excitement of their profession. To the philosopher there is nothing
anomalous in the frequent contrast between the lessons of virtue they
enact and the recklessness of their habits. When we consider how much they
are the sport of fortune, and how often poverty and contempt form the
background to the picture of love, triumph, or wit, in which they figure;
and remember the constant draft upon nervous sensibility and the resources
of temperament, as well as intelligence, it is their lot to undergo, we
cannot reasonably wonder that extravagances of conduct, vagaries of habit,
and a proneness to seek pleasure in the immediate, characterize players.
'Players,' says Hazlitt, 'are the only honest hypocrites.' It is proved by
judicial statistics, that 'of all classes they are the freest from crime;'
while their charitable sympathies are proverbial; in marriage and finance,
however, they are the reverse of precisians; yet few more pleasing
examples of domestic virtue and happiness can be found than some recorded
in histrionic memoirs. A kindly but acute observer who long fraternized
with the craft, Douglas Jerrold, said of the strolling player: 'He is the
merry preacher of the noblest, grandest lessons of human thought. He is
the poet's pilgrim, and in the forlornest byways and abodes of men, calls
forth new sympathies, sheds upon the cold, dull trade of real life an hour
of poetic glory. He informs human clay with thoughts and throbbings that
refine it; and for this he was for centuries a "rogue and a vagabond," and
is, even now, a long, long day's march from the vantage-ground of
respectability.' Through the annals of the English stage there may be
traced a vein of romantic vicissitude as suggestive as any the written
drama affords:--Wilks, generous and spirited, abandoning a profitable
engagement in Dublin, with language as noble in its key as one of
Fletcher's characters, to allay the conjugal jealousy of a brother actor;
Nell Gwynn discouraged in her theatrical ambition by the manager, becoming
orange-girl to the theatre in order to be in the line of her aspirations,
which, when realized, made her the mistress of a king and the envy of
courtiers; Mountfort killed in an impromptu duel with a noble rival for
the love of Mrs. Bracegirdle; the charming Mrs. Woffington disguised as a
man, at a country ball, undeceiving the affianced of her disloyal lover;
the beautiful Miss Bellamy meditating suicide on the steps of Westminster
Bridge; Savage asleep on a street-bunk, and, three days after, the admired
guest at a lord's table; the eccentricities of Cibber's daft daughter;
Holcraft's affecting story of his boyhood, and the ludicrous
self-importance displayed in his account of his trial for treason; the
fascinating dialogue of the benevolent Mrs. Jordan with the Quaker in the
rain under a shed; Jerrold's father playing in a barn upon an estate that
was rightfully his own; and Douglas himself, the future dramatic author,
carried on the stage by Kean, as the child in Rolla. Palmer fell dead
while personating The Stranger, in consequence of the excess of sorrow
which the situation induced, he having just been stricken by a great
domestic bereavement; Williams was killed by Quin; and Mountford and Clive
murdered. Quin's memorable jokes; Cooke's lapses from more than Roman
dignity and Anglo-Saxon sense to a worse than Indian sottishness;
Grimaldi, whom Hook called 'the Garrick of Clowns,' and to whom Byron gave
a silver snuff-box, leaving buffoonery and harlequin whirls to train
pigeons, collect flies, or meet with London robbers; Matthews, after
keeping the Park audience in a roar for hours, crossing the river to
stroll in pensive thought under the trees at Hoboken; and the versatile
and admired Hodgkinson dying at a solitary tavern on the road to
Washington, amid the horrors of pestilence, and his body thrown into a
field by slaves; Booth's extraordinary fits of contemplative originality,
and the grotesque night adventures in which Kean was the leader, are but
incidental glimpses of a world in which the violent, fantastic, and
reckless instincts of human nature are wantonly displayed, yielding
curious material for the metaphysician, and ample scope for charity. An
English poet has brought together many such anecdotes of Kean--some
touching in the highest degree, some superlatively ridiculous, and others
shocking to the heart,--yet all kindled with the forlorn glory of genius,
like the scathed form of Milton's fallen angel. And what a mercurial
compound was Samuel Foote--London's great source of fun and satire for
years,--whose chance observations became proverbs, who used to find a seat
for Gray the poet, stand ruefully against the scenes to have his
artificial leg attached, and then go forward to set the house in a
roar,--as ingenious as Steele in evading 'injunctions,' who lived by his
'takings off,' over which the grave Johnson shook with merriment, and
whose 'wits' were literally his capital, whereby he realized three
fortunes! It is no wonder people frequented Macklin's ordinary when he
quitted the stage; nor that they listened until far into the night to that
'perpetual showman of the extraordinary in manners, adventure,
sentimentality, and sin'--Elliston,--whose 'I'll never call you Jack, my
boy, again,' equalled in comic zest the tragic force of Kean's 'God bless
the child,' in _Bertram_, who made life itself a comedy, and played the
'child of fortune' to the end; exuberant in vagaries, a vagabond by
instinct, celebrating the 'triumph of abstinence by excess,' and with
'eccentricity absolutely germane to his being,' yet could so perfectly
enact the 'regal style' in common life that Charles Lamb declared he
should 'repose under no inscription but one of pure Latinity.' The
_Memoirs of Grimaldi_ was the first book Dickens published, and in that
biography of a harlequin are the smiles and tears of a genuine romance. In
the perusal of such an experience we realize how directly comedy springs
from human life; the _piazzas_ of Spain and Italy, with their motley
crowds and glib dialogue, gave birth to the theatre. What a curious fact
in human nature is the relation of seeming to being in the drama. Dr.
Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, was dining with the celebrated
Betterton, and said: 'Pray, Mr. Betterton, inform me what is the reason
you actors can affect your audiences with speaking of things imaginary as
if they were real, while we of the church speak of things real which our
congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?' 'Why, my lord,'
replied the player, 'the reason is plain. We actors speak of things
imaginary as if they were real, and you in the pulpit speak of things
real as if they were imaginary.' It has been observed that there are no
English lives worth reading except those of players, who, 'by the nature
of the case, have bidden respectability good day;' and a grave literary
critic explains on higher grounds than this _abandon_, why there is an
intrinsic charm in an actor's memoirs, when he remarks that,
'notwithstanding everything which may be said against the theatrical
profession, it certainly does require from those who pursue it a certain
quickness and liveliness of mind.'
The very nature of the vocation is inciting to vagrant propensities and
thoughtless adventures. The English theatre originated in strollers who
performed in inn-yards; and the Greek drama is associated with the 'cart
of Thespis.' I have seen an itinerant company of Italians perform a
tragedy in the old Roman amphitheatre at Verona, on a spring afternoon, to
a hundred spectators grouped about the lower tiers of that magnificent
relic of antiquity, where gladiators once contended in the presence of
thousands. It was an impressive evidence of the universality of dramatic
taste, which, however modified by circumstances, always reasserts itself
in all nations and climes. The best historians, cognizant of this, make
the condition and influence of the theatre a subject of record; and its
phases undoubtedly mirror the characteristic in social and national life
more truly than any other institution. It was a great bone of contention
between the Puritans and Cavaliers; Macaulay finds it needful to revert to
the subject to illustrate the reign of Charles II. and the Commonwealth,
and Hildreth to mark the difference of public sentiment in New England and
the other States after the revolution. Its critical history in England
would afford a reliable scale by which to measure the rise, progress, and
lapses of civilization and public taste. Upon this arena the great
controversy between nature and art, rules and inspiration, eclecticism and
adherence to a school, which, under different names, forms an everlasting
problem to the votaries of intellectual enjoyment, was boldly fought. And
the discussion once inspired by Kemble and Kean has been renewed by the
respective advocates of Rachel and Ristori.
The diminished influence of the stage is obvious in its comparative
isolation. 'The dramatic temperament,' observes Mrs. Kemble, 'always
exceptional in England, is becoming daily more so under the various
adverse influences of a civilization and society which fosters a genuine
dislike to exhibitions of emotion, and a cynical disbelief in the reality
of it, both necessarily depressing, first its expression, and next its
existence.' This social repudiation of the dramatic instinct undoubtedly
affects its professional development; and the stage in Great Britain, of
late years, with the exception of the lyric drama, appeals far more to the
amusing than the tragic element; the comic muse and the melodrama have
long been in the ascendant. The social character which once rendered the
stage in England a connecting link between literature and the town,
refined circles and the public at large, no longer exists; that such a
relation naturally obtains we perceive in the mutual advantages then
derived from its recognition; authors and actors, indeed, have a
reciprocal interest in the drama, while the tone of society and manners is
directly influenced by, and reflected from, the theatre; much, therefore,
of the deterioration of the latter is owing to its being in a great degree
abandoned by those whose taste, character, and personal influence alone
can redeem it from abuse and degradation; for it has been well said that
the theatre is respectable only in proportion as it is respected. A
traditional charm and intellectual dignity, as well as social
attractiveness, linger around the memory of its palmy days;--when Quin so
nobly befriended the author of _The Seasons_; when Steele was a patentee,
and Mrs. Bracegirdle inspired the best authors to write for her, and
received a legacy from Congreve; when Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith discussed
new plays and old readings with Garrick, and Mrs. Oldfield remembered poor
Savage in her will; or Sheridan vibrated between the greenroom and the
dress circle. Similar pleasing associations belong to the era of Mrs.
