iiilHIHiiilHttiUUtiUiiHiHtHtHiHiiuiuitntHtnmintntitnmininHTitHCFHiHiKiHitolcitflMi AMONG THE GREAT MASTERS OF THE DRAMA AMONG THE GREAT MASTERS By Walter Rowlands Among the Great Masters of Drama Among the Great Masters of "Warfare Among the Great Masters of Literature Among the Great Masters of Music Among the Great Masters of Painting Among the Great Masters of Oratory J2m0y handsome cover design^ boxed separately or in sets DANA ESTES & COMPANY Publishers Estes Press, 2J2 Summer Street, Boston Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/amonggreatmasterOOrowlricli '< . ■^li ^^^BIajCSI hh ■ '' ' "'*° ^>. ' ^^H^^^^^l' The Sonnet {Young Shakespeare and zAnne Hathaway by the Avon) From painting by George H. Boughton Among the Great Masters of the Drama % Scenes in the Lives of Famous Actors Thirty- tzvo Reproductions of Famous Pictures with Text by Walter Rowlands Boston Dana Estes & Company Publishers l-2?;»J^J^J^J^J^J^J?;5fii-2^ Copyright, igo^ By Dana Estes & Company All rights reserved % .* *J V»fOll(5 it^ fcREAT MASTERS OF THE DRAMA ••• • *•* • '' • I^olDlished September, 1903 • • • • • • • •. • (iPolontal $Te00 Eloctrotypod and Printed by C. H. Slmonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 2ro ils ^^3ter M134196 CONTENTS ♦ FA6B Shakespeare i MoLi:feRE 8 Voltaire i6 Adrienne Lecouvreur .... 26 Garrick '33 Peg Woffington 40 Mrs. Abington 48 Mrs. Siddons 54 Kemble 63 Mrs. Jordan 70 Talma . . . . . . . * 17 LiSTON 85 Mademoiselle Mars 92 Kean loi Macready 109 Dejazet 119 Forrest. . . . ... . 129 William Warren 136 Charlotte Cushman 145 Rachel 152 RiSTORi 157 Contents PAGE Fechter ....... 165 Jefferson 172 Salvini . 178 Edwin Booth 184 John McCullough 191 Lawrence Barrett 196 Henry Irving and Ellen Terry . .199 coquelin 207 Sarah Bernhardt 213 MoDjESKA 223 Adelaide Neilson . o . . . 227 Mary Anderson 230 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Sonnet A Dinner with Moli^re at Auteuil The Arrest of Voltaire . Adrienne Lecouvreur Garrick and His Wife Rich and Peg Woffington Mrs. Abington as " Miss Prue " Mrs. Siddons and Fanny Kemble KeMBLE as " ROLLA " . Mrs. Jordan in " The Country Girl Talma as "Titus" LiSTON as "Paul Pry" Mademoiselle Mars as " Betty " Edmund Kean as "Richard III." Macready as " Werner " . Madame Dejazet as the " Prince CONTi" Edwin Forrest as " Virginius " William Warren as " Herr Weigel " PAGE Frontispiece lo DE 22 28 34 45 52 SS 70 72 81 86 94 108 112 124 131 137 List of Illustrations PAGE Charlotte Cushman as •' Meg Merrilies " 150 Rachel 156 RiSTORI AS " LuCREZIA BORGIA " . • 163 Fechter as "Hamlet" .... i68 Joseph Jefferson 176 Salvini AS "Macbeth" . . . .181 Edwin Booth as "Richelieu" . . .189 John McCullough as "Coriolanus" . 195 Lawrence Barrett as " Cassius " . . 195 Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in " Olivia " 201 CoQUELiN as "Cyrano de Bergerac" . 210 Sarah Bernhardt as "Adrienne Le- couvREUR 218 Modjeska as " Rosalind " . . . . 225 Adelaide Neilson as " Viola " . . . 229 Mary Anderson as " Parthenia " . . 232 PREFACE The compiler wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Mr. Evert Jansen Wendell, of New York, for the loan of the rare photo- graph of Charlotte Cushman as *' Meg Mer- rilies," used in this book; also to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for permission to print selections from the "Life, Letters and Journals of George Ticknor," and from " Charlotte Cushman," by Miss Emma Steb- bins ; and to Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. for the use of selections from Fanny Kemble's "Records of a Girlhood." Thanks are also due to Mr. Lucius Poole, of Boston, for kind assistance, «'A POOR player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more." — Shakespeare. " Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on. Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child. Warble his native wood-notes wild." — Milton. " The stage is a supplement to the pulpit, where virtue, according to Plato's subhme idea, moves our love and affection when made visible to the eye." — Disraeli. AMONG THE GREAT MASTERS OF THE DRAMA SHAKESPEARE "Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb The crowns o' the world; oh, eyes sublime, With tears and laughter for all time." Elizabeth Barrett Browning. "To Shakespeare the intellect of the world, speaking in divers accents, applies with one accord his own words : * How noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in apprehension how like a god ! ' " Sidney Lee. Oblivion, which hides from us so much we would fain know of Shakespeare, has covered up nearly all record of him as an actor. I 2 The Great Masters of the Drama When he arrived in London, after the journey from Stratford, which he probably made on foot, the future great dramatist was a young man (perhaps just of age) with small means and but one friend, so far as known to us, in the city. This was Richard Field, a native of Stratford, who had become a printer in London, and some years afterward (in 1593) published Shake- speare's " Venus and Adonis." We are not informed what assistance, if any, the poet received from his fellow townsman, al- though a theory, which has gained but few converts, has been broached that he worked at the printer's trade in London for some time before becoming an actor. It is not un- likely that, during his first years in the me- tropolis, he earned his bread by " very mean employments," even, as an old tradition says, by holding horses at the door of the theatre. Another tradition asserts that his earliest Shakespeare 3 employment inside the walls of a playhouse was as call-boy, from which- position he ascended to the playing of some small parts. Rolfe says : " William Shakespeare, when once in the theatre, was where his talents could not fail to be speedily recognized, and where his progress in the work for which he was born and fitted was assured." At which of the only two theatres (the Theatre or the Curtain), then existing in London, Shakespeare thus found occupation, we do not know. It is inferred by Sidney Lee that, of the several companies of li- censed actors in London at that time, he originally joined the most influential one, which had been under the nominal patron- age of the Earl of Leicester, and was after- ward the Lord Chamberlain's company. " Documentary evidence proves that he was a member of it in December, 1594; in May, 1603, he was one of its leaders. Four of its chief members — Richard Burbage, the 4 The Great Masters of the Drama greatest tragic actor of the day, John Hem- ing, Henry Condell, and Augustine PhilHps — were among Shakespeare's lifelong friends. Under this company's auspices, moreover, Shakespeare's plays first saw the light. . . . When Shakespeare became a member of the company, it was doubtless performing at the Theatre, the playhouse in Shoreditch which James Burbage, the father of the great actor, Richard Burbage, had constructed in 1576; it abutted on the Fins- bury Fields, and stood outside the city's boundaries. The only other London play- house then in existence — the Curtain, in Moorfields — was near at hand." The other theatres identified with Shakespeare's career are the Rose, opened on the Bankside, Southwark, in 1592, "doubtless the earliest scene of Shakespeare's pronounced successes alike as actor and dramatist," another new playhouse at Newington Butts, and the fa- mous Globe in Southwark, built by Richard Shakespeare 5 Burbage in 1599. From that time, the last named theatre was largely occupied by Shakespeare's company, and an important share of its profits fell to him. From its opening until his retirement, the Globe ap- pears to have been the only playhouse with which the poet was professionally associated, the Blackfriars Theatre not being occupied by his company until nearly the last of his acting days. There seems to be no doubt that Shakespeare accompanied the troupe with which he was connected on their pro- vincial tours. His annual income as an actor is thought to have been not less than f 100, probably more, but his work as a dramatist was far less remunerative, yielding perhaps £20 a year up to 1599. As to the parts he played, our information is but meagre, though his performances are praised. At Christmas, 1594, he joined the chief comedian of the day, William Kemp, and Richard Burbage, in acting at Green- 6 The Great Masters of the Drama wich Palace before Queen Elizabeth, but we know not in what plays or parts. " Shake- speare's name stands first on the list of those who took part in the original performances of Ben Jonson's ' Every Man in His Hu- mour ' (1598)," but the record is silent as to the character allotted him. The Ghost in " Hamlet " is said to have been his finest assumption, and there is a tradition that he played the part of Adam in " As You Like It," this being based upon the statement of one of his younger broth- ers, presumably Gilbert, who had often seen him act in London. Mr. Boughton's charming picture of the young poet reading a sonnet to Anne Hath- away, amid the May blossoms tinting Avon's banks, — "When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight," . Shakespeare 7 is copied herein by the kind permission of its owner, Mr. E. P. Bacon, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Though he was born in England, near Norwich, in 1834, America has some right to claim Mr. Boughton hers by virtue of his breeding, as his parents brought him to this country when he was but an infant, and here he stayed until 1859, with the exception of a few months spent in England when he was about twenty. In the year just named, the young artist went to Paris, and studied art for a year or two, finally removing to Lon- don, where he has since lived. Plis brush has placed before us many de- lightful works : episodes in Puritan life in New England — who does not know his " Return of the Mayflower ? " — or among the Dutch settlers of Manhattan, — witness " The Councillors of Peter the Headstrong," — with numerous transcripts of peasant life in Brittany, or Holland, or old England. 8 The Great Masters of the Drama The New York Public Library owns his " Pilgrims Going to Church," and the Cor- coran Gallery at Washington his " Edict of William the Testy." He was elected a member of the National Academy of De- sign in 1 87 1, and has been a Royal Acade- mician since 1896. His " Weeding the Pavement " is in the Tate Gallery, London. MOLIERE "In the literature of France, his is the greatest name, and in the literature of the modern drama, the greatest after that of Shakespeare." Andrew Lang. Numerous points of likeness are to be seen in the lives of Shakespeare and Moliere, and another is visible if we accept the theory that the marriage of the " Bard of Avon " and " sweet Anne Hathaway " turned out but an unhappy one. Anne was some eight years older than Shakespeare, whose nine- Molihe 9 teenth birthday was still in the future when they were wed, while, on the other hand, fickle Armande Moliere could count but half her husband's age. This disparity augured ill for their fu- ture, — a future that was indeed a sad one for poor Moliere, who once said, when asked why in some countries the king became of age at fourteen years but could not marry until eighteen, " Because it is more difficult to rule a wife than a kingdom." It was partly for relief from the disquiet- ing influence of his coquettish wife, as well as for the benefit of his health, that Mpliere in 1667, at about the time of the prohibition of his " Tartuffe," leased a cottage at Au- teuil. ** Auteuil was then a tranquil village, far away from the town's turmoil, and brought near enough for its dwellers by the silent and swift river. Now it is a bustling suburb of the city, and the site of Mo- lO The Great Masters of the Drama Here's cottage and grounds is covered by a block of commonplace modern dwellings." Here in this pleasant retreat the great dramatist enjoyed some ease with his friends, as seen in Melingue's canvas. It is summer-time, and the wide glass doors of the dining-room are open to the garden. Moliere has assembled together a quartette of brilliant litterateurs, — La Fontaine, the famous fabulist; Boileau, critic and satirist ; Racine, poet and drama- tist; and, lastly, Chapelle, poet and wit, who is credited with the authorship of some sparkling lines in the dramas of both Mo- liere and Racine. The author of " Le Mi- santhrope " is seated at the extreme right, and all are listening to Chapelle, who is reading with animation from a manuscript. Judging from the faces of his hearers, it can hardly be one of his own effusions, as gaiety and badinage are the characteristics of his pleasant verse, c/f Dinner with Moliere at zAuteuil From painting by Gaston Melingue Molihe 1 1 Both dinner and dessert have been dis- cussed, and the servant — La Foret, the one to whom MoHere was wont to first read his comedies — is bringing in the coffee. An amusing story is told of a noted froHc which once took place at Moliere's villa. Van Laun says : " Chapelle, La Fontaine, Lulli, director of the Royal Academy of Music, Boileau, Mignard, the artist, and Corneille, came one evening to Auteuil to make merry with their friend. Moliere was obliged to excuse himself on the ground of ill health, but he requested Chapelle to do the honors of his house. The guests sat down, and presently, warmed with wine, they fell to talking of religion, futurity, the vanity of human life, and such other lofty and inexhaustible topics as are wont to oc- cupy the vinous moments of intellectual men. Chapelle led the conversation, and indulged in a long tirade against the folly of most things counted wise; at length, one 12 The Great Masters of the Drama of them suggested the idea of suicide, and proposed that they should all go and drown themselves in the river. This splendid notion was received with acclamation; the tipsy philosophers hurried down to the bank, and seized upon a boat in order to get into the middle of the stream. M^'eanwhile, Baron, Moliere's favorite pupil, who lived in the house with him, and who had been present at the debauch, aroused his master, and sent off the servants in quest of the would-be suicides. The latter were already in the water when assistance arrived, and they were pulled out; but, resenting such an imper- tinence, they drew their swords on their deliverers and pursued them to Moliere's house. The poet displayed complete pres- ence of mind, and pretended to approve of the plan which had been formed; but he professed to be much annoyed that they should have thought of drowning them- selves without him. They admitted their MolUre 13 error, and invited him to come back with them and finish the business. ' Nay,' said Moliere, *that would be very clumsy. So glorious a deed should not be done at night and in darkness. Early to-morrow, when we have all slept well, we will go, fasting and in public, and throw ourselves in.' To this all assented, and Chapelle proposed that in the meantime they should finish the wine that had been left. It need not be added that the next day found them in a different mood." The anecdote illustrates Moliere's ability as an actor, and is emphasized by the words of Coquelin, sage critic as well as great comedian, in his " Moliere and Shake- speare." Coquelin asserts : " There is no doubt that his (Moliere's) vocation as an actor was his master-passion. He did not leave the paternal roof for the purpose of writing plays, but for the purpose of acting them. And we know that these were not 14 The Great Masters of the Drama comedies; the Illustrious Theatre had in stock at first nothing but tragedies. When he wrote ' L'Etourdi,' his first work, Mo- liere had been an actor for nine years, and for fifteen when he wrote the ' Precieuses Ridicules/ Never could his great success as an author tempt him to leave the boards. He not only continued to act in his own plays, but he acted in the plays of others, and did not consider this as lost time. He acted, as we have said, although coughing and spitting blood; and to Boileau, who advised him to leave the stage, he replied: * It is for my honor that I remain,' so much did he love his profession, which was killing him. But then he excelled in it. His contemporaries are unanimous on this point. He was extraordinary. 'Better actor even than author,' one of them goes so far as to say. We can imagine what joy it must have been to see him in his great Molihe 15 parts, — Sganarelle, Orgon, Alceste, Har- pagon/' Moliere reading a new play to his com- pany has served M. Melingue, the painter of the dinner at Auteuil, as the subject of a later picture. The artist, born at Paris in 1840, and taught his art by his father (who was actor, painter, and sculptor) and Leon Cogniet, won for himself years ago an as- sured place among French painters of his- toric anecdote. He has painted " Edward Jenner," the discoverer of vaccination, " Hoche in 1789," '' Catinat after the Bat- tle oi Marsaille," " General Daumesnil at Vincennes," " Joan of Arc and Baudri- court," " La Tour d'Auvergne," and " Jean Bart at Versailles." 1 6 The Great Masters of the Drama VOLTAIRE "Every form of composition must be judged in its own order, and the order in which Voltaire chose to work was the French classic. ... It is no infidelity to the glorious and incomparable genius of Shakespeare ... to admit that there is in these limits of construction a concentration and regularity, and in these too contemned alexandrines a just and swelling cadence, that confer a high degree of pleas- ure of the highest kind." John Morley. Like the two great men of whom I have written in the foregoing chapters, Voltaire was both dramatist and actor. We know that he enacted, with great acceptance, the part of Cicero in his own tragedy of " Rome Sauvee," at Paris, in 1749, before an audi- ence which included many notables, — d'Alembert, Diderot, Marmontel, and other distinguished writers, and again, later, be- fore the court of Berlin, where, with princes and princesses as fellow actors, he also as- Voltaire 1 7 sumed the character of Lusignan, the aged Christian martyr in " Zaire.'* " Yes," says Carlyle, " and was manager and general stage-king and contriver, being expert at this, if at anything. . . . Excellent in act- ing, say the witnesses ; superlative, for cer- tain, as Preceptor of the art." Some rather neat bits of stage business, so to say, may be discerned in Voltaire's conduct during the famous episode of his detention at Frankfort by order of Fred- erick the Great, subsequent to the poet's last interview with that monarch at Potsdam in the March of 1753. Let us hear Carlyle again : " The essence of the story is briefly this. Voltaire, by his fine deportment in parting with Friedrich, had been allowed to retain his Decorations, his letter of Agreement, his Royal Book of Poesies (one of those * Twelve Copies,' printed au Donjon du Chateau in happier times !) — and, in short, to go his ways as a 1 8 The Great Masters of the Drama friend, not as a runaway or one dismissed. But now, by his late procedures at Leipzig, and * firings out of port-holes ' in that man- ner, he had awakened Friedrich's indigna- tion again, — Friedrich's regret at allowing him to take those articles with him; and produced a resolution in Friedrich to have them back. They are not generally articles of much moment; but as marks of friend- ship they are now all falsities. One of the articles might be of frightful importance: that Book of Poesies; thrice-private CEuvre de Poesies, in which are satirical spurts af- fecting more than one crowned head; one shudders to think what fires a spiteful Vol- taire might cause by publishing these ! This was Friedrich's idea ; — and by no means a chimerical one, as the fact proved; said CEuvre being actually reprinted upon him, at Paris, afterwards (not by Voltaire), in the crisis of the Seven- Years War, to put him out with his Uncle of England, whom Voltaire i$ it quizzed in passages. * We will have those articles back,' thinks Friedrich; 'that (Euvre most especially ! No difficulty ; wait for him at Frankfurt, as lie passes home ; de- mand them of him there/ And has (directly on those new * firings through port-holes ' at Leipzig) bidden Fredersdorf take meas- ures accordingly. " Fredersdorf did so; early in April and onward had his official Person waiting at Frankfurt (one Freytag, our Prussian Resi- dent there, very celebrated ever since) , vigi- lant in the extreme for Voltaire's arrival, — and who did not miss that event. Voltaire, arriving at last (May 31st), did, with Frey- tag's hand laid gently on his sleeve, at once give up what of the articles he had about him; — the CEuvre, unluckily, not one of them; and agreed to be under mild arrest (' Po/role d'honneur; in the Liorird'Or Hotel here!') till said CEuvre should come up. Under Fredersdorf's guidance, all this, and 20 The Great Masters of the Drama what follows; King Friedrich, after the general Order given, had nothing more to do with it, and was gone upon his Reviews. " In the course of two weeks or more the (Euvre de Poesie did come. Voltaire was impatient to go. And he might perhaps have at once gone, had Freytag been clearly instructed, so as to know the essential from the unessential here. But he was not; — poor subaltern Freytag had to say, on Vol- taire's urgencies : * I will at once report to Berlin; if the answer be (as we hope), " All right," you are at that moment at liberty ! * This was a thing unexpected, astonishing to Voltaire; a thing demanding patience, si- lence: in three days more, with silence, as it turns out, it would have been all beauti- fully over, — but he was not strong in those qualities ! " Voltaire's arrest hitherto had been merely on his word of honor, * I promise, on my honor, not to go beyond the Garden Voltaire 2 1 of this Inn.' But he now, without warning anybody, privately revoked said word of honor; and Collini and he, next morning, ... — having laid their plan, striving to think it fair in the circumstances, — walk out from the Lion d'Or, * Voltaire in black velvet coat,' with their valuablest effects (La Pucelle and money-box included) ; leaving Madame Denis to wait the disimprisonment of CEuzre de Poesie, and wind up the gen- eral business. Walk out, very gingerly, — duck into a hackney-coach; and attempt to escape by the Mainz Gate! Freytag's spy runs breathless with the news; never was a Freytag in such taking. Terrified Freytag has to * throw on his coat ; ' order out three men to gallop by various routes ; jump into some Excellency's coach (kind Excellency lent it), which is luckily standing yoked near by; and shoot with the velocity of life and death towards Mainz Gate. Voltaire, whom the well-affected Porter, suspecting 22 The Great Masters of the Drama something, has rather been retarding, is still there : * Arrested, in the King's name ! ' — and there is such a scene ! For Freytag, too, is now raging, ignited by such percussion of the terrors; and speaks, not like what they call ' a learned sergeant,' but like a drilled sergeant in heat of battle : Voltaire's tongue, also, and Collini's, — ' Your Excel- lenz never heard such brazen-faced lies thrown on a man; that I had offered, for i,ooo thalers, to let them go; that I had — ' In short, the thing has caught fire; broken into flaming chaos come again. " * Freytag (to give one snatch from Col- lini's side) got into the carriage along with us, and led us, in this way, across the mob of people to Schmidt's (to see what was to be done with us). Sentries were put at the gate to keep out the mob; we are led into a kind of counting-room; clerk, maid and man-servants are about; Madame Schmidt passes before Voltaire with a disdainful air, The Arrest of Voltaire From painting by Jules Girardet Voltaire 2$ to listen to Freytag, recounting/ in the tone not of a learned sergeant, what the matter is. They seize our effects; under violent protest, worse than vain. ' Voltaire demands to have at least his snuff-box, cannot do without snuff ; they answer, " It is usual to take everything.". . . " * Not for two hours had they done with their writings and arrangings. Our port- folios and cassette (money-box) were thrown into an empty trunk (what else could they be thrown into?) — which was locked with a padlock, and sealed with a paper, Voltaire's arms on the one end, and Schmidt's cipher on the other. Dorn, Frey- tag's Clerk, was bidden lead us away. Sign of the Bouc' (or Billy-Goat; there hence- forth; Lion d'Or refusing to be concerned with us farther) ; twelve soldiers; Madame Denis with curtains of bayonets, — and other well-known flagrancies. . . . The 7th of July, Voltaire did actually go; and then in 24 TAe Great Masters of the Drama an extreme hurry, — by his own blame, again. " These final passages we touch only in the lump ; Voltaire's own Narrative of these being so copious, flamingly impressive, and still known to everybody. How much better for Voltaire and us, had nobody ever known it ; had it never been written ; had the poor hubbub, no better than a chance street-riot, all of it, after amusing old Frankfurt for awhile, been left to drop into the gutters for- ever! To Voltaire and various others (me and my poor readers included), that was the desirable thing. " Had there but been, among one's re- sources, a little patience and practical can- dor instead of all that vituperative elo- quence and power of tragi-comic descrip- tion ! Nay, in that case, this wretched street- riot hubbub need not have been at all. Truly M. de Voltaire had a talent for speech, but lamentably wanted that of silence ! " Voltaire 2$ John Morley remarks that, " It would need the singer of the battle of the frogs and mice to do justice to this five weeks' tragi-comedy," but M. Girardet has well imagined for us one aspect of it, — the ar- rest. Jules Girardet, born in Paris in 1856, and one of a family of artists, has been the re- cipient of numerous honors. Among his best works may be named " Episode in the Siege of Saragossa," " The Rout of Cholet, 1793," " The Defeated Army of General Lescure Passing the Loire," and " Trying on the Crown," the last named picture rep- resenting an episode in the life of Napoleon and Josephine. 