worms and insects--which hewould remove from the garden walks and put into places of security. At alater period he found employment as a transcriber of acts of Parliament, for registration in chancery. Still later he became an usher at the FreeSchool of Lynn, in Norfolk, where, among other labours, he undertook tomake a comparative lexicon, and with this purpose collated over 3000words in English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Celtic. He had ampleopportunity to leave England but he never did so. At length, in 1759, alabourer who was digging for limestone, at a place known as St. Robert'sCave, Thistle Hill, near Knaresborough, came upon a human skeleton, bentdouble and buried in the earth. Suspicion was aroused. These bones, itwas surmised, might be those of Daniel Clarke. His mysteriousdisappearance and his associates were remembered. The authorities sentforth and arrested Terry, Houseman, and Eugene Aram, and those personswere brought to their trial at York. A bold front would have saved them, for the evidence against them was weak. Aram stood firm, but Housemanquailed, and presently he turned "state's evidence" and denounced Aramas the murderer of Clarke. The accused scholar spoke in his own defence, and with astonishing skill, but he failed to defeat the direct anddecisive evidence of his accomplice. Houseman declared that on the dayof the murder Clarke, Aram, and himself were in company, and wereoccupied in disposing of the property which they had obtained; that Aramproposed to walk in the fields, and that they proceeded, thereupon, atnightfall, to the vicinity of St. Robert's Cave. Clarke and Aram, hesaid, went over the hedge and advanced toward the cave, and Aram struckClarke several times upon the breast and head, and so killed him. It wasa dark night, and in the middle of winter, but the moon was shiningthrough drifting clouds, and Houseman said he could see the movement ofAram's hand but not the weapon that it held. He was about twelve yardsfrom the spot of the murder. He testified that the body of Clarke wasburied in the cave. The presiding justice charged against the prisonerand Eugene Aram was convicted and condemned. He subsequently, it issaid, confessed the crime, alleging to the clergyman by whom he wasattended that his wife had been led into an intrigue by Clarke, and thatthis was the cause of the murder. Here, doubtless, is the indication ofthe true nature of this tragedy. Aram, prior to his execution, wasconfined in York Castle, where he wrote a poem of considerable lengthand some merit, and also several shorter pieces of verse. On the morningof his execution it was found that he had opened a vein in his arm, withthe intent to bleed to death, but the wound was staunched, and he wastaken to Knaresborough and there hanged, and afterward his body was hungin chains in Knaresborough Forest. His death occurred on August 13, 1759, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. On the night before hisexecution he wrote a rhythmical apostrophe to death:--

 "Come, pleasing rest! eternal slumber fall! Seal mine, that once must seal the eyes of all! Calm and composed my soul her journey takes; No guilt that troubles and no heart that aches. "

Such is the story of Eugene Aram--a story that has furnished the basisof various fictions, notably of Bulwer's famous novel, and whichinspired one of the best of the beautiful poems of Thomas Hood. Willsgathered hints from it, here and there, in the making of his play; buthe boldly departed from its more hideous and repulsive incidents andfrom the theory of the main character that might perhaps be justified byits drift. In the construction of the piece Henry Irving made manymaterial suggestions. The treatment of the character of Aram was devisedby him, and the management of the close of the second act denotes hisfelicity of invention. 

