1. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: THE CRITICAL HERITAGEVOLUME 4, 17531765

2. THE CRITICAL HERITAGE SERIESGeneral Editor: B.C.SouthamThe Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticismon major figures in literature. Each volume presents the contemporaryresponses to a particular writer, enabling the student to follow theformation of critical attitudes to the writers work and its place within aliterary tradition.The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the historyof criticism to fragments of contemporary opinion and little publisheddocumentary material, such as letters and diaries.Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included inorder to demonstrate fluctuations in reputation following the writersdeath. 3. WILLIAM SHAKESPEAREVOLUME 4, 17531765THE CRITICAL HERITAGEEdited byBRIAN VICKERSLondon and New York 4. First published in 1976Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis GroupThis edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.Compilation, introduction, notes and index 1976 Brian VickersAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproducedor utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recordingor in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission inwriting from the publishers.British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataISBN 0-203-19795-X Master e-book ISBNISBN 0-203-19798-4 (Adobe eReader Format)ISBN 0-415-13407-2 (Print Edition) 5. FORARTHUR SHERBO 6. General Editors PrefaceThe reception given to a writer by his contemporaries and near-contemporariesis evidence of considerable value to the student ofliterature. On one side we learn a great deal about the state of criticismat large and in particular about the development of critical attitudestowards a single writer; at the same time, through private comments inletters, journals or marginalia, we gain an insight upon the tastes andliterary thought of individual readers of the period. Evidence of this kindhelps us to understand the writers historical situation, the nature of hisimmediate reading-public, and his response to these pressures.The separate volumes in the Critical Heritage Series present a record ofthis early criticism. Clearly, for many of the highly productive andlengthily reviewed nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers, thereexists an enormous body of material; and in these cases the volumeeditors have made a selection of the most important views, significant fortheir intrinsic critical worth or for their representative qualityperhapseven registering incomprehension!For earlier writers, notably pre-eighteenth century, the materials aremuch scarcer and the historical period has been extended, sometimes farbeyond the writers lifetime, in order to show the inception and growthof critical views which were initially slow to appear.Shakespeare is, in every sense, a special case, and Professor Vickers ispresenting the course of his reception and reputation extensively, over aspan of three centuries, in a sequence of six volumes, each of which willdocument a specific period.In each volume the documents are headed by an Introduction,discussing the material assembled and relating the early stages of theauthors reception to what we have come to identify as the criticaltradition. The volumes will make available much material which wouldotherwise be difficult of access and it is hoped that the modern readerwill be thereby helped towards an informed understanding of the waysin which literature has been read and judged.viiB.C.S. 7. ContentsPREFACE xiiiINTRODUCTION 1NOTE ON THE TEXT 51137 MACNAMARA MORGAN, Romeo and Juliet acted andadapted, 1753 53138 GEORGE COLMAN, Shakespeares self-criticism, 1753 56139 JOSEPH WARTON on The Tempest and King Lear, 17534 60140 ARTHUR MURPHY, Essays on Shakespeare, 17534 84141 CHARLOTTE LENNOX, Shakespeares misuse of his sources,17534 110142 ZACHARY GREY and others, Notes on Shakespeare, 1754 147143 ARTHUR MURPHY on Shakespeares ghost-scenes,November 1754 156144 THOMAS SHERIDAN, Thomsons Coriolanus conflated withShakespeares, 1754 159145 DAVID HUME, Shakespeare and Jacobean taste, 1754 171146 DAVID GARRICK, in defence of Shakespeare musicals, 1755 175147 JOHN GILBERT COOPER, The Tomb of Shakespeare. APoetical Vision, 1755 178148 JOSEPH SHEBBEARE, Othello and King Lear in the theatre,1755 184149 CHRISTOPHER SMART on Shakespeares learning, January1756 199150 DAVID GARRICK, from his adaptation of The Winters Tale,1756 207151 DAVID GARRICK, in defence of Shakespeare musicals, 1756 218152 DAVID GARRICK, from his musical adaptation of TheTempest, 1756 222153 CHARLES MARSH, from his adaptation of The Winters Tale,1756 229154 TOBIAS SMOLLETT and SAMUEL DERRICK on the currentadaptations of Shakespeare, March 1756 243ix 8. CONTENTS155 JOHN BERKENHOUT on Marshs adaptation of TheWinters Tale, March 1756 246156 FRANCES BROOKE on King Lear, March 1756 247157 THEOPHILUS CIBBER, Garricks Shakespeare, 1756 250158 JOSEPH WARTON on Shakespeare, 1756 262159 TOBIAS SMOLLETT on Shakespeares imperfections, 1756 266160 SAMUEL JOHNSON, Proposals for an edition ofShakespeare, 1756 268161 ARTHUR MURPHY, Shakespeare in the London theatres,1757 274162 RICHARD HURD on Shakespeares language and learning,1757 297163 Unsigned essay on Garricks Romeo, 1757 308164 JOHN ARMSTRONG, Shakespearian jottings, 1758 313165 JOSEPH PITTARD, Garricks Lear, 1758 316166 WILLIAM SHIRLEY, Garricks sins as actor and adapter,1758 323167 Unsigned essay, Shakespeare weighed and measured,January 1758 326168 THOMAS EDWARDS on Warburtons Shakespeare, 1758 331169 RICHARD RODERICK, Remarks on Shakespeare, 1758 337170 ARTHUR MURPHY, Shakespeare in the London theatres,1758 344171 ALEXANDER GERARD, Shakespeare and enlightened taste,1759 350172 EARL OF ORRERY, Shakespeares irregularities defended,1759 353173 THOMAS WILKES, Shakespeare on the stage, 1759 356174 OLIVER GOLDSMITH, Shakespeares absurdities andtheatrical revivals, 1759 372175 WILLIAM HAWKINS, from his adaptation of Cymbeline,1759 374176 CHARLES MARSH, from his adaptation of Cymbeline, 1759 393177 WILLIAM KENRICK on the adaptations of Cymbeline, May1759 400178 SIR JOHN HILL on a revival of Antony and Cleopatra,1759 402179 EDWARD YOUNG, Shakespeares genius, 1759 405180 THOMAS FRANCKLIN, Shakespeares tragedies supreme,1760 408x 9. CONTENTS181 LORD LYTTELTON, an imaginary conversation onShakespeare, 1760 410182 Unsigned essay, On the Merits of Shakespeare andCorneille, June 1760 413183 Unsigned review, an Ode to Shakespeare, September 1760 417184 ROBERT LLOYD, Shakespeare greater than the rules, 1760 419185 THADY FITZPATRICK, Garricks speaking of Shakespeare,1760 424186 CHARLES CHURCHILL, Shakespeare and Garrick supreme,1761 435187 GEORGE COLMAN on Shakespeare and the Elizabethandramatists, 1761 440188 BENJAMIN VICTOR, Shakespeare acted and adapted, 1761 450189 HUGH KELLY, Garricks Shakespeare, 17612 455190 TOBIAS SMOLLETT on Garricks adaptation of TheWinters Tale, February 1762 458191 Unsigned notices, Garricks Shakespeare, 1762 460192 DAVID GARRICK, the coronation procession in Henry VIII,1762 468193 LORD KAMES, Shakespeares beauties and faults, 1762 471194 TOBIAS SMOLLETT, Shakespeares faulty style, 1762 498195 DANIEL WEBB, Shakespeares poetry, 1762 505196 BENJAMIN VICTOR, from his adaptation of The TwoGentlemen of Verona, 1762 525197 K.L., Shakespeare and Milton Compared, July 1763 533198 Unsigned essay, An Account of the Novel and Play ofRomeo and Juliet, 1764 538199 EDWARD WATKINSON on Shakespeare, 17645 540200 RICHARD HURD, Shakespeare and Gothic romance, 1765 542201 THOMAS PERCY, Shakespeare and the History Play, 1765 544202 HORACE WALPOLE on Shakespeare and French rules, 1765 546203 BENJAMIN HEATH on restoring Shakespeares text, March1765 550204 GEORGE STEEVENS on restoring Shakespeares text, 1765 565A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 574INDEX 577xi 10. PrefaceThis fourth instalment of Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage continues itsreconstruction of the mainstream of Shakespeares reception between theseventeenth and the nineteenth centuries, as it affected public discussionacross this period. That is, in addition to the kind of literary criticismwhich one would expect to find collected in this series I have includedmaterial from Shakespearian scholarshipwork on the text of his playsand his sources, for instance, poetry to or about Shakespeare, and muchmaterial from the theatre: excerpts from the adaptations of his plays,theatrical criticism, both of the adaptations and of the original plays, anddiscussions of acting and interpretation. With this wider scope I hope topresent the major materials from which one could draw a moreintegrated picture of Shakespeares reception than we yet have.The value of such an attempt is, I hope, self-evident, and thejustification for giving it this form is that in effect all these areas wereinterrelated. The literary criticism was produced because of the highstatus of Shakespeares reputation; his general prestige is reflected in theway he dominated all other dramatists in actual stage performance. Yetthe aesthetic ideas of the period determined that his plays should bechanged to conform to current concepts of dramatic structure or style.These aesthetic ideas are also evident in the scholarly discussion of howhe used his sources, and can be seen affecting the very text of his playsas established by editors, who complain at his offences against the criticalcanons and emend (or even suppress) accordingly. The interpretation ofShakespeare by the common reader and theatre-goer is much affected bythe choice of repertoire and the style of performance: it is arguable thatGarricks Shakespeare had more influence than Dr Johnsons. Yet thesustained debate over his text and how it should be edited made theliterary public more conscious than ever of the importance of textualaccuracy, even of punctuation and meaning as transmitted (rightly orwrongly) by an actors delivery. Literary criticism, textual criticism,scholarship, acting, adapting, book-reviewingall these activitiesinfluenced each other and were influenced in turn. To understand thexiii 11. PREFACEmovements of Shakespeares reputation one must take notice of them all;and if it were not impracticable, given the format of this series, I wouldwant to present visual material in order to document theatre costumes,scenery, styles of production, and other relevant areas. Our interest inShakespeare must necessarily be eclectic.In collecting this material I am indebted to the following libraries,their donors, and their most helpful staff; if I single out those with whomI have had personal contact that does not lessen my gratitude to theothers who are unknown: the British Library (and especially IanWillison), the Bodleian Library (Paul Morgan, William Hodges, and hisadmirable staff in the Upper Reading Room, W.Andrews), CambridgeUniversity Library (Nigel Hancock, A.J.Illes, A.G.Parker, JaniceRoughton, and W.G.Rawlings), the Birmingham Shakespeare Library(W.A.Taylor), the Beinecke Library of Yale (Joan M.Friedman). I amgrateful to Ian Thomson for verifying references at times when I wasunable to be in England, and