26 The Great Masters of the Drama ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR "We saw in her, not the actress, but the person- age represented." Colle. "A woman who brought to the work of her Hfe an assemblage of gifts as rare as the poetry they served to illustrate." Frederick Hawkins. Without doubt one of the causes of Vol- taire's hostility to the Church can be found in that Church's treatment of Adrienne Lecouvreur in denying her Christian burial. That the corpse of an actress of genius, for years the idol of Paris, one of his warm- est friends, and the creator of Jocasta in his '' CEdipe," should, because of her profes- sion, be consigned to unconsecrated ground, aroused that vehement indignation which Voltaire, to his lasting credit, always dis- played against injustice. Contrasting the hurried and forlorn obse- quies of Adrienne with the stately fune- Adrienne Lecouvreur 27 ral of the English actress, Anne Oldfield, who, dying the same year, was interred in Westminster Abbey, Voltaire breaks forth thus: " O London, happy land, where no art is despised, where every kind of success has its glory, where the Conqueror of Tallard, son of Victory, the sublime Dryden, the wise Addison, the charming Oldfield, and the immortal Newton, all have their place in the Temple of Glory." In another — less material but lasting — Temple of Glory, however, set apart for honoring those whose talents have graced the stage, the memory of Adrienne Lecou- vreur is preserved as that of a great actress, one of the chief ornaments of the French theatre. Born in 1692, near Rheims, this daugh- ter of a hat-maker of Paris was, at an early age, distinguished as a reciter of poetry, and at fifteen became connected with a troupe 28 The Great Masters of the Drama of young amateurs. Her performances at- tracted so much attention that steps were taken to fully educate and develop her re- markable histrionic gifts. She made her debut in the provinces, and did not appear in Paris until 171 7, when she performed Electra in Crebillon's tragedy of that name, at the Comedie Frangaise. Her career, after this, was a succession of successes, especially in the leading parts of the tragedies of Ra- cine and Corneille. It is as Cornelia in Corneille's tragedy of the " Death of Pompey " that Coypel has painted her in the picture here repro- duced. Adrienne's name inevitably recalls that of her lover Maurice de Saxe, the soldier son of Augustus the Strong and the lovely Au- rora von Konigsmark, whose association with the actress has been made familiar to the world by Scribe's popular play, entitled Adrienne Le Couvreur From painting by Charles Coypel Adrienne Lecouvreur 29 " Adrienne Lecouvreur," first produced at the theatre where she reigned, in 1849. Although the death of Adrienne was not caused by poison sent to the actress by her rival, the Princesse de Bouillon, as told in Scribe's drama, it was, nevertheless, a sudden and a sad one. Dying at thirty- seven, the great tragedienne knew that Saxe, on whom she had bestowed literally a for- tune, to aid him in prosecuting his claim to the Duchy of Courland, was false to her. She died in Voltaire's arms, with her eyes fixed, it is said, on the bust of Saxe. In Scribe^s play, it is Maurice de Saxe and the faithful old manager, Michonnet, who witness alone the passing from earth of poor Adrienne. The last scene of the last act is here quoted: 30 The Great Masters of the Drama "SCENE V. Maurice, Adrienne, Michonnet michonnet Is it true what they tell me? Is Adrienne in danger? MAURICE Adrienne is dying. MICHONNET No, no, she still breathes! All hope is not yet lost. MAURICE She opens her eyes! ADRIENNE Oh, what suffering! Who is near me? Maurice, and you, also, Michonnet. As soon as I suffer, you come. It is no longer my head, but my chest that is burning; it is like a fire, — like a devouring fire that consumes me. MICHONNET All this proves — do you not see, as I do, the traces of poison, — a quick and terrible poison? Adrienne Lecouvreur 31 MAURICE What, you have suspicions! MICHONNET I suspect all the world — and this rival — this grand lady! MAURICE Hold! Hold! ADRIENNE Ah! The pain increases. You who love me so, save me, save me! I do not wish to die! A little while ago I could have begged for death — I was so unhappy — but now I do not wish to die — he loves me — he has called me his wife! MICHONNET His wife! ADRIENNE My God, listen to me! Let me live — a few days — a few days near him — I am so young, and life looks so beautiful to me now. MAURICE This is frightful! 32 The Great Masters of the Drama ADRIENNE Life! Life! vain efforts, vain prayers! My days are numbered. I feel the power of existence escap- ing. Do not leave me, Maurice — very soon my eyes will see you no longer — my hand will not be able to press yours. MAURICE Adrienne ! Adrienne ! ADRIENNE Oh, triumphs of the theatre! my heart beats no more with your ardent emotions — and you, studies of the art I loved so much, — nothing will remain of you after I am gone. Nothing lives of us after our death — nothing but the memory — you will not forget me. Adieu, Maurice! adieu, my two friends ! MICHONNET Dead! Dead! MAURICE O noble and generous girl ! if ever the least glory shall be my lot, it is to you I will render homage; Garrick 33 and ever united — even after death — the name of Maurice de Saxe shall never be separated from that of Adrienne." Charles Antoine Coypel, one of a family of artists, was born in Paris in 1694, and died there in 1752. Although he painted subjects from history and from more famil- iar scenes, his best works were his portraits. GARRICK "If powers of acting vast and unconfined; If fewest faults with greatest beauties join'd; If strong expression, and strange powers which lie Within the magic circle of the eye ; If feelings which few hearts, like his, can know, And which no face so well as his can show. Deserve the preference ; — Garrick ! take the chair, Nor quit it — till thou place an equal there." Churchill. Hogarth painted his good friend Gar- rick on several occasions. His best known picture of the actor, a large canvas produced in 1746, represents him as Richard III. 34 The Great Masters of the Drama The portrait here given of Garrick and his wife shows him as a writer, and was painted in 1757, about eight years after their marriage, and an equal time before the death of Hogarth, for whose monument in Chiswick Churchyard Garrick composed the epitaph. In this picture the manuscript of his pro- logue to Foote's comedy of " Taste " lies before Garrick, who is attired in a blue coat, embroidered with gold, and a rose in his buttonhole. He appears to be speaking aloud, as if reciting the prologue on the stage, and is unconscious of the cautious approach of his wife, who reaches out her hand to take the pen from him. She wears a pink dress with a white fichu and lace sleeves, flowers in her unpowdered hair, and on her left wrist a pearl bracelet, which bears, set in diamonds, a miniature portrait of a lady, probably that of the Empress Maria Theresa, who had been her friend in Garrick and His Wife ' From painting By William Hogarth Garrick 35 Vienna, where, under the name of Eva Maria Violette, she was a celebrated dancer. Mile. Violette came to London when she was about twenty years old, and by her dancing at the Haymarket instantly won success, and became the reigning queen of the art in England. Several romantic stories are told as to her origin and early life, but the real facts are unknown. At all events, she was befriended in England by the Earl and Countess of Burlington, who made her a handsome settlement on her marriage with Garrick, which took place in 1749, and turned out most happily. From the time of their union until the actor's death, a period of nearly thirty years, they were never apart twenty-four hours, and for many years after Garrick's demise, his widow would not allow the room in which he died to be opened. Many tributes to her charms of mind and person are extant. Garrick's verse asserts: 36 The Great Masters of the Drama "'Tis not, my friend, her speaking face, Her shape, her youth, her winning grace, Have reached my heart, the fair one's mind, Quick as her eyes, yet soft and kind. A gaiety with innocence; A soft address with manly sense, Ravishing manners, void of art, A cheerful, firm, yet feeling heart. Beauty that charms all public gaze. And humble amid pomp and praise." She was called " the most agreeable woman in England," and Horace Walpole, not easily pleased, said, " her behavior is all sense and all sweetness." Sterne pro- tested that when he saw her walking in the garden of the Tuileries, she could annihilate all the beauties of Paris in a single turn. Garrick died in 1779, and was buried in Westminster Abbey (being the last actor there interred), the mourners including such men as Burke, Gibbon, Doctor Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sheridan, and Charles James Fox. To the same place followed, in 1822, his wife, who had survived him Garrick 3^ forty-three years, and lies beside him. She is described as " a Httle bowed-down old woman, who went about leaning on a gold- headed cane, dressed in deep widow's mourn- ing, and always talking of her dear Davy." Knight says : " Her own death was curi- ous. She was on the point of going to see some alterations made by EUiston in Drury Lane, and chid somewhat testily the maid servant who handed her a cup. * Put it down, hussy; do you think I cannot help myself ? ' she said, tasted the tea, and ex- pired." Some of Goldsmith's inimitable lines on Garrick refer to the great actor's vanity, — " Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came, And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame." This failing must have been strong in Garrick when he found his figure in Ho- garth's picture lacking in dignity, and said so, whereupon the quick-tempered little 38 The Great Masters of the Drama painter is said to have drawn his brush across the face. Whether this be true or not, and it appears authentic, it is certain that the portrait remained in Hogarth's hands until his death, when his widow sent it to Garrick. At the sale of Mrs. Garrick's effects, in 1823, it was sold for £75, ii.y. to Mr. E. W. Locker, of Greenwich Hospital. His descendant, Frederick Locker, the Lon- don poet, says, in " My Confidences," " This picture is so lifelike that as little children we were afraid of it, so much so that my mother persuaded my father to sell it to George IV." It is now in the Royal Col- lection at Windsor. Few actors, if any, have served as often as Garrick for a painter's subject, both in character and out of it. Reynolds painted him more than once, notably in the splendid ** Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy," and the names of the other artists who limned him include Gainsborough, Zoffany, Garrick 30 Pine, Hudson, Worlidge, Liotard, Cochin, Pond, Hayman, and Dance. Sala says : " Among the Hogarth anec- dotes, few are so well known as that giving Garrick the credit for having sate for a posthumous portrait of Fielding, and by his extraordinary powers of facial mimicry, * making up ' a capital model of his de- ceased friend.^ If this be true, Garrick must have surpassed, as a mime, that fa- mous harlequin, who used to imitate a man eating fruit, and from whose mere gestures and grimaces, you could at once tell the fruit he was pretending to eat ; now he was pulling currants from the stalk, now sucking an orange, now biting an unripe pear, now swallowing a cherry, and now exhausting a gooseberry. Then there is the account of *When this was told in Paris by De la Place, during a visit made by Garrick, some incredulity was expressed. To convince the most skeptical, the actor once more personated Fielding in a manner that won instant recognition. 40 The Great Masters of the Drama Garrick sitting to Hogarth for his own pic- ture, and mischievously giving so many varied casts of expression to his countenance that the painter at last threw down his brush in a pet, and declared he could do no more.'* PEG WOFFINGTON "In every scene of comic humor known, In sprightly sallies, wit was all thy own. Thy ears were ever open to distress, Thy ready hand was ever stretch'd to bless." Hoole's "Monody." " She never disappointed an audience through three winters in Dublin, and yet I have often seen her on the stage when she ought to have been in bed." Victor's " History of the Theatres of London and Dublin." Although " Little Davy " was always a true and loving husband to his spouse, he is credited with having played the hero in many 4ove scenes prior to his marriage. Peg Woffington 41 The heroines of these dramas were, in es- pecial, the famous actresses, Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Gibber, and Peg Woffington. For the last named it is certain that Garrick felt a genuine passion, which was warmly- responded to by the fascinating Irish girl, to whom he addressed this song, entitled "Pretty Peggy:" "Once more I'll tune my vocal shell. To hills and dales my Passion tell, A Flame which time can never quell That bums for lovely Peggy. "Yet greater Bards the Lyre should hit; For pray, what Subject is more fit. Than to record the radiant wit And bloom of lovely Peggy? " The Sun, first rising in the morn, That paints the dew-bespangled Thorn, Doth not so much the day adorn As does my lovely Peggy. " And when in Thetis' lap to rest. He streaks with gold the ruddy west, He's not so beauteous, as undrest Appears my lovely Peggy. 42 The Great Masters of the Drama "Were she Arrayed in rustic weed, With her the Bleating flocks I'd feed, And pipe upon my Oaten reed, To please my lovely Peggy. "With her a Cottage would delight, All pleases when she's in my sight! But when she's gone, 'Tis endless Night — All's dark without my Peggy. "When Zephyr on the violet Blows, Or breathes upon the damask rose, He does not half the sweets disclose That does my lovely Peggy. " I stole a kiss the other day. And trust me, Naught but Truth I say, The fragrant breath of blooming May Was not so sweet as Peggy. "While bees from Flowers to Flowers rove. And Linnets warble through the Grove, Or Stately swans the waters love. So long shall I love Peggy. "And when Death, with his Pointed Dart, Shall strike the blow that rends my heart. My words shall be when I depart, Adieu, my lovely Peggy." Peg Woffington 43 These lines were written a year or two after charming Mistress Woffington's first appearance in London. Concerning that critical period, Augustin Daly wrote, in his valuable monograph on Peg Woffington: " Woffington found herself in the metrop- olis (when she arrived after her hurried departure from Dublin) without an engage- ment. It is reasonable to suppose that she believed her reputation and popularity in the Irish capital had preceded her, and that she would not experience any very great difficulty in renewing her relations with the theatre. She first applied to John Rich, the manager of Covent Garden. At that time the seesaw of public favor, rocking be- tween Covent Garden and Drury Lane, had sent the latter to the ground, and had lifted its rival house to the airy eminence. Rich at this period had grown to be quite an important creature. His great good luck in the production of Gay's ' Beggar's Opera,' 44 The Great Masters of the Drama which had made (as the wits of the day- said), 'Rich gay and Gay rich/ had pos- sibly overelated the fortunate manager, and it is said that at this juncture of his career, he was ' at home ' to nobody under a bar- onet. " Ignorant or indifferent to all this, and quite self-confident of her own worth, Wof- fington boldly went to Rich's office and asked to see him. Stage porters in those days were quite as obdurate as in our own, and faithful guardians of the stage door in the eighteenth century were quite as insus- ceptible to bribes or beauty as they are in the nineteenth. Woffington made eighteen visits to Covent Garden before Rich received her.'' Charles Reade, in his admirable novel, " Peg Woffington," did not inflict quite so many rebuffs on poor Peggy. He makes her say to Triplet : " Managers, sir, are like Eastern monarchs, inaccessible but to Rich and Peg Wofflngton From painting by Frederick Smallfield Peg Woffington 45 slaves and sultanas. Do you know I called on Mr. Rich fifteen times before I could see him ? It was years ago, and he has paid me a hundred pounds for each of those little visits." A writer in the Dublin Review has pic- tured very graphically this first meeting: " The great manager, as Woffington first saw him, was lolling in ungraceful ease on a sofa, holding a play in one hand, and in the other a teacup, from which he sipped frequently. Around about him were seven and twenty cats of all sizes, colors, and kinds, — Toms and tabbies, old cats and kittens, tortoise-shells, Maltese, brindles, white, black, and yellow cats of every de- scription. Some were frisking over the floor, others asleep on the rug; one was licking the buttered toast on his breakfast plate, another was engaged in drinking the cream for his tea, two cats lay on his knee, one was asleep on his shoulder, and another 46 The Great Masters of the Drama sat demurely on bis head. Peg Woffington was astounded at the sight. Rich, to her mind, had for years been the greatest man in the world. The menagerie of grimalkins, amid which he lay so carelessly, was so dif- ferent an environment from her conception of the study of the Covent Garden Theatre manager that she was embarrassed into silence. Rich, in his turn, was equally con- fused by the beauty of his visitor, and lay staring at her for a long time before he recollected his courtesy and offered her a chair. Standing before him was a woman whom he afterward declared to be the loveli- est creature he had ever seen. She was taller than the ordinary standard of height, faultless in form, dignified even to majesty, yet withal, winsome and piquant. Her dark hair, unstained by powder, fell in luxuriant wealth over her neck and shoulders. * It was a fortunate thing for my wife,' said Rich, in afterward recounting the scene to Peg Woffington 47 Sir Joshua Reynolds, * that I was not of a susceptible temperament. Had it been other- wise, I should have found it difficult to re- tain my equanimity enough to arrange busi- ness negotiations with the amalgamated Calypso, Circe, and Armida who dazzled my eyes. A more fascinating daughter of Eve never presented herself to a manager in search of rare commodities. She was as majestic as Juno, as lovely as Venus, and as fresh and charming as Hebe.' " The result of the interview was that Rich offered her an engagement, and she made her first appearance on the metropolitan stage November 6, 1740, as Sylvia in Farquhar's " Recruiting Officer," one of her happiest assumptions. From that night, for as long a time as she remained on the boards, she reigned supreme in comedy. On May 3, 1757, at Covent Garden The- atre, while speaking the epilogue to " As You Like It," in which she played Rosalind ^ 48 The Great Masters of the Drama she was stricken with paralysis, and quitted forever the stage on which she had won so many triumphs. She died on March 28, 1760, aged only forty-one. MRS. ABINGTON "E'en now the Muse on high her banner rears; Thalia calls — and Abington appears : Yes, Abington — too long we've been without her, With all the school of Garrick still about her." COLMAN. Of all the intractable leading ladies who acted under Garrick's management, the ca- pricious Mrs. Abington plagued him the most. John Thomas Smith says : " She was not unlike the miller's mare, forever looking for a white stone to shy at." But however trying she might be to her man- ager, she was a favorite both on and off the stage, and, although of very doubtful extraction and breeding, became a polished Mrs. Abington 49 woman of fashion as well as the first comic actress of her day. In appearance, a bird of paradise and a behemoth would not differ much more than Mrs. Abington and Doctor Johnson, yet they were good friends, and the gruff but great philosopher was, like her, fond of fashion- able folk. Boswell, writing under date of 1775, says: "On Monday, March 27th, I break- fasted with him (Johnson) at M)r. Strahan's. He told us that he was engaged to go that evening to Mrs. Abington's benefit. * She was visiting some ladies whom I was visit- ing, and begged that I would come to her benefit. I told her I could not hear; but she insisted so much on my coming that it would have been brutal to have refused her.* This was a speech quite characteristical. He loved to bring forward his having been in the gay circles of life, and he was, perhaps, a little vain of the solicitations of this ele- 50 The Great Masters of the Drama gant and fashionable actress. He told us the play was to be * The Hypocrite,' altered from Gibber's ' Nonjuror.'. . . I met him at Drury Lane playhouse in the evening. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at Mrs. Abington's request, had promised to bring a body of wits to her benefit; and, having secured forty places in the front boxes, had done me the honor to put me in the group. John- son sat on the seat directly behind me, and, as he could neither see nor hear at such a distance from the stage, he was wrapped up in grave abstraction, and seemed quite a cloud amidst all the sunshine of glitter and gaiety. I wondered at his patience in sitting out a play of five acts, and a farce of two. He said very little." A few days later Bos- well records : " I supped with him and some friends at a tavern. One of the company attempted, with too much forwardness, to rally him on his late appearance at the the- atre, but had reason to repent of his temer- Mrs. Abington 51 ity. ' Why, sir, did you go to Mrs. Abing- ton's benefit? Did you see?' * No, sir.' ' Did you hear? ' ' No, sir.' ' Why, then, sir, did you go ? ' ' Because, sir, she is a favorite of the publick; and when the pub- lick cares the thousandth part for you that it does for her, I will go to your benefit, too.' " A very different man from Johnson, Hor- ace Walpole, also admired Mrs. Abington, as can be seen from the following gallant invitation which he sent to her: "Strawberry Hill, June 11, 1780.^ " Madame : — You may certainly always command me and my house. My common custom is to give a ticket for only four per- sons at a time; but it would be very inso- lent in me, when all laws are set at naught, to pretend to prescribe rules. At such times, there is a shadow of authority in setting the laws aside by the legislature itself; and, 5 2 The Great Masters of the Drama though I have no army to supply their place, I declare Mrs. Abington may march through all my dominions at the head of as large a troop as she pleases, — I do not say, as she can muster and command ; for then I am sure my house would not hold them. The day, too, is at her own choice, and the master is her very obedient, humble servant, "HoR. Walpole." Walpole thought Lady Teade, which part she created, to be Mrs. Abington' s best ef- fort. Reynolds painted her in this charac- ter; again as the Comic Muse, as Roxalana in " The Sultan " (this portrait he presented to Mrs. Abington), and as Miss Prue in Congreve's " Love for Love," which latter picture is reproduced here. It shows Miss Prue in the scene where the rough sailor, Ben, makes love to her according to his father's commands: tAffs. Abingion as " Miss Prue " From painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds Mrs. Abington S3 "Ben. Come, mistress, will you please to sit down? for an you stand astern a' that'n, we shall never grapple together. — Come, I'll haul a chair; there, an you please to sit, I'll sit by you. Prue. You need not sit so near one; if you have anything to say, I can hear you farther off. I an't deaf. Ben. Why, that's true, as you say; nor I an't dumb ; I can be heard as far as another ; — I'll heave off to please you. — [Sits farther off.] An we were a league asunder, I'd undertake to hold discourse with you, an 'twere not a main high wind indeed, and full in my teeth. Look you, forsooth, I am, as it were, bound for the land of matrimony; 'tis a voyage, d'ye see, that was none of my seeking. I was commanded by father, and, if you li^e of it, mayhap I may steer into your harbor. How say you, mistress? The short of the thing is that, if you like me, and I like you, we may chance to swing in a hammock together. Prue. I don't know what to say to you, nor I don't care to speak with you at all. Ben. No? I'm sorry for that. — But pray, why are you so scornful? Prue. As long as one must not speak one's mind, one had better not speak at all, I think, and truly I won't tell a lie for the matter. Ben. Nay, you say true in that, 'tis but a folly to lie: for to speak one thing, and to think just the contrary way, is, as it were, to look one way and row another. Now, for my part, d'ye see, I'm 54 I'he Great Masters of the DratHd for carrying things above board; I'm not for keep- ing anything under hatches, — so that if you ben't as willing as I, say so a' God's name, there's no harm done. Mayhap you may be shamefaced? Some maidens, tho'f they love a man well enough, yet they don't care to tell'n so to's face: if that's the case, why silence gives consent. Prue. But I'm sure it is not so, for I'll speak sooner than you should believe that; and I'll speak truth, though one should always tell a lie to a man; and I don't care; let my father do what he will; I'm too big to be whipped, so I'll tell you plainly I don't like you, nor love you at all, nor never will, that's more; so, there's your answer for you; and don't trouble me no more, you ugly thing ! " MRS. SIDDONS "What Mrs. Siddons may have been when she had the advantages of youth and form, I cannot say, but it appears to me that her performance at present leaves room to wish for nothing more." Washington Irving (1805). " She was tragedy personified." William Hazlitt. Instead of gazing upon Mrs. Siddons as painted, in or out of character, by Gainsbor- [Mrs. Siddons and Fanny Kemhle From painting by Henry Perronet Briggs Mrs. Siddons 55 ough, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Harlow, or Beechey, and passing by even Sir Joshua's magnificent picture of her as the Muse of Tragedy, let us look at an unfamiliar but most interesting group of Mrs. Siddons and her niece, Fanny Kemble, by Briggs, a Royal Academician, who once enjoyed much re- pute as a portrait painter. This picture is the property of the Boston Athenaeum, to which institution it was given by Fanny Kemble herself many years ago. That charming actress, who died in 1893, an old lady of eighty-three, spent many years of her life in America, having first appeared in the United States, at the Park Theatre in New York, as Bianca, in 1832. She married a Scmtherner, Mr. Pierce But- ler, in 1834, but the union turned out un- happily, and was put an end to by divorce. At a later time, she gained additional fame by her readings from Shakespeare, and her dramatic talent was supplemented by a 56 The Great Masters of the Drama poetic gift. She not only produced verses of merit, but two or three plays, and wrote several delightful volumes of reminiscences, filled with anecdotes of the numberless celeb- rities she had met. Many eminent Americans were her friends, Longfellow among them, and his fine sonnet, written in 1849 i^^ admiration of her readings, may be quoted here: " O precious evenings ! all too swiftly sped ! Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages. And giving tongues unto the silent dead! How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read, Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages Of the great poet who foreruns the ages Anticipating all that shall be said! O happy reader ! having for thy text The magic book, whose sibylline leaves have caught The rarest essence of all human thought! O happy poet ! by no critic vext ! How must thy listening spirit now rejoice To be interpreted by such a voice ! " From Fanny Kemble's " Records of a Girlhood " are taken the following refer- Mrs. Siddons 57 ences to her famous aunt. When Fanny was a child, " Mrs. Siddons," she says, " at that time Hved next door to us; she came in one day when I had committed some of my daily offences against manners or mor- als, and I was led, nothing daunted, into her awful presence to be admonished by her. " Melpomene took me upon her lap, and, bending upon me her * controlling frown,* discoursed to me of my evil ways in those accents which curdled the blood of the poor shopman, of whom she demanded if the printed calico she purchased of him * would wash.' The tragic tones pausing in the midst of the impressed and impressive si- lence of the assembled family, I tinkled forth: * What beautiful eyes you have!' all my small faculties having been absorbed in the steadfast upward gaze I fixed upon those magnificent orbs. Mrs. Siddons set me down with a smothered laugh, and I 58 The Great Masters of the Drama trotted off, apparently uninjured by my great aunt's solemn moral suasion." This sprightly juvenile was but little older when her parents removed to Covent Garden Chambers. " It was while," she says, " we were living here that Mrs. Siddons returned to the stage for one night, and acted Lady Randolph for my father's benefit. Of course I heard much discourse about this, tO' us, important and exciting event, and used all my small powers of persuasion to be taken to see her. " My father, who loved me very much, and spoiled me not a little, carried me early in the afternoon into the market-place, and showed me the dense mass of people which filled the whole Piazza, in patient expecta- tion of admission to the still unopened doors. This was by way of proving to me how impossible it was to grant my request. However that might then appear, it was granted, for I was in the theatre at the be- Mrs, Siddons 59 ginning of the performance; but I can now remember nothing of it but the appearance of a solemn female figure in black, and the tremendous roar of public greeting which welcomed . her, and must, I suppose, have terrified my childish senses, by the impres- sion I still retain of it; and this is the only occasion on which I saw my aunt in public." On June 8, 183 1, Fanny Kemble, then twenty-one and an accepted star, having won immense success at her debut as Juliet at Covent Garden in 1829, thus records the death of Mrs. Siddons : " While I was writ- ing to H , my mother came in and told me that Mrs. Siddons was dead. I was not surprised; she has been ill and gradually failing for so long. . o . I could not be much grieved for myself, for of course I had had but little intercourse with her, though she was always very kind to me when I saw her. . . . She died at eight o'clock this morning, — peaceably and with- 6o The Great Masters of the Drama out suffering, and in full consciousness. . . . I wonder if she is gone where Milton and Shakespeare are, to whose worship she was priestess all her life, — whose thoughts were her familiar thoughts, whose words were her familiar words." At least three of Mrs. Siddons's great parts — Constance, Lady Macbeth, and Queen Katharine — were also acted by Fanny Kemble. Speaking of her aunt and herself in the last named character she wrote : " My performance of Queen Kath- arine was not condemned as an absolute fail- ure only because the public in general didn't care about it, and the friends and well-wish- ers of the theatre were determined not to consider it one. But as I myself remember it, it deserved to be called nothing else; it was a schoolgirl's performance, tame, fee- ble, and ineffective, entirely wanting in the weight and dignity indispensable for the part, and must sorely have tried the patience Mrs. Siddons 6i and forbearance of such of my spectators as were fortunate and unfortunate enough to remember my aunt; one of whom, her en- thusiastic admirer and my excellent friend, Mr. Harness, said that, seeing me in that dress was like looking at Mrs. Siddons through the diminishing end of an opera- glass : I should think my acting of the part must have borne much the same pro- portion to hers. I was dressed for the trial scene in imitation of the famous picture by Harlow, and, of course, must have recalled, in the most provoking and absurd manner, the great actress whom I resembled so little and so much. In truth, I could hardly sus- tain the weight of velvet and ermine in which I was robed, and to which my small, girlish figure was as little adapted as my dramatic powers were to the matronly dig- nity of the character. I cannot but think that, if I might have dressed the part as Queen Katharine really dressed herself, and 62 The Great Masters of the Drama been allowed to look as like as I could to the little dark, hard-favored woman Hol- bein painted, it would have been better than to challenge such a physical as well as dra- matic comparison by the imitation of my aunt's costume in the part. Englishmen of her day will never believe that Katharine of Aragon could have looked otherwise than Mrs. Siddons did in Shakespeare's play of ' Henry VIH. ; ' but nothing could in truth be more unlike the historical woman than the tall, large, bare-armed, white-necked, Juno- eyed, ermine-robed ideal of queenship of the English stage. That quintessence of religious, conscientious bigotry and royal Spanish pride is given both in the portraits of contemporary painters and in Shake- speare's delineation of her; the splendid magnificence of my aunt's person and dress, as delineated in Harlow's picture, has no affinity whatever to the real woman's figure, or costume, or character." Kemble 63 Henry Perronet Briggs, born at Wal- worth in 1793, was educated in the schools of the Royal Academy, of which body he was elected an Academician in 1832. He painted some historical works, together with several scenes from Shakespeare, but his talent in portraiture became so much in demand that he devoted himself to that branch of art. His picture of Lord Eldon is said to be one of his best portraits. He died in London in 1844. KEMBLE "Time may again revive. But ne'er eclipse the charm When Cato spoke in him alive. Or Hotspur kindled warm." Campbell. That remarkable family — the Kembles — supplied the British stage with numerous actors and actresses of varying degrees of 64 The Great Masters of the Drama merit, from that wonderful woman, "the great Siddons," to Stephen Kemble, who could play Falstaif "without stuffing." John Philip, the greatest among the male Kembles only, was, in his own opinion (apparently), in that of his famous sister and his brother Charles, the foremost actor of them all. Less prejudiced judges have assigned him a place which, though high indeed, is next below M)rs. Siddons. Of all the classic parts which he so well portrayed, Coriolanus was perhaps his best, yet that fine actor, Charles Young, spoke of Mrs. Siddons's Volumnia as overshadowing Kemble. It is with feelings of pity that we read of Kemble — a noble representative of Shakespeare's noble Romans — being con- demned to utter the claptrap speeches of Rolla in Sheridan's " Pizarro," produced at Drury Lane in 1799. The part, however, became one of his most effective ones, and Kemble 65 the play was a tremendous success. The cast included Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Jordan, and Charles Kemble, and the piece was per- formed thirty-one nights, an extraordinary run for those days. Thirty thousand copies of it were sold, and the profits of the first season alone were said to be £15,000. Henry Crabb Robinson wrote to his brother : " I suppose the fame of * Pizarro * has already reached you. It is unquestion- ably the most excellent play I ever saw for variety of attractions. The scenery and decorations are splendid and magnificent without being tawdry or puerile, and these ornaments are made to heighten, not super- sede, real dramatic merit. The tragedy pos- sesses scenes of the most tender and pa- thetic kind, and others highly heroic. . . . Kemble plays the Peruvian chieftain in his very best style. The lover of Cora, he vol- untarily yields her to Alonzo, and, when they are married, devotes his life to their 66 The Great Masters of the Drama happiness ; brave, generous, and pious, he is a kind of demi-god, — and you know with what skill Kemble can * assume the god and try to shake the spheres.' The incidents are in themselves so highly interesting and extraordinary that far less superiority of acting and pomp of machinery would have given ordinary effect to the piece ; but, when united with the utmost efforts of the painter and machinist, they produce a drama abso- lutely without parallel. Were you a little richer, I should recommend a journey to London on purpose to see it." Percy Fitzgerald, in his " Lives of the Sheridans," gives an account of the opening night of " Pizarro,'' which actually arrived before the dilatory author had completed the play. Fitzgerald writes : "In the case of * Pizarro,' his indolence was so great that some of the players received their parts only the day before, and Mrs. Jordan obtained her song on the night of performance. A emi 67 friend carried Sheridan off to an inn at Bagshot, where he put together Rolla's fa- mous speech, adapting to it some of his old thunder. Even on the very evening that it was first performed, the concluding por- tion remained unfinished. Sheridan wrote it at the Shakespeare Tavern in Covent Garden, not half an hour before the curtain drew up and the play commenced. The actors received and learned them before the ink was dry with which they were written. ... At the time the house was overflowing on the first night's performance, all that was written of the play was actually rehears- ing, and, incredible as it may appear, until the end of the fourth act, neither Mrs. Sid- dons, nor Charles Kemble, nor Barrymore had all their speeches for the fifth! Mr. Sheridan was up-stairs in the prompter's room, where he was writing the last part of the play, while the earlier parts were acting, and every ten minutes he brought down as 68 The Great Masters of the Drama much of the dialogue as he had done, piece- meal, into the greenroom, abusing himself and his negligence, and making a thousand winning and soothing apologies for having kept the performers so long in such painful suspense. " One remarkable trait in Sheridan's character was his penetrating knowledge of the human mind; for no man was more careful in his carelessness. He was quite aware of his power over his performers, and of the veneration in which they held his great talents; had he not been so, he would not have ventured to keep them ( Mrs. Siddons particularly) in the dreadful anxi- ety which they were suffering the whole of the evening. Mrs. Siddons told me that she was in an agony of fright; but Sheri- dan perfectly knew that Mrs. Siddons, C. Kemble, and Barrymore were quicker in study than any other performers con- cerned, and that he could trust them to be Kemble 69 perfect in what they had to say, even at half an hour's notice. And the event proved that he was right; the play was received with the greatest approbation, and, though brought out so' late in the season, was played thirty-one nights, and for years afterward proved a mine of wealth to the Drury Lane treasury, and, indeed, to all the theatres in the United Kingdom." Kemble took leave of the stage in " Co- riolanus," on June 23, 18 17. Lord William Lennox, who was present, says : " As a boy at Westminster, I had seen this great actor in almost all his parts, but never to my mind did he equal his performance of the noble Roman when taking leave of the stage." Four days later, Kemble was given a farewell dinner at the Freemason's Tavern, when Young recited Campbell's valedictory stanzas, from which are taken the lines at the head of this chapter. Lord Holland pre- sided at the banquet, where literature was 70 The Great Masters of the Drama represented by Campbell, Rogers, M'oore, and Crabbe, the stage by Talma and Ma- cready, and art by Haydon, Turner, and Lawrence. The last named painted Kemble in sev- eral characters : as Hamlet, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1801, and now in the National Portrait Gallery; as Cato, as Cori- olanus, and as Rolla, here reproduced. The head of Rolla is that of Kemble, but the body was painted from Jackson, the cele- brated pugilist. MRS. JORDAN " There was one comic actress who was nature herself in one of her most genial forms. This was Mrs. Jordan." Leigh Hunt. Although this fascinating Irishwoman essayed some tragic parts in supporting Mrs. Siddons, and appeared as the original Cora ■ii*^: Kemble as '"Holla'' From painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence Mrs. Jordan 7 1 in Sheridan's tragedy of " Pizarro," it was in comedy that her real strength lay. As a comic actress, she must be classed with Wof- fington, Kitty Give, and Mrs. Abington. Rosalind and Viola were called two of her finest assumptions. Peter Pindar wrote : "Had Shakespeare's self at Drury been, While Jordan played each varied scene, He would have started from l^is seat And cried — That's Rosalind complete." William Robson, the " old playgoer," de- clared that " there never was, there never will be, there never can he her equal in the part." Sir Joshua Reynolds called her Viola " tender and exquisite," and Charles Lamb, who dubbed her " Shakespeare's woman," said of it : " She used no rhetoric in her passion ; or it was nature's own rhetoric, most legitimate then, when it seemed alto- gether without rule or law." Second only, if second, to Peg Woffington J 2 The Great Masters of the Drama in the part of Sir Harry Wildair, she was unrivalled as a tomboy or a hoyden. Genest, in his " History of the Stage," asserts that " Mrs. Clive no doubt played Nell as well as Mrs. Jordan; it was hardly possible for her to have played the part bet- ter. Mrs. Jordan's Country Girl, Romp, Miss Hoyden, and all characters of that description were exquisite. In breeches parts, no actress can be put in competition with her but Mrs. Woffington, and to Mrs. Woffington she was superior in point of voice, as Mrs. Woffington was superior to her in beauty." Her first appearance at Drury Lane was on the 1 8th of October, 1785, in the part of Peggy in " The Country Girl," a play which Garrick had altered from Wycherly's " Country Wife," and in which she made an enormous success. Boaden, her friend and biographer, says : " Perhaps no actress ever excited so much laughter. . . . How ex- Mrs, Jordan in " The Country Girl** From painting by George Romney Mrs. Jordan 73 actly had this child of nature calculated her efficacy that no intention on her part was ever missed, and, from first to last, the audience responded uniformly in an astonishment of delight. . . . But her fertility as an actress was at its height in the letter scene, perhaps the most perfect of all her efforts, and the best je% de theatre known without mech- anism. The very pen and ink were made to express the rustic petulance of the writer of the first epistle, and the eager delight that composed the second, which was to be despatched instead of it to her lover." Mrs. Tickell wrote to her sister, Mrs. Sheridan : " I went last night to see our new * Country Girl,' and I can assure you, if you have any reliance on my judgment, she has more genius in her little finger than Miss Brunton in her whole body. . . . But to this little actress, — for little she is, and yet not insignificant in her figure, which, though short, has a certain roundness and 74 The Great Masters of the Drama embonpoint which is very graceful, — her voice is harmony itself in level, quiet speak- ing (we had an opportunity of judging this in a few lines she spoke in the way of epi- logue, like Rosalind), and it has certain little breaks and indescribable tones which in simple archness have a wonderful effect, and I think, without exception (even of Mrs. Siddons), she has the most distinct delivery of any actor or actress I ever heard. Her face I could not see, owing to the amaz- ing bunch of hair she had pulled over her forehead, but they tell me it is expressive, but not very pretty. Her action is odd, a little outre, probably affected for the char- acters." When Mrs. Jordan gained this extraor- dinary triumph, she was in her twenty-third year. " Hazlitt called her a child of nature, whose voice was a cordial to the heart, to hear whose laugh was nectar, whose talk Mrs. Jordan 75 was far above singing, and whose singing was like the twanging of Cupid's bow. Hay don speaks of her as touching and fas- cinating. Byron declared she was superb. Mathews talks of her as an extraordinary and exquisite being, distinct from any other being in the world, as she was superior to all her contemporaries in her particular line." " Kemble said she was irresistible. ' It may seem ridiculous,' he once remarked to Boaden, * but I could have taken her in my arms and cherished her, though it was in the open street, without blushing.' Such an expression from the frigid lips of Kemble was a compliment that spoke volumes in her praise." The critical Macready, who had played Don Felix to Mrs. Jordan's Violante in " The Wonder," permitted himself to speak of her with enthusiasm. His words are : " If Mrs. Siddons appeared a personification of 76 The Great Masters of the Drama the tragic muse, certainly all the attributes of Thalia were most joyously combined in Mrs. Jordan. . . , Her voice was one of the most melodious I ever heard, which she could vary by certain bass tones that would have disturbed the gravity of a hermit; and who that once heard that laugh of hers could ever forget it? The words of Mil- man would have applied well to her, — * Oh, the words laughed on her lips ! ' Mrs. Nesbitt, the charming actress of a later day, had a fascinating power in the sweetly ring- ing notes of her hearty mirth, but Mrs. Jor- dan's laugh was so rich, so apparently irre- pressible, so deliciously self-enjoying, as to be at all times irresistible. Its contagious power would have broken down the conven- tional serenity of Lord Chesterfield him- self." Romney painted Mrs. Jordan several times, both as in private life and in one or two of the characters with which she Talma 77 charmed her audiences, and there is also an admirable picture of her, by Hoppner, as Hypolita in Gibber's '' She Would and She Would Not." TALMA "The genius of Talma rose above all the con- ventionality of schools. To my judgment, he was the most finished artist of his time." Macready. "Incomparably the best actor I ever saw." Carlyle. Talma, who had lived much in England in his youth, and at a later time acted there with success, was a friend of Kemble's, and was present at the farewell banquet to the tragedian, when, Talma's health being drank, he returned thanks in very good English. A few weeks before this occasion, a noted Bostonian, George Ticknor, had seen Talma on the Paris stage, and had set down his 78 The Great Masters of the Drama impressions of the performance in his diary, from which we draw the following account : ''April II, 1817. This evening I have been for the first time to the French theatre ; and I hasten to note my feelings and impres- sions that I may have them in their fresh- ness. It was rather an uncommon occasion, — the benefit of Mile. St. Val, now sixty- five years old, who has not played before for thirty years; and Talma and Mile. Mars both played. . . . The piece was * Iphigenie en Tauride,' by Guymond de la Touche, which has been on the stage sixty years, but I cannot find its merits above mediocrity. . . . Iphigenie was performed by Mile. St. Val, who is old and ugly. She was applauded through the first act with decisive good nature, and in many parts deserved it; but in the second act, when Talma came out as Orestes, she was at once forgotten, and he well deserved that in his presence no other should be remembered. Talma 79 . , . The piece and his part, Hke almost everything of the kind in the French drama, was conceived in the style of the court of Louis XIV.; but Talma, in his dress, in every movement, every look, was a Greek. ... To have arrived at such perfection, he must have studied antiquity as no modern actor has done, and the proofs of this were very obvious. His dress was perfect; his gestures and attitudes reminded one of an- cient statues; and when, in imagination, pursued by the Furies, he becomes frenzied, changes color, trembles, and falls, pale and powerless, before the implacable avengers, it is impossible to doubt that he has studied and felt the scene in Euripides and the praises of Longinus. His study of the an- cient statues struck me in the passage, when, in his second insanity, he cries out in agony : " ' Vois-tu d'affreux serpens, de son front s'elancer, Et de leur longs replis te ceindre, et te presser ? ' 8o The Great Masters of the Drama he started back into the posture of Laocoon with great effect. Like Demosthenes, he has had difficulties to overcome, and even now, at times, he cannot conceal an unpleas- ant lisp; but I have never seen acting, in many respects, like his. Cooke had a more vehement and lofty genius, and Kean has sometimes, perhaps, flashes of eccentric tal- ent; but in an equal elevation O'f mind, and in dignity and force. Talma, I think, left them all far behind." As, at an earlier date, Garrick played Hamlet and Macbeth in the long waistcoat, knee-breeches, and shoe-buckles of his own time, so the heroes of Greece and Rome were to be seen on the French stage of Talma's day attired like the courtiers of Louis XIV. The study of the antique, which his friendship with the artist David had led Talma to make, convinced him of the absurdity of this custom, and in 1789, when he was elected a societaire of the Co- Tnlma as " Titus'* From an old print Talma 8i medie Frangaise, he attempted a reform. " Brutus " was to be given, and Talma, then the youngest member of the company, had been cast for the part of a tribune. " So David and Talma conspired together, and the little plot succeeded well enough, — with the public at least, to whom a Roman trib- une, in a real toga and with bare arms and legs, was a delightful novelty. With the other members of the company, however, it was quite a different thing. Jealous of new ideas, imbued with the traditions of their theatre, they were indignant at this innova- tion; the actresses, in particular, were shocked at the unseemly display of arms and legs. ' Gracious Heavens ! ' exclaimed Mile. Contat, with a little scream, as Talma emerged from his dressing-room, ready to go on. * How hideous he is ! For all the world like one of those old statues ! * And a few minutes afterward, Madame Vestris, who happened to be on the stage 82 The Great Masters of the Drama in the same scene, took an opportunity of saying to him in an undertone : ' Why, Talma, your arms are bare!' * Yes,' he replied, ' like the Romans.' ' Why, Talma, you have no trousers on ! ' * No, the Ro- mans did not wear them.' * Cochon! ' ejac- ulated poor Madame Vestris, and her feel- ings overpowering her, she had to go off the stage. Even with revolution in the air, as it was in 1789, it took some little time to habituate Parisian players and playgoers to so radical a change. The next actor, one of the old school, who filled a similar part, made great difficulties about donning the toga. He was induced to do so eventually, but only on the condition that two pockets should be let into the back of the garment, one of these being for his handkerchief, the other for his snuff-box ! " No actor ever studied character with more care than did Talma, who lived but for his profession, and was his own most severe Talma 83 critic. Alexandre Dumas, who always mourned the fact that his acquaintance with Talma began only in the last year of the great actor's life, bears testimony to his ab- sorption in his art while suffering from the malady which finally killed him. He said: " A fortnight before his death, as he seemed to have improved, and as this improvement gave rise to hopes that he might soon appear again at the Theatre Francais, Adolphe and I paid him a visit. " Talma was in his bath, studying the Ti- berius of Lucien Arnault, in which he ex- pected to make his reentry. Condemned, by an inward complaint, literally to die of hun- ger, he had become very meagre; but in this very meagreness he felt a satisfaction and an omen of success. ' Eh, my sons,* said he, cheerfully, drawing down his flabby cheeks with his hands, * what a truthful air this will give to the role of the aged Ti- berius! ' " 84 The Great Masters of the Drama Talma met Bonaparte in 1792, when the young officer of artillery was out of favor, employment, and money, and did him some service, which was not forgotten in after years. Napoleon's well-known message to the actor in 1808 : " Come and act at Erfurt : you shall play before a pitful of kings," indicates the favor with which the emperor regarded him. It was said that Talma taught Napoleon to dress and walk and play the emperor, but he always denied this, as- serting that Napoleon was by nature and training the greater actor of the two. The emperor's criticism of the actor's representa- tion of C(2sar in " La Mort de Pompee " is suggestive. He said to Talma : " * You use your arms too much; rulers of empires are not so lavish of movement ; they know that a gesture from them is an order, and that a glance means death.' And again, of Nero in * Brittanicus : ' ' You should gesticulate less; and remember that when persons of Lis ton 85 high position are agitated by passion, or preoccupied by weighty thoughts, their tone no doubt is sHghtly raised, but their speech no less remains natural. You and I, for example, are at this moment making his- tory, and yet we are conversing in quite an ordinary way.' " LISTON " His humor, on and oflf the stage, was irresistible.'*' J. R. Planche. Liston's greatest success was in the char- acter of Paul Pry, in Poole's comedy of that name, first performed at the Haymarket in 1825. When the part was given to him, he objected to it on the ground that it had no connection with the main plot of the piece, and appeared at rehearsal imperfect in his lines and undecided as to the costume. Just then, a workman came on the stage. 