The play opens in the rose-garden of a rural rectory in the sweet, greenvalley of the shining Nidd. The time is twilight; the season summer; andhere, in a haven of peace and love, the repentant murderer has found arefuge. Many years have passed since the commission of his crime, andall those years he has lived a good life, devoted to study, instruction, and works of benevolence. He has been a teacher of the young, a helperof the poor, and he has gained respect, affection, and honourablerepute. He is safe in the security of silence and in the calm self-poiseof his adamantine will. His awful secret sleeps in his bosom and is atrest forever. He has suffered much and he still suffers; yet, lulledinto a false security by the uneventful lapse of years and by thatdrifting, desolate, apathetic recklessness which is sequent on thesubsiding storm of passionate sorrow, he has allowed himself to accept awoman's love and to love her in return, and half to believe that hislong misery has expiated his sin and that even for him there may be alittle happiness yet possible on earth. Eugene Aram, the villageschool-master, and Ruth Meadows, the vicar's daughter, are betrothedlovers; and now, on the eve of their wedding morning, they standtogether among the roses, while the sun is going down and the sweetsummer wind plays softly in the leaves, and from the little gray churchclose by a solemn strain of music--the vesper hymn--floats out upon thestillness of the darkening day. The woman is all happiness, confidence, and hope; the man, seared and blighted by conscious sin and subdued bylong years of patient submission to the sense of his own unworthiness, is all gentleness, solicitude, reverence, and sorrow. At this suprememoment, when now it seems that everything is surely well, the one man inthe world who knows Eugene Aram's secret has become, by seeming chance, a guest in the vicarage; and even while Ruth places her hand upon herlover's heart and softly whispers, "If guilt were there, it still shouldbe my pillow, " the shadow of the gathering night that darkens aroundthem is deepened by the blacker shadow of impending doom. The first actof the play is simply a picture. It involves no action. It onlyintroduces the several persons who are implicated in the experience tobe displayed, denotes their relationship to one another, and reveals acondition of feeling and circumstance which is alike romantic, pathetic, and perilous, and which is soon to be shattered by the disclosure of afatal secret. The act is a preparation for a catastrophe. 

In the second act the opposed characters clash: the movement begins, and the catastrophe is precipitated. The story opens at nightfall, proceeds the same evening, and ends at the dawn of the ensuing day. Thescene of act second is a room in the vicarage. Aram and Parson Meadowsare playing chess, and Ruth is hovering about them and roguishlyimpeding their play. The purpose accomplished here is the exhibition ofdomestic comfort and content, and this is further emphasised by Ruth'srecital of a written tribute that Aram's pupils have sent to him, on theeve of his marriage. Wounded by this praise the conscience-strickenwretch breaks off abruptly from his pastime and rushes from the room--anact of desperate grief which is attributed to his modesty. The parsonsoon follows, and Ruth is left alone. Houseman, their casual guest, having accepted the vicar's hospitable offer of a shelter for the night, has now a talk with Ruth, and he is startled to hear the name of EugeneAram, and thus to know that he has found the man whose fatal secret hepossesses, and upon whose assumed dread of exposure his cupidity nowpurposes to feed. In a coarsely jocular way this brutish creatureprovokes the indignant resentment of Ruth, by insinuations as to herbetrothed lover's past life; and when, a little later, Ruth and Aramagain meet, she wooingly begs him to tell her of any secret trouble thatmay be weighing upon his mind. At this moment Houseman comes upon them, and utters Aram's name. From that point to the end of the act there is asustained and sinewy exposition, strong in spirit and thrilling insuspense, --of keen intellect and resolute will standing at bay andmaking their last battle for life, against the overwhelming odds ofheaven's appointed doom. Aram defies Houseman and is denounced by him;but the ready adroitness and iron composure of the suffering wretchstill give him supremacy over his foe--till, suddenly, the discovery isannounced of the bones of Daniel Clarke in St. Robert's Cave, and thevicar commands Aram and Houseman to join him in their inspection. Herethe murderer suffers a collapse. There has been a greater strain thaneven he can bear; and, left alone upon the scene, he stands petrifiedwith horror, seeming, in an ecstasy of nameless fear, to look upon thespectre of his victim. Henry Irving's management of the apparitioneffect was such as is possible only to a man of genius, and such aswords may record but never can describe. 

The third act passes in the churchyard. Aram has fled from the sight ofthe skeleton, and has fallen among the graves. It is almost morning. Theghastly place is silent and dark. The spirit of the murderer is broken, and his enfeebled body, long since undermined by the grief of remorseand now chilled by the night dews, is in the throes of death. Theincidents of the closing scene are simple, but they are heart-breakingin their pathos and awful in their desolation. The fugitive Housemanfinds Aram here, and spurns him as a whimpering lunatic. Then, in thismidnight hour and this appalling place, alone in the presence of God, the murderer lifts his hands toward heaven, confesses his crime, andfalls at the foot of the cross. Here Ruth finds him, and to her, withdying lips, he tells the story of the murder and of all that he hassince endured. And just as his voice falters into silence and his heartceases to beat, the diamond light of morning gleams in the eastern skyand the glad music of an anthem floats softly from the neighbouringchurch. Upon that beautifully significant picture the final curtainfell. 