to Use Fannenbck and Christian Casparisfor help with the proof-reading and index.xivB.W.V. 12. IntroductionWith us islanders Shakespeare is a kind ofestablished religion in poetryIThat sentence by Arthur Murphy, part of a rebuke addressed to Voltairein the Grays-Inn Journal in 1753 (No. 140b), is revealing of the increasedprestige of Shakespeare in the 1750s and 1760s. The gradual ascendanceof praise over blame which was noted in the previous volume1 continuedwith enthusiasm. In Murphys eyes SHAKESPEARE stands at the headof our dramatic writers; perhaps at the head of all, who have figured inthat kind in every age and nation, a verdict which Daniel Webb repeatedin 1762 (No. 195). For John Armstrong in 1758 (No. 164),SHAKESPEARE perhaps possessed the greatest compass of genius thatever man did, while the author of The Poetical Scale in that year (No.167) gave Shakespeare the maximum marks for genius, ahead of all otherEnglish poets (second place is shared by Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Swiftand Pope). Thomas Francklin, Professor of Greek at Cambridge, andprofessional defender of Greek tragedy, nevertheless ended his essay onthe Greeks with the affirmation that all their virtues were united andsurpassd in the immortal and inimitable Shakespeare (No. 180). InEdward Youngs essay on originality Shakespeare was credited with adultgenius, that which comes out of natures headat full growth, andmature (No. 179), and if Shakespeare is to be compared with any otherwriter only Homer will suffice (Nos 139, 140b, 154a, 171, 187, 199).The current of idolatry was so strong that writers in this period drewattention to it as a specifically English phenomenon, peculiar to usislanders, as Murphy put it. Edward Gibbon, writing in the late 1780s,recalled the formative influence that Voltaires theatre at Lausanne had onhim in 17578, with its productions of plays by Voltaire himself andRacine: The habits of pleasure fortified my taste for the French theatre,and that taste has perhaps abated my idolatry for the gigantic genius of1 13. INTRODUCTIONShakespeare, which is inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of anEnglishman.2 The estimate of Shakespeares genius naturally emerged inthe contrast with French reason and rules. Thus in his imaginaryconversation between Boileau and Pope (1760, enlarged 1765: No. 181)Lord Lyttelton produced the following exchange:Boileau. A veneration for Shakespeare seems to be a part of your national religion,and the only part in which even your men of sense are fanaticks.Pope. He who can read Shakespeare, and be cool enough for all the accuracy ofsober criticism, has more of reason than taste.The Earl of Orrery made the same point: I forget the name of theFrench author who says, that the English are Shakespeare mad. There aresome grounds for the assertion. We are methodists in regard toShakespeare. We carry our enthusiasms so far, that we entirely suspendour senses towards his absurdities and his blunders (No. 172). BothLyttelton and Orrery invoke French disapproval only to defendShakespeare. One observer who noted the trend with less than totalapproval was David Hume, recording in 1754 the suspicion that weover-rate, if possible, the greatness of his genius (No. 145).In its particular formulations the praise of Shakespeare was expressed intraditional modes by both poets and essayists. Absolutely typical is this stanzaby Gray from The Progress of Poesy. A Pindarick Ode (1754), lines 8394:III. 1.Far from the sun and summer-gale,In thy green lap was Natures* Darling laid,What time, where lucid Avon strayd,To Him the mighty Mother did unveilHer aweful face: The dauntless ChildStretchd forth his little arms, and smiled.This pencil take (she said) whose colours clearRichly paint the vernal year:Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy!This can unlock the gates of Joy;Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears,Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.*ShakespeareIn this tradition Shakespeare, poet of nature, was celebrated for his powerto move the passions across the whole range of experience, but especiallyat the extremes. In Joseph Wartons classification of EnglishpoetsShakespeare is one of only three who excel in the sublime and pathetic2 14. INTRODUCTION(No. 158), and in his commentary on Virgil (1753) Warton, discussing thesublime scene of the death of Oedipus in Sophocles Oedipus Coloneus(which, he claimed, makes the readers hair stand on end in terror) couldthink of no piece of dramatic poetry that excites terror to so great adegree, except perhaps the Macbeth of Shakespeare.3 Bishop Hurd, in thefirst edition of his Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762) praised thedepiction of Prosperos magic as an example of Shakespeares skill in theterrible sublime (p. 50). From the time of Dryden Shakespearesexcellence at creating fairies, witches and other elements of thesupernatural had been celebrated, and we find the tradition continuingthrough Wartons essays on The Tempest (No. 139) to the poetic recreationof John Gilbert Cooper (No. 147). That enjoyable frisson of beingconfronted with fearwithin the manageable context of a play or anovelso widely expressed in the eighteenth century, can be found herein the admiration for the ghost scenes in Hamlet, as expressed in twoessays by Arthur Murphy (Nos 143, 161d), by an anonymous writer inthe British Magazine for 1760 (No. 182: the ghost scene is undoubtedlythe masterpiece of poetical painting in the gloomy way), and by oneK.L. in the same journal some three years later (No. 197). Variations onthese themes can be found in an anonymous ode which praisesShakespeare (No. 183) and in the enthusiastic writings of EdwardWatkinson (No. 199).Effusive though these panegyrics may be, they are not entirely blindto the opposing view. Shakespeare had faults, that must be admitted,butthe argument goes on in the same breathhis beauties far exceedthem. The principles involved are stated trenchantly by Dr Johnson: Inwriting, as in life, faults are endured without disgust when they areassociated with transcendent merit (Rambler 158; 21 September 1751);and, more critical of the dominance of rules: Rules may obviate faults,but can never confer beauties (Idler 57; 19 May 1759). The relativeestimating of Shakespeares Beauties and Faults, although oftendisvalued by modern critics as a mechanical exercise, was neverthelessone of the most persistent modes in eighteenth-century criticism. Anutterly representative example of it is this poem by one Samuel Rogers,Rector of Chellington, in Bedfordshire:4Great Shakespeare, with genius disdaining all rules,Above the cold phlegm or the frippry of schools,Appeald to the heart for success of his plays,And trusted to nature alone for the bays.3 15. INTRODUCTIONDespairing of glory but what rose from art,Old Jonson applied to the head, not the heart.On the niceness of rules he founded his cause,And ravishd from regular method applause.May we judge from the favours each poet has shard,Insipid is ART when with NATURE compard.The dominant reaction is to admit his faults but to more than excusethem. So George Colman imagines Shakespeare offering all his faults(puns, bombast, incorrectness) to the bonfire, yet being nobly excused byboth Aristotle and Longinus (No. 138). Humes account of Shakespeare,although cool and critical, points to the presence of irregularities andabsurdities as well as beauties, yet suggests that we admire the morethose beauties on account of their being surrounded with suchdeformities (No. 145), a view also expressed by K.L. in 1763 (No. 197).This type of apologia could be taken to ridiculous extremes. Johnson hadwarned in Rambler 158 that faults may be sometimes recommended toweak judgments by the lustre which they obtain from their union withexcellence; but it is the business of those who presume to superintendthe taste or morals of mankind, to separate delusive combinations, anddistinguish that which may be praised from that which can only beexcused. An example of just this type of weak judgment is given by theauthor of The Poetical Scale: When Shakespeare is execrable, he is soexquisitely so, that he is as inimitable in his blemishes, as in his beauties(No. 167)but if they are blemishes who would want to imitate them?More sober statements that Shakespeares beauties, measured by thecriteria of nature, are superior to his faults, conceived of by the rules,can be found in nearly all the major critics represented in this volume: inWarton (Nos 139, 158), Murphy (Nos 140, 161e), Edward Young (No.179), George Colman (No. 187), and Lord Kames (No. 193). The writersof the theatre reviews in the journals and newspapers, such valuableindicators of common opinion, concur. Arthur Murphy, the theatre criticin the London Chronicle for 1758, believed that an English audience willacquit Shakespeare of any faults in gratitude for the pleasure he givesthem,a pleasure which no art or correctness could give; and while the beauties of thisadmirable author are so brilliant and so numerous, I should be ashamed to ownthat I had suffered my attention to be taken off from them long enough todiscover any of his defects. For who indeed but the most dull and stupid ofwretches would employ his time in a quarry of diamonds with raking after4 16. INTRODUCTIONdirtand pebble-stones, because such things might probably be found there? (No.170b)The critic in the Universal Museum for 1762 (No. 191c) varied themetaphor, asserting that the beauties of Cymbeline far eclipse the faultsthat are here and there to be espied, and concluding with some distastethat it is a disagreeable task to look at spots in the sun.As the balance shifts towards stressing Shakespeares beauties it takeson, as we see from these last two examples, an increasingly hostile andpolemical tone towards those who find fault. In his essay on Pope in1756 Joseph Warton attacked the nauseous cant of the French criticsand their followers, who stated that the English writers are generallyINCORRECT. If CORRECTNESS implies an absence of petty faults,this may perhaps be granted, but it is no criterion with which to judgegenius (No. 158). In his programmatic essay on taste (1759, 1764)Alexander Gerard poured scorn on excessive or false refinement, whichpraises trifling excellencies and quibbles at the imperfections found inShakespeare and Homer: for a noble boldness of genius is to be preferredto that precision and constant attention to every trifle which produces acold and languid mediocrity (No. 171). This new spirit of generousacceptance and excusal of unimportant errors can be seen, too, inEdmund Burkes discussion of the sublime in 1759, describing thereactions of an enlightened reader of Shakespeare:5In his favourite author he is not shocked with the continual breaches ofprobability, the confusion of times, the offences against manners, the tramplingupon geography; for he knows nothing of geography and chronology, and he hasnever examined the grounds of probability. He perhaps reads of a shipwreck onthe coast of Bohemia; wholly taken up with so interesting an event, and onlysollicitous for the fate of his hero, he is not in the least troubled at