Index
Acting, importance of, in Shakespearean drama, 13;
evil effects of long runs, 14;
Shakespeare on, 45, 47
Actor-manager, his merits and defects, 125, 126
Actors, training of, 139;
English, in France, 203.
(See also Benson, Mr F.R., and Boys.)
Æschylus, statue of, 233
Albert, Prince (Consort), and Shakespeare's birthplace, 222;
statues of, 237
Alleyn, Edward, 191, 194
Annual Register of 1770, 194
Aristotle, Shakespeare's mention of, 144, 145;
Bacon's study of, 145
Arnold, Matthew, on Shakespeare, 29
Astronomy, Shakespeare on, 146
Athens, statuary at, 233
Aubrey, John, his gossip about Shakespeare, 67, 68
Austria, subsidised theatres in, 131, 134
Bacon, Anthony, in France, 203
Bacon, Francis, philosophical method of, 143;
on memorial monuments in New Atlantis, 234, 235
Bacon, Sir Nicholas, his fame in France, 204
Badger, Mr Richard, proposal for a Shakespeare monument, 219
Bannister, John, his music for The Tempest, 107
Barker, Mr Granville, as Richard II., 13 n.
Basse, William, his tribute to Shakespeare, 50
Beeston, Christopher, Elizabethan actor, 64
Beeston, William the first, patron of Nash, 64
Beeston, William the second, his theatrical career, 65, 66;
his gossip about Shakespeare, 65;
his conversation, 66;
Aubrey's account of, 67
Beethoven, statue of, 233
Beljame, Alexandre, on English literature, 201;
death of, 201
Benson, Mr F.R., his company of actors, 111;
his principles, 112 seq.;
list of Shakespeare plays produced by, 114 n.;
his production of Hamlet unabridged, 116-118;
his training of actors, 119;
his services to Shakespeare, 121;
his pupils on the London stage, 130
Berkenhout, John, 195
Betterton, Thomas, at Stratford-on-Avon, 73;
contributes to Rowe's biography, 73, 76;
his rendering of Hamlet, 101, 102
Biography, art of, in England, 51
Bishop, Sir William, 76
Bishopsgate (London), Shakespeare at, 226, 227
Blackfriars, Shakespeare's house at, 227
Boileau, and English literature, 199
Bolingbroke, in Richard II., patriotism of, 173
Bowman, John, actor, 69;
at Stratford-on-Avon, 76
Boys in women's parts in Elizabethan theatres, 19, 41;
abandonment of the practice, 43;
superseded by women, 88, 89
Buchanan, George, his plays, 204
Burbage, Richard, Shakespeare's friend and fellow-actor, 33
Burns, Mr John, 131
Burns, Robert, French study of, 201;
monument to, 233, 237
Byron, Lord, on Petrarch at Arquà, 225;
statue of, 237
Calderon, 136;
monument to, 233
Calvert, Charles A., his Shakespearean productions at Manchester, 12 n.
Camoens, monument to, 233
Capital and the literary drama, 124, 126, 127, 128
Carlyle, Thomas, statue of, 237
Cataline's Conspiracy, by Ben Jonson, 30, 31
Ceremony, Shakespeare on, 157, 158
Chantrey, Sir Francis, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216
Charlecote, Shakespeare's escapade at, 76
Chaucer, Geoffrey, French influence on, 199
Clarendon, Lord, on Shakespeare, 78
Cockpit theatre, Drury Lane, 65, 86
Cockpit theatre, Whitehall, 87 and n.
