instinctive and versatile, from the natural language of races and
individuals, through social manners to its organized culmination in art;
and thus to realize its historical significance. The Greek drama has
afforded philosophical scholars the most inspiring theme whereby to
illustrate the culture of classic antiquity. In the mellifluous verses of
Metastasio, the stern emphasis of Alfieri, and the comedies of Goldoni, we
have a perfect reflection of the lyrical taste, the free aspiration, and
the colloquial geniality of the Italians. From Molière to Scribe, what
vivid and true pictures of human life and nature as modified by French
character; while the essential facts of the origin and development of the
British stage, so fully recorded by Dr. Doran, brings it into intimate and
sympathetic contact with all the phases and crises of literature, society,
and politics. In the days of the first Charles the stage 'suffered with
the throne and the church.' Around Blackfriars, Whitefriars, the Globe,
the Rose, Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket, crystallize the
most salient associations of court and authorship; on this vantage-ground
Puritan and Cavalier alternately triumphed; and the genius of England bore
its consummate flower in Shakspeare. Now denounced and now cherished,
to-day patronized by kings, and to-morrow denounced by clergy, the memoirs
and annals of each epoch include the fortunes and the fame of the drama as
one of the most suggestive tests of social transitions. Queen Henrietta
was 'well-affected towards plays,' while South vigorously assailed, and
Bossuet consigned their personators to the infernal regions. The
playhouses, declared a public nuisance by the Middlesex grand jury of
1700, at an earlier and later period were shrines of fashion, nurseries of
talent, and haunts of courtiers. The representative men and women of the
day were dramatic authors, actors, and actresses; each succeeding
generation of poets essayed in this arena, so that a familiar designation
of the ages is borrowed from their leading playwrights, whose works
faithfully mirror the moral tone, the social spirit, and the public
taste. In Alphra Behn's _Oronooko_, Mrs. Centlivres' _Busybody_, Addison's
_Cato_, Steele's _Tender Husband_, Dr. Young's _Revenge_, Gay's _Beggar's
Opera_, Sheridan's _School for Scandal_, Goldsmith's _She Stoops to
Conquer_, Rowe's _Jane Shore_, Farquhar's _Beaux' Stratagem_, and many
other popular plays, we have, as it were, the living voice of ideas,
passions, and sentiments which agitated or charmed the town; and the
robust, earnest individuality of the English race for ever lives in the
profound, impassioned utterance of the old dramatists, as its emasculated
tone is embodied in the comic muse of the Restoration. How vivid the
glimpses of stage influence in the memoirs and correspondence of each era,
in the art and the annals of the nation. Evelyn and Pepys note Betterton's
triumphs; Tillotson learned from him his effective elocution; Kneller
painted, and Pope loved him. The _Tatler_ comments on 'haughty George
Powell;' Jack Lacy still lives in his portrait at Hampton Court. 'The
great Mrs. Barry' is buried in Westminster cloisters; and Mrs. Pritchard's
bust looms up from among those of poets and statesmen in the Abbey, and
recalls Churchill's metrical tribute. Burke, Johnson, Walpole, and
Chesterfield, expatiate on Garrick with critical zest or personal
sympathy. Each great performer creates an epoch of taste or fashion,
feeling or fame. Betterton, Quin, Barry, Foote, Cibber, Garrick, Kemble,
Cooke, and Kean, are names whose mention brings to mind not a transient
histrionic reputation, but a reign,--a social, literary, or national
period, crowded with interesting characters, remarkable achievements, or
special traits of life and manners. Each theatre has its memorable
traditions; each school its great illustrators; audiences, criticisms, the
court, the coffee-house, the journal, derive from and impart to the
theatre a specific influence. The gallantry, the wit, the local manners,
the style of writing, the fashion, that prevail at a given period, are
associated with the stage, the annals whereof, whether in Paris, London,
or Vienna, are therefore invaluable as a reference to historian,
novelist, and artist. 'The Garrick fever,' we are told, 'extended to St.
Petersburg;' 'a dissenting, one-eyed jeweller,' in _George Barnwell_,
brought the domestic drama into vogue; the _Beggar's Opera_ 'made
highwaymen fashionable;' and Ross is still remembered in Edinburgh 'as the
founder of the legal stage.'
There is this great difference between the British and the French stage,
that while the former has achieved the grandest triumphs of tragic genius,
both literary and histrionic, the comedy of the latter has proved a
permanent school of manners, of language, and of art. The patronage of the
government, and the most strict artistic methods and discipline, have
established a standard of acting through the Théâtre Français.