thisextravagant blunder. For why should he be shocked at a shipwreck on the coastof Bohemia, who does not know but that Bohemia may be an island in theAtlantic ocean? and after all, what reflection is this on the natural good Taste ofthe person here supposed?Shakespeare, the author of an essay comparing him with Corneilleconcluded, was too great a genius to be methodical (No. 182).The newly generous apologias attempted to disarm the opposition bydescribing it as petty or trifling, yet a small but articulate group ofcritics held that Shakespeares faults exceeded his beauties. The chiefexponent of this view in our period was Mrs Charlotte Lennox, who ina book with the deceptive title Shakespeare Illustrated (17534, No.5 17. INTRODUCTION141)surveyed the sources of twenty plays and concluded that Shakespearewas not only derivative in borrowing his plots but wherever he haddiverged from his source he had done so for the worse. In his criticismof Othello Rymer had discussed the source and concluded thatShakespeare alters it from the Original in several particulars, but always,unfortunately, for the worse (Vol. 2, p. 27): here is Mrs Lennoxs guidingstar, which she follows with remorseless industry. The catalogue ofShakespeares absurdities and improbabilities grows wearisome bydetermined reiteration, for it is seldom that Mrs Lennox finds anythinggood to say about any of Shakespeares greatest plays, and this refusal toadmit the presence of any virtues reduces her book to the level of a one-sidedide fixe. Yet her literal-minded pertinacity, rather like Rymers,does throw up some awkward questions about Shakespeares plotting,especially in Measure for Measure, and, in Much Ado about Nothing, the oddapparent complicity of Margaret with the villains. A detailed discussioncould show that many of her objections are in effect addressed ratheragainst the conventions of Elizabethan drama, in particular plots based onRomance traditions, yet still there are cogent points. In discussing Lear,for instance, where Warton and Murphy give detailed butindiscriminately approving accounts of the Kings passive behaviourthroughout, she, by focusing on Lears bribery to obtain flattery,highlights Shakespeares own criticism of Lear in the opening Acts. Themodern reader is likely to be offended by the brusqueness and self-confidenceof her criticism, and he may be surprised to find howrespectfully contemporaries greeted her work. Dr Johnson admired it,and wrote a preface to the book (albeit a curiously self-contradictoryone6), and the reviews were impressed. The Monthly Review article(perhaps by the editor Ralph Griffiths) said that her remarksare veryjudicious and truly critical,chiefly intended to prove that Shakespearehas generally spoiled every story on which the above plays are foundedby torturing them into low contrivances, absurd intrigue, and improbableincidents: for him it was an ingenious and entertaining work.7 Anexception to the general endorsement of her work came from thenovelist Richardson, writing on 8 December 1753 that the bookattempted to rob Shakespeare of his Invention, and reacting protectively,even piously:8Methinks I love my Shakespeare, since this Attack, better than I did before. Great,injured Shade, I will for ever revere Thee, for what I have read, and, many yearsago, seen acted of thine; and hope to live to read the rest of Thee, the far greater6 18. INTRODUCTIONPart; which has been postponed, as the Reformation of theRoman Governor ofJudea was, in hopes of a more convenient Season than yet I have found.Most of Mrs Lennoxs objections to Shakespeare can be seen as derivingfrom Neo-Aristotelian or Neo-classical principles. The canons ofdecorum, probability, and the rules (innocuously conceived as naturemethodizd) were invoked by these opponents of Shakespeare. ThusOliver Goldsmith, delivering what seems to be a justifiable complaintabout the lower levels of theatrical taste in 1759, nonetheless includedwithin his criticism Shakespeares pieces of forced humour, far-fetchdconceit, and unnatural hyperbole9 (No. 174). Similar criteria wereappealed to in two attacks on Shakespeare by Tobias Smollett10 (Nos 159,194). The first attack, in the course of a review of Wartons essay on Pope,complains of Shakespeares glaring improprieties in even his mostdistinguished personages. Hamlets To be or not to be is said to bethrust into the play without motivation, since Hamlet has no reasontotake away his own life. (Of course, this is to ignore Hamlets melancholyand despair, so graphically rendered in the play up to that point.) Othellois said to be given a puerile lamentation, and Macbeths apostrophe tosleep is described as a series of conceited similes which ill describe thehorror of his mind. Here, evidently, argument from critical principles hasdegenerated into mere animus. In his second attack Smollett repeats theclaims that Hamlet has no reason for suicide and that he fails to allowhimself to be murdered by Claudiuss false embassy to England, and thenembarks on a blow-by-blow account of the To be or not to besoliloquy, this heap of absurdities. Unfortunately his method consists inpostulating the need for total logical consistency while refusing toconsider the unity of emotion or feeling created by Shakespeare. It iseasy to cast parts of the speech into syllogistic form in order to showtheir failings as logic, yet Smollett seems perversely unaware thatShakespeare was not trying to write syllogisms. Nor does he attempt tounderstand Shakespearian metaphor. Other sections express Neo-classicconcepts of the dignity of tragedythe word rub is a vulgarismbeneath the dignity of Hamlets character, and a bare bodkin is but amean metaphor. Although Smollett goes on to defend Shakespeareagainst some of Kamess criticisms,11 the general tone of his piece is oneof forbidding disapproval, thinly supported by argument.The modern historian may find himself in a double position here:while primarily concerned to investigate what the writers of thisperiod thought about Shakespeare, and why they did so, he cannot7 19. INTRODUCTIONhelpobserving how feeble these criticisms are. As again in Sir JohnHills disparaging review of Antony and Cleopatra (No. 178), suchcomplaints as that against the anachronistic reference to billiards, orthat Juliet seems to carry a supply of daggers around with her, betray apedantic streak of mind which is indeed trifling and petty. But thecanons of Neo-classicism were also expressed with more seriousnessand coherence. That characters should be consistent from first to last isa demand as old, at least, as Horaces Ars Poetica (the relevant versesfrom which were frequently quoted in this period, as earlier). JosephWarton listed as one of Shakespeares three characteristicalexcellencies the preservation of the consistency of his characters, andsaid of it that to portray characters naturally, and to preserve themuniformly, requires such an intimate knowledge of the heart of man,and is so rare a portion of felicity as to have been enjoyed, perhaps,only by two writers, Homer and Shakespeare (No. 139), a judgmentthat Colman also expressed (No. 187). It was in terms of consistency ofcharacter that the orator and critic, Thomas Sheridan, made the firstanalysis of Hamlets delay, as James Boswell reported in his LondonJournal for 6 April 1763:12He made it clear to us that Hamlet, notwithstanding of his seeming incongruities,is a perfectly consistent character. Shakespeare drew him as the portrait of ayoung man of a good heart and fine feelings who had led a studiouscontemplative life and so become delicate and irresolute. He shows him in veryunfortunate circumstances, the author of which he knows he ought to punish,but wants strength of mind to execute what he thinks right and wishes to do. Inthis dilemma he makes Hamlet feign himself mad, as in that way he might put hisuncle to death with less fear of the consequences of such an attempt. Wetherefore see Hamlet sometimes like a man really mad and sometimes like a manreasonable enough, though much hurt in mind. His timidity being onceadmitted, all the strange fluctuations which we perceive in him may be easilytraced to that source. We see when the Ghost appears (which his companions hadbeheld without extreme terror)we see Hamlet in all the agony ofconsternation. Yet we hear him uttering extravagant sallies of rash intrepidity, bywhich he endeavours to stir up his languid mind to a manly boldness, but in vain.For he still continues backward to revenge, hesitates about believing the Ghost tobe the real spirit of his father, so much that the Ghost chides him for being tardy.When he has a fair opportunity of killing his uncle, he neglects it and says he willnot take him off while at his devotions, but will wait till he is in the midst ofsome atrocious crime, that he may put him to death with his guilt upon his head.Now this, if really from the heart, (would make Hamlet the most black,revengeful man. But it coincides better with his character to suppose him hereendeavouring to make an excuse to himself for his delay. We see too that after allhe agrees to go to England and actually embarks.8 20. INTRODUCTIONIn short, Boswell concluded with satisfaction, Sheridan made out hischaracter accurately, clearly, and justly.That Shakespeare satisfied the criterion of character-consistency wasrecognised even by Neo-classicists who faulted him on every other head.In the midst of her disapproving review of Troilus and Cressida MrsLennox conceded that Troilusis every where consistent with hisCharacter of a brave Soldier, and a passionate and faithful Lover whileCressida is at once recognisable in the Character of a compleat Jilt (No.141). Yet, Mrs Lennox went on,Her not being punished is indeed an unpardonable Fault, and brings the greatestImputation imaginable upon Shakespeares Judgment, who could introduce sovicious a Person in a Tragedy, and leave her without the due Reward of herCrimes.Cressida is false, and is not punishd (Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage,Vol. 1, p. 250): those words of Dryden in 1679 show the consistency ofNeo-classical principles. The demand for poetic justice is made severaltimes by Mrs Lennox: the catastrophe in Hamlet is deplorable becausethe brave, the injured Hamlet falls with the Murderers he punishes, andone Fate overwhelms alike the innocent and the guilty, a judgmentrepeated in exactly those words about King Lear, in which Shakespearehas violated the Rules of poetical Justice.It would be easy to dismiss Mrs Lennox, were it not for theagreement of other less bigoted critics on some of those issues. No lessa figure than Arthur Murphy declared that as Hamlet now stands, theInnocent, contrary to Tradition [i.e., the story as told in the sources], fallswith the Guilty (No. 161d), and Lord Kames objected that whereasDesdemonas death was due to a regular chain of causes and effectsdirected by the general laws of nature, through which we glimpse thehand of Providence, the deaths of Juliet and Cordelia arouse in the mindthe gloomy notion of chance (No. 193). Kames is quite explicit aboutthe Platonic concept of literary censorship which he believes in:Chance, giving an impression of anarchy and misrule, produces