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 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 /(f^2)
 
 ESSAYS ON THE DMMA.
 
 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM BODHAM DONNE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN W. PAT^KETl AND SON, WEST STTIAND. 
 
 1858.
 
 PRINTF.D BY 
 JOHN EDXl'ARD TAYLOR, LITTLE aUEKN STREET, 
 LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, LONDON.
 
 TN 
 
 J) '71^ 
 1858 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 These Essays on the Drama, or on subjects con- 
 nected with it, were written for the occasion, and 
 accordingly any little interest they may have pos- 
 sessed at the moment will probably by this time 
 have become extinct. I have been repeatedly urged, 
 however, "by persons in whose judgment I confide, to 
 reprint them, and I have yielded to their wishes 
 rather than my own. 
 
 By additions, retrenchments, and modifications, I 
 could perhaps have rendered these Essays better 
 worth reproduction. But I prefer leaving them as 
 they were originally written, since in that form they 
 attained the aj)probation I most value. 
 
 My grateful acknowledgments are due to Mr. 
 
 893795
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 Murray, Mr. J. Chapman, and Messrs. John W. 
 
 Parker and Son, for their permission to reprint from 
 
 the ' Quarterly ' and ' Westminster Reviews ' and 
 
 ' Fraser's Magazine,' respectively, the contents of 
 
 this little volume. 
 
 W. B. D. 
 
 The Grove, Blackheafh, 
 November 2, 1857.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Athenian Comedy 1 
 
 Beaumont and Fletchee 34 
 
 Plays and theie Peovidees 67 
 
 Songs from the Deamatists 89 
 
 The Dkama 120 
 
 Chaeles Kemble 156 
 
 The Drama, Past and Peesent 187 
 
 Popular Amusements 207
 
 ESSAYS ON THE DEAMA. 
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY * 
 
 M, GuizoT^s Essay upon the 'Life, Writings, and Age 
 of Menauder/ belongs to that order of ' studies ' of 
 classical antiquity in which Germany and France 
 abound, but which are in little esteem at our own 
 Universities. To this department the contributions 
 of English scholars are few in number and inconsi- 
 derable in value. They have generally preferred the 
 practical but somewhat dreary paths of pure philology, 
 and left to foreigners the more attractive regions of 
 biography and general criticism. Our periodical Jour- 
 nals occasionally present the reader with some excel- 
 lent essays on ancient authors ; but such lively and 
 learned treatises as M. Guizot's are seldom, if ever, 
 published under the auspices of the Pitt or the Cla- 
 rendon press. We do not imagine our Bachelors and 
 
 * Reprinted from the ' Westminster Review.' 
 Manan&re ; Etude Historiqne et Litteraire stir la Comedie et la 
 Societe Orecques. Par Guilkiume Guizot. 8vo. Paris, 1855. 
 
 B 
 
 ?.
 
 5i ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 Masters of Arts to be less sensible than Continental 
 scholars of the beauties of Classical Literature ; but 
 either they lack encouragement from the public, or 
 are earlier engrossed by the cares of the world. 
 
 While the tragic drama and the Aristophanic comedy 
 of the Athenians have attracted their due share of 
 notice, both from those who amended their text, and 
 those who entered into their dramatic or pliilosophical 
 spirit, the new, or, as we may venture to phrase it, the 
 Genteel Comedy of Athens, has elicited comparatively 
 little attention. This partial neglect may be as- 
 cribed to two causes, — to the fragmentary condition 
 in which the latest offspring of the Attic theatre has 
 come down to us ; and to the grander forms of imagina- 
 tion and art embodied in the elder drama. Through 
 every disguise, through the change of creeds and 
 ethical ideas, through the resisting medium of a dead 
 language, through mutilation of parts and corruption 
 of texts, through the mists of an extinct religion, and 
 the veils of obsolete party feuds, the presence as of a 
 great spirit standing before us is perceptible in the 
 Athenian drama. Never was the indestructible life 
 of Grecian genius more apparent than when, some 
 years ago, Mendelssohn's 'Antigone' was produced 
 on the London stage. The music alone was worthy 
 of the story : the libretto was alternately tumid and 
 feeble in its language; the actors were encumbered 
 by the stilted sentiments put into their mouths, and 
 baffled by the slow and sculpturesque evolutions and
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 3 
 
 situations of the plot ; the choruses looked and sang 
 like Minor Canons gone distracted ; and the costume 
 bore about as close a resemblance to the original 
 theatrical garb as the Eglinton tournament bore to 
 the lists of Ashby. Yet, through every disadvantage 
 and deformity, Mendelssohn's music was not the only 
 impressive portion of the performance. If it did not 
 transport the spectator to "Athens or Thebes/' it 
 brought him at least within ken of an august Titanic 
 power from whose countenance not even the decay 
 and dishonours of the grave had eflaced all its primal 
 beauty. For from beyond the tomb, and from a dis- 
 tant shore, and through the glare and dissonance of a 
 modern theatre, came authentic voices of passion, and 
 gleams of grandeur and loveliness, that rolled back 
 the mists of centuries, and revealed at least a portion 
 of the original brightness. Uncrowned and deposed, 
 the majesty of Sophocles was still right royal, and 
 asserted its claim to the homage of the spectators. 
 
 The Aristophanic comedy has never been put to a 
 similar trial ; and, even with the aid of music, could 
 hardly be rendered intelligible to a modern audience. 
 The ethical principles of Tragedy are the property of 
 mankind : they rest upon our fontal passions ; they 
 resolve themselves into extant results. If " the woes 
 of old great houses" formed the staple of so many 
 Athenian dramas, they have also furnished the plots 
 of 'Lear' and 4Iamlet'; if fights fought long ago were 
 rehearsed by the author of the 'Seven against Thebes' 
 
 B 2
 
 4 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 and the 'Plioenisspe/ the wars of the Roses and the 
 Barons no less filled the historical canvas of Shake- 
 speare. The Nemesis in ' Macbeth' is not less appal- 
 ling than the Nemesis of the ' CEdipus ;' and the vati- 
 cinations of Margaret of Anjou "strike as cold" as 
 those of Cassandra of Troy. But Comedy enjoys no 
 similar privileges. Its life is the life of the present ; 
 it catches the Cynthia of the minute; its mirror^ 
 unlike Agrippa's, reflects only the spirit of its own 
 age. The Lord Burleigh of 'The Critic' is a plea- 
 sant burlesque; but the historical Lord Burleigh is 
 inadmissible in comedy. An Athenian playwright 
 would have revelled in impersonations of Chatham^s 
 gout and flannels; of Pitt's crane's-neck ; of Sheri- 
 dan's ruby nose, and Fox's shrill tones and bushy 
 eyebrows. The modern dramatist who should re- 
 produce them, would not cause even the injudicious 
 to laugh, and would be rewarded for his attempt by 
 a general sibilation. We leave to Gil ray and Leech 
 this department of the " comic business" of politics ; 
 and, although our pantomimes occasionally indulge 
 in allusions to the Commissioners of Sewers and 
 Sabbath-Observance Bills, such matters are excluded 
 from comedy and even from farce. Such was not the 
 usage of " Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes ;" nor 
 did either the Government of the day or the public 
 demand from them any such abstinence. The news 
 of the moment was mostly the theme of their dramas; 
 and the poet of the Old Comedy who should have
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. O 
 
 preferred general to local and contemporaneous topics 
 would as certainly have been hooted from the stage^ 
 as a dramatic author would now be, if he brought 
 before the public the Convocation of the Clergy, or 
 committed a breach of pri^dlege by parodying a 
 Maynooth debate. 'The Clouds' or 'The Birds' 
 would consequently not aflFect a modern audience 
 like the 'Medea' or the 'Antigone.' The satire 
 would be pointless; the allusions unintelligible; 
 the choral songs, in immediate connection with the 
 broadest farce, would seem to us a Mezentian union. 
 We should desire to consign the one to Grisi and 
 Mario, and banish the other to some suburban saloon. 
 The Aristophanic Comedy cannot be transplanted from 
 Greece at all, and hardly from the precincts of Athens. 
 The poet and his audience were nearly as local as 
 many of the interludes of Moliere, expressly composed 
 for an occasional fete at Versailles. It is difficult to 
 conceive an audience more thoroughly absorbed in 
 the business of the scene, or less disposed to be easily 
 pleased, than an Athenian audience in the time of 
 Aristophanes. Usually it is sufficient to secure the 
 applause of spectators, if the plot of a comedy be 
 skilfully contrived, the manners faithfully copied from 
 the life, the morals at least conventionally sound, 
 the dilemma probable, the passions intelligibly evoked 
 and directed, and the humour and situations strange 
 or absurd enough for surprise and laughter. But 
 these conditions of success are as far from exhausting
 
 6 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 the powers of Aristophanes, as they would have been 
 from contenting his susceptible and critical country- 
 men. It was not enough for the author of a popular 
 comedy to be a wit of the first order ; he was required, 
 in the Old Comedy at least, to be a poet also of the 
 first rank. The songs of ' The Birds ^ and the choruses 
 of 'The Clouds^ were not less essential to his ''first 
 night/' than the fun of Trygseus and Strepsiades. 
 We know not indeed whether the comic, like the 
 tragic dramatist, were necessarily a musician and a 
 ballet-master ; but he certainly must have possessed, 
 in no ordinary measure, the gift of suiting his words 
 to the music and his situations to the dance ; and we 
 can hardly conceive Aristophanes to have entrusted 
 any leader of the orchestra, or the professional Vestris 
 and D'Egville of his days, with either his complicate 
 songs or his grotesque ballets. Neither was it enough 
 for him to be a perfect master of his own art and its 
 scenic or pan to mimical accompaniments. He must 
 have felt, or affected to feel, an intense interest in 
 whatsoever interested his countrymen at the moment, 
 whether it were the war in Sicily, the most recent 
 play by Euripides, or the last frolic of Alcibiades. 
 That Aristophanes himself was an active party-man 
 we know. He was a zealous member of the Peace 
 Society, and a hearty opponent of Young Athens and 
 the philosophers. Under the regime of the Old Co- 
 medy, indeed, the dramatic poet was not only author, 
 manager, musician, ballet-master, and perhaps actor
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 7 
 
 alsOj but he was the Athenian ' Tiraes^ and ' Punch;^ 
 wielding alike the scourge of invective and ridicule^ as 
 regarded politics, and the Athenian ' Quarterly' and 
 ' Edinburgh/ — the Minos and Rhadamanthus of cur- 
 rent literature. 
 
 And as was the poet, so was his audience. The 
 Athenians were essentially a dramatic people : sudden 
 and quick in their emotions, gifted with a keen per- 
 ception of the beautiful and the ludicrous, with fine 
 organs of sense, and surrounded by objects the best 
 calculated to train, sharpen, and mature them. They 
 were moreover a gossiping, scurrilous, and news- 
 loving race, delighting in novelty, and impatient of 
 uniformity either in their business or amusements. 
 But predisposed as they were, in virtue of these qua- 
 lities, to dramatic entertainments, they enjoyed only 
 brief opportunities (at least, so long as they adhered 
 to their old customs) of indulging this taste. Their 
 theatres were not open all the year round. Their 
 Opera-house — the Odeum — was closed after a brief 
 season; and their Theatre Royal — the Temple of 
 Bacchus — was licensed only during the greater and 
 the lesser Dionysiac Festivals, — that is, during a few 
 weeks in the spring of each year. Neither, as in 
 Rome, were their susceptibilities blunted by the ex- 
 hibitions of boxers, fencers, or wild beasts ; and the 
 Athenian manager would have been fined by the Court 
 of Areopagus, if he had not indeed been previously 
 stoned by the people, who should have affronted their
 
 8 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 taste with tlie spectacle of Earthmen^ African children^ 
 or professors of the art of walking on the ceiling. Into 
 two little months was condensed every species of dra- 
 matic entertainment, from that of "gorgeous Tragedy," 
 rivalling in its pomp and earnestness the ceremonials 
 of St, Peter's in Easter-week, to the satiric afterpiece 
 resembhng in its extravagance the modern pantomime. 
 Tightly was the vessel hooped in, and effervescent ac- 
 cordingly were its contents. Neither must we mea- 
 sure an Athenian theatre in the season by any modern 
 comparisons. San Carlo, La Scala, and Her Majesty's 
 Theatre in the Hay market, must hide their diminished 
 heads beside the theatre of the Athenian lacchus. 
 Four thousand spectators would have " no room for 
 standing, miscalled standing-room," in the most capa- 
 cious European playhouse. Twenty thousand specta- 
 tors were easily accommodated in the huge oval of the 
 Temple of Dionysus. And how discordant were the 
 ingredients of this enormous mass ! There was little 
 respect for persons in these assemblages. Cleon would 
 find himself seated beside his enemy the sausage-sel- 
 ler ; an elbow of stone divided Socrates from Anytus ; 
 and the noisest brawler of the Pnyx might be comfort- 
 ably niched beside the decorous and the respectable 
 Nicias. The Government and the Opposition occupied 
 indiscriminate benches. There was the party cla- 
 morous for war, because it suppHed the arsenal at the 
 Piraeus with hemp, timber, and salt pork, mixed up 
 with the party clamorous for peace, because it could
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 9 
 
 no longer vend its figs and honey in tlie markets of 
 Thebes and Megara. The High-Temple party, which 
 denounced the philosophers as atheists, was placed 
 cheek-by-jowl with the free-thinking party, which 
 derided the priests as impostors ; and there were the 
 young men, who cried up Emnpides as the father of 
 wisdom^ close packed with the old men, who abomi- 
 nated him as the father of lies. 
 
 For every class of the spectators, and to nearly 
 every individual among them, the Old Comedy yielded 
 entertainment and excitement. The demagogues ap- 
 plauded the caricature of Nicias and Demosthenes; 
 the aristocrats hailed with equal applause the portrai- 
 ture of Cleou in ' The Knights,' The Sophists were 
 " shown up" in Socrates, pale, unshaven, meagre, and 
 meditative; the mathematicians in Meton; the soldiers, 
 full of strange oaths, and crested like game-cocks, in 
 Lamachus. And, like the modern Parisians, the 
 Athenians laughed heartily at themselves, as repre- 
 sented in the old dotard Demus, the victim of every 
 adviser who would take the trouble to pick his pockets. 
 
 But for such dramatic saturnalia, not freedom only, 
 but a high degree of external prosperity, was indispen- 
 sable. So long as it waxed fat, the Athenian Demus 
 kicked lustily; so soon however as serious reverses 
 befell it, there came a long farewell to the license of 
 the stage, and to the zest for the Old Comedy. After 
 the disaster at Syracuse, the people began to look grave; 
 after its prostration at /Egospotami, jesting was not 
 
 B 3
 
 10 
 
 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 to be thought of. The tyranny of the Thirty was in- 
 deed short-Hved ; yet although Thrasybulus restored 
 their freedom, he could not give back to his country- 
 men their former cheer and alacrity. They had become 
 a sadder, if not a wiser people ; and indeed thence- 
 forward there was little cause for extraordinary mirth. 
 The assembly of the people shouted as of yore, when 
 Demosthenes evoked the memory of the men of Ma- 
 rathon; but the contemporaries of Demosthenes no 
 more resembled the heroes of Marathon and Sala- 
 mis, than John Bright resembles Sir Philip Sidney. 
 Athens had wrestled with and been thrown by Sparta, 
 backed by the gold of the " great king.^' But a more 
 formidable foe than either Sparta or Artaxerxes was 
 now undermining Athens with his gold, and gathering 
 round its borders Avith "war in procinct." A man 
 of Macedon, whom Pericles would have deemed un- 
 worthy of a vote in the Agora, was now busy in the 
 councils of the Athenians. Abroad they were ill 
 served by impotent generals ; at home they were be- 
 trayed by unjust stewards. The people had ceased to 
 feel any strong or perdurable interest in the honour 
 and dignity of the commonwealth. It hired soldiers 
 to fight its battles, and mariners to row its galleys. 
 Indolence whispered peace ; and peace seemed to bring 
 with it its own warrant, in the shape of exemption 
 from invasion, of a steadier influx of money, of an 
 increasing population, and greater leisure for amuse- 
 ment. The promptings of indolence were confirmed
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 11 
 
 by the precepts of philosophy. The science of Theo- 
 phrastus and the doctrines of Epicurus contributed 
 equally to transform the jealous, irascible, and am- 
 bitious Athenians into a placid and studious people. 
 The only eager contests henceforward raged in the 
 philosopliic schools : and it was thought more worthy 
 of intelligent beings to define the summum bonum, 
 or to reconcile the cravings of sense with the prin- 
 ciples of duty, than to fix their yoke on Sicily and 
 Carthage, or hold the balance between Thebes and 
 Lacedsemon. 
 
 In every nation, one stage of society brings men of 
 impassioned minds to the contemplation of manners, 
 and of the social affections of man as exhibited in 
 manners. With this propensity there doubtless co- 
 operates some degree of despondency, whether as re- 
 gards the political or the intellectual present. For poli- 
 tically, a nation must despond when it has become 
 conscious to itself that its sinews of action are relaxed; 
 and intellectually it cannot fail to droop when it has 
 arrived at the conviction that the nerves and compass 
 of its powers are shrunk and contracted. At this 
 stage Athens had arrived in the fourth century before 
 the Christian era ; and under such circumstances arose 
 the altered form of its dramatic literature. 
 
 We shall not pause upon the period of transition, 
 the Middle Comedy. Like its })redecessor, it dealt 
 largely with personal satire ; but the objects of satire 
 were for the most part different. The laws and the
 
 12 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 altered feelings of the Athenians alike forbade the 
 dramatic poet to ridicule the pillars of the State. He 
 accordingly fell foul of the philosophers who perplexed 
 the young men with their paradoxes ; or of the cour- 
 tesans who ruined them by their extravagance. Plato 
 stood in the place of Pericles ; and Phryne and Theano 
 in those of Cleon a,nd Nicias. 
 
 The audience at a representation of Menander's 
 comedies differed in nearly every respect from that 
 which had applauded Aristophanes and his rivals. In 
 the course of half a century the political life of Athens 
 had become nearly extinct ; at least political sentiments 
 were banished irrevocably from the stage. It was safe, 
 so long as the Demus was in good spirits, and kept the 
 purse of all the islands, to hold up to ridicule the 
 great party -leaders ; but it was ill jesting at the ex- 
 pense of a Macedonian Prefect, or at statesmen whom 
 the Prefect would at any moment accommodate with 
 a company of the Guard. The freedom of the theatre 
 and of the assemljly of the people had indeed expired 
 together : and if Demosthenes had been forced by 
 Antipater's agent to drink poison, a cup of hemlock 
 was the least a poet could expect, who shoidd presume 
 to handle Antipater as Eupolis had treated Pericles. 
 Moreover, the spectators who laughed at the license 
 of the Old Comedy were almost exclusively Athe- 
 nian, or such subjects of Athens as had made the 
 city their permanent or casual abode. j\Iost of them 
 had dwelt long enough in Attica to imbibe all their
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 13 
 
 vii'ulence^ both local and personal prejudices, and at- 
 tended the theatre as partisans. The number also of 
 the citizens was carefully limited; the meanest and 
 poorest fi'eemau plumed himself on his pure Ionian 
 blood, and Avas chary of extending the franchise to 
 aliens. His comedy was as national as himself; and, 
 like himself, dealt in gross personalities. But after the 
 Macedonians were established in Greece, the barriers 
 of the Athenian franchise were thrown down. The 
 people, ceasing to respect themselves, became prodigal 
 of their privileges; and every adventm-er who could 
 bully or bribe them was certain of a statue and the 
 freedom of the city for himself and his followers. 
 Even kings had grown respectable in the estimation 
 of the Athenians. The day had been when Dionysius 
 of Syracuse had much ado to gain admission to the 
 Olympian games. That point however was conceded 
 in consideration of the splendid carriage-and-four he 
 sent thither : the appearance and condition of his 
 cattle subdued the tamers of horses. When however 
 the same Dionysius sent a tragedy royal for represen- 
 tation at the Athenian festivals, the critics were inex- 
 orable, and the play was withdrawn under a perfect 
 tempest of hisses and cat-calls. But in the second or 
 third generation after, the citizens of Athens, or rather 
 the inLxed multitude that represented them, had be- 
 come more polite. They allowed kings to court them : 
 they came at last spontaneously to court kings. Pre- 
 sents of corn and wine from the Syrian Antiochi were
 
 14< ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 thankfully accepted; the gold and the compliments 
 of the Egyptian Ptolemies were exceedingly welcome : 
 there was a time, they thought, for all things ; a time 
 to refuse, and a time to receive favours; a time to 
 tread on the neck of kings, and a time to erect statues 
 to them in the Pnyx. And in the age of Menander 
 the latter of these seasons had arrived. 
 
 The revolutions in the public life of Athens afFected 
 the character of its literary men. A century before 
 the birth of Menander its historians had been states- 
 men, its philosophers legislators, and its poets gene- 
 rals or magistrates. With the Sophists began the 
 separation of the lives practical and contemplative. 
 As regarded Athens, the Sophists were mostly aliens 
 by birth, who could exercise no function of the State ; 
 and their gains as lecturers de omni scibili were in- 
 creased by their independence of secular business, and 
 by their privilege of locomotion. Socrates, the most 
 practical of teachers, took his share bravely in all civil 
 and military duties; but on his disciple Plato the 
 mantle of the Sophists, in one respect, descended. 
 For the chief of the Academy was the first who 
 broached the questionable doctrine that it was the 
 duty of the philosopher to abstain fi'om political em- 
 ployments; and the precepts of the master were carried 
 out by his scholar Aristotle, both in spirit and in 
 letter. The poets were not behindhand in claiming 
 the privilege of seclusion. Euripides, who, as we shall 
 see presently, approached the New Comedy in propor-
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 15 
 
 tion as he receded from the Elder Drama, was an 
 author by profession ; and m the age of Demosthenes, 
 as we learn from the reiterated complaints of the 
 orator himself, there was an increasing scarcity of 
 men willing to devote their wealth and talents to the 
 service of the State. When Menander began to write, 
 the separation of the literarj'- from the political world 
 of Athens was nearly complete. 
 
 In IMcnander's generation, accordingly, we en- 
 counter a new phase of Athenian society, — a phase 
 famiUar enough in our own days, but unknown, or at 
 least so unusual as to have escaped record, in the high 
 and palmy days of the democracy. We then meet for 
 the first time with the well-born and wealthy Athenian 
 gentleman, whose public duties were fulfilled by the 
 regular payment of his rates and taxes, by an occa- 
 sional " turn-out" with the city militia, and an occa- 
 sional attendance as juryman. Coarser or more am- 
 bitious spirits might wrangle in the public assembly, 
 or covet diplomatic errands to Pella and Rhodes, or 
 impair their patrimonies by equipping a troop of horse 
 or a trireme. The utmost that a gentleman could be 
 expected to do for his country^s service was now and 
 then to present one of its philosophical institutions 
 with a talent or so, or to subscribe handsomely to a 
 tragic chorus. Nor did his seclusion from public 
 offices expose him to the charge of lukewarm patriot- 
 ism. That virtue indeed had pretty nearly expired 
 with Demosthenes; and there was little in the ex-
 
 16 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 ternal or internal condition of Athens after the battle 
 of Chseroneia to prompt or sustain self-sacrifice for the 
 commonwealth. The Athenians sought a master, and 
 found many masters : like estates with damaged titles, 
 they rapidly changed owners ; Demetrius the Phale- 
 rian was their idol one day, and Demetrius the " Town- 
 taker" theu' idol the next ; until their mutability was 
 fixed and congealed for ever by the preponderance 
 first of Macedon, and afterwards of Rome. 
 
 The career of Menander, so far as it is known, illus- 
 trates the political decay of Athens. His father, Dio- 
 peithes, had done the State some service as a Gene- 
 ral ; and had been honoured equally by the friendship 
 of Demosthenes and the enmity of the Macedouian 
 party. The son however trod not in his father's 
 footsteps. His paternal uncle was a dramatic writer 
 of no mean repute, and from him Menander probably 
 imbibed his predilections for the stage. His means 
 were ample ; his education was carefully superintended 
 by his relative ; and from Theophrastus, the favourite 
 pupil of Aristotle, he learned not only to prefer the 
 service of the Muses to that of the State, but also 
 to mark the quahties of mankind wdth a learned eye. 
 The "Characters" of Theophrastus, the original parent 
 and model of Earle, La Bruyere, and so many prose 
 satirists, were admirable lessons for one destined to 
 hold up the mirror of life to his contemporaries; while 
 the encyclopcedic studies of his tutor were well adapted 
 to cherish the faculties of observation and compa-
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 17 
 
 rison. The poet was equally felicitous in the choice 
 of his friend. The elder tragic drama had dealt with 
 the sublime truths or hypotheses of religion, with the 
 struggles between fate and free-will, with the opposi- 
 tion between man and destiny, or with the strife 
 between the Gods of Olympus — the established creed 
 of Greece — and the earlier worship of the elements. 
 The Elder Comedy had disported itself equally with 
 the superstitions of the multitude and the theories of 
 the philosophers. It laughed at Jupiter ; it laughed 
 at Socrates ; and it inculcated generally that it was 
 better to eat, drink, and be merry, than to burn in- 
 cense or to sacrifice calves, or go pale and unshaven 
 in quest of speculative truth. The New Comedy, 
 while it reserved to itself the indispensable privilege 
 of ridicuhng all and sundry, whether their abode were 
 on Olympus, or in the Academy, required a system of 
 morals differing alike from that of ^schylus and that 
 of Aristophanes. Fate and free-will were too grave 
 for it ; mirth and physical enjoyment too coarse and 
 indiscriminate. Dealing principally with the domestic 
 life of man, it demanded also an ethical system which 
 rested mainly on the domestic affections. The philo- 
 sophy of Epicurus, apart from its physical specula- 
 tions, afforded such a system ; and Epicurus was the 
 bosom-friend of Mcnandcr. The poet had entered 
 his second year when the philosopher was born ; their 
 friendship was uninterrupted ; theu* studies converged 
 towards a common centre, since the object of each was
 
 18 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 man : and Menander, with real or affected entlmsiasm, 
 compares his friend to Themistocles ; since the one had 
 giv vi freedom, and the other wisdom, to Athens. The 
 writings of Aristotle confirmed the oral instructions of 
 Theophrastus and Epicurus. The critical and ethical 
 doctrines of the Stageirite were embodied in the co- 
 medies of Menander, and we can trace in his verses 
 the influence of his tutors; for while he insinuates 
 or enforces the milder sentiments of the Garden, he 
 indulges in occasional sallies against the doubts of 
 the Academy and the eccentricities of the Porch. 
 
 Menander however did not derive his knowledge 
 of human character from philosophic sages alone ; he 
 studied it in the more attractive form of refined female 
 society. We do not mean to imply by this phrase 
 that Menander was either in the main a person of 
 strict life and conversation, or blest with a good 
 wife. Of such conversation we believe there was little 
 enough in Athens at the time ; and a good wife was 
 hardly to be had for love or money. The condition of 
 women in Greece nearly forbade the existence of such 
 a prodigy. The wife was the mistress of her servants, 
 and the head nurse of her children ; but she was not, 
 and she could not be, the companion and friend of 
 her husband. Born, educated, and kept through life 
 in a state of almost oriental seclusion, the Greek wife 
 was necessarily illiterate, unintellectual, and, except 
 for her beauty or her dower, unattractive. To dress, 
 to gossip, and to eat confectionery, were her highest
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 19 
 
 pleasures ; she ^vould have subjected herself to divorce, 
 had she appeared at the theatre, the games, or the 
 philosophical schools; and her partner woidd have 
 deemed it an inexpiable portent, if his better half had 
 cited a verse of Sophocles, or questioned him con- 
 cerning an opinion of Zeno's. The blue-stockings of 
 Athens were for the most part of servile origin, but 
 selected in childhood for the promise of their beauty 
 or their gifts ; and, according to the prejudices of the 
 age, unsexed, before they became the equal compa- 
 nions of man. Hence ai'ose a capital defect in the 
 Athenian drama. In the repertoire of female charac- 
 ters, the women are either furies, \4xens, or statuesque 
 abstractions. Of all Shakespeare's women, Lady Mac- 
 beth, Goneril, and Regan, would alone have been in- 
 telligible to a Greek spectator. Juliet, Imogen, and 
 Hermione would have been enigmas to him. He 
 would have approved Petruchio's discipline, and lago's 
 insinuations. Beatrice and Rosalind he would as- 
 suredly have put down for hetserse — no better than 
 they should be. 
 
 While Menander was writing verses under his 
 uncle's tuition, or noting with Theophrastus the fops, 
 bullies, and misers of his native city, a lady of this 
 order was causing no slight sensation among the fa- 
 shionable circles of Antioch. She was the all-potent 
 mistress of Harpalus, the Macedonian Prefect of Syria. 
 He had raised to her a statiie of bronze in the laurel 
 groves of Daphne by Orontes ; at Tarsus he allotted
 
 20 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 to her apartments in the palace of the Pasargadse; for 
 her sake he had relieved her native Athens during a 
 season of dearth by a liberal donation of corn; and 
 he had publicly announced that he would refuse every 
 votive crown from the provincials, unless a similar 
 offering adorned the fair brow of his companion. The 
 antechamber of the beautiful Athenian was crowded 
 with suitors ; heads were bowed and knees were bent 
 as her chariot passed through the streets ; and so long 
 as Harpalus retained the favour of Alexander, Glycera 
 was hailed as a queen throughout Syria and the 
 Lesser Asia. 
 
 To descend from a Prefect's palace to a poet's lodg- 
 ing may argue some decline of fortune ; yet if we may 
 credit the scandalous chronicles of the day, Glycera 
 was not ill-lodged under Menander's roof. Assuredly, 
 though he produced at least one hundred and five 
 comedies, he did not live by his wits; for he is re- 
 corded to have fared sumptuously every day, and to 
 have been prodigal in his dress and foud of exquisite 
 perfumes. Long after Menander and his mistress 
 had done with the cares or luxuries of life, a writer of 
 imaginary letters composed in their names certain 
 epistles which we agree with M. Guizot in thinking 
 entitled to some degree of credit, so far at least as 
 regards the traditions embodied in them. Alciphron, 
 the author of the letters, possessed ample means of 
 learning the literary gossip of Athens; and so cele- 
 brated a poet as Menander, who was besides a man
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 21 
 
 of fashion and a wit^ certainly left behind him some 
 rumours of his manners as well as of his genius. 
 And we are the more inclined to allow to these letters 
 a semi-historical credit, in consideration of the ge- 
 nuine tenderness and delicacy exhibited in them. A 
 mere forgery is generally very clumsy work. The 
 Epistles of Phalaris, for example, and most of those 
 ascribed to Plato, betray their spuriousness by their 
 stupidity. But through the language of Alciphron 
 appear gleams of natural feeling, that argue some- 
 thing beyond the invention of an entire stranger to 
 the correspondents. And even historically they are 
 valuable, inasmuch as they presuppose circumstances 
 illustrative of the literary condition of Greece in that 
 age. It was no new thing for a Greek historian or 
 poet to be a banished man. ^schylus was the victim 
 of ostracism, and found refuge at the court of Hiero ; 
 Euripides paid the penalty of his philosophic specu- 
 lations by exile under the roof of the Macedonian 
 king, Archelaus; and Thncydides wrote his account 
 of the defeat of Athens at Syracuse, under a plane- 
 tree on the coast of Thrace. But these were enforced 
 absences from the neighl)Ourhood of all that was dear 
 in the world to an Athenian, and the bread was bitter 
 which they ate, even though a king gave it ungrudg- 
 ingly. Although however the guests of monarchs, they 
 were not invited guests. Nor until the Macedonian 
 conquests had extended Greece over Asia, and erected 
 libraries and academies in barbaric Syria and l^^gypt,
 
 22 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 do we meet with any traces of royal patronage to the 
 learned. In Menander^s age Athens was no longer 
 the University of the civilized world. Egypt strove 
 with Syria in inviting, and, what was still more to the 
 purpose, in pensioning, poets and historians ; and the 
 Ptolemies especiaDy had drawn around them a galaxy 
 of wits. Ptolemy Philopator with his own royal hand 
 indited letters to Philemon and Menander ; and the 
 latter exidtingly tells Glycera that the invitation to 
 Philemon was the less pressing of the two. The King 
 was indeed liberal, since he promised Menander " all 
 the wealth in the world." But the poet gallantly 
 assures his mistress that for all the gold under the 
 moon he will not quit Athens, since Athens alone 
 contains Glycera. She might indeed accompany him; 
 the court of Egypt was in no respect prudish or parti- 
 cular : but he will not expose her to perils by water, 
 nor to the discomfort of dwelling in a strange land. 
 Glycera replies with equal warmth and abandon ; but 
 as we have not room for more of these effusions, we 
 heartily recommend our readers to peruse them, either 
 in the choice Greek of Alciphron, or in M. Guizot's 
 version. They are by many degrees more entertain- 
 ing than the Grenville Correspondence, and have in 
 them a certain flavour of Eloise that renders them 
 none the worse. 
 
 The invitation of Ptolemy is authentic, even if the 
 constancy of Menander to Glycera be apocryphal; 
 and it points to a revolution in the literary condition
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 23 
 
 . of Greece. It indicates indeed the third phase of 
 Hellenic literature. At first, like the race which pro- 
 duced it, that literature was broken up into distinct 
 nationalities. The lonians appropriated to themselves 
 epic poetry ; the Boeotians, an uninventive practical 
 people, applauded the sound didactic good-sense of 
 Hesiod, who gave them excellent ad^dce when to sow 
 and when to reap, when to expect fair weather and 
 when to look out for rain, or catalogued their Gods as 
 methodically as if he had meant to put Zeus, Here, 
 and Kronos up to auction. The ^olians and Do- 
 rians reflected their national characteristics in lyrical 
 composition, yet "oith a difference, the susceptible Mo- 
 Hans running over every chord of passion, the earnest 
 and warlike Dorians touching only the sublimer strings 
 of rehgioiis emotion. Paros gave birth to the sharp- 
 edged Iambic verse, hereafter appropriated to dra- 
 matic dialogue, but at first confined to satirical invec- 
 tive. The Dorians of Megara and Sicily, softened 
 and enlivened probably by their commercial inter- 
 course with strangers, relaxed their " Dorian mood^^ 
 and invented comedy. Tragedy, by an equal anomaly, 
 originated with the cheerful and volatile Athenians; 
 while Miletus enjoyed for many years a monopoly of 
 historians and philosophers. 
 
 The era of nationalities in literature was broken up 
 by the results of the Persian War. Athens sprang 
 up so vigorously from her prostration by Xerxes, that 
 henceforward she became for a century and a half the
 
 24 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 intellectual centre of Greece. Paris in tlie eigliteentli 
 century was not more entirely the arbiter elegaiiti- 
 arum for Europe, than Athens during this era was 
 for Greece. No other dialect than pure Attic was 
 endurable in civilized speech or writing. The broad 
 tones of the Dorians were derided by the critical 
 world, as the broad Scotch of King James's cour- 
 tiers was derided by the English Euphuists. The 
 Boeotians bleated ; the Arcadians brayed ; the lonians 
 whistled ; the Macedonians spoke like the barbarous 
 Triballians ; and the language of every Asiatic people 
 was compared to the shriek of bats or the bellowing 
 of kine. The literature of Athens was no less exclu- 
 sive than its language. If the fables of its dramas 
 were borrowed from the legends of Thebes or Mycense, 
 the denouement of the plot usually centred in Athens 
 itself. (Edipus must die, and Orestes be cleansed 
 from blood in the grove of the Attic Eumenides, or at 
 the tribunal of the Attic Areopagus. Thither is Medea 
 borne in her dragon-car ; there Danaus and his daugh- 
 ters at length find rest, after ''their weary wanderings 
 long.'^ The central figure in the historical groups of 
 the Dorian Herodotus is the city of Pallas; and the 
 security or redemption of her greatness is the theme 
 of all the orators. Sparta, Thebes, and Argos have 
 no historians. Are not their wars and their revolu- 
 tions written in the books of the Athenians alone? 
 
 But the monopoly of Athens, intellectually as well 
 as politically, ceased so soon as Greece once again
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 25 
 
 
 
 poured itself forth upon Asia, and re- acted the destruc- 
 tion of Troy in the conqviest of Babylon and the East. 
 The Attic dialect was thenceforward the dialect of 
 learned purists alone. The Ionian and Dorian speech 
 was revived and modified by Callimachiis, Apollonius, 
 and Theocritus ; and the Fellows of the Alexandrian 
 University prided themselves upon their familiarity 
 with the archaisms of Homer and Pindar. For all 
 ordinary purposes, men were content to write in the 
 language which they spoke ; and although, for their 
 convenient and subtle mechanism, they adhered to 
 Attic forms in dramatic composition, even the learned 
 no longer recoiled from Hellenistic phrases, as from 
 the patois of the workshop and the market-place. 
 
 One or two anecdotes of Menander's life remain to 
 be noticed before we proceed to the consideration of 
 his writings. We are afraid that either his or Gly- 
 cera's constancy did not last to the end of their lives. 
 Mention is made of a lady named Bacchis ; and of 
 her, if Alciphron did not maliciously invent the slan- 
 der, Glycera was decidedly jealous. She writes a very 
 m'gent note to Bacchis, conjuring her by their friend- 
 ship not to be too graciovis to her lover, who is per- 
 versely bent on accompanying Bacchis to the next Isth- 
 mian games. She adds — " He is so devilishly given 
 to fall in love, that if you can manage to bring him 
 back from Corinth tolerably affectionate to me, I shall 
 always consider myself your deeply obliged.^' Whe- 
 ther ]\Icnander returned as desired, we do not know. 
 
 c
 
 26 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 But a worse matter than the journey in Bacchis's 
 company is intimated. There is an awkward frag- 
 ment in which the poet speaks plainly of Bacchis as 
 very dear to him. And then Philemon, Menander's 
 rival in public favour, must needs take to commend- 
 ing Glycera on the stage as a good kind of woman ! 
 Whereupon her lover as publicly replied, " She is no- 
 thing of the sort." And so, after these almost un- 
 mistakable symptoms of a quarrel direct, Glycera and 
 Bacchis vanish into utter darkness. 
 
 Once, though prudently abstaining from politics, 
 Menander appears to have got into a decided scrape 
 with great men. He had been in high favour with 
 Demetrius of Phalerum; but unluckily that Deme- 
 trius had his day, and his namesake, who bore the 
 terrible appellation of " Town-taker," became lord 
 and master of Athens. The "Town-taker" knew 
 not and cared nothing for Menander. Here was an 
 opportunity for taking the conceit out of a popular 
 author. And it was not lost. For incontinently an 
 information was laid against Menander as a member 
 of the Opposition ; and it would doubtless have fared 
 ill with him, since the " Town-taker" was by no means 
 scrupulous about fines, imprisonment, or even a dose 
 of hemlock, when a certain cousin of Demetrius the 
 Second interceded for him, and the information was 
 quashed. 
 
 He was not, however, destined to die in the course 
 of nature, or to complete his 106th comedy; for in
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 27 
 
 . the fiftv-second year of his ao;e, he was drowned in the 
 harbour of Pirseus. There was no Poet's Corner in 
 Athens; but his countrymen erected to him a tomb 
 on the road from the sea to the town^ and it was seen 
 in the second century of our era by Pausanias, who, 
 like Weever, delighted in noting down the " Funeral 
 Monuments" of Grecian worthies. 
 
 "To be read by bare inscriptions like many in 
 Gruter, to be studied by antiquaries who we were, 
 are cold consolations unto the students of perpetuity," 
 savs Sir Thomas Browne. INIenander's fame, so far as 
 regards his writings, rests upon little more than a few 
 disjointed fi'agments preserved by the grammarians as 
 examples of Attic diction, or cited incidentally by 
 heathen moralists and Christian divines. Yet his re- 
 putation is as authentic as if we held in our hands a 
 succession of his scenes^ or even some of his entire 
 plays. 
 
 Superstition has ever been a greater foe to letters 
 than barbarism. We OAve the loss of Menander's 
 plays to the stupidity of the Byzantine priests. Until 
 the very end of the twelfth century it was possible to 
 procure nearly a complete copy of them; but after 
 that period they disappear. A holocaust of precious 
 manuscripts was offered to the fanaticism of the Em- 
 perors ; and Menander and the new comedy, Alcteus 
 and lyrical poetry, were destroyed, in order that the 
 tedious verses of Gregory of Nazianzum might be 
 alone read in the schools. The vitality of Meuander's 
 
 c2
 
 28 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 name is owing chiefly to his having been the model of 
 Terence, who translated, combined, and modified his 
 dramas for the Roman theatre. The Terentian Me- 
 nander, which, Avith all its elegances, bears about the 
 same relation to the Greek original that Schlegel's 
 version of Shakespeare bears to the English text, 
 after delighting the aristocratical circles of Rome, 
 passed with Roman literature into the library of mo- 
 dern Europe. There it became the parent of an 
 innumerable progeny, and reckons among its descen- 
 dants Moliere^s 'Tartufie' and Sheridan's 'School for 
 Scandal.' 
 
 The N^w Comedy of Greece, indeed, was much 
 better suited than its elder drama to planting offsets 
 in theatrical literature. It w'as, as we have already 
 seen, much less national in its texture, both as re- 
 garded the manners which it portrayed and the ideas 
 which it developed. The habits and opinions of re- 
 fined society are nearly alike in every nation at similar 
 periods of civilization : the number of characters is 
 limited, since conventionality produces few varieties. 
 The repertoire of the Menandrian comedy is restricted 
 to the following generic forms : — the severe and the 
 indulgent father; the cunning and the stolid slave; the 
 son who is his father's favourite and a scapegrace; and 
 a less-favoured son, who is a respectable character; 
 the extravagant courtesan; the shrewish wife; the 
 bragging soldier; the parasite, whose business is to 
 flatter for his dinner; the freed-woman, who is gene-
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY. 29 
 
 rally a nurse or a procuress; and the free or slave girl, 
 who is the subject of the love intrigue, but who, from 
 the difficulty of representing female characters on the 
 Greek stage, is often a mute person, and sometimes 
 does not appear on the scene at all. As the Greeks 
 lived so much in public, nearly all the theatrical busi- 
 ness is transacted in the street or the market-place ; 
 for it veould have been inconsistent with the manners 
 of Menander's age, to represent scenes Avithin the 
 house at a period when there was hardly any domestic 
 life, except at the lodgings of the Hetterse. 
 
 A history of Greek manners might indeed be almost 
 compiled from the fragments of the New Comedy, 
 aided by the unmutilated dramas of Plautus and 
 Terence. In the first place, the Bobadils of the Greek 
 stage represent a class of soldiers which, in the piping 
 times of peace, overran and infested every Hellenic 
 city. As national feeling died out in the republics, 
 the employment of mercenary soldiers became a gene- 
 ral practice ; who, when not enlisted by any leader of 
 condottieri, sauntered about — the fashionable guards- 
 men of the day. To parents and guardians these 
 captains and colonels were of course objects of dread 
 and aversion : they Avere the victims of the Hetfcrpc 
 so long as they had money in their purse ; and they 
 were the prey of all who lived by their wits, of the 
 parasite who flattered for a dinner, and of the cunning 
 slave who delighted in the role of the unjust steward. 
 The later wars of Athens had not only brought Avith
 
 30 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 them sweeping social changes, but also had materially 
 affected its commerce. Hence, though individuals 
 were richer, and less exposed to the arts of informers 
 than formerly, the mass of the Athenian people were 
 poorer, since they could no longer find employment in 
 the wharfs of Munychium or the dockyards of Piraeus. 
 The public largesse — the profits of her dominion over 
 the islands — was also greatly curtailed, and where 
 men can find no honest employment, nor be supported 
 as state-paupers, the dull must starve, while the clever 
 will live by their wits. The bufibon of Aristophanes 
 became the parasite of Menander ; and each represents 
 in his respective age a different epoch of manners. 
 The free Athenian was gluttonous, sensual, and ob- 
 trusive : the degenerated Athenian retained the sen- 
 suality of his forefathers; but bowed, lied, and flattered 
 in order to indulge in it. 
 
 A common denoument in the New Comedy is the 
 discovery that the slave-girl, whose intrigue with the 
 heir of the family forms the staple of the plot, is really 
 the daughter of a respectable household, who had been 
 carried off by corsairs in her infancy, and then sold 
 in the slave-market. The Greeks were in all ages ad- 
 dicted to robbing on the high seas. Even now the 
 Archipelago swarms with petty pirates, who plunder 
 the farms and vineyards of the islands, lie in wait for 
 the market-boats, and carry off Greek children to the 
 harems of the Asiatic Turks. The naval supremacy 
 of Athens for more than a century kept these water-
 
 ATHENIAN C0:MEDY. 31 
 
 rats in tolerable order ; but so soon as that supremacy 
 declined, the ^gean again swarmed with marauders. 
 Hence no casualty was more common in Menander's 
 age than the loss of a child, or even of an entire nur- 
 sery. And the recurrence of such discoveries of off- 
 spring on the stage, though it is one of the pleasant 
 absurdities of Sheridan's ' Critic/ appeared a matter 
 of course to the spectators of Menander. Lastly, in 
 proportion as Athens ceased to be a maritime and 
 commercial power, the agricultural habits of the po- 
 pulation returned; and hence we meet in the New 
 Comedy with so many allusions to the farms abound- 
 ing with pigs, honey, and millet, and find so many 
 traces of a bucolical turn of mind in fathers of 
 families. 
 