Coleman, John, on the subsidised theatre, 132
Coleridge S.T., and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216
Congreve, William, 91
Coriolanus and the patriotic instinct, 178, 179
Cromwell, Oliver, statue of, 237
Davenant, Robert, Sir William's brother, 70
D'Avenant, Sir William: theatrical manager, 67;
his youth at Oxford, 69;
relations in boyhood with Shakespeare, 70;
elegy on Shakespeare, 71;
champion of Shakespeare's fame, 71;
his story of Shakespeare and Southampton, 72;
his influence on Betterton, 72;
manager of the Duke's Company, 87 n.;
as dramatist, 91;
his adaptations of Shakespeare, 103-105, 106 n., 108
Deschamps, Eustace, on Chaucer, 199
Desportes, Philippe, and Elizabethan poetry, 199
D'Israeli, Isaac, on Steevens's forgery, 195
Downs, John, prompter and stage annalist, 63
Dramatic societies in England, 129
Dress, Shakespeare on extravagant, 185
Drunkenness, Shakespeare on, 185
Dryden, John, on William Beeston, 66;
as dramatist, 91;
his share in the adaptation of The Tempest, 105
Du Bellay, Joachim, and Elizabethan poetry, 199
Ducis, Jean François, his translation of Shakespeare, 207, 208
Dugdale, Sir William, 74
Dumas père, on Shakespeare, 206;
his translation of Hamlet, 209-211
Dyce, Alexander, on Steevens's forgery, 196
Elizabeth, Queen, summons Shakespeare to Greenwich, 31
Elizabethan Stage Society, 13 n.
England, Shakespeare on history of, 180
Ennius on poetic fame, 232
Etherege, Sir George, 91
Eton College, debate about Shakespeare at, 78
Euripides, statue of, 233
Evelyn, John, on Hamlet, 90
Farquhar, George, 91
Faulconbridge (in King John), patriotism of, 174
Fletcher, John, his Custom of the Country, 92, 93;
its obscenity, 93
Folio, the First [of Shakespeare's plays], actors' co-operation in, 59;
list of actors in, 61;
rejected by Pepys, 94
Folio, the Second [of Shakespeare's plays], in France, 205
Folio, the Third [of Shakespeare's plays], purchased by Pepys, 94
Folio, the Fourth [of Shakespeare's plays], in Pepysian library, 94
France, subsidised theatres in, 131, 134;
Shakespeare in, 198 seq.;
English actors in, 203
Freedom of the will, Shakespeare on, 166
Fuller, Thomas, his Worthies of England, 52;
notice of Shakespeare, 52
Garrick, David, his stage costume, 18
Gentleman's Magazine of 1801, 195
George IV. and commemoration of Shakespeare, 215
German drama, 129, 135, 136
Germany, subsidised theatres in, 131, 134
Goethe, 136;
monument to, 233
Greene, Robert, French translation of romance by, 199
Grendon, tradition of Shakespeare at, 77
"Grenovicus" contributes to Gentleman's Magazine, 195
Hales, John, of Eton, 78
Hall, Bishop Joseph, French translation of works by, 199
Hart, Charles, Shakespeare's grand-nephew, actor, 59, 68
Hauptmann, Gerhart, 135
Henry V., on kingly ceremony, 157;
patriotism of, 175, 182
Heywood, Thomas, projected Lives of the Poets, 54 n.;
affection for Shakespeare, 65;
his Apology for Actors, 65
History plays of Shakespeare, character of, 180
Hobbes, Thomas, in France, 200
Howe, Josias, on a Shakespeare tradition, 77
Hugo, Victor, on Shakespeare, 206;
on Shakespeare memorial, 241
Imagination in the audience, 22, 47, 48
Ingres, Jean, his painting of Shakespeare, 206
Irving, Sir Henry, experience of Shakespearean spectacle, 10;
and the literary drama, 123;
and the municipal theatre, 132;
and French drama, 200
Irving, Washington, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216
James I., his alleged letter to Shakespeare, 72
James II., statue of, 236
John of Gaunt in Richard II., dying speech of, 115-116, 181
Johnson, Dr, on false patriots, 171
Jonson, Ben, testimony to Shakespeare's popularity, 29;
his classical tragedies compared with Shakespeare's, 30;
his elegy on Shakespeare, 50, 232;
his dialectical powers contrasted with Shakespeare's, 53;
on the players' praise of Shakespeare, 60;
his son, Shakespeare's godson, 61;
Beeston's talk of, 67;
popularity of his plays at Restoration, 91, 92
Jusserand, Jules, on English literature, 202;
his Shakespeare in France, 203
Kean, Charles, experience of Shakespearean spectacle, 9;
Macready's criticism of, 14
Kemp, William, Elizabethan comedian, 33
Killigrew, Tom, manager of the King's Company, 87 n.