always adamp upon the mind, and the sense of unease which results is asufficient reason for excluding stories of that kind from the theatre. Thecritical system of Neo-classicism could only tolerate evil when it wasunequivocally punished within the literary work; and even then therewere strong pressures against representing it at all. Earlier Shakespearecritics had pronounced some of Shakespeares most celebrated9 21. INTRODUCTIONcharactersincluding Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Iago, Richard III,Shylock, and Brutusto be too monstrous for the stage.13 Kames is sohorrified by Lady Macbeths soliloquy arousing herself to the murder ofDuncan that he twice describes it as not natural, and concludes withthe hope that there is no such wretch to be found as is hererepresented. That is, Shakespeare must be wrong: people of such evilsimply do not exist. Or if such evil does exist it ought not to berepresented. William Kenrick, not otherwise a squeamish man, approvedof William Hawkinss adaptation of Cymbeline for having judiciously leftoutthe abandoned character of the queen (No. 177). Predictably,perhaps, Mrs Lennox expresses outrage at the more than shockingAbsurdity of Queen Margaret joining in the murder of York in 3 HenryVI, but even that liberal critic and Shakespeare lover Joseph Warton findsthat he cannot defend the character of Richard III since there is noperson, probably, however vicious and depraved, but who hath somespark of virtue, and some good qualities in his heart. (Virgil, ed. cit., IV,pp. 190f.) The presence of evil was a threat to the optimistic theodicywhich underpinned this critical system.In addition to these relatively limited areas the canons ofNeoclassicism were invoked to deal with an issue that had much widerimplications, Shakespeares failure to observe the Unities. This criticism isso often expressed by Mrs Lennox in her strictures on Shakespearesfables lacking design, or regularity, orthe most severe criticismbeingso unorganised that they have no plot at all, that there seems no need toillustrate it further here. It becomes commonplace to observe (as thewriter in the Universal Museum does of Cymbeline, for instance) that inShakespeares plays we are not to look for an observance of the unities(No. 191), and it is commonplace to pass on and find other,compensating, beauties. What is surprising now is the movement (whichmay claim Farquhar as its ancestor: see Vol. 2, No. 45) towards arguingout the criteria of the Unities in general terms, and denying theirrelevance. This tradition (from which Dr Johnson learned much and towhich he gave an individual and not altogether satisfactory turn) is bestoutlined chronologically.In 1702 Farquhar had attacked the convention whereby the total timetaken by the action represented was allowed to be longer than the timeit took to present it:Now is it feasible in rerum natura, that the same Space or Extent of Time can bethree Hours by your Watch, and twelve Hours upon the Stage, admitting the10 22. INTRODUCTIONsame Number of Minutes, or the same Measure of Sand to both? Im afraid, Sir,you must allow this for an Impossibility too; and you may with as much Reasonallow the Play the Extent of a whole Year. And if you grant me a Year, you maygive me seven, and so to a thousand. For that a thousand Years should comewithin the Compass of three Hours is no more an Impossibility than that twoMinutes should be containd in one. (Vol. 2, p. 186)The argument that once you allow any disproportion between time representedand time acted then you cannot subsequently limit the first was made inchallenging terms by Fielding in Tom Jones (1749), in a prefatory chapter headedOf THE SERIOUS in writing, and for what purpose it is introduced:Who ever demanded the reasons of that nice unity of time or place which is nowestablished to be so essential to dramatic poetry? What critic has ever been asked,why a play may not contain two days as well as one? Or why the audiencemaynot be wafted fifty miles as well as five?Thanks to the dogmatical rules laid down peremptorily by the criticturned legislator, accidental elements in some writers who were takenas critical models have been elevated to the status of unbreakable laws,and thus many rules for good writing have been established which havenot the least foundation in truth or nature, and which commonly servefor no other purpose than to curb or restrain genius (Book V, Chapter 1).Two years later, in Rambler 156 (24 September 1751) Dr Johnsonattacked the accidental Prescriptions of Authority over the drama, suchas the limiting the number of acts to five and the confining the dramaticAction to a certain Number of Hours. Probability indeed requires thatthe Times of Action should approach somewhat nearly to that ofExhibition. But since it will frequently happen that some Delusionmust be admitted I know not where the Limits of Imagination can befixed. Open-minded theatre-goers, Johnson declares, are not offendedby the Extension of.the Intervals between the Acts, nor can I conceiveit absurd or impossible that he who can multiply three Hours into twelveor twenty-four might image with equal Ease a greater Number (Vol. 3,p. 434). These arguments are fully in tune with the more liberal, lessrestrictive attitudes of the mid-century.The clash between the orthodox and the liberal approach to theUnities was often expressed as one between England and France. ThusJohn Berkenhout, reviewing Voltaires play The Orphan of China in theMonthly Review for December 1755, quotes the French dramatistsdiscussion of his original source-play, with his sneering comment thatthe time of action of this Chinese dramatic poem continues twenty-fiveyears, as in the monstrous farces of Shakespeare and Lope de Vega, called11 23. INTRODUCTIONtragedies. Berkenhout, like Farquhar, challenges the status of Aristotlesipse dixit, and, like both Farquhar and Fielding, stresses the separate time-scalesof historical and fabulous time:I am sorry for Mr. Voltaires reputation to hear him talk so much at random.Aristotle says that the time of action of a dramatic poem should continue aboutas long as whilst the sun is moving once round the earth. In compliance with thisrule a French tragedy is strictly confined to twenty-four hours: but why justtwenty-four hours? Why, because Aristotle chose to fix that time. Aristotle talks tooof the sun moving round the earth. I wonder the French do not maintain thesame thing, since they have his authority for it.That this stated time hath no foundation in nature is self-evident. Naturewould, with more propriety, tell us that the time of action ought to continueno longer than while the play is acting; but if we must needs have recourse tosupposition we may as well suppose a whole day, as five hours, between eachact.Surely Mr. Voltaire is but little acquainted with Shakespeare, or he who has somuch taste for poetry would have mentioned the greatest genius that anynation ever produced with a little more respect. By their own Aristotles rulesneither the epic nor dramatic poet are confined to historical truth. They are atliberty to select any part or parts of history, and to unite events which reallyhappened at distant periods of time, provided they be so united as to preserveprobability: I mean, as Shakespeare has done in some of his historical plays,wherein he has connected the remarkable events of a whole reign, all of whichmight have been transacted in much less time. Considered in this light the timeof action in Shakespeares tragedies seldom continues more than a few days. Iwonder that Mr. Voltaire should mistake the historical for the fabulous time.(xiii, 4945)Berkenhouts discussion, if not entirely original, is succinct and to thepoint.In his lively satire on critical rules (No. 184), written in 1760,Robert Lloyd expresses not disgust but, on the contrary, pleasure atShakespeares power in the flexibility of movement and the unificationof design:When Shakespeare leads the mind a dance,From France to England, hence to France,Talk not to me of time and place;I own Im happy in the chace.Whether the dramas here or there,Tis nature, Shakespeare, everywhere.The poets fancy can create,Contract, enlarge, annihilate,Bring past and present close together,In spite of distance, seas, or weather;12 24. INTRODUCTIONAnd shut up in a single action,What cost whole years in its transaction.Lord Kames attacked the topic in 1762, first from a historical viewpoint,arguing that the Unities of Time and Place were a necessity in the Greektheatre, and second from a purely theoretical one. His second line ofargument gives great prominence to the imagination, which, in theintervals between the actions, can with the greatest facility suppose anylength of time or any change of place. Kames goes on to make thecrucial distinction between imagination and reflection, that is, betweeninvolvement in the world of fiction and detachment from it:the spectator, it is true, may be conscious that the real time and place are not thesame with what are employed in the representation: but this is a work ofreflection; and by the same reflection he may also be conscious that Garrick isnot King Lear, that the playhouse is not Dover Cliffs, nor the noise he hearsthunder and lightning.Once a critic has conceded the imaginative existence of the worldbefore him in the theatre, once he is willing to hold candle-light forsun-shine, and some painted canvasses for a palace or a prison, then it isabsurd for him to wish to impose quasi-naturalistic limitations on placeor time. Although Kames made a cogent attack on the rules henevertheless had some reservations about the dramatists liberty ofrepresentation, and felt that works which were set in one place werelikely to be the more perfect since that would automatically ensureunity of action.Further valuable arguments were made by Daniel Webb (No. 195)from the standpoint of the dramatic work itself. The beauties ofShakespeare, so much admired, derive precisely from the promptnessand vivacity of his genius in breaking through rules: the commandingenergy of the plays transports the heart in defiance of theunderstanding. When the Unities are observed the consequences for theplay are monotony of feelings, and an action presented at one remove,not directly but by narration:as no one simple and confined action can furnish many incidents, and those, suchas they are, must tend to one common point, it necessarily follows that theremust be a sameness and uniformity in the sentiments. What must be the result ofthis? Why, narration is substituted in the place of the action, the weakness in themanners supplied by elaborate descriptions; and the quick and lively turns ofpassion are lost in the detail and pomp of declamation.13 25. INTRODUCTIONAnd to crowd into four hours events which, in the natural course ofthings, would have taken up as many days is to commit a violence onnature, in order to come nearer to truth. Similarly John Langhorne,translator of Plutarch and prolific writer for the Monthly Review, attackedthe cramping effect of the rules both in theory and in practice. LetterXXX of his epistolary novel, Effusions of Friendship and Fancy (1763),14rebukes its addressee, a friend to the