Siddons, when she doffed the majestic air of Lady Macbeth to mingle with
the literati of Edinburgh; and nightly saw Reynolds, Gibbon, Burke, and
Fox in the orchestra. Peg Woffington charmed Burke, and incited him to his
first successful literary effort; and Archbishop Tillotson profited by the
elocution of Butterton. We are told, in corresponding memoirs, of Kitty
Clive's 'clear laugh,' 'fair Abington with her dove-like looks,' 'charming
Mrs. Barry,' and 'womanly Mrs. Pritchard.' There is no vocation so
directly inspired by love of approbation; the stimulus of applause is an
indispensable encouragement, and popular caprice vents itself without
limit in deifying or degrading the children of Thespis. It is not to be
wondered at that diseased vanity often results from such adulation as
attends the successful actor. 'Is it possible,' asks Sir Lytton, 'that
this man--so fondled, so shouted to, so dandled by the world--can, at
bedtime, take off the whole of Macbeth with his stockings?' The old
essayists criticized the stage with efficiency; men of political fame
watched with interest over its destiny; men of genius proclaimed its
worth, and men of birth took an active part in its support and direction.
Thus encouraged and inspired, actors of the higher order felt a degree of
responsibility to the public, and indulged in aspirations that gave
elevation and significance to their art. Its evanescent triumphs, when
compared with those of letters, painting, or sculpture, have often been
lamented; Cibber is eloquently pathetic on the subject, and Campbell has
expressed the sentiment in a memorable stanza. In one respect, however,
the fragility of histrionic renown is an advantage; no species of
enjoyment from art has been made the theme of such glowing reminiscence;
as if inspired by the very consciousness that the merit they celebrated
had no permanent memorial, intelligent lovers of the drama describe, in
conversation and literature, the traits of favourite performers and the
effects they have produced, with a zest, acuteness, and enthusiasm rarely
awarded the votaries of other pursuits. What genial emphasis, even in the
traditional memory of Wilks' Sir Harry Wildair, Barry's Jaffier, Quin's
Falstaff, Henderson's Sir Giles, Yates' Shakspeare's Fools, Macklin's
Shylock, Harry Woodworth's Captain Boabdil, Cooke's McSycophant, Siddons'
Lady Macbeth, and Kean's Othello! Yet in no art is eclecticism more a
desideratum; our great actors proverbially suffer for adequate support in
the minor characters; rivalry and division of labour sadly mar the
possible perfection of the modern stage. Walpole, who was an epicurean in
his dramatic as in his social tastes, sighed for the incarnation in one
prodigy of the voice of Mrs. Cibber, the eye of Garrick, and the soul of
Mrs. Pritchard. In Cibber's eulogies upon the tragic genius of Betterton,
or the inimitable drollery of Nokes,--Hunt's genial memoirs of Jack
Bannister, Lamb's account of Munden's acting, Campbell's tribute to Mrs.
Siddons, and Barry Cornwall's description of Kean's characters,--there is
a relish and earnestness seldom devoted to the limner and the bard, who,
we feel, can speak best for themselves to posterity. Indeed, the
heartiness of appreciation manifested by literary men towards great
actors, is the result of natural affinity. There is something, too, in the
mere vocation of the latter, when efficiently realized, that excites
intellectual and personal sympathy. The actor seems a noble volunteer in
behalf of humanity,--a kind of spontaneous lay-figure upon which the
drapery of human life may be arranged at pleasure;--he is the oral
interpreter of the individual mind to the hearts of the people; and takes
upon himself the passion, wit, and sentiment of types of the race, that
all may realize their action and quality.