Kingship, Shakespeare on, 155-160, 180-182
Kirkman, Francis, his account of William Beeston the second, 66
Lacy, John, actor, 67;
acquaintance with Ben Jonson, 68;
adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, 108
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216
Lessing, 136
Lincoln's Inn Fields (Portugal Row), Theatre at, 86, 87 and n.
Literary drama, on the modern stage, 123;
antagonism of capital to, 126-128
Lives of the Poets of the seventeenth century, 54
Locke, John, in France, 200
Locke, Matthew, Shakespearean music of, 105, 108
Logic, Shakespeare on, 146
London, Shakespeare's association with, 226 seq.;
statues in, 236, 237;
proposed sites for Shakespeare monument in, 239
London County Council, and the theatre, 130, 131;
and subsidised enlightenment, 133;
and Shakespeare monument, 219
London Trades Council and the theatre, 132
Lowin, John, original actor in Shakespeare's plays, 61;
coached by Shakespeare in part of Hamlet, 63, 71, 72
Lycurgus, Attic orator, 233
Macready, W.C., his criticism of spectacle, 14
Marlowe, Christopher, Shakespeare's senior by two months, 37, 193
Massinger, Philip, his Bondman, 92, 93
Mathews, Charles, on a monument of Shakespeare, 214
Mercy, Shakespeare on, 152, 153
Metaphysics, Shakespeare on, 146-148
Mill, John Stuart, statue of, 237
Milton, his elegy on Shakespeare, 51, 231
Molière, accepted methods of producing his plays, 16, 18, 136
Montaigne, Michel de, and Anthony Bacon, 203;
his essays in English, 204
Moore, Thomas, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216
More, Sir Thomas, his Utopia in France, 204
Municipal theatre, its justification, 122;
in Europe, 134
Musset, Alfred de, on Shakespeare, 206
Nash, John, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216
Nash, Thomas, 64
Nodier, Charles, his Pensées de Shakespeare, 211-213
Norwegian drama, 129
Obedience, the duty of, 161
Oldys, William, antiquary, 68, 69
Opera in England, 131
Oxford, the Crown Inn at, 69;
Shakespeare at, 70;
visitors from, to Stratford, 75-77
Patriotism, Shakespeare on, 170 seq.
Peele, George, alleged letter of, 189 seq.
Pepys, Samuel, his play-going experience, 81-86;
on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, 91-93;
on Shakespeare, 94 seq.;
his attitude to poetic drama, 95, 96;
his musical setting of "To be or not to be," 100
Petrarch, his tomb at Arquà, 225
Phelps, Samuel, at Sadler's Wells, 11;
list of plays produced by, 11, 114 n.;
his mode of producing Shakespeare, 12;
on a State theatre in London, 120;
on public control of theatres, 140, 141
Philosophy, Shakespeare's attitude to, 143 seq.
Pindar on poetic fame, 232
Platter, Thomas, journal of his London visit (1599), 38
Playhouses in London, Blackfriars, 227;
Drury Lane, 86, 87 and n.;
"The Globe," 38, 227;
"The Red Bull," 86;
Sadler's Wells, 11;
Salisbury Court, Whitefriars, 66, 86;
"The Theatre" at Shoreditch, 37, 227
Pope, Alexander, and French literature, 199;
on the Shakespeare cenotaph, 216
Richardson, Samuel, in France, 200
Robinson, Richard, actor, 68
Ronsard, Pierre de, and Elizabethan poetry, 199;
in England, 203
Rousseau, J.J., and English literature, 200
Rowe, Nicholas, Shakespeare's first formal biographer, 54;
his acknowledgment to Betterton, 73;
his biography of Shakespeare, 79, 80
Royal ceremony, irony of, 158
Russell, Lord John, on patriotism, 172
Sadler's Wells Theatre, 11
Sand, George, on Shakespeare, 206
Sardou, Victorien, work of, 200
Scenery, its purpose, 5;
uselessness of realism, 23
Schiller, on the German stage, 136;
monument to, 233
Scott, Sir Walter, and commemoration of Shakespeare, 216, 232;
Edinburgh monument of, 238
Sedley, Sir Charles, 91
Seneca on mercy, 153 n.
