To appreciate the significance of elocutionary art, we have but to consider that all poetry and rhetoric need interpretation. To the multitude, in its printed or written form, the word of genius is often as much a sealed book as the notes of a fine musical composition to one uninitiated as to the meaning of those occult signs of harmony. Wordsworth gained many converts to his poetical theory by the impressive manner in which he recited his verses, who would have remained insensible to their worth if only the force of reasoning had been used. The popularity of many English lyrics and dramatic scenes is owing to the emphasis given them, in the memory, by felicitous declaimers. How different is the Church Service, an old ballad, an oration, the sentiment of Tennyson, the chivalry of Campbell, or the ardent gloom of Byron, when melodiously and intelligently uttered: only those who really feel the sense or pathos of a poem, win others adequately to receive it; and there now lie neglected heaps of noble verse, the latent music of which has not been vocally eliminated. In this view, the requisite combination of voice, sensibility, and intelligence, that constitute a good elocutionist, is an endowment of inestimable value. Lee, the dramatist, used to read his plays so effectively that it discouraged the actors from undertaking them; and the crowds that listen attentively to an able reader of Shakspeare, indicate the extent of public taste for this unappreciated and rarely cultivated accomplishment. Kean gave ‘a local habitation,’ in the minds of thousands, to Shaksperian inspiration; his surviving auditors are yet haunted by his tones; his inflections and emphasis sculptured, as it were, with a breath, upon memory, words that had previously left only a transient impression. Had we, in our Western civilization, a profession analogous to the improvisatore of the South, or the story-teller of the East, to make familiar and impressive the utterance of our poets, they need not fear comparison with the ancient bards of the people. Tasso and Ariosto are read to this day, in squares and on quays in Italy, to swarthy and tattered groups, who applaud a good line as if it were a new candidate for fame; and, notwithstanding the aversion of the highly intellectual to the theatre, Shakspeare became domesticated in the English mind through the interpretation of histrionic genius. It is on account of this vital connection between literature and elocution, this absolute need of a popular exposition of what otherwise would never penetrate the common mind, that the decadence of the Stage is to be regretted, and the recognition of elocution as a high, graceful, and useful art is desirable. We have an abundance of critics; we need expositors, artists to embody in clear, emphatic, and justly-modulated tones, the graces and the thoughts which minstrel and philosopher have elaborated; this would awaken moral sympathy, give a social interest to the pleasures of literature, and wing words of truth and beauty over the world. It is in view of such an office that the actor rises to dignity; and that such a ‘great simple being’ as Mrs. Siddons was consoled, when insulted by an audience, for her ‘consciousness of a humiliating vocation;’ and that Kean, wayward and dissolute, recklessly leaping the barrier of civilization, like Freneau’s Indian boy who ran from college to the woods, reappears to the fancy as a genuine minister at the altar of humanity. Talma’s life was coincident with some of the greatest events of the century; and his social position is a noble vindication of histrionic genius in alliance with superior character. Associated with the literary men of his country, and befriended by her statesmen, his reminiscences are quite as interesting as his professional triumphs. Intimate with Chenier, David, and Danton, he was admired and cherished by Napoleon. Like Kean his earliest attempts failed, and like Garrick he was a reformer in his art. The philosophy of dramatic personation as regarded by such a man has a peculiar interest. ‘Acting,’ he said, ‘is a complete paradox; we must possess the power of strong feeling, or we could never command and carry with us the sympathy of a mixed audience in a crowded theatre; but we must, at the same time, control our sensations on the stage, for their indulgence would enfeeble execution. The skilful actor calculates his effects beforehand; the voice, gesture, and look which pass for inspiration, have been rehearsed a hundred times. On the other hand, a dull, composed, phlegmatic nature can never make a great actor.’ Talma’s introduction of Kemble’s toga in the Roman plays, his teaching Bonaparte to play king, according to the famous on-dit, his matchless dignity and elocution, his English affinities, his charming talk, his select circle of friends, his prosperous style of living, and the new rank he gave his vocation, combine to endear and elevate his memory.
In an historical view the relation of actors to society, art, letters, and religion, offers many curious problems: protégés of the State in the palmy days of Greece, with the purely secular interest attached to the stage under the Romans it degenerated; yet Cicero profited by the instructions of Roscius, and gained for him an important suit; and while Augustus decreed that ‘players were exempt from stripes,’ later edicts declared ‘that no senators should enter the houses of pantomimes, and that Roman knights should not attend them in the streets.’ Excommunicated by the Church of Rome in the middle ages, they gave vital scope and character to Spanish literature by evoking the rich and national materials of that extraordinary drama of which Calderon and Lope de Vega are the permanent expositors. Its history shows how, from religious comedies to historical and social plays, the representatives of the stage in Spain fostered her intellectual development and only popular culture, ‘until there was hardly a village that did not possess some kind of a theatre.’ The actors at Madrid ‘constituted no less than forty companies,’ and ‘secular comedies of a very equivocal complexion were represented in some of the principal monasteries of the kingdom.’ The conduct of the Spanish actors, however, according to the same testimony,[31] ‘did more than anything else to endanger the privileges of the drama.’ Their personal lot seems to have been as hard as the worst of their successors; ‘slaves in Algiers were better off.’ In France, political, social, and literary life and labour are often so related to or influenced by the renowned artistes of the stage, that they figure as an inevitable element in popular memoirs; nowhere is the influence of the profession so direct and absolute; and while the rise of German literature and liberalism is identified with the advent of dramatic genius and the national revival of the theatre, in England the most distinctive and pervading glory of her intellectual character and fame is the offspring of this form of letters and this phase of social recreative art. The biographies of the most celebrated and endeared authors, from Alfieri to Irving, and from Goëthe to Wilson, indicate that dramatic entertainments, whether Italian opera or the English stage in its prime, court-plays at Weimar, or Terry at Edinburgh, are to them the most available recuperative and inspiring of pastimes.
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.’