uc^:*: ..,.A'4r ., ^<-.. «•^. -{-,-,...,► J. ..v.-, •■.,■■(• /IS . ^*U..» . rt> y *Cl->» .«■<«,. . ... W.-i^-.,.^^ f-y -^'j-v <.j—K., »-.../'. J--r-^,>»f, ^, ;'y^Sf- v->/»/-...^j j . --.-..»jw»i^ f.»U *>».<«->«>"— .■...f^t,-.,'—t,-».CVwJf.-- yv^M-^-r* M -r , .•.^-^■- «^ ■■*v«w%.-»>t-*>^* i**>«-yn-*^r*'"-f "^'*»"'''5>«— ^.z*/^' >** M*v»*» .• . -^'.'''.v ;cV.(JI 1*» ./ « V* .~K. .,„.w K'l^ »••»"•.-' .-'.f^^i-w,- v«»-^-»-r «.>.■. vw..^ tvj > »T•^Jr**.^#^/ »>- *-^-^-<* "vtw<4 ^fV^/v --.i i«rf..^-.' .*».^/iw^v>- ^v*^*.*^^*^^- 'iift^ '.^ V^ W W4t#i^A*^>''>4^-' -'V^»*?"^»-#*j -i«A-)^'-:-"^TV-- ""-f ilfy* '>'v- ■-"'/^' '-'*• ■--'Y-: '■*•■■ ' ■- ■^-*r^Wv<■■*1«^>.*".»^^,-'V *'' /v^*' > »*f^A/-V ■•r^/S?-' *w A<- fv,-- "K^' NOTES, CRITICISMS, AND COREESPONDENCE SHAKESPEARE'S PLATS k^J) ACTORS, '^'"'^Waj^Z. 7/y/>v;™*i^*'?'^" NOTES, CRITICISMS, AND CORRESPONDENCE UPON "SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS AND ACTORS. JAMES HENRY HACKETT. NEW YORK: Carkton, Fi/hh'shcr^ 413 Brmdivay. (late RiDP & Carlkton.) M DCCC LXIII. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S63, by JAMES II. IIACKETT, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of tlie United States for the Soiilhorn District of New York. R. CRAIGHEAD, ['n liter, Su-ieoiyper, aii(t Klioiruiyper, Cnitou Biiiltiing, SI, 83, aiui »j Cadre Street. New York, MarcJi, 31««, 18G3, JAMES H. HACKETT, Esq. My Dear Sir — I have many thanks to render you for the high compUment you have paid me in inscribing to me your very interesting and valuable volume on Shakespeare and his characters and critics. Your criticisms on the text and views of the characters of the great bard are of very great value and originality. On several of them I might be tempted to expand if I could write with more facility, but the return of an old sprain in the hand makes writing very laborious to myself as well as the handwriting obscure to others. The sjorain is better to-day, — but as you see, not well. I can only make a single remark on Falstafl". I have never read Maurice Morgann's Essay on the question of the Knight's courage or cowardice ; but your remarks recall to me an ob- servation of Col. Burr — a sagacious observer of men — that there were two quite distinct kinds of courage, the one purely physical, the other arising from moral or intellectual causes. Where the two are com- bined, the man is so far a hero. "Where the purely physical or animal firmness or insensibility to danger is wanting, the deficiency may be supplied by moral or intellectual causes — sometimes of a high order, often not so, but still not physical. The sense of duty, patriotism, the feeling of personal honour, hate, revenge, party, fanaticism, may give courage. Now, your and Shakespeare's Knight seems to me a cool man, but he has no moral courage high or low. Duty, patriotism, loyalty, are of course out of the question, and he scoffs at the sense of personal honour. Not troubled with any nervous trepidation, but utterly sel- fish, he skulks from danger nearly as coolly as a brave man would meet it. In this view Morgann or your own thoughts may have anticipated me. Again thanking you for the honour you have done me, I am yours truly, G. C. VERPLANCK. 1^^ Printed for ;pric ate distribniion only. >1 ®l)i5 tlolumc IS PwESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE HON. GULIAN C. YERPLANCK, IN GRATEFUL TESTIMONY OF THE MxVNY SEKVICES HE HAS EENDEEED TO THE PUBLIC; AND PARTICULARLY FOR HIS DEVOTION AS AN EDITOR TO The Shakesperean Drama, AND HIS ENLIGHTENED INTEREST IN EVERT HONEST EFFORT FOE ITS PROMOTION IN UTERATHEE, OE ON THE STAGE. rm r^ jT^^^^^^d '6^'% PREFACE The sketches and essays wliicli occupy tlie follow- ing pages, necessarily partaking more or less of a personal character — the author so often speaking of his own experience or observations — there would seem to be required no further preface at his hands. He cannot, however, neglect to avail himself of the time-honored privilege of saying a word to the reader, were it only to exchange the customary form of salu- tation when meeting. For he would have his book regarded not as an elaborate attempt at authorship — to which he makes no pretensions — but in the spirit of a familiar and friendly, yet earnest conversation, when one is listened to with partiality, as he discourses upon topics of admitted interest, or revises the traits of those whom the world has been accustomed to admire. These papers have been written at intervals in the course of many and now by-gone years, as the respec- Vlll PREFACE. tive occasions prompted. In bringing tlicm together at the present time, the writer would acknowledge his obligations to his accomplished friend, Mr. Edward S. Gould, whose judgment he has consulted in the general arrangement of the volume, and to whose friendly assistance he has been indebted in see- ing these pages through the press, during their writer's own unavoidable absence from the city. James H. Hackett. New York, JDecemher, 1862. CONTENTS PART I. PAGE H.vmlet's Soliloquy on Suicide, 13 PART II. Hamlet, .... 63 PART III. King Lear, 93 PART ly. Actors of Hamlet — CoorER, "Wallace, Conway, Ham- BLix, Edmund Kean, Young, Macready, Charles Kemble, Booth, J. Yandenhoff, Charles Kean, G-. Yandenhoff, E. Forrest, 118 PART Y. Correspondence on Shakespearean Subjects with John Quincy Adams, Washington Irving, James and Horace Smith, authors of the " Rejected Addresses," X CONTENTS. PAQB Chas. a. Murray, Sir Thomas Noon Talfofrd, Earl OF Carlisle, John Payne Collier — " Misconceptions OF Shakespeare on the Stage, Personations of the Characters of Shakespeare, The Character of Desdemona," by J. Q. Adams — Yerplanck's Edition OF Hamlet, Shakespearean Verbal Niceties, Har- vey AND Shakespeare, Iago, 191 PART VI. Falstaff, 313 Sketch of Jas. H. Hackett, 329 PART I. HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY ON SUICIDE. HAMLETS SOLILOQUY 0I( SUICIDE. The classical Dr. Goldsmitli commences his " Six- teenth Essay " thus : — Of all the implements of poetry, the metaphor is the most generally and suc- cessfully "Used, and indeed may be termed the Muse's caduceus, by the power of which she enchants all nature Over and above an excess of figures, a young author is apt to run into a confusion of mixed metaphors, which leave the sense disjointed, and distract the imagination. Shakespeare himself is often guilty of these irregularities. The soliloquy in Hamlet^ which we have often heard extolled in terms of admiration, is, in our opinion, a heap of absurdi- ties, whether we consider the situation, the sentiment, the argumentation, or the poetry. Hamlet is informed by the Ghost that his father was murdered, and there- fore he is tempted to murder himself, even after he had promised to take vengeance on the usurper, and expressed the utmost eagerness to achieve this enter- prise. It does not appear that he had the least reason to wish for death ; but every motive which may be 14 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. supposed to influence the mind of a young prince, concurred to render life desirable — revenge toward the usurper ; love for the fair Ophelia^ and the ambi tion of reigning. Besides, when he had an oppor- tunity of dying without being accessory to his own death ; when he had nothing to do but, in obedience to his uncle's command, to allow himself to be con- veyed quietly to England, where he was sure of suffer- ing death — instead of amusing himself with medita- tions on mortality, he yqvj wisely consulted the means of self-preservation, turned the tables upon his attend- ants, and returned to Denmark. But granting him to have been reduced to the lowest state of despond- ence, surrounded with nothing but horror and de- spair, sick of this life, and eager to tempt futurity, we shall see how far he argues like a philosopher. In order to support this general charge against an author so universally held in veneration, whose very errors have helped to sanctify his character among the multitude, we will descend to particulars, and analyze this famous soliloquy. Hamlet^ having assumed the disguise of madness, as a cloak under wdiich he might the more effectu- ally revenge his father's death upon the murderer and usurper, appears alone upon the stage in a pen- sive and melancholy attitude, and communes with himself in these words : " To be, or not to be ? That is the question. Wliethcr 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The shngs and arrows of outrageous fortune, hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 15 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end tliem ? — To die — to sleep — No more ! and by a sleep, to say, we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to ; — 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be -wished. — To die — to sleep — To sleep 1 perchance to dream ; ay, there's the rub ; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled ofif this mortal coil, Must give us pause. — There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time ! Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud* man's contumely, The pangs of despisedt love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin ? Who would fardels bear, To groan and sweat under a wearj'^ life, But that the dread of something after death (That undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveller returns) puzzles the will — And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sickUed o'er with the pale cast of thought ; And enterprises of great pith and moment. With this regard, their currents turn awry And lose the name of action." * The Folio reads — '• the poor man's contumely ;" the contumely which the poor man is obliged to endure. — Malone. \ The Folio reads — "pangs of disprized love;" meanmg a love which is found to be unvaliced or disreprclicn(l that it is the duty of an eclltor to exhibit wluit his author wrote, and not to substitute what may appear to the present age preferable ; and Dr. Johnson was of the same opinion. See his note on the word Irngger^miigger^ Act 4, so. 5. I have, therefore, tliougli with some reluctance, adhered to the old copies, liowever unpleasing this word may be to the ear. On the stage, without doubt, an actor is at liberty to substitute a less offensive word. To the cai*s of our ancestors it probably conveyed no unpleasing sound ; tor we find it used by Chaucer and others : " But never groni he at n« stroke, but on/' etc., etc. The MonJce's Tale. Again, in " "Wily Beguiled," written before 1596 : " She's never well, but grunting in a corner." — Mdlone. " The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn N'o TRAVELLER returns^ — This has been cavilled at \>y Lord Orrery and others, but without reason. The idea of a traveller in Shakespeare's time was, of a person who gave an account of his adventures. Every voyage was a discovery. John Taylor has '' A Discovery by Sea from London to Salisbury." — Farmer. Again, Marston's ^' Insatiate Countess," 1G03 : " Wrestled with death. From whose stern cave none tracks a backward path." " Qui nunc it per iter tenehricosum^ I Hue unde negant redire quemquam.'^ — Catullus. hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 83 Again, in Sandford's translation of " Cornelius Agrippa," etc., 1569 (once a book of uncommon popularity) : " The count7'ie of the dead is irreme- able, that they cannot retoxirne.^ Again, in " Cym- beline," says the Gaoler to Posthunms : " How you shall speed in your journey's end [after execution], I think you'll neve7' return to tell one.^'' — Steevens. This passage has been objected to by others on a ground which, at first view of it, seems more plausi- ble. Hamlet himself, it is objected, has had ocular demonstration that travellers do sometimes return from this strange country. I formerly thought this an inconsistency. But this objection is also founded on a mistake. Our poet, without doubt, in the pas- sage before us, intended to say, that from the unknoion regions of the dead no traveller returns with all his corporeal poioers, such as he who goes on a voyage of discovery brings back when he returns to the port from which he sailed. The tra- veller whom Hamlet had seen, though he appeared in the same habit which he had worn in his lifetime, was nothing but a shadow : " invulnerable as the air," and consequently incorporeal. If, says the objector, the traveller has reached this coast, it is not an undiscovered country. But by undiscovered^ Shakespeare meant, not undiscovered by departed spirits, but undiscovered, or unknown to " such fel- lows as we who crawl between earth and heaven ;" superis incognita tellus. In this sense every coun- try, of which the traveller does not return alive to 2^^ 84 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. give an account^ may be said to be ^undiscovered. The GJiost ]ias given ns no account of the region from whence lie came, being, a8 he himself informed lis, '' fur])id to tell the secrets of his prison-house." Marlowe, before our poet, had compared death to a journey to an undiscovered country: " weep not for Mortimer, That scorns the world, and, as a traveller^ Goes to discover countries yet unknown. — King Edward 11. 1598, {written lefore 1593)' " — Malone. Perhaps this is another instance of Shakespeare's acquaintance with the Bible : " Afore I goe thither, from vjJience I shall not turne agcdne^ even to the land of darknesse and shadowe of deathe ; yea, into that darke, cloudie lande and deadlye shadowe wdierein is no order, but terrible feare as in the darknesse." (Job, ch. x.) " ' The way that I must goe is at hande, but whence I shall 7iot turne againe.'' (Job, ch. xvi.) I quote Cramner's Bible." — Douce. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all. *' I'll not meddle with it ; it maJces a man a coward." [Rich. III. : Act 1, so. 4. " coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me." [Ibid: Act 5, sc. 3." — Blaheway. " Great pith."— Thus the folio. Tlie quartos read, " of <^rQiit jntcL^^—Steevens. " l*itch seems to be the better reading. The allu- hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 35 sion is to i\\Q pitching or tJirowiiig the har / a manly exercise, usual in country villages." — Hitson. IS'ot to speak it profanely, Mr. Ritson's idea \^far fetched. Pith (as per folio) was tlie word, and used in a similar sense, as in — "that's my pitJi of business." — Measfor Meas. "marked not what's the pith of all." [^Taming of the Shrew, " the pith and marrow of our attribute." — Hamlet. " let it feed even on the pith of life." — Ihid. " arms of mine had seven years ^lYA." — Othello. Then awey. — Thus the quartos. The folio, " turn away.^'' The same printer's error occurs in the old copy of "Antony and Cleopatra," where we find, "your crown's away^^ instead of "your crown's awry.^^ — Steeve7i8. Thus have I quoted the most erudite and eminent of Shakespeare's commentators upon such words and metaphors as are comprised in Hmnlet^s solilo- qxty on suicide^ and the meaning or propriety of which has suggested their doubts or questions. But, as in the early part of this nineteenth century, there was discovered, in the library of the Duke of Devon- shire, a single edition of " ITamlet," 1603, (the only known copy of the play as originally written by Shakespeare, and the same which he afterward altered and enlarged to that which appears in the folio of 1623,) containing many of Shakespeare's ori- ginal crude or undigested thoughts, which he after- 36 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. ^vard worked over or elaborated, and among others, his previous sketch or draft of this famous soliloquy, a reference to it may assist to elucidate some point that has been involved in doubt, and also gratify the curiosity of any one inclined to discover where Shakespeare thought fit to turn critic and improve upon his own earlier compositions. It should be premised, however, perhaps, to a modern reader, that, besides standing as a numeral for one^ the ninth letter of the alphabet, /, which in later times became confined to signify the pronoun of the first person^ was in Shakespeare's day written also to express ay or yes. Wherever Shakespeare wrote aye^ the word means ever or always. Ham. — '' To be, or not to be, I there's the point, To die, to sleepe, is that all ? I all : No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes, For in that dreame of death, when wee awake, And borne before an everlasting Judge, From whence no passenger ever returned, The undiscovered country, at whose sight, The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd. But for this, the joyful hope of this, Whoe'd beare the scornes and flattery of the world. Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore. The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong'd, The taste of hunger, or a tirant's raigne. And thousand more calamities besides, To grunt and sweat under this weary life, When that he may his full quietus make, With a bare bodkin, who would this indure, But for a liope of something after death? hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 37 Which piisles the braine, and doth confound the sence, Which makes vs rather beare those evilles we have, Than flie to others that we know not of. I that, this conscience makes cowards of vs all, Lady in thy orizons, be aU my sinnes remembered." Tlie soliloquy here consists of twenty-two lines only ; in the folio of 1623 it fills thirty-three lines. Shakespeare found occasion in that to introduce new or different suhject-matter for reflection. He also strengthened many of his original expressions, and, indeed, seems to have almost entirely reformed, by diifusion and compression alternately, the links in the chain of the self-argument. In the edition of 1603, preserving the first half of the opening line — " To be, or not to be " — the author struck out " ay, there's the point," and sub- stituted " that is the question." Then he introduces : " Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them ?" At this point he falls back upon his second original line: " To die, to sleep, is that all ? ay, all :" and resolves \\,for the contimiity : '' To die ?— to sleep !— No more." There Shakespeare stopped to reconnoitre Hamlefs 88 hamlet's soliloquy ox suicide. postulate and the natural consequences, and pursu- ing his self-inqairj, added : " and, by a sleep, to say, we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, — 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd." Here he again returns, and resumes his self-debate from the third line of the original soliloquy : " No, to sleepc, to dreame, ay mary there it goes," first reiterating, " To die— to sleep—" and then suggesting the likelihood of a dream : " To sleep ! perchance to dream ; ay, there's the rub," he specifies the respective considerations which should restrain his impulses or compel him to hesi- tate. He changes the expression from dream to " sleep of death ;" and substitutes for " when we awake And borne before an everlasting Judge," " what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coiL" Possibly Shakespeare may have considered that his own ideas were not quite clear in their inception, and had been rather conglomerated in their original expression ; as he continued to separate and to arrange hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 39 tliem in a more logical and intelligible order : for example, in place of liis first hypothesis of being "in a dream of death, and awakened and borne before an everlasting Judge, from whence no j^cis- senger ever returned," and also, of the opening to '' sight an undiscovered country " which should have the effect to make " the happy smile, and the accursed (feel) damn'd," we find the author has changed the idea to one suggestive of ''^ sleejy of death," (which knows no waking,) together with that dread — ^^ what'''' (possibly horrid) "dreams" in the eternal sleep a suicide might discover as his fate, who, aware that the Everlasting had " fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter," had thus defiantly attempted to rid himself of life's turmoils, and had hastily " shuffled off this mortal coil," and those ill fortunes which Destiny had seen fit to deal out, as his lot in this world. Keferring to the immediate antecedent — " The undiscovered country, at whose sight The happy smile," etc., the line — " But for this, the joyful hope of this " is omitted, and, instead of retaining entire, " But for the hope of something after death," the author thought fit to alter " hope " to " dreads 40 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. "But that the dread of something after death (That undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns) puzzles the will " — (not "puzzles the h^aine,^^ as previously written,) and, after apostrophizing "conscience" in a line, add^^ finally : " And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought ; And enterprises of great pith and moment, "With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action." Tlie idea connected with the words ^'shuffled off'''' may be discovered in its concordance in another play : " Often good turns Are shufled off with such uncurrent pay ; But, were my worth, as is my conscience, firm, You should find better dealing^ [Twelfth Night, Act 3, sc. 3. In conchision, with reference to the matter con- tained in this soliloquy as it appeared in the earlier edition, (1603,) it is highly interesting to imagine what thoughts might have originated in the brain of such a mighty genius, and what his motives were for each change of word, or sentence, or order in expression ; but, with what a nice regard to a com- bination of poetry with philosophy and human nature, Shakespeare has condensed the spirit of his first ideas and leas digested reflections in the latest hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 41 edition of this soliloquy, only such as may have the taste, time and patience to investigate for them- selves can thoroughly appreciate. In March, 1828, happening, when engaged in dis- cursive reading, to pick up a volume of " The Bri- tish Classics," containing Goldsmith's Essays, I quoted the preceding matter, and wrote the previous comments and the following remarks upon that jDor- tion of Goldsmith's XYIth Essay which relates to " Hamlet's Soliloquy on Suicide :" — In reference to the first charge preferred against Shakespeare, that he has given Hamlet not "the least reason to wish for death," it should be recollected, that Hcunlefs mind was, upon our first introduction to him, strongly operated upon by the recent and sudden death of a parent whom he had dearly loved, and whose memory he reverenced — that, whilst in the full and unabated indulgence of his grief, his mother, forgetful of his father's recent decease, and in defiance of common decency, had been actually won, within a month after that fatal event, to the incestuous bed of his paternal uncle. Perhaps a touch of disappointed ambition, but more apparently the continual recurrence of these facts to his sensitive mind, at times disgusted him with life ; and, to add to his mortification, his suc- cession had been hindered, and the throne usurped, by one whose very dethronement, since his marriage with his mother, would tend more deeply to dis- grace the royal family of Denmark, which, as 42 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. appears by the catastroplie, consisted of these three only. In the midst of these afflictions, lie is informed tliat the ghost of his father has been seen "two nights together " upon the platform before the cas- tle, where, " With martial stalk, hath he gone by our watch;" has sought and had an interview aj^^art with, the apparition, learned that murder has been joined to the crime of incest in obtaining the crown, his own by right ; but, though Hmnlet is expected to revenge upon his beastly uncle his father's "foul, strange and unnatural " murder, his pursuit of it is embarrassed by the Ghosfs injunction: " Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught ; leave her to heaven, And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge To prick and sting her." As soon as Hamlet recovers from the appalling effect of that horrid revelation, sufficient of itself to overwhelm and prostrate his faculties, without the superadded and preternatural agency of his father's disembodied spirit to render it still more terrific and impressive, he resolves that the preliminary step of his policy shall be the semblance of madness ; because, such a reputed state of mind will at once exempt him from being an object of further machi- nations from his murderous uncle, whose security in hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 43 the throne would be greatly enhanced by Hamlets incapability ; and, also, whilst evident insanity would protect his life and neutralize any apprehen- sion in his uncle's mind of Hamlet^ s attempt to vin- dicate his own rights, would afford Hamlet more opportunity to reconnoitre his uncle's unguarded licentiousness. In order that the story of the Ghost may not get currency, and thereby discover any clue to his stra- tagem and assumed madness, Hamlet has prayed of the only three others who have seen the apparition — " If you have hitherto concealed this sight, Let it be tenable* in your silence still " — and, of the two officers of the watch, particularly, and under their oath, not to divulo^e anvthino^ con- cerning him, should he " think meet to put an antick disposition on." One of the most signal traits of Hamlets idiosyn- crasy is his fickleness of purpose or irresolution. Of that morbid fertility is his imagination, that often before he is able to realize to himself an idea it has started, another dispels or displaces it, and his utterance, incapable of keeping pace with their flow, and blending their expression, becomes confused and unintelligible without scrutiny. * The folio of 1623 reads, " let it be irtbU in your silence still," and, although Steevens thinks "tenable" in the quarto "right," I doubt it; as the meaning of treble (or triple) may be, "the sight remain known to you tliree only," namely, Horatio, Marcellus and Bernardo. 44 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. Dr. Johnson says : — " Of the feigned madness of Hamlti tliere appears no adequate cause, for he does nothing he might not have done with the reputation of sanity." Granted, that he accomplishes little or nothing in any of his plans or objects; but he repeatedly purposed to do a great deal ; and it is the differing shades of his discrepancy between the understandings and moral habits and actions of mankind which constitute our peculiarities of cha- racter. Hamlet was of an impulsive temperament, and very dissimilar to such as are naturally phleg- matic, and who resolve, after mature and delib^*ate reflection, and steadily execute their purposes. Hamlet'' s nature is like the flint-struck steel, which " shows a hasty spark, and straight is cold again." All his resolutions must be formed out of some excitement of the blood. "When the Ghost first inti- mates, and calls upon him to revenge, his murder.