Wills's literary framework for the display of character and experienceis scarcely to be considered a perfect play. It begins by assuming onthe part of its auditor a knowledge of the mystery upon which it isbased. Such a knowledge the auditor ought certainly to have, but inpresence of an exact drama he derives it from what he sees and not fromremembrance of what he has read. The piece is, perhaps, somewhatirrational in making Aram a resident, under his own name, of the actualneighbourhood of his crime. It lowers the assumed nobility of hischaracter, furthermore, by making this remorseful and constantlyapprehensive murderer willing to yoke a sweet, innocent, and idolisedwoman to misery and shame by making her his wife. And it mars its mostpathetic scene--the awful scene of the midnight confession in thechurchyard--by making Eugene Aram declare, to the woman of his love, theone human being who comforts and sustains him on the brink of eternity, that he has loved another woman for whose sake he did the murder. Sincethe whole story was to be treated in a fanciful manner, a still widerlicense in the play of fancy would, perhaps, have had a more entirelygracious and satisfying effect. The language is partly blank verse andpartly prose; and, while its tissue is rightly and skilfully diversifiedby judicious allowance for the effect of each character upon the garmentof individual diction, and while its strain, here and there, rises toeloquence of feeling and beauty of imagery, there is a certain lack offirmness in its verbal fibre. The confession speech that has to bespoken by Aram comprises upward of ninety lines--and that is a severeand perilous strain upon an actor's power of holding the publicinterest. The beauties of the play, however, are many and strong. Itscrowning excellence is that it gives dramatic permanence to a strangelyinteresting character. 

The knowledge of human nature that Henry Irving revealed in this partand the manner in which he revealed it were nothing less than wonderful. The moment he walked upon the scene you saw the blighted figure of a manwho has endured, and is enduring, spiritual torment. The wholepersonality was suffused with a mournful strangeness. The man wasisolated and alone. It was a purely ideal view of the character thatthe actor denoted; for he made Eugene Aram a noble, tender, gentleperson, whom ungovernable passion, under circumstances of overwhelmingprovocation, had once impelled to an act of half-justifiable homicide, and who had for years been slowly dying with remorse. He touched nochord of terror, but only the chord of pity. Like his portrayal ofMathias, the picture showed the reactionary effect of hidden sin in thehuman soul; but the personality of the sufferer was entirely different. Each of those men has had experience of crime and of resultant misery, but no two embodiments could possibly be more dissimilar, alike inspiritual quality and in circumstances. Mathias is dominated by paternallove and characterised by a half-defiant, ever-vigilant, and oftenself-approbative pride of intellect, in being able to guard and keep aterrible and dangerous secret. Eugene Aram is dominated by a saint-liketenderness toward a sweet woman who loves him, and characterised by aprofound, fitful melancholy, now humble and submissive, now activelyapprehensive and almost frenzied. Only once does he stand at bay andfront his destiny with a defiance of desperate will; and even then it isfor the woman's sake rather than for his own. Henry Irving's actingmade clear and beautiful that condition of temperament. A noble andaffectionate nature, shipwrecked, going to pieces, doomed, but makingone last tremendous though futile effort to avert the final andinevitable ruin--this ideal was made actual in his performance. Theintellectual or spiritual value of such a presentment must depend uponthe auditor's capacity to absorb from a tragedy its lessons of insightinto the relations of the human soul to the moral government of theworld. Many spectators would find it merely morbid and gloomy; otherswould find it superlatively illuminative and eloquent. Its artisticvalue the actor himself made evident to every comprehension. There is amoment of the performance when the originally massive and passionatecharacter of Eugene Aram is suddenly asserted above his meekness, contrition, and sorrow; when, at the sound of his enemy's voice, hefirst becomes petrified with the sense of peril, and then calmly gathersall his powers to meet and conquer the danger. The splendidconcentration, the perfect poise, the sustained intensity, the copiousand amazing variety and force of emotion, and the positive, unerring, and brilliant art with which Henry Irving met that emergency anddisplayed that frightful and piteous aspect of assailed humanity, desperate and fighting for life, made up such an image of genius asseldom is seen and never will be forgotten. Rapid transition has everbeen one of the commonest and most effective expedients used inhistrionic art. This, on the contrary, was an example of sustained, prolonged, cumulative, artistic expression of the most harrowing andawful emotions with which the human soul can be convulsed; and it was awonder of consummate acting. The same thoroughness of identification andthe same astonishing adequacy of feeling pervaded the scene in thechurchyard. At first, in the dusky starlight, only a shapeless figure, covered with a black cloak, was seen among the gravestones, crouchedupon a tomb; but the man that rose, as if out of the grave, pallid, emaciated, ghastly, the spectre of himself, was the authentic image ofmajestic despair, not less sublime than pitiable, and fraught with apower that happiness could never attain. Not in our time upon the stagehas such a lesson been taught, with such overwhelming pathos, of theutter helplessness of even the strongest human will, when once the soulhas been vitiated by sin and the eternal law of right defied by mortalpassion. In the supplication to his astonished accomplice the actorseemed like one transfigured, and there the haunted effect was extremelyawful. 