Shadwell, Thomas, 67,
adaptation of The Tempest, 106 n.
Shakespeare, Edmund, actor, 227
Shakespeare, Gilbert, actor, 68
Shakespeare, William, his creation of the Ghost in Hamlet, 27;
contemporary popularity of, 29;
at Court, 31;
early London career, 32;
advice to the actor, 45;
his modest estimate of the actor's powers, 47;
elegies on death of, 49;
Fuller's notice of, 52;
early biographies of, 54;
oral tradition of, in seventeenth century, 55;
similarity of experience with that of contemporary dramatists and actors, 57;
Elizabethan players' commendation of, 60;
resentment with a publisher, 65;
William Beeston's reminiscences of, 67;
Stratford gossip about, 74-76;
present state of biographical knowledge, 81;
his attitude to philosophy, 143 seq.;
his intuition, 149-150;
concealment of his personality, 150;
his private sentiments, 151;
on mercy, 152-153;
on rulers of states, 154;
on divine right of kings, 159;
on obedience, 161;
on social order, 162-163;
on freedom of the will, 166;
on women's will, 168;
his humour and optimism, 169;
on patriotism, 170 seq.;
on English history, 180;
on social foibles, 184-186;
commemoration of, in London, 214 seq.;
portraits of, 239
Shakespearean drama, attitude of students and actors to, 1;
costliness of modern production, 2;
the simple method and the public, 8;
Charles Kean's spectacular method, 9;
Irving's method, 10;
plays produced by Phelps, 11;
reliance on the actor, 13;
in Vienna, 17;
advantage of its performance constantly and in variety, 23;
importance of minor rôles of, 115;
its ethical significance, 164, 165;
in France, 198 seq.;
and British prestige, 229
——, (separate plays):—
Antony and Cleopatra in Vienna, 17
Coriolanus, political significance of, 164;
and patriotism, 178
Cymbeline (III. i., 16-22), on patriotism, 183
Hamlet, Shakespeare's performance of the Ghost, 27;
early popularity of the play, 29;
Pepys's criticism of, 95, 99-101;
the stage abridgment contrasted with the full text, 117-119
Henry IV. (Part I.), Pepys's criticism of, 97, 98
Henry V., meaning of first chorus, 19, 46;
quoted, 157, 158, 162
Julius Cæsar, preferred by contemporary playgoers to Jonson's Cataline, 31;
political significance of, 164
Lear, King, performed at Elizabeth's Court, 36;
quarto of, 36
Love's Labour's Lost, performed at Court, 34;
title-page of the quarto, 35
Macbeth, Pepys's criticism of, 104-105;
quoted, 156
Measure for Measure, ethics of, 164
Merry Wives of Windsor, The, title-page of the quarto, 36;
Pepys's criticism of, 97
Midsummer Night's Dream, A, Pepys's criticism of, 96
Othello, Pepys's criticism of, 95, 98, 99
Richard II., purport of John of Gaunt's dying speech, 115-116, 181
Romeo and Juliet, Pepys's criticism of, 96
Tempest, The, Pepys's criticism of, 105-108;
spectacular production of, at Restoration, 107
Troilus and Cressida (II. ii., 166), on Aristotle, 144, 145;
(I. iii., 101-124), on social equilibrium, 163
Twelfth Night, Pepys's criticism of, 96
Sheffield, John, Earl of Mulgrave and Duke of Buckinghamshire, 72
Shoreditch, the theatre in, 227
Sidney, Sir Philip, French translations of Arcadia, 199, 204
Somerset, the "proud" Duke of, on Shakespeare, 79
Sophocles, statue of, 233
Southampton, Earl of, and Shakespeare, 72
Southwark, the Globe Theatre at, 227
Spenser, Edmund, Beeston's gossip about, 67
Steevens, George, character of, 191;
a forged letter by, 192, 193
Sterne, Laurence, in France, 200
Stevenson, R.L., his imaginary discovery of lost works by Shakespeare, 25
Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare's tomb at, 50;
Betterton at, 73;
visitors from Oxford to, 75, 76, 77;