theatres, for never lifting up hisvoiceagainst those formal figures called the three UNITIES. They have amused thetown with the words truth and nature and probability, till they have appointed suchnarrow limits to dramatic composition that genius dares not give free scope to hiswing, for fear he should soar beyond them. Imagination feels herself confined, andventures not to exert her powers while she beholds the finger of art limiting thesphere and describing the circle in which she is to move. Such consequences hasthe reign of these petty tyrants. And what have we gained by giving up so much?A dull regularity, an insipid consistency. The bold flights of gothic genius are nomore, and all is symmetry and exactness and proportion.The system is supposed to aid the credibility of the plot, Langhorneobserves, yet its effect is to deny the fictional existence of a work of art,which is the justification for the plot as for everything else.What occasion for the scene to be altogether in one apartment? We must besensible, if we are awake at all, that the whole representation is a fiction. And whycannot we as well follow the imagination of the poet from region to region? Itis still but fiction, and, if it be spirited fiction, I am sure it will not be without itseffect. It is the same with regard to time.Langhorne now moves to the practical effects of the observation of therules: like Webb, he has a good eye for the deformations of drama thatresult.But I have yet more to say against these Unities. Far from aiding probability, theygenerally wound it. It is amazing to see what a hubbub of wonderful events arecrowded in every modern play, into the short space of three hours. I remember, ina late comedy, there were two or three courtships projected, begun, carried on, andfinished; writings were drawn for which an attorney would have charged tenpounds, as the reward of manual labour; and the whole state and sentiments of afamily were as much changed in three hours as they could have been in three years.We may by now agree with Langhornes conclusion, that the accuracyof art has always been prejudicial to works of genius, and what they havegained in correctness they have lost in spirit.14 26. INTRODUCTIONYet new ideas do not displace old ones easily, nor universally. This wesee from the example of Adam Smith, who discussed the Unities in somelectures which he gave in the University of Glasgow in 17623, andwhich were first printed by J.M.Lothian in 1963. The reason generallygiven for the bad effect of several days elapsing between one scene andanother is that it prevents our deception, in that after only half an hourin the playhouse we cannot suppose that two or three years havepassed. An unexceptionable beginning: but Smith went on to reject thisexplanation, and also, alas, the concept of imaginative involvement that itpresupposed:15But in reality we are never thus deceived. We know that we are in the playhouse,that the persons before us are actors, and that the thing represented eitherhappened before, or perhaps never happened at all. The pleasure we have in adramatical performance no more rises from deception than that which [we] havein looking at pictures. No one ever imagined that he saw the sacrifice ofIphigenia; no more did anyone imagine that he saw King Richard the Third.Everyone knows that at one time he saw a picture, and at the other Mr. Garrick,or some other actor. Tis not, then, from the interruption of deception that thebad effect[s] of such transgression of the unity of time proceed: tis rather fromthe uneasiness we feel in being kept in the dark with regard to what happenedin so long a time.However, Smith has failed to conceive of the distinction made byKames between imagination and reflection, andas Dr Johnson was todo two years laterfailing to make this he is forced to reject the wholeconcept of illusion. Subsequently he recommends that the actionshould be fixed to one place if possible, as Racine and Sophocles havedone, or else confine the action to the same house or thereabouts (p.119). It is disappointing to find Adam Smith in effect reaffirming theconcept of the Unities after the fresh and cogent criticisms of it madeby Webb, Kames, Lloyd, Berkenhout, and Langhorne. A re-establishmentof a more enlightened viewpoint came at the end of thisperiod from Benjamin Heath (No. 203), who mocked all that criticalparade concerning the dramatick unities, the hackneyed topick ofevery Italian, French, and English critick for above a century.Shakespeare, Heath argued, never thought about the Unities, and wascertainly ignorant of any advantages to be gained from observing them.The example of The Tempest is misleading, for the constitution of thefable was such, by the whole transaction being confined within a littledesolate island, as not to admit of a violation of the unities of time andplace. And Shakespeare had the superior knowledge and unrivalled15 27. INTRODUCTIONascendancy of his genius to have scorned the taste of his age. Here, ason several other issues, Heath challenges eighteenth-century orthodoxywith great vigour.IIThe plan of this collection, embracing as many aspects of the reaction toShakespeare as can be illustrated in print, allows us now to move fromliterary criticism to the theatre, and to the adaptations of Shakespearesplays. Here we find the older Neo-classic concept of the Unities still inundisputed possession, and having seen the debate on the Unities as ittook place in the journals and books of the 1750s and 1760s we canbegin to understand the remarkable fact that in this period the adaptersalmost without exception give as their main reason for altering the playsShakespeares failure to observe the Unities. If we look at the similarclaims made by Dryden or Tate in the 1670s and 1680s we see again thepersistence of Neo-classical canons. Mrs Lennox had echoed Drydenand Rymer: Thomas Sheridan echoed Mrs Lennox, justifying hiscurious mixture of Thomsons Coriolanus with Shakespeares on thegrounds that Shakespeares play was purely historical, and had little orno plot (No. 144)that is, it seemed to his eyes to be merely asuccession of incidents with no design. Another tragedy that causedcritical difficulty was Romeo and Juliet. Garricks adaptation had cutmany of the quibbles, but Charles Marsh for one was not satisfied, andrecords that in 1752 he had prepared an Alteration of Romeo and Julietwherein I had separated the Tragedy from the Comedy, and thrown thelatter quite away (Preface to No. 176). Shakespeares mingling of thetwo genres had given offence to the first generation of Neo-classics, andwe must remember that throughout this period King Lear was acted inTates adaptation, without the Fool. Horace Walpole justifiedShakespeares practice in Hamlet and Julius Caesar (No. 202), but areviewer objected that in those tragedies Shakespeare had blendedhumour and clumsy jests with dignity and solemnity, and was confidentthat if Shakespeare had possessed the critical knowledge of moderntimes he would have kept those two kinds of writing distinct, if theprepossessions and habits of the age could have suffered him.16 IndeedWalpole himself had written to a friend in 1755 congratulating him forsome most delightful criticism on the Queen in Hamlet, so artful abanter on Shakespeare for so improperly making her Majesty deal indoubles entendres at a funeral!1716 28. INTRODUCTIONShakespeares tragedies had already been regularized by Tate andCo.; in this period it was the turn of the Romances, especially TheWinters Tale and Cymbeline. A glance at the stock Neo-classical rejectionof the absurdities and improbabilities of these plays, as expressed byPope, for instance, in Vol. 2 of this collection (pp. 413, 418) or Gildon(ibid., pp. 245, 261), or by Mrs Lennox in this volume, will show whattheir sensibilities were offended by and what the adapters set out toexcise. Garricks abbreviation of The Winters Tale (1756: No. 150) dealtwith the embarrassing gap of sixteen years between Act III and Act IV bysimply omitting Acts I to III, and devoting his opening scene to arecapitulation of the action up to that point. His Prologue drawsattention to this feature:The five long Acts, from which our Three are taken,Stretchd out to sixteen Years, lay by, forsaken.Lest then this precious Liquor run to waste,Tis now confind and bottled for your Taste.Tis my chief Wish, my Joy, my only Plan,To lose no Drop of that immortal Man.The unity of place is achieved by setting the action in Bohemia, andhaving Leontes arrive there by ship. Unfortunately, both the resultingscenes more than bear out Daniel Webbs contention that reducingaction to narration results in dull and monotonous drama. When CharlesMarsh made his adaptation he chose the same solution (No. 153). A newexpository scene tells us of the earthquakes that have struck Sicily, thatHermione has been in prison for fifteen years, and so on. In both caseswe see the rather desperate measures the adapters were forced into bythe desire to retain parts of Shakespeares plot while rejecting others. Itis perhaps easier to think of Hermione filling up that long period inprison for fifteen years than being secretly tended by Paulina (a meanand absurd Contrivance, Mrs Lennox called it), but it does mean thatLeontes, instead of being given a manic irruption of jealousy (as inShakespeare) and an equally sudden return to sanity and remorse, haspersisted in his mania all this time. It is even less likely, therefore, that hewill be brought round to forgiveness and reunion within the short spaceof the play. What was a state of mind in Shakespeare has beentransformed into a way of life, permanent, inflexible.The reviewers reactions to these adaptations shows the uniformity oftaste and critical principle within the Neo-classicist tradition. Smollett,writing in the Critical Review, approved of Marshs restoring the Unity of17 29. INTRODUCTIONTime, and so removing in some measurethe improbability that shocksthe imagination of a person that sees the performance acted, butcomplained that Marsh had not only failed to restore the Unity of Place,for the scene is still shifted from one Kingdom to another, but had alsoretained the deaths of Mamilius, Antigonus, and the ships crew, whichcreate a confusion of tragedy and comedy, and destroy the propriety ofthe composition (No. 154)that is, cause a mixture of genres and sodestroy Unity of Action. Berkenhout, in the Monthly Review, agreed: theplay is one of the most unalterable, owing to its offending two of theUnities, and while the first of these absurdities is lopt by the pruningknife of Mr. Marshhe has suffered the other, tho equally monstrous, toremain (No. 155). Garricks Winters Tale adaptation had a betterreception, although we must take into account the peculiar mixture ofpanegyric and denigration that accompanied all of Garricks doings withShakespeare. Thus the notice in the Critical Review for February 1762(No. 190), written by Smollett18 (who had been given a presentationcopy in January and wrote thanking Garrick for it), praised the nowregular, connected, and consistent entertainment. The Monthly Reviewwas equally flattering to Garrick and critical of Shakespeares original:The meanness of the Fable, and the