Essays from 'The Guardian'

rton to Edmund Kean. By Dr. Doran, F.S.A. Edit

of history!-it was a bold thing to undertake; and Dr. Doran did his work well-did it with adequate "love." These Annals of the English Stage, from Thomas Betterton to Edmund [74] Kean, are full of the colours of life in their most emphatic and motley contrasts, as is natural in proportion as the stage itself concentrates and artificially intensifies the character and conditions of ordinary life. The lon

which from time to time we catch extraordinary glimpses in Dr. Doran's pages. From 1682 to 1695, as if the Restoration had not

ied. The baptismal register of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, contains Christian names which appear to have been chosen with reference to the

charm of abundant illustrations, first-rate in subject and execution, and of three kinds-copper-plate likenesses of actors and other personages connected with theatrical history; a series of delicate, picturesque, highly detailed woodcuts of theatrical topography, chiefly the little old

delightfully in the general effect. They are worthy to rank with Cruikshank's illustrations of Jack Sheppard and The Tower of London, as mementoes of the little old smokeless London before the century of Johnson, though that, too, as Dr. Doran bears witness, knew what fogs could be. Then there is the Fortune Theatre near Crippl

e. Mixed up with many striking, thoroughly dramatic physiognomies, it must be confessed that some of these portraits scarcely help at all to explain the power of the players to whom they belonged. That, perhaps, is what we might naturally expect; the more, in proportion as the dramatic art is a matter in which many very subtle and indirect channels to men's sympathy are called into play. Edward Alleyn, from the portrait preserved at [78] his noble foundation at Dulwich, like a fine Holbein, figures, in blent strength and delicacy, as a genial, or perhaps jovial, soul, finding time for sentiment,-Prynne (included, we suppose, in this company, like the skull at the feast) as a likable if somewhat

perors, the actors were thought infamous. [79] Still, on the whole, actors fared better in England than in Romanist France, where Moliè

ever received before, nor has ever received since. The lady lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber. Had she been really a queen the public could not have thronged more eagerly to the spectacle; and after the lying in state there was a funeral of as much ceremony as has been observe

nd too often the only property they have to depend on." Wit, indeed, with the other gifts that make good company, has largely gone with theatrical talents, too often little to the b

een the length of the journey which had tired it. Again, when Lord Carmarthen, at a party, told him his handkerchief was hanging from his pocket, Foote replaced [81] it with a "Thank you, my lord; you know the company better than I." Jevon, a century earlier, was in the habit of taking great liberties with authors and audience. He made Settle half mad and the house ecstatic when having, as Lycurgus, Prince of China, to "fall on his sword," he placed it flat on t

useful patron." We see Queen Elizabeth full of misgiving at a difficult time at the popularity of Richard the Second:-"The deposition and death of King Richard the [82] Second." "Tongues whisper to t

f the restoration of t

d give them but little light into their inquiries; and all that could be recollected from him of his brother Will in that station was the faint, general, and almost lost ideas he had of having once seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein being present to

are the evidences that Shakespeare's reputation had from time to

and Juliet for the stage, with a double dénouement-one serious, the other hilarious. If your heart were too sensitive to bear the deaths of

estimony to the acting of his time?) that Shakespear

at horrors of the stage was the introduction of actresses from France by Henrietta Maria, to take the place of young [84] male actors of whom Dr. Doran has some

of his day, Kynaston was the greatest of the 'boy-actresses.' So exalted was his reputation 'that,' says Downes, 'it has

ne April evening of 1682 between the son of Sir Edward Dering and a hot-blooded young [85] Welshman, led to recrimination and sword-drawing. The two young fellows not having elbow-room in the pit, clambered on to the stage, and fought there, to the greater comfort of the audience, and with a more excited fury on the part of the combatants. The mingling of the public with the players was a practice which so annoyed the haughty French actor, Baron, that to su

is otherwise grave court. Oxford and Drury Lane itself dispute the dignity of giving birth to Nell Gwynne with Hereford, where a mean house is still pointed out as the first home of this mother of a line of dukes, whose great-grandson was to occupy the neighbouring palace as Bishop of He

ctors, she was famous for the way in which she would utter one single expression in a play. Dr. Doran gives some curious instances from later actors. "What mean my grieving subjects?" uttered in the character of Queen Elizabeth, w

ch anecdote and other conversation, here as elsewhere, bears no very distinct figure. One hardly sees the wood for the trees. On the other hand, the account of Betterton, "perhaps the greatest of English actors," is delightfully fresh. That intimate friend of Dryden, Tillatson, Pope, who executed a copy of the actor's portrait by Kneller which is still extant, was worthy of their friendship; his career brings out the best elements in stage life. The stage in these volumes presents itself indeed not

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