Shakespeare tradition at, 75, 76;
Shakespeare memorials at, 218;
destruction of New Place, 221;
the monumental committee of, 221;
sale of Shakespeare's birthplace, 222;
purchase of New Place site, 223;
the Birthplace Trust, 223, 224
Suckling, Sir John, his love for Shakespeare, 71
Sudermann, Hermann, 135
Tate, Nahum, his adaptations of Shakespeare, 103, 104
Theatres in Elizabethan London, 36;
seating arrangements, 39;
prices of admission, 39;
the scenery, 40;
the costumes, 41;
contrast between their methods of production and those of later date, 44
Theatres, at Restoration, 86;
characteristics of, 87-90.
(See also Playhouses.)
Theatrical Review of 1763, 190
Theatrical spectacle in Shakespearean drama, effect of excess, 3;
its want of logic, 4;
its costliness, 7;
at the Restoration, 89, 109;
at the present day, 110
Thomson, James, French study of, 201
Tuke, Sir Samuel, his Adventures of Five Hours, 98-99
Taylor, Joseph, original actor in Shakespeare's plays, 61;
coached by Shakespeare in part of Henry VIII., 63, 71, 72
Vanbrugh, Sir John, 91
Veronese, Paolo, statue of, 233
Victoria, Queen, and Stratford-on-Avon, 222;
statues of, 237
Vienna, production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Burg-Theater, 17;
types of subsidised theatres at, 136, 138;
conservatoire of actors at, 139
Voltaire on Shakespeare, 205, 206
War, popular view of, 177
Ward, John, vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, 74;
his Diary, 74
Warner, Mrs, at Sadler's Wells, 11
Wellington, Duke of, monument to, 238
Westminster Abbey, Shakespeare's exclusion from, 50;
his cenotaph in, 215-216
Will, freedom of, 166
Women, Shakespeare's views on, 168
Wordsworth, William, French study of, 201
Wycherley, William, 91
Young, Edward, French study of, 201
Footnotes
[1] This paper was first printed in The Nineteenth Century, January 1900.
[2] A minor practical objection, from the dramatic point of view, to realistic scenery is the long pause its setting on the stage often renders inevitable between the scenes. Intervals of the kind, which always tends to blunt the dramatic point of the play, especially in the case of tragic masterpieces, should obviously be as brief as possible.
[3] It is just to notice, among endeavours of the late years of the past century, to which I confine my remarks here, the efforts to produce Shakespearean drama worthily which were made by Charles Alexander Calvert at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester, between 1864 and 1874. Calvert, who was a warm admirer of Phelps, attempted to blend Phelps's method with Charles Kean's, and bestowed great scenic elaboration on the production of at least eight plays of Shakespeare. Financially the speculation saw every vicissitude, and Calvert's experience may be quoted in support of the view that a return to Phelps's method is financially safer than a return to Charles Kean's. More recently the Elizabethan Stage Society endeavoured to produce, with a simplicity which erred on the side of severity, many plays of Shakespeare and other literary dramas. No scenery was employed, and the performers were dressed in Elizabethan costume. The Society's work was done privately, and did not invite any genuine test of publicity. The representation by the Society on November 11, 1899, in the Lecture Theatre at Burlington House, of Richard II., in which Mr Granville Barker played the King with great charm and judgment, showed the fascination that a competent rendering of Shakespeare's text exerts, even in the total absence of scenery, over a large audience of suitable temper.