XXV. 

CHARLES FISHER. 

In old times Charles Fisher often figured in the old comedies, and hewas one of the last of the thin and rapidly lessening group of actorscapable of presenting those pieces--wherein, although the substance behuman nature, the manner is that of elaborate and diversified artifice. When he played Lieutenant Worthington, in _The Poor Gentleman_, he was agentleman indeed--refined, delicate, sensitive, simply courageous, sustained by native integrity, and impressive with a dignity of mannerthat reflected the essential nobility of his mind; so that when hemistook Sir Robert Bramble for a bailiff, and roused that benevolentbaronet's astonishment and rage, he brought forth all the comic humourof a delightful situation with the greatest ease and nature. He playedLittleton Coke, Sir Harcourt Courtly, old Laroque--in which he gave awonderful picture of the working of remorse in the frail and failingbrain of age--and Nicholas Rue, in _Secrets worth Knowing_, a sinisterand thrilling embodiment of avarice and dotage. He played Dr. Bland, theelegant medical cynic of _Nos Intimes_; De la Tour, the formidable, jealous husband of Henriette, in _Le Patte de Mouche_; Horace, in _TheCountry Squire_; Goldfinch, in which he was airy, sagacious, dashing, and superb, in _The Road to Ruin_; and Captain Cozzens, the nonchalantrascal of _The Knights of the Round Table_, which he embodied in a styleof easy magnificence, gay, gallant, courageous, alert, imperturbable, and immensely comic. He was the original Matthew Leigh in LesterWallack's romantic play of _Rosedale_ (1863). He acted Joseph Surface inthe days when Lester Wallack used to play Charles, and he always heldhis own in that superior part. He was equally fine in Sir Peter and SirOliver. When the good old play of _The Wife's Secret_ was revived in NewYork, in 1864, he gave a dignified and impetuous performance of SirWalter Amyott. I remember him in those parts, with equal wonder at hiscomprehensive variety of talent and admiration for his always adequateskill. I saw him as the volatile Ferment, in _The School of Reform_, and nothing could be more comic than his unwitting abuse of GeneralTarragon, in that blustering officer's presence, or his equallyludicrous scene of cross purposes with Bob Tyke. He was a perfect type, as Don Manuel Velasco, in _The Compact_, of the gallant, stately Spanisharistocrat. He excelled competition when, in a company that includedGeorge Holland, W. Holston, A. W. Young, Mark Smith, Frederick C. P. Robinson, and John Gilbert, he enacted the convict in _Never Too Late toMend_. He was equally at home whether as the King in _Don Cæsar deBazan_ or as Tom Stylus the literary hack, in _Society_. He passedeasily from the correct and sentimental Sir Thomas Clifford, of _TheHunchback_, to the frivolous Mr. Willowear, of _To Marry or Not toMarry_. No one could better express than he did, when playing Wellborn, both pride of birth and pride of character. One of his mostcharacteristic works was Hyssop, in _The Rent Day_. His scope and therich resources of his experience are denoted in those citations. It isno common artist who can create and sustain a perfect illusion, andplease an audience equally well, whether in such a part as GilbertFeatherstone, the villain, in _Lost in London_, or old Baptista, in _TheTaming of the Shrew_. The playgoer who never saw Charles Fisher asTriplet can scarcely claim that he ever saw the part at all. The quaintfigure, the well-saved but threadbare dress, the forlorn air of povertyand suffering commingled with a certain