86 The Great Masters of the Drama wearing a pair of Cossack trousers, which, the day being wet, he had tucked into his WelHngton boots, and the actor at once adopted these features in dressing the part. Our illustration of " Paul Pry," from a painting by Clint, shows a scene from the second act, in a room in Colonel Hardy's house. On the left is Eliza (played by Miss Glover), next Phehe (Madame Vestris), then Colonel Hardy (Williams), and Paul Pry (Liston). Harry Stanley, Eliza's lover, has just been secreted in her room when Colonel Hardy enters, armed with a brace of pistols, in search of the intruder, and insists upon hearing the truth from Phehe, who says : "Phehe. You are so passionate, sir, that even if I knew — {Cries of Follow, follow, and noise of barking of dogs.) Pry {without window). Would you murder me, you hard-hearted monster? Hardy. They have him — they have him. Pry {with one foot on the window and speaking Liston as " Paul Pry'' From painting by George Clint ListoH 87 0^). Don't fire. Tm a friend of the family, I tell you. Oh, if I do but escape with my life. {Hardy points pistol at Pry.) Phebe. Then we are saved again, (Pry tumbles in). Hardy. So this is the second time I have you. Now what rigmarole story can you invent? Pry. Let me go — there's a mistake — I'm not the man — I'm your friend. I was coming this way, intending just to drop in, when — Hardy. My friend, indeed! (Places pistols on table.) How dare any friend of mine drop in at the first-floor window? Pry. If you doubt my friendship, see what I have suffered in your service. (Turns about and shows his clothes torn.) Hardy. Explain yourself. Pry. I have been hunted like a stag, and nearly sacrificed like a heathen, to the fury of Jupiter and Bacchus; and all owing to a mistake. I saw a strange man climb over your wall, and, being nat- urally anxious to know what he could want, I fol- lowed him, gave the alarm, and — Phebe. Why, this is the same story he told us this morning, sir. Hardy. And so it is. — Why, this is the same story you told me this morning. Harkee, sir, if you find no better excuse for your extraordinary conduct, I shall forget you are my neighbor, act in my quality of magistrate, and commit you for the trespass. I find 88 The Great Masters of the Drama you entering my house in a very suspicious man- ner — Pry. Well, if ever I do a good-natured turn again — Let me tell you, colonel, that you are treating me like a phcenix : a thing I am not used to. Hardy, What do you mean by treating you like a phoenix? Pry. Tossing me out of the frying-pan into the fire. What I tell you is true. I gave the alarm, but the fellow was so nimble that he escaped : while your servants, seeing me run as if I had been running for a wager, mistook me for the man, set the dogs after me; and, in short, I am well off to have escaped with my life. Hardy. If this be true, what has become of the other ? The gates are closed, and — Pry. He's safe enough, I'll answer for it. Though I could not overtake him, I never lost sight of him. (Observing a signal made by Phebe.) Oho! that explains the mystery; some swain of Mrs. Phebe's. Hardy. What has become of him, I say? I'll not be trifled with — you are the only trespasser I dis- cover, and you I will commit, unless — Pry. Oh, if that's the case, you need not nod and wink at me, ladies; the matter is growing serious, and I have already suffered sufficiently. He's here, colonel, I saw him get in at that window. Phebe. Oh, the wretch! a likely story, a man get in at that window and we not see him; why, we Lis ton 89 have not been out of the room this half-hour, have we, miss? Hardy. Do you hear that ? a likely story, indeed ! If you saw him, describe him. Pry. Describe him! how can I describe him? I tell you he was running like a greyhound; he didn't wait for me to take his portrait. He got up at that window, and I'll swear he didn't get down again, so here he must be. {Walks up and round the stage, and looks under sofa and table.) Phebe. It is a pity, Mr. Pry, you have no business of your own to employ you. Ay, that's right, look about here. You had better search for him in my young lady's reticule. {Snatches reticule from Eliza.) Pry. Stand aside, Mrs. Phebe, and let me — Phebe. Why, you abominable person — that is Miss Eliza's room; how dare you open the door? {Throwing him round by collar.) Hardy. You abominable person! how dare you open my daughter's room? {Throwing him round by collar.) Pry. If there's no one concealed there, why object? Hardy. True, if there's no one concealed there, why object? Phebe. I wonder, sir, you allow of such an in- sinuation. {Places herself at the door.) No one shall enter this room; we stand here upon our 90 The Great Masters of the Drama honor; and if you suspect my young lady's, what is to become of mine, I should like to know? Pry. Can't possibly say; but I would advise you to look after it, for I protest — there he is. Hardy {endeavoring to suppress his anger). Sir, you are impertinent. It cannot be, and I desire you will quit my house. Simon! {Goes to the door.) Enter Simon. Simon, open the door for Mr. Pry. Phebe. Simon, you are to open the door for Mr. Pry. Pry. Oh, I dare say Simon hears. I wish you a very good morning — I expected to be asked to dinner for this, at least — this is most mysterious — I say, Simon ! (Exit, whispering to Simon.)" Liston was much addicted to playing practical jokes and to making puns. At one time, when " Hamlet " was the play, and Mrs. Stephen Kemble was just going on the stage as Ophelia in her madness, he handed her, instead of the usual basket filled with flowers and straws, one containing carrots, turnips, onions, and other savory, Lis ton 91 but unromantic vegetables, and thus equipped, as it was too late to go back, the unfortunate actress was compelled to finish the scene. He once asked Mathews to play for his benefit. Mathews, having to act elsewhere that night, excused himself, say- ing, " I would if I could, but I can't split myself in halves." " I don't know that," retorted Liston, " I have often seen you play in two pieces." George Clint, miniature painter, en- graver, and portrait-painter, was born in London in 1770, and died there in 1854. Several of his paintings, including the one here given, are in the South Kensington Museum, and a number belong to the Garrick Club. Almost all of these are of theatrical subjects, in the representation of which Clint was most successful. Kean, Munden, Farren, Fawcett, Charles Kemble, and Mathews, with many others, were thus painted by him. 92 The Great Masters of the Drama MADEMOISELLE MARS "The finest comic actress in existence." • John Howard Payne (1824). Among the many parts associated with the genius of Mademoiselle Mars is that of Betty in Alexandre Duval's " La Jeunesse de Henri V." It was at the Comedie Franqaise that she created Betty, in June, 1806, and during the same month the piece was played before the emperor — then rest- ing between Austerlitz and Jena — at St. Cloud. Duval's comedy originally bore the name of " Charles II." — it has for its subject one of the adventures of that merry mon- arch — but the censor, dreading possible political allusions (Charles being a restored monarch), objected, and caused its title to be changed to " La Jeunesse de Henri V." Mademoiselle Mars 93 This connection of the play with a king who died two hundred years before Charles was born, in view of the fact that no other alteration was made, of course resulted in some absurd anachronisms, as, for instance, retaining the part of Rochester, Charles's boon companion. In 1823, John Howard Payne, aided by Washington Irving, made an adaptation of Duval's piece, restoring its original title, and brought it out in London the following year, with Charles Kemble in the character of Charles IL, Fawcett as Captain Copp, and Maria Tree as Mary Copp. Mary Copp, the Betty of the original, is in Payne's comedy the niece of an old sea- captain who keeps a tavern in Wapping, whither Charles and Rochester repair for a frolic. Rochester, however, has promised Lady Clara, in return for her hand in mar- riage, to reform his wild ways and also to use his influence with the king to induce 94 The Great Masters of the Drama him to follow suit. The enterprise suc- ceeds, and the play ends with Mary's be- trothal to Edward, one of the king's pages, who has wooed her in the guise of a music- master. " Charles II.," which was produced at Covent Garden, made a great success. Not long after the time when Mademoi- selle Mars acted Betty before Napoleon, a couple of comedies, written expressly for the occasion, with music by Spontini, were to be performed at Malmaison in honor of the fete-day of the Empress Josephine. The distinguished amateurs to whom the various parts were entrusted included the Princesses Pauline and Caroline Bona- parte, the wives of Marshals Ney and Junot, and Junot himself. Madame Junot, in her " Memoirs," acknowledges the aid she re- ceived on this occasion from Mademoiselle Mars. " My part," she says, " was in the piece of M. de Longchamps, which was by far Mademoiselle Mars as '^ Betiy *' From an old print Mademoiselle Mars 95 the prettiest. My dramatic skill was at best but indifferent, and this character quite unsuited to it. ... I was quite certain of failing in my performance, a circumstance probably very desirable to others, but quite the reverse to myself. I therefore requested Mademoiselle Mars, if she had a few min- utes to spare, would have the goodness to hear me rehearse; and by the more than urbanity with which she complied, rehears- ing with me unweariedly every morning during the fortnight that elapsed before the appointed fete, I had an opportunity (of which I perhaps stupidly availed myself far more effectually than of her lessons) of ad- miring the play of her pliant and charming features; her expressive smile conveying some idea while it disclosed her pearly teeth, and those beaming eyes, which, in accordance with the smile, revealed the coming sentiment before it could find utter- ance. Hearing her thus in a private room, 96 The Great Masters of the Drama divested of all that delusive attraction which the lights, the public plaudits, the whole witchery of the scene cast around an actress on the stage, I mentally ex- claimed, ' This is the greatest actress in the world ! she is pursuing her natural vocation. Here is no appearance of acting, it must therefore be the perfection of the art/ From that moment I became a declared and enthusiastic admirer of Mademoiselle Mars, and considered it a real public misfortune that she refused to receive pupils. " In these interviews I had equal reason to appreciate the tone of her conversation, her excellent judgment, and her good taste; I found in Mademoiselle Mars everything that could constitute a woman formed to shine and please in the very best society." Fanny Kemble paid the following tribute to Mademoiselle Mars: " To my great regret and loss, I saw Mademoiselle Mars only in two parts, when. Mademoiselle Mars 97 in the autumn of her beauty and powers, she played a short eng-agement in London. The grace, the charm, the loveUness, which she retained far into middle age, were, even in their decline, enough to justify all that her admirers said of her early incomparable fascination. Her figure had grown large and her face become round, and lost their fine outline and proportion, but the ex- quisite taste of her dress and graceful dignity of her deportment, and sweet radiance of her expressive countenance, were still indescribably charming; and the voice, unrivalled in its fresh, melodious brilliancy, and the pure and perfect enun- ciation, were unimpaired, and sounded like the clear liquid utterance of a young girl of sixteen. Her Celimene and her Elmire I never had the good fortune to see, but can imagine from her performance of the hero- ine in Casimir de la Vigne's capital play of * L'Ecole des Vieillards,' how well she must 98 The Great Masters of the Drama have deserved her unrivalled reputation in those parts. ... "Dr. Gueneau de Mussy, who knew her well, and used to see her very frequently in her later years of retirement from the stage, told me that he had often heard her read, among other things, the whole play of ' Le Tartuffe,' and that the coarse flippancy of the honest-hearted Dorine, and the stupid stolidity of the dupe Orgon, and the vulgar, gross, sensual hypocrisy of the Tar- tuffe, were all rendered by her with the same incomparable truth and effect as her own famous part of the heroine of the piece, Elmire. On one of the very last occasions of her appearing before her own Parisian audience, when she had passed the limit at which it was possible for a woman of her advanced age to assume the appearance of youth, the part she was playing requiring that she should exclaim, * Je suis jeune! je suis jolie!' a loud, solitary hiss pro- Mademoiselle Mars 99 tested against the assertion with bitter sig- nificance. After an instant's consternation, which held both the actors and audience silent, she added, with the exquisite grace and dignity which survived the youth and beauty to which she could no longer even pretend, * Je suis Mademoiselle Mars ! ' and the whole house broke out in acclamations, and rang with the applause due to what the incomparable artiste still was, and the memory of all that she had been." As a final testimony to the merits of this exquisite comedienne, I quote from Madame Junot's " Memoirs " an interesting anecdote which brings together the great queen of French tragedy, Hippolyte Clairon, and Mademoiselle Mars. " I saw her occasionally. She was fond of me, but Talma and Mademoiselle Mars caused perpetual disputes between us. I was angry, because, as she did not see their performance, she could not appreciate all lOO The Great Masters of the Drama the talent of these two beings endowed from above with dramatic genius. Talma might be criticized, but Mademoiselle Mars was even then a diamond of the first water, with- out spot or defect. At length I was one day much surprised to find my old friend quite softened toward my favorite actress; and never could attribute the sudden change to any other cause than her having seen Mademoiselle Mars in one of her characters ; she did not admit it, but I am almost certain of the fact. I had spoken so much of her that it was scarcely possible she should not wish to see her to judge for herself. In * The Pupil,' Mademoiselle Mars, in the simple action of letting fall a nosegay, un- veils at once the secret of a young heart. This fact, so striking to the feelings, is at the same time one which could not be de- scribed, and yet Mademoiselle Clairon spoke to me of this action as if she had seen it; nor do I think that she would have im- bibed from any other source opinions sufficiently strong to overcome her preju- dices, though I know that an old M. An- toine, a friend of Lekain, gave her frequent accounts of all that passed at the Comedie Frangaise. I have, however, no doubt that she had been carried thither herself in a sedan-chair, and had seen and admired our charming actress." KEAN "Just returned from seeing Kean in Richard. By Jove, he is a soul! Life — nature — truth, without exaggeration or diminution. Kemble's Hamlet is perfect, but Hamlet is not nature. Richard is a man, and Kean is Richard." Byron to Moore (1814). The part of Richard III. seems to have been associated with Kean from his earliest days. Mrs. Charles Kemble was wont to relate the following anecdote about him: i62 ' ' Tk^ Great 'Masters of the Drama " One morning, before the rehearsal com- menced, I was crossing the stage when my attention was attracted to the sounds of loud applause issuing from the direction of the greenroom. I inquired the cause, and was told that it was ' only little Kean reciting Richard III. in the greenroom.' My in- formant said that he was very clever. I went into the greenroom and saw the little fellow facing an admiring group and re- citing lustily. I listened, and in my opinion he was very clever." Speaking of a time not much later, Haw- kins, one of his biographers, says : " Of all the Shakespearian characters which Edmund studied at this time, no one appears to have engaged so large a share of his attention as Richard III. Upon the very spirit and essence of this character his al- ready strong conceptive power fastened from the very first with swift, sure, and unerring instinct; and, if we receive the testimony Kean 103 of Miss Tidswell, there is no doubt that even at thirteen years of age he had arrived at a fine comprehension and briUiant realiza- tion of the crook-back king. His rehearsals v^^ere almost unintermittent. At one time he might have been found practising the court- ship scene in a garret in the house of a bookseller named Roach, situate in a court running from Brydges Street to Drury Lane, Lady Anne being represented by a ' Scotch lassie,' v^ho subsequently acquired some distinction as the successor to Mrs. Davenport in the line of characters v^hich belonged to the latter, at a theatre in Scotland — Mrs. Robertson ; at another v^e find him rehearsing the combat scene in Mrs. Price's back parlor in Green Street, to the Richmond of Master Rae, the son of the matron at St. George's Hospital, the man- tua-maker's yard-measures serving for the swords of the furious antagonists on the agitated field of Bosworth." 104 '^^^ Great Masters of the Drama When about fifteen years old, Kean, while travelling with Richardson's company, was honored by a command to recite before George III. at Windsor, and his rendering of portions of " Richard III." and others of Shakespeare's plays, was much approved by his Majesty. Ten years later, after experiencing an even greater number of " ups and downs " than generally fell to the lot of a strolling player in the early years of the nineteenth century — at times very near starvation, and at others playing Richard and Harle- quin on the same night, for the princely salary of twenty-five shillings a week (Harlequin usually meeting with most ac- ceptance) — Kean found himself, in the spring of 1813, in Guernsey. He was now twenty-five years of age. On his first appearance in the island, he played Hamlet, which performance was harshly criticized by the local journal. Kean 105 " The effect of this stricture upon the unruly and indiscriminating rabble which usually graced the interior of the Guernsey theatre, may be readily conceived. Too courageous to bow before the inevitable tempest, Kean made his appearance in Richard III, Shouts of derisive laugh- ter, followed by a storm of sibilation, broke from all parts of the house as he came on the stage. For a time his patience was proof against an opposition which he hoped to subdue by the merits of his acting, but as no sign of abatement appeared, he boldly advanced to the front, and with an eye that seemed to emit bright and deadly flashes, applied to them with tremendous emphasis the words of his part: " * Unmannered dogs, stand ye when I command.* " For a moment the audience were taken aback by this unexpected resistance ; all be- came as noiseless as the gathering storm io6 The Great Masters of the Drama before the tempest, and the clamor only revived when a stalwart fellow in his shirt- sleeves yelled out from the back of the pit a demand for an ' apology.' * Apology ! ' cried the little man — and his form dilated with excitement — ' take it from this re- mark: The only proof of intelligence you have yet given is in the proper application of the words I have just uttered.' " The uproar which succeeded this retort rendered the interference of the manager imperative. Kean was hurried off the stage, and the part given to an outsider, immeasur- ably less talented than his predecessor, but who stood high in favor with the discerning and enlightened audience in front." But, despite such happenings as this, the time was near at hand when the genius of Edmund Kean was to be recognized in full. In the following November, he was engaged by Arnold, the manager of Drury Lane, who Kean 107 had seen him play Octavian in " The Moun- taineers," at Dorchester. Appearing first at Drury Lane on January 22, 1 81 4, in Shy lock, with the greatest suc- cess, " Kean was now called upon to dissolve the association oi Garrick's name with the interpretation of Richard III. In this object, according to honest John Bannister, who somewhat reluctantly admitted that in the brilliance of Kean's Richard, he almost forgot his old master David, he was com- pletely successful ; and the masterly manner in which he represented the last of the Plan- tagenets achieved a triumph second only to that which he subsequently won in Othello and Lear." Mrs. Richard Trench wrote in her " Correspondence : " "He gave probability to the drama by throwing the favorable light of Richard's higher qualities on the character, particularly in the scene with Lady Anne.'' Hawkins speaks of " the scene with Lady Anne, the nau- io8 The Great Masters of the Drama seousness of which had been much increased by Kemble and Ccx)ke; the former whined it in a way not at all attractive to the ear, the latter was harsh, coarse, and unkingly. Not so Kean. An enchanting smile played upon his lips; a courteous humility bowed his head ; his voice, though hoarse with cold, was yet modulated to a tone which no com- mon female mind ever did or ever could resist. Gentle, yet self -respected, insinuat- ing, yet determined, humble, yet overawing, he presented an exterior by which the mere human senses must, from their very con- stitution, be subjected and enthralled^ Cooke in this scene was anxious, hurried, and uncertain; but Kean's love-making was confident, easy, and unaffected, earnest and expressive, and managed with such exquisite skill that a close observer might have distinguished it from real tenderness, however well calculated to have imposed on the credulity of Lady Anne," Edmund Kean as '' "Richard III.' From painting by George Clint Macready 109 Hazlitt said : " It was an admirable ex- hibition of smooth and smiHng villainy," and George Henry Lewes, who did not see Kean until years later, wrote : " Who can ever forget the exquisite grace with which he leaned against the side-scene while Anne was railing at him, and the chuckling mirth of his * Poor fool ! what pains she takes to damn herself ! ' It was thoroughly feline — terrible, yet beautiful." Kean played Richard twenty-five times during his first season at Drury Lane, Shy lock fifteen times. MACREADY " Farewell, Macready ; since this night we part. Go, take thine honors home : rank with the best, Garrick, and statelier Kemble, and the rest Who made a nation purer thro' their art." Tennyson. Kean was present at Macready's debut on the London stage, which took place at no The Great Masters of the Drama Covent Garden in Sq)tember,, 1816, the play being the " Distressed Mother." In this, Macready performed Orestes, and Kean " honestly avowed that he had never seen such a complete representation of the char- acter." One of Macready's finest impersonations — perhaps his best — was Werner, in Byron's tragedy of that name, brought out in 1830. This work, written in Italy, and published in 1822, is taken entirely from a story entitled " The German's Tale," which forms one of Lee's " Canterbury Tales." The main idea of this gloomy work is the horror of an erring father, who, detected in wrong by his son, has defended his sin, and thus weakened the son's notions of right, on finding that the latter has committed the crime of murder. The veteran playwright and poet. West- land Marston, gives us, among his recollec- tions of actors, an excellent summary of Macready ill Macready's acting as Werner. He says: " Amiable censors have not been wanting to allege that his success in Werner was chiefly due to the resemblance between the hero of the drama and himself in point of morbid pride and sensitiveness. This theory, however, by no means accounts for the im- pressive melancholy which he wore when Werner's honors were restored, or above all, for that display of a father's love and agony in the fifth act, which must be ranked amongst his supreme effects. But to what- ever cause his exhibition of pride and bitter, querulous impatience, in the first act, were due, it is hard to conceive of their being more intense and incisive. The rising of the curtain discovered the fugitive nobleman, indignant at his cruel fate, stalking to and fro like some captured wild animal in his cage. The gaunt look of recent sickness was in his face, the fretful irritability which it causes repeatedly broke forth, spite of his 112 The Great Masters of the Drama affection for his wife, in his tones and gestures ; while, through the veil of poverty, disease, and mental suffering, gleamed a for- lorn haughtiness O'f bearing which bespoke his ineradicable pride of birth. The quick apprehensions and suspicions which spring from nerves wasted alike with disease and grief, were admirably conveyed, first, by his alarm when he hears the knocking of the intendant, and again, by the air of feline wariness and distrust with which he scanned Gabor on his entrance and subsequently. At length Stralenheim enters, who seeks to usurp IVerne/s domain, and, for that evil end, to secure his person. Werner at once recognizes him, and the former has at length a dim suspicion that the man before him is his intended victim. When, at length, Stralenheim turns to him, after conversing with the intendant and Gabor, the furtive and apprehensive gaze with which Macready had watched his oppressor, gave way to irre- Macready as " Werner'' From painting by ,E)aniel Maclise Macready 113 pressible hatred. Nothing could be more curtly repellant than his tones, in answer to Stralenheim's questions : '*'Stral. Have you been here long? Wer. {with abrupt surprise). Long? Stral. I sought An answer, not an echo. Wer. {rapidly and morosely). You may seek Both from the walls; I am not used to answer Those whom I know not.' " A little later, when Stralenkeim observes, *Your language is above your station,' Wer- ner's answer, ' Is it ? ' contained a transition from ironical humility to scorn and loathing, which it was surprising so brief a phrase could express. Not less striking, when he feared his passion might betray him, was the sudden change, in the words that follow, to rude and caustic indifference: " * 'Tis well that it is not beneath it, As sometimes happens to the better clad.