apparently on December 8, 1660. [335] The actress on that occasion is said to have been Mrs. Margaret Hughes, Prince Rupert’s mistress; but Betterton’s wife, who was at first known on the stage as Mrs. Saunderson, was the first actress to present a series of Shakespeare’s great female characters. Mrs. Betterton gave her husband powerful support, from 1663 onwards, in such rôles as Ophelia, Juliet, Queen Catherine, and Lady Macbeth. Betterton formed a school of actors who carried on his traditions for many years after his death. Robert Wilks (1670-1732) as Hamlet, and Barton Booth (1681-1733) as Henry VIII and Hotspur, were popularly accounted no unworthy successors. Colley Cibber (1671-1757) as actor, theatrical manager, and dramatic critic, was both a loyal disciple of Betterton and a lover of Shakespeare, though his vanity and his faith in the ideals of the Restoration incited him to perpetrate many outrages on Shakespeare’s text when preparing it for theatrical representation. His notorious adaptation of ‘Richard III,’ which was first produced in 1700, long held the stage to the exclusion of the original version. But towards the middle of the eighteenth century all earlier efforts to interpret Shakespeare in the playhouse were eclipsed in public esteem by the concentrated energy and intelligence of David Garrick. Garrick’s enthusiasm for the poet
and his histrionic genius riveted Shakespeare’s hold on public taste. His claim to have restored to the stage the text of Shakespeare—purified of Restoration defilements—cannot be allowed without serious qualifications. Garrick had no scruple in presenting plays of Shakespeare in versions that he or his friends had recklessly garbled. He supplied ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with a happy ending; he converted the ‘Taming of the Shrew’ into the farce of ‘Katherine and Petruchio,’ 1754; he introduced radical changes in ‘Antony and Cleopatra,’ ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona,’ ‘Cymbeline,’ and ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ Nevertheless, no actor has won an equally exalted reputation in so vast and varied a repertory of Shakespearean roles. His triumphant début as Richard III in 1741 was followed by equally successful performances of Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, King John, Romeo, Henry IV, Iago, Leontes, Benedick, and Antony in ‘Antony and Cleopatra.’ Garrick was not quite undeservedly buried in Westminster Abbey on February 1, 1779, at the foot of Shakespeare’s statue.
Garrick was ably seconded by Mrs. Clive (1711-1785), Mrs. Cibber (1714-1766), and Mrs. Pritchard (1711-1768). Mrs. Cibber as Constance in ‘King John,’ and Mrs. Pritchard in Lady Macbeth, excited something of the same enthusiasm as Garrick in Richard III and Lear. There were, too, contemporary critics who judged rival actors to show in certain parts powers equal, if not superior, to those of Garrick. Charles Macklin (1697?-1797) for nearly half a century, from
1735 to 1785, gave many hundred performances of a masterly rendering of Shylock. The character had, for many years previous to Macklin’s assumption of it, been allotted to comic actors, but Macklin effectively concentrated his energy on the tragic significance of the part with an effect that Garrick could not surpass. Macklin was also reckoned successful in Polonius and Iago. John Henderson, the Bath Roscius (1747-1785), who, like Garrick, was buried in Westminster Abbey, derived immense popularity from his representation of Falstaff; while in subordinate characters like Mercutio, Slender, Jaques, Touchstone, and Sir Toby Belch, John Palmer (1742?-1798) was held to approach perfection. But Garrick was the accredited chief of the theatrical profession until his death. He was then succeeded in his place of predominance by John Philip Kemble, who derived invaluable support from his association with one abler than himself, his sister, Mrs. Siddons.
John Philip Kemble, 1757-1823. Mrs. Sarah Siddons, 1755-1831.
Somewhat stilted and declamatory in speech, Kemble enacted a wide range of characters of Shakespearean tragedy with a dignity that won the admiration of Pitt, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt. Coriolanus was regarded as his masterpiece, but his renderings of Hamlet, King John, Wolsey, the Duke in ‘Measure for Measure,’ Leontes, and Brutus satisfied the most exacting canons of contemporary theatrical criticism. Kemble’s sister, Mrs. Siddons, was the greatest actress that Shakespeare’s countrymen have known. Her noble and
awe-inspiring presentation of Lady Macbeth, her Constance, her Queen Katherine, have, according to the best testimony, not been equalled even by the achievements of the eminent actresses of France.
Edmund Kean, 1787-1833.
During the present century the most conspicuous histrionic successes in Shakespearean drama have been won by Edmund Kean, whose triumphant rendering of Shylock on his first appearance at Drury Lane Theatre on January 26, 1814, is one of the most stirring incidents in the history of the English stage. Kean defied the rigid convention of the ‘Kemble School,’ and gave free rein to his impetuous passions. Besides Shylock, he excelled in Richard III, Othello, Hamlet, and Lear. No less a critic than Coleridge declared that to see him act was like ‘reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.’ Among other Shakespearean actors of Kean’s period a high place was allotted by public esteem to George Frederick Cooke (1756-1811), whose Richard III, first given in London at Covent Garden Theatre, October 31, 1801, was accounted his masterpiece. Charles Lamb, writing in 1822, declared that of all the actors who flourished in his time, Robert Bensley ‘had most of the swell of soul,’ and Lamb gave with a fine enthusiasm in his ‘Essays of Elia’ an analysis (which has become classical) of Bensley’s performance of Malvolio. But Bensley’s powers were rated more moderately by more experienced playgoers. [338] Lamb’s praises of Mrs. Jordan (1762-1816) in Ophelia, Helena, and Viola in ‘Twelfth Night,’ are
corroborated by the eulogies of Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt. In the part of Rosalind Mrs. Jordan is reported on all sides to have beaten Mrs. Siddons out of the field.