jauntiness and pluck, theprofound feeling, the unconscious sweetness and humour, the spirit ofmind, gentility, and refinement struggling through the confirmedwretchedness of the almost heart-broken hack--who that ever laughed andwept at sight of him in the garret scene, sitting down, "all joy andhilarity, " to write his comedy, can ever forget those details of a trueand touching embodiment? His fine skill in playing the violin wastouchingly displayed in that part, and gave it an additional tone ofreality. I once saw him acting Mercutio, and very admirable he was inthe guise of that noble, brave, frolicsome, impetuous young gentleman. The intense vitality, the glancing glee, the intrepid spirit--all werepreserved; and the brilliant text was spoken with faultless fluency. Itis difficult to realise that the same actor who set before us thatperfect image of comic perplexity, the bland and benevolent Dean, in_Dandy Dick_, could ever have been the bantering companion of Romeo andtruculent adversary of fiery Tybalt. Yet this contrast but faintlyindicates the versatile character of his mind. Fisher was upon theAmerican stage for thirty-eight years, from August 30, 1852, when hecame forth at Burton's theatre as Ferment. Later he went to Wallack's, and in 1872 he joined Daly's company, in which he remained till 1890. Itmay be conjectured that in some respects he resembled that fine comedianThomas Dogget, to whom Sir Godfrey Kneller, the painter, said, "I canonly copy Nature from the originals before me, while you vary them atpleasure and yet preserve the likeness. " Like Dogget he played, in avein of rich, hearty, jocose humour, and with great breadth of effectand excellent colour, the sailor Ben, in _Love for Love_. Theresemblance was in mental characteristics, not physique--for Dogget wasa slight and sprightly man, whereas Fisher could represent majesty aswell as frolic. After he went to Daly's theatre he manifested asurprising range of faculty. He first appeared there on October 28, 1872, as Mr. Dornton, in _The Road to Ruin_, and on November 19, following, he acted Falstaff for the first time. He presented there theother Shakespearean parts of Leonatus, Armado, and Malvolio--the last ofthese being a model of fidelity to the poet, and now a classic inreputation. He also assumed Adam and Jaques. He presented the livingimage of Shakespeare himself, in _Yorick_, and his large, broad, statelystyle gave weight to Don Manuel, in _She Would and She Wouldn't_; tothat apt type of the refined British aristocrat, Sir Geoffrey Champneys, in _Our Boys_; and to many a noble father or benevolent uncle of theadapted French society drama. Just as Dogget was supreme in such partsas Fondlewife, so was Fisher superb in the uxorious husband whom thedemure child-wife bamboozles, in the comedies of Molière. No man hasever better depicted than he did a sweet nature shocked by calamity andbowed down with grief, or, as in Joe Chirrup, in _Elfie_, manlinesschastened by affliction and ennobled by true love: yet his impersonationof Fagin was only second to that of J. W. Wallack, Jr. ; his Moody, in_The Country Girl_, was almost tragic in its grim and grizzledwretchedness and snarling wrath; and I have seen him assume toperfection the gaunt figure and crazy mood of Noah Learoyd, in _The LongStrike_, and make that personality a terrible embodiment of menace. Fromthe time he first acted the comic Major Vavasour, in _Henry Dunbar_, noactor of equal quaintness has trod our stage. He died on June 11, 1891, and was buried at Woodlawn. 

XXVI. 

MRS. G. H. GILBERT. 