extravagant conduct of it, has been the chiefobjections to this PlayThe Action of this piece, as Shakespeare left it,comprehends the monstrous space of sixteen years. Mr. Garrick has cleared it ofthis absurdity; reduced it from five to a more regular piece of three acts; added apretty song in the festive scene of Sheep-sheering; and to the whole has prefixeda very humorous Prologue, (xxvi, 151)In his theatre column in the London Chronicle Arthur Murphy alsowelcomed Garr icks version as being more compact, withShakespeares Absurditiesretrenched (No. 161l).With Cymbeline the adapters took much the same course. CharlesMarshs version (No. 176) set out to amend the Conduct of the Fable, byconfining the Scenes, at least, to this Island. Whereas in ShakespearePosthumus Leonatus is banished from Britain, and the actionsubsequently alternates between Britain and Italy, Marsh wrote a newscene (II, i) which transported him back to Britain immediately after hehad left it. When William Hawkins adapted the play he had the sameobjections to the original, one of the most irregular productions ofShakespeare (No. 175). But in addition to its beauties there wassomething so pleasingly romantic, and likewise truly British in thesubject of it that he had attempted to new-construct this Tragedy,18 30. INTRODUCTIONalmost upon the plan of Aristotle himself, in respect of the unity of Time.The task proved more difficult than he expected, for he had to omitcharacters, scenes, and incidents, or rather to bring the substance andpurport of them within the compass of a few short narrations. Webbsdiagnosis of the effects of regularisation is again validated, for whereasMarsh brought Posthumus back to England in order to avoid a change ofplace, Hawkins allows him to proceed to Italy yet then brings Pisanio(his name for Shakespeares Iachimo) back to report on what happenedthere. So the vigorous scenes of Posthumuss wager, his jealousy, and soon, are now narrated at second hand, not presented directly. WilliamKenrick, reviewing the adaptations in the Monthly Review (No. 177),preferred Hawkins to Marsh. He found Hawkins completely successfulin turning a parcel of loose incoherent scenes into a beautiful andcorrect piece of dramatic poesy, and removing its principal defects.Marsh, however, offended decorum by retaining the evil Queen and byallowing the characters to speak indifferently [sic] either in prose orverse. Hawkinss version was evidently more polite.David Garrick produced his version of Cymbeline on 28 November1761 and published it in the following year with an advertisement whichreveals a new conservatism in his approach to Shakespeare adaptations:The admirers of Shakespeare must not take it ill that there are some Scenes, andconsequently many fine Passages omitted in this Edition of CYMBELINE. It wasimpossible to retain more of the Play and bring it within the Compass of aNights Entertainment. The chief Alterations are in the Division of the Acts, inthe Shortning many parts of the Original, and some Scenes. As the Play has metwith so favourable a Reception from the Publick, it is hopd that the Alterationshave not been made with great Impropriety.G.C.D.Odell, that indefatigable historian of Shakespeare in the theatre,did not hesitate to pronounce itthe most accurate of Eighteenth-Century acting versions.19 Yet the cuts have more significance thanmere theatrical convenience. In his edition of Shakespeare Pope hadwritten of Act V, scene iii: Here follows a Vision, a Masque, and aProphecy, which interrupt the Fable without the least necessity andimmeasurably lengthen this Act. I think it plainly foisted in afterwardsfor meer show, and apparently not of Shakespeare (Shakespeare: TheCritical Heritage, Vol. 2, p. 418). That note was reprinted with approvalby Dr Johnson in his edition of 1765,20 and it is significant that inGarricks version the vision that appears to Posthumus in his dream iscut, including the appearance of Jupiter (5.4.30122), as is the19 31. INTRODUCTIONdenselyquibbling scene with the Soothsayer (5.5.42555). Nor do thesescenes appear in Hawkinss version, nor Marshs. Evidently theeighteenth century, although it could digest pantomime, had difficultieswith the Jacobean masque. In the acting version of The Tempestpreserved in Bells edition of Shakespeare (1773) we are informed thatthe following Masque is altered from Shakespeare, and judiciously madehalf as short again as the original (III, p. 47n.), while that in Cymbelineis silently cut.The claim that an adaptation has been performed in order to restorethe Unities of Time and Place was even made by Benjamin Victor forhis version of The Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1762 (No. 196), in whichhis design was to give a greater uniformity to the scenery, and aconnection and consistency to the fable (which in many places isvisibly wanted). Kenrick, in the Monthly Review for January 1763,approved of the careful and skilful hand of the adapter in regularisinga comedy which is generally reckoned as one of Shakespeares worstPerformances, and even by many thought so meanly of as to bedeemed the Work of some inferior hand, in which Shakespeare borebut a very small part (xxviii, p. 75).The agreement between adapters and reviewers held, then, for anumber of new adaptations made in this period, which patently appealedto surviving Neo-classic taste. On the older adaptations, though, opinionsdiffered. Most of those who approved of the adaptations were actors ormen of the theatre, evaluating them purely as theatrical vehicles. SoMacNamara Morgan praised the Otway-Garrick alteration of the death-scenein Romeo and Juliet (No. 137), a preference shared by ArthurMurphy (No. 161c). Murphy, again, believed that King Lear as altered byTate will always be more agreeable to an audience (No. 140), and thetheatre reviewer in the Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser on 9 January1765, comparing King Lear at the two theatres, was disappointed withthe production at Drury Lane since it was a mixture of Shakespearesand Tates, the whole part of the Bastard (which is far the least interestingin the piece) being injudiciously restored. He believed that candidjudgment will allowTates Lear (as at Covent-Garden) the best andmost agreeable alteration. Garrick had presented his version of Lear atDrury Lane on 28 October 1756.21 It restores the first three acts ofShakespeare almost verbatim, as C.B.Hogan puts it,22 but the later stagesrevert more and more to Tate. However, almost verbatim means thatGarrick still follows the major changes of Tate: the Fool is omitted, Edgarand Cordelia have their love-affair, and the play ends with Lear, Edgar20 32. INTRODUCTIONand Cordelia alive and happily reunited. It is to be regretted thatGarricks courage failed him, for perhaps he alone, as Richardson toldhim in 1748,23 would have had enough influence over the public toconvert them.It is common to find writers quoting from Tates Lear (e.g. Nos 148,157, 165, 173, 191) or Cibbers Richard III (e.g. Nos 157, 165, 173, 191)since both were the current acting versions. Yet these acceptedadaptations had their opponents. Frances Brooke, writing in 1756 (No.156), expressed surprise that both companies should prefer Tatesversion, and turned Garricks metaphor of losing no drop ofShakespeare against him, deploring that he should yet prefer theadulterated cup of Tate to the pure genuine draught offered him by themaster he avows to serve with such fervency of devotion. GeorgeColman exclaimed with disgust at the Edgar-Cordelia scenes in Lear:with what a Philosophical Calmness do the audience doze over thetedious and uninteresting Love-Scenes with which the bungling handof Tate has coarsely pieced and patched that rich Work of Shakespeare!(No. 187). We find similarly sharp attacks on the Sheridan-Thomson-Shakespeare Coriolanus from Arthur Murphy for pounding togethertwo things so heterogeneous, resulting in a fantastical mixture (No.170c), and from Benjamin Victor in 1761 (No. 188). TheophilusCibber, reviewing the production in the Monthly Review for January1755, wrote that in this motley tragedy Sheridan had joinedShakespeare and Thomson as awkwardly together as if a man should tackto the body of one picture the limbs of another, without consideringwhat an uncouth figure they might make together, how well soeverthey appeared separate.24 In such criticism we see an increasing senseof the integrity of Shakespeares plays, a unity which could only bedestroyed by the hand of the adapter.All the adaptations so far considered were regular theatrical versions,the main item in the evenings entertainment, to be acted, not sung. Yetanother group of adaptations, mostly emanating from Garrick, adaptShakespeare to other purposes, spectacle, music, farce. Just as hisadaptation of Romeo and Juliet (No. 117 in Vol. 3) had made the FuneralProcession an event in its own right, so in his version of King Henry VIIIin 1762, among other smaller changes,25 Garrick constructed anenormous procession (No. 192), which became a famous spectacle in theLondon theatre. Such spectacles (as with the Ovation in the Sheridan-Thomson Coriolanus) became great crowd-pullers, and were often themain advertising point on the play-bills. The modern reader may not21 33. INTRODUCTIONgreatly mind about this procession, since it is merely a larger version thanthe one by Shakespeare himself. Yet the other two new modes ofadaptation seem to me unequivocally disastrous.For his musical versions of The Tempest and A Midsummer NightsDream Garrick reverted to the practice of the 1670s (compare the 1674Tempest, No. 13 in Vol. 1, and the 1692 Midsummer Nights Dream, No.28). Shakespeares text is cut to shreds, shortened and simplified so thatthere is not too much (nor too difficult) dialogue in between the musicalnumbers. (These are just the principles of the modern musical comedy:Garrick may be said to have produced the first Hollywood musicals ofShakespeare.) The text of the arias, whatever their musical merit mayhave been, is unbearably banal, as in the closing duet of The Tempest (p.228) or in Prosperos memorable exclamation just after Ferdinand seesMiranda for the first time:In tender sighs he silence breaks,The fair his flame approves,Consenting blushes warm her cheeks,She smiles, she yields, she loves. (II, i; p. 19)One is appalled to find Ben Jonsons Have you seen but a bright lily growpitched into the text, a form of plagiarism. The facetiousness of theprologue to The Fairies (No. 146), and the Dialogue on The Tempest (No.151) with its crude victory for the Actor over the Critic, show the lowlevel at which Garrick was operating. As for the Midsummer Nights Dreamadaptation, the three versions it went through show the kind ofstructureless reshuffling that Garrick and his collaborators were capable of:(a) 1755, Garrick: The Fairies. An Opera. 28 songs(b) 1763, Garrick and Colman: A Midsummer Nights Dream. 