Accordingly, instead of one superlatively clever and a score of
inefficient performers, all the French actors and actresses work together
for a harmonious result; unity of art and of effect, exquisite finish,
scientific aptitude, graces of manner, of utterance, and of expression,
often combine to make the modern French drama the perfection of artificial
triumphs.
The lyric drama has greatly diminished the influence and modified the
character of the stage; and its personal records and associations abound
in romantic and artistic triumphs. The rare and delicate gift of a voice
adapted to this sphere, the temperament, talent, and beauty of the queens
of song, the individuality and power of musical composition, the vast
expense and varied attractions of the Italian opera, its fashionable sway,
and the genius and social interest identified with its history, all
combine to throw a special and significant charm around its votaries and
its record. What a world of emotional and artistic meaning the very names
of Purcell, Pergolesi, Bach, Cherubini, Mozart, and Rossini, Bellini,
Donizetti, Verdi, Beethoven, Mercandante, and other eminent composers,
awakens; and how the memory of their great interpreters haunts the
imagination! Perhaps, in our material age, there is no sphere where fancy
and feeling have found such scope. From the memoirs of Alfieri to those
of our own Irving, it is evident that the most available of inspiring
recreations, for men of thought and sensibility, is the lyric drama; and
from the days of Metastasio at the court of Vienna to those of Felice
Romani's libretto of _La Norma_, words and melody have reproduced, in
vivid and vital grace, the tragic and the naïve in history, sentiment, and
life. Even around imperial careers flit the vocal victors of the hour.
Joseph of Austria, the great Frederic, and the first Napoleon, had their
authoritative or conciliatory skirmishes with a _prima donna_, or an
_impresario_; operatic alternate with diplomatic episodes. Nor is the
social charm and _prestige_ of the lyric drama less apparent in the annals
of kindred genius. At Sophia Arnould's _salon_ the illustrious writers and
statesmen of Paris gladly convened. Goëthe celebrated in verse the
eighty-third birthday of Mara. Sir Joshua painted Mrs. Billington as St.
Cecilia; and Catalani made English tars, rowing her to a frigate, weep as
she warbled the national anthem. The amours, rivalries, luxury, disasters,
adventures, courtly favour, social influence, conjugal quarrels, noble
charities, and artistic triumphs of vocalists, add a new and marvellous
chapter to the annals of dramatic character and fortunes. Lavinia Fanton's
'Polly Peachum' secured the triumph of Gay's _Beggar's Opera_, and the
heart of a duke; of kindred significance is that scene, so exceptional in
English conventional life, and well described by Dr. Burney, where
Anastasia Robinson was acknowledged by Lord Peterborough as his wife. A
cardinal and a cook were the parents of Gabrielli; Pasta's _Medea_ was an
epoch in histrionic art; Malibran's brief and brilliant career revealed
the most versatile woman, as well as original _cantatrice_ of her day;
Sontag's death was a public calamity; Catalani's marvellous vocalization
lacked pathos, because 'she had not suffered;' while Mrs. Woods gained the
same quality from a contrary experience. Madame Devrient was called the
Siddons of Germany; Jenny Lind's _naïve_ song won thousands for the
indigent; and Braham's triumphant tones in singing the triumphs of Israel,
made the audience appear to Lamb as Egyptians over whose necks the Hebrew
chanter rode.
From the time Burbage was lessee of the Globe Theatre, and Shakspeare
performed in his own characters, the morality of an actor's profession and
the stage have been discussed; but that there is no inevitable degradation
in the theatre, is evident from the late wholly successful though
temporary revival of its glory under the auspices of Macready. By
magnificent and complete scenic arrangements, the restoration of mutilated
Shakspearian dramas, efficient companies, the reformation of the house
itself, and especially by combining with the best dramatic authors of the
day, and rigidly maintaining his own self-respect as a member of society,
Macready once more brought together the scattered elements upon which the
character and utility of the stage is based, invested it with the highest
interest, and raised it above the cavils both of severe intellectual taste
and of pure morality. For a brief period it was the centre of graceful
ministries, a high school of art, the handmaid of literature, and the
means of elevating public sentiment and refreshing the most toilsome
minds; works of real dramatic genius were elicited; latent artistic
resources suggested; and the noblest drama in the world adequately
represented. Financial difficulties, incident to the monopoly enjoyed by
patentees, soon put a stop to the laudable enterprise; but the experiment
is as memorable as it was satisfactory. Ronzi shed tears of pleasure when
she found herself the only guest at a nobleman's villa near Florence, to
which she had been invited to a _fête_ sumptuously and tastefully
arranged; it was so rare an exception to the rule of making professional
vocalists contribute to, instead of receiving private entertainment; and
it is a curious fact in the social history of theatrical characters that
the English, notwithstanding their prudery and exclusiveness, first
recognized actors and actresses of merit as companions. Miss Farren is
not the only performer married to one of the nobility. The Earl of Craven
espoused Miss Bromton; Lord Peterborough, Anastasia Robinson; a nephew of
Lord Thurlow, Miss Bolton; and Sir William Becher, Miss O'Neil. One can
readily understand how an intellectual bachelor like James Smith,
accustomed to solace himself for domestic privations by cultivating a
sympathy for the heroines of the mimic world, should lament, as he did, in
apt verse, their appropriation even by noble lovers. He closes a pathetic
record of the kind with this allusion to the union between his prime
favourite, Miss Stevens, and Lord Essex, who seems to have acted on the
advice of the author of _Matrimonial Maxims_, who says, 'If you marry an
actress, the singing-girls are the best:'
'Last of the dear, delightful list,
Most followed, wonder'd at, and miss'd
In Hymen's odds and evens;--
Old Essex caged our nightingale,
And finished thy dramatic tale,
Enchanting Kitty Stevens!'
