Chapter IX: Part 9

It is alike instructive and amusing to trace the dramatic element, so 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.

The lives of actors partake of the extreme alternations and varied 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.

The stagnation of business and the lapse of metropolitan fashionable life, which so emphatically mark midsummer in America, make that wonderful chart of life, the daily newspaper, more sought and enjoyed than at any other time. From the merchant in his counting-room to the stranger in the hotel-parlour, from the passenger in suburban cars and steamboats to the teamster waiting for a job, there is observable a patience and attention in reading newspapers such as one seldom perceives at more busy periods of the year. And if we were to cite a single characteristic sign of the times, as of universal import, it would be American journalism. The avidity with which the papers are seized at watering places, the habit of making their contents the staple of talk, and the manner in which they are conducted in order to meet the popular demands, are facts indicative of modern civilization which no one can ignore who would rightly appreciate its tendency and traits. These are brought out and made conscious, to a remarkable degree, in the leisure intervals which midsummer alone affords to our active and busy people.

The truth is that newspaper reading is the exclusive mental pabulum of a vast number in this country; and to this circumstance is to be ascribed the amount of general information, and ready, though superficial ideas, on all kinds of subjects, which so astonish foreigners. If you converse with your neighbour in the railway cars, or listen to the remarks at the _table d'hôte_, hear what the farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, and gentlemen, so gregariously locomotive now, have to say--you will find that the daily press furnishes nine-tenths of the subject-matter and the speculative inspiration. There never was a time or a country where this 'fourth estate,' as it has been well called, enacted so broad and vital a function. Every year our press has become more personal and local on the one hand, and more comprehensive on the other. Cowper's idea of seeing life through the 'loop-holes of retreat,' can now be realized as never before. However sequestered may be the summer home of our citizens, they have but to con the daily journals and know all that goes on in the great world, with a detail as to events, persons, and places, which not only satisfies curiosity, but imagination. Nothing is too abstract for the discussion, or too trivial for the gossip, of the American journal. It concentrates the record of daily life at home and abroad; and has so encroached upon the province of the old essayists, the excitements of fiction and the materials of history, that more or less of the literature of each may be found in every well-conducted newspaper.