33 songs(c) 1763, Colman: A Fairy Tale. 13 songsVersion (a) included the lovers and the fairies from Shakespeares plot,but not the clowns; (b) included lovers, fairies, and clowns; (c) includedfairies and clowns, but no lovers. All three versions are so silly that itwould have been pointless to include them here. Equally disposable, wereit not for the great vogue they enjoyed as after-pieces in the eighteenthcentury, were the Garrick Winters Tale (Florizel and Perdita, No. 150) andhis Catharine and Petruchio, a much-potted version of The Taming of theShrew first performed with Florizel and Perdita on 21 January 1756, whichheld the stage until 1886 (Odell, op cit., I, 362).I have selected one example from each category of Garricks22 34. INTRODUCTIONadaptations in this period (spectacle, music, and after-piece) to show thedirection taken by the theatre-manager who professed to revereShakespeare. To the modern student, horrified at such mangling, it israther heartening to discover that many of Garricks contemporaries feltthe same about them. Writing in the Critical Review Samuel Derrick(who took a much sharper attitude towards Garrick than did hiscollaborator Smollett) could not remember to have seen a more flagrantimposition of the kind than Catharine and Petruchio, and recordedsarcastically that he must have a great taste and infinite veneration forShakespeare, who thus fritters his plays into farces (No. 154b). He viewedwith regret Shakespeare cruelly mangled and unhappily pieced in theoperatic Tempest, and perceptively noted that the need to abbreviate therecitatives as much as possible had made them rough and dissonant (No.154c). In 1758 William Shirley also recalled Garricks claim to revereShakespeare while juxtaposing this pious regard for the venerable fatherof the stage with its consequence, that he is sacrilegiously frittered andbefribbled (No. 166). Goldsmiths pessimistic survey of the stage in 1759is clearly directed at Garrick and the cult of the actor, who thinks itsafest acting in exaggerated characters and therefore creates comicvehicles for himself out of Shakespeares weaker pieces, producingstrange vampd comedies, farcical tragedies,speaking pantomimes(No. 174): Goldsmith is presumably referring to Catharine and Petruchio.The Midsummer Nights Dream adaptations came in for sharp criticism,too. The Critical Review (a notice not written by Smollett, who wasabroad, but perhaps by Samuel Derrick) said of A Fairy Tale that it wasShakespeares play curtailed into a kind of sing-song farce, which hasbeen lately played by little children for the entertainment of great ones(March, 1764; xvii, p. 238). Horace Walpole wrote to a friend in February1755 that Garrick has produced a detestable English opera [The Fairies]which is crowded by all true lovers of their country. To mark theopposition to Italian operas, it is sung by cast [i.e. wornout] singers, twoItalians and a French girl, and the chapel boys; and to regale us withsense, it is Shakespeares Midsummer Nights Dream, which is forty timesmore nonsensical than the worst translation of any Italian opera-books.But such sense and such harmony are irresistible!26The most perceptive criticisms of Garricks adaptations ofShakespeare came from Theophilus Cibber, in his two theatricaldissertations (No. 157). Cibber conceded that The Winters Tale isirregular but argued that it was none the less beautiful, full of imaginativetouches. Garrick, owing to his desire to restore Unity of Time, had23 35. INTRODUCTIONentirely omitted many of the best-written and most moving scenes, suchas the Jealousy of Leontes, the Trial of Hermione. Those parts retainedfrom the first three Acts are crowded into a dull narrative, two long-windedRelations of events which we might have expected to haveseen represented. Anticipating Webb there, Cibber then poured scorn onthe disjointed nature of the resulting work, a gallimaufry, such aMixture of piecemeal, motley Patchwork that The Winters Tale ofShakespeare, thus lopd, hackd, and dockd, appears without Head orTail. He joins Goldsmith in deploring the lack of choice before theLondon theatre audiencethey must have that or nothingand endswith a vigorous and witty attack on Garrick:Were Shakespeares Ghost to rise, woud he not frown Indignation on thispilfering Pedlar in Poetry, who thus shamefully mangles, mutilates, andemasculates his plays? The Midsummer Nights Dream has been mincd andfricaseed into an indigested and unconnected Thing calld The Fairies; TheWinters Tale mammocd into a Droll; The Taming of the Shrew made a Farce of; andThe Tempest castrated into an opera.24O Temporal O Mores!IIIAs an adapter of Shakespeare Garrick has nothing to recommend himto posterity. His influence was pernicious, for not only did he furtherthe work of Tate and others but also, in his own person, he set new andbad fashions which were to persist for many generations. As an actorand theatre-manager he had an enormous pullit is not too much tosay that Garricks Shakespeare had more influence on more peoplethan that of any editor, critic, or commentator. Although, as we haveseen in the preceding volume in this collection (Vol. 3, pp. 11ff.), hecan no longer be thought to have started the vogue for Shakespeare inthe theatres, he certainly did much to consolidate it. Yet, equally, wemust repeat the point made there (p. 13) that a taste for Shakespearewas a conservative taste, a safe-choice vehicle for actors or actresses.While Shakespeare held both stages there was hardly any room for newdrama: it is significant that a number of the critics of the 1750s selectedhere complain of the difficulty of getting new plays accepted, of themonotonous diet and lack of choice in the theatres: Cibber, Shirley,Goldsmith, Kelly, Hawkins, Marsh, Kenrick. All were critical of 36. INTRODUCTIONGarricks role in this context. Within the Shakespeare repertoire, too,there was little adventure. As Cecil Price has put it, mid-eighteenth-centurytaste was very conservative. Almost a third of all the playsgiven at Drury Lane in the whole of the season were by Shakespeare.The same comedies and tragedies went on appearing year by year(Theatre in the Age of Garrick, p. 196). The statistics of H.W.Pedicord27and G.W. Stone (The London Stage, 17471776, I, pp. clxii ff.) for theperiod 1747 to 1776 show that Shakespeare was by far the mostpopular dramatist at both theatres. Of the 5,363 performances at DruryLane 1,065 (approximately 20 per cent of the total) were ofShakespeare: yet only nine plays were performed. At Covent Gardenthe figures are 5,192, of which 852 (approximately 16 per cent) wereof Shakespeare, but of only eight plays. Beyond the bare figures,however apparently gratifying to Shakespeare lovers, was the fact thatGarrick, who knew the nature of his audience, used to prop-up histragedies soon after their first appearance with a sure-draw after-piece,such as the new masquerade dance which followed Romeo and Juliet inNovember, 1748 (Pedicord, pp. 138ff.), or the vocal parts and solemndirge sung at Juliets funeral procession for the January 1763production (Stone, p. cxxxiv). G.W.Stone records neutrally that onereason for the popularity of a number of Shakespeares plays lay intheir dance possibilities (pp. cxli f), and Kalman Burnim hascommented, more critically, that although Garrick made the ageShakespeare conscious, often the play was not the main attraction,rather the dances or pantomimes.28These facts necessarily qualify the traditional image of Garrick asthe great reviver of Shakespeare. The version of history put about byGarricks supporters at the time was that until he came Shakespeare layin neglect. A convenient statement of this myth can be found in thePoet Laureate William Whiteheads Verses dropt in Mr. GarricksTemple of Shakespeare at Hampton, in which, while Garrick is oneday offering thanks to the statue of Shakespeare, it suddenly speaks. Themarble God points to his laureld brow and criesHalf this wealth to you I owe.Lost to the Stage, and lost to Fame,Murderd my scenes, scarce known by name,Sunk in oblivion and disgraceAmong the common scribbling race,Unnoticd long thy Shakespeare lay,To Dullness and to Time a prey;25 37. INTRODUCTIONBut lo! I rise, I breathe, I liveIn you, my representative!Garrick modestly refuses half the garland and would settle for a singleleaf, yet the poem ends with wreaths being distributed to both:Each matchless, each the palm shall bear;In heavn, the Bard; on earth, the Playr.Similarly George Colman, in his mock-satire called A Letter of Abuse, toDd Gk Esq. (1757) wrote, I will not deny that many Parts, even ofthe divine Shakespeare, were no more than a dead Letter, until youranimating Genius enlivened their Beauties, and enforced their Energy(p. 5). Modern theatrical historians (especially A.H.Scouten) have shownhow false that picture is, yet it is just as important to note that in thisperiod it was generally accepted, and that the names of Garrick andShakespeare were constantly linked. At the beginning of the periodrepresented here Arthur Murphy described Garrick as Shakespearesbest commentator (No. 140), and that association holds constant, as wesee in Lytteltons Dialogues of the Dead (1760, 1765), where Garrick issaid to have shewn the English nation more excellences in Shakespearethan the quickest wits could discern (No. 181).Yet in the more extended accounts of Garrick as an actor ofShakespeare adverse criticism at least balances praise. In the selectionscollected here there are six substantial items on the credit side, the essaysby Shebbeare (No. 148: heavily plagiarised by Pittard in No. 165), thoseby Thomas Wilkes (No. 173), and the reviewer in the Universal Museum(No. 191), together with the poems by Lloyd (No. 184) and Churchill(No. 186); while on the debit page we have the anonymous criticisms byTelemachus Lovet (No. 163) and the essays by Cibber (No. 157), Shirley(No. 166), Fitzpatrick (No. 185) and Kelly (No. 189). The Shebbeare-Pittard essay on Garricks Lear is wholly panegyrical, and gives anenthusiastic account of Garricks dignity and forcefulness in the part,especially in the curse on Goneril (I could not avoid expecting aparalytic Stroke would wither every Limb of Goneril) and in the storm-scenes,with their rapid oscillation of feeling. In the account of themadness and recovery scenes, unfortunately, Shebbeare becomes vaguer,and tries to evoke the feeling Garrick produced in him withoutsubstantiating the details of gesture and speech which made up thatfeeling. This was the occupational hazard of Garricks supporters, as we26 38. INTRODUCTIONsee from Lloyds poem (No. 184) and dozens like it, or from ChurchillsRosciad (No. 186): it is frustrating to be told only that Garrick couldrepresent Nature or appeal to the heart. Not much more helpful is theessayist in the Universal Museum (No. 191), for whom nothing could befiner spoke than Garricks soliloquy as Macbeth, Nothing couldpossibly be greater than Macbeths seeing the daggers in the air, while inKing Lear Garrick was inimitable, never greater, almostinconceivable, amazingly great, very great, extremely moving. Thiswriter seems unable to translate his enthusiasm into description oranalysis, and we catch only a few glimpses of specific gesture or posture:such as Garricks Macbeth, when he looked on his bloody hands, wesaw the sad condition of his soul in his eyes; or his Lear, the emphaticway he spoke the prayer against his daughters, kneeling; or the mixtureof emotions with which he confronted Goneril and Regan, ready