Boswell's reason for his partiality to players and soldiers was that they
excelled 'in animation and relish of existence.' There is a striking
illustration of the personal sympathy awakened by the profession in
conflict with the judgment that condemns it, as a career, in the life of
Scott. On one of the last days of Sir Walter's life, when, in a bath-chair
at Abbotsford, he was wheeled to a shady place by Lockhart and Laidlaw, he
asked the former to read him something from Crabbe. Lockhart read the
description of the arrival of the Players at the Borough. Sir Walter
cried, 'Capital!' at the poet's sarcasms on that way of life; but asked
penitently, 'How will poor Terry endure those cuts?' and when Lockhart
reached the summing up--
'Sad, happy race! soon raised and soon depressed,
Your days all past in jeopardy and jest;
Poor without prudence, with afflictions, vain,
Nor warned by misery, nor enriched by gain----'
'Shut the book,' said Scott; 'I can't stand more of this: it will touch
Terry to the quick.' A different but significant tribute to the actual
personal worth of the profession occurs in one of those genial 'imaginary
conversations,' vital with reality of reminiscence and rhapsody, wherein
Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd discourse so memorably. The
conduct of Kean in appearing on the stage immediately after a scandalous
intrigue had become public, is reprobated by 'Tickler' as 'an insult to
humanity.' To which the Shepherd replies: 'What can ye expec' frae a
playactor?' 'What can I expect, James?' is the reply; 'why, look at Terry,
Young, Matthews, Charles Kemble, and your friend Vandenhoff; and then I
say that you expect good players to be good men as men go, and likewise
gentlemen.'
This sympathy with the profession, and vivid interest in some phase or
period of the drama, is an almost universal fact in the experience of
intelligent and sensitive persons. Thackeray's picture of Pendennis
enamoured of an actress in boyhood, is typical of a common episode of
youth; if not in this form, it takes the shape of enthusiasm for a certain
actor or class of plays, or a mania defined as the condition of being
'stage-struck;' while to the philosophical as well as sympathetic of these
early votaries the literature of the drama is a perennial storehouse of
psychological data, and the most vital connecting link between written
lore and actual life--the source of the highest poetry and the most
universal human truth.
In literary biography, the accounts of the manner in which the plays of
Goldsmith, Sheridan, Byron, Mrs. Hemans, Joanna Baillie, Procter,
Talfourd, Hunt, Lamb, and other poets, were brought on the stage,--the
reciprocal good offices of actors and authors, mutually acknowledged,--the
array of intellectual friends convened to grace the occasion, and the
anecdotes and criticism thence resulting,--form some of the most agreeable
episodes in literary biography. Farquhar, Holcraft, Mrs. Inchbald,
Knowles, and others, combined the author and actor; and it was a genial
and noble custom for distinguished writers to contribute prologues and
epilogues;--the interchange of such kindly offices gave, as we have said,
a wide and elevated social interest to the theatre, which had, in a great
measure, passed away before the advent of Kean. Besides the comparative
indifference of the public, he was obliged to contend against both the
prejudices and the refinements of taste--the one opposing all innovation
as to style, and the other repudiating the intensity and boldness of his
conceptions.
The Spagnoletto style of Sandford, and the 'cordage' visible in old
Macklin's face, are traditional. The inimitable pathos of Miss O'Neil, the
tragic beauty of Pasta, the heroic manner of Siddons, the irresistible
humour of Matthews, and Liston's comic genius, had each their distinctive
character; they respectively individualized the art, and, if we range over
the entire gallery of histrionic celebrities, we shall find their fame
based upon as peculiar traits of excellence as that of renowned authors
and painters; and their genius consisting in some quality emphatically
their own--where imitation and art became subservient to, or illustrative
of, an idiosyncrasy.