[4] This paper, which was first printed in "An English Miscellany, presented to Dr Furnivall in honour of his seventy-fifth birthday" (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1901), was written as a lecture for delivery on Tuesday afternoon, March 20, 1900, at Queen's College (for women) in Harley Street, London, in aid of the Fund for securing a picture commemorating Queen Victoria's visit to the College in 1898.
[5] Performances of plays in Shakespeare's time always took place in the afternoon.
[6] Professor Binz of Basle printed in September 1899 some extracts from Thomas Platter's unpublished diary of travels under the title: Londoner Theater und Schauspiele im Jahre 1599. Platter spent a month in London—September 18 to October 20, 1599. Platter's manuscript is in the Library of Basle University.
[7] Chapman's Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, Act I., Sc. i.
[8] See pp. 20-1, supra.
[9] This paper was first printed in The Nineteenth Century and After, February 1902.
[10] Such a compilation had been contemplated in 1614, two years before the dramatist died, by one of Shakespeare's own associates, Thomas Heywood. Twenty-one years later, in 1635, Heywood spoke of "committing to the public view" his summary Lives of the Poets, but nothing more was heard of that project.
[11] Iago says of Othello, in Othello I., iii. 405: "The Moor is of a free and open nature."
[12] Like almost all their colleagues, they had much literary taste. When public events compulsorily retired them from the stage, they, with the aid of the dramatist Shirley and eight other actors, two of whom were members with them of Shakespeare's old company, did an important service to English literature. In 1647 they collected for first publication in folio Beaumont and Fletcher's plays; only one, The Wild Goose Chase, was omitted, and that piece Taylor and Lowin brought out by their unaided efforts five years later.
[13] Aubrey's Lives, being reports of his miscellaneous gossip, were first fully printed from his manuscripts in the Bodleian Library by the Clarendon Press in 1898. They were most carefully edited by the Rev. Andrew Clark.
[14] A paper read at the sixth meeting of the Samuel Pepys Club, on Thursday, November 30, 1905, and printed in the Fortnightly Review for January, 1906.
[15] At the restoration of King Charles II., no more than two companies of actors received licenses to perform in public. One of these companies was directed by Sir William D'Avenant, Shakespeare's reputed godson, and was under the patronage of the King's brother, the Duke of York. The other was directed by Tom Killigrew, one of Charles II.'s boon companions, and was under the patronage of the King himself. In due time the Duke's, or D'Avenant's, company occupied the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the King's, or Killigrew's, company occupied the new building in Drury Lane.
[16] Charles II. formed this private theatre out of a detached building in St James's Park, known as the "Cockpit," and to be carefully distinguished from the Cockpit of Drury Lane. Part of the edifice was occupied by courtiers by favour of the King. General Monk had lodgings there. At a much later date, cabinet councils were often held there.
[17] For a fuller description of this theatrical practice, see pages 41-3 supra.
[18] Sir Frederick Bridge, by permission of the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge, caused this setting of "To be or not to be" (which bears no composer's signature) to be transcribed from the manuscript, and he arranged the piece to be sung at the meeting of the Pepys Club on November 30, 1905. Sir Frederick Bridge believes Pepys to be the composer.
[19] The Dryden-D'Avenant perversion of The Tempest which Pepys witnessed underwent a further deterioration in 1673, when Thomas Shadwell, poet laureate, to the immense delight of the playgoing public, rendered the piece's metamorphosis into an opera more complete. In 1674 the Dryden-D'Avenant edition was reissued, with Shadwell's textual and scenic amplification, although no indication was given on the title-page or elsewhere of his share in the venture. Contemporary histories of the stage make frequent reference to Shadwell's "Opera" of The Tempest; but no copy was known to be extant until Sir Ernest Clarke proved, in The Athenæum for August 25, 1906, that the second and later editions of the Dryden-D'Avenant version embodied Shadwell's operatic embellishments, and are copies of what was known in theatrical circles of the day as Shadwell's "Opera." Shadwell's stage-directions are more elaborate than those of Dryden and D'Avenant, and there are other minor innovations; but there is little difference in the general design of the two versions. Shadwell merely bettered Dryden's and D'Avenant's instructions.