* 114 The 'Great Masters of the Drama " In the second act, it will be remembered that Werner, made desperate by the plain suspicions of Stralenheim, who has power to arrest and imprison him, commits a robbery on his foe, in the dead of night, to gain the means of escape. Subsequently, Werner and his wife are discovered by their long-lost son, XJlrk. The joy of the parents has scarcely found utterance when IJlric tells them that he had, on the previous day, saved the life of Stralenheim, and that he is now in quest of the villain who had robbed him. To give any conception of Macready's act- ing at this point, I must quote the dialogue : "'Wer. (agitatedlyh Who Taught you to mouth that name of " villain ? " Ulr. What More noble name belongs to common thieves? Wer. Who taught you thus to brand an unknown being With an infernal stigma? Ulr. My own feelings Taught me to name a ruffian from his deeds. Macready 115 Wer. Who taught you, long-sought and ill-found boy! that It would be safe for my own son to insult me? IJlr. I named a villain. What is there in common With such a being and my father? Wer. Everything ! That ruffian is thy father. Jos. Oh, my son! Believe him not — and yet! — {Her voice falters.) Ulr. (starts, looks earnestly at Werner^ and then says slowly). And you avow it? Wer. Ulric! Before you dare despise your father, Learn to divine and judge his actions. Young, Rash, new to life, and reared in luxury's lap, Is it for you to measure passion's force. Or misery's temptation ? Wait — (not long. It Cometh like the night, and quickly) — Wait ! — Wait till, like me, your hopes are blighted — till Sorrow and shame are handmaids of your cabin; Famine and poverty your guests at table ; Despair your bedfellow — then rise, but not From sleep, and judge! Should that day e'er arrive — Should you see then the serpent who hath coiled Himself around all that is dear and noble Of you and yours, lie slumbering in your path. With but his folds between your steps and happiness, When he, who lives but to tear from you name. Lands, life itself, lies at your mercy, with 1 1 6 The Great Masters of the Drama Chance your conductor; midnight for your mantle; The bare knife in your hand, and earth asleep, Even to your deadliest foe; and he, as 'twere, Inviting death, by looking like it, while His death alone can save you : — Thank your God ! If then, like me content with petty plunder. You turn aside — / did so ! * " From the cry of remonstrance with which the above passage opens, even to its close, what a complexity of emotions strug- gling and, at the same time, blending with each other, did Macready portray! The strife between wrathful pride and agony, at having to confess and extenuate his guilt to his idolized and just-regained son; the in- creasing and, at last, breathless rapidity with which he piled up the circumstances of his desperate temptation and venial sin; till, finally, pride, self-abasement, and self-vindi- cation were swallowed up and swept away by a master-touch of paternal love and anguish, as shaken, convulsed, with ex- tended arms and bowed head, he appealed Macready ll7 to IJlrk with the words, 'I did so ! ' All these, with their harrowing pathos and subduing power, live in my memory as if they were of yesterday. More than forty years have not weakened their effect. " The bald tale, in the third act, of Stra- lenheim's murder by an unknown hand, of Werner's dread lest he should be suspected of the crime, and of his escape from the spot, supply little that is of dramatic inter- est. The fourth act, also, which shows Werner restored to his estates and to his title of Count Siegendorf, moves slowly and eventlessly. . . . The fifth act, however, brings the great situation of the tragedy, when Gahor, suspected by Werner of being the murderer of Stralenheim, asserts that Ulric is the guilty one. Ulric confesses the deed and defends it, saying to his father : " ' If you condemn me, yet Remember who hath taught me, once too often, ilS The Great Masters of the Drama To listen to him ! Who proclaimed to me That there were crimes made venial by the occa- sion?'" Marston says : " The greatness of Macready's acting here reached its cHmax." Maclise's picture of Macready as Werner depicts him in the beginning of the first act. The painter, bom in Ireland in 1811, went to London at the age of sixteen, and studied in the Royal Academy schools. He was but two years older when his '* Mal- volio " was hung on the walls of the Acad- emy, of which body he was made a full member in 1840. Dying in 1870, after de- clining the presidency of the Royal Acad- emy, he left behind him many important works, notably the great frescoes of " The Death of Nelson " and " The Meeting of Wellington and Bliicher after Waterloo," in the Houses of Parliament. His paintings of " The Banquet Scene in ' Macbeth ' " and " The Play Scene in ' Hamlet ' " are famous. Dijazet 119 DEJAZET "By those who have seen her, not one trait in her matchless representations will ever be forgot- ten." "Gossip of the Century." Has any equally famous actress a record as extraordinary as that of Madame Deja- zet, who, making her first appearance on the boards at the age of five, did not leave them for seventy years? Born in 1797 or 1798 (authorities differ), she retired from the stage in 1874, but, being as generous as she was gifted, returned to it for one night, in October, 1875, to aid in a benefit given to a needy actor, and died on the first day of December in that year. An able American critic, Edward H. House, wrote of her in 1867 • " I> ^^ course, had not the opportunity of seeing Dejazet in her best days, but I am told, and indeed 1 20 The Great Masters of the Drama it is evident, that she preserves the chief characteristics of her style to the present time. What that style is it is by no means easy to describe. She is undoubtedly a soii- brette, but to those who are familiar only with the American or English stage, the term soubrette is synonymous with that of * singing chambermaid,' and suggests noth- ing beyond the boisterousness, the profu- sion, and the riotous excesses of action and manner which are good-humoredly ac- cepted by our easy public, but which are at best very low methods of theatrical ex- pression; although in exceptional cases, like that of Mrs. John Wood, they may be made effective and profitable. The French soubrette is a very different and a very superior being under any circumstances, but it was Dejazet who first conceived the idea of elevating her considerably above the French standard, as she found it fifty years ago. At the outset of her career, it was evi- D^jazet 1 2 1 dent that she had resolved to relieve at least her own roles from their weig^ht of heavy humor, and to decorate them with all the delicacy and lightness which they could properly receive. She was so successful in this endeavor, with characters already ac- cepted by and familiar to the public, that in a short time she had persuaded many of the best authors of the day to remodel their works to harmonize with her new in- terpretations, and presently to write with exclusive view to the development of the new and captivating style she had estab- lished. From that moment the Dejazet sou- brette was a line of character sui generis. Thoroughly French, in the best artistic sense, its imitation has hardly been at- tempted by actresses of other countries. In fact, to make it successful, the best natural French qualities of spirit, grace, and refine- ment are indispensable. The person who, in England, can most nearly approach the 122 The Great Masters of the Drama Dejazet standard is probably Miss Marie Wilton, although she usually finds it con- venient to confine herself to a lower level. Some delightful indications of ability in the same direction were given here, years ago, by Miss Agnes Robertson at the beginning of her American career; but she was ad- dicted to occasional bursts of sentiment, an element which does not enter largely into the Dejazet composition. Perhaps, after all, the pleasantest illustrations of the French artist's manner have been given, uncon- sciously, O'f course, by Mrs. John Drew, in her naive representations of young men and lads, — a line which this lady appears now to have abandoned. " The esteem in which Dejazet is held by the Parisians long ago ceased to be based on artistic considerations alone. It is im- possible to overstate the personal fondness with which she is regarded by the habitues of her theatre, and^ indeed, by the public D^jazet 123 generally. Much of the tenderness shown her is perhaps due to her age, — she is well past seventy, and shows few signs of being burdened by her years, — and more, un- doubtedly, to the reputation which has accompanied her through life, of her amia- bility, her benevolence, and her strict pro- fessional integrity. Her friends declare that throughout her fifty or sixty years of public service she has gained nothing but the affection of those who surrounded her; and they add, indeed, that this is true in a literal sense, owing to her profuse charities in youth, and her inability to resist, even now, the appeals which are too frequently urged for her sympathy and aid. Whatever may be the causes, it is certain that no one else upon the Paris stage is petted and ca- ressed as she is. Anybody who has ob- served the fervor with which, during the last few years, every appearance of that fine old actor, Mr. Holland, has been greeted 1 24 The Great Masters of the Drama by New York audiences, may understand the spirit in which Dejazet's welcomes are offered; but, to the extent of their hearti- ness, even Mr. Holland's receptions afford no parallel. She is the oldest member of her craft, and has been the best in her own line. In some respects, moreover, she ac- tually remains the best. It is pleasant to review the incidents of a career so uninter- rupted in brilliancy and popularity, and which has never been disturbed, from be- ginning to end, by any circumstance whose recollection either the public or the artist would wish to obliterate. . . . " It was about ten years ago that I first saw Dejazet, and she was then somewhat beyond the age of sixty. It was the first night of her resumption of ' Gen til Ber- nard,' and half the fauteuils were filled with the best-known representatives of literature and art. Most eager among these, I remem- ber, was Victorien Sardou, who at that Madame TiejaT^et as the " Prince de Conii" From drawing by Edward Hughes TiU OrSEA COHIQl-I D^jazet 125 time lost no opportunity of testifying his gratitude to the friend who had exerted herself so assiduously in assisting him to the position he had recently gained. . . . On the evening in question, Dejazet's recep- tion was an event to be remembered. Her first step upon the scene was the signal for loud outcries of welcome, not only from orchestra and parterre, but also from the more decorous boxes, whence proceeded shrill feminine tones, agreeably diversifying the chorus. Hats and handkerchiefs were waved, and for five minutes the business of the stage was suspended in order that the audience might have its jubilee out. And when quiet at last returned, it was curious to observe how the house continued to beam with silent, though not less express- ive, delight at the reappearance of the dear old favorite. On all sides little phrases of compliment and endearment were mur- mured : * What grace ! ' ' Younger than 126 The Great Masters of the Drama ever!' 'Well done, petite!' 'Ah, la ma- lignel ' Pleasantly conscious of the favor lavished upon her, she glided through the representation with truly astonishing elas- ticity and buoyancy. Her attitudes and movements were literally like those of a young girl. Her face, closely viewed, be- trayed advancing age, but by no means to the extent that would have been expected. Her eyes flashed as brilliantly as those of her youngest supporters upon the stage; and I am sure that few of them could rival her lithe and supple form. Altogether her appearance was that of a woman of about thirty-five. It is difficult to believe that her acting could ever have been more thor- oughly artistic. The timid flirtations of Bernwd, his innocent wickedness, his imma- ture attempts at gallantry, the affected brav- ery of his soldier life, the jaunty endeavors to prove himself a man of the world, and the mischievous persistence of his last love D^jazet 127 suit were all expressed with inimitable grace and humor. The faculty of inventing im- promptu * by-play,' always one of her best gifts, was everywhere conspicuous, and was recognized at each new point by bursts of laughter and applause. Of course it was inevitable that at certain moments some evi- dence of time's changes should assert itself; but even these were made the occasion for demonstrations of encouragement and good- will. When about to sing a rather difficult song, she would advance to the rompe, nod saucily, as if to say, ' You think I can't do it, but you shall see,' then pluckily assail her bravuras, comically tripping among the tor- tuous cadenzas, and at the end receive her applause with an odd little air of pride, indicating entire indifference as to the lost notes, or perhaps a satisfied conviction that everything had gone better than she had ex- pected, or the public deserved. I really be- lieve the audience cried * brava ' quite as 128 The Great Masters of the Drama heartily in jocose acknowledgment of her pretty vanities as in appreciation of her in- numerable charms and graces. " I have since lost few opportunities of witnessing Dejazet's performances, and, within my own recollection, I find no change in her. Her exact age is nowhere recorded, but judging from the date of her first ap- pearance, she must now be about seventy- five. Fancy that, young comedians of Eng- land and America, who fade away and re- tire — either into obscurity or a new line of business -— at half her age. And still the same jocund spirit, the same combined daintiness and breadth of style, the same exuberant versatility, as at the commence- ment of her history." Dejazet played youthful male parts even better than she did feminine ones. Bona- parte, when a student at Brienne, the Due de Reichstadt, Louis XV., the youthful Richelieu, the Marquis de Lauzun, and the Forrest 1 2g young Voltaire are some of the characters in which she gained uncounted plaudits. One of her best performances was the Prince de Conti, in Sardou's " Les Pres Saint Gervais." The plot of the play is a slight one, merely consisting of a series of schoolboy escapades by the young noble- man, who sets the whole village in an up- roar by his freaks and gallantries. One of these scenes, where the prince has snatched a kiss from the village coquette, Friquette, and, being indignantly repulsed, craves for- giveness, foirms the subject of our illustra- tion. FORREST "The first and greatest of American tragedians." Lawrence Barrett. The life of Edwin Forrest has furnished material for three biographies, — one by Alger, one by Rees, and one by Lawrence 1 30 The Great Masters of the Drama Barrett. Of later date than any of these is an interesting volume written by Gabriel Harrison, who died in 1902, aged eighty- four. For many years an actor and man- ager, Harrison had supported Charles Kean, the elder Wallack, and Forrest, and also possessed artistic and literary ability, hav- ing written and published several works. From his book on Forrest is taken the following account of the great actor's ren- dition of " Virginius : " " None that ever saw Forrest as Virgin- ius could forget his entrance before the tribune, bearing Virginia upon his arm. His firm step, showing the calm resolution within his heart, his manner of holding her close up to his side, one arm around her slender waist and the other hand grasping her hand. It was the thousand tendrils of paternal love reaching everywhere toward his child, like the ivy with its myriad cling- ings to the object it would hold on to. Who Edwin Forrest as " f^irginius " From a photogi;aph Porrest 1 3 1 could forget the Roman dignity of his fig- ure? Who could forget the silence that pervaded the theatre, the motionless actors on the stage waiting to be thrilled by his artistic work? The silence was profound; it was like the silence that pervades that sphere where noises cannot exist. It was the ominous prelude to the action of some- thing great. Never did an audience before wait so long and patiently for the actor to say his words. When Virginius first ad- dressed the tribune: "'Does no one speak? I am defendant here, Is silence my opponent? Fit opponent To plead a cause too foul for speech.' " The clear, pure tones of his voice were like vibrations struck from perfect chords by an Orpheus, and found an echo in the hearts of his audience. Each, now, in turn, anxiously listened for the words of the shrinking and abashed Claudius. How in- 132 The Great Masters of the Drama tense and graphic was Mr. Forrest's by- play when he finds that nothing but the death of his daughter by his own hand could save her from the pollution of the heartless Decemvir. For a moment despair and per- plexity were upon his face, but when he discovered the knife upon the butcher's stall, his facial expression, electrical as the light- ning that illumes the murky clouds, pictured the outline of the true intensity of the fear- ful storm. The poet cannot express with words what the tragedian expressed in a single look, — the consolation in the thought of his child's death rather than her dis- honor by Claudius. The smile that followed, as he looked into Virginia's face, was full of pathos as he moved toward the butcher's stall to reach the knife, his patting her on the shoulder as he changed her position from his right to his left arm, that he might reach the knife, the taking of the knife, the hiding of it under the folds of his toga, the Forrest 133 fondness he expressed in his words, * My dear daughter,' and his quick and fervent kisses upon her upturned Hps, striving to press them into her very soul, the gush of tears that wet his words: "'There is one only way to save thine honor — 'tis this/ — And quick as the motion of the human arm could do it, the knife was pressed into her heart. The storm had broken; its light- ning had wreathed its searing folds around the instrument of death. The blood streamed from the fatal blade; the daugh- ter's blood stained the father's hand. And then the thunder tones of his mighty voice crashed through the theatre in exclama- tions : " * Lo ! Appius ; with this innocent blood I do devote thee to the infernal gods ! Make way there ! . . . , If they dare this desperate weapon that is 134 ^^^^ Great Masters of the Drama Wet with my daughter's blood, let them! Thus! thus it rushes amongst them! away! Away there ! away ! ' " The reckless manner in which he rushed through the guards of hctors, the shrieks of Servia when she saw Virginia fall to the stage, the groups of friends that gathered around the prostrate virgin, the bloody knife on high flashing from right to left, as Virginius cut his way through the ranks of soldiers, formed a picture of dramatic terror that thrilled the audience and excited them to wild shouting and waving of hand- kerchiefs. Round after round of applause followed the descent of the curtain, and repeatedly was the actor forced to acknowl- edge the overwhelming approbation of the crowded house. . . . No less perfect was his portrayal of the delirious scene in the fifth act. His demented look, the calling of his * Virginia, Virginia ! ' It was a call dictated by a dethroned mind ; a sound that Forrest 13^ seemed to come from a mysterious vault. There was a half- wakefulness in it like the utterance of thoughts in dreams. It had the touch of pity and was manifold in its mean- ing. It was a reverting form of sound that turned back to the place where it came from, and fell dead where it was born. Then came the awful picture as he kneeled over the strangled body of Appius Claudius. The sigh he gave that burst the spell that bound him, as Icilius placed within his hands the urn that contained the ashes of his daughter, the folding of the sacred chal- ice to his heart, the relaxation of his limbs, and falling to the stage exhausted. All were of one masterpiece." 1 36 The Great Masters of the Drama WILLIAM WARREN "He played many parts in his time, but he played none better than that of William Warren." W. T. W. Ball. It is a coincidence which may be noted that our greatest tragedian and our greatest comedian both made their first appearance in Philadelphia, and in the same character, — Young Norval in Home's tragedy of " Douglas," — Forrest's debut being in 1820 and Warren's in 1832. More than fifty years after, in 1883, William Warren played his last part. This was at the Boston Mu- seum, when he appeared as Old Eccles in " Caste." Over thirty years have gone by since the writer first had the delight of seeing Will- iam Warren act in comedy. The place was, of course, the Boston Museum; the piece William Warren as ' ' Herr Weigel ' ' From photograph in the collection of Mrs. T. H. Simmons Copyright, 1888, by A. W. Elson Co., Boston. William Warren 137 was " The Serious Family," and Warren played Aminadab Sleek. His inimitably unctuous manner in this part is as unfor- gotten as the pathos of his Jacques Fauvel, the centenarian of " One Hundred Years Old," a play produced at the Museum the same year. From that time until his re- tirement, I saw him in many other parts, both grave and gay, notably as Captain Cuttle and Mr. Micawher, but was unluck- ily prevented from witnessing any of his unsurpassed impersonations in the older standard comedies. Our illustration shows Warren as Herr Weigel, the old shoemaker, in " My Son," a work adapted from L'Arronge's " Mein Leopold." One of Boston's ablest dramatic critics, the lamented George Bryant Woods, wrote the following admirable estimate of War- ren's art: " We cannot go into minute analysis of 138 The Great Masters of the Drama the elements of this great comedian's skill. Were we called upon to name the foremost attributes of his power, we should select his forbearance, his dignity, the delicacy of his humor, the sympathy and magnetism of his pathos, and above all the faithfulness to detail and to duty which mark all that he does. Never does he take advantage of his fame, or of the fondness of his audi- ence to put himself forward when some necessary question of the play is to be con- sidered; yet never does he lapse into tame- ness or inattention, though he be lost in the background or hidden in a multitude. No minor actor ever need complain that an opportunity of his own was sacrificed to one of Mr. Warren's points; no author could ever claim that a part or a plot was marred by anything lacking or anything overdone on his part. To pass for a mo- ment into detail, in illustration of some of the qualities we have noted: ^'^V Peter William Warren 1 39 Teazle is a comic character, but there is a moment of pure tragedy in it when the testy, nohle old gentleman discovers his wife hidden behind the screen in the library of Joseph Surface. How grandly Mr. Warren interprets the depth of emotion in the soul which is stirred at that instant! There never was a keener appreciation of humor than belongs to Mr. Warren; but Sir Har- court Courtly is not a humorous man; and it is worth long and repeated study to see how seriously he goes through the play in that part ; how far he is from apparent con- sciousness of any of the fun going on about him; how saturated with the supreme con- sciousness of his own superiority which be- longs to the character. There have been very few actors who could impart so much meaning to one or two words, and this with never an indulgence in exaggeration for effect, with the severest and driest of sim- plicity. In the first scene of Sardou's com- 140 The Great Masters of the Drama edy of * Fernande/ one of the lady fre- quenters of a gay gaming-house in Paris, commenting upon the scandalous behavior of an acquaintance, remarks, parenthetically, ' Now, I don't set up for a prude.' ' Cer- tainly not,' says the courteous advocate to whom she is speaking. It is the slightest thing in the world, — a parenthesis within a parenthesis ; but in the utterance of those two words there is a gleam of genius as bril- liant, but as indescribable as a flash of heat lightning. Take again, as a concluding ex- ample, Mr. Warren's performance of Jesse Rural in * Old Heads and Young Hearts.' How admirable, yet how free from any sus- picion of grotesqueness, is the make-up, from the innocent, round, venerable face, with its halo of thin, white hair, to the threadbare elbow of the country minister's coat sleeve; how touching, how unforced is the simplicity of his bearing and conduct ; how the voice ripples and trembles with th^ William Warren 141 emotion which comes ahke from a gentle heart and a pulpit training; how modestly the actor refrains from pressing himself upon the attention while the tangled threads of the too ingenious plot are woven to- gether ; how far beyond praise is the transi- tion of the final situation from merriment through hysterical laughter to tears; and with what matchless and impressive dignity — a model for the thousand commonplace ministers of actual life — is uttered the con- cluding address of the old clergyman to the audience ! " Eulogy is not our trade. We aim ever, in these sketches, to give a discriminative view of the leading characteristics of the subjects we discuss. But in treating a genius like Mr. Warren's, so delicate, so brilliant, so true, combined with such artis- tic conscience, such freedom from conceit, such a respect for itself, forbidding ignoble artifice to heighten its attractipn, we care not 142 The Great Masters of the Drama to repress the enthusiasm with which our tribute finds words." These discriminating sentences were worthily supplemented by Henry A. Clapp, who said: " Mr. Warren's style as a dramatic artist is so broad and full as to be exceedingly hard to describe. Devoid of eccentricities and extravagances, it lacks, like a perfectly proportioned building, those salient peculi- arities which at once catch even the unob- servant eye. A deformed cripple can be much more easily depicted than an Apollo. To his professional work he has brought the true, plastic temperament of the actor, a rich native sense of humor, the power of keen and delicate observation, an absolute sense of proportion, a strong, educated in- telligence, varied culture, and that devoted love for his art which has made unresting industry mere delight. The flower of all these gifts and virtues is a style of acting William Warren 143 which unites excq)tional vividness, force, sensibiHty, and effectiveness with a fine re- serve and an unfailing observance of the modesty of nature. An exquisitely exact adaptation of means to ends, supplemented by precise knowledge of the need of every moment, is Mr. Warren's most distinguish- ing trait; but there is nothing mechanical in his practices, no observable interval be- tween intent and result; on the contrary, his playing shows that perfect infusion of thought and act which makes analysis of his art impossible until his art has first wrought its due effect upon the feelings of the spectator. . . . Next to the fine pre- cision and justness which characterize Mr. Warren's style, the versatility of his power denotes his distinction as an artist. His range as a comedian is, as we said above, simply unequalled, and to the interpretation of every variety of character he brings that exquisite sensibility and clearness of in- 144 ^^^ Great Masters of the Drama sight, that mobility of nature and fulness of understanding, which make his work vital, natural, and satisfying. For pathos his gift is scarcely less remarkable than for humor, the touch showing at times per- haps not his greatest facility, but the method being always imaginative and the feeling pure and genuine. Nor is it upon the deep and broad lines only that Mr. Warren ex- cels. In the art of swift and subtle insin- uation, in the display of mixed or conflicting emotions, he