Students of the English stage find in books on that subject abundantinformation about the tragedy queens of the early drama, and muchlikewise, though naturally somewhat less (because comedy is moredifficult to discuss than tragedy), about the comedy queens. Mrs. Cibberstill discomfits the melting Mrs. Porter by a tenderness even greaterthan the best of Belvideras could dispense. Mrs. Bracegirdle and Mrs. Oldfield still stand confronted on the historic page, and still theirbattle continues year after year. All readers know the sleepy voice andhorrid sigh of Mrs. Pritchard in Lady Macbeth's awful scene of hauntedsomnambulism; the unexampled and unexcelled grandeur of Mrs. Yates inMedea; the infinite pathos of Mrs. Dancer (she that became in successionMrs. Spranger Barry and Mrs. Crawford) and her memorable scream, as LadyRandolph, at "Was he alive?"; the comparative discomfiture of boththose ladies by Mrs. Siddons, with her wonderful, wailing cry, asIsabella, "O, my Biron, my Biron, " her overwhelming Lady Macbeth and herimperial Queen Katharine. The brilliant story of Peg Woffington and thesad fate of Mrs. Robinson, the triumphant career of Mrs. Abington andthe melancholy collapse of Mrs. Jordan--all those things, and many more, are duly set down in the chronicles. But the books are comparativelysilent about the Old Women of the stage--an artistic line no lessdelightful than useful, of which Mrs. G. H. Gilbert is a sterling andbrilliant representative. Mrs. Jefferson, the great-grandmother of thecomedian Joseph Jefferson, who died of laughter, on the stage (1766-68), might fitly be mentioned as the dramatic ancestor of such actresses asMrs. Gilbert. She was a woman of great loveliness of character and ofgreat talent for the portrayal of "old women, " and likewise of certain"old men" in comedy. "She had, " says Tate Wilkinson, "one of the bestdispositions that ever harboured in a human breast"; and he adds that"she was one of the most elegant women ever beheld. " Mrs. Gilbert hasalways suggested that image of grace, goodness, and piquant ability. Mrs. Vernon was the best in this line until Mrs. Gilbert came; and theperiod which has seen Mrs. Judah, Mrs. Vincent, Mrs. Germon, Mary Carr, Mrs. Chippendale, Mrs. Stirling, Mrs. Billington, Mrs. Drew, Mrs. Phillips, and Madam Ponisi, has seen no superior to Mrs. Gilbert in herspecial walk. She was in youth a beautiful dancer, and all her motionshave spontaneous ease and grace. She can assume the fine lady, withoutfor an instant suggesting the parvenu. She is equally good, whether asthe formal and severe matron of starched domestic life, or the genialdame of the pantry. She could play Temperance in _The Country Squire_, and equally she could play Mrs. Jellaby. All varieties of theeccentricity of elderly women, whether serious or comic, are easilywithin her grasp. Betsy Trotwood, embodied by her, becomes a livingreality; while on the other hand she suffused with a sinister horror herstealthy, gliding, uncanny personation of the dumb, half-insane HesterDethridge. That was the first great success that Mrs. Gilbert gained, under Augustin Daly's management. She has been associated with Daly'scompany since his opening night as a manager, August 16, 1869, when, atthe Fifth Avenue theatre, then in Twenty-fourth Street, she took part inRobertson's comedy of _Play_. The first time I ever saw her she wasacting the Marquise de St. Maur, in _Caste_, on the night of its firstproduction in America, August 5, 1867, at the Broadway theatre, thehouse near the southwest corner of Broadway and Broome Street, that hadbeen Wallack's but now was managed by Barney Williams. The assumption ofthat character, perfect in every particular, was instinct with purearistocracy; but while brilliant with serious ability it gave not theleast hint of those rich resources of humour that since have diffused somuch innocent pleasure. Most of her successes have been gained as theformidable lady who typifies in comedy the domestic proprieties and theNemesis of respectability. It was her refined and severely correctdemeanour that gave soul and wings to the wild fun of _A Night Off_. From Miss Garth to Mrs. Laburnum is a far stretch of imitative talentfor the interpretation of the woman nature that everybody, fromShakespeare down, has found it so difficult to treat. This actress hasnever failed to impress the spectator by her clear-cut, brilliantidentification with every type of character that she has assumed; and, back of this, she has denoted a kind heart and a sweet and gentle yetnever insipid temperament--the condition of goodness, sympathy, graciousness, and cheer that is the flower of a fine nature and a goodlife. Scenes in which Mrs. Gilbert and Charles Fisher or James Lewishave participated, as old married people, on Daly's stage, will long beremembered for their intrinsic beauty--suggestive of the touching lines:

 "And when with envy Time, transported, Shall think to rob us of our joys, You'll in your girls again be courted, And I'll go wooing with my boys. "

XXVII. 