^ he impatiently interjects : " Haste me to know it ; that I, with wings as swift As meditation, or the thoughts of love, May sweej) to my revenge " — and could he hnmediately have encountered his murderer, whilst his blood was inflamed, would unhesitatingly have fulfilled his vow of vengeance then, as he did, upon an after-occasion, in " his brainish apprehension," kill Polonius. The moment his blood cools, he relapses into the philosopher. Hardly does one incentive to action present itself to hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 45 Ills mind, before it is blasted in the bud, or neutral- ized by some paralyzing obstacle. His inconsist- ency of conduct has in some instances been unde- servedly complained of through ignorance of Haiii- lefs motives. Once, particularly, he summons all his resolution, and fully bent on sacrifice, seeks his uncle, whom he then chances to find at prayer : — his heart, which revolted even at retributive slaugh- ter in cold blood, failed him, and suggested to his judgment a parley before procedure, and the sophism that it would be "hire and salary — not revenge," " To take him in the purging of his soul, When he is fit and seasoned for his passa^," who had killed his brother " With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;" and, under the alleged pretext that slaying his uncle then " would be scaun'd " and be regarded as an encouraging example to a murderer, Hamlet deter- mines with himself that it is inexpedient at that juncture to kill King Claudius^ and prefers to await some opportunity when his uncle may be " about some act That has no relish of salvation in't : Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven : And that his soul may be as damn'd, and black, As hell, whereto it goes." 46 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. This obvious subterfuge for bis own irresolntion has been harbaronsly misconstrued by some igno- rant or superficial critics, who impute to Hamlet the possession of a demoniacal spirit of revenge, unsa- tisfied with the killing of the body only, and desir- ous of extending its gluttonous malignancy to the soul after its separation : whereas, the real motive which underlies the sophistry ought to be transpa- rent to any one reading carefully Hamlet^s conduct and character, either before or after. Take, for one of the many examples, his own acknowledgment of his instability of purpose and self-reproof : " How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge ;" etc. Dr. Johnson continues : — " Hamlet plays the mad- man most when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty." With regard to its uselessness^ I would suggest a reference to the fact, that Hamlet^ having, immediately after the Ghost^s revelation, thought fit to put an antic disposition on, sought a subject and a medium for circulating through the Court a report of his insanity / some strange freak of conduct was necessary as a preliminary, and Avhat sort of mental derangement so likely to be esteemed harmless to all, and aflPord perfect security to the suspicious mind of the guilty usurper, as the madness proceed- ing from unrequited love ? The notoriety of his ten- der j)assion for Ophelia, and the fact that she had hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 47 recently, by the command of her father, returned his letters and rejected his visits, afforded a promising opportunity to establish such a starting-point with- out exciting anyone's suspicion. However strongly the current of Hamlefs passion for Ophelia had been set previously, it had been checked by his then mourning his father's recent and sudden death, and, now particularly that he had Yowed to remember his perturbed spirit, and " Thy commandment aU alone shall hve Within the book and volume of my brain," his thoughts had been diverted from a course of l(yoe and bound in another Q\\2imiQ\^ filial duty. K an origination of the report of Hamlefs mad- ness, and its apparent cause from the least suspicious source (and Hamlefs object was to secure such report's ready access to tlie King and Queen), could he have selected a more fit, inoffensive, and sure course, than through Ojphelia^ who would naturally, and dutifully, and forthwith communicate Hamlefs behavior to her father, whose propensity would lead to its immediate promulgation to the King and the Court ? I think the means Hamlet adopted were exceedingly well calculated to produce the impres- sion he wished to make, and that up to this stage of his proceeding, there is no evidence of his rriadnesa being other than etsstimccl. His " rudeness," then, was not — if it could be so considered at all — " use- less and wanton cruelty." But was Hamlet either 48 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. rude or cruel to Oj)heUaf To judge from her de- scription of Hamlefs beliavior, when she had " been affrigided^ as she was sewing in her closet," Ophelia did not reorard it as either rude or cruel, but ''' jpiteous^^'' in its effect upon her ; and, in reference to his conversation with her, when her father and the King had conspired to send for Hamlet, when he might, as 'twere by accident, meet Ophelia, whilst they, so bestowed as to be unseen by him, could thus covertly see and hear what should pass between them, and to which esjnonage she has lent herself by loalking in Hamlefs w^ay and seeming to read a hook, as instructed, it should be premised that the text furnishes a reasonable inference that Hamlet has acquired, either by a personal glimpse of his sp)ies, or other incident of the scene, some idea of Ophelia^s duplicity and unfair, not to say unfaithful or ungenerous, position with respect to him, when he commences to interrogate, and she to equivocate — he to animadvert and she at last to answer his direct question, "Where's your father?" with "At home!" which Hamlet may have known to be 2i^ palpable, as she did it was an absolute, y(:^Z^<3- hood. Hamlet^ s language, however, though earnest and pungent, was neither rude, nor wanton, nor cruel ; nor were his sentiments, as it seems, in any way offensive. The effect was to impress her, by the sudden change, from his habitually mild and gentle language and manners to strong and uugallant invective, with a belief that he was hopelessly mad. hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 49 Keaii (Edmuud), as Hamlet^ after concluding his words to Ojjhdta — "To a nuniieiy, go!" and de- parting abruptly out of sight of his audience, used to come on the stage again and approach slowly the amazed Oi)lielia still remaining in the centre ; take her hand gently, and, after gazing steadily and earnestly in her face for a few seconds, and with a marked expression of tenderness in his own counte- nance, appeared to be choked in his efforts to say something, smothered her hand with passionate kisses, and rushed wildly and finally from her pre- sence. The conception was clearly indicated and neatly executed in each point, whether justified by the circumstances of the interview or not. A more effective bit of serious pantomime by way of episode that master of his art never exhibited upon any stage. It was a whole history in little ! Reverting to the situation of Ilaml-et immediately preceding the soliloquy on suicide. He had no sooner put on the guise of insanity than he dis-' covered that the king had sent for and made spies of his two friends, ItosenGrantz and Guildenstern, whom he had found bent upon plucking out the very heart of his own mysterious behavior, and resolved to scrutinize his every movement. It is now that the consciousness of the wrongs he has suffered — the perplexity he finds in steering the course he has adopted — the delicacy of his situation with respect to his mother — the uncertainty of the stratagem for making his uncle's " occulted guilt" " itself 3 50 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. unlvenneV by the effect of tlie play — then the melanchuly and bitter satisfaction its success at best must afford him, together with its reflections upon liis own infirmity of purpose when compared with the ability of the player to assume upon an imagin- ary occasion — these all conspire to predispose his mind to philosopliize concerning the value or worth- lessness of human existence, and particularly under his own embarrassing circumstances. It is in such a frame of thought, that Hamlet enters just before the mock-play and commences the soliloquy — " To be, or not to be," etc. The assertion that " Hamlet deviates, after the first line, from the proposition — to die by his ow^n hand, or to live and suffer the miseries of life" — when he follows up with, " Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer," etc. — is a different construction of the metaphor it contains from that w^hich I under- stand the passage to convey. Instead of supposing him to be debating with himself, " whether he will stoop to misfortune, or exert his faculties in order to surmount it," thereby (as the critic observes) " giv- ing over his reasoning on death, which, he alleges, is no longer the question," though he admits that " Hamlet instantly reverts to it," I will endeavor to show it to be thus far one unbroken continuation of the same chain of ideas. The fact is, Hamlet never alludes to the alternative of ending his difficulties by raising an army or claiming his rights by force of arms ; the arm to which he contem}>hitcs the hamlet's soliloquy ox suicide. 51 effect of a recourse is no other than the unsheathed dagger — (particularized afterward in the course of his reasoning as " a hare hodhin'''') — and hy opjposing (it to his heart — the fountain of existence, and com- paring it, in its then agitated condition, to '^ a sea of trouhles^^) end them. That is the kind of arm, and such the sea^ the poet intended to prefigure in Ilctmlefs hypothesis. The analogy between the sea^ with the ebbing and flowing of its tides, as they are propelled and returned back and forth through vari- ous branching rivers, channels, and tributary creeks, and other passages, and the heart, by whose im- pulses the hlood is constantly forced and courses through the veins and arteries of the body until it returns to its source and is again emitted, must be obvious to every one upon reflection ; thus, instead of "a ridiculously absurd figure," is the idea beau- tifully poetic. Among Shakespeare's numerous figures in reference to the heart, he thus associates with the sea " a Tieartj As full of troubles as a sea — of sands." \_Two Gent, of Verona. Othello, too, in allusion to his heart, calls it — '' The fountain from the which my current runs Or else dries up." Hamlet, in his self -debate on suicide, hy " sea of troubles," had only and special reference to his heart and its physical functions — namely — 52 hamlet's soliloquy ox suicide. " The tide of blood in me ^ Halli 2>ro\i(llii flowed in vanity till noiv, Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea." [^Second Part of King Henry IV. That the word ^' sea," in this context^ is iised as figurative or suggestive of the heart, is undeniable ; heeause the *' blood" can " turii and ebb back^'' to no other " 56'(X." Dr. Goldsmith's classical taste discerns and com- plains that " Shakespeare himself is often guilty of an excess of figures and of running into mixed meta- phors, which leave the sense disjointed and distract the imagination." As " from tlie fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh," so it may be natural to a richly endowed poetical genius to be apt to in- dulge in a profusion even unto a redundancy, occa- sionally, and the breaking unavoidably, sometimes, or a mixing of metaphors. It is an evidence of a meagre mind when its figures are too continuousi|y pursued and attenuated. As to there being " nothing analogous in nature to Fortune with her slings and arrows,^'' I do not per- ceive any special " disjointure of the sense^'' if there be any particular transgression of poetical license. Among " the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to," what is there so very absurd or poetically unnatural in representing " outrageous Fortune" — that blind, and fickle, and inexorable goddess — with a sling^ hurling stones and stunning the sense of some unlucky victim ? or in her shooting an arroio hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 53 and lacerating the kind lieart of another unde- servedly, and in her wantonness ? Have not slin(/s and arrows been primitive instruments of human torture, and may they not be used with equal pro- priety as symljols of suffering^ as the poisoned bowl and the ruthless dagger are 2,^ figurative of death f With respect to the flat contradiction chai'ged in making Hamlet speak of " ' the undiscovered coun- try from whose bourn no traveller returns,' when the ghost of his father, piping hot from purgatory (a place not within the bourn [or limit] of this world), had just been conversing with him," it has been freely and ingeniously canvassed by discerning commentators, whom I have quoted copiously in a former paper. I may add, in the way of remark, that Hamlet is constantly wavering in his mind, and betwixt the supernatural revelation from the ghost, and the irreconcilability of the source of the infor- mation with his philosophy, he seems at times to doubt even the evidence of his senses, and to imagine that his faculty of eyes and ears has been fooled by his other senses, and to impute the decep- tion to the effect of an overheated imagination : — '' The spirit that I have seen May be a devil, and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and, perhaps, Out of my weakness and my melancholy^ (As he is very potent with suc4i spirits), Abuses me to damn me : I'll have grounds More relative than this : the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." 54 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. The coniinnation his mind receives from the inci- dent at the phiv, and the emotion that so conclu- sively, to him, betrayed his uncle's guilt, seems to be again superseded when the Ghost appears and talks to him, yet is invisible and inaudible to his mother at the same time. The Ghost^ too, in the closet, thus seen only by himself, appears clad in his father's habit as he lived^ whilst that which visited the glimpses of the moon upon the platform, in figure like his father, appeared in armiOT^ was seen at the same time by Hamlet'' s three companions, and might have been heard, too, had the Ghost not beckoned him to a more removed ground ; as though the apparition some impartment did desire to Hamlet alone. Shakespeare may have, however, designed by this difference to indicate the turning-point of Hamlets brain, where his madness is no longer assumed, but has become real and constitutional, and ready to burst into paroxysms upon any occasional excite- ment, and again to subside and leave to reason an interval of temporary sway. Such a self-conviction may, in some measure, account for his neglect there- after to pursue actively his revenge, and for the fact of his seldom alluding to it in subsequent conversa- tion. The shock inflicted upon his nervous system when mistaking and killing Polonius^ seems to have jDroduced a climax touching the subject whereon his melancholy had been sitting on brood, and abso- lutely deranged his intellect. hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 55 AVhen Shakespeare needed a gliost to come from the grave in order to tell Hamlet what his proplietic soul had previously suggested to his imagination, he was, I presume, not supposed to be restricted from investing each, according to circumstances, with any quality requisite for the occasion. Finally, when poets have need of the influence of departed spirits upon the affairs of this world, and find it expedient to their purposes to recall their apparitions to scenes familiar in their lives, what may be their righteous limits, license, faculties of communicating what they know or desire, of perceiving what occurs upon this earth, or of rendering themselves only visible to certain persons, and at particular hours of the night most favorable to the imagination of such as they would be noticed by, I have never studied ; but have ever yielded the utmost latitude to the erratic fancy of an author — never attempting to reconcile to my natural jjhiloso^phy a consistency ^\\\i jpretematural agencies and influences ; because such things have strong imagination, and a poet's eye, in a fine phrensy rolling, requires space and scope for any utility. The mystery complained of, contained in the lines — " But that the dread of something after death And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;" 66 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. may be removed at once by admitting Harnlefs creed to be, that " there (ire ' ills ' in the next world, and I would fly to them, hut that I fear such as might be measured out to me as a suicide^ and the severity of which ' I know not of,' may be greater than the miseries I bear here ; and therefore I am deterred from rushing into those of the world to come, in order to escape these which I endure in ihis life." " Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." " The logician might be j nstified in saying of such a conclusion, negatur consequens^^^ if the significa- tion of the word " consciences'^ was confined to this critic's understanding of its sense, and had not a legitimate latitude of which he does not appear aware. The meaning of " conscience " in this con- text is, an internal sense of riglit or wrong ^ and which modern lexicographers distinguish by tJie word (not expressed in Shakespeare's vocabulary, though frequejitly implied) consciousness^ (the know- ledge of what passes in the mind) whilst they have defined conscience to signify — " The faculty within us w^hich decides upon the lawfulness or unlawful- ness of our actions." In Shakespeare's comprehensive use of the word, a conscience may be good or bad, according to its owner's hnowledge of what passes in his mind, and not necessarily implying that he is conscientious or scrupulous in obeying its dictates. Conscience, as a hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 57 synonyme of conscioitsness^ is also used by Bacon, Hooker, Pope and other writers. I take Hamlcfs meaning to be, as we would with our modern dis- tinction of terms express it, " It is the consciousness tliat we would merit the ills or condign punishment that may be reserved by the Everlasting for such as may commit forbidden acts, which " makes cowards of us all." Then, after recapitulating the points of his pre- vious objections. Goldsmith asserts that " ' Ay, there's tlie rub ' is a vulgarism beneath the dignity of Hamlefs character." If the vulgarism consists in the use of the word " rub," (a hindrance or obstacle,) it is put by Shakespeare repeatedly into the mouths of several of his kings and queens and other dignified personages ; had its particular quantity for the metre of his versification been the cause of its use in this context, we should not find the word rulj so often elsewhere ; besides, from its frequent use by Dryden, Davenant, Swift and others, its conven- tional degradation in the vocabulary becomes very doubtful ; but how " it leaves the sense imperfect," according to the critic's own showing, I am unable to comprehend. The sense and propriety of " the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely," as governed in the possessive case by the preceding verb " bear," to me are obvious. The objection to the use of the word 3* 58 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. " spurn " as a substantive is also hypercritical, if Milton be allowed as authority. ""What defence can properly be used in so desj)erate an encounter as this, but either the slap or the sjyurnP — Colasterion. Finally, it seems to me that " the strange rhap- sody of broken images," of which the critic com- plains, is perfectly characteristic of Hamlefs idio- syncrasy in his peculiar predicament ; indeed, such unprecedented and unrivalled individuality has Shakespeare shown in drawing and sustaining each of his characters throughout, and so peculiarly adapted to the respective situations is their language, that any attempt to transpose it, or to change the medium of its use, or to disconnect sentences and examine certain ideas separately or from an abstract point of consideration, must be foreign to the spirit and purpose of the bard of Avon. Dr. Goldsmith's essay, at least so far as concerns the sense of the soliloquy on suicide, I consider weak and abortive. It is a proof that a critic may have a refined taste, be learned and classical, and yet not qualified to fathom the more profound meanings of sucli an author as Shakespeare. It is a singular fact that, of all the critics I have read, Schlegel and Goethe^ with whom Shakespeare's was not their vernacular, should seem, by their general remark, to have the more clearly penetrated his designs. Goethe, particularly, has given a key to the cha- racter of Hamlet. He says : — hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 59 " It is clear to me that Shakespeare's intention was to exhibit the effects of a great action, imposed as a duty upon a mind too feeble for its accomplish- ment. In this sense I find the character consistent throughout. Here is an oak-tree planted in a china vase, proper only to receive the most delicate flow- ers. The roots strike out and the vessel flies to pieces. A pure, noble, highly moral disposition, but without that energy of soul which constitutes the hero, sinks under a load which it can neither bear, nor resolve to abandon altogether. All his obliga- tions are sacred to him. Observe how he turns, shifts, hesitates, advances, and recedes ! ITow he is continually reminded and reminding himself of his great commission, which he, nevertheless, in the end, seems almost entirely to lose sight of, and this without even recovering his former tranquillity." — WilJiehn Meister's Apprenticeshvp, PART II. HAMLET. EXTRACTS FROM MY JOURNAL OF CORRESPONDENCE, RESPECTING HAMLET. In Jamiaiy, 1839, 1 spent a few weeks socially at Washington^ D.C. — a city wliicli I have very seldom visited professionally — and met the Hon. and Ex- President John Quincy Adams occasionally. In a conversation with him respecting the drama in general, and Shakespeare's especially — of which he was notoriously a constant reader — I observed to him that from boyhood I had read Hamlet with great attention, and had interleaved my copy of the play, and interspersed copiously annexations, which had been regarded by several of our literary friends as involvino^ some new and sino'ular ideas of the character. I reminded Mr. Adams of the delight he had once afforded me as well as a number of his friends, by his remarTcs upon that same character, after dinner at the table of Mr. Hone (Ex-Mayor Philip), of Kew York, and I proposed to send him 64 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. my MS. notes for 'perusal^ wliicli he politely inti- mated lie would '' gladly give them." When Mr. Adams returned my noted-co'pj of Hamlet^ it was accompanied by a very charming and instructive letter, dated, " Washington, 19 Feb., 1839," commencing : — " I return herewith your tragedy of Hamlet^ with many thanks for the peru- sal of your manuscript notes, which indicate how thoroughly you have delved into the bottomless mine of Shakespeare's genius. I well remember the conversation, more than seven years by-gone, at Mr. Philip Hone's hospitable table, where at the casual introduction of Hamlet the Dane, my enthusi- astic admiration of the inspired (Muse-inspired) Bard of Avon, commenced in childhood, before the down had darkened my lip, and continued through five of the seven ages of the drama of life, gaining upon the judgment as it loses to the imagination, seduced me to expatiate at a most intellectual and lovely convivial board, upon my views of the character of Hamlet^ until I came away ashamed of having engrossed an undue proportion of the con- versation to myself. I look upon the tragedy of Hamlet as the master-piece of Shakespeare — I had almost said the master-piece of the human mind. But I have never committed to writing the analysis of the considerations upon which this deliberate judgment has been formed. At the table of Mr. Hone I could give nothing but outlines and etchings. I can give no more now — snatching, as I do from hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 65 the morning lamp to commnne with a lover and worthy representative of Shakespeare npon tlie glories of tlie immortal bard." In reference to Mr. Adams' " morning lamj) " of February)^ it should be observed that, at his date, it was his custom to rise at four o'clock, in order to dispatch all his private affairs, that they miglit not interfere with his duties of the day in the House of Representatives, where he sat as a member from Massachusetts. As Mr. Adams complimentarily calls me " a lover and worthy representative of Shakespeare," I ought, in justice to his judgment, to observe also, that he had reference particularly to my Falstaff of King Henry IV. and in The Merry 'Wives of Windsor j because, before loaning him my notes upon Hamlet for his perusal, I had men- tioned that, " I had never acted^ nor had thought of acting that character ; and for the reason that, I should probably, owing to the comic department of the Drama which I professed, be either neglected or laughed at by the puUic, for any attempt to emljody my own conception in my own person ; and had, therefore, not only noted my own peculiar under- standing of various texts., but had elaborately de- scrihed how I thought my particular views might be illustrated and made jpercejptible upon the stage by a good actor of Hamlet. ^"^ Mr. Adams' letter continues — ""What is tragedy ?" — of which he wrote a classical analysis as a pre- face, and then a concise one which lie calls — " a 66 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. liasty outline of his own view of the character of Hamlet y" and conchides his four autographic pages of letter-sheet, closely w^ritten, with — " I regret that time w411 not allow nie to fill the canvas with lights ^nd shades borrowed from the incidents and dialogues of the play. Eut after be- stowing so much of my own tediousness upon you, I can only repeat my thanks for the perusal of your own very ingenious comments upon this incompara- ble tragedy, and add the assurance of my best wishes for your health and happiness, and of my cordial sympathies with your devotion to the memory of the immortal bard." (Signed) John QumcY Adams. See this ejjyistle in full ^ on a subsequent ^age. Though I considered Mr. Adams' personal com- pliments to emanate more from his benevolence and acquaintanceship with me than from his unbiassed judgment of my pretensions, yet, if an earnest desire from my youth to become familiar with Shakespeare's dramas — beginning at twelve years of age with Macbeth^ which inspired me to peruse the others, when I had yet never seen one acted — if to explore the vast intellectual magazine which the Bard of Avon has bequeathed to posterity — to try to penetrate his moral and dramatic designs — dis- cover and elucidate even a few of the many poetic gems which he has set, and diffused amid his copi- ous, and admirable, and unequalled diction — and to HAMLET S SOLILOQUY ON SUICIDE. 67 have become by sncli study enamored, and ambi- tions of performing some of his many matchless characters upon the stage (for which all were ex- pressly designed), and overcoming my constitutional and habitual love of ease and my aversion to close study or any prolonged physical labor — to have attained to be or have been accounted by the puhlio gencvally " a good actor " of at least one of his greatest characters — if, I repeat, this allowance to me of such particular elements may constitute and reflect any merit or claim in my favor for even a IMSsing notice in this wonder-working age, I can't conscientiously deny that I am not insensible to, but grateful for its public acknowledgment, expressed or implied. When the first letter from Mr. Adams (out of which I have quoted) reached my hand at New York, I was just embarking for England, whither I carried it before I had time to reply. It was esteemed so very interesting by several literary friends of mine in London, and became so eagerly and frequently sought, for the purpose of being copied, that at last, to rescue it from further mutila- tion, I caused it to be lithographed in fac-siinile^ together with my reply ^ and a few hundred of such copies presented to certain friends and literary insti- tutions there ; also, I sent some of the copies of that correspondence to several friends in i^ew York, and prior to my return from England (March, 1840), it had been obtained by the Neio Yorh Mirror (a 68 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. weekly), and pnblislied, without regard to the notice thereupon — " lithograjyJied far private distrihution onlyP The consequence was, Mr. Adams' letter and my reply were copied extensively by news- papers throughout the United States. After my return, and upon visiting Washington, when I met Mr. Adams, I mentioned that I had been ver^^ much vexed for his sake when I heard of the liberty which had been taken in publishing our letters in my absence, and without my knowledge or his consent, and that I had written Mr. Clay soliciting that gen- tleman's explanation of the facts in advance of my coming. Mr. Adams laughed, and observed — " I told Mr. Clay, when, at your instance, he referred to the circumstance and entered your disclaimer, that it not only did not offend — it did not surprise me — I expected it would be published one day or other. Indeed, I never write upon any subject, the publication of which at some time or other is unex- pected or might prove disagreeable." Ml passant^ Mr. Adams writes — " I look upon the tragedy of Hamlet as the master-piece of the drama — the master-piece of Shakespeare — I had almost said the master-piece of the human mind." That distinguished litterateur, the present Earl of CajrUsle^ whom, as " Lord Morpetli^^ I was accustomed to meet occasionally when he visited the United States about 1842-43, and to whom in England, in 1844, 1 carried a special letter of introduction from our eminent statesman, the Hon. Henry Clay, and was hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 69 tliere entertained bj him, and subsequently liave enjoyed bis corresjpondence^ in one of his letters, referring to that point, observes — ''I sec none of your criticisms are addressed to the play of Mac- Idh : in my mind the very highest, in order, of all the few which seem to me indisputably higher than all the rest — Macbeth^ Hamlet^ Othello^ Lear. When I say this, however, I never could quarrel with a pei*son who puts Hamlet even above Mac- hethr — 8ee letter^ on a sitbsequent page. Horatio Smith — the hrother of my witty and familiar London acquaintance at the Garrick Club, James, and the younger of those two — (called " the handsomest men in England," and who became renowned for their surprising imitations of the dif- ferent styles of their various contemporary poets, in the little volume entitled " Hejected Addresses,''^ which required some tioenty editions to satisfy the demand of the reading world), in a letter to me, dated at Brighton, where he resided, upon the sub- ject of Harnl-et^ coincides with Mr. Adams in the rank he allowed that in the order of Shakespeare's plays ; and, witli characteristic discernment, refers to Goethe\ practically-beautiful comparison of Haralet^s character. ("An oak tree planted in a china vase, proper only to receive the most delicate flowers. Tlie roots strike out, and the vessel flies to pieces." — See Wilhehn Meister^s Ajpprenticeship^ B. iv. Ch. 13.) By the way, I wonder if Mr. Adams ever heard 70 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. our gentle and amiable friend, and universally admired writer and revered countryman, Mr. Wash- ington Irving, mention what in his latest letter to me, he remarked, referring to his many singular and particular reminiscences of the stage, within the current century — "I have seen the Ballet of Hamlet gravely danced at Yienna." Had 3fr, Adams happened to see such a desecration, when *' a looker on in Yienna," it would have recalled — if it did not realize to him — the reflections of Ham- let in the grave-yard. " To what base uses we may return, Horatio. Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole V' — because then and there w^as one of the most exquisite poetic gems, ever germinated by dramatic genius in the brain of the Intellectual Minerva and devoted to the special service of Mel- pomene, debased, perverted, and sacrificed to sub- serve the mazy and meretricious '■'poetry of motion /" a province peculiar to tlie fantastic Terpsichore. I should perhaps in this connexion note that the particular letter of Mr. Irving, from which the fore- going sentence is extracted, is dated "I^ew York, April IT, 181:8 ;" — for the reason that, this eminent author had done me the favor to open a correspond- ence with me, " Jan. 3, 1837," in special reference to his " Kniclcerhoclt^r'^ s History of J^eio Yor'k,^'' when I, in a private and friendly way, had sought his opinion of its susceptibility of dramatic effect. In 18tl:7 I had mentioned to Mr. Irving socially and hamlet's soliloquy ox suicide. 71 incidentally, that I had been in the practice of carefully noting and recording in a manuscript vo- lume kept for that special pui'pose, the performance and apparent conception of every actor of distinc- tion whom I had seen in the character of Hartilet^ both in our country and in England, from 1816 to 184:5 ; which our venerable friend Mr. Adams had borrowed for perusal, and, when returning it, had written me anotJier and particularly interesting and instructive letter ; first thanking me for what he had the indulgence to call ''Hhe ^privilege of perusing" such notes, and then, " asking my acceptance of a few scattered leaves, containing his own remarks upon Othello^ Romeo and Juliet^ and Lear^ which had been originally written to a friend who thought them worthy oi ijiibliGation with his consent, &c.," and at same time communicating to me in that letter, his own first impressions of the London^ and the eiiect of an incident he witnessed on the Paris stage, in the time of Louis XYlth. Mr. Irving, too, complimented me by soliciting my ^^ J^otes upon the Actors of HamleV^ for perusal. I sent him the volume during the autumn of 1847, and he did not return it until the following spring, (April 17,) when he premised in his letter — " I have detained your manuscript notes an unconscionable time, but I could not help it. I wished to read them attentively, for they are remarkably suggestive, and not to be read in a hurry," &c., &c. — See letter^ on a siibsequent jpage. 72 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. Upon exaniiiiiiig tliercaftcr my returned manu- script, I discovered that, as another eminent literary- friend, Mr. James Fenimore Cooper, had done, Mr. Irving, when struck by my graphic record of the personal peculiarities of some well-remembered Actor, had stopped occasionally, and upon the mar- gin, favored me, by adding his own autographic annotations, in " lead-pencillings by the way." About the middle of October, 1841, the late Edmund Simpson, then Manager of the Park theatre, jSTew York, referring to the prevailing interest taken by the play-going community in my novel conceits, as manifested respecting the character of Hamlet in my then recently transpired correspondence with the Hon. John Quincy Adams, and which being transcribed and published throughout the land, was attracting great attention from critical admirers of Sliakespeare, suggested, urged, and finally per- suaded me to impersonate my own conception and as soon as six days thereafter^ when my benefit was appointed, assuring me that " my performance under the circumstances could not fail to attract greatly." The celebrated singer Mrs. Wood (ci-devant Miss Paton, the renowned prima donna of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, London) then an immense favorite at Kew York, as an inducement and encouragement to me, generously voluiiteered to act Oj)h£lia^ a part she had repeatedly played when Edmund Kean acted Hamlet at Drury Lane. So far as Shakespeara's text went, I felt sure I hAxMlet's soliloquy on suicide. 