has no rival upon our stage. " One of the greatest, if not the greatest, artists in the line of make-up we ever had on our Boston stage was unquestionably William Warren. In this, as in the matter of costume, he was well-nigh perfect. Of the many parts he played in this city, — something like five hundred, — no two were made up alike. Each was a distinct and sep- arate creation of his own. It would seem Charlotte Cushman 145 almost impossible that so much variety could be given to the human countenance. "*But by the mighty actor brought, Illusion's perfect triumphs come/ and in his illusions Mr. Warren was indeed * the mighty actor.' '' CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN " Salve, Regina ! art and song, Dismissed by thee, shall miss thee long, And keep thy memory green, — Our most illustrious queen ! " R. H. Stoddard. Of all the characters assumed by Char- lotte Cushman, Hamlet and Romeo, Rosa- lind and Beatrice, Bianca and Mrs. Haller, Lady Macbeth and Queen Katherine, Nancy Sykes and Meg Merrilies, the last named is probably the one with which her name will be most associated in the public mind. 146 The Great Masters of the Drama Miss Emma Stebbins, Charlotte Cush- man's intimate friend and biographer, gives the following account of the character. She says : "It may not be inappropriate to recall some remembrances of the part which more than any other is identified with her name, and may be said to have been her own special creation, that of Meg Merrilies. I have sought in vain among the newspaper files of the period for the absolute date of her first performance of this character ; but other evidence settles it as having been in the year 1840—41, during Braham's first and only engagement in New York, and at the Park Theatre. Her own account of it was substantially as follows. But first it may be mentioned that there is one very ancient newspaper cutting, which is, however, with- out name or date, in which the fact of her assumption of the part at a moment's notice is thus alluded to: " * Alany years ago, Miss Charlotte Cush- Charlotte Cushman 147 man was doing at the Park Theatre what in stage parlance is called " general utility business/' that is, the work of three ordi- nary performers, filling the gap when any one was sick, playing this one's part and the other's on occasion, never refusing to do whatever was allotted to her. As may be supposed, one who held this position had as yet no position to be proud of. One night, " Guy Mannering," a musical piece, was announced. It was produced by Mr. Braham, the great English tenor, who played Harry Bertram. Mrs. Chippendale was cast for Meg Merrilies, but during the day was taken ill, so this obscure utility ac- tress, this Miss Cushman, was sent for and told to be ready in the part by night. She might read it on the boards if she could not commit it. But the " utility woman " was not used to reading her parts; she learned it before nightfall, and played it after night- fall. She played it so as to be enthusiastic- 143 The Great Masters of the Drama ally applauded. At this half-day's notice, the part was taken up which is now so fa- mous among dramatic portraitures/ " It was in consequence of Mrs. Chippen- dale's illness that she was called upon on the very day of the performance to assume the part. Study, dress, etc., had to be an inspiration of the moment. She had never especially noticed the part; as it had been heretofore performed, there was not prob- ably much to attract her; but, as she stood at the side-scene, book in hand, awaiting her moment of entrance, her ear caught the dia- logue going on upon the stage between two of the gipsies, in which one says to the other, alluding to her, * Meg, — why, she is no longer what she was; she doats,' etc., evi- dently giving the impression that she is no longer to be feared or respected; that she is no longer in her right mind. With the words, a vivid flash of insight struck upon her brain. She saw and felt by the powerful Charlotte Cushman 149 dramatic instinct with which she was en- dowed the whole meaning and intention of the character, and no doubt from that mo^ ment it became, what it never ceased to be, a powerful, original, and consistent concep- tion in her mind. She gave herself with her usual concentrated energy of purpose to this conception, and flashed at once upon the stage in the startling, weird, and terrible manner which we all so well remember. On this occasion it so astonished and confounded Mr. Braham, little accustomed heretofore to such manifestations, that he went to her after the play to express his surprise and his admiration. " * I had not thought that I had done any- thing remarkable,' she says, * and when the knock came at my dressing-room door, and I heard Braham's voice, my first thought was, " Now, what have I done? He is surely displeased with me about something," for in those days I was only the " utility ac- 150 The Great Masters of the Drama tress," and had no prestige of position to carry me through. Imagine my gratification when Mr. Braham said : " Miss Cushman, I have come to thank you for the most veri- table sensation I have experienced for a long time. I give you my word, when I turned and saw you in that first scene, I felt a cold chill run all over me. Where have you learned to do anything like that ? " ' " From this time the part of Meg grew and strengthened. . . . Meg, behind the scenes, was quite as remarkable as before them. It was a study for an artist, and has been so to many, to witness the process of preparation for this notable character, — the make-lip, as they call it in the parlance of the theatre, — a regular, systematic, and thoroughly artistic performance, wrought out with the same instinctive knowledge which was so manifest in all she did. * Miss Cushman,' a distinguished lady artist once said to her, as she wonderingly watched the Charlotte Cushman as " Meg Merrilies " From photograph in the collection of Evert Jansen Wendell Charlotte Cushman 15I process whereby the weird hag grew out of the pleasant and genial lineaments of the ac- tress, ' How do you know where to put in those shadows and make those lines which so accurately give the effect of age?' * I don't know,' was the answer, ' I only feel where they ought to come.' . . . " The costume of Meg is another subject upon which much of interest might be writ- ten: how it gradually grew, as all artistic things must, from the strangest materials; a bit picked up here, another there, seem- ingly a mass of incoherent rags and tatters, but full of method and meaning; every scrap of it put together with reference to antecedent experiences, — the wind, the storm, the outdoor life of hardship, the toss- ing and tempering it had received through its long wanderings; and which to an ar- tist's eye is beyond price, seemingly a bundle of rags, and yet a royal garment, for the truly queenly character of the old gipsy en- 152 The Great Masters of the Drama nobled every thread of it. How many of those who felt this quahty in the wearer noticed how the battered head-dress was arranged in vague and shadowy semblance to a crown, the gnarled and twisted branch she carried suggesting the emblem of com- mand?'' RACHEL "We possess the most marvellous actress (al- though still only a child) that this generation has seen on the stage. This actress is Mademoiselle Rachel." Jules Janin. Rachel, of whom the celebrated French critic wrote these words on her debut at the Theatre Francais in 1838, was a Jew- ess. The despised but marvellous race from whence she sprang has given Spinoza to philosophy, Heinrich Heine to literature, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Rubinstein to music, Achille Fould, the Pereires and the Rothschilds to finance, Beaconsfield to Rachel 153 statesmanship, Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron Hirsch to philanthropy, Josef Israels and Mark Antokolski to art, and Rachel and Sarah Bernhardt to the stage. Apart from her genius, Rachel owed most to her teacher, Samson, teacher of elocution and professor at the Conservatoire, all her great parts having been studied under him. Samson, of real talent as an author and actor, was a genius as a teacher. His pupils included Madame Plessis, Favart, Made- leine and Augustine Brohan, Rose Cheri, Jouassin, Stella Colas, and Aimee Desclee. For nearly a generation he had been an active servant of the French stage; he had been the scholar of Fleury and the elder Baptiste; he had acted with Mile. Mars, and Madame Dorval; more than all, he had heard from Talma's own lips the great trage- dian's opinions on the art of which he was such a renowned exponent. The youthful Rachel in her turn received and profited by 154 The Great Masters of the Drama these invaluable traditions, imparted to her with enthusiasm by Samson, who was al- ways justly proud of his illustrious pupil. When her success was an accomplished fact, and enormous audiences greeted her nightly, Samson never tired of recalling with pleasure the hours spent in teaching Rachel, whose perception and precision were alike remarkable. Of education she had received but very little, and it was neces- sary for her teacher to recount to her the history and character of the person she was to represent before beginning the regular lesson, in which her interest was indefati- gable. From her first appearance at the Theatre Francais until her retirement from the stage, Rachel never essayed a new part or revived an old one without the aid of her old master, Samson. Sometime in the early fifties Salvini saw Rachel act several times in Rome, and in Rachel 1 5 5 his autobiography has recorded his impres- sions of " that incomparable French ac- tress," as he calls her. He says : " She was the very quintessence of the art of Roscius; to render due praise to her qualities of mind, as well as to those of face and form, it would be necessary to coin new epithets in the Italian tongue. Expression, attitude, the mobile restraint of her features, grace, dignity, affection, passion, majesty, — all in her was nature itself. Her eyes, like two black carbuncles, and her magnificent raven hair, added splendor to a face full of life and feeling. When she was silent she seemed almost more eloquent than when she spoke. Her voice, at once sympathetic, harmonious, and full of variety, expressed the various passions with correct intonation and exemplary measure. Her motions were always statuesque, and never seemed stud- ied." At the time of which Salvini speaks, his 156 The Great Masters of the Drama great career lay before him. With Rachel the opposite was the case. Her last appearance on any stage oc- curred during her American tour, when, ill and suffering, she acted Adrienne Lecou- vreur on December 17, 1855, ^^ Charles- ton, S. C. Gerome, in his portrait of Rachel, now in the museum of the Theatre Francais, has portrayed her as the veritable spirit of those classic tragedies in which her genius soared to its zenith. Theophile Gautier wrote of the canvas in these words : " The portrait of Rachel is at once a portrait and a personification. Tragedy is seen in the tragedienne, the Muse in the actress, who, draped in crimson and orange, stands be- fore a severe Doric portico. The sombre passions, the fatalities, the tragic furies contract her pale visage. It is Rachel on her sinister side, fierce and violent." This powerful picture, exhibited at the Salon of Rachel From painting by Jean Leon (.rcion.t Ristori 1 57 1 86 1, does honor to the artist, who, born in 1824, has filled a long life with worthy work, and depicted many great historic fig- ures, — Caesar, Cleopatra, Dante, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. Extraordinary honors have been given to Gerome, both as painter and sculptor. He is represented in the United States in many public and private galleries. RISTORI "She is the greatest female artist I have ever seen." Charlotte Cushman. In May, 1855, Ristori, who had just made her debut in Paris and scored a gen- uine triumph, witnessed Rachel's perform- ance of Camille in Racine's " Les Horaces," and praised the great tragedienne without stint. Rachel, in her turn, saw Ristori act, but otherwise the two never met. 158 The Great Masters of the Drama An anonymous writer in Putnam's Monthly has made an interesting compari- son of Rachel and Ristori, from which the following is selected : " The presence of two artists of such transcendent merit as Rachel and La Ris- tori at the same time on the Parisian stage could not fail to divide the theatre-loving public into two rival camps, each party de- crying the pretensions of the other, and claiming the palm of superiority for its favorite. " But these hostilities have been of short duration, for it was soon felt that the genius of the two great tragedians, equally un- questionable in point of fact, was of a char- acter so opposite as to make it impossible to establish a comparison between them. Nature has been equally generous to both, though in a different way, and both possess in an equal degree the science, sentiment, and resources of their art; but the nature Ristori 1 59 of their genius, being essentially different, they arrive, through opposite methods, at the production of opposite effects. Thus, even in the performance of the same part, — Schiller's Mary Stuart^ in which Rachel also has frequently appeared, — the peculiar talent of each artist imparts so different a character to the same impersonation that it is impossible to establish anything like a qualitative comparison between them. " It is now generally admitted, by critics and public, that we cannot, by any received canons of art, decide which is the greater talent of the two, the preference accorded to the one or to the other being the result of the personal idiosyncrasy and tastes of the spectator. " Rachel may be defined as an animated statue; the most perfect incarnation ever seen of plastic art, as it has come down to us in the immortal creations of the old Greek sculptors. The contour of her small, i6o The Great Masters of the Drama low-browed head, the pale oval of her face, the symmetrical proportions of her form, are all in the highest degree classical and statuesque; and she wears the tunic as nat- urally as though she had worn it from her childhood. Through persevering study, aided by the peculiarity of her mental struc- ture, she has so thoroughly imbued herself with the traditions and spirit of ancient Greece that every attitude and gesture is as classically correct as her appearance; and in her acting she attains, with the same com- pleteness, the same conventional ideal. " In her delineations of the fiercer, as of the softer emotions, she never falls short of, never exceeds, the sobriety of that aver- age of expression which is the ne plus ultra of sculptural truth. No weakness, no ex- aggeration, deforms the harmonious outline of her creations. The fire of her eye, the exquisite modulations of her voice, the maj- esty and grace of her movements, her mag- Ristori i6i nificent bursts of tragic fury, regulated by her profound intelligence of her part, serve to fill up this outline, but are never permitted to exceed it. " For Rachel, it may be said that nature — the nature of this outer world and of humanity — does not exist. With her, art has taken the place of nature; an art, whose elements, perfectly coordinated, constitute a world by itself, with its own laws and its own coherence, its own denizens, life, inter- est, and beauty. But this world is not our world; its women are not women, but god- desses or demons; its terrors do not move us; its tears do not melt, nor its smiles warm us. " It is true that in the character of Adri- enne Lecouvreur (in a play founded on the history of a famous actress of the time of Louis XV. ) , and in that of Mile, de Belleisle (a young girl of noble birth and unsullied purity exposed to odious and ungrounded l62 The Great Masters of the Drama suspicions), Rachel has proved that she can be human when she will ; while, as the hes- bie of M. Berthet's graceful drama, she has shown that she possesses, would she but use them, a charm and beauty equal to her power. But parts of this description are rare in her performances, and her appear- ance in them, though highly successful, would probably never have won for her the preeminent position she has attained in the classical creations with which she has identi- fied her name. " Yet, in witnessing her interpretations of Camille, Emilie, Phedre, Hermione, etc., we feel that we are in the presence, not of any passion or emotion, but of a most perfect representation of passion and emotion. In these purely intellectual appeals to our in- telligence, we are conscious of receiving a high artistic gratification, and follow with admiring wonder these magnificent exhi- bitions of plastic power. But they produce T^^u^.i ^ Ristori as " Lucreiia Borgia From a photograph Ristori 163 no illusion, excite no emotion ; we recognize the transcendent art of the actress, but, for us, the art remains art, the actress an actress. "If Rachel be the high priestess of art, compelling us to follow her into a region purely ideal, La Ristori is the interpreter of nature in the broad sphere of human life and emotion. Her creations, no less artis- tically perfect, are to those of Rachel as is the woman Eve to the Eve of the sculptor. They live, breathe, move, with the same life that pulses in our veins and beats in our bosoms. * Bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh,' they stir our hearts with the * touch of nature,' and waken an answering vibration in the innermost fibres of our consciousness. " Whatever the sentiment she is portray- ing, La Ristori says and does just what we should say and do in the same situation. Her joy, her sorrow, her anger, hope, pity, or revenge, are real human emotions, ex- 164 The Great Masters of the Drama actly such as we ourselves should feel under the same circumstances. Her smile en- chants us, her tears afflict, and her indig- nation rouses us, for they are our own. " While Rachel, as in Mary Stuart, com- pels the most capricious, pathetic, and touch- ing phases of human feeling to assume the proportions of the conventional ideal she has made her own. La Ristori, as in Mirra and in Camma, avails herself even of the introduction of the supernatural element to deepen the purely human pathos of her part. " Rachel, subordinating nature to art, so chastens every detail of her character that no distortion ever impairs its classic con- tour; La Ristori, pressing all the resources of art into the service of nature, models every portion of her acting so faithfully upon the reality of life that, in her most impetuous, most pathetic, or most terrible delineations, she never misses, never over- steps the truth." Fechter 16^ FECHTER "Fechter is the most youthful, most ardent, most enthusiastic, most insinuating of artists. What va- riety of talents, what unpretending skill in concep- tion, what marvellous, thrilling, electric execution ! " Alexandre Dumas (^the younger). Charles Fechter acted Hamlet for the first time in London in the spring of 1861, and made so great an impression that the play ran for one hundred and fifteen nights. It was nine years later when he produced it in the United States. As a boy of fifteen, the writer saw Fech- ter play Hamlet at the old Globe Theatre, in Boston, in the winter of 1870 - 71. I will not venture to speak on the merits of that remarkable performance in face of the nu- merous estimates by more competent critics which are extant, but will confine myself to quoting from them. l66 The Great Masters of the Drama Charles Dickens, the actor's close friend, wrote : " Perhaps no innovation in art was ever accepted with so much favor by so many intellectual persons, precommitted to and preoccupied by another system, as Mr. Fechter's Hamlet. I take this to have been the case (as it unquestionably was in Lon- don), not because of its picturesqueness, not because of its novelty, not because of its many scattered beauties, but because of its perfect consistency with itself. As the animal painter said of his favorite picture of rabbits that ' there was more nature about those rabbits than you usually found in rabbits,' so it may be said of Mr. Fechter's Hamlet, that there was more consistency about that Hamlet than you usually found in Hamlets. " Its great and satisfying originality was in its possessing the merit of a distinctly conceived and executed idea. From the first appearance of the broken glass of fash- Pechter 167 ion atld mould of form, pale and worn with weeping for his father's death, and remotely suspicious of its cause, to his final struggle with Horatio for the fatal cup, there were cohesion and coherence in Mr. Fechter's view of the character. " Devrient, the German actor, had some years before, in London, fluttered the theat- rical doves considerably by such changes as being seated when instructing the players, and like mild departures from established usage; but he had worn, in the main, the old nondescript dress, and had held forth, in the main, in the old way, hovering be- tween sanity and madness. I do not remem- ber whether he wore his hair crisply curled short, as if he were going to an everlasting dancing-master's party at the Danish court, but I do remember that most other Hamlets since the great Kemble have been bound to do so. Mr. Fechter's Hamlet, a pale, wobegone Norseman, with long flaxen hair. 1 68 The Great Masters of the Drama wearing a strange garb never associated with the part upon the EngHsh stage (if ever seen there at all), and making a pirat- ical swoop upon the whole fleet of little theatrical prescriptions without meaning, — or, like Doctor Johnson's celebrated friend, with only one idea in them, and that a wrong one, — never could have achieved its ex- traordinary success but for its animation by one pervading purpose, to which all changes were made intelligibly subservient. The bearing of this purpose on the treatment of Ophelia, on the death of Polonins, and on the old student fellowship between Hamlet and Horatio, was exceedingly striking; and the difference between picturesqueness of stage arrangement for mere stage effect, and for the elucidation of a meaning, was well displayed in there having been a gallery of musicians at the play, and in one of them passing, on his way out, with his instru- ment in his hand, when Hamlet, seeing it, Fechter as "^Hamlet'' From drawing by W. J Hennessy Fechter 169 took it from him to point his talk with Rosencrantz and GuildensterYi, " This leads me to the observation with which I have all along desired to conclude: that Mr. Fechter's romance and picturesque- ness are always united to a true artist's intelligence and a true artist's training in a true artist's spirit." George Henry Lewes declared Fechter's Hamlet to be one of the very best he had ever seen. Wilkie Collins said in 1882 : " From Macready downward, I have, I think, seen every Hamlet of any note and mark during the last five and thirty years. The true Hamlet I first saw when Fechter stepped on the stage. These words, if they merely expressed my own opinion, it is needless to say would never have been written. But they express the opinion of every unpreju- diced person under fifty years of age with 1 70 The Great Masters of the Drama whom I have met. For that reason let the words stand." That excellent actor, Hermann Vezin, unfortunately but little known to his fellow Americans because of his long residence in London, who had supported Fechter in "Hamlet," wrote: "He played Hamlet, and took the town by storm. His appear- ance, his easy grace, his freedom from the vice of mouthing, his unstilted style, de- lighted all but the most bigoted adherents of the stagey school of acting. I sat in the stalls at one of the rehearsals, and was much struck by his manner of always thinking the thought of Hamlet before he spoke the words. I said to him, * You are going to make a great hit in this part.' . . . None of his Shakespearian attempts equalled his Hamlet, . . . Fechter will rank high in the roll of great actors who have excelled in that character." Button Cook said : " I have seen perhaps Fechter \J\ a score of Hamlets, including the Hamlets of Macready, of Charles Kemble, of Emil Devrient, and Salvini : it seems to me that Fechter's Hamlet ranks with the worthiest of these." William J. Hennessy, born in Ireland in 1839, was brought to America ten years later and remained here until 1870, when he went to London, where his studio now is. While in the United States, he held a deservedly high rank as an illustrator, his work including the admirable series of drawings of Edwin Booth in his chief char- acters. Since his return to England, he has confined himself to painting in oil and water-colors. He is a member of the National Academy of Design. 