JAMES LEWIS. 

A prominent representative type of character is "the humorous man, " andthat is Shakespeare's phrase to describe him. Wit is a faculty; humouran attribute. Joseph Addison, Laurence Sterne, WashingtonIrving--whatever else they might have been they were humourists. SirRoger de Coverley, Tristram Shandy, Uncle Toby, Diedrich Knickerbocker, Ichabod Crane--these and other creations of their genius stand forthupon their pages to exemplify that aspect of their minds. But thehumourist of the pen may, personally, be no humourist at all. Addison'scharacter was austere. Irving, though sometimes gently playful, wasessentially grave and decorous. 

Comical quality in the humorous man whom nature destines for the stagemust be personal. His coming brings with it a sense of comfort. Hispresence warms the heart and cheers the mind. The sound of his voice, "speaking oft, " before he emerges upon the scene, will set the theatrein a roar. This was notably true of Burton and of William Warren. Theglance, motion, carriage, manner, and the pause and stillness of such aman, instil merriment. Cibber says that Robert Nokes had a palpablesimplicity of nature which was often as unaccountably diverting in hiscommon speech as on the stage, John E. Owens, describing the conduct ofa big bee in an empty molasses barrel, once threw a circle of hishearers, of whom I was one, almost into convulsions of laughter. ArtemasWard made people laugh the moment they beheld him, by his woodencomposure and indescribable sapience of demeanour. The lamented DanielE. Setchell, a comedian who would have been as famous as he was funnyhad he but lived longer, presented a delightful example of spontaneoushumour. It is ludicrous to recall the simple gravity, not demure butperfectly solemn, with which, on the deck of a Hudson River steamboat, as we were passing West Point, he indicated to me the Kosciuszkomonument, saying briefly, "That's the place where Freedom shrieked. " Itwas the quality of his temperament that made his playfulness delicious. Setchell was the mental descendant of Burton, as Burton was of Reeve andas Reeve was of Liston. Actors illustrate a kind of heredity. Eachspecies is distinct and discernible. Lester Wallack maintained thelineage of Charles Kemble, William Lewis, Elliston, and Mountfort--aline in which John Drew has gained auspicious distinction. JohnGilbert's artistic ancestry could be traced back through Farren andMunden to King and Quin, and perhaps still further, to Lowin and Kempe. 

The comedian intrinsically comical, while in his characteristic qualityeccentric and dry, has been exemplified by Fawcett, Blisset, Finn, andBarnes, and is conspicuously presented by James Lewis. No one ever sawhim without laughter--and it is kindly laughter, with a warm heartbehind it. The moment he comes upon the stage an eager gladness diffusesitself throughout the house. His refined quaintness and unconsciousdrollery capture all hearts. His whimsical individuality never varies;yet every character of the many that he has portrayed stands clearlyforth among its companions, a distinct, unique embodiment. The gracefulurbanity, the elaborate yet natural manner, the brisk vitality, thehumorous sapience of Sir Patrick Lundy--how completely and admirably heexpressed them! How distinct that fine old figure is in the remembranceof all who saw it! But he has never played a part that he did not makeequally distinct. A painter might fill a gallery with odd, characteristic creations by merely copying his compositions of"make-up. " The amiable professor in _A Night Off_, the senile Gunnion in_The Squire_, Lissardo in _The Wonder_, Grumio in _The Shrew_--those andmany more he has made his own; while in the actor's province of makingcomic characters really comical to others there is no artist who betterfulfils the sagacious, comprehensive injunction of Munden (imparted to ayouthful actor who spoke of being "natural" in order to amuse), "Naturebe d----d! Make the people laugh!" That, aside from all subtleties, isnot a bad test of the comic faculty, and that test has been met andborne by the acting of James Lewis. 

XXVIII. 

A LEAF FROM MY JOURNAL. 