 The Athenians were in all ages a sententious race, 
 loving curt ethical maxims, proverbs, and epigram- 
 matic conceits. The plays of Euripides, who in some 
 respects was the model of the later comic writers, 
 abound in aphorisms, and are often tedious from 
 their dialectic point and formality. Perhaps no pecu- 
 liarity has more tended to the preservation of the 
 fragments of the New Comedy than the frequency of 
 gnomic sentences. Its aphorismal wisdom or sagacity 
 recommended it equally to the practical Romans and 
 to the saints and fathers of the Church. Here at 
 least the new religion might borrow from the old, 
 since good sense or good morals benefit all mankind. 
 In the absence of any entire drama of this period, it
 
 32 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 is rash to speculate upon the leading characteristics of 
 its authors ; but to judge from the fragments, we are 
 inclined to think that shrewd observations on the 
 motives and principles of men in daily life were quite 
 as remarkable as skill in dramatic plot, or as the 
 powers of fancy or imagination. Menander, in spite 
 of his luxurious mode of living, appears to have been 
 a man of conspicuously sound sense, and to have 
 studied all human qualities with a most learned eye. 
 His 'Opportunities for observation were of the first 
 order. His days were passed in the highest circles 
 of a city whither flocked, even in its decline, persons 
 from nearly every quarter of the civilized world, in 
 pursuit of gain, instruction, or pleasure. The philo- 
 sophical scliools alone yearly attracted hundreds of 
 students to the lecture-rooms of the four greater sects. 
 Hither resorted also the amateurs of art, and the 
 professional sculptor and painter. In a dialogue of 
 Lucian's, written neai'ly three hundred years after 
 the latest of Menander's comedies, we meet with a 
 Roman gentleman congratulating himself upon hav- 
 ing in his youth quitted the noise, the smoke, and the 
 tumult of the metropolis of Italy for the seclusion of 
 Athens. From the same writer, who is among the 
 best historians of social life, we learn that the Piraeus 
 was second only to Alexandria as a common centre 
 for the various races of mankind. To that port came 
 the Syrian silk-merchants of Antioch ; the corn-factors 
 of Egypt; the Parthian Avith his cargo of Indian spices ;
 
 ATHENIAN COMEDY, 33 
 
 the negro in the train of the Roman prsetor or pro- 
 consul; the Iberian with his consignment of silver 
 and ii'on ; and the Massiliau Gaul with the wines of 
 ^arbonne. In jNIenander's days, the crowd was less 
 diversified, but hardly less numerous; and there are 
 vestiges in his fragments of a liberal employment of 
 these human groups in his comedies. 
 
 We had intended to lay before our readers an out- 
 line at least of one of Menander's comedies; but our 
 space is exhausted, and we must content ourselves 
 with referring them to the treatise of M. Guillaume 
 Gmzot, To our apprehension, the history of wars and 
 treaties is often tedious and uninstructive, represent- 
 ing one phase only, and that among the most uniform, 
 of the human species. !Mucli more interesting and 
 instructive is it to trace the identity of man under 
 the thin disguises of manners and costume ; to discern 
 under the tunic and the toga the passions, follies, and 
 virtues which still actuate ISIayfair and Whitechapel ; 
 and to discover that the distinction between Christian 
 and pagan life consists rather in the development of 
 man's moral and intellectual nature, than in the su- 
 perficial and accidental aspect of new creeds and new 
 forms of society. If our readers agree with us on 
 this point, we have rendered them some service in 
 directing their attention for a few moments to the 
 " Life and Times of Mcnandcr.'' 
 
 c3
 
 34 
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.* 
 
 We are at length enabled to read Beaumont and 
 Fletcher with the aid of a well-restored or corrected 
 textj and of a full but not burdensome commentary. 
 The careless manner in which these playwrights^ in 
 common with their dramatic brethren, were origi- 
 nally printed, has hitherto been very imperfectly 
 amended by successive editors. Of the three critical 
 editions of their plays which preceded Mr. Dyce's, 
 Weber's alone (1812) has any pretensions to merit 
 on the score of editorial competence. Of Seward and 
 Sympson (1750) it may be said that nearly aU they 
 did without the help of Theobald's ' Adversaria ' was 
 done amiss ; and the chief value of the edition of 
 1778, generally known as Col man's edition, arises 
 from its having cancelled most of their interpola- 
 tions and conjectures, and restored the capricious 
 
 * Reprinted from ' Fraser's Magazine,' March, 1850. 
 
 The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. With I^otes, and a Bio- 
 graphical Memoir. By the Rev. Alexander Dyce. 11 vols. 8vo. 
 London. Moxon, 1843-46. 
 
 The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. With au Introduction. 
 By George Darley. 2 vols. 8vo. Moxon, 1840.
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 35 
 
 yet frequently preferable text of the folios and 
 quartos. The tender mercies of their editors have, 
 indeed, been often as fatal to the sense or the metre 
 of these poets, as were his two wives to the middle- 
 aged gentleman in ^sop. The one plucked out his 
 white hairs and the other his black, until between 
 them he was left bald. 
 
 The present age seems favourable to the revival of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's reputation. Several of their 
 dramas have been recently brought again upon the 
 stage, and two editions of their entire works have 
 been put forth by that classical and enterprising 
 pubhsher, Mr. Moxon, It did not fall within Mr. 
 Barley's commission to revise the text of his authors, 
 but his Introduction is a spirited and ingenious com- 
 mentary on their lives and writings. The student 
 of English poetry, who already owes so much to Mr. 
 Dyce for his editions of Peele, Marlowe, Middleton, 
 and Skelton, will gladly welcome his labours on Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher. To his skill in old l)ooks and 
 archaic lore, Mr. Dyce brings the rarer adjuncts of 
 sound judgment and good taste. He applies to our 
 native literature the erudition and acumen which dis- 
 tinguished Porson among Greek scholars. We knoM' 
 not indeed where to look for a more appropriate i)a- 
 rallel. Mr. Dyce is at once copious in his resources 
 and cautious in his emendations. His ear for metre 
 is fine; his detection of obscure or doubtful mean- 
 ings is sagacious. He is frugal of comment, while he
 
 36 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 is familiar with whatever in print or manuscript elu- 
 cidates his authors. He does not, like so many of the 
 earlier school of Shakespeare-commentators^ use the 
 poets as a stalking-horse for his own learning and in- 
 genuity. He is as laborious as Malone, without his 
 dulness; and as acute as SteevenSj without his malice. 
 He does not wage in his notes private wars with his 
 brother annotators^ nor does he, like Warton, find 
 parallels between Macedon and Monmouth, or like 
 Gifford, affect a surly superciliousness towards all 
 who may chai^ce to differ from him. No specimens 
 or extracts would convey to a reader not previously 
 aware of the state of Beaumont and Fletcher's text, 
 the amount of his obligations to their recent editor. 
 From his appreciation of particular plays we may oc- 
 casionally dissent; but we bear unhesitating testimony 
 to the accuracy and diligence, the ability and good 
 taste, with which Mr. Dyce has executed his present 
 task. 
 
 Mr. Dyce's researches have thrown fresh light on 
 the personal history of the poets and on the sources 
 and bibliography of their plays. In the latter de- 
 partment he has remodelled and much improved 
 upon former investigations, even where he has not 
 added to them. There is still some obscurity at- 
 tached to the origin of many of Fletcher's plots. We 
 incline to think that a closer study of the Spanish 
 novelists and playwrights would lead to further disco- 
 veries of their sources. Mr. Dyce, indeed, states his
 
 BEAUMONT AXD FLETCHER. 37 
 
 '^convictiou that our early playwrights very seldom 
 made use of foreign dramas'' There is, however, an 
 earnestness and rhetorical amplitude in the Spanish 
 comedy which must have been attractive to the bro- 
 ther poets, to the grave and judicious Beaumont es- 
 pecially : and there are resemblances in the plan and 
 conduct of their dramas, in the first acts of their 
 comedies especially, which point to the Spanish stage 
 as well as the Spanish novelists. They can have been 
 under no obligations to Calderon, yet both in tragedy 
 and comedy they remind us of him and of his con- 
 temporary, Corneille. The hero of genteel comedy, and 
 his fi'iend or rival, the pairs of lovers and the pairs of 
 valets, the prevalence of wit and banter over humour, 
 the vigour of the first act in comparison with the suc- 
 ceeding acts, the loose texture and frequent incongrui- 
 ties of the plot, are Spanish featm'es. The resemblance 
 is even closer in those plays in which Greek or Roman 
 characters are introduced ; for example, in Calderon's 
 ' La Gran Cenobia ' and Fletcher's ' Prophetess.' The 
 poetic element is stronger than the dramatic : the 
 outline is weak, the ornaments are gorgeous. We 
 should be glad to see this question examined by some 
 scholar well versed in the writings of Lope di Vega 
 and his contemporaries. It is almost the only mi- 
 worked vein of illustration for the English drama. 
 
 Mr. Dyce's remarks upon the critical aiul dramatic 
 character of the several plays are comprised in his 
 'Account of the Lives and Writings' of their authors;
 
 38 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 and each play has besides a separate introduction con- 
 taining its original story, where the source is known, 
 and its scenic and literary history. The practice of 
 tacking a moral summary to dramas is happily de- 
 funct. We could never stomach the entrance of Dr. 
 Johnson to comment upon Lear's madness or Bene- 
 dick's marriage. It is much worse to read Dr. Ire- 
 land's sermons on Massinger. Not content with being 
 monitory out of his pulpit, the doctor apologizes for 
 sitting in judgment on a playwright at all. He is 
 much too good, he intimates, for such employments. 
 " Out upon such half-faced fellowship ! " Mr. Dyce 
 has juster notions of an editor's duties. What his 
 hand found to do therein, he has done with all his 
 might, and he leaves the reader to extract his own 
 moral. The bias of Fletcher's mind to prurient sen- 
 timents and images, his foudness for the debatable 
 ground between virtue and vice, his microscopic trials 
 of a foible or an emotiou, are palpable enough with- 
 out an editor's proclaiming them. We would not 
 excuse these faults — blemishes alike in the man and 
 the artist, but there shoidd be allowance in the ver- 
 dict. Beaumont and Fletcher wrote for " worshipful 
 society." The hearing and the reading public of the 
 seventeenth century had in these poets and in their 
 contemporaries and successors their Balzacs and Eu- 
 gene Sues, their ' Jack Sheppards' and 'Mysteries' of 
 society — Mutato nomine . . . fabula narratur : our an- 
 cestors tolerated grossness ; we endure and applaud sen-
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 39 
 
 timental and melodramatic fiction. It was not merely 
 the London 'prentices and sempstresses who crowded 
 round the cart and gallows of Mrs. Turner; it was 
 not only a rustic or city populace that thronged and 
 scrambled before the scafibld of Rush. "The king^ 
 the queen^ the courtiers," in Fletcher's age, applauded 
 the language of the scene as an echo of the language 
 of the palace. The State-trials in James's reign — a 
 small fraction of current ofiences — attest the moral 
 conniption and anomalous vices of the age. In that 
 corruption and in those vices Carr and Villiers par- 
 ticipated. They were denounced from the pulpit by 
 Donne and Andrews, they were proven at the bar 
 before Coke and Bacon. The stage may have added 
 to the impui'ities of the stream : it did not originally 
 corrupt the fountain. 
 
 So much has been written of late upon Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, that in examining their scenic and poetic 
 character, however briefly, we can hardly avoid pre- 
 occupied ground. But their literary dimensions are 
 ample enough to admit of recurrence, and the station 
 they have so long held among playwrights warrants 
 successive attempts to analyze their merits. Mr. Hal- 
 lam remarks that Fletcher's verses are seldom cited, 
 and have no enduring hold on the memory. Would 
 not his observation apply to all our elder dramatists 
 except Shakespeare? and even in his case quotations 
 are rare from ' Timon ' and ' Pericles,' the ' Comedy of 
 J'>rors,' or 'All's Well that Ends Well.' We arc living
 
 40 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 in a period of much literary oblivion as well as of much 
 literary production. The Bickerstaff family^ with all 
 their pleasant eccentricities, have given place to Elia, 
 ' Robinson Crusoe ' has a formidable rival in ' Mas- 
 terman Ready/ and to most readers under thirty 
 Sir Roger de Coverley himself is almost as much a 
 stranger as the heroes and heroines of ' Parthenia ' and 
 the ' Grand Cyrus.' That so few of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher's fifty-two dramas are remembered, is there- 
 fore, in Philosopher Square's phrase, rather " in the 
 eternal nature of things," than a proof of their in- 
 feriority. The very bulk of their works is adverse to 
 familiarity with their contents. If we take away the 
 four plays which Porson rendered necessary to the 
 scholar, Euripides, the best preserved and the most 
 voluminous, is the least known of the classical play- 
 writers. But that Beaumont and his colleague, amid 
 all the caprices of fashion and under successive tides 
 of literature, should have remained "steadfast starres" 
 in the dramatic firmament is a token of sterling worth, 
 however incommensurate their present reputation may 
 be with their contemporary popularity. 
 
 Whether it were from this cause or from the tena- 
 city of a few of their plays on the stage, their names 
 have always held the next rank to Shakespeare and 
 Jonson, Avhile Chapman, Marston, Dekker, and Web- 
 ster, poets of deeper though less varied powers, have 
 been rescued from oblivion almost within the present 
 century, and chiefly through the criticisms of Charles
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 41 
 
 Lamb. Lamb's pregnant and suggestive notes led 
 not indirectly to the editorial labours of Gilford and 
 Mr, Dyce. Beaumont and Fletcher have^ indeed, suf- 
 fered occasional eclipse. Goldsmith, in a pleasant vein 
 of irony, observes that his age had turned aside from 
 Dryden and Otway, and "gone back a whole cen- 
 tury" to Fletcher and Shakespeare. Such coupling of 
 names by the most genial critic of the Johnsonian era 
 is no ordinary tribute to the younger of these poets. 
 We know fi'om Pepys that, immediately after the Re- 
 storation, Beaumont and his colleague were highly 
 popular. The first play, indeed, acted on the re- 
 opening of the theatres in 1650 — 'The Humourous 
 Lieutenant ' — was a production of Fletcher's. Dryden 
 asserts that for one of Shakespeare's, two of their plays 
 used to be acted in his time; and manager Gibber 
 confirms Dryden's and Pepys' statement, although the 
 prose comedy of Wycherley, Vanbrugh, and Congreve 
 was rapidly displacing their poetic predecessors. We 
 believe the period of their gi'catest obscuration extends 
 from about the accession of James II. to the close of 
 Queen Anne's reign. From the latter of these dates 
 we find frequent attempts to reproduce their dramas on 
 the stage. Monmouth's rebellion and William's dis- 
 puted title to the crown may have furnished political 
 reasons for withdrawing pieces in which usurpers 
 and pretenders to thrones are so frequently introduced.. 
 The fashion of after-pieces may also have been un- 
 favourable to dramas of such length, and making
 
 42 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 such demands on the actors, as those of Beaumont 
 and Fletcher. In the interim, they were out- ranted 
 by Lee, surpassed in extravagance and indecency by 
 Dryden, repelled by frigid Catos and Jane Shores, 
 plundered without detection by manufacturers of plays, 
 and adapted without acknowledgment by managers of 
 theatres. For "these effects defective" causes may be 
 found in the varying taste or prejudices of successive 
 generations. 
 
 " The written life of a great poet," says Mr. Darley, 
 "is often far duller than the written life of a great block- 
 head. The latter, tlu'ough mere mental unfitness for 
 meditative pursuits, plunges blind amidst life's many 
 vortices, to attain the pleasure, the profit, or the ex- 
 citement from without he cannot have from within ; 
 while the poet's deeds are his works — his explore- 
 ments and excursions into the world of reflection and 
 imagination." 
 
 Certainly many of Fletcher's contemporaries, block- 
 heads or not, whether they went in quest of El Dorado 
 with Raleigh, or fought under the Lion of the North 
 like Sir Dugald Dalgetty, or noted down with Sir 
 Symonds D'Ewes the routine business of the Com- 
 mons, could have told more of the world and its ways 
 than either Beaumont or his colleague. Yet the bio- 
 graphies of the latter are not therefore void of instruc- 
 tion and interest. Their friendship is touching, their 
 fortunes were not unlike, their intellectual structures 
 were congenial. In an age when dramatic co-part-
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 43 
 
 nerships were common^ their poetic union was noted 
 for its permanence and intimacy. "In the most high 
 and palmy state" of our elder drama, says Mr. Dyce, 
 " when the demand for novelty was almost incessant, 
 it is well known that more than one playwright was 
 frequently employed by a manager to labour on the 
 same piece." Fletcher was so associated with Rowley 
 and ^MiddletoUj with Massinger and Shirley, and pos- 
 sibly with Shakespeare himself. " But there seems to 
 be no doubt that the literary partnership which has 
 given immortality to the united names of Beaumont 
 and Fletcher was altogether different — that it was 
 formed and continued at their own free choice, and 
 not at the pleasure of a theatrical proprietor." "There 
 was," Aubrey tells us, "a wonderful consimility of 
 phansy" between them. The idem velle et 7iolle ex- 
 tended to their dress, lodging, and diet, and in one 
 particular, for which we must refer the reader to Mr. 
 Dyce for the fact and to Ariosto for a parallel, it tran- 
 scended all Cicero's rules of True Friendship. The 
 "consimility of phansy" may have been fostered by si- 
 milarity of circumstances. Both were sons of men of 
 worship. Beaumont's father was a judge; Fletcher's 
 was a bishop. The education of both was completed 
 in " seminaries of sound learning ; " Fletcher's at 
 Bene't College, and Beaumont's at Broadgatc Hall, 
 now Pembroke College, Cambridge. Both, too, came 
 of a poetical stock. There were three Fletcher poets 
 beside the dramatist, and five Bcaumonts. Of the
 
 44 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 Fletchers, Giles and Phineas are still remembered as 
 the authors respectively, of ' Christ's Victory and 
 Triumph' — a poem which Milton laid under contri- 
 bution ; and of the ' Purple Island ' — a poem at once 
 anatomical and allegorical. Of the Beaumonts, Sir 
 John, the father of Francis the dramatist, was the 
 author of ' Bosworth Field ' and other poems, which 
 have been commended by J\Ir. Wordsworth for their 
 "spirit, elegance, and harmony; " and a kinsman, Dr. 
 Joseph Beaumont, wrote ' Psyche, or Love's Mystery ' 
 — a Avork from which Pope counselled young authors 
 to steal. Nor was the intellectual vein worn out in 
 that generation. The present century has produced 
 few more accomplished gentlemen, and none worthier 
 of a poetic genealogy, than the late Sir George Beau- 
 mont, of the Coleorton branch of the family ; and 
 Francis Beaumont's mother, a Pierrepoint, connects 
 the family with Lady Mary Wortley IVIontague. Cow- 
 per in like manner came of a tuneful race. There are 
 two stout octavos of occasional verses, for the most 
 part by his near kindred, which will bear comparison 
 with any "pieces by Persons of Quality." Hand- 
 writing, musical talents, and " the accomplishment of 
 verse," frequently run in families; and shoiild at 
 length a genuine poet spring from the stock, while 
 he illustrates, he is indebted to it for the transmis- 
 sion of the "vein." Sensibility to metrical harmony 
 implies a finer organization than common ; and if the 
 poet inherit nothing more from his race than a pre-
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 45 
 
 disposition to sweet sounds, he o^\ es to it one of the 
 prime elements of his maturer genius. Nor should 
 the ermine of the judge and the lawn of the hishop 
 be omitted in recounting the formative accidents of 
 the career of these poets. There is a stateliness even 
 in their lighter moods of comedy, a conventionality 
 in their banter, which bespeak reminiscences at least 
 of the state and ceremonies of juridical and episcopal 
 housekeeping. They were alike in other matters. 
 Both were handsome men. Mr. Darley says that 
 English poets have generally been so. He is perhaps 
 not altogether an unbiassed witness, since he has writ- 
 ten some excellent verses himself; but he forgets Jon- 
 son, Goldsmith, and Churchill. Both too were famous 
 for their conversational powers, "beiug," as a contem- 
 porary wrote, "so fluent as to talk a comedy," and 
 therefore among the very choicest spirits at the ]\Ier- 
 maid in Friday Street. 
 
 Such were some of their points of resemblance. 
 But they were alike with a difference — discord which 
 perhaps the more closely cemented their union, — 
 
 " Fletcher's keen treble aud deep Beaumont's base." 
 
 Beaumont, though not himself a landed proprietor, 
 was the descendant of two successive owners of 
 Grace-dieu in Leicestershire, and brother of a tliird. 
 He was "smit with the love of song," and of the 
 company ai the Mermaid, l)ut he had his seasons 
 of retirement from theatrical and club life, and saw
 
 46 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 the oaks wave and the deer course over the lawns 
 of his birthplace. He married^ too^ an heiress — 
 "Ursula, daughter and coheir of Henry Isley, of 
 Sundridge, in Kent/^ Now, as Pompey says, " I 
 hope here be truths;" and they tend to show that 
 if Beaumont improved his means by writing for the 
 stage, he was at least not driven by poverty to au- 
 thorship. He was a member of the Inner Temple, 
 and, like so many Templars then and since, a wit 
 also — a combination seldom so favourable to law as 
 to poetry, iu spite of the recent example of ]Mr. Jus- 
 tice Talfourd to the contrary. Fletcher's case was 
 probably very diflFerent. Fortune at first seemed to 
 smile propitious on his birth. Queen Elizabeth took 
 a fancy to the cut of his father's beard, and preferred 
 him with almost railway speed from a prebendary and 
 a royal chaplaincy to the deanery of Peterborough — 
 from the deanery of Peterborough, in the course of 
 five years, to the sees of Bristol, Worcester, and Lon- 
 don. Bishop Fletcher Avas as great a pluralist as the 
 Dragon of Wantley, who "devoured churches like geese 
 and turkeys," and, from his procedure touching the 
 see of Loudon, we fear he was somewhat simoniacal. 
 He had a worse fault than simony ; " he was peevish, 
 and given to prayer^' at unseasonable times, for he was 
 the very Dean Fletcher who troubled the dying mo- 
 ments of the Queen of Scots with dissuasions from 
 Popery. At any rate he was a prosperous gentleman; 
 " loved to ride the great horse," says Fuller, " and was
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 47 
 
 condemned for very proud by such as knew him not." 
 He might perhaps, but for one false step, have been 
 his Grace of Canterbury. But he married a second 
 time, and bade a short adieu to all his greatness. Dr. 
 Primrose himself was not a more zealous monogamist 
 than Queen Elizabeth. She hardly brooked, as Bishop 
 Grindal found to his cost, "speech of marriage" in 
 clergymen. However, Bishop Fletcher's well-trimmed 
 beard and coui'tly demeanour brought him ere long 
 into favour again : he was promised a royal visit, "fitted 
 up his hall at Fulham" in readiness, and, perhaps, 
 might have thriven as well as ever but for an untowardly 
 accident. He died — some said of grief at her Majesty's 
 displeasure, others "of taking too much tobacco.'^ Un- 
 certain it must ever remain whether he used common 
 shag or the finest Virginia, but certain it is that he 
 left as many children and as little money as if, instead 
 of his pluralities, he had been all his life a curate. 
 During his rapid preferments he had been at great 
 charges for induction-fees and first-fruits, and did not 
 live to reimburse himself by an episcopal harvest of 
 rents and fines. Had the Bishop's life been spared, 
 the world might have had one dramatist less, for John 
 Fletcher was already at Bene't College, and in a few 
 years more might have been safely niched in a stall ; 
 and, with Abbot or Andrewes in place of Jonson for 
 his model, have drawn graver audiences than at Black- 
 friars or the Globe. But henceforth he must live by 
 his wits. In that age, all popular litcratm-e centred
 
 48 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 in the stage. The theatre was at once the newspaper, 
 the review, the magazine, and the novel of the 
 seventeenth century. We then imported romances 
 and invented plays, a process which is now nearly in- 
 verted. The stage was not indeed a high-road to 
 fortune — Shakespeare and Alleyne being among the few 
 who put, or at least kept, money in their purses ; but 
 for talents of any mark or likelihood, it was almost a 
 sure road to fame. Rowley, a rugged versifier, and, 
 " in respect of a fine workman," one of the drama's 
 journeymen, is better remembered than many a popular 
 preacher of his day; for not even Lamb could have 
 made attractive " Specimens of Divines." And be- 
 sides the pulpit and the stage they were few avenues 
 in that age to literary renown. History was locked up 
 in folios, debates were unreported, and the art and mys- 
 tery of reviewing was undiscovered. The number and 
 fertility of playwrights was unprecedented and unsur- 
 passed. The novelists of the nineteenth century are 
 not ten times as numerous as the dramatic writers in 
 Fletcher's age ; and if the number of readers now and 
 then be considered, the proportion of playwrights was 
 even greater. We possess a portion only of the printed 
 dramas ; the fire of London ; servants as careless as 
 Mr. "N^'arburton's ; or politic Diets of Worms, have 
 thinned their ranks. A much larger portion of acted 
 plays was never sent to press, but remained in manu- 
 script among the managers' properties. Not a third 
 of the Sibylline books has come down to us.
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 49 
 
 Into this broad and swelling stream Beaumont 
 and his colleague cast their intellectual fortunes, and 
 Fletcher probably staked his whole venture in life. 
 To Beaumont tradition, if not express testimony, has 
 assigned superior judgment. From his easier for- 
 tunes he may have been less enterprising and hasty 
 in composition than his friend. Of Fletcher's po- 
 verty we have indeed no direct evidence, and in some 
 verses prefixed by him to the ' Faithful Shepherdess ' 
 we have something like a denial of its pressure. 
 Mr. Darley asks if Bishop Fletcher, Avho remembered 
 a college, would have forgotten a son in his will? 
 But Bishop Fletcher's bequests resembled Diego's 
 in his son's ' Spanish Curate.' His executors must 
 have asked, "Where shall we find these sums?" 
 " The truth is," says Mr. Dyce, " none of Fletcher's 
 biographers were aware of the poverty in which his 
 father died." The question would be immaterial 
 were it not calculated to explain the haste and neg- 
 ligence which many of these dramas betray. A 
 writer who produced thirty-one plays, with little oc- 
 casional help, in eleven years ; who lived in good 
 society, and not with the most prudent and thrifty 
 associates, had probably an urgent motive "to coin 
 his brain or drop its sweat for drachmas." Plis 
 verses prefixed to the ' Honest Man's Fortune ' prove, 
 however, that Fletcher was rather elevated than de- 
 pressed by his circumstances. His mind to hira a 
 kingdom was. They read like Milton's protestations 
 
 D
 
 50 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 of his integrity and independence, like Wordsworth's 
 ' Happy Warrior/ 
 
 The respective shares of Beaumont and Fletcher 
 in the dramas which bear their joint names is an 
 insoluble problem. It is an interesting one only 
 because their plays betray at times the influence 
 of opposite schools, and because its solution might 
 shoAv how much they owed to Jonson and how much 
 to Shakespeare. Beaumont was bred up at the feet 
 of that dramatic Gamaliel, Ben Jonson, who under- 
 stood " the theorique " of his art better than the 
 "practique;" Fletcher is termed by Dry den "a limb 
 of Shakespeare." So long as it was the fashion to re- 
 gard Shakespeare as a " wild, irregular genius,'' Beau- 
 mont's superior judiciousness might seem to indicate 
 the Jonsonian discipline.. But now that the consum- 
 mate art of Shakespeare is as universally recognized 
 as his transcendent powers, Beaumont's reputation for 
 judgment, even if it rested on surer foundations, will 
 not avail us. When however we compare the plays 
 which Fletcher wrote singly with those which he wrote 
 conjointly, the theory that 
 
 "Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ," 
 must depart into the lumber-room of respectable 
 fallacies, where akeady is reposing Cromwell's dam- 
 nation to everlasting fame, and whither Bacon's 
 meanness will probably soon follow. For it is uni- 
 versally admitted that the 'Woman-Hater,' was pro- 
 duced by Fletcher before his literary partnership with
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 51 
 
 Beaumont began; and the two prominent charac- 
 ters in this comedy, Gondarino and Lazarillo, are 
 constructed on the Jonsonian model of analyzing, 
 or rather running down, an odd fantastic humour. 
 Fletcher therefore was as much a disciple of Jonsou 
 as his colleague. On the other hand, the plays as- 
 cribed to both partners, the tragedies especially, are 
 neither more nor less judicious than those which 
 Fletcher i^roduced after Beaumont's decease. Nay, 
 if Mr. Darley be right in attributing " to Beaumont 
 chiefly " the ' Knight of the Burning Pestle,' his wit 
 woidd seem to have been the more luxm'iant of the 
 two ; for in none of the fifty-two dramas is there such 
 exuberance of fancy, or such riotous animal spirits. 
 Nothing is more deceptive than internal evidence in 
 deciding questions of doubtful authorship, where the 
 disputed work is not a forgery. It required only the 
 common instincts of the pit and gallery to detect 
 Ireland's ' Vortigern;' and none but the shalloAvest 
 scholars, and blinded by party zeal to boot, would 
 have maintained the genuineness of the ' Epistles of 
 Phalaris.' But the case is very different when a con- 
 troversy arises whether the ' Rhesus ' or ' Iphigenia at 
 Tauris' were written by Euripides, or Avhether they pro- 
 ceeded from the Sophoclean school. Here internal 
 evidence is a very "Will-o'-the-wisp, a preconception in 
 the mind of B. of what A. must have written, B. not 
 being at all in A.'s secrets, but probably separated 
 from him by "sounding seas" and sundry generations. 
 
 D 2
 
 52 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 AVe are not disposed to put much faith in commenda- 
 tory verses, having had some experience in testimonials 
 to character. Both are alike srranted bv friendlv zeal 
 or good-natured indolence. But we incline to think 
 that the author of a contemporary eulogy on Fletcher 
 has stated the question of his literary partnership 
 with Beaumont more fully and fairly than any subse- 
 quent commentator or critic : — 
 
 "Some think your wits of two complexions framed, 
 That one the sock, th' other the buskin claimed : 
 That should the stage embattle aU its force, 
 Fletcher woidd lead the foot, Beaumout the horse : 
 But you were both for both, not semi-wits : 
 Each piece is wholly two, yet never sphts ; 
 Ye are not two faculties and one soul stiU, 
 He th' understanding, thou the quick fi-ee-will ; 
 But, as two voices in one song embrace, 
 Fletcher's keen treble and deej) Beaumont's bass, 
 Two, fall, congenial souls ; still both prevailed ; 
 His Muse and thine were quartered, not impaled : 
 Both brought yom- ingots, both toiled at the mmt, 
 Beat, melted, sifted tiU no dross stuck in't. 
 Then ia each other's scales weighed every grain. 
 Then smoothed and burnished, then weighed all again ; 
 Stampt both your names upon't at one bold hit, 
 Then, then ' t was coin as well as bullion- wit." 
 
 The scanty personal records of dramatic poets may 
 sometimes be illustrated or supplied by the traces of 
 contemporary events impressed upon their Avritings. 
 As the abstracts and brief chronicles of their time, 
 they may be supposed to have watched with no in- 
 curious eye the heavings and flashings of the great 
 world-stream that circled their round of life, to have
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 53 
 
 beeu moved by it to lyrical responses, to have repre- 
 sented it in passionate symbols and similitudes. Mr. C. 
 Knight, in his ' Shakespeare : a Biography,' amid much 
 fanciful and some valuable matter, has shown that the 
 myriad-minded bard attentively regarded the move- 
 ments of his age, and sometimes embodied what was 
 passing around liim in everlasting forms and co- 
 lours. Beaumont and Fletcher exhibit fewer marks of 
 sympathy with the world's business and mutations 
 than Shakespeare, or even Jonson and INIassinger. 
 They appear to have moved between the stage and the 
 closet, the Club and the Court alone. We know, on 
 unquestionable authority, that they bore a prominent 
 part in the symposia at the 'Mermaid,' and were sprung 
 from fathers, one at least of whom watched anxiously 
 the smiles of the Sovereign and the intrigues of the 
 palace. But, for any tokens to the contrary, the bro- 
 ther-dramatists cared more for Philip Henslowe's ac- 
 ceptance of their plays than for " what the Swede 
 intended or what the French." The reign of James 
 was indeed far less favourable than that of Elizabetli 
 had been for poetic sympathy with public events : it 
 was the most peaceful which England had hitherto 
 enjoyed. Notwithstanding the ghastly abortion of 
 the Gunpowder Plot, the dark tragedy of Overbury, 
 the expectations and the catastrophe of Raleigh's ex- 
 pedition, and the Protestant interest in the Palatinate 
 War, it afforded few of those scenes, 
 
 "Sad, high, and working fiill of state and woe,"
 
 54 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 which filled and made memorable the sway of the 
 Maiden Queen. There was no life-long tragedy, like 
 that of the Queen of Scots; no stern and solemn 
 pause of preparation, like that which awaited the Ar- 
 mada ; no universal shout of jubilee over the fallen, 
 like that which hailed its wreck ; no bonfires for the 
 burning of Cadiz ; no welcome of Drake from victory 
 and pillage on the Spanish Main. The grave splen- 
 dour of Elizabeth was exchanged for slovenly extra- 
 vagance: the sceptre had become a pedant's ferula. 
 Bacon was indeed the Chancellor; but Oxford, and 
 Sidney, and the greater Cecil, had left no inheritors of 
 their chivalry or their wisdom. A sullen gloom was 
 settling on the national mind. The cloud of Puritan- 
 ism, lately no bigger than a man's hand, lay billowy 
 on the horizon; the martial genius of the people was 
 thwarted by an irresolute and inglorious Sovereign, 
 or exasperated by incapable leaders and ill-concerted 
 enterprises. Parliaments were grown jealous of mon- 
 archy, and monarchy distrusted parliaments. Queen 
 Elizabeth had ever wisely distinguished between her 
 counsellors and her courtiers : the one ministered to 
 the strength, the others to the splendour of the realm. 
 James hearkened to favourites, and placed reliance 
 in spies ; created a mushroom nobility, and sent away 
 malcontent the Cliffords, Howards, and De Veres. 
 The Plantagenets and Tudors, however arbitrary at 
 times, were English Sovereigns in heart. The Stuarts 
 looked abroad for models of kingcraft, and repined at
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 55 
 
 their limitary right-diviue. They aspired to the license 
 of the Tuileries and the stately ceremonial of the Es- 
 cm'ial. But the feeling of the nation reverted to its 
 ancestral hostility with the one, and to its recent con- 
 tact with the other. Religious earnestness sanctioned 
 poHtical dread ; and the King and courtiers alone had 
 forgotten the day of St. Bartholomew and " the sad 
 intelliffencinsr tyrant who mischieved the world with 
 his mines of Ophir." The Court and the people were 
 entering upon a fierce antagonism ; and the drama, if 
 it alluded at all to current events, spoke with bated 
 breath and in a boudman^s key. But although 
 many signs of the times are not legible in Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, they were not altogether unimpressed 
 by them. There is a difference between the tone of 
 their sentiments, whether comic or heroic, and that 
 of the manlier drama of EUzabeth. There is a moral 
 decadence, an imaginative decay. The hues of autumn 
 have begun to streak the poetic foliage; the line of 
 the horizon is less clear ; the coherence and intertex- 
 ture of form and colour are less tenacious and less 
 genial. The irony of Sophocles and Shakespeare re- 
 gards man struggling impotently with circumstance, 
 and is the imaginative expression of the strife be- 
 tween Fate and Free-will ; the irony of Beaumont 
 and Fletcher is the utterance of the satirist on men 
 and manners. The former is consistent with the loftiest 
 passion and the deepest pathos; the latter is conver- 
 sant only M-ith the superficial emotions and conven-
 
 56" ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 tional forms of life. The one betrays a spirit at va- 
 riance with itself, and perplexed in the extreme by 
 the enigma of life : it is the spirit of Jaqucs, Timon, 
 and Hamlet. The other indicates a temper which 
 contemplates and derides the phenomena of society, 
 without attempting to solve them by any higher law 
 of reconcilement : it is the temper of Lucian, Mon- 
 taigne, and Voltaire. We do not rise from the penisal 
 of Beaumont and Fletcher much the happier or the 
 wiser. They deal too much with the merely concrete 
 and conventional to be genuinely humorous or earnest. 
 Their flashes of wit and fancy, their crowded incidents 
 and startling contrasts, even the voluptuous music of 
 their verse, are things of sense and of the scene, not 
 echoes from the fontal deeps of humanity. Their 
 works may enliven or soothe a vacant hour ; iDut they 
 are not for seasons when the mind would enter into 
 its secret chambers and commune with the verities 
 of sadness or mirth. " Beaumont and Fletcher," 
 Schlegel well remarks, "were men of the most dis- 
 tinguished talents : they scarcely wanted anything 
 more than a profounder seriousness of mind, and 
 that artistic sagacity which everywhere observes a due 
 measure, to rank beside the greatest dramatic poets 
 of all nations. But with them poetry was not an 
 inward devotion of the feelings and imagination, but 
 a means to obtain brilliant results." 
 
 Coleridge's remarks upon the brother dramatists 
 are for the most part as strictly just as they are acute
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 57 
 
 and ingenious. He is^ indeed, one of the best com- 
 mentators on these poets, both in what he has written 
 and in what he has suggested, and he Avas the first 
 who examined then- metrical system critically. We 
 think however that he has rather overstated his 
 charge against them of " exuberant loyalty." Their 
 kings are, indeed, as self-willed and licentious as any 
 Greek or Itahan despots on record, and their cour- 
 tiers as servile and supple as Damocles himself. Yet 
 the general impression on reading these dramas is not 
 favourable to lovaltv : and their treatment of Court 
 favourites seems to point shrewdly at their own times 
 and real persons. In the plays of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher we step from the precincts of, a legal mon- 
 archy into those of arrogant and unveiled despot- 
 ism. It is needless to cite examples when almost any 
 one of ^Ir. Dyce's eleven volumes will furnish them. 
 Wherever the action of tragedy or the graver cast of 
 comedy turns upon the will and pleasure of the scenic 
 King, Duke, or Count, the virtuous suffer unreason- 
 ably, and female purity and manly honour are exposed 
 to extravagant trials. This may be partly owing to 
 Spanish originals, but is also a reflection of contcni- 
 jKtrary manners. The hot and peremptory Elizaljcth 
 exacted oljcdience but not servility, and was often 
 better pleased with a frank reply than with a cun- 
 ning compliment. The pedantic and equally arl)itrary 
 James deligiited in the homage of his courtiers, be- 
 cause it exemplified the theory of his 'Basilicon Doron,' 
 
 u 3
 
 58 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 or soothed his suspicions of his own irresolute and 
 unkingly temper. The king's favourite is a very fre- 
 quent character with Beaumont and Fletcher. The 
 satire is indeed veiled, but is not the less pungent 
 and significant. In the days of Somerset and Buck- 
 ingham, Boroskie in the ' Loyal Subject ' is styled " a 
 malicious, seducing counsellor to the Duke." Latorch, 
 in the 'Bloody Brother/ is quaintly called "Bollo's ear- 
 wig ;'' and in the ' Wife for a Month ' and ^ Beggar's 
 Bush' Sorano and Heinskirk are the usurper's "wicked 
 instruments." More license than this was not likely to 
 be allowed to his Majesty's servants. At a later day, 
 and under very diiferent circumstances, politics were 
 brought openly upon the stage. Bolingbroke and 
 the Duchess of Marlborough vied with each other in 
 applauding the Whig Addison's ' Cato,' and the coun- 
 try party cheered the hits at Sir Robert Walpole in 
 the ' Beggar's Opera.' Beaumont and Fletcher were, 
 for their age, free-spoken, and implied more than 
 they thought it politic to set down. We do not find, 
 indeed, that their ears were ever endangered like Ben 
 Jonson'sfor his share in 'Eastward Ho,' or that they 
 ever received a hint from the Star Chamber that the 
 King or Buckingham were ofieuded. 
 
 Fletcher himself probably regarded with indifference 
 his rapidity of composition and the consequent imper- 
 fection of many of his plays. He knew well what 
 suited the players and pleased the public, and had 
 probably no deeper artistic yearnings. He had in-
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 59 
 
 deed little of that earnest sympathy with his cha- 
 racters which enforced Shakespeare to infuse his own 
 lyrical sensations and self-questionings into his dra- 
 matis personce. He had even less of that artistic pur- 
 pose and prescience which brooded over Gothe in his 
 * Faust ' and ' Iphigenia.' He was rather eloquent than 
 impassioned ; rather ingenious then inventive ; and 
 more studious of effect than of consistency or even 
 probability. It may however in some measure ex- 
 plain, or at least palliate, the feeble coherence or un- 
 natural transitions in his plays, if we remember that 
 in Fletcher's time there were no after-pieces in the 
 modern sense of the term ; for the jigs which followed 
 the play were such ballets as we may see at this day 
 in booths at country wakes. In the modern theatre 
 we require at least two pieces to satisfy our dramatic 
 appetites. Our ancestors were less devious in their 
 longings, or more frugal of their time. Our elder 
 drama was accompanied by neither farce nor melo- 
 drama, neither opera nor spectacle. The performance 
 rarely exceeded two hours ; and into this period were 
 to be compressed all possible variety and excitement. 
 The absence of scenery, and the scantiness of appoint- 
 ments, were compensated by a rich wardrobe and rapid 
 turns in the plot. It is not fair therefore to try such 
 pieces as the ' Island Princess,' the ' Sea Voyage,' or the 
 ' Coxcomb,' by a strict standard of dramatic propriety : 
 they belong rather to the staple attractions of the 
 Adelphi, to the ' Victorines' and ' Green 13ushes.' They
 
 60 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 were as stimulant and attractive as melodrama^ and 
 much more poetical. 
 
 Much discussion has been raised as to the quality 
 of Fletcher's genteel comedy. For while it is agreed 
 that he was the precursor of Wycherley, Congreve, 
 and Farquhar, it is disputed whether he surpassed or 
 was inferior to Shakespeare in the portraiture of gentle- 
 men. Dryden has affirmed that '' Shakespeare wrote 
 better as between man and man ; Fletcher as between 
 man and woman." To this assertion Mr. Hallam 
 furnishes the very pertinent reply, that " thi^ will be 
 granted when he shall be shown to have excelled 
 Ferdinand and Miranda, or Posthumus and Imogen." 
 But both Mr. Hallam and Coleridge have suggested 
 that, from their higher station in society, Beaumont 
 and Fletcher represent the phrase and manners of the 
 more polished circles more truly than their great con- 
 temporary. We are tempted to turn Mr. Hallam's 
 words against himself, and say this may be granted 
 when the Don Johns, Don Felixes, and Rutilios, of 
 these dramatists, shall be shown to have excelled in 
 conversation Orlando in Ardennes, Benedick at Mes- 
 sina, and Cassio in Cyprus. The difierence, we ap- 
 prehend, may be thus stated : — We do not go quite 
 so far as jSIr. Darley, who thinks Beaumont and 
 Fletcher's gentlemen, "fancy men" or bucks; but 
 we suggest, upon the evidence of their banter and 
 their love-makiug, that they copied more faithfully 
 than Shakespeare the language of the Court and the
 
 BEAUMOXT AND FLETCHER. 61 
 
 ]Mall. " To be like the Court was a playe's praise." 
 But James's favourites, who set the fashion, Avere 
 neither men of the highest birth nor the most de- 
 corous manners. James himself was not more choice 
 in his words than gainly in his person ; and neither 
 Carr nor Yilliers were Hattons or Chesterfields. 
 Even the Pui'itans admitted that Charles's Court was 
 more decent than his father's ; and that staunch but 
 candid Loyalist, Sir Phihp Warwick, pronounced 
 Cromwell's levees " to be greatly more choice and 
 solemne" than his predecessor's. It was from the 
 earlier and coarser of these originals that Fletcher 
 copied his gentlemen. Shakespeare's models, when he 
 drew from actual life, were the statelier manners of 
 " great Eliza's golden prime." But there is a further 
 distinction. Not only were the Benedicks and Or- 
 landos — creatures partly of earth and partly of fancy 
 — drawn from a more catholic pattern than court 
 fashions could supply, but James's Court by no means 
 absorbed the gentlemen of the realm. The fathers 
 of Hyde, Twysden, Luc}^ Hutchinson, and Falkland, 
 were country gentlemen, and although they occasion- 
 ally attended levees, or even were suitors for sine- 
 cures, lived much on their estates, and were rather 
 brow-beaten than caressed by the modern Solomon 
 and " Baljie Cliarlcs." It may be granted, then, 
 that Fletcher caught the trick and passing fashion of 
 the spruce gamesters and curled darlings of his 
 age : but it does not follow that he represented better
 
 62 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 the general traits and demeanour of the English gen- 
 tleman. 
 