NEWSPAPERS.
'What is it but a map of busy life?'--COWPER.
I remember how vivid was the impression of Paris life, in its contrasts
and economy, derived from the distribution of the 'Entr' Acte' at the
Opera Comique, announcing the death of Talleyrand. Cinti Damoreau had just
warbled a _finale_ in the _Pré Aux Clercs_, and the applause had scarcely
died away, when a shower of neatly-printed gazettes were seized and
pondered. There was a minute description of the last hours of a man
associated with dynasties and diplomacy for half a century, who had been
the confidant of the Bourbons and the Bonapartes, and a few moments before
bade farewell to earth and Louis Philippe; and all these historical and
incongruous memories solemnized by death, filled up the interval of a gay
and crowded opera, and the pauses of an exquisite vocalist;--a more
bewildering consciousness of the past and present, of art and history, of
intrigue and melody, of mortality and pastime, it is difficult to imagine.
The newspaper is not only a map but a test of the age; its history is
parallel with civilization, and each new feature introduced is significant
of political and social changes; while its tone, style, and opinions, at
any given time, indicate the spirit of the times more definitely than any
other index. If we scan, with a philosophic eye, these fugitive
emanations of the press, from their earliest date to the present hour, we
find that they not only record events, but bear indirect, and therefore
authentic, testimony to the transitions of society, the formation of
opinions, and the actual standards of public taste. Hence they are
eminently characteristic to the annalist. Compare the single diminutive
sheet which, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, formed the
London newspaper, almost wholly occupied with state papers and the
statistics of a battle in some distant region, with a copy of the present
leading Tory journal in the same latitude; the extent and variety of its
contents, the finished rhetoric of its leading articles, the scholarly
criticism, fully reported debates, thorough detail of news, foreign and
domestic, local and universal, personal and social--evince how the
resources of the world have multiplied, the refinements of life
progressed, and the intellectual demands of society risen. News, like all
other desirable things, was, at the origin of newspapers, a monopoly of
Government; the _Gazette_ a mere instrument of courts: now, the daily
journal, in free countries, is the legitimate expression of the popular
mind; its comparative liberty of utterance is the criterion of political
enfranchisement; and where entire scope is afforded, it takes as many
forms as there are sects, theories, and interests in a community. Thus,
from being a mere record it has become an expositor; from heralding royal
mandates it has grown into an advocate of individual sentiments; and
daguerreotypes civil life, in its swiftly-moving panorama, with incredible
celerity and faithfulness. The improvements in the modern journal are
chiefly owing to those in human intercourse. The steam-engine and the
electric telegraph, by rapidly concentrating the knowledge of events at
central points, give both the motive and the means of vitality and
completeness to the newspaper. A remarkable effect, however, of these
facilities is that they have diminished what may be called the personal
influence of the editor, and reduced the daily journal, in a great
measure, to its normal state--that of a dispenser of news. The success of
the newspapers, for instance, in the commercial metropolis of this
country, and also in London, is at the present day more the result of
enterprise than talent. The paper which collects the earliest and most
complete intelligence of passing events is the most successful. When these
materials of interest were not so abundant; when days and weeks elapsed
between the publication of important news, the vehicles of this evanescent
but much-desired commodity were kept alive by the individual talent and
information of editors. Their views were earnestly uttered and responded
to; and the paper was eagerly seized for the sake of its eloquence, its
argument, or its satire. It is true, indeed, that a degree of this
_prestige_ still belongs to the daily journal; but the _éclat_ of the
writer is now all but lost in the teeming interest of events; the editor,
who, in less exciting times, would have been the idolized lay-preacher or
improvisatore of the town, must content himself with judiciously compiling
new facts, vividly describing passing events, and making up from his
foreign and domestic files an entertaining summary of news. His comments
are necessarily brief; no opportunity is afforded carefully to digest the
knowledge he acquires, or to compare the occurrence of to-day with its
parallel in history. Accordingly he glances at the new book, utters his
party dictum on the last legislative act, gives a vague interpretation to
the aspects of the political horizon, and refers to the full, varied, and
interesting details of 'news,' for both the attraction and the value of
his journal. A curious effect of this modern facility in accumulating news
is that of anticipating the effect of time, or superseding the interest of
artificial excitements. So various, incessant, and impressive are the
incidents daily brought to our knowledge, so visible now is the drama of
the world's life, that we have scarcely time or inclination for illusions.
