GOSSIPING HISTORY.
"This is the Jew
That Shakspeare drew."
I do not know by whom or when the above couplet was first imputed to Pope. The following extracts will show how a story grows, and the parasites which, under unwholesome cultivation, adhere to it. The restoration of Shakspeare's text, and the performance of Shylock as a serious part, are told as usual.
"In the dumb action of the trial scene he was amazingly descriptive, and through the whole displayed such unequalled merit, as justly entitled him to that very comprehensive, though concise, compliment paid to him by Mr. Pope, who sat in the stage-box on the third night of the reproduction, and who emphatically exclaimed,—
'This is the Jew
That Shakspeare drew.'"
Life of Macklin, by J. T. Kirkman, vol. i. p. 264.: London, 1799, 2 vols. 8vo.
The book is ill-written, and no authorities are cited.
"A few days after, Macklin received an invitation to dine with Lord Bolingbroke at Battersea. He attended the rendezvous, and there found Pope and a select party, who complimented him very much on the part of Shylock, and questioned him about many little particulars, relative to his getting up the play, &c. Pope particularly asked him why he wore a red hat, and he answered, because he had read that Jews in Italy, particularly in Venice, wore hats of that colour.
'And pray, Mr. Macklin,' said Pope, 'do players in general take such pains?' 'I do not know, sir, that they do; but as I had staked my reputation on the character, I was determined to spare no trouble in getting at the best information.' Pope nodded, and said, 'It was very laudable.'"—Memoirs of Macklin, p. 94., Lond. 1804.
The above work has not the author's name, and is as defective in references as Mr. Kirkman's. It is, however, not quite so trashy. Being published five years later, the author must have seen the preceding Life, and his not repeating the story about the couplet is strong presumption that it was not then believed. It appears again in the Biographia Dramatica, vol. i. p. 469., London, 1812:
"Macklin's performance of this character (Shylock) so forcibly struck a gentleman in the pit, that he as it were involuntarily exclaimed, 'This is,' &c. It has been said that this gentleman was Mr. Pope."
I am not aware of its alteration during the next forty years, but this was the state of the anecdote in 1853:
"Macklin was a tragedian, and the personal friend of Alexander Pope. He had a daughter, a beautiful and accomplished girl, who was likewise on the stage. On one occasion Macklin's daughter was about to take a benefit at Drury Lane Theatre, and on the morning of that evening, whilst the father and daughter were at breakfast, a young nobleman entered the apartment, and, with the most undisguised ruffianism, made overtures of a dishonourable character to Macklin for his daughter. The exasperated father, seizing a knife from the table, rushed at the fellow, who on the instant fled, on which Macklin pursued him along the street with the knife in his hand. The cause of the tragedian's wild appearance in the street soon got vent in the city. Evening came, and Old Drury seldom saw so crowded a house. The play was the Merchant of Venice, Macklin sustaining the part of Shylock, and his interesting daughter that of Jessica. Their reception was most enthusiastic; but in that scene where the Jew is informed of his daughter being carried off, the whole audience seemed to be quite carried away by Macklin's acting. The applause was immense, and Pope, who was standing in the pit, exclaimed,—
'That's the Jew that Shakspeare drew.'
Macklin was much respected in London. He was a native of Monaghan, and a Protestant. His father was a Catholic, and died when he was a child; and his mother being a Protestant, he was educated as such."—Dublin Weekly Telegraph, Feb. 9, 1853.
One more version is given in the Irish Quarterly Review, and quoted approvingly in The Leader, Dec. 17, 1853.
"The house was crowded from the opening of the doors, and the curtain rose amidst the most dreadful of all awful silence, the stillness of a multitude. The Jew enters in the third scene, and from that point, to the famous scene with Tubal, all passed off with considerable applause. Here, however, and in the trial scene, the actor was triumphant, and in the applause of a thousand voices the curtain dropped. The play was repeated for nineteen successive nights with increased success. On the third night of representation all eyes were directed to the stage-box, where sat a little deformed man; and whilst others watched his gestures, as if to learn his opinion of the performers, he was gazing intently upon Shylock, and as the actor panted, in broken accents of rage, and sorrow, and avarice—'Go, Tubal, fee me an officer, bespeak him a fortnight before: I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will: go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.'—the little man was seen to rise, and leaning from the box, as Macklin passed it, he whispered,—
'This is the Jew,
That Shakspeare drew.'
The speaker was Alexander Pope, and, in that age, from his judgment in criticism there was no appeal."
No reference to cotemporary testimony is given by these historians.
Galt, in his Lives of the Players, Lond. 1831, does not notice the story.
Pope was at Bath on the 4th of February, 1741, as appears from his letter to Warburton of that date; but as he mentions his intention to return to London, he may have been there on the 14th. That he was not in the pit we may be confident; that he was in the boxes is unlikely. His health was declining in 1739. In his letter to Swift, quoted in Croly's edition, vol. i. p. lxxx., he says:
"Having nothing to tell you of my poetry, I come to what is now my chief care, my health and amusement; the first is better as to headaches, worse as to weakness and nerves. The changes of weather affect me much; the mornings are my life, in the evenings I am not dead indeed, but sleepy and stupid enough. I love reading still better than conversation, but my eyes fail, and the hours when most people indulge in company, I am tired, and find the labour of the past day sufficient to weigh me down; so I hide myself in bed, as a bird in the nest, much about the same time, and rise and chirp in the morning."
I hope I have said enough to stop the farther growth of this story; but before laying down my pen, I wish to call attention to the practice of giving anecdotes without authorities. This is encouraged by the newspapers devoting a column to "varieties," which are often amusing, but oftener stale. A paragraph is now commencing the round, telling how a lady took a linendraper to a barber's, and on pretence of his being a mad relative, had his head shaved, while she absconded with his goods. It is a bad version of an excellent scene in Foote's Cozeners.
H. B. C.
Garrick Club.