 That Fletcher " wrote better as between man and 
 woman than Shakespeare/' is an opinion already 
 disposed of by Mr. Hallam. We approach with more 
 diffidence the following remark of Charles Lamb. He 
 has pronounced Ordella, in ' Thierry and Theodoret/ 
 " the most perfect idea of the female heroic character, 
 next to Calantha in the 'Broken Heart' of Ford." Is 
 this a paradox, or a heresy of the most genial and 
 orthodox of dramatic commentators ? Had he, when 
 he wrote, a momentary oblivion of Cordelia, of Imo- 
 gen, and of Isabella ? Does Ordella, like these, dwell 
 in the memory ? Is she among our visions ? Is she 
 "remembered in our orisons"? Mr. Dyce observes 
 more justly, that " Brunhalt and Ordella present one 
 of those violent contrasts which our authors loved to 
 exhibit; and though both characters are strained very 
 far beyond the truth of nature, there is unquestionably 
 much strong painting in the fiendish wickedness of the 
 former, and many beautiful touches in the angelic 
 purity of the latter." Mr. Darley has in one sentence 
 described very happily the general character of Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher's female portraitures. " They seem 
 to have caught one deep truth of nature, — their women 
 are either far more angelical or diabolical than their 
 men." Another remark of Lamb's, however, is full 
 of significance. He suggests that the performance of 
 women's parts by boys led to the frequent introduc-
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 63 
 
 tion of the page upon the scene — the page being gene- 
 rally a disguised damsel in quest of a faithless or un- 
 conscious lover. " Our ancestors/' he adds, " seem 
 to have been wonderfullv delighted with these trans- 
 formations of sex. What an odd double confusion it 
 must have made to see a boy play a woman playing a 
 man ! one cannot disentangle the perplexity without 
 some ^dolcnce to the imagination." An apology was 
 made by a stage-manager to Charles II. for keeping 
 his ]\Iaiesty waiting — " The Queen was shaving." The 
 practice however was productive of more than scenic 
 ambiguity. It contributed to render both the poet's 
 and the actor's delineation of women coarser. Even 
 Shakespeare sometimes slides into the temptation which 
 this epicenism presents to unlicensed wit. But where 
 Shakespeare merely stumbled, his contemporaries fell ; 
 and none fell lower at times than Fletcher. The ap- 
 pearance of ladies in male attire had indeed become 
 so common that Queen Elizabeth declined, on poli- 
 tical grounds only. Sir Andrew Mehdlle's proposal to 
 escort her Majesty in a page's dress to Scotland, that 
 in this disguise she might see, unseen herself, her 
 beautiful rival, Mary Stuart. Henrietta and her ladies 
 of honour performed, not only " boy Cleopatras " and 
 Bellarios, but in the " INIasques at Court," Cupid, 
 Zephyrus, aud Iris, in very classical and scanty cos- 
 tume. Shakespeare rarely employs this scenic device. 
 In Julia and Portia it takes the form of a pleasant 
 freak : Viola and Imogen resort to it as tlie readiest
 
 64 
 
 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 escape from their dilemmas ; but in Fletcher's come- 
 dies the boy-woman is repeated ad nauseam. It is 
 adopted in his best plays, it is lavished on his worst; 
 and in ' Love's Pilgrimage' alone we have no fewer than 
 three ladies thus disguised. And even where the page 
 is not introduced, the knowledge that a handsome 
 stripling was before them tended to reconcile the au- 
 dience to the license of Leelia, Bacha, and Hippolyta. 
 Dryden, who surpasses Fletcher in indecency, had not 
 even his excuse for it. Women-actors came in with 
 the Restoration ; and Kynaston, who was afterwards 
 celebrated for his demeanour in kings and soldans, 
 had been equally famous in his youth for his feminine 
 impersonations. 
 
 We are not disposed in all cases to admit Mr. Dyce's 
 verdicts on particular plays. He seems to us hardly 
 fair to Fletcher's later dramas, and to have adopted 
 rather too implicitly the opinions of preceding critics 
 upon the earlier ones. The ' Maid's Tragedy' is a fa- 
 vourite with editors ; and we have some diffidence in 
 questioning the merits of a play Avhicli has been repro- 
 duced on the stage by such competent judges as Mr. 
 Sheridan Knowles and Mr. Macready. But we think 
 this one of the plays which has " been to the fair of 
 good names and bought a reasonable commodity of 
 them." It has indeed striking stage-effects and pas- 
 sages of brilliant declamation. But, with the excep- 
 tion of Aspasia, a poetic rather than a dramatic crea- 
 tion, its characters are uninteresting and even heart-
 
 BEAUMOXT AND FLETCHER. 65 
 
 less. ^Melanthius is not a better stage soldier than 
 Pierre in ' Venice Preserved.^ J^ay? Pierre has public 
 wrongs to avenge, while ]\Ielanthius^s grief, although 
 profound, is selfish. The King is an ordinaiy despot 
 of the Italian novel; and Amintor, who at first oflends 
 us by his fickleness in love, finally disgusts us by a 
 ceremonious and fantastic loyalty, utterly dispropor- 
 tioned to the wroug he has undergone. Evadne claims 
 about as much sympathy as Milnwood in ' George 
 BarnMcll.' Her sin is rank; her repentance is worse. 
 The character may have been barely tolerable when 
 acted by a boy: performed by women it is unendural)le. 
 On the other hand, we think Mr. Dyce has under- 
 valued ' The Knight of Malta.' " This tragi-coraedy," 
 he says, "Avith a rambling plot and very few characters 
 which are "vdgorously delineated, has some highly dra- 
 matic and interesting scenes, and a profusion of beau- 
 tiful writing." There are in it only nine male and 
 three female characters of any prominence — a short 
 allowance for our group-loving ancestors. Yet of 
 these twelve personages, ]\Iiranda, Gomera, and INIont- 
 ferrat arc clearly defined and opposed; and their 
 female correlates, Oriaua, Zanthia, and Lvicilla, have, 
 for om' di'amatists, unusual variety and precision. AVc 
 are surprised that no manager has thought of reviving 
 ' The Knight of jSIalta.' The plot would improve by 
 the necessary retrenchments ; modern scenery would 
 set off to advantage the Chapter and Procession of 
 the Knights at Valetta, and ]Montfcrrat be a part not
 
 66 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 unworthy of Macready himself. We recommend this 
 and some of the less popular of Fletcher's plays to the 
 attention of Mr. R. H. Home, who has so skilfully 
 adapted the ' Honest Man's Fortune ' to the modern 
 stage. No art in the poet, nor accomplishment in 
 the performers, will again restore ^A King and No 
 King/ ' Philaster,' or ' The Faithful Shepherdess ' to 
 the repertoire of acting plays. But in proportion as 
 Fletcher departed from the schools of Shakespeare and 
 Jonsou, he acquired a lower but more natural tone, 
 and, with less ambition, was really more successftd. 
 He was an artist of the second order, constrained to 
 imnatural and spasmodical movements while he re- 
 mained in the higher regions of art, ]3ut moving 
 gracefully and spontaneously when he descended to 
 the lower. 
 
 We had purposed a few words on the poetry of 
 Fletcher apart from the drama, on his metrical system 
 which Mr. Darley has somewhat misrepresented, and 
 on their relation to the literature of fiction generally. 
 But our space is exhausted ; and it only remains for 
 us once more to acknowledge our obligations to Mr. 
 Dyce for his critical and editorial labours on these 
 Dioscuri of the English stage.
 
 67 
 
 PLAYS AND THEIR PROVIDERS.* 
 
 If the records of the stage speak truth, they are 
 among the most melancholy of chronicles, since, ac- 
 cording to them, acting is always declining and the 
 theatres on the verge of insolvency. It is scarcely 
 possible to conceive, if we credit these narratives, how 
 any class of mortals can embrace so disastrous a pro- 
 fession, or how any man, not being a proven lunatic, 
 should of his own accord undergo the drudgery and 
 disappointments of managership. From Colley Gib- 
 ber to Mr. Alfred Bunn, the annals of the theatre are 
 one long Jeremiad of vexations from without and 
 from within; so that we are led to think that, in 
 comparison with the sceptre of the green-room, the 
 treadmill must be a pleasant recreation, and Norfolk 
 Island a comfortable retreat. 
 
 Yet doubtless such cares must have their attendant 
 consolations; for otherwise it could not be that, ''like 
 leaves on trees," the generations of actors and ma- 
 nagers should succeed one another, and even increase 
 
 * Reprinted from ' Frascr's Magazine,' September 1853.
 
 68 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 and multiply, in the regions of perpetual embarrass- 
 ment. Who ever yet found an actor willing to quit 
 the stage, or, ha\dng quitted it, not casting a longing, 
 lingering look behind? And even as the stoutest 
 protectionists continue to buy and hire land, although 
 they affirm that land and loss are become convertible 
 terms, so is it common for an actor who has provi- 
 dently saved money, as improvidently to turn ma- 
 nager and lose it. We are unable to reconcile these 
 contradictions, and are driven to the conclusion that 
 the theatrical world, unlike the real world, is com- 
 posed of self-devoted persons who immolate them- 
 selves on the altars of public entertainment. 
 
 But are the chronicles true ? — is it indeed the fact 
 that actors, like certain doomed races of mankind, 
 are always degenerating, and that management and 
 insolvency are inseparable? May not the premises 
 on which these suppositions rest be false ; or, if par- 
 tially true, may not the circumstances of decline and 
 embarrassment be traced to other than the commonly 
 assigned causes ? It appears from a useful little book 
 now before us — an attempt at theatrical statistics 
 which deserves encouragement^ — that dm-ing the 
 year 185.2 no less than twenty-seven theatres and 
 saloons opened their doors to the public within the 
 boundaries of London, Westminster, and Southwark ; 
 and that no fewer than tAvo hundred and twenty thea- 
 trical entertainments were produced at them, "for 
 * 'Dramatic Eedster' for 1852.
 
 PLAYS AND THEIR PROVIDERS. 69 
 
 the first time/' This account implies, though it does 
 not expressly state, that many hundred persons, 
 during that period, found it worth their while to de- 
 vote their time and their intellects to pursuits which 
 the chroniclers of the stage represent as in the last 
 decree vexatious and unremunerative. On the other 
 hand, and in direct opposition to the said chroniclers, 
 the daily and weekly bills of performance vie with 
 one another, and exhaust language for superlatives 
 expressive of "unbounded success," "rapturous ap- 
 plause," and "numbers numberless" of spectators. 
 The truth of the matter is indeed, like Samson's 
 riddle, " hard to hit — though one shoidd three days 
 musing sit." 
 
 For our parts, we believe neither the prophets who 
 prophesy smooth things, nor those who run up and 
 down, crying, " Woe, and threefold woe ;" neither that 
 acting is always deteriorating, nor that managers are 
 for ever on the brink of insolvency. We are however 
 persuaded that the one might become more attractive 
 by rejecting a good many foolish stage traditions, and 
 by a difl'erent system of discipline ; and that the others 
 increase the risks of a necessarily hazardous specula- 
 tion by attempts beyond the power of the stage to 
 realize, and by an insane rivalry of one another. We 
 will first glance at the difficulties incident to ma- 
 nagers. 
 
 These have doubtless been increased by the greater 
 number of theatres. We believe that the Act of
 
 70 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 William IV., 1833, abolishing or considerably modi- 
 fying the old limitations of the patent theatres, was a 
 measure called for by the exigencies of the case and 
 the increasing population of the Metropolis. Yet it 
 is in vain to deny that the extended privileges have 
 operated, in some respects, unfavourably upon the 
 histrionic art. With twenty-seven theatres of more 
 or less importance, open nearly at the same time, it 
 has become next to impossible for a manager to col- 
 lect, or if collected to keep long together, an efficient 
 troupe of performers. The second-rate actor of a 
 West-end theatre, especially if he excels in "■ Hercles' 
 vein," is the "magnus Apollo" of a city establish- 
 ment, and by merely crossing " the bridges" earns 
 golden opinions, and an advanced salary to boot. 
 His praises indeed are not sung in the columns of 
 the 'Times' or 'Morning Chronicle,' but his pudding 
 is sure, and he is probably not nice as to the discri- 
 mination of his audiences. But from this it results, 
 not only that the lucky emigrant to the east has less 
 urgent motives to study the details of his art, and to 
 raise himself by just gradations in his profession, but 
 also that his duties at a superior theatre devolve, 
 through his absence, upon still less competent per- 
 formers than himself, and, both by what it loses and 
 what it keeps, the general character of the troupe is 
 impaii-ed. And even in the case of better performers 
 than the one we have supposed, the number of thea- 
 tres of a higher order is adverse to the stability of a
 
 PLAYS AXD THEIR PROVIDERS. 71 
 
 company, unless tlie manager buys his monopoly at a 
 hea^y pecuniary sacrifice. At the patent theatres the 
 same company played for years together, in the winter 
 at Covent Garden or Drurv Lane, in the summer 
 season at the Haymarket, or at most varied their en- 
 gagements by "starring it" in the country. They 
 thus acquired both a distinctive position in their re- 
 spective circles, and a corporate interest in the com- 
 pany generally. Each, in short, became a part of a 
 well-organized whole. Even to actors of the first 
 order this was no inconsiderable advantage. It was 
 a kind of regimental discipline, or rather such a 
 training as two " elevens" at cricket gain by playing 
 customarily on the same ground. To inferior per- 
 formers, again, it was a decided benefit to perform 
 frequently with the acknowledged masters of their 
 art. Whereas under the present system there is no 
 such principle of collision; an actor flits from the 
 Haymarket to the Adelphi, from the Adelphi to the 
 Olympic theatres without attaching himself to any 
 one of them. By frequency of change the general 
 discipline is slackened; and managers, vexed with 
 the uncertainty of their troupes, come to regard their 
 scenery and wardrobe as the only permanent forces of 
 their establishment. 
 
 Another source of managerial difiiculty in collect- 
 ing a company arises from the circumstance that pro- 
 vincial theatres have nearly ceased to be the nurseries 
 of the metropolitan stage. In the provinces, for a
 
 72 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 theatre to pay the expenses of keeping it open is now 
 almost as great a prodigy as if an ox shoukl speak. 
 The rural frequenters of the playhouse, whom a few 
 hours and a few shillings will convey to the Strand, 
 tliink scorn of the performances that contented their 
 simpler and less locomotive sires. Even in Race or 
 Assize weeks the Stewards' and Sheriffs' " bespeaks" 
 do not half fill the boxes. The country manager con- 
 sequently has neither the means nor a motive for 
 training or seeking out histrionic talents ; and if his 
 company should possess a performer better than or- 
 dinary, the world of London is all before him where 
 to choose. In the days of the patent theatres he 
 would have been a hardy debutant, and most probably 
 a luckless one, who had ventured to meet a metro- 
 politan audience before he established his provincial 
 character at Bath, Norwich, or York. At one or 
 other of those cities, and sometimes in all three, he 
 served his apprenticeship ; at York especially, under 
 the well-known Tate Wilkinson, the aspirant was 
 sure to receive a sound education in his art, some- 
 what roughly administered. Whereas now, under 
 the regimen of theatrical free-trade, the city theatres 
 have taken the place of the provincial, and the terra 
 incognita of Shoreditch or Whitechapel intercepts 
 many a recruit who would otherwise have been cleav- 
 ing with horrid shout the general ear at Plymouth or 
 Southampton. This however is but a poor substitute 
 for the more regular discipline of an established pro-
 
 PLAYS AND THEIR PROVIDERS. 73 
 
 \ancial tlieatre, for although the " legitimate drama" 
 (Shakespeare iucluded) is much encouraged by the 
 men of the east, as yet no Roscius has " stepped west- 
 ward'^ from those regions, nor indeed is the style of 
 acting favoured there Hkely to recruit more westerly 
 theatres with many efficient members. 
 
 Doubtless among the stock-pieces in vogue fifty 
 years ago there were many Avhich the present age 
 would no longer endure, and which have been most 
 rightfully consigned to that valley of dust and dry 
 bones, the library of the theatre. Our grandsires 
 were contented and even edified by performances 
 which we, accustomed to more stimulating species of 
 literature, account utterly stale, flat, and unprofitable. 
 Another generation may very possibly designate the 
 bulk of our present dramatic compositions by even 
 harsher names. But let them look to that matter ; 
 we are now neither absolving nor condemning. Many 
 however of these flat and unprofitable stock-pieces, as 
 we now esteem them, are really better adapted to the 
 conditions of histrionic art than the broader horrors 
 and humours of the present stage. They attempted, 
 in the first place, no rivalry with literature — as lite- 
 rary productions, indeed, they are for the most part 
 below contempt — and by abstaining from such com- 
 petition, their authors proved themselves aa iser in their 
 generation than many of their successors ; for though 
 the spheres of the drama and literature may occasion- 
 ally touch, they can never coincide without respective 
 
 E
 
 74 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 forfeiture of their proper natures. In some respects, 
 indeed, tlie literature of the day acts unfavourably 
 upon the theatres. 
 
 We can take tea and scandal, or sup full with 
 liorrors at home, through the medium of our no- 
 velists, without exposing ourselves to the disasters of 
 heated rooms, narrow benches, crowds, or unjust cab- 
 men. But these domestic and untroubled delights 
 impose upon authors, actors, and managers a neces- 
 sity for providing us, if they would live by their call- 
 ings, Avith something yet more stimulating abroad. 
 We Englishmen are often twitted with being an un- 
 inventive people ; and assuredly, though we occasion- 
 ally produce a startling murder, yet in devising stage 
 horrors, or in conceiving intricate yet cunningly 
 evolved plots, we come very far behind our neigh- 
 bours in France. " To convey" — as the wise call it 
 — a drama from Paris, is now, with a few striking ex- 
 ceptions, our only practice. We notice it however 
 on this occasion, merely to remark upon its relations 
 to acting. We admit the frequent excellence of the 
 plots so conveyed; yet we are persuaded that they 
 both lose considerably by the transfer, and impose 
 new burdens on the actors. They lose by the transfer, 
 because our ways are not as their ways, om- manners 
 and morals — be they better or worse is not now the 
 question — are not French manners and morals ; and, 
 accordingly, the actor can no longer copy from the 
 life which he sees, but is constrained to transcribe a
 
 PLAYS A\D THEIR PROVIDERS. 75 
 
 model witli 'which he is unacquainted. Neither is 
 our language — so superior in many higher respects — 
 adapted to the conversational tone of French comedy; 
 and^ therefore, in most of the adoptions^ while the 
 plot remains nearly intact, the lightness and grace of 
 the dialogue is, in many cases, sacrificed. As far 
 as regards the diction alone, we succeed better with 
 the French melodrama. Yet, even in this case, the 
 actor is forced into undue exaggeration, in order that 
 his impersonation may not sink below the unnatural 
 situations or terrors of the scenes. In the older 
 farces — those veterans which sufficed our simpler an- 
 cestors — the humour was, at least, English; and in 
 the older tragedies, the part generally demanded some 
 study from the performer. In the modern farce and 
 melodrama, the actor has little more to do than to 
 accommodate his idiosyncrasy to the part. It would 
 be useless for him to study actual life for the purpose 
 of representing sentiments or situations that occur 
 only in the teeming brains of the writers. 
 
 It would be easy for us to mention the names of 
 English wi'iters for the stage to whose productions 
 none of these objections Avill apply, and English 
 actors who, in the midst of improbabilities and extra- 
 vagances, retain the love of their art, and model them- 
 selves upon the realities of life. But our censure, 
 such as it is, refers exclusively to the general aspect 
 and conditions of the stage at the present moment, to 
 the taste which the public at once fosters and imbibes, 
 
 V '>
 
 76 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 and to the causes which, in our opinion, render the 
 provinces of both managers and actors peculiarly diffi- 
 cult and embarrassing. We refrain therefore equally 
 from blame or praise of individuals. The faults we 
 note are simply those of the system. 
 
 When Garrick, after much justifiable coyness and 
 reluctance on his part, produced, at great expense, 
 and, as it proved, with very indijEferent success. 
 Glover's stupid tragedy of 'Agis,' the chorus were 
 robed in surplices, and looked like the choristers of a 
 cathedral. Horace Walpole detected the absurdity, 
 but in matters of art and costume he stood almost 
 alone in his age. Had the play been endurable, the 
 surplices would have been deemed orthodox. We 
 have passed to the opposite extreme, and represent 
 the drama of Elizabeth and Charles with all the 
 anxious precision of an archaeological society. We 
 apply to Shakespeare and his contemporaries the zeal 
 for correctness of accessories which our shrewd satirist 
 has noted in the collectors of coins : 
 
 " With sharpened sight pale antiquaries pore, 
 The inscription vahie, but the mst adore." 
 
 The passion, the poetry, the plot of ' King John' and 
 ' Macbeth' will not now fill pit or boxes, unless the 
 manager lavishes a fortune on pictures of high Dun- 
 sinane, or on coats of mail and kilts such as were 
 actually worn by the Earls and Thanes of the English 
 and Scottish Courts. We write this with all honour 
 to the enterprising manager who has set these dramas
 
 PLAYS AND THEIR PROVIDERS. 77 
 
 on the stage so gorgeously and accurately accoutred. 
 Yet we take leave to doubt whether^ by this excess 
 of decoration, new difficulties be not imposed on the 
 actor; whether, indeed, the substance of the drama 
 has not become less important than its accessories. 
 In representations of the highest tragedy or comedy, 
 the poet himself should, in our opinion, occupy the 
 first place ; to him the actor is, or should be, wholly 
 subservient. Again, the actor, if he be one really 
 capable of embodying the highest moods of passion, 
 should be independent of the antiquary and robe- 
 maker; and although Ave would not send the repre- 
 sentative of Macbeth back to the modern uniform 
 in which Garrick played, we would not regard archae- 
 ological precision of garb as an indispensable con- 
 dition of success in the character. We do not echo 
 the objection which we have frequently heard, that 
 the upholsterer is called in to veil the defects of tlie 
 actor; but we would submit that theatrical decora- 
 tion has its limits, and that recently there has been a 
 tendency to overstep them. The conditions of scenic 
 effect are, it appears to us, not difficvdt to define. 
 They are the framework of the picture, not the pic- 
 ture itself. So much then of pictorial art — and under 
 this head we include costume — as is really needed for 
 illustration, is a legitimate adjunct. We do not think 
 tliat exact copies of the swords, helmets, and mantles 
 of any given period arc required for proper dramatic 
 effects. We do not attach much importance to scenes
 
 78 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 representing the real localities of the dramatic action. 
 It is enough that time and place be not confounded 
 by anachronisms. The object of pictorial illustrations 
 on the stage, is not so much the historical as the poeti- 
 cal element of the drama. We would not, were it pos- 
 sible, return to a green-baize curtain, labelled " This 
 is a street in Padua/' or " This is the Wood of Ar- 
 dennes;" neither would we insist upon a representa- 
 tion of the actual street or the actual wood. It is 
 sufficient that there be no disharmony ; it is enough 
 that the adjuncts be as local as the poetry of the 
 particular drama. Above aU tilings, an artistic sense 
 of the beautiful should preside and predominate over 
 scenical representations. 
 
 Decoration, then, has its limits as regards the beau- 
 tiful ; it has also its limits as respects the actors. Al- 
 though, as we have remarked already, they are sub- 
 ser^ient to the poet, they are, on the other hand, of 
 primary consequence in relation to the scene. So 
 much of the costume or the scenery as calls off atten- 
 tion from the actor, is excess ; and if an audience be 
 attracted to ' Lear' or ' Othello' because in the one 
 drama they will find an exact representation of British 
 life, and in the other of Venetian magnificence, the 
 purpose would be better answered by a panorama. In 
 fact, our present managers seem unwittingly hurry- 
 ing into an error which both the Athenians and the 
 Romans committed in such matters centuries ago. 
 At Athens, no expense, latterly, was thought too
 
 PLAYS AND THEIR PROVIDERS. 79 
 
 great for the service of the theatre. In the midst of 
 wars, the public treasuiy was heavily taxed on behalf 
 of the Dionysiac festivals; private fortunes were 
 squandered upon the equipment of the choruses; 
 gold and ivory and silk were lavished upon the pro- 
 scenium, the altar, and the players' dresses. Yet in 
 the very same age an act was passed forbidding the 
 master- works of the three great Athenian dramatists 
 to be acted, and commanding them to be read at the 
 Bacchic solemnities. Tragedy was buried under its 
 own pomp; money could not supply the dearth of 
 befitting actors; the Athenians had not resolution 
 enough to check scenic excess, though they had taste 
 enough to guard iEschylus and Sophocles from its 
 consequences. 
 
 At Rome, where the artistic sensibilities of the 
 people were blunt and coarse, for the most part, de- 
 coration, as might be expected, more rapidly sur- 
 passed its limits, and the drama degenerated into 
 pantomime. After Roscius and iEsopus quitted the 
 stage, we find no records of either comic or tragic 
 actors of eminence. In less than one generation these 
 excellent artists were succeeded by Bathyllus and 
 Pylades, who, surrounded by crowded grovpes and 
 dazzling draperies, danced the parts of Hercules and 
 Agamemnon to thunders of applause. 
 
 In the days when the drama attempted less and 
 succeeded better, elocution Avas a regular branch of 
 an actor's education. It may be so still ; liut we
 
 80 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 rarely discover traces of the art of speaking being 
 tanght, or at least acquired, to any purpose. Except, 
 indeed, at the only two theatres where Shakespeare 
 is still represented, elocution, for any ends to be an- 
 swered, may as well drop into the rank of artes deper- 
 ditce. But even at what may be termed our only 
 classical theatres, we miss the careful modulation 
 of voice and rhythm which we can remember as 
 generally prevailing at Covent- Garden under the 
 Kemble dynasty. To it has succeeded, where any 
 system at all is followed, an inharmonious mode of 
 declamation which causes prose to be undistinguish- 
 able from verse, and even prose itself to forego its 
 proper cadences and proportions. It is called, we 
 believe, a more natural manner of speaking. But do 
 those who term it so weigh well their own designa- 
 tion? When men and women in ordinary life and 
 upon ordinary topics speak in harmonious numbers, 
 it will be right for the actor to hold the mirror up to 
 life, and imitate them. But as men and women do 
 not, and never will speak in the melodious cadences 
 of heroic verse, the actor has no right to consider 
 their common speech as his rule for enunciating the 
 lofty and passionate thoughts of ' Hamlet' and ' Mac- 
 beth.^ Bis strain is cast in a loftier mood, and, while 
 keeping clear from \ailgar rant and bombast, should 
 be resonant of the harmonies with which he is en- 
 trusted. It requires, as it has been well said, a 
 man of genius to introduce and make current a po-
 
 PLAYS AND THEIR PROVIDERS. 81 
 
 pillar fallacy. INIr. jNIacready was unquestionably u 
 man of genius^ and as unquestionably, in our judg- 
 ment, inoculated his profession with a style of elo- 
 cution which sets poetry, music, and nature alike at 
 defiance. 
 
 We have been oftentimes puzzled to account for 
 the principles upon which this much-admii'cd actor 
 founded his theory and practice of enunciation. For 
 that it was a theory, however erroneous and perverse, 
 must ])e obvious to all who, like ourselves, remember 
 the earlier and better representations of that gentle- 
 man. His voice was then full, free, and undisturbed 
 by affectation; the sentiments or passions to whicli 
 he gave utterance seemed in those days to spring from 
 genuine emotions of his heart ; the rhythm of verse 
 was distinctlv marked : the cadence and the meaning 
 of prose were carefully conveyed. Whereas in his 
 latter years he adopted a manner of which the only 
 merit was distinctness of utterance. To grace, to veri- 
 similitude, or to harmony, it made no pretensions; 
 indeed, it seemed carefully to shun these qualities, as 
 so many needless excrescences of declamation. Nor 
 was he content with practising his theory himself; 
 his brother actors were sedulously trained in the same 
 school, and many of them very effectively copied tlieir 
 master. Unfortunately, his disciples are yet extant, 
 and we must await another generation of actors before 
 this heresy of the tongue shall have quite run out its 
 sands. 
 
 E 3
 
 82 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 One of the most disheartening circumstances of the 
 modern drama to all parties really interested in its 
 conservation as a rational entertainment is, the pre- 
 sent fashion for parodies of sterling plays. We know 
 not whether the manager, the actor, or the public at 
 large be the greater sufferer by this epidemic nuisance. 
 Of the authors of such monstrosities we cannot write 
 with sufficient contempt : the most successful, and at 
 the same time the most hideous of parodists are mon- 
 keys ; and we rate no higher the preposterous block- 
 heads who convert into mirth and laughter the solemn 
 and serious scenes of Shakespeare. To a manager 
 who entertains higher notions of his art and position 
 than that of a mere snare or trap-fall for audiences, 
 they are directly injurious; for, on the one hand, 
 they divert from his house the just remuneration of 
 his pains and outlay, and on the other, they operate 
 as temptations to him to forego his efforts in the right 
 path, and to become a mere caterer for one of the 
 vulgarest of tastes, a taste for the low and ludicrous. 
 The right place for managers who so cater for the 
 public is Greenwich Fair. To the actors, again, bur- 
 lesque is baneful, inasmuch as it accustoms them to 
 regard under a distorted aspect the very highest mat- 
 ters of their art. Above all, it is prejudicial to the 
 public. Let us imagine for a moment the effect of a 
 gallery of caricatures, either in painting or sculpture, 
 or rather the indignation which such an affront to the 
 national judgment would, it is to be hoped, elicit.
 
 PLAYS AND THEIR PROVIDERS. 83 
 
 Yet what would be justly resented iu the case of the 
 other arts^ is as unjustly applauded and caressed iu 
 scenic representations. An Aristophanic sketch, such 
 as Mr. Planche or Mr. Tom Taylor pro%ide for the 
 Satui'ualia of Christmas, is indeed legitimate. It 
 shoots foUy as it flies, is a lively comment upon 
 current absm-dities, and frequently speaks wholesome 
 truths in the accents of timely jest. But bmiesques, 
 of which it is the formal pm'pose to convert into 
 laughter what was meant to exalt and purify the soul, 
 are offences against public taste and morals equally ; 
 and that such ofiences, instead of being promptly 
 silenced, should be applauded and caressed, and that 
 Shakespeare should be especially selected as the butt 
 of these barren wdtlings, appears to us one of the most 
 decisive symptoms that the Drama, in our generation, 
 is really on the decline. 
 
 Om' indignation at these foul excrescences of the 
 present stage has led us aside from the main ques- 
 tion, namely, Avhether the drama be truly, as we are 
 so often assured, in a consumptive condition, and 
 whether its revival on any large and liberal scale be 
 no longer practicable. We have enumerated sundry 
 causes adverse to its general prosperity, — the disper- 
 sion of the actors over a wider area ; the pai'tially an- 
 tagonistic influences of literature, in supplying some 
 of the excitement which, at a time when readers were 
 comparatively few, the theatre alone aftbrded; the 
 rash and often unjust rivalry of managers with each
 
 84 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 other; and the decay of the provincial schools that 
 formerly fed the metropolitan stage. Under the pre- 
 sent system, we believe these causes of disadvantage to 
 be irremediable. But is the present the only practi- 
 cable system, and is it indeed too late to devise or 
 apply some efficient remedy? Of the three parties 
 concerned in the welfare or rehabilitation of the 
 drama, one — the actor himself — is nearly powerless, 
 and must be put nearly aside. By his very articles 
 of agreement, he must do the manager's bidding, and 
 to do that bidding effectually, as well for his employer 
 as for his own reputation, he must humour the fancies 
 of the public. The possible cure of the alleged evils 
 therefore rests with the managers and their audiences; 
 and we are of opinion that some terms of accommo- 
 dation may be discovered for their common and re- 
 spective advantage. 
 
 Numerically considered, we do not think that the 
 race of play-goers is diminished. This indeed is a sub- 
 ject for statistics. Relatively to certain classes, their 
 number has undoubtedly declined, since, although we 
 comfortably plume ourselves upon possessing the most 
 magnificent dramatic poetry in the world, we rather 
 inconsistently eschew its representation, and flock 
 to entertainments imperfectly understood by two- 
 thirds of the spectators. Does any reasonable being 
 affect to think that the opera is much more than a 
 splendid pantomime to at least half its frequenters, or 
 that Rachel and Devrient are verily and indeed ap-
 
 PLAYS AND THEIR PROVIDERS. 85 
 
 predated by all who applaud them and at the same 
 time imddiously contrast them with English actors ? 
 To answer these questions affirmatively demands faith 
 bigger than a grain of mustard-seed, and more than, 
 we confess, we individually own to having. Yet from 
 the practice of the Opera House and the St. James's 
 Theatre, we discern some hopes of recovery for our 
 own. The hours observed by these establishments 
 are better adapted to the usages of society ; the per- 
 formances are not overloaded by quantity ; the actors 
 are not tasked and jaded beyond their strength. Our 
 proposal has not indeed novelty to recommend it ; the 
 novelty would consist in a fair trial whether a later 
 hour for commencing performances, a more strict 
 adhesion to separate classes of performance at dif- 
 ferent theatres, and, above all, a shorter period of de- 
 tention in a heated atmosphere, might not be found 
 more attractive to the public and more remunerative 
 to the manager. Three hours of recreation may be 
 pleasant, or at least may well be endured. By eight 
 o'clock in the evening dinner might be comfortably 
 concluded, and even the process of digestion as com- 
 fortably commenced. By eleven o'clock both eye and 
 ear would be satiated with seeing and hearing, and 
 some appetite left for a future gratification of those 
 senses. The cost and cares of the manager would be 
 lessened by twelve hours in each week — no inconsi- 
 derable relief, one would think, in the course of a year, 
 — while the actor, by such curtailment, would also be
 
 86 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 less physically wearied, and acquire leisure for a ma- 
 turer study and elaboration of his characters. As all 
 previous plans, according to the chroniclers of the 
 stage, have failed in securing any long course of dra- 
 matic prosperity, it would be running no great risk 
 to make one experiment more — an experiment which, 
 whatever its demerits or disadvantages, would have at 
 least this recommendation, that by shortening the 
 time it would abridge the sufferings of all the parties 
 concerned. 
 
 Dramatic authors, brazened, we suppose, by custom, 
 make no scruple, nowadays, of avowing their debts 
 to their French originals, and even seem to take a 
 certain degree of pride in publishing their importa- 
 tions from the opposite shore. We find no fault with 
 the practice, provided always that our home-born 
 authors are really as impotent as they make them- 
 selves out to be, since it is better to borrow than to 
 be quite penniless. This however is a matter on 
 which they, not we, are the best judges. Meanwhile 
 habemus confitentes reos, and live in an age of adap- 
 tation. We incline to think however that our actors 
 might in some respects, and with general advantage 
 to themselves, take a leaf now and then from their 
 authors' books, and import a few hints from their 
 foreign brethren. From the French comedians they 
 might learn that the art of acting is not a mere out- 
 line, but a careful fiUing-up of character ; and from 
 the Germans they might copy a conscientious ear-
 
 PLAYS AND THEIR PROVIDERS. 87 
 
 nestness iii presenting tlieir author's sense in appro- 
 priate artistic forms. In these respects^ more than 
 in any actual superiority of gifts, external or internal, 
 consist, in our opinion, the real advantages of foreign 
 artists above our OAvn. 
 
 We do not however belong to that comfortless race 
 of beings whose delight is to travel from Dan to 
 Beersheba, and to cry, "^'All is barren;" neither would 
 we iundiously refer to an exotic stage alone for all 
 that is excellent in dramatic art, and to our own 
 merely to find fault. Could our performers be more 
 efficiently concentrated than they are, our managers 
 be induced to aim at the discipline of their companies 
 rather than at the novelty or variety of their produc- 
 tions, and the public be led to regard the stage itself 
 as one among the schools of art, we should not de- 
 spafr of the English Drama becoming once more an 
 amusement of the more refined classes of society, even 
 as it was when Ministers of State complimented Booth 
 from the side-boxes, or the circles at Holland House 
 assisted at the performances of Kemble and Mrs. 
 Siddons. We have tendered these imperfect sugges- 
 tions with an earnest wish that the theatre may one 
 day be restored to the position it once occupied among 
 the pleasures of refined and instructed persons, instead 
 of being, as it now too commonly is, regarded as a 
 trivial or a dull employment of an evening. The na- 
 tion which boasts of Shakespeare and liis great con- 
 temporaries, and which produced the family of the
 
 88 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 Kembles, should continue to boast of its stage. But 
 in order to become a subject of legitimate pride, the 
 stage itself must retrace many a long and heedless 
 step in the path of error, and, by assuming to itself a 
 vocation to guide rather than follow the caprices of 
 the public, regain the grounds at least of self-respect, 
 before it can re-acquire its true position among the 
 arts which minister to the instruction as well as to 
 the amusement of an age.
 
 89 
 
 SONGS rRO]H THE DRAMATISTS.* 
 
 The popularization of literature has been accompa- 
 nied by e\il results as well as good. The number 
 of readers has infinitely increased, but the quality 
 of literature has almost in equal measure been de- 
 teriorated. With a few honom'able and striking ex- 
 ceptions, few recent authors exhibit any masculine 
 strength or idiomatic raciness of language; as few 
 books display any depth of learning or originality of 
 thought. The people like easy reading, and there is 
 a supcrfoetation of it. We have abundance of pmi- 
 gent sauces, but little strong meat to eat with them. 
 We have a plenteous crop of literary gossip, but the 
 garners in which our elder and manlier literature 
 is stored are seldom opened. Our great writers arc 
 talked about, not read. 
 
 Probably this partial oblivion of the classics of om* 
 language will outlast the present generation. Popidar 
 
 * Reprinted from 'Eraser's Magazine,' November, 1854. 
 
 tiongs from the Dramatwls. Edited by Robert Bell. Anno- 
 tated Edition of the English Poets. London : John W. Parker and 
 Son, 1854.
 
 90 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 literature must be drunk down to the very lees before 
 it will awaken any real weariness of the flesh in its 
 readers. The excess of the evil will work its own 
 cure; and when the age has been sated with books 
 that demand no more attention than is consistent 
 with the whirl of a railway or the leisure of a club, 
 our descendants may revert to the substantial diet of 
 their and our ancestors. We do not despair of a re- 
 vival of a taste for Bolingbroke's prose or Spenser's 
 verse; although the date of that revival may be as 
 remote as the glimpse of power and glory which the 
 son of Beor caught from the hills of Moab. The 
 fulfilment of the \ision was neither soon nor near, 
 but it came in the end. 
 
 With these anticipations, we greet with no ordinary 
 pleasure the republication of some of our established 
 poets in a form accessible to the many, and yet suf- 
 ficiently critical for the few. Of cheap and hasty 
 reprints we have more than enough — editions so 
 slovenly and inaccurate that they would disgrace a 
 Californian journeyman working against time, illus- 
 trated by notes which add to the previous ignorance 
 of the reader the ignorance and blunders of the editor 
 also. In such hands, Gibbon becomes inexact, and 
 Cowper breaks Priscian's head. Such taskwork would 
 be as harmless as it is disreputable, were it not that 
 an ill-edited book goes down with the " patient pub- 
 lic," and obstructs and discourages honest underta- 
 kings of a similar kind. We have sometimes been
 
 SOXGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 91 
 
 at the paius to draw up a list of editorial or typo- 
 graphical blunders in single volumes of a popular 
 series, and -we may one day produce it for the benefit 
 of the unwary. But we have now a more agreeable 
 purpose in view, — that, namely, of directing the at- 
 tention of our readers to an edition of the English 
 poets which forms a remarkable contrast to the 
 "^ Bnnnmagem ware" so commonly hawked about as 
 a genuine article. 
 
 The 'Annotated Edition of the English Poets,^ under 
 the careful superxdsion of ]\Ir. Robert Bell, has now 
 reached its tenth volume. We employ the word " care- 
 ful " advisedly. Dr. Dibdin, indeed, occasionally spoke 
 of " immaculate editions " — a phrase which proved 
 that the learned doctor was one of that class of readers 
 whom Jeremy Taylor deprecates as "men who read 
 after supper." We make no such pretensions on ]Mr. 
 Bellas behalf, but we maintain that he well merits the 
 designation of a careful editor. For, in the first place, 
 he has, on every occasion, reverted to the most reliable 
 and authentic text of his authors — whether it be found 
 in an early or a late edition. He has expunged the 
 errors and amended the caprices of former editions ; 
 he has rescued many a passage from the repeated 
 blunders of printers, and — no trifling service to all 
 parties, the dead as well as the living — has hecdfully 
 adopted a consistent scheme of punctnation. "Of 
 our pleasant vices the Gods make whips to scourge 
 us," and this is just measure ; but it is not meting
 
 93 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 justly, to twist a rod out of our merits, and apply it 
 to our backs. Yet this is the measure which, from 
 some quarters, has been dealt, heaped and running 
 over, to the editor of this series of English Poets. 
 Mr. Bell's care in punctuation has been alleged as a 
 proof of carelessness — the real culprits being the 
 editors or printers who left the work of correction to 
 be done now at this the eleventh hour. The readings 
 which he has deliberately preferred have been adduced 
 as examples of his incompetency; the fact being all 
 the while that he has in most instances restored to 
 his authors the meaning and the phrase which they 
 originally wrote. It would be hardly worth while 
 noticing the perverse judgments passed iipon his 
 critical labours, were it not that the public will not 
 sift these points for itself, and thinks — regis ad ex- 
 emplar — ^just as some puny whipster with his pen 
 pleases to dictate. Let any one with sound sense, a 
 competent acquaintance with the revolutions in our 
 language, a tolerable knowledge of early editions, and 
 above all, without a previous intention to find or make 
 faults, examine Mr. Bell's text of Wyatt, Oldham, 
 Dryden, and Cowper, beside the most authentic texts 
 of those authors, and we will ensure a verdict in his 
 favour, whether it be accompanied or not with a cen- 
 sure of the adverse counsel and witnesses. In taking 
 his stand upon an approved although not always the 
 adopted text of the poets hitherto edited by him, Mr. 
 Bell has judiciously availed himself of the practice of
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 93 
 
 the late Robert Southey. Does the reader happen to 
 be aware that the version of Cowper's ' Horner^ which 
 Southey adopted in his edition of the poet^s works, is 
 the translation which he made at Olney, and not the 
 translation which he revised at Dunham Lodge ; the 
 version which he produced when comparatively sane 
 in mind and soimd in body, and not the version 
 which he retouched and enfeebled after his eye had 
 grown dim and his malady had permanently esta- 
 blished itself? Again, in Southey's edition of the 
 ' Pilgrim's Progress ' we have the ipsissima verba of 
 Buuyan's vision, cleared from the errors of genera- 
 tions of printers, and from the interpolations of gene- 
 rations of editors. We have even more than this ; 
 for in reading the text of Bunyan's own first edition, 
 we read the words of the Dream as they welled fresh 
 from his imagination. Bunyan himself, in his own 
 later impressions of his work, occasionally used the 
 hoe too rashly, and extirpated more than once or 
 twice the flowers with the weeds. The wise in such 
 matters are now pretty unanimous in thinking that 
 both Cowper and Bunyan are under considerable post- 
 humous obligations to Dr. Southey ; and if they have 
 since met in any habitable planet, both the rhyming 
 and the unrhyming poet may have tendered liim their 
 acknowledgments for the same. We trust that simi- 
 lar justice will be rendered to Mr. Bell, not indeed in 
 Elysium, but by the present generation. Wc do not 
 grudge him any post-obit applause, but we trust that
 
 94 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 his merits will be recognized while he is yet able to 
 respond to a vote of thanks. 
 
 We gladly turn away from the ungracious task of 
 noticing absui'd and groundless depreciation. The 
 pleasanter office now awaits us of briefly surveying 
 the contents of one of the best conceived and most 
 agreeable volumes of the present series of English 
 Poets. The ' Songs fi'om the Dramatists' is a collec- 
 tion that would have cheered the soul of Charles 
 Lamb, and may stand beside his delightful ' Speci- 
 mens of the Dramatic Poets. ^ It is a book which, had 
 it existed fifty years ago, might have spared Dr. Aikin 
 the trouble of writing his foolish essay on song- writ- 
 ing; a book that would have drawn from Hazlitt 
 some genial criticism and many sparkling periods ; a 
 book that would have found its place in the library 
 at Abbotsford beside the 'Border Minstrelsy,' and 
 been carried by Shelley in his rambles through the 
 pine-forest of Ravenna ; a book for a rainy day, for a 
 summer noon, for an evening at yule-tide, for inter- 
 vals of business, for any time and season. Perhaps the 
 title hardly expresses the full import of this little 
 volume's contents. The term Song, as commonly 
 accepted, is not sufficiently indicative of its lyrical 
 wealth. The incantation scene from ' Macbeth/ the 
 solemn dirges of our old playwrights, the lyric por- 
 tions of the ' Faithfid Shepherdess,' can scarcely be 
 included in that category. It is seldom that a title- 
 page professes too little ; and Mr. Bell's is certainly
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 95 
 
 not among those censured by Democritus Junior, as 
 "Conceited in its inscription, and able (as Pliny 
 quotes out of Seneca) to make him loyter by the way 
 that went in haste to fetch a midwife for his daugh- 
 ter." Neither is it such a frontispiece as Milton 
 deemed attractive to " the stall-reader." We are not 
 prepared on the instant with a better prefix, and 
 "good wine needs no bush." Yet perhaps it were 
 more germane to the matter to have entitled the 
 book, • Songs, Grave and Gay, from the Dramatists.' 
 