1 72 The Great Masters of the Drama JEFFERSON " Mr. Jefferson is an actor of exquisite art. As a comedian he would hold his own beside the finest comic artists of France — M. Regnier, M. Got, M. Coquelin." Brander Matthews. A CERTAIN likeness exists between Fech- ter and Jefferson, — both were artists as well as actors. Fechter's father, who was a talented sculptor, wished his son to follow in the same path, and for some years Charles studied modelling with great success, but at last his love for the drama became too strong to be resisted, and he abandoned the studio for the stage. Another French actor, Etienne Melingue, who won fame in romantic parts, such as Fechter shone in, — Monte Cristo was one of them, — was also a sculptor of genuine attainments. His two sons, Lucien and Gaston Melingue, are painters of great Jefferson 173 merit, some of whose works have been re- produced in the illustrations of this series. The elder Melingue, who was likewise a talented painter, when a young man out of an engagement, " joined a strolling company on the point of embarking at Havre for Guadaloupe, where he arrived in the sum- mer of 1830. The first essays of the motley troupe were tolerably successful ; but a sud- den rising of the blacks, and an attempt made by them to take possession of the places in the theatre reserved for the whites, compelled the governor to interfere, and order the house to be closed. Thus, thrown upon their own resources, the ladies of the company were reduced to give lessons in dancing, and their male associates in fenc- ing; whereas Melingue, who knew nothing of either accomplishment, remembered that he had formerly been a scene-painter, and boldly announced his readiness to take like- nesses * at all prices and in all sizes.' It 174 The Great Masters of the Drama is presumable that at the period in question the art of portrait painting in Guadaloupe was in its infancy, for no sooner had the advertisement appeared than our hero's studio was crowded with applicants, mostly natives, and doubtless attracted by the mod- esty of the charges, which varied, according to the dimensions of the work, from ten sous to two francs. * A precious lot of ugly scoundrels they were,' observed Melingue, long afterward, while recounting some of his early adventures, * and a pretty caricature I made of them ; but they paid down on the nail, so that before six months had elapsed I had put by a sufficient sum to defray the cost of my passage, and started in the first home-bound vessel that sailed from the portr' " In 1852, when acting the title role in " Benvenuto Cellini," he modelled on the stage, in a few minutes, a figure of Hebe, which Napoleon III., who was present on Jefferson 1 75 the occasion, requested might be reserved for him, and gave it a place of honor in the Tuileries. This iour de force was fol- lowed, in " Sal vat or Rosa," by a masterly sketch of a rocky landscape, which Me- lingue dashed off on canvas with similar rapidity, and renewed on each successive performance of the drama. Mrs. Siddons, it is recorded, used the sculptor's tools successfully, but Sarah Bern- hardt is doubtless the best known actress who has also won distinction in art. As long ago as 1876 she gained an honorable mention at the Paris Salon, with a group entitled " After the Tempest," and many will remember the collection of her paint- ings and sculptures which she brought with her on her first visit to America in 1880, and which were exhibited in several cities. A prominent English actor, J. Forbes Robertson, has painted many pictures, in- cluding one of the church scene from 1 76 TJie Great Masters of the Drama " Much Ado About Nothing," as acted by Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre; and Weedon Grossmith, a brother of the monologist, George Grossmith, is also both a well-known actor (having played Jacques Strop to Henry Irving's Robert Macaire) and an artist whose works have been shown at the Royal Academy. The writer remembers visiting an exhi- bition in London, in 1880, where all the works of art on view were either of actors or hy them. Many names familiar to Brit- ish or American theatre-goers appear in the catalogue, — C. J. Mathews, William Rig- nold, W. H. Kendal, Henry Neville, Gene- vieve Ward, E. H. Sothern, George Con- quest, Harry Paulton, Ella Dietz, Kyrle Bellew, Wilson Barrett, Fred Yokes, How- ard Paul, and Ada Swanborough. Three paintings by Joseph Jefferson were shown, a " Seacoast at Sundown," a " Scotch Loch," and a " Lake Scene in America,'' the Joseph Jefferson From a photograph Jefferson I yj last named being lent by the actor's son- in-law, the late B. L. Farjeon, novelist. All the pictures by Mathews in this collection were landscapes, and, as these titles suggest, it is in landscape painting that the genial " Rip " delights to spend such leisure hours as can be spared from acting and fishing. Some of his best pictures have for their subject the cypress swamps of Louisiana, where Mr. Jefferson owns a large planta- tion, but his brush is not by any means lim- ited to such scenes. And when the actor is seen no more upon our stage, he will leave behind him not only the memory of a famed comedian, — "A fellow of infinite jest," — but also that of an artist endowed with both sympathy and imagination. 1/8 The Great Masters of the Drama SALVINI " Salvini is above all rules and beyond all com- parison." W. E. Henley. Some years since, Salvini, after much per- suasion, consented to commit to writing his reasons for interpreting as he has the vari- ous Shakespearian characters played by him. The paper was published in a leading Ital- ian weekly, and from a translation by Miss Helen Zimmern the following extracts, re- ferring to Salvini's Macbeth, are taken. He says first : " Before undertaking the study of the characters of Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Othello, I consulted the legends whence the poet had obtained his themes. I had all the English and German commentaries and criticisms translated for me, and read the Italian, French, and Span- ish ones. The two first were obscure, and Salvini 1 79 SO extraordinarily at variance among them- selves that I could not form an exact crite- rion ; the Italian sinned from the same cause and from their pretensions to be an infallible judgment; the French were vague, airy, and full of Gallic fantasticalities. The de- scendants of Cervantes and Lope de Vega persuaded me most, but, all things consid- ered, I resolved to interrogate no other com- mentator on these English works but Shake- speare himself. Oh, artists of the dramatic world, do not confuse your minds by seeking for the sources of his various characters. It is from his well alone that you can quench your ardor to know. Go direct to him, study him in every phrase with diligent pa- tience. Do not tire. When you think you have done, recommence, persevere. Shake- speare is never studied too much. " MachetKs character," according to the Italian actor, " is the absolute antithesis ol that of Hamlet. If Hamlet may be defined 1 80 The Great Masters of the Drama as ' force of thought above action,' the con- ception of Macbeth may be defined as that of ' force of action above thought.' It is always Shakespeare who leads me to observe these things by his own words. Thus he makes his protagonist say in the second act : * Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. I gO' and it is done; ' and in the third : * Strange things I have in head, that will to hand, which must be acted ere they can be scanned ; ' and again in the fourth act he says : * The flighty purpose never is o'er- took, unless the deed go with it. To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done.' It seems to me that my definition has no need of further commentary." " Macbeth'' he points out, " is a man who would have hesitated at nothing. Had noble deeds been required for him to attain his end, he would have flooded the kingdom with them. If he hesitated a second before murdering Duncan, it was that he re\'olted Salvini as " (Macbeth '* From water-color by Charles S. Abbe Salvini i8i at the thought of assassination, of killing without opposition. When he sees the spec- tre, what he craves is peace from such dis- turbances, not expiation. The upshot of his conversation with the Doctor proves, ac- cording to Signor Salvini, that he does not repent of what he has done, but that the visions disturb him, and that he defies them, combats them, and conquers them with his strong spirit. * He is grand, this sangui- nary, ambitious man! But superstition is his Achilles's heel, and by it he falls. If I sought a comparison with a similar char- acter, I should cite the son of Pope Alex- ander VI., the famous Duke Valentino Caesar Borgia, who, like Macbeth, could find no other means to maintain his power but poison and arms ; but he committed low deeds and obscenities not imputable to Mac- beth, and therefore the usurper of the Scotch throne, for all his ferocity, appears more majestic. When I read this grand tragedy 1 82 The Creat Masters of the t)ramd for the first time, I expected to see the som- nambulist scene of the wife followed by one of the husband, and it was quite difficult to persuade myself of the contrary. It seems extravagant, this effect produced on my mind, but yet it seems to me justifiable. The somnambulist scene takes place at the begin- ning of the fifth act, and up to then neither the waiting-maid nor the doctor has given a hint of such a condition. No one expects it or has reason to foresee it. It is Lady Macbeth who has ever been the strong one, who has called him coward, laughed at his hallucinations, never a single word of re- morse or repentance from her lips. How, then, comes this resolute woman suddenly to falsify the terrible but grand impression the audience has gained of her up to now? And why has the author, ever rigidly ob- servant to maintain his characters the same from beginning to end, made an exception for Lady Macbeth? Is it illness that makes Salvlni 1 83 her weak and vacillating? It may be; but this scene seems to me originally composed for Macbeth, and afterward changed for the benefit of some actor (actresses were not then employed) who, perhaps, did not think the part he had to sustain sufficient. I thank him from my heart for having taken it from Macbeth; the burden of this role is suffi- ciently exorbitant.' An original idea cer- tainly on Signor Salvini's part." These quotations from Salvini's essay show something of the care and study that the great tragedian expends on his wonder- ful impersonations. 1 84 The Great Masters of the Drama EDWIN BOOTH "That face which no man ever saw And from his memory banished quite. With eyes in which are Hamlet's awe And Cardinal Richelieu's subtle light, Looks from this frame." Thomas Bailey Aldrich (Om Sargent's portrait of Booth). On a memorable occasion, Salvini and Booth acted together for a few nights at the Academy of Music, New York, in the spring of 1886, the ItaHan tragedian play- ing Othello and the Ghost in " Hamlet " to Booth's lago and Hamlet. Booth first played Richelieu in Sacra- mento, California, in 1856, when he was but twenty-three years of age. It was the most successful part among those he pre- sented on his first visit to London in 1861, and at the time of his second engagement in Edwin Booth 185 the English capital, in 1880, the Athen<£um printed this flattering notice of the perform- ance: " Mr. Booth's Richelieu is an admirably conscientious, thoughtful, and artistic per- formance. In this character the signifi- cance of Mr. Booth's method is revealed, and the reputation it has won for him in the United States becomes comprehensible to the English public. Almost for the first time in recent days the full value of an artistic method has been made apparent by an English-speaking actor to an English audience. Those actors who, like Mr. Irv- ing, Fechter, or even Signor Salvini, have won warmest recognition, have done so ap- parently on the strength of personal gifts and of a species of magnetic or sympathetic influence, which enabled them to dispense with apparent method, and, in certain in- stances, overleap it. In the case of Signor Salvini, what looked like nature was prob- I S6 The Great Masters of the Drama ably an outcome of highest art; with Mr. Irving, and in a certain degree with Fech- ter, what was best was a direct outcome of individuaHty. Through a direct inspira- tion, Mr. Irving attained the really splendid effect which is witnessed in Hamlet, when he springs, after the play scene, into the throne vacated by the king, or that not less fine effect in Richelieu when, after the depar- ture of the baffled murderers, he puts his head through the curtains of his bedroom. By much slower, and it may be surer, proc- esses, Mr. Booth reaches a result not less fine. . . . Mr. Booth's Richelieu is a sus- tained and an exquisite performance. At one or two points it displays electrical pas- sion, and it is throughout admirable in fin- ish. Those passages in which Richelieu confronts the cowering minion of the king and defies him to touch the woman around whom is thrown the protection of the Churchy are naturally the favorites with the Edwin Booth 187 playgoer. Far higher, however, than the merit of these passages is that of the grace, beauty, and completeness of the whole. . . . All that was seen was the fierce, subtle, and indomitable prelate in the very guise in which he has been conceived by Lord Lyt- ton. The appearance was singularly like the best-known pictures of Richelieu, and the character of the astute, unscrupulous man was presented to the life." William Winter, the close friend and biog- rapher of Booth, thus wrote of his Richelieu: " Booth's personation of Richelieu has by many acute critics been accounted his best work of art. . . . The character is one that assimilates, at many points, with Edwin Booth's temperament, and one that is mar- vellously well adapted to catch the sympa- thies of mankind. Appearing as the soldier- priest, the tragedian has never failed to win the popular heart. No piece of acting is better known in this generation, and — ex- 1 88 The Great Masters of the Drama cq>t it be Jefferson's matchless performance of Rip Van Winkle — no piece of acting is more admired. . . . " Booth's Richelieu is one of the most powerful, symmetrical, and picturesque works of dramatic art with which the stage is adorned. It may not reproduce the car- dinal of history. That result was not essen- tial. It certainly does embody the cardinal of the drama. . . . That Booth looks the character is a matter of course. His weird, thoughtful, spiritual face and his slender, priestlike figure — made up with the con- comitants of age and clothed in the requisite and accurate ecclesiastical garments — com- bine in a perfect presentment of the fiery soul in the aged and puny body. The phys- ical realization could not be improved." Edmund Clarence Stedman wrote of the famous " curse scene " at the end of the fourth act of " Richelieu " : " We moderns, who so feebly catch the spell which made the Edwin "Booth as " l^ickelteu " From painting by John Collier Edwin Booth 189 Church of Rome sovereign of sovereigns for a thousand years, have it cast upon us in the scene where the cardinal, deprived of temporal power and defending his beautiful ward from royalty itself, draws around her that Church's * awful circle,' and cries to Bar ados: " * Set but a foot within that holy ground And on thy head — yea, though it wore a crown — / launch the curse of Rome! ' " Booth's expression of this climax is wonderful. There is perhaps nothing, of its own kind, to equal it upon the present stage. Well may the king's haughty parasites cower and shrink aghast from the ominous voice, the finger of doom, the arrows of those lurid, unbearable eyes ! " John Collier's vivid realization of the actor in this episode of Bulwer's drama, painted in London, was given by Edwin Booth to his friend William Bispham, who afterward 1 90 The Great Masters of the Drama * presented it to the Player's Club, which Booth's munificence founded, and of which he was the first president. The artist, born in London in 1850, was a pupil of Poynter, Laurens, and Alma Tadema. Among the many portraits of men of mark painted by Collier are those of Dar- win, Huxley (whose daughter he married), Rudyard Kipling, and Henry Irving. His subject pictures are numerous, and include **' The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson," be- longing to the National Gallery of British Art; " The Death of Cleopatra," " Clytem- nestra," " Circe," and " In the Forest of Arden." John McCullough 191 JOHN McCULLOUGH "His friends are glad to remember him, not merely as 'the best Roman actor seen this many a day,' but the strong and hearty man whose smile brightened even dull London town, and the warm grasp of whose hand was that of one whose name was truth." Clinton Stuart. On a certain Washington's Birthday, some twenty-five years since, the writer saw John McCullough play Coriolanus at the Boston Theatre, " after the high Roman fashion" (as Cleopatra says), and worthily indeed the tragedian placed before us the noble figure of Shakespeare's hero. The excellent review of McCullough's per- formance which appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser at the time, and was, pre- sumably, written by Mr. Henry A. Clapp, well deserves reprinting, and I give it here. " In his impersonation ol Caitis Marcius 192 The Great Masters of the Drama last night, Mr. McCullough may be said to have met the high expectations which had been formed by all who saw him in Vir- ginius. He looks and moves almost an ideal Roman of the ancient type, — with the gait and bearing of one belonging to a race of conquerors. In this tragedy he conceives his part clearly, and plays it with the directness, force, and self-consistency of one entirely possessed by his idea. His Caius Marcius has the magnificent and simple dignity of one born to wear the patrician toga; his pride is almost passionate in its intensity, but this trait also is perfectly simple, is free from the least touch of self-distrust or the self-consciousness which is bred of self-dis- trust ; he has the very virtue of modesty, and loves no praise but that of his mother. To these qualities, so curiously mixed of good and evil, must be added his stern incorrupt- ibility, his domestic purity, his lofty courage and truth, and his unflinching loyalty to his John McCti Hough 193 convictions. And the picture remains en- tirely incomplete if we omit to name a vio- lence of temper so extreme that under its gusts of passion every other power and fac- ulty of his nature is swayed like a reed in the wind. Mr. McCuUough presents all this and more than all this with exceptional force and, as we have said, with rare direct- ness and simplicity. In few words, his as- sumption seems a creation and not a com- position. We may select for special praise his fierce haughtiness and scarcely restrained fury of disgust in his first encounters with the plebeian crowd, and the contemptuous irony with which he solicits their voices when he stands for consul. In this last position, Mr. McCullough dwells too much, we think, upon the personal offensiveness of the ill- smelling crowd, though he makes his ex- pressions of repulsion very effective, the overemphasis of one unpleasant idea de- tracting from the imaginative significance 194 ^^^ Great Masters of the Drama of the situation, for it is the patrician hauteur rather than the patrician nose that is most displeasedo In the early interviews with his wife and child, Mr. McCullough showed the fine sweetness and tenderness which are so often and so beautifully displayed in his strong parts, and in his speech with his mother there was added to these a grave, deep-reaching reverence, through which breathed the peculiar virtue of the ancient republic. It would be hard to exceed the cold, contemptuous dignity with which he turned his back upon the people after his banishment. Mr. McCullough's once rather marked weakness for sudden explosiveness of speech seems to have been partially cured, and in the furious temper of Coriolanus it finds justifiable opportunities, and never, ex- cept in one instance, does it wholly fail to * beget ' that * temperance ' which should * give it smoothness.' In carrying out a sin- gle part of such exceptional prominence, Mr. Lawrence Barrett as " Cassius " From a photograph John McCullough as " Coriolanus'' From a photograph John McCullough I^J McCullough sometimes compels the critical observer to the thought that the artist has not such variety and imaginativeness of method as wholly to save him from the charge of sameness, but the test furnished by the character is a most severe one, and it is much to have presented the character of Caius Marcius Coriolanus with a sus- tained dignity, vitality, force, and artistic propriety which give it at once a place among one's best and most vivid experiences of the stage." 196 The Great Masters of the Drama LAWRENCE BARRETT "Mr. Barrett has done more than any one else in America to present the higher drama under can- ditions of artistic completeness, and to stimulate the literary and artistic development of a stage impressed with his own character and taste." W. M. Laffan. One of the earliest attempts made by Lawrence Barrett to secure the public favor for new plays by native writers was his pro- duction of Mr. Howells's dramatization of his own charming " Counterfeit Present- ment," which he brought out in Cincinnati, in October, 1877. A more ambitious en- deavor was " A New Play " (the title of this was afterward changed to " Yorick's Love"), translated and adapted by Mr. Howells from the Spanish of Joaquin Este- banez, the action of which takes place in the Globe Theatre of Shakespeare's time. This Lawrence Barrett 19/ was produced at Cleveland, in October, 1878. Another noteworthy production was Will- iam Young's Arthurian drama, in verse, en- titled " Pendragon," first seen in Chicago, in November, 1881, and a fourth was George Henry Boker's tragedy based on the story of Francesca da Rimini, produced by Barrett at Philadelphia, September, 1882. Other less important productions testify to the actor's high-minded desire to add mer- itorious works to his repertory, and his death, at the comparatively early age of fifty- three, was a distinct loss tO' the American stage. While Barrett's Harebell was un- doubtedly one of his finest personations, the highest place among them is generally given to his performance of Cassius, in which he was often seen dividing the honors of the play with Booth and Davenport. When Barrett played Cassius in the mem- orable performance of " Julius Caesar " at 193 llie Great Masters of the Drama Booth's Theatre In the December of 1871, William Winter said in the Tribune: " Mr. Barrett, who was welcomed with lively in- terest and applause, acted Cassius with splen- did spirit and great effect. On a previous occasion we have expressed the opinion that this is a work of absolute genius. It will suf- fice now to remark that it easily bore away the richest honors of last night's performance." George Edgar Montgomery paid a tribute to the actor in these words : " His Cassius is the most truthful and impressive Shake- spearian performance that he has given us ; " and Edward A. Dithmar wrote : " His splendid Cassius, a part for which he seems to have been made, has its full measure of admiration. ... It is not likely that the stage has ever known a finer performance of the subtle Roman. His best part, judged from every point of view, is Cassius. There is not a false tone in that vivid, forceful, thoroughly human portrayal." Henry Irving and Ellen Terry 199 HENRY IRVING AND ELLEN TERRY "I don't know that I remember having seen a greater performance by any actor, not even excepting Macready's Werner. It is wonderful." John Gilbert, on Irving' s Louis XI. " She is as near absolute perfection as any one can be." Sarah Bernhardt, on Ellen Terry. W. G. WiLLs's beautiful version o-f Gold- smith's " Vicar of Wakefield " was first pro- duced at the Court Theatre, on March 30, 1878. The play achieved instant success, Hermann Vezin acting Doctor Primrose ad- mirably, and Ellen Terry, for whom the part had been written, winning a complete triumph as Olivia. Miss Terry has declared that it was her popularity in this part which led Mr. Irving to engage her as leading lady for his com- pany at the Lyceum Theatre, of which he became manager at that time. However this 200 The Great Masters of the Drama may be, the fact remains that in December of the same year that saw the production of " OH via," Ellen Terry made her first appear- ance before a Lyceum audience, playing Ophelia to the Hamlet of Henry Irving, thus beginning the remarkable series of dramatic successes with which the world of theatre- goers is familiar. About seven years after the initial presen- tation of " Olivia," it was most successfully revived at the Lyceum, with Ellen Terry in her original part, Irving as Doctor Primrose, and William Terriss as Squire Thornhill. Clement Scott, the well-known critic, wrote of the revival : " For seven years the Olivia of Miss Ellen Terry has been laid up in lavender, and the picture of a loving and lovable woman, with all her waywardness, trust, disappointment, and anguish, is pre- sented to us with an added sweetness and a deepening color. The artist evidently has not put this admirable study of a true woman Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in " Olivi From a photograph Henry Irving and Ellen Terry 201 wholly out of her mind. She has not played the part for a long time on the stage, but she must often have thought of it. New ideas, fresh suggestions, innumerable delicate touches, never lost on the observant spec- tator, have been brought to bear on the new Olivia, who stands out as one of the most striking personations — as fine in perspec- tive as in outline, as tender in thought as it is true in sentiment — that the modern stage has seen. In the first act of the play, Miss Ellen Terry has little more to do than strike the key-note of the poem. She has to show how Olivia is the fairest of the old vicar's flock, the loveliest and most winsome of his many children, the loved companion of her brothers and sisters, her father's idol. . . . But for all that, simple parson's daughter as she is, inexperienced in the world and its ways, she already shows how strong and absolute is the affectionate nature that is in her. She loves the young squire, not because 202 The Great Masters of the Drama he has a fine coat and winning manners, not because he is above her in social station, but because her nature leans toward some one who appears stronger in character and less dependent on love than herself. . . . We come to the second scene. Love, the master, has worked havoc in Olivia's heart. Grad- ually, but very delicately, Miss Terry shows how her father is forgotten for the sake of her lover. She hates Burchell because he dares to doubt the man she loves. She de- fends her Thornhill with a woman's des- peration and a woman's unreason. He may have deceived other women, but he loves me ! That is her argument, and it is urged with brilliant petulance. " The second scene with Thornhill brings out some vei-y subtle suggestions. It is as excellently played by Mr. Terriss as by Miss Terry. Both are goaded on by destiny. For a moment she would hold back, and so would he. She cannot forget her father, nor he his Henry Irving and Ellen Terry 203 honor. The man is not wholly reckless yet. There is a pause, but it is momentary. Self- ishness prevails; the strong man conquers, not the weak, but the loving woman; and once she has given her promise, we know that she will not turn back. . . . Then comes that exquisite scene when, at the twilight hour, Olivia distributes her little presents to the loved ones before she steals away from home to join the lover of her future life. . . . Miss Terry's . . . fine power of absolutely identifying herself with the situation, the real tears that course down her cheeks, the struggle to repress as much as to express, make this one of the most pathetic moments. . . . It is, however, in the third act that Miss Terry's acting has most visibly im- proved. She has here emphasized the con- trast between the happy married woman and the heart-broken, despairing dupe. The actress begins the scene with an access of gaiety. If ThornhilVs love had grown more 204 The Great Masters of the Drama cold, hers has gained in force and impetuos- ity. Her object now is to retain her lover by her side. Her short life with him has intensified her affection. She coquettes with him, she hangs close to his neck, she laughs and is merry. « . . Suddenly, and without warning, comes the storm which is to wreck her life. Her lover tells her that he has de- ceived her. She is not his wife. The an- nouncement at first stuns her. She cannot believe or understand. She beats her brains to get at the truth. The realization of her situation is awful. Father, mother, home, friends, contempt, humiliation, crowd