End of Lectures on the English Comic Writers

A VIEW OF THE ENGLISH STAGE
OR
A SERIES OF DRAMATIC CRITICISMS

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Published in one 8vo volume in 1818 with the following title-page: ‘A View of the English Stage; or, a Series of Dramatic Criticisms. By William Hazlitt. “For I am nothing if not critical.” London: Printed for Robert Stodart, 81, Strand; Anderson and Chase, 40, West Smithfield; and Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh. 1818.’ The volume was printed by B. M’Millan, Bow Street, Covent Garden. The work was re-issued in 1821 with a fresh half-title, ‘Dramatic Criticisms,’ and a fresh title-page bearing the imprint: ‘London: John Warren, Old Bond-Street, MDCCCXXI.’ Selections from the volume have been made and published along with other dramatic criticisms of Hazlitt’s, but the entire work has never been republished. See the notes at the end of this volume for particulars as to these volumes of selections. It is sufficient to state here that the so-called ‘second edition,’ published by the author’s son in 1851 under the title of ‘Criticisms and Dramatic Essays, of the English Stage,’ contains only a selection from the essays published in A View of the English Stage. The present edition is reprinted from that of 1818, with the addition of a Table of Contents. For the sake of convenience the name of the journal from which the essay is taken and the date of the journal are printed at the beginning of each essay. Hazlitt himself gave the dates (very inaccurately), but not the names of the journals. In some cases he gave the name of the theatre at the head of an essay.

CONTENTS

PAGE
Preface[173]
Mr. Kean’s Shylock[179]
Mr. Kean’s Richard[180]
Mr. Kean’s Hamlet[185]
Mr. Kean’s Othello[189]
Mr. Kean’s Iago[190]
Antony and Cleopatra[190]
Artaxerxes[192]
The Beggar’s Opera[193]
Richard Coeur de Lion[195]
Didone Abandonnata[196]
Miss O’Neill’s Juliet[198]
Mr. Kean’s Richard[200]
Mr. Kean’s Macbeth[204]
Mr. Kean’s Romeo[208]
Mr. Kean’s Iago[211]
Mr. Kean’s Iago (concluded)[215]
Mr. Kean’s Richard II.[221]
The Unknown Guest[224]
Mr. Kean’s Zanga[227]
Mr. Bannister’s Farewell[229]
Comus[230]
Mr. Kean’s Leon[233]
The Tempest[234]
My Wife! What Wife?[237]
Mr. Harley’s Fidget[239]
Living in London[242]
The King’s Proxy[243]
The Maid and the Magpie[244]
The Hypocrite[245]
Mr. Edwards’s Richard III.[247]
Lovers’ Vows[249]
The School for Scandal[250]
Mrs. Alsop’s Rosalind[252]
John Du Bart[253]
The Beggar’s Opera[254]
Miss O’Neill’s Elwina[256]
Where to find a Friend[258]
Miss O’Neill’s Belvidera[261]
The Merchant of Bruges[264]
Smiles and Tears[266]
George Barnwell[268]
A New Way to Pay Old Debts[272]
The Busy Body[270]
The Midsummer Night’s Dream[274]
Love for Love[278]
The Anglade Family[279]
Measure for Measure[281]
Mr. Kean’s Sir Giles Overreach[284]
The Recruiting Officer[285]
The Fair Penitent[287]
The Duke of Milan[289]
Miss O’Neill’s Lady Teazle[291]
Mr. Kean[292]
Mr. Kean’s Shylock[294]
The Oratorios[296]
Richard III.[298]
Romeo and Juliet[300]
Mr. Kemble’s Sir Giles Overreach[302]
Bertram[304]
Adelaide, or the Emigrants[308]
Every Man in his Humour[310]
Mrs. Siddons[312]
New English Opera House[314]
The Jealous Wife[316]
The Man of the World[318]
Miss Merry’s Mandane[320]
Exit by Mistake[321]
The Italian Opera[324]
Old Customs[327]
My Landlady’s Night-Gown[328]
Castle of Andalusia[329]
Two Words[330]
The Wonder[332]
The Distressed Mother[334]
Miss Boyle’s Rosalind[336]
Mr. Macready’s Othello[338]
Theatrical Debuts[341]
Mr. Kemble’s Cato[342]
The Iron Chest[342]
Mr. Kemble’s King John[345]
Coriolanus[347]
The Man of the World[350]
Jane Shore[352]
The Humorous Lieutenant[353]
Two New Ballets[353]
Mr. Booth’s Duke of Gloster[354]
Mr. Booth’s Iago[354]
Mr. Booth’s Richard[357]
Double Gallant[359]
Don Juan[362]
The Conquest of Taranto[366]
The Touch-Stone[368]
The Libertine[370]
Barbarossa[372]
Mrs. Siddons’s Lady Macbeth[373]
Mr. Maywood’s Shylock[374]
Mr. Kemble’s Retirement[374]