[20] This paper was first printed in the Cornhill Magazine, May 1900.
[21] Mr Benson, writing to me on 13th January 1906, gives the following list of plays by Shakespeare which he has produced:—Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Henry IV. (Parts 1 and 2), Henry V., Henry VI. (Parts 1, 2, and 3), Henry VIII., Julius Cæsar, King John, King Lear, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Pericles, Richard II., Richard III., Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Timon of Athens, Twelfth Night, and A Winter's Tale. Phelps's record only exceeded Mr Benson's by one. He produced thirty-one of Shakespeare's plays in all, but he omitted Richard II., and the three parts of Henry VI., which Mr Benson has acted, while he included Love's Labour's Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, All's Well that Ends Well, Cymbeline, and Measure for Measure, which Mr Benson, so far, has eschewed. Mr Phelps and Mr Benson are at one in avoiding Titus Andronicus and Troilus and Cressida.
[22] The performance occupied nearly six hours. One half was given in the afternoon, and the other half in the evening of the same day, with an interval of an hour and a half between the two sections. Should the performance be repeated, I would recommend, in the interests of busy men and women, that the whole play be rendered at a single sitting, which might be timed to open at a somewhat earlier hour in the evening than is now customary, and might, if need be, close a little later. There should be no difficulty in restricting the hours occupied by the performance to four and a half.
[23] This paper was first printed in the New Liberal Review, May 1902.
[24] This paper, which was originally prepared in 1899 for the purposes of a popular lecture, is here printed for the first time.
[25] Tranio, the attendant on the young Pisan, Lucentio, who has come to Padua to study at the university, counsels his master to widen the field of his studies:—
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let's be no Stoics, nor no stocks, I pray,
Or so devote to Aristotle's checks,
As Ovid be an outcast quite adjured.
(The Taming of the Shrew, I., ii., 29-33.)
[26] The speeches of the clown in Twelfth Night are particularly worthy of study for the satiric adroitness with which they expose the quibbling futility of syllogistic logic. Cf. Act I., Scene v., ll. 43-57.
Olivia. Go to, you're a dry fool; I'll no more of you: besides you grow dishonest.
Clown. Two faults, Madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend: for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry: bid the dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything that's mended is but patched: virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin; and sin that amends is but patched with virtue. If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not, what remedy?
[27] Hamlet, I., v., 166-7.
[28] Much Ado About Nothing, V., i., 35-6.
[29] In a paper on "Latin as an Intellectual Force," read before the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at St Louis in September 1904, Professor E.A. Sonnenschein sought to show that Portia's speech on mercy is based on Seneca's tract, De Clementia. The most striking parallel passages are the following:—
It becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
(M. of V., IV., i. 189-90.)
Nullum clementia ex omnibus magis quam regem aut principem decet. (Seneca, De Clementia, I., iii., 3):—
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest.
Eo scilicet formosius id esse magnificentiusque fatebimur quo in maiore praestabitur potestate (I., xix., 1):—
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself.
(M. of V., IV., i., 193-5.)
Quod si di placabiles et aequi delicta potentium non statim fulminibus persequuntur, quanto aequius est hominem hominibus praepositum miti animo exercere imperium? (I., vii., 2):—
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
(M. of V., IV., i., 196-7.)
Quid autem? Non proximum eis (dîs) locum tenet is qui se ex deorum natura gerit beneficus et largus et in melius potens? (I., xix., 9):—
Consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation.
(M. of V., IV., i., 198-200.)
Cogitato... quanta solitudo et vastitas futura sit si nihil relinquitur nisi quod iudex severus absolverit (I., vi., 1).
This remarkable series of parallelisms does not affect the argument in the text that Shakespeare, who reiterated Portia's pleas and phraseology in Isabella's speeches, had a personal faith in the declared sentiment. Whether the parallelism is to be explained as conscious borrowing or accidental coincidence is an open question.