73 could become perfect in it; but, when I reflected that having never before thought of acting Hamlet, there was no time to acquire by practice, which alone makes perfect on the stage, the requisite ease of a gentleman, the dignity of a prince, appropriate action and flexibility of voice, in order to give pro- per variety to the vehement passions, weight to the declamatory and poignancy to the spirited and sati- rical portions ; I became frightfully nervous at the responsibility I had undertaken, and was vexed with my own want of forethought and circumsj)ection. For " Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." It is true that I had within a month or two pre- viously been performing King Lear (some dozen times in Philadelphia and ]N"ew York) and had acquired a certain confidence in the power and com- pass of my voice, and in the accompaniment of natu- ral and expressive action and attitude in the 2^(^^- si.onate scenes ; but then the physical training for Lear included little or nothing towards the adaption of my person for representing Hamlet : — " Our strange garments cleave not to their mould, But with the aid of wse," Consequently I passed six days of continuous ner- vous excitement, which made my system restless at night and my faculties sleepless the greater portion of each, and until that of my performance, when in 1 74 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. tlic presence of my audience, I endured too a con- stant and violent palpitation of the lieart. JSTever- tlieless I said I would go on for Hainlet — " What ! a soldier, and afeard ?" and I felt ashamed afterward to say, " I am afraid !" John Kemble, the greatest Hcmilet of his day, is reported to have declared that he studied Hamlet seven years before he acted it ; and, though he had then played it more than thirty years, every time lie rejpeated it^ something neio iii it struck Tiim. I remembered that I felt alarmed for my own temerity, but was resolved to do my best at such short notice of requirement, and deprecate public exactness. I headed the play-bill of the day with a short apology for my attempt to impersonate Ham- let, because, though my sock was not, my buskin was new, and my habitual study of characters had been very systematic and conscientious. At that time, I was unsophisticated enough to presume that every one who might go to see me act Hamlet would be a competent critic, and, that such at least as had curiosity excited by reading my letter to Mr. Adams, would expect of me some good acting, as well as novelty, nicety, and undeniable correctness of per- ception of the poet, p]iiloso])her, and dramatist, to whose tragedies I generally had riveted my most serious attention, and whose Hamlet especially, though I had analysed it, I now approached a repre- sentation of with a profound awe and reverence, hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 75 and particularly with apprelicusion before that maiij-headed monster, the jpicbUc^ whom I then dreaded. To do justice on the stage to my own conception in my closet, it was indispensably neces- sary that I should revise it minutely, dissect the com- ponent parts of the character, and where the text seemed unintelligible or ambiguous, and might have been corrupted by an editor or printer of the folio of 1623, to collate the various editions since, and, if a sentence then did not clearly indicate to me a con- sistent signification, to find a recourse in the poet Koscommon's suggestion — " When tilings appear unnatural and hard, Consult your author with himself compar'd." To avail myself of which, it was necessary to take each imjportant wmxl in the sentence, search every line in each of Shakespeare's plays where such word was incorporated, for the reason that the same author would seldom be found to use the same loorcl in very different senses, and try to detect a concord- ance of sentiment in some one of that word's various connexions, settle fully w^ith myself every verbal meaning and special point, as well as contexts hav- ing a general bearing upon the character ; all which seemed to me necessary, prior to re-uniting the dis- sected articles or resolved particles into a compen- dious, and harmonious, and completely-compounded concej^tion^ for the actor to Ijeijin his own peculiar 76 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. art with reference thereto : " then^ in regular course of study, has arrived the time for an artist to apply his rhetorical powers to the elucidation of his con- ception, and ascertain, to his own satisfaction at least, by untiring practice in his chamher^ how far nature has qualified him or denied him the requi- sites for 2^]jerfect personation of his ow^n ideal, in order to make the most of any natural fitness, and by art to overcome any physical drawbacks. Such I considered for Hamlet requisite in advance of any ^{iigQ-rehea7'sal ; and then, very essential to the effects before an audience^ that such rehear sals should be carefully conducted, and frequent enough to assure the actor of his own ease, and that the others who should support him, might thoroughly understand his intentions or objects, and not, thi'ough ignorance, defeat them at night. It is a mistake to imagine that even a soliloquy can be per- fectly studied and delivered without practice on the STAGE ; where only, conld I ever acquire the neces- sary abstraction and the faculty of identifying myself wdth my character assumed, as also the pro- per regulation of my voice, and of the action suita- ble to a passion according to situation. These reflections, after my hasty consent to undertake a performance of Hamlet wdth only six days of prepa- ration, a novice too in the tragic department of the * Refer here to my noted opinion of the habitual difference in this respect (study) between Kean and Moxreachj, 1844. h^vmlet's soliloquy on suicide. 77 art, and the responsibility, I began to realize were the cause of that ajpologij npon the play-bill, of which the folio win 2: is an extract : — PAEK THEATEE. Mk. Hackett's Benefit, on "which occasion the Distinguished Favorite Mrs. Wood has^ in the Tcindest inanner^ tendered her aid^ as OPHELIA. With the Original Music. Mk. Barry has Tcindly volunteered his services j and will also appear. Mr. Hackett respectfully informs his friends and the public that, encouraged by the gratifying approbation bestowed upon each of his persona- tions of King Lear., he will attempt, for the first time, to embody his own conception of Shake- speare's Hamlet^ Prince of DenntarJc, well assured that in his native city he can depend upon every reasonable allowance for such deficiency of mecha- nical manner as can be supplied only by longer and more frequent practice in the loftier depart- ments of the Drama, than he has yet had opportu- nity to acquire. 78 hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. Wednesday Evening, Oct. 21, 1840. HAMLET. Ha^ilet (for the first time on any stage), Mr. Hackett. Ghost of Haimlet's Eathek, . Mr. Barry. Ophelia (for tlie first time in this country), Mrs. Wood. CLAucros, King of Denmark, . 3fr. Gann. HoKATio, Mr. Hield. Laertes, Mr. Wheatly. PoLONirs, Mr. CMj^pendale. OsEicK, Mr. Fisher. Geeteude, Queen of Denmark, . Mrs, Barry, To which will he added the Ludicrous Scene of A MILITIA TEAMING. Hateful W. Paekins (an Inde- pendent Disorderly), .... 31r. Niclcinsoii. The Yankee Majoe, .... Mr. JlacJcett. The Militia, by an awhioard squad. The Entertainmerd to Conclude with the First Act of THE KENTUCKIAlSr. Col. Nevieod Wildfiee, .... 3fr. HachetL The theatre was full, and I was warmly greeted on appearance — all my soliloquies were surprisingly hamlet's soliloquy on suicide. 79 well received, and more or less interrupted by applause in their course of delivery — my scenes generally were marked either by mute applause or eloquent approbation, whilst my impassioned utter- ance of Hamlet's ^^Z/'-condemnation after witnessing what the ])laycr could do " in a dream of passion," was applauded to the echo, which, after I had left the stage, called me back to acknowledge the com- pliment of my audience ; also, the earnestness which I manifested in the course of Hamlet's con- trivance to detect the " occulted guilt," and the happy attitude which I happened to strike, as the usurper, at its climax, rushed away conscience- stricken, were honored by such loud vociferation and thunders of applause as required a long sus- pension of the progressive scene. Such portions of the play and certain points in the closet-scene (after which I was again called before the curtain), proved the most effective of any which I attempted to mark. In my youth I had read the work called Wilhel- meister'^s Ajpiyrenticesliij^^ and been struck with and remembered Goethe! s idea of causing, in represen- tation, Hamlet's description and comparison of his father's and his uncle's respective persons to be painted as full length portraits, and suspended in the Queen's closet, and, with the aid of Mr. Thomas Barry (a most capital stage-director as well as good and sound actor), I determined to try such an effect on the occasion. Mr. Barry, who acted the GJiost^ 80 HAMLET. consented to change the costume {armoicr) worn when it was seen upon the plaifonn^ and which, as it would seem, was designed to suggest surprise and increase Hamlet's wonder — (" My father's spirit — in av'ins ! all is not well ! ") — and to adopt one similar to tlmt worn by " My father in his hahit as he lived^'' ?a\^ painted for the portrait. The canvas was so constructed — by Mr. Barry's direction — and split, but backed with a spring made from whale- bone, which rendered its practicability unperceived by the audience, that it enabled him at the proj^er juncture, as the ghost behind, to step apparently out of it upon the stage ; the rent through wliich the figure had passed was closed up again, and the canvas, with a light behind it, then looked hlanh and illuminated ; but, the instant after the departure of the sj)irit from sight of the audience, the light was removed, and the painting appeared as before. The whole effect proved wonderful and surprising, and was vehemently applauded. The audience, at the close of the tragedy, as a matter of course, called me once more before the curtain, and I thanked them cordially for their manifestations of satisfaction ; though, in my heart, I attributed their apparent enthusiasm more to their own perception of what I was earnestly trying to do than to my own accomplishments upon the stage ; for I was anything but 5 Marks the fine point, where each consenting part Slides into beauty with the ease of art ; This bids to rise, and That with grace to fall. And rounds, unites, refines, and heightens all." Cawthorn. NOTES UPON KING LEAR. " Ta]^e pains the genuine meaning to explore ; There sweat, there strain ; tug the laborious oar ; Search every comment that your care can find ; Some here, some there, may hit the poet's mind : When things appear unnatural and hard. Consult your author with himself compar'd." Roscommon. King Leak is not a popular play with the million ; because the young ^ who constitute the great majority of play-goers, are too inexperienced to comprehend the dotage of the aged and tender father, and to sympathize with his consequent afflictions ; — regard- ing Lear^ as they generally do, merely as an old despot, and his sorrows and sufferings as measurably deserved by his own folly and tyranny ; nor can youth have acquired knowledge enough of mankind to detect and appreciate Shakespeare's exquisite art and profound philosophy in the drawing of Learns madness, its origin, progress, and climax ; nor his frightfully faithful portraiture towards the fatal denouement of nature's last and abortive struggle 94 NOTES UPON KING LEAR. with extreme old age and bodily iniirmitj to restore JLear'^s mental balance, and to re-establish his reason : therefore, this play is better adapted to the under- standing of the sage and philosopher, and the mad scenes, especially, to the appreciation of experienced and scientific physicians, who have been accustomed professionally to witness and contemplate the subtle workings of tlie maniac's mind. " The proper study of mankind is man." — Pope. Coleridge, in his Table Talh^ says : — ^^Lear is the most tremendous effort of Shakespeare as a poet, Hamlet as a philosopher and meditator, and Othello is the union of the two. There is something gigan- tic and unformed in the former two ; but in the latter {Otkello\ everything assumes its due place and proportion, and the whole mature j)Owers of his mind are displayed in admirable equilibrium." My opinion is, that the difference noticed does not arise so much from an inequality in Shake- speare's genius for drawing perfectly these three distinctive characters, but in the critic's taste for the different subjects they respectively comprehend, and their several moral spheres of action. A critic, in the Edhiburgh Review for July, 1840, (Article, " Recent ShaTiesjperian Literatures^) asserts : — " Tlic whole circle of Literature, ancient and modern, possesses nothing comparable to that world NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 95 of thoughts, feeliiigSj and images which is disphiyed ill the live great tragedies of Shakespeare." ^'^ ^ ^ ^ Comparing them with each other the same writer remarks : — ^'Zearis, at once more original in invention, more active in imagination, more softly pathetic in feel- ing ; Homeo and Juliet has more pm*e feeling ; Macleth a closer amalgamation of tragic action with thoughts purely ethical ; and Samlet traverses a world of thought in which all other existing dramas linger at the frontier : but Othello^ above every other drama, unites vehemence and nature iu tragic emotion, with truth and vigor in the delinea- tion of character. Tliis play, above all others, har- monizes those two elements, and makes each the counterpart, the supplement, the condition of the existence of the other." The poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, regarded Lear as a drama " universal, ideal, sublime ; and the most perfect specimen of dramatic art in existence." Philadeljyhia^ December 1, 1840. I saw Mr. Forrest as Lear last night, at the Chestnut Street Theatre. He and myself often and materially differ in our conceptions as well as in our tastes in personifying them upon the stage. He exhibits too much nerve and too little flexibility of voice and countenance generally ; his physical impetuosity in the curse, beginning " Hear, ]^ature ! Hear ! " and in Learns rage, wheresoever it occurs, seems to me 96 NOTES UPON KING LEAR. overstniiiied and unnatural, whilst his patlios is whining and wants intensity, and seems to spring more from a cool head than a warm heart. He evidently aims to make sternness and the mortified pride of the pagan despot Learns strongest charac- teristics ; whilst I think they should show only as sudden and transient flashes of a consuming heart, but most clearly alternate and secondary to the philanthropy which pervades the nature of the sen- sitive old father. Lear'^s occasional bursts of anger certainly require of an actor earnest and forcible expression, in order to realize fully to an audience Lear''s outraged sensibility ; but anger which can find words should, at the same time, acquire a com- parative temperance, to give it smoothness ; and though a passion torn to tatters may obtain more noisy applause from the barren spectators, it is tlie innate benevolence of the man, as is seen in his calm and reasoning intervals, which afi*ords oppor- tunity in acting for those tender strokes of art which wake the souls of the reflecting and judicious, and stamp the deepest and most enduring impression, upon their hearts. Mr. Forrest seems to " come tardy off" in all Lear's gushes of tenderness, as though his own nature was too rough or unrefined to receive the im2:)ress, and too sterile to cherish such delicate impulses ; the apostrophes, too, he uttered in the speculative tone of a stoic and without a touch of that plaintiveness which should characterize the NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 97 sententioiisness of a soul overcliarged witli its own accumulated wrongs. The gentler emotions of an aiHicted bosom beget deeper sympathy in the beholder than the most startling paroxysms of rage ; for, anger^ duly considered, is one of the lowest order of the passions, and just in proportion that any man allows it to rise and obtain the mastery does it dispel his reason and reduce his nature to that mere instinct which is common to the fiercest of the Irute creation ; it is a relic of barbarism which social refinement has abolished by crowning mildness and equanimity with its good graces, and by stigmatiz- ing a loss of temper as rudeness and ill-breeding. Mr. Forrest recites the text as though it were all prose, and not occasionally written in poetic mea- sure ; whereas, blank verse can, and always should be distinguishable from prose by proper modulations of the voice which a listener with a nice ear and a cultivated taste could not mistake, nor if confounded detect in their respective recitals : else Milton, as well as Shakespeare, has toiled to little purpose in. the best proportioned numbers. Mr. Forrest's countenance, as made up for Lear, is inflexible, stern, and forbidding : he has, too, a favorite grim scowl : his eyebrows arc made so shaggy and willowy, they hide the eyes too much : and his beard, though long and picturesque, covers some useful and important muscles of the face, making it rigid and incapable of depicting efi*ectively the alter- nate lights and shades of benevolence and irascibility r- o 98 NOTES UPON KING LEAR. as tliey fluctuate in Learns agitated mind ; nor, do I fancy Mr. Forrest's tread of the stage with his toes inclined somewhat inward like that of an Indian ; for the reason that it renders Lear's personal car- riage undignified : there is a want of keeping too in the paralytic action of his head and limbs, which at times exhibit too firm a repose for a man " fourscore and upwards," and then at others a shaking so vio- lent and overdone as to verge closely upon carica- ture. At the close of the following dialogue, namely — " Lear. Dost tliou know me, fellow ? Kent. No, Sir! but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master. Lear. What's that? Kent. Authority I" Mr. Forrest paused here some seconds, wagged his head about and smiled very significantly as though Learns vanity was particularly pleased that his features had indicated to a poor-service-beggar, an autocratio rule — one to which Lear (be it remem- bered !) had been born, ever been used, and then had never yet had disputed. In the last scene of the first act Mr. Forrest adhered to ITahum Tate's injudicious omission of the bit of pathos with which Shakespeare has interposed before the curse-direct. '-'■Lear. What, fifty of my followers at a clap! — within a fortnight ? KOTES UPON KING LEAR. 99 ATbany. What's the matter, sir ? Lear. I'll tell thee I (Therij with falling tears and cJioJdng utterarLce^ turned to Goneril.) Life and death ! I am asham'd That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus ; That these hot tears which break from me perforce, Should make thee worth them. — Blasts and fogs upon thee ! The untented woundings of a father's curse Pierce every sense about thee ! &c." Though it may be judicious to transpose some of this matter, as Tate has done — making it antecedent instead of subsequent to that terrific invocation which begins " Hear, N^ature, hear !" and at tlie end whereof, according to Shakespeare, Leai' "rushes out " for a few moments and " returns " exclaiming as above (quoted in parenthesis), I decidedly disap- prove of Tate's rejection of the pathetic portion, and have restored it; because, first, it bespeaks the sympathy of the audience, breaks the continuity of cursing, mitigates the shock and averts its abhorrent quality when Lear vents the bitterness of his burst- ing heart ; and secondly, because it discovers that malevolence, though provokable, is neither upper- most, nor wanton, nor gratuitous, nor unremitted in Learh nature. In the curse, after falling upon his knees, Mr. For- rest exhibited Learns nervous system so relaxed, that from the commencement to the climax he shook con- stantly and from head to toe ; not unlike some poor fitful victim of what is called St. Yitus's Dance — whereas, according to my observation of Nature, 100 NOTES UPON KING LEAK. old and ordiiuirily nervous men, during a fit of exces- sive anger, become comparatively firm and strong in their bodily faculties, wliicb sink again as the temporary excitement subsides into a proportion- ately lower state of debility ; that Shakespeare him- self thus regarded man's physique in old age, be it remembered that he has made Lea'i\ just before breathing his last, recover strength enough to "kill the slave that was hanging Cordelia;" — having " seen the time he could have make them skip ;" — a circumstance not impossible for such an old man, but which however Shakespeare's good taste pre- ferred Lear'* 8 description^ but which Tate has under- taken to bring into effective action upon the stage, where I have always seen it fail : indeed, it seemed so ludicrous to the spectators that many have laughed outright whenever a representation of that conceivable feat was attempted. " Kent. (In the stocJxS.) Hail, noble master ! Lear. How I Mak'st thou this shame thy pastime ?" It struck me here that Mr. Forrest descried Kenfs condition from his own distance too readily for the " dull sight " of which Lear complains after- wards ; nor did Mr. Forrest attempt, when Lear dis- covered Kenfs disgraceful pastime, to make mani- fest through his features and manner the surprise an^ indignation occasioned by such a palpable insult as he esteems it according to his expressions of resentment. NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 101 Mr. Forrest made no point, nor seemed to attach any characteristic value to the line, " The KI]^a would speak with CornwaU! " of which it is susceptible. It can be made to tell with an audience, particularly by Lear'^s making a short pause before uttering the sentence, gradually straighten himself up to his full height, and, with majestic pride and bearing, dwell, with deep intonation and powerful emphasis, upon the word In the menace which Lear orders Gloster to con- vey— "bid them come forth and hear me, Or, at their chamber door I'll beat the drum, 'Tin it cry sleep, to death ! " The actor of Lear should remain prominently forward, near the footlights, as Gloster brings the excuses of the Duke and his wife for not deio^nino- to s^ealv with him, and, at the climax of Lear'^s threat, let Cornwall and Regan come hastily for- ward, and appear suddenly at Learns right hand {Gloster being on his left side), when, with mingled surprise and mock courtesy, and in a loud ironical tone, his gibe can be made most effectively : — " Oh ! Are you come ! " but Mr. Forrest, having finished the threat which he had commanded Gloster to convey to his reluc- 102 NOTES UPON Kixa LEAR. tant son-in-law and delinquent daughter, instead of awaiting the eflect of his message, walked 112? the stage and met them in their gateway ; a situation which precluded Lear the opportunity for a strong point — afforded by Tate's arrangement of the break and exclamation. Mr. Forrest, in articulating the letter " O " in " 'bones^'' allowed so little quantity that it sounded like " hmw I " also, the double " O " in '''-food " was given short, as in '-^ footP There was no pungency in Mr. Forrest's tone or manner when he taunted Goneril, — " I will not trouble thee, mj child ; farewell 1 " nor in the rebuke, — " But, I'll not chide thee; *****! can stay with Regan, I and my hundred knights." [N'ow, be it observed, that the more boastfully Zear is made to utter this last line of his invective, the greater must be his confusion, the deeper his mortification, and the more intolerable his sense of disaj^pointment and degradation, when Regan ab- ruptly checks his confident expectations, with — " Not altogether so, sir; I looked not for you yet, nor am provided For your fit welcome : Give ear to my sister," etc. NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 103 Lear, then, with a spirit quite subdued, inter- jects-^ "Is this well spoken, twxv f " also, when Itegan concludes, " If you wiU come to me, (For now I spy a danger) I entreat you To bring but live-and-twenty * to no more Will I give place or notice," it makes Lear's distress and utter helplessness the more apparent, and his heart-breaking recollection and expression — " /gave you ALL 1 " — the more natural and sympathy-winning to an audience. Lear^ now humbled and embarrassed bj his reduced condition and forlorn situation, implores Regan to reconsider her edict, and, at the same time, deprecates a confirmation of her de- grading decree — thus — " What, must I come to you With five-and-twenty, Regan ? Said you so ? " Began answers : — " And speak it again, my lord ; no more with me I Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favor' d, When others are more wicked ; not being the worst, Stands in some rank of praise : I'll go with thee. [Turning to QoneriV 104 NOTES UPON KING LEAR. Mr. Forrest liere went unhesitatingly and put liis hand iipon Goneril rather affectionately^ which I thi.nk morally impossible with such a nature and under the circumstances, for Lear to persuade him- self to do ; because, though he says to Goneril — " Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty, And tliou art twice her love — " his is only a choice of two evils, and an alternatiye forced by his necessity ; in fact, so poor is the qua- lity of GoneriVs love, though " twice " that of Hegan^ it could not renew his affection, nor even paternal regard for Goneril most particular!}^, having cursed her most bitterly, and so recently, and on three several occasions ; for this reason, instead of saying readily or cordially — "rUgowith^Aee/'* as Mr. Forrest does to Goneril^ I prefer that Lear should hesitate a little — as if self-debating his own extremity — and then, only half-turning his person towards Goneril^ utter the line (" I'll go with thes P\ constrainedly and in a tone of painful repuguance; because, after all, Lear^ though shorn of his autocratic sway and pride of power, in his heart cared less about the number of his retinue than these insulting proofs of his two daughters' grudging and ungrateful spirit, in thus reducing his individual consequence, and an appearance becom- ing— NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 105 " the name alone of Kinff," 07 wliicli only remained to liim after partitioning Lis kinirdom. o " Goneril. Hear me, my lord ! "What need you five and twenty, ten or five, To follow in a house where twice so many Have a command to tend you ? Regan. What need one ? Lear. [0, reason not the need : our basest beggars Are, in the poorest thing, superfluous : Allow not Nature more than Xature needs. Man's life is cheap as beast's : thou art a lady : If only to go warm were gorgeous, Why Nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need, You Heavens! give me patience f that, Iiieedf] You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, As full of grief as age ; wretched in both, &c., &c., &c. Oh, fool, I shall go mad!" The portion of Zear^s words, quoted above and written within my brackets, contains so mncli of poetry, philosophy, and character, that in studying the part of Zear, I determined to restore what Tate had omitted, and render it on the stage in the hope that it might please some lover of Sliakespeare in his integrity. Apropos, what can be more graphic, and at the same time more beautifully poetic, than the following description given by the " Gentle- man," met by JTent upon the heath and inquired of by him when searching for Zea?' amid the storm. I esteem it an exquisite morceau — 5* 106 NOTES UPON KING LEAR. " Kent "Where's the king ? Gentlemayi. Contending with the fretful elements. Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main, That things might change or cease : tears his white hair : "Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage, Catch in their fury, and make nothing of : Strives in his little world of man to outscorn The to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, And bids what will take alV* According to my idea, in the defiance of the storm, "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks !" Mr. Forrest seemed deficient in that wild energy implied by the text and demanded by the circum- stances ; also, Mr. Forrest addressed to JS^e7it the passage — " "What, so kind a father — ay, there's the point," &c., which, I think, should be uttered dbstractedly. In- stead of the original text — " The tempest in my mind Doth from my senses take all feeUng else Save what beats i/iere," Mr. Forrest substituted the word liere (for Shake- speare's " there''') and pointed to his hearty whereas, NOTES UPON KING LEAK. 107 I take it, Leav refers to Lis hrain^ an organ wliicli beats as sensibly as the heart under violent mental excitement, and mentions elsewhere — " lest my h'ain tnrn" — " I am cut to the hrain.^'^ Characters in other plays of Shakespeare speak of a " troubled brain," and " perturbation of the brain," and of the " brain fuming." Mr. Forrest gave with a smile of idiotic pleasure, " The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see — they bark at me," whereas, I understand Lear to be annoyed by some disagreeable fancy, w^hich would cause him to start and shrink back from the imaginary objects named. The context convinces me that Shakespeare intended Lear to exhibit great uneasiness just then; because, it is Lear's answer to Kenfs question when animad- verting upon Lear's ravings — (" Kent. pity ! — Sir, where is the patience^ now, That you so oft have boasted to retain ?") besides that, Edgar evidently understands Lear to be troubled by such imagined harking of those dogs ; else he would not have taken such pains to humor Lear's deranged fancy, and to scare the dogs away ; thus — " Edgar. Tom will throw his head at them : Avaunt, you curs ! &c., &c. Lear. Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar ? Gloster. Ay, Sir ! Lear. And the man ran from the cur .^" 108 ^ NOTES UPON KING LEAR. Mr. Forrest, instead of articulating as antitheses " onan " and "• cur,^'' laid the strongest possible emphasis npon the ^preposition " from." When Lea7\ in a paroxysm, attempts to tear off his clothes, saying — " Off, off, you lendings : — Come uiibutton here 1" Mr. Forrest tore open his dress from his neck to his chest and discovered a naked body, without any sign of there being or having been a shirt worn between, which I consider an unreasonable omis- sion ; because, whatever the proper costume of those rude times wherein the action of the play is laid may have been, and even supposing that history could establish a shirt to be a more onodern refine- ment, Shakespeare makes the absence of a shirt upon Lear an inconsistency ; forasmuch as, Edgar, a son of one of Learns dukes and his subject, boasts of having formerly rejoiced in half a dozen among his wardrobe, viz. — " Edgar. Poor Tom, &c., who hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his hocly^ horse to ride," &c. In Learns dying speech over the dead Cordelia^ " And my poor fool is hang'd ! No, no, no Hfe : Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all ? 