PREFACE

The Stage is one great source of public amusement, not to say instruction. A good play, well acted, passes away a whole evening delightfully at a certain period of life, agreeably at all times; we read the account of it next morning with pleasure, and it generally furnishes one leading topic of conversation for the afternoon. The disputes on the merits or defects of the last new piece, or of a favourite performer, are as common, as frequently renewed, and carried on with as much eagerness and skill, as those on almost any other subject. Rochefoucault, I believe, it was, who said that the reason why lovers were so fond of one another’s company was, that they were always talking about themselves. The same reason almost might be given for the interest we feel in talking about plays and players; they are ‘the brief chronicles of the time,’ the epitome of human life and manners. While we are talking about them, we are thinking about ourselves. They ‘hold the mirror up to Nature’; and our thoughts are turned to the Stage as naturally and as fondly as a fine lady turns to contemplate her face in the glass. It is a glass too, in which the wise may see themselves; but in which the vain and superficial see their own virtues, and laugh at the follies of others. The curiosity which every one has to know how his voice and manner can be mimicked, must have been remarked or felt by most of us. It is no wonder then, that we should feel the same sort of curiosity and interest, in seeing those whose business it is to ‘imitate humanity’ in general, and who do it sometimes ‘abominably,’ at other times admirably. Of these, some record is due to the world; but the player’s art is one that perishes with him, and leaves no traces of itself, but in the faint descriptions of the pen or pencil. Yet how eagerly do we stop to look at the prints from Zoffany’s pictures of Garrick and Weston! How much we are vexed, that so much of Colley Cibber’s Life is taken up with the accounts of his own managership, and so little with those inimitable portraits which he has occasionally given of the actors of his time! How fortunate we think ourselves, when we can meet with any person who remembers the principal performers of the last age, and who can give us some distant idea of Garrick’s nature, or of an Abington’s grace! We are always indignant at Smollett, for having introduced a perverse caricature of the English Roscius, which staggers our faith in his faultless excellence while reading it. On the contrary, we are pleased to collect anecdotes of this celebrated actor, which shew his power over the human heart, and enable us to measure his genius with that of others by its effects. I have heard, for instance, that once, when Garrick was acting Lear, the spectators in the front row of the pit, not being able to see him well in the kneeling scene, where he utters the curse, rose up, when those behind them, not willing to interrupt the scene by remonstrating, immediately rose up too, and in this manner, the whole pit rose up, without uttering a syllable, and so that you might hear a pin drop. At another time, the crown of straw which he wore in the same character fell off, or was discomposed, which would have produced a burst of laughter at any common actor to whom such an accident had happened; but such was the deep interest in the character, and such the power of rivetting the attention possessed by this actor, that not the slightest notice was taken of the circumstance, but the whole audience remained bathed in silent tears. The knowledge of circumstances like these, serves to keep alive the memory of past excellence, and to stimulate future efforts. It was thought that a work containing a detailed account of the Stage in our own times—a period not unfruitful in theatrical genius—might not be wholly without its use.

The volume here offered to the public, is a collection of Theatrical Criticisms which have appeared with little interruption, during the last four years, in different newspapers—the Morning Chronicle, the Champion, the Examiner, and lastly, the Times. How I came to be regularly transferred from one of these papers to the other, sometimes formally and sometimes without ceremony, till I was forced to quit the last-mentioned by want of health and leisure, would make rather an amusing story, but that I do not chuse to tell ‘the secrets of the prison-house.’ I would, however, advise any one who has an ambition to write, and to write his best, in the periodical press, to get if possible ‘a situation’ in the Times newspaper, the Editor of which is a man of business, and not of letters. He may write there as long and as good articles as he can, without being turned out for it,—unless he should be too prolix on the subject of the Bourbons, and in that case he may set up an opposition paper on his own account—as ‘one who loved not wisely but too well.’

The first, and (as I think) the best articles in this series, appeared originally in the Morning Chronicle. They are those relating to Mr. Kean. I went to see him the first night of his appearing in Shylock. I remember it well. The boxes were empty, and the pit not half full: ‘some quantity of barren spectators and idle renters were thinly scattered to make up a show.’ The whole presented a dreary, hopeless aspect. I was in considerable apprehension for the result. From the first scene in which Mr. Kean came on, my doubts were at an end. I had been told to give as favourable an account as I could: I gave a true one. I am not one of those who, when they see the sun breaking from behind a cloud, stop to ask others whether it is the moon. Mr. Kean’s appearance was the first gleam of genius breaking athwart the gloom of the Stage, and the public have since gladly basked in its ray, in spite of actors, managers, and critics. I cannot say that my opinion has much changed since that time. Why should it? I had the same eyes to see with that I have now, the same ears to hear with, and the same understanding to judge with. Why then should I not form the same judgment? My opinions have been sometimes called singular: they are merely sincere. I say what I think: I think what I feel. I cannot help receiving certain impressions from things; and I have sufficient courage to declare (somewhat abruptly) what they are. This is the only singularity I am conscious of. I do not shut my eyes to extraordinary merit because I hate it, and refuse to open them till the clamours of others make me, and then affect to wonder extravagantly at what I have before affected hypocritically to despise. I do not make it a common practice, to think nothing of an actor or an author, because all the world have not pronounced in his favour, and after they have, to persist in condemning him, as a proof not of imbecility and ill-nature, but of independence of taste and spirit. Nor do I endeavour to communicate the infection of my own dulness, cowardice, and spleen to others, by chilling the coldness of their constitutions by the poisonous slime of vanity or interest, and setting up my own conscious inability or unwillingness to form an opinion on any one subject, as the height of candour and judgment.—I did not endeavour to persuade Mr. Perry that Mr. Kean was an actor that would not last, merely because he had not lasted; nor that Miss Stephens knew nothing of singing, because she had a sweet voice. On the contrary, I did all I could to counteract the effect of these safe, not very sound, insinuations, and ‘screw the courage’ of one principal organ of public opinion ‘to the sticking-place.’ I do not repent of having done so.