tochoke with passion; or the moment (albeit from Tates version) whentired with the fray, [he] leans against the wall. More articulate is theappreciation by Thomas Wilkes (No. 173), who stresses the anger andpathos of his Lear, Richard IIIs resentment at his deformity (althoughthis contradicts other accounts), the graphically rendered emotionalconfusion of Macbeth or Hamletit would seem as if Garrick excelledat depicting strongly contrasting emotions, or drastic changes of mood.Despite their vaguenesses, from these accounts we get at least some ideaof the intensity and involvement with which Garrick performed.Yet these energies were not without excesses. The criticisms ofGarricks acting in this period are far more detailed than the panegyrics,and even though we must discount part of their animus (since some ofthe authors had quarrelled with Garrick or criticised his policies andpractices as theatre-manager)just as we must discount part of the praisefrom his friendsthe explicitness of the documentation leaves no doubtthat he was guilty of some of these offences. William Shirley (No. 166)claimed that Garrick employed abundance of false action, suchasgrasping the side of his robe, and used pantomime tricks in affectedagitations, tremblings and convulsions; he over-agonizes dying.Theophilus Cibber (No. 157) also objected to Garricks pantomimicalacting every Word in a Sentence, and the examples he gives from theroles of Benedick and Richard III do seem excessive. It was mosttheatrical of Garrick to change into black in the interval before thetomb-scene in Romeo and Juliet, and his start of surprise at seeing thetomb, like his fighting Paris with a massive-seeming crow-bar, are bothexaggerated bits of theatre. The hero of an epistolary novel (No. 163) also27 39. INTRODUCTIONcriticised the extravagant attitudespostures and gesturesof GarricksRomeo in the tomb-scene. Even more displeasing is Cibbers account ofGarricks acting in King Lear, at the end of the scene where Lear (withhis hundred knights) is refused hospitality by his daughters. Instead ofsweeping offstage in anger Garrick collapsed almost lifeless, into theArms of his Attendants, and in an unnaturally contorted posturewhichcontradicts the appearance of a faintwalked offstage supported, withhis head and body thrown extravagantly behind, as if his Neck and Backwere broke.Cibbers criticisms were partly directed against the audience wholacked the judgment to detect these excesses, and in his more moderateaccount Hugh Kelly (No. 189) also stated that no inconsiderable share of[Garricks] infallibility exists in the good-nature or ignorance of hisauditors. Kelly agreed that although Garricks actiongesture, posture,movementmay be extremely easy, it is very frequently unnatural,especially as Richard III. He found Garrick most suited to tragic rolesneeding weight and dignity, such as Henry IV and above all Lear,where the circumstances of age and infirmity are more happily suited tothe weakness of his powers. (Garrick was forty-five at the time.) One ofthe great problems in writing the history of the theatre is to reconcilethe conflicting impressions that the same performance makes ondifferent spectators. Kelly approved of Garricks Henry IV, and whenBoswell went to see it on 10 January 1763 he recorded that Mr. Garrickin the pathetic scene between the old King and his son drew tears frommy eyes. Yet at dinner two days later Thomas Sheridan showed to myconviction that Garrick did not play the great scene in the Second Partof King Henry IV with propriety. Now Mr. Garrick in that famousscene whines most piteously when he ought to upbraid. The Kingshould be anxious and vexed, should be fired with rage to discoverthat the Prince had taken the crown from his pillow, and thus desireshis death. His anger animates him so much that he throws aside hisdistemper. Nature furnishes all her strength for one last effort. He is fora moment renewed. He is for a moment the spirited Henry the Fourth.He upbraids him with bitter sarcasm and bold figures. (Boswell, LondonJournal, 17623, ed. cit., pp. 1356.) Kelly found weight and dignity inGarricks performance: to Sheridan he whined.Apart from Garricks over-expressive gestures, he was often criticisedfor his eccentric speaking of Shakespeare, and there is a strikingagreement between four of the observers recorded here. William Shirleycomplained that he lays frequent clap-traps, in false pauses, stammerings,28 40. INTRODUCTIONhesitations and repetitions, while Theophilus Cibber referred specificallyto Lears curse, and made the acute point that the delivery ought to berapid, without long Pauses to damp the Fire of it, like Cold Waterdroppd thereon, since the vehemence is a representation of Learsdeeper character:Tis hasty, rash, and uttered in the Whirlwind of his Passion;too long aPreparation for it seems not consistent with Lears Character: Tis here unnatural.Such long Pauses give him Time to reflect, which the hasty Lear is not apt to do,till tis too late.This philosophic Manner would become a Man who tookTime to recollect; which if Lear did, would not the good King, the oer-kindFather, change this dire Curse into a fervent Prayer for his Childs Repentanceand Amendment?Hugh Kelly also felt that Garricks pauses at the conclusion of his linesare so improper and injudicious that nothing but the high opinion of thetown could possibly excuse such an error in his performance, as theymust absolutely condemn in anybody else, and he gives an example ofan unnatural pause and stress in a line from Richard III, which Garrickused in order to roar out the line (a trait that Cibber also observed). Thefourth of these observers was also the most thorough, and ThadyFitzpatricks list of examples from Garricks Hamlet29 and Richard III ofpauses and stresses quite against the flow of the sense (No. 185: he liststwenty for each play) document beyond dispute the counterpart inspeech to Garricks excessive emphases in gesture.As I have remarked earlier, Garrick seemed to excite either panegyricor denigration, and the truth about his Shakespeare interpretation mustlie somewhere between those two extremes. This collection will reprintmore accounts of Garricks Shakespeare than have ever been assembled,and ultimately every reader will be in the position to judge for himselfwhere the emphasis should be laid. But it will not do to ignore thecriticisms, or to cast his critics as villains or personal enemies releasingtheir malice by inventing fantasies about him. The critical evaluationsmay not be the whole truth, yet what we know of the taste of the mid-eighteenth-century London theatre audience hardly encourages us torate their judgment and discrimination highly. Such a cogent account asthat by Theophilus Cibber, which manifests a much more enlightenedsense of the integrity of Shakespeares text and a balanced theatricalinterpretation of it than any of Garricks panegyrists known to me,cannot be written off as the effusion of envy or spleen. If we are to gainan accurate picture of Garricks dominance as an interpreter of29 41. INTRODUCTIONShakespeare in his three roles as impresario, adapter, and actor, we mustweigh all the evidence.The other theatrical criticism represented here, dealing with Barry asLear (Nos 156, 157, 170) and the Othellos of Barry (No. 161j) andBarton Booth (No. 188), is less controversial, and illuminates a moretraditional actors approach to the major roles. Yet even here Garrick is inthe picture. Theophilus Cibbers 1753 Life of Barton Booth includes anaccount of his Othello which seems an implicit criticism of Garricksemotionalism (compare the very similar language of his 1756Dissertation, No. 157 below):30In Othello the heart-breaking anguish of his Jealousy would have drawn Tearsfrom the most obdurate; yet all his Grief, though most feelingly expressed, wasnever beneath the Hero. When he wept, his Tears broke from him perforce:Henever whindled, whined, or blubbered. In his Rage he never mouthed or ranted.In recording his appreciation of Booths Lear, however, Cibber focusedon the man himself:Mr. Booths general Deportment was Majestic, yet he used no more of thatStateliness than became the Character, and he had the Art of diversifying hisTragic Characters in a most masterly Manner.His Madness in Lear is hardly tobe described:He there shewed the throws and Swellings of the Heart of anunhappy, proud, disappointed Monarch with an Enthusiasm of Passion whichelated him;shook off a while the Infirmity of Age, and expanded his wholeframe. He then displayed the Furor of Majestyand when crowned withPoppies, &c., the Monarch, jealous of his Power, seemed to rise above himself,took more majestic State in his Distressassumed the God, and grasped hisScepter of Straw like the Thunder-bolt of a Jupiter Tonans. Never did Pity orTerror more vehemently possess an Audience than by his judicious and powerfulExecution in this Part. (Ibid., pp. 523)It is notoriously difficult to give an adequate verbal record of the totalityof an actors performance, yet I hope the attempts included here will atleast illuminate how mid-eighteenth-century critics thought thatShakespeare ought to be interpreted. Their work has more than historicalvalue, however: it will soon be apparent that in the work of such men asCibber, Arthur Murphy and Hugh Kelly theatrical criticism in thisperiod shows an intelligence and concern for dramatic values far aboveanything we have yet seen. Would that our own were always of suchquality.30 42. INTRODUCTIONIVIn literary criticism we note a partial step forward. This is not to belocated at the level of critical method, however, for we find as yet littleor no analysis of Shakespeares plays as dramatic structures. In discussingKing Lear, for instance, it is thought sufficient to work through the play,quoting only Lears speeches. Joseph Warton does so to prove that Learsmadness is due to the loss of his royalty (No. 139), Arthur Murphy doesso to argue that it is caused by his daughters ingratitude (No. 140), MrsLennox does so to point up Lears faults of character (No. 141). All threeare making different points, but all three merely illustrate one role. Noone in this period gives an adequate account of the interplay betweencharacters, or the structure and dynamics of a whole scene.Indeed, in their awareness of form and meaning in the plots ofShakespeares plays the critics of this period are less perceptive than theirpredecessors. The Neo-classic preference for a single plot and anobviously moralised unified design not only resulted in the rejection ofseveral plays as having no plot, but it also blinded critics to thesignificance of meaningful plot-parallelism. Thus Mrs Lennoxcomplained that as Laertes is a subordinate character in Hamletit seems to be a fault in Shakespeare to shew him with a Similitude of Manners,under the same Circumstances, and acting upon the same Principles as Hamlet,his Hero. This Sameness of Character, and Parity of Circumstances with theHero, lessens his Importance, and almost divides our Attention and Concernbetween them.That otherwise perceptive critic, Benjamin Heath, complained thatShakespeare had violated the Unity of Action in The Tempest by theintroduction of those epis