Impulsive genius seldom receives the credit of artistic study, and its
most effective points are often ascribed to chance inspiration. This is an
error of frequent occurrence in judging of actors; and it is one almost
perversely indulged by the bigoted opponents of the romantic or natural
school. The most effective touches, however, in Garrick, Kean, and other
eminent performers, are easily traced to careful observation or a personal
idiosyncrasy or association. In the very first instruction the latter
received in his art, recourse was had to natural sympathy in order to
perfect his imitative skill. The pathetic intonation with which, even as a
boy, he exclaimed, 'Alas, poor Yorick!' in _Hamlet_, was derived from the
manner in which he habitually spoke of an unfortunate relative who
constantly excited his commiseration; he was instructed to transfer the
tone awakened by real, to the expression of imaginary grief: his manner of
falling on his face was derived from the figure on Abercrombie's monument,
and his fighting with a weaponless arm in Richard was borrowed from the
death-scene of an officer in Spain. The play of _Bertram_, by Maturin, he
is said to have rendered memorable by a single touching benison: all who
once heard his 'God bless the child!' recall it with emotion; it was a
favourite mode of uttering his paternal tenderness at home; hence its
reality. Garrick made a study of an old crazy friend of his in order to
enact _Lear_ with truth to nature; and when Kean was playing in New York,
he accompanied his physician to Bloomingdale asylum for the express
purpose of obtaining hints for the same part, from the manner and
expression of the insane patients. Indeed, those most intimate with Kean,
in his best days, unite in the opinion that he was never surpassed for the
intense and original study of his characters; he brooded over them in the
quiet fields, observed life and nature, conversed with discerning men, and
acutely examined books and his own consciousness, for the purpose of
attaining an harmonious and artistic conception; he tried experiments in
elocution before his wife, and was in the habit of rehearsing, for hours,
without any auditor. So elaborate were his studies, that, having once
decided on a course, he never modified it without great
self-dissatisfaction; and on one occasion, when he yielded his judgment on
a special point, to please Mrs. Garrick, the inharmonious effect was
obvious to all.
'What the bank is to the credit of the nation,' said Steele, 'the
playhouse is to its politeness and good manners.' And although this maxim
is scarcely applicable now, the instinct and the sympathy by virtue of
which the stage instructs and refines for ever obtain in humanity. Among
recent illustrations, is the genial influence of dramatic pastimes upon
the isolated and dark sojourn of ice-bound Arctic voyagers, as described
by the intrepid and philosophic Kane and his predecessors. The gallery of
human portraits, conserved even by the minor English drama, are among the
most genuine illustrations of life and character; Sir Peter Teazle and
Joseph Surface, Sir Pertinax and Tony Lumpkin, Sylvester Daggerwood and
Mawworm, are emphatic types with which we could ill dispense. One of the
remarkable intellectual phenomena of the age in which we live, however, is
the gradual encroachment of literature upon dramatic art. The best modern
characters which genius has created exist in masterpieces of fiction and
poetry; in a measure they have superseded in popular favour dramatic
ideals, except the highest and most endeared. Scott, Dickens, and their
contemporaries or successors, have given the world a new gallery of living
portraits such as of old were only to be found in the drama. Well said
Wilson, in the _Noctes_: 'I think the good novels that are published come
in place of new dramas.' The Italian opera has, by its affluent artistic
attractions, overshadowed, and in a great measure superseded, the
'legitimate drama.' Even in Italy the opportunity is comparatively rare to
enjoy fine acting apart from music and the ballet; yet there is no better
lesson for the novice in that 'soft bastard Latin' that Byron loved, than
to listen to one of Goldoni's old-fashioned colloquial plays, as, clearly
and with admirable emphasis, recited by such a company as that of which
Internari was so long the ornament; by melodious emphasis alone
commonplace maxims seemed to attain the sparkle of wit, and the mere tone
of voice is fraught with infectious merriment. From Arlechino's broad
jokes to Ristori's majestic pathos, the natural dramatic instinct and
endowments of the Italians awaken every shade and subtlety of sympathetic
feeling.
Philosophically examined, the stage will be found a compensatory
institution, and its actual relation to society intimate or conventional,
according to the predominance of real or ideal satisfaction. Thus the free
enterprise and speculative range in America make it merely recreative; the
best Italian dramatist wrote when his country's civic life was paralyzed.