before her eyes like ghastly spectres; the love has suddenly changed to savage hate, and as Thornhill advances to comfort her, she strikes him on the breast, and in that one word, * Devil ! ' is summed up the unspeak- able horror that afflicts her soul. But as yet the act is not nearly over. The most beauti- ful passages of it have yet to come, when Henry Irving and Ellen Terry 205 her father returns to rescue the lamb that is on the road. Never before to our recollec- tion on the stage has woman's grief been depicted with such infinite truth. Olivia has been beaten and sorely bruised; but in her father's arms she is safe. . . . She feels she is forgiven and at rest. . . . Such acting as is contained in the Olivia of Ellen Terry, as fine in conception as it is impressive in effect, is seen very rarely on the stage of any coun- try " Unquestionably, also, the play is made doubly interesting by the reading of the vicar given by Mr. Henry Irving, a perform- ance more carefully restrained and modu- lated, a study more innocent of trick and less disfigured by characteristics of marked style and individuality than anything he has at- tempted before. . . . Mr. Irving's vicar is a dignified, resigned, and most pathetic fig- ure, who lingers on the mind long after the theatre is quitted, . . . The best idea that 2o6 Ihe Great Masters of the Drama came into the actor's mind and, in effect, the finest moment of his acting, was in the scene where the vicar comes to rescue his daugh- ter. For a moment, troubled and travel- stained as he is, he breaks away from her and remembers that he has a duty to perform. He loves the child surpassingly well, but he is her father, and she has erred. He has to summon up all his courage for a homily on her lost sense of duty. He nerves himself for what he conceives to be' necessary, and begins with tears starting in his eyes to tell Olivia of her grievous fault. But the old man breaks down over the effort of forced calm; the strain is too much for him; all at once he melts, he casts aside the manner of the priest, and calling Olivia to his arms, becomes her loving father once more. The effect of this was instantaneous. The house was astonished and delighted. As regards acting, it was a moment of true inspiration, a masterpiece of invention." Coquelin 207 COQUELIN " M. Coquelin is really the Balzac of actors." Henry James. That trenchant writer, the late W. E. Henley, printed some years ago a paper upon Coquelin which is a most valuable estimate of the distinguished French actor. Henley says, "To tell the truth, M. Coquelin is so excellent an actor that under Salvini I know not where to look for his equal. Mr. Henry James said of him years ago that he had more temperament than M. Got and as much art, and I agree with Mr. Henry James. He has played many parts, and — good, bad, and indifferent — he has played them all incomparably. Nature in- tended him for a great actor ; education and opportunity have made him a great artist. It is recorded of him that at the beginning, 2o8 The Great Masters of the Drama as Regnier's pupil (he is Regnier's best work), he failed, and failed conspicuously. With his wide mouth and brilliant eye, his impudent nose and vibrant voice, he seemed designed by nature for the prince of Scapins and Mascarilles; but his first efforts in this direction were far from notable, and when Regnier, changing completely the bent of his education, began to train him for the per- formance of old men's parts, and produced him finally as the Orgon of the * Tartuffe,' the result was a cruel fiasco. It was, so far as I know, the last with which this admirable actor has been credited. He resumed his practice upon the heroic rascaldom of Moliere and Regnard, and at four and twenty or so he made his first great hit as the Figaro of the ' Mariage.' He was half- dead, they say, with stage fright, and, his weakness aiding, he played the part in a tragic vein that was accepted as not a blunder, but a revelation. Since then he has Coquelin 209 touched nothing- which he has not adorned. Big parts and httle, the old repertory and the new, MoHere and Hugo, Marivaux and Augier, ' Le Joueur ' and * Le Fils Natu- rel,' * Jean Dacier ' and * Le Monde Oti rOn s'Ennuie/ Banville and Scribe, — he has played in all, and in all he has ex- celled. From first to last his career has been one of hard work and artistic uprightness and unselfishness. He has never disdained tO' play small and secondary parts : the danc- ing dandy and the huntsman of * Les Facheux,' the ridiculous marquis of * Le Joueur,' the Dubois of * Le Misanthrope,' the Lucas of * Don Juan,' the M. Loyal of the * Tartuffe ; ' and in playing these per- fectly he learned to become the perfect ex- ponent of greater and more perilous matter : the magnificent impudence of Shrigani and Scapin, the high-bred wickedness of the Du^ de Septmonts, the hungry and tattered hero^ ism of Gringoire, the colossal hypocrisy of 2 1 The Great Masters of the Drama Tartuife, the beautiful and touching human- ity of the old schoolmaster in * Les Rant- zau/ It is known that for him excellence is unattainable save by means O'f discipline: that there is only one way to true eminence in art, and that way is through training and work; and his achievement is a proof that he is right. Macready, as we know, thought otherwise, and most Englishmen think with Macready. I confess that on this point I prefer the authority of Coquelin, whose ex- ample, as it seems tO' me, is a good deal more respectable than Macready's own. So far as I can gather, Macready (like Mr. Irving) was always himself and nothing else; Coquelin (like Salvini, though of course upon a lower level) is only himself in method and accomplishment, and apart therefrom is always the character he happens to have in hand. In the Mascarille of * L'Etourdi ' he is a hero of romantic farce, the citizen of an impossible and delightful I Coquelin as '' Cyrano de "Bergerac ** From painting by M. Guth Coquelin 2 1 1 community, the exemplar of an impossible and delightful immorality, the sublimation of an impossible and delightful theory of humorous adventure; in the Vadius of ' Les Femmes Savantes ' he is only an incarnation of angry pedantry; in the Septmonts of * L'Etrangere ' he is a man of breeding to the finger-nails and a blackguard in every fibre. These three parts are a type of his whole achievement. Whatever he does is done with such a combination of art and temperament, with so much accomplishment and so much intelligence at once, as tO' stand out, however good its surroundings, as a perfect expression of histrionics. I have the greatest possible liking and respect for the rare and beautiful talent of M. Delaunay, and the greatest possible admiration for the noble, intellectual, and technical qualities of M. Got; but I confess that wherever I have seen these admirable artists in direct com- petition with M. Coquelin — in ' L'Etourdi,' 212 The Great Masters of the Drama for instance, and ' Les Femmes Savantes ' — I have been obliged, almost against my will, to prefer Vadius to Trissotin, and Mascarille to Lelie. . . . That when these two famous artists have retired he will remain, for some years to come, the central and sovereign fig- ure of the Theatre Frangais seems to me proved in advance.'' Henley's article on Coquelin was written long before the actor had created the part of Cyrano in Rostand's play, which may be considered his highest achievement. In it he shows " in consummate perfection, the two apparently contradictory sides of his remark- able genius ; he is the very type of the Gas- con soldier, full of braggadocio and fight, merry and impudent ; on the other hand he is a lover such as the world has never seen before." Sarah Bernhardt 213 SARAH BERNHARDT " Madame, you were both great and charming. I am an old combatant, but at the moment when the enchanted people were applauding you, I confess that I wept." Victor Hugo to Sarah Bernhardt. When the young Sarah Bernhardt ap- peared as a candidate for admission to the Paris Conservatoire before the jury of that august institution, she recited, instead of the customary selection from Corneille or Ra- cine, a fable of La Fontaine's entitled " The Two Pigeons," with such effect that she was at once accepted as a pupil. One of the actress's finest performances is the part of Adrienne Lecouvreur, in Scribe and Legouve's drama of that name, in the second act of which Adrienne recites to her lover, Maurice de Saxe, the same fable. Rachel was the first impersonator of Adrienne Lecouvreur, and a well-known 2 1 4 The Great Masters of the Drama English play-writer, the late Palgrave Simp- son, who witnessed her performance in Paris in 1849, h^s placed on record a most inter- esting account of it, and also of Sarah Bern- hardt's rendition of the character in London in 1880. He begins with " Picture I. — It is the evening of the 14th April, 1849. A vast crowd is assembled in every part of the salle of the Theatre Frangais. . . . The oc- casion may well account for the enormous throng: for a new play is to be given for the first time by the deified dramatist of that day, Eugene Scribe; and the greatest actress of the period, — some will say of all time, — Rachel, is about to appear in the principal part. The play bears the title of * Adrienne Lecouvreur/ It is not my purpose to dilate upon the piece itself. The picture to be painted is that of the actress alone. She enters at last in Act II. Her reception is stormily enthusiastic ; and she smiles a faint, Sarah Bernhardt 215 almost melancholy, smile in return. She is studying the part which, as Adrienne Le- couvreur, she is about to play on the fancied stage beyond the stage. Her diction is sol- emn and impressive, perhaps a little too heavy for the occasion ; but this is Rachel's fault in the lighter portions of many plays, — notably in the ' Virginie.' Her bearing and manner are imposing, and lay powerful siege to the feelings of her audience. A caviller might say that they are too imposing for the situation. Presently come the scenes where she meets her lover, Mavirice de Saxe (unknown to her except as a young officer of fortune), on his return to Paris. Her love is displayed with wonderful impetuosity and effect. It is excited and feverish. Her passion is almost tigerish in its demonstra- tion. It is powerful in the extreme, but, surely, a little in excess of womanly tender- ness. She recites the fable of the * Two Pigeons ' with admirable emphasis and true ^ 1 6 The Great Masters of the Drama artistic declamation ; but she is still passion- ate rather than tender. On her return to the stage, after having received from her lover the missive which tells her that he cannot meet her that night, her feelings of mortifica- tion are expressed with less of violence, how- ever. She does not seem to think the scene worthy of especial effort. " In Act III. comes the second interview with her lover, and the discovery that the supposed humble officer is in reality the cele- brated Comte de Saxe. In this scene there is a greater charm of womanly tenderness in her natural surprise than in any of the preceding scenes. In the interview which follows when the lovers are alone, impulsive passion again takes the place of tenderness. But her power holds the audience enthralled. Is she not the divinity of the time? And can divinity err? And yet it might be fan- cied, by captious heretics, that her passion is strained to discordant harshness. Pres- Sarah Bernhardt 217 ently comes the scene, the imbroglio of which is so admirably conceived by the mas- ter of dramatic art in construction — the scene in which Adrienne discovers that she has a rival, but a rival unknown to her — in the darkness. The incipient jealousy of the woman, who thinks she is betrayed by her lover, is powerful without a doubt, but almost fiendish in its expression ; but Rachel contrives to throw a marvellous dignity into the words, ' Et moi, je vous protege' in an- swer to the ' Je vous perdrai ' of the vindic- tive princess ; and there is an accent of pro- found despair in her words, as she sinks into a chair at the conclusion of the act — ' Ah! Tout est £m/ The curtain falls amidst a tumult of applause. In Act IV., the scenes in which the devoted woman sacrifices her fortune to save her lover from arrest are played with a feverish irritability which in some measure detracts from the sympathy which the situation ought to create. But in 2 1 8 The Great Masters of the Drama the scene where Adrienne discovers her rival, and considers the treachery of Maurice com- plete, Rachel rises to her greatest height. The verses from ' Phedre ' are declaimed in the face of the princess, but without moving from the spot where she stands, with so grand a scorn that her whole audience is thrilled. Here it is that the actress, without possibility of cavil, is perfect in her great- ness. " The last act comes, in which Adrienne is convinced in her own mind of the infidelity of her lover. But her despair is alternately lugubrious rather than plaintive, tigerish and fiendish rather than reproachful. The return of her supposed faithless lover is only the prelude to the death scene by poison. That the death is most powerful and effect- ive none can deny. But it is repulsive in its realism. . . . " Picture II. — The background is now the stage of the Gaiety Theatre, London. Sarah Bernhardt as ''Adrienne Lecouvreur From a photograph Sarah Bernhardt 219 . . . The theatre is crowded, for Sarah Bernhardt is about to appear for the first time in this same play of * Adrienne Lecou- vreur/ and considerable curiosity as to the result is excited. It may be said that fair play is scarcely awarded her among the old play- goers, who have already made up their minds, and loudly proclaimed beforehand that * it is utterly impossible she can be a patch on Rachel.' Let us see. From the very first, Sarah Bernhardt shows that her conception of the part is entirely different from that of her celebrated predecessor. How quickly and simply she enters, studying her part. With what a pleasant smile and ladylike grace does she respond to the im- portunities of the fops around her. With what seductive tones of grateful affection does she address her devoted old friend, the prompter. Then comes her meeting with her lover. The love-scene here is replete with womanly tenderness, springing from the 220 The Great Masters of the Drama heart. There^ is no violence of passion ; and although the impulse of this loving woman is strong, it is kept within delicate bounds. She is sweetly caressing, but not feverishly fiery ; and her fable of the ' Two Pigeons ' is recited in a strain more touching, even to pathos, than strong. All is loving tender- ness, and not a spark of this conception of the character is lost. Even at the close of the act, the words, * Qui I je m'occuperai encore de lui — Vingrat! ce sera la ma ven- geance! ' are spoken with a sweet tenderness, only faintly tinged with the color of re- proach. " The same conception, and the same exe- cution of it, are continued in Act III., in the scenes where the great general is discovered in the humble officer, and the lovers indulge in mutual protestations. . . . The stronger and darker traits of the feminine character are not yet roused. The time, however, is shortly to come. The incipient jealousy on Sarah Bernhardt 221 the discovery of her yet unknown rival is admirably although delicately portrayed, and gathers crescendo like distant rolling thun- der, although the storm does not burst into an explosion. In the famous phrase, ' Je vous protege ' alone, the actress is slightly disappointing, and yet the tone in which it is uttered is consistent with her conception of the part. It is with a quiet dignity that the words are uttered, not with the thrilling force of Rachel. . . . The ' Tout est iini' however, thrills the audience. It is a real cri du coeur, although subdued and choking. From this moment Sarah Bernhardt is fever- ish, excited, restless, but without querulous irritability. . . . When she discovers her rival, and has no longer any doubt of her lover's treachery, Sarah Bernhardt is at once powerful with finesse, and passionate with subdued energy. The climax of the scene alone may be considered at once a mistake and a failure, The manner in which she 222 The Great Masters of the Drama advances across the stage toward her de- tested rival and hurls the outrage, in the words of ' Phedre/ into her very face, with outstretched finger almost touching her, is far too overstrained. " In the last act ample amends are made for the one error. Exquisite without exag- geration, is her despair at the supposed de- sertion of her lover, and equally beautiful her revulsion on his return to her arms. The death-scene follows — realistic, it is true, but how different from the realism of her great predecessor. The fight for life, the despairing cry, * Non I je ne vent pas mourir,' are as real as any death scene ever exhibited on the stage, but without repulsive- ness." Modjeska 223 MODJESKA "The acting of Madame Modjeska stands on the same high level with the best in literature, music, and the fine arts." Charles de Kay. It was as Adrienne Lecouvreur that Bern- hardt first appeared in the United States, and it was in the same character that Madame Modjeska made her entry on the stage as an English-speaking actress — in San Francisco, in 1877. She had con- quered Warsaw when she played the part on her debut there long before. A few years after her Californian triumph in Adrienne, the beautiful Polish actress es- sayed the heroine of " As You Like It," and this part she first performed in New York in 1882. " She studied the part alone, without any such assistance as she had for Juliet, and 224 The Great Masters of the Drama began to learn the words when she was about starting for America. She was then per- fectly familiar with Shakespearian language and wonderfully at home in the English tongue, so that she was able to work out for herself her own idea of the most delicious of Shakespearian ladies. She had seen the play produced at the Imperial Theatre, with Miss Litton as Rosalind and Kyrle Bellew as Orlando. Mr. Bellew's performance inter- ested her exceedingly. When she read the play for herself she came to the conclusion that Orlando is never deceived by his lady- love's masquerade, but merely follows her whim and lets her lead him as she will. Be this as it may, Rosalind, with her quick wit and warm heart, is one of the most fascinating characters of the stage. Its gaiety and sweetness are the very charms which Madame Modjeska can so well ex- press, and she has, too, the light foot and girlish figure which must belong to Rosalind. Modjeska as "l^psalind From a photograph Modjeska ^25 The dress which she wears shows her slender form to admiration. It is made from Mr. Forbes- Robertson's beautiful design, but the colors Madame Modjeska chose for herself. Instead of the brown tints which Miss Litton wore, Madame Modjeska's cloak and hat are blue. Perhaps no dress she has ever worn has suited her so well as this picturesque cos- tume, with its feathered hat, its doublet, and long, tight-fitting boots of buff leather. The wide blue velvet cloak, which would be a source of great distress to any one at all awkward, in the hands of an experienced and graceful actress becomes a most elegant and expressive part of the costume. Few women possess the bearing which becomes such a dress; but Madame Modjeska is one of those few. She can put on to perfection the pretty imitation of a * swashing and a martial outside.* " A Rosalind whose ' manly garb is as modest as it is trim and picturesque,' who 226 The Great Masters of the Drama seizes upon the ideal part of the character, and who is capable of detail which is amus- ing yet never coarse, cannot but win the hearts of her audiences. But although the part is so lovable, so interesting in itself, it requires a really fine actress. A beautiful face and a pretty figure are not sufficient qualifications for a Rosalind, though some have fancied so, and in the hands even of a clever actress the whole impersonation may be ruined by a touch of vulgarity. We have had fair Rosalinds and realistic Rosalinds, beauties and hoydens, but the public fully appreciates the boon when an actress takes the part who is an artist in spirit, and who has read her Shakespeare with understand- ing. Adelaide Neilson 22^ ADELAIDE NEILSON "Twice happy we, blest heirs of dual art; To own as mother tongue Will Shakespeare's writ — To live when kindling Neilson voices it." Clarence Clough Buel. As Modjeska's earliest assumption of Rosalind was in America, so Neilson's first performance of Viola was reserved for the United States. When she presented it in London in 1878, a leading English weekly paid it this tribute : " There are two conceptions of the char- acter of Viola, either of which is defensible. There is the sentimental view, which links the character with Bellario or Euphrasia in the * Philaster ' of Beaumont and Fletcher, and other similar personages of the early drama, and there is the more realistic view, which makes her assumption of masculine 228 The Great Masters of the Drama attire something of a madcap freak. The latter view is that taken by Miss Neilson. It is fully borne out by the text. Viola falls in love with the duke in the three months during which she is his confidante and mes- senger. It is absurd to suppose that love for a man she has never seen could have led her to the first assumption of masculine attire. The words, moreover, spoken to her by Olivia show that she put on with Rosalind a ' swashing and martial outside.' Olivia charges her with having been saucy, and tells her she ' began rudely.' Viola's address to Maria, ' No, good swabber, I am to hull here a little longer,' affords no especial proof of timidity of demeanor. It is only, then, in her graver moments, and when in presence of her lord, that Viola shows the sentimental aspect of her character. Like the Di Vernon of Scott, she can melt into ten- derness, but her general mood is one of al- most saucy defiance. Miss Neilson presents •^Adelaide Neilson as '"Viola From a photograph^ Adelaide Neilson 229 this character to the life. She has every physical qualification for the part, and looks surprisingly attractive in her Greek costume. She enjoys thoroughly the confusion her assumption of manly dress creates, and her delight when she finds herself taken for a man by Olivia is infectious. Not less happy is she in the more serious passages, the grace and delicacy of the play being, as far as the scenes in which she appears are concerned, fully preserved. Thus, though the imperson- ation may not compare with the Juliet, or even with the Rosalind, of the same actress, it is distinctly worthy of her reputation, both as regards insight and expository ability." A few months before Adelaide Neilson's sad and early death, the writer saw her as Viola, and finds this English critic's praise far below the worth of her performance. Mr. Henry A. Clapp's appreciation of Miss Neil- son's Viola is at once more generous and more just. He speaks of her " ineffable 230 The Great Masters of the Drama charm," and her " art that was beyond crit- icism," and ends with these words : " In that slender maid, as she looked through Adelaide Neilson's eyes and spoke through her voice, the fairest dream of romance seemed incarnate ; in her the very ' riches of the sea,' strangely delivered from its * en- raged and foamy mouth/ had * come on shore.' " MARY ANDERSON "I have the warmest admiration and respect for her talent." William Archer. It is now nearly fifteen years since Mary Anderson retired from the stage, her last appearance having been as Perdita and Her- mione, in " The Winter's Tale," at Wash- ington, in the inauguration week of 1889. She was then not yet thirty, but could look back on a lifetime, almost half of which had been spent in the theatre, as her debut Mary Anderson 231 was made as Juliet, in Louisville, Kentucky, when she was but sixteen years of age. To say how much of Miss Anderson's phenomenal success was due to the personal beauty and charm which she possessed in such high degree, and how much to her his- trionic ability, would be a difficult task. In private life, few actresses ever pos- sessed so many friends among the noblest and best minds of the day, as Miss Anderson. In her own country. President Grant, Gen- eral Sherman, and the poet Longfellow were especially kind and helpful to the young aspirant for theatrical honors, while at a later time, abroad, she gained the warm re- gard of many among the most distinguished. Robert Browning was one of these, and Miss Anderson tells an interesting anecdote about him : " * Bulwer,* said he, * asked me to go to hear him read his new play, " Riche- lieu," requesting that I should take a blank card upon which to write my criticism. On 232 The Great Masters of the Drama arriving at the place of rendezvous I found Charles Dickens and Thackeray, if I remem- ber rightly, as well as Macready and several others, all similarly armed with paper and pencil. When Bulwer had finished, I imme- diately handed him my card with '' A great play!" written on it. So you see I was the first to pronounce judgment on " Riche- lieu." ' " Gladstone, then prime minister, Miss Anderson met at a breakfast at his house in Downing Street. The meal was unpleas- antly interrupted by the noise of a loud explosion near by, which was found to be caused by an attempt to blow up the Ad- miralty buildings, it being the time of the dynamite outrages in London. Mr. Glad- stone was the only one present who did not show the least sign of alarm. The actress had the rare privilege, for an American, of visiting Tennyson and accom- panying him on some of his long daily walks, Mary eAnderson as " Parthenia From a photograph Mary Anderson 233 and she also heard the poet read from his own verses. She says he never made a ges- ture while reading, though tears sometimes ran down his cheeks. A fortunate woman, indeed, was Miss Anderson — Victor Hugo welcoming her in Paris and kissing her hands; Ristori dis- cussing classic draperies with her; Alma Tadema designing costumes and scenery for her; and Lord Lytton and W. S. Gilbert writing plays for her, while George Fred- erick Watts painted her portrait. Our illustration of the actress as Parthenia recalls the fact that when she played it for the first time. John McCullough was the Ingomar. It was as Parthenia that the actress chose to make her bow before a Lon- don audience, at the Lyceum, in 1883. THE END. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. M:n 23 '"48 4May'56PL -^■O' '§i".wfj( LD 21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 ^ ^ ^^^ J^ ivil34196 U<< am THE UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY ilii ii II i i !|i|||{ i< iHlM Mil I iHii>it>ii>iiiiiiitittttiit!ilt!ii ij i>!i|ii>!l!uiiiii M iii pip iPP! IIP! ly^^^^^yl i !liiliillii!! jpipilip"""" "I" II II ; III