0, thou wilt come no more. Never, never, never, never, never ! Pray you, undo this button : thank you. Sir. Do you see this? Look on her — look — her lips — Look there^ look there ! — (Dies.) NOTES UPON KING LEAR. 109 Mr. Forrest, instead of uttering — " And my poor fool is liang'd !" By way of an apostrophe to GordelicCs fate, turned from the conteniphition of the lifeless object of his all-absorbing solicitude and spoke the line interroga- tively to Kent, as though Lear could abstract his thoughts then from Cordelia to inquire about the fate of his professional "fool" or jester, whereas, I am confirmed by a careful re-consideration of my original conception that by ''^ ])oor fooV in this place Lear refers to his C(yrdelia, whom lie in his madness just before has refused to believe dead, and whom until that moment he has been trying to arouse, by saying in the ear of her corpse — " I kill'd the slave that was a hanging thee." But, at this juncture, having exhausted his ingenuity in efforts to discover a sign of life in her, con- cludes — " And my poor fool is hang'd !" or in other words — ' After all, I find that my poor innocent is indeed strangled to death. There is " no life " in her !' For my part, I cannot imagine how any careful student or judicious reader of Shake- speare's context here (and elsewhere in connexion with the epithet) can doubt that Lear, by "poor fool " refers to his unwise in her beginning and unfortunate in her ending-daughter, Cordelia, or 110 NOTES UPON KING LEAR. how, if any candid mind had doubted at first, but had read and reflected upon the strong and hicid arguments of Steevens and of Malone, in opposition to the fanciful, but solitarj-thoughted, Sir Joshua Reynolds upon this very point, a conviction could be avoided that Steevens and Malone were in the right; Sir Joshua w^as evidently a clearer-sighted genius in the art of painting, than in his penetration into the mind's eye of Shakespeare in drawing his pictures of humanity. "When LeaT in the storm, uses the same words in speaking to "his poor" shivering Jester^ he adds another epithet which characterizes his vocation, viz. : " My poor fool and hnave /" « N.B. — The foregoing is copied from my original M.S. ]!!Totes upon Mr. Forrest^ s performance of Lear in Philadelphia^ Dec. 1, 1840. Mem. New Yorh, Oct. 26, I860.— I saw Mr. For- rest again in this character at ISTiblo's theatre. I noticed no material diiference except that he was in his physical eftorts comparatively a little less vigor- ous. MACREADT. By the way, apropos of Lear'^s " fool," when Mr. Macready and myself chanced to sojourn together at New Orleans, in 1844, and were taking a walk for NOTES UPON KING LEAR. Ill exercise oae day, that eminent artist observed to me — " Mr. Hackett, a common friend (David Cadwa- lader Golden of JSTew York), lias intimated to me that you have been a particular student of Lear^ and I should like you much to sec ony Lear j in order to have your judgment upon my taste in adapting the original to the stage, and most especially upon my idea of causing the fool to be personated by a woman.) who can look like a hoy of eighteen and also siiig to the king upon the heath and during his mad- ness those occasional couplets which Shakespeare has put into the FooVs mouth, to divert Lear in his misery." I did seize the first opportunity to see his perform- ance ; one occurred only a few nights afterwards. When Mr. Macready and myself met next, he inquired how I liked his idea of having Lear'^s Fool thus represented. I replied — " It is a pretty and ingenious conceit, and not ineffective at times ; but, L have imagined that this Fool was introduced by Shakespeare, not only in conformity with the usages of primitive times as an attendant of a king, but, in this play and occasion^ as a sort of practical cynic / in order that such Fool might extract and point the moral of the passing scene to the understandings of the audiences of Shakespeare's day, composed as they must have been mostly of the uneducated populace of an 112 KOTES UPON KING LEAE. unlettered and unrefined Age — sucli scraps of moral caustic as a king's " fool and knave " was privileged to interject at intervals must reasonably be supposed to have originated in tlie fool's mind natiircdly^ and to have been the result of an acute observation, with previous opportunities and much experience of the world I but, Mr. Macreadj, it seems to me that such wisdom in thought, and aptitude in expression and of apj)lwation to passing events, from the mouth of ' a 1)01) of eighteen^ would be more than prodi- gious: to the reflecting and judicious of the audience such wisdom and satire would seem j^reter- natural, or to have been derived from nothing short of Inspiration.'^'^ Mr. Macready listened to me very attentively, and without the least interruption ; and, when I had concluded, uttered not a word in defence or support or justification of his innovation. Mr. Macready's King Lear was in conception very generally in accordance with my own, and his per- formance scholarly and highly artistic ; the main defects, which I detected in his attempt to personate Lear and which frequently destroyed the illusion, arose from his too-often forgetting, in the carriage of his body, and by the quickness and the vigor of his movements and action, as well as the occasional strength of his lungs, that Lear was " fourscore and upwards and a weak and infirm old nianP I saw the King Lear of Edmund Kean repeatedly when in Ameriba, in 1826. His performance of the NOTES UPON KING LEAE. 113 character was very uneven. lie seemed to have contented himself with searching for points suscep- tible of brilliant eflect in each of Learns scenes, and in making their splendor great enough to either blind the mass of his audience towards, or make them forgetful of his intervening^ ojid frequent^ and pal])cd)le deficiencies. Mr. Kean evidently possessed the ability, but had not had, originally, either the will or the industry necessary, in both study and practice, to make his impersonation of Lectr — like his Othello — as a lohole^ transcendent. The history and traditions of the stage, to this day, point to David Garrick as the greatest actor of Lecir that has ever lived. Murphy, his biographer, has preserved to us a remarkably full description of that performance, and records — ^^ King Lear was Garrick's most perfect effort ; — in this part he has remained without equal or rival. He was trans- formed into a feeble old man, still, however, retain- ing an air of royalty. He had no sudden starts, no violent gesticulations ; his movements were slow and languid ; misery was depicted in every feature of his face ; he moved his head in the most delibe- rate manner ; his eyes were fixed, or, if they turned to any one near him, he made a pause, and fixed his look on the person after much delay, \i\^ features at the same time expressing lohat he icas going to say hefore he utt-ered a wordP Then Mr. Garrick did not think it necessary — " as many of our play- ers do " — to cover up with thick white hair his fea- 11-i NOTES UPON KING LEAR. tares : tliey may tlius be made picturesque, but rigid and incapable of expressing occasional alter- nations of the countenance. The late Charles Young, of Covent Garden, London, for such rea- sons wore for Lear a thin and scattered beard upon his cheeks, and proportionately short from the chin. PART IV. ACTORS OF HAMLET. ACTORS OF HAMLET. Hamlet may justly be called one of those beings wlio " resolves and re-resolves, yet dies the same." Some analytical and instructive notices of the character may be found in the following literary works, viz. ; — Schlegel's Lectures. Goethe's Wilhelmeister^ s Apprenticeship. Davies' Life of Garriclc. Boaden's Life of John P. Kemhle. I have become fully convinced of the truth of what Schlegel says of the character of Hamlet^ viz. '' Many of his traits are too nice and too delicate for the stage, and can only be seized by a great actor and understood by an acute audience." A critic, contemporary with Garrick, remarks : — " Among the requisites for a perfect delineation of this difficult character are — the ease of a gentleman, the dignity of a prince, symmetry of features, 118 ACTORS OF HAMLET. expression of countenance, and flexibility of voice — to give proper variety to the vehement passions, weight to the declamation, and poignancy to the spirited and satirical parts — -joined with originality and sound judgment." Among the various performers of any pretension to eminence in the character of Hamlet^ whom I remember in my youth, the earliest was Thomas A. Cooper, From 1816 to 1818, at the ParTc Theatre^ New York, Mr. Cooper was noted, at that time, for a hand- some face and a commanding and an Apollo-like figure, and his Hamlet was a favorite and particu- larly attractive with the public ; — indeed, he was generally popular in many if not most of the cha- racters wherein John Philip Kemble had become famous upon the London stage, and Mr. Cooper was said to have modelled his own after the style of that great actor, with which he had become familiar in his youth, and prior to his first visit, his early mar- riage into one of the first families at ]^ew York, and his subsequent life-long residence in the United States.* After the death of George Frederick * Mr. Cooper married Miss Mary Fairlie, a daughter of Major Fairlie, of the American Revolution ; and Mr. Cooper's daughter ACTORS OF HAMLET. 119 Cooke, in 1812, and until the first advent of l\[r. Wallack, in 1818, and of Edmund Kean, in 1820, Mr. Cooper was tlie only theatrical star in our Western hemisphere, and ^ew York had — and continued to have until 1824 — only the Parli The- atre. I was too young when I first saw Mr. Cooper's Samlet and had too vague a conception of the cha- racter to criticise that performance ; though I well remember that his voice was full and of consider- able compass, and his articulation was very distinct ; his eyes, which were of a pale blue, and habitually — perhaps owing to near-siglitedness — somewhat contracted, were not effective in his art, and his countenance had little flexibility ; his gestures were usually formal and sometimes stiff, and the carriage of his body was generally heavy and sluggish, and occasionally, in action or movement, clumsy and ungraceful ; his style was cold and declamatory, and sometimes turgid or bombastic ; yet, in some other parts, and particularly in Shakespeare's Mark An- tony^ and as Brutus^ in J. Howard Payne's adap- tation of TTie Fall of Tarquin^ and also in Sheridan Knowles's Yirginiiis, and his Damon, when Mr. Cooper first performed the latter characters, and yet retained enough of his natural impulse to break Priscilla, -who had been favorably received by the pubhc as an actress, left the stage to become the wife of Mr. Robert Tyler, a son of ex-President John Tyler. 120 ACTORS OF HAMLET. away from tlie trammels of his m'iginal schooling^ lie exhibited some very touching and highly effec- tive hits of acting. Note. — When Mr. Washington Irving, to whom I had loaned for perusal, in 1848, my manuscript volume respecting my own reminiscences of by-gone actors of Hamlet^ returned it, I found that he had done me the favor to note in pencil upon the margin as follows : — " At this time Cooper had lost the fire and fiesibihty of his earlier style of acting. He grew cold, formal, and declamatory as he j)assed liis meridian." W. I. ja:mes w. wallack. mw Yorh, 1818-19. Me. Wallack then seemed not more than twenty- five years of age, came directly from Drmy Lane, London, where he had already attained a high rank in a profession then graced by many eminent artists ; and the season of 1818 was Mr. Wallack's first in America. His figure and personal bearing on or off the stage were very distingue • his eye was sparkling ; his hair dark, curly, and luxuriant ; his facial features finely chiselled ; and together with the natural conformation of his head, throat, and chest, Mr. Wallack presented a remarkable speci- ACTORS OF HAMLET. 121 men of manly beauty. lie at once became, and continued to be, during visits which were repeated, occasionally protracted, and were seldom separated bv intervals lonsrer than a theatrical season or two each, and for a term of more than twenty years, one of the greatest and most invariably attractive favorites furnished the American by the British stage. "With particular reference to Mr. Wallack's Ham- let^ which as it has happened I have not had an opportunity to witness since my youth^ when my ideas of the character were crude and superficial, and which, therefore, it would be unjust in me now to criticise retrospectively, I did then very well note that Mr. Wallack's action was easy and graceful ; his voice and articulation were clear and distinct ; and though from the impression it made, and which I still retain of that early-seen performance, it might according to my later and more matured ideal have lacked a sufficiency of vjeigJit in the philosophical portions, and also of depth and in- tensity of meditation in the soliloquies, it was then unanimously approved and a special favorite with the I^ew York public. Mr. Wallack, besides being popular in a number of leading tragic parts, was esteemed without an equal as Don Felix in the comedy of The Wonder^ and throughout the range of genteel and high- spirited comedy generally, as also in a number of melodramatic characters. His Martin Heywood in 6 122 ACTORS OF HAMLET. The Rent Danj^ Massaroni in The Brigand^ and Lis Don Gtvsar de Bazan in later years, manifested a high and exquisite order of art ; whilst those who in Mr. Wallack's early days saw his RoUoj in the play of Pizarro can never forget that it was unap- proached by any other performer, and the most remarkably picturesque, fascinating, and continu- ally attractive performance then known to the American stage. In versatility of talent, probably the stage has never had any other actor capable of satisfying the public in such a variety of prominent characters : his costumes, too, were remarkably characteristic, and always in admirable taste, and Mr. Wallack, in every respect, has proved himself a complete master of the histrionic art. WILLIAJSI AUGUSTUS CONWAY. mw TorJc, 1825. 3fr. Comoay came from England to America during the season of 1823. He had been a great favorite whilst Miss CNeil shone at Covent Gar- den, London, as a tragic star of the first magnitude ; he having supported that famous actress in the prin- cipal male characters of the dramas wherein she appeared. It was reported that ^' Mrs. Siddons had pronounced him superior in several respects to any actor of that day ;" and it was also said and gene- ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 123 rally believed, too, that "the popularity he was fast acquiring had raised up against him a host of ene- mies in his own profession, and that the celebrated critic Hazlitt by a course of persistent ridicule had successfully conspired with them to drive him from his position soon after Miss 0'jN"eil had left the stage." Mr. Conway being of a retiring and very sensitive nature suddenly and spontaneously resigned in disgust his situation as an actm' with a good salary upon the London stage, and accepted that of a pi'omjpter at the Hay market theatre, until he resolved to withdraw altogether from the turmoil and cabala of the London theatres, and come over professionally to the United States. Mr. Conway was well received in ^ew York, and also in Phila- delphia and Boston, and for a season or two was respectably without being at any time greatly attractive. His most approved parts were Hamlet, Coriolanus, Cato, Jaffier in Venice Prese'i'^ed and Lord Townly in The Provoked Husband. Mr. Conway was a very tall man, stooped a little in the shoulders and had a large foot, the heel of which, being habitually put first to the ground in stepping, made his tread of the stage rather un- seemly ; otherwise his proportions, though inclined to the colossal, were good ; he was remarkably clas- sic in his style and read Hamlet with nicety and strict propriety, and evidently had a good idea of the character ; its melancholy and morbid sensitive- ness were rendered very prominent, but he lacked 124 ACTOES OF UAMLET. the occasional liglitness and gaiety recpired by tlie satire and also the warmth necessary for the spirited parts ; his chief defect conseqnently was a heavi- ness, with occasional monotony. His Cato and Goriolanics I liked best of all his performances seen by me in onr country. About the year 1820, Mr. Conway resolved to cpit the stage and study Divinity ; and about three years thereafter, meeting with some j)ersonal oppo- sition from the then Bishop (Ilobart) of Kew York, '^froin the fact of his having heen an actor^'^ and whilst on his voyage to Savannah for the purpose of obtaining of Bishop White there, leave to "take orders in the church," in a sudden fit of despondency of a fine afternoon when his fellow passengers were below at dinner, Mr. Conway jumped from the deck of the ship into the sea ofi' Charleston Bar, and, refusing to avail himself of the means thrown over- board to save him, was drowned. THOMAS S. IIAMBLIK. New York, 1825. Me. Hamblin was in height above the ordinary stature of men, and his frame was more bony than fleshy ; his head was remarkable for its covering by a shock of thick and curly dark-brown hair ; his nose was high and thick, and long like his visage ; his ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 125 voice husky ; his breathing asthmatic ; his manner stiff and formal ; his eyes were of a dark hazel, small, sunken, and set very close to each other and not either penetrating or effective, and his other facial features were more rigid than plaatic. Mr. Ilamblin was announced " from Drury Lane, London," where he had held for a season or two a respectable but subordinate situation in that Com- pany. Rumor, however, said that " upon some recent occasion he had obtained an opportunity to act Hamlet at the Haymarket, ■s\here the audience received his performance with great favor, and re- garded it as a very respectable copy of John Kem- hlii'^^from lohicJi it a^ppeared to have leen studiecV Mr. Hamblin's ideas of the character were strictly conventional. lie was always noisy without pas- sion, and always seemed to me not unlike a piece of animated machinery — incapable of any spontaneous impulse. Mr. Hamblin, however, had made him- self familiar with all the mechanism of tragic art in the Kemble school ; and with his tall figure, which he costumed to much advantage, as Shakespeare's Brutus and Goriolanus^ and adapted to such artifi- cial bearing as has become consonant with our modern ideas of the manner of those ancient Komans, Mr. Hamblin acquired and maintained many years a respectable stand among the trage- dians of the city of l^&w York. 126 ACTORS OF HAMLET. EDMUND KEAN. New Yo7% 1826 — the year of his second and last advent to the United States of America. Of all the attempts to act Hamlet whicli I have seen, Mr. Keau's pleased me most. He was a little below the middle stature, and not as near the ideal " glass of fashion and the mould of form" in person as some of his competitors, though he had rather a compact and not disproportioned nor ill-formed figure ; but his face beamed with intelligence, and its muscles were plastic and suggestive of the pas- sions ; his eyes were black, large, brilliant, and penetrating, and remarkable for the shortness of their upper lid, which discovered a clearly-defined line of white above the ball, rendering their effect when fixed upon an object very searching ; his action and " gesticulation, though ever easy and natural, were generally quick and energetic, and very earnest-like ; his style in colloquy was " fami- liar but by no means vulgar :" it conformed to the dignity of the occasion, and was most signally con- served in the last scene of John Howard Payne's play, where, as Lucius Junius Brutus^ the Tribune^ he struggles w^ith the nature of the father and con- demns his son, and himself gives the signal for the axe of the executioner ; his manner, indeed, tlirough- out the character, indicated the soul of the patri- ACTORS OF HAMLET. 127 ciaii unalloyed by that of the plebeian ; his voice, when raised or strained, was harsh and dissonant, but in level sj^eaking, and especially in poetic mea- sure, its undertones were charming, musical, and undulating ; verily, the ensemble of Kean's physical features was well adapted to depict the " flash and outbreak of a fiery mind." In Hamlefs advice • to the players and in the strictly declamatory portions of the character, Mr. Kean did not particularly excel, but he seemed to me to have inspired and more ably to illustrate the soul of Hamlet than any actor whom I have seen in the part ; its intellectuality and sensitiveness were wrought into transparent prominency ; every parti- cle of its satire was given with extraordinary pun- gency ; its sentiment was upon each occasion very impressively uttered, and the melancholy was plain- tively-toned and sympathy- winning ; the action was free and natural and never ungraceful, the passion heart-stirring, and the poetry was read with correct emphasis and a nice ear to rhythmical measure : yet, Kean's Hmnlet, which surprised and enraptured me, I discovered, to my surprise, chagrin, and vexa- tion, was not j^articulaTly appreciated by the most intelligent of our JSTew York audiences. Mr. Kean's most popular and invariably-attractive j^^i't was Richard the Third ; but his Othello was a far more exquisite and intellectual, as also meritorious per- formance ; his Sir Giles Over-reach a more terribly- 128 ACTOES OF HAMLET. energetic, and his ShylocJc his most unexceptionably- perfect character. One of Kean's most enthusiastic admirers was Lord Byron. He pronounced " Kean's third act of Othello the perfection of tragic art," and said that " acting could go no farther." His Lordship, too, is said to have remarked that he " pitied those who were not near enouo^h — as he had made it a rule to be (seated in the third row of the pit) — to see the constant alteriiations and hye-play of Kean^s counte- nance'^'' during the dialogue. After Lord Byron had left England, and reached Italy, he sent Kean a snuif-box, with the following lines : '' Thou art the Sun's bright cliikl I The genius that irradiates thy mind Caught all its purity and light from Heaven. Thine is the task with mastery most perfect To bind the passions caj)tive in thy train. Each crystal tear that slumbers in the depth Of feeling's fountain, doth obey thy call. There's not a joy or sorrow mortals prove A feeling to humanity allied But tribute of allegiance owes to thee. The shrine thou worshippest is Nature's self, The only altar Genius deigns to seek : Thine offering — a bold and burning mind, Whose impulse guides thee to the realms of fame, Where crown'd with well earn'd laurels all thine own, I herald thee to Immortality." I happened to be in London and was in the stage box of Covent Garden Theatre the evenins: of the ACTORS OF HAMLET. 129 25tli of March, 1S33. The phaj was OtMlo. Mr. Kean, who was announced to act The Moor^ had been so advertised recently, and having proved too unwell to appear, fearing another disappointment, compara- tively few of the admirers of this " the greatest thea- trical genius of the Age," had confidence enough in the rej)ort of his convalescence and ability to act again, to attend the theatre on this occasion, though it offered them an extraordinary inducement, viz. " his son, Mr. Charles Kean, would for the first time in London appear with him on the stage and sustain the character of lago to his father's Othello P The curtain rose to an evidently intelligent but only about a half-filled auditorium. When Kean the father and Charles Kean his son, as Othello and lago — entered upon the second scene of the tragedy, they were greeted with vociferous manifestations of w^elcome which continued until each had reached his respective stage-position, right and left centre, and had turned and faced and bowed once to the audience, whereupon the Pit and Boxes rose simultaneously ; the gentlemen cheering and clapping their hands, and the ladies waving their handkerchiefs ; Mr. Kean, who was on the left side of the centre, seemed to appreciate highly the com- pliments, and grasping his son's left within his own right hand advanced firmly to the footlights and gracefully presented his son Charles, by a gentle wave of the other hand, and then a grateful smile, and their united and modest obeisance. The whole 6* 180 ACTORS OF HAMLET. audience seemed wild with delight at this little inci- dent, and doubly redoubled their significant expres- sions of enthusiasm at the occurrence, and the father and son were for an uncommonly long interval com- l^elled to bow their acknowledgments accordingly before they were allowed to return to their relative stage-])ositions, and resume their respective charac- ters and open the dialogue of the scene. Mr. Kean appeared physically feeble and indis- posed to make any special efforts even where he had long been wont in the first and second acts, and I inferred therefrom that he had not confidence in the extent of his recovered strength, and was reserving that which he thought he could command for the first exigency in the third act. The same feebleness, however, continued manifest to every one until he uttered that famous apostro- phe. Act 5, Sg. 1, " Now for ever farewell," &c. I had often heard him deliver this favorite apo- stroj^he, and seldom receive less than three or four rounds of aj)23lause. On this occasion the applause was prolonged and renewed, and seemed to occupy at least a minute's time by the watch. I never before had heard him utter the words with half the intense and heart-rending efloct, and I remarked to my companion in the stage box : — " Poor fellow ! I fear that a consciousness of the applicability to his own individual self of ' Othello^ s occupation's goneP has unnerved him. I now realize the great critic Ilazlitt's observation that ' this apostrophe and its ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 13 i termination' — as Kcan delivered it in Lis earlier days — ' lingered npon the ear like an eclio of tlie last sounds of departing Hope.' " During this long protracted applause, Mr. Kean stood motionless, his eyes closed, and his chin rest- ing upon his chest. "When it had quite subsided, and some fifteen or twenty seconds of time had elapsed, and Mr. Kean still remained motionless and statue-like, loud whisperings prevailed among the spectators — " 'Why don't he proceed ? He must be ill again ? "What can be the matter with him ?" The very silence around him seemed suddenly to arouse him to a sense of his own condition. He raise'd his head languidly, blinked repeatedly, and turning feebly towards lago on his right, instead of that articulate vehemency usual with the words, Mr. Kean tottered visibly and muttered indistinctly — and inaudibly heyond the orcliestro. — " Villain — be — sure you — prove — " here he hesitated in his approach towards lago^ but stretched out both hands and ejaculated, " Oh, God ! I'm dying ! Speak to them, Charles !" Whereupon his son sprang for- ward and cauQ;ht him in his arms. Several voices from the auditorium cried, " Oh, take him off ! Send for a surgeon !" &c. Some one from the stage entrance on Mr. Kean's left came and assisted, and with either arm resting upon those two persons, Mr. Kean partly stepped or was borne out of sight of the audience whilst bowing his head feebly in token of his sense of their kind indulgence. 182 ACTORS OF HAMLET. The curtain was dro2)j)ed, and after a few mo- ments Mr. Bartley, the stage-manager, came for- ward and observed that though Mr. Kean was faint, he lioped he might be restored by a surgeon who had been sent for, and be able to finish his part, and craved their indulgence accordingly for fifteen minutes. When the time had expired, Mr. Bartley re-appeared, and regretted to inform the audience that the surgeon had pronounced Mr. Kean utterly incapable of resuming his part, which Afr. Warde would undertake with the consent of the audience to finish in Mr. Kean's stead, and the play was con- tinued to its conclusion without further interruption. Mr. Kean was carried to the nearest hotel, and after a few days removed to his home at Kichmond, where he lingered about three wrecks, and expired 15 April, 1833. CHARLES MAYNE YOUNG. Covent Garden Theatre^ London^ 1827. It was impossible not to be pleased with Mr. Young's Hamlet^ as a whole. He had a full, com- pact, and a well-proportioned figure, a little above the medium height, an intellectual cast of counte- nance, with straight, dark hair. His features were not remarkable, unless for a Roman nose, which, though well formed, was in length a little beyond its pro]3ortion, and contributed to make the face ACTORS OF HAMLET. 133 rather fixed and inflexible ; but his voice was full and of great compass, and he seemed to be aware and proud of it, inasmncli as he would frequently seize occasion to practise it in a sort of clianting when delivering poetry ; his articulation and decla- mation were good, though a slight lisp could occa- sionally be detected in his speech ; his action was easy and graceful, indeed very gentleman-like ; his readings were sensible, and generally accorded with my taste, and his conception of the character of Hamlet seemed pretty just in the main — though I am bound to take particular exception to Mr. Young's marked hauteur in receiving the players, and to his dictatorial bearing whilst conversing with them ; his utterance especially of, " Com'st thou to beard me in Denmark ?" was characterized by a tone of rebuke instead of that of a jocose and con- descending familiarity, such as Hamlet would be likely to use in welcoming " the tragedians of the city in whom he was wont to take such delight, and who had come expressly to oflTer him their service." Mr. Young's general demeanor in the part, how- ever, might be said to conform more to the conven- tional idea of what is termed '^ princely^'' than did Mr. Kean's, but it did not indicate as open a nature nor as innate a nobility of soul as Kean's manner conveyed, and notwithstanding that Mr. Young had greater advantage in personal appearance, and was more classic in his style, the impulse of Mr. Kean's genius gained for him, in my esteem and com- 134 ACTORS OF HAMLET. parison, the transcendency in the performance of JJamlet. Mr. Young, however, was generally a most admi- rable tragic-artist. I saw with unmixed pleasure and satisfaction his King John^ Brutus (in Julius C(Bsar\ and his Mr. Beverly in the tragedy of Tlie Gamester. His Icigo (1827) was very highly esti- mated by the London public, and its rendering was indeed very artistio / but, though I could not but admire Mr. Toung's talent in filling his particularly gay, bold faced, and broadly conceived outline, my judgment resisted the conviction of the justness of his peculiar notions of the character. 