The sentiment, checked by caste and absolutism in Elizabeth's day, burst
forth in the old dramatists, and culminated, for all time, in Shakspeare;
while the memoirs of Goëthe, Schiller, and Korner indicate how near and
dear to the popular heart of their country was the art, in all its phases
and forms, wherein baffled aspirations found scope. The histrionic artists
of Germany, and the actresses of Paris, are or have been a vital element
of the social economy, impracticable and almost inconceivable to English
and Americans. _Wilhelm Meister_ is the legitimate romance of its country
and era. 'L' artiste aimée du public,' says Madame Dudevant, 'est comme un
enfant a qui l' univers est la famille;' while the affinity of the
dramatic instinct with literary culture and capability is not only evident
in the friendships between authors and actors, but in the facility with
which the former become amateur performers. Montaigne says, 'I played the
chief part in the Latin tragedies of Buchanan, Guerente, and Moret, that
were acted in our college of Guienne.' Dickens is a capital actor and
dramatic reader of his own stories; and Washington Irving, when sojourning
at Dresden, delectably enacted, in a genial family circle, Sir Charles
Rackett.
One proof of the essential individuality of histrionic genius is, that in
every celebrated part each renowned actor seems to have excelled in a
different phrase. Garrick's Hamlet was inimitable in the words, 'I have
that within that passeth show;' while the most affecting touch of the
elder Wallack was, 'That undiscovered country, from whose bourne no
traveller returns.' Kean's first soliloquy in _Richard the Third_ is
perhaps the best preserved traditional recitation of the English stage;
and the power of contrasted intonation in the expression of feeling,
never forgotten by those who listened, was evinced in the memorable
passage in _Othello_--
'Perdition catch my soul, but _I do love thee_,
And when I love thee _not_, chaos is come again.'
His conceptions were remarkable for bold earnestness. His discordant
voice, insignificant figure, and slightly-misshaped feet, seemed to pass
miraculously away before the glowing energy of his spirit; to the
imaginative spectator he visibly expanded, and filled the stage, and
towered over the inferior actors of larger physical dimensions; his
action, expression of countenance, intelligent emphasis, and vigour of
utterance, lifted, kindled, and glorified, as it were, his merely human
attributes, and bore him, and those who gazed and listened, triumphantly
onward in a whirl of passion, a concentration of will, or a chaos of
emotion.
As far as contemporary memoirs elucidate the subject, it is evident that
gross violations of elocutionary taste were habitual both prior to and
succeeding the time of Betterton. This actor, with remarkable physical
disadvantages, appears to have had the most decided genius--especially for
tragedy. We have no accounts of the effects of tragic personation
exceeding those recorded of Betterton; so truly did he feel the emotion
represented, that it is said his colour, breathing, accent, and looks
betrayed an incessant and absolute sympathy with the part; as Hamlet he
turned deadly pale at the sight of the ghost; and Cibber emphatically
declares that his tone, accentuation, and the whole management of his
voice were faultlessly adapted to each passage he recited. Garrick seems
first to have established a taste for the refinements of the art; his
style, compared to what had been in vogue, was singularly chaste; he
embodied the great idea of unity; and when he first appeared, his manner,
expression of countenance, inflection of voice, and whole air, instantly
revealed the character, of which he did not lose sight for a moment. The
Kemble school has been traced to Quin; but its individuality was trenched
upon vitally by Kean, although it has been, in many essential features,
renewed by the elder Vandenhoff and Macready. It is contended by its
ardent votaries that Kean sacrificed the dignity of his art--so ably
sustained by John Kemble and his renowned sister--to mere effect; that he
substituted impulse for science, and excited sympathy by powerful but
illegitimate appeals to emotion. This, however, is a narrow statement, and
like the old dispute about Racine and Shakspeare, the classic and
romantic, the natural and the artistic, resolves itself into the fact that
the principle of a division of labour is applicable to art as well as
social economy. In Cato and Coriolanus and Wolsey, the traits of Kemble
were perfectly assimilated; in the more complex part of Richard, and the
still more impetuous one of Othello, the energy, quickness, intense
expression, and infectious action of Kean were not only electrical in
their immediate effect, but appropriate in the highest degree in the view
of reflection and taste. Thus, too, Cooke as Sir Pertinax McSycophant,
Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, Cooper as Virginius, Kean as Shylock,
Macready as Werner, and Booth as Iago, made indelible, because highly
characteristic, impressions. The actor, like the author and artist, has
his _forte_--a sphere peculiarly fitted to elicit his powers and give
scope and inspiration to his genius; and it is here that we should
estimate him, and not according to a comparative and irrelevant standard.