 "^Aliy has Milton been denied his rightful privilege 
 of contributing his symbolon to this feast of lyrical 
 delicacies? The editor has most properly culled 
 more than one garland from Ben Jonson's Masques, 
 and from a poem from which Milton did not disdain 
 to borrow — Fletcher's ' Faithful Shepherdess.' " Cur 
 a convivantibus exiilat ijliilosophia ?" — wherefore does 
 not the name of ' Comus ' appear in the table of con- 
 tents ? It cannot have been negligence in the editor. 
 'Comus' was not indeed like Jonson's Masques, "pre- 
 sented at Court," yet it was enacted at Ludlow Castle. 
 Surely in a second edition this defect will be amended, 
 and Milton's Masque be allowed the privilege oi 2^ost- 
 liminium. 
 
 The ' Songs from the Dramatists,' like the dramas 
 in which they are imbedded, may be properly divided 
 into three periods: 1, Those which preceded Shake- 
 speare; 2, The songs of Shakespeare, and, lorigo in- 
 tervallo, those of his immediate contemporaries ; and
 
 96 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 3, Those which were produced after the great dra- 
 matic era had closed. The lyrical productions of the 
 first of these periods exhibit^ like its drama, a spas- 
 modic strength and an irregular sweetness, "native 
 wood-notes wild," springing frequent out of the bosom 
 of dissonance. The language, indeed, was in too tran- 
 sitional a condition to admit of the perfect elaboration 
 which song-writing demands. Potent masters in the 
 art of rhyme as were Chaucer and Spenser, and skil- 
 ful and sweet as Surrey and Wyatt approved them- 
 selves to be, the chords they struck, if not always of 
 a higher mood than song requires, were too generally 
 elaborate and full for the seeming spontaneity of feel- 
 ing that most aptly weds itself to music. These early 
 songs savour of village mirth, of the pipe and tabor, 
 and the accompaniment of rustical feet. Their music 
 does not float upon the air; their gushes of sweet 
 sound do not imprison the senses ; they do not cling 
 to our memories ; they could not be sung by tricksy 
 spirits, hardly by very tuneful mortals : in portions 
 beautiful exceedingly, as wholes they are seldom pleas- 
 ing. The most finished of them — such as " Cupid and 
 Campaspe played " — savour rather of Bion and Mos- 
 chus and the Greek Anthology, than of sterling En- 
 glish melody. Fully assenting to Mr. Bell's admira- 
 tion of this song of Lyly the Euphuist, we prefer for 
 its easy measure and joyous cadence the duet (if we 
 may venture on so modern a phrase) between Paris 
 and JEuone, in Peele's ' Arraignment of Paris.'
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 97 
 
 " JEn. Fair and fair, and twice so fair, 
 As fair as any may be ; 
 The fairest shepherd on oiu- green, 
 A love for any lady. 
 Far. Fair and fair, and twice so fair, 
 As fair as any may be : 
 Thy love is fair for thee alone. 
 And for no other lady. 
 JEJm. My love is fair, my love is gay, 
 
 As fresh as bm the flowers in May, 
 And of my love my roundelay, 
 My merry, merry, merry roiuidelay, 
 
 Concludes with Cupid's curse. 
 They that do change old love for new. 
 Pray gods, they change for worse ! 
 Ambo, simtil. They that do change, etc. 
 ^n. Fair and fair, etc. 
 Par. Fair and fan', etc. 
 ^n. My love can pipe, my love can sing, 
 My love can many a pretty thing, 
 And of his lovely praises ring 
 My merry, mei-ry roundelays, 
 
 Amen to Cupid's curse. 
 They that do change, etc." 
 
 That the poets of this period included in the term 
 song" poems which can hardly have been accom- 
 panied by music, appears from the following verses 
 of the same author. It would tax the art of Sir 
 Henry Bishop himself to adapt them to either wind 
 or stringed instrument. Probably their only accom- 
 paniment was an occasional note of the rebeck or 
 
 cittern. 
 
 "The Aged Man-at-Aems. 
 
 " His golden locks time hath to silver turned ; 
 O time too swift, swiftuess never ceasing ! 
 
 F 
 
 (e
 
 98 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 His youth 'gainst time and age hatli ever spurned, 
 
 But spurned in vain ; youth waneth by encreasmg. 
 Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen : 
 Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green. 
 
 " His hehnet now shall make a liive for bees, 
 And lovers' songs be turned to holy psahns : 
 
 A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees. 
 And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms : 
 
 But though from com't to cottage he depart. 
 
 His saint is sure of his unspotted heart. 
 
 " And when he saddest sits iu homely cell. 
 
 He '11 teach his swains this carol for a song : 
 ' Blessed be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well, 
 
 Ciu'sed be the souls that think her any wrong.' 
 Goddess, allow this aged man liis right. 
 To be your beadsman now that was your knight." 
 
 The song- writers of this period were deeply irabued 
 with at least the images and allusions derived from 
 the Roman Poets, Apollo and Syrinx, Daphne and 
 Pan, Cupid and Endymion are used by them as fami- 
 liarly as by those intolerably tedious personages, the 
 composers of pastorals and madrigals for the Court of 
 Versailles. In the time of Peele, Heywood, and Lyly, 
 these mythological beings were not, however, merely 
 vapid abstractions, the counterparts of the be-wigged 
 lords and be-painted ladies who delighted in making 
 or pretending to make love after the manner of the 
 ancients. In the sixteenth century literature retained 
 its freshness ; the most excellent books were written 
 in the language of ancient Greece or Rome ; the 
 mirrors and the models of lyrical composition were
 
 SO\GS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 99 
 
 imported from semi-pagan Italy. Tedious as they 
 now appear to uSj these graceful incarnations of hea- 
 then sentiment were suggestive and impressive to our 
 forefathers. 
 
 The simple dramatic agencies available and em- 
 ployed in oiu' elder theatre^ imposed upon the song- 
 writer of the time heavier duties than those which 
 devolve upon his modern representative. The ina- 
 nities of a song were not then concealed by the crash 
 of an orchestra : the pipe, viol, and theorbo left the 
 poet^s words audible; an indifferent ballad was not 
 rescued from the pit by the charms or the skill of 
 popular bass or sopranos. A song was often a very 
 serious matter, recommending itself to the general 
 ear and heart by pregnant saws and ethical maxims. 
 Samuel Daniel's poem — we can scarcely imagine it 
 set to music — entitled 'The Influence of Opinion/ 
 reads like a passage from Seneca " done into metre ; " 
 nor was Daniel more gloomy and sententious than 
 the satirical and acrimonious Nash, meditating " on 
 graves, and worms, and epitaphs," in the following 
 lines, entitled — 
 
 " Ai'PEOAcniNO Death. 
 
 " Adieu ; farewell earth's bliss, 
 This world uncertain is : 
 Fond are life's lustful joys, 
 Death proves them all but toys. 
 None from his darts can fly : 
 I am sick, I niust die. 
 
 Lord liave mercy on us ! 
 
 1 /V
 
 100 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 " Rich men, trust not in wealth ; 
 Gold cannot buy you health ; 
 Physic himself must fade ; 
 AU things to end are made ; 
 The plague full swift goes by ; 
 I am sick, I must die. 
 
 Lord have mercy on us ! 
 
 " Beauty is but a flower, 
 Wliich wrinkles will devour : 
 Brightness faUs from the air ; 
 Queens have died young and fair : 
 Dust hath closed Helen's eye ; 
 I am sick, I must die. 
 
 Lord have mercy on us ! 
 
 " Sti'ength stoops unto the grave : 
 Worms feed on Hector bi'ave. 
 Swords may not fight with fate : 
 Earth still holds ope her gate. 
 Come, come, the hells do cry : 
 I am sick, I must die. 
 
 Lord have mercy on us ! 
 
 " Wit with his wantonness, 
 Tasteth death's bitterness. 
 Hell's executioner 
 Hath no ears for to hear 
 What vain art can reply ; 
 I am sick, I must die. 
 
 Lord have mercy on us ! 
 
 " Haste therefore each degree 
 To welcome destiny : 
 Heaven is our heritage, 
 Earth but a player's stage. 
 Mount we unto the sky ; 
 I am sick, I must die. 
 
 Lord have mercy on us !"
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 101 
 
 We have dwelt the longer upon these earlier sam- 
 ples of English song-writing, partly because they 
 show the latitude which oiu' ancestors accorded to 
 this species of composition, and partly because they 
 exhibit the full Pallas-like completeness Avith which 
 the art of song- writing sprang from the imagination, 
 or rather from the heart, of Shakespeare. But before 
 we enter upon the second and most brilliant period 
 of the lyrical accompaniment of the English drama, 
 we must take a rapid glance at some of Mr. Bell's 
 biographical notices of the poets themselves. The 
 employments and conditions of the authors will fur- 
 nish us with some clue to the quality and character 
 of their productions. 
 
 When Macklin was asked why he forsook the stage, 
 for which he had some genius, and took up lecturing 
 on history and science, for which he assuredly had 
 none, he replied that the latter was the more gentle- 
 manly occupation. It would seem that writing of 
 songs was accounted of yore a gentlemanly occupation 
 also. For although the majority of writers who have 
 been laid under contribution by Mr. Bell were play- 
 wrights proper, yet we find among them a fair sprink- 
 ling of poets who had other means of putting money 
 in their purses. The very first name that leads oft' 
 the dance is that of Nicholas Udall, who, descended 
 from Peter Lord Uvedale and Nicholas Udall, ('on- 
 stable of Winchester Castle in the reign of Edward 
 III., was himself head-master of Eton, and previously 
 a scholar in high repute of Corpus Christi College,
 
 102 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 Oxford. Nicholas, however, was more clever than 
 clean-handed. At Eton he was the plagosus Orbilius 
 of the sixth form; and dismissed from his master- 
 ship for stealing spoons. He seems, indeed, to have 
 regained his character, since he died head-master of 
 Westminster College, besides holding a fair share of 
 Church preferment, — " a stall at Windsor, and the 
 living of Calborne, in the Isle of Wight." Nicholas 
 owed something to his gifts as a dramatic writer, and 
 his skill in composing dialogues and interludes to be 
 performed at Court. Yet these talents alone would 
 hardly have helped him out of the spoon scrape, had 
 he not been a shrewd controversialist on the winning 
 side. His advocacy of the doctrines of Protestantism 
 in King Edward's reign, cast a veil over his delin- 
 quencies. How he escaped scorching in Queen Mary's 
 reign we are not told. 
 
 In John Still we have another instance of clerical 
 melody. Of his history, says Mr. Bell, "little is 
 known beyond the incidents of his preferments in the 
 Church." And he seems to have merited advance- 
 ment; for Sir John Harrington, Queen Elizabeth's 
 godson, speaks of him as of a man to whom he never 
 came but he grew more religious, and from whom he 
 never went but he parted more instructed. We 
 have not room for the list of his preferments ; be it 
 remembered, however, that he died Bishop of Bath 
 and Wells, and wrote one of the most genial incen- 
 tives to deep potations in the language, — 
 
 "Back and side go bare, go bare ; "
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 103 
 
 even now chanted on fitting occasions at Cambridge 
 supper-parties. Again in Dr. Jasper Mayne we have 
 an example of the diversity of gifts^ if not of the same 
 spirit ; for he was at once a distinguished preacher 
 and a dramatic author. From the sample of his wit 
 as it appears in his comedy of ' The City Match/ we 
 are not indeed inclined to estimate it highly. Yet of 
 his being a practical humorist there can be no doubt, 
 if the following anecdote of him be true. The Doctor 
 had an old servant, to whom he bequeathed a trunk, 
 which he told him contamed something that Avould 
 make him drink after his death. When, on the Doc- 
 tor's demise, the box was opened, it was found to con- 
 tain a red-herring ! This is a livelier jest than any 
 to be found in his comedy ; but perhaps he reserved 
 a richer vein of humour for the pulpit, and punned 
 and quibbled like the facetious Dr. South. In look- 
 ins: over Mr. Bell's biographical introductions to his 
 ' Book of Songs,' we have been much struck with the 
 liberal quota of authors supplied to the theatre by 
 our Universities, and by Cambridge especially. As 
 yet the study of the severer sciences had not frozen 
 the genial current of the lyric Muse. We suspect, 
 however, that although Hcywood, Pecle, Nash, and 
 others w^ere dignified with the addition of M.A. to 
 their names, they were such scions as the University 
 not unwillingly saw grafted upon other stocks, and 
 that Ahaa Mater rejoiced when these her fast sons 
 betook themselves to the more congenial sphere of a
 
 104 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 Loudon playhouse. It is iudeed curious to contrast 
 the roving and extravagant lives of these jovial blades 
 with the picture of college life drawn by old Latimer, 
 who preceded them by one generation only. It is 
 difficult to conceive that the shivering and half- 
 starved scholars who ran up and down the cloisters 
 to warm themselves, and supped on thin mutton-broth, 
 can ever have burgeoned forth into writers of mirth- 
 ful roundelays. 
 
 We are almost inclined to pass over the ' Songs of 
 Shakespeare^ with a simple reference to their abso- 
 lute royalty of perfection, both a parte ante and a 
 parte post, — both as regards all compositions of this 
 order which preceded them, and all which followed 
 them. It is superfluous to commend the violet for its 
 perfume, the sweet South for the odours it breathes, 
 the lilies of the field for their purity, or the voice of 
 the nightingale for its sweetness. They are as much 
 better than the songs of Burns, as the songs of Burns 
 are better than those of Moore. The secret of their 
 structure is beyond alchemy. We can divide a ray 
 of light, and dive to the fountains of colour, and trace 
 the flower from its seed, and map the stars, and re- 
 duce the diamond to its elements, and apply the laws 
 of harmony to the songs of birds. But we do not 
 know the secret of Shakespeare's supremacy in song- 
 writing, — 
 
 " Nil majus generatur ipso, 
 Nee viget quidquam simile aut secundum."
 
 SOXGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 105 
 
 Shelley was Avont to say that the poetry of Dante 
 filled him with despair : and beside Shakespeare's 
 songs all others appear to disadvantage. " The words 
 of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo." In 
 this kind of writing, as in every other, Shakespeare 
 had an instinctive knowledge of the " great arcanum." 
 His w^as at once "the art that adds to nature" and 
 "the art that nature makes." With other song- 
 writers some proper and personal characteristic may 
 be discerned ; the indi^'iduality peeps through the 
 sentiments or the w ords ; it is the outward and visible 
 sign of the inward and spiritual life of the writer. In 
 Beaumont and Fletcher we find variety, grace, and 
 sweetness ; in Jonson, a sturdy purpose and a learned 
 taste, \\'ringing, as it were, beauty and melody from 
 l)ook-lore ; in Middleton, a luxuriant fancy ; in Web- 
 ster, uncontrolled passion and earnest eloquence. In 
 Shakespeare alone we meet with all these qualities 
 combined — passion and tenderness, gaiety and grace, 
 the subtlest wit, the most natural wood-notes, the 
 most rare combinations, and full-throated ease. Nor 
 is the variety of his songs less admirable than their 
 excellence, or their dramatic propriety less wonderful 
 than their variety. He has married to music the 
 grief and the joy, the aspirations and the circum- 
 stances of all sorts and conditions of men. In them 
 find fitting utterance the lover, the student, the clown, 
 the courtier, the high-born beauty, the country mal- 
 kiii, the warrior arming for the fight, the grave-digger 
 
 V 3
 
 106 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 making tlie house that lasts till doomsday^ royalty on 
 its funeral couch, the tricksy spirits of the air, the 
 train of the faery king, the foul earthworm Caliban, 
 the ancient gods of Olympus, the chant of wizards, 
 and the dirge of death. 
 
 The step from Shakespeare to his contemporaries, 
 great and manifold as were their poetical excellencies, 
 is like the passage of Christian from the Delectable 
 jMountains to the lower valley, with its bright ver- 
 dure, its narrow causeway, and its frequent pit-falls. 
 We have stepped from the Eden of song into a lower 
 region, often " beautiful exceedingly," yet not un- 
 vexed by storms nor exempt from change. It is re- 
 markable that Jonson, whose genius, from its general 
 characteristics, appears to have been ill-adapted to 
 the delicate task of song-writing, should yet have 
 produced so many melodious and graceful productions 
 of this order. As in his plays, so in his lyrical effu- 
 sions, Jonson wrought by line and rule. His mind 
 was as riclily stored as Milton^s with the lore of 
 Greece and Rome. He merited even in a higher de- 
 gree than Beaumont the appellation of "judicious." 
 But he possessed little or no spontaneity. He built 
 up his songs as he constructed his dramas — ^line upon 
 line, and phrase upon phrase. He was, like Gray, a 
 consummate artist in the mosaic of poetry. Yet it is 
 unjust to accuse Jonson of pedantry. Books were to 
 him a substantial life ; he thought through them, he 
 saw with them ; they were to him in the place of
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 107 
 
 heart and imagination. But lie availed himself of 
 theii- aid in no servile spirit ; and though he borrowed 
 largely, he mostly repaid his loans Avith liberal in- 
 terest. In the songs of Jouson, Mr. Bell judiciously 
 remarks : — 
 
 " We have great command of resources, and a 
 ^^sible air of preparation. The lines are thoughtful, 
 and occasionally rugged, and must be read, even in 
 the singing, Avith a certain degree of emphasis and 
 deliberation. They do not spring at once to the heart 
 and fancy. The spirit of the Greek Anthology is in 
 tliem, and is felt either in the allusions, the phrase, 
 the subject, or the diction. If they do not recall the 
 ravishing music of the lark or the nightingale, they 
 hold us in the spell of some fine instrument Avhose 
 rich notes are delivered with the skill of a master." 
 
 Jonson's masques, songs, and pastoral scenes have 
 sufiered from unmerited neglect. It has been too 
 hastily assumed that his forte lay in the delineation 
 of humorous or, more properly, of eccentric character. 
 But "out of the eater came forth meat, and out of 
 the strong, sweetness ; " and " rare Ben Jonson " oc- 
 casionally relaxed his iron sinews, and welded on his 
 anvil a network of verse as fine and enthralling as the 
 web in Avhich Hephaistos caught Aphrodite and Ares. 
 We take for granted that his songs ' Come, my Celia, 
 let us prove,' and ' Still to be neat, still to be drest/ 
 are familiar to the reader. The two following have 
 less frequently found their way into extracts from the
 
 108 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 English poets. This reads like a fragment of Stesi- 
 chorus imbedded in one of Plato^s dialogues. 
 
 " So beauty on the waters stood, 
 When love had severed earth from flood ; 
 So when he parted air from fire, 
 He did with concord all inspire ; 
 And there a matter he then taught 
 That elder than himself was thought ; 
 Wliich thought was yet the child of earth, 
 For Love is older than his birth." 
 
 'Eeho mourning the death of Narcissus/ is con- 
 ceived in the spirit of the tender and melancholy 
 Simonides. 
 
 " Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears ; 
 Yet slower, yet, O faintly gentle springs : 
 List to the heavy part the music bears, 
 
 Woe weeps out her division when she sings. 
 Droop, herbs and flowers ; 
 Fall, grief, in showers ; 
 Our beauties are not ours ; 
 Oh, I could stiU, 
 Like melting snow upon some craggy hill, 
 
 Drop, di'op, drop, drop, 
 Since nature's pride is, now, a vdthered daffodil." 
 
 In the following song, entitled 'Love and Death,' 
 which occurs in his fine dramatic pastoral ' The Sad 
 Shepherd,' — a poem of which Mr. Bell remarks, that 
 " it abounds in passages of exquisite beauty, and dis- 
 plays his mastery over a species of poetry in which 
 he is least appreciated," — the learned allusions are 
 singularly at variance with the condition of the song- 
 stress, yet there is a grace even in its discrepancy : —
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 109 
 
 " Though I am young and cannot tell 
 Either what death or love is, well, 
 Yet I have heard they both bear darts. 
 And both do aim at human hearts ; 
 And then again, I have been told. 
 Love wounds with heat, as death with cold ; 
 So that I fear they do but bring 
 Extremes to touch, and mean one thing. 
 
 " As in a ruin we it call, 
 One tiling to be blown up, or fall ; 
 Or to our end, hke way may have, 
 By a flash of hghtuing or a wave : 
 So love's inflamed shaft or brand, 
 May kill as soon as death's cold hand ; 
 Except love's fires the virtue have 
 To fright the frost out of the grave." 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's songs " occupy a middle 
 region between Shakespeare's and Jonson's." What- 
 ever " Beaumont's judgment " may have been, we are 
 inclined to ascribe to his copartner in dramatic com- 
 position the principal share in the writing of their 
 songs. Fletcher's ear for metrical melody was of 
 the finest order, and the music of his verse has often 
 recommended his dramas to the closet, when they 
 have been feeble and inefiectual on the stage. We do 
 not, indeed, pretend to trace in their joint produc- 
 tions the marks of either individual hand. We have 
 not much respect for the tradition — and it is nothing 
 more than tradition — that Beaumont contributed the 
 controlling judgment, and Fletcher the abundant 
 fancy and the exuberant wit. But Fletcher, although 
 the elder of the twain, survived Beaumont many
 
 110 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 years^ and is the undoubted author of many plays 
 over which his associate exercised no superintendence ; 
 and in these very plays occur for the most part the 
 most finished and delicate proofs of the lyrical genius 
 of the surviving poet. There is also in Fletcher's 
 songs a genial and hearty element of mirth, which 
 makes us regret that in his dramas he should so often 
 have curbed his humorous vein, and preferred bril- 
 liant but hard scintillations of wit. In this latter 
 respect, indeed, Fletcher was the dramatical parent of 
 Congreve, and introduced the evil habit of putting 
 into the mouth of his clowns, repartees only proper 
 to his " curled darlings " and courtiers. " Tell me if 
 Congreve's fools be fools indeed," is a censure equally 
 applicable to the comic personages of Fletcher. His 
 rustics are fine gentlemen in smock-frocks ; his beg- 
 gars might graduate in the Academy of Compliments, 
 and walk gowned with " Biron, Longueville, and Du- 
 maiu." 
 
 Of Fletcher's power for representing genial mirth, 
 the following song from the ' Spanish Curate' affords 
 a proof; as the drama itself from which the song is 
 taken evinces that Fletcher went astray in preferring 
 sparkling wit to the natural humour which he kept 
 under restraint. 
 
 " Let the bells ring, and let the boys sing, 
 The young lasses skip and play ; 
 Let the cups go round, till round goes the ground ; 
 Our learned old vicar will stay.
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. Ill 
 
 " Let the pig turn msn-ily, merrily, ah ! 
 Aud let the fat goose swim ; 
 For verily, verily, verily, ah ! 
 
 Our vicar this clay shall be trun. 
 
 " The stewed cock shall crow, cock-a-loodle-loo, 
 A loud cock-a-loodle shall he crow ; 
 The duck and the drake shall swim in a lake 
 Of onions and claret below. 
 
 " Our wives shall be neat, to bring in our meat 
 To thee oiu- most noble adviser ; 
 Our pains shall be great, and bottles shall sweat, 
 And we ourselves will be vriser. 
 
 "We'll laboiu- and swink, we'll kiss and we'll drink, 
 And tithes shall come thicker and thicker ; 
 We 'U fall to our plough, and get children enow. 
 And thou shalt be learned old vicar." 
 
 This roundelay exhibits a singular contrast to the 
 quaint and tender fancy of a love-song from the same 
 
 drama, 
 
 " Dearest, do not delay me, 
 
 Since, thou knowest, I must be gone ; 
 Wind and tide, 't is thought, doth stay me, 
 But 't is wind that must be blown 
 From that breath whose native smeU 
 Indian odours far excel. 
 
 " Oh, then speak, thou fairest fair ! 
 
 Kill not him that vows to serve thee ; 
 But perfume this neighbouring air, 
 
 Else duU silence, sure, will starve me : 
 'Tis a word that's quickly spoken, 
 Wliich, being restrained, a heart is brokini." 
 
 We pass over Aspasia's song in the ' Maid's Ti-a- 
 gcdy/ since that play is among the best-known, ;i1-
 
 112 
 
 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 though by no means, in our judgment, among the 
 happier efforts of Fletcher's muse : the following song 
 from the ' Elder Brother' may be less familiar, and 
 its gracefulness at least atone for its repetition. 
 
 " Beauty clear and fail-, 
 Wliere the air 
 Eatlier like a perfume dwells ; 
 Where the violet and the rose 
 Their blue veuis in blush disclose, 
 And seem to honour nothing else 
 
 " Where to Uve near, 
 
 And planted there, 
 Is to hve, and still Hve new ; 
 Where to gain a favour is 
 More than light, perpetual bliss, — 
 Make me hve by serving you. 
 
 " Dear, again back recall 
 To this light, 
 A stranger to himself and aU ; 
 Both the wonder and the story 
 Shall be yours, and eke the glory ; 
 I am yom- servant, and your thrall." 
 
 With one more extract from Fletcher's 'Beggar's 
 Bush' — a comedy which justly commanded a high 
 panegyric from Coleridge — we must pass on to some 
 of the other song-writers of the seventeenth century. 
 The jolhty of beggars in the olden time may, like the 
 epithet "merrie" applied to England generally, be a 
 coinage of the brain; but assuredly our dramatists 
 seem to have thought that your beggars' weeds were 
 the only wear, and that there was no life like the life
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 113 
 
 on the hillside. Nor does this fancy argue altogether 
 a truant disposition; for the poets of those days were 
 mostly a dependent race, and climbed the stairs and 
 ate the hitter bread of great men's houses. Fletcher, 
 from his dwelUng on the Bankside; Jonson, from his 
 chambers "^^in the alley;" Massinger, humiliated, ob- 
 scure, and poor, may well have sighed for the freedom 
 from solicitation and ceremony enjoyed by the dwellers 
 in barns and gipsy-tents. 
 
 " Cast our caps and cares away : 
 This is beggars' holiday ! 
 At the crowning of oui' king, 
 Thus we ever dance and sing. 
 In the world look out and see, 
 Wliei'e 's so happy a prince as he ? 
 "VVTiere the nation Hves so free, 
 And 80 merry as do we ? 
 Be it peace, or be it war, 
 Here at Hberty we are, 
 And enjoy our ease and rest : 
 To the field we are not pressed ; 
 Nor are called into the town. 
 To be troubled with the gown. 
 Hang all offices, we cry, 
 And the magistrate too, by ! 
 When the subsidy's increased. 
 We are not a penny sessed ; 
 Nor will any go to law 
 With the beggar for a straw. 
 All which happiness, he brags. 
 He doth owe unto his rags." 
 
 \Vc have given a very imperfect specimen of tlie 
 lyrical productions of our great dramatic age; but 
 sufficient samples will have been afforded, if we have
 
 114 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 induced our readers to turn to the originals in Mr. 
 Bell's volume. The era of the Restoration was nearly 
 as unfavourable to the art of song- writing as it was to 
 the drama generally. "When Comus and his crew 
 were both the minstrels and the audience, a decline, 
 if not indeed utter corruption, was inevitable in a 
 species of composition which, to be noble or winning, 
 must shun the borders and the region of sensuous 
 and sinful fantasy. The better songs, indeed, of the 
 age of Charles II. are not to be found in the play- 
 books. The Dorsets, Buckhursts, and Sucklings, 
 wrote amorous ditties of some merit, and naval songs 
 that were still better. But, as regards the drama, 
 love and noble sentiments disappear with the reopen- 
 ing of the theatres, and sensuality takes their place. 
 In order to render the ^Tempest' palatable to an 
 audience, Dryden inserted into its ethereal visions a 
 sexual underplot ; and made lawless love, in place of 
 stirring adventure and Boman stateliness and chi- 
 valry, the prominent characteristic of ' Antony and 
 Cleopatra.' The pure lyrical Muse, when not bol- 
 stered up by the pomp and obscurity of Cowley, was, 
 like the Lady in ' Comus,' environed by a bestial herd, 
 and imprisoned in a magic chair. Voluptuous, and 
 without taste or sentiment, the songs of that scanda- 
 lous period reflect the garish daylight of town-life; 
 they echo the sentiments of Whitehall, and record 
 the intrigues of the Broad Walk in the Mall. The 
 Strephons and Chloes assumed the garb of Arcadia,
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 115 
 
 and employed the language of the bagnio in their 
 Amoebean dialogues. The worst portions of Theocri- 
 tuSj Virgil, and the Italian pastorals were selected as 
 the types of rural innocence; and the grossness of 
 these ideal pictures was enhanced by the liberal adop- 
 tion of the diction and manners of the masques of 
 Versailles. " Music and sweet poetry agree;" and 
 by a fitting retribution, music, wedded to the lays of 
 the Courtalls and Loveits, degenerated with the poetry 
 which it accompanied. Even Dryden "wrote with 
 his left hand" when he attempted the composition of 
 song, masque, or pastoral. 
 
 The transition from the unfettered grace of the 
 earlier songs to the more regular measures of later 
 days, is, we think, first observable in Dryden. The 
 following stanzas, if we except a certain halting of 
 the rhythm, might have been produced a century 
 later : — 
 
 " From the low palace of old father Ocean, 
 
 Come we in pity our cares to deplore ; 
 
 Sea-racing dolphins are trained for om- motion, 
 
 Moony tides swelling to roll us ashore. 
 
 " Every nymph of the flood, her tresses rending, 
 Tlu-ows off her armlet of pearl in the main ; 
 Neptune in anguish his (;luirge unattending, 
 Vessels are fovmdering, and vows are in vain." 
 
 And the song of Diana might be sung after a "Dar- 
 lington meet." 
 
 "With horns and with hounds, I waken tlic day, 
 And hie to the woodland-walks away ;
 
 116 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 I tuck up my robe, and am bustined soon, 
 
 And tie to my forehead a waxing moon. 
 
 I course the fleet stag, unkennel the fox. 
 
 And chase the wild goats o'er summits of rocks ; 
 
 With shouting and hooting we pierce through the sky, 
 
 And Echo tm'ns himter, and doubles the cry." 
 
 Congreve's songs, as might be expected from the 
 wit of his plays, are witty and epigrammatic : but, 
 like his plays, they are infected with the coarseness 
 of feelings and the shallowness of principle which pre- 
 vailed with more or less intensity so long as the lite- 
 rature of the Restoration retained its hold on the na- 
 tional mind. Indeed, our lyrical and dramatical poets 
 cannot be said to have entirely escaped from the evil 
 influences of the Stuart Court earlier than the middle 
 of the last century. The lash of Pope and the fine 
 irony of Addison were not implements keen enough 
 to extirpate the disease. It lingered on the stage and 
 contaminated song-writing as late as the time of 
 Cumberland and the younger Colman. 
 
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan, with whom the series 
 of dramatic songsters closes, was, acccording to Mi- 
 chael Kelly, one of those men who, though unable to 
 sing two bars of any tune correctly, have yet music 
 in their souls. He would, in rude fashion, with many 
 exorbitancies of tone and time, give composers of 
 music a conception of effects to be produced by voice 
 or instrument, which they adopted and thanked him 
 for. He brings up the rear-guard on the present 
 occasion with great force and spirit, and revives atten-
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 117 
 
 tion just as it had begun to flag beneath the some- 
 what soporific madrigals of D'Urfey, Congreve, and 
 Farquhar. The songs in his opera of the 'Duenna' are 
 as superior to the productions of the century before, 
 as they are inferior to those of the Ehzabethan age. 
 They have the sharpness and the grace of a fine in- 
 taglio : Ovid might have been proud of them : they 
 have as much tenderness as the best portions of his 
 ' Amores/ and the tour de malice of his epigrammatic 
 couplets. If Sheridan had turned his attention to the 
 writing of lyrical dramas. Gay would have had a for- 
 midable rival for his ' Beggar's Opera.' 
 
 In some genial moment, when not too full of the 
 gi'ape, and not more than usually vexed by duns and 
 bailifis, our incomparable Brinsley penned his famous 
 song, beginning, — 
 
 " Oh, the days when I was young," 
 not perhaps without some compunction for his own 
 grizzled hairs and declining powers of enjoyment. It 
 professes a comfortable philosophy, although not of 
 the more rigid school. If glees be sung in Hades, 
 we can fancy Anacreon, Propertius, and Walter de 
 Mapes joining in the chorus. 
 
 We cannot dismiss this excellent coUection of 
 ' Songs from the Dramatists' with a merely critical 
 farewell. Its contents are suggestive of higher and 
 better thoughts than go to the summation of merits 
 or demerits. We would look beyond the words and 
 measures to the writers of these songs and dirges —
 
 118 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 these slight yet expressive records of many genera- 
 tions of passion and gaiety^ sentiment and fancy, ten- 
 der and imaginative outpourings of many moods and 
 minds. A book is no dead congeries of paper and ink 
 and pasteboard : it is a casket rather of the quintes- 
 sential and spiritual life of men and generations. It 
 tells more impressively than storied urn or measured 
 epitaph, of the griefs which have been borne, the joys 
 that have been shared, the hopes that have been che- 
 rished, the dreams that have been trusted by the my- 
 riads whose numbers surpass those of the living. For 
 these songs are doubly representative, first of their 
 individual authors, and secondly of the generations in 
 which they lived. So thought the men of yore, so 
 felt, so rejoiced they in their allotted span of tribula- 
 tion and gladness, of youthful love, of sobered antici- 
 pations. How many weary and watchful hours, how 
 many genial and jubilant moments are reflected from 
 the pages of this little book ! Herein, to all who have 
 ears to hear, are echoes of the woodland and the soli- 
 tary chamber, of the hubbub of the market, of the 
 lonely shore, of the song springing from the heart of 
 the young, of the pensiveness that grows with the 
 shadow of years past their noon. 
 
 As we turn over these pages, we pass from expres- 
 sions of mere sensuous enjoyment, from the mirth 
 wherein there is melancholy, from the vanity of youth 
 and the delirium of pleasure, from the unsubstantial 
 delights of Avine, and music, and flowers, to the
 
 SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS. 119 
 
 thouglits which dally Avith death and the worm; 
 from the pomp and revelry of the banquet-hall, to the 
 mould and votive chaplets of the grave ; " from ceiled 
 roofs, to arched coffins;" from that "Old England" 
 Avhich lay within the limits of the four seas, to this 
 present England, which spreads its arms eastward and 
 westward, and sends forth its sons as rulers of the 
 most ancient of kingdoms, or as conquerors of the 
 unreclaimed waste. The thoughts and the music of 
 these songs are a common inheritance to him that 
 from a crest of the Himalaya surveys the fountains of 
 the Ganges, and to him that from the Canadian hills 
 looks northward to the palace of eternal winter. 
 Therefore would we send forth this little volume with 
 the benison of "good speed," for it may convey to 
 regions untrodden by them the brave language of our 
 fathers ; and that language is the bond which, when 
 England's offsets have parted from the parent stem, 
 will yet hold together in ties of brotherhood all the 
 members of that race which, as from a second cradle 
 in the Caucasus, has wandered from Albion to homes 
 deep-set in torrid or arctic zones.
 
 120 
 
 THE DRAMA.* 
 
 We have no sympathies with persons who regard 
 with indifference the state and prospects of the drama 
 as a national amusement. We cannot shut our eyes 
 to the fact that the noblest dramatic poetry has been 
 produced at the most brilliant epochs of national 
 history. We cannot regard with apathy or aversion 
 a branch of art which delineates and appeals directly 
 to some of the most earnest and ennobling impulses 
 of humanity ; which, in its graver forms, is auxiliary 
 to moral refinement, and in its lighter, a healthy im- 
 plement of satire or of mirth. We do not find that 
 the nations which have been devoid of theatrical re- 
 presentations have surpassed, either in dignity of 
 thought or decorum of manners, the far greater num- 
 ber which have cherished and developed a national 
 stage; on the contrary, we are disposed to consider 
 these exceptional races — and the exceptions are sin- 
 gularly few — as deficient in the higher arts also, and 
 
 * Reprinted from the ' Quarterly Review,' Jime 1854. 
 Dramatic Register for 1853. 12ino.
 
 PREJUDICES AGAIXST IT. 121 
 
 wanting some of the nobler elements of civilization. 
 Admitting the transitory nature of histrionic powers, 
 and their consequent inferiority to the genius which 
 impresses the canvas and the stone with enduring 
 grace and life, we cannot but remember that the 
 names of Roscius and iEsopus are as immortal as 
 those of Cicero and Caesar; and that the fame of 
 Garrick and Siddons is scarcely less a possession for 
 ever than the conversation of Johnson, the portraits 
 of Reynolds, and the eloquence of Burke. That the 
 stage has too often been applied to unworthy pur- 
 poses, and reflects too often the coarser features of 
 an era, we allow ; but the fault rests as much with 
 the age as with the theatre. The theatre, depending 
 more than any other department of art upon public 
 opinion, complies with rather than thwarts its ca- 
 prices ; and public opinion and the press have it at 
 all times in their power to correct the errors of the 
 stage. Yet it would be unjust to the theatre to deny 
 that it has in an equal degree responded to the higher 
 impulses of the age. We possess the loftiest and 
 most various drama in the world — the exponent of 
 sublime and various intellect at epochs of great deeds 
 and thoughts ; and to decry the drama as a whole, 
 because some of its component phases have ])een 
 censurable, is on a par with the prejudices which 
 would banish sculpture, painting, and poetry fi'ora 
 the pursuits of Christian men, because there arc ob- 
 jectionable statues or licentious pictures and poems. 
 
 G
 
 122 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 It is accordingly matter of earnest regret to us^ to 
 be so frequently assured that our national drama is, 
 at the present moment, on the decline; that it has 
 lost its hold on the intellectual and the refined ; that 
 good men denounce it from their pulpits and inter- 
 dict it to their households ; that all is naught in it 
 from Dan to Beersheba ; and that a taste for its pro- 
 ductions denotes an ill-regulated mind, or a frivolous 
 disposition. We do not propose, in the following re- 
 marks upon the present state of the stage and dra- 
 matic literature, to meet these objections directly. 
 It will suffice to show what is the actual condition, 
 healthy or unhealthy, declining or advancing, of the 
 British theatre. If we mistake not, while there is 
 much in it to wish otherwise, there is also fair ground 
 for commendation. We shall have done something 
 towards clearing up a vexed and imperfectly under- 
 stood question, if we can show probable grounds of 
 hope for the future. 
 
 It must be owned that the drama labours under 
 many disadvantages at the present moment. We shall 
 not dwell upon their more obvious causes — the habits 
 of social life, the inroads made upon the attractions 
 of the theatre by the counter-attractions of literature, 
 or the ebb of fashion from the stage doors. These 
 disadvantages are on the surface, and a sudden turn 
 in the world's tide would repel and obliterate them. 
 Their sources lie much deeper, and must be sought 
 in the character and tendencies of the age itself.
 
 SIMILARITY OF MANNERS. 1.23 
 
 It is perhaps an inevitable result of advancing 
 civilization, that it levels in great measure the external 
 and salient points of individual character, and thus 
 deprives the drama of one of its principal aliments 
 and attractions. Evil passions and evil natures are 
 unhappily, indeed^ the accompaniments of every age, 
 but they do not therefore always exhibit themselves 
 under dramatic forms. The crimes and woes of " old 
 great houses" seldom aflPect in our days either the 
 annals of the world or the passions of indi\iduals. 
 Wars have lost their chivalric character ; politics are 
 no longer tissues of dark intrigues, revealed only by 
 their results, but hidden during their process in im- 
 penetrable darkness. Society has ceased to be di- 
 vided into castes, or distinguished by outward and 
 \isible tokens of grandeur or debasement. Our man- 
 ners and habits have grown similar and unpicturesque. 
 A justice on the bench is no longer worshipful; a 
 squire, except in the eyes of some poaching varlet, is 
 no more " the petty tyrant of his fields ; '' we take 
 the Mall of an alderman, and feel no awe in the pre- 
 sence of a mayor ; lords ride in cabs ; the coach, with 
 six Flemish horses, with its running footmen and 
 linkbearers, has vanished into infinite space ; a knight 
 of the shire may be the son of a scrivener ; our men 
 on 'Change have doffed their flat caps and shining 
 shoes ; there are no bullies in Paul's Walk, .and 
 hardly a Toledan blade within the liberties of Lon- 
 don. " The toe of the peasant comes near the heel 
 
 G 2
 
 124 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 of the courtier." Our A^ery inns have dropped their 
 pictorial emblems : we write, instead of paint, our 
 tavern-heraldry. Town and country are nearly one. 
 Clarendon says of a certain Earl of Arundel, that 
 "he went rarely to London, because there only he 
 found a greater man than himself, and because at 
 home he was allowed to forget that there was such a 
 man." Lord Arundel's policy would be unavailing 
 now. Our humours and distinctions are wellnigh 
 abolished, and the drama, so far as it depends upon 
 them, is deprived of its daily bread. The stage-poet 
 cannot find his Bobadil in any lodging in Lambeth, 
 nor his Justice Shallow in Gloucestershire, nor 
 Ancient Pistol in Eastcheap. The "portrait of a 
 gentleman or lady " at the Exhibition may represent 
 four-fifths of our similar generation. 
 
 Further afield then must our dramatists seek, if 
 they draw from life, for their models of passion and 
 humour. For the most part they suffer no especial 
 inconvenience from the stoppage of supplies, inas- 
 much as they import them ready-made from the 
 banks of the Seine. We shall advert presently to 
 the number and character of these importations. 
 For the present it suffices to remark, that this assi- 
 milation of the external forms of life operates un- 
 favourably upon the drama in two or three direc- 
 tions. It deprives the author of his fund of charac- 
 ters. It renders the audience less apprehensive of 
 individual properties, and more eager for startling
 
 A PLAY-GOER IN DIFFICULTIES. 125 
 
 effects upon the scene. The spectator comes to wit- 
 ness in representation something different from what 
 he sees daily in the streets and markets, in the law- 
 courts or the di'awing-room, and is discontented if 
 the plot have in it no dash of extravagance, or the 
 costume and scenery do not blaze with splendour. 
 The scarcity of healthier food renders him the more 
 eager for high and artificial condiments. His palate 
 too has been previously vitiated by the circulating 
 library. Macbeth is flat after Jack Sheppard; Sir 
 Anthony Absolute is dull beside ]Mr. PickA\ick. Oiu' 
 earnestness and our sport have travelled at railway 
 speed during the present century; and the drama, 
 like '^panting Time/' in Johnson's prologue, either 
 " toils after them in vain," or outstrips them by dint 
 of surpassing extravagances of story or decoration. 
 
 When Sir Roger de Coverley made known his in- 
 tention of going to the play, the Spectator and Cap- 
 tain Sentry had no difficulty in discovering at what 
 theatre that very legitimate drama ' The Distrest 
 Mother' would be enacted. But a country gentle- 
 man of the present day, unacquainted with town — 
 if, indeed, such a rui'a avis survive in this age of 
 locomotion — and recurring to his early recollections 
 of EUiston at Drurv Lane, or Kemble at Covent 
 Garden, would be sorely puzzled at first in his search 
 for either regular tragedy or comedy. At Covent 
 Garden he would find Italian Opera installed ; at 
 Drury he might indeed light upon Mr. G. V. Brooke,
 
 126 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 " cleaving the general ear ; " but he Avould quite as 
 likely read in the bills of the evenings that a gentle- 
 man would walk across the ceiling, or that Francoui's 
 stud would exhibit, or that a second Italian Opera 
 awaited him. At the Haymarket he would witness 
 indeed an excellent comedy of j\Ir. Planche's, but 
 none of his old favourites, Moreton's, or the younger 
 Colman's, or Reynolds's once popular plays. He 
 would discover that the English Opera House had 
 foregone its name and vocation, and ' Tom and Jerry ' 
 given place at the Adelphi to Mr. Taylor's admirable 
 play, 'Two Loves and a Life.' But his amazement 
 would be transcendent on learning that his best 
 chance of meeting with Shakespeare would be in the 
 remote regions where horrors or nautical heroics 
 were wont — " Consule Tullo, in the good days when 
 George the Third Avas King" — to reign supreme, 
 namely, at the Surrey or Victoria Theatres, beyond 
 the bridges, or at Sadler's Wells, once the Naumachia 
 of our metropolis. 
 