'Tis true, his jollity of manner created much laughter, and was greeted with loud and frequent applause, and he capitally worked up his points to his theory, and artfully hid its unsoundness ; and applatcse is the meed, the goal, the capital every aspiring and un- scrupulous actor seeks : because it is generally con- sidered the test of merit, and whoever has been able to obtain repeatedly and continuously the greatest quantity in any j)opular character, has seldom failed to become its most attractive and con- sequently best remunerated representative. An actor, however, may occasionally succeed in sur- prising the senses, suspending the judgment of the few who thi7iJc in a theatre, or in confounding their faculties, whilst he secures the ready applause of the excited many who do not stop to consider the premises or might discover that the actor was ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 135 sbamefallj pen^erting his author's most obvious design ; but the actor in the meantime lias become assured of his bootj, and revels in a demonstration in his favor which will not be restrained and cannot be recalled, and also in the consoling conclusion that should any of his victims detect the actor's dis- Jionesty in acquiring his own inconsiderate approba- tion, such an one would surely lose any vexatious sense of his robbery, in admiration of the advoii/riess of such moral thief. Mr. Young made lago seem constitutionally gay and lightsome, and too heartily joyous in certain por- tions of his dialogue, and not apparently wretched enough in particular soliloquies, where he expresses pent up grievances, the cause real and imaginary of his secret but malignant hatred to the Moor — for one complaining of hating that " which like a poisonous mineral gnawed his inwards," and of course had cankered all joy in his soul or any sincere inclina- tion for gaiety and merriment. lago should indeed assume a blunt but cynical humor; certainly not provocative in the acting of as much mirth among the audience as it would be if rendered in a jolly manner, though much more consistent with the nature and the circumstances of the character ; but these nice and delicate distinctions are very difficult for an actor to signalize intelligibly or render trans- parent to an audience, yet are worthy of an artist's studious efforts. lago'^s manner should naturally differ when alone with either Othello^ or Cassia^ or 136 ACTOES OF HAMLET. Moderigo^ or in liis general intercourse with those around him, and appear assumed accordingly ; but, in his soliloquies^ the actor should portray his real and absolute misery and sufferings without disguise ; they constitute the key which unlocks and exposes to the audience the secret motives of his envious, jealous, cruel, wretched, and revengeful nature, and of his mean, base, dishonorable, hypocritical, and detestable actions. Mr. Young neglected to disj^lay in strong colors the rancor at heart and its original complex causes, leaving his villany to seem too gra- tuitous and his humor too easy and spontaneous instead of forced and unnatural. A few days after I had seen Mr. Young perform Brutus in Jtdius Cmsar^ I met that gentleman at dinner and took occasion to express to him the effect his acting that part had had upon me. I observed that his manner, after the quarrel with Gassms had been ended and when Cassius said — " I did not think you could have been so angry !" — of slowly turning and facing Cassius and in a melan- choly tone uttering — " Oh, Cassius^ I am sick of many griefs!" and then slowly approaching him, taking one hand within his own and resting the other on Gassius^s shoulder and pausing a little and fixing his gaze upon the face of Cassius^ and then with a faltering voice, and a suffused eye and chok- ing utterance, which seemed to me to indicate that he was nerving himself in order to impart without emotion a heart-rending fact to one whose sympa- ACTOES OF HAMLET. 137 tliies would be strongly moved and his shock would else re-act upon himself and shake his own fortitude before he added — ^'Portia — is — deadP'^ and closed his eves, had so overcome my sensibilities, as his audi- tor and spectator in the stage-box of Covent Garden, that I involuntarily fell backwards among those behind me — my heart seeming to heave into my throat and stop my breath, and, sobbing audibly, I became for a few moments quite a spectacle to those immediately about me, and had felt quite ashamed of my own weakness afterwards. Mr. Young thanked me for the compliment I had paid to his own a7% but modestly remarked that "he deserved no credit for its original conception^ inasmuch as he had taken it from the late Mr. Kem- ble's performance of Brutus^ whilst he himself had frequently acted Cassius with him." WILLIAM CHAELES MACEEADT ds Hamlet^ Neio Yo'rlc^ 1826 and 1843. Mr. Macready, in propria persona, minutely sur- veyed, is above the middle height ; his port rather stiffly erect ; his figure, not stout but very straight, and at the hips quite the reverse of en l)on point / his ordinary or natural gait is not dignified ; he steps short and quick with a sj^ringy action of the knee joints, which sometimes trundling his stiff bust — as in a rush from the centre to a corner of the stage — 138 ACTORS OF HAMLET. reminds one of the recoil of a cannon npon its car- riage ; in his slow and measured tread of the stage, he seems somewhat affected : he sags his body alter- nately on either leg, whilst his head waves from side to side to balance it : his head, however, is not nn- proportioned, and his hair is of a dark brown ; his face, though occasionally lighted up by a pleasing smile, can hardly have beauty predicated of it : his forehead is good, but his 'brow does not — ^'like to a title leaf Foretell the nature of a tragic volume ;" being rather high, vacant, and irregularly arched though not inflexible ; his eyes are blue, of good size, widely set and tolerably effective in his acting ; though he has a trick of turning them upward rather too frequently and dropping his chin upon his breast; half covering the eye-balls with the upper lids and leaving the whites below well-defined, looks too much aghast when he would express reverential awe ; his nose is of ordinary length, rather low and straight from his forehead down to beneath its bridge, where it abruptly rises ; his mouth is not remarkable and his chin is prominent ; his voice is tolerably strong, but without volume or much com- pass ; when sunk it is sometimes monotonous, and when raised often becomes quite reedy ; it rarely breaks by accident, but does for effect occasionally by intention in the course of his Richelieu and also in the utterance of Lear's curse ; his articulation is ACTORS OF HAMLET. 139 generally distinct and Lis enunciation clear and pure, excepting some rare specimens of what seem the remains of an early or slight L'ish brogue ; his legs are rather long and thin by nature^ but being straight are proportioned on the stage by his art^ and his arms are more bony than brawny ; his actions are generally formal and sometimes more angular than graceful ; many of his attitudes are good, but he has a habit of sinking his body by bending both knees, as though his breast was o'erfraught with a heavy weight of matter which he was impatient to discharge or utter loudly ; a favorite station of his is formed by reclining his weight upon one leg whilst his body is steadied by the other leg dragging extendedly behind and resting upon its toes: one posture of his is particularly uneasy and ungraceful, not to say ]3ainful, to behold : in his gladiatorial combats, when preparing to give or receive a blow, he throws his head and chest so far backward as to make himself appear in danger of losing his equili- brium : but, with all Mr. Macready's personal dis- advantages, his discerning mind and untiring indus- try have so disciplined his physique, that, " take him for all in all," I consider him by far the most intellectual and generally eflective actor of the time ; indeed, I doubt whether stage-history can furnish another instance of such a signal triumph of Mind over the impediments involved in a very imperfect physical material. He seems, when form- ing his style of acting, to have taken as models and 140 ACTORS OF HAMLET. compounded the classical dignity of John Kemble with the intense earnestness and colloquial fami- liarity of Edmund Kean. The difference between Kean and Macready struck me to be this : — Kean seemed to have far greater genius for the stage than Macready, and having once fully imbibed the spirit and carefully committed to memory the words of his author, appeared not to have bestowed much forethouglit in his closet upon the precise way in which he would act it ; but, aware of his usual power of self-abandon- ment, risked the event before his audience, trusting mainly to his ready imjpulse to inspire him with all the other requisites to produce effect. Kean's early and irregular life, too, favors the conjecture that in such manner, when, amidst poverty and obscurity, after performing his characters in the English Pro- vinces, his genius was sometimes quickened by his natural ardor, and at others by the bowl of Bacchus, and he oi*iginated and accumulated on such occa- sions, many of those bold, novel, and splendid points which afterwards w^ere transplanted in the metropo- lis and electrified the London public. Macready^ by his acting, impressed me with the idea of one who had begun secimdum artem^ by reading and ponder- ing well his author, formed his corporate conception of the entire character he would j^lay, dissected and elaborated its points, and then had recourse to his utmost art to re-unite and incorporate the several particles into a unique, complete, and harmonious ACTORS OF HAMLET. Ml impersonation, but never permitted himself to appear in a part before an audience until it had been long practised in his closet and sufficiently rehearsed upon the stage to become almost second-nature to him ; upon sucli an hypothesis, his pictorial and mechanical portions having been duly considered by himself and thoroughly understood by the corps of performers employed to support his scenes in the play, his art^ not impulse, his reliance, and the degree of earnestness only left to his nature to acquire whilst acting, Macready could differ little in the quality of his performance of the same character though frequently repeated : whilst Kean^ who depended more upon the excitability of his nature and the inspiration of the occasion to arouse his impulses and to aid him before an audience, being consequently ever more or less in the vein, was sometimes dull, flat, or uneven, but at others was gay, energetic, or impetuous, and then his genius often became highly inflamed and burst like a meteor ; its sparks seeming to ignite the sympathe- tic bosom of every spectator, until pit, boxes, and gallery reflected one grand blaze of enthusiasm. It was in reference to one of these occasions, namely, the closing scene of his first performance of Bit Giles Over-reach (in A New Way to Pay Old DeUs,) at Drury Lane (181^,) " When all were fir'd— " that upon returning home immediately afterwards 14:2 ACTORS OF HAMLET. in his carriage, and without waiting to change his stage-costume as Sir Giles^ Kean proudly related to his impatient and expectant wife the victory just obtained over a whole theatre, crammed, as it was that night, with literati, nobility, and gentry, and among which, of course, figured his new but charmed friend, enthusiastic professional admirer, and most zealous and distinguished patron, the Earl of Essex — the foremost of the several nobles con- spicuous then for their desire to cultivate a social intimacy with " the brightest genius " of the stage. Mrs. Kean seemed still unsatisfied, because her hus- band had neglected even to mention the name of an acquaintance of which she was most proud, and restlessly interjected : — " But, Ned, dear ! what did Lord Essex say ? " Kean^s abrupt and emphatic, but very significant response was — " Oh, d n Lord Essex ! — The Pit rose at me ! ! " Macready's Bichelieu I regard, as a whole, his most artistical assumption of character : his Werner^ in his own adaptation of Byron's, is truly sui generis^ a masterpiece of that class of tragedy ; but, though it may be termed " comparatively faultless," it reflects less credit upon him as an artist ; because, the manner demanded by the character assimilates so closely to his own natural style, that it requires but little if any degree of assumption in that respect. Mr. Macready being '' elder and abler " than myself, * ACTORS OF HAMLET. 143 gr^at deference is due from me to his discernment and judgment or conclusions ; therefore, I have reconsidered my own conception of Hamlet^ and, finding that I cannot overcome my original objec- tions to many portions of that representation, I will venture to record the following reasons. Mr. Macready continues, after Ilamlefs opening scene, to weep and whine too much, and resorts to his handkerchief too often ; it is true that the memory of his father, then " not two months dead," may keep open " the fruitful river in the eye," amongst other " forms, modes, shows of grief," which he describes, but Hainlet claims to "have that within which passeth show ;" therefore an actor should observe a nice discretion in his weep- ing : because, tears are a rare relief in nature to one who has " something in his soul, O'er which his melancholy sits on brood ; " besides, with dejected patients in real life weeping is an end and an attaimnent studiously sought by their physicians ; because, if it can be superinduced copioiosly^ it is known to relieve the o'erfraught heart, and to furnish the readiest antidote to " the poison of deep grief." Mr. Macready moves about the stage too often and too briskl}^, and in too clerklike a gait for one of a princely education, leisurely habits, and a con- templative turn of mind ; his manner, also, is gene- 144 ACTOKS OF HAMLET. rally too luirried and restless, and lie imparts to tlic features -of liis countenance a spasmodic expression in many of their variations ; indeed, sometimes their transitions are as sudden and their contractions as violent as though the muscles of his face were acted upon by a galvanic battery ; his limbs, too, seem incapable of any just medium between mode- rate exercise and a paroxysm of action ; — these vio- lent contractions and expansions occasionally may serve to indicate a very nervous temperament, but, if too frequently practised, destroy a chance to depict neatly the variety of delicate lights and shades which belong to a mind naturally sensitive and meditative ; in speaking he seldom used his left arm, but kept it under his cloak ; in short, his manner generally wanted ease, was seldom graceful, and never exhibited the repose characteristic of a philosoiDhic mind. His arrangement of the scenes wherein Hamlet appears denoted generally much forethought and a nice taste ; but amongst the exceptions I would instance his mode of rendering — " Arm'd, say you ? " — which, following next in the order of the text to the answer given to Hamlets previous inquiry, " Hold you the watch to-night ? " was given in such a pauseless manner as at least to confuse the auditor's understanding that Hamlefs thoughts had reverted ACTORS OF HAMLET. 145 to and had special reference to the peculiar appear- ance of the GJhost — " armed at point, exactly cap-a-pi^ ; " for example ; after Horatio had finished his descrip- tion of the apparition and attendant circumstances, and added : — " And we did think it writ down in our duty To let you know it : " Mr. Macready darted up the stage, turned suddenly and rushed down to his starting place, and uttered " Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me ; " then, standing between Horatio^ on his left hand, and Marcellus and Bernardo on his right, he inquired of those two officers — " Hold you the watch to-night ? " who reply — " We do, my lord." At this juncture Mr. Macready, without turning his face or changing his attitude, tone of voice, or expression of countenance, or waiting a single second of time, proceeded rapidly — " Arm'd, say you ? AU. Arm'd, my lord ! Ham. From top to toe ? AU. From head to foot. Ham. Then saw you not his face ?" 7 146 ACTORS OF HAMLET. "Up to this period, tliese questions and answers were pronounced with the utmost rapidity consistent with distinct articuhition, and their more immediate antecedent having been " Hold you the watch to- niglit?" an auditor, though well acquainted with the text, might be in the hurried interim misled by such a manner of delivery to suppose that by the following interrogatory — " Arm'd say you ?" — Ham- let meant to inquire connectedly whether those who should hold the watch would be arm^d^ until the closing part of the context — " Then saw you not his face ?" brings the listener's thoughts necessarily back to the Ghost, to whose appearance " in arms" the in- quiry refers : whereas, if, instead of the manner Mr. Macready adopted, after addressing the two soldiers then on his right hand with — " Hold you the watch to-night V he had made a short jpmise^ and with the fixed eye of abstract and profound consideration turned his face from them towards Horatio standing at his left, and sinking his voice into a musing and an under tone inquired of Horatio particularly, "Arm'd say you?" the most uninformed auditor could not have been for a moment misled from this special reference to the Ghost. In the Fii'st Folio and in the early Quarto edi- tions, the ansioers to HamleCs particular inquiries are printed differently ; being in one copy ascribed to " hotli^'' and in another to " all y" but, whether ACTORS OF IIAMLET. 147 • tliese answers properly belong to the tioo officers only or to all three wJio were witnesses is quite immaterial ; because, in the acting of the scene it is right and proper to use the most obvious method to convey to an audience and the spectators the dra- matist's meaning, and to remove as far as possible any obstacle to their ready and perfect comprehen- sion, when it may be involved in some obscurity by an author's style. In this case, however, there can arise no just cause of any confusion in a spectator's understanding if the actor of Hamlet will only con- fine his questions concerning the Ghost to Horatio^ as he ought to do for the reasons that Horatio is Hamlefs confidential friend who has sought him for the express purpose of communicating these par- ticulars, and has already premised that " tliese gen- tlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo^^ had stood dumb from fear and spoke not to the apparition ; the last fact being in itself a sufiicient motive with Hamlet for not seeking out nice particulars from thein whose "fear-surprised eyes" might render their report subject to his suspicion of exaggeration ; though it would be quite natural that those soldiers should join Horatio in his answers to questions specially directed to him by Hamlet : because they had be- come privileged, having been eye-witnesses too of the " dreaded sight," and also because they would naturally be ambitious of an opportunity to confirm such important information to one of so high rank as Prince Hamlet. 148 ACTORS OF hamlj:t. " His beard was grizzled ? IsTo ?" Mr. Macready after "grizzled" allowed the wit- nesses not a moment for reflection, but impatiently and rather comically stammered, " W — n' — no ?" Instead of the nsual entrance of the Ghost with Samlet following, Mr. Macready's arrangement for their discovery in relative positions was new, effec- tive, and picturesque. " Polonius. Will you walk out of the air, my lord ? Hamlet. Into my grave !" Mr. Macready uttered Hcvml&Cs reply interroga- tively^ which was new to my ear upon the stage ; but, though it is the punctuation of the Folio of 1623, I would prefer that it should be given as an exclamation. Mr. Macready's style wanted the philosophic sen- tentiousness requisite for an harmonious delivery of the analysis of " Man ;" besides which he adopted the late John Kemble's omission of the indefinite article "<2" before ^'^ man f' an omission not war- ranted by any of the original and authentic editions: the true text is when Hamlet would analyse God's animated machine, " What a piece of work is a man ?" The article "a" prefixed to the word "man" is essential here, because Hamlet descants particularly upon the male sex and their attributes as constitut- ACTORS OF HAMLET. 149 ing the '' paragon of animals" and in contra-distinc- tion to tlie female portion of human kind enumerates the peculiar and highest order of men's intellectual gifts combined with a perfection of personal forma- tion, and when he has summed them all up, he adds — " Man delights not me I" The courtier then smiles, and he rebukes him with — " Nor ivoman neither," &c. IN'ow had Hamlet begun with "What a piece of work is Tnan f " such a general term — man — in his premises would have signified the genus homo^ and been understood by the courtier as comprehending woman also, and thus the point of Hamlefs rebuke at this imagined impertinence been lost. Like every other actor of Hamlet whom I have seen, Mr. Macready's emphasis and intonation of the word '^ Southerly " — " 1 am but mad JsTorth, ITorthwest ; — when the wind is Southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw" — were such as to imply to a listener that when the wind may be from the South the atmosphere is clearer than when from the I^orth, Northwest ; whereas the very reverse according to Shakespeare elsewhere is the fact ; for example, see " As You ZiJve It;' Act 3, So. 5. '' You foolish shepherd, "wherefore do you follow her, Jjike foggy South, pufTing with wind and rain." 150 ACTOES OF HAMLET. Hamlet^ as I understand the passage, means to reflect gently upon the conceited cleverness of those clumsy spies, Ttosencrantz and Guildenstcrn, whose ill-concealed designs are transparent to him, by intimating to them that their employers are de- ceived in respect to the point or direction of his madness ; that, figuratively, his brain is disordered only upon one of the clearest points of the compass, to wit, IN'orth, [N'orthwest ; but that even when the wind is Soutlierly^ and his intellectual atmosphere in consequence most befogged and impenetrable, his observation is not so mad or erratic as to be unable to distinguish between two such dissimilar objects — for example — as ^' a haivh and a hand- saw.'''' Whether the form of a handsaw in Shake- speare's time may have including its teeth borne some remote resemblance to that of a hawk when his wings were extended, and the ends of the long feathers of his tail also apparently notched^ and sug- gested the comparison, may seem a far-fetched as well as absurd idea ; but if Shakespeare wrote ^^ hernshaw''' — as has been suggested — this would have been the only occasion of his use of that word throughout his works, whereas he has once else- where introduced handsaw — " My sword hack'd like a handsaw P In the soliloquy on suicide, Mr. Macready lacked that semblance of profound abstraction and of deep meditation — that absence of action and motion — I may say that almost statue-like station which is ACTORS OF HAMLET. 151 natural to a mind absorbed in philosopliical and metaph3^sical self-debate, whilst the general physique of the man seems in a state of complete repose, all of which outward shewing appears to me indis- pensably necessary to give the language intensity in its delivery upon the stage. It was very inferior in effect to the manner of Edmund Kean or of Charles Young, In the sentence — " To die ? — to sleep, No more!" Mr. Macready, to my surprise but not satisfaction, punctuated by his tone of voice the words — '' IS^o more," (?) as an interrogatory and as though they involved iliQ continuity of a question, instead of that denoting an emphatic and responsive exclamation (!) of a conclusive reflection upon his own preceding answer to his self-inquiry : in common prose, I understand the course of Hamlet's reasoning to be thus : — " To live or to die is now the question with me ! which of the two is the more noble ? To put up with the stunning slings and heart-piercing arrows of that blind and fickle goddess, outrageous Fortune^ or to take arms against myself and end them by suicide ? "What is death f It is merely a sleej) : nothing more ! Admitting then, that, by thus terminating my existence I could put an end to an aching heart and the thousand natural shocks to which humanity is subject, would not such a termi- 152 ACTOKS OF HAMLET. nation of oar accumulated miseries be a most devoutlj^-desirable attainment? Stay, let me pause and reconsider this hypothesis ! Granted, that to die is merely to sleep ; pursuing the analogy it may be to dreain also, which is often incidental to a sleep, or the steeping of our natural senses in tempo- rary oblivion and a suspension of the faculties ! Ah, in that view of the subject a restraining cause is pre- sented ; for, in that everlasting sleep, when all hope of awaking — as in the body — and the possibility of retracing our rash and suicidal experiment are lost in fate, what Mnd of dreams may absorb ns — whether happy or miserable ones — must make us hesitate ; that nncertainty it is which reconciles us to endure the rather a long continuance of calamity : otherwise, who would bear a load of heart-sickeniug griefs and unmerited annoyances oft-recurring or protracted, when it is in his own power to silence and to rid himself quickly of them all, by taking the most handy of arms^ " a hare hodMn " (the un- sheathed dagger) and plunging it into his heart, the fountain of life ? Observe Shakespeare's sublime and beautiful con- cordance in the sentiments expressed in his play of Measure for Measure, Act 3, So. 3. " Claudio. Oh, Isabel! Isabella. "What says my brother ? Claudio. Death is a fearful thing. Isabella. And shamed life, a hateful. Claudio. Aye, but to die and go we know not where; ACTORS OF HAMLET. 153 To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ; This sensible warm motion* to become A kneaded clod ******* ****** >i[q iqq horrible ! The weariest and most loathed worldly hfe, That age, ache, penury or imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death." Mr. Macread J, therefore, by uttering " ISTo more !' not with the natural cadence of a response to his own inquiry but as a further interrogatory — destroys the harmony of Hamlet's course of reflection, and prematurely supersedes the enumeration of the many consummated conquests promised himself until the link in his chain of reasoning is arrested whilst he returns to and reconsiders and analyses his crude and incipient ideas of suicide. With special reference to this soliloquy and to that portion of Dr, GoldsmW s XVIth Essay ^ ani- madverting upon it as a composition, I remember having in 1828 examined the whole subject and dis- sected its component parts, and forming my own conclusion, that this British Classic's objections were hypercritical and founded in a singular misconcep- tion of Shakespeare's intention. — Seejp. 58. That which Goldsmith complained of as an ^' in- congruous metaphor " and proved a stumbling-block to Pope and to some other noted critics, viz. : * The heart. 154: ACTORS OF UAMLET. " To take arms against a sea of troubles," I understand thus : — the " arms " which Hamlet pro- poses to take and end his troubles withal are the common implements of suicide ; of which he after- wards specifies the Mnd in his disquisition of the sub- ject to be "(X hai'e 'bodkin^'' a bodkin being the ancient name for a dagger / the " sea of troubles " referred to, is figurative of his own hearths swelling and unceasing commotion. The integrity of the metaphor consists in the particular arm which he thought of " opjposing^^ in order thus " to end the heart-ache " being no other than " a bare bodkin " (unsheathed dagger) wherewith he " might " put an end to this life's troubles. Upon searching Shake- sjDeare's works I find the word '' Sea^^ often used as figurative of a vast quantity ; for examples, " a sea of blood — of air — of glory — of j oys — of sorrows ;" and, in The Two Gentlemen of Yerona^ in immediate connexion with the hearty thus : '' a heart As fuU of sorrows as a sea " (is) '' of sands." In Othello the Moor refers to the heart as — " The fountain from the which my current runs Or else dries up." In the Second Part of King Henry IV. — " The tide of blood in me Hath proudly flowed in vanity till now, Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea." ACTORS OF HAMLET. 155 That the word " sea " in this sentence specially alludes to the heart is indisputable ; because the *' blood " can " turn and ebb back " to no other " sea." The analogy between the functions of the heart and the sea is obvious. The action of the heart continually propels the blood, and receives it again through the '' channels " (or arteries) and the veins of the body, as in like manner does the commotive power of the sea^ the flux and reflux of its tides, through its estuaries, its rivers, and smaller tribu- taries. A more direct and poetic aptitude to me seems inconceivable. My theory removes the occa- sion for Pope's substitute of siege^ and of Warbur- ton's suggestion of the word assail for " sea^^^ and permits the whole of Haralefs reasoning faculties to flow in a regular and unbroken and undeviating course, from the beginning to the end of this incom- parable soliloquy.* Respecting the propriety of Mr. Macready's con- ception of causing both the King and Poloniiis^ after their hiding themselves behind the arras, to reappear for a moment, and by their sudden retreat to their covert be supposed to make some noise or momentary exposure of their persons, in order to afford Haralet a pretext for his evident suspicion that Oj^helia is in a plot against him, which his sud- den chano^e of manner and his severe invective * See Comments on Dr. GoldsmiWs XVI. JSssay^ pp. 14-59. 156 ACTORS OF HAMLET. seem to imply,* it strikes me tliat it miglit be expe- dient, for the sake of stage-illustration, that Polo- nius only should show liimself, stealthily and for an instant ; because his so doing would be quite in keeping with his obsequiousness to the King^ and his characteristic officiousness ; but the juncture of his affording Hamlet such a glimpse would seem more opportune just when Ophelia is tendering to Hamlet his "gifts again," and for the reason that it is immediately thereafter that Hamlet changes his tone and language from delicate tenderness to bitter irony and personal animadversion ; whereas, Mr. Macready selects a time when Hamlet has half finished his severity upon Ophelia and her sex generally, and has arrived at the point of asking his pungent question — " Where's your father ? " Admitting, however, that Mr. Macready's selection of the particular time for Hamlet to catch a sight of Polonius might be the most fitting, would it not be unreasonable that the King should show himself at all ? Would he not be too cautious to risk Ham.- lefs discovery of his espionage, and whilst, too, he could, without even peeping, hear through the arras every syllable of their conference ? But, above all, it was very inconsistent in Mr. Macready to make Hamlet^ who has been striving in various ways to * See my letter to Mr. Adams. ACTORS OF HAMLET. 157 divert tlie King from any suspicion that he was watching his proceedings, walk up close to the King^s place of concealment, and there vociferate his parting speech ; — one evidently intended to be but j)artly heard even by Ophelia — the threat respecting the King^ contained in the natural pai'en- thesis, being to realize to Jiiinself what dramatic soliloquists are designed to share with an audience, a secret thought^ namely — " I say, we will liave no more marriages : those that are married already {oil hut one) shall live ; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery go. [ExiC Mr. Macready, in the advice to the players.^ wanted the familiarity of courteous condescension ; it was not easy and graceful, but stiff and formal. The piquant sentence — " If his occulted guilt Do not itself unkennel in one speech," was not pronounced with the particular ana requi- site emphasis upon the words which imply that it is some speech which Hamlet has interpolated where the blank verse had been made to " halt for it," or one wherein he had expected to " catch the con- science of the KingP " Hamlet. They are coming to the play ; I must be idle : Get you a place." 