[November 23, 1867. ]

Thirty years hereafter many who are now active and honoured in dramaticlife will be at rest--their work concluded, their achievements a fadingtradition. But they will not be wholly forgotten. The same talisman ofmemory that has preserved to our time the names and the deeds of theactors of old will preserve to future times the names and the deeds thatare distinguished now in the mimic world of the stage. Legend, speakingin the voice of the veteran devotee of the drama, will say, for example, that of all the actors of this period there was no light comediancomparable with Lester Wallack; that he could thoroughly identifyhimself with character, --though it did not always please him to do so;that his acting was so imaginative and so earnest as to make reality ofthe most gossamer fiction; and that his vivacity--the essential elementand the crown of comedy-acting--was like the dew on the opening rose. And therewithal the veteran may quaff his glass to the memory of anothermember of the Wallack family, and speak of James Wallack as Cassius, andFagin, and the Man-in-the-Iron-Mask, and the King of the Commons, andmay say, with truth, that a more winning embodiment of bluff manlinessand humour was never known to our stage than the versatile actor whomade himself foremost in those characters. It will be impossible toremember him without recalling his intimate professional associate, Edwin L. Davenport. He was the only Brutus of his time, our old friendwill say, and in his prime the best Macbeth on the American stage; andhe could play almost any part in the drama, from the loftiest tragedy tomere trash; and he was an admirable artist in all that he did. Therewill be plenty of evidence to fortify that statement; and if the veteranshall also say that Wallack's company contained, at the same time, thebest "old men" in the profession, no dissentient voice, surely, willchallenge the names of George Holland, John Gilbert, James H. Stoddart, and Mark Smith. Cibber could play Lord Foppington at seventy-three; butGeorge Holland played Tony Lumpkin at seventy-seven. A young part, --butthe old man was as joyous as a boy and filled it with a boisterous, mischievous humour at once delightful and indescribable. You saw him tothe best advantage, though, in Mr. Sulky, Humphrey Dobbin, and kindredparts, wherein the fineness of his temperament was veiled under acrabbed exterior and some scope was allowed for his superb skill inpainting character. So the discourse will run; and, when it touches uponJohn Gilbert, what else than this will be its burden?--that he wasperfection as the old fop; that his Lord Ogleby had no peer; that he wasthe oddest conceivable compound of dry humour, quaint manners, frolicsome love of mischief, honest, hearty mirth, manly dignity, andtender pathos. To Mark Smith it will render a kindred tribute. SquireBroadlands, Old Rapid, Sir Oliver Surface--they cannot be forgotten. Extraordinary truthfulness to nature, extraordinary precision of method, large humanity, strong intellect, and refined and delicate humour thatalways charmed and never offended--those were the qualities thatenrolled him among the best actors of his time. And it will not bestrange if Old Mortality passes then into the warmest mood of eulogium, as he strives to recall the admirable, the incomparable "old woman" Mrs. Vernon. She was a worthy mate of those worthies, he will exclaim. Shecould be the sweet and loving mother, gentle and affectionate; thestately lady, representative of rank and proud of it and true to it; andthe most eccentric of ludicrous old fools. She was the ideal Mrs. Malaprop, and she surpassed all competitors in the character of Mrs. Hardcastle. Mary Gannon was her stage-companion and her foil, he willadd--the merriest, most mischievous, most bewitching player of her time, in her peculiar line of art. As Hester, in _To Marry or Not to Marry_, and as Sophia, in _The Road to Ruin_, she was the incarnation of girlishgrace and delicious ingenuousness, and also of crisp, well-flavouredmirth. No taint of tameness marred her acting in those kindredcharacters, and no air of effort made it artificial. Nor was FannyMorant less remarkable for the glitter of comedy and for an almostmatchless precision of method. So will our friend of the future proseon, in a vein that will be tedious enough to matter-of-fact people; butnot tedious to gentle spirits who love the stage, and sympathise withits votaries, and keep alive its traditions--knowing that this mimicworld is as real and earnest as the strife that roars and surges aroundit; that there as everywhere else humanity plays out its drama, whereofthe moral is always the same--that whether on the stage or in the mart, on the monarch's throne or in the peasant's cot, "We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. "

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