 To this Regio Transtiberina of London, indeed, has 
 recently migrated the populaj'ity of the so-called 
 " legitimate drama." Here, and in some of the City 
 theatres and saloons, managers can reckon upon re- 
 munerating profits for the production of the ' Tempest ' 
 and ' Henry V.,' the ' Duchess of Malfi' and the 'School 
 for Scandal.' Here the check-taker bawls, " Pit full!" 
 and gives the check he takes ; here spectators endure 
 five acts, and forbear to vex the manager's brain with
 
 ITS MIGRATIONS. 127 
 
 calls for novelties ; and here rarely, if ever, penetrate 
 the last devices of the Porte St. Martin. If the 
 spirits of defunct managers be permitted at any time 
 to revisit the glimpses of the moon, that of old J. 
 Da^vidge would find matter enough for meditation 
 upon " mutabilitie." Ariel skims and Prospero stalks 
 over the boards once dedicated to brigands and mid- 
 night mm'der ; and the ' Midsummer Night's Dream ' 
 displays its faery wonders and mortal perplexities 
 upon the area where British tars fought over again 
 the battles of the Baltic and the Nile. Johnson 
 rightly predicted that on the stage of old Drury 
 " new Hunts might box, and Mahomets might dance ; " 
 but the migration of Shakespeare to Southwark and 
 Islington was a prodigy beyond the bounds of his 
 vision. 
 
 For these effects, whether defective or not^ and 
 which assuredly are not altogether unfavourable as- 
 pects of the drama's condition, many causes may be 
 assigned. But in order to set them in as clear a 
 light as possible, whether as symptoms of theatrical 
 renascence or decline, we shall briefly survey, in the 
 first place, the representations current at more western 
 theatres, and in what are esteemed more civilized 
 regions of the metropolis. And as many of our 
 readers may be unaware of the number of plays 
 yearly brought out as novelties, as well as that of 
 the theatres now open to the public, or the amount 
 of persons directly or indirectly employed in minis-
 
 128 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 tering to them, we think that the following facts 
 may not be unacceptable : — 
 
 In certain recesses of the Palace of St. James, in 
 Westminster, are annually deposited some hundreds 
 of manuscripts, the records of gratified or disappointed 
 expectations. These manuscripts are copies of the 
 dramas licensed for representation dming the preced- 
 ing twelve months. Of this number not a third finds 
 its way to the press, or establishes itself in public 
 favour and remembrance; and of those which are 
 printed, fewer still survive the year which gave them 
 birth. It is not, indeed, desii'able that there should 
 be more frequent disinterments from this dramatic 
 cemetery, since few of its inmates merit a resurgam 
 upon their escutcheon ; yet, in the mass, they deserve 
 some attention, as the abstracts and chronicles of the 
 theatrical character of the age. 
 
 We do not allege these facts as implying any es- 
 pecial reproach either to the authors who produce or 
 to the public which neglects this class of writings. 
 Dramatic literature, as regards the majority of its 
 productions, is, like the art of the actor, ephemeral. 
 It partakes too much of the passing sentiments or 
 caprices of the age, and is addressed too entirely to 
 the eyes and ears of present spectators, to contain, 
 in general, the germs of perpetuity. If we except 
 Shakespeare and a few of the greater luminaries of 
 his age, the elder drama owes its partial immortality 
 more to its poetic than its dramatic strength. Of
 
 XUMBER OF PLAYS. 129 
 
 those Mliicli linger in the closet^ few would be now 
 endurable on the stage. And at the time these were 
 novelties nearly the whole imaginative powers of the 
 English mind were engrossed in the service of the 
 theatre ; whereas^ in the present day, with a few ex- 
 ceptions, no poet of any distinction has tried even 
 his ^prentice hand in dramatic composition. Lyrical 
 verse has absorbed the most profound and original of 
 our poetic writers ; and the uovqI has appropriated to 
 itself the talents which, two centm-ies ago, would have 
 been in the pay of Henslowe or Alleyne. It is ac- 
 cordingly less surprising that so few modern plays 
 should sur\ive theii' birth-year, than that so many 
 dramatic ^^Titers should be found exerting themselves 
 in a pro\ince of art in which a few weeks of applause 
 are generally succeeded by u'retrievable oblivion. 
 
 In the year 1853, two hundred and six dramas 
 were licensed for representation, and, with very few 
 exceptions, produced at various metropolitan or pro 
 vincial theatres ; and in that year the number of no- 
 velties fell short of the sums of former equal periods. 
 Of these, the majority were one, two, or at most three 
 act pieces, the experience of managers or the capa- 
 bilities of the actors having, we suppose, aflorded 
 groimds for declining the old-established jjlay of five 
 acts. The precepts of Horace and the practice of 
 our elder dramatic writers are, indeed, seldom ol)- 
 served by modern poets or critics; and the ahnost 
 universal custom of adapting French originals has 
 
 G 3
 
 130 
 
 ESSAYS OX THE DRAMA. 
 
 tended much to the abbreviation of plots and acts. 
 Occasionally, indeed, an opposite excess has been at- 
 tempted, and a monstrum informe, in eight or nine 
 acts, has drawn its slow length through an entire 
 evening, but the experiment was not so successful as 
 to be repeated. It would not be easy to classify or 
 to draw any general conclusions upon the state or 
 prospects of dramatic literature from these two hun- 
 dred and six plays. Properly speaking, the elder dis- 
 tinctions of tragedy, comedy, and melodrama, such 
 as prevailed in the age of the patent theatres, are 
 nearly extinct. The saloons are still occasionally 
 chambers of melodramatic horrors, such as once at- 
 tracted audiences to the Coburg and the Surrey 
 Theatres. But the passion for volleys of musketry, 
 and trap-doors, and red and blue lights has much 
 declined, and with it, in considerable measure also, 
 the amiable disposition to regard a British tar as an 
 eminent philanthropist, and the Hounslow brigade as 
 the redresser of the wrongs of man and the inequa- 
 lities of wealth and station. On the whole, a con- 
 siderable improvement both in morals and taste is 
 apparent even in the theatres where gentlemen may 
 be seen in the dress-circle unencumbered with coats, 
 and where the pit, from the prevalence of Israelitish 
 physiognomy in its I'ows, exhibits an apparent ap- 
 proach to the restoration of the Jews. The theatre, 
 indeed, at the present moment, is in more danger 
 from the social and sentimental corruptions of the
 
 POPULAR, \OT NATIONAL. 131 
 
 French stage, tlian from exhibitions of open ruf- 
 fianism, or the coarser species of vice and crime. 
 Yet, notwithstanding these partial improvements, the 
 question whether we possess, or are nearer than for- 
 merly to the possession of, a national drama, remains 
 nearly as far from solution as ever. That dramas 
 under few obligations, beyond the skill displayed in 
 their plot and dialogue, to our ingenious neighbours, 
 can attain popularity, has been proved by the success 
 of jNIessrs. Taylor and Reade's plays. But 'Masks 
 and Faces,' and 'The King's Rival,' and 'Plot and 
 Passion,' are exceptional instances of merit, and rather 
 encoui'age the hope of a restoration of a national 
 drama, than prove its existence at present. It is 
 equally curious and mortifying to remark that, in 
 most cases of the announcement of a new and suc- 
 cessful piece, its French parentage is openly avoAved, 
 and credit taken for the skill displayed in its adapta- 
 tion to a British audience. Nor is it any defence or 
 palliation of the debt, that our elder dramatists were 
 equally indebted to Italian or Spanish originals. They 
 were indebted to Spanish and Italian novels doubt- 
 less, though seldom until such novels had passed 1)y 
 translation into popular belief and favour; but the 
 dramatic treatment of the stories was original, and 
 had not been anticipated by the librettos of the Va- 
 rietes and Porte St. Martin. 
 
 Tlie popular drama of the day is accordingly in no 
 intelligible sense of the terra national, but, like so
 
 132 ESSAYS 0\ THE DRAMA. 
 
 much of our costume, a Parisian exotic. How does 
 it fare, on the other hand, with the drama of which 
 we justly hoast, as having surpassed in amphtude of 
 proportion and in earnestness of feehng, not only the 
 classic frigidity of Corneille and Racine, but the au- 
 thentic grandeur and harmony of the great Athenian 
 masters — with the drama which stimulated the genius 
 of Alfieri, and filled with wonder and emulation the 
 far loftier and deeper souls of Goethe and Schiller? 
 It is our boast, that ^ye are the countrymen of Shake- 
 speare and his contemporaries ; but we cannot find or 
 make them generally attractive on the stage. It is 
 not for lack of enterprise or accessories; but either 
 there is some mistake in the application of them, or 
 the public has been accustomed to a difierent fare, 
 and lost its appetite for the diet which it pronounces 
 to be unrivalled. Never were scene-painters more 
 expert, or upholsterers more inventive ; never was ar- 
 chaeology more in request for dramatic illustrations, 
 or managers more determined to be scrupulous in 
 costume and landscape. Yet all this avails them 
 little or nothing — the Mordecai of Parisian " efi'ects " 
 sits at their gate; and after a brief curiosity about 
 the ghost of Banquo, or the heraldry of King John, 
 has been sated, the romantic and historic drama pales 
 its ineffectual fire before the irresistible attractions 
 of the ' Corsican Brothers' or ' Janet Pride !' The 
 public, at least as represented by the press, quarrels 
 Avith the managers for corrupting the national taste ;
 
 RECRIMINANT PARTIES. 133 
 
 the managers retort on tlic public, that it cherishes 
 the corruption of which it complains ; and both shift 
 the blame upon the actors. " Give us/' says the 
 public, " a succession of Kembles, of Keans, or Mac- 
 readies, and we will dispense vnih the decorator and 
 the upholsterer : " " Find us," say the managers, " a 
 Mrs. Jordan or a Miss O'Neill, and we will spare 
 ourselves the cost of acres of canvas and galaxies of 
 light, red and blue : " " Afford us,'^ say the actors, 
 " equal opportunities for learning and perfecting our- 
 selves in the several departments of our art which our 
 predecessors enjoyed, and we will prove to you that 
 the ancient spirit is not dead, but cabined, cribbed, 
 and confined by the fetters imposed upon it in dramas 
 ■which exclude passion, probability, and imitation of 
 life and manners." 
 
 We think that each of the recriminant parties 
 might make out a very plausible case for itself, which 
 yet, as a whole, would be an invalid defence. The 
 public might allege, — We come to your houses for 
 amusement, and not for a lecture upon scenery, archi- 
 tecture, and dress. The managers might plead, — We 
 are engaged in a commercial speculation, no less than 
 the momentous business of earning a livelihood — we, 
 who live to please, must please to live ; and since you 
 respond to decoration and pomp more readily than to 
 character and passion, with pomp and decoration we 
 are fain to provide you. Lastly, the actors might as 
 fairly urge, — We are clay in the potter's hands ; and
 
 134 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 SO long as you obscure us with light, and dwarf us 
 amid colossal scenery and processions, you render us 
 the secondaries of the stage, and, for any effect we 
 produce, might dispense with us altogether, and ex- 
 pend our salaries upon yet costlier panoramas. 
 
 None of these complaints, we are inclined to think, 
 touch the e\al complained of. They are, in the first 
 place, vague; and, in the next, they apply equally to 
 the drama of the last century. Since the restoration 
 of monarchy and the theatres, indeed, there has never 
 been a generation in which these or similar murmurs 
 were not audible. AUeyne and Henslowe, and some 
 of their contemporaries, realized respectable fortunes 
 by management, and found performers whom both 
 themselves and their audiences approved. But their 
 lines were set in pleasant places. The habits of social 
 life favoured them : the novel, the newspaper, and 
 the club, the late dinner, and the accomphshments of 
 the world, were not their foe : a morning walk in 
 Paul's, or a morning ride on the great highway of 
 Oxford-street, was followed by an afternoon -sdsit to 
 the Globe or Bull ; and if the courtier or the citizen 
 heard the chimes at midnight, the tavern and not 
 the theatre was in fault. We cannot revert to their 
 habits and hours, and must be content to forego with 
 them some of our dramatic spirit. Neither are our 
 theatres, as they were in the age of Anne and the 
 earlier Georges, the resort of statesmen and their 
 supporters for the purpose of political displays and
 
 XU.MBEll OF THEATRES. 135 
 
 intrigues. A Chancellor of the Excheqner present- 
 ing a purse of gold to Mr. Kean for his defiance of 
 the Pope in King John, would be a spectacle more re- 
 munerating to a manager than the most captivating 
 importation from the Porte St. Martin ; the expe- 
 dience of Lord John Russell's or Lord Derby's pre- 
 sence in the side boxes for a few minutes in the even- 
 ing, would lend new radiance even to Mr. Buckstone's 
 habitual good spirits. We have learnt to separate 
 business from recreation ; and however it may fare 
 with the former, the theatre has ceased to be an in- 
 dispensable diversion for our Harleys and Godolphins. 
 The support of the higher classes is no longer in- 
 cluded among managerial anticipations of profit. Her 
 Majesty, indeed, is a most efficient patron of the drama; 
 but even court favour is not a counterpoise to the ebb 
 and recession of " the world " from the dress-boxes. 
 
 We doubt however whether, in spite of the abs- 
 traction of so important an element, the number of 
 playgoers has materially declined. We are rather 
 disposed to think that it corresponds with the greatly 
 increased sum of our metropolitan population. In 
 place of some half-dozen theatres, licensed for per- 
 formance during a few months in the year, and de- 
 nominated according to their licenses, the winter and 
 summer theatres, there arc now in the INIetropolis 
 twenty-five theatres and saloons, the larger portion of 
 which are open to the public from October to August. 
 At the lowest estimate, these establishments find
 
 136 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 employment for three thousand persons on their pre- 
 mises^ without inchiding the numbers engaged at their 
 own houses or work-rooms in the various arts of de- 
 coration and costume which the stage requires. We 
 may calculate that the audiences nightly resorting to 
 these twenty-five houses, amount to five thousand, 
 without reckoning the extraordinary resort to them 
 at the seasons of Christmas and Easter, or during 
 the "first run" of a successful novelty. Our com- 
 putation will not appear extravagant to any one who 
 has witnessed the crowds awaiting the opening of the 
 pit doors of the Adelphi or Princess's Theatres du- 
 ring the earlier performances of the ' Thirst of Gold,' 
 or ' Faust and Margaret.' We do not, indeed, pre- 
 sume from these facts, that the course of managers 
 runs with uniform and unprecedented smoothness ; 
 but they afibrd a fair presumption that we have not 
 ceased, as is sometimes vaguely asserted, to be a play- 
 going people. The sum of spectators is distributed 
 indeed over a Avider sm-face, and particular exchequers 
 may have been less uniformly replenished ; but on the 
 aggregate there has been an increase, — the theatres, 
 amid many disturbing influences at \^'ork, have not 
 lacked support. 
 
 Amid these adverse influences should be reckoned 
 the attractions afforded by our numerous literary and 
 scientific institutions, and the growing popularity of 
 Shakespearian Readings. If it is good to be amused, 
 it is better to be instructed ; and if the poetic drama
 
 LECTURES AND READINGS. 137 
 
 is more justly expounded by Mrs. Fanny Kemble 
 than by any performers now on the boards^ it is wiser 
 to resort to her readings than to the theatre. In some 
 degree^ both lectures and readings are a compromise 
 between the dramatic instincts inherent in our nature, 
 and conscientious scruples as regards the theatre. The 
 theatre is probably affected by these causes more in 
 the quality than the numbers of its frequenters. They 
 abstract from its benches many of the more intel- 
 lectual members of society, and thus lessen the de- 
 mand for a higher and better order of drama. They 
 are not, however, features peculiar to the present age. 
 They are but repetitions of what has already occurred. 
 At Athens the new comedy supplanted its rivals and 
 predecessors, much as the modern drama has sup- 
 planted Shakespeare and Racine. ^Eschylus and 
 Sophocles would no longer draw, or could not find 
 competent representatives ; and the Atheniau people, 
 who regarded the theatre as a proper object for le- 
 gislation, passed a law, to the effect that their elder 
 and better drama should thenceforward be read, and 
 not acted, at the Dionysiac festivals. We possess no 
 similar record of the Roman stage. But Ave know 
 that recitations were as popular at Rome as lectures 
 and readings in London, and that the scale of the 
 theatres and the tyranny of pantomime had, even 
 before the Augustan era, nearly banished the works 
 of Attius and Pacuvius, of Terence and Plautus, from 
 the boards. The preference for lectures and read-
 
 138 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 ings may therefore be considered more as au accident 
 of civilization than as betokening any immediate or 
 peculiar decadence of the drama. 
 
 The inferiority of om- actors^ again, is a common 
 topic of complaint ; and it frequently proceeds from 
 persons who have not entered a theatre for years, or 
 who, like Dr. Smell-fungus, think they manage those 
 things better in France, and form their notions of 
 English acting from a rare and supercilious visit to 
 the boxes on a benefit-night. They reverse, indeed, 
 the adage, and denounce the unknown as utterly flat 
 and unprofitable. But so it has ever been. The 
 players, according to such critics, are always descend- 
 ing below some fancied standard of excellence. Kemble 
 lacked the os magna sonans of Quin, and was less 
 graceful than Barry. Quin himself was inferior to 
 Booth, and Booth to Betterton. In the opinion of 
 Macklin, Garrick as Sir Harry Wildair came short 
 of Wilks : in the judgment of Foote, Macklin' s Love- 
 gold was not comparable to Shuter's. Charles Lamb, 
 whose remarks on acting evince a fine discrimination 
 of its properties, awards to Bensley a meed of praise 
 at which the few who remember that sensible but 
 stiff performer are enforced to smile; and we have 
 heard veteran play-goers aver, that Mrs. Siddons was 
 generally inferior in dignity to Mrs. Yates. We 
 distrust these traditions of vanished perfections, as 
 we discredit regrets for good old times. They ai'e, 
 we believe, on a par with Don Guzman's lament in
 
 STYLES OF REPRESENTATION. 139 
 
 ' Gil Bias ' over the decrease of the peaches since his 
 youth. The stage, as a mirror of the times, partakes 
 of their imperfections, as well as of their privileges 
 and merits. Styles of representation, no less than 
 plays themselves, go out of date. That certain kinds 
 of acting were better formerly than now, we have no 
 difficulty in admitting ; neither have we now such por- 
 traits as Reynolds's, or such eloquence as Bvu'ke's. 
 Actors, too, leave behind them their equivalents, not 
 theu' express images : our grandsires endured no one 
 but King in Sir Peter Teazle and Lord Ogleby; we 
 shall probably see no one equal to Farreu. The 
 greedy, credulous, and bragging elders whom Muu- 
 den so incomparably embodied, no longer exist; the 
 world has grown picked and dainty, and voted them 
 nuisances ; and we doubt whether Munden would not 
 now be considered a coarse and improbable actor. 
 Nay, we will go a step further, and surmise that, 
 could we see the original cast of the ' School for Scan- 
 dal,' some portions of the performance would be not 
 altogether pleasing to our present notions. We have 
 seen the ' Beggar's Opera ' degraded from a pungent 
 yet delicate satire upon the Walpoles and Pulteneys 
 to an episode from the Newgate Calendar. Its humour 
 had passed away ; its songs had lost their savour ; 
 the actors mistook irony for earnest; we seemed to 
 have fallen among thieves, and longed to call for the 
 police, and send them packing to Bow-street. We 
 have felt something of tiic kind with regard to ccr-
 
 140 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 tain well-meant revivals of old plays. Their passion 
 seemed Titanic ; the action improbable ; the interest 
 remote; the development too sudden and violent. 
 Webster's fine tragedy of ' The Duchess of i\Ialfy ' 
 was skilfully adapted to the modern stage and well 
 acted by Mr. Phelps and his company at Sadler's 
 Wells in 1851. Yet the effect of it was more strange 
 and solemn than agreeable. It seemed more germane 
 to the matter to read of such griefs than to behold 
 them embodied. It may be, that in an age of material 
 progress we are become less apprehensive of sad and 
 stately sorrows, that we look not so passionately into 
 the mutations of high estate and the graver aspects 
 of life. Beyond the Shakespearian cycle, indeed, few 
 of our elder dramas bear revival. Our passion and 
 our sport are of lighter texture than were those of 
 our forefathers. But it is a false inference that dra- 
 matic sensibility is extinct, because certain kinds of 
 dramatic composition have ceased to affect us, as Avell 
 as that the actor has degenerated, because he, like 
 ourselves, no longer responds to the wild, solemn, 
 and preternatural scenes that enthralled our sires two 
 centuries ago. 
 
 From the spectators and the performers we now 
 pass to the pictorial adjuncts of the drama. AVith 
 one and the same breath almost, we demand and de- 
 cry accuracy of costume and splendour of decoration. 
 They are indeed ruinous, but they are also indispen- 
 sable. Like the capricious lover, we can live neither
 
 PASSION FOR DECORATION. 141 
 
 with them nor without them. We call the mana2:ers 
 who supply them, stage-upholsterers, and taunt the 
 managers who withhold them for their lack of zeal 
 on our behalf. ' Richard III./ unadorned, will not 
 draw houses; revived with historical illustrations of 
 dress and scenery — mimma pars est ipsa puella sui. 
 Between the Charvbdis and Scvlla of such verdicts, 
 the manager should be an adroit pilot to avoid ship- 
 Avrecks. 
 
 That the passion for decoration has been biu'den- 
 some if not ruinous, to managers, and injurious to 
 actors, we admit — Avith a protest, however, against its 
 being reckoned among the peculiar disadvantages of 
 either at the present moment. This, like the com- 
 plaint of the inefficiency of the elder drama, is of no 
 recent origin. It dates as far back as the time of 
 Dryden, some of whose plays were brought upon the 
 stage with extreme gorgeousness ; it is satirized by 
 Pope ; it was made a subject of reproach to Garrick, 
 and accounted among the errors of John Kemble. 
 But it is inconceivable that managers should have 
 laboured for so long a period under a common de- 
 lusion — a delusion, too, which militated against their 
 own interests. Their mistake appears to us to have 
 consisted more in the indiscriminate employment of 
 the decorative art than in the art itself. The neces- 
 sity for ornament is generally in an inverted ratio to 
 the merits of the piece on which it is expended, even 
 as the most creative poets stand least in need of the
 
 142 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 painter's aid. Rarely are Homer, Shakespeare, or 
 Dante successfullj^ illustrated by artists, although the 
 same amount of graphic skill would have been well 
 employed upon the pages of Rogers, ]\Ioore, or Camp- 
 bell. Passion, provided only it finds competent re- 
 presentatives, will make itself felt ; wit and humour, 
 meeting with fitting exponents, will excite mirthful 
 responses. So long as Mr. Charles Kemble per- 
 formed Benedick and Mercutio, it mattered little 
 whether the scene behind him were an exact repre- 
 sentation of a street or garden in Verona or Mantua, 
 or whether his dress were after the fashion of France 
 or Italy. The elder Kean attired Othello in a garb 
 that no nation could claim for its own, yet no dis- 
 creet adviser would have counselled him to exchange 
 it for the cumbrous robes of a Venetian magnifico. 
 We have seen 'The Rivals' performed in a sort of 
 chance-medley costume — a century intervening be- 
 tween the respective attires of Sir Anthony and Cap- 
 tain Absolute. We have seen the same comedy 
 dressed with scrupulous attention to the date of the 
 wigs and hoops; but we doubt whether, in any es- 
 sential respect, that excellent play was a gainer by 
 the increased care and expenditure of the manager. 
 
 Excess of decoration has indeed been, in all ages 
 and nations possessing a national drama, a symptom 
 and accompaniment of decadence in the histrionic 
 art. The dramas of Euripides required more sump- 
 tuous attire and more complicated mechanism than
 
 POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 143 
 
 the ' Antigone ' or the ' Prometheus ;' but the plays 
 enacted at the Dionvsiac festivals, when Demosthenes 
 was a boy, surpassed in pomp the most gorgeous of 
 the Euripidean repertory. The extravagance of the 
 Alexandrian and Roman theatres is notorious : in- 
 terminable processions, " maniples of foot and turms 
 of horse, '^ swept across the stage, and the managerial 
 wardrobe Avould have clad the "senate frequent and 
 full." The Pompeian games offended Cicero by their 
 glare, and Cato by their profusion ; but fifty years 
 later, Bathyllus and Pyiades would have refused to 
 act in the presence of scenery so common and sordid ; 
 and in the age of Claudius and his successor, the stars 
 of pantomime, — the "regular drama" was extinct — 
 played Agamemnon and Achilles in panoplies of solid 
 gold. In the reign of Philip lY., the accoutrements 
 of the Theatre Royal at jNIadrid were as sumptuous as 
 those of the Viceroy of Arragon, and that too in an 
 age when silver and gold plate were displayed upon 
 the sideboards even of nobles of the third order. 
 Louis XIV. was more economical in his theatrical 
 pleasures; yet a thousand crowns were occasionally 
 expended by him upon a single masque or pastoral 
 at the court-theatre at Versailles — with what advan- 
 tage to the drama, those inexpressibly tame and te- 
 dious productions will satisfactorily prove to any one 
 enterprising or patient enough to read them. 
 
 It appears to us that an understanding among the 
 managers of the metropolitan theatres themselves
 
 144 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 miglit lead to the saving of much forethought, anxiety, 
 and expense to many of them individually. To such 
 keen rivals, and to a class of men supposed to be suf- 
 ficiently irritable, it may seem hazardous to suggest 
 the plan of a dramatic congress for the purpose of 
 adopting a classification of theatres. If such a scheme 
 be practicable — and to be practicable it requires only 
 a general consent of the parties interested, — its ad- 
 vantages are obvious. Their various experiences in 
 different regions of the Metropolis, would constitute 
 the materials for a Report upon the condition of the 
 drama. The capacity of the several theatres would 
 afford data of the expenses that might be incurred 
 with a fair chance of profit. It would be seen from 
 the particular returns what species of drama is most 
 popular and remunerating in any given neighbour- 
 hood. But the principal advantage of such a con- 
 gress would be the suspension, and perhaps eventually 
 the extinction, of a rash and reckless as well as an 
 unfair system of mutual opposition. The play-bills 
 will illustrate our meaning. Constantly it happens 
 that, when a novelty has proved successful at one 
 theatre, it is adopted, with certain changes — mutatis 
 mutandis — at another, although the piece may be 
 peculiarly suited to the house which originally brought 
 it out. It is perhaps impossible to establish a copy- 
 right in such cases, because the rival versions of a 
 popular drama, including the earliest in the field, are 
 probably derived from the same Parisian prototype.
 
 COMPETITION. 145 
 
 Yet even priority of adaptation, and consequently of 
 risk, ought, in our opinion, to secure priority of profits. 
 We will cite two recent instances of the invasion of 
 dramatic property. 'The Corsican Brothers,^ in its 
 English dress, appeared originally at the Princess's 
 Theatre, and was immediately successful. In the 
 course of a month there were four or five versions of 
 the ' Freres Corses,' substantially the same as that 
 performing at the Princess's Theatre, With ' Sar- 
 danapalus' the case was even worse. To have pro- 
 duced Byron's play with equally costly accompani- 
 ments would have been a hazardous experiment. But 
 another com^se was open — to turn the whole into 
 ridicule ; and accordingly burlesques were speedily 
 produced at the Strand and Adelphi Theatres. Now 
 we contend that in such procedure there was much 
 unfairness. The manager of the Princess's Theatre 
 was, in fact, catering for two rival establishments, and 
 remunerated by one only. There was no redress : 
 neither of the burlesques were morally objectionable, 
 and the public regarded with indifference the scramble 
 between the rival houses. 
 
 We could allege many similar instances of un- 
 generous competition. The evil, for such we must 
 consider it, would be met by a better understanding 
 among the managers themselves, who are the princi- 
 pal sufferers from their own collisions. A " concordat" 
 such as we have suggested would assign to different 
 theatres different classes of dramas ; the actors would
 
 146 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 be better classified and better drilled^ and the public 
 reap the benefit of special and well-defined perfor- 
 mances, elaborated by constant and undivided prac- 
 tice. That such an arrangement is neither imprac- 
 ticable nor visionary is a conclusion warranted by its 
 success wherever it has been partially attempted in 
 this country, as well as by its results where, as in 
 France, it has been long and generally adopted. We 
 do not presume to ofi^er any more particular sugges- 
 tions — "quod fabrorum est tractent fabri," — but in 
 further confirmation of our views, we proceed to take 
 a rapid glance at such of our theatres as recently or 
 for some time past have restricted themselves to 
 special classes of dramatic entertainments. We shall 
 have much mistaken the matter, if it can be proved 
 that the comparative prosperity of these houses has 
 not mainly arisen from the judicious limits imposed 
 upon their performances by the managers themselves. 
 We desire to avoid invidious distinctions; but no 
 one acquainted with the various metropolitan theatres 
 will cavil at our naming* the Lyceum, the Princesses, 
 the Olympic, Sadler's Wells, and the Adelphi, as 
 possessing the best disciplined companies and the 
 most generally accomplished actors of the day. The 
 Lyceum is the home of the vaudeville — we cannot 
 add the English vaudeville, for its productions are for 
 the most part transplanted; their exotic origin does 
 not however aflfect the merits of their performance 
 * This article was written in 1854.
 
 DIVISION OF PERFORMANCES. 147 
 
 and mise-en-schie. The Olympic deals with comedies 
 of a higher order, often of native growth, and often, 
 latterly, judicious revivals; but its reproductions, as 
 well as its novelties, form an intermediate class be- 
 tween the old five-act drama and the lighter and more 
 evanescent trifles of the Lyceum. At the Princess's 
 we occasionally have Shakespeare represented with all 
 the pomp and circumstance of modern art, but its 
 stock-pieces are of a more prosaic stamp, of an order 
 midway between tragedy and melodrama, and defi- 
 cient certainly neither in interest nor dramatic effects. 
 The Adelphi has established a kind of vested property 
 in dramas — genuine Adelphi dramas, in the language 
 of its bills — which may perhaps be most correctly de- 
 fined as combinations of melodrama with farce. Of 
 Sadler's "Wells, as the most popular retreat of the 
 regular drama, we have already spoken ; its audiences 
 demand few novelties, and retain the rare faculty of 
 sitting out five-act pieces. 
 
 It is, however, less to the particular merits than to 
 the systematic discrimination of these performances 
 that we direct our reader's attention. We believe 
 that the above-enumerated theatres are, from year to 
 year, the most steadily attractive. The spectators 
 know what order of drama they may look for within 
 their walls; the actors are drilled to definite func- 
 tions, and enjoy the inestimable benefit of playing for 
 many successive seasons together. The decliiie of 
 the patent theatres was, we believe, principally owing 
 
 II 2
 
 148 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 to their departure from a similar wholesome regimen. 
 The success of the most remunerative theatres at the 
 present moment is in great measure due to their re- 
 sumption of it. An experiment which, wherever it 
 has been fairly tried, has proved uniformly salutary, 
 needs, in our opinion, only a more general application 
 of it in order to render our national stage as effective 
 in all its departments as the Parisian. If the expe- 
 diency of such a classification were once generally re- 
 cognized by managers, the inconveniences and unfair- 
 ness of competition would cease, and the Lord Cham- 
 berlain, by granting licenses for distinct classes of 
 entertainment to the various establishments under his 
 jurisdiction, would confirm and sustain the improved 
 organization of theatrical entertainments. And this, 
 or some equivalent system of arrangement, has become 
 the more indispensable as regards the training of the 
 performers, now that the provinces have nearly ceased 
 to supply efficient recruits to the metropolitan stage. 
 In nearly a third of our cities and towns the play- 
 house is closed : it has been converted into a chapel, 
 a corn-market, or a lecture-room. Even where a 
 manager is enterprising enough to risk a season, it is 
 usually brief and precarious. At York, Bath, and 
 Norwich, at one time the acknowledged nurseries of 
 the London stage, and which successively sent up 
 the Kembles, Young, Macready, Liston, Blanchard, 
 Dowton, and a host of lesser luminaries, the dramatic 
 campaign ordinarily extended over at least six months
 
 PROVINCIAL THKATRES. 149 
 
 of the year. A London " star " was ably seconded 
 by provincial satellites, and the latter found no diffi- 
 culty in keeping pace with the performances at Drury 
 Lane and Covent Garden. The oldest and most ex- 
 clusive of the country families regarded periodical 
 visits to the theatre as much a portion of their social 
 duties as attendance at Quarter Sessions or an Assize 
 ball. To be absent from the regular bespeaks of the 
 High Sheriff or the INIembers was a mark of eccen- 
 tricity, or a deficiency in respect to those magnates ; 
 nor was there lacking any interest in the performance 
 or in the merits of the respective performers. But at 
 the present moment the High Sheriff might as well 
 conjure spirits from the deep as expect that an over- 
 flowing audience will come at his call. A few of his 
 tenants may gather round their landlord, but his co- 
 mates and acquaintance are deaf as adders to his sum- 
 mons. Provincial acting is indeed nearly defunct. 
 The City theatres stand in the place of the provincial 
 houses; thither popular performers from the Strand 
 and Haymarket flock as " stars/' and there are ab- 
 sorbed the few country celebrities which remain. But 
 the City theatres are by no means equivalents, as 
 schools of acting, for their extinct country predeces- 
 sors. The standard of ability is of a lower kind ; the 
 species of dramas which they represent demand rather 
 strength of lungs than professional knowledge. The 
 regular discipline of a respectable country stage — the 
 discipline that, directed by Tate Wilkinson at York,
 
 150 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 and Brunton at Norwich, drilled so many serviceable 
 recruits, both rank and file, for the metropolitan 
 boards — is seldom practised in establishments where 
 rant and buffoonery suffice, and where most of the 
 pieces represented are versions of the newspaper novel, 
 or of third-rate tales from third-rate circulating libra- 
 ries. Scarcely an instance occurs of a City theatre 
 or saloon supplying the stage with even a tolerable 
 addition to its forces. 
 
 We have however said already that we distrust 
 the alleged superiority of the actors of former days, 
 and of the general decline of acting at the present 
 moment. We believe, on the contrary, that, with a 
 l)etter system of co-operation, a single English theatre 
 would rival, in the refinement and effectiveness of its 
 corps dramatique, any single Parisian house. We 
 have seen no French comedians, in the same line, bet- 
 ter than our incomparable pair of Keeleys. The St. 
 James's Theatre has hitherto imported no performer, 
 with the single exception of Regnier, more variously 
 accomplished or more consummate in skill than Mr. 
 Alfred Wigan; and Mr. Charles Matthews, even in 
 parts more exacting than the usual repertoire of the 
 Lyceum vaudeville, has few equals, — we are inclined 
 to add, no superior. It is rarely found that actors 
 excel alike in the lighter humours and the more 
 earnest passions. Garrick and Henderson are perhaps 
 almost solitary exceptions of equal and transcendent 
 merit in Hamlet and Benedick, in Macbeth and Me-
 
 BURLESQUES. 151 
 
 grim, in Richard and Abel Drugger. John Kemble 
 in comedy, in spite of Lamb's eulogy, was recorded 
 in his day among " the miseries of human life/' and 
 the elder Kean was absolutely intolerable in the few 
 attempts he made in the service of Thalia. The pre- 
 sent stage liowever affords an actor who combines 
 passion with humour in a remarkable degree, and, in 
 the midst of the ludicrous embarrassments of comedy, 
 presents us with fervent tragic pathos. No one can 
 have witnessed the performances of Mr. F. Robson at 
 the Olympic Theatre, without being struck with the 
 narrowness of the bounds between sport and earnest. 
 His farce has a pathetic depth, a grave earnestness, 
 that touch, at one and the same moment, the sources 
 of tears and laughter. He is partly Liston and partly 
 Kean. "With less than a cubit added to his stature 
 ]Mr. Robson would be among the first Shakespearian 
 actors of the day. It is unfortunate both for himself 
 and the spectators that his physical qualifications are 
 not in better accordance with his dramatic genius. 
 He lacks presence only to mate Kean in Shylock and 
 Overreach, or Macready in Virginius and Lear. 
 
 ]\Ir. Robson, we believe, at one time obtained con- 
 siderable repute as an actor in l)urlesques. He has 
 fortunately escaped from the evil eflects of that most 
 stupid and barren department of theatrical entertain- 
 ment. In this censure we do not of course include 
 such admirable samples of Aristophanic fun as Mr. 
 Planche so often produces, or Mr. Tom Taylor's ' Dio-
 
 152 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 genes and his Lantern.' These are legitimate sketches 
 of follies as they fly. But the burlesque — which, like 
 an impure flesh-fly, battens upon the imagination of 
 Shakespeare or the pathos of Euripides, which avails 
 itself of the solemn and preternatui'al machinery of 
 Macbeth, of the Rembrandt-like picture of the Moor, 
 of the aberrations of Hamlet, of the revenge of Shy- 
 lock, of scenes and thoughts the most hallowed among 
 merely human conceptions, appears to us among the 
 most despicable products of shallow and heartless 
 Avriters, equally devoid of respect for their own age, 
 or of reverence and gratitude towards their benefac- 
 tors in past time. Nor are such prodvictions less dis- 
 creditable to their authors than symptoms of decay 
 in dramatic art itself. To the spectators the bur- 
 lesque is noxious, since it accustoms them to associate 
 the low and the absurd with the sublime and the 
 earnest; to the actors it is no less injurious, since it 
 tends to impress them with distrust and disrespect for 
 their art : nay, by exhausting it upon false and super- 
 ficial wit, it dulls the edge of legitimate and natural 
 humour. Nor is the offence at all lessened in our 
 eyes when the parody is at the expense, not of the 
 established reputations of the past time, but of con- 
 temporary productions of merit. The prospect that 
 his work may become a butt for ridicule necessarily 
 renders an author timid and diffident of himself. He 
 holds his sword like a dancer under the apprehension 
 that it may soon be struck from his hand by the bat
 
 CAUSES OF ITS PARTIAL DECLINE. 153 
 
 of a clown. Actors^ audiences, and managers are 
 alike interested in stifling these parasitical excres- 
 cences of the drama, and in commending the fools 
 that use them to some better vent for their pitiful 
 ambition. 
 
 In our brief sketch we have endeavoured to survey 
 the general aspects and conditions of the national 
 drama at the present day. That in some respects it 
 has declined we are obliged to admit ; certain species 
 of theatrical entertainment are in abeyance, and pro- 
 bably will not speedily be revived. No great school 
 of actors has succeeded to the Kemble family, and 
 with them the higher order of both tragedy and 
 comedy has expired; few modern plays bear the im- 
 press of longevity, and will probably be forgotten be- 
 fore another year has passed away. For these causes 
 of inferiority we have, in great measure, to thank the 
 social character of the age itself; literature super- 
 sedes the drama on the one hand, and, on the other, 
 we have opened different sources of instruction and 
 amusement. Yet we do not despond : we believe that 
 the remedy lies in a great degree with the managers 
 themselves. We are persuaded that a more careful 
 elaboration of the means which they possess, a politic 
 division of their forces, an abstinence from unfair and 
 expensive competition, a stricter discipline of their 
 companies, and a more systematic regard to the ethi- 
 cal (qualities of their productions, will do much to- 
 wards wiimiug back to them the educated and intcl- 
 
 n :i
 
 154' ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 lectual classes of the commuuity. We would not ex- 
 clude spectacle, but restrict it to theatres where the 
 space is favoui'able to gorgeous display. We would 
 not banish all importations of foreign librettos, but 
 Ave would recommend the adaptation of them to our 
 own social habits and principles. We would borrow 
 from them, not as dependants, but as pupils willing 
 to be instructed. We have happily not arrived at an 
 era of such corruption or degradation as stifled the 
 theatres of Athens and Rome. With a literature 
 which still commands respect ; with a press un- 
 shackled, yet for the most part salutarily controlled 
 by public opinion ; with much that is imaginative 
 and lofty in the character of the age ; with an almost 
 incalculable diffusion of our masculine and harmo- 
 nious language, we have still a lively and steadfast 
 faith that the nineteenth century wiW even yet deve- 
 lope, as among its befitting exponents, an intellectual, 
 moral, and vigorous national drama. 
 
 Our expectations may appear sanguine to the many 
 Avho regard the drama as the pastime of an idle hour, 
 and not as a vital branch of the intellectual life of an 
 age. We do not ask such persons to affect a spurious 
 enthusiasm for times which, being more symbolic in 
 their character, were proportionally more dramatic 
 also than the present. We would recommend thea- 
 trical pedantry as little as ecclesiastical or artistic. 
 The recreations of the day, as well as its ritual and 
 its arts, must express contemporary feelings, and not
 
 POSSIBLE REORGANIZATION. 155 
 
 borrow the exponents of them from past phases of 
 society. Literatm'e has unquestionably borne off 
 many spolia opima from the theatre ; the material de- 
 velopment of the age has given a new direction to 
 its humours and passions ; yet, in spite of these abate- 
 ments, the dramatic spirit is neither dead nor sleeping 
 among us ; it has thrown off many encumbrances of 
 stilted diction and spurious sentiment ; it has em- 
 braced new categories of mirth and earnestness; it 
 has enlisted accessories unknown to our forefathers. 
 In the heart of the chaos which the modern stage too 
 generally exhibits, we possess lining germs of a drama 
 that, skilfully trained and organized, may yet become 
 as expressive of the material and intellectual genius 
 of the day as the Sophoclean tragedy was of an ethnic 
 commonwealth, or the romantic play of a Christian 
 monarchy. In developing these materials, authors, 
 managers, and the public, have a common interest; 
 and the first step towards so desirable a change is the 
 recognition, by each in their own sphere and function, 
 of the duty of re-organizing the whole system of the- 
 atrical entertainments.
 
 156 
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE/ 
 
 On the morning of the 12th of November, expired, at 
 his residence in Saville Row, Charles Kemble, the 
 last survivor of a triad of artists, whose names are 
 written indelibly in the annals of dramatic art. 
 
 The life of an actor, so far as it is an object of 
 public interest, closes with his scenic farewell. The 
 decease of an actor, and especially of one long with- 
 drawn from the stage, might therefore attract little 
 notice at any time beyond the circle of his immediate 
 friends, and at the present moment of anxious anti- 
 cipation, is more than ordinarily liable to pass from 
 the register of the living with merely a brief expres- 
 sion of regret. Johnson indeed declared that the 
 death of Garrick eclipsed the gaiety of a nation. But 
 this was a friendly hyperbole : the nation laughed or 
 wept as before, although the mighty master no longer 
 touched the chords of its emotions. The actor's task 
 is fulfilled when the curtain descends upon his last 
 impersonation. 
 
 * Eeprinted from ' Fraser's Magazine,' December 1854.
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 157 
 
 Yet we are unwilling that the name of Charles 
 Kemble, so long and intimately associated as it has 
 been with the brightest ornaments and the most in- 
 tellectual age of the drama, should be written on the 
 roll of Death without some accompanying comment 
 and commemoration. The poet, the painter, the 
 sculptor, and the architect, perpetuate their fame in 
 their works ; but it is the hard condition of the actor 
 that his art is for the present only ; he has no pa- 
 tent for futurity — neither marble, nor canvas, nor 
 "breathing thoughts and burning words" embalm 
 his genius. With the generation which beheld hira, 
 his image and his influence pass away. 
 
 We are not in the number of those who regard 
 with indifference the condition of the drama. To a 
 complete and vital civilization it is essential that no 
 province of art should lie fallow and luiproductive. 
 If it be desirable that the thought of every age should 
 be embodied in words, colours, marble, or bronze, — if 
 it be important that our material progress should be 
 accompanied by a corresponding moral and intellec- 
 tual development, — not less desirable and important 
 is it that the drama, which claims from all the arts 
 "suit and service" in their turn, should retain its 
 station among the educational instruments of the 
 age. 
 
 But without a great school of actors the drama 
 itself necessarily pines and dwindles. Men capable of 
 casting their thoughts into dramatic forms will not
 
 158 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 be at the pains to write when none are competent to 
 embody them worthily ; and the more cultivated and 
 critical portion of the public abandon the theatre to 
 those who are content with rant, buffoonery, spec- 
 tacle, and burlesque. That we have still some actors 
 who do honour to their art, and still some authors to 
 supply them with plays worthy to outlive the present, 
 is rather a proof that the ancient spirit is not wholly 
 dead, than of the existence of a generally sound con- 
 dition of the drama itself. A brief account of one 
 who inherited and transmitted a great name may in 
 some measure illustrate the causes of the former high 
 estate and the present comparative decline of the 
 histrionic art among us. 
 