158 ACTORS OF HAMLET. By " idle " I understand Hamlet to signify to Hora- tio that lie himself must seem to have no fixed object by or during the performance; his policy dictating that he should appear listless and unoccu- pied, in order that the King might disregard his presence, confine his attention closely to the play, and thus become entrapped into some exhibition of compunction or remorse. Mr. Macready, however, construes the word " idle " very difi'erently ; inas- much as he immediately assumed the manner of an idiot, or of a silly and active and impertinent booby, by tossing his head right and left, and walking rapidly across the stage five or six times before the foot-lights and switching his handkerchief — held by a corner — over his right and left shoulder alter- nately, until the whole court have had time to parade and be seated, and Hamlet finds himself addressed. Such behavior was ill-calculated to indicate an " idle " spectator. " Hamlet. It was a brute part of him, — to kill so capital a calf there ! " Instead of availing Hamlet of the privilege of his assumed madness, as a screen behind which to insult the old courtier and lord cliamherlain in pre- sence of the courts would it not have been in better taste if Mr. Macready had spoken the latter part of the sentence (aside) as though muttered to himself? " Eamlet. Oh, they do but /es^,— POISON in jest ! No offence in the world 1" ACTORS OF HAMLET. 159 Mr. Macread}", nuder a comic guise, bronglit out tliat interjection with great pungency and admirable effect. " G^uildensiern. The King, Sir, is in his retirement, marvel- lously distempered ; Mamkt. With di-ink, Sir ?" Mr. Macread J instead of as an interrogation uttered the words rapidly and in a tone of exclamation denoting an unquestionahle conclusion. It was good and not objectionable for the reason that the sneer at the habits of " the bloat king " is practically con- veyed to the listener by either punctuation. Like every other actor of Hamlet seen by me, Mr. Macready infused no petulancy and seemed to attach no special importance to the eepetition of the irrita- ble answer when he is interrupted by Polonius's unwelcome entrance and abrupt delivery of his mother's message. Hamlefs situation at the junc- ture is suggestive. Whilst suffering already from the intrusion of the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whom he rebukes with — " Call me what instrument you will, though you raaj fret me, you cannot ^?«?/ upon me !" he is subjected to another infliction by the unex- pected and equally unwelcome approach of Polo- nius, whom he salutes with ironical courtesy — " God bless you, Sir I Polonius. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently. 160 ACTORS OF HAMLET. Hamlet Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in the shape of a camel ? Polonins. By the mass, and His like a camel, indeed! Hamlet. Methinks, it's like a weasel. Polonius. It is hacTied like a weasel. Hamlet. Or like a whale ? Polonius. Very like a whale ! Hamlet. Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool me to the top of my bent ! — I will come by and by ! Polonius. I will say so. {^ExU Polonius. Hamlet. (As Polonius is departing.) By and by is easily said ! (Then turning to the Courtiers he dismisses them with marked irony.) Leave me, friends I" My idea of the proper stage-rmmwOiY of Hamlet^ wlien giving Polonius his answer, is derived from the fact that Ilamlet is particiilarlj nettled, as his words imply ; lie thinks Polonius " a foolish, prating knave," and when pestered at this unseasonable time by his officious entrance and offensive self-import- ance, abruptly assumes to be busily engaged in reconnoitring some object aloft, which he describes and asks Polonius whether he, too, sees it ; Polo- nius readily veers about with the wind of what he supposes Hamlefs diseased imagination, and humors his crafty whims in three distinct appearances of the same impalpable object ; Hamlet, upon finding that Polonius will agree to every thing he suggests, reciprocates the courtesy and dismisses him with, — " Then, I will come to my mother by and by 1" and turning away from him, and walking towards ACTORS OF HAMLET. 161 the other side of the stage, soliloquizes respecting his own vexation — " They fool me to the top of my bent;" and naturally supposing that Polonius^ to whom he had already given an answer, had gone with it in haste to his mother, Hamlet is about to resume his invective agalTist the Courtier when he turns and perceives Polonius still standing just where he was when he had given him his answer, and also still gaping at him in stupid amazement ; whereupon, as I conceive, Hamlet ought to approach Polonius and repeat loudly^ Siud jpeevishly and syllahicallj-distinct, the words : — ''I win C0:ME hy and BY 1" in order that Polonius, now no longer unable to comprehend Hanilefs desire for his departure, may withdraw, as he does presently, saying — " I will say so !" upon which Hamlet abruptly remarks — " By and by is easily said !" in a tone and with a brus- querie, denoting in plain prose, — " If you understood my answer, which is so simple and easily carried, why do you continue here instead of dispatching it ?" Finally, as respects these delicate traits of Harrv- lets character, which I have described as I under- stand them, I reiterate that Mr. Macready's negli- gent manner in pronouncing — " I will come by and by !" w-anted motive. He delivered the next sen- 162 ACTOKS OF HAMLET. tence — '' Tliej fool me to the top of my bent !" with- out walking away, or even turning his face enough from Poloniics, to realize to the audience the abstrac- tion due an " aside " s^^eech, and then hurriedly full- facing him again, rejpeated — " I will come by and by !" not only without a point but with a listlessness which he carried into the subsequent remark, viz. — " ^j and by is easily said !'' as though he was quite unconcerned whether his words were emphatical, or even heard by Polonius whom he is rebuking. 'Tis true, that very few individuals among even a large assemblage might recognise such nice distinc- tions in an actor's performance ; but a great artist owes it to his own pretensions to study closely, discern and try to penetrate, and to develo]) with fidelity in his jpoHraiture^ the most delicate recesses in Hamlefs mind. No word or line of the lano^ua^fe put by Shakespeare in the mouths of any of his lead- ing characters is unworthy of the best actor's care- ful consideration, or of his art to utter effectively. A most thoughtless but outrageous license with Shakespeare seems to have become invariable with the actors of Hamlet in the application of the lines — " I must be cruel only to be kind, Thus bad begins and worse remains beliind." This couplet in every stage-Qdiiiion of the play is arranged to conclude the closet-scene, and every actor of Hamlet whom I have seen, has more or less perverted the bard's true meaning and more in ACTORS OF HAMLET. 163 ignorance than cunning, as I hope, joined in casting a moral blot upon the character of Hamlet^ totally unwarranted by the text or context ; the atrocity consists in the reigning fashion of rendering this couplet upon the stage^ which is as follows : — After the termination of the dialogue between Hamlet and his mother, as it is abridged and arranged for repre- sentation, when Hamlet utters the words — " So again, good night I" the Queen is required to approach Hamlet and to offer a parting emhrace^ at which Hamlet seems shocked, and shudders, and shrinks back with averted palms, and pharisee-like refuses to allow her I the Queen then seems convulsed, bursts into tears, and rushes off one way whilst Hamlet goes in the opposite direction, expressing first as an appa- rent excuse for such unrelenting hard-heartedness the couplet — " I must be cruel only to be kind : Thus bad begins and worse remains behind." "WTiereas, if we carefully examine the original scene and the order of Shakespeare's language we find that this same couplet does not come in next after the last time of Hamlefs saying — " Good night, mother !" but, in the m.idst of his advice, reflec- tions, and varied expostulations with his mother, and when the Ghost of his father — conjured to his imaginative vision by the heat of his distemper, in 164 ACTORS OF HAMLET. " the very witching time of night" — had been dis- pelled by some sprinkling of cool patience, and his reasoning fticulties had again resumed their sway. In the tJdrd line of the speech wherein this couplet occurs — after which he utters some fifty more lines before he separates from her — he has interjected, " Good night !" as if for the purpose of hurrying her away, and with the object of securing a chance to secrete the body of Polonius / then adding some dozen lines of sentiment about " Yirtue," &c., says — " Again good night I" and — as an inducement for a mother to become virtuous, and be in a condition to bless her son with a good grace — remarks in substance — " When you by a reformation evince an anxiety to deserve a blessing of Heaven, I will beg a blessing of you !" He then alludes to the fate of Polonius — " For this same lord, I do repent : but Heaven hath pleased it so, To punish me with this, and this Avith me. That I must be their scourge and minister. I will bestow him, and will answer well The death I gave him. So again, good night ! I must be cruel only to be kind, Thus bad begins and worse remains behind. But one word more, good lady. Queen. "What shall I do ? Hamlet. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do : Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed, &c., &c., &c., &c., &;c." ACTORS OF HAMLET. 165 From the foregoing context, tlien, the obvious meaning of " I must be cruel only to be kind," is, "I must 'wring your heart,' as I premised to you at the opening of this interview would be necessary when I peremptorily bade you so ' let me,' and added — " Come, come, and sit you down ; you shall not budge ; You go not, till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you ;" " this seeming cruelty of mine, in ripping up and exposing to your own censure your conduct, must be committed in order to prove to you by its effect the essential kindness of my ulterior object, which is your reformation y when I began and put it to you roundly you became alarmed, and cried out for ' Help !' and I — mistaking the voice behind the arras for that of another person — slew Polonius imintentionally :" " Thus bad begins and worse remains behind," id est^ " Thus, you should per- ceive, your own bad or wicked beginning, in being won to the shameful lust of your husband's brother, my uncle, ended in worse consequences, to wit : my uncle's murder of my father." (To wliicli murder Hamlet must at least have suspected her to have been accessory when in reference to her calling his killing of Polonius " a rash and bloody deed !" Hamlet remarks — 166 ACTORS OF HAMLET. " Almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king aud marry with his brother,") '' and now here is another conseqnence following that, to wit, my own unhappy mistake here in my homicide of PoloniusP In reply to the Queen's inquiry " What shaU I do ?" Haralet ironically puts her upon her guard against the probable attempts of his uncle to disclose — " That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft ; 'twere good you let him know," &c. The Queen thereupon assures Hamlet^ on her life, that she will not 'breathe what he has said to her. He then reminds her of what she " had forgot," namely, that it has been concluded by a resolve of the King that " Hamlet must be sent to England ;" acquaints her with the plot against himself in which his two schoolfellows conspire, &c., and of his de- sign to outwit them ; that this fate of Polonius will necessarily precipitate his departure ; again he says, " Mother, good night I" as he commences to drag the corpse of Polonius into an adjoining room, and moralizes upon his character^ and then goes off the scene one way hauling the dead body after him, and reiterating — ACTORS OF HAMLET. 167 " Good iiiglit, mother !" whilst the Queen departs simultaueoiisly m another direction. Therefore, I contend for the absolute correctness of my interpretation of the aforesaid couplet — " I must be cruel only to be kind, Thus bad begins and worse remains behind ;" — and to whom and to loJiat the words refer ; and furthermore that they have not only no connexion with any imaginary refusal on the part of Hamlet to permit his mother to embrace him, but, that, after a minute examination of every link in the entire chain of the colloquy, there can be discerned no loarranty lohatever anywhere for the Queen's offer to emhrace Hamlet, either expressed or implied by the words or the several situations : but, supposing for argument's sake that the Queen, couscience- stricken and seeking her son's counsel, would offer to embrace Hamlet, would it be consistent with his previous character, his frequent acknowledgment of his own imperfections, his pre-determination when sent for and obediently going to his mother — • " Let me be cruel, not unnatural," and now especially, having just slain by mistake, in his rash haste, the unlucky Polonms, to refuse an embrace to his unhappy mother at parting and upon the Pharisee's pretext ? " Stand off, I am holier than thou!" whenever I have seen this atrocity 168 ACTOBS OF HAMLET. committed npou the stage, I have invoked the shade of Shakespeare to forgive the i(jnoranc6 of the actor who could not be aware of what he was doing, when thus constructively libelling Hainlefs nature, " That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once ;" Mr. Macready, like every other actor seen by me, by his emphasis rendered " tongue " and " sing " antithetical, which fails to point to the listener the TTwral intended. Hmnlet begins moralizing to Hora- tio as they enter the grave-yard, upon the grave-dig- ger's habit of singing whilst engaged in so melan- choly an employment ; when they have approached him more nearly the grave-digger sings a second verse, and with his spade at the same time throws up a slciill I Hamlet then remarks — "That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once !" to convey the idea that the skull now so mute and knocked about by the rude clowm, once had a tongue in it and could do that which he (the grave-digger) is then doing, namely, singing ; this raoral-^omimg of Hamlets reflection can be most clearly conveyed to an auditor's comprehension by special emphasis and intonation, rendering the words, " skull " and ^'' once^'' strongly emphatical as antitheses^ thus — " That SKULL — had a tongue in it and could sing ONCE ;" but as pronounced by Mr. Macready and others, the point of the sentiment is not prominent enough, and Hamlet might with equal effect have refer- ACTORS OF HAMLET. 169 red to either of the other faculties once possessed by that now speechless skull in common with tlie grave-dig- ger's, as, " that it had an eye and could see once, or an ear and could hear once, &c. ;" however, Mr. Macready's voice, or his ear, seems not very well suited to intonate some of Shakespeare's jprose with the most appropriate effect, and evidently is incapa- ble of regulating the utterance of his poetry with harmonious variety ; his voice seems least disquali- fied where his subject affords scope for strong physi- cal excitement, or discordant fury ; his taste or his ear must be bad, because he frequently destroys the rhythm of the line ; sometimes by omitting neces- sary syllables, and at others by adding to a word what is not in the text. In conclusion, to leave Mr. Macready's persona- tion, and to treat of the character of Hamlet only, it recurs to my mind that much irrelevant learning has been displayed, as also abstract and unnecessary argument indulged by eminent critics, in attempts to prove whether Shakespeare intended that Hamlet should be really mad, or throughout only affecting insanity. A mature digestion of his text is quite sufficient to furnish me abundant and conclusive evidence upon that point, and I was very much gratified, after our correspondence respecting the character, to hear my honorable and learned friend, Mr. x\dams, express his coincidence in my opinion. After Hamlefs first interview with the aj^parition, that \iQ feigns madness — to conceal his secret design 8 170 ACTORS OF HAMLET. — cannot be disputed; because, lie adjures his com- panions who shared the sight, that — " How strange or odd soe'r I bear myself, As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on ," thej never shall in any way intimate or signify to another that they " knoio aught " of him. That Hamlet^ however, actually becomes after the play- scene the victim of temporary aberration of mind, I think a very reasonable inference ; because, his violent excitement in the closet-scene with his mother — his short soliloquy prior to proceeding thither and including — " Now could I drink hot blood And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on ;" his rash slaughter of Polonius^ there, and the conju- ration of his father's spirit through the medium of his heated imagination, indicate a gradual tendency towards and the reaching of a climax of deliriuin. During Hamlefs short cruise his senses seem to have been tranquillized, and his ingenuity precipi- tated ; but when he was landed stealthily and walks casually into the grave-yard he moralizes to Hora- tio sensibly enough until the incidental news of the death and his presence at the actual obsequies of Ophelia shock his sensitive and susceptible nature, put a period to his reasoning interval, and produce a ACTORS OF HAMLET. 171 fresh outbreak of madness ; a predisposition to which is accelerated by the ravings and frantic conduct of Laertes before he joins him by leaping into Ophelia's grave : for, Hamlet says calmly afterwards in con- versation with Horatio in reference to Laertes and the occasion — " But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me Into a towering passion." After Hamlefs phrensy in that scene had reached the height of verbal and practical extravagance, his mother interjects — " This is mere madness, And thus awhile the fit will work on him ; Anon, as patient as the female dove When that her golden couplets are disclos'd, His silence will sit drooping." Hamlefs wild and indecorous behavior, during Ophelia^ s obsequies, I regard as stronger and more intrinsic proof of his absolute derangement than even his own admission; because, it might be argued against tJiat^ that he has still an object in keeping the fact unknown of his then or upon any occasion feigned madness ; and it also might be consistently urged that his mother's having then pronounced him " mad " was but in virtue of the promise he exacted of her in her closet, to keep his secret : but, in the denouement, when his mad- ness is not doubted by any one and he can have no 172 ACTORS OF HAMLET. motive for deception, when the king puts the hand of Laertes into that of Hamlet after sajing — " Come, Hamlet^ come, and take this hand from me," if Hamlet is not honest in his vohmtarj apology and gratuitous explanation to Laertes^ and does not really believe himself "punished with a sore dis- traction," such meanness, cowardice, insincerity, and inconsistency, should furnish conclusive evi- dence that he must be m.ad without heing aware of it. Mark his words to Laertes — " Grive me your pardon. Sir, I have done you wrong, But, pardon it, as you are a gentleman. This Presence knows, and you must needs have heard, How I am punish'd with a sore distraction. What I have done. That might your nature, honor, and exception, Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes ? Never, Hamlet ; If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away, And, WHEN he's not himself, does wrong Laertes, Then Hamlet does it not ; Hamlet denies it. Who does it then ? His madness : if 't be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd ; His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy." Hamlet then appeals to the feelings of Laertes, who hypocritically professes to be " satisfied." " Sir, in this audience. Let my disclaiming, from a purpose evil. Free me so far in your most generous thoughts, That I have shot my ariow o'er the house. And luirt my brother.''' ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 173 From tliese premises, then, one of two conclnsions I deem unavoidably to be drawn by every candid and strict investi2:ator of the character, namelv : either that Sliakespeare intended to depict in Ham- let an unhappy and distracted but honorable gentle- man, or a base, degenerate, and contemptible prince. Note. — Only three or four nights prior to Mr. Macready's final performance and retirement from the stage, he played Cassius in Julius Ccesar^ at the Hay market, London, the sea- son of 1851-52. Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd was seated by my side in a stall during the play, and afterwards we walked thence together to the Garrick Club. Sir Thomas was a great admirer of Macready, and seemed very much gratified when I observed to him that " I had been surprised and delighted at witnessing his personification of Cassius^ which I considered to be perfectly ShaJcespearean, and that acting could not more completely represent such a character." CHARLES KEMBLE. Park Theatre, New Yorh, 1832. His style of reading Hamlet, though artistical, was prosy and measured ; his action and gestures were graceful, but never seemed impulsive, and his manner — wherein " ars est celare arter)i)^ appeared throughout — studied and mechanical ; his voice was tenor-like, and never descended into any profundity of tone, and whenever elevated was thin and reedy, and sometimes became quite shrill ; and notwith- standing a characteristic wig, his features denoted 174 ACTORS OF HAMLET. Ills age to be far in advance of tlie " thirty years" whicli the grave-digger reports Hamlet to have attained, at the time when iliQJifth ^ct of the tra- gedy has commenced. Mr. Kemble was tall, and had rather a good hnt fixed and elongated visage, and prominent features, and his profile j^articularly partook mostly of the Grecian order ; his figure was fine and command- ing, and the carriage of his person remarkable for ease, grace, dignity, and for elegance in high- comedy and characters like Lord Townly in The Provoked Husband^ which I saw him personate at Covent Garden in 1827 (during my first visit to England), to the Lady Townly of the celebrated and beautiful Miss Foote^ who became afterwards Countess of Harrington. Briefly, I can conceive of no more refined and admirable personations than Mr. C. Kemble gave, in those days, of Benedick in Much Ado about Nothing^ Charles Surface in The School for Scandal^ Don Felix in The Wonder^ Doricourt in The Beliefs Stratagem., and of each of the other characters in elegant-comedy wherein Miss Foote was then the great feature of the British stage. I had often heard Mr. Charles Kemble's Cassio highly commended by Londoners, but never had an opportunity of seeing him in that part. I saw him play Othello once to Charles Young's Lago, but it seemed to me passionless, and too stately and courtly for the Moor, who deprecates his own deficiencies ACTORS OF HAMLET. 175 in social and refined education and manners, by observing that lie has not " those soft parts of speech that cliamberers have," and that — '' Since these arms of mine had seven years' pith Till now some nine moons wasted they've used Their dearest action in the tented field." Mr, C. Kemble's Romeo was a very acceptable performance, and his Mercntio gay, spirited, and thoroughly Shakespearean ; his Falstaff of King Henry IV. (First Part) was chaste and sensible, but showed no mellowness, nor unctuosity, or rich humor — it was very dry and hard ; his Jfark An- tony in Julius CcGsar was popular, effective, and excellent ; but, of all the characters of the Bard of Avon, his personation of Falconbvidge {The Bas- tard in King John) was the greatest, most perfect, and admirable. JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH. Chestnut Street Theatre^ Philadelphia^ 1831. Mr. Booth read Hamlet with a good degree of understanding, and he had a fine intellectual eye and cast of countenance ; but his voice was nasal, the action of his arms awkward — they seemed as though they were pinioned at the elbows ; he was below the medium stature and had very bandy legs, and his gait and bearing were not susceptible of 176 ACTOES OF HAMLET. depicting any personal dignity ; indeed sucli vreve Mr. Bootirs natural impediments, that no human genius could surmount or blind an intelligent spec- tator, or cause him to forget them, and esteem his personation of Ha7)ilet satisfactory — or tolerable. As Richard the Thirds however, Mr. Booth was generally popular ; and had been originally brought to Covent Garden Theatre, London, from the pro- vinces, and pitted as a rival to Edmund Kean, after the latter had made a stand and proved so attractive in that character at Drury Lane. By many of the critics of London Mr. Booth, whose conception and manner of representing IticJiard seemed very simi- lar to Ivean's, was regarded as an imitator of that then new and popular actor, and not allowed the credit of that original genius which he appeared to me at intervals subsequently to display clearly. Some, however, considered his performance of Ricliard quite as meritorious as Kean's, and Mr. Booth's tent-scene, jpaHicularly ^ was pronounced " superior ;" and when I had had an opportunity, years afterwards, at E"ew York, to see both and compare them, despite my decided preference for Kean's general performance, I was bound to esteem Booth's tent-scene the most startling and effective : but, upon research and reflection in after years, I found I had^ike a large portion of play-goers — derived my first impression and general conception of King Richard the Third — not from received history^ nor from Shalcesj>eare' s genuine dra- ACTORS OF HAMLET. 177 matte portrait^ but that I had canglit it from that popular actor's peculiar aucl fascinating style in rendering Oiljber^s stage- adaptation of the play ; and, much as I admired Edmund Kean, and closely as I had studied his manner when I first adopted the stage, and applauded as I had been both in London and New York, in the year 1827, for my avowed hnitation of him throughout that arduous part, sub- sequent examination and comparison of reports and imitations by contemporaries of the departed but famous Cooke's style, convinced me that, though Mr. Kean's genius and tact had enabled him to with- draw my consideration from many of Richard^ s proper and authentic characteristics, and surprise and charm me with his own substituted peculiarities, yet the late George Frederick Cookers performance of that part — at xTew York as late as ISIO — must have been much nearer Shakespeare's intention. JOHN YANDENHOFF. • New Tori, 1838. Mr. Yandenhoff was not gifted by nature with a fine face, its features were so hard as to be incapable of any variety of expression ; his figure was indiffe- rent ; his action not remarkable for grace, and his step tardy and gait heavy ; his blood seemed to be too cold and temperate, and his occasional enthu- 8" 178 ACTORS OF HAMLET. siasm too palpably artificial ; his delivery of the text of Hamlet^ though indicating sound sense and careful study, was generally prosaic and monoto- nous, and sometimes smacked strongly of the con- venticle ; he had also a catarrh-like and seemingly- organic impediment in his speech, and looked alto- gether too old to represent the character. In the play-scene, whilst Lucianus was reciting his last speech and preparing to poison i\\Q player- hing^ Mr. Yandenhoif, who had made Hamlet con- spicuous enough by his behavior to withdraw the eyes of the whole court from the play, and to fix them upon himself — notwithstanding that Hamlet had just previously and confidentially observed to his friend Horatio that his policy in this play-scene dictated his own seeming to be " idle^^ or listless and inattentive to the performance, that he might, unnoticed^ watch and rivet his own eyes upon his U7icle's face — began to creep, cat-like, across the stage, and, thus approaching the footstool of his U7icle-Hng, just as the actor-murderer had finished pronouncing his infernal invocation, and commenced pouring the poison into his victim's ear, struck Cla^l' dius a smart blow upon his knee with Ophelia''s fan, and, rising simultaneously, with violent gesticula- tions vociferates — " He poisons him in the garden for his estate," etc. which sent the JTmg j)acking — as well it might. Yet how so discerning and judicious a student as ACTORS OF HAMLET. 179 Mr. Yaudenhoff could feel himself justified in inno- vating such an ^'' ad captcindiLinvulgus^^ display, by makincr Hamlet at this staije of the character assault with such gross and personal rudeness the reigning majesty of Denmark, whilst he was seated quietly at a play which had been ostensibly gotten up to divert him, and in the midst of his courts I am quite puzzled to imagine. Hamlet^ prior to the approach of the King and his courts privately communicates to Horatio his object in reference to " one action" of the play to be represented, and begs his " heedful note" of its effect upon his imcle j remarking tliat if his hidden guilt may not betray and expose ^^5^?/^, particularly when the player shall utter " one speech," — alluding of course to those '' lines " which Hamlet himself had arranged to " insert " in the play — he would conclude that it must have been — *' a damned Ghost that we have seen, and my ima- ginations are as foul as Vulcan's stithy : " wliereas, by such practical rudeness as Mr. Yandenhoff made Hamfdet exhibit, the Klng'^s evident surprise and abrupt departure might not unreasonably have been imputed rather to the offence Ill's) jyerson had taken, than his " conscience had caught;" besides being highly exceptionable. That Harnlefs manners coidd not have been so absolutely outrageous on the occa- sion may fairly be inferred from his dialogue with Horatio afterwards, when they compared notes, and *'both their judgments joined in censure of the King^s seeming." 180 ACTORS OF HAMLET. " Didst perceive, — upon the talk of the poisoning ? " Bnt I regret, for the sake of mj estimate hitherto of the taste and intelligence of a large audience in my native city, to record that Mr. Yandenhoff, instead of meeting with that silence which liis own intelligence would liave interpreted into their gentle rebuke for his temerity, was " most tyrannically clapp'd " for this unaccountable innovation. Mr. Yandenhoff, however, in Cato, Brutus, Coriolanus, and some other characters, was excel- lent, and proved himself to be a highly-accom- plished tragedian. CHAELES JOHN KEAN. Theatre, Haymarhet, London, 1839. Charles Kean evidently possesses remarkable talent and considerable genins, though of an order quite secondary wdien compared witli that of his late father, Edmund Kean, and is also inferior in tlie capabilities of the face, and in the lower tones of the voice to those of his progenitor ; his hair is as dark but straighter and less luxuriant than was his father's; his forehead broader; his eyes, though black and full, and effective upon the stage, not near so piercing and brilliant ; in no otlier respect do I perceive any physical resemblance between him and his famous and departed sire. Charles has a ACTORS OF HAMLET. 