History seems enacting; changes, once the work of years, are effected in
as many months, and we are so accustomed to the wonderful that sensibility
to it is greatly diminished. Imagine the scientific discoveries, the
political revolutions, the memorable facts of the last twenty years, all
at once revealed to one of our ancestors, at the epoch when editors used
to board vessels at the wharf to glean three months' English news for
their weekly readers; when political items, marine disasters,
advertisements, and marriages, were all printed in the same column and
type, and notice was formally given that the postman would start on
horseback in a week, to convey letters a hundred miles! Compare, too, the
terse, emphatic style of the modern press to the old-fashioned prolixity,
and the practice of publishing both sides of a public question on the same
sheet, with the existent division of newspapers into specific organs; the
original extreme deference to authority with the present bold discussion
of its claims; and the even tenor of the past with the eventful present.
Each period has its advantages; and the enduring intellectual monuments of
the earlier somewhat reproach the restlessness, diffuse, and fragmentary
life of to-day. 'The patriarch of a community,' says Martineau, 'can never
be restored to the kind of importance which he possessed in the elder
societies of the world; from their prerogatives he is deposed by the
journal, whose speechless and impersonal lore coldly but effectually
supplies the wants once served by the living voice of elders, kindling
with the inspiration of the past.'
To discover the public feeling of an epoch as well as its social economy,
historians, not less than novelists, wisely resort to a file of old
newspapers. In James Franklin's journal, commenced at Boston in 1722, and
afterwards removed to Newport, for instance, we find controversies between
the clergy and the editors of the province, discussions on the utility of
inoculation, advertisements of runaway slaves, and notices of whippings
and the pillory--all characteristic facts and landmarks of the progress
of civilization. The advanced culture of the Eastern States is evident
from the contemporaneous republication in one of their daily prints of the
poetry of Shenstone, Collins, and Goldsmith, and in another of Robertson's
History; there, too, we find Whitfield's preaching theologically analyzed,
and the manner of the _Spectator_ and _Tatler_ at once imitated.
Federalism was incarnated in the _Columbian Centinel_; and in another
organ, of the same community, at an earlier period, the contributions of
Otis and Quincy prepared the public mind gravely to assert the rights for
which the colonies were about to struggle. The financial essays of Morris
and others taught them, through a similar medium, the principles of
currency, exchange, and credit; Dennie induced, in the same way, a taste
for elegant literature; and the journals of Freneau and Bache embodied the
spirit of French political fanaticism. History, indeed, records events in
their continuity, and with reference to what precedes and follows; but the
actual state of public sentiment in regard to such exciting affairs as
Hamilton's duel, Jefferson's gunboats, Genet's mission, Perry's victory,
the Freemason's oath, the death of Washington, California gold, and
Kossuth's crusade, is most vividly reflected from the diverse reports,
opinions, and chronicles of the newspaper press.
It is impossible to estimate the fusion of knowledge and argument brought
about by the press in free countries, whereby public sentiment is formed
and concentrated. Truth, even the most sacred, was propagated in the world
ages ago by oral and written communication; perhaps it was then more
cherished and better considered; but without modern facilities of
intercourse like the press, it is difficult to imagine how a political
organization like our own could be regulated and conserved; how universal
reputations could be so speedily created, the discoveries of science made
available to all, or charitable and economical enterprise be expanded to
their present wide issues. The establishment of prolific and cheap
journals in New York, in 1830, was an event of incalculable historical
importance. The universal interest in public affairs justifies, in this
country, the greatest editorial enterprise; while the growing value of our
journals, as means of reference, make it desirable their form should be
convenient;--the book-shape of _Niles' Register_ is one reason it is so
much consulted. The variety of talent and opinion enlisted in American
journalism, the fights and flatteries of its conductors, the alacrity and
seasonableness which is its chief ideal, are traits which absolutely
reflect the normal life of the people; the church and schoolhouse, which
inaugurate an American settlement, are instantly followed by the
newspaper; and as the antiquarian now searches the _Boston News-Letter_ or
_Pennsylvanian Gazette_ for incidents of the Revolutionary war, or
statistics of colonial trade, he will, a century hence, find in the
journals of to-day the economical questions, the social gauge, the
daguerreotyped enterprise, fillibusterism, and popular tastes of this era.