 The youngest by nearly twenty years of a family 
 who for almost three generations formed the central 
 group of all that was excellent on the stage, Charles 
 Kemble was indebted for his eventual position as 
 much to the discipline he underwent as to the dra- 
 matic powers which he shared or inherited. Nature 
 had been bountiful to him in its gifts ; his form was 
 noble, his features classical and expressive, his voice, 
 although not strong, remarkably melodious. But it 
 was the diligent cultivation of these gifts which finally 
 earned and secured for him his later and mature fame. 
 His brother — who from the difference of their years 
 stood to him also in loco parentis — knew well that there 
 is no royal road to histrionic excellence. Hence he 
 imposed upon the young debutant a probation as strict
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 159 
 
 and regular as he was in the hahit of prescribing to 
 the least gifted of his associates. Charles Kemble 
 was for some years an actor of third and fonrth-rate 
 parts, both in public and professional estimation, and 
 for many more was entrusted with only secondarj'^ 
 chai'acters. Nor was he an actor who rose rapidly 
 in public favour. The public compared him unfairly 
 with his elders; they expected from the incepting 
 the completeness of the matured actor. The press, 
 which he never courted, repaid his indifference with 
 occasional hostility or general silence. He had no 
 declamatory tricks to catch the unwary; he never 
 condescended to play at either pit or gallery. And 
 the audience of those days was not easily contented. 
 Nightly in the habit of witnessing performances of 
 a high order, their demands were high on all who 
 aspired to win their favour. There was indeed less 
 smart newspaper criticism in those days; but there 
 was instead of it a more competent and formidable 
 bench of judges in the pit and boxes to probe and 
 admonish the actor. The audiences of that period 
 came with comparatively fresh emotions to the thea- 
 tre. Their sensations had not been blunted by the 
 semi-dramatic excitement of Byron's poems or Scott's 
 tales. The novel of that time did not antici})ate the 
 business of the scene. Neither had the men and 
 women of that time, artificial as were their manners 
 in many respects, reached that morbid condition of 
 civilization which now renders the indulgence or ex-
 
 160 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 pression of feeling in public little short of a social 
 crime. They went to the theatres to be moved, and 
 they required that the actor should be able to open 
 the sources of their mirth or sorrow. They met him 
 halfway, but they expected that on his part he should 
 be able to evoke the sympathy which they were ready 
 to afford. Nor, at the time when John Kemble and 
 Mrs. Siddons were in the zenith of their fame, did 
 spectators flock to the theatre merely to be moved or 
 amused. The stage was looked upon as a school of 
 manners, as well as the most intellectual of all enter- 
 tainments. Orators, artists, men of wit and men of fa- 
 shion, then resorted to Covent Garden or Drury Lane 
 as they now flock to the Opera. To canvass the merits 
 and to attend the representations of English actors 
 was not then considered a token of inferior breeding. 
 It was as legitimate to profess admiration of Shake- 
 speare and Jouson as now of Rossini or Donizetti. 
 Nous avons change tout cela — with what profit appears 
 from the present condition of the English stage. 
 
 In such a period as we have sketched, Charles 
 Kemble served his apprenticeship. Behind the cur- 
 tain his discipline was severe; before it his judges 
 were exacting. But there was a further cause of his 
 final excellence — a cause which hardly survives in the 
 present day. If we compare a sheaf of playbills fifty 
 years old with the present announcements of the thea- 
 tre, we shall find that in the one case there was a con- 
 stant repetition of established dramas, in the other
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 161 
 
 there is a rapid succession of novelties. If we examine 
 these documents more minutely, we shall discover 
 also that while the scene-painter and the upholsterer 
 are now at least as important personages as the per- 
 formers, then the main burden of the play lay on the 
 actors' shoulders. Now the effect of repeating ac- 
 credited di'amas was to render the performer more 
 skilful, to improve his manipulation of character, to 
 concentrate his attention upon the details of his art. 
 To make up for the superficial attractions of novelty 
 he was compelled to give a higher finish to his habi- 
 tual impersonations. Whatever may have been the 
 demerits of theatrical monopoly, it possessed this in- 
 estimable advantage to the actors. They played better 
 individually and collectively. They were animated by 
 a common spirit, and by an emulation not always un- 
 generous. To sustain the character of the house was 
 no unusual or unAvorthy ambition. 
 
 It appears to us moreover that the elder actors 
 proposed to themselves a different and in some re- 
 spects a higher standard of art than prevails among 
 their present representatives. They may have been 
 more " mannered," for the age to which they played 
 was more precise and formal. This however was an 
 accident of their generation, balanced by other and 
 perhaps less artistic peculiarities in our own. We 
 believe the elder school to have been more ideal. 
 They held fast at least one principle of art of the 
 highest value and moment. They were not content
 
 162 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 with a succession of. fragmentary efforts ; they aimed 
 at unity of effect ; they were not disposed to accept of 
 occasional bursts of passion as a compensation for 
 the neglect of the harmony and repose which enter 
 so largely into every genuine work of art. They esti- 
 mated the performance on the stage rather by its 
 total veracity than by its spasmodic and irregular 
 strength, — even as they would have preferred the 
 chastised grace of Reynolds to the exuberant and ca- 
 pricious fancy of Turner. 
 
 There may have been somewhat too much of 
 system, too elaborate a display of art, in the decla- 
 mation of John Kemble; and we whose ears are un- 
 used to such modulations, and inui-ed if not reconciled 
 to the harsh and broken tones of modern elocution, 
 should very possibly be affected with a feeling of sur- 
 prise if we heard ' Hamlet^ or ' Macbeth' so intoned. 
 Be this as it may, the art of reciting blank verse and 
 dramatic dialogue generally is among the lost arts of 
 the stage, and has been supplanted by a trick of enun- 
 ciation that relieves the dramatic poet from any obli- 
 gation to write in poetic measures. Throughout his 
 career, Charles Kemble reflected the influences of his 
 early discipline. He was, in the first place, a vera- 
 cious actor, neither adding to nor falling short of the 
 conceptions of his author. He was moreover a most 
 industrious and painstaking actor, thinking nothing 
 done while aught remained to do; inspired with a 
 high ideal, assiduously striving to reach it, and pro-
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE, 163 
 
 bably in his own conception — for such are the feelings 
 of every genuine artist — never wholly attaining it. 
 He loved his vocation with all his mind and with all 
 his strength. He was not one of those actors who 
 regard theii* efforts as taskwork and rejoice when the 
 mask is laid aside. He highly rated his profession, 
 as one ministrant to the intellect and the heart of 
 man — as at once the mirror and the auxiliary of the 
 poet, the painter, and the sculptor. All his opportu- 
 nities were made subservient to it — his reading, his 
 travels, his observation of man and man's Avorks, of 
 society, of nature, of contemporary actors native and 
 foreign. In all respects the work he had in hand he 
 wrought dihgently. He had none of the petty jea- 
 lousies of his profession. At the zenith of his reputa- 
 tion he would undertake characters which inferior 
 actors would have declined as derogatory to them. 
 He envied no one; he supplanted and impeded no 
 one. For his art he was often jealous — never for 
 himself. He possessed in an eminent degree the love 
 of excellence ; but he was no seeker of pre-eminence. 
 Stanch in maintaining his opinions as to the proper 
 scope and import of acting, he was tolerant of oppo- 
 sition ; and prompt in discovering and acknowledging 
 merit in others. 
 
 His career as an actor began in one generation and 
 terminated in another. It commenced at Sheffield in 
 1792, and closed at Covent Garden Theatre in 1840. 
 During that period revolutions took place both in
 
 164 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 social life and literature which directly and in various 
 ways affected both the form and substance of the 
 drama, Within the first twenty years of the present 
 century a new literature arose, a literature which dif- 
 fered essentially from that of either the sixteenth or 
 the eighteenth centuries. The wits of Queen Anne's 
 reign would have deemed the productions of Byron 
 and Scott as a recurrence to the earlier and ruder 
 periods of Elizabeth; the Elizabethan poets would 
 have regarded them as deficient in earnestness and 
 erudition. As a satirist Byron might have won the 
 applause of Dry den and Pope, and Addison have 
 written a ' Spectator' upon the poetical descriptions 
 in ' Childe Harold.' As a novelist Scott might have 
 ranked with Defoe, and as a poet with Davenant; 
 but the age which admired the ' Grand Cyrus' and 
 'Clelia' wovdd have little relished "^Waverley' and 
 the ' Heart of Mid-Lothian.' The influence of both 
 these poets was unfavourable to the drama. They 
 supplied the public with sufiicient theatrical excite- 
 ment at the fireside, and weaned them from the thea- 
 tre by embodying in their writings scenes and senti- 
 ments hitherto monopolized by the stage. 
 
 They were not the only and perhaps not the greatest 
 poets of their age, but they were the leaders in a spe- 
 cies of literature which more than any other has proved 
 prejudicial to the taste for theatrical entertainments. 
 Shelley, Wordsworth, and Keats, and even Rogers and 
 Campbell, were either too limited in their several in-
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 165 
 
 fluences or too remote and abstract iu their genius to 
 affect materially the public at large ; whereas Scott 
 and Byron embraced and commanded a range of sym- 
 pathies similar in kind, and nearly commensiu'ate with 
 the drama itself. Nor was popular literature the only 
 rival of the theatre. The Continent, long sealed to 
 Englishmen, was in the fifteenth year of this century 
 suddenly thrown open to them, and novel forms of art 
 and untried objects of intellectual interest were pro- 
 digally afforded to the wealthy and refined classes of 
 the community. Beside such attractions the theatre 
 paled and waned. The treasures of statuary, painting, 
 and music, in their native homes, were simultaneously 
 thrown open, and the frequenters of the pit and boxes 
 became travellers by land and sea, and connoisseurs 
 in arts more intellectual and permanent than any 
 theatrical show or any actor's impersonation. Nor 
 must we omit the increased religiosity of the times. 
 Whether abstract scruples against the stage be well- 
 founded or not, this is neither the time nor the place 
 to inquire. But it is certain that the passions and 
 sentiments of the theatre are frequently such as the 
 moralist would discourage; and although the actor 
 may at times be a useful auxiliary to the preacher, 
 vet his text and his doctrines are not necessarily in 
 accordance with those of the pulpit. And thus at 
 nearly the same period these counter-attractions — lite- 
 I'aturc, foreign travel, and religion — combined their 
 opposite influences against the drama, and drew off 
 from it myriads of votaries.
 
 166 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 But in the year 1792 none of these causes of de- 
 cline were as yet in operation. Mrs. Siddons, though 
 somewhat past her prime^ was still in the full majesty 
 of matronly beauty; and John Kerable stood confessed 
 the legitimate successor of Betterton^ Quin, and Barry. 
 Nor, although they were in shape and gesture proudly 
 eminent, were they unsupported. A host of actors, 
 the least accomplished of whom might now be the 
 protagonist at many London theatres, seconded and 
 sustained them — on the spear side, Bensley, Holm an, 
 the Palmers, and Barrymore — on the spindle side, 
 Mrs. Powell, Mrs. Crawford, Miss Brunton, etc. In 
 this most high and palmy state of the drama, and 
 before audiences at once susceptible of emotion and 
 skilful in judgment, the younger Kemble made his 
 first appearance in the tragedy of ' Macbeth,' and in 
 the subordinate character of Malcolm . 
 
 The earlier impersonations of an actor who rises 
 gradually in his profession are rarely remarked at the 
 time or remembered afterwards. We have however 
 Mr. Boaden's testimony to the '^poetry of Charles 
 Kemble's acting" in Guiderius, and his princely de- 
 meanour in Malcolm. But it was as the representa- 
 tive of second parts that his powers were first mani- 
 fested. Those who are old enough to remember the 
 Hamlet, Macbeth, and Coriolanus of his majestic 
 brother; or the Lady Macbeth, Volumnia, and Mrs. 
 Beverley of his matchless sister, will also recall the 
 younger Kemble's chivalrous energy in Macduff, the
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 167 
 
 classical grace of his Aufidius, and the pathos he in- 
 grafted upon Lewson. We do not select these cha- 
 racters as among his best, but merely as illustrations 
 of his powers as an auxiliary to the mature artists of 
 his youthful days. In secondary parts he was indeed 
 at all times unsurpassed, and he continued to perform 
 them long after he occupied the foremost station in 
 the ranks of scenic artists. How full of winning grace 
 and good-humour was his Bassanio, how humorous 
 and true his drunken scene in Cassio, how fraught 
 with noble shame after Othello's dismissal of his 
 "officer"! He was the only Laertes whom it was 
 endurable to see in collision with Hamlet, the only 
 Cromwell worthy of the tears and favour of Wolsey. 
 
 We have great pleasure in calling in the e\idence 
 of an excellent judge of acting to support our own re- 
 collections of Charles Kemble. 
 
 " I never" (says Mr, Robson, in his 'Old Play-goer') 
 "sawan actor with more buoyancy of spirit than Charles 
 Kemble ; Lewis had wonderful vivacity, airiness, and 
 sparkle, but he was finicking compared with Charles. 
 Who ever played a drunken gentleman as he did ? 
 His efibrts to pick up his hat in Charles Oaldey were 
 the most laughable, the most ridiculous, the most na- 
 tural that can be imagined. I have seen him perform 
 the character of Friar Tuck, in a dramatic version of 
 Mr. Peacock's ' Maid Marian/ with such an extraor- 
 dinary abandonment and gusto, that you were forced 
 back U) the 'jolly greenwood and the forest bramble.'
 
 168 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 He absolutely rollicked through the part, as if he had 
 lived all his life with Robin and his men, quaffing fat 
 ale and devouring venison-pasties. But perhaps his 
 masterpiece in this way was Cassio : the insidious 
 creeping of the ' deviP upon his senses ; the hilarity 
 of intoxication ; the tongue cleaving to the roof of the 
 mouth, and the lips glued together; the confusion, 
 the state of loss of self, if I may so term it, when he 
 received the rebuke of Othello, and the wonderful 
 truthfulness of his getting sober, were beyond de- 
 scription fine, nay real. No drunken scene I ever 
 saw on a stage was comparable to it." 
 
 But the continued labour, the earnest study, and 
 unwearied self-examination pursued for many years 
 were rewarded by greater achievements than these, 
 and crowned at length with the highest recompense 
 which an actor can receive for his efforts, viz., that 
 after witnessing his performance of particular cha- 
 racters, the spectator ever afterwards, even in his 
 solitary studies and remembrances, embodies the 
 poet's creations in the very image of the actor him- 
 self. The names of Faulconbridge and Mark Antony 
 instantly evoke the person, the tones, and the looks of 
 Charles Kemble. In the one we had before us the 
 express image of the medieval warrior, in the other 
 that of the Roman triumvir. His Faulconbridge bore 
 us back to Runnymede and the group of barons bold 
 who wrested the great charter from the craven John, 
 His Mark Antony transported us to the Forum and
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 169 
 
 the Capitol, to the 10th Legion at Pharsalia, to Alex- 
 andrian revels, and to the great Actian triumph. 
 "In such characters'^ — we again appeal to the ' Old 
 Playgoer' — '^he just hit the difficult mark. He was 
 noble without blaster ; self-possessed without apparent 
 effort ; energetic without bombast ; elegant without 
 conceit." 
 
 With the single exception of Garrick, Charles Kem- 
 ble played well — avc emphasize the word because other 
 actors whom we have seen have been ambitious of 
 variety, and imagined they could assume diversified 
 powers when nature had denied them — the widest 
 range of characters on record. If he had no equal in 
 Benedick, neither had he in Jaffier ; if his Leon and 
 Don Felix were unsurpassed, so also were his Edgar in 
 'Lear' and his Leonatus in 'Cymbeline.' He was the 
 most joyous and courteous of Archers, Charles Sur- 
 faces, and Rangers. His Jack Absolute was the most 
 gallant of Guardsmen : his Colonel Feignwell a com- 
 bination of the best high and the best low comedy, as 
 he successively passed through his various assump- 
 tions of the Fop, the Antiquary, the Stock-broker, 
 and the Quaker. In young Mirabel again he united 
 the highest comic and tragic powers In the first 
 four acts he revelled in youth, high spirit, and lusty 
 bachelorhood : in the last his scene with the bravoes 
 and the "Red Burgundy" was for its depth of passion 
 equalled alone by Kean's agony and death in Over- 
 reach.
 
 170 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 We sliould exceed our limits without exhausting 
 the list of characters in which Charles Kemble had 
 no equal^ and in which, without a combination of the 
 same personal and intellectual qualities, and the same 
 strenuous cultivation of them, we shall never look 
 upon his like again. Slightly changing the arrange- 
 ment of the words, we take Mr. Hamilton Reynolds's 
 admirable lines as the fittest expression of our con- 
 viction, that with Charles Kemble departed from the 
 stage the gentleman of high life and the representa- 
 ti^'e of the classic or romantic hero : — 
 
 " We shall never again see the spuit infuse 
 Life, life in the gay gallant form of tlie Muse. 
 Through the heroes and lovers of Shakespeare he ran, 
 All the soul of the soldier — ^the heart of the man. 
 
 " We shall never iu Cyprus his revels retrace, 
 See him stroll into Angiers with indolent grace, 
 Or greet him in bonnet at fair Duusinane, 
 Or meet him in moonht Verona again." 
 
 In his provincial engagements at all times, and 
 latterly on the metropolitan boards, Charles Kemble 
 performed a range of characters for which his talents 
 or his temperament were not so well adapted as for 
 parts of chivalry, sentiment, or comic humour. He 
 played Shylock, INIacbeth, and Othello occasionally, 
 but not with the marked success of his Hamlet, 
 Romeo, or Pierre, His performance of this order of 
 characters arose, latterly at least, from the circum- 
 stance that he alone from his position and reputation 
 was quahfied to support in tragedy his accomplished
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 171 
 
 daughter, ou whom had descended the mantle of 
 Mrs. Siddons. But whether it proceeded from his 
 theory of art, or from his peculiar idiosyncrasy, 
 Charles Kemble, so excellent in the representation of 
 sentiment, did not in general answer the demands of 
 passion. His Shylock has been commended by no 
 incompetent judge for "its parental tenderness;'^ but 
 the infusion of tenderness into Shylock^s nature we 
 conceive to have been an error. Shylock may have 
 been attached to Jessica as a wolf to its cub ; but if 
 he loved her at all, he loved gold and revenge more ; 
 and Shakespeare has, in our opinion, afforded no hint 
 of this palliating virtue in his Jew. On the contrary, 
 in her presence Shylock's language to Jessica is harsh 
 and peremptory ; and after she has forsaken him, his 
 lamentations are rather for his ducats and Leah's ring 
 than for his daughter. Again, Mr. Kemble's Moor 
 was certainly of a noble and loving nature, and his 
 form and bearing afforded a good excuse for Desde- 
 mona's preference of him to the " curled darlings of 
 her nation." But his Roman features and his elabo- 
 rate manipulation of the character were not so well 
 suited to the rapid alternations of Othello from ab- 
 sorbing love to consuming anger, from profound ten- 
 derness to yet more profound despair, from faith to 
 dou])t, from accomplished though erring retribution 
 to overwhelming and fathomless remorse. His im- 
 personation of the Moor was too statuesque, and, be- 
 side the quickening spirit of terror and pity which 
 
 I 3
 
 172 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 Edmund Kean infused into the part^ seemed unreal^ 
 and was ineffective. 
 
 Macbetli again was a character in which Mr. Kem- 
 hle, if it be compared with his other impersonations, 
 — for we are now contrasting him with himself in 
 various parts, — was less distinguished. Perhaps the 
 recollection of his brother's pre-eminence in the Thane 
 of Fife acted as a drawback upon his own conceptions, 
 and affected him with a kind of despair of rivalry or 
 reproduction. But his performance of it lacked the 
 usual individuality of his historical and heroic parts : 
 his Macbeth was as much " an antique Roman as a 
 Dane;" in his Antony the real man seemed to have 
 revisited the glimpses of the moon ; but on the heath, 
 and at the Palace of Scone, the historical veracity was 
 less marked. For the line of characters indeed in 
 which Edmund Kean surpassed all the actors of this 
 century — Othello, Shylock, Richard, Overreach, etc. 
 — Charles Kemble needed certain physical qualifica- 
 tions. The dulcet tones of his voice, which in Romeo 
 and Hamlet went home to the hearts of his audience 
 on the wings of the noble poetry it uttered, were less 
 adapted to convey the trumpet notes, the anguish, 
 and the wail of darker passions. There were also a 
 faintness of colouring in his face and a statuesque 
 repose in his demeanour unfavourable to the sudden 
 transitions and vivid flashes of emotion which such 
 impersonations require. There were perhaps also the 
 corresponding intellectual deficiencies — a want of in-
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 173 
 
 tensity, vigour, aud concentrating power. And, it 
 mav be unconsciously, his theory of art led him to 
 disregard too much the occasional demands of the 
 more intense and uncontrollable passions, and to 
 direct his attention rather to the finer and more fleet- 
 ing shades of character — tenderness, grace, the elabo- 
 ration of the minor strokes of the picture, and the 
 classic unity of the whole. 
 
 Between the impersonations of Kean and Charles 
 Kemble there was a fontal opposition arising from 
 the opposite nature of their respective temperaments. 
 Kean never played a part thoroughly : he disregai'ded 
 unity altogether — probably he was incapable of form- 
 ing for himself a complete or harmonious idea of any 
 dramatic character. He acted detached portions alone, 
 but upon these he flung himself with all his mind and 
 soul and strength, moral and physical. For such 
 abrupt and spasmodic efforts he possessed extraordi- 
 nary physical qualifications. An unrivalled command 
 of sinewy and expressive gesture; eyes that emitted 
 tender or balefid light ; a brow and lips that ex- 
 presed vigour, intensity, and indomitable resolution; 
 and a voice running through the entire gamut of pas- 
 sion, and passing easily from an exquisitely touching 
 tenderness to the harshest dissonance of vehement 
 passion. Hence Kean, who was seldom happy in 
 long-sustained speeches, was incomparable in all strik- 
 ing, sudden, and impulsive passages. Who that ever 
 heard can ever forget the uimtterable tenderness of
 
 174 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 his reply to Desdemona soliciting for Cassio^s restora- 
 tion to favour — " Let him come when he will, I can 
 deny thee nothing :" the blank comfortless despair of 
 his " Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content ! " 
 or the hot tearless agony of his " Oh, Desdemona, 
 away, away !" Who that ever saw them can ever 
 forget his attitude and look — the one graceful as a 
 panther in act to spring, the other deadly as a basi- 
 lisk prepared to strike — while awaiting the close of 
 Anne of Warwick's clamorous passion of grief: or the 
 glance of Overreach when Marrall turns against him : 
 or the recoil of Luke from his overweening mistress. 
 Lady Frugal: or Shylock's yell of triimiph, "A Daniel 
 come to judgment !" or the fascination of his dying 
 eyes in E-ichard, when, unarmed and wounded to 
 death, his soul seemed yet to fight with Richmond. 
 In recording these gifts — endowments of nature rather 
 than results of study, — we desire to draw and to im- 
 press this distinction : (1) That such intellectual and 
 physical qualities as Kean possessed belong to the 
 emotional rather than to the poetical phase of the 
 drama; that the opportunities for their employment 
 are of rare occurrence and are seldom offered except 
 by Shakespeare himself; and that they do not and 
 should not be allowed to supersede the earnest study 
 of human nature, or that mental and bodily discipline 
 which the vocation of the actor demands. (2) That 
 whereas an actor like Kean is extremely limited in 
 his range of parts — the number of his great charac-
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 175 
 
 ters was six or seven at most, — an actor like Charles 
 Kemble, in virtue of his catholic study of art as a 
 whole, of his high general cultivation, of his patient 
 elaboration of details, is enabled to fill with success 
 various and even dissimilar departments of the drama, 
 and to combine in one and the same person the en- 
 dowments of a great tragic and a great comic actor. 
 The example of Kean would be of little service to 
 any performer not similarly gifted with himself; the 
 example of the Kembles is available even to the 
 humblest members of their profession; and so long 
 as it was followed and held in honour, so long did 
 the stage retain performers capable of doing justice 
 to the classical drama of England. 
 
 His performance of Hamlet was perhaps Charles 
 Kemble's highest achievement as an actor. Of the 
 relations which it may have borne to his brother's 
 impersonation of the philosophic prince we cannot 
 speak, but of its superiority to all contemporary 
 Hamlets we entertain no doubt. His form, his 
 voice, his demeanour, his power of expressing senti- 
 ment, his profound melancholy, his meditative repose, 
 were all strictly within the range of his physical and 
 intellectual endowments, and had all been anxiously 
 trained up to the highest point of precision and har- 
 mony. His performance of this arduous character 
 indeed left nothing to desire except that occasionally 
 the harmony of the execution had been broken by the 
 disturbing forces of passion. Nothing could exceed
 
 176 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 his picture of loneKness of soul as he stood encircled 
 by the Court of Denmark; what a gleam of joy 
 beamed forth in his welcome of Horatio ! now at 
 least he has one faithful counsellor and friend ; he is 
 no longer all alone. Nothing was ever more exqui- 
 site or touching than his " Go on, I follow thee/' to 
 the Ghost. Perfect love had cast out fear ; faith pre- 
 vailed over doubt; he will go, if need be, to the 
 bourne of death and the grave : he will dive into the 
 heart of this great mystery, but not in the spirit of 
 despair, or at the summons of revenge, or in bravery, 
 or in stoical defiance, but in the strength and in the 
 whole armour of filial love. We have seen actors 
 who fairly scolded their father's spirit, and others 
 who quailed before it; but, except in Charles Kem- 
 ble, we have never seen one whose looks and tones 
 accorded Avith the spirit of that awfiil revelation of 
 the prison-house and the concealed crime and its 
 required purgation, and expressed at once the sense 
 of woe endured, anticipated, and stretching onward 
 through a whole life. In this scene, so acted, the 
 classic and romantic drama melt into one; it is 
 Orestes hearing the hest of Apollo, and it is the 
 Christian hero, scholar, and soldier standing on the 
 isthmus of time and eternity. Again, in the beautiful 
 scene with Ophelia, in which the great depths of 
 Hamlet's soul are broken up, and madness and love 
 gush forth together like a torrent swollen by storms, 
 with what exquisite tenderness of voice did Charles
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 177 
 
 Kemble deliver even the harsh and bitter words of 
 reproach and self-scorning. His forlorn and piteous 
 look seemed labouring to impart the comfort which 
 he could not minister to himself. Every mode or 
 change of expression and intonation came with its 
 own burden of anguish and despair'. Filial love at 
 one entrance was quite shut out ; his mother was for 
 him no longer a mother ; albeit not a Clytemnestra, 
 yet, like her {jjLrjrrjp d/jLJjrop) , the wife of an ^'Egisthus 
 — no more shelter for the weary on that maternal 
 bosom; childhood snapt rudely from manhood; the 
 earliest and hohest fountain of love dried up for ever. 
 And as yet the dregs of the cup have not been drained. 
 The love stronger than the love of " forty thousand 
 brothers" must also be cast oflF, at least as to all out- 
 ward seeming; and the arrow which has pierced his 
 own heart be planted in Ophelia^s also. Seeing 
 Charles Kemble enact this scene we have often mar- 
 velled how the Ophelias who played with him resisted 
 the infection of his grief. But we must not forget, in 
 thus reviving our recollections of a great artist, that 
 descriptions of acting ai'e for the most part like pic- 
 tures to the blind or music to the deaf, or as when a 
 man beholds his face in a glass, and straightway the 
 image of it passes away. To those who remember 
 Charles Kemble's impersonations, and who studied 
 them with a diligent and reflecting spirit, we shall 
 appear probably to have traced with feeble lines and 
 dim colours a portrait whose form and tints are yet 
 
 I 3
 
 178 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 living and fresli in remembrance, and will revive as 
 often as Shakespeare's pages are laid open. To those 
 on the other hand who have never witnessed his acting, 
 we must seem even less expressive, seeking to embody 
 that which by its proper nature has long ago dislimned 
 and left not a trace behind. Yet it is much to have 
 seen even what we cannot delineate to others ; and to 
 convey at least the impression that it was good, har- 
 monious, and beautiful exceedingly. Nor are we un- 
 aware that in the foregoing attempts to record our 
 own impressions we have passed over many examples 
 of his skill or genius, not less worthy of mention than 
 those which we have recounted. He restored Mercu- 
 tio to his proper position as a humorous, high-minded, 
 and chivalrous gentleman, such as in its most palmy 
 days maintained the honour of Verona, and figured 
 in Titian's pictures, or in Villani's pages, ages before 
 the Spaniard, the Gaul, or the Austrian, pressed down 
 with armed heel the beauty of "^ fair Italy." To Pe- 
 truchio he gave back his self-possession and good- 
 humour ; in Mr. Kemble's hands he was no " ancient 
 swaggerer," liable to six weeks' imprisonment for his 
 bullyings and horsewhippings. And neither last nor 
 least in the catalogue of his impersonations — although 
 it is the last we can afford space to enumerate — Or- 
 lando in Ardennes, the very top and quintessence of 
 woodland chivalry. Fourteen years have passed away 
 since Charles Kemble's final retirement from the 
 stage. Virtually he had withdrawn from his profes-
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 179 
 
 sion in the winter of 1837, bnt in the spring of 1840 
 he consented, at the command of her Majesty, to re- 
 tread for awhile the scenes of his former triumphs. 
 Among other characters he performed, at Covent 
 Garden Theatre, Don Felix, Mercutio, Benedick, and 
 Hamlet. He remained on the boards long enough to 
 witness important changes, if not an absolute dechne 
 in the art to which his life had been devoted. He 
 saw its professors, instead of being collected in strong 
 companies, and disciplined and matured by judicious 
 training and collective practice, dispersed over a wide 
 area of theatres, where talents of the first order found 
 no congenial employment, and second-rate actors were 
 able to achieve applause easily. He witnessed the 
 almost entire relegation of the classical drama to 
 theatres which had hitherto been the haunts of melo- 
 drama and buffoonery, and the staple productions 
 of these houses, by an inverse process of migra- 
 tion, transferred to the politer regions of the Metro- 
 polis. He had indeed survived the days of poetic and 
 chivalrous delineation ; and himself, the limitary co- 
 lumn of a past age, had come down to the days when 
 the theatres rested their popularity upon plays and 
 plots which combined extravagance of incident with 
 questionable ethics, and the manager relied more iipon 
 his scene-painter and his upholsterer than upon his 
 actors. Ill his younger days Charles Kemble had 
 been approved by audiences composed of the refined, 
 the accomplished, and the judicious; in his latter years
 
 180 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 the theatre had ceased to attract these classes gene- 
 rally, because it no longer afforded the means of in- 
 tellectual entertainment. We are inclined to think, 
 at least we would fain hope, that a portion of this 
 night has passed away. We possess indeed no longer 
 well-appointed companies and few actors capable of 
 answering to the demands of the higher tragedy or 
 comedy. But we have among us, though still dis- 
 persed, and thereby deprived of the advantages of co- 
 operation, no inconsiderable number of accomplished 
 actors, who would, in their degrees, have earned them- 
 selves a name in any period of the stage-history. We 
 have play-writers, too, though their number be small, 
 who, inspired with an honest purpose, may yet do 
 much at once to improve the actor in his art, and 
 elevate the audience in their taste and perceptions. 
 
 We should not be rendering full justice to the me- 
 mory of Charles Kemble were we to omit mentioning 
 his exertions in the cause of tlie historical drama by 
 restoring to it, or affording it for the first time, its 
 proper scenery and costume. His brother had ex- 
 punged much of the neglect and barbarism in these 
 matters which had disgraced the stage of Betterton, 
 Uuin, and Garrick. He had rescued Othello from 
 his footman's garb, Macbeth from his brigadier's 
 vmiform, and Brutus and Coriolauus from their sur- 
 plices and slippers. But the younger Kemble went 
 many steps further ; and in his representations of the 
 Moor of Venice, King John, and Henry IV., put upon
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 181 
 
 the stage the senators and captains of the Signoiy, 
 and the Barons of England, even in the very garb 
 worn by them when their Dukes wedded the Adriatic, 
 or Hotspur and Worcester fought at Shrewsbury. 
 His " revivals" have indeed been eclipsed; but the 
 drama owed as much to Charles Kemble a genera- 
 tion ago, as it now owes, for the splendour and pro- 
 priety of its historical accompaniments, to Mr. Ma- 
 cready, Mr. Phelps, or even Mr. Charles Kean. 
 
 Hitherto we have considered Charles Kemble in 
 his public capacity alone ; but he was too remarkable 
 as a man and as a member of refined and intellectual 
 society to be regarded merely under his aspects as an 
 actor. In our account of him in his professional re- 
 lations we have indeed anticipated many of his indi- 
 vidual qualities. His intellectual powers are presumed 
 in his ability to conceive and impersonate the highest 
 order of dramatic character ; he who is competent to 
 embody poetic creations must necessarily possess no 
 ordinary share of the imaginative facvilty itself. He 
 who is able to analyze, combine, and reproduce the 
 fine and subtle elements of Shakespearian life, cannot 
 have studied either universal or specific human nature 
 with an unlearned eye, without exerting, and that in 
 no common degree, the perceptive and logical powers 
 of the understanding. His fine and cultivated taste 
 was displayed in the grace of his manners, in his noble 
 demeanour, and in the skill with which he enlisted 
 the arts in the service of the drama. But apart from
 
 182 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 bis profession, Charles Kemble's acquirements in lite- 
 rature were considerable. He spoke fluently and 
 with elegance several modern languages ; he was well 
 versed in the masterpieces of their literature. Al- 
 though not perhaps a deep classical scholar, he was 
 familiar with the best writers of ancient Rome ; and 
 as the amusement of his declining years and compa- 
 rative seclusion, he renewed his early knowledge of 
 Greek, and prosecuted its difficult study with the zeal 
 and energy of an aspirant for University honours. 
 Like his brother, and indeed like his family generally, 
 he derived from nature linguistic faculties of the first 
 quality. Had John Kemble not been the greatest 
 actor of his day, he would most probably have been 
 among its very foremost philologists, as the notes he 
 has left upon the subjects of his various reading abun- 
 dantly evince. And these philological powers were 
 shared by his brother. The labour he bestowed upon 
 the technicalities of the Greek grammar was to him 
 a labour of love. With half the amount of toil he ex- 
 pended upon the dry, and to most people intolerably 
 minute, details of its accidence, he might have at- 
 tained facility in reading Homer, Xenophou, or Euri- 
 pides. But he would dive to the very roots before he 
 indulged in the luxiu'y of the fruit or flowers; and a cer- 
 tain air of abstraction observable in his looks, was often 
 owing to the circumstance that, in his walks or while 
 seemingly unoccupied, he was carefully going through 
 in his memory some knotty paradigma, or defining
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 183 
 
 for the tAventieth time the precise import of the Greek 
 particles. Art, and the department of sciilptm^e es- 
 pecially, he had made the subject of earnest study — 
 in some measure perhaps as auxiliary to his own pro- 
 fession, but also from more catholic and higher no- 
 tions. Winckelmann himself might have been proud 
 of a pupil who appreciated the beauty of ancient 
 sculpture with a zest and discernment scarcely infe- 
 rior to his own. In both his literary and artistic ac- 
 quirements, Charles Kemble's sphere of observation 
 had been greatly enlarged by extensive travels — at a 
 time when travelling was neither so usual nor so easy 
 as it has since become — and by constant communica- 
 tion with intelligent and accomplished artists, British 
 and foreign. His house iudeed was at all times the 
 resort of persons distinguished in art and literature ; 
 and rarely did they encounter a host more capable of 
 estimating their common or particular excellencies, or 
 who entered with a more cordial uiterest into their 
 respective pursuits. 
 
 Distinguished by a courtesy of demeanour, even in 
 days more courteous than our own, Charles Kemble 
 transmitted to the present age the express image of 
 the English gentleman of the past generation — of the 
 gentlemen whom Reynolds painted, and of whom 
 Beauclerc was the sample and representative. He 
 was indeed not less formed to delight and instruct 
 private society than to be the mould of high breeding 
 and the glass of refined manners on the stage. In
 
 184 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 his later years his own social enjoyments were much 
 impeded by deafiiess, and by the recurrence of a pain- 
 ful disorder. But neither privation nor pain diminished 
 the urbanity of his address or the general sweetness 
 and serenity of his temper. With a shrewd percep- 
 tion of character, he was lenient in his judgment of 
 men and their opinions. He was slow to censure and 
 swift to forgive; and more inclined to make allowance 
 for error than prone to detect imperfections. 
 
 In the long period of days allotted to him, Charles 
 Kemble had both mingled much in society and marked 
 its features with a learned eye. His fund of anecdotes 
 was inexhaustible, and his stories derived as much 
 grace and point from his mode of relating them as 
 from their intrinsic pith and moment. It is much 
 to be regretted that he did not write a volume of 
 reminiscences. The arc of his experience stretched 
 from the days of Burke and Sheridan to the present 
 moment ; for at every period of his life he had sought 
 the society of his elders and courted the intimacy of 
 men younger than himself. 
 
 Charles Kemble has departed from us in the fulness 
 of days, and attended by the respectful affection of a 
 numerous circle of friends. His name will endure as 
 long as the records of the stage retain their interest, 
 and wherever the genius of the actor is held in ho- 
 nour. But it is the condition, twin-born with the 
 natm'e of his powers and the demands of his art, that 
 he who in his day reaps the first harvest of popularity.
 
 CHARLES KEMBLE. 185 
 
 is, after that day has passed, the soonest forgotten in 
 all but — Name. Yet he is not without compensation 
 for the ephemeral nature of his efforts and triumphs. 
 If neither the pencil nor the chisel have power to 
 perpetuate the effects which once electrified multi- 
 tudes — if the flashes of his genius be 
 
 " All perishable ; Kke the electric fire, 
 They strike the frame, and as they strike expire : 
 Incense too pure a bodied flame to bear, 
 Its perfume charms the sense, then blends with air;" 
 
 yet, on the other hand, while the painter, the sculptor, 
 and the poet are generally compelled to expect fi'om 
 the future their full meed of honour, the recompense 
 of the actor is awarded to himself; he enjoys the 
 fulness of his fame, and is at once the inheritor and 
 witness of his own triumphs. To no one but the 
 actor is it given to speak at once to so many feel- 
 ings, to move and permeate so vast a mass of human 
 passions; to impart pleasure, enlightenment, and in- 
 struction to so many delighted auditors. He is the 
 interpreter of the arts to the many : he holds the keys 
 of sorrow and mirth. It is his voice, or gestvu-e, or 
 look, which has filled the eyes of crowded spectators 
 with gentle tears, or has elicited from them bursts of 
 genial laughter. But for him, poetry might have 
 been dumb and painting meaningless to many men 
 and many minds. He is the merchant who brings 
 the gold of Ophir and eastern balsams within reach 
 of those whose abode is far removed from the regions
 
 186 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA, 
 
 where Nature has exerted her most subtil and strange 
 alchemy. 
 
 The place of Charles Kemble in his profession^ 
 though long vacant^ has never been supplied ; nor is 
 it probable that it ever will, for he combined in an 
 unusual proportion intellectual powers with natural 
 gifts; the void which his decease has made in the 
 circle of his friends i& as little likely to be filled up^ 
 for he united all that is pleasant in man with princi- 
 ples and virtues of "sterner stuff." In contributing 
 our mite to the final Plaudite of Charles Kemble we 
 will repeat the challenge of the greatest orator of 
 Rome, uttered upon the decease of Rome's greatest 
 actor : " Quis nostrum tarn ammo agresti ac duro fuit 
 ut Roscii morte nuper non commoveretur ? qui cum 
 esset senex mortuus, tamen pr'opter excellentem artem 
 ac venustatem videbatur omnino mori non debuisse."
 
 187 
 
 THE DRAMA, PAST AND PRESENT.* 
 
 The production of one of Shakespeare's plays with 
 all the accessories of modern decoration, has become 
 almost an annual event at the Princess's and Sadler's 
 Wells Theatres. The late winter season did not ex- 
 haust the attractions of ' Pericles/ and the present 
 summer season will probably expire before ' Henry 
 VIII.' has ceased to " draw." We do not profess to 
 know whether the speculation is a remunerative one 
 to the respective managers of those theatres, nor do 
 we indeed wish to combine calculation of profits 
 either with the laudable enterprise of Mr. Kean 
 and Mr. Phelps, or with the great dramas which 
 they present yearly to the public. We trust that 
 they are duly compensated for their pains, risk, and 
 cost ; such labourers are fully worthy of their hire. 
 Whether these representations be remunerative or 
 not, they arc highly honourable to both these gentle- 
 men, and entitle them to a name and station among 
 
 * Reprinted from 'Fraser's Magazine,' July 1855.
 
 188 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 the ablest and most intellectual conductors of our 
 National Drama. 
 
 We propose to regard this annual event from a 
 more independent point of view than the mere thea- 
 trical interests involved in it. It is, if it has any 
 significance, a test of the dramatic character of the 
 age itself. For each reproduction suggests the ques- 
 tion. Do the managers employ all this care and cost 
 upon Shakespeare because the public regard him as 
 the roof and crown of dramatic poets, or because, 
 from the historical interest and amplitude of his 
 plays, they coincide better than any inferior creations 
 of the playwright with the present taste for scenical 
 pomp and circumstance ? On this issue rests the 
 main question of Shakespearian revivals. 
 
 We will commence with the earlier of the present 
 year's Shakespearian representations. The purely 
 dramatical interest of ' Pericles, Prince of Tyre,' is 
 inferior to its poetical merits. It is less a play than 
 a superb romance in dramatic form. It has been 
 suggested, and we think with great probability, that 
 Shakespeare, in this late child of his ever-teeming 
 fancy, was making an experiment upon some new and 
 untried species of dramatic poetry, — a species which 
 should more intimately combine than had ever been 
 done before the romantic with the classical drama. 
 As regards the scene, it is laid almost entirely in that 
 rich and beautiful region which connects Europe with 
 Asia, and which listened to the first articulate sounds
 
 THE DRAMA, PAST AND PRESENT, 189 
 
 of the Grecian Muse. As regards the characters, 
 they present themselves under Greek designations, yet 
 with the attributes of chivalry and romance. Pericles 
 is a Greek Paladin ; he is the successful champion at 
 a tournament, not the victor at Pythian or Olympic 
 games ; he Avorships indeed in the temple, and con- 
 sults the Oracle of the Ephesian Diana, but his sen- 
 timents are those of a Christian knight, and his deeds 
 resemble those of the heroes of the ' Mort d' Arthur,' 
 rather than those of the Iliad. To what great issues 
 Shakespeare might eventually have wrought dramas of 
 the Periclean kind we cannot tell. It is his first and 
 only essay in this species; and it diflFers essentiaUy 
 from his other historical plays, whether derived from 
 English or Roman annals. 
 
 This composite character however renders ' Peri- 
 cles' less effective as an acting play. The story does 
 not culminate strongly nor rapidly : a more than 
 usual license is taken by the poet as regards space 
 and time ; and, properly speaking, it is rather a series 
 of dramas connected by the principal character, than 
 a dramatic action with its rightfid origin, progress, 
 and denoument. ' Pericles' indeed is not much un- 
 like one of Plutarch's Lives put on the stage. In 
 proportion however to its romantic rather than its 
 dramatic qualities was its fitness for decoration. We 
 have never witnessed any representation in which 
 the adjuncts of the scene were so comi)lctcly justi- 
 fied and ill place. They did not overlay nor inter-.
 
 190 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 fere with the proper action of the piece ; the acting 
 indeed melted itself into the spectacle^ and formed 
 with it an harmonious whole. The indwelling soul 
 of the poetry was sensibly felt throughout as sustain- 
 ing but not impeded by its pictorial accompaniment. 
 It scarcely mattered whether the declamation of the 
 verse Avere good or bad ; there was a noble picture 
 with a still nobler comment ; never, in our opinion, 
 have the modern resources of decoration been more 
 appropriately employed than on this drama. The 
 eye was charmed, even if the heart were not touched, 
 by the spectacle presented to it. 
 
 With the latter Shakespearian representation at the 
 Princess's, the case is altogether reversed, and the 
 question again arises — how far the historical plays of 
 the poet are illustrated or encumbered by the art of 
 the painter and the dress-maker. Before however we 
 enter upon this question, we must pay our tribute to 
 the manager for having omitted nothing which it was 
 in his power to obtain and present in the way of 
 adjunct. Regarded as a spectacle, ' Henry VIII.' as 
 represented at the Princess's Theatre, is deserving all 
 praise. The scenery, costume, and groupings are 
 equally correct and beautiful, and this noble drama, 
 so far as regards its accessories, has never been so 
 worthily represented. 
 
 The so-called trial scene of this play is familiar 
 to many who have never witnessed a representation 
 of itj through Harlowe's celebrated picture of Mrs.
 
 THE DRAMA, PAST AND PRESENT. 191 
 
 Siddons and John Kemble as the Queen and the Car- 
 dinal. ]SIr. Kean however has given a more correct 
 representation of the Court as it really sat. In the 
 picture, the King presides and the Cardinals sit below 
 the steps of the royal dais. On the stage, at the 
 Princess's Theatre, the Cardinals, as Lords of Ap- 
 peal, more properly occupy the higher seat, while 
 Henry and Katharine, as appellant and respondent, 
 occupy chairs to the right and left of the consistorial 
 throne. This is a decided improvement on the former 
 arrangement ; but we are not disposed to be equally 
 content with the substitution of a panoramic ^dew of 
 the Thames, from the Palace of Westminster to Wool- 
 wich, for the animated scene in the Council-chamber, 
 where the sturdy King rebukes the smooth-tongued 
 Bishop of Winchester. As the representative of blufi" 
 King Hal was by no means incompetent to the cha- 
 racter, we cannot understand the policy of this re- 
 trenchment. It is a costly sacrifice to mere specta- 
 cular cfiect. 
 