181 face wliicli is iiniisiially wide across the eyes but tapers down to a narrow chin ; his mouth is wide, and he has very white teeth irregularly set forward in the lower jaw and which impart a sibillatiug sound to his enunciation ; his nose is low at its bridge, and rather pouty and broad at the end ; his figure is less compact, and his height a little greater than were those of his father, and his brows are thicker and not so flexible : the Elder Kean had a straight and well-proportioned nose, and mouth which was regular and with lips which were often remarkable for their close muscular compression and strong expression whenever great firmness or deter- mination of purpose were to be indicated. Charles Kean's general manner is easy and graceful ; his gait, owing to his legs being longer and not so straight, but bending slightly outward, and to his frame not being so well knit together as was his father's, is not so firin^ but the style of his most acceptable points, made in either of the characters wherein I have seen his father, makes it plainly apparent that, by Art or Xature, he follows, as far as he is able, in the still well-remembered footsteps of his deservedly illustrious predecessor. Charles Ivean's Ilainlet^ I regret to record, disco- vers various proofs of a defective ear, by sundry false emphases, bad cadences, and misplaced pauses ; his personation was remarkable also for clap-trap efi'ects with which it superabounds ; in short, it was a tissue of bustle, rant, and posturing; his person 182 ACTORS OF HAMLET. underwent unceasing locomotion, and was not in repose even during the profoundest meditation of the inetaplujsical soliloquies ; lie lias evidently discovered that which pleased best the demonstrative ground- lings and truckles to it accordingly, and successfully ; he seems less bent on trying to inform and convince their understandings, than to " amaze their very faculty of eyes and ears ;" his philosophy evidently teaches him to seek plenty of applause, not by the rugged path of patient merit, but by a recourse to surprises and slippery tricks in questionable shapes and places, and which he may eventually find to be as quicksands where he would establish the base of his fame as a classic artist, though they may seem evidence of growing popularity and be of temporary advantage. One of his most admired and applauded points was, his manner of rendering, ^'' Is it the KingV which eifect was produced by Mr. C. Kean by mak- ing Hamlet^ after he had thrust violently through the arras in 2nd stage entrance left, slide ten or twelve feet upon the floor-cloth down to the right- centre of the stage, and then and there utter those words, " Is it the king V w^ith his loudest possible shout of exultation. His tone and manner denoted unmistakably an undisguised intention^ and betrayed his would-he-secret and concealed jpurjpose^ and was utterly at variance with the pretext he had the instant before adopted to mislead his mother in respect to the person he presumed to be listening ACTORS OF HAMLET. 183 behind the arras, when, whipping out his rapier and thrusting through them, he had " killed the unseen good old man," crying out simultaneously — '' How now ! a rat ? Dead, for a ducat, dead I" Of course, when Hcnnlet searches and finds after- wards that he has slain Polonius^ and apostro- phizes — " Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool ! I took thee for thy better," he admits to himself that he thought Polonius to be the king ; but then in order to preserve his consist- ency previously, his remark and question — " I know not. Is it the king ?" and that the horror-stricken queen may still be kept in ignorance of his sinister purpose, should be uttered with a tone of surprise, natural to a sense of one's commission of some incidental and uninten- tional mischief; the inquiry of Hamlet should seem to his mother to have been caused bv her sudden and apparent anguish, as though the idea but then had suggested itself, that it might be the Jdncj^ whom he had killed by accident, but who could have had no honorable motive for hiding there. But I have heretofore had ample evidence that any strong effect produced upon the stage will be certain to be greeted with loud applause by the 184 ACTORS OF HAMLET. "barren spectators" who constitute the great major- ity of any audience, and who are ever read}^ for excitement and never stop to reflect whether the acting, however good in itself^ is not inappHcable, misplaced, and quite inconsistent under the circum- stances with the character to be represented. GEOKGE VANDENHOFF. Parh Theatre, New Yorh, 1842. Mk. G. Yandenhoff (son of Mr. John Yanden- hoff, the tragedian) made his deJjut in America as Hamlet. Plis complexion is fair, his eyes blue, and his natural countenance is pleasing, but not capable of much variety of expression, and he had a habit, whenever he would appear grave, earnest, or severe, of arching and contracting his brows into a sort of lacrymose frown, that seems quite artificial, and as though it might have been studied before a looking- glass. His person is a little above the middle height, rather lightly but neatly and proportionately framed, and his whole appearance prepossessing ; his voice w\ns pure, sonorous, and indicated considerable depth, but was too monotoned in level speaking ; his gestui'es were easy and rather redundant, though they never seemed to mark particularly the senti- ment ; and many of his attitudes were graceful and somewhat picturesque, as though they had been carefully studied and much practised ; his emphasis ACTOKS OF HAMLET. 185 and readings denoted intelligence and a nice articu- lation, but his qualities generally seemed more suited to the highest order of sentimental comedy ; his manner wanted weight and dignity on occasion, and he uttered Hamlefs philosophic sentences not as though they were spontaneous expressions of thoughts originating in his own meditative mind, but tlie sentiments of another which he had learned and conned by rote, and scanned in his head rhetori- cally, but wherein his own heart did not participate, nor could his own judgment adopt and assume. The declamatory portions of the character were acceptably recited, but as a whole, whilst it secured general and patient attention and occasional appro- bation from the audience, it pretended no neio and original idea, but proved at all points thoroiigKly conventional. I saw Mr. G. Yandenhofl* a few years later per- form 2farh Antony in Julius Ccesar very credita- bly throughout ; whilst the oration over the dead body of Csesar particularly was pronounced in the master-like sj)irit of one evidently confident of his own abilities, but nevertheless a truly accomplished elocutionist. EDWrN" FOKEEST. Boioery Theatre^ Neio York^ 1829. I was present at Mr. Forrest's original debut as Hamlet^ but he seemed out of his element ; his 186 ACTORS OF HAMLET. spirit seemed incapable of being subdued to the normal quality and meditative propensity of Ham- lefs pliilosopbic mind ; his iron nerve and powerful physique appeared to pant continually for oppor- tunity or pretexts to display themselves ; his evident uneasiness suggested to me such as I would con- ceive natural to a young but full-grown and newly- caged lion : indeed, it struck me that could Mr. Forrest's Hamlet have been, through some accident, allowed to ventilate his own impulses for a few moments, as soon as his father's ghost had bidden him — " Adieu ! Adieu ! Kemember me !" he would have bounded unceremoniously into the presence of his uncle Claudius^ and with the impetuosity of an enraged and sinewy athlete have driven his rapier tlii'ough and through his heart, and by such fore- closure have ended the tragedy with his first act : in fact, Mr. Forrest's performance of Samlet^ though it obtained the applause of the large majority of the audience, was very unsatisfactory to me. Mr. Forrest's own propria fades is what may be classed in its enserrible '' handsome," though the nose is a little too small, crooked, and short, to be sym- metrical ; Nature has given him pleasing black eyes, too, which, however, he seems not to have acquired the art to make specially effective on the stage — possibly because his inflexible brows, which arch low and near the bridge of the nose, impart when pursed together a grim severity to his counte- nance, thus seemingly rendering it incapable of ACTORS OF HAMLET. 187 mncli variety, or of sudden alternations, or of light- ness of expression ; his person generally, with his ample chest, long body, short and Herculean-pro- portioned arms and legs, does not conform to the ideal of an Apollo; nor is his ease, or grace of action, or carriage of body, remarkable or con- ventionally well-adapted to represent " the glass of fLXshion and the mould of form." Mr. Forrest's voice is strong, but appears not susceptible of much modulation, though his articulation is good, and his general physique denotes extraordinary animal strength. Though Mr. Forrest's and my own notions of the character of Hamlet differ widely, I have, since the date of his original debut therein, repeatedly seen portions of his performance of Othello with great satisfaction. I rank it as a whole, and excepting the late Edmund Keari's, the best I have ever seen in either hemisphere. Mr. Forrest may even be said to be more "terribly in earnest" in giving effect to t\iQ fiercer passions, but is Xean's inferior in por- traying the tender qualities of the Moor's nature. Mr. Forrest inspires more terror than pity ; though I remember on one occasion particularly, at the Park Theatre, noticing to a friend that " Mr. Forrest had infused into his last act of Othello a degree of manly tenderness, refined sensibility, and touching melancholy, so true to l^ature and Art, that his per- formance therein afforded me exquisite and unal- loyed gratification." PART V. SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. COKRESPONDENCE UPON SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. From the Hon. John Quincy Adams, of the House of Repre" sentatives, and an ex- President of the United States. HAMLET. Washington, Feb. 19, 1839. To James H. Hackett^ Esq.^ Ne%o Yorh : — Dear Sir : — I return herewith your tragedy of Hamlet^ with many thanks for .the perusal of your manuscript notes, which indicate how thoroughly you have delved into the bottomless mine of Shake- speare's genius. I well remember the conversation, more than seven years by-gone, at Mr. Philip Hone's hospitable table, where, at the casual introduction of the name of Hamlet the Dane^ my enthusiastic admiration of the inspired (muse inspired) Bard of Avon, commenced in childhood, before the down liad darkened my lip, and continued, through live of the seven ages of the drama of life, gaining upon 192 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. the judgment as it loses to the imagination, seduced me to expatiate, at a most intellectual and lovely convivial board, upon my views of the character of Hamlet, until I came away ashamed of having en- grossed an undue proportion of the conversation to myself. That my involuntary effusions and diffu- sions of mind on that occasion wxre indulgently viewed by Mr. Hone, so as to have remained with kindness upon his memory to this day, is a source of much gratification to me, and still more pleasing is it to me that he should have thought any of the observations which fell from me at that time worthy of being mentioned to you. I look upon the tragedy of Hamlet as the master- piece of the drama — the master-piece of Shakespeare — I had almost said, the master-piece of the human mind. But I have never committed to writing the analysis of the considerations upon which this deli- berate judgment has been formed. At the table of Mr. Hone I could give nothing but outlines and etcliings. I can give no more now — snatching, as I do, from the ^morning lamp, to commune with a lover and worthy representative of Shakespeare upon the glories of the immortal bard.* What is tragedy ? It is an imitative representa- tion of human action and passion, to picrify the heart of the spectator through the instrumentality * It was Mr. Adams's custom to rise at 4 a.m., and dispatch all his private affairs, tliat they might not interfere with his duties of the day in the House of Representatives. J. H. H. SILA.KESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 193 of terror SLudpit/j. Tliis, in substance, is tlie defi- nition of Aristotle ; and Pope's most beautiful lines, in the prologue to Oato, are but an expansion of the same idea. Hamlet is the personification of a tnan^ in the prime of life, with a mind cultivated by the learning acquirable at an university, combining intelligence and sensibility in their highest degrees, within a step of the highest distinction attainable on earth, crushed to extinction by the pressure of calamities inflicted, not by nature, but against nature — not by physical, but by moral evil. Hamlet is the heart and soul of man, in all their perfection and all their frailty, in agonizing conflict with human crime, also in its highest pre-eminence of guilt. Hamlet is all heart and soul. His ruling passions are, filial afi'ec- tion — youthful love — manly ambition. His com- manding principles are, filial duty — generous friend- ship — love disappointed and subdued — ambition and life sacrificed to avenge his father. Hamlefs right to the throne has been violated, and his darkest suspicions roused by the marriage of his mother with his uncle so speedily succeeding his father's death. His love is first trammelled by the confiicting pride of his birth and station operat- ing upon his ambition, and although he has ^' made many tenders of his aff'ection" to Ophelia^ and "hath importun''d her with love in honorable fashion," yet he has made no proposal of marriage to her — he has promised her nothing but love, and, 9 194 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. cautioned both bj her brother and her father, slie meets the advances of Hamlet with repulsion. In- stead of attributing this to its true cause, he thinks she spurns his tenderness. In his enumeration of the sufferings which stimulate him to suicide, ho names " the pangs of despised love," and his first experiment of assumed madness is made upon her. He treats her with a revolting mixture of ardent passion, of gross indelicacy, and of rudeness little short of brutality — at one moment he is worshipping at her feet — at the next, insulting her with coarse indecency — at the third, taunting her with sneering and sarcastic advice to go to a nunnery. And is this the language of splendid intellect in alliance with acute feeling ? Aye — under the unsupportable pressure of despised love, combined with a throne lost by usurpation, and a father murdered by a mother and an uncle, an incestuous marriage between the criminals, and the apparition, from the eternal world, of his father's spirit, commanding him to avenge the deed. The revelation from the ghost caps the climax of calamity. It unsettles that ardent and meditative mind — you see it in the tone of levity instantly assumed upon the departure of the " perturbed spirit " — you see it in the very determination to " put on an antic disposition." It is the expedient of a deadly, but irresohde purpose. He w411 execute the com- mand of his father, but he will premeditate the time, the place, the occasion, and to fore-arrange the most SHAKESPEKEAN SUBJECTS. 195 convenient 0})portunitj, will feign occasional mad- ness with intervals of clear and steady rational con- versation. And thus it is that " the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." This perpetual action and reaction between the mind and the heart ; the feeling spurring him on, and the reflection holding him back, constitute that most admirable portrait of human nature, in its highest estate little lower than angels, little above the Hottentots of the African cape, which pervades every part of the character of Hamlet. The habi- tual turn of his mind is to profound meditation. He reflects upon life, upon death, upon the nature of man, upon the physical composition of the universe. He indulges in minute criticism upon the perform- ance of the players ; he reads and comments upon a satire of Juvenal ; he quibbles with a quibbling grave-digger ; commemorates the convivial attrac- tions of an old jovial table companion, whose bones the good man Delver turns up in digging the grave for Oj)helia^ and philosophizes upon the dust of imperial Csesar, metamorphosed into the bung of a beer barrel. During all this time he is charged with the command of his father, rising from the dead, to take the life of his murderer, to execute divine justice, in the punishment of his crime. He is firmly resolved to execute this command — has frequent opportunities for the execution of it, w^hich he suffers to escape him, and is constantly 196 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. reproacliiiig himself for his ddays. He shrewdly detects and ingeniously disconcerts the practices of the murderers against his life ; discloses to his mother his knowledge of her guilt. Kills Polonius most ra^^Ay ^ ^pretending to kill a rat, and intending to kill the king, whom he supposes to be the person behind the arras, and to have been there listening and overhearing his terrible expostulations with his mother. When he discovers that the person he has killed was not the king, but Polonius^ instead of compunction and remorse, he begins by a cruel joke upon the dead body, and finishes by an apologetic burst of indignation at the wretched, rash, intruding fool, who had hidden himself behind the arras to overhear the interview with his mother. Yet the man whom he has killed is the father of Oj)helia^ whom he loves to distraction, and w^hose madness and death are immediate consequences of this mur- der of her father. Shakespeare has taken care not to bi-ing Ramlet and Ophelia into the presence of each other after this event. He takes no notice at the grave-digging scene, that the grave over which he so pathetically and humorously disserts upon tlie bones of Yorick, the king's jester, was about to receive the corpse of Ophelia.* Afterwards, at the funeral scene, he treats Laertes as roughly, but finally apologizes to him, and desires him to attri- bute his violence and unkind treatment to his mad- * Hamlet did not tlieu know of it. — J. H. H. SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 197 ness. Tlie reasoning faculty of Hamlet is at once sportive, sorrowful, indignant, and melanchol3\ His reflections always take tlie tinge of the passion under which he is laboring, but his conduct is always governed by the iTnjpulse of the moment. Hence his madness, as you have remarked, is some- times feigned, and sometimes real. His feigned madness, Polonius^ w^ithout seeing through it, per- ceives has method in it. His real madness is toioer- ing passion^ transient — momentary — the furo?' hrevis which was the ancient definition of anger. It over- wdielms at once the brightest genius, the soundest reason, and the kindliest heart that was ever exhibited in combination upon the stage. It is man in the ideal perfection of his intellectual and moral nature, struggling with calamity beyond his power to bear, inflicted by the crime of his fellow man — struggling w^ith agonizing energy against it — sinking under it to extinction. What can be more terrific ? What can be more piteous ? This is the hasty outline of my view of the charac- ter of Hamlet. I regret that time will not allow me to fill the canvas with lights and shades borrowed from the incidents and dialogue of the play. But after bestowing so much of my own tediousness upon you, I can only repeat my thanks for the peru- sal of your own very ingenious comments upon this incomparable tragedy, and add the assurance of my best wishes for your health and happiness, and of 198 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. my cordial sympatliies with your devotion to the memory of the immortal bard. .Tr^HN QuiNCY AdA3IS. iT. B. AVhen the foregoing reached my hand, I was preparing to embark for England. Immediately npon receipt of Mr. Adams's letter I sent it to Mr. Philip Hone (ex-Mayor of E'ew York), and received from him the following : — Thursday, 7th March, 1839. Dear Sir : — I herewith return to yon the delight- ful letter of Mr. Adams, of which (anticipating your consent) I have kept a copy. I am fortunate in having been, incidentally, the means of furnish- ing you with such a treasure. What an astonishing man this is ! Engaged in all important public mea- sures — never out of his seat in Congress — working more laboriouslj" in anything he undertakes than any other person I ever knew, acquainted with all subjects, and thoroughly with most; and trilling like a youthful poet when he first begins to " lisp in numbers " with subjects that other wise men disdain to stoop to ; such are the pursuits of this truly great man. It is like the lordly eagle coming down from his '' pride of place " to sip with the humming-bird the sweets of every flower. But such subjects as this treated of in your letter constitute the relaxa- SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 199 tion of Mr. Adams's mind. I wisli he would frive us more of Hamlet and " such like things ! " • Your friend and servant, Philip Hone. James H. Hackett, Esq. Mr. Hadceti to Mr. Adams. 22 Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, ) London, 24th July, 1839. ) To the Hon. John Quincy Adams, Boston : • Dear Sir — I have at length an opportunity to acknowledge jour obliging favor of 19th Feb. last, which was duly received by me at Kew York, prior to my sailing thence for this coimtry. That you should have esteemed me worthy of such pains will remain graven on my memory as one of the most gratifying incidents of my life, and your autograph document shall be treasured in my archives. The elements of which that matchless character, Sliakespeare's Hamlet, is compounded, are generally as justly analyzed by you, as they are throughout beautifully described ; but there are some causes you impute as contributing essentially to his mad- ness, about which I beg leave to differ, and quote here and there a sentence of yours, the better to refresh your memory. '''Love disappointed and svhdued^ ]^ow I have always considered filial piety, in both Hamlet and Ophelia, the most promi- nently developed trait of character ; a father's fate, 200 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. in botli cases, operates so powerfully on their sensi- tive natures, as finally to overthrow the seat of reason ; their love for each other was quite second- ary ; in pursuance of his voluntary oath to the Ghost, that " thy remembrance all alone shall live," &c., "unmixed with baser matter, Hajnlefs first scheme is to feign madness, and he begins " to put an antic disposition on" in the presence of Ophelia, for whom he was reputed to entertain a tender afi:ec- tion, in order, as it seems to me, that she may (as she^oes) tell her father, and that Poloniiis's garrulity may advertise the whole court of his beiijg mad for her love — a cause and efi'ect calculated to mislead and calm the apprehensions of the guilty iisurjier, and better enable Hamlet to scrutinize his unguarded behavior thereafter. Had Oj^helia^s love for HaMet been strong, she would naturally not have yielded so readily to be- come the medium of assisting the espionage of her parasitical father and the complotting king, when it is proposed, in her presence, to "let her loose to Hamlet^^ whilst they watch them behind the arras ; and here let me remark upon your sentence — " he treats her with a revolting mixture of ardent passion, of gross indelicacy, and of rudeness little short of hriitaUty " — that from his previous conduct " when she .was sewicg in her chamber," he knows she esteems him 7nad, and will not feel wounded at any- thing lie may say. For example, when he is most censorious of her ftither, she prays, " Oh, help him, SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 201 you sweet heavens !" Further extenuation may be found in another, and not unreasonable sttpposition^ that, at tlie thne^ Hamlet had some hirking sus- picion of her unfair position ; else, why change his tone so suddenly from the incipient complimentary supplication, " Kymph in thy orisons be all my sins remembered !" to such pointed rebuke. When asked — " Are you honest .^" she evades a categorical answer by " My lord !" then he follows — " Are you fair .^" and explains to her why, if she is both, and would preserve her honesty from the contaminating influences of beauty, she should not admit them to any discourse with each other, " because the power of heauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is into a [corrupt] bawd, than the force of honesty will translate beauty into his [honesty's] likeness, now the time gives proof." (As here is she herself, for instance, allowing the effect of her heauty upon him to be used by her father for a sinister purpose, and at the expense of her honesty.) He " did love her once," but upon consideration " loved her not," finding that she has inherited so much of her " old stock" (viz. her father's courtier-like insincerity), as to render her nature incapable of thorough honesty ; "for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it." " We are arrant knaves all !" The aptitude of his epigrammatic sentiments, whether from accident or design, evidently embar- rasses and betrays her into an absolute falsehood ; for when questioned, " Where is your father ?" she 9* 202 SHAKESPERE.AJS" SUBJECTS. answers, ^'At liome !" knowing Polonius to be a covert listener to them at that moment ; and, by the way, be it remembered of thi-s scene, that the Mng^ who witnessed it, and was a keen observer, remarks — " Love ! — his aftections do not that way tend !" and also of her when mad, he says, " This is the poison of deep grief; it springs all from the father's death." In short, Ophelia never in her madness alludes to Hamlet^ nor does he but once, subsequently, refer to his love for her^ and then only when chance informed him of her death, and had brought him to her burial, where, in a fit of tempo- rary derangement, he lets the bravery of Laertes^ grief " put him into a towering passion," which he afterwards, by way of apology to him, " proclaims — was madness." Permit me to quote you further : — " His love is first trammelled hy the confiicting pride of his hirth and station operating ivpon his airibitiony As regards Hanilefs ambition— in the course of what he stigmatizes to the courtiers " as their trade" with him, he certainly pretends to them his cause of madness is, " I lack advancement ! " but this he says after he has discovered the necessity of having an eye of them, and a determination to "trust them " only as he would "adders that have fangs ; " for in hi^ first interview on their arrival, and before he inquires whether they have not been " sent for," he welcomes his old schoolfellows with " Excellent SHAKESPEREAX SUBJECTS. 203 good friends ! " and nnreservedl j scouts tlicir notions of liis being ambitious because he esteems Denmark a prison ; and wlien they suggest, " it is too narrow for your mind," adds — " oh, God ! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of iniinite space, but that I have had bad dreams " — in fact, had he not had '' bad dreams " concerning his father's fate, I doubt if disappointed ambition had ever caused him to express regret, much less urged him to any active measures about his deferred succession to the throne of Denmark. You continue — ''' and although he has made i/iany tenders of his affection to Ojyhelia^ and hath iynjportuned her vnth love^ in honorahle fashion^ yet he has made no pro- posal of marriage to her — he horS proinised her nothing hut loveP To the consummation of his love by marriage^ his queen mother refers when scattering flowers during OpItelkt'S obsequies — " I hop'd thou should' st have been my Hamlet's luife^ I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid ! And not have strew' d thy grave ; " the inference is, that the only reason for a truce to his love pursuit was its interference with a para- mount consideration — the performance of his vow to his father^ s unrevenged ^ndi perturbed spirit. — But you say, " cautioned hoth hy her hrother and her father^ she meets tJie advances of Hamlet with repidsion.'^'' 204 SnAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. Her brother's caution arose, not from a suspicion that Hamlefs ambitious pride of " birth and sta- tion" would hinder their marriage, but that the " state " on which it depended might not confirm his choice, and adds, '' Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain, If with too credent ear you hst his songs ; Or lose your heart ; or your chaste treasure open To his unmaster'd importunity." Her father's command, as he afterwards confesses, sprang from his " fear that Hamlet did but trifle, and meant to wreck thee," therefore his '^ love in honorable fashion and countenanced with all the holy vows of heaven," Polonius calls " springes to catch woodcocks," and charges her, " Do not believe his vows," to which she replies, " I shall obey, my lord," and so she does — making it evident that hoth their loves were subservient to filial duty / but the nicest search cannot detect a line indicating that his heart contained a scrupulous thought that Ojphelia was beneath his station, nor that the repulsion of his letters, or denial of his access, or attempted return of his gifts, was a source of any serious disappointment to him, or, as you think, "o/* acute feeling — imder the insupportable pressure of despised love j'''' inasmuch as he never subse- quently refers to either circumstance ; — you also say, " instead of attrihuting his repulsion to its true cause, he thinks she spurns his tenderness j in his SHAKESrEREAN SUBJECTS. 205 enumeration of the sufferings whieh stimulate to suicide^ he names the pangs of desj)ised loveP " The pangs of despised love," in my humble opinion^ have no more immediate reference to his own case than " the law's delay, the insolence of office," and the spurns and other vexations to which all " flesh is heir ; " and one fact that particularly weakens his self-application of this line is, that the folio edition of 1623 (now received as the best authenticated) reads, not " despised,^'' but " disprized love : " a distinction, to my thinking, not without a difference, though corrupters of the text since have not even deigned an excnse for their license ; — for as love begets love, and hate, his kind, so love that finds itself despised instead of returned by its object soon flies the human breast, and its void hecoraes supplied by rank hatred / but the pangs of disprized love are those of one whose spirit sinks and writhes under the pride-stung consciousness that the being towards whom their own heart yearns, disprizes their strong affection ; — it is this species of love which, unvalued or entertained with indifference, cannot be diverted or superseded, or, as if despised^ find a relief in hatred — but brooding over its own subtile mortification, produces that poignant melan- choly which, rankling in a proud soul, may stimu- late to suicide. A marked characteristic from the outset in Ham- let^ is, self-dissatisfaction — 206 SIIAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. " The time is out of joint — cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right." He is a creature of impulse ; lie cannot take the life of the Regicide when in his power ; his hea,rt revolts at so cold-hlooded a deed, thongh just ; he puts np his sword, and tries to find an excuse to himself in the refined notion that it would be " hire and salary, not revenge," to kill his uncle whilst " praying and purging his soul," who took his father's, unprepared, " with all his crimes broad- blown ;" without excitement, his nature is prone to meditation, and all his philosophical reasoning is upon his wrongs and their villanous causer. The player, whose whole function readily yielded to his conceits — the equanimity of Horatio^ in whose nature the "blood and judgment" are so enviably " co-mingled" — all contrasts serve but to paralyze his own energies, and almost blunt his very purpose, instead of arousing him to indignant action. Thus " conscience makes a coward" of Hamlet^ who pos- sesses the moral principle of a hero, but is deficient in physical nerve requisite to avenge coolly and resolutely his father's murder — an attainment he seems to despair of, after discovering his fatal mis- take in killing Polonius / and it is after that event^ that the tumult created in his sensitive soul reaches its climax ; and the mind, which though hitherto predisposed has exhibited but counterfeit frenzy^ breaks forth at intervals of sxibsequent excitement^ into paroxysms of decided madness. SIIAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 207 But the only excuse I can offer to yon, for permit ting my love of the snbject to render me so diffuse ^ is, that I, too, " from boyhood," have been " enthusi- astic" in relation to this character, and have habitu- ated myself for years to ponder over its merits — as a miser would over his gold — collating the earliest editions of this play, and searching the accurimlated annotations of its numerous critics — many of whom, in attempting to explain, have often only mystified the meaning of a clear original text, by alterations, omissions, and substitutions, and shown themselves "ignorant as vain," and as wide of the author's design, and as vexations to every true lover of the bard, as rriiist be some of the actors of our time, who exhibit to audiences, seemingly " capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show and noise," a sort of coiwentional^ stage-leau-ideal of Hamlet, overflowing with hustle^ starts, and rant, and entirely destitute of that oneditative and jyhilosophic rejpose, which Shahes^eare has made the leading feature of the character. Hoping at no distant day to have the pleasure of a " large discourse" with, you, in person, about Samlet, and that your useful life, with continued health of body and vigor of mind, may be pro- longed for many years, I remain, honored sir, Your humble servant, ever, Jas. H. Hackett. 