Sir Frank Benson
"Alec" was always my good friend; and when he summoned a meeting of the leading actors and managers in 1916, the year the Shakespearean Tercentenary was to be celebrated at Drury Lane Theatre, he put the matter so strongly to those assembled that there was no gainsaying his suggestion that I should there and then be invited to speak the address on the occasion if, as he hoped, I would undertake the task. It was no mean effort, and I am afraid that egotism is again fast getting the better of me and urging me to print the result of my labour. My excuse is that the event had national importance: a dramatic episode being the knighthood conferred by the King on Frank Benson, who had given the best years of his life to spreading the love of Shakespeare throughout the land.
Here is the address:
"I am proud, indeed, that it was thought fitting by my comrades to give me the unsought honour, on this great day, of addressing you on their behalf. I thank them for the privilege with all my heart, and promise to bear in mind the wise counsel of Polonius, 'brevity is the soul of wit!' I can only speak from my point of view. There are debts which can never be paid in full; there is homage which never can be amply rendered; there is love no tongue can truly tell. All these are Shakespeare's. As every tribute must fall short of what is really due, I resolved to speak my own words—the best in my power to frame—rather than be but the echo of an abler brain.
"In my early days in theatreland, with the audacity of youth, I acted many characters in Shakespeare's plays and then laid some budding leaves of a modest chaplet at the shrine of the master whose works have made the stage eternal. Now, in my old age, I rejoice in the remembrance that I have been what William Shakespeare was—an actor. With a boundless prodigality he has enriched this England which claims his birth—the dear land he loved so deeply and called:
'This fortress built by Nature for herself,
This precious stone set in the silver sea.'
"We owe to Shakespeare the most alluring, the most entrancing creations in our mother-tongue. How much poorer should we be if we lacked the imperishable charm of those Princesses of the drama—Juliet, Rosalind, Ophelia, Beatrice, Viola, Miranda, Portia, Imogen, Desdemona, and Cordelia. They are not withered by age, nor stricken by decay. The Angel of Death passes them by. They are celestial and immortal. What joy that mighty pen must have given for three hundred years to the gifted women who have portrayed those matchless heroines.
"As Shakespeare is 'for all time,' so is he for all men the 'guide, philosopher, and friend.' From whom can even monarchs surer look for majesty? Who so inspires the statesman with true patriotism? Who so teaches the gentleman his conduct; the preacher simple piety; the soldier chivalry and courage? Who gives the poet nobler themes; the painter loftier models; the lover sweeter idols; a son such sound advice? Who so plainly tells the player of his faults? and by whom is youth so upheld by hope, or declining years so soothed with consolation?
"I remember well a visit I paid upon a dusky evening to Westminster Abbey. As I walked beneath its stately roof, to the sounds of the organ, twilight shadows were cast down the sacred aisles. It seemed easy under such influence to believe the legend that, while writing the awful scene between Hamlet and his father's ghost, Shakespeare passed a long night alone within those hallowed walls. In the fading light I looked upon the monument in Poets' Corner and read the lines from The Tempest as they are inscribed there:
'The cloudcapt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And like the baseless Fabric of a Vision
Leave not a wrack behind.'