 But the very skill and happiness with which this 
 drama has been set upon the stage suggests the ques- 
 tion, whether there remains sufficient appreciation in 
 the audiences of the day for the higher forms of the 
 drama, apart from the pomp and circumstance of de- 
 coration. And ' Henry VIII.' is a fair test of the 
 relations between a taste for the drama and a mere 
 relish for its accessories. We ai'e not aware whether, 
 before Mr. Phelps was hardy enough to make the at-
 
 192 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 tempt, ' Pericles' had ever been represented. Be that 
 as it may, that drama was most eflFectually aided by 
 the frame in Avhich it was exhibited. But ' Henry 
 VIII.' has been so frequently enacted as to deserve 
 the appellation of a " stock-piece." It was performed 
 by jNIacready, Young, Henderson, and Kemble, with 
 all due attention to liistorical circumstance and cos- 
 tume, though with less scrupulous care than Mr. 
 Kean has now bestowed upon it. It was enacted 
 by Garrick's and Betterton's companies with no 
 thought of propriety at all, and its original repre- 
 sentation Avas probably even still more rude. Yet, 
 under aU circumstances, ' Henry VIII.' has been a 
 favourite with the pubKc, whether it has been aided 
 by the scene-painter and the antiquary, or whether it 
 has been left to the uninformed caprice of the mana- 
 ger and the contents of the property-room. We may 
 therefore ask fairly, whether the play owes its present 
 attractions to the splendour and appropriateness of its 
 scenery and dresses, or whether unadorned it would 
 have proved equally acceptable to the spectators who 
 now throng to it ? 
 
 Of all the liistorical plays of Shakespeare, ' Henry 
 VIII.' is perhaps the one which in the highest degree 
 justifies and rewards the modern passion for decora- 
 tion. The entire scene of the drama lies in the court 
 and palace of the King. Its actors are the supreme 
 rulers, pontiffs, and magnates of the land, therein re- 
 sembling most nearly the first play of the historical
 
 THE DRAMA, PAST AND PRESENT. 193 
 
 series, 'King John.' ]\Ioreover, the Court and age of 
 tte Tudors was unprecedented in their pomp and 
 splendour. It was a royal, a feudal, and a learned 
 age combined in one. There Avas however a marked 
 difference between its royalty, feudality, and learning, 
 and those of the era of Richard II. Under that feeble 
 but by no means illiterate monarch, the lighter graces 
 of literature were in vogue. Chaucer and Gower and 
 Froissart were among the king's favourites : they pre- 
 sented him with their amatory and courtly verses — 
 with their romantic and chivalrous tales. But the 
 iSIuses of the Tudor Court were altogether of a graver 
 mood. Wyatt and Surrey had imbibed the tender 
 melancholy of Petrarch more than the mingled hu- 
 mour and pathos of Boccaccio, and these " sad poets'' 
 by no means represented the fashionable learning of 
 their day. The King was a school-divine; the solemn 
 and sonorous language of Rome was the common 
 language of authors. Henry relished a theological 
 quarrel as fuUy as he did a wrestling-match or the 
 bear-garden : his advisers were cardinals and arch- 
 bishops ; he did not shriidc from the subtleties of the 
 schoolmen, or the canon-law. AU around him, from 
 the conclave to the masque, was full of state and so- 
 lemnity; and the wealth which his father had be- 
 queathed, or which the spoil of the monasteries af- 
 forded him, was lavished upon external adornments. 
 
 Schlegcl has carelessly asserted that "'Henry VIII.' 
 has somewhat of a prosaic appearance." Had the critic
 
 194 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 ever read attentively the "Prologue^' to the drama? 
 The author therein indicates no prosaic intention; 
 on the contrary, he prepares his audience for unusual 
 stateliness and passion. He excludes the comic ad- 
 juncts of the dramas immediately preceding. He 
 pi'ofesses an almost historical veracity : he proclaims 
 that he is about to make unwonted demands upon 
 their pity. 
 
 " I come no more to make you laugh : tilings now 
 That bear a weighty and a serious brow, 
 Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe, 
 Such noble scenes as cause the eye to flow, 
 We now present. . . . 
 
 Therefore, for goodness' sake, as you are known 
 The first and happiest hearers of the town. 
 Be sad, as we would make ye : tliiuk ye see 
 The very persons of oiir noble story 
 As they were hving ; think you see them great, 
 And followed with the general throng and sweat 
 Of thousand friends ; then, in a moment, see 
 How soon the mightiness meets misery ! 
 And if you can be merry then, I 'U say, 
 A man may weep upon his wedding-day." 
 
 This surely is no preparation for " a prosaic " tra- 
 gedy. The excellent critic indeed seems to have 
 nodded before he had completed his survey of the 
 great round and compass of Shakespeare's historical 
 tragedies. 
 
 Let us examine for a moment the entire arch of 
 Shakespeare's historical drama. The consideration 
 of the series will enable us to understand better the 
 actual and the relative position of ' Henry VIII.'
 
 THE DRAMA, PAST AND PRESENT. 195 
 
 In ' King John/ feudalism and the Church are the 
 assessors if not the co-rivals of the monarchy. The 
 crown is but an ampler coronet : the King trembles 
 before the words of a priest. The public and warlike 
 events of the time are set forth Avith solemn pomp, 
 the better to conceal a central void of corruption. 
 The King, though royal in his bearing, is essen- 
 tially false and mean in his nature, and would be 
 utterly contemptible did he stand alone in his base- 
 ness. But his brother-monarch is little less insincere 
 than himself; and the nobles, lay and clerical, are 
 little better than this pair of kings. William Long- 
 sword alone exhibits the qualities of a true nobleman; 
 he alone takes no part in the hollow truce ; he alone 
 remains by the side of Constance on her throne of 
 sorrow. Of this maze of intrigue, Faulconbridge is 
 the chorus and interpreter. He neither possesses, nor 
 affects to possess, high principles; his fortune is to be 
 made ; he has gained one step by accepting the bar 
 sinister as a Plantagenet : he looks to ascend higher 
 by playing off one gamester against another. Com- 
 modity, as he candidly informs us, is his lord, and he 
 will worship it ; and we respect his candour, though 
 we cannot say much for his disinterestedness. 
 
 In this the earliest in the chronological order of 
 history, though not of composition, among Shake- 
 speare's historical plays, we are made to feel tiic ex- 
 istence of a power superior to both the throne and 
 the factions of the nobles. The banner of the Church 
 
 K 2
 
 196 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 is still in the van of earthly policies^ prompts or se- 
 conds every temporal intrigue, and is the gainer in 
 every collision. In ' Henry VIII.^ the Church, at 
 first splendid and triumphant, is in the end van- 
 quished and humiliated ; in ' King John' her autho- 
 rity is paramount, and disobedience to her hests, whe- 
 ther by the English or French, is followed by defeat 
 and disgrace. 
 
 In ' Richard II.' we encounter a new phase of mon- 
 archy. The spiritual power is altogether in the back- 
 ground, not because her might has already waned, 
 but because the controversy in hand needs not her 
 interference. More than one hundred years have 
 elapsed since the reign of John. In that interval the 
 power of the nobles has been enfeebled, a succession 
 of victories over the French and the Scots have ren- 
 dered the Crown popular, and the wearer of it feels so 
 confident in his title and his strength, that he can 
 afford recklcsslv to gamble both of them away. The 
 catastrophe and the moral compensation are produced 
 as much by an inward change in Richard himself, as 
 by external events. Amid all his follies and extrava- 
 gances he has a noble kingly nature, awaiting only 
 the purification of sorrow to resume its original lustre. 
 He has profoundly disgusted his nobles; he has cut 
 away the props of his throne ; nor until it is tottering 
 beneath him does he become aware of the dignity or 
 duties of his station, or eager for either the love or 
 respect of his people. Nor does he fall so much by
 
 THE DRAMAj PAST AND PRESENT. 197 
 
 \iolence as by fraud. The usurpation of the crown 
 has been long completed before it is publicly avowed. 
 Bolingbroke acts as a king, and his adherents regard 
 him as such, although all the while he bruits it abroad 
 that he has returned from exile merely to demand his 
 birthi'ight, and the removal of abuses. The feudal 
 brilliance of the age, so prominent in ' King John/ is 
 displayed iu ' Richard 11.^ in the earlier scenes alone. 
 After that bright and stirring dawn the day is over- 
 cast, and sets in grief and masterless passion. 
 
 The key-note which is sounded in the first play of 
 this historical series is scarcely audible agaiu in the 
 trilogy devoted to the life and acts of Henry V., — 
 for that monarch is evidently Shakespeare's favourite 
 hero in English history, and the principal character 
 of the dramas in which he appears. The ecclesiastical 
 power in these plays, as well as in the earlier- written 
 triad of ' Henry VI,,' is little more than the instru- 
 ment of the secular, and has little state or dignity of 
 its own. In ' Richard III.,' again, the stir and strife 
 of the great feudal houses are on the wane. The old 
 aristocracy is jealously combating with the upstart 
 nobility of the Woodvilles, and the last heir of the 
 princely line of York serves his faction, no less than 
 his own ambition, by bringing them to the block. A 
 reign is then passed over, for although Ford, in his 
 ' Perkin Warbcck' has skilfully selected one episode 
 from it as suited to the stage, the general sway of 
 Henry VII. was too peaceable and mei'cly political
 
 198 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 to afford proper nutriment for the historical drama. 
 With the accession of his son, however, a new epoch 
 begins, an epoch springing in lusty youth and vigour 
 from the prosaic level of the preceding reign. The 
 civil wars were at an end; the present heir of the Red 
 and the White Roses was unquestioned in his title to 
 the throne; the territorial magnates had become a 
 court noblesse, and Henry VIII., under the politic 
 guidance of his Cardinal minister, combined almost 
 despotic power with a large measure of his people's 
 love. 
 
 As the conclusion of this unrivalled series of his- 
 tory in dramatic form, we may expect to find in 
 ' Henry VIII.' a repetition and resumption of the 
 main elements of the preceding plays. If we are 
 right in conjecturing that the poet intended to con- 
 nect them by some common and pervading features, 
 the harmony of art will require that between the first 
 and the last there shall be some points of near rela- 
 tion, as well as of direct antagonism. And accord- 
 ingly we find both affinity and opposition in ' King 
 John' and in 'Henry VIII.' The King is no longer 
 ruled by the Church, but he rules through an ec- 
 clesiastic; the nobles are no longer at variance mth 
 the Crown, but cluster around and contribute to its 
 splendour. The old feuds indeed have not burned 
 out. The old nobility cannot stomach the parvenu 
 Wolsey ; the lay lords are impatient of the influence 
 of the spiritual; and the latter enlist in their ser-
 
 THE DRAMA, PAST AND PRESENT. 199 
 
 vice men whom they have raised from obscurity. 
 For the first time also in this historical panorama, 
 we meet with the Commons of England; not indeed 
 distinctly limned, yet not obscurely indicated. In 
 ' Henry YI.' we have Jack Cade only, and his Jac- 
 querie. Bolingbroke indeed dofis his bonnet to the 
 multitude, but it is with Absalom's purpose of win- 
 ning adherents. But Heniy IV. was raised to the 
 throne by the Percies and Worcesters, and not by 
 their untitled adherents ; and Richard III. coiu'ts the 
 citizens of London rather that he may have the 
 pretext of a popular cry in his favour than because 
 the voice of the Common Hall was as powerful as his 
 men-at-arms. In ' Henry VIII.' however we hear of 
 the "grieved Commons;" of oppressive taxation; of 
 grinding Commissions ; of dangers from popular dis- 
 content ; of unmamierly language — 
 
 " Such which breaks 
 The sides of loyalty, and almost appears 
 In loud rebellion." 
 
 Perhaps the plastic power and tact of Shakespeare 
 are more conspicuous in this than in any other play 
 of the historical series. Its elements, to any inferior 
 hand, are ungenial. No great controversy is involved 
 in its action, like that of the Roses ; no overwhelming 
 catastrophe, like that of ' King John' or 'Richard II.;' 
 no sudden metamorphosis, like that of 'Henry V.;' 
 no fierce Machiavellian spirit, informing the whole, 
 as in ' Richard III.' The comic element is nearly
 
 200 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 excluded : the fall of Buckingham and of Wolsey, the 
 wrongs of Katharine, are not relieved by glimpses of 
 the squirearchy of Gloucestershire, or revellings at 
 the Boar's Head in EastcheajD. The incidents indeed 
 are juridical. Buckingham is tried by the Court of 
 High Commission, and convicted on the e\ddence of 
 his steward ; Wolsey's ruin is wrought partly by the 
 King's wrath at the law's delay, and partly by the 
 King's passion for Anne Boleyu ; and Katharine is 
 discrowned on a plea cognizable by the Court of 
 Arches. Yet the leaden ore of ^ Hall's Chronicle,' 
 from which Shakespeare has mainly derived his dra- 
 matic incidents, is transmuted by his potent elixir 
 into gold as unalloyed as that of the 'Midsummer 
 Night's Dream.' He has turned to the highest poetry 
 the prosaic dealings of courts and the world. And 
 his tact is the more admirable from the circumstance 
 that Queen Elizabeth was among the spectators of 
 the play. There was much offence in the matter, if 
 not strictlv looked to, and wiselv handled. On the 
 one hand dramatic truth and consistency were to be 
 preserved, on the other the royal anger was to be 
 dreaded. Yet, by the royal bearing of Henry, by his 
 festivity, his reliance at first on Wolsey, afterwards 
 on Cranmer; his readiness to redress the Commons' 
 grievances, and his show of justice in curbing the 
 pride and retrenching the power of the Cardinal — he 
 has produced a picture which even a daughter could 
 jipplaud. Nevertheless, to the intelligent observer, he
 
 THE DRAMA, PAST AND PRESENT. 201 
 
 has drawn Heniy as faithfully as llolbeiu himself He 
 has represented him as he was actually : haughty and 
 self-willed, voluptuous and unfeeling ; capricious alike 
 in bestowing and in revoking favom's; possessing a 
 rude sense of justice, and often only revengeful when 
 affecting to be just. He has enlisted our entire sym- 
 pathy for the victims, — for Buckingham, the Queen, 
 and even the Cardinal : he has kept out of sight the 
 fatal vanity of Anne Boleyn, and represented her as 
 irresistibly beautiful, and yet as regards her ill-fated 
 mistress perfectly blameless. Finally, after the tragic 
 passion of the scene has passed away, and " poor 
 Edward Bohuu," and Wolsey, and the Queen, are 
 released from their earthly career, he has imparted to 
 this sad and stately drama a hopeful and triumphant 
 close. Cranmer, the representative of the new opi- 
 nions, connects the era of Henry with that of Eliza- 
 beth, and although his proplietic vision of the great 
 Queen's reign is not penned by Shakespeare's hand, 
 there is enough in his own unquestioned work to 
 suggest the proper consummation. 
 
 With an opulence peculiar to himself, Shakespeare^ 
 in fact, in ' Henry VIII.,' has included and interwoven 
 three tragical stories, — the fall of Buckingham, the 
 fall of Wolsey, and the more lingering death of 
 Katharine. Of these, the fall of Wolsey, and not, as 
 Schlegel has stated, the calamities of the Queen, is 
 the central object of the group. The Cardinal smites 
 with a two-edged axe. Buckingham and Katharine 
 
 K 3
 
 202 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 have each thwarted and offended him : the former he 
 strikes down by show of justice and real suborna- 
 tion; against the latter he sets in action the ma- 
 chinery of the divorce. But this weapon also is two- 
 edged, and the great Cardinal is himself struck down 
 by it as soon as it has served his purpose with his 
 victims. 
 
 In contemplating the play itself we have been car- 
 ried away from its present representation. It would 
 be interesting, were it possible, to arrive at some con- 
 ception of the eflect of this drama upon spectators 
 who lived before the days of theatrical decoration. 
 It requires little stretch of the fancy to conceive 
 ' Henry VIII.' enacted in the court-dresses of George 
 II., or in the more picturesque costume of the pre- 
 ceding century. Cato's flowered gown and lackered 
 chair served as well for English as for Roman dramas. 
 The age had not grown "picked and curious;" and 
 was content to see the players in the ordinary garb 
 of well-dressed " persons of quality." But it does 
 requu'c some power of imagination to realize a play 
 so capable of scenical illustration, performed with no 
 other adjuncts than tapestry hangings, and on stages 
 little larger than the platform of an ordinary lecture- 
 room. The managers of the year 1600 might very 
 probably afibrd priests' vestments for Wolsey and 
 Cranmer, and farthingales for the beardless boys 
 who "voiced" Katharine and Anne Boleyn at the 
 Globe or Bull theatres. But they assuredly were not
 
 THE DRAMA, PAST AND PRESENT. 203 
 
 at the pains to dress Henry after Holbein's portrait, 
 nor to observe a difference between the costume of 
 Surrey and the Lord Chamberlain. Nor have we, 
 as in some others of Shakespeare's historical dramas, 
 any clue among the explanations of the chorus to 
 guide us. From the chorus to ' Henry V.', as well 
 as from an often-cited passage of Sir Philip Sidney's 
 'Defence of Poesy,' we may form an adequate no- 
 tion of the rudeness of these early representations. 
 Shakespeare's Prologues are indeed well worth the 
 attention of modern managers. Those in ' Henry V.' 
 especially, unite epic pomp and solemnity with lyrical 
 earnestness, and are intended to remind the specta- 
 tors that the grandeur of the actions described can- 
 not be developed on a narrow stage, and that they 
 must therefore supply from their own imaginations 
 the deficiencies of the representation. 
 
 " Four or five most vile and ragged foils, 
 Eight ill disposed in brawl ridiculous, 
 Disgraced the name of Agincourt." 
 
 ' Henry VIII.^ was doubtless as inadequately re- 
 presented as ' Henry V.,' and the fancy of the spec- 
 tators was held in full play through the poverty, or 
 rather through the absence, of decoration. 
 
 Of such poverty we have no longer to complain, 
 and perhaps have more reason to murmur at our pre- 
 sent opulence. For if wc in reality succeed in exhi- 
 biting the tumult of a great battle, the storming of a 
 fort, the splendour of a council-chamber, or the pomp
 
 204 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 of an ecclesiastical procession, we incur the opposite 
 risk of rendering the spectator, by the power of these 
 sensible impressions, indifferent to the proper business 
 of the scene and those who move upon it. The es- 
 sential is sacrificed to the accessory. In this respect 
 however the public and the managers have long since 
 combined to spoil each other : the one by demanding, 
 the other by supplying ornament in excess, as the 
 proper instrument of dramatic attraction. AYliether 
 Timotheus should yield the prize, or both divide the 
 blame, is a question which cannot be discussed within 
 our present limits. 
 
 It has for some time been a fancy of periodical 
 critics to denounce managers of theatres as the worst 
 enemies of the dramatic poet. They ring interminable 
 changes on translations from the French, on the sacri- 
 fice of genius to stage convenience, on the subordi- 
 nation of the play-writer to the servants and hand- 
 maidens of the scene, and on the jealous exclusion of 
 dramas which do not, or cannot, du'ectly minister to 
 public caprice or managerial profit. From the speci- 
 mens recently afforded of the modern poetical drama, 
 we are disposed to think that a very slender propor- 
 tion of genuine dramatic ability is excluded from the 
 theatre ; and in short, that managers exercise a sound 
 discretion for the most part in rejecting the wares 
 presented to them. Without regarding these gentle- 
 men as judges from whom there is no appeal, we be- 
 lieve thev know their own business verv well, and that
 
 THE DRAMA, PAST AND PRESENT. 205 
 
 when they make a mistake, it is mostly when some 
 piece has been foisted on them, rather than accepted 
 by them. Xo manager in his senses would exclude 
 such a play as the ' Hunchback ' from his theatre, or 
 turn indifferently away from a proposal of Messrs. 
 Taylor and Keade. Again, no sane manager will be 
 caught by the mere literary pretensions of an author, 
 or palm on the public a respectable poem, under the 
 misconception that it will prove a popular drama. 
 The grievance which authors endure from managerial 
 prejudice, is, we suspect, of the very slenderest 
 amount; and certainly, so far as we are acquainted 
 with the "unacted drama," we are satisfied that its 
 postponement to the Greek Calends is its only chance 
 of escape from popular condemnation. 
 
 A modern pit, indeed, is no longer a bench of ju- 
 dicial criticism. That work is performed in a much 
 more perfunctory style than it was formerly ; and a 
 new play seldom runs the gauntlet of scholars and 
 artists assembled in the front rows. There was indeed 
 much execrable criticism at a time when the drama 
 was a popular amusement; the age itself was con- 
 ventional, and admired a good deal, both in writing 
 and acting, that would now be insufferably tedious. 
 But far astray as our forefathers may have gone in 
 the principles of good taste, they at least brought to 
 tlic theatre an antecedent faith and earnestness from 
 which wc now shrink, or which are diverted to other 
 and more permanent phases of art. Society is, in
 
 206 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 fact, in an adverse position to the drama, not so much 
 because literature, on the one hand, partly usurps its 
 domain, and partly anticipates its attractions, but also 
 because it has reached a period of refinement incom- 
 patible with strong and natural emotions. We are 
 become, in all that regards the theatre, a civil, simUar, 
 and impassive generation. To touch our emotions, we 
 need not the imaginatively true, but the physically 
 real. The visions which our ancestors saw with the 
 mind's eye, must be embodied for us in palpable 
 forms. If a king dies on the stage, he must suffer 
 mortality's last pangs with all the circumstances of a 
 death-bed ; the expressive hints and bold outlines of 
 our elder playwrights no longer suffice, we must see 
 the patient writhe anatomically. We neither beheve 
 in part, nor prophesy in part ; all must be made pal- 
 pable to sight, no less than to feeling ; and this lack 
 of imagination in the spectators affects equally both 
 those who enact and those who construct the scene.
 
 207 
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.* 
 
 The subject of Popular Amusements, if we may trust 
 to the CAddence of book- catalogues, has hitherto been 
 very imperfectly discussed. Of histories and treatises, 
 indeed, classical or archaeological, there is a sufficient 
 supply; what is needed is examination of the question 
 in all its bearings, from a social and ethical point of 
 view. We desire to know, not so much the form of 
 public recreations at diflFerent eras and among various 
 nations, as the spirit which has actuated them, and 
 the effect they have produced upon the character of 
 mankind. We would have their physiognomy and 
 philosophy more closely scrutinized, especially at the 
 present moment, when the topic of public amuse- 
 ments seems likely to press itself on the attention of 
 those who make and of those who obey the laws. 
 
 In the absence of any leading authority upon a 
 question of no ordinary importance, we propose to 
 interrogate the past briefly, and to ascertain, as far aa 
 our means of information and our limits allow, what 
 
 * Reprinted from the ' Westminster Review,' July 1856.
 
 208 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 have been tlie expressions, among different nations, of 
 their emotions earnest or mirthful ; and what, socially 
 or ethically, have been the results of popular amuse- 
 ments as delineated in the pages of history. We 
 neither attempt nor presume to offer anything beyond 
 the most general of surveys, and our object will be 
 completely answered, if we succeed in drawing the 
 attention of others to the records or the results of the 
 spontaneous pastimes that often embody national cha- 
 racter more completely than chronicles, state-papers, 
 or even works of fiction. 
 
 We do not propose to enter again upon the Sabbath 
 controversy, having so recently discussed it. This 
 controversy indeed is rather a branch and corollary 
 of the problem of public amusements than distinct 
 and several in itself. If it be right and expedient to 
 reflect whether recreations on one day in the week 
 should be supplied oi' sanctioned, it is equally meet 
 and right to consider whether it may not be advisable 
 also to provide them for every reasonable interval of 
 business. We have laws innumerable for making and 
 keeping men grave ; is it impossible to devise others 
 which, if they do not make them merry, may at least 
 elevate and refine them when disposed of their own 
 accord to be so ? Are Governments and statute-books, 
 in short, to be always a terror to evil-doers, but never 
 able or allowed to render the life of labour more en- 
 durable, or the life of leisure more dignified ? 
 
 If an answer to these queries be sought in the
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 209 
 
 statute-books, or theological and ethical treatises, 
 during the last two centuries, it will not be favour- 
 able to the humanity of legislators or the wisdom of 
 divines, "Lex surda et inexorabilis est," says the 
 historian of Rome; and yet the Roman law was by 
 no means regardless of the recreations of the people. 
 And law is neither more deaf nor more inexorable 
 than divinity. Di\dnes, not content with describing 
 this world as a world of probation, represent it as one 
 of durance also. To be happ}^, or to seem so, is to 
 tread the primrose path of sin. Philosophy taught 
 that health of mind was connected with, if not de- 
 pendent upon, health of body ; but theology, at least 
 such as is expounded fi^om the pulpit or in books, 
 seldom if ever teaches anything of the sort : health 
 and cleanliness are sublunary considerations savour- 
 ing of the earth, and as for cheerfulness, it is not so 
 much as to be named in the congregation. Clearly, 
 then, as regards popular amusements, no hope is to 
 be looked for fi-om the pulpit. Brave old Latimer in- 
 deed was of a different way of thinking, and delighted 
 in turning his hearers' attention to su1)jects connected 
 with their daily lives and recreations. But preachers 
 of his stamp are as rare as able-bodied and able- 
 minded bishops; and so far from desiring to send 
 home his hearers with renewed interest in their daily 
 life, the shepherd dismisses his flock with the assur- 
 ance that this is the worst possible of worlds, and 
 that the best use we can make of it is to be as un-
 
 210 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 genial and uncomfortable in it as we can. Nor is the 
 flock generally a whit behind the shepherd in its relish 
 for discomfort. The more vinegar and gall there 
 is in a sermon, the better it is relished; a cheerful 
 view of rehgion, or monitions to cater for body's 
 health as well as soul's health, would empty half the 
 churches in the United Kingdom. 
 
 Nor are legislators more disposed to look with an 
 eye of favour on public recreations than divines. 
 Littleton and Coke are as harsh and unsympathizing 
 as Calvin and Toplady. "Legislators/' says Sir 
 William Blackstone, " have for the most part chosen 
 to make the sanction of their laws rather vindicatory 
 than remuneratory , or to consist in punishments ra- 
 ther than in actual particular rewards. Because, in 
 the first place, the quiet enjoyment and protection of 
 all our civil rights and liberties, which are the sure 
 and general consequence of obedience to the muni- 
 cipal law, are in themselves the best and most valua- 
 ble of all rewards. Because also, were the exercise of 
 every virtue to be enforced by the proposal of parti- 
 cular rewards, it were impossilDle for any State to 
 furnish stock enough for so profuse a bounty. And 
 further, because the dread of evil is a much more 
 forcible principle of human action than the prospect 
 of good. For which reasons, though a prudent be- 
 stowing of rewards is sometimes of exquisite use, yet 
 we find that those civil laws which enforce and enjoin 
 our duty, do seldom, if ever, propose any privilege or
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 211 
 
 gift to such as obey the law ; but do constantly come 
 armed -with a penalty denounced against transgres- 
 sors." We have no quarrel with this theory of re- 
 wards and punishments in its proper relations to the 
 innocence or guilt of those who live under the law ; 
 yet the learned Justice of the Common Pleas has, in 
 our opinion, by no means exhausted, and indeed has 
 hardly touched on the philosophy of remuneration. 
 
 In whatever light we regard the State, whether as 
 a parent regulating his children's actions, and exact- 
 ing from them implicit obedience, or as a body of 
 trustees appointed by the governed for their own 
 good, it has a du-ect interest in the well-being of its 
 members. It is not enough for them to be negatively 
 benefited, as Blackstone insists, by the vigilance and 
 wisdom of their rulers. Man is not formed to live by 
 law alone, any more than he is by bread alone. His 
 animal and intellectual faculties alike demand nurture 
 and relaxation, and the Government which shuts its 
 eyes to the amusements of the people, and considers 
 that if life and goods be protected, all its duties are 
 performed, beholds only half of its proper functions, 
 and performs even that moiety imperfectly. 
 
 For, if work and its fair recompense be a preven- 
 tive against crime, occasional leisure and recreation 
 are not less good prophylactics in their way. The un- 
 bent mind is, at times, in as much peril from tempta- 
 tion as the unemployed. Even holidays are tedious, 
 unless they interpose one kind of mental or Ijodily
 
 213 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 activity for anotlier : and the ale-liouse is filled as 
 much by those who are wearied with doing nothing, 
 as by the habitually intemperate. If proof of this 
 assertion be required^ let the reader accompany us 
 for a moment^ in imagination, to a village wake, or 
 even to the larger assembly of a town-fair. He will 
 see there an assemblage of people in better than their 
 ordinary attire, and bearing the traces of a recent 
 application of soap and water. The smith's sooty 
 visage looks scarified by his ablution, and the miller 
 and mason are no longer to be detected by their pro- 
 fessional hue. If it be Whitsuntide or ]May-day, 
 there is some approach to a Feast of Tabernacles^ for 
 the booths and skittle-grounds are decked with boughs 
 — the nearest approach now to pastoral sentiment in 
 England. But, if closely inspected, the whole affair 
 has a very business-like aspect. Listen to the con- 
 versation of the groups of holiday-makers, and it is 
 mostly of a serious cast — of markets and prices among 
 the men, of family casualties and scandal among the 
 women. Now and then, the children appear a little 
 exhilarated by the apparition of Mr. Merryman, or 
 the conversation of Mr. Punch. As the afternoon 
 wears on, it may be expected that the mirth will be- 
 come fast and furious. The contrary is generally the 
 case. The men are besotted ; the women are weary, 
 and anxious to return home : and, probably^ in low 
 life as well as in high life, a day's pleasure is one of 
 the most truly wearisome in the year.
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 213 
 
 If we may trust to books, such matters were ma- 
 naged better iu days of yore. Towns and villages 
 were isolated fi'om the capital, and from one another, 
 by the badness or non-existence of roads : and the 
 squire and lord of the manor was really a potentate 
 in his own district, and, like other magnates, held his 
 courts and levees. The fair was one of his annual 
 ceremonies, and he or his family would no more have 
 absented themselves from such gatherings, than from 
 the family pew on Sundays. We cannot revert to 
 the days of the Bracebridges and De Coverleys, but 
 we may well doubt whether, if we have gained in 
 wisdom, we have not lost something in social happi- 
 ness. Certainly the isolation of classes from each 
 other has increased with the facility of locomotion, 
 and the wealthy now generally present themselves to 
 their humljler neighbom's under the grave aspect of 
 founders of schools and restorers of churches, instead 
 of partakers in their mirth and relaxations. He who 
 shall de^-ise a form of popular amusement attractive 
 to every grade of society, will merit a civic wreath, as 
 well as he who leads forth a colony, or opens new 
 avenues to labour. 
 
 So many obstacles present themselves to this most 
 desiderated discovery, that Ave have not the vanity 
 even to suggest either an outline of it, or the direc- 
 tion in which it may, perhaps, be found. Our imme- 
 diate object is, rather to survey briefly what has been 
 the aspect of popular amusements in various nations.
 
 214 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 and at different epochs of the world, and to consider 
 their influence on the character and culture of those 
 who devised or delighted in them. From the results 
 of an historical survey, some general hints may, per- 
 chance, be derived. Of written and monumental re- 
 cords there is no scarcity. The recreations of Assyria 
 and Egypt are graven on stone, or traced on papy- 
 rus : those of Greece and Rome are described by the 
 sculptor's chisel and the artist's pencil, in sonorous 
 verse and in measured prose. The manuscripts of 
 the Middle Ages exhibit, in quaint forms and bright 
 colours, the sports of the people ; and, since printing 
 became common, the lighter literature of the press 
 abounds with details of whatsoever has been the busi- 
 ness of the idle, or has lightened the toils of the busy. 
 But it seems never to have occurred to any one, that 
 popular amusements have an ethical as well as an 
 historical or antiquarian aspect, and are an index of 
 the national mind, almost if not qmte as instructive 
 as the records of war, diplomacy, or legislation. 
 
 The amusements of the people in early stages of 
 civilization are naturally martial in their character, 
 and are mostly reflections of war and the chase. The 
 effeminate Lydians are said to have been the inven- 
 tors of sedentary games; but the monuments of 
 Egypt and Assyria attest the active energies of their 
 inhabitants. It has been too hastily assumed that 
 common life wore a melancholy aspect among the 
 Egyptians ; and their oppressive ritual and sovereign
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 215 
 
 priesthood have the credit of rendering them spirit- 
 less and sad. But the insight which their sculptures 
 afford into their interior life^ acquits both the people 
 and its rulers from this imputation. They had^ it is 
 true, no theatre like the Greeks, and no circus like 
 the Romans : and their religious festivals were not 
 diversified, like the Olympian and Pythian games, 
 by exhibitions of strength and skill. The life of the 
 people however was far from being monotonous. In 
 the grottoes of Benihassan, on which the sports and 
 pastimes of Egypt are so vividly depicted, we find 
 not only representations of martial exercises, but also 
 games carried on by men and women, evidently in- 
 tended for the amusement of spectators. There are 
 jugglers, often females, playing with balls, sometimes 
 as many as six at once, and engaged in gymnastical 
 exercises, that evince a wonderful control and supple- 
 ness of limbs. Many of the contortions exhibited a 
 few years since by the Arabs at the Loudon theatres, 
 were practised by these Coptic tumblers. In these 
 feats, the women are dressed in tight pantaloons. 
 The flinging the jereed, in which the Saracens were 
 so expert, was an Egyptian pastime; but with this 
 difference, that at Granada and Bagdad it was per- 
 formed on horseback, whereas in Egypt it was per- 
 formed in boats impelled by strong rowers. The 
 Thames in the sixteenth century exhibited a similar 
 spectacle, and the London 'prentices often distiirbed 
 the equanimity of sober citizens by hurling or
 
 216 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 thrusting blunt javelins against their stately barges. 
 Professor Anderson might have met with his match 
 in Egypt, where the jugglers were as adroit as 
 the wizards; and no Neapolitan at the present day 
 plays the game of moi'a with more eagerness or live- 
 lier gesticulations than the Egyptians played at even- 
 and-odd. Dice are at least four thousand years old, 
 since they have been found, marked in the modern 
 manner, at Thebes ; and draughts, coloured green and 
 yellow, and arranged in lines along a board, are re- 
 presented at Benihassan. It would seem that the 
 two latter games were favoiu'ites with the Egyptian 
 clergy, owing doubtless to the tranquil and medita- 
 tive turn of mind required for such pastimes. The 
 recreations of Thebes and Memphis did not, like the 
 Grecian panegyrics, elevate or refine the taste of the 
 people ; but neither do they imply either melancholy 
 or indolence in either exhibitors or spectators. If we 
 are to judge of their disposition by their sculptures, 
 we can hardly believe in the existence of a cheerfid 
 Assyrian. Those aquiline countenances seem to defy 
 risus jocosque. We can imagine the Sphinx relaxing 
 into a smile, and even Memnon laughing on such 
 particidar occasions as the Feast of Lamps, when all 
 Egypt was on the river, and as bousy as a piper. 
 There was indeed an essential difference in the lands 
 of Cham and Ninus. In the Nile valley, fringed on 
 each side by a desert, the population was close packed 
 in towns, and the wits of men were sharpened by
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 217 
 
 constant attrition with one another. Provision was 
 also plentiful; since the Egyptians generally were 
 vegetarians^ and leguminous plants grew rapidly in 
 the teeming mud of Nilus. Neighbourhood and 
 abundance incline people to recreation, and even the 
 relig-ious festivals of the calendar were antidotes to 
 sadness. Whereas the Assyrian was little more ad- 
 vanced in civilization than the pastoral races which 
 still occupy Upper Asia. Even his cities, although 
 notorious for license and the coarse ostentation of 
 wealth, reflected the image of a nomad encampment. 
 Vast parks were enclosed within the walls of Babylon, 
 and sheep and oxen grazed in multitudes in the heart 
 of Nineveh. Beyond their precincts, except in that 
 !Mesopotamian district called the garden of Chaldaea, 
 enormous and arid plains stretched on every side, 
 and since vegetation extended but a little beyond the 
 banks of the Euphrates, population was scanty, and it 
 was often a day's journey from one village to another. 
 The character of the people corresponded to that of 
 their land. Both the Hebrew and Greek writers 
 agree in describing them as a fierce, grave, and vio- 
 lent race; with faces like an eagle's, with hair like 
 lions, terrible as archers, wasteful as locusts, and 
 more to be dreaded than the wolf or the hyena. Their 
 sculptures represent them as rending the lion and the 
 bear, and surrounded by the symbolisms of a race 
 conversant with the hardy life of shepherds — bronzed 
 by the morning frost and the noonday sun, tense in 
 
 L
 
 218 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 fibre, eager of eye, witli sinewy chests, and dilated 
 nostrils, scenting the battle from afar. It is not 
 among such a nation that we should seek for popular 
 amusements. On the eastern verge of Asia, we come 
 upon a people whom travellers have not unfrequently, 
 although inaccurately, compared to the Egyptians. 
 The Chinese resemble the inhabitants of the Nile 
 valley only in the burdensome character of their ce- 
 remonies and in the sluggish permanence of their 
 customs. It requires an effort of the imagination to 
 picture to ourselves a youthful or a cheerful Chinese. 
 From his cradle and swaddling-clothes, he is the slave 
 of prescription. The spontaneous impulses of his child- 
 hood are repressed by education, and the recreations 
 of his manhood are grave, solemn, and ungenial. No 
 feeling of the beautiful is apparent in any of his pur- 
 suits or productions; he paints, designs, and carves 
 as his forefathers did centuries ago ; his demeanour 
 and ordinary speech are regulated by strict laws ; and 
 what is not written in the books of the wise, is not 
 permitted to be done or said without a serious breach 
 of law and decorum. There is indeed a certain im- 
 pressive grandeur in many of his festivals, in his 
 prayers at the tomb of his ancestors, his ever-burning 
 lamps, and his reverence for what his teachers have 
 prescribed or time has hallowed. But China is not 
 the land of cheerfulness : even its amusements bear 
 a weighty and a serious brow ; and the land presents 
 the aspect which the Greeks attributed to their Hades
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 319 
 
 — a land where all things always seem the same, and 
 where the sports and exercises of youth afford no 
 pleasure and admit of no variety. Throughout Asia, 
 indeed, an air of melancholy prevails which is not 
 wholly attributable to the cinl or spiritual despotism 
 of its rulers and its castes. Man in those regions is 
 a weed ; he is dwarfed by the colossal scale on which 
 nature works : his religions are ancient, monumental, 
 elaborate, and cruel; his philosophy is ascetic and 
 contemplative; and his relaxations partake of the 
 earnest and sombre genius of his creeds, traditions, 
 and institutions. 
 
 It is from the inventive and practical sons of 
 Hellas that we must seek for the true theorv and 
 example of popular amusements. The Greeks were 
 the first to announce the law of education — that it 
 should consist in nearly equal proportion of the arts 
 which elevate the mind and the exercises which 
 strengthen the body. The combination of the inu- 
 sical with the gymnastic was first displayed in the 
 public games of Greece, and was repeated in the 
 daily life of every Grecian commonwealth. So sa- 
 lient a feature was this of Hellenic manners, that we 
 find Paul of Tarsus drawing from the race-course one 
 of his liveliest and most expressive illustrations, and 
 Plato preluding so many of his dialogues with refer- 
 ences to the palsestra, the stadium, and the sports that 
 accompanied the festivals of Pallas, Apollo, and Ceres. 
 "All pastimes," says Roger Ascham, "generally, which 
 
 L 2
 
 220 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 be joyned with labour and in open place, and on the 
 day-lighte, be not only comelie and decent, but verie 
 necessarie for a courtly gentleman ;^^ and the Greeks, 
 although they admitted a certain coarseness of speech 
 and action, which the greater decency or the better 
 regulated hypocrisy of modern life prohibits, were, in 
 comparison with other contemporary nations, a race 
 of "courtly gentlemen.'^ It was deemed discreditable 
 for any one above the condition of a slave or a bar- 
 barian, to be unable to express himself in society or 
 in public with freedom and ease upon any topic of 
 discussion : he was deemed awkward and ill- trained 
 who could not add to the conviviality of the table by 
 song or recitation; and it needed all the fame and 
 ingenuity of Themistocles to excuse himself for his 
 inability to play on the fiute. It was considered un- 
 beseeming a citizen to be inexpert in any warlike or 
 manly accomplishment, and the Greek admiration for 
 physical beauty rendered indispensable the exercises 
 that develope the muscles or give precision to the 
 eye and the hand. The instincts of the people were 
 nurtm-ed by the habits of their daily life. It was for 
 women to be sedentary, because, according to the 
 erroneous notions of her master, she was a slave. 
 But an indolent or invalid man was a prodigy and a 
 laughing-stock ; and some of Plato's keenest satire is 
 pointed against the self-indulgence of the Sophists 
 who sat by the stove and lapped themselves in cloaks 
 and blankets. The ceremonials of the Christian
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 221 
 
 Chiirch have, in all ages, commanded the applause of 
 the artist and attracted the admiration of the vulgar. 
 But the most gorgeous festivals of the Roman and 
 Byzantine priesthood are ignoble beside the Olympic 
 Games or the Greek Panegyrics of Athens and Delos. 
 In the one, the sjinbolisms of religion affect the faith 
 or imagination only of the spectators, who gaze, a 
 profane herd, upon the drama of the sanctuary, but 
 are not permitted to take part in the performance. 
 The worship of the Greeks was of a more catholic 
 and ennobling kind. No free man was excluded from 
 the contests of the arena: the cost of the chariot race, 
 indeed, restricted its full enjoyment to the wealthy, 
 but, at least in the earlier and better days, the manly 
 exercises of the Pentathlon were open to the young, 
 the vigorous, and the handsome. Godlike and heroic 
 men were esteemed the best exponents of the bounty 
 and providence of the godsj and Apollo was venerated 
 not only as the giver of light and health, but also 
 as the model of manly strength and grace. It was 
 a decline both in art and in national feeling, when 
 the boxers and wrestlers became merely professional 
 artists, trained and dieted like our tumblers and 
 prize-fighters to feats of agility and strength, and 
 sacrificing the music, i. e. the intellectual portion of 
 their abilities, to the gymnastic or physical. The 
 Crotoniate Milo, whose stalwart arms could rive an 
 oak, or whose brawny shoulders could carry off an 
 ox, was deeply versed in the science of Pythagoras,
 
 222 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 and was applauded by the spectators as the mortal 
 representative of the beautiful sons of Leda. The 
 religion of the Greeks carefully watched over three 
 principal objects of petition in the prayers of our 
 church; nor was its care limited to verbal petition, 
 nor were the worshipers contented with periodical 
 acknowledgment that the well-being of man consists 
 in a judicious regulation of "mind, body, and estate." 
 The mind was cared for bv the combination of intel- 
 lectual with gymnastic exhibitions ; and the audience 
 at Elis or Corinth expected with as much eagerness 
 the song in honour of the conqueror, as the feats 
 Avhich obtained for him the laurel or parsley coronal. 
 The body was regarded as well by the exercises which 
 fostered its vigour, grace, and suppleness, as by the 
 temperance in all things which whosoever contended 
 for the prize must observe. And the estate was also 
 an object of solicitude, since temperance and hardi- 
 hood are incompatible with luxury and sloth. We 
 may affect to smile or sigh at the shallowness or in- 
 congruity of the creed of Greece, but we must often 
 blush, amid the comparative effeminacy of modern 
 manners, at the manlier practice of the worshipers of 
 Zeus and Athene. It is needless to expatiate on the 
 artistic genius of the Greeks further than to note its 
 intimate connection with the physical character of the 
 people. The town of Sicyon was probably not more 
 extensive than the least of the provincial capitals of 
 England, yet it contained, if we may credit Pausanias,
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 223 
 
 more masterpieces of art than at this moment can be 
 found in all London. The models of the artist were 
 not far to seek. The streets, the market-place, and 
 the gymnasium afforded them ; and the long conserva- 
 tion of physical beauty which survived the extinction 
 of freedom, is to be ascribed to the passion of the 
 Greeks for gymnastic discipline. The traces of this 
 passion are \'isible in the latest ages of Hellenic lite- 
 rature. Lucian, Plutarch, and Dion Chrysostora 
 dwell on the vigour and beauty of the race in their 
 time, and generally couple their commendations of na- 
 tural graces with allusions to the training schools or 
 the public games. The noblest of the Greek writers^ 
 indeed, deplore the comparative decline of their coun- 
 tr}Tnen in physical qualities, and ascribe the inferi- 
 ority of their contemporaries to departure from the 
 hardy habits of their forefathers. Aristophanes con- 
 trasts the curled darlings of his time with the big, 
 brawny men who fought with the Persians at Salamis 
 and Platseaj and Demosthenes taunts his hearers with 
 their reluctance to serve their country in the fleet or 
 the phalanx. The ancient spirit however did not wholly 
 die, until the Hellenic race itself expired under the 
 lazy and oppressive despotism of the Byzantine Caesars. 
 The games of the hippodrome were no substitute 
 for the periodical festivals at Elis and the Isthmus. 
 The charioteers of the green and blue factions were 
 hirelings ; the body-guards of Justinian and Alexius 
 were recruited in Britain and the Rhine-land, and
 