208 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. I was in the habit of meeting daily at the Gar- rick Club, London, Mr. James Smith, one of the brothers who were authors of the celebrated '''Rejected Addresses^ I submitted to his perusal Mr. Adams's letter, dated 19th February, 1839, together with my reply, dated 24tli July ensuing, which he returned with a note of which what fol- lows is a copy. 27 Craven Street, ) Thursday, 15th August, 1839. \ Many thanks, my dear sir, for the Lithographic Correspondence between yourself and the ex-Presi- dent, Mr, Adams, upon the subject of Hamlet. That gentleman's notion of the character is inge- nious : but yours is (to quote the words of Osric) " a palpable hit." Yours very truly, James Smith. Mr. Smith intimated his desire that I should for- ward to his brother Horatio at Brighton^ where he resided, copies also of the same correspondence, which I did accordingly, and received from him the folio win 2: letter : 'O 12 Cavendish Place, 26 September, 1839. Dear Sir — ^I feel much flattered by your obliging letter and its very interesting inclosures, wdiich w^ill be preserved with care as a valuable addition to the SHxVKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 209 contents of my portfolio. How inexlianstible are tlie j^leasures afforded by our Immortal Bard, since the most attractive portions of our current literature are the endless study of his characters, and the ex- pansion of his illimitable ideas. You must have bestowed much thought indeed upon the character of Hamlet^ and I incline to side with you, wherever you are opposed to the views of the enlightened and venerable Mr. Adams. Schlegel's critique upon Hamlet is perhaps the most original and conclusive that has yet been published, and how happy is his image of the delicate vase being shattered by the expansion of the plant committed to it ! As an ardent admirer of America and its noble institutions, I am ever proud to make acquaintance with your countrymen, and I much regret that my absence from Brighton prevented my paying my respects to Mr. Willis during his visit. Pray command my services here if they can be made available, and believe me with many thanks, Your obliged and obedient servant, HoEATio Smith. James H. Hackett, Esq. I was indebted to my friend Mr. James Fenimore Cooper, in 18tt4, for an introduction (by letter from INew York) to the Hon. Charles Augustus Murray^ then Master of the Queen's household. Mr. Murray had visited America whilst I was abroad, and by his intelligence and very agreeable social manners 210 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. liad made many strong personal friends in the United States. He made a tour through the "West- ern States, and afterwards wrote his " Prairie Bird:' He is a younger son of the Earl of Dunmore. I loaned him for perusal my notes and comments upon Hamlet and Lear^ and upon some of their stage-representatives, which he returned with a let- ter, of which the following is a copy. Buckingham Palace, January 30, 1845. My deak Sm : — I beg to return you your notes on Lear and Hamlet with many thanks : it would be impertinent in me to pretend to any opinion on the professional peculiarities of most of the parties referred to, as I have had few if any opportunities of seeing them on the stage ; but I can truly say that many of the thoughts and reflections on the intention and conception of the Great Dramatist seem to me extremely just, discriminating, and well defined : I only regret that my early departure* will prevent my having the pleasure of seeing them embodied in the person of their author next month on the boards of Covent Garden. Believe me, my dear sir, Yery truly yours, Chas. a. Muerat. * Mr. Murray bad just been appointed by the Queen Her Britannic Majesty's Consul to Egypt, and had resigned his position as Eqiierry to Prince Albert. SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 211 I originally made the personal acquaintance of Serge-ant (afterwards Sir Thomas Noon) Talfourd at the Garrick Club, London, where we used to meet often and chat familiarly, and whence we occasionally proceeded together to one or other of the theatres to witness any extraordinary perfor mance. He had frequently referred to my cor- respondence with ex-President Adams respecting Hamlet, and I loaned him my volume of notes, comments, and criticisms uj^on the actors, which, as I knew his engrossing professional occupation, I requested him to retain and look through at his entire convenience and intervals of leisure. Upon its return it was accompanied by a note, whereof the following is a copy. Sergeant's Inx, 23cl June, 1845. My dear Sir : — I return your manuscript with my best thanks. I regret that the very anxious trials in which I am engaged at this season has not permitted me to contemplate with the attention the subject deserves your delightful recollections; but I have seen enough of them to feel that they are among the most intellectual the stage can give a nation. Believe me I remain, my dear sir, Yery truly yours, T. :^r. Talfoued. J. H. Hackett, Esq. 212 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. ORIGINAL IN MY PORTFOLIO. Copy of the last Letter received from the Honorable John Quincy Adams, Ex-President of the United States. Quincy, 4 Nov. 1845. To James H. Hackett^ JEsq. Tkemont House, Boston. My Dear Sir — I return herewith the very inte- resting vohime of your manuscript notes upon Shakespeare, and upon the representation of several of the persons of his Drama by sundry eminent per- formers of our cotemporaries. I thank you for the privilege of perusing these notes and for your letter, and, in conformity with your request, I inclose herewith and ask your ac- ceptance of a few scattered leaves, containing remarks of mine upon Othello^ Romeo and Juliet^ and Lear.^ They were written in letters to a friend who thouglit them worthy of publication with my consent, although by many of their readers they have been deemed paradoxical, perhaps heretical. The remarks upon the character of Desdemona have been thought by many of her admirers, unreasona- bly severe, and perhaps the opposition they have encountered may have tended to confirm me in my own opinions. Mrs. Inchbald's almost adoration of * Since hound hereinafter. — J. H. H. SHAKESPEKEAN SUBJECTS. 213 the cuuniiig ^ that's "married to Oiltello^'* and Dr. Johnson's grave admiration of the artless simplicity of the " super-subtle Yenetian," are strangely at variance with my estimation of the sound canons of criticism. The same Dr. Johnson, in his life of Dryden^ says, that when hard pressed by the critics of his time, upon the immorality of his comedies, as a last resort he turned upon his accusers and denied that a comic poet was under any obliga- tion to preach morality. Pope, however, is not of the same opinion, with regard to tragedy. '* To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius and to mend the heart. To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene and be what they behold. For this, the Tragic Muse first had the stage, Commanding tears to stream thro' every age. Tyrants no more their savage nature kept, And foes to virtue wondered why they wept." Tragedy, then, is, in its nature, pre-eminently devoted to Morals ; but when, in one of the inclosed papers, I said that in the days of manhood I had studied Shakespeare chiefly as a teacher of morals, I was answered, after the manner of Dryden, that this was degrading Shakespeare to the level of Esop. In France, the theatre is sometimes made the school of Politics, and in England it would have * A word which his daughter could not be expected to write — thero fore omitted. 214 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. been made so, but for the counter-check of the Lord Chamberlain's license. In the month, I think, of April, 1TS5, I was present in the Cathedral church of Notre Dame, and witnessed a solemn procession of Louis the Sixteenth, then called " Louis le bien faisant," with all his Court to return thanks to Almighty God in His Holy Temple for the birth of the Duke of E^ormandy, his second son, who, not long afterwards, by the decease of his elder brother, became the Dauphin of France, and was the hapless child, who, a few years later, perished an apprentice to a shoemaker, under the discipline of Kevolu- tionary France. The Bourbon family and their ad- herents call him " Louis the Seventeenth," and his fate, in the vicissitudes of human life, closely resem- bles that of the person called " Edward the Fifth," in the History of England. The solemn procession of the absolute monarch of France to the Te Deum of that day, made a deep impression upon my mind. More than six years before I had witnessed the most splendid illumination of Paris that my eyes ever beheld, upon the birth of the first child of the same Louis the Sixteenth, the Duchess of Angouleme. On both these occasions it seemed as if there was one universal burst of jo}^ throughout the whole kingdom of France. But, not many days after the Te Deum at the Cathedral church of ISTotre Dame, I saw performed at the Theatre Frangais, the tragedy of Rhadamisthe et Zenobie, by the elder Crtibillon. In that tragedy, the principal character, being him- SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 215 self kiiiior otWrmenia, appears as an ambassador from Home at the Court of liis own father, King of Iberia, and, after complaining, in the name of the Koman Republic, of certain preparations for war on the part of the King of Armenia," which had excited the jealousy of the Roman Republic, he says in a tone of insolent menace — " Rome, de tant d'apprets qui s'indigne et se lasse, N'a point accoutumer les Reds h. tant d'audace."t [CrehillorLS Tragedy of Rhadamisthe et Zenohie. N"ever in the course of my attendance upon the- atrical performances throughout my life, did I hear a more deafening and universal shout of applause, than upon the delivery of these two lines, marked by the peculiar emphasis with which the actor dwelt upon the words " les Rois.^^ I shall never forget the eflect of this incident upon my reflections at the time. Louis the Sixteenth was yet an abso- lute king — he seemed still seated in the affections of his people, who still boasted of their attachment beyond all other nations to the persons of their sovereigns. His reign had been successful and glorious ! How often since the Te Deum for the birth of the Duke of ISTormandy and the perform- * iberia, I think Mr. Adams intended, and dictated to his daughter, who at that date was his social amanuensis. — J. H. H. f Rome, outraged and weary of such preparations, Has never accustomed Kings to such audacity. — J. H. H. 216 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. ance of Crebillon's tragedy — occurring so nearly at the same time — have those two incidents reminded me of the lines of Gray's bard — " Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the Zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes ; Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm ; Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey." Let me return to Shakespeare. As a teacher of morals, you will perceive that, in the inclosed papers, I have expressed the opinion that he was not sufficiently so considered by the performers of his j)ersonages upon the stage. I excepted Mrs. Siddons, whose — " I say, take heed, my lord !'* I shall never forget. When these remarks were written, I had never seen you upon the boards, and had not the pleasure of your acquaintance. I hope that, upon the character of Desdemona — upon the absurdity of restoring Lear to his Crown, and upon the age of Juliet^ I shall not find myself so wide from the coincidence of your judgment as I have from that of many other admirers of the Swan of Avon. Not intending to try your temper with a sermon in return for the pleasure which I have received SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 217 from your manuscript, I will close with the assur- ance of my grateful and respectful esteem. (Signed) John Qulncy Adams. Note. — Mr. Adams was born July 11, 1767. Died in the Capitol at Washington, Feb. 23, 1848. MISCONCEPTIONS OF SHAKESPEAEE, UPON THE STAGE. BY J. Q. ADAMS. My admiration of Shakespeare, as a profound delineator of human nature and a sublime poet, is but little short of idolatry. I think he is often mis- understood, as performed on the stage. The character of Juliet, for example, is travestied almost into burlesque, by the alteration of the text in the scene where the nurse, with so much pre- cision, fixes her age {Act 1, Scene 3). The nurse declares she knows it to an hour, and that next Lam- mas eve (which Lady Capulet says will be in a fort- night and odd days) she will be fourteen. Upon this precise age, the character of Juliet,, her dis- course, her passion, and the deep pathos of the interest that we take in her fate, very largely repose. Born under Italian skies, she is at the very moment of transition from the child to the woman. Her 10 218 SHAKESPEKEAN SUBJECTS. love is the pure impuke of intelligent, sensitive nature — -first love — unconscious and undissembled nature, childliood expanding into maturity, physical and intellectual — all innocence, all ardor, all ecstasy. How irresistibly are our sympathies moved at seeing the blossom blasted at the very moment while it is opening to the sun ! As the play is performed on the stage, the nurse, instead of saying that Juliet^ at the next Lammas eve, will be fourteen, says she will be nineteen. Nineteen ! In what country of the world was a young lady of nineteen ever constantly attended by a nurse ? Between the ages of thir- teen and fourteen, a nurse, in a noble Italian family of the middle ages, was not yet^an unnatural com- panion. On the verge of nineteen, the nurse is not only supernumerary, but very much out of place. Take away the age of Juliet, and you take away from her all her individuality, all the consistency of her character, all that childish simplicity, which, blended with the fervor of her passion, constitutes her greatest charm. In what but in that, and in everythmg which she does and says, congenial to that age, does she differ from Yiola^ from Miranda, from Ophelia, and indeed from all the lovely daugh- ters of Shakespeare's muse ? They are all in love, but you can never mistake one of them for another. The peculiarities of Juliet all have reference to her age ; and that which in her mouth is enchanting, would seem but frothy nonsense from a woman five years older. Juliet says — SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 219 " And when Romeo dies, Take him and cut him up in Httle stans, And he shall make the face of Heaven so fine, That all the world shall grow in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun." In the incomparable beauty of this passage, as spoken by a girl under fourteen, there is something too childish for a woman of nineteen, however desperately in love. One, who has been accustomed to personate Juliet as a young woman of nineteen, may see no incongruity with that age in her cha- racter ; yet that one, who has herself passed through both those stages of life, should not understand the difference of maturitv between the as^es of fourteen and of nineteen in the female sex, is scarcely con- ceivable. Tliat Shakespeare should have con- founded them, is impossible. That he intended to make the a " whilst husy Care's senses were steeped in forgetfulness^ and afforded the requi- site ojpportunity. J. H. H. Ravelled means entangled. So, in the Two Gen- tlemen of Verona^ Thurio says to Proteus., speaking of Sylvia, " Therefore as you unwived her love from him, Lest it should ravel^ and be good to none, You must provide to bottom it on me." — M, Mason. Among other significations confirmed by quota- tions from standard authors in Todd's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, 3 vols. 4:to. London, 1827, are found the following, under the word " Sleeve, — In some provinces signifies a knot, or skein of silk, which is by some very probably sup- posed to be its meaning in the following passage, " Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care." — Macbeth. SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 267 Under the caption of Sleaye, Dr. Johnson says : " Of this word I know not well the meaning sleave-silh is explained by GoxMui^in Jiocmcs serious — a lock of silk ; and the women still say, ' sleave the silk ' for untwist it. Ainsworth calls a weaver's shuttle or reed, a slaie^ or sley. To sley is to part a twist into single fibres." Yarious other authorities are also quoted. See TodcVs Johnson, A ruGrriYE Is^ote. "Nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, or Norman^ Folio, 1623. Hamlet. Modern editors have altered " or Gorman " to " nor man," by striking out the conjunction and dividing the word. Irajprimis. — As Christians and Pagans^ too, were men, the change is pointless and nonsensical : — and I would submit whether Shakespeare did not write u ^y, Norman f " When one takes the pains to search, and discover, and reflect upon the follovtdng reference to " a JS'orman .*" — " King. Two months since, Here was a gentleman from Normandy, — I have seen myself, and serv'd against the French, And they ran ^e\\ on horseback : but this gallant Had witchcraft in't ;* he grew into his seat ; * Mr. Sieevens says : — "This is from Sidney's Arcadia, book 2. As if) Ceutaur-Hke, the rider had been one piece with his horse." 268 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. And to such wondrous doing brought his Jiorse, As he had been incorps'd and demi-natured With the brave beast :* so far he passed my thought, That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks, Come short of what he did. Laertes. A Norman, was't? King. A Norman." Samlet, Ad 4, Sc. 7. I furnislied the Editor of the JS^ew York Evening Post certain matter respecting Harvey and Shalce- sjpeare^s Jcnoidedge of the circulation of the hlood^ and what follows appeared in the columns of that public journal, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 1861. HAEYEY AND SHAKESPEAEE. HAD SHAKESPEAEE A KNOWLEDGE OF THE CIKCULATION OF THE BLOOD? Two papers on the " Medical Knowledge of Shake- speare," from the pen of Mr. James H. Hackett, the actor, have been handed us for publication. In the first of these papers, which is given below, Mr. * Witchcraft inH: that is, in his movement on ^^ horseback.''^ Is it not reasonable that Shakespeare, in characterizing an unnatural gait, could find neither among Christianized nor pagan man, nor even in the half-horse Norman, such a gait as certain players had when "they strutted and bellowed," and that it caused him to conclude that, " Nature's journeymen had made such men ; " because they imitated humanity so abominably? — See Amer. edit. (Redfield, N. T.), 1853, p. 452. SHAKE3PEREAN SUBJECTS. 269 Ilackett takes issue witli the biographers of Dr. Harvey, who claim for him the honor of the dis- covery of the circuLation of the blood, and makes numerous citations from Shakespeare's plays in order to prove that the bard knew the secret before the physician. Mr. Ilackett's speculations are cer- tainly curious. Our readers will judge for them- selves whether he has established his case. shakespeaee's knowledge of the circulation of the blood. Bellevue Mound, Carlisle, Illinois, Sept., 1859. - During the last summer I noticed in the London newspapers a paragraph referring to " a recent exhumation of the corporal remains of "William Harvey, the hnmortal discoverer of the circulation of the hloodr My recollections of Shakespeare's writings suggested doubts whether Harvey could be truly and exclusively entitled to the distinction, for the reason that I had been early in life deeply im- pressed with the idea that at least a knowledge of the circulation of the blood had been conceded to Shakespeare by his readers, and that most if not all his plays had been written either prior to Harvey's birth, or to the period when he might have grown into contemporary manhood, or become profession- ally — like Shakespeare — known to fame. By reference to chronology I ascertain that Shake- speare was born (1564) fourteen years prior to Har- 270 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. vey ; and tliat when he began to write his plays (1589) Harvey, who was born in 1578, could have been only about eleven years of age, and that the majority of them were completed during Harvey's adolescence, and the residue wdiile he was still a young man. Shakespeare died in 1616, and had retired some years from dramatic composition and all connection with a theatre, and had resided at 'New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon. His plays, how- ever, or most of them, had been printed and pub- lished, singly and severally, soon after they were respectively written and performed upon the stage, and may have been seen by Harvey, and have sug- gested a motive for his professional study and de- monstration of such theory. Four years after Shakespeare's death, viz. in 1620, Harvey (then about forty-two years of age), " from his chair as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in London, announced to the College his conviction of the fact of the circulation of the blood ; and, as is also recorded, then began to investigate the subject minutely" — and (as I have been informed), " dis- covered and commenced his work to demonstrate the valves which prevented the return of the blood to the heart through the same channel whence it had issued and been propelled into the arteries." Harvey finished and published his book in 1628. Hence, it is obvious that if Shakespeare had any idea of the circulation of the blood he could not reasonably have obtained it from Harvey. SI-TAKESPEllEAN SUBJECTS. 271 Without intending to detract in the slightest de- gree from the merit and scientific value of any of Harvey's investigations and elucidation of a subject so important to the practice of surgery and medi- cine, I must contend for the internal evidence fur- nished in Shakespeare's writings of his having, prior to Harvey's imputed discovery and laborious in- vestigations, a clear conception of the propulsory action of the heart in forcing its '■'■ courses tlirough The natural gates and alleys of the body." It should be premised and ever remembered, in one's search into Shakespeare's writings for any intrinsic evidence of his theory upon any scientific subject, that it was not his^;rc/'^55^(?7l to teach that of anatomy or surgeiy, but to dramatize humanity ; and that only in so far as the moral action of man's heart, or its influence upon his passions, became necessary to his purpose of blending, truly and con- sistently with nature, his philosophic ideas with dramatic poetry, did he refer to that conservative fountain of life. Among the great variety of references to the hloocl — named within more than five hundred of Shakespeare's sentences — I have selected the follow- ing, as indicating to me most clearly his under- standing of the tact that the blood circulated. His choice, too, of the word " gate " (" gates and alleys of the body ") would seem to involve his idea of the 272 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. valves and their use in stopping the blood; else, why use such word? — a gate being a mechanical contrivance for opening or closing to any thing inclined to pass, according to occasion. " The leperous distilment, whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the hody.^' [Hamlet, Act 1. " This does make some obstruction in the blood — this cross- gartering." — Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 4. " As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart." — Julius Ccesar, Act 2. " Lord Angelo scarce confesses That his blood floivs — a man whose blood Is very snow-broth ; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense." [Afeasure for Measure, Act 1. " The resolute acting of your bloods " Why docs my blood thus miunter to my heart?" [Ibid, Act 2. " Ruv^ not this speech like iron through your blood ?" [Mti/ih Ado About Nothing, Act 5. "All the conduits of m3r blood froze up." [Comedy of Errors, (1592.) " make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse." — Macbeth. " The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood Is stopp'd — the very source of it is stopp'd." — Ibid, SHAKESPEREAlSr SUBJECTS. 273 if that surly spirit, melancholy, Had baked my hhocl and made it heavy, thick, (Which else runs tickling up and down the veins') [King John^ Act 2. " The tide of blood in me Hath proudly flowed in vanity, till now — Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea." \2d Part Henrij IV., Act 5. " Where 1 have garner'd up my heart; The fountain from the which my current runs, Or else dries up." — Othello, Act 4. " A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it," &c. '•' The second property of your excellent sherry is — the warm- ing of the blood, which before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale," &c. ; " but the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme," &c., &c. : " and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart," &c. — 2cZ Part Henry IV., Act 4, Scene 4, Further quotations seem to me needless to con- vince him who reflects that Shakespeare must at least have theoreticall}^ conceived, if lie had not heen informed or learned, that the blood circulated ; but let him who doubts inspect his entire works, wherein may be found in various connections, the word heart, mentioned more than a thousand times ; and in many passages combining concordant confirmation of such a conclusion, Whether the word circulation (which is compounded of the Latin preposition circum and [Fero, Ferre, Tuli] latnm, and signifies carried 12* 274 SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. around^ was not in Shakespeare's time yet adopted in the vernacular, or not considered suitable for his rhythm or to express his prose sentiments, I am not philologist enough to decide ; but as I can find neither of the words circulate^ circulated^ or circulation any- where in his language, I infer that they had not then been included in his already copious vocabulary ; else he would probably have chosen, if deemed more ex- pressive, circulation (for " the course^^^ and circulates (instead of " courses''^) in some one or other of the numerous references to the movements of the blood. His text, however, seems to me quite sufficient for conveying the idea of the circulation, James H. Hackett. P.S. — An intelligent friend in l^ew York, to whom I applied for chronological records of Harvey (not among my limited biblical collection here) has furnished some which tend to confirm my opinion that William Harvey could not have imparted to Shakespeare what the latter knew concerning the action or movements of the venous and arterial blood, and referred to in his plays. " William Harvey did not return from Italy (where he studied) to England until 1602." (He was then aged twenty -four, and Shakespeare had already written twenty of his thirty-four dramas.) Kor " was he appointed Professor in the Royal Col- lege of Physicians until 1615,'' (several years after the retirement of Shakespeare, and only one prior SHAKESPEREAN SUBJECTS. 275 to the poet's death.) Also, " about or between the years 1616 and 1619 Harvey first publicly announced his discovery, which met with universal ridicule — nor did he print his work until 1628," (twelve years after Shakespeare's death.) It was entitled " Exer- citatio Anatoviia cle tnotu cordis et sanguinis circu- lationey Hence, as Harvey could not have taught him, may not Shakespeare have received his impressions intuitively, perhaps when reading Hunter's theory respecting the blood, which, I think, without refer- ence to chronology, had appeared prior to Shake- speare's commencement as a dramatist ? My intel- ligent New York friend writes : " From the few passages in Shakespeare's plays which I can now recall, and which bear upon this subject [the circu- lation of the blood,] I incline to think that if they had been written by Shakespeare as prose observa- tions, and not as poetic illustrations, we should resolve that he had, without anatomical knowledge, reached a conclusion which Harvey afterwards so carefully and triumphantly demonstrated." The fact that Hume and Hallam, the historians, as well as all modern medical writers, with very few exceptions, yield Harvey the credit of the dis- cove'i'y claimed for him, weighs little in the scale of my opinions. Historiographers referring to events which have transpired long before their own time, are not apt to question or to hesitate to record the then undisputed iiuthorities of a former age, and 276 SHAKESrEREAN SUBJECTS. more especially upon subjects not within their own province to investigate and compare ; and with regard to modern medical writers, they would hardly consider their time profitably occupied in sifting and analyzing the poetry of a dramatist of the Elizabethan age, to find what elements of the healing art may have been amalgamated even by the genius of a Shakespeare. J. H. H. A Reply to Mr. Hackett. October 30, 1861. To the Editors of The Evening Post : I was somewhat surprised by reading in your issue of the 19th instant a paper w^ritten by Mr. Hackett, endeavoring to render to Shakespeare the honor which for two centuries has been conceded to the immortal Harvey, viz. the discovery of the cir- culation of the blood. 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