[30]
From lowest place, when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions swell's, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone
Is good without a name; vileness is so:
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title;... that is honour's scorn,
Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire: honours thrive
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers: the mere word's a slave,
Debauch'd on every tomb; on every grave
A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb
Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
Of honour'd bones indeed.
(All's Well, II., iii., 130 seq.)
[31]
For men have marble, women waxen minds,
And therefore are they formed as marble will;
The weak oppressed, the impression of strange kinds
Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill.
Then call them not the authors of their ill,
No more than wax shall be accounted evil,
Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.
(Lucrece, 1240-6.)
How easy it is for the proper-false
In women's waxen hearts, to set their forms!
Alas! our frailty is the cause, not we;
For, such as we are made of, such we be.
(Twelfth Night, II., ii., 31.)
[32] This paper was first printed in the Cornhill Magazine, May 1901.
[33] The pun on "cant" and "recant" was not original, though Lord John's application of it was. Its inventor seems to have been Lady Townshend, the brilliant mother of Charles Townshend, the elder Pitt's Chancellor of the Exchequer. When she was asked if George Whitefield, the evangelical preacher, had yet recanted, she replied: "No, he has only been canting."
[34] In passing cursorily over the whole field I must ask pardon for dwelling occasionally on ground that is in detached detail sufficiently well trodden, as well as for neglecting some points which require more thorough exploration than is practicable within my present limits.
[35] On this point the Shakespearean oracle always speaks with a decisive and practical note:—
Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
(Hamlet, I., iii., 65-7.)
[36] Cymbeline, III., iv., 139-43.
[37] Coriolanus, V., iii., 34-7.
[38] This paper was first printed in The Author, October 1903.
[39] Other independent publications of similar character appeared under the identical title of The Theatrical Review both in 1758 and 1772. The latter collected the ephemeral dramatic criticisms of John Potter, a well-known writer for the stage.
[40] William Young's History of Dulwich College, 1889, II., 41-2.
[41] This paper was first printed in The Nineteenth Century, June 1899.
[42] In the Introduction to a collection of Elizabethan Sonnets, published in Messrs Constable's re-issue of Arber's English Garner (1904), the present writer has shown that numerous sonnets, which Elizabethan writers issued as original poems, were literal translations from the French of Ronsard, Du Bellay, and Desportes. Numerous loans of like character were levied silently on Italian authors.
[43] Shakespeare in France under the Ancien Régime, by J.J. Jusserand. London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1899.
[44] This paper was first printed in The Nineteenth Century and After, April 1905.
[45] The proceedings of the committee which was formed in the spring of 1905 have been dilatory. Mr Badger informs me that he paid the organisers, nearly two years ago, the sum of £500 for preliminary expenses, and deposited bonds to the value of £3000 with Lord Avebury, the treasurer of the committee. The delay is assigned to the circumstance that the London County Council, which is supporting the proposal, is desirous of associating it with the great Council Hall which it is preparing to erect on the south side of the Thames, and that it has not yet been found practicable to invite designs for that work. (Oct. 1, 1906.)
[46] Nor is this all that has been accomplished at Stratford in the nineteenth century in the way of the national commemoration of Shakespeare. While the surviving property of Shakespearean interest was in course of acquisition for the nation, an early ambition to erect in Stratford a theatre in Shakespeare's memory was realised—in part by subscriptions from the general public, but mainly by the munificence of members of the Flower family, three generations of which have resided at Stratford. The Memorial Theatre was opened in 1879, and the Picture Gallery and Library which were attached to it were completed two years later. The Memorial Buildings at Stratford stand on a different footing from the properties of the Birthplace Trust. The Memorial institution has an independent government, and is to a larger extent under local control. But the extended series of performances of Shakespearean drama, which takes place each year in April at the Memorial Theatre, has something of the character of an annual commemoration of Shakespeare by the nation at large.
[47] Cf. Childe Harold, Canto IV., St. xxxi.