 224 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 the flower of Grecian life drooped and dwindled in the 
 unwholesome atmosphere of the Bar and the Church, 
 In the national amusements of the Greeks the gym- 
 nastic element preponderated, and the proportion is 
 just, since it is not desu'able that many men should 
 devote themselves to literature, while it imports the 
 general good that every member of the community 
 should, unless physically disabled, be active, healthy, 
 and brave. For the musical or intellectual element, 
 the Greeks thought that they had pro\dded abun- 
 dantly by the Dionysiac festivals ; and assuredly the 
 Drama has never assumed a more august and im- 
 posing form than it presented yearly at Athens. We 
 are not insensible to the ampler and nobler dimen- 
 sions of the Romantic Drama as compared with the 
 Classical, nor disinclined to admit that in Shake- 
 speare's and Calderon's plays a more profoundly re- 
 ligious, or rather a more profoundly humane, element 
 exists than is to be found in the Oresteia or the 
 Antigone. Viewed however in the light of popular 
 amusements, the palm must be awarded to the Greek 
 Drama. The scrupulousness or superstition of the 
 Church has unfortunately divorced the Theatre from 
 the ritual or the dogmas of religion ; or when they 
 have occasionally entered into co-partnership, as in 
 the instances of Calderon's 'Autos' and Racine's 
 scriptural tragedies, the union has been brief, and 
 unfavourable to the more popidar objects of the 
 Drama. The hostility of the Church to the Theatre
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 225 
 
 commenced -svith the just repugnance of all wise and 
 good men to the atrocities of the Roman stage. The 
 coarseness and license in which Aristophanes occa- 
 sionally indidges would have appeared faint and feeble 
 to a Roman inui'cd to the representations at the Me- 
 galesian and Floral Games ; and if the libels of Pro- 
 copius contain any admixture of truth, the impuri- 
 ties of Rome were far surpassed by those of Constan- 
 tinople. The antagonism of the Church to the Thea- 
 tre was accordingly just in its origin, but it has been 
 prejudicial equally to dramatic art and to popular re- 
 creation. At the Dionysiac festivals of Greece they 
 went hand in hand, — art was ennobled, recreation 
 acquired an ethical importance, and the creed of 
 the people was presented under the attractive forms 
 of solemn and purifying emotions. In the fables of 
 OEdipus, Electra, and Antigone, the presence of a 
 spiritual power, righting the secret wrongs, appalling 
 the guilty, and justifying the innocent, was made 
 manifest, nor could any attentive and thoughtful 
 spectator depart from the representation of Prome- 
 theus without a conviction that the sacrifice of suf- 
 fering is not less acceptable to the gods than the sa- 
 crifice of action. The Attic Drama was indeed the 
 most superb and solemn liturgy of the Hellenic re- 
 ligion. The Greeks thus realized in their practice 
 nearly every condition involved in the theory of 
 popular amusements. They provided for the intel- 
 lectual and physical improvement of the people both 
 
 L 3
 
 226 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 locally and nationally. Their great panegyrics were 
 common to all who were not barbarians^ — i. e. to all 
 who traced their ancestry from Pelops, Ion, and the 
 Heracleidsj or who, though of foreign extraction, 
 were admitted — a rare privilege — for some signal 
 service into the family of Hellas ; and their local in- 
 stitutions catered for the health, instruction, and 
 cheerfulness of the several communities. The ci- 
 vilization of Christendom has, in some respects, ad- 
 vanced beyond that of the Hellenic race. It has 
 improved, though it is still very far from apprehend- 
 ing, the proper relations and position of women; it 
 has generally abolished slavery, although the change 
 from myriads of slaves to myriads of paupers is a 
 brief step only in the right direction, and is at la- 
 mentable variance with the doctrines of a religion 
 professing to regard all men as brethren, and wealth 
 as dross. It has established munificent public chari- 
 ties, which were known in a rude form only to anti- 
 quity, and embraced freemen alone; and if it has 
 not extirpated, it has ceased to countenance openly 
 such anomalous vices as disgraced even the best ages 
 of Greece and Rome. But the parallel must here 
 break off. No Christian state has hitherto devised 
 or effected a system of public education Avorthy to be 
 put in the scale Avith that of Greece. We have yet 
 much to learn from both the Dorian and Ionian races 
 in the art of rendering the masses intelligent, healthy, 
 and alert.
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 227 
 
 The ^irtues of the Romans, which elicited the ap- 
 plause of the most ethical of historians, were civil and 
 political rather than intellectual. Polybius, who had 
 beheld the arts and refinements of Greece unim- 
 paired by conquest and unvitiated by neglect, pre- 
 ferred to them the hardy Roman qualities of legisla- 
 tion and government. The most accomplished of the 
 Latin poets agreed with the grave historian in this 
 estimate of his coimtrymen, and bade them leave to 
 others the sculptor's and the painter's art, and devote 
 themselves to law, administration, and agriculture. 
 In whatsoever related to art and education, indeed, 
 Rome, as compared Avith Greece, or even Etruria, 
 was rude and uninventive, and even on its colossal 
 roads and aqueducts is impressed the stamp of ma- 
 terial energy more than of grace or contrivance. The 
 popular amusements of Rome reflected the practical 
 genius of its people. They were symbolic of war 
 and agriculture. The games of the Circus mimicked 
 the strife of the battle-field ; and the vernal and au- 
 tumnal festivals represented by their altars of sod and 
 their garlands of flowers the simple thanksgivings of 
 the tillers of the soil. Even from the earliest times 
 an ethical, and not an artistic spirit, is visible in their 
 recreations, and in their seasons of relaxation they in- 
 dulged in mementos of the prccariousncss of life. Of 
 all Roman exhibitions, the Secular Games were, both 
 from their occasion and their ceremonial, the most 
 suggestive of sad and sober thoughts. They were
 
 228 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 celebrated J in compliance with a cyclical computation 
 of the Etruscans, once only in a hundred or a hundred 
 and ten years ; the ambition or policy of the Csesars, 
 indeed, sometimes abridged the regular term; but 
 even a jubilee occurring once only in fifty years, is 
 well adapted to inspire the spectators with solemn 
 reflections. The usual interval, however, between the 
 Secular Games exceeded the ordinary term of life; and 
 as none of the spectators had already seen them, none 
 could flatter themselves with the hope of beholding 
 them again. The sacrifices were performed durmg 
 three nights on the banks of the Tiber ; the darkness 
 was dispelled by innumerable lamps and torches, and 
 the proper silence of the hour was broken by music 
 and dancing. Heralds, some days before the solem- 
 nity commenced, invited the citizens to a spectacle 
 which no one had ever beheld, and none would be- 
 hold again. The fruits of the earth were ofiiered to 
 the Destinies, and a chorus of twenty-seven youths 
 and as many virgins of noble families, whose parents 
 were both alive, implored, in appropriate hymns, the 
 gods in favour of the present and of the rising gene- 
 ration. A more striking contrast can hardly be con- 
 ceived than that which this grave religious spectacle 
 presents to the daylight cheerfulness and redun- 
 dant life of an Olympic Festival. It was difiicult, 
 indeed, to make the senate or people of Rome laugh 
 at anything short of bufibonery; or to rQuse their 
 emotions by anything except blows and bloodshed.
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 229 
 
 They would hurry out of the theatre from the woes 
 of Atreus or the delicate wit of the Adelphi, on the 
 first call of the "elephants" or "rope-dancers" in 
 the streets ; and Eunius then, like Shakespeare now, 
 was unpalatable to the benches, unless armies swept 
 across the stage, and the wardrobe blazed with piir- 
 ple and gold. And hitherto we have noticed the 
 least noxious of Roman spectacles. It was a vir- 
 tuous age when a few elephants driven by slaves 
 across the arena contented the people ; it was a mo- 
 derate one when a few pairs of gladiators sufficed for 
 the considar or prsetorian games. Lord Bacon has 
 pronounced that — " the triumph amongst the Ro- 
 mans was not pageants or gaudery, but one of the 
 wisest and noblest institutions that ever was; for it 
 contained three things — honour to the general, riches 
 to the treasuiy out of the spoils, and donatives to the 
 army." The triumph however, with all deference to 
 so high an authority, we believe to have been one of 
 the effective causes in producing that hardness of 
 heart which marked all the dealings of Rome with 
 the conquered and the slave. It inured the people 
 to regard with callousness or exultation private suf- 
 fering and public mutations. Kings bound in chains 
 and nobles in links of iron, and afterwards doomed 
 to a swift or lingering death in the Mamertine dun- 
 geon or the solitary ergastulum, were spectacles en- 
 gendering pride and cruelty, and affording no com- 
 pensation by their ethical or artistic suggestions.
 
 230 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 The corollary of the triumph was the combat of wild 
 beasts and gladiators. Both the brute and the hu- 
 man nature were the captives of the bow and spear ; 
 and the victor conceived that he had gained the right 
 to torture and destroy either of them for his own 
 good pleasure. In the last century of the Common- 
 wealth, and under all the worse emperors, the popular 
 amusements of the Romans may be summed up under 
 the two heads of cruelty and licentiousness. At the 
 more cheerful spectacles no modest woman could be 
 present, although few Roman matrons and maidens 
 were absent from them; from the graver spectacles 
 no one could depart without sickness of heart, or 
 with hearts deadened and indurated, and lapsed be- 
 low all depths of pity or terror. 
 
 The drama can hardly be reckoned among the 
 popular amusements of the Romans. National sub- 
 jects for theatrical representation, they had none; 
 party politics were too acrimonious among them for 
 the stories of Coriolanus or Manlius to be safe or at- 
 tractive. The deeds of the house of Tarquin, however 
 well suited to the tragic muse, reminded them at once 
 of their superstitious hatred of the kingly name and 
 of the humble origin of the Commonwealth. The 
 formality of domestic life and manners left hardly 
 any scope or margin for comedy, and grave senators 
 ill-brooked jests and intrigues at the expense of their 
 haughty Portias and ^Emilias. Their comedy was 
 accordingly a servile copy of the later comedy of the
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 231 
 
 Greeks, both in its plots, manners, and dramatis per- 
 sorne. But of Greek manners, the Roman populace 
 knew about as much as Rotherhithe knows of Bel- 
 gravia ; and the refined wit of Terence was as unin- 
 telligible to Caius of the Suburra, as the ' School for 
 Scandal' would be to the frequenters of the Victoria 
 Theatre. We need not expatiate on an amusement 
 which, being patronized only in the saloons of the 
 Scipios, has no claim to the adjunct "popular." The 
 Italians, however, though their dramatic literature 
 has in all periods been about the most scantily ap- 
 pointed in Europe, were nevertheless a highly dra- 
 matic race. Their quick emotions express themselves 
 in ready and ingenious pantomime, and the native 
 farce was the lineal ancestor of the burlesques which, 
 from the Alps to the extremity of the peninsula, are 
 still a source of the keenest enjoyment to the vuJgar. 
 Latin literature has sustained no hea\der loss than 
 that of the ' Fabulse Atellanse.' Thev were of a 
 higher order than the mimes or farces ; were regular 
 compositions, dinded into five acts, marked by re- 
 fined humour, and acted by free-born citizens. Had 
 a single specimen of these native comedies been pre- 
 served, we might perhaps have rated Roman comedy 
 higher. But equally as respected its political deve- 
 lopment and its popular recreations, it was the mis- 
 fortune of the Romans to be crushed and corrupted 
 by the weight and rapidity of their conquests. A 
 martial and agricultural race, hardy, coarse, and un-
 
 232 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 civilized, was suddenly enriched by the treasures of 
 Greece, Asia, and Gaiil. License and enjoyment im- 
 mediately succeeded to frugal severity of life ; and the 
 Romans, too impatient to cultivate their native arts, 
 purchased wholesale the ready-made stock of the 
 more advanced and ingenious Greeks. Noise, glare, 
 and prodigal expenditure were at once the bane of 
 the E/Oman theatre and its literature. Poets and 
 actors cannot always be found ; but the artificer and 
 the upholsterer are always to be hired, and in the 
 pantomime they found ample room for their costly 
 and eccentric devices. A numerous and idle popula- 
 tion, for whom the theatre was provided gratis, de- 
 manded houses too spacious for the human voice, or 
 by their rude clamours drowned the recitation of the 
 actors. But the pantomime, appealing to the eye 
 alone, and admitting of sumptuous decoration, en- 
 tranced thousands of spectators, and the most popular 
 of Roman dramatic entertainments dispensed with 
 the playwright altogether. Of the three favourite 
 public recreations of the Romans, the Triumph, the 
 Spectacles, and the Theatre, not one promoted the 
 refinement of the people, or tended to the encourage- 
 ment of the artist. The passion for boxers, fencers, 
 and wild beasts survived the Republic and exhausted 
 the treasures of the Empire. The most politic and 
 virtuous of the Csesars repressed the fury of the peo- 
 ple for such exhibitions; but the example of Trajan 
 and the Antouines was disregarded by Commodus
 
 POPULAR AMUSE^IEXTS. 233 
 
 and Caracalla^ and when the capital of the Empire 
 was transplanted to the shores of the Bosphonis, the 
 enormities of the pantomime and the race-course mi- 
 grated also from the Colosseum to the Hippodrome. 
 
 That vre may not be supposed to have exaggerated 
 the scale of the public amusements of Rome, or their 
 demoralizing effects on the spectators, vre add the 
 following brief sketches of three remarkable specta- 
 cles at eras very distant from one another, — two of 
 which were exhibited in the Plain of Mars, at Rome, 
 and the third in the Circus at Constantinople. 
 
 1. In the 700th year of the City, the popularity of 
 Cneius Pompeius was on the wane, and he laboured 
 to re\ive it by the magnificence of his exhibitions. 
 Hitherto the Roman theatres had been built of wood, 
 and were removed after the spectacles had terminated. 
 Now a theatre was constructed of stone, and designed 
 for permanence. Forty thousand persons, no small 
 portion of the resident population of the city, were 
 accommodated within its w^alls; and it was decorated 
 with such a profusion of gold, marble, and gems, 
 as had never yet been witnessed out of Alexandria 
 or Babylon, when " Egypt with Assyria strove in 
 luxury." The consecration of this theatre, which, 
 as a pretext for its permanence, was dedicated to 
 Venus Victrix, was celebrated with music, chariot 
 races, and all the games of the palaestra. During 
 five successive days, five hundred lions were hunted 
 and slauglitcrcd in the arena. Eighteen elephants
 
 234 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 were made to fight with trained bands of gladiators ; 
 and the cries and agonies of these noble and saga- 
 cious animals inspired even the brutalized crowd with 
 pity and disgust. Stage plays were combined with 
 these grosser spectacles j but the verses of Pacuvius 
 and Eunius were imperfectly heard amid the din and 
 tumult of such an assembly, and the games broke up 
 amid general murmurs at the inefficiency of the dis- 
 play, and the exhibitor's bad taste. 
 
 2. Three centuries had elapsed, and the extrava- 
 gances of the arena had kept pace with the corrup- 
 tion of the times and the prodigality of the Csesars, 
 when Carinus surpassed all his predecessors by the 
 pomp with which he, celebrated the Roman games. 
 They had been established by the founder of the city, 
 and, with few interruptions, were exhibited annually 
 during a period of nearly one thousand years. On 
 this occasion they were displayed in the amphitheatre 
 of Titus, which has obtained and so well deserves the 
 epithet of Colossal. Into the huge ellipse of this 
 vast conclave, sixty-four vomitories poured forth an 
 immense multitude, without trouble or confusion. 
 The slopes of the interior were filled and surrounded 
 by sixty or eighty rows of marble seats, covered with 
 cushions, and capable of containing above fourscore 
 thousand spectators. The senatorial, equestrian, and 
 plebeian orders — 'these empty distinctions were re- 
 tained even under the equality of despotism — each 
 occupied its peculiar station ; and in the centre, a
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 235 
 
 golden canopy^ and the glittering cuirasses of the 
 body-guard, marked out the imperial box. The 
 spectators were protected from the sun and rain by 
 purple awnings, occasionally drawn over their heads. 
 Fountains cooled and aromatics impregnated the air 
 with gi'ateful odours ; and the stage itself was strewn 
 with parti-coloured sand, arranged in devices, like 
 the pattern of a carpet. The scenery and mechanism 
 of the Drama corresponded to the luxury of the thea- 
 tre. The stage itself was shifted according to the 
 exigencies of the performance. At one moment, it 
 presented a vast lake covered with armed vessels, and 
 replenished with the monsters of the deep; at another, 
 the spectators beheld the garden of the Hespcrides, or 
 the rocks and caverns of Thrace. The appointments 
 of the Circus were not less sumptuous. The wild 
 beasts were surrounded by a sylvan scene. A forest 
 of large trees, torn up by the roots, was transplanted 
 into the midst of the arena. This umbrageous space 
 was immediately filled with a thousand ostriches, a 
 thousand stags, a thousand fallow-deer, and a thou- 
 sand wild-boars, all of which were indiscriminately 
 slaughtered before evening. On the following day, a 
 hundred lions, a hundred lionesses, two hundred 
 leopards, and three hundred wild boars, were massa- 
 cred ; and, amid such profusion, we may credit the 
 statement of a contemporary poet, that the nets de- 
 signed as a defence against the wild beasts were of 
 gold wire, that the porticoes were gilded, and the
 
 236 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 balustrades which divided the rows of spectators, 
 studded with a mosaic of precious stones. It is 
 needless to comment upon the splendour and bar- 
 barism of such popular amusements. 
 
 3. But these were trivial and even harmless follies 
 compared with the factions and frenzy of the Byzan- 
 tine hippodrome. It is not easy to decide whether 
 the capital of the Eastern Empire suffered more from 
 the feuds of the Church or of the Circus. The elec- 
 tion of a bishop or a patriarch was not seldom ac- 
 companied with bloodshed ; and the factions of the 
 charioteers on more than one occasion suspended the 
 actions of Government, and shook the imperial throne. 
 The lively fancy of the Greeks, so alert in splitting 
 hairs in the sublimest mysteries of religion, was 
 equally active in ascribing symbolic meanings to the 
 colours worn on the race-course. The white was 
 supposed to be typical of the snows of winter, the red 
 of the summer dog-star, the green of the verdure of 
 spring, and the blue or azure of the mingled tints of 
 autumn. Omens were drawn from their respective 
 victories ; and the bettors on a favourite colour con- 
 ceived that on the issue of their wager depended, not 
 only money and estates, but also a plentiful harvest 
 or a prosperous navigation. Twenty-five heats were 
 run in the same day ; and, as each faction furnished 
 one chariot for every course, one hundred chariots in 
 the same day started for the goal. It would have 
 been happy for the State, if the contests had been
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 237 
 
 limited to tlie Circus. But political passions were in- 
 fused into popular amusement, and the ^'eens and 
 blues alternately enjoyed and abused the pleasures of 
 victory. Families were split into opposite factions; 
 quarters of the city were distracted by irreconcileable 
 feuds ; the Caesars themselves took pai't with one or 
 the other livery; and lust, rapine, and murder ranged, 
 unreproved and unchecked, under the sway of fa- 
 vourite charioteers. Their occasional union was even 
 more fatal to public order than their ordinary divi- 
 sion ; and, at oue crisis of these Saturnalia, the royal 
 galleys were moored at the garden gate of the Bla- 
 chemal palace, ready to convey the trembling Em- 
 peror and his household to some safe and distant re- 
 treat. From the capital, this pestilence was diffused 
 into the provinces and cities of the East : Antioch 
 and Alexandria were torn by the factions of the race- 
 course : and the excesses and extravagances of an 
 idle and useless recreation that wasted the strength 
 and treasures of the Empire, may fau'ly be enume- 
 rated among the causes of its decrepitude and 
 decline. 
 
 ^\Tiatever may have been the doctrinal influence of 
 Christianity upon the vices and follies of a super- 
 annuated fabric of society, its higher and more severe 
 morality cannot be questioned. Even the selfish in- 
 terests of mankind were enlisted in favour of a creed 
 whicli promoted the household virtues and family 
 union, and restrained crimes of such flagrant dye as
 
 238 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 conviilsed the later days of the Pagan world. The 
 fathers of the Church have often been censured for 
 the intolerant zeal of their attacks on art and the 
 theatre; but to understand and excuse them, it is 
 only necessary for us to contemplate what dramatic 
 exhibitions had become. Even the foregoing sketches 
 of the license of the Roman amphitheatre and the 
 Byzantine race-course will suffice to justify Chrysos- 
 tom or Tertullian's indignation at the spectacles, and 
 to accept even the aid of bigotry against a moral pes- 
 tilence so deeply rooted and so widely diffused. The 
 strong virtues of the barbarians in time seconded the 
 reclamations of the Church; and, although the amuse- 
 ments of Christendom are not unstained by cruelty 
 and license, they have never, in the worst epochs, 
 approached the excesses of either capital of the Ro- 
 man Empire. 
 
 Our route would be too devious were we to trace 
 the various popular amusements of Europe, after it 
 was broken up into communities, each displaying its 
 several character. We must content ourselves with 
 arranging, under a few distinct heads, the recreations 
 which expressed the pleasures or the passions of the 
 people. For centuries after its emancipation from 
 the yoke of Rome, the normal condition of Europe 
 was one of war and isolation. There was little inter- 
 course between its kingdoms ; there were few diplo- 
 matic transactions between its crowns; the sea was 
 insecure; the great roads which Rome had drawn
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 239 
 
 from every province of its empire to the Milliarium 
 in the forum were neglected or broken np ; and each 
 petty state was at leisure to mature and develope its 
 own institutions and amusements. Between the cities 
 and the country a marked distinction had grown up. 
 The recreations of the nobles were the chase and the 
 tom'nament : those of the citizens, the processions and 
 symbolisms of the guilds. The one naturally displayed 
 the image of war : the other exhibited the works and 
 benefits of industry and peace. As an example of 
 these general characteristics, we will dwell for an in- 
 stant upon the opposite amusements of the Spaniards 
 and the Flemings, as respectively the exponents of 
 nations great in arms and thrifty and splendid in 
 peace. 
 
 The Spaniards were in many of their predilections 
 genuine descendants of Rome. They hated commerce, 
 and A;-illingly resigned retail and mechanical trades 
 into the hands of Moriscos, Germans, or French, or 
 any strangers who had settled among them — much as 
 the Romans left their shops and warehouses to Greek 
 or Svrian freedmen and slaves. The love of idleness 
 was accompanied with a passion for amusement, and 
 the recreations of the Spaniards were fierce, sombre, 
 and gorgeous in their character. For the splendour 
 of their tournaments, Ave need only refer to tlieir 
 ballad literature ; for the savage license of the bull- 
 fight, to every book of travels in the Peninsula ; and 
 for the sumptuousness of their theatrical decorations.
 
 240 . ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 to the records of their Drama, and even the stage di- 
 rections of their plays. It was in vain for the Cortes 
 to express, as they did as early as 1555, their disap- 
 probation of the bull-fights. The zest for them was 
 too deeply seated in the temper of the people. It 
 was useless for the treasurers of the royal household 
 to remonstrate against the profusion of the Theatre 
 Royal ; the nobles demanded and the king sanctioned 
 the outlay. With the attachment to habit and the 
 aversion from change that still mark the Spanish 
 people, the tournament lingered among them long 
 after it became an empty and unmeaning spectacle in 
 the rest of Europe. " The Spaniard of 1840," writes 
 George Borrow, "is the Spaniard of four centuries 
 ago;" he still delights to charge the bull with his 
 lance, and drive him down the narrow mountain 
 track to the river; he is a tamer of horses; a be- 
 liever in wizards; a sworn foe to Jews and Moors, 
 and labour; his repose cannot be too profound, his 
 paroxysms of recreation and enjoyment too fervid or 
 fierce. 
 
 His Flemish and Dutch subjects presented equally 
 in their occupations and amusements the most com- 
 plete contrast to the Spaniard. The wealthy and 
 comfortable burghers of Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, 
 and Leyden, had small delight in war or the chase, 
 in torturing beasts, or in the savour of roasted here- 
 tics. Their delight was to see, on occasions of cere- 
 mony or rejoicing, oxen roasted whole in the market-
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 241 
 
 placCj wiiie gushing from the pipes of the fountains, 
 men climbing high poles, and Avonien running races 
 for prizes, and festive lanterns bm'ning at night on 
 the belfries of their cities. The rhetorical guilds ol 
 the Flemings were also in marked contrast to the 
 dramatic entertainments of the Spaniards. The fancy 
 of the poet and the stores of classic or I'omantic storv 
 were ransacked for the uses of the theatres of Madrid 
 and Seville; and, with the exception of moveable 
 scenery, they lacked little of the pomp and splendour 
 of Parisian or London playhouses. The imagination 
 of the Netherlanders was more easily contented, or of 
 a more practical kind. Theu* spectacles embodied, in 
 sensible imagery, wise saws and pregnant maxims, 
 and symbolized the household and commercial virtues 
 that render their possessors easy in person and in 
 circumstances. A high day at Madrid in the reign 
 of Philip IV. was in all essential respects the image 
 of a high day in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. 
 The nobles, mounted on Arabian barbs, carried an 
 estate on their backs invested in silks, gems, and 
 costly armour, and paraded their finery before the 
 dark eyes hardly concealed by the lattices or veils 
 which the semi-oriental jealousy of Spanish fathers, 
 brothers, and husbands devised and demanded. The 
 Flemings visited one another on gala-days, dressed in 
 cumbrous velvets and stiff brocades, and were so- 
 lemnly drawn in antique and nchly adorned coaches, 
 displaying on their panels the strangest allegorical 
 
 M
 
 242 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 emLlems of peace, plenty, and thrift. The fortunes 
 and character of the nations were reflected in these 
 their popular amusements. The Netherlanders grew 
 and remained rich ; the Spaniards became, and have 
 remained poor unto this day. The mines of the 
 Indies poured their wealth eventually into the laps 
 of the Flemings and the Hollanders ; since Antwerp 
 and Rotterdam supplied Seville and Barcelona with 
 the wares which the Spaniard deemed it beneath his 
 disnitv to manufacture, or even to vend when im- 
 ported. "More business," says a shrewd Venetian 
 envoy, "is done in Antwerp in a month than at 
 Cadiz or Barcelona in two years." 
 
 We must afford space for one more glimpse at the 
 recreations of Southern Europe before turning to the 
 popular amusements of our own land. Florence, we 
 are told by the chroniclers, Malaspini and Villani, 
 was, towards the end of the thirteenth century, emi- 
 nently prosperous and happy. The city abounded in 
 mirth and festivity: jugglers, buffoons, and mounte- 
 banks poured in from all the Italian states to share 
 the bounty of its princely merchants, who, although 
 generally plain and frugal in their private life and 
 households, were sumptuous and hospitable in their 
 public entertainments. Easter was an especial season 
 for revelry. The wealthier Florentines then kept 
 open house, and welcomed multitudes of poets, mu- 
 sicians, dancers, jesters, players, and charlatans of 
 every sort, and none of tliose who pleased in order to
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 243 
 
 live were permitted to depart without considerable 
 largesse, whether in the form of money, or of ricli 
 dresses and ornaments. 
 
 In the sonnets of Folgore da San Gimignano, a 
 poet of the year 1260, we obtain an insight into the 
 amusements of the gentlemen of Siena at that period. 
 The bard follows the approved almanac-fashion in 
 prescribing to his readers what they are to eat, drink, 
 and avoid, and how to disport themselves in each 
 month in order to cause their days to pass pleasantly. 
 We select a few instances of his comfortable counsels. 
 
 In January he bids his friends to keep large fires 
 in well-lit rooms ; to have their bed-chambers splen- 
 didly furnished with silken sheets and fur coverlets. 
 The servants must be snugly clad in woollens and 
 cloth of Douay ; and there should be plenty of con- 
 fectionery. Out-of-doors, the gentlemen are to amuse 
 themselves by throwing soft snow-balls at the young 
 ladies whom they may happen to meet in their walks. 
 When tired with these exertions, they must take a 
 good allowance of repose. 
 
 This dolce far niente however is not to endure for 
 ever. Even the existence of a Sybarite, if persevered 
 in too long, will grow tedious. So in February these 
 pleasant gentlemen must rise betimes and " hunt the 
 deer," the wild goat and boar, "with hound and 
 horn." At night they shall come merrily home to 
 excellent wine, a smoking kitchen, and a song. 
 
 In March, when the sun rides high in Aries, and
 
 244 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 strong exercise is not so needful to Avarm the blood, 
 fishing is to be substituted for hunting ; they are now 
 to migrate from their toA\^i-houses to their subui'ban 
 villas and palaces, and to procure every delight that 
 will make time run smoothly ; but Avithout monk or 
 priest. " Let those crazy shavelings/' says the irre- 
 verent poet, '•' go and preach, for they abound in lies." 
 The Italians appear to have known nothing of Parson 
 Supple, who could ride nearly as well and drink quite 
 as well as Squire Western himself. 
 
 In April the scene changes to an Arcadian life, 
 amid flowery fields, fountains, and lawns; and the 
 general prescription is — mules, palfreys, and steeds 
 from Spain, songs and dances from Provence, and 
 new instruments of music fresh from Germany. 
 There is, indeed, much national physiognomy in- 
 volved in these maxims. Monks are excluded from 
 this paradise, but not Eves; for dames and damsels 
 saunter along with these gay Sienese bachelors, 
 through groves and gardens where all would honour 
 them, and bend their knee before the queen, the lady 
 of beauty, to whom the poet ofiers a crown of jewels, 
 even of the finest jewels of Prester John, King of 
 Babylonia. 
 
 May brought with it troops of light well-trained 
 horses, springy, spirited, and swift, with head and 
 breast well armed; and tinkling bells and banners, 
 and rich trappings; many-coloured mantles, light 
 round shields and polished weapons, which were not
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 245 
 
 to be borne in vain, for there must be breaking of 
 spears and shock of lances ; and the reward of chi- 
 valry shall be flowers of every hue, showers of gar- 
 lands from balcony and casement, and flights of golden 
 oranges tossed up in tm*n ; and youths and maidens 
 kissing mouth and cheek, and discom-sing of happi- 
 ness and love. 
 
 We have not space to follow this joyous calendar 
 through the rolling year, and recommend such of our 
 readers as may have been led to en^^^ life at Siena, 
 to procure the poems of jNIesscr San Gimignano. 
 The counsels for October however are too extraordi- 
 nary to be passed over. The poet seems to have 
 thought, with the adage, that — 
 
 " He who drinks and goes to bed sober, 
 Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October." 
 
 For then, he says, it is good to visit a house where a 
 good stud is kept, to follow sports on foot or horse- 
 back, dance at night, drink good wine and get tipsy ; 
 " as in good sooth there is no better life." And after 
 the morning's ablutions, wine and roast meat are once 
 more an excellent medicine, for they will give good 
 spirits, and preserve them in better health than that 
 of fishes in lake, river, or sea, " because thus they 
 would be leading a more Christian life ! " 
 
 An unlucky wag of the time, Cenc della Citarra of 
 Arezzo, parodied these sonnets of Messer Folgore's, 
 and imparted his notions of the enjoyments of the 
 poor. We regret our inalnlity to look on this picture 
 
 M 2
 
 246 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 also, since the two would enable us to present a tole- 
 rably complete outline of the popular amusements of 
 Italy. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that those who have 
 written on symbolisms, have for the most part viewed 
 the subject from merely a theological point of view, 
 or at least have restricted their researches to the bare 
 demands of archaeology. The subject of popular 
 amusements would derive much light from a history 
 of the symbols adopted by various nations, and espe- 
 cially from those belonging to the trading corpora- 
 tions and guilds. We can ajQTord however to hint 
 only at an unworked vein of inquiry that would pro- 
 Ijably illustrate better than the history of cabinets 
 and campaigns the social development and peculiari- 
 ties of a people. The guilds of Europe, with their 
 banners, devices, and periodical festivals, date from a 
 remote antiquity, and although they were consider- 
 ably modified by Christian emblems and ideas, they 
 lurk in many an obscure corner of Roman and ori- 
 ental record. 
 
 The gravity with which we Englishmen disport 
 ourselves, appeared to Froissart, accustomed to the 
 lighter and more graceful mirth of France, a feature 
 of peculiar significance in the national character. It 
 is indeed impossible to deny that the English have a 
 relish for broad fun, since have we not Fielding's, 
 and Smollett's, and Dickens's novels, and Shake- 
 speare's Falstaff, constables, and clowns? But we
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 247 
 
 are not a demonstrative people like the Athenians 
 and the French, and although our comedy is as rich 
 as that of Aristophanes and ^loliere, our assemblies 
 and recreations have assuredly an air of steady and 
 serious business. We would not indeed exchange 
 the general sobriety of our cities for the indiscrimi- 
 nate levity of Vienna, nor are we disposed to regard 
 it as a symptom of any constitutional or deep-seated 
 melancholv. We ascribe it rather to the more do- 
 mestic character of our habits, as compared Mith 
 those of most Continental nations. Even sadness can 
 seldom maintain its equable demeanour in a crowd, 
 where the attention is perpetually diverted from self 
 by the passing objects, the converse and gesticula- 
 tions going on on every side. The liveliest people of 
 antiquity were the Athenians, whose life was almost 
 passed in the streets; external air, and restlessness, 
 are provocatives, if not to mirth, at least to com- 
 panionship; and a population that has scarcely a 
 home, is generally to outward semblance noisy and 
 demonstrative. If physiognomy indeed be an index 
 of the cheerfulness or the gravity of a people, we are 
 inclined to think that an Englisli crowd will bear 
 comparison with that of any country for a general 
 expression of content. More anxious faces will be 
 met with in Paris or New York in an hour than 
 London exhibits in a week ; although indeed on the 
 occasion of a spectacle or a general holiday, there will 
 be ill both the former cities greater noise and osteii-
 
 248 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 tation of pleasure. We seldom scream, shout, or give 
 way to iuextiuguishable laughter ; but neither do we 
 so often shed tears, rend our hair, or commit suicide. 
 If we possess no sober certainty of waking bliss as 
 a nation, and exercise to the full our privilege of 
 grumbling at the weather, the crops, and the Govern- 
 ment, we have fewer emeutes, fewer revolutions, fewer 
 breakings-up of the great central abysses of passion, 
 than have occurred among nations claiming to be 
 livelier and more sensitive than ourselves. But our 
 immediate business is with the national character as 
 exhibited or suggested in its seasons of relaxation; 
 and it must be admitted that these for the most part 
 are of a saturnine complexion. A manly vigour from 
 the earliest times is perceptible in the recreations of 
 the English nation. After the first pressure of the 
 Norman yoke was lightened, and the conquerors had 
 ceased to regard the conquered with scornful or jea- 
 lous eyes, the native sports of the Saxons were per- 
 mitted them and even encouraged. The earlier wars 
 of the Norman kings with France had been waged 
 chiefly with the lances and battle-axes of their own 
 retainers; but the efficiency of the English archers 
 manifested itself so strikingly on many critical occa- 
 sions, that the practice of the bow was diligently en- 
 forced by the Plantageuets. Nor after the close of 
 the Barons' wars did the Tudors overlook this formi- 
 dable adjunct to the rude artillery of their day ; and 
 indeed tliroughout the fifteenth century, nothing more
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 249 
 
 surely proves the good imderstanding between the 
 Governmeut and the people than the universal prac- 
 tice of bearing arms. Every man was a soldier, and 
 equipped according to his rank and means with cor- 
 responding armour and weapons. The exercises of 
 the tilt-yard at the Hall or Castle were reserved for 
 those of gentle bii'th ; and the imitation of war — often 
 very near its reaHty — was at once a high enjoyment 
 and a noble accomplishment. It was enacted by 
 various statutes, commencing with an Act passed in 
 the Parhament at Winchester, in the thirteenth year 
 of Edward I., "that every man have harness in his 
 house to keep the peace after the ancient assize, — that 
 is to say, every man between fifteen years of age and 
 sixty years, shall be assessed and sworn to armour ac- 
 cording to the quantity of his lands and goods." As 
 the bow was the favourite weapon of the Enghsh pea- 
 santry, regular practice was enforced, and shooting 
 was both the training and tiie amusement of all 
 whose property in land did not amount to forty shil- 
 lings in value. Every hamlet had its pair of butts : 
 and on Sundays and holidays — our ancestors would 
 have marvelled at the dedication of the Sabbath to 
 religion, sloth, or drink — all able-bodied men were 
 required to present themselves in the field, and to 
 employ their leisure hours ''as valyant Englishmen 
 ought to do." Mayors, bailiffs, and hcadboroughs 
 were directed to see these manly amusements obser- 
 ved ; and if they neglected to do so, were fined twenty
 
 250 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 shillings for each proven omission of their duty. It 
 is interesting to remark how sedulously our legisla- 
 tors five centuries ago discouraged " unthrifty games/' 
 and especially such as, being of a sedentary kind, 
 might be practised in taverns and places of ill-resort. 
 Numerous are the statutes levelled bv the Parliaments 
 of the Plantagenets against " the plays of bowls, quoits, 
 dice, kails;" as numerous the complaints of veteran 
 soldiers against the addiction of the younger sort of 
 recruits to dancing, carding, and dicing ! Many of 
 the national sports indeed have justly fallen into 
 comparative desuetude, and we now seldom read of 
 bull-baitings or prize-fights. With these and with 
 all amusements that involve cruelty to animals, or 
 brutalize those who practise them, we can well dis- 
 pense ; yet we may be allowed to regret the abeyance 
 of foot-ball on the village camping land, and the pe- 
 riodical matches of wrestlers at wakes and fairs. It 
 is one of the highest recommendations of cricket that 
 it brings together men of all degrees ; and we quite 
 go with Lord John Manners in his benevolent wish to 
 devise and promote aU such recreations as equalize 
 ranks, and wherein superior skill is the only distinc- 
 tion. The benefits of such equalization were proved 
 in the wars of Edward III. It is observed by the 
 contemporary chronicles, that one cause of the higher 
 courage and more effective discipline of the English 
 at Crecy and Poitiers was attributable to the terms 
 on which the chivalry of England lived with its yeo-
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 251 
 
 manry. In the French armies^ tlie archers and light 
 troops were held aloof by the knights and theii- 
 squires as a rabble, good only for the prelude to the 
 fight, but infinitely beneath the rank or notice of the 
 men-at-arms. "Whereas in the English host a com- 
 mon cordiality and a generous emulation pervaded 
 all the ranks ; the serried line of the archers had its 
 place and consideration as well as the mounted co- 
 limms of horse, were taken into account by the com- 
 missariat, and scrupulously tended in the hospital. 
 The efiects of this cohesion were felt long after the 
 bow was forgotten as a weapon of ofieuce ; and it is 
 in some measure owing to the more comprehensive 
 character of our national amusements, that amid our 
 acrimonious political contests and even occasional re- 
 volutions, there has never been such a severance of 
 classes as hastened the downfall of the commonwealth 
 of Rome and the monarchy of France. 
 
 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, masques 
 and plays constituted a prominent feature in the pas- 
 times of the English people. The world has hitherto 
 seen three great dramatic eras in three distinct na- 
 tions J and the eminence of Greece, Spain, and Eng- 
 land, in this province of art, may be attributed to the 
 intense sympathy of their population generally with 
 dramatic passion and pageantry. Of Greece and 
 Spain it must suffice to observe, that their great dra- 
 matic eras correspond nearly with the most vigorous 
 development of the national energies. Greece owed
 
 252 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 to the fusion of classes^ resulting from her invasion 
 by Persia and to the national exultation consequent 
 on its conclusion, all the nobler and most vital ele- 
 ments of her dramatic literature. The restless ac- 
 tivity which propelled Spain in the fifteenth century 
 towards enterprise in Europe and the New World, 
 broke down in some degree her provincial difierences 
 and isolation, and fused into one mass the conflicting 
 and diversified elements of her people. Her theatre 
 was the exponent of the national triumphs, and re- 
 flected to her, in the noblest mirrors of poetry, the 
 deeds and suflerings that had rendered her great. 
 Her dramatic literature indeed was the only point at 
 which the upper and lower classes of the Spanish 
 people really osculated. The Court and the nobles 
 were too deeply entrenched behind their own pride 
 and immunities to blend readily with the middle 
 orders; the towns were sharply distinguished from 
 the country ; the inland provinces, where the people 
 were shepherds or vine-growers, from the coast pro- 
 vinces, where the inhabitants were engrossed by either 
 regular or irregular trade. In the Spanish drama 
 however there existed a common point of union for 
 all these classes, and it exhibits the characteristics of 
 the nation even more fully than the popular specta- 
 cles. The English drama rests upon a broader basis 
 than that of either Athens or Madrid. The avenues 
 to it had been prepared in the ruder periods of the 
 Plantagenets. For not only were masques and plays
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 253 
 
 acted at Court, or in the castles of the nobles, but 
 itinerant companies wandered, as in ancient Greece, 
 from village to village, performing in barns or taverns, 
 or in the farmhouse kitchen. Moralities and Mys- 
 teries — the preludial notes of Marlowe and Shake- 
 speare. To ourselves, who can measure the effect of 
 such rude foreshadowings only by the impression they 
 would now produce, these legends, in which saints and 
 angels are actors, and the Deity himself often an in- 
 terlocutor, wear the semblance of profanity. Yet it 
 is a semblance only, for they were believed when re- 
 presented, Avere conceived in good faith, and were 
 acted with devout earnestness. They were no more 
 profane than the early quaiutnesses of painting, or 
 the subtle investigations of the schoolmen. They 
 were the expressions of an imaginative age upon 
 subjects which reject the cold conclusions of the rea- 
 son. They were, moreover, at a time when few could 
 read and fewer write, the alphabet of a people who 
 felt strongly even if they understood darkly ; and to 
 the passionate emotions occasionally displayed in the 
 " Moralities" we owe much of the loftier and more 
 eloquent passion of the national drama. All great 
 nations are indeed dramatic, because life is at one 
 jjeriod of their fortunes a simple phenomenon and an 
 overpowering mystery. Tliey see in part, and they 
 prophesy in part; and both their vision and their 
 apprehensions arc in earnest. To prothice a great 
 dramatist, the drama must previously be the passion
 
 254 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 of a people. The drama in the sixteenth century was 
 the especial amusement of the English from the pa- 
 lace to the village-green. The English were then in 
 a similar condition to the Athenians at the epoch of 
 their invasion by Persia. They felt strong in them- 
 selves and in their power over circumstances. They 
 had sur\dved wars that drained the nation's best 
 blood; they were troubled neither with social pro- 
 blem s^ nor subjective speculations; their vigour and 
 spirits were exuberant^ and new avenues seemed open- 
 ing on all sides for their sinewy strength of mind and 
 body. The resources of ancient literature had re- 
 cently been opened to them ; the new products of the 
 Christian mind of Europe were being daily brought 
 within their ken. Their native ballads and legends 
 were still sung or recited in streets, markets, and by 
 firesides; and their fancy was stimulated by the re- 
 velation of lands beyond Avhat had been long supposed 
 to be a trackless and impassable ocean. Under this 
 combination of emotions and circumstances, the En- 
 glish drama began to erect the steps of that august 
 throne which Shakespeare was destined to occupy. 
 
 Hereafter we may return to the subject of Popular 
 Amusements. We have surveyed the subject briefly 
 under various phases — some at the culmination, others 
 at the commencement of their growth. But a field 
 far beyond our present limits remains to be explored ; 
 and we can at present only find room for a few brief 
 remarks on the importance of national pastimes to all
 
 POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 255 
 
 who study the past or speculate upon the future his- 
 tory of the ci^'ilized world. 
 
 A trivial and inexpressive portion only of national 
 life is reflected in the public acts of a people. AVe may 
 comprehend the tissue of its wars and negotiations, 
 its commerce, arts, and manufactures, without there- 
 fore apprehending its passions and prejudices, or the 
 general cUnamen of its temper. What it does spon- 
 taneously is the emblem and exponent of its interior 
 being ; and since amusements cannot be enforced and 
 must be spontaneous, it is worth the while of histo- 
 rians to read the public history of a nation by the 
 light of its recreations. No less incumbent is it on 
 the legislators, for the present and the future, to study 
 the undisguised aspect of the people for whom it le- 
 gislates. Charles and Laud might have saved their 
 own heads, and the removal of a throne and hierarchy 
 to boot, had they condescended to survey calmly the 
 physiognomy of England in their days. Not a smaU 
 blunder might recently have been shunned, if the true 
 significance of the cry for " Sunday recreations" had 
 been more subtly scrutinized. It is a question that 
 should have been treated on its broadest ground or 
 left undisturbed. Well were it, too, for the Church, 
 and for every denomination which has intentionally 
 or inadvertently supported her on this question, to 
 ponder whither they are wending by theii' opposition 
 U) a just demand, or by their partial compliance with 
 a senseless clamour. If not determhied now, it nmst
 
 256 ESSAYS ON THE DRAMA. 
 
 at least very soon be mooted and decided, whether 
 Governments shall deal only with the hard and repul- 
 sive elements of social policy, or whether they shall 
 extend their cares and studies to the more spontaneous 
 and genial desires of the community. The State is 
 no less a parent than a schoolmaster; and while it 
 necessarily provides penalties for the erring members 
 of its household, it should with equal vigilance and 
 sympathy afford space and verge enough for the re- 
 creations which may divert the masses from sensual 
 indulgence and specious temptations, and diff'use a 
 relish for exercises and pastimes that promote at once 
 health of body and cheer and content of spirit. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 JOHN EDWARD TAVLOK, PRINTER, 
 LITTLE aiJEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
 
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